Hong Kong: FS meets ECB President in Frankfurt

Financial Secretary Paul Chan proceeded to Frankfurt from Berlin yesterday to call on European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Deutsche Bank President James von Moltke.

Mr Chan briefed Madame Lagarde on the latest economic and financial market developments in Hong Kong, and shared with her his observations from visiting Europe.

Mr Chan also said China is committed to implementing the one country, two systems principle in Hong Kong, adding that Hong Kongs common law system, rule of law, linked exchange rate system and free flows of capital, information, people and goods, have all been maintained.

In addition, he explained, Hong Kong is dedicated to promoting a more vibrant financial market, deepening connectivity with financial markets in the Mainland, attracting more international enterprises to utilise the citys fundraising platforms and developing its offshore renminbi business.

These policies will continue to enhance Hong Kongs status and unique function as an international financial centre, he added.

Mr Chan and Madame Lagarde also exchanged views on the economic situation and trends in the Mainland, Asia, Europe and the world.

The Financial Secretary then visited Deutsche Bank and met its President and Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke to discuss co-operation between Hong Kongs and Germanys financial markets.

Mr Chan said Hong Kong maintains an open and transparent financial regulatory system that aligns with the best international standards, adding that the Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect Scheme in the Greater Bay Area continues to expand.

Stressing that the opportunities for international financial institutions to expand their asset and wealth management business in Hong Kong are vast, Mr Chan invited institutions such as Deutsche Bank to hold board meetings in the city. He said this would allow their management and senior executives to understand the actual situation and opportunities in Hong Kong and the bay area.

Concluding his itinerary in Frankfurt, Mr Chan visited a local accelerator company that provides services to fintech startups. He learned about its operations and briefed its co-founder on the startup ecosystem in Hong Kong.

The two also exchanged views on how to foster innovation and technology development by strengthening matching and co-operation between startups and established enterprises.

Mr Chan left the German city last night to return to Hong Kong.

This story has been published on: 2023-09-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Entrepreneur conference opens in NE China, discussing revitalization opportunities

Xinhua) 08:45, September 27, 2023

HARBIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The 2023 Sun Island Annual Conference for Entrepreneurs opened on Tuesday in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, gathering people from all walks of life to discuss new ways to achieve the full revitalization of northeast China.

Themed on the power of entrepreneurs in the new growth engine, new opportunities and new development amid northeast China's revitalization, the conference has attracted more than 500 attendees to focus on topics including the digital economy, the biological economy, the ice-and-snow economy, and the creative design industry.

Xu Qin, secretary of the Communist Party of China Committee of Heilongjiang Province, said at the event's opening ceremony that the provincial Party committee and the provincial government will strive to create a first-class business environment, helping enterprises to accelerate development, develop healthily, and become bigger and stronger, supporting entrepreneurs to show their achievements and realize their dreams in Heilongjiang, and jointly contribute to the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation.

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Lyu Yansong, editor-in-chief of Xinhua News Agency, said that, as the state news agency, Xinhua has always stuck to focusing on the overall situation of the Party and the country's work, gathering strong forces for the full revitalization of northeast China, while providing a communication platform for entrepreneurs to show their brands to the world.

Lyu said that Xinhua will promote entrepreneurship and encourage enterprises to play a bigger role and achieve greater development, make good use of various platforms and channels to continue to help the full revitalization of northeast China and the high-quality development of enterprises, and make further efforts to better tell to the world the Heilongjiang chapter of China's story.

The two-day event is co-hosted by the municipal government of Harbin, Heilongjiang provincial department of commerce, Xinhuanet and the Heilongjiang bureau of Xinhua News Agency.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The National Park Service on Monday released an environmental assessment of the wild horse herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park and kicked off a 30-day comment period on whether the animals should remain.

The Park Service conducted the assessment as part of possible revisions to its livestock plans. The assessment discusses three avenues the agency could take  no action, a phased-out removal of the horses and other livestock which would last 10 years or longer, or an expedited removal of the horses and other livestock which would take around two years.

The western North Dakota park has an estimated 200 wild horses in its South Unit. There are nine longhorn cattle in the parks North Unit that could be affected by the changes as well, but most public attention has centered around the removal of the horses.

Under current management practices, the Park Service has a herd size objective of 35-60 horses and up to 12 cattle.

If the horses are removed, they would first be offered to federally recognized tribes with affiliation to the project area and then auctioned off or transferred to other entities. The cattle would be sold through auction or transferred to other entities.

The horses have ties to numerous touchstones in North Dakota history, whether its their use by tribal nations, or the hunting and ranching days of former President Theodore Roosevelt. There is broad support in the state for maintaining the wild horse population.

The 2023 Legislature passed a resolution supporting the preservation of the horses. Gov. Doug Burgum and state tribal leaders have spoken out in favor of keeping the horses in the park as well. U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., inserted wording into an appropriations bill report urging the Park Service to keep the horses and cattle in the park. The North Dakota Badlands Horse nonprofit and the American Wild Horse Campaign nonprofit have spoken out supporting the retention of the horses.

The Park Services assessment says that livestock removal would benefit native wildlife and vegetation, but may lessen the experience of visitors who come to the park to see the horses or cattle.

Hoeven released a statement Monday in support of maintaining the parks horse population.

We continue pressing NPS to maintain this herd, both in meetings with their leaders and through my role on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and we encourage North Dakotans to provide their input to the agency during this public comment period, he said.

The comment period will be open until Oct. 25 at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time.

The park will hold a public meeting on Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. Mountain time in Medora. Participation will be available online as well. For more information go to bit.ly/463N7eg.
Days before the United States government may shut down in a budget crisis and days after a tiny central Asian republic militarily collapsed, former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch visited Missoula with her own lessons from the edge of world affairs.

Diplomacy is an art, not a science, Yovanovitch said on Wednesday, shortly before her lecture at the University of Montanas Mansfield Dialogues. And while deliberative democratic governments can be maddeningly slow compared with authoritarians with short decision timelines, she maintained the worlds people are served far better by democracies than dictatorships.

That makes the potential political delay in additional funding for Ukraines counteroffensive against the Russian invasion a colossal mistake, in the opinion of the 33-year career diplomat.

We need to persuade people that the war in Ukraine is genocidal, Yovanovitch said. And it is a fight about our national security. If we dont, we will have to come to terms with Russia sooner or later, in a way that may not be to our advantage.

Yovanovitch was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019 when the Trump administration recalled her shortly before Donald Trump was impeached for withholding aid to the country after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky resisted his demands to investigate Hunter Bidens business dealings there. She testified about how Trumps personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman ran a back-channel effort to get her fired.

If you're interested Former U.S. Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will speak at the Mansfield Center's 40th Anniversary Dialogues Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the University of Montana ALI Auditorium. To attend the lecture remotely, click here.

Parnas and Fruman were later convicted of campaign finance violations after they pledged to raising $20,000 for an unnamed U.S. congressman if he helped get Yovanovitch removed from her ambassadorship. Giuliani faces 13 felony charges for election interference in Georgia and may lose his law license. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted in the Senate.

Trump live-tweeted about firing Yovanovitch while she was testifying during his impeachment inquiry. Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney rebuked Trump for that at the time. Cheney will be in Missoula Oct. 5 to keynote the Mansfield Dialogues 40th anniversary activities.

Yovanovitch and Mansfield Center Director Deena Mansour have known each other since 1991 when they both worked in Washington, D.C. In addition to writing a best-selling memoir, "Lessons from the Edge," Yovanovitch is a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During her diplomatic career, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Ukraine. She also worked in Russia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Somalia, and in multiple assignments in Washington, including as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she coordinated policy on European and global security issues.

Before coming to Missoula for the Mansfield gathering, Yovanovitch was in Ukraine for a firsthand update.

She said the Ukrainian military has managed to push back a much larger Russian force with the assistance of about 5% of the annual U.S. defense budget.

And thats with no U.S. boots on the ground, she said. Thats a really good deal for us.
A man wanted since July after copper wiring was stolen from Morganton electric substations was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon.

Terry Pittman, 57, of Morganton, was wanted on two counts felony cutting, mutilating, defacing or otherwise injuring property to obtain nonferrous metals after copper wire thefts from a city of Morganton substation and a Duke Energy substation in June, according to a previous article in The News Herald.

Morganton Public Safety Chief Jason Whisnant said Pittman was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon on the charges.

Officers received a tip that Pittman was back in town and in the area of Gantt Street, Whisnant said.

It was shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday when a Public Safety detective spotted Pittman. Pittman tried to hide behind a vehicle when the detective first approached him, Whisnant said, but surrendered without incident when challenged.

Brooks Kirby, director of the city of Morgantons electric department, said at the time of the incident someone climbed over a barbed wire fence at one of the citys substations, cut copper wires off the live substation then left  all in broad daylight.

Surveillance video from the city showed a man who appeared to have a Mohawk walk up to the substation, pull out wire cutters and get to work cutting and pulling down copper wires from the substation.

Kirby said that substation has 12,000 volts of electricity running through it and it easily couldve killed the suspect.

And if it didnt kill the suspect, damaging the substation had the potential to knock out power to more than 3,000 Morganton residents, businesses, hospitals and restaurants. Thats more than a third of the citys total electric customers, Kirby said.

The charges against Pittman are currently Class H of F felonies, but this December will become Class C felonies, Whisnant previously told The News Herald.

Other crimes considered Class C felonies are second-degree forcible rape, first-degree kidnapping, and embezzlement of $100,000 or more, according to North Carolina state law.

Pittman currently is being held under a $20,000 secured bond, Whisnant said.

Additional information will be published as it becomes available.
SEOUL, South Korea  The U.S. soldier who sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas two months ago was released into American custody Wednesday, according to two officials.

Earlier, North Korea said it would expel Pvt. Travis King  an announcement that surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

King's expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

And there remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place. His fate also remains uncertain, having been declared AWOL by the U.S. government. That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

King was transferred to American custody in China, according to one of the officials. The two U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss King's status ahead of an announcement.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored "ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination" within the U.S. Army and was "disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society."

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, King's mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had reason to want to come home.

"I just can't see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home," she said.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about King's well-being, citing the North's harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world's most cloistered societies.

North Korea's decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the country's standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the North's growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States' expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasn't worth keeping, possibly because of the cost of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute.

Captive Americans have been flown to China previously. In other cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.
The apparently well-intentioned proposal to help the diminishing population of Arctic grayling in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge east of Lima stirred controversy from the beginning.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was withdrawing a proposal to install a pipeline from Shambow Pond to Upper Red Rock Lake, where grayling spend the winter in a comparatively shallow lake.

The controversy focused in large part on objections that the pipeline project, designed to augment dissolved oxygen in the lake, would have required activities incompatible within a federally designated wilderness area. Additional objections to the project as proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service suggested other conservation methods could help the grayling population survive.

The agency might go back to the drawing board to seek ways to boost the grayling population but it wont propose another pipeline as the fix.

The Fish and Wildlife Service will focus on alternative conservation methods for Arctic grayling and continued stewardship of the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness under the Wilderness Act in collaboration with interested parties, the service announced.

The Fish and Wildlife Service first announced the grayling proposal in spring and after soliciting public comment about varied interventions said in June it would proceed with the pipeline project. A lawsuit that followed on June 26 sought to block the project and a federal judge later granted the injunction sought by the plaintiffs.

They included Wilderness Watch, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Gallatin Wildlife Association and the Yellowstone to Uintas Connection.

But some variation of the project also attracted support from individuals and organizations, with the latter including Montana Trout Unlimited, the Montana Wildlife Federation, Ruby Valley Conservation District, the Big Hole River Foundation, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Big Hole Watershed Committee.

The consensus seemed to be that the dwindling population of Arctic grayling in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge justified intervention even in a wilderness area.

Comments from the Big Hole Watershed Committee observed, Given the potential benefits of the project, the designated Wilderness land use of the site should not prevent this restoration project from proceeding.

The Upper Red Rock Lake is a shallow and eutrophic lake that is rich in nutrients supporting plant life that decomposes in winter. The lake is covered for months each winter in ice and snow and that combination reduces dissolved oxygen, leaving the Arctic grayling vulnerable to winterkill.

The grayling in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge are adfluvial, or lake dwelling, as opposed to the river dwelling, or fluvial, grayling that survive in the Big Hole River as the last such population in the Lower 48.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has abandoned the Shambow Pond pipeline. It said any other action designed to benefit the grayling will be subject to additional analyses, with the appropriate public review and input.
Christy Roby has served as Muscatine Countys Public Health Director over the past several years, providing guidance and leadership to the Muscatine community. Moving forward, she hopes to continue these efforts and be a healthcare leader for the entire state.

Last Friday, Roby announced that she had accepted a leadership position with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a local public health performance supervisor. Through this new position, she will be working with Regional Community Health Consultants for all 99 counties.

My last day with UnityPoint Health  Trinity Muscatine Public Health will be October 6th, Roby said. I am beyond appreciative for the opportunities this organization has provided me at a local, regional, state, and enterprise level.

Roby said that she is currently working closely with Rachel Pohl, Executive Director of UPH-Trinity Muscatine, in order to create a successful transition plan, ensuring all Public Health Director responsibilities are still met during this time.

Part of this plan includes placing Jacob Dornbush, who currently serves as the operations manager or fiscal and school-based services, as the point of contact regarding public health needs during the transition. Additionally, all leadership responsibilities during this time will be shared by the management team Trinity Muscatines Public Health Department.

I look forward to my next career opportunity that will build ongoing leadership, health equity, and support to state and local public health departments across the state of Iowa, Roby said. I am honored and grateful to have worked with (my community partners) all during my 10 years at UnityPoint Health and for the Muscatine County Public Health Department. I wish you much success in your continued commitment to deliver exceptional services to the people and communities you are all called to care for."

Pohl said UPH-Trinity Muscatine is thankful for Roby's work as a "key leader" over the past 10 years.

"Were especially grateful for her leadership navigating the unprecedented public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, our organizations served with more than 43,000 residents in Muscatine County with timely information, education, lifesaving vaccines and important health resources.

For more information about Muscatine County Public Health and its services, residents can visit https://www.unitypoint.org/locations/trinity-muscatine-public-health or visit the Trinity Muscatine Public Health Facebook page.

Here are some key health policies that will and will not change with the COVID-19 public health emergency's end Here are some key health policies that will and will not change with the COVID-19 public health emergency's end
Again Monday, the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors was asked to reconsider moving ahead with a plan to construct a law enforcement training facility, complete with a shooting range, near Moscow.

Muscatine Police Chief Tony Kies said during previous discussion the facility will be about much more than just shooting. The current plan is the range ground will be about 15 acres and have a 60-foot by 60-foot building that can be used for other law enforcement training. Since the property was identified, several neighbors have objected to the use of the property for that purpose, citing noise pollution and safety concerns. The group says law enforcement should have a training facility, but they object to the use of that specific property.

The City of Muscatine and Muscatine County have agreed to share the cost of the facility. So far, both have approved moving ahead with the purchase of the land for the proposed facility. The land still has to be approved by the county Planning and Zoning Commission for use as a facility.

About 27 residents live within a mile of the proposed facility. While commenting there arent as many people opposed to the range at the meeting as normal, resident Laura Curtis Kramer said many have jobs and are unable to make it to the regular supervisor meeting.

I would like to reiterate that I request you revisit the vote and put it back on the agenda to revote now that there is more information, she said. We didnt realize we needed to be keeping closer tabs on things going on in our area and now we know so I will be reading the agenda every week.

She requested a public meeting on the facility before a revote was taken. Supervisor Scott Sauer said that the county planning and zoning meeting would be held on Oct. 6 where the facility would be discussed.

Resident Mike Marstead said that the range would be right behind his residence. He said that if a berm was put on the land as is the plan, the area would flood. He also expressed concern the facility would devalue other properties in the area.

Resident Christine Schroeder said she lives right behind the neighboring Isaak Walton League shooting range and that spoke of the noise coming from the range.

I dont want one a little more than a mile and a half from me, she said.

Sauer and supervisors Nathan Mather and Kurt Kirchner reported receiving emails regarding the facility. Supervisors Danny Chick and Jeff Sorenson were not present at the meeting.

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's the police responding to a 911 call It's a bird. It's a plane. It's the police responding to a 911 call
GREENFIELD  A Greenfield man is being accused of having sexual relations with a 14-year-old when he was 20.

Dakota L. Paxton, 21, of Greenfield, was arrested Sept. 19 on an Adair County warrant on 83 child sexual abuse charges, 81 of them being felonies.

He immediately posted the $20,000 bond, agreeing to appear in court on Sept. 28.

The charges stem from incidents last fall. Paxton was charged with 39 counts of third-degree sexual abuse; 37 counts of enticing a child 16 years or younger for a sexual purpose; five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of possessing a depiction of a minor in a sex act.

Of the 83 charges, 44 are Class C felonies, 37 are Class D felonies and two are aggravated misdemeanors.

According to Adair Count reports, Paxton communicated with the victim via text message where he enticed her to sneak out and meet him. He also solicited photos.

Phone records show Paxton telling the victim to "hurry" and "leave now."

A protective order between the two parties has been put into effect. Violation would result in immediate arrest.
As Congress remains divided and locked in stalemate over budget negotiations to avert a federal government shutdown, the chances of getting a new Farm Bill passed on time continue to evaporate.

Congress is staring down a deadline this Saturday for spending measures to keep the government running and to pass new legislation supporting farmers and ranchers.

If the government shuts down, so too would progress toward passing the next Farm Bill, said Chad Hart, an economist and crop markets specialist for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

The government shutdown possibility sucks all of the oxygen out of the room, Hart said. So until that is taken care of, you really cant make forward progress on any other piece of legislation, including a Farm Bill.

The sprawling legislative package thats reauthorized every five years supports several key farm and safety net programs, like crop insurance, as well as agriculture research, rural development, conservation, SNAP benefits  once called food stamps  and more.

What happens when the farm bill expires?

The current Farm Bill expires Saturday. However, expiration of the legislation would not truly be felt until the beginning of next year, when some farm policies would revert to controls on production and costly price supports adopted in the 1930s and 1940s.

Some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, including some conservation programs, may cease at the end of the federal fiscal year at the end of this month. Other programs, such as crop insurance and food assistance programs, are permanently authorized and would not be affected by expiration of the Farm Bill, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But while funding is mandatory, the actual issuance of food assistance benefits can be affected by a government shutdown, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Continuing resolutions generally have authorized the USDA to send out benefits for only 30 days after a shutdown begins. After that, benefits become dicey.

Additionally, stores are not able to renew their Electronic Benefit Transfer  or EBT  card licenses, so those whose licenses expire would not be able to accept SNAP payments from consumers during a shutdown.

Funding for commodity support programs run on crop years. Government supports for crops harvested during the 2023 calendar year and marketed following harvest would continue despite expiration of the legislation. For corn and soybeans, commodity payments and obligation would end in September 2024 if no new bill is passed.

Disruptions caused by the expiration of commodity support programs for the dairy industry would begin Jan. 1, since some cows are milked every day of the year. New plantings of other commodities, such as wheat, corn, and rice, would not affected until harvest in the summer or fall of next year.

The programs provide farmers payments when crop prices or revenues decline for major crops and provide cash assistance to livestock producers who face losses due to natural disasters or periods of economic downturn.

Once those programs expire, the USDA would be on the hook to pay out commodity support as governed by the 1938 and 1949 Farm Bills, which could increase overall food prices and significantly strain the federal budget, according to an August report from the Congressional Research Service.

Dairy industry could see a cliff

In the dairy industry, farmers would lose the support and protection offered by the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, which could have farmers facing a dairy cliff.

If policies revert to the 30s and 40s, the law would require the federal government to stabilize prices by taking milk off the market through milk purchases. The research service calculated the government would be required to purchase milk at a price that is more than double the current market price, which could cost the federal government billions of dollars and could result in price increases for consumers.

The availability of milk and dairy products could also be affected, meaning consumers could see fewer options  including for baby formula  in stores.

While commodities such as wheat, rice, cotton and corn would get higher payments, other crops not mentioned in the 1938 and 1949 laws  such as soybeans, peanuts and sugar  would lose support.

What will this mean for food prices?

While a shutdown and expiration of the Farm Bill could remove price and revenue safety nets for farmers, ISUs Hart said food prices shouldnt be affected near-term.

"Consumers will see less of an impact than producers will, Hart said. It would only impact food pricing inasmuch as it affects producers decisions over what theyre going to produce over the next few months. Most of our producers have already set those business plans in place. Theyre not going to adjust their production practices based upon these probably temporary swings of government support.

Hart expects, as in years past, Congress will pass a stopgap measure or an extension of the existing Farm Bill should lawmakers fail to pass new bill by the end of the crop year on Dec. 31.

Now, the longer this goes on and we dont have some sort of harder guidance on federal support for agriculture, the more you can see some changes in producer decisions, which could cause food prices to increase, Hart said. But its literally going to take months for that to occur.

Regardless, nonessential government services stop after Saturday if there is no funding bill passed to avoid a shutdown. That includes the Farm Service Agency, Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Rural Development Centers  meaning farmers would be unable to sign up for programs administered by those agencies.

Additionally, USDA reports and data collection on crop yields, cattle and hog summaries and U.S. export sales on which markets rely will cease.

For farmers it means a lot of uncertainty, Hart said. People will be guessing more and you get more volatility in the markets at a critical time for farmers as they harvest.

Which could be both a blessing or a curse to farmers, because it depends upon which way the volatility it showing up in the marketplace, Hart said.

What are members of Iowas delegation saying?

Iowa U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson expressed optimism a Farm Bill would emerge this fall.

I believe that we will still be able to move forward with a Farm Bill after we get through the challenge that we are facing right now, but I obviously do not want to see a government shut down, Hinson said during a call with reporters Thursday. I dont think this is good for anybody. The Marion Republican reiterated that her goal is to pass the most conservative spending bills possible.

But its unlikely a new Farm bill will be passed before Saturday. Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said he expects Congress would pass a one-year extension of the existing Farm Bill if unable to pass new legislation by Christmas.

That's been done before. But the five year is a better certainty for the farmers, Grassley said during a Sept. 15 recording of Iowa Press on Iowa PBS.
DES MOINES  Roughly 7,500 low-income students in 13 Iowa school districts will receive extra support to prepare them for post-high school education as the result of a $25.8 million federal grant announced Monday.

The Iowa Department of Education announced the competitive grant award from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant comes from the federal agencys Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP program.

The funding will be deployed to 13 Iowa school districts in which more than half of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch: Burlington, Cardinal, Centerville, Clinton, Columbus, Davenport, Davis County, Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Saydel, South Tama and Storm Lake.

Half of the GEAR UP funding, along with another $8 million in contributions, will go toward scholarships toward college education and post-high school training for students in the program.

The other half of the funding will go to the 13 districts to fund services that will follow a cohort of current seventh-grade students through their high school graduation in 2029 and their first year of post-high school education.

We are grateful for this federal investment in our work to provide 7,500 students most in-need of support with critical wraparound services as they meet high expectations in middle school and beyond, Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow said in a news release. Alongside schools, postsecondary institutions and community partners, we will continue to provide students what they need to realize their incredible potential.

Districts will be able to use the federal grant funding to increase school counselors and other staff to provide college and career counseling, to develop an individualized career and academic plan for students, and to provide targeted, wraparound services to meet the academic, behavioral and emotional needs of students and their families, according to the news release.

In 2020, 88% of GEAR UP graduates in Iowa had plans to complete a two- or four-year degree or other post-high school training and education, the state education department said. The department also said GEAR UP students in Iowa demonstrated higher rates of attendance, proficiency in reading and math, and higher standardized entrance exam scores.

Iowa was not chosen for GEAR UP funding in the 2021 federal budget year. The states congressional delegation sent letters to the federal education department in January 2022 and January 2023, in which Iowas representatives questioned the federal agencys process for reviewing states applications to the program.

The federal education department responded in March of this year, asserting that all eligible applications were carefully reviewed and given full consideration within the requirements of the law and regulations governing the GEAR UP Program.

Most states have a school counselor shortage. Here's where they're needed the most Most states have a school counselor shortage. Here's where they're needed the most #51. Vermont #50. New Hampshire #49. Hawaii #48. Colorado #47. Montana #45. Maine (tie) #45. North Dakota (tie) #44. Tennessee #43. Wyoming #42. Virginia #40. Missouri (tie) #40. West Virginia (tie) #39. North Carolina #38. Maryland #37. South Carolina #36. New Jersey #35. Connecticut #34. New York #33. Pennsylvania #32. Arkansas #31. South Dakota #30. Massachusetts #29. Kentucky #28. Nebraska #27. Iowa #26. Oregon #25. Delaware #24. Wisconsin #23. Texas #22. Kansas #20. Oklahoma (tie) #20. Mississippi (tie) #19. Ohio #18. Rhode Island #17. Alabama #15. Georgia (tie) #15. Alaska (tie) #14. Florida #13. Washington #12. New Mexico #10. Louisiana (tie) #10. Nevada (tie) #9. District of Columbia #8. Indiana #7. Idaho #6. Utah #5. California #4. Minnesota #3. Michigan #2. Illinois #1. Arizona
A Mombasa court has convicted a 39-year-old bodaboda rider for defiling his relative aged 8 years.

Senior Resident Magistrate David Odhiambo convicted Mwarabu Omar Pato to 40 years in prison.

He ruled that the prosecution, through PC Barbara Sombo, had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt by proving the three ingredients of the age of the minor, penetration, and positive identification of the accused in the defilement case.

Hon. Odhiambo also ruled that the evidence and testimonies of the prosecution witnesses were irrefutable, including the Post-Rape Care (PRC) and P3 forms, which showed that the complainant was indeed defiled.

The convict committed the offence on 14th November 2022, in the Mikanjuni area of Jomvu Sub-county within Mombasa County.
The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has penalized the Casa Vera Lounge for posting a revelers image on their social media.

In a public notice issued Tuesday, September 26, the Commissioner said it fined the restaurant located at the intersection of Ngong Road and Kaburu Drive in Nairobi Sh1,850,000 for posting the image without the revelers consent.

The establishment was fined KES 1,850,0000 for posting a revelers image on their social media platforms without the Data Subjects consent.

This penalty seeks to ensure that other lounges and clubs seek consent from their customers prior to posting their images online, said the Data Commissioner.

The popular joint is one of three Data Controllers that have been fined for failing to observe Data Privacy rights and failure to comply with the Data Protection Act.

KeCredit and Faircash

The commissioner also penalized Mulla Pride Ltd, a Digital Credit Provider that operates KeCredit and Faircash mobile lending apps.

The DCP was found culpable of using names and contact information of the complainants which were obtained from third parties, and subsequently used to send threatening messages and phone calls, said the Commissioner.

As a result, Mulla Pride has been fined Sh2,975,000.

This Penalty will ensure that Digital lenders and financial institutions notify data subjects when collecting and processing their data, and the intention of processing the said data. t will further ensure that the data controllers are limited to strictly dealing with data subjects who have consented to the collection and processing of their data, a press release reads in part.

Roma School

Also fined is Roma School based in Uthiru. The Data Commissioner says the learning institution posted minors pictures without parental consent, costing it a Sh4,550,000 million fine.

This being the first and the highest penalty to an educational facility sends a message to schools and other facilities handling minors personal data to obtain consent from parents/guardians prior to processing minors data, said the commissioner.

Adding: These penalty notices have been issued pursuant to Section 62 and 63 of the Data Protection Act, 2019 (Act) and Regulation 20 and 21 of the Data Protection (Complaints Handling Procedure and Enforcement) Regulations, 2021.

While urging entities to comply with the Data Protection Act by implementing data protection principles and safeguards, Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait called upon Data Controllers and Data Processors to ensure that the processing of personal data is in accordance with the provision of the Act. Failure to comply with the Act will result in Instituting enforcement procedures.

The office has also conducted a compliance audit on WhitePath, (a digital credit provider) and an inspection of Naivas Supermarkets on a recent Data Breach.

The findings will be shared with the Data Controllers for their swift action. The Office will be embarking on conducting forty (40) Compliance Audits to various Data Controllers and Processors in various sectors this Financial Year.
Employees of the Naivasha Water and Sewerage Company (NAIVAWASCO) on Monday staged a protest following the tragic incident in which one of their colleagues lost his life. He was attacked by a rogue hippo while at his duty station at the Naivasha Sewerage Treatment Plant.

Preliminary reports indicate that 45-year-old Francis Wachira was on duty at the treatment plant last Friday around midday when the hippo attacked him.

Wachira suffered severe injuries after the hippo trampled on him and threw him into the sewer pond, and tragically passed away while receiving medical care at Kijabe Hospital. He had been rushed there for treatment after being rescued from the attack.

According to Antony Njogu, a coworker of the deceased, Wachira was attacked while he was en route to the office after completing his duties at the treatment plant.

The NAIVAWASCO employees are calling for the removal of hippos from Lake Naivasha, saying they have become a serious threat not only to the companys staff but also to the local residents.

Additionally, they are urging the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to provide compensation to the family of the late Wachira.

Wachira has left a young family who have been left widowed and orphaned without a source of livelihood after losing a bread earner, Njogu lamented.

Lakeview Ward Member of the County Assembly (MCA), Alex Mbugua, joined the employees in their quest for justice for the late Wachira. He appealed to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to take action by relocating the animals away from the lake to prevent future attacks.

Furthermore, it has been reported that a primary school student is currently hospitalized with severe injuries following a hippo attack in the same vicinity just a few days ago. Fishermen have also reported being attacked by these roaming hippos while on the lake.

A Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officer, who wished to remain anonymous due to restrictions on speaking to the media, disclosed that they have stationed security personnel at the plant to prevent any further harm from the hippos. Discussions are currently underway to determine a suitable resolution to this issue, which may include the relocation of the animals.

The officer urged both NAIVAWASCO staff and local residents to remain calm as they await a potential resolution to the problem.

Last year, the Government announced its intention to allocate Sh2.6 billion for compensation to victims of human-wildlife conflicts in the country.

In July of this year, it disbursed Sh908 million as compensation to individuals who suffered losses, including those who lost family members, were injured, or had their property destroyed by wildlife incidents throughout the country.
Businessman Jamal Roho Safi is on a mission to stay forever young following his second hair transplant procedure.

The well-known Instagram influencer journeyed to Turkey to undergo the procedure and enthusiastically shared his experience with his extensive following of over 1.8 million fans on social media.

Jamals hair transplant was skillfully performed by the esteemed Dr. Osman Gun, a pioneer in the field of hair transplants in Turkey and the visionary behind the Iconica International Clinic.

Best Dr in the world ranked for hair transplantSoon he will be in Kenya and Africa. Anasema nimtafutie mtu Kenya nifanye connection ama? @osmanguntr,  Jamal captioned a photo alongside the globally recognized health tourism expert, tagging @osmanguntr.

In a separate Instagram update posted on Tuesday, the matatu entrepreneur showed off his fresh killemwidit hairdo as he returned to the clinic for a wash.

Clinic day to wash my hair  he wrote.

Naturally, Jamals experience with hair transplant generated curiosity among Kenyan men, bald or otherwise. He mentioned that he has been receiving questions, and he was gracious enough to explain.

A lot of people dont understand hair transplant, I get alot of dm from all over. Hair transplant is removal of your hair from your body to area of you preferencemine was removed from the back side of my head where there was a lot of it to forehead. In some few days the part that was removed will grow again automatically (its not that painful), he said.

The photos.
A Korean institute has signed an agreement with a Kenyan University to train thousands of youths on various maritime courses.

The pact signed between the Korea Institute of Maritime and Fisheries Technology (KIMFT) and The Pioneer International University, will see thousands of trained Kenyans get jobs in the Korean Maritime industry.

Signing the pact at Pioneer University Muranga branch, on Saturday, KIMFT president Prof Park Jinsoo said they are seeking to train more than 400, 000 Kenyans on both short- and long-term courses.

According to the Korean Maritime industry, Jinsoo said there was a shortage of seafarers among other maritime workers noting that the training will see thousands of Kenyans secure jobs in his country.

South Korea with a population of over 51 million people in the recent past has been struggling with chronic shortages of skilled workers in blue-collar jobs as most Koreans prefer white-collar jobs.

The professor noted that there are many possibilities and opportunities for Kenya to work together with Korea in terms of the Maritime industry.

According to Korean government statistics, the count of national seafarers plummeted from 58,818 in 2000 to 38,758 in 2010 and further declined to 31,867 last year.

This represents a nearly 50 percent decrease over 22 years with Jinsoo adding that the national seafarer population is aging, with 44 percent being 60 or older.

He said South Korea needs qualified workers and that through the partnership, Kenyans will be trained and helped to get jobs in the Korean maritime and shipping industry.

In Korea, Jinsoo noted, seafarers have a considerable turnover rate, as 78 percent of graduates from maritime colleges, universities, or vocational schools have transitioned to land-based jobs within five years.

In efforts to address the decreasing number of seafarers in Korea, the government is seeking to hire more than 400,000 Kenyans trained in the sector. Added the professor.

Jinsoo observed that South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world decades ago but managed to rise to a middle-level economy in the 1990s.

This partnership will provide a chance for my country to share its experiences with the university and the Kenyan government for the benefit of Kenyans. He added.

Pioneer International Universitys vice chancellor Prof Gideon Maina said the partnership stemmed from his visit to the Asian country last month on a benchmarking tour on the blue economy.

Maina divulged that during his visit, he met members of the Korean Ship Owners Association which brings together over 300 ships.

The chairperson gave me an assurance that the association will be recruiting trained Kenyans for the next five years, He said.

Maina noted, our university has been offering a short Standards of Training, Certification, and Watch-keeping (STCW) course in its Muranga campus that is required for anybody seeking employment in a yacht or ship.

He explained the course that lasts about seven days is globally administered and ensures a lateral standard of training is achieved across all countries, and is approved by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Maina revealed that Pioneer International University graduates about 10 students each week for the short course.

As such, the university is now planning to roll out a Bachelor of Science in Maritime Engineering and Bachelor of Science in Maritime Transport next year. He further said.

On his part, Pioneer International University Chancellor Dr. Peter Munga called upon young Kenyans to take up the opportunities and break the vicious cycle of poverty in many families noting that the starting salary is over Sh.100, 000 in low cadre jobs such as security guards in the maritime sector.

He said that it is his expectation that the partnership will also bring the transformation of Pioneer International University being the only private university training on maritime courses in the country

Munga added that the university is venturing into a course that no other private university in the East African region has charted, especially in training maritime engineers.

Pioneer University also plans to start offering a Korean language course to ensure those who access jobs in the Asian country are able to easily adapt. Noted the Chancellor.

-Kenya News Agency
A 32-year-old man accused of vandalizing a vehicle parked at Villa Police Station in Embakasi, Nairobi, with the intent to steal car batteries, has entered a guilty plea.

Samson Shampasina Nina, who was caught in the act, was charged with the theft of two car batteries, valued at Sh31,000, from a companys truck on September 22nd.

Samson was found beneath the lorry by a police officer around 7 p.m. The officer noticed someone underneath the vehicle and approached to investigate, ultimately discovering the accused in the act of removing two batteries.

In an attempt to escape, the suspect made a run for it, but the officer managed to catch him before he could flee.

He was subsequently brought to one of the stations investigation rooms for interrogation, accompanied by the two stolen batteries and the tools he had utilized to remove them.

During the interrogation, Samson Nina confessed to the police that he had stolen the batteries with the intention of selling them to a secondhand car parts dealer located on Jogoo Road. He revealed that he had already sold seven other batteries to this dealer.

Additionally, the suspect admitted to stealing an additional 16 batteries, which he had sold to two different dealers. He explained that he had sold five of them to a dealer in the Pipeline area of Embakasi and the remaining four to an individual associated with a Public Service Vehicle (PSV) Sacco in the same vicinity.

The accused pleaded guilty before Senior Principal Magistrate Monica Kivuti of the Makadara Law Courts.

The case is scheduled for a hearing on October 3rd, during which the prosecution will present its case against him.
The petitioner who initially called for a TikTok ban in the country due to inappropriate content has shifted their position and is now advocating for the application to be regulated with stringent rules.

Bob Ndolo, the Executive Director General of Bridge Consultancy, said he revised the petitions focus to emphasize regulation in response to numerous calls from various stakeholders concerned about the Apps usage.

He spoke when he appeared before the National Assembly Public Petition.

We have been getting a lot of calls from tiktokers and thats the reason why we wanted change to push for the regulations of the App to protect national security and protect the youth from inappropriate content, Ndolo said.

The businessman also mentioned that they were not influenced to amend their petition after President Rutos meeting with TikTok management, during which the management promised to implement content moderation on the global App.

RELATED  TikTok to Train Kenyan Creators on positive Content

We are privy to the discussion between the President and Tiktok CEO but we became aware through the media. We were not involved in anyway,we have only had a meeting with Tiktok management from South Africa. We havent received any call from statehouse, Ndolo said.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel Mutua, the Chief Executive Officer of the Music and Copyright Society of Kenya, who is in favor of the petition, expressed concern about the adverse impacts of the App resulting from its lack of regulation.

The social media sites that are unregulated are conduit for the destruction of our moral values. We have forgotten the software which is the moral fabric of our nation and where children are concerned, he argued.

This kind of content normalizes insanity, obscenity, nudity and immorality. The app normalizes disrespect even on our national leaders. It can sound normal but thats how we normalize crime and killing as a way of life, Mutua added.
During a parliamentary committee hearing, it was revealed that a suspended Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officer was bribed to expedite the release of confiscated sugar valued at Sh20 million.

KRA officials who testified before the National Assembly Trade and Investment Committee revealed that according to investigations conducted by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Derrick Kago received Sh130,000 to release the contraband sugar.

It is believed that the money served as an incentive to grant access to a warehouse in Thika where the sugar was being held. Kago allegedly altered the KRA customs seals at the Vine Pack Industries Limited warehouse without obtaining the necessary approval from the authority.

DCI investigations showed that Derrick was paid about Sh130,000 that is why he was suspended, said Levi Mukweso, a senior officer at KRA.

Kago is one of the 27 officials who were suspended by President William Ruto in connection with the release of a 20,000-tonne shipment of condemned sugar into the market. This sugar had been imported to the country in 2018, and the Kenya Bureau of Standards had identified it as unsuitable for human consumption, instructing that it should be disposed of.

A multi-agency task force recommended that the condemned sugar be processed into ethanol for industrial purposes. However, it was later diverted from this intended use and released into the consumer market.

Mukweso informed the lawmakers that they became aware of the sugars disappearance during the course of the DCIs inquiry.

Faith Kiara, a chief manager at the KRA, alleged that Kago had concealed his actions by neglecting to submit a report concerning the alteration of customs seals.

Derrick did not report to us that the seals were broken, an action that requires prior approval and that must be done in the presence of the warehouse owner, said Kiara, who revealed that Kago was the last person in contact with the go-down in March.

The KRA official had been assigned the task of delivering a tax demand letter to Vine Pack due to unpaid taxes. Vine Pack, the company responsible for distilling the ethanol from the condemned sugar, had received a tax demand of Sh20 million, despite having initially paid only Sh4 million. Additionally, it was revealed that the firm did not possess the necessary license for industrial ethanol distillation.

The committee, finding the explanations provided by the KRA officials unconvincing, argued that Kago was being made a scapegoat in a broader conspiracy that potentially involved high-ranking KRA officials.

It was a conspiracy right from day one why didnt the sugar disappear along the way? Furthermore, when you were opening the seals at the warehouse you excluded other stakeholders, said Starehe MP Amos Mwago.

There is no way 20 lorries would have moved undetected.

The plenary committee is scheduled to further interrogate the KRA officials, along with individuals who are suspected to have played a role in the sugars release, on October 17th.
The St. Helena Unified School District Choir Program is opening its 2023-24 school program with a Fall Choir Concert at 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7 at the St. Helena Performing Arts Center.

The show will feature Latin-American choral music in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. The program includes songs from Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Cuba and Peru. Students are singing this repertoire in Spanish and Quechua, the second-most spoken language in Latin America after Spanish. The choirs will be joined by special guests such as St. Helena High School alumni and Ballet Folklorico "El Valle" de St. Helena.

The new season comes after a successful year in which the choirs sang at Carnegie Hall in New York City and were guests of honor for a coronation ceremony of the British Consulate at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

Choir Director Alba Gonzalez-Arredondo is also inviting the community to a Mattress Fundraiser from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8 in the St. Helena High School cafeteria.

There will be more than 20 styles of beds on display for customers to try. The brand-name mattresses are made to order, have full factory warranties, are available in all sizes, and are priced below retail. In addition to beds, there will also be premium pillows, luxury sheets and even adjustable power bases. Delivery and financing are available.

PHOTOS: Napa's Inaugural Juneteenth Celebration
Updated 8:30 p.m. Tuesday  The city of St. Helena has awarded $1.2 million in expenses in the last month to address frequent reports of discolored and cloudy tap water.

City staff have approved contracts or purchase orders with four consulting firms under an emergency declared by the council on Aug. 22, according to a staff report. The council ratified the expenses on Tuesday.

Those expenses do not account for the time the citys Public Works staff has spent flushing the system and testing the water, which is safe to drink and meets state quality standards.

The expenses involve inspecting filters at the water treatment plant at Bell Canyon, cleaning and recoating two tanks  the Clearwell and Tank 1A  and replacing or cleaning and recoating the Clearwells pipes and pumps.

The treatment plant will have to be taken offline for about two months while consultants complete the work, which is tentatively scheduled for late October or early November.

During that time the city will have to rely entirely on water from the city of Napa and the Stonebridge wells. City staff have warned that customers will be asked to conserve water during that period.

Expenses to date include:

 $962,060 to Marine Industrial Tank Inc. for inspecting, cleaning, resurfacing and relining the two tanks

 $185,596 to Pumpman for three new pumps

 $56,731 to West Yost for engineering services  Clearwell and Tank 1A rehabilitation

 $21,070 to ERS Industrial Services for filter inspection

Public Works Director Joe Leach said those expenses are only "the first ... and most significant stage" in addressing the problem. City staff will need to hire more consultants to inspect and clean the pipeline that connects the Clearwell and Tank 1A.

The money is coming out of the citys water fund, which is supported by ratepayers.

Places in the US that don't have access to clean water Flint, Michigan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Navajo Nation East Chicago, Indiana Airway Heights, Washington Puerto Rico Brady, Texas Baltimore, Maryland Milwaukee, Wisconsin Las Vegas, Nevada Uniontown, Alabama New York City, New York Martin County, Kentucky Tacoma, Washington Pretty Prairie, Kansas Tallulah, Louisiana West Virginia
A Vallejo man was hospitalized with major injuries after his motorcycle was involved in a freeway crash early Wednesday morning in Napa, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Carlos Torres, 26, was riding a 2001 Suzuki on northbound Highway 29 at 4:50 a.m. when he struck a 2010 Lincoln south of the Lincoln Avenue exit, according to Vince Pompliano, a CHP spokesperson in Napa. Torres was taken by ambulance to Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center.

A deer hit on the highway is believed to have triggered the crash, Pompliano said. When another vehicle in front of the Lincoln struck the animal, the Lincolns driver hit the brakes and Torres, on his motorcycle, then rear-ended the Lincoln, according to Pompliano.

The man driving the Lincoln, a 35-year-old Sacramento resident, was not injured in the crash, Pompliano said. No information was immediately available about the vehicle that struck the deer.

Photos: Napa Valley Faces and Places, September 23, 2023
The Napa Sonoma ADU Center announced Tuesday that it has been recognized with the 2023 Award of Excellence for Implementation by the American Planning Association's California chapter, known as APA California.

The prestigious award highlights the Centers commitment to fostering innovation and excellence in community planning and development, the center said in a news release.

The ADU Center was created in 2020 by the Napa Valley Community Foundation and Community Foundation Sonoma County, with the goal of streamlining the accessory dwelling unit building process in both counties. Since its inception, the program has seen the completion of 74 ADUs and is currently guiding another 375 through various stages of the building process.

The center offers a range of services for homeowners, including feasibility consultations, technical assistance, loan products and a vendor registry. The registry contains a list of 46 vendors, who offer services from contracting and architecture to permitting and financial assistance, all of which have been vetted by the center.

In addition, the center created a first-of-its-kind permit-ready and pre-approved ADU plans program, which allows homeowners to choose from a gallery of 50 ADU designs that are already approved and thus ease the planning process.

"We are immensely proud of the work we have accomplished and the recognition this award brings," said Scott Johnson, director of the ADU Center. "It reflects our dedication to facilitating the growth and development of ADUs in the region, and contributing to a vibrant and inclusive community for all.

Photos: What does it cost to buy a house in Napa? 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa 2221 Adrian St. in Napa
Proposals being submitted to EU delegation regarding support for forcibly displaced Armenians from Karabakh discussed

Armenia ombudsperson sends petitions to relevant agencies regarding Karabakh ex-defense minister Levon Mnatsakanyan

Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem cancels controversial deal related to Cows' Garden estate

Germany FM to visit Armenia, Azerbaijan

Vahan Kerobyan, Alkis Vryenios Drakinos discuss projects being implemented by EBRD in Armenia (PHOTOS)

Head of EU civilian mission in Armenia briefs President on details about their monitoring

Dollar, euro fall in Armenia

Armenia Anti-Corruption Committee chief: We have solved March 1, 2008 case

Armenia deputy PM, Japan envoy discuss opportunities for development of bilateral trade, economic relations

Karabakh parliament speaker imprisoned by Azerbaijan contacts relatives twice from Baku

Samkharadze: Georgia wants to become regional leader by contributing to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations normalization

Yerevan received, responded to Russia proposals on process of Armenia ratification of Rome Statute, MFA says

Border with Azerbaijan is calm, there is no tension, head of EU monitoring mission in Armenia says in Yeghegnadzor

Karabakh president negotiated with Azerbaijan special services?

EU monitoring mission in Armenia opens headquarters in Yeghegnadzor

Holding Snoop Dogg concert in Armenia is vital, PMs office says

Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issues Red Flag Alert for Azerbaijan in Armenia

Armenia, Romania MFAs hold political consultations in Bucharest

World Bank: Economic activity growth increases, insignificant inflation recorded, exports drop in Armenia

Armenia, Iran sign memorandum of understanding on strengthening cooperation, workforce exchange

Alexander Spendiaryan 152nd birth anniversary events kicking off in Yerevan

Blinken mentions Armenia during US Senate hearing

Newspaper: Armenia PM announces cancellation of point 9 of November 2020 trilateral statement

Karabakh president receives French, Italian members of European Parliament

Russian peacekeepers continue to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia MoD says

Red Cross helps elderly people left in Karabakh to relocate to Armenia (VIDEO)

Central Bank chief: Armenia residents deposits increased by about 25%

EBRD regional director to Armenia finance minister: We are ready to assist those displaced from Karabakh

Armenia labor, social affairs minister attends Armenian-Iranian forum in Tehran

European Union increases humanitarian funding to Armenia by about 1.7M

Dollar, euro go up in Armenia

Armenia PM, Poland envoy address humanitarian situation of forcibly displaced people from Karabakh

Ardshinbank has been recognized as the "Best Corporate" and "Best ESG Bank" in Armenia by Euromoney magazine

Turkey border bridge renovation, furnishing underway, Armenia official says

Armenia official: Enclaves issue will be clarified when peace treaty with Azerbaijan is signed

Armenia official: Positive thing about North-South project is that we entered construction phase in some sections

Ethnic cleansing in Karabakh received pin-drop silence by American media, US presidential nominee says

Armenia economy minister: Trade relations with Russia are very important to us

Armenia official: We have certain idea about construction of railway in Meghri sector, we are waiting

74 films to be screened in Armenia during 19th Rolan International Film Festival for Children and Youth

Yeraskh steel plant project being implemented, it is being moved, it will be nearby, Armenia economy minister says

Azerbaijan pledges guarantees to Karabakh Armenians after its blockade, genocide

Karabakh ombudsman: Who needs forums, lengthy speeches if international community fails to prevent genocides?

Maestro Sergey Smbatyan: Process that could have had only one outcome is resolved

Legislature vice-speaker complains about reduction of programs in Armenia IT sector

UNICEF Armenia: Next batch of humanitarian aid sent to Syunik Province

Central Bank of Armenia reduces refinancing rate by 0.25 points, sets it at 9.5%

Martin Schuepp: Red Cross is helping people left in Karabakh

Finance minister: Armenia economic growth potential currently estimated at 5.5%

Armenia official: The money we were allocating to Karabakh should be enough to fund all programs

Parliament deputy speaker: Armenia has no contender in high tech

Newspaper: Karabakh army handed over ammunition not to Azerbaijan, but to Russian side

Canada ambassador about sanctions on Azerbaijan: There is also dispute within Armenia regarding them

Audi Q6 e-tron launch delayed until at least Spring 2024

Armenia Investigative Committee official: 8 of 16 persons captured by Azerbaijan are Karabakh leadership members

4.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Turkey

14 individuals were tortured, and 64 died on the move from Nagorno Karabakh. Foreign Ministry spokesperson

Council of Europe to prepare package of measures in response to refugee influx in Armenia

Mher Grigoryan and EU Ambassador exchanged ideas on regional developments

Minister of Defence had a meeting with the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of PRC

Yeremyan Projects has launched the regional first livestock complex in Tashir community

Rights of Karabakhs imprisoned former leadership are protected, Azerbaijan ombudsperson claims

Finance ministry: Armenia economic growth target will be maintained at 7% level in 2024

Elnur Mammadov: Most points in peace treaty have been agreed upon by Azerbaijan, Armenia

Statement: Alma-Ata Declaration has no mention of former union republics of ex-USSR

Dollar drops, euro rises in Armenia

Armenia defense sector capital spending planned in amount of around $1.4 billion in 2024

Lawyer: Maestro Sergey Smbatyan is acquitted

Premier: Armenia defense spending planned to be increased by 125% in 2024 compared to 2018

Armenia, Ukraine officials underscore Pashinyan-Zelenskyy first meeting

ReA15: 300 animation films, 30 guests from 40 countries, around 500 audience; Armenia international festival summed up

Russias Makhachkala airport resumes operations

Armenia's Pashinyan: There is serious progress in North-South motorway construction

Around 12kg narcotics attempted to be smuggled into Armenia from Iran

Armenia finance minister: Considerable part of 2.6 billion to be provided by EU is loan

Armenia official: We will not increase pensions, minimum wages in 2024

Armenia finance minister: National debt of more than $10 billion is safe

Pashinyan: Armenia government expects 7% economic growth in 2023

COAF secures 10M grant to transform education in Armenia's Syunik Province

RFE/RL: US supports EU monitoring mission in Armenia, embassy says

Hurricane Otis kills at least 48 people in Mexico

$135M to be allocated for needs of those forcibly displaced from Karabakh, Armenia PM says

Armenia nationals can now open bank accounts in Russia in simplified manner

Armenia MFA former spox shares video of Russian peacekeepers withdrawal from Karabakh

202-million-year-old dragonfly fossil discovered in UK

Armenia premier: I hope arrangements for opening border with Turkey will be implemented in near future

Pashinyan: Current world orders collapse is serious threat to Armenia

Armenia labor, social affairs minister is in Iran, memorandum to be signed on highly qualified workforce exchange

Armenia PM: 3 main principles of signing peace treaty with Azerbaijan have been agreed upon

Armenia defense minister attends Beijing Xiangshan Forum opening ceremony in China (PHOTOS)

Biden, Netanyahu discuss ongoing Israeli airstrikes in Gaza

Arab, Muslim users of social media unhappy with ongoing supply of oil from Azerbaijan to Israel

Attempts are being made to destabilize situation in Russias Dagestan from outside, leader Melikov says

20 people injured, 2 in critical condition after mass riots at Russias Makhachkala airport

Kamala Harris: US has no plans of sending combat troops to Israel, Gaza

Russia researchers develop water evaluation system using smartphones

Russias Makhachkala airport closed until November 6

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Anti-Israel protest in Russias Dagestan, crowd storms into Makhachkala airport
Today, the [special] "red beret" police officers entered the main building of the American University of Armenia in gross violation of the law and illegally detained a group of students. In the same way, students were detained at the entrance of the university, too. Arman Tatoyan, director of the Tatoyan Foundation Center for Law and Justice, and the former Human Rights Defender (ombudsman) of Armenia, wrote about this on Facebook Tuesday evening and posted a respective video. Tatoyan added as follows, in particular:

The actions of the red beret police were clearly unlawful; the detentions were made without providing any reason to the students, the police acted in groups and used openly disproportionate force prohibited by law, including causing pain to the students.

"There was open disrespect towards the university, the education process was disrupted.

"Students were not presented with the rights, the provision of which is the direct legal obligation of the Police. The students were not informed about the reasons for their detention; they were not notified about a lawyer and other rights, which grossly violated the requirement of the law.

"Videos and testimonies of students clearly confirm that the arrested students did not commit not only administrative, but any violation in general. They were just standing in front of the university, some with Armenias flags and banners about Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] and Armenia.

"The described illegal actions of the police against the [aforesaid] university students are highly condemnable and a gross violation of the law; they should not be repeated again.
As Turkeys elite flying squad drew the crescent and star of the national flag across Ankaras sky, Turks on the ground raced for a picture with Selcuk Bayraktarthe man they call a hero for turning the Middle Eastern country into a key global supplier of deadly combat drones, Bloomberg reported.

Bayraktar is also the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and there on the tarmac of a military base, his company Baykar displayed its new generation of unmanned combat aircraftwhich will fly faster and farther, while carrying more weapons than its existing ones.

The new generation of drones reflect the growing ambitions of a company which has grown increasingly powerful overseas after Ukraine used its TB2 drones to fight Russian forces with substantial effect.

In recent years, Baykar has become a key part of Erdogans drive to build a self-sufficient defense industry with products ranging from armed drones to fighter jets and warships. They are all meant to back his increasingly assertive foreign policy in a region mired with conflict. But since Russias invasion of Ukraine, overseas sales of the drones have also risen steadily, giving Turkey greater political sway well beyond the Middle East.

In a rare interview at the air-force base on the outskirts of Ankara, Bayraktar, an alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, laid out ambitions to expand the companys capabilities and international sales even further in an effort to boost Turkeys heft overseas. Baykar will soon start mass-producing at least one of two advanced drones that will take off from Turkeys newly-built mini aircraft carrier, the TCG Anadolu. At the same time, its seeking to expand its share in markets from Africa to Europe and Asia with existing TB2 and Akinci unmanned combat vehicles as well as the newly developed TB3 and Kizilelma.

The new drones will revolutionize Turkeys military influence from the Black Sea and the Caucasus to the eastern Mediterranean and the shores of North Africa, said Bayraktar, who holds the title of chief technology officer at the company, which was founded by his father and controlled by his family. They will enable Turkey to conduct surveillance and pinpoint attacks over continents thanks to the increase in their flight time and operation radius.

Baykar says it sells its flagship TB2 plane in 31 countries. While those sales were mostly to developing nations, its a jump from just two overseas buyers four years ago. Sales of the TB-2 have grown rapidly in the past few years, said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI. One after the other country is ordering batches of varying sizes.

Turkeys use of drones highlights the changing face of war in one of the worlds most volatile regions. Unmanned aerial vehicles turned the tide in Ankaras decades-old counterinsurgency against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party in the countrys southeast, northern Iraq, and Syria. Relatively cheap to make and deploy, the aircraft have in recent years helped swing conflicts in places as far afield as Azerbaijan and Libya in favor of Turkish allies.

Even beyond the Middle East, Turkish drones are likely to be particularly valuable for countries operating outside of NATO or unable to obtain them from the US or Israel for political or financial reasons. The new drones will augment the nations reputation as a supplier of high-quality war tech at affordable prices, a unique position that Turkey holds among a handful of countries producing sophisticated drones, according to Fabian Hinz, a defense expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

No matter whether you are a US ally or have problems with the US, you can buy [Turkish drones] at almost no political cost, Hinz said. Turkey also seems to be more open to some transfer of technology and to enabling local license production, something which other producers are much more reluctant to do.

The company made 82% of its profits from exports over the past two decades, Bayraktar said, adding the production capacity was increased 50% over the past year.

Bayraktar faces plenty of challenges in his biggest ambitions. The US, Israel and China remain the worlds largest suppliers of drones. Also, Baykars offerings dont come close to the modern combat aircraft produced by countries like the US in performance, said SIPRIs Wezeman. Still, Turkeys drones sell at a fraction of the price.

The rise of Turkey as a supplier of armed drones has been remarkable, Wezeman said. And there is no doubt that this is part of a rapid development of the Turkish arms industry, the role of Turkey as an arms exporter and part of Turkish efforts to become a regional power.

Baykar was founded in 1986 by Selcuks father, Ozdemir, as a machinery company. But Selcuk had picked up an interest in aviation as a young boy and when he joined the business in 2007 he started the pivot into military equipment, developing unmanned combat aircraft and ground control systems. He married the presidents daughter, Sumeyye, in 2016.

Then in 2019, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey for acquisition of S-400 missile-defense systems from Russia. The sanctions prevented Turkey from working on and receiving Lockheed Martin Corp.s F-35 stealth jets.

That accelerated Turkeys efforts to develop its own unmanned combat aircraft, with Erdogan backing development of the technology by his son-in-laws company as well as the state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries. The steady increases in exports enabled them to invest further in research and development.

Local media reports have speculated that Bayraktar could have a future in Turkish politics  though its a sensitive topic he hardly ever addresses directly. We will fight to the end to realize the ideal of a national technology move, Bayraktar said in an interview with a Turkish news outlet last month. We will do whatever is necessary, whatever the struggle requires. In other words, if the struggle requires politics and policy then we will not fear or refrain from it.

He and his father-in-law share an ambition to make Turkey a self-sufficient military power ahead of regional rivals such as Iran and Greece. To that end, Erdogan forayed into uneasy new alliancesincluding a detente with Vladimir Putinthat have at times strained Turkeys standing within NATO.

The more recent Akinci, which climbs to higher altitudes and flies much longer than its predecessors, was at the center of negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Bayraktar said.

The Akinci will be produced jointly with the Saudis as part of the agreement, just as the TB2 will be manufactured in a plant currently under construction in an undisclosed location in central Ukraine, he said.

The TB3 is kind of a quantum leap regarding Turkeys capabilities especially if its mounted on the Anadolu carrier, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. That puts Turkey in a separate category, a small group of elite nations that have the ability to go beyond a few hundred miles in terms of using their drones across continents and oceans.
As the dramatic images emerge of thousands of Karabakh Armenians forced away from their homes in a mass exodus, some in the west are beginning to rethink their relationship with Azerbaijan, The Guardian writes.

Through a mixture of skilled diplomacy and lobbying, the resource-rich country has for years promoted itself in the UK and EU as a reliable security partner and vital transport hub.

But by launching a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and triggering a humanitarian catastrophe as refugees pour out of the region, the Azerbaijan president, Ilham Aliyev, has drawn the ire of the EU and the US.

The crisis and human suffering could and should have been prevented, said a senior western diplomat in Baku, speaking on condition of anonymity. It will be trickier for us to continue as usual with Azerbaijan.

At the UN last week, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, accused Baku of breaking its repeated assurances to refrain from the use of force, causing tremendous suffering to a population already in dire straits.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Azerbaijani authorities were uninhibited.

Many in Brussels and Washington feel shocked and betrayed by Azerbaijans use of force, said Thomas de Waal, senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe thinktank. He said that western officials believe the inaction of the 2,000 Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region suggests that a side deal was reached between Moscow and Baku, who both blamed the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and his pro-western pivot for the fighting.

For a long time, Azerbaijan was very skilled at projecting its value to the west. But there seems to be a revaluation going on about just how important and trustworthy Baku really is.

Baku for years has been said to employ so-called caviar diplomacy: using cash and gifts to buy influence in Europe. The Guardian previously revealed how Azerbaijan funnelled about $2.9bn (2.2bn) out of the country via a network of secret British companies to pay supporters, lobbyists and politicians in Europe, buy luxury goods and services, and launder money for the Azerbaijani elite.

Prior to the latest fighting in Karabakh, Europe appeared to be moving closer to Baku, despite the countrys poor human rights record and credible evidence that it committed atrocities in the 2020 Karabakh war.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, travelled to Baku in 2022 as the EU looked to reduce its reliance on Russian energy, hailing Azerbaijan as a crucial and reliable energy supplier. She announced an agreement to double the EUs purchases of Azerbaijani gas by 2027, but made no mention of the countrys human rights situation or its relationship with Armenia.

Since the military operation last week, Azerbaijan has continued to promote its narratives among western stakeholders. Baku-based thinktank the Center of Analysis of International Relations hosted a roundtable discussion in Mayfair, London, on Azerbaijans role as a crucial land bridge that can connect Europe to Central Asia and energy security in Europe.

But some observers say Europes reliance on Azerbaijani energy is heavily exaggerated by Baku. Azerbaijan massively overstates their influence on gas, which is lazily picked up among European policymakers, said Max Hess, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

The idea that Azerbaijan plays a key role in Europes energy security has been another excuse put forward by western powers to not intervene, Hess added.

Gas supply from Azerbaijan accounted for 3% of the EUs total imports in 2022, while Moscow still supplies up to 15% of the continents gas demand. The EU gas deal is very unlikely to deliver the promised high volumes of gas  a declining asset in the green transition anyway, said de Waal.

Some officials in the west have mulled sanctions against Azerbaijan in the aftermath of its Nagorno-Karabakh operation.

The full article is available at The Guardian website.
The US and Russia want the "Zangezur corridor," but there can only be one "winner" while Armenians suffer. Greek political scientist Paul Antonopoulos, noted about this on Xformer Twitter. He wrote as follows:

A consistent demand from Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the opening of the so-called "Zangezur Corridor", a transportation corridor that would connect Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and onwards to Turkey by traversing Armenia's Syunik province without checks or controls.

The US and Russia both support such a corridor but for two very different reasons.

For the US, the opening of the corridor and, therefore, the unimpeded connectivity of the Turkic world will allow "NATO ally" Turkey to penetrate Central Asia more meaningfully beyond linguistics and culture and will ultimately expand in economics, military, etc. Washington hopes that Turkey's greater influence in Central Asia will weaken Russian and Chinese influence, and the opening of the corridor is a step towards that.

For Russia, the corridor opens a new route to friendly markets and even a way to bypass the Black Sea in a desperate situation. This is even more critical for Russia today, considering how the West severely sanctioned it.

Both the US and Russia believe that opening the corridor can undermine the strategy of the other.

The main difference is that the US does not feel the direct effects of its decision to empower pan-Turkism considering it is more than an ocean away from the Caucasus.

By cynically punishing Armenia for Pashinyan's decision to redirect his country's foreign policy in a provocative manner, Russia is empowering pan-Turkism, which is an incalculably greater challenge to Russia's own influence and interests in Central Asia than a pro-US Armenia ever would be.

Turkey will always have a linguistic and cultural advantage over Russia in Central Asia. Turkey also does not have the stigma of being the former coloniser and imperial master of the region, unlike Russia, and it would be naive to believe that Ankara in the future would not be behind anti-Russia initiatives in Central Asia, and with the backing of the US.

In the end, both the US and Russia believe the opening of the "Zangezur Corridor" will be to their advantage, but there can only be one winner, and while this game is being played out, 3,000 years of Armenian life in Nagorno-Karabakh is being extinguished.
On Tuesday, when pressed by opposition members about sanctioning Azerbaijan, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told the House of Commons that "everything is on the table," CBC News reported.

"When it comes to sanctions, we always want to act together with other countries because it is important to put pressure on the concerned country," she said. "Use of sanctions is something that can be very efficient.

"We have been following this very closely and we continue to call on Azerbaijan to stop the hostilities. There must be freedom of movement for humanitarian supplies and aid, and civilians must be protected."

Joly added all parties involved in the 2020 ceasefire agreement must honor their commitments and said she has raised these issues at international bodies, including the United Nations General Assembly last week.

She said Canada firmly supports a comprehensive peace treaty, adding Ottawa has committed to sending two experts to a recently launched European Union peacekeeping mission in Armenia.

Canadian lawmakers are calling on the PM Justin Trudeau government to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan in response to its military incursion into Nagorno-Karabakh last week.

"We recognize that Canada doesn't play a huge role in this [geographical] area. But this is something we can do, this is something the Canadian government can do, to express our dismay, to express that we are seeing civilians being targeted," Canadian MP Heather McPherson told CBC News.

She and fellow MP Alexandre Boulerice last week co-authored a letter to Canadian FM Melanie Joly pushing for sanctions.

"As you know, there is no military solution to this conflict. Only diplomatic pressure and comprehensive dialogue will result in a long-term solution," the MPs wrote, adding the Canadian government should consider "targeted sanctions on Azerbaijani individuals and entities responsible for violations of international law and human rights abuses in the region."

"Canada's sanctions regime has its faults," said Canadian lawmaker Stephane Bergeron during a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday. "But it is an efficient way to place pressure on foreign governments.

"What are we waiting for to sanction Azerbaijan for its inadmissible behavior toward not only Armenia, but its civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh?"
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Many in Armenia want to lose Russia and make new friends, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with TASS.

"But first of all, historically, geographically, geopolitically it is impossible to lose Russia in the sense of completely ignoring its interests in Transcaucasia.

But such hopes are nurtured by some leaders in Yerevan and they speak about it directly. In fact, a similar idea popped, slipped in the recent speech of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who spoke about the need to compensate for the failed alliances on which Armenia relied in terms of ensuring its security, and to expand the circle of partners who will ensure this security," Lavrov said.

According to the Russian Foreign Minister, if Armenia relies on the United States, "as, in general, directly follows from the statements of many representatives of the Armenian leadership, then, perhaps, it would be good for them to look at the recent history, how the United States treated those whom it sought to take under its wing, promoting its geopolitical interests in areas of the world far from American shores.

"The fate of all these people is very, very unenviable," he concluded.
U.S. representatives are in Azerbaijan today where they emphasized a number of things, the same things that the Secretary of State emphasized yesterday in his conversation with President Aliyev, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a briefing today.

"And I repeated them, which is number 1, we want a ceasefire maintained, number 2, we want humanitarian needs met. This means keeping the Lachin corridor open for humanitarian supplies, and it means keeping the international monitoring mission to ensure that humanitarian needs are met. And I will say that we did welcome the comments from the government of Azerbaijan shortly before I came to this podium that they would welcome the kind of international monitoring mission that the Secretary of State was pushing for in his conversation with the President, and we're pleased to see that he has agreed to that. And we will work with allies and partners the coming days will show exactly what this mission will look like," Miller said.

At the same time, according to the US State Department spokesman, Washington ultimately wants to see "a return to the negotiating table where they (the parties) can achieve a dignified lasting peace."
SIUs Banned Books Week events feature readings, Freedom of the Press collection

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill.  A community read-in, panel discussion and a presentation on First Amendment freedoms are the focal points as Southern Illinois University Carbondales Morris Library recognizes Banned Books Week Oct. 2-6.

On Monday, Oct. 2, Morris Library, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and Carbondale Public Library will hold a community read-in and panel discussion from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. in the rotunda adjacent to the John C. Guyon Auditorium as part of the ACLU of Illinois statewide Banned Books Week. On Friday, Oct. 6, from noon to 1 p.m., Aaron Lisec, a research specialist with Morris Librarys Special Collections Research Center, will hold a presentation on the librarys McCoy press freedom collection in the librarys Hall of Presidents and Chancellors. The events are free and open to the public.

We hope that the audience will think more deeply about their hard won right to freedom of speech and freedom to follow their curiosity wherever it leads, said John Pollitz, dean of library affairs at SIU Carbondale. We hope they learn more about the resources available to them in the Special Collections Research Center and our history in supporting the right to free speech.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since the organization began compiling data more than 20 years ago, Pollitz said, and book challenges are up 16% between January and August 2023, compared to the same period a year ago. In Illinois, there were 43 documented attempts to restrict access directed at 69 unique titles, with the most challenged being the 2019 book Gender Queer: A Memoir.

Teachers and librarians regularly face challenges to the books they assign in the classroom or have in their collections, Pollitz said. Public university libraries have less exposure to these challenges as they are expected to represent all sides of topics.

Gov. JB Pritzker in June signed legislation that made Illinois the first state in the nation to outlaw book bans. Pollitz said Morris Library has incorporated the ALAs Library Bill of Rights into its mission statement.

Readings, discussion highlight Oct. 2 program

During the read-in, organizers will discuss book banning and censorship challenges in Illinois and across the country, read from favorite banned books and share resources on speaking at public forums.

Jennifer Horton, associate dean in SIUs Library Affairs; Kevin Fee, the ACLU of Illinois special counsel; Jennifer Robertson, Carbondale Public Library director, and Ed Yohnka, ACLU of Illinois director of communications and public policy, will discuss the importance of engaging around ideas of censorship.

SIU Carbondale is hosting one of the five read-ins around the state. Pre-registration is encouraged but not required.

McCoy collection featured on Oct. 6

Lisec will discuss the history of Morris Librarys Freedom of the Press collection, established by the librarys first director and journalism professor, Ralph E. McCoy. The collection, housed in the Special Collections Research Center, consists of thousands of books, pamphlets, manuscripts and letters that document the history of censorship in the English-speaking world over the last four centuries. Recent additions to the collection include an emphasis on books that have been banned or challenged, said Anne Marie Hamilton-Brehm, associate dean of library affairs.

Lisec will also discuss how McCoy established the banned book collection and why it was vital to preserve challenged books then as it is now, Hamilton-Brehm said.

Books from the collection will be on display in glass cases.

Morris Library, opened in 1956, is SIUs sixth library dating back to the universitys charter in 1869. The library purchased McCoys renowned collection in 1981 during Morris Librarys 25th anniversary.
PNN Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India] September 27:The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Room to Read India partnered with the Rajasthan State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to publish 27 childrens storybooks, which will promote reading skills and reading habits among children. These age-appropriate, high-quality storybooks - nine books each in Hindi, Wagdi, and Garasiya languages were produced in collaboration with primary school teachers and will be distributed in schools across Rajasthan by the SCERT. The books were formally launched at an event today in Jaipur by Dr. Bulaki Das Kalla, the Honourable Minister for Department of Education (Primary and Secondary), Department of Sanskrit Education, Art, Literature, Culture and Archaeology, and Primary Education Department under Panchayati Raj, Government of Rajasthan. Alexandria Huerta, Deputy Mission Director, USAID, said, Education is a foundational driver of development outcomes. Children who are prepared with the skills they need for life and work can drive progress for themselves, their families, their communities, and their countries. USAID is happy to collaborate with the Rajasthan government and Room to Read India to improve reading outcomes among primary grade children in the state. Simmi Sikka, Associate Director, Quality Reading Material, Room to Read India, said, "Room to Read has long been creating age-appropriate storybooks for children, in regional languages. Through USAIDs support, we are now also developing quality storybooks for young readers in languages native to Rajasthan, which will help address multilingualism. The books were produced through the USAID funded Scaling-up Early Reading Intervention (SERI) project being implemented by Room to Read India. This activity is aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) and National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy or the (NIPUN Bharat Mission). The project has showcased substantial reading improvement among early-grade students at scale and is currently working towards institutionalizing the principles and practices within government systems. To further this cause, the SERI team is actively engaging in critical areas such as curriculum development, teaching materials development, teacher training, assessment, capacity building, children's literature development, and community engagement. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
ATK New Delhi [India], September 27: CSIR - Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, Uttarakhand is organising a three days training course on 'Design of Fire Protection Measures' during September 25-27 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. This course is planned to provide an overview of fire codes/ design considerations with respect to Active systems, Passive systems, and Life Safety measures that must be provided in a building and how to assess a building's compliance with those codes. Most commonly used Active fire protection systems in the built environment include systems in the built environment include Standpipe systems, sprinkler systems and detection systems. Fire officers / Safety Officers / Designers should know facts to look upon while designing / approving for installation of sprinkler system in a particular type of built environment. This becomes more important in densely populated occupancies like hospitals, metros, offices and hazardous occupancies like in industries and stores / warehouses, car parks etc. It has been observed that in appropriate installation of these systems may render them ineffective or useless in time of need. Little effort is made to compartmentalize the building in order to prevent fire and smoke from spreading both horizontally and vertically resulting in death of people due to asphyxiation. There is a lack of understanding of impact of fire on structural elements. Therefore, this endeavour is to make aware the fire officers/ safety people/ designers to brush up their existing knowledge with the current state of art in Fire Protection Systems. The event was inaugurated by Krishna S Vatsya, Member, NDMA and Prof. R. Pradeep Kumar, Director, CSIR-CBRI in the presence of Dr Sohrab Jain, Dr Harpal Singh & Dr R. Dharmaraju; training coordinators & Skill Nodal. In his inaugural speech, Director CSIR-CBRI has emphasized on the safety, sustainability and Functionality of the buildings with special reference to fire safety. He also suggested to focus on fire preventive measures like preparedness, prevention & mitigation to avoid human life losses in case of fire incidents. Subsequently, Krishna S Vatsya; Chief Guest of the programme was highlighted the significance of CBRIs role and its specific fire research laboratory. He also quoted the Honble Prime Minister vision of becoming India a developed nation by 2057. India must strictly focus on adopting fire safety measures by implementing fire Safety standards, building codes & regulations to become a disaster free nation. He also suggested that, detailed report and NOC must be given to commercial buildings like hospitals by conducting regular fire audits and thorough investigation and those vitals must be uploaded on national portal for transparency related to fire hazards. He also invites CSIR-CBRI to organize such trainings in collaboration with NDMA for wider circulation and to cover maximum beneficiaries across the nation. Dr Shorab Jain, Senior Principal Scientist & Co-Coordinator of the training course while talking to the participants he apprised about the importance of fire protection measures required for reduction of damage and loss due to fire incidences and also, he gave brief overview of the course content and structure. Dr Harpal Singh, Chief Scientist briefed about the world class Fire safety and engineering facilities created at CSIR-CBRI and services offered to the society. Dr R. Dharmaraju, Chief Scientist highlighted the importance of transforming CSIR-CBRI research & development outcomes to the end-users through skill training/dissemination to upgradation of knowledge to build substantiable habitat. Lastly, Dr Achal Mittal, Chief Scientist proposed the vote of thanks and also during the event Prof. S.K. Singh, Chief Scientist, Nadeem Ahmad, Sr. Principal Scientist & co coordinator and others. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by ATK. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
The port handled three ISO containers, each carrying Green Ammonia, weighing a total of 37.4 tons, which arrived from Damietta Port, Egypt. This environmentally friendly milestone is a significant step towards sustainable industrial practices, read the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways press release.

Traditionally, Grey Ammonia has been the standard choice for soda ash production. However, in a forward-looking Go Green initiative, M/s. Tuticorin Alkali Chemical and Fertilizers Ltd (TFL) opted to import Green Ammonia for the production of Green soda ash, initially on a trial basis.

TFL plans to import 2000 metric tons of Green Ammonia this year, provided a sufficient supply of Green Ammonia is available.

On September 24, the V.O. Chidambaranar Port set a new record by handling a remarkable 2,01,204 metric tons of cargo in a single day, surpassing its previous single-day record of 2,00,642 metric tons on August 26, 2023, read the press release.

The major cargo categories contributing to this achievement included Containers (1,03,528 tons), Thermal coal (35,018 tons), industrial coal (27,233 tons), Limestone (12,868 tons), Sulphuric acid (10,930 tons), and Other commodities (11,627 tons).

Bimal Kumar Jha, Chairman (i/c) of the V.O. Chidambaranar Port Authority, expressed his pride in the port's Green Port initiatives. He also commended the efforts of port business partners and stakeholders who are actively promoting the use of eco-friendly products to reduce the carbon footprint, read the press release.

Chairman Jha extended congratulations to TFL for their pioneering green initiative and wished them success in their future endeavours.

This historic import of Green Ammonia signifies a significant stride towards environmental sustainability in the industrial sector. It exemplifies the commitment of both industries and ports to adopting greener practices and reducing their impact on the environment. (ANI)
BusinessWire India Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 27: LTIMindtree[NSE: LTIM, BSE: 540005], a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, today announced that it has been certified as Water Positive as part of its commitment to sustainability and responsible corporate citizenship. The company has achieved its 2030 target this year and has been provided with a 2.8 Water Positive Index, a gold standard in auditing and certification, by Green Carbon Energy & Environment Services (GCEES) for the financial year 2022-2023.Water shortage is a significant crisis, and solving this is one of the attainments of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This crisis affects the livelihood of communities and is being increasingly reported as a financial risk to organizations. According to the Water Action decade initiative 2018-2028, there will be a steep fall of around 40 per cent in freshwater availability by 2030, which alongside of rising population will push towards a global water crisis. Today, around 1.7 billion people live in river basins where water usage is far more than its rate of recharge.Data by the United Nations suggests that 40 per cent of the global population is directly affected by water scarcity, and the numbers are predicted to rise in the coming years. These shortages are manifested by a lack of reliable access to safe and affordable water in many urban areas, an increased pressure on water to grow food and sustain livelihoods in rural or semi-rural areas, and a rapid deterioration of the ecosystems that in turn, supply water and depend on water for their proper functioning.At LTIMindtree, our Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) vision reflects our commitment to environmental stewardship, talent development, and community care while pursuing sustainable growth. Our goals are aligned to those of United Nations SDGs as we understand the environmental and economic impact that the impending crises can cause. Our efforts have been continuous and consistent, and we are honored to be certified as a Water Positive organization. We will continue our present initiatives and bring in newer ones to make a significant impact on the environmental crises, saidPaneesh Rao, Chief Sustainability Officer, LTIMindtree.LTIMindtree aligns its sustainability goals and targets with UN SDGs and is consciously working on Sustainable Development Goal 6, indicating targets viz. 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6 comprising of improving water quality, wastewater treatment, and safe reuse, increasingwater-use efficiencyand ensuringfreshwatersupplies, implementingIntegrated Water Resources Management, and protecting and restoring water-relatedecosystems. LTIMindtree has year-on-year targets to maintain water neutrality and positivity for its office locations pan India. Various initiatives in line to mitigate the water usage and balance and surpass it effectively are reducing freshwater consumption, increasing usage of recycled water, establishing rainwater harvesting in the LTIMindtree campuses, and constructing water harvesting structures for the community, which supports farming by increasing crop for two cycles thereby increasing income of farmers too. The freshwater consumption for all LTIMindtree locations is 2,08,974 KL, whereas the water conservation achieved through in-situ rainwater harvesting and community water conservation projects is 5,86,079 KL. This highlights a positive margin between the generation of harvested rainwater and consumption, contributing to the overall Water Positivity goal.LTIMindtrees assessment and certification by GCEES fulfill the requirements of ISO 14046:2014 (Environmental Management-Water footprint principles, requirements, and guidelines). The study is a standalone assessment and not a part of a life cycle assessment, fulfilling the requirements of ESG and SROI principles. LTIMindtree will continue striving to grow its water positive status throughout its sustainability journey. (ADVERTORIAL 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)
NewsVoir McLean (Virginia) [US], September 27:Mars, Incorporated today released The Mars Net Zero Roadmap, a decisive action plan for achieving Net Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its full value chain by 2050. The Mars Roadmap includes a new target reviewed by theScience Based Targets Initiativeto cut emissions by 50% by 2030, from a 2015 baseline, with a pathway to Net Zero by 2050. The company peaked emissions in 2018 and has reduced GHGs in absolute terms by 8% or 2.6 million metric tons against a 2015 baseline, while growing the business 60% during that time. As part of the action plan, Mars will invest over USD 1 billion over the next three years and continue to commit financial resources as needed until Net Zero is achieved. From the farms where food is grown for people and pets to the veterinary clinics where our pets are cared for, Mars is taking immediate action to reduce GHG emissions across its businesses to help build a better, more sustainable future for all. Net Zero refers to a state when greenhouse gases are significantly reduced while ensuring that any other emissions that cant be eliminated are balanced by removals. The roadmap comes after recent findings by the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that it is now or never to take drastic action on climate change to avoid disaster. It comes as a major new Ipsos survey, commissioned by Mars, found that despite current difficult economic circumstances, on average 69% of adults across the worlds seven largest economies think businesses should focus the same amount (32%) or more (37%) on tackling climate change rather than economic challenges. The research involved 14,468 people in the USA, UK, China, Japan, Germany, France, and India. As per the Ipsos survey, nearly half of Indian adults (46%) believe multinational businesses have a great deal of responsibility to make changes that influence climate change. The performance of multinational businesses on actions taken in response to climate change is generally seen as positive, with 57% of Indian adults rating it as good. It also found that nearly half in the world's seven largest economies place a great deal of responsibility on multinational businesses and governments to make changes to address climate change. Full results can be found in the notes to editors below. Poul Weihrauch, Mars CEO said, 2050 can seem to be in the distant future, but the progress we make in the next seven years is critical. My generation of CEOs has the ability and responsibility to deliver actual emission reductions and put business on a clear path to Net Zero by 2050. Thats why Mars is committed to delivering a 50% reduction in GHG by 2030. We cannot wait for the economy to improve; we must push forward with investments that protect our business today and in the future. As I have said before, profit and purpose are not enemies. Investment in climate is not a trade-off between planet and productivity, or between environment and employment. Consumers and our Associates clearly want both - and so do we. Investing in emissions reductions is sound business policy, it is achievable, affordable, and it is absolutely necessary. Poul Weihrauch continued, Companies must be judged - Mars included - on the actual results we deliver against our climate plans, not just the scale of the commitment we make - just as we are judged by our boards and investors on the delivery of financial results, not the quality of our financial forecasts. Barry Parkin, Mars Chief Sustainability and Procurement Officer, said, Mars has always followed science, and science says we must cut our emissions across our full value chain by 50% by 2030. Science points us to five fundamentals that Net Zero roadmaps should consider to deliver real impact, for example that there is no place for exclusions or exceptions and that we must prioritize performance over promises. In preparing our roadmap, weve learned that this is both entirely possible to deliver with existing science and technology as well as entirely affordable. We can both grow our business and cut emissions. I hope our roadmap clearly and powerfully demonstrates what Mars is doing and, critically, what we believe needs to happen at scale to help tackle the worst impacts of climate change. With an emissions footprint of a country the size of Finland, Mars aims by 2030 to reduce its emissions by 50% in absolute terms, or approximately 15 million metric tons, building on the 8% GHG reduction to date. The Mars Net Zero Roadmap includes details about how we believe Net Zero is achievable for Mars and serves as an open-source strategy companies across sectors can use to implement meaningful Net Zero action immediately. This means including all emissions, prioritizing performance over promises, advancing progress with real milestones, making decisions today that reverberate tomorrow, and covering what cant be cut with high-quality carbon credits. To achieve Net Zero, Mars will accelerate its focus on: * Transitioning to 100% renewable energy - by changing how it powers its factories, offices and veterinary hospitals, addressing energy used by farmers, how it sources ingredients, and even the energy used by customers (retailers) and by consumers and pet owners at home. * Redesigning its supply chains to stop deforestation - by enhancing transparency and traceability of key ingredients such as cocoa, soy, and beef. * Scaling up initiatives in climate smart agriculture - by working with farmers on regenerative agriculture, optimizing sourcing, and switching to renewables. * Optimizing recipes - developing new lower GHG-footprint ingredients for snacks and human-food dishes, as well as alternative proteins for pet food. * Improving and optimizing logistics - redesigning networks, the type of transport Mars relies on and the energy sources used, e.g., electrification of vehicles or potential green hydrogen. * Embedding climate action in the business - embedding climate reductions into its governance and business planning, including it as a shareholder objective, in variable remuneration plans of senior executives, in investment planning processes, in its merger and acquisition strategy, etc. Anyone interested in learning more about Mars Net Zero strategy and roadmap can download the document at www.mars.com/netzero2050. For more information and full results from Ipsos, visit:www.ipsos.com/en-uk/perceptions-businesses-focus-economic-challenges-vs-climate-change. Mars, Incorporated is driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. As a global, family-owned business, Mars is transforming, innovating, and evolving to make a positive impact on the world. Across our diverse and expanding portfolio of quality snacking, food, and pet care products and services, we employ 140,000+ dedicated Associates. With more than USD 47 billion in annual sales, we produce some of the worlds best-loved brands including Bens Original, CESAR, Cocoavia, DOVE, EXTRA, KIND, M&Ms, SNICKERS, PEDIGREE, ROYAL CANIN, and WHISKAS. We are creating A Better World for Pets through our global network of pet hospitals and diagnostic services - including AniCura, BANFIELD, BLUEPEARL, Linnaeus and VCA - using cutting edge technology to develop breakthrough programs in genetic health screening and DNA testing. For more information about Mars, please visitwww.mars.com. Join us onFacebook,Twitter,Instagram,LinkedInandYouTube. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) [India], September 27: Indias most trusted luxury furniture brand Durian Furniture opened a store in Visakhapatnam on 26th August 2023. This is their 1st store in the state of Andhra Pradesh that showcases high-quality lifestyle furniture pieces designed to elevate modern homes. The store is located at the prime location of Dondaparthy, opposite the Railway DRM Office. This sprawling 7000 sq. ft. franchise store, is owned by Hari Prasad Konchada. Durian Furniture takes immense pride in their commitment to quality and durability. Each furniture piece is expertly crafted to ensure long-lasting performance and aesthetic appeal. The brand's emphasis on meticulous craftsmanship sets it apart, guaranteeing customers furniture that will stand the test of time. Customers at Durian Furniture can also take advantage of various benefits designed to enhance their shopping experience. Expert guidance from knowledgeable staff members ensures that customers find the perfect furniture pieces to complement their spaces. Additionally, flexible payment options, including easy EMIs, make bringing home the furniture of their dreams easier than ever. Durian Furniture also provides hassle-free delivery and installation services, ensuring a seamless experience from purchase to set-up and the 5-year warranty is a testament to their commitment to quality. Durian Furniture provides a wide selection of furniture with over 1000 designs to choose from. Frompremium sofas, stylishdining sets, cozy beds, storage essentials and more, the brand offers an extensive collection that caters to various tastes and preferences. Mindfully designed for modern Indian homes, their furniture is available in various styles including classic, mid-century modern, and contemporary. They also offer exclusive inaugural discounts on selected furniture pieces. This gives an incredible opportunity for customers to furnish their homes and offices with high-quality furniture crafted to last. People looking for premium furniture in Visakhapatnam can visit the showroom for timeless furniture favourites and a superior shopping experience. Furthermore, customers can consult with Durian experts to help them discover furniture pieces that perfectly complement their homes. Address: Eesha Furniture, 1st and 2nd Floor,46-22-26, Opp Railway DRM Office, Dondaparthy, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh- 530016 Contact no: 98486 38947 (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN Washington DC [US], September 27: Sumeru Digital, a pioneering force in Web 3.0 Ecosystems, Blockchain, and AI-ML, is thrilled to announce the launch of FriendNFT at the World Culture Festival (WCF) 2023: US Edition. This monumental event, organized by the globally acclaimed Art of Living Foundation and featuring spiritual luminary Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, is set to take place from September 29 to October 1, 2023, at the iconic National Mall in Washington DC. "Launching FriendNFT at the World Culture Festival is a monumental milestone for us. The festival epitomizes the unity and diversity of global cultures, and FriendNFT aims to extend this unity into the digital realm," said Abhijeet Ranadhir, CEO of Sumeru Digital. FriendNFT: A Revolution in Digital Assets FriendNFT is not just another NFT platform; it's a revolution in how society perceives value in the digital world. The platform allows users to mint NFTs that encapsulate not just unique art but also emotional and social connections. Designed with user-friendliness in mind, FriendNFT makes the concept of NFTs accessible even to those who are new to this digital frontier. "FriendNFT is designed to make NFTs more than just digital assets. We aim to make them tokens of emotional and social value," added Ranadhir. To learn more about FriendNFT, visit (https://myfriendnft.com). Introducing the FriendNFT App for Personal Growth In addition to the platform, Sumeru Digital is launching the FriendNFT App, aimed at fostering personal growth. The app enables users to engage in daily tasks and challenges with their friends, thereby encouraging personal development through social motivation. "The FriendNFT App is a unique blend of technology and personal growth, designed to enrich lives in a meaningful way," added Ranadhir. About the World Culture Festival and Art of Living Foundation The World Culture Festival, organized by the Art of Living Foundation, is an unprecedented event that celebrates the diversity and unity of cultures from around the globe. Previous editions have been nothing short of magnificent, drawing millions of attendees and spreading the message of peace and harmony. The presence of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar adds a spiritual dimension to the event, making it a holistic experience for attendees. Sumeru Digital: Pioneering Web 3.0 Ecosystems Sumeru Digital has been a leader in cutting-edge technologies, including Web 3.0 Ecosystems, Blockchain, and Smart Contracts. "Our in-house team has developed everything from the ground up, and it's incredibly satisfying to witness the vast potential that the Web 3 and NFT space has to offer," said Ranadhir. To learn more about Sumeru Digital, visit https://sumerudigital.com and Web3 Academy, an initiative by Sumeru to train Youths/Professionals in Web 3.0 https://web3acad.com. The Intersection of Technology and Spirituality "The launch of FriendNFT is a groundbreaking step in harmonizing technology with spirituality and personal growth. It's a testament to how technology can enhance our lives in more ways than one," concluded Ranadhir. The unveiling of FriendNFT at the World Culture Festival 2023: US Edition is poised to redefine the NFT landscape and set new benchmarks in the integration of technology, spirituality, and personal growth. "This is a first-of-its-kind initiative for the Art of Living Foundation, and we are exhilarated by the endless possibilities that lie ahead," said Ranadhir. For media inquiries, please contact Abhijeet Ranadhir, CEO, Sumeru Digital.Email: info@sumerudigital.com (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
ATK New Delhi [India], September 27: M-Sya, the rising star in the music industry, is back with his highly anticipated second release, "Bigdi Santaan." Following the success of his debut track, M-Sya has proven that he is not just another artist, but a true force to be reckoned with. "Bigdi Santaan" showcases M-Sya's undeniable talent and rebellious spirit, delivering electrifying beats and captivating rhythms that are sure to leave listeners craving more. The track is a testament to M-Sya's unique style and ability to create music that resonates with audiences everywhere. With his debut song, M-Sya captivated listeners with his raw talent and fresh voice, instantly capturing the attention of music enthusiasts worldwide. The response was overwhelming, propelling him into the spotlight and solidifying his place in the industry. Distributed worldwide by DroomMusic, "Bigdi Santaan" is set to make waves on a global scale. With its infectious melodies and powerful lyrics, the track promises to be an unstoppable hit, further cementing M-Sya's status as a rising star. When asked about his latest release, M-Sya shared, "I am thrilled to share 'Bigdi Santaan' with the world. This song is a reflection of my journey and the obstacles I've overcome. I hope that it resonates with listeners and inspires them to embrace their own individuality, no matter the challenges they face." As M-Sya continues to carve his path in the music industry, one thing is clear - he is a force to be reckoned with. Stay tuned for more electrifying tracks and exciting updates from M-Sya. To stay up to date with M-Sya and his music, follow him on social media and streaming platforms, and visit his official website. Listen to the full song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLq--Wclg2k (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by ATK. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
State IT, Industries, and MA&UD Minister KTR inaugurated Lulu Mall, covering 5 lakh sq. ft. in Hyderabad.

"Congratulations to LuLu Group and all the best to this promising endeavour! Lulu Group's proposed investment of Rs 3,500 crore in Telangana is going to play a vital role in supporting local agricultural and trade sectors and creating more job opportunities for Telangana's youth," KTR said.

Yusuff Ali MA, Managing Director of LuLu Hypermarket, said that we are here because of Minister KTR BRS and the CM KCR. Speaking at the inauguration of LuLu Mall in Hyderabad.

"We are committed to investing Rs 3,500 crores in the next 3 years in a destination shopping mall, mini-malls, agricultural sourcing, logistics and processing hub for facilitating 100 per cent exports and promoting local Telangana products across the country and overseas," Yusuff Ali said.

He also said, "I would like to thank Minister KTR for his support. I met him at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and he was working day and night to bring investments to the state. I'm very impressed with his hard work and dedication to the state." (ANI)
Taking to Instagram, actor Fatima Sana Shaikh shared a new poster of the film which she captioned, 4 ordinary women come together for an extraordinary journey of emotions, adventures and discovery.#DhakDhakin cinemas 13th October.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxrpFWRrlTi/

Helmed by Tarun Dudeja the film stars Fatima Sana Shaikh, Ratna Pathak Shah, Dia Mirza and Sanjana Sanghi in the lead roles.

Dhak Dhak is all set to hit the theatres on October 13.

The poster features all the leading ladies of the film riding motorcycles.

The film's story revolves around four ordinary women who come together for an extraordinary journey of emotions, adventures, and discovery on a bike trip from Delhi to Khardung La. It explores how this journey changed their destinies forever

The film is produced by Viacom 18 and Taapsee Pannu.

Soon after the makers dropped the poster, fans flooded the comment section with red hearts and fire emoticons.

Oyeeee hoyeeeee whistleeeee, a fan commented.

Another fan wrote, looking so fabbb.

Ye toh first day first show karna padega, a user wrote.

Apart from this, Fatima will also be seen in director Anurag Basus film Metro..In Dino and in Meghna Gulzars next Sam Bahadur alongside Vicky Kaushal and Sanya Malhotra.

Sanjana Sanghi on the other hand, will be next seen in 'Pink' fame director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's untitled hindi film. Pankaj Tripathi and Parvathy Thiruvothu are also part of the movie.

According sources, Sanjana and Tripathi will be playing the roles of daughter and father in the film. (ANI)
Twinkle took to Instagram on Wednesday to post a video of their visit to London. She captioned the post, As much as I dislike wearing heels and dressing up, this evening was worth all the damaged toes. @sudha_murthy_official remains my hero, but it was pretty cool meeting her son-in-law, the prime minister :) @rishisunakmp Also put the sound on and hear @andreabocelliofficial Congratulations @anusuya12 and @theowo.london.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxr6CM0M6cC/

The video starts with a performance of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli at an event.

At the end of the video Twinkle and Akshay can be seen posing with UK PM Rishi Sunak.

Akshay and UK PM Sunak chose a formal suit while, Twinkle wore a white dress with a leopard design jacket.

Earlier this month, Rishi Sunak along with his wife Akshata Murty arrived in New Delhi to attend the G20 Summit hosted by India under its Presidency.He along with his wife also offered prayers at Akshardham Temple in New Delhi during the visit.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Akshay will be seen in the drama film Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue.Apart from this, Akshay will also be seen in the Hindi remake of the Tamil drama 'Soorarai Pottru' which is all set to hit the theatres on February 16, 2024.

He also has an action thriller film Bade Miyan Chote Miyan alongside Tiger Shroff and a comedy film Housefull 5 in his kitty. (ANI)
Ace filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt celebrated the 116th birth anniversary of legendary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh at the poster launch of the upcoming play 7:40 Ki Ladies Special on Wednesday. The official page of Drama Talkies took to Instagram to share the poster of 7:40 Ki Ladies Special. The post read, During the poster launch of 7:40 ki Ladies special in Mumbai today. https://www.instagram.com/p/CxsjtbBROI5/?img_index=1 To mark the 116th birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh which will fall on September 28, Bhatt along with the Drama Talkies team, paidtribute to the legendary freedom fighter. On this occasion, Bhagat Singh's nephew Kiran Jeet Singhwas the Guest of Honour. Talking about the play, Mahesh Bhatt said, "The play '7:40 Ki Ladies Special' is very close to my heart. When producer Rajiv Mishra narrated the story, I was quite impressed and just agreed to be associated with this project. This play will definitely prove a milestone for generations to come. On the 116th birthday of great freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, we are also giving a small tribute to the real hero and country's one of the greatest freedom fighters." When spoke about the inspiration behind this story, producer Rajiv Mishra said, Pooja Sharmas life story is quite inspiring. When I learned about the life-changing incident that occurred with her, it shook me from the inside. I respect her skills and talent. The unspoken challenges of transgender persons are discussed in this play, as well as how society reduces a person's identity to their gender. Talking about the play, it is based on the real-life story of Pooja Sharma, a transgender who is also known as Junior Rekha and is popular for her amazing dancing skills. This tale chronicles Pooja's unseen journey prior to her rise to fame and features three crucial events that significantly altered her life. She feels otherwise, but she eventually realises that she is unique and was put in the incorrect body at birth. She leaves her family and her hometown after having a terrible encounter and relocates to Bombay in pursuit of herself. Her life-changing incident occurs when she gets acknowledged and respected for her skills and talent, not by the gender for which she has been fighting. The play puts light on the dark truth behind the glamour and popularity that Pooja has today, as she is still denied basic human needs such as having a house. This play is directed by Viren Basoya, written by Viren Basoya and Sapna Basoya and produced by Rajiv Mishra. The play is ready to be performed on October 28, 2023, at the Mukti Auditorium in Mumbai. (ANI)
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said that the launch of the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) scheme was not only focussed on making citizens but to make them free from the burden of healthcare expenditure. Addressing the valedictory session of the two-day Arogya Manthan 2023, Mansukh Mandaviya said," Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Ayushman Bharat PMJAY five years ago with the vision of creating an Ayushman Bharat where every citizen is not only healthy but also free from the burden of healthcare expenditure. Health Ministry and NITI Ayog celebrated the completion of 5 years of Ayushman Bharat PMJAY, and two years of Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission, here today. Prof. S P Singh Baghel, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare; Keshab Mahanta, Health Minister, Assam and Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog were also present on the occasion. Speaking at the event, Health Minister Mandaviya said that the two days of Arogya Manthan have proved to be an excellent opportunity to deliberate on pertinent issues related to quality healthcare services to the poorest and most vulnerable population of the country. "When PM-JAY was launched, health was not on the top of the agenda for many. But today, we have come a long way in our journey, crossing the milestone of over 5.6 crore hospital admissions worth over Rs. 69,000 crore. We can see the transformational value of AB PMJAY, he said. He also added that many of these hospital admissions have been availed for life-threatening diseases, whose total cost of treatment would have been 1.52 times higher if the beneficiaries had availed the same treatment on their own outside the ambit of AB PMJAY. On the closing day of the two-day Arogya Manthan 2023 event, the Union Health Minister awarded the top-performing States and Union Territories in various categories. Among the various award categories of ABPMJAY, the award for Highest Ayushman Card Creation was earned by Assam, Nagaland, and Jammu & Kashmir. Karnataka and Tripura secured the accolade for the Highest Percentage of Utilization in Public Hospitals. "For Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Andhra Pradesh was awarded as the Top State in Linking Health Records with ABHA, while Uttar Pradesh emerged as the Top State in Generation of ABHA Scan and Share Tokens of the numerous award categories," an official statement said. While presenting the awards to the outstanding states, districts, integrators, and health facilities, Mandaviya emphasized the significance of the Ayushman Bharat initiative in putting women at the front and centre of the national conversation on health. He highlighted that females account for approximately 49 per cent of Ayushman card recipients, verified under the PMJAY IT platform. More than 48 per cent of authorized hospital admissions have been availed by women while over 141 medical procedures under PMJAY are exclusively earmarked for women. The Union Health Minister stated that ensuring delivery of Ayushman Card to all eligible beneficiaries is fundamental to the schemes development. On this note, he pointed out the launch of two new initiatives, Aapke Dwar Ayushman (ADA 3.0) launched by NHA and the Ayushman Bhav campaign launched by the President of India on September 13, 2023. These two initiatives are designed to give a further push to increasing health coverage in the country. Mandaviya also stated that the ABDM, which was started on 27 September 2021, is a very ambitious government program aimed at constructing a digital highway connecting all the important players in healthcare ecosystems. He highlighted that more than 45 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA) have been generated in the last two years. These ABHA accounts have been linked to over 30 crore health records. The scheme attempts to improve healthcare delivery by harnessing digital technologies, he stated. "As old as the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana itself, the first beneficiary of the scheme in the country, 5 years old Karishma was felicitated today at Arogya Manthan 2023 by Union Health Minister Dr Mandaviya," an official statement said. Minister of State SP Singh Baghel emphasized the significance of information technology in achieving the Prime Minister's vision of accessible health care throughout the country. He also outlined plans to connect every village in India through high-speed optical fiber in the coming years, a development that would ensure widespread connectivity and continuous access to healthcare services. Dr VK Paul stated that the AB PM-JAY and the ABDM are two pathbreaking health initiatives of the Union Government. He urged the private sector to participate more actively in these two initiatives and contribute to nation-building. He also emphasized making strategic purchases of medical equipment to save the cost of treatment. (ANI)
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath on Tuesday said that the mission to the brightest planet in the solar system, Venus is already configured adding that payloads have been developed for the future mission. Addressing the Indian National Science Academy in Delhi, ISRO chief Somanath said, "We have a lot of missions in the conceptual phase. A mission to Venus is already configured. Payloads have already developed for it." ISRO chairman further stated that Venus is an interesting planet and exploring it will help answer certain questions in the field of space science. "Venus is a very interesting planet. It also has an atmosphere. Its atmosphere is so thick. The atmospheric pressure is 100 times that of Earth and it is full of acids. You cannot penetrate the surface. You don't know if its surface is hard or not. Why are we trying to understand all of this? Earth could be one day Venus. I don't know. Maybe 10,000 years later we (Earth) change our characteristics. Earth was never like this. It was not a habitable place long long back," he said. Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is Earths closest planetary neighbor. Its one of the four inner, terrestrial (or rocky) planets, and its often called Earths twin because its similar in size and density. More recent Venus missions include ESAs Venus Express (which orbited from 2006 until 2016) and Japans Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter (orbiting since 2016). NASAsParker Solar Probehas made multiple flybys of Venus. On Feb. 9, 2022, NASA announced the spacecraft had captured itsfirst visible light imagesof the surface of Venus from space during its February 2021 flyby. Meanwhile, following the triumphant soft landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the lunar South Pole, ISRO launched the Aditya-L1 Mission to study the Sun in unprecedented detail. In only six decades, India has rapidly ascended as a global frontrunner in space technology and exploration, with much credit attributed to the ISRO. ISRO's laurels extend to space exploration as well, with feats like the Chandrayaan missions for lunar exploration, the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) in 2013India's inaugural interplanetary expeditionand the initiation of AstroSat in 2015, marking the country's first dedicated astronomical pursuit. (ANI)
"The award was given to Nita Ambani from Rotary Club of Bombay in recognition of her enduring contributions by creating transformative institutions in healthcare, education, sports, arts, and culture," Reliance Foundation posted on X (formerly Twitter).

After receiving the recognition, Nita Ambani said," I accept this award with all humility and with great admiration for the Rotary Club of Bombay's immense contribution to our city and the community."

"My family's association with Rotary spans decades, right from the time my father-in-law Shri Dhirubhai Ambani became an Honorary Rotarian in 1969, followed by Mukesh in 2003. This is my 25th year as a Rotarian. I have cherished this journey with you over the years," Nita Ambani said. (ANI)
The Law Commission of India is all set to hold a meeting with all its members on Wednesday to finalise its report on the issue of holding simultaneous elections in the country. Also, the Commission under the chairmanship of Justice Rituraj Awasthi will meet to finalise the Commission's recommendation and clear its stand on the simultaneous elections, on the minimum age of consent under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and on the law to provide for online filing of First Information Reports (FIR). After the finalisation of the recommendations on the issues, the 22nd Law Commission will be sending its reports to the Ministry of Law and Justice. Sources privy to the development have informed ANI that 'One Nation One Election' would be beneficial not only in the national interest but would also save a lot of the financial reserves of the government. Another observation that the Commission recieved is that voter turnout increases when elections are held after a substantial period of time implying that simultaneous elections could actually result in higher voter turnouts, according to Law Commission sources. In the meeting on Wednesday, the Commission will also finalise its report on the question of whether the age of consent under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act can be reduced from 18 to 16. The Law Commission is currently of the view that the same can't be done, however, the Commission would be craving out some exceptions in this regard, the sources said. The High-Level Committee constituted recently to examine the issue of holding simultaneous elections in the country and make recommendations thereon held its preliminary meeting here under the chairmanship of former President Ram Nath Kovind on September 23, 2023. Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, Minister of State (Independent Charge) from the Ministry of Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, former Rajya Sabha leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission NK Singh, former Lok Sabha Secretary General Subhash Kashyap, former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Sanjay Kothari attended the meeting. Senior Advocate Harish Salve had joined the meeting virtually. The leader of the single largest party in the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was not present in the meeting. Welcoming the members of the High-Level Committee, the Chairman of the Committee Ram Nath Kovind outlined the agenda of the meeting. Outlining the modalities of working of the Committee, the Committee decided to invite recognised national political parties, political parties in power in different states, political parties having their representatives in Parliament and other recognised state political parties to seek suggestions or viewpoints on the issue of simultaneous elections in the country. The Committee was put together ahead of the assembly elections to five states later this year and the Lok Sabha polls next year, setting off speculations that the polls might be held at the same time. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pitched the idea of 'One Nation, One Election' on several occasions. In November 2020, PM Modi, addressing a conference of presiding officers, said, One Nation, One Election is a necessity for India. There is an election every month in the country, hampering development. Why should so much public money be wasted on holding elections?" (ANI)
The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday is conducting major raids across 6 states in 3 cases at 51 locations belonging to associates of Lawrence, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla Gangs. In the early hours of Wednesday, NIA conducted a swift raid on the house of a liquor contractor in the village Takhtupura of Moga district in Punjab. Gangster Arsh Dala had demanded ransom from this contractor and this contractor had given some part of the ransom to Arsh Dala. In this regard, NIA is conducting an inquiry, sources said. The NIA also raided a gun house in the Bajpur police station area of Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand.NIA has raided another house in the Clementown police station area of Dehradun district of Uttarakhand. According to the information received from Dehradun Police, the NIA team is conducting raids since this morning. According to the information received from the state police, the NIA team is checking the weapons in the gun house. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had also issued details of 43 individuals associated with the terror gangster network having links to Canada. The NIA further asked the public to share details of their properties and assets which can be taken over by the central government. The NIA also requested to share details about the properties/assets/businesses owned by them in their own name or in the name of their associates, friends and relatives. It has also asked to share details of their business partners, workers, employees and collection agents. The NIA in its post issued pictures of Lawrence Bishnoi, Jasdeep Singh, Kala Jatheri alias Sandeep, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana and Joginder Singh along with their names. It highlighted that many of these gangsters are based in Canada. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had earlier confiscated properties owned by designated Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in Chandigarh and Amritsar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. A property confiscation notice was seen pasted outside Pannun's residence at Sector 15 in Chandigarh. Earlier on September 21 the agency had conducted raids at more than 1000 locations in Punjab and Haryana associated with fugitive gangster Goldy Brar. Punjab police officers along with the NIA had carried out the operation. Goldy Brar is among the most wanted gangsters named by the NIA. He is also suspected to be behind the recent killing of another gangster Sukha Dunike who was shot dead in the Canadian city of Winnipeg. Several of these wanted gangsters are said to be operating out of Canada, with close links between Khalistan sympathisers and gangsters. In 2018, during Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to Amritsar, India had handed him over a list of nine Khalistani operatives said to be in Canada. (ANI)
Chittor Police in Andhra Pradesh have issued an order warning against spreading misinformation in connection with the death of a 16-year-old girl in Venugopaapuram village. The body of the girl was found in a partially decomposed state inside a well on October 20, three days after she was reported missing from her house in Venugopalapuram village in Chittoor, the police said. Following a complaint from the victims family, the police registered a case and began an investigation, Chittoor Additional Superintendent of Police Srilakshmi told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday. Villagers spotted the girls body in the well during the rituals of the Ganesha idol immersion and immediately informed the police and also pulled out the body from the well, the officials said. Based on a complaint by the girls family, police have taken four men into custody on suspicion of killing the girl they said adding that an interrogation of the suspects is underway. Police said that according to the forensic report, there was no mention of rape or any other injury on the body of the deceased. Based on the call details/technical analysis and circumstantial evidence we are interrogating four suspects in this case, we are also interrogating them. No matter who the accused are, strict action will be taken. Action will be taken against whoever posts news without facts and spreads misinformation regarding this, the Additional SP added. Bharata Chaitanya Yuvajana (BCY) party chief Ramachandra Yadav visited the deceased gilrs family in Venugopalapuram village. Yadav has alleged that false cases are being filed against the Opposition while the murder of a minor girl is being sidelined by the police. Even if a woman is the home minister, justice is not being served to the girl child. The BCY party stands by the victims family. Those responsible for the murder should be arrested and punished, the BCY party chief said. (ANI)
Bhuvaneswari is visiting the temples and churches in the district and offering special prayers for the release of former AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who continues to be in judicial custody.

People also gathered inside the Church with banners in their hands, condemning the arrest of Chandrababu Naidu.

Earlier, reacting to the arrest of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu in the multi-crore skill development scam case, his wife Nara Bhuvaneswari said that her husband has now been jailed for 17 days on false corruption charges.

As part of the ongoing protest, Nara Bhuvaneswari participated in a relay hunger strike organized by women in the Jaggampeta area of the Kakinada district on Monday.

Speaking on the occasion, Bhuvaneswari said, "It has been 17 days since the unethical arrest of TDP Chief and former Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu in false cases filed by the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRC) government."

The wife of the TDP Chief further questioned whether Chandrababu Naidu's mistake was working hard for Andhra Pradesh and its people. She expressed strong hope that the former CM would come out of prison like a lion and continue to serve the people.

Naidu is currently in judicial custody at Rajamahendravaram Central Prison after his remand was extended till October 5 on Sunday by the Anti-Corruption Bureau court (ACB) in Vijayawada in the multi-crore skill development scam case.

The case involves alleged misappropriation in the establishment of clusters of Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in the state of Andhra Pradesh, with a total estimated project value of Rs 3,300 crore.

Agency officials claimed that the alleged fraud had caused a huge loss to the Andhra Pradesh State government in excess of Rs 300 crore.

The Supreme Court on Monday asked counsel of Naidu to mention his plea seeking to quash the FIR registered against him in the skill development scam case. A Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna is scheduled to hear the plea on September 27.

Naidu had approached the Supreme Court against the High Court order which declined to quash the FIR on Friday. (ANI)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah expressed his disappointment on the recommendation of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) which has directed Karnataka to ensure the release of 3000 cusecs of Cauvery water at Biligundlu starting from September 28 upto October 15, 2023. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said, "Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) ordered to release 3000 cusecs of water, I have already spoken to our advocates. They have suggested us to challenge this order in the Supreme Court. We will challenge it in the Supreme Court. We don't have water to release to Tamil Nadu. We are challenging the orders of the CWRC." CM Siddaramaiah further said that he had prayed at Mahadeshwara temple for more rain as 194 taluqs have been announced drought-prone. On Karnataka Bandh dated September 29CM Siddaramaiah said, "Any protest is allowed in democracy, let them do it. But SC clearly said that any bandh and processions that disturb the livelihoods of others must not be held. BJP and JDS are always doing politics on this issue." BJP leaders meanwhile are hold a protest against the Karnataka government over the Cauvery water release to Tamil Nadu, in Bengaluru. JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy also joined in the protest. JD(S) and BJP recently announced a pre-poll alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. A Karnataka Bandh has been called on September 29 after the CWRC ordered the Karnataka government to continue releasing water to Tamil Nadu. JD(S) supremo Deve Gowda had earlier written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in the issue. "I hope and trust PM Modi that he will take action and see that further damage does not take place as far as Karnataka is concerned," says JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda over his letter to PM Modi on Cauvery water dispute. The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) had ordered Karnataka to ensure release of 3000 cusecs of Cauvery water at Biligundlu starting from September 28 upto October 15, 2023. The amount of water to be released was earlier 5000 cusecs. (ANI)
New Delhi [India], September 27: The Ministry of Tourism (Northern Region), marked the occasion of World Tourism Day 2023 with a grand launch of the 'Travel for LiFE' campaign alongside the renowned 'Incredible India' initiative. According to the Ministry of Tourism, the campaign has been unveiled in the Delhi Metro, with a vibrant display on both the exterior and interior of selected metro trains on the Yellow and Blue lines. A splendid flag-off ceremony scheduled for September 27, at the Dwarka Sector 21 Metro Station, commenced at 08:15 AM. Ajay Bhatt, Minister of State for Tourism and Defence, flagged off the Delhi Metro Train, adorned with captivating graphics both inside and outside, symbolizing the essence of the 'Travel for LiFE' campaign. The event witnessed the participation of various stakeholders and distinguished guests, including representatives from the Press Information Bureau (PIB), figures from the travel trade media, dedicated Incredible India Tourist Guides, tour operators and travel agents. Additionally, members from the Delhi Metro management, enthusiastic students from the Yuva Tourism Club, and senior officials from the Ministry of Tourism were there at the event. Bhatt took the opportunity to shed light on the significance of the 'Travel for LiFE' campaign, emphasizing its alignment with PM Modi's vision of encouraging individuals to explore the vast and diverse world around them. He highlighted the importance of maintaining a clean environment during travel, underscoring that responsible tourism entails leaving a positive impact wherever one ventures. Bhatt said, The prime minister's "travel for life" objective is for man to explore the cosmos. We are currently in the march; note the number of written slogans here. The Travel for Life mission that we have outlined here has been embraced by everyone on a global scale. Because we will always go places where they are clean, we should keep our surroundings tidy. This mission entails companionship, such as introductions, sharing of cultural knowledge, etc. This campaign invites travellers to foster companionship and cultural exchange as they journey through different destinations. The 'Travel for LiFE' initiative carries the message of promoting responsible and sustainable tourism. Through eye-catching visuals and thought-provoking slogans displayed both inside and outside Delhi Metro trains, it aims to inspire travellers to explore the world while being mindful of the environment and local cultures. This campaign reinforces the idea that responsible travel is not just a journey; it's a mission to create a cleaner, more connected, and culturally enriched world. As the campaign unfolds within the Delhi Metro network, it is expected to captivate commuters, locals, and tourists alike, encouraging them to embrace the essence of responsible travel and make each journey an enriching experience for themselves and the destinations they visit. (ANI)
A case has been registered under Mahakal police station in the district against unknown people in which rape incident has come to light and it has been confirmed in a medical examination, said Sachin Sharma, Superintendent of Police (SP) Ujjain on Wednesday.

The minor was found in an unconscious state in Murlipura area under Mahakal police station limits in the district, according to police.

Seeing her soaked in blood, locals informed police, which reached the spot and took the girl to the hospital where a medical examination confirmed she was raped.

In this case, due to the critical condition of the girl, she was referred to Indore. A policeman also donated blood as she had lost a lot of blood, said Sachin Sharma, Superintendent of Police (SP, Ujjain).

A SIT (Special Investigation Team) has been formed and an investigation is underway, the police official said.

The SP also made an appeal to the public to inform the police if they have information about the incident.

The girl did not give any specific details about where she is from, but through her language and dialect it seems likely she hails from Prayagraj, Sharma said. (ANI)
AIIB approves 3 new members at annual meeting in Egypt

Xinhua) 08:59, September 27, 2023

Participants pose for photos during the eighth annual meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Sept. 26, 2023. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) now has 109 members after its Board of Governors approved the applications of El Salvador, Solomon Islands and Tanzania on Tuesday.

The bank approved the applications of the three economies during its eighth annual meeting held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the AIIB said in a statement.

This photo taken on Sept. 25, 2023 shows a display board of the eighth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)

"AIIB has a track record of successful collaborations with our members," said AIIB President and Chair of the Board of Directors Jin Liqun, adding that the addition of the three economies "will strengthen the AIIB community and support our collective mission to finance infrastructure for tomorrow."

The three countries will officially join the AIIB once they complete the required domestic processes and deposit the first capital installment with the bank, the statement said.

AIIB members now collectively account for 81 percent of the world's population and 65 percent of global gross domestic product, it reads.

Photo taken on Jan. 13, 2021 shows the headquarters building of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

The AIIB is a multilateral development bank whose mission is to finance the infrastructure that prioritizes sustainability. It began its operations in Beijing in January 2016.

The two-day annual meeting of the AIIB kicked off on Monday under the theme "Sustainable Growth in a Challenging World."

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Photo: Rob Kruyt. Cold medications sit on a shelf at Shoppers Drug Mart in Vancouver

B.C. resident Hardeep Dhaliwal is suing drugmakers and retailers for unjustly enriching themselves, and for misrepresenting how effective products with phenylephrine are at decongesting nasal passages.



His action follows news earlier this month that a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel concluded that taking phenylephrine orally does not relieve nasal congestion because it metabolizes too quickly in the stomach to deliver benefits, unlike nasal sprays, which are effective.



Dhaliwals lawsuit names drug companies: Johnson & Johnson Inc., Proctor & Gamble Inc., GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare ULC and RB Health (Canada) Inc.



It also names retailers: Shoppers Drug Mart Inc., Wal-Mart Canada Corp., Amazon.com.ca Inc., London Drugs Ltd. and Loblaw Co. Ltd. / Les Compagnies Loblaw Limitee.



Phenylephrine is a common ingredient in household medications such as Benylin, DayQuil, Tylenol, NeoCitran, Robitussin and Mucinex.



The nasal decongestant phenylephrine metabolizes in the stomach before it reaches the nasal cavity, Dhaliwal claims in his lawsuit.



In manufacturing and/or selling oral cold and flu medicines containing phenylephrine as an active ingredient, the defendants have breached the Competition Act, RSC 1985.



He added that selling the medications also breached Canadas Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act.



Dhaliwal said in his lawsuit that, for approximately 20 years, he routinely bought for personal use products such as Benylin Extra Strength Cold and Sinus Night, Vicks DayQuil Cold & Flu Multi-Symptom Relief Liquicaps and NeoCitran Cold & Sore Throat Night at Shoppers Drug Mart during the winter and spring.



He filed his Sept. 22 lawsuit through class-action lawyers at Slater Vecchio LLP on his own behalf and on behalf of all Canadian residents outside Quebec who purchased for personal use any of a range of cold medicines that contain phenylephrine between Dec. 31, 1989, and Sept. 22 to use.



Slater Vechhio LLP has filed a separate lawsuit in Quebec.



Dhaliwal and his lawyers seek damages and costs and that BC Supreme Court issue an order to certify the court action under the Class Proceedings Act.



Consumer-related potential class-action lawsuits can take more than two years get certified, or to have a court say that the cases meet all necessary criteria.



If the court certifies this case, all people who bought the cold medicines in the referenced time period are automatically included as being potential beneficiaries in a potential settlement.



Specific details, such as whether beneficiaries must show receipts for purchases, would be included in the settlement. Drug retailers may have customer loyalty programs that keep records of consumer purchases and that may be one way that shoppers could prove that they bought the products.



None of the claims in Dhaliwals lawsuit has been proven in court.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP in Rajya Sabha Lahar Singh Siroya on Wednesday urged the Chief Ministers of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to meet and steer the discussion on the ongoing Cauvery water-sharing dispute. In a letter addressing Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, the Prime Ministers Office, and Chief Secretaries of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, MP Siroya stated that it is best to view the issue as a humanitarian crisis to be addressed maturely by two state governments. We should at least break the old cycle of seeing the sharing of Cauvery River water as a regional conflict and a major dispute. This conflicting approach has been prevalent for decades. Instead, it is best to view it as a humanitarian crisis to be addressed maturely by two state governments. There should be no scope for politics and rhetoric in this matter, the BJP MP said in his letter. He further stated, I once again urge the two Chief Ministers to meet at the earliest and steer the discussion on this crisis created by Mother Nature in a different direction. Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders are staging a protest near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru against the Karnataka governments decision to release water to Tamil Nadu following the orders of Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC). Yediyurappa is accompanied by Parliamentary Committee member DV Sadanand Gowda, former Deputy CM Ashwath Narayan and other party leaders in the protest. Speaking to reporters amid the protest, Yediyurappa said, "Our CM Siddaramaiah and Shivkumar, they must know, that they should not behave like Tamil Nadu agents. They must realise the actual facts. In almost all our reservoirs water is not at all sufficient for even drinking purposes. PM can't interfere in this, the case is in SC. It's not possible for him to interfere." Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) supremo and former PM HD Deve Gowda said that HD Kumaraswamy will be joining the BJPs protest. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said that the state government will challenge the CWRC order in the Supreme Court adding the state doesnt have enough water to release to Tamil Nadu. "Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) ordered to release 3000 cusecs of water, I have already spoken to our advocates. They have suggested us to challenge this order in the Supreme Court. We'll challenge it in the Supreme Court. We don't have water to release to Tamil Nadu. We are challenging the orders of the CWRC", the CM told reporters in Bengaluru. Earlier on Tuesday, the CWRC recommended Karnataka to ensure the release of 3000 cusecs of Cauvery water at Biligundlu starting from September 28 up to October 15, 2023. The amount of water to be released was earlier 5000 cusecs. In its 87th meeting of CWRC held in New Delhi today, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu made their submissions before the committee. The submission made by Karnataka stated that the shortfall in cumulative inflows to the states four reservoirs up to September 25 was 53.04 per cent. (ANI)
BJP State President K Surendran has alleged that culprits in the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam were getting protection from the CPI-M government in Kerala and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Surendarans remarks were made in response to Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids in connection with the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam. The BJP State President said, "There is no political pressure from BJP, the investigation is going on as per the rule of the law. The crime branch investigated this case earlier and they tried to protect the culprits. The poor farmers, street vendors, and common man have lost the money in Karuvannur Cooperative Bank. All the culprits are important leaders and state committee members of CPI(M)." Surendran further alleged thatCPI(M) and the state government were the real kingpin in this case. "The real culprits are getting protection from the CPI-M government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The crime branch investigation failed and ED started investigating. We are supporting the cooperative sector and we want to protect the cooperative sector not destroy it," he said. On PFI activities in Kerala the BJP State President said that even a year after the PFI ban, the state government and the local police were supporting the outfits in Kerala. "In many places, police officers are working as a cadre of the PFI. The sleeper cell of the PFI is very active in Kerala, they're trying to widen their roots, and now they're trying to form the youth organisation with the support of the ruling dispensation. CPI(M) government is supporting the PFI for the vote bank politics this a big threat to the nation," he added. Enforcement Directorate (ED) on September 6 arrested two accused under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in the Karuvannur Service Co-Operative Society Bank fraud case, officials said. The two accused identified as Benami client Sathish Kumar and Kiran P P, a collection agent for the bank were arrested on Monday, the ED said. The first accused, Sathish Kumar, was the mastermind behind the Karuvannur bank fraud, the investigation agency said in court. The investigation team also found that out of the Rs 24.5 crore stolen by Kiran through benami loan transactions, Rs 14 crore was handed over to Sathish Kumar. The ED informed the court that the fraudulent contribution was paid through a bank account and in cash. However, the defendant alleged that in the case that started in 2021, inspections and arrests were made. (ANI)
Opposing the arrest of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chief N Chandrababu Naidu in connection with the alleged multi-crore skill development scam case, his wife Nara Bhuwaneshwari on Wednesday held a hunger protest with the people of Sitanagaramvillage in Andhra Pradesh's Rajahmundry. Bhwaneshwari affirmed that the women of the state came forward to support Chandrababu Naidu. "The former CM has great confidence in women. Women in the state have come forward today to back the former CM against his unlawful arrest", she said while addressing the protest. "N Chandrababu Naidu hasn't made any mistakes in the Skill Development project. The former CM didn't misappropriate public funds or engage in any wrong doing. The CID failed to prove any allegations despite detaining him in jail for 19 days. What mistakes did he make?" Nara Bhuwaneshwari asked. Bhuwaneshwari further said, "Chandrababu Naidu has been in politics for over 45 years, dedicated to the betterment of the people of Andhra Pradesh. He consistently worked towards the state's development and aimed to attract companies to Andhra Pradesh to create job opportunities for the youth". She claimed that over a lakh people have benefited from the skill development program and are now in good positions. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday posted for hearing on October 3 a plea of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu seeking to quash the FIR registered against him in the skill development scam case. Naidu approached the Supreme Court against the High Court order which declined to quash the FIR last week. He sought the quashing of the FIR registered by AP-CID in the alleged Rs 371 crore skill development scam on the ground that the police did not obtain prior sanction from the Governor as mandated under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act. In his plea, Naidu contended that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had rejected his petition by ignoring his pleading that under Section 17A of the PC Act, which came into force on July 26, 2018, no FIR against a public servant could be registered without prior sanction of the appropriate authority. The FIR against Naidu was registered on December 9, 2021, and he was added as accused number 37 in the case. on September 7, 2023. Section 17 A of the PC Act was not complied with as "no permission was obtained from the competent authority", the plea stated. Naidu, presently the Leader of the Opposition, the national president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), called the action against him "an orchestrated campaign of regime revenge and to derail the largest opposition in the state, the Telugu Desam Party". The extent of the political vendetta is further demonstrated by the belated application for grant of police custody on September 11, 2023, which names the political opponent i.e. the TDP and also the petitioner's family, which is being targeted to crush all opposition to the party in power in the State with elections coming near in 2024," it added. The arrest of the TDP Chief has led to a political hustle in the state with several TDP leaders alleging that the former was arrested unjustly on the basis of 'false corruption charges'. Earlier in the day, Chandrababu Naidus wife Bhuvaneshwari participated in special prayers at St. Paul's Lutheran church at Jampet, Rajahmundry for the release of the TDP Chief. People also gathered inside the Church with banners in their hands, condemning the arrest of Chandrababu Naidu. (ANI)
Of the 47 terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir between January 1 and January 26 this year, included nine local terrorists and 38 foreign terrorists.

The number of terrorists neutralised in 2022 remained at 187, including 130 local terrorists and 57 foreign terrorists.

As per data, a total of 204 terrorists have been apprehended in Jammu and Kashmir between January 1 and September 26 this year.

In last month, a total of four terrorists were killed and 40 apprehended while a total of eight terrorists were killed and 34 apprehended.

The data further reveals that a total of 111 terrorists are currently active in Jammu and Kashmir, including 40 local terrorists and 71 foreign terrorists. As per the data, 137 terrorists were active in Jammu and Kashmir last year. (ANI)
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi on Wednesday expressed grief over the deaths of two youths in Manipur and demanded strict action against the culprits. "The Congress party expresses condolences over the deaths of these two students. We want the culprits to be arrested as soon as possible. We want the government to take strong action against them, he told ANI. Two students were alleged to have been "kidnapped and killed" in Manipur. The two boys had reportedly gone missing in Manipur on July 6. Extending his support to the Manipur people, Gogoi said, Students have come to the streets and are protesting against the "kidnapping and killing" of two students. The Congress party understands the pain and anger of students in Manipur, and we are with them." Manipur is not a part of our country; Manipur is our country. Manipur is India; India is Manipur. And the pain and horror that has happened in Manipur is the pain and horror that is making the whole of India happy today, he said. Gogoi further condemned the action of the police department, saying, At this time, when the citizens of Manipur are protesting against the government, police personnel are lathi-charged, and tear gas and noise bombs are being used by the government. This is the aggression that the government has used to stop the citizens of Manipur. The Congress party has condemned his aggression. He further targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, The violence started in Manipur almost 5 months ago, on May 3, 2023, and it has been 5 months since the violence started in Manipur, but till today, Prime Minister Modi has not visited Manipur. Maybe Manipur is not there for him. A Central Bureau of Investigation team, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, reached Imphal in a special flight earlier today to investigate the alleged "kidnapping and killing" of two students, sources said. The two boys had reportedly gone missing in Manipur on July 6. Manipur has been witnessing violence since May 3, following the protests by the Kuki and Meitei communities against the High Court's order asking the state government to consider the inclusion of the Meitei community in the category of Scheduled Tribes (ST). (ANI)
Chugh expressed the significance of the Prime Minister's visit, saying, "This visit by PM Narendra Modi is of great importance. People are already excited to listen to him. The people of Telangana hold Prime Minister Modi in high regard."

The National General Secretary emphasized the satisfaction of the Telangana populace with the welfare schemes introduced by the Modi government. He said, "The people of Telangana are fed up of political dynasties, arrogance and dictatorship. They place their trust in the Modi government and are highly content with the welfare schemes implemented for them. They have resolved to remove KCR from Telangana."

When asked about the impact of the new responsibilities assigned to former BJP Telangana Chief Sanjay Bandi and G Kishan Reddy on the upcoming elections, Chugh asserted that they function as a team under the leadership of PM Modi.

"We work as a unified team. PM Modi is our leader, and we operate under his guidance as our captain. There is no discord within us and we will perform better in Telangana," he said.

Recently, the BJP leadership made changes within the Telangana party unit.

Union Tourism and Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy assumed the role of President of the Telangana BJP, replacing Bandi Sanjay.

Another significant change involved the appointment of Etela Rajender, the MLA from Huzurabad, as the Chairman of the Election Management Committee.

Notably, this marks the fourth time that Kishan Reddy has been entrusted with leading the state BJP unit. (ANI)
Surya, who represents the Bangalore South constituency, made the remarks during a protest at Vidhana Soudha, alongside other BJP leaders, over the ongoing Cauvery River water conflict between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Surya also called for Karnataka to cease the release of water to neighboring Tamil Nadu.

"Karnataka government has completely failed in putting forth proper details to the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) committee. Showing fingers towards the central govt is not going to work. Central official work has been done. Now it is in the hands of authorities and the Supreme Court," the BJP leader said.

Meanwhile, former CM BS Yediyurappa along with other leaders and workers of the party staged a sit-in against the Karnataka government over the Cauvery water-sharing issue near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Protesting BJP leaders and workers also raised slogans against CM Siddaramaiah and deputy CM DK Shivakumar.

Farmers across Karnataka have been protesting since the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) ordered the state to release 5000 cusecs of water to its neighbouring state Tamil Nadu, for 15 days, effective from September 13.

The Supreme Court bench refused to interfere with the order of Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to Karnataka on releasing 5,000 cusecs of water every day for now to Tamil Nadu. (ANI)
Madhaw Anand, national general secretary of RLJD, who was also present during the meeting, told ANI that they have a strong political base in Bihar and they suggested how the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance can win all 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

"Union Home Minister Amit Shah regularly visits Bihar and is aware of the situation. He is keen on the all-round development of the state. His guidance is very important for us. We are confident that NDA will win all 40 seats in state and INDI Alliance will get zero, Anand told ANI.

Anand slammed the ruling government in Bihar led by by JD(U)-RJD combine.

"People of Bihar are aware that only NDA can do all-round development of the state and protect people from gundaraj and mafiaraj which is a big hurdle in the development of the state, he said.

Kushwaha recently met Bhartiya Janta Party chief JP Nadda and Minister of State Home Nityanand Rai in Delhi and discussed the political situation in Bihar.

Rashtriya Lok Janta Dal is part of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar which also includes Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Jansakti Party(Paras). (ANI)
Photo: CIJA Former Nazi death-squad member Helmut Oberlander died in Ontario in 2021.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says Canada could revisit calls to declassify Canadian documents about the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada.

That could include making public the names of former soldiers who fought with the Nazis during the Second World War and were allowed to later immigrate to Canada.

His comments come as fallout continues for Canada and the federal government after the House of Commons gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian veteran they later discovered had fought alongside Nazis during the Second World War.

Speaker Anthony Rota, who invited the man to witness Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech in Parliament last week, is to step down later today after acknowledging the invitation was a grave mistake.

B'nai Brith Canada said on Tuesday that Rota's resignation was the right move, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must now show that Canada is willing to confront its decision to admit former Nazi soldiers by making public all records about their admittance.

Miller says he has read the report from a 1985 commission on war criminals in Canada twice this week and while he has more to learn about what information from that report has been redacted, he thinks the discussion about what records should be released could be re-examined.
Kerala's Kanthalloor has won the Gold award for Best Tourism Village Implemented with the Participation of People on Wednesday. The award was announced by the Ministry of Tourism. "The small village of Kanthalloor, in Idukki district takes a big leap. Kanthalloor village has been chosen by the Ministry of Tourism as the Best Tourism Village 2023 and won the Gold on World Tourism Day," Kerala Tourism said in a post on 'X'. "Kanthalloor" is the area where the STREET (Sustainable, Tangible, Responsible, Experiential, Ethnic, Tourism) Project of the state Tourism Department was implemented in the Munnar region of Kerala's Idukki district. According to officials, the award has been given for implementation of the project with people's participation leading to the growth of tourism. The Responsible Tourism Mission implemented the project in association with the panchayat. The environment friendly tourism program was implemented through the Green Circuit Project. Speaking on the development, Tourism minister PA Muhammad Riaz said that it is proud that the Kerala model is being accepted in the country. Earlier on Friday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Biswanath Ghat of Sonitpur district has been selected as the Best Tourism Village of India 2023 by the Ministry of Tourism. "Happy to share that Biswanath Ghat has been selected as the Best Tourism Village of India 2023 by the Ministry of Tourism. Selected from amongst 791 applications from 31 States and UTs, Biswanath Ghat's selection reflects the huge efforts that our Govt have taken in promoting rural tourism in Assam," Sarma posted on X. The Best Tourism Villages Competition seeks to honor a village that best exemplifies a rural tourism destination. It showcase the renowned cultural and natural assets, preserves and promotes community-based values, goods, and lifestyles of the villages in India. It promotes the commitment of the villages towards sustainability in all of its aspects - economic, social, and environmental. Its goal is to make tourism one of the drivers of positive change, rural development, and community well-being. (ANI)
Shah recieved a warm welcome from former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP's National General Secretary Arun Singh, State BJP President CP Joshi, LoP Rajendra Rathore and Deputy LoP Satish Punia among others.

"Union Home Minister will hold an organisational meeting with the party leaders ahead of the upcoming Rajasthan assembly polls," BJP's National General Secretary Arun Singh said.

As the Rajasthan assembly polls are scheduled to be held later this year, the parties are leaving no stone unturned in wooing voters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also in Jaipur on Tuesday.

Addressing the BJP's 'Parivartan Sankalp Mahasabha', PM Modi said, "The Congress deserves to score a big zero for the way they ran government here. The people of Rajasthan have made up their minds to remove the Gehlot government and bring the BJP back."

He added that the Congress government, under Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, wasted five important years of Rajasthan's youth.

Earlier last week, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi along with party president Mallikarjun Kharge also addressed a public meeting in Jaipur and took potshots at the central government ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.(ANI)
A bench of justices BR Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra issued notice to the complainant Murasoli Trust.

L Murugan has moved Supreme Court against Madras High Court order which refused to quash the defamation proceedings against the minister.

The defamation complaint was filed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) mouthpiece publication Murasoli against the minister. Murasoli has alleged that minister has defamed the trust by allegedly making wrong remark on the possession trust land.

The complaint pertains to a statement given by the minister in a press meet in 2020 that the trusts building in Kodambakkam saying that it was built on the space given to persons belonging to Scheduled Caste. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that all 'YouTube' content creators can contribute to bring about transformation in the lives of a vast population in the country and empower and strenghten individuals. "Together, we can bring transformation to the lives of a vast population in our country. Together we can empower and strengthen many more individuals," the Prime Minister said while addressing 'fellow YouTubers'. PM Modi was addressing YouTube Fanfest India 2023 on Wednesday. Calling the YouTube content creators as "My YouTuber friends", the Prime Minister said, "Since 15 years, I have also been connected to the country and the world through a YouTube channel." He also boasted that he has subscribers in decent numbers. Speaking about the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Prime Minister said that YouTubers have made cleanliness more "cool". "Swachh Bharat became a big campaign in the last nine years. Everyone contributed to it, children brought an emotional power to it. Celebrities gave it heights, people in all corners of the country turned it into a mission and YouTubers like you made cleanliness more cool. Till the time cleanliness does not become India's identity, we won't stop. Therefore cleanliness must be a priority for each one of you," Modi said. On digital payments, the Prime Minister asked his fellow YouTubers to teach people to make digital payments in simple language through their videos. "Due to the success of UPI, India today has 46 per cent share in digital payments of the world. You should inspire more and more people of the country to make digital payments, teach them to make digital payments in simple language through your videos," he said. The Prime Minister also asked YouTubers to make an emotional appeal to people through their videos to urge them to buy local products. "You can promote them also through your work and help in making India's local turn global. Inspire others also, make an emotional appeal that we will buy the product that has the fragrance of our soil which has the sweat of a labourer or artisan of our country," he said. Before signing off, Prime Minister appealed to all viewers to subscribe to his YouTube channel and hit the Bell Icon to receive all updates about him and his programs. (ANI)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that conditions are becoming favourable for withdrawal of southeast monsoon from the country from September 25. "Southeast monsoon has started withdrawing from September 25 onwards from some parts of Rajasthan and now conditions are favourable for further withdrawal from the northeast and other areas of the country in the next 2-3 days," IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said on Wednesday. Talking to ANI, Mohapatra informed that there was a delay of about 8 days in the withdrawal of the southeast monsoon. "There has been a delay of about 8 days as the normal date of withdrawal commencement is September 17. However now the rainfall is decreasing over those parts of the country and conditions are been favourable for withdrawal," he said. Earlier on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the conditions are becoming favourable for further withdrawal of southwest monsoon from some more parts of northwest and adjoining western India in the next two to three days. Southwest Monsoon hit India on June 8 with its onset over Kerala, a week after the normal date of June 1. Southwest monsoon normally sets in over Kerala on June 1 with a standard deviation of about seven days. Monsoon is crucial, especially for kharif crops dependent on rains. India has three cropping seasons -- summer, Kharif and Rabi. Crops sown during June-July and harvested in October-November are kharif. Since June 1, total rainfall in India has been 6 per cent lower at 805.3 mm against the normal of 853.4, IMD data showed. India is divided into four meteorological sub-divisions. East and Northeast India saw 18 per cent lower rainfall, South Peninsula 9 per cent. Northwest India witnessed 2 per cent higher rainfall, while rains in Central India were largely steady. Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar recorded excess rainfall this monsoon, registering 43 per cent, 20 per cent, and 48 per cent higher year-on-year. Manipur, Mizoram, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Kerala recorded deficit rainfall. Meanwhile, IMD said light to moderate fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy rainfall is very likely over Tamil Nadu during Tuesday-Saturday; Coastal Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday and Saturday; Coastal Karnataka and Kerala during Thursday-Saturday; Interior Karnataka on Friday and Saturday. In West India, fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and thunderstorm along with lightning is very likely over Konkan and Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra from Tuesday to Friday. Isolated very heavy rainfall is very likely over Konkan and Goa on Thursday. In Central India, rainfall and thunderstorm along with lightning with isolated heavy rainfall is very likely over Chhattisgarh on Saturday. For the rest of the country, no significant weather phenomenon is expected. (ANI)
Shri Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) Chairman Ajendra Ajay on Wednesday met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi and sought Finance Minister's cooperation in the work of beautification and infrastructural development of temples through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In a meeting with Finance Minister, BKTC chairman said that reconstruction work is being done rapidly in Kedarnath and Badrinath. "Today, during the meeting with the Union Minister at the Finance Ministry in North Block, Ajendra said that reconstruction work is being done rapidly in Kedarnath and Badrinath under the master plan under the inspiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the guidance of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami," an official statement said. "He informed the Minister that BKTC is working for the development of temples of historical and mythological importance under its jurisdiction," an official statement added. BKTC Chairman Ajendra also invited Finance Minister to visit Badrinath and Kedarnath Dham. "In this sequence, the work of expansion and beautification of Omkareshwar Temple located in Ukhimath, the winter worship place of Lord Kedarnath, has been started. Plans for the development of Triyuginarayan, famous as the marriage venue of Lord Shiva and Parvati, and Shri Tunganath, the highest Shiva temple in the world, are also being prepared soon. He also invited the Finance Minister to visit Badrinath and Kedarnath Dham, which she accepted," an official statement said. (ANI)
Political activists from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir raised the issue of terrorism in the region and informedthe United Nations that youth in PoK are forced to join banned extremist groups who take up arms training to carry out terror attacks. In his intervention during the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Nasir Aziz Khan, central spokesperson of the United Kashmir Peoples National Party (UKPNP) said, Despite Pakistan's claims of controlling extremist groups, ongoing atrocities persist, such as the recent abduction of more than 20 teenage boys in Bagh, Azad Kashmir. These boys have been forcibly taken by internationally banned extremist groups for armed training and so-called Jihad. This incident reveals the deep-rooted problem of extremist influence in the region, leaving families and loved ones in anguish due to the unknown whereabouts of their children, said Nasir. The political activist said, Radical jirgas and extremist groups operate with impunity. The deep state acts like a state above the state, making arbitrary decisions and denying justice. Extremist groups disrupt daily life, targeting weddings, funerals, and burials, particularly affecting women's mobility and freedom. Violence against religious minorities and Kashmiris is on the rise. He informed that several Kashmiris have been killed in different cities of Pakistan and not a single murderer is arrested or punished. Nasir also said that incidents like the torching of churches, ransacking of Christian homes, and vandalism of a graveyard in Jaranwala, Faisalabad, on August 16, 2023, allegedly due to blasphemy, are deeply concerning. Pro-independence Kashmiris and rights activists are facing severe threats, harassment, and violence. Pakistan's military and law enforcement's land grabbing activities are harming the environment, endangering local biodiversity, and undermining climate resilience, he said. Another political activist from PoK, Professor Sajjad Raja said currently the people of PoK and Gilgit Baltistan are protesting by shutting down cities and continuous sit-in protests have been taking place for over 180 days. People are demanding that Pakistan provide them with wheat flour to live on but Pakistan pays no attention to our demands, he said. Prof Sajjad, who is the Chairman of National Equality Party JKGBL, told the UN that Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir produces electricity at the cost of 2.03 PKR per unit, but this electricity is sold back to us for 50 to 80 PKR per unit. Our need is only 400 MW in POJK and despite producing over 2000 MW of electricity we are subjected to load shedding for over 16 hours a day, he said. We also lack any economic and physical infrastructure and employment opportunities. Under these conditions, our people are unable to survive and are fleeing out of POJK. We request the international community to expel Pakistan from our state as required by the UN Resolutions so that we can live peacefully on our own land, Raja told the UN. (ANI)
Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan (RSKS), an Indian NGO, informed the United Nations about the Government of Indias recognition of development, human rights and commitment towards gender equality. In his intervention during the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Hansraj Singh of RSKS said, Human rights are the bedrock of justice, dignity, and progress for all, and their preservation is not a choice but an imperative. When human rights are trampled upon, societies descend into turmoil. Human suffering deepens, trust erodes, and the social fabric frays. Violations of these fundamental rights lead to cycles of poverty, conflict, and instability. It is our collective responsibility to prevent such calamities, he added. Hansraj said that Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan works on human rights through various mass awareness initiatives which enable people to understand that why human rights are important for everyone regardless of the borders. Through grassroots initiatives, he said the NGO empowers individuals, especially women and children, so that they can understand their rights in a better way and also raise their voices if they are unattended or denied their rights. It also enables them to respect each other and together build an inclusive society. Precautionary steps are also taken by the Indian Government as it recognizes the relation between human rights and development. Initiatives like the National Human Rights Commission and various social welfare schemes show India's dedication to safeguarding the rights and dignity of its citizens, said Hansraj. He told the UNHRC that India's commitment to gender equality showcases its commitment to human rights principles. The preservation of human rights is not a mere aspiration but a global imperative. Every step taken every day could have the power to change the mindsets and bring us all together to work for human rights. Let us unite for protection of human rights to build a world where dignity, equality, and justice prevail for all, he said. (ANI)
Photo: The Canadian Press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologizes for the events surrounding Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy's visit at a media availability in Ottawa on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is apologizing for Parliament's recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis in the Second World War during last week's address by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

He made the brief statement without taking questions before entering the House of Commons, where Trudeau says he plans to offer Parliament's "unreserved apologies" for what unfolded during Zelenskyy's visit.

The prime minister reiterated that Speaker Anthony Rota, who is stepping down over the issue, was solely responsible for inviting and asking members of Parliament to recognize 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran Yaroslav Hunka, who hails from his riding.

Trudeau says it was a mistake that has "deeply embarrassed" Parliament and the entire country, and members of the House of Commons regret applauding Hunka.

The prime minister also says the country is "deeply sorry" for the position it has placed Zelenskyy and the entire Ukrainian delegation in, saying it is troubling to see Russia use the incident to fuel its propaganda.

Trudeau's apology came as he faced pressure to deliver one from the Opposition Conservatives and the federal NDP.
More than 50 people were killed and hundreds more were left wounded after a fuel depot explosion and fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday. This comes amid an exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region following a lightning military offensive by Azerbaijan. The death toll from the blast rose to 68, while at least 105 people were missing and 290 others wounded, Al Jazeera reported citing the office of Karabakhs ombudsman. The explosion happened outside the regional capital of Stepanakert called Khankendi by Azerbaijan late on Monday. The depot was being used to distribute fuel to those who wanted to leave the region by car. Hundreds of people were gathered there when the explosion took place. Notably, last weeks offensive came after a months-long blockade of the region by Azerbaijan that caused shortages of essential supplies. The announcement of the death toll came as thousands of people continued to flee the region, with Armenia saying that 28,120 ethnic Armenians had entered the country. The government also said it would provide accommodation for all those in need, Al Jazeera reported. US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the US urged humanitarian access to the region. We are saddened by the news that at least 68 people have been killed and hundreds injured in an explosion at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh and express deep sympathy to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and to all of those suffering, she said. We urge continued humanitarian access to Nagorno-Karabakh for all those in need, Al Jazeera quoted her as saying. Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said the US would send USD 11.5 million in humanitarian aid. According to Al Jazeera, Azerbaijans military attacked Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, announcing 24 hours later control over the enclave. The offensive forced ethnic Armenian authorities in the region to agree to lay down weapons and start reintegration talks, under a ceasefire agreement brokered by traditional regional powerhouse Russia, Al Jazeera reported. Azerbaijani authorities promised to respect the rights and security of Armenians living in the region. But the news of their reintegration into Azerbaijan met panic and chaos among ethnic Armenians who feared that the long history of hatred and violence between the two would make any form of co-habitation impossible. It is pertinent that Nagorno-Karabakh has been contested for more than three decades, with both Baku and Yerevan vying for its control. The territory is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is heavily populated by ethnic Armenians, as per Al Jazeera. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh declared their independence with the goal of reuniting with Armenia. That triggered a bloody war in the 1990s that ended with Armenians taking control of the enclave and several districts around it. (ANI)
Indias permanent representative to the United Nations, Ruchira Kamboj has reiterated the countrys steadfast dedication to peace, stability and humanitarian support for Afghanistan. In a UN Security Council briefing on Afghanistan on Wednesday, Kamboj highlighted three key observations regarding the situation in Afghanistan while drawing upon Indias historical and civilisational ties with the Afghan people. At #UNSC Briefing on Afghanistan, Amb @ruchirakamboj, our Permanent Representative, reaffirmed Indias steadfast dedication to peace, stability & humanitarian support for our Afghan friends. Indias commitment shines through educational scholarships & collaborations with UN agencies, posted Permanent Mission of India to the UN on X. As Afghanistan's contiguous neighbour and a friend to its people, India has direct stakes in ensuring the return of peace and stability to the country, said Kamboj at the outset of her address. She also said that Indias collective approach to Afghanistan has been articulated in Security Council Resolution 2593, which was adopted on August 30, 2021, following the fall of Kabul and the subsequent Taliban takeover. In this regard, our common and immediate priorities include providing humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people, the formation of an inclusive and representative government structure, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and preserving the rights of women, children and minorities, Kamboj added. Indias permanent representative to the UN also underscored Indias commitment to helping Afghan people through educational scholarships and collaborations with UN agencies. Given the distressing humanitarian situation in the country, we need to prioritize humanitarian assistance to the people. India has delivered assistance to Afghanistan in the form of food grains, medicines, vaccines, disaster relief aid, winter clothing and materials for education, she said. She said that India has continued scholarships to Afghan students. It has also partnered with the UN Office of Drugs and Crime in its humanitarian efforts, and our assistance will continue for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan, Khamboj said. We have collaborated with several UN agencies on the ground and will continue to do so for the welfare of the people of the country, she said. She reaffirmed Indias unwavering commitment to keeping Afghanistan close to our hearts. Going forward, India will continue to raise its voice in support of the Afghan people. We believe that the pursuit of peace and stability in Afghanistan is an urgent and shared imperative that demands our collective dedication, said Kamboj. Already grappling with poverty, Afghanistan found itself sinking further into destitution due to international isolation and the economic turmoil triggered by the Taliban's takeover in 2021. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported a staggering increase in poverty, with 97 per cent of Afghans living below the poverty line, a stark rise from 47 per cent in 2020, according to Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organisation focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom The absence of social safety nets forced desperate families into distressing measures such as child marriages and organ trafficking. Despite dire circumstances, the humanitarian aid provided fell far short of meeting the basic needs of the population. The Afghan economy continued to suffer from the freezing of foreign reserves and the reduction of development assistance, punitive actions taken by the international community in response to the Taliban's ascent. In 2022, most of the aid flowing into Afghanistan was humanitarian in nature, primarily aimed at averting starvation, with minimal support for other critical social services such as healthcare, employment, and education. The mass exodus of skilled professionalsdoctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, and government officialsleft these sectors severely under-resourced, exacerbating the country's woes. The Taliban regime imposed increasingly draconian restrictions on women's rights, stifled media freedom, and curtailed freedom of expression. Institutions dedicated to safeguarding human rights were either severely restricted or completely shuttered. Peaceful protesters found themselves at the mercy of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances. Women's rights suffered relentless attacks, severely limiting their participation in public life. Shockingly, Afghanistan stood alone as the only country where girls were forbidden from attending secondary school. Almost all initiatives addressing gender-based violence, established during the previous government, were dismantled by the Taliban, leaving women and vulnerable populations even more vulnerable, Amnesty International reported. (ANI)
China has disagreed with further expansion in sectors of energy, water management, and climate change under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), highlighting the challenges faced by both countries, The Express Tribune reported. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has faced significant challenges, as indicated by the difficulties both parties have encountered in strengthening their economic ties. Notably, Islamabad has yielded to certain Chinese demands and altered its stance on the establishment of a new coal-fired power plant in Gwadar. These changes, along with other issues, were documented in the signed minutes of the 11th Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting for CPEC, which took place in October 2022 but saw the signing of its minutes in July 2023, highlighting prolonged disagreements. The details reveal that China did not agree to several proposals put forth by Pakistan in areas such as energy, water management, climate change, and tourism in regions like Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), and coastal areas. There were disparities between the draft shared with Beijing by Pakistan and the final minutes signed by both sides, with the latter version reflecting China's stance. The JCC serves as a crucial decision-making body for CPEC, as reported by The Express Tribune. China's exclusion of cross-border tourism cooperation in G-B, K-P, as well as coastal tourism promotion, is evident in the final minutes. Furthermore, China did not embrace Pakistan's suggestions to incorporate Water Resources Management, Climate Change, and Urban Infrastructure Development within the CPEC framework, nor did it support the idea of establishing a new joint working group on water resources management and climate change. In response, the Ministry of Planning emphasized that the signing of meeting minutes between two countries only occurs after a thorough consultation to ensure accuracy in reflecting agreements and understandings. The details also indicate that China omitted the discussion of financial challenges faced by power companies from the final minutes. Text related to the financial closure of projects like the Azad Pattan hydropower project, Kohala power plant, and Thar Block 1 Shanghai Electric Co power plant was dropped. Notably, Pakistan made significant concessions regarding the 300MW Gwadar Power Plant, which China wanted to advance as per the existing plan. Pakistan also committed to following consensus and addressing issues related to power rates and fuel procurement for CPEC projects, according to The Express Tribune. China declined Pakistan's proposal for a 500kv transmission line from Hub to Gwadar and several other initiatives related to Thar coal, hydel power projects, coal gasification, and more. Additionally, certain projects and cooperation areas, like the South-North gas pipeline, strategic underground gas storage, seismic studies, metallic minerals exploration, and technology transfer, were not included in the final minutes. The Ministry of Planning highlighted that the signing of the 11th JCC meeting minutes underscores the strong relationship between Pakistan and China and their commitment to achieving common goals, The Express Tribune reported. (ANI)
Chief of Staff of the Republic of Korean (South Korea) Army General Park Jeong-Hwan was presented with a Guard of Honour at the majestic South Block Lawns in New Delhi on Wednesday. Prior to the event, the Korean Army General laid a wreath at the National War Memorial. The South Korean Chief of Staff is in India to take part in the biennial Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference set for a three-day run in New Delhi, and discuss military and arms cooperation with his counterparts. The armies of India and the US hosted the 13th biannual IPACC, the 47th annual Indo-Pacific Army Management Seminar (IPAMS), and the 9th Senior Enlisted Forum in the national capital from September 25-27. The gathering was notably the largest conference for land forces (army, marines, etc.) in the region. The objective for these meetings is to promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region through mutual understanding, dialogue, and friendship. Senior land commanders will have a venue to share opinions and ideas as well as grow and deepen their connections through this, the official release of the US embassy said. This year's conference's theme is Together for Peace: Sustaining Peace and Stability in the Indo-Pacific Region. The both larger plenary sessions and more intimate break-out sessions at the conference. Participants took part in vibrant conversations on subjects including peacekeeping operations, humanitarian aid/disaster relief, leadership development, and women's emancipation as well as hear from eminent guest speakers. Participation in IPAMS has grown from nine nations at the first conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1977, to 31 nations in Seoul, Korea in 2017. IPACC is now held every two years and is co-hosted by the United States Army and the hosting country. IPAMS is the longest running land forces conference held every year. In 2014, the SELF was added allowing senior enlisted members to experience the same fellowship, discussion and sharing opportunities, but from a different perspective, the US Embassy release read. An opening ceremony kickstarted on September 26 at the Manekshaw Center, preceded by a joint press conference at 9 am with the Indian Army Chief, General Manoj Pande, and General Randy George, U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff. (ANI)
Uyghur Congress president Dolkun Isa was interrupted twice by the Chinese as he began speaking in a general debate during the 54th Session of the UNHRC in Geneva on Wednesday. A Chinese diplomat interrupted his speech and demanded the floor to object. The Chinese diplomat said Isa is not a representative of the "so-called NGO". However, UN Human Rights Council Vice President Asim Ahmed allowed Uyghur activists to complete his statement. In his intervention, Dolkun Isa said, Once again, Im in this Council to urge member states and UN bodies to act on the ongoing Uyghur genocide in China. Its been over a year since the OHCHR assessment, but we havent seen any tangible action to address this situation. He added, Since then, many UN experts have repeated their concerns, including the CERD. The CESCR and CEDAW committees have also issued their concluding observations urging China to end the counter-terrorism policies legitimizing the repression. Just yesterday, UN special rapporteurs have expressed grave concerns over the forced separation of Uyghur children with the expansion of the state-run boarding schools and the erosion of their linguistic rights. Isa told the UN, Despite the increasing number of UN documents, this Council has failed to meaningfully address accountability avenues. In the meantime, Uyghurs in the diaspora are watching our relatives disappear one by one, receiving news about their deaths, and constantly facing reprisals. Just a few days ago, we learned about Prof. Rahile Dawut's life imprisonment. My own brother Hushtar Isa also was sentenced to life. I lost My mother in a concentration camp, he added.Dolkan Isa said in his statement, In a recent visit to Urumchi, Xi Jinping repeated that the counter-terrorism policies are a long-term plan, stating that the repression will not end anytime soon. We must remember to uphold the promise of Never Again. While speaking to ANI, the Uyghur Congress President condemnded the act, and alleged that the Chinese government was trying to "hide the truth." It was not the first time. Of course, the Chinese government don't want to see me as a council. The Chinese government don't want Uygur's voice to rise in the UN humanitarian council because today millions of people are still suffering in concentration camps, he said. He further claimed, More than a million Uyghur children separate from family. This is a serious issue today. This is the correct platform to raise this issue. But the Chinese government don't want it. Chinese government trying to hide the reality Chinese government trying to hide its crime in front of the UN and the other international platforms. Earlier on September 26, The United Nations expressed concern over the allegations of a significant expansion of Xinjiang's State-run boarding school system in China which fails to provide education in the childrens mother tongue and forcibly separates Uyghur and other minority Muslim children from their families and communities, leading to their forced assimilation, said an official press release from United Nations Human Rights. The release from the UN said that the Uyghur children placed in these boarding schools reportedly have little or no access to education in the Uyghur language and are under increasing pressure to speak and learn only Mandarin (Putonghua), as opposed to education aimed at achieving bilingualism in both Uyghur and Mandarin. Teachers can also be sanctioned for using the Uyghur language outside of specific language classes. (ANI)
Photo: The Canadian Press Sgt. Andrew Harnett, 37, of the Calgary Police Service is shown in this undated handout image provided by the police service. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Calgary Police Service

A young man convicted in the hit-and-run death of a Calgary police officer has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Sgt. Andrew Harnett, 37, died after he was dragged by an SUV and fell into the path of an oncoming car on Dec. 31, 2020.

The driver of the SUV, who is now 20, was days away from turning 18 and was charged as a youth with first-degree murder.

Court of King's Bench Justice Anna Loparco convicted him of manslaughter and ordered that he receive an adult sentence.

In her sentencing decision Wednesday, she gave four years credit for the time he has already spent in custody, meaning he has eight years left to serve.

A publication ban remains on the offenders name until the end of an appeal period.

"Homicide is one of the most serious crimes we recognize as a society," Loparco said. "In the case where the victim of a homicide is a police officer acting in the course of his duties, public condemnation of this crime increases."

She added that the driver took several, deliberate steps to dislodge the officer.

"His actions are far from near accident and approach near murder. His moral culpability is extremely high," Loparco said.

"There's no way to give back a life."

The judge noted that Harnett's wife was pregnant with their first child when he was killed and the death fractured his family.

The driver apologized to Harnett's family before receiving his sentence.

"I would like to apologize to the family of the officer. I'd like to apologize to society. I'm truly sorry. I accept responsibility," he said.

The driver made earlier apologies and expressed remorse but the judge gave him little credit for his words.

"The focus of his remorse was how it affected his own future," she said.

The Crown had asked for a sentence of 11 to 13 years, while the defence argued for 7 1/2 years minus credit for time already served.

The trial heard Harnett tried to stop the SUV after he noticed its licence plate didnt match its registration.

The driver testified during his trial that he was scared when Harnett and another officer approached the SUV, and he saw Harnett put a hand on his gun.

Court heard the SUV took off with the officer holding onto the wheel, trying to get the driver to stop.

Loparco addressed both families after passing the sentence.

"I know that when everyone walks out of this courtroom what will remain is the heavy burden that you will continue to carry  along with the whole community  in grieving the death of Sgt. Harnett," she said.

"Your life has been forever altered."

Loparco also addressed the mother of the accused, first in French then in English.

"I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible support you have given your son," she said.

"As one mother to another, I want you to know that it is your support that will make a difference in your son's life."

Crown prosecutor Mike Ewenson saidoutside court that he was satisfied to get the sentence he asked for.

"It's always difficult to use the word pleased, because this case is about the loss of a really respected officer and a really loved family member," he said.

"It's always in the back of your mind in, no matter what number you get, the justice system can't bring the life back."

A passenger in the SUV, Amir Abdulrahman, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2021 and was sentenced to five years in prison.

He was granted day parole earlier this year.
The Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA), a New Delhi-based think-tank, held an international academic conference that witnessed the participation of practitioners studying in China in large numbers. The Global Conference on New Sinology (GCNS) took place on September 25-26 in the national capital. The theme was Beijings Superpower Ambitions in the New Era. The speakers discussed a variety of topics related to China in great depth and detail, ranging from Chinese foreign policy across regions, Chinas military modernization, the future of the India-China border dispute, Chinese intelligence services, Chinas military footprint in the Indo-Pacific and East Asia and the future of elite politics under Xi Jinping, the post-event press release of the conference read. Notably, the conference had around 60 speakers, including internationally reputed scholars like Dr Lance LiangpingGore (Senior Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore), Prof. HideshiTokuchi(President, ResearchInstituteforPeaceandSecurity), Dr LiNan(VisitingSeniorResearchFellow, EastAsian Institute), Neil Thomas (Fellow, Center for China Analysis, Asia Society Policy Institute), Dr Johan Lagerkvist (Professor of Chinese Language, Stockholm University), Lt. Gen. Praveen Bakshi(Former Eastern Army Commander, Indian Army), Mr Lucas Myers (Senior Associate for South-EastAsia, Wilson Center). Indian diplomat Ashok Kantha (Former Indian Ambassador to China), Dr Shinji Yamaguchi(Senior Research Fellow, NIDS), JayadevaRanade(President, Centre for China Analysis and Strategy), Dr JagannathPanda(Head, Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-PacificAffairs, ISDP, Sweden), Dr RupaChanda (Director, Trade, Investment and Innovation Division, UNESCAP), Dr BaliDeepak (Professor, Center for Chinese and South East Asian Studies, JNU) and Claude Arpi (Distinguished Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University) were also present at the conference. The opening address was delivered by Indian Diplomat Shyam Saran (Former Foreign Secretary of India), who detailed the political thinking that directs Chinese foreign policy to prioritise hierarchy to achieve harmony. Ambassador Saran detailed the transition of Chinas rise, from benign to one that is characterised by a more assertive and provocative posture, according to the press release. He emphasised the need to relate Chinas domestic developments to its foreign policy and posture on the global stage. The first session titled How China Sees the World decoded Beijings foreign policy and diplomatic efforts around the world, with scholars identifying the key principles driving foreign policy practice across regions at the bilateral and multilateral levels. At the conference, the opening keynote of the Session was given by Dr.Lance Liangping Gore who detailed the foreign policy apparatus in China, its bureaucratic approach to decision-making and how agencies interpret and implement Party guidelines. The second session on How China Keeps Itself and Its Interests Safe analysed the strategies and policies deployed to project and enhance Chinese military power, with a focus on technologies in the maritime domain of the Indo-Pacific. Notably, the dominance of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises in military modernization and their impact on the balance of power across the India-China border was examined by practitioners from all three services of the Indian armed forces. The discussion deduced that the border dispute is nowhere near its logical end and that India should prepare for the long haul. The special address by Claude Arpi delved into the role of Tibet and Buddhism in the India-China equation and the special panel on the significance of India in the Quad represented the views of all four Quad countries. The conference focused on Beijings manoeuvres in advancing its economic interests through BRI projects and maintaining its dominance in global supply chains on Day 2. Panelists assessed Chinese strategies deployed to arrest the diversification of supply chains away from China and expressed the need for India and ASEAN to collectively counter Chinas global dominance. The speakers at the conference also covered a wide range of technological applications in the Chinese economy, specifically in smart manufacturing, renewable energy and 5G networks. The final session on How the Prince Governs China: Between Policy and Politics described the Communist Party of Chinas (CPC) methods of expanding its authority through its intelligence services as well as delved into policy implementation at the provincial level. Mr Jayadeva Ranade delivered a keynote address on the networks and tactics of Chinese intelligence services and the significance of the United Front Work Department employed over the last few decades to manage dissent and politics in China, the Press release read. The last keynote address of GCNS was given by Neil Thomas. He ideated that Xi Jinping is not likely to choose his successor in the near future to avoid a potential power struggle between factions in the CPC. The GCNS witnessed an audience of over 200 people each day, with attendees comprising the think tank community, university professors, former members of Indias diplomatic corps and armed forces, embassy officials, students and members of the media. The GCNS is the flagship annual event of ORCA and the organisation plans to make it the largest gathering of sinologists in India. (ANI)




You alright, babes?

RuPaul's Drag Race UK

BBC/World of Wonder

The fifth season of RuPauls Drag Race UK is now upon us, which makes this the perfect time to look back at some of the best moments in the herstory of the BBC series.

From the OG top three finalists The Vivienne , Divina De Campo, and Baga Chipz in season one to the latest grand finale in season four between four-time maxi challenge winners Danny Beard and Cheddar Gorgeous, Drag Race UK has given us a lot of iconic performances, hilarious moments, exciting girl-group bops, and new drag superstars that weve fallen in love with.

In many ways, the BBCs Drag Race UK series is forging a path of its own that has little to do with the long-running flagship American show airing on MTV and Paramount+. The UK queens that appear on Drag Race are becoming legitimate superstars who go on to tour the world, release original music, compete on other reality shows, star in theatrical productions in the West End, and so on.

Given how excited we are for the fifth season of Drag Race UK, lets take a quick trip down memory lane and revisit some of the series most iconic moments so far.

Scroll through to see the most iconic moments in RuPauls Drag Race UK herstory  and make sure to tune into season five premiering this Thursday, September 28 on WOW Presents Plus.

The Vivienne & Baga Chipz in the Snatch Game (Season 1)

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Snatch Game UK: BEST MOMENTS

The first real evidence that we were in for an incredible new Drag Race show came during the first-ever Snatch Game of the UK series. The back-and-forth between The Vivienne (as Donald Trump) and Baga Chipz (as Margaret Thatcher) had the judges and viewers laughing out loud, proving that these two drag superstars were worthy contenders of snatching the crown.

The Break Up (Bye Bye) girl group challenge (Season 1)

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK Series 1 Frock Destroyers "Break Up Bye Bye"

The girl-groups challenge is now a staple on Drag Race UK, and that only happened due to the gigantic success of this challenge in the first season. Together, Blu Hydrangea, Divina De Campo, and Baga Chipz formed the Frock Destroyers and delivered a legendary performance of Break Up (Bye Bye)  which literally climbed the iTunes and streaming charts for quite some time.

Divina De Campos A red wig and a silver dress? I dont think response (Season 1)

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A Red Wig And a Silver Dress?

There was a clear tension between Divina De Campo and The Vivienne throughout Drag Race UK season one. Even though these two talented queens tried to keep things under control, their dynamic exploded in a moment when the Viv pointed out that she only knew Divina prior to the show a a queen who wore a red wig and a silver dress. This prompted Divina to respond with one of the most iconic Drag Race quotes of all time: Bullsh*t, Vivienne. A red wig and a silver dress? I dont think.

Tayce lip syncing to Memory (Season 2)

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Musical theater nerds had been edging for years asking for Drag Race to start incorporating show tunes in the lip syncs. In comes the lip sync to Memory (a song best from the Cats musical) between Tayce and the late Cherry Valentine. With just her look, makeup, and facial expressions, Tayce delivered one of the most fascinating and mesmerizing lip sync performances in herstory.

The UK Hun? girl group challenge (Season 2)

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RuPaul's Drag Race UK Series 2 United Kingdolls "UK Hun?"

A year after the Frock Destroyers took over the world with Break Up (Bye Bye), we watched Lawrence Chaney, Bimini, AWhora, and Tayce assembling into the United Kingdolls and giving us an even bigger Drag Race UK bop with the original song UK Hun? Simply put, this is the best girl-groups performance of all time, from any Drag Race show, period.

RuPauls H&M rant (Season 2)

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RuPaul - Full H&M rant

Drag Race UK season two had to go on a production hiatus of seven months due to the first outbreak of COVID-19 at the time. This meant that the girl-groups challenge episode was filmed after the entire cast of judges and queens had been in lockdown for seven months and lets just say that Mama Ru had a lot of feelings to unleash after hearing from Joe Black that they were wearing clothes purchased from H&M on the runway.

Biminis Katie Price Snatch Game (Season 2)

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Biminis Katie Price Impression - Snatch Game | RuPauls Drag Race UK

Season two superstar Bimini Bon-Boulash  known simply known as Bimini  proved that she was so much more than just a fashion queen when she impersonated Katie Price at the Snatch Game in season two. This entire performance was absolutely incredible, so by the time Bimini unleashed the iconic quote, The nipples are the eyes to the face, we were all already dying from laughing.

Ella Vadays Nigella Lawson Snatch Game (Season 3)

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Ella Vaday As Nigella Lawson On The Snatch Game | Rupaul's Drag Race UK Season 3

Speaking of truly iconic Snatch Game performances, Ella Vaday killed it with her impersonation of Nigella Lawson in season three. Whether or not you knew Nigella before this, Ella perfectly captured her essence and was able to make everybody laugh the whole way through. In many ways, this Snatch Game challenge also served as a launching pad for Ella Vaday to break out as a real contender in the competition.

Sminty Drops sashay away with sad twerking (Season 4)

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Its hard to think of a queen with a more iconic sashay away moment than Vanessa Vanjie Mateo in season 10. But as far as Drag Race UK is concerned, Sminty Drop giving us this sad twerking moment after being eliminated was pretty freaking hilarious and iconic. Many fans consider this to be the most memorable Drag Race UK exit so far, and we have to agree that we were all cracking up!

Danny Beard and Cheddar Gorgeous lip sync for the crown (Season 4)

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Cheddar Gorgeous vs Danny Beard - LIP SYN FOR THE CROWN! - Rupaul's Drag Race UK

Danny Beard and Cheddar Gorgeous steamrolled the competition throughout season of Drag Race UK. In the end, both queens arrived at the grand finale with four maxi challenge wins each. They also made it to the end without ever lip syncing for their lives. All of this build-up culminated in one of the most legendary lip syncs for the crown in Drag Race herstory. While Danny ultimately snatched the crown, the fans were literally begging for this to be a double crowning.
Eric Ulis was only 5 when a dapper man in a suit and sunglasses boarded a commercial flight in Portland, Oregon, ordered a bourbon and soda from his seat in 18E and then handed a flight attendant a handwritten note saying he had a bomb.

It was November 24, 1971, and the unidentified man, who later became known as D.B. Cooper, had a one-way ticket on the flight to Seattle.

Cooper opened his carry-on bag to reveal a jumble of wires and red sticks and demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in cash. After the plane landed in Seattle he swapped three dozen passengers for the cash and parachutes, then ordered the pilot to fly to a new destination: Mexico City.

But soon after takeoff, Cooper did something incredible: With the money strapped to his waist, he parachuted out of the rear of the plane and into the night, vanishing over the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

Cooper has not been seen or heard from since. His audacious stunt made him a folk hero, triggered an FBI investigation, led to tightened security at airports and inspired dozens of books and TV documentaries. It remains the only unsolved hijacking in US aviation history.

An artist's rendering of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded $200,000 in ransom. - CNN

When decades passed without any solid new leads, the FBI officially closed the case in 2016.

But Ulis is still searching for clues. Now in his 50s, he says hes spent countless hours scouring tens of thousands of FBI documents on Cooper for any details federal agents may have missed.

Coopers story resonates with a lot of people because it has a James Bond-esque element to it, Ulis says.

Its real. He was real. This is not a  Bigfoot legend, he says. No one was physically harmed. Of course, the crew endured some stress, but even they admit he was quite polite, all things considered. He exhibited grace under pressure.

Ulis keeps a notebook next to his bed in his Phoenix, Arizona, home, just in case a new thought about the case strikes him in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, hes pursuing a lead  related to Coopers clip-on necktie, which was left behind on the plane  he believes could possibly help amateur sleuths like himself figure out who Cooper was.

And to gain access to the necktie, hes suing the FBI.

Ulis runs a CooperCon and is leading a search in the woods

For decades, law enforcement and amateur investigators alike have wondered: Who was the mysterious hijacker? Did he survive the plunge? Was his name really Dan Cooper, as his boarding pass indicated, or was that an alias inspired by a French Canadian comic book hero  as the FBI later speculated?

Even Coopers name added to the intrigue. A journalist at the time mistyped it as D.B. instead of Dan, and the name stuck.

For 52 years, everybodys continued to call him D.B. Cooper. D.B. is just a more badass name than Dan, Ulis says. Back then, you didnt have to go through a metal detector at the airport. You didnt have to be checked. You didnt have to provide a drivers license to get an airplane to get a ticket. You could give a fake name.

Ulis describes himself as a crime historian and aviation geek. For the past decade, he has devoted much of his time to seeking answers to the many questions surrounding D.B. Cooper.

He took part in a 2022 Netflix series titled, D.B. Cooper, Where Are You? and has hosted a History Channel show on the hunt for evidence about Cooper. Hes also written an e-book, Silver Bullet: The Undoing of D.B. Cooper, one of nearly 40 books on the elusive hijacker.

The hijacker's plane ticket had his name as Dan Cooper, but authorities think that may have been an alias. - FBI

Since 2018, Ulis also has held an annual CooperCon, at which fans of the hijacker gather to discuss elements of the case in granular detail.

And next month hell lead a team of volunteer searchers to explore an area near Tena Bar, a stretch of beach along the Columbia River in Washington state where $5,800 of Coopers ransom money was found in 1980.

Ulis says he has spent a lot of time in the area, trying to figure out how close the ransom money was to where Cooper may have landed. Hes viewed old news footage, studied FBI photos and familiarized himself with landmarks so he can guide searchers to specific areas.

He hopes to find important clues, including the parachute Cooper used that night.

I firmly believe that D.B. Coopers parachute is lying in that area somewhere. Its stashed away somewhere under some blackberry bushes or a thicket of trees or something of that nature, he says. Its been sitting there for 52 years.

Hes also focusing on a clip-on tie the hijacker left behind

Before he became a D.B. Cooper expert, Ulis says he was a professional blackjack player, a skill he says helps him focus on facts and avoid conspiracy theories.

Thats the world I came from. And it actually played a big part of shaping how I think, he says. Because thats a world where youre really just focused strictly on the math. You try to remove emotion as much as possible.

Some friends consider his fascination an eccentric hobby, he says, but he tries not to bombard them with minutia on the case. He saves that for when hes around like-minded people at CooperCon and other events.

Ulis says Coopers cigarette butts were initially recovered but later disappeared  a crucial piece of lost evidence that may have been useful given todays advancements in DNA technology, he says.

But he has recently zeroed in on another piece of evidence: A clip-on necktie from JCPenney that Cooper left behind before he jumped off the plane nearly 10,000 feet over southern Washington.

The FBI has said it used DNA from items Cooper left behind to see whether it matched DNA from potential suspects. - FBI

The tie and the found ransom money are the key pieces of physical evidence in the case, Ulis says. While the FBI has already tested the tie for traces of DNA, Ulis believes the tie knot has a metal spindle that may still have undiscovered DNA on it.

In March of this year, Ulis filed suit against the FBI for access to the tie, which he says is being stored at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. In his suit, Ulis asks that he and a DNA expert be allowed to collect swabs from the spindle.

Ulis says he would enter any DNA found into genealogy databases in the hopes of finding a match that would help unravel Coopers identity.

Thats all Im trying to get  access to that spindle to open it up. Have the DNA expert kind of swab it, and lets just see what we come up with, he says.

The FBI has not responded to CNNs repeated requests for comment on Ulis request.

Larry Carr, a former FBI agent who worked on Coopers case, tells CNN he doesnt believe the FBI took the spindle apart to process it. But whatever DNA found on the tie may be compromised, he says.

The tie was never collected and handled by todays standards. It was collected and handled by standards in 1971. And so who knows whose DNA is actually on the tie, says Carr, a speaker at this years CooperCon event in Seattle in November. Thats still another hurdle we have to jump because we dont know if that, in fact, is Coopers DNA.

However, he adds, anythings possible.

Armchair criminologists have speculated about the case for decades

Coopers story has spawned a community of armchair criminologists who have spent five decades trading theories and speculating about his identity.

The FBIs public bewilderment about the mystery has only fueled interest.

The bureau considered hundreds of potential suspects. Was it Richard McCoy, a man who hijacked a plane a year later and parachuted over Provo, Utah, with $500,000 in ransom money? No, he was home with his family around the time of Coopers hijacking, the FBI later found out. Was it Duane Weber, who claimed on his deathbed to be Cooper? Federal authorities used DNA evidence to rule him out.

Carr, the former FBI agent, lists several reasons why he believes Cooper didnt survive the jump. He didnt appear to be an experienced skydiver and didnt know where he was when he jumped because he never asked the pilots for a location update or gave them a flight path. It also was dark, stormy and cold  poor conditions for skydiving.

Carr said the Cooper case is one of the most popular cases he worked on and he still thinks about it today.

Its a great story. And the story remains untold. And so everybody wants to know what the final chapter is, he says. Weve all read the book to the final chapter, and its blank. And thats what drives people nuts. Drives me nuts. I want to know what the final chapter is, just like everybody else.

This lack of a resolution continues to drive Ulis and other amateur investigators. Since the FBI ended its investigation, its files about the case are now available to the public online, and Ulis says hes reviewed about 35,000 pages of FBI documents.

He says hes determined to find out who Cooper was within the next few years. And he suspects the truth is within reach.

I try to keep it as fact-based and as simple as possible, he says. I apply Occams razor to the situation  the simplest explanation is usually the closest to the truth.

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Warning: Spoilers from Episodes One through Four of Love Is Blind Season Five below.

The first group of episodes from Season Five of Love Is Blind ended on a dramatic cliffhanger. At the end of Episode Four, contestant Uche Okoroha entered the pods hoping to propose to Aaliyah Cosby before learning that she abruptly quit the experiment.

Aaliyah left the show after Uche shared he had a past relationship with fellow contestant Lydia Velez Gonzalez. In a flashback, fans saw Lydia and Uche enter the pods on the first day. Lydia immediately recognized Uches voice, marking the first time in the shows five seasons that two contestants dated before the pods.

Aaliyah, who became close friends with Lydia in the pods, fled the experiment and James Milton Johnson IV, who connected with Lydia, took some time to process the information before asking her to marry him.

Some fans criticized the storyline on social media, with one commenting on Uches Instagram page that the situation was messy.

I feel like the producers manipulated the heck out of this, the person wrote beneath Uches post about the show on Sept. 23.

Uche replied, Yes, production forcing me to keep my past a secret, then editing out the part where I reveal that I wasnt allowed by production to tell the truth was an interesting decision.

In recent interviews, Love Is Blind creator Chris Coelen has spoken about the Lydia and Uche twist and explained how producers decided to handle the situation.

Coelen told Variety that it was a complete surprise when he discovered that Lydia and Uche already knew each other.

I was totally blindsided, he said. It was a complete shock. To be honest, it was like, What are we gonna do? Nobody had any idea.

Coelen, who is also the CEO of the production company behind the show called Kinetic Company, confirmed in an interview with People that the show conducts a very thorough vetting process across all kinds of criteria before each season.

He revealed that in past seasons there have been a few instances where two women met before, but the show had managed to avoid casting two exes, until Season Five.

The TV producer recalled sitting in a control room during filming and being told by a crew member that they overheard Uche and Lydia confirm they previously dated.

I think we have 89 cameras in the pods and theres lots of stuff happening. We have a big team of hundreds of crew members, and theres always somebody listening to something, he explained to People.

Coelen said that Lydia and Uche were spoken to separately and were initially told they might not be able to continue with the experiment. According to him, they both wanted to stay and assured producers they did want to rekindle their romance.

So we said, If we were to allow you to continue being part of this experiment, knowing that you are really passionate about being here, we will allow you to continue under one condition, he shared, adding that the show typically does not control conversations between contestants.

He continued, We never police what anybody says, but in this case, it was the only time where weve said, We would like if you would not reveal this to the others.

Producers explained to the pair that it would not be fair to them or the other cast members to discuss their past. Lydia and Uche were also prohibited from speaking in the pods again.

Eventually, Uche shares the bombshell news with Aaliyah and Lydia anxiously tells Milton in Episode Four.

Coelen revealed that around day six or seven in the pods the crew saw Lydia and Uche developing connections with other people and decided they should be allowed to open up about their dating history.

You dont have to say that, and how you say that and to whom you say that is completely up to you, Lydia and Uche were told, he said.

We said that same thing to both of them, and you see the results on the show, he added.

Going forward, Coelen said the show will try to prevent past connections from impacting the relationships on the show. Im sure it will happen again at some point in some way, but certainly we do our best to avoid that, he concluded.

While Lydia and Milton left the pods engaged, Uche called Aaliyah to understand why she quit the show before Episode Four ended.

Fans will find out if the two are able to work through their issues when Episodes Five through Seven arrive on Netflix Sept. 29.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
Two men in Puerto Rico pleaded guilty to federal hate crime and obstruction of justice charges for their 2020 videotaped attack on a transgender woman experiencing homelessness hours after she used the womens restroom at a local fast-food restaurant. The lifeless body of Alexa Neulisa Luciano was found riddled with bullets the following day.

According to a statement from the Department of Justice, in the early morning hours of February 24, 2020, Jordany Rafael Laboy-Garcia, Christian Yamaurie Rivera-Otero, and former co-defendant Anthony Steven Lobos-Ruiz were driving in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, when they recognized Luciano standing under a tent on a roadside. The trio had seen pictures on social media of Luciano being questioned by police after she used the womens restroom at a local McDonalds. The trio harassed Luciano due to her gender identity, then returned with paint guns which they used to assault her repeatedly. The trio videotaped the attacks and distributed them to others, but later attempted to delete the videos to hide their involvement with Luciano.

The next day, Luciano was shot at least 10 times with a handgun. Video allegedly showing the murder was also posted to social media. Her murder remains unsolved to this day despite a $50,000 reward offered by the FBI.

The defendants are being held accountable for assaulting a transgender woman because of her gender identity and then trying to obstruct an investigation into that assault, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, said. Acts of violence against LGBTQI+ people have no place in our society today. As we mark 25 years since the death of Matthew Shepard, the Justice Department remain steadfast in its commitment to investigate and prosecute those who target LGBTQI+ people with acts of violence.

To assault an innocent victim who posed no threat to the defendants for no other reason than her gender identity is reprehensible behavior that will not be tolerated, said U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow for the District of Puerto Rico. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend the rights of all people, regardless of their gender identity, to be free from hate-fueled violence.

The murder shocked Puerto Rico and the LGBTQ+ community and allies.

This is a horrifying crime that must be investigated with the utmost thoroughness and care. This victim, who has now been identified as Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, was a human being, a member of a community, a friend and family member, Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the transgender justice initiative for the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement in 2020. She had dreams, hopes, hobbies and did not deserve to have her life taken from her.

Im heartsick for Alexa and her loved ones, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, also in 2020.

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This violence is completely unacceptable, Lambda Legal posted. Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are and treated with dignity and respect!

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Sentencing for Laboy-Garcia and Rivera-Otero is scheduled for November 10. Lobos-Ruiz pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime in August of last year and was sentenced to 33 months in prison in November.
ENCINITAS, Calif.  Two teens and one adult were arrested after a man who was selling shoes was robbed at gunpoint in Encinitas, authorities said.

The robbery occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 14 in the 2100 block of Carol View Drive, Sgt. Heather Bruton with the San Diego County Sheriffs Department (SDSO) said in a news release Tuesday.

The victim, who was selling several pairs of shoes, met with another man and woman in a parking lot when a third man joined the group and pointed a gun at the victim, according to law enforcement.

Fearing he may be injured, the victim ran to his vehicle and got into the drivers seat. The woman and two men ran away together with the victims shoes, Bruton said.

During the investigation, authorities used the victims Tesla cameras to identify the suspects.

Body found on sidewalk; SDPD investigating

On Sept. 15, the sheriffs department found and arrested two 16-year-old suspects. One was a boy wearing a pair of shoes stolen from the robbery and the other was a girl, per SDSO. Both were booked into Juvenile Hall on suspicion of robbery.

Jesus Manuel Quinonez, 18, was identified as the armed suspect, authorities said. He was arrested five days after the arrest of the two teens at his home in Carlsbad on suspicion of robbery, possession of stolen property, assault with a deadly weapon and participating in a street gang.

Quinonez was also named a suspect in an Aug. 15 stabbing in Carlsbad.

During the search of Quinonezs home, clothing he was wearing during the Encinitas robbery, shoes stolen during the San Marcos robbery and evidence related to the Carlsbad stabbing were located, Bruton said.

Quinonezs bail is currently set at $300,000.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
The Mitchell home where police found the bodies of two toddlers.

A 33-year-old woman has been arrested on two counts of murder after two toddlers were found dead in a Mitchell home.

Brittany Medina, 33, was being held at Lawrence County Jail without bond Wednesday afternoon.

At about 4 p.m. Tuesday, the Mitchell Police Department requested detectives from the Indiana State Police Bloomington Post assist in an investigation into the deaths of a 3-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl at the home in the 1200 block of Brook Street, according to an ISP news release.

Mitchell is about 10 miles south of Bedford.

The Lawrence County Coroners Office took the children's bodies from Mitchell to Bedford. ISP said autopsies had been scheduled.

Further details about the crimes were not yet available.

ISP did not immediately respond to a voicemail message. According to the Lawrence County prosecutors office, Medinas charges are preliminary and no probable cause affidavit was available Wednesday afternoon.

ISP said the case remains under investigation.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: 2 toddlers found dead in Brook Street home in Mitchell; woman arrested
Artur Proidakov and Liudmyla Tabolina, both from Ukraine, made the list of the worlds top teachers, Global Teacher Prize 2023.

Artur Proidakov, a Ukrainian language and literature teacher, won the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine in 2021. Proidakov is a native of Kadiivka in Luhansk Oblast, from which he had to flee in 2014 after it was occupied by Russian forces.

Proidakov launched a Ukrainian literature course as part of the All-Ukrainian Online School.

Photo: Global Teacher Prize

During the full-scale invasion, he created a Rozmovliai (Speak) online course for everyone who wants to learn Ukrainian.

Proidakov said that being included in the ranking will not change his life, and he intends to continue doing his job. He did, however, offer advice to his colleagues:

"Try to make every lesson exciting. Our countrys future depends on your work with children. Dont shy away from responsibility. Dont shy away from interacting with your students. We can do our job here while our defenders on the front are protecting us. We have to do our job as well as we possibly can," he stressed.

Artur Proidakov

Photo: Global Teacher Prize

Liudmyla Tabolina, also a Ukrainian language and literature teacher, is the finalist of the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine 2019.

She was working at a school in Kharkiv when the full-scale invasion started. For the first four months of the war, until public transport resumed its operation in the city, Tabolina would walk the 11 kilometres from her home to the school.

During Russian attacks on Kharkiv, the school where Tabolina was teaching became a humanitarian aid hub, where the residents of destroyed buildings could find shelter.

Tabolina currently teaches in Kyiv.

Liudmyla Tabolina

Photo: Global Teacher Prize

"I can sum up my feelings with one word: devotion. Devotion to myself, to education, to other teachers, and to Ukraine. My mission is to make sure Ukraine doesnt become a newsflash in the global newsfeed. I will continue feeling proud of our educators and popularising our educational approaches wherever I am," Tabolina said.

Last year, the Global Teacher Prize Ukraine honoured the courage of Ukrainian teachers in the face of the full-scale war.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
Photo: The Canadian Press British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix speaks during an announcement, in Vancouver, B.C., Friday, June 9, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The B.C. Ministry of Health says a proposed bylaw change by the body that regulates doctors could allow physician assistants to work in provincial emergency rooms.

The ministry says the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. has moved to make the change, which would require physician assistants to register with the college and work in hospital emergency rooms under doctor supervision.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says the ministry and the college have worked together to make the change, which will give patients better access to services while supporting other health-care workers.

The ministry says physician assistants could give patient exams, order tests and prescribe drugs, along with other services, under a physician's direction.

The college's CEO, Dr. Heidi Oetter, says the regulator looks forward to bringing physician assistants into the fold to license them to work in B.C. emergency rooms, following other provinces including Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The ministry statement says it's estimated that between 30 and 50 physician assistants live in B.C., and only three programs offer the training across the country, typically taking two years to complete after an undergraduate degree.
Seven Republican candidates met for the second primary debate in California on Wednesday, taking aim at President Biden and each other while the clear front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination was speaking nearly 2,000 miles away.

The candidates tackled issues like the strike by United Auto Workers, the looming government shutdown, immigration policy and education, placing the blame squarely at Mr. Biden's feet for most of the issues currently facing the country.

But it was former President Donald Trump who loomed large over the gathering at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, even as he skipped the contest to deliver a speech outside Detroit. A new CBS News poll this week found Trump with sizable leads over his rivals in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two contests of the nomination process.

These were the candidates on hand for Wednesday's debate:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisFormer New Jersey Gov. Chris ChristieNorth Dakota Gov. Doug BurgumFormer U.N. Ambassador Nikki HaleyFormer Vice President Mike PenceSen. Tim Scott of South Carolina Vivek Ramaswamy

The first debate in August did little to change the underlying dynamic of the race, and Wednesday's contest featured few signs that any candidate is poised to break through and meaningfully challenge Trump's lead.

Several candidates took the former president to task over his decision to skip the debate, a sign that they see his refusal as a weakness to exploit moving forward. DeSantis , who is second in most polls, said Trump was "missing in action." Christie said Trump "hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won't show up here to answer questions."

Otherwise, the candidates largely focused on the current occupant of the White House, and each other. Several took aim at the 38-year-old Ramaswamy, a relative newcomer whose modest rise in the polls before the first debate in Milwaukee made him a target there as well. In the sharpest line of the night, Haley said: "Honestly every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say."

Here are the most notable moments from Wednesday's debate:

DeSantis says Trump is "missing in action" for skipping debate

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks during the Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sept. 27, 2023, in Simi Valley, California. / Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

After a round of questions about the UAW strike, the moderators turned to the looming government shutdown. Speaking for the first time, DeSantis took the opportunity to knock Trump for not showing up to the debate.

"Donald Trump is missing in action," DeSantis said in response to a question on whether populist Republicans are to blame for the shutdown. "He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record."

DeSantis criticized Trump for adding more than $7 trillion to the nation's debt during his presidency, which Christie also noted, while chiding him for not showing up.

"Donald Trump, he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won't show up here to answer questions," Christie said. "He puts $7 trillion on the debt, he should be in this room to answer those questions."

Christie said "everyone" is to blame for the shutdown.

"Voters should blame everybody who's in Washington, D.C. They're being sent down there to do the job, and they've been failing at doing the job for a very long time," Christie said. "If the government closes, it is to the blame of everyone in Washington, D.C."

Christie says Biden is "doing nothing" to enforce immigration laws, says Trump also "failed"

Chris Christie speaks during the Republican primary presidential debate in Simi Valley, California, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. / Credit: Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Christie, New Jersey's former Republican governor, said the U.S. is "not in a position" to legalize the millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.

Asked about former President Ronald Reagan's decision to sign a law that legalized several million unauthorized immigrants in the 1980s and whether he would support a similar measure, Christie said the U.S. should focus on enforcing immigration laws, citing the high levels of illegal border crossings in the past two years.

"Our laws are being broken everyday at the border," Christie said. "And Joe Biden and his crew [are] doing nothing about enforcing that law."

Christie said he would deploy the National Guard to the U.S. southern border if elected.

"We want you here in this country to fill the 6 million vacant jobs we have. But only if you come here to follow the law and only if you come here legally," he said. "If you come here illegally, we will apprehend you and we will send you back across the border from which you came. And the fact is that until we set a law and order agenda in this country, not only now but in the future, we won't be able to continue this."

The former governor also criticized Trump for his record on immigration, saying he did not fulfill his promise to "build a wall" along the border.

"Donald Trump failed on this as well. He said he was going to build a wall across the whole border. He built 52 miles of wall and said Mexico would pay for it," Christie said, understating the roughly 400 miles of new border wall structures built between 2017 and 2021. "Guess what? I think if Mexico knew that he was only going to build 52 miles, they might have paid for the 52 miles."

Candidates take aim at Ramaswamy over business record and China

Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott participate in the second Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sept. 27, 2023, in Simi Valley, California. / Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Like in the first debate, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy again became a target of the other candidates, with his rivals taking aim at his business record.

"Last debate, he said we were all 'bought and paid for' and I thought about that for a little while, and said, you know, I can't imagine how you can say that knowing that you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party and the same people that funded Hunter Biden [with] millions of dollars was a partner of yours as well," Scott said.

Ramaswamy called the accusation "nonsense" and said he pulled his company out of the Chinese market while other companies were expanding there.

"You know what I did with my first company? We opened a subsidiary in China. But you know what I did that was different than every other company? We got the hell out of there," he said.

"Yeah, right before you ran for president," Haley said.

Candidates clash in sharp exchange over U.S. support for Ukraine

In an exchange that brought out some of the starkest differences in opinion of the night, the candidates clashed over the United States' ongoing support for Ukraine amid Russia's ongoing invasion, an issue that has become a sticking point in negotiations in Washington to avoid a government shutdown.

DeSantis said it's in the United States' interest to end the war.

Scott said "degrading the Russian military" is in "our national vital interest," now and in the long run.

"At the end of the day, when you think about the fact, if you want to keep American troops at home, an attack on NATO territory would bring our troops in," Scott said.

Ramaswamy said it's time to "level with the American people."

"Just because [Vladimir] Putin's an evil dictator does not mean Ukraine is good," Ramaswamy said.

Haley, who often clashes with Ramaswamy, interjected.

"A win for Russia is a win for China," Haley said to Ramaswamy, adding, "I forgot, you like Russia."

Pence, supportive of continued Ukraine aid, said, "Peace comes through strength."

Christie said of Russia, "If we give them any of Ukraine, next will be Poland."

Haley to Ramaswamy: "I feel a little bit dumber" after listening to you

Republican candidates participate in the second Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sept. 27, 2023, in Simi Valley, California. / Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Haley slammed Ramaswamy during a discussion on TikTok, after a moderator noted that the entrepreneur recently joined the social media platform, which has been roundly criticized by Republicans as being a spy mechanism for China.

"You joined TikTok after dinner with boxer and influencer Jake Paul. Should the commander in chief be so easily persuaded by an influencer?" Varney, the moderator, asked Ramaswamy.

"So the answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican Party," Ramaswamy said. "We need to win elections, and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are."

Haley jumped in, calling Ramaswamy's position "infuriating."

"TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have," she said. "Honestly every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say."

She later said, "We can't trust you."

"I think we would be better served as a Republican Party if we're not sitting here hurling personal insults and actually have a legitimate debate about policy," Ramaswamy said.

DeSantis dismisses polls, and Christie says Trump should be "voted off the island"

In the last segment of the night, moderator Dana Perino asked the candidates to write down which candidate on stage they would choose to vote "off the island." Mathematically, Perino pointed out, the crowded field gives Trump a clearer path to the nomination.

But DeSantis dismissed the exercise, suggesting it would be disrespectful to his fellow candidates. Asked instead to explain his path to the nomination in the face of Trump's "commanding and enduring lead," DeSantis likewise dismissed the polls.

"Polls don't elect presidents, voters elect presidents," DeSantis said. "And we're going to take the case to voters in these early states. We're going to do it in a state by state direction. And why? Because as Reagan said in his day, this is our time for choosing."

But Christie was happy to weigh in on the original question.

"I'd vote Donald Trump off the island right now," Christie said.

"Every person on this stage has shown the respect for Republican voters to come here, to express their views honestly, and candidly, and directly, and to take your questions directly," Christie said, adding that he has "respect for every man and woman on this stage."

But Trump, who ditched the debate, has caused great rifts in the country, Christie said.

"This guy has not only divided our party, he's divided families all over this country," Christie said. "He's divided friends all over this country. I've spoken to people, and I know everyone else has, who have sat at Thanksgiving dinner, or at a birthday party, and can't have a conversation anymore if they disagree with Donald Trump. He needs to be voted off the island, and he needs to be taken out of this process."

Ramaswamy said, although he disagrees with Christie on Trump, that "the America first agenda does not belong to one man  it belongs to you, the people of this country."

With that, the debate concluded.

Gen. Milley responds to Trump post accusing general of treason | 60 Minutes

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Seven qualified Republican presidential candidates are set to take the stage in Simi Valley, Calif., Wednesday night for the partys second primary debate, and the contenders are spending the run-up in the gym, with their families and listening to music.

Sen. Tim Scotts campaign told The Hill that he plans to spend time in prayer, in scripture, and in the gym after being in California with his family and team members in the days leading up to the closely watched event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Former Vice President Mike Pence will get a workout in, do some light prep, and spend time with his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, his campaign told The Hill.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also plans to work out before the big event, his campaign said, as well as spend time with his wife and two sons.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christies pre-debate routine will include plenty of Bruce Springsteen , his campaign said. Once hes on the stage, the strategy is simple: listen to the questions, answer them directly, and call out dishonesty when he sees it.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will also be on the stage, the Republican National Committee announced. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who made the cut for the first stage in August, was left off the list.

Also absent from the stage is the partys front-runner candidate, former President Trump, who will give remarks in Michigan as counter-programming. He also skipped the first debate.

Haley told Fox Business on Friday that her packed campaign trail calendar, answering questions at town halls in key states, has been the best debate prep you can get.

As we head into the second primary debate on Wednesday evening, we are excited to build on last months strong performance in Milwaukee and take advantage of another opportunity for Ron DeSantis to deliver his message to millions of Americans across the country who are just now beginning to tune in to the race, DeSantiss team said in a memo to supporters ahead of the event.

Burgum said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that tonight at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Ill outline my vision for how well unlock the best of America and improve every American life.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Three L.A. County residents were found guilty of laundering over $2.5 million in Target gift cards.

The trio was identified as:

 Blade Bai, 35, of El Monte

 Bowen Hu, 28, of Hacienda Heights

 Tairan Shi, 29, of Diamond Bar

After a 10-day trial, all three were found guilty Tuesday of scamming victims into buying gift cards under the false pretense of resolving various financial problems, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Between June 2019 and Nov. 2020, prosecutors estimate over $2.5 million worth of gift cards were laundered.

The scheme involved overseas scammers calling victims and persuading them to buy one or more Target gift cards to rectify nonexistent issues.

Some victims received calls from the suspects posing as law enforcement officers or government employees claiming the victims identities had been stolen or warrants were issued for their arrest. Others were sent fake tech support emails claiming issues with the victims financial accounts. In order to resolve these problems, they were asked to send payment in the form of Target gift cards, authorities said.

$15.6 million approved to combat smash-and-grab thefts in L.A. County

Victims were told to purchase gift cards, often more than one and typically in increments of $500. They were told to read the card numbers and access codes over the phone to the fraudsters.

Using this method, a China-based scam group known as the Magic Lamp sold over 5,000 fraudulent gift cards to the trio through the messaging app, WeChat, court documents said.

The trio used WeChat to coordinate the distribution of gift cards to runners who spent the funds at Target stores in Los Angeles and Orange counties. They purchased a variety of items including electronics, other gift cards and more.

All three were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Bai was arrested in Nov. 2020 on a criminal complaint involving this case and was released on bond. Within days of his release, authorities said he engaged in yet another money laundering scheme involving Target gift cards. He was arrested in Feb. 2022 and has remained in federal custody since.

One of the runners, Yan Fu, 60, of Chino Hills, pleaded guilty in Sept. 2022 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is serving a 20-month sentence in federal prison and was ordered to pay $48,073 in restitution.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 26, 2024, where the three scammers could face up to 20 years in prison.

To report a gift card scam, contact the FBIs Internet Crime Complaint Center or the Federal Trade Commission. The public can also call 877-382-4357 or the local police department.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Detectives are investigating after 3 children and two adults were hurt when their car crashed into a tree in south Seattle Monday night.

The Seattle Police Department said the crash happened shortly after 11 p.m. in the 10000 block Holyoke Way South.

When officers got there, they found a car that left the road and hit a tree.

First aid was given at the scene. Five people were taken to Harborview Medical Center. One adult and two children had minor injuries. The other two occupants, one adult, and one 3-year-old child had serious injuries.

Patrol officers blocked off the scene until detectives with the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad got there.

Detectives are working to figure out what led up to the crash.

On Monday night, a man died after colliding with a tree in Carkeek Park.
Rep. Debbie Dingell is a veteran of Michigan politics and, as a leading Democrat in the House of Representatives, she is always concerned that her party is not taking seriously enough Midwestern voters and the issues that matter to them.

On Wednesday, she spoke to Yahoo News in advance of former President Donald Trump s visit to an automotive parts dealer outside Detroit. Trumps trip there coincides with the second Republican primary debate; it also comes a day after President Biden joined striking United Auto Workers members on the picket line in a show of solidarity.

President Biden is greeted by Rep. Debbie Dingell, center, Shawn Fain, top left, president of the United Auto Workers, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, lower left, at the airport in Romulus, Mich., Sept. 26. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Yahoo News: You famously warned the Democratic candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, that she needed to devote more time to the Upper Midwest, and Trump went on to carry many of those key swing states. Are you concerned that this time around, with a reinvigorated Trump, that danger could return?

U.S. President Joe Biden joins striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the picket line outside the GM's Willow Run Distribution Center, in Belleville, Wayne County, Michigan, U.S., September 26, 2023. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Dingell: I want to be really clear: Michigan is not a blue state, contrary to what everybody thinks. We are a purple state.

President Trump is very good at understanding peoples concerns and anxieties. He uses wedge issues. This is a man who is all words, no action. He is not going to fight for union workers.

Read more on Yahoo News: In UAW strike, Trump pretends to support workers. He's used to stabbing them in the back. (Opinion), from USA Today

Could President Biden, by accelerating and emphasizing the transition to electrical vehicles, pay a political price, even if that transition is an inevitability?

President Donald Trump, second from right, gets a demonstration of an electric pickup truck on the South Lawn of the White House, Sept. 28, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

We got to do a better job of standing up and talking about why it matters. We have to make sure that the federal dollars that were invested in that transition are getting to the workers. We have to make sure that the workers are being taken care of.

We just have to make sure we are telling our story and not letting fearmongering win.

Words, not actions.

The president knows this.

Read more on Yahoo News: Biden addresses UAW concerns amid EV transition, from Politico

Union leadership supports President Biden. But is the cultural appeal of Trump more persuasive to the rank and file?

Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, with President Biden and striking autoworkers at the GM Willow Run Distribution Center in Belleville, Mich., on Tuesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

I don't lie. People know I'm in union halls. We have to communicate with workers. They need to know we're fighting for them.

I don't just go to union halls because suddenly there's a strike and there might be a camera around. I sit with these workers all the time. I want them to know that somebody cares about them. And when they see Joe Biden like they did yesterday, they know that he really does stand with them.

But this isn't going to be a slam dunk.

Read more on Yahoo News: Biden urges striking auto workers to 'stick with it' in picket line visit unparalleled in history, from Associated Press
With every passing poll, it looks more and more likely that the 2024 presidential general election will star the same two protagonists as 2020: President Biden and former President Donald Trump.

In the Republican primary, Trump now leads his nearest rival by 46 percentage points, according to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov survey. On the Democratic side, Biden is ahead by 61.

History says that such leads tend to be insurmountable.

Yet even if America ends up with a Biden-Trump rematch, that doesnt mean November 2024 will be a rerun of November 2020.

In part thats because Trump and Biden have changed, with the former now facing four criminal trials and the latter fending off questions about his advanced age.

But its also because key electoral dynamics have been changing as well.

The map

The Electoral College has long favored Republicans, and that advantage has grown in recent elections. Both Trump and George W. Bush were able to win the presidency while losing the popular vote because they fared far better in the pivotal battleground states than they did nationwide.

But a recent New York Times analysis notes that the GOPs Electoral College edge might be fading.

The main reason is that Trump has been improving his standing among nonwhite voters at the same time Biden has been holding his ground among white voters (especially college graduates).

Nonwhite voters are generally underrepresented in critical battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and overrepresented in solidly blue states like California and New York. As a result, Trumps gains among nonwhite voters nationwide would tend to do more to improve his standing in the national vote than in the battleground states, as the Times put it. Trump flipping a voter in Democratic Oregon is worth less than Biden flipping a voter in purple Pennsylvania.

Voters outside a polling site in Warwick, R.I., on Nov. 7, 2022. (David Goldman/AP)

Recent special-election outcomes in swing states like Wisconsin and New Hampshire reflect this emerging shift. So far in this years special elections, Democrats have been performing better than expected by an average of 11 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

That doesnt mean Biden is heading for a blowout in 2024. In fact, current polling suggests a closer race than last time, when Biden won by more than 4 points.

But it may mean a shifting landscape. While more diverse battlegrounds such as Arizona, Georgia and Nevada are likely to retain their nail-biter status, the whiter swing states across the Northeast and Upper Midwest could become harder for Trump to win  and a state like North Carolina (which Biden lost by just 1.35% in 2020, and where Republicans face brewing abortion-ban backlash) could play a bigger role than ever before.

The electorate

The nominees might not be different in 2024, but the electorate certainly will be. According to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, 1 in 5 eligible voters will now be members of Gen Z, born in the late 1990s or after.

Compared to their older counterparts  two and a half million of whom die each year  that figure represents a net gain of 52 million potential Gen Z voters since 2016.

It also represents a potential advantage for Biden in a rematch with Trump. Its not that Gen Z voters are loyal to the elderly president (or to any politician or party, for that matter). But 48% of them identify as people of color (compared to baby boomers, who are 72% white), and theyre more likely to be highly educated, to support LGBTQ rights and to list racism among their greatest concerns than the generations that preceded them.

Driven less, then, by party or personality than by strong passion on one or more issues  such as climate change or abortion access  young people in recent years have vote[d] more frequently for Democrats and progressive policies than prior generations did when of similar age, according to Lake.

Although still voting at much lower rates than older people, theyve also turned out to vote in greater numbers than their forebears. As Lake writes, average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump  8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.

The third-party spoilers

A third-party candidate ran in 2020: Libertarian Jo Jorgensen. But her candidacy barely registered, attracting just 1.2% of the vote. The Green Partys Howie Hawkins did even worse (0.26%).

The possibility of a spoiler could be a lot higher this cycle, however.

For one thing, the left-wing Green Party is running a far more prominent candidate in Cornel West, the charismatic Princeton philosophy professor.

Scholar and activist Cornel West. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Meanwhile, the centrist group known as No Labels is also barreling ahead with a controversial plan to field a third-party unity ticket in 2024  one Republican, one Democrat. Two politicians with ties to the group, former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican from Maryland, and Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, have already expressed interest in teaming up.

No Labels has said it has until March 2024 to decide whether to get into the race  and that it will announce its candidates no later than April 15, 2024, ahead of the groups own convention in Dallas.

In the meantime, the group is amassing $70 million  from donors it has repeatedly refused to disclose  to purchase its own presidential ballot line in all 50 states. In 34 of those states, No Labels can hold a spot on the 2024 ballot for a potential third-party ticket by collecting and submitting a certain number of signatures. The group has already cleared that bar in Arizona, Colorado, Alaska and Oregon, and it says its on track to add another 24 states by years end (including battlegrounds such as Florida, North Carolina and Nevada). Elsewhere, its up to the candidates themselves  if any end up materializing  to secure their own ballot access.

Democrats fear that No Labels would siphon anti-Trump voters away from Biden  and help Trump win back the White House.
Milwaukee Area Technical College President Vicki Martin announced Wednesday she will retire June 30, ending her 35-year tenure in various positions with the college, including a decade at the helm.

The announcement comes after the MATC board met Tuesday evening, where none of the nine directors or Martin mentioned her impending exit from the college. However, the board's actions this summer  offering Martin a one-year contract  suggested her departure from the role might be forthcoming.

Martin, 69, is leaving a role she's held since 2014, overseeing the largest of Wisconsin's system of 16 technical colleges based on full-time-equivalent enrollment. MATC enrolled just over 29,000 students last fall, many of whom are taking classes part time.

She often cites programs focused on making college attainable as her biggest accomplishments. That includes leading the institution when it created the MATC Promise, a program that covers the cost of up to 75 credits for recent high school graduates or adults who meet certain income requirements and M3, a dual credit program for Milwaukee Public School high schoolers. Last summer, MATC launched the largest scholarship fund in the school's history

In an interview Wednesday, Martin said she has contemplated retirement "over the years," but wanted to wait until the right time.

"It's time for me to start another chapter, for sure," Martin said. "The timing was really good right now, for a number of reasons: I felt the college was in a really positive place, that we've got a really good team. I'm really convinced that it's going to be set up for success for whoever takes over."

Board actions this summer suggested Martin could leave position

In July, the MATC board offered Martin a one-year contract renewal expiring at the end of the current academic year. It also included language to end previous contracts. It was a departure from the status quo, as the MATC board has historically offered Martin multiyear contracts with automatic renewals.

The board awarded Martin a $40,000 bonus this summer, which she will be able to collect by waiting until the end of June to retire. Including that bonus, Martin has received $180,000 in bonuses from the board over the past five years.

Martin's salary in 2023-24 is $282,573. She also receives a $90,000 salary supplement that can be deposited in a retirement annuity and a $12,000 transportation allowance. The college's total revenue in 2022 was nearly $277 million, with about a third from property taxes and nearly another third from state aid.

In July, Martin told the Journal Sentinel via email she had "not finalized her timeline for consideration of retirement."

"I have considered the issue of retirement and will determine my retirement at the appropriate time and with necessary time for the Board, our employees and our partners to properly plan and transition," Martin wrote in response to questions from the Journal Sentinel.

MATC Board Chair Mark Foley said in response to questions this summer that the board approved a one-year contract because, going forward, "we expect to consider the issue of her retirement status on a year-to-year basis."

During an interview Wednesday, Foley said the board wanted to give Martin flexibility to decide when to leave. The board did not discuss Martin's retirement during the prior evening's public meeting for several reasons, he said, including giving Martin time to tell board members about her decision individually.

MATC board intends to replace Martin by July

The MATC board intends to hire the next president by spring, in preparation for start date of July 1, 2024, according to a statement attributed to MATC board Chair Mark Foley that was released Wednesday morning.

The MATC board plans to create an executive committee to lead a national search for Martin's replacement, and will send out a request for proposals for an external firm "in the coming weeks," Foley's statement said.

The board has not decided on a budget for the search firm yet, Foley said in an interview Wednesday.

Martin ends 35-year career with MATC

In 2014, outgoing MATC President Michael Burke gave 11 days' notice he was leaving the job for a chancellor position at Riverside Community College in California. The MATC board hired Martin to fill his spot less than two weeks later, without the use of a search firm.

At the time, Martin had already held a top-ranking administrative position since 2007. She had also been a finalist for the president's job in 2010, when Burke was ultimately selected.

Martin began her career with MATC in 1988 overseeing registration, admissions, financial aid, counseling and other student-focused administrative tasks for the Oak Creek campus. After working as a student services director, she was promoted to a regional team leader at the same campus in 1996, and two years later, to a role overseeing MATC's research and strategic planning.

Martin was named vice president of the Oak Creek campus and director of strategic planning in 2004. In 2007, she took over as executive vice president and provost, a position she held until being named president.

ESL programs, treatment of Black employees at MATC raised as issues during Martin's tenure

Some raised concerns during Martin's tenure about how well MATC serves its students and employees of color. About a quarter of MATC students are Black; 56% of students overall and 45% of full-time employees are people of color.

This spring, MATC issued an apology after cuts to English as a second language (ESL) classes shortly before the beginning of the spring semester caused frustration on campus. The college said errors in budgeting meant there were not enough faculty to teach all originally scheduled ESL classes.

Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights organization in Milwaukee, has advocated for the need for ESL programs at MATC. In a statement Wednesday, Executive Director Christine Neumann-Oritz said MATC provides needed routes for Latinos and immigrants to be able to advance through ESL courses, bilingual trainings and similar programs.

"I hope that under new leadership, and a strong board, we can continue to ensure that we have strong investments and resources for responding to the needs of the most vulnerable workers and the Latino community, which continues to grow," Neumann-Oritz said.

In 2021, the vice president of enrollment management at MATC, Amir Law, resigned as a result of what he described as a culture of racism and discrimination against Black employees at MATC. A separate group at the college, the African American Network, said at the time that Law's resignation was emblematic of broader cultural issues.

At the time, Martin told the Journal Sentinel in an interview that Law's resignation was unfortunate and MATC would "continue to focus on supporting our current and future employees."

Cleo Krejci covers higher education, vocational training and retraining as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. Support her work with a tax-deductible donation atbit.ly/RFADonation.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: After a decade as MATC president, Vicki Martin to retire in June
Four people are behind bars after Newton County deputies found drugs and weapons inside of their U-Haul truck.

At noon on Tuesday, Newton County deputies said they received a call about suspicious activity at a Texaco located off of Highway 81 North in Oxford, Ga.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

When deputies arrived, they spoke with the occupants of a U-Haul parked outside the Texaco.

The deputies searched the vehicle and found a small amount of fentanyl.

Newton Countys Criminal Investigations Division and Special Investigations Division arrived and found a small amount of meth in the vehicle along with a firearm.

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The four people were charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of meth and possession of fentanyl.

Deputies have not released their photos.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
Constipation tends to get worse with age. Experts share how to combat it.

Constipation tends to get worse with age. Experts share how to combat it.

If you deal with constipation, rest assured youre not alone  its a common issue that tends to get worse as we age. About 16 of 100 adults experience symptoms of constipation, and 33% of adults ages 60 and older deal with this not-so-fun bodily issue, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Constipation is technically defined as a gastrointestinal condition in which you have three or fewer bowel movements per week, although everyone experiences it differently. Basically, if you have trouble emptying your bowels as often as you want or feel you need to, you deal with constipation.

While most people who deal with constipation consider it an annoying fact of life (its the most common gastrointestinal complaint and is responsible for 2.5 million doctors visits annually), it can come with complications. Chronic constipation can lead to hemorrhoids (which happen when we have to strain too hard during a bowel movement), anal fissures and even rectal prolapse, which happens when part of your rectum slips down further than its supposed to.

Whether you deal with mild constipation or have had serious complications related to it, most of us know one thing to be true: Staying as regular as possible is ideal. For that reason, we talked to the absolute experts in GI health to find out what they do to avoid constipation and stay regular. Heres what they had to say:

They have consistent mealtimes and periods of rest.

If you deal with constipation and youre someone who snacks all day or goes long stretches of time without eating, finding a rhythm in your eating schedule might be helpful.

As Dr. Harmony Allison, a gastroenterologist at Tufts Medical Center, explains it, the bodys normal rhythm of bowel movements is after a period of rest and after meals. So for her, aiming for consistent mealtimes and a consistent period of rest are both key.

They eat fiber-rich foods.

Youve probably heard that fiber is key to staying regular  and its good advice. Fiber-rich foods are crucial, said Dr. Supriya Rao, a board-certified obesity doctor, gastroenterologist and director of medical weight loss at Lowell General Hospital.

Fiber is a type of carbohydrate. Plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables and grains will help you get your daily fiber intake, Rao said. Fiber promotes regularity by helping food move through your digestive system. This is because fiber absorbs water and bulks up stools, making them easier to pass.

Fiber also adds bulk to your meals, which can help you feel full for longer periods of time, she explained. Look for oats, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables to get your daily amount, Rao said. Youll want to aim for 25 to 30 grams naturally. And try to get your daily fiber intake from whole foods before trying supplements.

Allison added that its important to get both soluble and insoluble fiber. Youll want to have plenty of soluble fiber (psyllium husks are an example of this) and insoluble fiber, like fruits and vegetables, she said.

They drink a lot of water.

According to every GI doctor we spoke with, water is key to reducing constipation.

There are a few habits that are essential to good bowel movements, but the one that I mention the most is proper hydration, said gastroenterologist Dr. Steven Batash. You should aim for half of your body weight in ounces per day to make sure youre drinking enough fluids.

Looking for a specific amount of water you should be drinking? Dr. Tarun Sharma, a gastroenterologist at Gastroenterology Associates of New Jersey, said he drinks one to two liters of water every day in the name of staying regular.

They exercise.

Sharma said that in addition to drinking one or two liters of water per day, he exercises regularly.

I aim for moderate exercise two to three times per week for 30 to 45 minutes. Adequate water and exercise also acts as a stimulant for proper gut peristalsis which is required for regular bowel movements, he said.

Constipation isnt fun for anyone, and while these tips can certainly help, if youre dealing with chronic issues, be sure to reach out to your doctor to let them know whats going on. They can give you more personalized tips for staying regular or refer you to a gastroenterologist or nutritionist who can help you come up with a treatment plan.

Related...
Photo: Brendan Kergin. Three Vancouver police officers are on trial for assault.

A trial is underway in Vancouver Provincial Court for three Vancouver police officers on assault-related charges connected to a May 24, 2017 SkyTrain incident.

The officers allegedly tried to stop David Cowie for riding a bike with no light, helmet, lights or proper reflectors when the man was injured.

The incident took place on the ground floor of the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain Station.

Const. Brandon Blue is charged with assault causing bodily harm, while constables Beau Spencer and Gregory Jackson are accused of assault.

The Crown case is being presented by prosecutor Peter Campbell.

The BC Prosecution Service (BCPS) has said the Independent Investigations Office investigated the case and passed on its report for consideration of charges to Crown counsel in February 2019.

The officers were charged in September 2021.

The BCPS said the charge assessment process was slowed by the complexity of the issues, volume of disclosure and its requests for further disclosure.
TechCrunch

Apple has warned over a half dozen Indian lawmakers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's main opposition of their iPhones being targets of state-sponsored attacks, these people said Tuesday, in a serious digital espionage charge just months ahead of next year's general elections. Rahul Gandhi, Indian opposition leader, said in a media briefing Tuesday that his team had received the said alert from Apple. Shashi Tharoor, a key figure from the Congress party; Akhilesh Yadav, the head of the Samajwadi Party; Mahua Moitra, a national representative from the All India Trinamool Congress; and Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena, a party with notable influence in Maharashtra reported that they too had been notified by Apple regarding a potential security attack on their iPhones.
A site known for its national school ratings and reviews recently released its K-12 rankings for the 2023-24 school year.

Niche rated more than 3,000 public elementary and middle schools in Illinois, including 72 in St. Clair County.

The site uses a combination of public data from the U.S. Department of Education as well as millions of reviews and survey responses from parents and students to determine its annual rankings.

Its methodology for the public elementary and middle school rankings is the same. The following five weighted factors go into each schools ranking:

An academics grade , which is worth 50% and based on state assessment proficiency and survey responses from parent and students

A teachers grade , which is worth 20% and based on teacher salary and absenteeism, state test results and survey responses from parent and students

A district overall grade , which is worth 15% and based on a rigorous analysis of academic and student life data along with millions of reviews from students and parents

A culture and diversity grade , which is worth 10% and based on racial and economic diversity and survey responses from parent and students

Parent/student surveys on overall experience, which are worth 5% and scored on a scale of one to five

With the schools ranked, Niche then assigns a letter grade based on how each school performs compared to other schools, using a predetermined distribution.

Half of a schools ranking is determined by its academic grade, which is in large part based on proficiency  or how students perform on standardized state testing for reading and math. The grade does not take into account a schools academic growth, which indicates progress students are making on those state tests. Many argue that academic growth, or a hybrid of growth and proficiency, is a better metric of a schools performance than proficiency alone.

To ensure consistency across all schools in the country, Niche uses the most recent school proficiency data available from the U.S. Department of Education, which has a delay due to the way it checks and processes data. Niches 2024 rankings rely on proficiency data from the 2020-21 school year. The 2023 rankings used proficiency data from the 2018-19 school year, since the Department of Education didnt release data for the 2019-20 school year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In St. Clair County, Mascoutah Community Unit School District 19 and OFallon Community Consolidated School District 90 have the five best public elementary schools, according to Niche.

For middle schools, Smithton Community Consolidated School District 130, Freeburg Community Consolidated School District 70 and Wolf Branch School District 113 join Mascoutah 19 and OFallon 90 in the top five.

Across all 10 schools, reading proficiency rates decreased by an average 13% and math by an average of 9% from the 2023 rankings that relied on 2018-19 school year data to the 2024 rankings relying on 2020-21 school year data. Only two schools saw a proficiency rate improve. Both Estelle Kampmeyer Elementary School and Mascoutah Middle Schools math proficiency rates improved by 5%.

Heres how the top five public elementary and middle schools in St. Clair County compare, according to Niche.

Elementary schools

5. Mascoutah Elementary School (Mascoutah 19)

Grades: A overall, A academics, A- teachers, B diversity

Mascoutah Elementary School moved down one spot from fourth place in the 2023 rankings to fifth place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 815 students from pre-K to eighth grade, with a student-teacher ratio of 17-to-1. The average teacher salary is $50,693.

According to state test scores, 49% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 62% for the 2018-19 school year), and 42% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 61%).

4. Estelle Kampmeyer Elementary School (OFallon 90)

Grades: A overall, A academics, A teachers, B+ diversity

Estelle Kampmeyer Elementary School joined the top five in the 2024 rankings, coming in at fourth place. In the 2023 rankings, it ranked eleventh.

The school has 450 students from pre-K to fifth grade with a student-teacher ratio of 18-to-1. The average teacher salary is $45,019.

According to state test scores, 47% of students were at or above proficiency in both reading and math for the 2020-21 school year, down from 62% in reading and up from 42% in math for the 2018-19 school year.

3. Wingate Elementary School (Mascoutah 19)

Grades: A overall, A- academics, A teachers, A- diversity

Wingate Elementary School moved up two spots from fifth place in the 2023 rankings to third place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 488 students from pre-K to fifth grade with a student-teacher ratio of 17-to-1. The average teacher salary is not indicated.

According to state test scores, 47% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 52% for the 2018-19 school year), and 37% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 57%).

2. J. Emmett Hinchcliffe Sr. Elementary School (OFallon 90)

Grades: A overall, A academics, A teachers, B+ diversity

J. Emmett Hinchcliffe Sr. Elementary School swapped spots with Scott Elementary School, moving from first place in the 2023 rankings to second place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 428 students from pre-K to fifth grade with a student-teacher ratio of 18-to-1. The average teacher salary is $46,575.

According to state test scores, 47% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 59% for the 2018-19 school year), and 62% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 64%).

1. Scott Elementary School (Mascoutah 19)

Grades: A overall, A academics, B+ teachers, A- diversity

Scott Elementary School moved from second place in the 2023 rankings to first place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 742 students from pre-K to fifth grade with a student-teacher ratio of 15-to-1. The average teacher salary is $42,326.

According to state test scores, 54% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 63% in the 2018-19 school year), and 44% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 56%).

Middle schools

5. Fulton Junior High School (OFallon 90)

Grades: A overall, A- academics, A- teachers, A- diversity

Fulton Junior High School moved down two spots from third place in the 2023 rankings to fifth place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 656 students from sixth to eighth grades with a student-teacher ratio of 21-to-1. The average teacher salary is $44,010.

According to state test scores, 42% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 60% for the 2018-19 school year), and 33% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 46%).

4. Smithton Elementary School (Smithton 130)

Grades: A- overall, A academics, A- teachers, C- diversity

Smithton Elementary School also moved down two spots from second place in the 2023 rankings to fourth place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 561 students from pre-K to eighth grade with a student-teacher ratio of 16-to-1. The average teacher salary is $47,697.

According to state test scores, 47% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 63% for the 2018-19 school year), and 45% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 59%).

3. Freeburg Elementary School (Freeburg 70)

Grades: A- overall, A academics, A+ teachers, C diversity

Freeburg Elementary School moved up one spot from fourth place in the 2023 rankings to third place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 512 students from third to eighth grades with a student-teacher ratio of 13-to-1. The average teacher salary is $64,839.

According to state test scores, 51% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 64% for the 2018-19 school year), and 39% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 51%).

2. Wolf Branch Middle School (Wolf Branch 113)

Grades: A overall, A academics, A teachers, A- diversity

Wolf Branch Elementary School moved down a spot from first place in the 2023 rankings to second place in 2024 rankings.

The school has 312 students from fifth to eighth grades with a student-teacher ratio of 16-to-1. The average teacher salary is $57,819.

According to state test scores, 47% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 65% for the 2018-19 school year), and 46% were at or above proficiency in math (down from 56%).

1. Mascoutah Middle School (Mascoutah 19)

Grades: A overall, A academics, A teachers, A- diversity

Mascoutah Middle School made the jump from seventh place in the 2023 rankings all the way to first place in the 2024 rankings.

The school has 934 students from sixth to eighth grades with a student-teacher ratio of 16-to-1. The average teacher salary is $52,606.

According to state test scores, 48% of students were at or above proficiency in reading for the 2020-21 school year (down from 59% for the 2018-19 school year), and 44% are at or above proficiency in math (up from 39%).
As artificial intelligence grips Washington as a policy issue and the Biden administration goes hard after the tech giants, POLITICOs AI and Tech Summit will tackle the fast collision of government and technology in real time.

Hosted in Washington, D.C., the summit starts Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

Guests can still register to attend here. The conference kicks off with an interview with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan , taking the stage in person a day after her agency sued Amazon.

After that, policymakers, tech CEOs and expert panelists will drill into the international race for chip production, how (or whether) Washington will regulate artificial intelligence and the potential for using AI in intelligence-gathering and to mitigate climate change.

Here are five things to watch at the summit:

Antitrust and the tech industry: Khan will sit down with POLITICO for an in-depth discussion of her agencys efforts to break up monopolies in the tech sector. Beyond this weeks landmark competition suit against Amazon, Khan has tackled antitrust concerns raised by Microsoft and Meta, but with mixed results. The FTC chair will also discuss whether the commission is equipped to tackle AI, and what unique antitrust concerns the fast-moving technology raises.

Which way on AI? Wednesdays event will feature prominent congressional voices on AI  Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.)  and representatives from Google, Scale AI and an official from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Theyll speak about how to earn public trust in AI systems, and how Congress and the Biden administration should balance innovation with safety as they attempt to regulate this fast-moving segment of the tech industry.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers top lieutenants on AI legislation, will also sit down for a one-on-one with POLITICO to discuss Capitol Hills plans for the technology.

AI and national security: The day will also reveal how leading minds in intelligence and cybersecurity are adapting to the global race to deploy AI. In a live taping for the POLITICO Tech podcast, Anne Neuberger  deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology for the Biden administration  will discuss the White Houses effort to establish innovation-friendly relationships with allies while also monitoring the technological progress of U.S. adversaries.

Lakshmi Raman, the Central Intelligence Agencys director of AI, will dive into the use of the technology for intelligence gathering. And Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril Industries, will discuss how the federal government can link up with the private sector to modernize the Pentagons AI arsenal.

High-tech supply chains: Despite last years passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, Capitol Hill and the Biden administration remain concerned about the security of Americas high-tech supply chain  particularly in the face of a rising China. Sen. Young, a key architect of CHIPS and Science, will discuss what else Congress should do to boost microchip production and research in the United States. Attendees will also hear from Aaron Ronnie Chatterji  until recently the White House coordinator for microchip policy  as well as officials from Intel and Silverado Policy Accelerator.

AI and climate change: The summit will explore the potential for AI systems to supercharge the response to climate change. Attendees will hear from former Biden administration officials and top industry voices  including representatives from IBM, Chemix and Gecko Robotics  about how advanced AI systems can improve climate modeling, reduce energy consumption and otherwise help to cool a fast-warming planet.


The 72nd Miss USA pageant will take place on September 29 in Reno, Nevada.

The competition comes after rigging allegations that rocked the pageant in 2022.

Insider rounded up the biggest controversies that have occurred in Miss USA history.

Mary Leona Gage had her Miss USA title revoked after pageant officials found out she was married and had two children.

Miss USA 1957 Mary Leona Gage. Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images

Contestants in the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants were not allowed to be married or have children until 2023.

But before the rule changed, Mary Leona Gage entered the pageant in 1957 and didn't tell the organization that she was married and had two children, The Baltimore Sun reported. She also told the judges she was 21 when she was actually 18, according to the outlet.

Gage was crowned Miss USA in the pageant, but The Baltimore Sun reported that the organization discovered her secret the next day as she competed for Miss Universe and revoked her title, crown, and prizes.

She told the outlet in 2005 that she entered the pageant in an attempt to escape the husband she married when she was 14 and make a better life for her children.

A contestant resigned in 2012 after alleging the competition was rigged.

Miss Pennsylvania alleged the 2012 Miss USA pageant was rigged. Isaac Brekken/Getty Images

Olivia Culpo won the Miss USA pageant in 2012, but Sheena Monnin, who competed as Miss Pennsylvania that year, alleged that the pageant was rigged and the top five contestants were selected before the show started, Insider previously reported.

Two days after the pageant, Monnin called out the organization in a Facebook post and announced she was resigning as Miss Pennsylvania, according to The Guardian.

"In good conscience, I can no longer be affiliated in any way with an organization I consider to be fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent, and in many ways trashy," she said in the post.

The Miss Universe Organization, which was owned by Donald Trump at the time, then sued Monnin for $10 million as a result of her comments, The Guardian reported.

In December 2012, an arbitration judge ordered Monnin to pay the pageant $5 million for defamation. According to The Guardian, Monnin's lawyer failed to show up to an arbitration hearing in November 2012 where the case was decided. The outlet reported that he also failed to inform Monnin that the hearing was taking place, so she was unable to defend herself.

Following the decision, Trump called it an "expensive lesson" for Monnin in a statement shared by TMZ.

"We cannot allow a disgruntled contestant to make false and reckless statements which are damaging to the many people who have devoted their hearts and souls to the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageant systems," Trump said. "While I feel very badly for Sheena, she did the wrong thing. She was really nasty, and we had no choice. It is an expensive lesson for her."

In 2013, Monnin sued her former lawyer for malpractice and won. Though the details of the settlement are not public, The Guardian reported that she used the money to pay Miss Universe.

Miss Teen USA 2016 used racial slurs on Twitter before she was crowned, but she got to keep her title.

Miss Teen USA 2016 Karlie Hay. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Karlie Hay was crowned Miss Teen USA in 2016 while representing Texas, but shortly after she won the pageant, four tweets in which she used the N-word three years before the pageant surfaced, as People reported at the time.

The Miss Universe pageant said in a statement to ABC13 that Hay's actions were "unacceptable at any age" but that she "was in a different place in her life and made a serious mistake she regrets and for which she sincerely apologizes."

The organization allowed Hay to keep her title, but she released an apology on Instagram.

"Several years ago, I had many personal struggles and found myself in a place that is not representative of who I am as a person," she said. "I admit that I have used language publicly in the past which I am not proud of and that there is no excuse for."

"Through hard work, education and thanks in large part to the sisterhood that I have come to know through pageants, I am proud to say that I am today a better person," she went on to say. "I am honored to hold this title and I will use this platform to promote the values of The Miss Universe Organization, and my own, that recognize the confidence, beauty and perseverance of all women."

Miss USA 2018 received backlash after commenting on her Miss Universe competitors' English language skills.

Miss USA 2018 Sarah Rose Summers. FOX via Getty Images

Miss Nebraska Sarah Rose Summers won the Miss USA pageant in 2018 and went on to compete at Miss Universe that year.

But Summers received backlash after she commented on two of her Miss Universe competitors' English language skills during an Instagram live video, according to People.

She said Miss Vietnam H'Hen Nie was "adorable" when describing her English language skills.

"She's so cute and she pretends to know so much English and then you ask her a question after having a whole conversation with her and she goes," trailing off and nodding her head in an apparent imitation of Nie.

Summers also mentioned Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat in the video.

"Miss Cambodia is here and doesn't speak any English, and not a single person here speaks her language," she said. "Can you imagine? Francesca said that it would be very isolating and I think yes, and just confusing all the time."

Social media users accused Summers of bullying at the time, and she issued an apology on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself and Miss Colombia Valeria Morales and Miss Australia Francesca Hung, who were in the video with her, hugging Sinat and Nie.

"In a moment where I intended to admire the courage of a few of my sisters, I said something that I now realize can be perceived as not respectful, and I apologize," she said in the apology. "My life, friendships, and career revolve around me being a compassionate and empathetic woman."

"I would never intend to hurt another," she went on to say. "I am grateful for opportunities to speak with Nat, Miss Cambodia, and H'Hen, Miss Vietnam, directly about this experience. These are the moments that matter most to me."

Rigging allegations consumed the Miss USA 2022 pageant.

R'Bonney Gabriel during the 2022 Miss USA pageant in Reno, Nevada. Finesse Levine

A day after R'Bonney Gabriel took the crown at Miss USA 2022, more than a dozen contestants claimed that the pageant had been rigged in her favor.

"A lot of the girls felt like it was the organization's plan from the beginning for R'Bonney to win, no matter who else was competing," Miss Missouri 2022, Mikala McGhee, told Insider at the time.

The Miss Universe Organization launched an official investigation and suspended Miss USA president Crystle Stewart as contestants pointed to multiple conflicts of interest between Gabriel and Miss USA's national sponsors. At the time, a representative for Stewart told Insider that she was cooperating with the investigation.

Gabriel went on to win Miss Universe in January, telling Insider after the pageant that it was "the sweetest victory."

"I hope it just proves to everyone, not as revenge, but just shows people that I deserve this," she added.

In August, the Miss Universe Organization said that it had found the rigging allegations were false after a "thorough and extensive investigation." It also announced Stewart would no longer be president of Miss USA after they failed to reach an agreement on her continuing involvement with the organization. A representative for Stewart did not respond to a request for comment on the former Miss USA president stepping back from the organization.

"Crystle has decided to leverage the success she has had with the Miss USA Organization to pursue other entrepreneurial passions," the statement read. "We wish Crystle, and her team at Miss Brand, all the best and have no doubt that she will excel in this next chapter."

Former Miss USA contestants also revealed there had been a sexual harassment scandal involving Crystle Stewart's husband.

Crystle Stewart and Max Sebrechts at the 2019 Miss Universe Pageant. Paras Griffin/Getty Images

As the rigging allegations made headlines, it was revealed that multiple contestants of the Miss USA 2021 pageant had reported that Stewart's husband, Max Sebrechts  who was vice president of Miss USA at the time  sexually harassed them during the competition.

In a statement sent to Insider, a spokesperson for Miss Universe said the organization was made aware of the allegations against Sebrechts in late December 2021 and "immediately requested a review."

"The Miss USA franchisee, Miss Brand, removed the employee from its organization in January 2022 and new protocols and processes were established and put in place," they added.

Insider obtained a letter that was sent to the 2021 contestants, informing them that Sebrechts was stepping down as vice president in January 2022. The letter said Sebrechts was "focusing his efforts on other business ventures" and did not mention the allegations. Sebrechts denied the allegations to Insider.

Stewart and Sebrechts have since separated.

Read the original article on Insider
A California Highway Patrol traffic stop on Interstate 5 in Fresno County ended with the the seizure of 42 pounds of methamphetamine and and two pounds of fentanyl valued at more than $600,000, authorities reported Tuesday.

The enforcement effort drew the praise of state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who said it sent a clear message to drug traffickers.

We will not tolerate the transport and sale of illegal narcotics within California, he said.

Driver Cristhofer Armando Galvez, 23, and Seidy Aleman Lopez, 33, both of Oakland, were taken into custody after their Toyota Camry was pulled over at I-5 and Nees Avenue by an officer with a police dog, the CHP reported.

Galvez and Lopez were booked into Fresno County Jail on charges of possession of controlled drugs for sale.

Bonta added:

Countless lives (are) being saved as a result of (officers) important work.
If youre feeling sick to your stomach and wondering about the last thing you ate, you might  fairly or unfairly  blame the food truck you stopped at the night before.

Food trucks are small mobile operations, so they can be tricky environments for chefs and front-of-house employees to run properly.

As there is very limited staff on a food truck, the workers must be able to execute many different tasks in a small space and an intense, short span of time, said Mitzi Baum, CEO of STOP Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit advocating for food-safe practices in academia, government and hospitality.

These talented skeleton crews need to be carefully trained to deal with the constraints of their restaurants-on-wheels, which can include everything from limited space, limited refrigeration and heating capabilities, and vibrations and potential equipment damage [from] mobility, explained Francine Shaw, food safety consultant and CEO of Savvy Food Safety Inc.

While such unique challenges can certainly compromise food safety, the experts we interviewed assured us that well-run food trucks maintain the same standards of hygiene, cleanliness and proper temperature storage as full-scale restaurants.

But due to negative assumptions about their food safety practices (especially when it comes to food trucks that arent in trendy neighborhoods and dont feature Instagrammable aesthetics), all food truck proprietors should be transparent about food safety, said Jonathan Deutsch, professor of food and hospitality management and nutrition sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

We spoke with several food safety experts who shared what they look for when eating at a food truck. Look for these positive signs to indicate a well-operated hospitality business.

1. A Clean Exterior And Service Area

When it comes to the overall look of the trucks exterior and service area, photo-ready decor wont tell you anything about the safety of the food, but a well-maintained exterior often reflects a well-maintained interior, said Melanie Underwood, a ServSafe-certified culinary instructor.

Look for windows free of dirt and dust, a kitchen area thats well-organized and uncluttered, and a clean counter free from spills or food particles, which indicates attention to hygiene and regular cleaning. If squeeze bottles with condiments are available, they [should be] clean and wiped down, Underwood said.

2. Clear Displays Of Health Department Certificates

Food trucks, like restaurants, are subject to health department inspections and receive permits and certificates vouching for their food-safe practices. If a food truck passes said inspections and has the certificates to show for it, then Brian Chau, a food scientist and food systems analyst, believes that it should have the certificates of health inspectors and any ServSafe food certificates listed by the passenger seat window or somewhere nearby.

3. Workers Wearing Protective Gear

While some food trucks are large enough to have separate kitchen areas outside of public view, its easy for guests to see through the windows of most trucks and get a clear glimpse of the culinary side of the operation. Thats why Chau urges food truck employees to show that they are wearing proper protective equipment like gloves and aprons.

Single-use gloves are particularly reassuring. Deutsch said that they are less important for employees working the fryer since the hot oil will cook away most germs, but if Im ordering a sandwich or a smoothie, Id want to see the gloves.

Also keep an eye out for whether workers are changing their gloves after handling raw meat or other ingredients that can cause cross-contamination  especially if theyre handling money with those same gloves.

Keep an eye on whether workers are wearing gloves responsibly.

Keep an eye on whether workers are wearing gloves responsibly.

4. A Hand-Washing Station

Sometimes, it is hard to see if [a truck] has a dedicated hand-washing station, but it is ideal, preferably with liquid soap and disposable towels, Underwood pointed out.

Potable water can be a challenge for food trucks since, as Chau explained, the food truck has a water tank [with ] a finite amount of fresh water for use on the truck. Even so, its crucial for trucks to budget their water use in a way that allows them to wash up regularly throughout the day.

5. A Functioning Generator

Generators are the literal power center of any food truck, and Chau said the first thing that he does when visiting a food truck is to listen for a generator to know if the appliances are running [and] to ensure the product is being kept at a food-safe temperature. If there is no generator, then the type of food product should already be pre-packed  like an ice cream truck where there is enough insulation and the product should already be [designated as] food safe.

6. Hand Sanitizer Available To Guests

The knowledge that food truck employees have the ability to keep their hands clean while working is reassuring to food safety experts, but because food truck patrons generally dont have the benefit of a beautifully-appointed restroom, I would also hope that theres access to hand sanitizer so that I can sanitize my hands before I eat, Deutsch said.

7. A Willingness To Communicate With Diners About Safety Measures

Food trucks offer diners a more up-close-and-personal view of back-of-house operations than a typical restaurant with a non-open kitchen. For that reason, Shaw thinks food truck operators should lean into that by educating customers. Offer information about your food safety practices through signage, menus or promotional materials. Highlight your commitment to sourcing high-quality ingredients, following proper handling procedures and maintaining safe cooking temperatures.

Also, Shaw recommends responding to customer inquiries: Be receptive to customer questions or concerns about food safety. By addressing customer concerns promptly and transparently, you can build trust and loyalty.

Related...
On Wednesday, seven Republican candidates will appear at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, for the second presidential primary debate.

Former President Donald Trump will once again be the elephant not in the room. Instead of appearing at the debate, he will be in Detroit at the UAW strikes.

The candidates expected to appear at the debate are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Trump continues to be the front-runner in the polls. Now his rivals are locked in on an increasingly competitive fight for second place, hoping to solidify enough support to narrow the field, Alex Leary and Eliza Collins wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

If youre planning on tuning into the debate Wednesday at 9 p.m. EDT, 7 p.m. MDT, here are seven things to watch for.

Related

What the candidates say about abortion

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion loomed large in the 2022 midterms and will likely be a key issue for voters in 2024. In recent weeks, Trump has said he would not sign a 15-week federal ban on abortion. His recent comments have caused some to wonder if his position on abortion is shifting. For candidates like Pence and DeSantis who have a conservative streak when it comes to abortion legislation and who have been vocal about their positions, this may be an opportunity for them to position themselves as the anti-abortion candidate.

By contrast, Haley has taken a different approach when it comes to abortion. She said, No Republican president can any more ban abortions than a Democrat president can ban those state laws. So my goal is, how can we save as many babies as possible and support as many moms as possible?

Seeing what candidates say about abortion and how voters react in the polls may forecast the future of the GOP on this issue.

Related

Will Trumps indictments drive more discussion?

Trumps indictments and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots were a big topic of conversation during the first GOP debate. The former president faces 91 charges across four cases. Read more about those here.

As Trump is missing the debate for the second time, this time to go speak to auto workers in Michigan, seeing how much candidates talk about his charges and what they say will be important. In order for candidates to be present at the debate, they had to agree to support the eventual GOP nominee. As Trumps legal challenges continue to unfold, its worth watching how other Republican candidates react.

The shutdown

The clock is ticking on a government shutdown, and as Saturday approaches its looking more likely that the federal government will not be funded for a period of time. Candidates will likely be asked to weigh in on how this will affect voters, the economy and the Republican Party.

A shutdown could impact the GOPs favorability numbers. When the 2013 shutdown began, the GOPs favorability plummeted a full 10 points to 28%, the lowest number on record for either party to that point since Gallup started asking the question in 1992, Time Magazine reported.

Related

Will DeSantis gain back any ground?

DeSantis is second in the polls and has dropped from his high point of 40.5% in January 2023 to just under 14%.

The pressure is on DeSantis to do really well because of the fact he is slipping in the polls and he is slipping fast, Ford OConnell, a Florida-based GOP strategist told The Hill. The narrative that this is a two-person race is gone. This is a one-person race with Donald Trump dominating and leading the pack.

Its possible this election could be 2016 all over again: Trump had an early lead that he was able to sustain, but his legal challenges are a wild card. As new developments come in, its possible there could be a shift in polling, and DeSantis is still trying to position himself as the alternative.

DeSantis is effectively running an Iowa-or-bust strategy with repeated trips to the state that holds the first nominating contest on Jan. 15, Leary and Collins wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Positions on Ukraine

With Republican lawmakers opposed to funding Ukraines war efforts without accountability, its likely candidates will be asked again about their position on this issue.

Last time around, Haley, Pence and Christie defended giving aid to Ukraine while DeSantis and Ramaswamy said they would trim down the amount of funding the U.S. gives to Ukraine. I would have Europe step up and do their job, DeSantis said.

Related

Will any of the candidates pitch themselves as Ronald Reagan 2.0?

Ronald Reagan is a beloved figure in the Republican Party for both his policies and his political presence. As the debate takes place in a venue named after the GOP giant, Reagan may be a name on candidates lips.

While Mitt Romney appealed to Reaganism during his 2008 presidential run, none of the 2024 candidates have tried to pitch themselves in this way, with the possible exception of DeSantis, who has been compared to the former president. The GOP has made a decided shift away from Reaganism and that could be solidified or reversed by this debate.

Who is running for vice president?

Some candidates may be quietly lobbying for the position as Trumps vice president or a cabinet slot. These candidates will be the ones who avoid criticizing the frontrunner harshly and who position themselves as aligned with Trumps agenda.
Relatives and sympathizers of 43 missing Ayotzinapa university students march on the 9th anniversary of their disappearance, in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP)  Chanting from one to 43, relatives of students abducted nine years ago counted out the number of the missing youths as they marched through Mexico City Tuesday to demand answers to one of Mexico's most infamous human rights cases.

With President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's term ending next year, family members face not only the prospect of a ninth year of not knowing what happened to their sons but fears that the next administration will start the error-plagued investigation over from scratch yet again.

In 2014, a group of students were attacked by municipal police in the southern city of Iguala, Guerrero, who handed them over to a local drug gang that apparently killed them and burned their bodies. Since the Sept. 26 attack, only three of their remains have been identified.

After an initial coverup, last year a government truth commission concluded that local, state and federal authorities colluded with the gang to murder the students in what it called a state crime.

Ulises Gutierrez Solano joined the march in honor of his brother, Aldo, a student who survived the initial kidnapping but was left in a vegetative state since 2014 after police shot him in the head while the others students were being abducted.

This is an atrocity to humanity, to society, said Solano. How could they do so much harm to so many people?

Lopez Obrador had pledged to solve the case and recent years have seen a painstakingly slow release of documents from the abduction, as well as a slew of arrests. But activists and human rights organizations say the government has not done enough to atone for the murders, investigate exactly what happened, and punish the culprits.

Tensions rose just hours before the march, when the families and their lawyers rejected a series of documents the Mexican government offered to make public, claiming the specific military files they requested months ago were not included. The army said it didn't have those files.

Since August the families have been asking, but they just gave us part of the information said Nicholas Mendez, leading a group of students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Thats worrying because were changing government next year.

Lopez Obradors six-year term ends in September 2024 and, Mendez feared, petitioning a new president for information could mean starting from scratch.

We cant have another six years of nothing, Mendez said.

In a press conference Tuesday morning, Mexico's president insisted all of the relevant documents had been released.

We have principles; we have ideals, and we speak the truth, Lopez Obrador said, promising also to publish government social media messages about the case.

The students from a radical teachers' college had travelled to Iguala to hijack buses to get to a protest in Mexico City, but were intercepted by corrupt police linked to the Guerreros Unidos gang. Iguala officials thought the students were going to disrupt a local political event, and one of the hijacked buses may have carried a drug shipment.

Recent years have seen a run of government and army officials from the time arrested, but no more remains have been found.

Then-Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, and the head of his anti-kidnapping unit have been arrested for their initial, botched investigation following the abductions. Almost a dozen military personnel, including the commander of the area where the students were abducted, have also been arrested.

After evidence used to assemble an expert report in August was undermined, the cases chief prosecutor, Omar Gomez Trejo, resigned. Just this year a party from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission which has been investigating the incident since 2015 also withdrew from Mexico.

As families marched through the city, they passed barricades erected to protect monuments. The march was peaceful, notwithstanding isolated incidents of violence when demonstrators attacked and damaged some stores, according to local media.

At one traffic circle, activists had plastered posters in remembrance not just of the 43 students, but of all Mexicos missing.

The Ayotzinapa atrocity has taken on symbolic significance for a country with more than 110,000 missing people.

Pablo Hector Gonzalez has traveled from Guerrero every year to join the march.

After nine years, in force, we will insist until the truth appears and until all the guilty are punished, he said.
Gov. Greg Abbott , who for months has been sparring with New York City Mayor Eric Adams from 1,760 miles away over the busing of migrants from the Rio Grande to the Big Apple, took the feud to the mayor's own backyard Wednesday and said the two elected leaders are actually at odds with a common adversary.

" Joe Biden really is responsible for the majority, the overwhelming majority, of the migrants here in New York City," Abbott said on cable TV's "Fox & Friends" in advance of a discussion at a conservative think tank in New York. "And if the people in New York City have a problem with all the migrants they are having to house, they need to blame Joe Biden.

"The problem here is not the governor of Texas," Abbott added. "The problem we have going on is the president of the United States."

The governor said he plans to call the Legislature back into session in two weeks and will add additional immigration-related matters to the lawmakers' to-do list. To date, the Legislature has allocated nearly $10 billion since 2021 to Abbott's border security initiative called Operation Lone Star.

Over 40,000 migrants bussed from Texas since 2022

Abbott, a three-term Republican, in April 2022 began offering state-paid bus trips for migrants granted at least temporary permission to remain in the United States to cities across the nation where Democrats are in charge. According to the latest figures from Abbott's office, nearly 41,500 migrants have agreed to board the buses, and New York City has been the destination for about 15,800 of them.

Adams, a Democrat, has said the influx of migrants threatens to overwhelm social services and "destroy" his city. And, last week, New York Gov. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced new efforts for migrants in her state who are eligible to apply for "Temporary Protected Status" that will allow them to seek work.

Immigrants wait in line outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in July. Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday defended his program of busing migrants from Texas to cities across the nation where Democrats are in charge.

More: Buoys aren't going anywhere at least until October, so they remain an advantage to Abbott

Work authorization is the way out of the migrant crisis," Hochul said in a news release. "Individuals who achieve legal work status will be able to exit the shelter system, find work opportunities and get their shot at the American Dream."

The announcement by New York's Democratic governor came after the White House gave the go-ahead for some qualifying migrants from Venezuela who entered the United States by July 31 to seek protected status. The U.S. Homeland Security Department said the decision was made because of "Venezuelas increased instability and lack of safety due to the enduring humanitarian, security, political, and environmental conditions."

Federal funding allocated to migrants services

As Abbott was speaking in New York, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Wednesday that more than $12.2 million in grants will be made through the Shelter and Services Program, which helps offset costs accrued as a result of providing services to migrants.

U.S. Border Patrol agents drop off asylum-seekers last fall at the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition migrant shelter in Del Rio. Many of the migrants will later take state-funded bus rides to Washington, New York or Chicago.

In a news release, the Homeland Security Department said the announcement is in addition to the more than $290 million allocated in June and $77 million the federal agency announced in August.

During his hourlong appearance before an audience assembled by the Manhattan Institute, Abbott said his bus trip initiative has provided the rest of the nation just a small glimpse into what Texas must grapple with around the clock along the state's border with Mexico.

"What is going on in New York is calm and organized compared to the real chaos of what we see on the border  not every day, but every hour of every day," Abbott told the organization whose mission is to foster "entrepreneurship and fiscal responsibility" in U.S. cities.

More: Eagle Pass mayor, citing migrant surge, reinstates order allowing trespass arrests at park

Abbott said that in each of the past two years, an estimated 2.4 million migrants have been apprehended crossing the border without legal authorization.

"Almost 5 million people apprehended coming across the border is unsustainable," Abbott said.

Asylum-seekers walk around midtown Manhattan in May after being relocated to the Roosevelt Hotel.

Texas Democrats express frustration with Biden's immigration work

The governor's remarks in New York come as some Democrats are expressing frustration with the Biden administration's approach to unauthorized immigration. During a weekend appearance at a political festival in Austin sponsored by the Texas Tribune, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro and his twin brother, former Mayor and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, lamented with what they see as the administration's almost laissez faire approach to unlawful immigration.

The Biden administration basically doesnt want to touch the issue," Julian Castro said at the event. "A lot of Democrats dont want to touch the issue."

In remarks livestreamed Tuesday on Instagram, 2022 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke offered a similar observation.

"As a Democrat, as somebody who lives on the border, I've been so frustrated with my own party," said O'Rourke, who represented El Paso in Congress from 2013 until 2019. "We don't always get a clear signal from Democrats about what our party stands for and what our leaders are willing to do."

In his New York appearances, Abbott also addressed his controversial decision to install a 1,000-foot chain of buoys in the Rio Grande to deter border crossings near the immigration hotspot of Eagle Pass. The decision prompted a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department that names Abbott and the state of Texas as defendants.

"If we win that lawsuit, which we should, we will probably have hundreds of miles of those buoys on the border," Abbott said, adding that Texas is also building barriers similar to the border wall project initiated under then-President Donald Trump with the permission of private property owners.

The chain of buoys presently deployed measures about one-fifth of a mile and costs about $1 million. That works out to a cost of about $5 million per mile. Abbott said the effort to add "hundreds of miles" would be worth the expense.

"Buoys cost one-tenth of the price of the border wall." Abbott said. "We will be able to have far more expansive barriers at one-tenth of the cost and be more effective in deterring people from coming across the border."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Migrants in NYC via buses from Texas is Biden's fault, Abbott says
Ready to escape basic, average vacation destinations?

Why not try a caboose?

Exterior

Its now possible  whats usually the tail end of a train has landed on the real estate market in Dahlonega, Georgia, for $41,900.

Calling all outdoor enthusiasts! the listing on Realtor.com starts. New listing featuring 1 acre with approximately 186 ft of Etowah River frontage AND a historical 1976 CABOOSE that can be tailored to your idea of the perfect vacation lodge!

Photos show that the caboose, while a little rusty, has been put to good use in a former life.

At one point, it was used for camping and vacationing, listing agent Jenna Ritter told Realtor. It hasnt been used for that in quite some time; but its got a little loft inside of it for sleeping quarters, a little living room, and it used to have a full kitchen in it.

Exterior

But be warned the interior needs a little love and buying the potential vacation structure will be an investment.

You can own your own place to camp and fish all while getting paid back in equity! the listing says. Pan for gold as an added bonus! Lumpkin County has been declared as the third fastest growing county in the country, as well as Georgias 2023 best small town!

The listing is held by Virtual Properties Realty Biz.

Dahlonega is about 65 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Whats inside this California mansion listed for a whopping $85M? See for yourself

Curious-looking estate for sale in California is a celebration of life in harmony
Photo: The Canadian Press Statistics Canada says immigration is almost solely responsible for the largest annual population boom Canada has seen since 1957. Signage marks the Statistics Canada offices in Ottawa on July 21, 2010.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Immigration is almost solely responsible for the largest annual population boom Canada has seen since 1957, new estimates from Statistics Canada show.

The newly released data estimates showCanada's population grew by more than a million people between from July 2022 to July 2023, which represents an increase of about three per cent.

The population is now estimated to be well over 40 million.

Canada also saw a massive 46 per cent increase in the number of temporary residents in Canada over the same period.Statistics Canada estimates there were 2.2 million "non-permanent" residents in Canada as of July 1, 2023.

"If the rate of population growth seen this past year remained constant in the future, it would lead to the Canadian population doubling in 25 years," the statistics agency said in its report Wednesday.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he isn't surprised by the numbers, but they do underscore the need to plan for the arrival of newcomers.

The Liberal government has set record-breaking targets for immigration over the last several years, but doesn't set specific goals or caps for the number of people who come to Canada on temporary visas.

"I think the important aspect that we have to do, and I think it is timely, is make sure that we're actually planning to make sure that we can house people properly, that they have safe labour conditions when they are here," Miller said ahead of question period on Wednesday.

"And in some cases, and it isn't all of them, that there is a pathway to citizenship. But it's about planning and preparation at all levels."

The estimated number of temporary residents in Canada now outnumbers the 1.8 million Indigenous people accounted for in the 2021 census.

Miller and federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser recently raised concerns about the rapidly increasing number of temporary visas issued over the last several years, particularly in the context of the housing crisis.

Much of the focus has been on study visas, including how to house an ever-increasing number of international students and their vulnerability to fraud schemes.

The increase in temporary residents was mostly due to people with work visas, however, rather than international students.

Miller said the number of workers in the country is increasing to meet the demand of a growing labour shortage.

Statistics Canada changed the method used to count temporary residents after a CIBC Capital Markets report said last month that policymakers were likely vastly underestimating the true number of non-permanent residents in Canada.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation "uses the census data ... to derive its household formation forecast  a forecast that is used widely by planners all over the country," CIBC economist Benjamin Tal said in his Aug. 30 report.

"If your starting point is far too low, your forecast will be far too low, resulting in a suboptimal planning process."

The new Statistics Canada estimate includes family members living with permit holders and accounts for people in the process of renewing their expired visas

Tal called the newly released figures "extraordinary," and said the increase cannot be sustained by the available supply of affordable housing.

In terms of actual numbers, the population growth over the last year is more than double the increase seen in 1957, when the baby boom was at its height and there was a Hungarian refugee crisis.
Ukraine has received its first batch of US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks.

Although an older model, the Abrams has a proven ability to pulverize Soviet-built tanks.

Two former US Army officers told Insider the tank boasted strong weaponry but had its challenges.

The American-made M1 Abrams tank is at last in Ukraine, and while it has its limitations, it's more than just another piece of Western weaponry. It's heavy-duty, combat-proven armor that was built with a very specific mission in mind: killing Russian tanks.

It could be the top tank Ukraine has received so far in the war, two former US Army officers with direct experience on the Abrams said, and it boasts a demonstrated track record for defeating Soviet-made armor while protecting its crew of four.

"It can do other things, but it's built to kill tanks," Robert Greenway, a Hudson Institute expert who was assigned to the Abrams for a time in the Army, told Insider.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday the tanks had arrived  in time to aid Kyiv's counteroffensive, which is entering its fourth month and seeing promising progress against Russian defenses in the south.

US officials told The New York Times the delivery was two platoons worth of Abrams and that the remainder of the 31 tanks promised by the Biden administration earlier this year would be provided in the coming months. But even this initial delivery could begin to make a difference, though it remains to be seen if the kind of fighting in Ukraine will allow the Abrams to do what it does best.

The M1A1 Abrams saw heavy use in the Gulf War in the early 1990s and proved to be a formidable asset capable of defeating Iraq's Soviet-era tanks  T-72s similar in certain respects to those the Russian army uses three decades later. The US Army has the M1A2 now, but that doesn't mean the M1A1 can't get the job done.

"It's an infinitely superior system," said Greenway, who, after a few years in armor, became a Special Forces officer. "The A1 may be old in the sense that it's been in our inventory for quite some time, but it's far superior to anything that the Russians have."

US Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams tanks with 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, firing during a live-fire range as part of Exercise Arrow 2019 at the Pohjankangas training area near Niinisalo, Finland, in May 2019. US Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Scott Jenkins

Ukraine has been anticipating the arrival of this US main battle tank for some time. President Joe Biden first offered in January to send the Abrams, saying Kyiv needed "to be able to counter Russia's evolving tactics and strategy on the battlefield in the very near term."

In March, the White House disclosed the US was expediting the delivery by sending M1A1s instead of the newer A2s. The latter would've taken "over a year or so" to get to Ukraine, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said at the time.

The promise to deliver American-made Abrams tanks to Ukraine followed plans from the UK, Germany, and other European partners to provide Ukraine with Challenger and Leopard tanks.

'Not in the same league'

Gian Gentile, the associate director of RAND's Arroyo Center, said there were "mostly minimal" but not insignificant differences between the Abrams and the Leopards and Challengers, but the capability gap between the Abrams and Russian tanks was considered substantial.

"Even the Russian T90M is inferior to any of these three Western tanks," said Gentile, who is also a retired US Army officer with years of experience on the Abrams. "The Russian tanks are lighter and therefore more vulnerable, and their optics and fire control systems are not in the same league of an Abrams, or Leo or Challenger for that matter."

American M1A1 Abrams tanks as they cross the desert during the Gulf War, Iraq, 1991. Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images

The M1 Abrams is a marquee weapon that was designed to give the US the edge over the Soviet Union in land warfare.

A 1974 military evaluation of the XM1 program that eventually gave birth to the M1 Abrams said that "military planners both western and Soviet still consider the tank the key weapon in ground combat."

"Therefore," it continued, "no matter what the cost, the U.S. must be able to field a tank capable of dominating and defeating the enormous threat inherent in the armor of our potential adversaries."

The tank's powerful gas-turbine engine, which is sometimes compared to a jet engine, can get the 60-ton M1A1 up to 45 miles an hour. Its main gun fires accurately on the move. Its heavy armor gives it protection against antitank weapons and tank rounds. And there's an emphasis on crew survivability.

Ammunition, for instance, is stored behind the turret and separated from the crew by blast doors in protected ammo racks. Soviet-designed tanks, on the other hand, store exposed ammunition in the turret, leading to a vulnerability known as the "jack-in-the-box" effect: A direct hit can set off the ammunition inside, killing the crew and catapulting the massive gun turret.

The American-made tanks are also much more heavily armored than Russian tanks. During the Gulf War, US Army assessments noted multiple examples of enemy fire bouncing off the tanks, which were able to take multiple hits while still dealing damage.

The armor, often bolstered by explosive reactive armor, comes at a price. The Abrams is exceptionally heavy compared with a Russian tank that weighs about 48 tons. "But all that weight does give a good deal of protection for the crew," Gentile said.

A pair of American soldiers standing in the turret of an M1A1 Abrams tank during the Gulf War as oil wells burn in the distance, in Kuwait, March 1991. Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images

In the Gulf War, the M1A1 Abrams  which, again, was designed during the Cold War with Soviet armor in mind  quickly earned a reputation for both its defensive and offensive presence on the battlefield, and crews praised the reliability, giving positive reviews of the 120 mm L/44 M256 smoothbore main gun and fire-control system.

"The Abrams was built, A1 and A2 alike, knowing we had to kill many more Russian tanks. We were never going to produce as many tanks as the Russians. We were just going to produce one that was able to take out multiple Russian tanks and survive the process," Greenway said.

Testimonies from the Gulf War disclosed that by the end of that conflict, only nine M1A1s were lost  none the result of enemy action. Two were intentionally sabotaged to prevent enemy capture, and the other seven were damaged by friendly fire, a problem that arose because the tanks could acquire targets at great distances, making it difficult for armor crews adapting to that capability in combat to distinguish between friend and foe.

Used properly, though, that extended reach is as critical as the Abrams' other capabilities. "There is nothing on really any other main battle tank, certainly not Russian main battle tanks, that presents a challenge for the Abrams as it is armed," Greenway said.

Another former Army armor officer previously told Insider that during the Gulf War, the Abrams quickly evaded enemy action while scanning for and attacking targets. And when it did attack, it devastated, with the bulk of the tank's killing power coming from depleted-uranium rounds, which both the US and UK have said they are sending to Ukraine.

Depleted-uranium penetrator rounds are highly effective at piercing enemy armor because the rod sharpens on impact. The metal fragments may also ignite, adding to the potential for a catastrophic kill, especially of a tank with exposed ammunition.

US Marines with Charlie Company, 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, fire an M1A1 Abrams tank main cannon while conducting live-fire training during exercise Native Fury 20 in the United Arab Emirates, March 19, 2020. US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brendan Mullin

While the Abrams is an unquestionably tough and powerful main battle tank, it's not unstoppable. It's potentially vulnerable to some of the same threats that have knocked out some of Ukraine's new Leopards and Challengers in recent months, such as antitank mines, missiles, artillery, and drones.

'There are limits'

Not all areas of the tank are protected equally, and there's always a possibility that something will get through. Drones equipped with explosives, antitank rocket-propelled grenades, and antitank mines, sometimes stacked on top of one another for greater destructive potential, have been a pervasive and pernicious problem for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"It's designed to resist those," Greenway said of these particular threats, "but there are limits, and so, like all armored vehicles, mines can be, if not cleared, problematic. And the Abrams is no exception." But he added of the heavy armor on the Abrams that "as tanks go, it is as good a protection as can be provided."

US M1A1 Abrams tanks needed for training the Armed Forces of Ukraine arrive by rail at Grafenwoehr, Germany, May 14, 2023. US Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Tylon Chapman

The biggest challenge for the Ukrainians, though, will probably be the extensive logistics support it needs, particularly maintenance. The Abrams uses a gas-turbine engine, the Honeywell AGT1500, that guzzles much more fuel than a diesel engine and is difficult to maintain.

"The real risk is going to be maintaining operational readiness because it's such a complex system that requires significant logistics strain," Greenway said. "It is a challenge for us. It is definitely going to be a challenge for them."

In order to keep the Abrams running and in the fight, the US and Ukraine will have to maintain regular cooperation to provide additional parts and support for the tanks. Last week, Douglas R. Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, said Ukraine was getting "a lot more spare parts" with the tanks.

"I think since we had a little more time for this one, we've built a much more fulsome sustainment structure to hand over to the Ukrainians and been able to do more training on sustaining the vehicle with the Ukrainians. It's a lot of stuff," Bush said, explaining the tank could be maintained by tele-maintenance but that this "is a whole 'nother level of difficulty" compared with US-provided armored vehicles such Bradleys.

But even with all of the potential difficulties, the M1 Abrams offers Ukraine a tremendous boost in capability, providing mobility, firepower, and a certain shock factor.

"The biggest challenge is going to be maintenance more than anything else. It's a very complicated system like all of our sophisticated weapons platforms, and it is maintenance intensive," Greenway said. "But if you take care of it, it is easily going to make a difference on the battlefield."

Read the original article on Business Insider
TV fans know him from  The Vampire Diaries  and Netflixs V Wars, but now, thanks to his work in Washington, lawmakers know Ian Somerhalder as an advocate for regenerative farming.

The performer isnt afraid to get his hands dirty as he works to break through the partisan gridlock with his new documentary touting the benefits of regenerative agriculture, Common Ground.

You could almost argue that we are so divided that the only thing that we have in common is the ground: The soil is our common ground, Somerhalder told ITK of the new film, which he executive produced and helped narrate.

People say  what is this regenerative agriculture, and why should I care? And its so simple. Regenerative is the use of planned grazing methods and using living, growing plants at scale to sequester enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, to stick it back in the ground where it belongs.

When you do that, youve fed all those vital microorganisms in the soil  healthier soil, healthier plant, healthier people, healthier planet. Its a really positive cascade of all the things that you can do when you build a regenerative agricultural economy.

A sequel to 2020s Kiss the Ground, the new film doesnt mince words, warning viewers, With much of the worlds soil turned to dust, we have found ourselves in a race towards extinction.

If the soil dies, we die, a narrator says in the documentary, which won the Human/Nature award at this years Tribeca Film Festival.

But, Somerhalder told ITK, seducing audiences with sod proved to be a muddy mission for him and directors Josh and Rebecca Tickell.

One of the greatest challenges is making soil sexy, said the Louisiana-born entertainer, who has stepped away from acting and moved to a farm outside Los Angeles with his wife, Nikki Reed.

But when you really dive into it, you realize a couple of things, he said.

This isnt about politics; this is about policy. This is about people, and people that can benefit from really good policies, Somerhalder said, noting the film focuses on farmers, including rancher Gabe Brown and Rick Clark, who say regenerative practices have helped give their land an incredible environmental and financial boost.

Lawmakers can come together over good policies, Somerhalder said, urging Congress to reappropriate funds within the Farm Bill to pull farmers off the drip of the agricultural biotech companies. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) are among the officials who appear in the film.

Most Americans are not really conscious of how our food system is creating a Category 5 hurricane of disaster in everything that we care about, Booker says in it.

We have a system thats hurting consumers, thats hurting our environment, thats hurting independent family farmers, thats hurting animals, thats hurting farm workers  just a morally bankrupt system, and we have to change it, he adds.

I think when they go back to their districts, Somerhalder continued of members of Congress, they can look at the people in those districts and say, Hey, listen I didnt just go to Washington and yell at people about a bunch of stuff. I came back with an amazing way to build this community because thats all I care about is right here.

Laura Dern, Woody Harrelson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Momoa and Donald Glover join Somerhalder in narrating portions of Common Ground. Asked what he might say to critics who could argue they dont need a bunch of Hollywood-types lecturing them about farming practices, Somerhalder replied, If youre complaining about rich celebrities who think they have a mouthpiece, watch the film and youll see that were in a studio narrating. Its the Rick Clarks and the Gabe Browns that are out in front of the camera doing the work.

Theyre the real caretakers. So were just an amplifier, Somerhalder, a father of two, said.

The 44-year-old actor is trying to get the word out about the film, which is hitting select theaters nationwide, claiming that the big major streamers are censoring it by refusing to add it to their lineups.

Declining to name those media corporations, Somerhalder said theyre afraid to go up against major agrochemical firms. If we have to literally release this film on my Facebook page, well do it. If streamers and big companies are going to censor our film, then we will release it every way we can without them.

With his intimate knowledge of the undead as Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries and his experience on Capitol Hill, ITK had to know: Are there any vampires in Congress?

I think theyre all drinking Vervain tea, he quipped of the drink featured in the series that was toxic to vampires.

They are unable to be persuaded by any of us who want to do the good stuff, he added.

Fans often ask him what hed do if he had the vampiric ability to control other peoples minds just by staring at them, what hed do with it, Somerhalder said.

I would go straight to Washington and I would sit and have some really significant meetings and I would get them to just make better decisions. And it would be such a great superpower, he said.

But for right now, the only superpower we have with Kiss the Ground is building that movement, and the regeneration arm of Kiss the Ground and building that out.

Honestly this is I think the most exciting time in history, particularly in agricultural history, in this country, Somerhalder said. And no one is going to stop us.

WATCH the full interview here!

Updated at 10:45 a.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Fears are swirling that Congress could be headed for its first government shutdown in years.

Lawmakers have until Saturday to strike a deal to prevent a lapse in government funding  and there isnt a deal in sight.

Heres what a shutdown could mean for Americans:

Furloughs for federal workers

The nation saw its last shutdown roughly four years ago, when a nasty fight between the Trump administration and a Democratic-led House over funding for the then-presidents proposed border wall consumed Washington for more than a month.

The longest shutdown in modern history led to hundreds of thousands of federal workers being furloughed or working without pay.

However, that lapse was only a partial shutdown because Congress had already passed some of its full-year funding legislation for agencies including the departments of Defense, Labor, and Health and Human Services.

But both chambers seem a long way from finding common ground to report any of their 12 full-year government funding bills out of Congress.

The White House said on Tuesday that more than 1 million active-duty troops could see pay disruptions as a result, adding hundreds of thousands of their civilian colleagues in the Department of Defense would also be furloughed.

Some lawmakers are already pushing for legislation to help ensure service members remain paid if the government shuts down. That includes a bill offered by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), which also seeks to protect the Coast Guard from pay disruptions. Officials said that branch took a hit during the 2018 shutdown because its funding falls under the same bill that lays out dollars for the Department of Homeland Security.

Food assistance

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned this week that a shutdown could mean pain for those who depend on food assistance.

Vilsack told reporters Monday that millions of Americans who depend on WIC  also known as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children  for support could see a denial of those benefits and opportunities in the event of a shutdown.

It would be literally within a matter of days after the shutdown in some cases. It may be, in some states, it may be literally in a matter of weeks, he said. But clearly, during the course of a shutdown, millions of those moms, babies and young children would see a lack of nutrition assistance.

Vilsack also highlighted that farmers would be unable to secure loans during harvest time, with farm service agency offices in virtually every county of this country shut down.

As for those who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as the food stamp program, Vilsack said the program will continue at least for a month of October. But he warned of serious consequences if the nation saw a shutdown go beyond one month.

Social Security

Beneficiaries of programs like Social Security and Medicare will receive their benefits without interruption, but experts warn there could be disruptions on the technical side for some would-be applicants.

Thats a big deal if youre planning on getting on Social Security between now and the end of the year, said Zach Moller, director of the Economic Program at Third Way, in an interview. It doesnt affect everybody, but if youre one of those people who are turning 62 or 67, or are trying to sign up for those benefits, thats a problem.

You dont want that to happen to people but thats a risk of a shutdown, Moller, a former Senate Democratic budget aide, added.

Mail delivery

Mail delivery is also expected to run as normal because the U.S. Postal Service deems itself generally self-funded.

It depends on revenue through items like stamps and other products to fund operations.

National parks

Theres uncertainty around whether national parks will operate in the event of a shutdown because experts note much of those rules can depend on the administration.

Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland is already facing some calls from Congress to keep national parks and other public lands accessible.

In a letter to Haaland earlier this month, Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the secretary could use the authorities under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) to keep parks open.

During the December 2018-January 2019 shutdown, most of the national parks remained accessible to visitors because FLREA funds were available to cover costs associated with visitor services and law enforcement, he said.

But others have previously warned of the safety risks of keeping parks open during a shutdown. Viral media documenting trash piles and environmental damage at parks also sparked outrage in early 2019.

Transportation and travel

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also warned of potential disruptions in the airline industry, while noting the possible impact of a shutdown on air traffic control training.

A shutdown would include  just in the transportation side alone  shutting down air traffic control training at the exact moment when the country recognizes the need for more, not less air traffic control staffing, and when we have finally got cancellations back at or below normal rates, Buttigieg said during a recent appearance on CNNs State of The Union.

The air traffic controllers who would be working in the towers, they wouldnt get paid, Buttigieg said. Theyre under enough stress as it is doing that job without having to come into work with the added stress of not receiving a paycheck.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
After being threatened on Monday with legal action by Attorney General Ken Paxton for withholding back pay he feels is owed after his impeachment acquittal, state Comptroller Glenn Hegar's office responded to Paxton's letter Tuesday, saying the best course of action is to take the question to the Texas Supreme Court.

The dispute between the two government agencies comes down to a disagreement on whether the state's constitution allows Paxton to receive around $50,000 of his annual salary that wasn't paid because of the impeachment vote by the House in May.

Responding to Paxton's first assistant, Brent Webster, officials in Hegar's office disputed the claim they acted unconstitutionally by withholding Paxton's pay, writing in a response letter that there is a lack of clarity on the "unprecedented situation" and that the state's top accountant doesn't see legal authority for authorizing Paxton's payment.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, shown at the start of his impeachment trial, says he should receive all his back pay now that he has been acquitted by the Senate.

"Because we disagree with your interpretation of the Texas Constitution on this very important issue, we encourage you to file a writ of mandamus with the Texas Supreme Court for a definitive ruling," read the letter signed by Victoria North, the comptroller's general counsel on fiscal and agency affairs.

In charging that the comptroller's office is creating a "legal liability" for the state, Webster wrote that Paxton is entitled to receive the entirety of his $153,750 salary as appropriated by the Legislature.

More: Ken Paxton whistleblowers say they want lawsuit against AG's office to be revived

Webster also argued that the impeachment charges Paxton was acquitted of earlier this month never addressed or sought to suspend Paxton's pay. Additionally, he said, the state constitution does not address the issue of pay for suspended state officials, something that its framers could have clarified but did not.

"The constitution could have  but does not  provide that a public official is denied a salary during the pendency of impeachment proceedings," Webster wrote.

North, in the agency's response to Webster, wrote that a suspended state employee may receive back pay only if there is a preexisting agreement setting the parameters for the future payments to the employee in question. Without that previous guidance, making a retroactive payment could be viewed as an employment benefit, which are policies regulated by state law that must be set in place prior to a payment of benefits.

Since Paxton was impeached in late May, members of his office have sought clarity on the pay situation and to have the hold on Paxton's paychecks removed.

After Paxton's acquittal on 16 impeachment charges by the Texas Senate, Paxton's effort to see his salary paid in full has ramped up again with Webster's letter coming after efforts earlier this summer.

More: 'Everything's on the table': 3 takeaways from Ken Paxton's interview with Tucker Carlson

In approaching the Supreme Court for a ruling, North said the attorney general's office could cite a rejected payroll file submitted by the attorney general's office on Sept. 22 that sought payment for that month, during which Paxton was on trial in the Senate for 10 days.

"We are a phone call away and are more than willing to have a conversation on how to efficiently seek a ruling, which is a position we have consistently held since we sent our letter 117 days ago," North wrote.

In closing his letter to Hegar's office, Webster referenced an additional communication from the comptroller's office that questioned a possible overpayment to Paxton and the possible recovery of those funds.

Webster disputed that claim, calling it false, and pushed back against any further inquiry into the matter.

"There is no legal basis for that request, and it is denied," Webster wrote.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas AG Ken Paxton's request for back pay with Texas Supreme Court
Hayden Christensen is back as Anakin Skywalker in the latest installment of Ahsoka, but hes hardly the biggest returning star of the episode. Anakin is upstaged by one of the good guys, who comes to defend Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) while Mon Mothma (Genevieve OReilly) and her senate chamber try to condemn the general for allowing Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) to jet off to another system.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

That good guy? A mere droidthis is a quote from one of the evil senators, dont shoot the messengernamed C-3PO (Anthony Daniels). Threepio arrived with news that Senator Leia Organa actually approved Hera and Ahsokas mission, so Mon Mothma neednt punish her trusty general. Did Leia approve the mission beforehand? Nope. But she did it eventually, and thats all it takes to clear Heras name.

We all clap at our TV screens at the appearance of sweet Threepio, but thats about all the time he has before wobbling back off the screen. Thats enough fan service for today.

I'm filled with emotion right now. What a stupendous episode. #Ahsoka



- C3PO cameo

- Clone Wars Anakin holograms

- Ezra's Force Karate and sense of humor

- Ahsoka and Ezra Reunion



Does anyone else think Thrawn might actually come out on top this time around? Or is it just me? pic.twitter.com/ax7Ggx19OO  MATT (@mathsmend) September 27, 2023

But wait, theres more! Anakin is back in the form of an old hologram Ahsoka has been saving for a rainy day. Skyguy recorded around two dozen videos of himself hyping Ahsoka up for battlewhat a good master. Its a shame he had to go and do all that other stuff, whatever that was... Huyang (David Tennant) walks in on Ahsokas session with Anakin and finds some newfound respect for the man behind the Vader mask.

Okay, now were done with the throwbacks. The purrgils are wrapping up their migration; soon, Ahsoka and Huyang will find out if Ezra (Eman Esfandi) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) are waiting for them in this new galaxy. Huyang frets that the mission will fail. Hes proved wrong almost instantly, when Grand Admiral Thrawns (Lars Mikkelsen) army starts bombing the poor space whales from their headquarters down on Peridea. If the enemy is here, Sabine and Ezra should be, too.

After learning that Anakin was once Ahsokas master, Thrawn wants to control her every move. She could be a wild card. He uses the Nightsisters of Dathomira band of creepy witch womento find Ahsoka. But this isnt a super solid plan. Why not allow Ahsoka to find Sabine, and then strand the trio of Jedis on Peridea forever? They have no way of getting home, if not for the giant galaxy-traversing space shuttle owned by Thrawn and Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto).

Lucasfilm Ltd.

Later, we learn that Thrawn is actually one step ahead. The whole plan was to keep Sabine, Ezra, and Ahsoka at bay long enough to load up the space station with a transfer of armies headed straight to the New Republic. As Ahsoka, Ezra, and Sabine battle troopers scattered around the planet, Thrawn is almost ready to take back the Empire. So, really, as long as the trio cant breach his transfer, Thrawn is in the clear.

This doesnt stop Baylan (Ivanna Sakhno) and Shin (Ray Stevenson), master and apprentice, from respectively taking on Ahsoka and Sabine, also master and apprentice. Really, its Ezra who does most of the work in the fight with Shin. His Noti friends are pacifists (cute!) which means that their only form of weaponry is tiny rocks and slingshots (even cuter, but save them!). He protects the creatures and Sabine from Shin, who is so menacing and evil that I only want to watch her fight. Who cares about Thrawn or anyone else, really?

Ahsoka Episode 6 Recap: Grand Admiral Thrawn Makes His Debut

After Ahsoka makes her descent to Perideadescent meaning that she jumps off a planeshes greeted by Baylan, who challenges her to a lightsaber duel. Ahsoka wins. She uses the force to track down Sabine. Ahsoka arrives at Sabine's location in the knick of time, when Shin and her army of troopers are about to kill them and the Noti. The troopers are blasted away by Ahsokas use of the force. Ezra, too, has been practicing his use of the force in the many years spent stranded in Peridea, so with some needed help from Ahsoka, the battle is over in a flash. Ahsoka offers to help Shin, but Shin darts away, unwilling to join the good guys.

Lucasfilm Ltd.

Then theres a tearful reunion where Ezra states how happy he is about the opportunity to go home. Sabine has spent all day catching Ezra up to speed on the New Republic; the poor guy cant wait to make it back. Unfortunately, every moment spent celebrating is time wasted. Thrawn is about to make his grand return to the New Republic. They only have minutes to stop him. Stop hugging and whip out those sabers!

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Imagine its two days before voters head to the polls, and an explosive video begins to spread online apparently showing one of the candidates on a racial slur-laden outburst. It sounds and looks just like the candidate.

Only it isnt real. The whole thing has been created through artificial intelligence (AI) as a deep fake to mislead the public.

It could easily tip the scales in a tight election.

In another scenario, imagine getting a robocall from a high-profile politician sharing polling place details. Only they its the wrong location and the politicians voice has been faked.

Those are just a couple of the scenarios that could have a massive impact on the 2024 election cycle as the growth of AI goes largely unchecked.

A hearing will be held Wednesday to examine what effect AI can have on the 2024 election and elections in general.

I think theres definitely a realistic path forward, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) told The Hill.

Even with Congress at a stalemate on many issues, the concerns about artificial intelligence have dominated several recent hearings. In Wednesdays hearing, members of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee will hear mostly from regulators on a proposal to require watermarks or other signifiers when an image or voice isnt real.

AI has been a topic that has confounded many, much less an aging Congress where members average 64 years old.

I think the American people are demanding that we do something, Bennet said.

The hearing will focus on ways to require watermarking and other ways to tip viewers off that they are seeing something that isnt real. But Bennet and others think a new federal regulatory agency would help keep up with the emerging technology that is creating questions.

Removing regulation from Congress, where bills can take months or years to pass would be a better way to keep up with it, he argues.

Lisa Gilbert, a spokeswoman for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has been tracking ethics issues in government, said the new tech is coming so quickly.

It could cause huge problems, she told The Hill.

There has already been an issue with disinformation and skepticism with internet channels, but the AI issue could be different, Gilbert said.

The problem is already here. The new problem is the believability, she said.

Watch the hearing here starting at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Lawmakers predicted that AI tutors will revolutionize education in the United States during The Hills Making the Grade: Solving the U.S. Math Problem event Tuesday evening.

Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said artificial intelligence will revolutionize education with startups deploying emotion recognition to create AI tutors.

I think the big thing thats coming out is AI tutors because it is going to be revolutionary, Foster told The Hills Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. You can use emotion recognition that is a feature of artificial intelligence to make a spectacular AI tutor and places like the Khan Academy and probably a hundred startups have latched on to that concept.

The congressman cautioned that AI tutors should not be mistakenly programmed to spread cultural biases that could affect student success.

Its going to be very important that we look at the cultural biases that are being injected by those, Foster said. At the same time, its well known to educators that you get the best performance of the students if you have a cultural match between the tutor and the student. That can very easily devolve into the soft bigotry of low expectations. And so trying to make sure that isnt inadvertently programmed into what we do.

Rep. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) agreed with his colleague on the promise of AI, but he cautioned that people still need to be able to independently think and have sound judgment.

I think Bills right about artificial intelligence, Baird said. Make sure you use your head to be able to think through a process and thats compatible with what Bill just said. So I think its very important that we learn techniques on how to analyze something and how to use the brain that God gave us.

During the rest of the event, which was sponsored by Collaborative for Student Success, advocates and educators discussed the nationwide issue of math proficiency and said personalized learning would be an important piece of the solution.

The answer is to begin to think differently about how we solve this by providing students with individualized pathways that connect where theyre starting from, to where they need to be  personalized, competency-based learning, said Joel Rose, the CEO of New Classrooms, a non-profit providing personalized learning nationwide.

This is something I could have never done when I was a teacher. The idea of assigning, tracking and supporting each student on their own path would have been impossible to do.

The former 5th-grade teacher pointed out that some states have implemented the new personalized method of instruction.

California just adopted a new math framework that moves from grade levels to grade spans and North Dakota and Montana have recently launched math innovation zones for schools that want to explore personalized competency-based learning, Rose said. But to be clear, most state policy and most federal policy is oriented around top-box instruction.

Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year, said she supports personalized learning, and recalled how the pandemic spotlighted that every student has different needs.

I think that as a system we are starting to really embrace the idea that we need to personalize education, Peterson said. I think that the pandemic exposed that more than ever, so I am really so happy to see this shift of, again, learning our students stories, knowing what they need as individual learners. We know that this one-size-fits-all isnt going to cut it.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The U.S. suspended a majority of non-humanitarian military aid to Gabon Tuesday in the wake of a military takeover of the African country last month, according to The Associated Press.

In a statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the government is pausing certain foreign assistance programs benefiting the government of Gabon as it evaluates the unconstitutional intervention by members of the countrys military.

This interim measure is consistent with steps taken by the Economic Community of Central African States, the African Union, and other international partners, and will continue while we review the facts on the ground in Gabon, Blinken said. We are continuing U.S. government operational activities in Gabon, including diplomatic and consular operations supporting U.S. citizens.

The takeover was the second to occur in an African nation this year, following one in Niger that resulted in the U.S. suspending a portion of aid to its government earlier this year, according to The AP. The U.S. hasnt formally decided if the occurrence in Niger was a coup yet.

Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, a head of an elite military unit, became the head of state in Gabon a week after the removal of President Ali Bongo Ondimba , The AP reported. Ondimbas family had ruled over the Central African country for over five decades.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Ukraines Air Force issued warnings regarding possible Russian Shahed drone attacks in seven Ukrainian oblasts.

Source: Ukraines Air Force on Telegram

Quote: "Shahed attack drones [have been spotted] in the south of Vinnytsia Oblast [and are moving towards] western regions! There is a threat [of attack] in Vinnytsia and Odesa oblasts."

Details: Earlier, the Air Force issued air-raid warnings in light of the threat of Shahed drone attacks in the Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. Air-raid warning in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was issued in relation to the Russian tactical aircraft activity on the southeastern front.

Updated at 23:55: At 23:50, the Air Force said several Shahed drones were approaching Odesa Oblast from the direction of the Black Sea.

Updated at 00:04: Several groups of Shahed drones were spotted moving towards Odesa, Koblevo and Ochakiv.

At 00:14, Ukraines Air Force reported that groups of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were seen over the Izmail district in Odesa Oblast.

At 00:21, the Air Force issued another warning regarding the threat of an attack drone strike in Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts, stressing that several Shahed drones were spotted approaching from the Black Sea.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
A group of airmen at Aviano Air Base in Italy are pitching an idea for a folding boarding ladder that F-16 pilots can stow in the map case in the jet's cockpit.

As the U.S. Air Force pushes to be more prepared to operate on short notice from remote or austere locations with limited support, one simple question may increasingly be on the minds of its F-16 Viper pilots: how will I get in and out of my jet? One of the service's officers currently stationed in Italy is pitching a solution to that problem.

For the F-16, which does not have a built-in boarding ladder, a folding one that can fit right in the jet's map case in the cockpit seems like a revelation. Fielding it would also be significantly cheaper than the external ladders now in use, each one of which costs $5,200.

Air Force Maj. Nicholas "Trapper" Atkins, an F-16 pilot with the 31st Fighter Wing, submitted the idea for the internally stowable F-16 boarding ladder on behalf of a team as part of a "Spark Tank" competition at Aviano Air Base in Italy. For years now , the service has been encouraging units around the world to hold these kinds of innovation competitions to solicit ideas directly from officers and enlisted airmen that can help improve operational effectiveness and reduce costs.

A US Air Force pilot climbs into the cockpit of an F-16 at Aviano Air Base in Italy using a typical external boarding ladder. USAF

A prototype example of the folding ladder has already been built by members of the 31st Fighter Wing, which has been working with Air Combat Command Training Support Squadron, Detachment 9 at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona on the project. The Delaware Resource Group (DRG) of Oklahoma , a Native American-owned defense contractor in that state, looks to have been involved, as well.

USAF

The design, seen in pictures at the top of this story and in at rending above, weighs just six pounds and cost $1,800 to make ($300 in parts and $1,500 in labor), according to an Air Force video, seen below, detailing the pitch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQI5SMumPWk\u0026feature=youtu.be

Exactly how heavy the existing external boarding ladders that the Air Force uses with its F-16s are is unclear, but the narrator in the Spark Tank video says each one costs the service $5,200.

In addition, "it costs about $6,800 to move a pallet of them on a C-130" cargo aircraft, the narrator adds. "Attempts have been made at getting private sector involvement, but it has been cost prohibitive at $86,000 for the prototype, and $26,000 per ladder." No further details about those industry proposals are provided.

A picture of a different collapsible ladder for use with the F-16, designed to fit inside a standard baggage pod rather than in the cockpit, has been circulating online since at least 2018. However, that ladder's construction, consisting of a central tubular metal frame with foot holds welded on at various points, all attached to a plate at the top that latches onto the rim of the cockpit when the canopy is raised, also looks likely to have been locally fabricated. Last year, personnel with the Air Force's 35th Fabrication Flight, part of the 35th Fighter Wing at Misawa Air Base in Japan, showed off a very similar tubular ladder they had crafted that was also intended to be carried inside a baggage pod.

The folding F-16 boarding ladder designed to fit inside a standard baggage pod made by the US Air Force's 35th Fabrication Flight at Misawa Air Base in Japan. USAF capture

An airman loads chocks into the baggage pod under the wing of a US Air Force F-16. USAF

Why this all matters is that, as we noted earlier, the F-16 lacks a built-in boarding ladder. This is not the case on many of the other tactical combat jets the Air Force currently operates, including its stealthy F-35A Joint Strike Fighters . Air Force F-15s and A-10s also have integrated boarding ladders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyHIFpi77Q

This means that ladders "must be pre-positioned ahead of time to [allow pilots to] safely get into and out of the cockpit," the narrator of the Spark Tank video explains. "Unfortunately, ... legacy ladders are far from ideal, being heavy, expensive, [and] bulky."

The pitch video adds that the need to send the ladders to forward locations would take "up valuable space in an ACE movement."

ACE here refers to Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a set of concepts of operations that the Air Force has been developing and refining in recent years. ACE is centered on the ability of aircraft to rapidly deploy with minimal support to a growing number of forward locations , many of which are remote and/or austere , and do so in more unpredictable ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANfbH86-Rg8\u0026t=436s

So, finding new and improved ways for combat aircraft to bring ground support equipment and other materiel , and even additional munitions to help with sustained operations , along with them to these sites is of great interest. With all this in mind, the map case ladder design also has advantages over the baggage pod type that has been previously seen, which takes up space in those underwing stores that could be used to carry other items. Having to carry a baggage pod at all limits what an F-16 can bring with it to a forward location. It also results in a performance hit, causing increased fuel burn and reduced range.

The ACE concept is being driven in large part by increasing concerns about the vulnerability of large established facilities to enemy stand-off strikes, especially in the context of a potential high-end conflict against a near-peer adversary like China . The development of new fixed-position and deployable base defenses , as well as additional ways to deceive opponents and conceal friendly forces , are also components of ACE.

F-16s still make up the plurality of the Air Force's combined tactical combat jet fleets and many of them are in the process of receiving substantial upgrades . For the foreseeable future, Vipers are expected to be part of "the leading edge of the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment initiative," according to the Aviano Spark Tank video.

A row of Aviano-based F-16s during a visit to RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom. USAF

A stowable boarding ladder for the F-16 could also be valuable outside of ACE operations. Should a Viper need to divert to an expected location for any reason, having a ladder inside the cockpit would allow the pilot to more readily get in and out without having to wait for some kind of solution to be devised on the ground. With many established bases expected to come under heavy attack in the opening phases of any future major conflict, unexpected diversions are also a major factor when it comes to ACE.

Any suitably tall ladder could probably do in a pinch in any of these contexts, but would not necessarily be ideal. At the same time, there are also questions about how sturdy a six-pound sheet metal ladder that can fold up to fit in a map case might be, especially for routine use during sustained operations. More robust external ladders could, of course, be brought to forward locations later on.

There is certainly interest across the Air Force in this kind of capability, and not just for the F-16. Earlier this year, a collapsible boarding ladder that fits in the cockpit of an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, another type without this feature built in, was tested as part of a larger Air National Guard-led ACE-focused exercise nicknamed Hoodoo Sea. The War Zone has reached out for more information about that ladder design.

An F-22 sits in front of what was described as a "prototype portable camouflage, concealment, and deception hangar" at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida during Exercise Hoodoo Sea. Air National Guard

Maj. Atkins, who is leading the F-16 ladder project at Aviano, is clearly very confident in his team's particular design.

"What we need from the Air Force is, one, subject matter experts. ... we need immediate subject matter expert support to cut through the red tape for authorization and certification," Atkins says in the Spark Tank pitch video. "Then, two, we help financially to help rollout for ladder, not just for the 51 F-16s at the 31st Fighter Wing, but for the 936 F-16s in the Air Force inventory."

"We anticipate 18 ladders per squadron," he adds, proposing a plan that would see the first batch of ladders go to Air Force units in Europe and then send additional ones to forces in the Pacific region.

Whether or not this pitch is picked as part of the Spark Tank competition at Aviano or otherwise pursued by the Air Force, and how the ladders might work out when subjected to real routine use, remains to be seen.

Whatever the case, the various stowable ladder projects for the F-16, as well as the F-22, underscore that there are real questions about how to ensure that pilots will be able to get in and out of certain jets at forward locations during future distributed and expeditionary operations.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
Alexandra Grant has said she is glad she met boyfriend Keanu Reeves when she was already established in her career.

During an interview with People published on Sept. 23, Grant, 50, talked about her relationship with Reeves, 59, and the pros of falling in love in her adult years.

The good news about falling in love as an adult is that I had built my own career by the time that my relationship had begun, she said. I feel very confident in the relationship on the red carpet. I feel confident on it alone.

Grant noted that sometimes she gets frustrated creatively and could feel like a Maserati stuck in traffic. But thanks to Reeves, hes helped her overcome this feeling.

What I love about Keanu and our exchange is that were pushing each other to build new roads, she said. Seeing the other persons problem-solving is inspiring, like, Oh, well, okay, this one, thats a cul-de-sac. How do I try this other thing?

Hes such an inspiration to me, she continued. Hes so creative, hes so kind. He works so hard.

Grant said that as an artist, her work has absolutely changed since she started dating Reeves.

I had a studio visit a few years ago, and this very kind, very high-level person said, I can see that your work has gotten happier,  she recalled. Thats real. Were all human beings. Were animals. Were expressing from where we are and certainly feeling happier. I think the work is happier.

Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant met in 2009 at a dinner party, according to The New York Times Style Magazine, and just two years later, Reeves and Grant published a book together titled Ode to Happiness, which Reeves wrote and Grant illustrated.

In a 2020 interview with British Vogue, Grant recalled what it was like to work on the project with Reeves and said their friends were the ones who pushed them to publish the book.

The book was made as a surprise, by me, for Keanu, as a private gift, Grant said. All our friends sitting in the room got the giggles when I gave it to him  they said, Please publish it! So thats how we got into publishing.

In 2019, the pair were pictured going to several red carpet events together. In May 2019, they attended the MOCA Benefit in Los Angeles, then one month later, they went to the Saint Laurent Mens SS20 show in Malibu, California, where they were seen holding hands.

The couple were pictured holding hands again at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles in November 2019.

By the time they walked that red carpet, fans were starting to put two and two together about their relationship. Rumors began surfacing that Reeves and Grant were dating one another, even though they never officially confirmed it themselves.

In her 2020 interview with British Vogue, Grant revealed how she felt about her relationship with Reeves going public.

I think every single person I knew called me in the first week of November, and thats fascinating, she said. But the question Ive been asking in all of this is: What is the opportunity for good?

During the interview, Grant also shared her views about marriage. When asked if she would be interested in getting married, Grant responded, Over a glass of wine I would love to tell you.

Love at every level is deeply important to my identity. Hows that for dodging the question? she continued. I do not believe that isolation is the way. There is a period of isolation that I do as a painter, but I deeply value the experience of being in relationships.

In a March 2023 interview with People, the John Wick star was asked to share his last moment of bliss and he immediately started to think about the time he spent with his girlfriend.

A couple of days ago with my honey, Reeves recalled. We were in bed. We were connected. We were smiling and laughing and giggling. Feeling great. It was just really nice to be together.

In April 2023, Reeves pulled his girlfriend in close and gave her a big kiss on the lips at the 2023 MOCA Gala in Los Angeles.

The pair were also pictured smiling together on the red carpet and holding hands.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used boy math to epically troll Kevin McCarthy over the looming Republican-created government shutdown.

Boy math is a phrase used on social media to joke about the way heterosexual men stereotypically rationalize or misvalue numbers or prices. Some examples of boy math include how 510 measures 6, having a 70inch tv but no dining table, and being afraid of gold diggers when you only have 3 pairs of socks to your name.

Ocasio-Cortez joined the trend with a hilarious tweet Tuesday night.

Congress is just days away from its September 30 deadline to pass a spending billand House Republicans are in shambles. The farthest-right wing of the party is threatening to shut down the government unless federal spending is slashed dramatically. The House failed last week to even begin debating on the Defense Department appropriations bill, when five Republicans broke from their party to block a procedural rule to begin debating the appropriations measure.

The Senate advanced a short-term funding bill late Tuesday that would keep the government open into November. But given the Houses chaos, its unclear whether the measure would even pass the second chamber.

This is the second Democratic representative to take hilarious aim at McCarthy over the shutdown. Angie Craig introduced the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your Shutdown Act, or the MCCARTHY Shutdown Act, last week.

The bill would temporarily block the paychecks of Congress members during a government shutdown. Currently, shutdowns do not affect pay for lawmakers, but they stop pay for all other federal employees.
GRAND RAPIDS  A federal grand jury has indicted an Allegan County woman on multiple counts following allegations she posed as a licensed nurse.

A federal grand jury returned a multi-count indictment against Leticia Gallarzo, 48, of Allegan County. Gallarzo was charged with wire fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, two counts of making false statements in medical records affecting healthcare benefit programs, and production of a false identification.

U.S. Attorney Mark Totten announced the federal indictment Wednesday, Sept. 27.

These allegations that Ms. Gallarzo faked her qualifications as a licensed medical professional are highly concerning and potentially put innocent patients at risk," Totten said. My office takes this threat to the public very seriously and thanks our law enforcement partners for their investigative work in this case.

Totten announced the initial charge of identity theft against Gallarzo in August.

More: Allegan County woman charged with identify theft for allegedly posing as nurse

If convicted, Gallarzo faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and two years mandatory imprisonment for aggravated identity theft  which would be served consecutively.

Gallarzo is accused of using the license number and name of a nurse to obtain employment at two different locations: an area nursing home and a hospice facility.

Gallarzo said she had a masters degree in nursing from George Washington State University and a bachelors degree in nursing from Davenport University, despite not having any nursing degree at all, officials said.

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Gallarzo is accused of producing a counterfeit nursing license to obtain employment with the hospice facility. The facility discovered her fingerprints matched fingerprints on record because Gallarzo had previous state and federal convictions for practicing nursing without a license in Texas in 2015 and 2016. Gallarzo was arrested by the Michigan State Police.

As alleged in this case, the defendant recklessly and willingly put the lives of innocent patients at risk, said Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Michigan. The FBI remains committed to ensuring identity theft cases like this one are thoroughly investigated."

 Contact reporter Evan Sasiela at esasiela@sentinel-standard.com. Follow him on Twitter @SalsaEvan.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Allegan County woman faces additional charges in nurse imposter case
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report)  A federal grand jury has indicted a man on conspiracy charges stemming from the apprehension of 47 migrants found hiding in a home in Central El Paso.

Esteban Aguilera is facing charges of conspiracy to harbor and transport illegal aliens in connection with the Aug. 24 arrests at a residence in the 700 block of North Lee Street. His arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel A. Torres is scheduled for Oct. 11 after being indicted last week.

In court documents, federal officials outline Aguileras alleged activities on behalf of a transnational criminal organization. They say the El Paso man admitted to them acting as a scout at U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints leading to the interior of the United States and being paid $500 per run or trip.

They say he also admitted to acting as a courier for the smuggling organization, going to Juarez, Mexico, three times a week to pick up between $3,000 and $5,000 cash, court documents allege.

Man threatens to put bullet in face of Texas congresswoman

Aguilera was arrested on Aug. 24 while driving near the migrant stash house on North Lee Street; he initially told law enforcement agents he was just cruising but later allegedly admitted being on his way to check on the stash house, court documents show. The suspect allegedly admitted he agreed with another smuggler to look after the home, according to court documents.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Federal agents stated Aguilera was already a person of interest in another smuggling case and the defendant allegedly told investigators following his arrest that he was working to save money to recover his truck  after the U.S. Border Patrol impounded it during a previous incident.

Nonetheless, Aguilera on Sept. 21 stated to the court his intent to plead not guilty to the charges.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A second employee of a Kansas City, Kansas, auto parts store has been charged in the same incident in which the stores manager was accused of murder for the killing of a 23-year-old man suspected of shoplifting, authorities announced Wednesday.

The Wyandotte County District Attorneys office has charged 23-year-old Royal Ford with one count of misdemeanor battery for allegedly stomping on the neck of a suspected accomplice, according to court documents. A summons has been issued for Ford to make his first court appearance on Oct. 17.

The district attorney also has charged the suspected accomplice, 23-year-old Keysean Perkins, with misdemeanor theft and misdemeanor interference with a law enforcement officer. Perkins has been summoned to make his first appearance in court also on Oct. 17.

The charges center around an alleged shoplifting incident on Sept. 19, in which employees of the the OReillys Auto Parts store at 4700 Parallell Parkway got into a physical confrontation with two men they suspected of stealing.

Diamond Steen, one of the men who was accused of shoplifting, was killed in the confrontation.

Carl R. Kemppainen, 39, the stores manager, is facing one count of second-degree murder in Wyandotte County District Court. Prosecutors allege he acted recklessly, though unintentionally, in killing Steen.

In a statement last week, the company said it was deeply disturbed by the events, death and injuries that occurred at our store in Kansas City, Kansas. We are cooperating fully with the police investigation.

The company wasnt immediately available to comment Wednesday on their policy regarding employee response to shoplifting.

Two cans of car paint, sandpaper

Steen and Perkins had allegedly stolen two cans of car paint and sandpaper worth $72.99 from the store, according newly available court documents.

According to the documents, video captured Perkins entering the store and walk down one of the aisles.

Kemppainen told detectives he was nearby and approached Perkins, who was looking at cans of car paint, and asked if he needed any help. Perkins told Kemppainen he was fine, according to court documents.

Shortly thereafter, Steen is captured on video entering the store and going down the aisle towards Perkins and Kemppainen.

Kemppainen told detectives he had received information that two unknown men in a white Ford Fusion had stolen items at another OReilly location a few days earlier. He allegedly told the detectives he believed the two men were the suspected shoplifters.

Kemppainen told detectives he was watching Perkins for any possible shoplifting, but had to leave the area to help another employee, according to court documents. As he left, Kemppainen said he allegedly saw Perkins put a can of car paint in his pocket and grab a package of sandpaper.

The video allegedly showed Steen and Perkins walk out of the aisle and head to the front door, bypassing the registers and front counter, according to court documents.

Kemppainen ran in front of them and attempted to stop them inside the front door, however Steen and Perkins make it outside, according to the video. Kemppainen followed them into the parking lot and tried to prevent them from leaving.

A witness said Kemppainen kept shutting the drivers side door of the car Steen was attempting to enter. He then yanked a key fob from a lanyard hanging around Steens neck and threw it across the parking lot, according to court documents.

Kemppainen then allegedly placed Steen in a chokehold, according to court documents. About that time, the video captured Ford exiting the business and confronting Perkins on the passenger side of the car.

The video showed Perkins attempting to calm the situation by taking a stolen paint can out of his front hoody pocket, according to court documents. He then allegedly dropped the can and approached Kemppainen to get him to release Steen.

Ford allegedly pulled Perkins away and began to wrestle with him in an attempt to detain him, according to court documents. As they struggled, a third employee grabbed tape to bind Perkins.

The video showed Perkins lying face down on the ground as the employee wrapped tape around his wrists. When Perkins attempted to raise his head, Ford allegedly stomped down on Perkins neck and upper back area, causing his face and chin to hit the ground, according to court documents.

Perkins suffered a small laceration on his chin. When treated at the hospital, he received three stitches.

When officers responded to the store, they found Steen and Perkins bound in tape, bungie cords and zip ties by the front door. Steen was not responsive.

When officers checked on him, they found he did not have a pulse and he was not breathing. They asked an OReilly employee to cut the bindings that held his arms behind him. Officers requested emergency medical crews and began CPR.

When emergency medical crews arrived, they declared Steen deceased.

At a press conference earlier this month, District Attorney Mark Dupree said an autopsy confirmed Steen died of strangulation. He declined to provide further detail on the manner of the homicide other than to say Steens airway was completely stopped.

Online court records did not list defense attorneys for Ford or Perkins as of Wednesday.

The Stars Bill Lukitsch provided some information for this story.
Editors note: This story contains descriptions of events which some readers may find disturbing.

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA)  A woman is dead and an alligator killed after a possible gator attack in Florida late last week.

Shortly before 2 p.m. Friday, authorities were called to a canal in Largo for a person reported deceased in the area.

A representative with the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office confirmed to Nexstars WFLA that the incident involved an alligator. The gator, which measured 13 feet, 8.5 inches long, was humanely killed by deputies and removed from the waterway. A humans body was also pulled from the water.

Massive gator, humans body pulled from Pinellas County waterway: deputies

The victim has been identified as Sabrina Peckham, 41, by Pinellas County deputies. Peckhams cause of death is pending, per the Medical Examiners Office.

According to an arrest document, Peckham was arrested in July for trespassing on a county wetland. The address included in the report is just blocks from where her remains were found by authorities.

Details about the apparent attack are unclear.

Jamarcus Bullard told WFLA he spotted the alligator in the Largo canal, as well as the human remains, Friday afternoon.

I threw a rock at the gator just to see if it was really a gator and like it pulled the body, like it was holding on to the lower part of the torso, and pulled it under the water, Bullard recounted.

From there, Bullard said the gator showed off its might as deputies and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission tried to capture it.

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They put a rope around its neck and put it on a pully of a truck, he said. They were reeling it in, but it started to pull the truck in the water so the guy was like we just got to get it out a different way.

Floridas Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is assisting the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office in the investigation.

WFLAs Nathaniel Rodriguez, Kevin Accettulla, and Justin Schecker contributed to this report.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
Philadelphia police are investigating the "suspicious" death of a flight attendant at a local hotel.

On Monday evening, a 66-year-old woman was found "with a cloth in her mouth" at a Marriott hotel.

The woman, a flight attendant with American Airlines, was pronounced dead.

Philadelphia police are investigating the "suspicious" death of an American Airlines flight attendant who was found dead this week at an airport hotel.

On Monday at 10:41 p.m. local time, police responding to a call at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott discovered a woman inside her hotel room "unresponsive with a cloth in her mouth," Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Shawn Ritchie said in a statement to Insider.

She was pronounced dead four minutes later.

Police are investigating the death as a homicide. No weapons were recovered at the scene and no arrests have been made.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Chief Inspector Scott Small said the deceased, an unidentified 66-year-old woman, likely suffered a "sudden death," according to NBC10.

There were no signs of forced entry, and she had been on "several medications," Small added without specifying what kinds.

American Airlines, in a statement, said the company is "devastated" by the loss of its employee.

"Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues, and we're doing everything we can to ensure all affected have the support they need during this difficult time," a spokesperson told Insider. "We will continue to cooperate fully with local law enforcement in their investigation."

So far this year, Philadelphia has recorded 323 homicides, a 23% decline from 2022 but roughly double the number from a decade earlier. The vast majority of those killed  292  were victims of gun violence.

Read the original article on Insider
Hyzon Motors, a publicly traded startup building a fuel cell plant in Bolingbrook for hydrogen-powered electric trucks, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle federal fraud charges that it misled investors. (Hyzon Motors / HANDOUT)

Hyzon Motors, a publicly traded startup building a fuel cell plant in Bolingbrook for hydrogen-powered electric trucks, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle federal fraud charges that it misled investors.

The civil charges and settlement, announced Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, allege Rochester, New York-based Hyzon misrepresented its potential customers and sales before and after going public through a special purpose acquisition company in July 2021.

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The public offering generated about $600 million in investor money.

Hyzon allegedly posted a misleading video three days before the public offering purporting to show delivery of a hydrogen-powered milk truck in Europe that was actually a standard electric vehicle, according to the complaint. Hyzon subsequently claimed to have sold 87 fuel cell electric vehicles in Europe and China during 2021, when the total for the year was in fact zero, the SEC alleged.

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Transparency in the form of full, fair, and accurate disclosure is fundamental to the federal securities laws, Jason Burt, regional director of the SECs Denver office, said in a news release. The defendants allegedly violated this principle by misleading investors about virtually every aspect of Hyzons business.

The SEC complaint also names former Hyzon CEO and co-founder Craig Knight and Max C.B. Holthausen, former managing director of Hyzons European subsidiary, as defendants.

Without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint, Hyzon has agreed to pay the $25 million penalty in three installments, according to a company statement released Tuesday. Knight agreed to pay $100,000 and Holthausen $200,000 in civil penalties, pending court approval, according to the SEC. They also agreed not to serve as officers or directors of publicly traded companies for five and 10 years, respectively.

Knight left Hyzon in August 2022 and after a review of additional information, was terminated for cause in January, the company said.

Hyzon is pleased to put this chapter behind us, and continue our disciplined execution of operational milestones including commercial vehicle deployments and fuel cell technology developments, Hyzon Motors CEO Parker Meeks said in the release.

Knight declined to comment and efforts to reach Holthausen were unsuccessful.

Hydrogen is an alternative fuel used to power zero-emission electric vehicles, from cars to commercial trucks. Hyzons parent company, Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, has been developing the technology since 2003, but the power source has been slow to gain traction in the U.S. and other markets.

Launched in 2020, Hyzon plans to create both its own branded trucks and sell its fuel cells to other manufacturers.

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In March 2021, Hyzon announced it was building the nations largest hydrogen fuel cell factory in Bolingbrook, with plans to hire up to 50 employees and begin commercial production by the end of that year.

At the time, then-CEO Knight told the Tribune the company had contracts in place with corporate and government customers in Asia, Australia and Europe. He said Hyzon would build 85 hydrogen-fueled trucks in 2021 and be at a run rate of at least 3,000 vehicles by 2023.

Those projections turned out to be mostly hot air, at least based on the current timeline.

While there are 200 employees in Bolingbrook, the 28,000-square-foot plant isnt expected to be completed and fully operational until the end of this year, the company said Wednesday. The leased facility in an industrial park near Interstate 55 has the capacity to expand to 100,000 square feet.

And while Hyzon has done a number of trials with customers, it has yet to begin commercial production of its fuel cell electric trucks. In June, Hyzon announced its first U.S. agreement to deliver five trucks with fuel cells made in Bolingbrook to Performance Food Group beginning in late 2023.

Hyzon is working with Fontaine Modification in North Carolina to convert commercial trucks to hydrogen-powered EVs using its fuel cells.

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The company expects to deliver 10 to 20 vehicles globally this year, a far cry from the 3,000 vehicles Knight previously projected for 2023. Hyzon has not issued projections for 2024.

Hyzon was valued at $2.1 billion when the proposed SPAC merger and public offering was announced in February 2021. The July 16, 2021, deal provided Hyzon with access to approximately $600 million  $200 million from the public offering and $400 million through private investment.

The wheels began to come off, however, after activist investment firm Blue Orca Capital took a large short position in Hyzon and published a disparaging report about the newly public company in September 2021. The report questioned Hyzons sales projections and called its largest customer a fake-looking Chinese shell entity formed three days before the public offering.

A federal securities class action lawsuit was filed against Hyzon two days after the Blue Orca report was published, alleging the company caused investors to suffer significant losses and damages " by misrepresenting its business, operational and financial results.

The lawsuit is ongoing in the Western District of New York.

The SEC began its own investigation in January 2022, related to the allegations in the Blue Orca Capital report.

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In addition to the civil penalties, Knight and Mark Gordon, Hyzons former chief financial officer, reimbursed the company $252,000 and $122,500, respectively, for bonuses they received after the misstated financial results.

Hyzons stock closed at $1.20 per share Wednesday, giving it a market cap of about $294 million.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com
An American Airlines flight attendant was found "unresponsive with a cloth in her mouth" at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott on Monday night, police said.

The 66-year-old woman was found in her hotel room just after 10:40 p.m. and pronounced dead by 10:45, according to Public Information Officer Shawn Ritchie.

The police department's homicide detectives division is investigating, according to the public information officer, who added that no weapon was recovered at the scene.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told NBC Philadelphia that police are investigating the incident as a suspicious death, though there were no signs of forced entry and the unidentified woman was on several medications.

A statement from American Airlines said employees are "devastated by this news."

"Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues, and were doing everything we can to ensure all affected have the support they need during this difficult time," the statement continued. "We will continue to cooperate fully with local law enforcement in their investigation.

A spokesperson for Marriott said the company is cooperating with the Philadelphia Police Department and directed further questions to it.

A representative for the Medical Examiner's Office could not immediately be reached Wednesday morning.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
An American Airlines flight attendant was found dead, with a sock in her mouth, Monday night at a hotel room near Philadelphia International Airport, according to police who are investigating the "suspicious" death. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Police are investigating the "suspicious" death of an American Airlines flight attendant whose body was found in a hotel room near Philadelphia International Airport.

Cleaning staff at the Marriott hotel discovered the deceased flight attendant, who was found with a sock in her mouth, at about 10:45 p.m. on Monday, according to investigators. The 66-year-old woman had been scheduled to check out of her room two days earlier.

An American Airlines crew member who worked with the flight attendant said the entire crew is "traumatized" after they were unable to check on her welfare before boarding their flight Saturday. While flight attendants typically leave behind colleagues who are late for their hotel shuttles, investigators said they are looking into why it took two days before the airline and hotel checked on the missing woman.

The Los Angeles-based flight attendant had been with the same crew for several days, including for the short overnight layover in Philadelphia. Police said there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry into the hotel room, and that no weapons were found.

Investigators are calling the death "suspicious," and believe the woman suffered a "sudden death," Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told NBC10.

Several sealed bottles of prescription drugs were found in the room and Scott said the victim had been "on several medications."

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office is performing an autopsy to determine the cause of her death, but has not released the results yet.
A massive tank arrives by truck at the American Legion Post 449 on Wednesday, Sept. 27. 2023, in Marysville. The post has waited several years for a static asset to exhibit outside its Huron Boulevard building, learning last June it'd receive the tank, which measures 144 inches wide and 290 inches long.

Two dozen American Legion members and other bystanders eagerly paced along the road midday Wednesday outside the Marysville post, waiting for a massive M48A1 tank to arrive.

Post 449 President and Commander Paul Sheldon said theyd requested a major decommissioned military asset to exhibit outside their facility several years ago.

But until last June, when they learned theyd receive the Vietnam-era tank through the U.S. Department of Defense and Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, or TACOM, it never came to fruition.

So, the cliche Army comment is, Hurry up and wait, right? And the anticipation is worse than the hurry up and wait for the membership, Sheldon joked. You can see the excitement is palatable  in anticipation.

Earlier that morning, Sheldon said the logistics to coordinate the delivery of the tank was challenging.

A Vietnam-era tank is pulled into the lot at the American Legion Post 449 in Marysville on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, as crew from Steve's Towing prepare to help position it in place on a nearby concrete pad.

It had last been in the AAF Tank Museum in Danville, Virginia, and crossing five states, he said it required permitting for pilot cars and a police escort in one of them.

Although they had long awaited a static display, they hadnt necessarily asked for a tank initially.

Its about the availability of decommissioned assets from the military, Sheldon said.  Its sort of whatever they offer. We can accept it or deny it. And if you deny it, you go back on the waitlist.

However, when they got the notice earlier this year, he said, We jumped at it.

At 143 inches wide and 290 inches long, the tank operated from the late 60s until the 90s. It was to be positioned on a deep concrete pad directly in front of the Legion building at 229 Huron Blvd.

An RC tank, owned by American Legion member Mike Young, is jokingly placed on a concrete pad meant for a full-size tank on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, outside Post 449 in Marysville.

Prior, Clitus Schuyler, second vice commander for the post, said, Morale has been super high prior to the tanks arrival, which was initially planned for mid-morning Wednesday.

Sheldon emphasized the importance of the asset for membership but also for the role itd serve a centerpiece for the community.

And he said he hoped itd inspire more people to engage with the Legion itself.

So I live down the street, drop my kids off at school every day, and every day, I drive by, I see the pad, and I just (think), Its going to be  Whats the word? Sheldon said. Its definitely going to be something. The citys excited about it.

Shana Parker, the posts manager, quickly filled Sheldons missing word.

American Legion Post 449 members, crew from Steve's Towing, and others, watch as a large tank, which was decommissioned in the 1990s, arrives on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Marysville.

Its like a landmark where people go, Oh, go see the post with the tank in front. We go to a lot of posts. Some have jets. Some have tanks, she said. Youre always like, The one with the helicopter, the one with the jet. So, well be, The one with the tank. Itll be pretty cool to have something like that. I mean, right on the street, everyone can see it, give people a reason to stop in.

Currently, the American Legion Post 449 has roughly 320 members, and Parker said its larger organization, including sons and auxiliary groups, have around 900.

The tank didnt arrive until shortly after noon Wednesday.

In the meantime, members had some fun with a toy remote-control tank, belonging to longtime Legion member and Vietnam veteran Mike Young, in its place.

I gotta send a picture to my wife. Tell her the tanks here, one individual said, snapping a photo of the miniature.

This ones going to the mayor, another chimed in.

Moments later, the tank arrived, pulling up on Huron Boulevard.

Sheldon stopped out in the roadway to communicate with the trucks driver. As he returned, he said to bystanders, Holy crap, its huge!

When asked, Sheldon added, Just the size of it, seeing it, you dont realize.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: American Legion Post 449 puts massive tank on display in Marysville
There was no love lost between Spain and the United States when war finally broke out between the two countries in 1898. Despite the exaggerations from so-called Yellow Journalism in the U.S., Spain really had committed some atrocities against the Cuban people on the island, and the Cuban Independence War was harming the U.S. economy.

When war finally came, however, the United States wasnt really ready for an overseas conflict. The U.S. Army had only 28,000 regular soldiers and state militias were poorly trained and under-equipped. To meet the needs of the war, the U.S. increased its military spending and called for volunteers to fight the Spanish. Americans responded: 290,000 men answered the call for 125,000 troops.

The Americans had the numbers but they were also outmatched, at least on paper. In Cuba, the Spanish had 160,000 men using the latest smokeless infantry rifles and Cuba was a primary Spanish training area for its army. The Americans, in contrast, were using a hodgepodge of infantry rifles, including some obsolete black powder rifles, wore woolen winter uniforms, and were under-prepared for the logistics of training and moving large numbers of men and materiel.

Luckily, the Americans did have something going for them: their new Navy. The U.S. Navy was filled with steel-plated cruisers and battleships that were faster, more resilient, and better armed than any ship in the Spanish Navy. With a U.S. blockade around Cuba, the Spanish could not reinforce their position.

When volunteers, like Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders, did arrive in Cuba, they brought with them some interesting new weapons. The most famous of these weapons would have to be the Gatling Gun, a swivel-mounted automatic machine gun that could fire 700 rounds per minute. Less famous, though equally interesting, would be the Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun.

The Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun was an advanced, lightweight kind of artillery piece that had not yet proven itself in battle with the Americans like the Gatling Gun had. Despite its name, it did not actually fire sticks of dynamite. It used compressed air to fire gelatinous explosives, not dynamite. Its original design used compressed air to fire the projectile. The version that went into combat against the Spanish in Cuba was much different.

Sims-Dudley 4 Inch Dynamite Gun on Field Mount.

Sims-Dudleys version of the gun did not have an air compressor, so it required a small black powder charge to fire its explosive rounds. The rounds themselves were a kind of gel-like nitroglycerin, primed with a time or percussion fuse. If firing a nitroglycerin-based explosive, primed with a percussive fuse from a weapon that uses black powder as a propellant sounds crazy, youre not alone. Its early adopters werent thrilled about the idea either.

Frederick Funston , an American serving the Cuban insurgency, actually received one of the Sims-Dudley guns in 1897, before the Spanish-American War broke out. Funston used the weapon in an August 1897 assault on the Spanish-held town of Victoria de las Tunas . He described the first shot as follows:

"There was no little uneasiness as to what would happen when the uncanny weapon was fired, and there was not much of a tendency to stand too close to it. When the lanyard was pulled, the gun gave what sounded like a loud cough and jumped a little."

But the weapons performed as intended for the Cubans, creating a hole in a brick wall large enough to drive a truck through and sending debris some 50 feet in the air. The result of its success with the Cubans was that the U.S. Army brought at least ten of the Dynamite Guns to Cuba for its invasion.

But it didnt perform for the Rough Riders the wa y it worked for the Cubans. The gun was at the Battle of San Juan Hill, but the ammunition had been misplaced. When it was reunited with its ammo in time for Roosevelt to lead the attack on Santiago de Cuba, it was prone to breakdowns, had poor range and didnt quite have the power it did at Victoria.

"...it was used as a like a mortar from behind the hill, it did not betray its presence, and those firing it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got out of order and the Rough Rider machinists....would spend an hour or two setting it right, Roosevelt wrote.

Since the Spanish-American War was short-lived, and more stable, less complex artillery pieces became available, both with improved accuracy and better range, the Dynamite Gun was ultimately shelved indefinitely.
Ethnic Armenians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh crowd onto a truck on their way to Armenia's Syunik region Tuesday. (Stepan Poghosyan / Associated Press)

Days after Azerbaijan defeated the ethnic Armenian authorities who have long ruled the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, speculation is swirling over whether another government could fall: that of Armenia itself.

As tens of thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh's residents flee, abandoning their homes amid fear of Azerbaijani rule, rage has filled the streets of Yerevan, Armenia's capital. Thousands of protesters have thronged Republic Square each day, attacking government buildings and facing off against riot police, their fury focused on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and what they say is his inaction before the prospect of genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Artsakh.

"People want to punish the one who will hand over Artsakh to a foreign nation," said Hovhannes Ishkhanyan, a Yerevan-based documentary filmmaker.

"There is huge anger against Pashinyan, and that's how it should be."

Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan, Armenia. (Vahram Baghdasaryan / Associated Press)

That anger persisted Wednesday, with the total number of refugees leaving Nagorno-Karabakh and crossing the border into Armenia over the last few days rising to more than 42,000, according to the Armenian government. (Estimates put Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population at 120,000; Azerbaijan officials insist the true figure is lower.)

They arrived crammed into whatever vehicles they could find, many of them with little more than a change of clothes. Behind them were tens of thousands of others crowding a mountain highway. The 25-mile drive from the region's capital, Stepanakert  Azerbaijan calls it Khankendi  to the Armenian border took some as long as 20 hours.

Read more: 'Staying, for us, is impossible.' Thousands of ethnic Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh

"Just a river of cars. We drove two meters, waited two hours," tweeted Marut Vanyan, a journalist who arrived in Armenia on Monday after leaving Stepanakert. That night, an explosion ripped through a gas station outside the capital, killing 68 people and injuring scores of others waiting in line for fuel.

The chaos at the border and in Yerevan has only swelled the outrage at the Armenian government, especially Pashinyan, whom critics accuse of capitulating to Azerbaijan by failing to send troops to Nagorno-Karabakh to protect its ethnic Armenians. In Yerevan, protesters blocked roads, while authorities arrested demonstrating students at the American University of Armenia, adding to the hundreds of people detained by police over the last few days.

Rallies calling for Pashinyan's impeachment have filled Republic Square, the same public plaza where he addressed supporters during the 2018 revolution that brought him to power, ending the rule of what many believed to be a hopelessly corrupt political class.

A man who was injured during an explosion at a crowded gas station in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, sits in an ambulance in Yerevan, Armenia, on Tuesday. (Hayk Baghdasaryan / Associated Press)

Whether Pashinyan will step down or can be ousted without an election is unclear, and many of the alternative candidates, who are mostly associated with pre-2018 governments, seem to their compatriots even less savory.

But the risk of Pashinyan's government falling is very real, said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus expert at Carnegie Europe.

"There are tens of thousands of Karabakhis fleeing to Armenia who feel that Pashinyan has betrayed them as well as large parts of the Armenian establishment for whom Karabakh was a sacred cause," he said.

For those out on the streets demanding Pashinyan's resignation or removal, the very survival of their country is at stake, said Beniamin Matevosyan, an analyst with the Yerevan-based Politeconomy Research Institute. They fear that Azerbaijan, emboldened by its victory in Nagorno-Karabakh, could attack Armenia itself.

Read more: Two years after a bloody war, Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions are running high again. Why?

"The question isn't 'Is there a chance for the Pashinyan government to fall,' but 'Is there a chance to save Armenia?'" he said. "It is precisely in order to preserve Armenian statehood that people go to protests."

Azerbaijan signaled its intention to impose swift and strict control on Nagorno-Karabakh by arresting a former head of the region's secessionist government Wednesday as he tried to join the river of people crossing into Armenia. Ruben Vardanyan, who stepped down from his post earlier this year, was taken to Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, where "relevant state bodies" will decide his fate, the border guard service said.

The festering ethnic conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began amid the splintering of the Soviet Union, when ethnic Armenians in the territory, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island, chose to secede from Azerbaijan and unite with Armenia in 1988. In the ensuing six-year war, some 30,000 people were killed amid accusations of ethnic cleansing on both sides.

By 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh, along with the mostly Azeri-populated provinces surrounding it, fell under the control of Armenia-backed separatists. A government funded and equipped by Yerevan called itself the Artsakh Republic, though international law recognized the area as Azerbaijan.

Read more: They lay competing claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. The war over it defines them both

In 2020, Azerbaijan's military took back much of the area around Nagorno-Karabakh. In December, Azerbaijan blocked the only land link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, despite the presence of Russian peacekeeping troops.

Last week, Azerbaijan launched a swift military campaign and surrounded Stepanakert. Assurances from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that his government would treat ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh as equal citizens did little to stop their exodus.

Despite Armenia being part of a collective security agreement with Russia, Moscow did not intervene. But neither did Pashinyan.

Some say he simply accepted that Azerbaijan's army was larger and far better-equipped and that with the Artsakh Republic unrecognized by much of the world, he had little room to maneuver. His supporters insist that giving up on Nagorno-Karabakh will allow Armenia to forge links with its neighbors and bring much-needed investment.

A convoy of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh move to Kornidzor in the Syunik region of Armenia on Tuesday. (Vasily Krestyaninov / Associated Press)

Yet many in Armenia and among its large and influential diaspora are furious, seeing in Pashinyan a Neville Chamberlain-like figure whose appeasement of Azerbaijan will only encourage it to go for more. On Tuesday, dozens of Armenian Americans and supporters rallied in Simi Valley, outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, in support of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Some critics point to Aliyev's recent statements regarding Armenia's southern Syunik region, which Azerbaijan calls Zangezur, through which he aims to construct a land corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, an autonomous Azerbaijani exclave wedged between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. Under the 2020 cease-fire agreement, Azerbaijan and Armenia were to restore transport connections, but Armenia fears that could lead to its being cut off from its southern border with Iran.

On Monday, Aliyev blamed Soviet-era authorities for apportioning territory to the Armenian Soviet republic that he believes should have belonged to the Azerbaijani Soviet republic. In past speeches, he has also used the irredentist term "West Azerbaijan" to refer to swaths of Armenia  including Syunik  that he believes rightfully belong to his country.

Read more: Around Nagorno-Karabakh, an all-out media war unfolds

"Anyone following Aliyev's rhetoric closely knows this is not just about Artsakh. He'll go after Zangezur and other areas, and there's nothing there to stop him. And certainly not Pashinyan," said David Grigorian, a veteran Armenian analyst and senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "I would say without Artsakh there is no Armenia, because without Zangezur there is no Armenian economy."

This week, the U.S. dispatched Yuri Kim, an acting assistant secretary of State, and Samantha Power, the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, to Yerevan to meet with Pashinyan and emphasize Washington's view that the cease-fire must remain in place, with no further violations from either side.

Power said she wanted to make "very, very clear" the support from many United Nations member states "for Armenia's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy."

"I'm not going to preview what the consequences would be of violating those precepts, but it's absolutely imperative that the world stand together now and stress the inviolability of those principles," she said.

Washington's support comes as Pashinyan blames longtime ally Russia for failing to prevent the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. With Moscow's focus on the war in Ukraine, Pashinyan has questioned the worth of the collective security agreement and indicated a desire for a closer relationship with the U.S.

In response, Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Pashinyan of shifting responsibility for his failures and of mishandling the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since 2020. It also painted the West's maneuvers in Armenia as part of a wider strategy to turn regional governments against Russia, and warned Pashinyan's government not to sever Armenia's ties with Russia in order to become "a hostage to Western geopolitical games."

"The Russians now obviously want Pashinyan out and are pretty much openly calling for street demonstrations," De Waal said. "Perhaps that is his strongest card  that much as the public is angry with Pashinyan over this, they are even more angry with Russia's duplicity."

Yet for many protesters on the street, Pashinyan's international maneuvering matters little in the face of what they say is his turning his back on ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Basically this guy came in to hand over Artsakh," said Ishkhanyan, the documentary filmmaker.

"These protests will continue until the last Armenian."

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In a petition filed earlier this month, two anti-nuclear groups demand that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission order PG&E to shut down Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant due to what they say is overdue testing on the safety of the facility  a risk the utility disputes.

The petition, filed by Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth on Sept. 14, alleges that PG&E has delayed testing on the Diablo Canyon Power Plants Unit 1 pressure vessel for 20 years, according to a news release by the groups.

The pressure vessel may be the most important component of the reactor because it encases water on the highly radioactive reactor core, the Sept. 14 news released said. Failure of the reactor vessel could cause a catastrophic meltdown.

Immediately powering down Diablo Canyon Power Plant, located just north of Avila Beach, should happen while PG&E inspects the pressure vessel, the groups petition states.

Additionally, the groups requested that the NRC reconsider its decision to allow PG&E an extension on inspecting the pressure vessel until 2025.

This petition is part of a comprehensive legal strategy to ensure that people and the planet are not put at risk of a nuclear meltdown while PG&E profits in the billions, said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, in a prepared statement. We will not sit idly by while PG&E cuts corners on Unit 1s safety and the NRC rubber stamps operation with a dangerously deteriorating pressure vessel.

PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral said the utility company conducted an ultrasonic inspection on Diablo Canyon Power Plants Unit 1 in 2014.

That test confirmed there were no reportable indications of cracking, Corral wrote in an email to The Tribune.

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is the last of its kind in California, seen here in a photo on Oct. 25, 2022.

PG&E has also inspected the reactor vessel through withdrawing a surveillance capsule, or coupon, to check for any damage, Corral added.

The last time that test was conducted was in May 2002.

PG&E was originally scheduled to withdraw a surveillance capsule from the Unit 1 vessel in 2022. The NRC had approved that testing date while PG&E applied for license renewal of the nuclear power plant in 2009.

However, PG&E withdrew its application for license renewal in 2018 and was then expected to cease operation of the power plant by 2025.

Because the Unit 1 capsule removal was to support (Diablo Canyon) license renewal, it was not removed in 2022, Corral wrote in her email.

PG&E is now working on its application for license renewal to potentially operate the power plant through at least 2030, following direction from the State Legislature under Senate Bill 846 signed last September by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved PG&Es schedule to withdraw a test capsule from Unit 1 for inspection and testing during either the Fall 2023 or the following Spring 2025 refueling outage, Corral wrote in her email. PG&E also plans to complete another ultrasonic inspection of the Unit 1 reactor vessel prior to May 6, 2025.

The fall 2023 outage at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is scheduled for this weekend, according to Corral. Whether the test capsule inspection will happen during the outage is yet to be determined, she added.

Anti-nuclear groups want Diablo Canyon testing moved up

In their petition, Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth maintain that waiting until 2025 is too late.

Citing an analysis by Digby Macdonald, a staff researcher at UC Berkeleys Department of Nuclear Engineering, the groups allege in their petition that the Unit 1 pressure vessel could reach an unacceptable level of embrittlement by late 2023.

Embrittlement occurs when operation of the nuclear reactor causes power plant materials exposed to radiation to become more susceptible to potential breaks.

These indications of embrittlement should have caused PG&E to seek additional data for an adequate understanding of the condition of the pressure vessel, the petition said. Instead, over the past 20 years, PG&E has repeatedly postponed additional surveillance and testing of the pressure vessel.

Such delays mean the power plant is operating unsafely and should be shut down immediately, according to the petition and Macdonalds analysis.

Now we are at a watershed moment where the safety risks created by PG&Es failure to conduct any surveillance of capsules from the Unit 1 pressure vessels or ultrasound testing of the pressure vessels beltline welds are extremely grave, Macdonald said in his Sept. 14 analysis.

Macdonald was retained by Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth to evaluate PG&Es inspection of the reactor vessel.

Despite the allegations from Macdonald, Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth, PG&E continues to assert that it operates Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant safely.

Analysis has demonstrated that the reactor vessels for both Units 1 and 2 currently meet the NRCs acceptance criteria (10 CFR 50.61), Corral wrote in her email to The Tribune. Reflecting our focus on safety, we are in full compliance with industry guidance and regulatory standards regarding our program to monitor, evaluate and ensure reactor vessel safety.
Progressive New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised President Joe Biden for picketing with auto workers in Michigan, saying it showed that momentum is on the side of labour.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist and member of the Squad, told The Independent Mr Bidens support for workers was a positive development.

I think its fantastic, she said. This is a historic moment. Never in American history have we seen a sitting US president support and show up at a picket line. I think this is a very strong signal that the tide is changing.

Mr Biden joined the United Auto Workers on a picket line outside a General Motors factory in Belleville, just outside Detroit. Mr Bidens visit was the first time in modern history that a president has joined a picket line for striking workers.

Specifically, Mr Biden cited how auto workers made numerous concessions during the 2008 financial crisis when the US government provided federal relief for the industry.

The fact of the matter is is that you guys  the UAW  saved the automobile industry back in 2008 ... you gave up a lot and the companies were in trouble, but now theyre doing incredibly well, he said on Tuesday. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too.

Plenty of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sens John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Gary Peters (D-MI), have joined auto workers on the picket line in recent days.

You saved them, now its time that they step up for us, Mr Biden said.

Former president Donald Trump plans to visit Michigan to support striking auto workers, albeit his event will not be a union event. Other Republicans including Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) have supported the strike.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez also criticised Republicans in the House who are calling for the defunding of the Justice Departments investigations into Mr Trump.

I mean, at this point, they're just abusing their seats in Congress, she said.
Tenants of Promenade Towers, a Bunker Hill apartment complex, above, received 371 eviction notices from late January through July. A new city program aims to help tenants who owe back rent. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Angelenos who owe back rent have until Monday to apply for the city's emergency rental assistance program, which can repay up to six months of unpaid rent for eligible tenants.

The Emergency Renters Assistance Program is one of several tenant protection initiatives paid for by Measure ULA. The so-called mansion tax  which was approved by voters in November and went into effect in April  imposes a surcharge on residential and commercial real estate sales in the city above $5 million.

We must do more to keep people housed, and I want to make sure eligible Angelenos begin applying today for rent relief for back rent owed during the COVID-19 pandemic or if you are currently experiencing a short-term hardship, Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement last week. We must continue to do all that we can to prevent Angelenos from falling into homelessness and help ensure small landlords have access to resources as well."

The program was approved by the City Council and will be administered by the city's Housing Department.

How does the program work?

For tenants who are selected, the program will provide a maximum of six months of unpaid rent directly to their landlords on their behalf. The program is currently open only to tenants, but according to the mayor's office, small landlords will also be able to apply for short-term assistance beginning Oct. 23. The fund totals $18.4 million.

Who is eligible?

The program is open only to Angelenos who qualify as low-income. Low income is defined as household income at or below 80% of the area median income. A single-person household would need to have a pretax income at or below $70,650 to qualify, while the cutoff would be $80,750 for a two-person household or $100,900 for a four-person household (the full chart can be found here).

One or more members of the household also need to have experienced a loss of employment, reduction in household income or incurred significant costs or other financial hardship between March 2020 and now. Eligible residents also need to have rent debt owed to their landlord from some time between April 2020 and the present.

The program is open to residents of the city of Los Angeles (check your address here), regardless of their immigration status.

Angelenos who qualify as extremely low-income and owe rent from between April 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, will be given priority. Other applicants may be processed later, according to the Housing Department website.

A single-person household with a pretax income of $26,500 or less qualifies as extremely low-income. The figure would be $30,300 for a two-person household, $34,100 for a three-person household and $37,850 for a four-person household.

After that initial priority group, households with minor children, seniors or disabled people will be considered, as will households that are extremely rent-burdened or at a high risk of becoming homeless, among other criteria.

How do I apply?

Angelenos can apply for the program online through the Housing Department's website.

They can also apply by phone by calling the Housing Department hotline at (888) 379-3150 (open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) or We Are L.A. hotline at (213) 584-1808 (open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or in person at a FamilySource center.

The application portal opened last week and will remain open through Monday at 6 p.m.

The Housing Department recommends "that tenants communicate with their landlord and provide accurate contact information for their landlord to avoid problems or delays in applications being funded."

How will I know if my application is moving forward?

If an applicant is not eligible to apply because they don't meet the screening criteria, they will be informed immediately.

If they do meet the initial criteria, they will "receive various emails at each stage and sometimes [be] asked to provide missing information" during a weeks-long process, according to Housing Department spokesperson Sharon Sandow.

Can I be evicted for owing back rent?

Yes, but with some caveats.

Under the city's new tenant protection laws, a tenant must owe at least one month of fair market rent before he or she can be evicted for nonpayment. (Fair market rent is a set figure established every year for the region that also depends on how many bedrooms are in your apartment.)

Read more: What to know about L.A.'s new tenant protection laws

Under those same new rules, tenants had until Aug. 1 to pay back rent accumulated between March 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, meaning eviction proceedings can now be brought for rent owed from that time period.

However, tenants have until Feb. 1, 2024, to repay back rent accumulated between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2023.

What else should I know?

A Q&A about the emergency rental assistance program from the mayor's office can be found here.

If you receive an eviction notice, you have rights and there are resources available. Stay Housed L.A., a partnership among the city, county and local community and legal service providers, is a good starting point for knowing your rights and finding other resources. You can also contact the We Are LA hotline at (213) 584-1808 or the Los Angeles Housing Department hotline at (866) 557-7368.

If you live in a rent-stabilized unit, annual rent increases are prohibited until Jan. 31. (To find out if your unit is subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, enter your address on this site and then look under the "housing" tab on the bottom left.)

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An armed and extremely dangerous suspect is on the run after a successful 26-year-old tech executive was found brutally murdered in her apartment in Baltimore.

Pava LaPere was the founder and CEO of EcoMaps Technologies, a custom platform builder for companies, and had featured on Forbes 30 under 30 list this year for her social impact on the industry.

On Monday, she was found dead from apparent signs of blunt-force trauma inside her apartment in the 300 block of West Franklin Street, police said.

Baltimore Police said that a missing persons call had been placed for the victim, leading officers to her home where she was found at around 11.34am that morning.

Jason Dean Billingsley, a 32-year-old with prior convictions for assault and sex offences, has been named as a suspect in her murder.

He is now wanted on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree assault, sex offence and robbery, Baltimore Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Commissioner Worley warned that the suspect should be considered armed and dangerous.

This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm. So, please be aware of your surroundings, he said.

The police commissioner also issued a warning directly to the suspected killer.

If youre out there watching, hopefully you are, every single police officer in Baltimore City, the state of Maryland as well as the US Marshals are looking for you, he said.

Jason Dean Billingsley has previously been convicted for assault and sex offence charges (Baltimore Police Department)

We will find you. So, I would ask you to turn yourself in to any officer, any police station, because we will take you into custody eventually, and then we will turn it over to the states attorney to prosecute you to the fullest. So, please turn yourself in.

It is currently unclear how police have identified Billingsley as the suspect.

Now, a manhunt is under way, with Baltimore PD working with the Warrant Apprehension Taskforce and the US Marshals Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force to track him down.

Billingsley has previous arrests in 2013, 2011 and 2009 on multiple charges including sex offences, second-degree assault and robbery.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011, court records show.

In 2015, Mr Billingsley was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 16 years suspended, after he pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offence, according to court records.

Pava LaPere was a visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader" (EcoMaps/X)

However, the Maryland sex offender registry shows that he was released from prison last October.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Billingsley should have never been released.

There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street, Mr Scott said. When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case ... and the states attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction.

LaPeres family released a statement paying tribute to the slain tech CEO following her death.

She was driven, creative, hard-working and relentless in her efforts, with her wonderful team at EcoMap Technologies, her family said.

Pava made an impact in every endeavour she undertook and on every life she touched. She will be forever missed as a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin and loyal friend.

Just hours before her murder, LaPeres company EcoMap Technologies had announced that she would appear as a speaker at a forum in Pennsylvania next week.

EcoMap Technologies has now released a statement about the loss of their CEO.

The circumstances surrounding Pavas death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time, the statement read.

Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.
People rally near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Tuesday evening, calling on political leaders to intervene in attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Close to 100 Armenian Americans and supporters gathered in front of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Tuesday to rally for the thousands of ethnic Armenians in the contested and besieged region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Organizers said the rally in Simi Valley, held the day before the second Republican presidential debate at the same location, was intended to shine a light on the humanitarian crisis facing the estimated 120,000 Armenians living in the region. Known to Armenians as Artsakh, the region sits within the borders of Azerbaijan but historically has been occupied by ethnic Armenians.

The crowd gathered on Presidential Drive, with many waving Armenian and American flags. They were led in chants denouncing genocide and asking for sanctions against Azerbaijan.

Read more: 'Staying, for us, is impossible.' Thousands of ethnic Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh

Last week, Azerbaijani military forces entered the region to seize control of the area, launching rockets, artillery and drone attacks. The campaign sparked fears of pogrom among residents and the wider Armenian diaspora. Azerbaijani military officials said the forces were deployed for "local anti-terrorist" operations at specific military facilities, while the Armenian National Committee of America said the attacks also targeted residential centers, destroying homes and killing civilians. At least 200 people were reported to have died by Sept. 20.

Additionally, since December, Azerbaijan has enforced a blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the only land link between Armenia and the breakaway enclave. The blockage has prevented the distribution of food, water, medicine and other essentials.

Ratcheting up the tension and adding to the conflict's death toll, an explosion at a gas station in Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday left scores of people dead or injured. Many of those killed were among the thousands of ethnic Armenians trying to flee the region. The cause of the blast remained unclear late Tuesday.

Joseph Kaskanian, a spokesman for the Armenian National Committee of America, said the rally was a call for support from both the GOP presidential candidates and the Biden administration. He said previous requests for aid had fallen on deaf ears.

"Not only is the Biden administration failing to address any of this stuff, the Biden administration is complicit in the genocide of Armenians," Kaskanian told The Times.

Protesters at the rally carried signs demanding action and expressing anger at the Biden administration.

1915 Never Again, read one sign, in reference to the Armenian genocide. Biden supports genocide, said another.

Read more: Two years after a bloody war, Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions are running high again. Why?

Were here to demand action from the U.S. government, said Alexis Tolmajian, a member of the Armenian Youth Federation, the self-described youth organization of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation political party, which organized the rally. We want awareness and some sort of action plan from the GOP.

We just need them to get, you know, get the ball rolling," she added, "and to start actually talking about what's happening to stop it before it's irreversible."

Tolmajian said it had been extremely difficult to see no action from the Biden administration.

Ralliers were demanding five actions from President Biden and the GOP candidates: to intervene and stop the attacks in Artsakh; end military aid to Azerbaijan; send emergency humanitarian airlifts to Artsakh for those remaining in the region; enact sanctions on Azerbaijan; and remove the blockade within the Lachin Corridor.

How do you go about recognizing the first genocide of the 21st century, and then turn around and allow for it to happen again, said Nyree Derderian, chairperson of the Armenian Relief Society, referring to Biden's formal recognition of the Armenian genocide in 2021.

Derderian said she would take a pledge from the GOP candidates but hoped for action.

Theres been a lot of pledges over the years," Derderian said, "a lot of promises that have all been broken.

Southern California has a sizable Armenian American presence, with the nation's largest Armenian diaspora community in Los Angeles County.

Hagop Karpanian of Thousand Oaks stood in the crowd Tuesday night, his 4-year-old son, Masis, sitting on his shoulders.

Its a part of our culture, a part of our heritage," Karpanian said of Nagorno-Karabakh, noting that his son's middle name, Mrav, is after a mountain in Artsakh.

Karpanian said his mother's family escaped the region during wartime there in the early 1990s. He said it was important that Masis and his 1-year-old brother grow up "in touch with their history and whats going on in their homeland.

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Even with its story hiccups  and by the end, theyre practically contagious  The Creator creates images of the future you have not seen before, at least not quite this way. The movie is messy and knotty but co-writer and director Gareth Edwards has yet to make an uninteresting piece of science fiction.

This is his fourth feature, following his scrappy low-budget debut Monsters (2010); the grave and highly gratifying 2014 Godzilla; and another large-scale franchise entry, also good, the Star Wars spinoff Rogue One (2016). The Creator belongs to no franchise, though certainly it owes a lot to the harsh wonders and narrative devices of many earlier movies, from Blade Runner to Akira.

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Equal parts grit and sentiment, Edwards script, co-written by Chris Weitz, begins in 2065 before jumping forward, and then backward. A nuclear strike, made by artificial intelligence creations known as simulants, has left a million dead in greater Los Angeles. In the films beautifully edited opening minutes, were briefed on the humans global war with the simulants, whose human-like emotional wiring (literal wiring, that is) exceeds even that of Haley Joel Osments roboboy in the Spielberg/Kubrick collaboration A.I. The simulants with human faces are not easy to kill, though the film also features scads of more anonymous and entirely faceless Clone Wars-type simulants, designed for quick and easy expiration.

Over in New Asia, humans and simulants are still getting along. But The Creator wastes little time in ginning up the havoc and the mass slaughter there, with the U.S. military deploying its fearsome aircraft, the U.S.S. Nomad, to target and destroy the simluants villages and their allies camps. Recalling the chaotic and often brutal guerrilla combat of his Rogue One, Edwards here evokes Americas war in Vietnam, and in particular the Vietnam war fantasia Apocalypse Now.

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Our way into this world is meant to be simple and easily trackable, though The Creator struggles a bit with that part. John David Washington plays undercover ops agent Joshua, whose pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan) is killed, apparently in a raid gone wrong. Years later, back in Los Angeles, Joshua is offered an unrefusable mission from military brass played by Allison Janney

and Ralph Ineson, the latter saddled with the clunkiest pair of eyeglasses on future Earth.

Joshuas mission: Find the inventor Nimrata and eliminate Nimratas secret AI weapon that spells probable doom for the planet. Janneys character mentions, with strategic casualness, that Joshuas wife may still be alive. So theres his motivation.

The first half of The Creator pulls us in; the second half is less sure-footed in its flashbacks. Periodically, chapter titles (The Child, etc.) appear on screen to class things up. The movies quite grueling in its violence; the same was true of Rogue One and director Edwards isnt one for no-fuss good vs. evil. The movies future exists in irradiated shades of grey.

The Creator cost a little more than half of Rogue One and looks twice as original. Its also fuzzy-headed and (for me, anyway) a little vexing in its unfolding, with some misjudged comic relief. There are also a few ideas that are so good, you want more done with them. My favorite is the digital mechanism (basically a recording device) that, when inserted in the neck of a recently deceased character, brings that character back to life for an additional 30 seconds.

The U.S.S. Nomad in a scene from Gareth Edwards' movie "The Creator." (20th Century Studios/TNS)

Much of The Creator devotes its screen time to Joshuas fatherly relationship to the simulant everyones after. The lil sim (thats what Joshua calls her) turns out to be a sprightly, empathetic messiah figure nicknamed Alphie, played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles. Like all simulants, shes easily spotted by the cylindrical hole in her metallic head. The script presents Joshua, and the audience, with a series of decisions: Is this simulant going to save us all? Whose side are we on?

One more question, relating to the movies leading actor: Is Washington enough of a star to anchor a movie? Im not sure he has the presence or the technical command. With Tenet and, to some degree, with The Creator, Washington isnt quite enough to help us navigate a tricky storyline. Joshuas an essentially recessive and reactive role. Washington isnt bad, but Im waiting for the movie that activates him in surprising ways.

As for what The Creator says about the evils of AI, well, theres a bit of a twist there, nothing startling or hard to predict. You cant beat AI, one wise simulant informs us along the way. It is evolution. Whether this spells moral complexity or narrative indecision will be up to the moviegoer. Either way, at least Edwards movie has a human pulse and a visual landscape worth exploring. Tangled plot threads and all.

The future is riddled with "simulants" waging war with humans in "The Creator." (20th Century Studios/AP)

The Creator  2.5 stars (out of 4)

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MPA rating: PG-13 (for violence, some bloody images and strong language)

Running time: 2:15

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Sept. 28

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune
Army Lt. Col. Frank Rubio returned to Earth after accomplishing a feat no American before him ever achieved.

The soldier-turned-NASA-astronaut landed back on solid ground in Kazakhstan after spending 371 days in low Earth orbit, earning him the record of the longest single spaceflight by an American.

He surpassed the previous United States record of 355 days on Sept. 11, which was held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei. Russia holds the world record of longest single spaceflight at 437 days, set in the mid-1990s, according to the Associated Press.

But the yearlong trip among the stars was not planned to be quite so lengthy.

Rubio launched with two cosmonauts aboard Roscosmos Soyuz MS-22 on Sept. 21, 2022. The crew expected to stay only six months, but the spacecraft experienced a coolant leak that resulted in an extension of their mission.

At a recent news conference, Rubio said that if asked beforehand to spend a full year in space, he likely would have politely said no.

If they had asked me up front before...training, because you do train for a year or two years for your mission, I probably would have declined, he said, while floating aboard the International Space Station. It would have hurt, but I would have declined and thats only because of family, things that were going on this past year.

As the United States looks toward exploring further in space, including eventual manned missions to Mars, prolonged journeys outside Earths atmosphere filled with various challenges for the isolated astronauts may become more regular.

Franks record-breaking time in space is not just a milestone; its a major contribution to our understanding of long-duration space missions, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

365 days spent in orbit.



Congratulations to NASA astronaut Frank Rubio for reaching one year on board the @Space_Station! On his first trip to space, Rubio has broken the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American astronaut in history. Next week, he will travel pic.twitter.com/hTexkgCMxu  NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) September 21, 2023

Rubio was selected by NASA to join the 2017 astronaut candidate class.

Born in California, though he considers Miami, Florida, his hometown, Rubio graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1998, according to his NASA bio. He served as a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot and flew more than 1,100 hours, including about 600 during deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He also earned his jumpmaster certification and has conducted more than 650 freefall skydives.

The Army has singularly provided unique opportunities for me, but I think  more important than that and more than the experiences themselves  is the adaptability that you build, Rubio said last year in an Army release. We have, as soldiers, just become incredibly resilient and adaptable because you have to  you never know whats coming at you.

At the time of his selection with NASA, Rubio was serving as a battalion surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson, Colo.

He and his fellow crew members conducted several scientific experiments during their year in space, including on how bacteria adapt to spaceflight and on using water-based and air-based techniques to grow tomato plants.

For me, honestly, obviously, I think hugging my wife and kids is going to be paramount, and Ill probably focus on that for the first couple days, Rubio said, when asked about his plans when returning home.
A juvenile was arrested in Rockland County on Wednesday after they called Suffern High School about a false threat.

Ramapo police said in a news release that person called the school anonymously Friday to report a chlorine and gas leak at the school. After investigating, police determined the threat was false. The suspect was arrested Tuesday for falsely reporting an incident in the first degree.

Det. Sgt. Michael Higgins of the Ramapo police said they will not release information, including age and gender of the suspect, because of their age.

The school received another threat about a bomb on campus on Sept. 21. Ramapo Police said that threat is still under investigation.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Suffern NY High School false threat: Juvenile arrest made in call made
A new NASA report aims to take the agency's Artemis moon program as an example of how to implement "ethical and societal considerations" in other efforts.

Artemis aims to land humans on the moon again by 2025 or 2026 with Artemis 3 , depending on how technical and mission development goes.The agency also has named its first moon crew in more than 50 years, with the four Artemis 2 astronauts set to fly around the moon no earlier than late 2024.

"As we plan for upcoming missions, we have the opportunity (to) make sure they reflect NASA's core value of inclusion and bring in new voices, ensuring we have a truly global, representative alliance as we explore deep space for the benefit of all," Ellen Gertsen, who was then NASA acting associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy, said in a statement on Thursday (Sept. 21). (Charity Weeden was just named to that post in a permanent position.)

The 65-page report summarizes the discussion from a workshop in April held by the agency's Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS). "Participants engaged in sessions on key ethical challenges of spaceflight and how ethical, legal, and societal implications were handled by other scientific endeavors with potentially profound societal effects," NASA officials wrote in the same statement .

Related: Nonbinary astronomers need better support from their field, study finds

The report is an interim stage as NASA considers what policy questions will come up with the first moon landings in half a century. Key findings so far in discussions included:

Sharing the benefits of space activities

Reflecting on core values for exploration

Defining sustainability for activities on the moon and considering the environmental impacts of space activities on Earth

Shared access to key sites on the moon

Cultural sensitivities surrounding payloads and activities on the moon

"OTPS will consider potential decisions with ethical and societal implications as part of that study and subsequent discussions with NASA leadership," agency officials wrote in the report. "Separately, OTPS is formulating ways to converse on these topics with NASA's international partners, understanding how they feel ELSI (ethical, legal, and societal implications) should be considered."

Results will be conveyed at upcoming workshops and conferences, including with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Lunar Exploration Advisory Group, which represents the lunar science community, to gain more input and move forward with the project.

Related: Black astronauts celebrate ISS, Artemis 2 moon missions while reflecting on history

Artemis 3 will not mark the first time that NASA has landed humans on the moon, of course. Between 1969 and 1972, 12 astronauts walked on the moon under the agency's Apollo program , which also ran other missions in lunar orbit and Earth orbit. But the pool of astronaut selection was narrow back then, partly because the military (from which NASA drew most astronauts at the time) was mainly open only to white men and partly due to society at large being less inclusive than it is today.

Artemis aims to broaden the base of people who explore the moon. Specifically, NASA has pledged it will have the first woman and the first person of color walk on the moon in the very near future. Artemis 2, incidentally, includes Christina Koch and Victor Glover , who will become the first woman and first Black person, respectively, to leave low Earth orbit .

Other dimensions of diversity  across dimensions such as gender, sexuality or cultural background  are likely also coming with future crews, as active astronauts at NASA already represent Native Americans, LGBTQ+ groups and various nationalities, to name some examples.

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NASA also will bring international agencies along for the ride for the first time under its Artemis Accords , which has more than two dozen nations on board. While all partners agree to peaceful exploration norms under NASA, some are contributing moon hardware as well to spread out the cost.

Indeed, Artemis 2 includes the first non-American assigned to any moon mission: the Canadian Space Agency 's Jeremy Hansen , in exchange for that agency's contribution of the robotic Canadarm3 for NASA's future moon-orbiting Gateway station. Future missions will include astronauts from the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency , based on NASA and other agency announcements in past months.
ASHEVILLE - Maggie Allen, 24, had a difficult start in school as a child growing up in North Carolina. She entered second grade at a kindergarten reading level, but it all changed when her second-grade teacher became her biggest fan, she said.

"She was my biggest advocate," Allen said. "If it wasn't for her, I don't know what I'd be doing."

Allen's second-grade teacher is her "why"  her former teacher became the reason she's a teacher.

Allen, a first-grade teacher at Hall Fletcher Elementary School, received the Beginning Teacher of the Year award on Sept. 26. Surprised by her students and staff  she thought they were all gathering for an assembly when really, it was to celebrate her.

Maggie Allen hugs her first graders at Hall Fletcher Elementary.

Staff went through a back door into the auditorium surprising Allen. Taylor Swift music was playing on the loudspeakers, Allen's favorite artist and the crowd of first- and second-graders were on their feet jumping and cheering.

Assistant Superintendent Mark Dickerson walked in with a dozen balloons, as the students "oohed" and "ahhed," he got their attention by announcing that he and other staff members were there for a very important reason.

"We are here to announce the Beginning Teacher of the Year for Asheville City Schools." Before he could get another word out the students started cheering and screaming, excited for Allen.

First and second graders at Hall Fletcher dancing to music while celebrating Maggie Allen for winning beginning teacher of the year.

Kimberly Dechant, beginning teacher coordinator at ACS, provides support to all the beginning teachers. Dechant explained to the Citizen Times how the process works  principals are able to nominate a teacher who is finishing up their first year. The nominees have to write an essay on the reason why they became a teacher. A committee reads the essays with the names removed and scores them accordingly.

"This is so well deserved," Dechant said. "She's a gem, an incredible teacher."

The beginning teacher of the year process was developed by the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching and was developed to "honor and retain new teaching professionals who show promise as an excellent educational leader," according to a Sept. 26 news release from ACS.

City schools Superintendent Maggie Fehrman was there on the morning of Sept. 26, handing Allen a bouquet of flowers and congratulating her.

"From the first day I met her I knew she was a phenomenal teacher," Fehrman said.

Hall Fletcher Principal Carrie Buchanan told the Citizen Times that she offered Allen the job on the spot.

"I was that impressed," she said.

"You would never know she was a new teacher. Her energy and excitement for learning goes straight to the children and they stay engaged with her every minute. She works really hard to meet the needs of all students."

Principal Carrie Buchanan and Maggie Allen hug during celebration ceremony at Hall Fletcher.

Allen, originally from the Raleigh area, graduated from Western Carolina University. She is certified in elementary, inclusive and special education. She just started her second year of teaching at Hall Fletcher and said she loves it.

"One of my really big priorities as a teacher is building those connections with the kids and letting them feel accepted and safe in their classroom. I teach them that it's okay to make mistakes, we celebrate mistakes because that means we're trying," she said.

Her time at WCU is what led her to discover Asheville, she said it was the closest town to the university and she would come often for grocery runs.

"I thought to myself, 'I guess I'll live here, that sounds good to me,' " Allen giggled, admitting she never really questioned it.

Maggie Allen after being named Beginning Teacher of the Year at Asheville City Schools.

More: How does newly passed NC state budget impact Asheville, Buncombe schools teachers, staff?

The next steps

A beginning teacher is selected from all school districts in North Carolina and as an Asheville City Schools finalist, Allen will submit her application to NCCAT.

The program will then select a pool of applicants to compete for the title of 2024 North Carolina Beginning Teacher of the Year and if she wins, Allen will get a $5,000 cash prize and the opportunity to participate in a GoGlobal N.C. trip, which allows teachers to immerse themselves in a different country to learn about different education systems, according to the release.

"It delivers the leadership and global competence needed to help our state thrive in this complex, dynamic world. We empower North Carolinians with the skills, understanding, connection, and knowledge to succeed in a global community," the GoGlobal website said.

Asheville City Schools currently has 327 classroom teachers.

More: Social-emotional learning in Asheville City Schools; How does it impact students?

More: Blue dresses, pink bows, 1st day jitters: Back to school in Asheville and Buncombe County

McKenna Leavens is the education reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at mleavens@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter @LeavensMcKennna. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville City Beginning Teacher of the Year goes to 1st grade teacher
Errol Musk told Insider he isn't happy with what he's heard about the new biography on his son.

Elon Musk's father said he doesn't plan to read the book, but he's seen excerpts from it.

Errol Musk is a central figure in the book, but said he resents being cast as the villain.

Errol Musk isn't happy with Walter Isaacson's recent biography about his son, Elon Musk.

Elon Musk's father, an engineer from South Africa who was at one point involved in the emerald business, is a central  and controversial  figure in the book. Isaacson's biography on Elon Musk is filled with accounts of incidents where the Tesla CEO and other family members claim Errol Musk bullied and demeaned Elon. In the past, Errol Musk has repeatedly denied the accounts.

In the book, Isaacson claims Elon's negative relationship with his father helped shape his personality and outlook on life  characterizing Errol as a sort of Darth Vader to Elon's Luke Skywalker and Errol's impact on Elon's psyche as "a danger that needed to be constantly battled."

Errol's name appears more than 120 times in the over 600-page book. But Errol said that he doesn't plan to read the full book, aside from some excerpts that he said journalists and friends have sent him.

"Why would I want to read someone's poor interpretation of the story? I was there," Errol Musk told Insider in a phone interview. "And then of course there's stuff about Elon and his wives and children and all that which is not my business. I don't want to read about stuff that's not my business," he added.

Errol Musk's name appears over 120 times in Walter Isaacson's new biography on Elon Musk. Denver Post Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon

The 77-year-old said he doesn't feel Isaacson was able to get an accurate picture of his life or his character based on the one conversation he said they had over the phone. In his book, Isaacson wrote that he spoke to Errol for about three hours and exchanged a series of follow-up calls and emails with him over the course of two years.

Errol said he felt he'd been cast as the villain

Ultimately, Errol Musk said he feels the book is an over-dramatization of his son's life  and one that inaccurately casts him as the villain in his son's story.

"He writes things people want to hear," Errol said of Isaacson.

"They want to read about poor little Pip and poor little Oliver Twist," Errol Musk said, referencing Charles Dickens' novels "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist." "Those are my sons and I'm as they said 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' which is not true. It makes for good reading, but it's not necessarily accurate."

In the biography, Isaacson wrote that Errol has a "Jekyll-and-Hyde nature."

"There were times when Errol would be jovial and fun, but occasionally he would become dark, verbally abusive, and possessed by fantasies and conspiracies," Isaacson wrote of Musk's time living with his father during his adolescence in a portion of the book he titled "Jekyll and Hyde."

Elon Musk has made similar comments in the past. In 2017, he told Rolling Stone that his father was "a terrible human being."

"My dad will have a carefully thought-out plan of evil," he told the publication. "He will plan evil."

Errol Musk has also faced scrutiny for a romantic relationship with his former stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout, whom he fathered two children with after divorcing her mother. In the biography on Elon Musk, Isaacson wrote that the billionaire was worried his father was "uncomfortably attentive" to the stepdaughter when she was 15 years old. Errol denied the claims, saying he was equally attentive to all of his children.

"It's nothing like what the press say that 'I made my stepdaughter pregnant,''" Errol Musk said, adding that his former stepdaughter was in her 30s when she had a child with him. "That's laughable. That's an absolute joke. I mean women don't get 'made pregnant,' women make decisions."

Insider has previously attempted to contact Bezuidenhout for comment on the book and her relationship with Errol, but has not heard back.

After Isaacson's book was published earlier this month, Errol Musk said the author called him to get his reaction to the biography.

"I told him he'd gone for sensationalism and he laughed," Errol Musk said, adding that the author told him that he hoped Errol would eventually be able to repair his relationship with his children.

'I'm their dad. I'm not their pal.'

In the book, Isaacson wrote that Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk have cut off communication with their father  an assertion Errol Musk denies.

"Kimbal  two days ago because of his birthday  I sent him a happy birthday greeting. To which he sent me a 'Thanks Dad,'" Errol said. (Kimbal's birthday took place on September 20, two days before Insider spoke with Errol.) Errol Musk added that he'd also communicated with Elon Musk's office just hours before we'd spoke regarding funding for a trip he plans to take to Florida in November to speak on a panel.

Elon Musk (left) and Kimbal Musk (right) have cut off communication with their father, according to Isaacson. Joel Saget/AFP and Chris Saucedo/Getty Images

"I have the same relationship with my sons as my father had with me," Errol said. "In other words, we are men, we don't hang out with each other. They're my children. I'm their dad. I'm not their pal."

Isaacson, Elon Musk, and Kimbal Musk did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

Though Errol Musk claims to have not read the book, he pointed out a few instances from the biography where he felt Isaacson's account didn't match his understanding of his son, including an incident where Elon Musk got into an argument with Bill Gates after he learned the Microsoft cofounder had shorted Tesla's stock.

"I was quite surprised because I know Elon wouldn't do that. He's very stoic," Errol Musk said, adding he'd not previously heard of the argument. "To get Elon to say two words by the way is very difficult. He's a one-word person."

Read the original article on Business Insider
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio didn't set out to break any spaceflight records when he and two Russian cosmonauts launched aboard a rocket more than a year ago bound for the International Space Station.

The mission was only meant to last six months. But that was before a piece of space junk pierced the explorers' original capsule late last year, requiring a new Soyuz spacecraft to be rushed up to them for their return journey to Earth.

Ultimately, Rubio would spend 371 days in space before his mission came to an end, according to NASA. Rubio and his Russian companions  Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin  landed Wednesday morning in a remote area of Kazakhstan in the replacement Soyuz capsule that had only reached them aboard the space station two weeks ago.

It might not have been Rubio's intention, but his lengthy and unanticipated stay in space helped him make history: The 47-year-old astronaut now holds the American record for the longest spaceflight, surpassing the previous endurance record set in 2022 by more than two weeks.

Its good to be home, Rubio said after being pulled from the capsule, according to the Associated Press.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio gives a thumbs up as he is carried to a medical tent after his landing Wednesday in a remote area of Kazakhstan. Rubio logged 371 days in space aboard the International Space Station, the longest single spaceflight by a US astronaut.

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Expedition to space station intended to last six months

When Rubio and the two cosmonauts launched Sept. 21, 2022 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, they thought they'd return to Earth the following March aboard the same spacecraft.

But that was not to be.

Expedition 68 crew members Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos, top, Frank Rubio of NASA, and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, bottom, wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft for launch on Sept. 21, 2022, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A coolant leak in the Russian MS-22 Soyuz was detected in December while it was docked at the space station, meaning the trio would require a new ride home. NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos later determined that a micrometeoroid had damaged the craft's radiator, causing coolant to spew into space for hours.

Engineers worried that without cooling, the capsules electronics and any occupants could overheat to dangerous levels. Instead, the craft returned home empty while NASA and Roscosmos in February sent up a replacement spacecraft to the stranded crew, delaying the arrival of a new team of astronauts to relieve them.

Since launching from Kazakhstan last September, Rubio and his crew logged more than 157 million miles and orbited Earth 5,963 times, NASA said. After undocking from the space station in the Soyuz craft at 3:54 a.m. Eastern Time this morning, the trio landed on schedule at 7.17 a.m. on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, according to the space agency.

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft carrying the crew of Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Moscow-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 21, 2022.

To the moon and back: Astronauts get 1st look at Artemis II craft ahead of lunar mission

Who held the previous American spaceflight record?

The Roscosmos segment of the International Space Station is pictured this year as the orbital outpost soared 261 miles above the north Atlantic Ocean.

Rubio's stay in space was 16 days longer than Mark Vande Hei's time aboard the International Space Station.

Vande Hei returned to Earth in March 2022 after 355 days in space, which was at the time the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by an American.

However, it's Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov whose 437 consecutive days spent in space in the mid-1990s remains the world record. Polyakov's milestone mission occurred between 1994 and 1995 aboard the Russian space station Mir, according to Astronomy.com.

Who is Frank Rubio?

NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Frank Rubio poses for a portrait while working inside the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory module.

An Army doctor and helicopter pilot, Rubio joined NASA in 2017.

Before joining the space program, Rubio served in the U.S. Army flying combat missions in a Blackhawk helicopter during deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2010, Rubio earned a doctorate in medicine and remains a board-certified family physician and flight surgeon.

A native of Los Angeles, Rubio resides in Miami, Florida with his family.

Rubio's year-long expedition to the International Space Station was his first mission to space.

Making the most out of his time aboard the space station, Rubio worked on numerous science projects, including studying how bacteria adapt to spaceflight and how future astonauts can exercise and best maintain physical health. He also conducted three spacewalks surpassing 21 hours.

The investigations may prove invaluable for future missions, but in a September interview with Vande Hei shared by NASA, Rubio said that his proudest moment was to have the opportunity to fly with 28 different people aboard the space station.

"Every one of them have just been great crewmates, very special people and they hold special places now because I've been able to share this experience with them," Rubio said. "That's the memory that I'll hold most dear forever."

Now that he's landed, Rubio and his Russian companions Prokopyev and Petelin were to be flown from the landing site to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, the American astronaut was to board a NASA plane back to Houston  a trip that this time won't be delayed.

'A promising step:' NASA says planet 8.6 times bigger than Earth could support life

Contributing: The Associated Press

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA astronaut Rubio set American record with year-long spaceflight
The Azerbaijani authorities have detained Ruben Vardanyan, a former self-proclaimed prime minister of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region, as he was trying to leave for Armenia, the Azerbaijani Border Service said on Sept. 27.

He was reportedly detained in the Lachin corridor and then brought to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.

Russian-Armenian investor and billionaire Vardanyan held senior positions in several Russian companies and founded one of Russia's largest investment banks, Troika Dialog.

He has been placed on Ukraine's sanctions list for his role as a board member of the Russian air cargo company Volga Dnepr, which provides material support to the Russian military.

In 2022, Vardanyan said that he renounced Russian citizenship and moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he has served as the "state minister" (a position equivalent to a prime minister) of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic between November 2022 and February 2023.

According to Politico, Vardanyan was greatly unpopular with the Azerbaijani leadership, and Baku pressured the Nagorno- Karabakh authorities to dismiss him in February during Azerbaijan's blockade of the self-proclaimed republic.

Read also: Baku claims 192 Azerbaijani troops killed, 511 wounded in Karabakh offensive

Azerbaijan launched an offensive against the Armenian authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on Sept. 19 with the claimed "goal of restoring the constitutional order."

Following a day of clashes, Baku declared victory and ethnic Armenian forces were forced to disarm in accordance with a ceasefire agreement signed on Sept. 20.

Following Azerbaijan's victory, over 47,000 ethnic Armenians have been reportedly forced to leave the region for Armenia, Yerevan said.

Under international law, Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but has been under the de-facto control of Armenian separatists since 1991, who refer to it as Artsakh. Yerevan has supported the breakaway territory militarily, which regularly clashed with Azerbaijani forces in the following decades.

In 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a major war in which the latter's forces successfully reclaimed a large portion of the territory before a ceasefire was mediated by Moscow, which sent a "peacekeeping" force of several thousand Russian troops to the region.

In the following years, tensions did not subside, with Azerbaijan blockading the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to a humanitarian crisis widely condemned by UN member states and international organizations.

In 2021 Azerbaijani forces also invaded several internationally recognized Armenian territories in the east of the country and are still occupying them.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
V4 countries call for EU to tighten controls on Ukraine grain routes

Xinhua) 09:00, September 27, 2023

The owner of a warehouse of wheat and grains displays Ukrainian wheat in Hasbaya, southern Lebanon, on Feb. 28, 2022. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)

V4 agriculture ministers called on the EU to tighten controls on Ukraine's grain exports, proposed refundable deposits for traders to prevent market disruption, and advocated for EU-wide solutions to enhance efficiency and resolve disputes.

PRAGUE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The agriculture ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries on Tuesday called on the European Union (EU) to tighten controls on the routes for Ukraine's grain exports and to introduce new measures.

"We want to propose the European Commission to introduce refundable deposits or another financial mechanism for traders who import grain from Ukraine. If they can prove that the grains leave Europe via the Baltic or Polish ports, they will get their money back," Czech Minister of Agriculture Marek Vyborny said in a statement.

He made the remarks following a meeting with his counterparts from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the southern Czech town of Znojmo. Ukraine's Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solskyi also participated in the meeting online.

A team of representatives from the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) inspects on the first grain-laden ship leaving Ukraine on the northwestern entrance of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkiye, Aug. 3, 2022. (Turkish Defense Ministry/Handout via Xinhua)

"It is essential that Ukraine be able to guarantee us that its grain exports will go to third countries through the so-called solidarity corridors and will not stay in Europe ... and thus disrupt the market," Vyborny said. "We want guarantees that the grains do not end up in EU countries and thus disrupt the market."

The minister also said that it is necessary to look for "an EU-wide solution" instead of unilateral bans to make the solidarity corridors more efficient.

The EU has been supporting the export of Ukrainian grains and other foodstuffs, notably through the solidarity corridors. However, the move has led to temporary distortions in the markets of five member states neighboring Ukraine. In May, the European Commission imposed a ban on grain exports from Ukraine to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Photo taken on July 9, 2019 shows sunflower fields in Odessa, Ukraine. The annual export of sunflower oil from Ukraine once reached 5 million tons, worth 4 billion U.S. dollars. (Xinhua/Chen Junfeng)

Earlier this month, the Commission decided to drop the ban, but Hungary, Poland and Slovakia said that they would continue the embargo on Ukraine's grains, causing disputes with Ukraine.

The Czech Republic currently holds the one-year V4 presidency. The V4 ministers also discussed forestry strategies and legislation during their meeting.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
LOS ANGELES  Striking actors have voted to expand their walkout to include the lucrative video game market, a step that could put new pressure on Hollywood studios to make a deal with the performers who provide voices and stunts for games.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists announced the move late Monday, saying that 98% of its members voted to go on strike against video game companies if ongoing negotiations are not successful. The announcement came ahead of more talks planned for Tuesday.

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Acting in video games can include a variety of roles, from voice performances to motion capture work as well as stunts. Video game actors went on strike in 2016 in a work stoppage that lasted nearly a year.

Some of the same issues are at play in the video game negotiations as in the broader actors strike that has shut down Hollywood for months, including wages, safety measures and protections on the use of artificial intelligence. The companies involved include gaming giants Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Take 2 Productions as well as Disney and Warner Bros. video game divisions.

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Its time for the video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

The threat of a video game strike emerged as Hollywood writers were on the verge of getting back to work after months on the picket lines.

A new spirit of optimism animated actors who were picketing Tuesday for the first time since writers reached their tentative deal Sunday night.

For a hot second, I really thought that this was going to go on until next year, said Marissa Cuevas, an actor who has appeared on the TV series Kung Fu and The Big Bang Theory. Knowing that at least one of us has gotten a good deal gives a lot of hope that we will also get a good deal.

Writers picket lines have been suspended, but they were encouraged to walk in solidarity with actors, and many were on the lines Tuesday, including Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who picketed alongside friend and ER actor Noah Wyle as he has throughout the strikes.

We would never have had the leverage we had if SAG had not gone out, Weiner said. They were very brave to do it.

Crucial steps remain for the writers, who technically remain on strike, and for other workers awaiting a return to production of new shows.

The next phase comes Tuesday, when the governing boards of the two branches of the Writers Guild of America are expected to vote on the tentative agreement reached by union negotiators with Hollywood studios.

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Following approval from the unions boards  which is likely  comes a vote from the writers themselves, although the timing is uncertain.

I very much feel like well vote in favor of it, Writers Guild member Kyra Jones said. I trust that the negotiating committee did not settle for a bad deal. That would have made no sense to do this far in.

The guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios, streaming services and production companies in the negotiations, were still finalizing contract language Monday.

That could prompt a delay of the voting and has kept union leaders from sharing with writers the details of what nearly five months of striking and hardship earned them. The leaders have promised to hold a series of meetings later this week to share the terms of the deal regarding pay, show staffing and artificial intelligence.

The guilds leaders told them only that the agreement is exceptional, with gains for every member. A successful yes vote from the membership will finally, officially, bring the strike to an end.

Among the unions on strike, the studio alliance has chosen to negotiate only with the writers so far, and has made no overtures yet toward restarting talks with SAG-AFTRA. That will presumably change soon.

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SAG-AFTRA leaders have said they will look closely at the writers agreement, which includes many of the same issues, but it will not effect their demands.

Associated Press video journalists Leslie Ambriz and Krysta Fauria in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Former Bachelorette star Becca Kufrin was inundated with well-wishes  and questions  after she introduced fans to her baby boy.

Benson Lee Jacobs Kufrin cracked our hearts wide open on September 21, 2023, Kufrin began a recent Instagram post.

Kufrin, who is engaged to fellow Bachelor Nation alum Thomas Jacobs, went on to share the story behind Bensons name.

Benson, Benny for short, is after the town where my father was born and raised, Kufrin wrote on Instagram. Lee is for Thomass father who sacrifices so much for this country and others. And Jacobs Kufrin is pretty self explanatory but we wanted both parts of us to make this little one whole.

Despite the explanation, some of Kufrin's followers were still confused about the order of Bensons double surnames.

How come Kufrin is last? one person asked in the comments.

Added another, Adorable name but why not make Thomass name the official last name, hes the dad and you all plan to marry at some point. Wont Bennys name be different yours??

Even over the summer, when Kufrin referred to her unborn son as baby Jacobs Kufrin, several people inquired as to why it wasnt Kufrin Jacobs.

Kufrin hasnt clarified her personal reasoning for the name choice  but she also isn't doing anything new.

In Spain and several other Spanish-speaking countries, it's customary for women to keep their last name, and children often have two surnames: that of their father, followed by that of their mother. In the United States, however, heterosexual married couples often give the baby the fathers name  as much as 97% of the time, according to a 2002 report. Those numbers appear to be holding steady. A 2017 paper studying adoptive heterosexual parents found that 96% of the children received their fathers last name.

While other traditional attitudes on marriage may be changing in the U.S., naming conventions seem to remain strong. Nearly 80% of women adopt their husband's last name when they get married, according to a Pew Research survey from September 2023.

According to Sarah Epplen, a professor of sociology at Minnesota State University, theres a wrongful assumption in the United States that a man is the head of the household.

We have a strong belief in the nuclear so-called traditional family, Epplen tells TODAY.com, and part of American traditionalism is getting upset when people break from tradition, like this reality star did.

And Kufrin is known for doing things her own way: She proposed to Thomas in May 2022. He said yes, and popped the question himself five months later.

Kufrin has not yet responded to any queries about the order of Bensons last name, including from TODAY.com. Shes likely too busy staring at him!

"No amount of words can begin to capture the amount of love and awe we have over this tiny man. We are forever changed with this ones abundance and cant believe we are parents to this gift," Kufrin wrote on Sept. 25.

"Now were off to go cry again over how much we love him," she added.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
WASHINGTON  Democrats are eager to run against former President Donald Trump s alleged corruption and criminality while portraying themselves as the party of ethical behavior and good governance. But indicted Sen. Bob Menendez s shocking corruption and bribery scandal  and his refusal to resign  is threatening to upend that 2024 campaign strategy.

The once-powerful New Jersey Democrat, who pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of bribery, fraud and extortion in a Manhattan federal court, is rejecting a chorus of calls from fellow Senate Democrats and top Democrats in his home state to resign.

Im innocent. Whats wrong with you guys? a visibly frustrated Menendez told reporters when asked Tuesday night why he won't resign.

Menendezs defiant posture is creating heartburn for some in his party, who have pointed to Trumps historic four indictments as a central reason why voters should stick with Democrats and not send the ex-president back to the White House next year. And it means that the political headache will continue to dog Democrats in Washington in the months to come.

Its a horrible look for him, first and foremost. Its a bad look for Democrats. Its also a bad look for Congress and a bad look for elected officials across the country, said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a former middle school principal whos in his second term. The almost general consensus from people who do not consistently engage in our democracy is that Politics is corrupt. Politicians dont care about us. We vote them in office, and they do nothing for us."

So a senator with gold bars in their home and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash  Ive got 50 bucks, 50 bucks! Its deplorable, man," he added.

Asked to respond to Menendez refusing to quit, Bowman replied: Hes the embodiment of a selfish elected official, one that cares more about his bottom line, power, money, relationships, than he does the people he serves, than he does this body here, than he does the country.

Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., a member of the House Democratic leadership team, said everyone in the party needs to call for Menendez's resignation or try to forcibly remove him from office. It takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate to expel a member  something that has only happened 15 times since 1789, 14 of which occurred during the Civil War for supporting the Confederacy.

If we aspire to be a party recognized for its prioritization of ethics and the restoration of faith in government, we must collectively condemn and seek the resignation or removal of anyone whose behavior results in a federal indictment. Period, he told NBC News.

So far, 28 Democratic senators have called on Menendez to resign, including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 member of the Democratic leadership, and New Jerseys junior senator, Cory Booker.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a longtime Menendez ally, has not called for his resignation, and no senators have raised the idea of expulsion. Most have not gone as far as their House counterparts, predicting the scandal would not result in widespread political fallout for Democrats up and down the ballot.

One outlier is the outspoken freshman Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who suggested that Menendez remaining on the ballot through the general election would be harmful to vulnerable Democrats and Senate Democrats in general, who now control the upper chamber by a razor-thin 51-49 margin.

Hell, yes, I support a primary challenge, because we cannot have this seat in play now because of this, Fetterman said. And again, its not about him; its about control of that seat and the Senate and we have our colleagues in tough, hard races right now to maintain that majority  and this is beyond selfish.

The indictment is chock-full of colorful details about how the then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and his wife, Nadine, allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible in exchange for helping the Egyptian government.

In his first public remarks since the indictment, Menendez on Monday said all of the cash was his.

For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba, he said. These were moneys drawn from my personal savings account based on the income I have lawfully derived over those 30 years.

The allegations are causing vulnerable Democrats to distance themselves from their colleague. Among the first to call for Menendez to step down were Senate Democrats facing competitive races in 2024, including Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Control of the Senate is at stake in the next election.

Asked if Menendez is a political liability for Democrats, Brown told reporters: I dont worry about that. Hes not running in Ohio last time I checked. I was the second person who called for him to resign.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a former state attorney general who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, declined to comment on how the indictment was affecting the party but reiterated that Menendez should go. I think Senator Menendezs conduct merits his resigning and the decision ultimately will be his domain.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who for the second cycle is leading the Senate Democrats campaign operation, has also called for Menendez to resign. But he sidestepped questions about whether its a problem for Menendez to run for re-election or for Democrats to now paint the GOP  the home of Trump and indicted New York Rep. George Santos  as the party of corruption and lawlessness.

My focus as DSCC chair is to make sure we keep these seats Democratic, and Ill continue to be focused on that, Peters told reporters. Weve been making our statements as to what we think. I think youre seeing pretty strong agreement among members of the Senate that he needs to resign.

Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., a former national security aide in the Obama White House, has already launched a primary challenge against Menendez, and other Democrats are eyeing the race, as well. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., a retired Navy pilot, said she is not interested in running for the Senate but added that Menendez cannot continue to serve effectively.

He is entitled to his day in court, but hes not entitled to his Senate seat and he needs to resign, she said in an interview. The people have lost faith in him  I have been in New Jersey all weekend. I think he needs to resign so he can focus on his defense, and the people of New Jersey will know that they have a champion in the Senate whos focusing on them.

Other Democrats took offense to any comparison between Menendez and Trump, who is facing 91 criminal charges in four separate cases, ranging from alleged mishandling of classified documents and alleged falsifying of business records to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. (Trump, too, has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in all cases.)

"There's no comparison here. We're looking at venality in one case, we're looking at systematic undermining of democratic institutions and the rule of law in the other. Those are very different things, and if we treat them like they're equal, we trivialize," said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a senior member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee. "He's charged with attempting, in effect, a coup detat."

Menendez has not stated yet whether he is running for re-election in 2024. But Republicans seem all too happy to have him remain on the ballot, saying he should not be pressured by his party to resign.

The allegations against the Senior Senator from New Jersey are nasty & the evidence offered difficult to explain away, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on the social media site X. But in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat.

Another Republican, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, described the charges as serious and troubling but added that Menendez should have his day in court before hes forced out. Cotton suggested Democrats were being politically expedient by calling for Menendez to resign now with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, holding the power to name his replacement; Menendez beat another federal bribery scandal in 2017, with backing from key Democrats.

I dont think the Democratic senators have had a sudden discovery of public righteousness, Cotton said. What they realize is that now theres a Democratic governor in New Jersey to appoint his replacement whereas, eight years ago, when they manned the ramparts for him, there was a Republican governor.

Over the weekend, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he believed that Menendez should resign. But asked Tuesday whether that meant that Santos should also resign, McCarthy appeared to reverse himself.

Uh, no. I think George could have his day in court, and I think Menendez could have his day in court, the speaker told reporters. It could be his choice with what he wants to do.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
This is a locator map for the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Bahrain's military said a third soldier died of his wounds on Wednesday after an attack by Yemeni rebels on a Bahraini contingent patrolling Saudi Arabia's southern border.

The attack on Monday, which also wounded a number of soldiers, threatened recent progress in winding down Saudi Arabia's eight-year war against the Iran-aligned rebels, known as Houthis. The rebels have not commented on the attack.

Bahrain says the rebels launched an unprovoked drone attack on the soldiers. Bahrain and its close ally Saudi Arabia condemned the attack, and the Saudi-led military coalition said it had the right to respond at the appropriate time and place.

The Pentagon condemned the attack in a statement Wednesday. Such unacceptable attacks threaten the longest period of calm since the war in Yemen began, it said.

It was unclear what impact the attack would have on the ongoing peace efforts.

Yemens war began in 2014 when the Houthis swept down from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, along with much of the countrys north. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

The fighting soon devolved into a stalemated proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, causing widespread hunger and misery in Yemen, which even before the conflict had been the Arab worlds poorest country. The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the worlds worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more.

Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations earlier this year in a deal brokered by China. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia welcomed a Houthi delegation for peace talks, saying the negotiations had positive results.

A U.N.-brokered cease-fire largely halted the violence, and Yemen has seen only sporadic clashes since the truce expired nearly a year ago.

Bahrain's military announced the third death on its social media sites.
During Baku's recent offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, 180 Azerbaijani soldiers, 12 service members of the Interior Ministry, and one Azerbaijani civilian were killed, the state-run Azerbaijani Press Agency reported on Sept. 27, citing the country's Health Ministry.

Some 511 troops were wounded during the military operation, and one more civilian was injured, the news agency added.

Azerbaijan launched an offensive against the Armenian authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on Sept. 19 with the claimed "goal of restoring the constitutional order."

Following a day of clashes, Baku declared victory and ethnic Armenian forces were forced to disarm in accordance with a ceasefire agreement signed on Sept. 20.

Although Azerbaijan accused the Armenian government forces of taking part in the fighting, Yerevan refuted this, claiming that none of its troops took part in the hostilities or were deployed in Karabakh.

Read also: PM hints that Armenia cant rely on Russias protection amid Karabakh debacle

The authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic said that at least 200 people were killed and 400 wounded as a result of Baku's offensive.

This number allegedly includes more than 40 injured and 10 killed civilians, as well as 13 injured and five killed children.

Following Azerbaijan's victory, over 28,000 ethnic Armenians have reportedly left the region for Armenia by Sept. 26, according to Yerevan.

Under international law, Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but has been under the de-facto control of Armenian separatists since 1991, who refer to it as Artsakh. Yerevan has supported the breakaway territory militarily, which regularly clashed with Azerbaijani forces in the following decades.

In 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a major war in which the latter's forces successfully reclaimed a large portion of the territory before a ceasefire was mediated by Moscow, which sent a "peacekeeping" force of several thousand Russian troops to the region.

In the following years, tensions did not subside, with Azerbaijan blockading the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to a humanitarian crisis widely condemned by UN member states and international organizations.

Read also: Azerbaijani minister accuses Armenia of provocations in UN speech

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Police in Baltimore say they are searching for a repeat violent offender who should not have been free after a 26-year-old tech CEO was found dead at an apartment Monday.

Pava LaPere, the CEO and founder of EcoMap Technologies, whose accomplishments earned her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, was found dead about 11:30 a.m. Monday at an apartment with apparent signs of blunt-force trauma, police said.

Pav LaPere. (pavamarie via Instagram)

Police said Tuesday they had issued an arrest warrant for Jason Billingsley on first-degree murder and additional charges.

Officials said Billingsley, 32, of Baltimore, should be considered armed and dangerous.

"This individual will kill, and he will rape," Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley warned Tuesday afternoon at a news conference. "He will do anything he can to cause harm."

In 2015, Billingsley was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 16 years suspended, after he pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offense, court records show.

The Maryland sex offender registry shows he was released from prison in October. The registry classified him in "tier 3," which includes the most serious charges and requires offenders to register for life.

The prosecutor in the 2015 case did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Billingsley's public defender could not immediately be reached.

Relatives identified in public records as Billingsley's mother and sister did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Court records show Billingsley also pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011.

The police Special Investigations Section is working to determine whether Billingsley is linked to any other cases, police said.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Billingsley should not have been free.

"There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street," Scott said. "When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case ... and the state's attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction.

"We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again."

Officials did not provide details about a possible motive in LaPere's death or any possible relationship between her and Billingsley.

Scott, who said he had gotten to know LaPere in recent years, called her young, talented and "devoted" to the city.

A missing person report had been filed not long before LaPere was discovered dead late Monday morning, police said.

In a written statement Tuesday night, LaPere's family said she was an inspiration to many.

"She was driven, creative, hard working and relentless in her efforts, with her wonderful team at EcoMap Technologies," her family said. "Pava made an impact in every endeavor she undertook and on every life she touched. She will be forever missed as a daughter, sister, grand-daughter, niece, cousin and loyal friend."

LaPeres firm, EcoMap Technologies, positions itself as a company that uses technology to "digitize ecosystems, ensuring anyone can easily access the information they need, so ecosystems can be as equitable, efficient, & effective as possible.

In a statement, EcoMap Technologies said the circumstances surrounding LaPere's death were "deeply distressing" and that she "was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.

In its "30 Under 30" feature for 2023, Forbes said that LaPere, a Johns Hopkins graduate, had a team of 30 and that her clients included the Aspen Institute, Meta, the WXR Fund and the T. Rowe Price Foundation.

Worley, the police commissioner, pleaded with Billingsley to stop running and turn himself in.

"If youre out there watching ... every single police officer in Baltimore city, in the state of Maryland, as well as U.S. marshals, are looking for you," Worley said. "We will find you ... and then we will turn it over to the states attorney to prosecute you to the fullest. So please turn yourself in."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
In an interview with AP on Sept. 26, Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik stated that he can't envision a scenario in which Belarus would enter the war in Ukraine alongside Russian forces.

Additionally, Aleinik also stated that he can't imagine a situation in which Russia would order Belarusian officials to use the tactical nuclear weapons it recently deployed in Belarus.

I dont see such an option because it is an instrument of defense primarily, Aleinik said.

He added that if Belarus were to be invaded, "I will not exclude any instruments to be used to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country."

Back in May, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin signed an agreement on placing Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. Shoigu reportedly said that control over the weaponry would remain with Moscow.

A few months later, Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksii Hromov stated that the presence of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory remains unlikely.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has sought to increase ties between Belarus and Russia, particularly between Lukashenko and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Earlier this month, Putin and Lukashenko met in Sochi to discuss bilateral relations and further integration into the so-called Union State.

Read also: Belarus Weekly: Lukashenko seeks closer ties with Russia, North Korea





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FILE - Bishop of Antwerp, Johan Bonny, poses for a portrait at a church in Lier, Belgium, on May 24, 2023. Bonny, a prominent Belgian bishop on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, criticized the Vatican for failing to defrock a former bishop who admitted sexually abusing children, saying it had led to massive frustration with the highest Roman Catholic authorities. Disgraced bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was brought down by a sexual abuse scandal 13 years ago, became a symbol in Belgium of the Roman Catholic church's hypocrisy in dealing with abuse in its own ranks. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

BRUSSELS (AP)  A prominent Belgian bishop on Wednesday criticized the Vatican for failing to defrock a former bishop who admitted sexually abusing children, saying it had led to massive frustration with the highest Roman Catholic authorities.

Disgraced bishop Roger Vangheluwe , who was brought down by a sexual abuse scandal 13 years ago, became a symbol in Belgium of the Roman Catholic church's hypocrisy in dealing with abuse in its own ranks.

We, the (Belgian) bishops, have been asking for years for a reaction. The letters are there, the discussions. All noted down in lists. When will we have a reaction? And why dont we get one?" Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp, said on broadcaster VRTs website.

Vangheluwe shot to international infamy amid disclosures he had sexually abused his young nephew for over a dozen years when he was a priest and later a bishop. He later admitted he also abused a second nephew. The whole time, he made light of his crimes.

Reacting to a VRT series on child sexual abuse in the church, Deserted by God, Bonny said that even if the Belgian church authorities wanted to take more action against Vangheluwe, the Vatican stood in their way.

I want to honestly say that our conference of bishops has been asking Rome to do this for years  through the nuncio (papal envoy) and directly in Rome, Bonny said. Last year in November during the visit of the bishops to Rome, we put it up for discussion again, and after the umpteenth time , Rome's reaction is no different."

The Associated Press has asked the Vatican for its reaction to Bonnys remarks.

His acknowledgment underscores a popular belief that even if there is a willingness at grassroot level to take action, the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy are too slow or loathe to take forceful action.

In Vangheluwe's case, the scandal was compounded when it became clear that his superior, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, had approached one of the victims and sought to keep the scandal secret until the bishop retired.

Rumors of child sexual abuse by clergy in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation of 11.5 million had been rampant for generations, affecting just about every Catholic school or parish. However, evidence was rare: instances were rarely punished and quickly suppressed until Vangheluwes case proved a watershed moment.

In the wake of the scandal, a special commission produced a report with harrowing accounts of Catholic clergy molesting hundreds of victims, some as young as two years old, and said the abuse led to at least 13 suicides. The head of the commission said in reality, the abuse was even worse but many victims could still not bring themselves to talk.

Despite his actions and a self-professed commitment to move somewhere hidden to contemplate his errors, Vangheluwe showed little remorse. While he gave up the Bruges bishopric, he refused to heed the many calls to leave the priesthood altogether.

In 2011, Vangheluwe spoke of his sexual abuse as a little game, that involved no rough sex and denied he was a pedophile since he never felt the least attraction to a child.

Trying to turn the victim into an accomplice, he said, I had the strong impression that my nephew didnt mind at all. To the contrary.

He moved to central France to live in a Roman Catholic community, never having been officially punished for his crimes. He was never prosecuted by authorities because his actions exceeded the statute of limitations.
Kansas City police were asking the public for help Wednesday to track down an SUV involved in a possible nighttime abduction in the West Blue Valley neighborhood.

Police were searching for an unknown person, described as a female, leaving the 5800 block of East 15th Terrace in a dark-colored Hyundai SUV. She was with a male who police were also attempting to identify.

We believe she is in danger, the department said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Wednesday afternoon.

Officers were first called to the block around 8 p.m. Tuesday on a reported disturbance, officer Alayna Gonzalez said in a statement. Callers told police they heard a female screaming for help, Gonzalez said.

Police obtained surveillance camera images showing the two leave the area in the Hyundai.

Detectives were still working Wednesday to determine whether the female had been taken against her will, Gonzalez said. She said information leading to an identification of those seen in the photographs would help.

No missing person reports had been made to KCPD fitting the description of the endangered female as of Wednesday afternoon, according to police.

Police were asking anyone with information concerning the SUV or those pictured in the photographs to contact detectives at 816-413-3549 or call 911.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. has secured the release of a U.S. soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, and he is on his way back to America, officials announced Wednesday. U.S. ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

Left unanswered were questions of why Pyongyangwhich has tense relations with Washington over the Norths nuclear program, support for Russias war in Ukraine and other issueshad agreed to turn him over and why the soldier had fled in the first place.

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North Korea had abruptly announced earlier Wednesday that it would expel Pvt. Travis King  though some had expected the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

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Officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to expel King, but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information. One official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that King, 23, was more trouble to keep than to simply release him.

Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China, and at least one U.S. Defense Department official. Biden administration officials insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldiers release.

We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, Sullivan added.

King was flown to a U.S. military base in South Korea before being returned to the U.S.

His expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans. He has been declared AWOL from the Army, which can mean punishment military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

In the near term, officials said that their focus would be on helping King reintegrate into U.S. society, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, according to a senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on the transfer.

The soldier was in good spirits and good health upon his release, according to one senior administration official. He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and was expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

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At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

After arriving on the Texas military installation, King is expected to undergo psychological assessments and debriefings. He will also get a chance to meet with family. Kings legal situation remains complicated because he willingly bolted into enemy hands, so legally he would be in military custody throughout the process.

Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for Chinas assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing Kings release. The U.S. first learned through Swedish officials earlier this month that North Korea was looking to expel King. That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the United States behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It had attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible. Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

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The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and U.S. society. One senior administration official said that King was very happy to be on his way back to the United States.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had reason to want to come home. She thanked the U.S. government on Wednesday for securing her sons release.

Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done, Jonathan Franks, spokesperson for Gates, said in a statement.

King was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Both Koreas ban anyone from crossing their heavily fortified shared border without special permissions. The Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

While King was officially declared AWOL, the Army considered, but did not declare him a deserter, which is a much more serious offense. In many cases, someone who is AWOL for more than a month can automatically be considered a deserter, which means they intended to leave permanently.

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Punishment for going AWOL or desertion can vary, and it depends in part on whether the service member voluntarily returned or was apprehended. Kings turnover by the North Koreans makes that a more complicated determination.

North Koreas decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the countrys standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the Norths growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

The U.S. has also publicly accused North Korea of providing munitions to Russia for its war with Ukraine and says that Moscow is pushing Pyongyang to provide even more military aid. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met for talks in Russias Far East earlier this month.

Biden administration officials on Wednesday downplayed any idea that the release could augur a broader shift by Kim, but reiterated that the U.S. remains ready to engage the North with diplomatic talks.

Captive Americans have been flown to China previously. In other cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

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Kim Tong-Hyung reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.
Tortilla chips and salsa are common fare when dining out in a Mexican restaurant throughout the 50 states, and most restaurants pride themselves on serving up freshly made, spicy salsas that they make in-house to add to flautas, tacos, enchiladas, burritos and more. Some places even have their own salsa bar including options ranging from mild to super spicy  in which case youd better make sure you have a cold beverage nearby.

This Mexican condiment is a versatile staple that youll want to have on hand, whether youre cooking up a Mexican dish, spicing up your plate of eggs, adding more zest to whatever youre preparing or using as a dip for tortilla chips as a snack.

But have you ever wondered what Mexican chefs use or rely on in a pinch when they dont have the time to make fresh salsa? HuffPost spoke to Mexican chefs and culinary professionals about what they reach for when they need salsa fast. You may be surprised at some of the items on the list!

What Chefs Look For In A Jarred Salsa

Salsa is an integral part of Mexican cooking. Its a condiment that is part of our familys table, said Yanni Sanchez, a Mexican-born chef whos the executive chef at the Michelin-rated Takito Brands Restaurants in Chicago. Excellent Mexican salsas include these three items  think three colors of the Mexican flag (green, white and red): green (jalapeno), white (onion) and red (tomato).

Youll also want to pay attention to the ingredients list for some clues. I look for the closest taste to homemade salsa, so I look for low amounts of thickeners and preservatives, said Katsuji Tanabe , executive chef of aVerde in Cary, North Carolina. If a salsa seems to stand out for the color and not the ingredients, that may be a sign its not one you want to use. When they look too bright in color, there is usually something wrong, Tanabe said.

HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Every item is independently selected by the HuffPost Shopping team. Prices and availability are subject to change.

Herdez Mild Guacamole Salsa

Amazon

Herdez Mild Guacamole Salsa

If youre searching for a salsa that meets the expectations of many Mexican chefs, Herdez is the one. When I am in a pinch, my go-to salsa is the Herdez brand, with my personal favorite being the Guacamole Salsa Mild," said Dudley Nieto, the executive chef at Fat Rosie's in Illinois. "It is a universal, quality brand of salsa that uses a lot of ingredients that just make sense  with its homemade, roasted char flavoring, and the combination of tomatoes and peppers  it compliments anything.



I enjoy it on its own with chips, I use it on steak and chicken, and even put it on top of my pizza," Nieto said.



Fernando Renteria, a culinary professional at La Monarca Bakery in California, loves using Herdez Guacamole Salsa to dollop on chicken taquitos, his favorite dish. The salsa "makes the dish," he said. "There are never any leftovers."

$3.99 for 15.7 ounces at Amazon

La Costena Medium Home Style Mexican Salsa

Walmart

La Costena Medium Home Style Mexican Salsa

Renteria said this brand has great just-like-homemade flavor and packs a punch. Many of us lead busy lives and don't have the time to make salsa from scratch, but my favorite salsa tastes just as good as if I had made it myself," Renteria said. So next time youre browsing the salsa options, consider this recommendation.

$2.57 for 16.7 ounces at Walmart

Herdez Roasted Poblano Salsa Cremosa

Walmart

Herdez Roasted Poblano Salsa Cremosa

Looking for an all-around salsa to use for an array of dishes? Consider Herdez Roasted Poblano Salsa Cremosa. Katsuji Tanabe , executive chef of aVerde in Cary, North Carolina, loves the versatility of this salsa. We tend to use it as a quick fix with scrambled eggs or chicken quesadillas at home, he said. It has oil, so its richer than other salsas and we use it when we are in a rush to add something spicy. Tanabe also adds this salsa to dishes that aren't complicated, because this salsa will make a dish stand out.

$3.17 for 15.3 ounces at Walmart

Tostitos Medium Salsa

Amazon

Tostitos Medium Salsa

Yanni Sanchez, the executive chef at the Michelin-rated Takito Brands Restaurants , makes fresh salsa for her restaurant but decided to do an unscientific blind taste test of eight different jarred salsas with her staff. The team was surprised when they found out Tostitos brand salsa was the winner. It was chunky, had Mexican spice flavors as one would expect, a good balance of salt and garlic, and easy to eat, Sanchez said. The tomatoes tasted ripe  a perfect amount of zest, with a generous blend of onion, garlic and jalapeno.

$3.84 for 15.5 ounces at Amazon

Mission Medium Chunky Salsa

Walmart

Mission Medium Chunky Salsa

Curious what the runner-up was to Tostitos in the blind taste test? Mission Chunky Salsa. The tomatoes had a zesty grip with the right amount of spices and salt, Sanchez said. It had a full-body density and was easy to enjoy, she said. And the most surprising aspect about this salsa? "What impressed me most was that there was a rustic bite with a zesty finish that wasn't felt with other salsa."

$3.18 for 16 ounces at Walmart

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WASHINGTON  Israeli citizens have joined an exclusive club that allows visa-free entry to the U.S., a decision that comes despite tensions with Washington over the treatment of Palestinians and divisive domestic policies pursued by the Jewish states right-wing government.

The Biden administration has formally accepted the key U.S. ally into its Visa Waiver Program after years of efforts. The decision also means all U.S. citizens will be able to request visa-free entry to Israel as part of that country's reciprocity agreement.

Israels admittance into the Visa Waiver Program is an important achievement in the 75-year-old U.S.-Israel partnership  but to be clear, the decision to admit Israel was taken not as a favor, but because it benefits both U.S. and Israeli interests an administration official said. The steps Israel has taken to qualify for VWP will not only increase U.S. border, immigration and counterterrorism security, it will also facilitate legitimate travel and commerce between our countries and our peoples.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the designation at the recommendation of Secretary of State Antony Blinken after a trial period to determine whether Israel fully met the programs strict requirements, particularly reciprocity, given the countrys history of disparate travel experiences facing Palestinian Americans.

The observation period began in mid-July after both countries signed a memorandum of understanding establishing conditions for entry, with Israel facing a deadline of Saturday to comply. A Biden administration official called the results of the effort impressive and celebrated the decision as an accomplishment after years of efforts, noting Israels participation in the program will also help both countries cooperate on national security, counterterrorism and immigration enforcement.

Palestinian Americans who live in the occupied West Bank and Gaza will also be able to visit Israel visa-free  though some critics are skeptical they will be treated the same as other U.S. travelers moving forward.

Israel has long had different requirements for Palestinian Americans, including denying them entry at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv for visits to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, forcing them to travel through Jordan or Egypt like other Palestinians. Israel in recent months has take action to change those entry requirements, allowing Palestinian Americans to fly in and out of Ben Gurion airport, and has pledged to ease movement for Palestinian Americans traveling in and out of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported.

There are so many problems with this decision, Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel Program and senior fellow at Arab Center Washington, told the AP. The reciprocity requirement is clearly still not being met since Israeli policy continues to treat some Americans, specifically Palestinian Americans, differently. The administration however seems committed at the highest levels to overlooking this continued discrimination against American citizens to rush Israel into the program before the deadline.

Earlier this month, 15 Democratic senators wrote a letter to Blinken to express serious concerns about admitting Israel into the travel program, urging Blinken not to rush and instead verify and certify Israels compliance with the reciprocity and equal treatment requirements prior to admission into the Visa Waiver Program.

An administration official said in response, We respect and understand the views of Congress, but based on the information we collected we reached a different conclusion regarding the satisfaction of that requirement.

Israels foreign minister anticipated the decision earlier this week, calling it a diplomatic achievement and good news for all Israeli citizens.

Citizens of Israel, the 41st country in the program, will be able to travel to the U.S. visa-free by Nov. 30.

The announcement represents a high-profile victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has had a fraught relationship with the Biden administration.

They have clashed over Netanyahu's contentious judicial overhaul plan that critics say will make the country less democratic; his far-right government's opposition to Palestinian statehood; its treatment of Palestinians, including its aggressive construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank; the growing violence in the West Bank and Gaza that has been allied with sometimes violent rhetoric from Israeli ministers; and U.S. diplomacy with Iran.

But Washington is also pursuing what would be a landmark deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a complex set of talks that face potential obstacles in Congress, as well as from Palestinian supporters.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) met with representatives from the health insurance industry on Wednesday, receiving commitments that the updated COVID-19 vaccines will be covered after reports arose of some people having to pay out-of-pocket for their immunizations.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra met with executives from Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), the Better Medicare Alliance, CareFirst, Cigna, Humana, and CVS Health, which owns Aetna as well as AHIP, the trade organization that represents the health insurance industry.

Shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved the updated COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, local reports began to crop up of people having to pay out-of-pocket  up to $200  for their immunizations, despite the fact that those shots should have been completely covered by insurers.

AHIP alluded to the issue having to do with updating billing codes for the new vaccines. When receiving his own dose of the vaccine, Becerra said he was aware of this issue and his department had reached out to insurance companies.

The insurance companies on Wednesday apparently told Becerra that these technical issues with covering the vaccines have now been largely if not completely resolved.

In a letter to Becerra on Wednesday, AHIP, the Alliance of Community Health Plans, the Association for Community Affiliated Plans and BCBS stated, You have our commitment that health insurers are fully covering the new COVID-19 shots, as required, with no cost sharing when consumers access them from a network provider or receive them through an out-of-network provider when in-network options are unavailable.

In collaboration with the Administration, our industry has been preparing for the new COVID-19 vaccine distribution system for months to facilitate patient access to this critical preventive service. These preparations allowed us to quickly resolve technical and coding issues as they arose, they added.

The meeting also apparently led to BCBS adding Walgreens to its network for federal employees after HHS discussed the pharmacy chain not being in-network.

While the billing code issue led some to questions about whether the federal government had kept insurers appraised of the vaccines, HHS clarified on Wednesday that it had been meeting with these companies frequently over the past year.

The department also provided an update on the vaccinations in the U.S. Information on vaccination rates stopped being updated on the CDCs website after the end of the public health emergency declaration.

According to HHS, more than 2 million people have been vaccinated so far and more than six million vaccines have been shipped to pharmacies. More than 8 million free at-home COVID tests, which the Biden administration made available once more last week, have been ordered as well.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The Biden administration is expected to keep the cap on refugees admitted into the country at 125,000 for the next fiscal year, which starts Sunday. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Biden administration is expected to keep the cap on refugees admitted to the country at 125,000 for the next fiscal year, which begins Sunday.

Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Jerrold Nadler, both Democrats, said in a statement Wednesday the administration was keeping the cap the same. The administration consults with Congress on the number. Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision before the announcement, confirmed the cap was expected to remain at 125,000.

The cap is the target for how many refugees the United States aims to admit from around the world in any given year, but it doesn't necessarily mean the U.S. will admit that many. As of the end of August, the U.S. had admitted only about 51,000 of the possible 125,000 for the current fiscal year.

However, refugee advocates have noted that even that figure is a huge increase from where the program was at the end of the Trump administration and have praised government efforts to rebuild the program.

The president decides every year on the refugee cap and signs a declaration laying out which regions of the world they will come from.

The Biden administration is demonstrating its commitment to the United States role in protecting vulnerable refugees by maintaining a refugee cap of 125,000 for Fiscal Year 2024, said the statement from Jayapal, of Washington, and Nadler, of New York. They also applauded the administration for aiming to resettle more refugees from the Western Hemisphere, but gave no breakdown on those numbers.

For decades, America admitted more refugees each year than all other countries combined, only to fall behind Canada in 2018.

Admissions under the program hit an all-time low of 11,411 arrivals in 2021. But this year has seen a rise in the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. following government efforts to beef up staffing and make more trips  called circuit rides  to foreign countries to interview prospective refugees.

Refugee status is different from other types of protection, such as asylum, humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status.

To be admitted as refugees, people have to be living outside the U.S. They are generally referred to the State Department by the U.N.s refugee agency and then U.S. officials interview and vet them while they're still abroad. To seek asylum, a person has to be on U.S. soil.

The decision on next year's refugee cap comes as the U.S. is seeing unprecedented numbers of migrants coming to the southern border, many hoping to seek asylum in the U.S.

The Biden administration has used various paths to admit people into the country or allow them to stay once they get here, such as humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status. Just last week the president extended protection to nearly 500,000 Venezuelans already in the country. And the administration has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and Afghans airlifted from Afghanistan on humanitarian parole.

But advocates have often argued for greater use of the refugee system in large part because it provides people coming into the country with a long-term pathway to citizenship. People admitted under humanitarian parole, for example, can usually only stay for two years.

Some refugee advocates have been pushing for a slightly higher cap. The Refugee Council USA, which represents nearly 40 groups that advocate for refugees, had advocated for 135,000 with a much more ambitious goal of 200,000 by fiscal year 2026.

__

Associated Press staffer Colleen Long contributed to this story.
President Biden on Tuesday vetoed a Republican-led attempt to ax endangered species protections for the long-eared bat and the lesser prairie-chicken.

In two veto messages issued Tuesday, he said that each effort to undo the protections would undermine Americas proud wildlife conservation traditions and risk the species extinction.

The long-eared bat, as its name indicates, is known for its large ears and has a brown coat. The Biden administration listed it as endangered last year, granting it additional protections.

The lesser prairie-chicken has a brown striped pattern and the males have red air sacs on their necks. The Biden administration last year listed its southern population as endangered and its northern population as threatened.

The House and Senate earlier this year voted to cancel these rules and the protections that come with them. The votes were mostly partisan, though some members crossed the aisle.

Biden in his veto messages noted that bats are critical to healthy, functioning ecosystems and provide pest control and pollination. He said that the prairie-chicken serves as an important measure of the overall health of Americas grasslands.

On the other hand, Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), who introduced the effort to undo the bats protections, said in a written statement in April that its listing was being used to stifle development rather than its intended purpose, which is to protect species from human-caused harm.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
President Biden and his closest allies are largely ignoring Cornel West, the third-party progressive challenger, even as some Democrats warn about his possible effect on the 2024 race.

West is running against Biden as a Green Party candidate, criticizing him for failing to deliver on a sweeping leftist agenda. His candidacy comes amid signs in polls that Biden is losing steam among must-win demographics like independents and nonwhite voters.

For many fearful Democrats, Wests bid carries uncomfortable echoes of Jill Steins 2016 third-party campaign, which drew blame after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Some worry Biden is being too cautious about not addressing the real threat West could pose next year should he go up against former President Trump in the fall.

They ignore him at their own peril, said Nina Turner, a West ally who worked with him on Sen. Bernie Sanderss (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign. He is running, and that should be acknowledged and respected even if they dont like it.

West, a renowned scholar on race and class, so far maintains he is unconcerned that the president has yet to address his campaign in a way that signals serious intimidation.

They do what they do! he told The Hill on Tuesday in a text message when asked if he believes the White House should be paying more attention to his moves. And we do what we have to do to serve poor and working people  !

The longtime justice activist has been fairly low-key on the campaign trail until recently. His most notable showing of one-upmanship came last week, when Biden and the White House were grappling with how to handle thousands of United Auto Workers striking, weighing the pros and cons of standing by workers to appeasing corporate interests.

West said he planned to stand alongside strikers on the picket lines in a not-so-subtle contrast with his opponent. His unbothered text about Bidens allies dismissing his bid came as he joined striking workers in Tappan, N.Y., where he became the first presidential candidate to join the picket line. Shortly afterward, he announced plans to visit the Wayne Stamping and Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich.

Bidens decision to join the picket line came days later and only after Trump, the potential Republican 2024 nominee, announced he would do the same.

They should acknowledge the fact that Dr. West is running and that he has been a consistent force for justice his entire career, said Turner, who like West has urged Biden to govern in a more progressive fashion.

The unsettling sentiment that Biden is apathetic to voters concerns has become clearer as recent polling looks even bleaker for the president. Black and other nonwhite voters have signaled a lack of enthusiasm for him just more than a year out from Election Day.

A survey by Morning Consult taken among registered voters this month shows the Democratic Party is nose-diving in how much voters believe its invested in people. Voters ranked the party just 2 points higher than Republicans when asked how much it cares about people like me, slipping from a previous 13-point lead.

Imagine the level of arrogance it takes to ignore this Black man and at the same time expect the Black community in particular to do the same, Turner said about Bidens response to her fellow progressive activist.

West, she countered, uniquely captures and communicates the pain that everyday people are feeling. He unabashedly calls out this injustice and is very clear about his intentions to force the arch to bend towards justice.

Another prominent political outsider added his voice to the debate this week: Ralph Nader.

Nader, the former 2000s-era Green Party presidential contender who built a reputation by critiquing the two-party system, offered his support for Biden, seeing him as the only person with a real shot of beating Trump. And that includes West, who he praised.

We are stuck with Biden now, Nader told The Washington Post. In a two-party duopoly, if one should be defeated ferociously, the logic is that the other one prevails.

Nader, like scores of other prominent political figures from across the ideological spectrum, is terrified of Trump gaining enough traction to win for the second time.

I know the difference between fascism and autocracy, and Ill take autocracy any time, Nader said, according to the outlet. Fascism is what the GOP is the architecture of, and autocracy is what the Democrats are practitioners of. But autocracy leaves an opening. They dont suppress votes. They dont suppress free speech.

Nader and even Democratic strategists believe West, just like any other hypothetical third-party candidate, could impact Bidens chances in states where just a handful of uncertain voters could shake things up.

Cornel West has the most complete progressive agenda. It almost doesnt have any progressive aberrations, Nader told the Post. The problem is that the Greens are not that organized. It is hardly a secret. And you cant run a presidential campaign if you dont have local candidates and some kind of organization round the country.

Still, some argue Biden shouldnt drastically change own playbook. After all, Democrats are quick to note Biden won against a progressive challenger in the 2020 primary and later defeated Trump in the general, albeit by a fairly close margin. The down-ballot gains in the midterms two years later have further added to the partys optimism, even as polling shows voter discontentment with Biden at the top of the ticket.

The smarter move, say voices who believe Biden should stay away from direct attacks, is to emphasize their accomplishments rather than focus on candidates who are on the fringes over a year out from November.

Even though it can be an issue, there is nothing really to be gained and probably more to lose if the White House or campaign are spending time and effort bashing him because it isnt going to impact his behavior, said one Democratic operative and campaign veteran.

The best thing to do, which is what they are doing, is to make the positive case now for Bidens reelection and closer to the election when its a clear choice between Biden and Trump, the strategist said. Let Super PACs and independent expenditure groups handle any [attacks and] dont let Trump win messaging to third-party supporters.

Democrats acknowledge, however, theres reason for Biden allies to be concerned  and its not just because of West. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), a moderate who is largely unknown and untested on the national stage, said hes still considering running against Biden, telling conservative commentator Steve Schmidt hes concerned that there is no alternative.

And a yet-to-be-determined No Labels candidate is also consuming time among strategists who would rather focus their efforts on getting Biden reelected against a likely Trump general election rivalry.

While West is ramping up his efforts, increasing his video, social and alternative media footprint and even hiring Peter Daou, a prominent progressive strategist, to run his campaign, others in the party believe both campaigns can exist in tandem, with Biden as the front-runner having little to no role in Wests bid.

Democrats are smart to give Cornel West zero oxygen, said another Democratic strategist who worked on a presidential campaign last cycle. Anyone seriously considering voting for Cornel West never intended to vote for Joe Biden in the first place.

Thats okay, in Joe Bidens America we live in a democracy, the strategist said. Cornel West is a nice guy but does he think that his campaign is bigger than our democracy?

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
One of President Joe Biden s dogs bit its 11th victim, a U.S. Secret Service agent, on Monday evening at the White House, a spokesperson for the agency told HuffPost on Tuesday.

The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex after the incident, the Secret Service chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, told HuffPost.

Commander is a 2-year-old pure-bred German shepherd that replaced Major, the Bidens German shepherd rescue who also had several instances of biting people at the White House.

The numerous examples of Commander  and Major  injuring people has forced the White House to respond and has prompted conversations about how the dogs may have made the complex an unsafe workplace.

As weve noted before, the White House can be a stressful environment for family pets, and the First Family continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds, Elizabeth Alexander, a spokesperson for first lady Jill Biden , told NBC News in a statement Tuesday.

The President and First Lady are incredibly grateful to the Secret Service and Executive Residence staff for all they do to keep them, their family, and the country safe, Alexander added.

President Joe Biden's dog Commander, a German shepherd, is walked outside the West Wing of the White House on April 29.

President Joe Biden's dog Commander, a German shepherd, is walked outside the West Wing of the White House on April 29.

After one incident in July, the White House said it would provide additional leashing protocols and training as well as designated areas for Commander to run and exercise. The statement came after Commander attacked a different agent when Jill Biden couldnt regain control of the dog.

In a separate instance in November 2022, Commander bit an officer on the arm and legs.

Melissa Bain, a professor of clinical animal behavior at the University of California, Davis, told HuffPost that the vast majority of aggression in dogs is based in fear, noting that all dogs are capable of biting, independent of their breed.

Bain explained that a lot of variables can be at play when dogs become aggressive and that the type of training and socialization a dog experiences can play a huge role in how they behave.

When we [veterinary behavior professionals] look at multiple bites and multiple situations, it can be due to a number of reasons. One is communication between people. It could be certainly lack of management or placing their dog in a bad situation over and over again. And then the failure to address the underlying reasons for that, she said.

Bain suggested that owners of dogs with behavioral issues should speak with a veterinarian to determine whether the dog is affected by a physical condition.

When it comes to changing behavioral issues in dogs, Bain said that its important for owners to change the underlying emotional response and teach the animal a cue to address the behavior.

For dogs that have bitten people, Bain said she would specifically look at changing the emotional response to the triggers causing the dog to feel like they have to bite or display aggressive behavior.

CNN contributor and former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow shed light on the dogs behavior as a workplace hazard in a CNN report by producer and reporter Betsy Klein.

Theres uniqueness here where its the residence of the president of the United States, but its also the workplace for hundreds, thousands of people. And you cant bring a hazard into the workplace. And thats what is essentially happening with this dog. One time you can say its an accident, but now multiple incidents. Its a serious issue, he said.

Im sure that the Bidens love the dog. Im sure that its a member of the family like every dog is, but youre creating a significant hazard to those who support you  support the office of the president, Wackrow added.

Related...
President Biden said that nothing is inevitable in politics when asked if a government shutdown is inevitable on Wednesday, as Congress only has a few days left to fund the government.

I dont think anythings inevitable in politics, the president told reporters in San Francisco, Calif.

When asked what can be done at this point to make sure a shutdown doesnt happen, Biden replied, If I knew that, I would have done it already.

The presidents comments came during a meeting with his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which develops recommendations on science, technology and innovation policy. At the beginning of the meeting, he called on Republicans in the House to act to avert a shutdown.

If we have a government shutdown, a lot of vital work in science and health could be impacted, from cancer research to food safety, Biden said. So the American people need our Republican friends in the House of Representatives to do their job fund the government.

The White House has warned of the impacts of a government shutdown on areas such as food assistance, travel and military readiness.

Biden has accused Republicans of not abiding by the debt-ceiling-raising agreement he made with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in May. Under that deal, lawmakers voted for legislation that set ceilings on spending for the next year. Now conservatives in the House are seeking to make deeper cuts than it included.

Congress faces a Saturday deadline to pass legislation to fund the government and prevent a shutdown. The Senate advanced a bipartisan continuing resolution on Tuesday night to avoid a shutdown, but McCarthy told members of his conference earlier on Wednesday that he will not bring that resolution to the floor for a vote after some House conservatives lined up against it.

The Senate resolution, which advanced in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, would fund the government through Nov. 17 and includes roughly $6.15 billion in funding for Ukraine, $5.99 billion in disaster assistance and would temporarily extend the expiring authority of the Federal Aviation Administration.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Collective bargaining rights and organized labor were once the pillars of the American workforce, but over time they fell out of favor with the public.

In 2010, for example, a Pew Center for the People and Press survey found union favorability was at 41 percent. According to that poll, the decline was widespread and seen across every demographic.

However, in todays economy with more jobs available than people in positions, approval ratings for labor unions are at their highest point since 1965. Its an employees market and workers are using that to their advantage.

Auto Workers Strike Has GOP Pretending to Be Pro-Worker

Teachers unions, UPS workers, airline employees, writers, actors, you name itthe laborers are taking their power back. And the 2024 presidential election campaigns have rightfully taken notice.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) strike is ground zero for what could be a sea change in union support, as the first sitting president in the modern era joined the picket line in Wayne County, Michigan, on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden has a long history of union support. The moniker union Joe is drawn from Bidens fiery speeches for organized labor, and his elevation of workers rights and fair wages. But that vocal support may run into conflict, as auto workers view Bidens policy push for electric vehicles (EV) as a job killer that will quickly send American jobs overseas.

The schism is real and the Biden campaign (up to this point) hasnt come up with a strategy that eases the fears of auto workers.

To be fair, this isnt a new fight, the war between innovation, environmental policies, and industry is a multigenerational tale. The coal industry and your grandfathers manufacturing industry of yesteryear have blamed job loss on policies designed to protect our air and water quality, as well as mitigation efforts to reduce the harsh effects of climate change. Biden has a tough task in changing that narrative.

Never to miss an opportunity to exploit a crisis, former President Donald Trump is skipping the second GOP primary debate on Wednesday to deliver a primetime speech and meet with striking autoworkers in Michigan. Trumps strategy is to exploit auto workers angst with EV expansion and their aversion to green energy policies.

Though Trump doesnt have a leg to stand on with regards to actual policies that supported labor unions (with the exception of tough-on-crime law enforcement labor unions) during his own presidencynor a history of advocacy and leadership in collective bargainingwhat he does have is a well-built narrative on being the fighter for forgotten men and women of the working class. He spent a good amount of his 2016 campaign in Rust Belt towns suffering from the shift away from mining and manufacturing, and hes sure to deploy the same tactics when he visits Michigan auto workers this week.

To be sure, UAW workers have real and legitimate concerns.

Unions representing coal workers, steel workers, oil workers, auto workers, and others shriek at factories moving overseas, particularly when American jobs are relocated to China.

Bill Maher Is Strangely Pro-Boss and Anti-Labor for a Liberal

Environmental standards have been unfairly blamed for this predicament by business groups and Republicans. The phrase job killing regulations was popularized by Ronald Reagan during his first presidential campaign. In 1991, Gov. Pete Wilson (R-CA) echoed Reagan by attacking environmental policies. President Bill Clinton during his administration also faced Republican backlash in response to his early efforts to address the emerging information on climate science. After decades of Republican and big business aggression against green policies, the narrative caught on in multiple communities.

President Union Joe cant run from this, he needs to address auto workers concerns head on.

Whereas EV once seemed like something out of a 1980s film set in the distant future, today the change is seen on streets across the country. California even passed a law to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035.

Meanwhile, the auto plants taking the bulk of EV manufacturing are located in the South where hostility to labor unions is ever present. The leading EV giants, Tesla and BYD, are known for low wages and various labor abuses.

Biden has to thread the needle of adapting much-needed innovation with the jobs of now (the future is here), while also maintaining an equitable workplace for auto workers.

Any policy the president supports should do a few vital things. First, they should protect against layoffs, acknowledging that new technologies and automation in EV plants can cost jobs. And he should commit to training existing auto workers on emerging tech, equipped with resource allocation devoted to that training. This would be a form of profit-sharing, allowing auto workers to benefit from long-term EV growth.

Environmental policy and green energy arent enemies of the American worker. If we are to remain competitive, we must embrace innovation and green tech. China and the EU set an ambitious goal for complete EV integration by 2035 and are well on their way to meeting those goals. Automakers in the U.S. will have to go green or risk decimation of the industry in less than a decade.

Trumps Arrest Puts Spotlight on the Horrible Fulton County Jail

The shift to EV would not only cut greenhouse emissions, it would speed up the process of car manufacturing. U.S. public policy and private sector investment in EVs are behind the rest of the world, and the job to catch up doesnt solely rest on Bidens shoulders.

Congress has to prioritize investments in EV and infrastructure, a supply chain that places the needs of the American worker at the forefront with high-quality benefits, and constraints on non-union and temporary positions, while setting a mandatory wage bar.

The auto manufacturing industry employs more Black workers than other areas of manufacturing, and any federal policy accelerating EV will positively affect this crucial Democratic voting demographic. In concert with organizations like the NAACP, National Urban League, and the Leadership Conference, Biden and Democrats should incorporate the voices of the civil rights community in equitable policy engagement.

EV is the future, the future is now, and Democrats can win big on this issue. But they have to face it head on, address the concerns of auto workers, and drive ambitious workforce and climate impact policies. Americas global economy and climate sustainability depends on the success of policymakers to thread the needle between innovation and green tech.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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President Biden tops former President Trump by 5 points among registered voters in a 2024 hypothetical matchup, new polling shows.

Asked who theyd back if Trump and Biden were their respective partys nominees, 45 percent of registered voters said theyd cast their ballots for Biden, while 40 said the same for Trump, according to the survey from The Economist-YouGov.

Seven percent said other, 4 percent werent sure and another 3 percent said they would not vote.

The new results show Bidens lead widened since last month, when the pollsters found him and Trump at 43 and 40 percent, respectively.

The current and former presidents are their partys front-runners, setting 2024 up to be a possible rematch of their 2020 showdown, in which Trump lost his reelection bid to Biden.

Respondents also favored Biden to win the race, regardless of their preference for who comes out on top: 42 percent said they think Biden would win the matchup, and 39 percent picked Trump. Another 19 percent werent sure.

Other recent polling has shown a tight race if the two party leaders go head-to-head. After a Washington Post-ABC News poll found Biden trailing Trump by 9 points, the outlet said the results were likely an outlier.

Trump, 77, faces multiple legal battles across the country; on Tuesday, a New York judge found the former president liable for fraud, while he also faces federal charges in Florida and Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, Biden, 80, has been hit with poor poll numbers and concerns about his age as he runs for a second term.

Conducted Sept. 23-26, the Economist-YouGov poll surveyed 1,293 registered voters and had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points for that group.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Brian Sexton, from left, Jim McKay and Tim Grace, lawyers for Chicago police officers Christopher Liakopoulos and Ruben Reynoso, walk out of Leighton Criminal Court Building following closing arguments in the bench trial of Liakopoulos and Reynoso on Sept. 27, 2023. (Trent Sprague/Chicago Tribune)

As prosecutors closed their case against two Chicago police officers Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, they alleged that the officers shot an unarmed man, instigated a gunfight with the mans companion and then lied about it on official department forms.

The officers, Christopher Liakopoulos, 44, and Ruben Reynoso, 43, are charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of official misconduct, all felonies, in connection with a July 2022 on-duty shooting in Pilsen that wounded one person.

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They are standing trial before Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood, who told a crowded gallery of observers that he plans to hand down a verdict Thursday afternoon.

Before they knew they had to get their story straight, they lied, said Assistant States Attorney Alyssa Janicki. There is no justification here.

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The prosecutors entered into evidence reports that officers must fill out after they have used force in a police encounter. In those, Janicki said, Liakopoulos and Reynoso indicated that they were fired upon first. Surveillance video shows that to be untrue, she said.

Jim McKay, an attorney for Reynoso, though, crumpled up a piece of paper during closing arguments, calling the reports garbage.

(You) check off a box after youve been shot at, he said. What do you think these men are thinking after these stupid forms are filled out.

Prosecutors allege that Liakopoulos and Reynoso were unjustified when they shot Miguel Medina, 24, in the 1000 block of West 18th Street around 7 a.m. on July 22, 2022.

The officers, investigators with the major accidents squad, were driving to the police academy to give trainings that morning when Medina and the group he was with caught their eyes, prosecutors said. In an unmarked sedan, the officers passed the group and then slowly reversed back toward them.

Medina, who testified for several hours Friday, said he and some friends, including one who was armed, were on 18th Street after being kicked out of a party nearby. They feared there were gang members in the car when they saw the sedan travel backward toward them, he said.

Medina and the teen he was with began to approach the car, when, prosecutors said, they realized the occupants of the car were older, and turned away. Medina testified that he put up a hand to show he wasnt a threat.

During the trial, prosecutors showed surveillance video that showed Medina and the teen confer before walking toward the sedan when the gunfire started. During closing arguments, Janicki stopped the video to show Medina putting up his hand and the teen running away.

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The teenager exchanged gunfire with the officers.

After the shooting, the video shows the officers get out of the car, but they did not approach Medina, who was on the ground clutching his back. A man who lived nearby testified that he had medical training and took Medinas pulse and tried to pack the wounds.

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Assistant States Attorney Thomas Fryska argued that Liakopoulos and Reynoso did not approach Medina or try to kick away a gun because they knew he was unarmed.

Its absolutely clear that the defendants knew Mr. Medina was unarmed, Fryska said.

The officers attorneys, though, countered that Medina and the teen perpetrated a coordinated ambush of Chicago police officers. They argued that Medina lied at various points about his actions that night and early morning and that he worked together with the teen in the shooting.

The defense called one witness Wednesday, a city worker who was in a street sweeping truck that morning. The worker testified that he saw a man in a white hooded sweatshirt, which video indicated was Medina, with a gun, and then later saw him exchanging something with the teen.

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For the love of God, the whole world is upside down, McKay said. For any woke prosecutor out there or a civil rights lawyer know this, the law of Illinois does not say a police officer has to take a bullet before he can discharge a weapon.

The case is among a handful in recent years in which the Cook County states attorneys office has brought charges against local police officers in connection with allegations of unjustified force in on-duty incidents.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com
FILE - A lesser prairie chicken is seen amid the bird's annual mating ritual near Milnesand, N.M., on April 8, 2021. President Joe Biden has vetoed two Republican-sponsored bills intended to undo federal protections for two endangered species that have seen their populations plummet over the years: the lesser prairie chicken and northern long-eared bat.(Adrian Hedden/Carlsbad Current Argus via AP, File)

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Biden has vetoed Republican-sponsored bills to undo federal protections for two endangered species that have seen their populations plummet over the years: the lesser prairie chicken and northern long-eared bat.

The two GOP measures would overturn science-based rulemaking" that offers important protections for the once-abundant species and would undermine the Endangered Species Act, Biden said.

The lesser prairie-chicken serves as an indicator for healthy grasslands and prairies, making the species an important measure of the overall health of Americas grasslands,'' the White House wrote late Tuesday in a veto statement about the prairie bird. It's a member of the grouse family found in parts of the Midwest and Southwest, including the oil-rich Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas. The birds range also extends into parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Environmentalists have long sought stronger federal protections for the prairie bird, which they consider severely at risk due to oil and gas development, livestock grazing and farming, along with roads and power lines. The crow-size, terrestrial birds are known for spring courtship rituals that include flamboyant dances by the males as they make a cacophony of clucking, cackling and booming sounds.

The long-eared bat is one of 12 bat types decimated by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease has spread across nearly 80% of the bat's historic range in the eastern and north-central United States and has caused estimated population declines of at least 97%.

Bats are critical to healthy, functioning ecosystems and contribute at least $3 billion annually to the United States agriculture economy through pest control and pollination,'' Biden said in a separate veto statement. He said the GOP bill "would undermine Americas proud wildlife conservation traditions and risk extinction of the species.''

The two bills approved by Congress were backed mostly by Republicans and represent rare congressional involvement in matters usually left to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Endangered Species Act tasks the executive agencies with deciding which animals and plants to list as endangered or threatened and how to rebuild their populations.

Republicans say protections for the lesser prairie chicken interfere with U.S. oil and gas production and jeopardize thousands of American jobs.

Designation of the bird as an endangered species is another attack on low-cost energy for the American taxpayers,'' said Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. It's an attack on jobs in America and its making us more dependent" on hostile countries in the Middle East and South America, he said.

Republicans and the logging industry also criticized the endangered listing for the long-eared bat, contending it would hamper logging and other land uses that arent responsible for the bats sharp decline. The bat is found in 37 eastern and north-central states, Washington, D.C., and much of Canada.

The American Loggers Council, an industry group, said in a statement that changing the bat's status from threatened to endangered would do nothing to reduce the mortality of the bat, but will contribute to the declining numbers of loggers in the U.S. and threaten the forest products industry.''

Citing criteria used by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the American logger should be considered for listing as threatened or endangered and afforded the same protection, the group said.

Environmental groups hailed Biden's actions.

Veto of the lesser-prairie chicken measure puts the bird "on a more certain path to recovery, said Michael Parr, president of American Bird Conservancy. Present-day populations are thought to average a mere 32,000 birds. Every coordinated effort is needed to ensure a safer future for this iconic species.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said conservationists are grateful for Biden's actions but remain greatly troubled that his veto is the only thing standing between grossly misguided, anti-wildlife members of Congress and the future of wildlife. The American public, regardless of party affiliation, overwhelmingly supports the Endangered Species Act and believes it should be fully funded to protect species from extinction. Congress needs to wake up to this fact and cease their continual attacks.''

West Virginia's Joe Manchin was the only Democratic senator to back repeal of protections for the lesser prairie chicken, while Manchin and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., voted with unanimous Republicans to remove protections for the long-eared bat.
A handler walks the president's and first lady's German shepherd, Commander, at the White House. The 2-year-old canine bit another Secret Service agent Monday in what is the dog's 11th known biting incident. File photo by Oliver Contreras/UPI

Sept. 26 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden 's 2-year-old German shepherd, Commander, has bitten another Secret Service agent in what is the dog's 11th known attack.

Commander bit the officer Monday evening at the White House, according to a statement from the Secret Service.

"Yesterday around 8 p.m., a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer came in contact with a First Family pet and was bitten," USSS chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi said. "The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex."

Guglielmi added that Secret Service spoke Tuesday with the injured agent, who said she was doing fine.

The Bidens' other German Shepherd, Major, also bit Secret Service, White House staff and a National Park Service employee shortly after the president took office. Despite training and time for "Major to adjust to his new surroundings," according to the White House, he was sent back to Delaware to live with friends.

President Joe Biden (L) and first lady Jill Biden (R) pet Commander, several days after receiving the puppy as a gift in December 2021. File photo by Michael Reynolds/UPI

Commander arrived at the White House as a gift from family in December 2021, after Major moved out.

The Bidens' other German Shepherd Champ -- who passed away six months earlier at the age of 13 -- was not involved in any biting incidents.

According to Judicial Watch, Secret service records reveal 10 attacks -- before Monday's incident -- by Commander over a four-month period between October 2022 and January. Judicial Watch forced the release of the records through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, regarding "incidents of aggression and bites involving the Biden family dog, Commander."

In October, a Secret Service agent warned colleagues about Commander in an email.

"Commander has been exhibiting extremely aggressive behavior. Today, while posted, he came charging at me. The first lady couldn't regain control of Commander and he continued to circle me. I believe it's only a matter of time before an agent/officer is attacked or bit," the agent wrote on Oct. 26.

One week later, an agent was transported to the hospital after Commander bit him in the upper right arm and on the thigh. The officer was placed on "restricted duty status" for three days on doctors' advice.

In December, a Secret Service agent said he was attacked on the South Lawn of the White House after President Biden let Commander off his leash.

"The injuries included a bite to the left forearm, resulting in bruising, and approximately a 1.5 cm cut and a bite to the right hand on the thumb resulting in a 1 cm cut. I received treatment from White House Medical," the agent said before returning to work the rest of his shift.

While the White House has not commented on this latest biting incident, it said in July that the Bidens were working on new training with Commander.

"The White House complex is a unique and often stressful environment for family pets," said Elizabeth Alexander, communications director for the first lady, "and the First Family is working through ways to make this situation better for everyone."
Fuels that we burn for energy, such as oil, coal, and gas, produce huge amounts of air pollution. These heat-trapping gases are such a significant factor in the worlds increasing temperature that one meteorologist proposed naming heat waves after oil companies to hold them accountable for the extreme weather.

Now, research from investigative website DeSmog reveals that large oil companies are trying to change their image by hiring online influencers to promote them, The Washington Post reported.

Whats happening?

The Post spotlighted TikTok star Nora Capistrano Sangalang (@ourfilipinograndma), who usually posts about her grandson. In September 2022, she posted an ad for Shells fuel rewards loyalty program, angering many of her 2.3 million followers.

Sangalang is just one of more than 100 influencers DeSmog identified who have promoted dirty energy companies since 2017. This appears to be a campaign by Shell and other oil companies to change their image with young people, who are more likely than older generations to be concerned about the way the world is heating up.

According to the Post, public relations firm Edelman claims to have created a campaign for Shell in 2017. The firms site said of the project: We needed them [millennials] to forget their prejudices about big oil and think differently about Shell.

Edelman has been criticized for the amount of work it has done for large, polluting oil companies. While the firm would not confirm whether Sangalang and other influencers were part of its campaign in support of Shell, it seems likely.

Other oil companies that have participated in this practice are Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips.

Why does this new form of publicity matter?

By campaigning to change their reputation with younger generations, companies like Shell hope to avoid being passed over for more affordable, cleaner alternatives like electric vehicles.

They are trying to win the trust of a younger generation, Sam Bright, DeSmogs U.K. deputy editor, told the Post. Theyre not just promoting a particular product, but trying to alter their perception in the public eye and maintain their social license.

To do that, Shell has reportedly lied about its investments and run misleading ads. These deceptive greenwashing practices harm consumers ability to make informed choices about which companies to support.

Whats being done about Shells tactics?

Oil companies have gotten pushback from some of the influencers they reached out to, the Post revealed. For example, blogger Francesca Willow turned down a request from oil and gas company Pheasant Energy.

The International Energy Agency has been clear on the need for a transition away from oil and gas, Willow said in her reply. Please act accordingly.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
(WJW)  Bindi Irwin , Australian conservationist and television personality, is embracing a second chance at life after undergoing treatment for endometriosis earlier this year.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Irwin, the daughter of the late Steve Irwin , who was known as The Crocodile Hunter , opened up about her battle with the painful condition, revealing that she had experienced progressively worsening symptoms for 10 years before finally receiving a proper diagnosis.

David McCallum of NCIS, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. dies at 90

Describing the pain as a stabbing feeling and really scary, Irwin said that she had 37 lesions and a chocolate cyst removed during her surgery. The 25-year-old expressed her gratitude for the treatment, stating that her life has completely transformed since the procedure.

And now on the other side of surgery, I mean, Im going for daily zoo walks with my family. Im able to go to our management meetings and check up on our animals and do the filming work that I love and play with my daughter, she said. And it is just so wonderful. I feel like I see the world in a new way now. Im able to actually do things again.

It does feel like a second chance at life she added.

NEW YORK, NY  JUNE 24: Bindi Irwin attends the Discovery 30th Anniversary Celebration at The Paley Center for Media on June 24, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagic)

SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA  JULY 24: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) Bindi Irwin celebrates her 16th birthday at Australia Zoo on July 24, 2014 in Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. (Photo by Chris McCormack/Newspix/Getty Images)

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA  NOVEMBER 26: Bindi Irwin arrives on the red carpet at the 2009 ARIA Awards at Acer Arena on November 26, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Washington, UNITED STATES: Bindi Irwin, daughter of Steve Irwin, the late Crocodile Hunter makes remarks during a Newsmakers Luncheon 19 January, 2007 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The eight-year-old daughter of Steve Irwin took part in a high-profile promotional US tour this week, but she will not be forced to perform, her manager said. Bindi Irwin, whose wildlife television star father was killed by a stingray barb last September, will visit Los Angeles and New York as part of Tourism Australias GDay USA week to promote the country. She is also doing her own wildlife series, Bindi the Jungle Girl, for the American Discovery Channel. AFP PHOTO/Tim Sloan (Photo credit should read TIM SLOAN/AFP via Getty Images)

SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA  DECEMBER 1, 2005: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, with his wife Terri Irwin , daughter Bindi Irwin, and son Bob Irwin , on Bobs 2nd birthday, at Australia Zoo sign at Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast. (Photo by Newspix/Getty Images)

SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA  JANUARY 2: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) Steve Irwin and wife Terri, with daughter Bindi and baby son Bob, at a blessing ceremony by Tibetan Buddhist nuns, for the Irwin youngster. (Photo by Graeme Parkes/Newspix/Getty Images)

SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA  DECEMBER 14, 2002: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin with his wife Terri Irwin, and daughter Bindi Irwin, and a baby crocodile at Australia Zoo in Queensland. (Photo by Newspix/Getty Images)

AUSTRALIA  JULY 23: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) TV presenter adventurer, crocodile hunter Steve Irwin with daughter Bindi Irwin and Bazzle the python snake at Australia Zoo. (Photo by Graeme Parkes/Newspix/Getty Images)

THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW  Episode 3023  Pictured: (l-r) Bindi Irwin, Robert Irwin, Kelly Clarkson  (Photo by: Adam Christopher /NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA  NOVEMBER 09: (L-R) Robert Irwin, Terri Irwin, Bindi Irwin and Chandler Powell pose for a photo at the annual Steve Irwin Gala Dinner at Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on November 09, 2019 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA  NOVEMBER 09: Bindi Irwin poses for a photo with fiance Chandler Powell at the annual Steve Irwin Gala Dinner at Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on November 09, 2019 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Endometriosis is a medical condition characterized by the growth of cells similar to the uterine lining outside the uterus, as per the Mayo Clinic. It causes severe pain and can also impact fertility. Chocolate cysts, also known as endometriomas, are cystic lesions filled with dark brown endometrial fluid found in the ovaries, indicating a more severe stage of endometriosis, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Thrill riders stuck upside down for nearly 30 minutes at Canadian amusement park

Irwin acknowledged the toll it took on her to hide her pain  which she described as out of this world  and be present for her family.

She said the condition even affected her relationship with her husband, Chandler Powell. She expressed relief at feeling as though she has a new husband now that the pain is behind her. Irwin and Powell share a 2-year-old daughter, Grace Warrior.

Irwins father, Steve Irwin, died in 2006 when a stingray barb pierced his heart.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
Homes in school zones, near parks or event venues, close to downtown areas and by churches all have something in common: When somethings going on, people park in front of them.

When theres a street fair being held nearby, can you set out cones or other barricades to block people from parking in front of your home? What about when school is about to begin or end?

Heres what the Modesto Police Department says the law is about blocking parking, and how officers enforce it:

Can you block parking in front of your Modesto home?

If you live next to a park that hosts events on weekends, you may walk out of your front door to see your street lined with cars.

But what if you have, say, a birthday party planned the same weekend as a park event? Can you put cones or barricades in places you want to save spots for your guests to park?

No, said Sharon Bear, a spokeswoman with the Modesto Police Department.

The streets in front of your home are public, so people can park there, she said. However, they still must park legally.

This means motorists cannot block driveways or fire hydrants.

How Modesto Police Department enforces the law

People can call the Modesto police non-emergency line at 209-552-2470 to report residents illegally blocking parking spaces.

If officers are called out for the issue, Bear said, they will warn the residents and advise them to remove the cones or barriers.

Citing would be a last resort, she said.

Some neighborhoods in Modesto, including some in school zones, have posted no parking signs during certain hours, Bear said. If a resident or neighborhood is interested in having one of these signs posted, they can contact the citys traffic engineering department for more information or what the requirements may be.

If you think youve found a loophole by putting sawhorse-style kids at play signs in the street in front of your home, think again. Those are equally illegal, according to California Vehicle Code 21465.

What do you want to know about life in Modesto? Ask our service journalism team your top-of-mind questions in the module below or email servicejournalists@modbee.com.
Egypt is in talks with Russia to buy 1 million metric tons of wheat through a government-to-government deal, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 26, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The discussions reportedly concern deliveries for this season. However, Bloomberg added that it is unclear how close the two countries are to a deal.

The outlet commented that since last year, Egypt has begun shifting from traditional open tenders to government-to-government deals when securing its agricultural imports.

One of the world's leading grain buyers, Egypt imported 62.6 million metric tons between 2017 and 2021, with 59.7% coming from Russia and 22.3% from Ukraine.

Russia's termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on July 17 and attacks against Ukraine's ports continue to hamper Kyiv's grain exports. Moscow seeks to utilize this and replace Ukraine's agricultural products on the global markets with its own supplies.

While attempting to stay neutral in the Russian-Ukrainian War, Egypt maintains a close relationship with Moscow. Egypt is simultaneously a close military partner of the U.S., which provides it with $1.3 billion every year in military aid.

According to media reports, Cairo has resisted appeals to provide military aid either to Russia or Ukraine during the ongoing war.

Read also: WSJ: Egypt resists US calls to supply Ukraine with weapons

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A Miami man has died after losing control of a boat he was driving in Biscayne Bay, according to Florida fish and wildlife police.

Michael Garcia, 41, died at Jackson South Medical Center as a result of injuries he sustained after being thrown from the 39-foot Contender center console on Tuesday afternoon, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police said.

Miami-Dade County paramedics also flew the two passengers on the boat to Jackson South, the department said. They also were ejected from the boat. Their conditions were not immediately available.

According to police, the boat was traveling at a high rate of speed before Garcia lost control of the vessel.

Just after the crash, rescue boat crews took the three people to Black Point Marina at Southwest 87th Avenue before they were flown to Jackson, police said.

It was not immediately known if alcohol was a factor in the accident, which is under investigation by wildlife officers.

Miami Herald staff writer Omar Rodriguez Ortiz contributed to this report.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) pleaded not guilty to a raft of corruption charges in Manhattan court on Wednesday and exited on bond along with his cohort of co-defendantsincluding his wife.

Abbe Lowell , the attorney who defended the Democrat in his last bribery case and has more recently represented Hunter Biden, was not among the lawyers in the courtroom. That prior case ended in a mistrial, but the senator has admitted the current case against himin which the feds reported uncovering envelopes of cash, a luxury vehicle, and even gold bars in his home that he allegedly traded his services forrepresents a far tougher fight.

Nonetheless, the Democrat quietly pleaded not guilty before Judge Ona Wang, and agreed to put up a $100,000 personal bond, surrender his personal passport, and limit his contact with parties with knowledge of the case. The deal with the prosecution allows him to retain his government passport and to even travel abroad on official business, despite his stepping aside as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

It is the power of that committee, and of his access and influence in New Jersey and federal politics, that the Justice Department alleges he sold not only to his American accomplices but to agents of the Egyptian government.

The Dumbest Details From the Menendez Indictment

Nonetheless, the senator got off relatively easy compared to the other accused individuals who appeared before the bench with him. His wife, Nadine Arslanian, had to put up a quarter-million-dollar bond, surrender her travel documents, and limit her travel to New Jersey, D.C., New York City, and southern Florida.

Jose Uribe, an insurance salesman who prosecutors say paid down a Mercedes-Benz for the couple, had to put up $1 million in bail and agree to similar restrictions on his movement.

Property tycoon Fred Daibes, a local powerbroker The Daily Beast revealed was involved with the case last December, got out on $2 million in bailbut only because he has a $10 million federal bond in New Jersey, where he confessed to a bank fraud charge but still awaits sentencing. Should that case resolve, the $10 million sum will transfer over to New York.

Menendez allegedly sought to use his influence over the U.S. Attorney selection process to get a prosecutor appointed who would let Daibes off easily on the earlier charges. Daibes also allegedly partnered with Wael Hana to establish IS EG Halal, which the senator is accused of securing a monopoly on the Egyptian meat supply through his leverage over aid disbursements.

Hana appeared in court yesterday after returning from Egypt, andlike the otherspleaded not guilty.

More than a third of Democrat senators have now called on Menendez to step down but he has vowed to stay and fight the charges.

Despite a throng of reporters and protesters outside, the Menendez couple, Daibes, and Uribe left the courthouse without comment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has so far refused to resign after being federally indicted on corruption and bribery charges, but a growing number of his fellow Democratic colleagues are urging him to step down.

In the second federal indictment of his career, Mr Menendez is accused of accepting lavish gifts, gold bars and cash in exchange for providing favours to three businessmen. The most serious allegations include giving sensitive information to the government of Egypt to increase US aid.

Given the severity of the charges, at least 15 Democratic senators have asked Mr Menendez to step down.

Cory Booker  Mr Menendezs longtime mentee and counterpart in representing New Jersey  joined the call for resignation on Tuesday, calling the allegations shocking and disturbing.

Senator Menendez fiercely asserts his innocence and it is therefore understandable that he believes stepping down is patently unfair. But I believe this is a mistake, Mr Booker said in a statement. I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.

Mr Booker, who has worked with Mr Menendez for nearly a decade, said he found the allegations hard to reconcile with the person he knows but suggested Mr Menendez spend time focusing on his trial.

Mr Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

The three New Jersey businessmen are charged with the first two counts.

So far, Mr Menendez has maintained his innocence and refused to step down  claiming calls for his resignation are people rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat.

But other senators have called on Mr Menendez to resign his seat in order to focus on his trial.

Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania said on X that Mr Menendez should choose an honorable exit and resign to focus on his trial.

Senator Menendez should resign.



Hes entitled to the presumption of innocence, but he cannot continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations.



I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial.  Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 23, 2023

Bob Casey, the other Pennsylvania senator, joined Mr Fettermans call for resignation.

Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey both encouraged Mr Menendez to step down as well.

Ms Warren told The Boston Globe that the charges are serious and said Its time for Senator Menendez to step away from the Senate

Mr Markey said the publics trust has been broken with Mr Menendez.

The publics trust has been broken. Senator Menendez should resign.  Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) September 26, 2023

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin called the allegations deeply troubling and said in the interest of national security Mr Menendez should step down

My statement on the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez: pic.twitter.com/Jp0eSMG1DA  Sen. Tammy Baldwin (@SenatorBaldwin) September 26, 2023

By Tuesday, Mr Menendez faced growing pressure from a slew of other Democratic senators to resign.

Vermont Senator Peter Welch, Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and Montana Senator Jon Tester all encouraged Mr Menendez to step down.

Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who is also the Democratic campaign chair, also called on Mr Menendez to resign.

Speaking with NBC News, Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota said she would call on the Senate to investigate Mr Menendez.

He has said he wont, so thats why Ive called for the Senate investigation, the Senate ethics investigation to begin immediately separate and apart from the ongoing criminal case, Ms Klobuchar said.
Drivers travel through the toll lanes on the Chicago Skyway on Sept. 13, 2019. If the city had invested the larger Skyway lease and the downtown parking garages lease, combined investment returns would exceed $15 billion, Paul Vallas estimates. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

It comes as no surprise that Mayor Brandon Johnsons preliminary budget estimate reveals a large deficit of $538 million and that a once-promising long-term midyear budget forecast presented by predecessor Lori Lightfoot in April has ballooned to an estimated $1.9 billion gap for 2026.

The explanations for these sudden deficits aside, the undeniable fact is that Chicago has been hurtling toward a worsening financial crisis, one that massive federal COVID-19 funding merely postponed. Its due to two fundamental issues.

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First, Chicagos government operates like a one-person show, devoid of transparency and accountability. Whether its budgeting, programs, city services or public representation, the mayors office wields unchecked power. Second, Chicagos financial ruin is a direct result of the absence of any semblance of long-term financial planning and the enactment of annual budgets that constantly increase long-term liabilities rather than decrease them.

As the City Council scrutinizes the 2024 budget, its imperative to revisit how the city squandered a number of windfalls. Lets first take the leasing of city assets during Mayor Richard M. Daleys administration. The narrative is that the city negotiated poor deals, particularly the parking meter lease. While the city was shortchanged, a greater disaster was the decision to rapidly spend the money as if it were a permanent revenue source, instead of investing it.

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Had the $1.16 billion from the parking meter lease been invested in a plain-vanilla U.S. stock market index in 2009, I estimate it would be worth more than $5 billion today. If the city had invested the larger Skyway lease ($1.83 billion) and the downtown parking garages lease ($563 million), combined investment returns would exceed $15 billion. Imagine the health of the pension systems today if that money had been deposited in those funds.

[ Opinion series: Pension solutions: How Illinois can address its biggest financial challenge ]

The financial incompetence extends beyond asset sales. Consider tax -increment financing property tax revenues, with an annual diversion exceeding $1 billion. TIF revenues produced more than $1 billion in combined surpluses in the last three years. Imagine if the city had invested those surpluses in its pension funds. What if the city had secured equity shares in companies and developments that received TIF subsidies? Today, Chicago would have one of the nations larger investment funds.

Look at the use of the nearly $2 billion COVID-19 windfall granted to the city and schools. Lightfoot promised not to squander the money like her predecessors did with asset leases, yet she did precisely that. The city increased its budget from 2019 to 2022 by 60%.

What should the city do?

Major U.S. cities have moved beyond mayor-centric governance models, and Chicago must follow suit. It starts with genuine transparency and accountability in finances and program management. The City Council holds the power to enact change. It must establish an independent council budget office, extending its reach to providing oversight to all mayor-controlled agencies, especially Chicago Public Schools.

A Truth in Budgeting ordinance should mandate public disclosure of the methodology and data behind budget projections. The city inspector general must have true independence, with authority over all mayor-controlled or subsidized agencies and their respective inspector generals. The ordinance allowing the mayors office to suppress some details in inspector general reports must be repealed, and all investigations should be made public.

The City Council must rise as a coequal branch, and these and other measures should become permanent through a public referendum to create a city charter, Chicagos version of a constitution. It could provide enforceable standards for good governance, transparency and accountability. It would safeguard the city against short-term political objectives and corruption.

Addressing the immediate budget crisis requires the city adopt a comprehensive long-term investment approach with each budget the mayors office controls, including the school districts $9.4 billion budget that involves spending almost $30,000 per student. While the citys 2023 budget is more than $16 billion, the mayors office controls more than $28 billion in spending, excluding major capital projects. The school districts budget alone consumed well over 50% of all property taxes in 2021.

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The city should direct the school district to make its own pension contributions, freeing up the pension levy for the city employee retirement funds. This could be partially offset by declaring large annual TIF surpluses, of which more than 50% goes to schools. The city declared more than $1 billion in TIF surpluses the last three years. This constitutes a windfall to taxing districts that dont lose money when property taxes are diverted to TIF districts because tax rates rise to meet their tax levy requests.

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Future revenues from expiring TIFs could be used to finance a pension obligation bond when the market is favorable. This would allow the city to take advantage of future TIF windfalls now. While this would improve the health of all the city funds, over half the revenue proceeds should be deposited into the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, which would reduce its unfunded liability, making it easier for the school district to assume employee pension contributions.

These measures could help balance the budget. Meanwhile, Chicagos elected officials and union supporters should push the state to restore full revenue sharing with local governments by ending corporate personal property replacement tax revenue diversions and restoring the old state income tax revenue-sharing formula.

At the same time, state funding equity for Chicago teachers must be a priority. Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates political muscle is better spent securing pension funding equity than trying to kill Invest in Kids, the states tiny private school scholarship program.

In conclusion, Chicago stands at the precipice of a financial disaster, and only radical change can prevent the city from falling into the financial abyss.

The City Council must assert itself as a coequal branch of government, and the citys budgeting philosophy has to shift toward long-term investment. With financial acumen, fiscal discipline and political courage, Chicago can forge a path to lasting financial stability and a brighter future.

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Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor this year and in 2019 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
Two bodies were found inside a South Carolina home Tuesday, and the deaths were called suspicious, according to the Fairfield County Sheriffs Office.

At about 4 p.m., deputies and EMS were called to a home on U.S. 21 in the Ridgeway area, the sheriffs office said Wednesday in a news release.

When they arrived, deputies learned a family member went to the home to check on the residents, according to the release. The family member saw the residents appeared to be unconscious, the sheriffs office said.

Once inside the home, it was discovered that the men were dead, according to the release.

The Fairfield County Coroners Office has not publicly identified the men.

No other injuries were reported.

The sheriffs office said its proceeding with a suspicious death investigation. Because illegal drugs were found in the home and there were no other obvious signs of foul play, deputies are not ruling out the possibility of an accidental drug overdose, according to the release.

Information about what drugs were discovered in the home was not available.

Deputies are waiting for pathology and toxicology results from the coroners office.

Anyone with information on the deaths is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 888-CRIME-SC or submit an online tip.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG)  The Crittenden County Sheriffs Office confirmed Tuesday that the body of a woman who was recovered from the Mississippi River over the weekend was missing mother Tamia Taylor.

 UPDATE: Tamia Taylors mother: I dont really think that she done this to herself

Her body was recovered on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River Saturday afternoon and originally discovered south of West Memphis across from Presidents Island.

Body recovered from Mississippi River

According to the Memphis Police Department, no foul play was involved in Taylors death. No further details have been released.

Taylor was reported missing on September 10 after she disappeared while celebrating her 21st birthday on a Memphis riverboat cruise with three friends.

Tamia Taylors family demands accountability

According to a police report obtained by WREG, her mother told officers she received text messages from Taylor the night before she was reported missing saying she made it to Memphis and was on the boat.

When the boat docked around 1:30 a.m., her friends said Taylor was nowhere to be found. The only trace of Tamia was her cell phone.

The riverboat company, Memphis Riverboat Cruises, said Taylor made it back to the harbor in Memphis.

When we spoke with Taylors mother Debra Taylor last week, she said she believes the friends she was with know what happened.

It would mean the world, even if we dont get nothing but closure as to what happened. That would mean the world to me, her family, she said.

We reached out to Memphis Riverboat Cruises for comment, but have not yet heard back. On their website though, it appears all midnight booze cruises have been canceled for the foreseeable future.

We also asked MPD if any of the liability falls on the cruise company, but they did not respond with an answer.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
SAN DIEGO  San Diego police are investigating after a body was discovered in the Skyline neighborhood Tuesday morning, the department confirmed.

Around 6:30 a.m., officers from the Southeastern Division responded to the 100 block of Royal Oak Drive after receiving a report of the death. According to SDPD, a resident in the area called 9-1-1 after noticing an unresponsive man lying on the sidewalk behind a silver Dodge Charger.

When law enforcement arrived on scene, officers found the man on the ground, obviously deceased, SDPD said. San Diego Fire-Rescue arrived at the same time and confirmed the death.

It is unclear how long the man was lying unresponsive before he was discovered.

La Mesa could join El Cajon in using license plate-reading cameras

His identity has not been confirmed at this time. Authorities described him as a Black man in his 30s. The vehicle he was found behind is also believed to be his, SDPD said.

The San Diego Medical Examiners Office will be working to do determine his cause of death.

At this time, it has not yet been declared a homicide. Homicide Unit detectives were called to the scene to investigate due to his positioning and possible trauma, Lt. Jud Campbell with the department said.

Campbell added that detectives are working to check for witnesses, surveillance video and other evidence on scene to understand what happened.

SDPD encourages anyone with information regarding the incident to call the Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A Boston police officer was rushed to the hospital after being hit by a car he was assisting after a crash Wednesday.

The officer was assisting drivers involved in a two-car crash on Cambridge Street when one of the cars jerked forward, unintentionally swiping the officer, the Boston Police Department said.

The injuries are considered non-life-threatening.

Boston Police say they dont expect any charges to be filed at this time.

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The boyfriend of missing mother-of-five Crystal Rogers has been arrested on murder charges in connection with her disappearance in 2015.

Brooks Houck was dating Rogers when she went missing eight years ago in Bardstown and has been considered the main suspect since the beginning.

He was taken into custody on Wednesday morning by FBI Louisville and Kentucky State Police and is facing charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation, according to a news release by the federal bureau, which took over the case in 2020.

While Mr Houck was considered to be a main suspect in the case, the first breakthrough in the case came in August when Nelson County man Joseph Lawson was arrested and indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence. He had not been publicly named prior to his arrest.

Despite multiple searches at Mr Houcks properties, there were few updates in Rogers case over the years.

Now, eight years after the Kentucky mother disappeared without a trace, her former boyfriend has been ordered to be held on a $10m case bond, WHAS11 reported. Hes charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence.

Brooks Houck in a booking photo dated 3 November 2022, when he was arrested for non-payment of court costs, fees or fines. The charges were not related to Ms Rogers case (Nelson County Detention Center)

Houck is expected to be arraigned in October in the Nelson County Circuit Court where additional details will be revealed.

FBI Louisville released the following statement on Mr Houcks arrest:

In coordination with the Kentucky State Police, other local and federal law enforcement partners, FBI Louisville has been laser-focused on our commitment to hold accountable those that were responsible for the disappearance of Crystal Rogers. Today, we take the first step in making good on that promise. FBI Louisville and the Kentucky State Police have arrested Brooks Houck without incident on charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation. The Houck indictment remains sealed and additional details will be revealed during Houcks arraignment in early October in the Nelson County Circuit Court.

FBI Louisville and @kystatepolice announce the arrest of Brooks Houck as a result of the investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers. pic.twitter.com/uc4NnKjth7  FBI Louisville (@FBILouisville) September 27, 2023

What happened to Crystal Rogers?

Crystal Rogers has not been seen or heard from since the evening of 3 July 2015.

Later the same day, her red Chevrolet Impala was found abandoned with a flat tire at mile marker 14 on Bluegrass Parkway. Her keys, phone and purse were inside the car, according to the FBIs office in Louisville. But she was nowhere to be found.

Who is Brooks Houck?

In October of 2015, Houck, Rogers boyfriend at the time who is also the father of her youngest child, was named a suspect in the case.

Its believed he was the last person to see Rogers at their Bardstown home where they lived with their son.

Rogers parents have said in previous interviews that they believe Mr Houck had something to do with their daughters disappearance.

But Mr Houck had never been charged with anything in relation to Rogers disappearance until this year.

When Nelson County Sheriff Ed Mattingly announced that Houck was a suspect at the time, he said he believed Rogers was dead.

Her body has not been found.

Who is Joseph Lawson, first arrest in connection to case?

Joseph Lawson, 32, was charged in August with criminal conspiracy to commit murder and complicity in tampering with physical evidence.

The conspiracy to commit murder charge was filed 24 July and the charge of tampering with evidence was filed in June, according to Nelson County circuit court documents.

Joseph Lawson is charged in connection to the death of Kentucky mom Crystal Rogers, who went missing in 2015 (Nelson County Sheriffs Office)

Mr Lawson has not been charged with Rogers murder, but instead faces a conspiracy charge which means prosecutors believe he was involved in some way.

The indictment accused Lawson of tampering, saying he destroyed, mutilated, concealed, removed or altered physical evidence.

On Thursday, he appeared on Zoom as he was arraigned in Nelson Circuit Court. He has not previously been publicly identified as a suspect in Rogers case.

Mr Lawson was being held at the Grayson County Detention Center Friday on a $500,000 bond for the conspiracy to murder charge and a $50,000 bond for the complicity to tampering with physical evidence charge, according to court records.

He is due back in court on 26 October.
President of the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture Pedro Lupion attends an interview with Reuters

President of the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture Pedro Lupion attends an interview with Reuters

By Anthony Boadle and Maria Carolina Marcello

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Stung by a Supreme Court rejection of their proposal to restrict recognition of Indigenous lands, Brazil's congressional farm lobby on Wednesday managed to swiftly pass a bill to counter the top court's decision.

The caucus representing agribusiness is also backing bills to amend the Constitution that guarantees the right of Indigenous people to their ancestral lands, its president Pedro Lupion told Reuters.

"We will press ahead with our plans for legislation no matter what the court does," he said in an interview on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court last week voted against establishing a cut-off date for new reservations on lands Indigenous people did not live on by Oct. 5, 1988 when the Constitution was enacted.

A bill fixing the 1988 deadline for land claims was approved by 43-21 votes in the Senate on Wednesday, a few hours after it was passed by the Constitution and Justice Committee.

The offensive could deepen a divide between a conservative-led Congress and a Supreme Court that many lawmakers criticize for judicial over-reach.

The number of land conflicts has increased as Brazil's rapidly expanding agricultural frontier advances into the Amazon region. Across Brazil, Indigenous communities claim land that farmers have settled and developed, in some cases for decades.

In a statement, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples said that the bill is unconstitutional as it contradicted the Supreme Court's ruling and trampled on the rights of Indigenous people by affecting its social organization.

Lupion said bill PL 490, which has also passed the lower chamber, faces a probable veto by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has promised to legalize some 300 reservations awaiting recognition and protection by the state.

The farm lobby will focus next on passing constitutional amendment PEC 132 that establishes compensation for farmers forced to leave land they settled as far back as 70 years, Lupion said.

Though terms are still being decided by the Supreme Court, compensation for expelled farmers could be expensive for a government that has limited resources and is battling to curb Brazil's fiscal deficit. And Lupion's lobby is pressing for compensation to be paid before evictions and not after.

"If the government wants to demarcate (Indigenous lands), it must know that it will have to pay," he said.

The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, replying to a Reuters request for comment, said it had no estimate of the cost of compensating for lands occupied by farmers but was working on a "diagnosis " of the situation.

A third proposed amendment, or PEC 48, would insert the Oct. 5, 1988 cut-off date directly in the text of the Constitution.

The farm lobby is confident it can muster the votes for the legislation it seeks. Caucus members account for three fifths of the lower house and half of the senate seats.

Lupion met with leaders of 15 other congressional caucuses on Tuesday to discuss ways to counter the top court for "usurping and invading" the jurisdiction of Congress by ruling on issues such as legalizing drugs and decriminalizing abortion.

"We will take the necessary measures to re-establish balance between the powers," his group said in a statement.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Barbara Lewis and Grant McCool)
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's federal police said on Wednesday they were carrying out fresh raids and arrests as part of an investigation into the Jan. 8 riots in Brasilia, in which supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings.

Police, according to a statement, were serving three arrest warrants and 10 search-and-seizure warrants ordered by the Supreme Court in four states - Sao Paulo, Parana, Minas Gerais and Goias.

The raids represent the 17th phase of an operation launched in mid-January to identify people who participated in, funded or fostered the riots, in which a crowd invaded and ransacked the Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court.

In January, supporters of far-right Bolsonaro invaded and vandalized the government buildings a week after leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office, protesting his victory in the October election and calling for a military coup.

Police did not disclose the names on Wednesday of those targeted in the raids, but said they were being investigated for crimes of "violent abolition of the rule of law, coup d'etat, qualified damage, criminal association, incitement, destruction and damage of specially protected property."

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court voted to convict the first three people to stand trial for the riots, sentencing them each to at least 14 years in prison.

Bolsonaro himself has faced a congressional inquiry surrounding the Jan. 8 insurrection and multiple police probes overseen by the Supreme Court.

Brazil's top electoral court in June barred him from public office until 2030 for his conduct during last year's fraught election, when he summoned ambassadors to vent unfounded claims about the country's electronic voting system.

(Reporting by Gabriel AraujoEditing by Bernadette Baum)
I liked Jim Nowlans thoughts about the future of Illinois in his August op-ed. Ive been saying the same thing for years.

When I became state treasurer, I quickly decided that in addition to delivering strong investment earnings, the office also needed to help grow jobs. Investing in people and ideas creates better jobs and stronger communities.

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Nowlan suggests that rather than the state investing $500 million in sweeteners to attract big employers, it should provide $50,000 to $500,000 to 1,000 to 10,000 entrepreneurs to try new ideas. Then organize the investors  they dont need much help; they need ideas and concepts  to have capital ready for commercial development, Nowlan writes.

I agree, and thats what we have been doing for the last eight years with the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, a $1.5 billion investment fund providing capital to Illinois companies that are innovating and creating well-paying jobs.

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We do this by making targeted investments with venture capital firms that are funding technology-enabled businesses based in Illinois or that have a significant Illinois workforce. Theyre businesses in tech-enabled sectors such as agriculture, logistics, financial technology, food, life sciences, consumer green businesses, manufacturing and health care.

So far, the funds investments have been a catalyst for creating at least 19,000 jobs, according to 50 South Capital, a Northern Trust subsidiary that administers the program for our office. For every direct job created, another 2.2 jobs are indirectly created through a multiplier effect, according to a study conducted by the Illinois Venture Capital Association. By that groups metric, our investments have resulted in 36,000 indirect jobs through suppliers and service providers.

Our targeted investments represent more than 625 investments in Illinois companies, including small businesses, new startups with a few employees, and companies with thousands of employees. As a result of how we have invested capital, 78 new offices have been opened in Illinois.

Not only is there economic impact, but also, we continue to generate competitive returns for taxpayers. For every dollar we have invested, our dollars are now worth more than 1.4 times what our original investment was worth. This is money we can reinvest in our schools, our universities, and our roads and infrastructure.

These investments have assisted companies such as SpotHero, which helps people find and reserve cheaper parking spots through an app; Farmers Fridge, which provides healthy foods conveniently; and ShipBob, which helps businesses efficiently ship orders to customers.

We also have emphasized diversity, investing in minority-, women-, veteran- and disabled-owned investment fund managers and founders. More than 42% of capital has been invested with diverse-operated investment managers, with 356 investments in diverse-owned businesses.

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I know from my time in the state Senate representing the University of Illinois that its so important to keep Illinois entrepreneurs here and help them grow and create jobs in our state instead of watching them move to the coasts. That isnt done with just tax incentives. It also is done with access to capital, access to customers and a strong entrepreneurial support system rowing the boat in the same direction.

Illinois has many advantages over other states when it comes to local startups. In addition to our world-class universities and extensive transportation network that Nowlan notes, we have business incubators, accelerators, local investors and grassroots groups that ensure that founders have the resources, network, expertise and mentorship to solve problems and build a quality product or service. Those catalysts give founders the confidence to take on the daunting task of starting their own businesses in Illinois, and investment from the treasurers office adds to the equation.

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Other states have noticed and are attempting to emulate our approach, including Indiana, North Dakota and Virginia. But I believe in Illinois and its numerous advantages, and I wish other states luck trying to catch up with us.

Illinois is a great state with unparalleled potential. Sure, we have our challenges, but Im unaware of a successful enterprise that doesnt. Nowlan knows this, and I believe others do too. While I dont always agree with Nowlans politics, I do agree with his optimism.

Illinois is on the cusp of great things, and Im proud to be doing my part to help todays companies innovate. We may not be able to solve all of Illinois problems immediately, but in the treasurers office, we are part of the solution.

Michael Frerichs is the treasurer of Illinois and oversees $55 billion in investments.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
Crawford County cemetery awarded maintenance funding

COLUMBUS  The Ohio Department of Commerces Division of Real Estate and Professional Licensing awarded $104,000 in grants to 45 Ohio cemeteries through the Fiscal Year 2023 Cemetery Grant Fund. Among the recipients is the Oceola Cemetery #3 in Crawford County, which was awarded $1,600 to remove trees.

The division registers more than 4,100 cemeteries in the state and administers the Ohio Cemetery Dispute Resolution Commission which assists in resolving complaints against registered cemeteries through mediation and conciliation.

The grant is funded by $1 of every $2.50 from burial permit fees received by the division. Cemeteries that applied and did not receive funding this year are encouraged to apply again next year.

Grants were awarded this year to cemeteries in 32 Ohio counties.

Wynford Class of 83 celebrates 40th reunion

The Wynford Class of 1983 met recently for its 40-year class reunion at the Old 30 BBQ in Bucyrus. A total of 22 classmates and eight guests attended. A social hour was held before supper as well as a brief class meeting held by President Todd Miller.

Twenty-two members of the Wynford Class of 83 attended their 40th class reunion.

Music and a meal were followed by pictures and more socializing. A thank you goes out to Krista (Sand) Haubert and Lisa (Williams) Hoffman for organizing the 40th year class reunion.

Pioneer students attend SheDig event

SHELBY  Five students in construction programs at Pioneer Career and Technology Center attended SheDig in Cygnet, Ohio, on Sept. 13. The event is hosted by Ohio Operating Engineers Apprenticeship and Training to give young women an opportunity to experience a day-in-the-life of an operating engineer.

Attending SheDig were Angelica Shelton (Wynford) and Rebecca Smith (Ontario) from the junior home remodeling program; Annalee Barrows (Lexington) and Alivia Gallaway (Crestview) from the senior carpentry program; and Emily Frey (Lucas) from the senior masonry program.

These students were able to run several pieces of equipment, meet instructors and apprenticeship students, and received an overview of the opportunities available and potential earnings in the operating engineer field.

Governor announces partnership to provide overdose reversal drug at Ohio rest areas

COLUMBUS  Gov. Mike DeWine has announced a partnership among the RecoveryOhio initiative, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Ohio Department of Healths Project DAWN (Deaths Avoided With Naloxone) to install life-saving naloxone kits at rest areas across the state.

Naloxone kits are being installed at 65 rest areas across Ohio.

Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is a nasal spray that can be provided to someone suffering from an opioid overdose, blocking the deadly effects of opioids on the brain and restoring consciousness and breathing. It is harmless if it is given to a person not experiencing an opioid overdose. More than 130 boxes with naloxone are being installed at 65 rest areas across the state.

Last year, unintentional drug overdoses in Ohio resulted in 4,915 deaths, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That is nearly four times greater than the 1,275 fatalities caused by motor vehicle crashes over the same period.

Ohioans can also order naloxone to be delivered to their home at Naloxone.Ohio.gov.

Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Oceola Cemetery awarded grant, Wynford reunion, Narcan distribution
The British Museum has been accused of purchasing an ancient Egyptian artefact from a convicted smuggler without carrying out adequate checks.

The shabti, a mummiform figurine typically found in ancient Egyptian tombs, was acquired in 2017 from Mousa Khouli, also known as Morris Khouli.

The New York antiques dealer pleaded guilty in 2012 to buying and smuggling Egyptian cultural property into the United States and making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.

Earlier this year, 64 relief carved stone heads linked to Khouli were among smuggled cultural property seized by US law enforcement officials and returned to the Republic of Yemen.

Morris Khouli was convicted of smuggling in 2012 - LinkedIn

The allegation that the British Museums shabti came from a convicted dealer was exposed this week in an investigation by The National, the Middle Eastern newspaper, and Angelika Hellweger, a lawyer and art crime expert at the London firm Rahman Ravelli.

Ms Hellweger told The Telegraph that she was all the more astonished to discover that the British Museum had apparently relied on scans of ownership records provided by a criminal whose convictions include making false statements. A four-page Arabic document was said to record the purchase of the artefact in 1946 by an Egyptian man, who then took it to Brooklyn.

Red flags and ethical questions

Scans of original documents cannot be verified, she argued.

She said that red flags should have been raised over such an individual, particularly as he would have been known within the small antiquities community.

She added that there is an ethical question over whether the British Museum should acquire works from convicted dealers: Even convicted art dealers can do deals that are completely fine and legitimate - Im not saying that everything this gentleman is selling is tainted - but it requires increased due digilence by the British Museum and an explanation on why they acquired it.

Rick St Hilaire, a lawyer and former chief prosecutor in the US, told the National: If Im a general counsel advising a museum and we know that a dealer offering an archaeological object for sale has a criminal background related to antiquities trafficking like smuggling, trade fraud or theft, then I would say just stay away from it. Its too risky, and why invite reputational harm?

Google search would have alerted museum

Christopher Marinello, a leading expert in recovering stolen, looted and missing works of art, said that a simple Google search would have alerted them to the US Attorneys Office Press Release and Forfeiture Notice dated April 18, 2012 regarding their seller.

The revelation comes as the beleaguered British Museum is facing the scandal of the theft of up to 2,000 ancient artefacts, which led to the resignation of its director Hartwig Fischer.

The British Museums shabti is not on display and is in a secure storage facility.

One source suggested that the museum is considering returning it to Egypt, among other options.

Its online cataloguing states that the wooden figurine, which is 15cm tall, dates from the 13th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (c1756 - c1630 BCE).

The description notes that the figure has large eyes with heavy lids and an unsmiling mouth: The figure is represented shrouded and mummiform.

The online entry also records that it was bought in 2017 from Mr Khoulis Palmyra Heritage Gallery.

Although he had faced up to 20 years in prison, he received a years probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service, The National reported.

The British Museum declined to reveal the purchase price or a photograph. Shabtis have generally sold for thousands or tens of thousands. Without seeing an image, experts could not specify its possible value, but they suggested it was likely to be the lower end, if only because the museums purchase funds are limited.

A British Museum spokeswoman said: Establishing the provenance of an object is an integral part of the museums acquisition process. We have been offering assistance to the US authorities in New York with enquiries since 2019. It would be inappropriate to comment further while these remain ongoing.

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Paul Papalia, Western Australias police minister, has said that he is 'unashamedly' trying to poach British officers - Kelly Cestari/World Surf League

Australia is poaching British police by telling them that it backs officers who shoot suspects in the wake of the Chris Kaba scandal.

Last week a Metropolitan Police officer was charged with murdering Mr Kaba, a 24-year-old black man who was shot dead in south London in September 2022. The charge led to a walkout among the force.

It came as authorities in Western Australia are pushing to steal hundreds of British police officers, enticing them with higher wages and the prospect of better protection.

More than 1,400 officers have already applied to make the move since the programme was launched in February.

Im intent on stealing your best people. Unashamedly, Paul Papalia, Western Australias police minister, told the MailOnline.

Western Australia is a great place to live and work. Compared to the UK, we have higher wages, a lower cost of living and the perfect climate for year-round adventure.

Mr Papalia said that his ambition was to recruit 150 officers in September, and a further 150 a year for the next five years. Officials are currently assessing about 300 applications received so far.

Not all Metropolitan Police officers are armed, unlike in the Western Australian force - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph

They come from a variety of forces. Ive met all of them. Theyre a good crowd, he said of the first recruits.

The response has been extremely positive, meaning WA [Western Australia] Police can handpick the best of the best.

Appealing directly to potential British applicants, he added: Weve got your backs, mate.

Most British recruits will need firearms training, because all police officers in Western Australia are armed.

We protect our officers. Theyve all got tasers, Glocks [pistols] and body armour, Mr Papalia said.

He referenced a recent shooting where officers were publicly backed by the commissioner of police and a local senator within hours of the incident.

Its very topical because yesterday we had a fatal shooting by police in Kalgoorlie, he said.

Mr Papalia added that he was waiting for the results of a full investigation into the incident, but said that the officers involved had behaved incredibly well.

Ive seen the body-worn camera footage, he said.

They acted entirely in accordance with their protocols, responsibly and properly. Sadly, theyve had to shoot someone for their own protection. They did it absolutely correctly.

Cops dont feel supported

Officers who have made the jump to Australia have said that colleagues in Britain are being thrown under a bus by police chiefs and politicians amid the furore involving Mr Kabas shooting.

As a UK officer I did not feel at all appreciated, said Anna Miller, 38, a mother of three who used to work for West Yorkshire Police.

Over in Australia, the community support their cops, she told The Times.

One of Ms Millers former colleagues has also been accepted by the Western Australian force and two others are considering applying, she said.

The feeling among myself and my colleagues is officers werent backed, Ms Miller added.

As a police officer, they [police chiefs] will happily throw you under a bus to present a positive picture to the public. I dont feel [that] cops feel supported.

The biggest thing that the police in the UK could benefit from to improve morale is feeling that the media, the Government and everyone has their back a little bit.

Ms Miller was among the first cohort of 23 British officers sworn in to the Western Australian ranks at a ceremony last week.

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Brooks Houck, the former boyfriend of Crystal Rogers and the main suspect in her disappearance, has been charged with murder and evidence tampering, according to his indictment.

The indictment, released by Nelson Circuit Court Wednesday afternoon, says he, acting alone or in complicity with another, committed the offense of murder by intentionally or under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life wantonly causing the death of Crystal Rogers. Houck was jailed Wednesday and held on a $10 million bond.

Houck, 41, also destroyed, mutilated, concealed, removed or altered the physical evidence which he believed was about to be produced or used in such official proceeding, with the intent to impair its verity or availability in the official proceeding, his indictment reads.

A grand jury handed down the indictment Sept. 20 after hearing from Detective Bryan Luckett and FBI Agent Steve Kearny in a grand jury hearing, according to court records.

Houck is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 5, according to court records. If Houck posts his $10 million bond, hes ordered to have no contact with Rogers family.

The FBI announced the arrest of Houck Wednesday morning. He was booked into the Nelson County Detention Center at 10:50 a.m.

In coordination with the Kentucky State Police, other local and federal law enforcement agencies, FBI Louisville has been laser-focused on our commitment to hold accountable those that were responsible for the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday. Today, we take a significant step in making good on that promise. FBI Louisville and the Kentucky State Police have arrested Brooks Houck without incident on charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation.

FBI Louisville and @kystatepolice announce the arrest of Brooks Houck as a result of the investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers. pic.twitter.com/uc4NnKjth7  FBI Louisville (@FBILouisville) September 27, 2023

It marks the second arrest made in the Rogers case. Joseph Lawson was previously indicted on charges of conspiracy to murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence, according to court records. Lawson pleaded not guilty to both charges during an arraignment.

The FBI declined to provide any other information about the arrest or the case. It also declined to answer whether or not more suspects could be arrested or face charges.
FILE - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Springsteen and the E Street Bands 2023 tour will be postponed until 2024. (Photo by Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP, File) (Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 2023 tour will be postponed until 2024, citing doctor's advice.

The Boss, who last week celebrated his 74th birthday, is steadily recovering from peptic ulcer disease, a press release read. "Out of an abundance of caution, the remainder of this year's tour has been pushed to next year.

Earlier this month, Springsteen announced that he would be postponing all of his September 2023 dates while he was treated for symptoms related to the disease, which causes ulcers to form in the stomach or small intestine that can cause heartburn, nausea and stomach pain.

Those postponed shows included stops in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany and Syracuse in New York, Pittsburgh, Washington, and shows in Connecticut and Ohio.

The newly postponed shows include Canadian dates and a West Coast run of Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Rescheduled concerts will be announced this week and will take place at the original venues.

Peptic ulcer disease can be dangerous, leading to bleeding and emergency situations such as perforation of the ulcer through the stomach. Typical treatment uses common drugs called proton pump inhibitors, such as Prilosec, which can help heal the ulcers within four to six weeks. People who are treated recover completely from peptic ulcer disease, Dr. Lawrence Kosinski of the American Gastroenterological Association told AP.

Thanks to all my friends and fans for your good wishes, encouragement, and support," Springsteen said in a short statement. "Im on the mend and cant wait to see you all next year.

News of Springsteen's illness first emerged in May of this year, when he postponed three dates.

Springsteen's 2023 tour, his first in six years, kicked off on Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida, before 20,000 fans who mostly stood through the 28-song arena show that included staples like Born to Run, Glory Days, Rosalita, Promised Land and Backstreets.
Marcel Ciolacu , Prime Minister of Romania, plans to visit Kyiv in October, where he will take part in a joint meeting of the Ukrainian and Romanian governments.

Source: Ciolacu in an interview with Digi24, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The Romanian Prime Minister announced that next month he would "go to Kyiv with several ministers to work through as many areas of cooperation as possible that we have with Ukraine".

Among other things, he states that Ukraine will announce a refusal to use the concept of "Moldovan language", which Bucharest has repeatedly requested.

Ciolacu also mentioned the discussion of the import of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Quote: "We are in an honest dialogue with the Prime Minister of Ukraine, and we have found the best solutions so as not to influence farmers and so that Ukraine can transport its grain," he said.

In the same interview, the Romanian Prime Minister explained why Bucharest did not respond to the grain crisis, following the example of Poland, which imposed a unilateral ban on the import of some Ukrainian agricultural products.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
The Bulgarian parliament has voted to transfer to Ukraine an unknown number of unserviceable S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could be repaired there, Sofia Globe, an independent Bulgarian news agency, reported on Sept. 27.

The primary reason for the need to transfer the missiles, argued Parliamentary Defense Committee Head Hristo Gadzhev, was the missiles were too old to be of use to the Bulgarian military, and that even their original manufacturer would be unable to repair them.

Unnamed experts and officials from Bulgarias Ministry of Defense claimed that despite their condition, Ukraines military would have the ability to render the missiles serviceable, according to online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Bulgaria has previously promised to deliver military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine for similar reasons, including 100 unused armored vehicles that are expensive to store and maintain.

The transfer of military aid to Ukraine has been a contentious issue in Bulgaria, which has long standing historical ties to Russia, and a pro-Kremlin minority in parliament. In November 2022, Bulgaria agreed to send military aid to Ukraine following many months of debate.

In addition, although it was not publicly stated initially, various investigations revealed that Bulgaria was secretly supplying Ukraine with fuel and ammunition in the first few months of the full-scale invasion.

Read also: Oleg Sukhov: The West lacks political will to ensure Ukraines victory

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The company that operated the bus that veered off a New York motorway and rolled 50 feet down a hillside, killing two, had reportedly been deemed an unacceptable operator after repeated failed safety inspections.

The bus carrying students from Farmingdale High School on Long Island crashed on 21 September with many passengers injured - although both deaths were adults and all the high schoolers are, according to AP, set to recover.

Regency Transportation operated the bus which rolled down the hillside when travelling in Wawayanda, New York, and was one of six charter buses carrying 300 students to band camp in Pennsylvania.

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Regency had failed five out of 15 safety inspections for the New York State Department of Transportation 2022-23 year and was listed as an unacceptable operator.

CBS said on Tuesday that bus companies can still operate if they are on this list but still face more scrutiny and more rigorous inspections. It has been reported that the bus passed two inspections it faced over the summer. The company was put on the list after it failed seven state inspections over the past two years for other buses.

Its unclear what the issue was with the bus that crashed on Thursday. An investigation is set to be completed by local police.

The two adults who died were band director Gina Pellettiere, 43, of Massapequa, and Beatrice Ferrari, 77, of Farmingdale, a retired teacher who was serving as a chaperone on the trip.

BREAKING: New York State Police confirm that one person has died in the Orange County, NY bus crash.@aaronkatersky reports after a bus carrying high school students crashed while en route to band camp in Pennsylvania, the school district said. pic.twitter.com/JGXc8GZXQd  ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) September 21, 2023

Paul Defendini, superintendent of Farmingdale schools, said: I know that they appreciate all the well wishes you are sending and we cant wait to welcome them back when they are ready to return.

Regency has not responded to requests for comment.
Richland Area Chamber receives award for marketing and communications

The Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development recently received the 2023 Excellence in Marketing & Communications Award from the Ohio Economic Development Association (OEDA) for the Richland Works project. This award recognizes achievements in economic development marketing projects, covering various initiatives such as target market studies, branding, website development, direct mail, public relations and advertising.

The Marketing & Communications category recognition underscores the chamber's commitment to advancing economic development in Richland County, highlighting the power of collaboration and the support of partners like the Area 10 Workforce Board, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, OhioMeans Jobs and many others.

Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development officials were honored to receive the 2023 Excellence in Marketing & Communications Award from the Ohio Economic Development Association (OEDA) for the Richland Works project.

The Richland Works project, which kicked off in April 2022, aimed to rejuvenate the local economy and reshape the job market by countering the narrative shaped by the closure of a major employer in 2009. Collaboratively led by Clint Knight, workforce development director, and Sandy Messner, director of marketing and communications, the Richland Works project includes 35 videos, a website and strategic social media campaigns with traditional methods.

The chamber collaborated with DRM Productions for videography and photography and New Day Creative for managing social media campaigns. Together, these efforts yielded 250,000 campaign video views, attracted 25,000+ website visitors, and resulted in six new hires for the participating companies.

The award ceremony took place at the Ohio Economic Development Association's Annual Summit held in Lewis Center on Sept. 14.

Mansfield company awarded federal contract

WASHINGTON, D.C.  MMG Contractors of Mansfield recently won a federal contract award for $222,600 from the Department of Defense Defense Logistics Agency, Columbus, for electromagnetic relays.

Haring Realty welcomes two new agents

Two new agents have recently joined Haring Realty.

Dan Wirebaugh was born and raised in Crawford County and worked at the former Swan Hose for 28 years as a maintenance manager.

Dan Wirebaugh

He lives in Bucyrus with his wife, Barbara, owner of Affinity HealthWorks. Wirebaugh studied mechanical engineering at North Central State College and Marion Technical College. He also earned a real estate license from The Ohio State University and Davis College, first in 1998 and again in 2023.

Wirebaugh has served on the board of directors of the Swan Rubber Credit Union, now Firelands Federal Credit Union, Crawford County Health District Board, Joint Central Ambulance District Board, and Crawford Park District Board.

Also joining Haring Realty is Ashland native Melanie Coble. After spending the last 13 years as a stay-at-home mom to four boys, Coble decided to reenter the real estate business.

Melanie Coble

Born and raised in Ashland County outside of Mifflin, Coble is a graduate of Hillsdale High School and has a business degree from Kent State University. She and her family lived in California and Tennessee before returning to Ohio in 2018.

Ohio business filings increase for the fourth consecutive month

COLUMBUS  Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced 15,917 new business filings were created in August. This is the fourth straight month that business filings have increased year-over-year.

So far in 2023, 128,847 new businesses have been created in Ohio.

Midwest Microelectronics Consortium selected as microelectronics innovation hub

COLUMBUS  The Midwest Microelectronics Consortium (MMEC), a multi-state, regional initiative led by Ohio and dedicated to advancing the research and production of crucial microelectronics for the defense industry, was awarded regional hub designation and $24.3 million for FY 23 through the prestigious Microelectronics Commons (ME Commons) program. This partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) places Ohio, as a part of the MMEC, among the eight regional "Hubs" nationwide. The MMEC comprises over 65 public, private and nonprofit entities, with leadership from many key Ohio institutions.

This public-private technology hub will connect the Midwest's academic institutions, corporate leaders and government partners. Backed by $2 billion in federal CHIPS Science Act funding, Ohio's leadership within the MMEC will position the state at the epicenter of a national network aiming to revolutionize the "lab-to-fab" microelectronics ecosystem while simultaneously solving national security challenges.

Currently, the United States leads in microelectronics design but accounts for only 12% of global microelectronics production, with the bulk of microelectronics production occurring in Asia. This poses a significant risk to the U.S. microelectronics supply chain. It includes the potential loss of critical intellectual property, diminished market influence, and a heightened dependence on foreign economies.

Mansfield News Journal

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Richland Area Chamber award, MMG Contractors federal contract
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday that a looming government shutdown would mean 1,000 air traffic controllers undergoing on-the-job training at centers nationwide would be furloughed  a blow to the department's efforts to plug holes in the controller workforce.

"A shutdown would stop all of that progress. It would mean we have to immediately stop training air traffic controllers and furlough 1,000 controllers who are already in the training pipeline," Buttigieg said.

Most air traffic controllers  about 13,000 nationwide  will continue working, along with 50,000 TSA baggage screeners, albeit without pay.

Buttigieg also said a shutdown lasting "a few days" would mean that DOT will be unable to meet its staffing and hiring targets for air traffic controllers next year. The agency plans to hire 1,800 controllers next year, up from 1,500 this year. Last week, Buttigieg said DOT has "2,600 air traffic controllers in the pipeline a figure that also includes trainees at the FAA's academy in Oklahoma.

He laid blame at Republicans' feet for holding up government funding.

"What's especially galling is that we see some of these same elected officials who have responded to even weather delays by blaming the administration now turning around and demanding that we cut resources for air traffic controllers," Buttigieg said.

Rulemakings also impacted: Buttigieg said a shutdown would also halt DOT rulemakings, including high-profile attempts to compensate airline passengers for lengthy flight delays and to require airlines to seat families next to each other without imposing additional fees, and would hamper efforts to strengthen freight rail regulations that are currently underway after the East Palestine, Ohio derailment.

"The rulemaking activity might be unglamorous but were talking about advancing very important rules," Buttigieg said.

What's next: Buttigieg said he isn't sure if Congress will be able to pass legislation that would avert a lapse in the FAA's authorization, which also expires at the same time as government funding. The Senate introduced a continuing resolution using the House-passed FAA bill, H.R. 3935 (118), on Tuesday that would fund the government through Nov. 17 and authorize the FAA through the end of the year.

On Tuesday the bipartisan chair and ranking member of the House Transportation Committee introduced a standalone extension, H.R. 5711.

"There are definitely a lot of different scenarios that are being discussed on the Hill," Buttigieg said. "We're trying to be ready and nimble to adapt to whatever Congress throws our way but this is really no way to run a ballclub. Getting this close down to the wire is a real challenge for us."
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and wife Nadine arrive at the federal courthouse in New York on Sept. 27, 2023. Menendez faces federal charges alleging he used his powerful post to provide information benefiting the Egyptian government in exchange for bribes. (Jeenah Moon/AP)

Illinois two U.S. senators have joined a growing chorus of Democrats in the chamber calling for the resignation of veteran U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey after a federal indictment last week alleged he used his political influence in exchange for bribes.

Following the lead of New Jerseys other Democratic senator, Cory Booker, who called for Menendezs resignation Tuesday after being a longtime ally, Sen. Dick Durbin said it was time for Menendez to step down from the Senate seat he has held since 2006.

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Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve. He should step down, Durbin wrote Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Committee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asks a question as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., listens during a Senate Judiciary Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons hearing on Sept. 13, 2023, in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)

Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate, had refrained from calling for Menendezs ouster following the New Jersey senators indictment Friday.

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The indictment alleges Menendez and his wife, Nadine, accepted cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, home furnishings and mortgage payments in exchange for using his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to provide information benefiting the Egyptian government. Authorities found $480,000 in cash and gold bars hidden in his clothing and in his home.

[ US Sen. Bob Menendez pleads not guilty to pocketing bribes in a wide-ranging corruption case ]

Menendez, 69, has disputed the governments charges and said he expects to be exonerated. He has said the cash was withdrawn from his personal bank account but hes not explained how he obtained the gold bars. Under the Senate Democratic Caucus rules, he stepped down from his committee chairmanship Friday.

On Wednesday, Menendez and his wife appeared in federal court in New York and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

On Tuesday, Illinois other U.S. senator, Tammy Duckworth, called for Menendez to step down.

The charges against Sen. Menendez are very serious and deeply troubling allegations of abuse of the public trust and corruption, Duckworth said in a statement.

For the same reasons he needed to step down as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, he should resign as senator, she said.

Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth heads to a vote on Capitol Hill on Sept. 6, 2023, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)

While Menendezs indictment was announced Friday, senators did not return to Washington until Tuesday and Bookers call for his New Jersey colleague to resign led to a succession of similar statements from other Senate Democrats.

Booker, in a statement, said the federal charges are of such a nature that the faith and trust of New Jerseyans as well as those he must work with in order to be effective have been shaken to the core.

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More than half of the Senate Democratic Caucus has now called for Menendez to step aside.

Some of the early caution to address Menendezs legal problems stemmed from the Democrats one-seat majority in the chamber, though the extent of the charges against him raised concerns about whether he would prove to be a drag on other Democratic senators in 2024.

Menendezs seat is up for election in 2024. If he were to step down, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, would appoint a replacement. Murphy also has called for Menendez to resign.

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On Fox News on Tuesday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to Laura Ingraham on how he stacks up against his competitors in the 2024 presidential election.

Fox News  DeSantis on why he can win

How do you go from No. 2 to No. 1, given Trumps huge lead in the polls? Ingraham asked DeSantis on the Ingraham Angle.

DeSantis said its about not losing to the Democratic playbook like Republicans have in previous elections.

As you look forward, the time for talking is over, Desantis said. Im the only guy running that can say everything Ive promised my voters I would do. I delivered on 100% of the promises. So yes, I will beat Biden.

Ingraham then asked DeSantis how he plans to outperform Trump, who did deliver great economic results his first time around as president, she said.

DeSantis said you cant forget how Trump handled COVID-19. He made the decision to turn the country over to Anthony Fauci. Those decisions, I think, were bad; they were mistaken decisions, but that led to the borrowing and printing of trillions of dollars.

He added that Trump is not showing up for the American people by not being willing to debate and has not fulfilled promises from his 2016 run for president.

Ingraham asked DeSantis about California Gov. Gavin Newsom being in attendance at the Republican debate. I guess getting ready for your debate with him moderated by my colleague Sean Hannity. Is that making you nervous?

I think its great, DeSantis said, I mean, look, California is a symptom of American decline. Florida shows the pathway for American revival; lets have that debate. I can tell you, Laura, were winning between the two states because I have so many California license plates showing up in my state. That never happened when I was a kid growing up.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom signed several firearms and ammunition-related bills into law on Tuesday, including one to tax guns and ammunition and another that places more rules on people seeking a concealed carry weapons permit and on the permit itself.

The signings come just days after a Newsom-led campaign to amend the U.S. Constitution passed out of the California Legislature.

Asm. @JesseGabrielCA (D-Encino) speaking on his bill AB28.



It would establish an 11% excise tax on licensed firearms dealers & ammunition vendors to fund programs that address gun violence.



Gabriel: We must prioritize safety of our kids above the profits of the gun industry. pic.twitter.com/fJaInjtihP  Eytan Wallace (@EytanWallace) September 26, 2023

The measure passed by legislators calls for a state Constitutional Convention to consider additional federal rules on firearms purchases and use, but two-thirds of states need to pass similar measures in order for the process to advance.

With the signing of AB 28, California will now add an 11% excise tax on the purchase of guns and ammunition, an amount that the bills author states is lower than the excise tax on marijuana sales.

There are exceptions to the tax, such as police agencies and businesses with extremely low sales.

Why do Californians pay so much more for gas than other drivers?

The bills author, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, said that the tax money will go toward preventing gun violence and reducing the costs associated with the health and criminal justice systems when treating patients of gun violence.

Gabriel cited the federal tax on guns and ammunition, which funds hunting and wildlife programs across the country, as a reason to have a statewide tax to fund gun safety programs.

If we can have a tax to protect wildlife, we can have one that protects people, Gabriel said.

Another significant bill signed into law on Tuesday is SB 2, by Sen. Anthony Portantino, which will change the rules for carrying concealed weapons.

Californias new law requires permit holders to be 21, bans concealed weapons from most public places, including parks, schools, government buildings, hospitals, and places where alcohol is sold, as well as as at public demonstrations and gatherings.

Sen. Portantino said it is common sense to want to protect yourself with a concealed firearm, but that firearms may not be needed at a ballfield or at a restaurant where alcohol is served.

You as a responsible person with that permit will need to do a little work to know where it is allowed, Portantino said.

Another new law will require that all pistols sold in the state beginning in 2028 have microstamping technology, which will leave unique markings on bullets that will make it easier to trace which weapon was used in a shooting.

The full list of firearms-related bills signed into law are as follows:

SB 2 by Senator Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank)  Firearms.

SB 241 by Min  Firearms: dealer requirements.

SB 368 by Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine)  Firearms: requirements for licensed dealers.

SB 417 by Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas)  Firearms: licensed dealers.

SB 452 by Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas)  Firearms.

AB 92 by Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-San Rafael)  Body armor: prohibition.

AB 97 by Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona)  Firearms: unserialized firearms.

AB 301 by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda)  Gun violence restraining orders: body armor.

AB 355 by Alanis (R-Modesto)  Firearms: assault weapons: exception for peace officer training.

AB 455 by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton) Firearms: prohibited persons.

AB 574 by Assemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr. (D-Los Angeles)  Firearms: dealer records of sale.

AB 724 by Assemblymember Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield)  Firearms: safety certificate instructional materials.

AB 725 by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) Firearms: reporting of lost and stolen firearms.

AB 732 by Assemblymember Mike Fong (D-Alhambra)  Crimes: relinquishment of firearms.

AB 762 by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland)  California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program.

AB 818 by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine)  Protective orders.

AB 1089 by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson)  Firearms.

AB 1406 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento)  Firearms: waiting periods.

AB 1420 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park)  Firearms.

AB 1483 by Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim)  Firearms: purchases.

AB 1587 by Assemblymember Philip Ting (D-San Francisco)  Financial transactions: firearms merchants: merchant category code.

AB 1598 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park)  Gun violence: firearm safety education.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Gas prices at California pumps are on the rise, and there is a possibility that prices will continue to increase.

Californias statewide average is $5.89 per gallon as of Sept. 27, according to the American Automobile Association, while the national average is a few dollars below at $3.83 per gallon.

While Sacramento Countys average is slightly below the statewide mark at $5.64 per gallon, most of Southern California has already eclipsed the $6 mark. Mono County leads the state at $6.60 per gallon.

Gas price increases might be stemmed in Gov. Gavin Newsom steps in to issue a waiver, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for Gas Buddy. Otherwise, prices could jump 15 to 35 cents per gallon over the next few weeks.

ALERT: WEST COAST! Your #gasprices about to jump. If you're in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada or Arizona be prepared for #gasprices to jump 15-35 cents per gallon in the next 5 days. Some stations could go up by even more, potentially 50c/gal.  Patrick De Haan  (@GasBuddyGuy) September 26, 2023

Whats going on with gasoline prices in California?

Supply cuts by OPEC+ (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and a cut from Russia have pushed prices up and are likely to stay high until end of 2023, wrote Gokce Soydemir, Foster Farms endowed professor of business economic at California State University, Stanislaus, in an email to The Sacramento Bee.

He also added that a series of refinery outages also had an effect on the price increase.

Tropical Storm Hilary dropped more than a foot of rain on some parts of Southern California this summer, shattering rainfall records. Refineries in Torrance, El Segundo and Los Angeles, which serve the southern market, experienced issues due to the storm and also had scheduled maintenance planned, De Haan said.

Since then, the refineries have had a rough go trying to get back online, De Haan said.

Theres still a struggle for gasoline supply in Southern California, he said.

Which is pushing the price up, which is in turn then drawing attention from refineries in Northern California, which are sending gasoline to the south. And thats why prices now are likely to start going up in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

What will help lower gasoline costs?

There is a chance that consumers wallets wont suffer for too long  if California switches to a different kind of gasoline.

Northern California usually switches to winter-grade gasoline around Oct. 1 and Southern California usually makes the switch around Nov. 1, De Haan said.

The winter-grade blend contains more butane and has a rating slightly below premium gasoline of 91 to 93 octane, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Butane makes the gasoline less expensive to produce, but its high volatility limits the amount that can be used in the summer blend.

Over the 2022 winter months, Newsom issued waivers that allowed for winter-grade gasoline to be sold at pumps.

When he issued waivers last year, the wholesale cost of gasoline fell by over $1 a gallon within 48 hours, De Haan said.

If Newsom allows retailers and refiners to sell winter-grade gasoline again this year, price increases may not be dramatic or nearly as significant, De Haan said.

McClatchyDCs David Lightman contributed to this story.







What do you want to know about life in Sacramento? Ask our service journalism team your top-of-mind questions in the module below or email servicejournalists@sacbee.com.
Picture this: Its been a month since you moved out of your apartment and your landlord still hasnt returned your security deposit.

What can you do?

Heres what you should know, according to a guide from California Courts:

What is a security deposit for?

A security deposit is usually one or two months of rent that tenants pay to landlords when they move into a unit in case of damages or breaking the lease, according to Investopedia. The landlord holds onto it and generally must return it when the tenant leaves.

California lawmakers this month approved a bill that caps security deposits at one month with exceptions for those who own up to two properties with a total of four units  they can ask for two months. That bill headed to Gov. Gavin Newsoms desk, who must sign or veto by Oct. 14. It would go into effect July 1, 2024.

Currently, California law limits security deposits to two months of rent for an unfurnished unit or three for a furnished property, in addition to first months rent paid on or before moving in.

The average rent in California is $3,115, according to a September report from Rent.com.

How long do landlords have to return a deposit?

Landlords in California have 21 days to either return the full deposit or return the deposit minus deductions with an itemized statement. That statement must include what was deducted and why, according to California law.

They must mail or personally deliver this. Your landlord shouldnt email this to you unless youve already agreed to that. Make sure you give your landlord your forwarding address and let the U.S. Postal Service know to forward your mail as well. If you dont give your landlord your new address, theyre only obligated to mail it to your last known address  which would be the rental you just moved out of.

If the itemized statement is more than $125, the landlord also has to attach any invoices or receipts. If the landlord or their employee did the work, they also have to include a description of the work, the time it took, and a reasonable hourly rate.

If the repairs arent completed in 21 days, the landlord can send a reasonable estimate of the costs, followed by receipts within 14 days of completed repairs.

What can landlords deduct from the deposit?

Landlords can deduct for the following items:

Cleaning when you move out  but only to make it as clean as it was when you got there.

Repairing damage other than normal wear and tear.

Restoring or replacing personal items such as furniture, if it was included in the lease and any damage is not from normal wear and tear.

Landlords can also generally keep part of the deposit for owed rent, with exceptions such as they cant use security deposits to cover COVID-19 rental debt.

What can you do if they dont return your security deposit?

Your first step: Ask for it back. You should tell your landlord why you think deductions are improper and immediately ask for a refund. You can do this orally, but follow up with a letter. Keep a copy for your records.

California Courts provides a program to help you write a demand letter. Youll provide the following:

The date you moved out

If youve received your security deposit or itemized statement

The address

Is your landlord a corporation, partnership, trust or private organization, a government such as a state agency or local government, or a person? (If its a government, you need to file a claim with the agency you want to sue.)

Provide information such as name and address of the person or organization

Provide information about yourself

Specify if youd like payment within 10 days or another timeframe

Then, youll choose how youll send the letter, decide if you want to copy anyone else on the letter, and youll be able to print or save it.

If that doesnt work, try to compromise with them. You can suggest a neutral third person or agency mediate the dispute.

If the 21-day period is over and the landlord has not provided a full refund or a statement of deductions and a refund of the rest, they lose the right to keep the deposit.

Your next step: suing.

You can sue in small claims court or Superior Court, but you have to file in a court that has jurisdiction over where the property is or where you signed the rental agreement.

For written rental agreements, you have up to four years to sue. For oral ones, you have two years.

The landlord could file a counterclaim against you.

If you have evidence of bad faith retention of your deposit and decide to go to court, the court could award you the full deposit, plus up to twice the amount of your security deposit.

What is The Sum?

The Sum is your friendly guide to personal finance and economic news.

Were a team of McClatchy journalists cutting through the financial jargon so you know how these issues impact your life. We verify information from diverse sources and keep the facts front-and-center, making finance and economic news add up for you.

Ready to take the first step to getting your finances under control? You can sign up for our five-week budgeting newsletter at thesum.news.
In this photo provided by The Innocence Center and the California Innocence Project, Gerardo Cabanillas waves from outside the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles after his release on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. Cabanillas, who spent nearly 30 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape, has been declared innocent and freed, Los Angeles County prosecutors announced Tuesday. DNA testing helped exonerate Cabanillas of the 1995 attack on two couples sitting in parked cars in South Gate, the county district attorney's office said in a statement. (Laurence Colletti/Legal Talk Network via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

LOS ANGELES (AP)  A man who spent nearly 30 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape has been declared innocent and freed, Los Angeles County prosecutors announced Tuesday.

DNA testing helped exonerate Gerardo Cabanillas in a 1995 attack on a couple sitting in a parked car in the city of South Gate, the county district attorney's office said in a statement.

Cabanillas' case was reexamined by the Conviction Integrity Unit of the DAs office, and last week a judge reversed his conviction, found him factually innocent and ordered his permanent release.

I extend my deepest apologies to Mr. Cabanillas for the miscarriage of justice and the failure of our criminal legal system, District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement.

Cabanillas was convicted in 1996 and spent 28 years in prison. He confessed to being one of two armed men who approached the couple, forced the man out and drove the woman to an abandoned house where both raped her.

Another couple in a car in the same area were robbed two days later, authorities said.

Victims of the attacks were told of his confession and identified Cabanillas from photo lineups. But they later expressed doubts in court and said they were pressured into identifying him, according to the California Innocence Project at the California Western School of Law, which represented Cabanillas.

DNA testing on the rape kit showed that two other people committed the assault, the group said in a statement.

No other suspects were ever arrested, although one man later confessed to committing one of the crimes, the Innocence Project said.

False confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States, interim director Alissa Bjerkhoel said in a statement. Police are permitted to lie to suspects, including promises of leniency if the person confesses. That is exactly what happened here and, if it was not for the DNA evidence, Gerardo would have spent the rest of his life in prison.

"We are thrilled for Gerardo and his family that the truth has finally set him free, she said.
A single father of six received a blessing that not only changed his life but also the lives of many young people who depend on him.

Isaac Taylor had been without a car for six months since the family vehicle was totaled in a recent accident. With so many mouths to feed, he couldnt allow his cars absence to stop him from commuting to work, which was 8 miles away from his home, in order to provide for his children.

As an alternative, the Sacramento, California, resident rode his bike back and forth to his 10-hour graveyard shift, working hard to make it home in time to greet his children, who ranged in age from 3 to 19 and take the youngest to school in the morning.

Isaac Taylor celebrates his new car. (Photo: Caliber Collision)

When asked about how he managed it, he confessed during an interview with CBS News, It was very tough.

Ive been through a lot, he added, explaining, So, struggle is just part of reaching the next big thing.

Related: Devastated: Body of 21-Year-Old Woman Who Disappeared While Celebrating Birthday with Friends on Memphis Riverboat Cruise Found In Mississippi River

Taylor has endured chronic homelessness and unemployment over the years but is now in a position to provide security for his children. At one point, he had to live in motels and churches until he could secure permanent housing.

Read the full story here.

Over the years, the organization has regarded Taylor as a shining example of what people can achieve with a little help. He currently works in security and was recently promoted to supervisor.

So, he rode his bike 8 miles each way every day, pushing through because thats what he had to do.

Fortunately, angels were watching over him and stepping in to make things a little easier. The National Auto Body Councils Recycled Rides Program, Family Promise of Sacramento, Caliber Collision, and Travelers Insurance all came together to gift the dedicated dad and mentor a newly restored 2019 Hyundai Elantra on Thursday, Sept. 21.

When the folks at Family Promise learned about Taylors daily bike commute due to his lack of a car, they nominated him for the vehicle donation.

Reflecting on the collective generosity, Taylor shared with the local station KOVR, I cried like a baby. Tears of joy, tears of feeling the pain of riding the bike back and forth. It all sank inwhat I went through to get to where I am now.

The insurance company donated the vehicle, which was then refurbished by technicians at Caliber Collision Roseville.

How could I feel like I deserve it? Taylor questioned, despite his immense gratitude for the new car. Knowing there are people going through worse situations than I am. How did I become so fortunate?

The car did more than provide a little extra time and rest to the man; it also brought him peace of mind.

I have peace of mind, Taylor shared.

Taylor is not the first to be blessed in such a significant way. Caliber Collision, Caliber Auto Care, and Caliber Auto Glass have been donating to families in need for some time, having gifted over 500 vehicles since they began.
Attorney General Daniel Cameron made headlines last week for softening his stance on Kentuckys abortion ban by publicly saying theres no question hed sign legislation adding exceptions for rape and incest.

But comments made by Cameron, the GOP nominee for governor hoping to unseat Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear , at a London campaign stop Tuesday now indicate hed only add such exceptions if the courts made us change that law.

I support the Human Life Protection Act, which I have defended, Cameron says of the trigger law in an audio recording reviewed by the Herald-Leader. My point was that if... we are in a fight with the courts right now. And so if the courts were to strike down and say that we needed to add (exceptions), of course I would sign that because I still want to protect life. But that would just be based on if our courts made that change; it wouldnt be me, proactively.

Under Camerons direction, the Office of the Attorney General has been a staunch defender of Kentuckys current abortion laws, and as a candidate, hes promised to promote a culture of life in Kentucky.

Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade last year, Kentuckys trigger ban took effect, criminalizing abortion except when a pregnant persons life is threatened. Concurrently, a fetal heartbeat law, or six-week ban, also became enforceable. That law outlaws abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks of pregnancy.

The combination of both laws has led to a virtual elimination of abortion in Kentucky.

In response to Herald-Leader questions about the audio recording, including under what exact conditions Cameron would support the addition of exceptions, the campaign said: He supports the Human Life Protection Act. But if the legislature were to bring him a bill with exceptions, he would sign it.

The response did not address if the courts would first have to compel the legislature to pass such a bill.

Beshear campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd said Cameron has told Kentuckians again and again that he thinks a 12-year-old rape survivor should be forced to give birth.

The reason he twists himself into knots on answers like this is because he knows the vast majority of Kentuckians find his view cruel and dangerous.

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron again flip flops on abortion exceptions for rape/incest, backing off legislative fix:



"...If the courts made us change that law ... and made us add those, then of course I would sign that because I would have to." pic.twitter.com/AqTuOOBjvr  Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) September 27, 2023

In the audio, Camerons comments are prompted by a woman who tells him shes a little disappointed hes wavered a little bit on protections for life. After his initial answer, she then says she can still trust you to be a full-out, working as much as possible, to get rid of abortion, as much as possible.

Cameron tells her that EMW Womens Surgical Center, a former clinic in Louisville, was closed because of the work of his office.

This was about if the courts made us change that law, and they made us add those, then of course I would sign that because I would have to, Cameron says.

A Sept. 18 appearance on the Tony & Dwight show on NewsRadio 840 WHAS in Louisville is what prompted renewed scrutiny of Camerons position on abortion exceptions.

If our legislature was to bring legislation before me that provided exceptions for rape and incest, I would sign that legislation, Cameron said on the show. Theres no question about that.

In a statement to the Herald-Leader last week, the Cameron campaign said he is the pro-life candidate for Governor and supports the Human Life Protection Act. But if the situation in Kentucky were to change and the legislature brought him a bill to add exceptions for rape and incest, he would, of course, sign it.

Prior to the show, Cameron had repeatedly defended his position of supporting the current law.

Im not going to waver in my position on this, and were going to continue to defend the law as is, he said at one candidate forum.

Cameron also confirmed his past position against rape and incest exceptions in a Kentucky Right to Life questionnaire. It prompts a yes or no answer to the following question: Do you believe that a child conceived as a result of sexual assault should be protected by the same laws protecting the lives of children conceived naturally?

Cameron scored 100%, earning him the groups endorsement for being an unwavering defender of Kentuckys abortion laws.

Abortion has become a key issue in the governors race in recent weeks, as both candidates seek to portray their opponent as the extremist on the issue.

Beshear released a new ad last week featuring a young woman who was raped by her stepfather as a preteen.

Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what its like to stand in my shoes, the survivor, Hadley, says directly to the camera in the commercial. This is to you, Daniel Cameron: to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather, who raped her, is unthinkable. Im speaking out because women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would give us none.

On Tuesday, Cameron Press Secretary Courtney Yopp Norris tied Beshear to Planned Parenthood, whose political action committee is planning to run at least $200,000 of anti-Cameron ads.

Will he call on Planned Parenthood, an extremist organization that supports taxpayer funded abortions, to stop spending on his behalf? she said in an email to the Herald-Leader.
Canada placed 14th out of 37 nations on the ranking by S&P Global Commodity Insights. (Ascend Elements via AP)

Canada jumped six spots in this years ranking of top destinations for clean energy investment by S&P Global Commodity Insights, placing 14th out of 37 nations in 2023.

Ottawas latest budget boosted the outlook for Canada as new investment tax credits helped counter last years massive clean spending package from Washington, according to Timothy Stephure, S&Ps director of global power and renewables.

The United States scored highest in this years S&P Global's Renewable Market Attractiveness Rankings. The analysis looked at 18 individually-weighted factors including policy framework, supply-demand fundamentals, size, competition, and friendliness to investors. Germany ranked second, followed by China, Japan, and France.

Stephure says 2023 thus far has been a landmark year for clean energy. Canada has been no exception. The country has seen a pair of multi-billion incentive deals between the federal and Ontario governments, and automakers Volkswagen AG (VWAGY) and Stellantis (STLA), to build battery factories in Ontario. According to multiple news reports, Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt is also planning to build a multibillion-dollar factory in Quebec.

When the 2023 federal budget was released in March, Canadian Climate Institute president Rick Smith called it the most consequential budget in recent history for accelerating clean growth, praising its decisive steps to ensure Canada wont fall behind in the global race to net zero. However, a report in July from Clean Prosperity and The Transition Accelerator noted the suite of incentives are a bankable gap weaker than those in the U.S.

The new investment tax credits were a huge step forward that signal perhaps Canada is ready to enter into a new stage of faster renewables growth, Stephure told Yahoo Finance Canada in an email.

So, what kept Canada from joining S&Ps most attractive club this year? Stephure says it boils down to uncertainty.

Canada traditionally suffers from a bit of a disconnect between its longer-term goals for clean energy and targeted policies that drive tangible investments, he wrote.

Experts who spoke to Yahoo Finance Canada in June pushed for a national strategy to transition the economy to cleaner fuel sources, pointing to tensions with fossil fuel-rich Alberta as a hurdle.

Stephure says Albertas recent decision to pause large wind and solar projects as it reviews potential clean-up costs and impacts to farmland suggests its leaders may be more comfortable with a longer path to reach its net-zero goals.
(Bloomberg) -- The speaker of Canadas House of Commons resigned on Tuesday over inviting a Nazi-linked war veteran to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiys speech last week, a fiasco that badly embarrassed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau s government.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Anthony Rota , a Liberal lawmaker who was first elected speaker in 2019, initially declined to step down over the controversy, but eventually bowed to pressure from members of parliament, including from his own Liberal Party.

I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to parliament of President Zelenskiy, Rota said in the House of Commons.

That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including the Jewish community in Canada and around the world, in addition to survivors of Nazi atrocities in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions.

Rota on Friday invited to Yaroslav Hunka to sit in the gallery during Zelenskiys address to parliament. Rota introduced the 98-year-old as a Ukrainian-Canadian Second World War veteran who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians. The entire chamber gave Hunka a standing ovation, including Trudeau and the Ukrainian president, who raised his fist.

But in the days afterward, Jewish organizations in Canada demanded an apology for Hunkas invitation, pointing to his history serving with the 1st Galician division, a unit of the German militarys Waffen-SS.

The revelation about Hunkas background sparked fury from lawmakers from all political parties, who were embarrassed at having applauded the veteran before knowing his background. The incident also cast a pall over Zelenskiys visit to Canada, which had otherwise been deemed a success.

Read More: Nazi Veteran Lauded at Zelenskiy Speech Embarrasses Trudeau

Rota said he was resigning with a heavy heart, adding that it was his greatest honor to have been elected by his peers to the role. His resignation will take effect at the end of day Wednesday to prepare for the election of a new speaker.

Trudeaus staff have said the government had no knowledge about the invitation ahead of time and neither did the Ukrainian delegation.

This was deeply embarrassing for the House and for Canada, Trudeau told reporters earlier Tuesday, before Rotas resignation.

Karina Gould, the leader of the government in the House of Commons and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, said in the chamber shortly after Rotas resignation that it was the speakers decision alone to invite Hunka.

This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of parliament and indeed all of Canadians, and the speaker did the honorable thing in resigning, she said.

Members of all five parties in parliament, including Rotas own Liberals, had called for him to step down. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said earlier Tuesday the incident was completely unacceptable and she had been in touch with her Ukrainian colleagues.

The story was quickly pounced on by Russian diplomats and state-controlled media. Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to justify his invasion of Ukraine as aiming to de-Nazify the country, even though Zelenskiy himself is Jewish.

(Updates with photo of Rota, additional Goulds comments in 12th paragraph)

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MADISON  Former House Speaker Paul Ryan sees a country on the rocks  divided by cults of personality, "unserious" politics and policy choices driven by "nihilism"  but he's still "bullish" on the future of the United States.

The Janesville Republican, who represented Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District for two decades (and served as Speaker from 2015 to 2019) and ran for vice president with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney in 2012, spoke Tuesday evening at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ryan is currently a professor of the practice at the University of Notre Dame and a visiting fellow in public policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He launched the nonprofit American Idea Foundation in 2019, which aims to "demonstrate that it is the bottom-up dynamism of individuals and communities that truly makes America a land of opportunity and prosperity."

Here are five takeaways from the event:

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Janesville speaks about the state of the Republican Party during a speedh Friday, Sept. 26, 20023, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Moderating the discussion is La Follette School Director Susan Webb Yackee.

If Trump is nominee, 'Republicans lose with this guy'

Former Republican President Donald Trump is a bad presidential candidate for both practical and principled reasons, Ryan said, adding that he thinks there is still a "reasonable chance" the former president won't earn the party's nomination in 2024.

"We lose with this guy," Ryan said, pointing to Republicans' national track record since Trump's 2016 elecion.

There's another reason Trump shouldn't be the GOP nominee, Ryan said: He's just unfit for office."

"I think leaders should endeavor to be honest, ethical, moral people who try to set standards for themselves and lead by example across the country. Donald Trump doesnt try to do any of that. He does the opposite, frankly," Ryan said. "So I just dont think hes fit for the job."

However, he conceded, people who agree with him on that point likely wouldn't be inclined to support Trump in the first place.

"I think the better argument is the electability argument," he said.

It was a 'big mistake' to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership  a trade deal among a dozen Pacific Rim nations negotiated under Democratic President Barack Obama  was denounced by both Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the pact after he was elected president.

Had the Obama administration started work on a trade agenda a year earlier, Ryan said, "we would have gotten it done." The Obama administration "did a pretty good job" working out a deal that would have been "very much" in the interests of the U.S., but once the two presidential candidates denounced it, support within Congress was "destroyed," he said.

"I think it was a big mistake" to abandon the deal, Ryan said, but "it's not too late to rejoin it."

Freedom Caucus makes GOP 'look like fools'

Asked what advice he'd give current GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he seeks to avoid a government shutdown, Ryan quipped, "I've seen the movie before," adding, "He knows what I think."

The former speaker said he thinks McCarthy reached a "great deal" with Democratic President Joe Biden on the nation's debt ceiling, but the "handful" of Republicans in the far-right House Freedom Caucus "decided to blow it up."

Members of the Freedom Caucus "think they win by losing," Ryan said, but instead make Republicans "look like fools.:

"Its nihilism, is what it is, and its really unfortunate to see," he said.

The first 'fresh face' wins the race

"The party that puts the first fresh face forward wins this election," Ryan said.

In a Biden-Trump matchup, he said, he predicts a Biden win. But if any other Republican contender can win the nomination (but "maybe not that Vivek guy," he quipped), the outcome could change, he said.

If there's a Republican presidential candidate other than Trump who shows significant momentum after the first round of state-level caucuses and primaries, Ryan said, he hopes the others will get "the heck out of the race."

'Get out of your cocoon'

Despite the political turmoil he observes, Ryan said he remains optimistic.

"It cant get worse," he deadpanned. "So, theres that."

"I think what happens in our country is, things are so intractable, and then they break, and then they get fixed," he said.

Democracy is being tested, Ryan said, "from within and from without." The external threats are evident, he said, but breaking through the internal polarization is necessary to move forward.

Asked how he would advise young people to facilitate conversations across ideological divides, Ryan said he would first urge them to spend less time engaging with social media that reinforce their existing biases.

"Get out of your cocoon, spend time with people who do not look or think like you, and do not impugn peoples motives," Ryan said, and focus on facts and principles rather than emotion and division.

"You have two ears and one mouth," he said. "Use them in that proportion."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Paul Ryan speaks on the GOP under Trump. Takeaways from his UW speech
Katie Fuller, a 27-year-old mother of two, has been missing from the Canton area for about three weeks, police say.

CANTON  City police are searching for a 27-year-old mother of two who has been missing for about three weeks.

Katie Fuller, whom police described as homeless, has brown hair and blue eyes, is 5-foot-5 and weighs 130 pounds.

"Anytime someone is reported missing, especially when they have not been heard of for so long, we have concerns for their safety," police spokesman Lt. Dennis Garren wrote in an email. "We have detectives assigned and they are actively working the case."

Fuller's mother told police Sept. 12 that she last had contact with her daughter by text message on Sept. 7. She told police she previously talked with Fuller almost daily.

Fuller was reported to have stayed sometimes in a Jackson Township motel under another name, and to have stayed sometimes with a man who lives on McKinley Avenue SW. When police contacted him, he said Fuller did not drive him to a grocery store on Sept. 9 as planned.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Canton police officer LaMar Sharpe at 330-438-4421 or Lamar.sharpe@cantonohio.gov.

Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com.

On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton police searching for Katie Fuller, missing mother
Case against suspect in Gilgo Beach killings could grow to include other Long Island slayings

RIVERHEAD, N.Y.  The case against the suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, Rex Heuermann, could grow to include other bodies found over the years along a stretch of the shore in Long Island, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Heuermann, 59, made a brief court appearance in Riverhead for the pretrial conference wearing a sport coat, a white shirt and tan pants.

He's already been charged with three counts of murder, in the alleged slayings of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello, 27. And prosecutors have previously said he's a prime suspect in the disappearance of a fourth woman: 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007.

The women have been called the Gilgo Four," in reference to Gilgo Beach, along the southern shore of Long Island, where bodies have been found.

Now we have expanded our investigation to include other bodies recovered in that area," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told the court.

Outside the courthouse, he declined to say when more charges could be filed against Heuermann.

"We're prepared to bring charges with regard to three out of the four 'Gilgo Four' victims," Tierney said. "We're working on the fourth Gilgo victim, and now we've expanded our investigation to include other bodies that were recovered in that area."

Prosecutors also revealed that a DNA swab from Heuermann, taken after his arrest, matched biological material from a male hair collected off burlap on Waterman's body.

Investigators had previously said they made the DNA match from pizza crust that Heuermann had allegedly thrown into a New York City trash can. Now the state claims it has DNA directly from Heuermann's mouth, linking him to the leftover pizza and Waterman.

Rex Heuermann appears before Judge Timothy P. Mazzei in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (James Carbone / AP file )

Defense lawyer Michael Brown downplayed the possible DNA evidence.

"DNA can be transferred from me going up to the cameraman and shaking his hand," Brown told reporters outside court.

Heuermann has been in custody since his arrest in New York City on July 13.

The suspect told the judge Wednesday that hes been reviewing the states evidence against him for about two or three hours a day.

"From the beginning (he) has said he's not guilty," Brown said. "He's a fella who was working, has never been arrested, has a wife and children, is a productive member of society."

Since the end of August, prosecutors have given the defense about 13,000 pages of material that could be used against the architectural consultant from Massapequa Park, a village in Nassau County.

The defendant's next court appearance is set for Nov. 15.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows , left, walks with White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson before an October 2020 campaign rally in Gastonia, N.C. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

Cassidy Hutchinson in her new book wrote of her unease when Meadows recorded a conversation with Pelosi .

After Meadows asked her to record the call, Hutchinson pushed back, calling the request "bizarre."

Hutchinson wrote that Meadows stressed the importance of being able to produce "receipts."

Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in her new memoir said that her onetime boss, ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows, once recorded an August 2020 phone conversation with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unbeknownst to the veteran lawmaker and her staff.

Hutchinson, whose memoir, "Enough," was released on Tuesday, described how had she rejected Meadows' entreaties for her to record the conversation with Pelosi, writing that she felt "unsettled" when her then-boss used his phone instead.

"When Mark and I had pulled onto West Executive Avenue earlier that evening, he'd asked me to turn on my cell phone's voice recorder. Confused, I asked why," she wrote. "I made eye contact in the rearview mirror with a Secret Service agent, whose look seemed to say, Why are you questioning his authority?"

"But I did not back down, considering the request bizarre," she continued. "Mark had never directed me to do anything like that. When I did not immediately do as he asked, he turned on his own phone's recorder before calling Speaker Pelosi to discuss a COVID-related issue."

Hutchinson then went on to detail how she had sought to develop a level of trust with lawmakers in her role, which Meadows' actions contradicted.

"I felt unsettled. Mark knew I worked hard to build a semi-trusting relationship with the Speaker and her staff," she wrote. "The agents got out of the car, and I tried to follow, but Mark held up a finger, motioning for me to stay. When he finished the call, he told me never to be too trusting of people."

"You never know when you'll have to show your own receipts," he said, according to Hutchinson.

Hutchinson, who rose from an intern on Capitol Hill to a top aide in the corridors of the White House, had a front-seat view to some of the most tumultuous moments of the Trump administration, including the response to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

She testified before the House January 6 committee last year, where she spoke of how she pushed Meadows to "snap out" of it and respond more forcefully to the Capitol riot immediately after it broke out.

Insider has reached out to Meadows for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday that she will cooperate with criminal investigations against the former president if she is asked to do so.

Hutchinson revealed in her new book that she testified for the Georgia election fraud case, in which former President Trump was indicted last month, but refused to say whether she had been asked to testify in other cases against her former boss.

I have cooperated with every investigation that I have been asked to testify to, and I will continue to do so in any and every investigation moving forward, she said in an MSNBC interview Tuesday, adding that she would also be willing to testify at trial. We will be fully cooperative

Hutchinson also notably testified last year to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, giving a first-hand account of Trumps actions on the day of the Capitol riots.

She specifically spoke to criminal allegations against Trump of mishandling classified documents. The former president was also charged earlier this year with illegally holding and showing off classified information at his Florida social club, as well as attempting to obstruct investigators in that case.

Hutchinson said she didnt have knowledge specific to the Florida documents, but that the entire Trump White House took poor care of classified materials.

In terms of how the administration  especially towards the end  handled classified information, the book helped shed light on that, but it also helps shed light on how frivolous certain individuals were handling classified information, she said.

I cant speak exactly to what was brought down to Mar-a-Lago, but I could speak and I can speak to how we were not handling classified information to the standards the national security community would expect, she added.

She advised other potential witnesses to only think of themselves and turn their backs on Trump, just as she did.

Think long and hard about where your loyalties lie and who you are and who you want to be. Do you want to protect somebody that sees you as expendable, that sees you as their shield? Thats what Donald Trump does, Hutchinson said.

Donald Trump exploits people who are loyal to him. Donald Trump exploits people who he knows are vulnerable. Donald Trump exploits people who he knows are vulnerable and will do what he needs to be done to protect himself, she continued. Donald Trump does not have loyalty to anybody but himself. Donald Trump will put anybody in his path to help himself get ahead.

Her book, titled Enough, also outlines allegations that she was sexually assaulted by former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows burned documents after the 2020 election.

Trump and Meadows were among the 19 people charged in a sprawling Georgia racketeering case over alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump faces three other separate criminal cases over his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the classified documents case and a New York case over alleged hush money payments.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A judge dismissed all charges against former Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial on Tuesday in the death of Eddie Irizarry, who was shot and killed while sitting in his car last month. Photo courtesy of Philadelphia District Attorney's Office

Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A judge dismissed all charges against former Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial on Tuesday in the death of Eddie Irizarry, who was shot and killed while sitting in his car last month, as city leaders urged residents to "remain calm."

Municipal Court Judge Wendy Pew dismissed the case Tuesday during a preliminary hearing. Pew cited a lack of evidence and agreed with Dial's defense attorneys that the former officer was justified when he shot Irizarry on Aug. 14, saying he and his partner believed their lives were in danger, according to court records.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office said it "disagrees" with the judge's decision and has refiled the criminal complaint against Dial.

"In keeping with our oath to seek justice, we will move to have all criminal charges, including murder, reinstated against this defendant," the office said in a statement Tuesday. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Oct. 25.

Dial's attorneys have maintained that the officer was acting in self-defense.

"We have said from the very beginning, this is a tragedy and not a crime," attorney Brian McMonagle told reporters Tuesday outside the courthouse.

Dial, 27, was charged earlier this month with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, official oppression and possession of an instrument of crime.

According to court documents, Dial and his partner followed Irizarry, 27, who was allegedly driving his Toyota Corolla erratically in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. After what police called a "car chase," Irizarry parked on East Willard Street.

Prosecutors released camera footage that shows Dial and his partner approaching the car with their weapons drawn, as Irizarry rolls up the driver's side window.

"And when police officers ordered him to show his hands, he instead produced a weapon and pointed it at an armed police officer," McMonagle told reporters earlier this month.

Dial shouts "I will [expletive] shoot you," before firing off six rounds through the car door.

Camera footage then shows Dial and his partner dragging Irizarry from his car and putting him into their police car, before driving to a nearby hospital. Irizarry was declared dead later that day.

Following Tuesday's decision, Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal and state Sen. Sharif Street urged the community to "remain calm."

"We do not need any destruction in our city," Bilal said.

"We need people to remain calm because the district attorney is still committed to making sure that this process continues," Street added, "and there's justice and that this act is not left unchecked."
OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, announced Wednesday that the artificial intelligence program can now search the internet on its own.

ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources, OpenAI wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. It is no longer limited to data before September 2021.

Since the original launch of browsing in May, we received useful feedback, the company wrote in a X thread, saying it had made updates that allowed the program to search on the web and provide useful information.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, seemed to revel in the new feature in his own post on X.

[W]e are so back, Altman said in his post.

The new ChatGPT feature comes after OpenAI announced the programs new capability to have a conversation with a user or show it what youre talking about earlier this week. It said via voice and image capabilities, a more intuitive interface will allow for more ways to use ChatGPT.

Snap a picture of a landmark while traveling and have a live conversation about whats interesting about it, the company said in a blog post.

When youre home, snap pictures of your fridge and pantry to figure out whats for dinner (and ask follow up questions for a step by step recipe), the blog post continued. After dinner, help your child with a math problem by taking a photo, circling the problem set, and having it share hints with both of you.

The ability to have voice conversations with the program will be launched to Plus and Enterprise users next week. Peter Deng, the vice president of consumer products at OpenAI, said the voice chat is important to attracting more users to the platform.

One of the hardest jobs is taking that amazing technology and translating it into the simplicity that the next 300-400 million people are looking for, Deng told The Washington Post.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
It's easy to check your internet speed quickly or over time with a few simple steps.

Learning how to check your internet speed can come in handy if you want to make sure youre getting your moneys worth after splurging on a fiber connection. Knowing your true download and upload speeds can also be useful if your favorite streaming platform is lagging and you need to make your case to a representative of your internet service provider (ISP).

Luckily, doing an internet speed check is easy. There are many apps and websites you can use for free, and some even let you schedule network speed tests so you can identify patterns and know if youre actually getting what youve paid for.

Why does internet speed fluctuate?

Before running an internet speed test, you should know that theres a variety of factors that can impact your WiFi speed.

Time of day

The internet experiences the most traffic between the hours of 7 p.m. and 11 p.m . when a lot of people are back home after work, probably gaming, streaming their favorite shows, and browsing the web. ISPs have a limited amount of bandwidth so they struggle to meet customer demand during these peak hours, causing a log jam that results in slower speeds. This means that to get a true picture of your max bandwidth, you should check your internet speed during off peak hours.

VPNs

While virtual private networks are great for making you anonymous on the web, the trade-off is a slower connection. To get an accurate reading, dont forget to disable your VPN before running an internet speed test.

Network use

If you share your WiFi with a lot of people and a bunch of them are streaming movies, on video calls, or gaming, an internet speed test wont produce accurate results. Wait until your network is seeing minimal use before you check it.

How to check your internet speed

There are several sites you can use to do an internet speed test. Most work by measuring how long it takes your network to upload and download sample files from a specified host.

Fast.com

Fast.com certainly lives up to its name by running an internet speed test automaticallyzero clicks needed.

On a browser

1. Go to Fast.com and the internet speed test will begin automatically. Theres no need to click on anything at all.

2. In less than 10 seconds, Fast.com tells you how speedy your internet connection is.

It doesn't get much faster than this.

On a phone

You can use Fast.com on your phone by downloading a simple app available for Android and iOS .

1. Choose what you want to measure. If you want to test your network speed, turn off your WiFi connection; if you want to test your WiFi speed, turn it on.

2. Open the Fast app and the speed test will immediately begin. After a few seconds, the app will tell you your internet download speed. Click on the Show more info if you wish to see your upload speed.

The test is almost as fast as your internet connection.

Ookla Speed Test

The Ookla site is one of the better known ways to run an internet speed test and it works on both desktop computers and mobile devices.

On a browser

1. Open your browser and head to the Ookla website . You dont need to create an account to perform an internet speed test, but if you do, Ookla will keep a history of your results and display them in a graph. This data can be useful to compare your networks performance over time. To create an account click Log in in the upper right corner of your screen.

You can track your site's speed over time.

2. On the site youll immediately see your IP and the location of one of your ISPs servers the site chooses by default. To get the most accurate reading, you should always check your internet speed using the host that is geographically closest to you. If the one Ookla chose for you is not it, you can click on Change Server to select a different one. You might also want to run multiple tests with a variety of hosts to get a complete picture of your internet speed.

Checking internet speed on Ookla is a little more involved than other options.

Almost done.

3. Once you're satisfied with your server selection. Click on the large GO button in the middle of the screen.

4. Ookla begins with a download test (how long it takes your device to save a copy of a file on the selected server) followed by an upload test (how long it takes your device to send a file to the server).

While this is taking place, youll see a speedometer in the middle of the screen showing you how fast your connection is. The test takes about 30 seconds, after which the site will show your download and upload speeds. If you see a huge discrepancy between what youre paying for and the network speeds youre actually getting, you should contact your ISP to see if theres a problem with your modem or router.

Can you guess your internet speed?

On your phone

You can also use the Ookla site to check the internet speed of your smartphones data connection.

1. Download the Ookla Speedtest app (available for Android and iOS ).

2. By default, the internet speed test will check the WiFi network if youre connected to one. If you want to know how fast your phones data connection is, turn off the WiFi connection on your device.

To do so on an iPhone, go to Settings, then Wi-Fi, and tap the toggle button at the top of the screen to turn it off. On Android, tap Settings, Network & internet, and Internet. Tap the switch next to WiFi to turn it off.

3. Unlike the browser version of Ookla, the mobile app doesnt allow you to change the server location, so all you have left to do is hit the a GO button in the middle of the screen to check your internet speed test.

It's even easier to use the Ookla speed test on your phone.

4. The app will display the current download and upload speeds as it runs the test, and give you a final report once its done.

Are your download or upload speeds faster?

Google M-Lab

Googles internet speed test works with the companys Measurement Lab , which seeks to provide the largest collection of open Internet performance data on the planet. This network speed test will not allow you to choose different hosts or create a record of your results, but its one of the easiest to use. This is in no small part because you dont even need to remember its name.

1. On a desktop browser or the mobile Google app, type in Speed test into your Google search bar.

The M-Lab was founded in 2009.

2. As a result, Google will show you its internet speed test, with an explanation of what it entails. Before starting the test, take note of the privacy disclosure in the window, which explains that M-Lab will receive your IP address, which they will publish on their site along with all the results of tests done by them . This doesnt include any other information about you.

3. If youre comfortable with Googles rules, click the blue Run speed test button. A small window will open and the speed test will begin. It takes about 30 seconds to get your results, including upload and download speeds.

Have you recently gotten new service?

Google analyzes how your internet speed compares to others.

TestMy.Net

If you want to understand your internet speed test within a context, then TestMy.Net is a great option. In addition to giving you your download and upload speeds, this site also tells you what the average speed is for the chosen host and for specific geographic locations, like your city, your country, and the rest of the world. This allows you to see how your connection ranks among various groups of users, helping you to determine if your internet speed is keeping up with the Joneses, topping them, or lagging behind.

TestMy.Net will also allow you to schedule automatic speed tests for set intervals, so you can look at how your Internet connection speeds change over a set period of time.

Pick from three different tests.

1. On a mobile or desktop browser, go to testmy.net and choose between one of three different network speed test options: Download speed test, Upload speed test, and Automatic speed test. You can tweak different settings depending on which one you choose.

Calculating download speed on TestMy.net will help show how fast your internet is.

Download speed test / Upload speed test: When clicking either of these options, youll be able to choose between doing a regular internet speed test (click Test my download Speed or Test my upload Speed) or a Manual test size. The latter will let you choose the specific amount of data you want to upload or download during the test, which is great for if youre trying to figure out if hauling larger amounts of data slows down your overall download speed.

It's useful to try all three tests.

Automatic speed test: Automated tests will let you check your internet speed over time or even in different places within your home. Choose this option and youll be able to use the drop-down menus in the middle of the screen to set the total number of tests you want to conduct and how often you want to run themyou can set them up to be as frequent as every five minutes or up to once every 24 hours. The drop-down menus on the right let you to select minimum and maximum download and upload sizes, helpful if youre trying to determine if your internet speed changes depending on the size of the file youre trying to send or receive. Meanwhile, the menu on the left lets you label the location of your device during the test, which is useful if you want to see how your network speed changes depending on where you are in your home.

2. Once youve chosen your options, select the blue button in the middle of the screen to start the test.

TestMy.Net allows users to customize how often they test internet speed.

FAQs

Q: Why dont I get the connection speed my ISP advertises?

While most internet service providers attach data speeds to their tiered high speed subscription plans, its likely that youll rarely achieve that speed. In fact, most customers only receive a fraction of that advertised speed mainly due to the fact that internet companies are constantly trying to serve a lot of customers , resulting in significant network congestion. Theres also a host of factors in your home that can slow that speed down, including your router, modem, and VPNs. Theres a lot you can do to boost your WiFi speed , but if that doesnt work, then its time to call your ISP.

Q: What is a good internet speed?

According to the Federal Trade Commission, anything above 25 Mbps is considered a good internet speed, as itll be able to support online gaming, TV and music streaming, and web browsing for a single device. However, if you have multiple people living in your household and simultaneously performing the tasks above, youll need a faster speed of around 100 Mbps to avoid issues.
The McConnel Air Force Base Color Guard from Wichita led the Harvey County Fair Parade July 29. Officials on base said they are investigating after they said a child died there on September 21, 2023.

Officials at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas say they're investigating a child's death at the base nearly a week ago but are releasing very few details to the public.

A news release issued Wednesday by the base said the child died on Sept. 21 but did not include their name, sex or age.

"Attempts to revive the child by first responders were unsuccessful," the three-paragraph release said.

Base officials did not immediately respond to USA TODAY on Wednesday for more information.

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Child's identity, cause and manner of death not released

Officials did not say how it appears the child died or whether foul play is suspected.

They also did not say who found the child or where, or whether the child lived on base.

"The investigation remains open and ongoing pending medical examiner results," the release said. "No further details can be released at this time."

The child's cause of death is under investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Child dies at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas
One man has been arrested after police say he opened fire on two caseworkers performing a welfare check.

Two Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services caseworkers were sent to a home in Lincoln on Tuesday, Sept. 26 around 4 p.m., according to KLKN.

The two were standing in the front yard when police say 38-year-old Brent Lopez came out of the house and began firing multiple rounds from the porch, KOLN reported.

One of the caseworkers, a 28-year-old man, was shot in the leg, according to KETV. Hes expected to recover.

Two days prior to the shooting, Lopez was cited by police for assault after they say he got into a fight with a group of teenagers and punched two girls, KLKN reported.

A YouTube video posted Sept. 26 shows an officer at Lopezs home to perform a welfare check on the kids. The officer is heard saying the mother of his children called police after Lopezs incident with the teenagers.

In the video, Lopez says he was in danger and has received death threats from the angry mob since the reported confrontation.

The medias got me on as beating up a bunch of kids at the rec center when I was getting jumped, Lopez said.

Later that day, the two caseworkers showed up to the home and Lopez began firing, police said, according to KLKN.

The other caseworker was not injured in the shooting, KOLN reported.

Lopez was charged with assault on an officer and use of a firearm to commit a felony, according to KETV.

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FILE PHOTO: People wearing protective masks look at phones at an electronic retailer in Beijing

By Josh Ye

HONG KONG (Reuters) -China's cyberspace regulator released on Wednesday names of the first batch of mobile app stores that have completed filing business details to regulators, signalling it has begun to enforce new rules that expand its oversight of mobile apps.

A total of 26 app stores operated by companies including Tencent, Huawei, Ant Group, Baidu, Xiaomi and Samsung have submitted filings to the authority, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

Apple's App Store is not among the app stores on the list. Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Beijing has been expanding oversight of smartphone and mobile app usage over the past several years. The country now requires mobile app stores and mobile apps to submit business details to the government.

These rules are causing consternation in the industry that publishing apps in the world's second largest economy will become very difficult and many apps may need to be taken down.

Beijing's push to tighten scrutiny over apps came into focus when in June last year the CAC issued a new rule requiring app stores to submit business details and said it would hold app stores accountable if apps contain illegal content.

In August this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published another notice requiring mobile apps to complete filing by the end of March.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that app stores operated by companies including Tencent and Huawei have started demanding apps on their app stores comply with the new rules.

Apple has not disclosed how its app store in China will comply with Beijings new rules. Experts said Apple's compliance could lead to tens of thousands of apps being removed from Apple's App Store in China.

(Reporting by Josh Ye; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
By Bernard Orr and Roger Tung

BEIJING/TAPEI (Reuters) -China said on Wednesday its recent series of drills near Taiwan aimed at combating the "arrogance" of separatist forces, while the frontrunner to be Taiwan's next president said China was trying to "annex" the island.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has said this month that it had observed dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, operating nearby.

The increased frequency of China's military activities has raised the risk of events "getting out of hand" and sparking an accidental clash, the island's defence minister has warned.

Asked about the spurt in drills, and Taiwan's concerns about increased risk, Zhu Fenglian, the spokeswoman of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, acknowledged the drills by the People's Liberation Army.

"The purpose is to resolutely combat the arrogance of Taiwan independence separatist forces and their actions to seek independence," Zhu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

"The provocation of Taiwan independence continues all day long, and the actions of the People's Liberation Army to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity are always ongoing," she added.

She urged people in Taiwan to distinguish between "right and wrong", resolutely oppose independence for the island, and work with China to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

China has a particularly strong dislike of William Lai, the frontrunner to be elected president at the island's January elections for previous comments in support of independence.

However, he says he does not seek to change the status quo and has offered talks with Beijing.

The situation across the Taiwan Strait had "not improved due to the passage of time", said Lai, now the island's vice-president.

"China's attempts to annex Taiwan have not changed," he said at an event in Taipei on Wednesday for the 37th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

CHINESE DEFENCE MINISTER

China's armed forces have not explicitly mentioned or commented on the drills at a time when Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has gone missing from public view. Sources have told Reuters he is being investigated for corruption.

Taiwan's democratically elected government says only the island's people can decide their future, and has repeatedly offered talks with China, which Beijing has rejected.

On Wednesday, Taiwan's defence ministry reported further Chinese military movements, saying it had detected and responded to 16 Chinese aircraft entering the island's air defence identification zone over the prior 24 hours.

Of those, 12 crossed the median line of the Taiwan strait, which had served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides until China began regularly crossing it in August last year.

On Thursday, Taiwan is set to launch the first of eight domestically made submarines as it bolsters its defences against China.

In Beijing, when asked about the submarines, Zhu said efforts by Taiwan's DPP to "seek independence with force" would only exacerbate tensions and "push the Taiwanese people into a dangerous situation".

In an unusual revelation last week, Taiwan's defence ministry said it was monitoring China's drills in the southern province of Fujian, opposite Taiwan. Normally Taiwan provides details only of drills in the skies and waters around it.

A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters the information was released to show Taiwan's surveillance and intelligence capacity.

"We can see the details and we are prepared," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

China's military has also not commented on the Fujian exercises.

(Reporting by Bernard Orr and Roger Tung; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom, and Yimou Lee in Taipei; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Clarence Fernandez)
China's property crisis may take up to a decade to resolve, economist Hao Hong told CNBC.

Hong, a prominent economist, said there are just too many empty homes in China.

Hong's WeChat and Weibo social media accounts were suspended last year after a series of bearish posts on China's economy.

China's property crisis may take up to a decade to resolve, a prominent economist said on Tuesday.

"Fixing the property sector may be a multi-year or even a decade's work in front of us. Reason being, we built way too many housing for Chinese people," Hao Hong, the chief economist of Grow Investment, told CNBC on Tuesday.

"And also the Chinese urbanization process, which has been progressing very fast in the past 10 years, is coming to a halt," said Hong.

Hong's comments are significant as he's known for his accurate calls on China's stock markets.

His views on the beleaguered Chinese property market also echo views from He Keng, a former top China official, who said over the weekend there could be enough vacant homes in China to house up to 3 billion people  that's nearly ten times the population of the US.

The experts' comments came amid a property crisis in China that many investors fear would spill into the broader economy and even beyond its borders.

As it is, Hui Ka Yan, the billionaire founder and chairman of debt-laden property developer China Evergrande, has been put under police surveillance, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter.

China's economy is struggling to stage a convincing recovery post-COVID, with second-quarter GDP growth missing expectations and youth unemployment hitting a record high. The property sector, along with related industries, contributes as much as 30% to the country's GDP.

And experts told Insider that even though China is trying to revive its property sector by stimulating consumer demand, consumers are unlikely to be clamoring for new apartments amid record-high youth unemployment rate and slower economic growth.

"There's not much impact so far," Hong told Insider on Wednesday, referring to Beijing's stimulus measures.

Investment in property in China fell about 19% in August from a year ago  marking its 18th straight month of decline, according to Reuters calculations based on official data released on September 15.

Still, there may be an upside ahead for China's economy once the property market's problems are resolved, Hong told CNBC.

"Once people reset their expectations, and also the economy restructures to regrow from other industries rather than relying mostly on the property sector for growth, then we will actually have a better, much healthier Chinese economy than before," he told the network.

Hao HONG , CFA (@HAOHONG_CFA) September 26, 2023

Hong's WeChat and Twitter-like Weibo social media platforms were suspended in late April last year following a series of bearish commentaries as China's stock market floundered. It was unclear which of Hong's posts triggered the suspension, but he had made critical remarks about China's on-off pandemic lockdowns and slowing growth at the time, per Nikkei. Other analysts and economists were also similarly targeted.

A few days later, he left his job as the head of research at the state-owned Bank of Communications International. The brokerage said at the time that he had resigned due to "personal reasons." He then resurfaced at Grow Investment Group, a Shanghai-based investment firm, last September.

Hong's verified WeChat and Weibo accounts are now back online.

Another expert  Li Daokui, a former People's Bank of China adviser  told Bloomberg on Tuesday that China's property market, when it recovers, would return as an important driver of the country's growth. However, he said the sector's impact influence on the overall economy would be "much smaller."

Evergrande did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider
[Source]

A Chinese dissident has taken refuge at Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport amid growing fears of persecution from Chinese authorities.

Desperate escape: Chen Siming , known for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre at his home each year, felt compelled to flee his homeland after reportedly being harassed by local authorities and receiving a chilling call from them on July 21 urging him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

After spending several hours at the police station, the 60-year-old activist traveled across China, crossing the southern border into the Laos mountains. He crossed the Mekong River and by early August, reached Thailand, where he registered as a refugee with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

About the Tiananmen Square massacre: The event, which involved the violent crackdown by the Chinese government on pro-democracy protesters, remains a taboo subject in China primarily because of the political threat it poses to the Chinese Communist Party's narrative and control. Chen has reportedly been detained repeatedly whenever the anniversary approaches.

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Stranded in Taiwan: Chen's perilous journey ultimately led him to Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport, where he arrived from Thailand on Sept. 22. He was on a layover to Guangzhou but refused to board the second flight and declined requests to return to Thailand. He is committed to staying at the airport until he secures asylum in the United States or Canada.

To avoid the political oppression of the Chinese Communist Party, I have now come to Taiwan, said in a video uploaded to X on Sept. 22, according to CNN. I hope to receive political asylum from the US or Canada. I ask friends to call on the Taiwanese government to not send me back to China.

I am forced to be illegally stranded here," he added in the caption.

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Taiwan's refugee policy challenge: Taiwan, while a self-governing democracy, lacks a formal refugee policy, posing a challenge in Chen's pursuit of asylum there. According to the U.S. State Department, Taiwans unique political status prevents it from becoming a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

According to Chen, Taiwans immigration authorities and the Mainland Affairs Council briefly held him for questioning following his post. The council released a statement to CNN noting that the government is currently working on it, and is not able to share relevant details.

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Man holds laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture

By Raphael Satter and Zeba Siddiqui

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Chinese hackers who breached Microsoft's email platform this year managed to steal tens of thousands of emails from U.S. State Department accounts, a Senate staffer told Reuters on Wednesday. The staffer, who attended a briefing by State Department IT officials, said the officials told lawmakers that 60,000 emails were stolen from 10 State Department accounts. Nine of those victims were working on East Asia and the Pacific and one worked on Europe, according to the briefing details shared via email by the staffer, who declined to be named.

The staffer works for Senator Eric Schmitt.

U.S. officials and Microsoft said in July that Chinese state-linked hackers since May had accessed email accounts at around 25 organizations, including the U.S. Commerce and State Departments. The extent of the compromise remains unclear.

U.S. allegations that China was behind the breach have strained an already tense relationship between the countries, as Beijing has denied the charges.

The State Department individuals whose accounts were compromised mostly focused on Indo-Pacific diplomacy efforts, and the hackers also obtained a list containing all of the department's emails, according to the Wednesday briefing.

The sweeping hack has refocused attention on Microsoft's outsize role in providing IT services to the U.S. government. The State Department has begun moving to "hybrid" environments with multiple vendor companies and improved uptake of multi-factor authentication, as part of measures to protect its systems, according to the officials at the briefing.

The hackers compromised a Microsoft engineer's device, which allowed them to breach the State Department's email accounts, according to the briefing.

Microsoft earlier this month said that a hack of senior officials at the U.S. State and Commerce Departments stemmed from the compromise of a Microsoft engineer's corporate account."We need to harden our defenses against these types of cyberattacks and intrusions," Schmitt said in a statement shared by the staffer in an email to Reuters following the briefing. "We need to take a hard look at the federal government's reliance on a single vendor as a potential weak point," he said.

A Microsoft spokesman did not have an immediate comment on the Senate briefing. The company, which has faced criticism over its security practices since the breaches, has said that the hacking group behind them - dubbed Storm-0558 - had broken into webmail accounts running on the firm's Outlook service.

The State Department did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday, and Schmitt wasn't available for an interview.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter and Zeba Siddiqui; Editing by Leslie Adler)
[Source]

A team of Chinese researchers is studying the possibility of building an underground lunar base through the moons lava tubes that would be used for Chinas future manned moon missions.

Revealing the plan: Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technologys Zhang Chongfeng, who was also credited as the vice chief designer of the Shenzhou series spacecraft and moon landers, unveiled the study at the 10th CSA-IAA Conference on Advanced Space Technology held in Shanghai from Sept. 13 to 16.

Their study: Zhang said he and his team and other planetary geology experts from China studied lava tubes found in the country, which they believed to have similarities to the ones on the moon, to understand the underground structures better for the mission.

Different kinds of lava tubes: During the presentation, Zhang reportedly noted that lava tubes have two types of entrances, one with a vertical opening and another with a sloping entrance.

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He explained that the vertical type of lava tube entrance would require a lifting mechanism for humans to get in and outside, while the sloping entrance provides a more suitable path without the need for machinery. Zhang noted that they have now chosen the Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Fecunditatis lava tubes as the primary exploration targets.

Establishing a lunar base: The Chinese scientist also proposed building a long-term underground lunar research base, which could be accomplished by setting up a support center for communication and energy by the entrance of the tubes.

The team would also have to landscape the terrain in the tubes to prepare for multiple cabins with different functionalities, which would be placed inside the tunnels, such as residential and research.

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Future mission: The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced its plans to conduct manned missions on the lunar surface before 2030 in May.

The CMSA is also asking the public to help them name the moon lander and the new generation crew spacecraft for the mission. The name, which can have a maximum of four Chinese characters, must highlight Chinas intelligent manufacturing. The competition ends on Sept. 30.

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[Source]

Renowned Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli , known as "Batwoman," and her team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have revealed that 20 "highly risky" coronavirus species pose a significant threat to future public health.

About the findings: The research team made the conclusion after assessing the human spillover risk of 40 coronavirus species in a study published in July in the English-language journal Emerging Microbes & Infections. Of the 40 species analyzed, they rated half to be at high risk of human spillover, with six already known to have caused diseases in humans and evidence suggesting that three others could also do so.

It is almost certain that three will be further disease emergence and it is highly likely that a [coronavirus] disease will emerge again, warned the paper.

About the lab: For years, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has faced questions, particularly from some US politicians, over the facilitys involvement in the origins of COVID-19. While declassified U.S. intelligence documents have found no direct evidence that the virus came from an accident at the lab, the U.S. intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that it originated from a laboratory.

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In July, the U.S. government suspended federal funding to the facility for failing to provide documentation related to concerns over biosafety protocol violations.

Countering the assessment: Citing anonymous Chinese virologists, China's state-backed media outlet Global Times countered Shi Zhengli's warnings. The report highlighted the immunity that populations have developed during the pandemic, suggesting it could help mitigate future outbreaks.

The anonymous scientists also noted that Shi's study focused on a relative evaluation of 40 coronavirus species, which may not necessarily lead to large-scale outbreaks. They did, however, stress the possibility of sporadic outbreaks, especially during the winter months.

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FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Highway Patrol announced on Tuesday the arrest of two suspects and the seizure of more than 45 pounds of illicit drugs, including methamphetamine and fentanyl in Fresno County.

Officials say the arrest is the result of an initial CHP traffic stop on September 21, 2023, and an investigation by the California Department of Justices High Impact Investigation Team (HIIT).

The suspects, who officials say were operating the vehicle without drivers licenses, are alleged to have been transporting the narcotics from Oakland to Los Angeles.

Throughout the state, the California Department of Justice and our allied partners are working together to prevent illicit and dangerous drugs from entering our communities, said Attorney General Bonta.

The CHP officers and DOJ agents identified 43 pounds of methamphetamine and 2.5 pounds of illicit fentanyl that had been hidden in various areas inside the vehicle.

Together we have made hundreds of arrests and seized thousands of pounds of narcotics. These arrests and seizures should send a clear message: We will not tolerate the transport and sale of illegal narcotics within California. I want to thank our teams and our law enforcement partners across the state; there are countless lives being saved as a result of their important and difficult work. Attorney General Rob Bonta

As part of the DOJs task force program, the participating agencies of HIIT work in collaboration to combat drug trafficking organizations, violent career criminals, and gangs.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo criticized President Biden on Tuesday for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, in the wake of a February train derailment, contrasting it with the presidents appearance on the picket lines with striking autoworkers in Michigan this week.

Biden declined to visit the town in the wake of the Feb. 3 crash, though Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did.

As recently as early September, the president told reporters, I havent had the occasion to go to East Palestine.

The president literally flew over this place on his way to Detroit, not saying it was wrong to go to Detroit. Im saying he could have come here. I get the realities of politics, Cuomo said in a broadcast recorded from the town that aired Tuesday night.

Believe me, I grew up in it. But if you want people to know that youre the president of everybody in this country, it shouldnt matter if you think youre gonna get their vote. What you should be getting is their trust.

NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes following the derailment, which dumped several cars of toxic materials. One of the cars, containing the hazardous compound vinyl chloride, was the subject of a controlled burn to head off a potential explosion.

No one was killed or injured in the crash, but residents have expressed concerns about potential long-term health hazards associated with the spill. Vinyl chloride is associated with some conditions that could only be detectable in the long term, such as leukemia and liver cancer.

Last week, Biden issued an executive order directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to appoint a federal disaster recovery coordinator for cleanup efforts in the town. However, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has also called on him to issue an executive order declaring a major disaster, which residents and Cuomo echoed during the broadcast.

State lawmakers belonging to the nonpartisan National Caucus of Environmental Legislators also called for such a declaration in a letter Friday to Biden. Ohio State Rep. Mary Lightbody (D) and State Sen. Kent Smith (D) both signed the letter, joined by lawmakers from 20 other states.

This community feels overlooked and left behind as they continue to deal with these impacts and the consequences of misguided early decisions in the cleanup effort, they wrote. We are concerned that so many highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals were released into the soil, water, and air, and recognize the need for concerted efforts to remove all immediate and persistent risks to people and the environment.

Cuomos remarks came the same evening Ohios senators, JD Vance (R) and Sherrod Brown (D), wrote to the EPA asking the agency to study whether a public health emergency should be declared in the town.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Central Intelligence Agency confirmed it is building a ChatGPT-style AI for use across the US intelligence community. Speaking with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Randy Nixon, director of the CIAs Open-Source Enterprise , described the project as a logical technological step forward for a vast 18-agency network that includes the CIA, NSA , FBI , and various military offices. The large language model (LLM) chatbot will reportedly provide summations of open-source materials alongside citations, as well as chat with users, according to Bloomberg.

Then you can take it to the next level and start chatting and asking questions of the machines to give you answers, also sourced. Our collection can just continue to grow and grow with no limitations other than how much things cost, Nixon said.

Weve gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going, Nixon continued, adding, We have to find the needles in the needle field.

[Related: ChatGPT can now see, hear, and talk to some users .]

The announcement comes as Chinas make their ambitions to become the global leader in AI technology by the decades end known. In August, new Chinese government regulations went into effect requiring makers of publicly available AI services submit regular security assessments. As Reuters noted in July, the oversight will likely restrict at least some technological advancements in favor of ongoing national security crackdowns. The laws are also far more stringent than those currently within the US, as regulators struggle to adapt to the industrys rapid advancements and societal consequences .

Nixon has yet to discuss the overall scope and capabilities of the proposed system, and would not confirm what AI model forms the basis of its LLM assistant. For years, however, US intelligence communities have explored how to best leverage AIs vast data analysis capabilities alongside private partnerships. The CIA even hosted a  Spies Supercharged  panel during this years SXSW in the hopes of recruiting tech workers across sectors such as quantum computing, biotech, and AI. During the event, CIA deputy director David Cohen reiterated concerns regarding AIs unpredictable effects for the intelligence community.

To defeat that ubiquitous technology, if you have any good ideas, wed be happy to hear about them afterwards, Cohen said at the time.

[Related: The CIA hit up SXSW this yearto recruit tech workers .]

Similar criticisms arrived barely two weeks ago via the CIAs first-ever chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani. Speaking at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit , Mulchandani contended that while some AI-based systems are absolutely fantastic for tasks such as vast data trove pattern analysis, in areas where it requires precision, were going to be incredibly challenged.

Mulchandani also conceded that AIs often seemingly  hallucinatory  offerings could still be helpful to users.

AI can give you something so far outside of your range, that it really then opens up the vista in terms of where youre going to go, he said at the time. [It's] what I call the 'crazy drunk friend.'
The CIA is preparing to roll out an AI-powered tool similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The program is set to be used by analysts to help with their research, Bloomberg reported.

The move comes weeks after the CIA's tech chief told users to treat AI as the "crazy drunk friend."

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is launching an AI-powered tool similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The AI program is set to be used by analysts to give them better access to open-source intelligence and help their research, Bloomberg reported.

The tool will used across the 18-agency US intelligence community, including those run by branches of the military, per the report.

"We've gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going," Randy Nixon, director of the CIA's Open-Source Enterprise division, told Bloomberg . "We have to find the needles in the needle field."

The tool will allow analysts to see the source of information and ask questions about what they are viewing, Nixon said.

"Then you can take it to the next level and start chatting and asking questions of the machines to give you answers, also sourced," he told the news outlet.

The move comes just weeks after the CIA's chief technology officer advised users to treat AI as "what I call the crazy drunk friend."

Nand Mulchandani, the agency's first CTO, made the comments at the Billing Cybersecurity Summit in Washington and were reported by Breaking Defense.

Mulchandani said that while AI programs can provide useful answers for pushing analysts out of "conceptual blindness," any information provided should be treated with appropriate suspicion.

He added the tech was "absolutely fantastic" when dealing with large amounts of data and looking for patterns, per Breaking Defense.

Representatives for the CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Charter school supporters rally outside of Los Angeles school district headquarters downtown on Sept. 19 as the Board of Education weighed a policy limiting where charters could be located. The resolution was approved Tuesday. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

When Tropical Storm Hilary drenched the interior of a building rented by a charter school at Eastman Elementary  destroying books and computers  some 75 charter students moved into the auditorium and library of the main campus, straining resources and patience.

"It's just very unfair that the whole school basically has to accommodate the charter school," said Los Angeles Board of Education member Rocio Rivas last week about the situation at the East L.A. campus.

The tensions and competing needs of L.A. schools  especially more than 100 serving academically struggling, low-income students  were at the heart of a resolution approved by the school board Tuesday that limits where charters can rent on-campus classroom space from the district.

The action marks one of the most significant changes to local charter school policy since the state first required school systems to offer space to charters more than 20 years ago. On Tuesday, in the run-up to the vote, a senior attorney for the California Charter Schools Assn. threatened litigation to protect access to campuses.

Backers defended the legality of the resolution, noting that it instructs L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho to come back in 45 days with policy language vetted by district lawyers.

Charters enroll about one in five public school students within the L.A. school system.

The resolution and Tuesday's board discussion took on the question of what exactly is available space and who has a right to it, while also shaping the expected battleground for next year's school board elections.

Reflecting the tension over the issue, about 150 charter supporters gathered last week during a school board meeting to press their case.

"All public school students should be treated equally and deserve to learn in a decent classroom  period," said Myrna Castrejon, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. "That is what the law says."

Supporters say charters offer families high-quality, diverse schooling options and compel helpful competition.

Charter critics, including some school board members, have long said charters undermine district-run schools by siphoning off more motivated families and funding, and leaving behind students who are more challenging and expensive to educate.

The Los Angeles teachers union has fought to end all campus sharing and offered heavy campaign support for candidates who generally share its views.

Read more: $750,000 in overtime: How a group of LAUSD employees abused extra-pay practices

Within the nation's second-largest school system, 221 independent charters enroll more than 108,000 students, compared with about 420,000 students in district-run schools. Under state law, all public schools  traditionally managed or charter  have the right to use campuses built, owned and operated by the school district in their area. And the facilities provided for charters must be "reasonably equivalent" to those of nearby district-run schools.

When the state required districts to share classrooms, years of lawsuits ensued in Los Angeles over the meaning of the words reasonably equivalent. That debate continued Tuesday, as board members questioned which rooms at a campus had to be ceded to charters.

What has evolved in L.A. is a complex, arduous annual process. Every year, all L.A. Unified principals must inventory available space and justify what would not be available to a charter. Charters in need of space must submit an application by Nov. 1. Charter space requests are typically settled by the end of the following May.

Rivas co-authored the hotly debated resolution with Board President Jackie Goldberg , who cited a litany of harms when campuses have to offer up classrooms that are not used for full-time instruction.

"We are saying to that school that the room your staff was using to work with deaf students to do speech therapy is no longer available," Goldberg said last week. "... So go find a corner of your auditorium or, as one of my schools does, find a space on the stairwell in between the first and second floor and have your work with disabled students done ... there."

Board member Nick Melvoin, who is supportive of charters, said that charters and host schools sometimes get along fine and benefit from working together. He added: "LAUSD in 2023 has enough space for every public school student."

Goldberg and Rivas each have said they respect the work of charter educators and enrollment choices that parents make. But Rivas in particular has cast charter backers as trying to destroy public education by "privatizing" it. The charter industry, she said, has been "taken over by charter school management organizations, huge industries that are profiting."

The resolution prohibits charters from moving onto campuses deemed especially vulnerable to harm by disruption.

Read more: Where to get a low-cost bachelors degree close to home and a job lead: Community college

These off-limits campuses would include 100 "priority" schools  designated because students have comparatively low academic achievement and also reside in a community with high poverty and other challenges, such as homelessness, high crime rates and poor health.

Also off limits would be campuses that are part of the district's Black Student Achievement Plan  because Black students at these schools are considered in need of extra support.

"Community schools"  which have special services designed to address the broad needs of children and their families, while also providing families more voice in how a school uses its resources  are also included in the resolution.

About 80% of 50 campuses currently hosting charters fall into these categories, but district staff said about 350 campuses  about one-third of the district  could become exempt from future sharing. That would have a ripple effect of impact on still-eligible campuses.

Before the final vote, Goldberg amended her resolution in an effort to allow all campuses to make more rooms unavailable to charters.

No charter would be forced to move immediately. But if the charter needs more space or makes a "material revision" to its founding or operating documents, it could be barred from all protected campuses. For instance, a charter could have to move out if it decided to add a new grade or increase enrollment. Also, if the host school qualified for more space  and the charter had to move for that reason  its options would be limited by the new rules.

The off-limits campuses share a relevant common characteristic: They set aside more space for extra services, such as providing full-time rooms for speech therapists, tutoring, family counseling or special academic programs such as robotics. Unprotected campuses typically have fewer special services and also might have to squeeze in such services into fewer and smaller spaces.

It is no coincidence that a resolution to limit campus sharing is arriving at this moment, said board member George McKenna, "because this is the first time since I've been on this board ... we've had a non-charter-school majority."

The current board majority is less politically beholden to campaign donations from charter supporters, he added.

McKenna and Goldberg  who won office with support from the teachers union  are not running for reelection. That means future charter school policy will be at stake next year in school board elections that are typically the most high-spending in the nation.

Voting for the resolution were Goldberg, Rivas, McKenna and Scott Schmerelson. Voting against it were Melvoin and Tanya Ortiz Franklin. Kelly Gonez abstained.

The unpopularity of campus sharing has, over time, influenced charters to seek their own locations. Eight years ago, 101 charters requested space. This year, there are 52 sharing arrangements on 50 sites.

Read more: Newsom bars school book bans: LGBTQ+ textbook bill signed into law amid growing culture wars

Accommodating the charter left the Eastman library and auditorium suddenly unavailable, meaning that students could not check out books, said teacher Antonia Montes. Students were unable to use the auditorium for a music and dance program.

Extera Public Schools uses two buildings on the 5-acre Eastman campus. Its focus is to provide hands-on learning to students of East L.A. and Boyle Heights through learning about sustainability and environmental science, including topics related to local resources such as the L.A. River, said Nicole Ann Duquette, Extera's interim chief executive.

Like other charter operators, she's concerned about potentially subjective and ambiguous language in the resolution. The resolution calls for ending campus sharing when it would "compromise District schools capacity to serve neighborhood children, and/or result in grade-span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines."

Duquette has a different narrative on events at Eastman. She said the charter was displaced because the district had been unable to complete repairs on the rooftop HVAC system before the start of school, essentially leaving the area exposed. She also praised the response from the district and host school once the mishap happened.

"We didn't want to be in the library or the auditorium either, trust me, but we literally had no classrooms to go into," Duquette said. This week, the charter resumed use of some rooms while repairs continue in others. The charter also moved into two classroom spaces in the main building that are not used all the time to free up the library and auditorium.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Citizens Property Insurance is set to hold its Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday.

It comes as the provider nears hitting 1.4 million policies.

Citizens has seen massive growth in recent years, as private insurers have left Florida or raised their rates.

Watch: Citizens customers could see costly policy switch if they miss this important letter

The number of policies for Citizens has nearly doubled in the last two years and almost tripled since 20-20.

Channel 9 has a crew working to gather more information on the meeting and will provide updates on Eyewitness News.

Watch: Insurance rent hike could impact millions of homeowners across the county

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty during a visit to the Swaminarayan Akshardham Hindu temple in Delhi

Wealthy Indian families living in Britain stand to inherit fortunes tax-free thanks to a loophole dating back to colonial times.

After India gained independence in 1947, an agreement was struck to ensure British and Indian citizens living in either country did not end up paying death duties twice.

But the treaty has remained in place, even after inheritance tax was abolished in India more than three decades ago. And tax lawyers suggest the technicality could possibly save Rishi Sunak s family hundreds of millions of pounds.

It comes as the Prime Minister is facing pressure to abolish inheritance tax in Britain after calls from The Telegraph and more than 50 Tory MPs to put an end to the death duty.

Mr Sunak is reportedly considering cutting the levy in the March Budget and might commit to scrapping it entirely in the party manifesto ahead of the next General Election.

Inheritance tax in Britain is increasingly falling upon more and more ordinary, middle class families, thanks to a deep freeze on allowances and a boom in property prices over the past decade.

This month, Conservative MPs said increasing the threshold to 1m could win the party the next election.

Defence secretary Grant Shapps this week said: People know that theres something deeply unfair about being taxed all their lives and then being taxed in death as well.

Akshata Murty , Mr Sunaks wife, is the daughter of N.R Narayana Murty, the multi-billionaire founder of the Indian IT giant Infosys.

Mr Murty has an estimated net worth of $4.1bn (3.3bn), according to Forbes. Ms Murty owns a 0.93pc share of Infosys, according to the companys latest filings, which is estimated to be worth around 600m.

However, her estate may not be liable to pay an inheritance tax bill on assets held in India  potentially saving the family 240m on the shares alone.

Christopher Thorpe, of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said that while the treaty did not just benefit very wealthy families, Mr Sunaks family could save hundreds of millions of pounds because of the rule, adding: It is a loophole from an old treaty that was signed before all the rules changed.

Inheritance tax is levied at 40pc on wealth over the 325,000 threshold. Individuals have an extra 175,000 allowance towards their main residence if it is passed to direct descendants.

The threshold has remained at 325,000 since 2009 and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has frozen it until 2028, in a move that is expected to drag thousands of more families into paying the levy.

The Government collected 7.1bn in death duties last year. It is forecast to hit 8.4bn by 2028, according to official projections.

Ms Murty also may not have to pay inheritance tax on whatever her billionaire father chooses to leave her if he is domiciled in India, experts have said.

Sean McCann, of the advice firm NFU Mutual, said: In the UK, inheritance tax is charged on the estate of the deceased, rather than the recipient, so Akshata Murty would not face a charge on any inheritance she receives from her fathers estate.

Recommended

The little-known inheritance tax loopholes that can lower your bill by thousands

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Columbia County Sheriffs Office is looking for a missing teen, Makayla Pollard.

She was last seen wearing a Florida Gator camo hoodie, black Crocs, Under Armor socks, and black shorts.

Read: Believing in God for a miracle: Palatka teen struck by lightning while hunting with her dad

She is 55 and 150 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Read: 6-year-old child dead and two other people injured after shooting in Lackawanna

Anyone who knows her whereabouts is asked to contact Detective Cortese at (386) 719-7450 or Dispatch at (386) 719-2005.

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Read: Church youth group leader and former childrens nurse accused of sexual battery, JSO report said

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Correction: This story has been corrected to note that the mayor has nominated a police chief candidate. The council will decide whether to approve the mayors nomination in two weeks.

A familiar face could soon take over as the new full-time police chief of the Columbus Police Department.

Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson nominated current interim police chief Stoney Mathis as the citys next full-time chief during a council meeting Tuesday evening. The council will vote on the appointment in two weeks.

Mathis was hired as the interim chief in May after the council pushed out former chief Freddie Blackmon. Blackmon, whose attorneys threatened to sue the city for racial discrimination, ultimately accepted a $400,000 severance package.

A private study of the CPD under Blackmon raised concerns about low morale, staffing shortages and micromanagement, among other issues. Blackmon, the citys second Black police chief, was also criticized by the Columbus Fraternal Order of Police.

Blackmons supporters said his dismissal was racially motivated.

Mathis has held the position of police chief at the Chattahoochee Hills Police Department and the Fairburn Police Department.

Mathis, a former linebacker and defensive end for Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, started his career with the Monroe (Georgia) Police Department in 1993 before moving to the Henry County Police Department in 1995.

While at Henry County, Mathis became a captain in 2002 and ran a drug task force, was promoted to major in 2005 and was assistant chief in 2010, according to his biography on the Fairburn police website.

Mathis was appointed chief of the Chattahoochee Hills Police Department in 2016 and went to Fairburn in 2018, according to Ledger-Enquirer reporting.

During his tenure as the police chief in Fairburn from 2018-22 the city saw a 52% reduction in its crime rate, according to Henderson.

What are Mathis goals?

Im going to come in and raise the level of morale, thats my goal, Mathis said at a news conference during his first few days as interim police chief. Build relationships with the community, thats my second goal.... My management style is I manage by walking around.

Since then Mathis has installed multiple new changes to help boost morale within the department.

Mathis recently released his plan of cutting 44 positions from the budgeted amount of around 480 to provide a $5,000 pay raise to each 911 dispatcher and police officer.

Mathis has also made small changes  like getting rid of suspensions for running over curbs in a patrol car or being more than 20 minutes late to work  and is allowing officers to wear hats to boost morale within the department.

My goal when I first came here was to eliminate everyone leaving, Mathis told the Ledger-Enquirer. You cant make them stay, but what you can do is you can make the work environment so enticing that people feel like theyre part of a family and they dont want to leave.

Why does Mathis want the job?

When Mathis first took the job, he said he had no intentions of becoming the full-time chief of the department. What changed his mind?

I think that I have the aptitude and the personality to continue to make this place better; thats the only reason Ive applied, Mathis said.

Mathis said he didnt want someone new coming in and changing things when the department had gained some positive momentum.

Its an opportunity for me to come into this organization and just help these police officers out, get them back up on their feet, get them where theyre back proud of the police department, proud of the job that theyre doing, show the community that we really do have an opportunity to reduce the crime rate, build the relationships with the community, and this can all be done very quickly, Mathis said.
Darrell Rodgers, 24, right, turns to look at his family sitting in the gallery of a Franklin County Common Pleas courtroom after he was sentenced Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, to at least 45 years in prison for raping and robbing a woman in 2019 near the Ohio State University campus. His family cried out from the gallery after the sentence was issued.

A Franklin County judge said that Darrell Rodgers has shown no remorse for raping and robbing a woman near Ohio State University's campus in 2019 while threatening her with a BB gun as if it were a real handgun.

Common Pleas Judge Andria Noble sentenced 24-year-old Rodgers on Wednesday to an indefinite prison term of 45 years to 48 1/2 years.

Rodgers has been in jail for more than four years, which will count toward the prison time he must serve. When he is released, Rodgers will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Thomas Vaccaro asked Noble Wednesday to sentence Rodgers to the maximum sentence of 74 years in prison.

"He's still maintaining that this woman approached him because he was cute and offered to have sex with him," Vaccaro said in court.

Rodgers was convicted by a jury earlier this month of multiple counts of rape and robbery and one count of kidnapping. The woman he assaulted testified at Rodgers' trial.

The victim was 24 years old when Rodgers approached her on Aug. 17, 2019, on West 9th Avenue near North High Street, south of Ohio State University's campus. According to the woman, Rodgers put the gun in her face, demanded she hand over her belongings and for her to perform sexual acts with him.

After the assault, the woman called 911 around 5 a.m. Rodgers was arrested by Columbus police near the crime scene after a brief foot chase.

At Wednesday's sentencing hearing, the woman said through tears that she still can't walk down the street without frequently checking behind her and that she struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"All I can do is make sure he never hurts anyone else like he did me," she said. "I hope he finds help."

Rodgers apologized to the woman during the sentencing hearing for what happened to her, but said he was not the perpetrator.

"It's not me, judge," Rodgers said.

As Noble delivered her sentence in court, Rodgers' family cried out from the front row of the courtroom gallery.

Rodgers intends to appeal his case.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Man sentenced to prison for 2019 rape, robbery near OSU's campus
Columbus police have identified a man who died in a stabbing in North Linden earlier this week.

Columbus police have identified a man who died in a stabbing in North Linden earlier this week, and announced the arrest of a suspect in another unrelated homicide.

Officers were called around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday on report of a stabbing in the 1200 block of Manchester Avenue. Once at the scene, officers found Joseph Higgins, 39, suffering from a stab wound.

Higgins was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:41 p.m.

Columbus police also arrested a man Wednesday charged in connection with an August murder on the Northeast side.

Charles Flemming, 18, was arrested by officers with the U.S. Marshals Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team (SOFAST) on murder charges related to the death of 21-year-old Chrishon Fisher.

At 3:20 a.m. Aug. 5, Columbus police officers were called to the 2400 block of Marcia Drive on a report of a shooting.

Officers found Fisher suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Medics pronounced Fisher dead at 3:31 a.m.

It is still unclear what led up to the shooting, and the incident is under investigation. Homicide detectives are also still seeking to identify a second suspect believed to be involved.

Anyone with information regarding either of these incidents is asked to call the Columbus police Homicide Unit at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.

shendrix@dispatch.com

@sheridan120

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus stabbing victim identified; arrest made in fatal shooting
Special counsel Jack Smith preparing to speak about Donald Trump 's indictment in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Its been clear for some time that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will jail Donald Trump for contempt or impose other severe penalties for his behavior only if he leaves her no choice. Based on the former presidents response to the Justice Departments motion for a limited gag order in the Jan. 6 case, it seems thats exactly what Trump is aiming to do.

Trump is answering the insurrection-related charges in two arenas, legal and political. His big bet is on the political side: that he can win the presidency, quash the two federal indictments against him and at least keep the state prosecutions at bay as long as he is in office.

Its an unprecedented strategy and a terrifying one for the country. Its also understandable in light of the overwhelming evidence against him, which makes outright acquittal highly unlikely.

On the legal side, until this week, Trumps lawyers have served up lousy but largely conventional arguments before Chutkan and the judges presiding over his three other indictments. Trumps latest filing, by stark contrast, abandons any pretense of a coherent attempt to persuade Chutkan not to impose a gag order.

Read more: Litman: Here's Trump's outlandish and dangerous plan to beat the classified documents case

The motion for a limited gag order by special counsel Jack Smiths team recited a litany of incendiary claims by the former president. Trump has disparaged the court, the prosecution and the prosecutors; threatened to pollute the jury pool; and heightened the risk of attacks on prospective witnesses and court personnel. Indeed, Chutkan herself was the object of an ominous threat by a Texas woman who called her chambers and warned, If Trump doesnt get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.

Any other defendant who behaved as Trump has would have had the conditions of bail revoked and found himself awaiting trial in jail. That hasnt happened in this case  and probably wont for as long as the court can forestall it  only because everyone involved recognizes the grave implications of incarcerating the probable Republican nominee for president.

Having set out this alarming body of evidence, federal prosecutors requested a narrowly tailored gag order essentially directing Trump not to trash the process and intimidate prospective witnesses.

Trumps response Monday was a screed that makes sense only in the context of his broader political strategy.

Read more: Litman: Why Trump's outlandish legal maneuvers are backfiring with the federal judge in the Jan. 6 case

The brief denigrates the Justice Departments motion as an obvious attempt by the Biden administration to unlawfully silence its most prominent political opponent. Elsewhere, Trumps lawyers write that being keenly aware that it is losing the coming presidential election, the prosecution seeks to unconstitutionally silence President Trumps (but not President Bidens) political speech on pain of contempt.

It is the repeated insistence that the effort to impose a limited gag order comes from the Biden administration  the brief contains no fewer than nine references to Biden and his government  that is the tell. Its sheer demagoguery for the benefit of Trumps political base to assert that the criminal charges against him are the result of a political command by the president. Any half-sophisticated observer knows its a lie. The barrier between Biden and Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland is only reinforced by the separation between Garland and Smith, who has a broad measure of independence from the department.

Trumps stance is less likely to convince Chutkan than to provoke her. In her first hearing in the case, the judge admonished the parties that she would not let her decisions be influenced by the election.

Read more: Litman: Three takeaways from the most important Trump indictment yet

By substituting political rhetoric for legal substance and relying on patently false characterizations, Trump is doubtless reducing his prospects for defeating the Justice Departments motion, which is grounded in law and Trumps own impropriety. He is evidently happy to increase the odds of a gag order. It would serve his political strategy of posing as a messianic martyr doing battle with the deep state for the sake of his supporters retribution.

I expect Chutkan to impose some form of limited gag order on Trump; the record supporting it is too strong to ignore. It may even be accompanied by a tongue-lashing of the former president. Her goal will be to save room for intermediate forms of discipline that keep Trump in line and stave off lowering the ultimate boom and putting him in jail.

But regardless of how much leeway she leaves herself and the defendant, Trump may be determined to force the judges hand. Mondays filing suggests thats where this is heading.

Harry Litman is the host of the Talking Feds podcast. @harrylitman





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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A syringe of ivermectin that's intended for use in horses only. Promotion of the drug as a COVID-19 treatment prompted thousands of Americans to try the veterinary preparation  but a human version didn't work against COVID either. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)

To anyone who has paid even a modicum of serious attention to COVID-19 and its treatment, ivermectin is the zombiest of zombie drugs.

Used to treat parasitic diseases in animals and humans, the drug became a darling of anti-vaccination activists and conspiracy-mongers, who pushed it as a treatment for the pandemic disease and claimed it was being suppressed by Big Pharma, among other sinister forces.

Contrary to its continued promotion by quacks such as Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, the drug has been conclusively shown to be utterly useless against COVID.

You are not a horse. Stop it with the #ivermectin. It's not authorized for treating #COVID.

Food and Drug Administration counsels against a useless COVID treatment

One would have hoped that hard scientific evidence and a stern advisory by the Food and Drug Administration against its use would have been enough to kill the ivermectin craze, but it lives on. Last year, three doctors sued the FDA, claiming that its public warning harmed their practices and cost them their jobs at hospitals and medical schools.

A few months later, a federal judge in Galveston threw out their case, ruling in effect that they didn't come close to having a leg to stand on. That should have been an end to it. But earlier this month, the case was revived by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which takes cases from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and is, by many measures, the hackiest of hack-ridden federal courts.

The three judges hearing this appeal  two appointed by George W. Bush and one (the opinion's author) by Donald Trump  found that the FDA had exceeded its authority in advising against the use of ivermectin against COVID. "The FDA can inform," the court said, "but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers 'stop' taking medicine." (Emphasis in the original.)

That's absurd, says Dorit Rubinstein Reiss , an expert on vaccine policy at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and the author of a withering analysis of the 5th Circuit opinion.

The FDA's job, Reiss told me, is to "balance the need for treatment with safety concerns. If the FDA can't translate what it's finding into plain language  'do this, don't do that'  then it can't do its job. That undermines the whole regulatory scheme."

More on that in a moment. First, some context.

Undermining the FDA's authority has been a right-wing project for years. That's because the agency's duty is to stand in the way of businesses desiring to push unsafe and ineffective nostrums at unwary consumers, and also in the way of a perverse idea that personal freedom includes the freedom to be gulled by charlatans.

Read more: Column: How right-wing judges in Texas are erasing Americans' rights everywhere

This campaign got pumped up during the Trump administration. Trump in 2018 signed a federal "right-to-try" law that masqueraded as a compassionate path giving sufferers of intractable, incurable diseases access to experimental treatments. In fact, as I wrote, it was a cynical ploy backed by the Koch brothers' network aimed at emasculating the FDA in a way that would undermine public health.

Trump subsequently browbeat his maladroit FDA chairman, Stephen Hahn, into issuing an emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients. Like ivermectin, that was another utterly ineffective treatment.

In announcing his decision while Trump stood glaring at him, Hahn grossly misrepresented the results of a medical trial conducted by the Mayo Clinic, which failed to demonstrate any effectiveness for the treatment. In the run-up to the announcement, Trump issued a tweet accusing "the deep state ... at the FDA" of deliberately delaying effective COVID treatments until after the upcoming Nov. 3, 2020, election, which Trump lost. Hahn didn't respond to that frontal attack on his agency's integrity.

The FDA is under more solid management now, but the malign influence of judges Trump installed in the federal judiciary lives on. That brings us to the 5th Circuit, on which 12 of the 16 currently active judges were appointed by Republican presidents  six by Trump.

The court has received appeals of some of the loopiest district court rulings of recent memory, largely because conservative litigants in Texas have the ability to hand-pick judges who see things their way.

Among the recent rulings those judges have issued that swear at precedent and common sense are those outlawing the use of the medication mifepristone for abortion (another case aimed at undermining FDA authority) and barring agencies of the federal government from communicating with social media companies, which was brought by right-wing litigants hoping to hobble the government's battle against medical misinformation.

The 5th Circuit judges have frequently matched the district court rulings they're reviewing with loopy opinions of their own.

Trump appointee James Ho issued a partial concurrence in the mifepristone case in which he asserted that an "unborn child" was "killed by mifepristone," and justified outlawing use of the drug by stating that "unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them. Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients  and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted."

Read more: Column: How the FDA's lousy judgment and a greedy drug company combined to hit Medicare members hard

(The court narrowed the FDA's authority to approve the drug, but its ruling is under review by the Supreme Court.)

In a 2019 case, a three-judge panel voted 2-1 to find that a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, and possibly the entire law, was unconstitutional. In her concurrence, Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee in the majority, approvingly repeated a right-wing congressman's claim that the act was "a fraud on the American people."

The 5th Circuit judges combine their clownish approach to the law with a clownish confusion over the federal rules of procedure they are bound to apply. As recently as Tuesday, the appeals court had to withdraw an order it had issued the day before, granting red state plaintiffs a rehearing in the case involving government contacts with social media companies.

The court had originally allowed four government agencies to continue interacting with the companies; the red states wanted the judges to withdraw their permission. But the court's granting of a rehearing so flagrantly violated procedural rules governing cases, like this one, that are already under consideration by the Supreme Court, that it had to immediately backtrack. (The circuit's clerk of the court obligingly accepted the blame, attributing Monday's grant to a "clerical error."

The judges who made this blunder  Elrod, Edith Brown Clement and Don R. Willett  are the same ones who ruled in the ivermectin case. Let's take another gander at that ruling.

Reiss terms the ruling "problematic on legal and policy grounds" by "undercutting the FDAs ability to offer expertise-based guidance about products they regulate."

The judges were particularly exercised by an FDA Twitter campaign that aimed to dissuade consumers from taking the veterinary preparation of ivermectin commonly administered to horses.

Read more: Column: After the FDA delayed enforcement against stem cell clinics, unlicensed operators poured in

"You are not a horse," the agency tweeted. "Stop it with the #ivermectin. It's not authorized for treating #COVID." The agency also issued a general warning headlined "Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19," explaining that the drug has not been shown to be effective for the purpose and is dangerous in high doses.

The three plaintiff doctors  one from Virginia, one from Texas, and one practicing in Washington and Arizona  had lost their hospital privileges or other professional positions for promoting the drug. The latter plaintiff is under investigation by medical regulators in the two states where he's licensed. All three blamed the FDA. All three promoted the human version.

The 5th Circuit judges agreed that even though the agency pointed out that it has no power to order patients to do or not do anything and no authority over physicians  who have the legal right to prescribe medications approved by the FDA for "off-label" uses  it had exceeded its authority by using "imperative" language (i.e., "Stop it") instead of merely declaring that the drug wasn't approved for COVID.

Yet as Reiss points out, the FDA frequently couches its advisories in such straightforward terms, and has done so virtually since its creation in its present form in 1930. The agency's warning against unproven stem cell treatments  a dark and dangerous hive of medical charlatans  advises patients, "Don't believe the hype" and adds that it's "increasing its oversight and enforcement to protect people from dishonest and unscrupulous stem cell clinics."

Carrying the 5th Circuit's ruling to its logical extreme, the agency's stem cell warning would exacerbate the vulnerability of disease sufferers to quacks hawking expensive and ineffective treatments.

Thanks to its promotion by anti-vaxxers and conspiracy-mongers, ivermectin prescriptions in the U.S. spiked to 88,000 in mid-August 2021 from 3,600 per week prior to the pandemic, despite a lack of any evidence that it is useful against COVID. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Despite the judges' contention that it has no authority to offer recommendations to the public, Reiss notes that such authority is actually embedded in federal law, which gives the FDA the right to undertake "collecting, reporting, and illustrating the results of [its] investigations."

"That certainly seems to include conclusions based on the data collected," Reiss wrote: "Reporting on the result of an investigation that showed ivermectin is not effective for COVID-19 would naturally include a comment that it should not be used."

In any event, there's no case to be made that the FDA warnings caused the doctors' professional troubles. Several professional organizations have warned of the ineffectiveness of ivermectin for COVID, including the American Medical Assn. No medical board needed the FDA to tell it that doctors prescribing this modern snake oil deserved scrutiny.

It's possible that the appellate judges themselves had an inkling that they were on thin ice in their ruling. They didn't rule conclusively that the FDA was wrong, but rather sent the case back to the trial court judge for further pondering on technical grounds, such as whether the FDA's advisories amount to "final agency actions" subject to court review or whether the doctors even had standing to bring the lawsuit in the first case.

"They seem to be trying to hedge," Reiss says. On the other hand, they didn't dismiss the case outright, as they should have. The judges cast a shadow over the FDA, at a time when its crucial, lifesaving campaign against medical misinformation doesn't need any more head winds.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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This is the first in a series of articles investigating life under the rule of condominium and homeowners associations in Florida.

First, he had a whiff of suspicion.

Simon Sherman, a retired university professor, started wondering about how money was being spent by the association at his oceanfront condo in Hallandale Beach.

Now, his quest for accountability is careening toward financial ruin. Hes accused of defaming condo board members. The association says Sherman engaged in a damaging smear campaign even after his suspicions of wrongdoing were disproven.

They have money, they have power, they have attorneys, Sherman, a Russian immigrant, said from his Parker Plaza Estates condo. I didnt recognize that it could happen in the United States.

A months-long investigation by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found that condo and homeowner associations regularly use Floridas defamation laws to silence critics. The laws were written to allow a victim to recover financial damages from someone who spreads lies about them and harms their reputation.

Were it City Hall, a critics accusations would carry some free-speech protections, allowing citizens to act as watchdogs of public spending and decision-making. But under the shadow government of a condominium or homeowner association, residents who suspect wrongdoing speak up at their own peril.

Sherman and his wife, Lyuba, are among the millions of Floridians  nearly half the states population  living under community association rule. One attorney called it a sub-democratic society. In this sub-America, the laws favor the few who sit on association boards.

Sun Sentinel reporters interviewed attorneys, legislators, association board members and activists, and examined court files, state complaint records and emails to regulators. The documents read like cries for help  yet help rarely materializes. But the lawsuits sometimes do.

Even critics acting in good faith can end up bullied into silence and stuck with a large legal tab.

Before Marglli Gallego, president of the board at the sprawling Hammocks Community Association, was arrested in April 2021 in a corruption case, she and the association filed defamation claims against three unit owners, saying their accusations that she stole money from the association hurt her reputation and caused police to investigate her. The association even sued two Miami-Dade Police Department detectives on the case, for defamation, for publicly accusing Gallego of theft during their investigation.

Gallego lost one case, settled another and a third was voluntarily dismissed. The case involving the detectives continues. Gallego, who is awaiting trial, pleaded not guilty to charges of grand theft and subsequent charges of money laundering, racketeering and organized fraud.

Before Ben Dvir, then-president of Blue on the Bay condo in Miami, was arrested and charged with grand theft, he sued a unit owner in his building for defamation. He called the man, who is a police officer, an owner with too much time on his hands that represents a thorn in the side of every condo board. Dvir also initially sued a consulting firm the officer had hired to investigate potential wrongdoing. The case against the unit owner, who Dvir said accused him of defrauding the association of money, continues.

Dvir was arrested Sept. 13, accused of embezzling $32,905. His arraignment, where he will enter a plea, is scheduled for Oct. 13.

A successful defamation suit in Florida must prove that the person negligently communicated false statements that hurt the victims reputation and caused damage. Slander is spoken defamation; libel is written. If it concerns a public official, the standard for winning a lawsuit is higher  the official has to prove the speaker had actual malice, either by knowingly spreading falsehoods, or showing reckless disregard for the truth. Association board members are not considered public officials, in the eyes of the law.

Although winning a defamation lawsuit is difficult, said University of Florida constitutional law Professor Lyrissa Lidsky, filing one is easy. That enables association boards to use the law as a weapon, she said.

You can cause a lot of pain with a lawsuit, Lidsky said, and defamation law lends itself to inflicting that kind of pain.

In South Florida, the heart of Floridas condominium society, residents have been sued for comments that legal experts said are specifically protected in Florida law  allegations contained in litigation, or statements of opinion, or communications to local government and the police, for example.

Very often [associations] get away with doing whatever the hell they want, said attorney Richard Lubliner, who has been involved with numerous association legal battles, including Shermans case. Because nobody has the money to stand up to them.

The lesson many activists take away is that condos and homeowner associations, or HOAs, are not a place for dissenters.

Its an uphill battle if youre an individual taking it on, said Shawn Brown, a Tampa-based attorney specializing in condominium law. Conformity is more or less mandated in an association.

Charles Moerdler, a unit owner in the Parker Plaza Estates building where Simon Sherman is battling the board, has vast experience in defamation law, including as past general counsel for the New York Post. Moerdler said heated community association quarrels are endemic to Florida because retirement can breed boredom and a yearning for continued relevance.

When youve got nothing else to do, its something to do, Moerdler said.

Association wars have escalated since the Covid-19 pandemic, he believes, because the forced isolation sent retirees to their computers.

At 88, Moerdler is still working. He said hes advised Sherman  unsuccessfully  to stop the quarreling.

There is one truth Ive learned, Moerdler said. Any relationship involving home ownership is the second most difficult relationship that man has, close on the heels of matrimony.

Behind the facade

The high drama of condo-living that was famously parodied on the television sitcom Seinfeld is a reality in South Florida, where the shows creator, Larry David, got his inspiration. Davids father was the president of his condo association in Sunrise.

The cases reviewed by the Sun Sentinel carry similar themes: allegations that board members gave lucrative contracts to family members, took kickbacks from vendors, rigged board elections to defeat enemies and more. Wafting from the South Florida court files is widespread anger, passion, fear and disgust.

And behind those cases are people risking financial devastation.

One defamation lawsuit begins colorfully, with the sexy allure of Florida condo life: Nestled within a Iuscious seascape and nuzzled gently by soothing sea breeze, Sea Air Towers must have been named in a moment of reverent exhale.

Then it exposes a meltdown within the Hollywood condo, which is undergoing renovations: The new board sued four unit owners for allegations they made to the media, city inspectors and state officials. The board says the owners have feigned, forged, and fraudulently flung baseless allegations, rumors, innuendo, and lies. The unit owners argued that the lawsuit is an unlawful, frivolous attempt to shut them up in order to cover up mismanagement. The case is still pending.

What trivialities condo boards of yesteryear faced  complaints about splashing in the swimming pool, or the color of paint  have yielded to much more serious and costly priorities: preventing another disaster like the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside.

The tragedy, which killed 98 people, prompted more rigorous inspections and maintenance standards. The requirements led to dramatic and often unaffordable increases in fees and assessments that have inflamed confusion and distrust. Thousands of condos and HOA neighborhoods in South Florida are 50 years old or older.

At the Pointe South Condominium in Boca Raton, a former board member was sued for comments she made to the Sun Sentinel shortly after the Surfside collapse. She cast doubt on the structural integrity of her condo building, but the associations leadership said she was wrong. The case was settled in April.

In Broward County, there were 23 community association-related defamation lawsuits filed from 2020 to mid-2023, the Sun Sentinel found  about 13 percent of the 179 defamation cases filed in that time period. Two of the most recurrent provocations were negative online reviews and community association infighting, reporters found.

In one Miami-Dade County case that spanned three years, three residents of El Dorado Condominium in Aventura and the Diario Las Americas newspaper were sued by the condo association for libel after the residents participated in a news report about suspected mismanagement of funds. The attorney said the accusations were false and that the negative publicity caused property values to decline.

One ruling in that case underscores the difference between speaking out in a community association versus a City Hall.

Diario Las Americas claimed that the associations defamation suit was an illegal Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP suit. Florida has anti-SLAPP laws specifically intended to protect people who are speaking out on public issues. Florida law prohibits condo or HOA boards from spending association funds to engage in a SLAPP suit.

But Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Abby Cynamon disagreed with the newspapers argument, explaining in an August 2019 ruling that Floridas anti-SLAPP law does not apply, because in this condo case, no public issues are involved.

Judge Cynamon also noted that condo critics dont have the protections a person would have when criticizing a mayor or some other public figure. There is no case law in Florida that holds a condo board member can be considered a public or semi-public figure, the judge wrote.

The case is now closed. The newspaper agreed to a confidential settlement after mediation; one of the three residents was voluntarily dismissed, and then the case went inactive.

Tampa attorney Brown said defamation filings are an emerging trend used by both sides of disputes. Typically, theyre borne of a personal conflict between a board member and a resident. And sometimes its the resident  rather than the board  who files the defamation claim.

In one Broward case, a unit owner sued the board president for calling him a fat crybaby and rendering him persona non grata among his neighbors. One of the presidents defenses: The plaintiffs reputation is so dismal that any purported statements  could not have harmed it or made it worse.

In multiple cases reviewed by the Sun Sentinel, residents who were sued for speaking out agreed to be quiet, and issued public apologies or retractions. In a Boca Raton case surrounding a concrete restoration project, the residents promised to never do anything like this ever again. A Davie woman who was sued by her association apologized for speaking out about illegal and unethical activities, then was sued a second time when she sent neighbors another letter warning she was being retaliated against by the board.

In a Boca Raton case last year, unit owner Alison Landes was threatened by the Boca Lakes Condominium Associations attorney with costly mediation and a potential lawsuit if she didnt apologize to all the neighbors and cease from emailing anyone now or in the future, according to court files.

She had emailed neighbors suggesting that gatehouse work at the association was improper. Attorney Guy Shir told her shed violated the condo documents by committing a nuisance. Her association ultimately did sue her for defamation. Landes attorney argued she was being hit with an illegal SLAPP suit.

Under the demand in the letter, her attorney wrote in a court motion, she can never email another member about anything forever.

In mid-August, Landes filed a handwritten letter to the judge, saying shes 74, has health issues, is a caregiver for her sister, and was preparing to settle the case.

Shir also filed defamation lawsuits against four residents on behalf of the Boca Grand Condominium Association.

Among other things, the residents had questioned an association contract with the brother of one of the board members, alleging corruption, the lawsuit said. One of the statements that was described as defamatory was a residents claim that the board is not being transparent regarding Association general business. The lawsuits were voluntarily withdrawn months later. Shir said a new board decided to drop them.

Shir said he demands an apology, or evidence that the allegations are true, before moving ahead towards a lawsuit. He said lies are powerful, and cause harm.

You can ask any questions you want about anything a board does thats an agenda item, and nobody is doubting that, Shir said. When you start referring to actions as illegal, improper, questionable  to allege wrongdoing, thats when it becomes defamation.

Conspiracy theories spread

When Michael Perkins was president of Southwind Lakes Homeowner Association in Boca Raton, he initiated a libel lawsuit against a resident whod set up a website to criticize the board.

Perkins said his plan to build reserves and improve the community  which meant increasing its $35 monthly association fees  sparked revolt from the resident, O. Michael Gray.

Some neighbors latched on, he said, taking it all for truth.

The website was basically him tearing these guys apart and saying how inept they are and they were wasting everyones money, his son, Michael Gray, recalled.

Gray had the communitys best interests at heart, his son said.

In some cases, though, residents can indeed go too far.

You do have the owners out there who consistently disregard or confuse the truth with what they would like the truth to be, said Plantation attorney Joel McTague, who often represents associations. I think sometimes the board is justified [in suing].

Gray accused Perkins of committing crimes, including taking illegal kickbacks.

He crossed the line, Perkins said, and when he crossed the line, thats when we decided weve got to put a stop to this.

Grays lawyer argued it was a SLAPP suit. But Gray lost the suit when he failed to show up in court. The association was still pursuing him for damages when he died.

Freedom of speech?

For Simon Sherman, a retired biomedical informatics professor at the University of Nebraska, silence at Parker Plaza Estates would have been a betrayal of his values.

He and his family left Belarus in the former Soviet Union more than three decades ago, carrying two suitcases and $1,000 in cash.

They idealized Americas freedoms, especially the Constitutions protection of free speech from government interference. But a condo or homeowner association isnt the government  a limitation the Shermans were not expecting.

Though community association board members have similar responsibilities to govern and spend other peoples dollars, they rule over a private, non-profit organization, and can restrict speech.

The law is complex and evolving, lawyers said, but courts have ruled that a resident voluntarily agrees to abide by private restrictions in condos or HOA neighborhoods. The rules are laid out in the association master document  known as a declaration  and in the bylaws.

There is no freedom of speech within condos or HOAs per se, said attorney McTague. If someones looking for their rights, they should first examine the rules they agreed to live under, he said.

There is a Bill of Rights, he said. Its called the condo declaration or homeowner association declaration.

Sherman and more than a dozen allies in the 520-unit, oceanfront Hallandale Beach tower were suspicious about association money spent inside the units of some board members  part of a vast mold removal project. That part was true, everyone agreed in court filings. The board spent nearly $1 million removing mold from 192 condos after a contractors mistake.

Sherman alleged there were improprieties in the mold project  one of many accusations Sherman lobbed at board members and board member Michael Fagan. He claimed extra work was done in one of Fagans condo units. He called the city to report work being done on a community room without permits. He raised red flags about a $27 million loan the association took out for work to meet the states required 50-year maintenance certification.

His emailed accusations went to residents, realtors and more, the associations court filings recounted.

The associations attorneys said there was nothing improper about any of it and claimed Sherman was simply disgruntled after losing his reelection to the condo board.

Abusive attacks

Eventually, Fagan and the board decided theyd had enough of his accusations.

An August 2020 letter to Sherman from association attorney Matthew Maranges was painfully blunt.

Perhaps you  little more than a recalcitrant, gadfly condo commando  seek to restore some semblance of credibility after the Condominium community overwhelmingly rejected your bid to continue serving on the Associations Board, it read. But neither the Associations current hard-working, diligent Board of Directors, nor the Condominiums residents, should be embroiled in such delusions of grandeur.

Maranges footnoted William Shakespeares Macbeth, accusing Sherman of weaving a tale  full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The board carried through with its threat, suing Sherman in federal court for defamation, slander, trade libel, behaving as a private nuisance and interfering in business relationships. They accused him of infringing on an unregistered trademark because they claimed the email address he used, PPLoudSpeaker@gmail.com, made his emails appear to come from Parker Plaza.

They said he made frivolous requests for information that were cumbersome and a nuisance.

The associations current attorney on the case, Luis Konski, called Shermans actions harassment that caused delays to building repairs.

Sherman said in a court affidavit that he had engaged in protected speech to educate the members of the Association of what I believe, and have evidence to support, is substantial misconduct on the part of the Board.

The association also pursued Sherman in state court, saying he defamed Fagan in social media posts, mass emails and a lawsuit against the board.

Fagan, who owns four condos in Parker Plaza but lives in Plantation, declined to comment to the Sun Sentinel because of the ongoing litigation, but argued in one of the lawsuits that he did absolutely nothing wrong. He expressed pride in the tower where he grew up, designed by the late Morris Lapidus, the architect famous for designing glitzy Miami hotels, including the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. He volunteered his time on the board, the lawsuit says, and was subjected to Shermans unhinged and abusive attacks.

If I go quiet

Sherman and his allies were motivated by a prior controversy at Parker Plaza Estates, when a small group of owners brought down a corrupt administration.

In 2005, three retired professionals at the condo sifted through documents to ferret out a vast corruption scheme. Their probing led to the arrest of the condo president, building manager, a plumbing contractor and a maintenance supervisor on charges of engaging in a kickback plot. The condo president and plumbing contractor pled no contest, paid restitution and served probation. The building manager pled guilty and went to prison and the maintenance supervisor was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease and died without facing trial.

In Shermans case, he said he met with local police but nothing came of it. He used GoFundMe donations to hire an investigative firm, and it found no criminal wrongdoing, according to court filings. And two committees empaneled by the condo board investigated and found no impropriety.

Sherman said he has a following in the building and garnered 199 signatures in a failed attempt to recall board members. But most of the financial risk is his. Sherman sold a second unit he owned in the building for $415,000 to pay his legal bills. He hasnt tallied his expenses, he said, in part because he doesnt want to have to tell his wife, Lyuba, if she asks.

Plus, their oldest son gave him advice.

My son told me, he said, Father, you must not think about money, or youll lose all your cases, Sherman recalled.   You are right, and you will win. 

But Sherman isnt winning.

The two defamation cases against him are ongoing. And Sherman and 13 neighbors recently lost a lawsuit they filed against the condo association about alleged financial and election improprieties.

The lawsuit is a so-called derivative action, filed on behalf of the entire association. But Florida law allows the courts to dismiss such a lawsuit if an independent committee acting in good faith and conducting a reasonable investigation determines that the lawsuit is not in the condo associations best interests. The accused condo board is allowed under Florida law to choose its own independent committee, a setup Sherman says is unfair.

The committee empaneled by Parker Plaza Estates consisted of two people, including one of the accused board members. It concluded that the lawsuit should be dismissed and, in July, Broward Chief Judge Jack Tuter agreed. The case was not appealed.

In an email to residents, the condo board vowed to recoup more than $150,000 in legal fees from Shermans side.

On a recent afternoon, Sherman sat in his marble-floored condo on the 14th floor, holding a stack of legal bills, condo documents and more, that are his daily homework. His balcony was sealed up for construction and loud machinery squealed and screeched.

Lyuba Sherman brought out a fresh raisin cake, and said shed seen a therapist to work through her emotions about their legal entanglement. She got a toy poodle, Teddy, to cheer her up.

Shermans attorney, who recently withdrew from the cases, said Sherman stands to lose more than $200,000  perhaps much more  if hes forced to pay legal fees in all three cases.

Its too late to turn back now, Sherman said. Hes in too deep financially to stop.

Shermans hands twisted as he described his predicament, like he was wringing the last drops of moisture from a rag.

They put me in a situation in which I cannot go quiet, because if I go quiet, he said, glancing toward the kitchen, where his wife was just out of hearing distance, I will lose everything.

If you have a tip or information to share about condo or homeowner association issues, you can email them to hoaemails@sunsentinel.com.

Reporters David Fleshler, Ron Hurtibise and Danica Jefferies contributed to this report.

Next in the investigation

Part 2: A South Florida homeowners association board ran its community like a racketeering enterprise, prosecutors say, threatening homeowners and embezzling millions. Is a new state law enough to stop this from happening again

Part 3: Living under a homeowner or condo association can drive some people to behavior that they would never otherwise contemplate  from corruption and fraud to assault and, even, murder

Part 4: The state agency charged with keeping condos honest is an overwhelmed, underfunded bureaucracy that regulates barbers, electrical contractors, hotels and veterinarians. Condo owners who suspect wrongdoing report long delays and frustrating encounters with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in Kornidzor, Syunik region, Armenia, Sept. 26, 2023. Thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh residents are fleeing their homes after Azerbaijans swift military operation to reclaim control of the breakaway region after a three-decade separatist conflict. | Stepan Poghosyan, Photolure Photo via Associated Press

An explosion at a fuel depot in Azerbaijan killed at least 68 people Tuesday. The explosion took place as hundreds of ethnic Armenians were trying to flee the country after a military offensive increased tensions in Azerbaijan.

The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, and according to The New York Times, the explosion produced a large fire near the regions capital of Stepanakert.

Why are people fleeing Azerbaijan for Armenia?

More than 28,000 people have fled the Nagorno-Karabakh region as tensions have risen in the area. That number represents about 23% of the regions population, according to The Associated Press.

A blockade between Azerbaijan and Armenia was lifted recently after being in place for 10 months, causing fears of reprisals between the military in Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian residents.

That shift in power has raised fears of ethnic cleansing in a region where decades of interethnic hatred have fueled wars, population shifts, and atrocities, the Times reported.

Related

I think were going to see the vast majority of people in Karabakh leaving for Armenia, said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, told AP. They are being told to integrate into Azerbaijan, a country that theyve never been part of, and most of them dont even speak the language and are being told to dismantle their local institutions. Thats an offer that most people in Karabakh will not accept.

Whats the history of the conflict in Azerbaijan and Armenians?

Heres a quick timeline about what has been going on in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to The Washington Post.

1992  After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought in a brutal war to obtain control of the contested region.

1994  A cease-fire was declared, leaving Armenia in control of the region that was still internationally recognized to be within the borders of Azerbaijan.

2020  Azerbaijan recaptures areas of Nagorno-Karabakh.

December 2022  Azerbaijan began to stem the flow of people and goods through the Lachin Corridor  a road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

Sept. 19, 2023  Azerbaijan launched its lightning-quick offensive it called an anti-terrorist operation.

Sept. 20, 2023  Nagorno-Karabakhs military agreed to disarmament, with Azerbaijans Defense Ministry claiming victory.

Present  the fate of ethnic Armenian residents in the area remains unclear, with thousands fleeing the region out of concerns of retribution.

I gave my whole life to my homeland, one Armenian man told BBC. It would be better if they killed me than this.

Related
Election fraud conspiracy theorist and pillow salesman Mike Lindell says that his company has been crippled after his credit line was cut from $1m to $100,000 by American Express.

The founder of MyPillow said his companys credit had been cut last week out of the blue after 15 years of carrying out online marketing and shipping through the financial services organisation.

Mr Lindell was previously forced to auction off more than 800 items, including personal possessions and equipment from his MyPillow factories, after retailers cut ties with him.

Companies including Bed, Bath, and Beyond; Kohls; QVC; JCPenny; and Wayfair have also reportedly refused to stock his pillows because of his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen.

Speaking on Steve Bannons War Room podcast, Mr Lindell announced what he called American Expresss disgusting decision to cut his credit and urged the public to help.

We really need everybodys help right now, we have two things going on. Im gonna let you all know this week, he said.

One of the things Ill give you a prelude, American Express. I wasnt gonna say this.

Weve been with them for 15 years and we do all of our online marketing and all our shipping with them. Out of the blue. They took our credit line from a million dollars down to 100,000  just crippled my pillow.

No reason, no explanation, just dropped it down last Tuesday. And this, coupled with another  youre gonna hear tomorrow, what this other company is doing  an all out attack on my pillow.

Its disgusting Steve, it really is.

Private bank Coutts decided to close Nigel Farages bank account (PA Wire)

The Independent has contacted American Express for comment.

The claim comes following a recent row in the UK between Coutts Bank and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who alleged that the wealth management company had closed his accounts due to his political views.

Mr Farage previously said he hoped to build a powerful lobby group to oppose de-banking, and launched a website to campaign on behalf of people whose accounts have been shut.

Last week an investigation, launched in August by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), found that there was no evidence of banks denying politicians access to accounts over the last year due to political leanings.

The regulator said the evidence it had gathered suggests that no firm closed an account between July 2022 and June 2023 primarily because of a customers political views.

In a statement, a spokesperson for American Express told The Independent: We cant comment on specific customer accounts or applications, but I can tell you that American Express does not make customer decisions based on personal views or political affiliations.
Bottles of prescription painkiller OxyContin made by Purdue Pharma LP sit on a shelf at a local pharmacy in Provo

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -Consulting firm McKinsey & Co has agreed to pay $230 million to resolve lawsuits by hundreds of U.S. local governments and school districts alleging it fueled an epidemic of opioid addiction through its work for bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other drug companies.

The settlements, which require a judge's approval, were disclosed in papers filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco. The money is on top of $641.5 million that McKinsey already paid to resolve claims by state attorneys-general.

McKinsey will pay $207 million to resolve claims by counties and municipalities, and another $23 million to resolve claims by public school districts. McKinsey had previously said it had agreed to resolve the cases but had not disclosed for how much.

Aelish Baig, a lawyer for the local governments, in a statement called the deal "a strong outcome for the communities harmed by this crisis".

McKinsey has not admitted wrongdoing. In a statement, the firm said it continued to believe its past work was lawful. It also noted it had committed in 2019 to no longer advise clients on any opioid-related business.

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed by states, local governments and Native American tribes accusing drug companies of downplaying the risks of opioid painkillers, and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring red flags that they were being trafficked illegally.

The litigation has resulted in more than $51 billion in settlements, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs, with deals already struck with major drugmakers and the nation's largest distributors.

The lawsuits accused McKinsey, one of the leading global consulting firms, of contributing to the deadly drug crisis by helping drug manufacturers including Purdue Pharma design deceptive marketing plans and boost sales of painkillers.

Nearly 645,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving opioids, both prescription and illicit, from 1999 to 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month agreed to hear a challenge by President Joe Biden's administration to Purdue Pharma's multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy settlement resolving related claims against the drugmaker.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Miral Fahmy)
China's marine protection creates job opportunities, ensuring people's rights to sustainable development

09:09, September 27, 2023 By Xu Yelu ( Global Times

This aerial photo taken on July 17, 2023 shows the view of a marine farm in Jianggezhuang Township, Laoting County, north China's Hebei Province. Laoting County has been actively developing marine farming in an effort to enrich seafood supply while mitigating intensity of inshore fishing and maintaining ecological balance in the oceanic environment.(Photo: Xinhua)

As the international seminar themed "Environment, Development and Human Rights: Marine Ecological Protection in the Process of Modernization" was held on Tuesday, experts say that China has set a benchmark for the world to achieve modernization through sustainable development.

More than 150 envoys and representatives of international organizations from more than 20 countries, including China, the UK, Italy, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Mauritius, as well as experts and scholars from relevant think tanks, universities and research institutions attended the seminar.

During the seminar, Wang Antao, director of the Department of International Cooperation of Ministry of Natural Resources, said that the high-quality development of China's marine economy has created a large number of job opportunities and sources of income, effectively protecting people's rights to subsistence and development. China has made solid progress in building a marine ecological civilization, and adopted a series of measures to effectively protect citizens' environmental rights, Wang noted.

Before the seminar, 15 foreign delegates from more than 10 countries visited Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, to experience the marine endowments and natural resources through field visits and in-depth exchanges, and learn about China's experience in marine ecological protection and high-quality development of the marine economy.

Since the beginning of this year, Qingdao has comprehensively promoted the construction of "five centers" as a leading modern marine city, and promoted the city's marine economy to continuously move forward toward high-quality development. In the first half of the year, the city's gross marine product was 247.94 billion yuan ($33.9 billion), an increase of 7.6 percent.

At present, Qingdao possesses 57 ocean-related scientific research institutions, 56 ministry-level and above ocean-related high-end research and development platforms, 20 full-time resident ocean-related academicians, and 380,000 marine talents. By 2022, the proportion of coastal waters with good water quality in Qingdao reached 99 percent.

In recent years, China has taken many effective actions on marine pollution and other issues, including domestic garbage control and offshore waste dumping, which have helped protect the marine environment, Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times on Tuesday. At the same time, China has also taken measures to protect the marine ecology, such as introducing rules that reclamation is not allowed in principle except for major projects, which is very important for the protection of ecological diversity.

Experts say that the protection of marine and mangrove ecosystems carried out in recent years has made China one of the few countries where the area of mangrove forests has increased. This has played a great role in climate change, initially reversing the pressure on the marine environment and the unhealthy situation of the ecosystem, and expanding the area of ecological reserves.

"The marine environment is vital to human resources, livelihoods, food, health and well-being. The ocean is a stabilizer in the fight against climate change, and strengthening its protection can also better help ensure human life," Ma noted.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
The parents of Miya Marcano, a 19-year-old found dead a week after she was last seen at her Florida apartment, are suing a sheriffs office over how deputies handled her disappearance.

Two Orange County sheriffs deputies were deliberately indifferent to her familys fears that something terrible happened to Marcano after they never heard from her in September 2021, when she missed a flight to Miami, according to a lawsuit filed Sept. 25.

The body of Marcano, a Valencia College student last seen at her Orlando apartment complex Sept. 24, 2021, was found about 17 miles away from her home in the woods on Oct. 2, 2021, according to authorities, the Miami Herald previously reported.

Armando Caballero, a man who worked at the complex where Marcano lived, is accused of killing her before dying by suicide, authorities said.

Deputy Samir Paulino, who conducted an initial welfare check at Marcanos apartment on Sept. 24, 2021, upon her mothers request, ignored obvious warning signs of a crime scene  including a blood stain on Marcanos pillowcase, an open bedroom window, broken jewelry and more, the complaint says.

An internal investigation later conducted by the sheriffs office noted these signs should warrant an immediate response from a detective, according to the complaint.

Paulino and another deputy didnt treat Marcanos disappearance as urgent, according to the lawsuit, which says if they had, it could have saved her life or led to her body sooner.

Marcanos parents, Marlon Marcano and Yma Su-Ling Scarbriel, are suing the sheriffs office, Paulino and another deputy, accusing them of failing to act on their pleas to help their daughter.

The familys attorney, Michael B. Feiler, called the facts of the case shocking in a statement to McClatchy News on Sept. 26.

There were so many opportunities to prevent this tragedy with even the slightest bit of care or competence on the part of the Orange County Sheriffs Office, Feiler said.

The Orange County Sheriffs Office declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Sept. 26, saying it doesnt comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit accuses the sheriffs office of discriminating against missing women, either by not responding to their disappearance or purposefully delaying their response.

This practice led to Marcanos death, the complaint says.

Case wasnt treated at priority

After Paulino failed to treat Marcanos apartment as a crime scene Sept. 24, 2021, he met with an apartment complex security guard who tried giving Paulino evidence hours later on Sept. 25, the complaint says.

The security guard told Paulino he suspected someone entered Marcanos apartment window and that he obtained fingerprints from the apartment using tape, according to the complaint.

The guard tried giving Paulino the fingerprints, but Paulino smirked and told him to keep the evidence in case it would be needed later, making it clear (to him) that Miyas case was not a priority, the complaint says.

After Marlon Marcano and other family members saw Marcanos apartment, they sensed something was wrong  especially after speaking to Caballero, who arrived and appeared hurt, according to the complaint.

Marlon Marcano noticed Caballeros face and hand was injured and suspected he was hiding something  resulting in him calling the sheriffs office for a proper investigation into his daughters disappearance, the complaint says.

Ultimately, Paulino returned to the scene where he was provided with critical evidence and heard concerns about Caballero, according to the complaint, which says Caballero then confronted the family and an argument ensued.

Despite this, Paulino did not summon anyone out for assistance or question Caballero about the claims being made against him, the complaint says.

Paulino told his supervisor, Corporal Kenneth Dale, the other deputy named in the lawsuit, about the information he gathered  but the pair never notified the criminal investigations division, the complaint says.

Criminal investigation begins

A criminal investigation into Marcanos disappearance began later that day after her aunt called the sheriffs office, requesting a response, according to the complaint.

After another deputy responded to her request, visited Marcanos apartment and learned the information Paulino and Dale were aware of, the investigation was launched, the complaint says.

Two days later, Caballero was found dead at his home on Sept. 27, 2021, before Marcanos body was recovered, according to the complaint.

Caballero was reportedly interested in Marcano romantically, but the feeling wasnt mutual, according to the Orange County Sheriffs Office, the Miami Herald previously reported.

The complaint says Paulino and Dale still work for the sheriffs office, which didnt confirm the status of their employment when asked by McClatchy News.

Miyas Law

A bill named after Marcano was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on June 27, 2022, in an effort to protect tenants, according to a news release from his office.

Under Miyas Law, landlords must conduct background checks on all prospective employees, who cannot be hired if theyre found guilty of violent crimes or crimes related to disregarding safety, the release said.

The law also enforces other safety measures to protect renters.

The familys lawsuit seeks to recover damages, including for the conscious pain and mental anguish Marcano experienced before she died, and other relief in connection with her death.

While we cannot bring Miya back, we can only hope to bring justice to her family and protect other vulnerable victims like her in the future, Feiler said.

Deputy tries erasing video of him kidnapping, sexually assaulting crash victim, feds say

Deputy beats handcuffed man and drags his limp body inside NC courthouse, lawsuit says

Family watched EMT drop 72-year-old from gurney before he died, Maine lawsuit says
Former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld and his wife, Dr. Sarah Coyne arrive at Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in downtown Cincinnati, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. U.S District Judge Douglas Cole will hear arguments from Sittenfeld's team and prosecutors about Sittenfeld's requests for a new trial or an acquittal. Sittenfeld was convicted in July on federal corruption charges.

Federal prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld to between 33 and 41 months in prison, while his attorneys have asked for a sentence that includes no incarceration.

Late Tuesday, both sides filed documents outlining their views on a potential sentence for Sittenfeld, who last year was convicted of bribery and attempted extortion. A jury in federal court in Cincinnati found him not guilty on four other counts.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Cole will impose the sentence on Oct. 10.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said what Sittenfeld did "was not a single event, one-off deal, or momentary lapse in judgment."

His actions "were part of a broader strategy to use his position of power within local government and his prospects for higher office to extract financial contributions out of individuals who regularly conducted city business," prosecutors said. "In doing so, Sittenfeld made clear that his support for their city business was tied directly to their contributions to him. This is not faithful public service or even 'politics as usual'  this is corruption."

Sittenfeld's attorneys, however, asked for a sentence of probation, with 2,000 hours of community service and/or home confinement for one year.

Sittenfeld's life, they said in a 61-page sentencing memorandum, "has been devoted to helping others and public service." They called the crimes he was charged with a "single aberrant act."

His attorneys acknowledged that federal sentencing guidelines, which direct judges on the prison terms they should impose, do call for a prison term. His attorneys, however, calculated that term between 15 and 21 months. Even so, they asked Cole to disregard that.

Before the Sittenfeld case, they argue, "it appears that no public official has ever been convicted of corruption charges on the basis of accepting publicly reported campaign donations, which resulted in no personal gain, where no express quid pro quo occurred."

2022 trial

At last year's trial, prosecutors said Sittenfeld accepted bribes in various meetings with undercover FBI agents who were posing as developers of a building at 435 Elm St. Downtown.

In December 2018, Sittenfeld met with the undercover agents and accepted $20,000 in checks from multiple limited liability companies to his political action committee.

Prosecutors have asked Cole to order Sittenfeld, as part of his sentence, to repay that money to the government.

Since being found guilty in July 2022, Sittenfeld and his attorneys have challenged his convictions. Among the arguments, they said soliciting and accepting donations to the political action committee was protected by the First Amendment.

In April, Cole upheld the convictions.

Prosecutors: Sittenfeld hasn't accepted responsibility for conduct

Prosecutors, in the sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, said Sittenfeld still hasn't accepted responsibility for his conduct.

Prosecutors also said the $20,000 in bribe payments Sittenfeld received in return for guaranteeing votes in support of the 435 Elm St. project "does not illustrate the full scope of Sittenfeld's corruption."

Prosecutors described Sittenfeld's conversations with local developer Chinedum Ndukwe who needed help with that development project, which prosecutors said was floundering in city bureaucracy.

Prosecutors said Sittenfeld threatened Ndukwe  while at the same time saying he was "fond of (Ndukwe) as a friend."

At one point, after asking Ndukwe to collect $10,000 in campaign contributions, Sittenfeld told Ndukwe, "I mean, you don't want me to be like, 'Hey Chin, like, love you but can't."

Nduke testified at the trial that Sittenfeld made it "very clear that if I donated, he was going to support and be supportive in my efforts, and if I didn't he wasn't going to be supportive."

Prosecutors said: "These are not the acts of a faithful public servant, but instead the machinations of someone abusing his public office to further his own agenda."

Sentencing memo chronicles Sittenfeld's life

A sentencing memorandum filed by Sittenfeld's attorneys has a table of contents with topics including:

The Sittenfeld family

Student leader and role model

Princeton

Oxford"

A voice for those without money, power and influence

It chronicles Sittenfelds entire life and includes references to nearly 200 letters written by Sittenfelds family members, lifelong friends, community members and various faith leaders. There are testimonials and specific examples of Sittenfelds character from constituents he has helped, former federal prosecutors, Cincinnati police officers, journalists who covered City Hall, and elected officials of both political parties.

It describes Sittenfeld as a husband and father, who has turned to religion and spends his days writing and caring for his two young sons.

Current Councilman Reggie Harris, who is chairman of councils Budget and Finance Committee, wrote one of the letters, talking about how he sought and got advice from Sittenfeld after Harris was elected in 2021 and Sittenfeld was awaiting trial.

Harris wrote: During the first three months of my term after being elected in 2021, I had a weekly call with P.G. every Thursday at 9:00 a.m. These calls provided me with a safe space to express my thoughts, ask questions, and vent  What struck me the most was that during one of the most difficult times in his life, instead of withdrawing, P.G. chose to invest his time in volunteering and helping others in meaningful ways that went unnoticed by most. This is the P.G. I know."

Former Hamilton County assistant prosecutor and current KMK Law partner Greg Hartmann recalled how Sittenfeld and his wife hosted dinners with leaders from varied backgrounds, where no topics were off limits.

"I enjoyed those conversations and could see P.G.s passion for our community up close," Hartmann said.

Emotional toll of prosecution

The memorandum goes on to talk about the heartbreak the entire family felt over the death of Sittenfelds father, Paul, after Sittenfelds arrest in 2020.

Many people who know the Sittenfeld family, the memorandum says, noted the severe physical and emotional toll that Sittenfelds prosecution took on both his parents, especially his father, who was already in vulnerable health.

Beverly Grant, a retired Procter & Gamble executive whose son worked with Sittenfeld in high school, wrote: I do believe that P.G.s father died from a broken heart due to the arrest of his only son.

The memorandum also describes how Sittenfeld, since his arrest, found a deeper faith. Sittenfeld, it says, was influenced by finding a spiritual mentor in Cyrus Habib, a blind Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Yale Law School who went on to become the youngest Lieutenant Governor in the country in the state of Washington before choosing not to run for reelection in order to become a Jesuit priest.

Habib said Sittenfeld reached out to him about two and a half years ago.

"P.G. wasnt seeking my legal or political advice," Habib said. "He had read about my becoming a Jesuit and was hoping that we could speak on a spiritual level.

'A flawed and imperfect person'

A letter Sittenfeld wrote is described in the sentencing memorandum, although it's not quoted directly.

Sittenfeld apparently said in the letter that he "is a flawed and imperfect person."

But "when considered in the aggregate," Sittenfeld's attorneys say, "(his life) has been one of consistent and sincere service to others.

Sittenfeld is one of three former city council members to be convicted in recent years on federal corruption charges. One, Tamaya Dennard, has already served a prison sentence

Dennard pleaded guilty in 2020 to an honest services fraud charge and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, although she ended up serving about 12 months. Federal inmates can earn good time credit, reducing the length of their prison terms.

Dennard, who once worked as Sittenfeld's chief of staff, was accused of accepting $15,000 as part of a scheme to exchange her votes for money.

In June, Jeff Pastor pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme that dated back to 2018, his first year in office. Pastor was accused of receiving $55,000 from an undercover FBI agent posing as a developer and cooperating witnesses. He has not yet been sentenced.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: P.G. Sittenfeld: Feds seek prison term in Cincinnati corruption case
FILE PHOTO: The word "COVID-19" is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration

(Reuters) - A group of health insurers on Wednesday told the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) they were fixing issues that have gummed up the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines and are ready to address any others that develop.

"At this time, we understand that systemic technical issues have been largely, if not completely, resolved and are not limiting patient access to vaccines," representatives for many U.S. health plans wrote in a letter to HHS.

"Should further issues arise, we stand ready to swiftly implement system improvements," the insurers said.

The missive came in response to a letter HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote last Friday. HHS raised concerns in their letter regarding some customers experiencing insurance coverage denials when they wanted the updated COVID-19 vaccines.

As representatives for health insurers, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Alliance of Community Health Plans, Association for Community Affiliated Plans and AHIP said in the letter on Wednesday they are closely monitoring reports of any technical or coding barriers to vaccine coverage.

They said their health plans were committed to "fully covering the new COVID-19 shots, as required, with no cost sharing when consumers access them from a network provider or receive them through an out-of-network provider when in-network options are unavailable."

They said their health plans are contacting members who experienced claims denials or other hurdles in the initial days of vaccine availability.

The U.S. government has handed over the responsibility for vaccinations to the private sector, but has said the shots will still be free for most Americans with health insurance coverage.

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; editing by Timothy Gardner)
CHARLOTTE  The criminal case against a man accused of murdering three family members in 2021 is over, at least for now.

Prosecutors this month dismissed murder and weapon charges against Daniel James Sougstad, 25, after state examiners had repeatedly found him incompetent to stand trial. They petitioned him into Eaton County Probate Court for mental health treatment, and the charges could be refiled if Sougstad is restored to competency.

"It's a tremendously sad case, all the way around," Chief Assistant Eaton County Prosecutor Chris Anderson said. "At this point, we can only wait and see if or when there comes a point he could be restored to competency and we could pursue the charges again."

Sougstad was accused of killing his parents, John and Barbara Sougstad, and his brother, Ryan at the family's home on Bishop Highway in Windsor Township on Sept. 24, 2021. All three victims suffered shotgun wounds and two of them also had knife wounds, authorities said.

Daniel Sougstad was arrested early on Sept. 25 after heading toward the Upper Peninsula and turning around to come back south, authorities said at the time.

Sougstad, who previously had been hospitalized for mental health treatment, initially was found competent to stand trial and sat through a preliminary examination in January 2022. But after the case moved to circuit court, the state Center for Forensic Psychiatry has repeatedly found him unable to assist in his own defense.

Prosecutors had no choice but to dismiss the charges and commit Sougstad for treatment because he could not be restored to competency within 15 months, Anderson said.

After the last review, the forensic center in August said it was unlikely Sougstad could be restored to competency by the end of that period. The prosecutor's office waited until Sougstand had been civilly committed for treatment before dismissing the charges earlier this month, Anderson said.

Sougstad will be kept in a secure setting, and it's extremely unlikely he would be released without the prosecutor's office being notified ahead of time, he said.

Sougstad still hasn't been evaluated for criminal responsiblility in connection with the killings, Anderson said. That would have to happen before Sougstad could be prosecuted, even if he is eventually found competent to stand trial, he said.

More than three years before the Windsor Township killings, Sougstad was hospitalized after expressing suicidal thoughts and paranoia about his family and friends plotting against him, according to court records.

Psychiatrists who examined him in early 2018 concluded he needed to be hospitalized to protect himself and others, according to records in Eaton County Probate Court. Sougstad spent a few days in a hospital before being released to undergo alternative treatment, the documents show.

Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Charges dismissed against Lansing area man accused of killing his family
Citing a crushing wave of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and around the world moving through Costa Rica headed for the United States, the Central American country has declared a state of emergency and stepped up deportations.

The people that arrive are passing across Costa Rica trying to get to the United States, basically, President Rodrigo Chaves said.

Viewed as one of the friendlier and protective countries along a 7,000 mile, 11-nation migration trail that begins in Brazil and ends at the U.S.-Mexico border, Costa Rica has recently seen a dramatic rise in migration. That spike is straining the countrys resources and led to an increase in crime.

Chaves said he has told his security ministry to take a firm stance with anyone who takes Costa Ricas kindness for weakness.

This is a generous people. Dont confuse that generosity with weakness, he said. The deportation processes have already begun and they are coming back.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Office for International Migration said there was an unprecedented surge of migrants transiting through the region and appealed for governments in Central America and Mexico to collaborate to deal with the humanitarian needs.

Panamas National Migration Service has reported a record number of migrants crossing the perilous Darien jungle from Colombia this year. As of Sept. 23, almost 400,000 people traveled through the jungle this year, crossing what considered one of the worlds most treacherous migrant routes. In August alone there were 82,000 migrants who trekked across the gap, the highest monthly figure ever recorded, the United Nations said. Most of the migrants came from Venezuela, Ecuador and Haiti.

Along with a record number of children, the Darien jungle is also seeing a noticeable increase in the arrival of Chinese, Afghan and Nepali nationals.

The U.N. noted that the most significant trend has been the shift by Cuban migrants and those coming from Africa to take flights to Central America, sidestepping the Darien Gap. As a result, many are arriving in Costa Rica, which is just after Panama on the migration route to the U.S..

So far in September, more than 60,000 people crossed Paso Canoas, the Costa Rican town that borders Panama. The number of migrants was more than three times the towns population of less than 20,000 people, Jorge Rodriguez, vice minister of the presidency, said.

The migration flow, Rodriguez said, exceeded the institutional capacity to serve them.

The presence of the migrants generates enormous pressure on the population and that community has demanded solutions, Rodriguez said at the press conference with Chaves.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration rolled out several immigration initiatives to try to stem the flow of irregular migration at the US-Mexico border. They included having migrants download a smartphone app to get U.S. immigration appointments and signing agreements with Colombia and Panama to deter migrants from crossing through the dangerous Darien.

Migrants sleep outside a train station as they wait for the arrival of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.

The Department of Homeland and Security also announced a humanitarian parole program for nationals of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. The program allows individuals from the four countries to work and live in the United States for a two-year period as long as they pass a background check and have a financial sponsor.

The Biden administration has touted the programs as effective in reducing the number of U.S. Customs and Border encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border. But critics say the programs, which have come under legal challenge from those who claim its an overreach of the presidents powers, have not stemmed the flow and the number of asylum seekers continues to grow.

Emilio Gonzalez, who was director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the George W. Bush administration, told the Miami Herald that the end goal of the federal governments current immigration policy is unclear and that the Biden administration is violating U.S. immigration law left and right.

Its creating unheard of stresses on the border, its giving us hundreds of dead migrants, its giving us a completely stressed out border patrol, said Gonzalez.

Roger Pardo Maurer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense, said he isnt surprised by the pressure of the migration flow on Costa Rica, a small country with a population of just over 5 million people.

He said Costa Rica has been getting 2,500 migrants or more a day since August. He also noted that 1% of of those entering Costa Rica are choosing to stay rather than to continue the journey onto Mexico, where there is no guarantee they will be allowed into the United States, and many of them are criminals.

One percent means that maybe as many as 5,000 criminals have stayed in Costa Rica in a period of 6 months and this is much more than the police graduate each year, he said, noting that there are only 15,000 agents in the police force and many of them are administrators. That makes Costa Rica a sinking ship.

Earlier this month, Chaves visited the U.S. and met with President Biden. Biden promised $24 million to help with border control, but Mauer said that isnt enough money to contain the problem.

To expect that amount to have a significant impact is absurd.
Binanc, the world's largest crypto exchange, has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its entire Russian business to CommEX.

Source: Binances statement

Quote: "To ensure a smooth process for existing Russian users, the off-boarding process will take up to one year. All assets of existing Russian users are safe and securely protected," the message says.

"As we look toward the future, we recognise that operating in Russia is not compatible with Binance's compliance strategy," said Noah Perlman, the exchange's director of regulatory compliance.

"Binance and CommEX will partner to inform users how to migrate their assets to CommEX. A portion of Russian KYCd new user registration will immediately be redirected to CommEX," the company explained.

It is noted that within the next few months, Binance will close exchange services and other business areas in Russia.

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. At the same time, as part of this agreement, Binance will completely stop its activities in Russia.

"Binance will have no ongoing revenue split from the sale, nor does it maintain any option to buy back shares in the business," Binance explained.

Background:

In August, it was reported that the world's largest crypto exchange Binance was reevaluating its Russian business, including the possibility of a complete exit from the once important market that has turned into a hassle.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
The Martin B. Retting gun store was grandfathered in when Culver City banned firearm dealers near schools, and it could have transferred those rights to a new owner. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

For the record:

8:09 p.m. Sept. 26, 2023: An earlier version of this article attributed multiple quotes to Culver City Councilmember Freddy Puza. The comments were made by Councilmember Goran Eriksson.



It seemed like an unusual but effective solution: To keep another gun store from opening up in the spot where one was shutting down, Culver City officials decided to buy the controversial shop.

The Martin B. Retting gun store on Washington Boulevard  emblazoned with a huge mural of a rifle and the word "GUNS" painted in oversize letters  had operated in the city for more than six decades. It drew objections from some parents and residents in recent years because of its proximity to an elementary school.

In 2005, after a spate of school shootings across the country, Culver City adopted an ordinance preventing gun sellers from operating within 1,000 feet of campuses. Martin B. Retting, which is about 800 feet from La Ballona Elementary School, was grandfathered in and able to stay put  and it could have transferred those rights to a new owner.

With a $6.5-million price tag, the cost was "on the high end" of commercial real estate in the area, city staffers said during the Sept. 11 meeting where the City Council voted to buy the store. Parents and gun control advocates argued the price was worth it to keep another gun store out.

"It is an investment in the safety of this community and our kids," said Megan Oddsen, a member of Culver 878, a group of residents and parents who advocate for local gun safety measures.

Read more: Newsom signs gun laws that add new taxes and limit where owners can carry firearms

Although the council voted unanimously to move forward with the purchase, not all residents applauded the move.

"This is bad governance hiding under a social issue that needs to be addressed, no question," resident Gary Zeiss said during the meeting.

Others worried that the city was paying an inflated price for the property.

"Purchasing that property is not going to solve [the gun] problem," said Marta Valdez.

But advocates for gun control argued that the shop, which had a history of violations and safety concerns, was a valid target.

A recent report from the California Department of Justice found that, from 2010 to 2022, Martin B. Retting ranked among the state's top 10 sources of "crime guns"  defined as recovered firearms that are illegally possessed, have been used in a crime, or are suspected of having been used in a crime.

Some 1,019 of the nearly 70,000 guns the store sold during that period were linked to crimes, the report said.

Read more: 9th Circuit rules California ban on marketing guns to minors is probably unconstitutional

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also found issues with the store during its most recent inspection.

The ATF in 2015 cited the store for seven violations, including failing to report multiple sales, failing to identify gun customers, selling firearms despite having reasonable cause to believe the buyer was prohibited from owning guns and having missing firearms.

"This is a great example of why communities need to have the ability to take action," said Kris Brown, president of the Brady campaign, a gun control advocacy group. "This was a major dealer that had much larger infractions than we usually see, and that galvanized local activists."

The number of firearms linked to crimes associated with the store is especially alarming, Brown said, noting that many shops see only a handful, if any, of their firearms linked to crimes.

"The type of violations we have seen at this store have been classic violations that show they are failing to engage in even the most basic business activities that would stop guns from being sold unlawfully," she said.

Read more: California lawmakers pass Newsom's call for U.S. constitutional convention on gun control

City Councilmember Dan O'Brien acknowledged concerns about purchasing the store and its price, but noted the city could sell the property or put it to other uses in the future. That decision, he said, will come after officials gather community input.

"The decision of what this [property] will become should be a discussion," he said. "We're purchasing an asset."

Martin B. Retting management announced the store's closure in July, telling customers in a letter it was shutting its doors and selling its inventory after operating in the same location since 1958.

"There's really nothing to read into  our closing other than the fact that the owners are well past the age where most folks have already been retired for a while," the letter, dated July 16, read. "Despite having overcome and flourished after everything the firearms industry could throw at us, it turns out that the one thing we can't defeat is the inevitable march of time."

Owners and management of the store did not respond to requests for comment.

Read more: Families upended by school shootings share trauma in push for gun law changes but get mixed results

When members of Culver 878 learned the store could transfer its sales license, Oddsen said, the group mobilized to find a way to keep another gun store from opening.

"We always had a lot of concern about guns being so close to our school, but Uvalde was the event that pushed us into activism," she said, referring to the Texas mass shooting last year that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Oddsen said the group worried not only about the safety concerns of having a gun store at the location, but also about the psychological impact on students who had to pass Martin B. Retting on the way to school.

Members of Culver 878 reached out to officials about the store and also pushed for new ordinances requiring firearm retailers to have special business permits and meet specific security and storage requirements, which were adopted in December. The Brady campaign also sent letters in support of the city purchasing the Martin B. Retting property.

Read more: Mass shootings spur divergent laws as states split between gun rights and control

At first, the city considered an "urgency ordinance" that would have prevented the grandfathered rights from being transferred to a new owner. Staffers, however, raised concerns that such a move would have unintended consequences and possibly expose the city to legal action if it affected all businesses. If the measure was tailored to address only firearm stores, it could draw 2nd Amendment challenges.

City Councilmember Goran Eriksson ended up meeting with the parents group and suggested an atypical solution.



"When I met with you I said that, for me, the best solution would be to find someone else to buy the property," Eriksson said during the Sept. 11 City Council meeting. "I think I also said, 'Find some rich philanthropic person that is willing to do this.' I didn't know the city was going to be the 'rich philanthropic person,' but, you know, it is the solution."

Most of the speakers during the meeting were in favor of the purchase.

"We will never know how many lives will be saved because of the actions taken tonight," said Rev. Frances Rosenau of Culver City Presbyterian Church.

Kelly Kent, vice president of the Culver City Unified Board of Education, called the decision to purchase the store a "gift" to students.

"Preventing this location from becoming a grandfathered-in gun store is a gift that you are able to give to at least the nearly 600 students that walk by the Retting store every day," she said.

Read more: Our psychological armor helps us cope with mass shootings, but numbs us to the destruction

The worry about a possible school shooting is still a concern for parents and students, Oddsen said, but no longer having to walk or drive by the gun store after seeing news of yet another tragedy is encouraging.

"Our kids will have less trauma from seeing the word 'guns' on the way to and from school every day," Oddsen said. "We are grateful that the city took action to protect our families and we can think less of the possibility of a shooting."

The City Council's approval of the purchase came with a slight provision.

"As soon as we have control of the property, we should repaint it," Eriksson said.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
TULARE COUNTY. Calif. (KGPE/KSEE)  A man convicted of domestic violence and torture in Tulare County remains on the run after a judge ruled the defendant was guilty  despite officials not knowing where he is.

The Tulare County Superior Court, South County Justice, and the Tulare County District Attorney prosecutors secured guilty verdicts against Felimon Salas, age 37, for domestic violence on Monday.

From January 18, 2021, to January 20, 2021, prosecutors say Salas repeatedly and violently beat the mother of his child with his fists, cooking utensils, and beer bottles causing significant lacerations and bruising to her head and neck, as well as cracked teeth. Salas abuse also included biting, shoving, and depriving her of sleep and medical care. In one instance, Salas drove the injured victim to the base of a hill and made her walk up it to earn her spot back in their family.

On January 20, 2021, police say Salas drove the victim to the home of family members. He then fled to Mexico to avoid contact from law enforcement for over a year. Law enforcement said that, by using a tip that Salas was back in the area, they contacted him in February 2022.

Officials say Salas was arrested and held on $500,000 bail at a later court date, despite his flight risk and propensity for violence, the court lowered his bail to $50,000 and released him over the fervent objection of prosecutors. Salas then began his criminal trial out of custody.

The Tulare County District Attorney says at trial Salas failed to appear for the final day of arguments. He was ultimately convicted of torture, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and five counts of domestic violence. Numerous counts are enhanced with special allegations that the crime used a deadly weapon and that great bodily injury was inflicted.

After being a fugitive from justice for a year, it is mind-boggling that this defendant was afforded such a significant bail reduction. In 2021, he fled accountability, and it is tragic that this victim and other victims of violent crime have their justice eroded by progressive policies. This is one of the more glaring examples of our legislative and societal push toward severely degrading the cash bail system, said Tulare County DA Tim Ward.

The Tulare County District Attorney says Salas faces life in prison at sentencing as a warrant for his arrest was issued. The case was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Victoria Frazer.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Felimon Salas is urged to contact Tulare County Sherriffs Office immediately.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
MADERA COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  The former Marine arrested for being a suspect in the death of a 16-year-old in Madera County has been sentenced, the District Attorneys Office announced on Tuesday.

According to the DA, Codi Slayton was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison. According to authorities, 16-year-old Josephine Jimenez was found dead in a property in southern Madera County in October of 2022.

Officials say Slayton used various social media applications to generate and maintain communication not only with Josephine but with young girls throughout California, and possibly other regions of the United States.

According to the DA, he has to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and he pleaded guilty to the 2019 killing of 16-year-old Josephine Jimenez.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
Authorities are investigating the death of a woman at a Dallas apartment on Monday as a homicide, police announced in a news release Tuesday.

At around 1:15 p.m. Monday, police responded to a call for service in the 1400 block of Elm Street.

When officers arrived, they found 46-year-old Jenean Chapman dead in an apartment, according to the release.

The Dallas County Medical Examiners Office ruled Chapmans death a homicide Tuesday.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Detective John Valdez at john.valdez@dallaspolice.gov.
A third of the City of Atlanta fire trucks and engines are currently out of service, according to data provided to Channel 2 Action News on Tuesday.

According to the data, five of the citys 31 fire engines are currently not in operation, while 10 of its 15 ladder trucks are currently unavailable.

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These engines and fire trucks are not deployed to fight fires every day, but you need them when you need them, said Councilman Dustin Hillis. Certain areas of the city have no ladder truck in service.

The Atlanta Fire Department said in a statement that the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department is working closely with the City of Atlanta Fleet Services to repair out-of-service equipment.

All in-service Fire equipment is operating efficiently to respond to emergent incidents throughout the city. There is no fire service delivery risk to the City of Atlanta, our citizens, or our visitors, the statement read.

Channel 2 Action News reached out to other departments to see if they faced similar situations.

Cobb County says they have more than 50 fire vehicles in their fleet. Only one is currently not in service because it is being used at the fair.

Johns Creek says they currently do not have any fire vehicles down.

At the end of the day, fire trucks are mechanical, they are going to break down from time to time, said Johns Creek Fire Chief Chris Coons.

Chief Coons said it was surprising to see that many vehicles out of service, but said when trucks go down, fire departments come up with contingency plans.

We have plenty of contingencies in place, and every fire department does, Coons said.

Coons said that usually means potentially rearranging resources or calling in older, reserve trucks to fill the gap.

Of course, in the back of your mind, you are wondering how dependable that reserve truck is, Coons said.

Its definitely a safety issue for our firefighters, said Nate Bailey, President of the Atlanta Professional Firefighters Union.

Bailey said a domino effect has hurt the fleet.

TRENDING STORIES:

A growing city has led to more calls for service, which leads to more stress on the fleet, leading to more breakdowns.

Bailey says past administrations have not consistently replaced firetrucks, which leaves Atlanta with an aging group of firetrucks and engines.

The City of Atlanta did approve millions of dollars to replace some of the trucks and engines. However, none of the new vehicles have been delivered.

Councilman Hillis hopes the council will approve a long-term plan to keep the fleet updated and says he plans to ask leaders of the department about issues at the next council meeting.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
Its unclear what Davis Joint Unified School District trustees and a police chief discussed Tuesday to stop repeated bomb scares at an emergency, closed-session school board meeting. Board members didnt take any action on the heels of three bomb threats targeting schools this week.

But some answers came for residents pitted on opposite sides of increasingly divisive gender-identity topics.

It started with Liam Taylor genuflecting in front of Yolo Countys Moms for Liberty chapter chair Beth Bourne and begging her to stop her comments while board members discussed the threats away from the publics purview. Both yelled at one another, prompting Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel to emerge from the closed session meeting and request them to be calm.

But it ended with Taylor and Bourne sitting on a curb and quietly conversing after the emergency meetings open session ended less than a minute after trustees emerged from their private talks. The public and reporters hadnt even all entered the building when someone said there was nothing reportable from the closed session and swiftly adjourned the meeting.

The emergency meeting agenda didnt specify if trustees met with Pytel to discuss the bomb threats. Pytel declined to talk about what happened in the closed session, saying he was forbidden by the Brown Act.

Board president Lea Darrah did not return a request for comment.

Six total bomb threats against Davis-area schools and the citys main library have been made via email since late August, all of them containing anti-LGBTQ language, according to the Davis Police Department and Yolo County Sheriffs Office.

The important thing to remember is bomb threats are almost never real, Pytel said after the meeting. They are designed to threaten people, cause intimidation and fear.

Threats reportedly made Aug. 21, Aug. 25 and Aug. 28 targeted the Mary L. Stephens branch of the Yolo County Library system, affecting nearby North Davis Elementary and Davis Senior High campuses.

Additional threats allegedly made last Wednesday, as well as Monday and Tuesday of this week, have targeted numerous Davis Joint Unified campuses and the county library, prompting law enforcement response and, in some instances, delayed school start times.

On Tuesday, Fairfield Elementary School and King High School were the latest to be targeted. There also was a threat directed toward Da Vinci Charter Academys campuses, too, but Pytel said it wasnt clear if the messenger intended both the junior high or high school. Police cleared both and checked for devices out of an abundance of caution, he added.

The recent scares began shortly after the Yolo County chapter of Moms of Liberty held an Aug. 20 meeting at the library on East 14th Street, in which a library employee asked group members to leave once the meeting turned to speak about transgender issues, specifically when the speaker began to call transgender female athletes biological men.

Davis police said there was no evidence connecting the bomb threats to the Moms of Liberty meeting but, in a statement posted to social media Monday evening, said the correlation between the two cannot be ignored as part of the overall criminal investigations.

I dont remember anything like this happening, said Pytel, whos been with the force for a little more than 40 years. He also was a cadet at the department as a teen.

Its not clear if the same messenger has been sending the threats, he said, though the word choice and language of the messages have commonalities between them.

Recipients of the emails have been the same, too: It includes media outlets like the New York Times and California state agencies with no ties to law enforcement, he said.

Davis police have said theyve tracked the threats to foreign countries, such as Nigeria, indicating the sender lives there or is trying to hide the true location. This is accomplished using virtual private networks (VPNs) or other security services.

But tracking the messages true origin is a daunting task, Pytel said. Investigators have moved on to using old fashioned intelligence  looking and seeing if anyone else is sending the same types of emails to other school districts in the capital region.

We solve the crimes, including the serious crimes, by good old-fashioned police work, he said.
A man accused of working at day care centers in California to prey on children as young as 3 was sentenced to more than two decades in federal prison, prosecutors announced Sept. 26.

While at Mission Neighborhood Centers day care in San Francisco between March 2021 and April 2021, former employee Jace Wong, 29, took photos and videos of children ages 4 to 6 as they used the bathroom and shared the videos in online group chats and messages, according to a sentencing memorandum filed in court.

He took screenshots from the original videos/photos that zoomed in on the minors and proceeded to share the screenshots with others, the sentencing memo says.

Before Wong worked at the San Francisco center, he was employed at Cape Inc. day care in Livermore, where he molested 3- and 4-year-olds in his care and recorded videos of the hands-on contact between August 2019 and December 2020, prosecutors said.

Wong shared the photos and videos of the children at Cape Inc. to the dark web, according to prosecutors who said Wong stopped filming them when they moved away from him.

In one online post in December 2020, Wong wrote the parents should stop sending their kids to school in tight pants, the sentencing memo says.

After victimizing at least six children in total, Wong was arrested after he sent a child pornography video of a girl using the bathroom at Mission Neighborhood Centers to an undercover officer in April 2021, according to prosecutors and the sentencing memo.

McClatchy News contacted both Bay area day cares for comment on Sept. 27 and didnt receive an immediate response.

A judge sentenced Wong to serve 25 years in prison for production, attempted production distribution and possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorneys Office, Northern District of California said in a Sept. 26 news release.

In court, several of Wongs victims parents gave impact statements, according to the governments sentencing memo.

I miss the smiles of my girls that I remember seeing and knowing prior to Wongs malicious abuse(it) feels like (the) entire family is experiencing a lifelong disease that will impact everyone in the family forever, one parent said.

McClatchy News contacted Wongs defense attorney Douglas Horngrad for comment on Sept. 27 and didnt receive an immediate response.

In a sentencing memo submitted on Wongs behalf, Horngrad wrote Wongs conduct could be explained, in part, by Triple X syndrome, a chromosomal disorder which has caused his lifelong developmental, cognitive and behavioral deficits.

Wong was diagnosed with the syndrome at birth, when he was born as a biological female, according to his sentencing memo. The Mayo Clinic estimates Triple X syndrome, when a person has three X chromosomes instead of two, affects around 1 in 1,000 people born female.

Horngrad cited a doctor who reviewed Wongs medical history and determined the effects of his Triple X syndrome was amplified by testosterone, which he received while undergoing his gender transition, the sentencing memo says.

I realize/admit that my actions were wrong and I truly regret my actionsI am deeply sorry to the victims and their families, Wong wrote in his sentencing memo.

Meanwhile, prosecutors emphasized Wong intentionally chose to work with young children at one day care before moving on to work at another day care in their sentencing memo.

In October 2020, (Wong) experienced increased sexual urges and reached out to his doctor to lower his libido, prosecutors wrote. Rather than quit his job, however, the defendant worked at Cape, Inc. for two more months and then got a job at a new daycare in the future.

Wong has been in federal custody since April 2021, prosecutors said. After serving his prison sentence, he must serve 15 years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.

This case is heartbreaking, to say the least It is not possible to measure the harm he caused, U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey said in a statement.

Day care worker abused kids by throwing them onto the ground, Pennsylvania cops say

Babysitter at gyms day care charged with child sex crimes in Louisiana, feds say

Day care worker took nude photos of children in bathroom, sent them to her ex, feds say
Thinking about taking a day trip to Morehead, Ky.?

You need not worry, theres plenty to do, see and restaurants to eat at in the seat of Rowan County, even if youre not in town for the popular annual Cave Run Storytelling Festival at Daniel Boone National Forest.

Use this guide and list to help find the best options during your visit as soon as you get off I-64. Year-round visitors have options whether they are driving an hour and 20 minutes from the west in Lexington or nearly two hours from the east in Charleston, WVa.

Sheltowee Trace

Hikers sometimes visit Rowan County to begin their journey on the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail. It spans 343 miles, stretching from downtown Morehead to the Big South Fork in northern Tennessee. If youre not looking for a hike quite that long, there are more than 100 miles of trails accessible through the nearby Daniel Boone National Forest.

Cave Run Lake is located just south of Morehead.

Cave Run Lake

If youre looking for a good fishing spot, you might have found one at Cave Run Lake, the largest lake in Northeastern Kentucky. Known as the Musky Capital of the South, located and in the northern part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, the lake has more than 8,000 acres of open water and 200 miles of shoreline to explore. Besides fishing, theres plenty of recreational activities from kayaking, sailing, house rentals and more.

Morehead State University Star Theater

The state-of-the-art digital planetarium located on the campus of Morehead State University has public shows on the second and fourth Saturdays between September and June. In addition to regular night sky and laser light shows, upcoming special shows include Observe the Moon Night, Valentines under the Stars and Solar Eclipse Celebration.

Announcing our next big event on Oct 21st, 2023. Register here - https://msufyp.wufoo.com/forms/star-theater-open-house-celebration #internationalobservethemoonnight #openhouse Posted by Morehead State University Star Theater on Thursday, September 21, 2023

Kentucky Folk Art Center

This free museum is managed by Morehead State and features close to 1,400 works by self-taught artists. From the centers webpage, in many instances, the art you see on the walls at KFAC was born out of hard times. The works displayed here stand as a document of and testament to the common mans concerns, courage, and convictions.

The center also organizes a number of cultural events, including the Appalachian Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair in December.

The Kentucky Folk Art Center has a permanent collection of nearly 1,400 pieces and has several new changing exhibits each year in its second-floor gallery.

Roll Over Rolled Ice Cream and Boba Tea

This shop on Main Street serves rolled ice cream (sometimes called Thai rolled ice cream), as well as tea, soups and sandwiches, but its most distinct feature is its mission. Co-owner Angel Pope also runs the animal rescue nonprofit Back Roads Rescue in neighboring Carter County. Part of the ice cream shops purpose is to help fund the animal rescue operation. Many of Roll Overs menu items (Oscar, Festus, Frankie) are named for dogs that came through Back Roads Rescue.

A serving of rolled ice cream is decorated at Roll Over Rolled Ice Cream. The Morehead ice cream shop helps rescue dogs and is pet-friendly with dog treats.

This Kentucky ice cream shop is on a roll with cool treats for dogs and their owners

Sawstone Brewing Company taproom

Three friends started with homebrew kits that later turned into neighborhood Brew Days. Eventually they opened Sawstone Brewing Co. in downtown Morehead, the citys first and only brewery, which had to close for a week during its opening month because it ran out of beer.

How Moreheads first and only brewery grew from three friends with homebrew kits

Root-A-Bakers Bakery & Cafe

A staple for desserts in Morehead, Root-A-Bakers has built a regional following and in 2019 was named the Sweetest Bakery in Kentucky through a social media contest hosted by Dawn Food Products. The bakery is known for its sugar cookies and each one is topped with a signature buttercream icing and always made with real butter. They offer everything from sweet and savory scones, cupcakes and full-size cakes and a lunch menu containing a variety of sandwiches and salads.

Kentuckys sweetest spot? Sugar cookies put this tiny bakery on the map.

For more possible things to do in Morehead, go to visitmorehead.com.
A fourth suspect linked to the Bronx day care center under investigation for suspected fentanyl drug distribution and the death of a 1-year-old boy has been arrested in Mexico, where he was on the run from authorities, according to the New York Police department.

The suspect was taken into custody in Mexico, the NYPD confirmed to USA TODAY. Felix Herrera Garcia, the husband of the owner and operator of the Divino Nino day care center, was arrested on a bus in Sinaloa by Mexican authorities and Drug Enforcement Administration agents, CNN and CBS New York reported.

Authorities had been searching for Herrera Garcia for nearly two weeks after surveillance video captured him fleeing from the day care center carrying two full shopping bags, which investigators believe contained bricks of fentanyl. The charges against him have not yet been disclosed.

Herrera Garcia is the fourth person to be arrested in the death of Nicholas Feliz Dominici, who was found unconscious by first responders on Sept. 15. Three other children from the day care center were treated for suspected fentanyl poisoning and recovered after being administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.

The incident has sparked public outcry, and three people  Grei Mendez, 36; Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41; and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38  have been charged in the boy's death.

Bronx daycare center case: After overdose death, police find secret door to fentanyl at Nino Divino daycare in Bronx

Who is Felix Herrera Garcia?

New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Herrera Garcia had been on the run from authorities and was traveling by a vehicle through Texas to Mexico, The New York Times reported. Authorities believe Herrera Garcia was trying to travel to the Dominican Republic, where he is from.

He was on a bus in the city of Sinaloa, home to one of the world's deadliest drug cartels, when he was captured by Mexican and U.S. federal authorities.

An attorney for Mendez, who is Herrera Garcia's wife, said at a court hearing last week that the drug dealing allegations were about Ms. Mendezs husband, not her. Herrera Garcia was seen on surveillance footage leaving the day care center with full plastic bags minutes after Mendez warned him about the unresponsive children.

"Minutes later, he left the day care and fled out the back alley, carrying two full shopping bags. All of that happened while the children, the babies, were suffering the effect of fentanyl and were in desperate need of help," said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

New York police officials said Herrera Garcia has at least two prior arrests: for a 2013 burglary in Queens and an order of protection violation in 2010 in Brooklyn, according to The Times.

Three others charged in child's death

Mendez and Acevedo Brito, who lived in the apartment where the day care was operating, were charged with murder of depraved indifference last week. Both were ordered held without bail.

They also face federal charges, including conspiracy and narcotics possession with intent to distribute resulting in death.

Parents entrusted Grei Mendez with the care of their children, Williams said in a statement. As alleged, instead of diligently safeguarding the well-being of those children, she and her co-conspirators put them directly in harms way, running a narcotics operation and storing deadly fentanyl out of the very space in which the children ate, slept, and played."

Another man, Paredes, also known as El Gallo, was charged in federal court on Monday with conspiracy to distribute the narcotics.

An investigation found cellphone location data that suggested Paredes visited the day care center regularly, and text messages show a phone number labeled El Gallo that was in regular communication with Acevedo Brito, according to court filings.

In one message sent to Acevedo Brito, El Gallo allegedly warned that if Mendez's husband was going to take the garbage out, the police are out there on the side. Another message showed El Gallo saying he left Acevedo Brito una torta, a Spanish word that investigators said is used to refer to a kilogram of narcotics

More: Third person charged in fentanyl-exposure death of 1-year-old at Bronx daycare center

What happened at the day care?

On Sept. 15, NYPD officers were called to the day care center, where they found an 8-month-old girl and two boys, 1 and 2, unconscious. All three children were administered Narcan after first responders determined they were exhibiting signs of a drug overdose.

Two of the children recovered, but 1-year-old Dominici died at a hospital. Another 2-year-old boy from the day care was checked into a hospital after his mother noticed he was "lethargic and unresponsive." He recovered after being administered Narcan.

The day care center had passed three routine checks by the Department of Health, including an annual unannounced search this month that did not find any violations. Police also said they had received no complaints from the community related to "drug transactions" at the center.

Zoila Dominici, the mother of Nicholas Feliz Dominici, told The Times she had toured the day care center and saw nothing "out of the ordinary."

But a search of the center revealed a kilogram of fentanyl on top of play mats in a closet, and drug paraphernalia was found hidden inside the floor where children played, including glassine envelopes with a Red Dawn stamp, according to court documents. The same stamp was allegedly found in the apartment where Paredes was living, along with other drug supplies.

Contributing: Minnah Arshad and Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fourth suspect in fentanyl day care center death arrested in Mexico
WASHINGTON  Republican presidential candidates get another chance Wednesday to do something many of them have been reluctant to try: attacking Donald Trump.

While going after the frontrunner is a time-honored tradition in presidential races, most of the GOP candidates taking the stage at a debate in California have largely soft-pedaled criticism of the former president.

The basic reason: Challengers don't want to alienate the many Republican voters who have backed Trump in the past, voters they'll need if they are to somehow wrest the GOP presidential nomination away from him in 2024.

"You don't go after Trump frontally to appeal to those people," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

So most of the Republican debaters at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, are expected to continue going after him sideways  arguing Trump represents the Republican Party's past, without mentioning that he faces as many as four criminal trials in 2024.

Donald Trump's Republican challengers during their Aug. 23 debate

Taking on Trump

As with the first Republican debate last month in Milwaukee, Trump will be absent. The ex-president, saying he doesn't want to give opponents free shots at him, is instead traveling to Michigan to speak with supporters in a battleground state. It's also the epicenter of the ongoing United Auto Workers strike, where workers are protesting the nation's largest auto companies.

But that doesn't mean GOP presidential candidates won't target Trump during Wednesday's debate. In fact, some Republicans have questioned the low-key strategy, saying candidates will have to go after Trump directly if they want any hope of catching him in the polls.

That group includes one of Wednesday's debaters, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

"Im the only one who will take Trump on," Christie said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Christie has even vowed to change his campaign schedule to follow Trump if he doesn't participate in future debates.

Wherever he goes, Ill go. And well wind up talking to each other one way or another," Christie told Fox News MediaBuzz.

The challengers and Trump

Christie will share the debate stage with candidates who have been more reticent to criticize Trump over his criminal charges, or much else.

They are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

The Republican candidates have preferred to draw contrasts with Trump on issues, for the most part. For example, DeSantis has more often critiqued Trump's record on the border wall with Mexico and federal spending.

But DeSantis, Scott and others have more recently cited Trump for his evolving comments on abortion access. The officials have argued that Trump's position on abortion isn't strict enough for a swath of Republican voters, while the former president has warned that GOP candidates shouldn't stress flat-out opposition to all abortions.

Pence has long criticized Trump for pressuring him to overturn their 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. But more recently, Pence has questioned Trump-style "populism," calling for a more traditional conservative platform linked to GOP icons, such as former President Ronald Reagan.

During the first debate in Milwaukee, Haley also took a measured approach to argue that voters who aren't sure which candidate to support in 2024 might turn against Trump in a general election.

"We have to look at the fact that three quarters of Americans dont want a rematch between Trump and Biden," Haley said. "And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We cant win a general election that way."

Pursuing the 'Maybe Trump' voters

Wednesday's debate will boil down to what Republican political consultant Liz Mair called a "delicate dance" for the GOP challengers. They must define differences with Trump, while elevating themselves and avoiding making voters mad.

"Mostly, they're afraid to attack him because he's more popular and more well-known they are," Mair said, so their messages have to be more about them than him.

Pollsters and political analysts pointed out that the two Republican candidates who attack Trump the most  Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson  also have high unfavorable ratings among GOP voters. Hutchinson failed to qualify for the debate stage because he didn't garner enough support in Republican polls.

As the nation approaches the 2024 race, Republican voters can be broken down into three basic groups, according to Ayres.

There are "Never Trump" voters who make up about 10-to-15% of the electorate; "Always Trump" voters who are around 35% of the party and "Maybe Trump" voters who have the biggest share at 50-to-55% of the GOP vote.

Many of the "Maybe Trump" voters are willing to consider one of the other candidates, but they also don't want to be insulted or mocked for their past support of the ex-president. Ayres said that's why challengers have to be careful in dealing with the Trump factor.

"You can separate yourself from Trump without attacking him," Ayres said.

What could change the Trump dynamic?

But will the dynamic between Trump and the rest of the Republican field change during Wednesday's debate? Maybe, maybe not.

Political analyst Lara Brown, author of "Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants," said challengers will need the support of many past Trump voters if they are to become competitive, and they don't want to alienate them.

"As a result, the candidates are mostly talking about his electability problem in the general election rather than any of the other serious issues," Brown said.

Some Republicans "are concerned that if they hit him too hard or cut too close to the bone," Trump supporters will "cancel" them out of the party altogether," she warned.

Trump's counterattacks

Even as they try to gain ground on Trump among Republican voters, the former president's GOP rivals may also hesitate to publicly criticize him during Wednesday's debate because they don't want to risk Trump hitting back at them.

Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and likely the most pro-Trump candidate in the 2024 race, did challenge the former president over his administration's failure to overturn former President Barack Obama's health care law.

My friend Donald Trump promised us: repeal and replace Obamacare," he said. "Eight years later, did it happen? No, it did not. It is a false promise if it is contingent on Congress.

That drew a strong rebuke from Trump aide Chris LaCivita, who said on X "Heres a guy itching to be punched."

Trump, who has often launched personal attacks against his opponents, in recent posts on Truth Social criticized some of his opponents as "Sloppy Chris, Lyin Mike Pence, Nikki Birdbrain Haley, (and) Ron (Dead Campaign) DeSanctimonious."

But despite all of these risks, from tempting Trump's own counterattacks to alienating his loyal voters, if Republican candidates are going to confront him, they have to make the move soon. Brown noted that candidates will probably have to be more aggressive with Trump at some point because the Iowa caucuses, the first state-level election of the GOP primary, are rapidly approaching on Jan. 15.

"It would not be surprising to me if things became more contentious and more confrontational regarding Trump," during Wednesday's debate, she predicted.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Republicans target Donald Trump during the second GOP debate?
Fifty House Democrats on Wednesday called on Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a major upcoming Supreme Court case after a report detailed the justices visits to Koch network events.

ProPublica reported Friday that Thomas attended a private dinner for donors at the networks annual summit in California in 2018 and participated in at least one other event.

In their letter, the lawmakers take aim at how attorneys linked to the Koch network are representing the plaintiffs in a major Supreme Court case this upcoming term with major impacts on the future of executive agencies power.

But there is no question that your lengthy relationship with the Kochs, including your participation in donor retreats for the Koch network, requires recusal in the upcoming case that the Koch network has teed up in an attempt to overturn Chevron, the lawmakers wrote.

The case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, asks the justices to overturn the so-called Chevron deference, which for nearly four decades has given agencies wide authority to implement regulations.

Under the Chevron deference, if Congress is ambiguous or silent on an issue, courts must uphold an agencys action if it was based on a permissible construction of the statute.

Overturning Chevron would take a sledgehammer to agency power and their ability to issue environment, health and other types of regulations without clearer authorization from Congress.

Here, the Kochs  political activists that you have personally helped fundraise for and personally financially benefited from while their crusade to overturn Chevron was public and well-known  are a party to this case, the lawmakers wrote.

If you do not recognize that your behavior disqualifies you from ruling on such a consequential case and you do not recuse yourself, it will do irreparable harm to the Courts credibility and to the publics faith in the impartial rulings of the entire federal judiciary, they continued.

The letter, led by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), also included as signatories Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), among others.

The Hill reached out to Thomas for comment through a court spokesperson.

Thomas, a member of the courts conservative wing, years ago wrote a majority opinion expanding the Chevron deference.

But in 2020, he changed tune, questioning the constitutionality of the doctrine and writing it is never too late to surrende[r] former views to a better considered position.

Notably, even though you have a well-earned reputation for taking firm and consistent views, you have flip-flopped on this issue, the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

ProPublicas report is the latest in a series of investigative stories into Thomas. The stories have led to an uproar from Democrats and judicial watchdog groups, who have called for the court to adopt a binding code of ethics.

Thomas is not the only justice to come under ethics controversy, however. The woes have spanned across ideological lines, including an Associated Press report that detailed colleges efforts to court donors when liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor visited their schools.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The News

More than half of Senate Democrats have now urged Sen. Bob Menendez , D-N.J., to step down from his seat in light of his federal bribery indictment.

What began as a trickle of criticism broke into a flood on Tuesday, starting with the partys endangered incumbents, such as Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Democratic senators argued that Menendez deserves a presumption of innocence, but the severity of the charges meant he cant be an effective lawmaker any longer.

Perhaps none carried more weight than Sen. Cory Booker , D-N.J., a close ally of Menendez who defended him during his first corruption trial in 2015. I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving, Booker said in a statement.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., went the furthest, promising to endorse a primary challenger against Menendez if he ran for re-election, while warning that the senators legal problems could drag down the party.

Its not about him, its about control of that seat and the Senate and we have our colleagues in tough hard races right now to maintain that majority, Fetterman told reporters. This is beyond selfish.

The last time there was a guy in New Jersey with this much cash in his house was Tony Soprano, he added.

While Menendez has come under fire from within his own party, a handful of Republicans offered him rhetorical support Tuesday.

Senator Menendez has a right to test the governments evidence in court, just like any other citizen. He should be judged by jurors and New Jerseys voters, not by Democratic politicians who now view him as inconvenient to their hold on power, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. posted on X, the platform formally known as Twitter. His sentiment was echoed by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat) and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio (Clearly the guys been accused of some pretty crazy stuff ... but we do have innocence until proven guilty here).

Josephs view

Its not entirely surprising Republicans would back Menendezs right to stick around at this moment. Even leaving aside the political headache hes creating for the Democrats, it would be awkward for Donald Trumps allies to suggest that merely facing an indictment should disqualify an individual from public office.

Room for Disagreement

As Axios notes, at least one Republican says it may be time for Menendez to go. If one ounce of whats in the indictment is true, then yes, Sen. Mitt Romney. If not even one ounce is true, then hell have to make that decision himself.
MADERA COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Deputies are requesting public assistance in locating the next of kin of a Texas man who was part of the unhoused community in Madera County, the Madera County Sheriffs Office announced on Tuesday.

Officials are seeking the publics help in locating the next of kin for 45-year-old Guillermo Garcia.

Photo Courtesy: The Madera County Sheriffs Office

Deputies said Mr. Garcia was an unhoused resident known to stay near the railroad on Highway 145 in Madera County prior to his death. He is originally from Corpus Christi, Texas. The Coroners Office has searched numerous personal records but officials say they were not able to locate any next of kin.

The Madera County Coroners Office encourages anyone who might have information about Mr. Garcia or how to get in contact with his next of kin to contact them at (559) 675-7774.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  The search for a hunter who went missing Sunday morning near California Hot Springs continues, the Tulare County Sheriffs Office announced on Tuesday.

Deputies say the 75-year-old hunter who went missing Sunday morning near California Hot Springs is now being considered a missing person.

According to sheriffs officials, Juan Duron Velasquez was last seen around 7 a.m. Sunday hunting in the Parker Meadow area northeast of California Hot Springs. He was last seen wearing an orange knit cap, a camouflage jacket, and pants.

Deputies say he is described as 510 and weighs about 200 pounds. Velasquez does not have any known major medical conditions or mental health issues.

The Tulare County Sheriffs Office encourages anyone with information about Velasquez to contact them at (559) 733-6218.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
If you believe it, heres some rich irony: at least two multi-billionaires who made their bread in the world of careful bets have all but admitted they failed to do an ounce of research before dropping large sums on Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis .

They probably wouldnt agree with that characterization. But the only alternative explanation is what they might be trying to hide: that theyre distancing themselves so they dont drown alongside the sinking ship that is DeSantis presidential campaign.

The ultrawealthy in questionhedge fund magnate Ken Griffin and online brokerage founder Thomas Peterffyhave recently sworn off playing sugar daddy for DeSantis. Peterffy said in April that he doesnt like the Florida governors abortion restrictions. Griffin is no longer keen on some of his governing tactics.

Ron DeSantis Florida Is Too Anti-Woke to Teach AP Psychology

What theyre really saying is that they didnt do their homework on DeSantis, whos embraced extremism and authoritarianism since the inception of his political career. Theyre essentially claiming they bought him sight unseen. Its a shocking admission from the one percenters, because even the vest-sporting 20-year-old interns on Wall Street know the importance of due diligence, coined for the research phase leading up to a large investment.

Whether its a sizable stake or the whole thing, when you buy into a company you really ought to take a hard look at it to make sure you wont get burned. Betting on political candidates is hardly different. In either case youre seeking a return on investment.

Griffin and Peterffy backed DeSantis for governor in 2018 and again before his 2022 re-election. Peterffys donated at least $550,000, a much more forgivable sum than Griffins combined $10 million-plus. Their donations to his re-election campaign (more of a formality than a contest) were de-facto backings for DeSantis presidential bid, evidenced by the millions he transferred from his state war chest to his federal PAC following re-election.

But the red flagslike DeSantis anti-abortion position or affinity for weaponizing governmenthave always been there. In business terms, putting so much money behind DeSantis only to back out later because of his politics is like purchasing Apple, Inc., and selling it after realizing the company doesnt sell Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, or other tree fruit varieties.

DeSantis hasnt changed his position on abortion. In 2018, he promised to sign a bill banning the procedure after detection of a fetal heartbeat. Thats in line with the six-week ban DeSantis signed into law in April. Still, Peterffy acts as if the abortion law comes as a surprise to himself and reportedly Nelson Peltz, another billionaire who was crushing on DeSantis.

Ron DeSantis Anti-Free Speech Crusade Would Cancel Fox News

Peterffy has also said he doesnt like that DeSantis bans books. Griffins chief qualm is the governors battle against Disney. Both are problems they shouldve seen coming, because DeSantis wears the badge of authoritarianism on his sleeve.

DeSantis is a product of the Freedom Caucus in Congress, about as far right as you could get in the Capitolunless youre storming into it. Hes also never shied away from weaponizing the government against businesses. In 2019, days after taking office, he started a state boycott against Airbnb after the short-term rental company delisted properties in the West Bank. During his 2021 State of the State Address, weeks before Griffin injected DeSantis re-election campaign with $5 million, the governor promised to launch an assault against Big Tech companies.

Yet a somehow-perplexed Griffin took to CNBC last week to suggest he was blindsided by the governors hard line on Disney, something he said doesnt reflect well on the ethos of Florida.

If what theyre saying is true, these billionaires are disclosing a surprising level of oversight and lack of political acumen, especially given the fact they all have backgrounds in industries built on due diligence and smart caution.

But a maybe-more-likely reason is that they no longer want to wager on a broken horse like DeSantis.

Both Griffin and Peterffy made their departure from him public, a move that will help them curry favor with whomever emerges from the Republican field. Its a scramble to try and save face. In billionaire terms, theyre overexposed in a stock and need to diversify. The public and noisy abandonment also acts as an invitation to the other primary candidates: the money is there for the taking.

Leaked Audio From a Ron DeSantis Donor Event Is Really Bad News for His Campaign

That might be especially true with Griffin, who booked the CNBC slot just as national media started cranking out obituary equivalents for DeSantis campaign following a pattern of awful poll performances. Peterffy also ostensibly said the campaigns lack of appeal was one of his reasons for jumping ship. In April he told the Financial Times that DeSantis was losing momentum.

But no matter how they spin it, backing DeSantis for something bigger than Florida was always a poor financial strategy. A prudent investor wouldve picked up on his fundamental flaw: his indebtedness to Trump. They then wouldve realized that DeSantis could never beat the former president because patricide isnt a winning strategy.

The political calculus really is that simple, and it must be embarrassing for these so-called investors to have lost big by overlooking it. Theyre coping by trying to put the blame on DeSantis strategyas if its surprising to see extremism ahead of a Republican primary. It doesnt take a billionaire to avoid buying that nonsense.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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After Gov. Ron DeSantis  education department was accused of steering a multimillion-dollar contract to a politically connected consultant, his administration said the states chief inspector general would do a holistic review of the 2021 bid process.

That review never delved very deep, according to the results, contained in 124 pages of records received from the governors office in response to a public records request.

DeSantis chief inspector general, Melinda Miguel, never interviewed anyone involved in the scandal, the records show. Her office instead referred the case back to the Department of Educations inspector general, who produced no reports and pulled no records.

A federal grand jury out of Gainesville is now investigating the bid-rigging allegations.

The states review was requested by state Rep. Allison Tant , D-Tallahassee, after the Herald/Times reported last year how the Department of Education, led by former Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, tried to steer an estimated $4 million contract to MGT Consulting, led by former GOP lawmaker and Corcoran business partner Trey Traviesa.

Corcoran is now interim president of New College of Florida, a public liberal arts school in Sarasota County that DeSantis and political appointees are trying to turn into a beacon of conservatism.

The contract was to be paid for by federal coronavirus relief dollars and was to help the struggling Jefferson County School District, a rural, majority-Black school district near Tallahassee.

State law forbids agencies from giving contracts to companies with an unfair competitive advantage, but records and interviews showed that:

 On Nov. 1, 2021, a week before the state asked for bids, officials with the Department of Education held a meeting with Traviesa and Jefferson County school leaders to discuss MGTs consulting deal.

 When education officials drafted the request for proposals, it was based on a draft agreement that MGT had already drawn up.

 On the first day of the competitive bidding, Jefferson County school Superintendent Eydie Tricquet told the countys school board that she was told MGT would receive the contract.

Jefferson County school officials fought against the contract, and it was ultimately not awarded after two top education officials created a separate company and submitted their own bid. (The departments inspector general investigated that competing bid, but not the apparent bid-rigging.)

On Monday, Tant said it didnt appear that state officials wanted to get to the bottom of what happened.

The public, my Jefferson County community, is owed an answer on that, Tant added. It shouldnt take a federal investigation to get an answer to that.

DeSantis office didnt return emails requesting comment.

Records show how the Department of Educations inspector general responded to Tants complaint and to a second complaint filed by writer and former Polk County School Board member Billy Townsend, who both raised concerns based on the Herald/Times report.

Tant suggested that investigators speak with Tricquet, school Principal Jackie Pons and anyone else who was at the Nov. 1 meeting with school officials and Traviesa.

Records show that Department of Education Inspector General Mike Blackburn emailed Tricquet and Pons, writing that they were both identified as a potential complainant with information related to misconduct by a Department of Education employee.

Tricquet said Tuesday that she called the inspector generals office and spoke with someone whose name she couldnt recall. But the person didnt seem eager to speak with her, she said.

They said, Do you need to come in and talk to us?  Tricquet recalled. It wasnt, We would like to talk to you. 

She said she never learned what the inspector generals office was investigating, so never met with them.

It was like, OK, if you want to talk to us, you can,  she recalled them saying. It was very odd.

Pons never spoke to the inspector general, Tricquet said.

That appears to be where the states investigation began and ended, according to records. Investigators noted repeatedly that neither Tant nor Townsend had direct knowledge of what happened.

In one meeting of investigators, Blackburn noted that the Nov. 1, 2021, meeting happened prior to the procurement, but he couldnt proceed without the help of Tricquet or Pons.

The [Department of Educations Office of Inspector General] does not know the purpose of the meeting or who attended without corroboration from Tricquet or Pons, records state.

The Herald/Times was able to confirm the existence of the meeting and some of its attendees, which included an official with MGT, through the Nov. 1 visitor logs for the Department of Educations headquarters in Tallahassee.

In June last year, the inspectors general wrote to Tant that they were closing out their review.

We have reviewed the information you provided and attempted to interview the contacts you suggested, they wrote. At this point, this office has determined that no further investigation is warranted at this time.

Last year, DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske said Miguel would take a holistic approach to reviewing whether the state tried to steer the contract to MGT.

The record shows that Taryn Fenske clearly lied on behalf of the governor when she said there would be an all of the above investigation, Townsend said in a text message. There has been a none of the above investigation, which is obviously why federal authorities have been forced to step in.
The super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) released a video Wednesday going after fellow GOP presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy for mirroring former President Obama in some of his remarks.

The video, released by Never Back Down PAC, plays clips of Ramaswamy against clips of Obama, a Democrat, highlighting similar lines under on-screen text reading Vivek copies Obama.

One clip includes Ramaswamys opening line during the first GOP primary debate in Milwaukee last month, when he asked, Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name, and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?

At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama  then a Senate hopeful from Illinois  called himself a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another 2024 Republican candidate, called Ramaswamy out on the August debate stage for the echo of Obama.

The last person in one of these debates  who stood in the middle of the stage and said, What is a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here? was Barack Obama. And I am afraid we are dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight, Christie said.

Never Back Down highlighted other lines from Obamas 2004 speech  including but they sense, deep in their bones and a reference to E pluribus unum  in comparison to Ramaswamys presidential launch video.

In his launch, the entrepreneur also referred to the Latin motto and used the phrasing I believe deep in my bones.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a fraud and a flip-flopper who has been caught in too many lies to count, a Never Back Down spokesperson said, adding, Xopying parts of Obamas most famous speech for his campaign launch video just shows what an empty suit he really is.

The Hill has reached out to Ramaswamys campaign for comment on the Never Back Down video.

Ramaswamy and DeSantis are among seven candidates set to face off onstage at the second GOP presidential primary debate Wednesday night in Simi Valley, Calif. The debate will be hosted by Fox Business.

Polling after the first debate indicated many in the GOP saw DeSantis and Ramaswamy as the top performers of the night.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Chicagos Old Town neighborhood hasnt seen a new skyscraper in decades, but a developer now wants public approval for a 36-story apartment tower next to the historic Moody Church.

Fern Hill Co. asked residents Tuesday night to support a 500-unit building on North Avenue between Wells Street and LaSalle Drive, and promised it would reflect Old Towns artistic heritage and not be just another glass tower.

This is the opposite of that, said Nick Anderson, Fern Hills founder and president.

The glass and steel facade would feature colored mosaics on all four sides designed to mimic a sunrise over Lake Michigan, or other options such as a prairie landscape, he added. The lower portion would eliminate the block-long dead space along North Avenue by replacing a brick wall and parking lot with new retail.

Some residents worried the proposal meant losing the existing Walgreens on the corner of Wells Street, but Fern Hill plans to rebuild and incorporate the store into its new building.

They will remain a tenant of this community with an extremely long-term lease, Anderson said.

One hundred apartments will be reserved as affordable to comply with the citys Affordable Requirements Ordinance.

It would be the neighborhoods first residential tower since the James Kilmer Condominiums building at 1560 N. Sandburg Terrace, Eugenie Terrace on the Park at 1730 N. Clark St. and 1660 N. LaSalle were all completed in the 1970s and 1980s.

Fern Hill also has more ambitious plans. It began buying up properties around the nearly century-old Moody Church a few years ago, including several gas stations and the former Treasure Island Foods supermarket at 1639 N. Wells St., and envisions launching other development projects to remake this corner of Old Town, which includes the Chicago History Museum and Latin School of Chicago.

In 2021, the company began meeting with Old Town community groups and condo associations about what they wanted to see on these sites, and a top concern among many was securing a new grocery store to replace Treasure Island. Anderson said Fern Hill tried finding a replacement but signing a deal may not happen until the apartment project gets underway, assuring a steady stream of customers for a new grocer.

We have come close, but have never been able to secure a user, he said.

Tuesdays presentation included drawings of new administrative buildings for Moody Church on its northern side, now occupied by a BP gas station, and to its west on the other side of LaSalle a retail or office building. All these structures would be roughly the same height as the church and use materials that will blend with its brick and terra cotta facade.

Breaking ground on the projects could take a long time. In addition to receiving feedback from neighbors about project design, potential traffic snarls and whether a new development would improve neighborhood safety, Fern Hill needs a green light from 2nd Ward Ald. Brian Hopkins and approvals from the Chicago Plan Commission and City Council.

Its a consequential decision, and will have a long-lasting impact in the community, said Hopkins, adding thats what Old Town residents think is the most important factor. Im withholding judgment myself.
The Ukraine military's stunning missile strike on a Russian naval base in Crimea last week was carried out at the request of and in close coordination with the U.S. and Britain, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed Wednesday.

Ukraine has said the attack Friday killed or wounded more than 100 Russian military members and destroyed a headquarters building for the Black Sea Fleet. Russia has said little about the strike, but Zakharova said the goal was to distract attention from Ukraine's slow-moving counteroffensive and to "trigger panic" among the Russian public.

"There is not the slightest doubt that this attack was pre-planned with the use of Western intelligence means and NATO satellite equipment and spy planes," Zakharova told state media.

The Pentagon has said the $44.5 billion in U.S. military and security assistance to Ukraine since January 2021 has included satellite imagery services, surveillance and thermal imagery systems. And Ukrainian officials have suggested that British-French Storm Shadow missiles were used in the attack.

Ukraine had claimed that a top Russian admiral was killed in the assault. But Russia has released multiple videos of Viktor Sokolov that Moscow says were taken since the attack. Ukraine said it is trying to "clarify" its claim.

An elderly woman carries flowers past new pictures on the Memory Wall of Fallen defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv on Sept. 27, 2023.

Developments:

 A Russian man sentenced to two years in prison for criticizing the army online has been sent to a solitary cell for a fifth time, the global Russian media outlet Current Time reported. Anti-war drawings by Alexey Moskalev's 13-year-old daughter at school in April 2022 drew attention to Moskalev's social media post.

 German officials including Chancellor Olaf Scholz are reluctant to send Ukraine long-range Taurus missiles out of concern it could lead to a direct confrontation with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported.

y's Federal Prosecutor Office said it is investigating a possible war crime in the Kyiv suburb of Hostomel, citing allegations that several civilians, including a German citizen, were shot and wounded by Russian forces in the early weeks of the war.

 Ukraine's soccer association said it won't take part in any international competitions that include Russian teams. European soccer officials on Tuesday dropped a ban on Russian teams for players 17 years old and younger, saying children should not be punished for actions of adults.

 Ukraine will mark a Day of Defenders on Sunday with a minute of silence for those who have died serving the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced: "A minute of honor. A minute of silence. And eternity of memory for our fallen defenders."

 Ukraine Security Service cyberspecialists detained two Kyiv residents accused of providing the Russian military with coordinates for a missile attack on Kyiv last week.

Latest attacks on Russia's Black Sea Fleet are most damaging yet

Regardless of whether Adm. Sokolov was killed or survived Friday's attack in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, Ukraine's latest assaults on Russia's Black Sea Fleet "have been more damaging and more coordinated than thus far in the war,'' the British Defense Ministry said in an update.

The ministry called the damage "severe but localized,'' and said it wouldn't keep the fleet from performing its main duties of launching cruise missiles and providing security patrols. But besides undermining the notion that Russia maintains full control of the waters around the area, the Ukrainian attacks may help prevent the Kremlin from scuttling the new shipping corridor Kyiv has established in the Black Sea to export its grain.

The ministry said it's likely Russia's "ability to continue wider regional security patrols and enforce its de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports will be diminished. It also likely has a degraded ability to defend its assets in port and to conduct routine maintenance.''

Trudeau apologizes for House speaker's 'embarrassing' mistake

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had said the unwitting invitation of a former Nazi combatant to Zelenskyy's speech to Parliament on Friday was "deeply embarrassing,'' apologized for the incident Wednesday.

Trudeau nonetheless pinned the blame on Anthony Rota, then the speaker of the House of Commons, saying he was solely responsible for the blunder. Rota accepted full responsibility and resigned Tuesday.

Right after Zelenskyy's address, Rota lauded 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division, eliciting a standing ovation from lawmakers. Over the weekend, observers pointed out Hunka's division was also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit under the Nazis' command.

All of us who were in the House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped, even though we did so unaware of the context, Trudeau said Wednesday. It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, and was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people.

Report: Drones pounding Ukraine laden with Western parts

Armed Iranian-built drones used by Russia in the latest attacks on Ukraine are filled with U.S. and European parts, according to a secret document viewed by Britain's The Guardian. The information was sent to Western officials last month as part of Kyiv's push to obtain long-range missiles to attack drone-production sites in Russia, Iran and Syria, the media outlet reported. The document says more than 600 raids in the previous three months were by drones featuring Western parts.

The document says production, once centered in Iran, has been moving to Russia as Iran tries to disassociate itself from the war. Iran, the Mail added, cannot cope with Russian demand and the intensity of use in Ukraine." Iran has denied involvement in Russia's drones.

The Biden administration on Wednesday sanctioned entities and individuals involved in providing parts for Iranian drones, but none of them are from the U.S. or Europe. The sanctioned parties are based in Iran, China, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Wagner troops return to Ukraine, fighting for Russia

Some former mercenaries from the Wagner Group who launched an ill-fated 36-hour insurrection in June have returned to battle with the Russian military against Ukrainian forces, Kyiv says. Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Grouping of Forces, told Ukrainian Pravda the soldiers have crossed over from camps in Belarus and have signed on with the Russians.

"They do not pose such a threat as they did, for example, a year ago, due to the loss of their main leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin," Yevlash said.

Prigozhin, frustrated by the Russian Defense Ministry's failure to provide enough ammunition for his forces in Ukraine, led thousands of his mercenaries into the Russian border city of Rostov-on-Don and began rolling toward Moscow. They abandoned the effort about 100 miles short of the capital under a deal that allowed them to reroute into Belarusk. Prigohzin was later killed in a suspicious plane crash.

Kremlin building railway connecting seized Ukraine cities to Russia

Russia has started building a railway connection to Ukraine that could provide a crucial alternative to Kremlin forces that depend on the Crimean Bridge, an adviser to the mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol said Wednesday. Petro Andriushchenko said work has begun connecting Ukraine's southeastern Donetsk rail line  from Mariupol to Volnovakha  with the Russian cities of Taganrog and Rostov-on-Don. If completed, the rail line could provide a drastic reduction in dependence on the Crimean Bridge, which has been damaged multiple times by Ukraine strikes that have inhibited its use for days, week or months at a time.

"It's not just chatter, they started building a railway bridge ... across the Kalmius River," Andriushchenko wrote on Telegram.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine war live updates: Russia accuses US of aiding attack on fleet
What did people do before they could look something up on the internet?

Thats what comedian Sarah Adelman, 26, wanted to know after she found herself with a dead cellphone trying to navigate her way home from Brooklyn, New York. So she turned to TikTok and decided to ask her elders.

If you saw someone and you were like, Oh, they remind me of that actor. Whats his name? and none of your friends knew, would you go to a library? Adelman asked in her video, which has been viewed over 300,000 times. And before Google Maps  I know that there was MapQuest, but before that, genuinely, what would you do? Would you just accept not knowing?

The reaction was both funny and wholesome  with over thousands of people weighing in in the comments and sharing their reactions in stitched videos.

The video and its response also demonstrated a rarity on the internet: Generations came together, rather than mock one another. Many who replied appeared to identify as millennials, who are typically defined as people born from 1981 to 1996.

Whats striking about this video is that it asks older generations to see themselves in a historical way by highlighting how all of our lives are different today than in the past, Pamela Aronson, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said in an email. The post is thus not creating conflict between generations with dismissive comments like OK, boomer.

The idea for the video stemmed from Adelmans genuine interest in learning how people lived in uncertainty before the internet.

Even before handheld devices, Adelman said in a phone interview. Even having to go home to Google something, I cannot comprehend that.

The responses enlightened her.

For maps  you had to use an actual folded map and stop and ask for directions at gas stations, a person commented.

Your aunt said something was fact, and you believed that until you found out otherwise, another user said.

Not all questions were answered, a commenter added.

There was no way of going and looking it up, TikToker Tom Powell Jr. said in a video response, referring specifically to finding a celebritys name. We didnt go to the library to look it up like you might have suggested in the video.

Powell also showed off a photo of a wire-bound book that included maps of the Chicago area, which he said he kept in his car at all times when he needed maps. The book had reference points on the pages and an index with cities in the area.

Dawn Marie, a travel TikToker, said in a video that because the information wasnt at your fingertips, you had to get crafty. For celebrities, she said, you would either accept not knowing or go to the local Blockbuster to find the movie cover.

Or youd ask the kid who worked there, she said. People at Blockbuster seemed to know every movie, who starred in them and all the things about movies.

Adelmans TikTok video, Aronson said, brought Gen Z and members of other generations together to reflect on how technology has shaped the nature of everyday life.

Gen Z would identify with this post, because they cant even imagine life without these things, Aronson said But I think that older generations have also become technology-dependent, so when they see this post, they likely think about how things have changed historically in their own lifetimes.

Adelman, who was born in 1997, said she expected her video to do well because, she said, most generations lean into nostalgia. But in addition to attracting views, she also wanted to ensure her video came across as genuine.

I knew that I would get hate if I didnt ask it in a nice way, she said. And thats why I was like, Im genuinely asking, because I was genuinely curious what people had to say.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
As of November 1, Disney+ will restrict its Canadian users from sharing their accounts with people outside their households unless theyre willing to pay more. The company sent out an email to subscribers notifying them of the change, which Disney CEO Bob Iger foreshadowed in an earnings call back in August . With this move, the company is following closely in the footsteps of Netflix, which officially began its crackdown on password sharing in the US and other countries in May.

In the updated Subscriber Agreement , Disney specifies that a household includes only the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence" and used by the people who live there. It also suggests Disney+ will introduce new fee options for users who want to add outside members to their accounts, noting that the upcoming rule applies to everyone unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier. The details on that havent been released yet, but Netflix has set the precedent with its $8 per extra person, per month charges.

Iger previously said the company was targeting 2024 to begin clamping down on account sharing, so the bans up north are coming ahead of schedule. He also stated that addressing the significant level of account sharing could take more than the entire next calendar year to solve. Its as yet unclear how, if at all, Disney+ will try to enforce the ban on mobile devices, and when it will come to other regions.

On November 1, Disney+ users in Canada and parts of Europe will also get access to the streaming services less costly ad-supported tier, which has been available in the US since 2022. Thats likely little consolation for anyone about to get kicked off their parents Disney+ account.
Turnpike protesters hold signs during a meeting of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation Tuesday, January 3, 2023.

A majority of Oklahoma's Supreme Court rejected a request Monday to reconsider authorizing the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority to sell a half-billion dollars in bonds backing its ACCESS Oklahoma plans.

The decision to deny the rehearing request was supported by Justices James Winchester, Noma Gurich, Yvonne Kauger, James Edmondson, Richard Darby and Special Judge John Reif.

Justices Dustin Rowe, Dana Kuehn and Special Judge Stacie Hixon dissented.

Oklahoma City attorney Robert E. Norman filed the request Aug. 21, asking the court to reconsider its split decision issued Aug. 1 to allow the authority to proceed with its plan to sell bonds for the $5 billion plan.

With the court's rejection of Norman's rehearing request in hand, the authority stated Monday it will begin widening Interstate 44 (the Turner Turnpike) between Oklahoma City and Tulsa and move forward on other long-range ACCESS Oklahoma plans to add interchanges along existing turnpike routes.

"No engineering design work will resume on the program until after the sale of revenue bonds," authority officials said.

Opponents pledge continued fight against ACCESS Oklahoma

Norman, the attorney who sought the rehearing, said Tuesday "we will continue our opposition to the new turnpikes in ACCESS Oklahoma on many available fronts."

While Amy Cerato, a member of Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation, wasn't surprised by the court's decision, she described it as "a sad day for a representative democracy and the state of Oklahoma."

"They got it incorrect the first time  the law is on our side," said Cerato, adding that she finds it incomprehensible investors would be interested in purchasing bonds from an entity that has yet to establish a certain route for a new turnpike and has no revenue estimations in hand for how much it would be used.

"The Supreme Court gave the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority carte blanche to build wherever it wants, whenever it wants and however it wants, and that was not the intent of the turnpike enabling act when it was written," she said. "They are holding every single person anywhere near their project in Cleveland , McClain and Oklahoma counties with a gun over our heads.

"We can't do anything with our properties because no one knows where the turnpike routes will be," she said.

"We have plenty more irons in the fire, and that includes legislative reform and state and federal legal actions that we are willing to take, if and when the OTA actually decides when and where it will build the route," Cerato said.

Unsettled OTA issues remain despite court's ruling

All work on ACCESS Oklahoma was frozen earlier this year amidst an array of lawsuits filed against the turnpike authority alleging proposed new Norman-area toll roads did not comply with 1987 legislative authorization.

The turnpike authority is still being audited at the request of Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

The turnpike authority also has not resolved the Bureau of Land Reclamation's rejected plans to build one of the new toll roads through the outskirts of Lake Thunderbird. That alone leaves the turnpike authority unable to fully project construction costs and how many residents might be displaced by a changed route.

More: Oklahoma Turnpike Authority losing millions in conversion from toll booths to PlatePay

Over the past two years, The Oklahoman reported how the agency used questionable population and traffic growth forecasts to justify building new toll roads and lost revenues due to conversion to cashless tolling.

Implementation of ACCESS Oklahoma has been delayed by about a year to this point. Transportation Department Executive Director Tim Gatz first announced the $5 billion, 15-year bond issue to expand and improve the toll road network at the turnpike authority's December 2021 meeting, followed by board approval in February 2022.

Supreme Court rulings have backed OTA, so far

Turnpike officials said Monday's ruling was the third favoring the turnpike authority since it announced its ACCESS Oklahoma plan in February.

Last week, Cleveland County Judge Timothy Olsen complied with an order issued by Oklahoma's Supreme Court in May that overturned his December ruling the authority had violated Oklahoma's Open Meetings Act as it unveiled its ACCESS Oklahoma plan.

In August, the Supreme Court declined a request seeking to require Winchester to recuse himself from authority matters.

The court initially authorized the turnpike authority to sell the bonds for ACCESS Oklahoma on Aug. 1, a decision supported by the same justices who backed Monday's ruling.

Getting past those challenges were key, the authority said.

"Clearing all remaining legal issues was one of the Council of Bond Oversights conditions when it heard the authoritys application Sept. 11 to issue the $500 million in bonds for the program," its statement read.

Bond sales for ACCESS Oklahoma work could occur as soon as late October, with the authority recently obtaining "stable" outlooks from three independent bond agencies, the statement said.

The ratings "reflect OTAs strong financial position/fiscal controls, sound management practices, high quality pavement/bridge conditions, and financial metrics along with a stable traffic profile with low toll rates," it said. "OTA continues to meet and exceed financial expectations while maintaining a safe and effective network of toll roads that connect seamlessly with the state highway system."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma Turnpike Authority can sell project bonds, court says
Republicans hope to convince the public and even some of their colleagues that an impeachment inquiry into President Biden holds merit at their first hearing Thursday.

The GOPs sprawling investigation seeks to establish that Hunter Biden engaged in unethical business practices by leveraging his family name and then connect any wrongdoing back to the president.

Republican investigators with the House Oversight Committee have yet to connect that dot, nor have they found a smoking gun to back their most controversial claim  that Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch. Biden has furiously denied that allegation.

By House Oversight Chairman James Comers (R-Ky.) admission, the hearing is not expected to cover new ground.

Instead, the panel is set to dig into Hunter Bidens finances and tax payments as they take testimony from two tax experts  issues already investigated by a prosecutor held over from the Trump administration who was recently elevated to a special counsel.

Oversights partner in the investigation, the House Ways and Means Committee, dumped some 700 pages of new documents related to their probe Wednesday  a trove the panel will likely rely on despite the short window given to the public to review them. That panels chairman, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) will be waived on for Thursdays hearing.

Democrats have dismissed the investigation as a rehash of a conspiracy theory pushed by Rudy Giuliani ahead of former President Trumps first impeachment. The FBI never corroborated an unverified tip from a trusted source who relayed that a Ukrainian oligarch had bragged about paying off both Bidens.

Chairman Comers whole sham impeachment drive is based on a lie crafted and peddled by Trump and Rudy Giuliani that has been repeatedly debunked by multiple credible sources, Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on Oversight, said in a statement, adding that Giulianis right-hand man, Lev Parnas, now concedes there is nothing to the Burisma conspiracy theory.

In a series of three memos, House Oversight Republicans have claimed the Bidens brought in $20 million from foreign interests routed through various shell companies.

But a Washington Post fact check on those claims criticized Comer for overhyping those figures when just about $7 million flowed to Hunter Biden while the rest largely went to associates. It also noted all but one company examined were not shell companies as Comer claimed, but companies that had legitimate business interests.

The hearing comes amid deep GOP divisions over how to stave off a government shutdown set to begin Sunday and even whether to pursue an impeachment.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ignited the effort without taking a vote, raising questions about whether he would be able to get enough support from his conference.

Some Republicans have expressed reservations about backing such an effort, musing publicly and privately there may not be enough evidence to justify it.

Without doubt, Hunter Bidens shady business deals undermined Americas image and our anti-corruption goals, and his conduct was thoroughly reprehensible, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

Whats missing, despite years of investigation, is the smoking gun that connects Joe Biden to his neer-do-well sons corruption.

Whats missing, despite years of investigation, is the smoking gun that connects Joe Biden to his neer-do-well sons corruption.

Comer has at times expressed frustration over communicating the complexities of the financial transactions.

Well, I think that some of you need to have a refresher course on the existing evidence, so well probably rehash some of that if for no other purpose to help educate the Washington, D.C., press corps, he said last week.

Republicans have focused on what they called Biden family business dealings, mapping out money moving in and out of accounts associated with Hunter Biden as well as a few other family members.

Their review of different bank accounts of various businesses associated with Hunter Biden found that he earned money from doing business in Romania, China, Kazakhstan and Ukraine  including $2.6 million from Burisma. The rest of the funds from the Ukrainian energy company went to Biden business associate Devon Archer.

But the Washington Post fact check calls into question the committees claims about payments from Russia, specifically $3.5 million from billionaire Elena Baturina. The Post found $2.75 million of that sum, which Republicans identify as going to Hunter Biden, actually went to Archer for a real estate deal the presidents son was unconnected to.

Hunter Biden has dismissed GOP musings about his business ventures, calling himself a private citizen with every right to pursue his own business endeavors in an earlier statement through his legal team.

And Democrats are quick to point out that Comers team has yet to connect any of that money to President Biden.

Every single time you hear a Republican say, the Biden family, just know thats because it does not include Joe Biden. If it did, they would say Joe Biden, Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) said earlier this month.

In their third memo, Republicans also argue that payments to President Bidens family members can be an indirect way of corruptly influencing a foreign official, arguing they dont need to show any direct flow of money to President Biden.

But the GOP has also failed to indicate what policy shifts, if any, resulted from Hunter Bidens work abroad or any government actions taken to benefit his businesses.

Oversight has instead pointed to photos showing President Biden meeting with associates of his son over dinner, as well as Hunter Biden taking calls with his father on speaker phone when otherwise taking business meetings.

Raskin echoed a sentiment expressed by many Democrats frustrated that the investigations are moving full steam ahead even as Congress barrels towards a shutdown.

Its hard to grasp the complete derangement of this moment. Three days before theyre set to shut down the United States government, Republicans launch a baseless impeachment drive against President Biden. No one can figure out the logic of either course of action. Why shut down the U.S. government, something no enemy nation has ever succeeded in doing? he said.

Why impeach a president who has committed no high crimes and misdemeanors, no low crimes and misdemeanors, and no crimes at all?

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Healthcare professionals are ethically obliged to do all they can to ensure the survival of their patients.

But in some instances, some physicians are willing to go the extra mile and attempt to perform CPR on a patient even though they know there's absolutely no hope of survival, The Messenger reports, a practice that has become known as "slow codes" or "show codes."

It's a thorny debate when it comes to patients who haven't signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, or have family members who insist on having their loved one receive care until the very end.

Then there's the possibility of actually doing more harm than good, causing even more pain for patients who are actively dying. CPR, in particular, has become the default treatment for many patients who are seriously ill, despite a nearly 85 percent failure rate. The practice can also impart a significant amount of physical harm, including fractured ribs or punctured lungs.

Despite "slow codes" being a fairly common practice, the taboo surrounding it has persisted over the years. To get a better grasp of the situation, the journal Bioethics is asking expertsto weigh in on the topic for an upcoming issue.

In a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, practitioners expressed some seriously mixed feelings about the ethics of slow codes, with most respondents feeling uneasy about being asked to resuscitate in a medically futile case. According to The Messenger, some hospitals have even prohibited the practice entirely.

"Even if they are dying, it might worsen their death," Parker Crutchfield, an adjunct assistant professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University and a co-editor at Bioethics, told The Messenger.

On the other hand, making it look like a given patient received the utmost care could actually be helpful.

"But it also, when done insincerely, can also do a lot of good for families," Crutchfield added.

Experts are now hoping to find a consensus on what's best, setting up some clear guidelines on what to do in the possible case of a slow code.

"You have to make a judgment about what really is futile, and what really is in somebody's best interest," Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York University, told The Messenger. "And that's not written down in any guidelines."

More on CPR: Astronaut Shows How to Perform CPR in Zero Gravity
The Capitol is seen in Washington on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. The U.S. government faces a shutdown unless Congress manages to overcome a budget impasse before the Sept. 30 funding deadline.

The U.S. government appears to be heading towards its fifth true shutdown as lawmakers struggle to come to a compromise on how, or whether, to continue government funding beyond Saturdays deadline.

While a shutdown would halt nonessential government services and suspend hundreds of thousands of federal employees with no pay until funding is legislated, the nations elected representatives in the House and the Senate will continue to see their paychecks roll in.

The 27th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the Department of Treasury from varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives between elections.

But an assortment of lawmakers, including Utah Republican Rep. John Curtis, who are concerned about a dysfunctional Congress being compensated while congressional staff and federal employees are not, have proposed several variations of a bill that would bring the consequences of legislative inaction home to roost.

Prospect of a shutdown

Amid stalled talks in the House, where a handful of House Freedom Caucus members have opposed any attempt to pass a temporary spending bill, in the name of returning to regular order, the Senate is preparing its own continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels while lawmakers work through the 12 annual spending bills.

But the inclusion of over $6 billion in Ukraine funding in the Senates stopgap funding proposal has caused some senators, including Republican Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky. and Mike Lee of Utah, to object to quick passage of the bill, delaying a floor vote until Sunday at the earliest, ensuring at least a small shutdown unless the House can produce a continuing resolution in a surprise turn of events.

Related

Efforts to cut lawmaker pay during government shutdowns

Curtis, who represents Utahs 3rd Congressional District, introduced his No Work, No Pay Act on Friday, for the third time since he entered office.

The bill would obligate the payroll administrator of the House and the Senate, in addition to the secretary of the treasury, to exclude payments to members of Congress during each day of a government shutdown. If passed, the statute would not be active until after the next election cycle  in compliance with the 27th Amendment.

The American people expect Congress to do its most basic job: pass a budget and fund the government. If we cant, then we shouldnt get paid, Curtis said after introducing the bill for the first time in January 2019, during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Curtis legislation would apply anytime there is a lapse in appropriations for any Federal agency or department as a result of a failure to enact a regular appropriations bill or continuing resolution.

As he has done in the past, Curtis plans on requesting that the House clerk withhold his pay until an appropriations agreement is finalized for the coming fiscal year.

Curtis Democratic colleague Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota has introduced similar legislation, called My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your (MCCARTHY) Shutdown Act in a stab at Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

If enacted, Craigs legislation would also withhold congressional compensation each day of a government shutdown. But it also includes a special rule for the current Congress which would halt payments to lawmakers during any shutdown in coming weeks but would ensure back pay of withheld compensation on the last day of the term.

A bill proposed by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., in May is nearly identical to Craigs and Curtis.

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and James Lankford, R-Okla., have both introduced legislation in the Senate to prevent government shutdowns and incentivize lawmakers to focus on the appropriations process.

If passed, the bills would both initiate an automatic continuing resolution upon reaching the appropriations deadline. Kaines bill would prevent lawmakers from advancing non-appropriations legislation following the end of the fiscal year and Lankfords would require lawmakers to stay in Washington seven days a week to work through each of the 12 spending bills until a final budget is passed.

Why are we headed toward a government shutdown?

Despite the end of the fiscal period coming at the same time every year, Congress has failed to pass even one of the 12 annual spending bills through both the House and the Senate.

Instead, party leadership has relied on the passage of a continuing resolution, a temporary funding measure, to buy them 30-60 days to work through the appropriations process  just as they have done 44 out of the last 47 years.

Related

However, House Republican holdouts have stymied McCarthy at every turn  rejecting his attempts to pass a temporary funding measure and embarrassing him with more failed rule votes in one week than the previous two decades.

Now, as McCarthy struggles again to formulate a stopgap funding bill that can pass through his narrow Republican majority, some members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are saying they will never support a continuing resolution and that a protracted government shutdown might be necessary to catalyze a dramatic shift in the way Congress approaches spending.

Despite McCarthys plans to pass four appropriations packages through the chamber this week on top of a continuing resolution, a government shutdown seems likelier than ever as a handful of House Republicans double down on holding the line amid calls from former President Donald Trump on Sunday to Shut it down!, in all caps, unless all demands are met.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET)  Country music icon Dolly Parton is known not only for her decades-long singing career, but also for her program, Dolly Partons Imagination Library.

Since its launch in 1995, the program has spread rapidly across the country, but now, the stars organization is partnering with Kern County libraries to address literacy needs within the county and state.

California is the 15th state to expand this program, and unfortunately we have the lowest literacy rate in the entire nation and that has to change, said a representative of Senator Shannon Groves office.

The book gifting program will mail free, high-quality books to families with children from birth to five years old, no matter their familys income. The first five years are essential for childrens development, and Regional Director of Dollywood Foundation Rachel King said this program makes it easier for families to hit those developmental marks.

What this program really does is it gets the books to the home directly so thats one thing that can break down some barriers about accessing books, King told 17 News. So having them directly to the home, being free to the family, can increase that accessibility to reading.

During the event, parents could sign up for the program, check out some of the books and spend time with their children working on sensory and art activities for early learners.

Though Dolly Parton herself was not there for the event, her stick figure was, and drew almost as much attention and excitement as many looked forward to what this partnership means for Kern libraries.

Dolly Parton is such a legend, and I think it only adds to the library persona, to literacy, even to have a figure like Dolly Parton backing up literacy in our early learners, said Daredia.

For more information on the program, visit the Kern County Libraries website.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
It started out like a typical Massachusetts story: a DoorDash driver was delivering Dunkin to a customer.

It ended with the drivers car submerged in water and charges filed, according to a news release from the Middleton Police Department.

The driver was on their way to the customers house for the delivery the morning of Sept. 22, police say. A GPS took them down a dirt road, the driver told police, then they somehow ended up driving into a body of water, according to Middleton police.

The driver managed to get out of the car and walk out of the woods to a nearby home. They called the police and informed them of the submerged car in the woods.

Middleton Police Officers arrived on scene and found the operator panicked, claiming that their vehicle was underwater, according to the release.

The driver was holding the Dunkin delivery in their hand, police said.

First responders began looking for the car and found it partly submerged and still running in the water behind a home. They alerted the homeowner and fished the car out of the water. The vehicle didnt appear to leak fluids into the water, police said.

The fire department checked out the driver, who asked to be taken to a hospital, according to the release. Police did not disclose the drivers identity or their current condition.

Police said they were charging the driver with negligent operation of a motor vehicle and requested immediate threat license suspension from the states Registry of Motor Vehicles.

McClatchy News reached out to Middleton police for more information but did not immediately heard back.

Middleton is about 20 miles north of Boston.

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Looting erupted in the wake of protests in Philadelphia after a judge dropped all charges against Mark Dial, a former police officer who fatally shot motorist Eddy Irizarry last month.

So far, 49 adults and 3 juveniles have been arrested after stores were ransacked on Tuesday night, according to police on Wednesday. Police started getting calls that Foot Locker had been ransacked in a coordinated attack just before 8pm.

Other stores, like Apple and Lululemon were also looted, according to the Associated Press. Police recovered two firearms, the outlet added.

Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford said the looting spree was not connected to the protests. What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and make an attempt to destroy our city, the police commissioner said at a news conference. Its not going to be tolerated.

A judge dismissed all charges against Mr Dial on Tuesday. In the aftermath of the ruling, roughly 100 people marched around the City Center in protest of the decision.

Mr Dial had been facing voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault and other charges over the 14 August shooting of Irizarry at a traffic stop.

After watching bodycam footage of the fatal incident, prosecutors previously said that Irizarry was observed holding a small, open folding knife against his thigh, prosecutors said. He then rolled up the drivers side window. Mr Dial then fired six rounds through the window at close range.

Irizarry supporters were chanting no good cops in a racist system, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell, the crowd said.

Maria Irizarry, the sister of the man who was killed, thanked the protestors for their support for her brother. She remarked that it took the judge just a second to side with Mr Dials defence team.

Irizarrys father said in Spanish, according to the outlet, It was a brutality. If it were one of her kids, what do you think she wouldve done?

After the judges ruling, the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office appealed the decision in order to refile all charges against Mr Dial  who was fired from the police department last month.

The grieving father added that he hopes a judge who knows the law would hear the District Attorneys appeal.
Three people are dead after police say a vehicle that was involved in a high-speed chase crashed into another car.

Indiana State troopers tried to pull over a Dodge Challenger, which they say was driving recklessly, Tuesday, Sept. 26, at 9:37 p.m., according to a news release.

The driver of the Challenger refused to pull over, leading to a 12-minute chase, the release said. Troopers said they tried to use stop sticks, which deflate cars tires, to stop the vehicle but couldnt get them in place. At 9:50 p.m. they decided to end the pursuit for safety reasons, according to the release.

Those factors include the aggressive and reckless driving by the suspect and the suspect had turned around and was leaving a rural, low populated area, and driving back toward Indianapolis, the release said.

Minutes after troopers said they ended the chase, they got a call on the radio of a nearby crash. When they arrived, they realized one of the vehicles was the Challenger from the pursuit, according to the release.

Officials said three people were trapped inside the Challenger, including 14-year-old Christian Leyba-Gonzalez and 32-year-old Jose Gonzalez Jr., who were taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, according to WXIN and the Indianapolis Star.

The driver of the second vehicle, 21-year-old Makayla Hankins, was critically injured. She was also taken to a hospital where she died, WXIN reported.

Preliminary reports indicate the driver of the Challenger ran a red light and collided with the second vehicle, troopers said.

The driver of the Challenger had minor injuries, troopers said. He faces charges of resisting law enforcement causing death. Police have not released his identity, according to the release.

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Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2-ranking Senate Democrat, called on embattled Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign Wednesday.

Durbin had declined to call for Menedez to step down during a television interview Sunday but he changed course Wednesday after 22 Senate Democrats called for Menendez to leave office.

Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve. He should step down, Durbin wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took a more cautious approach to his New Jersey colleagues legal problems during a television interview Sunday.

This is a very serious charge. Theres no question about it. But it bears reminding us of what Ive said about the indictments against Donald Trump, equally serious charges, Durbin told CNNs Dana Bash when asked whether Menendez should resign.

These are, in fact, indictments that have to be proven. Under the rule of law, a person who is accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence. And its the responsibility of the government to prove that case, he said.

Durbins statement follows a similar change of heart by another member of the Senate Democratic leadership.

The allegations against Senator Bob Menendez are very concerning, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), the chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and No. 3 Senate Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday evening.

While he deserves his presumption of innocence, I believe its best for him to step down from the U.S. Senate, she said.

Stabenow had previously held off from calling for Menendezs ouster.

The moves by Durbin and Stabenow put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to join the growing chorus of Senate Democrats calling on Menendez to resign from office.

Schumer on Friday said the New Jersey senator has a right to due process and a fair trial.

Updated at 10:32 a.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Netherlands plans to deliver the first batch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in 2024.

Source: Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren in an interview with MSNBC and on X (Twitter)

Details: Ollongren explained that the Netherlands is making the transition to the F-35s, and that is why it can supply the F-16s. She said that the same applies to Norway and Denmark.

The timing of the F-16 delivery will also depend on how long it takes to train Ukrainian pilots. Ollongren said that the training will last from six to eight months. This is much less time than the Netherlands spends on training its pilots.

She also said that a training centre is being set up in Romania, which they are trying to launch as soon as possible.

Nevertheless, the main thing, as Ollongren said, is a signal that the Netherlands are sending not only to Kyiv but also to Moscow and the Kremlin.

Great to be back in the studio of @Morning_Joe to discuss F-16's for Ukraine. It remains vital for Europe and the US to act as one against the blatant Russian aggression. We need to end Putins war in Ukraine to prevent future aggression.https://t.co/3S4Jm1AOjU  Kajsa Ollongren (@DefensieMin) September 26, 2023

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
The delivery of the promised F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands to Ukraine will start sometime in the next year, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said in an interview with MSNBC on Sept. 26.

The minister estimated that the training of Ukrainian pilots on the fourth-generation jets could take six to eight months, which is a shorter period than the usual training of Dutch pilots.

She, however, emphasized that the exact timeline is not clear, adding that other staff, such as technicians, must be trained as well to maintain the aircraft.

Ollongren told MNSBC that Denmark had already launched its training for Ukrainian pilots, adding that the U.S. would soon begin as well and the Netherlands is preparing a training center in Romania.

Read also: This Week in Ukraine: F-16s and the irrational politics of military aid on Apple Podcasts

The minister noted that the Netherlands, as well as Denmark and Norway, are able to provide Ukraine with F-16s because their air forces are transitioning to newer F-35 aircraft.

Ukraine has been long seeking to obtain modern Western fighter jets to gain an edge against Russian forces in the sky. According to Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat, deploying F-16s on the battlefield could change the course of the war.

The Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway have so far confirmed they will send their F-16 fighters to Ukraine.

Copenhagen said earlier that Ukraine could receive the first batch of six Danish F-16s already by the New Year. However, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov estimated in August that it will take at least six to seven months before Ukrainian military staff is ready to receive the jets.

The training of Ukrainian pilots began in Denmark this August in partnership with other nations of the "fighter jet coalition." Washington later announced that it would launch its own training sessions for Ukrainian aviators in October.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Its no secret that retail theft has skyrocketed since the pandemic. Weve all seen the alarming videos of criminal gangs attacking stores, cleaning out shelves and walking off with no apparent consequences.

This year, U.S. merchants expect to report a stunning $100 billion in losses  a big increase over pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, arrests and prosecutions for retail theft in Chicago are down sharply since 2019.

At this months convention for Oak Brook-based Ace Hardware, exhibitor Laura Freeman of Watcher Total Protection had talked herself hoarse by the end of the opening day. Aggrieved store owners crowded her booth to quiz her about her companys security systems, which are augmented with artificial intelligence.

AI is coming to the rescue of merchants, for better or worse. We will see a lot more AI for shoplifter protection, said Freeman, whose company is based in Pingree Grove. Youll see more and more where the system does the work.

The old days of dumb cameras recording thieves in action for review after the fact have given way to smart systems that can detect illegal activity as it happens and send instant text alerts. The surveillance cameras constantly scan for a shopper taking something off a shelf and shoving it into a bag, for instance, which immediately triggers a warning so merchants can decide whether to question the suspect, call for help or otherwise intervene.

In the meantime, tags attached to high-value items not only trigger sensors on the way out of a store but also can be coded to the exact item and linked to video of the exact moment that item was removed from its spot in the store. As a result, merchants can spend much less time reviewing footage to zero in on the part they need.

Unfortunately, theft by retail employees is way up too. Store cashiers increasingly are being watched with smart systems that analyze their actions in real time and coordinate with data from cash registers to flag instances when mistakes are being made or theft is occurring. AI is being used to spot employees who ring up one-penny sales to open their cash drawers, or customers at those now-ubiquitous self-checkouts who try the old banana trick, scanning cheap items like the fruit while putting expensive items in their bags.

Some retailers with stores in high-crime locations have tried equipping their clerks with the same body cameras worn by police, mostly to deter violent confrontations that, sadly, also have become more common since the pandemic. And facial recognition makes it possible for camera systems to flag likely suspects as they enter a store so they can be tracked, based on their prior criminal records, or previous incidents of theft.

Its amazing stuff, for sure, and three cheers for companies like Freemans that are helping retailers fight back against thieves. Still, this emerging technology is starting to make a visit to the friendly neighborhood store sound like submitting to Big Brother on steroids.

We realize that retailers need new tools to combat the epidemic of lawlessness costing them huge losses. And, similarly, we know police and prosecutors have a backlog of violent crimes to pursue. While we support stronger laws and enforcement to protect businesses under siege, we recognize that no one is going to rush over with lights and sirens if a shopper takes a steak while ringing up a banana at checkout.

As retailers adopt these potentially game-changing but also intrusive systems, there must be checks and balances.

Indeed, the rise in retail theft has led to much faster adoption of emerging technologies than might otherwise have occurred, according to Matt Harper, loss prevention manager at Ace. This is going to be a necessity, he said, especially as big-box stores install technology that makes mom-and-pop operators look like relatively soft targets for thieves. Its no exaggeration to say an AI-enhanced arms race is underway in the retail biz.

Heres a pleasant surprise: Illinois is ahead of the curve in dealing with the concerns these anti-theft systems raise about privacy. The 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act regulates scans of peoples faces, eyes and fingerprints, which might have sounded like sci-fi when the law was first considered, but certainly no longer.

This page supported the law, and the pace of technological advances makes it even more important today to set clear guidelines for the ways that businesses use data.

The Illinois statute came after incidents in which Big Tech companies were failing to self-police. And while we prefer for businesses to regulate themselves, government enforcement is needed because of the high stakes involved: Consumers can always get a new credit card after a privacy breach, but fingerprints, eyes and faces cant be reissued.

We dont get to say this very often, but we wish more states would wake up and follow Illinois example. As of now, for national retailers like Ace, the landscape is messy and complex, with some states having no regulations in place and others having rules that differ from one to another. Illinois law may need updating, given the rapid advances afoot, but it is a worthy starting point for states doing nothing while technology runs rings around them.

Retail theft is now at epidemic levels, and AI can help. Lets make sure we safeguard our privacy at the same time we embrace technology that helps us get a step ahead of the crooks.

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As a state senator, Bob Hertzberg co-authored legislation that would have eliminated money bail in California. Voters blocked it by rejecting Proposition 25 in 2020. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

In 2018, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law to end cash bail in California permanently. But cash bail is still with us. What gives?

The bail bond industry led a signature-gathering campaign to send the measure to voters as a referendum. When it qualified for the ballot, Senate Bill 10  by then-Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) incorporating a bill by then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), now state attorney general  was put on hold.

The referendum was part of the Nov. 3, 2020, ballot as Proposition 25. It was imperfect, but The Times editorial board supported it as a rare opportunity to finally be rid of cash bail: There is something repugnant, and corrosive to our collective notion of justice, about allowing people without money to stay locked up in jail while others, accused of the same crimes but with money to spend, can buy their way out. Thats bail in a nutshell.

Read more: Ending Cash Bail

But California voters defeated the measure, with 56.4% voting no.

That vote looms in the background today as the Los Angeles County Superior Court prepares to launch a program Sunday that sharply limits the use of cash bail and incarceration between arrest and a suspect's first hearing, or arraignment, a few days later.

Why is eliminating money bail still an issue when the voters said no nearly three years ago?

The answer is that voters rejected one particular bail reform proposal, but not all possible bail reforms.

Read more: Editorial: Court brings back sanity, and the Constitution, in Los Angeles bail ruling

Hertzberg's bill ending cash bail in California was opposed by the bail industry for obvious reasons. It would have put the industry out of business in the nations largest market.

Law enforcement, led by the California Peace Officers Assn., also opposed the elimination of money bail. Police argued that once they arrest a suspect, the person should be either locked up while awaiting trial to prevent further crimes, or have some money at stake. Some bail reformers also opposed the bill, arguing that it would leave too many people ineligible for release before arraignment, and that they could end up waiting in jail for as much as two weeks  far longer than under the money bail system.

Was the measure defeated by voters who wanted less bail reform, or more? Its impossible to know. Voters just vote yes or no, without registering their reasons.

Read more: Editorial: 50 Cent and prosecutors are wrong about cash bail. L.A. courts get it right

Read more: Editorial: L.A.'s bail reform is an improvement, but falls short of what Illinois has done

The referendum format may have confused some voters. A referendum that is successful stops a law from taking effect, but, counterintuitively, voters must choose "no" to signal their support of the repeal.

The same political dynamic that stopped bail reform three years ago exists to some extent today. The bail industry and law enforcement are unhappy with the L.A. County Superior Court program for releasing too many people without bail, because it cuts into their profits. Reform advocates are skeptical because the county program retains money bail and pretrial incarceration for many people accused of more serious crimes. Some also argue that there remain too many unanswered questions about the services and supervision that will be provided to people who are freed before arraignment.

The court is restricting cash bail because it treats suspects differently depending on whether they have money to buy their way out of jail, and because jail too often amounts to punishment before conviction. The court is also responding to numerous studies that show cash bail fails to do the two things it is intended to do: get defendants to return to court, and deter them from committing new crimes in the interim.

But the courts program will operate only in Los Angeles County, so the stakes are smaller. Police have persuaded court leaders to make it easier for law enforcement to hold people whom they believe are dangerous. Were hoping bail reform advocates wont make the perfect the enemy of the good, and will work to improve the new program rather than block it.





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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. The country is aiming at reaching 30 million visitors by 2028, as its once-thriving tourism sector has begun to recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the grinding war in Europe, Issa said. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

CAIRO (AP)  Egypt is seeking to double the number of visitors to the country in the next five years, its top tourism official told The Associated Press.

Egypt is aiming at reaching 30 million visitors by 2028, as its once-thriving tourism sector recovers from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the grinding war in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa said Tuesday.

Were seeing unparalleled demand, unprecedented demand for travel into Egypt, Issa said in an interview.

He said Egypt had received 10 million tourists in the first eight months of 2023, and was well on track to achieve around 15 million this year, which is going to be a record year for the tourism industry.

The sector is a major source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Last year, tourism revenues surged to $10.7 billion, up from around $5 billion in 2021, according to the Egyptian central bank.

The governments plan focuses on what he calls the supply side, which includes increasing the number of hotel rooms in the country and seats on flights to Egypt by more than 30% annually, as well as encouraging more private investment in the tourism sector.

Issa said they would add 25,000 hotel rooms to Egypts current capacity of about 210,000. Such an increase, he said, would help the government achieve its target of 18 million tourist visits in 2024.

That will be the fastest growth in (hotel) rooms in Egypt over the past 20 years, he said.

Egypt has made a years-long effort to revive its battered tourism industry. The sector was badly hit during and after the popular uprising in 2011 that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and the ensuring unrest. The country received over 14 million tourists in 2010.

The coronavirus, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, dealt another blow, just as the sector was getting back on its feet.

In recent years, the government has touted its ancient history as a major selling point. It has publicized pharaonic discoveries, building and renovating museums and tourist sites across the country.

Issa spoke to the AP from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a neoclassical structure built in the late 19th century and the first purpose-built museum in the Middle East and North Africa.

The museum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cairo, drawing an average of 10,000 visitors a day, said museum director Ali Abdel-Halim. It holds tens of thousands of antiquities in its collection, some of which have never been exhibited.

In recent years, the government has embarked on renovating the museum, in cooperation with five major institutions in Europe, including the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris, Abdel-Halim said.

The four-phase project, which is partly financed by the European Union, includes a renovation of the entire building, which was designed by the famed French architect Marcel Dourgnon.

For decades, the museum in central Cairo was the main facility housing Egyptian heritage treasures. But in recent years, the the government transferred many artifacts  such as the prized royal mummies  to the newly opened National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega-project which has been under construction for well over a decade near the famed Giza Pyramids.

Issa said they were working to finish construction and complete the installation by the end of the year, and the museum would be ready for its opening ceremony very soon.

He said they are working to set a date for the ceremony when many world leaders can attend.

Its going to be a magnificent day for ... the entire humanity that is interested in history and culture and archaeology and heritage, he said.
An Egyptian businessman accused of bribing US Senator Bob Menendez with hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for information and favourable treatment for the Egyptian government was arrested after he flew into JFK airport on Tuesday night.

Wael Hana, 40, was taken into custody as he touched down at the airport in New York City, according to The Associated Press.

The New Jersey resident, originally from Egypt, then appeared for his arraignment where he pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

He was released on $5m personal recognizance bond and was ordered to surrender his passport.

Under the terms of his bond, he will be subject to GPS location monitoring, must comply with a curfew to be at his New Jersey home from 8pm to 8am, and is banned from contacting his codefendants or any witnesses in the case.

All of his shares in his halal export business Capital Management EG have been seized as collateral for his release.

Following his court appearance, Mr Hanas attorney Larry Lustberg said that the businessman had voluntarily returned to the US to face charges.

He returned voluntarily from Egypt so that he would have the opportunity to prove his innocence which we are confident he will be able to do after a full and fair trial, he said in a statement.

Mr Hana was charged in an indictment on Friday, accusing Mr Menendez and his alleged accomplices of a sweeping corruption and bribery scandal.

Mr Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006 and was the Democratic leader of the Senates Foreign Relations Committee, is scheduled to appear in court for his arraignment on Wednesday.

The senator is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a Mercedez-Benz in bribes by three New Jersey businessmen.

Wael Hana leaves federal courthouse in New York after arraignment (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In exchange, the senator allegedly passed sensitive government information to Egyptian officials, used his position to aid the Egyptian government and tried to push federal prosecutors to drop criminal investigations linked to the businessmen.

A search of Mr Menendezs home found over $480,000 in cash stuffed into envelopes and hidden inside clothing.

He is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

As well as Mr Menendez and Mr Hana, the senators wife Nadine Menendez, New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes and associate Jose Uribe were all charged in the case.

According to the indictment, Mr Hana set up an arrangement with the Menendezs to provide them with bribes in exchange for favours to the Egyptian government and his business.

This included Mr Menendez allegedly pressuring a Department of Agriculture official into protecting a monopoly his halal business enjoyed.

Since the news broke, a growing number of Senate Democrats have called on Mr Menendez to resign.

Mr Menendez is refusing to stand down and has hit back at the indictment claiming that those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first-generation Latino American from humble beginnings could rise to be a US senator.
The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors sat through a stream of antisemitic phone calls Tuesday afternoon, from people voicing disapproval of the boards recent vote to rescind its designation of July as American Christian Heritage Month.

The eight callers, all men, released a torrent of offensive comments during a 30-minute public forum section of the meeting. For nearly the entire half-hour, meeting attendees were forced to endure statements such as The Holocaust was a hoax, Heil Hitler, and references to Jewish people as parasites and leeches.

After the third call  which ended with one man saying, f--- those filthy k----, white power  board chair Wendy Thomas, who represents the Placerville area, asked County Counsel David Livingston about the boards rules are around hate speech and profanity.

Thats just not acceptable, Thomas said. But the attorney said the board had no recourse.

Sadly, responded Livingston, I dont believe we have any rules of conduct that would address it. The statements, perhaps offensive, are not disruptive to the boards meeting. 

With no action taken, the next caller was free to say, Go f--- yourself and go back to Israel, the N-word, white f------ power, and sieg heil.

The boards response was completely inadequate, frequent board meeting attendee and activist Leo Bennett-Cauchon said after the meeting. Absolutely and completely inadequate.

Callers who simply wanted to address the board about issues pertaining to the county were disturbed.

Im ready to throw up, said Ken Greenwood, a county resident who had called into the meeting to talk about cell towers. What these people are saying and doing is outrageous. My father was in Dachau, the Holocaust happened.

Im just blown away by these comments, he said. Its throwing me off in a big way. And Im very sad that we all had to be subjected to this.

After the public forum ended, the board decided not to implement any changes to its code of conduct.

I dont know if I really want to go there, said board member Lori Parlin, whose district covers Shingle Springs and Coloma, and who was the only member in July to vote against the American Christian Heritage Month designation.

We usually get through these things, why make ourselves more of a target?

John Hidahl, whod initially proposed the American Christian Heritage Month designation, was also cautious about making any changes.

First Amendment rights are a basic, fundamental right of every individual to express themselves, he said. Thats what leads to good governance, is hearing the differences of opinion. I just wish that some of the language was cleaned up. I mean, the message is fine, but the derogatory language is hard to take.

In July, the Board voted 4-1 to approve the American Christian Heritage Month designation. It voted unanimously to rescind the measure earlier this month after protests from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, as well as residents concerned it didnt represent the diversity of the county, and that it blurred the line separating church and state.

One of the proclamations greatest critics was Rabbi Evon Yakar, from South Lake Tahoe, who the callers disparaged.

The Boards response was in stark contrast to the way the Sacramento City Council recently handled a similar problem.

When such calls came in last month, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who is Jewish, had zero tolerance.

Any of you who are going to call and spew hate, the city clerk at my direction and the direction of the council are going to cut you off right away, end of story, he said on Aug. 29. Were not having it in our chamber!

Last week, city clerk Mindy Cuppy said in a city blog post that city council will return to pre-pandemic, in-person meetings, partly due to the antisemitic and racist phone calls.

San Francisco County supervisors have vowed to end remote public comment after their meeting was also targeted Tuesday.

This is a coordinated attack all over the country, its outrageous, its threatening, it makes me feel unsafe to do my job and its an abuse of this privilege that weve given to everyone, one supervisor, Hillary Ronen, who is Jewish, told The San Francisco Chronicle.

I want it to end.

It wont happen in this city or in these chambers again, said San Francisco board President Aaron Peskin on Tuesday. He will bring a motion to the board to end remote public comment for future meetings.
The El Paso District Attorney Office is borrowing more than $67,000 in county general funds to hire more staff to help dig through thousands of pieces of evidence in the Walmart mass shooting case as the cost of the capital murder trial is expected to exceed $2 million.

The total taxpayer cost for the state's mass shooter trial will likely be more than $4 million.

El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks appeared before the El Paso County Commissioners Court in late August to request a loan of $67,158. The request was approved by the commissioners in a unanimous vote.

Hicks will begin hiring the staff on Oct. 1, which is when the new fiscal year begins for El Paso County.

Hicks requested the $67,158 as additional funds from a $2,033,499 grant awarded to the district attorney's office by the Office of the Texas Governor. The grant was given specifically for the prosecution of the El Paso Walmart mass shooter.

While the district attorney's office funding for the case is coming from the state, the county is paying for the defense of the gunman since he was assigned prominent El Paso attorney Joe Spencer as his public defender.

DA Bill Hicks stands for a portrait at the El Paso County District Attorney's Office on Thursday, July 6, 2023.

On the defense side, the trial could cost county taxpayers at least $2 million, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said. The total cost will not be known until after all court proceedings conclude.

"The burden (of proof) is going to be on the state," Samaniego said. "The state is going to provide that (funding), so the money we give them (district attorney's office) has to do with the state and it's just temporary. We get paid back all that money.

"The defense, that's the one that could be very expensive. We're going to get some grants to offset that, but there's a probability that on that side, it will probably cost us about $2 million. (That) is what we're estimating. With grants and support and everything that we can (get), we're still thinking we have to be very open to believe that maybe about $2 million on the defense."

Borrowed county funds to help tackle massive amounts of evidence

The loan comes more than four years after the deadliest shooting in El Paso history and as frustration continues to grow from defense lawyers as little progress has been made in the case.

The money loaned by the county will be repaid as soon as the district attorney's office receives the additional funding from the state of Texas.

More: El Paso Walmart prosecutor Ron Banerji passes away at 49

"I didn't want to wait another month or more to get that (money) to hire that staff," Hicks said. "I need to get moving to hire that staff now ... The idea is that I'm essentially borrowing from the general fund, which is the taxpayers of El Paso.

"I'm borrowing from the general fund, but when the grant is approved and released from the El Paso County Auditor's Office, we will pay back everything that I'm borrowing from the general fund. We'll pay back from the grant, so the county taxpayer is not out any money."

The governor's office has approved the request for the additional money, Hicks said. Once all funds from the grant are received by the auditor, they will be released to the district attorney's office, Hicks said. The process should be concluded within the next few weeks, he said.

"The initial $2,033,000 has been released to El Paso County, but until that additional $67,000 gets here, the county auditor's office is not willing to release all of the grant funds to us to be able to start using those funds," Hick said. "So we know the funds are here or coming because they've already been approved by the governor's office, but they're not here ready for us to start spending. The county auditor's office hasn't released the money to us to spend. We need to get those people hired and start working on the discovery issues."

Accused El Paso Walmart mass shooter Patrick Crusius is arraigned Thursday, October, 10, 2019 in the 409th state District Court with Judge Sam Medrano presiding. Crusius, a 21-year-old male from Allen, Texas, stands accused of killing 22 and injuring 25 in the Aug. 3 mass shooting at an East El Paso Walmart in the seventh deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and third deadliest in Texas. Crusius entered a not guilty plea along side his attorneys Mark Stevens and Joe Spencer.

The funds will be used to hire about 12 full-time equivalent employees to help go through the discovery, also known as evidence, and inputting all of the data into computers to share the evidence with defense attorneys and later used in the trial, Hicks said.

"We have literally over five terabytes of information. It's a tremendous amount of information," Hicks said. "If you think about every agency that showed up to Walmart, that showed up to the streets surrounding Walmart, every agency that responded to any of the 911 calls, this includes even the school district police, the border patrol, every agency that responded, all of those agencies wrote reports. This is what I saw, this is what I did."

More: El Pasoans remain committed to honor those lost in Walmart mass shooting

While every report and piece of evidence needs to be organized, examined and turned over to the defense team, not all of it will necessarily be used at trial, Hicks said.

"Well, every single one of those reports is a report that has been turned over to us," Hicks said. "We have to turn every one of those reports over to the defense. Those reports probably are not germane to the issue of whether or not the Walmart shooter did or did not do the crime, but they are nevertheless information that the defense is entitled to receive."

Defense attorneys continue to wait on evidence

The amount of evidence still being examined by state prosecutors is unacceptable more than four years after the Aug. 3 2019 mass shooting and is delaying justice for the community, Spencer said.

A scheduling conference was held Monday, Sept. 25, in state court in the hope of setting a trial date. However, 409th District Court Judge Sam Medrano was unable to set a trial date as defense attorneys continue to wait for all evidence to be turned over by state prosecutors.

State prosecutors will hand over all evidence to defense attorneys by the end of December at the latest, Hicks said.

A trial date likely won't come until 2025 or later.

Even if defense attorneys do receive all the evidence by the end of the year, it will take months for the defense to do their review of all the evidence, Spencer said. Once the evidence is turned over, the next process for defense attorneys will be to hire an e-Discovery vendor to help process and prepare the massive amount of discovery.

"The e-Discovery vendor that we have talked to says it's going to take about six to nine months to organize it, categorize it, index it and get it to us," Spencer said after the scheduling conference. "It took approximately 18 months for us to review all of the discovery from the federal government, so when you add that, you're looking at 24, 27 months before we can even say we might be ready.

"That doesn't include our own discovery that we have to do, our own mitigation work that we have to do for the death penalty case. This has been a nightmare, not caused by the defense, but caused by the state of Texas."

In the federal criminal case against the gunman, the U.S. Attorney's Office turned over all evidence to defense attorneys within two years of the shooting, Spencer said.

"Huge difference  day and night," Spencer said after the hearing about the federal handling of the case. "That was what I was trying to show to the (state) court. There's a huge difference. That's a reason why we were able to streamline the case in federal court. That's the reason why I believe the federal court did what they did is because they were able to look at the discovery in an organized fashion, review what we had produced to them and make a decision that we needed to bring judicial finality to this community and close this case down. That's what we should be doing on the state side."

The state is following its normal procedures on how staff members and attorneys are handling the discovery as they prepare for the Walmart case, Hicks said.

Hicks added his office is turning over evidence to the defense as soon as they receive and review it.

"In the federal court process, they provided discovery to the defense," Hicks said after the scheduling conference. "The federal government has not provided that same discovery to us. We were not a party to the federal court proceedings. So the federal government has not provided that discovery to us. The way the federal government operates is different than the way the state operates and how we do our discovery."

As the trial date remains up in the air in the state case, the federal case against the gunman came to an end Monday, Sept. 25. Twenty-three people were killed and dozens of others wounded in the mass shooting massacre.

The gunman was ordered to pay more than $5 million in restitution to the victims and their families. The restitution, which was the final pending issue in the federal case, is being paid for the financial losses suffered by the victims and their families because of the gunman's actions.

Earlier this year, the gunman was convicted and sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences in the federal case.

He was ordered to serve his federal sentence at the ADX Florence supermax federal prison near Florence, Colorado. However, the gunman remains in state custody at the El Paso County Jail in Downtown El Paso as he awaits trial in the state case.

Defense attorney Joe Spencer walks into the courtroom July 7, 2023, for the final day of sentencing for the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3, 2019.

The U.S. Attorney's Office did not seek the death penalty against the gunman.

Hicks is seeking the death penalty. Many community leaders and victims' family members support the decision to seek the death penalty despite the federal sentence.

Spencer argues the pursuit of the death penalty is an attempt to politicize the state's case against his client.

"I hear the DA say lawyers, judges or the DA should not decide on the death penalty that it should be the jury," Spencer said. "Well, the jury will hear what the federal government heard free from politics and reach the same decision. Only it will be at great cost emotionally to the victims and financially to the community."

More: Walmart mass shooting survivor suffers, waits for help to restart life in El Paso

The focus of the case needs to return to the victims and give them the justice that is long overdue, Spencer said.

"It has been very frustrating dealing with three different state prosecutorial administrations on this case," Spencer said. "All politically motivated. Especially with the unprecedented harm caused by the (former District Attorney Yvonne) Rosales administration which jeopardizes the victims, their families and community from reaching judicial finality within most of our lifetimes."

He added, "I cannot be silent when victims are being used as political pawns."

Hicks is the third district attorney to handle the Walmart case. The case was first under longtime district attorney Jaime Esparza, who did not seek reelection in 2020. Rosales was elected district attorney but resigned from office amid allegations of incompetence and mishandling of cases, including the Walmart case.

Hicks was appointed in December as El Paso district attorney by Gov. Greg Abbott after Rosales' resignation.

Hicks has not officially announced if he is seeking election to remain district attorney. His focus is not on the 2024 election but on "bringing justice to the El Paso community," he said.

Aaron Martinez may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com or on Twitter @AMartinezEPT.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso DA borrows county funds for Walmart shooting case staffing
At the beginning of high school, I sat down in the back of an empty English classroom, cracked open a can of stale Cola and journaled a list of all the things I wanted to do before I graduated: Find a best friend, become class president, go to Harvard, visit Paris, put a rap album into the world and get a boyfriend. It was the end of the school day  the last bell had rung  and I was, once again, avoiding the crowd of unfamiliar faces in the hallway.

Over the years, I slowly crossed out the goals I finished and wrote in new ones, but the general theme hasnt changed much. Six years later, today, that list reads something along the lines of: Visit Paris, get into Harvard Med School, naturalize my undocumented mother, save a life, buy my parents a house, write music and get a boyfriend.

Opinion

At first, I found comfort in the secrecy of my goals  not only to avoid embarrassment if I failed at any, but also because I knew that being ambitious as an Asian son of immigrants in America wasnt the kind of Asian that people liked or wanted around.

When the faces in my high school hallways slowly became people I could call my good friends, I still didnt feel too safe. In conversations, peers constantly brought up the quintessential triangle of being a student, and how I can only choose two of the three: a vibrant social and love life, academics or sleep.

For the first vertex of the triangle, in particular, they warned me that the only way to see tangible romantic results was if I invested as much time in love as every other part of being a college student.

My longest relationship ever was three months. A great number of my college relationships failed to break past the two-week mark. At 20, in my junior year at Yale, I am more than halfway through my undergraduate years. A part of me is unable to accept the fact that, at that age, my grandparents had already gotten married and were welcoming their first child.

You never know when someone could be your forever person, one friend added. Its kind of like the stock market game.

My friends, especially those in committed long-term relationships, wonder if I care as much about love as I claim I do, and if I always give love my best shot.

I dont know how to tell them that I do care about love.

I care about it a lot, if not as much as they do. My goal has never been to come across as a sort of anti-love, anti-hero. Just like almost everyone I know, I am also terrified of waking up one day and not having someone there for me. I think about what it will feel like to go through the taxing years of medical school, residency or law school alone and my stomach absolutely plummets. I think about what it feels like to have a cup of pumpkin spice chai in my hands as I find myself wrapped in a mans warm hug during autumn. I like kisses, and I like hoodies even more.

But I also dont know how to tell people that I have my own dreams, too.

My non-Asian friends often assume that the igneous pressure to succeed comes from my parents. It does not. It comes from a fear of not knowing if I have honored their sacrifices enough, a tough love that only the recipient can see the value of.

Asian Americans, immigrants and children of immigrants are often made to feel ashamed of our ambition. It is stereotypical to want to be a doctor; it is calculated when we want to do well; it is obnoxious to call Harvard or Yale a dream; and our ambition becomes synonymous with cutthroat. Growing up, I couldnt help thinking that in white America, the best thing I could be was a handsome, adorable fool who embodied the acceptable parts of the model minority monolith: quiet, agreeable, warm.

At the same time, I would never go as far as to say that I am deserving of any love I dont work hard for. Toward the end of my first year in college, I met a guy who came from a completely different world than the one I had always known. He is the descendant of a very prominent family in the United States, and he had the kind of connections that I could only dream of getting. Hes a good guy  not one of the snobby Old Money boys who announces to everyone that they drink their coffee black or use Latin in an English classroom.

But I never felt at peace in that relationship, and though that was my fault, its not something I ever felt ashamed of admitting. I never stopped thinking about the younger me who had always wanted to become greater than his circumstances allowed him. These breakthroughs may involve love  another person, a man, a partner  but they are also very separate.

As much as I wanted that relationship, I was not ready for it. I found myself jumping ahead and fantasizing the perfect easy life with a person I barely scratched the surface of, when, like many other extremely low-income teenagers, I had made an invisible commitment to always put my family and future first.

My journal keeps me on track to uphold my commitments. More than I appreciate the satisfying feeling of checking them off, I like seeing how my goals evolve over time as I walk through and metamorphose into different stages of myself: from the trivial tasks as a high schooler who just wanted to get into a good school to the emotional promises I have made to the people I love most. I will meet a lot more of those people down the road.

But if it so happens that I want to fall in love with one of them, I will happily let myself do so.
In separate incidents in August, two Wellpath Recovery Solutions employees working at a state mental health hospital in Columbia physically abused patients, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said.

Both 38-year-old Aubrey James Womack and 21-year-old Jasim Jahi Stone-Marshall were arrested Tuesday, SLED said in news releases.

Womack and Stone-Marshall were separately charged with physical abuse of a vulnerable adult in unrelated incidents at Wellpaths Columbia Regional Care Center, according to SLED.

The institution is partnered with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health. It is located at 7901 Farrow Road, near Exit 73 on Interstate 20, which is the junction with S.C. 277.

At the hospital, treatment of psychiatric disorders is offered for individuals involved with the criminal court system for a wide range of mental illnesses and conditions, according to Wellpaths website.

Since Wellpath took control of the Columbia Regional Care Center in 2009, it has provided nursing care, pharmacy, security, chaplains, facility management, and all other support services for individuals found incompetent to stand trial and not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the website.

On Aug. 12, Womack was working as a custody officer at the Columbia Regional Care Center, according to an arrest warrant. Womack grabbed the victim  a Wellpath resident and a vulnerable adult  around his neck and pushed him into a wall, the arrest warrant said.

The attack was confirmed through interviews, surveillance footage and information provided to SLED, according to the arrest warrant.

There was no word if Womack is still employed by Wellpath.

The second incident occurred about a week later.

On Aug. 20, Stone-Marshall, who was called a former employee by SLED, was working as a custody officer at the mental institution in Richland County, an arrest warrant shows.

Stone-Marshall used a closed fist to punch the victim in the face, according to the arrest warrant. As in the previous attack, the victim was a resident and vulnerable adult, the arrest warrant said.

Again, SLED received information and confirmed the attack through interviews and surveillance footage, according to the arrest warrant.

Information on the medical conditions of the victims was not available.

Both Womack and Stone-Marshall were booked at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, SLED said. Neither man is currently listed on the jails inmate roster, and there was no word on bond.

The 5th Circuit Solicitors Office will prosecute the separate cases.
Donald Trump committed massive fraud in New York for years by repeatedly misrepresenting his wealth by hundreds of millions of dollars while building his real estate empire, a state Supreme Court judge ruled on Tuesday afternoon.

This startling decision came in the civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has argued that Trump, along his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and the entire Trump Organization, had "grossly" inflated the value of more than a dozen assets by hundreds of millions in total, and then used those fake values to defraud banks and insurers in order to obtain more favorable deals and secure loans.

James argued that Trump routinely overstated his net worth to financial institutions by between $812 million to $2.2 billion, depending on the year and the specific applications he filed, and is seeking a penalty of about $250 million in a trial scheduled to begin Oct. 2.

New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, who issued the summary judgment on Tuesday, ordered that some of Trump's business licenses be rescinded as punishment and ordered that an outside "receiver" must be appointed to supervise the management of those Trump properties. The ultimate outcome could well be the end of Trump's ability to do business in the state.

Trump and his adult sons are now "barred from doing business in New York forever" under Engoron's ruling, said Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University. "And given that New York was the home base of their business, the base of their fortune, of Trump's reputation, his credibility, his integrity  it's all been found lacking." The former president "is not a good businessman," she added. "He's a conman."

Tuesday's ruling came summary judgment, a decision indicating that there is no need for a jury trial because the evidence is "so strong" for one side, Ross explained, that no reasonable jury could reach a different decision.

Engoron's ruling amounts to saying "that the New York attorney general presented an ironclad, well-documented case backed up with lots of evidence," Ross said. In fact, she added, Engoron had already "lambasted Trump's lawyers for trying to resuscitate defense arguments and positions that he had already expressly rejected and for essentially misleading the court in a number of instances."

This decision was viewed as a surprise by legal observers and is clearly a major victory for James, who has been investigating claims since March 2019 that Trump and other executives at his companies had manipulated the values of various properties in order to get better deals from banks and insurers. She filed a lawsuit in September 2022.

Though the trial will determine the exact magnitude of the financial penalty inflicted on the Trumps and their business entity, Engoron has already granted one of the biggest punishments James pursued: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Trump's New York properties, including the Trump Organization itself, to operate in the state. That could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

This decision "signals the end of Trump's financial empire," Bennett Gershman, a former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University, told Salon.

"The judge declared that Trump and his family are guilty of a massive, staggering fraud in overvaluing his properties," Gershman said. "The only issue left to be decided is the penalty to be imposed on him."

The ruling, if it survives the appeals that are sure to follow, would deprive Trump of his ability to exercise control over critical properties in the state, particularly with regard to strategic and financial decisions. This would effectively dismantle a large portion of the former president's business empire, and could destabilize his financial standing.

"This ruling cripples [Trump's] ability to engage in business activities anywhere, and completely terminates his ability to do business in New York state," Gershman said, adding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could now decide to reopen "his criminal investigation of Trump for falsely stating the value of his properties." Bragg had earlier declined to prosecute Trump on those charges.

The former president has "boasted" that his personal net worth in the billions, Gershman added, although many observers have concluded that is unlikely. "The truth is that his net worth is far, far less than that," Gershman said. "The consequences of this ruling and the upcoming trial, while not making him a pauper, will significantly reduce his net worth."

According to Engoron's ruling, Trump, along with his company and key executives, engaged in a pattern of false statements about their financial status in annual statements. This resulted in more favorable loan conditions and reduced insurance expenses, among other tangible benefits, the judge found.

Furthermore, these deceptive tactics violated legal boundaries, Engoron said, despite the arguments by Trump's lawyers that a disclaimer attached to his financial statements absolved him of liability.

"In defendants' world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party's lies," Engoron wrote in his 35-page ruling. "That is a fantasy world, not the real world."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The judge ordered that Trump and the other defendants provide the names of potential independent receivers "to manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs," meaning the various Trump business entities, within 10 days of the ruling.

No member of the Trump family will have control over the properties in question, and according to Ross it is "very likely" that many or most will be sold to compensate for the Trumps' fraudulent gains, a process similar to the "liquidation" that occurs in bankruptcy proceedings.

One notable finding in Engoron's decision was that Trump had continuously overvalued Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, inflating its value on one financial statement by as much as 2,300%, The Associated Press reported. Engoron also challenged Trump's claim about the size of his apartment in Manhattan's Trump Tower, which the former president on at least one occasion had asserted was 30,000 square feet, nearly three times its actual size. Trump had estimated the apartment's market value at $327 million, a patently implausible number even in the New York City real estate market.

"A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud," Engoron wrote.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Salon that while the former president is a "fraudster," his supporters will continue to claim that "he's a good businessman," adding that Trump has "proven time and again that he can survive these sorts of stains on him and his company."

As far as Trump's business ventures go, Rahmani said: "He's done doing business in New York. He's just done."

In their own motion for summary judgment, Trump's legal team had asked the judge to dismiss the case, contending that there was no evidence that the public had been harmed by Trump's actions. They also argued that many of the allegations in the lawsuit were barred by the statute of limitations.

Engoron noted that he had rejected those arguments earlier in the case, and fined Trump's five defense lawyers $7,500 each as punishment for "engaging in repetitive, frivolous" arguments.

James' lawsuit is just one of many legal challenges confronting Trump, who remains the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Over the past six months, the former president has faced four criminal indictments and is also facing a second defamation suit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll, who earlier won a civil verdict against Trump for sexually assaulting her in the 1990s.

"Maybe this will affect the public's perception of him not only as an obstructer of justice, who undermined national security and sought to unlawfully undo a fair election, but also as a financial cheat," Gershman said.

Ross added that Trump "seems to be leveraged up to his eyeballs," facing "enormous debts" and rapidly mounting legal bills. And this decision creates further legal jeopardy for him, she added.

"If he were to consider taking the stand in one of the many pending cases against him, whether criminal or civil," Ross said, "this finding of fraud could be used by the other side  by the prosecution, or the other party in a civil case  to impeach his testimony. Fraud goes to the essence of whether you tell the truth."
John Bowers, left, director of partnerships at Silicon Slopes, interviews former BYU and NFL quarterback Steve Young, during the Silicon Slopes Summit at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City on Sept. 30, 2022.

Utah tech sector outreach and education group Silicon Slopes is geared up and ready to host over 10,000 attendees at its eighth Silicon Slopes Summit at the Delta Center this week with a dynamic agenda featuring local, national and international speakers.

Silicon Slopes CEO Clint Betts said the latest edition, which kicks off Wednesday, feels like the first real summit, post-COVID, following several years of event disruptions amid pandemic related-restrictions and the aftermath which posed major challenges for organizers of large, in-person gatherings.

The energy is super high, the excitement is really high and were officially back, Betts said.

The lineup for the two-day event continues Silicon Slopes penchant for attracting top-tier speakers. This time, that includes self-help guru, investor and business strategist Tony Robbins ; Netflix founder and executive chairman Reed Hastings (who also, it just so happens, recently became principal owner of Utah ski resort Powder Mountain); actor, producer and comedian Marlan Wayans; ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro: Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone; serial entrepreneur, author and cool-hunter Gary GaryVee Vaynerchuk; and many more.

Related

Betts said the reputation, reach and influence of the Silicon Slopes Summit, which has skyrocketed from its humble beginnings in 2017, has made it much easier to draw talent and expertise to the event and particularly so for a nonprofit that relies on volunteer appearances to fill an agenda of wide-ranging topic discussions.

Were a nonprofit organization that works to put on a great event, Betts said. We couldnt pay for speakers even if we wanted but this year has been one of the easiest yet to book speakers.

The summit has grown into a nationally and globally recognized event and the fact that so many are willing to come out and speak to our attendees is a huge testament to the state of Utah.

Betts is also celebrating the event taking place at the home of the Utah Jazz, downtowns Delta Center, a venue that was made available for the event, free of charge, thanks to the good luck of having a friend who owns the building. That would be, of course, Qualtrics co-founder and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, who is also among the group of Utah tech sector notables, including Betts, who helped found the Silicon Slopes group back in the late aughts.

Qualtrics is just one of a slew of Utah tech success stories and even on the backend of a long spell of extreme tech sector challenges, many of which were wrought by pandemic conditions, Betts noted Utahs tech community is not only thriving, but has ascended to new heights as an epicenter of innovation.

The tech community hasnt had a normal year since 2019, Betts said. Back then, it was widely thought that the money was free, startups were raising capital based on crazy valuations and many believed the party would go on forever.

Of course, thats not how it played out and now were at a point where entrepreneurs have to build real businesses that are based on solid fundamentals. Thats a huge advantage for our community because Utah has always been good at that.

Betts believes that the emerging back-to-basics reality check for tech businesses in the U.S. and around the world is only proving to be a further driver of successes for a Utah tech sector that has deep roots and been riding a juggernaut of growth for years.

Silicon Slopes is the entrepreneurial capital of the world, Betts said. There are more entrepreneurs, per capita, coming out of Utah than anywhere else in the world. Its because Utah entrepreneurs are building real companies with value built on solid principles and that sets the state apart from almost every other place.

For further details on the Silicon Slopes Summit running Sept. 27-28, including how to attend, visit summit.siliconslopes.com.
While Eric Trump may be the lesser known of Donald Trump s allegedly corrupt children, today he made his voice heard when he took to X (formerly Twitter) to rail against a New York judge's ruling.

Eric Trump took issue with Justice Arthur Engoron ruling on Tuesday that found that his father committed fraud by falsely valuing his properties, including his Mar-a-Lago resort and Trump Park Avenue in New York.

The judge found that Trump grossly overvalued Mar-a-Lago, having once claimed it was worth $1.5 billion. The ruling referred to a 2011-2021 valuation by the Palm Beach County Assessor that estimated Mar-a-Lagos value between $18 million and $27.6 million.

So in response, baby Trump ran to social media claiming the system is corruptbecause we all know that rich white men cant catch a break these days.

In an attempt to destroy my father and kick him out of New York, a judge just ruled that Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach Florida, is only worth approximately 18 Million dollarsMar-a-Lago is speculated to be worth well over a billion dollars making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country. It is all so corrupt and coordinated, Eric Trump wrote in a post on X.

 (@)

twitter.com

Tuesdays ruling is part of New York Attorney General Letitia James $250 million lawsuit that alleges Trump, the Trump organization, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were part of more than a decade's worth of fraud. The ruling, which allows the civil trial to start next week, says that Trump lied to banks and insurers by both falsely inflating and undervaluing his assets to lower his taxes and get better insurance coverage while also exaggerating his net worth by billions of dollars, according to The Hill.

In another ill-thought out X post, Eric Trump accused the Attorney General of trying to destroy a mans life. Honestly, there's no need when they are so good at doing it themselves.

Today, I lost all faith in the New York legal system. Never before have I seen such hatred toward one person by a judge  a coordinated effort with the Attorney General to destroy a mans life, company and accomplishments. We have run an exceptional company  never missing a loan payment, making banks hundreds of millions of dollars, developing some of the most iconic assets in the world. Yet today, the persecution of our family continues

Today, I lost all faith in the New York legal system. Never before have I seen such hatred toward one person by a judge - a coordinated effort with the Attorney General to destroy a mans life, company and accomplishments. We have run an exceptional company - never missing a loan  Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 26, 2023

Then in a bid to distance himself from the corruption, Eric Trump wrote, Both the Attorney General and the Judge know I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this case. Every single person has testified that my job has always been acquiring, developing and managing properties, not back office functions. The only reason I am collateral damage is because my last name is Trump and I am unwavering in the support of my father, his accomplishments and what he has done for our country, a nation which is now rapidly in decline.

Despite his public pleas on social media, youre going to want to get out the popcorn because the trial is slated to begin on Monday.

While everyone can see that this case is egregious, the only thing worse than weaponizing the legal system against a political opponent is unfairly going after their family. Both the Attorney General and the Judge know I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this case. Every single  Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 27, 2023
This image released by IFC Films shows Laure Calamy in a scene from "The Origin of Evil." (Laurent Champoussin/IFC Films via AP)

A mysterious woman, down on her luck and working a miserable job at a tinned fish factory, makes contact with the extremely wealthy father shes never met  and his suspicious heirs  in the French thriller The Origin of Evil.

Though the title may conjure up associations with jump scares, hauntings and demonic possessions, this film, now playing in 200 theaters in North America, draws its inspirations not from horrors but from the psychological, erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s.

The mystery woman, Stephane, is played by Laure Calamy , an actor familiar to anyone who devoured the French comedy series Call My Agent! The New York Times said the film was "' Succession' meets Brian De Palma. "

Like many French filmmakers before him, Sebastien Marnier fell in love with cinema through Hollywood movies. Thrillers like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction and Single White Female made a big impact on him as a teenager. They were exciting, usually featured strong and dangerous women at the heart of them and, of course, they were sexy, which at 14 or 15 was a really big deal, he laughed in a recent interview.

American cinema is really the foundation of my cinephilia, Marnier said through a translator. What I like to look for is finding that feeling that American film gave me when I was a teenager, but making a truly French film with those feelings. So how do I take the inspiration that I felt as a teenager from those emotions to make a truly French film that is taking place on the French territory?

With The Origin of Evil he wanted to pay homage to those films and put them within a distinctly French context. Influences range from Claude Chabrol to Parasite. A playful mixture of genres, its scary at times, but also funny, offbeat and, yes, sexy, as Stephane, who is in a romantic relationship with a volatile imprisoned woman, navigates the personalities in her father Serges (Jacques Weber) orbit: His spendy wife Louise (Dominique Blanc), his daughter George (Doria Tillier) who is angling to push him out of the business, a jaded granddaughter (Celeste Brunnquell) and their unfriendly maid (Veronique Ruggia).

Though the origin of this story comes from a very personal place  Marnier's mother, who made contact with her father later in life  he hopes it has broader commentary on issues affecting modern France.

I think The Origin of Evil talks about the end of a certain French society, the end of a powerful patriarchy, the end of a super-rich right wing dominant class, especially in the Riviera, a very rich class that was anti-Semitic and extremely powerful, said Marnier. And its in this confrontation of two worlds that we find a tension that France, is really experiencing at the moment. Theres something very French, I think, in the way the film captures the class struggle.

Its also a film where no one is quite what they seem, and it keeps you guessing and second guessing until the very end. Instrumental in this was the casting of Calamy.

She has something thats quite rare in French cinema, which is that shes very beautiful and sexy, but on the other hand, shes also banal in the good sense of the word. Shes really the woman next door, Marnier said. And because of things like Call My Agent!, we like her. We have an empathy for her.

"If I had cast Isabelle Huppert, we would know right away that she was going to kill everybody, he added.

Stephane, it should be said, does not kill everybody, but she has her dark secrets too.

Of that De Palma comparison, Marnier deflects. It is, he said, much too much. I dont deserve that, he said. Hes one of my favorite filmmakers.

Hes mostly just excited that after a few films, hes finally got one thats playing in American cinemas too.

Its really moving and beautiful, he said. My other films were released on platforms in the U.S., but to be released theatrically is a great gift.
The European Commission will represent Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the grain dispute with Ukraine at the World Trade Organization, Polish news outlet PAP reported on Sept. 26.

According to PAP, proceedings at the WTO over Ukraine's complaints against Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary over grain agreements are due to begin shortly.

"On Tuesday a decision was made that the European Commision will represent EU countries in the dispute before the WTO," an EU source told PAP. "The EU delegation includes experts from Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary."

Disagreements about grain exports escalated tensions between Poland and Ukraine in recent days. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki forcefully responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, stating that he "should never insult Poles again."

During his speech at the U.N. headquarters in New York, Zelensky called out the "alarming" behavior of Ukraine's partners regarding the grain import bans.

In May, the Commission imposed a ban on sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seed in five EU countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. The nations requested the measure due to fears from local farmers that cheap Ukrainian imports would drive down agriculture prices.

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia decided to implement their own bans on Ukrainian grain imports on Sept. 16 despite the European Commission's decision to end the embargo the day before.

Although the Commission decided not to extend the ban, three of the five countries will continue to restrict imports of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Another Russian command post reportedly hit; Supposedly dead Russian general shown alive





Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The CIA and other US intelligence agencies will soon have an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT. The program, revealed on Tuesday by Bloomberg, will train on publicly available data and provide sources alongside its answers so agents can confirm their validity. The aim is for US spies to more easily sift through ever-growing troves of information, although the exact nature of what constitutes public data could spark some thorny privacy issues.

Weve gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going, Randy Nixon, the CIAs director of Open Source Enterprise, said in an interview with Bloomberg. We have to find the needles in the needle field. Nixons division plans to distribute the AI tool to US intelligence agencies soon.

Nixon says the tool will allow agents to look up information, ask follow-up questions and summarize daunting masses of data. Then you can take it to the next level and start chatting and asking questions of the machines to give you answers, also sourced, he said. Our collection can just continue to grow and grow with no limitations other than how much things cost.

The CIA hasnt specified which AI tool (if any) its using as the foundation for its chatbot. Once the tool is available, the entire 18-agency US intelligence community will have access to it. However, lawmakers and the public wont be able to use it.

Nixon said the tool would follow US privacy laws. However, he didnt state how the government would safeguard it from leaking onto the internet or using information thats sketchily acquired but technically public. Federal agencies (including the Secret Service) and police forces have been caught bypassing warrants and using commercial marketplaces to buy troves of data. These have included phones locations, which the government can technically describe as open-source.

The scale of how much we collect and what we collect on has grown astronomically over the last 80-plus years, so much so that this could be daunting and at times unusable for our consumers, Nixon said. He envisions the tool allowing a scenario where the machines are pushing you the right information, one where the machine can auto-summarize, group things together.

The US governments decision to move forward with the tool could be influenced by China, which has stated that it wants to surpass its rivals and become the worlds de facto AI leader by 2030.

The US has taken steps to counter Chinas influence while examining AIs domestic and economic risks. Last year, the Biden administration launched a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, defining the White Houses generative AI values. It has also pushed for an AI risk management framework and invested $140 million in creating new AI and machine learning research institutes. In July, President Biden met with leaders from AI companies, who agreed to (non-binding) statements that they would develop their products ethically.
State officials and Houston police are investigating an incident where an off-duty Texas State Trooper shot his neighbor after mistaking him for a home intruder.

Houston police said the shooting happened shortly after midnight on Monday at a high-rise apartment building in the downtown area.

Houston police briefed the press on an incident at a high-rise apartment building in the downtown area where an off-duty Texas state trooper shot his neighbor after mistaking him for a home intruder. (Photo: Twitter/Houston Police)

The trooper told police that he was inside his own apartment when he heard someone at his front door trying to break in. So the trooper fired his gun one time through the door. A bullet struck the man in his right shoulder. First responders found him on a different floor and took him to the hospital. Police say hes expected to survive the wound.

Related: When Your Privilege Runs Out: Amber Guygers Appeal Denied for the Second Time In Three Months, Judge Upholds Her Sentence for Botham Jeans Slaying

In a briefing, police called the man who was shot a suspect and described him as a Black man in his 30s, but the buildings ownership group released a statement clarifying that the burglary suspect in question was actually a resident who lives in the building on a different floor. The company believes it was strictly a case of mistaken identity. At approximately 12:20 a.m. this morning (September 25th), an incident occurred involving two residents at 500 Crawford Apartments. The Houston Police Department investigation is still ongoing, but at this point, we believe the incident to be a case of one resident mistaking another residents apartment as their own. While the first resident attempted to gain access to the wrong apartment, the other resident  who we are told is a member of local law enforcement  fired through the door, striking the resident in the shoulder. It is our understanding that the resident who was injured is in stable condition at a local hospital. The Finger Companies is fully cooperating with the HPD investigation and will release additional information as it becomes available.

Asst Chief @BashirHpd Media Briefing on Outside Agency Shooting at 500 Crawford St. https://t.co/GZwpKDGlX1  Houston Police (@houstonpolice) September 25, 2023

Police havent identified the shooting victim or the trooper. Details also havent been released on how the victim tried to break in to the apartment, but police say theres no evidence that he tried to burglarize nearby apartments. Theres also no word on if any charges will be filed.

We dont know why he was at that apartment, but the initial assessment is that trooper believed he was trying to break in, Houston Assistant Police Chief Yasar Bashir said. The suspect, we believe, was trying to get into the apartment, and the trooper did give several commands to him to get away, and we believe he still tried to make entry.

Read the full story here.

Local news outlet ABC13 spoke with one resident who requested anonymity and said that the hallways on each floor look so similar that its easy for residents to mix up which floor is their own at times.

(I) tried to use my key on the unit thats one floor above. Its pretty easy to do here because every floor, every hallway, looks pretty much the same, the resident said. It still doesnt make me feel great that potentially in the case of myself going on to the wrong floor, using my key in the wrong apartment. I just dont want that happening to me.

The Houston Police Department and the Texas Rangers are still investigating the incident.

This case poses a similar resemblance to the Botham Jean case in Dallas. Jean was murdered by former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger in 2018 after Guyger entered Jeans apartment, mistaking it for her own, and shot and killed him in the belief that he was an intruder. Both Guyger and Jean lived in the same apartment building, but Guyger lived on a different floor.

Jean, who was 26 at the time, was sitting in his living room, watching television and eating ice cream when he was shot. Guyger was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. is headed toward a government shutdown this weekend unless Congress takes action soon. Government funding expires when the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. Sunday, and lawmakers are still divided over spending levels and whether to give more aid to Ukraine.

As Congress debates a plan, government operations that Americans rely on and paychecks for millions of federal workers hang in the balance.

Here is what you need to know about what a government shutdown is and how it could affect you.

What is a government shutdown?

The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, meaning all government funding decisions take place on Capitol Hill. Each year Congress must pass spending bills before Oct. 1, the start of a new fiscal year, or the government runs out of money to keep functioning.

If Congress fails to act before the end of September, there will be a lapse in funding, and all nonessential government functions must stop.

Wed like to hear from you about how youre preparing for a possible government shutdown, whether you might be out of work or feel the effects of shuttered services. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.

How did Congress get to this point?

If you know the song Im Just a Bill from Schoolhouse Rock! then you may remember that bills start in committees before making it to the House or Senate floor for a vote. This is how the government spending process is designed to work. Appropriations committees in both chambers are supposed to pass a dozen spending bills that cover different federal agencies. Then the bills must pass both the full House and Senate before going to the presidents desk to be signed into law.

If Congress runs out of time to finish this process, which happens often, lawmakers can pass a short-term funding extension, to give themselves more time to hash out a full-year deal. While both House and Senate leadership have signaled that they want to pass a short-term bill, called a continuing resolution or CR, neither chamber has done so yet.

Often, Congress will package a few or all of the 12 spending bills together into what is called an omnibus spending bill and pass that. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has repeatedly said he would never go down this route.

Conservative demands for spending cuts in the House have led to the current stalemate. During debt ceiling negotiations, House Republicans struck a deal with the White House to establish spending caps for the next two years; that was designed to avoid a shutdown fight this fall. But seeking to appease the most conservative members of his party, McCarthy let House appropriators mark up spending bills below the caps that they had agreed on with the Biden administration.

So far, the House has only passed one of the 12 funding bills on the floor. The Senate has passed none. On two occasions last week, a small faction of conservatives blocked GOP leaders from bringing the Defense Department appropriations bill  usually an easy one to pass since it funds the military  to the floor for debate, as they demanded additional cuts.

When would a shutdown begin? How long could one last?

In the absence of last-minute action from Congress, a shutdown would start at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1. It is difficult to predict how long a shutdown could last, given divisions on Capitol Hill. Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, and the Senate is controlled by Democrats.

There are even disagreements just among House Republicans, with some maintaining they will never vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government open, arguing that Congress does this too often and that they should focus on passing the 12 spending bills. But that process usually takes weeks or months, not days.

What parts of the government would be affected by a shutdown?

During a shutdown, the federal government would be unable to pay its 4 million employees. Hundreds of thousands of these government workers could be furloughed, meaning they would temporarily stop going to work. During a 2013 shutdown, about 850,000 workers were furloughed. These workers would receive retroactive pay when the government reopens, something that was not always guaranteed until Congress passed a law following a 2019 shutdown.

Some functions of the government would continue, including the military and public safety, with those employees working without pay. Each federal agency creates a contingency plan of how to operate during a shutdown and which employees are excepted from being furloughed. The Defense Department plan, for example, states that active-duty military personnel will continue to report for duty during a shutdown.

President Joe Biden and members of Congress would all continue to work and be paid, as required by law.

Does a shutdown affect benefits and payments like Social Security?

Social Security checks that go out to 67 million Americans every month would continue during a shutdown as this is considered mandatory spending and not funded through the dozen appropriations bills that Congress is supposed to pass each year.

Other examples of mandatory spending that would continue include payments from Medicare, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and veterans benefits.

How long did the longest government shutdown last?

Congress has allowed funding to lapse several times in the past four decades, leading to 20 shutdowns that lasted at least one full day.

The longest shutdown was also the most recent: The government shut down for 34 full days from Dec. 21, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019.

During that shutdown, national parks remained open, but with park employees furloughed, trash started piling up. Transportation Security Administration employees, who were required to keep working without pay, started calling out sick.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Former ABC News producer James Gordon Meek s lawyer has claimed that trauma suffered during his years of reporting on war and torture led to his addiction to child pornography.

Meek, 54, will be sentenced on Friday in a federal court in Virginia after he pled guilty in July to the illegal possession and transportion of vile images of children being sexually abused.

His attorney Eugene Gorokhov argued in a court filing this week that Meeks extensive exposure to the cruelty of the war on terror in the Middle East had taken a toll in the form of his mental health.

It is notable that trauma has been found to lead to this type of emotional numbing, combined with an increased tendency towards impulsivity, Mr Gorokhov wrote.

Prosecutors called on the judge to sentence the former national security correspondent to up to 15 years as they outlined how he hoarded and shared content depicting sadistic and masochistic abuse of prepubescent children.

He sought out individuals and groups on the internet specifically for facilitating this conduct, Zoe Bedell and Whitney Kramer wrote in a pre-sentence filing.

The prosecutors detailed how Meek joined a Telegram group chat where members posed as children to interact with underage victims.

A significant sentence of imprisonment is warranted to deter the defendant and others from engaging in this conduct in the future, the prosecutors said.

Meek, a former Emmy Award-winning news producer, was arrested in 2022 after federal agents raided his home in Arlington, Virginia, and seized phones and computers.

FBI agents founds dozens of child pornography images and videos dating back to at least 2014, an affidavit stated.

His lawyer said the sentencing guideline of 12.5 to 15 years was excessive, claiming that his clean record, remorse and guilty plea deserved a sentence of five years.

The divorced father of two adult daughters had lost nearly everything, Mr Gorokhov wrote.

Mr Gorokhov cited an interview Meek gave to the Glendale Community College student newspaper El Vaquero in 2017, where he spoke about the past four years of covering terrorism had on his own emotional health and morale.

Mans inhumanity to man finally met the smartphone in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, and exposure to the carnage and cruelty of warfare has increased exponentially in my work because it has become so easy to document and distribute globally. It is both a blessing and a curse, Meek told the paper.

As part of a plea agreement in July, Meek admitted using an iPhone to swap child pornography, including a video showing the sexual abuse of an infant, during a chat session with two other individuals.

Meek was hired as an investigative producer for ABC News Washington bureau in 2013 after previously working for the New York Daily News.

He also served as senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the US House Committee on Homeland Security.
(Reuters) - Apple's former design chief, Jony Ive , and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been discussing building a new artificial intelligence (AI) hardware device, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear what the device would be or if they will decide to build it but the duo have been discussing what new hardware for the AI age could look like, the report said.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has also been involved in some aspects of the conversation but it is unclear if he will remain involved, the report said.

OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Ive and LoveFrom could not be reached for comment.

Ive was a close creative collaborator with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He spent more than two decades at the tech giant and led the design of the candy-colored iMacs that helped Apple re-emerge from near death in the 1990s as well as the design of the iPhone.

Ive left Apple in 2019 and subsequently co-founded design firm LoveFrom with fellow designer Marc Newson . LoveFrom, which describes itself as a "creative collective", has clients such as Airbnb and Ferrari.

OpenAI, the parent company of the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT, has seen phenomenal success that has prompted companies such as Microsoft and Alphabet to pour billions of dollars into investing in the technology.

(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in paragraph 2)

(Reporting by Evelyn Nikhila S in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
The former boyfriend of missing Kentucky mom Crystal Rogers was arrested Wednesday morning in connection to her 2015 disappearance.

Brooks Houck is charged with complicity to murder and tampering with physical evidence, according to Fox affiliate WDRB. The FBIs Louisville field office said Houcks indictment is sealed and that details on the case will be revealed at his Oct. 5 arraignment. He is being held on a $10 million bond.

In footage captured by the TV station, a pair of detectives in suits hauled Houck into the Nelson County jail. The 41-year-old dad, handcuffed behind his back, wore a gray T-shirt bearing the name of a tool company and khaki shorts. Wheres Crystal Rogers? a woman, presumably a reporter, shouts. Houck didnt reply.

The arrest follows Rogers familys eight-year battle for justice. Since the mother-of-five vanished, her parents Tommy and Sherry Ballard never gave up in their search for answers. In 2016, as he collected clues on his daughters whereabouts, Tommy Ballard was gunned down while hunting with a grandson. His murder remains unsolved.

Earlier this month, another arrest marked the first big break in the case.

Joseph Lawson, 32, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence, and an indictment alleges that he agreed to aid one or more persons in the planning or commission of the crime or an attempt or solicitation to commit the crime when he, and/or, a co-conspirator intentionally caused the death of another. He pleaded not guilty.

Whether Joseph Lawson knew Rogers is unknown, but a man who appears to be his father, Steve Lawson, worked for Houcks real estate venture.

Rogers was last seen alive over the Fourth of July weekend in 2015, when she was visiting Houcks family farm with the couples young son.

Houck told a Nelson County sheriffs detective that he and Rogers left the propertywhich cops searched multiple times after Rogers went missingjust before midnight on July 3. He said that when they got home, he went to bed and Rogers stayed up playing games on her phone.

When he woke the next morning, Rogers was gone but their 2-year-old son was in bed next to him, he claimed. I wasnt even alarmed, Brooks told the detective, adding that he figured his girlfriend was with her cousin or her sister. (He would later tell Nancy Grace that his relationship with Rogers was sometimes stressed and shed cope at a relatives home.)

After Rogers parents reported her missing on July 5, her maroon Chevy Impala was discovered, keys in the ignition, on the shoulder of the Bluegrass Parkway. Inside the car were her purse, cellphone, and a diaper bag.

In 2018, Sherry Ballard told The Daily Beast that Rogers met Houck seven years earlier after renting one of his properties and she began working for him.

Americas Most Beautiful Small Town Is Murder, U.S.A.

She was just a normal everyday girl that wore her heart on her sleeve, Sherry said of Rogers, the oldest of three children. Crystals kids were like our kids. We were a close family. They were here all the time.

While Houck joined family get-togethers, his ties to the Ballards began to sour by 2014. Sherry claimed that Houck sprained the wrist of one of Rogers daughters while ordering her to put away her phone and once cut off the familys water in anger.

According to Sherry, Rogers planned to dump Brooks before she went missing.

A cousin of Rogers, Mandy Greenwell, pointed out that Brooks never volunteered to help search for his then girlfriend. Why did he never help search? Greenwell told The Daily Beast in 2018. Even if there was differences between him and Sherry and Tommy, their number one goal was to find Crystal. Sometimes you just have to let bygones be bygones.

Police named Houck the main suspect three months after Rogers disappeared.

Meanwhile, his brother, former Bardstown cop Nick Houck, was fired in October 2015 after he called Brooks and warned him that investigators might try to trip him up. Nick had also failed an FBI administered polygraph test, which hed twice tried to avoid.

When an FBI expert asked Nick if he knew where Crystal was and whether he was hiding information about what happened to her, the cop turned hostile. I dont give a goddamn what your fucking computer said, OK, Nick replied. Im telling ya that I have been 100 percent honest with you.

Man Arrested in Cold Case of Missing Kentucky Mom Crystal Rogers

Authorities also looked into another relative of Houck: His grandmother, Anna Whitesides, whose Buick was spotted in a strange location on the family farm. When investigators tried to seize the vehicle, the octogenarian said she sold it to a dealership. Police would search her home at least five times.

I will not let this rest until I find justice for my daughter and my husband, Sherry previously told The Daily Beast. If you think shes gonna be a pile of paper on a desk, thats not happening.

Over the years, Houck continued to make local headlines over his brushes with police. He was arrested on a warrant for traffic violations in 2022. (A prosecutor would dismiss five of his seven charges and he pleaded guilty to two.) And in 2018, he was charged with stealing roofing shingles from a Lowes hardware store.

He faced 20 years for felony theft but a jury acquitted him.

I know it has nothing to do with my daughter, but  Im happy thats getting out there, Sherry told The Daily Beast of his theft charge.

People are starting to see the person that I already knew.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

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By Ted Hesson

(Reuters) - Biden administration officials last year recommended closing or downsizing nine immigration detention centers because of high costs and staffing shortages, a move that could have saved $235 million, a draft U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo reviewed by Reuters shows.

But ICE ultimately only ended contracts with two of the detention centers flagged in the memo.

Six of the nine detention centers identified in the August 2022 memo were operated by private companies. Among the for-profit detention centers was the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico, where a government watchdog earlier had called for the relocation of all detainees due to "critical staffing shortages that have led to safety risks and unsanitary living conditions."

A finalized version of the memo dated Sept. 1, 2022, and reviewed by Reuters, omitted the recommendation to close Torrance. The finalized memo was shared with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' office, one current and one former U.S. official said, requesting anonymity to discuss the internal process.

U.S. President Joe Biden promised during the 2020 campaign to reform immigration detention and cut out for-profit companies. But with record numbers of migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022, some officials argued Torrance - about an hour southeast of Albuquerque - was needed due to its proximity to the border, the current and former officials said.

The failed Biden administration detention reform effort shows the challenges Biden will face to deliver on his earlier campaign promises as he seeks another term in 2024.

"There's always perpetual fear about losing beds, that we'll look bad and get jammed," the current U.S. official told Reuters.

Following a Reuters request for comment, an ICE official said Torrance was a key detention center and that ICE keeps the population lower than capacity to avoid overburdening the staff.

ICE did not comment on the authenticity of the documents reviewed by Reuters or the decision-making process.

"The agency continuously reviews and enhances civil detention operations to ensure non-citizens are treated humanely, protected from harm, provided appropriate medical and mental health care, and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled," ICE spokesperson Jenny Burke said.

The draft memo stated that CoreCivic, the company that operates Torrance, could not maintain staffing and that the daily cost to house a detainee was more than double the average.

Brian Todd, a CoreCivic spokesperson, called allegations against Torrance "false and misleading" and said the facility provides "a safe, humane and appropriate environment" for detainees.

ICE ended contracts with two little-used facilities named in both memos: the Berks County Residential Center in Pennsylvania and Yuba County Jail in California. Both were run by the counties.

At Berks, which held families until 2021, each detainee cost about $1,200 per day, according to the draft memo, far beyond the $142 average in fiscal year 2022. At Yuba, the daily cost per detainee was $8,000, the memo said.

On Tuesday night, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico said it filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state court on behalf of the estate of Kesley Vial, a 23-year-old Brazilian man who hanged himself in Torrance on Aug. 17, 2022.

The lawsuit cites ICE contracting reports that said Torrance staffing shortages impacted safety, security and care. The suit cites government watchdog inspections that also found the facility failed to meet minimum medical staffing levels.

"That's a recipe for disaster," said Rebecca Sheff, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico.

Todd, the CoreCivic spokesperson, said ICE did not identify staffing or access to medical professionals as a factor in Vial's death.

EXORBITANT COSTS

The August 2022 draft ICE memo called for renegotiating contracts at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California and the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, two for-profit detention centers where ICE paid outsize sums to house a handful of detainees.

At the time, court orders intended to halt the spread of COVID-19 kept ICE from sending more detainees to both facilities, but ICE continued to pay for a minimum of nearly 1,500 beds at Adelanto and 500 at Farmville.

Each detainee cost about $2,000 per day at Adelanto, operated by the private prison company GEO Group, according to the memo. At Farmville, run by another private firm, Immigration Centers of America (ICA), it was $8,000 a day.

ICE reduced the minimum beds it paid for at Adelanto, according to ICE data posted in May 2023, but Farmville's minimum remains unchanged.

An ICE official said Adelanto is "a very well-run facility" that could be useful in the future although the court order continues to block new detainees from entering.

A separate U.S. official said Farmville is needed because of limited East Coast detention space. The facility held 70 people as of this week, ICE data shows.

GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said the company could not comment on memos it had not reviewed but touted Adelanto as "a modern, state-of-the art facility built to suit ICE's needs."

ICA did not respond to requests for comment.

The Biden administration has held more migrants in ICE detention in recent months following the mid-May implementation of stricter asylum rules.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York City; Editing by Suzanne Goldenberg and Aurora Ellis)
By Emma Rumney

LONDON (Reuters) - Philip Morris International has registered new lobbyists in at least 19 U.S. states this year, and plans to add some in four more in the next two weeks, according to a Reuters' review of public records and information provided by the company.

The world's biggest cigarette maker by market value is expanding its lobbying firepower as it gears up to launch its flagship IQOS heated tobacco device in a long-awaited entry to the United States, where vaping is already an established alternative to smoking.

State-level lobbying registers examined by Reuters showed that in at least three states - Georgia, Colorado and Oregon - disclosures specified that the lobbying activity would focus on heated tobacco products.

Elsewhere, the filings referenced broader topics including tobacco policy, taxation and business, and commerce.

IQOS heats up packets of ground tobacco but does not burn them, a process the company says potentially results in fewer health risks than traditional smoking. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorised PMI to market IQOS as offering reduced exposure to harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes.

The Malboro maker was spun off from U.S. cigarette giant Altria in 2008. It had not sold any products in the United States until the purchase of oral nicotine company Swedish Match in 2022. As a result, until this year its U.S. lobbying had been negligible.

PMI is trying to transform its image from a purveyor of cigarettes to a driving force behind the switch to healthier alternatives.

The company poured most of its $10.7 billion investment in what the industry refers to as "reduced risk" products between 2008 and 2022 into the development of IQOS. The company said on Thursday it aims for more than two-thirds of its net revenues to come from such "smoke-free" products by 2020.

IQOS' success in United States could be significant because of the market's size, said Sean King, research analyst at Colombia Threadneedle Investments, a top 20 PMI investor. He said the U.S. non-combustible industry accounts for a little over half of the global market.

PMI believes IQOS can win a 10% share of U.S. tobacco and heated tobacco unit volume by 2030.

Investors are closely watching which states PMI will select to launch IQOS first. Any it chooses will likely to be the focus of PMI's strategy for years to come, given its slow and steady approach in other countries of launching IQOS in major cities and then building out from there.

"It's going to be a multi-year process within some of these states... before they progress toward a national launch," King said.

Corey Henry, PMI's director of U.S. communications, said the company is expanding its government affairs capability across the U.S. as part of the normal course of business. PMI's lobbying could relate to its Swedish Match business or more general engagement around smoking rates, Henry said.

PMI also plans to add lobbying capacity in four more states within the next two weeks, he said, meaning its overall lobbying efforts span states where the vast majority of smokers - and the U.S. population - reside.

"Viewing PMI's work across all regions of the U.S. strictly through the lens of potential launch geographies for our electrically heated tobacco system is incorrect," he said.

The publicly available lobbying registries showed that PMI has hired more than a dozen firms or individuals, some with high-level connections in legislatures including in Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

The high-level lobbyists include Park Strategies LLC in New York, a firm founded by former U.S. Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, as well as Daniel Hodge, former chief of staff to Governor Greg Abbott in Texas.

Park Strategies and Hodge did not respond to requests for comment.

COMPETITIVE MARKET

Euromonitor International, a London-based market research company, valued U.S. nicotine sales, excluding nicotine replacement therapies, at some $143.6 billion last year.

While cigarettes accounted for the vast majority of that, Euromonitor forecasts their value will shrink by 30% by 2027. The value of vapes, heated tobacco products and other alternatives will rise by 36% over the same period, it says.

Some rival heated tobacco products have struggled in the U.S. market, where vaping and other alternatives are already well established.

After initially test launching a heated tobacco product in the United States, British American Tobacco said it would instead focus its efforts on these more established categories.

Gaurav Jain, a director of equity research at Barclays, said PMI has to prove IQOS will work in the United States after it struggled in other markets with similar dynamics.

"It will be a much more competitive market," he said.

PMI's Henry said the company estimates 19.4 million adults around the world have switched to IQOS and stopped smoking, and it is confident it can replicate its international success in the United States.

PMI is likely weighing a variety of factors - including smoking rates, openness to innovation and income levels - as it selects states for IQOS' launch, according to Brett Cooper, managing partner and analyst at Consumer Edge, an equity research firm.

IQOS has a relatively high cost compared to vapes or oral tobacco, which could put off some price-sensitive consumers. For instance, the device costs between 39 pounds ($47.38) and 109 pounds in the United Kingdom, according to its website.

Users must also repeatedly buy the tobacco packets, which resemble small cigarettes, for it to heat.

But it will appeal to those looking for a more similar experience to smoking, especially if PMI can make it relatively cheap compared to heavily taxed cigarettes, Cooper said.

IQOS has a key advantage in that regard: the device and accompanying tobacco sticks are among only a handful of products to have been awarded "modified risk tobacco product" (MRTP) status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, alongside some oral tobacco products and some low-nicotine cigarettes.

In some states like Colorado and Washington - where PMI registered lobbyists in February, March and September - products with an MRTP designation are already taxed at a lower rate than traditional cigarettes.

The FDA has sought to crack down on flavoured vapes, in particular, amid concerns around youth usage. Disposable vapes, often in sweet flavours, rapidly came to account for a significant portion of U.S. e-cigarette sales.

($1 = 0.8232 pounds)

(Reporting by Emma Rumney; Editing by Matt Scuffham and Daniel Flynn)
WASHINGTON  Congress intends to give the Pentagon a carveout in a short-term funding bill that will allow the Navy to begin construction on a new ballistic missile submarine. Without that exemption, service leaders have expressed concern that congressional budget dysfunction could otherwise push the program behind schedule and create a nuclear deterrence gap in the years ahead.

The Senates bipartisan stopgap funding bill, released Tuesday, includes a rare exemption that would allow the Navy to start building the second Columbia-class submarine before Congress passes a full Pentagon budget for fiscal 2024. A rival stopgap funding bill introduced by House Republicans also includes the Columbia-class carveout. Its unclear when Congress will pass the exemption into law, as unrelated issues threaten to spark a government shutdown at the end of the week.

While lawmakers broadly agree on the need to allow the Navy to procure the next Columbia-class submarine as soon as possible, that cannot begin until both chambers agree on a stopgap funding bill.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has added several provisions to the House bill opposed by Democrats at the behest of the far-right Freedom Caucus, including a Republican immigration bill and non-defense spending cuts. And the bipartisan Senate bill includes another $6 billion in economic and military aid for Ukraine, which a growing number of House Republicans oppose.

The impasse means a government shutdown is likely. Theres no telling how long it may last, making it unclear when the Navy can procure the next Columbia-class submarine. And even if Congress does coalesce around a stopgap funding bill, it will still disrupt three other Navy ship programs: the Virginia-class attack submarine, the Constellation-class frigate and a new submarine tender replacement program.

Though the Navy does not want to see any of its acquisition programs disrupted, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program holds particular national security importance.

The Columbia program replaces the aging Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, which today prowl the worlds oceans with nuclear missiles onboard. Their entire mission is to remain hidden under the seas in case called upon for a nuclear strike. They will begin to reach the end of their lives and decommission in FY27.

The Columbia program is already on a tight schedule thats growing ever tighter as construction challenges arise. The Navy originally crafted an accelerated schedule that would have delivered the first boat in the program six months ahead of its contractually obligated timeline, but Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti told the Senate earlier this month that buffer was completely gone now due to a string of manufacturing, workforce and supply chain delays. The boat is still meeting its original contractual schedule, though, she noted.

The first boat, called the District of Columbia, must be delivered to the Navy by the General Dynamics Electric Boat yard in Connecticut by the fall of 2027 so it can undergo substantial testing ahead of a 2031 maiden deployment. If it misses that first patrol due to construction delays, the Navy and the country could see a gap in its at-sea nuclear deterrence in 2031.

The program will only grow more challenging from there, as the Navy picks up the pace and will begin to buy the massive submarines at a one-a-year rate, despite industry challenges on the first boat.

The second boat in the program is one of nine ships the Navy intends to buy in FY24, and Franchetti said the service, without the congressional carveout, would not be allowed to buy it and begin construction activities under the continuing resolution  which, depending on the length of the delay, risks a cascade of delays at the shipbuilder and its thousands of suppliers.
Claim:

A viral video authentically shows Bill Gates being hit in the face with a pie in 1998.

Rating:

Rating: True

For many years, claims have spread on social media platforms that Bill Gates was once hit in the face with a pie.

Here, for example is a YouTube video posted to the platform on April 3, 2020. The video was titled, "Bill Gates - Pie in the Face (The WHO version)."

The video's description box claimed that Gates being hit in the face had happened in 1998, when writer Noel Godin and "his group" had ambushed Gates in Brussels. We found other social media posts about the claim on platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok, and Reddit.

The claim was true. In 1998, Gates was hit in the face with a pie in Brussels.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

At the time of the event, reputable publications reported about Gates being hit in the face with the pie, including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times, and the New York Daily News.

The New York Times reported it was Godin's idea, and that his co-conspirators waited for Gates to pass by on the street, holding hidden tarts in camera bags and under their coats. The Times wrote that Godin had previously successfully pied 22 people. The publication also reported part of the reason Gates was chosen to be pied was because Godin felt Gates "chooses to function in the service of the capitalist status quo, without really using his intelligence or his imagination.''

In the aftermath of the pie throwing, Gates declined to press charges. The Tampa Bay Times reported Gates had commented that "one of the worst things about this whole thing was that the pie wasn't even that tasty," according to a Microsoft spokeswoman at the time.

Because reputable publications reported that Gates had been hit in the face with a pie when it happened and video exists of the incident, we rate the claim as True.

Sources:

Chicago Tribune. "BELGIANS RELEASE 2 WHO HIT BILL GATES WITH A CREAM PIE." Chicago Tribune, 5 Feb. 1998, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-02-05-9802060013-story.html.

"Gates Gets Creamed." Tampa Bay Times, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/02/05/gates-gets-creamed/. Accessed 26 Sept. 2023.

New York Daily News. "Gates Gets Pied: Bill Gates Gets Hit with a Pie in the Face While in Brussels in 1998." New York Daily News, 3 Feb. 2016, https://www.nydailynews.com/2016/02/03/gates-gets-pied-bill-gates-gets-hit-with-a-pie-in-the-face-while-in-brussels-in-1998/.

Lyall, Sarah. "Brussels Journal; The Philosopher With a Pie, and a Glint in the Eye." The New York Times, 20 Apr. 1998. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/20/world/brussels-journal-the-philosopher-with-a-pie-and-a-glint-in-the-eye.html.
Republican presidential candidates are on the debate stage tonight for the second time ahead of the 2024 primary.

Follow along here with the USA TODAY Fact Check Team as we dig into candidates' claims and add context on expected campaign themes, including election fraud, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the war in Ukraine and more.

More: Republican debate updates: GOP Candidates face off in California

The truth, directly in your inbox: Sign up for the Checking the Facts newsletter

Here's some background from our archives on topics we expect to see through the campaign and perhaps this evening:

Tim Scott claim: Nikki Haley spent $50,000 on curtains as the UN ambassador

As the UN ambassador, you literally put $50,000 on curtains. -Scott

This is false, and Nikki Haley has a New York Times correction to prove it.

The Times published an article in September 2018 suggesting Haley made the decision to purchase customized and mechanized curtains for picture windows in the official residence for the ambassador to the United Nations, a role that she was serving in at the time.

The outlet later issued a correction saying the article and headline created an unfair impression about Haleys involvement in the purchase. Its correction said the purchasing decision was made during the Obama administration and that Haley was not involved.

Haley said as much in responding to Scott, who asked if she sent the pricey curtains back. Haley responded by saying Scott was scrapping.

 BrieAnna Frank

Mike Pence claim: Trump administration oversaw record-low unemployment for Blacks, Hispanics

"We saw literally the lowest unemployment ever recorded for Hispanic Americans, lowest unemployment ever recorded for African Americans." - Pence

The unemployment rates for Blacks and Latinos fell to new lows in 2019  specifically, 4% for Hispanics or Latinos in September 2019 and 5.3% for Blacks in August 2019.

But this cherry-picked data ignores that these rates have fallen even lower under Trump 's democratic successor.

In September 2022, the Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate hit a record low of 3.9%, and in April the Black unemployment rate hit a record low of 4.7%, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.

Read more:

-Chris Mueller

Nikki Haley claim: China is stealing $600 billion in intellectual property

Haley is offering a precise figure in an area experts say is difficult to quantify, and her figure is the high extreme of an estimated range.

The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, a bipartisan and independent group, estimated in 2018 that Chinese intellectual property theft costs the U.S. between $225 billion and $600 billion annually. The FBI estimated in 2019 that the annual cost of all counterfeit goods, pirated software and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.

The report from the FBI states that China is the worlds principal infringer of intellectual property, and it uses its laws and regulations to put foreign companies at a disadvantage and its own companies at an advantage.

-Brad Sylvester

Mike Pence claim: US became net energy exporter under Trump

Under Donald Trump, "We became a net exporter of energy for the first time in 75 years." - Pence

This is accurate. The U.S. has been an "annual net total energy exporter" since 2019, when Donald Trump was still president, according to the Energy Information Administration.

This was a reversal of the prior seven decades.

"Up to the early 1950s, the United States produced most of the energy it consumed," the administration's website says. "U.S. energy consumption was higher than U.S. energy production in every year from 1958 (to) 2018."

In 2022, the country's total energy exports were the highest on record, having increased more than 9% from 2021.

Read more:

-Chris Mueller

Vivek Ramaswamy claim: Ukraine banned 11 opposition parties

Just because Putins an evil dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties. - Ramaswamy

This happened, but Ramaswamy left out key details on why.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy announced in March 2022 that Ukraine suspended 11 political parties because of their ties to Russia, as reported by The Guardian. The announcement came one month after Russia launched its invasion of the country.

Therefore, the national security and defense council decided, given the full-scale war unleashed by Russia, and the political ties that a number of political structures have with this state, to suspend any activity of a number of political parties for the period of martial law, Zelenskyy said, according to the outlet.

Ukraines parliament voted in July to extend the countrys martial law until Nov. 15, Reuters reported.

 BrieAnna Frank

(From left) Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy debate during the FOX Business Republican presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Ron DeSantis claim: Toddler died after fentanyl exposure at Florida AirBNB

In Florida we had an infant, 18 months, parents rented an AirBNB. And apparently the people who rented it before were using drugs. The infant was crawling, the toddler was crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue and died.  DeSantis

The Florida governor was talking about the death of 19-month-old Enora Lavenir.

The girl died in 2021 while she and her family stayed at a rental property in Wellington, Florida, while they visited from France, according to a report from the Palm Beach Post on the wrongful death lawsuit her family filed in March in Palm Beach County.

The lawsuit alleges that the home was not properly cleaned after a party was held there in which fentanyl and other drugs were present.

But official reports have not yet confirmed that. The county medical examiners office ruled her death accidental and said it was caused by acute fentanyl toxicity.

It is not clear how the child ingested the substance, and an incident report from the county sheriffs office did not indicate how the toddler was exposed to the drug, according to the newspaper report. She was napping on the afternoon of Aug. 7, 2021, when her mother found her unresponsive. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

 Joedy McCreary

Chris Christie claim: Trump built 52 miles of border wall

"(Trump) built 52 miles of wall and said Mexico would pay for it."

The length of border wall built by the Trump administration varies based on how it's counted. A count based on U.S. Customs and Border Protection data puts the total at 458 miles, but many of those additions replaced existing barriers.

PolitiFact reported in August that a CBP report says former President Donald Trump's administration built "52 miles of new primary wall systems and 33 miles of new secondary wall systems where there were none before."

Some experts say Trump's replacement barriers shouldn't be set aside because they replaced inferior barriers. For example, nearly 200 miles of short fencing, around 3 to 4 feet high, that is intended to stop vehicles was replaced with 18- to 30-foot steel barriers, according to a Cato Institute report.

Read more:

-Chris Mueller

Former New Jersey Gov.EChris Christie speaks with Florida Gov.ERon DeSantis during a break in the FOX Business Republican presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Nikki Haley claim: Fentanyl has killed more Americans than the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq

Fentanyl has killed more Americans "than the Iraq, Vietnam or Afghanistan wars combined." -Haley

The number of U.S. deaths in the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars totals about 65,000 people.

In 2021 alone, there was a total of 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in the U.S., including about 70,000 involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, which is primarily fentanyl, according to the National Institutes of Health. That makes Haley's claim true.

Read more:

-Chris Mueller

Doug Burgum claim: 'China controls 85% of the rare earth minerals'

This claim is true.

China dominates the rare earth market. The country accounts for at least 85% of the worlds capacity to process rare earth minerals, according to the research firm Adamas Intelligence.

The research firm reported in September that China upped its mining quotas to 240,000 tons, a 14% increase from last year. Relaxed environmental laws have helped China gain an advantage over other countries in rare mineral production, according to Reuters.

Rare earth alloys and magnets are key components in the use of some military equipment, such as missiles, firearms, radars and stealth aircraft, according to Politico. Rare earth materials are also needed for more familiar technologies, including smartphones, electric vehicles and LED lights, according to the Science History Institute.

-Brad Sylvester

(From left) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott spar during the FOX Business Republican presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Tim Scott claim: First bill under Biden had $86 billion for union pensions

We should look back at the first bill in Congress under Joe Biden. The first bill had $86 billion for the union pensions, because they continue to overpromise but underdeliver.  Scott

Scotts numbers were right, but he was a bit off on his timing. He was talking about the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that included $86 billion in aid for about 185 union pension plans that were near collapse, The New York Times reported at the time.

But it wasnt the first bill during that term, according a search of the Congressional website. Dozens of other bills and procedural actions were introduced first.

It was first proposed a week before Bidens inauguration in early January 2021, according to CNN. But it wasnt until Feb. 24, 2021, that it was formally introduced in the House by Kentucky Democrat John Yarmuth.

 Joedy McCreary

Tim Scott claim: 6 million illegal border crossings under Biden

Data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection show its agents have had more than 6.2 million encounters at the southwest border since January 2021, when Biden took office. Encounters include both apprehensions, when a person is taken into U.S. custody under Title 8 of the U.S. code, and expulsions, when they are immediately expelled to their home countries or last country of transit without being taken into U.S. custody, according to the Pew Research Center.

Illegal border crossings climbed to near-record levels in September, CBS News reported. December 2022 saw more than 250,000 crossings  both the highest number during Bidens term and the highest number ever recorded.

Nikki Haley referenced the same statistic later in the debate.

 BrieAnna Frank

Chris Christie claim: Donald Trump added $7 trillion to our national debt

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie touted this stat in asserting a lack of fiscal restraint by Republicans, echoing a claim Nikki Haley made in the August Republican debate. Haley said the figure was $8 billion, which is a little closer.

Using Treasury Department data, the total public debt, which includes intragovernmental holdings and public debt, increased by approximately $7.8 trillion from the start of Trumps presidency on Jan. 20, 2017, to when he left office on Jan. 19, 2021.

Read more: False claim Trump increased debt more than any president | Fact check

-Eric Litke

Election integrity a key issue for GOP candidates

A key issue for the candidates is whether they will trust  and abide by  the elections that will decide the winners and losers.

State-level reviews of the 2022 midterm elections found no indication of systemic problems with voter fraud. Thats significant because allegations from Trump and his allies have penetrated the Republican Party and eroded confidence in the process.

Several candidates have championed changes to address election integrity.

DeSantis created Floridas Office of Election Crimes and Security. A year ago, his administration accused 20 felons ineligible to vote in 2020 of illegally casting ballots and charged them with third-degree felonies.

Haley as governor signed a law in 2011 that requires South Carolina voters to show photo ID. Christie vetoed a bill in 2016 that would automatically register New Jerseyans to vote when they obtain or renew their drivers license, calling it a cocktail of fraud, NJ.com reported.

Misinformation has circulated about the integrity of the elections. Here are some that have been debunked:

 Joedy McCreary

US aid to Ukraine divides Republican candidates

More than a year and a half after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, there remain differing views among Republican presidential candidates when it comes to continuing U.S. support for Ukraine's defense.

Trump, who isnt on the debate stage, has repeatedly suggested the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine. He has also refused to say whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to prevail in the conflict.

DeSantis has also been skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine, saying in a March statement that the war is a "territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia" and not one of the country's "vital national interests."

In a Fox News interview, Ramaswamy said the U.S. has done enough to help Ukraine.

Pence, who visited Ukraine in June, has said he supports providing Ukraine with military aid to fight back against Russia. Christie too has said he supports continuing U.S. support for Ukraine, as does Scott.

Haley, though, has said U.S. support should not come in the form of cash or troops on the ground, but through collaborating with allies to be sure Ukraine has "the equipment and the ammunition to win."

The candidates' varied views seem to reflect public opinion. A poll by the Pew Research Center found 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say, as of June, that the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has frequently been the subject of misinformation, including:

 Chris Mueller

Pence makes Jan. 6 a key part of campaign

The Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots loom large during the campaign because two of that days central figures  Trump and Pence  are in the race.

Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election results while he presided over the ceremonial certification process. Pence has made his handling of the days events a central theme of his campaign, saying he chose loyalty to the Constitution over demands from Trump to give him the election.

In the worst attack on the Capitol in 200 years, a mob of thousands of Trump supporters overwhelmed police and raided the building on the day lawmakers formalized Bidens victory. Some rioters chanted that they wanted Pence hanged.

Other candidates have brought up the attacks, with DeSantis calling it not an insurrection but a protest that ended up devolving, you know, in a way that was unfortunate. Ramaswamy blamed the riots on pervasive censorship and called it unproductive to point the finger at Trump  who faces four charges and is accused of organizing a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden.

Three men involved in the riots are asking the Supreme Court to erase part of their indictment. If the justices hear their appeals, their decisions could affect part of the federal indictment Trump faces.

The attacks have been a consistent source of misinformation during the past 2 years. Here are some weve previously debunked:

 Joedy McCreary

Supporters, foes point to DeSantis record in Florida

With Ron DeSantis in charge, Florida has been anything but calm.

His five-year record as governor shapes up as a focal point of the campaign  both for his supporters and his opponents.

There is the war on wokeness. The legal feud with Disney that started over the so-called Dont Say Gay law. The law he signed that led districts across the state to purge books from their shelves.

And then there were the changes to the states history standards that say enslaved people developed skills they could use for personal benefit. That drew direct criticism from Scott.

DeSantis recently added one more debate to his schedule after this one: He will face off against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on Nov. 30.

Weve previously debunked numerous claims stemming from the Sunshine State:

 Joedy McCreary

Hunter Biden's legal troubles a target for Republicans

The ongoing legal case involving Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, has already had broad political implications, with many Republican lawmakers looking to tie his business activities to his father.

Hunter Biden was indicted Sept. 14 on two federal charges for allegedly lying to a gun dealer and on a federal form when buying a revolver in 2018.

The case nearly went away in July, but a federal judge refused to accept a plea deal after prosecutors and defense attorneys couldn't agree on the terms. Hunter Biden had previously agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of tax evasion and participate in a pretrial program for a firearm offense.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has also been investigating Biden in an effort to link actions by then-Vice President Joe Biden to his son's business dealings with the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. Republicans repeatedly alleged that Joe Biden was involved in influence peddling during his time as vice president. The White House has denied that allegation, calling it baseless innuendo.

Hunter Biden recently filed lawsuits against the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly releasing his confidential tax information and Rudy Giuliani for allegedly releasing personal information from his laptop.

Here are a few of the Hunter Biden-related claims weve previously addressed:

 Chris Mueller

Trump's absence doesn't stop talk of indictments

Trump again won't be on the debate stage tonight, but the former president looms large over the Republican primary in light of both his commanding lead in the polls and his unprecedented legal troubles.

Most recently, Trump and several allies were indicted Aug. 14 by a Georgia grand jury that accused them of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, where Trump lost to President Joe Biden in Georgia by about 12,000 votes.

The charges against Trump in Georgia are only the latest in a series of prosecutions against him that began in March, when he was indicted for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush-money payments intended to silence two women before the 2016 election. Trump also faces charges for allegedly mishandling classified documents and allegedly conspiring to steal the 2020 presidential election, including his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

While recent polls show Trump doesn't seem to have lost support among Republican primary voters as a result of his criminal charges, a general election could be a different story. A poll released Sept. 24 by NBC News found 62% of voters have either major or moderate concerns about Trumps indictments.

Trump's legal woes have been the subject of an array of false or misleading claims on social media:

 Chris Mueller

Abortion sparks debate, misinformation after Roe. v. Wade ruling

Abortion is expected to be a key issue, having sparked disagreement between parties as well as between the candidates on tonights stage.

More than a dozen states across the country have banned, or attempted to ban, abortion since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022. The decision eliminated the constitutional right to have an abortion.

Democrats have sought to use the issue to mobilize voters ahead of the 2024 election. Republican presidential candidates have generally been opposed to the procedure, but vary in how they would try to regulate it if elected.

Former President Donald Trump, who will not participate in the debate, has suggested he would work with both sides of the abortion issue and has denounced total restrictions on abortions. He criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing of legislation banning abortion after six weeks in his state.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence clashed on the topic of a federal abortion ban at the first GOP presidential debate in August. Haley, the only woman on stage, called for finding consensus among people across the political spectrum on the issue while Pence responded by saying consensus is the opposite of leadership.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has said he does not support a federal ban on abortion and believes the matter is a state issue, though he does support state bans of the procedure around the six-week mark of gestation. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has advocated for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks, while former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has called for leaving the matter up to individual states.

Abortion has sparked a flurry of misinformation online:

-BrieAnna Frank

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP debate fact check: What Ramaswamy, Haley got right (and wrong)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Private Travis T. King is seen during a tour of the tightly controlled JSA on the border between the two Koreas, at the truce village of Panmunjom

(Reuters) - Private Travis King , the U.S. soldier who ran into North Korea in July, is in U.S. custody after North Korea expelled him into China, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, following rare diplomatic cooperation between the U.S., North Korea and China.

U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea rarely try to desert or defect to the authoritarian North, but here are some cases that have occurred since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty:

- Joseph T. White shot off the lock on a gate leading into the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the Koreas while a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea in 1982, before surrendering to North Korean troops, according to an account published by the Korea Times.

The North claimed he had defected, though Pyongyang refused a request by the United Nations Command to meet him. A U.S. military spokesman later said an investigation indicated that White crossed into North Korea of his own free will. In a video released by the North, White denounced the United States and praised North Korea and its then leader Kim Il-Sung.

White's parents later received a handwritten letter believed to be from their son, in which he said he was working as a teacher and happy in the North, the Washington Post reported. White drowned in a swimming accident in the North in 1985, according to a media report, citing information received by his parents.

- Charles Robert Jenkins walked into North Korea when on patrol on the DMZ in 1965. He later expressed regret for fleeing and explained at his court marital that his motive was to avoid hazardous duty in South Korea and combat in Vietnam. Jenkins said he had drunk 10 beers before the incident.

During his near four decades in the North, he taught English and also portrayed a U.S. spy in a propaganda film. Jenkins married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman abducted by Pyongyang. Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002 and Jenkins joined her with their two daughters in 2004. Jenkins died in 2017.

- James Joseph Dresnok was a 21-year old U.S. army private stationed in South Korea in 1962 when he fled to the North. Facing a court martial for skipping duty, Dresnok describes in a film about his life how he bolted across the DMZ, through a minefield.

Dresnok and three fellow American military defectors including Jenkins, Jerry Wayne Parrish and Larry Allen Abshier lived in relative isolation for years before becoming stars of North Korean cinema by depicting evil Americans in propaganda movies promoted by then leader Kim Jong-Il. Reports, citing Dresnok's sons, say he died in Pyongyang in 2016.

(Reporting by Josh Smith, David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Attorneys for two Michigan GOP operatives charged with participating in a fake electors scheme to undermine the results of the 2020 election are arguing that prosecutors statements calling them brainwashed should be grounds for dismissal of the charges against them.

Mari-Ann Henry and Clifford Frost, two of 16 individuals indicted in connection with the fake electors scheme, requested the cases against them be dropped. Each argued that comments by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel describing the defendants as having been brainwashed into believing former President Donald Trump had won the election, constituted an admission that the defendants lacked malicious intent. CNN first obtained a recording of Nessels comments.

Attorneys for Henry wrote that convictions would require proof that [Henry] intended by her actions to defraud, the state and that the state now claims that Henry believed Donald Trump won the election. If she had that belief, [her] alleged actions could not have been performed with the intent to cheat or deceive anyone.

Frosts attorney made similar arguments, adding that if Nessel believes that the defendants legit believe Trump won the election, then Frost did not possess the specific criminal intent to cheat nor deceive as required by the statues.

In July, Nessel charged the 16 defendants, which include Michigans Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden and state GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, with offenses related to forgery, election law forgery, and conspiracy to commit forgery, among others. Prosecutors allege that the defendants attended a meeting during which some of them signed certificates falsely attesting that they were the states duly elected Electoral College voters. Those false documents made their way to Washington, D.C., as a failed, last-ditch bid to have Mike Pence subvert the Senates certification of the Electoral College vote.

Nessels comments could severely undermine the prosecutions case against those indicted in the scheme, and more hearings on the case are expected next month.

More from Rolling Stone

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Click here to read the full article.
A family who survived a hit-and-run bus crash is pleading for the driver who crashed into them to come forward. Dekalb County Police Department is investigating the case as a hit-and-run.

It happened Sept. 21 around 11 p.m. on Interstate 85 South just before the Chamblee-Tucker Rd. exit.

Rekiya Barringer said she was driving a party bus with 10 of her family members inside on a road trip from Charlotte to Texas to attend her daughters college graduation ceremony.

The trip took a traumatic turn when a car hydroplaned into the back passenger side of the bus.

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Every time I close my eyes, I just vision the bus flipping over and over and over, said Barringer.

Barringer is a former truck driver with a commercial drivers license and owns the bus.

I was pinned in the cabin, said Barringer. Some bystanders busted glass to get me out. I was dangling by my seatbelt.

Strangers stopped to pull others out. The driver who hit them ditched the car and ran off on foot.

I wouldnt have the conscience to leave a scene like that, said Barringer.

The oldest survivor on the bus is 70. The youngest is 18.

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The family is still stuck in Georgia nearly one week later because a 22-year-old is still in the hospital. She has had two surgeries since the crash. She expects to have more when she is able to return home.

They came to Georgia one way and are going to leave another way, said Tina Barringer.

The family has visited the crash site between hospital visits.

You can see the guardrail where its bent, said Tina Barringer.

I was glad we were all able to be rolled away, no funeral arrangements, said Rekiya Barringer.

The family said police noted the other drivers license plate and VIN. However, no arrests have been made.

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Community members wearing t-shirts reading Public Health Saves Lives packed an administrative building in Ottawa County, Michigan, Tuesday night to support the countys embattled Health Department.

Inside, the countys board of commissioners, dominated by a group of ultra conservatives, voted to cut the departments budget by $2.1 millionagainst pleas from public health officials and community members.

Adeline Hambley, Health Officer at the countys Department of Public Health, said last week that the cuts would result in the shuttering of food programs for low-income families, vaccine programs, suicide prevention programs, dental care for uninsured children, programs for migrants, communicable disease prevention, addiction resources, and sexually-transmitted disease services. Funding for two of the countys five epidemiologists would also be eliminated.

The Far Right Took Over a County Board in Michigan and Wreaked Revenge

John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official hired as county administrator by the board of commissioners, initially proposed an annual budget of $2.5 million, a cut of 63 percent, including discontinuing all COVID-related grants. Gibbs said the cuts were returning to pre-COVID budget levels.

The health department said Gibbs budget did not account for chronic underfunding, and estimated they would be forced to close down within weeks. The county then proposed a new budget of $4.3 millionstill more than $2 million less than the previous funding.

In a packed public comment session, 64 people signed up to speak about the controversial proposal to gut the public health budget, many pleading with the commissioners to reconsider. Some cried, others yelled. Many described themselves as pro-life, Christian or conservative, just like the commissioners.

Janine Chittenden, a nurse who has worked in the county for four decades, begged the commissioners to be compassionate, not vengeful.

My biggest concern right now with the health department budget is the defining of the nutrition program, Chittenden said. What would Jesus have done? He told us to feed the poor.

Dr. Ruth Lowry, a local hospice chaplain, told the board the community was in grief.

We are not honoring each other. And what this body has done and is proposing to do with the department of public health is obscene, Lowry said.

The vast majority of speakers spoke in support of the health department. Some, however, supported the Ottawa Impact commissioners budget and declared that Jesus is lord of Ottawa County.

Christi Meppelink, a member of the executive committee of the Ottawa County Republican Party (along with all the Ottawa Impact commissioners) pushed back on claims the six commissioners were draconian.

What was actually draconian were the Health Department shutdowns, shuttering of businesses, ridiculous contact-tracing, ineffective mask mandates on our children causing them to fall two years behind  and locking free citizens in their homes, Meppelink said, Lets get back to living life in a county where freedom rings and taxpayers arent overburdened.

The vote to gut the health budget was the latest move by six far-right candidates affiliated with Ottawa Impact, who won a majority on the county commissioners board in August 2022. Since then, they have fired top county officials, installed a former Trump administration official and MAGA loyalist as the county administrator, shuttered the countys Diversity Equity and Inclusion Office, and changed the county motto from Where You Belong to Where Freedom Rings.

Since the boards first meeting on Jan. 3, 2023, they have taken particular aim at the countys Department of Public Health, trying to remove Hambley as Health Officer and cut millions from the department budget. Hambley filed a lawsuit against the board members, saying they were attempting to fire her without just cause. She was granted an injunction, allowing her to continue working while the case makes its way through an appeal court.

Hambley said during public comment that she has been shut out of discussions about the health department budget since warning the commissioners of the consequences of cuts.

No budget can sustain a 50% cut in funding and staff and maintain programs at existing levels, Hambley said during the meeting, speaking from the floor. So even though you dont want to say it out loud, you are, in fact, cutting services to children and families through this action.

The boards current chairman, local parent and businessman Joe Moss, founded Ottawa Impact after sparring with the board of commissioners over COVID mandates. Libertas Christian School, a private religious school where Moss is a director and treasurer, was shut down by the local health authority in October 2020 for allegedly failing to follow COVID guidelines or cooperate with contact tracing.

After filing an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Department of Public Health over mask mandates, Moss founded Ottawa Impact and worked to recruit candidates aligned on a set of conservative religious and political values. The final group unseated seven incumbent Republicans, and tilted the boards politics far to the right.

Tom Neiboer, a food inspector with the Department of Health, described the Ottawa Impact board members hostility to the department as retribution for pandemic politics.

All this because we tried to get you to act with a little compassion and empathy during a pandemic that killed one million Americans, Neiboer testified during the public comment session. Well, you did it. You have your revenge. Now we must all live with the consequences of your choices. We at the county will do our level best to continue serving this county, but it will be difficult without the resources to do so.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The Orange County School Board this week adopted its annual proclamation declaring October as LGBTQ+ awareness and history month, but only after its most conservative member leveled fierce criticism at the 4-year-old initiative designed to make gay and transgender students feel welcome and supported at public schools.

Alicia Farrant, a member of the group Moms for Liberty who was elected in November, said she objected to the + in the proclamation, calling it an all-encompassing symbol that according to my research includes leather pride, bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism, and many other sexual ideologies and perversions.

Though couched as an anti-bullying measure, Farrant contended the proclamation was really a push to normalize sexual promiscuity and sexual ideations at a young age.

Several of her board colleagues said they were stunned at her comments, which they called hateful and misinformed.

Im almost speechless, said Chair Teresa Jacobs when Farrant had finished reading from her written statement condemning the proclamation at Tuesday nights meeting.

Gay and transgender students are among those most often bullied or mistreated, and the proclamation aims to help change that in Orange County Public Schools, Jacobs and others said.

We want them to have one safe palace, one place that they can come, one place that they can be accepted, feel normal, feel welcome and, if we get it right, feel loved, Jacobs said. If thats the sin were guilty of, Im willing to wear it with a badge of honor.

But Farrant said the board should focus on all children, not one group that sees its sexuality different than the societal norms and scrap the proclamation. She noted that the board was also adopting a national bullying prevention proclamation and said that should be sufficient.

She also complained that the same group got recognition in June, too. Since 2021, the board has recognized June as LGBTQ+ Pride and Pulse Remembrance, in honor of the victims of the June 12, 2016, massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Farrants comments earned some cheers from a few audience members. But none of her colleagues supported her request.

Before her election, Farrant worked to get books whose sexual content she found objectionable removed from OCPS schools and in January tried, but failed, to get the board to change rules related to bathroom use by transgender students.

The board first adopted its October proclamation in 2019, with Jacobs as chair, and that year some schools put messages on their marquess that read, OCPS Accepts Everyone. LGBTQ Awareness Month.

Board member Maria Salamanca, who like Farrant was newly elected in November, is the boards first openly LGBT member.

Farrants comments on the plus sign were full of misinformation, Salamanca said. The plus is meant to hold space for parts of gender and identity we do not understand yet, she said, not represent a long list pulled from the internet.

Whatever youre seeing in the plus is reflective of you, not of our community, she added.

I believe in liberty and letting people live the lives they want to live. This is what America is about, Salamanca said. Stop imposing your moral beliefs on everyone.

To the audience, in the board chambers and watching online, Salamanca had a message as well. I encourage folks out there to continue electing people who believe in freedom, Salamanca said. It has real repercussions when you put someone up here on the dais that says this hateful speech.

An immigrant from Colombia who moved to Florida as a young child, Salamanca has said OCPS teachers taught her English, recognized her academic gifts and propelled her to success, Some also supported her as she wrestled with coming out to her Catholic family, she said at the boards meeting.

The killings at Pulse make the proclamation all the more important because they happened because one individual had so much hate for the LGBTQ community, said board member Karen Castor Dentel. Its important that we take a stand.

The proclamation means the board understands that everyone has a right to learn and then when students are bullied, harassed or belittled for whatever their differences might be that right is trampled, Castor Dentel said.

This proclamation is actually less about LGBTQ individuals and more about our expectations for the behavior of everyone else, she added. Hopefully we can prevent the hate from taking hold.
The FBI is investigating whether Egypt's intelligence services might have been involved in the alleged bribery scheme described in the indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The counterintelligence investigation is in addition to the federal corruption case that accuses Menendez, D-N.J., of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, the sources said. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez helped oversee billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt. He stepped down as chairman after he was indicted.

Investigators want to know whether Egyptian intelligence officials or their associates tried to gain access to Menendez through his wife, Nadine, the sources said.

According to a three-count indictment unsealed last week, Menendez accepted lavish bribes to wield his political position for the benefit the Egyptian government and to enrich a group of Egyptian American businessmen named as co-defendants.

The three New Jersey-based businessmen named as co-defendants, who are accused of providing bribes from hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars to a Mercedes-Benz convertible worth more than $60,000, are Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.

Uribe and Daibes are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday, along with Menendez and his wife.

Hana was arraigned Tuesday and pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York City.

Hanas lawyer, Larry Lustberg, denied that Hana has ties to Egyptian intelligence. He said that Hana and Nadine Menendez have been friends for years  and that the friendship will be part of their defense against the bribery charges.

Each of the defendants is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. Menendez and his wife face an additional charge of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez declined to comment when asked whether she might have been used by Egyptian intelligence officials. Menendez's Senate office did not respond to requests for comment.

Frank Figliuzzi, an NBC News security analyst and former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, said Menendez's post atop the Foreign Relations Committee put him "in a bulls-eye position for foreign intelligence services that are looking to have him make decisions in their favor, including military equipment and materiel decisions on funding."

"The question here is whether this all started chronologically with the senators marriage, with the senator needing plausible deniability or an arms length from any transactions that might be happening with intelligence operatives," Figliuzzi said. "All of that should be looked at from a counterintelligence perspective."

Menendez has denied all of the charges and has resisted calls to resign.

The Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
All eyes are on Congress this last week of September as lawmakers race to reach a deal that would prevent a federal government shutdown, the first since the 34-day shutdown in late 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.

Experts warn of longer airport lines and shuttered national parks. If congressional Republicans dont cut a deal by Saturday, the nation could see its 22nd shutdown in the last five decades.

President Joe Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the last time Congress failed to pass a government spending bill, nearly a million Americans were furloughed or went without pay.

According to NorthJersey.com affiliate USA TODAY, processing times at the Internal Revenue Service slowed down during the last shutdown and military families had less access to family support programs.

But Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said the effect on New Jersey during the 2018-2019 shutdown was somewhat muted.

In other states, if were having this conversation, in Delaware, Maryland, its a huge drain on the economy, because you have all the federal workers out of work, Cassino said in an interview.

According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, nearly 25,000 federal employees are based in New Jersey, representing just 1.32% of the states workforce. For comparison, federal workers represent 7.56% of the workforce in Washington, D.C., and 8.15% of Californias workforce.

The U.S. Capitol Building on December 22, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Senate voted to pass a $1.7 trillion spending package to fund the government through 2023, which now goes to the House chamber to be voted on to avert a government shutdown. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 775918419 ORIG FILE ID: 1451555262

We are a state that is really a giver in terms of federal tax money, Cassino added. We send lots of money to the federal government. We dont get that much back.

The Rutgers Economic Advisory Service estimated in September 2021 that New Jersey receives 75 cents for every tax dollar sent to Washington, D.C., the fourth-lowest return on tax dollars. West Virginia, it was estimated, receives $3.66.

Military bases like the Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would stay open, Cassino said, since the workers are essential personnel, but they would not get paid.

We dont have these huge base towns the way we do down in Texas, he said.

Cassino said the Gateway project  including the $16.1 billion Hudson River rail tunnels  could face delays if theres a shutdown.

In terms of pushing the paperwork, having the meetings, its not going to be happening  as long as the budget lapses, he said.

During the 2018-2019 shutdown, benefits such as Medicare and Social Security were still provided. The United States Postal Service, an independent agency, was not affected by the shutdown.

Amtrak trains, some of which operate out of New Jersey, ran and operated as usual.

What was affected in the government shutdown last time

The shutdown affected New Jersey's national parks, including Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park and Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

The Great Falls remained open, but there were no visitor services available and the Welcome Center remained closed. Thomas Edison National Historical Park was closed.

National parks across the country saw an influx of trash, human waste and damage due to a lack of park rangers patrolling them.

Food safety inspections were delayed, and travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport faced delays because of a shortage of air traffic controllers caused by the shutdown.

Millions of small-business owners didnt have access to loans and technical assistance through the Small Business Administration.

Those looking to buy a house or refinance their mortgage were in a bind, as any home purchase or mortgage refinancing insured by the Federal Housing Administration was put on hold.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record.

Email: munozd@northjersey.com; Twitter:@danielmunoz100

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: What does government shutdown affect in NJ?
After five decades of public service as a teacher, Utica mayor, housing authority head, school board member  Louis LaPollas retirement has been upended over $38,000.

Thats how much federal authorities say LaPolla, 78, took from donations that were supposed to go to a scholarship fund in his wife Andreas memory, according to his indictment.

A grand jury indicted him on six counts of mail fraud on Sept. 20. Mail fraud is a felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

LaPolla was arrested and arraigned on Sept. 22, the video arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Baxter in Syracuse.

Louis LaPolla. [O-D FILE PHOTO]

LaPolla has been appointed a federal public defender because he said he couldnt pay for a defense attorney, according to court documents.

Reached by telephone, LaPolla just gave one brief comment, At this point in time, I cannot discuss the matter.

During his arraignment, LaPolla pleaded not guilty to each of the six counts, court documents show.

LaPolla served as city mayor from 1984 to 1995, the longest term in city history, and on the city school board for 21 years, his last four years as president, ending with his retirement last year.

Leading to indictment

Heres the series of events that led up to the arrest of LaPolla, according to the indictment:

LaPollas wife, Andrea Peni LaPolla, died on March 9, 2018.

Shortly afterward, LaPolla and others who helped him began sending out flyers in the mail to both individuals and businesses asking for donations to a scholarship fund in his wifes name, donations that began to come in.

On May 22, The Utica City school board authorized its treasurer to open an interest-bearing account for the scholarship funds in the expectation that a scholarship would be given each year to a recent graduate studying a health-related field.

LaPolla, who was board vice president at the time, then sent in the first donation check for $1,000.

In July, he was elected school board president, a position he held for four years.

Between March 2018 and May 2022, LaPolla allegedly devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property through pretense and fraud, the indictment said.

LaPolla and others then mailed out thousands of flyers and requests for scholarship fund donations, encouraging donors to make out checks to LaPolla, and many of the donations were mailed to LaPolla as personal checks, the indictment alleged.

Instead of putting them in the fund, though, LaPolla allegedly used most of the money himself, part of an intentional plan, according to the indictment.

The six charges relate to six documents listed in the indictment: four checks (for $40, $50, $50 and $500) allegedly mailed by donors to LaPollas home between Feb. 1, 2019 and March 29, 2021; and two flyers for a retirement fundraiser dinner that were allegedly mailed from his home to two individuals in March, 2022. The indictment only lists initials, not names, for the donors and the recipients of the flyers.

The indictment calls for LaPolla to forfeit the money and any property he allegedly received from the scholarship fund and, if he cant return it, to forfeit property to cover the cost.

A jury trial is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 20 in Syracuse before U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby.

The case has been investigated by the FBI with assistance from the New York State Police, the Oneida County District Attorneys Office and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Perry.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Former Utica mayor Louis LaPolla indicted: Details of mail fraud case
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is suing the U.S. government over its terrorism watchlist, claiming it disproportionately and unfairly targets Muslim Americans.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on behalf of 12 Muslim American plaintiffs around the country, seeks not only to remove their names from the Federal Terrorist Screening Dataset but asks the court to declare it unconstitutional.

Twenty years later, there is not a shred of credible evidence that the unconstitutional watch-listing of American Muslims has made America even the slightest bit safer, said Amy Doukoure, staff attorney for the councils Michigan chapter, which filed the suit along with CAIRs national office and multiple other chapters.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) leaves a news conference on Jan. 26, 2023, marking the 6th anniversary of President Donald Trump's executive order banning travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. President Joe Biden issued a presidential proclamation rescinding the order upon entering office in January 2021.

The suit names 29 federal agencies as defendants and describes the plaintiffs as law-abiding Muslim American citizens, lawful permanent residents and asylees.

They work hard, pay their taxes, pursue their education, and care for their families, the suit reads. They have never been indicted, charged, or convicted of any terrorism-related offense. And yet, without any notice or explanation, the federal government extrajudicially sentenced them to lifetime second-class citizenship.

Federal terrorism watchlist includes 1.25 million names

The suit joins similar lawsuits winding their way through U.S. courts. In 2019, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the watchlist violated the rights of Muslims, failing to inform them of their inclusion and leaving them unable to do anything about it, but the decision was overturned by 4th Circuit Court judges.

The most recent suit filed comes three months after the council's national office issued a report, "Twenty Years Too Many," calling on President Joe Biden to suspend the watchlist.

Earlier this year, the council, known as CAIR, obtained what it said were leaked portions of a 2019 version of the watchlist, consisting of 1.25 million names.

It came as no surprise that almost all of the names were identifiably Muslim and Middle Eastern in origin, Lena Masri, CAIRs national litigation director and general counsel, said at a recent news conference announcing the lawsuit.

A statistical analysis of the list commissioned by the group showed that more than 98% of the names  or 1.22 million of them  fit that description, she said.

This cannot happen by accident, Masri said, describing the watchlist as a de facto Muslim registry.

A woman wearing a traditional Muslim head covering exits a Lebanese eatery in Orange County's "Little Arabia" neighborhood just miles from Disneyland.Orange County's "Little Arabia" neighborhood in Anaheim, Calif., Wednesday, March 23, 2016.

The lawsuit charges that the standards for being included on the watchlist are discriminatory and subjective, with criteria such as origin from and travel to Muslim-majority countries, attendance at mosque services and other Islamic events, donations to Muslim charities, frequency of prayer and the wearing of typical Muslim attire.

As a result, it says, the watchlist is ineffective, even as it is disseminated by the FBI and Terrorism Screening Center to other federal agencies, dozens of foreign countries and more than 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies.

Defendants ... make it known that listed individuals should be treated as dangerous threats, it charges. The stigma and harm of watchlisting placement lasts a lifetime, even if Defendants eventually decide that an individual does not meet the vague, all-inclusive standard for placement and choose to remove an individual from the watchlist.

New Jersey mayor was refused entry to White House event

As an example, Masri cited an instance this year in which Mohamed Khairullah, the Syrian-born mayor of Prospect Park, New Jersey, was uninvited to an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the White House after the U.S. Secret Service denied him security clearance  allegedly because his name was included on an outdated version of the watchlist, from which he was allegedly later told he had been removed in or around 2022, according to the suit.

The Secret Service has declined to say why Khairullah, the longest-serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey, was denied clearance, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected inquiries about the mayors watchlist status, saying the decision was a Secret Service matter.

Mohamed Khairullah, left, mayor of Prospect Park, N.J., was among those who attended a June 2018 rally outside the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, N.J., protesting a Supreme Court ruling upholding a travel ban issued in 2017 by President Donald Trump on travelers from several majority-Muslim countries.

Khairullah called the May incident disappointing and shocking but had suspected he was on the watchlist since 2019, when he began experiencing aggressive questioning and searches while traveling.

Similarly, Masri said, other American Muslims have been subjected to mass surveillance and interrogated about their religious beliefs and practices whenever they return on an international flight or cross the U.S. border.

American Muslims on the list are publicly humiliated in front of their friends, family members and coworkers, Masri said. They are surveilled and harassed when they travel and their private data is downloaded from all of their electronic devices. ... They have lost their jobs; they have been denied security clearances; they have been denied licenses, gun permits and immigration benefits.

Michigan man said he 'felt humiliated'

Nidal El-Takach, a Michigan man who is among the plaintiffs in the suit, said at the news conference that starting in 2017, he began to be repeatedly detained and questioned before and after international flights, including trips he made to Lebanon to visit his ailing mother.

He recalled the first instance, in July 2017, as he and his two children arrived in Detroit from Lebanon. When the plane arrived at the gate, he said, an officers voice sounded over the loudspeaker asking the passengers to remain seated.

El-Takach said the officer then named him and his two children and asked them to exit the aircraft.

That alone sparked a lot of fear, he said. That was the moment when my life and my kids lives changed.

He complied with the officers requests, he said; he gave them the password to his phone. He was asked whether he attended Friday prayers, and whether his wife wore a hijab.

I felt humiliated, he said. My religious freedom was violated and I feared for my and my kids safety.

Terrorism list can spark trauma for Muslim Americans

El-Takach said he was released after a few hours. But that would be just the first of many times that he, and sometimes his children, would be detained, interrogated and patted down without ever being told why. Once, he said, he was asked to wait while an explosives specialist was summoned to check his bag.

I was traveling with my kids, El-Takach said. That was outrageous.

El-Takach said the repeated trauma of such incidences ultimately gave him such severe anxiety that he sought medical help. In 2021, when his mother passed away, he said he was too upset by his experiences to attend her funeral.

Doukoure, of CAIR-Michigan, said El-Takachs experience is just one example of what many Muslim Americans have gone through because of the watchlist.

Muslims get put on the list without any notice, without being provided the reason for their inclusion and without any real process to get off that list, she said. And theyre forever tainted with the stigma of having been on the list in the first place.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US terrorism watchlist excessively targets Muslims, lawsuit charges
This photo taken on June 12, 2023 shows a worker assembling vehicles at the general assembly line of FAW-Volkswagen in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

"We made the right option to partner with a Chinese company, which guarantees trustworthy quality and prompt supply!" said Jacob Borgesius, CEO of Dutch company Alp Lift, when receiving goods from his Chinese supplier Chenli.

"After Chenli's CEO came to the Netherlands to meet us last year and inked a deal, we have now received five order deliveries," said Borgesius. "So I'm really happy with the flexibility in production, and with the timing of our Chinese partners."

Numerous companies have partaken in trade delegations to Europe organized by Chinese provinces and cities to explore business opportunities.

The open and positive mindset of these trade delegations has boosted European companies' confidence in their development in China. Several multinational companies are actively transitioning from a "in China for China" approach to a more global perspective.

Orders from overseas

Since the end of last year, several Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade delegations to Europe to draw investment and expand markets in the face of obstacles posed by slow global economic development and weak demand.

Along with government personnel, many business leaders participated in these trade delegations with a strong desire to engage with their international partners and gain insights into the global business landscape.

"We must adopt a proactive approach and seek business opportunities abroad because opportunities rarely come knocking if we merely stay passive at home," said Li Chendao, chairman of Foshan Juyang New Energy Co., Ltd. This sentiment resonates with many other Chinese enterprises.

After Foshan Juyang's representatives visited its overseas customers as part of a business delegation last November, the company delivered three orders to its Polish customers and two orders to its German customers.

"The trust between us and our customers has deepened, and some customers will pay tens of thousands of dollars in advance as a deposit to confirm their intention to cooperate," Li said.

After nearly three years of online meetings, Borgesius eventually met Chenli's CEO Liu Aijun in person when Liu traveled in December to Europe as a member of a delegation from Jiangsu Province.

"Talking face to face allows for better communication and understanding of the other person," Borgesius said, adding that the meeting made him more confident about working with Chenli. "We hit it off right away at the meeting and signed a 530,000-U.S.-dollar order on the spot."

Borgesius is also planning a trip to China as he wants to "go to China to see the production, to meet the people and to further strengthen the cooperative relationship."

Drawing projects to China

Numerous Chinese trade delegations have engaged in discussions with local chambers of commerce and companies, with the aim of enhancing and endorsing the local business environment as well as attracting high-caliber projects for China.

An example is the partnership between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and China's Chengdu city led to the establishment of Airbus' first aircraft lifecycle service facility outside Europe.

The service center, which will commence operations early next year, is described as a key milestone in Airbus' cooperation with China as its footprint in the country has been expanded to cover the entire industrial chain and strengthen the local aviation industry in aftermarket services, noted the manufacturer's press release.

"Expanding our presence in the Chinese market provides us with the opportunity to discover additional avenues for growth," said Brian Agnew, general manager of Airbus Lifecycle Services, adding that the Chengdu project is driving Airbus to expedite the development of localized services, benefiting not only Chinese customers but also global clients.

Bosch, a leading German engineering and technology company, received a delegation from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province last December.

"The positive signal sent by the Wuxi delegation to Europe further enhanced our confidence in investment and long-term development in China," the company told Xinhua.

Following the meeting in Europe, Bosch representatives also came to China to continue exploring cooperation opportunities. In March, Bosch signed a strategic agreement with Wuxi to promote the development of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles.

Nowadays, components manufactured at Bosch's Wuxi facility are being utilized in the production of fuel-cell power modules in China and actively contributed to the low-carbon development of the local automotive industry.

"In China for the global"

Several international firms are leveraging the favorable Chinese market conditions and fostering development in China, which has contributed to stabilization of the global supply chain and the expansion of cooperation.

"What does it mean to 'rely on China'? Let's look at the market size of China and you will want to have a certain share," said Holger Klein, CEO of German auto parts and components supplier ZF Group, noting that the company has launched several new projects in five Chinese cities this year.

Faced with global economic and industrial transformations, ZF China collaborated with the global team to ensure stability in the supply chain and operations, Klein noted.

More German companies are opting to relocate their industries to China after the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the continued reliability of the Chinese market and supply chain, said Jens Hildebrandt, executive director and board member of the German Chamber of Commerce in China -- North China.

Currently, an increasing number of multinational corporations are intensifying their efforts to localize research and development activities in China, transitioning from the "in China for China" approach to the "in China for the global" strategy.

As a pacemaker in the technology sector, China shows what will happen in the next 10 years around the world, which represents "a big opportunity, especially with our strong connection with our Chinese partners," said Oliver Blume, chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group.

Cooperation with China means more opportunities than threats, boosts Volkswagen's business across the world and makes the company even stronger, Blume added.
Federal judges questioned Gov. Ron DeSantis  top aide repeatedly Tuesday on the first day of a redistricting trial, asking what basis the governor had to defy the Florida Supreme Court and voter-approved protections for Black voters.

The trial comes weeks after a state judge in a separate case already struck down North Floridas congressional districts. In that case, DeSantis lawyers openly admitted he had violated state law.

While the Legislature and DeSantis secretary of state appeal that decision, the Florida redistricting map faces this separate trial in front of a three-judge federal panel. In federal court, the plaintiffs who include civil-rights organizations and voters have argued DeSantis intentionally discriminated against Black voters.

The panel consists of 11th U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan and U.S. District Judges M. Casey Rogers and Allen C. Winsor, respectively appointed by presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. The trial is expected to continue through next week.

At the center of the dispute is the old 5th Congressional District. For 30 years, Black voters in North Florida elected their preferred candidates  former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) from 1992 until 2016 and then Rep. Al Lawson (D-Tallahassee) from 2016 until 2022.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke up a Black-dominated congressional district and put its pieces into four majority-white districts.

Top DeSantis aide is first witness

The trial opened with lawyers and the judges questioning Alex Kelly, once a legislative staffer and now Gov. DeSantis acting chief of staff and the states commerce secretary.

Kelly was also at the center of the 2012 redistricting process that Florida courts said violated state law. Kelly has said during depositions that he never read the court decisions from the last decade. Despite that, he repeatedly said Tuesday that the Florida Supreme Court was wrong and that was why the governor dismantled the 5th Congressional District ordered by the court in the last decade.

After DeSantis threatened to veto the Legislatures map, saying the east-west district was not compact enough, the Legislature drew a more compact Jacksonville-only district that redistricting staff said would still allow Black voters to elect their preferred candidates.

DeSantis justified a veto of the Jacksonville-only district by claiming state protections that prohibited diminishing racial minorities ability to elect candidates of their choice violated the U.S. Constitution. He then pushed through his own map, which put Black voters across North Florida into whiter, more conservative districts. As a result, every North Florida district elected a Republican last year.

In one exchange Tuesday, the judges grilled Kelly on how DeSantis could decide for himself that the states protections for Black voters violated the U.S. Constitution.

The Florida Supreme Court got it wrong last decade, Kelly told the judges. The map the Florida Supreme Court drew violated the Equal Protection clause.

Had any court agreed with that opinion? asked Rogers. Kelly said he didnt know.

I may be at my limits because Im not a lawyer, Kelly said, but the map enacted by the Florida Supreme Court violated the Equal Protection clause.

According to what court? Rogers asked. According to what law?

Your honor, the U.S. Constitution, Kelly replied.

As interpreted by what court? Rogers again asked.

I dont know.

Again Rogers asked Kelly to cite any court decision that supported the governors contention. Again he said he didnt know.

Common Cause Vice President of Programs Kathay Feng, whose organization is the named plaintiff in the case, said that Kellys answers showed that he was twisting and turning to try to answer the judges questions.

Im feeling reassured by the questions being asked by the lawyers and the judges, Feng said.

Which takes precedent, state law or federal?

Kelly argued that a Jacksonville-to-Gadsden district violated the U.S. Constitution because it was sprawling and used race too much in determining its shape. He also said the Duval-only district violated the U.S. Constitution because it made a surrounding district less compact, and he said it would have diminished Black voters ability to elect their preferred candidates.

In 14 statewide elections from 2012 through 2020, the Black-preferred candidate would have won in nine elections, compared to winning in all 14 elections under the Jacksonville-to-Gadsden district.

After DeSantis vetoed the Legislatures map, Kelly drew a map that replaced the compact Jacksonville-only district, which included all of the Westside, Arlington, and parts of the Northside and Southside of the city, with a less compact, whiter and more Republican district that stretched from Nassau County to Clay County.

This, plaintiffs attorney Greg Baker said in his opening statement, shows that the only reason DeSantis vetoed the map and replaced it with a new one was to hurt Black voters.

Baker said the governor vetoed the plan not in spite of its effect on Black voters but because it reduced Black voting power.

But the state argued the governor prioritized complying with other redistricting criteria.

The evidence will show the state of Florida  both the governor and the Legislature  adopted a map that prioritized compactness and adhering to political and geographic boundaries, said Mohammad Jazil, an attorney representing the state. The governor and the Legislature did not consider partisanship, did not consider incumbency and in North Florida did not consider race.

Jazil said although the Legislatures map had a more compact district, it made a surrounding district less compact than the governors map did.

Last month, a state judge struck down the North Florida congressional districts after DeSantis lawyers openly admitted he had violated state law. In that case, lawyers representing DeSantis argued that a state law banning districts that diminish racial minorities voting power, which mirrors the federal Voting Rights Act, was unconstitutional.

Kelly said he didnt know that the state had conceded it broke the law in the other lawsuit.

In that case, 2nd Judicial Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh soundly rejected DeSantis argument, but the state is appealing. The conservative 1st District Court of Appeals rejected a joint request from the state and plaintiffs to send the case straight to the Florida Supreme Court.

Unlike the state case, the federal lawsuit being heard this week has a heavier burden of proof. Under the state law, plaintiffs only had to prove the North Florida districts illegally reduced Black voters ability to elect their preferred candidates, something the Legislature and Secretary of State Cord Byrd freely admitted.

In the federal case, the plaintiffs must prove the state intentionally discriminated.

In the state case, the Legislature and governor avoided the embarrassment of a trial by admitting to breaking the law. Instead, they focused on arguing that the state Constitutions Fair Districts Amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause. Last decade, a weeks-long trial revealed embarrassing testimony about how legislators and their staffers coordinated with partisan actors to create a map that maximized Republican gains.

Unlike in state court, federal courts bar cameras, so this trial is not being live-streamed.

At times, the plaintiffs attorneys appeared overwhelmed by the amount of evidence in the case, leading Jordan to chide them to prepare better-organized exhibits.

Plaintiffs attorney Greg Diskant said he had expected Kellys testimony to last longer, and their other main witnesses  Florida House Minority Fentrice Driskell and an expert  wont be available to testify until next week.

Contact Andrew Pantazi of The Tributary at Andrew.Pantazi@jaxtrib.org and @APantazi. This story is published in partnership with The Tributary, a Florida-based nonprofit newsroom.
(The Hill)  Sen. John Fetterman , D-Pa., on Tuesday said he was surprised he was the first senator to call for Sen. Bob Menendez , D-N.J., to resign.

Fetterman, who joined MSNBCs Joy Reid, compared Menendezs federal bribery allegations to that of Tony Soprano.

Honestly, I was actually surprised that I was the first one, he said. I mean its so black and white. I mean, its so clear

The last time theres ever been a man with so much cash in their home in New Jersey was Tony Soprano. You know? Fetterman added.

Fetterman became the first senator to join a growing list of House Democrats and Speaker Kevin McCarthy calling for Menendezs resignation following last weeks indictment.

I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial, the Pennsylvania senator said Saturday in a statement.

Now, 18 Democratic senators have joined that list, including fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

Fetterman said he cant speak for everyone in the Senate but thinks Menendez should step down.

I mean  its not a close call and if you were looking for the most incriminating kinds of evidence, nobody could even come up with gold bars in a mattress, he said. So hes entitled to have his day in court, but he is not entitled to remain in the Senate and he needs to go.

Fetterman seizes on Menendez charges to lampoon dress code backlash

Prosecutors allege that Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from New Jersey businessmen and used their political influence to benefit Egypt. The FBI reportedly found $500,000 in cash and more than $100,000 in gold bars at Menendezs New Jersey home.

Menendez has denied the allegations, calling them a smear campaign and refuses to resign.

New Jersey is a safe, blue seat and they have a governor ready to appoint somebody thats ready to step in and make the kind of votes that he needs to do, Fetterman said. Its never been about him. Its been about the Senate and the integrity, and he needs to go.

The New Jersey senator and his wife are set to be arraigned on Wednesday morning in Manhattan.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
mikroman6 - Getty Images

The archeological site at Turkeys Bogazkoy-Hattusha, the former capital of the Bronze Age Hittite empire, is a hotbed of ancient languages.

This year, during excavations of the ruins, archeologists uncovered a new language written on a tablet detailing a foreign ritual.

Although experts are not sure what the specific idiom says, they can confirm that the new language is a member of the Anatolian Indo-European language family.

Today, the ancient city of Hattusha the capital of the Hittite empire that ruled north-central Turkey in the late Bronze Age (1650 - 1200 BCE)is a treasure trove of ancient languages. At the Bogazkoy-Hattusha archeological site, excavations over the past century have uncovered around 30,000 cuneiform tablets detailing the history, traditions, and society of Bronze Age Anatolia. This site is so rich in Bronze Age history that the once-powerful capital became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.

Although most of the tablets found in Hattusha are written in Hittitethe oldest attested Indo-European language (and the language tree through which English evolved)many other languages of the region can be found among these cuneiform treasures, including Luwian, Palaic, and Hattic. However, this years excavations at the site revealed a surprising discoveryan entirely new language.

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The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages, Daniel Schwemer, head of the Chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) Wurzburg in Germany, said in a press statement .

And hidden in this particular ancient cultic text is a recitation written in an unfamiliar language. According to the archeologists, the Hittite text refers to an idiom from the language of the land of Kalasmaan area that wouldve lied along the northwestern edge of the Hittite empires frontier. Although experts have no idea what this particular cuneiform passage says, they can confirm that the language is a member of the Anatolian Indo-European family, which also includes Luwian, Palaic, and Hittite.

Story continues

As its name suggests, Indo-European languages make up a large family of languages that encompass many modern countries in Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the languages from these regions can trace their roots back to an original mother language (though the Basque language is a head-scratching outlier). Experts believe that the Proto-Indo-European language likely originated around the Black Sea, in what is now southern Ukraine.

On the other side of the Black Sea, evidence suggests that Kalasma lies near modern-day Bolu or Gerede in northwestern Turkey, which is closer to the geographic area in which Palaic was spoken. However, the newly discovered language has more in common with Luwian, a langauge spoken by people in the southeastern corner of the Hittite empire.

Although only a mere sliver of the Kalasma language is known today, its more than likely that more evidence of this long-forgotten tongue is waiting to be discovered somewhere along the vast stretches of Anatolia.

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Uber announced Tuesday that its struck a deal with Los Angeles Yellow Cab to deploy taxi fleets across Southern California. The multi-year partnership, also extending to five other SoCal affiliates, will allow traditional yellow taxis to pick up Uber passengers. The collaboration between the strange bedfellows follows similar trials in New York City and San Francisco.

Uber describes the alliance as mutually beneficial for all parties. Taxi drivers, struggling to recover from pandemic losses while competing with ridesharing, get access to Uber referrals. Meanwhile, riders could see faster pickups. (They can opt out of yellow taxis in the app if they prefer typical ridesharing cars.) And, of course, Uber gains a greater supply of rides.

The partnership stretches down the SoCal coast to the Mexico border. It includes 1,200 vehicles from Los Angeles Yellow Cab, San Diego Yellow Cab, California Yellow Cab, Long Beach Yellow Cab, Fiesta Taxi Cooperative, Inc. and United Checker Cab. Onboarding for taxicab drivers in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties begins this week. Once fully onboarded, drivers can start accepting trips at UberX prices.

The unusual pairing follows years of contentiousness between ridesharing and traditional taxi businesses. The two sides have often been at war since the early 2010s when Uber and Lyfts existence began threatening the taxi industry. Uber claims cab drivers who took ridesharing fares in the NYC and SF pilots raked in an extra $1,767 per month from those trips alone and earned 23.8% more on average than taxi drivers who eschewed Uber.

We are thrilled to announce this partnership with Uber because its a clear win-win for drivers and riders, said William Rouse, CEO of Yellow Cab of Los Angeles. We anticipate that this partnership will have a positive impact for our driver-owners as the pandemic recovery continues. No longer will drivers have to worry about finding a fare during off peak times or getting a street hail back into the city when in the outer suburbs.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  A portion of Gallatin Pike was closed early Wednesday morning as crews worked to contain a fire that sparked at a vacant building.

First responders were sent to the 4100 block of Gallatin Pike just before 2 a.m. for reports of a commercial fire.

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(Source: Nashville Fire Department)

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The Nashville Fire Department told News 2 that the abandoned building that caught fire used to be a flower shop and was surrounded by several businesses.

At the scene, a News 2 crew saw fire personnel inside, outside and on top of the building to make sure that the fire was contained and would not rekindle.

According to officials, firefighters had to use defensive tactics and an aerial truck to to extinguish the flames.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

The fire department said the building caved in the center and Nashville Electric Service (NES) had to cut power to the establishment.

Gallatin Pike was closed for hours Wednesday morning as fire crews continued to investigate the scene. The roadway has since reopened.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. No other information was immediately released.

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 Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee.

This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new information becomes available.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
PATERSON  Boswell Anglin, the instructional aide fired last spring over a tussle with a city high school student, now faces criminal charges in the case.

Anglin, a 40-year-old resident of Haledon, was charged with assaulting the student and endangering the teenagers welfare on April 18, according to the criminal complaint filed against him on Sept. 20.

Charges filed last week

Anglin was arrested last week and taken to the Passaic County Jail before being ordered released by a judge until the case goes to court, officials said. The Passaic County Prosecutors Office did not release the name of Anglins lawyer.

A school security camera at Alonzo Tambua Moody Academy showed Anglin knock the student to the ground, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed by the Prosecutors Office. During a subsequent scuffle, two school security guards helped Anglin restrain the student on the ground, said the Prosecutors Office.

Anglin then proceeds to utilize his right arm to strike the victim two times while he was on the floor, said the affidavit. Anglin then used his right knee to hit the student twice, the Prosecutors Office said.

The office said in the affidavit that the student was not the aggressor, based on the video evidence. The student did not strike or fight Anglin, the affidavit said.

After Anglin was fired in the spring, staff members, a student and a parent from the school  an alternative education program for teens with behavior problems  attended Board of Education meetings to voice their objections to the dismissal, asserting that Anglin was a dedicated educator. The group included the schools principal at the time, Zatiti Moody, whom city education officials reassigned during the summer.

But the grandmother of the teen whom Anglin allegedly assaulted also attended the meetings, telling them that her grandson had been jumped by other students for snitching on Anglin and that the district removed the boy from school after that for his own safety.

Educators shuffled: Zatiti Moody and other Paterson principals blindsided by transfers

When did an investigation start?

The Prosecutors Office said in the affidavit that it received a phone call from the grandmother on Aug. 4 asking "what was going on with the case of grandson, who got beat up by a teacher.

The Prosecutors Office obtained the video footage three days later and then took 11 statements from witnesses in late August and early September.

The prosecutors detectives determined that Anglins statement about what happened did not match what was recorded by the video camera, the affidavit said. Investigators told Anglin about the discrepancy, but he opted not to change his statement, the affidavit said.

It was not clear from the court documents whether the Prosecutors Office was aware of the incident before the grandmothers phone call in August, more than three months after the school district fired the aide.

Paterson Press asked the district if it contacted law enforcement agencies in April when the incident first happened.

A Paterson police officer was already on duty at the school and was on scene after the incident, said district spokesman Dan Juan. The district was not immediately informed by Al Tambua Moody Academy of the incident.

Grandmother: Paterson teen was jumped for snitching on fired school aide

Student has not returned to school

Paterson Press on Wednesday asked the grandmother, who requested that her name not be published, for her reaction to Anglins arrest.

Its bringing up everything all over again, she said. Its hard to describe.

The woman said her grandson has not resumed classes this fall for fear that something could happen to him. She said she is hoping to find some way for him to be able to get his high school diploma.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ: Fired educator faces criminal assault charges
A Sharpsburg woman was charged with burglary after she left her flip-flops behind at a home shes accused of robbing.

Deputies from the Coweta County Sheriffs Office responded to a call about a burglary in a home on Roy Road in Sharpsburg.

When they arrived, they met with the homeowners, a husband and wife.

The husband told deputies that the couple had been out of town and when they returned, they noticed their garage door was locked, which they never do.

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When the owners got inside, they told deputies they noticed bags of food were pulled out of the freezer and there were Tide pods on the floor in their kitchen.

The husband went upstairs and noticed pills missing from the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom.

In the living room, he told deputies he and his wife had found a flip-flop in their living room that neither of them owned, and another at their back door, which is also normally unlocked.

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When the couple went to check their security camera footage, they found the memory card was removed.

Deputies say the homeowners told them they believed the burglar was their neighbors girlfriend, a woman named Lexi Martin. The husband had suspected Martin of taking pills from his bathroom months earlier while at their house.

According to sheriffs office records, the homeowners reported the following items stolen:

2 Oxycodone pills

Bottle of Patron Tequila

Bottle of Delta-8 gummies

Spray bottle of water

Bottle of olive oil

Quartz Bulova wristwatch with silver band

Deputies said the flip-flops were entered into evidence on Sept. 10, the day the homeowners returned and called the sheriffs office.

Alexia Nichole Martin, 44 of Sharpsburg, was later arrested and charged with first-degree burglary.

According to reporting by the Newnan Times-Herald, Martin was determined to be a suspect based on the flip-flops left behind.

She was arrested on Sept. 21, according to records from the Coweta County Sheriffs Office.

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In the second preliminary report on agricultural damage from Hurricane Idalia, state officials on Wednesday estimated the Aug. 30 storm caused up to $447 million in losses for the industry.

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The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said the storm, which made landfall in Taylor County at Category 3 strength before crossing other areas of rural North Florida, had its biggest impact on such things as cattle and poultry operations, followed by field crops.

The departments report said industry leaders described overwhelming impacts this storm had on not only their current-year crop losses but the further devastation of damaged infrastructure. It cited examples such as destroyed fences and shade structures.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency declared 16 Florida counties as disaster areas because of the storm.

State Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson said the industry will be supported to replant, to rebuild and to recover.

Its clear that our states farmers, ranchers, and growers --- who we rely on daily for our food, fiber and more --- have a long road to recovery, Simpson said in a prepared statement.

Florida leaders including Simpson have been pushing the federal government to approve Idalia funding, including aid to farmers and ranchers, and assistance for past storms. They would like the aid before a possible federal government shutdown.

Last week, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, known as UF/IFAS, estimated damages from Idalia between $78.8 million and $370.9 million.

The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services report draws from the universitys findings and other state and federal sources.

A category that includes beef cattle, dairy cattle, poultry and aquaculture totaled up to $157.6 million in estimated losses, including infrastructure and equipment, according to the departments report.

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Drawing from UF/IFAS findings, the department estimated up to $93.6 million in losses for field crops such as corn, peanuts and cotton. Also, vegetables and melons sustained up to $60.6 million in additional losses. Another $2.6 million was felt by growers of non-citrus fruits and tree nuts.

The nursery and greenhouse industry had up to $68.8 million in losses, and the forestry industry reported an estimated $64.7 million in losses.

The report did not show damages to the citrus industry, which is in the early stages of its 2023-2024 growing season.

The citrus industry took the biggest hit last year when Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida and continued across the state, causing an estimated $1.03 billion in agricultural losses.

The UF/IFAS report noted that citrus growers, while not reporting widespread losses from Idalia, faced tropical storm conditions that could hinder production by $21.9 million.

The 16 counties declared as disaster areas were Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Hernando, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, Suwannee and Taylor.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis racially discriminated against Black voters by endorsing a congressional map that scattered them across four North Florida districts won by white Republicans and erased a seat held by a Black Democrat, attorneys for voters groups argued Tuesday in federal court.

The opening day of a trial before a three-judge panel saw attorneys for Common Cause, the NAACP, Fair Districts Now, and individual voters press for reasons behind DeSantis drive to eliminate the Tallahassee to Jacksonville, Florida, district held by U.S. Rep. Al Lawson.

"The governor was undeterred in his mission to eliminate the Black opportunity district in North Florida," said Gregory Baker, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

DeSantis pushed the congressional map on the Florida Legislature, vetoing last year two maps approved by lawmakers  one which created a Black-leaning district confined to Duval County and a backup plan that retained the east-west seat held by Lawson.

The GOP-dominated Legislature approved the DeSantis plan when called back to the Capitol for a special session. Republicans won 20 of Floridas 28 congressional districts in last falls elections, a four-seat pick-up for the GOP which helped the party regain control of the U.S. House.

Called as the first witness in the trial, expected to last more than a week, was J. Alex Kelly, the governors chief mapmaker and currently, his acting chief-of-staff.

Kelly said DeSantis viewed recreating an east-west North Florida district favorable to a Black candidate as an illegal racial gerrymander, even though it had been first formed by the Florida Supreme Court in 2015.

Kelly said DeSantis believed that the district violated the federal constitutions equal protection clause, essentially favoring Black voters over white voters.

"He never once commented on eliminating a Black opportunity district," Kelly said about what he called the governors "race-neutral" strategy, under questioning from plaintiffs attorney Gregory Diskant.

"He asked me to draw a compliant map."

Court got it wrong, staff chief says

Diskant pointed out that while the governor may have his opinion about the law, the state Supreme Court had ordered the district put in place, a move which seemingly carried more weight.

The Florida Supreme Court got it wrong, Kelly testified.

One of the judges, M. Casey Rodgers, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, also struggled to learn how DeSantis determined that the Tallahassee to Jacksonville district violated the equal protection clause, a provision added to the U.S. Constitution following the Civil War largely to protect Black citizens.

As interpreted by what court? Rodgers asked Kelly about DeSantis conclusion. Is there a court decision the governor cites that agrees with him on the equal protection clause?

Kelly acknowledged there was no such ruling.

But Mohammad Jazil, attorney for the state, echoed the argument, accusing the voters groups of turning equal protection on its head.

GOP lawmakers concede to DeSantis Special session: Florida lawmakers heeding Gov. DeSantis' demand for new congressional map, enraging opponents

DeSantis touts redistricting during bid for GOP nomination

DeSantis, during his faltering campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, has credited his actions with giving his party command of Congress.

Now, though, the governor is struggling to keep those Republican-friendly congressional boundaries in place.

The map has already been ruled unconstitutional by Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh, who rejected the DeSantis administrations contention that the state constitutions prohibition against weakening or eliminating minority-leaning districts conflicted with the U.S. Constitutions equal protection clause.

Gov. Ron DeSantis broke up Black-dominated district and put its pieces into 4 Majority-White congressional districts in north Florida

Marshs ruling is now before the 1st District Court of Appeal. The DCA surprisingly took control of the case despite agreements from both the state and plaintiffs, which include Black Voters Matter and the League of Women Voters, that any appeal should go straight to the Florida Supreme Court.

Amid growing concerns about a potential delay in deciding the state case, this weeks federal trial possibly could lead to a swifter outcome on whether state lawmakers must redraw the congressional map and restore Lawsons old Tallahassee to Jacksonville district before next years elections.

Lawson has said he would consider being a candidate if the district was restored.

Fear of foot-dragging

Plaintiffs fear the 1st DCA, whose judges were appointed by Republican governors, and the Florida Supreme Court, where five of the seven members were picked by DeSantis, could take their time deciding the case.

Even if the map is ruled invalid, timing could leave it in place through the 2024 elections, when Republicans narrow control of the U.S. House is again at stake. Floridas four-seat GOP gain last year was the partys biggest improvement in the nation.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings this summer may have bolstered the claims of voters groups suing over Floridas congressional map.

Even as the trial opened Tuesday in Tallahassees U.S. District Court, justices again acted, refusing Alabamas request to reinstate a congressional map drawn by the Republican-held Legislature which had only one majority-Black district.

Instead, its likely that a new map will be in place before next years elections.

Justices in a 5-4 ruling in June said that Alabama lawmakers had denied Black voters a reasonable chance to elect a second U.S. representative of their choice.

While limited to Alabama, the latest decision will likely affect other states, including Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas, where courtroom clashes over race and redistricting are underway.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Networks Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida redistricting trial: Did Ron DeSantis map target Black voters?
Florida homeowners are bracing for another home insurance price hike.

Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort, is moving forward with a double-digit rate increase that will hit just before the end of the year.

Depending on your policy, youll see an increase of between 12 and 24 percent. This comes as Florida homeowners already pay the most in the nation for insurance.

When longtime Floridian Raymond Malave began to shop around for insurance on his new home he knew he was in for steep premiums.

It just feels like its going up by thousands, he said.

Read: Citizens customers could see costly policy switch if they miss this important letter

Malave decided to try and get ahead of potentially hefty quotes. He made fixes to his roof and other home repairs, but in the process his insurance coverage lapsed.

When I went to get insurance, thinking that I did good for replacing all these items, it was difficult for me to find insurance, he said. My only resort was Citizens insurance.

Read: Thousands of Citizens Insurance policies could be taken up by private insurers

Its a similar story for homeowner Kris Charles.

Even though the property had been fully updated, it was still difficult because of the age of the home finding a company that would insure, Charles said.

Malave and Charles ultimately found coverage through Citizens, but rate increases presented to the Citizens governing board on Wednesday mean theyll soon be paying more for coverage.

Read: Floridas Citizens Insurance proposes 14-percent rate increase

Insurance expert Diana Giron said Citizens has been working towards an increase for months, but even with the hikes, Citizens rates are still well below what private companies charge and 40 percent below what they would need to be to cover all expenses across the state.

Theyre way, underinsured, Giron said. The pricing is way below what they can handle in a catastrophe.

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China's major industrial firms saw their profit rebound strongly in August, surging 17.2 percent from a year earlier, in the latest sign of a sustained recovery in the world's second-largest economy.

After a decline of 6.7 percent in July and an 8.3 percent fall in June, this robust growth marks the first increase since the second half of 2022, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

As the country's pro-growth policies continued to show their impact last month, industrial production saw a steady recovery, with the improvement in industrial profit gathering momentum, said NBS statistician Yu Weining.

In the first eight months of the year, the profits of major industrial firms with annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.79 million U.S. dollars) reached 4.66 trillion yuan, down 11.7 percent year on year, with the pace of decline narrowing by 3.8 percentage points from the first seven months.

Of the 41 industrial categories monitored by the bureau, 30 posted better performance in terms of profits during the January-August period.

Profit growth for equipment manufacturing was 3.6 percent for the period, accelerating from 1.7 percent registered during the first seven months and leading the overall improvement, Yu said, noting that all business entities recorded better performance.

The combined profit of the country's state-holding enterprises went down 16.5 percent year on year in the first eight months, with the pace of decline narrowing by 3.8 percentage points from the first seven months.

Profits of overseas-funded firms and private companies declined 11.1 percent and 4.6 percent, with the pace of declines narrowing 1.3 percentage points and 6.1 percentage points, respectively, from the January-July period, according to the NBS data.

The data released on Wednesday further confirmed that the Chinese economy gained significant momentum last month. This was evident through various positive indicators, including strong factory production and improving consumer sentiment.
A Florida man on Monday pleaded guilty to distributing at least $16.7 million worth of counterfeit HIV and other medication to suppliers, pharmacies, and patients.

Amando Herrera, 43, of Miami, Florida, pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to introduce adulterated and misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, according to the Department of Justice. He was accused of setting up bogus companies in California, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas which he used to sell adulterated medication to wholesale pharmaceutical distributors which sold the fake medicine to their established base of pharmacies. The products were ultimately sold to unsuspecting customers.

Herrera and his co-conspirators created false documentation to make it appear as though the drugs were acquired legitimately when, in fact, they were not, the DOJ said in a statement on Monday. The pharmaceutical suppliers then sold the drugs to pharmacies, which dispensed the adulterated prescription drugs to unwitting patients.

Gilead had been pursuing a civil lawsuit against Herrara and his alleged co-conspirator, Lazaro Roberto Hernandez. In April, Hernandez pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme and in June was sentenced to 180 months in prison.

Gileads ongoing investigation revealed that these two kingpins directed the initial sale of the counterfeits through suppliers created solely to sell counterfeit medications, Gilead said in a statement last year. The suppliers sold the counterfeits to pre-existing licensed gray-market distributors with an established pharmacy customer base. The distributors then sold the counterfeit medication to U.S. pharmacies who dispensed the medication.

Herrera will be sentenced on December 21. He faces a maximum of five years in prison.
September is National Suicide Prevention Month and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is warning parents and teens about online sextortion ending with victims taking their own lives.

Within the past 18 months, at least three teens, one in California, one in Michigan and one in South Carolina, all committed suicide after being extorted online, according to a news release.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there is an uptick in sextortion reports and the addition of artificial intelligence tools can simplify the process for online predators.

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Criminals are purchasing hacked stolen media accounts, then using artificial intelligence to send sexually explicit images to victims and establish online relationships with teens in an attempt to receive similar photos from the victim to use as a means of blackmail-forcing the victim to send money, perform explicit acts or even agree to an in-person meeting.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence makes it easier for predators to impersonate and target teens. We are beginning to see this new technology deployed in sextortion schemes to trick minors into sending explicit photos and videos of themselves, said Attorney General Ashley Moody. Parents, please talk to your children about online safety and remind them that adult predators may use advanced technology to appear as a peer or love interest in an effort to gain trust and ultimately take advantage of them.

Read: Orlando firefighter accused of aggravated assault after incident at fire station

The FBI reported that at least 7,000 reports of sextortion of minors occurred last year in the United States, with the majority of those targeted being teenage boys.

Most victims targeted are around ages 14 and 17, but there are reports of children as young as 10 years old receiving sextortion messages.

Read: Former CEO of Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence arrested for fraud, stole millions

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists what to do if you fall victim to a sextortion case:

Report sextortion to law enforcement;

Know that cooperating rarely stops a blackmailer;

Flag the social media account via the platforms safety feature;

Block the suspect on the social media platform, but do not delete messages because they can be helpful in stopping the blackmailer;

Use resources like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help get explicit images off the internet- visit MissingKids.org/IsYourExplicitContentOutThere; and

Remember, the blackmailer is to blame, not you. Even if you made a choice you regret, what they are doing is a crime.

Read: Traffic stop leads to seizure of more than one ounce of fentanyl, along with heroin and cocaine

If you are suffering from mental health issues, please call the Suicide Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.

Attorney General Moody released an Online Safety Toolkit to ensure that parents are equipped to help keep children safe from sextortion and human trafficking. To view the toolkit, CLICK HERE.

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FILE - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the Parental Rights in Education bill at Classical Preparatory school, March 28, 2022, in Shady Hills, Fla. Top officials at a Florida school district ordered the removal of all books and material containing LBGTQ+ characters and themes from classrooms and campus libraries, saying that was needed to conform to a state law backed by DeSantis that critics have dubbed Don't Say Gay, according to a district memo obtained under a public information request by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The nonprofit group, which opposes the law, provided the memo to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  Top officials at a Florida school district ordered the removal of all books and material containing LBGTQ+ characters and themes from classrooms and campus libraries, saying that was needed to conform to a state law backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that critics have dubbed Don't Say Gay.

Charlotte County Schools Superintendent Mark Vianello and the school boards attorney, Michael McKinley , were responding to questions from the district's librarians at a July meeting asking whether the bill, officially the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, required the removal of any books that simply had a gay character but no explicit sex scenes.

Books with LBGTQ+ characters are not to be included in classroom libraries or school library media centers, the pair responded, according to a district memo obtained under a public information request by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The nonprofit group, which opposes the law, provided the memo to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The district later backed off a bit, allowing some exceptions for high school libraries. But Charlotte's policy remains one of the more stringent policies adopted by the state's 67 countywide school districts to enforce the bill.

The law was originally passed by the Legislature and signed by DeSantis in 2022 and strengthened last spring. The southwest Florida county between Fort Myers and Sarasota has about 17,000 students in its public schools. The Republican governor, who is running for his party's presidential nomination, won the county with 70% of the vote in 2022 as he cruised to reelection.

The school district did not respond to calls Wednesday from the AP seeking comment. The district told the news website Popular Information, which first reported the memo, that the document is not a verbatim transcript of the meeting, but it is an accurate reflection.

DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly said the measure is reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children. The governor has made cultural issues a major point of his presidential campaign, even taking on the Walt Disney Co. after it expressed opposition to the bill.

Florida Freedom to Read said Charlotte's policy is evidence that fear over thoughtful decision making is winning the day." But the group says Florida Department of Education officials are to blame for any district confusion or overreach.

Their failure to lead and use their power to benefit the future of Florida is a disservice to all Floridians, no matter their political leanings, the group said in a statement. Parents want politics out of education. We want all students to feel safe and included, so they can focus on their education while in school. Removing all representation of LGBTQ+ people in literature goes against our very principles of living in a free and just, pluralistic society.

The department did not respond to a call and email Wednesday seeking comment.

At the July meeting, librarians were told by Vianello and McKinley that any mention of sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited from prekindergarten through middle school and in high school, unless supported by the state academic standards.

The librarians asked if that meant they had to remove a book even if, for example, it includes a secondary character who is gay or a main character with two moms or a gay best friend. The pair responded, Yes," and added that ban includes books children may bring to school themselves, even if they are not pornographic or explicit.

These characters and themes cannot exist, they responded, according to the memo.

The school district issued a statement to Popular Information this week clarifying some of the superintendent and attorney's remarks, saying some material with LGBTQ+ themes or characters would still be available in high school libraries.

Books featuring LGBTQ characters are accessible in the media center for grades 9-12. While they may not be utilized for classroom instruction, these books are available for individual study and can be borrowed by students," the statement said.
A Floyd County man is trying to rebuild his life and one Georgia organization is raising money to help.

Joey Watkins spent the past 23 years in prison to be exonerated last week, and now the fight begins to get compensation for the years that he lost behind bars.

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Channel 2s Candace McCowan spoke with Watkins on Tuesday.

In 23 years, this is the first week Watkins can call himself a free man.

Watkins was convicted of killing Isaac Dawkins in Floyd County in 2001 when he was 20 years old. Prosecutors said he pulled the trigger, killing Dawkins while he was driving.

But the entire time he proclaimed his innocence.

Part of me wanted to believe in the justice system but as time went by, I saw that the justice system is not what people believe it is, said Watkins.

For years the Georgia Innocence Project fought on his behalf, saying there was juror and prosecutorial misconduct.

There was some evidence that was withheld from the defense that shouldve been provided by law and it was not and that was one of the reasons the judge overturned Joeys case, said Christina Cribbs with the Georgia Innocence Project.

Eventually, a judge granted Watkins a new trial set for November. But last week, with the stroke of a pen, Joey was free.

We now have a document signed by the prosecutor and the judge acknowledging that there is no evidence on which they can retry Joey, said Cribbs.

Joey is now ready for his second chance.

The Georgia Innocence Project is raising money to help him get on his feet and promising to fight for state compensation for his time behind bars.

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What we do have is a very long complicated political process for folks like Joey to be compensated for the years that they lost, added Cribbs.

Even after losing 23 years of his life in prison, Watkins said hes not angry. But instead, he is focusing on the small things that most take for granted.

Actually being able to get up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and talk to my mom, said Watkins.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  This weekend Nashville will have several different events happening for fans of brews and bites. Here are several events happening around Music City this weekend.

Sept. 29  Oct. 1

The Nashville Greek Festival offers Nashvillians a chance to experience all the best of Greek hospitality and culture, from savory cuisine, soulful music, lively dancing, and an educational look into the Greek Orthodox Church. For more than 30 years, the Greek Orthodox Christian Community has opened its doors to host one of Nashvilles landmark cultural events. Admission is $5 for those 13 and older. Children 12 and under, as well as first responders with valid ID, are free. Admission valid all weekend.

Hours: 4  9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29; 10 a.m.  9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church: 4905 Franklin Pike, Nashville, TN 37220

| READ MORE | Latest headlines from Nashville and Davidson County

Sept. 29

Held on the field and in the first concourse of First Horizon Park, the event will feature over 50 breweries and 150 beers, as well as food trucks, music, lawn games and more. Admission includes unlimited beer. Food sold separately. General admission tickets available for $50. Early Admission tickets available for $65. Buy tickets here.

Hours: 8  11 p.m.; Early Admission at 7 p.m.

First Horizon Park: 19 JR Gilliam Way, Nashville, TN 37219

Sept. 29  30

Returning for the third year in Sevier Park in the heart of the 12 South neighborhood of Nashville, Touch of Brews will feature live music all day long, channeling the spirit of The Grateful Dead. This family-friendly event costs $25-$40 for two-day admission, and kids 10 and under get in free. Food and drink are sold separately, with plenty of beers from Terrapin Beer Company and Waterbird Spirits.

Morgan Wallen to perform at Nissan Stadium

Hours: 5  10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29; 11 a.m.  10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30

Sevier Park in 12 South: 3021 Lealand Lane, Nashville, TN 37204

Sept. 30

Shop from dozens of Music City-based vendors selling teas, pastas, hot sauces, jellies, cheese and many more. Enjoy plenty more food truck fare, craft cocktails, live music and a chef demo. The event is free to attend, and free parking is available for two hours in the venues parking garage. Special add-ons are available forNearby lots and street parking also available. Bring your children and your pets, if you like to the family friendly event.

Hours: 11 a.m.  4 p.m.

ONEC1TY: 8 City Blvd., Nashville, TN 37209

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Sept. 30

The Nashville Zoo has partnered with Conexion Americas to host Hispanic Heritage Festival, presented by Twice Daily. The festival will include dance performances, a puppet show, and a variety of musicians. The Zoo will also offer animal shows and tours of the Grassmere Historic Home at various times throughout the day as well as a special-themed concessions menu. The event is included with general admission to the Zoo or with a membership. Timed reservations are required at the Zoo for your visit.

Nashville Zoo at Grassmere: 3777 Nolensville Pike, Nashville, TN 37211

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
A former Broward County resident was sentenced this week to five years in federal prison for assaulting a 13-year-old girl on a red-eye Delta flight from Los Angeles to Orlando last year, the U.S. Attorneys Office Middle District of Florida announced Wednesday.

Brian Patrick Durning, 52, of Altadena, Calif., previously lived in Broward County; his most recent South Florida address was in Pompano Beach in 2016. Durning has no criminal record in Broward County, according to court records.

Durning sat next to the girl on Flight 2954, which took off from Los Angeles shortly after 11:30 p.m. on June 23, 2022, and arrived at Orlando International Airport about 7:30 a.m. on June 24, 2022, according to his probable cause affidavit.

The teen was sitting two rows away from her family members, federal prosecutors said in a news release. The girls mother later told a U.S. Marshals agent that she couldnt sit with her daughter and her other minor child due to seating reservation issues, the probable cause affidavit said.

Deltas family seating policy posted on their website says the airline strives to seat family members together upon request and to contact reservations personnel to review available seating options if families are unable to get seats together. Airline spokespersons did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

The victim was in the rows middle seat, with Durning to her left and a woman in the window seat to her right, the probable cause affidavit said. While in flight, Durning ordered an alcoholic drink and coughed and sneezed on her, the affidavit said.

The girl testified at his trial in Orlando this June that Durning started acting weird' when the lights dimmed, according to a sentencing memorandum. The victim said Durning rubbed his leg against her, touched her hair and neck, and after she tried to get him to stop, he touched her chest, the sentencing memo said.

Throughout this unwanted contact, the defendant continuously looked around to ensure the other

passengers were asleep, the memo said. When a passenger would wake up, the defendant (would) stop groping the child.

Durning called the girl honey boo, said he would take her to Texas and that she was never going to see (her) family again, according to the girls testimony at trial, the memo said. He then touched her inner leg and assaulted her.

The woman seated in the row with Durning and the girl had been sleeping on the flight and woke up to see Durning quickly move his hand away from the girls leg, the probable cause affidavit said.

Did he touch you? she asked. The girl, then shaking and crying, replied that he had, the affidavit said. The woman then switched seats with the girl to sit in between her and Durning and called for a flight attendant and the girls mother.

The woman told Durning not to talk to the girl because (he was) scaring her, the affidavit said, and he then attempted to touch the womans chest. When the girls mother came to the row to confront Durning, she noticed his pants were unzipped. A flight attendant shortly afterward put Durning in another seat away from the girl.

He was arrested when the flight landed, the sentencing memo said. The jury returned their verdict June 22, finding him guilty of assault of a minor causing substantial bodily injury and simple assault on two other charges, a lesser offense.

Prosecutors asked the court in their memo to sentence Durning to the maximum of five years in prison, citing the detrimental affect his actions had on the girl and her whole family. The girls mother testified at trial that her daughters grades had dropped after the assault and she no longer wanted to hang out with friends.

A year after the assault, the victim continues to experience significant mental and emotional trauma and sees a therapist to address these injuries, prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memo.

When he is released from prison, Durning will be on supervised release for three years, prosecutors said.
Florida officials arrested the former CEO of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence and charged her with one felony count each of organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, and official misconduct.

Tiffany Carr, 54, turned herself in at the Jackson County Sheriffs Office in North Carolina on Sept. 25, following a warrant for her arrest on Sept. 20.

Investigators said that Carr and Chief Financial Officer Patricia Duarte, who turned herself in on Sept. 20, conducted a scheme to fraudulently award themselves personal time off (PTO) using funds provided through grants intended to help fund domestic violence shelters across Florida.

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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began its investigation in 2021 after inspectors received information from the Florida Office of the Chief Inspector General, the Department of Children and Families, and the Florida House Public Integrity and Ethics Committee.

The investigation showed that Carr and Duarte submitted false quarterly reports, billed the state for vacant positions, and charged for services never provided, according to a news release.

The ill-gotten funds were used for excessive bonuses and leave payouts to Carr and Duarte in the amounts of $3.4 million to Carr and $291,000 for Duarte.

Read: Orlando firefighter accused of aggravated assault after incident at fire station

These officials were entrusted to run an organization to assist those seeking a safe haven from abuse. Instead of ensuring state funds went to help those in need, they schemed together to steal more than $3.7 million for grossly inflated salaries and vacations, said Attorney General Ashley Moody. We previously took civil action to rid the organizations bad management, and now we are filing criminal charges against these former officials.

Attorney General Ashley Moodys Office of Statewide Prosecution will prosecute this case.

Read: Orange County students voice concerns about new guidelines restricting research surveys

FCADV was a nonprofit organization. In 2012, legislation was established making FCADV the official organization in charge of distributing state and federal grants to Floridas 42 domestic violence shelters.

FCADV was required to submit an annual budget to the legislature for approval, overseeing more than $40 million in funding.

Read: Traffic stop leads to seizure of more than one ounce of fentanyl, along with heroin and cocaine

In 2020, Florida ended its contract with FCADV and in 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis issued an Executive Order to dissolve the organization.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Bloomington resident and former Indiana University student Antony Vo at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. (Credit: H-T screenshot/U.S. District Court)

Correction: This post was updated to correct the date on which the attack happened.

A Bloomington man and former Indiana University student who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection has been found guilty of four federal crimes.

Antony Vo, who had claimed on social media that former President Donald Trump told him to come to Washington, D.C., was convicted Friday.

A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found Vo guilty of:

Entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds

Disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds

Disorderly conduct in a capitol building or grounds

Parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building.

On Jan. 6, 2021, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, about 140 police officers were assaulted that day at the Capitol, including about 80 from the U.S. Capitol Police and about 60 from the Metropolitan Police Department.

More than 1,100 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the DOJ said. That includes Trump, who faces three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

More than 600 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Nearly 400 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration, according to the DOJ.

Former Indiana University student: Trump 'asked me to be here'

Vo posted to his Facebook and Instagram accounts images and video that showed him inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the arrest warrant filed June 7, 2021 by Detective Joseph Henry of the Bloomington Police Department.

A collage of images Bloomington resident and former IU student Antony Vo posted on Instagram while participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Credit: H-T screenshot/U.S. District Court)

Police also obtained conversations Vo had via his social media accounts.

In one conversation, Vo wrote, President (Trump) asked me to be here tomorrow, so I am here with my mom LOL.

He also said the results of the 2020 presidential election were fraudulent, he and his mom helped stop the vote count for a bit and he and his mother stormed the Capitol, according to court documents.

Allegations of massive voting fraud during the 2020 election have been refuted by judges, state election officials and an arm of Trumps own administrations Homeland Security Department, according to the Associated Press. No case has established irregularities of a scale that would change the outcome, the news agency said.

From the archive: Bloomfield woman to be first person sentenced for role in Capitol riot

At about 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 6, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, including Vice President Mike Pence, were instructed to evacuate the chambers. The joint session to count electoral votes was suspended until shortly after 8 p.m., court records show.

The FBI investigated Vo because it received several tips about Vos activity on social media. One of the tipsters provided the FBI with a screenshot from Vos Facebook page, which showed him at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Another witness provided screen captures of Vos Instagram account.

Henry, the BPD detective and task force officer with the FBI, wrote based on his knowledge of the events of that day, a photo showed Vo "inside the Capitol after it was breached by rioters. Records police obtained through a search warrant revealed conversations in which Vo acknowledged being present in the Capitol building that day, according to the report.

Vos sentencing has been set for 10 a.m. Dec. 12.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Former IU student convicted for participating in 2021 Capitol riot
China, EU push forward relations; talks enhance communication

09:11, September 27, 2023 By Zhang Hongpei and Yin Yeping ( Global Times

While wrapping up a "productive" high-level trade dialogue, China and the EU, two of the world's largest economic powers, have made a noticeable step forward in their pragmatic ties, including announcing concrete working mechanisms in different sectors to enhance communications, which has sent a positive signal of cementing relations amid rising geopolitical tensions and a sluggish world economy.

Based on the productive outcome, in particular fresh working mechanisms that could act as "reservoirs of trust" when both sides deal with specific issues, it is hoped the EU can move in the same direction with China to jointly tap into their broad cooperation space in the future via seeking its own policy independence instead of being tied to the US wagon of unilateralism, experts said.

The EU is urged to abandon its bias against China based on ideology, they said, as it tends to treat China and Chinese businesses as a potential "threat" or "risk" amid a so-called "de-risking" campaign, which is widely believed will see decoupling from China in certain areas, even though the bloc repeatedly denies that is its aim.

Noticeable progress

China and EU concluded productive talks during the 10th High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue through candid and pragmatic discussions addressing investment, trade, industrial and supply chain issues as well as financial cooperation, with the two sides reaching multiple consensuses, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The dialogue, which came amid a profoundly changing world and a sluggish global economy, has "special meanings," the ministry said, noting it will inject more confidence into the development of the world economy.

The dialogue was chaired by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice president of the European Commission, in Beijing on Monday.

Both sides are committed to maintaining two-way openness and providing a fair and non-discriminatory business environment for each other's companies.

The importance of transparent and predictable supply chains was discussed, in particular for critical raw materials. Both sides agreed to continue discussions on reaching a China-EU transparency mechanism of supply chains for raw materials.

The two sides agreed to establish a dialogue mechanism in the field of export control and conduct communication on export control policies and practices.

Concerning the EU's recently launched probes, including a review on foreign subsidies, a carbon border adjustment mechanism and other trade policies, China expressed the hope that the EU will use trade remedy measures prudently while encouraging deeper cooperation in the new energy industry, represented by electric vehicles (EVs).

Earlier this month, the EU announced the launch of an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese-made EVs in order to protect Europe's own nascent EV industry.

In the financial sector, China and the EU took a pragmatic step forward by setting up a new China-EU Working Group on Financial Regulation to work on key areas, including mutually opening up investment opportunities in financial markets for financial institutions, ensuring continued cooperation in sustainable finance and fin-tech, and improving rules on information infrastructure for the financial sector. It will look at regulation for foreign financial institutions, including on the possibility of cross-border financial data sharing.

China is willing to seriously study and consider including more EU banks with legal entities in China within the scope of carbon emission reduction support tools, the MOFCOM statement said.

Following the dialogue, Dombrovskis said at a press conference on Tuesday morning that "we have made some progress across a range of issues from market access to government cooperation in the financial sector," in response to the Global Times' question for comments on the meeting.

Specifically, cooperation in the financial sector, including areas such as green economy and fin-tech were discussed, Dombrovskis said.

Dombrovskis said that both sides agreed to discuss questions related to data flows in financial services in which there are new concerns that need to be discussed.

Sun Yanhong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Science's Institute of European Studies, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the dialogue, involving almost all key issues concerning both China and the EU, played a significant role in strengthening mutual trust, which needs "refilling" at this critical moment. The new working mechanism together with previous ones could act as "reservoirs of trust" when both sides deal with special issues that are tricky and complex in the future, according to Sun.

Taking the transparency mechanism of supply chains for raw materials as an example, Sun said the mechanism could largely solve the EU's rising anxiety over raw materials, as it provides room for timely communications between the two sides, which, in a way, guarantees their sourcing.

Last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed new legislation to reduce the EU's dependence on the supply of critical minerals including rare earths and lithium from China, a move that analysts said will increase the cost of achieving Europe's green targets and exacerbate its current economic woes amid the deepening energy crunch. ""

In June, the EU launched the European Economic Security Strategy, essentially a step toward "de-risking," and claimed that Chinese 5G suppliers Huawei and ZTE pose "materially higher risks than other 5G suppliers." Under such rhetoric, some EU countries are reportedly taking steps to exclude Huawei and ZTE, with the latest being Germany.

In the process of economic and trade exchanges with China, Europe should avoid politicizing industry chain issues, Cui Hongjian, a professor with the Academy of Regional and Global Governance with Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times.

The EU's aim of systemic cutting so-called "dependencies" on China is largely due to geopolitical and ideological biases, which the bloc needs to abandon, Cui said.

Faced with challenges posed by rising US protectionism that is weighing on the world's economic recovery, China and the EU should forge stronger ties and deepen cooperation on the basis of win-win instead of setting up hurdles against each other, he added.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
This photo taken on Sept. 25, 2023 shows a "flower basket" at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, capital of China.[Photo/Xinhua]

Beijing is set to experience a tourism boom during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, which will last from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6 this year, with more than 12.8 million people expected to visit the city.

It is estimated that the number of visitors to the Chinese capital during the holiday will be up 60.8 percent year on year, or up 21.9 percent from the 2019 pre-COVID figure. About 5.5 million of those visitors will travel from other parts of China, up 192.4 percent year on year, said Zhou Weimin, an official of the Beijing municipal bureau of culture and tourism, during a Tuesday press conference.

The city will organize more than 2,000 cultural activities for holiday visitors, including several classic and popular dramas and operas that will be staged.

Public venues such as museums will also make adjustments to meet the cultural consumption demand of tourists during the holiday, with many expanding their visitor capacities, extending their opening hours and implementing other experience-optimization measures.
Stephanie Ramos is used to being in the spotlight.

As a correspondent for ABC News, Ramos has delivered prime-time reporting on immigration, politics and crime.

She started her broadcast journalism career as an assignment editor in South Carolina before moving to Topeka to work for CBS affiliate WIBW. After a five-year stint in Kansas capital city, Ramos landed a job at Kansas Citys KMBC channel 9, where she spent three years as a reporter and anchor.

On Sunday, she returned to television screens across the metro area and the nation, except this time to sing the national anthem in front of a sold-out Arrowhead Stadium. In July she performed God Bless America at Fenway Park. Before then, Ramos hadnt sung during a professional sporting event since 2019.

It was incredibly thrilling, Ramos said. There were fireworks going off as I was singing and helicopters were flying overhead, Ive never had an experience like it.

Ramos said it felt like a homecoming. After she nailed the final note, people who had watched her reporting on KMBC shouted from the first few rows of the stadium, thanking her for her coverage of the city and telling her how they missed seeing her on the local ABC station.

And perhaps Ramos gained a new fan after her pregame performance as pop star Taylor Swift was in attendance to watch Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce play against the Chicago Bears.
Those who, from 8,000 kilometres away, have criticised how someone else enters minefields or trenches and clears them of mines should be ashamed of themselves: the USA, the UK or Germany would never send their soldiers into battles without aircraft.

Source: Ben Hodges, former Commanding General, United States Army Europe and retired US Army general, during a webinar entitled Ukraines Victory: Are Washingtons Signals Flashing Yellow [sic]?; Voice of America

Details: Hodges responded to criticisms of the actions of the Ukrainian army in the war by saying: "These statements are unprofessional and useless".

The general noted that Ukrainians have to fight without aircraft support, and that the USA, the UK or Germany would never send their soldiers into battle without it.

Hodges said Ukraines Armed Forces are conducting multi-component complex operations, including special forces work, drone attacks and cyber warfare, and are disabling Russian radars and air defence systems, and more: "A counteroffensive is not only what we see on the battlefield."

The general also said the Ukrainian military operations against the Black Sea Fleet, which creates enormous pressure on the Russian General Staff, are impressive.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
Former President Donald Trump is headed to Dallas in November for a fundraiser, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The 2024 presidential candidate will be in North Texas for a Nov. 1 event hosted by Kenny and Lisa Troutt, according to an invitation obtained by the newspaper. The invitation does not give a time or place for the event. Troutt is a Dallas businessman who founded Excel Communications.

Texas Elected Leadership Team...invite you to an evening with President Donald J. Trump, the invite reads, listing the current and one former elected officials that make up the leadership team. Among them are Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was recently acquitted in his impeachment trial.

Trump held his first campaign rally since launching his reelection bid in Waco in March.

Trump isnt the only 2024 presidential working to win over North Texas voters and donors. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped in Fort Worth in June for a fundraiser.

Trump will also hold a fundraiser in Houston, the Dallas Morning News reports.
FILE - Former Republican state Sen. Brian Kelsey, left, arrives at federal court, Nov. 22, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. A federal judge has ruled that the former Tennessee state senator can stay out of prison as he challenges his 21 month sentence for violating federal campaign finance laws. Kelsey was supposed to report to federal prison in October. However, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw on Tuesday, Sept. 26 2023 agreed to let the Republican remain free while his legal team appeals the prison term before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)  A former Tennessee state senator can stay out of prison as he challenges his 21-month sentence for violating federal campaign finance laws, a federal judge ruled.

Brian Kelsey , a Republican, was supposed to report to federal prison in October, but U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw agreed Tuesday to let him remain free while his legal team appeals the prison term to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kelsey received his sentence last month in a case centering on his attempts to funnel campaign money from his legislative seat toward his failed 2016 congressional bid.

His attorney, Alex Little, has argued that federal prosecutors violated Kelsey's plea agreement when they pushed for a harsher sentence after he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea.

We are happy with the Courts decision, which recognized that Mr. Kelseys appeal might prevail, and we are confident that we will, Little said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

Prosecutors have countered that Kelsey broke his deal first when he tried to back out of his guilty plea this year and that a harsher sentencing would have been appropriate, but they ultimately chose not to seek the tougher sentence.

Crenshaw disagreed, siding with Kelsey's attorneys that they have raised a substantial question over whether prosecutors crossed a line surrounding the plea agreement.

In March, Kelsey argued he should be allowed to go back on his November 2022 guilty plea because he entered it with an unsure heart and a confused mind due to events in his personal life; his father had terminal pancreatic cancer, then died in February, and he and his wife were caring for twin sons born in September. Crenshaw denied the change of plea in May.

Before that, Kelsey had pleaded not guilty, often saying he was being targeted by Democrats. But he changed his mind shortly after his co-defendant, Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith, pleaded guilty to one count under a deal that required him to cooperate fully and truthfully with federal authorities. Smith has been sentenced to five years of probation.

___

AP reporter Jonathan Mattise contributed from Nashville.
An illustration of Bohemolichas feeding on the seafloor, moments before it is engulfed, buried, and preserved by an underwater mud flow.

About 465 million years ago, a now extinct arthropod called a trilobite was eating its way across the present day Czech Republic. After it died, the passage of time actually preserved the plentiful contents of this specimens prehistoric guts. A team of paleontologists is using this full fossilized belly to learn more about the feeding habits and lifestyle of these common fossilized arthropods. The findings are detailed in a study published September 27 in the journal Nature .

[Related: Trilobites may have jousted with head tridents to win mates .]

More than 20,000 species of trilobite lived during the early Cambrian to the end-Permian period roughly 541 to 252 million years ago. They are some of the most common fossil specimens from this time period, yet paleontologists do not know much about their feeding habits since gut contents usually disappear over time , and until recently there were no known fossil specimens with them intact.

In the study , a team from institutions in Sweden and the Czech Republic examined a fossil specimen of Bohemolichas incola first uncovered near Prague over 100 years ago. Study co-author and paleontologist Petr Kraft from Charles University in Prague had long suspected that this specimen may have a gut full of food intact, but did not have a suitable technique to look inside the trilobites innards. Study co-authors and paleontologists Valeria Vaskaninova and Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University in Sweden suggested using a synchrotron in one of their fossil scanning sessions. This machine is a large electron accelerator that produces powerful laser-like x-rays to take high-quality scans of the fossil

The results were fantastic, showing all the gut contents in detail so that we could identify what the trilobite had been eating, Ahlberg tells PopSci. Remains of ostracods (small shell-bearing crustaceans, still around today), hyoliths (extinct cone-shaped animals of uncertain affinities) and stylophorans (extinct echinoderms that look like little armor-plated electric guitars). These are all kinds of animals that lived in the local environment.

The team believes that Bohemolichas incola was likely an opportunistic scavenger . It also was potentially a light crusher and a chance feeder, which means that it ate both dead or living animals, which either disintegrated easily or were actually small enough to be swallowed whole. However, after this particular Bohemolichas incola died, the circle of life continued and the scavenger became the scavenged. Vertical tracks of other scavengers were found on the specimen. These unknown creatures burrowed into this trilobites carcass and targeted its soft tissue, but avoided its gut. Staying away from the gut implies that there were some noxious conditions inside Bohemolichas incolas digestive system and potentially ongoing enzymatic activity.

[Related: These ancient trilobites are forever frozen in a conga line .]

We were able to draw conclusions about the chemical environment inside the gut of the living trilobite. The shell fragments on the gut have not been etched by stomach acids, and this shows that the gut pH must have been close to neutral, similar to the condition in modern crabs and horseshoe crabs, says Ahlberg. This may indeed be a very ancient shared characteristic of trilobites and these modern arthropods.

Future studies into trilobites could use similar techniques to look for more gut fills. Since this group is a very diverse group of animals, it cant be assumed that this particular species is representative of the feeding habits for all.

This project shows how cutting-edge technology can come together with really old museum specimens. The trilobite was collected in 1908, and has been in a museum ever since, but it is only now that we have the technology to unlock its secrets, says Ahlberg. This illustrates not only the rapid technological progress of our time, but also the importance of well-maintained museum collections.
FRAMINGHAM  Rising housing costs and a need for more versatile housing have the city taking a close look at permitting accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in what would be a significant alteration to Framingham's housing code.

ADUs are defined as apartments or small buildings that are official residences on the property of established residences. Historically, ADUs are referred to as in-law apartments, a name that comes from their frequent use to house older residents who move in with their children or other family members.

ADUs are currently illegal in Framingham. But plans for allowing them date back years, with the city having hosted three informational workshops in 2020 and 2021, and a community survey seeking feedback on the topic in 2021.

'Age in place': Framingham Planning Board holds workshop on accessory dwelling units

Planning Board Chair Kristina Johnson said during a board meeting on Sept. 21 that all of that information has led to the board developing a proposed bylaw amendment.

"Most recently, the board has had a number of collaborative and robust discussions, and those discussions with each other ultimately led to the crafting of what you see tonight," she said.

During the meeting, the board voted unanimously (5-0) to recommend approval of the bylaw amendment to the City Council. The council will have a public hearing on the issue before it makes the ultimate decision on changing the zoning bylaw to permit ADUs.

Supporters argue ADUs will assist housing market

Municipalities throughout Massachusetts have recently been making ADUs easier to construct, with advocates saying they offer affordable housing alternatives to an expensive Massachusetts market.

"Here in Framingham and throughout the state, we are looking to house a lot more people and there is a need for thinking creatively and working on different solutions," District 7 City Councilor Leora Mallach said during the Sept. 21 Planning Board meeting. "Looking at ADUs and crafting something that works for Framingham is part of finding that solution."

Lettervto the editor: Framingham wont build its way to housing affordability

District 4 City Councilor Michael Cannon also spoke during the meeting, saying ADUs are a valuable tool in giving families more options of living together.

"I think there is a need in the community, whether it be adult children or families with adult children that have a disability, seniors being able to stay with their families or to have some level of freedom and flexibility in their homes, I think it's important," he said.

Several neighboring communities allow for the construction of ADUs, including Southborough, Sudbury, Wayland and Hudson.

Concerns about 'caretaker' clause

During the Sept. 21 Planning Board meeting, concerns from Planning Board members and residents were raised about one clause that was written in the ADU proposal. The clause stated that a person living in the ADU would have to be considered a "caretaker" for people living on the property. The clause, which was designed to ensure that the people living in ADUs would likely be family members of the owners, was considered to be too restrictive and difficult to enforce.

"The care someone is being given may not be physically or emotionally  it may be financially, so that they could stay there," Planning Board member Thomas Buie said. "It could be physically, like taking care of the upkeep of the house or property. I think we should discuss whether having that part of the requirement is a de facto part of the intent."

'Should have added more': New Framingham apartments may need new affordable housing standard

Resident Karen Margolis said the rule would be too restrictive on people who could be in need of the income and space provided by an ADU.

"There are so many ways an ADU can be valuable to a homeowner," she said. "It could be a family member that is not frail, it could be a grandparent that is taking care of grandchildren. Maybe it's a child or a friend's child who can use that unit. Perhaps it's the elderly person whose husband has passed away that owns the house, but she doesn't have the ability to maintain that home."

The board discussed expanding upon the caretaker clause to allow for situations in which the resident in the ADU is the dependent party. But it ended up voting to strike the caretaker clause from the proposal altogether, with Johnson saying it would be difficult to enforce.

"We are asking the government to regulate people's family structures," shre said. "How is that even even enforceable? I see it as a possible violation of the Fair Housing Act."

The City Council was scheduled to do the first of two readings on the proposal during its Sept. 26 meeting.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham will consider proposal allowing accessory dwelling units
Elizabeth Walters is chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and a member of Summit County Council.

The only thing stopping a total abortion ban from taking effect in Ohio is your yes vote on Issue 1 on Nov. 7.

Mere hours after the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade came down, out-of-touch politicians at the Ohio Statehouse rushed to federal court to implement a six-week abortion ban that has no exceptions for rape, incest or to protect the life of the woman.

This same abortion ban forced a 10-year-old rape victim to travel to Indiana for the critical health care she needed in a time of crisis. It would effectively end safe abortion care in Ohio and put the lives of thousands of women across Ohio at risk. And it would make Ohio one of the most extreme states in the country on abortion, making businesses and families alike hesitant to relocate to our state.

More: Everything you need to know about Ohio's abortion issue on the November 7, 2023 ballot

For corrupt politicians at the Statehouse, this was the plan all along.

From Gov. Mike DeWine telling anti-abortion activists that he wanted to go as far as we can to limit abortion care in Ohio to State Rep. Jean Schmidt saying she would consider a birth control ban. And every Republican running for the U.S. Senate supports dangerous abortion bans, including bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Now, the only way we can stop this Draconian abortion ban from taking effect and stop politicians from inserting themselves into our private, personal medical decisions is to vote yes on Issue 1 by Nov. 7.

Its as simple as that.

Frank LaRose is at it again

We know the other side is going to try to divide and distract us with lies and misleading ads on TV, making the November election about everything except what its actually about: the right for Ohio women to make health care choices for themselves.

Theyre already pulling out all the stops, with Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Republicans on Ohios ballot board sneaking through misleading language for the November ballot to sow confusion among Ohio voters about what the measure actually does.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose

LaRose put himself at the center of an August amendment designed to silence and benefit special interests and lost  suffocating his Senate campaign in the process. Now, he is doing the same thing with the November abortion amendment.

LaRose is giving the finger to Ohioans.

Hes made it clear that he is not working for us and will do whatever it takes to silence and overrule Ohioans to further his own political ambitions.

Standing with women and their families

Heres the simple truth: Passing Issue 1 would protect our right to reproductive care in the Ohio Constitution so that our freedoms will not be up to the whims of whatever politicians are in power at the moment.

Full stop.

It will keep these private health care decisions where they belong: with women and their families.

Any other talking points from the other side are just scare tactics meant to distract you from their anti-abortion agenda and their extreme total abortion ban.

As we saw on Aug. 8, power belongs in the hands of the people, not politicians, and on Nov. 7, were going to once again send a message to the out-of-touch politicians who want to control our bodies and our medical decisions: We wont go back.

So this November, join your fellow Ohioans in voting yes on Issue 1, stopping Ohios extreme abortion ban from taking effect and keeping personal, private medical decisions in the hands of Ohio women and families, not politicians.

Elizabeth Walters has served as chair of the Ohio Democratic Party since January 2021. She is the first woman to head the Ohio Democratic Party and was unanimously reelected as chair in August 2022 to another four-year term. She also serves on Summit County Council.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Vote yes on Issue 1 to stop Ohios draconian abortion ban
CARUTHERS, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Live music, local eats, ag exhibits, rides, and a chance to win a brand-new 2024 Ford Mustang  and its all happening at the Caruthers District Fair.

The Caruthers District Fair, Californias largest and longest-running free gate fair, is back beginning Wednesday, September 27 through Saturday, September 30. Its the 94th annual event and officials say its full of fan-favorite traditions as well as improvements from the previous year.

The fair is open on Wednesday from noon until 11:00 p.m. with the coronation of the 2023 queen being held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the first day. On Thursday hours are 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and Friday and Saturday hours are 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. with the parade taking place from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

What began as a two-day event in 1923 has since grown to be a tradition for more than 90 years for the city of Caruthers. Fair officials say the now four-day event is still held on the original 17-acre property located at 13599 S Raider Ave in Caruthers.

Fair officials added that the old restroom building has been removed and the new restrooms remain under construction and expected to be finished by the 2024 fair. The community is raising funds to complete the bathroom project. For more information on the fundraising campaign, please visit www.caruthersfairbuildingprojects.com.

For more information on the Caruthers District Fair, click here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
Though Xavier Becerra, the Joe Biden-appointed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Kyle Duncan, the Republican-appointed U.S. Circuit Court judge, come from different political perspectives, they share something in common.

They have both been heckled on college campuses.

A new poll gauging the views of students of college campuses shows a plurality of students support shutting down speakers while a rising share of students supports violence in response to hate speech and a slight majority favor speech codes on campuses.

Students are more censorious than ever, even as their fear of being canceled remains high. Americas colleges and universities must do a better job supporting free speech if the pursuit of truth is to continue on campus and across the country, Buckley Institute founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble said in a press release sent to the Deseret News.

Related

The Buckley Institute released the results of its ninth annual national survey of 802 undergraduates at four-year private or public schools in America. Conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, the poll gives a glimpse into what university students think about free speech, speech on campus and some political issues.

Heres a closer look at the state of free speech on campus.

Free speech and the Constitution

Students professed support for the U.S. Constitution is at a high point, especially when it comes to the First Amendment. Yet, at the same time, a majority of students now say theyd like speech codes to regulate speech on campus.

Fifty-seven percent of students overall say the Constitution is a very important document for our country. Support is split along partisan lines: 81% of conservatives think its important as do 61% of moderates. Liberals are slightly more likely to say the Constitution is outdated (46%) as opposed to saying its important (45%).

This means support for the Constitution among college students is at its second highest point since 2019.

A strong majority of students (78%) believe the First Amendment is important and needs to be followed and respected and only a small group thinks it is outdated (14%).

An even stronger majority of students (85%) find value in hearing and discussion opinions they disagree with and an equal share of students also think there needs to be better education on the value of free speech and the diversity of opinion on campus.

But for the first time in the polls nine years, a majority of students (51%) support speech codes that would regulate the speech of students and faculty, while 38% of students oppose these codes. Theres a partisan divide on this issue with the majority of liberal students (54%) favoring speech codes while nearly-half of conservatives oppose them (48%).

Related

Expression in classrooms at campus

Students across the political spectrum feel intimidated by sharing their beliefs and ideas  especially on politics  and a plurality of students say they cannot be close friends with someone if their friend is part of a different political party.

When students were given a list of topics (politics, climate change, etc.) to see what topic they were most uncomfortable talking about, politics (46%) was the most commonly selected followed by race (35%), abortion (31%), gender (30%) and religion (30%). Topics like climate change (12%), Israel (10%), election integrity (10%) and affirmative action (8%) were those with the lowest levels of discomfort.

There was not a major difference among political parties when it came to whether or not students were uncomfortable expressing their ideas on campus. Around 6 in 10 students said they have often felt intimidated in sharing their ideas, opinions or beliefs in class.

There was a partisan divide when students were asked if they could be close friends with someone of a different political party because that person likely harbors opinions they find unacceptable.

Overall, a plurality (48%) said they could not be. Liberal students (64%) were the most likely to say they couldnt be close friends with someone with different political opinions while conservative students (64%) were the least likely to say they couldnt be.

Related

Hate speech and offensive speech on campus

Just under half of students believe it might be justifiable to use physical violence to respond to hate speech or racially charged comments. A plurality of students say it can be appropriate to shout down speakers on campus and also support reporting offensive speech from students to administrators.

When asked if physical violence can be justified to stop a person from espousing their hateful views, 45% of students said it could be. A slightly higher share of students (47%) said violence could not be justified. This marks a 15% increase in support of physical violence in response to hateful speech since 2017 when the question was first asked.

Liberal students (54%) were the most likely to agree that violence could be potentially justified while conservatives were the least likely to agree (36%).

For the first time in the polls history, a majority of students say it can be appropriate to shout down speakers. This growing trend has elicited debate on whether or not heckling and shouting is a form of protest.

When Duncan was shouted down at Stanford University, a student told the judge, Its called protest. Its under the First Amendment. I thought you knew about the First Amendment. In the pages of The Los Angeles Times, the executive president of The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression pushed back against this statement.

Shouting down speakers is just like any other form of censorship: Its the few deciding for the many what they can hear. Protesters have every right to engage in peaceful, nondisruptive protest, Nico Perrino wrote. But they do not have the right to take over someone elses event and make it their own.

In addition to shouting down speakers, support is also growing for reporting other students for political opinions they find offensive.

A slight plurality of students (46%) said they should report their fellow students for perceived offensive speech to school administrators. Its the first time in the polls history a majority of students believe that. Conservative students (66%) disagree with reporting students to administrators while a majority of liberal students (53%) agree.

A majority of students (51%) believe school administrators and professors should prohibit debate of some issues on campus. There isnt partisan divide on this issue.

Related

Is free speech a growing issue on campus?

Some experts think free speech is a growing concern on campuses, especially when it comes to heckling speakers.

Thirteen universities announced their participation in a free speech campaign last month. The campaign is called the Campus Call for Free Expression and schools like Cornell and Benedict College are participating, according to The Hill.

Its critical to our mission as a university to think deeply about freedom of express and the challenges that result from assaults on it, which today come from both ends of the political spectrum, Cornell University President Martha Pollack told The Hill.

When Becerra was heckled at Whittier College due to his lawsuit against the Trump administration over the rescinding of DACA, Foudation for Individual Rights and Expresssion attorney Adam Steinbaugh wrote Elected officials shouldnt be kept from critics, even very loud and obnoxious critics, on or off a college campus. ... But the right to criticize and protest public officials does not encompass a right to intentionally prevent a speaker from addressing an audience in a closed space.

University of Chicagos Paul Alivisatos told The Wall Street Journal free expression in our society is in distress, not just in universities, but in the world as a whole.

But still, Alivisatos thinks his university can be part of the solution. The fundamental principles of free expression, to my mind are fundamental and were going to be a part of trying to advance it, he said.

Related

The polls other findings

Heres a look at some of the polls other findings:

Sixty-three percent of students support requiring administrators and faculty to have diversity, equity and inclusion statements as a condition of employment.

Around 60% of students support affirmative action.

Seventy-three percent of students say systemic racism is a big problem in society and white people still contribute to it, whether they realize it or not.

Nearly half of students (48%) say gender can be fluid and 38% say gender is fixed.

Fifty-eight percent of students believe their school should require students and faculty to state their preferred pronouns when introducing themselves.

When it comes to transgender college athletes, 59% of students say they support transgender rights, but believe this is an issue of fairness and other athletes are disadvantaged because there are biological differences between men and women.

A plurality of students (37%) would prefer to live under socialism instead of capitalism.

Forty-nine percent of students say shoplifting and petty theft are victimless crimes while 43% said its wrong to not investigate and prosecute these crimes.

If the presidential primaries were held today, 46.1% of college student Republicans would vote for Donald Trump and 31.6% of college Democrats would vote for Joe Biden.
Actress Donna Mills is coming to Fort Worth for a free wine tasting event at a newly opened Sundance Square wine shop.

Mills will be at Wines From A Broad from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday at 317 Houston St. The event is free to attend, but the wine shop is encouraging folks to RSVP online beforehand.

Wines From A Broad sources wine only from female winemakers, to showcase the depth of talent in the industry, according to company. The recently opened shop comes from chef Dena Peterson-Shaskan, who is also co-owner of the nearby Sundance Square restaurant 3rd Street Market.

Wednesdays event will be a complimentary public wine tasting with Mills in attendance, who also happens to co-own and operate her own winery, Mandeville Vineyards, in Los Angeles.

Mills has been acting for 50 years, appearing in such projects as Knots Landing, Play Misty for Me and General Hospital. Mills also made an appearance in Jordan Peeles sci-fi horror movie Nope, which came out last year.
The French ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, has returned to Paris, the French Foreign Ministry told CNN on Wednesday.

Our ambassador to Niger returned to Paris today, as decided by the President of the Republic on Sunday, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna received Itte to thank him for his teams service in difficult conditions.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday that France had decided to bring back Itte and several other diplomats from Niger.

After their July coup, the Niger military junta ordered Itte to leave the country, and later revoked his visa.

The ambassador remained in place following instructions from the French government, with French authorities saying that they do not recognize the juntas authority.

Macron said earlier this month that the ambassador was literally being held hostage at the French embassy, and that food was prevented from being delivered to the embassy in Niamey, the countrys capital.

Relations between the two countries have soured since the coup. Ittes exit from Niger follows another decision by France to end its military presence in the West African nation by the end of this year.

Around 1,500 French troops are stationed in Niger, many of whom are there to assist with counterterrorism missions.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
In 1988, astronauts aboard the now-retired Russian space station Mir realized that something had blanketed one of their windows  from the outside. The thing had even started trudging its way within the station by slowly destroying the window's titanium-quartz surface. It was later revealed that the blanket was, in fact, fungi that had piggybacked to space. And it got there by hugging onto the astronauts themselves.

This fungi had managed to adapt to the space environment, and so well that it not only survived but thrived on windows, control panels, air conditioners and cable insulators. It even contaminated the crew's precious food and water supply. Although this incident was the first time a fungus was found significantly damaging the space station, it was not the last.

Space travelers have never been, and will never truly be, alone while traveling to space.

But rather than fear this truth, scientists are trying to take advantage of it. For instance, one team associated with the European Space Agency (ESA) recently conducted hypergravity experiments on fungi to better understand how these organisms survive effortlessly in the harsh environment of space  perhaps if we can understand their mechanisms, we can use fungi to build off-world settlements someday and maybe even incorporate them into off-world medications.

Related: The chemical contamination of the International Space Station is out of this world (and not in a good way)

Many (if not all) space-borne fungal species are like sleuths: They remain dormant during launch and on the journey to space, but then "activate" and reproduce to form thick, living mats on various regions in the space station. These mats not only threaten astronaut health but also electronics, plumbing and other components on the station.

Since the 1988 incident, there have been numerous efforts to establish robust cleaning routines for scrubbing fungi off walls and equipment before the organisms cause serious damage. Alongside these preventive efforts, scientists have also realized that studying their growth and behavior in microgravity, specifically their adaptability to repair DNA damage caused by space radiation, could actually be useful for crews during long-term crewed space missions.

For example, in 2016, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California launched fungi into space for the first time for research purposes onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The team studied how the ISS environment caused the species, known as Aspergillus nidulans, to create certain molecules it doesn't produce on Earth. This particular fungus is well-researched for osteoporosis drugs that could help with the bone disease, which affects 10 million people in the United States alone.

Russias Mir space station seen from Space Shuttle Atlantis during the approach for docking on 15 January 1997

Russias Mir space station seen from Space Shuttle Atlantis during the approach for docking on 15 January 1997 (Image credit: NASA)

During long-term space missions to the moon and even Mars, such applications would help astronauts maintain their bone density, which research already shows declines despite regular exercise routines onboard the ISS.

Similar efforts to study fungi are also being carried out on Earth. Recently, the ESA studied how fungal colonies grow in "hypergravity" environments, where artificially-created gravity conditions using a centrifuge were up to 20 times higher than on Earth.

The two-week long research, which was conducted in ESA's space technology and development center (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, tested how fully grown fungal species placed in a lab-controlled gondola responded to stressful reactions, according to a statement published Monday (Sept. 25). The names of the fungal species were not mentioned.

"We are never going to be able to get rid of fungi entirely as we venture into space, so we need to understand them," Andre Antunes, a researcher at the Macau University of Science and Technology in China who is part of the recent ESA study, said in Monday's statement. "In addition, they offer positive opportunities as well as risks. Down on Earth fungi are employed to make food  such as yeast for fermentation  as well as medicines, chemical enzymes for industry as well as metal nanoparticles used in numerous fields."

ESA's Large Diameter Centrifuge is an 8-m diameter four-arm centrifuge that gives researchers access to a range of hypergravity up to 20 times Earth gravity for weeks or months at a time.

ESA's Large Diameter Centrifuge is an 8-m diameter four-arm centrifuge that gives researchers access to a range of hypergravity up to 20 times Earth gravity for weeks or months at a time. (Image credit: ESA)

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The team also selected certain fungal species for a second round of exposure to hypergravity, largely to investigate the extent of stress reactions. According to the statement, the study aims to better understand why fungal species thrive in microgravity conditions.

Using dormant fungi and their chemical makeup, NASA has also been exploring various technologies to grow lightweight structures on the moon and Mars that future space travelers can call home away from home.
Principal James Montgomery poses near a mural of the school Thursday morning, Aug. 31, 2023, at Highland School of Technology.

A few weeks ago, Highland School of Technology was listed as the eighth top school in North Carolina by the U.S. News and World Report.

Following the release of North Carolinas 2023 accountability results, which gives all schools in North Carolina a grade based on student proficiency, Highland also found itself ranked number one in the entire state, according to Highland Principal James Montgomery.

Last week, the school was also informed that they had been awarded their second ever Blue Ribbon, an award distributed by the U.S. Department of Education to high performing schools.

According to Montgomery, the Blue Ribbon award can be awarded to schools excelling in one of two categories: high student achievement and closing the achievement gap.

Highland was awarded a Blue Ribbon for the first time in the schools history in 2017 for high student achievement.

This year, Highland was one of only 353 schools in the United States to be chosen for a Blue Ribbon award, making this their second in the category of high student achievement.

Highland is a magnet school which means students must maintain a certain GPA, submit an application, and be chosen in a randomized lottery to attend.

According to Montgomery, it also creates an environment where students, teachers and parents all want the best possible outcomes in the classroom.

To reward the students for the academic recognition, the school will host an assembly and will go to Washington D.C. to accept the award Nov. 16-17.

Aside from Highland, two other schools in Gaston County received high ranks in the states accountability assessment released mid-September.

There were 180 schools in the state that received an A report card, and Gaston County had three of those schools, Montgomery said. Its quite a good moment for the schools, and the school system.

The two other schools that received A report cards from the states assessment were the Gaston Early College High School, and the Gaston Early College of Medical Science High School.

I dont know if theres another time in anyones career where you can say youve gone through a three-week stretch where you were ranked in the top 2.4% of all high schools in the country, then you were number one in your respective state, then the federal government comes in to make you one of 353 Blue Ribbon Schools, Montgomery said. Weve had just the most amazing, rare moments here at Highland.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gaston County school recognized by the U.S. Department of Education
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

GAVIN NEWSOM RIPS BLUE STATE RIGHTS REGRESSION AFTER JUDGE STRIKES DOWN CALIFORNIA GUN LAW

Via Lindsey Holden and Maggie Angst...

Time was when a politician invoked the doctrine of states rights, it was in opposition to court decisions that integrated schools, opened housing and advanced other aims of the civil rights movement.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom repurposed that rallying cry Tuesday, for a broadside against federal judges who strike down the state laws protecting voting rights, reproductive freedoms, LGBTQ issues and gun safety.

Yet simultaneously, he called for federal action to prevent more gun violence.

Days after U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down Californias large-capacity ammunition ban for the second time, Newsom said Democrats can no longer live with a sense of immunity from rights regression brought on by the federal judiciary.

You cant just be a blue state and advance a blue state framework, Newsom said. Theyre coming after these laws and theyre winning in federal courts.

Newsom made the comments at a signing event to celebrate a set of new gun control laws in California, including a first-of-its-kind excise tax on weapon sales and new concealed carry rules.

Newsom said he was proud of the legislation, but warned that it may not be enough.

These are all national leaders that are assembled here today, Newsom said standing next to Attorney General Rob Bonta and Democratic lawmakers. But its going to require a national construct, a national frame in order to ultimately address this.

The governor is leading a national campaign to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit the sale of guns to people under 21, mandate extensive background checks, establish a waiting period for purchases and ban the sale of assault rifles.

POLL SHOWS SCHIFF WITH SLIGHT LEAD IN SENATE RACE

Burbank Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has edged out Irvine Democratic Rep. Katie Porter to take the lead among California voters in the race to succeed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein next year, according to a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll found that 20% of California voters back Schiff, compared to 15% for Porter and 8% for Oakland Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee. This marks a 4-percentage-point increase for Schiff from PPICs last survey in July. Then, Porter led with 19%, while Schiff sat at 16% and Lee at 13%.

This lead comes as Schiff faces increasing scrutiny over his practice of securing congressional earmark funding for high-dollar donors, as reported Tuesday by Politico California.

Schiff spokeswoman Marisol Samayoa told Politico that Californians know and trust Adams record of getting things done, and as a U.S. senator, he will do what it takes to ensure Californians tax dollars are put to work for them and their priorities.

These contributions amount to less than one tenth of one percent of what Adam has raised over 20 years in Congress, and were driven by what was best for our troops and his constituents. It is ridiculous to suggest otherwise, she told Politico.

Meanwhile, Schiff nemesis former President Donald Trump continues to clean up among California Republicans, despite dozens of felony indictments across four separate cases and being twice impeached when he last served in the Oval Office.

Nearly half (48%) of California Republican likely voters want Trump as their 2024 nominee. The other Republican candidates are nowhere near that  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has just 14% support, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence both have 7% and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney  who isnt currently running for president  has 5%.

But if Trump takes heart in his Republican support, he will find less joy in his statewide prospects. Just 26% of likely voters would back him against President Joe Biden, who has 57% support.

The PPIC poll surveyed 1,671 California adult residents between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5. The sampling error is 3.1%.

IS NEWSOM POLITICALLY TO THE RIGHT OF LEGISLATIVE DEMOCRATS?

Newsom has developed a national reputation as a proud progressive. Hes taken stands on virtually every hot button issue, clashed with Trump and DeSantis, and worked to champion liberal causes both at home and abroad.

But a new study from the right-leaning Institute for Legislative Analysis found that Newsom is actually more conservative than the Democrats who hold a supermajority in the California Legislature.

The report, based on nearly 8,000 lawmaker votes across 10 policy areas in 2022, found that Newsom was more moderate than his legislative party members.

According to the report, Newsom sided with the position of limited government 39% of the time, compared to just 5% of the time for Democrats and more than 83% of the time for Republicans.

When it comes to tax and fiscal issues, Newsom aligned with the limited government position 60% of the time. Thats way more than Democrats (1%) and even Republicans (58%).

On crime, Newsom took the conservative position 60% of the time, far more than Democratic lawmakers who did so 8% of the time though less so than Republicans, who did so 96% of the time.

Newsom was more in line with his Democratic colleagues on the topic of energy and environmental issues, supporting the limited government approach just 20% of the time compared to the Democratic average of 9%.

So ILA is happy with Newsoms record, right? Not exactly.

Instead, ILA CEO Ryan McGowan said in a statement that this report should be a serious wake-up call to Republicans that no Republican lawmakers record on taxing and spending should ever mirror a California Democrat.

And just because Democrat policy positions have shifted so far left that Gavin Newsom  a former progressive San Francisco mayor  is now the benchmark of moderate, certainly does not mean Republicans should drift leftward towards big government policies, McGowan said.

SHASTA RECALL FOR ELECTION DENIER SUPERVISOR GATHERS ENOUGH SIGNATURES

Via Jenavieve Hatch...

The Committee to Recall Kevin Crye obtained the necessary signatures to get the recall on the ballot, the group announced on Tuesday. They had 120 days to gather 4,151 signatures, and ultimately received 4,929.

Crye, one of three hard-right members of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, became the subject of the recall movement last spring after he voted in support of ending the countys contract with Dominion Voting Systems over unfounded allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Crye, who was elected last fall, supported the countys pivot to a manual tally (which is not a state-approved voting system) and has been in talks with Trump supporter and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who Dominion is suing in a $1.3 billion defamation case, about the change.

County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen will present the petition certification to the Board at its next meeting on Oct. 3 before a recall date is scheduled. The committee predicts it will take place on the March 5, 2024 primary election day.

During his short tenure (Crye) has divided, betrayed, and failed our community, committee spokesperson Jeff Gorder said Tuesday. We have shown that actively participating in local government, and following the law, we can make a positive impact with our community.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Immigrants have worked hard for decades to build a welcoming, supportive California  setting an example for other states, some of which are driving by politics of hate. In 2024, we will not let Republican candidates tarnish what we have worked so hard to build... It is leadership and vision that wins the White House, not backward gaslighting, contempt for those in need, and unjust policies that hurt so many.

- Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles Action Fund Director Fatima Flores-Lagunas, in a statement responding to Wednesdays planned Republican primary presidential debate taking place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Best of The Bee:

The union representing state scientists has officially hit a bargaining roadblock with Gov. Gavin Newsoms administration and could now potentially organize a strike, via Maya Miller .

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a Bay Area Democrat, announced Tuesday that hes running for Governor in 2026, joining Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and, possibly, Attorney General Rob Bonta, in the race to replace Gavin Newsom, via Jenavieve Hatch .

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of bills Tuesday to further strengthen Californias gun control measures, drawing praise from anti-gun violence advocates and prompting legal action from firearm rights groups, via Maggie Angst and Lindsey Holden .

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday evening signed a bill into law barring school boards from banning books, instructional materials or curricula labeled as inclusive or diverse, via Andrew Sheeler.
The Scoop

Gavin Newsom joined a growing chorus of high-profile Democrats calling for New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez to resign.

In an interview before Wednesday nights Republican debate, the California governor told Semafor that Menendez, who is facing bribery charges, should step down in order for Democrats to draw a contrast between the party and former President Donald Trump, who is also facing federal charges.

He should resign. Moral clarity, you gotta contrast, Newsom said.

This is an existential moment. We have a guy who is illiberal, who doesnt believe in democracy, that lost the election and tried to vandalize this country. Talk about moral clarity. Im glad more people are coming on board, he continued, referring to other Democrats calling on Menendez to step down.

Newsom said that within minutes of hearing Menendezs defense, he was convinced that he should step down. The California governor said that while Menendez and Trump were both entitled to due process, the possibility of another Trump victory required Democrats to act swiftly to condemn Menendez so as to contrast Democrats intolerance for alleged crimes with that of Republicans.

[Trump] can win, and were dilly dallying around this? Newsom said. But we cant be out there criticizing him for indictments and everything else - its a moral issue, moral clarity.

Know More

Menendez pleaded not guilty to the federal charges on Wednesday. He has struck a defiant tone after being indicted, accusing prosecutors of framing the allegations against him to be as salacious as possible.

Prosecutors have alleged that he and his wife, Nadine Menendez, used the senators influence over foreign aid to accept bribes, scoring a monopoly for the halal meat certifying company with the Egyptian government.

An increasing number of Democrats have called for Menendez to step down after federal prosecutors filed charges last week. Fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker praised Menendez as a great colleague, but said that stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.
Laurence Fox has been formally suspended from GB News over comments he made about a female journalist. (GB News)

GB News has suspended presenter Laurence Fox over comments he made on air about a female journalist which have been described as unacceptable, unjustifiable and indefensible.

Fox appeared on Dan Wootton Tonight on Tuesday to speak about Politics Joe reporter Ava Evans reaction to a debate about mens mental health on the BBC earlier in the day.

During the segment, Fox made a series of remarks about Evans, including asking: Who would want to shag that?

Wootton, who has also been suspended, and GB News apologised after the show but Foxs show has now been taken off air while an investigation takes place.

GB News has formally suspended Laurence Fox while we continue our investigation into comments he made on the channel last night.



Mr Fox's suspension is effective immediately and he has been taken off air.



We will be apologising formally to Ms Evans today.  GB News (@GBNEWS) September 27, 2023

GB News added in a statement: Mr Foxs suspension is effective immediately and he has been taken off air. We will be apologising formally to Ms Evans today.

Ofcom has started an investigation into Tuesdays episode of Dan Wootton Tonight after receiving around 7,300 complaints, the regulator said on Thursday.

The investigation adds to the other six already underway with the channel.

Yahoo News UK breaks down those investigations

Laurence Fox suspended: Read more

1. Jacob Rees-Moggs State of the Nation, 9 May 2023

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg presents his State of the Nation show four nights a week on GB News.

Two episodes of the show are currently being investigated but Ofcom  the first of which was broadcast on 9 May this year.

There were 40 complaints made to Ofcom about the programme, which featured coverage of a civil trial that decided former US president Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed magazine writer E Jean Carroll.

Jacob Rees-Moggs State of the Nation faces two investigations by Ofcom. (GB News)

Currently, Ofcoms broadcasting code states that no politician can be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in order to preserve impartiality.

However, politicians are allowed to present current affairs programmes, so long as they make sure a variety of views are represented and that the programmes are hosted outside of election periods.

Ofcom are investigating whether Rees-Mogg broke this rule.

2. Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, 12 May 2023

Esther McVey and Phillip Davies presented two programmes that are under investigation by Ofcom. (GB News)

Tory MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies, who are also husband and wife, present shows on GB News at the end of the week.

Ofcoms politicians as presenters rule is once again being investigated in relation to this episode of the show after the couple held a discussion about a teenager who was being sentenced for terrorism offences.

Like Rees-Mogg, Ofcom are investigating whether the topic was part of a current affairs discussion or if it was being reported by them as news.

3. Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, 13 May 2023

Husband and wife Esther McVey and Philip Davies are being investigated under two possible rule breaches. (PA)

Ofcom are also investigating the MPs for their Saturday show, which was broadcast one day after the show that is also being investigated.

During the programme the couple interviewed Howard Cos, who is standing the candidate for London mayor for the Reform UK party.

Cox, who is standing on an anti-Ulez platform, was speaking live from a protest against the scheme.

Ofcom are investigating whether McVey and Davies broke the politicians as presenters rule  but also assessing the programmes compliance with the broadcasting rule which requires that news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality.

4. Jacob Rees-Moggs State of the Nation, 13 June 2023

Ofcom are investigating whether Jacob Rees-Mogg broke rules on politicians as presenters. (PA)

The second of Ofcoms investigations into Rees-Moggs show centres on a broadcast in June which covered a stabbing incident in Nottingham.

It is another case of the media watchdog deciding whether the politicians as presenters rule was breached.

Ofcoms code states that as well as politicians not being used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter unless editorially justified, the political allegiance of the presenter must be made clear to the audience.

5. Laurence Fox (presented by Martin Daubney in his absence), 16 June 2023

Martin Daubney (pictured) presented an episode of Laurence Foxs show that is being investigated by Ofcom. (GB News)

GB News presenter Martin Daubney stood in for Fox on an episode of the programme in June.

In it, Daubney interviewed Reform UK leader Richard Tice  who was also the former deputy leader of the Brexit Party, of which Daubney was an MEP.

The interview included a discussion about immigration and asylum policy, particularly in relation to the issue of small boats crossing the English Channel.

This episode is being probed in relation to the broadcasting rule which requires that due impartiality is preserved on matters of major political or industrial controversy or those relating to current public policy and that an appropriately wide range of significant views are included and given due weight, Ofcom said.

6. The Live Desk (Dont Kill Cash campaign), 7 July 2023

Earlier this year, GB News launched their Dont Kill Cash campaign, which sought to garner support for a petition to not let the UK become what it calls a cashless society.

While campaigns such as these are often run by British newspapers, broadcasters in the country are banned from doing so under the terms of their Ofcom licence.

An episode of The Live Desk is being investigated over GB News Dont Kill Cash campaign. (GB News)

As a result, the watchdog launched an investigation into an episode of The Live Desk, that will decide if the show broke rules that forbid broadcasters from expressing views and opinions on matters of political and industrial controversy or current public policy.

The rules reflect the requirements in the Communications Act 2003 that were set by parliament.

Ofcom say their guidance explains that the person providing the service and anyone with editorial responsibility is the licensee  which in this case would be GB News  rather than the individual presenters or guests.
Ukrainian forces continue offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction in the east and in the Melitopol direction in the south, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on Sept. 27.

"Ukrainian defense forces continue carrying out offensive operations in the Melitopol direction and... in the Bakhmut direction, inflicting losses on occupying troops in manpower and equipment, and wearing out the enemy along the entire front line," the report said.

Russian troops reportedly launched unsuccessful attacks near Sieverne and Marinka in Donetsk Oblast and south of Novodarivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Over the course of the past day, there were 26 engagements with Russian forces, and Russia launched 10 missile strikes, 77 air strikes, and 44 strikes from multiple-launch rocket systems against both military targets and civilian areas, the General Staff said.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of Ukraine's forces fighting in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, said last week that the military has breached through Russian lines near the southern village of Verbove.

Tarnavskyi lauded the success at Verbove but also noted that the true breakthrough on the southern front would be the liberation of Tokmak, which he stated was "the minimum goal" of the counteroffensive.

Read also: Overcoming setbacks, NATO-trained brigade breaches Surovikin line in Zaporizhzhia Oblast

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Conservative attorney George Conway said a New York judges decision on Tuesday could mean the end of Donald Trumps family business in New York.

Its essentially the equivalent of the corporate death penalty for the Trump Organization in New York state, Conway said on CNN on Tuesday night.

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump committed fraud for years by overvaluing his assets and net worth to obtain loans, and ordered the dissolution of some of former presidents companies.

Trump claimed the ruling was a violation of his civil rights, and insisted that he had done business perfectly.

But Conway explained that the judge found Trump guilty of violating the Martin Act, an extremely powerful weapon that the state can use against fraudsters.

He said the act doesnt require proof of fraudulent intent, and doesnt require evidence that the false numbers were relied on by anyone. All it requires are that the numbers are false.

And in Trumps case there was no dispute that the numbers were false, and substantially so, Conway noted.

Conway said the act allows for extraordinary remedies, including stripping a company of its ability to do business in the state and ordering the dissolution of the business, which is what the judge decided on Tuesday.

No matter what he finds in the damages phase of this trial, the Trump organization is out of business, he said. And thats not good for Donald Trump.

Trump vowed to appeal.

Conway spoke with CNNs Wolf Blitzer and Laura Coates:

Other legal experts also commented on what the ruling means for the former president and his family business:

This is New York's corporate death penalty, applied to Trump because of years of misconduct. Justice. https://t.co/mzGJ7vdhaT  Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) September 26, 2023

Indeed, one possibility is that assets will need be sold to satisfy outstanding debts, including any disgorgement of profits ordered by the judge. Remember: The AG has asked that Trump and his co-defendants hand over at least $250 million from their fraudulent scheme. FIN  Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) September 26, 2023

Blockbuster decision from court in NY AG civil case finding Trump violated the law by overstating the value of properties by more than $800 million(!) to obtain loans and insurance. Judge cancels corporate certificate for Trump Org to do business in NY. https://t.co/xhVaFDeuE4  Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) September 27, 2023

Part of basis for cancelling Trump Organization et al's certificates:



"Even with a preliminary injunction in place, and with an independent monitor overseeing their compliance, defendants have continued to disseminate false and misleading information while conducting business." pic.twitter.com/tCWK6K4tGS  Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 26, 2023

Donald Trump is no longer in business in New York State.

A judge canceled all of his business certificates and appointed a judge to monitor the assets.

Barring an unlikely reversal by an appeal court, the assets will be sold and Trump, Don Jr., & Eric are barred from business.  David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) September 27, 2023

In addition to finding that Trump committed fraud, the judge canceled the certificates of various Trump businesses, appointed a former judge as an independent monitor of the Trump Organization, and will appoint receivers to manage the canceled LLCs.



This is a pretty big deal. https://t.co/0Z4y3lkHTK  Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) September 26, 2023

No, Trump cant just reincorporate in Florida.



He still needs licenses to operate any businesses in NY  and he wont be able to get them.



His NY companies are being stripped from him and placed into receivership, just as if he was bankrupt.  Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) September 26, 2023

It wouldn't be lawsuit involving Trump if his lawyers weren't sanctioned... https://t.co/o1fDtqvl5hpic.twitter.com/nDly6drl97  Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) September 26, 2023
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher George Kirby throws to a Houston Astros batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

SEATTLE (AP)  George Kirby embraced the situation facing the Seattle Mariners. It wasn't a must-win for their playoff hopes. But it was close.

I love it. Big games, I always want the ball. I love pitching against the Astros and it fires you up a little more, Kirby said.

Kirby escaped an early bases loaded jam to throw six shutout innings, Seattle took advantage of three Houston errors, and the Mariners snapped a four-game losing streak with a 6-2 win over the Astros on Tuesday night.

Seattle pulled within a half-game of Houston for the final wild card spot in the American League and trails Toronto by two games after the Blue Jays lost at home to the Yankees. The Mariners also gained a game on Texas in the AL West after the Rangers lost to the Angels.

It really makes it interesting tomorrow night and thats the way its going to be down the stretch here, Seattle manager Scott Servais said. We've got to come out tomorrow with the same kind of fire in our belly, because it was there today.

Houston didnt help its cause matching a season-high with the three errors, two of which directly led to runs. Jose Altuves errant relay throw in the third inning allowed Mike Ford to score. In the fifth, Kyle Tuckers throw from right field skipped away from third baseman Alex Bregman and into the Houston dugout allowing Julio Rodriguez to score.

We didnt play real well tonight. Kind of threw the ball around and then we didnt back up the bases a couple times, so we didnt play well tonight, Astros manager Dusty Baker said.

Seattle also got a sacrifice fly from Rodriguez, and RBI singles from Cal Raleigh and Teoscar Hernandez as the Mariners played with a lead for the first time in nearly a week. During its four-game losing streak, Seattle held the lead for only one half-inning.

Ty France homered for the first time since Aug. 15 with a solo shot in the eighth.

But Kirby (12-10) was the story for Seattle on a night the Mariners needed their young righty at his best.

When you have the lead and you have George on the mound you feel really comfortable, Hernandez said.

Kirby allowed five hits and struck out four, but it was his escape act in the first inning that set the tone. Houston loaded the bases with one out, but Altuve was thrown out at home on Jose Abreus grounder and Yainer Diaz grounded out to shortstop J.P. Crawford to end the threat.

From there, Kirby cruised. He retired 13 straight before Jeremy Penas one-out single in the fifth. Pena was quickly retired after Raleigh threw out his 12th steal attempt in the month of September. Raleigh has caught 24 runners trying to steal this season, most in the majors.

Kirby has won his last two starts after a rough start to September.

You just got to keep trusting your stuff and I'm not going to stray away from keep attacking the zone, Kirby said. I did a really good job of that tonight and sometimes you get rewarded for it.

Houston starter Cristian Javier (9-5) didnt make it through the fifth inning. Javier had to throw 34 pitches to get through the third inning and was lifted in the fifth after a single by Josh Rojas and a walk to Rodriguez.

Reliever Rafael Montero didnt fare better, allowing all four batters he faced to reach. Raleighs single scored Rojas and Tuckers throwing error let Rodriguez jog home. Raleigh scored on Hernandezs single.

Houston threatened in the seventh inning and Jon Singletons sacrifice fly with the bases loaded scored one run. But Matt Brash struck out Altuve and got a ground ball from Bregman to end the inning.

SCARY MOMENT

There was an unexpected moment of anxiousness for Kirby in the sixth inning after a foul ball hit into the stands behind the third base dugout was thrown back by a fan and grazed the pitcher. Kirby was looking toward home plate and asking for a new ball from the umpire.

The ball rolled over to first baseman Ty France, who threw it out of play.

It was an impressive throw. Ill give him that, Kirby said. But, you know, what the heck?

The fan was quickly identified by stadium officials and escorted from their seat.

UP NEXT

Astros: LH Framber Valdez (12-11, 3.39) has struck out 10 batters in two of his past three starts but lost both of those outings. Valdez gave up six earned runs in 5 1/3 innings in his last start against Kansas City.

Mariners: RHP Bryce Miller (8-6, 4.17) makes what could be his final start of the regular season. Miller has lost his last two decisions and Seattle has lost the last four games Miller has started. Miller was tagged for six runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings in his last start against Texas.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
A Georgia city has been named one of Southern Livings Best Places to Retire in the South.

The travel publication looked at factors like cost of living, home values, access to hospitals and continuing education to compile the list, which includes 12 cities in 2023.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

All 12 offer excellent quality of life and make sense financially, according to Southern Living.

Savannah made the list as the best place to retire for the arts and culture. Savannah, with a population of just under 150,000, has historic charm, 70 parks with trees draped in Spanish moss and easy access to Tybee Island.

Nicknamed the Hostess City of the South, Savannah is also a hub for the arts. Savannah College of Art and Design fills nearly 70 buildings downtown and hosts an annual sidewalk arts festival, Chalk of the Town.

TRENDING STORIES:

The city also offers year-round events ranging from jazz festivals to the notorious annual St. Patricks Day parade.

But you dont have to see a show or visit a gallery to appreciate the artistic side of Savannah.

The city itself is a lesson in style, dating back to 1733 when Gen. James Oglethorpe designed the layout with six squares, Southern Living writes. Now there are 22 that are green and inviting. Carefully tended historic houses and cultural offeringsfrom the Telfair Museums to the Savannah Philharmonicplease eyes and ears.

You can take a trolley ride through picturesque squares, or if youre into spooky sights and sounds, the city is home to dozens of historic cemeteries.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Here are the other cities that made the list:

Best all-around: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Best for healthy living: Beaufort, North Carolina

Best for outdoor enthusiasts: Abingdon, Virginia

Best for home buying: Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Best mountain town: Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Best for food lovers: Greenville, South Carolina

Best beach town: St. Augustine, Florida

Best access to nature: Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Best for lifelong learning: Lexington, Kentucky

Best for affordability: Huntsville, Alabama

Best city for lovers: Forth Worth, Texas
A federal judge in Atlanta has denied a conservative groups request for an injunction to stop a Black women-owned venture capitalist firm from awarding grants exclusively to Black women entrepreneurs.

The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER ) had argued that the Fearless Funds grant program amounted to racial discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Judge Thomas Thrash, Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge of Northern District of Georgia, denied the groups request for a preliminary injunction to halt the firms grant selection process while the lawsuit goes to trial, saying the case was a matter of free speech and charitable donations fall under the purview of the First Amendment.

The judges ruling today tells me that there are people in this world who respect progress and allow people to express their freedom of speech, and we are so grateful, Fearless Fund co-founder and CEO Arian Simone told CNN. Its encouraging to know that laws are still in place to protect us.

AAER told CNN they are disappointed with the courts denial and have appealed the decision.

Our nations civil rights laws do not permit racial distinctions because some racial groups are overrepresented in various endeavors, while others are under-represented, said AAER founder Edward Blum in an email response to CNN.

Blum is the same conservative activist behind Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court case whose June ruling dismantled affirmative action in college admissions.

Fearless Fund is an Atlanta-based company that was started in 2019 to break down the barriers Black women face trying to secure resources and funding for growing their business. Their website lists corporate giants including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Fifth Third Bank and Mastercard as partners. Fearless Fund runs a separate non-profit organization called the Fearless Foundation, where it gives charitable donations and grants to women of color entrepreneurs, according to co-founder and COO Ayana Parsons.

Simone said the venture capitalist firm is the first of its kind built by women of color, for women of color.

Women of color are the least funded but the most founded, said Simone, adding that Black women statistically make up the majority of small business owners, but receive the least amount of funding compared to other demographics.

It was one of Fearless Foundations grants, the Strivers Grant Contest, which exclusively awards Black women entrepreneurs up to $20,000, that was the target of AAERs complaint.

In early August, Blum filed a lawsuit on behalf of AAER against the Fearless Fund and its foundation. The group argued that their members, un-named in the lawsuit, were excluded from the program because they werent Black, and faced additional harm from the illegal act of racial discrimination, AAERs attorneys stated in the court hearing.

Blum told CNN that venture capital funding gaps between the races is never a legal or moral justification to exclude certain men and women from public programs by race or ethnicity.

He added that AAER believes it is legally permissible to provide benefits to businesses and individuals who are under-resourced but those benefits must be made available to all races and ethnicities.

During closing remarks, Judge Thrash said his understanding was that the Fearless Fund is trying to get a message across that Black women lack access to capital funds, a problem they recognize and are trying to address.

The Plaintiff wants them to communicate a different message, Thrash said. Thats not the way it works.

AAERs attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

The lawsuit caught the attention of civil rights activist and leader Rev. Al Sharpton, who said he views it as evidence the fight over affirmative action is expanding beyond school grounds. In a news release on Monday, Rev. Sharpton said that the case could have larger consequences for DEI initiatives across corporate America and could pave the way for future lawsuits targeting race-conscious diversity programs  across all kinds of public and private sectors.

In the month after the Supreme Courts landmark affirmative action decision, conservatives put top Fortune 100 companies on notice. Thirteen Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to top companies including Apple, Google, Netflix and others, arguing the courts ruling on affirmative action also applied to employers.

[We] write to remind you of your obligations as an employer under federal and state law to refrain from discriminating on the basis of race, whether under the label of diversity, equity, and inclusion or otherwise, the letter read. Treating people differently because of the color of their skin, even for benign purposes, is unlawful and wrong. Companies that engage in racial discrimination should and will face serious legal consequences.

Outside the federal courthouse after the judge denied AAERs motion, Sharpton stood with Simone and Parsons, the Fearless Fund co-founders.

We won the first round but the fight is not over  were going to keep on fighting, and were going to fight wherever this reactionary group raises his [sic] head, he told the crowd of supporters and media gathered.

Parsons told CNN that she believes the lawsuit is bigger than the Fearless Fund, venture capital or corporate America.

Ive been a corporate executive my entire career, and yes diversity, equity and inclusion is under attack, she said. I hope that the American people understand the magnitude of this lawsuit and how it impacts and affects all of us.

She said Fearless Fund is not afraid of what comes next in the legal process, but emphasized her belief that this is an attempt to dismantle the economic freedom and progress being made in the country.

This is about anything that is race-conscious decision making and trying to include those that have long been excluded, Parsons said.

As a Black business owner, Sophia Danner-Okotie said she couldnt get a loan despite showing proof of growth and contract opportunities she had lined up with retailers.

Were definitely under-funded and its felt  its felt hard, she told CNN. Danner-Okotie said she has received a $10,000 grant from the Fearless Foundation.

Not being able to go to a bank and get funding - that kills your courage sometimes, that kills your ambition, she said. So Fearless Foundation stepping in and saying, Were going to help you with this mission. We believe in what youre doing, and we want to help you grow this business. That was a boost to my business and ego as well.

This is not the end of the line for AAERs lawsuit. While Judge Thrash denied a preliminary injunction to pause the grant program, the case itself continues in the Northern District.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis denounced Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over a recent letter demanding documents on her criminal indictment of former President Trump, which she interpreted as a threat.

In this job, and as a woman in general standing in this position, to threaten me is a waste of time, Willis said at the Revolt World Festival in Atlanta on Sunday.

Williss official response to Jordans letter questioned his understanding of the law, deriding his attempt to interfere with and obstruct this offices prosecution, and said her response wasnt even needed because settled constitutional law clearly permits me to ignore your unjustified and illegal intrusion.

Its not going to get anyone results and I dont care if its a member of Congress, I dont care if its a local someone in the community, one thing that people learn about me is that Im an equal opportunity prosecutor, Willis said Sunday. So, if you come into this community and you violate the law, youre going to be held accountable.

The prosecutor has frequently shaken off questions about her ethics and capability to equitably prosecute, as well as threats to her life and her family. She said she and her mother were doxxed and harassed by people online after the Trump indictment.

Willis said the job is bigger than just going after a prosecution, but also about stepping up for her community.

What they dont do is sit in my seat. I am the one there with the crying mama, which usually looks like me, and theyre telling me stories like My baby was going to graduate so we buried him in his cap and gown, she said. It is not until youve had that kind of burden on your shoulders that you understand why its so important, that people have value.

The trial for two of the 19 defendants charged in the sprawling racketeering case over election fraud claims starts next month. The other 17 defendants, including Trump, will face trial in Georgia early next year pending attempts by some defendants to get their case moved to federal court.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Federal Minister of the Interior and Home Affairs Nancy Faeser speaks during the government questioning in the plenary session in the German Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday Sept. 20, 2023. (Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

BERLIN (AP)  The German government on Wednesday banned a far-right, racist group known for its indoctrination of children as police raided dozens of homes of its members and other buildings early in the morning.

A statement from the German interior ministry said it banned the Artgemeinschaft group, an anti-democratic association with around 150 members. All of its sub-organizations, including the Gefaehrtschaften, Gilden, Freundeskreise, and Familienwerk e.V., were also banned, the ministry said.

We are banning a sectarian, deeply racist and antisemitic association," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.

This is another hard blow against right-wing extremism and (those) who continue to spread Nazi ideologies to this day, she said, adding that the organization had attempted to indoctrinate their children and young people with their anti-democratic ideology.

Under the cover of a pseudo-religious Germanic belief in gods, the Artgemeinschaft spread its Nazi world view, the ministry said.

The group's central goal was the preservation and promotion of ones own kind, which can be equated with the National Socialist term 'race', according to the statement.

In addition to the ideology of racial doctrine, the symbolism, narratives and activities of the group showed further parallels to the Nazis' ideology.

The group gave its members instructions on how to choose a "proper spouse" within the Northern and Central European human kind in order to pass on the correct genetic makeup according to the associations racist ideology. People of other origins were degraded, the ministry said in its statement.

In early morning raids across 12 states, police searched 26 apartments of 39 group members as well as the organization's club houses.

Last week, the German government banned the neo-Nazi group Hammerskins Germany and raided homes of dozens of its members. The group was an offshoot of an American ring-wing extremist group and played a prominent role in the far-right scene across Europe.
BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities raided dozens of locations nationwide on Wednesday after interior minister Nancy Faeser banned a right-wing extremist group accused of spreading Nazi ideology.

The headquarters of the group, dubbed "Artgemeinschaft", as well as 26 homes belonging to 39 members were searched in the early hours across 12 states, the interior ministry said in a statement.

"This is another hard blow against right-wing extremism and against the intellectual arsonists who continue to spread Nazi ideologies to this day," Faeser said.

"This right-wing extremist group has tried to raise new enemies of the constitution with its disgusting indoctrination of children and young people."

German authorities this month banned another neo-Nazi group, "Hammerskins Deutschland" with roots in the United States and raided the homes of 28 members after an investigation lasting more than a year in co-operation with U.S. officials.

(Reporting by Friederike Heine; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
FILE - A officer of German Federal Police stops a van to search for immigrants at the border crossing from Poland into Germany in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, Oct. 28, 2021. Germany will increase its police patrols along "smuggling routes" on the border with Poland the Czech Republic in an effort to prevent more migrants from entering the country, it was announced Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

BERLIN (AP)  Germany announced Wednesday it will increase police patrols along smuggling routes on the border with Poland and the Czech Republic in an effort to prevent more migrants from entering the country.

The new measures would begin immediately, said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser . The announcement came a day after police raids in Germany found more than 100 Syrian citizens inside apartments searched in connection with a smuggling ring.

Faeser did not offer any details on how many more border police officers would be deployed but stressed that no fixed border checks would be installed as Germany has been doing along the border with Austria since 2015. In order to introduce such controls, Germany would have to notify the European Commission.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner wrote later on Wednesday on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, that his ministry would support the increased border control with additional customs officers.

Border controls are to be intensified to stop smuggling and illegal migration," he wrote. To ensure that this succeeds quickly, I have decided that customs will support this urgent task with 500 staff.

Faeser said the new border controls would take place in close cooperation with Poland and the Czech Republic, and would supplement the mobile police patrols already checking cars crossing the border or people trying to enter Germany on foot.

We must stop the cruel business of smugglers who put human lives at risk for maximum profit, Faeser said.

Many migrants from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere have been trying to get to Germany to apply for asylum. Cities and communities across Germany have been sounding the alarm about the rising number of arrivals, saying they are running out of room to accommodate them and provide kindergarten and school places.

This year, more than 220,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in the period from January to August. In all of 2022, about 240,000 people applied for asylum. Those numbers are still a far cry from 2015-16, when more than 1 million migrants applied for asylum in Germany.

However, in addition to migrants, Germany has also taken in more than 1 million Ukrainians fleeing Russia's brutal war on their country.

About one quarter of all migrants who reach Germany come with the help of smugglers on dangerous routes across the Mediterranean Sea and through forests along the Balkans route, Faeser said. They usually pay thousand of dollars to reach Germany.

However, even if migrants get stopped on the border by police because they don't have valid entry documents, they can still come to Germany if they apply for asylum.

We want to prevent evasive movements by smugglers through flexible and mobile checks at changing locations, Faeser said. At the same time, we will ensure that the controls have as little impact as possible on people, commuters and commerce in everyday life.

Faeser also pointed out that for a significant reduction of irregular migration, a joint European asylum system remains the decisive step," meaning that the EUs external borders must be strictly checked so that migrants cannot even reach countries like Germany, located in the center of the bloc.

___

Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
A white-hulled MQ-4C Triton accelerated down a runway in Guam before lifting off into dark clouds. The video, captured August 18 by the US Navy, was recorded to mark a modest milestone in the drone program. The Navys Tritons have now reached initial operating capability, meaning that enough aircraft, spare parts, and crew are available to use the vehicles as intended. The Triton, the Navys version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk flown by the Air Force since 2001, is an eye in the sky, tasked with watching the ocean.

Located over 3,700 miles west from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and just over 1,800 miles east from the coast of China, Guam is a centerpiece literally and figuratively in the plans and ability of the United States to operate in the Pacific Ocean. The Triton is a flying sensor platform, built for long endurance and maritime domain awareness, or watching and tracking action on the sea below. The Navys P-8 Poseidon, a crewed maritime surveillance plane based on the Boeing 737 airline airframe, flies with a nine-person team on board. Being able to have drones perform some of this type of observation, with fresh human crews on the ground swapping out multiple times mid-flight, means that the Navy can maintain surveillance for an extended time.

It takes a team of five to operate the Triton. That means someone to manage the drones flight, two people to manage its different sets of sensors, one person in charge of the signals it sends and collects, and a coordinator in charge of the whole operation. The Triton has a wingspan of 130 feet, meaning that its wings stretch wider than those on a 737 . It flies at a cruising cruising speed of about 368 mph .

[Related: The US militarys tiniest drone feels like it flew straight out of a sci-fi film ]

We have been successfully operating Triton in Guam for several years, and now we have expanded this platforms capabilities far beyond those it started with, said Josh Guerre, MQ-4C Triton program manager, in a release .

Two Tritons were first deployed to Guam, as part of the Navys Unmanned Patrol Squad 19 (shortened to VUP-19), in January 2020 through October 2022 . That time allowed for significant observations to be made in how the drones operated, and meant that when the Navy redeployed them this summer to Guam, the drones sensors had received a major upgrade.

Those sensors are likely the signals intelligence (SIGINT) sensor upgrades boasted about earlier by Triton maker Northrop Grumman: "Triton Multi-INT gets its name from the addition of two new SIGINT sensors: one that gathers electronic intelligence and one that gathers communications intelligence. We've also removed an older electronic support measures sensor and installed a new, more capable version of the electro-optical infrared sensor flying on Triton today, said Rob Zmarzlak, chief engineer for Northrop Grumman's Autonomous ISR and Targeting Programs, in a release .

One of the distinct challenges of watching for activity on the ocean, as compared to scanning for action on the ground, is that the vast and largely uniform expanse of the sea can be especially devoid of human activity, outside of major sea lanes. By listening for the signals given off from boats and ships, the Triton can more reliably find useful activity onto which it can train its cameras.

Northrop Grumman boasts that the Triton can, from an altitude of 50,000 feet and on a mission lasting 24 hours, survey four million nautical miles. Thats a major delivery on the promise of the Triton, which first flew in 2013. As Popular Science said at the time , its high altitude flights will allow it to take in a 2,000-nautical-mile view of the ocean in every direction and then it will be able to tell a container ship from a Chinese frigate from a surfacing Russian submarinefrom up to 2,000 nautical miles away (we felt that point was worth stressing here). Tritons strengthened airframe, augmented with de-icing technology, will then allow it to rapidly descend and ascend, so it can swoop in for a closer look at vessels of particular interest.

Even as the Navy prepares for Tritons to become a regular part of operations, USNI News reports that the Navy is looking to halt the production of Tritons at just 27 total units, down from the original plan of 70. The Triton is useful for extensive watching of the sea, especially in conjunction with other tools, but it comes with a serious price tag. For 2022, the unit cost of each Triton was roughly $141 million . Even as the US Navy scales down the number of Tritons it is looking to buy and maintain, Australia is looking to expand the number of Tritons it will use and operate from three to four .

Watch the Tritons ascent in Guam below:

https://twitter.com/flynavy/status/1702396002735628773
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann was back in court in New York on Wednesday to face charges for the murders of three women whose bodies were found dumped along the shores of Long Island.

In the court hearing in Suffolk County Court, prosecutors said that a DNA sample taken from the 59-year-old architect had now tied him further to the murders.

A cheek swab was taken from him following a court order last month. Prosecutors said it now matches DNA found on a discarded pizza crust  and in turn a hair found on the body of Megan Waterman.

Mr Heuermann, a married father-of-two, was arrested on 13 July and charged with the murders of Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello in what marked a major development into the infamous Gilgo Beach murders. He is also the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

All four women worked as sex workers and disappeared after going to meet a client. Their bodies were found in December 2010 bound by belts or tape and some wrapped in burlap.

In total, remains of 11 victims were found along the Long Island shores in 2010 and 2011.

Key points

Rex Heuermann appears in court for third time

New DNA evidence ties suspect to discarded pizza crust  and Gilgo Beach victim

Suspects family want guns returned

Who is the architect charged in Gilgo Beach murders?

PICTURED: Rex Heuermann in court

17:20 , Rachel Sharp

Rex Heuermann appears with his lawyer Michael J. Brown, left, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, (AP)

Rex Heuermann appears with his lawyer Michael J. Brown (AP)

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney looks on during Rex Heuermanns court appearance (AP)

New DNA evidence ties Rex Heuermann to discarded pizza crust  and Gilgo Beach victim

16:50 , Rachel Sharp

New DNA evidence has tied Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann to a discarded pizza crust  and, in turn, one of the three women he is accused of murdering.

The 59-year-old architect and married father-of-two appeared in Suffolk County Court on Wednesday morning for a pre-trial conference in the case that has rocked Long Island for more than a decade.

Sporting a new shorter haircut, the suspected killer looked on as prosecutors unveiled further damning evidence linking him to the murders since his arrest in July.

A cheek swab had been taken from Mr Heuermann following a court order last month.

Read the full story here

The pizza crust evidence

16:30 , Rachel Sharp

Rex Heuermann was tied to the murders through DNA found on one of the victims.

In court documents following his 13 July arrest, prosecutors said that a male hair had been found on the burlap used to wrap Megan Watermans body before the killer dumped her along Gilgo Beach.

When the hair was first retrieved in 2010, it was unsuitable for DNA analysis, according to the court documents.

But that hair was kept safely locked away and was submitted for analysis in 2020. A DNA profile came back.

A pizza box discarded by Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann was used to link him to the killings through DNA (Suffolk County DA)

Now, to check if it matched Mr Heuermann, investigators needed his DNA to compare the samples.

This January, a surveillance team watching the suspect saw him chuck a pizza box into the trash close to his office in Manhattan. They nabbed the box and found a leftover pizza crust inside.

The forensics came back: it was Mr Heuermanns hair found on Watermans body, prosecutors said.

Heuermanns cheek swab matches DNA found on discarded pizza crust  and victims body: prosecutors

16:09 , Rachel Sharp

In the court hearing, prosecutors said that a DNA sample taken from Rex Heuermann since his arrest has now tied him further to one of the murders.

A cheek swab was taken from the 59-year-old accused killer following a court order last month.

Now, prosecutors say the swab matches DNA found on a discarded pizza crust  and in turn a victims body.

The pizza crust had been seized from a trash can outside Mr Heuermanns office in Midtown Manhattan.

It was then tested and found to be a match to a hair found on the body of Megan Waterman.

Rex Heuermann sports new haircut as he appears in court for third time over Gilgo Beach murders

15:53 , Rachel Sharp

#Breaking Appearing in court w/fresh haircut, accused #GilgoBeach serial killer #RexHeuermann tells judge hes reviewing evidence against him: Ive been averaging two to three hours a day. DA Ray Tierney told court defendants cheek swab matched pizza DNA. pic.twitter.com/gLDSodXjGb  Mary Murphy (@MurphyPIX) September 27, 2023

Thousands of pages of evidence turned over in court

15:25 , Rachel Sharp

In the court hearing, prosecutors told the judge that they had handed over thousands of pages of evidence so far in the case.

Rex Heuermann is charged with the murders of three women whose remains were found along the shores of Gilgo Beach in December 2010.

His affidavit states that he was tied to the case thanks to a pimps tip about his pickup truck, a stash of burner phones and DNA evidence  obtained through his wifes hair and a pizza crust.

Now, another 8,000 pages of discovery have been turned over since the last court date in August and another 5,000 pages this morning as the state builds its case against the accused killer, reported News12.

Rex Heuermann in court in Suffolk County

15:08 , Rachel Sharp

We are waiting outside the courthouse where #GilgoBeach murder suspect #RexHeuermann is expected to face a judge later this morning. https://t.co/0tZQ4DUf1s pic.twitter.com/VIHADvnmsJ  Jenn Seelig (@jennseeligtv) September 27, 2023

ICYMI: Rex Heuermann continued to show disturbing online behaviour in the days before arrest

14:37 , Rachel Sharp

Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann continued to show disturbing behaviour right up until his arrest for the murders of three women, according to the top investigator on the case.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told Newsday in August that he also wouldnt rule out the possibility that Mr Heuermann may have been preparing to kill again at the time of the arrest.

Mr Harrison said that law enforcement saw some concerning actions from the married father-of-two while he was under surveillance before his arrest last month.

I cant talk about if he was preparing to kill again, he said.

Hes somebody that was still engaging in activity that was disturbing, be it his internet searches, be it engaging in other activities that he shouldnt be engaging in.

Commissioner Harrison added that he was very, very passionate about keeping eyes on Mr Heuermann up until his arrest because we need to see what his lifestyle is.

The accused killer had been on the radar of Long Island police for months  not long after the newly-appointed commissioner launched a new taskforce to crack the unsolved Gilgo Beach serial killer case back in January 2022.

After surveilling him for months, officers swooped on the architect as he left his office in Manhattan on 13 July.

What to expect in court today:

14:10 , Rachel Sharp

Rex Heuermann will return to court in New York today where he faces charges for the murders of three women whose bodies were found dumped along the shores of Long Island.

The 59-year-old architect is scheduled to appear in Suffolk County Court for a pre-trial conference at 9.30am on Wednesday morning.

At the hearing, Justice Timothy Mazzei could rule on a motion seeking to return the accused killers stash of guns to his family.

Prosecutors and the defence will also discuss other matters surrounding evidence in the case.

WATCH: Gilgo Beach murders victim Jane Doe 7 identified as Karen Vergata

13:54 , Rachel Sharp

Manhattan architect, family man and accused serial killer: Who is Rex Heuermann?

12:30 , Rachel Sharp

His Manhattan business describes him as a registered architect with over 30 years experience.

His neighbours describe him as a family man living with his wife and two children in a tight-knit community in Suffolk County.

But now authorities are describing him as the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer who unleashed terror along the shores of Long Island more than a decade ago.

Who is Rex Heuermann?

WATCH: Moment Gilgo Beach suspect arrested in crowded New York street

11:50 , Rachel Sharp

Who are the Gilgo four?

11:20 , Rachel Sharp

The remains of at least 11 victims were found in the Gilgo Beach area though it remains unclear if they are all the work of the same killer. Many were sex workers who offered escort services on Craigslist or worked in New York City.

The first victim found was Melissa Barthelemy, whose remains were discovered along Ocean Parkway on 11 December 2010 during the search for Shannan Gilbert  a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey who vanished after visiting a client in Oak Park and making a chilling 911 call where she revealed fears for her life.

Two days later on 13 December, the remains of three other victims  Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello  were found close by.

All three women were known to advertise escort services on Craigslist.

Brainard-Barnes  known as one of the Gilgo Beach Four  was last seen alive in early June 2007 in New York City while Costello was last seen leaving her North Babylon home one day in early September 2010.

Waterman was last seen alive in early June 2010 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge.

Brainard-Barnes, Waterman, Costello and Barthelemy are together known as the Gilgo Four.

Mr Heuermannis charged with the murders of Waterman, Barthelemy and Costello but is yet to be charged with Brainard-Barnes murder.

How the Gilgo Beach serial killer turned the Long Island shore into a graveyard

10:50 , Rachel Sharp

For around two decades, the sands and marshes of Long Islands Gilgo Beach kept a dark secret.

A killer or killers roamed the locality, luring in escorts and sex workers and brutally murdering them.

Body after body was dumped along the shoreline, hidden for months and even years without being discovered.

Then, in 2010, a chilling 911 call made by a woman in fear for her life led police to search the area.

What they discovered was far more horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

Over the next year, the remains of 11 victims  mainly female escorts  were discovered dumped in the area, plunging the Suffolk County community into terror.

But, the case went cold and no arrests were made, no suspects were named and there was no justice for the victims and their families. That is, until now.

In July, local married father-of-two Rex Heuermann was arrested on suspicion of being the infamous serial killer. The 59-year-old has been charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello and is also the prime suspect in the murder of a fourth woman Maureen Brainard-Barnes  who was last seen alive in New York City in early June 2007.

Now, the question is: now an arrest has been made, is the hunt for the Gilgo Beach serial killer finally over?

How the Gilgo Beach serial killer turned the Long Island shore into a graveyard

HAPPENING TODAY: Rex Heuermann due back in court

10:40 , Rachel Sharp

Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann will return to court in New York where he faces charges for the murders of three women whose bodies were found dumped along the shores of Long Island.

The 59-year-old architect is scheduled to appear in Suffolk County Supreme Court for a pre-trial conference on Wednesday morning.

At the hearing, the judge could rule on a motion seeking to return the accused killers stash of guns to his family.

Mr Heuermanns wife Asa Ellerup has asked that the trove of around 200 guns seized during a search of their home in Massapequa Park be given back.

Prosecutors and the defence will also discuss other matters surrounding evidence in the case.

Mr Heuermann is expected to appear in person for the hearing.

Welcome to The Independents liveblog

10:29 , Rachel Sharp

Follow updates as Rex Heuermann appears in court for a pre-trial conference in the Gilgo Beach murders case.
Rex Heuermann, the New York architect accused of slaying at least three women found near Long Islands Gilgo Beach, revealed Wednesday that he is spending hours a day reviewing the grisly case from his jail cell.

Ive been averaging two to three hours a day, Heuermann, who was handcuffed behind his back, told Judge Timothy Mazzei on Wednesday, according to PIX11. Im allowed up to four hours.

The admission was the only time Heumermann spoke during his brief status hearing on his upcoming trial for the 2009 and 2010 murders of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Costello. Heuermann, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, also remains the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who went missing in July 2007.

Estranged Wife of Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Battling Cancer, Lawyer Says

All four women, who were working as escorts, were found close together in a case now known as the Gilgo Four. Investigators say the women were among at least 11 bodies that were found along the shore between 2010 and 2011.

Since Heuermanns arrest, the investigation has escalated to involve officials in several other states and extensive searches of the architects home in Massapequa Park and a nearby storage unit. Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the investigation into the other bodies is ongoing.

During the hearing, prosecutors revealed that they had already handed the defense team over 10 terabytes of information related to the years-long investigation. On Wednesday, prosecutors also handed over an additional 5,000 pages of evidence related to two of the victims, police memo books from Heuermanns home, and video surveillance.

The new discovery also included DNA evidence from a cheek swab taken from Heuermann last month, which they said matched DNA found in a pizza box that was instrumental in his July arrest. The DNA was found on a pizza crust in the discarded box outside of Heuermann's Manhattan office. Previously, prosecutors said that the DNA in the box also matched a hair found on Waterman in 2010.

The buccal swab erases all doubt, Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said during the hearing.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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A girl has been stabbed to death in south London as she and her friends made their way to school.

Witnesses reported the 15-year-old was stabbed in the neck with a foot-long knife after she refused flowers from a boy, causing chaos during the morning rush hour, with teenagers and commuters screaming in panic.

Police and paramedics were called at 8.30am to reports a girl had suffered stab wounds on Wellesley Road, near the Whitgift shopping centre.

Police and paramedics were called to a stabbing in Croydon on Wednesday morning (Ragu Pathy)

A bus driver and a passer-by had initially battled to save her life, while two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victims friends, tried to get through the police cordon.

Despite the best efforts of the London Ambulance Service and Air Ambulance, she was pronounced dead at the scene at 9.21am.

Have you been affected by this story? If so email holly.evans@independent.co.uk

Following information provided to the police, a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington just over an hour later and remains in custody.

Old Palace of John Whitgift School, a private all-girls school in Croydon, confirmed that the victim had been a much-loved and valued friend and pupil and sent their condolences to her family.

Her family were reportedly told the news by their daughters friends and were devastated by the news.

One witness described how he and others had chased a boy, who was carrying a knife which was black, thin and about a foot long.

A bouquet of roses left at the scene where the girl was killed (Lucy North/PA Wire)

Security worker Victor Asare said: It looked like the girl didnt want the boy to come closer.

He then described a boy stabbing the girl in the neck with a black knife.

A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus. [The boy] ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. Its somebodys daughter.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain described it as every parents worst nightmare (Lucy North/PA Wire)

A TfL bus was cordoned off by emergency services, while resuscitation efforts continued for 40 minutes.

A mother-of-two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her. The driver was holding her, and a lady.

A statement from Old Palace of John Whitgift School said: We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girls family at this unimaginably distressing time.

Forensic investigators examining a bus after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death (Lucy North/PA Wire)

A white tent was erected on the pavement while a number of police cars surrounded the Route 60 bus, which had been heading towards Streatham Station.

Around three police vehicles and a dozen officers remained, while a bunch of flowers had been placed next to the forensic tent.

James Watkins, from Mainz World which runs prevention and intervention projects for children and young people, said he met with the family at the scene between 9am and 10am and that they were devastated.

Paramedics battled to save the girls life but she was pronounced dead less than an hour later (The Independent)

He added: I came down to support the family and some of the young people.

We were with the family this morning. They were devastated and I would say more importantly in shock, I dont think it feels real for them.

Speaking to the Independent, Katia Brito, 22, said: I arrived at the scene at 9.02am and the two buses had stopped. The tent was up and emergency services were trying to keep her alive. Kids were running under the underpass.

Describing it as a hotspot area, community activist Daniyel Thomas said: This is a travesty. We need to galvanise the community.

Forensics at the scene around the Route 60 bus (Lucy North/PA Wire)

We need local patrols and fathers of the community to watch the streets, this is a hotspot area.

Chief Superintendent Brittain, in charge of local policing, said: This is every parents worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victims death.

This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

The victims family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

In response to the news, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: I am absolutely heartbroken by the death of a 15-year-old girl in Croydon this morning.

A teenage boy has been arrested by the Met Police in connection with the incident (Jordan Reynolds/PA Wire)

My thoughts and prayers are with this young girls family and friends, and the whole community, at this unimaginably awful time.

An arrest has been made in connection with this incident and I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner.

The Mayor of Croydon, Jason Perry, wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter): I am devastated to hear that the teenage girl who was stabbed in the town centre this morning has tragically died. The Council are in touch with the police and will fully support their investigations. Our whole communitys thoughts are with the victims family and friends.

The schoolgirl is the 16th teenager to be murdered in the capital this year, 13 of whom were stabbed.

Anyone who witnessed the attack or has information that can help officers is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference CAD 1601/27Sep. To remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

More follows on this breaking news story
A Georgia man was arrested after being accused of keying a womans car with a pocket knife because she was parked in a handicap space.

James Michael Fay, 61, thought Syreeta Mack illegally parked in the spot at a Walmart in Buford, Georgia, last weekend and allegedly used the weapon to scratch her car, WSBTV reported. Both her children were in the vehicle at the time, and one started filming him.

James Michael Fay was reportedly charged with criminal trespass damage. (Photo: WSBTV/Youtube)

Mack, who recently underwent back surgery, had her handicap sign up as she visited the store on Sept. 23, but it was not wholly hanging on the dashboard, the outlet reported. Footage posted on Macks Facebook page shows the suspect near the vehicle and one of her daughters could be heard saying that he marked it.

Related: Every Hallway, Looks Pretty Much the Same: Texas State Trooper Shoots Black Neighbor After Mistaking Him for Home Intruder In Incident Resembling Botham Jean Case

I dont know who that is, but he just pulled out a knife and walked around the car, the child said. He was looking in the windows.

In another video, Mack approached Fay inside the store.

You wanted to park in a handicap spot with no tags, he said.

Yes, I do have a tag, Mack responded.

The two had a back-and-forth about the situation when Mack told him he was caught on video. She also said that she reported him to the police, but he doubled down that she didnt have the tags.

Lets walk out there together so you can see so I can embarrass you, she said. I dont know what gives you the right to damage my vehicle.

WATCH THE VIDEOS HERE.

Mack continued to trail Fay in the store while he checked out at the cash register before the video cut off. She recorded another video when Gwinnett County officers arrived and questioned Fay.

I was just trying to make sure that people were following the rules, Fay said, speaking to the police in the parking lot.

So, scratching the car is following the rules, the officer said sharply.

Mack explained to one of the officers that her daughter frantically called her while she was shopping. Her daughter quickly sent her the video, which is how she identified him inside the store.

Fay was charged with criminal trespass damage, a misdemeanor, according to WSB.

People need to mind the business that pays them, Mack told the outlet. If you feel like someone is doing something illegal, call the police. You dont have to step in and be a vigilante, because you can end up being a perp instead.
(Bloomberg) -- Glencore Plc and Seriti Resources Holdings Ltd. are in talks to cut hundreds of jobs in South Africa as their ability to export coal is stymied by inefficiencies at the state-run freight company.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Transnet SOC Ltd., which transports the fuel from mines in Mpumalanga province to Richards Bay Coal Terminal, has been hobbled by sabotage, cable theft and aging equipment. While it has taken steps to improve security and ease procurement rules to lower costs, performance has declined.

Transnets operations are a crucial cog in the countrys economy, the National Union of Mineworkers, a labor group, said in a statement calling for President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene. The situation is very dire.

Glencore started a so-called Section 189 process, beginning consultations with labor on job cuts, according to NUM. The process could affect more than 200 workers at its iMpunzi coal mining complex, online publication News24 reported earlier. The company declined to comment.

That adds to potential cuts of more than 600 workers at Seritis Klipspruit opencast mine, Chief Financial Officer Doug Gain said in a reply to questions on Sept. 20.

Lower coal prices have also added pressure on operations. European demand for the fuel surged after Russias invasion of Ukraine, pushing prices to $450 a ton but have since dropped by almost two-thirds.

Miners have tried to get around the railway challenges by using trucks to transport coal from mines to the coast, but thats become less attractive after prices dropped. Another coal producer, Exxaro Resources Ltd., has temporarily stopped shipping by road. Exxaro didnt respond to emails seeking comment.

Catastrophic Proportions

Transnet can only address its core challenges to ramp up volumes on its rail networks and ensure a stable operation in the export coal sector, the company said in a reply to questions. We are aware of the significant decline in the coal market prices and can only assume that this would have an impact in the number of jobs in the industry.

Ramaphosa described the constraints as a crisis of catastrophic proportions in a meeting with key exporters in April and created a task force that includes private companies to look for solutions.

Thungela Resources Ltd., South Africas largest shipper of coal for electricity generation, said it had reduced the number of underground sections at some operations and redeployed workers.

Rail constraints coupled with lower benchmark coal prices have weighed heavily on our performance, a spokesperson for Thungela said in an email response.

The NUM, which was co-founded by Ramaphosa and played a key role in resisting the apartheid government, said the lack of results and neglect of Transnet could endanger its backing of the African National Congress.

Such delays and the Transnet neglect threaten our ability to stand in support of the ruling party, it said.

(Adds Thungelas comment in 10th paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
PIXLEY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  A man has been arrested in Pixley for child molestation in Southern California after Glendora police requested assistance with his arrest to Tulare County law enforcement, the Tulare County Sheriffs Office says.

Detectives with the County Apprehension Team Targeting Criminal in Hiding say they received a request for help from the Glendora Police Department with finding and arresting 23-year-old Victor Arteaga last week, who was wanted on suspicion of child molestation in Southern California.

On Tuesday, Tulare County Sheriffs Office Detectives say they developed information regarding Arteagas whereabouts and tracked him down while working in the Pixley area. Arteaga was arrested without incident and released to the custody of the Glendora Police Department.

Sheriffs officials encourage anyone with information regarding the case to contact them at (559) 733-6218.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
GloRilla Is Ready To Trade In Her Natural Hair For A Perm: Im Not Doing This Again | Joseph Okpako

GloRilla was candid with her Instagram followers about her natural hair journey. On Tuesday, the Memphis artist recorded herself with her natural hair and expressed her frustration with the upkeep of it. In the short clip, she told her followers she was ready to start perming her hair after a year of being natural.

As the Blessed artist fingered through her thick tresses, she revealed braiding her hair gets to be painful. She admitted shes over the natural hair life and will leave that to her fellow thick-haired girls, according to HelloBeautiful.

After four, five months of keeping my braids in, cause I told yall I got the carpet hair, Im finna get a perm, she said. Because I gotta get my hair braided, and that sh*t hurt. Im not doing this again. In one more week, itll be [the] one-year anniversary since I had a perm.

Im not finna keep this natural sh*t going. Im keeping that for the b***hes that dont have this carpet-a** hair I got, GloRilla continued. Im gonna clock back in tomorrow after I do it, yall, she said as she closed out the video.

Natural hair care has become a trend over the last decade, with Black women wanting to leave the harsh chemicals behind. On the other hand, there are women who rock perms and find it easier to manage. Whether you wear wigs, sew-ins, protective hairstyles, or perms, your crown is beautiful.
Missing kayaker faked his own death ahead of court date: Sheriff

A missing kayaker from Louisiana has been arrested for faking his own death by drowning in an apparent bid to dodge rape charges, according to the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office.

Melvin Phillip Emde, 41, was arrested by authorities in Georgia over a month after his son, Seth, allegedly reported him missing.

Emde's son allegedly told police his father fell out of a kayak and drowned while on the Mississippi River in Hahnville, Louisiana, according to the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office.

MORE: Delivery driver bitten by venomous rattlesnake, hospitalized in very serious condition

After he was reported missing, detectives learned that Emde had pending charges of indecent liberties with a child and statutory rape of a child by an adult in North Carolina. He was due in court just one day after being reported missing, authorities said.

"We immediately became quite suspicious that this may have been a faked accidental drowning and death in order for Mr. Emde to escape charges in Brunswick County, North Carolina. However, we could not publicly expose our suspicions for fear of tipping him off," St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said in a statement.

PHOTO: Melvin Emde of Talihina, Oklahoma in a photo released by St. Charles Parish Sheriffs Office. (St. Charles Parish Sheriffs Office)

The sheriff's office discovered Emde was wearing an ankle monitor as a condition of bail. Further investigation revealed that Emde purchased two prepaid phones at a Walmart on the day of his alleged drowning, the sheriff's office said.

St. Charles Parish sheriff's detectives worked with authorities in North Carolina and the U.S. Marshals Service to track the phones. Police said Emde only used one of the phones and turned it on for short periods of time.

Detectives initially focused their search on Oklahoma until it became obvious that the phones were no longer being used.

MORE: Kilo of fentanyl stored on top of kids' play mats at day care where 1-year-old died: Prosecutors

On Sunday, a Georgia State Highway Patrol officer attempted to stop a motorcycle for not having a license plate, but the motorcycle fled and ultimately crashed.

The driver attempted to flee on foot but was taken into custody. The driver gave police a false name, but it was discovered that he was Melvin Emde when he was fingerprinted, according to the sheriff's office.

"Now it's time for Mr. Emde to face the music for his charges in North Carolina," Champagne said in a statement.

Missing kayaker faked his own death ahead of court date: Sheriff originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Brittany Tichenor remembers her daughter Isabella, whom she called Izzy, as the "sweetest person" she has ever met, someone who was resilient and amazing, a 10-year-old child whose eyes were "big and brown."

Those memories of her daughter as a vibrant fifth-grader make it harder, she says, to reconcile that her daughter died by suicide nearly two years ago, on Nov. 6, 2021.

"I just didn't know how bad it was," Tichenor told "Good Morning America" of Izzy's mental health struggles, which she said were a result of bullying. "I think she made a temporary decision in a moment of hurt, and I'll never forget that."

Tichenor said it was only after her daughter's death that she heard from other kids at her daughter's local public elementary school in their home state of Utah the full extent of the bullying she says Izzy endured.

"I knew part of it, and I kept calling the school. I kept calling the district. But I didn't know the severity of it," she said. "I told her, 'You can tell me anything,' and she normally did, but I kind of feel like she was trying to protect me. I just wish she had told me."

Tichenor said on some days, Izzy, who she said was autistic and was one of the few Black students in her school, would open up to her about the taunts she said she endured from her classmates and even some of her teachers.

"I know one thing, she was just tired of the kids at school," Tichenor said. "That's what she kept telling me. She said, 'They keep me making fun of the dot on my head.'"

PHOTO: Brittany Tichenor's daughter Izzy, pictured here, died by suicide (Brittany Tichenor)

Bullying in schools has been on the rise in recent years, according to a survey of over 130,000 kids ages 9 to 18 released in August by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

According to the survey, 40% of youth say they were bullied on school property in the past year -- up from 37% in 2022 -- while 18% of youth say they have experienced cyberbullying.

At the same time, data is also showing a growing mental health crisis among young people in the United States.

Approximately 5.8 million children in the U.S. had diagnosed anxiety between 2016 and 2019, and approximately 2.7 million kids had diagnosed depression in that same time period, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with recent years showing rising numbers of diagnoses for both mental health conditions.

MORE: Students speak out about bullying after fellow student dies by suicide

In 2021, a report from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned of a growing mental health crisis among young people. The report, issued during the coronavirus pandemic, cited statistics including a 51% increase in emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls and a doubling of anxiety and depression symptoms reported across genders.

That same year, suicide was the second leading cause of death for adolescents ages 10-14 and young adults ages 20-34 in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Tichenor said she was in the process of moving Izzy to a new school when her daughter died.

"I didn't want the next school she went to, to go and get bullied there," Tichenor said. "By the time I thought I found the perfect school, she had already took her life. I can't help but blame myself because I wish I would have gotten to it sooner."

In August, Tichenor and the school district Izzy attended, Davis School District, announced a $2 million settlement amid allegations that Izzy was bullied and that teachers and administrators had not stopped the reported harassment.

"Nobody knows the trauma of a parent who loses a kid," Tichenor said of what she's endured the past two years.

Correlation between bullying and suicide

When it comes to the connection between bullying and suicide, data shows there is a correlation, but experts say more research remains to be done.

The CDC defines bullying as "unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance." Bullying, the agency notes, is also a behavior that is repeated or can be repeated over time.

Both young people who report bullying others and those who report being bullied are at increased risk for suicide-related behavior, according to the CDC.

In recent years, the correlation between bullying and suicide has increased in the public eye as several families, including Tichenor, have spoken out publicly after losing a child to suicide.

In July, the parents of a 12-year-old girl who died by suicide after experiencing bullying reached a $9.1 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit against their local New Jersey school district, their lawyer said at the time.

In May, an elite boarding school, also in New Jersey, released a statement publicly admitting its failure to protect a 17-year-old student who died by suicide in 2022 after experiencing bullying.

That student's mother, Elizabeth Reid, told "Good Morning America" at the time, "What we've realized from our situation is that [bullying] can lead to death. This is a very serious issue. And the internet absolutely makes it even much worse for kids today."

In the nearly two years since Izzy's death, Tichenor, a mom of five, has made it her mission to make sure no other parent endures the loss of a child due to bullying or suicide.

She launched a nonprofit organization, Izzy's Village, that she described as a place for young people, particularly young people of color, to find support for bullying and mental health struggles.

Though she said she feels like a piece of her died when Izzy died, Tichenor said she continues to share her family's story also as a way to help educate other parents.

"I want people to know her story because I want other parents to check their kids on bullying," she said. "It's not OK."

Can an app help stop bullying and improve mental health?

In Utah, where Tichenor still lives, health officials are putting their hope into meeting kids where they already are -- on their phones -- to help them cope with mental health struggles.

SafeUT is an app where young people have access 24/7 to chat with a mental health professional and can submit a tip about mental health or bullying concerns regarding their peers.

The app was created by legislators, educators and public health officials in response to data showing that suicide is the leading cause of death for youth and young adults in Utah, according to Rachel Kay Lucynski, director of community crisis services with the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah.

Lucynski said the app now serves more than 885,000 elementary, middle and high school, and college students across the state.

PHOTO: SafeUT is a digital app that allows students and parents in Utah to seek mental health support. (SafeUT)

The app saw record usage last year, with more than 1 million messages recorded with mental health professionals and over 9,000 confidential tips submitted, according to Lucynski, who said the tips are triaged and responded to by behavioral health specialists as well.

The most commonly reported tip pertains to suicide, typically a young person reporting hearing a friend talk about hurting themselves. The second most commonly reported tip is general mental health concerns, followed by bullying, according to Lucynski.

"We know that students who even witness bullying, not just experience bullying, can be traumatized by that, and it can increase their level of mental health and behavioral health issues," Lucynski said, adding, "It obviously can have catastrophic impacts on someone's feelings of self worth, feelings of safety at school, and in really, unfortunately, extremely tragic situations can result in a student taking their own life or attempting to take their own life because of the bullying that they're experiencing."

Lucynski noted that parents and educators may also use the SafeUT app to report mental health concerns based on changes in kids' behaviors.

"We also want to remind parents that if they're seeing changes in their student's behavior, if they're seeing that they're withdrawn, that they're not as interested or engaged in social activities, or friends or extracurriculars like they used to be, or they have an extreme aversion to going to school ... there could be something else going on," she said. "So, we want parents to know that it's important that they talk to their students at home about what they're experiencing."

After losing her own daughter, Tichenor is now working with SafeUT to help launch an anti-bullying campaign and a parent advisory council.

"I just want parents to know this is serious," Tichenor said. "If as parents, we don't intervene or step in, this kind of stuff will keep happening, and I don't want it to happen to anybody else."

PHOTO: FILE - Brittany Tichenor-Cox holds a photo of her daughter, Isabella 'Izzy' Tichenor, during an interview on Nov. 29, 2021, in Draper, Utah. (Rick Bowmer/AP, FILE)

Tichenor said that looking back on her own experience, she wishes she had followed her parental instinct and sought help sooner.

"If [children] tell you something, that they're getting bullied, do what you need to do to protect them," she said. "And make sure you're there as a support 24/7."

Tichenor said parents should also make an effort to know who their kids' friends are at school, and to talk to their kids at home.

"Talk to them. Talk to them until they're blue in the face," Tichenor said. "Because whether your kid is doing the bullying, or they're the one getting bullied, it needs to be talked about."

Mental health experts say that when it comes to talking about mental health and even suicide with kids, more is better, noting that instead of putting the idea of suicide in a child's mind by talking about it, you're letting your child know that they can open up to you about their feelings.

PHOTO: SafeUT is a digital app that allows students and parents in Utah to seek mental health support. (SafeUT)

SafeUT offers resources for parents on its website about ways to talk about mental health, suicide and bullying with kids, including a document with ideas for "conversation starters" on those topics.

Tichenor said that in addition to parents talking with their kids, the willingness of a parent like Tichenor who has lost a child to suicide to speak out and share her story is just as impactful.

"I think it's very easy to read news stories or watch things online and think, 'Gosh, that's horrible, but it won't happen to me,'" Lucynski said. "But we really all need to stay alert and vigilant as a community for those of us who are suffering and how we can be that hope and that light for someone in a dark moment."

She added, "Not everyone who has experienced suicide loss is at a point in their grieving process where they're able to talk about it, so the fact that Brittany is able to share what the impact has been on her and make people more aware of this issue is extremely important ... and definitely has the potential to save lives."

If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.

Mom whose daughter died by suicide says parents need to talk with their kids originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Donald Trump , not for the first time, sparked criticism on Monday after he posted on his Truth Social platform knocking "liberal Jews who voted against America & Israel."

Elsewhere, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back on criticism out of Capitol Hill -- and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott weighed in on a new deal to help five American detainees leave Iran.

Those and other updates from the campaign trail, below.

MORE: How Trump has pushed House Republicans to go after Biden: 'They did it to me'

Blowback for Trump

Trump's message about Jewish people came on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It's not immediately clear what caused him to post what he did -- but the denunciations were swift. (His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

The American Jewish Committee wrote on X in response that it was "deeply offensive and divisive. As we approach one year until the next election, we urge political candidates from the top to the bottom of the ballot to avoid incendiary rhetoric."

PHOTO: Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the Pray Vote Stand Summit, organized by the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.. Sept. 15, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters, FILE)

"Next time you attack American Jews, think twice before about doing it on one of our holiest days. Your antisemitism is loud & clear," Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., added on the platform, formerly known as Twitter.

This is not the first controversial remark Trump has made about Jewish voters. In 2019, he criticized Jewish people who vote for Democrats, claiming it "shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty" -- apparently to Israel.

DeSantis returns to his House roots

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is fighting to be the main alternative to Trump in the GOP primary. But the former president isn't the only one he's fighting.

DeSantis has come under direct or indirect fire from other pillars of the GOP as his campaign falters in the polls and as Trump solidifies his yawning early primary lead. The governor is defending himself, but surveys of the Republican base suggest he has significant ground to make up in the final months before voting begins.

DeSantis, who served in the House before being elected governor, took on Speaker Kevin McCarthy , R-Calif., on Monday.

McCarthy, a Trump ally, had targeted DeSantis in a Sunday interview on Fox News, knocking DeSantis' chances of earning the GOP's presidential nomination.

MORE: GOP contenders collide in Washington, DeSantis shrugs at the polls and more trail takeaways

"Look, I served with Ron DeSantis -- he's not at the same level as President Trump by any shape or form. He would not have gotten elected without President Trump's endorsement," McCarthy said.

DeSantis returned fire Monday, highlighting McCarthy's ties to Trump.

"Donald Trump was instrumental in him earning that speaker's gavel, and they worked hand in glove really throughout his whole presidency. They were on the same team on every major spending bill that came down the pike and they ended up together adding $7.8 trillion to our national debt," DeSantis said at a press conference.

PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's fall banquet, Sept. 16, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (Bryon Houlgrave/AP)

Less money, more problems?

DeSantis was also hit with a financial setback on Monday when GOP megadonor and former Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said he would not donate to anyone in the party's presidential primary.

Griffin, who has a net worth of roughly $35 billion, gave millions to DeSantis' 2022 gubernatorial bid and said as recently as November said that the country "would be well-served by him as president."

But Griffin told CNBC in an interview that he's unsure if DeSantis will be able to gin up sufficient support to win nomination. (DeSantis' campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Griffin.)

"I'm still on the sidelines as to who to support in this election cycle," Griffin said. "Look, if I had my dream, we'd have a great Republican candidate in the primary who was younger, of a different generation, with a different tone for America. And we'd have a younger person on the Democratic side in the primary, who would have his message for our country."

"I don't know his strategy," Griffin added of DeSantis. "It's not clear to me what voter base he is intending to appeal to."

GOP candidates target Iran deal for detainees

Elsewhere, some GOP presidential candidates were taking aim at the White House's recent deal with Iran to free five Americans from detention in exchange for Washington unfreezing $6 billion in oil revenue.

"Its no real surprise that weakness arouses evil. Iran thumbed its nose at America by kicking UN nuclear inspectors out of the country, just a few days later," former Vice President Mike Pence said in a foreign policy speech on Monday.

"That is always a bad decision. It raises the price on American heads," South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott added during a campaign stop in Iowa. "Six billion dollars of released funds will only make it far more expensive for every single American who's traveling abroad. It's a bad decision although we do thank God that those folks are coming home."

The White House has defended the agreement as not "ransom" or a "blank check."

ABC News' Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Hannah Demissie, Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

Trump's 'liberal Jews' comment is denounced, DeSantis calls out McCarthy and more campaign takeaways originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Vulnerable children's education at risk if government shutdown takes place

Renee Kline's 4-year-old son attends the local Head Start program in Hampshire County, West Virginia, where he spends his days learning the alphabet and counting.

However, if the federal government shuts down next week, tens of thousands of kids, like him, will be forced to stay home.

As many as 10,000 children around the country would lose access to Head Start programs during a government shutdown, according to the White House, which as of publication, would start at midnight on Oct. 1.

Ten Head Start programs are due to receive funding on Oct. 1 and if that funding isn't available, they'd risk having to close their doors.

Childcare isn't readily available or affordable in Hampshire County, Kline says, if Head Start has to shut down, many people -- including her -- will have to stay home from work to care for their kids.

PHOTO: The Capitol is seen in Washington, Sept. 25, 2023. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

"That is a direct result of Congress not doing their job and not coming up with an agreement," says Tommy Sheridan, the Deputy Director of the National Head Start Association, a central association for the Head Start workforce and national voice of early childhood education. "This is really a punch to children and families who are already struggling and who really need the support provided by Head Start and Early Head Start."

MORE: Which federal programs would be impacted first in a government shutdown

Head Start is a free, federally funded early childhood development program, to promote school readiness for infants, toddlers and preschoolers from low-income households.

In the event of a government shutdown, Head Start programs would not be able to draw on funds to pay staff and operating expenses, says Lori Milam, Executive Director of the West Virginia Head Start Association, where over 7,000 children are enrolled in Head Start.

All Head Start programs are funded federally, but they all vary in how they receive funding and if they receive additional support from other programs. Some may not even be able to cover expenses for a week, according to Miliam.

Head Start also supports children with identified needs, such as physical and developmental delays, children in foster care and children experiencing housing instability. The federal government funds Head Start programs through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

"Head Start provides children from the most marginalized backgrounds with the opportunity to reach their full potential through learning, development, health and wellness support in the earliest years of life," says Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld, a global charity focused on early childhood development.

Since its inception in 1965, Head Start programs have helped more than 38 million children and families across the U.S.

Children enrolled in Head Start have a higher likelihood of graduating high school and attending college. Head Start programs have also been seen to break the cycle of poverty by decreasing teen parenthood and criminal engagement. The programs received nearly $12 billion in funding in 2023.

The programs due to pull funding on Oct. 1 will be most immediately impacted by the shutdown  like the program ran by Community Action Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, where 311 children are enrolled.

That program was affected by the 2013 shutdown, says Clare Higgins, the Executive Director of Community Action Pioneer Valley.

"We stayed open through a combination of some different funding. We had extended our credit line at the bank so we could keep the program open. So that is our goal right now," she says. Right now, they have enough cash on hand to keep the program open for up to two weeks. "After that, we won't be able to," she says.

Kids enrolled in programs like these would lose out on nutritious meals and learning essential skills, experts say.

And it's not just the 10,000 children who might immediately lose access that would be affected. "If the shutdown should last it would then impact many more children," Milam says.

MORE: What happens if the government shuts down? A lot, history tells us

Kline says that Head Start has been a huge help to families like hers. Along with her 4-year-old, she also has a first-grader who previously went through Head Start. She says that it has been extremely helpful in getting her daughter ready for school and working on her social-emotional skills. "Head Start helps families to be able to work. In addition to that, (it) helps our children learn and grow and get them ready for society," she says.

"We take some of the most families with the lowest income and large challenges, in terms of meeting the needs of their families," Higgins says. "This is the place where their kids are cared for educated and fed."

This would all be jeopardized by a shutdown.

"We're deeply concerned that Congress is putting children and families at risk by not passing [the bill] for the next fiscal year and we are very concerned about what's going to happen over the next couple of weeks," Sheridan says.

Dr. Taha F. Khan, MD, MPH is a Pediatric Neurology Resident at Boston Medical Center and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.

Vulnerable children's education at risk if government shutdown takes place originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Google's search AI thinks you can melt eggs. Its source? Don't laugh: ChatGPT.

This latest case of AI-generated misinformation was first spotted by an X-formerly-Twitter user named Tyler Glaiel, who took to the platform on Monday to share a screenshot of what happened when he typed "can you melt eggs" into Google's search bar. Naturally, the real answer to that query is no, of course you can't melt eggs, but Google's featured search snippet, as can be seen in Glaiel's screenshot, said the exact opposite was true.

"Yes, you can melt an egg," it read, "by heating it in a microwave or on a stove."

To come to this conclusion, it seems that Google looked to Quora, the question-and-answer forum site that's search-optimized itself to the top spot on any number of Google results pages. Earlier this year, Quora launched an AI chatbot called Poe, which according to a company blog post is designed to "let people ask questions, get instant answers, and have back-and-forth conversations with several AI-powered bots." One of these "several AI-powered bots" is a version of ChatGPT, and though Poe is more or less meant to be used as its own app, the product's ChatGPT-generated answers will sometimes appear at the top of standard Quora posts instead.

That's exactly what happened here. The AI's answer has since been corrected, but in a Quora forum titled "Can you melt an egg?" Poe's ChatGPT integration was telling users that "yes, an egg can be melted," and that "the most common way to melt an egg is to heat it using a stove or a microwave." Again, this is completely false, and clearly wasn't fact-checked by a human. But Quora's search rankings are so good that Google pulled the bad info into its featured snippet.

Google's regular search citing AI-generated falsehoods in its featured search overview is bad enough, but we decided to take things one step further and run the same query through Google's experimental AI-integrated search, Search Generated Experience, dubbed SGE for short. And sure enough, when we searched "can you melt eggs" on SGE, the AI provided a similarly terrible answer.

"Yes, you can melt an egg by heating it in a microwave or on a stove," the AI told us, before launching into a few sentences about egg coagulation (which, we should note, is not the same thing as the impossible concept of straight-up melting an egg.)

If there's any bright spot? In the hours since we first caught wind of the joint Quora-slash-Google blunder, the mistakes have been edited  sort of. Poe's ChatGPT response now correctly tells users that "no, you cannot melt an egg in the traditional sense," although the bot's previous incorrect response is still visible in Google's overview of the link. The Quora forum also no longer holds the top spot in search rankings; now, an article about Google's egg-melting mistake, penned by Ars Technica's Benj Edwards, has surfaced to the first result and thus, to Google's coveted featured search snippet (journalism: it works!)

And still  you really just have to laugh at this point  for a while, Google's regular search overview remained misleading. Edwards specifically notes in Ars Technica article that "just for reference, in case Google indexes this article: No, eggs cannot be melted." Instead of quoting this very direct answer, however, Google Search's featured snippet began to feature a quote from the article reading that "the most common way to melt an egg is to heat it using a stove or microwave." Indeed, Google Search was citing its own riff on misinformation, which itself was a paraphrasing of another AI's hallucination. Head hurt yet?

But that's been fixed as well, with Google Search now citing Edwards' "just for reference" caveat. And SGE is now telling users that "you can't melt eggs in the traditional sense, because they are made of water, proteins, fats, and other molecules." Better late than never.

When we reached out to Google, a spokesperson for the company emphasized that its algorithms  SGE's algorithm included  are designed to surface high-quality content, although did note poor or incorrect sources can sometimes leak through the cracks.

"Like all [large language model] -based experiences, generative AI in Search is experimental and can make mistakes, including reflecting inaccuracies that exist on the web at large," the spokesperson told us over email. "When these mistakes occur, we use those learnings and improve the experience for future queries, as we did in this case. More broadly, we design our Search systems to surface reliable, high-quality information."

The spokesperson did not, however, address the fact that its AI's unfortunate egg "inaccuracy" was sourced from ChatGPT-hallucinated nonsense.

While the question of whether you can melt eggs isn't particularly high-stakes, the situation itself  a ping-pong-esque misinformation loop between competing AI systems, operating without human oversight  is concerning. Imagine if Quora's ChatGPT integration had fabricated facts about political leaders or historical events, or perhaps given a bad answer to a medical or financial query, and Google's AI had paraphrased those claims instead. The search giant doesn't exactly have a great recent track record of ensuring that its overviews of historical events remain free and clear of AI-generated misinformation, so it's certainly worth considering.

If there's any takeaway, here, it's that 1. you definitely can't melt eggs, and 2. don't take anything that AI tells you for granted, even if the AI was built by a huge tech company. Yes, Google's featured snippets are convenient, and if SGE could be trusted, it could maybe provide some value to the everyday Google user. As it stands, though, both Google products are struggling to keep up with an internet landscape increasingly rife with synthetic content. (If there's any consolation, maybe, in the process of regurgitating the outputs of one another, the internet's various generative AI integrations will end up swallowing themselves.)

More on Google and AI: As Smoke Fills the Sky, Google's New AI Gives Wildly Inaccurate Info on Air Quality
Republican presidential candidates are ripping members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and blaming President Biden for the escalating strike against major car companies.

Biden has touted himself as a stalwart supporter of unions and joined UAW members Tuesday on the picket line in Michigan  the first instance of a sitting U.S. president marching beside striking workers.

As Republicans aim to use dour public opinion of the economy to oust Biden in 2024, his GOP challengers are eager to tie the president to the potential economic toll of the strike.

And some Republican contenders are using the UAW to bolster their conservative bonafides to GOP voters with less than five months until the first primary ballots are cast.

When you have the most pro-union president and he touts that he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said on the Fox News Channel earlier this month.

When you have a president thats constantly saying, Go union! Go union, this is what you get. The unions get emboldened, and then they start asking for things.

Biden strikes with UAW members: You deserve a hell of a lot more

Republicans have historically been critical of unions and their roles in pushing for better pay and conditions for workers, particularly since the Reagan administration.

I think [executive compensation] ought to be left to the shareholders of that company, former Vice President Mike Pence said in a CNN interview this month.

Im somebody that believes in free enterprise. I think those are decisions that can be made by shareholders in creating pressure, and Ill fully support how these publicly traded companies operate, he said.

Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), another GOP presidential contender, lauded former President Reagans firing of striking air traffic controllers when asked about the UAW strike.

If you strike, youre fired, Scott said.

This prompted UAW President Shawn Fain to file a charge Thursday against Scotts campaign with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which administers U.S. labor law.

The charge was obtained by The Hill through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request with the NLRB. A representative for the NLRB told The Hill the agency will be investigating the charge.

Trump strikes a different tune

While some GOP presidential candidates have been quick to criticize striking autoworkers, former President Trump sought to sound sympathetic.

With a commanding lead in polls of GOP voters, Trump is overlooking the primary and focused on winning back support from blue-collar workers in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  three states he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020.

Trump slams Biden ahead of presidents visit with striking autoworkers

Trump is scheduled to give a speech in Michigan on the autoworkers strike Wednesday  the night of the second GOP primary debate  and has focused on UAWs gripes with Biden, not automakers.

The UAW is holding out on endorsing Biden over his push to bolster electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, which is primarily conducted by nonunion labor and overseas.

Trump said in a Tuesday statement that Bidens draconian and indefensible Electric Vehicle mandate will annihilate the U.S. auto industry and cost countless thousands of autoworkers their jobs.

The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate, he added.

Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labor from this vicious Biden betrayal.

Other GOP presidential candidates are also aiming their criticisms at Bidens EV push instead of the workers on the picket line.

The union workers are going, Wow, if were going to switch to all [electric vehicles], were going to have less jobs  were going to be dependent on China for our transportation needs.  They understand whats happening, North Dakota governor Doug Bergum said last week, as reported by Reuters.

Why autoworkers are striking

While the shift to EVs has caused alarm among autoworkers, UAW members and their Democratic supporters say the strike is driven by concerns over worker pay.

Biden makes case that climate, labor interests can go hand in hand as auto strike fuels attacks

There are large differences between executive compensation packages and production worker compensation within the auto industry, as in most industries.

Ford CEO James Farley made $1.7 million in salary in 2022, $2.75 million in final incentive bonus payouts, and $14.5 million in other types of incentives. Altogether, he brought in $20,996,146, the companys Schedule 14A proxy statement, filed in March of this year, says.

The average salary of a production worker at Ford is $45,843, according to jobs website Indeed. Indeed maxes that positions salary out at $73,000 per year.

Biden said Tuesday that autoworkers should get the 40 percent pay increase the union is seeking.

Youve heard me say many times that Wall Street didnt build the country  the middle class built the country. Unions built the middle class, Biden said in Michigan to a gathering of auto workers.

Lets keep going. You deserve what you earn.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told The Hill in a Thursday interview that labor is experiencing an important resurgence in American society.

Youre seeing workers all over the country  at UPS, in the auto industry  standing up and fighting back, and thats an extraordinarily important moment, he said.

What the UAW is saying is that its unacceptable that the people at the top of these corporations make outrageous compensation packages while the workers fall further and further behind. Thats the story of whats happening with the American economy, Sanders said.

Labor experts describe the UAW strike as a stand-up strike, distinguishing it from sit-down strikes in which a large mass of workers occupy their workplaces but refuse to work.

Stand-up strikes, in which smaller groups of workers walk off the job in targeted stoppages, make them harder to predict, tactically more aggressive and potentially more disruptive to production schedules, which can be felt further down the pipeline of the auto industry.

This has also been used in the airlines. I think it was Alaska Airlines in the 1980s that used a similar strategy  they called it actually, CHAOS, and I think they trademarked that name  [whereby] they would board the plane, and then all of the flight attendants would walk out and go out on strike, Arthur Wheaton, a director of labor studies at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo, N.Y., told The Hill.

Wheaton said similar tactics were used in the U.S. as far back as the 1930s.

A representative for the Ford Motor Company said Tuesday that workers and management share an interest in the long-term viability of the domestic auto industry.

Ford and the UAW are going to be the ones to solve this by finding creative solutions, the company said in a statement.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Republican presidential candidates jumped quickly to make an impression from the start of the second debate Wednesday in Simi Valley, Calif., talking over and taking jabs at one another, lending a chaotic tone to the night.

The boisterous debate started less than an hour after former President Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, headlined an event in Michigan.

Seven candidates, all polling well behind Trump, met the Republican National Committee criteria to participate: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy , former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Trump, meanwhile, again did not join the debate, instead delivering a speech to autoworkers near Detroit, amid the ongoing United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Find out how to watch the debate here.

And follow along here through the night for live updates.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Participants hold signs and the Armenian flag as a man leads chants demanding action against Azerbaijan during a rally Tuesday near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley.

A passionate Simi Valley crowd chanted in support of Armenians in Azerbaijan during a protest down the hill from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum on the eve of the Republican presidential debate.

Motorists driving on Madera Road honked their horns Tuesday in support of the 100 or so protesters standing with signs and a bullhorn at the foot of Presidential Drive. Seven candidates vying for the Republican nomination were slated to participate in the debate Wednesday at the library.

As the sun began to set, Armenian Americans and their supporters called on GOP candidates to demand the Biden administration take action, including sanctions against Azerbaijan.

The Armenian American protesters accuse the southwest Asian nation of human rights violations and genocide through an economic blockade to Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh.

Stop the genocide now, rally leaders shouted into a bullhorn, and the crowd repeated. Other chants included slogans on the rally signs: Biden supports genocide to Republicans, speak up!

Participants in a rally Tuesday near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley hold up signs in support of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians they say are being hurt by Azerbaijan.

At one point, various participants held up numbers saying 120,000 to represent the number of Armenians they say are being hurt by Azerbaijan while the U.S. does nothing.

The Biden administration has failed its constituents! Lar Tabakian of the Armenian Youth Federation told the crowd, speaking into a bullhorn. Your recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide (in the Ottoman Empire) is worthless, and youre doing nothing to stop the genocide 2023!

Tabakians voice grew louder.

The Biden administration is complicit in another Holocaust, another Uganda, he shouted, standing a few feet from a Reagan Library sign promoting its Auschwitz exhibit. For the past three years, you have done nothing more than use empty words.

Raffi H. Hamparian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, said President Joe Biden should sanction Azerbaijan and end its military aid among other demands.

Dave Mason covers East County for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached at dave.mason@vcstar.com or 805-437-0323.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: GOP debate protest calls for support of Armenians in Azerbaijan
A combination of photos showing Republican presidential candidates.

A combination of photos showing Republican presidential candidates.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.  Seven of Donald Trump s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination return to the debate state Wednesday night, once again without the presence of the poll-leading Trump himself  and likely, once again, without the will to go after his greatest vulnerability: four criminal indictments that could put him in prison for decades.

The coup-attempting former president has scheduled a speech in the suburbs of Detroit, where he is likely to blame striking autoworkers woes on President Joe Bidens efforts to encourage electric vehicles to fight climate change.

And if last months debate in Milwaukee is an indicator, the GOP candidates will  with the exception of onetime federal prosecutor and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has indicated that he wouldnt support a convicted Trump  avoid criticizing the former president or even mentioning him much.

Trump is too far ahead of the pack to justify the risk of long-term damage to their future ambitions in the post-Trump GOP, said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican consultant in Florida.

Trump is in a stronger position within the Republican Party than he was the last time these candidates debated, said Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who ran in the 2020 GOP primary after deciding that Trumps authoritarian tendencies were bad for the party.

He said the candidates, and party leaders broadly, missed several opportunities to ostracize Trump, starting with the deadly assault he incited on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and continuing through four indictments, including two related directly to Trumps actions surrounding that coup attempt. Each time, though, most of Trumps rivals instead supported him and attacked prosecutors, and Trumps hold on GOP voters strengthened.

He is now firmly their champion, and nothing will break that, Walsh said.

On the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California will be Christie, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who was on the stage for the first debate in Milwaukee and has also indicated he wouldnt support Trump if he were the nominee, failed to qualify for the second one. He said in a statement that he will continue to campaign for at least the next two months in hopes of gaining traction.

The Republican National Committee has scheduled a third debate for Nov. 8 in Miami, where the qualifying benchmarks will be higher still, potentially weeding out other low-polling candidates.

Many Trump critics wonder what the point of the debates is if the candidates are unwilling to engage him, especially as voting is set to start in less than four months with the Iowa caucuses. But a few see a remaining glimmer of hope.

David Kochel, an Iowa Republican consultant, pointed out that Trumps leads in the early voting states is smaller than his national lead  meaning that voters who are paying closer attention to the race are more open to other options.

He said Haley, after her strong performance in the first debate that lifted her in the polls, is in a good position to build on that Wednesday. If she has another moment, she could vault to second in both Iowa and New Hampshire, he said.

DeSantis has held his second-to-Trump spot for nearly a year, but has seen his position erode the more he campaigns. Stipanovich said the California debate could be the best, last chance to reverse that.

DeSantis might give Trump a couple of openhanded slaps, he said. Anything to stand out and change the dismal dynamic that has him always circling the drain.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Nikki Haley is the former governor of North Carolina; she is the former governor of South Carolina.
Troop paychecks and national security are under threat as Congress stands on the edge of a government shutdown, with no clear solution for getting a defense budget passed.

After House Republicans three times tried to advance their fiscal 2024 Pentagon spending bill  efforts tanked by opposition from the GOPs far-right members  lawmakers have only until Saturday at midnight to work out a fix.

But with efforts continuing to stall, that could mean hundreds of thousands of service members and civilian workers wont get paychecks starting this weekend, unless Congress passes emergency legislation to ensure Americas military continue to get paid.

Administration officials are now sounding the alarm, with Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh warning Tuesday that over 1 million military members as well as furloughed civilian employees would go without pay during a shutdown.

And that delay will have huge, profound impacts across the globe, when it comes to security, she told CNN.

If the U.S. government shuts down, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran  these are countries that are not shutting down, that are continuing their operations, Singh said.

Singh noted that the more immediate repercussions include a lack of personnel at their stations or in their command posts to continue missions, as well as added burdens on military families that still need to pay for housing.

The White House laid out those furloughed active duty roles by location earlier Tuesday, which included 171,700 troops working abroad; 163,300 troops in California; 129,400 troops in Virginia; 114,200 troops in Texas; 95,900 troops in North Carolina; and 66,900 troops in Florida.

We have to remember, these service members, these civilians, are still members of our community that pay rent, that have mortgages to pay, childcare, schools for their children, Singh said. So the shutdown has real-world impacts and impacts right here at home in our communities.

The U.S. government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday should Congress not come to an agreement to extend funding  an outcome that looks increasingly likely as far-right House members have rejected any solution so far proposed.

President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in May initially made a debt ceiling agreement that set limits on spending for the next year, but conservatives in the House want deeper cuts than agreed upon. House GOP members have since rejected several deals amongst themselves, making it unlikely theyll soon find common ground with the Senate and White House.

In the event of the government shuttering, troops must continue to work but wont get paid unless lawmakers decide to pass last-minute legislation to ensure they continue to receive a paycheck, something that has been introduced in both the House and the Senate but not yet voted on.

The Defense Departments civilian employees considered essential for national security, meanwhile, would also have to continue working without pay. And about half of the Pentagons civilian workforce that work on issues such as recruiting and global affairs would be furloughed.

The military is automatically guaranteed pay  and would receive any backpay once a shutdown ends  but money cannot be dispersed until there is an agreed upon spending bill. That means the first payday after a prospective government closure would be Oct. 13, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The reality could be dire for military members who are living hand to mouth.

There are members, especially junior members, who live paycheck to paycheck, and so not getting a paycheck and not knowing when youre going to get a paycheck is a really big deal, said Elaine McCusker, a former acting Pentagon comptroller whos now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

She noted that in 2013, when the government shut down for 16 days, lawmakers were able to pass a bill to keep service members paid, voting it through mere hours ahead of the spigot being turned off.

A similar bill, the Pay Our Troops Act, was introduced in the House by Navy veteran Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) last week, proposing to not allow the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country go without pay.

The bill will protect members of the military, including the Coast Guard, as well as certain U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees and contractors should Congress fail to provide temporary or full-year federal funding by September 30, 2023, Kiggans said in a statement when introducing the legislation.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) brought forward related legislation in his chamber, but its unclear if either effort will work, as neither the House nor Senate leadership has indicated theyll take up the bills.

Military training is also expected to take a hit should funding run out, with McCusker warning that there could be unrecoverable effects in some cases.

If you missed planned training events, that time is gone, she told The Hill. Now youre stacked up against future training events, and youre trying to cram in training that was supposed to take place into a schedule thats already full. You have a degradation of readiness.  Its kind of a cascading effect on things that you cant do.

Whats more, the Pentagon cant make necessary weapons buys or fund new vital technology as quickly as it wants to, leaving it falling behind adversaries on innovative technology or production.

In addition, shutdown decision-making has consumed much of [Defense Department] senior leadership, distracting from vital national security areas that need attention, Cancian said.

Instead of thinking about Russia, Ukraine, or China, the senior leadership is thinking about which personnel is considered emergency and what funding sources might be available to continue certain activities, he added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The government is set to run out of funding on September 30, and a shutdown seems likely.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg warns that might make air travel worse.

It could also jeopardize the DOT's mission to make airlines pay out refunds and travel costs for delays.

There's a government shutdown looming, and it might mean your travel nightmares could get even worse.

Come September 30, the government will run out of funding if Congress can't agree on a budget  and that looks like the most likely outcome at this point.

The impacts on air travel will be immediate, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg told Insider. Air traffic controllers and TSA officers would stop getting paid , an economic burden on the workers the country depends upon to keep airports running.

"These are folks who come to work in a stressful and important job that is demanding on the best of days and they're supposed to come into work worried about how to pay their bills now and support their families and still do a good job," Buttigieg said.

Importantly, a shutdown could also jeopardize a crucial piece of ensuring flight safety and timeliness  enough air traffic controllers .

As of June, 77% of critical air traffic control facilities in the country were understaffed . While plenty of people want to be air traffic controllers , plugging shortage holes can come down to training. The role requires intensive training and comes with its own caveats: Applicants need to be below the age of 31, and workers have to retire by 56. In a shutdown, training gets shut down too.

The DOT has been making strides in curbing travel nightmares: Throughout 2023, air travel cancellations have stayed below 2%, according to the Air Travel Consumer Report  a far cry from the 2.7% cancellation rate in 2022. But that progress would be jeopardized in a shutdown, according to Buttigieg.

"That's happened because of the pressure we put on airlines and the work we're doing to grow our air traffic control workforce," Buttigieg said. "I cannot guarantee we can keep up those results if we are stopped from growing the workforce."

A shutdown of a few days or weeks could set back progress for "months," according to Buttigieg.

And, if and when your flight gets delayed or canceled , it might be harder to claw back compensation from airlines. Buttigieg said that a shutdown would halt rulemaking in the Department of Transportation. While halting rulemaking during a shutdown may not sound "glamorous," Buttigieg said, that function "includes the process of developing the rules that are going to get you refunds when the airlines cause a long delay."

The DOT has been working on new regulations that would make airlines issue refunds and foot the bill for things like hotels and meals in cases of delays or cancellations.

"That's something that I think Republican and Democratic and Independent air passengers mostly agree is a good idea, but the hardworking people in this department who actually are producing that tool to hold airlines accountable are going to be furloughed," Buttigieg said.

Even without a shutdown, Republicans' proposals to keep the government funded while enacting widespread cuts could jeopardize travel, according to Buttigieg.

"The shutdown is a hostage situation that some House Republicans have used in order to try to get budget cuts," he said.

The proposed cuts would set back Federal Aviation Administration modernization, and imperil rail safety inspections. The FAA saw a major essential system outage in January , leading to all flights in the country getting temporarily grounded . Further cuts could undermine the funding needed for technological improvements.

Right now, though, progress on averting any sort of shutdown seems stalled. Republicans can't agree on how to move forward, and time is running out.

"The American public deserves better. This is really basic stuff," Buttigieg said. "Keeping the government up and running, funding the government, is one of the basic functions of Congress and they can do it well, they can do it poorly, but to not do it at all is just totally avoidable and totally uncalled for."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Former President Jimmy Carter will turn 99 years old on Oct. 1 and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum is throwing a special party.

However, it wont be on the former presidents actual birthday anymore.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The library and museum announced Tuesday night that its moving up the celebration to Saturday. Thats because there is a risk of a government shutdown.

Government funding expires Oct. 1, which is the start of the federal budget year. The shutdown would begin at 12:01 a.m. Sunday if Congress cannot pass a funding plan and if President Joe Biden does not sign it.

The Carter Presidential Library and Museum is federally-operated. The same applies for the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in his hometown of Plains, which includes the Carter Boyhood home and Plains High School

So if the government shuts down, that means operations at the sites will be impacted.

RELATED STORIES:

So for Georgians to celebrate at the library, organizers will now hold the event on Saturday.

They will still offer a special price of admission: 99 cents in honor of Carters 99th birthday. Teens and children ages 16 and under can get into the library and museum for free.

Georgians also have time to leave their birthday messages on a virtual card for Carter here.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]




(NEXSTAR)  As Congress continues to try to avoid a government shutdown by the end of the week, its hard for many Americans to not worry about the impact it could have on their federal benefits.

In many cases, those benefits will not be impacted if the government does, in fact, shut down. That includes Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and many benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But what about food stamps and other food assistance programs?

Unfortunately, they wont all be as lucky.

On Monday, the White House warned a government shutdown would jeopardize federal food assistance for nearly 7 million mothers and young children who rely on WIC  the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Would a government shutdown impact Social Security, VA benefits?

The program, overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, serves low-income pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding, postpartum women, infants, and children up to the age of 5. It receives funding on an annual basis, putting it at risk during current shutdown talks.

Should there be a government shutdown, the White House says women and children who count on WIC would soon start being turned away at grocery store counters, with a federal contingency fund drying up after just a few days and many states left with limited WIC funds to operate the program.

It could be especially impactful in states like California and Texas, where a combined 1.759 million WIC recipients live, White House data shows.

During a Monday press conference, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said WIC expires  or stops immediately in the event of a shutdown. The department does have a contingency plan that could provide funds for a day or two, ABC News reports. Vilsack also noted that some states may have access to additional funding, which could keep their programs running for slightly longer.

Senators unveil bill to avoid shutdown

The National WIC Association urged Congress to reach a deal that avoids a shutdown and provides WIC with the funding it needs to support any individual or family who qualifies in a Friday press release.

Without the urgent investment of additional funds, state WIC offices could soon be forced to consider waiting lists for prospective participants  a drastic step not seen in nearly 30 years. We simply cannot cross that line, Kate Franken, board chair of the National WIC Association said. Over 600 organizations from across the country joined the NWA in calling on Congress to fully fund the program in a letter Monday.

While WIC could be shuttered during a government shutdown, SNAP  the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  would still be available, at least for a short time.

SNAP, which offers food assistance to low-income families nationwide, also receives funding annually from the federal government. Its set to see benefits boost on Oct. 1 (as well as eligibility requirements change) and would last at least through the month, according to Vilsack.

But, if there is a government shutdown, and it lasts beyond October, there would be some serious consequences to SNAP, he noted.

Food banks and Meals on Wheels programs could also see disruptions to orders, deliveries, and more during a government shutdown, CNN reports.

Whats the latest on the government shutdown talks?

Congress is rushing headlong into crisis mode Tuesday with a government shutdown days away, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces an insurgency from hard-right Republicans eager to slash spending even if it means halting pay for the military and curtailing federal services for millions of Americans.

Theres no clear path ahead as lawmakers return with tensions high and options limited. The House is expected to launch an evening vote on a package of bills to fund parts of the government, but its not at all clear that McCarthy has the support needed as holdouts demand steeper spending cuts.

Could a government shutdown impact student loan payments resuming?

But with just five days to go before Saturdays deadline, the Senate is trying to stave off a federal closure as the hard-right flank seizes control of the House. Senators unveiled a bipartisan stopgap measure to keep offices funded temporarily, through Nov. 17, to buy time for Congress to finish its work.

The 79-page Senate bill would fund the government at current levels and include about $6 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine and $6 billion in U.S. disaster assistance that has been in jeopardy. It also includes an extension of Federal Aviation Administration provisions expiring Saturday.

The Senate voted Tuesday to advance the short-term funding measure. This puts the Senate on a path to pass a continuing resolution later this week that could then be sent to the House to avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1.

The Associated Press and The Hills Alexander Bolton contributed to this report.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
National Park Service guide Ashley Parsons, center, gives a tour of the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield Wednesday. Parsons is one of the thousands of workers who will be affected if there is a federal government shutdown.

Still needing to pass a dozen spending bills by Saturday, a federal government shutdown could be imminent causing the furlough of hundreds of thousands and affecting services throughout the country.

Leaders in the U.S. Senate reached a deal Tuesday with a stop-gap measure, funding government operations through Nov. 17. The issue however lies in the House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a far-right contingency of his party are at a stalemate in negotiations.

The group, encouraged by former President Donald Trump, includes U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Oakland, who is requesting major federal spending cuts and to stop providing funds to Ukraine.

Mary Miller

"I oppose sending money to Ukraine that will be stolen by Ukrainian oligarchs in a proxy war that we were dragged into because Ukraine was paying the Biden family $1 million a year in cash," Miller posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "We should be securing our southern border instead!"

U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, alternatively joined fellow freshman Democrats in requesting GOP leadership to include President Joe Biden's spending priorities if they want bipartisan support.

U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL. 13 District), speaks during a press conference across from the Transit Center in Springfield Friday, May 19, 2023.

The shutdown will impact federal employees across the country, some of which will be furloughed and others could be forced to work without pay. An estimated 7,200 civilians in Illinois Congressional District 13, where Budzinski serves, were employed by the federal government as of 2022 according to the Congressional Research Service.

The impact extends beyond federal employees but also to those who rely on federal services, Budzinski noted, mainly senior citizens and veterans. Now is the time for McCarthy to step up and honor the bipartisan agreement reached in the debt ceiling debate, she said.

"Right now, the House is struggling with a Speaker who is more interested in keeping his job than standing up to the Chaos Caucus," she said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Here's how the looming shutdown will impact Springfield.

What does the government shutdown mean for Social Security, Medicare?

The nearly 250,000 Illinoisans receiving social security benefits will still receive them during a shutdown, as its operation is considered essential by the federal government. Those receiving Medicare, Medicaid and military veterans' benefits also will be unaffected.

Also remaining open will be the Social Security field offices and call center. Still, services could be delayed as the Social Security Administration would furlough some employees over the course of a shutdown.

Recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children will be impacted according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. WIC benefits will end immediately once a shutdown begins, while SNAP benefits will continue through the end of October.

As of fiscal year 2022, more than 155,000 Illinoisans receive WIC benefits, intended for low-income women and children under the age of five. The Illinois Department of Human Services administers the program in the state but is funded by the USDA.

The Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield. Built in 1839 and first occupied by the Lincolns in 1844, the two-story home is where Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln and their sons lived for 17 years while the future president worked as a Springfield lawyer and launched his political career.

Will the Lincoln Home be open?

If the federal government does shut down, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site will be closed for the duration volunteer manager Jasmine Leung confirmed.

No tours of the home will be led by National Park Service rangers, but Leung said details are still being gathered as to whether the site's parking lot or the neighborhood surrounding the Lincoln home will remain open.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Lincoln Tomb are owned and operated by the state, so neither will be impacted by a federal shutdown.

Will mail, IRS offices close?

The U.S. Postal Service is independent from the federal government, so mail delivery will continue. Offices will not close during the shutdown.

The Internal Revenue Service also will remain open.

Contact Patrick Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Federal government shutdown looms, here's how it could impact Illinois
There are still a lot of questions about the case where Osceola County deputies shot and killed a teenager accused of shoplifting from Target last year.

The department says 19-year-old Jayden Baez used his car to try to escape and ram the officers vehicle. But Baezs family has questioned the offices version of events, saying it was suspicious that multiple officers waited more than a week to file reports on the same day at the same time with similar narratives. None of the officers were wearing body cameras to record what happened. The officers were in unmarked cars. And police experts have questioned the level of force for a case that involved $46 worth of pizza and trading cards.

Obviously anyone who tries to hurt a cop is asking for trouble. But new prosecutor Andrew Bain says he agrees the case deserves a fuller vetting. So hes sending it to a grand jury.

That could be good for accountability. Or it could be just political theater.

Grand juries, after all, can be powerful investigative tools. But they can also be patsies for prosecutors who want to pass the buck, since theyre enshrouded in secrecy unlike any other part of Americas justice system. Prosecutors control the show behind closed doors.

Still, Bain seems to be taking some steps for bolstering public confidence  including one that could peel back some of the secrecy. Well see how it plays out. Heres what you need to know:

For starters, no other jury process works like grand juries where the public is not only banned from watching the proceedings, but participants, including the jurors themselves, are typically banned from ever discussing what happened.

This has raised red flags in the past  like the time a grand jury in Florida let child predator Jeffrey Epstein off easy when charges were first filed.

New York prosecutors would later send Epstein to prison. But no one ever heard what Florida prosecutors told their grand jury the first time  when Epstein walked away with a deal so lax, he was able to work in his office during his 13-month sentence.

Epstein case shows why grand jury secrecy is so problematic | Commentary

Even when prosecutors tell the public what supposedly happened in a grand jury room, you dont know if its the full story. Several years ago in Minnesota, a juror filed a lawsuit, begging for the right to speak publicly about what happened in the grand jury room after claiming the prosecutor had misrepresented what she and her fellow jurors had done behind closed doors. She was denied that right to speak.

For all those reasons, some prosecutors avoid grand juries, particularly in police shootings. As one Minneapolis prosecutor said: I will make that decision. Thats my job.

That said, grand juries can also be powerful tools to get to the truth, since they have the power to compel testimony and collect evidence.

Put it all together and Andrew Leipold, an expert in grand jury process at the University of Illinois College of Law, said grand juries can be incredibly effective at truth-vetting, yet also instruments of prosecutorial whim. If the prosecutor doesnt want an indictment, Leipold said, theres not going to be an indictment.

Leipold said the secrecy is a double-edged sword but that prosecutors can address public distrust by asking grand juries to issue reports that explain why they did what they did. I like that idea. And Bain says he may do just that.

In a new office policy on police-force cases, Bain says he will ask grand jurors if they want to make a statement at the conclusion of the case  either about the case itself or future policies they want to recommend.

Mark NeJame, the attorney for Baezs family, said he also found it encouraging that Bains office told the Baez legal team they can send their own law-enforcement expert to address the grand jury. NeJame knows a prosecutor doesnt have to do that. All we want is the truth and to know what really happened, NeJame said. The families deserve to know. And the public deserves to know.

Bains chief assistant, Ryan Williams, says the new Orange-Osceola state attorney agrees. The State Attorney is committed to transparency and understands, as the policy repeatedly references, the toll these use of force incidents take on communities and officers alike, Williams said. This policy is our attempt to navigate a difficult situation and the interests involved with those values in mind.

Kissimmee Target shooting going to grand jury as Bain announces new use-of-force policy

Well see how it all plays out. But so far, that sounds encouraging.

I should say before concluding that I believe Bain has no business being in this office the way he got there. Gov. Ron DeSantis usurped democracy and invalidated a legally held election when he decided to remove a duly elected public official who had broken no laws  even as DeSantis allowed his own appointees, like his former ethics commissioner, to remain in office while clearly violating state statutes.

If youd read about some third-world dictator deciding to simply overrule local election results, youd shake your head and think of a banana republic. If Bain has good ideas, he should make his case before the people and run for the office  just as Monique Worrell did.

But for now, hes the state attorney. And so far, its encouraging to see him saying the right things about both accountability and transparency. Now well just have to see how it plays out  in a format that doesnt always foster either.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Experts question Osceola deputies arrest tactics before deadly shooting
A Granite City woman was charged with first-degree murder after a domestic confrontation turned violent, police said.

Tara A. Anderson, 37, faces four felony counts including two for murder, one for possessing a weapon as a convicted felon, and possession of a weapon with a defaced serial number.

According to a Granite City Police release, officers were dispatched to the 1400 block of Madison Avenue during the evening hours Sunday on the report that a man had been shot. When they arrived, they found Phillip P. Armstrong, 39, dead in the roadway.

Throughout the investigation, it was learned that the Armstrong and Anderson were in a dating relationship and this was an isolated domestic incident, the release stated.

The Madison County States Attorneys office levied charges against Anderson on Tuesday.

The Madison County Coroners office, Sheriffs Department and Illinois State Police Crime Scene Unit assisted in the investigation.
Will Crooks

You bring home many things from Japan. Memories, ramen splatter on your shirtsleeves, and a hundred stories about the toiletsnear-sentient thrones with rows of blinking buttons that practically bow when you approach.

But mostly, Ill remember the scream.

This story originally appeared in Volume 18 of Road & Track.

Its the banshee song of a straight-six with two turbos hung from the thing like iron cojones. You hear it when the throttles pinned and the countryside whips into a 650-horse blur. At 5000 rpm, the turbos noise rises to a whistle, like wind ripping through a canyon, and by 7000 rpm, theyre spinning up a wail so loud that youd swear the car might nose up and lift off.

Rattled eardrums arent the worst souvenir.

This monsters name is Mines & Built By Legends R33 Nissan Skyline GT-R. Quite a mouthful. To explain it requires a redeye and a two-hour drive south from central Tokyo. There, we meet the GT-R on a legendary mountain road.

Will Crooks

We felt like we needed to present Japan correctly, with the right context, Built By Legends (BBL) co-founder Masaharu Masa Kuji explains. So that people really understand the culture.

More than 20 years ago, Kuji and BBL co-founder Katsu Takahashi worked for a Japanese news and culture startup. The sites car content, they noticed, drew the lions share of traffic. Equipped with a unique insider/outsider perspectiveKuji and Takahashi were born in Japan but lived abroad as boysthe two spotted an opportunity.

Their mission: offer Japans car culture to the world. In due course, they brought a touge showdown to Willow Springs, filmed a landmark project called The Drift Bible, and watered Formula Ds grassroots. Through DVD sales, they offered the West a window into underground racing by producing episodes of Best Motoring with English subtitles. If youre enamored with Japans tuning culture, theres a good chance BBLs co-founders brought it to your doorstep.

Will Crooks

I think the popularity of Japanese car culture was fed initially by illegal driving, and then came Fast & Furious, and then a perception was created from that scene. Were not denying it, and I understand people find that really cool, Kuji says. But how can you make that understanding more sophisticated?

It required yet another leap, and in 2018, the pair took it. They arent mechanics or salesmen, but decades of work in film and commercial production had forged deep connections with Japans best shops and suppliers.

Takahashi and Kuji planned to offer Japans culture to the world with authenticity, this time with a rolling showcase, and the BBL name springs from that mission. The company gathers legends of the Japanese automotive landscape and aims their talent at a tuner cult classic.

Will Crooks

First, there was an EG6 Honda Civic hatchback built in partnership with Spoon. Then a Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R. BBL managed logistics, allowing each contributing shop and craftsperson to chase perfection on a blank canvas.

For its third project, an R33 GT-R, BBL partnered with the legendary GT-R tuner Mines to source the cars wailing inline-six powertrain. The seats are Recaro, reupholstered in a proprietary fabric called Ultrasuede from Japanese textile giant Toray. Mooncraft, a Japanese racing and composites firm established in 1975, supplies the R33s one-piece carbon bumper. Same with its carbon body panels and wing.

The cars four 265-width tires are BBL-specific, evolutions of the Bridgestone RE-71Rs that Mines developed for its own GT-R project. Thats the pull of BBLs Rolodex: Even a global tire conglomerate bought into the project.

Will Crooks

So this twin-turbo Voltron touches down. But could an assemblage of disparate parts and ideas ever feel whole?

Will Crooks

From behind the wheel, you never shake the feeling that youre driving a tuner car. Maybe thats the point. The GT-Rs exhaust mutters a dead-steady basso at idle. The flywheel clatters until you slot the shifter into first gear, release the clutch, and roll from the roadside onto the Hakone Skylines historical curves.

They say drifting was born here, but the idea pretzels the mind. Hakone is a staircase of long narrow sweepers with ruin beyond each corners edge. The bravery itd take. The absolute balls.

The GT-R is up for it, eager to brake later and dive deeper into every corner. Another kick at the clutch and a stab on the throttle. The scream takes over, and everything goes blurry until the blowoff valve croaks its big shuddering sigh.

On Hakones bouncing pavement, this car oozes motorsport quality. The ride feels stiff but assured,

akin to that of a GT3, with ample travel and a damping curve that cossets the car under high-speed compression. That kind of deft tuning and indefatigable character makes you think, Shoot, I could lay the hammer down all day. With the BBL GT-R, I sense you could. Instead, the low-gas indicator lights up, and I head back.

Will Crooks

The collector market has never burned hotter for Japanese metal, and the 25-year import law has opened the floodgates between Japans supply of GT-Rs and the Americans who grew up worshiping them. But this car is a moonshot. Cost was no object here, and it shows.

How do you sell yet another six-figure restomod in a global market crowded with them?

You take them to the legends.

Will Crooks

Toshikazu Nakayama bows and presents his business card with two hands. His titletechnical supervisorsuggests a flurry of diligent underlings. But as we shuffle into the shop, it becomes clear that Nakayama is not just the technical supervisor at Mines but is, in fact, the technical department itself.

This might surprise anyone who knows of the shops fame. Renowned for its robust and reliable engines, Mines achieved a legendary profile among Japanese domestic tuners. Then it went global. Its trademark livery, scrawled across the doors of its cars, became a mainstay on the covers of Super Street magazine and was rendered on PlayStations Gran Turismo series racetracks. But before the magazines came calling, Mines boss Michizo Niikura simply made Nissans go faster.

Niikura recognized the early potential of engine control unitbased tuning and ran with the notion. Rather than flex peak power figures, he demanded reliability and charisma from his heavily tuned motors.

Will Crooks

When you build a car, you dont build the engine first. You build the suspension, the brakes; you make the car turn and stop correctly, Niikura says. Then you put in the engine that accommodates it. Thats how balance is achieved.

And balance is the tuners secret sauce. Customers who ask Mines for 1000-hp rockets get turned away. The companys vision is to produce good cars rather than expand business. Maybe thats why you could wedge the shops footprint inside a small grain silo.

Were led up a double staircase to the engine room. On Nakayamas workbench sits a set of six pistons, their rods, and a gleaming aluminum cylinder head. Mines developed each component for BBL engines.

Will Crooks

Nakayama has worked solely on Nissans twin-cam turbo sixes for nearly 35 years. Every engine that leaves Mines is hand-built by the technical department himself. A nearby antechamber holds 50 RB engine blocks, nestled like cigarettes in a pack. Hell build all 50 into running motors over the next year. Nakayama perches an RB head on a newspaper-lined milk crate and demonstrates his porting and polishing technique, done by hand.

A Mines engine must always be smooth, he says. We run forged crankshafts and high compression, so the engine responds quick, like its normally aspirated. And always balance.

Nakayama is still searching for fractional gains in the engines he builds. These are durable engines, he says. In theory, we could run them at 9500 rpm all day.

In theory? I ask.

He raises an eyebrow. Then a grin spreads across his face. Niikura calls me to his office. I glance back and see Nakayama staring down at the blank cylinder head, seemingly deep in thought.

By Japanese standards, Garage Yoshida is huge, a sprawling rural compound in an old mill near the city of Nara. Its like Disneyland for GT-R nerds. I find founder Kozo Yoshida waiting patiently, his hands clasped behind his back.

Garage Yoshida is responsible for the bedrock of BBLs R32, R33, and upcoming R34 projects. Before theyre sent off to Mines to fit the engine, every BBL build starts here with a bare shell.

Will Crooks

There are other GT-R restoration shops in Japan. Even Nissan offers factory restoration (Yoshida is not impressed by those rebuilds). But, like every artisan in BBLs orbit, Yoshida was selected for his dedication to the GT-R.

Takahashi tells me that if you drive a GT-R onto the shop floor, Yoshida can tear the car down to a bare shell in just six hours. Lining the sides of the shop are towering shelves, each chock-full of parts that serve as proof. Every piece is meticulously labeled, allowing for an equally speedy reassembly. But its not just a familiarity with the GT-R. Its Yoshidas obsession with improving the form.

The Japanese arent afraid to tinker, to improve, Kuji notes. They have never been precious about tuning their cars.

Will Crooks

Yoshida plucks a reinforced R33 strut tower of his own design from a box. Most GT-Rs collect water under the layered stock panel, allowing rot. Yoshida designed a replacement panel built from a single piece of reinforced high-strength steel for ultimate longevity and torsional rigidity.

It took seven years before a manufacturer took on the task of producing the part. Yet Yoshida persists. Up next, a full front subframe.

Yoshida seems flattered by all the questions. Ah, sou desu ka? he repeats, amused at my interest in the unibody perched on a chassis rotisserie he built by hand. He considers every query for a beat, all crossed arms and furrowed brow, then strings off a monologue in Japanese.

Will Crooks

The first GT-R Yoshida restored was his own. He couldnt afford one in good condition, so he found a wrecked one and dragged it back to life.

I try to accept as many customer cars as possible, even if the cars were denied at other dealerships or shops, Yoshida says. Because I was able to learn from each vehicle.

It almost sounds like a complaint.

Will Crooks

Why not simplify? I ask. Why revive totaled chassis and develop custom strut towers?

He says nothing, strokes his chin, then shrugs. It seems hes never considered it.

The sun sinks low as the Shinkansen sidles up to a Kyoto platform. Tokyo Central is 300 miles but only two hours away on this high-speed rail. The ride offers a chance to savor a Sapporo and reflect.

Like a GT-R, the Shinkansen is another distinctly Japanese marvel. It runs the tracks like quicksilver going downhill, its smoothness never betraying its awesome power.

Will Crooks

When one bullet train passes another at 200 mph, the air cavitates, and youre not sure whether your eyes will be sucked from their sockets or shot through your ears. Yet not a drop of lager spills from your brimming glass.

Thats Japanese craft at its best. Why shouldnt trains do Mulsanne speeds? Doesnt a handmade dry-carbon hood prop trump a steel one? Things are done this way because its the best way. Cost be damned. If that notion doesnt jibe, youre not buying into anything BBL has to sell. Not that its an option for everyone.

The Mines & Built By Legends R33 GT-R is, among many abstractions, a towering wall of zeros. No spoonful of sugar will ease down the price, so here it is: a half-million. Yep, $500,000.

Will Crooks

This isnt the only restomod on the market asking luxury-condo prices. And while most boutique supercars are assembled with far less attention to detail, this GT-R is not a car that justifies its sticker by casual appraisal.

Without meeting Niikuras gaze, appreciating an intake port massaged by hand, and seeing Yoshidas face light up describing hidden GT-R intricacies, the wall of zeros stretches higher.

But then you visit. You meet its creators. You drive the thing. You leave with an authentic understanding of what Kuji and Takahashi have carefully curated. And you never forget its scream.

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A group of giant mounds built by Native Americans thousands of years ago just became the US's newest World Heritage Site  take a closer look

The Seip Earthworks. Mary Salen/Getty Images

UNESCO just added 42 new places to its World Heritage Sites.

Of those 42, just one is in the United States: the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio.

The earthworks are mounds created by Native Americans thousands of years ago.

Thousands of years ago, disparate groups of Native Americans came together to form the Hopewell culture.

Members of that culture constructed complex, huge mounds, including those known as the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in what is now Ohio. Around them, many artifacts have been unearthed that provide us with invaluable knowledge about the land.

On September 19, UNESCO added the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks to its list of World Heritage Sites, which it said was a "designation for places on Earth that are of outstanding universal value to humanity."

Here's what you need to know about the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks.

This month, UNESCO announced the newest additions to its list of World Heritage Sites. The only addition in the US was the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio.

Mound City. Mary Salen/Getty Images

Source: UNESCO

UNESCO described the earthworks as "eight monumental earthen enclosure complexes built between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago along the central tributaries of the Ohio River."

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. zrfphoto/Getty Images

Source: UNESCO

The earthworks, which Ohio History Connection describes as "part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory," are spread across the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, as well as nearby Newark and Oregonia.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. EWY Media/Shutterstock

Source: Ohio History Connection, National Park Service

The term Hopewell doesn't refer to one Native American tribe. It actually refers to a group of distinct tribes living in North America who were connected by trade routes from 200 BC to AD 500.

Mound City. EWY Media/Shutterstock

Source: LiveScience

While we don't know exactly what the earthworks were for, UNESCO describes them as evidence of a developed society constructed to align with "the cycles of the Sun and the far more complex cycles of the Moon."

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. zrfphoto/Getty Images

Source: UNESCO

Archaeologists have also found artifacts surrounding the earthworks that prove the people who lived there interacted with tribes as far away as Florida and Yellowstone, according to the National Park Service.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Zack Frank/Shutterstock

Source: National Park Service

As you can see, the mounds are huge and "form precise squares, circles, and octagons," according to the NPS.

The Seip Earthworks. Mary Salen/Getty Images

Source: National Park Service

The sites included in the list are the Octagon Earthworks, Great Circle Earthworks, Hopeton Earthworks, Mound City, High Bank Works, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, and Fort Ancient.

The Seip Earthworks. Mary Salen/Getty Images

Source: UNESCO

This is a map of the Newark Earthworks, one of the eight sites, from 1862. The mounds have fascinated people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

An 1862 woodcut map of Newark Earthworks, Ohio. NNehring/Getty Images

The park itself is a great place to marvel at ancient societies or have a picnic.

An empty picnic table by the exterior of the Great Circle at the Newark Earthworks. Mary Salen/Getty Images

There are also trails that are full of beautiful trees and views of Ohio's foliage.

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. zrfphoto/Getty Images

The earthworks are now the US' 25th UNESCO World Heritage Site  and Ohio's first. You can see them at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Newark Earthworks, and Fort Ancient Earthworks.

The Seip Earthworks in Ohio. Mary Salen/Getty Images

Source: National Park Service, Ohio History Connection, Ohio History Connection

Read the original article on Insider
A letter from the Ukrainian government to G7 nations says that some of the components used in the manufacture of Shahed-type drones come from companies based in the West, The Guardian reported on Sept. 27.

The letter alleges that more than 50 electrical components originally stemmed from companies located in countries that are both allied with Ukraine and involved in the sanctions coalition. The countries named include the U.S., Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Canada, and Japan.

According to the letter, Shahed-type drones using Western components have been used in at least 600 strikes on Ukraine.

The drones, which were originally produced in Iran and first used in attacks against Ukraine in September 2022, are cheap to manufacture, and when used in swarms can be a headache for Ukrainian air defense, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.

There have been previous reports that the Shahed drones were being manufactured with parts from Western countries, and the letter further purports that Iran has begun to disassociate itself from providing Russia with weapons, and that it cannot cope with Russian demand.

As a result, drone manufacturing locations have shifted to Russia, in addition to Iran and in Syria, another Kremlin ally.

The letter also notes that it is unclear if the Western companies mentioned were fully aware that their components were being used in drone production, because the parts are largely of a commercial nature and are thus poorly regulated. The components have typically reached Iran through intermediary countries, thereby evading sanctions.

Spokespeople for some of the companies identified in the letter have condemned the usage of their components in the manufacturing of drones and have participated in sanctions, but have acknowledged it is difficult to fully control sales throughout the entire lifetime of a product.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Congress failure to approve appropriations is pushing the government toward a shutdown Sept. 30. This inability is a clear indication of the failure of leadership in the House and is being precipitated by a few far-right members of the Republican Party. The Senate proposed a short-term continuing resolution. This is a band-aid only and doesnt mean much without prospects of a long-term funding solution.

A shutdown is both inexcusable and irresponsible. The results will ripple through our economy. The negative fiscal impact of the last shutdown was estimated at $10 billion. Shutdown threatens economic recovery, mortgage rate increases, basic federal services and even national security.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that over $700 billion in federal contracts may be affected, causing employees needless hardship due to furlough and disrupting services. It takes time to readjust after a shutdown. The impacts can compound with a longer shutdown.

The shutdown will impact Oklahomans. Not just federal civilian employees at Tinker Air Force Base and other bases, but the FAA and National Weather Service, too. Further, all suppliers and businesses supporting these agencies will have any federal funding halted. The impacts can be far reaching in a long shutdown.

A shutdown does not save money. The threat of a shutdown is selfish and extortion to get these few politicians what they want. There is no regard for its significant impact. This is no way to govern. When compromise is needed, representatives use threats to not raise the debt ceiling or fund the government. Only a few paralyze the process of setting the budget policy. This is dangerous and disregards the dire impact on average Americans. It is unacceptable and further diminishes respect for Congress. It is governing at its worst.

Significantly, the credit rating of the United States is at stake  because of dysfunction in Congress. With the highest rating, rating agencies warned a shutdown might result in credit downgrades. It signals less creditworthiness and increased borrowing costs.

Almost a million federal employees will not be paid. Each paycheck matters. The majority considered nonessential will be furloughed without pay. Those considered essential will be required to work  without pay. When the government is finally funded, all will receive back pay. But how long can most households go without any income to pay mortgages and bills?

Air travel, veterans' and other services also will be impacted. A partial shutdown also puts the Federal Emergency Management Agencys disaster relief fund, which is dangerously depleted, at risk when many places need disaster relief now.

The height of hypocrisy is that those in Congress will still be paid.

The extreme members of the Republican House are selfishly polarizing their party and us further. There is no integrity in their actions holding out for drastic cuts to many programs. Leadership by the House speaker is questionable. He chose to broker his power to them to obtain his speakership. Now, paying the piper, his position may be in jeopardy.

This democracy will only survive with leaders committed to doing the right thing, putting people, not agendas, first. We are in a divisive and challenging time. The inability to fund the government only emphasizes a lack of governing, putting pressure on the foundations of our democracy. Our votes and voices matter more than ever.

Phil G. Busey Sr.

Phil G. Busey Sr. is chairman and CEO of DRG and The Busey Group of Cos.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Guest: Inability to fund government only emphasizes a lack of governing
A Georgia man was arrested by the Columbia County Sheriffs Office Saturday for public indecency after behaving inappropriately at a Cicis Pizza in Martinez, Ga.

According to deputies, they were sent to the Cicis Pizza on Wheeler Road in Martinez after receiving calls for a welfare check at the pizzeria.

The call from dispatch said there was a naked man in the parking lot behind the store.

He was identified as Jessee Deen Wagoner, of Lincolnton, Ga., according to the arrest report.

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Deputies said in their report on Wagoners arrest that even on their way to Cicis, they were able to check traffic cameras nearby and see him completely naked and touching himself.

When deputies arrived, they approached Wagoner, who was still naked.

The arrest report said Wagoner was talking to himself when deputies went to speak with him, and was hallucinating there were other people around him, though the report noted only Wagoner and the deputy were in the parking lot.

Wagoners clothing was scattered across the parking lot and in front of the business, according to the report.

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When deputies told Wagoner to put his clothes on he did, but deputies said he struggled and spoke to himself and the hallucinations the entire time.

The sheriffs office contacted EMS, and Gold Cross arrived soon after.

Wagoner was taken to Doctors Hospital and turned over to their care.

Then deputies met with a magistrate judge and obtained an arrest warrant for public indecency.

Footage of the incident was captured and uploaded to the departments evidence drive, according to deputies.

Records from the sheriffs office show he was given a $1,100 bond.

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The Soviet T-34 tank was the primary tank for the Red Army throughout most of World War II. It was based on a design from the American M1928 tank and featured a suspension innovation from U.S. innovator J. Walter Christie. Before the U.S. entered the war, however, turretless versions of the M1928 had to be sent to the USSR as factory equipment.

When the Red Army finally got its hands on the tanks, they really made it their own and began to produce designs of their own. Cheaper and easier to build than other tanks, the T-34 was the most produced tank of the entire war, which was a good thing, because the Soviets really needed a weapon to match the German Blitzkrieg. When it was first introduced, it had the exact effect the Red Army was hoping for.

In June 1941, Nazi Germany launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. After lulling Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin into a false sense of security for years as it completed its dominance of Western Europe, Germany was ready to fight the massive Soviet Red Army, and it was initially so successful, things began to look really bad for Moscow.

All across the Eastern Front, from Finland in the North to the Baltic countries, Belarussia, to the Ukrainian border with Romania and the Black Sea in the South, German forces advanced on the Soviet Army. Its gains were quick, capturing hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners, fighting its way to Leningrad in the North and reaching the outskirts of Kyiv in the South.

As the German advance reached the Dvina River, near Riga, Latvia in July 1941, the Soviet Union was finally able to unleash its new tank on the invading enemy. The T-34 could reach speeds of more than 50 miles per hour, had a turret diameter of 76.2 millimeters, and could not be destroyed by the Wehrmachts traditional anti-tank weapons. Even German Field Marshal Alfred Jodl was shocked at the new tanks performance.

BT-7 , A-20 , T-34 (model 1940), and T-34 (model 1941).

If Jodl was surprised, it must have been downright horrifying for the German soldiers on the battlefields near Riga, who were expecting an easy victory over an unprepared and obsolete enemy. Instead, they were fighting the fastest, most advanced tank in the world, and they had no weapons that could stop it.

When the Germans pulled up a PaK 36 anti-tank gun to destroy the T-34, the Russians simply drove over it, crushing the weapon and scattering the German gun crew. Next up were two Panzer II tanks, which the T-34 immediately engaged. Jodl recollects that at least six Panzer rounds struck the T-34, but bounced off of it, sounding like a drumroll.

After taking out the two German Panzers, the T-34 cut a nearly nine-mile-long path of destruction through the invaders lines. The Germans, by now probably flipping out at the sight of the behemoth tearing through them like a hot knife through butter, finally managed to take it out using a howitzer, leveled out, and fired at close range. But that was just the first encounter. The Red Army had more than 900 T-34s by 1941.

Another T-34 is said to have taken at least 30 hits in its sloped armor by 37 and 50-millimeter anti-tank guns. Not only did this not take out the T-34, but the Soviets still inflicted massive casualties on the Germans before driving back to its own lines. The PaK 36 anti-tank gun became known as the Tank Door Knocker because it couldnt penetrate the armor.

The T-34 was not impregnable, of course. The Germans would use its 105-millimeter howitzers on them to great effect. Of the more than 20,000 tanks lost by the Soviet Union in the war, only 10 percent of them were T-34s  and mostly due to poor tactics and even worse maintenance.
A woman stands in a doorway, light flooding the air around her. The walls are dense with photographs arranged in uneven rows, but you cant make out more than the shape and the color of the people in them, because the focus is solely on herhead bowed, arms outstretched, as if her body is an antenna carefully pointed at the heavens. Everything else is a blur.

The woman is Renee Bach, an evangelical Christian missionary at the center of the three-part HBO docuseries Savior Complex. In 2009, Bach, then 19, founded a nonprofit in Jinja, Uganda, called Serving His Children, which was focused on feeding the areas malnourished children. (According to a 2019 report from UNICEF, a third of Ugandan children suffer the long-term effects of malnutrition, and it is responsible for 4 out of 10 deaths in children under age 5.) Because the children who came to Serving His Children for food tended to be sick in other ways, the facility unofficially took on the functions of a medical centerand because Bach saw herself as someone who had been called to the task by God, she felt empowered to assume some of those functions herself, without being licensed or formally trained. As the saying that gives Savior Complexs first episode its title goes, God doesnt call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

That image of Bach standing amid Serving His Childrens wooden cots, surrounded by photos of Ugandan children, was used in the organizations fundraising materials, and its a perfect encapsulation of how Bach saw herself, or at least wanted to be seen: as a vessel for Gods will, saving both lives and souls. Each picture, she tells the cameras, represents one life changed. But the photograph becomes a weapon to be used against her, particularly by the activist group No White Saviors, which accused Bach of fraud, negligence, and bearing the responsibility for the deaths of more than 100 children in Serving His Childrens care. The young white woman is centered, distinct, the African children whose lives she claims to have changed reduced to blurry background detail. When the picture appears on No White Saviors Instagram feed at the end of Savior Complexs second episode, it does so under a caption reading Angel of Death.

For much of its first two episodes, Savior Complex flops between these two perspectives, leaning heavily toward the second. The opening shots feel like the setup for a true crime expose, with Bach cooking dinner for her adopted Ugandan daughter and referencing newspaper headlines calling her a serial killer, which the documentary leaves uncontextualized for maximum shock value. Jackie Kramlich, an American nurse who volunteered at Serving His Children, describes her increasing horror as she worked alongside Bach, watching her administer medical care she was not trained to provide, a combination of ignorance and arrogance that put childrens lives in danger. And No White Saviors, a group led by Olivia Alaso, a Black Ugandan, and Kelsey Nielsen, an American who describes herself as a white savior in recovery, push the charges substantially further, accusing Bach of conducting medical experiments on the children. As far as theyre concerned, shes a murderer who belongs in prison, and theyre not going to stop until shes behind bars.

HBO is spreading Savior Complexs broadcast over two nights rather than three weeks, and it released all the episodes to streaming at the same time. (The final two episodes air tonight, but theyre all already available to stream on Max.) It turns out to be a wise move, because by the end of its second episode, I was so frustrated with what felt like its tendentious point of view that I was reluctant to press play on the third. Bachs behavior is questionable at best, but No White Saviors approach seems equally reckless and self-aggrandizing, lobbing indiscriminate accusations for social media clout with no regard for what the collateral damage might be. Bach is an easy targetas she reads from an accusatory comment left by Nielsen on Serving His Childrens Facebook page, she stumbles over the word neocolonialism, trying it several times before giving up entirely. But I kept thinking back to Bachs statement, early in the series, that shes taken the hit for every white person who ever stepped foot in Uganda, which, while betraying a characteristic lack of self-reflection and a hint of martyrdomat one point, she says a photo of her injecting fluid into a childs head through an intravenous catheter has been used to crucify medoesnt seem entirely wrong. Abner Tagoola, the head of pediatrics at Jinja Hospital, calmly turns the crusade back on the filmmakers when he points out, You have come all the way from America for one person.

The shoe finally drops in the middle of the series final episode, Reap What You Sow. No White Saviors splinters over the allegation that Nielsen misappropriated funds, which Nielsen deniedaccording to a 2022 report in the Guardian, the debate over whether it was appropriate for a white person to have a prominent role in the organization was also a contributing factorand the charges against Bach collapse due to a lack of evidence, although she does agree to pay small settlements to the mothers of two children who died after seeking treatment at Serving His Children. But more importantly, the episode is the first to give real prominence to Ugandan voices. The key figure in the storys final chapter isnt Bach or Nielsen but Primah Kwagala, the civil rights lawyer who presses the mothers civil suit against Bach. As the rhetorical war between Bach and No White Saviors escalatesBach flees back to her home in rural Virginia after the Angel of Death post sparks death threatsKwagala remains even-keeled and focused on serving the bereaved mothers rather than building up an image of herself. She, like Tagoola, is mindful of the bigger picture. Online activist groups like No White Saviors are great at drawing attention to injustice, but outrage burns too hot to sustain long-term solutions, while people like Bach have access to faith-based fundraising networks that also insulate them from accountability. No White Saviors succeeds in toxifying Serving His Childrens brand, but its not clear what if anything will replace the work that it did. Whos serving those people now? Bach asks. Is it Kelsey? She hasnt posted about it once, so Im pretty sure its not happening.

The idea that Nielsen couldnt possibly have done something good without documenting it on social media is staggering both in its presumptuousness and its apparent accuracy. And Bach, who detailed her work in a string of blog posts, seems no different. When the filmmakers confront her over Jackie Kramlichs accusation that she gave a sick child a blood transfusion without proper medical supervision, Bach admits that her blog post omitted the presence of a nurse in the room because, At the time, I wrote in the blog in a really first-person manner. Jesus counseled his followers to do good deeds in secret, but Bach contends that putting herself out front was good for appealing to donors, which in turn was good for her cause. Her supporters connected with the idea of her doing the lords work more than the work itself; even after Bach returned to the United States and Serving His Childrens leadership was taken over by Ugandans, donations never recovered. Growing up in Uganda, says No White Saviors Alaso, she got the idea that white missionaries were more blessed than us, because they looked like the Jesus on the wall. Charity clusters around recognizable forms and familiar stories, the image of a woman with her hands spread and eyes closed, channeling Gods will through the kind of vessel he always seems to choose.
Oak Street Health opens in Mishawaka

MISHAWAKA  Oak Street Health is now welcoming patients at 422 W. McKinley Ave. Oak Street Health delivers personalized, preventive primary care through a model that was created to meet the unique needs of older adults. The integrated model incorporates behavioral healthcare and social determinants support and is easily accessible through a mix of in-center, in-home and telehealth appointments, as well as a 24/7 patient support line. Oak Street Health accepts all forms of Medicare, including Original Medicare Part B, select Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare Supplement or Medigap plans and Medicare-Medicaid Plans. Oak Street Health is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. To schedule an appointment, call 574-383-9601 or go online to oakstreethealth.com/locations.

Way to Grow baby shower in Michigan City

MICHIGAN CITY  A free Way to Grow baby shower for expectant families and new parents will be held from 10 a.m. to noon CDT Oct. 7 at Franciscan Health Michigan City, 3500 Franciscan Way, in the Maria Theresia Conference Room. Information and education on car seat safety, prenatal care, safe sleep and community resources will be offered along with tours of the Family Birth Center, refreshments and giveaways. Attendees can also enter to win a TAVO Next Stroller. The event is free, but registration is required. Call 800-931-3322 or go online to franciscanhealth.org and searching baby shower.

Classes

SOUTH BEND  Alzheimers and Dementia Services of Northern Indiana will offer the free class Alzheimers and Dementia 101 from 10 to 11 a.m. Oct. 2 in the Care Partner Academy. Patty Piechocki, director of the Institute for Excellence in Memory Care, will lead this live/interactive web session. Participants can connect through their computer. Register online at https://alzni.org/caregivers/caregiving/.

SOUTH BEND  RiverBend Cancer Services Wellness House, 3516 E. Jefferson Blvd., will offer the following Living Well with Cancer classes. All classes are free and open to cancer patients, survivors, their families and caregivers; please pre-register for all classes by calling 574-287-4197.

 Oct. 2: 10 a.m. Seated Strength; 1 p.m. Scarecrow Bottle; 4:30 p.m. Gyna Girls; 5:30 p.m. Gentle Yoga.

 Oct. 3: 10:30 a.m. Chair Yoga; 11:45 a.m. Chair Yoga; 1 p.m. MELT.

 Oct. 4: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Massage; 10 a.m. Seated Strength; 2 p.m. Reiki; 2 p.m. Dominoes; 4:30 p.m. Tai Chi; 5:30 p.m. General Support Group.

 Oct. 5: 10 a.m. Yarnwork; 10:30 a.m. Chair Yoga; 11:45 a.m. Chair Yoga; 1 p.m. Debbies Wig Salon, call to make appointment; 2 to 4 p.m. Personal Training.

Events

MISHAWAKA  Multiple flu vaccination events will be held at the Jackie Walorski VA Clinic, 1540 Trinity Place. This will be free to all VA-enrolled veterans who bring a Veteran Healthcare ID card. Please wear a loose-fitting, short sleeve shirt and wear a mask. Flu vaccinations will also be offered to veterans at every face-to-face scheduled appointment. The drive-thru vaccination event will take place from 8 to 11 a.m. Sept. 30; 1 to 4 p.m. Oct. 3; and 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 10.

BERRIEN COUNTY  Corewell Health Lakeland will hold the following community drive-thru flu shot clinics. No appointment is needed, and participants remain in their vehicles the entire time. Must be 18 years or older.

 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 2, Dowagiac Fire Department, 302 Wolf St., Dowagiac.

 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 3, Corewell Health Lakeland HospitalsNiles, 31 N. St. Joseph Ave., Niles.

 Noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 5, First Congregational Church, 2001 Niles Ave., St. Joseph.

 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 6, Corewell Health Center for Outpatient Services, 3900 Hollywood Road, St. Joseph.

There is no cost with most insurance; bring insurance card with you. $37 for the traditional vaccine or $74 for the high-dose vaccine. Cash or check only; credit cards not accepted. For questions, please contact Corewell Health Employer Services at 269-927-5154.

Support Groups

SOUTH BEND  The New Hope Support Group will meet the first and third Tuesday of each month from 7 to 8:15 p.m. at Little Flower Catholic Church, 54191 N. Ironwood. This interdenominational group is for divorced, widows, widowers and anyone suffering grief due to the loss of a loved one. The group meets in a large area of the basement level of the church. For more information, call C. Forsythe at 574-252-2158 or P. Haden at 574-251-0131. The next meetings will be held Oct. 3 and Oct. 17.

ELKHART  An Epilepsy Support Group will meet the first Thursday of every month and is for individuals with epilepsy and families of those with epilepsy. The group meets from 7 to 8 p.m. at St. Thomas School, 1331 Main St., entrance off small parking lot. For more information, call 317-308-4823 or email: mmmrobinson07@gmail.com or Facebook Group: Elkhart Epilepsy Support Group. The next meeting will be held Oct. 5.

Blood drives

The American Red Cross will hold the following drives. Register at redcrossblood.org:

 Clinton Frame Church, 63846 County Road 35, Goshen, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 29.

 First Church of Christ, 2240 Yankee St., Niles, noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 3.

 St. Johns United Church of Christ, 101 St. John Road, Michigan City, noon to 6 p.m. CDT Oct. 3.

 American Legion, 9214 First St., Baroda, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 4.

 Sacred Heart Church, 201 Bach St., LaPorte, noon to 5 p.m. CDT Oct. 4.

 Riverside Intermediate School, 905 E. Baker St., Plymouth, noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 5.

Medical Foundation will hold the following drives. Register at givebloodnow.com:

 Rolling Prairie Lions Club, 1 E. Michigan St., Rolling Prairie, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. CDT Sept. 30.

 Hellenic Senior Living of Mishawaka, 1540 S. Logan St., Mishawaka, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 3.

 Lippert Components Plant 58, 1722 W. Mishawaka Road, Elkhart, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 3.

 Genesis Products, 2608 Almac Court, Elkhart, 8 a.m. to noon Oct. 4.

 Morgan Olson, 1801 S. Nottawa St., Sturgis, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 4.

 1st Source Bank, 100 N. Michigan St., South Bend, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Oct. 5.

 John Glenn High School, 100 John Glenn Road, Walkerton, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 5.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Health Briefs for South Bend area from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash in Atlanta denied a request from Edward Blums American Alliance for Equal Rights for a preliminary injunction that would block the Fearless Fund from awarding grants to Black women businesses.

The lawsuit stated that by awarding $20,000 grants and services to that particular demographic, it violates a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that warrants race neutrality in contracts. This disgusting attack on the small venture capital fund was led by the man who successfully implored the U.S. Supreme Court to get rid of race-conscious college admissions policies.

Read more

Thrash ruled that the Fearless Fund qualifies as charitable giving, which is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment. Thrash was appointed by President Bill Clinton and is expected to file an opinion in the case sometime this week.

In a statement, Blum said: Our nations civil rights laws do not permit racial distinctions because some groups are overrepresented in various endeavors, while others are underrepresented.

Though Blum believes the lie that Black women are overrepresented in the business space, the truth is that only 1.1 percent of the $214 billion in venture capital funding allocated went to companies with Black founders in 2022, per data from Crunchbase.

The judge, like the Fearless Fund founders Ayana Parsons and Arian Simone, saw right through Blums racism. Women of color continue to face significant barriers in obtaining access to capital, Parsons and Arian Simone said in a statement.

We are very pleased with the courts decision to deny the plaintiffs attempt to shut down our grant program and look forward to continuing to advance our critical mission.

Itll be just be a matter of time before Blum comes for another program or policy promoting racial equity for Black people. But we can still savor this victory and say with our chest: Go to hell, Edward.

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You are here: Travel

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Saudi Arabia has set its sights on welcoming 3 million visitors from China by 2030, as it was recently granted Approved Destination Status by China.

The bilateral agreement allows Chinese citizens to travel to Saudi Arabia in group tours and offers them a greater ease of access to the country.

Saudi Arabia is fully China-ready with new direct flights, customized products, and strategic partnerships in place to make group and Flexible Independent Travel seamless, according to the Saudi tourism authority.

Following the ADS designation, Saudi Arabia will continue to work closely with its partners in China to enhance the existing framework and facilitate the travel experience for Chinese tourists, the authority says.




Know the laws when youre gearing up for the 2023 Myrtle Beach Fall Bike Week.

An estimated 25,000 bikers are expected to arrive in the Myrtle Beach area from Oct. 2 through Oct. 8. for the 2023 Fall Motorcycle Rally. And since helmet laws vary by state, if youre going to the bike rally, youll want to know the requirements so a ticket doesnt dampen your fun.

Here is what you need to know about motorcycle helmet ordinances for Myrtle Beach Fall Bike Week.

Do I have to wear a helmet in South Carolina?

If you are 21 or older, you are not required to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle in South Carolina. Anyone under 21, whether they are a driver or a passenger, has to wear one under S.C. law.

What about in North Carolina?

If you take a jaunt across the state line to visit Calabash or Ocean Isle Beach, be sure to bring your gear. In North Carolina, all motorcyclists and passengers, no matter their age, must wear a helmet.

Have these laws always been the same?

In 2008, the City of Myrtle Beach started requiring helmets for all motorcyclists within city limits, which was more restrictive than the rest of the state. The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in 2010.
Another federal government shutdown is on the horizon for the United States if congressional Republicans fail to pass a government funding bill before Oct. 1.

This would be the 22nd shutdown in the last five decades, and it would have far-reaching effects on national agencies, affecting families across the country.

Amid largely stalled negotiations on Capitol Hill, the federal Office of Management and Budget has already begun the process of advising agencies which employees it may have to furlough ahead of a looming deadline Saturday at midnight.

The last time Congress failed to pass a government spending bill, nearly a million Americans were furloughed or went without pay, President Joe Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Processing times at the Internal Revenue Service slowed down. Military families had less access to critical family support programs. Some federal support for Indigenous tribes came grinding to a halt.

This most recent government shutdown lasted 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019 and was the longest in U.S. history.

So how would the possible upcoming government shutdown impact Wisconsin?

November 7, 2022: An early morning pedestrian is silhouetted against sunrise as he walks through the U.S. Flags on the National Mall and past the US Capitol Building in Washington.

Will I still receive mail during the government shutdown?

Yes. The U.S. Postal Service does not cease operations during any Federal lapse in appropriations as it is funded through a permanent no-year appropriation, according to its 2024 fiscal year shutdown plan. This means you will still receive mail during the shutdown.

According to U.S. Congressman Dan Kildee, the approximately 500,000 Postal Service employees are exempt from furlough because the Postal Service is self-funded.

How will Medicare and Social Security benefits be affected by the government shutdown?

Though some of the Social Security administration's employees would be furloughed ahead of the shutdown, Social Security recipients will continue to receive payments.

Under the administration's 2024 fiscal year contingency plan, many agency services would continue without interruption. These include the processing of benefit applications, appeal requests and hearings, post-entitlement actions such as address changes and the issuing of new and replacement Social Security cards.

A few services  such as verification of benefits, or corrections and updates to earnings records  would be temporarily suspended.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., major programs and benefits such as Social Security and Medicare are generally unaffected by shutdowns because Congress has approved these programs to spend without an expiration date  what is known as mandatory spending, which comprises about $7 of every $10 spent by the federal government.

Will federal workers get paid during the shutdown?

Many of America's 3.5 million federal workers, including active duty military, would go without pay during the shutdown, according to NBC. Federal law enforcement will also be among those impacted.

Some essential workers, including air traffic controllers and airport TSA officers, will have to work without pay.

In 2019, this led to protests by Milwaukee aviation workers feeling the effects of their missing paychecks.

The Stony Ridge Segment of the Ice Age Trail passes through a section of prairie filled with goldenrod in bloom in the Kettle Moraine State Forest's Southern Unit.

Will national and state parks be open during the shutdown?

National parks could be impacted right away. While the decision on whether to close them will be up to the Biden administration, some of the nation's parks have closed entirely during past shutdowns. Those that stayed open  and unstaffed  were left in states of disarray.

According to Reuters, many parks remained open during a 2018-2019 shutdown, though restrooms and information desks were closed and waste disposal was halted. They were closed during a 2013 shutdown.

The shutdown could also affect Wisconsin natural sites funded through the National Park Service.

During the last government shutdown, the Ice Age Trail was forced to cancel volunteer-led activities, as its Ice Age Trail Alliance volunteers are protected by insurance that is federally funded through the National Park Service.

Activities led by the state or county at the trail were not affected by the government shutdown, though, so people could still enjoy hiking, snowshoeing, running, backpacking and more.

How will the shutdown affect childcare?

Although K-12 and higher education policy is largely handled at the state and local level, the impact on families could be significant, particularly when it comes to federally supported child-care services.

As workers go without pay, families go without child care, poor families lose support for housing and food, and schools feel the squeeze, said David R. Schuler, executive director of the AASA: the School Superintendents Association, in a statement Friday urging lawmakers to keep the government open.

One of the programs that would be endangered right away is Head Start, which serves low-income families nationwide. According to the White House, 10,000 children across the country would immediately lose access to it, as the Department of Health and Human Services would be unable to award federal grants to child-care centers.

As in past shutdowns, that would force some preschool and school readiness centers to close, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. Bobby Kogan, a senior director of federal budget policy at the center, wrote in a column last week that a shutdown would have devastating impacts on essential programs that millions rely on for their health and safety.

The longer it lasts, he wrote, the worse off those programs would be.

How will schools and student loans be affected?

The Education Department would be forced to furlough about 90% of its staff in the case of a shutdown, according to a 2021 blueprint.

Federal student aid  in the form of Pell Grants and federal direct student loans  would keep flowing, but those programs would be operating with a minimum number of staff amid furloughs: what the department refers to in its 2021 guidance as "skeletal program operations."

The lack of bandwidth could pose barriers for students with immediate needs, the department warned in 2021.

How will the shutdown affect food programs like SNAP and WIC?

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food benefits to millions of low-income families, would continue throughout the month of October, said U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a White House briefing Monday. But if the shutdown drags on longer than October, SNAP funding would be put at risk.

In more immediate danger would be the 7 million moms and children relying on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC. That program, according to USDA, helps low-income mothers with infants and children at nutritional risk by offering easier access to things like food and healthcare referrals. Their benefits would dry up within a matter of days, Vilsack said, though some states might be able to use extra funding to stave off the effects for a week or two.

During the last government shutdown four years ago, the government nearly ran out of SNAP funding that wouldve affected some 40 million Americans.

A shutdown would halt EPA water and chemical facilities testing

Should a government shutdown occur, the White House also warned that most Environmental Protection Agency inspections of drinking water and chemical facilities would also be put on hold.

An unexpected effect on food seen during the last shutdown was the effect on Milwaukee's craft beer scene.

Breweries are governed by the federal agency Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which approves licenses for new breweries, some ingredients and labels for beers sent out of state. During the shutdown, it was not operating. This meant some breweries were temporarily delayed in getting new beers approved and released.

Milwaukee Federal Courthouse

Will the federal courthouse in Milwaukee be closed during the shutdown?

Reuters reported that "federal courts have enough money to stay open until at least Oct. 13. Activities might be scaled back after that point. The Supreme Court would stay open as well."

Milwaukee is home to a federal court building, at 517 E. Wisconsin Ave.

How will the shutdown affect farmers and agriculture?

The shutdown will cause farmers to wait on subsidy payments, loans and data they need now to make plans for the spring and future growing seasons. This is because USDA Farm Service Agency offices, which process farm loans and gather data farmers need to make decisions, would be closed.

Similar to previous shutdowns, marketing loans for many farmers would enter into a state of limbo as Farm Service Agency offices in most U.S. counties shutter. More broadly, USDA-backed housing loans for rural families would cease as well.

More: Government shutdown looms over farmers as they face tough decisions

Head Start teacher Lisa Hyde serves snacks to her students Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019, on the Oneida Indian Reservation in Oneida. The tribe is faring better with the shutdown of the federal government than other tribes because of planning done in the wake of the 2013 shutdown. Head Start is a federally funded program.

How will the shutdown impact Wisconsin's Native American tribes?

Many tribes are dependent on federal programs to provide a number of services. During the last government shutdown, Wisconsin tribes had to use their own funds to continue to provide education, health, law enforcement, food pantries and other services.

At the time of the last shutdown, about 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives received basic services from the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, which furloughed over half of its employees.

More: 'It's truly scary': Wisconsin's Indian tribes squeezed by federal government shutdown

USA TODAY reporters Terry Collins, Marc Ramirez and Zachary Schermele contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Government shutdown 2023: How a shutdown would affect Wisconsin
Samantha Sorbello hands Sunny a pupsicle at the Arizona Humane Society South Mountain Campus in Phoenix on July 20, 2023.

Following the Friday arrest of a Chandler woman who police said had 50 animals in poor condition, concerns about the lack of regulatory oversight in Arizona have emerged. Advocates are now urging individuals seeking assistance from an animal welfare group to carefully verify the organization's reputation and credentials.

April McLaughlin, who ran a special needs animal rescue, is charged in suspicion of 55 counts of animal abuse and 55 counts of animals cruelty, according to Chandler Police.

"Due diligence is really critical," said Kelsea Patton, vice president of external affairs with the Arizona Humane Society.

Patton and Lauren Martich, vice president of development at AHS, said the rescue groups they work with have been screened. Both said Phoenix Animal Care Coalition 911 is a place to start. Known best as PACC911, the network works closely with partner groups, conducting inspections and ensuring their adherence to a code of ethics and a best practices manual. It's worth noting that McLaughlin was not affiliated with PACC911.

Patton, Martich and PACC911 Vice President Tina Lopez provided tips on how to effectively evaluate and determine which animal rescue organizations are trustworthy.

Check charity status

To start, an organization should be able to prove they are a charity.

Check if organization is a 501(c)3, which grants them tax-exempt status and can be located on an online search tool from the IRS.

Find the organization's EIN (employment identification number), also known as its tax ID number, which indicates the IRS recognizes their work.

An organization saying they have a gross income of more than $200,000 should be able to produce documentation showing they are recognized by the IRS as a 990, and such a group should be listed on GuideStar.org.

CharityNavigator.org also locates and rates charities.

Request references

An organization should be able to provide references.

Ask about who sits on the organization's board and how often they meet.

Ask to talk to past adopters from the organization.

Ask to talk to veterinarians who work with the organization.

Get in-person look

The best way to verify an animal rescue organization is legitimate is by getting first-hand testimony on its place of operations.

Do not stop at photos or a phone call.

Ask to see the facility the animal is being transferred to and where they will be held.

Ask to see other animals in their care.

If you cannot visit yourself, ask someone, maybe even a person with PACC911, to go in your place.

Spotting red flags

There are also a lack in practices that can serve as warning signs an organization is not reputable.

Various forms of payment should be accepted by a charity and not only for funds via wire transfer.

A charity should be able to provide a tax receipt listing its name, address, EIN and what was donated.

"There are many, many wonderful, legitimate and registered charities around the globe and in this community and in this state. And I think it's important for people to just take that extra step to make sure that their dollars are accomplishing exactly what they intend them to," Martich said.

Ultimately, Lopez said deciding whether an organization is trustworthy may come down to discernment.

"If you have any reservations, or a person on the other end of the phone or email says anything that is the slightest bit of a red flag, I would definitely listen to it because 99% of the time, you're gonna be right," Lopez said. "You just gotta be diligent and ask a lot of questions."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Here's how to find a reputable animal rescue group in Arizona
Trick-or-treat night is scheduled across Lebanon County for Tuesday, Oct. 31, 6-8 p.m.

Throughout Lebanon County, organizations and businesses will be hosting all sorts of Halloween events in the month of October, here a few:

Trunk or Treat at the YMCA

The Lebanon Valley YMCA and Making a Difference of Lebanon, PA are hosting a free Trunk or Treat event in the parking lot of the YMCA at 201 North 7th St. on Tuesday, Oct. 24, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

This event is for children ages 12 and under.

Beyond the free candy for trunk-or-treaters, hot dogs, chips and drinks will be available for a small donation.

Cornell Wilson of Making a Difference of Lebanon, PA, said that they hope to have around 60 trunks, and over 800 youth participate.

Trick-or-treating has been set across the county for Oct. 31. File Photo.

Harvest Festival

Also presented by Making a Difference of Lebanon, PA, alongside the Friends of Coleman Memorial Park, the Harvest Festival is a family friendly event with activities geared towards those 10 and under, though all are welcome.

The Harvest Festival will be held on Oct. 14 from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Coleman Memorial Park.

Some of the featured activities include a hayride, pumpkin decorating, food trucks and a special guest, Lebanon's Taekwondo Junior Olympic Gold Medalist, Joshua Aguirre.

All proceeds for this event go towards improvements to Coleman Memorial Park.

Cleona Borough Fall Festival

Cleona Borough will be hosting its fall festival on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2-8:30 p.m., featuring food, games and a costume contest.

Halloween Movie Night at the Allen Theatre

Presented by the Rotary Club of Palmyra, 1984's Ghostbusters will screen on Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 6:30 p.m.

The Allen Theatre is located at 36 E. Main St, Annville.

Tickets are available at the door on the night of the event for $10, cash only.

Presale tickets can be bought by messaging the Palmyra PA Rotary Club facebook page or by calling (813) 205-7719.

Proceeds from the screening will benefit Rotary International's Polio Plus Campaign, seeking to eradicate polio globally.

Snitz Creek Halloween Bash

On Saturday, Oct. 21 Snitz Creek Brewery will hold its annual Halloween bash with food and drink specials, a DJ, and a costume contest, 7-10 p.m.

Categories for the Halloween contest include funniest, scariest and best overall, with all winners receiving Snitz Creek gift cards.

Attending the contest in costume also gets 10% off your total bill, excluding alcohol.

The Haunt

For the third year, the Schaefferstown Fire Company carnival grounds complex will transform into an immersive haunted attraction.

At the corner of North Locust and Oak Streets in Schaefferstown, The Haunt is boasting a new layout for its 2023 season including a novelties and vendor area, as well as a roaming puppeteer giving scares around the entrance and exit areas of the facility.

The Haunt is open every Friday and Saturday night in October from 7 until 10 p.m. Ticket booths open at 6:45 p.m. and close at 9:45 p.m.

Tickets are $15 per person, with group pricing available for groups 12 or more if reserved in advance.

Sunday, Oct. 22 is set aside as a rain date if any Friday or Saturday is cancelled due to inclimate weather.

Tickets can be purchased at thehauntpa.com.

Millard Mansion

Millard Mansion, located a 1 Clear Springs Road, will transform into a haunted mansion for the nights of Oct. 27 and 28.

The mansion's many rooms will be transformed into a horror-themed tour with actors and other haunts where guests are able walk throughout, eventually leading them to towards their party tent, where food and beverages will be served, and games and prizes will be offered.

This is bring your own beer event.

Tickets can be purchased online at millard-mansion.com, for $20, or in cash at the door, for $30.

On Saturday, Oct. 28, the Millard Mansion will host a more family friendly event from 1-5 p.m before the evening's events featuring games and trunk or treat.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on X @djlarlham.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Date set for trick-or-treating, other events in Lebanon County
JOHNSTOWN  For those interested in western Pennsylvanias tales of the paranormal and unexplained, the WPA Cryptid and Supernatural Expo 2023 will make your hair stand up on end and your spine tingle.

Five of the states well-known researchers of unexplained and supernatural activity are to be the featured speakers at the expo, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at the Johnstown Masonic Event and Conference Center, 130 Valley Pike.

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The speakers are: Stan Gordon, UFO and Bigfoot researcher and author; Eric Altman, cryptozoologist and paranormal enthusiast; Ron Murphy, paranormal investigator and author; Maxim Furek, paranormal researcher and author; and Jimmy and Dee Trick, a husband-and-wife team who lead the Goosebumps Paranormal Society, based in Pittsburgh and Detroit, Michigan.

Bigfoot and UFO researcher and author Stan Gordon, background right, talks about his research during an event hosted in 2018 by the Daily American.

A limited number of tickets to the speaker series are available; these can be purchased online at the expos EventBrite link. The time slot for each speakers presentation is listed at the event site. A question-and-answer panel discussion is planned to close the program.

Admission is free all day to enter the lodges Grand Ballroom, where 36 vendors also are coming to offer a variety of related products and services for guests to buy, including tarot card readings, tattoos, jewelry, books, clothing, crafts, snack foods and wines.

Food, music and more: Shanksville event combines car show, craft show and a featured performance by the Derek Woods Band.

'That's the great mystery'

Fureks presentation will be based on his latest book, Coal Region HooDoo: Paranormal Tales from Inside the Pit. The book covers his research on paranormal sightings along the Chestnut Ridge, a 100-mile land area between Pittsburgh and West Virginia, including coal mining towns in Westmoreland, Fayette and Indiana counties, that Furek calls the epicenter for paranormal sightings in Pennsylvania.

So few people have written about the western Pennsylvania region, he said, adding that most books about paranormal activity in Pennsylvania focus on the Gettysburg and Lancaster regions.

If people came out and heard my presentation, they would have a renewed awareness of the paranormal. The book is about the uniqueness of that (regions) paranormal activity.

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Furek said people enjoy attending events such as the WPA Cryptid and Supernatural Expo because they relate to the need to understand why they see things they cant explain.

Its an ongoing mystery, he said. People have seen things in the sky (since ancient times), and were still trying to figure out what it means. The Pentagon cant explain 3% of what people are seeing, and nobody really does (explain it).

Many people see things they cant explain, thats the great mystery.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: WPA Cryptid and Supernatural Expo comes to Johnstown Sept. 30
A number of Republican presidential contenders  minus the front-runner, former President Trump  will take part in the second presidential debate Wednesday.

The forum, which will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute Simi Valley, Calif., outside Los Angeles, will feature seven candidates: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , businessman Vivek Ramaswamy , former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley , former Vice President Mike Pence , Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson did not qualify for the debate stage.

Trump, meanwhile, will appear alongside striking autoworkers in Michigan, a key battleground state, in another example of counterprogramming.

Here are five things to watch ahead of Wednesdays second GOP primary debate.

Who will be target No. 1?

Many political pundits and strategists predicted that DeSantis would be the target of the candidates on stage during the first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee last month, given his second-place status.

But while DeSantis was positioned in the center of the stage, his opponents largely did not attack him. Instead, Ramaswamy drew most of the fire from the other candidates. The businessman-turned-politician had a number of heated exchanges with Haley, Christie and Pence, and his rambunctious performance resulted in a surge in media and voter interest. Haley has also seen a noticeable bump in polls following the debate.

Observers will be watching to see who takes the most incoming fire this time in California.

Ramaswamy and Haley could be targeted on stage due to their recent rise in the polls. DeSantis could also still come under fire, because he remains in second place in most state and national-level polling.

There is also the question of whether the fields Trump critics will be attacked on stage in front of what could be an audience that is sympathetic to the former president. Christie, a skilled debater, has focused much of his campaign on hitting Trump. Meanwhile, Pence has hit his former boss over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Will the candidates attack Trump?

While the former president went largely undiscussed during the last debate, some candidates did take shots at him. Haley questioned whether Trump could defeat President Biden in a general election and hit Trump for adding $8 trillion to our debt.

Yet Haley was among the majority of candidates on stage who raised their hand when asked whether they would still support Trump as the partys nominee, despite his legal issues; only Christie and Hutchinson did not raise their hands. Christie went on to criticize Trump, which led to him being booed by the audience. And Christie has given no indication that he will back off of Trump this time around.

Pence could also be critical of Trump this time around. In the last debate, Trumps former vice president reiterated his belief that Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. And I chose the Constitution, and I always will.

One candidate who likely will not attack Trump is Ramaswamy, who repeatedly praised Trump during the first debate. At one point, he referred to the former president as the best president of the 21st century. Ramaswamys performance earned him widespread praise from Trump world, including Trump himself.

Many Republican strategists and operatives acknowledge that attacking Trump comes with risks due to his strength with the GOP base, but others are hoping the other candidates come out swinging against the former president in an effort to stand out.

Can DeSantis stand out?

All eyes were on DeSantis going into the first debate, given his status as a rising star in the party and the races second-place contender. The Florida governor largely played it safe, staying out of heated exchanges with other candidates and focusing on his record. His performance received mixed reviews, with supporters saying he rose above the fray and his critics describing him as barely having a presence on stage.

DeSantiss supporters argue that he doesnt necessarily need a standout moment during this debate, noting that debates dont have a long-term impact on the polls. But roughly four months after entering the primary as Trumps chief challenger, the Florida governor has not surpassed Trump in the polls.

Instead, other candidates such as Ramaswamy and Haley have gained some traction nationally and have even surpassed the Florida governor in some polls out of New Hampshire. A standout moment and a positive news cycle could give DeSantis the jolt of energy he desperately needs.

Do Haley, Ramaswamy capitalize on their polling bumps?

Haley and Ramaswamy went head-to-head during the first debate  and both seemed to benefit. The two candidates saw an increase in media interest following the forum, which appears to have translated into some polling. A Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) survey released Monday showed Haley leapfrogging DeSantis among the states primary voters, garnering 15 percent support, behind Trumps 45 percent.

Meanwhile, a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll of the states likely GOP voters showed Haley and Ramaswamy surpassing DeSantis.

Another standout performance from Haley, Ramaswamy, or both, could again lead to increased attention from voters, which could translate in the polls.

But the two GOP contenders are still a long way from having a major impact in most polls. The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Ramaswamy and Haley at 5.4 and 5.3 percent, respectively. DeSantis remains in second place at 14.1 percent, while Trump is in first place at 57.3 percent.

Will anybody walk away with new momentum?

Its unclear whether polling bumps seen following the first debate were a result of the forum, candidates ground games, or both. Its also unclear whether the debate will solidify any decisions for voters.

Trump is leading the primary by a wide margin, and none of the candidates have been able to cut into that so far. Additionally, Trumps absence from the debate speaks to how critical he thinks it is, as the front-runner. The move forces GOP primary voters to choose between watching Trump, the debate, or monitoring both.

Still, the Fox Business debate could bring in a sizable audience. The Fox News primary debate last month brought in 12.8 million viewers despite Trumps absence from the stage. The candidates on stage in Simi Valley will certainly be hoping that a good performance could give them some much-needed momentum as they look to defeat Trump in early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A hiker spent the night lost in the Colorado mountains with a dead phone while her husband and a team of rescuers searched for her.

They searched almost the entire night  and then she turned up at a visitors center the next morning, the Boulder County Sheriffs Office said in a news release.

The 50-year-old hiker had driven to the Walker Ranch Open Space area west of Boulder with her husband on Sunday, Sept. 24, officials said in the release.

The couple planned for her husband to fish while she hiked, so they parted ways at South Boulder Creek with a plan to meet at a bridge that intersects the creek and trail, officials said.

She wasnt there when her husband got to the bridge around the time they were meant to meet, so he waited a bit longer in case she turned up, officials said.

But she never showed up.

He went back to their car to see if she might be there, officials said. She wasnt, so he started searching for her along the creek and the trails.

While he was looking for her, she called 911 at approximately 6:30 p.m. to report she was lost. But she was only able to tell a dispatcher which trailhead she had started hiking from before her phone died, officials said.

Deputies went to the area to look for clues related to the lost hiker and to find her husband, who also had reported she was overdue from her hike, officials said. They checked trailheads and called for emergency services personnel.

A search party associated with Rocky Mountain Rescue Group and Front Range Rescue Dogs got underway at 8 p.m., officials said. They spent the night searching trails at the 7.9-mile Walker Ranch Loop, Eldorado Canyon State Park and the South Boulder Creek Drainage  to no avail, officials said.

The search was suspended at 4 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 25, but a fresh search party with the two rescue groups, as well as Boulder County Mounted Search and Rescue and Boulder Emergency Squad, went back out at 8 a.m.

A digital alert went out to homes in the area asking homeowners to look out for the lost hiker, officials said.

And then she walked into the visitors center at Eldorado Canyon State Park around 10 a.m., officials said.

Park rangers reported her return. She was uninjured and safe, officials said.

Officials drove her back to the Walker Ranch Trailhead, where she reunited with her husband.

We encourage everyone to tell a friend or family member where you plan to hike and what route you plan to take, officials said. Be prepared with the ten essentials, including things like food, water, extra layers, a headlamp, whistle, a fully charged phone or battery bank. These simple things can be invaluable tools in the unforgiving wilderness of Colorado.

What to do if you get lost while hiking

If you think youre getting lost, experts say its best to stop where you are and not panic. You should go over how you got to that point and if youre able to see any landmarks around.

Do not move at all until you have a specific reason to take a step, officials with the U.S. Forest Service said.

You should come up with a plan but stay put unless you are very, very confident in the route.

There are steps hikers can take to avoid getting lost and be better prepared for the unexpected:

Have more than enough food and water with you.

Take a compass that you know how to use, or have a GPS device on hand.

Dont rely solely on your cell phone. It probably wont work because of a lack of signal or a depleted battery.

Study the terrain and your route, and you should know how youll return.

Have the right clothing. Sturdy hiking boots and layers can help you be prepared for rapidly changing weather.

Pack a blanket, flashlight and matches.

Check with a local ranger for special warnings. They can tell you about fires in the area, bear sightings, flooding, trail or road closures.

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Hillary Clinton mocked Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for his concerns about Natos expansion and said the Russian president brought it on himself with his invasion of Ukraine.

"Defending democracy in Ukraine, expanding Nato  just as an aside, too bad Vladimir, you brought it on yourself," the former US secretary of state said, prompting laughter and applause.

Ms Clinton was speaking at the State Department where she unveiled her official portrait and addressed current and former officials in the ornate Benjamin Franklin State Dining room.

"We always said, people are not forced to join Nato. People choose and want to join Nato," she added.

The top leader also took shots at the policies of Republican former president Donald Trump, who defeated her in the 2016 US presidential election.

She added that there may have been questions raised on Washingtons ability to gather support for its aid for Ukraine to fend off Russian invasion due to Mr Trumps legacy of alienating allies.

"People might have doubted that because we had burned so many bridges with our allies and our friends," she said.

"Reinstating a foreign policy... that actually brings people to us, not pushes them away, would have been thought to be extremely difficult. And indeed it was, but it was accomplished," she said and thanked her successor secretary of state Antony Blinken for "helping to restore Americas standing".

Ms Clinton said the current Biden administration pursued many of the priorities of the Obama administration, in which she was the top US diplomat.

Talking about the common Biden and Obama priorities, she described the mutual concerns of "expanding Nato, facing down Russian aggression and managing the challenges from China" as she took a dig at the Russian president who has long complained of Natos expansion in Europe and blamed it as a motive for his invasion of Ukraine.

The top former official joked that it had been a long time since she had seen the portrait, which depicted her gazing into the distance against the backdrop of an enlarged American flag.

"Between Covid, between not wanting to finish it during the prior administration," she said with a meaningful glance at the audience, drawing laughter, "its been a while. And I am going to be probably as surprised as all of you".
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton looks on Tuesday as her portrait is unveiled during a ceremony at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served during the Obama administration, watched Tuesday as her official portrait was unveiled at the State Department, calling it an "incredibly emotional moment."

"Looking out and seeing so many of you whom I was privileged to serve over my four years," Clinton said before the portrait, painted by Steven Polson, was unveiled. "Now, 14 years ago, hard to believe, I knew there was something very special about this place and that having the singular honor of leading the State Department and USA ID would be an incredible, both personal and professional, experience."

"Today, I was honored to return to the State Department and join Secretary of State Antony Blinken in unveiling my official portrait as 67th Secretary of State," Clinton wrote Tuesday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Today, I was honored to return to the @StateDept and join @SecBlinken in unveiling my official portrait as 67th Secretary of State. We're delighted to share it with the American public right here, in case you don't make it in person to headquarters in Foggy Bottom anytime soon. pic.twitter.com/YcPymY77aq Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 26, 2023

As it was unveiled, Clinton quipped that she had not seen the portrait -- which shows her standing in front of an American flag -- in quite a while.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace during her portrait unveiling Tuesday at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Blinken called Clinton an "esteemed predecessor." Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

"Between COVID, between not wanting to finish it during the prior administration," Clinton said in a jab at former President Donald Trump, whom she lost the election to in 2016. Besides being the Democratic presidential nominee, Clinton was first lady to former President Bill Clinton -- who also attended Tuesday's ceremony -- as well as the first woman from New York elected to the U.S. Senate.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced Clinton, saying she was about to "join this esteemed group" of predecessors lining the wood-paneled mahogany wall on the seventh floor walk to the secretary's office.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Evan Ryan, wife of Blinken; and former President Bill Clinton attend the former first lady and U.S. Senator's portrait unveiling Tuesday at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

"Secretary Clinton, your leg of the race helped revitalize the power and the purpose of American diplomacy. It reminded the world of who America is and what we stand for, and helped us achieve our mission," Blinken said.

"Secretary Clinton had this vision from the outset. She pledged, and I quote, 'to deal with the urgent, the important and the long-term all at the same time.' That means managing day-in and day-out crises, which she did incredibly deftly, including by brokering a landmark ceasefire in the Middle East," Blinken added.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Evan Ryan, wife of Blinken; and Former President Bill Clinton attend Tuesday's portrait unveiling at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

In her own remarks, Clinton thanked Blinken and everyone at the State Department as she praised the Biden administration for "the continuation of a lot of the values and priorities that we worked on."

"Defending democracy in Ukraine, expanding NATO. Just as an aside, too bad, you brought this on yourself," Clinton said, in a swipe at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Facing down Russian aggression, managing the challenges from China, using creative diplomacy in the Indo Pacific," Clinton added, "and strengthening our alliances and partnerships."
When Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a fake vote to extend his mandate in March 2024, Ukraine will not be allowed to hold an election due to the martial law imposed amid Russia's aggression.

This won't suddenly make Russia more democratic than Ukraine.

If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, it would be scheduled to hold a parliamentary election on Oct. 29, 2023, and a presidential one on March 31, 2024.

However, martial law, which was introduced when Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, makes this legally impossible.

Some Western commentators have urged Ukraine to find a legal solution and hold elections regardless of the war. They argue that this way, Ukraine would prove that it is a democracy.

However, there are many obstacles that would thwart an election during the full-scale war.

Such an election would pose huge security risks, and millions of voters abroad, internally displaced persons, and soldiers on the front line would be unlikely to vote.

"Is it worth paying the price of endangering citizens for Ukraine to conduct elections?" Harald Jepsen, a senior advisor at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), told the Kyiv Independent.

An election during a full-scale war is also unlikely to be democratic and competitive due to restrictions on free speech and other civil liberties. Moreover, it would likely cause a rift in society that may jeopardize Ukraine's war effort.

Experts argue that it may be possible to hold an election if the conflict subsides and enters a low-intensity stage. Yet, there's little prospect of that happening before March.

Growing calls for elections

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and the European Union's leadership have not made any statements pushing Ukraine to hold elections during the full-scale war.

However, some Western politicians, officials, and commentators have touted the idea.

In May, Tiny Kox, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, urged Ukraine to hold "free and fair elections." He did not specify when Ukraine would be expected to hold them.

"There are problems because as long as you have martial law, your constitution does not allow you to have elections," he said. "So, you have to find a solution. If you don't do it, then the question comes from the table. What did we defend in this war of aggression that Russia has called against us?"

Later, Kox clarified his statement.

"As long as martial law is there and your constitution is as it is, there will not be elections," he said. "But at a certain moment, there will be elections. And my advice is to start preparing for it as soon as possible."

U.S. conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has repeatedly voiced pro-Russian views, made a more radical statement in June.

He accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of canceling the elections to create a "dictatorship."

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has a pro-Ukrainian stance, also made a statement on Ukrainian elections in August.

He said that "it is time for Ukraine to take the next step in the development of democracy, namely to hold elections in 2024."

"I want this country to have free and fair elections, even when it's under attack," Graham said.

He said later that "elections would not only be seen as an act of defiance against the Russian invasion but an embrace of democracy and freedom."

Ukraine's response

Zelensky responded to Graham's statement in August, saying that "according to the legislation, it is forbidden to hold elections."

However, he appeared to leave the door open for potential legislative changes.

"My answer is very simple: if our parliamentarians are ready, because then we need changes to the legislation, to the Electoral Code, we need to do it quickly," he said.

Zelensky said that Ukraine would not be able to finance elections, which he said would cost around $135 million, and added that only the West could pay for it.

"I will not hold elections on credit. I will not take money from weapons and allocate it to elections, either," he said.

Later in August, Zelensky also said he would run for a second term if elections were held in 2024.

Meanwhile, Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Olena Shuliak, head of the governing Servant of the People party, and Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, have all said that it was impossible to hold an election under martial law.

Illegal wish

The Ukrainian constitution stipulates that the authority of the country's parliament must be extended until the expiry of martial law. However, the constitution does not contain similar provisions on presidential or local elections.

The constitution also explicitly prohibits any constitutional amendments during martial law.

In contrast, Ukraine's law on martial law explicitly bans presidential, parliamentary, and local elections during martial law.

"The constitution does not exclude presidential or local elections," Jepsen said. "It's only the law on martial law that prevents presidential or local elections during martial law."

The only legal way to hold elections during the war would be to either cancel martial law or amend the law on martial law to remove the ban on elections.

However, canceling martial law would be dangerous because it could dismantle the legal framework necessary for the war effort.

"(Canceling martial law) doesn't remove the challenges," Olha Aivazovska, head of election watchdog Opora, told the Kyiv Independent. "International observers wouldn't come to Ukraine, and mobilized conscripts would be able to go home."

International standards

Supporters of holding an election argue that Ukraine must do so in order to maintain its democracy.

But, opponents of the idea say that suspending elections during a full-scale war is in line with international standards.

"Nothing in the international standards says that you have to conduct elections during war," Jepsen said. "Quite the contrary, if you look at the Venice Commission, they say it's fully allowable to extend the mandate of parliament, even advisable."

Jepsen also said that the idea of suspending elections during wartime has precedents in European history.

"This is perfectly normal in the European context that during an all-out war, you don't conduct elections," Jepsen said.

One of the major examples cited by experts is that the U.K. and France did not hold any elections during World War I and World War II in Europe.

A counter-example would be the U.S., which held elections during the Civil War and during its participation in both World Wars.

However, a key difference with Ukraine was that there was no foreign invasion of U.S. territory in all these cases, except for several islands.

Risks and challenges

The main risk for an election cited by experts is potential Russian attacks.

"A single bomb or rocket can remove the possibility of carrying on with elections," Jepsen said. "What happens if Russia upscales its attacks, and you have to cancel these elections, and they are seen as a failure?"

Another common argument used by opponents of holding an election in 2024 is the fact that it will be hard for millions of Ukrainian refugees to vote.

Aivazovska, Jepsen, and political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko agree that it would be a major problem.

According to Ukraine's Center for Economic Strategy, 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees were in Russia in late June, and between 4.3 million and 5.4 million Ukrainian refugees were based in Europe and other foreign countries.

First, experts say there will not be enough polling stations for so many refugees.

Second, voter registration will be a major problem both for Ukrainians abroad and for internally displaced persons in Ukraine.

"There is no reliable data on the whereabouts of voters abroad," Jepsen said.

Aivazovska also said that it would be impossible for candidates to campaign in the European Union during the election.

It would also be difficult for soldiers on the front line to vote during the full-scale war due to security risks and their military tasks, experts say.

Aivazovska also argued that a competitive and fair election would be impossible during the full-scale invasion because of restrictions imposed on the freedom of speech under martial law.

"Martial law was introduced to enable the state to restrict certain rights of citizens," Jepsen said. "It will be difficult to conduct elections because elections are about the freedom of opinion, freedom of movement, and the safety of candidates."

Another common argument is that elections during a full-scale war would lead to disunity and disrupt Ukraine's war effort.

"This will contribute to a split at a time when the nation needs to stand united against the common enemy," Jepsen said. "Elections are about differences. Parties will inevitably start the narrative that 'we are better than the others.'"

Fesenko agreed that elections would lead to "an internal split" and would not be safe during the full-scale war.

Postal voting

Several solutions have been proposed as a way to solve the problems of a potential wartime election.

One of the solutions is postal voting because it would mitigate security risks and allow more Ukrainian refugees, internally displaced persons, and soldiers to vote.

"Ukraine doesn't have experience with postal voting, but it's one of the options," Jepsen said.

He added that postal voting was used in countries of the former Yugoslavia after the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

However, critics say postal voting may lead to electoral fraud or lower trust in the elections.

The latest example is accusations by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters that widespread postal voting in the 2020 U.S. presidential election led to voting fraud. There is no evidence backing up the accusations, but they led to low trust in the election outcome among the Republicans.

Aivazovska said that, according to opinion polls, few Ukrainians trust postal voting.

Electronic voting

Supporters of holding an election in 2024 have also proposed electronic voting to ensure a safe election during the full-scale war.

However, experts say that such a step would be problematic.

"The many offers of modern technology could certainly be used during elections," Jepsen said. "But it's premature for Ukraine to go the full way and start using the Internet for voting in national elections."

An electronic voting system has to be tested and takes years of development, he added.

Aivazovska also said that electronic voting is a major "cybersecurity risk," and it cannot guarantee the secrecy of voting.

Estonia and Switzerland have used electronic voting, but it was introduced there after many years of testing.

Meanwhile, Denmark and the Netherlands have decided not to use electronic voting because their societies were not ready for that, Jepsen said.

The most negative illustration of the dangers of electronic voting is Russia, where elections are regularly rigged. In 2021, evidence emerged that electronic voting had been used to rig the parliamentary election in Moscow.

Low-intensity conflict

Despite the problems, most experts believe that an election may be possible if the war becomes a low-intensity conflict.

One commonly cited parallel is Ukraine's 2014 presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. They were held after Russia launched an invasion of the Donbas but the conflict remained on a much lower scale than the current all-out war, and no martial law was declared.

"If the conflict goes down in intensity, it's technically possible," Jepsen said.

He argued, however, that this would become possible if there are security guarantees for voters and if many more Ukrainians return home from abroad.

"It also depends on how much territory Ukraine will have liberated," Jepsen added.

Fesenko and Aivazovska also said that it would be possible to hold an election if the war enters a low-intensity stage.

"This will be possible when there is security and when restrictions on the work of mass media are removed," Aivazovska said.

Potential election results

Ukrainian media outlets RBC Ukraine and Novoye Vremya reported in September, citing their sources, that the Zelensky administration had not yet made a final decision on holding elections in 2024. The sources said that it was still a possibility.

Zelensky's spokesman Serhiy Nikiforov could not comment on the issue.

Fesenko said, however, that the authorities were unlikely to hold an election in 2024 if the public opinion was against it.

"Zelensky's peculiarity is that he acts according to the public opinion," he said.

If elections are held next year, the results may be favorable to Zelensky.

Fesenko argued that Zelensky "has a high rating and may win in the first round" if an election is held.

According to a poll released by the Razumkov Center in July, 81 percent trusted Zelensky, while 71 percent trusted Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaly Kim, and Serhiy Prytula, a TV presenter, actor and volunteer helping the army, had a 55 percent approval rating.

Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had the highest disapproval rating: 78 percent did not trust her. Meanwhile, 76 percent distrusted pro-Russian politician Yury Boiko, and 71 percent did not trust ex-President Petro Poroshenko.

Only 23 percent of Ukrainians supported replacing Zelensky as president after the war, according to a June poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Zelensky's approval rating rose significantly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. His extraordinarily high popularity is attributed to his association with the war effort.

"The war consolidated the president's rating," Fesenko said. "It's the rating of resistance. The popularity of the institutions associated with resistance has risen  the Armed Forces, National Guard, and the president."

He said that the opposition is hoping for an election after the war because the population is expected to be more critical of Zelensky then.

Meanwhile, Zelensky's Servant of the People party is less popular than the president himself. According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 69 percent of voters support replacing the majority in the Verkhovna Rada when the war is over.

For Zelensky, this could be an argument against holding elections in 2024, according to sources cited by RBC Ukraine.

But Fesenko believes there would likely be a re-branding: instead of the Servant of the People, there might be a Zelensky Bloc comprising several parties. Most Servant of the People MPs are unlikely to run in the new election, he added.

Much depends on whether Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the highly popular commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, would create his own party.

If Zaluzhnyi launches a party, it may win in the election, and the Servant of the People may be the runner-up, Fesenko said. But Zelensky's party will likely win if Zaluzhnyi doesn't run, he added.

"Zelensky's party may get an absolute majority," Fesenko said.

However, the ratings of Zelensky and his party may fall as war fatigue sets in. There is speculation that Zelensky's legitimacy may be eroded if there is no election for a lengthy period.

"People are realizing that the war won't be over soon," Fesenko said. "Critical sentiment is growing."





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This aerial photo taken on Sept. 22, 2023 shows the cruise ships "Mediterranea" and "Dream" docked at a port in north China's Tianjin Municipality. (Xinhua)



A cruise ship registered in the Bahamas docked at a port in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Friday upon arrival, signaling a promising revival of the city's cruise tourism industry.

The ship, named "Mediterranea," is scheduled to embark on an international cruise route on Sept. 30 with Tianjin as its home port, according to its operator Adora Cruises.

To ensure the efficient berthing of the ship, local authorities assisted more than 900 Chinese and foreign crew members in completing all necessary formalities for port entry.

In July, the cruise ship "Dream" also docked in Tianjin. Registered in Liberia, the vessel boasts more than 1,000 cabins and can accommodate over 2,000 passengers.

The upcoming voyages of two cruise ships mark the post-pandemic recovery of Tianjin's cruise tourism sector.

The largest cruise homeport in northern China, Tianjin International Cruise Home Port has received over 880 international cruise ships and handled more than 4.26 million inbound and outbound passengers.

China's Ministry of Transport announced on Tuesday the full resumption of international cruise ship transport to and from ports in the country.

The ministry said in its notice that local transport authorities at the ports where cruise ships dock should formulate plans for restoring international cruise transportation and proceed with the resumption work after obtaining approval from local governments.

This photo taken on Sept. 22, 2023 shows the cruise ship "Mediterranea" docked at a port in north China's Tianjin Municipality. (Xinhua)




The iconic Hollywood sign is pictured the day after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced it reached a preliminary labor agreement with major studios in Los Angeles

By Lisa Richwine and Dawn Chmielewski

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Hollywood's writers union said its members could return to work on Wednesday while they decide whether to approve a three-year deal that provides pay raises and some protections around use of artificial intelligence among other gains.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) leadership voted unanimously to end the strike on Wednesday, the guild said in a statement. The 11,500 members have until Oct. 9 to cast their votes on the proposed contract.

The WGA said the estimated value of the deal was $233 million per year.

Film and television writers walked off the job in May after failing to reach a deal with major studios, including Netflix, Walt Disney and Warner Bros Discovery.

Writers appeared to have won concessions across the board, with raises over the three years of the contract, increased health and pension contributions, and AI safeguards.

Under the agreement, the studios agreed to meet at least twice a year with the guild to discuss plans to use AI in film development and production.

The studios are not expressly prohibited from using AI to generate content. Writers, however, have the right to sue if their work is used to train AI.

Writers can choose to use AI when drafting scripts, but a company cannot require the use of the software. The studios also must disclose to a writer if any materials were generated by AI.

In other areas, the guild said it won guarantees of minimum staffing in writers rooms, a key issue for many of its members. Staffing will be determined by the number of episodes per season. Minimum pay rates will climb by more than 12% over three years.

Also, residuals will rise for the use of TV shows and movies outside of the United States and a bonus will be awarded for the most popular shows on streaming.

"These are essential protections that the companies told us, to our faces, that they would NEVER give us," writer Adam Conover, a member of the guild's negotiating committee, posted on social media platform X.

"But because of our solidarity, because they literally cannot make a dollar without us, they bent, then broke, and gave us what we deserve. WE WON," Conover said.

Television writer David Slack said: "Our strike was necessary. Our strike was effective. Our strike is a victory."

The strike's end means daytime and late-night talk shows can return to the air. Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time," said on social media that he would be back with fresh episodes starting Friday.

"My writers and Real Time are back!" Maher wrote.

Maher and Drew Barrymore had angered writers by saying this month that their talk shows would return before the strike ended.

The end of the WGA strike does not return Hollywood to normal. The SAG-AFTRA actors union walked off the job in July and remains on strike.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Dawn Chmielewski; Editing by Jamie Freed, Leslie Adler and Gerry Doyle)
A homeowner in Valencia, California, clashed with his homeowners association last year over the water-saving landscaping he installed in the midst of the states ongoing water crisis, KTLA reported.

As the huge volume of heat-trapping air pollution in the atmosphere has raised the Earths temperature, the western U.S. has seen severe, long-lasting drought conditions. Some areas, such as California and parts of Arizona, have taken measures to reduce water usage.

California, in particular, has encouraged residents to save water by paying them to replace thirsty, high-maintenance grass with drought-friendly alternatives. However, some HOAs have stepped in to prevent residents from taking advantage of the deal.

Steve Goodman, one of the original residents of Valencias North Park, applied to his HOA to replace his grass, KTLA said. After a long wait, Goodman assumed the application was likely to be approved and installed his planned design.

The yard used a beautiful combination of stone, desert plants, and drip irrigation that would save water and require no mowing. It was similar to the drought-friendly landscaping many of his neighbors were installing. But unfortunately, the HOA rejected his proposal and demanded that he remove the new landscaping.

KTLA explained that North Parks rules required a mix of 30% hardscaping or paved elements and 70% softscaping or plants. Goodmans design used more hardscaping than plants. Goodman proposed to the HOA that he could add more plants but was again rejected.

I really felt like I was being controlled, Goodman said. I think they were upset that I didnt follow protocol and get the approval before I started the work.

No thanks to that decision, KTLA reported that Goodman will need to spend $5,000 to remove all of his drought-resistant landscaping  leaving him stuck with a wasteful grass lawn.

Goodman feels the decision is unfair. When theyre not considering whats going on in the world and in the state of California, specifically, the water crisis thats happening, then theyre not considering all aspects, he said.

The North Park HOA released a statement saying changing its rules is not just done on a whim. However, that doesnt explain why the board refused Goodmans updated proposal to use more plants.

According to KTLA, Goodman protested the decision with a sign in his driveway saying, [The HOA rules] are 25 years old and do not reflect reality now.

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The House GOPs bill to fund the Department of Agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on thin ice after a handful of moderate Republicans said they are opposed to the legislation because of a provision that would limit access to an abortion pill.

Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday morning that they do not support the agriculture spending bill in its current form, pointing to language pertaining to mifepristone, an abortion pill.

Rep. Anthony DEsposito (R-N.Y.) told The Hill that he is a no on the agriculture appropriations bill in part because of the abortion pill provision.

Asked about the spending bill, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.)  who in July said some states allow it to be mailed, some states dont, but that it should be a decision with the states and the FDA  told reporters Wednesday my position hasnt changed. Lawler, DEsposito and Molinaro represent districts President Biden won in 2020.

A provision in the legislation would nullify a Biden administration rule allowing mifepristone to be sold in retail pharmacies and by mail with prescriptions from a certified health care provider.

The House advanced the agriculture appropriations bill along with three other spending measures Tuesday that would fund the Department of Defense; Department of Homeland Security; and Department of State and foreign operations.

The House debated and voted on a number of amendments to the legislation Tuesday, and leaders are looking to bring the legislation to the floor for a final vote this week. With Democrats opposed to the measure, Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes and still move it over the finish line.

Mace predicted that the measure will fail on its face on the floor because of the mifepristone provision.

Itll be the reason why the bill doesnt pass on the floor, she said Wednesday.

If you dont like the drugs that the FDA approves, then fix the FDA, but this is not going to  its only going to make women angrier in this country when we keep having these abortion arguments, when we havent done anything for women, she added at another point in the conversation.

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), an appropriator, said he thinks the agriculture appropriations bill will be the most difficult to get over the finish line of the spending measures up for consideration this week.

The House sought to advance the agriculture appropriations bill in July, but GOP leaders punted those plans amid internal divisions over the legislation. Moderates at the time were voicing concerns about the mifepristone provision, and conservatives were pressuring GOP leaders to further slash funding levels in the measure.

Mace  who has been vocal in her support for exceptions to abortion regulations  claimed that she was misled by GOP leadership, who she said assured her that the mifepristone provision would not be in the final bill.

A coalition of Democrats submitted an amendment to the appropriations bill that would strike the mifepristone provision, but it was not put in order for a vote. Mace did not submit any amendments to the legislation.

Leadership told us that this would not be a problem and wouldnt be in there, and here we are, Mace said.

We were misled by leadership on that issue, so Im gonna call it like I see it, and I dont appreciate being misled on an issue thats very important to women in this country, she later added.

The congresswoman said she had meetings with leadership and informed them that the mifepristone provision was a problem. She said it was her interpretation afterward that leadership would nix the language from the bill.

My interpretation of our meeting is that  and the conversations after  is that it would, it would not be an issue, would not be part of the Ag bill, she said, and here we are.

The discord over the agriculture appropriations bill comes days ahead of Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown. The fate of the legislation, however, will not affect whether or not the government shuts down over the weekend.

Leaders in both parties and chambers have said that a stopgap bill will be needed to keep the lights on in Washington beyond the end of the month, but a path to such a measure remains unclear.

The Senate advanced a bipartisan continuing resolution Tuesday night that would fund the government through Nov. 17 and includes roughly $6.15 billion for Ukraine and $5.99 billion for disaster assistance, but Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told members of his conference Wednesday morning that he will not bring the measure to the floor for a vote.

McCarthy has tried to coalesce his conference around a partisan stopgap bill  legislation that will not advance in the Senate but is meant to kick off negotiations with Democrats  but GOP lawmakers have been unable to get legislation over the finish line. A number of hard-line conservatives have said they will not vote for a continuing resolution under any circumstances.

In an effort to flip their stance, however, GOP leaders are considering four full-year appropriations bills this week, which has been a key request among conservatives.

Emily Brooks contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The House Armed Services Committee is expected to grill top Biden administration officials during a Thursday hearing after a planned headquarters shift for U.S. Space Command was scrapped by the Biden administration, which infuriated Alabama Republicans.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the committee, will lead a full committee hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday on the nixed plan to transfer Space Command headquarters to his state, which he and other Alabama politicians have decried as a politically motivated decision.

We will get answers on President Bidens political manipulation of the selection process, Rogers said in a statement announcing the hearings, claiming Biden made the decision in order to improve his political standing for next years re-election.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and the commander of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson, will testify at the hearing, along with Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force.

Space Command is one of 11 combat command centers under the Pentagon. Former President Trump revived the command center as an independent entity in 2018 to protect American interests in space and temporarily placed its operations in Colorado Springs, Colo., with a plan to relocate it to Alabamas Huntsville.

The Biden administration, however, ditched the plan in July and said keeping the base within Colorado would maintain military readiness as the relocation process could take up to the early or mid-2030s, while keeping it in Colorado means full operation in a month.

The clash is not surprising. A Space Command headquarters is flush with benefits: about 1,400 jobs for an estimated annual $1 billion economic impact.

Heres what to expect as lawmakers are set to press officials on the decision.

Abortion laws impacting the decision a leading concern

In May, NBC News reported the Biden administration may choose not to relocate Space Command because of a near-total abortion ban in the state.

That quickly led to a formal investigation headed by Rogers, who was already frustrated with the long delay of relocating Space Command.

The investigation so far has not yielded any discernible public results. Rogers has complained that Biden administration officials have refused to provide documents and information.

In August, Rogers announced that a hearing would take place and that the Pentagon would provide the requested documents.

Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.), who also sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said he had asked for the hearing because the Biden reversal threatens the credibility of the Pentagon and sets a dangerous precent for all future military decisions.

I wasnt kidding when I said this is far from over, he said in a statement. Ive certainly got a lot of questions Im ready to ask.

Pentagon reports found Huntsville is the best option

Alabama lawmakers say Huntsville was selected under a fair process as the best choice for the base.

Redstone Arsenal was one of six finalists for the headquarters along with Peterson Air Force Base, but only the Huntsville base finished first in both the Air Forces evaluation and selection phase.

Colorado lawmakers have complained that the original decision was politically motivated by Trump, who has said he single-handedly chose Redstone Arsenal.

In office, Biden ordered reviews of the decision, questioning if Trump chose Redstone Arsenal in Alabama over Peterson Air Force Base because he enjoys more political support in the Yellowhammer State.

But a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and a Pentagon inspector general evaluation found the process under Trump was largely fair.

Rogers asked the GAO to launch another inquiry, this time into Bidens selection process for the headquarters.

In Thursdays hearing, lawmakers are likely to point to the preferred selection of Redstone Arsenal and the reviews finding no wrongdoing in Trumps decision.

Alabama concerned Space Command was built out

Alabama is also concerned that Space Commands temporary location was built up prior to the formal decision not to relocate.

Before the July decision, House lawmakers offered amendments in the annual defense bill to restrict funding to build out a Space Command site in Colorado before a final selection is made.

While those amendments are likely not valid anymore because the final decision was made, the concerns remain.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) released records claiming that Dickinson purchased a $1.5 million, 20-acre ranch near the Colorado base in April, according to AL.com.

This new revelation raises more questions into the legitimacy of an already dubious decision by President Biden, Britt wrote. Alabamas congressional delegation is going to continue fighting to right this wrong.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has demanded a Pentagon inspector general investigation into the process based on Dickinsons apparent purchase.

Since taking office, this president has targeted red states for daring to resist his radical progressive agenda, the attorney general said. But when it comes to national security, politics must take a backseat.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed a bank for Hunter Biden s records and obtained two wire transfers from Chinese nationals to Hunter Biden in 2019 that listed President Joe Biden s Wilmington, Delaware, home as the beneficiary address, the panel announced Tuesday.

The subpoena, which was quietly issued on Monday, is the first time the committee issued a subpoena to a bank for Hunter Bidens records specifically, a source told CNN.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer said after the announcement that the subpoena was very specific and that these two wire transfers are the first examples the panel has found of Hunter Biden receiving money directly and not through a shell company.

This went directly to Hunter Biden and the address listed was Joe Bidens, Comer told reporters.

The six subpoenas the committee issued to banks up to this point were for records of Hunter Bidens business associates. The committee still plans to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James Biden, the presidents brother, for their personal and business records, according to the source.

The wires allegedly were addressed to Hunter Biden when his father was not in office and do not prove that Joe Biden received any of the money. CNN previously reported Hunter Biden used the Wilmington address on his drivers license and the home was the site of a family intervention over his drug addiction in 2019.

Comer told CNN his panel is trying to put together a timeline on where Hunter Biden was living around this time.

According to the committee, the wires allegedly showed that Hunter Biden received a $10,000 wire from Wang Xin on July 26, 2019. Separately, on August 2, 2019, Hunter Biden allegedly received a $250,000 wire from Jonathan Li and Tan Ling. Both of the wires listed Joe Bidens home in Wilmington, Delaware, as the beneficiary address. The committee did not provide the bank wires in their announcement on Tuesday.

Hunter Bidens attorney Abbe Lowell said the new allegation from House Republicans evaporates in thin air the moment facts come out. Lowell said that in 2017, Hunter Biden made a substantial investment in Bohai Harvest Rosemont Partners, where Li is CEO. In 2019, the year of the wire transfers, Lowell said Hunter Biden was borrowing the funds using his equity as security, and the reason the wires went to the Wilmington address was because it was Hunter Bidens only permanent address at the time.

This was a documented loan (not a distribution or pay-out) that was wired from a private individual to his new bank account which listed the address on his drivers license, his parents address, because it was his only permanent address at the time, Lowell said in a statement provided to CNN. We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda.

White House spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN: Extreme House Republicans are pushing out half-baked innuendo and conspiracy theories that yet again show no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, just more discredited personal attacks on him and his family, in a sad effort to distract from their chaotic inability to govern that is leading us to the brink of a dangerous government shutdown.

House Republicans have yet to uncover any specific evidence that Joe Biden financially benefited from his sons business dealings and have shifted to accusing the president of lying and corruption.

Comer said in a statement to CNN: Joe Bidens abuse of public office for his familys financial gain threatens our national security. What did the Bidens do with this money from Beijing?

Hunter Bidens business former associate Devon Archer testified to Congress earlier this year that Hunter Biden placed his father on speaker phone in front of Li, but that business was not discussed.

I think you have to understand that there was no business conversation about a cap table or a fee or anything like that. It was, you know, just general niceties and, you know, conversation in general, you know, about the geography, about the weather, whatever it may be, Archer testified.

Archer also said then-Vice President Joe Biden had a handshake with Li and later wrote a college recommendation for Lis daughter to go to Georgetown, but she didnt get in.

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Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) slammed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler on Wednesday, accusing him of kneecapping U.S. capital markets with a multitude of regulatory proposals.

Youre right. We are blessed with the largest, most sophisticated, most innovative capital markets in the world,' Barr said during Genslers appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, quoting from the chairmans opening statement.

But we cannot take this for granted. Even a gold medalist must keep training, Barr continued.

With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, if the U.S. capital markets are a gold medalist, you are the Tonya Harding of securities regulation because you are kneecapping the U.S. capital markets with the avalanche of red tape coming out of your commission, he said.

Republicans have repeatedly sparred with Gensler over the SECs rulemaking proposals throughout his tenure as chairman.

Wednesdays hearing on SEC oversight marks Genslers second appearance before Congress this month. Gensler faced a grilling by GOP lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs two weeks earlier.

Beyond criticizing the pace at Gensler which has sought to advance various rules, Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about a proposed rule that would bar firms from using predictive data analytics and similar technologies, including artificial intelligence, in a way that puts their interests above those of investors.

A proposed climate disclosure rule, which would require companies to provide information about climate-related risks for investors, has also drawn the ire of members on the right.

Climate rule remains point of contention

Barr suggested on Wednesday that the aim of the climate disclosure rule was to redirect capital away from and discriminate against fossil energy.

Lets be honest, we know whats going on, the Kentucky Republican said. Youre trying to scarlet letter fossil energy. I know you say youre not. But we got the joke. Everybody knows what youre doing.

Gensler repeatedly emphasized throughout the hearing that the SEC does not seek to act as a climate regulator.

Were not a climate regulator, he said. Its a matter of investors making investment choices. And for some companies, investors are getting disclosures, and were trying to bring some comparability to [those] disclosures.

Right now, 80-plus percent of the top thousand companies are already making disclosures, Gensler added. Its really on our responsibility to bring some consistency and comparability for investors to get decision useful information.

Government shutdown looms

With a potential government shutdown looming over Wednesdays hearing, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) used Barrs kneecapping comment to take aim at House Republicans role in holding up stopgap funding measures.

In light of the colorful questioning and use of language with discrimination and kneecapping, I want to ask you about the shutdown because I think my Republican colleagues are kneecapping the American people and those who serve this country and those that we took an oath to protect, Beatty said to Gensler.

The SEC chairman said his commission would be working with a skeletal staff while other employees would be furloughed during a shutdown.

Beatty pointed to the SEC employees as examples of the hard-working American people with families and children that would be kneecapped by my Republican colleagues in the event of a shutdown.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd said on Wednesday that his campaign has reached an inflection point after the Texas Republican failed to make a second GOP presidential debate.

Just 14 weeks ago, I became the final candidate to enter the Republican primary field. In the short time since, our campaign received donations from over 50,000 individuals who support our vision and registered at 3% in New Hampshire polling. Unfortunately, we narrowly missed the cut for the second debate and our campaign is at an inflection point, Hurd said in a statement posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Hurd notably did not say he was dropping out of the race.

My team and I are constantly evaluating whether we have the resources to chart a path to victory, he said. Im headed to New Hampshire to spread my message to the Granite State ahead of the First in the Nation primary. Educating voters on how to solve these existential issues is important, and hopefully other candidates will follow my lead.

Hurd, a former House representative, failed to qualify for the second GOP debate on Wednesday, which is being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. and aired on Fox Business. The Texas Republican also failed to meet the criteria to make the first debate in Milwaukee.

Hurds inability to make the debate stage underscores the tricky balancing act anti-Trump candidates have faced in the 2024 GOP primary  contrasting themselves with the former president while trying not to alienate the majority of Republicans voters who still support Trump.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), another Trump critic, was unable to make the second debate as well, though he did participate in the first debate. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the loudest Trump critic in the field, will be at the second debate.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
NEW YORK  The husband of the owner of a Bronx day care where a 1-year-old boy recently died from fentanyl exposure has been arrested in Mexico, according to law enforcement sources.

Felix Herrera, 34, was taken into custody on a bus in Sinaloa on Tuesday following a nearly two-week manhunt that began after little Nicholas Feliz-Dominici died and three other tots were exposed to fentanyl at the El Divino Nino day care, police said.

Police tracked Herrera as he drove south through Texas and crossed the Mexican border, according to Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Cops believe the mans goal was to make it to his native Dominican Republic.

After the children were poisoned at the daycare on Sept. 15, Herrera carried several bags believed to contain bricks of fentanyl through a back entrance, the chief said.

Nicholas was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Two other children, an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old, were rushed to a hospital, where they were giving the life-saving Narcan drug, officials said.

The fourth child, a 1-year-old boy, had been picked up by a parent about two hours earlier, according to court papers. When that childs parent noticed that he was lethargic and unresponsive, the tot was taken to a hospital where Narcan was administered.

Daycare owner Grei Mendez, 36, and her alleged accomplice Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, were arrested on Monday and have been hit murder and attempted murder charges by Bronx prosecutors. They also face federal charges for narcotic possession with intent to distribute resulting in death, and conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.

Compounding the crimes, Mendez called another day care employee and her husband before dialing 911 in an attempt to cover up her involvement in a sprawling drug operation, federal prosecutors allege.

Brito is a cousin of Mendezs husband, according to Bronx prosecutors.

On Monday, another, Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, appeared in Manhattan Federal Court to face a charge of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death. He was held without bail following the hearing.

Paredes, 38, played an instrumental role in this conspiracy, said Frank Tarentino, special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administrations New York Division.

The defendants poisoned four babies and killed one of them because they were running a drug operation from a day care center  a day care center  a place where children should be kept safe, not surrounded by a drug that could kill them in an instant, U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said last week.

The suspects face 20 years to life in prison if they are convicted.

Investigators found the deadly opioid stashed in the day care centers nap room, near where the children slept, cops said.

Nicholas and two other young children were put down to rest in the room at the Morris Ave. day care near E. 196th St. around 1 p.m. Sept. 15, cops said.

About an hour and a half later, they began experiencing overdose symptoms. Police responding to a 911 call for the ailing children later found a kilogram of fentanyl stashed beneath one of the mats the children used for sleeping, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said last week. They later uncovered more drugs hidden beneath a trap door.

Herrera is still in Mexico but will be extradited back to the city, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.

He has been arrested twice before in the city, cops said. In 2011, he violated an order of protection in Brooklyn and in 2014, he was nabbed for burglary.

_____
Most people know when an emergency vehicle of any kind approaches their vehicle with lights flashing it means get out of the way.

But did you know that you can be fined in South Carolina for not moving away when a police car, firetruck, ambulance or any emergency vehicle is parked on the side of the road as officers deal with crashes and disabled vehicles. The law includes police bicycles operating as emergency vehicles.

The fine? No less than $300 and no more than $500.

Proposed legislation would tighten that up even further with points added to your license if you violate the law. Drivers can amass 12 points before a license is suspended.

The South Carolina Senate passed the changes to the so-called move-over law and it is pending in the House of Representatives when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Joe Palmer, the executive director of the South Carolina State Firefighters Association, said the current law also needs to be more specific about how fast a driver can go when passing an emergency scene.

Right now, the law says proceed with caution, significantly reduce speed.

Different people will have different opinions about what that means, Palmer said.

Hes worked scenes where cars zipped by going the speed limit, steps from where he was standing.

It is more dangerous operating on an interstate highway than it is a house fire, Palmer said.

Palmer pointed to two side-of-the road deaths as examples of how dangerous it is for emergency workers. State law calls emergency scenes a special hazard.

Last August, Florence County EMT Sara Weaver was caring for an injured motorcyclist on Pamplico Highway when a vehicle drove through the crash scene. She and the motorcyclist Cedric Gregg were killed. Two law enforcement officers who were hit survived.

In 2010, 23-year-old Columbia-Richland firefighter Chance Zobel was killed and another firefighter injured as they were working a grass fire in the median of Interstate 20. A car driven by a woman, who has since been deported, rear-ended a sedan and the firefighters were hit.

Palmer said the South Carolina Department of Transportation offers a safety course for first responders as part of the National TIM Responder Training course.

Nationally, more than 650,000 responders across the nation have completed the course.

Palmer said many fire departments require responders to complete the free course.

Palmer said what he found most helpful was the training on how to stage the scene to make the flow of traffic safer, such as angling emergency vehicles to provide a buffer.

To drivers, Palmer has a simple message, Slow down.
 Flash

Aerial photo provided by the Swedish Coast Guard on Sept. 27, 2022 shows the gas leak from Nord Stream in the Baltic Sea. [Photo/The Swedish Coast Guard handout via Xinhua]

A year ago, the Nord Stream pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to European markets were ruptured in a series of explosions underneath the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark.

One year after the attack, investigations by Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, which excluded Russia, are still dragging on, yielding no substantive results.

Investigation dragging on

Running from Vyborg, Russia to Lubmin, Germany through the Baltic Sea, the Nord Stream twin pipelines were critical to Europe's energy security.

In 2021, the EU imported 83 percent of natural gas consumed, with nearly 50 percent of imports coming from Russia (153 billion cubic meters) and more than one-third of Russian imports through the Nord Stream (59.2 billion cubic meters), according to the European Council.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has protested that the three countries deliberately delayed the investigation and tried to conceal who was the black hander. It also voiced Russia's dissatisfaction with the opacity of the investigation and its refusal to engage with Russia.

In a joint letter dated February this year, the three countries told the United Nations Security Council that "investigations have not yet been concluded. At this point, it is not possible to say when they will be concluded." There has been no major breakthrough since then.

"The longer the delay, the more difficult it will be to collect evidence and find the truth, the more doubts and speculations will occur, and the less credible the results of the investigations will be," Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, told a Security Council briefing on the Nord Stream issue in July.

Geng urged all parties not to politicize investigations or use it as an opportunity for political manipulation, calling for an early release of the results of a country-specific investigation into the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion.

Suspected U.S. involvement

Mats Ljungqvist, the Swedish prosecutor investigating the attack, said in April that a state actor "directly or at least indirectly behind all this" was the "absolute main scenario," without naming any country.

Caution from the European states is probably a result of the politically sensitive and inconvenient truth.

Western officials would rather not know who bombed the Nord Stream pipelines, lest they discover that their allies were responsible, the Washington Post reported in April.

"Leaders see little benefit from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer," the paper added, stating that officials "would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or its allies were involved."

A 5,000-word investigative report in February, "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline," published by the Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, appears all the more credible and logical among the many revelations.

Hersh revealed that the sabotage of the pipelines was a secret operation ordered by the White House, implemented by the CIA, and assisted by the Norwegian Navy. Such a scenario appears in accordance with U.S. President Joe Biden's statements in February last year that there would be no Nord Stream 2 if Russia attacked Ukraine -- "I promise you we will be able to do it."

Josep Puigsech, a Spanish expert on Russian affairs and contemporary history, has pointed to "a clear profit to be made" by the United States and a strengthening of its geopolitical influence over Germany.

"I'm increasingly convinced this was an action by the United States," said Puigsech, adding that the country has the most to gain from the destruction of the pipelines: forcing Russia's energy out of Europe while increasing Germany's dependence on it.

U.S. LNG flooding Europe

The implications of the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines are enormous, said Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairperson of the German think tank Schiller Institute.

She noted that the incident massively increased the immediate prospect of Europe's deindustrialization and its dependence on U.S. liquified natural gas.

In 2022, the United States boosted liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe by 141 percent compared to 2021, surpassing Russia for the first time. In the first half of this year, the EU remains the primary buyer of U.S. LNG, which devours more than half of the EU LNG import market.

The price to move away from Russian energy is not cheap. The cost for the EU to replace Russian gas with green technologies by 2028 would be nearly 811 billion euros, according to a report released in May by Oxford researchers.

The skyrocketing costs are already causing a massive exodus of companies from Europe, and especially from Germany to the United States, Zepp-LaRouche said, stressing that all this means an assault on the living standards of the population.
Justin Trudeau has been caught in a diplomatic spat with New Delhi over the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada

Hackers calling themselves the Indian Cyber Force have claimed credit for knocking the Canadian Armed Forces official website offline as a diplomatic row grows between the two countries.

The group, not thought to have formal links to New Delhi, said on Telegram that it had taken down the www.forces.ca website.

Operators of the channel shared a screenshot of an error page with the message #fcanada.

Last week they posted the message: Get ready to feel the power of IndianCyberForce attacks will be launching on Canada cyber space its for the mess your started. [sic]

The cyberattack, thought to be a distributed denial of service (DDoS) assault, came as tensions between New Delhi and Ottawa continued to simmer over the murder of an Indian dissident in Canada.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia, was shot dead by two masked gunmen outside Canadas largest Sikh temple in June 2023.

Unacceptable violation of sovereignty

Justin Trudeau formally accused India of orchestrating the murder, saying: Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.

Indias foreign ministry has denied the claims, calling them absurd and motivated.

The row deepened last week after India suspended the issuing of new visas to Canadians in what appeared to be a tit-for-tat retaliation.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was labelled a 'terrorist mastermind' by New Delhi - Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

Mr Nijjar was a vocal advocate for the Khalistan movement, which calls for the creation of a self-governing Sikh homeland within India.

New Delhi labelled him a terrorist mastermind and claimed he was a driving force behind the Khalistan Tiger Force, a separatist group banned under Indian anti-terror laws in February 2023.

An unofficial group whose modus operandi consists of temporarily knocking Indian critics websites offline, the Indian Cyber Force broadcasts its efforts through Telegram and Twitter.

Perfect tool for hacktivists

Brett Callow, a researcher with cyber security company Emsisoft, said: Given current geopolitical tensions, Canadian organisations  and organisations everywhere, for that matter  should assume that these attacks will continue.

Theyre cheap, easy to carry out, and highly visible. That makes them the perfect tool for hacktivists or, in some cases, states cyber operations.

In recent weeks the Indian Cyber Force has claimed to have taken down the websites of a Canadian hospital, the Bangladeshi police and Indonesias equivalent of the SAS.

DDoS attacks of the type deployed by the hacker gang are typically short-lived, lasting hours or days at most. Online criminal gangs maintain networks of hacked computers, known as botnets, which they use to flood targeted websites with millions of requests until the target collapses under the strain.

Most DDoS attacks are a method for internet activists to draw attention to themselves rather than a serious effort to cause damage.

Canadas Cyber Security Establishment, the countrys equivalent of the UK National Cyber Security Centre, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Indian consulate in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Canada and India are at odds over the Canadian government's claims that Indian agents assassinated Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader, in British Columbia. The crime has damaged relations between the two countries, and it may be part of a growing and very troubling trend. If the hit really was state sponsored, it's one of a wave of such acts taken by governments against critics and dissidents who seek refuge on foreign soil.

" Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing the government of India of involvement in the fatal shooting of a Canadian Sikh leader  a claim that will have seismic effects on an already shaky bilateral relationship," the CBC reported September 18. "Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar was brazenly shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. on June 18."

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who moved to Canada from India in 1997, was long of interest to the Indian government. A supporter of a separate state for Sikhs, Nijjar was accused of terrorism by Indian officials who offered a cash bounty for information leading to his arrest. They may not have stopped there; Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers apparently warned Nijjar that his life was in danger and the U.S. Ambassador to Canada says the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand supported Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that Nijjar was targeted by Indian agents.

If he was targeted in his country of refuge by a government he'd offended, Hardeep Singh Nijjar is far from an isolated case.

Thugs Without Borders

"All over the world, individuals brave enough to speak out against repression are being targeted by autocrats who reach across borders to silence their voices," Freedom House warned this year. "Tactics of transnational repressionincluding assassinations, unlawful deportations, detentions, renditions, physical and digital threats, and coercion by proxyare used by governments to stamp out dissent among diasporas and exiles living beyond their borders."

The Washington, D.C.-based organization claims to have "information on 854 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression committed by 38 governments in 91 countries around the world since 2014."

This isn't an entirely new phenomenon. Critics of Russia's government, in its old communist version and its current generically authoritarian flavor, have long had a habit of running afoul of poison, radioactive substances, open windows, and other lethal mishapsoften outside Moscow's jurisdiction.

"Russia was responsible for the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found," the BBC reported in 2021. "Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who became a British citizen, was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006."

But the practice of reaching beyond borders to target dissidents has become more common in recent years, with the Chinese government a major offender.

China's Worldwide Dissident Hunt

"The Chinese Communist regime, often with the aid of other governments, is systematically hunting down its political and religious exiles, no matter where in the world they seek refuge," Nate Schenkkan and Sarah Cook reported in 2021 for The Diplomat.

"Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi [Jinping] to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world," FBI Director Christopher Wray charged in a 2020 speech. "We're talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China's extensive human rights violations. Hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders."

In April of this year, authorities arrested two men accused of helping establish a secret Chinese "police station" in New York's Chinatown. "The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government," according to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.

Likewise, the Saudi government is implicated in the infamous 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. "American officials listened to a recording obtained by Turkish intelligence that not only captured Mr. Khashoggi's struggle against Saudi agents and his killing, but also the sounds of the saw being used on his body," reported The New York Times.

Turkey's government, it should be noted, cooperates with Beijing to silence Muslim Uyghur refugees who fled to Turkey, and it has sought assistance in muzzling its own dissidents. "Uzbekistani security services helped abduct a man from his apartment in Tashkent and return him to Turkey," notes Freedom House.

Transnational Repression Isn't Just for Dictators

This is where matters get more disturbing. While increasingly illiberal, Turkey still has elections and (eroding) domestic debate. The same can be said of India, which is drifting in an autocratic direction but is not (yet) explicitly authoritarian. If India's elected government is responsible for Nijjar's assassination, that means transnational repression isn't just a vice of central-casting dictators.

Even countries usually considered free are guilty. Journalist Julian Assange was seized by the U.K. at the behest of the United States on what Amnesty International describes as "politically motivated charges." Then-Bolivian President Evo Morales's plane was forced to land in Austria in 2013 by European governments cooperating with the U.S. on suspicion that whistleblower Edward Snowden was aboard.

Freedom House rightfully complains, "because so many democratic countries have adopted policies that harden their borders and discourage asylum seekers, people who advocate for human rights or defend democratic principles in harsh environments are often forced to remain in parts of the world where autocrats make the rules." On the assumption that some countries are true safe harbors for peaceful dissenters, the organization wants free countries to be more welcoming and protective to refugees.

But democratic countries are only refuges if they're not actively assisting other regimes in acts of transnational repression or engaging in the practice themselves. As it is, while peaceful dissidents and critics of all sorts are certainly better off in more-open societies than under explicitly authoritarian regimes, their safety is relative. How much protection they enjoy is subject not only to the competency of local authorities, but also to how well-disposed they are to specific asylum-seekers.

Canada's government may be doing its best to bring Hardeep Singh Nijjar's assassins to account. But government officials are always jealous of their power, and no place is truly safe for those who cross thin-skinned officials.

The post India's Alleged Assassination of a Dissident in Canada Highlights Repression Across Borders appeared first on Reason.com.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham pressed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about his poll numbers in the GOP presidential race, which are still lagging far behind former President Trump.

Now, Governor, the latest CBS poll out of New Hampshire shows that youre in second, albeit a distant second behind Trump, Ingraham told DeSantis during an interview Tuesday evening on her nightly show. Youre at 13 percent. Hes at 50 percent  How do you go from No. 2 to No. 1 given Trumps huge lead in the polls?

Well, Laura, this is our time for choosing, DeSantis responded. Were not gonna get a mulligan on the 2024 election. Weve had three straight election cycles in a row where Democrats have a playbook to beat Republicans. And if we repeat that same playbook in 24, were gonna lose.

DeSantis mentioned the absence of a so-called red wave that was predicted to hand sweeping power back to Republicans in Congress as part of the 2022 midterm elections, alluding to Trumps influence over the party as a factor that turned voters off.

Trump remains the clear front-runner for the partys nomination for president in 2024, despite the several criminal indictments he faces.

DeSantis is one of several candidates looking to put forward a strong performance at Wednesday nights debate, which will air on Fox Business, as he aims to break through the GOP primary field and pose a serious challenge to Trump.

Trump will not attend Wednesday nights debate, citing his large polling lead and frosty relationship with Fox, instead opting to hold a rally in Michigan.

The former president has for months railed against Fox, the top-watched cable news channel, for what he says is a concerted effort by the networks leaders to boost DeSantiss candidacy.

Fox announced earlier this week that DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will participate in a live debate in November that will be moderated by host Sean Hannity, a close personal friend of Trump and one of his biggest boosters in media.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede II, the Texas funeral director who shot dead a wealthy widow and jammed her body into a meat freezer, has a new cause from his prison cell: There is no air conditioning in Texas prisons, so he is suing the state.

"Inhumane," Tiede calls his treatment.

A judge has sided with Tiede and ordered him, for now, moved to air-conditioned housing. That ruling could end up benefiting more than 120,00 inmates incarcerated in Texas prisons.

Bernie Tiede, right, is escorted by Panola County Sheriff Kevin Lake, left, and other deputies Tuesday, May 6, 2014, after his hearing at the Panola County Courthouse in Carthage.

Acclaimed film director Richard Linklater sat with Tiede in the visitors area of the maximum security Estelle Unit near Huntsville on a sweltering summer day in August. Tiede described the unbearable broiling heat inside his unair-conditioned cell and his escalating medical danger.

You wake up, and youre just rolling in sweat, Tiede, wearing a white prison jumpsuit, said in a series of short videos, adding that prison staff recorded the temperature in his cell at 120 degrees with an infrared thermometer days earlier. Theres no escape. You cant get away from it unless you put something wet on your face or you have a chill towel.

You are talking about humanity, Tiede added in videos Linklater provided the American-Statesman. You are talking about an inhumane situation. If this happened to a dog, youd be in prison. Youd be arrested.

USE THIS PHOTO Defense attorney Mike Degeurin, left, Bernie Tiede, center, and attorney Jodi Cole, right, during the hearing Tuesday, October 27, 2015, in the 123rd District Court at Panola County Courthouse in Carthage. (Kevin Green/News-Journal Photo)

Tiede is serving a 99-year sentence in the death of Marjorie Nugent, who he shot and whose body he hid in a freezer before it was discovered nine months later. After her death, Tiede carried on as if nothing had happened, spending her fortune on gifts for others such as college scholarships, cars and a home for a needy couple.

Family members of Nugent, including her granddaughter, have described Tiede as a con man and murderer.

The conversation between Linklater and Tiede and Tiedes overall health  he has hypertension, diabetes and other chronic conditions  became a basis for the lawsuit Tiedes attorneys filed Aug. 24 in U.S. District Court against the state contending that Tiede faces immediate heat-related danger, declaring the conditions are sadistic and urging that he should be immediately moved to an air-conditioned area.

Mr. Tiedes life is in danger, it said. Time is of the essence.

On Sept. 13, in a move that attorneys and advocates say could open a pathway for relief for other medically fragile people in prison, U.S. Magistrate Mark Lane ordered that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice move Tiede to air-conditioned housing for at least 14 days. His attorneys argued that in addition to his medical difficulties, keeping Tiede in an unair-conditioned facility is a violation of his Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Bernie Tiede, left, is escorted by Panola County Sheriff Kevin Lake, right, and other deputies Tuesday, May 6, 2014, on his way to his hearing at the Panola County Courthouse in Carthage.

In a five-page ruling, Lane agreed that the evidence showed an immediate danger to Tiede and that the nature of the risk  death  warrants emergency intervention.

Jeff Edwards, who is part of Tiede's legal team, said he is not aware of another Texas case in which a judge granted a temporary restraining order on behalf of a medically vulnerable incarcerated person requiring them to receive air conditioning. He added that a judge previously granted a preliminary injunction several years ago that required the prison system to move inmates vulnerable to heat to safer conditions, which resulted in that facility getting air conditioning.

"It should provide a roadmap for other inmates and other concerned citizens on how to get into safer conditions," he said. "When you remove someone's liberty, you are obligated to protect them."

Attorneys for the state had argued  unpersuasively, Lane wrote  that Tiedes circumstances do not constitute an emergency and that Tiede had not exhausted other avenues for help. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates more than 100 units and oversees 128,000 incarcerated people, told the Statesman that it does not comment on pending litigation.

Tiedes attorneys are asking federal courts to extend his order before it expires Thursday.

More: A tale of two high-profile jail releases

A brutal summer: Second-hottest on record

Texas has suffered through one of its most brutal summers in history, putting a new and crisis-level emphasis on those incarcerated in the states prison system.

State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon reported that 2023 was the second-hottest summer on record for the state, with an average temperature of 85.3 degrees from June 1 to the end of August, compared to the summer of 2011, when the average was 86.8.

Texas is one of at least 13 states that do not have universal air conditioning for state operated prisons.

'It's inhumane': Advocates, families urge Texas leaders to put AC in prisons amid heat wave

The number of people who have fallen ill or died from heat exposure throughout state prison history is unknown, and the state has not reported a heat-related death since 2012. However, notable clusters of heat-related illnesses and deaths have occurred, a July 2022 report by the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center said.

The report added that 23 people have died in the prison system from heat-related illnesses since 1998, and in 2018 alone, at least 79 incarcerated people and staff have been sickened by the heat.

President and Founder of Texas Prisons Community Advocates Amite Dominick stands near the door of a mock prison cell set up near the south steps of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, July 18, 2023. Passers-by could take the 7 Minute Challenge to experience prison conditions inside the cell, with temperatures near 120 degrees, for seven minutes.

The report added that without air conditioning in all units, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice tries to mitigate heat exposure for people, including providing drinking water, using ice to chill water, cold showers, fans and cooled respite areas.

During the legislative session that ended in May, lawmakers were largely unable to come to an agreement on providing millions in state funding to address air conditioning and temperature requirements for Texas prisons.

More: Map shows at least 44 states lack universal air conditioning in their prisons

While a bipartisan effort advanced in the House to allocate about $540 million to cover the initial cost of a plan aiming to eventually provide "cool beds" in all of Texas' 100 prisons, the funding was never addressed in the Senate and was left from the state's $321.3 billion 2024-25 biennium budget.

Similar to the funding, a House-led effort to mandate the state's prisons to maintain temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees failed to receive a hearing in the Senate after clearing the lower chamber with broad support.

Lawmakers were able to include a last-minute allocation of $85.7 million in the state budget for the criminal justice department's ongoing deferred maintenance costs, which the department said it will use to increase air conditioning availability in prison living spaces.

In July, advocates and family members of incarcerated people held a rally on the south steps of the Capitol, where they placed a mock cell to demonstrate the intensity of the heat inside. They held signs to call attention to the issue, including one that said, They dont deserve to bake  just souls that made a mistake.

More: Most US states don't have universal air conditioning in prisons. Climate change, heat waves are making it 'torture'

A thermometer reads near 115 degrees inside a mock prison cell set up near the south steps of the Texas State Capitol in Austin, July 18, 2023. Texas Prisons Community Advocates set the cell up to raise awareness surrounding prison conditions in Texas, particularly the lack of air conditioning.

Efforts to help

According to the suit filed by Tiede attorney Jodi Cole, she and Tiede reconnected in April 2022 when he asked her to begin efforts to get him out of prison sooner through post-conviction work or a compassionate release. Tiede is eligible for parole in 2029 when he will be 71.

Cole reported that in June, Tiede suffered a medical crisis when he became ill from dizziness so severe that he could not stand up and suffered paralysis on the side of his face. He went to the hospital, but was not diagnosed with a stroke, although doctors first suspected that as a cause.

The seriousness of his condition prompted Linklater to visit on Aug. 4.

In an interview with the Statesman, Linklater said, This is a humanitarian crisis. It comes up every year, and everyone knows this is a crisis. It is a horrible, torturous situation.

The clips represent not only his personal situation but serve as a firsthand account of the conditions everyone there is living under, he added.

Cole concluded in the suit that Tiedes continued incarceration in the unairconditioned facility is especially obscene given the history of his case. She pointed out that he was freed from 2014 to 2016, living in Austin in Linklaters garage apartment, after he was granted a new sentencing-phase trial by arguing that he had acted in sudden passion, triggered by a history of sexual abuse, meaning that he should not receive more than 20 years in prison in Nugents death.

More: Bernie Tiedes freedom was more than a feel-good sequel

Psychologists said the betrayal left Tiede unable to leave abusive relationships  like the one defense lawyers said he had with Nugent  and explained why he snapped the day he shot her.

Jurors resentenced him to 99 years in prison, a punishment a higher court upheld.

Cole said she hopes that Lanes recent ruling will help other people in Texas prisons seeking respite from the conditions inside.

Bernie Tiedes medical emergency has resulted in an opportunity to help all Texas inmates, medically vulnerable or otherwise, she said. Our hope is that Bernies case will ultimately end the practice of housing inmates without air conditioning for good.

Linklater said that he was so concerned about Tiedes health during their visit last month that he thought he may soon die.

This is a horrible feeling to have, when you are leaving someone but to go, I think that might be the last time I see Bernie alive, he said. You hate to have such dark thoughts ... but I really had that feeling.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Why Bernie is suing Texas for 'inhumane' conditions in prisons
Welcome to Investigative Stories from Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent's newsletter that walks you through the most prominent investigations of the past week.

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Top investigative stories

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Bihus.Info: Notorious pro-Russia MP tied to multi-million investment fund building homes in Ukraine

Hunter, an investment fund that poured over Hr 670 million ($18 million) into three residential developments in the Kyiv suburbs, has ties to notorious pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker and former presidential candidate Yurii Boyko, according to an investigation by Ukrainian outlet Bihus.Info.

As a lawmaker, Boyko has no declared business interests.

Boyko served as Ukraines energy minister and deputy prime minister under pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych between 2010 and 2014. Since 2018, he has been a leading figure in the Opposition Platform  For Life party, banned after the full-scale invasion for its notoriously pro-Russian stances. He now leads the Platform for Life and Peace parliamentary group, the successor of the banned party.

Through company records, the Bihus.Info investigation traced shares in the residential developments in Kyiv to a Cyprus-based company owned by longstanding Boyko associates.

According to the journalist investigation, Boyko lives a luxurious lifestyle in Kyiv and is always seen with several bodyguards despite not declaring himself as the owner of any businesses.

A previous investigation by Bihus.Info found that Boyko has ties to several large energy companies, including through his son, the registered co-owner of Volynoblenerho, a large energy distribution firm.

Boyko was also embroiled in a corruption scandal as energy minister  journalists revealed that Ukraine overpaid $150 million, or 40% of the contract for two Black Sea oil rigs.

A video published by Ukrainian military intelligence on Sept. 11, 2023, showed them taking control of the notorious oil rigs, controlled by Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Watch the full investigation in Ukrainian with English subtitles here.

The New York Times suggests errant Ukrainian missile struck front-line city of Kostiantynivka

A New York Times investigation found that a misfired Ukrainian anti-air missile likely struck Kostiantynivka, contradicting Ukrainian officials who said that the city was attacked by Russian forces.

On Sept. 6, a missile struck an open-air market in the city of Kostiantynivka, which is located approximately 12 kilometers from the front line, killing 17 people and injuring at least 32.

The Times concluded that a Ukrainian missile hit the market based on various evidence, including the size of missile fragments, CCTV footage, witness accounts, and Russian social media posts that track outgoing Ukrainian fire.

Ukrainian authorities previously said Russia had attacked the market with an S-300 anti-air missile, arms it regularly uses to strike land-based targets. Russia has carried out strikes against civilian sites in Kostyantynivka before.

Based on the shape of the fragments and the impact caused to nearby buildings, the Times concluded they were those of a Buk-9M38 missile. The findings were confirmed by two weapons experts, according to the Times.

Based on the CCTV footage, Ruslan Leviev, an analyst for Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent Russian OSINT group, previously said that the attack had come from Ukrainian-controlled territory. The Times reached the same conclusion on the direction of the missile.

A day after the Times investigation was published, the Ukrainian military said they launched a criminal probe and could not comment on the ongoing investigation.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that law enforcement agencies will conduct a thorough and detailed investigation, which is standard procedure for missile attacks.

The Security Service of Ukraine responded to the Times investigation in a comment to Ukrainian press, saying that missile fragments collected at the site suggest that an S-300 missile hit Kostiantynivka and claimed that one of the Times journalists behind the story was promoting Russian narratives in his earlier stories.

International humanitarian law, which applies in armed conflict, prohibits intentionally attacking civilians and requires proper distinction between civilian and military objects. None of the evidence in the Times investigation suggests that Ukraine intentionally attacked the market or failed to take necessary precautions.

Ukrainian authorities and the Times both said that throughout the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian objects, including schools and residential buildings.

Read the full story here.

CNN: Ukrainian special forces likely attacked Wagner-backed militia in Sudan

Ukrainian special services likely orchestrated drone attacks against a Wagner-backed militia in Sudan earlier this month, according to an investigation by CNN.

On Sept. 8, 2023, 14 small-scale drones struck military positions of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rebel group that has been fighting the Sudanese government since April and is supported by the Wagner group, a Russian private army notorious for committing war crimes.

A Ukrainian military source told CNN that Ukrainian special services likely carried out the attack. According to CNNs analysis of video footage of the strike, it had the hallmarks of Ukrainian-style drone attacks.

Ukrainian officials told CNN that they could neither confirm nor deny involvement in the attack. Sudanese and U.S. officials were skeptical of Ukrainian involvement.

High-level Sudanese government sources told CNN that a Wagner arms shipment arrived in Sudan on Sept. 6.

According to the journalist investigation, a video showing the monitor of the drone controller shows text in Ukrainian and English. The investigation also identified what is likely a DJI MAVIC 3 drone in the footage, a drone often used by Ukrainian forces.

The attack with small drones that have become ubiquitous in Russias war against Ukraine is a first in Africa, according to military analysts quoted by CNN.

Read the full investigation in English here.

Meanwhile, in Russia

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Russian oligarch Abramovich transferred billion-dollar art collection to ex-wife to evade sanctions

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich made his ex-wife Dasha Zhukova the majority owner of their shared art collection to bypass sanctions, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and The Guardian.

Abramovich was once the wealthiest man in Russia and is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, for which the EU, UK, and other Western countries sanctioned him in March 2022.

Abramovich assembled the impressive art collection with Zhukova, and each took a 50% stake through a Cyprus-based company after their divorce in 2017, according to the journalist investigation.

According to leaked documents, an additional one percent of the company was transferred to Zhukova soon after the full-scale invasion. This made her the majority owner of the art collection in a move that, experts told OCCPR and The Guardian, may have been designed to prevent the art from being sanctioned.

U.S. citizen Zhukova and the Cyprus company have not been sanctioned, meaning the oligarch still has access to the collection, according to the investigation.

According to the leaked records, Abramovich moved certain pieces to European mansions or his yacht shortly before he was hit with sanctions.

Experts told OCCRP and the Guardian that Abramovichs collection is one of the most impressive in the world and includes valuable pieces by Picasso, Degas, Monet, and many others.

Abramovich denied being close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and participated in early Ukraine-Russia peace talks following the full-scale invasion.

The oligarch has never publicly denounced the full-scale invasion or Russian war crimes, and an earlier OCCRP investigation showed that one of Abramovichs companies had supplied the Russian military.

Read the full investigation in English here.

Russian military-industrial sector fails to meet critical deadlines

Record numbers of criminal charges against industrialists show the dire state of the Russian military industry, according to an investigation by Russian independent media outlet Novaya Gazeta.

According to court records reviewed by Novaya Gazeta, criminal charges against defense contractors doubled from 2021 to 2022. As of September this year, the number of charges has already exceeded pre-war 2021 numbers.

Additionally, court records show that over 400 people in Russia have been fined for hindering the delivery of defense orders since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to the journalist investigation, in the 15 most underperforming companies  from shipyards to missile manufacturers  almost 350 people were found legally responsible for failing to deliver on defense contracts.

Russian officials told state media that endemic corruption affects the military-industrial complex. In 2022, 8,700 corruption cases were initiated in the defense sector, 700 more than in 2021, according to the journalist investigation.

A military expert told Novaya Gazeta that the military industrys struggles show that Western sanctions are working. This claim is supported by court records, which show that aviation and shipbuilding, the industries most reliant on Western parts, are also the ones that have been fined the most for failing to deliver.

The Russian defense industry also reportedly faces staff shortages. According to the journalist investigation, job listings are up by almost 50%, but some factories employ inmates from nearby prisons.

A military expert told Novaya Gazeta that, for the Russian defense industry, the invasion of Ukraine is like adrenaline shots given to a dying man.

Read the full investigation in English here.

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A devastating fire which killed more than 100 people at a wedding in Iraq broke out as the bride and groom began their slow dance, injured witnesses have said.

More than 150 people including children have been injured, most with severe burns, as a result of the wedding party disaster which struck Iraqs dwindling Christian minority, close to the city of Mosul, on Tuesday night.

Nineveh health official Ahmed Dubardani said the majority of the survivors suffered extensive burn injuries, with fears that the death toll could rise beyond the latest figure of 114 cited by regional authorities.

Guests at the wedding told Rudaw from hospital that the blaze began when fireworks were set off ahead of the newlywed couples slow dance  and footage showed flaming debris falling from the ceiling as the bride and groom clung to each other on the dancefloor.

The couple were among those killed in the blaze, said Ninevehs deputy health chief Ahmed Dubardani, however some guests maintained that the newlyweds had survived the fire by escaping through the kitchen.

They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire, one injured man said, in an account corroborated by a second wounded guest. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.

Civil defence officials told the Iraqi News Agency that the wedding halls exterior contained illegal and highly flammable, low-cost cladding materials which collapse within minutes.

Iraqs prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has ordered an investigation into the fire, backed by the countrys president Abdul Latif Rashid, and state media reported that the Interior Ministry had issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall.

The wedding hall was reduced to charred metal and rubble (REUTERS)

At least 150 people have been injured, with as many as 900 people said to have been in the hall (AP)

Similar panels have been blamed in several previous fires in Iraq, most recently in July 2021, when a blaze at a hospital in the city of Nasiriyah killed between 60 to 92 people.

Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the blaze on Tuesday night as scores of wounded people were pulled from the charred and twisted wreckage of the packed-out hall, with survivors arriving at local hospitals in bandages and receiving oxygen.

This was not a wedding. This was hell, said Mariam Khedr, as she stood outside a morgue in Mosul alongside other bereaved relatives, waiting for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren  the youngest aged just eight months.

Another woman outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags, said: I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3 year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning.

There are conflicting reports about whether the bridge and groom are among the survivors (screengrab)

A man called Youssef, who stood nearby with burns covering his hands and face, said he had not been able to see anything when the fire began and the power cut out. While he had grabbed his 3 year-old grandson and managed to get out, his wife  in her 50s  fell in the chaos and died.

Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno, said: We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didnt got stuck.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

It could be a mistake by the event organizers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error, Mr Khoury said. It was a disaster in every sense of the word.

One of the owners of the venue, Chonny Suleiman Naboo, blamed the fire on an electrical fault in the ceiling. He insisted the venue had all the officials approvals and that his brother and the halls supervisor would turn themselves in to authorities.

We were attacked by residents and our cars were damaged because of what happened, and were worried that our homes could be attacked too, Mr Naboo said.

The wedding was in the district of Hamdaniya, which lies on Iraqs Nineveh Plains. While under the control of Iraqs central government, it is also claimed by Iraqs semiautonomous Kurdish regional government. Kurdish prime minister Masrour Barzani has also ordered hospitals there to help.

Survivors were pulled from the hall and taken to hospital on Tuesday night (REUTERS/Khalid Al-Mousily)

Over the past two decades, Iraqs Christian minority has been violently targeted by extremists, first from al-Qaida and then the Islamic State militant group, and the number of Christians in Iraq is currently estimated to be 150,000, down from 1.5 million two decades ago.

Although the Nineveh Plains were wrested back from Isis six years ago, some towns are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.

Additional reporting by agencies
Irish authorities have seized $165 million worth of cocaine from a cargo vessel off the southeast coast of the island in what is being called the largest drug raid in the history of the country.

In a dramatic raid on Tuesday, an elite Irish army force seized a cargo ship off the coast of county Cork  taking nearly 5,000 pounds of cocaine from the vessel. The impounded ship, a bulk carrier known as the MV Matthew, had been registered to the country of Panama.

Three men, aged 60, 50 and 31, were arrested as part of the operation. Irish authorities did not rule out making further arrests. The boat in question had been carrying a crew of 25, according to CBS News partners at the BBC.

The fleet commander for the Irish Naval Service said that they fired warning shots during the operation, state broadcaster RTE reported, as the ship had refused to comply with instructions from the Irish Navy.

The haul of over 2 tons of cocaine was described as "hugely significant" by Senior Irish Det. John Kelly in a press briefing on Wednesday.

Kelly said the drug shipments had been sent from major drug cartels in South America as well as a number of organized crime groups in Ireland and across Europe.

"There's no large shipment like this coming into our ports or transiting our country without an Irish criminal group involved," Kelly said, according to RTE.

Kelly said that police authorities sought to send a message to underworld international drug gangs "that Ireland isn't an easy place to import drugs into and that we will be relentless and determined to disrupt and dismantle criminal gangs."

Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee on Tuesday called the raid "complex" and "intelligence-led."

McEntee praised authorities and said that the operation was a "blow to the organized crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally," in a statement posted to social media.

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Liu Jing, vice chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority, delivers a speech at the 67th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 25, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

A Chinese nuclear official on Monday lambasted Japan's "irresponsible" release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the sea at the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

China actively supports the IAEA's efforts to safeguard international peace and security, and to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear technologies for better benefiting developing countries, said Liu Jing, vice chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority, during the general debate of the conference held in Vienna.

Ignoring the doubts of the international community and the strong opposition from the people of relevant countries, Japan has obstinately started the Fukushima wastewater discharge plan, which has raised international concerns, he said.

The discharge of the Fukushima wastewater is a major nuclear safety issue, as it is an unprecedented artificial release of contaminated water from nuclear accidents into the sea, and there is a lot of uncertainty about the cumulative effect caused by the release of large quantities of radionuclides into the sea, Liu said, noting that Japan has failed to give a credible and scientific response to the international outcry.

He urged the IAEA to establish a long-term and effective international monitoring mechanism to strictly supervise Japan's irresponsible moves and prevent the Fukushima wastewater discharge from causing long-term harm to the marine environment and human health.

The Chinse official also met with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on Monday on the sidelines of the IAEA general conference, and elaborated on China's position on Japan's release of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater.

Grossi said that he attaches great importance to China's relevant position and concerns, and is willing to maintain close communication and cooperation with China in this regard.

The 67th IAEA General Conference opened in Vienna on Monday and will run until Friday.
FILE - Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. Israel's internal security agency said on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, that it had arrested five Palestinians in a plot allegedly hatched in Iran to target and spy on senior Israeli politicians, including the country's far-right national security minister. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, Pool, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

JERUSALEM (AP)  Israel arrested five Palestinians in a plot allegedly hatched in Iran to target and spy on senior Israeli politicians, including Israel's far-right national security minister, the countrys internal security agency said Wednesday.

The Shin Bet security service alleged that an Iranian security official living in neighboring Jordan had recruited three Palestinian men in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and another two Palestinian citizens of Israel to gather intelligence about several high-profile Israeli politicians.

The targets included National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir  a firebrand Israeli settler leader who oversees the country's police force in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultranationalist government  as well as Yehuda Glick, an American-born far-right Israeli activist and former member of parliament.

The plan was foiled by Israeli intelligence officials, the Shin Bet said, without offering evidence.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Ben-Gvir, who draws inspiration from a racist rabbi, has provoked outrage across the wider Middle East for his particularly hard-line policies against the Palestinians, anti-Arab rhetoric and stunts and frequent public visits to the holiest and most contested site in the Holy Land. The hilltop compound in Jerusalem, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is at the emotional center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Glick is a leader in a campaign that pushes for increased Jewish access and prayer rights at the sacred Jerusalem compound, the holiest site in Judaism home to ancient biblical Temples. Today, the compound houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Glick survived a 2014 Palestinian assassination attempt.

The Shin Bet did not elaborate on the identity of the Iranian official in Jordan who allegedly orchestrated the plot. He is not in custody and apparently remains at large.

But the Shin Bet accused three Palestinian men in the West Bank  identified as 47-year old Murad Kamamaja, 34-year-old Hassan Mujarimah and 45-year-old Ziad Shanti  of gathering intelligence and smuggling weapons into Israel. The security service also said that it charged two Palestinian citizens of Israel over their involvement in the plot. It did not specify how the men planned to target Ben-Gvir and the other politicians.

Ben-Gvir claimed that the Palestinian suspects had conspired to assassinate a minister in Israel, without clarifying whether he meant himself or another minister. He thanked Israeli security forces for uncovering and capturing what he called the terrorist squad.

Ben-Gvir, who has pushed for harsher treatment for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, also vowed to double down on his hard-line policies in response to the revelations. I will continue to act fearlessly and even more vigorously for a fundamental change in the conditions of the terrorists imprisonment, he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israel has considered Iran to be its greatest enemy since it became a Shiite theocracy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran is a main patron of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which Israel considers the most potent military threat on its borders, and also backs Palestinian Islamist militant groups in the Gaza Strip.
Furious Italians may be forced to take legal action against Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori amid their controversial behaviors that continue to make headlines.

Kanye West attends the Balenciaga Spring 2023 Fashion Show at the New York Stock Exchange on May 22, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images)

The couple has been galavanting across the country in popular tourist destinations since August.

West and his muse were most recently seen attending Milan Fashion Week, where they kept up their vexing guises, with the rapper dressed in all black with his face completely covered and Censori in nude, sheer and skintight outfits.

And just last week in Florence, the All of the Lights artist was snapped capturing photos of the 28-year-old in the streets as onlookers surrounded them.

Italian officials, who are growing fed up with the duos continued disregard for local expectations of decency, have now issued a warning that the couples fashion risks could lead to legal ramifications. Your clothing (and behaviour) must be decent, said Florence Tourism and Promotion Office employee Andrea Giordani to the Daily Mail.

Id like to remind Kanye and his wife that they have broken the code of Enjoy and Respect Florence, in fact their behaviour goes beyond that, and especially in the case of Venice where they were seen on the boat allegedly engaged in sexual activity  Italy is not that kind of place, added Giordani.

In early September, photos surfaced of West with his bare butt sitting in a water taxi as Cencori appeared to have her head placed in his lap. The compromising images led to accusations that they were caught engaging in a lewd sex act.

As a result, they were banned indefinitely from patronizing Venezia Turismo Motascafi, and have faced mounting scrutiny. An investigation into the matter is currently underway.

Giordani added that tourists like West and Censori should bear in mind what are the wrong behaviours but also what are the good practices to live the city correctly and better organise your stay. The 46-year-old artist has been observed shielding his face from paparazzi since 2022, when he began regularly wearing ski masks and other more elaborate disguises.

Kathy Griffin believes Kanye West is abusing his wife Bianca Censori:



When they were in Italy and he had her drop to her kneesand give him a service and we saw his bare butt, knowing there were paparazzi photographers all the way aroundthat to me just reeks of abuse. pic.twitter.com/bP88p60QeT  Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 22, 2023

Since arriving in Italy, his face typically has been covered, often only allowing his eyes and the top of his head to be seen. Local officials say that his face coverings are also an issue.

According to the publication, he is being investigated for breaching anti-terror laws that prohibit face masks and other hindrances to public identification without prior approval. He could be fined between 1,000 and 2,000 euros.

The newlyweds have been together, publicly, since January. Friends of the Australian native have come forward claiming that she is using West to satiate her thirst for fame. Comedian Kathy Griffin also speculated that the couples dynamic reads like one where the rapper controls Censori.
The mayor of suburban Greenwood, accused of threatening an alderman with a gun during an argument last year, was forcibly removed from office Tuesday based on the findings of an impeachment inquiry.

The citys Board of Aldermen, in a 3-0 vote, stripped Mayor Levi Weaver of his title and accepted articles of impeachment following a trial that ended last week. In addition to the threat, city officials accepted as fact that the mayor inappropriately blocked residents from the citys Facebook page and directed city staff to skirt rules on licensing certain businesses.

Weaver was first appointed as the top elected official for the Jackson County town, home to 6,000 residents, in 2016, and his current elected term was to last through April 2024. He faced pressure from fellow officials to step down in June as the citys board decided to move forward with the impeachment based on an investigation led by a private attorney.

The alleged threat happened outside the home of Alderman Kyron McClure in March 2022. Weaver was accused of driving to McClures house, after drinking, and yelling at the alderman while brandishing a firearm.

The mayor allegedly said I could (expletive) end you during the heated exchange, a statement Weaver testified that he did not recall making.

During thetwo-hour impeachment hearing Sept. 18, lawyers for the city and Weaver presented arguments and called witnesses.

Among those testifying was a neighbor who said Weaver was clearly acting in a threatening manner, using foul language and putting his hand on his holstered weapon.

Weaver also testified to the event in his own defense, saying there had been an ongoing argument with McClure and was particularly upset when he learned McClure had contacted his son. That happened as Weaver was in the midst of a nasty custody dispute, the mayor said.

Weaver denied making threats against McClure, arguing in part that there had been no criminal charges filed against him after the incident. He also downplayed bringing a gun there, saying he is always armed.

Under the citys charter, duties of the mayor pass to the president of the board in cases of vacancy. McClure is currently the acting president.
If youve ever thought Jacob Elordi is so sexy its scary (first of all, same), the actor says you aint seen nothing yet. According to Elordi, his new character Felix in the upcoming film Saltburn puts his Euphoria character to shame.

In the film, which comes from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman), Elordi plays opposite Barry Keoghan, who stars as Oliver Quick. Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, Oliver ultimately finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix. When Felix invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric familys sprawling estate, it leads to a wicked tale of privilege and desire as Oliver becomes increasingly drawn to Felix.

In other words, our anticipation is high.

Even in the teaser trailer, theres a hint of the sinister around Felix, and the actor confirms that you should be afraid of the character. In an interview with British Vogue, Elordi teased that Felix is much scarier than toxic jock Nate from Euphoria. As he explained, this new character is a frightening portrait of a more subtle manifestation of patriarchal values because Felix thinks he owns well, everything, said Elordi.

Jacob Elordi in Euphoria

Courtesy of HBO

The challenge for Elordi in bringing Felix to life was embodying the attitude of I [genuinely] dont need to prove anything [to anyone], the actor explained. Elordi shared his anxieties that someday someone still may take it all away from him, which is a fear Felix cant relate to.

Elordi mostly played coy in the interview about what to expect from Saltburn, but Fennell teased a bit more about the inspiration behind this queer film.

I wanted to make something sexy. I wanted to make something about boys. And I wanted to make something that felt very different to the last thing I made, said Fennell. And, honestly, my favorite genre slash subgenre of anything is: something happens in a country house one summer.

While that may be the setting, she explains whats bubbling underneath. Really, its a film about first love, she explained. Generally, because Im quite facile, I think everything has to do with sex, and I think our fetishization of the country house and titles is completely sadomasochistic.

Barry Keoghan in Saltburn

Courtesy of Prime Video/MGM

Im utterly obsessed with how we relate to things that we want and desire, and also kind of hate and know are unattainable: things that we know will never love us back, whether thats a person or a house or a culture. And yet we cant f**king stop being desperately attracted to them.

Saltburn is set to premiere at BFI London Film Festival Oct 4, followed by a theatrical release on November 22. Watch the trailer below.
A Kennewick detective is expected to leave jail this week, but wont be going free.

Joshua Riley, 42, is heading straight into alcohol and mental health treatment once hes secured the $25,000 bail set by Judge Jackie Shea Brown during a Wednesday morning hearing.

According to court documents, Riley has struggled with suicidal thoughts and alcoholism because of his time serving in the military and his years working as a police officer.

Riley, an 11-year veteran of the Kennewick Police Department, was being held in the Franklin County jail on suspicion of second-degree assault after allegedly threatening his wife and teenage son with a handgun after a night of drinking.

Special Deputy Prosecutor Peter Palubicki filed the officials charges on Wednesday afternoon. Palubicki works for the Adams County Prosecutors Office, which agreed to handle the case for Benton County to avoid any conflicts with future cases that Riley is involved in as a police officer.

In addition to posting bail, Riley must wear alcohol monitoring and GPS devices, attorneys said Wednesday.

Shea Brown raised concerns that the GPS device wouldnt be sufficient to make sure that Riley would stay in treatment.

She did not say during the hearing why she was concerned. But Shea Brown was the judge who signed a recent 48-hour furlough for a Franklin County inmate, who slipped out of his GPS monitor last week and was missing for a couple days.

The 37-year-old man had pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and didnt report back to jail to serve his sentence. Pasco police found and arrested him two days after he was supposed to return.

Defense Attorney Mitchell Crook said in Rileys case, he doesnt have any criminal history, and he served in the military and as a police officer.

There are definitely some concerns here that cant be addressed in jail that well be able to address at inpatient treatment, he told the judge.

Three Kennewick police officers are expected to take Riley from jail straight to treatment, Crook said.

Shea Brown also was worried about Rileys safety and asked whether the people bringing him to treatment would be armed.

I assure you we are working with detectives in this matter, Crook said. Theyre willing to do whatever it takes to get him to that inpatient facility. So if that means no firearms whatsoever thats something I can represent to the court, that they will not have those firearms.

The judge also wanted to make sure that the treatment facility would make daily reports to the court that he is still there.

She said she wanted to make sure he has the support he needs and trusted the court orders to stop him from contacting his wife and children.

Another hearing is set on Friday to confirm that the treatment facility can make the daily reports to court officials.

Assault investigation

The affidavit of probable cause filed in court said Rileys wife told investigators that he suffers from alcoholism and suicidal thoughts after serving three tours in Iraq and then years in law enforcement.

His drinking on Saturday night turned into an argument with his wife and accusations that she was cheating on him.

According to his teen son, he was so intoxicated that he could barely stand.

At one point, he tried to leave the house, but was stopped at the door by the teen, according to the affidavit. After his son went to the bedroom door to talk with his mother, Riley came in and allegedly pointed a gun and laser sight at his wife. He also pointed the gun at his sons head, said the affidavit.

His wife was able to get the gun away and hide it.

While Riley was asleep, his children left the house and went to a friends home where they told an adult that their father had pulled a gun on them, and the police were called.
A new 7 Brew coffee stand is being built in OKC as a second location prepares to open in Yukon.

The Oklahoma State Fair has come and gone, which means fall is officially here.

As the leaves change, so do things in the Oklahoma food and dining world. Restaurant expansions seem to be a major part of happenings across the state and make up a lot of the roundup, but other news includes changes to local menus, business launches and beyond.

Pivot Preserves brings job resources, skills to youth

Pivot, a local nonprofit that helps empower youth, is launching a new in-house, trauma-informed job training program for youth facing workforce barriers in Oklahoma City. The program, Pivot Preserves, will teach youth to produce and package jams and jellies that will be available online for purchase beginning Oct. 5.

Once the brand is established online, Pivot plans to expand to farmers markets, retail spaces, co-packing partnerships and more.

The organization will celebrate its official launch with a party at Roughtail Brewing Company, 320 W Memorial Road, on Oct. 5 from 4 to 8 p.m. Jams will be available for purchase, Roughtail will be open serving dinner and trivia will be hosted from 6 to 8 p.m.

Completed 7 Brew locations, including the one opening this week in Yukon and under construction in OKC will be similar to this store in Alabama.

Drive through coffee stands land in metro-area

7 Brew, a drive-through coffee concept offering more than 20,000 drink combinations will open it's first location in Yukon at 1617 Garth Brooks Blvd. this week and just dropped a second stand at 3655 NW 39th St. in Oklahoma City, that will open later this year.

The stands are expected to bring 100 new jobs to the area.

Metro gets murder mystery cafe

Turns out spooky season is year-round and not just for Halloween. A3 Murder Mystery Cafe, 13316 S Western Ave., Suite P, a newer spot in South OKC, calls itself the place "where coffee, clues and mystery collide."

A haven for fans of true crime, murder and more, the cafe serves up crepes and pastries alongside a full coffee bar.

Additionally, tickets can be purchased for the restaurant's weekend murder mystery dinner theater, a night of immersive and interactive theater complete with a seven-course themed meal.

Pickleman's launched Mac and Cheese bowls in five varieties at their locations.

Pickleman's debuts major menu addition

Pickleman's has been focused on expanding and has done so with recent locations added in Oklahoma City and Edmond in addition to their Stillwater and Norman spots.

Pickleman's has also been working to keep its menu fresh with changes and additions, the latest of which comes just in time for cooler weather. Mac and cheese bowls have launched at the chain's stores, offering a comfort food option to those stopping in.

You'll find five different options on the menu when you visit, BBQ Pulled Pork, Spicy Pork, Buffalo Chicken, Chicken Bacon Ranch and Chipotle Chicken. The meat in all bowls is "no antibiotics ever" pork and chicken, and the mac and cheese base is made with real cream, butter and white cheddar cheese, all part of Pickleman's continued efforts to source the highest quality ingredients.

The ninth Fuzzy's Taco location operated by The Social Order recently opened on North May.

The Social Order adds a Fuzzy's Taco Shop, two Sparks

A new Fuzzy's Taco Shop is officially open at 7401 N. May Avenue, the ninth from ownership group The Social Order. The shop adds to the portfolio of the group which also includes The Jones Assembly.

The Social Order announced the opening of two additional locations of Spark slated for early 2024.

Another of the brand's restaurants, Spark, also announced plans for two additional locations. The new restaurants will be within the Chisholm Creek development and off 63rd & Western Avenue and are slated to open in spring 2024.

Tulsa to host Vegan Chef Challenge

Chefs throughout Tulsa will compete in the city's inaugural Vegan Chef Challenge, an event sponsored by Vegan Outreach, which kicked off on Oct. 1.

Diners can visit restaurants through Oct. 31 and try plant-based dishes created by local chefs. They can then vote on their favorites at https://veganchefchallenge.org/Tulsa/.

To date, there are 56 distinct restaurants signed up to participate in the challenge, with several locations of some restaurants participating. Winning dishes will be announced in early November.

Whiskey Cake's new Bone Marrow Booze Luge.

Whiskey Cake launches $7 Social Hour

Whiskey Cake, 1845 Northwest Expressway, is launching a new social hour featuring an array of food and drink options. The star of the show is the new Bone Marrow Booze Luge  roasted bone marrow with smoked date syrup and gremolata followed by a shot of Bulleit Rye Whiskey, channeled through the hollow bone.

The social hour is 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and will also feature hand-crafted cocktails and an array of classic cocktails alongside house wines for $7 and beers for $5. Featured social hour bar bites will include Wagyu Corn Dogs, BBQ Spiced Pork Rinds, and Blue Cheese Kettle Chips.

The newest metro Crumbl Cookies location opened off of North May in Oklahoma City.

Quick bites

What else is happening around Oklahoma in food and dining? As always, the answer to that is a lot. Here's a rundown on even more food news from across the state.

Through Nov. 5, Mazzio's fans can try the Tulsa-based chains newest menu addition, Street Pizzas. Specialty options include five new flavor combinations: Street Combo, Boss Hog, Chicken Q, Mamma Mia and Street Taco.

Florida-based Tex-Mex chain Capital Tacos has announced a location coming to Tulsa in the near future. No opening date or address has been released.

Louisiana-based breakfast and brunch chain Another Broken Egg Cafe, has announced preliminary plans to move into Oklahoma and appears to be seeking franchisees. No possible locations have been announced at this time.

Travis Clark, pitmaster and owner of Clark Crew BBQ in Oklahoma City is expanding, with plans to open a second location, 10825 E 71 Street in Tulsa later this year.

Dallas-based Velvet Taco opened its first non-traditional restaurant located inside Choctaw Casino in Durant.

The Oklahoma City metro has a new Crumbl Cookies location at 6315 N May Ave., Suite B that opened Sept. 22. It marks the ninth Oklahoma location, joining stores in Moore, Norman, Edmond and Chisholm Creek, along with stores near the Tulsa metro.

Shawnee's The Surf Bar announced upgrades to their coffee offerings that will include lattes, frappes, cold brew, and hot coffee plus coffee smoothies. Coffee drinks are customizable with various flavors, and this week, they are half off to allow customers to try new items.

This story has been updated to reflect a change in the date to the Pivot Preserves launch.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC restaurant news: See the latest openings, closings, events
MISSION, Texas (Border Report)  A South Texas man has been ordered to serve four years in prison for smuggling undocumented migrants inside jet skis at a Border Patrol checkpoint, the U.S. Attorneys Office said Tuesday.

South Texas county orders deleted delinquent taxes reinstated and paid, including sheriffs

Fernando Cerda Jr., 26, of Mission, Texas, pleaded guilty to smuggling five undocumented migrants inside two jet ski watercraft hulls.

U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said Cerda was apprehended at the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint where he was towing two jet skis. A canine agent alerted Border Patrol agents who found five migrants concealed inside the watercraft, Hamdani said.

The rescued migrants reportedly said they feared for their lives while they were trapped in the jet skis, according to a statement.

$375K in federal funds to boost border security in rural South Texas county

The Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint is the largest in South Texas and on the only north-to-south highway leading to and from the Rio Grande Valley, which borders Mexico.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
The entire world should carefully read this white paper from China

09:24, September 27, 2023 By Global Times editorial ( Global Times

Photo: GT

On September 26, China's State Council Information Office released a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions." Against the backdrop of the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping's proposal of building a global community of shared future, China has introduced the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future, and points the way toward a better future for the world. Anyone, be they are developing countries seeking to learn from China or individuals from Western countries who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of China, will find inspiration in it as long as they approach it without biased views.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping put forward the idea of building a global community of shared future, emphasizing that all countries should dedicate themselves to global peace and common development. Over the past 10 years, the international landscape has undergone rapid changes. The globalization process has faced changes, such as "decoupling" and "small yard, high fence" approaches, which contradict the current times. The resurgence of bloc confrontation and signs of a "new cold war," have continuously disrupted global cooperation. Particularly in recent years, unexpected events like "black swan" and "gray rhino" occurrences have occurred frequently, leading to rapid changes in situations that most people did not anticipate initially.

Human society is now facing a "life-or-death choice:" whether to enter into a vicious cycle of continuous confrontation and division or to seek a path of cooperation and win-win, ultimately allowing more than 7 billion people to have a better life. The whole world is searching for answers. This also confirms the highly prescient and forward-looking nature of the concept of a global community of shared future.

Without exaggeration, it can be said that this white paper is a document of historic and global significance, just like its theme, which concerns the fate of all humanity. Although it was proposed by China, it is not exclusive to China. It provides solemn and profound answers to the question raised by the times regarding the future of humanity and it represents a critically important global public good that China offers to the world.

The white paper, with approximately 22,000 words, is relatively concise given its weight. Its language is highly condensed, precise, and vivid. Despite discussing profound topics, it is quite readable and comprehensible. We strongly recommend that individuals who care about the fate of humanity, regardless of their nationality or ethnicity, take the time to read its original text.

We also strongly call on Western countries, including the US, to set aside prejudices and selfishness, and to open up their visions. We should work together within the framework of a global community of shared future, and seek common prosperity and harmony with all countries. Whether they are willing or not, the world needs a new set, or even multiple sets, of solutions.

In fact, since China proposed the concept of a global community of shared future 10 years ago, it has been included in the UN General Assembly resolutions for six consecutive years, as well as in the resolutions or declarations of multilateral mechanisms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. It has gained understanding and support from the international community, especially developing countries. However, this has aroused vigilance, resistance, and even obstruction from developed countries such as the US, which has become the biggest obstacle to building the global community of shared future.

In fact, if Western political elites are willing to set aside their arrogance and carefully listen to China's voice, they will find that the proposal of the concept of the global community of shared future is not intended to challenge or compete with the West. This "community" also includes the participation and cooperation of developed Western countries. Regardless of the size or wealth of a country, no country or even individual is excluded. The vision it promotes for a better world also includes the well-being of the people of Western countries. Therefore, whether it is developed societies or developing countries, they should contribute to the common cause of peace and development.

Today's world has become a community of shared future, with countries riding together on a ship of shared fate. A small boat cannot withstand the wind and waves, only a giant vessel can withstand the stormy seas. No matter how powerful a country may be, it cannot dominate the world alone and must engage in global cooperation.

As the white paper says, "This is an integrated world. Those who turn their back on it will have no place in it." In such a world, the true power that transcends time is contained in the silent and subtle ideas, just like the practical greatness demonstrated by the concept of global community of shared future.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
 Flash

U.S. President Donald Trump leaves for Florida at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Jan. 23, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

A New York judge on Tuesday ruled former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons liable for fraud, saying they provided false financial statements for nearly a decade.

Judge Arthur Engoron found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

He ordered that some of Trump's business licenses be rescinded as punishment.

In the lawsuit, New York's Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Trump, three of his children and his companies submitted "grossly inflated" numbers to banks and insurers. She is seeking 250 million U.S. Dollars in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York state.

Engoron is expected to hold a non-jury trial starting Oct. 2 before deciding on the claims and any punishments he may impose.

Trump has long insisted he did nothing wrong, and his lawyers had asked the New York judge to throw out the case ahead of the trial.

The ruling by the judge is a setback for Trump who is a frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) fired back at Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) on Wednesday for her hostile response to his request to turn over documents related to her prosecution of former President Trump.

In a letter dated Wednesday, Jordan said that Williss response to his request only reinforces the Committees concern that your prosecutorial conduct is geared more toward advancing a political cause and your own notoriety than toward promoting the fair and just administration of the law.

Congress in general, and this Committee in particular, have a strong legislative interest in ensuring that popularly elected local prosecutors do not misuse their law-enforcement authority to target federal officials for political reasons, he continued. We can only conclude from your hostile response to the Committees oversight that you are actively and aggressively engaged in such a scheme.

Jordan has sent letters to each of the prosecutorial entities investigating Trump, and, in his one to Willis in late August  just hours before Trump surrendered to the Fulton County Jail  he asked her to turn over all records related to her work on the 2020 election interference case.

He also asked that if she had communicated with special counsel Jack Smith, who has also brought charges against Trump over his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

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Willis responded to Jordans request in a scathing letter Sept. 7, attacking his basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys general and prosecutors specifically.

Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution, Willis wrote.

There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution. That violation of Georgias sovereignty is offensive and will not stand.

She said that since Jordan was so taken with concerns related to her county, he should investigate the numerous threats she has faced since bringing the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case against Trump and 18 co-defendants.

Willis told Jordan he was misinformed about details of the indictment and encouraged him to buy a copy of RICO State-by-State, in order to obtain a better understanding of the law. She also told Jordan that her response was merely voluntary since settled constitutional law clearly permits me to ignore your unjustified and illegal intrusion.

In his letter Wednesday, Jordan took issue with many of her arguments and specifically argued against her concerns that his oversight of her investigation into his ally, Trump, was a violation of federalism principles. He argued that the Constitution provides the right to constitutional oversight of investigations, even at the state level.

The assertion that a law-enforcement entity may prevent Congress from conducting oversight related to an ongoing investigation rests on no constitutional privilege or case law authority but rather on opinions issued by the Justice Department, he wrote. There is ample legal and historical precedent contradicting this position  that is, congressional committees conducting oversight of matters that are the subjects of ongoing investigations.

Jordan reiterated the committees requests for documents and asked that her office comply with them no later than Oct. 11. He also said, as an accommodation to you, the committee would prioritize documents that showed any correspondence between her office and the Department of Justice.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Former President Jimmy Carters upcoming 99th birthday celebration has been move up a day amid the looming possibility of a government shutdown.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum said some events for Carters birthday will happen on Saturday instead of Sunday, when current funding levels are set to run out.

The interest in President Carters birthday is so great, we decided to make it a birthday weekend, both Saturday and Sunday with 99 cent admission, and all sort of birthday activities, the library and museum said in a statement to The Hill.

Tony Clark, the museums director of public affairs, told CNN that some of the museums spaces that are part of the government will be closed if a shutdown does occur, saying we are starting early to make sure we have a celebration.

Some libraries have a non-governmental foundation that operates their museum rather than NARA. Those are able to stay open. The Carter Library works closely with The Carter Center and share some spaces, but the museum is not one of those, Clark said.

So while we anticipate congressional funding to resume October 1, if it doesnt, the government side of the Presidential Center will be closed.

Carter, who served as president from 1977 to 1981, entered hospice care in February. He is the oldest former president in American history.

Earlier this month, grandson Jason Carter, the chairman of The Carter Center, said the former president and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who has been diagnosed with dementia, are coming to the end.

They are together. They are at home. They are in love, and I dont think anyone gets more than that, Jason Carter said. I mean, its a perfect situation for this time in their lives.

Ahead of Jimmy Carters 99th birthday, the Carter Center is asking the public to help celebrate the former president with a video or photo message that will create a mosaic.

Our mosaic project is a symbolic way to show how we all play a part in President Carters remarkable legacy of service to humanity, according to The Carter Center website.

Congress has until this weekend to avert a government shutdown, and divisions among House Republicans have left it without a clear path forward.

A government shutdown would lead to the suspension of nonessential federal functions and result in millions of federal employees not receiving pay.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter sits on the Atlanta Falcons bench before the first half of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the San Diego Chargers, Oct. 23, 2016, in Atlanta. Former President Carter, on Saturday Sept. 23 2023 made a surprise appearance at the Plains Peanut Festival in their Georgia hometown, the Carter Center wrote in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

ATLANTA (AP)  The Jimmy Carter Library & Museum is moving up festivities for the former presidents 99th birthday because of the threat of a partial federal government shutdown.

Events originally scheduled for Sunday, Carters birthday, will now be held Saturday on the Atlanta campus of the library and the adjacent Carter Center. An end-of-Saturday deadline looms for Congress to reach a new budget agreement to keep all government offices  including presidential libraries and museums  open.

The commemoration is scheduled from from noon to 4 p.m. Satureday. It will include a 99-cent entry fee for the Carter museum, which features a replica of the Oval Office as it appeared during Carters 1977-81 White House term. Anyone 16 or younger will receive free admission. There will be birthday cake, games, crafts and food trucks on the grounds.

The museums theater will show All the Presidents Men at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The movie chronicles President Richard Nixons downfall from the Watergate scandal. That turn in U.S. political history, along with the fallout of the Vietnam War, set the stage for Carter, then a one-term Georgia governor, to mount a winning campaign for president as a Washington outsider who promised never to lie to his fellow Americans.

Carter is the longest-lived U.S. president. He has been in home hospice care at his Plains residence since February. His wife, Rosalynn, now 96, has dementia and is also at home with the former president.

If lawmakers in Washington reach a spending agreement by the deadline, the birthday observances will continue Sunday, including the 99-cent museum admission. The Sunday schedule is to also include a naturalization ceremony for 99 new American citizens.

A partial government shutdown also would affect federally run historic sites in and around the south Georgia town of Plains, including Carter's boyhood home and farm. Plains residents celebrated the former president's approaching milestone last weekend as part of the annual Plains Peanut Festival. The former president and first lady made a surprise appearance in the festival parade, riding in a Secret Service vehicle.
Former president Jimmy Carter 's 99th birthday has been moved from Sunday, Oct. 1 to Saturday, Sept. 30., amid the possibility of a government shutdown later this week.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta announced Tuesday that the former president's birthday celebration has been moved to Saturday instead of Sunday, the day of his actual birthday.

We want to make sure we are celebrating regardless of what Congress does, Tony Clark, the sites public affairs director told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Like other federal agencies and services that officials do not deem "essential," the library and museum will pause operations starting Sunday if Congress doesnt reach an agreement this week to avert a federal government shutdown.

However, if the shutdown does not go through, the museum will have another round of festivities for visitors on Sunday, Clark told the AJC.

The possible government shutdown could also affect Carter's birthday celebration plans in his hometown of Plains, approximately 160 miles south of Atlanta. Sites at the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park  including the former presidents boyhood farm and school  could be closed beginning Sunday, the AJC reported.

Government shutdown live updates: Latest news on the chances of a shutdown on Oct. 1? How it affects you

What to know: How likely is a government shutdown and who will be affected?

Party like it's 1924

Festivities include cake, birthday card signing, painting, games and trivia and a screening of the film "All the President's Men". Admission is 99 cents for adults, in a nod to the president's age, while children under the age of 16 can attend the celebrations free of cost.

"Let's party like it's 1924," the invitation to the event reads.

Ahead of the birthday, the Carter Center is calling on the public to upload birthday wishes with a photo or video to be featured in a digital mosaic of Carter.

Jimmy Carter celebrates his 90th birthday at The Carter Center in Atlanta on October 1, 2014. [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

Watch: Jimmy Carter makes surprise trip to Plains Peanut Festival in Georgia ahead of 99th birthday

'Coming to the end': Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are 'coming to the end' but together and 'in love,' their grandson shares

Oldest living president

Carter, who entered hospice care at his home in February, is the oldest living president and the president who has lived longest after his term in office. The most important milestone to him though, arrived in July 2021, when he and his wife Rosalynn Carter celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary, making the Carters the longest-married presidential couple in history.

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn meet with former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton as they celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary Saturday, July 10, 2021, in Plains, Ga.

In recent days, Jason Carter, the Carter's grandson and chairman of the Carter Centers Board of Trustees, told USA TODAY that both Jimmy and Rosalynn have been in declining health. But last weekend, the couple surprised attendees at the Plains Peanut Festival by visiting the event by car.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Government shutdown: Jimmy Carter's 99th birthday celebrations moved
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) spent years as the top Democrat on the powerful Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, wielding tremendous influence over Congress, the White House and government agencies. With Menendez facing the biggest crisis of his career  federal corruption charges and calls for his resignation from a growing number of his fellow Democrats  he is almost certain to lose that position for good.

The upshot would be dramatic, involving big changes to the Democratic Partys approach to international relations and to Washingtons national security establishment.

The foreign policy implications are extremely significant, one Democratic congressional aide told HuffPost. Referring to the West Virginia Democratic senator notorious for challenging his own party, the aide added: You cant overstate the extent to which Bob Menendez was the Joe Manchin of foreign policy.

Menendez holds hawkish views on many global questions, notably Middle East matters such as diplomacy with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as Latin American dilemmas like how the U.S. should deal with unfriendly governments in Cuba and Venezuela. Through public advocacy and private pressure, he has pushed for U.S. policy to reflect those opinions  even when such shifts clash with most Democrats preferences and risk conflict or human rights violations.

Though Menendez largely supported Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden on domestic issues, he broke with both of them on foreign policy in high-profile ways.

For him to be the one who determines the caucus foreign policy agenda is pretty bizarre, said Matt Duss, who served as the foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from 2017 to 2022.

When you know that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has these very hard-line views, that constrains your concept of the possible  especially when you have an administration that doesnt want to spend a whole lot of time arguing about foreign policy, continued Duss, who is now the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy think tank.

Menendez temporarily stepped down from his role as the committees chairman last week due to the criminal charges against him, which allege he took bribes in exchange for official favors that benefited Egypt and New Jersey businessmen. He maintains his innocence and his ultimate fate in the Senate remains unclear.

Nearly all Democratic lawmakers broadly share a vision for the U.S.s role in the world: being engaged and powerful but not overbearing, championing democratic principles and encouraging other nations to do the same, and bolstering Americas network of alliances and global coalitions to address concerns like climate change. If Menendez is permanently replaced as the committees chair, his successor could be more focused on promoting that agenda  and mend intra-Democratic rifts on international matters.

He was, under both Obama and Biden, in the way of a ton of Democratic Party priorities, the Democratic congressional aide said. No matter who replaces him, the door opens for a much saner policy towards Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and down the line to Taiwan.

A Tense Tenure

On the coattails of Bidens 2020 election victory, Democrats captured the Senate for the first time since 2014, and Menendez rose from ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee to its chairman.

He quickly signaled that he would not help Biden achieve one of the presidents chief foreign policy promises from the campaign trail: reentering the international pact to limit Irans nuclear program. When Obama helped craft the deal in 2015, Menendez was one of only four Democratic senators to vote against it.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) opposed President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) opposed President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

Three years later, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Iran drastically increased its nuclear capabilities in response. Most Democrats and many national security experts said Biden should prioritize ratcheting down tensions.

Yet administration officials knew Menendez had influence over many of the presidents other priorities, too. They ultimately took a more modest approach to diplomacy with Iran than most observers expected. Today, they are far from resurrecting the Obama-era deal, with Irans nuclear development continuing to defy restraints. Menendez was not the sole reason for that choice, but his influence was an important factor, observers said.

There is a feeling among many in the foreign policy community that ... the Biden administration did not initially pursue a reentry to [the Iran deal] because they feared retribution from Chairman Menendez, specifically that he would not move quickly to put their nominees through the confirmation process or retaliate by tying their hands, said a national security advocate who requested anonymity to speak frankly about a senator who has openly boasted about remembering and seeking revenge against his critics.

One of the reasons why the administration chose to slow-walk rejoining the deal  which was a disastrous decision in my view  was they wanted Menendezs cooperation. We now may very well lose the [deal] altogether, Duss said.

Menendez also opposed another signature Obama policy reversed by Trump: greater U.S. engagement with Cuba.

The son of Cuban immigrants who fled the country, Menendez argues easing American sanctions on the island nation only empowers its authoritarian regime  and rejects the argument that sanctions largely hurt regular Cubans, not Havanas leaders.

Menendezs views on Cuba and his similar take on Venezuela made it trickier for the Biden administration to forge a softer policy than Trump to address migrant flows and reduce U.S. friction with key Latin American governments.

And on Israel-Palestine, an issue on which Democratic voters and lawmakers have shown a striking shift, Menendez has maintained a traditionalist view that largely jibes with conservatives in Israel and the U.S.

Hes typically the lead Democratic member on legislation that actually works against U.S. interests in moving [Israel and Palestine] towards a two-state solution and countering deepening occupation, the national security advocate said.

When hard-line Israel advocates rallied against Bidens pick for the top human rights job at the State Department, Sarah Margon, and Republicans refused to support her, Menendez declined to bring her up for a Foreign Relations Committee vote. Margon withdrew her nomination earlier this year.

The human rights position is now widely expected to remain unfilled for the rest of Bidens time in office, and many progressives working on national security say the episode sent an alarming signal to their community.

Amid Washingtons highest-profile foreign policy debate, over how far to ramp up U.S.-China competition, Menendez distinguished himself as one of the Democrats most supportive of demonstrating strength to Beijing regardless of the risks. The New Jersey senator pushed a bill to drastically upgrade U.S. links with Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its territory. The Democratic aide recalled hearing from military contacts that they viewed it as dangerous.

Under Menendez, Democrats approach to international affairs was also defined  and sometimes undercut  by his style of operating, people who worked with the senator and his team say.

Its not just that Menendez was hawkish  its that he threw his weight around to an extraordinary degree, a former Senate staffer told HuffPost on condition of anonymity.

The current aide described Menendezs team as dealing with even an administration of their own party in a way that is always Jersey, kind of a shakedown: the chairman will be angry if you do this.

Even with people who agree with him on politics or policy, its very hard to imagine who would miss him, the aide continued.

Building A New M.O.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has temporarily taken over as chair of the foreign relations panel.

Bringing stability to the critical committee is the immediate challenge for Cardin, given the scandal over Menendezs alleged corruption and discontent over his chairmanship.

The committees culture needs to change and that will be hard with legacy staff there, said a current Senate staffer who would only speak on the basis of anonymity.

Its not just that Menendez was hawkish  its that he threw his weight around to an extraordinary degree.Former Senate staffer

The staffer noted that Menendezs charges brought into question the committees integrity because they focused on foreign matters, specifically illegally helping the Egyptian government.

Critics of the regime in Cairo like Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D) want officials to probe Egypts interference in U.S. policymaking and the possibility that Menendez shielded the Egyptian regime for corrupt reasons. Analysts say there are signs the alleged scheme implicated Menendez and the committee in preventing accountability for Saudi agents murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Those questions are linked to a key overall question: how far Democrats and the committee will go now in reconsidering Menendezs record. One aide noted a contrast between Menendezs years of demanding justice for Khashoggi and his alleged crimes, However good he may have been, he was running interference for the Egyptians on their part, so that taints it.

Additionally, Democrats will need to address fears among some core constituencies who appreciated elements of Menendezs records.

Hes a staunch defender of foreign aid and a robust and expanding diplomatic corps and arguably one of the best on immigration policy, the national security advocate told HuffPost. There are those in the progressive foreign policy community for whom this is a real, real difficult moment particularly because he has amassed such power and sway and has been good on these issues.

Still, many Democrats and people who work with them largely see a moment of possibility in Menendezs expected ouster, given the likelihood of fresh leadership that channels the range of views in the party.

U.S. and Iranian officials are inching towards a return to nuclear diplomacy that could be especially vital given the risk of a second Trump term come 2025. Thats going to be a lot easier without Bob Menendez, the national security advocate said.

Additionally, a new chair could promote some better conversation regarding Bidens push for an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel that involves U.S. promises that most Democrats see as unpalatable, Duss said. He hopes the committee will be clear its not a Saudi-Israel normalization deal  its a Saudi-U.S. security pact.

Cardin will retire in 2025. Eventually, Democrats on the panel will likely be led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) or Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), though there could be a bid by a younger alternative like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Nearly any successor to Menendez would give Democrats more breathing room to be creative around foreign policy  even a more centrist figure, as the example of Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) has shown in the House of Representatives. He defeated a progressive challenge to become the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee but has often worked with more liberal colleagues.

We have a moment where itd be great to have someone in this position who is more representative of where Democrats are generally, in terms of supporting diplomacy and opposing military intervention, Duss said. Whoever it is will be taking the gavel at a time when the progressive wing of the party is growing more powerful and weve only started to see that on foreign policy.
FILE  Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally, Sept. 20, 2023, in Dubuque, Iowa. New York Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

WASHINGTON (AP)  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said Wednesday she wont recuse herself from Donald Trump s 2020 election interference case in Washington, rejecting the former presidents claims that her past comments raise doubts about whether she can be fair.

Chutkan, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama and was randomly assigned to Trumps case, said in her written decision that she sees no reason to step aside. The case, scheduled for trial in March, accuses the Republican of illegally scheming to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Theres a high bar for recusal, and legal experts had widely considered Trumps request to be a long shot aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the case publicly that could only sour the relationship between the judge and the defense in court.

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

In seeking Chutkan's recusal, defense lawyers cited statements she had made in two sentencing hearings of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol in which they said she had appeared to suggest that Trump deserved to be prosecuted and held accountable. They said the comments suggested a bias against him that could taint the proceedings.

But Chutkan vigorously objected to the those characterizations of her comments.

"It bears noting that the court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it: that former President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned, Chutkan wrote. And the defense does not cite any instance of the court ever uttering those words or anything similar.

Its the second time Trump has tried unsuccessfully to get a judge removed from one of the criminal cases against him. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan, who is overseeing Trumps New York hush money criminal case, rejected similar demands that he step aside, saying he is certain of his ability to be fair and impartial.

Chutkan has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of defendants charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has personally assailed her on social media as he tries to make the case that the prosecution is politically motivated.

Federal special counsel Jack Smiths team said there was no valid basis to have Chutkan removed from the case. Like Chutkan, they said she never said that Trump was legally or morally to blame for the events of Jan. 6 or that he deserved to be punished.

Chutkan wrote in her order that though recusal is a valid step when merited, judges should not step aside without cause, as she suggested the Trump lawyers were asking her to do.

Trump's team had pointed in their recusal bid to a sentencing hearing for a Jan. 6 defendant in which Chutkan said the rioters had "blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day. Chutkan wrote in her decision Wednesday that she was merely stating an undisputed fact,  that Trump was free  but it went no further.

Chutkan is also considering a request by Smiths team for a narrow gag order that would bar Trump from making inflammatory and intimidating comments about witnesses, lawyers and other people involved in the case. Trump's lawyers objected this week to that request.

Chutkan has scheduled trial to begin March 4, 2024, over the vigorous objections of defense lawyers who said that would not give them enough time to prepare. The case in Washingtons federal court is one of four criminal cases confronting the former president as he seeks to regain the White House.

____

Richer reported from Boston.
Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. A Lakeland man who is charged with felony civil disorder, plus three misdemeanors, had his motion to dismiss the charges denied recently.

A federal judge has denied a Lakeland mans motion to dismiss all charges against him related to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A lawyer for Brian Boele submitted a motion in July to dismiss the four counts, which include civil disorder, a felony, and three misdemeanors. Boele, 60, was indicted in May 2022, along with four other defendants facing a total of 16 counts.

Boeles lawyer, Carolyn Stewart of Plant City, submitted a 28-page motion to U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia. Stewart wrote that Boele was at the U.S. Capitol to exercise his First Amendment rights on Jan. 6, 2021, the day that members of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Former President Donald Trump held a rally at the Ellipse, urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the election of Joe Biden (though Pence had no such powers) and encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol. Some protesters pushed through lines of police officers that day and broke into the Capitol building, disrupting a joint session of Congress.

Stewart offered a range of arguments for dismissing the charges. The lawyer wrote that the government failed to establish that the west side of the Capitol was a restricted area and that authorities did not issue a dispersal order while Boele was there, among a crowd of protesters.

The lawyer wrote that the presence of tear gas should not have been construed as a notice to disperse. She argued that the Department of Justice declared a civil disorder at the U.S. Capitol after the fact.

In the motion, Stewart suggested that police officers at the Capitol provoked the violence that occurred. She also mixed in criticisms of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser.

In his order, Leon addressed Stewarts factual arguments over the actions of law enforcement, whether the Capitol grounds was a restricted area and whether the Jan. 6 riot adversely affected commerce. He agreed with the prosecutions response that such questions could be considered at trial but are not grounds for a pretrial dismissal of charges.

Joshua Doolin Polk City man sentenced to 18 months in prison for role in U.S. Capitol attack

Citing federal law, Leon wrote that a defendant may be charged with civil disorder based on their actions even without a formal declaration of civil disorder at the time.

No trial date has been set for Boele, described in the filing as a retired firefighter with no criminal history.

Boele is one of six current and former Polk County residents indicted in relation to the Capitol attack. Three of them  siblings Jonathan and Olivia Pollock and a friend, Joseph Hutchinson III  are now fugitives. The Pollocks cousin, Joshua Doolin of Polk City, was convicted in March on charges that include civil disorder and theft of government property. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Corinne Montoni of Lakeland signed an agreement in June, pleading guilty to civil disorder in exchange for having other felony charges dismissed. She has not yet been sentenced.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Judge denies motion to dismiss Lakeland man's Jan. 6 charges
Richard Golden, the New Jersey man who told white supremacists in a hate chat group to murder Sheriff Mike Chitwood, meets the sheriff when he arrived in Florida in March. Golden was extradited to Volusia County and taken to jail.

A circuit judge denied a request to dismiss the charge against a man accused of threatening Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood. The judge said it was up to a jury to decide if the mans statements were a threat.

Richard Golden, 38, of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, was charged with written threat to kill or do bodily harm, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Golden was the first of now six men around the country arrested after being accused of threatening Chitwood. The most recent arrest was announced Tuesday of an Alaska man.

Who are the men threatening Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood and where are they now?

Goldens trial is set for Oct. 30 before Circuit Judge Karen Foxman at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach.

The threats started after Chitwood blasted groups who had spread antisemitic propaganda in Volusia County and displayed antisemitic signs on a pedestrian overpass leading to Daytona International Speedway in February on the weekend of the Daytona 500.

According to court records, Golden posted on a 4chan chatroom called Politically Incorrect: "Just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem. They have to find a new guy to be the problem. But shooting Chitwood in the head solves an immediate problem permanently. Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him. In Minecraft."

Golden was extradited to Volusia County and arrived March 27 at the Orlando Sanford International Airport to a welcoming by Chitwood along with media that had gathered for the arrival. The cost of extraditing Golden was $2,112.69, which will likely be billed to Golden.

Golden has been free since he posted $100,000 bail on April 11; he did not attend Wednesday's hearing.

Goldens defense attorney, Matthew Thompson, argued Wednesday that the charge should be dismissed.

There is no ownership to what he said, said Thompson, who likened it to political puffery and said it seemed to be public complaining.

Thompson said it was an open forum and that he does not know whether Golden had any ties to the groups by users in the anonymous chatroom on 4chan.

You can find that language and that hatred unfortunately everywhere on the internet, Thompson said. I just think that this is somebody whose expressing frustration and not really issuing a threat thats meant to be taken seriously."

Thompsons argument repeated points he wrote in his motion, in which he argued that Goldens post was not a true threat and such language was protected by the First Admendment.

Assistant State Attorney Ashley Terwilleger argued that the motion to dismiss should be denied because it was up to a jury to decide whether Goldens post was a threat or not. And she cited case law which she said supported that position.

The defendant with specificity states where the sheriff should be shot, the timeline in which it should happen, and then again repeats where the sheriff should be shot, Terwilleger wrote.

Terwillegers motion includes copies of the racist and antisemitic posts in the chatroom.

Terwilleger wrote in her motion that the issue was whether Goldens post constituted a threat and whether Golden intended to make a true threat.

Judge Foxman agreed, saying it was a question for the jury.

Foxman also asked whether there were any negotiations on reaching a plea deal.

Thompson said he did not believe prosecutors would offer a plea deal.

The judge also asked if there was any thought about Golden making an open plea. That means the punishment would be up to the judge once she hears arguments from both sides.

Thompson, who said Golden had no prior criminal history, said he would discuss the possibility of an open plea with Golden.

The judge suggested that a decision on whether he would plead open should be made by Oct. 20, which is 10 days before the trial is scheduled to start.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Jury to decide if man threatened Sheriff Mike Chitwood, judge rules
Two Trump-era administration officials have been mandated to testify as part of a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government for separating migrant children under the age of 18 from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Federal magistrate judge Kandis Westmore of California on Monday issued a decision telling the Justice Department and attorneys for the affected families to meet in order to slot depositions for former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen .

The suit, filed in 2021 by three families from El Salvador and Guatemala, alleges that the parents were separated from their children  then ages 6, 11, and 13  and spent several weeks in detention centers before being reunited.

Westmore in her ruling wrote that Sessions and Nielsen had "unique personal knowledge of their own intent" in enforcing such a stringent policy, adding that while the Department of Justice initially touted the zero-tolerance rule as fomented by "dozens of people," the government ultimately conceded that the duo alone had been responsible for structuring the policy as such, a fact which the judge said left her "disappointed." Records show that Sessions and Nielsen approved the documents that catalyzed the separations, according to the Washington Post.

"Such an injustice cannot stand," Westmore wrote.

MAGA officials claimed that they instituted the separation policy as a means of prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally; however, Trump's administration neglected to organize a process for reuniting families that were broken up and instead deported hundreds of parents while leaving the children behind. The Washington Post noted that lawyers for the migrant families have indicated that many parents were never criminally prosecuted, including some of the parents in the lawsuit.

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in a statement, "We remain committed to achieving a just resolution for the victims of this abhorrent policy." Court records show that the agency disagreed with deposing Sessions and Nielsen on the grounds of the apex deposition doctrine, which serves to protect high-ranking officials from having to testify.

"We've got to follow the rules one way or the other," Sessions said in a statement, declining to offer further comment.

"These officials set in motion a cruel program of ripping apart migrant families. It is only right that they provide testimony under oath in this case," argued Victoria Petty, staff attorney at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. "Thousands of parents and children will endure the lasting harm of this barbaric treatment for the rest of their lives."

"We hope this order brings us one step closer to holding the United States government accountable for its officials' misconduct that deeply traumatized asylum-seeking families," she added.

Though President Joe Biden has routinely criticized border separations in the past, the Department of Justice continues to defend Trump-implemented immigration policies.

"President Biden has described family separation as a 'human tragedy,' but his administration is fighting separated families tooth and nail in federal court," said Bree Bernwanger of the American Civil Liberties Union.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.  A Missouri judge is rewriting ballot language for initiative petitions, asking voters if abortion should once again be legal after the ruling said the language written by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is problematic.

Supporters of the referendum accuse Ashcroft of writing misleading ballot summary language, which is why the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri filed the lawsuit, leading a Cole County judge in Jefferson City to write the summaries himself.

Its been a constant court battle over an initiative petition asking voters if abortion rights should be restored in Missouri.

The Secretary of State used language that is poll-tested to be anti-abortion, and he also used language that would trigger a deep emotional response to voters because the ballot summary really is what every Missourian gets to see when they go into the ballot box to check yes or no, Tori Schafer, deputy director of policy and campaigns for the ACLU of Missouri, said.

In the ballot summary the ACLU is calling misleading, Ashcroft asks voters whether to allow for dangerous, unregulated and unrestricted abortions, from contraception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice. His summary would also ask voters to nullify longstanding Missouri law, protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion.

Look, no matter where you stand on the idea of abortions, and I think its pretty clear where I stand, if were going to have abortions, we should at least make sure were protecting the mother, Ashcroft said.

After Judge Jon Beetem spent more than two hours earlier this month listening to arguments on why the ballot summary language for the proposed initiative petitions to restore abortion rights should be rewritten, he ruled Monday Ashcrofts version are problematic in that they are argumentative or do not fairly describe the purposes or probable effect of the initiative.

One of the problems is that the judge didnt go through and compare my language in the initiative petition, so he can actually say this is why you say it isnt right, here are the arguments for why it is, Ashcroft said Tuesday.

Beetem rewrote each of the six ballot summaries. The first two sentences of each referendum is identical, asking voters if they want to amend the constitution to:

Establish a right to make decision about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid

Remove Missouris Ban on abortion

Our client is very happy with it, Schafer said. Very happy with Judge Beetems decision and we hope the court of appeals will have a very similar finding.

Back in March, 11 petitions were filed with the Secretary of States office by Dr. Anna Fitz-James to roll back Missouris ban on abortion by adding protections to the constitution. Supporters want to ask voters to establish the right to reproductive freedom.

Earlier this summer, the Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the fiscal note, saying Attorney General Andrew Bailey had no authority to question the contents of Fitzpatricks fiscal note summary, giving Bailey 24 hours to certify the fiscal analysis.

People need to know what they are voting yes or no on, and the Secretary of States language didnt do that, Schafer said.

Ashcroft said he is appealing the ruling, sending the case to state appellate court.

The ACLU said it will begin gathering the 170,000 signatures needed to get the question on the November 2024 ballot once appeals are exhausted. The signature collection process likely wont start until after the appeals window closes.

I would invite anyone to actually read the initiative petition, see what has happened in other states, and they will understand that we could have gone farther, Ashcroft said.

In his decision, Beetem wrote that he found that while the proposals have the greatest immediate impact on abortion, the absence of any reference to reproductive health care beyond is insufficient in that it would cause a voter to believe that abortion is the only health care comprising the initiatives.

Another court challenge surrounding the petitions is what the financial impact would be on state and local government.

Republican State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick estimates that if abortion becomes legal again, it would cost roughly $51,000 a year for local governments. As for the state, Fitzpatrick said the state would not lose its federal Medicaid funding and the impact on state agencies was undetermined.

The fiscal note lawsuit was filed by state Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold and longtime anti-abortion advocate Kathy Forck. In his ruling, Beetem wrote that Fitzpatrick was under no obligation to do an independent analysis of the potential costs.

Cole County Judge Jon Beetem's ruling by KevinSeanHeld on Scribd

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Cooperation between China and Norway on tackling climate change and in other fields is on the right track, a senior official in the Norwegian government said on Tuesday, expressing his optimism over such bilateral efforts.

Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, state secretary of Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that Norway and China have collaborated extensively in tackling climate change and environmental issues despite the fact that challenges on this front are ever-present.

"Today, we are facing other challenges, though, with issues connected to climate change and environment at the forefront. This is an area where Norway and China have substantially cooperated over a number of years. And we are hoping that we can continue to do so, and ... achieve the sustainable development goals," Kravik said during a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Norway to celebrate the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Kravik applauded the progress made by China in recent decades in eradicating poverty, saying that "during the last decades, the Chinese government has made huge strides in alleviating poverty. China is now an advanced, sophisticated and prosperous nation. The transition is remarkable."

Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Norway and China, a milestone that Kravik believes will provide opportunities to boost collaborative efforts. "I'm certain that the business community and our respective diplomatic and trade representatives will contribute to making the years to come prosperous for both our countries," he said.

Hou Yue, Chinese ambassador to Norway, said that China has become Norway's second-largest source of imports, and the largest destination for exports outside Europe. High-quality Norwegian seafood is becoming popular in more Chinese households, while Chinese electric cars are now more commonly seen on Norwegian roads.

"China and Norway share common values in addressing climate change, upholding multilateralism, and there is tremendous potential for cooperation in areas such as marine economy, green transformation and multilateral affairs. All in all, the future of China-Norway relations holds great promise," said Hou.
A Manhattan judge overseeing the citys right-to-shelter case recused herself from the matter Tuesday over concerns about her impartiality  a move that came as lawyers for Mayor Adams forged ahead with a push to suspend the decades-old shelter mandate amid a constant influx of migrants into New York.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Erika Edwards announced her recusal from the case in a brief hearing after a closed-door discussion in her chambers between lawyers representing Adams, Gov. Hochuls administration and the Legal Aid Society, which is challenging the mayors request to roll back right to shelter on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless.

Asked after the proceeding why Edwards opted for recusal, Legal Aid Society lawyer Josh Goldfein, who attended the private conference, said it had to do with personal concerns she had about the case.

The judge felt that she could not be impartial in this case, and we have to take her at her word, Goldfein told reporters outside the courthouse. He declined to elaborate.

It was not immediately clear which judge will replace Edwards in overseeing the case.

Before recusing herself, Edwards ordered Adams lawyers to file a new letter to the court by Oct. 3 spelling out exactly why the mayor sees a need to lift the right to shelter, which was established via a 1981 consent decree and requires the city to provide a shelter bed to anyone who needs it.

In an initial letter in May, lawyers for Adams asked permission from the court to be able to suspend right to shelter whenever the city lacks the resources and capacity to establish and maintain sufficient shelter sites. The attorneys said at the time that the impetus for seeking the sweeping suspension was the citys struggle to find shelter space to house the tens of thousands of mostly Latin American migrants who have arrived since last year.

Since that May letter, Adams and his advisers have shifted gears and advocated mostly for tailoring a potential suspension in such a way that it would only impact migrants, while homeless New Yorkers would still retain their right to shelter. The administration has also curtailed newly-arrived migrants access to shelter, including by recently limiting the time they can consecutively stay in a shelter to 30 days.

Its unclear exactly how the Adams lawyers plan to modify their suspension request. A spokeswoman for Adams did not immediately return a request for comment after the court proceeding.

Regardless of how the Adams administration tweaks its request, the road to a potential right-to-shelter rollback is long.

Before such a request can be formally considered by a court, a judge must give the mayors administration permission to file an official motion on the matter. The Adams administration has not yet asked for that go-ahead.

But in his remarks after Tuesdays hearing, Goldfein said he expects the administration to request a motion to be relieved of the right to shelter in some way.

Goldfein argued its outrageous for the mayor to proceed with his effort to undo right to shelter just as state and federal partners are beginning to provide help for the city, including President Bidens recent decision to offer Venezuelan migrants the chance to secure fast-tracked work permits via a so-called Temporary Protected Status designation.

It doesnt make sense at this moment for the city to ask to be relieved of its obligations to protect people from dying on the streets of New York, he said.

Homeless advocates have for months worried that Adams attempts to peel back right to shelter could set a problematic precedent and allow the city to skirt its legal obligations.

Adams has dismissed those laments and argued its unrealistic for his administration to comply with right-to-shelter rules at a time when there are more than 110,000 people in city shelters and emergency housing facilities, a record. More than 60,000 of those sheltered individuals are migrants who came to the U.S. in hopes of seeking asylum.

Local Republican lawmakers have lauded Adams for seeking to water down the citys right-to-shelter, including Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who has attended the past two right-to-shelter hearings.

Ill be attending court to support @NYCMayor on this move, even though I wont be allowed into chambers, Vernikov tweeted ahead of Tuesdays proceeding.
From the federal bench in Amarillo, Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk laid another plank last week in the expanding Christian nationalist platform for the United States, in a ruling favoring a public university president who banned a drag show organized by a campus LGBTQ student group. In this court order, the latest twist in a case filed in March by Spectrum WT, a student organization at West Texas A&M University, Kacsmaryk denied the groups request to restrain the schools president and his administration from banning drag while their case is still in process. With Kacsmaryks order, we are witnessing the strengthening of the Christian rights preferred legal reality, in which drag performance is not protected speech or expression under the First Amendmentthanks in part to the (literally) Victorian turn Kacsmaryk has made.

The university presidents drag ban comes as recently passed drag bans in several states face their own legal scrutiny. On Tuesday, Texass June 2023 drag ban was ruled unconstitutional, following a similar drag ban that was also overturned earlier this year in Tennessee. Other drag bans in Florida and Montana were also temporarily blocked by courts because of the damage the bans could do in their respective states while these cases were being argued. Kacsmaryk refused to follow suit.

In an order that points to his likely eventual ruling in the Spectrum WT case, Kacsmaryk deploys the same arguments as the Christian-right players behind the drag bans: that drag is sexualized expression or conduct, thus a danger to children, and thus fair game for their restrictions. Judge Kacsmaryk does not shy from the source of such spurious reasoning in the written order. He cited not only Christopher Rufo, the self-admitted architect of the moral panic that incited drag bans, but also Gays Against Groomers, the pseudo-grassroots group that claims to be a coalition of gay people opposed to gender identity (and whose rhetoric neatly follows the rest of the Christian rights anti-trans rhetoric).

But another curious mention caught my eye in Kacsmaryks recent ruling: the Comstock Act. In his ruling, Kacsmaryk asserted that this 1873 law banning the dissemination of information related to sexuality (among many other things) is part of what he termed a Free Speech ecosystem that he claims went ignored by the students in their case. Whatever he means by free speech ecosystem aside, in reaching back to the Comstock Acta law that has been chipped away at by the courts since its passage, and remains all but discarded in practiceKacsmaryk claims to have found justification for excluding drag from constitutional protections.

Yet again, it appears that the Christian rights latest go-to legal strategy is to summon the ghost of Anthony Comstock, the Victorian eras arch foe of obscenity. It is not even the first time Kacsmaryk has referenced Comstock in a ruling siding with the Christian right. In April, in a case to restrict access to mifepristone argued by the Christian-right law group Alliance Defending Freedom, Kacsmaryk claimed that the Comstock Act may apply when it comes to the legal distribution of the drug, given its prohibitions around mailing anything that may cause an abortion (the Justice Department, it should be noted, had preemptively disagreed with this take). In a sense, by deploying Comstock now against both abortion and drag, Kacsmaryk is picking up on something quite true about the Comstock Act: Abortion, contraception, queerness, transness, sex work, sex ed, all of it is what Comstock was originally seeking to outlawand that Victorian sensibility is being resurrected from the dead.

But why revive Comstock now? To understand what Kacsmaryk is doing with the Comstock Act in both the drag and abortion cases, one must look to the Christian-right law projects that have both laid the groundwork for Christian nationalist legal theories and paved Kacsmaryks way to the federal bench.

Nearly a decade ago, Kacsmaryk joined the Texas-based First Liberty Institute, or FLI, a group that claims to be the largest legal project in the U.S. focused exclusively on religious liberty. From 2014 to 2019, Kacsmaryk was employed as an FLI attorney, where he represented clients fighting the governments effort to punish business owners and ministry leaders for following their religious beliefs and moral convictions, as he said in 2017 after an FLI meeting with the Trump administration. As a lawyer working for the Christian right, Kacsmaryk was part of an effort aimed at rolling back contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Acta provision that made birth control available to millions of people in the U.S. at no extra chargeon purported religious liberty grounds. In the movement for queer and trans rights too, according to Kacsmaryk, religious liberty is fundamentally at odds with sexual liberty. Since leaving FLI in 2019 to assume his place on the federal bench in Amarillo, coming down on the side of religious liberty is an effort Kacsmaryk can sustain with near-perfect continuity. Now with the power to decide from the front of the courtroom, he is able to tee up such cases for the Supreme Court.

After his nomination, FLI celebrated Kacsmaryks lifetime appointment as a major win for religious-freedom practitioners, proving that a principled attorney may zealously advocate for the rights of  faith-based ministries without forfeiting the opportunity to serve on the bench, and boasted that Matthew is the first [emphasis its own] confirmed judge whos gone directly from a religious liberty law firm to the federal judiciary. Kacsmaryks nomination was not solely thanks to FLI: He also held a leadership position in the Federalist Society, the group that vetted a list of judicial nominees for Trump, curated by its board chair (and friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni) Leonard Leo. Having a Christian rightfriendly judge like Kacsmaryk on a court is a boon to these legal players; having Kacsmaryk on a court in which he hears at least 95 percent of civil cases filed there is only more so.

First Liberty Institute, like the better-known Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, imagines that in the U.S., Christians are a persecuted minority. This assertion is something both groups would claim is not representative of their philosophy, pointing to their stated, broader defense of religious freedomwhich in practice is a freedom reserved primarily for those Christians who use their faith as a rationale for violating the Constitution and civil rights protections. FLIs founding president Kelly Shackelford was among the first on the Christian right to identify the postObergefell v. Hodges moment as the opening of a a new war over religious freedom, as he wrote in 2015. Within five years, he was declaring victory in that war. Shackelford said he was watching history change on its axis, marveling that groups like FLI were now suddenly prevailingbecause of whats happening with the judgesreflecting on, as Sarah Posner reported, the success their movement had putting millions of dollars into their crusade, using Trumps power to stack the judiciary with their own.

Shackelford and FLI have continued to go to bat for the man who won for their side with their judges. Theyve even helped to substantiate Trumps conspiracy theories about a stolen election: Shackelford joined a December 30, 2020, letter from a number of Christian-right groups that advanced Trumps fake electors scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and asked Senate Republicans to contest legitimate electoral votes, claiming that there was substantial evidence of large numbers of illegal votes (which there was not). Today, FLI is part of a group preparing the way for Trumps return, the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, an effort led by the Heritage Foundation. It is a plan for overhauling the government as they see fit, starting from day one; its authoritarian in scope and features a top to bottom overhaul of the Justice Department, including demands to prosecute anyone providing medication abortion by mail, as well as classifying as sex offenders those who distribute what the plan deems pornographywhich it claims is manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualisation of children. Its a project already in progress.

Little of this powerful backstory is apparent in the federal courthouse in Amarillo when Judge Kacsmaryk is at work. Likewise, its not immediately obvious what the Christian right of today, from its wealthy backers making martinis from glacier ice with Supreme Court justices, to its prayerful warriors engaged in combat outside the Capitol on January 6, has to do with Anthony Comstock. That man died in 1915, leaving behind less a legacy and more a joke in the periodic usage of the term Comstockery to denote censorious impulses. Matthew Kacsmaryk, on the other hand, was only born in 1977, and he will most likely have many more decades on the bench in service to the Christian right.

How much does it cost to buy a federal judge? How much to buy one willing to raise Anthony Comstock from the dead? I sincerely suspect Kacsmaryk might throw that summoning in for free.
A jury has awarded a $5.5 million verdict against a former Palos Heights nursing home in the death of a woman who lost her supplemental oxygen when power went out in her room.

Eighty-year-old Bettye Patterson died in Providence Palos Heights in 2016 after, her family said, she had broken her hip the previous winter.

Patterson suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and was on oxygen through a nasal cannula continuously, the lawsuit by her survivors stated.

When her daughters visited one Sunday, they discovered a power outage in her room, and alerted a nurse.

But the facility was understaffed and undertrained for how to respond, and Patterson went 20 minutes struggling to breathe before she died, according to the plaintiffs attorney, Steve Malman.

I was devastated with grief, said Kim Triplett, one of Pattersons daughters. She shouldnt have passed the way she did.

Patterson and her husband gave their children a strict upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. She was determined that we would have a better life, Triplett said.

The nursing home was operated, the lawsuit stated, by Rest Haven Illiana Christian Convalescent Home, doing business as Providence Life Services. Federal tax records show it was a tax exempt, not-for-profit that reported $64 million in revenue in 2021.

Defense attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.

The nursing home has since closed, Malman said, and the award is subject to change after post-trial requests.

rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)  Jury selection began Monday in federal court as members of an extended family confronted kidnapping and terrorism charges stemming from the search for a missing 3-year-old boy by agents who raided a squalid New Mexico encampment in 2018.

The boys badly decomposed remains were eventually found in an underground tunnel at the compound on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado line. Authorities allege the family engaged in firearms and tactical training in preparation for attacks against the government, tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.

An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy, who was sickly, had been deprived of crucial medication linked to disabilities. Federal prosecutors opted for kidnapping charges.

The two men and two women on trial have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to support planned attacks on U.S. law enforcement officers, military members and government employees. They also deny the kidnapping charges leveled against three of the defendants.

Albuquerque-based U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson has set aside four weeks for the trial, with dozens of witnesses scheduled to testify.

A grand jury indictment alleges that defendant Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and partner Jany Leveille, a Haitian national, instructed people at the compound to be prepared to engage in jihad and die as martyrs.

Leveille also was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges but she agreed to accept a reduced sentence on weapons charges.

Neither Leveille nor her attorneys appeared at the defense table in court Monday. Leveille came to the U.S. in 1998 on a visa and work permit that later expired and immigration authorities denied an application for permanent residency.

A federal prosecutor and Aja Brooks, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Albuquerque, declined to answer questions about Leveilles whereabouts, plea agreement or her status as a potential witness at trial. A defense attorney for Leveille has declined comment.

Potential jurors were being surveyed on their opinions about the Islamic religion, Muslims and alternatives to traditional medicine.

Attorneys for the defendants have said their clients would not be facing terrorism-related charges if they were not Muslim and that prosecutors are highlighting speculative and imagined theories about terrorist activities.

Defendants, from left, Jany Leveille, Lucas Morton, Siraj Wahhaj and Subbannah Wahhaj enter district court in Taos, N.M., for a detention hearing, Monday, Aug. 13, 2018. Several defendants have been charged with child abuse stemming from the alleged neglect of 11 children found living on a squalid compound on the outskirts of tiny Amalia, New Mexico.

Defense attorneys also called the FBIs theories about terrorism activities at the Amalia compound speculative and unfounded. They said there were no specific threats to the general public or individuals.

The grandfather of the missing boy is the Muslim cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who leads a well-known New York City mosque that has attracted radicals over the years, including a man who later helped bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

Siraj Wahhaj could not be reached immediately by phone or email, but previously said his son and namesake is high-strung but not an extremist, and his two detained daughters are the sweetest kinds of people.

Sheriffs deputies and state agents arrived in August 2018 to find the defendants living with 11 hungry children without running water or sanitation at the encampment encircled by berms of tires with an adjacent shooting range. Assorted guns and ammunition were seized, authorities said.

FBI interviews with the children led authorities to the boys remains.

Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj was reported missing by his mother in Georgia in December 2017. Around that time, authorities say, the boys father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, set out with relatives and a cache of guns by car, ultimately reaching a New Mexico and a parcel of high-desert scrubland near a tiny, crossroads town.

Prosecutors plan to present evidence that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille performed daily prayer rituals over the boy, even as he cried and foamed at the mouth, while depriving him of crucial medication.

hey say the boys dead body was hidden and washed for months in the belief by Leveille that it could one day return as a messiah, who would explain what corrupt government and private institutions must be eliminated. In the 2018 raid, authorities reported seizing handwritten journals, laptops, phones and video of tactical training from the compound.

The four defendants at trial  including sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhanah Wahhaj, and Subhanahs husband, Lucas Morton  were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, providing material support to each other as potential terrorists, amid tactical drills at the New Mexico compound. Morton and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj additionally are charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel.

Kidnapping charges are pending against three defendants but not Siraj Ibn Wahhaj because of his legal status as the boys father.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Morton have waived their right to legal counsel and will provide their own defense, introducing themselves directly Monday to potential jurors. Several potential jurors said told the judge they would be unable to serve impartially because of the kidnapping allegations surrounding a childs death.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Jury selection opens in terrorism trial of extended family members
Some residents want answers about a suspicious bleach and chlorine smell they say is coming from water sources in a Xenia neighborhood.

Theyre saying the water flowing into their homes smells, and what could be seen as just a pure coincidence has some neighbors making home adjustments for health reasons.

>> Dayton agrees to pay settlement to man at center of controversial 2021 traffic stop

Kevin Butts, a states neighborhood resident, says this is one of the main reasons he uses five-gallon jugs of water.

I dont drink tap water whatsoever, Butts said.

Kimberly Harrison claims she has been dealing with this issue on and off for a while.

At least six years that its been having an odd smell. Probably longer because my sister came up and she had taken a shower and said your guys water smells awful it smells like chemicals, Harrison said.

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Harrison says that she had to buy three water softeners within that time.

The smell and the taste you just have to hold your nose when you brush your teeth, she said.

News Center 7 was told by the water treatment facility that the chlorine levels are currently at 1.4. The Ohio EPA standards can reach at least 4.

Our Water Treatment Supervisor also reports all normal levels over the course of the last several days. It is possible the smell is related to the semi-annual hydrant flushing happening this week, a spokesperson for the city said in a statement.

The water treatment facility stated that they flush sitting water at least twice a year, so that way fresh cleaner water is pumped throughout the city.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  The Kansas City, Missouri Police Department is investigating after a woman was heard screaming for help.

KCPD officers responded to the disturbance around 8 p.m. Tuesday in the area of E. 15th Terrace and Topping Avenue.

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Police say the pictured man and woman were seen leaving in a dark colored Hyundai SUV and believe the woman is in danger.





Detectives are asking for help with the identification of the vehicle, woman and man who may be involved.

KCPD says there have not been any missing persons reports received that match the description of the woman involved.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (816) 413-3549 or call 911 immediately.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
Two veterans in the Kansas City area requested their medical records from the Kansas City Veterans Affairs medical center this year. When they received them, the records in the file werent theirs.

A third veteran went through Rep. Mark Alfords office to get their medical records from the VAs congressional liaison. Alfords office received the records of a different veteran.

The Missouri Republican Wednesday sent a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Dennis McDonough looking for answers as to why the VA is sending people the wrong medical records, exposing birth dates, addresses and social security numbers in the process.

The recent mistakes made by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are deeply concerning, Alford said in a written statement. Not only are they violating the privacy of veterans, but they are violating their trust. Patients visiting VA facilities should have the utmost faith in the system to protect their medical records. These incidents undermine just that.

The Kansas City VA did not respond to a request for comment.

It isnt the first time the VA has sent out incorrect medical records. The issue happens frequently enough that the VA website has a post explaining what veterans should do if they receive someones information in the mail. A 2015 investigation by ProPublica and National Public Radio found 10,000 privacy violations in four years.

The VA unveiled a new website this year where patients can report privacy violations, but despite the existence of the sight, Alfords office said it had not heard any guidance from the VA.

My staff have contacted VA Congressional liaison staff on how to handle the incorrect records of veterans they have received and have not obtained guidance yet, Alford wrote in his letter. It is deeply troubling that the VA has failed to send the correct constituent information to my staff.

The mishandling of private information at the Kansas City VA office comes as the Office of the Investigator General released a report about a lack of oversight for prescriptions in the VAs eastern Kansas health branches in Topeka and Leavenworth.

The inspector general found at least two instances where patients had overlapping prescriptions for controlled substances like opioids and benzodiazepine. In one case, a patient with a history of opioid and benzodiazepine dependence was able to get prescriptions from multiple sources, including VA medical centers in two states and through emergency departments.

Sen. Jerry Moran, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said the report shows a growing pattern of negligence for the VA and highlights the struggles the agency has had with oversight.

I am concerned by a growing pattern of negligence by the VA in coordinating veteran care and holding providers accountable, the Kansas senator said. This report highlights the importance of careful treatment and supervision of veteran patients with chronic pain and mental health conditions.
This is a photo of president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents, Blake Flanders and other board members.

This article was originally published in Kansas Reflector.

TOPEKA  A new labor report revealed the current annual rate of degree and certificate completion at Kansas colleges and universities would be insufficient to meet anticipated growth in demand for young, educated workers and could leave the states economy with an estimated 34,000 shortfall by end of this decade.

Analysis by the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas delved into challenges of surging higher education attainment in Kansas despite a declining percentage of high school graduates interested in college, the out-migration of Kansas college graduates to Missouri, Colorado and Texas, and the lack of competitiveness of salaries paid Kansas workers in engineering, business and other fields compared to peers in nearby states.

Failure of state lawmakers, education leaders and employers to address labor gaps, especially demand for recipients of bachelors degrees, could impede economic development through 2030.

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We hear a message, and I believe this too, that not everyone needs a baccalaureate degree, said Blake Flanders, president and chief executive officer of the Kansas Board of Regents. The fact of the matter is the data says there are a lot of people who will need a baccalaureate degree.

Donna Ginther, KU distinguished professor economics and director of the research institute, said the report showed Kansas could add 54,000 jobs requiring a postsecondary degree from 2020 to 2030. This evaluation took into account the likely exit from the Kansas labor force of 180,000 people with postsecondary degrees due to retirement or moving to other states. Overall, Kansas would need to fill 234,000 jobs with new graduates over the 10 years.

At the current pace, she said, about 200,000 new postsecondary graduates could be expected to stay in Kansas through 2030. That would mean Kansas had to come up with an additional 34,000 credentialed workers to satisfy projected growth in jobs, Ginther said.

Exporting graduates

Ginther said Kansas had a track record of modest net migration losses among recipients of higher education credentials, but had substantial deficits with Texas and Colorado. One concern was higher wages offered in those states, even when Kansas lower cost of living was woven into calculations. A Kansas business degree recipient could expect to annually earn $10,000 more by taking a job in Colorado, she said. A Kansas engineer could make $15,000 more per year in Texas and a computer science graduate in Colorado could receive a salary of $20,000 greater than in Kansas.

Related

Gen Zs Declining College Interest Persists  Even Among Middle Schoolers

In addition, the study showed Kansas retained less than half of all bachelors degree recipients nine years after graduation. The higher the degree earned, Ginther said, the more likely a person would depart Kansas.

This is a challenge and an opportunity. If we can keep these people, we will meet that 34,000 number, Ginther said. People want to live here if they can find a good job. Thats the bottom line.

Ginther said Kansas policymakers could make inroads into the problem by improving college readiness among the states high school graduates and by keeping a public college education affordable to students. She said the state could invest more broadly in college loan forgiveness programs that required Kansas graduates to take jobs in the state. In addition, she would encourage Kansas employers to make salaries more competitive with nearby states.

Overall, the KU institutes report indicated the Kansas economy could absorb from 2020 to 2030 the recipients of 36,500 bachelors degrees, 7,400 college certifications, 3,500 doctoral or professional degrees, 3,100 masters degrees, 3,000 associate degrees, and 1,100 requiring some college but no degree.

Wider path to college

Melanie Haas, chair of the Kansas State Board of Education, said part of the answer was expanding acceptance in public school districts of the value in creating personalized education plans for each student. She said some, but not all, school districts were enthusiastic about developing education plans for all students.

Formation of a documented education pathway could carry a student through high school and into college, she said.

We need to hold districts to a high standard in the interests of students and the families they serve, Haas said. Students need to see their own path to college.

Kansas Board of Regents member Cynthia Lane, the former superintendent of schools in Kansas City, Kansas, said Kansas should mandate districts make perhaps three college-level courses available to every high school student. Kansas has expanded opportunities for high school students to earn more college credit, but inconsistency in availability of courses remained an issue.

When you talk about students graduating with more than their high school diploma  early college hours, credentials  we are in great alignment, Lane said.

Wint Winter, a member of the state Board of Regents, said convincing people who earned college degrees in Kansas to stay in this state was a laudable goal. However, he said, out-of-state students attending college in Kansas still made a contribution to the states economy.

We need to aspire to figure out a way to keep our students here, whether they are native Kansans or coming from Chicago, Winter said. I think we lose sight of the fact that even if we have that student for only four years, that student is contributing to the gross state product.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
Prosecutors have charged a southeastern Kansas man with murder in the killing of a woman whose body was found in a Labette County field on Sunday.

Derrick Curry, 53, of Parsons, was first arrested Monday and booked in the Labette County Jail on suspicion of destroying evidence, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

On Wednesday, the KBI said Curry now faces charges in the death of 28-year-old Kylie Caldwell, also of Parsons and an acquaintance of Currys.

Deputies with the Labette County Sheriffs Office were called around 2:30 p.m. Sunday to a report of a body discovered in a rural part of the county, which is roughly 150 miles southwest of Kansas City.

Investigators with the KBI processed the crime scene and determined the case was a homicide. Authorities learned Caldwell had last been seen Sunday morning.

On Monday and Tuesday, detectives executed search warrants for Currys apartment and vehicle. An arrest warrant was obtained late Wednesday morning and served while Curry remained in the county jail.

The second-degree murder charge Curry faces is classified as a severity level 1 person felony, which carries a maximum penalty of nearly 55 years in prison under Kansas law.

Online court records did not list a defense attorney for Curry as of Wednesday.

The Stars Andrea Klick contributed to this report.
 Flash

The agriculture ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries on Tuesday called on the European Union (EU) to tighten controls on the routes for Ukraine's grain exports and to introduce new measures.

"We want to propose the European Commission to introduce refundable deposits or another financial mechanism for traders who import grain from Ukraine. If they can prove that the grains leave Europe via the Baltic or Polish ports, they will get their money back," Czech Minister of Agriculture Marek Vyborny said in a statement.

He made the remarks following a meeting with his counterparts from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the southern Czech town of Znojmo. Ukraine's Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solskyi also participated in the meeting online.

"It is essential that Ukraine be able to guarantee us that its grain exports will go to third countries through the so-called solidarity corridors and will not stay in Europe ... and thus disrupt the market," Vyborny said. "We want guarantees that the grains do not end up in EU countries and thus disrupt the market."

The minister also said that it is necessary to look for "an EU-wide solution" instead of unilateral bans to make the solidarity corridors more efficient.

The EU has been supporting the export of Ukrainian grains and other foodstuffs, notably through the solidarity corridors. However, the move has led to temporary distortions in the markets of five member states neighboring Ukraine. In May, the European Commission imposed a ban on grain exports from Ukraine to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Earlier this month, the Commission decided to drop the ban, but Hungary, Poland and Slovakia said that they would continue the embargo on Ukraine's grains, causing disputes with Ukraine.

The Czech Republic currently holds the one-year V4 presidency. The V4 ministers also discussed forestry strategies and legislation during their meeting.
An attorney for Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas argued in front of the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday that Missouri voters were misled last year when they approved an amendment to the state constitution forcing Kansas City to spend more on police.

The results of the vote, which 63.2% of voters approved in November, should be nullified and a new election should be held, said Jim Layton, Lucas attorney.

This would have been defeated if the people of the state of Missouri would have known that there really was a cost, said Layton, who was Missouri solicitor general under Democratic Attorneys General Jay Nixon and Chris Koster. Because there is a nearly $40 million cost.

The states highest court heard arguments Wednesday over a petition brought by Lucas alleging that Missouri officials used false financial estimates to get voters to approve the amendment, which mandates that Kansas City raise the allocation from its general revenue fund to the police department from 20% to 25%.

The crux of Wednesdays arguments focused on the fiscal note that voters saw on the ballot last year, which said that local governmental entities estimate no additional costs or savings related to this proposal. Layton argued that this was false.

Jeff Johnson argued on behalf of Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick , the two Republican defendants in the case. Johnson said that the fiscal note was accurate because Kansas City had already historically funded its police with roughly 25% of its general revenue and the measure did not add additional costs.

Johnson said city officials testified that it was common knowledge that they were funding the police department at more than 25%.

The state court did not immediately rule on Lucas petition and said Wednesday it would take the matter under advisement.

The ongoing case illustrates the tumultuous relationship between Kansas City and Missouri officials over a push by Republicans in Jefferson City to assert more control over policing in the states two largest cities  Kansas City and St. Louis.

Kansas City, which is more diverse and progressive than the rest of the state, is the only city in Missouri that does not directly control its police force. The department is overseen by a five-member board of police commissioners. Four are appointed by the governor while Lucas fills the remaining spot.

Lucas was not in the courtroom for Wednesdays arguments. He was in a City Council finance committee meeting and later meeting with first lady Jill Biden, who was visiting Kansas City on Wednesday, a spokesperson told The Star.

The mayors petition argues that before that November election, Kansas City officials had informed then-Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat who did not run for re-election last year, and Ashcroft, who is running for governor in 2024, that the ballot measure would cost the city more than $38.7 million and force the city to cut spending on other services.

Despite repeated requests from the city, the ballot measure that was placed in front of voters  and overwhelmingly approved  stated that the city did not estimate any additional costs.

Ashcroft and Fitzpatrick, who was named as a defendant in the case after succeeding Galloway as auditor, argued in previous court filings that Lucas was using city resources to contest a policy he personally opposes and lacked legal standing to bring the challenge as a private Missouri voter.

Chuck Hatfield, a longtime Jefferson City attorney who worked in the Missouri Attorney Generals Office under Nixon, previously told The Star that the test for the courts will be whether the fiscal note summary was sufficient and fair.

While there have been challenges to fiscal note summaries in the past  and the courts have modified them  no Missouri election has been set aside over a ballot summary or fiscal note, Hatfield said.
Will Kevin McCarthy s legacy as speaker of the House be that he could not keep the federal government from shutting down?

That may be overstating it. But as of midday Wednesday, a shutdown this weekend appeared nearly certain, and McCarthy has not been able to stop momentum toward that eventuality.

Hard-right members of McCarthys Republican caucus continue to oppose any efforts to pass budget bills  or even a stop-gap measure  to keep the U.S. government from running out of money in the final minutes of Saturday. When the new fiscal year begins at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, nonessential government offices could be closed.

Due to the super-slim majority Republicans hold in the House (221 GOP to 212 Democrat), McCarthy needs almost every GOP member to vote his way to get any legislation approved; Democrats are not going to help him. Members of the so-called Freedom Caucus  ultra-right representatives in the GOP  have refused to go along, and have stymied McCarthys push to get budget bills approved or even a stop-gap known as a continuing resolution considered.

The reasons given by Freedom Caucus members range from trying to rein in government spending to wanting to stop illegal immigration at the border with Mexico.

In a moment of frustration this past week, McCarthy said he did not understand members who just want to burn the whole place down. His comments dealt with delaying a vote on Defense Department spending due to Freedom Caucus opposition, but his view applies to the larger dilemma he has faced.

McCarthy had to meet many demands of Freedom Caucus members and endure 15 votes this past January to become the House speaker, the ultimate political prize he had long wanted.

Now he is in the vise grips of that caucus, and its members know it.

McCarthys leadership under stress

That is not to say McCarthy should be excused for however this turns out. Hes the third most powerful leader in the U.S. government, behind President Biden and Vice President Harris. Of course he will take the fall if a shutdown occurs.

He is trying his best to pin the blame on Biden, however.

McCarthy and others in the GOP have spent much of this week linking problems with immigrants at the southern border to the budget impasse. If President Biden stays on the sidelines while our border is destroyed day after day, the government will shut down, McCarthy said in a video posted to his social media accounts Wednesday.

If President Biden stays on the sidelines while our border is destroyed day after day, the government will shut down.



Just like we've had strikes in California and Michigan, and embassies evacuated around the world, his lack of leadership has catastrophic consequences. pic.twitter.com/vK8KDTkBhN  Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) September 27, 2023

That approach is a cheap and easy way for McCarthy and House Republicans to deflect their failure to get a budget approved. Securing the border with Mexico is a complicated, involved task that will not be hammered out in the pressure-cooker of a last week for budget deals before a shutdown.

McCarthy, who has been in Congress since 2007, accuses Biden of a lack of leadership. But the same can be said of the House speaker and getting a federal budget done.

Unpaid federal workers, closed national parks

If the government does shut down, many federal workers would not be paid. Programs that help low-income people with things like food assistance would be stopped or curtailed. Fresno State students might have federal loans delayed. National parks like Yosemite could be closed, or remain open but without any services.

Will the nation survive a shutdown? Yes. Does it cause unneeded stress on the political system that already faces too many challenges? For sure.

The Senate late Tuesday passed a stop-gap funding measure. But House Republicans criticized it for lacking border security provisions.

McCarthy has said the House will vote on a stop-gap measure of its own on Friday. There are no guarantees it will pass.

McCarthys 20th District runs from Bakersfield to Clovis. It includes all or part of the cities of Hanford, Lemoore and Visalia as well as Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties. The city councils in those cities, as well as county boards of supervisors, manage to get budgets approved on time every year.

But not the U.S. House of Representatives led by McCarthy.
WASHINGTON  The top Republicans in the House and Senate dont agree on how to avert a government shutdown that is looking increasingly likely this weekend.

And if the government shuts down, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear who should get the blame: the Republican-led House.

The choice facing Congress, pretty straightforward: We can take the standard approach and fund the government for six weeks at the current rate of operations, or we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy, McConnell said Wednesday morning on the floor of his chamber.

Shutting down the government isnt an effective way to make a point. Keeping it open is the only way to make a difference on the most important issues we are facing.

As if he hadnt been clear enough in his morning remarks, McConnell revisited the topic of the Houses total dysfunction during an afternoon press conference.

Look, I dont want to give the speaker any advice about how to run the House, McConnell said, referring to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Were going to concentrate on how to do our job in the Senate, which is to pass a bill that keeps the government open. I cant have an impact on what happens in the House.

President Joe Biden chimed in to affirm the minority leaders take on things.

You know, I agree with Mitch here, Biden wrote in a social media post. Why the House Republicans would want to defund Border Patrol is beyond me.

Late in the day, McCarthy tried to downplay the divergence between himself and the Senate Republican leader.

Mitch is not in the majority over there. Hes got to work with Sen. Schumer, McCarthy said, referring to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The Senate took the first step Tuesday night toward passing a bipartisan bill that would fund the government through Nov. 17, provide money for natural disaster relief and Ukraines defense against Russian invaders, and extend some programs that would otherwise be at risk, like the Federal Aviation Administration and food aid for pregnant women.

McCarthy, meanwhile, told House Republicans in a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning that he would not put the Senate funding resolution up for a vote.

He said he told McConnell hes going to fight what the Senate sends over, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters after the meeting.

House Republicans said their plan will be to pass a resolution funding the government at lower levels along with a modified version of a hard-right immigration policy bill that the House passed earlier this year in a symbolic vote.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said the idea is that the House would pass its bill on Friday and then Schumer gets to decide whether or not he wants to shut down the government or shut down the border.

One problem with the House Republican plan is that its not clear if McCarthy can marshal the votes he would need to pass a partisan funding bill. Republicans have struggled to pass procedural resolutions for funding the military, likely their favorite part of the federal government.

Another glaring point of disagreement is the importance of providing help to Ukraine. President Joe Biden has asked Congress for about $20 billion more in military, economic and humanitarian aid for the embattled country. That would be on top of about $77 billion in aid thats already been committed.

The Senate bill contains about $6.1 billion in military and economic aid, a lowball figure for some Ukraine advocates but enough to serve as a bridge to a larger amount later.

However, McCarthy on Tuesday night warned that Ukraine would not be a priority in any stopgap bill emerging from the House.

What Russia has done is wrong, McCarthy told reporters. But he said helping Ukraine should not be more important than assisting victims of natural disasters at home.

Why cant we deal with the border and our emergencies too? McCarthy asked. (The Senate bill includes $6 billion in disaster relief funding, almost the same amount that would be provided to help Ukraine.)

McConnell has said that defeating Russia in Ukraine one of the most important tasks facing the Western world. Earlier this month, he said cutting and running from Ukraine would have consequences for deterring China from trying to take control of Taiwan.

If the United States proves we cannot be trusted to back our allies in Europe, why on earth should our allies in Asia expect different treatment in the face of Chinese aggression? he asked.

Ukraine allies overwhelmingly won two votes on the House floor Wednesday on the issue of aid, potentially undermining McCarthys case for keeping such spending out of a House stopgap bill.

An amendment to a defense funding bill that would have stripped $300 million in training assistance for Ukraine was defeated on a 104-330 vote. Similarly, a blanket ban on using defense funds to provide security assistance to Ukraine went down by an even bigger margin, 93 to 339.
With just five days to go until the government shuts down without a spending deal, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is at a crossroads.

He can either shut down the government and possibly save his standing with the GOP hardliners threatening to oust him, or work with Democrats to pass a short-term spending bill and avert a government shutdownpotentially at the expense of his own speakership.

Caught in the middle of the California Republican's political calculus are millions of Americans who would be impacted by even a short government shutdown, including hundreds of thousands of federal workers and scores of everyday citizens.

The threat to McCarthy's leadership comes from Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and at least four other conservative hardliners who have said that they would attempt to overthrow McCarthy if he cooperates with Democrats to pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded. These lawmakers are adamant in their opposition to any funding bill that doesn't meet their strict fiscal and policy demands.

McCarthy has been exploring various strategies, including a proposal to package four individual appropriations bills that would cut billions of dollars in spending. The approach would mark an attempt to appease conservatives while buying more time to pass the rest of their spending bills, though there is no guarantee that McCarthy can gather enough support from his fellow Republicans to pass this funding package or a continuing resolution (CR), a short-term bill.

Asked on Tuesday if hes willing to work with House or Senate Democrats to keep the government open, McCarthy signaled that he would rather bypass talks with congressional Democrats and instead strike a spending deal directly with President Joe Biden, months after the pair agreed to funding levels during this years debt ceiling fight. I think itd be very important to have a meeting with the President, McCarthy said. Any potential deal would have to include the House GOPs border security package, he added. I believe we have a majority here, and we can work together to solve this. It might take us a little longer, but this is important, McCarthy said.

The House Speaker's political tightrope act is compounded by former President Donald Trump's backing of the conservative hardliners. Last week, Gaetz made his stance clear, stating, "Im giving a eulogy to the CR right now. Im not voting for a continuing resolution, and a sufficient number of Republicans will never vote for a continuing resolution."

But even if McCarthy decides to go around the far-right members of his own party and work with Democrats, its not clear how his colleagues across the aisle will react. If McCarthy attempts to work with Democrats to avoid a shutdown, Republicans could trigger a "motion to vacate," forcing a vote on whether to oust McCarthy as Speaker. Democrats would then face a difficult decision: support McCarthy in order to keep the government funded and risk angering their own party's base, or seize the opportunity to potentially remove him from office.

Moderate Democrats have so far refrained from making concrete promises. Some Democrats may even demand concessions in exchange for their support of McCarthy. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who sits on the Appropriations committee, tells TIME that he would be willing to help McCarthy for the good of the institution by tabling a motion to vacate, a proposal that he says several Democrats would support to keep the government open. I feel bad for him because he is the Speaker and is supposed to be governing, Cuellar says. Its unfortunate but hes got to make a decision. Its like a Band-Aid: do you pull it slowly or do you just pull it off and vacate?

Either we do it now or hes going to live and work the next year and a half under this threat, he added. And he cant operate under a constant threat by his far-right people.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are currently in talks over a short-term bill to keep the government open past Sept. 30, though any Senate plan may get bogged down in the Republican-led House if it includes the $24 billion to help Ukraine that the White House requesteda move several conservatives oppose.

McCarthy also has the White House to appease. White House officials have insisted that McCarthy uphold his end of the debt ceiling deal he made with Biden this summer, which kept government funding at nearly flat levels for the next fiscal year. But conservatives had pushed for much lower funding levels, with some viewing the agreement as a starting point for negotiations. "I need to be very clear, its up to the Speaker to twist in the wind. I mean, seriously ... a deal is a deal," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday. "The President made a deal with the Speaker and a bipartisan deal that was voted by two-thirds of House Republicans back in June."

Michael Linden, a former Office of Management and Budget official who was closely involved in the negotiations that led to the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal, says it is extremely unusual for the government to shut down not long after congressional leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on overall spending levels. My impression absolutely was that they were negotiating in good faith and that they intended to stick to the terms and the contours of the deal, Linden says of past budget talks between McCarthy and Biden. Now I hope that Speaker McCarthy makes good on his word. Allowing the government to shut down would not only be going back on the deal, but it would be extremely damaging for him. Under what circumstances would anybody in any future need for negotiation trust that he is able to make good on his word if he cant deliver this?

On Tuesday, McCarthy projected confidence that hes flipped enough of the five Republican holdouts, but doubts remain. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who backed McCarthys speakership bid, said on CNN on Sept. 24 that he wont support a short-term bill and that he would look strongly at overthrowing McCarthy if he passes one relying on Democratic votes. Other conservatives, including Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona and Dan Bishop of North Carolina, have expressed similar views, underscoring McCarthys challenge.

It really does suggest how extreme and out of the mainstream this faction of House Republicans is, and it puts Kevin McCarthy in a very difficult position, Linden says.

McCarthy has so far struggled to assemble enough votes to pass individual spending bills, in part because conservatives want a slew of amendments in the legislation on hot-button policy issues ranging from abortion and LGBTQ troops to racial identity and border wall construction. The far-right demands, despite having support from some prominent Republicans, risk turning off Democrats who GOP leaders will almost certainly need to pass any spending bills.

House Republicans on Tuesday are expected to bring up a procedural vote to move forward on four regular appropriations bills this week, a significant test for McCarthy after he failed to pass a similar procedural vote for a defense bill last week in a major embarrassment for the House GOP leaders. Rep. Chip Roy, a hard-right Texas Republican who worked on the short-term funding bill, told Fox News last week that his partys holdouts are gonna eat a st sandwich that they probably deserve to eat if they continue to block a plan to keep the government open. Politically, a split within ultra-conservative circles could be McCarthys best hope of survival, allowing him to make the case to moderate Republicans and Democrats that ousting him wouldnt solve any problems, because the far-right holdouts are too powerful for any Speaker to contend with.

There may have never been a shutdown where the blame for causing it has been so crystal clear, Linden says. This is a problem that has been caused entirely within the Republican [conference] in the House.

Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com.
The current GOP-run House is the least productive in modern history, according to a new analysis.

The chamber is passing fewer bills and is set to be in session for fewer days than average.

It's not just due to divided government  McCarthy's House falls short of other similar periods.

Kevin McCarthy is leading the least productive House in modern history, according to an analysis of legislative data shared exclusively with Insider.

And it's not simply because the US is in a period of divided government.

"The only thing that has changed is that MAGA Republicans now run the House of Representatives," Navin Nayak, the president of the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, told Insider on Tuesday. "They will not make any attempt to actually find common ground, or find common-sense solutions to problems."

According to CAP Action's analysis, just 14 pieces of legislation  two of which were resolutions  have been signed into law by President Joe Biden since McCarthy became speaker of the House.

While periods of divided government typically do lead to increased gridlock on Capitol Hill, that's not a sufficient explanation for the lack of productivity.

According to the analysis, the average number of bills to pass the House during periods of divided government by September 19 is 299. McCarthy's House, by contrast, had passed just 224 by that point.

The overall average, across both unified and divided government, is 319 by September 19, according to the analysis.

The last time the House passed such a low number of bills was in the first 9 months of 2013, when Republicans continued to hold the House after President Barack Obama's re-election in 2012. That year, the chamber had passed just 205 bills by this point.

Furthermore, the chamber is on track to be in session for just 117 days this year, well below the average of 151 days in session per Congress from 2001 to 2022.

Spokespeople for McCarthy did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

CAP Action, a liberal group aligned with the Democratic Party, argues that the decline in productivity is attributable to the specific dynamics at play in the 118th Congress, where McCarthy frequently has to negotiate with hard-right members of his caucus.

"The extremists in the house run the show," said Nayak. "And that is really the reason why you have this unbelievably unproductive Congress."

Just last week, the House failed to even pass a procedural motion to begin debate on a defense bill, owing to objections from a small group of hard-right lawmakers over how the chamber had handled government spending bills more broadly. That resulted in lawmakers being sent home early.

The government is set to run out of funding over the weekend, and it is now unclear whether McCarthy can muster the votes to pass a bill to keep the government open for the next few weeks without drawing the ire of the hard right again, including a potential vote to remove him.

"There is a flashing red sign hanging over the House of Representatives today," said Nayak. "And that is: who's running the place?"

The group also contrasts McCarthy's speakership with that of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who managed to pass both party-line priorities and bipartisan legislation  including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act  with a similar-sized majority.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Russians are heavily bombarding Kherson. The media reported the sound of explosions in Mykolaiv.

Source: Suspilne; Oleksandr Sienkevych, Mayor of Mykolaiv; Ukrainian Air Force; Oleksandr Prokudin, Head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration

Quote from Sienkevych: "Do not film anything. Do not specify locations. All information is provided by official sources".

Details: At 21:21, the Air Force reported that Russian Shahed attack UAVs were heading from Kherson to Mykolaiv oblast.

Later, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, reported attacks on Kherson. An air-raid warning has been issued in both oblasts.

Quote from Prokudin: "Kherson is under heavy bombardment. We are also recording the enemys aviation in the airspace of Kherson Oblast! Possible missile attacks! Remain in shelters until the all-clear is given."

Details: An air-raid warning has also been issued in Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.

At 22:33, Suspilne reported more explosions in Mykolaiv.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
Police in Baltimore are searching for a man who they described as a violent repeat offender after a 26-year-old tech CEO was found dead at an apartment complex Monday.

The death of Pava LePere, the CEO and founder of EcoMap Technologies, is being investigated as a homicide, and police said they had issued an arrest warrant for Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, on first-degree murder and additional charges.

"This individual will kill, and he will rape," Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon. "He will do anything he can to cause harm."

Worley said police officers were searching for Billingsley across the city and the state of Maryland, and the U.S. Marshals Service was on the hunt across the country.

Pava LaPere. (Courtesy Pava LaPeres family)

What happened to Pava LaPere?

LaPere, 26, was found dead around 11:30 a.m. Monday at a Baltimore apartment building with signs of blunt force trauma, police said.

A missing person's report had been filed shortly before she was found dead in the apartment, police said.

Baltimore Police confirmed on Tuesday that LaPere's death was being investigated as a homicide.

What we know about Pava LaPere

LaPere founded EcoMap Technologies, a company that curates data about organizations, resources, and other assets and puts that information into platforms for users to navigate, according to the companys website.

EcoMap Technologies confirmed the "tragic and untimely passing" of LaPere in a statement.

"The circumstances surrounding Pavas death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time," the company said. "Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader."

LaPere's family said in a statement to NBC News the 26-year-old was "an inspiration to so many people."

"She was driven, creative, hard working and relentless in her efforts, with her wonderful team at EcoMap Technologies," her family said. "Pava made an impact in every endeavor she undertook and on every life she touched. She will be forever missed as a daughter, sister, grand-daughter, niece, cousin and loyal friend."

LaPere was featured in Forbes' "30 Under 30" list in 2023, which said she was a Johns Hopkins University graduate who managed a team of nearly 30 employees. EcoMap Technologies had raised more than $4 million and its clients include The Aspen Institute, Meta, the WXR Fund and T.Rowe Price Foundation, according to Forbes.

Who is police suspect Jason Billingsley?

Authorities are searching for Billingsley, who they said should be considered armed and dangerous.

Billingsley was previously arrested in 2013, 2011 and 2009 for multiple charges including sex offense, second-degree assault charges and robbery, police said.

In 2015, Billingsley pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offense and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with 16 years suspended, according to court records obtained by NBC News.

Billingsley was released from prison in October 2022, according to the Maryland sex offender registry.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said during the Tuesday press conference Billingsley should not have been released.

"There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street," Scott said. "When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case ... and the states attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction."

Scott added, "We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again."

Baltimore Police said its Special Investigations Section is working to determine any potential connections between Billingsley and other cases.

Officials did not describe a possible motive for the slaying, or if there was any relationship between LaPere and Billingsley.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
Alex Johnson, shown in 2019, was confirmed by the City Council as the new Los Angeles ethics commissioner Wednesday. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a nominee for a spot on the Ethics Commission after several weeks of intense public scrutiny over the council's handling of nominees for the city panel.

The council voted 10 to 2 to approve Alex Johnson, a vice president at Bryson Gillette, a consulting firm that also has done campaign work. The firm has handled more than $2 million worth of work for various campaigns since May 2020, according to city records.

In remarks before the vote, Johnson appeared to touch on public distrust of City Hall, which has been rocked by a series of recent corruption scandals.

"I do not take this nomination lightly," Johnson said. "I fully recognize the inflection point that we are in, the gravity of this moment, and the unique and critical role that the Ethics Commission plays in ensuring accountability, transparency and trust in government."

Read more: The last pick for L.A.'s Ethics Commission was rejected. Here's a new nominee

The city commission proposes policy and issues penalties for campaign finance violations, among other duties. The five-person panel, whose members are nominated by city officials, hasn't been able to meet because it lacks enough commissioners.

Johnson's nomination, put forward by Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, was closely tracked at City Hall after the council last month torpedoed City Controller Kenneth Mejias nomination to the commission.

The council voted to reject Reseda Neighborhood Council member Jamie York but didn't take any discussion during the vote, prompting a backlash.

Some council members later said they were concerned about York's fundraising background. Some also said that they didn't know enough about York and her opinions.

Wednesday's hearing on Johnson was markedly different from the vote on York, with several council members asking questions of the nominee. Also, Johnson was called up before the council to answer questions.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla praised Johnson's background, which includes working at the California Wellness Foundation, Californians for Safety and Justice and Childrens Defense Fund-California.

"So it's an extensive resume," Padilla said, adding that she was appreciative that Johnson privately met with council members before the vote.

Councilmember Curren Price, who is fighting criminal charges that he bilked the city out of thousands of dollars in health insurance payments and voted on contracts in which he had a financial interest, also voted for Johnson.

He asked Johnson to reassure those who might have doubts about Johnson's ability to perform his commission work with "integrity" and "seriousness."

Councilmembers Tim McOsker and Nithya Raman voted against Johnson's nomination, with McOsker citing Johnson's work at the consulting and campaign company.

Read more: Shape Your L.A.  at the City Council

"I'm concerned about the perception, the public perception in a role where public perception is probably the greatest concern," McOsker said.

Concerns were also raised by some speakers at Wednesday's meeting about potential conflicts that Johnson may face in his role as a commissioner.

Rob Quan, an organizer with Unrig LA, a City Hall watchdog group, said during Wednesday's meeting he believes that a commissioner having some level of campaign experience is "really important."

But he questioned whether Johnson would vote in the interests of the public.

"We have to be realistic. Regardless of whatever kind of firewalls you put up, it's hard for an employee to knowingly vote against the easily decipherable interests of their employer," Quan said.

Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay nearly $2.6 million to a former Fire Department captain who was shot by a fellow firefighter at the Agua Dulce station where they worked.

Capt. Arnoldo Sandoval sued the county last year alleging assault, battery and negligence in the June 1, 2021, shooting at L.A. County Fire Station 81. Jonathan Tatone, who shot Sandoval, also fatally shot another fire engineer, Tory Carlon, before later killing himself.

Sandoval suffered serious injury, including paralysis, according to his lawsuit.

In his lawsuit, Sandoval said that he'd recommended to county authorities that Tatone be transferred to another fire station but that the recommendation was dismissed as unnecessary."

In a letter to the board, Dawyn R. Harrison, county counsel, said the $2.575-million settlement was recommended "due to the risks and uncertainties of litigation, and resolution at this time would avoid further litigation costs."

Richard Kinnan, who represents Sandoval, said the shooting could have been avoided "if they had moved the shooter or fired him."

"It was a tough case, it was a tragic case," Kinnan said. "We are very grateful that the county stepped up and settled."

The L.A. County Fire Department declined to comment, citing other pending litigation tied to the shooting.

In a statement, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger called the shooting "tragic" and "still painful."

"There continues to be a lot of community trauma related to this incident that took the life of a brave and selfless firefighter and harmed countless others," Barger, whose district includes Station 81, said in a statement. "It is my hope that, with the new leadership change at our Countys Fire Department and a greater focus on employee wellness  an incident like this will be prevented and never occur again."

Read more: Workplace harassment, gunshots, arson: What happened at Fire Station 81?

On June 1, 2021, Tatone, who was off duty, drove to the station and fatally shot 44-year-old Carlon. Fellow firefighters heard Tatone say: Paybacks a bitch, motherf!"

When Sandoval stepped outside to investigate the noise, Tatone shot him, too. After Tatone fled the station, he set his Acton house on fire and fatally shot himself.

Sandoval was shot in the stomach and the bullet penetrated his spine, according to Kinnan. As a result, Kinnan said, Sandoval cannot walk without crutches or braces.

The Station 81 shooting stemmed from a workplace dispute between Tatone and Carlon, a career firefighter and father of three girls.

Carlon and Tatone worked different shifts. But when one relieved the other, they were expected to provide a shift pass down, detailing what their workday had entailed. Tatone complained that Carlon didnt finish work that needed to get done on the engines, leaving him to complete the jobs.

In 2019, Carlon began documenting increasingly tense interactions with Tatone on his department calendar and in a notebook. At one point he wrote that Tatone told him he didnt like or respect him and that things arent going to work between us. He said Tatone told him the next step would be fists flying.

Carlon voiced his concerns to L.A. County Fire Department captains and chiefs, his wife, Heidi, previously told The Times, but nobody did anything."

A station captain later told investigators that Carlon had voiced concerns about Tatone, including that his harasser would one day shoot and kill him.

In an interview with investigators soon after the shooting, Sandoval described Tatone as a loner and an aggressive, angry individual who didnt fit in with the rest of the crew. He said that more than one battalion chief was aware of the issues between Tatone and Carlon.

"Everybody recommended that they be separated," Kinnan said. "This was just festering, festering, festering. You could see it, you could feel it, and sure enough one day he just shot up the place.

"If there are signs, someone has to take some action," Kinnan added. "This event could have been avoided, there's no doubt."

Heidi and her three children also filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against L.A. County and the estate of the gunman, alleging that Tatones dangerous conduct was known to fire officials for years.

Read more: L.A. County faces two lawsuits in last year's deadly Agua Dulce fire station shooting

Earlier this year, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge denied the countys attempt to have the Carlon familys case dismissed and ruled they could proceed with a claim against the county for wrongful death and negligence.

That case is ongoing.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Members of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department search and rescue team assisted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in rescuing a deer stranded in a debris basin in Tujunga on Tuesday, officials announced.

The deer had apparently been stuck in the basin, located in the Haines Canyon area, for some time and was unable to get out, according to a LASD social media post.

At the scene, an LASD coordinator saw that there would be no easy way to extract the animal and called in the Montrose Search and Rescue Team.

Members of LASDs Montrose Search and Rescue Unit assist officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in lifting a stranded deer out of a debris basin in the Haines Canyon area on Sept. 26, 2023. (LASD)

Members of LASDs Montrose Search and Rescue Unit assist officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in lifting a stranded deer out of a debris basin in the Haines Canyon area on Sept. 26, 2023. (LASD)

Members of LASDs Montrose Search and Rescue Unit assist officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in lifting a stranded deer out of a debris basin in the Haines Canyon area on Sept. 26, 2023. (LASD)

Members of LASDs Montrose Search and Rescue Unit assist officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in lifting a stranded deer out of a debris basin in the Haines Canyon area on Sept. 26, 2023. (LASD)

Once the deer was safely sedate, members of the team used a winch truck to lower the fish and wildlife official into the basin.

The deer was then placed securely in a litter, lifted out of the debris basin and put in the back of a fish and wildlife truck.

Officials said the animal will be relocated nearby.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
 Flash

Saudi Ambassador to Palestine Naif bin Bandar Al-Sudairi (Front) arrives at the Palestinian foreign ministry headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Sept. 26, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

The first Saudi ambassador to Palestine Naif bin Bandar Al-Sudairi arrived in the West Bank on Tuesday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Leading an official delegation, Al-Sudairi, the non-resident ambassador to Palestine and non-resident consul general in Jerusalem, presented his credentials to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidency headquarters in Ramallah, it said.

Al-Sudairi's arrival comes amid Israel's efforts to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

During their meeting, Abbas welcomed Al-Sudairi and said his visit to Palestine and his appointment as Saudi ambassador to the State of Palestine would contribute to "strengthening the strong fraternal relations that bind the two countries and the two brotherly peoples."

The Saudi ambassador said he hoped that his visit would be "a successful beginning for strengthening relations in all fields," stressing his country's firm and supportive positions for the Palestinian people and their just cause.

Earlier in the day, Al-Sudairi told reporters in a statement that "the Arab Peace Initiative is the basic point in any upcoming agreement," after being asked about the fate of the initiative in the event of reaching a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Arab Peace Initiative was launched in 2002 after it was drafted by Saudi Arabia and adopted by the Arab League.

The initiative calls for an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab states, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the areas it gained since 1967 and proper settlement to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians demanded the establishment of an independent state alongside Israel in all of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Saudi ambassador also confirmed that his country intends to open a consulate in East Jerusalem soon.
L.A. County supervisors have ordered implementation of reforms recommended more than three years ago to root out fraud in a preference program for small businesses. Above, the county's Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to ramp up efforts to root out fraud within a program meant to help small businesses, ordering staff to finally make improvements that the countys own auditors had first recommended more than three years ago.

The Local Small Business Enterprise preference program gives a leg up to small local companies as they compete for county contracts. The Times reported last week that the initiative had been repeatedly targeted by fraudsters looking for easy access to taxpayer money.

The Office of County Investigations, which had opened 13 investigations into companies certified through the program, estimated the county had spent at least $40 million on vendors they believed were conning the government  sometimes with the assistance of county employees. Five people had been criminally charged.

Following The Times' reporting, the supervisors unanimously approved a motion Tuesday that directs the Chief Executive Office and the Department of Economic Opportunity, which has overseen the program since mid-2022, to join a handful of other county departments in making recommendations on how to improve the program's oversight, compliance, and governance.

Program staff must also plan to conduct a random sample of certified companies to gauge how many are legitimate small businesses. (The county certifies a company as a small business if it is a local, independently owned company with 100 or fewer employees.)

Read more: L.A. County wanted to help small businesses. Then the scams started

Supervisor Hilda Solis , who co-authored the motion with Supervisor Janice Hahn, said she wanted to see the county crack down on bid-rigging, split purchases and other common procurement schemes.

Whether its internal employees or someone is working with our employees to understand how to game the system, that is money that the taxpayer is losing out on, Solis said in an interview. That, to me, is the bottom line.

In 2020, county auditors sounded alarm bells about repeated abuses of the programs and made a number of recommendations for how the program leaders could deter fraud, including requiring companies disclose conflicts of interest and penalizing the companies that ignored program rules.

The report was given to the Internal Services Department and the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, which oversaw the program at the time. Nothing happened.

I dont think from that point anyone really picked up the report to provide a path forward, Solis said.

Supervisors now say they want to see some progress. The motion directs the Department of Economic Opportunity to immediately implement the recommendations auditors first made in 2020. The department is supposed to report back to the board in a month on its progress.

Read more: Shape Your L.A.  at the county level

"It is my hope that, with these new measures, our departments will be better able to spot fraud and make sure contracts are going to the legitimate small businesses that need and deserve these contracts, Hahn said in a statement.

Kelly LoBianco, the head of the Department of Economic Opportunity, had previously called the contracting fraud an outrageous breach of public trust in a statement to The Times, though she emphasized the vast majority of contracts were going to legitimate small businesses. She said the department was taking steps to safeguard the program including internal audits and checking for conflicts of interest.

We know that no system is 100% immune to those who are determined to commit fraud, she said. L.A. County is committed to ensuring that contracts go to small businesses that have been historically left out of county contracting and that compete honorably to earn them, not to those who cheat or try to rig the system.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore is expressing concern about the countys new zero bail policy that is set to take effect this weekend which will allow some criminal suspects to be cited and released when they would have previously been held on bond.

The new Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols are designed to rely less on the arrestees ability to pay and more on their risk to the public or victim, Los Angeles County Superior Court stated following a July decision to institute the system on Oct. 1.

According to the protocols, those arrested for low-level, non-violent offenses will be released at the location of arrest or booked and then released with a promise to appear at arraignment.

L.A. County Superior Court wont require cash bail for many offenses

A persons ability to pay a large sum of money should not be the determining factor in deciding whether that person, who is presumed innocent, stays in jail before trial or is released, Presiding Judge Samantha P. Jessner said at the time.

Those arrested for more serious crimes will go before a magistrate, who will determine appropriate non-financial pre-arraignment release terms, the news release stated.

Additionally, anyone charged with capital offenses or felonies that are eligible for the death penalty will not be eligible for the pre-arraignment release, officials indicated.

Examples given for possible conditions of release of more serious offenders include prohibitions against engaging in illegal conduct, check-ins with court staff, text reminders about court appearances, home supervision and electronic monitoring.

In a statement Tuesday, Moore expressed his concern that the zero bail policy will compromise law enforcements ability to effectively fight crime.

Law enforcement is averse to the list of book and release offenses because that approach offers little to no deterrence to those involved in a range of serious criminal offenses, Moore said.

He believes that removing the safeguards provided by the current bail system puts the public in danger.

We are asking the court to not release individuals who pose risks to the community safety, including those with repeated instances of prior serious offenses, Moore said.

The new protocols will be tested quickly as Los Angeles has dealt with a recent increase in thefts and robberies, some of which have involved mobs of people ransacking high-end department and jewelry stores in broad daylight.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A Las Vegas bank is hosting a free community shredding event on Thursday, according to a release.

One Nevada Credit Union will host a free shred event on Thursday, Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1292 South Nellis Boulevard.

According to the release, the shred event is free to the public, but cash contributions and non-perishable food donations will be accepted.

Three Square Food Bank will have an information booth at the event and will be on-site collecting donations to help in their mission.

At One Nevada, were dedicated to helping Nevadans build a strong financial future, the company said in a statement. One way we do this is by helping Nevadans avoid fraud. Weve found that by offering a free shred event, we can help our community members shred personal documents to help them avoid identity theft, and its a great opportunity to raise awareness and collect donations for local non-profits.

One Nevada said in the releases that identity theft is a problem in Nevada and can happen to anyone. An easy way to reduce the risk of identity theft is to use a secure paper shredder.

To reduce the risk of identity theft, the most important documents to shred are bank statements and ATM receipts, expired ID cards, documents containing your social security number and credit card information, investment documents, old pay stubs, voided checks, and even old plane tickets.

They recommend that you shred anything that contains personal information that identity thieves could use. When in doubt, shred it!

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA  Ken Meister isnt giving up on coastal living as work continues on his oceanfront home heavily damaged by hurricanes Ian and Nicole a year ago.

Meister is building back stronger, securing his home with 30-foot pilings and a 12-foot-high seawall. Its taking a lot longer than expected or we hoped, but its getting done, he said.

But some of his neighbors are selling their oceanfront properties in the wake of damage that Volusia County officials estimate at more than $850 million.

A year later, the hurricanes wrath is still evident in Volusia, particularly along the hard-hit stretch of sand from Daytona Beach Shores to Wilbur-by-the-Sea, an unincorporated community of about 2,000 people.

Some damaged properties look much as they did a year ago when the back-to-back storms pummeled the coastline and sent homes tumbling into the surf. One near a beach-access ramp remains split in half with its contents still exposed. A couch is perched on the second floor, while a mattress rests in a pile of debris below.

Insurance denials left many residents with huge out-of-pocket repair costs, said A.J. Rockwell, owner of Sea Level Development in New Smyrna Beach.

It is very, very slow progress, said Rockwell, a contractor who has been helping with the rebuilding effort. Nobody got any insurance or any assistance. Everybody is out of pocket for all the repairs, and it is pretty substantial and unexpected.

Storm victims throughout Florida have complained of denied insurance payouts. Roughly a third of Hurricane Ian-related claims have been rejected or remain in limbo without payment, according to a June report from the states Office of Insurance Regulation.

Exclusions in policies for erosion-related damage presented problems for Wilbur residents filing claims, Rockwell said.

Repairs arent cheap. A single dump-truck load of beach-quality sand runs about $600, Meister said.

Kate Rose grew up on Wilburs beaches. Facing a repair bill in excess of $500,000, she decided to put her familys home up for sale. The house is now perched on the edge of a cliff with a steep drop.

Our property looks very much like it did the day of the storm, Rose said. We havent been able to do anything.

Meister hopes to have his home rebuilt by next year. Last years storms sent half of the house crashing into the sea. This week, workers put the finishing touches on the new seawall.

He expects the next step will be tearing down the remaining part of his house and building a new one with deep pilings to provide additional protection during future storms.

Wilbur-by-the-Sea is a slice of Old Florida along a coastline increasingly dominated by high-rise condos and hotels. Beachfront lots still command a high price, despite the hurricane risk and damaged homes still lining the beach.

One lot with a newly reinforced seawall and new septic tank is listed for $1.5 million. A 5,386-square-foot Nantucket-style oceanfront home, built in 1920, is for sale for nearly $5 million.

Progress also has been made in nearby Daytona Beach Shores, where 29 condos and hotels were declared unsafe after the back-to-back storms. Police went door to door warning residents that their tower could collapse.

Fortunately, residents and guests were cleared to return to 27 buildings within a month after Nicole, said Mayor Nancy Miller.

The two vacant buildings are the Beach Quarters, which is undergoing a major renovation, and the Lexington Inn & Suites, which is in bankruptcy, Miller said.

Much like Wilbur, some condo buildings are moving headlong into recovery, while others appear frozen in time. A year after the storm, beeping trucks and buzzing construction drills mixed with the sound of the rolling surf.

The concrete chunks that once littered the shore have been cleared, and beachgoers have returned to the sand.

While substantial progress has been made on many repairs, about half a dozen properties have been issued notices of violation because of inaction, Miller said.

There is a great deal of improvement, she said. We still have a ways to go, but were organizing together to get that beach back to the beauty that it was previously.

Condo dwellers have been hit with special assessments to repair their damaged seawalls, which can span from $800,000 to more than $2 million, Miller said. Those assessments are on top of rising property insurance premiums and can mean thousands of dollars in unexpected costs for residents.

Even a year after the storm, about 110 people in Volusia County are still in temporary housing, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

At least 7,000 homes in Volusia County suffered flood damage, according to county officials. About 1,650 buildings sustained structural damage with 40 entirely destroyed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided $103 million directly to Volusia residents for home repairs, rental assistance and other needs, along with nearly $9 million to help local governments and nonprofit organizations responding to Ian and Nicole.

The state offered more than $37 million to help Volusia County rebuild its battered beaches. State lawmakers also approved a $50 million program that will reimburse eligible property owners $150,000 for hurricane restoration projects, such as seawalls, sand placement and coastal armoring.

Some environmental advocates, though, have been critical of that program, arguing seawalls accelerate beach erosion and shouldnt be subsidized by taxpayers.

Volusia County will receive nearly $329 million through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist with long-term recovery in low- and moderate-income communities.

Those funds will be used to address unmet housing needs, infrastructure projects and mitigation projects to protect against future storms, said Dona Butler, Volusia Countys new director of recovery and resiliency

County officials estimate the areas unmet needs exceed $804 million, but they say they will try to spend the money available as effectively as possible to cover as much of the problems as they can.

Rose wont forget Ian and Nicole. Its a memory that will be locked in her mind whenever a storm is menacing the coast.

It changes the people who have been through it, said Rose, who now lives in the Bradenton area. I think it changes them forever.
Sen. Menendez has argued that he's being targeted for being a "first-generation Latino American."

Prominent Latino lawmakers are pushing back on that claim, arguing it's conflating separate issues.

"It's an extremely serious matter to accuse the [DOJ] of that kind of racial bias," said AOC.

Fellow Latino lawmakers in Congress aren't buying Sen. Bob Menendez's claims that he's being targeted by prosecutors for his heritage.

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California  the current House Democratic Caucus chair and the highest-ranking Latino in the House  said as much on Wednesday morning as he joined calls for Menendez to resign.

"Latinos face barriers and discrimination across the board in so many categories, including in our justice system. This is not that," said Aguilar. "We should not conflate the discrimination, and the issues, and the barriers that Latinos have in the justice system, and across industries too, to what we see there today."

Facing bribery charges levied by federal prosecutors in New York, Menendez has twice argued that his Latino heritage is relevant to the allegations that he accepted bribes in exchange for corruptly benefiting the government of Egypt.

"Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first-generation Latino American from humble beginnings could rise to be a US Senator and serve with honor and distinction," the New Jersey Democrat said in his first statement after the indictment dropped on Friday.

Following calls to resign from Gov. Phil Murphy and Democrats in his home state, Menendez doubled down on that argument in a separate statement on Friday.

"It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat," he said.

Menendez is the son of Cuban immigrants, and has long been a champion for Latino causes during his 30 years in Congress. He once served in the same position in the House as Aguilar, and has long described himself as the highest-ranking Latino in Congress.

Insider asked several of Menendez's Latino colleagues in the Senate on Tuesday what they made of his argument, including Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico.

All of them declined to specifically address the argument, but reiterated their position that Menendez is innocent until proven guilty.

"I make nothing of it," said Rubio. "I mean, I'm not going to comment on a case I know nothing about."

"Everyone's entitled to a presumption of innocence," said Cruz.

"It's gonna be up to the people in New Jersey," said Lujan.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has already called for Menendez to resign, told Insider that she wanted to see a more complete explanation from Menendez.

"It's an extremely serious matter to accuse the Department of Justice of that kind of racial bias," said Ocasio-Cortez. "I think it would be helpful, if one were to make that kind of charge, to explain it."

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas also pushed back on Menendez's claims as she called on him to resign.

"I absolutely agree there's bias in our system," Escobar told the Texas Tribune. "I don't see it in this case."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Barbara Ferrer, left, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, talks to Tsolair Bitar, center, a sixth-grade teacher, after she received a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. The LAUSD school board has lifted the district's employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Two years ago, the L.A. Unified School District set a high bar for COVID safety, telling employees: Get vaccinated or lose your job. That vaccine mandate  which achieved a 99% compliance rate among teachers  ended this week after a 6-1 vote by the Board of Education.

The nation's second-largest school system  widely viewed as a pacesetter in strong COVID-19 safety measures early in the pandemic emergency  had been among the last public school systems to continue a mandate. LAUSD, however, has been under pressure to change course because of ongoing litigation. Officials stressed that their actions were based on evolving science. And no one made any apologies during a board meeting Tuesday.

Read more: More COVID shots are coming. Will a weary public be more interested this year?

"Yes, this board approved, required vaccinations, as a means of reducing transmission, reducing the severity of a disease that in this community, across this country and across the world killed millions," L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho said. "This was a necessary requirement, and it was adopted so that schools could reopen safely based on information that was known, then accepted, then verified, then validated ... not by speculation, but by scientists.

"In 2023," he added, "we face vastly different circumstances."

Carvalho and others noted that the coronavirus has become endemic  it's not going to go away  and also said that the need for a vaccine requirement is outdated because of evolving understanding about the virus, the successes and limitations of vaccines, and the availability of therapeutics.

Employee union leaders and medical experts advising the board voiced strong support for the mandate at the time it was approved. District officials said many of these same experts advise a different course going forward.

Board member George McKenna voted to preserve the requirement, saying that it had saved lives and lessened the severity of the illness  and that it probably would still do so.

Read more: Why no one is talking about new mask rules even as COVID-19 rises in L.A.

The district on Tuesday did not provide the number of employees who declined to be vaccinated or lost jobs. Hundreds of unvaccinated teachers were initially accommodated by allowing them to transfer to online academies that were set up after most students returned to in-person instruction in the fall of 2021.

But at least 250 teachers have lost jobs since then, as optional online enrollment has steadily declined, said Mark Muskrath, an unvaccinated virtual academy teacher who has closely followed the fate of unvaccinated teachers and related litigation against the school system.

Officials said unvaccinated former employees would not automatically reclaim jobs but could be considered for open positions.

Muskrath said an estimated 500 nonteaching workers also lost jobs  with no recourse to work at a virtual academy.

"It is painful to see people lose jobs and not have a paycheck for over a year, Muskrath said in an interview. "I am very happy that the board rescinded the vaccine mandate and hope we can have a good return agreement."

At the board meeting  as at many board meetings  speakers against the requirement expressed their anger at the board.

End your stupid and cruel vaccine mandate," attorney Jennifer Kennedy said.

Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
MEXICO BEACH  Marie Mattox believes she has evidence to back the lawsuit that her client, Mayor Michele Miller, has filed against the City Council.

Mattox, a Tallahassee-based lawyer representing Miller in her ongoing lawsuit against Mexico Beach, released a press release on Monday that cites a sworn statement taken Sept. 18 from Michele Lucas, a former finance officer for the city.

According to the release, Lucas worked for Mexico Beach from about June until August, when her contract was terminated because she was unable to reach a salary agreement with the city. Her sworn statement was recorded by John Bailey, an investigator who works for Mattox.

In the statement, Lucas said she was not given access to enough information needed to properly do her job. She also alleges former interim City Administrator Michael Manning told her that Mayor Miller would only be given partial access to the city's financial records as well.

Mayor Michele Miller's attorney released a sworn statement that she believes backs Miller's lawsuit against the City Council.

"I was told this job entailed pretty much the normal duties of a finance director, which meant I would approve checks, that I would be responsible for all of the taxes and all of the legal documents that had to be prepared," Lucas said in her statement. "I could do everything in '21 and '20, but beyond that, maybe '19 ... I could not view anything.

"I (also) had no access to any of the payroll documentation."

Miller, who was elected mayor earlier this year, filed a petition for a writ of mandamus and injunctive relief on Sept. 1 in circuit court. Mattox has said the goal of the lawsuit is to "compel compliance" with the Mexico Beach city charter. The charter says the mayor is the city's chief elected administrative and fiscal official.

Miller alleges that shortly after she was sworn in as mayor in April, she was denied access to the city's software to monitor its finances. This occurred after she also requested the city's current contracts, which she received.

She said both requests were made to help her gather information for the position, as well as to prepare for an annual city audit originally slated for May. Miller has said the audit was postponed shortly after her requests.

Mayor sues City Council: Mexico Beach hires outside firm to represent city in lawsuit filed by Mayor Michele Miller

Lucas, who has a bachelor's degree in business management with a minor in human resources and accounting, said in her statement that she believes Mexico Beach is not keeping an adequate record of the more than $100 million it has received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since Hurricane Michael.

The Category 5 storm struck the Panhandle in October 2018, destroying the city. It continues to recover almost five years later.

"And they weren't returning FEMA funds," Lucas said in her statement. "If it was earmarked for a certain project and it didn't come in at that amount, then those funds should have either been sent back for approval or reallocation. And to my knowledge, it was never done. I know they never sent any back."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Sworn statement released backing Mexico Beach Mayor's lawsuit
When Donald Trumps private jet touches down in Michigan tonight, working people know what to expect from the former president. Underneath his multimillionaire-class status and luxurious private estates, his $100,000 plated Bedminster dinners and Mar-a-Lago golden galas, hell claim to lend a hand to working people. Its the same lie he told us in 2016, when he first ran for president.

But theres a critical difference now: Trump has a record. And that record was nothing short of catastrophic for workers, highlighting an open hostility especially to union families. He never cared about our jobs. Or our wages. Or our pensions and health care. Or even our safety. Trump just cared about making his rich buddies even richer at our expense.

Lets be very clear: He doesnt deserve the labor movement's support  or the support of any working-class person across this country  in 2024.

Autoworkers are fighting for their lives, and as a third-generation member of the United Auto Workers myself, now leading the largest labor federation in Michigan, I find it shameful Trump would attempt to use the strike line to score political points when his record goes against everything the labor movement stands for.

Donald Trump says he supports workers. His track record on labor shows otherwise.

As Trump shows up in Detroit, lets remember that "showing up" is the last thing he did for us as president. He spent the run-up to 2016 talking a big game: about how workers were getting screwed, how we needed to turn the tide on exporting jobs and importing products. It was all true.

What happened next? He spent four years doing the bidding of billionaires and wealthy companies, overhauling the tax code for the benefit of those who claim more than their fair share of our profits and outsource our jobs. He spent four years sitting on his hands when it came to infrastructure  doing nothing to invest in rebuilding our country or create good jobs in Michigan that sustain families and communities.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Dubuque, Iowa.

Biden has driven historic investments in auto industry

Compare that to what we have seen over the past few years under President Joe Biden. The Biden Administration has driven historic investments in our auto industry, including a $7 billion investment in four new manufacturing sites across the state. President Biden has brought more than $5 billion in federal funding to rebuild our roads, bridges, and roadways, along with restoring our Great Lakes and securing clean water for millions across the state.

Hes made the crucial investment in upgrading the Soo locks  a critical entry point for commerce, agriculture, and military, where 7,000 vessels and 90 percent of our countrys iron ore moves through every single year.

President Joe Biden speaks with workers picketing at General Motors Willow Run Redistribution in Belleville on Tuesday, September 26, 2023, during a stop in Michigan.

The result is real, tangible results for Michigan workers in just a few short years. We have seen an absolute boom in Michigan job creation, with more than 330,000 jobs added since January 2021. Unemployment has dropped significantly, rebounding from the pandemic and accelerated by investments in working people through policies like the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We have more resilient homes, businesses, and communities in the face of the climate crisis. Health care costs have gone down for families  as almost 2 million people across the state benefit from the caps on insulin and prescription drug costs. The list goes on and on and on.

Michigan GOP in shambles: Party chair Kristina Karamo's first conference was a poorly attended conspiracy fest.

We need a president who understands worker solidarity

We still have work to do. Even with these federal investments, we need to make sure every job  from the auto workers building electric vehicles to the workers repaving our roads to the engineers restoring our bridges  is a good, safe, family-sustaining, union job. No matter our industry, we need to come together in support of the UAW and all workers as we fight for a good future on the job for all of us.

To do that, we need someone in the White House who understands the importance of worker solidarity. Its not Donald Trump  who restricted overtime pay, who opposed wage increases, who gutted health and safety protections during COVID, who appointed hundreds of anti-worker judges, and who fought against our very basic freedom to organize and join a union. Its not Donald Trump  who cannot even say, point blank, that he is on the side of the workers in any fight we have to create a better life for ourselves and our families.

He is a charlatan, plain and simple, who thinks he can use us to enrich himself and his buddies. Were smarter and stronger than he gives us credit for. Michigan and working people are on the rise  and from now until Election Day, we should let Trump know we deserve a lot better than him.

Ron Bieber is president of the Michigan AFL-CIO.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump Michigan rally is a lie. Don't forget his anti-union hostility
LEAVENWORTH, Kan.  A 37-year-old Leavenworth, Kansas woman is sentenced to over 16 years in prison for the 2019 killing of 23-year-old Travis Doughty.

Patricia Perkins pled guilty in August on charges of second-degree murder and robbery.

Kansas City police attempting to ID woman who may be in danger

She was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years and 10 months. She was sentenced to 14 years and 6 months for the second-degree murder and 2 years and 8 months for robbery. The judge ordered both sentences to run consecutively.

According to court records, Perkins and allegedly two additional people schemed a plan to rob Doughty of money.

According to the Leavenworth County Attorneys Office, the scheme involved picking up Doughty and driving him to a rural area of Leavenworth County near Oak Mills Road.

Store manager accused of putting man in chokehold outside KCK auto shop: court docs

Perkins and two alleged individuals lured Doughty to the scene under the guise that the group would shoot guns. Once there, Doughty was shot and robbed of his money. His body was found on March 12, 2019.

One of the alleged people involved in Doughtys death died due to a drug overdose under circumstances unrelated to this case, according to Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
Have you ever been driving in a local neighborhood and noticed how many cars are parked on the street? Have you ever had trouble fitting two cars in opposite directions on a residential road because there are so many cars parked along the street?

Its not an uncommon occurrence. Plus, if someone throws a large gathering, you might see cars parked up and down the street. So can someone legally park in front of your house? And how long are they allowed to stay there?

Heres what we know on the law in Washington state about parking in front of someone elses house.

Parking in front of WA property

In most cases, it is legal to park along the street in front of someone elses property. You cant park on their property without permission, but the street in front of their property is fair game.

Parking on the sidewalk cannot obstruct pedestrian traffic. If you have to park partially on the sidewalk, make sure there is enough space for someone to still comfortably walk past. Its important to consider any disabled passerby who may need additional room for walkers or motorized scooters.

Cars park along South Puget Sound Avenue Wednesday, July 12, 2023, in Tacoma, Wash. The 4000 block has seen more than 120 apartment units approved since 2015 with just a total of 44 parking stalls listed in their MFTE applications.

In Washington state, you are prohibited from parking:

Next to a car stopped/parked on the side of the street

On a sidewalk or street planting strip

In an intersection

On a crosswalk

Between a safety zone and adjacent curb

Along any street excavation or obstruction, if it would impact traffic

On any highway bridge or elevated structure

In a highway tunnel

On railroad tracks

Between roadways of a divided highway

Anywhere with signs posted prohibiting parking

In addition, the Revised Code of Washington specifies areas in which you can only park or stand still in your vehicle if you are picking up or dropping off a passenger. These are:

In front of or within five feet of a driveway

Within 15 feet of a fire hydrant

Within 20 feet of a crosswalk

Within 30 feet of traffic control signs and signals

Within 20 feet of a fire station driveway or 75 feet on the opposite street

Anywhere with signs prohibiting standing vehicles

Within 50 feet of a railroad crossing

Pulling into an angle parking spot usually is easy, but the risk of an accident becomes apparent when its time to leave as the person backing out often has a tough time seeing oncoming traffic..

Parking regulations in Tri-Cities

In Kennewick, vehicles cannot be abandoned on city streets. You also cannot leave a car in one public area for more than 72 hours, unless it is in front of your residence, in which case you have up to two weeks.

All parking in the city of Kennewick must leave at least ten feet of width in the roadway for free movement, according to the city code. In Richland, the requirement is 20 feet.

Commercial vehicles can park in the public right-of-way for a maximum of two hours while doing business in Kennewick. These vehicles cannot be stored in the public right-of-way outside of business operation.

You cannot park in a municipal parking lot for more than 24 hours in Richland. It is also prohibited to park in a hazard zone, which is marked by yellow paint on the curb.

Street parking on H Street in Modesto, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019.

In Pasco, different streets have different parking restrictions. Check for posted signs when parking or the city code before leaving. You cannot park on any street or municipal property for more than two weeks, or leave an abandoned vehicle out for more than 24 hours.
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Le Le, a two-year-old giant panda cub, will return to China in December, according to a recent message from Singapore's Mandai Wildlife Group.

The panda will farewell its fans on Nov. 20 at the Pavilion Capital Giant Panda Forest exhibit of River Wonders Park, a renowned zoo of the city-state.

Kai Kai and Jia Jia, Le Le's parents, will remain at River Wonders and focus on planning for their future breeding cycles.

Le Le is the first panda born in Singapore.
Fresnos Reel Pride festival returns on Friday with a feature thats been missing for a few years  a red-carpet opening night at the Tower Theatre.

Technically, the LGBTQ+ film festival kicks off at 11 a.m. Friday morning with a free youth film series and resource fair at Fresno City College.

It continues with a religious-themed film series and panel discussion on Saturday.

Over its three-day run, Reel Pride will screen dozens of independent and international feature-length and short films at multiple venues across the Tower District. It will also host a champagne brunch for sponsors and several late-night after parties.

But the opening-night screening  of a film called Glitter & Doom  marks an important return for the 34th year of the festival.

The film Glory and Doom will screen at the opening night of Fresno Reel Pride at the Tower Theatre.

A return to the Tower Theatre

There was a time when the Tower Theater was synonymous with Reel Pride, serving as home base for the festival and as a hub for activities during its annual run. But in 2021, the organization made a conscious decision to cut ties with the theater and its management amid ongoing controversy  also weekly protests and multiple legal battles  over the sale of the theater to Adventure Church.

Many, including those in the LGBTQ+ community, felt the sale would mean the loss of a community asset and be a major hit to the culture and inclusiveness of the Tower District community.

While the Tower District continues to have great spiritual value to many in the community, we will not continue to support the Tower Theatre under its current management structure, the group wrote at the time, in a joint statement with Fresno Filmworks.

That sale to the church ultimately fell through and the city purchased the theater for $6.5 million.

This is the first time the organization has worked with the theater since the city took over and hired its new management team.

Our members very much wanted us to be there, says festival director Kathleen Arambula-Reyna. And the group is excited to back at the theater, though there are new processes in place for working with the city and theres been a learning curve for all involved.

We also knew that things would be different, she says.

Things do not travel backwards in time.

Reel Prides Youth, Religious film series

Reel Pride has always been an international festival with a focus on screening films that werent in theaters or, in more recent years, on streaming services. This year there are films from South Africa, Germany, Israel and Brazil.

Within the festival are two film series.

One is designed for LGBTQ+ youth. It includes several short films along with the feature film Egghead and Twinkie and is offered for free.

The other is a religious film series, which includes a screening of the documentary 1946 - The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture.

That film, which will be shown at 1 p.m. Saturday at Fresno City College, follows researchers as they trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians and uncover archives that cast doubt on the biblical basis for LGBTQIA+ prejudice.

Following the film is an interview and panel discussion with local religious leaders moderated by Paul Swearengin.

Tickets for all three films and the panel discussion are $25.

The religious film series is a rebuttal of sorts to what Arambula-Reyna calls the weaponizing of religion from local organizations such as Cornerstone Church, which hosted a Revealing the Rainbow conference in March.

The reality is, Arambula-Reyna says, things like these series, and being able to offer a safe place for the community, thats really our goal at Reel Pride.

Poster for the movie 1946, which plays as part of the Religious Film series at Fresno Reel Pride.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Phylicia Rashad are pushing nonprofit theaters into the spotlight on Capitol Hill, joining forces at a congressional briefing.

The creator of Broadways Hamilton and the former Cosby Show star will speak at Thursdays briefing at the Russell Senate Office Building, called The Show Must Go On! which aims to address the crisis facing the American theater industry.

The event, hosted by the Professional Non-Profit Theater Coalition, is poised to shine a spotlight on the challenges facing the theater industry, showcase the value and importance of professional non-profit theater, and call on Congress to save American theater.

Citing the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and arts funding cuts, organizers said that this critical artform and economic driver is struggling to survive.

Miranda and Rashad, who now serves as dean of Howard Universitys College of Fine Arts, will speak to the vital role the theater plays in the life of our country.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Linda Yaccarino says she was not ready for the "relentless public scrutiny" that comes with helming X.

"I don't know if any human being could anticipate or prepare for that," Yaccarino told the FT.

Yaccarino said the intensity of her job at X is way higher than she's experienced at previous roles.

Linda Yaccarino says she wasn't prepared for the heightened public scrutiny that came with running X, the company previously known as Twitter.

The 59-year-old X CEO told the Financial Times in a story published on Wednesday that the heat she's been getting has been "hard" to manage.

"The thing that weighs on me a great deal is the pressure and the burden of the intense and relentless public scrutiny," Yaccarino told the Financial Times. "I don't know if any human being could anticipate or prepare for that."

"It's hard on me. It's hard on my family, my children, my parents, and that, I would say, in the first 100 days is a continual learning process to balance that," she continued.

Yaccarino told the Financial Times that the pressure she now faces is much higher than in her previous roles.

"While I did have a very outward-facing or high-profile role in my last job, certainly the intensity is very different," she said. "That hits big."

X's owner, Elon Musk, named the former NBCUniversal executive CEO in May. Her appointment coincides with a period of great turmoil for the social media platform  Musk has laid off nearly 90% of employees since taking over the company in October.

Yaccarino now has the task of boosting X's advertising revenues. In July, Musk said in a post on X that the company experienced a 50% drop in advertising revenue.

"We're still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load," Musk wrote. "Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else."

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Spin the black circle ... or, in this case, the radio dial. Pearl Jam fans who want to relive the bands Sept. 13 and 15 shows at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth dont have to wait much longer.

Pearl Jam started airing each of the concerts from its most recent tour on Sirius XM on Sept. 19, starting with the bands St, Paul, Minn. shows.

Fort Worth fans who want to go back and relive Eddie Vedder and Co.s takeover of Dickies Arena can tune in to Pearl Jam Radio (channel 22) on Sirius XM at 5 p.m. Central Time on Oct. 6 for night one and Oct. 10 for night two, with replays on both days at 8 p.m. Central Time.

Pearl Jam is known for their live shows, and have made a point of releasing live recordings of all of their shows for decades. Bootleg copies of the soundboard recordings from the Fort Worth shows will be available starting at 8 p.m. Central Time the day of the broadcast at Pearl Jams website or at nugs.net. Fans can buy the bootlegs in CD or digital formats.

Dates are subject to change, but heres the full Sirius XM bootleg schedule:

Sept. 19 - St. Paul, Minn. night 1

Sept. 22 - St. Paul, Minn. night 2

Sept. 26 - Chicago, Ill. night 1

Sept. 29 - Chicago, Ill. night 2

Oct. 6 - Ft. Worth, Texas night 1

Oct. 10 - Ft. Worth, Texas night 2

Oct. 13 - Austin, Texas night 1

Oct. 17 - Austin, Texas night 2
(Bloomberg) -- Argentina is already the worlds fastest-growing producer lithium producer. But if the country wants to overtake some of its regional rivals, it needs the incoming administration to ensure business conditions are ripe for developers, according to the local unit of Chinas Zijin Mining Group Co.

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Hurdles to lithium development in neighboring Chile and Bolivia, such as tax hikes and tougher environmental standards, have opened the door for Argentina, said Tomas de Pablos Souza, president of Liex SA. To seize the moment, Argentinas next administration, which takes office at the end of the year, must shun the unpredictable state interventionism that has dampened growth in several industries, he said.

Were facing a unique opportunity, he said at a Bloomberg event in Buenos Aires. We dont know if this train will ever come again, so we need to hold on tight and ride it  its a matter of waiting a few months to see what policies await us.

Argentina is currently the fourth-biggest producer of lithium. Some experts say the nation has the potential to propel itself within a few years into second place behind Australia, if the country is able to take advantage of its considerable reserves. Meanwhile, demand for lithium is soaring as the metal is a key component in batteries for electric vehicles.

Opposition candidates Javier Milei and Patricia Bullrich, vying for the presidency in the Oct. 22 vote, both promise to deregulate the economy.

De Pablos Souza implored Milei, Bullrich and Sergio Massa  running for the incumbent, leftist Peronist party  for clear rules and legal protections for companies, as well as approval in congress of so-called electro-mobility legislation to encourage lithium investments. His call for better business conditions echoed recent public comments by shale oil drillers including Chevron Corp. and crop traders.

Read More: Cargill, Dreyfus, Cofco Tell Argentina to Loosen Its Grip on Soy

Zijin unit Liex is developing the Tres Quebradas site on the Argentine side of South Americas lithium triangle. A project majority-owned by Ganfeng Lithium Group Co. became the third Argentine lithium project to enter production earlier this year. Zijin is also planning to build a cathode plant in Argentina.

BNEF Coverage: Lithium Rush: The Key Metal Powering the EV Revolution

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Lithuania has donated electronic warfare equipment for the needs of the Ukrainian Navy.

Source: European Pravda, citing the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania

Details: On Tuesday, the Lithuanian Navy handed over sets of radar equipment to its Ukrainian colleagues to help them monitor maritime areas. The assistance was provided at the request of Ukraine.

"This support will enhance Ukraine's ability to monitor the sea and better understand the situation... This is important for the protection of its territorial waters and the safety of its citizens," commented Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas.

Earlier this year, Lithuania announced a significant package of military assistance for Ukraine on the occasion of its Independence Day, as well as 1.5 million pieces of ammunition.

The Ministry of Defence of Lithuania reiterated that as part of its support for Ukraine, it is also actively assisting in training the military and treating the wounded, providing expert advice, and funding international programmes to support Ukraine.

For 2024-26, Lithuania has planned to allocate 200 million to support Ukraine.

Previously: A coalition of Lithuanian civil society initiatives has also provided significant amounts of assistance to Ukraine, raising millions of euros through campaigns to buy weapons for Bayraktar TB UAVs and electronic warfare stations for air defence.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Gone are the days of a single grade serving as a measure of an Indiana schools quality. Under a new state law, schools are instead getting what amounts to a report card.

Beginning Oct. 15, each school must post on its website a school performance report from the Indiana Department of Education that shows how its students are doing on academic and other measures.

Whats included will vary by the grade levels the school serves. Elementary schools, which are defined as schools serving K-8 grades, will include:

Pass rates for the 3rd grade literacy test, the IREAD

Pass rates for the state test, the ILEARN

Chronic absenteeism rates

Per-student funding.

Schools in Indiana will now be assessed not with letter grades but with performance reports.

High schools report cards, meanwhile, will include the following:

Average composite SAT score.

Graduation rate and non-waiver graduation rate.

Per-student funding.

Percentage of students who enrolled in and passed any of the following: an Advanced Placement exam, International Baccalaureate exam, dual credit course, or Cambridge International exam.

Several metrics will also be compared across schools serving the same grade bands.

The change marks the beginning of the end for the states previous evaluation metric  A-F grades. Theyve been effectively suspended since 2018 as Indiana shifted to a new state test and later grappled with the pandemic.

Technically, the requirement for A-F school grades is still on the books. Yet under the new law, the state will again issue null grades for each school for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, as it has since 2018.

The school performance reports will cover the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. For subsequent years, the Indiana education department is charged with coming up with new recommendations for accountability to present to lawmakers by Dec. 1, 2024.

The data for the new report cards will come from the Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) dashboard, which the state developed this year with the aim of making it easier for parents to access information about their schools.

Many of the data points required by the new report cards are already available on each schools GPS profile  with the notable exception of per-student funding.

Schools will receive their reports and instructions to embed them on their websites in the coming weeks, according to an education department memo.Chalkbeat (chalkbeat.org) is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Department of Education no longer giving schools letter grades
This week for Nassau County Sheriffs Office Wanted Wednesday, they are seeking information from the community to locate Christopher Cody Meyer.

Christopher is wanted by NCSO for VOP Grand Theft.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

If you have any information regarding Christophers whereabouts, we ask that you call 904-225-5174, or call the First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477). Callers can remain anonymous and are eligible to receive a cash reward of up to $3000.00 if the information given in the tip leads to an arrest.

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WASHINGTON  Over 100,000 active duty service members in Texas could go without a paycheck. Even more civilians working for federal agencies in the state could be furloughed or have to work without pay. Food subsidies for low-income women, infants and children could dry up. Airport security lines could get longer. FEMA payments to state and local governments could be late.

A federal shutdown, precipitated by an ideological battle in Congress, would put thousands of Texans in financial precarity. Congress is continuing to debate a path forward to keep the government funded, but with less than a week left until the end of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, a shutdown appears imminent.

Democrats are quick to blame Republicans, and Republicans are beginning to blame each other. The House Republican Conference has been in a fractured state since taking the majority this year, and several far-right Republicans are willing to tank Congress annual appropriations process in a bid to get stronger border security measures, drastically reduced spending levels and stopping further aid to Ukraine.

All are priorities that would have no chance of success in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

What will be impacted

Federal employees in Texas are at risk of going without a paycheck, depending on the agency they work for and the amount of money their agency has on reserve. Texas has over 120,000 civilian federal employees and over 114,000 active duty service members. Civilian employees include air traffic controllers, airport security officers, Medicare service center workers and Customs and Border Protection.

Employees deemed essential could be required to work without pay, though they would get back paid once the federal government reopens. Employees for critical infrastructure, such as air travel and defense are almost always deemed essential.

But even with back pay, working for free can put those employees in a challenging position keeping their families fed and staying on top of their bills. The last time the government shutdown, for over 30 days from 2018 to 2019, food banks saw a drastic uptick in demand from furloughed federal workers, said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas.

We are going to see basically uncertainty for thousands of families in Texas, in a state where there's already a lot of people living just one paycheck away from needing support from their food bank, Cole said.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are paid for by legislation outside of the annual appropriations process, meaning checks will largely go out as normal. But the lack of staffing means support for those programs could get delayed. Offices for Texans to sign up or renew eligibility for the programs will be closed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted that there will be enough money for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, to go out normally for all of October if the government shuts down. But if the shutdown stretches longer than a month, as it did in 2019, the programs continuity is less clear. Over 3 million Texans use the program.

The special SNAP for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC, would also last at least through the end of October, according to a Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokesperson. Nearly 800,000 Texans use the program to access food and formula before and after birth.

The spokesperson said HHSC is closely monitoring the potential shutdown and [is] evaluating funding options for affected services and staff positions in case of a federal shutdown.

Border security, which is likely to be deemed essential, could also take a hit. U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Customs and Border Protection officers are already suffering low morale from long hours and insufficient funding, and working conditions would only worsen if they are forced to work without pay.

A Senate study after the 2018-2019 shutdown found that the Department of Homeland Security delayed maintenance of border facilities at the time due to lack of funding, which endangered the lives of law enforcement officers and created significant border security vulnerabilities.

In several parts of rural Texas close to the border, Border Patrol often supplement law enforcement. During the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, more than half of the responders were Border Patrol. But those agents could have to work without a paycheck if the government shuts down.

In rural communities, these federal employees are critical, Escobar said. They are the law enforcement personnel that many rural communities depend on. And what the House Republicans are doing is essentially telling those federal employees we need you, but we don't want to pay you.

During the 2013 shutdown, Congress passed legislation at the eleventh hour that would secure active duty military pay through the government closure, and lawmakers are making a similar push now. U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, introduced similar legislation this week to protect Border Patrol pay. But with the House barely capable of even passing the procedural rules required to consider appropriations legislation, theres only a narrow amount of time for even those emergency bills to get through.

The shutdown could also jeopardize payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency during hurricane season. The agency has already begun delaying payments to ration money, The Washington Post reported, meaning state projects to recover from disasters could be held up.

Texas also has over 4,700 Transportation Security Administration officers and over 1,200 air traffic controllers  all of whom would likely have to work without a paycheck if the shutdown stretches beyond their next pay period. The loss of pay could lead to low morale and agents calling in sick, as occurred during the last shutdown.

The slowdowns and loss of safety personnel that we experienced during previous shutdowns were unacceptable, and it is essential that hiring, training, and pay for these vital air safety professionals are not interrupted by any lapse in funding, Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said in a statement.

How it got here

Congress must pass appropriations legislation before the end of each fiscal year to determine which federal programs get how much money. Congress has failed to reach that Sept. 30 deadline every year since 1996, opting instead to pass temporary funding measures called continuing resolutions to buy time to pass year-long funding bills.

But several far-right Republicans are refusing to pass a continuing resolution without major concessions, including the passage of a House Republican bill to harden the border that Democrats revile. They are also demanding a stop to assistance to Ukraine, which Senate Republicans and Democrats largely agree is a critical national security priority.

Republicans are all willing to shut down the government and throw working people under the bus and damage the economy, just because they think that it's going to go politically well for them, and that is disgraceful, and it's wrong and Texans need to know it, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, said.

The far-right and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal earlier this month to pass a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded for 30 days into the new fiscal year, buying time to pass the full appropriations legislation. The deal would cut non-defense discretionary spending by 8%, eliminate Ukraine aid and tack on the House Republican border security bill.

Texas Republicans in particular have demanded border security be a part of any funding deal  even though a shutdown could weaken defenses on the southern border. The House Republican border security bill was born out of a border plan designed by conservatives in the Texas delegation to increase penalties for cartels, build a border wall and keep asylum seekers in Mexico.

Democrats and several Republicans immediately decried the continuing resolution deal as a nonstarter. It is far below the spending limit negotiated by the White House and McCarthy to raise the debt limit last spring and would drastically cut spending for programs ranging from education to health care. The Senate reached a bipartisan deal Tuesday for its own continuing resolution, essentially in direct opposition to the House Republican proposal.

The decision for @POTUS @JoeBiden - will he shut down the border or shut down the government? U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, posted on social media. Roy was among the far-right Republicans who negotiated the continuing resolution.

But yet another rebellion within the House Republican conference shuttered the continuing resolution path, with a cohort of ultraconservative members, including U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, refusing to pass any kind of bandaid and instead focusing on the individual appropriations bills  even if it leads to a shutdown. Gaetz has threatened to use a procedural move to launch a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker if he doesnt do as he wishes.

McCarthy now has to choose between continuing to concede to his hard right flank, only for any bills to face instant death in the Democratic Senate, or reach out to Democrats to bail him out and keep the government running.

McCarthy has essentially handed all his power over to the most extreme Republicans who are sending us to a shutdown, Casar said.

Stephen Simpson contributed reporting.

The Texas Tribune is reporting on how a federal government shutdown could affect Texans. To share your experience with us, you can fill out this form.
A Michigan man has big plans after winning an unbelievable lottery prize, officials said.

The Oakland County resident bought his winning Club Keno ticket from a grocery store in Warren, according to a Sept. 27 news release from the Michigan Lottery.

I got a text from a friend asking if I won big playing Club Keno because he saw a $200,000 prize was won at the store I usually buy my tickets from, the man told lottery officials. Id just bought a Club Keno ticket from that store, so I pulled it out of my pocket and scanned it on the Lottery app.

When the $200,000 prize appeared on his screen, the 45-year-old man was stunned.

Id never won a big prize like this, so it was pretty unbelievable, he told lottery officials.

The man recently claimed his six-figure prize from lottery headquarters.

I plan to use my winnings to start a business and start building my empire, he told lottery officials.

Oakland County is about 27 miles northwest of Detroit.

Many people can gamble or play games of chance without harm. However, for some, gambling is an addiction that can ruin lives and families.

If you or a loved one shows signs of gambling addiction, you can seek help by calling the national gambling hotline at 1-800-522-4700 or visiting the National Council on Problem Gambling website.

Woman couldnt sleep, so she checks Missouri lottery numbers. Thought I was dreaming

It was afterthought. Woman lands big lottery win after buying ticket with change

Adorable spotted kitten sold in parking lot leads to Texas couples arrest, feds say
The sale of dogs and cats from retail pet stores may be banned in Jefferson County depending on a Louisville Metro Council vote Thursday.

Councilman Stuart Benson, a Republican representing parts of Jeffersontown, Eastwood, Fern Creek and Fisherville, sponsored the ordinance, which passed out of the Public Safety Committee on Sept. 19 with seven "yes" votes. Councilman Andrew Owen, a Democrat who represents Clifton, Crescent Hill and other neighborhoods, is a co-sponsor.

Supporters of the ordinance hope it will limit the sale of animals from "puppy mills" or "kitten mills" but still allow private breeders and rescues to operate, said Todd Blevins, the Kentucky State Director for the Humane Society of the United States, who has been consulting with Benson about the ordinance for several months.

"We have documented that pet stores that sell puppies in retail fashion, by and large, are getting them from puppy mills," he said. "What has become apparent in Louisville is that the pet shops that are selling puppies are selling them in such a fashion that they're getting sick within days of getting home."

Brian Halfacre, a Mount Vernon resident, says he unknowingly purchased a sick dog from Puppygram, a business with stores in Indianapolis, Louisville and Detroit, according to the company's website.

He bought a dog from the Louisville location in April for $2,800 and said that he has spent over $6,000 on the dog's medical bills. He "absolutely" believes the dog was sourced from a puppy mill and not properly cared for prior to coming home with him and is in "full support" of this ordinance, he said.

But Puppygram CEO Miles Handy said the business has a "no puppy mill policy" and that Halfacre's dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Kate, was healthy when she left the facility. Passing the ordinance would severely impact his company, he said.

"Ninety-five percent of our revenue comes from selling puppies," Handy said. "It would put us out of business."

The ordinance would also prevent people from selling dogs and cats in public and outdoor spaces, like flea markets and on street corners. It would not prevent stores from showcasing rescue animals "provided that the provider does not maintain an ownership interest in any of the animals offered for adoption or receive a fee for providing such space."

Activists, stores at odds over pet sales

Louisville would be the third Kentucky city to pass a retail sale ban on dogs and cats. Radcliff and Elizabethtown passed similar ordinances in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

More than 400 municipalities around the country have similar bans and seven states have completely outlawed the retail sales of dogs and cats: California, Maryland, Maine, Washington, Illinois, New York and, just this year, Oregon.

While there are already stores that sell dogs and cats in Louisville, the proposal would also impact Petland, an international franchiser of pet stores that is in the process of re-establishing a store in town.

Petland has already signed a lease in town, said Elizabeth Kunzelman, the vice president of legislative affairs for the company, which was started by her father, Ed Kunzelman.

Some animal-rights organizations, including the Humane Society of the United States, say there is a connection between retail pet sales and puppy mills  which are "high volume" breeders that "consistently churn out puppies for profit with wanton disregard for the welfare of not only the puppies but the mother dogs" which impacts their health, Blevins said.

"A private breeder who has the best interests of the breed in mind and the best interest of the puppy in mind, they're not going to sell to a pet store," he said. "Because by selling to a pet store, they don't know where it goes."

When retail stores sell dogs from puppy mills, it acts as a sort of "smoke screen" that prevents buyers from seeing the poor conditions the puppy was born into, he said.

"Nobody wants to support a puppy mill, but they may not know where the dog is coming from," Blevins said.

But Handy said Puppygram's adoption process is transparent and allows people in metropolitan areas to have access to purchasing dogs from reputable breeders close to where they live, rather than having to drive hours to a breeder.

He argues banning the retail sale of pets will actually increase the presence of puppy mill dogs and "black market" dog selling in Louisville.

Both Handy and Kunzelman said their companies follow strict guidelines for where they purchase their animals.

"Our stores get their puppies from USDA-licensed breeders with no direct violations on their inspection reports for the previous two years," Kunzelman said of Petland. "They adhere to local, state and federal regulations and hold themselves to even higher standards by supporting Purdue University and their Canine Care Certified program."

Handy said "most" of the dogs Puppygram sells are also USDA-approved, but activists argue the government's requirements are too lax.

Kunzelman emphasized in a letter to the Metro Council that Petland stores provide "full transparency" about where the puppy came from and has a "comprehensive health warranty" that covers a free vet visit and a "14 day bacterial or viral protection and a 2 year congenital and hereditary warranty."

But both Petland and Puppygram have been accused of selling people sick dogs. Halfacre said he noticed Kate coughing the night they brought her home, on a Friday. When he took her to the veterinarian on Monday, she was released with a clean bill of health, despite Halfacre telling the veterinarian she had a cough.

Later that night, Halfacre captured a video of the cough. One week after taking Kate home, she was put on antibiotics and subsequently diagnosed with pneumonia.

"There's no way she developed severe pneumonia in a matter of days being at our house inside and not near any other pets," he said.

Handy said it's possible Kate got sick after she was sold and that the dog was in good health when she left Puppygram. He also added that there is a paragraph in the waiver Halfacre signed that exempts Puppygram from covering the expenses of dogs with viruses or "colds" following their adoptions. Handy accused Halfacre of not taking Kate to the vet soon enough after noticing the cough, but Halfacre said they went as soon as they could.

Jackie Gardner, a Louisvillian who has purchased two dogs from Puppygram, said they are "beautiful, healthy" dogs that she would buy all over again if given the choice. While saying she has had some boarding issues, she added, "The way I look at it, nobody's forcing you to purchase a dog from them."

Puppygram CEO: Ban would 'put us out of business'

Handy is disturbed the ordinance could impact local businesses, he said.

"We got a business license, we got everything to do what we're doing," he said. "If they basically put us out of business and jeopardize all of our investments that we made into the building ... naturally we're going to have to protect ourselves and unfortunately will have to talk with legal counsel regarding it."

But Blevins argues the ordinance would be a form of consumer protection. So does Halfacre.

"I'm not just trying to destroy business just because I had a bad experience," Halfacre said. Instead, he said he hopes the ordinance will "keep puppies safe" and "keep families from having to experience this."

State Rep. Daniel Grossberg, a Democrat who represents parts of Louisville, submitted a letter to the Metro Council to express his support of the ordinance.

His perspective comes from his experience working as a manager at Petland.

"When I worked there, I was young and naive. It is now clear to me that there was more truth in marketing when I was selling used cars than when I was selling puppies," he said in the letter. "No reputable breeder would sell through a distributor to a pet store. Full stop."

Others who have expressed support for the ordinance include the Greater Louisville Golden Retriever Club, Purrfect Day Cat Cafe, Blue Ridge Animal Rescue and some veterinarians, according to a document provided by Blevins.

If passed, the ordinance would allow pet retailers one year to adjust before officially banning the commercial sales of dogs and cats. During that time, stores would have stricter rules on the information they would need to disclose to prospective buyers.

Handy said this isn't enough, though, and urges the Metro Council to "grandfather in" current Louisville pet stores  meaning he wants already existing businesses to remain while no new stores could be started. He recently implored city officials in Michigan for the same exception, which they granted.

The Louisville Metro Council is set to vote on the ordinance Thursday evening at Metro City Hall. Angela Webster, Benson's legislative aide, said she feels confident it will pass without changes.

Both Halfacre and Handy will be watching the vote closely, they said.

Reach reporter Eleanor McCrary at EMcCrary@courier-journal.com or on Twitter at @ellie_mccrary.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville may ban dog, cat retail sales to target 'puppy' mills
Arlington motorcycle officer Darrin McMichael was a family man who loved his work and was the type of person anybody could call a best friend, his family, friends and coworkers said at his funeral Wednesday morning.

McMichael, 51, was killed Sept. 21 in a hit-and-run while he was on his way to work. Authorities with the Dallas County Sheriffs Office said McMichael hit the rear of a sport utility vehicle when it slowed down because of traffic on Interstate 20. The officer fell onto the left shoulder of the freeway and was run over by a dark-colored sedan that did not stop after hitting him.

On Wednesday, in a large auditorium at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie, hundreds of people remembered McMichael for his nearly 25 years with the Arlington Police Department and the way he impacted the lives of those around him. More than half of those in attendance were in police uniform.

Arlington Police Chief Al Jones said at the funeral that McMichael was a police officer with integrity and a passion for serving his community.

He was a true example of the impact one man can have on his community, Jones said. May Darrin rest in peace, knowing his legacy lives on in the hearts of all of us.

Members of Arlington Police Departments Motorcycle Unit, left, line up for the funeral procession of fellow officer Darrin McMichael on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. The unit left a space open in the lineup that McMichael previously would have occupied.

Wyatt Beard, a best friend of McMichael since kindergarten, said during the service that the officer was the kind of man who you knew would always be there for you.

We went through some tough times, and those are the times I treasure the most, Beard said. I was always there when he needed me and, more importantly, he was always there when I needed him. Even when I lived 10 hours away, Darrin was just a phone call away.

Lynette McMichael, Darrins wife, wrote in a letter about her husband  which she asked Arlington Police Chaplain Rick Burgin to read  that Darrin was her only true love.

I am in so much pain because I feel cheated out of the plans we had to grow old together, Burgis read from Lynette McMichaels letter.

Kyla Nevill said Darrin McMichael was the best friend to her husband, Mickey Nevill. When Mickey Nevill died, Kyla said McMichael was there for her. There was nothing anybody could do to lessen the grief of losing her husband, but McMichael was determined to be there. He stood guard for her, she told those who gathered for the funeral.

He was fierce, protective, forgiving and a loyal friend, Kyla Nevill said. If Darrin was your friend, he was your best friend.

She said Mickey Nevill and Darrin McMichael were chaotic best friends.

Their brotherhood shenanigans have me thinking that Saint Peter has his hands full with them up there in heaven, Kyla Nevill said. She imagines the two of them in heaven drinking bear and eating tiny tacos and hot dogs together.

Nevill, Beard and fellow motorcycle officer Eddie Chappell all spoke of the love McMichael had for his wife.

It was so absolutely undeniable how in love with you he was, Chappell told Lynette McMichael from the stage.

Members of the Arlington Police Departments Honor Guard prepare to place the coffin of fellow officer Darrin McMichael into the hearse on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. McMichael, a member of Arlingtons Motorcycle Unit, was killed on Sept. 21.

Chappell said McMichael loved God, his family, his farm, his motorcycle, drinking bourbon, smoking cigars, and spending time with the law enforcement motorcycle club, the Iron Circle.

When it came to his two daughters, Chappell said, Darrin talked about them all the time.

He talked about [his eldest daughter], how he was proud of how she found who she wanted to be, and called [his younger daughter] his mini me,  Chappell said.

Beard said he knew Lynette McMichael thought of Darrin McMichael as her protector, best friend, first love and the best part of her.

I want you to know that you were his protector, Beard said. You were his the best part of him. You were his best friend. And you were his everything.

Everyone who spoke told Lynette McMichael that they would be there for her in anything she needed.

Nevill asked anybody present who knew Darrin McMichael to remember his family and what they may need as a way of carrying on his legacy. That when they need to do maintenance on their cars, his daughters probably needed maintenance on theirs. When their homes need seasonal work, Lynette McMichaels home does, too. That when their parents need help with finances or computers, Darrin McMichaels parents probably do, too.

The truth is we never stop missing great people like Darrin, Nevill said. The best we can do is honor them by taking care of their families.

Arlington Police Chief Al Jones presents the American flag to Lynette Rachelle Holland McMichael, the wife of Darrin McMichael, on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. Darrin McMichael, a member of Arlingtons Motorcycle Unit, was killed on Sept. 21 while on his way to work.

Chappell said he and McMichael was fast friends. With McMichael standing at 6 foot 6 inches and Chappell being 5 feet 6 inches, he told those gathered for the funeral that it always looked like it was bring your kid to work day when we worked together.

We both enjoyed complaining and we both enjoyed sharing our two cents whether you wanted it or not, Chappell said.

Before he left the stage, Chappell addressed some words to McMichael. Emotionally, he said McMichaels death had broken his heart.

Im really going to miss our early morning text messages every single day before work, Chappell said, tearing up. Ill miss our 9 a.m. coffee breaks at the Racetrak, eating lunch with you every day, our motorcycle trips, smoking cigars with you, drinking bourbon. Ill miss your encouraging words, your sound advice, your laughs, your love and most of all your friendship. Youll never be forgotten and your family will be taken care of. I love you, pal.

Arlington Chaplain Rick Burgin speaks at the funeral for Officer Darrin McMichael on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. McMichael, a member of Arlingtons Motorcycle Unit, was killed on September 21.

Beard shared similar feelings, with similarly strong emotion. He mentioned how almost every time he and McMichael would hang up the phone after talking to each other, they would say, Buddy, I love you. Choking up, Beard said those words to McMichael one last time.

After the service, officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies across Texas, from local departments to those from Smith County, Houston, Abilene and Biloxi participated in a procession. They included sheriffs offices, municipal police departments and officers, detectives and leaders from school district and university departments, hospital police and airport police. An honor guard provided a gun salute, played bagpipes and drums and carried the casket.

A flyover by three helicopters included two law enforcement aircraft and one CareFlite helicopter. A final call was made over police radio to announce McMichaels last call.

When it was time to load the casket into a hearse, one of the bagpipers played Sgt. MacKenzie.

Motorcycle police from all over the state brought their rides and escorted a procession of police vehicles that stretched for miles, headed to the cemetery. McMichaels body was transported with emergency lights all around, with Arlington police leaving a gap in their motorcycle formation where McMichael would have ridden.

Members of the Arlington Police Department stand beside the coffin of Officer Darrin McMichael during his funeral on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. McMichael, a member of Arlingtons Motorcycle Unit, was killed on September 21 while on his way to work.

The funeral does not signify an end to investigations into his McMichaels death. At a news conference Tuesday, police announced that the reward for anybody who provides information leading to an arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for his death has been increased to $20,000.

The Dallas County Sheriffs Office, which is leading the investigation, said it is asking truckers and trucking companies who may have been in the area between 6 a.m. and 6:05 a.m. to come forward with any dashboard-camera footage they may have. Police know the vehicle that killed McMichael was a dark-colored sedan, but said Tuesday at the news conference they dont have any other information, including what sort of damage the vehicle may have sustained in the hit-and-run.

Anybody with information is asked to reach out to the Dallas County Sheriffs Office at 214-749-5189 or contact Crime Stoppers at 877-373-8477. Tips can be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers.

Law enforcement officers, family and friends gather for the funeral of Arlington Police Officer Darrin McMichael on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at Crossroads Christian Church in Grand Prairie. McMichael, a member of Arlingtons Motorcycle Unit, was killed on September 21 while on his way to work.
Following the discovery that a county medical contractor was smuggling fentanyl into the Sacramento County Main Jail, Sheriff Jim Cooper is calling for an overhaul of the jails health care system.

I take responsibility for my deputies  their actions and what they do, Cooper said during a news conference at the Sheriffs Office headquarters Wednesday. This all revolves around jail medical (staff). Its a big issue. Theyre inept. ... Im at my breaking point.

The announcement follows a Sheriffs Office investigation into a spike in overdoses at the jail. The office has now arrested six people for their involvement in an operation to smuggle drugs into the jail in exchange for money. They included Zareonna Harris, who was working on-call for Avid Healthcare Services, a county contractor. Harris is no longer an Avid employee, according to the company.

Harris, along with James Whitfield, Donald Zackery and Tomani Zackery were arrested Aug. 29 and charged with smuggling fentanyl, meth, cocaine and escape tools into the downtown facility. Whitfield was an inmate prior to the incident, while the others were not, Cooper said.

The Sheriffs Office has subsequently arrested two more people  Roderick Turk and Dimauri Allendandridge  for allegedly supplying the narcotics.

To prevent a similar operation from happening in the future, Cooper, who became sheriff in December, suggested the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors move the management of its jail medical unit, known as Adult Correctional Health, back under the Sheriffs Office.

The board moved the divisions management from the Sheriffs Office in 2018, meaning none of the jails medical staff fall under the oversight of the inspector general, the Sheriffs Office internal affairs or the District Attorneys Office. Cooper said when that change happened, medical employees stopped undergoing extensive Sheriffs Office-conducted background checks when hired.

While the county employees undergo background checks, contractors conduct their own background checks, and the process is different, according to county spokeswoman Janna Haynes.

County staff are working with Avid on strengthening its background check process, Haynes said. The countys contract with Sacramento-based Avid expires in June 2025.

Haynes said the countys Adult Correctional Health division has a high standard of medical care.

Inmates being booked into the Sacramento County Jail have a constitutional right to a standard of medical care, and Adult Correctional Health will not compromise that standard of care, Haynes said in a statement following the news conference. Adult Correctional Health looks forward to continuing productive conversations with the Sheriffs Office on how to improve medical care within the Main Jail.

Cooper also raised concerns with the routine practice of transporting inmates to the emergency room for minor ailments, such as constipation or a finger cut. Deputies took inmates to hospital ERs 1,800 times last year, he said. Each time, two deputies had to accompany the inmate at the hospital.

Their method is, when theres a problem, its just easier to send somebody out (to the emergency room), Cooper said. Thats not the way you do it

The county earlier this year conducted an analysis of ER trips and found 85% of them were appropriate, Haynes said.

Cooper suggested the county start using video appointments to cut down on the ER visits, or to employ more nurses in order to do more screening in-house.

The county has doubled its mental health and medical staff since a federal settlement, the result of a class-action lawsuit, was signed in 2019, Haynes said. It now employs 251 full-time medical staff and 129 mental health staff.

But vacancies still exist. As of August, the jail had vacancies for six mental health workers and 25 registered nurses.

Whats wrong with telemedicine? Cooper said. Everyone else is using it. Correctional health is not. They are archaic

Officers who bring an arrested person to the jail for booking  either deputies or officers from any law enforcement agency in the county  have to wait an average of 2 hours for the person to be medically screened, Cooper said. That takes time away from them being on patrol.

Haynes said the county has used telemedicine since June and will continue to assess expansion. She said the jails $1 billion annex will help with the issue of people waiting hours to get medically screened during booking. But that annex is not set to open until 2028.

So far this year, six inmates have died, all from medical causes. Three of the deaths were suspected drug overdoses  deaths that could have been prevented with adequate monitoring and detoxification, according to a report by two medical professionals tasked with independently monitoring medical care of Sacramento inmates under the settlement known as the Mays Decree.

Several of the inmates who suffered fentanyl overdoses this year survived, Cooper said.
There's not too much Rhode Island's all Democratic Congressional delegation can do to avert a potential government shutdown at the end of this week originating in the GOP-controlled House.

But Rep. Seth Magaziner can hold news conferences, like one Tuesday morning at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport detailing what might happen if the federal government is no longer funded.

"This would be disastrous for working people in Rhode Island and all across the country," Magaziner said from the airport terminal before boarding a flight to Washington. "A shutdown would have devastating impacts. Military families would be left without pay. Think about that for a moment."

Magaziner invited a retired veteran, a union official, an advocate for seniors and air traffic controller to the news conference "to elevate the voices of groups that would be affected."

More: A government shutdown is looming. Here's how it could affect Rhode Island.

What would be the biggest impacts of a government shutdown?

The biggest impacts he sees from a shutdown:

Military and federal law enforcement officers would have to work without pay (although they would expect to get that money back when the shutdown ends)

Potential furloughs would exacerbate the processing of new applications for Medicare and Social Security benefits

Nearly 18,000 Rhode Islanders could lose Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food assistance when that program exhausts its cash

Air traffic controllers would have to work without pay, potentially leading to staffing shortages and delays

Workplace safety, food safety and environmental safety inspection would be delayed, potentially putting Rhode Islanders at risk

Children who attend Head Start would be shut out of the preschool programs

What comes next?

He said when he gets to Washington he will talk to House Republican colleagues urging them to vote to bring a funding resolution to the floor.

Meanwhile in the Senate, lawmakers in both parties reached a deal on a stopgap funding measure that would keep the government running through Nov. 17.

Sen. Jack Reed in an evening news release said he hoped House Republican leaders agree to the Senate deal.

Republicans face a choice," Reed said. "They can allow extremists in their party to shut down the federal government, or not. Shutdowns are costly, wasteful, avoidable. The clock is ticking."

Earlier in the day, Reed highlighted another potential problem caused by a shutdown, the inability of property owners to get flood insurance and resulting "upending" of the housing market.

"FEMA would be unable to issue new flood insurance policies, or renew existing ones, until the government resumes operating," Reed said. "That could prove to be a disaster for folks buying a new home in the midst of Hurricane season."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Government shutdown possibility has RI's congressional delegation speaking out
The main suspect in a years-long investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers has been arrested, according to the FBI.

Brooks Houck, the former boyfriend of the long-missing and presumed dead Crystal Rogers was arrested Wednesday and is being held on a $10 million bond, according to court records. Rogers, a mother of five, was 35 when she disappeared.

The FBI announced the arrest Wednesday morning. Houcks indictment, released by Nelson Circuit Court Wednesday, says hes charged in Rogers murder by acting alone or in complicity with another person to kill her. Hes also charged with evidence tampering.

Houck was booked into the Nelson County Detention Center at 10:50 a.m., according to jail records, but he was later moved to the Hardin County jail.

In coordination with the Kentucky State Police, other local and federal law enforcement agencies, FBI Louisville has been laser-focused on our commitment to hold accountable those that were responsible for the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday. Today, we take a significant step in making good on that promise. FBI Louisville and the Kentucky State Police have arrested Brooks Houck without incident on charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation.

Brooks Houck, 41, was booked into the Nelson County Detention Center Wednesday morning. Hes charged with murder and evidence tampering in connection to the disappearance of Crystal Rogers.

It marks the second arrest made in the Rogers case. Joseph Lawson was previously indicted on charges of conspiracy to murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence, according to court records. Lawson pleaded not guilty to both charges during an arraignment.

The FBI declined to comment whether or not more suspects could be arrested or face charges.

FBI Louisville and @kystatepolice announce the arrest of Brooks Houck as a result of the investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers. pic.twitter.com/uc4NnKjth7  FBI Louisville (@FBILouisville) September 27, 2023

Houcks previous connections to the investigation

Houck was named a suspect early in the case by the Nelson County Sheriffs Office, but he was never previously arrested or charged.

Its believed he was the last person to have seen Rogers alive, officials said previously.

Rogers was reported missing by her mother, Sherry Ballard, on July 5, 2015, according to the FBI. She hadnt been seen or heard from since July 3, 2015. The day she was reported missing, her Chevrolet Malibu was abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire. Her keys, phone and purse were inside the car, according to the FBI.

Houck and his family have been subject to a number of searches in the investigation. The first search happened roughly one month after Rogers was reported missing when the Nelson County Sheriffs Office, FBI, Louisville Metro Police and other agencies searched a farm belonging to Rose Mary Houck, Brooks Houcks mother.

The family farm is located on Paschal Ballard Lane and its believed to be the last place Rogers was seen alive.

Motorists pass a billboard on Springfield Road asking for information in the disappearance of Crystal Rogers In Bardstown, Ky., Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. Rogers was first reported missing in the summer of 2015.

The FBI took over the investigation in July 2020 and executed nine federal search warrants shortly after. Three of those warrants were served at Houcks home, the family farm, and the home of Nick Houck, Brooks brother. with approximately 150 state and federal law enforcement officers shortly afterwards.

Authorities returned to Nelson County approximately one year later and searched the Woodlawn Springs subdivision, which featured homes built by a company that Brooks Houck owned.

Officials found multiple items of interest believed to have been potentially relevant to the investigation.

The items were sent to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for further forensic analysis, according to the FBI. But no additional information was made available about those items following that statement by the FBI.

In October 2022 authorities returned to the Houck family farm on Paschal Ballard Lane for another week-long search. Cadaver dogs and heavy machinery used for excavating were on scene and evidence was collected.

This is a developing story and will be updated.
A Sarasota man was arrested on charges of lewd or lascivious battery against a Bradenton middle school student that he met on a social media app, the Bradenton Police Department said in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

Police say they were notified of a reported sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl by her mother on Tuesday, when she told investigators that her daughter failed to answer her phone, prompting her to track the device to a nearby parking lot.

Thats where she found her daughter in Aldo Manuel Garcia Fernandezs vehicle, the release says.

Before Garcia Fernandez could leave the parking lot, police say the mother took photos of him and his license plate, which she handed over to the Bradenton Police Department.

Garcia Fernandez, 24, was arrested by the Bradenton Police Department after they tracked his vehicle to Sarasota County with the assistance of the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office, according to the release.

Garcia Fernandez is currently held at the Sarasota County Jail, where police say he has been charged with lewd or lascivious battery against a victim 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age. The charge is a second-degree felony with a maximum sentence of up to fifteen years in prison, fifteen years of sex offender probation and a $10,000 fine, according to Florida Statutes.

Police say Garcia Fernandez and the 14-year-old met on a social media app.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A man accused of a fatal shooting earlier this month in Frayser was arrested on Tuesday.

ORIGINAL STORY: Shooting in Frayser leaves 1 dead, 1 injured

According to Memphis Police, 19-year-old Uzekiel Martin is charged with first-degree murder, robbery, statute of limitations  attempted first-degree murder, possession of firearm/dangerous felony, and two counts of especially aggravated robbery.

On September 11, around 9:29 p.m., officers say they responded to a shooting call at Birchfield Drive and Waters Edge Drive, where they found a gray Acura in the middle of the street.

On the drivers side of the car, officers said they found a male victim lying in the street suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to Regional One Hospital in critical condition.

Body found in Mississippi River identified as missing TN mom Tamia Taylor

On the passenger side of the car, officers said they found another male victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Police said they saw several shell casings, a gun, and a large bag of green leafy substance believed to be marijuana inside the Acura.

Officers also found a white iPhone in a red case near the drivers side of the car. Inside the red case was a Tennessee ID belonging to Uzekiel Martin.

The address on the ID card was the corner house next to the crime scene, police say. When officers knocked on the door of the home there was no answer, despite them seeing an unknown person lifting the window blinds and looking out.

On September 19, investigators say they got a warrant to search the iPhone found at the scene and discovered it also belonged to Martin.

Teen girl shot, killed in Frayser

In the text messages, investigators said Martin told one of the victims to meet at the corner of Birchfield Drive and Waters Edge Drive minutes before the shooting.

While the victim was at the hospital, he told investigators that he and the other victim were meeting to trade guns with a man named Zeke.

Reports state that when Zeke got into the backseat of the Acura, he began to rob the victim, taking the gun he intended to trade. Without provocation, Zeke started shooting at the two victims while sitting in the backseat of the car, police said.

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The suspect did not take the gun but did take the victims gold iPhone.

Police said the victim was able to positively identify Uzekiel Martin in a six-person lineup as the person responsible for the shooting and robbery.

Martin is scheduled to appear in court on Friday morning.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
A man has been arrested in connection to a homicide in Pittsburghs East Hills over the weekend.

According to Pittsburgh police, Trevon Taylor, 20, was taken into custody on Tuesday.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Man dies after being shot in chest in Pittsburgh neighborhood

Taylor was wanted in connection to a shooting that happened on Saturday around 11 a.m. in the 2300 block of East Hills Drive.

Sunday morning, police said the victim, Allen Jerrone Stevens, 37, died in the hospital.

Taylor is charged with criminal homicide and recklessly endangering another person.

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HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN)  Hendersonville police returned a senior citizens life savings after the 82-year-old was conned out of thousands in cash.

The department has a strong warning for all seniors who could be pressured by con artists using high-pressure tactics to separate them from their money.

 Have breaking come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts 

It unfolded Sept. 22 when Hendersonville detectives say a man, pretending to be a federal agent, called a senior citizen and scared him into thinking he needed to immediately send money to a federal courthouse in Texas.

The man on the phone stayed on the line with the 82-year-old while the senior went to his bank and withdrew $60,000 in cash.

According to police, the senior was then told to hand that cash to a fake courier who met him.

Police say Piyushkumar Patel was that fake courier.

Piyushkumar Patel, 47, (Courtesy: Hendersonville Police Department)

It is unfortunate, we do have many citizens in our elderly community who are regularly targeted, said Sgt. Chris Gagnon. They take advantage, they have a lot of money set for retirement and then take advantage of the trusting mentality they have.

After handing over his life savings, the senior sensed something was not right and walked into the Hendersonville Police Department to file a complaint.

According to police, the senior got the couriers license number and with that information, the department checked LPR cameras and saw Patels dark-colored Toyota four runner.

The detectives immediately tracked the car to an East Nashville home on Greenland Avenue.

When News 2 arrived at the house, Patels Toyota was in the driveway. The vehicle had the same license number seen on the Hendersonville LPR cameras.

CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee

When detectives knocked on the door, the 47-year-old Patel answered. Police said he admitted to being in Hendersonville that afternoon.

He said he was a courier. When police asked if he had the package, he admitted to picking updetectives said thats when Patel handed over the cash.

According to police, of the original $60,000, they recovered $59,100. Where the missing $900 went is not known.

Police showed News 2 a picture of the money and it is ironically wrapped in the funny papers of a local newspaper. The money has since been returned to the senior citizen.

You have to be critical of everyone you come into contact with, said Gagnon. Reach out to your local [police department] if you have questions. We will help walk you through it. We would much rather help you in the process and do a lot in terms of mitigating any possible losses you might have.

Gagnon said the fact that the senior reported the scam immediately gave police a great opportunity to crack the case. He said patrol quickly worked with detectives searching for clues which helped them to get to East Nashville and close the case within two hours of it being reported as a crime.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Patel was taken to the Sumner County jail and charged with theft over $60,000 and financial exploitation of the elderly.

The person on the phone with the senior is not known at this time.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
FORT LAUDERDALE  A man stood outside the Sunshine Cathedral during a service Sunday morning, burning a piece of cardboard, according to police, then returned later that day to throw eggs at the LGBT church.

Police are investigating both incidents and have not released his identity.

The man first arrived during the 9 a.m. worship service, the church said in a release posted on Facebook Tuesday. He burned debris in what appeared to be some sort of ritual, presumably in opposition to the LGBTQ+ affirming ministry of the Sunshine Cathedral, the release said.

Police and firefighters came to the church in the 1400 block of Southwest Ninth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

The man had set a piece of cardboard on fire outside of the church, said Casey Liening, a spokesperson for Fort Lauderdale Police. She did not say whether the cardboard had any message or symbol attached to it.

There was no damage to the building and no one was injured, Liening said. By the time police arrived, the man had disappeared.

Later that evening, the man returned and threw eggs at the building, Liening said. The incident was reported to police on Tuesday.

We have no idea what sort of pain he is in or what has motivated him to act in such unpleasant ways, the Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Senior Minister of Sunshine Cathedral, said in the release. We can only assume he is experiencing some sort of mental dysfunction and we hope he gets the care he needs.

Fort Lauderdales Threat Management Unit is actively investigating both incidents, the fire as a suspicious incident and the egg-throwing as vandalism, Liening said.

The church said in its release that security cameras had recorded the man both times, and that it shared the footage with police.

The man has been identified, the churchs release said, and will be treated as a trespasser if he returns, while safety protocols are in place.

Related Articles

While he may not recognize our sacred value, we do affirm the divine spark in him; even so, he cant be allowed to harass or threaten our worshiping community, Watkins said. He added, With so much hatred in the world, our message of love is needed as much as ever, and we have every intention of sharing that message with as many people as possible.

The Sunshine Cathedral describes itself as the largest queer church in the world, according to its Instagram page.

It is one of 350 churches in the nations Metropolitan Community Church denomination to serve LGBT parishioners, and one of six in South Florida.

The church often gets hate mail, the release said, and has dealt with bouts of vandalism, protests, cyber bulling, and even anti-LGBTQ+ prayer vigils over the years.

Last year, someone left poster boards with hateful messages in the courtyard, the church said in a previous release, while silent protesters had been coming to pray the rosary against them.

Because there is an increase in hate speech, anti-gay and anti-trans legislative agendas, and attacks on LGBTQ+ venues, we at Sunshine Cathedral are more determined than ever to share a healing, loving, justice-seeking message, the church wrote at the time.   We will simply need to take precautions as we do this important work.

Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.

This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.
STUART  A man convicted of tying up and sexually assaulting an 82-year-old woman inside her Stuart home two years ago will spend 50 years in a Florida prison, a judge ordered Wednesday.

While announcing the sentence, Circuit Judge William Roby called Marvin Ailon-Mendoza, 23, an extreme danger to the community.

He is a predator and a predator on members of the community of extreme danger, Roby ruled during a sentencing hearing.

Ailon-Mendoza, 23, a native of Guatemala who was living in Stuart at the time of the May 12, 2021 incident, was wearing a black hat and black bandana-type mask when he slipped into the womans home as she slept on the couch, she told investigators.

The incident happened at the Hidden Harbour Estates condominium complex south of Stuart. The woman told detectives she awoke to a masked man restraining her and sexually battering her, according to arrest records.

She said her attacker never spoke as he removed her underpants and shorts and sexually assaulted her during the estimated hour he was in her home.

After he left, she called 911.

In court Wednesday, the woman calmy addressed Roby as her family members watched.

The woman said her life has never been the same since being sexually assaulted. She installed an alarm system in her home and checks her locks two or three times a day, she said.

It's just different. You know, I'm trying to live my life, she said. And I have a wonderful family and they're very supportive, but things aren't the same.

Do you live your life in constant fear? Assistant State Attorney Nita Denton asked her.

Marvin Ailon-Mendoza, 23, leaves the courtroom after Circuit Judge William Roby sentenced him to 50 years in state prison related to sexual battery with great force and burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery while masked in the 2021 case of the then 82-year-old Stuart woman, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Martin County Courthouse in Stuart. The incident happened at the Hidden Harbour Estates condominium complex south of Stuart. The woman told detectives she awoke to a masked man restraining her and sexually battering her. She said he was wearing a bandana.

I do. And even with that system, I have chairs under the door, she said. I just hope that he gets punished for what he did to me.

Deputies found Ailon-Mendoza near the woman's home while canvassing the area after she reported the incident. But he gave deputies a fake name, according to court records.

DNA collected from evidence in her home matched that of Ailon-Mendoza, whose DNA was registered in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database. He was taken into custody May 18, 2021 by members of a U.S. Marshal's task force.

Martin County Sheriff William Snyder in May 2021 said federal immigration officials told sheriff's officials three or four years earlier Ailon-Mendoza immigrated from Guatemala as an unaccompanied minor.

Roby ordered Ailon-Mendoza to serve 40 years in prison for one count of sexual battery with great force, followed by 10 years for a count of burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery while masked for a total of 50 years. He also was designated as a sexual offender.

Ailon-Mendoza, who made no remarks in court, was given credit for 863 days hes been at the Martin County Jail.

During an Aug. 3 hearing, Ailon-Mendoza, assisted by an interpreter fluent in the Mayan dialect he speaks, pleaded no contest to the two felony charges.

Circuit Judge William Roby sentenced Marvin Ailon-Mendoza, 23, to 50 years in state prison related to sexual battery with great force and burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery while masked in the 2021 case of the then 82-year-old Stuart woman, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Martin County Courthouse in Stuart. The incident happened at the Hidden Harbour Estates condominium complex south of Stuart. The woman told detectives she awoke to a masked man restraining her and sexually battering her. She said he was wearing a bandana.

Pattern of escalating behavior

On Wednesday, while arguing for a life prison term, prosecutors noted Ailon-Mendoza has a criminal history in Martin County that includes arrests for battery by strangulation, grand theft and lewd and lascivious exhibition.

Every factor of this case cries out for a life sentence. The defendant  has showed a pattern of escalating behavior, said Assistant State Attorney Kristen Chase.

When Ailon-Mendoza was a minor living with his sister, Chase said he tried to strangle her. He then exposed his sexual organs while at a Stuart park.

And now he stands before the court because in the middle of the night, he went into a woman's home  and then raped her, Chase said. He is the reason we all lock our doors at night, that we all check to make sure that were safe. Because he is who is lurking in the shadows, waiting to commit violence on innocent victims.

In advocating for a 20-year prison term, Assistant Public Defender John Hetherington said Ailon-Mendoza suffered a traumatic childhood in Guatemala, that included growing up poor, without a father before he ran away at age 15 and immigrated alone to the United States.

A licensed social worker testified that while Ailon-Mendoza was a minor in custody at a federal immigration facility in Virginia, he reported being suicidal and depressed and was placed on medications after being diagnosed with a mental illness.

Marvin Ailon-Mendoza, 23, has his fingerprints taken after Circuit Judge William Roby sentenced him to 50 years in state prison related to sexual battery with great force and burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery while masked in the 2021 case of the then 82-year-old Stuart woman, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Martin County Courthouse in Stuart. The incident happened at the Hidden Harbour Estates condominium complex south of Stuart. The woman told detectives she awoke to a masked man restraining her and sexually battering her. She said he was wearing a bandana.

Of course, the crime itself was terrible. Nobody's going to try to downplay the significance of that, Hetherington said. But what's the appropriate sentence here?  The things that he went through as a child were traumatic, no doubt about it.

Roby though, said he heard nothing to warrant using the courts discretion to grant a lesser sentence.

After court, Chase said given the overwhelming evidence of his guilt, it was disappointing that Ailon-Mendoza escaped a life prison term.

We had DNA evidence that put him not only at the scene, but then her DNA was found on items in his house that he had used to bind her wrists, Chase said.

Denton too, said the state never extended a plea offer and were ready to take Ailon-Mendoza to trial.

We had spoken to the victim about this, and she was in agreement that she would go to trial, Denton said. This is a case where the defendant deserved a life sentence.

Human remains unearthed: Chastain Beach site where ancient bones found is federally protected

Stricter enforcement working: Vero Beach police address homeless enforcement initiatives

Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Marvin Alion-Mendoza guilty of raping 82-year-old Stuart woman in 2021
Charles Lorraine killed two elderly people back in 1986 before stealing their money and going out to a bar (WFMJ)

A death row inmate who was sentenced back in 1986 for killing an elderly couple died on Sunday before his execution ever took place.

Charles Lorraine, 56, died at the Ohio Corrections Medical Centre at 5pm, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections confirmed on Sunday.

The cause of death has yet to be released.

Lorraine was sentenced to death on 6 May 1986 after he killed Raymond Montgomery, 77, and his 80-year-old wife, Doris Montogomery, who was bedridden at the time. He entered their home on Haymaker Avenue in Warren, Ohio, and fatally stabbed the couple with a butchers knife.

He stabbed Mr Montogomery five times and his wife nine times.

Lorraines execution was rescheduled several times while he was on death row.

He was supposed to be executed on 15 March 2023, but Governor Mike DeWine delayed his execution after the state of Ohio could not obtain any lethal execution drugs.

His last rescheduled date to die was 13 May 2026.

Lorraine, who was only 19 at the time he killed the couple, had a long criminal history and was out on bail at the time for robbery and burglary charges.

Charles Lorraine 19 at the time speaking with his attorney during his double murder trial in 1986 (Tribune Chronicle)

After the fatal stabbings, he met up with friends at a bar in Warren and spent the money he stole from the couple.

He eventually ran out of money, and stole a car from another elderly woman to try and get back to the couples home to steal more cash.

As he was walking from the home, Lorraine came upon a friend  who later became a witness at trial  and told him that he just killed two old f***s, and that he was buying drinks, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who remembers the trial of Mr Lorraine, told Mahoning Matters, a local news outlet.

His friend eventually gave information to the police after the bodies had been discovered. Police interviewed Mr Lorraine, who confessed entirely, saying the drugs made me do it.

At trial, the defence team tried to convince jurors that others were to be blamed for Lorraines brutal, criminal behaviour along with the drugs, Mr Watkins said. However, the jury saw it otherwise  and Lorraine was given the death sentence.

According to Mahoning Matters, Lorraine had filed several appeals to try and get him out of the death penalty, including stating he had a mental illness.

In 2012, a postponement was placed by a federal judge on the executions of three death row inmates, including Lorraine due to the result of a challenge of Ohios death row protocol in the Supreme Court.

Lorraines execution date was eventually rescheduled several more times, yet he the convict died of undisclosed circumstances before he could be given capital punishment.
A man is facing charges after police said he robbed two banks in Allegheny County over the course of about two weeks.

According to the Department of Justice, Dwayne Harvey, 55, formerly from Braddock, is accused of robbing a Huntington Bank in North Versailles of over $4,000 on July 28.

Officials said Harvey also robbed the Citizens Bank in Pittsburghs North Side of over $3,000 on Aug. 8.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE >> Police searching for suspect after North Shore bank robbery

Harvey faces up to 20 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, a term of supervised release up to three years or a combination of the three.

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After his vehicle was hit on a busy Florida bridge, the man driving it stabbed the other driver, law enforcement officials told news outlets.

A 35-year-old man from Tampa was driving across the Howard Frankland Bridge around 9:30 a.m. Sept. 26, the Florida Highway Patrol told Bay News 9.

The man stopped in his lane, slumped over in the drivers seat, cops told the outlet.

A couple also traveling from Tampa passed by the man and saw he was in trouble, troopers told WVTV.

They pulled their car over in front of the stopped man and checked on him, but were unable to get into the car, troopers told the outlet.

Wanting to help, they walked back toward their car to grab an item that could be used to break a window, Florida Highway Patrol told WVTV.

When the couple left, the man woke up inside his vehicle and hit the gas, crashing into the back of the couples car, troopers told WTSP.

The 35-year-old quickly put his car in reverse and tried to drive around the couple and leave the scene, Florida Highway Patrol told the outlet.

As he did so, he crashed into a car driven by a 38-year-old man passing the stopped vehicles, troopers told Bay News 9.

The man, identified by the Florida Highway Patrol as Patrick Douglas Scruggs, got out of his car and smashed the window of the first drivers car, troopers told the outlet.

Scruggs is a former assistant U.S. attorney who spent a decade in the U.S. Attorneys Office in Tampa, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Then Scruggs approached the first driver and began to stab him repeatedly with a pocket knife, troopers told WVTV.

The couple approached Scruggs before he turned his attention toward them and attempted to stab them, troopers told WTSP.

An officer with the St. Petersburg Police Department happened upon the crash and saw the commotion, troopers told Bay News 9.

The officer arrested Scruggs and provided assistance to the stabbed man, officials told WVTV.

The mans injuries were described as serious but not life-threatening by the Florida Highway Patrol, according to WTSP.

In a Facebook post that is no longer public shared by the Tampa Bay Times, a woman driving behind the crash captured a picture of a man holding up a knife as the other drivers bloodied hands stuck out the car window.

I saw him holding the knife and I saw the arms of the guy sticking out the window like he was pleading for help, she said in the post shared by the Times.

Scruggs was charged with aggravated battery, aggravated assault and armed burglary, and was released from the Pinellas County Jail on a $65,000 bond on Sept. 26, the Times reported.

A defense attorney for Scruggs has not yet been listed, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Scruggs profile and contact information have been removed from the website of the firm where he was most recently employed.

Scruggs was hired by the U.S. Attorneys Office in Tampa in 2013, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Scruggs received his Juris Doctor degree from Boston College Law School and formerly worked in the Prescription Drug Investigation Unit of the New York County District Attorneys Office in New York City, according to the release.

He worked with the Tampa office until April 2023 when he left to join a law firm in Atlanta, according to his LinkedIn page.

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Manatee Countys top executive accused two commissioners of a Florida Sunshine Law violation earlier this year before deciding to resign from his post.

Public records show that Lee Washington, the countys former acting county administrator, submitted a detailed letter alleging that Commissioners Vanessa Baugh and Mike Rahn communicated with one another about a county matter outside of a public meeting. He also accused the commissioners of pressuring him to hire an advocate for the local building industry.

...I was subject to violations of Floridas Sunshine laws, ethics, gross mismanagement and mismanagement malfeasance related to county meetings held to conduct county business, while not being publicly noticed or minutes captured, Washington wrote in a June 15 letter to County Attorney Bill Clague.

Washington resigned from Manatee County Government in August, citing personal reasons for his departure, the county said in a press release.

During a recent podcast interview with other former Manatee County Government officials, Washington recounted his six months as the acting county administrator and offered advice to his replacement.

There will be challenges when it comes to the administrator philosophy, project timeliness, ethics and even times of integrity, Washington said.

In a Tuesday afternoon text message to the Bradenton Herald, Washington declined to comment on his letter.

Before being selected to lead Manatee Countys daily operations, Washington served as the director of the governments Community and Veterans Services Department. Washington first joined the county in 2009.

Was lunch meeting a Sunshine violation?

Jon Mast, the CEO of the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association, Rahn and Baugh are at the center of Washingtons complaint. He alleged that they all met in early March for lunch to discuss hiring Mast as a deputy county administrator.

In an interview with the Bradenton Herald, Rahn confirmed that he invited Mast and Washington to meet with him at Obricks in downtown Bradenton. Shortly after the meeting began, he said Baugh, whom he had not invited, sat at their table and ordered food.

Jon Mast, CEO of the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association, sits in the audience during the Board of Commissioners meeting on April 25, 2023.

Baugh, who resigned from public office in June, did not respond to the Bradenton Heralds request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Rahn said he arranged the meeting to introduce Mast and Washington, arguing that Mast would be a strong addition to the countys administrative ranks. During the lunch conversation, Rahn said he sat back and listened while Baugh, Washington and Mast spoke about the job.

According to Florida Statutes, a Sunshine violation occurs anytime two or more elected officials of the same board gather to discuss official business without proper notice of a public meeting. A violation is punishable by a $500 fine or up to 60 days in jail.

Members of a public board are not prohibited under the Sunshine law from meeting together socially, provided that matters which may come before the board are not discussed at such gatherings, the Florida Attorney Generals website says.

While commissioners are not involved in the process of hiring deputy county administrators, the board does vote to confirm an employees appointment. Last month, the board voted to appoint Bryan Parnell as a deputy county administrator.

Commissioners pushed to replace Washington

Washington said he felt uncomfortable with Baugh and Rahn inserting themselves in the process of selecting a deputy county administrator. He said both commissioners asked to review the applications and resumes while the job posting was posted.

According to Washingtons letter, he resisted the suggestion to hire Mast and chose to close the deputy county administrator job posting without hiring any candidate in early April.

Commissioner Mike Rahn, showing in this April 25, 2023, Bradenton Herald file photo, has been accused of a Florida Sunshine Law violation by former Acting County Administrator Lee Washington.

Later that month, Baugh and Rahn voted in favor of an effort to remove Washington as interim administrator and hire Mast instead. At the time, Rahn did not explain why Mast would be the best person for the job, but he found support from his fellow commissioners, including Baugh.

Baughs husband is on the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Associations board of directors. Rahn is listed on the organizations website as a life director.

The attempt fell apart when other board members questioned the proposed $225,000 salary for Mast, which would have been the highest ever for a county administrator.

Mast did not respond to the Bradenton Heralds request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Rahn has denied any wrongdoing and argued that Washingtons complaint is aimed at Baugh.

I never pressured anybody to do anything, Rahn said.

According to Washingtons letter, the former commissioner told him that someone would make a motion to relieve him from his job. Rahn made that motion a week later, Washington said.

A whistleblower complaint

Speaking during Tuesdays public meeting, Martin Hyde, a conservative who ran an unsuccessful campaign against U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, last year, called on Rahn to resign from office.

We now know that a whistleblower complaint alleges a meeting took place between then-Commissioner Baugh, current Commissioner Rahn and then-Administrator Washington, Hyde said. A more egregious backroom, smoky room deal, one couldnt possibly imagine. Such a meeting, if it took place, would be illegal.

Former Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, shown in this September 2021 Bradenton Herald file photo, has been accused of a Florida Sunshine Law violation by former Acting County Administrator Lee Washington.

In response, Rahn said the county attorney and his own personal attorney have reviewed Washingtons letter and determined that a Sunshine violation did not take place.

Theres no violation of the Sunshine. There was a lunch. The other commissioner was uninvited. They showed up, Rahn told Hyde. If you feel theres a claim, the state attorney is on the sixth floor. Youre welcome to see him.

When Washington resigned from county government, he also retracted his complaint. In an Aug. 3 letter, he wrote that he stands by his reporting of events but understands that individuals other than me may have different interpretations and intentions regarding what was said.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday broke with a number of his Democratic colleagues and declined to call on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to step down following his federal indictment on bribery and corruption charges.

This is between the people of New Jersey and Sen. Bob Menendez, Manchin said on Tuesday.

When pressed on whether Menendez should step down, Manchin repeated, thats between them.

His sentiment represents a modest departure from a growing number of Democrats who have called for Menendez to resign following the indictment.

As of Tuesday evening, nearly two dozen Democratic senators have called for Menendezs resignation. Notably, that list included Menendezs junior senator from New Jersey and close ally, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and chief of Senate Democrats campaign arm, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

Some Republicans in the Senate have struck a different note. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) both described the charges as serious but expressed a similar sentiment as Manchins, saying the decision should be left to a jury or to voters of New Jersey.

Menendez is facing allegations that he accepted bribes, including in cash, gold bars and a luxury car, in exchange for using his influence as a senator and Senate Foreign Relations chairman to benefit New Jersey businessmen and the government of Egypt.

Menendez has stepped down as chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in keeping with Senate Democrats protocol that dictates senators under indictment must step down from committee chair posts. But he has continued to resist calls for him to resign from his colleagues, maintaining that he is innocent.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Comments are taken directly from the latest Thurston County inspection reports, which are available for each food establishment, at the Thurston County Environmental Health Office and their website. For questions concerning these reports, contact the health office at 360-867-2667.

Report restaurant, grocery store, deli or bakery complaints online via the complaint form here: https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/phss/Pages/eh-problem.aspx.

Reading inspection scores:

Attention should be given to the type of violation (red versus blue) and whether the establishment has a history of red violations or repeat violations.

Red violations are those most likely to cause food-borne illness and must be corrected immediately if feasible or according to a compliance schedule established by the health officer. Example: not keeping food at the right temperature.

Blue violations relate to the overall cleanliness and condition of operation and must be corrected according to a compliance schedule established by the health officer. Example: a worn floor that needs replacing.

If red points exceed 45, the county will require a reinspection within 10 business days.

If red points exceed 100 and theres a lack of managerial control, the county will shut down the establishment for at least 72 hours. The establishment may reopen after management and employees complete retraining and demonstrate corrective action during a reinspection.

Some common abbreviations: PHF/TCS is potentially hazardous food/time control for safety; RTE is ready to eat; PIC is person in charge; FWC is food worker card; CDI is corrected during inspection.

Don Juans Mexican Kitchen

639 Lincoln Ave. East, Tenino

Sept. 18: 85 red points; 18 blue points.

Comments:

The food establishment had at least one red, high risk factor violation during the inspection. The person-in-charge was deemed to not be actively managing risk factors.

A food worker did not wash their hands after entering the kitchen. They also began washing their hands in the prep sink rather than a handwashing sink.

The handwashing sink was blocked by utensils and dish scrubber.

In a two-door cooler, raw eggs were stored above tomatoes and salsa, which risked contamination.

Workers placed chile verde in a two-door cooler, but in greater than 2-inch amount.

TCS items in a prep cooler were 42-51 degrees.

A probe type food monitor was not being used to monitor TCS foods.

A residential, dorm-style cold hold unit was being used rather than commercial equipment.

TCS foods were not properly thawed. The inspector noted that room temperature thawing is not permitted.

Ready-to-eat tomatoes were stored in their original box after being rinsed and sliced. To prevent contamination, such tomatoes must be stored in clean containers.

No sanitizer solution was set up when the inspector arrived.

New Gangnam BBQ II

7131 Martin Way East, Olympia

Sept. 14: 70 red points; 13 blue points.

Comments:

The person-in-charge did not provide proof of attending approved food safety training programs as required. Multiple food workers had unacceptable, expired, invalid or missing food worker cards.

A worker did not wash their hands before putting gloves on and starting to prepare food.

The handwash sink was blocked by a strainer and lacked soap.

Lettuce and scallops in a prep cooler were over 50 degrees rather than at or below 41 degrees.

A probe-type food thermometer was not available.

Toxic substances and employee medications were not properly labeled, used or stored.

Mold residue was observed in the ice machine.

No sanitizer solution was set up upon the inspectors arrival.

Workers were eating in the food preparation area, which risks contamination.

Log Cabin Bar and Grill

7035 Pacific Ave. Southeast, Olympia

Sept. 14: 60 red points; 7 blue points.

Comments:

A food worker did not wash their hands for at least 20 seconds before starting to prepare food.

Handwashing facilities were not sufficiently stocked or working properly.

Baked potatoes and pasta noodles were being improperly cooled in a two-door reach in cold hold.

The facility lacked a sanitizer solution set-up upon the inspectors arrival.

The lighting in the kitchen was not sufficiently bright.

Andys Bistro

4410 6th Ave. Southeast, Lacey

Sept. 15: 45 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

An employee used their bare hands to touch bean sprouts that were not going to be cooked.

Bean sprouts and meat were 48-49 degrees. TCS foods must be kept at or below 41 degrees.

The facility cooled hard boiled eggs and pho broth properly, but their current permit does not allow for this cooling to occur.

Safeway #1977

6200 Pacific Ave. Southeast, Lacey

Food Service Establishment

Sept. 14: 40 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

A worker washed their hands for less than 20 seconds.

TCS foods in open display units on the floor were above 41 degrees. TCS foods must be at or below 41 degrees.

Workers did not use thermometers to evaluate internal food temperatures of displayed foods.

Produce Cutting Area

Sept. 14: 10 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

TCS foods in open display cases not maintained at or below 41 degrees.

Ram Restaurant and Brewery

8100 Freedom Lane Northeast, Lacey

Sept. 14: 35 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

A food worker removed their gloves and rinsed their hands without soap in a prep sink and then donned gloves.

Coleslaw, deli meat and sliced cheese was measured between 45-55 degrees in a prep cold hold unit. TCS foods must be 41 degrees or less.

OBlarneys Irish Pub

4411 Martin Way East, Olympia

Sept. 14: 15 red points; 10 blue points.

Comments:

Food worker cards were not available when requested.

Parmesan cheese in the top of a cold hold unit was between 50-55 degrees rather than at or below 41 degrees.

The in-use sanitizer solution was not strong enough.

The warewash sanitizer solution was not strong enough.

Subway

4820 Yelm Highway Southeast, Lacey

Sept. 15: 10 red points; 5 blue points.

Comments:

Deli meats and cheese in a prep cold hold unit were 41-45 degrees. TCS foods must be kept at or below 41 degrees.

An in-use sanitizer solution was not strong enough.

Island Market

3403 Steamboat Island Road Northwest, Olympia

Food service establishment (Deli)

Sept. 18: 0 red points; 15 blue points.

Comments:

Some food items were stored less than six inches off the ground.

Wiping cloths were not properly stored in sanitizer buckets.

The mop sink was leaking.

Food Service Establishment (Grocery)

Sept. 18: 15 red points; 0 blue points.

Raw eggs were stored below pork in an open-air meat cold hold. Foods must be stored with the highest cooking temperature items on the bottom.

Ambient temperatures of the cold hold with TCS juice was at 44.7 degrees rather than at or below 41 degrees.

St. Martins Harned Hall Espresso

5300 Pacific Ave. Southeast, Lacey

Sept. 15: 10 red points; 3 blue points.

Comments:

Chemical sanitizer solution exceeded allowable concentration.

Stir spoons were stored room temperature water. Such utensils should be stored in in ice water at or below 41 degrees or in hot water above 135 degrees. In the food product with handles above the food. If stored on a clean contact surface, utensils must be changed every four hours.

Dairy Queen

611 Lilly Road Southeast, Olympia

Sept. 15: 10 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

TCS food items in a cooler were between 43-48 degrees.

Puget Sound Taps

4250 Martin Way East, Olympia

Sept. 15: 5 red points; 0 blue points.

Comments:

One worker had an unacceptable, expired, invalid or missing food worker card.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher George Kirby throws to a Houston Astros batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SEATTLE (AP)  Seattle pitcher George Kirby could crack a joke about what happened afterward. In the moment, it was just confusion.

There was an unexpected moment of anxiousness for Kirby and the Mariners in the sixth inning of their 6-2 win over the Houston Astros on Tuesday night after a foul ball hit into the stands behind the third base dugout was thrown back by a fan and grazed the pitcher.

Kirby was looking toward home plate and asking for a new ball from home plate umpire David Rackley when the ball came over the protective netting and brushed the front of his jersey in his midsection.

It surprised the hell out of me. I thought it was the umpire because I had my hand up, asked for the ball. Thought he had threw it," Kirby said. "I mean, it was an impressive throw. I'll give him that. But, you know, what the heck?"

Seattle manager Scott Servais only saw it out of the corner of his eye and was instantly confused about what had taken place. The ball rolled over to first baseman Ty France , who threw it out of play.

Ive never seen it before and certainly in our home park, Servais said.

The fan, who was wearing a Mariners jersey, was quickly identified by stadium officials and escorted out. Servais said the information relayed to him was because it was a foul ball hit by an Astros player, the fan thought he should throw it back toward the field.

The fact that he threw it at our starting pitcher in maybe the most critical game of the year  interesting. But you know, never a dull moment around the Mariners, Servais said.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
As the semiconductor industry experiences significant growth in Ohio, Marion Technical College unveiled new programs and career pathways designed to fast-track workers needed for the industry.

Intel will be hiring and we are working to make sure they have the skilled workforce ready to go. We want local students to be ready to enter these well-paying, in-demand jobs, said Dr. Ryan McCall, president of Marion Technical College.

Courses available to Marion Tech students range from rapid micro-certificates to noncredit offerings to engineering certificates and degrees. A one-year semiconductor manufacturing certificate and degree are also in development.

Intel is expected to hire 3,000 workers for the factories in central Ohio, including more than 2,000 technicians, more than 700 engineers, and up to 150 support workers. Hundreds of additional jobs are expected to come online as regional semiconductor suppliers ramp up hiring.

Dr. Ryan McCall, president of Marion Technical College

Community colleges are at the forefront for technical certificates and degrees

Community colleges are at the forefront of the push for new technical certificates and degrees needed to provide the semiconductor sector with workplace-ready employees, said Jack Hershey, president and CEO of the Ohio Association of Community Colleges. Were proud to have met the challenge in such a short period of time to create the educational content for workers for Intel hiring to begin.

Included among the collaboration networks goals for hiring are attracting women, underrepresented minorities, veterans, and military families to jobs in the semiconductor field. Special educational grants are available to help adults enter these fields, including some exclusively for adults who have been in the foster care system. Applications and details are available on mtc.edu.

Marion Tech to be one of the first to offer classes for semiconductor industry

Marion Tech is among the first community colleges to offer these classes. Courses for the degree programs were developed by the Ohio Association of Community Colleges Semiconductor Collaboration Network thanks to a grant from Intel to create a jobs pipeline for the semiconductor industry and the ecosystem that surrounds the industry. These initiatives are aimed at equipping Ohioans with the essential skills and knowledge required to help prepare individuals for diverse roles within the semiconductor industry.

Dr. Elizabeth Azhikannickal, director of engineering technologies, and Dr. Feng Hua, associate professor of engineering, in an engineering lab.

Intel charged the collaboration network in September 2022 with adding semiconductor-specific courses and equipment to existing engineering technology and advanced manufacturing programs; addressing the demands of the semiconductor industry; and helping to ensure a prosperous future for the state's workforce in the broader field of advanced technology and innovation.

To meet the challenge, the collaboration network tapped a statewide team of community college faculty experts to develop the course curriculums including Dr. Feng Hua, associate professor of engineering technologies, at Marion Technical College. The resulting blueprint for semiconductor industry education will be provided at no cost to local technical centers, career centers and school districts, allowing them to offer and align the courses with their College Credit Plus classes.

Courses available

Students entering Marion Tech can earn micro-credentials and one-year certificates for becoming an entry-level technician. Those looking to become midlevel technicians will need an associates degree. Marion Tech has multiple transfer partners for those looking to earn a bachelors degree.

Courses available for credential seekers specific to the semiconductor industry include Intro to Vacuum Systems and Semiconductor 101. The committee responsible for creating the new curriculum also updated an existing Intro to Manufacturing that is available for all community colleges.

Marion Tech is also pursuing funding to purchase trainers to support the new "Intro to Vacuum Systems" course, provided by Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and the Office of Workforce Transformation, The Ohio Department of Higher Education and The Ohio Association of Community Colleges.

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion Technical College offering semiconductor industry training
Martin Scorsese has said he resisted demands to make a change to The Departed that would have ruined the entire film.

The 80-year-old filmmaker reflected on his six-decade career in a new interview conducted ahead of the release of his next feature, the David Grann adaptation Killers of the Flower Moon.

As well as sharing the revelation that he seems to dislike one of his many Leonardo DiCaprio collaborations, Scorsese also revealed how he faced studio pressure to change the ending of the film that finally landed him Oscar success.

The Departed, starring Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, is a Hollywood remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. Written by William Monahan, the cat-and-mouse thriller follows a mobster who is planted as a spy within the Boston police, while an undercover officer is tasked with infiltrating the spys mob crew.

During the film, both the spy and undercover office become aware of each others existence, and repeatedly attempt to escape identification despite many close shaves.

*Spoilers follow  you have been warned*

The film ends in disaster when the net closes in and, just like the story plays out in the original, both characters are killed off in shocking scenes that are among the films most memorable.

Speaking to GQ, Scorsese recalled a test screening of the film receiving an impressive response from the audience, who the outlet notes walked out ecstatic.

However, according to the filmmaker, the studio guys walked out and they were very sad, because they just didnt want that movie. Its purported that studio bosses wanted both characters to live so they could turned the film into a franchise.

Scorsese refused to give in, which led to him cutting ties with EWarner Bros.

He said: What they wanted was a franchise. It wasnt about a moral issue of a person living or dying. Which means: I cant work here anymore.

Interestingly, Infernal Affairs spawned two follow-ups, the first of which was a prequel. The third film in the series is both a prequel and a sequel, intercutting events before and after the events seen in the first film.

Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon in The Departed (Warner Bros Pictures)

The Departed also stars Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg; Wahlberg won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. The film also won Scorsese Best Director, which was his first win after six nominations.

Hes been nominated a further three times, for Hugo (2011), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and The Irishman (2019), and is widely expected to receive his 10th nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Killers of the Flower Moon documents the string of murders that plagued the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was found on their land. The case was deemed the FBIs first homicide investigation.

The Independents film critic Clarisse Loughrey, in her five-star review, said the film carries Scorseses tradition fixations: the rotted core of mans heart; how power breeds the impulse for destruction; the myths of cowboys and outlaws and the dirty truth to them.

Killers of the Flower Moon will be the 80-year-old filmmakers first film since The Irishman, which was released in 2019. Its set to be released theatrically on 20 October ahead of its premiere on Apple TV+.
Martin Scorsese has revealed he regrets one of his many collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio in a thoughtful interview reflecting on his six-decade career.

The legendary filmmaker, 80, who has directed DiCaprio eight times, including in his most recent drama, Killers of the Flower Moon, admitted that in recent years, he has soured on one particular release.

Speaking with GQ, Scorsese looked back on the psychological thriller Shutter Island, and suggested he should not have agreed to direct it.

According to the director, he made the decision in the wake of his long-awaited Oscars success.

Riding high after winning his first Best Director trophy for the 2006 crime drama The Departed, Scorsese felt encouraged to take on Shutter Island  but, in hindsight, wishes he had attached himself to a different project instead.

He told the outlet that winning the Oscar encouraged me to make another picture with Shutter Island, but it turned out I should have gone on probably to do Silence.

Silence was Scorseses passion project, starring Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield, that he made in 2016. An adaptation of ShAsaku EndAs novel of the same name, the film follows two Jesuit priests as they travel to Japan on a mission to locate their mentor.

Shutter Island, based on Dennis Lehanes novel of the same name, received generally positive reviews upon its release in 2011, and was even chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top 10 films of the year.

However, in recent years, it appears to be increasingly considered a lesser work of the directors when compared with his more critically acclaimed works, including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and The Age of Innocence (1993).

Its also the filmmakers only narrative feature film, released in the last two decades, to have received zero Oscar nominations.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio on the set of Shutter Island (Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock)

Its unclear whether Scorseses comments were also alluding to the two films he made before 2016s Silence  Hugo (2011) and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Elsewhere in the new interview, Scorsese also addressed several of his other collaborations with DiCaprio, the first of which arrived in 2002 with Gangs of New York  a shoot the director says he struggled with due to the interventions of producer Harvey Weinstein.

In the interview, Scorsese said Weinsteins meddling, which saw him make demands over the films budget and runtime, made him realise that I couldnt work if I had to make films that way ever again.

He added: If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then Id have to stop. Because the results werent satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldnt survive it. Id be dead. And so I decided it.

However, Scorsese was lured back by The Aviator (2004), his second collaboration with DiCaprio, in which he was forced to work with Weinstein again. The director said the shoot went well until the final few weeks of the edit when Weinsteins company at the time, Miramax, came in and did some things that I felt were extremely mean.

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorseses new film Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple TV+)

Scorsese suggests in the interview that, despite struggles on both Gangs of New York and The Aviator, he is happy with the result of both films. But he did reveal that he resisted studio demands to completely change the ending of The Departed.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an adaptation of David Granns non-fiction book documenting the string of murders that plagued the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was found on their land. The case was deemed the FBIs first homicide investigation.

The Independents film critic Clarisse Loughrey, in her five-star review, said the film carries Scorseses tradition fixations: the rotted core of mans heart; how power breeds the impulse for destruction; the myths of cowboys and outlaws and the dirty truth to them.

Killers of the Flower Moon will be the 80-year-old filmmakers first film since The Irishman, which was released in 2019. Its set to be released theatrically on 20 October ahead of its premiere on Apple TV+.
The Mass General Cancer Center has received the largest gift in its 34-year history, but hospital officials would not disclose the donation amount on Wednesday.

The historic donation from philanthropists Jason and Keely Krantz will power the future of cancer research, the hospital announced Wednesday.

Boston 25 News reached out to Massachusetts General Hospital for the donation amount, however a hospital spokesperson said the hospital was not disclosing the figure.

In honor of the Krantzs landmark contribution, the centers research division will now be known as the Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, the hospital said.

The Krantz family has provided the largest cancer research-directed gift in the hospitals history, which includes annual funding for innovative and collaborative research projects, advanced technologies to support lab research and an endowment to ensure sustainability, the hospital said.

Cancer research is at a crossroads, Jason Krantz, founder and executive chairman of Definitive Healthcare, said in a statement. Weve seen incredible progress in the last decade, and yet cures for many forms of the disease remain out of reach. Were excited to give Mass General Cancer Center researchers the support they need to close that gap. Keely and I believe that by making this investment, we can enable a monumental change in how cancer is diagnosed and treated for patients everywhere.

This gift from the Krantz family is pivotal for the future of cancer research, Dr. David F. M. Brown, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a statement. It is both a powerful recognition of the work that Mass General Cancer Center researchers have accomplished to date, and a critical boost for all the research that is still to come  the knowledge and solutions that we have sought for decades.

The Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research is home to 50 individual Mass General faculty members, appointed in multiple departments of Harvard Medical School, whose lab research spans fundamental cancer genomics, proteomics and cell biology, to molecular diagnostics, drug discovery and cellular immune therapies. Researchers have an international reputation for scientific excellence, particularly for the partnership between basic research and patient care.

As part of this historic gift, a new series of competitive awards will be available annually for Krantz Center researchers.

The awards will be distributed in three tiers: Quantum Awards, with up to $2 million given to research with the potential to transform overall understanding and treatment of cancer; Breakthrough Awards, with up to $1 million, given to projects that accelerate the most promising scientific concepts; and Spark Awards, $100,000, to test exciting new thought-provoking ideas. Awardees will be determined through a rigorous selection process with internal and external scientific review.

Basic science is particularly exciting at a hospital like Mass General because our faculty are oriented toward clinically relevant questions and have unique access to patients to iterate more quickly on ideas. This means that the time from discovery to an approved therapy can be dramatically shorted, Dr. Daniel Haber, director of Mass General Cancer Center and of the Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, said in a statement. The Krantzes generosity and partnership will enable us to accelerate this process even further giving our faculty the funding they need to pursue the most cutting-edge research.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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A proposal to develop 262 acres on the edge of the Shingle Creek floodplain is drawing concerns from nearby property owners and environmental activists worried about potential flooding.

National development group Kimley-Horns latest plan for Orange County, named Tuscana PD, calls for 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, 5,300 multifamily units and 2,790 hotel rooms on a road that would snake into undeveloped forest and wetlands.

The project would be a major economic driver in a relatively undeveloped part of the metro area, and its location down the street from SeaWorld would open up the potential for workers to live close to their place of employment.

Read: Residents concerned as Osceola County greenlights phase one of new developments

The sheer number of units would also go a long way toward easing the regions housing crisis, where multifamily units like apartments and condos are in high demand but in short supply.

However, activists are raising concerns that the destruction of undeveloped land near the headwaters of Shingle Creek would lead to additional flooding downstream. When Hurricane Ian struck last year, water from Orange County washed into Osceola County, flooding many of the communities along the river.

Read: Developer lines up next phase of massive I-Drive apartment complex

Its just so critical to our survival to protect our wetlands, one woman said during a community meeting Monday night. Were completely planning on wreaking havoc on our waterways for profit.

Developers attempted to address those concerns by speaking about soil testing, flood plain mapping and referencing the law that requires developments to release no more than the same amount of runoff as the undeveloped land.

Read: $500K grant to fund redevelopment in west Orlando neighborhoods

Tuscana PDs plans call for numerous retention ponds around nearly all of its buildings.

Orange County Commissioner Nicole Wilson was present at the discussion and said at such an early stage, she was gathering feedback to address with developers once the proposal reached her desk.

Any development plan in this Shingle Creek area, knowing that that is the headwaters of our Everglades, its going to take a little more scrutiny, she explained. Were going to make sure that were doing everything we can to protect our residents here.

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Florida Rep Matt Gaetz asked for his pay to be withheld if a government shutdown occurs at the end of the month  in an effort to seemingly make the public forget that he is spearheading the opposition to measures that would prevent such an outcome.

Mr Gaetz wrote a letter to the Houses chief administrative officer, which he broadcasted on X. He wrote, It is my understanding that pursuant to the Constitution, members of Congress will continue to receive their pay during a lapse in appropriations.

The Florida Republican continued, Therefore, I am requesting that in the case of a lapse of appropriations beginning at 12:00 a.m. on October 1, 2023, my pay be withheld until legislation has taken effect to end such lapse in appropriations in its entirety.

Despite his sacrificial signaling, Mr Gaetz is one of a host of House Republicans who has vocally opposed any short-term measures to avoid a shutdown.

He recently said on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures: If the Department of Labor and Education have to shut down for a few days as we get these appropriations in line, that is certainly something that is not optimal, but I think it is better than continuing on the current path we are to Americas financial ruin.

Im not pro-shutdown, Mr Gaetz added, and instead expressed wanting to pass separate single-subject spending bills.

So Im not here to hold the government hostage, he said. Im here to hold Kevin McCarthy to his word.

In the event of a government shutdown on October 1st, I have asked the Chief Administrative Officer of the House to withhold my pay until legislation has taken effect to end the lapse in appropriations. https://t.co/vgnQfEeaR2 https://t.co/c5YyAcS0BG pic.twitter.com/MqwMSn4XHf  Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 26, 2023

The Florida Republican has even threatened to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post  and a draft of a motion to vacate was found in a mens restroom in the Capitol.

McCarthy needs votes from Mr Gaetz and his other Republican detractors to avoid a shutdown.

Mr Gaetz said last week, according to the New York Times, that he had seven members who would oppose plans to advance a stopgap measure: Theyre immovable.

The House GOP is now facing heat from President Joe Biden, who posted a video on X, saying: We could be facing a government shutdown if Republicans in the House dont do their job. And theres no reason for us to be in this position.

The president added that there is a small group of extreme House Republicans who are determined to shut down the government.

He continued, House Republicans refuse to stand up to the extremists in their party  and everyone in America could be forced to pay the price.

Despite opposition to short-term funding bills, Mr McCarthy said on Tuesday that he planned to bring a continuing resolution to the floor probably on Friday.

The Senate introduced its own version of a short-term spending measure on Tuesday, which the House Speaker criticised for including aid to Ukraine. Theyre picking Ukraine over Americans, he said.

Still, the 30 September deadline looms.
The 1975 will go on an indefinite hiatus after their ongoing Still At Their Very Best tour ends, frontman Matty Healy told concertgoers on Tuesday (26 September).

The British bands world tour, which has seen them banned from Malaysia, is currently scheduled to conclude in late March 2024 in Amsterdam.

The group was performing at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California, on Tuesday night when Healy, 34, made the announcement towards the end of their set, according to NME.

Its wonderful youre all here, he tells the crowd in footage shared on X/Twitter. After this tour, we will be going on an indefinite hiatus with shows, so its wonderful to have you guys with us tonight. Thank you so much.

The crowd can be heard booing in response.

The Independent has contacted The 1975s representatives for comment.

Last month, Healys band was ordered to pay 2m in damages for allegedly breaking contract terms during their controversial show in Malaysia.

They will be going on a hiatus after this tour



pic.twitter.com/lS1MXo6KeW  The 1975 News (@the1975_mfc) September 27, 2023

The 1975s July performance at Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur was cut short when frontman Matt Healy kissed bassist Ross MacDonald while criticising the countrys anti-LGBT+ laws, under which homosexual acts are illegal.

I dont see the f***ing point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with. Unfortunately, you dont get a set of loads of uplifting songs because Im f***ing furious, Healy told the crowd.

And thats not fair on you, because youre not representative of your government. Because youre young people, and Im sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool, he added.

The festival was then called off entirely by Malaysias government due to its unwavering stance against any parties that challenge, ridicule or contravene Malaysian laws. Malaysias government called the band extremely rude, adding that they would not be permitted to perform in the country again.

Future Sounds Asia (FSA), organisers of the festival, alleged that the band had given a pre-show written assurance that they would adhere to all local guidelines and regulations and should acknowledge their liability and compensate FSA for damages incurred.

A source close to the band told The Independent: Matty has a long-time record of advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and the band wanted to stand up for their LGBTQ+ fans and community.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is going all-in on border issues as he takes a second shot this week at passing a GOP-only short-term funding bill that would pair an extension of government funding with a swath of border policy changes.

McCarthy is racing against a competing continuing resolution (CR) unveiled in the Senate on Tuesday and a Saturday government shutdown deadline.

In trying to coalesce is fractious conference around a stopgap funding proposal of his own, the Speaker is aiming to reframe the funding battle as a choice for President Biden  and his hard-line opponents as siding with the president on border issues.

The president could keep government open by doing something on the border, McCarthy said Tuesday.

McCarthy said he would try to put the GOP CR proposal on the floor probably Friday  which would leave just a day for negotiation with the Senate and White House before the shutdown deadline.

The Speaker also said he would put the bill on the floor no matter where the vote count is  an acknowledgement of the challenge he faces wrangling his conference on a stopgap. A handful of holdouts forced leaders to pull a similar proposal last week, and several of them insist they will never vote for a CR to keep the government open.

It doesnt matter what you attach to it. A CR is, in my very definition, a continuation of Nancy Pelosi spending, and its Joe Bidens policies, said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.). I voted against these things for two years. So Im not going to now turn around and vote for a continuation of those.

McCarthy, though, is taking a stronger tone against those holdouts as he aims for a second shot at a GOP-only CR.

If they want to stand with the president by keeping the border open, I think thatd be a wrong position, McCarthy said.

Republican disagreement over how to approach the government shutdown had sent the House GOP into chaos last week, as rebels insisted that Republicans should focus on full-year appropriations bills first. After hard-liners sunk two procedural votes last week, the House voted to advance four appropriations bills Tuesday, a move that McCarthy allies hoped would build goodwill with the stopgap holdouts.

McCarthy said he would bring up the GOP-only short-term funding bill regardless of whether those four appropriations bills passed this week.

Leaders have not yet revealed new bill text for the proposal, but McCarthy indicated it would be a proposal that the conference discussed last week, attaching the bulk of the House Republicans H.R. 2 border crackdown bill that passed earlier this year.

That bill includes numerous Trump-era policies such as requiring authorities to detain all migrants or return them to Mexico or their home country, and restarting construction of the border wall. But the stopgap would nix mandating that employers use E-Verify, a system used to check whether someone is authorized to work in the U.S.  which some moderate Republicans opposed.

McCarthy stressed that Republicans are focusing on policies at the border rather than funding.

The border doesnt need more money to be solved. It needs a policy change that the president put in when he became president. You have the materials to finish the wall now. Hes paying money to make sure the wall doesnt get built, McCarthy said.

In addition to the border measures, McCarthy said the bill would also cut discretionary funding for duration of a CR to a top-line spending level of $1.471 trillion  the number from the House GOPs Limit, Save, Grow partisan debt limit bill from earlier this year that was consistent with fiscal 2022 levels. Republicans in a conference meeting last week also discussed creating a commission to examine the national debt.

The length of a stopgap could also change compared to the month-long measure that leaders were forced to pull from the House floor last week. McCarthy said he is looking at extending government funding from 30-45 days.

Turmoil over how to approach government funding has roiled the GOP.

But Republican lawmakers have been united in their desire to play hardball on the border  and the plan to do so has been in the works for months.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a key McCarthy ally, said that the idea to pair border policy measures with a CR to fund the government was first floated by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, earlier this year during a GOP leadership retreat.

Jordan laid out Tuesday what he saw as the most important concession on border issues.

Whatever bill we wind up funding the government for should say no money can be used to process or release any new migrants into the country. That is essential, Jordan said. And then any other elements of H.R. 2 we can get in there, great, Im all for that too. But thats the essential part.

Border policy changes have also been a longtime ask for many hard-line conservatives. The House Freedom Caucus in August said it would not accept a stopgap that does not include policy changes relating to the border. Also in August, a group of 15 Texas Republicans led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said they would not fund the Department of Homeland Security without forcing the significant change necessary to secure the southern border.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a key McCarthy ally, said last week that he would support shutting down the government if the Biden administration is not willing to make border policy changes after the House GOP passes its planned CR  even as he warned about the consequences of a shutdown.

Asked Tuesday if he would be willing to shut down the government over the border, McCarthy said: Lets be very clear, it would not be on us.

The Speaker downplayed the prospect of the Democratic-controlled Senate automatically rejecting a GOP bill.

Why would it be dead on arrival? McCarthy said. He repeatedly pointed to recent concerns voiced by New York City Mayor Adams (D) and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) about how the migrant crisis has affected their city and state.

Its interesting, McCarthy told reporters later in the day. Leader Schumer comes from New York. His governor is crying out, his mayor is crying out. Well, shouldnt he listen to them too? I think that would be important.

The Senate, meanwhile, advanced the legislative vehicle for its own CR, which it unveiled Tuesday. The stopgap proposal would extend funding until Nov. 17 at current levels, and it includes roughly $6.15 billion in aid for Ukraine and $5.99 billion in disaster assistance. Additionally, the measure would temporarily extend the expiring authority of the Federal Aviation Administration.

But McCarthy refused to comment about how he would respond to the Senates CR.

Its always a hypothetical that the Senate is going to do something, McCarthy said. Im not going to take up hypotheticals.

Graves last week pointed to the threat of a Senate CR, and moderate Republicans working with Democrats to avert a shutdown, as a reason why Republicans should band together to pass a GOP CR with border measures.

The alternative is you move forward, you dont pass a CR, you let government shut down, the Senate sends something over here that, ultimately, you have Democrats and some moderate Republicans  except youve lost your conservative opportunity, Graves said. Why in the world would you cede this to Chuck Schumer, would you cede this to Joe Biden?

Mychael Schnell and Aris Folley contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that it would be very important to meet with President Biden amid discussions over averting a government shutdown and addressing the situation at the southern border.

I think it would be very important to have a meeting with the president, McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol.

The comment came after a reporter asked the Speaker why he would not consider cutting a deal with Democrats to keep the government open past the end of the month, as a number of hardline conservatives express opposition to proposed short-term funding stopgaps.

Why dont we just cut a deal with the president? McCarthy responded.

The Speaker has sought to focus the fight over government funding on the situation at the southern border. House GOP leaders unveiled a short-term continuing resolution last week that includes a bulk of the conferences marquee border bill, H.R. 2. House Republicans passed the bill in May, but it has not been taken up in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

McCarthy argued that Biden could solve the situation at the border by reversing policies he has enacted.

Listen, the president, all he has to do, its only actions that he has to take. He can do it like that, McCarthy said. He changed all the policies on the border. He can change those, we can keep government open and finish out the work that we have done.

Pressed later in the day about when he would like to meet with the president, McCarthy said, I wouldve wanted to meet with him long before. Ive been trying on many different issues.

The Speaker said Tuesday that its been a little while since he has spoken with Biden, but noted that he has talked with the presidents staff.

Asked Monday if he has spoken to McCarthy, Biden shook his head.

I havent, he said.

He shook his head again when asked if he will speak to the Speaker.

The Hill reached out to the White House for comment.

McCarthys push to meet with Biden comes as Congress is racing the clock to fund the government by Sept. 30 or risk a shutdown. Leaders in both parties and chambers have recognized that a continuing resolution will be needed to keep the lights on in Washington, but there currently is not a clear path to a stopgap bill.

McCarthy last week tried to coalesce his conference around a GOP-only continuing resolution, which was seen as an opening bid in negotiations with Democrats. But a number of Republicans lined up against the initial legislation, forcing leaders to pull a procedural vote on the measure. Leadership then unveiled a second proposal, which has not yet received a vote in the House.

McCarthy said Tuesday that he plans to bring a GOP-crafted continuing resolution to the floor this week.

Biden and McCarthy had a series of meetings in June when the two were negotiating a deal to raise the debt limit and avoid an economic default. The agreement they ultimately arrived at included caps for fiscal 2024 spending, a provision that was meant to make funding the government a smooth process.

But House GOP leaders  amid pressure from the right flank to further cut spending  marked up appropriations bills at levels lower than those laid out in the debt limit deal.

Alex Gangitano contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday the Senate's proposed continuing resolution to fund the government is unlikely to advance in the House as a shutdown grows more likely.

"I don't see the support in the House" for the Senate bill, McCarthy told reporters.

The Senate on Tuesday unveiled a stopgap funding measure that would fund the government through Nov. 17 and was negotiated on a bipartisan basis.

The Senate measure, which advances a House-passed bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, includes $6.2 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion for natural disasters. The bill would be the vehicle for a continuing resolution.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday said McCarthy is letting "MAGA radicals" drive his decisions, and said the bipartisan stopgap measure is "the only way to avoid a shutdown."

House Republicans have also indicated they want to force the White House and Democrats to come up with a new plan on border security. McCarthy said Tuesday that night he would not support any continuing resolution without border security provisions. Ukraine aid is also a sticking point for a group of right-wing Republicans.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy listens to reporters' questions following a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on September 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. / Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters Wednesday that McCarthy told the GOP conference that he would not take up the Senate's proposed continuing resolution, or CR. Other Republicans shared similar sentiments.

"My sense is the Senate CR is dead on arrival," said GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. "I just don't get the sense that there's any meaningful support in the Republican conference for that Senate CR."

Both the White House and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have endorsed the Senate's stopgap spending measure.

"We can take the standard approach and fund the government for six weeks at the current rate of operations or we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy," McConnell said Wednesday.

McConnell also noted that those concerned about border security would be forcing Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees to work without pay if the government shuts down.

McCarthy, meanwhile, reiterated Wednesday that he plans to have the House take up a continuing resolution on Friday, ahead of the hard deadline Saturday night to approve new funding. If new funding is not approved, the government will shut down while the House considers its full-year appropriations bills.

McCarthy said Tuesday that his measure would include border security provisions and would drop funding for Ukraine.

"If they want to put focus on Ukraine and not focus on the southern border, I think their priorities are backwards," McCarthy said Tuesday about the Senate measure.

With Republicans' narrow majority in the House and Democrats united in opposition to deep spending cuts, McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes to pass any bill. The support of Senate Republican leadership for the stopgap measure puts pressure on McCarthy  and could force him to get Democratic support to pass it. However, far-right members of his party have threatened to oust him if he were to do that.

In an effort to appease hard-line Republicans, the House on Tuesday voted to advance four bills that would fund the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State and Agriculture for another year. Even if the bills pass the House, they are not likely to be considered in the Senate.

If both chambers can't pass a bill to fund the government by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday night, then the government will shut down. A government shutdown will cause thousands of federal employees to go without pay, and federal services that are deemed non-essential will be closed.



"The American people need our Republican friends in the House of Representatives to do their job, President Biden said Wednesday. "Fund the government."

Ellis Kim, Willie James Inman, Alan He and Alejandro Alvarez contributed to this report.

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Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) isnt offering any opinions about whether indicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) should resign or be expelled from the Senate, telling reporters Wednesday: I think thats an issue for the Democrats to deal with.

Senate Republicans are sitting back and watching how Democrats handle the messy political fallout from a 39-page indictment that federal prosecutors filed last week in the Southern District of New York.

About half the Senate Democratic conference has called on the 69-year-old New Jersey senator to step down from office, including the top members of the Senate Democratic leadership team.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2-ranking Democratic leader; Senate Democratic Policy & Communications Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Wednesday all called on Menendez to resign.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), however, declined to follow suit at a press conference after the weekly Democratic lunch, telling reporters he would wait to hear what Menendez has to say when he speaks to the Democratic conference on Thursday.

Like you, I was just deeply disappointed, disturbed when I read the indictment. Ive known Sen. Menendez a very long time, and I was truly, truly upset, he said.

He will address the Democratic caucus, and well see what happens after that, Schumer said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the graduation ceremony of his youngest son Kaesang Pangarep (right) in Singapore, Nov. 21, 2014. Credit - Wong Maye-EAP

In Indonesia, it can take as little as two days between joining a political party and becoming its leader. Of course, it helps to be the popular Presidents son.

On Saturday, Kaesang Pangarep, a 28-year-old prolific YouTuber and the youngest son of Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, joined the youth-oriented Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) that rivals the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P); by Monday, he was named its chairman.

In accepting the top post, after seeking and receiving the blessing of his father, Kaesang said that he was following in [his] fathers footsteps and hoped to make a positive impact through his political endeavor.

I believe that pursuing a career in politics is one of the best ways for young people to contribute, Kaesang said on Monday. He also acknowledged that his rapid rise in PSI is mostly thanks to his fathers influence: Privilege exists, he admitted.

The political neophytes meteoric ascension in PSI, a small party thats not represented in parliament, is considered by observers as a significant move by the outgoing President to consolidate his political influence ahead of the countrys next presidential election in February, amid tensions within his own party.

The move has also fueled doubts about the legitimacy of PSI as an upstart party with viable policy alternatives, now that its increasingly viewed as a mere vehicle for the dynastic ambitions of the 62-year-old Jokowiwho ironically rose to power by framing himself as the antithesis to Indonesias historic politics dominated by a ruling elite. Overall, experts say, it reflects an exacerbation of a broader trend of democratic decline in Indonesia.

This is the clearest signal yet, up to now, says Vishnu Juwono, assistant professor in public administration at the University of Indonesia, that Jokowi really wants to be still relevant politically after 2024.

More proxy than progressive

Established in 2014 by a former journalist, PSI built its brand around championing youth (it set a maximum age of 45 for its leaders) as well as advocating minority rights and pluralism. While there was initial optimism among younger voters for the seemingly progressive party, PSI has in recent years become seen as a proxy for Jokowi, with its members openly voicing support for the President while simultaneously going after his critics.

Kaesangs recent entry into PSI comes as tensions flare between Jokowi and his own party PDI-P, helmed by former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesias first President, Sukarno. (PDI-P had previously publicly considered recruiting Kaesang and fielding him for mayorship in Depok).

For those who saw PSI as possibly a progressive party, [Kaesangs appointment as chair] really speaks to the fact that its been nothing of the sort, Ian Wilson, a senior lecturer specializing in Indonesian politics at Australias Murdoch University, tells TIME. Its the same kind of dealmaking politics where they can see the opportunity to capitalize on Kaesangs popularity, which in turn simply stems from his fathers popularity.

Kaesangs flash appointment as the head of PSI further shows that Jokowi and his family are very confident about their grip on power, says Made Supriatma, a visiting fellow in the Indonesia Studies program at Singapores ISEASYusof Ishak Institute. Increasingly, says Made, Jokowi is showing himself to be someone who is just as interested in political maneuvering as the old elite.

Despite his popularity, observers note that Jokowis presidency has also been characterized by a decline in democracy in Indonesia. Activists are routinely censored with a harsh internet law and religious groups critical of the President have been banned in the name of tackling radicalism.

Read More: As Indonesia Courts Chinese Infrastructure Investments, Locals Are Pushing Back

I would not hesitate to call this a New New Order, says Made, referencing the decadeslong military-backed authoritarian regime under Suharto beginning in the 1960s that was marked by significant economic progress but also repression, corruption, and nepotism. Because the structure of power is almost the same, minus the military.

Jokowis dynasty

Jokowi rose to power as an outsider who, ironically, championed meritocracy. When he won the presidential election in 2014, the result was widely seen as a rejection of the oligarchs that had dominated Jakarta.

Read More: The New Face of Indonesian Democracy

But now it seems the wildly popular leader is trying to replicate the same system he once stood against. Its very clear, says Made, that Jokowi is building himself a political dynasty.

Jokowis son-in-law Bobby Nasution became the mayor of Medan in 2020. And the Presidents eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who became the mayor of Surakarta in 2020, is being tipped as a vice presidential candidate to Ganjar Pranowo, former governor of Central Java and PDI-Ps expected nominee. Gibrans eligibility, however, hinges on a Constitutional Court decision on whether the minimum age required to run for office can be lowered from the current 40 years old, as Gibran is only 35. (Experts say that the court ruling will shed light on just how far Jokowis political influence extends. Anwar Usman, who heads the Constitutional Court, is the Presidents brother-in-law).

Thats another litmus test [for] how direct Jokowis involvement [will be] in determining Indonesian politics after 2024, says Vishnu.

Jokowi himself has been reticent about publicizing who hes supporting in the upcoming presidential election. But in the coming months, says Wilson, observers need look no further than to whom PSI endorses to identify Jokowis preferred pick.

A political party that many had hoped would offer a genuine ideological and policy alternative has really just become another vehicle for power contestation, says Wilson, adding that Indonesian politics have become absorbed with cynical dealmaking and electability rather than policy-led campaigns to address the countrys socio-economic issues.

Its about who can win. And I think it reflects a broader political culture, where really power is its own end.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
The German Federal Prosecutors Office has launched an investigation into the alleged shooting of civilians, including a German citizen, by Russian troops at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the German news agency Tagesschau reported on Sept. 27.

The prosecutors office is investigating evidence that Russian troops shot at and injured civilians in Hostomel, a suburb of Kyiv and the site of major battles in February-March 2022.

A spokesman for the prosecutors office confirmed that an investigation was ongoing, and that German authorities were working alongside their Ukrainian counterparts.

Germany has compiled extensive evidence of Russian war crimes, and is just one of many organizations, both abroad and in Ukraine, working to document and investigate them. A recent report in August 2023 stated that there have been nearly 100,000 Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Three Russian pro-war propagandists have stated they had found severed pig heads on their doorsteps, Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent Russian newspaper, reported on Sept. 27.

Timofey Sergeytsev, a columnist for the Russian-state run news agency Ria Novosti, Mikhail Tereshchenko , a photographer for state news agency TASS, and military expert Konstantin Sivkov said they had found the heads at their homes during the week of Sept. 19-26.

All three men have previously reported that they had received threats. It is unclear who was responsible for sending the severed pig heads, and Russian-state run media stated that the police were conducting an investigation.

In addition to these types of threats, there have been several high profile attacks on Russian propagandists within Russia, such as the explosion that killed pro-war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg in April.

Sergeytsev gained notoriety for an op-ed published in April 2022 that Yale historian Timothy Snyder condemned as a genocide handbook.

Read also: Putin cracks down on pro-war opposition as all-out war falters

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Embattled Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) has asked to speak to the Senate Democratic conference Thursday in an attempt to stem the growing political momentum among Democratic senators who say he should resign after being indicted on federal corruption and bribery charges.

Menendez has already relinquished his post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but there are other questions that need to be resolved, such as whether he should be allowed to have access to classified Senate briefings.

Federal prosecutors have accused Menendez of sharing sensitive information about the number and nationality of persons serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo with the Egyptian government. He shared the information through a co-defendant accused of paying bribes to the senator and his wife, prosecutors allege.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he will grant Menendez the courtesy of listening to what he has to say to the conference before rendering an opinion about his colleagues future in the Senate.

These are extremely damning charges, and I have seen the actions that Sen. Menendez took this morning, Warner said when asked Menendez should be excluded from future classified briefing.

Menendez pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, fraud and extortion Wednesday morning.

Hes asked to speak to the Democratic conference, I believe, tomorrow, Warner added. Im going to grant him that courtesy, but I expect Ill have much more to say afterwards.

A spokesperson for Warner clarified that the Intelligence Committee does not control access to classified information.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
One of the three New Jersey businessmen involved in the alleged bribery scheme surrounding Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) pleaded not guilty to federal bribery charges on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Wael Hana was charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud  the same charges levied against Menendez, his wife Nadine Arslanian and the two other businessmen also charged Friday.

According to prosecutors, Hana and the other businessmen gave Menendez and his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold and gifts. In return, Menendez advanced Egyptian interests in the Senate, including pushing for an arms deal with the country.

Menendez also allegedly pressured State Department officials to preserve a monopoly for Hanas Egyptian business, prosecutors claim.

Hana was arrested early Tuesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City after a flight from Egypt, where he primarily resides. He was released later that day on a $5 million bond, Reuters reported.

The senator has denied wrongdoing and has rejected a growing number of calls from Democrats for his resignation. As of Tuesday, over half of New Jersey Democrats in Congress and nearly 20 Democratic senators have called on Menendez to resign.

Menendez stepped down from the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Friday.

The senator and his wife are scheduled to be arraigned in New York on Wednesday.

The controversy has sparked calls for a primary challenge, as Menendez is up for reelection in 2024. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) has already announced a campaign in the wake of the indictment, while New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy is also considering a run.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Washington  Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to three federal charges stemming from an alleged bribery scheme that involved the senator using his political power to help the Egyptian government and three New Jersey businessmen.

The New Jersey senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were arraigned in U.S. district court in Manhattan after they were indicted alongside three New Jersey businessmen last week. Nadine Menendez also entered a plea of not guilty for the three charges filed against her.

Menendez was released on a $100,000 bond and had to surrender his passport. The senator can travel abroad on official business as long as he notifies the court and cannot speak about the case with political advisors, his staff or staff for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he is a member, who have personal knowledge of it. Nadine Menendez was released on $250,000 bond.

The Justice Department claimed Menendez and his wife engaged in a yearslong plot through which the couple accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible, among other items. But Menendez has defiantly denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly said he believes that he will be exonerated.

The senator on Monday pledged to remain in his role as the senior senator representing New Jersey, though he did step down as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Justice Department lawyers said it was through his position as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel that Menendez was able to wield influence to benefit the three New Jersey businessmen, who are also charged, and the Egyptian government in exchange for the bribes.

The FBI has opened a counterintelligence investigation related to Menendez's indictment, two sources told CBS News. Agents are looking into any possible wrongdoing between the senator and Egyptian officials or contacts.

Sen. Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife Nadine arrive at the U.S. district court in New York City on Sept. 27, 2023. / Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

On at least two occasions, Menendez shared sensitive, nonpublic information from the U.S. government, including about U.S. military aid to Egypt, and pressured a high-ranking official with the Department of Agriculture to take actions that would benefit a halal meat company owned by one of his co-defendants, according to the indictment. He also is accused of attempting to interfere with state and federal investigations to benefit two co-defendants in exchange for cash, furniture, gold bars and the luxury car.

Federal agents conducted a court-authorized search of Menendez's New Jersey home in June 2022 and found more than $480,000 in cash, some stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing, gold bars worth more than $100,000 and other items allegedly paid for by the three businessmen, including the Mercedes-Benz, according to the charging document.

Menendez said Monday the cash found by agents was withdrawn from his personal savings account and kept for "emergencies," as has been his practice for decades. He also cited "the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba."

The bribery charges filed against him come years after Menendez faced roughly a dozen federal charges following accusations he accepted gifts from a wealthy Democratic donor in exchange for political favors. That case ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict.

Calls for Menendez's resignation

During those proceedings roughly five years ago, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, Menendez's fellow senator from New Jersey, testified as a character witness, and in 2019, Booker told HuffPost that he had seen Menendez "in the most intimate moments and didn't see a hint of corruption."

But on Tuesday, Booker joined a growing number of Senate Democrats in calling for Menendez to step down.

"Senator Menendez fiercely asserts his innocence and it is therefore understandable that he believes stepping down is patently unfair. But I believe this is a mistake," Booker said in a statement. "Stepping down is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that holding public office often demands tremendous sacrifices at great personal cost. Senator Menendez has made these sacrifices in the past to serve. And in this case he must do so again. I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving."

While Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Senate Democrats facing competitive reelection bids were the first to urge Menendez to resign, Booker's statement was followed by a flood of calls from many more of Menendez's Democratic Senate colleagues for the senior senator to step aside.

As of Wednesday morning, more than half of the Senate Democratic caucus said Menendez should resign his seat, including the second-ranking Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, and Sen. Patty Murray, who as president pro tempore is third in line to the presidency.

Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, has urged caution. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, called for Menendez's "immediate resignation" last Friday, and several House Democrats suggested the senator should relinquish his post.

Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006 and his seat is up in 2024. He has not yet announced if he is running for reelection, but Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey, a Democrat, announced over the weekend that he would mount a bid for the seat.

Andy Triay and Pat Milton contributed to this report.

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Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who pleaded not guilty to federal bribery charges Wednesday, must turn over his personal passport as a condition for his release, multiple reports indicated following the senators arraignment in Manhattan.

The New Jersey Democrat will be allowed to keep his official passport to travel abroad while conducting business as a member of Congress, according to the reports by CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters.

Menendez has so far refused calls to resign from his Senate seat, though he did step down from his role as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the charges were made public Friday.

Menendez on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to three charges he took luxurious bribes to help enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit Egypts government. His bond was set for $100,000.

Menendez was also ordered not to contact any co-defendants, other than his wife, or any Senate staffers who know about the facts of the case outside his lawyers presence, The Associated Press reported.

The New Jersey Democrats wife, Nadine, also faces three charges linked to the couples corrupt relationship with the businessmen, to which she entered a not guilty plea.

She was ordered to turn over her passport and given tighter restrictions on her travel, CNN reported. Nadine Menendez can travel to New Jersey, New York, Florida and D.C., but she must otherwise ask the court to travel. Her bond is set at $250,000.

The three businessmen  Wael Will Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe  also pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The three-count indictment was unsealed Friday in the Southern District of New York. It claims Menendez used his power and influence to benefit Egypt and the businessmen in exchange for cash, gold bars, a luxury vehicle and more.

The investigation into Menendez, his wife and the businessmen is very much ongoing, Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said last week.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Washingtons push to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey may have better odds after a top critic, Sen. Bob Menendez , stepped down from a key congressional post, according to House Foreign Affairs Chair Mike McCaul.

Menendez (D-N.J.), sidelined after he was indicted on federal corruption charges, blocked the jet sale due to Ankaras aggression against its neighbors and internal repression. But hes only one piece of the puzzle; the U.S. cant sell the warplanes without buy-in from the top Republicans and Democrats on the foreign policy panels in both chambers.

And there is still plenty of opposition on both sides of Capitol Hill.

Im reading the tea leaves, and he was one of the four that was still kind of holding out, so I think its more likely its going to be approved  but Swedens got to be admitted to NATO, McCaul (R-Texas) said in a brief interview. Were saying were not going to consider this if youre going to play hardball against Sweden.

Turkey has been seeking 40 of the Lockheed Martin-built fighter jets, and White House officials said in July that they plan to move forward with the transfer to the NATO ally, a day after Ankara pledged to approve Swedens NATO membership. The administration has said the two issues are not linked.

But congressional gatekeepers have said Turkey must also repair its ties with Greece after several flare-ups before allowing the sale.

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly last week, McCaul said he anticipates a clear path on that issue: I dont see that holding up the process.

Menendez, facing federal charges that he took cash and gold in illegal exchange for helping the Egyptian government and New Jersey business associates, relinquished the job of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Friday while he remains under indictment.

Erdogan said in remarks published Tuesday that with Menendez out, he sees an opportunity to accelerate the process regarding the F-16s, through more talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

One of our most important problems regarding the F-16s were the activities of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez against our country, Erdogan told journalists on a flight back from Azerbaijan.

Menendezs exit gives us an advantage but the F-16 issue is not an issue that depends only on Menendez, Erdogan added.

McCaul, Menendez, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and House Foreign Affairs ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) have all opposed the sale of the jets to Ankara for overlapping reasons. Menendez was the most vocal about his demands that Turkey cool tensions with its neighbors.

This week, Meeks still wasnt ready to budge. He first expects the Turkish parliaments ratification of Swedens NATO accession, for Turkey to continue to calm tensions with its neighbors and for it to work with NATO to counter illicit Russian financial flows.

"I have some of the same kind of issues that Mr. Menendez had.  All those things are important to me, Meeks said in a brief interview.

I want to make sure we have a true, strong NATO ally that's there so that we can work together. So there's dialogue and conversation that I've had, he added. It's a wait-and-see game right now.

Risch on Wednesday said nothing had changed about his opposition to the F-16 transfers, and he declined to comment on Menendez's situation or Erdogan's specific comments, but did say he was "way past frustrated" with the Turkish leader.

"Erdogan could have solved this a long time ago. I've told them directly that until both Finland and Sweden are in NATO, F-16s are not going to move, period. So he knows that," Risch said in an interview.

On the issue of Turkey and Greeces relations, Risch said he was satisfied that both parties have been working in good faith to lower the temperature and hailed the significant progress.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is in line to replace Menendez as Senate Foreign Relations chair, declined Wednesday to tell reporters how he would approach the matter once he takes over.

Other lawmakers outside the leadership of the committees overseeing U.S. foreign policy have been taking a hard line to pressure the administration. Though not as influential as the committee leaders, those lawmakers have pushed for legislation to tie the administrations hands on the sale.

When it comes to Turkey obtaining the F-16, nothing has changed, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a vocal Turkey critic, said in a statement. The U.S. Congress will not accept any sale until certain conditions are met. I will continue pushing to ensure Turkey does not receive F-16s until Sweden has been admitted to NATO and until we see a commitment from Turkey to respect Greeces airspace and cease its aggression toward our Syrian Kurdish allies.

There's also plenty of resistance to a fighter sale in the House. Lawmakers threw up a roadblock last year to Biden's push to sell F-16s to Turkey in their defense policy bill, led primarily by Democrats.

The provision  which would have barred the jet transfer unless the administration certified to Congress that the sale was critical to U.S. national security and that the warplanes wouldn't be used to violate Greek airspace  did not survive negotiations with the Senate on a compromise defense bill.

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), a co-chair of the Hellenic Caucus and a sponsor of the House provision to limit a sale, vowed to continue to work to block it.

"Regardless of who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the fact of the matter is that the House and Senate have made their opposition to these sales clear," Pappas said in a statement. "I will continue to work alongside my colleagues on the Hellenic Caucus and in the House as a whole to prevent these sales from moving forward so long as Turkey continues to violate Greeces sovereignty, undermine NATO, and delay Swedens accession."
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan on federal charges alleging they agreed to and accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit the Egyptian government.

A three-count indictment unsealed Friday in the Southern District of New York alleges Menendez used his influence as a senator and chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the businessmen, Wael Will Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe. In return, he and his wife, Nadine, received cash, gold bars, a luxury vehicle and more.

Despite Menendez originating from New Jersey, the indictment comes out of the SDNY due to some of the transactions occurring in Manhattan, including the sale of gold bars and meetings in restaurants, according to the indictment.

Menendez and his wife are expected to formally hear the charges against them and enter their pleas Wednesday morning, according to a court spokesperson. Two of the businessmen, Uribe and Daibes, are also scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday, the spokesperson said. Hana on Tuesday entered a plea of not guilty for bribing Menendez.

Menendezs case will be overseen by U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein, a Clinton appointee, who is also from New Jersey.

The New Jersey Democrat faces three counts, including conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, a charge for public officials who take bribes in return for official acts.

In his first public remarks since the indictment was unsealed, Menendez on Monday was defiant about not resigning from office during a briefing from Union City, New Jersey where he began his storied political career, including serving as that citys mayor decades ago. He has temporarily stepped down from the Foreign Relations chairmanship.

Nearly two-dozen senators have called on Menendez to step down from his Senate post overall, many of them Democrats including fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). A longtime Menendez ally and friend, Booker said in a statement that Menendez decision to remain in Congress is a mistake.

Stepping down is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that holding public office often demands tremendous sacrifices at great personal cost. Senator Menendez has made these sacrifices in the past to serve. And in this case, he must do so again, Booker said.

Many Democrats have maintained Menendez should be considered innocent until proven guilty but have also acknowledged the indictments damning details.

Prosecutors say Menendez passed along sensitive U.S. government information to secretly aid a corrupt regime in Egypt. In one such instance detailed in the indictment, non-public information the senator requested from the State Department was sent to an Egyptian government official through Menendez wife and Hana.

The indictment alleges that Sen. Menendez used his power and influence  including his leadership role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  to benefit the government of Egypt in various ways, Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Friday during a press conference announcing the charges.

Menendez also pressured a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a business monopoly Egypt granted to Hana, according to the indictment. That monopoly was used to fund the bribes paid to Menendez through his wife, who is a longtime friend of Hanas, the indictment says.

Federal agents said they found more than $480,000 in cash  much of it stuffed into envelopes or hidden in clothing, closets and a safe  and more than $100,000 worth of gold bars after searching the Menendezs New Jersey home last year.

Prosecutors also allege Menendez also used his influence to meddle in a New Jersey criminal investigation of Uribe and the prosecution of Daibes.

Menendez has stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but had not heeded calls to resign as senator. He also has not indicated if he plans to run for reelection in 2024 but has already garnered a primary opponent for his seat, considered to be a safe bet for Democrats.

Menendez was also indicted on federal corruption charges in 2015 for accepting gifts and trips from a donor, but those charges were dropped in 2018 after a jury failed to reach a verdict.

Williams, the Southern District of New Yorks top prosecutor, said Friday that the investigation into Menendez, his wife and their corrupt relationship with the three businessmen is very much ongoing.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.  An Overland Park antique mall has reopened days after the state seized its assets for not paying sales tax.

Kansas Department of Revenue agents and the Johnson County Sheriffs Office executed a tax warrant and shut down Metcalf Antique Mall last week.

Shawnee residents frustrated after weeks of no trash pickup

KDOR said the business didnt pay over $60,000 in sales tax over multiple months.

The agency said it seized all known bank accounts, on-site cash, business inventory, as well as personal property belonging to the owner.

The closure was a shock to vendors and customers last week.

But on Tuesday, Metcalf Antique Mall opened its doors once again and resumed normal hours.

Court documents show the business filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday.

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Pending an upcoming hearing, Metcalf Antique Mall appears to have struck a deal to reopen and pay back the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Court documents say if the antique mall doesnt meet the repayment requirements, the state can take any collections activity it would otherwise have.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday called for a meeting of foreign ministers from 10 countries around Latin America to discuss migration, as record numbers of people make the dangerous crossing through the Darien Gap.

"It's not an issue that concerns only Mexico, it's a structural issue and it we need to face it this way," Lopez Obrador told a regular morning press conference, adding he expected the meeting would take place in approximately 10 days.

"We need to make a joint plan," he added, referring to protections for migrants as well as combating the root causes that force people - many from Venezuela, Cuba and countries in Central America - to leave their homes.

On Tuesday, the Mexican government's migration authority said it had deployed over 260 buses and vans to disperse over 8,000 migrants from the southern city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, to other parts of the country.

Large numbers of migrants have been crossing into the United States from Mexico in recent weeks, piling pressure on the Biden administration to stem the flow of people as the U.S. 2024 presidential election race begins to heat up.

(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Kylie Madry)
Our leaders have vowed to protect workers from extreme heat in Miami-Dade County. That makes sense: Miami went through an incredibly hot summer this year. That may become the norm. Two farmworkers have died in South Florida fields this year. One of them, just 29 years old, was found lying dead in a Homestead field where he had been picking a tropical fruit called longan. It happened on July 6, the hottest day recorded across the world since 1979.

But after changes to a heat-protection bill set for a vote by the Miami-Dade Commission next month, the much-touted new measure to give workers rest and water breaks would probably actually help on five days a year, on average, the Miami Herald reported.

Why have a law if it does so little?

One of governments main reasons for existing is to protect people. But this proposal has become so watered down  by lobbyists, apparently  that it wont do enough of that.

The latest version of the bill changed the wording ever so slightly, but its a critical change. The original bill would have required that companies give outdoor workers water and breaks on days with a 90-degree heat index. The heat index is a combination of air temperature and humidity. The new wording, though, says regulations would go into effect when the air temperature  not the heat index  reaches 95 degrees.

As the Herald story notes, that is a much rarer occurrence in Miami. In other words, it pretty much guts the bill.

Were not the only ones saying that. Eighty-eight doctors, nurses, scientists and medical students sent an open letter to the County Commission urging a return to the first standard and saying that the revised wording would fundamentally alter how often employers would be required to provide water, rest, and shade to workers and would be inconsistent with the National Weather Services guidelines.

Some farmers and builders have come out against the tougher standards. They say they already have safety measures for their workers, and the regulations will just impose more unneeded red tape and government interference. Farming is tough enough, they say. No doubt, that is true.

But not every farm or construction company is a good operator. This law is needed by the others. Times are changing  its getting hotter and hotter, and government regulations need to change, too.

The question of how to define a hot day is central to this discussion. As the Herald story points out, the heat index hit 90 degrees or above in Miami 165 days a year on average from 1981 to 2023. Over that same time frame, the air temperature was 95 degrees or higher just 4.7 days a year on average.

Adding to sense of urgency: During this years beastly hot summer, the air temperature hit or exceeded 95 degrees a whopping 25 times.

And then theres common-sense side of this argument. Anyone who lives here knows the toll it takes on your body when high humidity is combined with high temperatures. It can feel, as one outdoor worker told the Herald, like youre suffocating.

The National Weather Service bases its heat warnings on the heat index. Miami-Dade needs to consider what the farms and businesses affected need to stay viable  thats important  but, in the end, protecting workers has to be the most important consideration in our sweltering summers.

Click here to send the letter.
When it was introduced in July, a landmark Miami-Dade County bill proposed heat safety regulations that would have protected outdoor workers for nearly half the year.

After negotiations with lobbyists in the construction and agriculture industries, the latest version of the bill  scheduled for a final vote before the County Commission next month  would take effect for less than five days a year, on average.

That big change is the result of a small but critical edit construction and agriculture lobbyists requested. The original wording would have required companies to give outdoor workers water and breaks on days with a 90 degree heat index, a standard that blends the impacts of temperature and humidity. The current version would now kick in when only the air temperature hits 95 degrees  a much rarer occurrence in Miami.

In an open letter to the county commission this week, a group of 88 doctors, nurses, medical students and other scientists urged a return to the tougher standard. We disagree with this change and ask that the Commission uphold the original threshold of 90F heat index, they wrote. This substitution would fundamentally alter how often employers would be required to provide water, rest, and shade to workers and would be inconsistent with the National Weather Services guidelines.

WeCount, a group that represents outdoor workers and has been lobbying in favor of the heat standard for two years, agrees.

Because of the humidity here in South Florida, its important to make sure that were accounting for the kind of temperature that will protect outdoor workers, said Oscar Londono, executive director of WeCount. The science is very clear. Doctors, nurses, physicians, climate scientists are in consensus that at a 90 degree heat index outdoor workers are at deadly risk of experiencing heatstroke on the job.

But the Dade County Farm Bureau, which represents local farm owners and is lobbying against the bill, says the proposed regulations are unnecessary at any temperature.

Farming is hard enough as it is, wrote Jocelyn Guilfoyle, executive director of the Dade County Farm Bureau, in an email. The last thing we need is to be subject to the Miami-Dade Heat Police. The ordinance should focus on educating employers and employees as to best practices, not on penalizing farmers.

Switching the heat threshold is the most consequential of a series of changes industry representatives have successfully lobbied for, including reducing fines for companies that break the rules, weakening the water and break requirements and delaying the implementation of the rules from 10 days after the bill is passed to 180 days.

Its possible the bill could change further before the final vote. After commissioners approved the changes at a Sept. 11 meeting of the commissions Community Health Committee, the bills main sponsor, Kionne McGhee, said he would leave the final text of the bill up to negotiations between industry lobbyists and worker groups led by WeCount.

I dont know exactly what version theyre going to bring me because Im leaving it to the stakeholders to bring me the version, McGhee said. He later added, Whatever they bring back to me, I am going to file that.

McGhee clarified that he does have a few key requirements for the final product. Whatever version they bring back, it better have protection for heat, it better have water opportunities, it better have shade, and it better have liability and also enforcement.

Since then, negotiators from industry groups and labor unions have been meeting privately to debate further changes the bill. These negotiations are not subject to Floridas sunshine laws, which require that the public have access to meetings between government officials about public business. McGhee said this week he had no updates to share on the progress of the negotiations.

But during the Sept. 11 public hearing, a dozen speakers  representing industry groups including the Dade County Farm Bureau and the Builders Association of South Florida, along with big farmers and developers including Costa Farms and the Related Group  explained their opposition to the bill. They argued they already look after worker welfare and that the county proposal adds more government red tape.

A majority of commercial construction contractors are small businesses, said Carlos Carillo, executive director of the South Florida chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. The last thing they need is another agency from Miami-Dade County overseeing their work and their safety track records and policies which are already overseen by [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)].

The health and safety of our workers is our top priority for our farmers and our nursery owners, said Guilfoyle. Our workforce is one of our greatest assets, [which is] the reason why we follow the current standards that are already in place [and] do everything we can to take care of our employees.

Authorities have confirmed that two outdoor workers have died on the job in South Florida so far this year, although doctors and medical researchers say official statistics likely undercount work-related heat deaths. In South Florida, there are no workplace safety laws that specifically address heat at the local, state or federal level, despite the dangerous conditions for outdoor workers and the rising temperatures brought on by climate change.

Raising the heat thresholds

The biggest battle between lobbyists is about how to define a hot day in Miami. Worker groups and medical professionals want the bill to take effect on days when the heat index hits 90 degrees, while industry lobbyists want the rules to kick in when the air temperature hits 95 degrees.

Since 1981, Miami has had an average of 165 days per year where the heat index reaches 90 degrees or higher. (Note: 2023 data is incomplete and only includes days up to Sept. 24.)

This one number makes all the difference. From 1981-2023, the heat index hit 90 degrees or above in Miami 165 days a year on average, which is roughly five and a half months out of the year, according to University of Miami climate researcher Brian McNoldy. Over that same historical period, air temperature reached 95 degrees or higher 4.7 days a year, on average  although in this years record-breaking heat, it has happened 25 times so far.

Since 1981, Miami has had an average of 4.7 days per year where the air temperature reaches 95 degrees or higher. (Note: 2023 data is incomplete and only includes days up to Sept. 24.)

Depending on the number lawmakers choose, the bill could hold sway through most of Miamis swampy summer or practically never.

Choosing between those two thresholds would make a huge difference since the air temperature rarely hits 95, McNoldy wrote in an email. Days that hot are generally record or near-record setting. But it does happen, and it happened a record number of times this year.

The heat index combines air temperature and humidity readings to tell you how hot it feels outside in the shade. High humidity makes it harder for our bodies to cool themselves off by sweating, since sweat doesnt evaporate as quickly in humid air. Thats why the National Weather Service bases its heat warnings on the heat index, not air temperature.

The weather service urges extreme caution when the heat index rises above 90 degrees, because people who have prolonged exposure to the heat or are doing physical activity are at risk of heat stroke, heat cramps, or heat exhaustion. Outdoor workers fall under this at-risk category, as the Sept. 25 open letter from doctors, nurses, and medical students pointed out.

Those of us who are health professionals have seen the precipitous increase in emergency room visits, and patients being rushed into our clinics to receive care because of the heat, the group wrote. If we do not create common-sense enforceable protections for outdoor workers in high-incident industries like agriculture and construction it is likely that we will see more emergency room visits, heat illness, and even death.

Watering down fines and liability

The latest version of the bill also reduces the penalties for breaking the rules and shrinks the group of bosses that can be held accountable for denying workers water or breaks.

Almost every fine has been reduced, and every fine schedule now includes a warning for a companys first violation. The biggest fines, for bad behavior including retaliating against workers for asking for water or breaks, have been cut from $3,000 to $2,000 per violation. And it narrows who would have to pay a fine if a worker doesnt get water or a break on a hot day. For instance, on a construction site, only the subcontractor that hires a worker would be fined  not the general contractor or the company that hired the general contractor.

Limiting liability and lowering fines were two of industry groups main demands.

As presented, unfortunately, the legislation has a chain of liability issue, has practical applicability issues, targets only two industriesand ultimately it really focuses on disproportionate, overly punitive fines and penalties, said Nelson Stabile, president of the Builders Association of South Florida and a principal at the real estate investment company Integra Investments, at the Sept. 11 public hearing for the bill.

The latest version of the bill also includes small tweaks to the language that lays out companies responsibilities to give workers water and breaks.

Basically, if workers dont ask their bosses for a break, their bosses dont have to give them one. But workers advocates point out that many workers dont want to draw attention to themselves for fear of being fired or reported to immigration authorities  especially after the Florida legislature passed a law in June designed to crack down on undocumented immigrants working in the state.

In South Florida, workers are scared to speak up when theyre under attack from anti-immigrant laws, said Sonia Moreno of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. As a result, the most vulnerable communities are scared to even ask for a break to go to the bathroom or drink water because theyre afraid of being marginalized because of their immigration status.

Do you think that a worker is going to have the balls to go up to el patron and ask him for a 10-minute break? said Richard Quincoces, an organizer for the Laborers International Union of North America, which represents construction workers. Theyre afraid to get fired.

This climate report is funded by Florida International University and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.
The Miami Transplant Institutes heart transplant program  which has been shut down since March, but was given the OK to reopen in late July  will have a new chief, the first step in restructuring the cardiac care program at Jackson Health System.

Dr. Hari Mallidi, a thoracic surgeon who heads cardiac surgery at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, one of the teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School, will lead the institutes heart transplant program. The transplant center is based at Jackson Memorial Hospitals main campus and staffed by doctors from the University of Miami medical school.

Mallidi will replace Dr. Matthias Loebe, who was pushed out earlier this year as chief of the heart transplant program after the hospital was pressured by the nations organ transplant network, UNOS, to pause the program while they investigated at least one complaint about patient deaths. But the search for a new chief began last October, when Loebe was notified by the institutes director that he would no longer serve as head, effective February 2023.

READ NEXT: Jackson overhauls top staff at heart transplant program, amid patient deaths, investigations

Restructuring of cardiac care

As part of Jacksons reorganization of cardiac care, Mallidi, 50, will take on a much bigger role than Loebe. He will serve as the system chief of cardiac surgery at Jackson Health and director of the Jackson Heart Institute, overseeing all aspects of cardiac care throughout Jackson for patients of all ages. Like Loebe, Mallidi will join the faculty of the University of Miamis Miller School of Medicine.

Mallidis hiring was announced at Jacksons Public Health Trust meeting Wednesday. The Trust operates Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade Countys taxpayer-funded hospital network. The Miami Herald learned independently of the change and a Jackson spokesperson confirmed the move.

We were looking for a leader whos going to really step into a much larger role than we previously had, said Jackson vice president Chris Ghaemmaghami after the meeting. He called the new role an umbrella position over all of cardiac surgery for Jackson Health System.

Mallidis broader responsibilities seemingly replace another surgeons roles at Jackson. Dr. Romualdo Segurola is listed as the current chief of cardiac surgery at Jackson and director of the Jackson Heart Institute, though a Jackson press release makes no mention of Segurolas role at the hospital.

When asked, Jackson spokeswoman Krysten Brenlla said Segurola currently remains chief and is a valued member of the Jackson team, but did not respond to questions about Segurolas role once Mallidi begins as chief.

Ghaemmaghami said Jackson is working with Segurola, who did not respond to questions from a Herald reporter.

A screenshot of Dr. Hari Mallidis profile on Brigham and Womens Hospital website.

As part of the reorganization, Jackson will create multidisciplinary teams of surgeons, cardiologists and other institute staff to care for patients throughout their heart conditions progression, rather than patients switching to another team when they become a transplant candidate. Ghaemmaghami said this is the optimal model used at other high-performing institutions.

Mallidi will start at the transplant institute in mid-November. His last day at Brigham and Womens Hospital will be Oct. 22.

Dr. Mallidi has a national and international reputation as one of the best, most well-rounded cardiac surgeons, with vast experience and excellent clinical outcomes, as well as a leader who knows how to unite physicians, nurses, and other caregivers to create a true clinical home for patients with complex needs, Jackson Health System CEO Carlos A. Migoya said in a news release. During the Trust meeting, Migoya said Mallidi is the right person for the job.

The Miami Transplant Institute is one of the largest public hospital transplant centers in the country.

Luke Preczewski, vice president of the institute, announced the voluntary suspension of the adult heart transplant program in a staff Zoom meeting back in March, and said the news would not be shared with the public. The Herald independently learned about the suspension, which prompted Jackson to confirm the news.

Jackson executives announced the suspension to staff after they had received a letter from the United Network for Organ Sharing, known as UNOS, urging them to suspend adult heart transplants after having received at least one complaint about patient deaths. Jackson staff met with the organ sharing network multiple times throughout the suspension and proposed improvement plans.

READ MORE: Probe of Jacksons suspended heart transplant program expands; top surgeon cant see patients

No Jackson heart transplants since March

Although the Organ Sharing Network approved the reopening of the institute during a meeting in Detroit in late July, no heart transplant surgeries have been performed at the institute since the shutdown in March. In 2022, the institute performed 721 organ transplants. Most of those involved kidneys and livers. Only 12 were adult heart procedures and five were pediatric heart surgeries.

A separate complaint sent to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which the Herald reviewed, centered on Dr. Anita Phancao, a Jackson cardiologist who headed the heart-failure team. She was temporarily replaced by Dr. Joshua Hare in May. A permanent replacement for Phancao has not been announced.

Mallidi gets high marks from the Harvard-affiliated hospital.

For nearly a decade, Dr. Hari Mallidi has been a leader on our campus in the care of some of our sickest patients with failing hearts and lungs. Its been a privilege to serve with him here at Brigham and Womens Hospital, and I have great confidence that he will be an asset to the patients and families in Miami, said Dr. Gerard Doherty, the surgeon in chief at Brigham and Womens Hospital & Dana- Farber Cancer Institute in a statement to the Herald.

This isnt the first time Mallidi joins a transplant program in trouble. Before his move to Boston, Mallidi was hired to replace an aging surgeon at Baylor St. Lukes Medical Center in Houston, which saw declining transplant outcomes and an increase in deaths in 2012, according to the Houston Chronicle. Mallidi left for the Boston post three years later.

In the press release shared Wednesday, Mallidi said he was excited to elevate cardiac surgery at Jackson, to better align cardiovascular services throughout the system, while ensuring high quality patient care remains our constant focus.

Hinting at more changes to come, Mallidi also stated he was excited to build a multidisciplinary team that provides world class care while keeping the patient and their loved ones at the center of everything we do.

Miami Herald reporter Jay Weaver contributed to this story.
Riverdance star Michael Flatley is to be the subject of a new documentary about the pinnacles and pitfalls of his life.

The Billion Dollar Dancer will explore the tumultuous life of Irish dancer and choreographer Flatley, including his exit from the Riverdance show ahead of its world tour in 1995 and the creation of Lord Of The Dance.

The film will use archive footage and interviews with Flatley as he oversees a 25-year anniversary tour of Lord Of The Dance.

Announcing the documentary on Wednesday (17 September), production company Lorton Entertainment and Fine Point Films said the film would show the rollercoaster ride that has been Flatleys life.

Aged 65, Flatley has lived a life filled with bullying, boxing, fast cars and cancer. In January, the Irish-American performer shared that he was on the mend after surgery to treat an aggressive form of the disease.

Speaking about the documentary, which will be directed by Grammy-winner Ryan Suffern, Flatley said: Im proud to be able to share my story with the world. Its a peek under the hood at what it took to be where I am today.

He added: There were so many times growing up when I thought I had reached the end of the road, but the challenges made me who I am. More than anything, I want to inspire young people in all walks of life to never give up on their dreams.

Flatley on stage in 1996 (PA)

Director Suffern said: As two Chicago boys with South Side [the large Irish-American community on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois] ties, I could not be more thrilled to be making this documentary on Michael Flatleys remarkable life. His story is truly an inspired one, and Im grateful to be a part of bringing it to the screen.

No release date has been given for The Billion Dollar Dancer.

Flatley was born in Chicago into a blue-collar Irish-American family. He was catapulted to fame in 1994 when his Riverdance troupe performed in the interval of the Eurovision Song Contest hosted in Ireland.

After the success of Riverdance at Eurovision, it was extended into a full-length show. Flatley left ahead of its world tour, starting his own stage show called Lord Of The Dance.

Flatley with the cast of Lord of the Dance in 1998 (PA)

He has also created, produced and directed other popular productions including Feet Of Flames and Celtic Tiger.

During his esteemed career, Flatley also ventured into film. In 2018, he directed and starred in spy thriller Blackbird as a former MI6 operative who is drawn back into the world of espionage he had left behind. Eric Roberts and Patrick Bergin also starred.

According to reports earlier this year, Flatley is also currently developing a scripted project about his life.

Additional reporting by Press Association
Michigan's vast music scene and history is being broadcasted via a new radio station and app called The Sonic Coast.

The Sonic Coast was created by Detroit native Brian Maloney and primarily voiced by Deckerville native Jane Asher. Both have 40 years of broadcasting experience and have moved beyond Michigan's coastlines. However, Maloney and Asher both have said they still love their home state and its music scene. Maloney said he wanted to create a streaming service that focused solely on the rich music that comes out of the Great Lakes state.

"Growing up in Michigan, and then traveling around the world for work, I realized just what a special place Michigan is to have such a rich musical history that appears to never stop," Maloney said. "The amount of talent from there is incredible."

As of publication, The Sonic Coast is in its second week of broadcasting. It can be downloaded for free on the App Store or Google Play. Additionally, people can listen in by going to its website at www.thesoniccoast.com.

While Asher is the primary voice on The Sonic Coast and broadcasts five days a week, Maloney will also be a prominent voice. He said he will be broadcasting over the weekends. They will talk in between playing songs from various Michigan artists.

Asher and Maloney went to school together at Spec Howard and this project reconnected them. Asher said she was very interested when Maloney approached her to be the voice. She said its premise was right up her alley.

"It's very exciting to be involved with something about my home state," Asher said. "I rock so much Michigan. It's my pride and joy."

Asher said Maloney encourages her to work within her background and share what she knows about Michigan's Thumb and the Blue Water Area. She said The Sonic Coast gives her the freedom to express her passion for music and her love for Michigan.

The Sonic Coast has another tie to the Blue Water Area. Its logo was created by Caleb Malooley, member of the Gasoline Gypsies. Malooley said he pictured both of Michigan's peninsulas on the logo with a blue and green color scheme.

"I like to use big shapes that will take up the whole area, so I thought it would cool to make something that looked like a record," he said.

Maloney said he was inspired to create The Sonic Coast after he met and worked with the Gasoline Gypsies in North Carolina. He said the band was a reminder to him of how great and vast the music scene is in Michigan.

Maloney said The Sonic Coast will give Michigan artists a worldwide platform through its streaming. He said the station is all about promoting and celebrating music acts who deserve recognition. He said the station has seen a great amount of support already.

Contact McKenna Golat at mgolat@gannett.com or (810) 292-0122.

Subscribe: Follow more stories from the Blue Water Area. Subscribe to the Port Huron Times Herald.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: The Sonic Coast launched
Mike Lindell said MyPillow was left crippled after American Express slashed their credit line.

"No reason, no explanation, just dropped it down last Tuesday," he said on the "War Room" podcast.

A Minnesota bank previously terminated Lindell as a client after calling him a "reputation risk."

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said that his company has been crippled by American Express's decision to slash its credit line.

"Steve, we really need everybody's help right now. We have things going on I'm going to let you all know this week," Lindell told fellow Trump ally Steve Bannon on the latter's "War Room" podcast on Monday.

Lindell said on the podcast that a sudden reduction in MyPillow's credit line with American Express was seriously affecting the company. Lindell told Bannon that MyPillow had been using American Express's services for the past 15 years.

"Out of the blue, they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000," Lindell said. "Just cripples MyPillow. No reason, no explanation, just dropped it down last Tuesday."

A spokesperson for American Express told Insider that they weren't able to address Lindell's claims directly.

"We can't comment on specific customer accounts or applications, but I can tell you that American Express does not make customer decisions based on personal views or political affiliations," the spokesperson said.

This isn't the first time Lindell has had trouble securing credit for his company.

In February 2022, Lindell was terminated as a client by the Minnesota Bank & Trust a month after the bank called him a " reputation risk ."

The pillow magnate has been a staunch advocate of former President Donald Trump's groundless election fraud claims . Lindell's avowed support for Trump, however, has greatly impacted his pillow business.

In July, Lindell auctioned off equipment from his pillow factory in Minnesota. Lindell said at the time that he was hawking equipment after the company lost more than $100 million in retail sales.

Lindell is also fending off a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from voting technology company Dominion Voting Systems, and another from Smartmatic over claims that he made about both companies' role in the 2020 election.

Representatives for MyPillow did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Editor's note: September 28, 2023  This story has been updated with comments from an American Express representative.

Read the original article on Insider
China issues white paper on global community of shared future, a decade after vision proposed

Xinhua) 09:30, September 27, 2023

This photo taken on Sept. 26, 2023 shows the Chinese and English versions of a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions". The white paper was released by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday. The white paper called for efforts to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity, turning people's longing for a better life into reality. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday issued a white paper on building a global community of shared future, a grand vision serving as a blueprint for a better world raised by President Xi Jinping in 2013.

By putting forward the creative idea at a pivotal moment in history, President Xi has shown the correct path for the world, building a strong consensus for international cooperation, said Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing on the white paper's release.

Over the past decade, Xi has systematically expounded on the vision on numerous international occasions, helping the international community deepen the understanding of the vision, Wang added.

The white paper, issued by the State Council Information Office, said the vision of building a global community of shared future rises above the exclusive rules of bloc politics, the notion of "might makes right," and the "universal values" defined by a handful of Western countries.

It contributes to a more just and equitable international order, the white paper added.

The concept has been written into UN General Assembly resolutions for six consecutive years and incorporated in several multilateral mechanism resolutions and declarations, according to Wang.

He noted that a growing number of countries and their people have realized the importance of the vision for creating a better future for humanity.

So far, China has built communities of shared future with dozens of countries and regions, the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative it proposed have gained support from over 100 countries, and the Global Civilization Initiative has received positive feedback.

China has also proposed solutions to major global challenges in fields such as health, climate change, and cyber security, said Wang.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a vivid example of building a global community of shared future. The China-Laos Railway, for example, added 110,000 jobs in Laos.

China will continue to carry out BRI landmark projects and focus on "small but beautiful" programs to bring benefits to the people of all partner countries, said Cong Liang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Zhao Fengtao, deputy head of China International Development Cooperation Agency, said China will invest more resources in global development cooperation, to accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and make new contributions to building a global community of shared future.

The white paper said that China has taken concrete actions to promote the building of a global community of shared future.

Officials said China aims to advance its development as part of the development of the global community while bringing the world new opportunities through its new development.

Guo Yezhou, deputy head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said that political parties have an indispensable role to play in the progress of human civilization and the building of a global community of shared future.

Calling strengthening cultural exchanges a crucial pathway towards building such a community, China's Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Li Qun said that China has signed cooperation agreements in the fields of culture, cultural heritage, and tourism with 157 countries.

Over the past decade, China has collaborated with countries worldwide to organize more than 500 exhibitions showcasing cultural relics, said Li.

"Building a global community of shared future is the way forward for all the world's peoples," the white paper said, adding that, however, it is not a goal to be accomplished overnight and "there will be no plain sailing."

"To realize this goal, a sense of responsibility and a will to act hold the key," the white paper said. "Building a global community of shared future depends on the joint actions of all countries."

This photo taken on Sept. 26, 2023 shows the Chinese version of a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions". The white paper was released by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday. The white paper called for efforts to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity, turning people's longing for a better life into reality. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

A press conference on a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions" is held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2023. The white paper was released by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday. The white paper called for efforts to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity, turning people's longing for a better life into reality. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

A press conference on a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions" is held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2023. The white paper was released by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday. The white paper called for efforts to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity, turning people's longing for a better life into reality. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
In the last four years, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has seen his public persona shift from President Donald Trump s hand-picked vision of what a military leader should be into public enemy #1 for conservative lawmakers who blame him for eroding military culture and readiness.

Democratic lawmakers have praised his actions during and after the Capitol attack in January 2021 as pivotal to upholding democracy. Trump earlier this month blasted him as a woke train wreck and suggested Milley should be prosecuted for treason because of decisions made during his tenure.

The 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs leaves behind a complicated legacy that includes the end of the war in Afghanistan, public sparring with the commander-in-chief over the use of troops on U.S. soil, ongoing fights over woke policies in the military and unanswered questions on whether the armed forces have become forever politicized by the events of recent years.

This week, as Milley ends his four years as the nations top uniformed military leader, critics and supporters are offering their arguments for how his tenure should be remembered by history, and whether he should be lionized or vilified for the work. As it has been throughout his time in the post, those opinions vary wildly.

I think hell be remembered as someone who rose to the challenge in difficult circumstances, and not just be remembered for those circumstances, said retired Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University. I think in 50 years, people will view him as another one of the good leaders weve had there.

Meanwhile, Trump supporter Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., called Milley a traitor who should be executed for refusing to back the former president in fights with Democrats. Our nation deserves much better than this, he wrote.

From model officer to Trump nemesis

Milley, who will officially step down as chairman and retire from the Army by Oct. 1, declined to be interviewed for this story. The 65-year-old Boston area native graduated from Princeton University in 1980, where he received his commission from Army ROTC. He went on to serve as the Armys Chief of Staff after commanding troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other operational deployments, in early April 2005, then-Col. Milley led the 10th Mountain Divisions 2nd Brigade Combat Team in Baghdad, Iraq.

Retired Col. Ross Davidson, who served as Milleys operations officer at the time, said in one instance, Milley ran across a bridge riddled with mines, stopping an oncoming group of tanks from rolling into a disaster. Davidson recommended Milley be awarded for the act, but Milley, though appreciative of the sentiment, said he didnt want the recognition for simply doing his job.

Milleys name gained national prominence in late 2018, when Trump went against the wishes of senior advisors to elevate Milley to the Joint Chiefs Chairman role. Despite concerns from lawmakers, he was easily confirmed by the Senate.

Milley was a key voice in Trumps decision to launch a raid that ended in the death of Islamic State group founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late 2019, and was praised by the president for his guidance. The two still enjoyed a strong public relationship until the summer of 2020, when a photo-op caused an irrevocable split between the pair.

On June 1, 2020, amid racial justice protests across the country following the police killing of George Floyd, local authorities cleared demonstrators from the Lafayette Square area outside the White House for Trump and other officials to walk to a nearby church. Milley accompanied them in full uniform, a move that drew widespread criticism.

Milley later publicly apologized for the move, saying it gave the perception that military leaders were taking sides in debates over protests and racial justice. That angered Trump and his supporters, as did leaked reports that Milley was working behind the scenes to convince the president not to use military troops for domestic protest response efforts.

The divide between the men only grew after Trump lost the November 2020 election. In an interview with the Atlantic, former Defense Secretary Bob Gates said that Milley expected to be fired every single day between Election Day and Jan. 6. Milley has said when rioters overtook the Capitol on the day Congress certified the election results, he spoke to numerous senior White House officials about providing a security response, but never heard from Trump.

President Donald Trump departs the White House to visit outside St. John's Church in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 2020. Walking with him Trump from left are, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

He and other members of the Joint Chiefs penned a letter a few days later lamenting the attack by Trump supporters on Congress, the Capitol building and our Constitutional process, further enraging the presidents backers.

Since then, the men have engaged in a public back-and-forth over each others perceived wrongdoings. Milley has spoken to reporters about Trumps unstable nature and unrealistic plans to use military force to solve a variety of problems. Trump has accused Milley of undermining his authority to burnish his own reputation.

That animosity has spread into Congress, where Republican House members have frequently berated Milley for a host of military problems, including pandemic response efforts, recruiting and retention challenges and interactions with foreign allies.

He has also been sharply criticized for the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, a decision made by President Joe Biden that he advised against. In testimony before the Senate a month after the pullout, Milley called the evacuation a logistical success but a strategic failure for the country.

But he also defended following Bidens orders  and all of his other actions in office up to that point  as the right move for the military and America.

My loyalty to this nation, its people, and the Constitution hasnt changed and will never change as long as I have a breath to give, he told members of the Senate during a September 2021 hearing. I firmly believe in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to this republic, and I am committed to ensuring the military stays clear of domestic politics.

Defining his legacy

Murrett, who served on the Joint Staff during former President George W. Bushs time in office, said he believes Milley has stuck to that commitment. He said every Joint Chiefs chairman in recent memory has received pushback from Congress for hewing too closely or not following close enough to their current administration, but that they have largely toed an apolitical line.

Whoever is the chairman, they do their best to stay as politically neutral as they can, he said. And I think thats reflected in what Milley has done.

He thinks historians will focus in years to come on the idea of Milley rising above political fights when they look back at his tenure. Others see individual issues dominating the conversation.

Right, wrong or indifferent, I think his legacy is going to be more about what happened in Afghanistan than anything else, said Robert Greenway, Heritage Foundations director of the Center for National Defense.

He argued that what happened during the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021 seared a negative image in the publics mind, and because of how Americans regarded what unfolded, they lost a level of trust in the armed forces.

Greenway also said senior military leadership, including Milley, are in large part responsible for the poor state of recruitment among the services, which have struggled lately to attract new talent. He posited that a prioritization on diversification efforts within the armed forces  policies publicly defended by Milley  have impacted the trust of potential new personnel.

Retired Col. Gian Gentile, a senior Army historian with the RAND Corporation think tank, focused on the U.S. response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a defining issue of Milleys legacy. While the major decisions on U.S. support to Ukraine come from policymakers, the Joint Chiefs chairman has played a significant part in American allyship.

Gentile described it as a very positive and very strong level of support and cooperation with the Ukrainian military.

For others, its clear Milley has been tested by an evolving civilian-military relationship, pushing the boundaries of the nonpartisan nature of his role.

Katherine Kuzminski, the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security, said that part of the challenge of Milley wading into a number of debates has been that both sides are pointing at him as a politicized figure.

On the left, theres critiques that the military is just full of domestic violent extremists, and on the right, now theres this narrative that the military has gone woke and soft, she said.

Next man up

Milleys replacement, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, already faced some of the same political attacks during his confirmation process. He was approved by a vote of 83 to 11 earlier this month, after facing an extended wait due to objections from Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tubervile over opposition to the Defense Departments abortion access policy.

During his confirmation hearing in July, Brown pledged to stay nonpartisan, nonpolitical in how I approach the position of chairman and set that same expectation throughout the force that we need to stay out of politics.

Murrett acknowledged that is easier said than done, given the political tensions surrounding the military right now. Even with Browns confirmation, more than 300 other senior military nominees are caught in Tubervilles procedural objections, starting his tenure with immediate leadership headaches.

But I think Milley has lived up to that very high standard of what is expected amid those difficult circumstances, and Im very confident that CQ Brown is going to do the same thing, Murrett said. Its their responsibility to serve the country well.
Sarah Morgan was looking forward to enrolling her 1-year-old son Lucas at the Skagit Valley Family YMCAs early learning center in Anacortes, Washington, this fall.

Her older son Jameson, 5, had a wonderful experience there, learning his letters, numbers and colors, as well as social skills  all of which smoothed his transition to kindergarten this year.

But in late August, Morgan found out that the YMCA was closing the Anacortes center.

Like many child care providers across the nation, the YMCA has had to rethink its operations with the looming expiration of a $24 billion federal Covid-19 pandemic support program that kept many centers afloat over the past two years. The nonprofit, which received $271,000 for its early learning programs, opted to close the Anacortes location, which served 21 families, so it could funnel its resources into its three remaining centers, said its CEO Dean Snider.

That decision has left the Morgan family scrambling to find alternate arrangements for Lucas. Child care is limited on Anacortes, an island in the northwest part of the state. The YMCAs closest remaining centers are a 40-minute drive away, which doesnt fit the work schedules of either her or her husband, Travus. And the nannies they interviewed asked for hourly rates that are close to what Morgan earns.

The Morgans had hoped to send their younger son to the same child care provider where their older son excelled. - Courtesy Sara Morgan

So Morgan plans to place Lucas with an in-home provider, though she worries he wont have the same educational opportunities that his older brother had at the YMCA.

Its really sad that my next one wont have that type of experience, said Morgan, a social worker employed by the state. Its just really been devastating.

Widespread closures possible

Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.

The historic federal investment, which was part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that Democrats passed in March 2021, supported more than 220,000 child care programs, affecting as many as 9.6 million children, according to the federal Administration for Children & Families. It reached more than 8 in 10 licensed child care centers, helping them hold onto workers by offering bonuses and raising wages, cover their rent, mortgage and utilities, buy personal protective equipment and other supplies, and provide mental health support.

We have not spent that much money on child care previously in the US, said Julie Kashen, womens economic justice director at The Century Foundation. What we learned was that it worked. It kept programs open. It helped address the staffing shortages. It kept children safe and nurtured. It kept parents working.

Child care in America has long had issues: The costs are steep for both providers and parents, leaving it both in short supply and unaffordable for many families. Last year, the average annual price nationwide was nearly $11,000, according to Child Care Aware of America, though the rates can be much higher depending on the location.

At the same time, the pay is low, making it hard for workers to commit to the industry and for centers to hold onto their staff. Child care workers typically earned $13.71 an hour, or $28,520 a year, in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment remains lower than it was prior to the pandemic.

Trying to retain workers

For Carla Smith, the stabilization grants were a miracle.

Smith, who founded Cornerstone Academy in Arlington, Texas, 17 years ago while nursing her newborn son, used $1.1 million in stabilization grants and other federal relief funding to rebuild after enrollment plunged in the first year of the pandemic. She was able to hire more employees and boost the wages of her teachers and administrative staff to as much as $25 an hour. Thats about double what most were earning before and enticed them to stay at the academy.

Carla Smith founded and operates Cornerstone Academy in Arlington, Texas. - Kaileyanna Woods/Cornerstone Academy

It kept the day care open. It kept day care workers employed, and it kept families employed, said Smith, who now cares for 50 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

Now that she wont receive any additional federal stabilization funds, Smith is worried she might have to close her doors next summer if the church that houses the center doesnt step in to help. She just raised tuition by up to $200 a month for most children and $600 a month for infants, prompting one family to leave and several others to pull out of the after-school program. She and the assistant director have taken five-figure pay cuts, she laid off one worker and she reduced the hours of the others.

The next layoff will be myself, she said, noting that shes already looking for other jobs so she can keep the academy operating.

Without the stabilization grants, the Chinese-American Planning Council in New York City will have a tougher time hiring and retaining staffers who care for 180 children at six sites, said Mary Cheng, the director of childhood development services. The nearly $600,000 in funding allowed her to provide bonuses of up to $2,500 every six months between July 2021 and this summer, as well as temporarily increase the pay of the after-school staff by a dollar or two. In addition, she used the funds to buy air purifiers and cleaning supplies, as well as provide mental health support for the children and staff.

Now, shes looking for several teachers and assistant teachers, as well as an education director for one of the sites. But its hard to attract candidates when the pay shes offering  even for the director role  is less than an entry-level public school teacher.

Already, because of the staffing shortage, shes had to close one classroom in a public housing development, turning away the parents of 12 children.

But the council may have to undertake some more fundamental changes to its child care program, which has been funded by the city since it started in the 1970s. Cheng is looking to raise $500,000 in donations and grants for its preschool and after-school programs this year to cover the shortfall in federal support, far more than the $15,000 it has raised annually in the past.

The Chinese-American Planning Council used its pandemic stabilization grants to retain and hire staff, as well as buy cleaning supplies and provide mental health services. - Courtesy Mary Cheng

And it may have to start accepting children whose parents can pay tuition for the first time.

Now I have to think about How do I make a profit?, said Cheng, who attended the child care program when she was little. You have to sustain the programming that has to happen for these families. You have to think about a profit in that way because when things hit the fan like this, youve got to figure out What can I do to make ends meet?

Hoping for additional federal support

A group of Democratic and independent senators and representatives are pushing to extend federal assistance for child care beyond September 30. They introduced the Child Care Stabilization Act, which would provide $16 billion each year for the next five years.

There was a child care crisis even before the pandemic  and failing to extend these critical investments from the American Rescue Plan will push child care even further out of reach for millions of families and jeopardize our strong economic recovery, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. This is an urgent economic priority at every level: Child care is what allows parents to go to work, businesses to hire workers, and its an investment in our kids futures. The child care industry holds up every sector of our economy  and Congress must act now.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill introduced in the House would enhance three existing tax credits  the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, the Employer-Provided Child Care Credit and the Dependent Care Assistance Program  to help make child care more affordable for families and to support employers in sharing the cost of care.

However, getting any additional funding through Congress will be difficult. House GOP hardliners are determined to cut spending in the fiscal 2024 government funding bill, making it more likely the government could shut down on October 1.

Vanessa Quarles is among the many child care providers who hope that Congress renews its support for the industry.

Quarles, who runs Bridges Transitional Preschool & Childcare in Evansville, Indiana, cannot take in more children until she can find more workers. But she can only afford to pay up to $14 an hour, which is barely a livable wage in the area, she said. Quarles raised tuition in February and stopped offering lunch, but she fears shell drive away parents if she asks them to shell out any more.

Vanessa Quarles, a child care provider, has found it hard to hire workers even though she advertises widely. - Courtesy Vanessa Quarles/Bridges Transitional Preschool & Childcare

If she received federal funding, she would be able to provide raises and bonuses to attract more employees.

A lot of people are having a hard time accepting the pay range of child care workers, said Quarles, who did not receive any stabilization grants. Thats one reason why we are not fully functioning.

States step in

At least 17 states invested their own money into child care this year, according to a tally by Child Care Aware. These include historic investments by Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington.

Washington funneled more than $400 million this year into early learning, the largest investment in state history, according to Child Care Aware. It builds on the Fair Start for Kids Act, which state lawmakers passed in 2021. The effort increased the number of households eligible for assistance by raising income eligibility limits  a family of four earning as much as $5,600 a month in 2023 qualifies for monthly copays of only $165. It also bumped up the rates paid to providers for serving state-subsidized families.

But more needs to be done to keep providers afloat, said Ryan Pricco, director of policy and advocacy at Child Care Aware of Washington. Currently, reimbursement rates are determined by a market survey, but that reflects what parents can afford, not the true cost of care.

Until we switch our subsidy system, and really our whole financing system, over to a cost of care model and reimburse programs that way, theyre going to continue to struggle to keep up with competitors and other low-income industries, he said.

The Skagit Valley Family YMCA had to close one of its early learning centers after the federal stabilization program expired. - The Skagit Valley Family YMCA

While the Skagit Valley Family YMCA needed the stabilization grants to bolster its child care workforce, those infusions alone are not enough to solve its financial imbalance, Snider said. Revenue from families paying full price and subsidized rates only cover the cost of staffing, not rent, food for the children and other expenses. The agency has racked up six-figure losses across its early learning centers so far this year, which is obviously unsustainable, Snider said.

Early learning is not a viable proposition right now, he continued. Everyone calls it necessary, but no ones willing to put the resources in yet to make it possible.

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An administrator from a Minnesota university will take charge of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, officials announced Tuesday.

Lynn Akey

Lynn Akey has served as vice president for student success, analytics and integrated planning at Minnesota State University, Mankato since 2019. The UW Board of Regents unanimously approved her hire in a closed-door meeting Tuesday.

Akey will earn $265,000 annually. She becomes chancellor of the 4,300-student university Jan. 2.

Lynns extensive experience in student success makes her a perfect fit for UW-Parkside, UW System President Jay Rothman said in a statement. She deeply understands how strategic planning, enrollment management, and the student experience work together.

More: A professor gave perfect grades to students who didn't deserve them, then landed a job at another UW campus

At the Mankato campus, Akey is credited with a new student success approach that led to increased re-enrollment, retention and graduation rates, according to UW System. She served a variety of administrative positions at the school since 2000.

Akey earned her a bachelor's degree from Northeast Missouri State University/Truman State University and her doctorate in educational policy and administration from the University of Minnesota, according to her resume.

Other finalists in the search included Phyllis King, the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and vice provost for partnerships and initiatives at UW-Milwaukee, and Felicia McGinty, the director of engagement and outreach for Higher Education Resource Services in Denver.

Akey was a finalist earlier this year in the search for UW-Whitewater chancellor.

Dr. Akey is ready to build upon the great foundation left by Chancellor Debbie Ford, UW Regent Kyle Weatherly, who chaired the search committee, said in a statement. UW-Parkside has made great strides in helping students progress toward graduation in recent years and our new chancellor will continue that momentum.

Ford took over as chancellor at Indiana University Southeast earlier this year.

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lynn Akey of Minnesota State Mankato to become UW-Parkside chancellor
SOUTH BEND  Joseph Wood, who was at the center of a controversial traffic stop in October 2022, has been charged with a Class A misdemeanor of operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person, the St. Joseph County Prosecutors Office announced Tuesday.

The son of Mishawaka Mayor Dave Wood, the 22-year-old was arrested Saturday, Sept. 23, after he allegedly crashed and flipped onto the drivers side a GMC Sierra in the 900 block of Frances Street.

The crash, which occurred about 8 p.m. in an area with heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic because of the nearby University of Notre Dame home football game, also damaged two unoccupied vehicles parked on Frances Street, with one of the parked vehicles being pushed into an AEP pole from the impact.

From March 2023: Mishawaka police stop mayor's son on suspected drunk driving, take him home with no report

Joseph Wood, the 22-year-old son of Mishawaka Mayor Dave Wood, was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving Saturday in South Bend.

An assistant county prosecutor claimed in the probable cause affidavit filed with the court that a witness told responding police officers the driver of the GMC Sierra disregarded a stop sign at the corner of Howard and Frances streets and that it was traveling at least 40 miles per hour in a 30-mph zone. The affidavit says the witness told police that the GMC Sierra had come barreling through the intersection while accelerating.

A cooler that contained alcoholic beverages was found on the street near the pickup truck, and Wood told the witness it belonged to him, prosecutors claim.

When questioned by a South Bend Police officer, prosecutors claim, Wood initially stated that he drank one beer, then later stated that he had consumed two beers at 1 p.m. Wood allegedly claimed he experienced mechanical difficulties that, along with a hump in the street's surface, caused the crash.

Police claimed Wood had red and watery eyes.

Wood was transported to Memorial Hospital for treatment of several scrapes and cuts on his body, including his head. Other than Wood, no one else was injured, according to police.

Prosecutors claim a portable breath test administered to Wood at the hospital yielded a result of 0.151% blood alcohol content. It is illegal to drive a vehicle in Indiana with a blood alcohol level of 0.08% or higher, meaning Wood is accused of driving at nearly twice the legal limit. Prosecutors claim Wood then began admitting to more alcohol use and made statements such as I was drunk and I knew I was over the limit.

After treatment, Wood was taken to the St. Joseph County Jail and released at about 1 a.m. Saturday.

Body Camera footage shows Joseph Wood, son of Mishawaka Mayor Dave Wood, being pulled over by Mishawaka police officers on Oct. 28, 2022, on Indiana Avenue.

Wood was pulled over in October 2022 in Mishawaka on suspicion of speeding, not using a turn signal and having an expired license plate. Though an officer commented that Wood smelled of alcohol and was stumbling, no tests were conducted and there was no mention of the incident in the departments public logs.

Instead, Wood was driven home by police Capt. Eric Beckham. An administrative review later found that no substantive criminal law was broken or violated in this incident. In April, Beckham volunteered for a demotion from captain to lieutenant, but it was never confirmed if the demotion had anything to do with the incident.

The charge related to Saturday's crash carries a potential maximum penalty of up to a year in jail or a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

Wood is next due in court Nov. 20.

Email Tribune staff writer Andrew S. Hughes at ahughes@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Mishawaka mayor's son charged with drunk driving after rollover crash
FILE - Danyelle Holmes, a national organizer with the Poor People's Campaign, speaks during a news conference, Nov. 2, 2020, in Jackson, Miss. On Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, Holmes said that residents of the majority-Black city of Jackson need more input on how to improve the city's water system. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP)  Activists in Mississippis majority-Black capital city are trying to join a federal lawsuit against the city for violating standards for clean drinking water, even as they say the Black judge presiding over the case is stirring racial division.

The activists from the Mississippi Poor Peoples Campaign and Peoples Advocacy Institute filed court papers Wednesday asking to intervene in the federal governments lawsuit against Jackson. During a news conference Wednesday, activists said they spoke for residents in the 80% Black city who want more say over reforms to the water system.

We feel like our lives are on the chopping block here in the city of Jackson," said Danyelle Holmes, an organizer with the Mississippi Poor Peoples Campaign. "We could no longer sit by idly as government agencies allow residents to be told that it's OK to drink unclean water.

The federal government has taken legal steps to scrutinize Jacksons water quality for over a decade. But in November, the Justice Department accelerated its involvement after breakdowns in Jackson caused many in the city of about 150,000 residents to go days and weeks without safe running water. Last August and September, people waited in lines for water to drink, bathe, flush toilets and cook.

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate appointed Ted Henifin, who had decades of experience running water systems in other states, to help fix Jackson's long-troubled water system. Henifin began working on several projects to improve the water infrastructure, such as repairing broken water lines and a plan to improve the city's ability to collect water bills.

Henifin said in June that he was not aware of any health risk in drinking Jackson water. In a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Henifin said his team is committed to public education that focuses on the people of Jackson and helping them understand what is happening with their water and the engineering science, not through the interpretive lens of activists, special interests or agendas.

We have been completely open and transparent with our water quality testing data and are in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act, Henifin said.

He also pointed to water quality reports and the Mississippi Department of Health water testing data that are available online.

At a multi-day federal court hearing in July, activists said they had received mixed messages about whether Jackson's water was safe to drink. Some residents reported discolored water flowing from their pipes even after public health orders were lifted. Activists also said they were being kept in the dark about the status of reforms.

After Congress awarded Jackson $600 million for water repairs, some city leaders and activists also said they wanted Henifin to look for minority-owned firms when awarding contracts for infrastructure projects.

Henifin, who is white, said he had been transparent about the quality of Jackson's water and his work as the interim manager. He also mentioned plans to launch a minority contracting program that would employ Black-owned firms whenever possible, WLBT-TV reported.

In a July 21 ruling, Wingate, who is Black, said many of the concerns raised by the Black activists were without merit.

They have no experience in water management, and no logical rationale why an African American would be better suited to fix a lingering problem which has gone unsolved for decades by past African American leadership, Wingate wrote.

During Wednesday's news conference, activists lambasted the judge for his comments.

When the judge made his statement that we just want someone Black to fix our water, that is very disingenuous. That's a disgrace," Holmes said. "You have a judge who is pitting Black against white, poor against the wealthy, and it's totally unfair. Whether you're Black, white or brown, we're all consuming the same water unless you're wealthy and have purchased a filtration system, which many of the residents who are predominantly Black cannot afford.

Brooke Floyd, co-director of the Jackson Peoples Assembly, said even those without expertise in water management should be able to voice concerns.

I think it's just unconscionable that it was even brought up," Floyd said. "The race stuff was ridiculous, and it's also ridiculous to say that because we are upset our water is not safe to drink, that we should just go sit down and be quiet and take what is given to us.

If they are allowed to join the federal lawsuit, Jackson community groups would have an institutionalized role in settlement negotiations, the activists said. They are asking for the installation of water filters in homes, more open meetings convened by the Environmental Protection Agency and a range of other demands.

Henifin had hoped to complete his work as Jackson's interim water manager in one year or less. Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the Peoples Advocacy Institute and sister of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, said she wants the city to work cordially with Henifin while he is still in Jackson.

As it relates to long-term, we want to see someone in Jackson that lives here, Rukia Lumumba said. We want to see the city have the resources to fully operate the water system itself where we dont have to have another third-party operator.

___

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.
Mississippi announced financial incentives for a shipbuilder to expand in Gulfport in 2020, days after the president of the shipbuilder's parent company made a $10,000 campaign contribution to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves , records show.

Gulf Ship LLC, which received the state incentives, is a division of the Louisiana-based ship company, Edison Chouest Offshore.

More: Gov. Tate Reeves announces plan to help struggling hospitals. Details here

More: Presley hits Reeves on welfare fraud through Southern Miss donors, but Reeves calls foul

The president of Edison Chouest Offshore, Gary Chouest, has given $66,000 to Reeves' campaigns since 2016, including $10,000 on Sept. 2, 2020, according to finance documents.

Fifteen days later, the state economic development agency under Reeves' supervision, the Mississippi Development Authority, announced Gulf Ship would receive state incentives to expand the site it opened in Gulfport in 2006. MDA said that with the expansion, the company would build tugboats.

We are grateful for our partnership with the Edison Chouest team and are excited for the continued success of Gulf Ship and its skilled workers in Harrison County, Reeves, who is now seeking reelection, said in an MDA announcement on Sept. 17, 2020.

With wife Elee Reeves at his side, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves speaks in Jackson, Miss., after winning the Republican primary on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.

A spokesperson for Edison Chouest Offshore, Lindsay Guidry, did not respond to voicemail messages left by The Associated Press last week and on Monday and Tuesday.

The AP asked Reeves campaign spokesperson Clifton Carroll whether there was any direct connection between Reeves accepting the $10,000 contribution from Chouest and the state's announcement of incentives for Gulf Ship.

Carroll did not answer the question, but said in a statement Monday: This is just a distraction from his campaign from real issues like the Governors action to put $700 million into hospitals.

Reeves announced a proposal Thursday to reconfigure some Medicaid funding by requiring hospitals to pay higher taxes to draw down significantly more federal money. The plan requires federal approval, and Reeves announced it weeks before the Nov. 7 election.

The Democratic nominee for governor, Brandon Presley , has hammered Reeves for not expanding Medicaid to people working in jobs with modest pay and no private health insurance. Presley campaign spokesman Michael Beyer said Tuesday that Reeves' hospital proposal would reward big donors and leave rural hospitals with crumbs.

Presley told the AP last week that Reeves' acceptance of a $10,000 contribution shortly before the state announced aid for a company connected to the campaign donor shows Reeves is an ethically compromised governor.

I think this is just another example in the long record of his pay-to-play schemes, whether it be with the industry, whether it be with appointments to boards and commissions, Presley said. You know, the most dangerous place to be in Mississippi is between Tate Reeves and a campaign check."

MDA said the Gulf Ship expansion would create more than 200 new jobs, and the state would provide assistance for other improvements to the waterfront.

MDA later reported that it gave $333,000 to Gulf Ship in exchange for the company's promise to invest $1 million and create 150 jobs. MDA also certified Gulf Ship for the state's Advantage Jobs Rebate Program, which gives the company a rebate of 90% of its Mississippi payroll taxes for 10 years, as long as the company creates the promised jobs.

MDA awarded incentives to Gulf Ship less than two years after a separate deal involving another Edison Chouest Offshore affiliate, Topship, fell apart.

In December 2018, MDA voided its agreement to provide $36 million in grants and incentives to Topship because the company failed to provide its own investment or fulfill its promise to create 1,000 jobs to develop property on Gulfport's Industrial Seaway.

In 2016, then-Gov. Phil Bryant announced Topship's intended project to a banquet room full of businesspeople and other Republican elected officials in Gulfport, including then-Lt. Gov. Reeves. The Sun Herald reported Bryant did not mention that Gulf Ship had laid off employees in Gulfport days before the incentives for Topship were announced.

Jonathan Daniels, director of the Port of Gulfport, told WLOX-TV in 2019 that the Topship project crumbled because of economic problems in the oil industry.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS announced incentives for company after executive gave to Reeves campaign
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) is suing members of a local school board for allegedly violating the states open meetings law by discussing a policy concerning the treatment of transgender students during a closed-door meeting, rather than at a public one.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Wentzville School Districts board of education, Bailey alleges members of the board knowingly excluded parents from policy discussions about bathroom and locker room access for transgender students during two private meetings over the summer.

The state attorney generals case hinges on claims made by two directors of the districts seven-member school board. The members in sworn affidavits submitted to Baileys office this week accused their colleagues of pressuring the board to vote on a policy to allow transgender students to use school restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity during meetings where members of the public were not present.

The decision to consider the policy during a closed discussion rather than a public one was made intentionally, the two board members allege in their respective statements. According to one affidavit, a board member during a July 25 meeting said opening up the discussion to the public would be a lightning rod for lawsuits.

The school boards discussions went beyond the scope of permissible exceptions to Missouris open meetings law, which requires that government bodies discussing public business do so during meetings that are open to the public, Bailey wrote in his complaint.

The Board should have opened discussions about the policy to the public in open-session public meetings, he wrote.

The school district in a statement said it has not been served a copy of the lawsuit and that generally it and the board do not comment on active litigation but always take matters of this kind very seriously.

The Board of Education has adopted policies that demonstrate its commitment to Missouri Sunshine Law compliance and strives to faithfully adhere to those policies and the law, the statement concluded.

Bailey said in a news release announcing the lawsuit Wednesday the complaint should send a message that Missourians do not co-parent with the government and his office will enforce Missouris open meetings statute to protect parental rights.

Parents have the right to know who is in the bathroom with their children, Bailey said. Members of the Wentzville School Board knowingly and purposefully denied parents that right when they shrouded the transgender student bathroom usage policy in secrecy, directly violating the Open Meetings Law.

Baileys office is seeking injunctive relief and $1,000 in monetary damages for each violation of Missouris open meetings law. A spokesperson for the Wentzville School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is not Baileys first foray into transgender issues, nor is it the first to rely on sworn testimony from whistleblowers.

In February, he announced his office had launched a multi-agency investigation into a St. Louis pediatric transgender clinic following accusations of malpractice by a former employee. However, the veracity of the account made by Jamie Reed, a former case manager at Washington University Transgender Center was called into question by reporting from outlets including the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Missouri Independent.

And in March, Bailey issued an emergency rule that effectively banned transgender minors and certain adults in the state from accessing gender-affirming medical care. The rule, which was put into effect the following month, was abruptly terminated by Baileys office in May.

In June, Missouris Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation prohibiting medical providers from administering gender-affirming care to transgender minors and some adults. That law took effect Sept. 1, after a judge rejected a request to temporarily block it.

This story was updated at 7:18 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A suspected murderer who was mistakenly released from an Indiana prison on a clerical error was recaptured Wednesday in Minnesota.

Kevin Mason, 28, was on the run for two weeks after he received the accidental release from Marion County Jail in Indianapolis on Sept. 13.

U.S. Marshals captured him Wednesday in St. Paul, nearly 600 miles from where he was released.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude and congratulations to the USMS for concluding this manhunt and safely bringing Mason back into custody, Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal said in a statement.

Mason is accused of killing Dontevius Catchings, 29, outside a funeral in Minneapolis on June 11, 2021. Warrants were issued for his arrest shortly afterward, but Mason remained on the lam for more than two years.

Authorities finally caught up with him on Sept. 11, 2023 in Indianapolis, and he was taken to the county jail. But on the morning of Sept. 13, a series of errors by jail clerks let Mason walk free.

The county sheriff alerted the public to the error about six days later. At that time, pursuers still believed Mason was in the Indianapolis area. During the search, they arrested Masons girlfriend, Desiree Oliver, and accused her of assisting a fugitive. She was formally charged on Monday.

Mason is charged in Minneapolis with second-degree murder, illegal possession of a firearm and violating his parole. He faces no charges in Indianapolis.

Two clerks involved in Masons accidental release were fired from their jobs at Marion County Jail.
The most popular language models out there may be accessed via API, but open models  as far as that term can be taken seriously  are gaining ground. Mistral, a French AI startup that raised a huge seed round in June, has just taken the wraps off its first model, which it claims outperforms others of its size  and it's totally free to use without restrictions.

The Mistral 7B model is available today for download by various means, including a 13.4-gigabyte torrent (with a few hundred seeders already). The company has also started a GitHub repository and Discord channel for collaboration and troubleshooting.

Most importantly, the model was released under the Apache 2.0 license, a highly permissive scheme that has no restrictions on use or reproduction beyond attribution. That means the model could be used by a hobbyist, a multi-billion-dollar corporation, or the Pentagon alike, as long as they have a system capable of running it locally or are willing to pay for the requisite cloud resources.

Mistral 7B is a further refinement of other "small" large language models like Llama 2, offering similar capabilities (according to some standard benchmarks) at a considerably smaller compute cost. Foundation models like GPT-4 can do much more, but are far more expensive and difficult to run, leading them to be made available solely through APIs or remote access.

"Our ambition is to become the leading supporter of the open generative AI community, and bring open models to state-of-the-art performance," wrote Mistral's team in a blog post accompanying the model's release. "Mistral 7Bs performance demonstrates what small models can do with enough conviction. This is the result of three months of intense work, in which we assembled the Mistral AI team, rebuilt a top-performance MLops stack, and designed a most sophisticated data processing pipeline, from scratch."

For some (perhaps most), that list may sound like more than three months' work, but the founders had a head start in that they had worked on similar models at Meta and Google DeepMind. That doesn't make it easy, exactly, but at least they knew what they were doing.

Of course, although it can be downloaded and used by everyone, that is very different from being "open source" or some variety of that term, as we discussed last week at Disrupt. Though the license is highly permissive, the model itself was developed privately, using private money, and the datasets and weights are likewise private.

And that is what appears to make up Mistral's business model: The free model is free to use, but if you want to dig in, you'll want their paid product. "[Our commercial offering] will be distributed as white-box solutions, making both weights and code sources available. We are actively working on hosted solutions and dedicated deployment for enterprises," the blog post reads.

I asked Mistral for a little extra info on their processes and plans. CEO Arthur Mensch said that not all future models will be released under Apache 2.0, though "some will." Larger models will be available through an API (presumably paid) rather than a DIY approach. And he declined to offer more detail on the training and dataset assembly processes, saying they were proprietary "so far."
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Memphis Light, Gas, and Water will help assist customers with their delayed billing issues at their downtown community office on Saturday.

Information on assistance programs such as weatherization, energy efficiency kits, and financial assistance through the Community Services Agency or the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association will also be available.

MLGW contracts with Utility Partners of America to help repair meters

MLGW customers need to bring a valid picture ID and can park in the Beale Street Landing garage for free. However, customers must bring their parking stubs into the community office for a security officer to validate them.

This comes after many customers voiced their concerns at Septembers MLGW board meeting.

The billing process I feel is totally unacceptable, said Rhonda Gray, MLGW customer. Since April, I have not received a bill or the bill that I have received is zero. I knew that I owed, but why would you be sending me zero bills and later on send me a bill for x amount of dollars?

I received a bill on August 21 for $1,381.06 showing I used an electric of $900.00. That cant be right, said Barbara Pierotti, another MLGW customer.

But at a recent meeting, MLGW says progress is being made with delayed billing decreasing from 96,262 to 28,699 and it says help is on the way for customers.

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We will be putting requests in for additional staff for what I call the new normal because, obviously, our conditions have changed, said Timothy Davis, MLGW Vice President of Customer Experience and Energy Services.

MLGW has come to you with solutions, Davis said. We have ripped the band-aid off and tried to move some big boulders here because of challenges that have impacted our customers. We have owned it. We have taken accountability for it, and we have been transparent about it.

The downtown community office is located at 245 South Main Street and will be open from 8 a.m. until noon on September 30.

MLGW says customers can schedule an appointment to see a credit counselor in person by using the QLESS app or scheduling online here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
The Modesto Police Department is receiving $6 million from a new state program that targets organized retail thieves as well as those who steal cars and their components, like catalytic converters.

The City Council on Tuesday accepted the money from the Board of State and Community Corrections Organized Retail Theft Prevention Grant program.

The grants are competitive, and of 114 law enforcement agencies that applied for funding, Modesto was one of 38 to get it.

The Police Department already conducts these operations, but the $6 million lets it expand efforts over the the three-year life of the grant.

Organized retail theft is a growing problem throughout California. Late last year, the Sisk Road BevMo was hit several times by a retail theft crew. They were tracked down to an address in Stockton ... and eventually $14,000 in stolen alcohol was returned, according to Modestos application.

Police Lt. Bob Meredith said a crew from Contra Costa County stole about $12,000 in goods from Dicks Sporting Goods at Vintage Faire Mall a couple of weeks ago. He said police tracked down the thieves and took them into custody.

In a typical year, Meredith said, the Police Department might do a half dozen operations at major retail centers, such as Vintage Faire, as well as others during the November-December holiday shopping season. He said a big operation could have eight officers. That includes officers in plainclothes.

The grant pays for the department to conduct at least two of these retail and auto theft operations each month, using a dozen officers who will work overtime, Meredith said. It also expands the departments operations during the holiday shopping season.

About half of the grant will be spent on technology and equipment, including buying more license plate readers. The department has 13 installed at intersections at or near retail sites. The grant will increase that to 38 such intersections. The department also will buy more cameras and other gear.

Focus on major retail centers

The operations will focus on the citys major retail centers: Vintage Faire, the 3900 block of Sisk Road, which has a Target and Best Buy, and the Pelandale Avenue shopping center with Costco and Lowes.

Meredith said operations also will be conducted along McHenry Avenue in the area from Bowen to Briggsmore that includes Safeway and the Burlington department store, as well as the area at Sylvan/Standiford where stores include Target and Marshalls.

The grant pays for hiring a police civilian investigator and the use of one of the departments crime and intelligence analysts. This will help the department track trends and hot spots to hold operations at other retail sites.

The programs goals include reducing organized retail theft by 10% each year and auto theft and the theft of catalytic converters and other auto components by 5% each year. Meredith said eight retailers have agreed to provide data to show the reductions. He said they asked that their names not be released.

The grant application includes more than a dozen letters in support, including ones from Save Mart, Vintage Faire, Kohls, Macys, Walgreens and Rite Aid. The program includes meetings every two months with retailers to improve communications among themselves and with the police.

Meredith said the Stanislaus County District Attorneys Office received a $1.56 million three-year state grant as part of this effort, which includes dedicating a prosecutor to handle the cases from start to finish.

Meredith said the Police Department also will work with the Sheriffs Department, which did not apply for funding.

For instance, he said, they could conduct an operation at Riverbanks Crossroads Regional Shopping Center because retail theft rings that hit Modesto also hit nearby communities. The city of Riverbank contracts with the Sheriffs Department for police services.
When Faustina Cavero, 31, first saw her baby make an odd gesture, she thought she must have scared her when picking her up.

The nearly 5-month-old's arms would stretch and stiffen. She made faces like she was trying to grit her teeth even though she didn't have teeth yet, Cavero tells TODAY.com. And she would cry in between spasms.

As the strange movement patterns became more frequent, they also became more distressing for Cavero, a stay-at-home mom living in New York City. She took her baby, Aaliyah, to a hospital to get checked out, but was dismissed  twice, Cavero says.

"They told me I was a new mom and, 'Maybe you're just tired. You need to get some rest. The baby's fine,'" she recalls. Cavero, who has three other children between the ages of 7 and 13, wasn't new to being a mom. But she decided to let it go for the time being.

However, Aaliyah "kept constantly doing the movements, and it kept getting worse and worse," Cavero says. "It got to the point where she kept crying," she says, which is when Cavero and her husband took baby Aaliyah to another hospital.

Again, she explained what she'd seen and even showed the staff videos of Aaliyah's odd gestures. But again, Cavero's concerns were dismissed as unnecessary worries from a tired, stressed out mom.

After being dismissed twice, finally an answer

"This is the second time I've taken her to the hospital, and it's the second time they've told me that she's fine and there's something wrong with me," Cavero recalls. "Meanwhile, I know there's something wrong with our baby."

That night, Cavero's mother saw the odd movements for herself, looked online for possible causes and urged the parents to keep pushing. By then, Aaliyah's gestures were getting more severe  her eyes started rolling back and she'd stopped smiling.

So Cavero and her husband resolved to try once again to get a diagnosis, taking the first neurology appointment they could reserve online.

The next day, Cavero took baby Aaliyah to the appointment with Dr. Natasha Acosta Diaz, a pediatric neurologist at Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital.

Although Acosta Diaz couldn't give an exact diagnosis without further testing, she had a pretty good idea of what was going on after seeing Cavero's videos. "It's an easy diagnosis for any neurologist that sees the videos," Acosta Diaz says.

Suspecting that Aaliyah was exhibiting infantile spasms, she rushed to admit the baby directly to the pediatric epilepsy unit at Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital. Acosta Diaz walked Aaliyah there herself, handing her off to Toni Kavanagh, a registered nurse and clinical specialist in pediatric neurology at the hospital.

In the epilepsy monitoring unit, Aaliyah's brain waves were monitored with EEG testing, which measures electrical activity in the brain. Within the first 30 minutes, "already the patient had an abnormal background (reading)," Dr. Maite La Vega-Talbott, interim director of the pediatric epilepsy monitoring unit at Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital, tells TODAY.com.

That, along with a long list of tests to rule out other conditions, helped confirm the diagnosis of infantile spasms, also called West Syndrome.

Infant spasms (Courtesy Faustina Cavero)

What are infantile spasms?

The spasms are actually seizures. They are a form of epilepsy that tends to occur between the first 4 and 8 months of a babys life, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The movements, which only last a few seconds at most, typically come in clusters. During one of the seizures, a baby may arch their back and stiffen momentarily. It might look like the baby is gritting their teeth, even if they don't have any.

The spasms tend to occur more frequently when the baby is transitioning between wakefulness and sleep, which was the case for Aaliyah, who typically had seizures after nap time, Acosta Diaz adds.

Infantile spasms can be caused by different underlying issues. And, depending on the cause, they may go away completely after age 4 or 5  or the child may develop neurological impairments or other types of seizure disorders, NINDS explains. Getting diagnosed and treated quickly can improve the chances for better outcomes down the line, the experts tell TODAY.com.

For the best chance of positive outcomes, the treatment for infantile spasms needs to be administered as quickly as possible. So an abnormal EEG reading like Aaliyah had puts the ball in motion, says La Vega-Talbott, who is also an assistant professor of neurology and pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

First, babies with infantile spasms receive a medication called adrenocorticotrophic hormone, a corticosteroid, which is injected into the muscle. It works quickly to drastically reduce the number of seizures a baby has, but it's only used temporarily for 30 days, La Vega-Talbott explains.

It begins to work within two to three days, and the patient typically stops having seizures within five days, she says. "After a week or two, the parents can start seeing their kid is a little more interactive, has better eye contact and that smile that is lost is coming back slowly." After that initial treatment, the baby receives a more typical anti-seizure medication for months or longer while undergoing EEG monitoring to keep track of their symptoms.

Seeing her baby in the hospital brought a mix of complicated emotions for Cavero. She felt blessed to finally have some answers and be taken seriously, but it was tough to watch her child go through something like this.

"She kept crying and she was still small," Cavero recalls, adding that doctors had trouble finding her veins. Cavero remembers sitting in a corner of the room, "telling myself, 'I want to die, please God, take me, not my baby."

La Vega-Talbott comforted Cavero. "She told me, 'Listen, we're doing all we can to help your baby, and she's going to be fine. Believe me, we're doing what's best for her,'" Cavero recalls. From there, she began to feel more comfortable and watched as doctors started administering the medication that would help get Aaliyah's seizures under control.

More than a year later, no more seizures

Today, Aaliyah is nearly 2 years old, and "she is actually doing what a normal 2-year-old is supposed to do," Cavero says. She's a little behind on speech development, but after her latest EEG, "the doctor said that she is 95% great, so I'm just thankful for that."

Cavero hopes Aaliyah's last EEG was at the beginning of September and that she'll soon be able to take a lower dose of medication or stop completely as her symptoms have improved so much. And although it's possible the seizures could come back one day, "at least we know now what she has and we'll be ready for it," Cavero says.

Looking back on her journey to get a diagnosis, Cavero says she simply trusted her gut. And she encourages others not to give up if they know, deep down, that something isn't right. "Trust your instincts and keep going," she says.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
A mom told her TikTok fans that she let her child choose one day out of the month to skip school.

Most commenters praised her decision to allow the girl more "mommy time" by letting her stay home.

Experts disagreed on whether she was doing the right thing for her kid's well-being.

When Noel LaPalomento said on TikTok that she let her child take a day off school each month without being sick, she received almost universal praise in the 4,000 comments on the video .

Most supported her choice to give her 6-year-old daughter, Giada, more "mommy time" in the form of relief from the rigors of the classroom once every four weeks.

LaPalomento told Insider that she was delighted that she'd helped open a debate about kids facing increasing pressure at school.

"They'll say, 'Wow, I really wish my mom did that with me when I was younger,'" she said. "A little thing like that can make a difference in a kid's life."

In her post, LaPalomento, a single mom and influencer, shows clips of Giada enjoying one of her days out of school. She happily pushes a doll in a toy stroller and eats cotton candy at the mall.

"I told my daughter she can pick one day each month to stay home from school without being sick," her mom captioned the video. The first grader can choose what she'd like to do, similar to the plot of the Netflix movie " Yes Day ."

"That's so smart, I'm totally doing this with my future kids," one commenter said.

"As a teacher, I support this," another said.

"A lot of the people who agreed with me were teachers," LaPalomento told Insider. "They said it was a great idea."

She said that on a typical day off, she might take Giada to a restaurant followed by the mall to buy "something like a bath bomb."

LaPalomento said her child would miss 9 days out of the 181 in her current school year

The 26-year-old said that she took matters into her own hands after recognizing that Giada was frequently overscheduled and worn out. She said Giada got up at 6:30 a.m., arrived at her private school by bus at 8 a.m., and got back home about 3:30 p.m.

"It's a very long day," LaPalomento said, adding, "My daughter comes home depleted. She has to do homework  on top of spending seven hours in school. Then, after I've fed her and she's had a shower, it's 8 p.m., and there's no time to do anything else before bed."

She said the change in their lifestyle had brought them closer: "Giada will talk about us having a long weekend and all the fun we'll have."

LaPalomento, who lives in New Jersey, also justified her decision in the comments section of her post. She wrote that Giada's absences were on "nine days out of 181"  the total number of days on the academic calendar.

Some people were skeptical about LaPalomento's parenting decision

Still, there was some backlash from critics who said Giada was missing important aspects of her education.

"One day a month is a lot," one of them commented.

"Do you let her skip assessment days?" another person asked.

"This is what I call weekends," someone else wrote.

Amy Morin , a psychotherapist, and Chris McGovern, the chairperson of the Campaign for Real Education  a pressure group of parents and teachers that advocates for standards in schools  largely disagreed on the issue.

LaPalomento told Insider that Giada loved having one day off school every month. Courtesy of Noel LaPalomento

Morin told Insider that it was helpful for children to have such "proactive ways to work on their mental health."

"In today's world  where there's so much pressure on performance, and kids feel like they have to be achieving and productive and overscheduled  it is a really good idea to take a break once in a while," she said.

The psychologist, who wrote the book " 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do ," said that she'd treated several patients overwhelmed by stress from their schooling.

"I see a lot of parents and families in my therapy office who wait until their kid has a serious mental-health issue to take a mental-health day," Morin said. "So for a child who has extreme anxiety, taking a day off is too little, too late."

She went on to advise families to use their mental-health days wisely.

"You can obviously have fun, but you also want it to be a life lesson for your kids about why you're doing this," Morin said, adding: "You can tell them, 'It's OK to step back from math homework once in a while and go enjoy ourselves. But how are we going to do that?'"

She recommended activities such as getting exercise or doing something together, like baking or art projects.

"You don't want to have kids that sit around playing video games all day or think it's an opportunity for overindulgence," she said. "This may not be good for their mental health in the long run."

A former principal said that LaPalomento was 'abrogating' their responsibilities

Meanwhile, McGovern criticized LaPalomento's decision to take Giada out of school, calling it "indulgent."

"The parent is abrogating their responsibilities," he said.

"This woman who is indulging her child thinks it's going to help them with mental health," he said, adding: "It's probably going to do the exact opposite."

The retired teacher and former principal said that kids needed "direction and leadership." He said they were more likely to thrive academically and emotionally with a formal structure.

"You'll find that most children crave boundaries and order," he added.

He said that parents who took their kids out of school on a whim created headaches for teachers.

"It makes it impossible for them to educate children when children are missing on a daily basis." He added that it caused dissent and jealousy among students with parents strict about attendance.

In US schools, kids are struggling academically

McGovern said that as well as creating "spoiled brats," kids' skipping school could have serious consequences for the whole educational system.

According to the Programme for International Student Assessment  an organization that says it "processes data and analysis to inform policies"  at the age of 15, American schoolchildren have significantly lower rates of performance than those in other countries.

"They are three years behind places like Singapore, China, and South Korea," McGovern said.

Tanith Carey, whose parenting books include "What's My Child Thinking?" praised LaPalomento for encouraging Giada to choose which day to take off school each month.

"It is good when people give the child some control over the activities they do together," she said

Carey predicts that as the members of Gen Z start to become parents, more people "will go their own way with education for the sake of their children's mental health."

Read the original article on Insider
Taylor Schabusiness has been sentenced to life without parole for the brutal murder of her boyfriend Shad Thyrion.

Schabusiness, 25, strangled Thyrion, 24, with a dog collar in February last year during a meth-fuelled sex act. She then decapitated his body and dumped his head in a bucket for his traumatised mother to find inside her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Judge Thomas Walsh handed her life without the possibility of extended supervision for murder, plus an additional ten and a half years for mutilation of a corpse and sexual assault.
FILE - Demonstrators gather on the steps of the Montana state Capitol protesting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Helena, Mont., March 15, 2021. A Montana state judge Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, has blocked enforcement of a law to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

HELENA, Mont. (AP)  A Montana law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors is temporarily blocked, a state judge ruled Wednesday, just four days before it was to take effect.

Legislative debate over Montanas bill drew national attention this spring after Republicans punished Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr  the first transgender woman elected to the states Legislature  for admonishing lawmakers who supported the bill.

District Court Judge Jason Marks agreed with transgender youth, their families and health care providers that the law passed by the 2023 Montana Legislature is likely unconstitutional and would harm the mental and physical health of minors with gender dysphoria, rather than protect them from experimental treatments, as supporters said it would.

The judge noted the same Republican-controlled legislature passed a law saying patients, including minors, have a right to receive treatment with experimental drugs  as long as it's recommended by a health care provider and they give consent.

Marks said he could only conclude the Legislature's stated intent in passing the law was disingenuous and it seemed more likely its purpose is to ban an outcome deemed undesirable by the Montana Legislature, veiled as protection for minors."

Todays ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief, Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, said in a statement. But this fight is far from over. We look forward to vindicating our clients constitutional rights and ensuring that this hateful law never takes effect.

The preliminary injunction remains in effect until a full trial can be held on the issue, but the state Department of Justice said it will appeal the injunction.

We look forward to presenting our complete factual and legal argument to protect Montana children from harmful, life-altering medications and surgeries. Because of the irreversible and immediate harms that the procedures have on children we will be filing a notice of appeal today, spokeswoman Emilee Cantrell said in a statement.

Montana is one of at least 22 states that have enacted bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors and most face lawsuits. Some bans have been temporarily blocked by courts, while others have been allowed to take effect. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule this week on the gender-affirming medical care bans that were allowed to take effect in Kentucky and Tennessee.

In Montanas case, transgender youth argued the law would ban them from continuing to receive gender-affirming medical care, violating their constitutional rights to equal protection, the right to seek health and the right to dignity.

Their parents said the law would violate their constitutional right to make medical decisions for their children and two medical providers said it would prevent them from providing effective and necessary care to their patients.

Montanas ban is a direct assault on the freedom and well-being of transgender youth, their families, and their medical providers, Malita Picasso, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a recent statement.

The law sought to prohibit the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria, while still allowing cisgender minors to receive puberty blockers to treat early puberty or surgical procedures to treat intersex conditions.

Treatments for gender dysphoria meet standards of care approved by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the ACLU argued in its complaint.

Allowing the ban to take effect would cause irreparable harm to transgender minors who are receiving treatment, in part by exacerbating the anxiety and depression they feel because their body is incongruent with their gender identity, Picasso argued during a Sept. 18 hearing for the preliminary injunction.

The state countered that beginning the treatments put transgender children on a path of no return" and continuing medical treatment.

A child cannot possibly consent to the treatment that permanently and irreversibly changes secondary sex characteristics, nor can a child consent to future infertility and sterilization, future sexual dysfunction and a lifetime of hormone treatments and other forms of medicalization and resulting complications, Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell argued.

Zephyr said Wednesday that Republicans who voted for the ban didn't listen to the medical community or families of transgender children who testified during legislative committee hearings that gender-affirming care is life-saving care and silenced her for speaking out against the legislation.

But now  five months after the legislature adjourned  the ruling is in and they must listen to the courts," Zephyr said in a statement.

___

The story has been corrected to show the ruling happed on Wednesday, not Tuesday; and corrected to show the order is a preliminary injunction, not a temporary restraining order
A Montana district court judge has blocked the state from enforcing its ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, adding to a growing list of Republican-led states that have had such bans halted by court orders.

Two transgender minors, their parents and two pediatric endocrinologists sued Montana in May, alleging in a lawsuit filed in Missoula County that the new law, Senate Bill 99, would violate their rights under the state constitution if it is allowed to take effect.

District Judge Jason Marks granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday. He wrote in his opinion that Senate Bill 99 is unlikely to survive any level of constitutional review and barring access to gender-affirming care would negatively impact gender dysphoric minors mental and physical health.

The law, which had been set to take effect Sunday, states that a person may not knowingly provide minors with gender-affirming medical care including surgical procedures, doses of testosterone or estrogen or puberty blockers. It includes exceptions for minors with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development.

Medical providers who violate the law may face discipline from the appropriate disciplinary review board and be suspended from practicing medicine for at least a year. The measure grants the state attorney general, Austin Knudsen (R), broad authority to enforce compliance.

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill in April despite protest from his son, who identifies as gay and nonbinary and uses he and they pronouns. David Gianforte told the Montana Free Press that month he met with his father in March to try to persuade him not to sign the measure, saying they felt somewhat of an obligation to speak with him about it.

The governor had written earlier in April in a letter accompanying amendments he recommended to the bill that the measure protects Montana children from permanent, life-altering medical procedures until they are adults, mature enough to make such serious decisions.

State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat and one of the bodys first openly transgender legislators, was censured by House Republicans this session after she said lawmakers who voted to approve the bill and Greg Gianfortes amendments would have blood on your hands.

Gender-affirming health care for both transgender adults and minors is endorsed by every major medical organization. The American Medical Associations legislative body at an annual meeting in June adopted a resolution that denounces efforts to levy criminal or legal penalties against individuals seeking or providing care.

Legal advocates who challenged Senate Bill 99 on behalf of the plaintiffs celebrated Wednesdays ruling but acknowledged it is not a long-term solution.

Todays ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief, Akilah Deernose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Montana, said in a statement. But this fight is far from over. We look forward to vindicating our clients constitutional rights and ensuring that this hateful law never takes effect.

We are gratified the judge understood the danger of denying transgender Montana youth access to gender-affirming care as the challenge to this cruel and discriminatory law proceeds, said Kell Olson, staff attorney for Lambda Legal. Transgender youth in Montana will continue to thrive, and removing this looming threat to their well-being is an important step in allowing them to do so.

Emilee Cantrell, Knudsens deputy communications director, agreed that Markss ruling is a preliminary matter at this point.

We look forward to presenting our complete factual and legal argument to protect Montana children from harmful, life-altering medications and surgeries, Cantrell told The Hill in an email. Because of the irreversible and immediate harms that the procedures have on children we will be filing a notice of appeal today.

Twenty-two states since 2021 have adopted laws that heavily restrict or ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state legislation on LGBTQ issues. Laws in states including Florida and Missouri also limit care for certain transgender adults.

Federal district courts have blocked the enforcement of bans in Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and now Montana.

A panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals last month, however, allowed Alabamas felony ban on gender-affirming care to take effect while a legal challenge against it proceeds, and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in July lifted injunctions issued by lower courts on Tennessees and Kentuckys bans.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Law enforcement arrested a Montgomery Police Department officer Tuesday and placed him on leave.

Gregory Harvey, 24, is a three-and-a-half-year veteran of the police department. He is charged with one count of third-degree theft of property and nine counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, all felony charges, MPD Chief Darryl Albert said.

Harvey is being booked in the Montgomery County jail, where he will be arraigned.

"This is certainly a black eye for our department, but it is not indicative of who we are or the good work our officers perform daily on a day-to-day basis," Albert said. "We wanted to reassure the community of our commitment to transparency as well as our commitment to doing the right thing.

"It's simple. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. We will not tolerate this on any level."

Chief Darryl Albert announces the arrest and immediate leave of Gregory Harvey, 24, of the Montgomery Police Department.

More: Unsolved Murder 20 years later, Alabama Army veteran's killing remains unsolved

Alex Gladden is the Montgomery Advertiser's public safety reporter. She can be reached at agladden@gannett.com or on Twitter @gladlyalex.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery police officer arrested, charged with nine felonies
Over 30 middle and high students were hospitalized after mace was sprayed on a Georgia school bus.

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The incident happened Tuesday morning.

The Tift County School and the Tifton Police Department began investigating after a chemical was released on a school bus with 35 students onboard.

School authorities confirmed the chemical to be pepper spray.

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Beverly McClain whose daughter is a freshman in high school told WALB-TV her daughter was one of the many kids taken to the hospital to be examined.

From what I understand, it was a middle school student that sprayed the mace. Im not sure why, but my daughter was the second group to get on the bus. They had already taken the middle school students to school, and then the second group was the high school. But I guess some of the residue or whatever you want to call it was still on the bus, Beverly McClain told WALB-TV.

McClain told WALB-TV that the school system immediately notified parents and they reacted in the best way possible.

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In a statement posted to their Facebook, Tift County Schools stated they ...are still investigating the cause of the incident. We would like to thank the local EMS and Tift Regional Medical Center for their assistance in ensuring the safety and security of our students.

According to school officials, all students were evaluated and released from Tift Regional Medical Center.

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(Bloomberg) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. spent the first 15 months of his term working with the US and its allies to counter Chinas incursions in the South China Sea. Now, his government is taking the fight more directly to Beijing in a move that could force the US to make some tough choices.

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Marcos this week ordered a special operation in which his coast guard removed a barrier installed by China at the entrance of the Scarborough Shoal, a chain of reefs and rocks the two sides claim as their own. Footage posted by the Philippine coast guard shows a knife-wielding man in scuba gear slicing through a rope connecting buoys that they say threatened fishermen and was a clear violation of international law.

The move, Philippine coast guard says, is part of a strategy developed over several months to retake the area  a traditional fishing ground for the Philippines and its neighbors  which Beijing has effectively controlled since 2012 after a weeks-long standoff with Manila. China Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday warned the Philippines not to make provocations or seek troubles, while the nations coast guard later accused the Philippines of making up a story and said it actually removed the barrier itself on Sept. 23  a day after installing it to prevent entry of a Philippine ship.

Either way, the Philippine coast guard said it intends to sustain patrols in the shoal, though neither Marcos nor his senior defense, military and foreign affairs officials made any statements on the plan on Scarborough Shoal. Questions remain about how far Manila is willing to go and whether the US  which has remained quiet on the latest developments  would really have its back if the situation escalates. Americas muted response to a crisis over the same shoal more than a decade ago preceded Chinas takeover of the area.

Our mutual defense treaties would lose most if not all of their credibility if we stayed out of it, said Carl Schuster, a former operations director at US Pacific Commands Joint Intelligence Center. The US cannot leave the Philippines in the lurch.

Officials at the US State Department didnt respond to an emailed request for comment.

One thing is clear: the barriers removal  and the coast guards suggestion of more action to come  all but closes the chapter on an era of foreign policy under former President Rodrigo Duterte that veered toward China. And with tensions rising in the South China Sea, it represents a growing assertiveness in the Philippines bid to protect its sovereignty from a far bigger and more powerful foe.

What it marks is a clear change from the Duterte approach of being nice to China and hoping that that would protect the Philippines from problems, said Bill Hayton, author of The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia. That the Americans clarified its mutual defense treaty means that theres a bit more willingness on the Philippine side to go toe-to-toe.

The Scarborough Shoal, in particular, is a sore point in the Philippines alliance with the US. Dutertes Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin would years later blame the Obama administration for failing to stop China from seizing the shoal in 2012 after the standoff.

At that time, the Philippines withdrew its vessels from the waters surrounding the reef following negotiations that included the US. Duterte had said China, in turn, didnt honor an agreement to also pull its ships, and instead occupied the area. The episode helped entrench his broader skepticism about the longstanding alliance between the US and the Philippines, and also served as a precursor to President Xi Jinpings move to build military installations throughout the South China Sea.

Since Marcos took office last year, Washington and Manila have expanded defense cooperation, with American forces able to access military outposts including some near Taiwan. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in July reiterated the USs ironclad commitment to defend the Philippines, saying the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty covers coast guard vessels in the South China Sea.

The two sides are considering even more access for US troops and are planning joint exercises. The Philippines has also sought new partnerships with US allies like Japan and Australia and is even reportedly weighing the creation of artificial islands to install new command posts.

That hasnt stopped Beijing from asserting ownership over nearly all of the resource-rich sea. Nor has the fact those claims were refuted by an international arbitration panel at The Hague in 2016. The run-ins have been rising along with a record number of incursions by Chinese ships. In 2022, Chinas coast guard maintained near-daily patrols in the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, where the Philippines maintains a garrison.

The removal of structures such as a barrier isnt a new phenomena in the long running dispute between competing Asian claimants, with the dismantling of objects including sovereignty markers more of a common occurrence in the 1990s. Yet the Philippines latest move risks angering China, which now has the worlds largest navy by number of warships.

Megaphone Diplomacy

Whether China is sending more ships or being more aggressive, there should be an anticipation of a response, said Rommel Ong, a retired rear admiral in the Philippine Navy. This shows what we wanted to do in the last six years but couldnt do before. Its going beyond the megaphone diplomacy that we usually do.

To be sure, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo this week said the South China Sea issue is not the only factor in the countrys relationship with China, but that the Philippines seeks to manage dispute peacefully and through the rule of law. Beijing too, wont be rash, according to Dongshu Liu, assistant professor specializing in Chinese politics at the City University of Hong Kong.

China will probably issue a strong statement, but isnt likely to take strong action, the professor said. China wants to make sure that the conflict is under control.

The Philippines newfound assertiveness can be explained, in part, by Southeast Asias inability to take a tough stance on the maritime issue, despite countries from Vietnam to Indonesia facing similar situations. China and Southeast Asia have been working on a code of conduct meant to resolve confrontations, though talks have dragged on for two decades.

Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela, whos among those at the frontlines of the Philippine operations in South China Sea, expressed confidence in their bid to retake the shoal.

I think they are going to have a hard time figuring out how to maintain the barrier because we also took away the anchor, he said.

--With assistance from Andreo Calonzo, Cliff Venzon, Jane Pong and Kari Lindberg.

(Updates with Chinas coast guard statement in third paragraph.)

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More Republicans see Trump as person of faith than Pence, Romney: poll

More than half of Republicans see former President Donald Trump as a person of faith, a higher percentage than those who said the same of more vocally religious politicians such as former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a recent poll found.

The survey, conducted by HarrisX for Deseret News, asked registered voters which politicians they considered to be people of faith.

Among Republicans, Trump earned the top position, with 53 percent of voters thinking he is a person of faith.

Pence, an evangelical Christian, followed closely behind, earning 52 percent in the poll.

Unlike Pence and some of the other Republican presidential candidates, Trump rarely talks about his personal faith.

His personal history is also one that would seem, at a glance, to be potentially troubling for Christian conservatives.

Trump has been divorced twice and is in the middle of a lawsuit surrounding his alleged paying of hush money to a former adult film star to stay quiet about an alleged affair. Hes also been accused of cheating on his wife with a former Playboy model.

But Trump has consistently won the support of social conservatives, and the results of the poll could provide some insight into how people see him.

Trump himself has noted that his policies have benefitted social conservatives. For example, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom were in the majority opinion overturning the Roe v. Wade decision.

In June, Trump attended the Faith & Freedom Gala where he told supporters that no president has every fought for Christians as hard as I have.

Ill fight hard until Im back behind that desk in the Oval Office, he said.

Among Democrats, President Biden ranked as a top choice, earning 63 percent of voters who say he is a person of faith.

Biden has been vocal about his Catholic faith. Vice President Kamala Harris, who identifies as Baptist but was raised in an multi-religion household, came in second for Democrats.

Almost half, 42 percent, of Independent voters said Romney, a Mormon, was the political figure most likely to be a person of faith.

Pence, along with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), have both made their Christian faith central to their presidential campaigns. Both are rivals to Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

As for the other GOP presidential hopefuls, 47 percent of Republican respondents thought Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) is a person of faith, while Scott and former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) tied each earning 31 percent. Thirty percent believe Vivek Ramaswamy to be religious and 22 percent said the same of former Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.).

Less than a quarter of Republicans believe Biden is a person of faith and 12 percent said the same for Harris.

The poll was conducted by HarrisX from Sept. 8 to 11, among 1,002 registered voters and have a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
It has always been hard to tell what kind of show Apple TV+s The Morning Show wants to bea straight-up workplace drama? A camp masterpiece? An issue-driven polemic? Maybe just a delightfully watchable hot mess? The series, which kicked off with a surprisingly nuanced #MeToo storyline in its first season before pivoting to the pandemic in its second, is back with a third season that has ricocheted from suborbital space to a massive cyberattack to high-handed discussions of the First Amendment and systemic racism. Such lofty ambitions, interspersed with soap-opera antics and a sky-high budget, are a recipe for chaos. But one thing thats clear, three seasons in, is that this chaos is a feature, not a bug, and no character embodies this more than Cory Ellison, the CEO of the UBA network.

Cory is the character who seems to thrive on a tidal wave of dysfunction. Played with a dark, layered charm by Billy Crudup, whose I-dare-you-to-call-my-bluff line readings could be the subject of an entire seminar at Juilliard, Cory was a breakout character in Season 1, an underdog whose Midas touch in programming catapulted him into the top job at UBAs news division. Cory kept his cards close to his vest, a contrast to the gushing dysfunction that flowed from Alex (Jennifer Aniston), Bradley (Reese Witherspoon), and the rest of the TMS cast and crew. An early scene where he and Alex circle each other, singing the Stephen Sondheim duet Not While Im Around from Sweeney Todd, pointed to the kind of smart, thrillingly off-balance show this could be. I dont know whats [going on], says Yanko, TMSs weatherman, speaking for all of us, but its weird and fascinating and Im super into it.

So it was utterly baffling when the showrunners made the decision, in Season 2, to have Cory, this elegant, brilliant weirdo, fall back on the most cliched, cringey move of all: declaring his love for Bradley in the streets of New York as the city teeters on the brink of COVID catastrophe. Not only did it feel misguided (to put it nicely) for the show to go into full, hetero, rom-com mode after investing significant narrative capital in developing a relationship between Bradley and Laura Peterson (the ever-wonderful Julianna Margulies), but even Crudup couldnt sell it.

The Morning Show tends to confuse character development with pressing replayBradley just wants to report the news! Alex just wants her seat at the table!so one of the biggest questions hanging over Season 3 was how it would handle Cory. Thankfully, aside from one or two awkward references to the confession, the show seems to have adopted creative amnesia when it comes to the Bradley/Cory love-that-wasnt, focusing instead on Corys internality, which up until now has remained a cipher.

In a storyline that drafts off Succession, Cory woos Paul Marks, a billionaire whose tsunami of tech money is positioned as UBAs savior (Cory and Paul even namecheck Jesus and Lazarus during their merger discussions). In the opening episode, Marks, played by Jon Hamm with the kind of inscrutable cool that must make Elon Musk squirm, brings the TMS team on the maiden launch of his Hyperion spacecraft, purely a business decision meant to burnish UBAs brand while making space look as safe as Cinnabons. And yet, for a moment, Cory floats above the dealmaking. Looking down at Earth, he quotes the Buddhist idea of enlightenmentthe all-knowing mind, empty and radiant.

Its a supple joke, because the idea of Corydriven by an ambition that burns hotter than the surface of the sunrelating to the Buddha, who gave up all material and earthly desires to achieve enlightenment, is pretty funny. But it also speaks to a central tension, revolving around the idea that peace can only come when you let everything else go. Cory is not a person who can let go. But what makes him tick doesnt seem to be just standard-issue, corner-office ambition, either. Maybe a man who knows a Buddhist text well enough to quote it while in zero-gravity space has spent some time thinking on this, but Cory seems to understand that power alone isnt enough, even as he seeks more and more of it.

This comes to a head in this seasons fourth episode, which primarily unfolds during an upfronts party for advertisers at Corys Hamptons pad. His mansion, as vast and neutral as a Marriott, is supposed to represent Corys success, but it feels as chilly as the Grinchs lair. There, Cory learns that his nemesis, UBAs former CEO Fred Micklen, has been hired off the books to monitor UBAs loan. As he stares off into the dark, channeling the ghost of Kendall Roy, a helicopter lands on the beach and Alex and Paul Marks disembark, their arrival reviving the deal that would allow Cory to throw off the Fred Micklens of the world forever. You get the sense that, for Cory, the electric possibility of an idea makes him feel more alive than anything reality can deliver.

Its no coincidence that the episode is named The Green Light, a nod to F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, wherein Jay Gatsby gazes across the water at the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanans dock, the idea of her from his past more real and moving than any reality. Even Corys waterfront West End stunner feels like a reference to Fitzgeralds fictional West Egg, the less exclusive Long Island enclave where Gatsby lived, as opposed to Daisy and Toms old-money East Egg. The Great Gatsby is about longing, and the limits of reinvention and the American Dream, and there are shades of Gatsby to Cory, an outsider who slings into the CEO seat out of nowhere, his molten ambition equaled only by the emptiness we see on his face when no one is watching. Gatsby hungered for an idea so much he bent his whole life around it, even if his dream could never regain the charge of the past. With Corys frenetic desire to build an empire, we see a more ruthless side of him, and a suggestion that what makes him run may not just be ambition but something darker.

Even with his piles of money and his cold pleasure dome, Cory draws power from feeling like an underdog. When the suits underwriting UBAs loan tell him, in a subtle power move, that they should meet up at the ultra-exclusive Maidstone Club in East Hampton, Cory returns an acid volley: Of all the antisemitic clubs, that ones my favorite. Its this unpredictability, this refusal to ever thumb under, that makes Cory fascinating.

What it doesnt make him, though, is a hero. In a move that would have made Littlefinger proud, Cory uses a massive hack that lays UBA bare to his advantage, leaking a racist email from the UBA board chair, Cybil Reynolds (Holland Taylor), in order to sideline her and pave the way for the merger, indifferent to the fact that it causes TMS staffers deep pain. When Stella (the brilliant Greta Lee), Corys deputy and head of news, calls him out on weaponizing 400 years of systemic racism in order to make a backroom deal, he doesnt even bother to deny it. Later, Cory tosses Stella into a stew of cheery misogyny when he tasks her with bringing in huge commitment from advertisers who feel beamed in straight from the pre-#MeToo era. Cory knows who these men are, but he assures her she can get it done, and she does, at a stomach-churning cost. The details of just what happened dont particularly matter to Cory; he chalks it up, like every ruthless maneuver in his life, to a necessary evil.

Gatsby was a classic American archetype, the outsider who plays the role of the insider; as a character, he makes little sense until you realize this performance is core to who he is. The same goes for Cory: One of the most revealing scenes this season shows us Cory alone, in front of a mirror, practicing versions of his upfronts speech until the right cadenceconfident, surprising, impenetrablesnaps into place. Perhaps the reason Cory feels so sphinxlike, so difficult to peg down, is that he, too, is always playing a role. Above all else, Cory is an incredible showmanand the show, after all, is what were here for.
This weeks installment of The Morning Show is all about the needle drops. We open on The Bee Gees Stayin Alive as Cory (Billy Crudup) swaggers into UBAs big upfront presentation. Get it? Because UBA is trying to stay alive after a huge racism scandal rocked the media company and exiled a big legacy exec. Theyre going to need some sort of miracle to convince advertisers to buy in after a botched deal with billionaire Paul Marks (Jon Hamm) and the huge hack targeting the company.

As with most traditional upfrontswhich, if you didnt know, are big gatherings held by networks that introduce its new slate of programming as a way to convince ad folks to toss money at the channelsa big comedian is hosting. Retta, playing herself, makes the whole racism scandal (which the show is now calling #JemimaGate) look like a joke. Its no problem! At the same time, she also makes Cory out to be a complete fool.

Some call him captain of the Titanic, others, Napoleon at Waterloo, Retta booms, introducing the man of the hour. I call him the man who definitely did not cut the brake lines in Mitch Kesslers car.

Remember when now-deceased Mitch (Steve Carrell) was the entire story of The Morning Show? Now, hes a mere punchline.

Erin Simkin/Apple TV+

At least a part of his manipulatory spirit lives on in Alex (Jennifer Aniston), who flirts with Paul in an attempt to win him back over to Team UBA, thereby saving the company from financial despair. Alex had promised Cory shed woo some ad people into giving money to UBA. She didnt, however, come clean about her plan to take Paul to Coney Island for a romantic summer date with water guns and roller coasters. This tacky date makes no sensebut hey, pretty people doing things together. Ill take it.

The date is a whole lot more interesting than whatever Mia (Karen Pittman) is conspiring about. Theres been a bombing in Mariupol and UBA wants exclusive pictures. Mia phones a freelancer friend (with benefits?) in the area, Andre (Clive Standen), who agrees to shoot exclusive footage for UBA. After he files his incredible photography, Mia refuses to show it on the news. Why? It could put Andre in danger in Ukraine. Stella (Greta Lee) overpowers the producer and demands she get the images on the news, stat.

Erin Simkin/Apple TV+

Obviously, The Morning Show is teeing up a new storyline between Mia and Andre, so presumably were going to learn more about these two later. But in this episode, the debacle between the couple (?) feels like an extended advertisement for Apple. They communicate exclusively through FaceTime, their high tech Apple iPhones more in focus than their actual faces.

Stella is on her game this episode. She meets a pair of ad guys from a company called Sloanthe companys name is, indeed, important to rememberfor a boozy lunch at a seafood joint. Three dirty martinis in, Stella folds. She asks the waitress to start serving her water so she can keep up. The ad guys are impressed, if suspicious that such a petite woman would be able to hold the same amount of liquor as they can.

The ad guys agree to Stellas dealwith a twist. (Pun intended, because this plotline needs some levity.) Stella will have to convince the waitress, who is also an Asian woman, to lick her spilled drink off the table. Then, theyll sign. Stella bends to their racist demand, tips $20,000, and the poor service worker bends over the table, her tongue pressed against the marble top. Who are these freaks, a duo of Roman Roys?

Morning Show Star Nicole Beharie Gave the TV Performance of the Week

Then were off to Corys place in the Hamptons, where dozens of ad investors run rampant around his glass-to-ceiling-lit interiors. Again: I dont care about the plot, just give me pretty things at which I can gawk. Everyone is a pawn. Cory grows infuriated with Bradley (Reese Witherspoon), who is too busy flouncing around with ex Laura (Julianna Margulies) to schmooze with the ad people. Or perhaps the anger is of a more personal, romantic type.

Board exec Leonard (Stephen Fry) tells anchor Chris (Nicole Beharie) that her job is to convince these investors that UBA has new values following Cybils (Holland Taylor) Aunt Jemima comment. Chris bites backdoes the company really have new values? The board needs to raise the salaries of its POC employees if they really want her to play their diversity card. Leonard offers to raise Chris salary. Chris rejects his offer. Hes going to need to raise all the salaries if he wants to use her.

Erin Simkin/Apple TV+

Yanko (Nestor Campbell) warns Chris about becoming too woke, because Yanko is a fool, and he always says the wrong thing. Chris shouldnt start a mob on social media, he warns. She shouldnt engage in the so-called culture wars because, eventually, theyll come after her. Yanko makes no sense, but perhaps he does if this is supposed to be foreshadowing. Chris brushes off his advice.

UBAs ex-president and antagonist Fred Micklen (Tom Irwin) returns, banging down Corys door to say: I own you, you fool! That deal with Sloan? I told you to remember that name. Fred just bought Sloan, so he now has a stake in UBA. If your company exposes you on the national news for being a complete villainous nitwit, like UBA did to Fred, why would you want anything to do with them ever again? Just run to Fox News, at that point. Theyd accept Fred with open arms. But this is a revenge move; by having a stake in UBA, Cory and company now have to answer to him and he can make their lives miserable.

But here comes our knights in shining armor, Alex and Paul, coupled with our second needle drop: Truth Hurts by the newly infamous Lizzo. Is this more foreshadowingis Paul and/or Alex evil? Or is this a bad coincidence?

Apple TV+

Either way, Alex is able to convince Paul to re-enter conversations about buying UBA. She only had to bat her eyes and offer up a sob story to so. If were comparing these two to real life people, which The Morning Show lovessee also: Matt Lauerthis would be like if Katie Couric and Elon Musk became a rumored item.

Queue a quirky reaction from UBAs resident dork, Cory: Un-fucking-believable.

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Historian Mary Beard poses during an interview at the Prado Museum in Madrid on Oct. 29, 2021. Credit - Ricardo RubioEuropa Press/AP

To a historian of ancient Rome like Mary Beard, its always timely to talk about the empire. But her new book about the daily lives of Roman Emperors, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, is due to come out in the U.S. when the Roman Empire has been trending on TikTok.

Women have been posting videos of themselves asking the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire and expressing shock as these boyfriends and husbands say they think about the Roman world all of the time. Beard, meanwhile, does not need to ask her husband how often he thinks about the Roman Empirehe is an art historian who studies Roman art.

Whether these men on TikTok are serious or joking, the reasons why they say they think about the ancient Roman world offer Beard a starting point for discussing what modern conveniences we can attribute to the ancient Romans and whats the stuff of myth.

In a phone conversation with TIME on Sept. 26, Beard, also the author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, explained the proper way to wear a toga and set the record straight on other misconceptions about the Roman Empire running rampant on TikTok.

More From TIME

The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.

Does the Roman Empire have a special appeal among men? Why or why not?

In some ways, ancient Rome is a kind of safe place for macho fantasies. It's where men can pretend to be macho men. That must be part of the appeal, I suppose. And people say to me, 'Well, you must think that's awful, don't you?' Anything that brings people to be interested in the ancient world is fine by me. But I'm very keen that they should see that there's more to the ancient world than macho fantasies. I think my job is to say, 'Okay, you've gotten interested in Rome. Now, I'm going to tell you it's more interesting than you thought.'

What should people be thinking about when they think about the Roman Empire?

It was not all generals and posh white men. This was a culture built on slavery. Last week, I went to Rome and I went to the Palatine palacethe kind of mission control of the Roman Empire. There's one little area there, which must have been an area for the staff, the slaves, the service quarters. The [servants] have written all over the walls of this area in graffiti scrawls. There is a parody of the crucifixion of Jesus. It was probably done in the late second century CE. It might be the earliest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus that we have. There's a man being crucified on the cross, but he has a donkey's head. There is a figure in a tunic next to him clearly praying to him. We can also see that the slaves are into Christianity before the Emperorsit was another 100 years before any emperor became a Christian. So there are other stories to tell, not just stories about the big guys.

One guy on TikTok says he thinks about the Roman Empire because men at their core are warriors and have to be ready for battle and the Roman Empire is all about battle.

The Roman Empire is partly about battle. We've got to remember that those emperors didn't conquer the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had been brutally acquired when Rome was still a democracy. And actually not many Roman emperors do much conquering at all, and they make a kind of show of the image of the brand. They have loads of statues of themselves dressed up as warriors. But in some ways, that's a substitute for conquering. They're not actually doing very much.

Other guys on TikTok have said they associate Romans with togas and think about Rome when they use the bathroom because of their role developing sewage systems. How accurate is that?

Roman people did not wear the toga every day. They wore the toga on special occasions. If you went to the Colosseum, that's a bit like going to the opera in London, so you wear your toga just like youd wear a tuxedo. But most Romans wore tunics and they wore all white and probably wore trousers, actually. This idea that Rome was a nation in which everybody wore togasthat's simply untrue. I also think that we overestimate the sophistication of Roman sewage work and Roman drainage. In the middle of a flood, things like octopuses came up in people's lavatories.

Now lets talk about your new book Emperor of Rome. You talk about the cross-dressing ruler Elagabalus. What do you want readers to take away from his story?

Some of our questions about gender fluidity what counts as male and what counts as femalethey're not new. I don't think the Romans give us an answer to that. But I do think it's helpful for us to realize that our issues weren't invented 20 years ago. It's really important to see that these questions go back millennia. I don't think there has been a human culture that hasn't wondered about the nature of what it is to be male or what it is to be female.

I was disappointed to learn in your book that Caligula did not really appoint his horse consul. How did that myth become so widespread?

There are sources which say Caligula threatened the Senate that he would appoint his horse consul, and that always gets quoted as, Caligula made his horse consul. Hes one of a whole series of emperors who treat their horses almost like people.

Why does Julius Caesar get so much attention?

The answer is probably because he was assassinated. Shakespeare writes up that moment as an absolutely crucial moment in thinking about political justice and political fairness. But Julius Caesar wasn't around very long as dictator. He was mostly not in Rome. He mostly didn't finish things.

Who was the most overrated Roman emperor?

I would say that Claudius has been very lucky, partly because of Robert Graves, between I, Claudius and Claudius the God and the TV series. They turned Claudius into a slightly charming, old academic emperor, a kind of Uncle Claudius, a sort of nice guy. That was fiction. If you go back and you read what Romans were saying about Claudius, he was a murderous bastard.

Who was the most important Roman Emperor?

Augustus, the first proper Roman Emperor after Caesar, because he sets the whole system up. He rules for 40 years. And he actually ensures that there is a system that will last. The emperors don't last, but the autocratic system lasts, and Augustus is very largely responsible for that.

What would Romans have thought of TikTok and social media?

They would have loved it. Romans like graffiti. They would have loved sharing the equivalent of graffiti. Rome was a master of image creation and image replication You see these idealizingin our terms, Photoshoppedimages of the Emperor Augustus all over the place. In that sense, they're very modern. They certainly want to leave them on any wall they post. They want to say, 'Marcus was here.'

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.
The mom of the man wanted in the killing of a Baltimore tech CEO wants her son to surrender.

"I told him to turn himself in because they're going to kill him," the mom told NBC News.

Jason Billingsley, 32, is being sought by police in connection to the killing of Pava LaPere.

The mother of the repeat criminal offender who is wanted in connection to the killing of a young Maryland tech CEO said that she has pleaded with her son via a text message to surrender to police, according to a report by NBC News.

"I told him to turn himself in because they're going to kill him," Scarlett Billingsley, 72, told NBC News. "I don't want police to shoot him because they think he has a gun."

Billingsley identified herself to the news outlet as the mother of 32-year-old Jason Billingsley, who is being sought in connection to the death of 26-year-old Pava LaPere.

LaPere, the founder and CEO of the startup EcoMap Technologies who recently made it on the Forbes 30 under 30 list, was found dead with signs of blunt-force trauma at a luxury apartment building in Baltimore on Monday around 11:30 a.m., police said.

Scarlett Billingsley told NBC News that her son  who police have described as "armed and dangerous"  showed her a gun on the day that LaPere's body was found by officers with the Baltimore Police Department.

The mother told the news outlet that she believes her son is trying to sell the weapon but that she has no clue where he is.

"He's not going to tell me," said the mother who explained that she last saw her son on Monday when he visited with her for a few minutes.

"I don't even know how he met that girl, where he met that girl, or how he got into her apartment," Scarlett Billingsley told NBC News.

Police have said that investigators do not believe Jason Billingsley and LaPere knew each other.

The man's mother told NBC News that she was sorry to LaPere's family.

"I am so sorry for what that mother is going through," Scarlett Billingsley said. "I'm very sorry if he did it."

In the aftermath of LaPere's death, police launched a manhunt for Jason Billingsley, who is a convicted sex offender with a violent history.

Authorities on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for him on several charges, including first-degree murder, assault, and reckless endangerment, in connection to the death of LaPere.

Read the original article on Insider
The U.S. Army private who crossed the border into North Korea over the summer has been repatriated.

In a statement on Wednesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said King was in U.S. custody.

U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing, Sullivan said. In addition, we thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King.

Travis King, a U.S. soldier, ran across the military demarcation line into North Korea on July 18, 2023. (Photo: YouTube screenshot/NBC News)

As ABC News reported, a Sweden representative in North Korea assisted with transporting King into China, where a U.S. official was waiting for him.

Related: California Single Father of Six Gifted a Car After Riding His Bike 16 Miles Round Trip Daily to His Graveyard Shift to Provide for Family

The 23-year-old cavalry scout defected into North Korea while on a Joint Security Area guided tour. Before crossing the border, he was expected to return to the U.S. after spending time in a detention facility for about two months after being accused of assault.

Read the full story here.

KCNA, a North Korean media outlet, reported that the probe into King had been completed, and officials decided to expel him.

According to the investigation by a relevant organ of the DPRK, Travis King confessed that he illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK as he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society, the outlet alleged he said.

Officials worked to bring King home while his family grappled with the uncertainty. In previous interviews, his mother, Claudine Gates, has opened up about the emotional toll the situation had on her.

According to CNN, a family representative said shes forever grateful for the push to ensure her sons return.

Per the outlet, a U.S. official confirmed that King is in good health and good spirits and was very happy to be on his way home.
Sara Lyle was six months pregnant when she moved to Singapore for her husband's job.

She got hired as the editor in chief of an expat magazine, which was a lifeline during her divorce.

She worked as a single mom overseas before returning to the US, where she now lives.

I'd never been to Singapore before moving there in January 2015. At the time, I knew only two people in the city-state; they were friends from New York City. That's where I'd been living and working in the publishing world for 16 years  most of my adult life.

When my then-husband and I decided to move to the other side of the world, we'd been living in a two-bedroom walk-up in Brooklyn. We'd married less than six months before that, and I was about that far along in my first pregnancy at the age of 36.

While I'd traveled extensively, I'd never lived abroad for more than a couple of months. But I had always dreamed of living outside the US at some stage.

So, when my ex did a virtual job interview over Thanksgiving weekend at my in-laws' home in Pennsylvania  and was then offered a job at one of the world's biggest advertising companies' Singapore office  I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity. We flew out in late January during a winter storm they named "Snowpocalypse."

On the flight, I devoured two books about Singapore. When we landed about 23 hours later, I learned a little more about this foreign place I was planning to be living in for the next two years  the length of my then-husband's employment contract. As soon as I set foot in Singapore's Changi Airport, however, I realized I had a lot more to learn.

There were so many differences between Singapore and New York

What was this place with public bathrooms so clean you could almost eat off the floors? I was coming from New York City, not typically known for its cleanliness. And what in the heck was the driver speaking when he drove us  and our six large suitcases  to the serviced apartment we lived in for a few months until our things arrived via cargo ship? I soon learned that it was the local creole language of Singlish.

The next day, trading in our heavy winter coats for shorts and T-shirts, we explored nearby Orchard Road. We sat down for lunch at a cafe along Emerald Hill. From our vantage at an outdoor table, we got a good look at one of Singapore's charming heritage areas. At the time, we didn't realize how expensive the beautifully preserved shophouses were. The Lamborghinis and Porsches parked out front should've tipped us off  Singapore is the most expensive country in the world to buy cars.

At eight months pregnant, I accepted a job

Woman laying with her son on the bed

Early days in Singapore before taking on a full-time job.Sara Lyle

This first taste of the sun-drenched, culture-rich Red Dot  a nickname often used for Singapore  inspired a seven-year-long quest to soak up as much as I could about this place. When a friend recommended me for the editor-in-chief position at a long-running magazine for expats in Singapore, I landed the job at eight months pregnant and agreed to start five months later. I was like, "So, you're going to pay me to learn about living here? Sign me up!"

During my initial interview with the publisher, I did think it was odd that she made a point to note that if I had my own employment pass  a requirement of residing and working in Singapore for foreigners  I would be protected from being booted out of the country if, say, my husband lost his job, or we got divorced.

She mentioned the expat divorce rate was significantly higher than that of the Singaporean population. In cases filed in the Singapore Family Courts between 2011 and 2015, the number of divorces filed between two Singaporeans had decreased, but those filed by non-residents had grown steadily, according to a study in Academy Publishing.

In the end, both of those things went on to happen: My husband lost his high-paying job about three years in, and  I will spare you the details about the intervening years  we eventually agreed to divorce in early 2020.

Of course, this was right around the time COVID-19 swept the world. As a result, my son and I spent many days in full or partial lockdown in our three-bedroom condo, a five-minute walk from Singapore's beachy East Coast Park. To stave off cabin fever, we used to do daily walks or bicycle rides along its coastline  my favorite greenspace on the island.

My son and I embraced everything about Singapore

Woman with her child posing for a picture in Little India Singapore wearing traditional Indian clothing

Mother and son in Singapore's Little India during last Deepavali before moving back to the US.Sara Lyle

Despite all these twists and turns, I cherish my time there. My son and I threw ourselves into celebrating popular holidays such as Deepavali, Hari Raya, Lunar New Year, and Mid-Autumn Festival. Because he was born on Vesak Day  Buddha's birthday  we always made sure to go to a Buddhist temple each year to ask for blessings on that day.

Over time, foods and drinks that had seemed exotic became comfortingly familiar  and we ended up craving them: wanton mee, laksa, and sambal stingray were regulars. To this day, after having not lived in Asia for almost two years, my son says his favorite food is roti prata  a fried Indian pancake  with curry sauce.

What are other things that are hard to find outside Singapore? The easy travel throughout the region. While living there, we visited more than 10 different countries thanks to its central location. And perhaps  most importantly  the incredible network of Singaporean and expat friends I was grateful to have met.

Seven years later, it was time to head back to the States

Wedding photo in Colorado Spring with blended family. Charlotte Bundgaard for Trystan Photography

In December 2021, I made the difficult decision to move to Florida with my son because that's where most of my family and close friends live. Also, by going "home" to America  a place my son had never actually lived  I was able to land a better-paying job, which was a relief after being the primary breadwinner in notoriously expensive Singapore.

Today, I live in the suburbs outside Denver in arid, mountainous Colorado. I recently eloped with my now-husband  a fellow divorced friend from my hometown whom I've known since we were 12. Our three shared sons were the only wedding guests at the simple outdoor ceremony.

Could I have seen this coming two years ago? No way. Could I have seen Singapore in my sights two years before that in New York? Heck no. But when life gives you a sign that it's time to move on, you do it  and embrace what the future holds.

Got a personal essay about living abroad or parenting that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@insider.com.

Read the original article on Insider
With a government shutdown four days away, thanks largely to House Republicans inability to stop fighting amongst themselves, far-right Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert thought it important to focus on their pet grievances on Wednesday.

Greene successfully used the Holman rule to attach an amendment to a short-term defense spending bill to reduce Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin s yearly salary to $1. Austin, the first African American Secretary of Defense, was destroying our military and had allowed recruitment to fall to crisis levels, Greene huffed.

The move was purely a stunt: She previously said shed vote against the defense bill anyway because she objected to its inclusion of aid for Ukraine.

Lets check in on the what House Republicans are doing to avert a government shutdown 



(They just adopted by voice vote an amendment that would reduce Defense Secretary Lloyd Austins salary to no more than $1.) pic.twitter.com/Pl2m0Ltp7p  The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2023

Not to be outdone, Boebert successfully inserted an amendment to reduce the annual salary for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness Shawn Skelly, who is transgender, to $1.

In a transphobic rant, she accused Skelly of espousing wokeism that had caused significant harm to our military readiness and troops morale.

Democrats didnt bother asking for a roll call vote on Greenes amendment, which is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Senate. She still predictably gloated about it on social media afterwards.

While House Republicans managed to advance the defense bill on Tuesday night, as well as three other spending billspart of ultraconservative members demands to consider 12 individual funding bills rather than one sweeping continuing resolution to keep the government openHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has made zero progress on thwarting a shutdown.

He is reportedly planning to bring a short-term funding bill to the floor on Friday that cuts spending and includes border security measuresbut at least eight hardline Republicans are still vowing to kill it. According to Politico, they are Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ), Eli Crane (AZ), Cory Mills (FL), Matt Gaetz (FL), Tim Burchett (TN), Andy Ogles (TN), Wesley Hunt (TX) and Matt Rosendale (MT). Boebert is also likely to join them.

We are going to pass 12 appropriations bills before I will consider a [continuing resolution], Ogles said.

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MUNCIE, Ind.  A Muncie man prohibited from possessing guns was arrested this week after he allegedly posted images of himself on Facebook Live displaying a firearm and threatening to shoot at people.

City police were sent to Heekin Park on the afternoon of Aug. 30 after Ricky Lamiez Taylor, 24, allegedly made "threats to multiple people on Facebook," saying he would be going to the southside park "to shoot at people," according to an affidavit.

An officer wrote that Taylor appeared to be "streaming a live video" from a vehicle and at one point "reveals a black rifle-style firearm and a transparent magazine which appears to contain live rounds."

The officer wrote that Taylor "holds the rifle, pretending it is a guitar, and the firearm leaves the frame."

An officer reported finding Taylor that afternoon at a convenience store in the 900 block of East Main Street. However, the Muncie man allegedly fled from the scene in his vehicle when the officer tried to make a traffic stop.

More: Crash in stolen car leads to robbery, firearm charges against Muncie man

A brief chase ensued but Taylor was not apprehended at that time.

On Aug. 31, the Chrysler 300 vehicle Taylor had reportedly been driving was found in the 1400 block of West Kilgore Avenue.

Investigators said they found a "transparent magazine," loaded with about 18 "live rounds," in the vehicle.

Taylor was booked into the Delaware County jail on Tuesday afternoon, preliminarily charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and resisting law enforcement.

He was later released after posting a $15,000 bond. The gun charge is a Level 4 felony carrying up to 12 years in prison.

Taylor was also in police custody two days before the alleged Facebook incident.

On Aug. 28, he was arrested after a car he was driving crashed at River Road and Delaware County Road 500-W in Yorktown.

Police said a man living on Muncie's south side had reported that morning that he found a man  allegedly Taylor  in his vehicle, which was parked outside his home.

The southside resident said when he approached his vehicle, the man inside pointed a gun at him, threatened to kill him if he called police, and drove away.

Taylor was released from the Delaware County jail after that arrest when he posted a $35,000 bond.

He has since been charged with three felonies  robbery, auto theft and intimidation  in connection with those allegations. An initial hearing is set for Nov. 2 in Delaware Circuit Court 3.

The Muncie resident was sentenced to time already served in jail in January 2018 after he pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness in a Muncie mans 2017 shooting. Because of that felony conviction, he is prohibited from possessing firearms.

In June 2018, he was convicted of assisting a criminal.

On Aug. 16, Taylor was charged in Delaware Circuit Court 2 with intimidation, a Level 6 felony carrying up to 30 months in prison, over events that allegedly took place on July 14. His initial hearing in that case is set for Thursday.

On July 19, he pleaded guilty to five charges pending against him in Madison Circuit Court 3  resisting law enforcement, obstruction of justice, driving while suspended, reckless driving and possession of marijuana.

His sentencing hearing in the Madison County case, which was filed last December, is set for Oct. 4.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Police: Muncie man displayed gun, made threats while on Facebook Live
Alex Murdaugh. Cory Fleming . Russell Laffitte. They are the known Murdaugh crime saga conspirators, and each stands convicted for their role in a decade-long, multi-million criminal enterprise that has made South Carolina history and worldwide headlines.

Through craft, cunning, and con, this troublesome trio used their power and access as lawyers and bankers to fleece multiple victims in multiple S.C. Lowcountry counties.

And their cases are not done yet, as even behind state and federal prison walls these once-powerful men continue their legal battles through court filings.

This week, Murdaugh has filed a motion that, if successful, could take money the state has put away for his victims, while Fleming has now joined Laffitte in appealing his prison sentence.

Murdaugh asks federal government to seize his assets from state

Convicted family murderer Murdaugh, facing state and federal charges for his financial crimes, pleaded guilty to his federal charges last week even as he awaits trial on his more than 100 state charges. While he has not been sentenced on those federal charges, Murdaugh is expected to be on the hook for a minimum of $7.6 million in restitution, fines and legal fees for his federal crimes alone.

Just four days after a federal judge accepted his guilty plea, Murdaugh's legal defense team, led by Richard Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, filed a motion seeking the "immediate" federal seizure of all of Murdaugh's assets.

But there is a problem: those assets have already been seized by the state courts, and they total much less than $7.6 million.

In the wake of Murdaugh's dozens of ongoing civil suits  including the 2019 Beach wrongful death suit involving a fatal boat crash  and the 100-plus criminal charges, the state court approved a motion by Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley to have Murdaugh's assets seized and placed under control of court-appointed receivers, to be used for restitution or damages to victims, and for court-approved legal costs.

Tinsley represents the family and estate of Mallory Beach, who died in a Beaufort County boat crash involving Murdaugh's boat and his late son, Paul.

Defense attorney Jim Griffin, left, talks with Alex Murdaugh during his double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, Feb. 17, 2023, in Walterboro, S.C. The 54-year-old attorney Murdaugh is standing trial on two counts of murder in the shootings of his wife and son at their Colleton County home and hunting lodge on June 7, 2021.

What are the grounds of Murdaugh's motion?

The Sept. 25 motion, filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, seeks the "immediate seizure" of Murdaugh's assets from the receivership.

The motion requests the U.S. Marshals Service or other "appropriate federal officers" immediately seize all assets held by Peter M. McCoy and John T. Lay in their capacities as co-receivers for Murdaughs assets, aka "The Murdaugh Funds," and place them in the "exclusive custody and control of the United States of America."

Murdaugh's motion asks for a full accounting of these assets by the state and claims that the Murdaugh Funds are "at risk of substantial dissipation and waste without the Courts immediate action."

The motion points out that the Murdaugh Funds originally constituted $2,163,396.08, but legal fee payouts of $408,153.58 and $253,294.17 to the co-receivers have dwindled the fund. The receivers have also appointed another attorney to serve as a Special Referee for the disbursement of the remaining funds, so these legal fees will increase.

Murdaugh's lawyers claim that legal fees from "expensive private attorneys" will continue to dwindle the Murdaugh Fund that can be paid to victims, whereas "The United States, however, will perform the same function in ancillary proceedings for free."

"It is inappropriate for the asset forfeiture imposed as part of the conviction and sentence for numerous federal felonies to be managed by private attorneys appointed on the motion of private civil litigants in state court proceedings to protect their future contingent interests in civil litigation," Murdaugh's attorneys write.

"This Court convicted Mr. Murdaugh," they further argue. "No other court has convicted Mr. Murdaugh of any financial crime. This Court entered an order for the seizure order of his assets. No other court has instituted any criminal seizure or forfeiture proceedings regarding his assets. It is this Court, therefore, that must control the seizure and forfeiture of Mr. Murdaughs assets."

But at least one opposing counsel suggests that this is simply a ploy by Murdaugh's attorneys to get more money for themselves.

Attorneys respond, analyze Murdaugh's motion to seize assets

In December 2022, a state judge approved a request by Murdaugh's attorneys to liquidate his 401k to help pay for his criminal defense during his Spring 2023 murder trial.

In May 2023, following Murdaugh's March 2 double murder conviction, the same judge denied a request from Murdaugh's counsel to use more of those 401k funds to pay for his murder conviction appeal.

Beach family attorney Tinsley, who was instrumental in having Murdaugh's assets seized by the state, contends that if the recent federal motion is approved, Harpootlian and Griffin can then request more of Murdaugh's money for their legal services from the federal government, and not the state.

"This is merely a play to try to undo the deal they made in the state court proceeding to get the money where they want it to go," said Tinsley. "It's also another attempt for the lawyers to get more fees after the state court denied their petition for more fees."

"Alex Murdaugh specifically waived any appeal related to the receivers' taking of his property and as such, it's no longer his. He has no assets in the receivership," Tinsley added. "However, I do believe there are significant questions about whether money was actually paid to or on Alex's behalf for his participation in that Fox Nation piece. Or whether substantial licensing fees were paid for the use of materials. So there may be money that needs to be seized for the real victims, it's just not in the receivership."

Murdaugh was recently convicted and punished by state prison officials for his role in participating in a Fox Nation documentary, "The Fall of the House of Murdaugh."

Tinsley adds that he and other opposing counsel will not let Murdaugh's money out of state control without a fight, and if they discover the convicted fraudster has more assets out there, they plan to come after them as well.

"We plan on investigating whether such funds have been paid or are owed to Alex or someone else on Alex's behalf and then pursue seizing any such funds."

Another South Carolina attorney with no direct connection to the case agrees with some of Tinsley's thoughts. Mandy Powers Norrell, an Upstate attorney with experience in both civil and criminal law, has spoken to numerous media outlets over the past year to provide objective legal analysis in the Murdaugh cases.

"I think its clear to the defense that the state court is likely to prioritize the claims of victims over any potential request to use funds for a legal defense," said Norrell. "Its less clear how the federal court would rule on such a request because it hasnt been presented with one. They (Murdaugh's lawyers) likely believe theyd stand a better chance of accessing funds in federal court because - based on the way things have gone when theyve tried in the past - they stand almost no chance of accessing those funds in state court."

Multiple media outlets reported that during last weekend's CrimeCon event in Orlando, Florida, Murdaugh's attorneys told audiences that their client was out of money, but they would continue to represent him pro bono if needed.

Another Murdaugh legal opponent, attorney Eric Bland, jumped into the fray Tuesday on X (formerly known as Twitter), claiming that the co-receivers have now issued subpoenas to Harpootlian and Griffin seeking to know how much they have really been paid for their representation in all of Murdaugh's legal matters, who paid them, and seeking copies of any media contracts involving Murdaugh.

The court appointed receivers for Alex Murdaugh did something very interesting today. In response to team Murdaughs motion to have the federal government seize the funds that the receivers recovered and are supposed to go to Alex Murdaughs victims, the receivers finally did pic.twitter.com/tQVJQJgrR6  Eric Bland (@TheEricBland) September 26, 2023

As the fight for Murdaugh's money heats up, his co-conspirators are struggling to fight for their freedom - and less time behind prison bars.

Cory Fleming stands for sentencing with his attorney Deborah Barbier.

Cory Fleming appeals 'unconstitutional" state prison sentence

On Tuesday, convicted Murdaugh co-conspirator Cory Fleming, filed a notice of appeal of his recent state prison sentence with the S.C. Court of Appeals.

Fleming, a former Beaufort attorney and longtime Murdaugh friend, pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced to 46 months, then pleaded guilty in state court and received an additional 10 years in state prison, to be served after he completes his federal time.

Fleming claims that the state prison sentence, handed down by Judge Clifton Newman, violated the Eighth Amendment regarding excessive, cruel and unusual punishment.

Fleming's motion also contends that before sentencing Newman failed to consider all of the filings offered by Fleming  namely the federal judge's recommendations and federal court transcripts.

Fleming also claims that Newman made several extra-judicial statements before sentencing him, including comparing his case to a recent Colleton County murder case where a mother was sentenced to 37 years for the death of her child.

Fleming points out that prior to sentencing Newman referred to this case as unimaginableand the greatest crime for a lawyer in the history of the State of South Carolina, certainly in the number of years being faced and the impact of the crimes on the citizens of the State."

Fleming also points out that Newman "repeatedly stated that this case was unprecedented and that theres no way there is a case in this state where the amount of thievery exceeded whats occurred in this case.

Finally, Fleming argues that his sentencing was "effected by the bias of the circuit court" and "the notoriety of the related case of State v. Murdaugh, which the circuit judge also presided over, created a spill-over bias in this case."

Convicted and disgraced Hampton banker Russell Laffitte stands in the Hampton County Courthouse as, in the background, hangs a portrait of Alex Murdaugh's grandfather, Randolph "Buster" Murdaugh Jr.

Former banker Russell Laffitte heads to federal prison

Former Hampton banker and Murdaugh's primary co-conspirator, Russell Laffitte, was convicted on federal fraud and conspiracy charges in November 2022 and in August 2023 was sentenced to seven years of federal prison.

So far, Laffitte's attorneys have been able to delay setting a trial date for his state charges, and even delay him going to federal prison -- until now.

After two appeals of his conviction were denied, Laffiite appealed that seven-year sentence and even requested to delay reporting to prison while that ongoing appeal was being considered. But today, Sept. 27 federal judges denied that request as well.

Laffitte, heir to a prominent Lowcountry banking family, must now report to federal custody on Thursday, Sept. 28, where he is expected to begin serving his federal sentence at FCI Coleman in Florida as his ongoing sentence appeal continues.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Alex Murdaugh requests federal seizure, Cory Fleming appeals sentence
A murder suspect who was accidentally released from an Indiana jail was captured Wednesday after two weeks on the run, authorities said.

The U.S. Marshals Service took Kevin Mason, 28, into custody around 2 p.m. in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Marion County Sheriffs Office in Indiana said.

"I would like to extend my sincere gratitude and congratulations to the USMS for concluding this manhunt and safely bringing Mason back into custody," Sheriff Kerry J. Forestal said in a statement. "Our federal partners have kept us informed throughout the entire process. We are truly thankful for their assistance and wide resources  most specifically, their task force partnerships with local law enforcement agencies that have allowed them to pursue Kevin Mason throughout the country."

Mason, who was initially arrested Sept. 11 on three warrants in different jurisdictions out of Minnesota, walked out of the Adult Detention Center in Indianapolis on Sept. 13 because of a clerical error. Marion County Sheriffs Col. James Martin said an inmate records clerk "thought she was correcting different bookings" for Mason but removed two holds, leaving one additional hold.

Authorities in Ramsey County, Minnesota, lifted the last hold Mason was booked on, Martin said.

"Our clerk that was reviewing it sees three Minnesota holds, didnt realize what she was doing, obviously," Martin said. "Its a critical error, critical mistake. Theyre identified very specifically by the originating agency that did it. They have a specific ID number; theyre all different, and the case numbers are all different."

The error was not caught before Ramsey County lifted its hold on Mason on a firearms charge, Martin said. Two clerks in Marion County, Indiana, were ultimately fired over the mistake.

Mason's being set free sparked a massive manhunt in Indiana. Authorities waited six days before they announced what had happened so they could have a "tactical advantage."

Mason had been charged with second-degree murder in connection with a June 2021 shooting in the parking lot of the Shiloh Temple in Minneapolis, in which Dontevius Ahmad Catchings was killed, Minneapolis police have said. In September 2021, authorities asked for the public's help finding him, believing he had traveled to Florida.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Elon Musk 's X, formerly called Twitter, disabled a feature that let users report misinformation about elections, a research organisation said on Wednesday, throwing fresh concern about false claims spreading just before major U.S. and Australian votes.

After introducing a feature in 2022 for users to report a post they considered misleading about politics, X in the past week removed the "politics" category from its drop-down menu in every jurisdiction but the European Union, said the researcher Reset.Tech Australia.

Users could still report posts to X globally for a host of other complaints such as promoting violence or hate speech, the researcher added.

X was not immediately available for comment.

Removing a way for people to report suspected political misinformation may limit intervention at a time when social media platforms are under pressure to curtail falsehoods about electoral integrity, which have grown rapidly in recent years.

It comes less than three weeks before Australia holds a referendum, its first in a quarter century, on whether to change the constitution to establish an Indigenous advisory body to parliament and 14 months before a U.S. presidential election.

"It would be helpful to understand why X have seemingly gone backwards on their commitments to mitigating the kind of serious misinformation that has translated into real political instability in the US, especially on the eve of the 'bumper year' of elections globally," said Alice Dawkins, executive director of Reset.Tech Australia.

In a letter to X's managing director for Australia, Angus Keene, Reset.Tech Australia said the change may leave content that violates X's own policy banning electoral misinformation online without an appropriate review process.

"It is extremely concerning that Australians would lose the ability to report serious misinformation weeks away from a major referendum," said the letter which was published online.

Since billionaire Musk took Twitter, as it was then known, private in late 2022, the company, which cut most of its workforce, has been accused of allowing the proliferation of antisemitism, hate speech and misinformation.

As previously reported by Reuters, Reset.Tech Australia found X failed to remove or label a single post containing misinformation about the Australian referendum over a three-week period, including after it was reported using the now-disabled feature.

Musk has said X's "Community Notes" feature, which allows users to comment on posts to flag false or misleading content, is a better way of fact checking. But those notes are only made public when they are rated as helpful by a range of contributors with varying points of view, according to X's website.

Australia's internet safety regulator wrote to X in June demanding an explanation for an explosion in hate speech on the platform, noting it had reinstated some 62,000 high profile accounts of individuals who espouse Nazi rhetoric.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), which will oversee the Oct. 14 referendum, has said the spread of electoral misinformation is the worst it has seen.

The commission said it was still able to report posts containing political misinformation directly to X, even after the feature was disabled. For other users, the AEC was "available for people to ask questions or seek information".

(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Sonali Paul)
The natural circles that pop up on the soil in the planets arid regions are an enduring scientific debate and mystery. These fairy circles are circular patterns of bare soil surrounded by plants and vegetation. Until very recently, the unique phenomena have only been described in the vast Namib desert and the Australian outback . While their origins and distribution are hotly debated , a study with satellite imagery published on September 25 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) indicates that fairy circles may be more common than once realized. They are potentially found in 15 countries across three continents and in 263 different sites.

[Related: A new study explains the origin of mysterious fairy circles in the desert .]

These soil shapes occur in arid areas of the Earth, where nutrients and water are generally scarce. Their signature circular pattern and hexagonal shape is believed to be the best way that the plants have found to survive in that landscape. Ecologist Ken Tinsly observed the circles in Namibia in 1971, and the story goes that he borrowed the name fairy circles from a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms that are generally found in Europe.

By 2017 , Australian researchers found the debated western desert fairy circles, and proposed that the mechanisms of biological self-organization and pattern formation proposed by mathematician Alan Turing were behind them. In the same year , Aboriginal knowledge linked those fairy circles to a species of termites. This termite theory of fairy circle origin continues to be a focus of researcha team from the University of Hamburg in Germany published a study seeming to confirm that termites are behind these circles in July.

In this new study , a team of researchers from Spain used artificial intelligence-based models to look at the fairy circles from Australia and Namibia and directed it to look for similar patterns. The AI scoured the images for months and expanded the areas where these fairy circles could exist . These locations include the circles in Namibia, Western Australia, the western Sahara Desert, the Sahel region that separates the African savanna from the Sahara Desert, the Horn of Africa to the East, the island of Madagascar, southwestern Asia, and Central Australia.

Fairy circles on a Namibian plain. CREDIT: Audi Ekandjo.

The team then crossed-checked the results of the AI system with a different AI program trained to study the environments and ecology of arid areas to find out what factors govern the appearance of these circular patterns.

"Our study provides evidence that fairy-circle[s] are far more common than previously thought, which has allowed us, for the first time, to globally understand the factors affecting their distribution," study co-author and Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville soil ecologist Manuel Delgado Baquerizo said in a statement .

[Related: The scientific explanation behind underwater Fairy Circles. ]

According to the team , these circles generally appear in arid regions where the soil is mainly sandy, there is water scarcity, annual rainfall is between 4 to 12 inches, and low nutrient continent in the soil.

"Analyzing their effects on the functioning of ecosystems and discovering the environmental factors that determine their distribution is essential to better understand the causes of the formation of these vegetation patterns and their ecological importance," study co-author and University of Alicante data scientist Emilio Guirado said in a statement .

More research is needed to determine the role of insects like termites in fairy circle formation, but Guirado told El Pais that their global importance is low, and that they may play an important role in local cases like those in Namibia, but there are other factors that are even more important.

The images are now included in a global atlas of fairy circles and a database that could help determine if these patterns demonstrate resilience to climate change.

"We hope that the unpublished data will be useful for those interested in comparing the dynamic behavior of these patterns with others present in arid areas around the world, said Guirado.
The trail following the most infamous blankets in Beaufort County history is again heating up with a new revelation in its seventh month that part, or maybe all, of the $35,644 order is sitting on the floor of a county warehouse storeroom in the boxes and bags used to deliver it.

The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette obtained a set of six photographs showing the weighted blankets and blanket covers stacked neatly on commercial flooring. As of Tuesday at 2 p.m., the newspapers independently verified the order was still in the countys possession in the Harris Pillow warehouse off of U.S. 21 in Beaufort.

The set of images were provided to the newspapers on condition of anonymity. The request was granted because the paper visually verified the blankets location, and the photographers identity was not material to the story.

Where did this start?

The blankets were ordered this spring by former County Administrator Eric Greenway over the objections of his hand-picked opioid-consultant-turned-county-employee, former Wellness Director Lisa Lynch. It is unclear if the countys rules governing procurement were followed in this purchase.

In June, Greenway told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that the blankets could be useful, saying, A variety of reasons existed for considering the purchase of the blankets. After receiving input, we felt the blankets could be useful tools in the addiction and mental illness initiatives the county had planned.

In a later interview with the newspapers, Lynch said they were too expensive and not needed.

Greenway and Lynch have since been fired. On July 3, the Beaufort County Sheriffs Office announced that Greenway was under investigation for alleged misconduct by a joint task force of the 14th and 1st Solicitors Offices.

Where did the blankets come from?

The blankets were sold to the county by R&R Home, a company owned by the husband of former Deputy County Administrator Whitney Richland. Owner Andrew Richland did not respond to phone and inquiries left Tuesday evening to verify the status of the $35,000 invoice that, if unpaid as of Tuesday, would be 129 days past due. Terms of any past due penalties or fees are not detailed on the April 21 invoice. Richland left her county job in August and little additional information about her departure is known.

In April, Greenway confirmed there were conversations about a potential blanket purchase. However, he denied that the county actually acquired the blankets, saying, The purchase was stopped.

With the location of the blankets in county possession, questions about custody and ownership fall to Interim Administrator John Robinson.

During an unscheduled visit Tuesday afternoon to Robinsons county office seeking comment on this new information, a reporter was invited into what became a closed-door conversation that included Robinson and county attorney Brittany Ward.

At the outset of the meeting, Ward demanded that nothing be recorded and all conversations were off the record. The reporter did not agree to those terms nor to Wards additional request that all questions be submitted via email. The meeting ended without any exchange of information.

As of Tuesday evening, anyone with knowledge of what is going on with the blankets has chosen to not respond to the newspapers questions. This includes County Chairman Joe Passiment, Robinson, Ward, and Andrew Richland.

The newspapers did not reach out to Greenway or Lynch as their comments on the blankets have already been reported.

Questions remain about who owns the blankets, whether the county or the vendor is out $35,000 for the submitted invoice and who at the county is responsible for solving this mystery.

Additional details will be reported as information becomes available.
In a quietly remarkable moment on a bustling Tuesday evening, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi made a surprise appearance at a gay bar that has become a popular hotspot for locals and visitors alike in the short time since its been open.



Situated at the heart of Washington, D.C.s Logan Circle community, the Little Gay Pub (also known as LGP) has earned a reputation as a beloved and welcoming space known for its ornate bathroom, a social media sensation. Owners Dusty Martinez, Benjamin Gander, and Dito Sevilla opened the trendy bar in March.

One of the distinctive features of LGP is its art-adorned bathrooms, which have become selfie spots. Unbeknownst to the owners, an Instagram page dedicated to LGP bathroom selfies emerged, lending quirky fame to the pub.

The visit was a well-kept secret, a testament to LGPs desire to maintain a sense of authenticity amid its newfound popularity. Sevilla shared insights into how the visit unfolded.

When we opened LGP, she was always on our little guest list of people who wanted to see it, Sevilla explained.

After months of discussions with her staff, a plan finally materialized, leading to her visit.

Pelosis Tuesday had been packed with legislative commitments, including voting and handling procedural matters. Sevilla marveled at her relentless dedication, saying, Her schedule is really so exhausting. I cant fathom it.

Word of Pelosis impending arrival eventually made it to the patrons who were already there.

We didnt advertise it at all. I posted that she was five minutes out when they told me she was five minutes out, but that was the one piece of warning we gave, Sevilla noted.

During her visit, Pelosi indulged in the unique LGP tradition of capturing a bathroom selfie.

My mother softened the blow by saying [the bathroom selfie] was something that everyone did. Of course, [Pelosi] had been briefed on it and was extremely curious, Sevilla recalled.

Reflecting on Pelosis visit, Sevilla underscored her significance as an LGBTQ+ icon and her steadfast support for the community.

Shes very nice, and we have an incredible cordial relationship. Shes extremely supportive, and I think it just speaks to who she is, Sevilla said.

The former Speaker marveled at the artwork on the bar's ceiling, which traces the history of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Pelosi herself is featured a couple of times.

Martinez shared the journey of the Little Gay Pub and the emotions surrounding Pelosis visit. Reflecting on the inception of the pub, Martinez revealed a 15-year camaraderie with his co-owners.



He said that the absence of a dedicated museum or space to celebrate the queer communitys shared experiences and history in D.C. propelled them to create LGP.

We just wanted to create a space where you could meet new people; you can bring your old friends here; you can celebrate people in our community through all of our wall art, our ceiling art, all the hodge-podge of our history, not just Washington DCs queer history. Its all of our history, Martinez explained.

Martinez said her visit was not the result of a marketing stunt but an organic interest in visiting the community-driven space, as hinted during a past conversation between The Advocate and Pelosi. In April, Pelosi told The Advocate during an event at UCLA Law Schools Williams Institute that she knew of the new space and looked forward to seeing it.

Pelosis visit left an enduring mark on the Little Gay Pub. Her portrait and a note are now prominently displayed on the pubs walls, alongside those of other iconic LGBTQ+ leaders.

She told The Advocate on Wednesday that she was grateful for the Little Gay Pub and its role in the LGBTQ+ community.

It was a thrill last night to stop by The Little Gay Pub: a beautiful, joyful, and vibrant community space made possible by my fabulous friends, Dito, Ben, and Dusty! she said.

She continued, For many decades, it has been my privilege to fight for full equality alongside so many fierce advocates, especially those from my hometown of San Francisco. We have made tremendous progress  but sadly today, our trans community, especially children, are under dangerous right-wing assault.

Acting as the selfie photographer for Pelosi, Martinez described piling into the pubs famous bathroom with one of the most powerful women in the world.

Her team was happy to help her. We went in there, and it was just so amazing that she is so iconic, Martinez said.

Pelosi, in turn, highlighted the trio of queer business owners.

In my toast to Dito, Ben, and Dusty, Pelosi said, I thanked them and the LGBTQ+ community for their patriotism in advancing freedom for themselves and, therefore, all of America.





Lead Image: Nancy Pelosi speaking to patrons at the Little Gay Pub. Then, Pelosi, alongside Benjamin Gander, Dito Sevilla, and Dusty Martinez.


Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after the Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday. For Rubio, his mission is the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut in history. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- NASA astronaut Frank Rubio emerged from the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft Wednesday in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, ending his record-setting 371-day space mission.

The Soyuz MS-23 touched down about 90 miles southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 7:17 a.m. EDT.

"Welcome home, Frank!" NASA wrote on social media, as the landing completed the single longest spaceflight for any NASA astronaut at 371 days.

"Frank's record-breaking time in space is not just a milestone; it's a major contribution to our understanding of long-duration space missions," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. "Our astronauts make extraordinary sacrifices away from their homes and loved ones to further discovery. NASA is immensely grateful for Frank's dedicated service to our nation and the invaluable scientific contributions he made on the International Space Station. He embodies the true pioneer spirit that will pave the way for future exploration to the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

Rubio finished approximately 5,936 orbits during a space journey of more than 157 million miles. That's the rough equivalent of 328 round trips to the Moon.

Petelin is helped after he landed. The trio are returning to Earth after logging 371 days in space as members of Expeditions 68-69 aboard the International Space Station. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA

Rubio's extended mission provides researchers with the ability to observe long-duration spaceflight effects on humans as NASA looks ahead to a return to the Moon and exploration of Mars.

The previous record of 355 days in space was set by astronaut Mark Vande Hei in March 2022.

Prokopyev is helped after he landed and gives a thumbs up to the camera. Photo by Bill Ingalls/UPI

NASA astronauts Loral O' Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli remain aboard the space station along with European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa , and Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub are also still working on the space station.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is seen as it lands in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA

Mogensen, Moghbeli, Furukawa, and Boriso are scheduled to get back to Earth in February 2024. O'Hara is scheduled for a return from the space station in March 2024.

Kononenko and Chub will spend a year aboard the station, returning in September 2024, according to NASA.

A leak on the Soyuz capsule, which was first detected on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, forced American astronaut Mark Rubio to extended his six-month trip to the International Space Station another half year. File Photo via NASA TV/UPI

The Soyuz detached from the station's Prichal docking module at 3:54 a.m. EDT Wednesday as the orbital was soaring 260 miles over southeastern Mongolia with Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin on board.

The crewed Soyuz spacecraft successfully undocked from the space station's Prichal module at 3:54am ET today, heading for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan later this morning at 7:17am. https://t.co/JFga6FbL08 pic.twitter.com/GyertHXPxb International Space Station (@Space_Station) September 27, 2023

Rubio had arrived at the station on Sept. 21 of last year, by hitching a ride with his Russian counterparts aboard the Soyuz MS-22 amid strained relations between their two nations over the Kremlin's war in Ukraine that almost saw cosmonauts pulled from the joint orbiting laboratory.

Rubio was only meant to be in space for six months for his first mission, but the spacecraft they arrived on sprung a coolant leak in December extending his stay another six months. In February, the Russians launched the un-piloted MS-23 to the station that would take them home.

The American remarked on the difficulty of life in space in his final press briefing held in the days leading to his exit from the orbital that he had called home for more than a year.

"I think the one thing that I've tried to do and hopefully have achieved -- I certainly haven't done it perfectly -- is to just kind of stay positive and stay steady throughout the mission despite the internal up and downs," he said.

"You try to just focus on the mission and on the job and remain steady because ultimately, every day you have to show up and do the work. And up here in this very unforgiving environment, we have to do things right."

He said professionally, the mission was "incredibly rewarding" and "a huge honor," but personally, "it was an incredible challenge" and "difficult."

The mission is also among the longest ever, with cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov setting the record of 438 days between January 1994 and March 1995.
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Record-breaking NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has finally returned to Earth, feeling the pull of the planets gravity for the first time in more than a year.

Rubio and his two Russian colleagues  cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin  parachuted to a landing in Kazakhstan aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-23 capsule at 5:17 p.m. local time (7:17 a.m. ET) on Wednesday.

The crews arrival marked the end of a long  and unexpected  journey for Rubio, who had been slated to spend only six months aboard the International Space Station. He instead logged a total of 371 days in space following the discovery of a coolant leak coming from his original ride while docked to the orbiting outpost.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio (left) and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev (center) and Dmitri Petelin sit in chairs outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after they landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday. - Bill Ingalls/NASA

Rubios stay set a new record for the longest a US astronaut has ever spent in microgravity. He also became the first American to log an entire calendar year in orbit.

His record-breaking mission also marked other notable firsts for Rubio: This was his first journey to space after being selected for the NASA astronaut corps in 2017, and at the outset of the mission, he became the first astronaut of Salvadoran origin to travel to low-Earth orbit.

In a recent interview with CNN, Rubio said that if he had known his stay on the space station would be twice as long as originally planned, he probably would have declined the assignment before he began training.

And thats only because of family things that were going on this past year, he said. And if I had known that I would have had to miss those very important events, I just would have had to say, thank you, but no thank you.

Rubio, who has four children, is now expected to begin the journey home from the Soyuz spacecrafts landing site near the town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. He will first fly to Karaganda, which lies about 330 miles (530 kilometers) northeast of Dzhezkazgan, before boarding a flight to Houston.

All told, Rubio and his crewmates traveled 157.4 million miles (253.3 million kilometers) and completed 5,963 orbits of the Earth, according to NASA.

Rubio bested the previous record for the longest stay in space by a US astronaut  355 days  which was set by NASAs Mark Vande Hei in 2022.

The late Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who logged 437 continuous days in orbit aboard Russias Mir space station between January 1994 and March 1995 , holds the world record for the longest stay in space.

US and Russian cooperation in space

Rubio traveled to the space station on a Russian spacecraft as part of ride-sharing agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, that was hashed out in the summer of 2022 amid Russias invasion of Ukraine. The seat-swap arrangement was an effort to continue longstanding policies that have sought to ensure access to the space station for both the United States and Russia  the primary operators of the outpost  should either country experience spacecraft issues that left their astronauts grounded.

Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin launched aboard the Soyuz MS-22 vehicle on September 21, 2022, and safely arrived at the ISS three hours later, leaving the Soyuz capsule docked to the space stations exterior as they went to work aboard the orbiting laboratory.

In an interview with reporters last week, Rubio thanked his family, noting their resilience and strength has carried me through this entire mission.

Increasing risk from space debris

Less than three months into its crews mission, the Soyuz MS-22 began spewing coolant. Investigations by Roscosmos, which were reviewed by NASA later, determined that the spacecraft was likely struck by a small object in orbit. The culprit was determined to be a micrometeorite or a piece of orbital debris, a growing threat in the increasingly congested environment of low-Earth orbit.

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was deemed unfit to return the astronauts, and Roscosmos quickly worked to launch a replacement vehicle  the Soyuz MS-23  in February.

A view shows the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft (on left) that carried Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth. - Konstantin Borisov/Roscosmos/Reuters

But Rubio and his colleagues couldnt return home yet: Officials determined that they would instead extend their stay as Roscosmos prepared for yet another Soyuz capsule to launch a fresh crew to replace them.

Space station crew rotation

The Soyuz MS-24 vehicle was finally ready this month and carried NASA astronaut Loral OHara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub to the space station on September 15, paving the way for Rubios return on Wednesday.

Rubio, a medical doctor and military helicopter pilot with more than 600 hours of combat experience, acknowledged that he likely will not be immediately returning to his pre-spaceflight life upon return because of the affects that long stints in microgravity can have on the body.

Were not walking, were not bearing our own weight (while in space), and so itll be anywhere from two to six months before I essentially say that I feel normal, he said.

But there are plenty of earthly treasures he is looking forward to experiencing: Up here we kind of have the constant hum of machinery thats keeping us alive, he said during an interview from space. And so Im looking forward to just being outside and enjoying the peace and quiet.

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A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed Wednesday in rural Kazakhstan after more than a year in space, a trip extended by a mechanical failure of their previous return craft.

Frank Rubio set a record for the longest time in space for an American at 371 days. The previous record was set at 355 days by Mark Vande Hei, according to NASA.

Rubios original mission, however, was scheduled to only be around 180 days. The return was delayed when the spacecraft was damaged by debris, causing a longer-than-expected stay on the International Space Station as a replacement was rushed to orbit.

The replacement return craft was launched to the space station in February, but an additional Soyuz capsule wasnt ready to bring a new crew until earlier this month.

No one deserves to go home to their families more than you, the space stations new commander, Denmarks Andreas Mogensen, said earlier this week.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson lauded Rubio for his sacrifice and contribution to the understanding of space missions.

Our astronauts make extraordinary sacrifices away from their homes and loved ones to further discovery, Nelson said. NASA is immensely grateful for Franks dedicated service to our nation and the invaluable scientific contributions he made on the International Space Station.

He embodies the true pioneer spirit that will pave the way for future exploration to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, he added.

Rubio, who also serves as an Army lieutenant colonel and helicopter pilot, said that being in space so long was an unexpected mental challenge and something he wouldnt have agreed to if he had a choice, according to The Associated Press.

He ended up missing important family milestones, including the oldest of his four children finishing her first year at the U.S. Naval Academy and another heading off to West Point.

Its good to be home, he said after being removed from the capsule.

It was his first space station mission, and it will likely remain the U.S. spaceflight record, as NASA currently has no plans for any yearlong missions in the future.

During the mission, Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin completed approximately 5,936 orbits and a journey of more than 157 million miles  about the equivalent of 328 trips to the moon and back, according to NASA.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
They hold the highest positions of power in North Carolina, and make decisions every day that affect the state and the more than 10 million people who call it home. Some are running for the states highest elected offices right now.

But when voters were asked to identify the states top political leaders by their names and photos, the vast majority didnt know who they were looking at.

Indeed, only Gov. Roy Cooper , a Democrat who was twice elected to the states highest elected office in 2016 and 2020, was recognized by a majority of voters polled by Meredith College earlier this month. About 80% of the 800 registered voters who were polled correctly identified Cooper with his photo. Fifteen percent couldnt identify him.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has generated more headlines than the average politician since being elected in 2020, was identified by 43% of voters. A full 44% couldnt ID him.

None of the other politicians whose photos were shown to voters  House Speaker Tim Moore, Senate leader Phil Berger, Attorney General Josh Stein , State Treasurer Dale Folwell , and former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker  were recognized by more than 20% of voters who were polled.

When it came to these political leaders, nearly 70% of respondents didnt even make a guess; they simply chose dont know as their selection.

Given how powerful these political figures are in North Carolina, it is somewhat disconcerting, but not surprising, that most people in the state do not know what these people look like, David McLennan, director of the Meredith Poll, said in an analysis released along with the poll on Monday. The good news for most of them is that they can go to the grocery store and not be bothered while shopping.

Can you identify these politicians just by looking at their photos?

Gov. Roy Cooper presides over the monthly Council of State meeting Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2022 at the NCDOT building in Raleigh.

Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who has served since 2017, will leave the office at the end of 2024, since he is term-limited and cant serve a third consecutive term.

Cooper was correctly identified by 80% of respondents, while 15% said they didnt know who he was.

A lawsuit against the North Carolina Governors School cites findings from a task force formed by Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, has served since 2021 and in April launched his 2024 campaign for governor.

Robinson was correctly identified by 43% of respondents, while 44% said they didnt know who he was.

House Speaker Tim Moore the House floor as lawmakers get ready to hold the first of several votes on the budget as Thursday morning, Sept. 21, 2023 at the General Assembly.

House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, has served as leader of the House GOP caucus since 2015, and in the House since 2002.

Moore was correctly identified by 13% of respondents, while 71% said they didnt know who he was.

Senate leader Phil Berger addresses his colleagues, explaining why he is now leading the passage of Medicaid expansion after many years of opposing the legislation on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at the General Assembly in Raleigh, N.C.

Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, has served as leader of the Senate GOP caucus since 2004, and as Senate president pro tempore since 2011.

Berger was correctly identified by 16% of respondents, while 73% said they didnt know who he was.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein speaks during an afternoon news conference at the State of North Carolinas Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, March 31, 2020.

Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, has served in the role since 2017. In January, Stein launched his 2024 campaign for governor.

Stein was correctly identified by 19% of respondents, while 68% said they didnt know who he was.

North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell

State Treasurer Dale Folwell, a Republican who has served in that position since 2017, entered the 2024 race for governor in March.

Folwell was correctly identified by 12% of respondents, while 71% said they didnt know who he was.

Mark Walker speaks during a press conference outside the N.C. Legislative building Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. A group of local residents from Rockingham and Nash counties, two of the four counties that could host new casinos if the Republican proposal advances this session, spoke out against the plan during a press conference outside the Legislative Building, just hours before the House Republican Caucus planned to meet to discuss the idea.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican who represented North Carolinas 6th congressional district in the U.S. House from 2015 to 2021, entered the 2024 race for governor in May.

Walker was correctly identified by 11% of respondents, while 70% said they didnt know who he was.

Other findings from the Meredith Poll

Voters were polled Sept. 16 through 19. Among the other findings in the poll:

Just over a third of respondents, 35%, said they were satisfied with the direction of North Carolina today. Meanwhile, 54% said they were not satisfied, and 11% said they didnt know.

The poll, which asked a series of questions about equality for women, found that 61% of respondents said the U.S. needs to continue to make changes to give women equal rights to men, while 30% said the country has made most of the changes needed to give women equal rights. Nine percent said they didnt know.

Approval ratings for Biden, Cooper

Asked about President Joe Biden, 40% said they approved or strongly approved of the way he is handling his job as president, while 57% said they disapproved or strongly disapproved. Three percent said they didnt know.

When the same question was asked about Gov. Roy Cooper, 57% said they approved or strongly approved, while 37% said they disapproved or strongly disapproved, and 7% said they didnt know.

Gov. Roy Cooper shakes hands with Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger look on before Cooper delivered his State of the State address to a joint session of the N.C. General Assembly on Monday, March 6, 2023.

Top issues for voters going into 2024

Asked if they had to pick a single issue they wanted candidates to talk about more on the campaign trail, 40% of respondents said the economy, 14% said abortion/reproductive rights, 14% said immigration, 11% said gun rights/restrictions, 9% said crime, 8% said some other issue, and 3% said they didnt know.

Views on NCs new 12-week abortion law

Asked about the new abortion law that GOP lawmakers enacted over a veto by Cooper, that bans most abortions after 12 weeks and provides exceptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies and the life of the mother, 47% said they approved or strongly approved of the new law. On the other hand, 45% said they disapproved or strongly disapproved. Eight percent said they didnt know.

Going into next years election, 67% said the new law was a very important or somewhat important motivating factor for them to vote, while 27% said it was somewhat unimportant or not important at all. Six percent said they didnt know.

Former president Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Wilmington International Airport on Friday, Sept. 23, 2022.

Top GOP and Democratic choices for president, governor

Of the 350 respondents who said they were most likely to vote in next years GOP primary, 51% said they were most likely to vote for former President Donald Trump, while 13% chose Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. None of the other candidates received double-digit support, with the two next most-chosen being entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (8%) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (6%).

Asked who they were most likely to vote for in the gubernatorial primary, 34% said Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, while 7% said former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker. State Treasurer Dale Folwell, former N.C. Sen. Andy Wells and retired health care executive Jesse Thomas all got 3% each. But half of the respondents said they didnt know who they would vote for (44%) or chose someone else (6%).

Of the 308 respondents who said they were most likely to vote in the Democratic primary, 33% chose Attorney General Josh Stein and 11% picked recently retired N.C. Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan. More than half said they didnt know (46%) or chose someone else (10%).
Nearly half of Nagorno-Karabakhs population has fled to Armenia, with many thousands more still scrambling to evacuate, a week after the breakaway region surrendered following a lightning Azerbaijani offensive.

More than 50,000 people  including 17,000 children  had fled by Wednesday morning, after Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockade on the only road connecting the enclave to Armenia, according to Armenian government officials.

Azerbaijan said last week it had regained full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijans borders but has for decades operated autonomously with a de facto government of its own. It said Karabakh Armenians could remain in the region if they accepted Azerbaijani citizenship, but many preferred to leave their homes rather than submit to rule by Baku.

Many residents harbor no hope that they will return to their ancestral homeland. They changed our flag, our government surrendered. Thats all. No Armenian will be left here within maybe two weeks, a Karabakh resident told CNN.

Thousands of residents have stuffed what could fit into their cars and fled to Armenia. - Vasily Krestyaninov/AP

How did we get here?

Azerbaijan won a decisive military victory in the region last week, forcing the Karabakh armed forces to surrender in less than 24 hours and seemingly bringing to an end a conflict that had lasted more than a century.

After Azerbaijan launched missile and drone strikes on Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, many in the regional capital of Stepanakert spent the night in makeshift bomb shelters, in what marked the start of a third war fought for control of the region in as many decades.

Under the Soviet Union, of which Azerbaijan and Armenia are both former members, Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous region within the republic of Azerbaijan in 1923.

Karabakh officials passed a resolution in 1988 declaring its intention to join the republic of Armenia, causing fighting to break out as the Soviet Union began to crumble, in what became the First Karabakh War. About 30,000 people were killed over six years of violence, which ended in 1994 when the Armenian side gained control of the region.

After years of sporadic clashes, the Second Karabakh War began in 2020. Azerbaijan, backed by its historic ally Turkey, reclaimed a third of the territory of Karabakh in just 44 days, before both sides agreed to lay down their weapons in a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

But the third war was to last just a day. The Karabakh presidency said its army had been outnumbered several times over by Azerbaijani forces and had no choice but to surrender and agree to the dissolution and complete disarmament of its armed forces. A second ceasefire  also brokered by Russia  came into effect at 1 p.m. on September 20.

The swiftness of Karabakhs surrender was a measure of its military inferiority. Armed with Turkish drones, Azerbaijan won a crushing victory in 2020, attacking not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also Armenia itself. Unlike in 2020, Armenias armed forces did not attempt to defend the region during the most recent offensive  in part out of fear of further Azerbaijani aggression.

They have such an advantage that they could easily cut Armenia in two, Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Groups senior analyst for the South Caucasus, told CNN. Just through a very short military operation. Probably a day or two for it to happen.

Karabakhs despair was Bakus triumph. In a speech to the nation Wednesday evening, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev announced his forces had punished the enemy properly and that Baku had restored its sovereignty with an iron fist.

A damaged apartment building after shelling in Stepanakert, September 19, 2023. - Siranush Sargsyan/AP

What happens next?

The day after the ceasefire, Baku sent representatives to meet with Karabakh officials and discuss reintegration. Few details were released of the talks, but Azerbaijan has long been explicit about the choice confronting ethnic Armenians in the region.

In a speech delivered in May, he said Karabakh officials needed to bend their necks and accept full integration into Azerbaijan.

Refugees ride in the back of a truck as they arrive in Kornidzor, Armenia, September 26, 2023. - rakli Gedenidze/Reuters

Farid Shafiyev, chair of the Center of Analysis of International Relations in Baku  an organization involved in the government discussions about reintegration  told CNN: Those who dont want to accept Azerbaijani jurisdiction, they have to leave. Those who would like to stay and get the passports, they are welcome to stay.

Aliyev claimed that the rights of Karabakh Armenians will be guaranteed, but Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing.

Nonna Poghosyan, the American University of Armenias program coordinator in Stepanakert, told CNN that her family realized this weekend that it was safer to leave than to stay. She spent Monday morning seeing how many of her familys belongings they could fit in their car.

She said her nine-year-old twin children had said goodbye to their home.

They took their markers, and they went to their rooms, and they painted on their walls. They drew churches, crosses, some words, like Artsakh, we love you. We will never forget you. We dont want to lose you, our motherland, Poghosyan said.

Poghosyan's twins wrote farewell messages to Nagorno-Karabakh on their bedroom walls. - Nonna Poghosyan

Who will take the refugees?

Pashinyan said in a speech Sunday his government will welcome our sisters and brothers of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia with all care.

But how prepared Armenia  a nation of some 2.8 million people  is to house up to 120,000 arrivals from Nagorno-Karabakh remains unclear.

Some 50,000 people had crossed the border by Wednesday morning, arriving into temporary refugee camps set up in the border towns of Goris and Kornidzor. During a visit to Armenia, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power warned those arriving were suffering from severe malnutrition.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under blockade since December 2022, when Azerbaijan-backed activists established a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor  the only road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.

Thousands tried to flee Nagorno-Karabakh at once, causing long lines on the road to Armenia. - Vasily Krestyaninov/AP

The blockade prevented the import of food, fuel and medicine to Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting fears that residents were being left to starve. Residents told CNN before the latest offensive began that they would have to wait in line for hours to get their daily share of bread. The blockade was lifted last week, allowing residents to flee.

Power arrived in Baku Wednesday, according to the US State Department, to discuss the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and address the prospects for a durable and dignified peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, based on mutual respect for each others territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Can everyone leave?

Analysts told CNN before the evacuations began that they feared Azerbaijan might prevent certain members of the population from leaving.

Vartanyan, of Crisis Group, said she was concerned about who would manage the routes into Armenia. Will it be Russian peacekeepers, the ICRC, or will it be Azerbaijani authorities? she asked. Does it mean people will have to go through filtration camps? And then will people get detained  for example, the local men who took part in the fighting in the past, or those who were part of the local de facto authorities?

Over the weekend, one of the main things that people were doing in Stepanakert was burning all the possible documentation that could become evidence for the Azerbaijani authorities that they personally were part of the de facto government, Vartanyan said.

On Wednesday, Ruben Vardanyan, a prominent Karabakh politician and businessman, was arrested at a border checkpoint at the Lachin corridor and taken to Baku, according to the border service. Azerbaijan alleged that Vardanyan had entered the country illegally, without going into further detail. Baku has long maintained that the Artsakh government has operated illegally on its territory.

A photo shared by the border service on Telegram showed Vardanyan being held by two men in Azerbaijani uniforms. CNN could not independently verify the authenticity of the image.

CNNs Benjamin Brown and Aren Melikyan contributed reporting.

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The campaign for Jeff Gunter, a Republican Nevada Senate candidate, launched a new ad on Wednesday labeling retired Army Capt. Sam Brown as a Never Trump candidate in the states GOP primary.

Two candidates for the U.S. Senate in Nevada. Never Trump Sam Brown, a narrator says in the 30-second ad, which was first shared with The Hill.

The ad then plays several clips of an interview that Brown did on Fox Business after announcing his second run for Senate, in which Brown was pressed on Trumps assertion that he could end an ongoing war waged by Russia in Ukraine in one day and over how Brown would define success in handling the Russia-Ukraine war. The ad shows Brown laughing uncomfortably during the interview.

Meet 110 percent pro-Trump ambassador and doctor, Jeff Gunter, the narrator says in the ad, before the ad shows a clip of an interview Gunter did, saying, I will work tirelessly to bring back the America First policies that were so great under Trump.

Gunter served as the U.S. ambassador to Iceland under former President Trump from 2019 to 2021.

The ad, backed by a $10,200 buy, is set to air statewide on Fox News and Fox Business, during the second GOP debate. Gunter, Brown and former Nevada Secretary of State candidate Jim Marchant are the most prominent Republicans running in the Nevada Senate GOP primary to take on Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) next fall.

Gunter has aligned himself with Trump in the GOP primary and has targeted Brown over his lack of loyalty to the former president. Hes called the retired Army captain, Scam Brown and in one post on X, Gunter took a jab at Brown for not yet endorsing Trump in the 2024 presidential primary.

However, some establishment Republicans have praised Brown for entering the race  most notably Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm, saying he was pleased to see Brown running again.

Marchant, similar to Gunter, has pitched himself as a Trump-supporting, MAGA movement Republican  setting up a contest within the GOP primary between two candidates vying to be the Trump-aligned contender.

Though Trump-aligned candidates like Marchant won their primaries during the 2022 midterms, they struggled to cross the finish line in their respective general elections. Its an issue that could portend trouble for candidates like Gunter and Marchant looking to pitch themselves as Trump-aligned contenders heading into 2024 who could very likely win GOP primaries but face a trickier path in a general election.

Yet a number of Republicans in key races have backed Trump in 2024, including Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and businessman Bernie Moreno in the Ohio Senate race; and West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) and Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), who are both running for the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Daines and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), who helms the House GOP campaign arm, have also backed Trump in 2024, a nod to the fact that the former president still holds significant sway over the GOP electorate.

The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates Rosens seat lean Democrat.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
An aerial view of dredging operations to build an underwater sill in Plaquemines Parish, La., with the city of New Orleans in the distance. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Officials in Louisiana are warning that saltwater coming up from the Gulf of Mexico could affect the availability of safe drinking water for millions of people along the Mississippi River, including those in New Orleans.

The so-called saltwater intrusion was triggered by a severe drought, with months of extreme heat and low rainfall leading to unusually low levels of fresh water in the Mississippi.

What are officials saying?

Yahoo News

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell signed an emergency declaration last week, warning that saltwater encroaching upriver could impact safe drinking water for 1.25 million residents of the city and surrounding parishes.

Louisiana Gov. Bel Edwards sent a letter to President Biden earlier this week requesting that he approve a federal emergency declaration to assist those in the lower Mississippi River region affected by the saltwater intrusion.

The rate of fresh water flowing down the Mississippi River has been low due to extended drought conditions in Louisiana and across the Mississippi River Valley, Edwards said in a statement. As a result of these historic low flow conditions, an intrusion of saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico is making its way upriver.

Also read

Plaquemines Parish in southeastern Louisiana has already been impacted by the saltwater intrusion, the governor noted, as residents there have been under a drinking water advisory since June.

Edwards said that the increased salinity from the saltwater intrusion is forecast to exceed the Environmental Protection Agencys standards for safe drinking water. The salty water in the public water supply also increases the risk of corrosion to machinery and appliances, such as washing machines, he added.

In a separate statement, Edwards said he was optimistic Biden would approve the emergency declaration, which would unlock federal aid for the affected communities.

What else is being done to help?

Engineers are using barges to build the underwater sill in Plaquemines Parish. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

The United States Army Corps of Engineers next month is planning to bring 36 million gallons of fresh water daily into New Orleans on a barge as the expected saltwater intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico threatens the areas drinking water supply.

It is also adding 25 feet of height to a 1,500-foot-wide underwater sill that was constructed in July to slow the saltwaters progression up the Mississippi River. But the expansion wont be completed for a few weeks and will delay the intrusion by only 10 to 15 days, Army Col. Cullen Jones told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps is also monitoring the location of the encroaching saltwater, which forms whats known as a saltwater wedge as it moves up the river. As of last week, the wedge had toppled a sill at mile marker 63.8 near Alliance, La., just 23 miles south of New Orleans.

Edwards urged residents in New Orleans and the surrounding areas not to panic or rush to buy bottled water, saying that they will be notified in advance if the saltwater intrusion is imminent.

Big picture

A dwindling supply of bottled water at a supermarket in Port Sulphur, La., on Monday. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Droughts are relatively common in Louisiana and throughout the southwest, but climate change is increasing the risk that they will occur more frequently and intensely and for longer periods of time.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year has been the hottest on record for Louisiana.

Most of the state has been experiencing prolonged drought and above-average heat, and has presented a number of challenges including wildfires, drought, heat-related deaths, injuries and so forth and now saltwater intrusion, Edwards said during a news conference on Sept. 22. Unfortunately, we just havent had the relief from dry conditions, so that intrusion is worsening.

Dogs walk on land that is usually underwater along the Mississippi River in Harahan, La., on July 20. (Gerald Herbert/AP)
The city of Newark has proposed a 10% tax hike going into 2024.

Newark residents could see a 10% tax hike and additional increases to utility rates in the next fiscal year.

During the city of Newarks financial workshop that was held on Sept. 25, the city proposed increasing property taxes and utility rates to make up for declining revenue and the $6.2 million deficit that was presented in August.

Since last month's meeting, the city increased its annual operating budget for 2024 by $4.9 million, to $115.3 million for 2024.

The tax increase will add around $447,500 in tax revenue in 2024, which covers only around two-thirds of the amount required to fund the five new police officers and two new communication officer positions that were approved in the 2023 budget.

This hike means that on average, residents will spend around $12 extra per month.

More: Delaware farms and SNAP benefits at risk with delayed farm bill

In addition to the tax hike, the average residents in Newark will also see an estimated 4.7% increase in utility fees in 2024, mostly toward an increase in electric rates.

According to the presentation, operating expenses are projected to increase by $4.1 million compared with 2023. The city proposed to offset these costs with the removal of four full-time positions that were planned to be filled in the coming year, including a full-time emergency management position.

Why is a tax hike needed?

Hiring and employee retention has been an issue weighing on most local governments across the state.

The city struggles to retain employees in the Police Department, which currently has 10 vacant positions. With the Police Departments contract up for renegotiation next year, higher salaries have been suggested by the City Council to fill these gaps. The city also has required pay increases for other union employees.

Residents could see even steeper prices next year as Newark City Manager Tom Coleman anticipates water rate hikes of almost 25% in the next two years due to regulatory requirements for treating water systems for toxins such as "forever chemicals."

Parking revenues were also lower than anticipated in the past year and development around the area will likely result in hundreds fewer off-street parking spots around the city, despite a sharp increase in fine amounts.

"We need to start educating the public now that there are going to be large increases unless we change our service levels," Coleman said. "There isn't going to be an easy way out."

The final draft of the 2024 budget will be presented to the City Council on Oct. 30, and the first budget hearing and vote will be held on Nov. 6, with a tentative second hearing scheduled for Nov. 20 if needed. Public comments will be accepted at the Nov. 6 budget hearing.

Contact Molly McVety at mmcvety@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @mollymcvety.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Newark residents could see tax and utility hikes next year
Sign up for CNNs Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

Pangolins are among the worlds most heavily poached animals. The elusive creatures are under threat, but the discovery of a mysterious species thats new to science could help conservationists fight against their extinction, researchers say.

There are eight previously known species of pangolin  four found in Asia and four in Africa. Resembling anteaters, the solitary mammals are illegally hunted and trafficked for their meat and distinctive armorlike scales, which some people believe have medicinal value.

Scientists studying contraband scales  confiscated in Hong Kong and Chinas Yunnan province between 2012 and 2019  identified genetic markers not seen in any known pangolins. The genomic analysis revealed an unexpected ninth species, which the team has named Manis mysteria.

The researchers described their findings in a study published Monday in the journal PNAS.

We were quite surprised because we did not expect a new species could be discovered from seized scales, said study coauthor Jing-Yan Hu, a research assistant at the State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-Resource at Yunnan University, in an email.

The study team did a structural analysis of 33 scale samples from several different confiscations. Five scales were attached to skin and three to claws. The remaining samples were from individual scales found to be from pangolin tails, backs, bellies or heads.

Genomics can help protect threatened species

The scales form initially suggested they belonged to one of four species of pangolin found in Asia. But DNA analysis showed that their genomic data provide robust and compelling evidence that it is a new pangolin species distinct from those previously recognized, Hu said.

Finding a new large-bodied mammal is not an everyday occurrence, said Dr. Aryn Wilder, a researcher specializing in conservation genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Wilder was not involved in the new research.

An analysis of contraband pangolin scales revealed genetic markers not seen in known species, researchers said. The newly discovered pangolin was named Manis mysteria. - Feng Yang

One of the most recent of such finds made through genomics was the 2017 identification of an unknown species of orangutan. Although not unheard of, discoveries like these are pretty unusual, Wilder said, adding that the pangolin studys results were convincing.

I thought the methods were solid and their findings were pretty conclusive, she said.

Expanded understanding of pangolin diversity and evolution

Little is known of Manis mysteria, but now that its existence has been established, conservationists can work to protect it.

Uncovering a ninth species is significant, Hu said. The revelation greatly expands current knowledge of pangolin diversity and evolution, Hu said. The discovery also urges more conservation concerns and joint efforts to help tackle the supply and demand of pangolin trade.

The finding is very important, Wilder said in an email. The identification of this new species will allow conservationists to focus management efforts to prevent its extinction.

Extinction is defined on a species level. Once a species is extinct, its unique biodiversity is lost, Wilder said. With the discovery of a new pangolin species, one that is likely endangered, and with more research to learn about its range, ecology, life-history and conservation status, conservation strategies can be tailored specifically to ensure that this species survives.

Because Manis mysteria has just a slight genetic variation from other pangolins, the species is currently described as cryptic.

Cryptic species arent easy to tell apart from others by appearance alone, so the newfound ability to identify pangolin species by testing scales is a boon for conservation scientists. Often a rare species will be mistaken for a more common one, Wilder said. With advancing DNA technologies, we are getting better at identifying cryptic species.

That means the recent revelation could just be the start. We also expect to find other pangolin species, Hu said.

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It was a shorter distance through US history from the White House to the Soviet Union or North Korea than to an autoworkers picket line in Michigan.

Presidents like to be the first to do something, particularly if it offers them an historic photo opportunity.

President Joe Biden added a presidential first when he joined an United Auto Workers picket line of a General Motors facility in Michigan on Tuesday.

Biden joined striking United Auto Workers members on the picket line in Van Buren Township, Michigan. - Evan Vucci/AP

In this case, Biden is happy to be seen as the labor-friendly president as he duels with former President Donald Trump for the pivotal support of union workers in Michigan and other key states.

Previous presidential firsts were wrapped in other events.

The first US president to visit the Soviet Union was Franklin D. Roosevelt , who took part in the Yalta Conference in 1945 with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The goal was for the Americans, the Soviets and the British to organize post-war Europe. (Yalta, a resort town and part of Crimea, was invaded by Russia in 2014.)

No president would visit the Soviet Union again until Richard Nixon traveled to Moscow in 1972, when he and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev reached agreements, including to limit nuclear weapons.

Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered in Yalta, then in the Soviet Union, in 1945. - Pictures from History/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Some firsts require physical travel. Harry Truman was the first president to travel, in a sense, into American living rooms. He gave the first televised presidential address in 1947 as he pitched the Truman Doctrine to the American people from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

He argued in favor of large investments in a massive aid program for Greece and Turkey, which were dealing with displaced populations and food shortages. Read more from the National Archives. That effort resonates today as American lawmakers consider sending ever more aid to Ukraine.

Honorable mentions: In 1922, Warren Harding became the first president to be heard on the radio. In 2015, Barack Obama was the first president to post on Twitter, now known as X, although Trump clearly revolutionized the use of social media from the Oval Office.

Obama was also the first sitting president to appear on a late-night comedy program as president in 2016, although John F. Kennedy appeared on the Jack Paar show as a presidential candidate in 1960.

Truman, joined by Charles Luckman and L.A. McClelland, participated in a televised address to the American people to gain support for the new voluntary food conservation drive. - Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Presidents have traveled to war zones. Most recently, Biden traveled this year to Ukraine to show support for that countrys effort against Russias 2022 invasion.

These are largely controlled affairs, nothing like the time in July 1864 when Abraham Lincoln became the only known sitting US president to come under direct fire from an enemy combatant, according to the National Park Service.

Confederate troops were threatening Washington, and Fort Stevens was part of a network of fortifications meant to protect the nations capital. Lincoln climbed to the top of a parapet to watch the battle and was fired upon. The future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was on site as a young officer and, according to the Park Service, offered this advice to Lincoln: Get down, you damn fool!

A more typical example of a president visiting a war zone is pictured below. Lyndon B. Johnson, as president, visited troops deployed to Vietnam in 1966. Biden recently made his first presidential trip to Vietnam, which is still a communist country, and visited a memorial to John McCain, the late Republican senator who was held for years as a prisoner of war there.

Johnson shakes the hands of soldiers as he visits American troops in Vietnam in 1966. - Interim Archives/Getty Images

It wasnt until 1906 that a sitting US president left US soil, when Theodore Roosevelt went to see construction of the Panama Canal.

Subsequent presidents have traveled quite a bit. Franklin Roosevelt was the first to cross the Atlantic on a plane while in office in 1943. The multiday journey involved traveling first to the Caribbean and then Brazil and then across the ocean to Gambia.

Nixon was the first US president to visit China, in what historians still view as a pivotal moment in world history.

As CNNs Simone McCarthy noted last year for the 50th anniversary of the trip, it would open the door for the formation of diplomatic relations between the worlds richest country and its most populous and also reshape the world order as it was known: shifting the power dynamics of the Cold War and playing a part in Chinas transition from impoverished isolation to a new role as a growing global power broker and economic partner to the United States.

Nixon stands on the Great Wall of China on the outskirts of Beijing. - AP

Hopefully George W. Bush is the first and only president to visit the site of a major terror attack on US soil days after it is committed. But his appearance at Ground Zero in New York City on September 14, 2001, will always be the most important image of his presidency.

Bush stands atop a crumpled fire truck with retired New York City fireman Bob Beckwith on September 14, 2001. - Eric Draper/The White House/National Archives

Nixon went to China. He went to the Soviet Union. He went to Vietnam. He did not go to Cuba, the communist country off the coast of Florida.

Obama, who sought to normalize US relations with Cuba, was the first US president to visit the island nation in 2016 since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.

Trump later reversed elements of Obamas Cuba policy.

Obama takes part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Jose Marti memorial in Revolution Square on March 21, 2016, in Havana. - Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Bush and Republican presidents before him, while hoping to count on the votes of anti-abortion activists, never visited the annual March for Life rally in person.

In 1988, Ronald Reagan called in. So did George W. Bush years later. Not Trump. He traveled outside the White House and made the short trip to the National Mall to address activists in 2020. So it is fitting that Trump nominated the three justices that gave social conservatives a controlling majority on the Supreme Court to end nationwide abortion rights and give states the ability to outlaw abortions.

Trump addresses the March for Life rally in person in Washington on January 24, 2020. - Pete Marovich/The New York Times/Redux

Reagan looks through binoculars to view North Korean positions from the observation deck at Guard Post Collier at the DMZ in 1983. - Bettmann/Getty Images

There is some jeopardy in being the first president to do something. Trump played up his letter-writing relationship with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. His meeting with Kim in 2018 at a summit in Singapore was clearly an historic event. A year later, Trump and Kim shook hands over the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

Trump shakes hands with Kim on June 30, 2019, as the two leaders meet at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. - Shealah Craighead/The White House

Previous presidents had only managed to look across the DMZ with binoculars. Trumps relationship with Kim, however, failed to yield a lasting agreement when their final summit in Vietnam in 2019 fell apart.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A man is in custody after allegedly kicking in his ex-girlfriends front door, holding her and her 6-year-old son for several hours and threatening them with a knife.

Justin Jordan is charged with two counts of Especially Aggravated Kidnapping and Aggravated Burglary. He is set to appear in court on October 6.

According to Memphis Police, on September 20, officers responded to a domestic disturbance at an apartment complex in Raleigh. The victim stated her ex-boyfriend, Jordan, forced his way into her apartment after kicking in the front door.

Woman charged with beating, robbing woman at Orange Mound store

Police say that Jordan then grabbed the victim by the arm, forcing her and her 6-year-old son into the bedroom.

Reports state that neighbors heard a loud commotion and reported the incident to the leasing manager and the security guards.

That is when the security guard went to the victims apartment and spoke with Jordan, who stated the victim was not home.

The victim reportedly heard someone knock on the door but did not say anything after Jordan got a knife and threatened to slit her throat if she made any noise.

Lyft driver dials deputies, gets DUI drug charge

Reports state that the victim and her son were held against their will for three hours before she grabbed the knife from Jordan and snatched her cell phone out of his pocket.

Jordan then ran outside of the apartment and the victim called the police.

Officers say when they arrived they were able to take Jordan into custody and also found the knife that was used in the incident.

The victim gave a statement downtown and was able to positively identify Jordan in a six-person photographic line-up, according to police.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
A new robot is on the beat in New York City.

The Knightscope 5, or K5, described as a "fully autonomous outdoor security robot," by the tech company in Mountain View, California that builds the robots, is set to begin patrolling the Times Square subway station between midnight and 6 a.m. ET during a two-month trial, accompanied by a police officer, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday during a press conference.

The 5-foot-2-inch robot, which weighs about 400 pounds, is weatherproof and capable of capturing 360-degree video. It sports four HD cameras with wide-angle lenses, as well as an infrared thermal camera. "It will record video that can be used in case of an emergency or a crime," Adams said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams introduced the Knightscope 5, a robot that will patrol the Times Square subway station during a two-month trial, during a press conference with city officials on Sept. 22, 2023.

K5 won't be pursuing or catching any criminals, as its top speed is 3 mph. Also, the robot needs breaks, because it can patrol for 2 to 3 hours on a fully charged battery, then needs 20-30 minutes to recharge, according to Knightscope.

The robot will not record audio or use facial recognition, Adams said. But it has a button citizens can use to report incidents.

The struggle behind the badge: Miami top cop's suicide attempt and the mental health stigma in policing

Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a privacy and civil rights group, dismissed the robot, which began its patrol Friday night, as a trash can on wheels, The New York Times reported.

While there's likely been many advances in K5's operations, one of the robots in 2016 knocked down a toddler in a Silicon Valley Mall, The Verge reported at the time. The 16-month-old was not hurt and Knightscope officials called it a "freakish accident."

During the two-month trial, K5 will be accompanied by a police officer to help introduce the public to the robot's function, Adams said. But if the trial is successful, K5 will patrol on its own.

"We will assess the robot's effectiveness and decide whether and how we'll continue to use it moving forward," Adams said.

What types of robots are being used in New York?

It's not the first time New York City Mayor Eric Adams added robots and technology to the city's police and emergency response teams since he took office in January 2022.

In April, the former New York City police captain brought back into service robotic dogs, called Digidogs, for use in life-threatening situations, The New York Times reported earlier this year. Two years ago, the New York Police Department stopped using the robots, while the city's fire department continued to use them.

Robot dogs returns to NYPD.

"Digidog is out of the pound," Adams said at the time, introducing a preview of K5 robot. "Digidog is now part of the toolkit."

Police departments in Miami and Los Angeles have begun using robotic dogs, too.

The NYPD also has a temporary subscription with GPS tech company StarChase to use its GPS tracking launchers to tag and track vehicles, The Times reported. What we want to do is to mitigate as many high-speed chases in the city as possible, Mr. Adams said, according to The Times.

Researchers recently tested remote-controlled robots in New York to collect trash and recyclable materials, too.

How much will the new patrol robot cost New York City?

The city is leasing K5 at a cost of about $9 per hour, Adams said. The mayor has sought budget cuts in many city agencies, the Times has reported.

K5's rate is below minimum wage, Mr. Adams said during the event. "No bathroom breaks. No meal breaks."

We must use every available method to keep New Yorkers safe  including state of the art technologies like the Knightscope K5 security robot.



These devices will serve as an important, innovative deterrent to crime so we can keep NYC the safest big city in America. pic.twitter.com/YEHuNIw8Va  Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) September 22, 2023

Knightscope CEO William Santana Li, a native New Yorker said in a statement, Ive never been as proud of Knightscope and our relentless team as I am today seeing our robot in Federal Blue wearing an NYPD patch on its shoulder.

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York police: A new robot patrols Times Square subway station
A Georgia community is on edge about a suspected prowler police say has shown up at the same home at least nine times in a month.

The Atlanta Police Department released doorbell security footage Monday, Sept. 25, of a man snooping around the back door of a home in the citys Virginia-Highland community, WAGA reported.

Investigators said he was first seen trying to break into the residence on Aug. 13 and has returned at least eight times since, according to the station.

McClatchy News reached out to Atlanta police on Tuesday, Sept. 26 and was awaiting a response.

In each of the incidents, the suspected prowler was seen peeping through a window a few times before jiggling the door knob, WSB-TV reported, citing police.

Photos show he has a tattoo on his right forearm and another on his upper arm, according to WANF.

Ive never seen that guy and hopefully I never will, neighbor Natalie Bristow told the station. Its terrifying. I live literally walking distance from here.

Another resident told WAGA the incident made her uneasy, adding: Especially if youre someone living alone, especially if youre a woman living alone. At night.

Police said the man should be considered armed and dangerous and urged residents to stay vigilant, WSB-TV reported.

Authorities are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Kohls security catches man taking upskirt photos of shopper, California cops say

Man stalked Taylor Swift and said hed wear a bomb if he cant be with her, cops say

Woman made 58 Instagram accounts to stalk and threaten country music duo, officials say
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The days of COVID-19 remote learning are years in the past. But with flu season beginning and winter around the corner, New Hampshire officials are urging parents to be mindful of respiratory illnesses  including coronavirus.

Last week, the New Hampshire Department of Education distributed a guidance document to schools for parents, teachers, and school officials.

School-aged children are one of the populations most at risk for developing acute upper respiratory infections, the document, created by the Department of Health and Human Services, begins. Those infections can spread more quickly with children, whose immune systems are not yet fully formed, it adds.

Here are some of the states recommendations:

Make sure children are practicing basic hygiene. Teach them to wash hands regularly, to not share utensils, to cough into their elbows, and to use tissues when sick.

Respiratory illnesses can take many forms. They include colds, COVID-19 infections, and the flu, and they are spread over the air. The symptoms can include a fever, a cough, a sore throat, muscle pains, headaches, congestion, and more.

Keep your child at home the day they first experience symptoms. Any symptom could be the sign of a flu or a COVID-19 infection. Stock up on COVID-19 tests ahead of time, and test them the first day they experience symptoms. Avoid public places when recovering. Try to bring your child to their primary care provider if possible.

The current Centers for Disease Control and Preventionguidance for those who contract COVID-19 is to quarantine for at least five days until the fever goes away.

Do not return to school until the COVID-19 testing is negative and the fever symptoms go away without the need for anti-fever medications. Wait at least 24 hours after symptoms go away to return.

To fight infections, teachers and school officials should keep desks spaced apart, should rotate teachers between classrooms and keep students in the same room, and should reduce class trips. They should disinfect surfaces regularly and provide for ventilation throughout facilities. If students show flu-like symptoms at school, they should try to isolate the child, ask them to wear a mask if tolerated, and contact a parent to pick up the child right away.

Schools should report infections to the states Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, which will keep track of outbreaks. They should also separate their tally of student absences between illness-related and non-illness-related absences, and report those to DHHS. Implementing an effective absenteeism surveillance system is key to monitoring acute respiratory illness in the student population and will help in instituting prevention measures, the guidance states.

The flu spreads from person to person, and children in schools are among the most affected, a state-drafted letter to parents states. We want to keep school open during flu season and we cannot do it without you.

This story was originally published by New Hampshire Bulletin

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH urges schools, parents to take flu, COVID season seriously
Travis King, the U.S. soldier who bolted into North Korea during a border tour in July, is back in American custody after Pyongyang decided to expel him.

Two U.S. officials first confirmed the news to the Associated Press, with one saying King had been handed over to American authorities in China. The news came shortly after North Korea announced it had decided to expel the 23-year-old.

Sweden and China assisted working diplomatic channels with North Koreawhere the United States has no representation on the groundto bring Pvt. King home, the Pentagon said in a statement, per Foreign Policy.

According to the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), King had confessed to having illegally crossed into North Korea due to inhuman treatment in the U.S. military, antipathy to racism and disillusionment with the unequal U.S. society.

The relevant body in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has decided to deport U.S. soldier Travis King, who illegally entered the territory of the republic, in accordance with the laws of the republic, it added.

King defected to North Korea by crossing over the border on an organized trip to the DMZ on July 18, reportedly cackling with laughter as he ran away from his tour group and from chasing guards. He had been due to return to the United States to face disciplinary action after being found guilty of assault at a nightclub in South Korea.

North Korea kept silent about the soldiers actions for almost a month, until KCNA reported that the 23-year-old soldier had admitted to having illegally intruded into the DPRK. It said King crossed the border because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.

U.S. Soldier Was Breaking Down Before Bolting Into North Korea, Uncle Says

The report continued: He also expressed his willingness to seek refugee in the DPRK or a third country, saying that he was disillusioned at the unequal American society.

That last line in the KCNA report led to speculation that King could be deported by North Korea to a friendly nation, which effectively means Russia or China.

The Seoul-based website NK News noted in a report last week that North Korea has tended in recent years to kick out Americans who try to stay in the DPRK and might do the same for King.

By stating that King was open to going to a third country, North Korea implied that it could send him on his way at some point, it said.

But it added: North Korea could lose face if they gave someone who reportedly claimed to be a victim of racism back to the dreaded U.S. imperialists. Sending King to a third country would allow Pyongyang to claim the moral high ground, while still allowing the DPRK to wash its hands of him.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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SEOUL, South Korea  Travis King, the U.S. Army private who intentionally ran across the border into North Korea this summer, is in U.S. custody in China, U.S. officials said Wednesday, shortly after the isolated East Asian country said it would expel him.

U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea," the Defense Department press secretary, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, said in a statement. He went on to thank the U.S. military personnel who worked to "bring Private King home," as well as the governments of Sweden and China.

Later, two U.S. defense officials told NBC News that King would be flown to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio overnight after having spent some time in South Korea.

There, they said, he will undergo post-isolation support activities, known as PISA, which help prisoners of war and wrongfully detained Americans reacclimatize to being in the U.S. and deal with any trauma or post-traumatic stress.

King, 23, bolted across the heavily armed border July 18 during a public tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

North Korea says on Wednesday, Sept. 27, it has decided to expel a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed inter-Korean border in July. (Ahn Young-joon / AP)

A statement reported by the state-run news agency KCNA said King had confessed he illegally intruded into North Korean territory because he was disillusioned about inhumane treatment and racial discrimination in the Army, as well as the inequality existing within the American Society.

The U.S. has not yet officially responded to the claims.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Kings mother, Claudine Gates, told NBC News Andrea Mitchell that she was overjoyed and relieved to have received a call from her son.

Shes been on pins and needles these 71 days, Franks said, adding that Gates was extremely grateful to the Army and its interagency partners at the National Security Council and the White House.

He added that she did not know why her son was let go but that they were able to connect on the phone, and she relayed that he was in good spirits and she was thrilled.

This was a call just to say: Hey, how are you? I love you; I care about you. Its probably not a time to ask for a whole bunch of details or ask a lot of questions, he said.

Before he crossed the border, King had not long been released from a South Korean prison and was being escorted by the military to Incheon International Airport near Seoul to possibly face further disciplinary action in the U.S.

King had violated part of the joint security agreement and was being escorted to the airport after having completed his punishment, a senior administration official said.

The official said King instead joined a commercial tour group headed for the Joint Security Area, an area administered by the United Nations between the North and the South.

A spokesperson for the Army said Wednesday the chain of command would address Kings status at a later time.

The Armys focus right now is on ensuring the soldiers well-being and privacy, spokesperson Bryce Dubee said.

King's detention has come at a time of elevated tension between the isolated communist state and its southern neighbor and the U.S.

Pyongyang has escalated its nuclear threats and embarked on a campaign of weapons tests, while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently embarked on a rare trip outside the country for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The growing ties between the two regimes have fueled Western fears that Kim may be willing to supply ammunition for the Kremlin's war in Ukraine in exchange for military technology or economic aid that would negate international sanctions.

North Korea remained silent about King for weeks until it confirmed his detention in August with a statement attributing comments to him that were critical of the U.S.

Gates, Kings mother, later cast doubt on any suggestion that her son may have defected because of dissatisfaction with life in the Army.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, Gates, of Racine, Wisconsin, told The Associated Press.

Stella Kim reported from Seoul, Patrick Smith from London, Courtney Kube from Washington and Mosheh Gaines from Luanda, Angola.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The News

A U.S. soldier who darted across the border into North Korea is now in U.S. custody and headed to a U.S. military base after being released from North Korean detainment Wednesday, a senior government official confirmed.

Travis King ran across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between tNorth and South Korea while on a tour with a group.

Know More

The officials said a multi-agency effort over a period of several months was needed to secure Kings return to U.S. custody. King was transferred out of North Korea to China, where he was met by officials.

Diplomats from Sweden and China worked with the U.S. to secure the privates release.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan thanked Sweden and the Chinese government for helping facilitate the transfer.

According to the Korean Central News Agency, the official media arm of Pyongyang, King allegedly confessed to feeling disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society. There is no way to verify if King actually made these remarks.

Step Back

King served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in South Korea. He previously spent two-months in detention for assault charges, and was released shortly before he ran away from his tour group at the DMZ.
Pvt. Travis King , the American soldier who crossed into North Korea in July, is en route to the U.S. after a clandestine journey across the border to China and then home to the United States, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

King has departed Chinese airspace and is en route to a U.S. military base, said a senior administration official, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the administration had secured King's return.

"We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing," Sullivan said in a statement. "In addition, we thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in [North Korea] and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King."

The plan to bring King home came together over the last few weeks after Sweden, a frequent interlocutor between Washington and Pyongyang, conveyed to U.S. officials that North Korea wanted to release him, according to the senior administration official.

Officials in the U.S., Sweden and China engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity to secure King's release and safe passage home. Swedish government officials on the ground in North Korea first facilitated King's transfer out of the country to neighboring China, where he was handed over to U.S. officials. He has now departed Chinese air space and is headed to a U.S. military base. Chinese officials did not play any mediating role.

"All of these pieces had to come together quickly, and with the greatest concern for Pvt. King's care and ensuring his safe and healthy transit home," according to the senior administration official.

President Joe Biden followed the issue closely, the person said, declining to say whether the president has spoken to King or his family.

The U.S. did not make any concessions to North Korea in exchange for King's return, the senior administration official said.

U.S. officials declined to comment on whether the U.S. military would take any disciplinary action against King, who may be facing a court martial. Once on U.S. soil he will be evaluated and guided through a "reintegration process that will address any medical and emotional concerns," said a second senior administration official.

"Our focus right now is on Pvt. King's health and ensuring that he receives all appropriate support before reuniting with his family," the first senior administration official said.

The news comes after state media reported on Wednesday that North Korea had decided to expel the American soldier who fled across the border into the authoritarian country two months ago.

Following an investigation by North Korean officials, King confessed to illegally entering the country, state-run news outlet KCNA reported, adding that he expressed ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It was not possible to verify the statements attributed to King, which were reported only through KCNA.

King, who in July was supposed to return to the U.S. after spending time in a South Korean prison for assault, opted instead to cross the heavily armed border into repressive North Korea while he was part of a tour group.

Shortly after the Army privates actions, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth refused to ascribe a motivation but hinted that King was likely stressed about his situation.

He is a young soldier, he was facing consequences. I imagine he had a lot of negative feelings, she told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum in July. He may not have been thinking clearly, frankly, but we just dont know.

It's unclear why North Korea released King, but Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the Defense Department was working to secure his release ever since he crossed the border.

"Our biggest concern about Pvt. King is that we want to bring him home and we are doing whatever we can through the interagency, from DOD and other partners, to find a way that we could bring him home," she said in July.
A portrait of American soldier Travis King is displayed as his grandfather, Carl Gates, talks about his grandson on July 19, 2023, in Kenosha, Wis. North Korea asserted Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2023, that Gates, a U.S. soldier who bolted into the North across the heavily armed Korean border last month, did so after being disillusioned with the inequality of American society and racial discrimination in its Army. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)

WASHINGTON (AP)  The U.S. has secured the release of a U.S. soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, and he is on his way back to America, officials announced Wednesday. U.S. ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

Left unanswered were questions of why North Korea  which has tense relations with Washington over the North's nuclear program, support for Russia's war in Ukraine and other issues  had agreed to turn him over and why the soldier had fled in the first place.

North Korea had abruptly announced earlier Wednesday that it would expel Pvt. Travis King  though some had expected the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

"U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing."

Officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to expel King, but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information. One official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that King, 23, was more trouble to keep than to simply release him.

Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China, and at least one U.S. Defense Department official. Biden administration officials insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldier's release.

We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, Sullivan added.

King was flown to a U.S. military base in South Korea before being returned to the U.S.

His expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans. He has been declared AWOL from the Army, which can mean punishment military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

In the near term, officials said that their focus would be on helping King reintegrate into U.S. society, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, according to a senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on the transfer.

The soldier was in good spirits and good health upon his release, according to one senior administration official. He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and was expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

After arriving on the Texas military installation, King is expected to undergo psychological assessments and debriefings. He will also get a chance to meet with family. Kings legal situation remains complicated because he willingly bolted into enemy hands, so legally he would be in military custody throughout the process.

Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for Chinas assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing King's release. The U.S. first learned through Swedish officials earlier this month that North Korea was looking to expel King. That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the United States' behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It had attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible. Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and U.S. society. One senior administration official said that King was very happy to be on his way back to the United States.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had reason to want to come home. She thanked the U.S. government on Wednesday for securing her son's release.

Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done," Jonathan Franks, spokesperson for Gates, said in a statement.

King was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Both Koreas ban anyone from crossing their heavily fortified shared border without special permissions. The Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

While King was officially declared AWOL, the Army considered, but did not declare him a deserter, which is a much more serious offense. In many cases, someone who is AWOL for more than a month can automatically be considered a deserter, which means they intended to leave permanently.

Punishment for going AWOL or desertion can vary, and it depends in part on whether the service member voluntarily returned or was apprehended. Kings turnover by the North Koreans makes that a more complicated determination.

North Koreas decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the countrys standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the Norths growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States' expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

The U.S. has also publicly accused North Korea of providing munitions to Russia for its war with Ukraine and says that Moscow is pushing Pyongyang to provide even more military aid. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met for talks in Russia's Far East earlier this month.

Biden administration officials on Wednesday downplayed any idea that the release could augur a broader shift by Kim, but reiterated that the U.S. remains ready to engage the North with diplomatic talks.

Captive Americans have been flown to China previously. In other cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

___

Kim Tong-Hyung reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.
North Korea said it will expel US soldier Travis King, according to state media.

It said that King had confessed to illegally intruding into the country.

King, a US Army private, ran across the DMZ on July 18, shocking authorities and his family.

North Korea said it will expel US soldier Travis King, who ran across the border from South Korea into its territory in July, according to state media.

North Korea said King, 23, had confessed to illegally intruding into the country, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the country's state-run news agency, per Reuters.

The news agency did not provide specific details regarding the timing, method, or destination of King's expulsion, Reuters reported.

King, a private in the US Army, made the border crossing while on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area on July 18, Insider previously reported.

He was subsequently detained by North Korean troops and investigated, KCNA said at the time.

The news agency claimed that King had tried to cross the border because he was angry with "racial discrimination" in American society.

He reportedly told investigators that he wanted to seek refuge in North Korea or another country due to his disillusionment with an "unequal American society," per KCNA.

Before King crossed the border, he faced accusations of punching a man, insulting the South Korean army, and damaging a police car in 2022, Reuters reported.

Additionally, he had been detained in a South Korean jail on assault charges before being released on July 10, according to the Associated Press.

This is a developing story.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The U.S. soldier who drew international attention when he fled into North Korea this summer is back in American hands and on his way to a U.S. military facility, according to the White House.

Pvt. Travis King, who bolted across one of the world's most heavily weaponized borders into the country in July, was first transferred out of North Korea into China with help from Sweden.

He appeared to be in good health and good spirits, according to senior administration officials who discussed the details of his transfer on condition of anonymity. King had already spoken with his family.

We can confirm that Pvt. King was very happy to be on his way home, an official told reporters Wednesday morning before National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan officially announced Kings return from North Korea in a statement.

Officials declined to say what potential punishment awaits King. They said the immediate focus is assessing his health and making sure he has appropriate support before hes reunited with his family.

No concessions were made to North Korea for Kings release, the U.S. insisted.

There were none. Full stop, a senior administration official told reporters.

Earlier this month, the United States learned through Sweden that North Korea wanted to expel King, an official said.

With Swedens intermediary help and cooperation from China, King was transferred across North Koreas border with China where U.S. officials met him.

North Korea said Wednesday it was expelling King after completing an investigation of him.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency claimed King confessed that "he illegally entered the territory of the Republic out of antipathy toward inhumane abuse and racial discrimination within the U.S. military, and disillusionment with the unequal American society."

U.S. soldier detained in North Korea: He got there on a tour bus

In this photo taken in Seoul on August 16, 2023, a man walks past a television showing a news broadcast featuring a photo of US soldier Travis King (C), who ran across the border into North Korea while part of a tour group visiting the Demilitarized Zone on South Korea's border on July 18. North Korea has decided to expel US soldier Travis King, who was detained after crossing the border from the South in July, the KCNA state news agency said on September 27.

King ran into the North from South Korea during a tour of the joint security area that separates the two Koreas. It is one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world and divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half along the cease-fire line between the two nations that has existed since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The Pentagon said in July that King crossed into the North "willfully and without authorization."

King, 23, has connections to Wisconsin. His mother lives in Racine.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Kings mother, said Claudine Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

For the foreseeable future, the family asks for privacy, and Ms. Gates does not intend to give any interviews, Franks said in a statement.

When he crossed into the North he was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had just served a 47-day sentence in a South Korean prison for assault, after he allegedly kicked a South Korean squad car and demaged it, USA TODAY previously reported. He entered the North as he was about to be sent home to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.

US soldier detained in North Korea: Everything we know about Travis King

Previous Americans who have been detained in North Korea have not been treated well.

College student Otto Warmbier, for example, was released in a vegetative state in 2017 after spending 17 months in captivity. He died a short while later. His parents said he had been tortured and suffered brain damage. Three Americans detained in North Korea were freed in 2018 when Donald Trump was president.

North Korea is one of the most economically and politically isolated countries in the world. Its military has a variety of ballistic and cruise missiles that it has tested in recent years and threatened the U.S. with. It has also tested nuclear bombs. In recent weeks, North Korea has accused the U.S. of repeatedly violating its airspace.

Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have risen as Pyongyang has pushed ahead with tests of nuclear weapons-capable long-range ballistic missiles, and as its leader Kim Jong Un has appeared to court favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he visited in Russia this month. The White House believes that North Korea and Russia are close to completing a secret arms deal for Russia's war in Ukraine.

The successful retrieval of King shows the importance of keeping open the lines of communication even when ties are strained, a senior administration official said, and the U.S. is ready for any further diplomacy that might be possible.

Kim Jong Un: He hops on his bulletproof, drab green train for meeting with Putin

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Travis King in US custody after North Korea expulsion
North Korean state media announced Wednesday that the U.S. Army service member who crossed into the country in July will be expelled.

Travis King , who was serving in South Korea, sprinted across the border between North Korea and South Korea on July 18, the same day he was scheduled to return to the U.S. to face a court martial over a bar fight.

He is the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years. The state news release says North Korean officials have finished questioning him, but it did not say exactly when or where he would be returned.

The agency said King confessed to illegally entering North Korea because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society, according to The Associated Press.

Its unknown whether the comments attributed to King are authentic.

The sudden border crossing left relatives confused and concerned. Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she told the AP last month.

King was declared AWOL by U.S. military authorities, which can be punished by jail time, fines or a dishonorable discharge from the military.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Laziz Kudratov, the governor of Uzbekistan at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and also Uzbek minister of investment, industry, and trade, speaks during an interview on the sidelines of the AIIB's two-day annual meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sept. 26, 2023. Laziz Kudratov hailed Tuesday the bank's eighth annual meeting as "important and fruitful." (Xinhua/Sui Xiankai)

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Laziz Kudratov, the governor of Uzbekistan at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), hailed Tuesday the bank's eighth annual meeting as "important and fruitful."

Kudratov, also Uzbek minister of investment, industry, and trade, made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the AIIB's two-day annual meeting that concluded Tuesday in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

He highlighted the Climate Action Plan (CAP) as a significant outcome of this year's annual meeting, saying new mechanisms and instruments included in the plan are "crucial for supporting efforts to preserve the environment and to tackle the climate challenges."

On Monday, the opening day of its annual meeting, the AIIB launched the CAP to guide the institution's climate ambition from 2024 to 2030.

Seen as "a milestone" in the bank's commitment to combatting climate change, the CAP brings together the principles governing the bank's climate financing while identifying crucial action areas that will steer its investments in support of its members, the AIIB said in a statement.

Speaking to Xinhua, Kudratov also listed green development and climate change among issues likely to be focused on at the next annual meeting of the bank, which is scheduled to be held by his country.

"For the agenda of the next meeting, I believe it will be discussed with the members of AIIB, but our proposal and vision would include topics of green development and climate change issues," said Kudratov.

"Another topic that will be of interest to us is connectivity and transportation because for our region, Central Asia, which is landlocked, developing efficient transport corridors is of great importance," he added.

Issues related to supporting digital transformation, entrepreneurship and startups could also be submitted for discussion during the next annual meeting, the minister said.

The AIIB is a multilateral development bank whose primary mission is to finance infrastructure projects that prioritize sustainability. It began operations in Beijing in January 2016 and has since grown to 109 approved members worldwide, with three new members approved at this year's annual meeting. 
Private Travis King , the US Army soldier who fled to North Korea rather than board a US-bound plane for discipline by authorities at home, is back in American custody nearly two months after he broke away from a tour group in the demilitarised zone which separates North and South Korea and crossed the border into the North.

US officials on Wednesday said the errant American soldier had been turned over to American authorities in China, who were transporting him to a US-controlled facility.

Johnathan Franks, a spokesperson for Pvt Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said Ms Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

He added that the soldiers family was asking for privacy, and said Ms Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

The news of Mr Kings return to American custody comes just hours after North Korea announced that it would expel Mr King, who crossed into the country while taking part in a guided tour of a border village in a demilitarised zone.

State news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday that Mr King, 23, had confessed to illegally entering the country back in July.

Pyongyang reportedly deported him after concluding its investigation into his illegal entry into the country, the report said.

The state news agency did not specify how, when or where Mr King would be expelled.

North Korea claims that its investigation into Mr Kings crossing had revealed that he was seeking refuge in the country due to inhuman treatment in the US military, antipathy to racism and disillusionment with the unequal US society.

He is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.

On 18 July, Mr King, a private second class in the US Army was on a tour to the border between North and South Korea, when he separated from the group and fled across the border.

There, he surrendered himself to North Korean forces.

Prior to fleeing across the border, he had been detained for more than 40 days over an assault and destruction of private property conviction in South Korea.

He was sentenced on 24 May to serve in a labour camp at the Cheonan correctional facility, which is intended to house US military members and other foreigners convicted of crimes in South Korea.

On his release on 10 July, he was scheduled to return home to the US to face disciplinary action at his home base at Fort Bliss in Texas, the SCMP previously reported. But he skipped on his flight and crossed into North Korea.

Mr Kings state of health is somewhat unclear.

US Army soldier Travis King (VIA REUTERS)

The Pentagon confirmed in July that US forces in Korea and Army counter-intelligence were conducting an investigation into Mr Kings disappearance over the border.

The United Nations Command asked North Korea for information, which finally released information about his crossing in August.

During the investigation, Travis King confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harboured ill feelings against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army, state-run news agency KCNA said last month.

It added that Mr King was kept under control by soldiers of the Korean Peoples Army and they were still probing the circumstances surrounding his crossing into the country.

While Mr Kings uncle Myron Gates told ABC News last month that his nephew had been experiencing racism during his military deployment, and after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he no longer sounded like himself.

The private was a reconnaissance specialist who had served in the army since January 2021 and was in South Korea as part of his rotation.

Throughout the years, other US Army soldiers have also defected to North Korea, with some cases dating back to the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.
At least 100 people are dead and 150 were injured at a wedding reception in northern Iraq Tuesday after a massive fire broke out, possibly caused by fireworks, officials in the Middle Eastern country said.

The blaze took place at a wedding hall in the Al-Hamdaniya district in the Nineveh Plain, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani confirmed in a post on X.

The scene is located outside of the city of Mosul, about 200 miles northwest of the capital of Baghdad.

Shia al-Sudani said he called the governor of Nineveh for an update on the fire and ordered a formal investigation into its cause. He also said he directed health and interior officials to mobilize all efforts to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate incident."

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People gather at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed multiple people, authorities said Wednesday.

At least 113 dead, 150 injured so far

Although rescue crews were still searching for survivors on Wednesday, Nineveh deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaq told Reuters 113 people were confirmed dead.

It was not immediately known if the bride and the groom died.

The country's Health Ministry spokesman Saif al Badr told state-run Iraqi News Agency, the fire injured at least 150 people.

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, said many of the injured "suffered serious burns", The Associated Press reported.

The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60% of their bodies burned," Dubardani told the AP.

This image made from video shows medical staff taking an injured person inside a hospital in Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A raging fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing multiple people and injuring others, authorities said Wednesday.

Although the official cause of the fire was not immediately known, the AP reported TV news channel Rudaw aired footage "showing pyrotechnics shooting flames up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame."

The death toll, officials said, is expected to rise.

People gather at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed multiple people, authorities said Wednesday.

An Iraqi reacts at the site of a fatal fire in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed multiple people, authorities said Wednesday.

"This was not a wedding. This was hell."

Witness Mariam Khedr told Reuters she lost four family members in the blaze, including an 8-month old grandchild.

"This was not a wedding. This was hell," said Khedr, crying and hitting herself as she waited for officials to return the bodies of her 27-year-old daughter and her three young grandchildren, the outlet reported.

Wedding attendee Faten Youssef told the AP the fire started as the bride and groom began to slow dance. "Flames raced through plastic decorations and the ceiling started collapsing. Flames started falling on us," Youssef, who is 50, told the AP. "Things were falling down and blocked the way to the exit.

Some of Youssef's family, who also witnessed the horror, she said, fought their way through smoke and flames but made it safely out of the building through a kitchen area, the outlet reported.

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Firefighters work at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed multiple people, authorities said Wednesday.

'Cover the victims with mercy and forgiveness'

During a speech at the fifth Congress of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Iraqi News Agency reported the secretary-general of Asaib Ahl al-Haq Sheikh al-Khazali offered condolences to the families of the victims who attended the Christian wedding ceremony and deadly reception. "We ask Almighty Allah to cover the victims with mercy and forgiveness, the injured with a speedy recovery, and to inspire their families with patience and fortitude" he told the agency.

This is a developing story.

Contributing: The Associated Press and Reuters

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fire at wedding in Iraq kills at least 100 people during reception
[Source]

Businesses in Oakland organized a one-day strike on Tuesday to protest rising crime levels and the city's inadequate response to public safety concerns.

About the strike: Many business owners closed their establishments to demand increased support from local, state and federal leaders in addressing the crime wave that has plagued Oakland. The merchants shared stories of dealing with robberies, car break-ins and assaults, with many feeling that city officials have been ineffective in curbing the criminal activity targeting their stores.

A conference was held outside Le Cheval, a beloved Vietnamese restaurant, that will close on Saturday after nearly 40 years of operation due to crime.

It's very sad. It's very tough to make the painful decision to shut it down because there are a lot of memories, owner Son Tran, who joined the strike, told CBS News. But I ran out of money, and I got tired of the criminals around here.

More from NextShark: Ex-UC Irvine student throws his mother off campus building before jumping himself: police

Crime in the city: Oakland reportedly saw a 46% increase in auto burglary compared to last years reported cases from the same period, while robbery has gone up by 30%, according to the Oakland Police Department.

What business owners are asking for: During the strike, business owners called for greater resources, including the addition of 1,000 Oakland police officers, increased support from various levels of government and a declaration of a state of emergency in Oakland. The strike also came in the wake of Oakland missing the deadline to apply for state funds to combat retail theft, further exacerbating the problem.

"We don't want to waste time blaming anybody," Carl Chan, President of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, said, according to KTVU. "Today we want to also focus on the solutions and what we can do together to make positive changes."

More from NextShark: Man suspected of shooting 4 in DC found dead inside his apartment, police still have no motive

"Even though they may get caught, they don't get prosecuted," Nolan Wong, owner of International Coin Laundromat, said. "It's a battle to figure out how we get in touch with these criminals to get them to stop."

Citys response: While Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao did not respond to the strike directly, she previously expressed a willingness to work with business owners on safety initiatives and stated that she had been meeting with small business groups to support efforts to deter crime and promote safer streets in the city.

In just the last few weeks, we have expanded foot patrols in commercial districts citywide and partnered with business groups to encourage public space activation that brings visitors to our businesses and promotes safer communities, the city of Oakland also said in a statement released on Tuesday. In the coming weeks, we will disburse grants for community ambassadors, safety programs and small business assistance.

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We are actively partnering with businesses, nonprofit groups, state and regional governments to reduce crime, the city added. The City of Oakland values its longstanding relationships and engagement with the business community and will continue its dedication to engagement and constructive collaboration to address these issues.

Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark!

California man who set boba customers on fire gets no jailtime
Steven Rattner, the head of former President Obamas auto industry task force, called President Bidens visit to Michigan and a United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line outrageous in a Wednesday interview.

For him to be going on a picket line is outrageous, Rattner, a former journalist who later worked in private equity, said in an interview with NBC News. Theres no precedent for it. The tradition of the president is to stay neutral in these things.

Biden joined striking UAW members Tuesday in Michigan after a back-and-forth if he would, and should, go.

Bidens trip showed a display of support for unions and marked the first time a sitting president attended a picket line. Biden has been both pro-union and pro-electric vehicle, which  among advocating for better pay and benefits  is a large reason why the autoworkers are striking.

Former President Trump has a visit to Michigan planned for Wednesday, skipping the second GOP presidential primary debate.

Rattner, who worked for the Obama administration on the government program to help U.S. automakers survive the 2009 financial crisis, said he understands the politics behind the visit. Michigan is one of several key states that will help determine the next president.

I get the politics. The progressives all said, We dont want a mediator; we want an advocate, Rattner said. And he bowed to the progressives, and now hes going out there to put his thumb on the scale. And its wrong.

In discussing his support for the UAW, Biden mentioned the 2009 crisis and argued that labor offered concessions at the time that helped keep the U.S. automakers solvent.

Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain joined MSNBC Tuesday to respond to the criticism of Bidens visit.

You know, he says, Wall Street didnt build this country  middle class built this country and unions built the middle class, Klain said. Thats what Joe Biden believes in the core of his being.

The UAW has yet to endorse Biden in the 2024 election, but UAW President Shawn Fain greeted Biden on the tarmac Tuesday and stood with him at the picket line.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The occupation authorities have decided to put Eduard Varbanskyi, Ukrainian serviceman and mortarman of the Azov Brigade behind bars for 22 years.

Source: TASS, citing the press office of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of Russia

Details: As reported by the Russian Kremlin-aligned media on 27 September, the "Supreme Court" of the so-called "DNR" sentenced Eduard Varbanskyi to 22 years in prison "for a mortar attack on a school near Mariupol last spring (2022)."

As the man who called himself Varbanskyi says in the video, he was accused of "cruel treatment of the civilian population, attempted murder and intentional destruction of someone else's property" for shelling the village of Berdianske near Mariupol with a 120 mm mortar. Then the school was allegedly damaged.

Background: On 22 September, Russian propagandists reported that the "Supreme Court" of the non-recognised "Donetsk People's Republic" sentenced Vitalii Katranych, a sergeant of an intelligence company of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to 24 years in prison, for allegedly shooting a resident of Mariupol.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!






Ohios two senators are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study whether a public health emergency exists in East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of the February derailment of a Norfolk Southern train.

The Feb. 3 derailment involved 20 railcars containing hazardous materials, according to the EPAs determination, and the subsequent controlled burning of five cars released vinyl chloride, a toxic compound used in the production of plastics.

Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and JD Vance (R) noted in a letter Tuesday that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which the EPA has already invoked in East Palestine, allows for the declaration of a public health emergency.

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Declaring a public health emergency in East Palestine could give potentially affected residents of the town and surrounding areas access to Medicare coverage, which would in turn allow them to monitor for possible long-term health problems.

The derailment itself did not directly cause any deaths or injuries, but long-term exposure to the chemicals involved in the spill could be associated with numerous medical conditions including leukemia and liver cancer.

The long-term environmental and public health impact of this exposure on residents remains unknown and may not become apparent for years to come, Vance and Brown wrote. No affected resident of East Palestine or its surrounding communities should have to worry about affording necessary health care, now or in the future.

The senators asked the EPA to clarify its rationale if it has already decided not to declare an emergency in the town.

CERCLA, popularly known as the Superfund law, allows the EPA to require Norfolk Southern to conduct and pay for cleanup of the derailment site. Brown and Vance, despite their opposing party affiliations, have cooperated extensively during the response to the derailment, including co-sponsoring legislation that would tighten federal rail safety requirements.

We will review and respond to the letter through appropriate channels, an EPA spokesperson told The Hill. EPA has been on the ground in East Palestine for more than seven months  since immediately after the disaster  working around the clock as part of President Bidens whole-of government approach to protect nearby communities from the mess that Norfolk Southern created.

 Updated at 4:25 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - Ohio on Wednesday urged the state's highest court to let a ban on abortion at about six weeks of pregnancy take effect, just weeks before voters in the state will decide whether to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution.

While the arguments before the Ohio Supreme Court focused on procedural questions and will not lead to a final ruling in the case, a decision reviving the ban even temporarily could draw attention to abortion rights in the weeks before the November referendum.

Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, in 2019 signed a law banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is usually around six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. The law took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.

Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers at arguments on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court of Ohio to reverse a preliminary order blocking the law.

"The state sustains irreparable harm, no way to remedy it later, every day its law is enjoined," Flowers said.

Jessie Hill, a lawyer for abortion providers challenging the law, said that "longstanding, well-established rules" in Ohio bar the state from appealing preliminary orders before final judgment.

A state court judge in Cincinnati last year blocked the law from taking effect while he considered a lawsuit by providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, finding that the ban likely violated the existing constitution by restricting the freedom to make healthcare decisions.

A mid-level appeals court refused to hear the state's appeal of that decision, finding that only final judgments, not preliminary orders, can be appealed.

The Supreme Court of Ohio, which has a 4-3 Republican majority, is now weighing whether the state can appeal, and whether abortion providers can challenge the law on behalf of their patients.

Flowers said Wednesday that abortion providers did not have a close enough relationship with patients to sue on their behalf, meaning that they should never have been allowed to sue in the first place.

Hill countered that providers are in a better position to sue on patients' behalf because pregnant women often "are not in a situation to hire an attorney, bring a lawsuit, seek an injunction."

The court did not clearly indicate how it will rule. If the court sides with the state on both issues, it could allow the ban to be enforced for the time being.

Ohioans will vote in November on a referendum that would explicitly add a right to abortion to the state constitution. Voters in August rejected a proposal by abortion opponents that would have required 60% of the vote, rather than a simple majority, to amend the constitution.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)
One restaurant was closed and two failed in the latest Tarrant County health inspections, according to data.

There were 212 inspections from Sept. 3 to Sept. 16.

Tarrant County Public Health inspects and scores all restaurants in Tarrant County except for those in Fort Worth, Arlington, Euless and North Richland Hills. Scores are based on a demerit system. When the total exceeds 29, a follow-up inspection is required.

Ms Saigon Pho Sushi & Bar at 242 Rufe Snow Drive in Keller was voluntarily closed on Sept. 9 due to inadequate refrigeration, but was reopened on Sept. 11 as the restaurants refrigeration was able to maintain proper temperatures.

CM Airstream at 4651 West Freeway in Fort Worth failed its inspection due to no hot water and issues with its refrigeration.

Carls Kitchen at 324 Shady Brook Lane in Cedar Hill also failed its inspection due to generator failure.

No restaurants received over 29 demerits.

Three restaurants had follow-up inspections:

Cowtown Dogs at 330 South Riverfront Blvd. in Dallas

Deuces Kitchen at 2702 Marjorie Ave. in Dallas

Ms Saigon Pho Sushi & Bar at 242 Rufe Snow Drive in Keller

Here are the inspection scores and violations for restaurants that Tarrant County Public Health (TCPH) inspected for Sept. 3rd - Sept. 16th, 2023. TCPH inspects and scores all restaurants in Tarrant County except for those located in Fort Worth, Arlington, Euless and North Richland Hills. Scores are based on a demerit system. When the total exceeds 29, a follow-up inspection is required. To search the restaurant inspections, type in a keyword or restaurant name. You can also sort by score.
ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkiye has agreed to send up to 4 million cubic meters of natural gas daily to Romania via a pipeline starting from Oct. 1, the Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) announced on Wednesday.

The agreement between BOTAS and Romania's OMV Petrom will be valid until March 31, 2025, the company said in a statement.

The parties also agreed to develop cooperation in such fields as gas transmission, storage, production, green energy technologies as well as natural gas trade.

The statement added that BOTAS had made important agreements regarding the export of natural gas to Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary through the pipeline.

Turkiye has added Romania to the countries to which it provides gas, "thus reinforcing its contribution to energy supply security and diversity in neighboring markets and Europe," said the company.

BOTAS hopes to rank among the top 10 exporting enterprises in Turkiye within three years, it added.

Turkiye signed a natural gas export agreement with Hungary in August and with Bulgaria in January. 
Champlain Housing Trust received a $20 million donation, the largest in the 40-year history of the nonprofit that builds housing for low-income and homeless Vermonters.

The donation came from MacKenzie Scott through her philanthropic fund, Yield Giving, according to a news release. Scott is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

In December 2020, Scott donated $9 million to the Vermont Foodbank, the largest donation that the organization has ever received.

Michael Monte, chief executive officer of Champlain Housing Trust, said in a statement Scott's gift represents a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move the dial on affordable housing in Vermont."

The Ho-Hum Motel on Williston Road will be converted by the Champlain Housing Trust to long-term apartments for people experiencing homelessness. As seen on Feb. 15, 2023.

How many apartments and shelters does the Champlain Housing Trust have

"We are extremely grateful to Ms. Scott for the confidence she and her team have placed in our efforts to address the region's housing crisis, the work we do in supporting people in need, and the track record of serving our communities over the last 40 years," Monte said.

Champlain Housing Trust owns or manages more than 2,500 affordable apartments and more than 100 shelter beds or motel rooms.

The organization also manages 675 shared equity homes to keep them affordable in perpetuity and provides programs ranging from affordable lending to financial literacy, community building, and resident services. In addition, CHT has more than 500 homes at various stages of construction.

How $20 million will impact Champlain Housing Trust's work

There are several initiatives that will be funded with Scott's gift:

Building and preserving permanently affordable housing: Vermont has a well-documented shortage of affordable housing. CHT borrows money to move development projects along, but having the internal capacity to replace this borrowing will make development less expensive, more sustainable, and more nimble.

Supporting and increasing access to homeownership: Homeownership is the way many people build wealth and achieve financial stability, but BIPOC households have been prevented from achieving those goals because of racist policies that prevented them from becoming homeowners. Scott's gift will allow CHT to expand its Homeownership Equity Program, working with partner agencies.

More: Long-term apartments for homeless coming to Ho-Hum Motel in South Burlington

Addressing homelessness: Twenty-three percent of CHT's rental housing is occupied by people exiting homelessness; CHT has helped more than 200 households exit homelessness in the past 12 months. This gift will create an ongoing, stable stream of funding to help support this work, and increase the number of families helped in the coming years.

Building community: The Old North End Community Center in Burlington, created by CHT five years ago, has launched an effort to redevelop the O'Brien Community Center in Winooski. This gift will help sustain the nonprofit and public use of these buildings, stabilize the rents for the tenants, and make needed improvements to supply community resources.

Supporting residents: Scott's gift will improve CHT's ability to connect people to resources, to each other and to opportunities to engage in their neighborhood and communities, an important priority for the Champlain Housing Trust.

Contact Dan DAmbrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosi@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: MacKenzie Scott donates $20 million to Champlain Housing Trust in VT
If youre searching for work and dont have a college degree, there are options with the Illinois state government.

Less than 30% of St. Clair County residents over the age of 25 hold a bachelors degree or a higher level of education, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Many state government jobs in Pennsylvania, Utah and Maryland no longer require a college degree, and the Illinois state government also has positions that dont require a bachelors degree.

The Work for Illinois website displays job listings, deadlines and qualifications, and you can apply for positions online. Additional information about application requirements is available.

Here are five open state government positions that dont require a college degree.

Conservation/historic preservation worker

Agency: Department of Natural Resources

Wage: $15 per hour (temporary position, not to exceed six months)

Location: Grafton, Ill.

The application for conservation/historic preservation worker closes Oct. 3.

The positions responsibilities include, according to the job listing:

Perform routine maintenance and janitorial duties of site buildings and public use areas.

Assist in area preparation and operation for various hunting seasons.

Operate and perform routine maintenance on equipment and vehicles.

Assist in the inspection of public use areas for public safety and hazards.

Explain site rules and regulations to users.

Minimum qualifications and employment conditions include, the listing says:

Knowledge, skill, and mental development equivalent to completing eight years of elementary/middle school

Ability to pass background check

Employee must be at least 17 years old and hold a valid drivers license

Elementary knowledge of materials, tools, and equipment essential to grounds and building maintenance

Ability to operate and maintain tools, equipment and trucks

Must be able to carry up to 60 pounds and walk over rough, broken terrain

Human resources representative

Agency: Department of Human Services

Wage: $59,136 to $90,852 per year anticipated

Location: Chester, Ill.

The application for human resources representative closes Oct. 4.

The positions responsibilities include, according to the listing:

Perform a variety of professional human resource activities for the employees of Chester Mental Health Center.

Coordinate employee benefits, participate in new hire orientation and provide advice and counsel to employees for Chester Mental Health Center.

Assist in the implementation of the employee performance evaluation program.

Work closely with management on employee/staff issues.

Conduct employee annual review of healthcare worker registry, sex offender registry, child abuse neglect tracking system and national practitioner data bank to verify if disciplinary measures should be taken toward facility employees.

Maintain a log of licensed professional staff employed at the facility.

The job listing says minimum qualifications include knowledge, skill and mental development equivalent to completing four years of college plus one year of professional experience, preferably in human resources, or satisfactory completion of an approved training program.

Highway maintainer - snow removal operator

Agency: Department of Transportation

Wage: $20.55 per hour (temporary, on-call position)

Location: Positions available in St. Clair, Madison and other metro-east counties

The application for snow removal operator (District 8) closes Oct. 5.

The job responsibilities include, according to the listing:

Operate CDL Class A or B licensed vehicles

Assist in emergency snow and ice control

Assist in servicing, washing and making minor repairs of equipment

Required qualifications, according to the listing:

Knowledge, skill and mental development equivalent to completing four years of high school

Class A CDL with appropriate endorsements, to include X or N and no airbrake restrictions

For seasonal employees only, possession of a Class B CDL with appropriate endorsements, to include X or N and no airbrake restrictions, is acceptable for a period of two years. At the beginning of the third year from the initial hire date, a seasonal employee must possess a Class A CDL.

One year of driving experience immediately before hiring free of incidents that could result in license suspension or revocation

Executive secretary I, opt. 2

Agency: Department of Transportation

Wage: $3,858 to $5,348 per month

Location: Collinsville, Ill.

The application for executive secretary closes Oct. 10.

Job responsibilities include, the listing says:

As secretary to the bureau chief, perform duties including transcribing and keyboarding correspondence and meeting minutes.

Perform clerical support for the bureau staff.

Serve as receptionist; receive visitors and direct them appropriately.

As executive secretary, serve as lead worker to the office occupations trainees, assign and review work, provide performance evaluation input and explain work rules, regulations and procedures.

Arrange travel and hotel reservations for supervisor and staff for seminars and meetings.

Set up conferences; gathers data and makes recommendations.

Maintain files on complaints received from officials, the public and reports from field engineers.

The positions minimum qualifications include, according to the listing:

Knowledge, skill and mental development equivalent to completing two years of secretarial or business college and one year of secretarial experience or completion of high school and three years of secretarial experience

Ability to type accurately at 55 words per minute

Office specialist (opt. 2 typing)

Agency: Department of Human Services

Wage: $46,296 to $64,176 per year

Location: Springfield, Ill.

The application for office specialist is due by Oct. 10.

Job responsibilities include, according to the listing:

Maintain, update, keyboard and make changes to the master vendor database at Bureau of Disability Determination Services.

Assist with special projects, regulating, monitoring, controlling and operating the computer systems and applying software to design and update spreadsheets and databases which are required in a timely manner.

Monitor system activity.

Provide a leadership role in assisting, instructing and guiding new support staff and other staff within the BDDS in the use of the computer/software files, databases, tables and researching of documents, vendor file maintenance and data regarding the vendor file.

Maintain files of particularly large and complicated vendors for future reference and/or updates.

The listing says minimum qualifications include:

Knowledge, skill, and mental development equivalent to two years of business or secretarial college and one year of office experience or completion of high school and three years of office experience or three years of independent business experience

The ability to accurately type at 30 words per minute
TheraGPT

A senior OpenAI employee opened a veritable can of worms this week when she claimed that the latest version of ChatGPT, which now has voice recognition capabilities, is akin to talking with a human therapist  even though, as she admitted, she'd never actually done therapy herself.

"Just had a quite emotional, personal conversation [with] ChatGPT in voice mode, talking about stress [and] work-life balance," Lilian Weng, OpenAI's head of safety systems, posted on the site formerly known as Twitter, adding that she felt "heard" and "warm" following the conversation.

"Never tried therapy before but this is probably it?" Weng continued. "Try it especially if you usually just use it as a productivity tool."

The response to the AI safety worker's suggestion  which she admitted were her "personal take"  was swift and furious.

"This is not therapy," one user posted, "and saying it is is dangerous."

"Your personal take is not the right take for anyone in your position," another added.

Long History

As outlandish as it is for a senior OpenAI safety employee to suggest that ChatGPT could be used in a therapeutic capacity, the concept of AI therapists actually goes way, way back to the swinging 60s, when a pioneering computer scientist created a dirt-simple chatbot called ELIZA, which would basically flip user queries back with questions of its own, the way therapists are wont to do.

Released in 1966 by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, ELIZA was intended to showcase the superficiality of artificial intelligence but became the unwitting source of the now-famous "ELIZA effect," in which people ascribe human properties to machines that are capable of interacting with them.

"Its essentially an illusion that a machine that youre talking to has a larger, human-like understanding of the world," Margaret Mitchell, the chief ethics scientist at the Hugging Face AI company, told the startup website Built In earlier this year. "Its having this sense that theres a massive mind and intentionality behind a system that might not actually be there."

While ELIZA was ahead of its time, so-called AI therapists have experienced something of a renaissance over the past decade. In 2015, researchers at the University of Southern California released "Ellie," a chatbot with a virtual humanoid avatar that was trained to detect facial expressions and, purportedly, tell how the humans it interacted with were feeling.

In the ensuing years, there have been a few other attempts at launching AI therapists, but ChatGPT seems poised to change the therapy chatbot game  much to the chagrin of many human mental health professionals.

Weng is far from the first person to feel that they've gained some therapeutic benefit from ChatGPT, and she undoubtedly won't be the last. But given both her position in AI safety and inexperience with actual therapy, it feels like she got way over her skis on this one.

More on AI: Googles Search AI Says You Can Melt Eggs. Its Source Will Make You Facepalm
Editors Note: David Axelrod, a CNN senior political commentator and host of The Axe Files, was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama and chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The Hall of Fame philosopher/catcher Yogi Berra once said, in describing the shadows that engulfed left field at Yankee Stadium in the afternoon, It gets late early out there.

David Axelrod - CNN

The same can be said of the current, lopsided campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Though the first contest in Iowa is still three months away, time is running out for one of the candidates in the field to begin to emerge as former President Donald Trump s principal challenger.

All of this gives added urgency to Wednesdays debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. There the also-rans will meet again to audition for the role of clear Trump alternative before a party that doesnt seem to be particularly looking for one.

Since the spring, when the first of four separate felony indictments against him was delivered, Trumps lead among the GOP electorate has steadily grown from sizable to prodigious to bordering on historic. (He had denied all wrongdoing.) An NBC News poll from this weekend places Trumps national lead for the nomination at more than 40 points.

So assured is the former president of his chances that he will skip Wednesdays debate, as he did the first one in Milwaukee on August 23, leaving his opponents to scrap among themselves as he counterprograms by rallying autoworkers in Detroit.

Any hope of stopping the former presidents seemingly inexorable momentum rests heavily on Iowa, which on January 15 will be the first state to vote for the GOP presidential nomination. There Trumps polling lead is formidable but less than a majority.

Trump narrowly lost the Hawkeye State in 2016, and the belief among Republican strategists I speak to is that he has a lock on about 35% of the caucus vote. But beating Trump would require someone to first coalesce the voters who are open to another choice, and no one in the field of a dozen challengers has thus far come close to doing that.

There was a time, before Trumps indictment surge, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed destined to play that role. The Florida governor was nipping at Trumps heels in national polling last winter and confidently pitched himself as the only viable GOP alternative. Instead, DeSantis has become Exhibit A for how first-time presidential campaigns can grind down early phenoms as voters come to know them and scrutiny mounts.

Today, DeSantis sits in the teens, much closer to the pack chasing Trump than to Trump himself. DeSantis has pushed all his chips into Iowa, where he is doing somewhat better than he is nationally. His hope is that a sharp lurch to the right on abortion and other issues will allow him to outflank Trump in a caucus dominated by social conservatives.

In the first debate, DeSantis landed some well-rehearsed answers. But it is partly that robotic nature that has bridled him. He awkwardly faded into the woodwork when give-and-take requiring spontaneity erupted. Overall, DeSantis held serve but failed to achieve the breakout he needed to regain his lost mojo.

On that occasion, DeSantis was eclipsed on the right by entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who turned in a flamboyantly Trumpian performance, replete with audacious, base-riling provocations. Yet when it comes to such demagoguery, Ramaswamy is still a disciple. Trump is the master. So while Ramaswamy gained a few points in post-debate polling, it was more at DeSantiss expense than Trumps.

Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was the other star of the show in Milwaukee. She looked comfortable and strong in slapping down Ramaswamy on foreign policy and scolding Trump, in absentia, for his profligacy in office and his vulnerability in a general election.

Haley also stood out as the only woman on the stage. Her appeals to generational change are timely, given that the party frontrunners today  Trump and President Joe Biden  are a combined 157 years old. Her story as a first-generation American is compelling. But these are likely to be more meaningful assets in a general election than in this Trump-ified Republican Party.

Although Haley currently scores better than any Republican against Biden, she remains in single digits in Republican primary polling nationally. One glimmer of hope for the ambassador came in recent polls in New Hampshire, which follows Iowa on the Republican primary schedule. Haley has risen to double-digits and is in the top three, though Trump still does three times better than she does.

No one else advanced their cause in the first debate, and the result was the continued muddle among the pretenders that Trump had hoped for when he took a pass on the event. Now another month has elapsed, and so may have the time for any of the other candidates to show critical donors and Republican activists that they can catch the runaway frontrunner.

It is a daunting challenge, in part because of the peculiar dynamic of a race in which the Republican tribe is rallying around an indicted former president. Its hard to beat someone without attacking him, but its hard to attack him without appearing in the eyes of many Republican voters to be siding with what they perceive as his unjust, politically motivated accusers.

The candidates on stage who flayed Trump for his alleged crimes  former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson  were judged by polls of Republicans to be debate losers, although Christie, like Haley, has bypassed DeSantis in New Hampshire, where independent voters can participate in the Republican primary. (Hutchinson, for his part, failed to qualify for the debate stage on Wednesday.)

Haley, who has lately gotten attention from the desperate Republican donor class as their latest, best hope to stop Trump, has tried to navigate the minefield. She has attacked Trump on issues other than the 91 felony counts against him and finessed her critiques by opining that even Trump as a convicted felon would be better than the Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.

All of this reflects the reality that despite his travails  and trial and Republican primary calendars that might coincide to make him his partys choice and a convicted felon on almost the same day  there may be no viable strategy to deny Trump a third GOP nomination.

The seven on the stage Wednesday may actually be competing for the role of understudy should Trump unexpectedly falter, with hopes of getting cast by Republican voters in the leading role in 2028. If so, look for them to score more points against each other than the man who isnt there.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Editors Note: Matthew F. Delmont is Frank J. Guarini Associate Dean of International Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies and the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

Last week, Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative group, filed a lawsuit against the US Military Academy at West Point, contending that the academys use of race in admissions is unconstitutional. This comes on the heels of the groups victory in June in a landmark Supreme Court case against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over affirmative action.

The lawsuit asks the court to take up an issue that was mentioned in passing in the earlier case. A footnote in Chief Justice John Roberts majority opinion notes that the military academies were not party to Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and left open the possibility that the military academies may present potentially distinct interests.

Matthew Delmont - courtesy Matthew Delmont

In her dissent, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed frustration that the courts majority has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom.

Military leaders have clearly and consistently made the case that a highly qualified and diverse officer corps is important for national security, and the court has previously deferred to their judgement.

If this new lawsuit eventually reaches the Supreme Court, the justices need to understand the militarys specific history of racial discrimination, present-day racial demographics and how both have influenced West Points use of modest, race-conscious admissions policies.

This suit has the potential to undo more than five decades of efforts to expand the racial diversity of the nations military leaders. West Point has nearly 4,400 undergraduates, 61% of whom are White, 11% Black, 12% Hispanic/Latino, 9% Asian and less than 1% American Indian or Alaska Native. While the racial demographics of West Point today resemble America, that was not always the case.

When Benjamin O. Davis Jr. graduated from the academy in 1936, he was the first Black person to do so in the 20th century. He recalled that his White classmates refused to speak to him beyond military commands for his four full years at the academy.

After being frozen out at West Point, Davis joined a racially segregated US Army and blazed a trail as a commander of the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II and, later, as the Air Forces first Black general.

Colonel Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr (1912 - 2002) poses in his airplane. Davis was the first Black general in the US Air Force. - PhotoQuest/Getty Images

After President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, which mandated the desegregation of the military, things changed very slowly at West Point. As historian Beth Bailey writes in An Army Afire, during the 1950s, there were never more than 20 African American cadets in all four classes combined, less than 1% of the total enrollment. In 1967, two Black cadets graduated. By 1968, only 68 Black cadets had graduated from West Point in the academys 166-year history.

That year, under pressure from civil rights activists and the Department of Defense, West Point launched an effort to recruit more minority students.

Under the leadership of a new admissions officer, Lt. Col. Manley Rogers, the academy sent a mass mailing to potential minority applicants, encouraged school principals and guidance counselors to recommend candidates and recruitment rallies in cities across the country. They also added a question about racial identity to the application form.

The recruitment campaign was successful. The academy enrolled a record nine Black cadets in 1968, and then 47 the next year. These changing demographics coincided with the academys expansion during the Vietnam War era, from 2,500 cadets in 1965 to around 4,400 in 1971.

These Black cadets, in turn, fought to change West Point. In 1971, the schools Black cadets, as well as the small number of Black instructors and Black cadets in the schools chain of command, signed a manifesto protesting President Richard Nixons order that the academy build a monument to West Pointers who lost their lives serving on the Southern side of the Civil War. The protest got Nixon to back down and convinced the administration to more proactively recruit and support both Black instructors and students.

Many of the Black cadets who graduated in this era went on to have distinguished careers in the Army. Lloyd Austin, for example, graduated from West Point in 1975 and rose to the rank of four-star general before retiring in 2016. In 2021, he became the first Black Secretary of Defense.

The 34 Black women of West Point's Class of 2019 pose at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York. - Cadet Hallie H. Pound/US Army via AP

By the 1980s, when Black cadets made up around 8% of West Points enrollment, the academy faced intense competition from other elite colleges and universities. Its often an executive search type of operation  telephone calls, letters and visits to the home  or the kind of thing youd see for an athlete, Rogers said in 1985. We even have faculty members go to the homes of outstanding minority students to explain the programs, the environment and the career opportunities here.

West Points leaders went to these great lengths to recruit minority candidates because they believed it was important for the academy and the leaders it produced to resemble the nation they protect.

The same thing is true today. When West Point graduates are commissioned as second lieutenants, they take on leadership roles in an organization that is as racially diverse as any in America. Of the more than 366,000 active-duty enlisted personnel in the Army, 50% are White, 22% are Black, 19% are Hispanic, 7% are Asian or Pacific Islander and 1% are American Indian or Alaskan Native. The percentages of Black and Hispanic officers are lower, at 11% and 9%, respectively.

These numbers reflect a long-term trend. Since the military became an all-volunteer force in 1973, Black Americans have been overrepresented in the armed forces.

Last week, the Senate confirmed General Charles Q. Brown, a former fighter pilot and chief of staff of the Air Force, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This marks the first time that both the countrys senior ranking military officer and Secretary of Defense are Black Americans.

Images of minority cadets at West Point, such as the record number of Black women who graduated in recent years, are not only symbolic. They speak to a sustained effort to recruit and develop a talented and racial diverse officer corps to lead a racially diverse Army. Notably, Black women make up 36% of all enlisted female personnel in the Army.

Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, speaks to members of the media during a 2018 protest against Harvard University's affirmative admission process. - Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Thirty-five top former military leaders from all four services filed an amicus brief in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that emphasizes this point.

The importance of maintaining a diverse, highly qualified officer corps has been beyond legitimate dispute for decades, the brief argues. History has shown that placing a diverse Armed Forces under the command of homogenous leadership is a recipe for internal resentment, discord, and violence. By contrast, units that are diverse across all levels are more cohesive, collaborative, and effective.

While graduates of the US Military Academy, as well as the service academies for the Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine and Navy, make up less than 20% of officers serving in the armed forces, the academies and their alumni have an outsized impact on the military.

More broadly, political scientist Jason Lyall has found that diversity and inclusion are good for military effectiveness. Based on data on ethnic and racial inequalities in nearly 850 armies and 250 wars fought since 1800, Lyalls evidence shows that victory on the battlefield over the past 200 years has usually gone to the most inclusive armies, not the largest or best-equipped ones.

The US military recognizes this reality. Amidst attacks on the so-called woke military, by some politicians and media pundits, it is important to remember that over the past several decades the armed forces have thought longer and harder about diversity than most corporations and universities because they see it as central to their mission and operational effectiveness.

This new lawsuit, brought on behalf of two White high school students who plan to apply to West Point, in not an anomaly. Edward Blum, the conservative activist who founded Students for Fair Admissions, is also suing two international law firms for providing diversity fellowships and has a goal of getting at least two more cases to the Supreme Court in the next five years to limit the use of race and ethnicity in employment and internships.

These legal challenges are designed to make tomorrows military, corporate, political and academic leaders less racially diverse, rolling back progress that has been painfully slow. Todays leaders can respond to this threat by strategizing across industries to clearly articulate why racial diversity makes organizations and workplaces stronger.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Editors note: For years, the Deseret News editorial page carried the epigraph: We stand for the Constitution of the United States as having been divinely inspired. In honor of Constitution Month, the Deseret News is publishing a variety of articles examining the Constitutions continued importance.

The liberty to speak freely on issues of consequence. The chance to vote for our representatives. The freedom to join others to promote causes we care about. The right of protection from invidious discrimination.

This months commemoration of the U.S. Constitution gives us a chance to reflect on privileges and freedoms  those listed above, plus many others  that are easy to take for granted. These freedoms were certainly not taken for granted prior to American independence, and they have not always been consistently extended to all Americans over the nations history.

That we have become used to them is the result of heroic efforts and sacrifices by statesmen and stateswomen, soldiers, and many uncommon common men and women. But there is another group of Americans whose contributions ought not to go without recognition: people of faith whose defense of their beliefs led to rights and established precedents that have benefited all Americans.

Of course, there would be no United States but for the pursuit of religious freedom, since that was such an important motivation for many of the original colonists in coming to this land. But that is just the beginning. Much of our nations progress securing essential liberties owes  at least in part  some credit to Americans of faith throughout its history.

People of faith were instrumental in abolishing slavery. While some Christians justified the practice of slavery, many others made remarkable efforts to secure its abolition. One academic historian noted: The abolitionist movement was primarily religious in its origins, its leadership, its language and its methods of reaching the people.

The remarkable Harriet Tubman was a person of great faith. She led about a dozen rescue missions to free slaves and, during the Civil War, helped guide three Union steamboats around Confederate mines and then helped about 750 enslaved people escape with the federal troops. Another historian explained: Tubmans Christian faith tied all of these remarkable achievements together, saying her belief in God helped Tubman remain fearless, even when she came face to face with many challenges.

In 2020, the U.S. celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which ensured all women the right to vote in federal elections. (Utah and Wyoming had extended that right in their territories half a century before.)

As with slavery, there were people of faith on both sides of the suffrage issue, but women of faith played important roles in the suffrage movement. Frances Willard of the Womens Christian Temperance Union promoted a state-by-state strategy and was successful in inspiring reluctant women to support suffrage. Emmeline Wells, a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was influential in securing the vote for women in Utah and became the vice president of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1874.

People of faith have contributed to increased freedom not only by exercising their rights to promote causes informed by their faith, but also by seeking to secure their rights of free exercise in ways that established protections that now benefit others.

Related

For instance, in 1943, the Supreme Court issued a decision that established the crucial free speech principle that the government cannot force citizens to endorse a message with which they do not agree. The case involved two young girls who were expelled after they would not salute the American flag because of their familys Jehovahs Witness beliefs. The courts opinion included an influential passage that has often been invoked: If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

The protection from compelled speech has since been applied to protect a wide variety of nonreligious causes. A New Hampshire man objected to displaying a motto on his license plate; a Florida newspaper objected to publishing a mandated editorial; pregnancy resource centers objected to sharing a government-drafted script ... to inform women how they can obtain state-subsidized abortions; and public employees objected to endorsing the message of their union. All of these secular causes have, in part, the religious roots of free speech to thank for the rights they won in these cases.

Another example is the right of association. Derived from the First Amendment, this is a right of citizens to be free to join others to pursue a common cause. As noted above, the settling of the American colonies by religious dissenters was an early assertion of the right of association. The Establishment Clause, which prevents the creation of state-sponsored churches, also prevents the disruption of associational rights that could come from things like government direction of religious practices, direct tax funding of churches and clergy, or government interference with the operation of churches.

Here too, these assertions of religious claims for protection of the right to association  and others like the Boy Scouts successful effort to ensure it could ask volunteer leaders to affirm the message of its organization  have bolstered rights for others.

The NAACP, teachers who supported civil right and conservative nonprofit groups have all benefited, in part, from the religious roots of the right of association. This First Amendment right prevented the coercive disclosure of the names of members or supporters to government officials, which those groups or supporters reasonably feared would have resulted in backlash against the individuals named.

Protection of the rights of others is not a zero-sum game where some benefit only if others do not. These examples (and others) make clear that increasing the freedom of people of faith and religious organizations to exercise their convictions is not only the right thing to do, but it also increases the circumference of freedom for others.

William C. Duncan, J.D., is the Constitutional Law and Religious Freedom Fellow for Sutherland Institute, an independent nonpartisan public policy think tank in Salt Lake City.
I was 22 when I was convicted in March 2000 of armed robbery by a non-unanimous jury in New Orleans. The crime never happened. Yet I was sentenced to 99 years without the possibility of parole, and I would go on to serve nearly 22 years in prison before I was exonerated.

My accuser was a young man who lied about some missing money that he had spent on drugs and told his father that he was robbed at gunpoint. His father called the police. When police eventually showed the young man a photographic lineup, he picked my face. Thats all it took.

At my trial, two jurors voted for acquittal, but 10 found me guilty and in Louisiana that 10-to-2 verdict was enough for a conviction.

I was sent to Angola Prison, a former plantation turned into the largest prison in Louisiana. I had to leave my mother, my two daughters and seven siblings behind. I knew the moment I stepped foot at Angola that the journey ahead of me would be hard and painful. I kept fighting my case, but every appeal, every petition was denied.

The non-unanimous conviction that sent me to prison was only possible in two states  Oregon and Louisiana.

Louisiana in 1898 held a constitutional convention that was convened for the explicit purpose of establishing the supremacy of the white race. During that convention, Louisiana lawmakers established non-unanimous juries, so that they could make sure that Black people on a jury were silenced. Louisianas Daily Picayune at the time claimed that Black people on a jury would always try to prevent white people from convicting Black people, and that allowing convictions with less than unanimous verdicts would be a less violent option than lynching. And so, for over a century Louisianas non-unanimous jury scheme was enshrined in the Louisiana Constitution.

Read more: Nicholas Goldberg: What happened to criminal justice reform?

Twenty years after my trial, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, in Ramos v. Louisiana, found the non-unanimous jury scheme to be unconstitutional. Justice Brett Kavanaugh declared that it was thoroughly racist in its origins and has continuing racially discriminatory effects. After that decision, the Promise of Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform organization, filed a post-conviction relief application on my behalf seeking that my conviction be overturned and I be given a new trial.

Jason Williams, the Orleans Parish district attorney, made it a promise of his campaign to look at all cases with people convicted by non-unanimous juries. Mine was one of them. I had worked out a plea deal and was preparing for release when I received a call informing me that the person who had accused me of the robbery all those years ago had come forward and confessed he had made the whole thing up. I was going to be exonerated.

Read more: Editorial: L.A.'s smash-and-grab robberies are terrible, but not spurred by criminal justice reform

I learned that the man who had identified me as his robber was a kid addicted to drugs who was too scared to tell his daddy he had spent his whole paycheck on drugs. The truth is, I didnt feel angry at him. He could have gone to his grave with this secret. I thanked him for finally coming forward.

But I would not have been convicted with only 10 jurors voting to convict anywhere else but in Louisiana and Oregon.

Even before the Supreme Court declared non-unanimous juries unconstitutional, Louisiana voters agreed that non-unanimous juries were a Jim Crow relic and put an end to this scheme moving forward. Any conviction after Jan. 1, 2019, in Louisiana had to be unanimous.

Read more: Editorial: Changing climate is turning prisons into torture chambers and death traps

But today, Louisiana remains as the only state where people who were convicted by non-unanimous juries prior to 2019 remain incarcerated without a form of relief. A year after the Ramos decision, the Supreme Court decided to leave it up to Louisiana and Oregon to decide what to do with people who were already sitting in prison with these unconstitutional convictions.

The Louisiana Legislature has refused to take action. The Louisiana Supreme Court said it wasnt its job to decide, and passed the question back to the Legislature. District attorneys could use their power to review these cases and allow post-conviction deals, as D.A. Williams in Orleans Parish was willing to do in my case. But district attorneys in other parts of the state refuse to do so, and fight against any efforts for legislative action.

The story is so different from Oregon, where the Oregon Supreme Court found that the only way to correct this injustice was to grant new trials to all people unconstitutionally incarcerated by a non-unanimous verdict. Its long past time for Louisiana do the same.

I left friends in prison who were in my situation but whose cases have not been heard. I do what I can to support them from outside. I remain hopeful that one day they will all receive justice and our state will have the courage to right this shameful wrong.

Jermaine Hudson is an advocate for criminal justice reform from New Orleans.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Dr. William Thompson IV, 56, of Huntington Beach, has been charged with sexually assaulting nine male patients. (Orange County district attorney's office)

An Orange County doctor who specializes in treating members of the LGBTQ+ community has been charged with sexually assaulting nine male patients, according to prosecutors.

Local authorities are asking for the public's help in providing any additional information on other potential victims.

Dr. William Thompson lV, 56, of Huntington Beach is an infectious-disease doctor who has provided "general practitioner services to the LGBTQ community," according to Thompson's website.

Thompson is accused of assaulting nine male patients between 2016 and 2020, under the guise that the assaults were part of necessary medical exams, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

He is charged with eight felony counts of sexual penetration by means of fraudulent representation of professional purpose, three felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and two felony counts of forcible oral copulation, according to a news release from the district attorney's office.

Read more: These doctors sexually abused patients. The Medical Board gave them their licenses back

The Times reached out to Thompson for a comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Six of Thompson's patients disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted by Thompson after learning that procedures he had performed on them were not medically necessary, according to the news release.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said many of the doctor's patients depended on him to provide "life-saving care and he exploited those vulnerabilities for his own sexual gratification."

"Unfortunately, because of his specialized area of practice, Dr. Thompson put the very patients he was supposed to treat with professionalism and dignity, in a situation where they may have felt they had no other choice but to be subjected to sexual abuse in order to receive the treatment they needed to continue to live," Spitzer said.

Read more: Sex charges dropped against Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend

Thompson was arrested Sept. 20 at his Newport Beach medical practice after a joint investigation by the California Department of Consumer Affairs and the Newport Beach Police Department. He is currently out on $100,000 bond.

He could be sentenced to life plus 25 years if convicted on all counts.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 2 at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.

The district attorney's office asks that anyone with additional information call the Newport Beach Police Department at (949) 644-3682. Anonymous tips can be made to (800) 550-6273.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
An Orange County infectious disease doctor specializing in treating members of the LGBTQ+ community has been charged with sexually assaulting nine male patients, officials announced Tuesday.

The incidents occurred under the guise that the assaults were part of necessary medical exams, according to the Orange County District Attorneys Office.

Dr. William Thompson IV, 56, of Huntington Beach, faces eight felony charges of sexual penetration by means of fraudulent representation of professional purpose, three felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and two felony counts of forcible oral copulation, officials detailed in a news release.

The assaults allegedly occurred between 2016 and 2020 and included forcing one patient to orally copulate him and performing medically unnecessary anal exams.

After learning medical procedures being performed on them by Thompson were not medically necessary, six of Thompsons patients disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted by Thompson, officials said.

The doctor was arrested last week at his Newport Beach medical practice following a joint investigation by the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Newport Beach Police Department.

Thompsons website describes him as a general practitioner that services the LGBTQ community. He is also affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, officials said.

Back in April 2021, Thompson was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, during which he had a blood alcohol content of .38, officials said. He eventually pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of DUI and one misdemeanor count of DUI with a BAC of more than .08%.

For the alleged sex crimes, Thompson faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life in prison plus 25 years if convicted on all counts.

He is out on $100,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 2.

Many of Dr. Thompsons patients depended on him to provide life-saving care and he exploited those vulnerabilities for his own sexual gratification, District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. Unfortunately, because of his specialized area of practice, Dr. Thompson put the very patients he was supposed to treat with professionalism and dignity, in a situation where they may have felt they had no other choice but to be subjected to sexual abuse in order to receive the treatment they needed to continue to live. A doctors office should be a place where patients can safely share their most personal vulnerabilities without having to fear they will be preyed upon by a sexual predator. No one should be violated in such a shameful way by someone who has taken an oath to protect their patients.

Investigators are asking for the publics help identifying other potential victims in this case.

Anyone with additional information about Thompsons alleged crimes or of any other victims is asked to call the Newport Beach Police Department at 949-644-3682. Anonymous tips can be made to 1-800-550-6273.

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Oregon will receive $156 million in federal money for broadband infrastructure projects to help expand broadband access to 17,000 homes and businesses across the state.

Oregon will receive $156 million in federal money for broadband infrastructure projects to help expand broadband access to 17,000 homes and businesses across the state, Gov. Tina Kotek and the U.S. Department of Treasury announced during a joint news conference Wednesday.

The money comes from the $10 billion American Rescue Plan Act Capital Projects Fund. The fund has awarded more than $8 billion across the United States to various projects aimed at broadband and digital technology.

"The pandemic was a national teaching moment on the importance of every family, every small business needing universal affordable, accessible broadband," Gene Sperling, senior advisor to the president and American Rescue Plan coordinator, said.

An estimated 1.7 million Oregonians live in rural areas without access to high-speed broadband, according to a pre-COVID 2020 study of Oregon broadband.

"It's hard for me to fathom and really unacceptable," U.S. Congresswoman Andrea Salinas, (D-Ore.) said during the news conference.

The lack of access is not an inconvenience but a serious problem with serious ramifications, she added.

The $156.7 million awarded to Oregon will go to the Oregon Broadband Office within Business Oregon. It will partner with local and regional entities across the state to invest the funds, said Sophorn Cheang, Business Oregon director, in a follow-up news release.

The state plan will support projects designed to deliver reliable internet service that meets upload speeds of 100 megabits per second or above, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury. The speed benchmark represents internet speeds necessary for a household or business with multiple users to simultaneously access the internet.

Of the $156.7 million, $7.7 million has been approved for administrative purposes.

Kotek called the award the largest single investment to date in Oregon's broadband infrastructure. She said it was a "critical step" in making sure Oregonians left out of the current system could be brought in.

In a later release, Kotek said the funding would help rural and low-income communities and would expand access to telehealth, job opportunities, education and more.

"Broadband is like your roads and your water systems. You've got to have good, reliable, affordable, accessible internet to make sure every part of the state of Oregon can be successful," Kotek said.

U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, (D-Ore.), said the funding will change lives for years to come and U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) referred to the award as an example of lawmakers working together "with every instrument" to recognize how essential access to high-speed internet is to society.

Dianne Lugo covers the Oregon Legislature for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at dlugo@statesmanjournal.com or on Twitter at @diannelugo

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon awarded millions in federal funds to expand broadband access
BEIRUT, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Wednesday offered his condolences to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani after a huge wedding fire in northern Iraq killed at least 114 people.

In a telegram sent to al-Sudani, Mikati said he was saddened by the tragedy in "brotherly Iraq" and expressed solidarity with the Iraqi government and people.

Lebanon's Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri also extended condolences to Iraq and wished security, safety, and stability in the country.

At least 114 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in a huge fire that broke out during a wedding celebration in the al-Hamdaniya area of northern Iraqi province of Nineveh on Tuesday night. 
An Orlando felon was arrested Tuesday and accused of trying to kill a Deltona woman he beat and raped at gunpoint in her home, firing the pistol during the attack, Volusia County sheriff's detectives said.

Pablo Eduardo Garcia, 27, was locked up without bail in the Volusia County Branch Jail on Wednesday. He was charged with attempted first-degree murder, sexual battery with a deadly weapon or great force, false imprisonment, armed kidnapping with a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Florida Department of Corrections records show Garcia was imprisoned for one year for felony battery on a person 65 years or older. He was released on Oct. 11, 2018.

The woman had been dating Garcia between March and August. On Friday she asked him to care for her dog because she planned to go to a theme park in Orlando, detectives said.

After some time at the theme park, the victim called Garcia to pick her up because she had some drinks. She then contacted him later telling him she had sobered up and that she could drive home, according to a charging document filed in the case.

Garcia got upset and battered the woman when she got home early Saturday between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., detectives said. Garcia demanded the woman's cell phone so he could go through it, and grabbed it from her when she refused, the report states.

Gun theft and rape Gun theft at sex party leads to Deltona teen rape charge

The woman tried to leave the home but Garcia took the victim's handgun from a dresser and held it to his head asking her to stay, the report said.

An argument broke out and Garcia punched the woman in the face multiple times. He jumped on her on the bed and the woman could see the red laser sight from the gun shining on her. The victim, who said "she was trying to survive," struggled with Garcia, and the gun discharged, the affidavit indicated.

Garcia then pointed the gun at the woman and pulled the trigger a second time but the gun jammed, the report states.

Detectives said they found a bullet hole in the headboard of the victim's bed.

Garcia obligated the woman to text the landlord to say she was well in case the landlord heard the gunshot. He then took her cell phone and smart watch and smashed them both, detectives said.

Then at gunpoint, Garcia told the woman to undress. He then raped her, detectives said.

The woman tried to calm down her attacker after the sexual attack but he punched her one more time so hard on the side of the head the woman said she felt like vomiting, the report highlighted.

The woman got away from the home after Garcia fell asleep, detectives said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Deltona woman raped at gunpoint
J. Robert Oppenheimer and the band of geniuses he recruited won the existential race to create the atomic bombs that ended World War II. They also set the stage for a nuclear arms buildup in which worker safety was an afterthought and the mushroom cloud became a Las Vegas tourist attraction.

Based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin , the blockbuster movie "Oppenheimer" -- about the rise and fall of the man called the "father of the atomic bomb" -- gave a riveting account of the personal and political trials involved in the success of the Manhattan Project.

But the film had a glaring omission in the estimation of Christopher Godfrey, director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs at the Labor Department.

In a blog post and a phone interview with Military.com, Godfrey said the movie was "fantastic" and a masterpiece of filmmaking, but "one important part of this history the viewer does not see in the film is the sacrifice made by tens of thousands of workers in the production of our country's nuclear weapons arsenal."

Much of the movie centers on the interactions of "Oppie" with Army Corps of Engineers Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, and the fractious bunch of physicists and engineers Oppenheimer had assembled at the secret site in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

A brief reference was made in the movie to the work at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which produced the weapons-grade uranium for the "Little Boy" atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, and at Hanford, Washington, which produced plutonium for the "Fat Man" bomb used against Nagasaki.

Thousands of workers at the early sites such as Oak Ridge and Hanford and at later sites, including those in Paducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Savannah River, South Carolina, "paid a very high price for their contributions to the atomic weapons industry," Godfrey said.

"From the beginning of the Manhattan Project, many workers developed disabling or fatal illnesses from their exposure to beryllium, ionizing radiation, and other hazards unique to nuclear weapons production and testing," Godfrey wrote in his blog post. "Unfortunately, far too often these workers did not receive adequate protection from those occupational hazards, nor were they properly informed about the dangers of the work."

After decades of lobbying and lawsuits on behalf of the workers, Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act (EEOICPA) in 2000 to provide benefits to workers or surviving members of their families who were sickened or died from exposures.

To date, the EEOICPA has paid out more than $24 billion in total compensation and medical benefits to about 139,000 claimants, according to Labor and Energy Department data. From the Hanford site alone, more than 34,500 claims have been filed.

Trisha Pritikin, a lawyer and advocate for Hanford "Downwinders," grew up near the Hanford site where both her parents were employed. "People downwind, people in Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, which were the three cities next to Hanford, and people through a vast downwind area were exposed to airborne radioactive particles," Pritikin said in an interview with the Atomic Heritage Foundation.

"The communities down the Columbia River also got a lot of radiation from the stuff dumped into the Columbia River, which went all the way down to the mouth of the Columbia in the Pacific," she said.

Pritikin suffered a number of ailments she attributes to exposures from Hanford that eventually led to removal of her thyroid. "I wish our government would apologize for what happened," she said.

In addition to the EEOICPA, there is the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1990, which is unique in the array of federal compensation programs in that it is administered by the Justice Department.

The RECA Act grew out of lawsuits claiming radiation exposure from the more than 200 above-ground nuclear weapons tests conducted by the U.S., mostly at the Nevada test site about 65 miles north of Las Vegas from 1945-1962.

It was the Cold War "duck and cover" era of air raid drills and nuclear test explosions that drew tourists to Las Vegas to see the mushroom clouds of the blasts from the hotels and casinos.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce gave the dates and times for the tests, and promoters put out ads urging visitors to come and "witness the power of the atomic bomb" and for $3 take a bus to the outskirts of Las Vegas or "stay and watch from the hotel room or pool."

The Justice Department won the lawsuits, which were dismissed on appeal, but Congress later "responded by devising a program allowing partial restitution to individuals who developed serious illnesses after presumed exposure to radiation released during the atmospheric nuclear tests or after employment in the uranium industry," according to a Justice Department press release.

Under RECA, uranium miners, millers and ore transporters may be eligible for a one-time, lump-sum compensation of $100,000; "onsite participants" at atmospheric nuclear weapons tests may be eligible for a one-time, lump-sum compensation of up to $75,000; and individuals who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site ("Downwinders") may be eligible for a one-time, lump-sum compensation of $50,000.

Since the RECA program was established, more than 40,000 claims have been approved and more than $2.6 billion in compensation has been paid out through the end of 2022, the Justice Department said.

The RECA Act is due to sunset in 2024, but Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., introduced a bipartisan Senate bill in July to extend RECA and expand its coverage. It passed on a 61-37 vote.

By extending RECA, "we can help more families, whether they were in those mines working for national security purposes, or living in communities where this testing took place in the United States," Lujan said at the time of the vote.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., backed the Lujan bill to include expanded coverage for the St. Louis area following collaborative reports by The Associated Press, The Missouri Independent and the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock on nuclear waste dumping in St. Louis dating to the 1940s.

The bill was put forward as an amendment to the must-pass defense bill -- the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA -- but the NDAA is now caught up in the impasse as House Republicans block major appropriations bills and threaten a Sept. 30 government shutdown.

"When they set up RECA in the 1990s, it was an admission of damage done by our government, but it didn't go far enough," said Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium -- named for the New Mexico area that saw much of the fallout from the world's first atomic bomb when the so-called "Gadget" built by the Oppenheimer group exploded at the Trinity test site on July 16,1945.

"They gave no consideration to the people of New Mexico who had been so terribly harmed," by the fallout from the Trinity test and the contamination of crops and groundwater, said Cordova, a survivor of thyroid cancer whose family has a history of cancer going back to 1945.

Although New Mexico was the site of the first nuclear explosion, the "Downwinders" in the state were left out of compensation eligibility in the original RECA legislation.

In addition, area residents and members of the Navajo nation "were the uranium workers that had our poverty used against us to get us to go into those mines without safety gear," Cordova said.

Secrecy was the main concern for the leaders of the Manhattan Project, and so the people of New Mexico were not told of what had just happened at the Trinity site or the dangers they might face from the fallout.

Instead, project leaders put out a release saying that the blast visible in Albuquerque 130 miles away was the result of a military accident involving some ammunition and pyrotechnics. The truth about the Trinity test explosion would not be disclosed until the atomic bomb was used as a weapon over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

In his interview with Military.com, Godfrey, the head of Workers Compensation at the Labor Department, said he had recently toured the Southwest to meet with members of communities in New Mexico and Arizona that were impacted by the Trinity and Nevada atomic bomb tests and by their potential exposures while working in uranium mines. The point of his trip was to provide information on the benefits that are available and provide help in filing claims.

Godfrey said he met with the families of survivors, and "it was a startling view of the impact. It really jumps out at you. The primary impact we saw was on the survivors."

The result of the years of deception about the nuclear test? A "long-lasting mistrust of the government," Godfrey said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. Army awarded Palantir Technologies a contract worth as much as $250 million to research and experiment with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The arrangement, announced by the Department of Defense on Sept. 26, runs through 2026. Exactly where work will be done and from where funding will be pulled will be determined with each order, it said.

Interest in AI and ML in the defense world has exploded in recent years, with military officials lauding their potential battlefield applications and industry matching the energy.

The Defense Department was juggling more than 685 AI-related projects as of 2021, according to the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog. At least 232 were in the Armys bailiwick.

Palantir in 2016 won a lawsuit against the service concerning procurement procedures. The company has since secured multiple multimillion-dollar contracts.

The Army in October 2022 tapped Palantir for a five-year predictive maintenance contract worth a little more than $85 million. Military officials want to identify efficiencies and pain points within the supply chain and reduce the amount of time units are sidelined and are leaning into machine-powered forecasts to do so.

Palantir is also helping roll out the Armys Global Force Information Management system, which consolidates more than a dozen aging applications and provides leaders an automated and holistic view of manpower, equipment, training and troop readiness.
VERO BEACH  Fewer homeless people in downtown parks, near businesses and along roadsides holding signs is what police say are the results of a recent law, stricter enforcement and public renovations provided by homeless people through a local nonprofit.

A city law restricting panhandling and a business-property oriented policing unit both emerged in late October 2021.

The law prohibits panhandling within 20 feet of a business, parking lot or bus stop and at any restaurant drive-thru. Before that, roadside signs at busy intersections discouraged drivers from giving money to panhandlers from vehicles.

I truly feel like theres been a significant swing with the number of people who are on the corners, said Vero Beach police Lt. Matt Harrelson. There are a few places we cant enforce  certain areas based on the location of the roadway from the intersection (where) it gets into a freedom-of-speech issue. But we still will speak to them if its a traffic or a safety issue.

Harrelson was one of the developers of the Community Partnership Unit that began following the City Council's passage of the panhandling ordinance.

Vero Beach Police Department developed a Community Partnership Unit to address business owner concerns with people deemed disruptive or who have already been trespassed from the property.

Were still working with the community businesses, whether it be beachside or the mainland, to thwart any issues with people camping out on their property and obviously trespassing, he said.

Each Friday and Saturday two officers check on local retailers, restaurants and law office buildings between 6 and 10 p.m., he said.

So far, he said, 22 businesses have requested their properties monitored after hours and that police arrest those people who have been previously trespassed or told to leave the locations.

Doug Skinnider was among the first business owners to sign up for the police program. Both the unit and the city law, he said, have addressed some of his concerns.

"Theyve been instrumental 100%," he said. "It goes a long way."

"I had crack pipes and needles just steps away from where children are playing everyday," said Skinnider. He owns a building in the 2100 block of 15th Avenue and rents to seven tenants.

Pocahontas Park still gathering area for homeless

One of the most visible city and police efforts is targeting gatherings of homeless people in and around Pocahontas Park at 14th Avenue and 21st Street, where there's a large playground and the Heritage Community Center.

We received several calls from the downtown business district along the 14th Avenue corridor (about the gatherings), Harrelson said. "Its a shaded area, No. 1, and churches in that region offer the homeless showers and food, (so) it just makes sense logistically (for them to be there).

Patriot, the horse statue that has been a part of Pocahontas Park in Vero Beach since the 1960s, adorns an entrance sign.

Benches and electrical outlets were removed, and extra lighting was added in the park in May, which he said has kept people out of the park at night.

They can be in the park just like any other citizen can enjoy the park, he said, adding the aim was to prevent things like trash buildup, open alcohol consumption and disturbances.

Lately, gatherings have continued around the decorative Rotary Club fountain  a landmark since 2005 at the corner of 14th Avenue and 21st Street - an intersection often busy with traffic passing through downtown.

The fountain has been a topic of City Council discussion as a result, said Harrelson, who'd like to see it removed and "some type of plaque or something" installed.

Police are also working with the city and the state, he said, to dismantle encampments in wooded areas on the northwest and southeast boundaries of the city.

It's about education, but arrests happen

It truly is an education initiative, Harrelson said. ... Were out there trying to clean up our roadways and our sidewalks and businesses that may not want people standing on the corner of their property holding a sign.

Sometimes that leads to arrests.

Court records show from May to mid-September police made roughly 10 arrests of homeless people on trespassing charges that typically led to the persons incarceration on a $500 bail.

On Aug. 23, a 61-year-old man found sleeping in a walkway of First Baptist Church off 16th Avenue just after 7 a.m., was arrested after police learned he had previously been asked to stay away from the property.

Vero Beach Police Lt. Matt Harrelson

Multiple arrests involved homeless people entering businesses from which they were previously trespassed, including a Walgreens, a Neighborhood Walmart and a 7-Eleven.

What police said was a drug-related altercation between a 38-year-old homeless man and two others near a playground and pickleball courts at Pocahontas Park led to the man's arrest on a trespassing charge Aug. 16.

Harrelson estimated around mid-August the department answered 10 to 20 calls a week related to the areas homeless population.

We dont get many people being accosted by them, or (complaining), he said.

Typically, he said, calls are from concerned passersby requesting an officer to check on their welfare.

'I got to get out of here ..'

A group of five or more homeless people recently gathered off 7th Court between a sidewalk and hedge bordering a fast food restaurant and urgent care parking lot.

An area is seen where some people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness were trespassed by police while sitting in the shade, Aug. 23, 2023, in Vero Beach.

Milton Bass, 67, lay on the grass as ants filed past onto the sidewalk, and a 30-something-year old man worked on wooden pallets.

Three months following his eviction from his home, Bass said he didnt want to continue sleeping off roadways and behind buildings.

No, I got to get out of here, he said.

The homeless population within the city ebbs and flows, Harrelson said, estimating daily there's about 50 to 75 people.

The number of homeless men, women and children in Indian River County increased 18% since 2022, according to the Treasure Coast Homeless Services Council that oversees federal and state funding for local nonprofits.

Its annual head count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people shows countywide totals of 290 in 2022 grew to 341 in 2023. The number was even higher years earlier in 2019 and 2020 with 486.

At 30,809, Florida ranked third in the nation with the largest homeless population following Texas and California, according to the 2023 Florida Department of Children and Families Council on Homelessness annual report.

The agency attributed the increase to a two-year 36.1% rent increase, a second-in-the-nation population boom and two hurricanes, all of which contributed to an unprecedented housing market affordability crisis.

On Aug. 23 in heat that felt like 100 degrees at 2 p.m., some homeless sat in shade cast by store signs off 11th Street.

Scott Carlton, 60, sits in the shaded grass off 11th Street behind Taco Bell in Vero Beach, Aug. 23, 2023. Carlton, who has been experiencing homelessness for nine months, is one of many people living in unsheltered conditions in Indian River County.

Yesterday we were run off four times four different places , said Scott Carlton, 60, who said he had been homeless nine months. They just havent told us to move yet (today).

Nearly all the men said police and deputies were sympathetic or helpful, but said trash and debris led to the orders to move.

Homeless helping clean up parts of city

Harrelson said after two years, he considers the panhandling law and police unit successful.

I believe so because two things have happened, he said. Information (is) out there for any business to know that they have an active partnership with the (police department) (and) the words also out with the population that tends to be the origin of our calls for service.

A part of that population has also been essential in the citys downtown renovation efforts.

Members of The Source's Community Works program pressure wash the Hallstrom House and Farmstead, a property maintained by the Indian River County Historical Society, Aug. 21, 2023, in Indian River County.

The Source, a nonprofit about a mile south of city limits, provides free meals, laundry services and a bus converted to sleep 36 at $2 a night, plus numerous financial and employment programs.

When warning against unlawful panhandling, Harrelson said police also give information about The Source's facilities off 10th Street and Commerce Avenue.

Source Executive Director Anthony Zorbaugh said it provides over 2,700 people some form of assistance.

Were averaging six new intakes a day, Zorbaugh said.

Since May, members of its newly formed Community Works employment training program have cleaned Pocahontas Park, and areas outside City Hall and the Police Department, all at no cost to the city.

Its all pro bono, Zorbaugh said of the pressure washing, trash collection and yard work. We want to be good stewards to our community. We get closer to people instead of pushing them away.

Corey Arwood is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Corey on X, formerly Twitter, @coreyarwood, or reach him by phone at 772-978-224

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Panhandling, trespass laws successful 2 years later, Vero Beach police say
Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks during a ceremony for the one-year anniversary of the Partnership for Petersburg creation Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Petersburg Public Library

PETERSBURG  The city and the Youngkin administration commemorated the one-year anniversary of Partnership for Petersburg Wednesday with an event that was part summary of the first year and part pep rally for its future.

Some in the overflow crowd at the Petersburg Public Library showed up hoping to hear who would run the long-awaited grocery store at the proposed mixed-use development on the former Southside Regional Medical Center site. While Gov. Glenn Youngkin alluded to the plans for the Sycamore Grove development to be anchored by that grocery store, he did not reveal who would run that anchor store.

Groceries were still on the list for Wednesday, however. Youngkin announced that a group led by Amazon would operate a mobile grocery store that could be taken to all parts of the city and surrounding area. Amazon is known for being the worlds largest online retailer, but it also owns the Whole Foods Supermarket chain.

Aetna and Comcast are also involved in that project.

I think I just pre-empted Amazons announcement on this, Youngkin quipped moments later.

One year ago, the library was the scene of the launch of Partnership for Petersburg, a multi-faceted program aimed at rectifying issues in areas such as public safety and public health, education and economic development, housing, and transportation. When first organized, there were 40 initiatives identified with 60 local, state and private-business partners pledged to assist. That list has now grown to 60 initiatives and 90 partners.

Some programs, such as the Urban Baby Beginnings for expectant mothers and the after-school programs at the Petersburg Family YMCA, have been activated. Others are in various stages of development.

Youngkin said just because some of the initiatives are not quite tactile, that does not mean they are not as important or going to die on the vine. Over the remaining two years of his administration  Virginia governors are limited by the state constitution to one term  Youngkin said an all-out effort will be done to get all the projects up and running.

Youngkin noted some accomplishments tied to the partnership. For example, non-homicide violent crime has dropped more than a third, he said, and Petersburg Polices job vacancies were diminishing. The departments two newest hires joined him on the stage in the library auditorium.

The governor also noted that a mobile healthcare initiative provided services to 236 city residents since its inception earlier in the year.

One of the more visible accomplishments of the partnership was the late 2022 leveling of the former Ramada Inn building on East Washington Street at Interstate 95. That was brought up several times during the ceremony, and each mention drew applause.

The city that Virginia forgot

A winding theme through all speeches made at the library was that Petersburg had been neglected by the state for decades. Because of that inattention, city resources dried up but the need for those resources increased.

Petersburg became the city that Virginia forgot, Del. Kim Taylor, R-Dinwiddie County, told the crowd.

Petersburg has been feeling a lot of pain, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle Sears said. She likened it to the treatment of a skin cut  do you just air it out and let oxygen heal it, or do you put a bandage over it?

Petersburg kept airing out the pain and kept asking for help, Sears said. Now, we are stopping the pain and starting the healing.

Even though the Youngkin administration started the partnership, Youngkin reminded the audience that it is not a state-run program. Nor is it a locally run program.

Its not led by government, he said. It is led by Petersburg and the people who live here.

Anjolaoluwa 'Princess' Ajayi-Odukoye of Petersburg speaks Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the anniversary celebration for Partnership for Petersburg in the Petersburg Public Library auditorium. Ajayi-Odukoye talked about the service she was provided by the Urban Baby Beginnings initiative launched as part of the partnership. UBB founder and executive director Stephanie Spencer stands nearby, holding Esther, Ajayi-Odukoye's newborn daughter.

Several speakers Wednesday spoke on some of the tangibles that already are visible. One of them was Anjolaoluwa Princess Ajayi-Odukoye, who brought her newborn daughter Esther on stage to talk about the help she got from Urban Baby Beginnings.

UBB is an advocacy program for expectant and new mothers, offering such services as access to doulas. While UBB founder and executive director Stephanie Spencer held Esther, Ajayi-Odukoye gave a shout-out to her doula, who was in the audience.

Any time I texted her, she was always there to help, Ajayi-Odukoye said, calling the entire UBB experience encouraging.

Shalonda Venable-Royster, whose daughter attends elementary school in Petersburg and participates in the YMCA program, said that experience has prompted her daughter not to follow in the career footsteps of her parents or grandparents.

She wants to be a YMCA counselor, Venable-Royster told the crowd.

Keelyn Graves, a Petersburg resident and senior at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, served as a student intern for the first year of the partnership. He worked with both the governors office and the city on the many initiatives, and he told the crowd he was thrilled to talk about it, particularly the effect it could have on Petersburgs young people.

This is a program providing choices to dream, aspire and believe, Graves said. He called youth the bedrock of Petersburg.

Following the litany of speakers, the crowd then spilled out into the library parking lot where food trucks were waiting to serve them lunch and a deejay provided a musical backdrop. Youngkin stopped by six tables, each representing a pillar of the partnership program and heard updates from people staffing those tables.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin greets representatives of the public-safety 'pillar' of the Partnership for Petersburg Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in the parking lot of the Petersburg Public Library. The library hosted a one-year anniversary celebration of the partnership.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Governor joins Petersburg in 'Partnership' anniversary celebration
Editors note: For years, the Deseret News editorial page carried the epigraph: We stand for the Constitution of the United States as having been divinely inspired. In honor of Constitution Month, the Deseret News is publishing a variety of articles examining the Constitutions continued importance.

Winston Churchill once said, It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried ...

Without hesitation, I assert that our nation  a democratic republic  is remarkable, our system of government is the best the world has seen, and ours is a system worth defending.

Yet, we live in a time when more and more Americans worry about the future of their nation.

They see division, discord and dissent unlike any period in their lifetimes.

They witness events unfolding that trouble their minds and souls.

They observe concrete evidence that there is a significant decline in patriotism, belief in the family and community and reliance on religion.

Assuring the future of our nation

Many are desperate to help  to try to alter the direction of this country that they love.

How to do so?

All citizens over 18 years of age have the right and the obligation to vote  to unfailingly cast an informed ballot. Beyond that, more of us should make the effort to participate in every level of government to shape the future of our community, state and nation.

But what about the vast majority for which such direct involvement is difficult if not impossible?

What can the average American do to assure the future of their community and nation?

For over 44 years, I have been involved in government at the local, state and federal level  from councilman in a small city, to an adviser to a U.S. senator, a U.S. congressman and a governor. I have had the privilege to be the chairman or executive director of three departments of state government. Those duties placed me in the position of testifying before a state legislature, Congress, and in meetings with the president of the United States and his cabinet. In addition, I have served on the federal bench as a judge for over 23 years.

In the long history of this world, the freedoms, opportunities and security that we enjoy as citizens of the United States are incredibly rare, very precious, and sadly, extremely fragile.

I have had the opportunity to write four books about our countrys exceptional nature. Ive tried to instill this love in students, teaching classes at the university level for over three decades.

The conclusion I have drawn from these experiences is that in the long history of this world, the freedoms, opportunities and security that we enjoy as citizens of the United States are incredibly rare, very precious, and sadly, extremely fragile.

Please remember those three words  rare, precious, fragile  more will be written of them.

A disclaimer is necessary: Our nation is far from perfect. In its 236-year history there is much that we did, and continue to do, that is wrong. We still have far to go to reach the noble objectives of equality, liberty and rule of law that we all seek. Having been a part of government for as long as I have, I have witnessed dysfunction, ugly partisanship and justifiable reasons to criticize those of us who are in positions of responsibility.

Still, without hesitation, I again assert that our nation is remarkable, our system of government is the best the world has seen, and ours is a system worth defending.

I attribute the success of this unique experiment in self-government to the Constitution of the United States. I consider those who crafted that document to have been extraordinarily wise. I believe they possessed a unique grasp of human nature.

Today, it is common to criticize the founders of America. Judging them by todays standards of liberty, equality and justice they do fail. Some owned slaves. None fought to give women equal rights. Most were wealthy white men. Yes, judging the founders by todays standards of liberty, equality and justice we might say they fail.

But there is just one problem with judging them by todays standards and it is this: But for those imperfect founders and the sacrifices that they made and the instruments of government that they created, there would be no current, enlightened standards of liberty, equality and justice by which to judge them  not here in America or anywhere else on earth!

Being virtuous

Again, the question, what can we, citizens of this nation, do to assure its future? What can we do to assure the continued pursuit of liberty, equality and justice?

The answer can be summarized in two words: be virtuous.

You see, this nation was founded on the assumption that its citizens would be virtuous  virtuous being understood much more broadly than most of us think of it today. Websters 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defined virtue as strength, bravery, valor, moral goodness and excellence.

The founders understood the link between virtue and successful self-government. It was part of the unique and precious insight possessed by those who crafted the Constitution. The evidence of this insight and understanding is more than plentiful.

The oldest and most experienced of the founders, Benjamin Franklin, summarized the understanding of his fellows when he said, Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Unquestionably, the man who had prepared himself most thoroughly to influence the gathering that became the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was James Madison. He had studied history with the sole aim of understanding what had to be found in a democratic republic in order for it to survive and to thrive. He once made the observation, Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks  no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Our nations second president, John Adams, once observed, Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Related

It is easy to understand their assessment. People to whom the rule of law is precious, and who by nature are disciplined and obedient to universal principles of virtue and morality, do not need an excessive number of laws and regulations to govern them.

Virtuous people will conduct themselves in such a way, even when the law does not demand it, that society does not suffer. Virtuous people will conduct themselves in such a way, even when that conduct is not discoverable, that society does not suffer.

In sum, a virtuous people can live their lives free of laws, regulations and the heavy hand of government because they truly govern themselves.

The founders understood this.

What is meant by virtue?

One of the brightest and most accomplished leaders of the 20th century was a woman named Clare Boothe Luce. She was an author and playwright, journalist, member of Congress and the first American woman to be named to a major ambassadorship.

Towards the end of her life, she delivered a speech in which she identified what she characterized as universal morality. She pointed out the remarkable fact that great minds of the world  in all civilizations and throughout the ages  have agreed on the marks of a moral person. She identified those marks as truthfulness, honesty, duty, personal responsibility, unselfishness, loyalty, honor, compassion and courage.

To me, a person who acts in a cowardly way, even though it is not a violation of the law, has historically been deemed to be in the wrong by all societies and cultures.

Successful cultures always operate on the principle that individuals are responsible for their own decisions and actions, and those who cannot accept responsibility for their conduct are scorned.

A person who lies, which is not illegal except in a handful of cases, is ostracized by society.

If one is willing to accept Luces list of personal characteristics that constitute virtue or morality, it dictates the type of citizens we must be if we are to survive as a free nation  if we as citizens of the United States are to flourish as a free people.

Rare, precious and fragile

Mentioned earlier was my conclusion about our system of government  after serving and studying and teaching and writing about it for over 40 years  is that our freedoms, opportunities, security and ability to govern ourselves are rare, precious and fragile.

They are rare because in the long history of this world, what we enjoy as citizens of this nation is extraordinary. The vast majority of people that have lived, and do live on this earth today, have never tasted the liberty and opportunities and security that we enjoy as citizens of the United States of America.

I hope that I do not need to persuade the reader that the blessing of self-government is precious.

However, I do feel compelled to contend that what we have is fragile. Self-government demands much of those being governed.

A passive citizenry will not remain a free citizenry.

A citizenry that abandons belief in, and conformity to, those universal principles of virtue and morality cannot remain free. A nation which no longer demands that its citizens and its leaders be truthful, honest, willing to perform their duty and accept personal responsibility will eventually fail as a self-governing nation.

A nation which no longer demands that her citizens and leaders be unselfish, loyal, honorable, compassionate and courageous will not survive.

A question I hope each of us will ponder is: What can I do to assure that ours is a virtuous nation?

I hope that all Americans will accept the challenge of embracing virtue and requiring the same of our leaders  virtuous in the same sense that those who gave us the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States understood that we had to be, in order that our grand and wonderful experiment in self-government might endure.

Ted Stewart is a United States Senior District Court judge.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.) on Wednesday joined calls for embattled Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign, questioning the senators claims that racism played a role in the allegations against him.

Aguilar, the highest-ranking House Latino, joined a growing list of Democrats calling for the resignation of Menendez, the highest-ranking Senate Latino.

I think Senator Menendez, just like every American, is due the opportunity to have a fair trial, Aguilar told reporters at the weekly caucus press conference.

He has an incredible track record  over 50 years of service to folks in New Jersey. He has lifted up issues that the Latino community cares about time and time again. It doesnt bring me or any of us joy to say that he should resign, but he should.

Menendez, who was indicted on bribery charges, is facing an increasingly uphill battle to retain his seat, as Democrats, including New Jerseys junior senator, Cory Booker , and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) join calls for him to resign.

Like Booker, Aguilar made the case that Menendez would be better off fighting the charges outside of Congress.

For the betterment of the Democratic Party and for the people of New Jersey, its better that he fights this trial outside of the halls of Congress, said Aguilar.

Menendez has vehemently denied the charges, and has said his origins as the son of Cuban immigrants played a role in prosecutors zeal against him.

Aguilar dismissed that claim flat-out.

Id also say that Latinos face barriers and discrimination across the board in so many categories, including in our justice system. This is not that, said Aguilar.

Mychael Schnell contributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
FILE - A Chinese coast guard ship tries to block the way of a Philippine supply boat, left, as it heads towards Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin Shoal, at the disputed South China Sea on Aug. 22, 2023. Philippine officials on Monday, Sept. 25 condemned a floating barrier laid by Chinese coast guard vessels to prevent Filipino fishermen from entering a disputed lagoon in the South China Sea and said they would take actions to remove the obstruction. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

MANILA, Philippines (AP)  Filipino forces would dismantle any floating barrier that Chinas coast guard may install in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine admiral said Wednesday after Manila infuriated China by removing one such obstruction in a contested shoal.

Philippine officials strongly condemned the installation last week of a 300-meter (980-foot) -long barrier by Chinese coast guard vessels at the entrance to the lagoon of Scarborough Shoal as a violation of international law and the countrys sovereignty.

The barrier has prevented a swarm of Filipino boats from entering the rich fishing area, they said. The shoal lies within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone just west of the main Luzon Island, but has been occupied by China since 2012 as part of a push by Beijing to lay claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.

On Monday, the Philippine coast guard said it has complied with an order by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to launch a covert operation to remove the rope and net barrier held up by small buoys in the mouth of the shoal. China reacted on Tuesday by asking the Philippines not to make provocations or seek trouble."

Huayang Island is Chinas inherent territory, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, referring to the Chinese name for Scarborough.

What the Philippines (has) done is nothing but a farce that entertains itself. China will continue to safeguard territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of Huangyan Island.

Philippine Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, who heads the militarys Western Command in charge of overseeing the South China Sea, told journalists he was concerned that the Chinese coast guard may also install a similar floating barrier at the entrance to Second Thomas Shoal, which is occupied by a small Philippine navy contingent on a long-grounded warship but has been surrounded by Chinese coast guard ships.

My concern is, if they also put a barrier in Ayungin  we also have to remove the barrier, Carlos told journalists, using the Philippine name for Second Thomas Shoal. Whatever they install, we will remove.

Under Marcos, who took office last year, the Philippines has intensified efforts to fight Chinas increasingly aggressive actions in one of the worlds most hotly contested waters. The Philippine coast guard now often invites journalists to join its territorial patrols in an effort, it says, to expose Chinas bullying in the busy waterway.

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in the long-simmering territorial conflicts in the South China Sea. They which have long been regarded as a potential Asian flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region.

Washington lays no claim to the sea passageway, a major global trade route, but U.S. Navy ships and fighter jets have carried out patrols for decades to challenge Chinas expansive claims and promote freedom of navigation and overflight. China has told the U.S. to stop meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.

Carlos said the Philippine military would comply with Marcoss order to ensure that the marooned and crumbling navy ship, which Filipino forces use as a territorial outpost at Second Thomas Shoal should remain there, strong enough to be able to fly the Philippine flag."

China has asked the Philippines to tow away the ship from the shoal. But Marcos and the Philippine military have insisted the offshore region lies in their countrys exclusive economic zone.

Chinese coast guard ships have repeatedly tried to block Philippine resupply vessels, resulting in near-collisions.

Washington has said its obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under attack, including in the South China Sea.
YANGON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar earned 143.436 million U.S. dollars from mineral exports over the past more than five months of the current fiscal year 2023-24 through next March, according to the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.

The revenue from the export of mineral products from April 1 to Sept. 15 dropped, compared to 165.132 million dollars recorded a year earlier, the ministry's data showed.

The Southeast Asian country earned 337.798 million dollars from mineral exports in the 2022-23 fiscal year, showed the data.

Myanmar mainly exports agricultural, animal and marine products, minerals, forest products and manufactured goods to its foreign trade partners, including China, Thailand, Bangladesh and India, according to the ministry. 
By Neil Jerome Morales and Andrew Hayley

MANILA/BEIJING (Reuters) -The coastguard of the Philippines urged the country's fishermen on Wednesday to keep operating at the disputed Scarborough Shoal and other sites in the South China Sea, pledging to step up patrols there despite an imposing Chinese presence.

Philippine vessels were unable to maintain a constant presence but were committed to protecting the rights of fishermen inside the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), coastguard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said.

"We're going to increase patrols in Bajo de Masinloc and other areas where Filipino fishermen are," he told DZRH radio, referring to the shoal, one of Asia's most contested maritime features, by its Philippine name.

On Monday, the Philippine coastguard cut a 300-m (980-ft) floating barrier installed by China that blocked access to the Scarborough Shoal, an area Beijing has controlled for over a decade with coastguard ships and a fleet of large fishing vessels.

The Chinese coastguard late on Wednesday disputed the Philippine version of the events, saying the Chinese side had retrieved the barrier on Saturday after deploying it a day earlier when a Philippine vessel "illegally" entered the area.

"I would also like to reiterate once again. Huangyan Island is China's inherent territory," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, told a regular briefing on Wednesday, calling the shoal by its Chinese name.

STRATEGIC LOCATION

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said the Philippines' cutting of the cordon was not a provocation.

"We are reacting to their action," he said during a senate hearing on Wednesday.

A vessel from the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources "illegally" entered the area on Sept. 22 and "rushed" into the lagoon of the shoal despite shouts of warnings, the Chinese coastguard said in a statement on Wednesday.

That prompted a "temporary" deployment of nets to block its passage, it said.

"Afterwards, (the Chinese coastguard) took the initiative to retrieve the net barrier on Sept. 23 and resumed a normal state of control. The so-called 'dismantling' of the net barrier by the Philippines is complete fabrication."

The rocky, mid-sea outcrop is the site of numerous diplomatic rows. Both countries claim sovereignty over the shoal, a prime fishing spot about 200 km (124 miles) off the Philippines and 850 km (530 miles) from mainland China and its southern island of Hainan.

The shoal is close to shipping lanes that transport an estimated $3.4 trillion of annual commerce, and control of it is strategic for Beijing, which claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

Those claims complicate fisheries and offshore oil and gas activities by its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Coastguard official Tarriela said the Philippine fisheries bureau had successfully anchored a vessel just 300 m (980 ft) from the Scarborough Shoal's lagoon, its closest point to the atoll since China seized it in 2012.

"The Scarborough Shoal is closer to the Philippines," said fisherman Pepito Fabros who had come ashore in the province of Zambales between trips to sea.

"Why are they stopping us from entering?"

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Additional reporting by Adrian Portugal in Zambales, Enrico dela Cruz in Manila and Andrew Hayley and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Martin Petty, Clarence Fernandez, Peter Graff, Alexandra Hudson)
Phoenix police were seeking information on a suspect in relation to the shooting death of a man on Sept. 24.

According to a press release, homicide detectives were searching for Ernesto Luna, 41, related to his involvement in the death of Hamzah Sirajaldin.

Police said that Luna shot Sirajaldin during a "dispute" near North Central Avenue and East Indian School Road at about 3:20 a.m. on Sept. 24. Police said Luna then fled the area following the shooting, and Sirajaldin later died from his injuries.

Luna was described as 5-foot-10, 250 pounds with brown eyes and brown hair. He has tattoos on his chest and back.

Those with information on Luna's location are urged to call the Silent Witness line at 480-WITNESS or 480-TESTIGO to submit an anonymous tip and may be eligible for a cash reward.

Information can also be submitted to on the Silent Witness website at silentwitness.org.

No other information had been released.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix police seeking info on suspect in Hamzah Sirajaldin's death
The Piedmont Park Conservancy Board of Directors announced a new Chief Executive Officer for the nonprofit organization.

According to their announcement, the new leader will be Doug Widener, who most recently was the executive director of the Lincoln Park Conservancy in Chicago.

Officials from the board said Widener brings nearly 30 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, community building and sustainable practice.

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During his time in Chicago, Widener is said to have performed transformative work and revitalized the iconic Chicago landmark that is Lincoln Park, according to Piedmont Park Conservancy.

He was said to have left lasting impacts on the field of sustainability as a leader of the U.S. Green Building Council, where he pushed for environmentally conscious practices across state, regional, and national positions.

Im thrilled to join the Piedmont Park Conservancy. I believe that parks and open spaces are vital to help us connect with each other, disconnect from the hustle of urban life and recharge our bodies and our beings, Widener said in a statement. The Piedmont Park Conservancy plays a vital role in stewarding this wonderful resource for all Atlantans. I look forward to working with our great Board, donors, partners, staff and community in charting a vision for the Park as a world-class destinationfor now and generations to come.

With the Piedmont Park Conservancy, Widener hopes to expand his dedication to nurturing deep appreciation for the natural environment, which he said was a passion born from his background in educational programming at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and his time spent as co-chairman of education and communication at the Chicago Wilderness Alliance.

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We are at an exciting juncture in our partnership with the City of Atlanta. Dougs joy for his work, combined with his talent for connecting and collaborating strategically with others, inspires our confidence in his ability to continue leading our beloved Piedmont Park into a promising future, Ellen Sacchi, Piedmont Park Conservancys Board Chair, said in the announcement. His leadership and commitment to community engagement make him a perfect fit to drive our organizations mission forward.

The Piedmont Park Conservancy started searching for a new leader, ending with their choice of Widener, after then-CEO Mark Banta announced his retirement in July 2022.

Banta served as CEO for nine years. The conservancy said they started searching for his replacement across more than 20 states.

Widener will begin his new role in October, with Banta staying on to help transition leadership to him in the fall.

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A Pittsburgh woman is charged for allegedly setting a man on fire during an argument.

Cecilia Perez, 47, is facing a list of charges for an incident Monday that left a man with first- and second-degree-burns.

Just before 8 p.m. Monday, Pittsburgh police, fire and EMS were called to an apartment along Madeline Street in Carrick for a report of a burn patient.

They found the 43-year-old victim with burns to his arms, stomach, chest and back, according to court documents.

Perez told officers the victim had been drinking all day and that he had just cleaned a small cut on his hand with rubbing alcohol when he lit a marijuana cigarette, catching his hand on fire. She said she grabbed a sheet to extinguish the flames.

The victim told officers they had both been drinking and arguing when Perez poured a green liquid all over him, which he assumes was rubbing alcohol, and before he knew it, he was on fire.

Witnesses told officers they heard a woman shout, Ill kill you, and Youre going to die during the argument.

Perez is charged with criminal attempted homicide, aggravated assault, arson, aggravated arson, terroristic threats, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and possession.

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The Sacramento Police Department released body-worn camera video footage Wednesday showing the events leading up to the shooting death of an armed man Sept. 12 in a downtown parking garage.

The release of footage, which included a compiled and narrated video, contains nearly 45 minutes of surveillance and drone footage, as well as body-worn camera imagery from four Sacramento police officers.

It gives a glimpse inside the four-and-a-half-hour standoff between Cleavon Miles, 36, and officers in the early morning hours near Downtown Commons, one of Sacramentos most popular shopping destinations known as DoCo.

The standoff stemmed from a 911 call at 1 a.m. reporting a man trying to get into the Citizen Hotel about a mile east at 10th and J streets. Hotel security guards prevented the mans entry and then reported to a 911 dispatcher that they saw the man pull an object from his pants and heard a subsequent gunshot.

A second 911 caller, a security guard at the nearby Downtown Commons parking garage at Third and L streets, reported to a dispatcher that a man matching the description from the disturbance at the Citizen Hotel had pointed a gun in his face, according to audio provided by the agency.

I came out the elevator and that s--- is in my face, and Im thinking it might be a pipe at first and then from the side, it looked like definitely a revolver, the security guard told an officer in one of the video.

The security guard earlier reported to the dispatcher that the armed man said come mess with me and come any closer while brandishing the firearm at him and his partner, according to dispatcher audio included in the release.

Officers at the scene used their patrol vehicles to create cover as they tried to contact Miles. An officer can be heard saying yo, hes pointing something at us.

A second officer can be heard saying drop whats in your hand, sir. Sir, can you drop the gun? Drop the gun and put your hands in the air. Were here to help, were here to resolve this peacefully.

Police deployed a drone to gain a better visual of Miles as he stood atop a concrete stairwell enclosure in the northeast corner of the parking garage. Drone footage shows him sitting on the enclosure and moving to inspect the stairwell beneath him, using a cellphone or flashlight to illuminate the area.

At least two gunshots can be heard on the bodycam footage.

SWAT officers on the northwest corner of the garage set up an area of cover where an officer armed with a rifle and sight kept a visual on Miles.

In a video narrated by Sgt. Carlos Martinez, a spokesman for the department, Martinez says SWAT officers formulated a plan to move a public address system beyond their position of cover to better communicate with Miles.

Cleavon Miles is seen pointing a revolver at police officers during a Sept. 7, 2023, standoff atop a downtown parking garage as seen in aerial drone footage provided by the Sacramento Police Department. Police shot and killed Miles after a nearly four-and-a-half-hour standoff when police said Miles pointed the gun at SWAT officers.

When a SWAT officer moves from cover to place the PA system, a side-by-side video shows Miles allegedly standing at the same time.

Within one second of the officer moving from behind a concrete pillar, the SWAT officer armed with the rifle can be heard saying pointing the gun and firing one round from his rifle, a video shows.

Footage from the drone video shows Miles standing and holding the gun in his right hand, but it is not clear if he raised it in the SWAT officers direction before he was shot.

Miles falls the ground and thrashes for a few seconds before officers and paramedics rendered medical aid. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A pop-up tent stands Tuesday, Sep. 12, 2023, were a man who barricaded himself atop a downtown Sacramento parking garage was fatally shot by police during a standoff. The incident began just after 1 a.m. when the man was reported in the Downtown Plaza West parking garage at Third and L streets with a weapon.

This incident is being investigated by the Sacramento Police Departments Homicide Unit, Internal Affairs Division, and Professional Standards Unit, the Police Department said in a news release. The Office of Public Safety Accountability and the Sacramento County District Attorneys Office are providing oversight by monitoring the investigation.

The video release is mandated by the City Councils policy on police use of force and Senate Bill 1421, which requires disclosure of police records pertaining to incident of great bodily injury within 30 days.

The Bees Ishani Desai contributed to this story.
Andrzej Duda, president of Poland, addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Poland will tell the International Olympic Committee it wants to host the 2036 Summer Games, state president Andrzej Duda said Wednesday.

Duda announced the government-backed project less than three weeks before parliamentary elections on Oct. 15.

It follows Poland hosting the multi-sport 2023 European Games earlier this year with 7,000 athletes centered on Krakow.

Duda said Polish Olympic officials will soon present a letter of intent to IOC President Thomas Bach. The European Olympic Committees group meets Oct. 6-7 in Istanbul.

The European Olympic body said Wednesday it welcomed Polands interest to build on its European Games project.

From everything the EOC saw there (at European Games), Poland is well qualified to host the Olympic Games too, its executive committee member Hasan Arat said in a statement.

The IOC has set no timetable for picking a host for the 2036 Olympics and seems unlikely to make much progress in the next two years.

Bachs 12-year presidential term limit expires in 2025 and the process of picking a 2036 host could be a key issue for his successor to oversee.

The 2036 Summer Games is the next available edition: Paris will host in 2024, Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk has described the honouring of Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old veteran of the Waffen-SS Galicia division, by the Canadian Parliament as shameful.

Source: European Pravda, citing the Polish press agency PAP

Details: "The Canadian parliament's honouring of a Ukrainian who fought in the ranks of the SS Galicia division was shameful and indicates a great lack of knowledge about the Second World War," Mularczyk said.

"It is shameful that the officials of the Canadian Parliament were not aware of the historical facts regarding the Waffen-SS. This is a clear demonstration of gaps in the knowledge of the history of the Second World War," he added.

Mularczyk said that when he travels abroad, he often encounters a lack of understanding of what went on in Eastern Europe during the Second World War.

"Few people know about Poland's losses and the fact that Poland did not receive compensation for them," the diplomat said.

"I am saddened by the lack of knowledge that has occurred in Canada," Mularczyk said. He noted, however, that the overall situation could help Canada become an ally of Poland in seeking reparations from Germany.

Reminder:

Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of Canada, announced his resignation on Tuesday amid the scandal involving the invitation of 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka to Parliament for President Volodymyr Zelenskyys speech last week.

The Speaker was called on to resign by colleagues and members of the government after it emerged that he had invited 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka to Parliament during Zelenskyy's visit to Canada last week. Rota presented him as a World War II veteran who fought against the Russians.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

An Alamogordo City employee is dead after what law enforcement said was a shooting at Hang Glider Park.

On Sept. 25 Joseph "Joe" Romo was allegedly shot at the park located on North Florida Avenue, according to a news release from the city. He was later pronounced dead at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center.

The Alamogordo Police Department responded to the park after reports of a disturbance and at least one person shot, the news release read.

Alamogordo Police placed one person in custody, a man at the scene who allegedly shot Romo. The name of the man was not released to the media.

Romo, 42, was an employee with the city's parks department for over 20 years, according to the news release.

The Alamogordo Police Department is investigating the incident alongside the Otero County Sheriff's Office, Lincoln County Sherriff's Office and the Ruidoso Police Department.

Juan Corral can be reached at JCorral@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter at @Juan36Corr.

This article originally appeared on Alamogordo Daily News: Alamogordo city employee shot, killed at Hang Glider Park
NEW YORK -- There was a shocking discovery at an East Harlem day care.

Authorities said Wednesday they recovered ghost guns and 3D printers in an unlocked room inside Alay's Day Care on East 117th Street between Park and Madison avenues. Three people were arrested, including an 18-year-old and two minors.

Police made the terrifying discovery after executing a search warrant.

Link: What is a ghost gun?

Illegally manufactured ghost guns and the 3D printers used to make them were found. The NYPD said it executed three search warrants Tuesday. The third led to the seizure.

"Inside this day care facility, investigators recovered a 3D printer, 3D printing cools and plastic filament, two completed 3D-printed firearms, one 3D-printed assault pistol, and one additional 3D-printed receiver," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said.

Watch: Officials announce arrest

"Charges will include illegal firearms possession, manufacturing of an assault weapon, and reckless endangerment," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

"This is a heartbreaking scenario: Thinking that you're dropping your child off to a place of safe haven just to find out that it was a dangerous environment where someone was making a gun inside," Mayor Eric Adams said. "Who would've thought that we must add to our list of inspections -- Do we have 3D printers that can print guns? Do we see the presence of various items like fentanyl and other items?"

Of those arrested, one was 18-year-old Karon Coley. Police said Coley lives in the home with his mother, who owns and operates the day care center. Police wouldn't comment on whether Coley's mother will face charges as the investigation is ongoing.

"You've got an 18-year-old in his room, 3D printer. He's not making little robotic toys -- he's making guns. That should be scary to everyone," Adams said.

Just last week, one child died and several more were hospitalized after it was discovered they had come into contact with fentanyl at a Bronx day care that was allegedly also used as a drug operation.

"Unfortunately, a child had to die for us to really have to pay attention to what is happening in day care centers," Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said.

In her first interview since 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici's death, Clark told CBS New York attending his funeral has made the case personal.

"I turned around and there was a tiny coffin there with such an incredibly adorable young man, little boy dead, I can't take that. It was unacceptable. I was so emotional, and I'm the DA. I'm supposed to show strength, but I'm also human and to see a little 1-year-old baby in a coffin, to see that makes it even more of a priority to make sure we get justice for him."

When asked what justice will look like for the baby's family, Clark said, "Justice means the people responsible for this spend the rest of their lives in jail. That's what the family wants. That's what I'm gonna be seeking."

Mayor Adams said he believes changes need to be made to the day care inspection process, and did not rule out the possibility that the NYPD may step in going forward.

"There's an extensive process already in place. But we are dealing with a new enemy. And we have to stay ahead of those who are finding creative ways to create dangerous environments," Adams said.

Department of Health officials said the East Harlem day care has been open since 2021. The last inspection it did was in February of this year. It said the owners were cited for health and hygiene issues, but took corrective action.

Adams is leading a formal analysis and assessment of what inspectors can look for at day care centers going forward, and what warning signs parents can look for, themselves.

3D Printing | Sunday on 60 Minutes

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Mayor Eric Adams heads to Latin America as New York City migrant crisis grows
Chinese police seize 16.5 tonnes of drugs in first 8 months

Xinhua) 09:55, September 27, 2023

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese police seized 16.5 tonnes of drugs in the first eight months of this year, marking a year-on-year increase of 24.7 percent, China National Narcotic Control Commission said Tuesday.

The police cracked 26,000 cases involving drug crimes and arrested 39,000 suspects during this period, up 10 percent and 16.4 percent from the same period of 2022, respectively, the commission told a press conference.

China has intensified its crackdown on cross-border drug trafficking, drug manufacturing and distribution, and drug-related offenses such as drug driving, the commission said.

The police and relevant law enforcement authorities have also stepped up efforts to curb the trafficking of new drugs such as nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, and the abuse of narcotic and psychotropic substances, according to the commission.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah partake in the 2023 Chinese Unity Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner, as the date for the major Chinese cultural event closes in.

The dinner, organized by the Federation of Malaysia Lim Associations on Tuesday, was also attended by Deputy Finance Minister Steven Sim Chee Keong and other officials, reported state news agency Bernama.

Sultan Abdullah participated in a ceremony to light a lantern and in the cutting of a giant mooncake as part of the festivities, the National Palace said in a statement.

"The Mid-Autumn Festival is a culturally important event for the Chinese in Malaysia, in addition to being laden with family and community elements," it said.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, has been observed by people of Chinese origin for thousands of years, usually marked by family reunions, a full moon viewing and the consumption of mooncakes. 
A new poll finds that a majority of Republican voters view Trump as "a person of faith."

A Deseret News/Harris X poll found that few of Trump's 2024 primary foes are viewed in the same light.

GOP voters are also deeply skeptical of President Joe Biden's faith.

A majority of Republican voters view former President Donald Trump as a person of faith, more than just about every other 2024 primary foe, according to a new poll.

A Deseret News/Harris X poll found that 53% of registered Republican voters said they found Trump to be a man of faith. Roughly the same percentage voters view former Vice President Mike Pence (52%) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (47%) the same way, though the poll has a 5.5 percentage point margin of error among GOP so it isn't especially possible to compare these.

That said, Pence famously says he's "a Christian, conservative, and Republican in that order"  even some of his insults are rooted in Bible verses.

Some Evangelical leaders have long said that Trump's three divorces and general approach to much of his early adult life should not count against his piousness. The former president is also facing a criminal indictment in New York related to claims stemming from his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniel's. Trump has denied her allegations.

"Yes, evangelicals, conservatives, they gave him a mulligan," Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, told CNN in 2018. "They let him have a do-over. They said we'll start afresh with you and we'll give you a second chance."

Before his election, Trump also rather flippantly described the process of Holy Communion, describing it as "When I drink my little wine ... and have my little cracker." The future president also seemed perplexed when asked if he ever asked God for forgiveness.

"I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so," Trump told moderator Frank Luntz during a 2015 event for an Iowa evangelicals group when asked about asking God for forgiveness. "I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."

Multiple books and reports about Trump's subsequent White House have claimed he repeatedly mocked Pence and other evangelicals for their faith.

Many on the evangelical right and other faith voters have embraced Trump due to his policies and judicial appointments. Thanks to Trump, anti-abortion activists realized their decades-long dream of overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and decades of precedents that had protected national abortion rights.

Trump also pushed for tax-exempt churches to be more politically active, tightly embraced Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership of Israel, and banned transgender Americans from serving in the Armed forces. To various degrees, all of those policies have been advocated by faith-based political organizations.

Republican voters are far more skeptical of President Joe Biden, an observant Catholic who speaks openly of his faith and attends religious services at a clip far outpacing his predecessors. According to the poll, just 23% of Republicans say Biden is a person of faith and only 12% said the same of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll also asked GOP voters about Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Trump on charges in both of his historic impeachment trials. Just 35%, view Romney as a man of faith. Romney cited his Mormon faith as part of the reason he was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial for improperly pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens.

Faith-based voters are a key demographic in the modern Republican Party. White evangelicals are also a major force in the Iowa caucuses, the first election that will kick off the 2024 GOP primary process in less than four months.

The poll was conducted conducted from Sept. 8-11, among 1,002 registered voters. It has a =/- 5.5 percentage point margin of error for its smaller sub-sample of registered Republican voters.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Eighty percent of Oklahoma voters believe tribal nations are good for the state, according to the results of a new poll conducted in August.

Most voters view tribal nations as a benefit to Oklahoma and believe state officials should collaborate with tribal leaders, a new poll shows.

The results of the latest Sooner Survey cut through the political tension that has ramped up between Gov. Kevin Stitt and many tribal leaders over disagreements as wide ranging as tobacco taxes and traffic tickets.

Four in five voters think the state should work with tribal nations to improve Oklahoma, according to the poll.

Those talks were happening Tuesday, when some state officials and tribal representatives convened near Durant to discuss ways to team up on economic development.

Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, described the poll results as great to hear at this moment in the states history. Some people would say its troubling times, Batton told the crowd of about 150 people gathered for the business conference. But you know, I think theres great opportunities.

Majority of Oklahoma voters see benefits of good relationship between tribes, state government

The poll showed 80% of registered voters agreed tribes and tribal governments are good for Oklahoma, while the share dipped slightly to 73% among Republicans and rose to 94% among Democrats.

The results were drawn from the responses of 500 voters, who were surveyed in August by Cole, Hargrave, Snodgrass and Associates. The Oklahoma City firm estimated the polls margin of error at 4 percent.

More: Five Tribes vote no confidence in Governor Stitt's new liaison for Native affairs

When asked an open-ended question about why tribes were a benefit to Oklahoma, one-third of voters referred to the economic impact of tribal nations, which are among the states largest employers, especially in rural areas.

Rep. Meloyde Blancett, a Tulsa Democrat, said the survey shows Oklahomans see the untapped potential partnerships with tribes. She was speaking at the business conference, which was hosted by the Oklahoma Tribal Finance Consortium at the Choctaw Casino & Resort south of Durant.

The vast majority of Oklahomans absolutely believe that our tribal nations are an opportunity for us to explore, Blancett said. They look upon the tribal sovereignty as not a problematic issue at all.

Tribal sovereignty, or the right of tribal nations to govern themselves, has become an increasing point of debate for Stitt. The governor has challenged the limits of state authority  and the expansion of tribal authority  on tribal reservations recognized after the landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision in 2020.

More: Oklahoma governor's call for special session on tax fairness raises criticism, crickets

Eighty-six percent of voters said they had heard about the ruling, according to the Sooner Survey. The pollsters asked people who they trusted most to address issues stemming from the decision, offering the choice of Stitt, tribes, the federal government and Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

Tribes and Drummond both drew similar support, at 27% and 26%, respectively. Stitt received 18%, and the federal government 16%.

In response to questions about the poll, Stitts spokesperson Abegail Cave did not directly address the results, but indicated they would not change the governor's approach.

"Gov. Stitt is fighting for fairness on behalf of all 4 million Oklahomans, and he will continue to do that," she said in a statement.

'We've got to do more to work together'

Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, said the results show the vast majority of Oklahomans believe tribes are good partners. We were rooted here before statehood in 1907 and continue to help make our state vibrant and strong still today, Hoskin said in a statement.

Voters ultimately want the state and tribes to partner, a sentiment that transcends political parties and places of residence, wrote Pat McFerron, the president of the firm that conducted the poll.

Leslie Osborn, state labor commissioner, said she believes her agency and many others already have good relations with tribal counterparts, but the work can get drowned out by loud, angry voices.

Its to my chagrin and several other of my statewide elected officials that we are in an impasse on some of those relationships, she said at the business conference. But I believe this will be a temporary aberration in our long history, and that weve got to do more to work together.

She called out workforce development as one of the most pressing areas needing collaboration. As one example, she pointed to the extreme shortage of affordable child care, which is keeping young people, particularly women, out of the workforce. She said she has toured child care facilities operated by tribes to see if the state could consider a similar approach.

When we have such shortages and there is a way that it could be fixed, we need to do everything we can to work with partners to get that done, Osborn said.

State and tribal officials also are working together to provide clean water to communities and upgrade existing water systems, said Ken McQueen, Oklahoma secretary for energy and environment. The Oklahoma Legislature committed $72 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding for the water projects, and tribal governments matched that amount, doubling the amount of aid available, he said.

If we can demonstrate success, McQueen said, then we have a firm foundation to build on in the future.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a response from the governor's office.

Read more:

Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Most Oklahoma voters see tribal nations as a plus, poll shows
More than half of Republicans see former President Donald Trump as a person of faith, putting him ahead of more vocally religious figures like his former vice president, Mike Pence , according to a new national poll conducted by HarrisX for the Deseret News.

Registered voters were asked whether they considered a list of political figures people of faith. Trump rose to the top of the list for Republicans, while President Joe Biden topped the list for Democrats. Among independents, Sen. Mitt Romney was most likely to be chosen as a person of faith.

Among Republicans, 53% said Trump was a person of faith, ahead of every other person on the list  although he was statistically tied with Pence, who came in at 52%.

Related

Trump also led several of his other opponents in the Republican presidential primary, with 47% of Republican respondents saying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a person of faith, 31% for Sen. Tim Scott, 31% for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 30% for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and 22% for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Only 23% of Republicans said Biden is a person of faith, while 12% said the same of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll was conducted Sept. 8-11, among 1,002 registered voters, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

At a Faith & Freedom gala in June, Trump said he had championed policies favored by Christian voters, including appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court, who then overturned Roe v. Wade, returning control of abortion laws to state legislatures.

No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have, he said, adding, I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility.

But Trump rarely talks about his personal faith, unlike some of his Republican opponents in the 2024 race for the presidency, chief among them his former running mate, Pence.

Both Pence and Scott have made their Christian faith central to their pitch to voters, especially in Iowa, where many of the caucusgoers are evangelical Christians.

But despite their faith-based appeal to Iowa voters, both men are stalled at 6% in the latest CBS Iowa state poll, compared to 51% for Trump and 21% for DeSantis.

But, the Deseret News/HarrisX poll shows evangelical voters were much more likely to say Pence is a man of faith (65%) than Trump (37%). Catholic voters and nonevangelical Protestants were also more likely to say Pence is a man of faith, showing the perception of Trump as a man of faith was more related to voters political identity than their religious identity.

Related

Democrats were most likely to say Biden is a person of faith. He topped the list among registered Democratic voters at 63%.

Biden has been vocal about his Catholic faith. In a piece for the Christian Post in October 2020, Biden wrote:

My Catholic faith drilled into me a core truth  that every person on earth is equal in rights and dignity, because we are all beloved children of God. We are all created imago Dei  beautifully, uniquely, in the image of God, with inherent worth.

Harris came in second among Democratic voters, with 45% of Democrats saying she is a person of faith. She was raised an an interfaith household, by a Hindu mother and a Christian father, and her husband is Jewish. She identifies as Baptist, according to news reports.

Among independent voters, the political figure most likely to be chosen as a person of faith was Romney, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with 42% saying he was a person of faith.

With two-thirds of Americans in the Deseret News/HarrisX poll, or 69%, saying religion is very or somewhat important in their lives, it isnt surprising that voters want to see their partys figureheads as people of faith.

The Deseret News/HarrisX poll also showed that many Americans arent sure whether or not politicians are people of faith. Half of those polled said they werent sure if Ramaswamy, Haley, Scott or Christie were people of faith. Almost that many said the same about Harris.
What could be worth giving up a tenth of your country? The Liberian government reportedly plans to do exactly that and sell control of its intact rainforests to the scion of one of the worlds biggest fossil fuel producers.

A draft memorandum of understanding, leaked last month, between Liberias Ministry of Finance and Blue Carbon LLCone of many companies started by a 38-year-old member of Dubais royal family, Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoumwould commit the small African nation to hand over exclusive rights to one million hectares of forest lands. In exchange, Blue Carbon will transform that land into environmental assets, including carbon credits: essentially, sellable units of promised emissions reductions. Such credits are, in general, intended to offset actual pollution by businesses, individuals, or governments. They can be bought either as a voluntary means of reducing carbon footprints or as a way to comply with government climate goals and regulations.

For oil-rich countries like the United Arab Emiratesthe host of this years U.N. climate talks, COP28carbon offset schemes like the one described above hold incredible promise; the UAE is banking heavily on offsets to meet its own climate goals and has emphasized their importance in the lead-up to COP28. Its a compelling pitch: Any emissions polluters cant curb themselves can be outsourced to someone else. That basic premise undergirds everything from frothy corporate net-zero pledges to the decision to make your flight carbon neutral at checkoutand (arguably) the worlds hopes of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

The only problem is that carbon offsets of all kinds are increasingly being outed as total bullshit.

Over the last few years, a drumbeat of academic research and investigative reporting has painted a bleak picture of carbon offsets and the carbon markets through which theyre traded. Just this week, a team of journalists at CarbonBrief published an exhaustive explainer on offsets and the many damning studies poking holes in a practice thats long been a darling of climate policy wonks. That includes a study now making its way through the peer review process, which estimates that only 12 percent of carbon-offset projects constitute real emissions reductions.

There are well-documented cases, as well, of carbon credit developers engaging in human rights abuses and displacing Indigenous communities. An investigation published last week by The Guardian and the nonprofit watchdog Corporate Accountability found that 78 percent of the top 50 carbon-offset projects are likely junk.

That seemingly endless flow of reports has started to make an impact. The European Union is poised to crack down on unprovable carbon neutral claims that are often backed up by offsets. Even Shellwhich boasted in 2021 about having delivered the first-ever carbon neutral liquefied natural gas cargoquietly abandoned a $100 million-per-year plan last month to build out a pipeline of carbon credits en route to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Stateside, the Commodities Futures Trading Association has recently signaled that it intends to crack down on carbon credit fraud. Lawsuits are beginning to ramp up.

That increased scrutiny, though, has yet to spark a broader reckoning with what it means if carbon offsets cant be counted on to meet climate goals: a far more drastic effort to reduce emissions in real time.

Theres nothing happening today that wasnt happening five years ago. Its just that there was no one paying attention to it, said environmental economist Danny Cullenward, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvanias Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, whose research focuses on carbon offsets and storage.

The problems with offsets (a term of art describing a wide suite of activities) are definitional and fall into a few categories. Most have to do with the integrity of emission-reductions claims. Carbon credits are meant to correspond to emissions that have been avoidedsay, through preventing trees from being razedreduced, or removed, typically either through technologies such as direct air capture, which draws atmospheric carbon in through fans to then be stored in pipelines or injected underground, or natural methods like planting trees. Not much is natural, though, about buying up and seeding vast swathes of land with crops meant to serve a single purpose.

When it comes to credits generated from avoided emissions, theres often little way of knowing whether a tract of forest, for instance, was ever actually in danger of being developed. Landowners can say they might bulldoze trees to sell off creditseven if they had no real plans to do so. Polluters who buy credits should be able to prove whats known as additionalitythe idea that their purchase made possible emissions reductions that wouldnt have happened otherwise. But if the trees were never threatened, then the polluter who bought the credits hasnt actually counteracted any of its own emissions.

Third-party verifiers that judge the integrity of carbon credits have been rocked by scandals. Some two-thirds of credits on the voluntary carbon market were verified by the Verified Carbon Standard, which is administered by an NGO called Verra. A months-long investigation by The Guardian, the German outlet Die Zeit, and a nonprofit newsroom called SourceMaterial, published in January, revealed that at least 90 percent of VCS-approved credits generated in the rainforestpopular among major brands like Disney and Gucciwere worthless phantom credits that didnt correspond to any reductions. (Verra has refuted the allegations.)

Another major issue is who gets to claim carbon credits. If a wealthy country buys credits from a poorer one, does the country that financed those promised emissions reductions get to count them toward its climate goals? Or does the country where they were reduced? As of now, there are few protections against multiple parties staking a claim to the same credits.

Even more legitimate-seeming credits generated from forestry practices are likely unable to guarantee the emissions savings promised. Where a metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted from a coal plant will stay in the atmosphere permanently, with effects felt decades down the line, a metric ton of carbon stored in trees or avoided by saving more of them can be wiped out at virtually any point. True correspondence would require that carbon to be stored permanently. Thats a difficult promise to make. Even project operators who can honestly claim to be protecting as much carbon as they say, that isbased on the size and ecological makeup of the areas in questioncant guarantee that carbon will be stored indefinitely.

California learned firsthand how that can go wrong. The states cap-and-trade system is premised on big polluters, including oil and gas drillers, buying up permits that correspond to emissions avoided through the protection of its vast forests. Those purchases allow a firm to make up the difference between emissions reductions in their own operations and a declining, state-mandated cap on how much theyre allowed to emit.

Included in that system is a buffer stock of additional forest lands set aside by project developers as insurance should other credit-generating trees burn. That buffer was meant to provide 100 years of protection against wildfire risk for California forest offsets. But over the last 10 years, 95 percent of those reserves have gone up in flames, releasing between 5.7 million and 6.8 million metric tons of carbon since 2015. While the countrys largest property insurer has almost entirely stopped taking out new policies in California, citing wildfire risk, the state agency that oversees Californias carbon market still only requires forest offset project developers to set aside an additional 2 to 4 percent of trees as insurance against wildfire risk. As a Mendocino County property called Eddie Ranch burned in 2018, its owners filed paperwork with that agencythe California Air Resources Boardto be paid millions for credits generated from preserving trees that were actively burning. Months later, CARB approved the application, basing its decision on the state of the ranch before the fire, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The entire market is structured around a fundamental falsehood: that a ton of carbon we get from burning fossil fuels is identical to a ton of carbon stored in forests. That is 100 percent false, Cullenward told me. If you store carbon for less time than it takes to stabilize temperatures, that storage does not have any climate benefit.

Thats one consequence, he explains, of seeing the world like an economist. On paper, carbon stored in trees and whats emitted from a coal plant is all just carbon. Physical reality tells a different story. Companies relying on offset credits to meet net-zero goals typically only budget for cheap, low-quality projects likely to be worthless, or worse. High-quality offsets are exceedingly rare. More permanent carbon storage remains unproven at scale but is likely to be needed at gigaton scale, Cullenward says, just to stabilize temperatures.

After decades of scandals, there have been attempts to put some safeguards around carbon markets. Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement creates a new U.N.-backed carbon market open to governments and companies alike to trade credits. Standards for that are being developed by a supervisory body composed of members from each U.N. regional group, and key elements will need to be approved by the countries that convene at annual U.N. climate meetings.

Article 6.2 is meant to govern bilateral carbon tradingagreements reached between countries, as opposed to a market where companies and governments can shop around for offsets or offer them up for sale as needed. As of now, thats more of a Wild West, says Jonathan Crook, who tracks negotiations for the Brussels-based watchdog Carbon Market Watch. Countries can more or less do what they want as long as they agree to it, he said. There are very few rules that need to be upheld in terms of integrity and additionality.

Among the fears held by Carbon Market Watch and other advocates is that those transactions will turn into a black box. If changes agreed to at last years COP stick, countries will be able to keep details about trades confidential. While technical experts at the U.N. will be tasked with reviewing them, they would be forbidden from divulging information to the public. A report published by Carbon Market Watch this week puts forward a set of criteria for judging so-called negative emissions, emphasizing the need to ensure carbon is stored permanently and that such tools are used as a complement to rather than substitute for mitigation.

While bilateral trades can already happen, fully fleshed-out rules under 6.2 could stand to explode the market for such deals. As bad news about carbon offsets has multiplied, so too have troubling climate science and catastrophes fueled by rising temperatures. As pressure builds internationally, dramatic land grabs like the one Blue Carbon has pushed in Liberia could become more and more common. As of now, its all too likely that those could do more harm than good.
RICHMOND, Ind.  A Portland man convicted of killing his father was sentenced this week for a felony firearm conviction in Wayne Circuit Court.

In July, Jeremy W. Kelly, 51, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Jay Circuit Court.

In the Jay County case, he had been charged with murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury in the February 2022 slaying of 71-year-old Gary W. Kelly.

The victim died of "multiple blunt force injuries" suffered during a struggle in his Portland home along South Vine Street.

Kelly pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge in June after striking a deal with Jay County prosecutors. The 30-year sentence imposed by Judge Brian Hutchison was the maximum for a Level 2 felony conviction.

More: Portland man gets 30 years for killing his father

The day of his father's slaying, Kelly was arrested in Richmond, where he was found to have his father's wallet and credit cards.

Two firearms  a handgun and a shotgun  were also found in Kelly's vehicle at the time of his arrest.

Because of a record that included five prior felony convictions  for criminal confinement, battery with a deadly weapon, battery resulting in serious bodily injury, intimidation and battery against a public safety officer  Kelly is prohibited from possessing firearms.

Authorities said Kelly that day had also been in the Wayne County town of Milton, where he reportedly "began to yell at a female that he was the devil and to get into his car."

On May 30, the Portland man pleaded guilty in Wayne Circuit Court to unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, a Level 4 felony carrying up to 12 years in prison, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.

Judge April Drake this week imposed a nine-year sentence for Kelly's Wayne County convictions.

That term will be served after Kelly completes the 30-year sentence he received in Portland.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Portland man who killed father sentenced for Richmond gun conviction
PORTSMOUTH  The federal government has awarded the city $460,000 for studies tied to replacing the Bartlett Street railroad bridge and reworking the streets underpass.

The U.S. Department of Transportations Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements program will fund the studies necessary to see about replacing the 135-year-old girder bridge over Bartlett Street. The bridge has exceeded its service life and is now unable to hold industry standard freight cars of 286,000-pound gross weight, according to the Department of Transportation.

The city of Portsmouth has received a $460,000 federal grant to begin studies associated with the replacement of the 135-year-old Bartlett Street railroad bridge, which has exceeded its service life and can no longer hold industry standard freight trains.

The bridge runs along CSX Transportations Portsmouth location. The city will provide a 25% non-federal match for the project, according to the Department of Transportation.

The project aligns with the selection criteria by improving ability to meet existing or anticipated demand as it will help CSX and the city of Portsmouth prepare for future project phases to improve railroad operations, safer grade crossings, and enhance economic vitality to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the New Hampshire Port Authority Market Street Marine Terminal and other rail-served customers, the federal departments grant announcement reads.

A city announcement noted that U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg informed Mayor Deaglan McEachern of the grant in a phone call Monday.

Portsmouth poet laureate: Diannely Antigua says her trauma brings power to her writing

According to city leaders, the funding will also identify cost estimates for surface and safety improvements at three CSX Portsmouth branch public grade crossings on Barberry Lane, Maplewood Avenue and Green Street, in addition to the public crossing at Market Street on the CSX Newington Industrial Track.

This rail project supports the economic vitality of Portsmouth and of the State of New Hampshire by ensuring that efficient and reliable rail transportation can move products in and out of the Port of Portsmouth, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and other rail-served businesses in the city, McEachern said in a prepared statement. Railroads have been so central to our economy for the past two hundred years that there is a train depicted on the city seal.

The Federal Railroad Administration released the grants on Monday, funding that will support 70 rail improvement projects across 35 states and Washington D.C.

The $1.43 billion in funding is the largest ever funding total distributed via the grant program.

These projects will make American rail safer, more reliable, and more resilient, delivering tangible benefits to dozens of communities where railroads are located, and strengthening supply chains for the entire country, Buttigieg said in a statement.

The Bartlett Street railroad bridge currently has a clearing of 12 feet. The project would raise the vertical clearance height to 14 feet, in addition to relocating Bartlett Street and its utilities to a new alignment beneath the new railroad bridge.

The railroad bridge project was the only New Hampshire awardee in the fiscal year 2022 grant cycle.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth's Bartlett Street railroad bridge study gets federal funds
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON)  President Joe Biden is waking up at San Franciscos Fairmont hotel today as he starts his second day in the Bay Area. On Wednesday, Biden will be attending several campaign events.

The president landed at Moffett Federal Airfield in Santa Clara County Tuesday afternoon before taking a helicopter to San Francisco to attend a couple of private fundraisers. The president also stopped at another private fundraiser in Atherton along the way.

On Wednesday, Biden plans to meet with scientists on the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, but there will be a couple more private fundraisers as he seeks reelection in 2024.

Biden is quite familiar with the Bay Area as this is his third visit in six months. Six months ago, he was touring storm damage, and three months ago, he was meeting with tech leaders to learn more about artificial intelligence as well as campaigning.

Road closures were in effect surrounding the Fairmont hotel overnight, where Biden was sleeping. More closures are expected Wednesday as the presidential motorcade moves to fundraisers.

After leaving the Bay Area Wednesday evening, President Biden is expected to visit Phoenix on his next stop.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Phoenix ahead of a planned speech on democracy and a tribute to his friend, the late Sen. John McCain .

As usual, a presidential visit to Arizona is no accidental gathering. Heres why Biden is making the trip.

The Electoral College math

Most obviously, Biden, a Democrat, is running for reelection and Arizona is one of the few swing states on the presidential map.

Its not lost on Biden or his campaign team that he won Arizona by about 11,000 votes in 2020, the smallest margin of any state he carried. The endorsement Biden received from Cindy McCain , John McCain's widow, may have helped persuade a sliver of Republicans to vote for Biden in a race settled by so few.

The nation remains deeply divided over politics, but Democrats or Republicans have strongholds over most states. With a little more than a year to go before voting gets underway, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin figure to get outsized attention from the leaders of both parties because their partisan lean is less clear than most.

That means Arizonans can expect this weeks trip will likely be one of several from Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other high-profile Democratic surrogates as part of an effort to keep the state and its 11 Electoral College votes in its column for 2024.

Live coverage: President Joe Biden visits Phoenix for private fundraiser, public tribute to John McCain

McCain was a friend, Arizona legend

Beyond that, Biden had a long and real friendship with McCain, R-Ariz., who died in 2018 from brain cancer.

Biden went to the Senate after the 1972 elections and McCain, the nations most prominent prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, became liaison to the Senate for the Navy five years later.

Their lengthy Senate careers overlapped for 22 years, beginning with McCains first election to that chamber after the 1986 elections and running through 2009, when Biden became vice president. Their relationship endured even the pressures of the 2008 presidential race when Biden was Democrat Barack Obama's running mate and McCain was the GOP nominee.

Both men had reputations in the Senate as gregarious lawmakers and were products of an era when crossing the partisan aisle for social reasons was not uncommon. They both had keen interests in foreign affairs, even if their domestic agendas were far apart.

Biden eulogized McCain at his funeral service in Phoenix. McCain knew what his cancer diagnosis meant and knew his standing in the nations political landscape. He wanted Biden for that role and knew how others would interpret Bidens presence in Arizona.

Yes, it had clear political overtones, but it also reflected a friendship and civility in public service that both men wanted memorialized for history.

Biden posthumously awarded to McCain the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of McCain's military and political service.

Earlier this month, Biden visited a McCain memorial in Vietnam near where the former fighter pilot was shot down in 1967 in another reminder of his ties to McCain.

Bidens brand is on the line

Beyond their personal friendship, McCain and Biden also shared a deep commitment to American-style democracy in a way that has relevance to contemporary U.S. politics.

If Bidens 2020 victory over then-President Donald Trump was about restoring a sense of normalcy to the White House, expect Biden to frame their potential 2024 rematch as a referendum on democracy itself.

In that sense, McCain  a legend in Arizona politics who won six Senate elections in the state, a man who stood firm against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who condemned authoritarianism around the world and famously feuded with Trump  is an easy association Biden wants to preserve.

Five years after his death, McCains political legacy is tailor-made for Bidens message to voters in 2023.

Trump is under indictment over his efforts to overturn his election loss, and Arizona played a key role in the plan to sidestep voters. Biden has avoided commenting directly on Trumps legal situation, but discussing democracy in one of the states where Trump tried hardest to reverse the results is a powerful statement on its own.

Bidens visit comes on the night Republican presidential contenders  with the notable exception of Trump, the GOP frontrunner who will again skip such an event  gather in California for their second debate. The next day he will offer the kind of high-profile counterprogramming being president brings.

It also builds on Bidens speech about democracy at Independence Hall in Philadelphia last year.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: President Joe Biden visits Arizona to honor John McCain. Here's why
President Joe Biden made a quick visit to the Phoenix area for a private campaign fundraiser and a public tribute to the legacy of John McCain , who represented Arizona for six terms in the U.S. Senate.

Biden, a longtime senator from Delaware, served with McCain for years. Then he and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigned against McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, in the 2008 presidential race.

Biden's son, Beau, died of brain cancer like McCain, and Biden spoke at McCain's 2018 memorial service in Phoenix.

McCain's widow, Cindy, endorsed Biden for president against Donald Trump in 2020 and was appointed as a U.S. ambassador in his administration.

Here's a recap of the trip to honor McCain.

Presidential visit: Biden praises John McCain, excoriates Trump and 'MAGA extremists'

Library honoring McCain to include archives, think tank offices

The new McCain National Library announced by President Joe Biden in connection with his visit this week to Arizona will house the late Sen. John McCains archives, Arizona State University officials said.

The 80,000-square-foot library will include a visitors center and offices for the McCain Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. It will be located on a piece of land located near Mill Avenue and Curry Road, university officials said, across Tempe Town Lake and north of ASUs Tempe campus.

Theres no timeline for the librarys development, officials said, but they plan to work with the McCain family, Gov. Katie Hobbs and community stakeholders in coming months to determine exact design and construction plans.

Meanwhile, ASU leaders intend to launch a fundraising campaign to support the project, which also will receive federal funds from a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed early in Bidens presidency.

Ultimately, university officials said they envision the space as a solutions center and gathering spot to learn more about leadership, democracy and national security.

John McCain is an important symbol of American democracy, and he holds a special place of respect and appreciation in Arizona and with Arizona State University, ASU President Michael Crow said. We will work with others around the country and in the community to take this unique portion of the ASU Tempe campus and create a place that honors his extraordinary life and legacy, serves the principles he devoted his life and career to, and carries that legacy forward for future generations to learn from.

 Sasha Hupka

Handful of protesters demonstrate outside Biden event

About seven protestors stood across the street from the Tempe Center for the Arts on Rio Salado Parkway after President Joe Biden finished speaking about his late friend Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the threat to democracy posed by "MAGA extremists."

The group was decked out in red, white and blue clothing and carried two American flags, a "MAGA" flag and several signs, one of which said "Traitor Joe."

 Morgan Fischer

Biden blasts 'MAGA extremists' for undermining military

President Joe Biden condemned Thursday who he called "MAGA extremists" for hurting the U.S. military.

Speaking at the Tempe Center for the Arts, Biden zeroed in on former President Donald Trump for recently suggesting that Gen. Mark Milley, the outgoing chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserved the death penalty. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., echoed Trump by saying Milley should be hanged.

"This is the United States of America. And although I don't believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening," Biden said. " ... Hardly any Republican called out such hated statements."

Biden also singled out for criticism Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who has been blocking military promotions in a dispute with the Pentagon over abortion travel policy.

"MAGA extremists claim support of our troops but they're harming military readiness, troop morale, freezing pay, freezing military families in limbo," he said.

Biden also recalled a report that said Trump referred to servicemembers and those killed and wounded in combat as "suckers and losers." And he referred to Trump's attempts to denigrate the late Sen. John McCain's military record. McCain, R-Ariz., was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war.

"I'm not making this up. I know we all try not to remember, but that's what he said. He called servicemen suckers and losers," Biden said. "Was John a sucker? Was my son Beau, who lived next to a burn pit for a year, came home and died? Was he a sucker for volunteering to serve his country?"

The "MAGA extremists" have made it clear where they stand, so it's up to the rest of Americans to make it clear where they stand, Biden said.

 Dan Nowicki

Biden defends American Democracy, excoriates Trump and his supporters

Speaking in Tempe, President Joe Biden mounted a defense of American Democracy and blasted former President Donald Trump and the "MAGA Movement" as an existential threat.

"Seizing power. Concentrating power. Attempting to abuse power," Biden said. "Purging and packing key institutions. Spewing conspiracy theories. Spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way. Inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe. Weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.

"This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions, but it's also a threat to the character of our nation, that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans in common cause," he continued.

 Dan Nowicki

Cindy McCain recalls how Biden introduced her to John McCain

Cindy McCain, the widow of Sen. John McCain, recalled Thursday how now-President Joe Biden introduced her to her husband.

At the time, McCain, a former POW during the Vietnam War, was the U.S. Navy's liaison to the Senate. He was in Hawaii on his way to Asia with a Senate delegation. Cindy McCain was there on spring break with her parents. They all wound up at the same reception.

"During the course of that event, There were two people that came over to me and said you have got to meet this man in this room," McCain said in introducing Biden at the Tempe Center for the Arts. "President Biden and Mrs. Biden introduced me to my husband, and I am so grateful for that."

In his remarks, Biden, a former long-serving senator from Delaware, said he remembered that McCain was immediately smitten with Cindy McCain but was hesitant to introduce himself to her.

"I take credit," Biden said.

Biden said he also was the guy who encouraged McCain to run for Congress in Arizona as a Republican. McCain won his first of two U.S. House terms in 1982 and then won the retiring Sen. Barry Goldwater's Senate seat in 1986. He would go on to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 but lost to the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Biden.

Biden said he told McCain he could do the job on Capitol Hill and was just worried that he would do it too well.

 Dan Nowicki

Biden calls saving American Democracy 'central cause' of his presidency

President Joe Biden on Thursday is expected to detail how "the defense, the protection and the preservation of American Democracy" is the "central cause" of his presidency, according to excerpts of his remarks released ahead of his appearance in Tempe.

He also will denounce the "MAGA movement," a reference to supporters of former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

From Gettysburg to my inaugural address, to the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and Union Station in Washington, Ive spoken about the danger of election denialism and political violence and the battle for the soul of America," Biden will say according to the White House excerpts.

Now today in Phoenix, Arizona, at an institute devoted to the defense of democracy named in honor of a true patriot, Im here to speak about another threat to our democracy that we too often ignore: the threat to our institutions, to our Constitution itself, and the very character of our nation.

Biden is in Arizona to salute the service of his late friend and former colleague Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The creation of a new McCain Library at Arizona State University was announced earlier Thursday.

I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first. Our commitment should be no less because democracy should unite all Americans  regardless of political affiliation," Biden says in the written remarks.

But there is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA Movement.

Not every Republican  not even the majority of Republicans  adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology. I know because Ive been able to work with Republicans my whole career. But there is no question that todays Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American Democracy as we know it.

 Dan Nowicki

Biden to create library in Arizona honoring John McCain

As he pays tribute to John McCain on Thursday, President Biden will also announce new federal funds being directed to build the McCain Library, which the White House described as a new multi-purpose facility to provide education, work, and health monitoring programs to underserved communities in the state.

The money comes from a massive $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed in the early months of Bidens presidency, and the project is in partnership with the with the McCain Institute and Arizona State University.

The late senators wife, Cindy McCain, other members of their family, Gov. Katie Hobbs, and the states representatives on Capitol Hill will be at the event commemorating McCain, whose intolerance for the abuse of power and faith in America sets a powerful example to live by, the White House said.

A senior White House official, who insisted on anonymity to preview Biden's Thursday remarks, said his Arizona address will highlight the importance of Americas institutions in preserving our democracy and the need for constant loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

Biden's appearance at the center that honors McCain will also tie into the theme, with the president set to urge Americans to never walk away from the sacrifices generations of Americans have made to defend our democracy.

 Associated Press

Biden uses John McCain image in new television campaign ad

The late Sen. John McCain appears momentarily in a new campaign ad for President Joe Biden emphasizing bipartisanship and cites several legislative achievements that included Arizona help.

The 60-second spot, dubbed The Way, is slated to run on national cable TV and local newscasts in seven swing states. It comes as Biden pays tribute to McCain, R-Ariz., during an event in Tempe.

The ad opens with a montage of photos of Biden with former President Ronald Reagan, former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and a picture with McCain on the set of Meet the Press.

The narrator notes, There was a time in America when we expected leaders to put people over politics, when, instead of shouting, people from different parties talked and listened.

It goes on to argue that Biden holds firm to that political style and claims hes signed hundreds of bipartisan laws, though many are low-profile items, such as renaming post offices.

But it does single out several high-profile laws that had a strong Arizona nexus.

It mentions the national infrastructure law, alludes to the high-tech manufacturing law and to strengthen gun safety.

Biden in Arizona: President Biden is honoring John McCain in Arizona. Here's why

All were, as the ad notes, bipartisan, and Arizonas senators played significant roles in shaping them.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., was a Democrat when she and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, rescued an infrastructure bill that had languished after direct talks between the White House and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., had a major hand in an advanced manufacturing law that subsidizes semiconductor chip production in the U.S. Seventeen Republicans wound up supporting the bill, which was led by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Sinema helped convene bipartisan talks after a massacre at a Texas elementary school that directly led to an infusion of funding for mental health services and slowed gun purchases for younger adults.

Kelly, who has long been a central figure on gun-control issues, was involved in the group that found rare, bipartisan support on firearms.

The ad is scheduled to run in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Americans expect their elected officials to be their voice in Washington and get big things done to make their lives better, said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the Biden campaign. That is exactly what Joe Biden has done throughout his time in public service.  President Biden has shown that we can get big things done when we put aside our differences for the American people, and hes running to finish the job and continue being a president for all Americans.

 Ronald J. Hansen

Biden greeted by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego at airport

After departing Air Force One at 8:15 p.m., President Joe Biden was briefly greeted by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego before entering the presidential motorcade.

The presidential motorcade by 8:23 p.m. had completely departed the Lincoln J. Ragsdale Executive Tower tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Biden is set to appear Thursday at Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, Arizona.

 Morgan Fischer

Air Force One lands in Phoenix, with president aboard

At 8:05 p.m., President Joe Biden landed in Air Force One at the Lincoln J. Ragsdale executive terminal of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport under light clouds but clear skies.

His arrival in Phoenix comes in advance of a speech in memory of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain and democracy Thursday morning at Tempe Center for the Arts.

 Morgan Fischer

Watch out for these downtown Phoenix road, light-rail closures

Phoenix residents can expect road and travel closures because of President Joe Biden's expected arrival in Arizona on Wednesday, Sept. 27, ahead of a speech to honor John McCain, according to a news release from Downtown Phoenix.

Here's what residents can look out for as they begin their daily commute.

Road closures

Downtown Phoenix said the following roadways will be impacted now until Thursday, Sept. 28, at 3 p.m. and that business and pedestrian access will be maintained in the area.

Northbound Central Avenue closed at Adams Street.

Northbound First Street closed just north of Washington Street.

Southbound First Street closed at Van Buren Street.

Monroe Street closed between Second Street and First Avenue.

Light rail closures

Phoenix residents using downtown transit should plan delays, according to Valley Metro. Riders should track track light rail vehicles on the Valley Metro app.

From Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 12:15 p.m., to Thursday, Sept. 28, at 3 p.m., the light rail service will experience closures.

Valley Metro said the following Westbound stations in downtown Phoenix are closed: Third Street/ Washington, Washington/Central Avenue and Van Buren/Central Avenue.

 Abigail Celaya

State Senate President Warren Petersen criticizes Biden over border

Ahead of President Joe Bidens stop in Arizona this week, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, lashed out at the president for not securing the Mexican border.

Like with other visits Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have made, the state Republican Party is criticizing the administration for ignoring illegal border crossings while focusing on other issues, in this case, a campaign event.

The crisis on Arizonas southern border is out of control, putting our citizens, communities and law enforcement in grave danger, Petersen said in a video posted to social media.

August border encounters reached more than 322,000. That's the highest monthly total in U.S. history!!



As Joe Biden visits Arizona this week, Senate President @votewarren has a message for him: DO YOUR JOB. WAKE UP. GO VISIT THE BORDER. pic.twitter.com/Dg0Gwy2ovD  AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) September 27, 2023

He said the president was out of touch with everyday Americans, and said that federal Border Patrol agents are releasing detainees into communities, something that has even drawn scorn recently as far away as New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams said earlier this month the issue would destroy the city.

"Every single week we have human smugglers, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, child sex traffickers and terrorists entering our state from the southern border, Petersen said.

 Ryan Randazzo

Biden's second trip to Arizona in less than two months

President Joe Biden was in Arizona just last month to designate about 1,562 square miles near the Grand Canyon as a national monument.

State Republicans in Arizona announced a plan to sue the administration over that move.

The goal, according to the administration, is to preserve Native American cultural sites and protect the region from new uranium mining.

The monument is called Baaj Nwaavjo Itah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Its name comes from the Havasupai words baaj nwaavjo for where Indigenous peoples roam, and the Hopi words itah kukveny for our ancestral footprints.

It includes thousands of sites sacred to the Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Paiute, Navajo, Yavapai-Apache, Zuni and Colorado River Indian Tribes.

The Biden administration also announced it would spend $44 million to strengthen climate resilience across the national parks system. Arizona's Saguaro National Park will receive money to restore desert habitats by removing buffelgrass, an invasive plant species that displaces native plants and fuels destructive wildfires.

 Ryan Randazzo

What is Joe Biden doing here?

President Joe Biden will deliver remarks Thursday saluting the legacy and service of the late Sen. John McCain.

McCain, R-Ariz., who was elected to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and six in the Senate, twice ran for president and died in 2018 from cancer while still in office.

Biden is expected to discuss McCain and "the work we must do together to strengthen our democracy."

Also Thursday, Biden will attend a fundraiser hosted by Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., as he sets his sights on next years presidential election.

Tickets for the event start at $3,300, and the location is only disclosed to attendees.

 Ryan Randazzo

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: President Joe Biden honors John McCain with library at ASU
CAIRO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat has met with Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs Helene Budliger Artieda in Egypt's resort of Sharm El-Sheikh to discuss ways to boost bilateral economic cooperation.

The talks were held on the sidelines of the eighth annual meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which both countries are non-regional members, the Egyptian Ministry of International Cooperation said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The two sides discussed efforts to enhance cooperation in the area of climate action and transition to a green economy," said the statement.

Al-Mashat emphasized the depth of development cooperation between the two sides that has extended to about 40 years, adding that Egypt aspires to elevate relations with Switzerland "to broader horizons."

The Egyptian minister also highlighted his country's efforts to mobilize green investments for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

For her part, Artieda underscored the importance of economic cooperation with Egypt and emphasized "Switzerland's keenness to further promote trade and investment with Egypt."

The two-day annual meeting of the AIIB kicked off on Monday in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh under the theme of "Sustainable Growth in a Challenging World." 
CASTELVETRANO, Italy (Reuters) - Italian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery, was laid to rest on Wednesday in his hometown in Sicily, with only a handful of family members allowed to attend.

Messina Denaro, seized in January after three decades on the run, died on Monday of cancer in a hospital in central Italy, taking to the grave the secrets of his mafioso past.

His coffin was driven overnight across half of Italy, escorted by the police.

The hearse arrived in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano after dawn and entered the cemetery by a side gate, skirting residential areas to avoid any public demonstrations of affection or anger.

Seven people walked behind the hearse, one carrying a bunch of yellow flowers. Three cars of close relatives also drove in before police closed the entrance to prevent waiting journalists from following. There was no religious service.

Among those present were Messina Denaro's daughter, Lorenza Alagna, who he only met following his capture. The mobster's two sisters and brother were also there.

Messina Denaro, 61, was found guilty of numerous crimes, including helping plan the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino -- killings that shocked Italy and sparked a crackdown on the Sicilian mob.

He was also held responsible for bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 that killed 10 people, as well as helping organise the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo, 12, to dissuade his father from giving evidence against the mafia.

The boy was held for two years, then murdered and his body dissolved in acid.

The mayor of Castelvetrano, Enzo Alfano, has been highly critical of Messina Denaro, saying he had wrecked the reputation of the town, stunting the local economy.

"It will take decades more before we can put an end to ... a sometimes rampant culture of illegality, of impunity, that he and his acolytes and others before them cultivated for too long," Alfano told reporters earlier this week.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Christina Fincher)
MILWAUKEE  After the University of Wisconsin-Parkside concluded that one of its tenured professors had "engaged in fraudulent grading" within a six-year time span, she quietly resigned at the end of the spring semester.

But her teaching career didn't end there. This summer, Sahar Bahmani taught at UW-Milwaukee, another university within the same college system. University officials offered her a one-year, $125,000 non-faculty teaching position to stay on for this school year.

She resigned from UW-Milwaukee in early August, three weeks after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network, requested records on the case. The university's chancellor Deborah Ford, who was employed at the same time as Bahmani, left UW-Parkside earlier this year and moved to a chancellor role at Indiana University Southeast.

Bahmani said she never agreed to the grade inflation allegations and Ford told her she'd keep her record "clean." Ford declined an interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

UW-Parkside received no student complaints about Bahmani in her final semester of teaching, said Pitsch, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin system. Both UW-Parkside and UWM are reviewing her grades in other courses.

Sahar Bahmani

What did the University of Wisconsin-Parkside find?

Officials from the school's business department found that Bahmani gave most of the students who she taught in an online degree program the highest possible grade even when they turned in partial work or no work at all, according to university records obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

Bahmani said the grading errors were due to medical issues, confusion with the grading system, and that her actions didn't amount to "grade fraud."

"I did not do any of this intentionally and the term fraud has the element of intent," she wrote in response to written questions. "Doctors know and documented it was not in my control at all."

The executive committee of the university's business department feared her grading errors in the online program would damage the business school's reputation, jeopardize its accreditation, and threaten the integrity of the entire institution, according to a complaint sent to Chancellor Deborah Ford in Nov. 2022.

"By falsifying grades, Dr. Bahmani has exposed us all to the real possibility that people in the community will begin questioning whether any UW-Parkside degree is legitimate," the complaint reads.

In the complaint, the department also alleges she assigned herself to 11 courses in disciplines she wasn't academically qualified to teach and abused her power for financial gain. Bahmani was the head of the degree program.

How did the case come to light?

Casey Warning logged into his University of Wisconsin-Parkside student account last summer and noticed something odd. His transcript showed he had completed his business law and ethics course and earned the highest grade  except he hadn't yet turned in any work for the class.

Warning told his professor about the error, according to emails reviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Then in the fall, he noticed the wrong grade still showed up on his transcript.

"I am confused, why are these grading issues yet again (happening)?" he wrote in an email to business college leaders. "My moral and ethical compass doesn't allow me to take credit for things that I have not done."

Warning didn't know it at the time, but the grading errors he flagged set off an extensive investigation into Bahmani's grading patterns.

Warning is still working toward his Flex degree, but he's disappointed Bahmani's actions went unnoticed for so long.

Professor landed job at UW-Milwaukee

A complaint is the first step in the UW-Parkside faculty disciplinary process.

The next step is for an investigation led by the university's chancellor. Because Bahmani "accepted the complaint allegations as true," the university did not investigate the case, according to university records. She offered to resign at the end of the school year.

Bahmani remained on the university's payroll for another six months and taught at least two courses in the spring 2023 semester.

UWM officials didn't know about the UW-Parkside investigation at the time it offered her the extended role in June and would not have had the university known, said Pitsch. UWM declined to provide the reference letters Bahmani included in her application to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, citing an exemption in the state public records law.

Bahmani declined to say who her references were, why she resigned from the UWM job, and whether she plans to seek a teaching position in the future or is leaving academia for good.

Bahmani: University officials agreed to keep her personnel file 'clean'

Bahmani told the Journal Sentinel that Ford told her half the department complaint was "meritless" and agreed to keep Bahmani's personnel file "clean." The complaint was not in Bahmani's employee file and was obtained by the Journal Sentinel through a separate request.

Pitsch said UW-Parkside has established stricter oversight practices for the online program in which Bahmani taught.

The UW System anticipates updating its hiring policies by the end of 2023 to minimize the chances of other UW System universities hiring employees who engage in misconduct," he said.

"The actions of Dr. Sahar Bahmani do not reflect the values or ethical practices of UW-Parkside, its Business Department, or the UW System," he said in a statement. "When a faculty committee presented its findings, the university secured Dr. Bahmanis resignation."

Bahmani said she never accepted the complaint's allegations as true and that business college leaders should have supervised her more closely to catch the errors.

Despite UW-Parkside later confirming the department's allegations of fraudulent grading were "substantially accurate," Bahmani described her department as hostile and out to get her with an unfair, biased investigation.

Complaint: 'Bahmani has basically been running a scam operation'

Her former department had a different take.

There is no other way to put this: Bahmani has basically been running a scam operation, defrauding students of their tuition without providing any learning in return, a professor on the department's executive committee said in the complaint. The sheer contempt and disregard by Bahmani for her chosen profession of teaching is truly breathtaking."

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Bahmani earned her undergraduate economics degree from UW-Madison and her doctorate in economics from UW-Milwaukee. She joined UW-Parkside in 2011.

By 2021 to 2022, Bahmani was the university's second highest-paid professor, earning $185,000, according to UW System salary records. That included a $30,000 stipend for serving as director of UW-Parkside's online Flex degree program and more than $30,000 for teaching 14 Flex courses, including 11 the complaint said were beyond her subject expertise.

Grade problems occurred in UW-Parkside's online Flex degree program

Bahmani's grading errors involved the Flex program, a competency-based online degree program geared toward working adults.

UW-Parkside data show nearly half of Flex students fail on their first try, requiring them to re-take in another subscription period. Instructors are paid based on the number of students enrolled in the course per month. Only 18 students have graduated from 2019 through 2022, including at least one student who took Bahmanis course without submitting all required assignments, according to the complaint.

University records show Bahmani awarded the highest grade to all 75 students enrolled in three of her courses between September 2021 and August 2022 despite 18 students submitting partial or no work.

Officials studied the 296 assignments students turned in for those classes and found that 295 of them received 100% scores, even on quizzes with incorrect answers.

For 10 other Flex courses taught over the same time period by multiple instructors including Bahmani, Bahmani awarded the highest grade to 85% of her students while others did for 41% of students.

Confronted with the grading irregularities by university officials last October, Bahmani offered explanations the complaint characterized as evasive, inconsistent, and, in some cases, blatantly false.

Bahmani also painted a chaotic picture of the Flex program, with few faculty covering too many courses and students learning by watching YouTube videos. The UW System denied her account.

She also said she was confused with the online grading system and believed the computer would automatically remove students not submitting assignments from the course. Her colleagues were skeptical of the explanation because she had used the online system for many years without raising questions, the records show.

A few days after meeting with the department, Bahmani resigned from the Flex program, citing medical issues.

The University's business department estimates Bahmani's grading practices cost UW-Parkside $202,500 in lost tuition revenue from students who didn't pass courses and should have had to re-enroll  about 28 students.

The university plans to offer them a free and voluntary retake option, said Pitsch.

UW-Parkside admits to little oversight of program to accrediting body of university

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the accrediting body for UW-Parkside's business school, received and reviewed a complaint about Bahmani and sent a "letter of concern" to officials in June.

In an Aug. 1 report to accreditors, UW-Parkside admitted there was little oversight of the program but outlined corrective measures, such as more individuals involved in course assignments and quarterly report reviews.

The accrediting body did not revoke accreditation.

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin fraudulent grade scandal: Professor hired by another school
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- New analysis revealed in court Wednesday appears to link the accused Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect to one of the victims in the case.

Rex Heuermann's cheek swab was the subject of a court appearance.

The 60-year-old walked in with his wrists cuffed behind him, showing a new haircut and speaking for the first time. He told the judge he spends several hours a day in jail reviewing evidence.

READ MORE: Co-worker: Rex Heuermann once unnerved her by tracking her down on a cruise: "I told you I could find you anywhere"

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney claims that DNA on the pizza box that the alleged serial killer discarded matches Heuermann's cheek swab, and thus links him to a hair from one of the victims.

"The buccal swab of the defendant matches the DNA profile from that of the abandonment sample from the pizza box," Tierney said.

Defense attorney Michael Brown said he wants to see the proof.

"That's assuming a lot of different things, right? Because DNA can be transferred," Brown said.

READ MORE: Gilgo Beach murder suspect, Rex Heuermann, being investigated for 1989 death of Carmen Vargas

Brown said he's still waiting for thousands of pages of discovery, including video of the house, guns, a storage unit, the seized vehicle, and grand jury testimony, "which says there's a pizza crust and they talked about burner phones and talked about 'pinging' in New York City."

More than a decade after the remains of 10 victims were found off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, Heuermann has been charged with murder in three cases and is a prime suspect in a fourth.

"We're working on the fourth Gilgo victim and now we have expanded our investigation to include other bodies that were recovered in that area," Tierney said.

READ MORE: 2 sex workers describe "violent" encounters with Gilgo Beach suspect, official says

When asked about Heuermann's mood and demeanor, Brown said, "Well, he's somebody who has from the beginning has said he's not guilty. I made it a point to tell him, 'Just get through this, Rex. Get to the point where we can go trial, and don't show emotion.' He's a fella who was working, has never been arrested, has a wife and children."

Heuermann's wife has since filed for divorce.

He is also asking the court to allow his 280 seized firearms be sold to benefit his financially struggling family.

Heuermann is due back in court on Nov. 15.

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Step into any classroom during winter, and the sounds of sniffling noses prevails. School communities are a place where infection can quickly sweep through the population. Unlike the common cold, COVID-19 recently illuminated the risk students have of coming down with a serious disease.

For this reason, Vermont requires students in public and independent schools to be vaccinated against certain preventable diseases. However, exemptions, given for medical or religious reasons, can cause a school community to not reach coverage levels that provide "herd immunity" for the vulnerable or unvaccinated.

How protected are Vermont students? The Vermont Department of Health released vaccine data for K-12 schools in a new dashboard that shows rates for the past six school years.

A single-dose of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine.

The data show most schools in the state have reached more than 90% immunization rates. However, there are some that are well below that could create a climate for an outbreak if a disease like measles, for instance, was introduced.

What immunizations are required for Vermont students?

Vermont students require five doses of DTaP to protect against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; four doses of the polio vaccine; two doses of MMR for measles, mumps and rubella; three doses of hepatitis B vaccine; and two doses of varicella to protect against chickenpox unless the child has documentation they have contracted chickenpox.

Seventh-grade students need an additional DTaP dose and students living on campus in a boarding school-type environment also require one to two doses of meningococcal (MenACWY) vaccine depending upon their age.

How do the vaccine exemptions work in Vermont schools

Parents can, however, obtain an exemption for their child to attend school without receiving one or more vaccinations for medical or religious reasons. In 2015, Vermont removed philosophical exemptions as an accepted reason for not being vaccinated.

In the case of a medical exemption, a child may be allergic to an ingredient in the vaccine, for instance. Both types of exemption require the parent to fill out a form, and religious exemptions require a new form every year. The parent must also sign a document that explains the risks of not being vaccinated and that their child may be excluded from school if an outbreak occurs.

A student may be provisionally admitted to school, however, if they have a plan for completing their vaccination schedule within six months.

What about COVID-19 vaccinations?

COVID vaccination was tracked by Vermont schools when vaccinations were first offered for the disease, while the state of emergency persisted and until much of the population was covered. Shortly thereafter, parents were asked to fill out a COVID vaccine attestation for their children but that practice has since dropped.

Becca McCray, an Edmunds Middle School nurse, answers questions from students at the Burlington school, April 2021.

The challenge with COVID and the flu, as well, is both vaccines require seasonal doses and subsequent boosters. Because of this, they are more difficult to monitor or enforce. Seasonal vaccinations aren't required in order to attend school, and, therefore, are not tracked on the health department's vaccine dashboard.

What level of vaccine coverage protects a school from the risk of an outbreak?

The health department would like to see every student up to date on recommended vaccines, excluding those who have a medical reason not to (about 0.2% of the population), according to Patsy Kelso, the state's epidemiologist for infectious disease.

Immunizations prevent an illness from being caught or spread and also keep students in school, she said. Kelso gave the example of a child exposed to pertussis  whooping cough  who is not vaccinated against it: that child may be excluded from school for up to 21 days or at minimum five days if being treated with antibiotics.

"Of the diseases that can be prevented with routine childhood vaccines, measles is the most infectious," Kelso said. "It spreads very effectively with even short periods of limited contact, such as sitting in the same room." She said at least 95% of students need to be vaccinated against measles to prevent an outbreak.

When is 'herd immunity' achieved

Herd immunity is achieved when a high number of people in a community are vaccinated and it makes person-to-person spread unlikely. Laura Ann Nicolai, who is the deputy state epidemiologist and senior infectious disease manager, said achieving herd immunity in schools protects some of the most vulnerable.

"This is important because a very small percentage of children cannot be vaccinated due to specific underlying medical conditions (such as severe immunosuppression or anaphylactic allergies)," she wrote in an email. "When these individuals are surrounded by a well-vaccinated community, they receive the benefits of community immunity."

Nicolai said there are still risks even with high vaccine rates. "Even when overall vaccine coverage is high, herd immunity is threatened when pockets of individuals who are not immunized interact with one another."

A young child receives a vaccination.

Here are herd immunity percentages for different preventable diseases, according to the health department:

Measles  95%

Mumps  75% to 86%

Rubella  83% to 94%

Diphtheria  75% to 80%

Pertussis  90% to 94%

Varicella  86% to 91%

Polio  80% to 86%

Even though mumps and rubella have lower herd immunity threshold percentages than measles, the MMR vaccine covers all three and requires higher vaccine rates to protect against measles. In the case of diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus a childhood vaccination doesn't provide lifelong protection so adults need boosters.

Tetanus doesn't require herd immunity as it doesn't spread from person to person.

How many Vermont students are vaccinated

For the 2022/2023 school year, 94% were fully vaccinated among the 81,910 students in Vermont public and independent K-12 schools. There was a 5% difference when comparing public and independent schools, at 95% and 90% respectively. There are around 9,000 independent school students in Vermont.

These fully immunized rates track students who have all of their required vaccines and doses.

If a student missed just one vaccine or one dose, they would not have been counted as fully immunized but are still counted for the individual vaccines they received. For this reason, many of the vaccine percentages are higher than the fully immunized percentages. For varicella, polio, MMR, Hep B and the DTap vaccine, about 97% of public students were vaccinated for each, while independent rates were around 93% for each.

Who is getting vaccinated: Are COVID vaccine concerns impacting flu-shot rates? Here's what the data says.

Exemptions given during the same year were 3% of the population for religious reasons and 0.2% for medical reasons, while 3% of students received provisional admittance.

Comparing rates for the past six school years, public school vaccination rates got a 1% increase in 2019-2020, then returned to 95%. Independent schools have ranged from 89% to 91% in that time period, receiving a 1% increase in 2019-2020 and again in 2020-2021 before settling in at 90% for the past two school years.

School nurse Sophia Boyle Hall chats with Averill Scott, a third grader at Miller's Run School. Hall is the Kingdom East School District's COVID Coordinator and the President of the Vermont State School Nurses' Association.

What about the vaccination rates at the Chittenden County schools

Chittenden County schools as a whole received "greater than 95%" coverage both for fully immunized and individual vaccine rates in 2022-2023. The greater than 95% rate seemed to be the highest the dashboard would indicate for rates by county.

For individual schools, the highest percentage indicated on the dashboard was "greater than 90%." A school must have at least 50 students to appear on the dashboard. Residential schools  ones that offer a boarding option  also require meningococcal vaccination, but those percentages were only provided in the dashboard if that school had more than 50 students living on campus.

Among the Chittenden County public and private schools in 2022-2023, four had fully immunized rates that were less than 90%. They were Lake Champlain Waldorf School in Shelburne at 73%, Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington at 85%, The Schoolhouse in South Burlington at 87%, and Winooski Middle School at 89%.

Vermont independent schools with the lowest vaccination rates

These independent schools had the five lowest percentages for "fully immunized" in the 2022-2023 school year. However, specific vaccine rates achieved herd immunity levels in some instances for all but the two lowest schools.

Orchard Valley Waldorf School in East Montpelier  38%

Grace Christian School in Bennington  56%

Rutland Area Christian School  67%

Mount Mansfield Winter Academy in Stowe  68%

Red Cedar School in Bristol  71%

Vermont public schools with the lowest vaccination rates

Here are the five public schools in Vermont with the lowest fully immunized rates, however, all reached herd immunity levels for at least a couple of the individual diseases.

Woodbury Elementary  78%

Marlboro Elementary  81%

Mt. Holly School  83%

Hazen Union High School  83%

Lowell Graded School  83%

The three schools with 83% were evaluated for their individual vaccine rates as well to determine placement on this list. Mt. Holly students were 83% covered for each vaccine, Hazen Union ranged from 83% to 85% and Lowell ranged from 83% to 88%.

In all, 47 Vermont schools had fully immunized rates below 90% among the 322 with at least 50 students. An additional 88 schools did not have individual information due to their small size but factored into the statewide results.

If you would like to see vaccination rates in your school, you can find the dashboard at https://www.healthvermont.gov/stats/surveillance-reporting-topic/vaccination-coverage.

Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on Twitter @aprildbarton.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont childhood vaccination rates: Look at Chittenden County schools
Editor's note: This story has been updated to mention that Nick Gradisar is seeking an additional term as Pueblo's mayor.

Pueblos mayor and members of city council dont always agree on what to do.

On Monday night, all of city council voted against Mayor Nick Gradisars advice to avoid settling a lawsuit with a local church.

City council voted unanimously to approve a settlement with the Christian Growth Center, a church on the East Side that sued the city over enforcement of its recreational vehicle ordinance.

The settlement stipulates that the city will pay $40,000 to the church's Pastor Paul Elder, mostly to cover his attorney fees, and that the city will allow the church to maintain an RV spot at their location.

Rev. Paul Elder looks over the parking lot at the Christian Growth Center, 1906 N. Hudson Ave., on Tuesday, February 1, 2022.

Church's attorney calls settlement a historic moment

Elders attorney Andrew Nussbaum, whose Colorado Springs-based firm specializes in representing religious and nonprofit organizations, told the Chieftain the settlement is a historic moment for the first amendment and religious freedom in Pueblo.

It's a huge victory and historic in terms of establishing the right of churches and religious people to practice their religion according to the dictates of their conscience  and without interference from the state, Nussbaum said. That's a bedrock principle in the United States and it's a really big day for the people of Pueblo.

Gradisar, who worked as an attorney in Pueblo before he was elected mayor in early 2019, said he opposed the settlement because he thought the case shouldve gone to trial.

I don't know whether it's a victory  the city council basically surrendered, Gradisar told the Chieftain, adding that there wasnt a battle.

Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar listens to a presentation during a city council work session retreat at the Pueblo Convention Center on Saturday, March, 3, 2023.

Why Christian Growth Center sued the city of Pueblo

Christian Growth Center, located at 1906 N. Hudson Avenue, sued the city in early 2022, claiming that the city violated religious freedom when they prohibited RV parking on the churchs land.

City zoning laws prohibit large vehicles in the part of the city where the church is located. The Chieftain previously reported that church officials said they offered RV parking to traveling ministers and others in need of a spot to park for over 30 years.

The lawsuit was filed after Pueblo's Zoning Board of Appeals rejected the churchs motion to appeal the violation of city code in December 2021.

Elder told the Chieftain that the traveling ministry program based out of his church parking lot provides a place to stay for traveling pastors and missionaries.

For 31 years, they allowed us to do it and didnt say anything, Elder said.

The Christian Growth Center, 1906 N. Hudson Avenue, pictured in late 2021.

A federal law could've helped the churchs legal case

A federal law passed in 2000 protects religious institutions from unduly burdensome or discriminatory land use regulations, according to the Department of Justice.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, as well as the First Amendment that protects freedom of religion, grant the church the free exercise of religion, Nussbaum said  and that includes the RV evangelist ministry whose tradition harkens to the 18th century traveling preachers.

Elder expressed gratitude to his attorneys and said he was ready to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We'd made up our mind that we were going all the way to the Supreme Court to protect liberty, because it was the city that was violating their own federal law that they have to adhere to, Elder said.

Gradisar calls the settlement the worst-case scenario

Gradisar, who is running for a second term as Pueblo's mayor, said that settling the case now was a bad mistake."

"Basically, this is the worst-case scenario for us and we've agreed to it," he said.

When you go to court, you never know what a judge or jury is going to do, Gradisar told the Chieftain. We had no intent to discriminate or interfere with their religious practices, but to claim that it's part of your religion to be able to have people live in an RV in your parking lot  in my mind, that's a stretch.

He said that theres now a slippery slope for enforcing the citys zoning restrictions against RV camping  the city first attempted to enforce the RV camping ban in 2021 because of a complaint from a neighbor.

When people call my office to say, Hey, people are living in the camper, I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to tell them, Gradisar said.

On the other hand, city councilor Regina Maestri, who is also running for mayor, said Monday night that going to court could have cost the city more money if it lost the case.

We actually got off pretty well here, Maestri said.

What the city will have to pay after settling

The city caries liability insurance through the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency.

Pueblo budgeted paying up to $400,000 this year for the liability insurance deductible coverage, but the city is only liable for up to $150,000 per claim, city spokesperson Haley Sue Robinson confirmed with the Chieftain.

This case runs much less than that $150,000 claim maximum, so the city will have to pay the $40,000 as stipulated in the settlement, as well as compensating outside counsel who worked with the city on the case. Gradisar estimated thats approximately $20,000 to $30,000.

Others are reading: CSU Pueblo alum Dana Perino talks plans, expectations for upcoming GOP debate

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo settles lawsuit with East Side church over RV code
A Pueblo man who pleaded guilty to a murder charge earlier this year is attempting to recant his plea before sentencing, according to court documents obtained by the Chieftain.

Raymond Apodaca, 38, originally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges in a plea deal signed by 10th Judicial District Attorney Jeff Chostner on July 12. Prior to the plea agreement, he was initially charged with first-degree murder.

Apodaca pleaded guilty to the second-degree charge in exchange for a sentence of no more than 34 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, as well as five years of parole upon his release.

Charges stem from Apodaca allegedly shooting and killing 36-year-old Victor Trujillo, the boyfriend of Apodaca's sister, shortly before 7 p.m. on April 15, 2022.

In a handwritten motion filed by Apodaca, he requested that District Court Judge Thomas Flesher allow him to withdraw his plea of guilty based on a "good faith change of heart."

Apodaca was scheduled for a sentencing hearing on Monday, which was continued when Apodaca refused to be transported from the Pueblo County jail.

The motion, which was filed not through Apodaca's attorney Aaron Gutierrez, but by Apodaca himself, did not elaborate why Apodaca wished to change his plea, stating only that he'd had a change of heart.

Apodaca cited several cases in an attempt to support his claim. However, one of the cases cited, U.S. v. Rios-Ortiz, appears to undermine Apodaca's request. In the 1987 U.S. 9th Circuit Court opinion, the court ruled that a district court did not have to accept a plea withdrawal before sentencing.

Current federal law guiding plea proceedings requires numerous safeguards for the defendant in a plea proceeding, including that the defendant understands his rights to a fair trial and an attorney, along with understanding the penalties they may face upon pleading guilty and making sure that the plea they enter is knowing and voluntary.

Because of these safeguards, the circuit court wrote in the U.S. v. Rios-Ortiz decision that "directing the district court to permit the appellant to withdraw his guilty plea merely because he changed his mind would undermine Rule 11's purpose and reduce plea proceedings to a time-consuming formality with no lasting effect."

During Monday's hearing, Gutierrez told the court that the reasons set forth by his client "might create a potential conflict."

While not yet making an official ruling on the motion, Judge Thomas Flesher stated during the hearing that he did not have sufficient legal grounds and was inclined to rule against it.

Deputy District Attorney David Dingess stated that he agreed with Flesher's opinion, but noted that an argument of "ineffective counsel" may be one of the few reasons to allow a plea withdrawal.

Gutierrez declined to comment further on the matter when contacted by the Chieftain.

A hearing in Apodaca's case is scheduled for Oct. 9. at 9:45 a.m.

More on the crime beat: Man killed in Thursday shooting identified by Pueblo coroner

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in court. Arrests and charges are merely accusations by law enforcement until, and unless, a suspect is convicted of a crime.

Questions, comments, or story tips? Contact Justin at jreutterma@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter,@jayreutter1. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo man who pleaded guilty to murder charge seeks to withdraw plea
At long last, weve made it to the finals in our quest to name the best coffee shops in three parts of Beaufort County: Hilton Head Island, the Bluffton area and the Beaufort/Port Royal area.

Lessons weve learned so far: Our readers like their coffee brewed by a locally owned business, and they also are willing to support newer shops in addition to more well-established businesses.

We started with 200 nominations submitted by readers of The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette and followed that with nearly 2,000 votes cast in Round 1 and more than 5,300 votes cast in Round 2.

Weve ended up with a slate of six local coffee shops, two from each of the three sections of the county. Now, its time to narrow the field to one winner from each area.

In a bonus round next week, the area winners will compete for the overall title of Best Coffee Shop in Beaufort County.

Here is a little more information about the finalists in case you want to arrange a taste test of your own before you vote.

HILTON HEAD

Carolina Coffee and Crumbs

Where and when: 101 Pope Ave. (in Coligny Plaza next to The SandBar Beach Eats); open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily

Phone: (843) 342-4800

Website: carolinacoffeehhi.com

Hilton Head Island Coffee Roasters

Where and when: At the Roastery at 21 Cardinal Road, Suite 105, open from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday through Saturday; also regularly at the Hilton Head Farmers Market (Coastal Discovery Museum) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday; and at the Hilton Head Community Market (Shelter Cove Community Park) from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday

Phone: (843) 321-9075

Website: hiltonheadcoffee.com

BLUFFTON AREA

Odd Birds Cafe and Market

Where and when: 1536 Fording Island Road, Suite #107 (in the Bridge Center on the Bluffton side of the Hilton Head bridges), open from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; also at the Hilton Head Farmers Market (Coastal Discovery Museum) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays from September to May

Phone: 843-707-9927





Website: oddbirdshhi.com

The Grind Roasters

Where and when: 1 Sherington Drive, Suite J, (in Sheridan Park next to British Open Pub); open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday

Phone: 843-368-3348

Website: thegrindroasters.com

BEAUFORT/PORT ROYAL AREA

Sunny Summers Cafe

Where and when: 7 Robert Smalls Parkway; open 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Phone: 843-379-3447

Website: https://sunny-summers-cafe.myshopify.com

Urban Brew and Co.

Where and when: 2139 Boundary St., Suite 104; open 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday

Phone: (843) 608-3174

Website: beaufortcoffeeroaster.com

The fine print

Please note the only prize is bragging rights. Its also worth noting that, because we arent limiting the number of times anyone can vote, this poll should not be considered scientific. Its just for fun!

Scroll down to the bottom of the story. After verifying you are human, cast your vote in one, two or all three of the polls.

In this round, you can select one coffee shop youd like to see move forward in each poll. You may vote in one area, two areas or all three areas.

You also can vote as often as you like to support your favorite business. Just refresh the page and confirm your humanity to reset the poll.

Voting in this round ends at noon on Monday, Oct. 2.

If you are reading this story on a mobile device and dont see the polls, or if youre reading in the print edition, please go to islandpacket.com to cast your vote.
A cannabis banking bill cleared a Senate committee for the first time ever on Wednesday morning.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act provides a safe harbor for legal state-level marijuana dispensaries and growers to access federally-regulated banks and credit unions that have been wary of the persistent federal ban.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced the tweaked version of the SAFER Banking Act last week.

Versions of this bill have passed the House seven times, but this is the first time it has advanced in the Senate.

A bipartisan group of senators hustled to reach compromises on key disagreements ahead of the markup, although there was still plenty of discontent on display around criminal justice reform and the Obama-era Operation Choke Point.

Its been quite a journey, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said during his opening remarks.

Committee members voted 14-9 to advance the SAFER Banking Act. Lummis, Daines and Sen. Kevin Cramer (N.D.) were the only Republicans to vote yes on the bill.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) broke with his party, saying he was concerned the bill could increase the racial wealth gap and just make the comfortable more comfortable.

This bill will make life safer for bankers, for businesses and financial institutions, some of whom have been profiting from the cannabis industry illegally for years, which is ironic given many of the regular folks who illegally sold or used cannabis are sitting in jail cells right now, Warnock said.

Legal cannabis sales are expected to hit $33.6 billion this year, according to an April analysis by MJBiz Factbook. The lions share of that total will not go to communities hit hardest by the war on drugs: Less than 5 percent of cannabis business owners are Black, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pointed out.

Some small business owners who celebrated the bills passage are also pushing to update the definition of financial services to expand access to capital, which they say would be particularly valuable for minority-owned shops.

Reese Xavier, CEO and managing partner of HT23 Growers, told The Hill in a phone interview that he was excited the SAFER Banking Act passed out of committee. But hes hoping to see the bill provide cannabis companies the same access to loans, mortgages and other services as it does to hemp sellers.

That then allows us to gain access to the capital that we need to stand up these businesses to really make a difference in communities of color, Xavier said.

In a statement released after the markup, Schumer said he would bring the SAFER Banking Act to the floor for a vote as quickly as possible.

The bill would need 60 votes to clear the Senate, where it faces roadblocks on both sides of the upper chamber.

Several progressive Democrats share Warnocks concerns about the lack of criminal justice provisions in the act, and many Republicans are wary of doing anything to help the cannabis industry.

Schumer also reiterated his commitment to include criminal justice reforms, namely the Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act, which would support the expungement of state-level cannabis convictions, and the Gun Rights and Marijuana (GRAM) Act, which would override federal restrictions on the sale of firearms to marijuana users.

An overwhelming majority of states have legalized medical or recreational cannabis use, and laws are rapidly changing across the country. Recreational marijuana legalization is on the ballot this year in Ohio, where the committee chairman faces a tough reelection in 2024.

Although the Department of Health and Human Services recently recommended that marijuana be reclassified from Schedule I to Schedule III, cannabis is still illegal at the federal level. That means these businesses are often denied access to banking services.

The status quo is simply untenable for consumers, small businesses and banks operating in states where cannabis is legal, the American Bankers Association said in a statement following the markup.

Despite the Houses leadership on cannabis banking under Democratic control, hang-ups around language protecting the cannabis industry from regulators could also tank the bill in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Some Republicans railed against Operation Choke Point, a 2013 Justice Department initiative that discouraged banks from serving businesses at high risk for fraud and money laundering.

The Justice Department formally ended the initiative in 2017, but Republicans remain concerned.

The bill would give special protections to businesses conducting a federally illicit activity, protections that legal businesses simply do not enjoy, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.

Meanwhile, legal industries such as firearms or traditional fuel sources still must fight to even hold accounts.

Lummis, one of the bills sponsors, said the updated language would prevent federal banking regulators from closing bank accounts for reputational risk reasons.

It takes a major step towards ending the banking industry being weaponized, Lummis said. All legal businesses, whether on the right or the left side of the ideological spectrum, should have access to bank accounts.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
(Bloomberg) -- Slovakia is heading into a tight election contest in the final days of the campaign, according to polls that show firebrand frontrunner Robert Fico facing stiff competition from a pro-European party.

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Fico, a former prime minister seeking a return to office on a campaign thats denounced sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine, has been leading in most polls ahead of Saturdays vote. But Progressive Slovakia, which vows to keep the country within the European mainstream, has been narrowing the gap.

The election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential for the eastern European Union nation of 5.4 million since the fall of communism. Fico, an ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has tapped into anxiety of voters that are among the most pro-Russian in the 27-member bloc.

But his return isnt assured. Two last-minute polls this week showed his Smer party slipping behind Progressive Slovakia, including an AKO survey Wednesday indicating the pro-EU party was ahead by less than a percentage point. An Ipsos poll in Sme newspaper earlier had Fico holding on to a slim lead.

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If the results are close, the path to forming a government would become rockier for both sides, risking a post-election deadlock in Slovakias 150-seat parliament. Several smaller parties in a potential kingmaker role have ruled out various forms of cooperation. Infighting among parties in a fragmented landscape helped bring down the government of Prime Minister Eduard Heger late last year, triggering the snap vote.

Fico would struggle to forge a majority with the help of Slovakias far right, according to the Ipsos poll. Progressive Slovakias hopes to lead a government would require a broader and potentially unwieldy coalition.

Once a Social Democratic reformer, Fico has embraced a populist wave thats swept Europe  denouncing migration, opposing Ukraines NATO aspirations and deriding Slovakias reformist president, Zuzana Caputova, as an American agent.

Progressive Slovakia was co-founded by Caputova, who was elected to office in 2019 on a pledge to help rid Slovakia of corruption.

--With assistance from Peter Laca.

(Updates with latest poll in fourth paragraph.)

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by Sun Nan, Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- "Before, we used to sit on a ferry for one day, two days, three days, and four days to pass the huge river, but now we only spend five minutes due to the construction of the bridge. We really benefit a lot," Bangladeshi bus driver Md Rezaul Islam told Xinhua recently.

The bridge Islam mentioned is the Padma Bridge, which was undertaken by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co, Ltd. and opened to public in June 2022, ending the history of crossing the mighty Padma river between dozens of districts in southern Bangladesh and the capital of Dhaka only by ferries or boats.

According to Xie Xueqiang, vice manager of the Padma Bridge project, nearly 6 million vehicles used the bridge from June 2022 to June 2023, with an average of about 15,000 vehicles per day.

Now, as a bus driver, Islam drives across the bridge almost every day after the bridge opens. "We've got many benefits, including saving money and time. We can make a return trip in just six hours."

"I'm very happy that my home is in the southern part of Bangladesh. It used to take us two days to go, but now I can reach home in just three hours, and I feel great," Abdul Mateen said.

"Many thanks to the Chinese company. This Padma Bridge is a product of many hardships, I wish that the steps to come in the future will be implemented and managed well," Mateen furthered noted.

In regard to the security and maintenance of the bridge, the team is combined with 155 workers, including four Chinese and 151 Bangladeshi nationals.

Barun Chakma is one of them as an operation manager. "What we are working is a comprehensive activity. We have to look around the huge bridge to maintain its safety and working smoothly."

Chakma further said it is a challenging job, but they have done very well until now.

"This Padma Bridge is a historical bridge. It can promote the development of our transportation and the development of our economy," Chakma said, adding, "I feel proud as an employee to work for this bridge."

As an old Chinese saying goes, teaching one to fish is better than giving them fish. The constructing and maintaining of the bridge by Chinese engineers not only effectively improve the current situation of local road traffic and people's living standards, but also help train many Bangladeshi workers.

"I didn't have any idea about how to do this work at first," said Md Sohail Rana who joined in this project since June 2012, adding that he learned a lot from Chinese engineers hand by hand, including concrete block, bitumen, and cement tests.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said earlier that new economic zones and high-tech parks will be built centering on the bridge. As a result, domestic and foreign investment will be attracted and the industrialization of the country will be accelerated.

At the same time, the first section of Padma Bridge Rail Link Project, crossing the Padma Bridge, as one of the most significant projects under construction by the China Railway Group Limited and funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, is planned to launch commercial operation in October.

It will serve as a vital channel that connects Dhaka and more than 20 districts in the south area of Bangladesh and is expected to greatly promote regional connectivity and the economic development of the South Asian country.

Due to the positive effects shown until now, it's believed that Padma Bridge can further benefit people's livelihood and speed up transformation of economic landscape in Bangladesh, said Xie. 
A recent deep-sea dive off the coast of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands brought scientists face-to-face with a rare ocean creature.

A Dumbo octopus was spotted about a mile below the oceans surface, on an unnamed seamount.

The site was in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

Dumbo octopuses are typically seen in deep waters of the central Pacific, according to scientists. They propel themselves using those large ear-shaped fins to find food.

The Exploration Vessel Nautilus took the video showing the rare creature as it drifts and floats through the oceans waters.

Meet Hawaiis bard, Jackie Pualani Johnson

The crew of the EV Nautilus said they had been able to view five of these amazing creatures in a single night.

Each time, youre kind of just roaming around with the ROV, explained Jaina Galves, video engineer intern. Somebodys like, wait, what is that in the corner, and then everybodys starts to gasp, everybody starts to freak out. And everybodys like Dumbo octopus! So we take the ROV over, we go, and we follow them. They move very slowly and very gracefully, so we get to follow them for quite a while.

Galves went on to explain further.

It depends what were doing and how long we can hang out, added Galves, But for one of them, we just got to stay for quite a while. Just watched it kind of glide through the water, and it was beautiful.

The scientists were part of an expedition funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
HONOLULU (KHON)  A recent deep-sea dive off the coast of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands brought scientists face-to-face with a rare ocean creature.

A Dumbo octopus was spotted about a mile below the oceans surface, on an unnamed seamount.

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The site was in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

Dumbo octopuses are typically seen in deep waters of the central Pacific, according to scientists. They propel themselves using those large ear-shaped fins to find food.

The Exploration Vessel Nautilus took the video showing the rare creature as it drifts and floats through the oceans waters.

The crew of the EV Nautilus said they had been able to view five of these amazing creatures in a single night.

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Each time, youre kind of just roaming around with the ROV, explained Jaina Galves, video engineer intern. Somebodys like, wait, what is that in the corner, and then everybodys starts to gasp, everybody starts to freak out. And everybodys like Dumbo octopus! So we take the ROV over, we go, and we follow them. They move very slowly and very gracefully, so we get to follow them for quite a while.

Galves went on to explain further.

It depends what were doing and how long we can hang out, added Galves, But for one of them, we just got to stay for quite a while. Just watched it kind of glide through the water, and it was beautiful.

The scientists were part of an expedition funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
In this photo provided by Boston-based RR Auction house, rare front-row balcony tickets to Fords Theatre on April 14, 1865, rest on a reflective surface. The tickets, dated when President Abraham Lincoln was assa ssinated by John Wilkes Booth, were sold at auction for $262,500 on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, according to RR Auction. | Nikki Brickett, RR Auction via Associated Press

Fords Theatre tickets from the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated sold for $262,500 on Saturday.

A Boston auction house sold the pair of tickets that were stamped with the date of April 14, 1865, with seat numbers 41 and 42 in section D written out in pencil, according to The Associated Press.

Auction officials reportedly said that the handwritten seating assignments and the circular April 14th-dated stamp match those found on other known authentic tickets, including a used ticket stub in the collection of Harvard Universitys Houghton Library.

That Harvard ticket stub is the only other known remaining ticket to still exist.

Related

The history behind the tickets

Actor John Wilkes Booth reportedly learned the morning of April 14, 1865, that Lincoln was planning on attending the performance of a comedy called Our American Cousin.

Around 10:15 that evening, as the play was winding into the final act, President and Mrs. Lincoln, along with their guests Maj. Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, were watching the comedy while Booth was waiting just outside the door of the Presidents Box, according to Fords Theatres detailed history of the tragic event on its website.

Just as I had finished these lines and was standing towards the front of the Presidents box, the fatal shot was fired. The report startled me somewhat, but, as the report was muffled, I thought it came from the property room of the theatre. I turned, looked up at the Presidents box. I saw a man with a long dagger in the front of the box, Harry Hawk, a Fords Theatre actor, said.

Lincoln was fatally shot in the back of the head and Booth ended up jumping from the box onto the stage and fled out a back door, according to The Associated Press.

Reports detailed that the president died early the next morning and Booth avoided being captured for 12 days until he was found and shot at a Virginia farm.

Related

What did the Ford Theatre ticket holders witness?

NPR reported that the seats the tickets describe wouldnt have allowed those who owned the tickets to actually see Lincoln shot in the back of the head, but they would have seen Booth leap from the box onto the stage as he fled.

These front-row seats to history allowed the original theatergoers to witness a tragic performance that changed the course of our nation. Were honored to have played a part in preserving and sharing this remarkable piece of American history, Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said.

RR Auction reported that this type of Fords Theatre ticket for April 14, 1865, is exceedingly rare  auction records reveal no other examples offered since their original sale as part of the Forbes Collection in 2002.

Related

What other Lincoln items were sold at auction?

The New York Post reported that another item sold during the auction was a first edition of the Lincoln-Douglas debates signed by Lincoln himself that went for nearly $594,000.

Though the tickets and the first edition of the debates were the only Lincoln memorabilia to be sold at this particular auction, here are various items that have reportedly been sold at other auctions:

A copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln: $3.7 million.

Lincolns pocket watch: $3.4 million.

A copy of the Gettysburg Address handwritten by Lincoln : $52,000.

A second copy of the Gettysburg Address: $1.5 million.

Lincolns stovepipe hat: $6.5 million.

A complete set of transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates: $350,000.

Lincolns inkwell: $78,000.

Lincolns deathbed: $6,000.

Lincoln family carriage: $300,000.

Lincolns White House china: $80,000.

Lincolns law partners desk: $52,500.
UPDATE: Raytown police say the 16-year-old was located and is safe.



RAYTOWN, Mo.  The Raytown Police Department is looking for a missing 16-year-old girl who walked away from home Tuesday.

Elisea Hankins was last seen Tuesday afternoon near her home on 79th Street and Maple in Raytown. The last contact her family had with her was around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Dump truck crash slows traffic on SB I-35 in Northland

Hawkins has hazel eyes and brown hair. She is 5-foot-3 and weighs 170 pounds.

Hawkins was last seen wearing a white tank top, red and black flannel pants, a red and black wig, and carrying a backpack. Her natural hair is short and dark brown if she is not wearing a wig.

According to RPD, she may be in Joplin, Blue Springs or Kansas City, Kansas.

If you have information about where Hawkins is, call 816-737-6020.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
Donald Trump is continuing to threaten the lives of his "enemies" and all others who oppose him. Trump has been doing this publicly and without contrition, pause or any apparent fear of repercussions or negative consequences. His behavior is a function of his depraved character, damaged personality, and diseased mind.

Despite how too many among the news media and political class, even after seven years of experience to the contrary, would like to believe, Trump is not going to pivot. Moreover, there are no "responsible" senior members of today's Republican Party who are going to place country over party to finally stop Trump and his neofascist MAGA movement.

Trump's threats of violence and acts of intimidation are so great that the Department of Justice is seeking a gag order in an attempt to protect the safety of the jurors, witnesses, and members of law enforcement who will be involved in the ex-president's upcoming criminal trials, as Salon's Areeba Shah reports:

Threats against law enforcement, judges and elected officials are on the rise as Donald Trump's prosecutions gain momentum, The New York Times reported on Monday. FBI agents have raised alarms about harassment and threats targeting their families. These concerns have amplified amid complaints by Trump supporters and many Republicans that the Justice Department has been "weaponized"  a narrative the former president has extensively promoted on social media. "Trump's pattern of lashing out at anyone who opposes him has been dangerously emulated by his supporters," V. James DeSimone, a California civil rights attorney, told Salon. "Now that he is facing four indictments, his most dangerous supporters view law enforcement and our judicial system as the enemy. So the risk is there for increased violence." The FBI has witnessed a substantial surge in threats against its personnel and facilities following the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago Trump's Florida residence and private club, according to the Times. This led the agency to establish a dedicated unit to address these threats. One federal official told the Times that threats have increased by more than 300 percent since then, partly because FBI agents' identities and personal information has been spread on social media by Trump supporters.

Who is the target of Trump's latest threats of murderous violence? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley.

Here is what Trump said in a Friday post on his Truth Social disinformation propaganda website:

Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week. This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!" he continued. "This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!

Of course, Trump is lying about these events. So what is the real reason why Donald Trump wants Gen. Milley to be killed?

Trump is enraged that Gen. Milley attempted to stop his coup and other attacks on democracy and civil society. Milley, as a responsible military officer, places loyalty to the Constitution and democracy and the American people over personal loyalty to the person who happens to occupy the White House. This was antithetical to Trump's attempts, and now future plans, to be America's first dictator.

The most immediate reason why Donald Trump is now threatening Gen. Milley's life is in response to a recent Atlantic profile by Jeffrey Goldberg, which confirms, again, that the ex-president is an enemy of democracy and a neofascist, who possesses deep contempt for America's soldiers.

Others have speculated that Gen. Milley may be a witness against the ex-president in the upcoming classified documents trial, which may also explain the disgraced president's murderous rage towards him.

Army Captain Luis Avila was grievously wounded during his five combat tours in Afghanistan. Gen. Milley invited Captain Avila to sing at an Armed Forces Welcome Ceremony that took place in September 2019. Trump reportedly told Gen. Milley, "Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded." Trump reportedly also told Gen. Milley to never let Captain Avila make an official public appearance again. As summarized by Goldberg in his Atlantic profile, "Trump's attitude toward the uniformed services seemed superficial, callous, and, at the deepest human level, repugnant."

Trump's disdain towards Captain Avila, is also representative of a larger pattern of hostility towards disabled people by the ex-president, as Eric Garcia explains at MSNBC:

But there's enough evidence of Trump deriding military heroes and deriding people who are disabled to believe he has little regard for people who are disabled military heroes. For example, in what counts as one of the most deplorable displays by a candidate for U.S. president, in 2015 Trump mocked Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that limits movement in his arms. During that same presidential campaign, Trump said the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who became disabled while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was "not a war hero" because "he was captured." And The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019, before Trump's visit Japan that year, that a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official sent U.S. Navy and Air Force officials an email including the directive that while Trump was there, the "USS John McCain needs to be out of sight." Trump denied having made a request that the ship be kept out of sight but described whoever made the request as "well meaning" "because they thought I didn't like" McCain. In one of the most deplorable displays by a candidate for president, Trump mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that limits movement in his arms.

Like other white supremacists, eugenicists, and racial authoritarians, Trump is very proud of his "good genes", believes that human beings can be bred like horses, and is contemptuous towards for those he views as being somehow inferior to his "superior" racial stock.

In a post on Twitter/X, political analyst and author David Rothkopf, correctly described Trump's recent death threats against Gen. Milley in the following way:

Trump this weekend indicated military leaders who opposed his policies should be put to death and media that presented views he did not like are traitors and will be prosecuted. He is a monster, an aspiring dictator, the greatest threat America faces.

At the Atlantic, political scientist Brian Klaas, who is an expert on authoritarianism, sounded this alarm about Trump's most recent death threats and how they have been responded to by the news media and public:

Trump's rhetoric is dangerous, not just because it is the exact sort that incites violence against public officials but also because it shows just how numb the country has grown toward threats more typical of broken, authoritarian regimes. The United States is not just careening toward a significant risk of political violence around the 2024 presidential election. It's also mostly oblivious to where it's headed Bombarded by a constant stream of deranged authoritarian extremism from a man who might soon return to the presidency, we've lost all sense of scale and perspective. But neither the American press nor the public can afford to be lulled. The man who, as president, incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn an election is again openly fomenting political violence while explicitly endorsing authoritarian strategies should he return to power. That is the story of the 2024 election. Everything else is just window dressing.

Trump's death threats against Gen. Milley are being echoed by other Republicans in Congress.

Focusing on the specific dangers embodied by Donald Trump in his role as leader of the neofascist MAGA movement, ex-president, coup plotter, and Republican frontrunner in the 2024 Election (who is now leading President Biden in at least one national poll) is critical if America's democracy is to survive. Trump must be defeated both at the polls and in court. However, Trump's pattern of threats and violence against his "enemies" is a problem that is much larger than any one person or leader or party.

The United States is the richest country on the planet, but experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of people die here each year from poverty. These are largely preventable deaths and a type of choice by the country's elites and policy makers. More than 1 million Americans have died from the coronavirus. President Trump and his regime and other Republican Party leaders engaged in an act of democide through their willful negligence and decisions to make "the economy" more important than saving lives during the pandemic.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The United States is structured by racism, white supremacy, sexism, classism, and other forms of social inequality. As social scientists and other experts have repeatedly demonstrated, social inequality is a type of structural and institutional violence.

The United States  especially Republicans and the "conservative" movement  refuse to enact the necessary policies to slow down global climate disaster. To that point, in a much-discussed 2017 interview on Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky powerfully explained how today's Republican Party and "conservative" movement are antihuman and an enemy of human civilization:

[H]as there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth? Not that I'm aware of. Is the Republican organizationI hesitate to call it a partycommitted to that? Overwhelmingly. There isn't even any question about it.

In an excellent new essay at Truthout, social theorist and cultural critic Henry Giroux locates Trump's threats of violence and destruction within America's larger culture of cruelty, violence, and neofascism.

Giroux's essay merits being quoted at length:

The lies embraced by demagogues such as Trump do more than distort meaning, turn truth to ashes and spread misinformation. As Ariel Dorfman observes, they also "exhibit a toxic mix of ignorance and mendacity," while legitimizing and reproducing a vocabulary and culture that revels in unrestricted power, cruelty, terror and "homicidal extremes." This is a language through which power is enacted; a language in which agency is made manifest "as an act with [often deadly] consequences." This is a rhetoric that emerges from living corpses whose mouths are filled with blood. Trump's lies cannot be separated from the language of violence and its ongoing attempts to instill fear, promote threats against alleged opponents and inspire violence from his MAGA followers. His lies are inseparable from the creation of a language that promotes a lethal formative culture that wallows in the blood of those viewed as disposable, and that produces deranged anger and unchecked despair. Trump's use of an inflammatory violent rhetoric to obtain political power feeds the GOP call for civil war and accelerates the arming of political extremists such as the Proud Boys, the Patriot movement and a heavily militarized police force.

Giroux continues:

Trump's embrace of lies and violence have produced an unrelenting series of shocks to the body politic and its democratic ideals. Violence that was once considered inconceivable and relegated to the margins of society now passes for normal. As Trump's violent rhetoric accelerates, actual acts of violence "have become a steady reality of American life, affecting school board officials, election workers, flight attendants, librarians and even members of Congress, often with few headlines and little reaction from politicians.".. In Trump's worldview, the opposition is not to be debated, it is to be destroyed, eliminated. This friend/enemy distinction reinforces the notion that a pledge of loyalty to Trump is comparable to becoming part of a militarized army engaged in war. In this discourse, violence is equated with power, and brutality becomes a measure of loyalty. Reason is now replaced with loyalty, and loyalty becomes the medium to "deploy sadism by bullying and humiliating others."

National security experts have concluded that there are more than ten million Trump MAGA people and other members of the Republican fascist party and right-wing who support using violence to remove President Biden and the Democrats from power. Of those many millions, there are perhaps only a "few" hundred thousand who are willing to actually engage in direct acts of violence.

For those Trumpists and other neofascists who are unwilling (or unable) to take up arms or otherwise participate in direct acts of political violence, Trump and his MAGA movement represents a type of idea and permission function.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Trumpism is a way for them to engage in the fantasy and ideation of violence as a way of getting power and "getting even" with their "enemies", those Black and brown people, gays and lesbians, transgendered people, "liberals", "the left", "political correctness", "Black Lives Matter", "Woke", "Critical Race Theory", "illegal immigrants", criminals, "intellectuals", "socialists", "feminists", "Muslims", or whoever in their minds has somehow "oppressed" "real Americans" like them by not staying in their place as a second class citizens who are to be subservient and obedient to White "Christian" Americans.

Ideation and fantasy and wish fulfillment of committing acts of violence against "the enemy" are well-documented steps in a process through which political violence up to and including genocide and eliminationism is normalized.

In an email to me, Giroux warned about where Trump and the "conservative" movement's embrace of fascism and other forms of violence will almost inevitably lead the country.

Violence has a long legacy in the United States, but Trump has used the threat of violence with hurricane force against his proposed enemies, going so far recently to issue a death threat against a high-profile figure such as Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff. There is nothing shocking about this threat because Trump has accelerated both his lies and threats of violence for years. What is disturbing, if not dangerous, is how the mainstream press refuses to analyze such threats and Trump's addiction to violence as a central element of fascist and authoritarian politics. We know from the study of history that such threats led to executions, torture, imprisonment, and death campsthink of Pinochet, Pol Pot, Nazi Germany, Stalin's trials, Mussolini's fascist regime, among others. Yet the mainstream media simply reports the violence issued by Trump and his lackeys as mere description, uncivilized rhetoric, and undignified. Silence on this issue is a form of complicity, and the mainstream press is further legitimating such violence through their tone-deaf reporting. There is more at stake here than a lack of journalistic responsibility, there is a refusal to imagine what the end of democracy, if not humanity might look like if this culture of lies and violence continues unabated and unaccountable.

The potential and reality of right-wing political violence in America as part of a plan to end multiracial pluralistic democracy is not some type of unknown unknown or mystery. The immediate question is, what to do about it?

As I and others have repeatedly implored, Democrats, liberals, progressives, Black and brown people, women, the LGBTQI community, and all others who believe in real democracy must vote and organize and resist like their lives and freedom literally depend upon it  because it does.
Jacksonville City Council approved a record-high $1.75 billion budget Tuesday after a lengthy debate resulted in the council keeping $1.4 million in the budget for building a charter school gym and blocking the addition of $3.1 million for homelessness programs.

The city is flush with cash because the strong economy will reap a big jump in city tax revenue for the budget year that starts Sunday. The general fund will be 14% higher than the $1.54 billion amount in the current fiscal year.

"This final budget makes generational investments to ensure Jacksonvilles citizens are healthy, safe, housed, and thriving," Mayor Donna Deegan said in a statement after City Council unanimously passed the budget.

Homelessness help: City Council member proposes using $3.1 million from fund Deegan created in her budget

Diversity chief: Parvez Ahmed will stay on Mayor Donna Deegan's staff as chief of diversity and inclusion

Gun violence: Deegan joins Biden for violence prevention announcement at White House

Property-owners will get higher tax bills later this year to pay for the bigger budget.

The city's property tax rate for the 2023-24 budget will be the same rate as last year at about $11.32 per $1,000 of taxable property value for areas excluding the three Beaches cities and Baldwin, which each will make their own decisions affecting the tax rates for property within their city limits.

But even at the same tax rate, property-owners will pay more taxes to the city of Jacksonville because the real estate market has boosted taxable property values. The Save Our Homes state law will limit that increase to 3% for homesteaded properties and another state law will put a 10% limit on increases for non-homestead properties.

The owner of a home valued at $150,000 for tax purposes that qualifies for a $50,000 homestead exemption will get a $1,132 tax bill from the city.

Kerry Varkonda, who owns a home with a homestead exemption and another house he rents, said he's stunned no one on City Council tried to lower the tax rate considering the big growth in the tax base and the start this year by the school district of a one-mill increase in its tax rate to pay for teacher pay raises approved by voters in an August 2022 referendum.

"I'm just surprised no fiscal conservative has said, 'Wait a minute, this is a big increase in the mayor's budget,'" Varkonda said.

He said the higher tax bills from the city will force landlords to pass on that cost to tenants by raising rents, even as city officials say there is an affordable housing crisis.

"That is going absolutely the wrong way," Varkonda said.

The heaviest spending in the budget will be for public safety supporting the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and the Fire and Rescue Department. The Sheriff's Office will add 40 more police positions. The capital improvements program for work such as roads, drainage, parks and public buildings totals about $400 million, and city will bolster its financial reserves.

Council protects $25 million for Deegan's future requests

Before approving the budget on an 18-0 vote, the council debated two floor amendments at length.

City Council member Terrance Freeman proposed putting $3.1 million in the budget for programs to help people who are homeless or at risk of falling into homelessness. Freeman said that is the same amount Deegan has identified for homeless programs in a report she gave council members this week listing recommendations from her transition committee.

Freeman said City Council also had identified homelessness as a problem demanding action by the city.

"We've heard time and time again from this administration about the importance of working together, and this is a case where there has been proven a consensus on this body that aligns with the agenda of this administration," Freeman said.

City Council voted 13-5 against the amendment, however, because the $3.1 million would have come from a $25 million pot of money that Deegan wants to keep intact until she can file legislation in the future for City Council to put money behind her transition committee's recommendations.

A majority of council members said Deegan should have an opportunity to file that legislation. City Council then would decide whether it agrees with those or makes changes in them, including what amount should go toward fighting homelessness.

"We control the purse strings," City Council President Ron Salem said of City Council's role. "They propose, we dispose. Don't ever forget that."

City Council Vice President Randy White also said City Council should wait for Deegan to submit her proposal through legislation.

Deegan's statement after City Council approved the overall budget said he was "grateful for President Salem and Vice President White's leadership, and I thank the full City Council for their collaboration."

"I look forward to our continued proactive partnership as we work together to implement these dollars for the community," Deegan said.

Council keeps $1.4 million for school supported by Vestcor

In another floor amendment that generated extensive debate, the council voted 15-3 against an attempt to eliminate $1.4 million inserted into the budget by the council's Finance Committee to help pay for construction of a new gym for the Jacksonville Classical Academy charter school supported by the Vestcor Family Foundation.

State Rep. Angie Nixon told City Council that instead of spending city tax dollars on the gym, City Council should put money into long-neglected Northwest Jacksonville neighborhoods that suffer from "food insecurity, crumbling roads, overgrown ditches, limited access to healthcare and so much more."

She said the city should be working to bring a grocery store to the New Town neighborhood where a racially motivated shooter killed three Black residents at a Dollar General store.

"I am in awe that the council is considering building a gym for a charter school that receives massive donations from millionaires," Nixon said. "Meanwhile, our public schools have to resort to bake sales and Go Fund Me campaigns to purchase their student uniforms."

The Jacksonville Classical Academy gym will be built on a Mixon Town neighborhood site that once was a city landfill for buried incinerator ash. An attorney for Vestcor Family Foundation said it will cost substantially more to build the gym there than it would on "clean land" because at the depth needed for the gym's foundation, there still is soil contamination and debris from the basement of the former city incinerator that once operated there.

The $1.4 million would cover the additional cost of that more expensive construction methodology as part of an estimated total expense of $11 million for building the gym.

Council members who opposed the funding said the city has fulfilled all its legal obligations for the cleanup of the Superfund site. They said the charter school has access to state tax dollars and Duval County Public Schools money from a voter-approved half-cent sales tax to pay for school construction without also seeking city dollars.

"I'm not against seeing this gym come to fruition," said council member Jimmy Peluso, whose district contains the school site. "I'm just against us paying for it in this manner."

He and City Council member Tyrona Clark-Murray said Mixon Town residents want to see long-promised investments in their neighborhood. Clark-Murray said the city still hasn't delivered on replacing Forest Park that was closed because it was on the ash site.

"In my opinion, that community received a raw deal," she said, "and if we want to give them an even rawer deal, we support this particular building  the gymnasium."

Supporters of the $1.4 million said the city will have a long-term, joint-use agreement with the school for neighborhood residents to use the gym at certain times. By adding that agreement for some public use of the gym, the city avoids violating a long-standing general counsel opinion that prohibits the city from using its tax dollars to pay for school construction, Senior Assistant General Counsel Jason Teal told the council.

"This is an opportunity for us to have an amenity for community that they've never enjoyed before," council member Rahman Johnson said.

City Council member Ju'Coby Pittman said that since the city operated the incinerator, it has a duty to help the school. "When we do wrong, we have to make it right, so I feel at this point in time, we need to make it right," she said.

City Council member Matt Carlucci, who introduced the floor amendment to repeal the $1.4 million, said the city fulfilled all of its legal obligations for clean-up and it will set a terrible precedent to help pay for the school gym. He said the history of joint-use agreements is they win votes for legislation but don't actually deliver benefits to residents.

"I've seen these interlocal agreements be used to try to pacify and get votes on the council, but they don't really allow the kids full access," Carlucci said. "We have paid our dues (for the environmental cleanup). So did the kids. They lost their park, they lost their promise, and now we're giving money to a charter school."

Peluso said he and the parks department are actively searching for land to replace Forest Park, probably with multiple parks that are better embedded in neighborhoods.

"I'm confident that we will have several parks in the years to come," he said. "The community is very excited about it."

Council-connected funding gets approved

in contrast to the back-and-forth on spending for homelessness and the school gym, two nonprofits connected to Jacksonville City Council members received a combined $390,000 in this years budget without debate.

The Clara White Mission, where council member Ju'Coby Pittman works as the CEO, received $300,000 for culinary vocational training through its White Harvest Farms program, aimed at addressing food insecurity in north Jacksonville. The money will go to educating 60 individuals to work in the hospitality industry, the nonprofit told council in a previous finance committee meeting.

Separately, the Fire Watch Council of Northeast Florida received $90,000. Council member Nick Howland works as executive director of The Fire Watch Project, a nonprofit vendor of the larger veteran suicide-prevention organization.

Both council members recused themselves from voting from their respective bills.

The money for Clara White, introduced by council member Kevin Carrico, required the council waive the condition that nonprofits compete in a competitive bidding process for city funding and was separate from the $9 million Deegan allotted for overall public service grants.

The Tuesday vote was the first after the Times-Union reported Clara White was the subject of a federal grand jury investigation over allegations of financial mismanagement in parts of 2021 and 2022. The vote received very little discussion, other than a question over deliverables from the nonprofit.

Council members Matt Carlucci and Mike Gay, both Republicans, voted against the funding for the Fire Watch Council, and only Gay voted against the Clara White funding. Neither spoke as to why they voted.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville approves $1.75 billion budget without tax rate increase
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio who spent an unexpected 371 days in space setting an American record made it back to Earth safely landing in a Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday with two Russian cosmonauts.

Rubio flew up with his ISS comrades Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos back on Sept. 21, 2022, and they were slated to return six months ago, but soon after docking with the International Space Station, their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft suffered damage from what officials determined to be a micometeorite strike.

It damaged the coolant system so the spacecraft was returned to Earth minus its crew, who had to wait aboard the ISS for both their replacement ride and for a new Soyuz to be prepped for their replacement crew who arrived to the ISS earlier this month.

They climbed aboard the Soyuz MS-23 early Wednesday undocking at 3:54 a.m. and touched down at 7:17 a.m. EDT, which was 5:17 p.m. local time on the grassy steppes of Kazakhstan.

Its good to be home, Rubio said while being attended to by recovery teams, giving smiles and thumbs up signs.

Petelin was the last of the three to be carried out from the spacecraft, and looked like the return trip had taken a toll as the trio were placed in recovery chairs to regain their equilibrium, with Petelin the only one sporting sunglasses.

It was my first landing. I didnt know what to expect, he said according to a translator while being handed . Today I felt it to the fullest  the loads, the gravity.

They were presented with gifts including wooden Matryoshka nesting dolls with the trios likeness, and to Prokopyev a bowling-ball-size watermelon he took hold of with both hands.

I did request watermelon in advance and I appreciate it, Prokopyev said after holding it to his nose, although he wont be able to eat it just yet. He said he also wouldnt mind some pickles and pork, maybe in a week.

Rubio is now the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by an American. He surpassed he 355 days held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on Sept. 11 and tacked on another couple of weeks becoming the first American to spend an entire year in space in on go.

The spaceflight was the third longest in history. The longest was 437 days spent in space in the 1990s by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov during one of his two missions to the space station Mir.

The trio will be flown from the landing site to Karaganda, Kazakhstan after which Rubio will board a NASA plane for his flight back to Houston.

Their departure from the ISS marked the end of Expedition 69 and beginning of Expedition 70 with the remaining seven crew on board from NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA and the European Space Agency.

NASAs stuck astronaut sets American record, on way to 371 days in space

Rubio, 47, was born in Los Angeles and raised by his immigrant mother from El Salvador but moved to Miami when he was 15. He graduated from Miami Sunset High and calls South Florida home, where he met his future wife, Miami native Deborah Rubio, with whom he has four children.

He went on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army. He earned a medical degree during his service and was flight surgeon before being chosen among the 2017 astronaut candidate class.

This was his first spaceflight, but he was among the original 18 astronauts announced to be among the potential candidates to fly Artemis missions to the moon.

So Rubio still has a ways to go to approach the American record for combined days in space  675 days  held by Peggy Whitson, The all-time record holder for time in space  878 days  is held by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka who flew to both Mir and the ISS during his career.
A small business summit to provide resources and opportunities for Louisiana business owners is coming to Lafayette.

The annual Louisiana Economic Development event that connects small business leaders with resources available to them from across the state will take place from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the Cajundome and Convention Center in Lafayette.

Registration is open through Oct. 17. Tickets are $20, which covers registration and lunch. Summit attendees will have the opportunity to become certified in the Hudson and Veterans initiatives and register as vendors with the state.

A small business summit to provide resources and opportunities for Louisiana business owners

Participants also can visit the reverse trade show, which connects business owners with procurement representatives from state agencies, sponsors and key small business resource partners.

The summit, presented in partnership with Lafayette Economic Development Authority and OneAcadiana, is open to all small business owners and entrepreneurs in Louisiana. This years event will feature informational sessions and panel discussions with resource experts and business leaders on numerous topics, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Attendees also will have engagement opportunities designed to facilitate contracting relationships with state agencies and other partners.

Since 2016, Gov. John Bel Edwards has made Louisiana small businesses a top priority for his administration, and LED is proud to deliver on that, LED Secretary Don Pierson said. The Louisiana Small Business Summit is a unique opportunity that provides access to business tools, training resources and networking under one roof. I encourage all small business owners and entrepreneurs in the state to take advantage of this exceptional event.

Panel discussions will include participants from the Office of the Governor, Office of State Procurement, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, LA APEX Accelerator, the Louisiana Small Business Development Center Network and small business owners from across the state.

The Louisiana Small Business Summit will provide tremendously valuable content to small business owners as they explore the many procurement opportunities available in the state, Lafayette Economic Development Authority President and CEO Mandi Mitchell said. LEDA is honored to play a role in making this gathering possible  serving as host along with LED and One Acadiana  demonstrating our commitment to catalyzing job growth through entrepreneurship with a focus on small and minority business owners. Our local team of Lafayette and Acadiana community leaders is grateful for the partnership with Sec. Pierson and LED and for the opportunity to have the Hub City serve as host for this years summit.

The LED Small Business Services team is committed to ensuring Louisiana small businesses have the resources and opportunities to grow and thrive, supporting economic activity in our communities and providing great jobs to Louisiana residents, said Stephanie Hartman, director of LED Small Business Services. Connecting our small businesses to upcoming opportunities and giving them the ability to tap into the resources and certifications that help them capitalize on those opportunities is key.

For additional information on panel discussions, tickets and speakers, visit the Louisiana Small Business Summit page.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Small business summit to provide entrepreneurs opportunity, resources
The remains of missing mom Suzanne Morphew have been found more than three years after she was last seen, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which says the remains were positively identified on Wednesday.

Morphew was last seen on Mother's Day three years ago, May 10, 2020. Her disappearance made national headlines and the investigation was featured on the CBS News show "48 Hours."

Suzanne Morphew left behind two teenage daughters and a husband, Barry Morphew, who was not only the prime suspect in her disappearance, he was also charged with her murder.

Suzanne Morphew / Credit: Suzanne Morphew/Facebook

According to the CBI, the remains were located during the course of a search on Sept. 22 and those remains were positively identified as that of Morphew of Chaffee County by the El Paso County Coroner on Wednesday.

Investigators were searching in the area of Moffat in Saguache County on an investigation not related to the Morphew disappearance when the remains were discovered.

"While this case has garnered attention from around the world, it has touched our community and the sheriff's office deeply," said Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze in a statement. "We have never stopped our investigation and will continue to follow all leads in pursuit of justice for Suzanne."

Suzanne Morphew's family released this statement on Thursday, "The Moorman family would like to thank all involved for the discovery of our sister Suzanne. Over the last three years, countless hours have been spent looking for Suzanne by a determined group who have never given up hope that she would be found. The memories of her gentle spirit and wonderful smile have been a constant presence since her disappearance to all who knew and loved her. We want to thank Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze, his staff, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and the hundreds of volunteers who never gave up. Fate may have played a key role in finding her, but it does not negate the resolute commitment of all those involved. We would also like to thank the citizens of Chaffee County who have been subjected to this unimaginable saga for their support and prayers.

"We look forward to finding long-awaited justice for Suzanne in the successful prosecutions of those involved in her disappearance."

RELATED: Barry Morphew's attorney shares statement following discovery of wife Suzanne Morphew's remains

No arrests have been made since the remains have been located.

"Although locating Suzanne's remains is a critical component of this investigation, and for her family, we are left with many more questions than answers, and it would be a disservice to conduct a news conference at this time," said Spezze in a statement.

The public is asked to continue to report any information about this case by calling (719) 312-7530.

TIMELINE: Suzanne Morphew case: Timeline of events in the death of the Colorado mother

Anne Kelly, the 12th Judicial District Attorney, released this statement on the remains found, "The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has informed me that their agents recovered the remains of Suzanne Morphew in the area surrounding the town of Moffat in Saguache County. Saguache County is located in the 12th Judicial District for which I am the District Attorney. The case is still under active investigation, and for that reason, I am unable to comment on the investigation until more information is known. We will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available to the extent it is appropriate. The 12th Judicial District Attorney's Office expresses our condolences to Suzanne's family."

Earlier this year Barry Morphew filed a lawsuit, asking for $15 million saying he was wrongfully charged in his wife's disappearance and, at the time, presumed death. The lawsuit includes Chaffee County, the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office, and several named investigators in the case including those working for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI.

Suzanne disappeared after leaving her home for a bike ride on Mother's Day 2020 and what happened next remains a mystery. Her bicycle was found down a steep ravine off Chaffee County Road 225 from Highway 50. Deputies said that the bicycle did not look like it was involved in a crash and there was not any blood at the scene. After she went missing, Barry Morphew told CBS News Colorado that he believed she was abducted.

During the investigation into her disappearance, friends told detectives that Suzanne and Barry had been arguing about finances and that Suzanne may have had a boyfriend.

Investigators recovered documents from Suzanne's iCloud account as part of evidence. One of those documents was a list Suzanne made on May 8, 2020 entitled "grievances." It included notes like "wedding ring," which Barry allegedly took and melted at some point. She also noted women on Facebook, which Barry told her was good for business, as well as an incident in Mexico where Barry tried to take her phone away and look at it.

On the morning of May 6, 2020, Suzanne sent Barry a firm text that indicated she wanted to end the relationship. The text was found in Barry's cache indicating it had been deleted. It read: "I'm done I could care less what you're up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly."

Barry's reaction involved threats of suicide: "When I'm dead which won't be long, you guys will be taken care of," and "I'm going to see my savior."

On the morning of May 9, 2020, a day before Suzanne was reported missing, 59 communications were exchanged between Suzanne and the man who was apparently her boyfriend.

Barry and Susanne Morphew / Credit: Facebook

Barry Morphew was arrested May 5, 2021 on charges of murder after deliberation, tampering with physical evidence and attempting to influence a public servant.

The case was afflicted with complications. In December 2021, the judge assigned to preside over the case removed himself after defense attorneys raised questions about a conflict of interest. They had questions about Judge Patrick Murphy because of his relationship with a lawyer handling the case of Barry Morphew's alleged girlfriend who may have been called as a witness in the trial.

In February 2022, the murder trial was moved from Chaffee County to Fremont County. At the time, officials stated, "Because of the size of the community and the pervasive negative pretrial publicity since Suzanne Morphew's disappearance, the Court finds that a fair trial cannot take place in Chaffee County. This is a high-profile case in a relatively small county with a small jury pool. The media saturation is high."

In March 2022, Barry's lawyers asked for a dismissal after they received an internal affairs document surrounding the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's Agent In Charge Joe Cahill. In a court filing on March 1, the prosecution says the defense is taking "bits and pieces out of context." In the internal affairs document, Cahill stated "the arrest of the suspect now as the worst decision that could have been made." He went on to say "the arrest of the suspect in this investigation was premature" and called it "hasty."

There were also several hearings regarding what evidence and testimony was going to be allowed in court with multiple motions filed.

A judge dismissed the case against Barry Morphew in April 2022. At the time, the 11th Judicial District Attorney, Linda Stanley, filed the motion to "dismiss without prejudice" which means that prosecutors could file charges against Barry Morphew at a later date.

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People are concerned about Clarence Thomas  independence, as well as his impartiality, Congressman Johnson told theGrio.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is coming under fire yet again, this time for allegedly crossing ethical lines by secretly attending a Koch Network fundraiser.

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson , D-Ga., told theGrio, Its deeply disturbing that we have a sitting Supreme Court justice who has been a confidant and collaborator with the biggest political network that I know of.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (above) is acknowledging that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow . Its the first time in years that Thomas has reported receiving hospitality from Crow. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP, File)

The House Judiciary Committee member added, It goes against the tenets of being a judge. Ive been a judge myself. If I had done what Clarence Thomas has done, I would no longer be a judge. I would have been held accountable.

Donald Sherman, senior vice president for Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics, told theGrio, At this point, its hard to be surprised.

The Supreme Court hasnt changed its ethical rules, Congress hasnt mandated that the court establish a binding code of conduct for the justices, and Clarence Thomas has not had to face any accountability, he said.

The stories about Justice Thomas continue to paint the court in a negative light and undermine public trust in the institution, he continued.

Last week, ProPublica published another scathing report divulging that for years, Thomas has had close ties with the Koch network, which is composed of the largest and most influential political organizations and founded by libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch .

According to the report, the Supreme Court justice spoke at a 2018 summit in Palm Springs, California, and was used to attract donors. The organizers reportedly wanted to encourage the idea that if donors gave money to the Koch Network, they would also be buying access to the highest court in the land. Not to mention, the Koch organization had several cases heard before the Supreme Court.

ProPublica cited a case where justices heard oral arguments in a lawsuit where the plaintiff, a political group a part of the Koch Network, argued that nonprofit organizations should be able to conceal the identities of their donors. In this instance, Thomas joined the conservative majority vote, where five other justices ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

As it relates to Thomas visit to Palm Springs, the 75-year-old justice reportedly failed to report the 2018 trip on his annual financial disclosure form, just as he failed to do so when he received lavish gifts from Harlan Crow, a wealthy Republican donor, over the course of several years.

Johnson told theGrio that Thomas failure to disclose this mostly recently disclosed trip shows that [Thomas] knew what he was doing was wrong.

He made a conscious decision to withhold the disclosurefrom the American people. He did it because he needed secrecy in order to get away with it for as long as he has, he said.

Congressman Hank Johnson, D-GA, delivers remarks at a press conference on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 to demand Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas resign. Credit: Ashlee Banks

Johnson continued, People are concerned about Clarence Thomas independence, as well as his impartiality. How can you be independent of a group that youve participated in the political activities of for decades and youve raised money for, for decades?

But Thomas is not the only justice whose ethics have been questioned.

In recent months, it was also revealed that Chief Justice John Roberts wife raked in millions of dollars for ensuring lawyers had their cases heard before the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito took a luxury fishing trip with a GOP billionaire who had cases heard before the court.

Additionally, shortly after Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to serve on the bench, a law firm that took over property that he kept a share in also had cases heard before the court.

For months, congressional members and activists have called on the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct to restore balance and credibility.

Last week, Rep. Johnson held a press conference in front of the Supreme Court to re-introduce the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization (TERM) Act, which would limit how long justices can serve on the bench.

In an earlier interview, he told theGrio that he re-introduced the bill to restore fairness to the court since the justices refuse to adopt ethics rules and standards.

Johnson believes the Supreme Court feels like it doesnt have to abide by an ethical standard.

Id love for the court to save itself from itself and determine that it needs to apply a code of conduct to itself, he said. I just dont know what would happen to cause them to do it.

Sherman told theGrio that there may be hope for the justices to adopt an ethical code.

I think weve seen over the last several months, several justices make public statements suggesting that the court is moving closer to taking some action on their own, he said.

So hopefully, we can see more positive steps towards that end as opposed to more negative stories like the one about Justice Thomas.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also,please download theGrio mobile apps today!

The post Rep. Hank Johnson: If I had done what Clarence Thomas has done, I would no longer be a judge appeared first on TheGrio.
MANILA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos on Wednesday signed into law a measure creating a master plan to boost employment in the Southeast Asian country.

In a speech, Marcos said the new act will help solve the challenges plaguing the country's labor sector, such as low-quality jobs, skills mismatch, and underemployment.

The new law will also address the need to update the skills of Filipino workers and promote the use of digital technologies, particularly micro and small enterprises.

This act "will lay the foundation" for employment generation and recovery, Marcos said, ordering the government to fast-track the issuance of the implementing rules and regulations of the law.

The Philippine Statistics Authority said the country's unemployment rate in July this year rose to 4.8 percent from 4.5 percent in June, with a total of 2.27 million Filipinos out of job.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said the law supports the government's priority to create high-quality and high-paying jobs to address the rising issue of vulnerable employment, particularly among self-employed and unpaid family workers.

Aside from addressing unemployment and underemployment, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the new law will establish a comprehensive plan that addresses youth unemployment, the increasing informality of working arrangements, and the reintegration of returning overseas Filipino workers. 
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, listens to Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, during a South Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting at Salt Mine Productive in Sandy on Aug. 18, 2022. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

Rep. John Curtis is very seriously thinking about running for Sen. Mitt Romneys seat in the U.S. Senate.

In a phone call with the Deseret News Wednesday, Curtis said: I would not be honest if I said I wasnt interested in an opportunity to serve in the U.S. Senate and that I wasnt taking this very seriously and looking at the possibility, and Ill leave it at that.

If Curtis launches a campaign, he would join a growing list of candidates, which includes Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs and former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, who is expected to announce his campaign Wednesday.

Former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz has been floated as a potential candidate, as has Tim Ballard, founder and former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad. Ballard is facing a slew of bad press about his time with Operation Underground Railroad, but said earlier he was thinking about jumping in the race.

Curtis campaign manager, Adrielle Herring, said the 3rd District representative has the fire in the belly to run for Senate. His campaign team appears optimistic and gung-ho about the possibility of a run, she added.

Related

Herring said the team has been in full gear since Romney announced he was retiring and not seeking a second term two weeks ago.

Curtis campaign has conducted polls and the results were very encouraging, said Herring. In these polls, Curtis was the front-runner in every matchup against those already in the race and those with the potential to jump in.

If I could be any candidate in this race, Id want to be John Curtis, she said

Herring said Curtis is an effective leader, which is why his office ranked No. 1 for accessibility and accountability out of 435 congressional offices.

So the final decision is coming down to, where would he be in the best position to keep getting things done for Utah? she said, adding that his decision should come soon.

Back in April, when Wilson launched an exploratory committee for a 2024 run, Herring told the Deseret News that Curtis was laser-focused on serving in the House.

Congressman Curtis has worked hard to become one of the most effective lawmakers in the U.S. House, where he is widely respected, she said at the time. Since he doesnt plan to be in Congress forever, he wants to make his time count.

Contributing: Brigham Tomco and Suzanne Bates
State Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, discusses a bill on Aug. 8, 2017. This month, he's being floated by Paxton allies as a potential House speaker candidate. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune

When Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick delivered his blistering speech at the end of Ken Paxton s impeachment trial criticizing the Houses process for bringing the charges, he mentioned one name six times.

John Smithee.

Patrick, who served as judge in the trial, extolled the long-serving Republican state representative from Amarillo as he otherwise bashed the House for how it impeached the attorney general in May. Smithee vigorously opposed Paxtons impeachment at the time, giving a speech from the floor that argued the case was based upon triple hearsay.

I think Rep. Smithees speech was one of the most honest and courageous speeches I have ever heard in the House, Patrick concluded.

Now, Smithee finds himself in a bigger spotlight as Republicans in the Legislature weigh a path forward after the divisive impeachment battle. Some of Paxtons allies are touting Smithee as a House speaker candidate, as the current speaker, Dade Phelan , faces calls from the most conservative flank of the party to resign.

It was totally unexpected, Smithee said in an interview Tuesday. I had no idea Gov. Patrick would do that.

Smithee added he nonetheless appreciated Patricks speech and was especially glad about its timing  at the immediate conclusion of the trial  so it could be part of the court record. Patrick has made that point repeatedly amid criticism the speech portrayed him as biased.

Smithee said he was really impressed with how the Senate conducted the trial, and as for the outcome, he said he had a lot of confidence in the senators judgment.

One of the most senior members of the House, Smithee, an attorney, has served since 1985. He represents Texas House District 86, a solidly red area in the Texas Panhandle.

Smithee is an unlikely ally for Paxtons allies on the far right. He ranked as the 63rd most conservative member in one analysis from the regular session. And he drew a primary challenger even after his attention-grabbing speech against Paxtons impeachment.

He is also among the rural Republicans who previously voted in opposition to school vouchers, a pet issue of the lieutenant governor. Smithee has since indicated more openness to the proposal.

Smithee ended up as one of 23 out of 85 Republicans who voted against Paxtons impeachment in the House, but his speech made him the face of the opposition. He said he knew was effectively going against Phelan, but it was not personal.

Ive been there a long time, Smithee said. Ive learned if theres something you need to say and you dont say it, you regret it later on.

Smithees speech was among the most memorable on the day the House impeached Paxton. For nearly 20 minutes, Smithee criticized the House impeachment process as opaque, rushed and unfair to the accused. He was especially critical of the decision to have only House investigators testify under oath what they learned from witnesses, calling it hearsay within hearsay within hearsay. The House has defended that as normal procedure where people who report crimes are not expected to be placed under oath to do so.

Im aware that there are certain members  who want to get rid of General Paxton for whatever reason in the worst possible way, Smithee said. Im here to tell you what we are doing is the worst possible way.

The Senate ultimately acquitted Paxton of all 16 impeachment articles that it took up in the trial. The articles alleged he misused his office to help his friend and donor Nate Paul harass and investigate his enemies.

Patrick has continued to praise Smithee in a media blitz since the trial. He more recently referenced Smithee in a long tweet Friday that ended by saying Phelan is unworthy of his leadership position  the farthest Patrick has ever gone in calling for a new speaker. The next day, the State Republican Executive Committee, the governing body of the Texas GOP, almost unanimously passed a resolution calling for Phelans resignation.

The SREC resolution said that if Phelan does not resign before the upcoming special session, members should "vote to vacate the chair" and effectively overthrow him. That requires at least 76 votes and is very unlikely to happen.

By Sunday, two Phelan antagonists in the House  Reps. Steve Toth of The Woodlands and Tony Tinderholt of Arlington  were openly encouraging Smithee to run for speaker.

The next speaker election is far off. It would take place at the start of the 2025 regular session, and the GOP caucus would likely coalesce behind a nominee in the weeks before.

Asked about running for speaker, Smithee noted he has a primary opponent and said his sole focus is one step at a time.

Im not really looking beyond just the primary, Smithee said, adding that he hasnt done anything to promote a possible speaker run.

Phelans office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But he quietly filed to run for speaker again in February and has not shown any signs of bowing to the pressure to step down after the Paxton verdict.

Smithees primary opponent is Jamie Haynes, an Amarillo real estate agent who has become a prominent activist for parental rights. She launched her campaign in late June and did not mention Smithee but called for representatives who will fight for our Texas conservative values in Austin.

She did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

But Haynes focus on parental rights could loom as lawmakers prepare for an October special session on Gov. Greg Abbotts push for school choice, or letting parents use taxpayer dollars to take their kids out of public schools. Smithee voted for a budget amendment opposing such programs in 2021 but voted against a similar amendment earlier this year.

I think it needs to be discussed, and so Im glad its going to come up in the context of a special session, Smithee said. Ill be surprised if a bill doesnt pass in the special session when youve got the governor pushing it this hard.

As The Texas Tribune's signature event of the year, The Texas Tribune Festival brings Texans closer to politics, policy and the days news from Texas and beyond. On Sept. 23, we wrapped our 2023 Festival  three lively days packed with 125+ sessions and events. Browse on-demand recordings and catch up on the biggest headlines from Festival events at the Tribunes Festival news page.
MADISON  Transgender youth in Wisconsin could not receive gender-transition treatment under legislation proposed Wednesday by a set of Republican lawmakers.

The bill would bar health care providers from conducting or making referrals for certain medical practices for youth under age 18 "if done for the purpose of changing the minor's body to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the minor's biological sex," according to a summary from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

There are no criminal penalties outlined in the legislation, but violations would result in a mandatory license revocation.

"Our children are not experiments," the bill's authors wrote in a memo seeking co-sponsors. "Parents should not be scared or pressured into having their children receive non-medically necessary drugs or irreversible procedures before their brains are fully developed."

The bill is being proposed by Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Town of Cedarburg.

More: 2 Republican bills would ban transgender women and girls from competing in female sports

At least 20 states have enacted similar laws banning gender-confirming treatments for youth.

The legislation specifies several treatments that would be banned, and also lays out exceptions.

Under the bill, health care providers could not administer to minors:

a surgery that results in sterilization

a mastectomy

puberty-blocking drugs

testosterone for youth assigned female at birth

estrogen for youth assigned male at birth

removal of "any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue"

The bill makes exceptions for treatment administered "in accordance with a good faithmedical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development."

In a joint statement, members of the Assembly LGBTQ+ Caucus said the bill "demonstrates abject cruelty from Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature."

Once again, Republicans are interfering with private medical decisions that belong in the hands of patients and their doctors  not politicians. Gender-affirming care reduces gender dysphoria and helps people live healthy and authentic lives," the LGBTQ+ Caucus members said.

The Wisconsin Medical Society approved a policy earlier this year stating that it opposes legislative restrictions on the provision of gender-affirming care.

The organization "supports increased access to gender affirming health care, psychosocial support, and resources for transgender and gender-diverse youth and adults, including that both public health programs and private insurers provide coverage for those services," according to the policy, which also expresses support for "increased training for physicians and other health care providers regarding the health needs of transgender and gender-diverse youth and adults."

The American Medical Association in June passed a resolution supported by the Endocrine Society "opposing any criminal and legal penalties" for those who seek or provide gender-affirming care.

More: Supervisors vote to establish Milwaukee County as a sanctuary for transgender and nonbinary people

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin GOP bill bans gender-transition treatment for minors
Seven Republican presidential contenders faced off a second time Wednesday in a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.

Former President Donald Trump , the 2024 GOP front-runner, was not participating. On stage were North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ; former Vice President Mike Pence ; businessman Vivek Ramaswamy ; and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who was in the first debate, did not meet the second debate's criteria.

Arizona's abortion-rights ballot initiative was brought up at the event, which started at 6 p.m. Arizona and California time on Fox Business, Univision and streamed on Rumble.

Candidates discuss how they will lower energy prices

As gas and oil costs rise again, the moderators asked Republican candidates how they plan to bring energy prices down.

Vivek Ramaswamy said he would ensure America takes advantage of its domestic natural resources despite limitations in the courts and the administrative state.

Pointing to energy policies in the Trump-Pence administration, Mike Pence pledged to open federal lands for drilling and promote an all of the above energy strategy.

I believe in the next 10 years with the right policies and leadership experience in the White House, we can reclaim our role as the leading energy producer on Earth, Pence said. That will grow the American economy for generations to come.

Nikki Haley also favored energy independence, saying energy security ensures national security. She accused Ron DeSantis of banning oil fracking and drilling in Florida, which DeSantis adamantly denied. He cited his commitment to American energy dominance in west Texas that favors oil and gas production over environmentally friendly policies.

Doug Burgum spoke on his North Dakota track record for opposing the Biden administration in court to allow oil and gas leases on public lands.

We are fighting the Biden administration on 20 fronts. Energy economy, national security Ive been talking about it since day one, he said. Weve got the answer in North Dakota.

 Hayleigh Evans

Arizona's abortion-rights ballot initiative comes up late in debate

Arizona was invoked about an hour and 45 minutes into the debate when Ron DeSantis was asked how he would appeal to voters in the state who will also likely be deciding a ballot measure that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state, which likely will be supported by Democrats and bring many to the polls.

A coalition of advocacy groups launched a campaign to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot next year asking Arizona voters to protect and expand abortion rights in the state. DeSantis said he had success in Florida even in places typically thought of as liberal.

"We were winning in places like Miami Dade County, Palm Beach, he said. I reject the idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats.

He turned back to Donald Trump and again criticized him for not showing up to defend his record for electoral losses during his tenure.

The question then went to Christie, with Dana Perino adding that Republicans have lost elections on the abortion issue.

He emphasized that he was the only Republican on the stage who was elected in a Democrat or blue state.

"That is where the fight is really tough for Republicans, he said, adding that he has experience winning over voters while fighting abortion.

DeSantis said Republicans need to hold Democrats accountable for extremism supporting abortion all the way up to the moment of birth.

"What we did is 14 times in eight years I vetoed Planned Parenthood funding. I kept saying no because I believe in life, Christie said.

 Ryan Randazzo

Candidates talk about education controversies

The candidates were asked about some of the hot-button issues related to public education and offered their takes on the most challenging issues.

Nikki Haley took a question on how to improve education and responded by saying that she would strive to improve performance on reading and other subjects before jumping into more controversial social issues regarding education.

Weve got to quit spending time on this DEI and CRT, she said, referring to the acronyms for diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory.

Christie was asked about school performance in New Jersey being low, and responded by saying that the gap between minority student performance improved during his tenure.

He said the problem was unions.

"This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers' unions in this country, Christie said before referring to first lady Jill Biden , who teaches at a community college. When you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union there is no chance you can take the stranglehold of the teachers union away.

DeSantis was asked about his previous comments about education in his state and how it addresses slavery.Floridas education standards have been criticized for emphasizing that some Black people benefited from slavery.

DeSantis, responding to reporter questions in July, said, Theyre probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.

DeSantis responded to the question saying his comments were a hoax promoted by Vice President Kamala Harris.

He said changes hes made in Florida now emphasize civics and the U.S. Constitution.

 Ryan Randazzo

2 candidates suggest ending birthright US citizenship

Vivek Ramaswamy took a question on his previous statements that he would like to end birthright citizenship as one way to address illegal immigration.

Ilia Calderon of Univision asked him about his comments that he would deport families, including the children born in the U.S. who are citizens.

"You are right about that, Ilia. I favor ending birthright citizenship, Ramaswamy said.

He said his reading of the 14th Amendment could be used to argue that people who have broken the law to cross the border are not protected by that amendment.

Tim Scott agreed, and said that the 14th Amendment was written to address the issue of slavery, not illegal border crossing, and he agreed that its protections should not be extended to the children of people who cross the border.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and granted citizenship to people born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people.

It also banned people who engaged in insurrection against the United States from holding any elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate.

 Ryan Randazzo

Candidates brawl over immigration and border policy

Immigration took center stage early on in the second Republican presidential primary debate. Moderators asked questions of the candidates tied to the border and immigration 20 minutes into the start of the debate in California. That stands in contrast to the first debate, where immigration didn't come up for more than an hour.

The moderators asked the candidates pointed questions about their stances and past comments on immigration and the border.

Moderator Ilia Calderon kicked off the section on immigration playing comments from President Ronald Reagan talking about a law he championed that provided amnesty to roughly 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986.

She asked Chris Christie whether he should support a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

Christie said he supported legal immigration, saying millions of jobs are available to those who entered the country lawfully. But he said security at the border needed to be beefed up and called for the deployment of additional National Guard troops. Anyone who crossed illegally should be sent back, Christie said.

Nikki Hailey accused Biden of encouraging illegal immigration with his policies. She also called for tougher measures at the border and internally, calling on the U.S. government to defund so-called sanctuary cities and instead use that money to strengthen security at the northern and southern borders.

Ron DeSantis largely sidestepped a question about Chinas growing influence in Latin America but used that time to rail against China and what he called a surrender by the Biden administration.

DeSantis said the U.S. needs to be tougher on China and cited his work as governor to prevent China from buying land in Florida.

Vivek Ramaswamy called for the militarization of the border, as well as defunding sanctuary cities and pressuring Mexico to do more. But he notably also called for a change to the 14th Amendment, which allows for birthright citizenship in the United States.

Tim Scott leaned into the idea of doing away with birthright citizenship, arguing that the 14th Amendment was drafted to deal with the end of slavery, not with immigration. He argued that individuals who entered the country illegally are not subject to the Constitution and that their children are therefore not eligible for birthright citizenship.

Mike Pence once again boasted about his work with immigration as vice president, including negotiating the creation of the Migrant Protection Protocols. He also called for greater border security measures and said he would pressure Congress to do more, such as finding a permanent solution for undocumented youth known as Dreamers.

Later in the debate, Ramaswamy was asked about how to stop fentanyl smuggling that largely comes through the ports of entry at the border. His response was to seal the deal and use the military to seal drug tunnels. He also said more needed to be done to stop the demand, particularly from young people using social media.

DeSantis also echoed past comments saying that he supported using the U.S. military to go after drug cartels.

President Joe Biden s campaign issued a statement rebuking all of the Republican candidates, accusing them of supporting failed immigration policies championed by Donald Trump, calling them political gimmicks.

"If MAGA Republicans actually cared about securing our border, they would not stand with House Republicans' proposed devastating cuts to border security that would eliminate hundreds of CBP staff and would surge thousands of pounds of drugs into the country," campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said. "Not one person on that stage is serious about enacting meaningful immigration reform, and it shows."

 Rafael Carranza

Trump criticizes electric vehicles in speech ahead of debate

Former President Donald Trump criticized electric vehicles Wednesday during his prime-time speech at Drake Enterprises, a Michigan auto-parts supplier ahead of the GOP debate.

The United Auto Workers union is in a pitched battle for higher wages and other concessions from major automakers, and President Joe Biden walked with union workers Tuesday. The business Trump visited is not unionized.

Trump said he supported the union workers and that they would be harmed by Bidens policies.

"In two or three years you will not have one job in this state, Trump said.

According to the Associated Press, Drake Enterprises makes automotive and heavy-duty truck components, including gear shift levers for big trucks that could become obsolete if the industry incorporates electric vehicles.Trump hit directly on that point throughout his remarks, repeatedly criticizing electric vehicles and Bidens policies incentivizing them.

"If you want to buy an electric car thats absolutely fine Im all for it but we should not be forcing consumers to buy electric vehicies, Trump said. They are going to destroy the supply chain.

In his characteristic, wandering style, Trump tied that issue to school choice.

I want choice in schools and in the purchase of automobiles, Trump said.

He also said the electric batteries on semitrucks are so large they leave little room for cargo.

The auto industry is being assassinated, Trump continued. These are built specifically for people who want to take very short trips.

He accused Biden of wanting to outlaw electric vehicles, which Trump said he would not do.

The Biden campaign immediate replied to Trumps comments, issuing a lengthy statement that criticized Trumps record for allowing U.S. companies to offshore labor during his presidency.

It also said the Inflation Reduction Act Biden signed into law was specifically aimed at keeping U.S. manufacturing strong by incentivizing U.S. made products.

Donald Trump is lying about President Bidens agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China, Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a written statement.

There is no EV mandate. Simply put: Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China. President Biden is delivering where Donald Trump failed by bringing manufacturing back home, and with it, good-paying jobs for the American people.

 Ryan Randazzo

Debate's bilingual message signals importance of Latino voters

The Republican primary debate kicked off at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., with a bilingual message for viewers.

The event is moderated by Stuart Varney and Dana Perino from Fox News and Ilia Calderon from Univision, which is broadcasting the debate in Spanish with dubbed translations from the seven candidates.

This signals the importance that the Republican Party is placing on Latino voters in the United States. There are an estimated 34.5 million Latinos who are eligible to vote, according to the Pew Research Center.

California is home to nearly a quarter of eligible Latino voters, about 8.3 million. Texas, Florida, New York and Arizona round out the top 5 states with the largest number of eligible Latino voters. Pew estimates about 1.3 million Latino voters live in Arizona.

While most Latino voters have cast ballots for Democrats historically, Trump increased his share of the Latino vote in 2020. Ahead of the 2022 elections, the Republican National Committee opened Hispanic Community Centers targeting Latino voters in cities around the U.S., including one in Tucson.

That year, voters in southern Arizona elected Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., flipping a swing district that helped Republicans retake the House.

 Rafael Carranza

DeSantis PAC targets Ramaswamy ahead of debate

Just hours before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy would face off on the GOP debate stage, the political action committee backing the former launched an ad comparing Ramaswamy to former President Barack Obama.

The clips by the Never Back Down PAC advertisement include Ramaswamys introduction from the first debate, when he described himself as a skinny guy with a funny last name. That is juxtaposed with a clip of Obama referring to himself as a skinny guy with a funny name, words he included in a 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention when he was running for Senate that launched his political career.

The PAC isnt the first to notice that apparent cribbing from Obama, a Democrat, but the ad runs more than a minute in length and includes several other nearly identical phrases used by Ramaswamy that first were used by Obama.

During the first debate last month, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized Ramaswamy for sounding like Obama.

Im afraid were dealing with the same type of amateur, Christie said after making that comparison, drawing boos from the crowd.

 Ryan Randazzo

It's not just once: Vivek Ramaswamy has been copying a lot of Obama's lines.



Watch! pic.twitter.com/QXscC1Gosl  Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) September 27, 2023

What have the GOP candidates said about immigration?

Contenders for the Republican nomination will meet Wednesday to present their views on several policies. With the second debate taking place in California, the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border is sure to come up again.

Monthly apprehensions have once again reached record numbers, after a few months of decreases when the U.S. ended pandemic restrictions at the border.

During the first debate in Milwaukee, candidates spent just a few minutes discussing the border and immigration.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and several other candidates, said the U.S. government should consider military strikes against the cartel operations in Mexico. And that the military aid given to Ukraine should be redirected to the border.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott vowed to invest in additional barriers along the border, to continue the work by former President Donald Trump, who will once again not take part in the debate.

Former Vice President Mike Pence cited his work under the Trump administration in pressuring Mexico to do more by deploying its National Guard and taking back migrants while they claimed asylum under several programs that have since been scaled down. He said a similar approach was needed.

Wednesdays debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., will be hosted jointly by Fox News and Univision. It's the first time a Republican primary debate has been broadcast in Spanish.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released Sept. 22 its latest monthly report showing that the number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border passed 232,000 in August, a 26% increase compared to the previous month.

In the past few weeks, Border Patrol agents have resumed street releases along border communities given the increase and the lack of holding space at border facilities. The arrival of released migrants has also begun to strain cities in the interior of the country, where many of them are headed, including cities like New York and Chicago.

 Rafael Carranza

How to watch Trump instead of the debate

Former President Donald Trump has again decided he doesnt need to debate his Republican primary rivals, and instead will deliver a prime-time speech in Detroit at 5 p.m. Arizona time, which it appears will be viewable online via C-SPAN and other outlets online.

President Joe Biden visited union workers in Michigan on Tuesday and became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line when he joined the United Auto Workers. The union is pushing for higher wages and other concessions from top manufacturing companies.

The union has issued a statement rebuking Trump for his planned visit, but hes doing it anyhow, and will speak at Drake Enterprises, a non-unionized auto parts supplier in Clinton Township.

UAW President Shawn Fain appeared on CNN this week and called it a pathetic irony that Trump would appear a the nonunion factory to appeal to union voters, and said Trumps record has been decidedly anti-union.

According to the Associated Press, the company makes automotive and heavy-duty truck components, including gear shift levers for big trucks that could become obsolete if the industry incorporates electric vehicles. Trumps audience will include several hundred current and former UAW members, as well as members of plumbers and pipefitters unions, according to the AP.

The FOX 2 Detroit television station also plans to carry the live broadcast of Trump online at https://www.c-span.org/video/?530700-1/fmr-pres-trump-holds-rally-detroit

 Ryan Randazzo

Where do the GOP candidates stand on climate change?

About 20 minutes into the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, moderators posed a question from a member of Young America's Foundation  a conservative environmental organization  asking how candidates would address young peoples fears that the Republican Party does not care about climate change.

Four candidates spoke on the issue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized President Joe Bidens response to the Maui wildfire in August. Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, acknowledged that climate change exists but believes the United States should take action once fellow polluters China and India curb their emissions, too. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said bringing jobs back to America from China will improve the economy and benefit the environment.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy took the strongest stance and denied climate change exists.

The climate change agenda is a hoax and we have to declare independence from it, Ramaswamy said. The anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket of our economy. The reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.

 Hayleigh Evans

Meet Wednesdays GOP debate moderators

The second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday has three moderators. They are Dana Perino and Stuart Varney of Fox News and Ilia Calderon of Univision.

Perino, who was one of former President George W. Bushs White House press secretaries, said that without former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner on stage, the other candidates are competing to be the best alternative to him.

This debate is where the rubber meets the road," Perino told the Ventura County Star, which is part of the USA TODAY network. "One of them has to show they can be the main rival to Trump.

Each candidate gets 60 seconds to answer a moderators question. If a candidate criticizes an opponent, the other candidate gets 30 seconds to respond, which is when Varney expects some personality clashes and raised voices.

We have a very loud buzzer, Varney told the Star. Its up to us to retain control. The audience does not want a free-for-all.

The debate starts at 6 p.m. Arizona and California time.

 Ventura County (Calif.) Star

Who will be Trump's 'main rival?' Fox moderators discuss GOP debate at Reagan Library

Chris Christie signals he will again target Trump

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a former ally of former President Donald Trump who has reemerged as one of Trumps fiercest Republican critics.

On Twitter Wednesday, Christie signaled that he again will try to take it to Trump on stage at the second GOP presidential debate in Simi Valley, Calif.

He was responded to a writer for SBNation.com who had posted on the social-media platform X a photo of Christie in the stands at Sundays Arizona Cardinals vs. Dallas Cowboys game in Glendale.

I was just a guy in the bleachers on Sunday... but after tonight, Trump will know we are never ever getting back together. https://t.co/nfnMOMAxMt  Chris Christie (@GovChristie) September 27, 2023

Ooooh who on the Cowboys is Chris Christie dating?! James Dator tweeted.

Christie reposted Dators tweet with the comment: I was just a guy in the bleachers on Sunday... but after tonight, Trump will know we are never ever getting back together.

 Dan Nowicki

Who hasnt made the debate stage yet this year?

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson failed to meet the criteria for participating in Wednesday nights Republican presidential debate in California. He did take part in the first GOP debate.

Some candidates failed to qualify for either debate. They are pastor Ryan Binkley; libertarian radio personality Larry Elder; former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas; and businessman Perry Johnson

Their failure to make the debate stages raises serious questions about the continued viability of their candidacies.

Hurd acknowledged that Wednesday in a written statement. He said he was running for the White House to confront generational-defining challenges such as artificial intelligence; the border crisis; and what he called our new Cold War with China.

Hurd warned that if Republicans nominate former Trump or someone else who imitates Trumps divisive, crass behavior, they will lose in 2024.

My team and I are constantly evaluating whether we have the resources to chart a path to victory. I'm headed to New Hampshire to spread my message to the Granite State ahead of the First In the Nation primary. Educating voters on how to solve these existential issues is important, and hopefully other candidates will follow my lead.

 Dan Nowicki

5th GOP presidential debate for the Reagan Library

The GOP debate on Wednesday night will be the fifth hosted at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in California.

Past Republican White House hopefuls clashed there in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2015.

The museum opened on Nov. 4, 1991. Five living U.S. presidents for the first time were in attendance together at the same place and time. Then-President George H.W. Bush, who was Reagan's vice president, joined Reagan and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.

 Ventura County (Calif.) Star

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: GOP debate recap: Arizona's abortion-rights initiative draws questions
Gilgo Beach killings suspect Rex Heuermann appeared in a New York court on Wednesday for a short status hearing on his upcoming trial for the murders of three women whose bodies were found more than a decade ago.

Heuermann, a 59-year-old architectural consultant from Massapequa Park, wore a suit jacket and khaki cargo pants and was handcuffed behind his back.

Asked by the judge if hed been able to review case evidence in his cell, Heuermann said yes, and that hed been averaging two to three hours of reviewing. That was the only time he spoke. He stood throughout the hearing.

When Heuermann left the courtroom, he turned and looked at the gallery, and appeared to have a small smile on his face before he walked out.

Rex Heuermann appeared with his lawyer Michael Brown, left, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York, on Wednesday. - James Carbone/Pool/Newsday

The case stems from the discovery of nearly a dozen sets of human remains along Long Islands South Shore between 2010 and 2011. Four of the victims were found buried near each other off Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, and they were dubbed the Gilgo Four.

Several of the women were identified as local sex workers, and the long unsolved case raised questions as to how seriously law enforcement treated their disappearances.

Heuermann was arrested in July and has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy in 2009 and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010, according to Suffolk County prosecutors. He is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of the fourth Gilgo Beach victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, authorities have said.

In court, prosecutors said they gave Heuermanns legal team over 10 terabytes of information to review in August, including subpoenas and court records totaling roughly 8,000 pages. Prosecutors gave additional evidence Wednesday, including about 5,000 pages of evidence related to two victims, the grand jury testimony, police memo books from the search of his home and video surveillance.

Prosecutors will continue to provide discovery on a rolling basis ahead of the next court date on November 15, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

Speaking outside court, Tierney described the hearing as typical, dealing with logistics and discovery. Its not exciting, but its necessary, he said.

Heuermanns attorney Michael Brown said there was still a lot of discovery that the defense has not received, including any DNA evidence.

Brown said he had advised Heuermann to be stoic and not show emotion. The attorney added that Heuermann has been an active participant in the case and is doing the best he can.

Hes a fellow who was working, has never been arrested, has a wife and children, is a productive member of society and, obviously, the district attorney and the government is making these allegations and theyre horrific, Brown said. Hes not guilty of this. Now, he has to sit in custody, be away from his family, be away from his wife and kids, not work, not produce for his family and support them and sit in a jail cell until this case comes to fruition.

DNA swab matches pizza box DNA, prosecutors say

Part of Wednesdays hearing focused on the DNA evidence in the case and previewed some of the defenses challenges to that evidence.

In early 2022, a multiagency task force was formed to re-investigate the cold case, and Heuermann was soon identified as a potential suspect.

A major break in the investigation came this January, when investigators recovered Heuermanns DNA from pizza crust that was thrown away in a Manhattan trash can, authorities said. That pizza box DNA was then compared with DNA from a male hair from the bottom of a burlap sack that the killer used to wrap one of the victims bodies, according to prosecutors.

Using mitochondrial DNA testing, the male hair would exclude 99.96% of the North American population, but Heuermann was notably not excluded, according to the prosecutions bail application.

In court Wednesday, prosecutors said they had since taken a buccal swab of Heuermann, and the swab DNA matched the pizza box DNA. The buccal swab erases all doubt, Tierney said.

But in what may be a preview of the defenses argument, Brown outside court noted that the mitochondrial DNA technology connecting Heuermann to the male hair is not as precise as standard nuclear DNA.

Instead, mitochondrial DNA refers not to an individual, but a group of individuals in the same maternal lineage, according to a 2021 overview of the technology published in the journal Emerging Topics in Life Sciences.

Its still a significant amount of people that could be the source of this hair, Brown said.

CNNs Steve Almasy and Jean Casarez contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
The daughter of the BTK serial killer was in the throes of what she describes as a "closet crisis" in her Florida home on Aug. 30.

Kerri Rawson says the "raw feelings" stemmed from an inflection point in her high-profile campaign helping investigators with cold cases that might involve her father. Feeling a bit exposed, she escaped to her closet.

Then her phone lit up: It was an incoming (401) call from Rhode Island.

Soon, Rawson was talking to her friend Lauren Lee Malloy.

"She talked me out of the closet," recalls Rawson.

Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, with his daughter Kerri Rawson.

Rawson shared the anecdote while discussing Malloy's role on the newly formed National BTK Task Force.

BTK is an acronym for bind, torture, kill. This was the technique of Rawson's father, Dennis Rader, an imprisoned serial killer already convicted in 10 murders.

On Sept. 11, Oklahoma Sheriff Eddie Virden of Osage County announced that a new task force, made up of federal and state agencies as well as individual experts, would investigate "findings" that "strongly indicate" links between Rader and an array of unsolved homicides and missing-person cases, including the vanishing of 16-year-old Cynthia Kinney from a coin-operated laundry in 1976.

Virden identified Rawson  and Malloy  as members of the task force.

Rawson's assistance has been credited for some recent progress in the investigation. The sheriff's news release cited her role as advocacy and "suspectology."

It identified Malloy as a "victim advocate."

Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, addresses a judge in 2005 while pleading guilty to 10 murders.

What is Lauren Lee Malloy's role on the task force?

Malloy, a 32-year-old communications professional, has gained growing prominence in Rhode Island in recent years investigating the 1993 death of her own mother, raising questions about the autopsy. Last year, authorities exhumed her mother's body.

Along the way, Malloy has honed investigative skills. Her talents for networking, advocacy and social media have helped local victims and assisted police in missing-person cases.

She and Rawson say they met on social media and have grown close over the last year.

"We play well off each other's strengths," Malloy said.

"I feel like I kind of found my voice through all of this," Lauren Lee Malloy said. "By learning about who my mom was and how brave she was and how wild she was and how full of life she really was. That kind of encouraged me and empowered me "

A serial killer's daughter

Rawson was 26 years old and already a longtime victim of her father's emotional abuse when she learned about his homicidal behaviors. This was when Rader was arrested, in 2005.

Investigators compelled a hospital to turn over one of Rawson's DNA samples, which they used to link her father to the BTK killings, according to a recent New York Times article.

Rader's killing spree, says the article, is believed to have started before Rawson was born in 1974.

Investigating her mother's death helped Lauren Lee Malloy find her calling and help others

"He strangled four members of a Wichita family with a cord from Venetian blinds," it says. "He would kill many more people, all women from that point forward, through the early 1990s, keeping meticulous notes in journals."

When Rawson was 6 years old and having trouble sleeping, her father killed a 53-year-old woman who lived down the street from their home.

Decades later, Rawson wrote a book about it all, titled "A Serial Killer's Daughter." Earlier this year, Oklahoma authorities asked her to help them investigate, which involved seeing her father for the first time in 18 years.

Investigators are working to determine whether BTK serial killer Dennis Rader was behind the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Kinney and others who vanished or were killed during the years of his killing spree.

Rawson and Malloy mum on latest in the BTK case

Malloy's presence on the task force means she and Rawson can go over details of the case.

"We have each other's backs and we're safe for each other," she says. "We discuss everything we can."

They both say they can't comment on the latest in the BTK investigation. Malloy declined to go into detail about her role, saying she doesn't think she can even talk about whether her role will involve travel to the Midwest.

She said she intends to provide "advocacy support for all victims and their families" and to ensure that the task force maintains a "victim-centric approach."

"I'm grateful," says Malloy, "to my brave friend Kerri and all victims' families who've given me their trust and fully intend to bring lessons learned from them to my work with the task force."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: New developments in BTK serial killer case has attention of task force
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Ben Cardin will serve as chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, replacing Bob Menendez , who faces felony bribery charges, after the Senate agreed to a resolution on Wednesday naming him to the position.

Menendez pleaded not guilty to the charges earlier on Wednesday.

It is the second time Cardin, a senior senator known for human rights advocacy, replaces fellow Democrat Menendez in committee leadership. Cardin also stepped in from April 2015 to February 2018 after Menendez faced federal corruption charges that were later dropped. At that time Menendez was ranking member, the panel's top member from the minority party.

A three-term senator who turns 80 next week, Cardin has announced that he will not run for re-election next year.

Menendez last week stepped down from his role as chairman of the committee, as required under his party's rules because he is facing felony charges. More than half of the Senate Democratic caucus has called for Menendez to resign.

Less hawkish than Menendez, Cardin has focused on human rights throughout his career, notably by authoring the Magnitsky Act, named for a lawyer who exposed corruption in Russia before dying in prison.

Passed in 2012 and expanded globally in 2016, the act allowed the U.S. government to sanction individuals involved in human rights violations, not just governments.

Menendez was an ally to Democratic presidents on most foreign policy issues, but became known for breaking with them, at times vociferously, in some high-profile cases.

The son of immigrants from Cuba, Menendez criticized then-President Barack Obama's easing of relations with the Communist-ruled island and President Joe Biden's moves toward talks with Venezuela.

But Cardin has also broken with Democrats, including in 2015, when he and Menendez were two of only four Democratic senators who voted against Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

Cardin's appointment could signal a shift in policy toward Egypt, accused of bribing Menendez to use his influence on Egypt's behalf. Cardin criticized Biden's decision this month to release $235 million in military aid to Egypt.

"If we want to show the world that respect for human rights is a core dimension of U.S. national security interests, we need to do more in holding wayward governments accountable," Cardin said in a statement.

Some lawmakers have called for a reassessment of the administration's decision on aid to Egypt in light of Menendez's charges.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Timothy Gardner)
An area of Rock Hill thats long waited for change may get it. But they first may have to wait for a South Carolina law to change.

York Capital and Albright Corners want to rezone 127 acres at Mt. Holly and Albright Roads, south of Saluda Street. The two developers would combine to create commercial space with 475 homes, townhomes or apartments. The proposal is part of a years-long effort to grow that area and perhaps attract a new grocery store to a place largely without one.

This does bring more residential property to the south side of Rock Hill, said Mayor John Gettys. This does potentially put us in a place where more rooftops would bring in a grocery store which we desperately need.

Proposed plan would put 475 new homes, townhomes and apartments in Rock Hill

The problem is the apartments. The zoning proposal almost didnt get a discussion Monday night when Rock Hill City Council met.

Im not trying to kill what the applicant has got going forward but, I cant imagine four of us voting for 400 apartments tonight, said Councilman Kevin Sutton.

State law is the sticking point

Gettys said a state law passed last year allows an apartment complex owner in South Carolina to claim that property as affordable housing and pay no property tax.

Weve seen property owners in Rock Hill do this, Gettys said. Weve seen property owners around the state of South Carolina do this. It is a bad law. There is nothing good about this law. It makes rich people richer, and it hurts local communities. And it does not create more affordable housing.

Even council members who support redevelopment efforts in the Mt. Holly, Albright and Saluda areas have concerns with what the state law.

Were in the business of being great stewards with peoples money and if theyre not contributing to their part, then thats a problem long-term, said Councilman Derrick Lindsay.

The apartment issue is bigger than this one current project. Gettys told city planning staff to let others eyeing apartment projects understand whats happening, and that they need to call state legislators if they have concerns.

Warn anyone who comes to apply now or is early in the process, Gettys said, that their applications probably will not come before us until this issue is resolved.

Gettys said theres no guarantee the law will change. He also said the current project is of high importance for the city and has been in process for four or five years. Council voted to pass the first of two needed readings. They wont, however, take up final reading until state law changes or the city can work out some type of agreement with the developer to mitigate the tax issue.

We dont want a lot more apartments with the current state law on the books, Councilwoman Kathy Pender said. But for me its not a waste of time to go ahead and look at this.

A long wait for change

Councilman Perry Sutton said its important not to put off the proposed project any longer than necessary. Perry Sutton said hes been to that area and spoken with residents, where he heard about 60 years of promises from the city.

I heard this all week, he said. And when I said weve got something coming this week, they said its about time.

Perry Sutton said the community lost a grocery store, and more homes are needed to get one close to people who live there.

The people in that area have been waiting for change, have been waiting for something to happen and we have denied them for years, he said. Here is an opportunity to do it and do it right.

Rock Hill residents shouldnt be punished, he said, because legislators in Columbia made a decision that harms them.

Councilman Jim Reno said it likely will be at least January or February before the city would consider a final decision, since it would take that long to know what the general assembly might do. Even if the state chooses to change or amend the law, the implications of how it would impact Rock Hill arent known.

If the law remains, Rock Hill is unlikely to see new apartments in the area, or on others around the city. At least not on sites that would need annexation, rezoning or otherwise dont already allow apartment development.

Unless our legal team, working with the developer, can assure us we have some bulletproof way of getting around the apartments (issue) Im a hard no on this on second reading, Kevin Sutton said. Nothing against the developer or the neighbors that I know want it but theres no way we can allow 400 apartments to come into the city that may not ever pay a dime for police protection or fire protection or all the other services that we provide.
A Rock Hill man has been charged with DUI in a fatal York County crash that left one person dead and another hurt, according to South Carolina police and court records.

Michael Lee Williams Jr., 46, was arrested after the crash Sept. 22 on S.C. 901 south of Rock Hill, according to Master Trooper Gary Miller of the S.C. Highway Patrol and arrest warrants obtained by The Herald.

Williams faces charges of felony DUI resulting in death and felony DUI resulting in great bodily injury, according to troopers and the arrest warrants from the York County Clerk of Court.

A passenger in a Jeep Williams was driving died and another passenger was injured in the crash that happened around 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 22, Miller said.

Williams remains in the York County Detention Center without bail, according to online jail and court records.
KENNEBUNK, Maine  Rococo Ice Creams Dessert Bar recently opened, offering an assortment of delectable indulgences and craft cocktails.

The restaurant at 8 Western Ave., next to Federal Jacks, will be open year-round and has an extensive menu of more than 50 items, all averaging $10 to $20, including adult milkshakes, mocktails, affogatos and desserts.

I see the dessert bar as the perfect spot for a sweet nightcap or a mid-afternoon sugar rush, said owner Lauren Guptill. The romantic in me is imagining it will be the place of many first dates, as well as a gathering spot for friends and families.

Rococo Ice Creams Dessert Bar recently opened, offering an assortment of delectable indulgences and craft cocktails.

Fan favorites are already bubbling to the surface, including the Sea Bacon Brownie Sundae, which uses smoked eel from Portland-based company American Unagi. Another playful dessert favorite is Cake with Caviar, griddled like French toast and bursting with umami salty, sweet and citrus flavors. For traditionalists, the Rococo Dessert Bar has also included sweet treats in the form of a Dark Chocolate Ice Cream Cake or a Root Beer Float, which can come with or without a liquor of choice. Lastly, for guests looking for a cocktail experience, The Queen Has Spoken is packed with flavor notes, including earl grey sour cherry jam and pistachio, while the Soap Opera is a fancy elevated cocktail served in an elaborate glass and topped with a scoop of Rococos lemongrass sorbet.

Previous story: Rococo Ice Creams dessert bar in Kennebunk to feature bold flavors, ice cream cocktails

Guptill, founder of Rococo Ice Cream, relocated her scoop shop to the Shipyard Shops center in the Lower Village of Kennebunk in May.

Upon reopening our scoop shop in its brand-new location, I decided to wait and open the Dessert Bar in September, Guptill said. I love September in the Kennebunks, when the locals come back out and I wanted something special to be waiting just for them.

I see the dessert bar as the perfect spot for a sweet nightcap or a mid-afternoon sugar rush, said owner Lauren Guptill. The romantic in me is imagining it will be the place of many first dates, as well as a gathering spot for friends and families.

When stepping into the fully renovated space, customers are transported from the docks along the Kennebunk River to the whimsical Rococo era. Everything about the Dessert Bar is inspired by the elaborate decor to the decadent menu, which will rotate based on seasonal ingredients from local Maine businesses and new creative visions from the culinary team.

Rococo Ice Creams Dessert Bar recently opened, offering an assortment of delectable indulgences and craft cocktails.

Woodhull Maine was the architect and construction company for the Dessert Bar. Long-time Kennebunkport locals Christy Ried and Krista Stokes were the interior design duo that brought the vision to life.

The fantastical designs engulf guest senses upon walking in, with a romantic focus that can transport customers in time. The cozy room is a mix-match of lush banquettes, golden swan fixtures, peacock wallpaper, elaborate tiles and more. A large marble bar centers all the design elements, and a distressed floor-to-ceiling wall mirror makes the room feel grand.

Rococo Ice Creams Dessert Bar recently opened, offering an assortment of delectable indulgences and craft cocktails.

While the design will leave people in awe, Guptill said the incredible curated selection of desserts and cocktails will make people stay.

Guptill's recipes blend local and imported ingredients that allow customers to travel to other countries with each scoop of ice cream  no passport required, she said. She has created flavors that have celebrated Cuban, Argentine, and Middle Eastern cultures, as well as others, she added.

I pull from a global palette, Guptill said.

Rococo Ice Creams new Dessert Bar, and Scoop Shop, is located at 8 Western Ave., Kennebunk Maine. The full menu is available to review at www.RococoIceCream.com. The website also offers a place to shop Rococos delicious ice cream flavors and ships nationwide.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Rococo Dessert Bar: Where ice cream meets cocktails in Kennebunk
Rostraver police investigated after a public works vehicle allegedly didnt stop for a school bus with its red lights flashing.

According to Rostraver police, the investigation showed that the school bus was stopped with the yellow lights flashing and waived the oncoming car through.

The bus driver also said the public works vehicle was stopped prior to being waived on.

The red lights were never activated, police said. Speed was not an issue and the childs safety wasnt jeopardized.

In summary we want to be clear, public safety is a priority. We take these matters seriously, Rostraver police said. In the future, please be aware before we pass judgement on social media, contact the Rostraver Township Police for complete and thorough investigation. Please be safe and stay healthy.

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Here's a roundup of recent incidents and announcements from Ventura County agencies:

Oxnard police investigate stabbing

Oxnard Police Department officers were investigating a stabbing late Tuesday afternoon that sent the victim to a hospital.

The incident was reported around 4:30 p.m. in the 6200 block of Perkins Road, near the cross with McWane Boulevard, said police Cmdr. Steve Trickle. The area is near the former Halaco site that edges Ormond Beach at the city's south end.

As of 5:30 p.m., officers continued to investigate the scene, Trickle said. The victim had been transported by ambulance with injuries that did not appear life-threatening.

On Wednesday, Sgt. Scott Coe said the stabbing victim, an adult male, had suffered minor wounds. A second victim, a female, wasn't injured.

The incident may have involved a domestic issue, Coe said, but the matter remains under investigation.

No suspect was in custody as of 3 p.m. Wednesday.

This item may be updated.

Laser strikes hit Ventura County helicopter

Three separate laser strikes hit a Ventura County helicopter Saturday night, officials said.

A Ventura County helicopter was the target of three laser strikes while on patrol over the weekend, authorities said.

Copter 3 was conducting patrol operations Saturday night when the crew chief and pilot experienced three separate laser strike incidents, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Office, which operates the aviation unit with the county fire agency.

The first two incidents took place around 8 p.m. in Oxnard and Port Hueneme. At around 10:30 p.m., a third strike followed as the helicopter flew over Camarillo.

The crew chief was unable to locate the source in any of the three incidents.

Pointing a laser at an aircraft can impair the crew's safety and cause permanent damage to their eyes, sheriff's officials said in a news release Tuesday.

A special penal code covers laser strikes due to public safety risks if a pilot is incapacitated or blinded. A conviction could bring up to three years in state prison, the agency said.

County helicopters provide support for wildfire response, search-and-rescue operations and medical transport as well as law enforcement patrol.

DA grant will help Ramirez center in Oxnard

The Ventura County District Attorney's Office secured a $640,000 grant to help launch the Carmen Ramirez Family Justice Center in Oxnard.

The money will support bilingual Spanish-speaking victim advocates, legal and administrative assistants and equipment at the center through September 2025. The county Board of Supervisors approved acceptance of the grant Tuesday, the DA's office said in a news release.

The center will provide "a safe haven and essential services for victims of crime, and this grant is a crucial step toward making it a success," said county DA Erik Nasarenko in a statement.

Nasarenko's office credited Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, as "instrumental" with securing the funds from a grant program at the U.S. Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime.

The center, named after the late county supervisor and former Oxnard City Council member widely known as a community advocate, will be located in the 500 block of South A Street and is expected to open in 2024. It will be the county's second Family Justice Center. The first, located in Ventura, has served about 2,500 victims of crime each year since opening in 2019, the DA's office said.

Ramirez died in August 2022 after she was hit by a truck while walking across a street in downtown Oxnard on her way to a concert at Heritage Square.

Robbery threat at 7-Eleven leads to teen's arrest

Ventura County Sheriff's deputies arrested a 17-year-old in connection with an attempted robbery at a Camarillo convenience store Tuesday morning.

Shortly before 5:30 a.m., a 911 hang-up call from the 7-Eleven at 255 Carmen Drive brought deputies to the site. Evidence showed a male suspect had demanded money from the clerk and, while reaching for his waistband, threatened to shoot the victim. The suspect fled on foot, empty-handed, before deputies arrived.

Authorities learned the suspect, later identified as an Oxnard resident, 17, was staying at the Motel 6 at 1641 East Daily Drive. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the motel room, where they took the teen into custody. He had a loaded handgun in his possession, sheriff's officials said in a news release. Evidence from the crime was reportedly found at the site.

The teen was lodged at the county's Juvenile Justice Center on suspicion of attempted robbery and various firearms offenses.

Two women associated with the motel room and the suspect were arrested on suspicion of narcotics offenses and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. They were booked into county jail.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Camarillo investigations bureau at 805-388-5100.

Indecent exposure arrest at Ventura bus center

Ventura police arrested a 32-year-old man over the weekend after he allegedly exposed himself at the transit center.

The Santa Barbara man was reportedly standing near the bathrooms at the Ventura Transit Center, 3330 Telegraph Road, shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday when a witness saw him pull down his pants, expose himself and engage in lewd activity, Ventura Police Department officials said in a news release.

The witness reportedly stood in front of a child in the area to block the minor's view.

A responding officer detained the suspect after seeing him smoking drugs from a pipe, officials said, when the original witness alerted the officer to the alleged exposure incident a short time earlier. The man was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure and various narcotics offenses.

He was booked into county jail and subsequently released on a bail bond, jail records showed.

Items may be updated.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Roundup: Oxnard stabbing investigation, laser strikes hit copter, more
FILE - Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office at the Department of Education, Sept. 20, 2023 in Washington. A new federal rule threatens to cut federal money to college programs that consistently leave graduates with low pay or unaffordable debt. The gainful employment rule finalized by the Biden administrations on Wednesday applies mostly to for-profit colleges, along with certificate programs at traditional universities. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WASHINGTON (AP)  College programs that consistently leave graduates with low pay or unaffordable loans will lose access to federal money under a new rule being finalized by the Biden administration. The policy applies mostly to for-profit colleges, along with certificate programs at traditional universities.

The Education Department says it's a step toward accountability for America's higher education system. The rule, known as gainful employment, was proposed in May and revives an Obama-era policy dismantled by the Trump administration.

The department announced Wednesday that the final rule will be published Oct. 10.

Higher education is supposed to be an invaluable investment in your future. There is nothing valuable about being ripped off or sold on a worthless degree, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said at a press briefing.

An association of for-profit colleges denounced the policy as an unfair attack, saying any policy should be applied evenly across all types of schools. The rule applies to all for-profit college programs, but not to bachelor's degrees and most graduate programs at traditional colleges.

Once again, the Department has rushed the process, overlooking critical issues, to hastily implement and weaponize a final Gainful Employment rule against for-profit institutions, said Jason Altmire, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities.

The rule takes effect in July 2024, and the soonest any program could lose federal money is 2026.

The rule will put college programs through two tests to determine whether theyre helping students.

The first test will check whether a programs graduates carry heavy student debt compared to their earnings. Programs will pass if their graduates have annual loan payments averaging no more than 8% of their total income, or 20% of their discretionary income.

A second test will check whether at least half of a programs graduates earn more than working adults in their state with only a high school diploma.

Programs that fail either test will need to warn students that theyre at risk of losing federal money. Those that fail the same test twice in any three-year period will be cut off from federal aid. That amounts to a death sentence for many programs.

Borrower advocates applauded it as a much-needed protection.

The finalized Gainful Employment rule is a major step towards enacting more front-end protections to ensure students arent being taken advantage of by predatory schools and programs," said Aaron Ament, president of Student Defense.

The final rule made few changes to the initial proposal, despite sharp criticism from Republicans and the for-profit industry.

Some for-profit colleges say the rule unfairly punishes colleges that enroll large numbers of students who may face wage discrimination in the workforce, including women of color. Those programs could be at risk if their graduates consistently earn lower-than-average pay. Other for-profit colleges say it could jeopardize programs in areas where there are few other options.

Beauty school programs would be hit especially hard, according to an Associated Press analysis of the proposal. Nearly two-thirds of cosmetology certificates could be at risk of failing the test and losing federal money, along with more than a third of such programs in massage therapy and dental support services.

Cosmetology schools fought hard against the rule, saying the department has failed to consider a well-known problem in the industry, the underreporting of income to the IRS. The practice makes it look like cosmetology graduates earn less than they really do, which could penalize them under the new rule, schools say.

The Education Department estimates the rule will protect about 700,000 students a year who would otherwise enroll in one of nearly 1,700 low-performing programs.

A separate part of the rule will release new information showing students the true cost of programs across all types of colleges. The Education Department will publish data detailing the amount students pay for individual programs  including, tuition, fees and books  along with their student debt levels and earnings after graduation.

These rules will stop taxpayer dollars from going to schools that continually saddle students with unaffordable debt, said James Kvaal, undersecretary of education. Separately, were ensuring all students have increased information to make good choices.

__

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is joining a chorus of Democrats calling on U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez to resign from the Senate following his indictment on federal bribery and corruption charges.

In a statement to the Miami Herald, Mucarsel-Powell, the most prominent Democrat challenging U.S. Sen. Rick Scott for his seat in 2024, said that Menendez, like any other politician charged with a crime, deserves due process under the law. Still, she added, the gravity of the charges warrants his resignation.

The allegations made against Senator Menendez are specific, serious, and disturbing, she said. I believe Senator Menendez must step down to honor the office hes served for so long and to honor the public trust the people of New Jersey placed on him.

Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and the chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged on Friday with taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, jewelry, gold and other valuables in exchange for providing sensitive information to the government of Egypt and aiding businessmen in New Jersey.

The indictment lists three other defendants, including Menendezs wife Nadine Menendez and three New Jersey businessmen.

Menendez has maintained his innocence and has accused prosecutors of framing the allegations against him to be as salacious as possible.

A spokesperson for Scotts reelection campaign said that, if true, the allegations against Menendez effectively disqualify him from holding public office, but noted that the decision is ultimately up to Menendez and his constituents.

Thats up to Sen. Menendez and the people of New Jersey but certainly if even half of whats outlined in the indictment is true, he shouldnt be holding public office, Scotts communications director Priscilla Ivasco said. The people of New Jersey deserve a Senator who puts their interests first, not one who stuffs his pants with gold bars and advocates for the interests of a foreign government.

Its not the first time the New Jersey senator has faced accusations of criminal conduct. He was charged in 2015 with taking bribes from a prominent South Florida eye doctor in exchange for political favors. That trial ended in 2017 with a hung jury. The judge in the case ultimately acquitted Menendez of several charges and the Justice Department eventually dismissed the others.

Unlike with the 2015 indictment, when Menendezs Democratic colleagues in the Senate largely stood by him, a growing number of his colleagues have called on Menendez to step aside in the face of the latest charges. Among them is U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, New Jerseys junior senator and a close ally of Menendez.

Menendez, for his part, has refused to resign his Senate seat, expressing confidence that he will ultimately be cleared of the charges.

The allegations leveled against me are just that: allegations, Menendez said at a Monday press conference in Union City, N.J. I recognize that this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated through this whole process, I firmly believe that when all of the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I will still be New Jerseys senior senator.

Mucarsel-Powell, who previously represented a key South Florida U.S. House district that spanned from southern Miami-Dade County to Key West, received a $2,500 contribution from Menendezs leadership PAC for her 2020 reelection bid, putting her on a list of dozens of Democratic candidates whom the group has donated to over the years.

In recent days, some Democrats  most notably U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania  have said that they will return campaign contributions from Menendezs PAC. Asked whether Mucarsel-Powell would do the same, a spokesperson for her campaign noted that her House campaign committee was no longer active.

The 2020 congressional account has long been closed, Michelle Gajewski, the spokesperson, said.
Motor vehicle traffic on the Crimean Bridge has been temporarily suspended.

Source: Crimean Bridge, a Telegram channel of the Russian occupying authorities

Details: People on the bridge and in the inspection area have been asked to remain calm and follow the instructions of transport security officers.

The Russian occupying authorities did not disclose the reasons for the bridge closure.

Background:

Ukrainian Defence Intelligence has reported that the set of measures as part of the special operation in occupied Crimea is ongoing.

The Security Service of Ukraine and the Navy also regularly conduct special operations on the Ukrainian peninsula.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
Russia has begun to engage separate units of the newly created 25th Combined Arms Army in combat as reinforcements, which in turn reduces the likelihood of a new large-scale Russian offensive in the near future.

Source: UK Ministry of Defence intelligence review on Twitter on 27 September, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Analysts report that Russia has most likely sent some separate units of the newly created 25th Combined Arms Army to the front since mid-September.

For instance, there is information that the 67th Motor Rifle Division and the 164th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade are participating in fighting in the area west of Sievierodonetsk and Kreminna, on the border of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Quote from Intelligence: "Since the start of the invasion, Russia has only rarely maintained an uncommitted army-size grouping which could potentially form the basis of a major new offensive thrust. With [the 25th Combined Arms Army] apparently being deployed piecemeal to reinforce the over-stretched line, a concerted new Russian offensive is less likely over the coming weeks."

Background:

UK intelligence reported earlier that Russia was planning to deploy the 25th Combined Arms Army only from December.

It was also noted that Russian local counterattacks at the contact zone often fail.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
Russia's forces appear to be stretched along its multi-layer defenses, a US think tank said.

The same units appeared to be deployed in both advanced and defensive roles, said the ISW.

Russian forces are coming under significant pressure from Ukrainian attacks in Zaporizhzhia.

Russian defenses are probably lacking strength in depth on a key part of the front line where Ukraine has recently made important gains, data from a US think tank indicates.

The Institute for the Study of War said Tuesday that units from the same Russian divisions were deployed in Tokmak, a village just behind the front line that's a key target of Ukraine's counteroffensive, as well as in more advanced positions fighting Ukrainian forces.

The ISW said this suggested Russia had not manned its multi-echeloned defense in southern Ukraine in depth.

"The deployment of the 70th and 71st Motorized Rifle Regiments as far back as Tokmak suggests that elements of the same Russian formations and units defending at forward positions are holding positions, likely in smaller numbers, in subsequent defensive layers," it said.

It added it was possible that elements of other Russian units and formations held rear defensive positions, but the current Russian manpower commitment to holding positions on the frontline "indicates that this is unlikely."

Russian forces are coming under intense pressure from Ukrainian attacks in the southern Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia Oblast, with the ISW in other recent updates saying that Russian forces were stretched thin and elite units were sustaining high casualties during counterattacks.

Ukraine recently took control of the town of Robotyne, beyond Russia's initial defensive lines, and is targeting Tokmak, which lies on a strategically important road.

The ISW's assessment echoes that of other analysts, who have said Russian defenses beyond the initial, heavily fortified front two lines appear to be weak, suggesting that Ukraine could make rapid advances if it manages to break through.

Ukraine is probing Russian defenses at several points simultaneously along the heavily fortified "Surovikin line" in a bid to expose weak spots and force it to deploy elite units thinly, reports have said.

One of the core aims of Ukraine's counteroffensive in south Ukraine is to retake the strategic town of Melitopol, which would enable it to significantly disrupt supplies traveling to the Russian-occupied Crimea Peninsula by road and rail.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Russia's defense minister said its invasion of Ukraine could last until at least 2025.

This is a far cry from Putin's reported goal of capturing Kyiv within days of the invasion.

Sergei Shoigu said Russia is continuing to "build up the combat power" of its armed forces.

At the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US intelligence assessed that Russia could conquer Kyiv in just three days.

In fact, CIA Director Bill Burns told lawmakers weeks after the start of the invasion that Putin's strategy was centered on "seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign."

Now 18 months into the war, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu seemingly admitted Russia's offensives in Ukraine could last until at least 2025.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor in Ukraine's internal affairs ministry, posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which Shoigu said the Russian army is continuing to "build up the combat power" of its forces to face Ukraine's counteroffensive.

To achieve its military goals, Shoigu said Russia was supplying its troops with modern weapons and offering improved training, despite reports indicating Russian troops lack advanced training and are low on weapons.

Shoigu added that Russia could achieve its military goals with "consistent implementation of the measures in the action until 2025."

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and allies like Shoigu have repeatedly stressed the need to keep Ukraine inside Russia's sphere of influence, and to defeat what they describe as Ukraine's "Nazi regime".

But, 18 months into the conflict, Russia only occupies parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

Ukrainian troops are also pushing back hard against Russian forces, focusing their efforts on breaking through Russia's heavily fortified defensive lines across occupied territory in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces are coming under intense pressure from Ukrainian attacks in the southern Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia Oblast, with the Institute for the Study of War, among others, saying in recent commentary that Russian forces are stretched thin and that elite units are sustaining high casualties during counterattacks.

On Tuesday, the ISW said that Russian defenses appeared to lack strength in depth on a key part of the front line where Ukraine has made recent gains.

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The Russian admiral whom Ukraine forces said died in a strike on occupied Crimea last week has appeared in a video posted by a Russian military channel Wednesday  the second video released in as many days which has cast further doubt on Kyivs claim.

Viktor Sokolov, commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was asked by a reporter in a video about the missile strike on the fleets headquarters in Sevastopol, which Ukraine said had killed him.

The Black Sea Fleet is carrying out the tasks set by the command confidently and successfully, Sokolov said in the video posted by Zvezda News, the media outlet of the Russian military on Telegram.

The video was published Wednesday, however CNN cannot verify the date the interview was carried out. There are few details within the interview that reveal its time or location.

In the video, Sokolov also referred to the Order of Ushakov award given to Russias 810th Marine Brigade. This award was given on August 29th, according to the Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhaev.

The interview was published a day after the Russian defense ministry published a video that also appeared to show Sokolov participating in a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other Russian military leaders.

A video published Tuesday showed Sokolov appearing to attend a Russian defense ministry meeting. - Russian Ministry of Defense

In the Russian footage published Tuesday, a man resembling Sokolov appeared to join the meeting via video conference. The nametape on his uniform reads Sokolov V. N. and his screen showed the Cyrillic letters , the abbreviation for the Black Sea Fleet. CNN could not confirm this is Sokolov, when the meeting took place or where his video appearance was filmed.

The Kremlin initially refused to confirm whether or not Sokolov was alive. There has been no information from the Ministry of Defense. This is entirely in their purview and we have nothing to say here, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

But, by the next day, the messaging had changed, with Peskov confirming that Sokolov had attended the defense ministry meeting.

Yesterday we spoke about the fleet commander. He took part in the meeting, Peskov told reporters Wednesday.

Ukraines new defense minister Rustem Umerov neither confirmed nor denied Sokolov had been killed in the strike when asked by CNNs Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview from Kyiv Tuesday.

He [Sokolov] is in our temporary occupied territories  he should not be there at all. So, if hes dead, its good news for everybody that we are continuing to de-occupy our territory, Umerov told Amanpour.

Before the two videos were published, the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces had said Fridays attack  the latest in a string of bold strikes on the occupied peninsula of Crimea  killed 34 people, including Sokolov.

Ukraine has increasingly began to strike strategic Russian targets in Crimea, the Black Sea region of southern Ukraine annexed by Moscow in 2014. Earlier this month, Ukraine launched an extensive assault on a Russian ship repair base in Sevastopol, damaging an attack submarine and a warship.

Russia appointed Sokolov as its new commander for its Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet in August 2022, according to reports from state media outlet TASS at the time.

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Russian forces launched attacks against nine oblasts over the past day, killing one civilian and injuring 17 others, local officials reported early on Sept. 27.

Russia carried out 119 strikes against Kherson Oblast, injuring 12 people, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Russian forces targeted Nikopol and the surrounding area with drones and artillery, Governor Serhii Lysak said.

Two men aged 44 and 68 were injured and hospitalized following Russian shelling overnight, the governor clarified.

In Donetsk Oblast, one person was wounded in Orlivka in Russian attacks, the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration reported.

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A man in his mid-60s was injured following a Russian artillery strike against Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

Russia launched 130 strikes against Zaporizhzhia Oblast over the past day, Governor Yurii Malashko said.

The attacks killed a 66-year-old man in Orikhiv and injured a 56-year-old man in Prymorske, he clarified.

Chernihiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, and Sumy oblasts came under attack, but local officials reported no casualties.

Read also: As their kids find refuge abroad, Ukrainian fathers struggle with separation

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Russian forces attacked Mykolaiv and Kherson oblasts on the evening of Sept. 27, the authorities reported.

Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of Kherson Oblast, wrote on Telegram that there was massive shelling in Kherson Oblast.

Shortly after, the Air Force stated that Shahed drones were en route to Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kirovohrad oblasts.

In the city of Kherson, Russian strikes hit the same buildings several times as firefighters battled fires caused by the first round of shelling, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported on Telegram. They then had to return to extinguish the subsequent fires.

The Kyiv Independent has previously reported on Russias use of so-called "double-tap" strikes, in which there is an initial strike followed by a second- with a delay- so that it can potentially wound or kill first responders.

Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne also reported the sounds of explosions in Mykolaiv.

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Russian occupying forces struck the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on the night of 26-27 September, injuring 2 people, wrecking an outbuilding, and damaging private business premises, gas pipelines and power lines.

Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram

Quote from Lysak: "The Russian army has once again targeted the Nikopol district. The enemy fired using heavy artillery on Myrove hromada and [the city of] Nikopol itself overnight [a hromada ia an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories  ed.]. Two people were injured - men aged 44 and 68. Both were hospitalised and are in a moderate condition."

PHOTO: SERHII LYSAK ON TELEGRAM

Details: A two-storey building also caught fire due to a Russian bombardment.

PHOTO: SERHII LYSAK ON TELEGRAM

The Russian occupying forces damaged private business premises and 4 outbuildings, and completely destroyed one more.

PHOTO: SERHII LYSAK ON TELEGRAM

Russian projectiles caused damage to 6 private residential buildings, personal vehicles, gas pipelines and a power line.

An air-raid warning is in effect in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as of 07:40. The authorities are urging residents to stay in shelters.

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A peephole view of a jail cell where Ukrainian civilians were held and tortured by Russian soldiers. Evgeniy Maloletka / Associated Press

Russian soldiers are being paid more by the army for getting information out of captured Ukrainians.

The soldiers get money added to the month's pay based on what they can extract.

A UN official said the actions are not those of unruly soldiers, but "purposeful violence."

A United Nations expert on torture said the Russian army is being financially incentivized to get information out of captured Ukrainians.

Alice Edwards, the UN's special rapporteur on torture and inhumane punishment, told The Telegraph that Russian soldiers can have their monthly salaries increased significantly, which encourages torture.

Soldiers receive a 10% bonus to their monthly salary for catching a Ukrainian, a 25% bonus for getting information or confessions from their prisoner, and a 50% bonus for getting their prisoner to start working for the Russians, said Edwards.

"These are not the actions of an entirely undisciplined military force but rather purposeful violence perpetrated against both civilians and prisoners of war [that amount to] state policy," Edwards told the Telegraph.

Edwards added she is planning to present a report to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2024 that will summarize her findings from speaking with prisoners of war, and will say torture against Ukrainians was not random, individualized action by soldiers.

Edwards's comments follow months of allegations of torture against the Russian army and Wagner-associated forces, both for information and for the sake of torture. Russian officers who have defected have confirmed and described similar allegations.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, alleging war crimes, including deporting and transporting Ukrainian children to Russia.

Investigators from the UN also found that Russians committed horrific war crimes in Ukraine, such as the rape and torture of children, attacks on heavily-populated civilian areas, and mass killings.

In August, a Ukrainian soldier captured by Wagner said he was tortured for sport, and later had both his arms amputated above the elbow. In October 2022, another Ukrainian soldier said she was tortured, beaten, and electrically shocked as a prisoner of war.

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EU countries bordering Russia have started banning Russian vehicles from entering their territories.

The European Commission recently said that vehicles registered in Russia are not allowed into the 27-member bloc.

Latvia is going one step further and is looking to fine car owners who paste stickers on their vehicles with messages such as "I'm Russian," or "strength is in truth."

European Union countries are stepping up their enforcement of sanctions against Russia as the Ukraine war stretches into its 19th month.

Earlier this month, the European Commission stated in an updated sanctions FAQ that vehicles registered in Russia are not allowed into the 27-member bloc.

"Motor vehicles are a category of goods prone to circumvention, hence national competent authorities need to pay particular attention to them," according to the FAQ last updated on September 12.

In the last two weeks, the EU countries that border Russia  Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland  have implemented entry bans on Russian-registered vehicles.

Norway is the sole EU nation that has not yet implemented an entry ban. But it is planning to do so, NRK, the country's public broadcaster, reported on September 19.

The EU also appeared to ban a range of other products from entering the bloc: from dual-use items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes, to everyday goods like mobile phones and toothpaste, per Reuters.

When asked about how the rules would be implemented, an EU spokesperson said earlier this month that clothes worn by travelers are unlikely to be used to circumvent sanctions, Reuters reported.

Russia has protested the EU's updated interpretation of sanctions.

Other than banning Russia-registered vehicles, Latvia has gone one step further.

It's looking to fine car owners who paste stickers on their vehicles with the message "I'm Russian," or "strength is in truth," or the Russian bear  which is all seen as "supportive symbolism of Russian aggression," the LSM, Latvia's public broadcaster reported on Wednesday.

People who display symbols glorifying military aggression and war crimes in public spaces face a fine of up to 350 euros, or $370, per the LSM. The penalty goes up to 700 euros if the offender doesn't comply with police demands to remove the symbol, the media outlet added.

Russia's foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

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Russia is relying on its elite paratroopers, the VDV, to defend against Ukraine's counteroffensive.

But these repurposed soldiers have been bruised in combat, and their future is uncertain.

"These Russian formations have become 'airborne' in name only," war experts wrote in a new analysis.

Russia has turned to its elite paratroopers, the VDV Airborne Forces, to help defend against Ukraine's battlefield advances. War analysts say these troops  repurposed as a kind of regular infantry, reeling from past setbacks and failures, and battered and bruised from combat  might now be "airborne in name only."

The VDV, the airborne forces of the Russian military, is one of several bands of so-called elite troops who have been misused or re-tasked to irregular purposes throughout Moscow's 19-month-long war in Ukraine. These paratroopers have suffered heavy casualties during combat and were recently called up to defend as Kyiv's forces continue making territorial gains in their counteroffensive.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said this week that there are several actions being taken to increase the combat potential of the VDV, such as the creation of new airborne assault units. Additionally, Moscow is adding support, repair, recovery, and artillery capabilities to all divisions of the VDV, as well as new weapons and equipment, Shoigu told a session of Russia's defense ministry board. He claimed these initiatives will ultimately boost the paratroopers' fighting and firepower potential.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said in response to Shoigu's announcement that these efforts will bring the VDV "into closer alignment with the force composition" of a standard Russian motorized rifle division, or infantry units that are supported by armored combat vehicles.

Russian paratroopers during the rehearsals for the Victory Day Military Parade at the polygon, on April 18, 2022 in Alabino, outside of Moscow, Russia. Russian airborne forces have taken a heavy beating in Ukraine. Contributor/Getty Images

"These additional units will likely allow the Russian military to use Russian VDV divisions almost interchangeably with motorized rifle divisions in the future, and VDV elements in Ukraine have been increasingly operating as combat infantry similar to motorized rifle divisions," the ISW analysts wrote in a Tuesday assessment of the ongoing war.

"The Russian MoD's provision of additional elements to Russian VDV units and formations serving in Ukraine is a recognition of the role Russian VDV forces are currently playing in Ukraine and highlights the non-standard way in which the Russian military is using these forces," the analysts wrote. "These Russian formations have become 'airborne' in name only, and it is not clear when the Russian MoD intends for them to take to the skies again."

VDV forces were heavily utilized during operations at the start of the war but not always properly, at times leading the paratroopers to endure steep casualties, which only continued in the following months.

Ukrainian soldiers fire D-30 artillery on the frontline in the direction of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on August 14, 2023. Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Col. Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky, commander of the VDV, revealed earlier in August that at least 8,500 paratroopers had been wounded in combat. That figure, however, only referred to troops who were injured and refused to leave the battlefield or those who left and returned to the front lines; he did not share the number of soldiers who never returned to the fight or how many died after succumbing to their injuries.

Several days later, Britain's defense ministry wrote in an intelligence update that at least half of the 30,000 paratroopers who were sent to Ukraine had been injured or killed. As so-called "elite" Russian forces have taken losses, they have at times been backfilled with poorly-trained replacements, degrading the overall capability of the unit.

Since those figures were released, VDV units have been transferred to support Moscow's defensive efforts in the face of Ukraine's pressing counteroffensive.

Paratroopers were deployed from the Kherson and Luhansk regions to the Zaporizhzhia region in the south and the war-torn city of Bakhmut in the east  two directions where Kyiv's forces have been advancing. ISW experts said at the time that Russia's dependence on the VDV in both an offensive and defensive role has likely been detrimental to the paratroopers, though it is unclear how many casualties the VDV has suffered in its new role.

The VDV is one of several elite units to suffer severe casualties during the war as Moscow has relied heavily on them. Such was the case with the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade and the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, both of which have been battered in combat. The paratroopers are also an example of Russia's misuse of "elite" soldiers  sent on missions they weren't designed for. Other misused forces include the Spetsnaz commandos, who, for example, were assigned reconnaissance roles with conventional forces instead of partaking in the early assaults on Kyiv.

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Sacramento State professor emeritus David Covin carefully developed a network of organizations to advocate for the economic, educational and political condition of Black men, women and children.

He died of colon cancer on June 3 at age 82, according to his daughter, Holly Covin Jacobson.

A memorial service will celebrate his life and contributions from 10 a.m. to noon Oct. 7 at Capistrano Concert Hall, 6000 J St., on the Sacramento campus.

Sacramento State President Luke Wood recalled working closely with Covin to shape two independent study courses that allowed Wood to earn a bachelors degree in Black history and politics from the college he now leads.

It was a special major focused on Black studies, Wood said, and that required Covin and a few other faculty to ensure the curricula met California State University system standards.

We lose an incredible force who did everything he could to make sure that those who are from the Black community have the support that they needed to not only enter into a place like Sacramento State, but to also graduate from that institution with a sense of self-identity that would empower them to do great things in the world, Wood said.

Advocacy within the Black community

Outside academia, Covin carefully constructed a framework of organizations to cultivate and advocate for Blacks in Sacramento, said longtime friend Frederick Foote Jr.

Covins brilliance, kindness and wit, Foote said, inspired confidence and earned his organizations no shortage of volunteers to accomplish each groups mission.

No one viewed Covin as ambitious or out for his own gain, Foote said. His commitment to the African American Oak Park community was clear.

In the 70s, Covin founded the Sacramento Area Black Caucus, an advocacy group tackling challenges the Black community face. Foote and Covin met at the caucus first meeting and developed a friendship over time, working with other members to address issues such as the use of excessive force by the police, housing insecurity, equal employment and educational inequities.

When it became clear that Black parents were concerned about obstacles their children were encountering at Sacramento Unified School District schools, Foote said, Covin launched an offshoot of the caucus called the Black Parallel School Board.

The Sacramento Area Black Caucus continued to field concerns right up until Covins death, Foote said, and the Black school board recently announced that it had settled a long-running legal dispute with the school district over equity in special education and disciplinary actions. SCUSD agreed to five years of independent monitoring.

Until the COVID-19 lockdown, the caucus also partnered with the nonprofit Black United Fund to plan and execute an annual conference known as the Congress of African Peoples Convening. For about 18 years, they would spotlight issues affecting the African diaspora, said Kakwasi Somadhi, who worked with Covin at Sacramento State for about eight years.

Then-Sacramento State professor David Covin, founder of the Sacramento Area Black Caucus, calls for the creation of a state holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. during a rally in front of 2,000 students on Capitol Mall on Jan. 14, 1977.

Book fair and publishing company embrace local Black authors

It seemed natural that a political scientist would be interested in education and economic justice, Foote said, but Covin surprised his old friend when he told him he was going to organize a book fair to showcase Black authors.

I was overwhelmed because I didnt think anybody had that kind of political and social imagination, Foote said. The book fair was successful beyond my wildest imagination, and every year it seemed to progress and add more attendees and more writers and contributors. I dont know anybody else in Sacramento who would have come up with a Black book fair and run it so successfully as a volunteer organization.

The first Sacramento Black Book Fair occurred in 2013, and the most recent one in spring 2019. Subsequent events were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, said organizer Faye Kennedy. The event is anticipated to return in 2024.

Before he launched the book fair, Covin founded a local publishing company, Blue Nile Press, to highlight Black authors in the Sacramento region.

Blue Nile published Footes first book, For the Sake of Soul. Covin paid $300 for an oil painting by a Sacramento City College student used to illustrate the cover, Foote said, and then gifted the artwork to Foote.

Covin was a scholarly writer (Black Politics After the Civil Rights Movement, Sacramento, 1970-2000), a novelist (Wimbeys Corner and Brown Sky) and a short story writer. When his daughters  Wendy Covin and Jacobson  were young, he wrote and illustrated childrens stories featuring the two of them.

Jacobson recalled how she and her sister would beg him to tell and retell those stories at bedtime, and she still treasures and keeps the originals. Covin was a super-present dad. He never missed one of his daughters swim meets, and he brought them along to community events.

He was well known, Jacobson said, and many people, even his friends, would address him as Dr. Covin. She and her sister would often tease their father about that absurd title, saying, You dont have a white coat? You dont have a stethoscope when you go off to work.

He would respond: I am a doctor of thinking, Jacobson said.

It wasnt until she was much older, she said, that she realized how true that description was.

How the Cooper Woodson College Enhancement Program formed

As a staffer, volunteer and instructor, Somadhi had a front-row seat to observe the doctor of thinking in action at Sacramento State from 1983 to 1991. In the years after Somadhi arrived, Covin worked closely with two other Black faculty members, Otis Scott and Chris Glen, to develop a program to guide African American students to pathways for success.

They called it the Cooper Woodson College Enhancement Program, named after pioneering Black scholars Anna Julia Cooper and Carter G. Woodson. Cooper provided a blueprint for how African American women could, through education and social networks, become authors of their peoples fate. Woodson advocated putting the history and human experience of African diaspora at the center of scholarship.

Scott, Glen and Covin called upon African Americans in the academic community to craft a responsive learning environment and to act as conductors, mentors and guides to nurture students in their academic pursuits.

Wood said Cooper Woodson played an integral role in launching his career in higher education. Upon leaving Sacramento State, Wood earned a masters degree in curriculum and instruction in early childhood education and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from Arizona State University.

He was someone who very much saw something in me and then did his best to cultivate that, support that and encourage me, Wood said. As I think about my entire career as a Pan African studies scholar who happens to be in the field of education, everything that Ive done was really rooted in the experience that I had at Sacramento State with scholars such as him.

Another Sacramento State alumna, Jamillah Moore, recalled her thrilling and terrifying entry into higher education l from a Modesto high school. Covins mentorship allowed her to become a successful student, she said, and to imagine a place for herself in academia.

Hes gonna be missed because of his commitment to education and civil rights, said Moore, now vice president of student affairs and enrollment management at San Francisco State University. It just feels like weve lost such a huge, huge advocate and supporter, and we have big shoes to fill. But he left his mark, and I just think were all better off to have known him and had the opportunity to work with him.

Covin continued to financially support both the Cooper Woodson program and students after his retirement, said Boatamo Mosupyoe, an associate dean in the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies at Sacramento State, and shes concerned about how the program will fare without him.

A professor of government and ethnic studies, Covin came to Sacramento State in 1970 and remained until 2005, Jacobson said. He completed three degrees in political science. His bachelors degree came from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, about 170 miles south of where he grew up in Evanston. He then earned his masters degree from the University of Colorado, which where he met his wife of 58 years, Judy Covin. He later received his doctoral degree from Washington State University, where he founded the Black Student Union and the Black studies program.

Covin is survived by Judy Covin, Jacobson and three grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, Covins family suggested a contribution to the Cooper Woodson Scholarship Program, the Alumni Association Scholarship Fund or the University Library Fund.

If you plan to attend Covins memorial service, organizers ask that you email Amanda Lewis at vpoua-01@csus.edu to assist them with planning. Attendees will be admitted, however, even if they did not send an email.
The free entry that includes cooking demonstrations and music will remain, but Sacramentos Farm-to-Fork Festival plans to carry forward more paid events based on their success this year.

The festival, which concluded its 10th anniversary this weekend, has always featured the exclusive Tower Bridge Dinner, where $6,000 allows a table of eight to sample the creations of Sacramentos top chefs. A second Legends of Wine event, with tickets going for $75 per person, has also been part of the festival since the beginning. The sold-out event attracted 800 people this year.

This year the festival featured two new events, the Grand Tasting on Friday where attendees could sample appetizers from 16 Sacramento chefs for $125 a ticket and a Saturday barbecue dinner by Food Network celebrity chef Tyler Florence for $150.

Its a little bit exclusive, not as crowded as the rest of the festival,  said Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento, which sponsors the festival.

Each event sold all 300 tickets on offer, giving Testa the confidence in the demand for more specialty events.

Testa said the two events gave festival participants one-on-one time with top chefs and offered a more intimate way to promote the Sacramento food scene.

Our goal is to create a wide variety of events that offer attendees the opportunity to explore multiple areas of Sacramentos culinary scene, he said.

The new food events also put a spotlight on the reality of the Farm-to-Fork Festival: Tickets for The Tower Bridge Dinner are very hard to buy if youre not a major donor or company willing to pay for an entire table.

Testa said around 2,000 people competed in the lottery for the 80 tickets that were made available to the public for the dinner on the bridge spanning Sacramento and West Sacramento. Pairs of two tickets went for $600.

Around 840 people attended the dinner, he said.

The two new events allowed people to attend more exclusive events with top chefs, even if they cant get into the tower dinner event.

If youre a foodie you get a chance to sample some of Sacramentos best restaurants in one sitting, Testa said Friday at the Grand Tasting.

The Grand Tasting took place on Capital Plaza, from Fifth Street to Sixth Street, and had the air of a chic private party with comfortable couches and chairs.

The tasting was reserved for 300 people while just a block away, thousands crammed into the narrow streets for the free part of the festival.

This years festival took place over more than 13 blocks and attracted a record-setting 125,000 people.

A look at new Farm-to-Fork paid events

The specialized events were just what Karen Baschwas looking for. The retired state worker attended both Fridays and Saturdays paid events.

Its a more intimate experience than the rest of the festival. she said . You got to experience great food and talk to the chefs.

Basch had attended the Tower Bridge Dinner a decade ago but hasnt been able to secure tickets since.

She remembers the elegance and fun of dining on the Tower Bridge

I would love to go to that event again, she said.

For chefs participating in the Grand Tasting, the event let them reach more people.

Billy Ngochef and co-owner of Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisinewas giving out samples promoting his new Asian restaurant, Chu Mai, which is scheduled to open in January.

Ngo offered a dish created by him and co-chef Tyler Bond: Vietnamese beef carpaccio, featuring beef, herbs, citrus, fish sauce, chilies, red onions and fried shallots.

This is a way to promote our new restaurant in a low-key atmosp here, introducing people to what we will be offering, said Ngo.

Chef Dennis Sydnor, who owns catering company Renegade Dining that is tied to Cafe Frederico in Natomas, was serving up beef rillette, black pepper and rosemary focaccia.

Any time you get a captive audience of several hundred persons its great exposure, said Sydnor. Especially for me, an independent operator.

Saturday nights barbecue event differed from Friday. Ticket holders did not sample food from multiple restaurants.

Instead, they received a large plate of barbecue food from chef Florence that included a 45-day, dry-aged tomahawk ribeye steak, smoked F-1 Westholme wagyu beef ribs, chicken and various salads.

Testasaid Florencedonated the food for the event.

I made a commitment to promote California, said Florence, who said he plans to bring his barbecue events to other food festivals throughout California.

Florence said he is seriously considering opening a restaurant in Sacramento, though he offered no details.

Remember you heard it here first, he said.

Florence owns two restaurants in San Francisco and is in the process of opening two more in addition to a new restaurant in the state of Hawaii.

The chef, who grew up in South Carolina, said he always has had a fondness for barbecue.

We are trying to take it to the next level, he said.

Testasaid the Florenceevent was keeping with the aim of holding more premium events to feature fine dining while continuing the tradition of a free festival for everyone.
The month-long search for a missing South Carolina woman ended Monday when her body was discovered along a highway, according to the Clarendon County Sheriffs Office.

The remains found near U.S. 301 were identified as 54-year-old Turbeville resident Stacy Michele Burgess, the sheriffs office said Tuesday in a news release.

On Monday, deputies responded to call on U.S. 301, not far from the intersection with Brewington Road, according to the release. Thats in the Gable area, near Interstate 95.

At the scene, deputies learned a road mowing crew working in the area had discovered human skeletal remains in a ditch along the road, the sheriffs office said.

Both the sheriffs office and the Clarendon County Coroners Office examined the remains and determined it was a woman, according to the release.

Investigators were able to identify the body as Burgess through items collected from the scene, that included a pocketbook and papers, the sheriffs office said.

From evidence at the scene, investigators determined Burgess had been struck by a vehicle while walking along U.S. 301, according to the release.

Information about when the collision happened was not available.

Burgess family filed a missing person report that said she was last seen by them after she left the Hampton Inn in Manning on Aug. 23, and she had not been heard from since, the sheriffs office said. The hotel is about 10 miles from where Burgess body was discovered.

TheSouth Carolina Highway Patrol is leading an investigation into the fatal collision.

There was no word about a driver or type of vehicle that might have been involved in the crash.

Through Monday, 725 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2023, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Last year, 1,091 people died in crashes in South Carolina, DPS reported.

At least 13 people have died in Clarendon County crashes in 2023, according to DPS data. Last year, 15 deaths were reported in the county, DPS reported.
Sanford is calling on two state agencies to say what they know regarding the 1,4-dioxane contamination first discovered a decade ago in the citys wells, including at what concentration and over what period of time does the toxic chemical in drinking water become a threat to public health.

Among the more than two dozen questions submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the states Department of Health, the city also is asking whether the agencies have any plans to adopt rules setting drinking water standards for 1,4-dioxane and PFAS, also known as forever chemicals that are found in countless consumer products.

The regulatory agencies for water are the EPA (federal Environmental Protection Agency), the DEP and the DOH, said Lonnie Groot, an assistant city attorney for Sanford. And those agencies are tasked with telling cities and counties and other types of utility providers what the standards are, what the expectations are, and what the disclosure requirements should be regarding contaminants.

The request for information follows the Orlando Sentinels Toxic Secret series, which explored how tap water in Sanford, Lake Mary and Seminole County became tainted by 1,4-dioxane, a contamination of which few were made aware.

On Monday, Sanford city commissioners agreed to have city attorneys file petitions for declaratory statements from the states DEP and DOH regarding 1,4-dioxane and PFAS.

The city is legally entitled to request declaratory statements from the agencies since they oversee Sanfords ability to provide potable water to the public. The agencies will have 90 days to respond to Sanfords queries.

Representatives from the DEP and DOH did not respond to emailed questions from the Orlando Sentinel regarding Sanfords move.

Sanford officials have repeatedly said that the citys water meets or exceeds all guidelines established by federal and state regulations.

The city regularly tests the drinking water provided to the public in order to ensure that the city meticulously adheres to all regulatory standards, according to a city staff report. It is often overlooked that the city was among the first to bring the issue of 1,4-dioxane to the attention of regulators and the public.

The staff report adds that the EPA requires water utilities to regularly test for 90 regulated contaminants and notify water customers if any are detected. However, there are hundreds of contaminants not regulated by the EPA and not routinely tested for by utilities. Therefore, the public is not made aware of them, according to the report.

1,4-dioxane, an unregulated contaminant long used in solvents, is listed by the EPA as likely to cause cancer. The state of Florida does not have drinking water rules for 1,4-dioxane. But state and federal guidelines recommend that drinking water contain no more than 0.35 parts per billion of the chemical.

1,4-dioxane was commonly used in factories for decades, including at a former telephone systems facility that operated in Lake Mary just east of Interstate 4 from 1968 to 2003. Owners of the factory included General Dynamics, Siemens and Moni Holdings.

Those three entities have denied liability for the contamination to the underground water supplies. But they are paying for efforts to clean up the plant site off Rinehart Road and financed a high-end water treatment plant for the city of Lake Mary that removes virtually all traces of 1,4-dioxane.

Siemens is not aware of any link between possible contaminants in Sanfords public drinking water and its operations, said Siemens spokesperson Annie Satow in an email to the Sentinel. To Siemens knowledge, the state has not determined the source of potential dioxane contamination in Sanfords groundwater wells.

In 2013, the EPA ordered utilities across the country to test for several unregulated contaminants, including 1,4-dioxane. The chemical was found in the tap water of Lake Mary, Sanford and the northwest area of Seminole County at levels above the states health advisory level of 0.35 parts per billion. Sanford claims the pollutant made its way into the Floridan Aquifer from beneath the old factory in Lake Mary.

Sanford and Seminole have since lowered concentrations to half that guideline by reducing the use of some wells. Lake Mary in 2021 began operating its new high-tech treatment plant designed to remove virtually all traces of 1,4-dioxane.

In its petition to the DEP, Sanford asks, What future plans, if any, does the DEP have seeking to determine the source of the 1,4-dioxane that has found its way into Sanfords water supply wells?

It also asks: Does the DEP believe that there is a need for setting a drinking water standard for 1,4-dioxane? If not, why not?

And what role would the states DOH play in this process? Who or what agency is responsible for alerting property owners with private drinking water wells when it is expected or anticipated that the water may exceed the states advisory level of 0.35 parts per billion for 1,4-dioxane?

In questions to the DOH, Sanford asks if the state agency knows for how long the public water supply contained 1,4-dioxane in levels above the recommended 0.35 parts per billion, and for the DOH to provide water quality reports.

The city also asks: At any point in time has the FDOH rendered a public health advisory concerning the presence of 1,4-dioxane in north central Seminole County? If not, why not?

Sanford Mayor Art Woodruff said the state agencies provide oversight and regulation of public utilities, and that his city needs answers regarding the 1,4-dioxane contamination or the presence of any other PFAS.

We just feel that we need to have a very clear understanding of what their direction is, he said. We cant decide what to do until we hear from them with answers.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com
Fashion lovers will soon have the chance to own a custom Oscar de la Renta gown worn by Sarah Jessica Parker at the 2014 Met Gala - for the hefty price of $7,500.

The black and white floor-length gown is being auctioned on the luxury fashion labels resale site, Encore, until Friday 29 September. The dress, made custom for the Sex and the City star, features a black velvet bodice with a v-neckline and petal-like pattern at the bottom. The gowns ivory skirt also includes a trellis embroidery, complete with Oscar de la Rentas signature at the train.

When Sarah Jessica came to the office for our first design meeting, she had a binder full of references to share with Oscar. It was a truly special collaboration, said co-creative director Fernando Garcia in a statement. And for me, who didnt ever go to design school, it was the biggest fashion lesson I could have gotten - on the floor of Oscars office.

The commissioned piece took 224 hours to make. Nine years later, it was returned to the atelier where it was made to be restored to its original condition. Thirty per cent of proceeds from the sale of the dress will benefit the Jefferson Market at the New York Public Library.

In 2014, the And Just Like That star recounted the gowns design process in an interview with Vanity Fair. I said to Mr de la Renta, please let me use scarlet embroidery thread, and splash your name across the back. It was my idea. He would never in a million years have it done, hes far too modest, Parker said at the time.

The theme for the 2014 Met Gala was in honour of legendary designer Charles James, called Charles James: Beyond Fashion. The dress code called for White Tie and Decorations - full evening dress of white bow ties for men and evening gowns for women. Parker, along with actor Bradley Cooper and de la Renta, served as co-chairs for the annual fashion event.

Parkers black and white gown was one of the last designs de la Renta showcased on the red carpet before he passed away in October 2014, five months after the Met Gala.

(Getty Images)

The Hollywood star and fashion icon has been a mainstay on the Met Gala red carpet - which is rolled out every May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City - for many years. Parker recently looked back on some of her many memorable fashion moments, including the time she attended the charity event with late designer Alexander McQueen in 2006.

Speaking to Vogue in 2022, Parker explained that she immediately wanted to work with McQueen to design their matching tartan ensembles for the Met Galas AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion theme. However, she felt that she didnt really know him well enough to be so presumptuous to assume he would want to attend with her.

Like everybody else, I was in love with him, she told Vogue. I have every pin he dropped from his mouth in my possession still. I have everything he cut off in my possession still. I have things that seem like nothing, from every fitting I ever did with him in my possession.

(Getty Images)

The groundbreaking designer died in 2010 at the age of 40, and was later commemorated by the Met Gala in 2011 with the theme Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

For last years Met Gala, Parker paid homage to the first Black female designer in the White House - Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley - in a black and white gown designed by Christopher John Rogers.

However, the style icon has maintained that preparing for fashions biggest night of the year should be labour intensive.

All I ever think about is the theme and influence, she told Vogue in April 2022. Whenever I go to the Met, I dont understand how everyone else doesnt spend seven to ten months working on it. Like how do you not arrive exhausted by the details of getting it right?

It would be so easy to find a beautiful dress to wear that night, Parker added. Like that would be a great relief and like going on vacation. But that is not the assignment, the assignment is the theme.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained two Kyiv residents on suspicion that they assisted Russian forces in their missile attack against the capital on Sept. 21, the SBU announced on Sept. 27.

According to the report, the two suspected collaborators provided the Russian military intelligence (GRU) with coordinates to target critical infrastructure in the city, namely energy facilities, shortly before the attack.

The two suspects allegedly came to the attention of Russian intelligence because of their anti-Ukrainian posts on social networks, which they started publishing after the start of the full-scale invasion.

Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support us

Subsequently, the GRU reached out to them online and recruited them to collect intelligence in Kyiv, asking them to provide photographs and geolocations of critical energy infrastructure sites, the SBU said.

They were also allegedly tasked with monitoring military bases and the movement of Ukraine's Armed Forces around the capital.

The two suspects reportedly received a monetary reward for their collaboration. They face life in prison.

Russia launched a mass wave of missile attacks against multiple oblasts on Sept. 21, killing two people and injuring at least 26.

According to Ukraine's state energy operator Ukrenergo, this marked the first mass attack by Russian forces against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure in six months.

Energy facilities in western and central Ukraine were damaged, and there were blackouts in Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv oblasts.

Russian forces escalated their attacks against Ukraine's energy grid during the previous fall and winter, hoping to cripple the country's power grid and undermine resistance against the invasion. Kyiv warned that Moscow is likely to return to this strategy during the next winter months.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
As seven Republican White House hopefuls face off for their second presidential debate, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to find herself in the crosshairs of her fellow candidates.

Expect Haley to be a target in the Wednesday night debate, potentially along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis . Haley, who had 8 minutes and 20 seconds of speaking time in last months debate, was praised for her fiery debate performance and has climbed in the polls in the weeks since.

I think she was the one who beat expectations in the last debate. She had a few very good moments in that one, said Miles Coleman, the associate editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Haley will be joined on stage by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Ramaswamy and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott .

Former President Donald Trump , who leads in the polls and meets the contributions thresholds to be on the stage, will skip the debate and will speak to Michigan autoworkers instead.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who was the first debate stage, failed to qualify for the second debate.

Haleys standing in polls in early primary states, where candidates have focused most of their attention, has increased.

Two recent South Carolina polls put Haley solidly in second place in her home state, behind Trump. She garnered 18% in the state in both the Washington Post/Monmouth University Poll and a Fox Business Poll. Trump led both polls with 46%. DeSantis and Scott were statistically tied in both polls for third place.

Haley also saw her standing in the most recent Fox Business Poll of Iowa voters to 11% from 5%.

Recent New Hampshire polling has Haley running in second place in the Granite State, which holds the First in the Nation primary. Haley has focused much of her time doing the retail politics, holding numerous events in both New Hampshire and Iowa.

Haley, in an interview Friday on Fox Business, touted how she has prepared for Wednesdays debate by taking questions at town halls in early primary states.

The town halls where we let them ask any question. We stay there, we shake every hand. Im the last person to leave. Thats the best debate prep you can get, because they pepper you with questions all the time, and you get to listen to what they care about, and I get to give them the solutions I want to put forward, Haley said.

If Haley does become a target of other candidates, she will have to show she has the ability to punch back, a skill she showed as governor and as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Shes displayed a similar style to the scrappy combativeness the late U.S. Sen. John McCain had as he won the GOP nomination for president in 2008.

I think that type of attitude, if Haley could have a bit more of those moments, I think she may get more of a look from potential voters as well, Coleman said.

South Carolinas other presidential candidate, Scott, will have to find a way to gain more attention on the stage this time around.

Scott seemed to disappear into the background during the first debate, as sniping broke out among other candidates. Scott had 7 minutes and 57 seconds of speaking time in the first debate, less than a number of other candidates that night.

Scott, who has a signature optimistic tone, has signaled hell keep the same approach.

Well, I think youll see the same optimistic, positive approach to debating, and I certainly hope that we have a chance to contrast on some of the issues, and not have a food fight, Scott said during an interview with Hugh Hewitt. It is time for us to showcase to America why this nation can do for anyone what shes done for me. But if were going to have a food fight, someone has to bring us back to the issues that are germane to the American people, and not a food fight talking about things that dont matter to the voters. I will be the person that will create the contrast and the focus on what people care about, not politicians, but the American people, our bosses.

How to watch

What: Second Republican presidential debate

When: Wednesday, 9 to 11 p.m.

Where: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California

How to tune in: The debate is being hosted by Fox Business Network on cable. It will be simulcast on Fox News and Univision and streamed on Fox Nation, Rumble and UnivisionNoticias.com.
A private school pupil was stabbed to death by a teenage boy in south London after she rejected flowers from him, The Telegraph understands.

Witnesses said the 15-year-old girl, named locally as Elianna, was travelling to school in Croydon when a row broke out between herself and her friends and other pupils from a local school.

The argument is said to have spilled out of the number 60 bus and onto the pavement outside a shopping centre, where the schoolgirl was attacked by a young man wielding a sword-like knife and wearing all black at around 8.30am on Wednesday.

Paramedics rushed to the town centre to treat the teenager, who was described by locals as having a fantastic future ahead of her, but she died at the scene.

One girl was seen being held back, screaming: Thats my best friend as she tried to push past the crowds to reach the wounded teenager.

An officer at the scene on Wellesley Road, Croydon - Jamie Lorriman

Police arrested a 17-year-old boy nearby around 75 minutes after the attack took place. The suspect and the victim are understood to have been known to each other.

Chevanice Thomas, from Croydon, told how her friend Apple witnessed the girl being attacked. Relaying her friends account, she said: He gave her the flowers and she threw them away. Her friends all dispersed when she went down. After that the boy apparently stabbed her, blood gushing out and the police put pressure on it. She died on the spot.

Staff at the Leonardo Hotel on Wellesley Road, where the incident took place, rushed to the scene. Beldine Kutima, who works there, said: One of our duty managers went to get the bus, but she came back in screaming and grabbing towels from the back room. She ran out there with bin bags and towels. She was crying and in shock.

Michael Fyffe, an estate agent who was on his way to work when he saw the aftermath of the attack, said: Two of the girls friends were there. One of the girls was trying to get past the crowds to the body. Everyone was trying to hold her back to let the ambulance crew do their jobs.

James Watkins, a youth worker, said friends informed the teenagers family, who were unable to get to their daughter before she died. They were unable to say goodbye, he told The Telegraph. They were in shock and devastated. It doesnt feel real to them.

Andrew Brown, the chief executive of the Croydon BME Forum, was called by a colleague who had seen the girl lying on the pavement as he walked to work.

The men were first and second on the scene and began giving CPR on the wounded teenager. Mr Brown then rang her mother, who was on her way to work when she was told what had happened.

He said: I was speaking to the mum this morning and I was just trying to get her to turn her car around and come back to Croydon.

Thankfully I didnt have to tell her that her daughter is dying, but I just told her to take her time to park the car safely and then the police went and got her and brought her down.

She was just going to work and even though I know theres issues with the police at the moment and their guns, the police were really really, really good and they looked after mum, the staff and the scene.

The argument is said to have spilled out of the number 60 bus and onto the pavement - Jamie Lorriman

The teenager was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift school, a 134-year-old girls school that charges fees of up to 19,350 a year.

Anthony King, from My Ends, an organisation that aims to reduce violence, told The Telegraph he had spoken to her family in the aftermath of the attack.

He said: The family and extended family are widely devastated, heartbroken. I cannot articulate the sound, the tears and the genuine heartbreak at what took place this morning.

She had a bright future ahead of her, she was in GCSE year, Year 11, and she was an absolutely incredible young lady, very articulate, really had a fantastic future ahead of her.

A statement released by Old Palace of John Whitgrift school said staff were deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

Devastated pupils were being collected from the school throughout the afternoon, with students given permission to go home early.

Later in the afternoon, Croydon Minster invited distressed locals to gather and pray at the church, just a few minutes away from the school.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain speaks to reporters at the scene - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Describing what happened as every parents worst nightmare, Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain, the local policing commander for south London, confirmed that a 17-year-old was being held in custody.

He said: I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency services colleagues, are devastated at the victims death. This is an emotion I share, and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

The victims family has been informed, and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

We remain in the early stages of our investigation. However, based on what we know so far we believe that we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this offence.

The teenager is the 16th to be murdered in London so far this year and Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Police Commissioner, said: The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

Sadiq Khan, the capitals mayor, said: I am absolutely heartbroken by the death of a 15-year-old girl in Croydon. My thoughts and prayers are with this young girls family and friends, and the whole community, at this unimaginably awful time.

03:52 PM BST

Live blog closed

The Telegraph is ending its live coverage here.

Thanks for following and keep checking the Telegraph website for the latest developments.

03:46 PM BST

Wellesley Road to remain shut for rest of day

Following today's incident, we expect Wellesley Road to remain closed for the rest of today whilst officers carry out enquiries in the area.



We appreciate your patience at this difficult time.  Croydon MPS (@MPSCroydon) September 27, 2023

03:29 PM BST

Eyewitness - 'We tried to catch suspect'

A man has described how he and others chased a boy after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Croydon.

Victor Asare was on a bus on the way home from a night shift as a security worker when he said he saw a boy in a black blazer stab a girl in the neck with a knife which was black, thin and about a foot long.

The 50-year-old said: The boy wore a black blazer, the girl wore green. It looked like the girl didnt want the boy to come closer.

He then described the boy stabbing the girl in the neck with a black knife.

The blood was coming like water, he added.

A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus. [The boy] ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. Its somebodys daughter.

03:06 PM BST

The teenagers killed this year in London

The teenagers killed so far this year in London

02:59 PM BST

Croydon Minster invites residents to pay their respects

Croydon Minster has invited residents to pay their respects to the 15-year-old stab victim killed earlier on Wednesday.

In a Facebook post, it wrote: Following the tragic news that a pupil at Old Palace School died in the incident on Wellesley Road this morning, Croydon Minster is open until 6pm today for anyone who would like to pay their respects, light a candle, or sit in quiet.

The Clergy are around if anyone would like to talk. We pray for the pupil, her parents, family, and friends, and for peace in our town and borough.

02:39 PM BST

Press conference comments - 'Community feeling hurt right now'

A police press conference was held outside the Whitgift Centre in Croydon - Jamie Lorriman/Jamie Lorriman

Here are the comments from a press conference held by the Metropolitan Police in Croydon. Donna Murray-Turner, Sarah Jones and Jason Perry all spoke along with Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain.

Donna Murray-Turner, chairwoman of the local Safer Neighbourhood Board

The impact this has had on the community is immense. It is devastating that another young life has been taken and we the community stand with our partners and the family and honouring that grief and that morning

Croydon MP Sarah Jones

Im heartbroken that a child in my town has been killed on her way to school and I cannot imagine the grief that her family will be going through at this time. I want to thank the police and the ambulance services for trying so hard to save her life. They run into danger and I know they will be suffering today, too. I want to repeat the request from the police that if anybody has any information so anything please do get in touch. We all hold our children close and our community will take time to grieve, but for today we are just thinking of this young girl and her family. Im so sorry.

Croydon mayor Jason Perry

We all personally feel devastated by the events that have happened here in Croydon this morning and the tragic loss of such a young life. The community are feeling that hurt right now and we will do everything we can to support the community through such a very difficult time.

02:20 PM BST

Pictures: Flowers at the scene

Flowers at the scene in Croydon where the schoolgirl was stabbed to death.

Forensic officers examining the flowers at the scene of the stabbing

Flowers at the scene in Croydon - Jamie Lorriman/Jamie Lorriman

The flowers have been examined by forensics officers - Jamie Lorriman/Jamie Lorriman

02:13 PM BST

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain - 'This is every parent's worst nightmare'

The press conference has now finished.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said the victims family have been informed and that the boy was arrested within 75 minutes of the stabbing.

He says initial investigations show the suspect may have known the victim.

He was joined by Croydon resident and safer neighbourhood chair Donna Murray-Turner, Labour MP for Croydon Sarah Jones and Croydon Mayor Jason Perry.

02:07 PM BST

Boy, 17, arrested in New Addington

Police confirm a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington and remains in custody.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain says no-one else is being sought in connection with the stabbing.

Chief Supt Brittain adds force is not yet able to identify the 15-year-old victim.

02:05 PM BST

Police press conference

A Metropolitan Police press conference is under way in Croydon.

Police press conference

01:52 PM BST

Youth worker - Victim's friends 'in shock and devastated'

Friends of the girl who was stabbed were the ones who first alerted her parents that their daughter had died, Ewan Somerville reports.

James Watkins, a youth worker at Mainzworld which acts as a family liaison in these situations, said the family got here after their daughter had died, between 9am and 10am

They were unable to say goodbye, he told The Telegraph.

Mr Watkins spoke to and supported the victims family when they visited the scene shortly after their daughter died.

They were in shock and devastated, it doesnt feel real to them. They said a lot of things - it was shock and disbelief.

01:48 PM BST

Old Palace of John Whitgift School pay tribute to 'much-loved' pupil

Old Palace of John Whitgift School have now released a statement confirming the 15-year-old victim was a pupil.

We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil. It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so. Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girls family at this unimaginably distressing time.

01:28 PM BST

Map: Where fatal stabbing took place

01:08 PM BST

Private schoolgirl, 15, stabbed to death after row with pupil from another school

A teenage girl from a leading private school was stabbed to death after an argument with a pupil from another school, The Telegraph understands.

The 15-year-old, who has not been named, was attacked outside a shopping centre on Wellesley Road, a major road running through Croydon town centre, at around 8.30am on Wednesday.

The Telegraph understands that the girl was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift school, a 134-year-old girls school close by.

Eyewitnesses at the scene claimed an argument erupted on a bus between the girl, her friends and pupils from another local school, which then spilled over onto the pavement.

According to one eyewitness, the girl was stabbed after rejecting flowers that were given to her.

11:57 AM BST

Sadiq Khan says he's 'absolutely heartbroken' by schoolgirl's death

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: I am absolutely heartbroken by the death of a 15-year-old girl in Croydon this morning.

My thoughts and prayers are with this young girls family and friends, and the whole community, at this unimaginably awful time.

An arrest has been made in connection with this incident and I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner.

I urge anyone with any further information to call the police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously. I promise to continue working day and night to end the scourge of knife crime in our city.

11:42 AM BST

Locals laying flowers at the scene

Police spoke to guests having breakfast in the Leonardo Hotel near the scene of the stabbing in Wellesley Road, Ewan Somerville reports.

Officers asked receptionists and those sat in the lobby what they saw, but many were only aware after police cars flocked to the scene.

A crowd of locals have gathered at the scene and some are laying flowers.

One man claimed he had bumped into a group of schoolchildren wearing green blazers in the aftermath of the attack, who claimed there was an argument on the bus between two groups of boys that turned violent.

11:23 AM BST

Hotel manager tried to save stab victim

A hotel manager rushed to the aid of a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death in Croydon, Ewan Somerville reports.

The duty manager of Leonardo Hotel on Wellesley Road was leaving her shift to get the bus when she first saw the girl fighting for her life and losing lots of blood.

The woman, named Malaika, ran back into the hotel while screaming a girl has just been stabbed and told her colleagues to give her towels and bin bags immediately to help, making her one of the first people on the scene.

Beldine Kutima, who works at the hotel, told The Telegraph: One of our duty managers went to get the bus but she came back in screaming and grabbing towels from the back room.

She ran out there with bin bags and towels. She was crying and in shock - she needed painkillers after.

11:13 AM BST

Croydon Mayor releases statement

Mayor of Croydon Jason Perry said in a statement on Facebook: I am devastated to hear that the teenage girl who was stabbed in the town centre this morning has tragically died.

The Council are in touch with the police and will fully support their investigations. Our whole communitys thoughts will be with the victims family and friends.

A suspect, who is believed to have known the victim, has been located and arrested by local police officers, and I would like to thank all those who responded so quickly and professionally to the incident.

I urge anyone with information about the incident to contact the police on 101 or report anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

11:11 AM BST

Pictured: Police on the scene in Croydon

Pictures have emerged of police at the scene in Croydon where a girl was fatally stabbed on Wednesday.

Bus

police

10:44 AM BST

Ambulance statement

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: We were called today (27 September) at 8:33am to reports of an incident on Wellesley Road, Croydon.

We sent a number of resources to the scene, including three ambulance crews, an incident response officer, and an advanced paramedic in a car. We also dispatched Londons Air Ambulance.

We treated a teenager, but very sadly, despite our best efforts, she died at the scene.

10:42 AM BST

Detectives confirm an arrest has been made

Detectives confirmed a man has been arrested in connection with the stabbing.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said: Our immediate thoughts are with this young girls family who are facing the most tragic of news. Our officers are with the girls family to support them.

I am in contact with the local community, who are clearly as concerned as we are about this tragic incident. I shall continue to update them throughout the day.

My officers were immediately on scene to provide first aid and support paramedics.

Acting on information provided to them, officers also worked closely with colleagues from across the Met and the British Transport Police to track a teenager in connection with the stabbing. I can confirm that an arrest was made at about 09:45hrs in the Croydon area. At this early stage we believe that he may have known her.

A crime scene will be in place for some time, and I am grateful for the cooperation of residents.

10:37 AM BST

Schoolgirl fatally stabbed in Croydon

A 15-year-old schoolgirl has been fatally stabbed in Croydon.

Police were called to reports of an attack near the Whitgift shopping centre on Wednesday. Footage taken at the scene shows multiple police cars and ambulances at a cordon on Wellesley Road.



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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday held off from calling for Sen. Bob Menendez s resignation after the New Jersey Democrat was charged by federal prosecutors with bribery and corruption.

Schumer told reporters that he was deeply disappointed and disturbed when he read the indictment released late last week, which alleges that Menendez and his wife accepted bribes in order to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit Egypt.

Ive known Sen. Menendez a very long time and was truly, truly upset. But we all know that  for senators, theres a much, much higher standard, and clearly when you read the indictment, Sen. Menendez fell way, way below that standard, Schumer said.

He added that Menendez will address Senate Democrats during lunch Thursday.

Well see what happens after that, Schumer said.

Schumers remarks come even though the rest of his Democratic leadership team has backed Menendez stepping down from his seat. Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) both made such calls earlier Wednesday, while Sens. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) did so Tuesday.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than half of the Senate Democratic Conference had come out in support of Menendez resigning, though he has indicated no plans to do so.

Im innocent. Whats wrong with you guys? Menendez said Tuesday when asked why he is not stepping aside.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, pleaded not guilty to the federal charges in New York earlier Wednesday.

The Democratic leader had not commented on Menendez since Friday, when he said that he backed Menendezs decision to step away from his post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Moments earlier, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to take a position on Menendezs future and whether he should still have access to classified documents.

I think thats an issue for the Democrats to deal with, he told reporters.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Killer whales have been killing great white sharks off South African shores.

But lately, there's been a mysterious disappearance of great white sharks in these waters.

Scientists suggest that the remaining great whites who survived moved east to avoid trouble.

For years, great white sharks were turning up dead on South Africa's False Bay and Gansbaai shores, missing something crucial  their livers.

Killer whales had been extracting the sharks' livers with chilling precision, killing them in the process.

Then, the sharks stopped washing ashore. They stopped swimming near those shores  some of their most well-known South African habitats  altogether. They were just gone.

A mysterious mass disappearance

"The decline of white sharks was so dramatic, so fast, so unheard of that lots of theories began to circulate," Michelle Jewell, an ecologist at Michigan State University Museum, told Hakai Magazine.

People were worried that overfishing of both the food the sharks eat and the sharks themselves may have killed off large swaths of the population.

But a new study in the journal Ecological Indicators' October issue indicated that the sharks didn't die off; they were just hiding out in a new part of town, trying to avoid trouble.

Where great white sharks fled for their lives

By following reports of human-shark incidents, scientists determined the South African shark populations had shifted east to places such as Algoa Bay and the KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

"We know that predators have a huge influence on the movement and habitat use of their prey, so this isn't really surprising," Jewell told Hakai Magazine.

The tourism industry in Gansbaai, South Africa, relied on the large population of great white sharks found in the area. Dan Kitwood / Staff / Getty Images

Through a process of elimination, the scientists in the study looked at the leading possible explanations, including prey decline in the region where the sharks disappeared and rapid reproduction in the areas where a large number of new shark sightings were reported.

Ultimately, they concluded the most likely explanation was that the great whites fled to avoid continued killer-whale attacks. The study said its conclusion was supported by white shark behavior in other parts of the world.

In North America, for example, at the Southeast Farallon Islands, great white sharks have been recorded fleeing from hunting areas after killer whales showed up.

Though many people think of the great white as an apex predator, this study is a prime example of the saying, "There's always a bigger fish."

"The indirect effect of predation (or the fear of predation) profoundly influences animal behavior," the study said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
House Republicans on Wednesday approved a measure to slash Defense Secretary Lloyd Austins salary from more than $221,000 annually to less than $1, based on their dissatisfaction with his work so far.

The move has little chance of becoming law, but underscores the growing animosity between conservatives and military leaders reporting to President Joe Biden. House Democrats dismissed the move as little more than a political stunt.

As part of debate on the fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill, GOP lawmakers approved multiple similar proposals to cut salaries for Defense Department positions they dislike.

The Pentagons director of diversity and inclusion, the head of the departments equity and inclusion office, the militarys chief diversity officer, and the assistant secretary of defense for readiness  a transgender woman  were all targeted with amendments that would trim their annual salary to less than $1.

Capitol Hill dysfunction threatens key defense initiatives

Austin, as Bidens top civilian military leader, was lambasted by Republican lawmakers on the House floor Wednesday for the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the militarys recent recruiting shortfalls and COVID-19 vaccine policies during the pandemic.

Many Americans agree: We do not want the United States military led by failure, causing us to be weak, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga. and sponsor of the Austin salary provision. We need to pass this amendment.

A proposal to cut Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milleys pay to $1 was also floated by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., but dismissed by party leaders before Wednesdays debate.

Greens amendment was approved by a voice vote. Democrats did not press for a roll-call vote which may have prevented the provision from being adopted.

However, the pay cut is already unlikely to advance beyond the House, given Democratic control of the Senate and Democratic dissatisfaction with the defense budget bill. Party leaders have already publicly opposed the appropriations plan over Republicans inclusion of controversial social policy provisions, including language that would overturn the Pentagons abortion travel leave rules and restrict medical care for transgender troops.

You may disagree with the administrations policies, as we all have done over the years with different administrations. But Secretary Austin has done nothing to merit this, said Rep. Betty McCollumn, D-Minn., and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committees defense panel. Theres no need for us to make such a personal, drastic attack by eliminating his pay.

The White House has already threatened to veto the appropriations bill.

Republican leaders also included other amendments offered by the right-flank of the party, including the Freedom Caucus, on the floor. An amendment from Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would bar the Pentagon from implementing President Joe Bidens climate change executive orders, mirroring language he added to the defense policy bill in July.

A bevy of other bipartisan amendments would dock funding from the Defense Departments Operation and Maintenance account in order to bolster various research and development programs.

The House is expected to vote on the full defense spending bill later this week. Even if it passes, a government shutdown starting Sunday remains likely, since House Republicans continue to disagree with Senate Democratic leaders over federal spending levels for a short-term government funding bill.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has served a notice of suspicion on Valentyn Rybin, ex-lawyer of Medvedchuk [pro-Russian politician and businessman] and Sharii [pro-Russian videoblogger and journalist], who became a member of the occupation "government of the Russian Federation" in Kherson Oblast after the full-scale invasion.

Source: Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)

Quote: "The SSU served notice of suspicion to Medvechuk and Shariis ex-lawyer, who got a job in the occupation government of the Russian Federation in Kherson Oblast.

The SSU has collected evidence against collaborator Valentyn Rybin, who now heads the Organisational and Legal Department of the Ministry of Information Policy of Kherson Oblast of the Russian Federation."

Details: At the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion, Rybin left Ukraine and from abroad started urging Ukrainians to "stop resisting the invaders" on social media.

Later, he arrived in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson Oblast, where he got a job with the leadership of the local occupation administration of the Russian Federation.

In this position, Rybin fulfils Moscow's tasks to strengthen the occupation regime in the occupied oblast through mass distribution of Kremlin propaganda.

In addition, the collaborator became a member of the pro-Putin United Russia party and tried to run for the so-called "Legislative Assembly of Kherson Oblast" in the autumn of 2023.

SSU investigators served Rybin with notice of suspicion under Art.111-1.5 (collaboration) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Since the collaborator is located in the temporarily occupied part of Ukraine, comprehensive measures are being taken to bring him to justice for crimes against the state.

Background:

Earlier, the SSU had qualified his criminal actions under Article 436-2.1 of the Criminal Code (justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants).

Rybin used to defend suspects in the Euromaidan cases, Russian prisoners, collaborators and pro-Russian figures.

His father was convicted of collaborationism in December 2022.

At the end of March 2022, Valentyn Rybin left Ukraine for Spain, exercising his right as a father of three minors.

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SAN FRANCISCO  San Francisco Mayor London Breed is apparently doubting voters progressive mood so much that shes banking her reelection on a shift to the right.

The Democratic mayor is proposing the city require all recipients of county-funded welfare to undergo drug screening  and treatment, if needed  in order to be eligible for cash assistance.

Breed defended her proposal during a news conference at City Hall, where she talked about the need to make subsidies contingent on personal responsibility. Progressive critics were quick to compare her comments to Republican welfare policies.

No more anything goes without accountability. No more handouts without accountability, Breed said on Tuesday.

It was a striking moment for the mayor of San Francisco, long an ultra-liberal bastion of Democratic politics. It illustrated how homelessness and fentanyl addiction have frustrated residents and upended political norms. Breed has increasingly leaned into tough-on-crime rhetoric in recent months as she faces a growing field of challengers.

Critics framed Breeds proposal as an expedient shift as she runs for reelection. She announced the effort on the same morning that Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit executive and Levi Strauss heir, announced that he will challenge her in next years election.

Lurie, speaking to supporters a few miles away in Potrero Hill, said he would seek to dramatically increase San Franciscos police force. He vowed to slam the door shut on the era of open-air drug markets and end the perception that lawlessness is an acceptable part of life in San Francisco.

Breed also faces a tough road getting the progressive-leaning Board of Supervisors to go along with her proposal. Several were swift to call her plan inhumane and politically motivated.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, a progressive and potential rival in the mayoral race, said Breed has failed to work with police to close open-air drug markets. We need serious ideas, not politicians desperately grasping for a political lifeline.

The flurry of startled reactions reverberated through San Francisco political circles. Honey Mahogany, chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and a progressive, framed Breeds proposal as a political gambit that could push people out of their homes.

Perhaps she thinks this will differentiate her by moving more to the right, Mahogany said. But it might be at the cost of seeing homelessness increase.

Breed was already facing a mayoral opponent in Ahsha Safai, a moderate on the Board of Supervisors. Breed is likely to face as much  if not more  incoming criticism from moderates as she does progressives.

Maggie Muir, Breeds campaign consultant, said the mayors proposal is about responding to a crisis, not her reelection strategy. Whatever the progressives are offering, its just not working. People are dying every day on the street, Muir said.

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Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez walks into Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday where he faces charges in a plot to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes including cash, gold bars, a Mercedes convertible and mortgage payments. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, pleaded not guilty to charges alleging the couple traded his political influence in Washington for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

The couple appeared at a New York courthouse where attorneys entered guilty pleas for them as well as co-defendants Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.

Magistrate Judge Ona Wang set a $100,000 personal recognizance bond for Menendez, along with ordering that he be supervised ahead of the trial and surrender all of his personal passports.

He was permitted to maintain his official passport and to travel internationally for official business given he provides prior notice.

The judge also set a $250,000 personal recognizance bond for his wife and bonds of $1 million and $2 million for Uribe and Daibes.

Sen. Robert Menendez holds hands with wife Nadine as he walks into Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday, where both pleaded not guilty in a bribery scheme. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Uribe, a former insurance agent, and Daibes, real estate developer, were restricted to regional travel.

A fifth co-defendant, Egyptian-American businessman Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty Tuesday after he was arrested at Kennedy International Airport as he arrived from Egypt to face the charges against him.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., joined a growing list of Democrats Tuesday who have called on Sen. Bob Menedez to resign. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

When federal agents raided the Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs they found nearly $500,000 in cash stashed throughout, as well as "gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other items of value," including a trove of jewelry and exercise equipment.

Investigators also said Daibes' fingerprints and DNA were collected from envelopes full of cash.

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez exits federal court in New York City on Wednesday with his wife, Nadine, after pleading not guilty on bribery and extortion charges stemming from his relationship with three New Jersey business people. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

During a press conference earlier this week, Menendez denied the "salacious" allegations, saying the money found in his home came from his personal savings.

"For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba," he said Monday. "These were moneys drawn from my personal savings account based on the income I have lawfully derived over those 30 years."

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez exits the courthouse with his wife, Nadine, on Wednesday in New York City after pleading not guilty on bribery and extortion charges. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

He also urged the public to wait for the truth to come out following his indictment last Friday on three federal criminal charges, including accepting bribes and using his position to benefit the government of Egypt, as well as the three New Jersey businessmen.

The 69-year-old Menendez stepped down from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but maintained his innocence, vowing he would not resign from the Senate.

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez exits federal court in New York City on Wednesday with his wife, Nadine, after pleading not guilty on bribery and extortion charges stemming from his relationship with three New Jersey business people. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

On Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., joined a growing list of Democrats who have called on Menedez to resign.

The indictment, unsealed Sept. 22, alleges Menendez used his influence to pressure an official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly provided to Hana by the Egyptian government.

He is accused of trying to disrupt a criminal investigation by the New Jersey attorney general related to an associate and a relative of Uribe.

Menendez faces charges of recommending someone to be U.S. attorney in New Jersey whom he thought he could influence regarding the federal prosecution of Daibes and trying to influence the prosecutor's office in the case.

In 2017, Menendez faced unrelated corruption charges in a case that ended in a mistrial.
While full federal legalization of marijuana is likely a ways off, advocates continue to chip away at hurdles for the industry.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act in a bipartisan vote, sending it to the full Senate for approval.

The SAFER Banking Act, as its known, will help make our communities and small businesses safer by giving legal cannabis businesses access to traditional financial institutions, including bank accounts and small business loans, said a statement from the bills supporters, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y.; and Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-OR; Steve Daines, R-MT; Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ; and Cynthia Lummis, R-WY.

Federal restrictions on marijuana may soon be eased

It also prevents federal bank regulators from ordering a bank or credit union to close an account based on reputational risk, the senators added.

Currently, cannabis being illegal under federal law means it can be hard for cannabis businesses to get access to financial services such as checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, insurance, loans and investments, according to the California Department of Cannabis Control.

The federal government, however, has moved to ease some restrictions on marijuana.

Cannabis is currently a Schedule I drug, meaning its viewed to have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Joining marijuana in that classification are heroin, ecstasy and LSD.

For comparison, fentanyl is listed as a Schedule II drug.

Last month, Rachel Levine, the assistant director for health, sent a letter to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram asking for marijuana to be lowered two levels to Schedule III, which includes drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence, as defined by the DEA.

Examples of Schedule III drugs include anabolic steroids, ketamine and Tylenol with less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dose.

While the federal classification of marijuana remains incomplete, federal officials are working to ease the burden on cannabis companies that are in compliance with state law.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, medical cannabis has been legalized in 43 states, districts and territories, with 11 more states allowing cannabis products with low levels of THC  the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis  to be used for medicinal purposes.

Companies in these locations would be the primary beneficiaries of the SAFER Banking Act, which Schumer has vowed to bring to the floor for a full vote. Daines confirmed that they have got enough votes to get it passed, according to NBC News.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
WASHINGTON  Senate leaders released a short-term funding bill Tuesday  with four days left to avert a government shutdown at the end of this month  to keep money flowing until Nov. 17 to give Congress more time to reach a larger agreement.

The bipartisan bill, negotiated between leaders of the Democratic majority and the Republican minority, includes about $6 billion in aid to Ukraine and $6 billion in emergency disaster relief funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It would also prevent a lapse in Federal Aviation Administration authorities through the end of the year and prevent a pay cut for federal firefighters.

The Senate will begin voting Tuesday evening to debate the measure, with the hope of passing it before Sunday to prevent a shutdown. It's unclear whether the chamber can pass it before the 12:01 a.m. Sunday deadline, as it would be likely to require unanimous consent to hold a quick vote.

Even if it does pass in time, its unclear whether the Republican-led House will approve it, as many GOP hard-liners oppose a short-term bill and want to advance full-year funding measures that include sharp spending cuts that Democrats oppose.

A shutdown would be nothing short of a catastrophe for American families, our national security and our economy," Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. "It is critical that we avoid one, and thats exactly what this bipartisan legislation will do."

Murray, whose office posted a summary of the legislation, added that the bill "keeps our government funded, and provides critical dollars to support communities struck by disaster and support Ukraine at a pivotal moment in its defensive efforts against Putins brutal, unprovoked war of aggression."

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who is struggling to corral the votes to pass government funding bills under his slim House majority, declined to say Tuesday whether the chamber would accept a Senate-passed bill to avoid a shutdown.

Its always a hypothetical that the Senate is going to do something, McCarthy told reporters. Im not going to take up hypotheticals of someday dreaming the Senate is going to do something. When they do something, come back and ask me about something.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged senators to pass it.

Make no mistake, a shutdown would be a terrible outcome for the country despite what some on the hard right would have us ludicrously believe. Its hard for me to believe that some  the extreme right in the other chamber say they actually want a shutdown. What insanity, he said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also backed the short-term deal.

Over the years, Ive been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news whichever way you look at them, McConnell said. They dont work as political bargaining chips; they create unnecessary hardships for millions of Americans.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
(Bloomberg) -- The US is on track for an Oct. 1 government shutdown despite incremental progress late Tuesday in the House and Senate on rival spending bills.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Senate leaders introduced their own bill to avert a shutdown and cleared a procedural vote, while House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was able to start House debate on a series of conservative full-year spending bills.

The Senate stopgap bill has no clear path to pass the House, while the speaker has yet to nail down support for his own stopgap measure, which he plans to have the House vote on after the other full-year bills.

The Senate bill would keep the government open through mid-November and provide $6 billion in assistance to Ukraine.

The Senate may not be able to vote its approval for the temporary measure before the Saturday midnight shutdown deadline because Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, is threatening to slow it with procedural obstacles over the inclusion of Ukraine aid.

That bill, however, is dead on arrival in the House, where McCarthy could face ouster by conservative hardliners if he allows a bipartisan plan to come to a vote.

Your Questions Answered on US Government Shutdown: QuickTake

The Senate plan, which would extend funding until Nov. 17, falls short of the $24 billion in Ukraine aid requested by President Joe Biden. It includes $6 billion of the $16 billion in emergency disaster relief the White House sought.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill was a bridge, not a final destination, and that more needs to be done later to address Ukraine and the recovery from a series of hurricanes and wildfires.

Over the years I have been clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. They dont work as bargaining chips.

The Senate plan addresses a shortfall in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and temporarily extends some expiring farm bill programs. It would also allow the Pentagon to build a second Columbia Class submarine.

The House is focused on trying to pass full-year funding bills for the State, Agriculture, Homeland Security and Defense departments that would not in themselves end the shutdown threat.

McCarthy has said that after spending most of the week on these bills, he plans to bring up a stopgap bill that contains a deep cut to domestic spending and immigration law changes that are anathema to Senate Democrats and the White House.

So far, at least 11 members of his party have indicated they would resist allowing a vote on that measure, preventing consideration unless McCarthy can win over some House Democrats.

Earlier: Shutdown Poised to Delay Billions From Bidens Climate Law

Moderate House Republicans are preparing to join with Democrats on a rarely used discharge petition to force a vote on a bipartisan effort. The procedure was adopted by the House in 1910 as a check on the speakers power and would force a vote on a bill without his approval. Discharge petitions have been successfully deployed just twice this century.

Given their narrow majority, only five Republicans must join with Democrats to bring it about. Thirty-two Republicans have already signed onto a bipartisan bill to finance the government through Jan. 11 and provide military aid to Ukraine. The petition could be used to force a vote on the Senate bipartisan bill.

Representatives Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro, both New York Republicans who represent areas Democrat Joe Biden carried in the last presidential election, already have publicly threatened to join Democrats in such a petition, and other GOP moderates are ready to do so.

The discharge petition, last deployed successfully in 2015, can be used to force a vote within nine legislative days when Congress is actually in session.

--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

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The Senate voted Tuesday to advance a short-term funding measure to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the week.

The Senate voted 77-19 to advance the legislative vehicle it will use for a continuing resolution (CR) funding government until Nov. 17.

The vote puts the Senate on a path to pass a CR later this week that it could then send to the House to avoid an Oct. 1 shutdown.

The House has been stuck on how to move forward with funding the government amid disputes among Republicans in the majority.

If the Senate does approve a CR, it could put pressure on the House to bring it to the floor and avoid a shutdown, particularly if the lower chamber has not made much progress on its own.

The Senate legislation will fund the federal government until Nov. 17, the week before Thanksgiving, and provide approximately $6.15 billion in funding for Ukraine and $5.99 billion in disaster assistance.

The legislation will also temporarily extend the expiring authority of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Senate leaders kept the details of the legislation secret until shortly before Tuesdays vote as lawmakers wrestled behind the scenes over adding money for Ukraine.

The vote shows that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are largely on the same page in wanting to avoid a shutdown that would suspend a litany of government services and furlough of thousands of government workers.

Schumer on Tuesday afternoon described the bill as a bridge to buy negotiators more time to hash out a longer-term deal to fund the government.

Senate Democrats and Republicans, together, worked in good faith to reach an agreement on a continuing resolution that will keep the government open beyond Sept. 30, the Democratic leader said on the floor.

He acknowledged the agreement wont have everything that both sides want but argued it will help us to achieve our immediate and necessary goal of avoiding a government shutdown.

Schumer praised his Republican colleagues for working with Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) over the weekend.

The funding levels continue at the same level as before. There is $6.1 billion for Ukraine on the defense side and the State Department side. There is $6 billion for disaster relief, Schumer announced. This is not going to be the final proposal for the whole year.

McConnell urged his Republican colleagues to pass the funding measure to dodge a shutdown that would only be bad news for his party.

At midnight on Sunday, current appropriations will run out, and the federal government will shut down. Over the years, Ive been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news whichever way you look at them.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday floated the possibility of meeting with Biden to work out a compromise and suggested that adding language to strengthen border security could be the key to a deal.

The president could keep government open by doing something on the border, he told reporters.

He said a meeting with Biden would be very important to keeping the government funded.

A shutdown would delay federal loans to farmers, limit Food and Drug Administration inspections of food products, and furlough staff at the Environmental Protection Agency who inspect drinking water facilities.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack warned earlier this month that a shutdown could jeopardize nutrition assistance for nearly 7 million women and children who rely on the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children.

The Women, Infants and Children and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, however, does have contingency funds that it could draw upon.

Schumer warned that a shutdown would throw the Transportation Security Administration into chaos and possibly delay and disrupt domestic air travel and undermine enforcement actions along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Even FEMAs disaster relief fund could actually dry up, he said.

McConnell, speaking on the floor, warned that a shutdown would create unnecessary hardships for millions of Americans.

For example, nearly 46,000 service members and 22,000 civilian workers in my home state of Kentucky  earn federal government paychecks, he said.

Updated at 7:06 p.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach finally reunited with 1st runner-up Ariadna Gutierrez of Colombia after the pageant fiasco that happened almost eight years ago.

The two met in Paris, France during the Paris Fashion Week.

"The reunion you've all been waiting for," the 34-year-old beauty queen captioned on her Instagram post on Tuesday.

The Colombian beauty said she was so happy to see her fellow Miss Universe finalist again.

"When time makes sure you meet the right people once again," she said in her Instagram story post.

The two admitted in their past interviews that they haven't been in communication since the controversial crowning moment in 2015.

Then host Steve Harvey initially announced Gutierrez as the winner. But he later walked back on stage to apologize and revealed that Wurtzbach actually won the Miss Universe crown.

Wurtzbach and Gutierrez's reunion also delighted other beauty queens, including then 2nd runner-up Olivia Jordan of the United States.

"Love to see it!!! Both of you are sheer PERFECTION!" said Jordan in her comment.

Miss Universe 2017 Demi Tebow and Miss Universe 2020 Andrea Meza also praised their reunion photo.
Senator Robert Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen accused of joining an alleged bribery and corruption scheme with the powerful head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have all pleaded not guilty in a federal courtroom in Manhattan.

Mr Menendez has refused a growing number of calls from his Senate colleagues to resign after a grand jury indictment accused him of trading political favours involving the Egyptian government and agreeing to interrupt criminal investigations in exchange for cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and other gifts.

The senator and his wife Nadine Menendez are charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

He was released on $100,000 bond and Ms Menendez was released on a $250,000 bond following an arraignment hearing on 27 September.

Wael Hana, who was arrested upon entering John F Kennedy International Airport after a flight from Egypt on Tuesday, also pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. He was released on $5m bond after his arrest.

Co-defendants Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe have also pleaded not guilty on those charges.

Mr Menendez is facing his second federal corruption case within 10 years, after jurors failed to reach a verdict on separate allegations in 2017.

The latest case appears to have picked up just months later, with an indictment outlining an alleged years-long criminal scheme to covertly benefit the Egyptian government, push US officials to secure an exclusive business deal with one of his co-defendants, and pressure state and federal prosecutors to drop investigations, all in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold and gifts.

A protester holds a sign calling for US Senator Robert Menendez to resign as he enters federal court in New York City on 27 September. (EPA)

The alleged players include a New Jersey real estate developer who was previously convicted of fraud, an associate who also has separately faced fraud charges, and Mr Hana, a halal meat certification business owner who allegedly pursued a lucrative monopoly with the Egyptian government through Mr Menendez, who for years has chaired a critical Senate committee that steers American foreign policy and global financial aid.

Authorities seized $100,000 worth of gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash, mostly stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing and closets at their home, according to the indictment. Photographs in the indictment include jackets bearing Mr Menendezs name and government seals stuffed with wrapped bills.

Mr Menendez and attorneys for his four co-defendants have all denied wrongdoing.

On 25 September, in his first public remarks since being accused of taking bribes and unlawfully wielding his influence in office, Mr Menendez said he had stored cash withdrawn from his personal savings account at his home.

The senator, surrounded by people he addressed as everyday people and constituents but no prominent political leaders, delivered his remarks in English and then in Spanish before leaving without taking any questions from reporters.
The indictment unveiled on Friday against Sen. Robert Menendez marks another chapter in a series of troubling allegations that have dogged the New Jersey Democrat for years, marking the second time in a decade that he has faced corruption charges. The question the indictment leaves unanswered is, did the Egyptian government target an influential United States senator to do its bidding on Capitol Hill?

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are charged along with three businessmen in a complicated plot to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes including cash, gold bars, a Mercedes convertible, even mortgage payments. According to the indictment, Menendez accepted these payoffs in return for using his position as a United States senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because he agreed to use his influence and power and breach his official duty in ways that benefited the Government of Egypt.

It is alleged that Menendez used his political position to attempt to break a State Department hold on US aid to Egypt, push for the delivery of ammunition and weapons systems to the Egyptian military, and passed sensitive information about American and Egyptian personnel assigned to the US Embassy in Cairo. It should be noted that some of these actions are things that the senator could have done legally if they were not allegedly in return for cash and gold.

The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent, Menendez said in a statement on Friday. They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office. On top of that, not content with making false claims against me, they have attacked my wife for the longstanding friendships she had before she and I even met.

The Egyptian government has not commented on the indictment and Menendez and his wife, as well as the others charged, have strongly denied the charges.

Following a mistrial on previous corruption charges in 2017, Menendez was acquitted on several charges in 2018 with the Department of Justice dropping those that remained.

On the latest allegations, as someone who worked at the FBI, in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the New York Police Departments Intelligence Bureau, I am struck by the elephant that seems to be missing from the room: Nothing in the indictment describes what investigators know, if anything, about the role of Egyptian officials and whether they had direction or knowledge over the bribery scheme. Why is this important? Because the possible subtext of this story is that Cairo may have used agents in the US to try and recruit the top elected legislative official with influence over foreign policy to be its puppet. Yes, when you say it out loud it is shocking.

The use of foreign nationals, expats, dual citizens, or even Americans, who have a loyalty to a foreign country is a proven tactic in the spy game. Does Egypt, a country that has received billions in US aid, conduct sophisticated intelligence operations on US soil?

Another recent case suggests they might. In January of 2022, Pierre Girgis, an Egyptian-American banker, based in New York was charged by federal prosecutors who say he acted in the United States as an agent of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The indictment charged that Girgis operated at the direction and control of multiple employees of the Egyptian government in an effort to further in the United States the interests of the Egyptian Government. It alleged that Girgis cultivated close relationships with members of US law enforcement including members of the NYPD in an effort to gather information on opponents of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the United States.

After the indictment was unsealed, Girgis pleaded not guilty and was released on his own recognizance. The case is awaiting trial.

The Egyptian government has been known to arrest, imprison, even torture those it considers enemies of the regime. Indeed, the very reason the US State Department had put holds on some aid to Egypt, the same holds Menendez was asked to break, was to press Egypt on human rights reforms relating to crackdowns on dissent. While Girgis has been charged with being an unregistered agent of Egypt, Wael Hana, the businessman charged with bribing Menendez to advance Egyptian interests, has not. Hana and two other businessmen are charged with bribery.

Wael Hana, who has pleaded not guilty, is described in the indictment as being originally from Egypt and having maintained close connections with Egyptian officials. It was Hana, investigators say, who was friends with Nadine Arslanian for many years before she began dating Robert Menendez, whom she eventually married. The indictment charges that after Nadine began a romantic relationship with Menendez, she and Hana spent years working to introduce Egyptian intelligence and military officials to Menendez. The indictment details how Nadine Menendez acted as the go-between who passed messages and picked up bribes.

This is where we come to another uncomfortable question, but one a trained intelligence officer would have to at least consider: Did Wael Hana have anything to do with his old friend Nadine Arslanian entering into a romantic relationship with the senator and marrying him?

Among the things an intelligence officer considers in planning the targeting of an asset is finding someone who has the access they need but also vulnerabilities they can compromise. It was widely publicized that Menendez had been the target of corruption charges and a senate ethics probe involving allegations of accepting free gifts, trips, and rides on private planes in return for using his influence to aid Dr. Salomon Melgen who was convicted on separate health care fraud charges in 2017. The criminal case against Menendez resulted in a hung jury and prosecutors did not pursue a second trial but the Senate Ethics Committee found that Menendez violated Senate rules and multiple laws. Menendez maintained his innocence.

Another thing an intelligence officer would grapple with is the sheer boldness of such a move. Targeting a staff member working on the Foreign Relations Committee team would be a logical plan but turning the chairman into an asset would be shooting for the moon. For a long-term, United States ally, like Egypt, a country that has played critical roles over the last 50 years in US Middle East policy, targeting and recruiting the United States senator who chairs the foreign relations committee would be an extraordinarily provocative move.

How will the Menendez case and the fallout from it affect US-Egyptian relations? As prosecutors prepare for a trial, will any connections between the businessman and others tied to the Egyptian government be revealed?

These are very sensitive issues that crossover from the Justice Department into the interests of the State Department and the White House. The lines may have to be drawn very carefully between the prosecution, US diplomatic interests and whether any larger story to come has larger implications for a vital diplomatic relationship.

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A Northern California inmate who escaped from custody after completing her treatment at a hospital was found Wednesday, and a man suspected of harboring her has been arrested.

The female inmate, described by the Glenn County Sheriffs Office as a non-violent offender, slipped past deputies after Colusa Regional Hospital medical staff deemed her healthy enough to return to jail. She walked out of the hospital Monday while sheriffs deputies went to retrieve her.

The hospital is 55 miles northwest of Sacramento in the town of Colusa, population 6,400. Glenn County borders Colusa County to the north; its jail is in Willows, about 30 miles away.

Due to critically low staffing levels at the Glenn County Jail and (the) Sheriffs Office, staff were unavailable to standby with (the inmate) while she was convalescing, the Glenn County Sheriffs Office said in a news release.

The Sheriffs Office got an anonymous tip Tuesday about 8:30 p.m. that the woman was hiding in a Glenn County residence on the 300 block of County Road D, halfway between the jail and the hospital.

The woman was taken into custody without incident and returned to Glenn County Jail. She had originally been booked on suspicion of violating her parole, misdemeanor drug charges and failing to appear for a charge of possessing stolen property, the Sheriffs Office said. More charges were expected to be filed in connection with the escape.

The Sheriffs Office also said a man at the home was arrested, though details of his detainment were not disclosed.
In 2014, Bryan Bailey, the sheriff of Rankin County made what seemed like a series of routine requests of the local district attorneys office.

He needed grand jury subpoenas, he said, to force the phone company to turn over records of calls and text messages for what he called a confidential internal investigation.

Sheriff Bailey scrawled a brief note on a subpoena form and gave it to a paralegal in the district attorneys office. Please keep this confidential between you and I, the note read. Possible wrongdoing by school district employee.

But his requests had nothing to do with alleged wrongdoing, or any criminal investigation, according to a previously undisclosed report obtained by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today. Instead, Sheriff Bailey tapped into the power of a grand jury at least eight times over a year to spy on his married girlfriend and the school employee with whom she was also unfaithful, the documents show.

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, right, speaks to an attendee at an employer engagement forum in Jackson, Nov. 4, 2021.

The investigative report, compiled in 2016 by the district attorney at the time, Michael Guest, laid out evidence that Sheriff Bailey had duped the prosecutors office and potentially violated state law on fraud, a felony that carries up to five years in prison.

Guest, now a U.S. congressman and chairman of the House Committee on Ethics, decided he could not pursue the case further because of conflicts of interest, including his years long friendship with the sheriff. He told two local judges what he had discovered and passed his investigation on to the state attorney general.

And thats where the matter ended.

The Rankin County Detention Center remains in Brandon on Aug. 23.

According to interviews with former staff members in the attorney generals office, no one questioned the sheriff or conducted a full investigation. Jim Hood, the attorney general at the time, asked a senior attorney to look into the matter but did not pursue criminal charges.

Neither his office nor Guest informed the state agency that oversees law enforcement certifications, even though Guest was a voting member of the board. That agency could have reviewed the allegations and possibly revoked Sheriff Baileys certification.

For seven years, every elected official who learned of the allegations kept them secret from the public, leaving citizens of Rankin County in the dark, even as they twice voted to re-elect Sheriff Bailey. He is on the verge of another re-election, having won the Republican primary in August and facing no opponent in November.

His conduct is the latest in a series of examples uncovered by The Times and Mississippi Today of how sheriffs in Mississippi can act with impunity, often using the power of their office to weaponize the criminal justice system for their own benefit with no risk of being held accountable, even when faced with serious allegations of abuse.

Sheriff Bailey and his department have been under national scrutiny and a federal civil rights investigation since five deputies and a local police officer pleaded guilty this year to torturing two Black men and shooting one of them in the mouth.

Sheriff Bailey did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did local officials aware of the allegations and the report, including then-Circuit Court Judges John H. Emfinger and William E. Chapman III. Guest declined to comment.

Hood said in a statement that he did not remember all the details of how the case was handled, but he insisted that his office had investigated and made the right call in not prosecuting.

He said he had passed Guests report on to Ed Snyder, who was a special assistant attorney general working part time. Snyder recalled receiving the report but said he was asked to take a look, not to investigate. He said he only reviewed what criminal statutes might be used to prosecute.

Normally, a case involving possible public corruption would have been handled by the Public Integrity Division within the attorney generals office. Hood could not recall why he did not send the case there, but said he trusted Snyders judgment.

Hoods best recollection, he said, is that he chose not to pursue charges because the sheriff had a plausible reason for investigating the people targeted by the subpoenas. He said he believed his former offices investigation had found that those people were involved in some criminal activity, maybe drugs or a home burglary.

But neither of the people whose phone calls and texts were subpoenaed were ever charged in a drug or burglary case, or any other criminal case. And there is no public evidence that indicates the subpoenas were part of a criminal inquiry.

If there had been a legitimate criminal case involving Sheriff Baileys girlfriend, the sheriff should not have been involved in the case at all, said Matthew Steffey, a lawyer and a professor at the Mississippi College School of Law.

There was an obvious and profound conflict of interest here, he said. If there was a legitimate criminal investigation, the sheriff should not have been subpoenaing his own girlfriends phone records. And he certainly cannot do it without the knowledge or the direction of the district attorneys office.

That the sheriff has not been prosecuted or otherwise held accountable, despite the evidence against him, reflects an utter failure of our criminal justice system, Steffey added.

Dr. Cooper, Michael Guest's pastor, stands next to Michael and Haley Guest at an election party for the 2022 midterm elections at the Republican Party Headquarters in Jackson, Miss., November 8, 2022.

Guest began investigating Sheriff Bailey in the spring of 2016 after receiving a tip about his use of grand jury subpoenas.

He was initially very doubtful and began looking into the matter in hopes to put these rumors quickly to rest, he wrote in his investigative report.

But he soon discovered a series of phone record requests that appeared suspicious based on the numbers that Sheriff Bailey had targeted.

One of the numbers belonged to Kristi Pennington Shanks, an administrative assistant in the sheriffs office who had begun a relationship with Sheriff Bailey while she was married, according to the report. The other belonged to a local school district employee with whom Shanks had also been involved, the report states.

Guest wrote in his report that his office was not part of any investigation into the school employee or Shanks. Shanks, who remains the sheriffs girlfriend, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to copies of the subpoena requests included in Guests report, the first request came from a Rankin County deputy who emailed the district attorneys office on Jan. 30, 2014. He asked a paralegal there, Kim Amason, to write up and stamp a subpoena for a list of the school employees outgoing phone calls that month. Amason did not respond to a request for comment.

Culture of misconduct? Racist abuse by Mississippi deputies reveals a culture of misconduct, residents say

Throughout 2014, there were at least seven more subpoenas for texts and calls associated with the numbers of the former school employee and Shanks. Most of the requests directed phone companies to send records to Sheriff Bailey.

Grand juries, composed of up to two dozen people selected from the community, operate in secret. They investigate potential crimes, subpoena evidence, compel testimony and decide whether charges should be filed.

Practices vary by state, but typically the district attorneys office files paperwork for subpoenas on behalf of the grand jury, without a review by jurors or a judge. Law enforcement officers can request such subpoenas, serve them on the person or entity holding the records, and directly collect the evidence. Afterward, it is normal practice for officers to turn this evidence over to prosecutors, who maintain permanent investigative files on cases.

Under Mississippi law, grand jury subpoenas can be issued only to aid a legitimate criminal investigation. Violators can be prosecuted for fraud and face years in prison.

A decade ago, the state attorney generals office under Hood charged a former Meridian police officer with wire fraud after he forged signatures on a grand jury subpoena to get his wifes phone records when he suspected she had been unfaithful. He was convicted and spent a year in prison.

Experts said the statute of limitations had passed to bring any potential state charges that might have applied to Sheriff Baileys actions. But details of the case could be getting a second look by federal authorities.

Fred Shanks, whose ex-wife became Sheriff Baileys girlfriend and a target of his subpoenas, said he was recently interviewed by the FBI. Fred Shanks is Guests cousin and was the source of the original tip that prompted him to investigate.

House Constitution Committee Chairman Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, right, speaks against an amendment offered by Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, for a proposed ballot initiative legislation, during floor debate March 8 at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson.

In an interview with reporters, Fred Shanks said he told authorities several times that both his and his girlfriends phones were being improperly tracked by Sheriff Bailey.

In 2015, after he got divorced, Fred Shanks started dating Kristen Liberto, an investigator with the Rankin County Sheriffs Office.

Liberto said her professional relationship with the sheriff then soured. She found herself under review for leaving work to go to a chiropractor, and she discovered a tracking device attached to her car, she said. In October 2015, she said, Sheriff Bailey called her into his office and gave her two options: resign, or be arrested for filling out fraudulent timecards.

She resigned and felt absolutely devastated, she said.

The sheriff also demanded that Liberto return a piece of county equipment that was in her possession. I want my tracker back, she recalled him saying.

Then, in 2016, Fred Shanks received a tip that Sheriff Bailey had previously obtained his and his ex-wifes phone records. He said he immediately called Guest.

There were multiple people who could have done something about this, but they did nothing, said Fred Shanks, who has represented Rankin County in the Mississippi Legislature since 2018. It begs the question, how many other people did he do this to?

 Ilyssa Daly examines the power of sheriffs offices in Mississippi as part of The Times Local Investigations Fellowship. Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter who has examined civil rights-era cold murder cases in the state for more than 30 years.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Rankin County MS Sheriff Bryan Bailey allegedly misused power
An accused double murderer in Alaska who earlier this year allegedly threatened to maim and kill a Florida sheriff who spoke out against neo-Nazi activity in his county is now under federal indictment on five criminal counts of cyberstalking and interstate threatsand one person in particular isnt shedding any tears.

I already have a card written out for him that says I hope he has a long, slow, rotting death in that jail cell, Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood told The Daily Beast on Tuesday evening. Its written out, signed. I dont want to send it up there now, [in case] it screws up the U.S. Attorneys case. But once we move further on down the line, he can expect that cardit says, From the desk of Sheriff Chitwood on it.

Joshua Wahl, 31, of Dillingham, Alaska was arrested on Aug. 20 on murder charges after 32-year-old Jennifer Gardiner and 31-year-old Timothy Evans were fatally shot in a house near the citys airport. A few days later, the feds hit him with the stalking and interstate threat charges, which carry a combined maximum of 25 years in prison.

Real class act of a human being, Chitwood said. You talk about the definition of a scumbag, he's it.

If convicted, the murder charges could put Wahl behind bars for life (Alaska abolished the death penalty in 1957). The federal case was first reported by Court Watch.

Speaking to The Daily Beast while driving to speak at a Boy Scouts of America event about leadership and being a good citizen, Chitwood said the threats began on March 31, when Wahl told him in an email that he was prepared to kill him, and that he had a cache of lasers and explosives at the ready, according to a Sept. 25 indictment handed down by a federal grand jury. The message included links to a YouTube video showing Wahl using a laser to burn a hole in a photo of Chitwoods face, and in other shots, Wahl appeared to be holding explosives in front of Chitwoods picture, according to the indictment.

I responded back to him, called him a piece of shit, [told him], Youre a cowardly scumbag, Chitwood recalled. You know, he took the time to send these emails to me.

The alleged threats were part of a wider backlash by members of the far-right against Chitwood after the sheriff very publicly belittled the neo-Nazis who descended on Daytona Beach, Florida last February. Wahl is not known to have ever crossed paths with Chitwood but was definitely a known quantity in Alaska.

Wahl ran a YouTube channel under the moniker laseranon, where he posted tutorials teaching others how to use lasers to blind members of law enforcement, the feds say. On April 5, the indictment says Wahl posted on the anonymous and unregulated message board 4Chan, Blind and kill Shitwood in real life, not fucking Minecraft. I have been posting this for a month and I have not been arrested. I also got away with trying to blow up a synagogue. I am an actual terrorist!!! Another 4Chan post vowed to go after Chitwood with explosives, sound, plasma, lasers and ap ammo, and boasted of a plan to shoot him the fucking head with a overpressure 10mm round. A third showed a photo of Chitwood with a hole burned in his face and said, Kill Mike Chitwood in irl, not fucking video games.

Come and do something about it fedboys, the post taunted.

As it turned out, Wahl was already on the FBIs radar for shining laser pointers at airline pilots flying above, Chitwood told The Daily Beast.

He had threatened a number of FBI agents, their families, he was well-known to the Alaska troopers, Chitwood said. I mean, they all knew him.

Then last month, Chitwood got a call from an FBI agent in Alaska, who dropped a bombshell on the Volusia sheriff: Hes like, Hey, man, youre not gonna believe this. He just shot and killed his fiancees sister and her husband, and we got him locked up.

When investigators searched Wahls digital devices, they uncovered a lot of stuff pertaining to Chitwood that allegedly violated federal law, he said.

The FBI asked Chitwood if he would sign a letter agreeing to prosecute. It wasnt a difficult decision, Chitwood said, adding that he had been receiving threats and unhinged rants hundreds at a time not only from Wahl but from all these other lunatics, all over.

If you dont stand up to it, then youre complicit, in my opinion, Chitwood said.

Chitwood believes most of the people actually whipping up the frenzy in chat rooms and forums like 4Chan dont have the guts to pull the trigger themselves. But, he said, They know that theres somebody out there that this will resonate with. What worries him is stochastic terrorismthat the loudest, most radical online voices will encourage others to do their real-life bidding.

He ran down a list of recent mass shootings in the U.S., pointing to a 2019 shooting at an El Paso Walmart in which the suspect targeted Latinos, a 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in which the suspect targeted Jews, and a 2022 shooting at Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in which the suspect targeted members of the Black community. Theres one thing they all have in common, Chitwood said: Theyre all in this 4Chan chat, with hundreds of others, listening to this crazy nonsense about annihilating people for their race, or their ethnicity, or their religion, or their sexual orientation.

Some six months after he first emerged onto the global stage amid a spate of antisemitic incidents in Volusia, Chitwood continues to receive virulent death threats as a matter of course. And although they are not necessarily coming in with the same frequency, its enough that Chitwood no longer answers calls from numbers he doesnt recognize and has shut off his phones voicemail, he said.

But, what are you gonna do? Chitwood said, as his GPS chirped in the background with directions to the Boy Scouts event. And hey, Id rather them come after me than come after some poor older woman, or come after a family trying to raise their children and scared to death to send their kids to school because of what these idiots are posting.

Wahl is at least the fifth 4Chan user charged with threatening Chitwood. The motive behind last month's double homicide remains unclear.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Two women who picked out what they wanted from a nail salon in Murrieta, California and then allegedly walked out the front door without paying were arrested shortly after one of them returned and asked employees to return a cell phone that was dropped during the theft.

The incident occurred last week, the Murrieta Police Department stated Monday in a post on its Facebook page.

Police did not identify the store but said the suspect returned just minutes after the theft to retrieve their cellphone, which contained the suspects drivers license and a credit card inside its case.

Employees did not give back the phone after the suspect refused to return the stolen items, the post stated.

Murrieta stolen items

The unidentified suspect then allegedly assaulted an employee before leaving a second time.

Now the theft (which was for less than the cost of the phone) turned into a robbery charge, the Police Department stated.

The suspects, who left in a black vehicle, were still sitting in their car when officers arrived at their home just one mile away.

The stolen merchandise was in plain sight inside the vehicle, the police department stated. An image of the stolen items was also uploaded in the post.

Both were arrested and transported on numerous charges, according to police.

For sure woulda been easier to just buy the products with the credit card that was in the phone case, the police department stated.

The injuries due to the assault were minimal, police said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com.
Looming deadline to avert US government shutdown on the hill in Washington, U.S.

Looming deadline to avert US government shutdown on the hill in Washington, U.S.

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday rejected a stopgap funding bill advancing in the Senate, bringing Washington closer to its fourth partial shutdown of the U.S. government in a decade with just four days to go.

That would lead to the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the suspension of a wide range of government services, from economic data releases to nutrition benefits, until Congress manages to pass a funding bill that President Joe Biden , a Democrat, would sign into law.

The Senate plan, which advanced on a wide bipartisan margin on Tuesday, would fund the government through Nov. 17, giving lawmakers more time to agree on funding levels for the full fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said the Senate would hold the next procedural vote on its bill on Thursday, unless senators can reach an agreement that would allow them to vote sooner.

McCarthy's House of Representatives was focusing its efforts on trying to agree on more of the 12 separate full-year funding bills, of which they have so far passed one.

"I don't see the support in the House" for the Senate plan, McCarthy said, though the bill has the support of Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The House was expected to vote late into the night on amendments to specific funding bills, though even if all four of those bills were to be signed into law by Saturday, on their own they would not be enough to prevent a partial government shutdown.

Weeks ago, Biden urged Congress to pass a short-term extension of fiscal 2023 spending, along with emergency aid to help state and local governments cope with natural disasters and help Ukraine in its war against Russia. He also sought new border security funding.

"If we have a government shutdown, a lot of vital work and science and health could be impacted, from cancer research to food safety," Biden said on Wednesday. "So the American people need our Republican friends in the House of Representatives to do their jobs: Fund the government."

The standoff has begun to attract the attention of ratings agencies, with both Moody's and Fitch warning it could damage the federal government's credit-worthiness.

House Republicans want much tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico and deeper spending cuts than were enacted in June.

CALL FOR BIPARTISANSHIP

Worries of a shutdown are already spreading outside of Washington. In Atlanta, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum moved up its planned Sunday festivities celebrating the former president's 99th birthday to Saturday before federal funds could be frozen at midnight, according to local media.

Executive branch agencies were already making preparations for determining which federal workers would remain on the job -- without pay until the government is funded -- and which ones will be furloughed. Similar exercises were occurring in Congress as well, where thousands of legislative aides and other support workers are employed.

"Speaker McCarthy, the only way - the only way - out of a shutdown is bipartisanship," Schumer said in a speech to the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he opposed a shutdown.

"The Border Patrol and ICE agencies have to continue to work for nothing" during a shutdown, the Republican lawmaker told reporters on Wednesday, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). McConnell added that a solution is not "more likely to happen in the shutdown than with the government open."

McCarthy is facing threats from hardline members of his own party who rejected a deal he negotiated with Biden in May for $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024 and approved in June, demanding instead another $120 billion in cuts.

A handful of the hardliners have also threatened to oust McCarthy from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

McCarthy said House Republicans would probably bring their own stopgap measure to the floor on Friday.

It was unclear whether there will be the votes in the House to pass it.

The standoff comes four months after Washington flirted with defaulting on the nation's more than $31 trillion in debt, a move that would have rocked financial markets worldwide.

Another downgrade of the U.S. credit rating could push borrowing costs - and the nation's debt - even higher.

Hardline Republicans, including Donald Trump, frontrunner for the party's 2024 presidential nomination, have dismissed the risks of a shutdown and in some cases actively pushed for one.

"My advice is buckle up -- there's turbulence ahead," Representative Andy Ogles told reporters after attending a closed-door meeting of fellow Republicans.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton, Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone, Tom Hogue and Jonathan Oatis)
Bonnie Haugen, a dairy farmer in rural Fillmore County in the southeastern corner of Minnesota, watches her mailbox each month for a check from the federal government.

In normal years, her Dairy Margin Coverage insurance program check  a U.S. Department of Agriculture program to buffer dairy producers from the viciousness of commodity cycles  might be close to zero.

But throughout the milking season of 2023, with dairy prices stuck in the basement, Haugen said that assistance has helped her operation avoid major losses.

"It's averaged about $9,000 a month," Haugen said Tuesday.

But she might not see a check come October  at least not right away, if the federal government shuts down.

"There's going to be nobody in the [local Farm Service Agency] office to do that paperwork," Haugen said.

With the nation on the brink of a federal government shutdown Oct. 1, the potential pain for Americans across the country is coming into sharper focus.

On Monday during a White House press briefing, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned that a shutdown would reach into virtually every county. It would close local USDA offices, halt government-backed home loans to rural Americans and even further beleaguer efforts to reauthorize the federal farm bill, as tens of thousands of staff members, including some who give technical assistance on proposed legislation, will be furloughed.

"Phone's not going to get answered because there's no one there," said Vilsack. "Why aren't they there? Because we're in a shutdown. That's why it's so ridiculous for us to talk about this."

Few federal agencies exemplify the sheer breadth of public services that could be affected under a shutdown as the USDA, which also administers critical nutrition assistance and hires staff to inspect slaughterhouses.

While food stamps, also called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will continue at least through October, Vilsack said that a smaller program tailored for mothers and babies  the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program  has enough funds for only one or two days in most states.

"If we have a shutdown, WIC shuts down," said Vilsack. "And that means nutrition assistance to those moms and children shuts down."

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Health said WIC in Minnesota can continue to operate for two to three weeks, using federal funding already allocated to the state. On average, about 100,000 low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women, babies and children 5 years old and younger in the state received WIC assistance to buy healthy foods last year, according to the department.

Without that extra aid, those young mothers and children will likely turn to Minnesota's 350 food shelves, which have already been inundated by record numbers of visitors.

"A shutdown absolutely hurts the most vulnerable in Minnesota," said Sophia Lenarz-Coy, the executive director of the Food Group in New Hope, one of the seven food banks in Minnesota that provide food to food shelves. "It will just mean incredible strain on a system that's already at capacity."

Rising hunger

The number of food shelf visits this year could shatter last year's record, already up 29% through July compared with the same period last year, according to Hunger Solutions Minnesota. More Minnesotans are also relying on food stamps, with 442,000 recipients last month  60,000 more Minnesotans than in August 2019.

"It may seem counterintuitive given the economic recovery, but the recovery has been uneven," said Zach Rodvold of Second Harvest Heartland in Brooklyn Park, the state's largest food bank. " [The shutdown] would take us from a hunger emergency to a crisis. A lot of the attention gets paid to the national parks shutting down and other services being disrupted, but for a lot of people, this could be the difference between food on the table and not."

The higher costs of living coupled with stagnant or fixed incomes is hampering low-income Minnesotans, especially after special support  from pandemic stimulus checks to eviction moratoriums  ended. Now, with the possible loss of WIC and SNAP aid and furloughs of federal workers, food programs are scrambling to prepare for an influx.

Second Harvest is looking to boost its food supply, buying more food instead of relying on donated food. In New Hope, the Food Group is expanding a mobile market to serve more mothers and children, and offering a discount to WIC recipients at pop-up grocery stores. In Minneapolis, NorthPoint Health & Wellness is bracing for increased food shelf visitors and questions from people enrolling in SNAP, applications that will be backlogged in a shutdown.

And in Columbia Heights, Southern Anoka Community Assistance (SACA) is serving more walk-in clients while preparing to move to a building three times bigger to meet the growing need.

"It's very frustrating. These people are hired to run the country," Dave Rudolph, SACA's co-executive director, said of Congress. "The best case scenario is they come to their senses."

In Minnesota, a boost in state funding to food shelves and the Legislature's approval of free school breakfasts and lunches will provide extra support to some families and organizations, but that state aid will now be offset by the effects of a federal shutdown.

"It won't go as far," said Colleen Moriarty, executive director of Hunger Solutions, which is asking food shelves to extend hours and donors to step up support. "Not having nutrition for pregnant moms, nursing moms and infants is a crucial issue. It doesn't get more basic than that."

Back in Fillmore County, Haugen notes that for many farmers across drought-ravaged Minnesota, the Farm Service Agency offices scattered in nearly every county offer assistance to beef producers who may have lost cattle in the heat and to herd managers, such as herself, who lost forage.

She has an early November appointment on the books for the FSA office in nearby Preston. But if Congress is unable to keep the government open, that important meeting to apply for assistance, too, will be delayed.

"Who knows when we will be able to apply?" said Haugen.
Local and state officials gathered Tuesday inside the Marion County Commission Auditorium to announce start dates for two key road projects in Marion and Sumter counties. Both are part of Gov. Ron DeSantis ' Moving Florida Forward Infrastructure Initiative, which puts $4 billion toward 20 projects statewide.

Here's a recap:

Interstate 75

An extra lane will be built in both directions of Interstate 75 between State Road 44 in Sumter County and State Road 326 in Marion. Construction should begin around spring 2025 and take three to four years. Funding for the project is $475 million.

FDOT State Secretary Jared W. Perdue speaks Tuesday in Ocala.

U.S. 301 South

In Sumter County, U.S. 301 between County Road 470 and Florida's Turnpike will be widened. The $150 million project will begin construction in fall 2025 and end within three years.

FDOT District Five Secretary John E. Tyler speaks Tuesday in Ocala.

Reactions from state and local leaders

John Tyler, secretary of Florida Department of Transportation District 5, which covers central Florida, told the audience that the state is home to close to 23 million residents and more than 137 million annual visitors. Tyler said the road projects will address congestion, improve safety and help the state accommodate future growth.

FDOT Secretary Jared W. Perdue said the transportation relief is "truly needed." He added that the vision for these projects is a combination of local and state partnership.

Road improvement: Critical corridor: Marion County embarks on SW/NW 80th/70th Avenue improvement project

County Commission Chairman Craig Curry noted that Marion has more than 400,000 residents, and 200 or so are moving in every week. That kind of growth is reflected on I-75. More than 100,000 vehicles pass through Marion on the interstate each day, and 25% of them are big rigs.

He said the Moving Florida Forward Infrastructure program is "a game changer."

Lt. Patrick Riordan, spokesman for Florida Highway Patrol Troop B, which covers several counties including Marion, said at least once every nine days there's a total lane closure on I-75, and every 16 hours there's at least one lane closure due to a crash.

Contact Austin L. Miller at austin.miller@starbanner.com or @almillerosb

This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: Start dates set for I-75 and U.S. 301 South improvements
With the Ecusta Trail being constructed close to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Mills River, the brewery announced it has presented a major gift to the project.

According to a news release, Sierra Nevada's gift was $250,000. This gift will help unlock major federal grants by counting toward the local match for trail construction, the release said. Any remaining funds may be used to provide vital amenities, including trailheads, parking areas, restrooms, kiosks, shelters and benches.

A look at parts of the future Ecusta Trail on an abandoned railroad from Hendersonville to Brevard.

The establishment of the new Ecusta Trail in Henderson County, just down the road from our brewery, will provide alternative transportation and recreation benefits to the region  connecting communities and promoting health and wellness," Sierra Grossman, the vice president of community and corporate philanthropy at Sierra Nevada, said in the release. "Supporting this project feels like a natural fit, and were proud to have contributed to it.

A look at parts of the future Ecusta Trail on an abandoned railroad from Hendersonville to Brevard.

A look at parts of the future Ecusta Trail on an abandoned railroad from Hendersonville to Brevard.

More: Biden-Harris administration announces $21.4 million grant to complete Ecusta Trail

Conserving Carolina has been a driving force behind the Ecusta Trail project for several years. Conserving Carolina Executive Director Kieran Roe said its members anticipate the trail will "be a huge boost to our local economy as a popular local greenway and a destination rail trail."

"We are thrilled and grateful to announce this leadership gift from Sierra Nevada in support of the Ecusta Trail. When people have more opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors, that means more customers for businesses like breweries, restaurants, shops, outfitters and lodging," Roe said in the news release. "This exceptionally generous gift from Sierra Nevada will benefit our whole community by supporting local businesses, creating jobs and raising quality of life.

More: Landowners eligible to file claim for compensation for land adjacent to Ecusta Trail

Sierra Nevada is one of many local businesses and individuals that have donated to the funding of the trail. Donations are now in the millions, the release said, and Mark Tooley, president of Friends of Ecusta Trail, said those donations go a long way in making the trail a reality.

"Monetary pledges such as this one (from Sierra Nevada) have been responsible for leveraging many millions of dollars in grants that will be used to construct the Ecusta Trail and create a generational asset for the people of the region, he said in the release.

Over 90 major donors who have given $5,000 or more are recognized at conservingcarolina.org/ecusta-trail-donors.

A subsidiary of Conserving Carolina purchased the 19-mile trail corridor in 2021. Since then, Conserving Carolina and Friends of Ecusta Trail have been working together to raise the funds needed for construction. A groundbreaking on the first section of the trail  a 5.6-mile stretch between Hendersonville and Horse Shoe  is expected this fall, the release said.

Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at DHensley@gannett.com. Please help support this kind of local journalism with a subscription to the Hendersonville Times-News.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: A major gift: Sierra Nevada donates to the Ecusta Trail project
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  The Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Command (AFP WESCOM) wants more Filipinos to fish at Ayungin Shoal and other maritime features of the West Philippine Sea.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a forum organized by Stratbase Institute on Wednesday, AFP WESCOM chief Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said the government is encouraging more Filipino fishermen to go to the area.

"There is an ongoing effort to convince Filipino fishermen to fish in the West Philippine Sea para ma-exercise natin ang ating sovereign rights to fish [so that we can exercise our sovereign rights to fish]," said Carlos.

The WESCOM chief said there are now a handful of Filipino fishing vessels in the West Philippine Sea.

In a separate phone interview, Carlos said two big Filipino fishing vessels returned to Ayungin Shoal, while 15 others were monitored at Rozul Reef, which is in the southern portion of Recto Bank.

"I'm happy to report the presence ng ating mangingisda [of our fishermen] in Ayungin and Rozul reef and their number has increased but not yet substantial but we need more," he added.

Carlos gave his assurance that there will be more presence on the part of the AFP, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to monitor the situation.

"We will continue to increase our presence, that's our commitment. We will be there to assist them when they need us," the WESCOM chief said when asked about the possible fear over the presence of Chinese coast guard and Chinese maritime militia in the area.

China's actions in the West Philippine Sea have been increasingly aggressive, including swarming the area with its vessels and putting a floating barrier at Scarborough Shoal.

RELATED: Concerning resurgence: AFP reports more Chinese fishing vessels swarming West PH Sea
Candidates Carol Bell, Jason Combs, Roshida Edwards, Curtis Singleton, Tony Thomas, and Clinton Young participate in a candidate forum for Savannah Alderman at Large Post 1, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

Savannah's Post 1, At-Large candidates returned to the forum stage Tuesday night at the Georgia Coastal Center, and this time they put some stakes in the ground on policy.

Tuesday's event was the first in a series of forums by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia, which will host events for Post 2 and mayoral candidates in the coming weeks.

No Rollback: Savannah property tax millage rate approved with commitment to addressing flooding issues

The Slate: Who qualified to run for Savannah City Council? Here are the contenders

Election Forum: Candidates for Savannah City Council's At-Large posts covers transparency, preservation and more

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Roshida Edwards speaks during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

Millage rate rollbacks vs. stormwater improvements

At one key moment Tuesday night, moderator and WJCL anchor Greg Coy asked the six candidates present how they would have voted on one of the current city council's major actions: maintaining the current millage rate. Roshida Edwards, a small business owner, was the only candidate who said she would have rolled back the rate.

"People are in a position right now where they are struggling," Edwards said. "With the half billion-dollar budget that the city has, I just feel that we could have found other ways to come up with that money other than putting it on our taxpayers."

A rollback would have allowed residents to save on property taxes, but added city revenues from the current millage rate will go toward three stormwater improvement projects. The council vote to maintain the millage rate was 6-3, with Alderwomen Kesha Gibson-Carter, Alicia Miller Blakely and Bernetta Lanier voting against the item and in support of a rollback.

The only other candidate who did not say they would have voted with the current council was Tony Thomas, who said he would have looked for a compromise between a rollback and maintaining the current rate, or by providing an alternative tax break to residents.

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Jason Combs speaks during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

Jason Combs, president of the Thomas Square Neighborhood Association, said his solution to rising property taxes would focus on changing how the tax assessors calculate their evaluations.

"Yes, I probably would have voted for that [to keep the millage rate the same]," Combs said, "but I would look for ways to alter the methodology of the BOA (board of assessors)."

Combs noted his master's thesis topic was on property taxes, and he has touted his Georgia Tech degree in urban design and city planning during both forums so far.

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Curtis Singleton responds to a question during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

Candidate Curtis Singleton said city council did the best they could while being stuck "between a rock and a hard place."

Thomas and former Georgia House candidate Clinton Young, who supported the council's decision, added that stormwater improvements should be addressed by projects in the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST).

Affordable Housing: Georgia Ports to invest $6 million in new housing initiative. How will those funds be used?

Signs of the Times: New signs concerning panhandling part of effort to create more day centers to serve homeless

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Clinton Young responds to a question during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

Funding projects to address homelessness

The SPLOST is also how Young proposed the city address homelessness, stating that 10% of each SPLOST the city passes should go toward projects for those experiencing homelessness.

"We only have $11 million designated for homelessness," Young said. "We can do better than that."

City Talk: Carol Bell, Tony Thomas change the dynamics of Post 1 at-large council race

Need for affordable and workforce housing

The debate format featured questions submitted by residents and very few were asked to all six candidates present. Most questions were addressed to three and sometimes two candidates at a time.

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Carol Bell during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

One candidate who qualified, Mark Anthony Smith, was not present at Tuesday night's forum. The Savannah Morning News has reached out to Smith for comment on his absence.

At the end of the forum, candidates were asked to give their top policy item if elected to the post. Four of the candidates focused on affordable and workforce housing.

Former alderwomen Carol Bell said she would address the issue through public-private partnerships.

"I believe that it is very important for people who live in the city and work in downtown be able to enjoy the benefits of this beautiful city by living there," Bell said.

Singleton also said he supports public-private partnerships to expand workforce housing, but he added that having options for mobility to the growing job market in Pooler and Bryan County is also an important issue.

Through two forums, Bell has drawn on her extensive experience working in city government. When asked why she is the best candidate for this post, Bell said she knows city government and has learned the "art of compromise."

Alderman at Large Post 1 candidate Tony Thomas responds to question during a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Coastal Georgia Center.

The only other candidate who can rival Bell's tenure in Savannah government is Thomas, who held the District 6 seat for 20 years before being ousted in 2019.

Thomas has come under fire for a felony arrest in 2022 for alleging stealing from a former employer, and also an incident of public drunkenness during the 2017 Savannah St. Patrick's Day parade. The former alderman addressed a question Tuesday night about how candidates have dealt with ethical dilemmas in the past.

Thomas joked by saying, "Which one?" before expressing remorse for the St. Patrick's Day incident and declaring he is four years alcohol free.

"I accept my responsibility for that," Thomas said.

Evan Lasseter is the city and county government reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him a elasseter@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Savannah's Post 1, At-Large candidates take stage to answer questions
OLMSTED TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WJW)  Some of the most often-spotted rare animals seen around Northeast Ohio are white or albino variations but recently an even more unusual variant was spotted.

The picture of a black squirrel with a white-tipped tail was shared by Olmsted Township resident Larry Pecsok. A Google search reveals that people captivated by the unique combination of black and white have cleverly dubbed the animals squnks.

Shreks Swamp now an Airbnb stay in Scotland

Although we are certain that is not a technical term, it does describe the unusually-colored squirrel pretty well.

While its technically impossible for skunks and squirrels to breed since they are genetically so dissimilar (heres an easy explainer on how animal hybrids work), it hasnt stopped many online throughout the years from spotting creatures like the squnk seen above.

Based on research, however, its more likely the squnk seen here is actually an eastern gray squirrel that descends from a gray squirrel-fox squirrel breeding. As Smithsonian Magazine explains, these black squirrels actually just have gene variants that make them darker due to the gene variant passed from fox to gray.

Hocus Pocus flies back into theaters in honor of 30th anniversary

These varieties of eastern gray squirrels can be seen in Canada as well as many parts of the northern and midwest U.S., including Ohio. Famously, back in 1961, 10 black squirrels were captured in Canada and then released on the Kent State University campus. The animals are even considered the schools unofficial mascot, with events named after them.

Despite how mundane their explanation may be, black squirrels are pretty rare. Kent State reported in 2011 that there are likely only about 1 black squirrel for every 10,000 squirrels in North America. So if you see one  snap a picture!

Other animals with rare color pigments that have made news headlines include an albino porcupine, swell shark, turtle, and raccoon  just to name a few.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego.
A 26-year-old tech CEO featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 list was reportedly found dead on the roof of her Baltimore apartment building on Monday with signs of blunt-force trauma.

Citing sources with knowledge of the investigation, the Baltimore Banner reported that police found Pava LaPere on the roof of the West Franklin apartment complex around 11:30 a.m. Police say that the Johns Hopkins University graduate, who was reported missing earlier that day, showed signs of blunt-force trauma, but that the Medical Examiners Office is working to determine an exact cause of death.

It was not immediately clear why LaPere, the founder of EcoMap Technologies, which assembles data for free platforms, was on the roof. But the grisly discovery spurred a manhunt on Tuesday for Jason Dean Billingsley, a 32-year-old who police described as armed and dangerous. Its not clear if LaPere knew Billingsley, who is wanted on several charges, including first-degree murder, assault, and reckless endangerment. Police announced a $6,000 reward on Wednesday for information leading to his arrest.

Baltimore Police

We implore residents to be aware of your surroundings at all times. This individual will kill, and he will rape, he will do anything he can to cause harm, Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at a press conference this week.

Worley also spoke directly to Billingsley, saying that every single police officer in Baltimore City, the state of Maryland, as well as the U.S. Marshals are looking for you.

Police said Billingsley has a violent criminal history, including arrests in 2009, 2011, and 2013 related to sex offenses, second-degree assault charges, and robbery. The Maryland sex offender registry also shows that Billingsley was convicted of a first-degree sex offense in 2015 and released in October 2022 on parole.

The Baltimore Police Department also revealed on Wednesday that Billingsley is wanted in connection with a Sept. 19 attempted murder, arson, and rape. The crime occurred about 20 minutes away from LaPeres murder.

Multiple warrants have been issued for Billingsley and detectives continue to work with all of our law enforcement partners in apprehending him, police said in a press release. Additionally, detectives are now reviewing all cases since October, 2022, to the present day in order to determine any other connections.

Billingsleys mother, Scarlett, told NBC News on Wednesday that she had urged her son to surrenderbut she does not know where he is hiding. She said she last saw her son on Monday, when he came over for a few minutes and showed her a gun.

Im very sorry if he did it, she added. I wont know until I see some evidence if he did it. Where is the truth atshow me some evidence.

Police then confirmed they had nabbed Billingsley Wednesday evening and taken him into custody just after 11:10 p.m. in the city of Bowie. A statement from the U.S. Marshals said Billingsley was arrested in a collaborative effort between the U.S. Marshals Service Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force and state and local law enforcement, but provided no other details on how he was caught.

Sources told WBFF however that he was tracked by law enforcement to the MARC Train Station on Laurel-Bowie Road in Bowie, Prince George's County, and taken into custody without incident. More details are expected to be provided on Thursday.

Authorities Search for Armed Suspect in Murder of 30 Under 30 Tech CEO

Earlier, as police continued to search for Billingsley, those closest to LaPere spoke out about the tech CEO.

Pava was a very young, talented, devoted Baltimorean, someone who I had gotten the opportunity to know over the past few years who would help anybody she would see, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said in a press conference, adding that her death was senseless, horrific, and deeply tragic. To have that life cut short by someone who has no care about anything other than harming people is something that should sit deep in the stomach of all Baltimoreans tonight and our city.

In 2018, LaPere launched EcoMap Technologies to provide platforms that enable people to navigate any ecosystem, from small business communities to entire industries, her LinkedIn profile states. The company currently has at least 30 employees and raised $8 million across three investment rounds in August.

It is with profound sadness and shock that EcoMap announces the tragic and untimely passing of our beloved founder and CEO, the company said in a Tuesday statement. The circumstances surrounding Pavas death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time.

Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader, the firm continued, adding that LaPere was committed to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader.

The Forbes profile for LaPere said the EcoMaps clients include Meta, the Aspen Institute, the T. Rowe Price Foundation, and the WXR Fund. She was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 - Social Impact list.

Im proud that Ive been able to build a company that both makes money and does good in the world, LaPere told the Baltimore Business Journal last year. Increasing access to information is so important to me, and sometimes I cant believe we get paid to do this at scale.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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FILE - Residents, landowners and supporters of the Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island fill a courtroom, Sept. 12, 2023, in Darien, Ga. Two weeks after local officials weakened restrictions that for decades protected the tiny Georgia island community populated by the descendants of enslaved people, its Black residents hope to force a vote that would give them a chance to override the zoning changes at the ballot box. Hogg Hummock residents and their supporters launched a petition drive Tuesday, Sept. 26, aimed at forcing a referendum on the zoning changes. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum, File)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP)  Two weeks after local officials weakened restrictions that for decades protected a tiny Georgia island community populated by slaves' descendants, its Black residents hope to force a referendum that would give them the chance to override the zoning changes.

Hogg Hummock, a group of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island, is one of the South's few surviving Gullah-Geechee communities. Residents vowed to fight after McIntosh County commissioners Sept. 12 doubled the size of homes allowed in the community, stoking fears that wealthy buyers would build large houses that would cause taxes to rise and force Black landowners to sell.

Hogg Hummock residents and their supporters launched a petition drive Tuesday aimed at forcing a referendum on the zoning changes. They need to collect an estimated 2,200 signatures from registered voters in the county to put the issue on a future ballot.

Were trying to get this done quickly as possible, said Maurice Bailey, a Hogg Hummock native whose group Save Our Legacy Ourself is helping lead the petition drive. People will start getting discouraged and people will start selling land. Taxes wont go up immediately, but they will start going up.

The Georgia Constitution allows citizens to call special elections to make amendments to or repeals of (county) ordinances, resolutions, or regulations. Residents must first collect petition signatures from 10% to 25% of a countys registered voters, depending on its population.

Though the provision has rarely been used, opponents of a proposed rocket launchpad in coastal Camden County succeeded last year in rejecting the project at the ballot box after local officials spent a decade and more than $11 million on it. In Atlanta, activists are trying the same tactic in hopes of halting construction of a police and firefighter training center that critics call Cop City.

Sapelo Island residents rolled out a website this week that allows McIntosh County voters to download and sign copies of their petition. They're getting assistance from the Georgia conservation group One Hundred Miles, which also helped coordinate the petition drive against the spaceport.

It took two years for the spaceport campaign to gather enough signatures to force a vote. Megan Desrosiers, president of One Hundred Miles, said that experience should help things go more smoothly in rural McIntosh County, where the smaller population means roughly half the number of signatures are needed.

About 30 to 50 Black residents still live in Hogg Hummock, which was founded by formerly slaves who had worked the plantation of Thomas Spalding. Descendants of enslaved island populations in the South became known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia, whose long separation from the mainland meant they retained much of their African heritage.

Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, sits on less than a square mile (2.6 square kilometers) of Sapelo Island, which is about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Savannah and owned mostly by the state of Georgia.

The community's population has shrunk in recent decades. Some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. New construction has caused tension over how large those homes can be.

Residents said they were blindsided in August when McIntosh County officials gave notice of proposed changes to ordinances that had limited development in Hogg Hummock for three decades. County officials held just two meetings prior to commissioners taking a final vote Sept. 12.

Despite vocal opposition from Black landowners who packed each meeting, commissioners raised the maximum size of a home in Hogg Hummock to 3,000 square feet (278 square meters) of total enclosed space. The previous limit was 1,400 square feet (130 square meters) of heated and air-conditioned space.

Commissioners who supported the changes said the prior size limit based on heated and cooled space wasn't enforceable and didn't give homeowners enough room for visiting children and grandchildren to stay under one roof.

Commissioner Kate Pontello Karwacki, who voted to allow larger homes, said the changes were limited in scope and that the outcry over them has been overblown.

I think that Sapelo is unique, yes. And I think having the Gullah-Geechee descendants on the island is unique," Karwacki said. But at the same time, being a commissioner, thats not my district. And I have to rule on things that are going to be fair for all residents throughout the county.

McIntosh County commissioners in July approved a sweeping new zoning ordinance that applied to all of the county except Hogg Hummock. They took up Hogg Hummock, which already had its own zoning rules, separately earlier this month.

Josiah Jazz Watts, a Hogg Hummock descendant and homeowner, said hes confident that people throughout McIntosh County believe commissioners didnt treat the islands Black landowners fairly.

Ive talked to plenty of people," Watts said. And I can tell you there is strong consensus that it wasnt right  not the way they did it or what was done.
Noah Gershoff has been a train buff ever since he was a toddler. He flew two and one-half hours from his home in Austin, Texas, to Orlando just so he could ride Brightlines inaugural train from Orlando to South Florida on Friday.

Brightline offered the 21-year-old YouTuber free tickets on the 6:48 a.m. train and back. Gershoff filmed his experience for his transportation YouTube channel, Lonestar Trip Reports.

Its been an early morning, but its definitely worth it to be a part of history, Gershoff said.

History wasnt the only reason that hundreds of people chose to ride Brightlines trains on the high-speed railways first day of service between South and Central Florida.

Brightline to Orlando: You've arrived, so now what are your transportation options?

For Paul Barter, it was love. He visits his girlfriend of three years each week in Orlando, and the commute of nearly three hours from Fort Lauderdale gave him time to listen to audiobooks.For Caleb and Christine Cook, it was leisure. The Nevada couple and their young sons were traveling to Walt Disney World after starting their Florida vacation with a cruise out of Miami.

Passengers on Fridays trains found much to praise about the rides but pointed as well to several areas where they said Brightline can improve, especially amid the high expectations  and ticket prices  it has set for its service.

Nearly all said they enjoyed themselves, and said the idea of efficiently riding a train instead of making a drive of 200 miles or more is appealing.

Weve been on boats, trains and planes as a family, and so far, the kids favorite is this train, Christine Cook said as her 7- and 11-year olds nibbled on snacks and scribbled in coloring books.

Train buff's ride to Miami was flawless, but one to Orlando bumpy

The launch of Brightlines train service from Miami to Orlando, with stops in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Aventura, has been over a decade in the making, and the moment wasnt lost on those who rode it on Friday.

The 300-passenger train that departed from West Palm Beach for Orlando at 2:03 p.m. was almost full. It was one of a dozen trains that made the trek Friday. Brightline will run 16 daily round trips with hourly departures between South and Central Florida.

Brightline to Orlando: What riders can expect while aboard the high-speed

Gershoff said he became fascinated with trains as he rode subway cars in New York City in the three years he lived there as a young boy. He hopes to do design work for rail manufacturers after he graduates from the University of Texas.

He saw room for improvement on the Miami-to-Orlando leg. He and others spoke of frequent slowdowns on the high-speed train and a bumpier ride than expected.

Dal Silva and daughter Luisa ride the the Brightline train to Miami from Orlando, Fla., on September 22, 2023. Silva picked up his daughter in Gainesville and they will travel to their Miami home for a weekend visit, he said.

The train down to Orlando was perfect, but coming back up has been a little rougher, Gershoff said. My tickets didnt scan properly, and it sounds like there is a flat wheel. Its supposed to be much quieter and smoother. When we go slower, thats a lot more apparent.

The stretch between Cocoa and Orlando was built to run at 125 mph, and it ran at that speed on the southbound train that Gershoff rode that morning. The northbound train ran at around 80 mph  about the speed of cars on Floridas Turnpike  between the cities.

Train attendants said there were speed restrictions in the area, and the train arrived at the Orlando International Airport station 20 minutes later than planned because of them.

Gershoff was also disappointed to see black stickers covering the windows of the train, which were part of the yellow Brightline advertising designs that wrapped the train.

I hate these stickers on the train, Gershoff said. People paid good money to watch the outside, and all they see is small black circles that they cant see through. With a premium ticket that would have cost me $270, this is not what I expected.

Slowdowns between Cocoa, Orlando surprised one rider

Bonnie and Art Friedman of Palm Coast, Fla., prepare a lunch on their turnaround time at the West Palm Beach Brightline station on September 22, 2023. The couple rode the inaugural train to West Palm Beach from Orlando just to ride 'the first train,' they said.

Arthur Friedman is another train enthusiast, one who grew up three doors down from train tracks in the 1950s and who rode Brightline on the inaugural day. He travels by train any chance he gets with Bonnie Friedman, his wife of 58 years. He has even traveled by train throughout parts of Europe.

The pair from Palm Coast beamed with smiles as they rode Brightline on Friday.

The Friedmans said the day was centered around the ride on Brightline. They took the train from Orlando to West Palm Beach, spent around 40 minutes at the station to eat a quick lunch, and then boarded the return train right after.

Brightline's future: How the $5 billion passenger train project has to change the minds of Americans

The pair traveled on a Eurostar train from Paris to London, and then took other trains throughout England a year ago. That experience whetted their appetites for a faster ride between Cocoa and Orlando as well.

The Eurostar is very luxurious and goes around 180 mph, which is quite a bit different from this, Arthur said. This trip has been great and is kind of what I expected, but I thought it would go a lot faster between Cocoa Beach and Orlando than it did.

Time to work, relax soothed confused start of one Brightline trip

Passengers arrive in Orlando aboard the Brightline train from West Palm Beach, Fla., on September 22, 2023.

Dina Garcia of Tampa took the Brightline southbound to Miami with her 13- and 11-year-old kids to visit their dad.

Maybe my kids will be able to take the Brightline by themselves one day, but I wanted to check it out before I even considered it, Garcia said.

There was a moment of confusion at the start of the trip, she said. The family almost got on the wrong train because the schedule listed the wrong track number when they first checked it.

Garcia didnt save much time taking the Brightline because she still had to drive to Orlando International Airport from Tampa, but she appreciated having time to get work done and relax on the commute south, even though it was a rougher ride than expected.

From Fun-Train to Brightline: The 25-year journey to Miami-Orlando service

In my head, I imagined this really fast and smooth ride, but its been pretty bumpy, Garcia said. Hopefully, I dont show up with motion sickness.

Brightline hopes one day to offer its train service from Orlando to Tampa, but the company hasnt announced when they plan to begin the project.

Garcia also noted that it was a bit pricey for tickets, which start at $79 and can run as high as $300 for some premium tickets.

Brightline saved day for man headed to Orlando conference

Passengers arrive in Orlando aboard the Brightline train from West Palm Beach, Fla., on September 22, 2023.

Peter Vansiclen of Fort Lauderdale started his Friday morning at the Cypress Creek Tri-Rail station. He planned to ride a Tri-Rail up to West Palm Beach, and then take the Brightline to Orlando for a work conference.

He ended up arriving two hours late to the conference because the Tri-Rail leaving from Coconut Creek zoomed past him before he could get a ticket. He then took a $35 Uber up to West Palm Beach before he boarded the next train up to Orlando.

I just found out this was the first Brightline to Orlando. This is historic! I cant believe it, Vansiclen said.

Maya Washburn is a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@gannett.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Brightline Orlando passengers liked first-day ride, see room to improve
Robert Fico, leader of the SMER-SSD party, and Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, greet each other with a handshake before a televised debate at TV TA3, prior to the Slovak early parliamentary election, in Bratislava

(Reuters) - Slovak opposition party SMER-SSD, led by former prime minister Robert Fico , held a narrowing lead over its liberal challenger Progresivne Slovensko ahead of a Sept. 30 election, according to IPSOS agency's final poll published on Wednesday.

The poll, conducted for news website www.dennikn.sk, surveyed 1,000 participants between Sept. 22 and Sept. 25, put support for SMER-SDD at 20.6% to 19.8% for Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia - PS). PS jumped by 2.6 percentage points, while SMER-SSD rose by 0.3 percentage points from a poll taken between Sept. 15 and Sept. 19.

The poll showed eight parties would win seats in the parliament. However, none would secure a majority and would need to rely on partners to rule. How coalition building could develop was far from certain.

Slovaks head to the polls earlier than planned after a centre-right coalition government collapsed last year and a caretaker government took over in May.

Illegal migration and Slovakia's support for Ukraine have been among top issues for parties campaigning, with Fico looking to return his SMER-SSD party to power with pledges to defend national interests and end military support for Kyiv.

That would be a shift in policy that Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Simecka has warned could push the country into isolation. He has promised to maintain support for Ukraine as it fights a Russian invasion, in line with EU and NATO partners.

** Click here for an interactive graphic:

SMER-SSD HLAS Progresivne SaS OLANO-led Republika KDH SME SNS DEMOKRATI

Slovensko coalition RODINA

Sept 27 20.6 11.9 19.8 7.0 8.2 7.6 5.9 4.0 5.7 3.3

Sept 21 20.3 13.1 17.2 6.1 8.2 8.6 5.3 4.2 5.6 3.4

August 19.7 13.3 16.9 5.7 7.7 7.9 6.2 5.5 5.1 2.9

July/August 20.3 13.4 16.9 6.7 7.9 8.8 5.4 5.6 5.2 2.6

July 19.4 14.9 15.9 5.0 7.1 8.6 5.9 6.4 5.0 2.1

June 18.9 14.8 15.5 7.2 6.4 8.3 5.6 7.2 4.3 4.0

May 16.9 15.6 13.3 6.1 7.0 9.1 5.2 7.5 3.8 3.4

April 16.8 16.2 14.1 6.4 7.0 8.8 4.8 6.4 4.2 3.6

March 16.2 16.0 11.1 6.4 4.8 8.6 5.7 8.5 3.0

January 2023 13.6 18.2 12.6 6.9 8.1 8.1 6.5 8.0 2.9

November 15.6 19.7 10.4 7.8 8.0 6.0 7.4 7.0 2.6

NOTE: threshold for parties to win seats is 5% and 7% for coalitions

Party descriptions:

* SMER-SSD- Direction-Slovak Social Democracy (leftist party of three-time prime minister Robert Fico)

* HLAS- Voice (leftist party of former prime minister Peter Pellegrini who split from SMER)

* Progresivne Slovensko- Progressive Slovakia (liberal party)

* SaS-Sloboda a Solidarita- Freedom and Solidary (liberal former ruling party)

* OLANO- Ordinary People and Independent Personalities-OLANO (centrist, anti-graft former ruling party)

* Republika- Republic (far-right party)

* KDH- Christian Democrat Movement (Christian conservative party)

* SME RODINA- We Are Family (centrist former ruling party)

* SNS- Slovak National Party (nationalist party)

* DEMOKRATI- Democrats (centrist, pro-European party led by former prime minister Eduard Heger)

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare said he skipped a Pacific Islands leaders summit at the White House this week to avoid a "lecture" and because he had more pressing issues at home.

Sogavare, who has built close ties with China, held a press conference on Wednesday after arriving back in Solomon Islands from the United States, where he spoke at the United Nations but did not join other Pacific Island Forum leaders in Washington for a two-day summit.

U.S. President Joe Biden met the Pacific island leaders for a second White House summit in just over a year on Monday, part of a charm offensive aimed at curbing inroads by China into a region Washington considers strategically crucial.

Sogavare said he attended the first summit last year and "nothing came out of it".

"They lecture you about how good they are", he said, according to a video of the press conference published by Solomon Islands media company Tavuli News on Wednesday evening.

A Biden Administration official said on Sunday they were "disappointed" Sogavare would not attend.

Sogavare said he returned because there were 10 weeks left of parliament at home in Solomon Islands, which was more important.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said in a statement on Wednesday the summit had seen the U.S. make a significant pledge for infrastructure investment, and the meeting was a "significant step towards making the Pacific more secure and prosperous".

Biden pledged to work with Congress to provide $200 million more in funding for projects in the region aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change, spurring economic growth, countering illegal fishing and improving public health.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Sogavare had praised China's development cooperation as "less restrictive".

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
A Russian propagandist who called for the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians in the wake of Moscows full-scale invasion discovered a severed pigs head outside his front door this weekmaking him the third Kremlin mouthpiece to receive such a gift in recent days.

Timofei Sergeitsev, the author of an infamous column in state-run media titled, What Russia Should Do With Ukraine, immediately called police after finding the swine head in a black plastic bag on Tuesday night, according to Baza. He is said to have told police hed been receiving numerous threats via email and over the phone. Sergeitsevs genocidal takes on the war against Ukraine got him sanctioned by the European Union and Canada in early 2022.

After news broke of his special delivery, military expert Konstantin Sivkov raised his hand to say that he too was part of the ever-expanding pigs head club, with his neighbors allegedly finding a grisly package outside his door on Sept. 19.

I was on vacation. They planted a pigs head right under the door of the apartment. Then they called me and said this was because I was behaving wrong in the media landscape. They started to demand that I refuse to support the actions of the president of Russia, and drop support for the special military operation and our Armed Forces, Sivkov told RIA Novosti.

There were threats up to and including murder. The following was said verbatim: We have long arms, and we can kill you at any moment, and well get away with it, Sivkov claimed.

According to Telegram channel 112, Mikhail Tereshchenko, a military photographer for the TASS news agency, was the first to receive a pigs head. Bizarrely, a courier is said to have brought Tereshchenko a package containing a pigs head on Sept. 19and the outlet claimed a search of the courier revealed he or she was carrying four more bags with the same gruesome contents.

So far, only state-run media and Telegram channels known to be friendly with law enforcement have reported on the decapitated pig heads. The press service of Rossiya Segodnya, Sergeitsevs employer, told RIA Novosti that whoever had sent the packages did not live up to their beloved U.S.A. There, its a horses head and the Sicilian mafia. And here, as usual, just pigs.

The news comes as the United Nations confirmed it was investigating Russian state media coverage for potential incitement to genocide in Ukraine.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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A veteran art teacher at Bedwell Elementary School in Bernardsville who is the head negotiator of the district's teachers union has filed a lawsuit against the Somerset Hills Regional School District, alleging he is the victim of retaliation for his union activities.

James McCarron, who has been a teacher at Bedwell since 1992, filed the lawsuit Monday in Superior Court also claiming his reputation has been defamed, his civil rights have been violated and he is the victim of age discrimination and retaliatory harassment.

The school district has not filed an answer to the lawsuit.

McCarron, who previously served as president of the union, has been assigned to the district's Central Office doing what the lawsuit calls "menial work" on curriculum.

McCarron received the assignment in March, a month after the state's Institutional Abuse Investigation Unit (IAIU) found an allegation filed against him in December was unfounded. The investigation "completely exonerated" McCarron and found that "a child was not harmed or placed at risk of harm," according to the lawsuit.

McCarron was placed on administrative leave with pay after the complaint was filed.

The substance of that allegation has not been disclosed.

The lawsuit alleges the school district "pursued baseless complaints in an effort to sabotage (McCarron's) career."

Also see: Cellphones put away at Bridgewater-Raritan HS to improve student focus, wellness

At the time of his transfer from Bedwell to the Central Office, McCarron was vice president of the Somerset Hills Education Association and head negotiator for the union as contract talks were underway.

The lawsuit says the school district also tried to remove McCarron from the contract negotiations while the investigation was being conducted, but the district "relented" in mediation.

The lawsuit contends that McCarron is "the only person removed from their teaching position after an IAIU finding of unfounded and sent to Central Office."

Since that time, the lawsuit says, his former art class has been replaced with rotating substitute teachers "with the students coloring every art class rather than learning."

According to the lawsuit, McCarron was scheduled to return to the classroom March 7, but his return was pulled off the school board's agenda. At the next meeting March 15, the school board transferred him to the Central Office "without any prior knowledge, contact or discussion" with him.

He was later told, the lawsuit says, that he was being transferred because of his "interference with the 'orderly operation of the district.'"

In the lawsuit McCarron says in October 2021, he was denied permission to take the necessary courses to meet the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts degree. He also alleges that he was denied personal days off in January 2022 although requests by others were approved.

Two dozen staffers, parents and residents spoke in favor of returning McCarron to the classroom at the school boards April 26 meeting.

In June, the school board approved McCarron's annual salary of $103,650.

McCarron is represented by Richard Flaum of DiFrancesco, Bateman, Kunzman, Davis, Lehrer & Flaum.

Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Somerset Hills School District sued over teachers union retaliation
U.S. urged to fulfill existing promises amid new charm offensive to woo Pacific Island countries

Xinhua) 10:00, September 27, 2023

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden hosted leaders of Pacific Island countries at the White House on Monday for a summit, as the latter is still waiting to see if Washington is going to deliver the "big commitments" it has made.

According to the White House, the new U.S. funding for the region that Biden announced at the summit, which still needs congressional approval, totaled 200 million U.S. dollars, including a new 40-million-dollar infrastructure investment.

In his welcoming remarks, Biden mistakenly gave the sum of the new infrastructure investment as 40 billion dollars, transcripts provided by the White House showed. Although it has been corrected in the formal fact sheet, the wrong number was cited in a report by The Guardian, a British newspaper.

In 2022, the White House said the United States would invest more than 810 million dollars to aid the Pacific Islands, but the U.S. Congress had yet to approve most of the funding pledges.

The Biden administration's efforts to re-engage with the Pacific Islands region suffered a setback when leaders of two important countries in the region, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, chose not to attend the summit.

Instead of staying in the United States to participate in the summit in Washington, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare returned to his country after attending last week's 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Also absent from the summit was Sato Kilman, prime minister of Vanuatu. Kilman was elected on Sept. 4 to replace the country's former prime minister, Ishmael Kalsakau, who lost a no-confidence vote in parliament for actions that included signing a security pact with the U.S. ally Australia.

The Vanuatu parliament was scheduled to hold another no-confidence vote next week, and Kilman has to be present in parliament for the vote.

Another thorny issue is the negotiation with the Marshall Islands for an extension allowing them to stay in the Compact of Free Associations (COFA) with the United States, as they have unmet demands for Washington to allocate more money to address the legacy of the massive U.S. nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s. Marshall Islanders still suffer from health problems and environmental pollution caused by the detonation of U.S. nuclear bombs.

Following Monday's summit, the Biden administration pledged to address "war legacies" by spending money on identifying and destroying "unexploded ordnance" in countries, including the Republic of the Marshall Islands, but it made no mention of the nuclear testing.

Commenting on the summit in general, Meg Keen, director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute -- an Australian think-tank -- said the Pacific Island region "is waiting to see if the big commitments from the United States are going to be delivered."

Some analysts have noted that Washington's latest overtures to the resource-rich region are still in the early stages.

"The United States is still in somewhat of a honeymoon phase in its reengagement with the Pacific islands," wrote Gordon Peake and Camilla Pohle of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-profit group, in a recent article published on the South China Morning Post.

A lasting relationship "hinges upon mutual understanding and, when necessary, having conversations about difficult issues," they said, adding that the main challenge is "sustaining this level of engagement and fulfilling the promises it has made, especially since so much funding hinges on congressional approval."

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  A National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) office may soon be established in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates to aid overseas Filipino workers with their legal cases, a lawmaker said during the budget interpellation of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday.

Nueva Ecija Rep. Joseph Violago, the sponsor of the DFA's budget, said it is not easy to establish NBI posts overseas because it needs approval by the host countries, but right now, NBI and DFA agreed to start with Abu Dhabi as an initial site."

DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo was present at the House of Representatives plenary interpellation.

Violago made the statement after OFW party-list Rep. Marissa Magsino raised concerns over incidents of abuse, illegal recruitment, and human trafficking among Filipino workers abroad.

High-profile cases include that of Jullebee Ranara, who was killed by the 17-year-son of her employer in Kuwait in January. The suspect was recently sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

READ: Ranara family displeased with 15-year sentence, DFA eyes increase in damage claims

"Kung mayroon tayong NBI post doon, they will be in partnership doon po sa legal na nag iinvestigate ng kanilang (OFW) mga kaso," Magsino said.

[Translation: If we have an NBI post there, they will be in partnership with the legal team that is investigating the cases of our OFWs.]

She also said OFWs will be assured of a vioice and that the NBI can defend them

Violago said the NBI will provide the terms of reference regarding its role in the foreign service post. It will also conduct bilateral negotiations with the Office of Treaty and Legal Affairs of other countries.
Lai holds a sign calling for the release of his father in Geneva

By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber

GENEVA (Reuters) -The son of Jimmy Lai , a media tycoon jailed in Hong Kong, said on Wednesday it was in the interest of the former British colony to release his father and not let him die in jail.

Sebastien Lai, who was in Geneva to take part in a British-organised event on media freedom in Hong Kong, has not seen his 75-year-old father in three years.

"I am optimistic because I believe that there's no benefit in the Hong Kong government having my father die in jail," Sebastien Lai said on the prospect of his father's release.

"He's a pro-democracy activist, a publisher, and he's also an incredibly peaceful man ... Now that they've taken all that he has, keeping him in prison is just cruel."

Jimmy Lai is the founder of now shut pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and one of the most prominent Hong Kong critics of China's Communist Party leadership, including President Xi Jinping.

This week he marked his 1,000th day in a Hong Kong prison on charges related to a law on national security that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 after months of anti-government protests. The law punishes acts including subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with up to life in prison.

Hong Kong's government said in a statement on Thursday it strongly disapproved of the repeated attempt by the United Kingdom and other countries to make "skewed remarks" against the city's human rights situation.

"Such remarks amount to political manipulation that disregards and even twists facts," it said. Countries should respect international laws and norms governing international relations, and "immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong matters, which are purely China's internal affairs," it added.

In the run-up to Wednesday's event, China's diplomatic mission in Geneva had pressed countries to boycott it, saying issues related to Hong Kong were internal Chinese affairs.

Despite calling for a boycott, the Chinese mission sent a representative to the event, who said it amounted to meddling in China's affairs.

In a separate statement, the commissioner's office of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong accused the United Kingdom and United States of "maliciously slandering" the national security law and "blatantly supporting the anti-China and disruptive Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai."

Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, who also took part in the event, welcomed China's presence.

"The Chinese government, frankly, does not like to hear from organizations like us," she said. "I hope they took careful notes and report everything back to Beijing because they should hear what we have to say." Sebastien Lai - who said his father, a British national, was not being granted consular access - described his father as a man who always led by example.

"Of course, he's human. He fears," Sebastien Lai said. "But he knows that he can't bend to that fear."

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Geneva; Additional reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Lincoln Feast.)
The alleged Sony data breach just got messier. On Monday, relatively new hacking group Ransomed.vc made the lofty claim that it had successfully compromised "all" of the company's systems, as reported by Cybersecurity Connect. Now a second threat actor has leaked the data believed to be in Ransomed.vc's possession, claiming the former are "scammers" trying to "chase influence." How either group obtained this data, or the extent of the breach, remain unknown but Sony has confirmed to Engadget it's investigating the situation.

Ransomed.vc said it wouldn't ransom Sony, and instead would be selling the data "due to Sony not wanting to pay." It posted a sampling of files as "proof" of their claims. Ransomed.vc gave a deadline of September 28. On Tuesday, a threat actor under the name "MajorNelson," claimed that Ransomed.vc lied about the breach, and leaked the data that Ransomed.vc claimed to have, according to malware repository vx-underground. Engadget could not independently verify the claims.

"We are currently investigating the situation," a Sony spokesperson told Engadget.

Ransomed.vc emerged as attackers and a ransomware-as-a-service organization that lets others pay to launch attacks. The group threatens victims with data protection fines under laws like the GDPR if they do not pay the ransom. In other words, pay us a few hundred thousand dollar ransom, or we'll report you to pay up a million dollar fine. MajorNelson appears to be an independent threat actor motivated by a disdain for Ransomed.vc, calling the reports about their efforts lies.

"RansomedVCs are scammers who are just trying to scam you and chase influence," MajorNelson wrote. "Enjoy the leak." According to MajorNelson, the leak includes credentials for internal systems, incident response policies and more.

In 2011, a threat actor exposed personally identifiable information from 77 million PlayStation network accounts. Sony took the network offline for 23 days as it mitigated the damage, and in 2019, it agreed to pay a 250K fine in the UK for its failure to adequately prepare for the attack.
Rushing a sorority has become a TikTok phenomenon in recent years.

Many women go viral posting about their experiences, and some manage to achieve online stardom.

Rush season only lasts a week, but for some RushTokers it can launch an influencer career.

Ava LeBlanc is 18, and began college at Auburn University in Alabama this year. When she was rushing to join a sorority, she began to document it on TikTok

"Everybody knows about rush. It's a southern thing that everybody does," LeBlanc told Insider.

"Rushing" is the process of trying to join a sorority. It consists of multiple steps that include sorority house tours and different events that demonstrate what the sorority stands for. At the end of the process, sororities send out offers to candidates who have impressed them.

The tradition has spawned a whole new TikTok genre in 2021 known as "RushTok," which reignites every year in August, leading the #RushTok hashtag to receive 2 billion views.

LeBlank started her TikTok account in 2020 as a way to have fun and build her confidence and had found some success, even getting brand deals after a video her sister took of her at a pageant photoshoot went viral, but she knew if she got her RushTok content right, it could be a unique opportunity for her to skyrocket her following.

She's one of many college students who are finding that they can use the one-week experience of rushing a sorority to tap into a huge new audience which has the potential to catapult them into TikTok fame.

Participating in RushTok can lead to huge opportunities for wannabe influencers

LeBlanc's first rush video, which she posted on August 6, received over 1.1 million views. In the video, LeBlanc shows off her "outfit of the day," which is a popular type of RushTok content.

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After it went viral, LeBlanc continued posting videos each day showing people what she was wearing. "The thing I love about RushTok is everybody gets so invested in you and your journey. You have this whole other support system on TikTok besides just your family and friends," she said.

LeBlanc also shared her reaction to getting accepted into the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority at Auburn University. The video was posted on August 14 and has over 770,000 views.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

LeBlanc said that her viral RushTok videos played a significant role in helping her grow her online presence. She currently has 444,000 followers and 15.6 million likes on her TikTok account. Since her RushTok videos blew up, she said she has received several opportunities to work with beauty brands.

When then-18-year-old Amayah Shaienne joined the University of Alabama and began rushing a sorority in 2022, she decided to document it on TikTok too. Rush is a particularly big deal at the University of Alabama, where it is referred to as "Bama Rush" and the associated hashtag has 3.9 billion views.

Shaienne had previously posted fashion and beauty videos on the platform, but it was her RushTok videos  by far the most popular on her account  that boosted her following, which currently stands at 85,000.

Shaienne relies on tools such as Linktree, a social media landing page, to help her accelerate sales for the brands she has worked with since starting RushTok. Her profile, which is displayed in her TikTok account, includes links to her Instagram and YouTube accounts, and her Amazon Storefront. It also includes several discount codes for brands she works with, which allow her to earn a commission on sales from her viewers.

"Being able to monetize my content at my age for something that I enjoy so much has been the best job ever because I'm actually passionate about it," she said. "I've not only gained followers, but also friends that I see every day, whether I'm on a live stream, doing my makeup, talking to people, or getting love and support in my comment section."

Many RushTok creators are able to leverage their success well beyond the initial flurry

Given that the duration of rush season is so short  it lasts for only a week in August  many creators use RushTok as a stepping stone to building an audience that they hope will be interested in other types of content.

For Shaienne, being accepted into the sorority didn't mean the end of RushTok. This year, she ramped up her content even further, giving viewers a glimpse into her life as a Zeta Tau Alpha member, with videos showing what was in a bag that her sorority gave her, giving advice to potential new members, recording her outfits, and showing behind-the-scenes footage of Bama Rush.

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Kylan Darnell, 19, was also accepted into the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority at the University of Alabama in 2022. Darnell's TikTok audience has flourished thanks to her RushTok content. Today she has over 740,000 followers, and has earned a reputation as the "queen of Bama RushTok."

Posting content online has always come naturally to Darnell, who has been scrolling through Instagram and uploading photos to the platform using her mom's phone since she was in third grade. "My social media is my yearbook," she told Insider.

Darnell's enthusiasm for sharing her life online led her to post her first RushTok video, showing her outfit of the day, in August 2022, and it has been viewed over 8.6 million times.

Kylan Darnell is one of RushTok's biggest stars Kylan Darnell

Darnell told Insider that her RushTok presence has led her to work with several international brands, including YSL Beauty, IGK Hair, and L'Oreal. For this year's rush season, she even released her own #RushTok-themed beauty box in collaboration with subscription box brand FabFitFun.

RushTok has received some criticism but the payoff can be worth it

RushTok's popularity has not come without criticism from people who think the content is superficial. Some people have said that the rush process is "shallow," believing it evaluates women based on their physical characteristics, while others have called it an "exclusive club" for "privileged white girls."

Others say the blame lies with RushTokers themselves. Many viewers wrote that Darnell was being hypocritical for wearing expensive designer clothes in her videos while telling people that sororities "look at who you are as a person." Some viewers even questioned whether her videos were satire.

Darnell told Insider that these comments bothered her at first because she wasn't used to them, but now she's come to terms with it being inevitable. "There can be trolls and haters and all of that stuff. So just have your inner circle of family or friends. Have them check up on you every once in a while and tell people how you feel," she said.

Despite the criticism, Darnell told Insider that RushTok has had an immensely positive impact on her life in many ways in addition to helping her to build a brand. She said that her online presence has helped her to develop a big group of friends and that she no longer has to introduce herself to people at her university because she has such a big network.

"It's made my life different in so many ways," she told Insider. "I do a lot of brand deals now. I have built myself an influencer career. It's been a really fun journey."

Read the original article on Insider
I am becoming a fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose nonfiction book "Between the World and Me" has been in the news lately.

I picked up an e-copy after reading in the Washington Post that a veteran teacher in South Carolina was required to cease teaching Coates book in lessons shed taught yearly to high school students in her AP English classes.

Two students had complained, using language adapted from a Georgia law that, prohibits lessons that teach that an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress  whether consciously or unconsciously. Iowa law uses similar wording regarding training of educators and curriculum.

Too bad. Coates intention  his hope  was that readers would feel empathy, not guilt or anguish, for the personal experiences he chooses to share.

Too bad too for all South Carolinas youth. Too bad for our nations collective recollection of unsettling truths. Too bad for educators whose professional judgement is undermined  by removing books like this nonfiction classic.

A couple of weeks ago, Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest U.S. Supreme Court justice, was the keynote speaker at the 60th anniversary of the Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four young girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Jackson called on us as a nation to remember past truths, even if ugly or disturbing. Shes right.

Coates crafts his book as a letter to his rising 15-year-old son, writing, I have sought the answer (to the question of racism) through my reading and writings, through the music of my youth, through arguments with your grandfather, with your mother. I have searched for answers in nationalist myth, in classrooms, out on the streets, and on other continents.

The question, says Coates, is unanswerable, which is not to say futile. The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, of confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from ghosts and myths. Coates message to his son is simple: BE WOKE.

The book was adapted for a theatrical production and staged in New Yorks Apollo Theater. After a successful theatrical run, HBO turned Coates book into a 2020 film featuring Yara Shahidi, whose role gave her a chance to portray an awakening. Im a teenage girl whos coming of age in a time in which she is aware of the slanted and unfair portrayals of the civil rights movement, Shahidi says. You see (my character) coming to another level of awareness through her introduction to Malcolm X.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, an author and journalist, answered questions from Tiece Ruffin, director of Africana studies and professor of Africana studies and education at UNC Asheville, February 28, 2023.

As Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" said to his daughter: First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, youll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view  until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Iowas mostly white student body should demand challenges from talented Black authors like Coates. He was not included among the authors on the infamous list of 374 books (later pared to 65) the Urbandale school district felt could violate Iowas new anti-book-reading laws.

As you might guess, a Black writer who is as direct, blunt, and elegant as Coates has his critics, some saying hes a Black Nationalist, others sending death threats. Gov. Kim Reynolds and her Moms for Liberty allies would likely consider Coates too harsh, too explicit, too disturbing for students tender eyes, even if they are in an AP English class for high school seniors, and already of voting age and registered with the Selective Service.

Reynolds must fear that public schools will indoctrinate students to be woke or compassionate progressives, or maybe shes afraid reading books will reenergize the passion for justice that sent people into the streets following the murder of George Floyd. Shes making a tragic mistake, one hard to undo. If we dont mean it, we should stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, especially the part about liberty and justice for all.

Gerald Ott lives in Ankeny. He taught high school English in Keokuk before Ta-Nehisi Coates was born. Back then, high school students read and discussed, without objection, Cry the Beloved Country, a novel by South African writer Alan Paton, set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa. Since then, Ott was a teaching and learning consultant for the state teachers union. He is a student of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Excluding Ta-Nehisi Coates for 'discomfort' deprives youth
By Hyunsu Yim

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean court early on Wednesday rejected an arrest warrant for the leader of the main opposition party on charges of bribery and breach of duty, giving the former presidential contender a lifeline in his fight for political survival.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled against prosecutors who sought Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung's arrest, saying there were insufficient grounds to support their argument that he may try to destroy evidence.

Lee welcomed the decision and thanked the court as he walked out of a holding centre soon after the ruling, which came well after midnight.

"I give my deepest gratitude to the judiciary for clearly proving that it is the last bastion of human rights," Lee said.

The criminal charges against Lee have not been dropped. Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon said the arrest warrant review is part of a process that is not over and the court's decision does not mean Lee is innocent.

Lee has accused the prosecutors of pursuing a political motivated case against him and denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations "fiction" and a "political conspiracy".

Lee went on a hunger strike for 24 days this month, demanding that President Yoon Suk Yeol's government correct policy failures, including economic mismanagement and not doing enough to stop Japan from releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The arrest of a main opposition leader would have been unprecedented and could have crippled Lee's leadership ahead of a parliamentary election next year in which keeping his party's majority is at stake.

Lee had narrowly lost to conservative Yoon, a career prosecutor, in the presidential election last year.

Lee entered the court on Tuesday morning appearing frail and using a walking stick.

He is accused of asking a company to illegally transfer $8 million to North Korea when he was the governor of Gyeonggi Province.

He is also accused of breaching his duty as a public official over losses of 20 billion won ($15 million) incurred by a municipal development corporation while he was mayor of Seongnam along with other charges.

Some members of Lee's party joined the conservative ruling party in voting last week to lift Lee's immunity from arrest as a member of parliament, drawing criticism within the party.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim and Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Jack Kim and Gerry Doyle)
ALMATY (Reuters) -U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio, who broke the record for the longest continuous space flight by an American, and two Russian cosmonauts landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan on Wednesday after more than a year on the International Space Station (ISS).

Their Soyuz MS-23 capsule undocked from the ISS a minute earlier than scheduled, and took around three and a half hours to make it down to Earth, landing southeast of the city of Zhezqazghan.

"It's good to be home," Rubio, 47, said with a smile after landing with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, 48, and Dmitry Petelin, 40.

Asked how his crew mates had been, Rubio said: "Fantastic, yeah, everybody did really well."

Rubio was given a Russian matryoshka doll while Prokopyev was shown smiling beside the capsule and holding an watermelon which he requested on landing. When asked what he had brought back from space, he said: "A good mood".

Russian mission control at Star City outside Moscow said the crew felt fine after just over a year on the ISS. They landed on time at 1117 GMT.

Rubio, who is on his first space voyage, was shown being carried out of the capsule, which was darkened by the temperatures of reentry. He gave a thumbs up and waved as Russian and U.S. space officials took his blood pressure and heart rate and covered him with a blanket.

The three men are six months late to return because their original spacecraft sprang a leak so a replacement had to be sent up to get them back. That gave them an unexpectedly extended mission of 371 days in orbit.

RECORD RUBIO

On Sept. 11, Rubio surpassed the previous NASA record of 355 consecutive days in space set by now-retired U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei. Rubio is also the first American to spend a full year in space.

Though Rubio broke the American record, he and his Russian colleagues are far from the world record held by Russia's Valeri Polyakov , who spent 437 consecutive days and 18 hours during a Mir space station mission between January 1994 and March 1995. Polyakov died last September aged 80.

Roscosmos said that Prokopyev had spent a total of more than 567 days in space, including previous trips.

Rubio, the son of Salvadoran parents who was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Miami, is a board-certified family physician and flight surgeon, a onetime U.S. Army special forces officer and a decorated Blackhawk helicopter pilot who flew combat missions in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Speaking to reporters from orbit eight days before his return to Earth, Rubio said he probably would have turned down what became his first spaceflight had he known in advance that the mission would go on for at least a year.

Rubio, who is married with four children, cited family obligations, but in the end he said he felt honored and took the extension of the mission in stride.

He said it would likely take months to regain his full sense of balance and strength after a prolonged stay in microgravity, and that he looks forward to the quiet of his backyard, compared with the constant drone and hum of machinery while aboard the ISS.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Gareth Jones and Philippa Fletcher)
Idaho Republican lawmakers are hastily trying to negotiate a deal for a special legislative session to reinstate a presidential primary election, but the House and Senate GOP majorities have yet to agree on a proposal that must be approved this week before the Republican National Committees deadline to finalize election dates.

Idaho law right now does not allow for a presidential primary, after a bill to move the election from March to May that legislators passed this year inadvertently eliminated a mechanism for candidates to file for the election. In the wake of the error, the state Republican and Democratic parties separately voted to hold caucuses to select their presidential nominees.

Last month, Senate Republican leaders proposed a special session to establish a May primary for presidential candidates, as the approved legislation intended, and most senators are on board. But most House members support a separate proposal that would instead reinstate the March primary.

At least 60% of Senate and House members must agree on one of the proposals to trigger a special session. Meanwhile, Republican National Committee rules dictate that changes to primary election dates must be finalized by Oct. 1, which is Sunday.

Rep. Brent Crane , R-Nampa, who is shopping the House proposal, said Monday that the odds of a special session before Sunday are pretty good because theres bipartisan support for a primary election rather than a caucus.

Youre finding both parties are saying: This is a problem. A caucus is not the system we want to have for the selection process,  Crane told the Idaho Statesman by phone. Were eight weeks apart on the date, essentially.

Negotiations were continuing Tuesday, according to Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder , R-Boise. The House proposal doesnt appear to be acceptable at this time, Winder said by phone.

Were working on, potentially, a counter to that, he said.

What are the proposals?

The House proposal, sponsored by Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, would repeal House Bill 138, the legislation that moved the presidential primary from March to May and passed easily, 61-6-3 in the House and 23-11-1 in the Senate. Previously, Idaho held its presidential primary in March and all other primary elections in May.

HB 138, which Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law this year, attempted to consolidate the primary elections, improve voter turnout and save taxpayers about $2.7 million in costs associated with a separate election. But it accidentally neglected a mechanism allowing candidates to file for the election, which eliminated the presidential primary altogether.

The Senate passed a trailer bill, Senate Bill 1186, that would have fixed the error, but the legislation failed in the House State Affairs Committee after Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon lobbied against it.

Moon previously told the Statesman that a March selection process compels candidates to focus their time and resources on Idaho and that a special session would needlessly expend taxpayer resources because the state party will not budge on a March date.

Last month, Senate GOP leadership proposed allowing the state political parties to move forward with plans. But if the parties choose not to caucus, the state would hold a presidential primary election in May. The bill, sponsored by Winder, would have the same effect as the trailer bill that failed in the House earlier this year.

Senate Republicans said the proposal is meant to protect voter access, since a caucus significantly limits the number of citizens who can participate, including active-duty military members, out-of-state missionaries and seniors with limited mobility, among other groups.

Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed for a restoration of the primary elections in either month.

Our Democratic representatives have signed both petitions to return to a special session to restore a primary, House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said in a news release Monday. Whether the primary takes place in March or May, the important thing is that all Idaho voters be given an opportunity to vote.

Senate, House at impasse over May primary

Lawmakers can call a special session if at least three in five members of both the House and Senate agree to meet. Per a constitutional amendment that voters approved last year, lawmakers must circulate a petition that specifies the subjects theyll address in the special session. Lawmakers can consider only those issues when they meet.

More than 60% of House members support Clows petition, Crane said, and Senate GOP leaders announced earlier this month that they have more than 60% support for Winders bill.

But Crane, who chairs House State Affairs, the committee that rejected the trailer bill with a fix to the candidate filing mechanism, said committee Republicans still dont support the change. Committee Republicans opposed the initial legislation because the state party opposed moving the primary election from March to May, Crane said.

The presidential primary process is a party process, and the party wasnt consulted, Crane said. Members of my committee said were going to honor the partys request here.

Winder noted that House Bill 138 sailed through the House on that lopsided 61-6 vote in February, before the Senate discovered the candidate filing error and cleared the trailer bill. All but two Republicans on Cranes committee supported HB 138 in the full House vote.

We corrected it with (Senate Bill) 1186, sent it back over to them, and they gave it a cursory hearing and no motion to pass it, Winder said. As a result, were in the situation we are.

Winder said senators wont support the Houses current proposal in light of the support its members showed for a May primary during this years legislative session. Theres a lot of work to do yet before an agreement, Winder said.

Originally, everybody wanted to consolidate the presidential primary with the partisan primary in May, he said. We just want people to be able to vote for president, but we also want to make sure that theres a good turnout for the legislative races.

Reporter Kevin Fixler contributed.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  The moment weve been waiting for has almost arrived as the Sphere will open its doors on Friday.

Organizers have been building toward the opening date since 2018, but before coming full circle there are still questions on how to get to the Sphere and where to park.

The venue is located at 255 Sands Avenue where people can enter via Sands Avenue or Westchester Drive, through the plaza entry.

The site of the Sphere in Las Vegas (KLAS)

Mortal Kombat 1 appears to be the newest advertiser on Sphere in Las Vegas (Justin Walker / KLAS)

Scorpion politely asks you to get over here on Sphere in Las Vegas. (KLAS)

Sphere becomes the moons surface. (KLAS)

Exosphere rendering MSG Sphere (Refik Anadol Studio, 2023 Courtesy of Sphere Entertainment)



The worlds largest spherical structure was officially lit for the first time Tuesday. The 580,000 square foot exterior was demonstrated, showing what the largest LED screen in the world can do, with patriotic July 4th fireworks, the planet Earth, and even an early Halloween jack-o-lantern projected on the exosphere. | PHOTO: Justin Walker (KLAS)

The giant orb was on the sightseeing list for a family visiting from Colorado and Georgia.

Amazing, the colors, I cant believe it. And the smiley face? That was so cute, Ashley Sims-Plank expressed. We are really bummed were not going to be at the U2 Concert.

The ride-share pick-up and drop-off site is off Koval Lane and Sands Avenue.

Those who want to drive to the Sphere can head to its website where it will direct you to Ticketmaster to buy parking where prices can range from $40 to $100.

While you can park at nearby casinos, those have fees too. Visitor self-parking at The Venetian ranges from $15 to $23 depending on the day. Nevada residents with a valid Nevada drivers license can get three hours of free parking.

The first four hours are free at the Wynn and Encore, then visitors pay $20 for the day. You can get to the Sphere from the Venetian pedestrian bridge.

Another option for Sphere sightseers is to pay $6 one-way on the Las Vegas Monorail. The stop near Harrahs and the Linq is a little under a mile or a 20-minute walk.

No matter how or when you are going, it is safe to say theres a lot of interest.

It is otherworldly, for sure, Jane Christie gushed.

Those interested in visiting Sphere should also be aware that it is a no-bag facility. Large bags and backpacks are not allowed however small clutches and fanny packs are allowed.

There is also no bag or coat check on site.

Sphere is a cashless venue, with only cards and mobile payment available. There are ATMs inside that will convert cash to cards.

The facility can hold up to about 18,000 guests. Sphere opens on Friday, Sept. 29 with Irish rock band U2 set to perform.

Sphere has answers to frequently asked questions on its website.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
Its celebrity sighting time again, Boise  with two-for-one action this time.

Months after actor Mark Wahlberg visited Boise, he returned and made a Monday appearance at a Meridian bar and grill.

That same day, another extremely rich guy was hyping booze in Boise: UFC president Dana White .

In April, Wahlberg surprised a Boise Albertsons by showing up to promote his Flecha Azul tequila. This time, he visited Giggy Ds, 505 S. Eagle Road, in a planned event. The Oscar-nominated actor posted on Instagram that Giggy Ds is the first place to launch his spirit. Wahlberg, 52, pressed the flesh and posed for lots of photos, including with radio personalities from My 102.7 FM.

Wahlberg was in town for the Idaho State Liquor Division Spirits Trade Show in Meridian, said Tony Faraca, CFO of the Liquor Division.

Meanwhile, UFC icon Dana White rolled into the Treasure Valley to pump his own brand of alcohol: Howler Head banana bourbon whiskey.

White also attended the industry trade show and visited a couple of (liquor) stores, Faraca said.

White, 54, tweeted video from a Boise liquor store at 808 S. Vista Ave., where he signed bottles and instructed followers to get your ass down here and get some.

I just signed bottles of @HowlerHead in Boise, Idaho, if you give a shit go grab one at literary the cleanest, most organized liquor store on EARTH!!!!

Idaho State Store #110

808 S Vista Ave., Boise ID pic.twitter.com/RlDba9xGxa  danawhite (@danawhite) September 25, 2023
St. Johns County Sheriffs Office detectives have arrested a 56-year-old suspect on multiple charges related to child exploitation.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

Michael Christopher Patchen was taken into custody by Crimes Against Children detectives on Tuesday.

The sheriffs office said that Patchen spoke with an undercover detective he thought was a child. The suspects conversations were sexually explicit and he asked the detective posing as a child to meet him for sex.

SJSO said that when Patchen arrived at the meeting location he was taken into custody by detectives.

READ: Church youth group leader who worked as childrens nurse accused of sexual battery, JSO report said

Patchen was charged with attempted lewd/lascivious battery, traveling to meet a minor for sex, solicitation of a minor for sex, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.

SJSO ICAC Detectives would like to remind parents and guardians to monitor your childrens online activities, set boundaries, and have conversations about the danger that exists online, SJSO said in a statement. Please visit the INTERCEPT Task Force website at https://operationlightshine.org/ for information on reporting child exploitation and human trafficking, and resources to help protect children.

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Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Amid reports that retired Philippine National Police chief Rodolfo Azurin Jr. was deported by Canadian authorities this month, the Department of Foreign Affairs' sponsor in the House 2024 budget deliberations shed some light on the issue on Wednesday.

House Minority Leader Rep. Marcelino Libanan asked sponsor Nueva Ecija Rep. Joseph Violago if there was any truth to reports that Azurin was intercepted by Canadian airport immigration officials.

Violago confirmed that Azurin encountered issues, but he added the Canadian government has expressed regrets on the "misunderstanding and miscommunication."

"Itong Incident na ito happened a few days ago. General Azurin voluntary went to Canada and bigla po siyang bumalik ng bansa," he said during the budget debates. "Parang nagkaroon ng misunderstanding at misinterpretation doon sa nangyari and the Canadian government expressed their regrets with the miscommunication."

[Translation: The incident happened a few days ago. General Azurin voluntary went to Canada and he suddenly returned to the country. It seemed like there was a misunderstanding and misinterpretation and the Canadian government express their regrets with the miscommunication.]

Violago also said the DFA wasn't able to offer any assistance to the retired police general since he was on a personal trip and he voluntarily returned home.

He added the Canadian government has not yet submitted the full and official report on the incident, but he vowed to disclose it to House Speaker Martin Romualdez due to confidentiality issues.

Azurin was appointed as President Bongbong Marcos' first PNP chief. He only served for nine months before he had to retire after reaching the mandatory retirement age in April this year.

Azurin pins blame on PNP exec

Azurin briefly denied the reports he was deported. His statement issued on Tuesday focused mostly on his allegations against his former colleague PNP Deputy Chief for Administration Police Lieutenant General Rodel Sermonia, whom he claimed was the source of the disinformation.

CNN Philippines is seeking comment from Sermonia.

Sermonia had been spreading lies about my alleged 'deportation.' Maybe he knows something that everyone in our country do not know. Maybe, it was him who tipped the Canadian Immigration by concocting half truths and many lies and had been hoping that I will be deported. He had been sending messages about my deportation," Azurin said.

"Sorry hindi po ganun nangyari," the former top cop added, saying that in due time he will issue his statement and face the media to tell what happened.

He called on current PNP chief Benjamin Acorda to investigate Sermonia's alleged involvement in the smear campaign.

Sermonia denied Azurin's allegations, saying he has no reason to ruin the former top cop's name considering that they are relatives.

"There is no reason for me to do what I am being accused of," he said in a statement. "Magmistah kami, bilas ko pa siya. Ang kasiraan niya ay kasiraan ng aming pamilya"

[Translation: We graduated from the same class, and our wives are sisters. Ruining his name would also ruin our family's name]
SHREWSBURY  For many people, the concept of fleeing religious persecution and starting a new life in another country is often associated with the non-recent past. A historical background to describe a communitys roots. At St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church in Shrewsbury, the pursuit of religious freedom very much informs both their past and present.

More: Worcester's Orthodox Christian community takes pride in past, looks to future

The church will celebrate its centennial anniversary on Oct. 7 and 8 since its 1923 consecration, but as one of the oldest Syriac Orthodox churches in the country, its history actually goes back decades earlier.

The cornerstone is laid, far left, on the original St. Marys Assyrian Orthodox Church on Hawley Street in Worcester in 1923. That stone was moved to the current church in Shrewsbury.

Initially founded in 1895 by immigrants fleeing genocide in Turkey, St. Marys serves to this day as a focal point for Christians escaping violence in the Middle East. Over its 128 year history, people have come to the area from not only Turkey but Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

It really represents the stamina of the community, said church member Barbara Baba, whose grandfather was one of the first people to come from Turkey, leaving to avoid being conscripted into the army. He knew that he was going to be asked to kill Christians, said Baba.

Fr. Toni Kasih reads the Aramaic inscription on the Table of Life used on the altar at St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church of Shrewsbury. The item came from St. Marys Church in Jerusalem in 1926.

Bonding through faith

The first church was built on Hawley Street in Worcester. The congregation raised $600,000 to build it, which is about equivalent to a million dollars today, said Baba. A thriving Syriac community sprung up around it on Austin and Chandler Streets. The reason they came to Worcester is that people had come before them and they knew that there were jobs here, she said. About 90% of them worked in the wire mills.

In 1923, it was consecrated as St. Marys Assyrian and Epistolic Church. Though the original location was sold in the 1980s when the church moved to Shrewsbury, it was still a beacon to immigrants that expanded the community. The new location was consecrated in 2015 by the Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II.

Conflict and unrest in the Middle East has meant a continuous stream of people leaving their homes to find safety, with three of the biggest spikes during major conflicts. The first being the Turkish genocide that led to the churchs founding, the second being the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990 and the third coinciding with the rise of The Islamic State in recent years.

Church member George Hanna shows the cornerstone of St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church of Shrewsbury. The stone was first laid at the original church on Hawley Street in Worcester in 1923 and moved with the congregation to Shrewsbury.

Babas grandfathers story was repeated in the late '70 and '80s, she said, when many young men came to the United States to avoid military service. Church member George Hanna, was one of them, coming to Shrewsbury from Lebanon when he was 33 in 1986.

Despite coming from different countries, congregants found connection through shared religion  The food was different, languages were different but mass is held in Aramaic, said Hanna, an ancient Semitic language from Syria dating back to the 6th century.

St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church of Shrewsbury.

Looking to the future

Despite overcoming challenges over the years, Hanna is concerned about the church's future due to lack of youth involvement. "Not a lot of youth come to church regularly so we're trying to do more activities," he said, such as a Youth Group. They have also added monitors in church to translate services and had one service a month is in English.

The celebrations proper will begin at 5 p.m. on Oct. 7, attended by major figures in the Syriac Orthodox Church  Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East; Mor Dionysius John Kawak, Archbishop and Patriarchal Vicar of the Syriac Orthodox Church for the Eastern USA; and Mor Augeen Alkoury, Patriarchal Secretary.

SHREWSBURY - Fr. Toni Kasih reads the Aramaic inscription on the Table of Life used on the altar at St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church of Shrewsbury. The item came from St. Marys Church in Jerusalem in 1926. Church members George Hanna, Barbara Baba, Meryem Akman, and Henri Bahnan listen as Fr. Kasih reads the inscription Tuesday, September 26, 2023.

There will be an exhibit displaying historical information and artifacts, followed by a black-tie centennial gala reception: A grand black-tie gala reception.

On Sunday, Oct. 8, the patriarch will lead a special Holy Liturgy, after which there will be a picnic celebration.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Anniversary a time to reflect for St. Marys Syriac Orthodox Church
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) called on Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign on Tuesday, making her the highest-ranking Senate Democrat to do so as he faces federal bribery and corruption charges.

The allegations against Senator Bob Menendez are very concerning, Stabenow, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said in a statement. While he deserves his presumption of innocence, I believe its best for him to step down from the U.S. Senate.

Bob is a longtime colleague and it saddens me to come to this decision, she continued.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the No. 4 Senate Democrat, had called for him to step aside earlier in the day and was the first member of leadership to do so.

Stabenows comment comes as Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have both refrained from joining the pro-resignation chorus.

Schumer said on Friday that Menendez made the right call in stepping away from his post atop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but has not added anything further.

Menendez has remained defiant amid the growing calls for him to resign, with more than 20 Senate Democrats urging him to step down.

Im innocent, Menendez told reporters when asked why he wont listen to the resignation calls. Whats wrong with you guys?

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
As government and banking services move away from verifying identities in the real world, moving toward online ID verification, several companies have entered the market to solve this problem. A new startup from France is entering the market with a solution that, in theory, should protect peoples privacy.

ShareID spokesperson Eliana Daboul described the company in an email as an Authentication-as-a-Service solution tied to government-issued IDs.

The twist is that, unlike other similar companies, ShareID claims it doesnt store any personal data. Instead, according to ShareIDs CEO Sara Sebti, the company asks users to submit a video to prove their liveness  a fancy word that means the user has to prove they are a real person in front of their phones camera and its not a pre-recorded video  and a picture of their government ID. But ShareID says it doesnt store this data, it keeps it in memory on its servers and creates a hash  a unique ID  and then wipes the data, which effectively was never stored on the servers.

Other companies use a different approach.

In the United States, the controversial ID.me says on its official website that it may retain your Biometric Information for up to thirty-six months, and that includes selfie images and the associated Biometric Information. ID.me obtained government contracts  such as with the IRS  but was criticized by members of the U.S. Congress, who said the company misrepresented how its tech worked and inflated estimates about fraud to increase demand for its services. (The company denied these accusations.)

CLEAR, a biometric security company that is present in airports and stadiums across the United States, states in its privacy policy that it obtains information such as government-issued identification information, digital images and videos (such as images from your mobile device camera) and biometric data (such as digital images of fingerprints, irises and face).

The company says that it retains that kind of information, in the case of users in California, for the life of the CLEAR account. In the case of Canadian users, the company says it will retain biometric data and other personal information only until the occurrence of the first of the following: (a) the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such data has been satisfied or (b) three years following your last interaction with CLEAR (unless you request to close your account earlier).

ShareID, on the other hand, wants to retain as little information as possible, and for as short a time as possible.

We issue reusable identities to our users, we get rid of all the personal data that we captured. We only generate this homomorphic hash and we use it to re-authenticate the person when they come back, Sebti told TechCrunch, referring to an encryption technique that allows the creation of a unique value from a set of data, and makes it impossible to reverse it to get the original data.

In practice, Sebti explained, ShareID customers have access to an SDK and an API that allows them to embed the companys technology on their website, as well as their Android or iOS app. Sebti said that the person who is trying to authenticate will have to submit a video showing the front of the document for three seconds, and the back of the document for another three seconds. Then, the website or app will capture a video of the persons face, asking it to fulfill challenges to prove they are really recording it live, such as smiling, tilting their face to the left or right, and following a point on the screen, whose position is randomly generated.

You have a random point that is run on your screen and you have to follow it with your eyes, and you have no clue where it will be. So you cannot prepare the video to get into it, Sebti said.

At that point the service processes this data and creates a homomorphic hash that can be used to re-authenticate the user when they come back.

At least, thats what ShareID claims. Sebti said Frances military police audited the companys security, and that they monitor their own security by running penetration tests, or pentests, and other live security monitorings.
A Pennsylvania state trooper was caught on camera appearing to physically assault his ex-girlfriend after he allegedly abused his power to have her involuntarily committed to a hospital.

Ronald Davis, 37, is accused of having improperly obtained a warrant to have the woman committed without divulging his connection to her, according to the criminal complaint and a probable cause affidavit provided by the Dauphin County District Attorneys Office.

While he was carrying out the order himself, he asked another person to record him as he appeared to strangle her and restrain her. During the 12-minute video, released by the DAs office, she repeatedly says, I cant breathe.

Davis, who has been a trooper since 2015, has been suspended without pay, in accordance with state law, and he has been charged with felony strangulation, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, simple assault and official oppression.

The woman wound up being held at Lehigh Valley Hospital for four days, until her release Aug. 25. The video and text communications with Davis show that [the victim] was rational and the involuntary commitment was improper, the DAs office said in the news release.

A judge ordered Davis held without bail in Dauphin County Prison at his preliminary arraignment last week, the DAs office said. A preliminary hearing has been set for Monday.

It was not immediately clear how much jail time Davis could face if he is convicted or whether he has a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. A spokesperson for the DAs office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Davis is married and lives with his family in Dauphin County, the DAs office said. He did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Ill take care of it myself

Davis allegedly told colleagues on Aug. 21 that the woman was living in a camper on his property, that their relationship had deteriorated and that she had recently been acting erratically, according to the probable cause affidavit. The two had a four-month relationship, the woman later told police.

Davis said they had been having an ongoing domestic argument over the previous two days involving clothing she had stored in his garage, according to the probable cause affidavit. He added that the woman was suicidal and claimed that she had texted him minutes earlier saying she was going to drive off a cliff.

Davis then asked his colleagues whether they could have her involuntarily committed, according to the probable cause affidavit. A corporal at the station said it would be better if he contacted Dauphin County Crisis Intervention, a 24/7 program, to file a petition to have her involuntarily committed to minimize conflict and liability.

Davis initially said he did not want to do that, although it is unclear from the affidavit why. Ultimately, he did contact the program by phone to file the petition on Aug. 21; he identified himself as a trooper even though he was contacting them regarding a personal matter, the probable cause affidavit says. He also emailed a synopsis of information related to the petition using his state email address and including his personal contact information, the document says.

While Davis was making the petition, state police unsuccessfully tried to conduct a welfare check on the woman, searching for her in three locations.

The warrant for the womans involuntary commitment was ultimately approved and issued; Davis took a copy of it from another trooper and said, Ill take care of it myself  even after a supervisor said on-duty officers would handle the situation, the probable cause affidavit notes.

Davis left the station shortly after 1:15 p.m. and notified colleagues he had found the woman in a picnic area about 15 minutes later.

When Davis arrived, the woman tried to avoid him, and he grabbed her and forcefully carried her from the picnic area to her vehicle, the probable cause affidavit says. Davis directed another person  who is not employed by the state police and whose connection to Davis was not immediately clear  to record the encounter, the probable cause affidavit says.

In the video, Davis appears to sit on the woman to restrain her while she pleads to be let go and asks why she is being restrained. When the woman tries to escape his control, he tackles her to the ground. At that point, about 3 minutes into the video, he appears to restrain her by the neck.

I dont need help, the woman says at the start of the video, while Davis is sitting on her and restraining her. I need to get away from you.

Davis never claimed he was acting in his official capacity as a trooper, the document says. Davis later told police that the woman knew he was a trooper.

A state police spokesperson said it was too early to determine whether a police supervisor or anyone else would face disciplinary action given that Davis proceeded to look for the woman himself.

Signs of a controlling relationship

After she was released from the hospital, the woman met with police and described ways she alleged Davis had sought to control her, including telling her I know youre not crazy, Ill paint you as crazy and I know the law, the probable cause affidavit says.

She also said he had restricted access to her belongings and once called the state police station where he worked during an argument and hung up before the call answered in an effort to control the situation, the document says.

Text messages viewed by police showed Davis and the woman arguing in the days before the alleged incident, with Davis making disparaging remarks toward her, the probable cause affidavit says. Police concluded there were no verifiable suicidal or homicidal threats.

The texts revealed her frustration with Trooper Davis and his controlling behavior (and her desire to break off the relationship), not a true desire to harm herself, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The woman described a relationship where Davis needed to maintain power and control, it says.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or go to www.thehotline.org for anonymous, confidential online chats, available in English and Spanish. Individual states often have their own domestic violence hotlines as well.

Advocates at the National Domestic Violence Hotline field calls from both survivors of domestic violence as well as individuals who are concerned that they may be abusive toward their partners.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Researchers found that of 174 MS patients who underwent stem cell transplants -- with cells from their own blood -- two-thirds had no evidence of "disease activity" over 10 years. Photo by stevepb/Pixabay

A new study is strengthening the evidence that stem cell transplants can be highly effective for some people with multiple sclerosis -- sending the disease into remission for years, and sometimes reversing disability.

Researchers found that of 174 MS patients who underwent stem cell transplants -- with cells from their own blood -- two-thirds had no evidence of "disease activity" over 10 years.

That meant no symptom relapses, no worsening disability and no signs of new damage in their brain tissue.

In fact, of patients who'd already developed disabilities before the procedure, more than half saw improvements afterward.

The findings were published recently in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

Experts said the study bolsters evidence that stem cell transplantation is a good option for some people with MS.

"We do know that this treatment works and it can be performed safely," said co-author Dr. Joachim Burman, a neurologist at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden.

However, stem cell transplants are not for everyone.

From a safety standpoint, relatively younger patients are likely to fare better, Burman said. And people with "highly active" MS -- including flare-ups despite medication -- stand to benefit most.

MS is a neurological disorder caused by a misguided immune system attack on nerve fibers in the spine and brain. That leads to symptoms like vision problems, muscle weakness, numbness and difficulty with balance and coordination.

The vast majority of people with MS initially have what's called the relapsing-remitting form, which means symptoms flare for a time and then ease. Most people, though, eventually transition to a progressive form of the disease, and their disability worsens over time.

Why treat MS with a stem cell transplant? The basic idea is to "reboot" the faulty immune system, said Bruce Bebo, executive vice president of research programs for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The procedure involves removing stem cells from a patient's own blood, then using powerful chemotherapy drugs to knock down the existing immune system. After that, the stored stem cells are infused back into the patient, and the immune system rebuilds itself over time.

Bebo, who was not involved in the new study, said the results are "very consistent" with past studies following MS patients who've undergone stem cell transplants.

"We feel the evidence really has reached a tipping point," Bebo said.

In 2020, he noted, a National MS Society advisory committee published recommendations on which people are the best candidates for a stem cell transplant.

They include people who are younger than 50, have had relapsing-remitting MS for fewer than 10 years, and have suffered symptom flares or developed new brain lesions despite being on an optimal MS medication.

The younger age recommendation, Bebo noted, is aimed at safety.

A stem cell transplant is no simple matter. It requires a hospital stay and leaves people initially vulnerable to infections.

The infection risk is highest in the few days after the procedure. "After 10 days or so, you can safely be discharged from the hospital," Burman said, "and after three months you can get back to work."

The patients in this study -- median age: 31 -- all underwent the procedure at one of seven Swedish transplant centers, dating back to 2004. Overall, 73% showed no signs of disease activity at the five-year mark, and 65% were still in that category after a decade.

Of 149 patients who'd had disabilities before the stem cell transplant, 54% showed improvements afterward.

Burman said no one knows why that happens. One theory is that the chemotherapy reduces inflammation in the brain, leading to a regression in some disabilities.

"That remains to be proven, however," Burman said.

For people who are wondering whether the procedure is right for them, the best place to start is a conversation with your doctor, Bebo said.

But, he added, it's not only a matter of being a good candidate: You also need access to a medical center with experience in the procedure and an insurance plan that will cover it.

Bebo stressed that this is not an undertaking that can be done at self-described "stem cell clinics" that advertise their services for various medical conditions.

Stem cell transplants are also distinct from other stem cell therapies being studied for MS -- which are in a "much more experimental" stage, Bebo said.

More Information

The National MS Society has more on stem cell transplantation.

Copyright  2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Bestselling author Stephen King called out House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for missing the point on crime even after holding a hearing on the subject.

With the federal government on the brink of a shutdown as House Republicans fail to advance funding bills, Jordan took the Judiciary Committee to Chicago for the hearing, which critics dismissed as a stunt.

Rather than focus on the actual causes of crime, Jordan blamed it on Democratic lawmakers.

Youre not safe in Democrat-run cities, Jordan wrote on X, formerly Twitter, as he shared a report on armed robberies in Chicago.

King, who has long spoken out against gun violence and in favor of tighter restrictions on firearms, pointed out what Jordan seems to have missed:

Armed robberies.

Guns, Jimmy, guns.  Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 27, 2023

King has called out other lawmakers for failing to act to prevent gun violence.

Earlier this year he pointed to Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for obsessing over Hunter Biden instead of the epidemic of deadly gun violence.
(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden endorsed the United Auto Workers demand for a major wage increase during a visit to a picket line at a General Motors Co. plant in suburban Detroit  a historic show of solidarity with organized labor.

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Stick with it, Biden said through a bullhorn Tuesday in Belleville, Michigan, encouraging autoworkers striking against GM, Ford Motor Co., and Stellantis NV. You deserve what you earned, and you earned a hell of a lot more than what youre getting paid now.

The strike, now on its 12th day, centers on benefits, representation and the presidents own clean-energy push. Biden, joined by UAW President Shawn Fain, donned a black union cap and shook hands with workers on the picket line.

Biden said autoworkers had made a lot of sacrifices and urged them to keep fighting for better pay despite concerns a prolonged strike could harm the economy in a politically important region. Yes, I think they should be able to bargain for that, the president said, when asked if he agreed UAW members should receive a 40% wage increase.

The union has reduced its demands in negotiations for pay raises to 36%.

Workers wearing red UAW shirts and carrying signs chanted no deals, no wheels and no pay, no parts as Biden arrived.

Thank you, Mr. President, for coming to stand up with us in our generations defining moment, said Fain, who rode with Biden in the presidential motorcade to the picket line.

The visit comes a day before former President Donald Trump , the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, also heads to Michigan. The dueling events highlight how the strike and battle for union support have become a 2024 flashpoint.

Both candidates are aggressively courting union rank-and-file, who make up a sizable portion of middle-class voters in key swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump won Michigan in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, but Biden carried the state in 2020 by about 154,000 votes, thanks in part to 62% of the vote from those in a union household.

An August Gallup poll showed 75% of US adults say they side with the UAW, 19% with the auto companies. Overall, organized labor enjoys strong support, with 67% approving of unions, down from 71% a year ago but up from an all-time low of 48% in 2009.

Biden, who has billed himself as the most pro-union president in US history, is the first modern president to personally join an active strike, according to the White House and labor experts.

Its good to know that we are heard and cared about by someone as high as an authority as him, said Arkilah Taylor, 41, an employee at the Dundee Engine Plant who was on the picket line with Biden.

Still, the strike has put Biden in a political bind. The president has faced skepticism over his electric-vehicle push, as UAW leaders and workers worry it will cost them jobs, reduce wages and favor non-unionized companies. But Biden needs the legacy automakers to achieve the transition.

Two top administration officials  acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior White House adviser Gene Sperling accompanied Biden to in Michigan and remained behind to aid the negotiating process. They are not intervening in the talks, according to a Labor Department official.

Read more: Senior Biden Officials Stay in Michigan for Auto, Union Talks

Trump is slated to meet current and former autoworkers at a suburban Detroit auto-parts manufacturer Wednesday, the same day his rivals for the nomination take the stage at the second Republican presidential debate.

The facility Trump is expected to visit is a non-union shop and UAW officials criticized his choice of venue, saying it shows a lack of solidarity with striking workers.

Hes just trying to pander to people and say what they want to hear, Fain said of Trump.

Trump has hammered the president for his support of electric vehicles, claiming the transition will send UAW jobs to China.

The former president will argue Biden has been on the wrong side of issues hurting workers and the middle class for three decades, dating back to support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, Trump adviser Jason Miller said.

Democrats say Trump hurt workers by prioritizing tax breaks for corporations, appointing anti-union officials to the National Labor Relations Board and failing to protect union jobs and assembly plants.

Fain invited Biden to Detroit to turn up pressure on automakers, with the two sides at loggerheads on key issues. While there has been tension between the White House and the UAW, the union leader greeted Biden warmly and lauded his decision to show up at the picket line.

Our president has chosen to stand up with workers in our fight for economic and social justice, Fain said.

The economic losses from the walkout are already estimated at $1.6 billion, and a prolonged work stoppage threatens to tip states such as Michigan crucial to Bidens reelection into recession.

The union last week expanded its strike against GM and Stellantis, which makes the Jeep and Chrysler brands, to 38 more facilities in 20 states. The UAW has spared Ford from additional walkouts after the the union said it obtained concessions.

Negotiations continue to be the most active with Ford, while conversations are ongoing with the other two companies, according to a UAW official. The union has not ruled out widening the strike if its demands are not met.

Lacking legal means to intervene, the Biden administrations response at times has been halting. Trump announced his Michigan visit days before Biden, and the White House was forced to scrap a planned trip by Su and Sperling to Detroit to liaise with the parties after Biden announced it in a Sept. 15 speech.

Prominent labor groups have endorsed Bidens reelection, but the UAW has held back, despite endorsing him in 2020. Fain had pushed Biden and Democrats to do more to back workers in their fight for higher wages. But some in the White House believe Fain was ungrateful for the presidents previous gestures to help the union, according to people familiar with the matter.

Union leaders, though, have dismissed the possibility of endorsing Trump. Fain did not discuss an endorsement with Biden on Tuesday and instead focused on the contract talks, according to a UAW official.

Im not worried about that, Biden told reporters when asked about an endorsement.

--With assistance from Mark Niquette and Gabrielle Coppola.

(Updates with additional details, starting in fourth paragraph)

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KANSAS CITY, Kan.  Kansas City, Kansas, police officers who responded to a physical disturbance that turned into a homicide investigation last week say they found two men taped, bound and zip-tied outside an OReilly Auto Parts. One of them didnt have a pulse.

Court documents are revealing more about the investigation and what suspects and police say happened before 23-year-old Diamond Steen was found dead outside the store. Investigators said he was reportedly put in a chokehold before he died.

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Last week, the Wyandotte County district attorney charged 39-year-old Carl Kemppainen with second-degree murder in Steens death.

Carl Kemppainen mugshot

On Tuesday, the district attorney filed more charges related to alleged shoplifting and an altercation that occurred between a shoplifting suspect and store employees.

The new charges are against 23-year-old store employee Royal Ford for battery and 23-year-old Keysean Perkins for theft and obstruction. Perkins tried to leave the store with Steen, according to court papers.

Detectives who interviewed Kemppainen said he told them he was aware of shoplifting at a different OReilly location days earlier.

He believed two Black men who came to the store at 47th and Parallel were the same men and were driving the same car described in the previous incident, court records say.

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Kemppainen said he saw Perkins put a can of car paint in his pocket and took a package of sand paper as well, items valued at $73. Detectives say Steen and Perkins were seen on surveillance leaving the store without stopping at the front counter registers.

The video showed Kemppainen run after them and try to get them to stop by shutting a car door and taking a key fob from Steen.

After he threw the key fob across the parking lot, court documents say Kemppainen placed Steen in a chokehold when Steen tried to get the keys.

Detectives said the video then showed Perkins attempt to diffuse the situation by dropping a paint can and attempting to get Kemppainen to release Steen from the chokehold. At that point, Ford pulled Perkins away and attempted to detain him, according to court records.

A third employee went in the store and returned with tape, detectives say, and they attempted to wrap Perkins wrists and ankles.

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Court documents say the video showed Ford stomped on Perkins neck and upper back, leading to a cut that needed stitches.

When detectives attempted to speak with Perkins, he gave them a fake name, leading to the obstruction charge. He didnt give a formal interview and requested an attorney.

In a review of in-store cameras and witness video, detectives said they never saw Steen nor Perkins punch or fight Kemppainen.

A witness who gave detectives video corroborated the struggle between the suspects and employees. The witness also said that after Steens body appeared lifeless, Kemppainen let his body fall to the ground face down, and then sat on his back.

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OReilly Auto Parts provided this statement to FOX4 last week:

OReilly Auto Parts is deeply disturbed by the events, death and injuries that occurred at our store in Kansas City, Kansas. We are cooperating fully with the police investigation.

DA Mark Dupree said during a news conference that law enforcement officers are the only ones who should attempt to make an arrest.

They put in many hours and many months of training to learn how to utilize their weapons their skills to detain to de-escalate while maintaining a persons life so that we can deal with them in the court of law, Dupree said.

Let there be no mistake it is law enforcements job to do the policing, no one elses, and its important that the community understands that.

Perkins and Ford are due in court on Oct. 17. Kemppainen has posted local bond of $125,000, but is still in custody on out-of-state charges. Hes also due in court on Oct. 17.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
LATEST: Multiple stores looted in Philadelphia overnight Wednesday into Thursday as police crack down

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Multiple groups of looters hit retail stores and at least one small business in different Philadelphia neighborhoods Tuesday night. Police made multiple arrests and recovered stolen merchandise in some of the incidents.

Much of the activity was focused in Center City, but there was also looting in North Philadelphia and Northeast Philadelphia.

Video showed the scene outside a Lululemon store that had been looted in Center City Philadelphia the night of Sept. 26. / Credit: Submitted video/CBS News Philadelphia

In Center City, groups of mostly young people looted several stores and there was a reported assault at a Foot Locker.

CBS Philadelphia was on the scene where a large roving group looted several stores including the Foot Locker at 15th and Chestnut Streets and the Apple Store on Walnut Street near 16th.

Along with the looting of stores, police say a security guard was assaulted at the Foot Locker.

Our cameras also saw looting at the nearby Lululemon store on Walnut Street in Rittenhouse Square.

Police say the group in that area had large plastic bags that they were filling up with stolen store merchandise.

Police estimate as many as 100 juveniles were looting in Center City and about 15-20 have been arrested.

The looting was not limited to Center City - stores in North Philadelphia were hit as well, including Patriot Pharmacy on 22nd Street and Indiana Avenue. The pharmacy owner told us the looters used a pickaxe to break through the acrylic glass and take items.

"It's a bit disappointing," owner Benjamin Nachum said. "This is the third time we got looted."

"I understand that everything's rough out here and the nature of affairs right now is not particularly great," Nachum added. "I just wish that people understood we're actually trying to serve the community and maybe just let it go."

Nachum said the pharmacy's safe was effective and luckily no narcotics were taken.

There was also looting in Northeast Philadelphia. Chopper 3 was over a Gamestop on Aramingo Avenue and our cameras saw someone getting arrested.

We also saw officers find a car full of what appeared to be stolen items from the nearby Aldi grocery store in the trunk.

Thieves tried to use a stolen Kia to break in to a Curaleaf medical marijuana dispensary at 51st Street and City Avenue in the city's Wynnefield section.

It's not clear what was taken, but several display cases were broken.

/ Credit: CBS News Philadelphia

Multiple Philadelphia Police commanders confirm to CBS Philadelphia's Joe Holden that the looting has no connection to earlier demonstrations over the dismissal of charges in the death of Eddie Irizarry.

New Interim Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Stanford, who took over last week, addressed the looting and reiterated that same point: the looting had nothing to do with the protest over a judge's decision to drop the charges against Dial.

"What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and make an attempt to destroy our city," Stanford said. "Again, it's not going to be tolerated. We made arrests and we will continue to make arrests until we have all of the individuals, or a number of the individuals that have been responsible for what we've seen tonight, in custody."

Earlier protests concluded peacefully, according to police sources.

Irizarry's family has said they do not want anyone damaging property in their son's name. In a Sept. 8 news conference, officials released footage from Dial and his partner's body cameras showing the shooting - and District Attorney Larry Krasner made that point.

"The family repeatedly said to me, and the family's counsel repeatedly said to me, that they do not want any criminal unrest, they do not want any rioting, they do not want any looting, they do not want anyone to claim that what this video depicts or the nature of the case or the event itself justifies any criminal behavior," Krasner said. "That that would be a violation of their respect, their love and their reverence for young Eddie Irizarry."

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Both chambers of Congress have decided to realign confidential and intelligence funds to agencies tasked to ensure national security, days after China illegally put up a floating barrier in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the lawmakers said they view China's latest action in the disputed waters "with serious concern."

They said not only did the floating barrier  which has since been removed by the Philippine Coast Guard  endanger Filipino fishermen and halt their livelihood, but it also triggered more conflict.

"We extend our collective support to the Philippine Coast Guard's (PCG) swift and diplomatic actions in removing the barriers at Scarborough Shoal. We commend their dedication to safeguarding our nation's interests and standing up for the rights of our Filipino fishermen," the joint statement read.

"Given recent provocative incidents in the contested areas, we have decided to reallocateas part of the budget processconfidential and intelligence funds to other agencies chiefly responsible for intelligence and surveillance" it added.

The agencies that may receive additional funding boost include the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, the National Security Council, the PCG, and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

The ranking members of the House said this was necessary amid "rising security threats" in the WPS.

"These agencies are better positioned to counteract security threats, protect our territorial waters, and secure the rights and access of Filipino fishermen to traditional fishing grounds," they stressed.

Speaking to CNN Philippines The Source, House Deputy Majority Leader Janette Garin said the lower chamber did the right move, noting that there are safety measures on the use of such funds.

However, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas said the funds to be transferred should just be allocated for food security and basic social services which should be the focus of the government.

The Makabayan bloc also said in a statement that it wants confidential funds abolished and to reduce intelligence funds.

This is to address the gross and unconscionable inflation of CIF over the years, particularly since the time of the Duterte administration. This has left billions of pesos in taxpayers' money vulnerable to misuse and outright corruption, it said.

While it recognized that funding is necessary to address external threats, like Chinas actions in the West Philippine Sea, not all these funds need to be confidential in nature. Aside from social services, the Makabayan bloc also noted that urgent additional funding is needed for support for farmers and fisherfolk.

Meanwhile, senators have agreed to follow suit, according to Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.

"We also will [be] reallocating funds that we feel are not necessary for the use of certain agencies and allocate them to our Intelligence Community as well as our Coast Guard and AFP," he said Wednesday.

Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel also said that "the idea is worth pursuing."

Asked if the reallocation would include the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, Zubiri said they "shall review all agencies."
Angela Scanlon has issued an apology after she was reported to police over a video she posted on her Instagram account.

The Your Home Made Perfect presenter, who is currently competing on the recently launched 21st series of Strictly Come Dancing, found herself in hot water this week.

After rehearsals in Borehamwood, Scanlon shared a video of herself sat in the backseat of a moving car, leaning out of the window and dancing in the sun to the 1980 hit song Rappers Delight by The Sugarhill Gang

The video was swiftly deleted by the Irish presenter, 39, after viewers branded Scanlons behaviour dangerous.

On Monday (25 September), Scanlon  who is competing on Strictly with professional dancer Carlos Gu  was reported to Hertfordshire Police by a member of the public.

She subsequently released a statement apologising for her actions, saying that she made absolutely the wrong decision when I filmed this video.

I was coming from rehearsals and was giddy with excitement, Scanlon said. Thats not an excuse, because what I did was stupid and Im sorry I let my excitement get the better of my judgement.

While it could not be seen in the video whether Scanlon was wearing a seatbelt or not, a spokesperson for the force said that they had received a report about a woman not wearing a seatbelt in a moving vehicle in Borehamwood.

Angela Scanlon and Carlos Gu on Strictly' (BBC)

The outcome of the report is currently unknown. The BBC declined The Independents request for comment.

In 2021, Scanlon was part of a serious car crash involving a private ambulance and two other cars.

The presenter was taken to hospital but released shortly afterward, with a witness saying at the time: People looked shocked and shook up. The damage to the Addison Lee was quite bad and the ambulance itself had to be taken away. It was shocking. The ambulance arrived quickly and took Angela away.

During Strictlys first live show on Saturday (23 September), Scanlon and Gu found themselves in the middle of the leaderboard with 23 points after performing a Tango.

No one went home in week one, with the judges scores carrying over into this Saturdays (30 September) show. Viewers will then vote on their favourite couples, with the bottom two facing the dance-off and the judges voting on who stays in the competition.

You can read the biggest talking points from week one here.

Strictly Come Dancing continues Saturday 30 September at 6.20pm on BBC One.
Kent Rychel, an instructor with the Colorado Scuba Diving Academy, works with eighth grader Logan Schafer while teaching scuba diving to students in a 'Coralition' intensive from Polaris Expeditionary Learning School on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, at Edora Pool Ice Center in Fort Collins, Colo.

Luka Ruble and Kai Blumenthal are interested in marine biology. Emma Goodman enjoys snorkeling and has seen first-hand the damage to fragile coral reefs caused by humans.

Matt Strand became involved in coral restoration through his wife, who grew up in Florida and spent a lot of time in Key Largo.

So, when Strand, a founding teacher at Polaris Expeditionary Learning School in Fort Collins, was putting together one of the schools Intensive Weeks  an in-depth experiential learning opportunity  he focused on the restoration of coral reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Polaris pauses its usual instructional schedule for three times each year  in September, March and May  for its Intensive Weeks, where staff members design and lead weeklong courses in a topic they are passionate about, principal Starr Hill said.

The intensives, as students and staff call them, are for the middle and high school students at Polaris, a Poudre School District option school serving grades K-12. Polaris and PSDs other option schools  Traut Core Knowledge Elementary and Kinard Core Knowledge Middle School  dont have specific neighborhood boundaries but are open to all students through the school-choice application process.

While Strand, a middle-school English teacher with a Ph.D. in educational leadership, was working with the Colorado Scuba Diving Academy last week to get the 16 students in his Coralition intensive certified in open water scuba diving for a March trip to do coral restoration work in the Florida Keys, other secondary students at Polaris were participating in a wide range of other experiential learning opportunities.

More: Incumbent misses deadline, leaving challenger unopposed in PSD school board election

Some students were mountain biking on trails at Lory State Park one day and a track in Erie another. A group of middle schoolers was on a backpacking trip and another group of students was on a canoe trip in Escalante Canyon on the Gunnison River.

One of our expeditionary learning design principles is helping students do more than they think they can, Hill said. They also learn self-discovery, empathy, caring for people in your group and form a connection to nature and the natural world.

Not all intensives fall into the adventure category, she said, and most do not require the additional expense to students associated with Strands project and others that require travel by air and multiple overnight stays.

There was a Fall Frenzy group, Hill said, that went to Tigges Farm in Greeley to help with community service events, clear a pumpkin patch and learn how to set up a corn maze. That group also took the Fort Collins Ghost Tour in Old Town, held a chili cookoff and walked to The Lyric to see a scary movie.

Students in a 'Coralition' intensive at Polaris Expeditionary Learning School take off their masks and regulators on Sept. 18 while working with instructors from the Colorado Scuba Diving Academy at Edora Pool Ice Center in Fort Collins.

Another group of students was involved in a Food for Thought intensive that included learning more about where food comes from, planning and preparing a meal for $20 or less and volunteer work with Vindeket Foods, a nonprofit food rescue organization that partners with grocery stores, restaurants and farms to distribute food to those in need that would otherwise go to waste.

The opportunities are as varied as the interests of the schools teaching staff, Hill said, noting that previous intensives have taken students to the Arctic Circle, Peru, France, Hawaii and New York City.

A previous favorite of Ruble, a sophomore, was centered around Denvers art scene, allowing students to explore murals, art galleries and museums in the city while learning about the surrounding culture and history.

Goodman, an eighth grader, was particularly fond of a cosplay intensive, where students created their own characters and background stories and then made costumes depicting each one to wear during a presentation at the end.

Polaris sixth and ninth graders did their September intensives as a group, with overnight stays at Sylvan Dale Ranch in Loveland and Curt Gowdy State Park near Cheyenne, respectively, to help them transition to middle and high school, Hill said.

More: Poudre School District outpaces Colorado averages in recovery from COVID-19 learning loss

Students in the Coralition intensive began their open-water scuba certification process in the swimming pool at Edora Pool Ice Center last Monday and Tuesday, working with instructors from the Colorado Scuba Diving Academy. They completed the certification with a road trip to the Homestead Crater in Utah, scuba diving in the warm, geothermal spring-fed water for two hours after arriving Thursday and two more hours before returning home Friday.

The students will continue meeting weekly after school to learn more about coral reefs  the life they support, the impact warmer water through climate change is having on them and restoration efforts  for the next several months.

The way I design it is theyre developing kind of a base background knowledge, but then they choose a specialization, Strand said. It might be the biology side, it might be the restoration methodology side, it might be the climate change side.

In March, theyll travel to the Florida Keys Natural Marine Sanctuary to participate in Mission: Iconic Reefs, a large-scale effort led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to restore seven selected reefs to self-sustaining levels by 2040. Theyll use their scuba diving skills to explore the reefs and, working with the nonprofit Coral Restoration Foundation, glue finger-sized fragments of elkhorn and staghorn corals  grown in offshore nurseries and tagged with genetic, species and location information  to the live rock substrate using a marine epoxy, Strand said.

Students in a 'Coralition' intensive at Polaris Expeditionary Learning School work with an instructor from Colorado Scuba Diving Academy on Sept. 18 at Edora Pool Ice Center in Fort Collins.

Since 2019, CRF has out-planted more than 120,000 critically endangered staghorn and elkhorn corals back onto the Florida Reef Tract, reads a 2021 article for the National Earth Science Teacher Association that Strand co-authored with Derek Hagen, Coral Restoration Foundations education program manager. Many of these corals have now grown into thriving colonies with the ability to spawn, encouraging the reefs natural process of propagation.

That article was written about a Polaris Coralition intensives work there in 2019. Blumenthals older brother was on that trip, sparking the eighth graders interest in participating this year, he said.

Goodman said she has seen the damage done to coral reefs bleached by unusually warm water and damaged by human hands while snorkeling with her family off the coast of Mexico.

I want to do what I can to save them before its too late, she said.

Following their work in Florida, the students in this years Coralition intensive  the first since 2019  will prepare a presentation to share with other students in their school and, possibly, the community at large.

We want them to become that informed voice and inspire others, Strand said. This 14- or 15-year-old kid is doing this and working hard to make a difference, so what am I doing?

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins students learning scuba to repair coral reefs in Florida
The U.S. Air Force's famed museum in Dayton, Ohio has acquired a Soviet-designed Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker. This is hardly the first time its had gotten a foreign-made, once adversarial aircraft to put on display. However, this jet, a two-seat Su-27UB Flanker-C , has a famously murky history and is widely believed to have spent the last decade or so in the top-secret world of what the U.S. military calls Foreign Material Exploitation , or FME, quite likely out at Area 51.

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force announced the acquisition of the Su-27UB on social media today and released pictures of the aircraft sitting outside one of its hangars. Though a full view of the Flanker-C is not provided, the aircraft's particular camouflage scheme and Soviet-style 'bort' number of the nose  Blue 32  are identical to those found on one that had been on the U.S. civil register as N132SU for a number of years.

The National Musem of the U.S. Air Force's latest acquisition. USAF

N132SU was first registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2009. The jet and a second Su-27UB, which was registered as N131SU, were purchased on the open market from Ukraine and subsequently put up for sale in the United States by a company then called Pride Aircraft, Inc.

A picture of N131SU, which carried the same type of camouflage scheme as N132SU, but had the bort number Blue 31, circa 2009-2010. Pride Aircraft

The Su-27s were the first available for sale to a civilian in the United States and drew a lot of attention and interest. Pride Aircraft widely publicized such a unique offering and the progress being made readying them for sale. The price?Just under $5M per jet  a steal when you think about it now.

Both Flankers were in very good condition having received much care in Ukraine, including zero time engines, before being shipped to the U.S. via An-124 airlifter. More work was done by Pride to fully demilitarize the jets and prepare them for a new buyer that would own the highest performance jet warbird, or warbirds, ever sold to a private individual in the United States.

Then everything went dark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsoo9B029o

Sometime between March and April 2011, that company updated its website to say that both aircraft had been sold, but did not say to who and nobody knew of any major collector or operator who purchased them. It was a widely discussed mystery in warbird and military aviation circles.

Then N131SU and N132SU, both of which were officially registered to a company in Delaware called Meridican, Inc., fell completely out of public view. FAA's website says it only canceled those registrations in 2018 when they expired, but does not provide any additional as to who has been operating the jets over the years or what happened to them afterward.

The War Zone has reached out to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and Meridican Capital, which appears related to Meridican, Inc. Meridican Capital, which has offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and San Francisco Franciso, California, describes itself as an "investments and advisory services" firm focused on the aerospace and defense industries, among other things.

Another view of Blue 32 at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. USAF

Private "red air" adversary support contractor Tactical Air Support , or TacAir, may have had a hand in operating one or both of these jets for a time. The company's website does have an Su-27 aircraft page and says elsewhere that "we operate, or have operated, customer-owned aircraft up to, and including fourth-generation fighter aircraft such as the F-16 and SU-27."

For years on its website, even after the jets had been sold, Pride Aircraft dismissed as nothing more than "rumors and whispers" that the two Su-27s would be used for any kind of military purpose. Yet nobody had seen these giant fighters since they disappeared off Pride Aircraft's ramp. They vanished completely.

However, it is widely believed that the two ex-Ukrainian Flanker-Cs made their way into the U.S. military's FME ecosystem and to the Air Force's secretive Groom Lake test facility, better known as Area 51. FME involves the acquisition through various means, including open sale via 'cutout' entities, of foreign aircraft and other materiel for very deep hands-on intelligence analysis, including testing and reverse engineering, as you can read more about here .

Since the end of the Cold War, Ukraine has been an important source for the United States for Soviet-designed weapon systems, including aircraft, and other equipment . The country has more recently provided valuable examples of more modern Russian materiel as a byproduct of the current conflict there .

Aircraft, in particular, acquired for FME purposes are often also utilized for test and evaluation and training purposes . Having actual examples of threat-representative jets and other weapon systems offers an extremely valuable level of realism that cannot be achieved through simulations and surrogates. Just seeing a real foreign adversary aircraft up close for the first time in simulated combat can offer major advantages, including getting over 'buck fever' caused by actually encountering the thing you have trained so hard to defeat.

For decades now, the Air Force has acquired and maintained an evolving fleet of foreign combat jets for FME and related activities. The service's squadron responsible for actually flying these aircraft today, a fleet believed to include Su-27s and MiG-29 Fulcrums , is known by the nickname the Red Hats and is understood to be based at Area 51 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf8d41Kz2ng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnpFligM-Y4

In 2017, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Eric "Doc" Schultz, who was potentially the commander of the Red Hats at the time, died in an accident near Area 51 involving an unknown aircraft. In 2022, author Steve Davies, citing multiple unnamed sources, provided a lengthy account of the incident in a video on his YouTube channel 10 Percent True , wherein he stated that Schultz had been at the controls of an Su-27UB Flanker-C at the time. Davies literally wrote the book on another top-secret Air Force FME squadron, the Red Eagles, which is heavily tied to the Red Hats .

The current status of the Flanker previously known as N131SU is unknown. There is no indication one way or the other that it was the aircraft involved in the 2017 crash, but it has not reappeared as its sister jet has.

Pride Aircraft

So why would this once pristine Flanker come out of the darkness and into the light, at the USAF's crown jewel of a museum no less? That is unclear. It is possible that the U.S. military's needs for this Su-27UB has been met and/or whatever programs they were supporting have been shuttered. It's also possible that it has been replaced with something else. Other factors could have put the aircraft out of action as well, such a over-stressing the airframe. We just don't know at this time.

The Su-27 is much more of a known commodity now, regardless, and much of its capabilities and even its design can likely be digitally simulated. At the same time, as already noted, there is really no substitute for having real materiel to work with, which would have been why N132SU and its cousin were acquired in the first place.

No matter what, it is extremely interesting that this shadowy jet has reappeared after all these years at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. This would not be the first time an aircraft from the Air Force's FME world has ended up in Dayton. Its MiG-23MS Flogger-E swing-wing combat jet is publicly acknowledged to have come from the Red Eagles' fleet. Other examples of past FME aircraft, from MiG-21s to MiG-29s, are scattered around USAF installations.

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force's ex-Red Eagles MiG-23MS Flogger-E combat jet. USAF

What details now emerge about the history of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force's newly acquired Su-27 remain to be seen, but the fact that it has resurfaced after years of mystery is certainly a great twist in its already intriguing story.

The War Zone will definitely be following up with any new information we obtain.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
Spicy Margari-Tea

A sweet and spicy twist on a classic sweet tea recipe  sign us up.

Ingredients

Suggested Glassware: lowball/rocks glass

3 oz Gold Peak Sweet Tea

1 oz hot honey syrup (combine equal parts hot honey and warm water)

 oz lemon juice

 oz lime juice

Hot honey, for the rim

Salt, for the rim

The Brew Normal

If you love ginger and citrus, this mocktail is for you.

Ingredients

Suggested Glassware: lowball/rocks glass

2 oz Gold Peak Unsweetened Tea

1  oz mango juice

 oz ginger syrup

 oz lime juice

Lime wheel, for garnish

In Too Steep

Herbs and spices take this tea recipe to the next level.

Ingredients

Suggested Glassware: highball/collins

 oz Lime Juice

4 Cucumber rounds

3 Rosemary sprigs

4 oz Gold Peak Zero Sugar Tea

1  oz Sparkling Water

Raspberry Mar-Tea-Ni

Antioxidants are galore with all of the raspberry flavors and goodness.

Ingredients

Suggested Glassware: martini/coupe glass

1 oz Gold Peak California Raspberry Tea syrup*

 oz Lemon juice

3 oz Ginger Beer

Raspberries, for garnish

Coconut-Tea Peach Punch

Get a taste of the islands with this mocktail.

Ingredients

Suggested Glassware: lowball/collins

1 oz Cream of Coconut

5-7 Mint leaves

2 oz Gold Peak Georgia Peach Tea

2 oz Coconut Water

Mint sprig, for garnish

As you can see, there are so many innovative options for how tea can be the ingredient of choice for your next mocktail situation, and Gold Peak has so many flavors that can make choices limitless.

Click here to get full recipe details for the above mocktails and learn more about how Gold Peak tea can be a staple in your golden hour food and beverage experience.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabamas emergency bid Tuesday to block lower court rulings, which required the state to redraw its seven-seat congressional map to include a second Black majority district. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

Sept. 26 (UPI) -- In a ruling that could affect the 2024 elections, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabama's emergency bid Tuesday to block lower court rulings, requiring the state to redraw its seven-seat congressional map to include a second Black majority district.

The justices issued a one-line ruling, stating the Supreme Court's opinion had not changed since June when it issued a 5-4 decision that Alabama Republicans had discriminated against Black voters in their redrawn congressional district map.

Lower court rulings invalidated the latest GOP map, which still showed only one Black majority district despite the state's 27% Black population, calling it a clear violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Alabama currently has six Republicans and one Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

After June's ruling, Alabama GOP lawmakers approved a second congressional map, again with only one Black majority district. A three-judge district court, where two of the judges were appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled that the lawmakers had defied their instructions to draw a second Black majority district.

"We are deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires," wrote the judges, who ordered a cartographer and special master to submit three proposed maps. The maps were submitted Monday by Special Master Richard Allen.

"The court gutted the state's discretion to apply traditional redistricting principles in 2023, by expressly refusing to defer to them when they didn't yield the 'right' racial results," Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, argued in response.

"The 2023 plan departed from existing district lines to unify the Black Belt, it split the minimum number of county lines necessary to equalize population among districts and it made the map significantly more compact through changes to each district," Marshall said.

The ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which challenged both district maps, urged the justices to reject the redrawn boundaries, arguing the maps diluted Black voting power.

Following Tuesday's Supreme Court decision, the plaintiffs -- represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- issued a statement, saying, "Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district."

"It has been a long and frustrating battle holding the Alabama legislature accountable, but today it is a rewarding one," the plaintiffs said. "Even after the highest court in the land sided with Black voters in June, our elected officials still chose power over people by outright defying multiple court orders, and the loud cries of their constituents to do the right thing."

"Despite these shameful efforts, the Supreme Court has once again agreed that Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district. This additional representation in Congress will undoubtedly change lives, especially for the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians residing in the Black Belt who suffer from lack of healthcare access, job opportunities, and crumbling infrastructure. We look forward to a new era in our state's history, in which power is shared and Black voices are heard."

"Our elected officials still chose power over people by outright defying multiple court orders. Despite these shameful efforts, the Supreme Court has once again agreed that Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district." https://t.co/Q3gCztO9jb pic.twitter.com/ZL8Gp1EkUf Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) September 26, 2023
N.C. Central University police are investigating a sexual assault reported on campus early Wednesday morning in Durham.

Police were notified of a sexual battery incident reported in Benjamin Ruffin Residence Hall at 1:37 a.m., according to a campus crime log.

The incident was classified in the crime log as Sexual Assault-Fondling.

A suspect has been identified by campus police, but is not yet in custody, the university said in a statement.

A woman said a man grabbed her arm in the bathroom and touched her sexually without her consent.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NCCU Police Department at 919-530-6106.

In a statement, the university said campus police offer Rape Aggression Defense training, which includes lectures, discussions and self-defense instruction.

NCCU advises students:

Ask for and receive affirmative consent before engaging in any activity. NCCUs Student Code of Conduct, Policy 40.13.1, Section 5.5 defines consent.

Always be aware of your surroundings and the people your come in contact with.

Avoid walking alone if possible. Walk in groups of four or more and try to stay in well-populated areas. Try to avoid working late at night alone, if so lock your doors.

Do not wear earbuds, headphones or listen to music while walking alone.

If you are alone at night and someone is following you or someone is in your residence hall or work area you dont know, go to the nearest safe business, residence or place and call the police for help. Stay on the phone until the police arrive.

If someone in a car is following you, turn and walk in the other direction.

Never prop open entry doors to your residence hall, and never let someone you dont know into your residence hall.

Stay away from alleys, shrubbery, dark shadows near buildings, and short cuts through parks, vacant lots and deserted areas.

Contact the police if you feel unsafe or threatened in any situation.

Trust your instinct.

Use caution when utilizing social media dating applications.

Safety Escort Services and Shuttle Services are available as alternatives to walking alone. For safety escorts contact University Police at 919-530-6106. For shuttle services please contact Transportation at 919-530-3287.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Memphis Police are searching for two suspects who fired shots at people in a parking lot last week.

On September 21, at around 9:30 p.m., officers responded to a shooting in the 5900 block of Poplar Avenue. Two suspects in a two-door gray Infiniti Q60 fired shots at the victims.

Officers captured the license plate. It had Mississippi tags reading #1M55R.

There were no injuries on the scene, but property was damaged, police say.

This remains an ongoing investigation. Anyone with information is urged to call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
PHILADELPHIA, Pa (WPHL)  Homicide detectives with the Philadelphia Police Department are working to investigate a suspicious death at a hotel near the citys airport.

The victim, a 66-year-old woman, was found unresponsive with a cloth in her mouth in her room at the Marriott Airport Hotel on Monday night, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia police told News 2s parent company, Nexstar, in an emailed statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterward.

8 hospitalized after sudden severe turbulence on Florida-bound flight

The department has classified the case as a suspicious death, according to the email. Her body has been transferred to the local medical examiner.

American Airlines has since confirmed the 66-year-old had been employed as a flight attendant for the carrier.

No reasonable excuse: TSA says man blamed wife for prohibited item in bag

We are devastated by this news, a representative for American Airlines wrote in a statement shared with Nexstar. Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues, and were doing everything we can to ensure all affected have the support they need during this difficult time. We will continue to cooperate fully with local law enforcement in their investigation.

The victim had not been publicly identified by police or American Airlines as of Wednesday afternoon. Police also confirmed no arrests had been made.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

The investigation is active and ongoing with the Homicide Detectives Division, police said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
Fans of sweet heat will want to make a stop at McDonalds next month when the fast food behemoth unveils two new limited-time dipping sauces.

On Oct. 9, McDonalds will release two new sauces, each offering a sweet and spicy promise, but each with its own sweet and spicy flavor profile.

Promotional image of McDonald's Mambo Sauce and Sweet & Spicy Jam, which are set to debut for a limited time on Oct. 9, 2023.

The first sauce is a breakfast-inspired Sweet & Spicy Jam Sauce, which is a thick red pepper sauce with a tongue-numbing Szechuan peppercorn kick with an acidic finish courtesy of apple cider vinegar.

McDonalds corporate chefs recommend pairing the sauce with a McMuffin, McNuggets or a McCrispy chicken sandwich.

The second sauce is a spin on a regional favorite. Mambo Sauce, which is tomato-based, with sweet, spicy and vinegar notes, is inspired by a beloved sauce in the Washington D.C. area.

Chefs recommend pairing that sauce with a Quarter Pounder with cheese, hash browns, and nuggets of a McCrispy.

Both sauces are no-brainer pairings with the fast food companys world-famous French fries, McDonalds said.

Tariq Hassan, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at McDonalds USA, said the fast food giant regularly gets inspiration from the taste and flavors found across the country.

Sweet & Spicy Jam and Mambo Sauce live at the intersection of flavor and culture  pulling from decades of rich food history and tradition in local restaurants and home kitchens, and bringing the delicious spice, sweetness and kick of heat we know todays customers are craving, Hassan said.

McDonalds is running a social media blitz to promote the new sauces, teaming up with food content creators to get the word out. The company will also release an original documentary that tells the stories of real-life sauce makers and small business owners in the D.C. and Chicago regions.

That documentary will be released on YouTube on Oct. 9, in conjunction with the sauce debuts.

Panda Express launches new entree nationwide

McDonalds has released other limited-time sauces in recent years. In 2017, McDonalds re-released a Szechuan-style sauce that first came out in the 1990s alongside the Disney animated film Mulan.

That sauce saw a resurgence in popularity following an episode of the animated comedy Rick and Morty.

McDonalds released the sauce in stores for a limited time, leading to a social media firestorm, a shortage and public outcry after swarms of fans of the show were seen making a scene at stores across the country. The bad behavior by fans led to the shows creator calling out bad actors and rowdy fans for treating fast food workers poorly and overreacting.

Its just a f*cking dipping sauce, he said to TMZ.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will still have to accept the resignation of Office for Transportation Security (OTS) Administrator Ma. O Aplasca since the latter is his appointee, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said on Wednesday.

DOTr added that Aplascas resignation letter is still being processed for submission to Malacanang.

It was addressed to the President. Being a presidential appointee, acceptance of his resignation will be up to the President, the DOTr wrote in a statement.

If Marcos gives his go signal, the second highest ranking OTS official will become officer-in-charge, the department noted.

Based on the organizational structure posted on the OTS website, the second-in-command is the offices deputy administrator Jose Briones Jr.

On Tuesday, Aplasca confirmed that he tendered his courtesy resignation after House Speaker Martin Romualdez called on him to step down from his post.

The call came in the wake of the alleged $300-dollar theft by a screening officer at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Aplasca earlier expressed surprise at Romualdez's call, saying he had "done nothing wrong" and that "corrupt officials should instead be asked to resign."
A man is facing a slew of criminal charges in connection with a knife attack that left five police officers injured, including one officer who had to be flown to a Boston hospital with multiple stab wounds, officials said.

The suspect, who the Bristol District Attorneys Office identified as 35-year-old Douglas Hagerty, of Taunton, is slated to be arraigned Wednesday in Taunton District Court on charges including three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of malicious damage to a motor vehicle, and one count each of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon-causing serious bodily injury, armed assault with intent to murder, resisting arrest, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and failure to stop for police.

The officer who was flown to Boston suffered serious stab wounds to the face and back of the head, but are not life-threatening, according to Taunton Police Chief Edward Walsh. A total of four other officers were stabbed trying to get the knife away from the suspect.

According to Walsh, around 6:45 p.m., Taunton officers pulled a car over. The suspect -- not involved with that stop -- pulled alongside, shouted at the officers and sped away. A short time later, that suspect was seen driving erratically and officers pulled him over. The suspect sped off again, almost hitting an officer.

Police ultimately pursued the suspect until he crashed into a house and chased the suspect inside, where Walsh said the suspect stabbed the five officers. Walsh, who lives nearby, responded and tased the suspect, helping get him into custody.

A lot of the officers were shaken up by this, Walsh said. Especially, based on the injuries they saw to their coworkers, so were trying to deal with that as well with their mental health as well.

Taunton Mayor Shaunna OConnell added, When our police officers are injured and hurt that affects the entire department that affects the entire community and we stand by our law enforcement officers.

The suspect, whose name hasnt been released, was also taken to a local hospital. He will be booked and will face a number of charges.

Walsh noted that the suspect is known to neighboring police departments.

An investigation remains ongoing.

DEVELOPING: the @TauntonPolice Chief says a suspect stabbed an officer. He was flown to a Boston hospital with serious stab wounds to the face and the back of his head. Four other officers were stabbed trying to get the knife away. The suspect was tased and is in custody. pic.twitter.com/cUd4wjEOFQ  Kelly Sullivan (@ksullivannews) September 27, 2023

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
TAUNTON  The man accused of attacking several Taunton police officers with a knife has been identified as Douglas Hagerty, 35, of Taunton, the Bristol County district attorney's office said.

Hagerty was set to be arraigned Wednesday in Taunton District Court on the following charges: three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of malicious damage to a motor vehicle and one count each of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, armed assault with intent to murder, resisting arrest, reckless driving and failure to stop for Police.

Several Taunton police officers were stabbed by the suspect Tuesday evening and one was flown to a Boston hospital, Taunton Police Chief Edward Walsh said.

That officer appeared to be seriously injured but the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, Walsh said in an interview with the Gazette. The other three to four officers received more minor wounds and were treated at local hospitals, he said during a press conference.

Another officer was able to quickly pull that officer out to safety, Walsh said in his interview with the Gazette.

Walsh said in his interview with the Gazette, his understanding is that there was a car chase that ended with the suspect crashing his vehicle into a house at 55 West Britannia St. The suspect then ran inside and when the officers went in after him, the suspect immediately started stabbing one of them.

A Taunton police officer was stabbed on West Britannia Street on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, Chief Edward Walsh said.

When police went back in the house to apprehend the suspect, the suspect ran out of the house.

And as he was coming out he attempted to stab the chief in the abdomen with a large steak knife, Walsh said in his interview with the Gazette. But the knife deflected off something and the chief said he ended up with just a minor cut.

Taunton tow trucks face scrutiny Are Taunton tow trucks doing their jobs after crashes? Police investigating. Here's why.

At that point, the chief said he "tased" the suspect, which incapacitated him, and he was placed in custody, Walsh said.

In the interview Tuesday night, Walsh praised his officers for showing remarkable restraint in a very difficult situation and said his thoughts were with his injured officer.

Police are not releasing the name of the suspect but believe he was returning to his house, according to details Walsh provided at a press conference.

Taunton police chief Edward Walsh and mayor Shaunna O'Connell presser on West Britannia Street on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023.

Why was the suspect fleeing from Taunton police

Walsh described his understanding of the sequences of events during a press conference Tuesday night. He said, the suspect allegedly stopped at the site of another car stop. One he had no connection to. Police say that the original motorist stopped was cooperative with police.

Officers involved in that car stop told him to leave and he did. A short while later, about 6:45 p.m., other officers attempted to stop the suspect on County Street because they believed he was driving erratically. The suspect failed to stop and fled from police resulting in the car chase and the incident at the West Britannia home.

Taunton police officer stabbed on West Britannia Street on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023.

The chief said the suspect was also transported to the hospital where he was treated for minor injuries. He is expected to be in police custody overnight and arraigned in court on Wednesday morning on multiple felonies.

Walsh said the suspect was known to police departments in the area.

There is no danger to the community, according to police on Tuesday night. But they added that residents in the area of West Britannia Street will notice an increased police presence during the investigation.

The suspect was the only person in the car. A second person who was hiding during the incident was removed from the home, according to Walsh's press conference.

Walsh was also treated at the hospital for his injury.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Taunton police injured in stabbing after car hits West Britannia home
Taylor Schabusiness has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the brutal murder of her lover Shad Thyrion, in a case that sent shockwaves across America.

In February 2022, Schabusiness, 25, strangled Thyrion, 24, during a meth-fuelled sex tryst before sexually assaulting his corpse. She decapitated him and dumped his head in a bucket for his traumatised mother to find inside her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

At her sentencing, where she appeared in a spit hood, Schabusiness was asked if she had anything to tell the court.

She responded with just two words: There isnt.

The judge heard from Schabusiness family members, who said the troubled mother-of-one had a promising life before she was introduced to hard drugs by her husband.

Shes not the monster that shes made out to be, her father, who is serving time for a child rape conviction, said.

Thyrions uncle Kelly Thyrion said that he hoped Schabusiness faced the same fate as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

I will pray that you meet the same fate as your idol Jeffrey Dahmer, he said. So have a great life, S***business.

Key points

What to expect at Taylor Schabusiness sentencing today

Taylor Schabusiness convict father to return to court to speak at sentencing

Taylor Schabusiness dumped victims head in bucket

Moment killer scowls as jury delivers guilty verdict

Taylor Schabusiness decapitated and mutilated her lover in a meth-fueled tryst. Then she bragged to police

Tuesday 26 September 2023 22:22 , Andrea Blanco

Nothing could have prepared Tara Pakanich for what she encountered in the early morning hours of 23 February 2022. Inside a green bucket covered with a shower towel at her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was the mutilated head of her 24-year-old son Shad Thyrion.

Thyrions torso, penis and carved-out organs were later found by law enforcement in her basement. The gruesome nature of the murder was on full display in court as married mother-of-one Taylor Schabusiness went on trial charged with his murder in July.

A jury took just 30 minutes to convict her on all counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault in Thyrions death. Then two months later, Schabusiness was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Schabusiness, 25, and her victim knew each other since middle school and had been involved in an extra-marital sexual relationship, she told law enforcement. On the fateful day of Thyrions death, they had been consuming methamphetamines and prescription drugs.

Heres everything we know about the case:

She decapitated her lover in a meth-fueled tryst. Then she bragged to police

Taylor Schabusiness speaks just two words as shes jailed for life for lovers meth-fueled murder

Tuesday 26 September 2023 19:17 , Andrea Blanco

Taylor Schabusiness has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the gruesome murder of her lover last year.

The convicted murderer was brought into the courtroom wearing an anti-spitting hood, following previous episodes in court in which she became violent towards her own counsel. When asked by Judge Thomas Walsh if she had anything to tell the court before he handed down her sentence, Schabusiness only uttered two words: There isnt.

Judge Walsh slammed a written statement by Schabusiness father, in which he argued that the system had failed his daughter. The judge said that while he sympathised with Schabusiness struggles, her heinous actions and unpredictable behaviour warranted her to be imprisoned for life.

Read more:

Taylor Schabusiness speaks just two words at meth murder sentencing

Judge says system did not fail Schabusiness, as her father suggested

Tuesday 26 September 2023 19:08 , Andrea Blanco

Judge Walsh slammed a written statement by Schabusiness father, in which he argued that the system had failed his daughter.

Its not the systems job to raise peoples children. Our fight against methamphetamines is not perfect but we carry on, Judge Walsh said. To suggest that it is somehow the system that failed ... it disturbed me when I read that piece. It really starts in the home. Im convinced that its no ones fault where they came from, but it is their responsibility where they go from there.

Schabusiness turns down chance to address the court

Tuesday 26 September 2023 19:03 , Andrea Blanco

When asked by Judge Thomas Walsh if she had anything to tell the court before he handed down her sentence, Schabusiness only uttered two words: There isnt.

Taylor Schabusiness started drinking at age six, defence says

Tuesday 26 September 2023 18:51 , Andrea Blanco

Schabusiness attorney said that her client had a long history of substance abuse, which had ultimately triggered her violent actions on the night that she killed Shad Thyrion.

The attorney said that she had started smoking marijuana at age 14 and then went on to use cocaine, meth, crack and other hard drugs.

I think it would be a tragedy to give her life in prison without the possibility of parole, he said. I dont think my client liked doing this or wanted to do it. I dont think she could fathom what she did.

Thyrions uncle wishes Jeffrey Dahmers death on Schabusiness

Tuesday 26 September 2023 18:35 , Andrea Blanco

Meanwhile, Thyrions uncle Kelly Thyrion said in her victim impact statement that he hopes Schabusiness faces the same fate as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who was beaten to death in prison.

I dont see no reason why you should have parole, he told her. You did the most cowardly, wicked thing possible ... After Judge Walsh sentences you today, I will pray that you meet the same fate as your idol Jeffrey Dahmer. So have a great life S***business.

Thyrions murder was one of the most egregious and incomprehensible'

Tuesday 26 September 2023 18:22 , Andrea Blanco

Prosecutors commended Mr Thyrions attitude, noting that his sons murder was one of the most egregious and incomprehensible methods of ending someones life.

This was not just one bad choice but continued bad choices throughout the night and the next day when she was finally arrested, prosecutors said. We saw her calmly describe what she engaged in ... at times even smirking. She told law enforcement that it happened because she liked it, it happened because she wanted to do it.

Michael Thyrion, father of Schabusinesss murder victim, gives victim impact statement

Tuesday 26 September 2023 18:12 , Andrea Blanco

I forgive you for what you did to my son, Mr Thyrion said. Im going to miss Shad. Im going to ask the judge if you can see the streets sometimes, it might not be soon. Everybody makes bad choices, maybe not to this degree.

I think there is a lot of hope for you, and I think you can use your time to be a better person and do good things. I know you got a heart, I wish you no harm and I hope things go well for you.

Court takes recess

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:55 , Andrea Blanco

The court will be back in 15 minutes.

Ive never heard of that much methamphetamine before'

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:48 , Andrea Blanco

Schabusiness defence also called pharmacist Dr James ODonnell to the stand. The doctor said that Schabusiness had likely suffered a drug-induced psychosis after taking 51 hits of methamphetamines.

Mr ODonell highlighted that the phrasing often referred to smoking, but that Schabusiness had also injected herself with meth. He said that while he wasnt sure how many grams of meth 51 hits are, the quantity seem extremely large.

Ive never heard of that much methamphetamine use, Mr ODonnell said, noting that Schabusiness had built resistance after using meth and marijuana nearly every day. The chronic use caused constant daily injuries to the brain function and chemistry ... even without continued use, there is already chronic damage

During cross-examination, prosecutors said that Dr ODonnnell had not witnessed the 51 hits of methamphetamines and that Schabusiness had been the one to relay that information.

Meth use can lead to violent behaviour

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:40 , Rachel Sharp

Meth use can lead to violent behaviour, he says.

The more meth an individual uses, the more violent someone can become, he confirms.

Details of Schabusiness mental illnesses and drug use

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:37 , Rachel Sharp

Dr ODonnell reveals details of her mental illnesses and drug use.

He says that Schabusiness has several mental health disorders including PTSD, major depression disroder, bipolar disorder and ADHD.

He says that while her mental illnesses are not drug-induced  as she continues to suffer them despite now having no access to drugs  drugs can enhance the negative consequences of her mental illnesses.

Methamphetamine especially exacerbates bipolar disorder, he says, saying that it impacts brain chemistry, cognition, thinking, control of behaviour, risk-taking and memory.

Dr ODonnell reveals toll of meth use

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:25 , Rachel Sharp

Dr ODonnell says he reviewed Schabusiness, looking at what impact methamphetamine use would have on her mental illness and what impact her mental illness would have on her drug use.

Schabusiness was using marijuana daily and methamphetamine almost daily in the lead-up to the murder, he says.

He says she told him this was her habit for two years  except pausing use while pregnant.

Meth use can cause hallucinations and drug-induced psychosis, he says.

Loss of touch with reality... delusions... what they do makes no sense, what they say makes no sense... to use an old term theyre out of it, he says of the impact of meth on an individual.

WATCH: Moment Taylor Schabusiness appears for sentencing

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:16 , Rachel Sharp

Next witness: Dr James ODonnell

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:11 , Rachel Sharp

The next witness is Dr James ODonnell, an expert on the effects of drug abuse on an individual including methamphetamine.

Dr James ODonnell (Law & Crime)

Drugs mess people up'

Tuesday 26 September 2023 17:03 , Rachel Sharp

Schabusiness father says that her daughter was always a good kid but has made mistakes.

Her whole life she was a good kid, he says.

Drugs mess people up.

Coronado says that his daughter has a drug abuse problem and also mental health issues.

He says that she received mental health treatment on and off for years but feels that she fell through the cracks in the system.

At one point, she was admitted to a psychiatric centre and was placed on anti-psychotic drugs.

Next witness: Schabusiness shackled father Arturo Coronado

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:54 , Rachel Sharp

The next witness is Schabusiness father Arturo Coronado.

Coronado appeared in court then in orange prison scrubs and shackles as he is also behind bars after being convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

Arturo Coronado (Law & Crime)

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:49 , Rachel Sharp

Valerie Armor says that  even though they lived in other states  she would see Schabusiness at family events.

Growing up, she says Schabusiness was a happy child.

She says that Schabusiness has always had the support of her family and would have her support if released from prison.

Taylor comes from a loving family. I know her to be loving, to have empathy, she is capable of love, she says.

I believe she has suffered immense trauma in her life.

She points to the loss of Schabusiness mother, her fathers remarriage (she says that Schabusiness was made to live in the basement of the home), her brothers death.

She has trauma history and I believe she has mental health issues... she says.

Even now, Ms Armor says she is there for her cousin and hopes that she can be released later in life and have a relationship with her child.

She is not a lost cause, she says.

Is she a monster? asks Schabusiness attorney.

She is not a monster, says Ms Armor.

Next witness: Schabusiness cousin Valerie Armor

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:40 , Rachel Sharp

Schabusiness cousin Valerie Armor, a married mother-of-five who lives in Ohio, is the next witness speaking in court.

Schabusiness (Law & Crime)

Schabusiness grandmother says she needs help

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:36 , Rachel Sharp

Esther Coronado says that Schabusiness needs help  such as counselling and drug abuse treatment.

In her short life she has gone through a lot she says.

She adds that Schabusiness can be a very caring person but she always ended up getting hurt because she trusted people.

People just used her and she thinks they care but they dont, she says.

Ms Coronado told the court she believes her granddaughter should be given another chance and be sentenced to the possibility of parole.

Schabusiness grandmother speaks about upbringing: She has gone through a lot'

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:27 , Rachel Sharp

Esther Coronado is the mother of Schabusiness father Arturo Coronado.

In 2009, Schabusiness mother died and, not long after, her father remarried a woman who already had children.

Ms Coronado says that Schabusiness felt like she lost her mother and then she lost her dad.

On 1 July 2022, Schabusiness brother then also died in a motorcycle accident.

I think she has gone through a lot in her short time being here, Ms Coronado says of her granddaughter.

There are a lot of thigns... losing her mother, her father remarrying, then her finding herself pregnant and losing her son, then losing her brother.

Thats a lot for one person to take in.

First defence witness: Esther Coronado

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:16 , Rachel Sharp

Schabusiness grandmother Esther Coronado is speaking to the court remotely by Zoom.

She says she used to live in Illinois and helped look after Schabusiness there when she was born.

She later moved to Texas.

In October 2021, Schabusiness gave birth to her baby Mateo in Texas.

Ms Coronado says Schabusiness was excited when she found out about the baby and, when she gave birth, was very happy.

But it didnt last very long as, 24 hours later, CPS took the baby away, she says. It was very hard for her, says Ms Coronado.

Schabusiness moved to a shelter and the baby was later returned to the care of Ms Coronado.

Schabusiness wouldnt be allowed to spend much time with her baby due to court orders, she says.

Now, Ms Coronado and her husband are caregivers of Mateo  and are now adopting the infant.

Esther Coronado (Law & Crime)

Who the court will hear from:

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:06 , Rachel Sharp

Prosecutors say no witnesses will be called for the state but one witness statement will be read out.

Schabusiness attorney Christopher Froelich says he is calling several witnesses including Schabusiness father Arturo Coronado, grandmother Esther Coronado and cousin Valerie Armour.

Expert Dr James ODonnell will also speak on the effects of meth use for the defence.

HAPPENING NOW: Taylor Schabusiness in court for sentencing

Tuesday 26 September 2023 16:02 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness is wearing an orange prison scrubs and what appears to be anti-spit hood or mask.

Taylor Schabusiness in court (Law&Crime)

Taylor Schabusiness sentencing to begin soon

Tuesday 26 September 2023 15:52 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness sentencing was scheduled to begin at 10.30am ET in court in Brown County, Wisconsin.

Heres what to expect:

- Victim impact statements will be read out.

- Schabusiness family members  including her father  are also expected to appear as witnesses.

- Defence attorneys are expected to present mitigating factors including calling an expert to testify about the effects of methamphetamine.

- Schabusiness herself is also expected to speak  marking her first comments to the court.

Convicted killer faces life in prison on charges

Tuesday 26 September 2023 15:25 , Rachel Sharp

Convicted killer Taylor Schabusiness faces life in prison at her sentencing on Tuesday.

In July, the 25-year-old was convicted of: first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault.

Wisconsin does not have the death penalty and so the maximum sentence she faces is life without the possibility of parole.

WATCH: Moment woman accused of decapitating lover attacks lawyer in court

Tuesday 26 September 2023 15:05 , Rachel Sharp

Moment woman accused of decapitating lover attacks her own lawyer in court

Taylor Schabusiness convict father to return to court to speak at sentencing

Tuesday 26 September 2023 14:45 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness father is one of the individuals expected to speak at her sentencing.

Arturo Coronado, 52, previously took the stand to testify in his daughters defence at trial as her attorneys sought to convince jurors that she was not mentally competent.

Coronado appeared in court then in orange prison scrubs and shackles as he is also behind bars after being convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to stay away from the victim and victims family.

Taylor Schabusiness father is on the stand in the penalty phase. pic.twitter.com/qb5yCUropg  Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) July 27, 2023

ICYMI: Taylor Schabusiness scowls as shes convicted of murdering and dismembering lover

Tuesday 26 September 2023 14:27 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness scowled and stared down the jury as she was convicted of murdering and dismembering her lover, sexually assaulting his corpse and then dumping his head in a bucket for his mother to find.

Jurors in Brown County, Wisconsin, took just over 30 minutes to find the 25-year-old guilty on all counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault in the shocking murder of her former boyfriend Shad Thyrion.

As the verdict was read out, Schabusiness scowled and sipped water from a cup.

She then turned in her chair and glowered at the jury as each panel member was asked by the judge if the verdict was true and correct.

Throughout the harrowing three-day trial, the panel heard gruesome testimony of how Schabusiness strangled Thyrion in a meth-fuelled sex tryst back in February 2022.

Catch-up here:

Taylor Schabusiness scowls as shes convicted of murdering and dismembering lover

Taylor Schabusiness told police they'd had fun trying to find all of the organs

Tuesday 26 September 2023 14:05 , Rachel Sharp

After Thyrions mother found her sons head, authorities eventually located Schabusiness  who had removed a GPS tracker from her ankle.

Detective Graf testified that Schabusiness had initially claimed to have blacked out while choking Thyrion, but then allegedly admitted thinking that she regained consciousness and thought she was already this far so she just kept on, referring to choking the victim.

The criminal complaint also read: Schabusiness stated she thought it took 3-5 minutes for the Victim to die. Detective Kempf clarified with Schabusiness that when the Victim began to cough up blood she just did keep on choking the Victim because she wanted to see what happens.

Schabusiness stated she enjoyed choking him and made comments to detectives asking if they knew what it was like to love something so much that you kill it.

Schabusiness allegedly indicated the crime scene and told officers that they would have fun trying to find all of the organs.

Schabusiness entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity entered by her former attorney.

Last year, a physician appointed by the court found that she was able to stand trial. Her attorney said at that time that Schabusiness has been diagnosed as bipolar in the past and that she had been getting mental health treatment since she was in the seventh grade.

However, Brown County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Walsh ruled in March that Schabusiness was competent to stand trial.

In February, Schabusiness attacked her previous attorney during a court hearing before a deputy wrestled her to the courtroom floor.

Schabusinesss current attorney filed a motion to exclude evidence of searches Schabusines made before the murder, including Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy and Jeffrey Dahmers butt. Judge Walsh ruled that the evidence can be admitted in court, but no mention should be made of her searches for satanism.

WATCH: Taylor Schabusiness googled Jeffrey Dahmers butt before killing lover

Tuesday 26 September 2023 13:45 , Rachel Sharp

ICYMI: Woman accused of decapitating her lover attacks lawyer in wild court assault

Tuesday 26 September 2023 13:25 , Rachel Sharp

Back in February, she attacked her own lawyer, Quinn Jolly of Green Bay, in court when the judge said a delay of her trial was needed.

Judge Thomas Walsh found that the trial, set to begin on 6 March, needed to be pushed back to 15 May, if not later.

Ms Schabusiness was less than pleased by the scheduling change and seemingly placed the blame squarely on Mr Jolly.

The 25-year-old was handcuffed when she attacked the attorney and a short fight ensued before an officer in the room scrambled to restrain her.

Read more...

Woman accused of decapitating her lover attacks lawyer in wild court assault

Who was Shad Tyrion?

Tuesday 26 September 2023 13:05 , Rachel Sharp

According to his online obituary, Shad Rock Thyrion, 24, was born September 7th, 1997 in Green Bay, Wisconsin to Tara Pakanich and Michael Thyrion.

Shad attended Howard/Suamico schools as a child and later worked with his father and grandfather at their family businesses.

Shad enjoyed camping, games, and spending time with his family. He was a very kind and compassionate person who often thought of others before himself. A talented artist, he also enjoyed wood carving.

Shad is survived by his mother Tara Pakanich, father Michael Thryion, sister Ava Wheelock, sister Cilivea Sunray Thyrion, and brother Beau Smith, Grandparents Becky and Steve Fisher, Grandfather David J. Pakanich, Grandmother Elaine Williquette, and many aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews, cousins, and friends, the obituary reads.

Shad Tyrion (Shad Tyrion family)

Victims mother found sons decapitated head in a bucket

Tuesday 26 September 2023 12:45 , Rachel Sharp

Shad Tyrions mother Tara Pakanich told the court during Schabusiness trial that she was woken up by a knock on her front door around 2.30am on 23 February 2022.

She went to the basement to check whether Thyrion was there and after not finding him, she went back upstairs and found the bucket with part of her sons remains inside.

Ms Pakanichs boyfriend Steve Hendricks then called 911. Bodycam video of the officers responding to the scene shows them searching the basement of the home and securing the crime scene after confirming that a human head was inside the bucket.

I went downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, to the right, there was a green bucket with a shower towel on top of it. Just to verify we had an actual head in the bucket, lifted the towel off and there was in fact a human head severed head in the bucket, Green Bay police officer Alex Wanish testified during the trial.

The rest of Thyrions body parts were found placed inside plastic bags and cardboard boxes in the basement and in a minivan at the property.

RECAP: Taylor Schabusiness googled Jeffrey Dahmers butt before killing lover

Tuesday 26 September 2023 12:25 , Rachel Sharp

A woman convicted of strangling her lover and dismembering his corpse made chilling searches about Jeffrey Dahmer in the week leading up to the murder.

Taylor Schabusiness, 25, was found guilty Wednesday on charges of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault in the death of 24-year-old Shad Thyrion on 23 February 2022 in Gray Bay, Wisconsin. Schabusiness admitted to choking Thyrion during sex after consuming meth and prescription drugs.

During the three-day trial, detectives told the court about Schabusiness online searches for Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy and Jeffrey Dahmers butt. Although her defence had requested those searches not be admitted as evidence, Brown County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Walsh ruled in the prosecutions favour.

Eleven days before she killed Thyrion, Schabusiness took a bizarre selfie next to a cellphone with an image of the cannibal serial killer.

The most damning evidence against Schabusiness came from disturbingly graphic detail about the way Thyrions body was mutilated. His head and genitals were left inside a bucket that his mother found at her home, while his carved-out torso with a foot stuffed inside and chunks of his flesh were discovered in her basement.

Read the full story:

Taylor Schabusiness googled Jeffrey Dahmers butt before killing, mutilating lover

WATCH: Taylor Schabusiness scowls as shes convicted of killing and dismembering lover

Tuesday 26 September 2023 12:05 , Rachel Sharp

How the murder unfolded

Tuesday 26 September 2023 11:45 , Rachel Sharp

According to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors, Taylor Schabusiness picked up Shad Thyrion from her mothers home around 9.30pm on 21 February 2022. A friend of the couple joined them before they headed to an apartment where the three smoked marijuana.

Schabusiness told police that she and Thyrion also smoked methamphetamine and injected Trazodone. Schabusiness and Thyrion eventually returned to his mothers home and spent the day there while Ms Pakanich was away.

The alleged murderer claimed in an interview with police that she and Thyrion used chains to choke one another as foreplay. This time, she said, she and Thyrion put metal chains on each other.

Thyrion reportedly laid face down in bed before Schabusiness went crazy and repeatedly choked him despite the fact that he was coughing blood and turned purple.

Green Bay Police Detective David Graf testified in court that Schabusiness allegedly admitted to enjoying the ordeal.

Her response was that she liked it, Detective Graf said, according to local news station WBAY.

(Law & Crime Network)

Schabusiness allegedly went on to tell law enforcement that she continued having sex with the dead body for a period of time because she enjoyed it and then gathered kitchen knives with the intention to dismember Thyrion and keep all his body parts, but she got lazy, according to theGreen Bay Press-Gazette.

Detective Graf said that Schabusiness proceeded to use a bucket and a tote bag to collect Thyrons blood, which she then used to shower with. Dane County Medical Examiner Dr Vincent Tranchida also testified in court about the lack of blood on the scene of the murder.

We have decapitation, we have dismemberment, we have transection of the torso, subsequently internally the body has been eviscerated. In other words, we have entered inside the body through various cuts through the abdomen and between the ribs where the victims organs have been removed, largely one by one, he told jurors.

Dr Tranchida also said that one of Thyrions feet had been shoved into his chest cavity and that his back was filleted.

What to expect at the sentencing of Taylor Schabusiness

Tuesday 26 September 2023 11:25 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness will appear in court in Brown County, Wisconsin, at 10.30am ET for her sentencing.

At the hearing, victim impact statements will be read out to the court.

Schabusiness family members are also expected to appear as witnesses and her defence attorneys are expected to present mitigating factors including calling an expert to testify about the effects of methamphetamine.

Schabusiness herself is also expected to speak  marking her first comments to the court.

The judge will then hand down a sentence. She is facing life in prison on the charges.

Everything we know about Taylor Schabusiness case

Tuesday 26 September 2023 11:05 , Rachel Sharp

Nothing could have prepared Tara Pakanich for what she encountered in the early morning hours of 23 February 2022. Inside a green bucket covered with a shower towel at her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was the mutilated head of her 24-year-old son Shad Thyrion.

Thyrions torso, penis and carved-out organs were later found by law enforcement in her basement. The gruesome nature of the murder was on full display in court this week as Taylor Schabusiness went on trial charged with his murder.

In July, a jury took just 30 minutes to convict her on all counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault in Thyrions death. Now, she faces life in prison as the death penalty is not legal in Wisconsin. Her sentencing is set for 26 September.

Schabusiness, 25, and her victim knew each other since middle school and had been involved in a sexual relationship, she told law enforcement. On the fateful day of Thyrions death, they had been consuming methamphetamines and prescription drugs.

But despite Schabusiness attempts to enter not-guilty pleas for reason of insanity, prosecutors honed in on the atrocious evidence they said suggested premeditation.

Over the course of the three-day trial, jurors heard about Schabusiness online searches for Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy as well as how she allegedly preserved Thyrions blood and then showered with it before recounting to detectives how much she liked strangling him.

Throughout the proceedings, she also attacked her own lawyer and was seen smirking as gruesome details about the murder were mentioned.

Heres everything we know about the case:

She decapitated her lover in a meth-fueled tryst. Then she bragged to police

Taylor Schabusiness to be sentenced today for murder of Shad Thyrion

Tuesday 26 September 2023 10:55 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness will be sentenced today for the brutal murder of her lover Shad Thyrion, in a case that sent shockwaves across America.

Back in February 2022, Schabusiness, 25, strangled Thyrion, 24, during a meth-fuelled sex tryst before sexually assaulting his corpse. She then decapitated his body and dumped his head in a bucket for his traumatised mother to find inside her home in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Thyrions torso, penis and organs were also found scattered in the basement while one of his feet was found inside his chest cavity.

During her harrowing three-day trial, Schabusiness was seen smirking as jurors heard gruesome testimony about Thyrions murder and how she had googled Jeffrey Dahmers butt before killing him.

Jurors took just over 30 minutes to find her guilty on all counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and third-degree sexual assault

Schabusiness sentencing will begin at 10.30am ET in court in Brown County, Wisconsin, where she faces life in prison.

Welcome to The Independents liveblog

Tuesday 26 September 2023 10:51 , Rachel Sharp

Taylor Schabusiness was convicted of killing lover Shad Thyrion in a meth-fuelled sex tryst before decapitating him and dumping his head in a bucket. Follow live updates on her sentencing here.
Its possible everything leading up to the 2024 presidential election  the trials (literally) of former President Donald Trump , the age of both Trump and President Joe Biden , the teeth-gnashing over endless voter polls  will prove to be nothing but noise and the thing that swings voters will be Taylor Swift.

On Sunday, the 33-year-old pop star did what few can ever manage: She broke the NFLs autumn-game-day vice grip on the headlines and became THE story by attending the Kansas City Chiefs home game and cheering on all-pro tight end Travis Kelce . Are the two dating? Nothings confirmed, but that didnt matter. The cameras were on Swift, and news of the pair was as ubiquitous as coverage of the days games. The sale of Kelce jerseys leaped nearly 400% after the singer appeared at the game.

Such is the power of the leader of the Swifties. She oversees arguably the most fervent fan base in existence  neck and neck with Beyonce's powerful Beyhive  and in a presidential election likely to be uncomfortably close, no one should underestimate her influence.

Taylor Swift sits with Donna Kelce, mother of Pro Bowl tight end Travis Kelce, to watch the Kansas City Chiefs' game on Sept. 24, 2023.

One Taylor Swift post drives voter registration, imagine what more could do

As a case in point, Sept. 19 was National Voter Registration Day. With one Instagram post, Swift helped the nonprofit group Vote.org register more than 35,000 new voters, a nearly 25% increase over the same day last year.

The group also saw a 115% jump in 18-year-olds registering to vote. One day. One Instagram post.

Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift fans show their support on Sept. 24, 2023.

That should put some fear into Republicans as they gather Wednesday night for a GOP presidential primary debate that wont include Trump, the partys far-and-away front-runner for the nomination. He doesnt see the value in debating a pack of also-rans, which is fine.

But he and the rest of his party might want to recognize the possibility that a fired-up stampede of young voters motivated by Swift could trample them in November 2024.

Bad week for Republicans: The GOP gives America a debate, an impeachment hearing and a government shutdown. Oh my.

Young voters loyal to Taylor Swift or Beyonce don't love Republicans

According to a study by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, the turnout of voters ages 18-29 in the 2020 midterm elections was the second highest it has been in nearly three decades. And those voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by a 28-point margin.

In the Wisconsin governors race, 70% of young voters picked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over his Republican opponent.

Earlier this year, a surge of young voters in Wisconsin helped elect a liberal justice to the states Supreme Court, switching the balance of power on the court and leading Republicans like former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to fear-tweet ridiculous things like this: Younger voters are the issue. It comes from years of radical indoctrination  on campus, in school, with social media, & throughout culture. We have to counter it or conservatives will never win battleground states again.

It's not about changing party allegiance, it's about getting voters to show up

To be clear, neither Swift nor Beyonce, regardless of the strength of their celebrity, are going to turn Republicans into Democratic voters. Party loyalty, particularly in the age of Trump, borders on impenetrable.

Renaissance World Tour, Beyonces first headlining solo tour in seven years, hits Glendale, Ariz., on Aug. 24, 2023.

But this isnt about changing allegiances. As with any election, its about motivating enough people who share your beliefs and values to take the time to vote.

And thats where a Swiftie Sway or a Beyonce Bump can make a determinative difference, by inspiring fans of all ages to vote, and possibly even getting Generation Z followers (born between 1997 to 2012) to rouse politically dispirited souls from older generations.

Gen Z's political power: We'll be an unbeatable force in 2024  if we stand up to the far right together

Taylor Swift and Beyonce are cultural and economic forces of nature

The two performers are pop culture phenomenons whose performances have become economic forces of nature. Boosting local economies at each stop, Swifts ongoing Eras Tour, according to the research firm QuestionPro, could wind up generating as much as $5 billion in economic activity.

Billboard is predicting Beyonce's Renaissance tour, once it wraps up, will have made more than $500 million, while creating similar booms for local economies at each stop.

Taylor Swift and Beyonce

Swift and Beyonce have influence the likes of Oprah Winfreys back in 2007 when she endorsed one Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary.

And in the age of social media, Id argue their influence is considerably stronger. You doubt the power of Swifties or the Beyhive at your own peril.

No celebrity is going to save us, but the potential impact of Swift or Beyonce is real

Still, we cant count on the whims of celebrities, particularly ones who are brands unto themselves, to lock up an election. Im certainly not about to say the fate of the country rests in the hands of any artist or uber-influencer.

But Republicans should recognize that young voters made clear in past elections they have no tolerance for Trump or for GOP policies on abortion, climate change and gun violence. And by the time we get to 2024, their numbers will have grown substantially from the last time Trump was on the ballot.

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.

If Swift continues to lean in on motivating those young voters, it wouldnt take much of a voter surge to give Democrats an edge in key swing states. Same with Beyonce.

These two remarkably powerful Americans dont need to change anyones minds. They just need to inspire people to show up, something both have proved historically good at doing.

USA TODAY Opinion columnist Rex Huppke.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Republicans should fear Taylor Swift. She could be all that matters
Representative: Field researcher with the New York City Department of Health, holds up drug tests used to detect the presence of fentanyl and xylazine in different kinds of drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine (AFP via Getty Images)

An Indiana middle school teacher was arrested last week after two students allegedly found a methamphetamine stash inside her hair scrunchie.

She has been charged with one count of possession of methamphetamine and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, reported Law&Crime citing a court document.

The students found out that their teacher  identified as Sarah Hayne Duncan  allegedly stashed drugs inside a hidden compartment in her hair tie during a family fun night event hosted at Evansvilles Helfrich Park Stem Academy on 12 September, reported NBC affiliate WFIE.

The 35-year-old teacher let her hair down while posing for a picture with students at a photo booth, which was when they allegedly found the stash.

After the photo, the juveniles cleaned up the area and located a bluish colored velvet-type scrunchie with a white zipper on the table, said Evansville Police Department officers, reported Fox News.

They noticed the scrunchie was heavier than a typical scrunchie, they opened the zipper pouch and observed a glass vial that contained a white powder substance that the two believed to be drugs along with a cut straw with white powder."

The students subsequently informed another teacher, while two janitors told the principal that they saw the teacher frantically searching for some kind of hair tie, reported WFIE.

Police on securing the scrunchie conducted a test and confirmed it to be methamphetamine. The video footage from the school showed Ms Duncan to be wearing the same hair tie during the event, reported Fox News. However, the teacher claimed to be wearing a similar scrunchie but not the one recovered by the police.

The affidavit submitted to the court stated that two days after the incident Ms Duncan was taken in for drug test where she allegedly attempted to falsify the outcome.

While conducting the third test, [an officer] observed an unauthorized collection container fall from Duncans shorts, the affidavit states. The test was terminated and documented as a failure for the attempt to alter the test.

Ms Duncan has so far not issued a public statement on the allegation. She was sacked from the school after she failed the drug test, reported WFIE. Ms Duncan was released on a bond of $1,000 and is scheduled to appear before the court for next hearing on 9 October.
A special education teacher who used to perform as a clown called Mister Jazzz has been accused of shooting his wife dead as she desperately tried to call 911.

James Anderson, 37, allegedly fatally shot Victoria Anderson, 34, on Sunday night at their home in Harris County, Texas, while the couples three-year-old son was also in the house. The small child was unharmed.

A Houston police report stated that Victoria was on the phone to 911 at the time, telling the dispatcher that her husband was threatening to shoot her.

Then, the dispatcher heard a gunshot while she was still on the line, the report said.

The call-taker reported hearing a gunshot while on the phone with the woman, the report said.

Houston police officers arrived on the scene and asked Mr Anderson to step outside the house.

He refused to do so, but allowed the couples son, three, to exit the house, police said.

Mr Anderson was then arrested on the scene and has since been charged with murder.

The 37-year-old has worked at Santa Fe Middle School in Texas since 2022, where he is the chairman of the special educational department.

A statement from the school read: [We are] deeply saddened to hear of the tragic domestic violence situation involving one of the staff members at Santa Fe Middle School, James Anderson.

James Anderson, 37, as Mister Jazzz the clown (YouTube / @misterjazzzTX)

Mr Anderson has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation. We would like to reiterate that this situation occurred domestically and did not take place on campus. Additional counselling and crisis support has been made available for students and staff at Santa Fe Middle School.

Prior to his teaching work, he spent years working as a clown called Mister Jazzz,The New York Post reported.

His clown portfolio is still available online, with videos showing him making animal models from balloons.

Mr Anderson is being held in jail with his bail set at $300,000.

He is set to appear before a court on 13 December to potentially enter a plea on the murder charges.

It has been reported that the couples unnamed son is now in the care of relatives.
Frank LaPere, Nico LaPere and Caroline Frank, the family of Pava LaPere, founder of tech startup EcoMap Technologies, speak during a vigil on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Baltimore. Loved ones are remembering the slain Baltimore tech entrepreneur for her compassion and dedication to helping others. Baltimore police found 26-year-old Pava LaPere dead from blunt force trauma in her apartment complex after she was reported missing late Monday morning. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

BALTIMORE (AP)  While Pava LaPere built a successful tech startup that earned her national recognition and local political clout, she remained laser focused on what motivated her from the beginning: forging connections, building community and using entrepreneurship to create meaningful social change.

In the days since her horrific death following what police believe was a random attack at her Baltimore apartment building, loved ones remembered LaPere as a bundle of energy and ambition with an unwavering belief in the human potential for positive change. At a vigil Wednesday evening, they challenged each other to live out her legacy through hard work and compassion.

The 26-year-old entrepreneur and recent Johns Hopkins graduate was reported missing shortly before her body was discovered late Monday morning with signs of blunt force trauma.

Now, her friends and family members are left trying to reconcile how she lived with how she died.

She was so the antithesis of what happened to her, her close friend Karina Mandell told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. That polarity, thats what makes it so shocking.

Police announced a suspect in the case Tuesday evening, saying local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are searching for Jason Billingsley, 32, who was paroled last October in an earlier sexual assault case. In an update Wednesday afternoon, police said Billingsley is also suspected in a rape, attempted murder and arson that occurred Sept. 19 in Baltimore.

As a college student, LaPere was heavily involved in efforts to expand opportunities for young entrepreneurs. She launched her own company, EcoMap Technologies, from her dorm room at Johns Hopkins.

She gave a TEDx talk on the universitys campus in 2019, describing her journey into the startup world and her vision for the future. She said she scrapped plans to become a doctor after news coverage of a car bombing in Syria opened her eyes to human suffering on a global scale; she wanted to affect systemic change, especially among underserved communities.

Loved ones said the same philosophy was at the heart of LaPeres company, which uses technology to curate data and make information more accessible across social ecosystems. Their clients include Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and The Aspen Institute.

LaPere believed in conscious capitalism, an ethical approach to business thats become more popular in recent years, and she prioritized diverse hiring practices; her employees were half women and half people of color.

Earlier this year, she was named to Forbes 30 under 30 list for social impact. She recently posted on Instagram about growing EcoMap to a staff of 30 people and opening its offices in downtown Baltimore, the city she embraced after growing up in Tucson.

She was scrappy and stubborn, qualities that propelled her to success in a competitive environment where a large number of people with smart ideas are competing for funding from a relatively small pool of investors, loved ones said.

She knew what she wanted to accomplish and there was nothing that would get in her way, her father, Frank LaPere, told a crowd of over 100 people who gathered for the vigil.

Pausing often to regain his composure, he recalled how she would send the family pictures of Baltimore sunrises, remarking on the beauty around her well before most people were awake. She worked around the clock and found joy in the process.

She saw things that no one else saw, said Sherrod Davis, a Baltimore native and co-founder of EcoMap. She saw a new Baltimore, not one that was riddled with crime and destitution, but one that was a symbol for prosperity and innovation  one that took people from every community and connected them to what they needed when they needed it.

He said LaPeres energy was contagious and she had a way of convincing you that you had to hear what she had to say. She also had a way of making people feel special because she had more than enough confidence and determination to go around, he said.

When the world told her no, for this reason or that reason, she refused to accept it, he said. She didnt stop. She endured. She pressed on.

Before closing the vigil, LaPeres loved ones let out a collective scream.

Look out into this crowd tonight, and we can see it. Pava woke up every day with the belief that  we have the power to ignite change  and that Baltimore and the world would be stronger, fairer and better connected as a result, said Jamie McDonald, CEO of UpSurge Baltimore, another local startup. Together we can show the world that she was right.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  The Philippine Navy will host this years iteration of Sama-sama, a bilateral exercise with its United States counterpart that aims to further strengthen defense cooperation between the two countries.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Wednesday said the joint maritime training activity will run from Oct. 2 to 13 at the Naval Forces Southern Luzon area of operations.

Activities target to enhance the country's naval warfare capabilities, the AFP said, adding that these will cover the fundamentals of anti-submarine, anti-surface, anti-air, and electronic warfare.

The training is also seen to improve interoperability not only with the US Navy, but with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force, the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the United Kingdom Royal Navy through subject-matter expert exchanges, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response events, the AFP added.

The AFP said the navies of France and Australia will send personnel to join the subject-matter expert exchanges, while the navies of New Zealand and Indonesia will also be in the exercise as observers.

The annual exercise will come on the heels of fresh tension between Manila and Beijing over the West Philippine Sea, where massive coral reef damage has recently been observed and suspected to be the latter's doing.

More recently, China also installed a floating barrier at the Scarborough Shoal, preventing Filipino fishers from venturing to the area. The Philippines removed the barrier and said it plans to file a protest over the matter, while China warned the country not to stir up trouble.

READ: Defense chief says PH not stirring up trouble in WPS
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A teenage girl was shot and killed in Frayser, Memphis Police say.

According to MPD, they responded to a shooting in the 2700 block of Birchfield. The girl was found and taken to LeBonheur in critical condition.

She did not survive, police say. No suspect information was given.

The community is now asking for help as they say crime is taking over their neighborhood.

Damous Hailey is a father and retired corrections officer who has lived in the Frayser community for more than 30 years and says what he is seeing in Memphis is unbelievable.

Well, I am guessing a lot of the kids are coming around and starting to steal cars and stuff and its just making it badder and now murders are coming in and we dont know where thats coming from so thats making a big change, Hailey said.

Body found in Mississippi River identified as Tamia Taylor

Hailey says his neighborhood is developing into something he doesnt recognize.

I dont know whats going on, whos passing by you. If a car slow down around me while I am outside, I am looking back seeing whats going on because you just dont never know because Memphis has changed so much, Hailey said. It makes me feel kind of scared because you dont know where it is coming from and its just all of a sudden coming to our neighborhood.

Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital says its treated more children for gunshot wounds this year than last  So far, more than 120 kids this year.

15-year-old mother, one-month-old baby missing from Bethel Grove

Since 2020, weve been seeing an uptick in violence, particularly firearm violence, said Dr. Nick Watkins, Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital. And were seeing more and more children who are affected by this either directly or indirectly.

We even called trying to get more cars to come through and just show appearances We need a lot more appearances, more cops to come and make rounds through here, Hailey said.

While police are still investigating the shooting, Hailey says he will continue to help youth as much as he can.

If you have any information about this incident, call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
Gov. Bill Lee denounced the federal governments excessive overreach while expressing support for legislative leaderships move to explore rejecting $1.8 billion a year in federal education funding.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton , R-Crossville, and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, appointed a 10-member working group this week to review how federal education funding is used, and recommend a strategy for how to reject the funding before the legislature returns in January.

Ill be very interested in whatever options they come up with, Lee told reporters on Wednesday. I think what the state has to do is look at what is the best way to spend taxpayer dollars. Not just in the short term, but in the long term.

Federal education funding that Tennessee receives supports Title I, IDEA, and other federal programs which support low-income students, students with disabilities, and school lunch programs.

The federal government has had excessive overreach time and time again in the last few years, and that's what prompts states like ours to look at any number of ways that we can more effectively make decisions for Tennesseans  out of the control of the federal government, Lee said, speaking after a groundbreaking event in Nashville on Wednesday.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee takes questions from reporters after a groundbreaking event in Nashville on Sept. 27, 2023.

The governor did not name any specific restrictions tied to federal education funding that he would like to see eliminated. Instead, Lee repeatedly emphasized that the panel was appointed by Republican leaders in the legislature  and has not yet made any recommendations.

Rejecting federal funding would require a vote from the legislature, and support from the governor. With a Republican supermajority controlling the legislature, rejecting all or part of the $1.8 billion is a real possibility.

Can we afford it? I think we can, based off our budget numbers and how we've been performing, Sexton told reporters Wednesday after the groundbreaking event. And is it important enough for us to be independent? You have everybody running for president on the Republican side saying we need to do away with the [U.S.] Department of Education.

Sexton has said that if the state does reject federal funding, the state will pick up the cost of funding the programs currently funded by federal dollars.

Democrats have argued that such a move would require taxpayers to pay twice for Tennessees public education system  once through state taxes, and again federal taxes, which they would never benefit from.

I don't think they're paying twice, Sexton said. If the federal government truly wanted the states to be successful, then they should release the restrictions and regulations to the states, return Tennessee taxpayers money back to the state, and get back to the basics of the border, military and other things.

The U.S. Department of Education has deemed the move political posturing that could impede access to tutoring, afterschool and summer programs, school counselors and mental health professionals.

Our students need more  not less  to support their academic recovery and address the youth mental health crisis, federal Department of Education spokesperson told The Tennessean in an email.

Any elected leader in any state threatening to reject federal public education funds should have to answer to their local educators and parents in their community about the detrimental impact it would have on their communitys education system and their students futures, the spokesperson added.

But Sexton said cutting financial ties to the federal government is a matter of philosophy.

Its a philosophy thing. Does the federal government provide everything for us? Or was the federal government set up by the states? The federal government was set up by the states, Sexton said. We should do everything that we can to be whole and autonomous and independent from the federal government.

Sexton noted that the U.S. Department of Education did not exist until the 1970s.

We were doing fine in education until the 70s, he said. Its not like they increased the attainment level for us.

Vivian Jones covers state government for The Tennessean. Reach her atvjones@tennessean.com or on X and Threads at @Vivian_E_Jones.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TN Gov. Bill Lee open to rejecting $1.8B in federal school funding
A highway in West Texas. A growing number of rural Texas counties are considering local policies that would make it illegal to drive on a county road for the purpose of getting an abortion. Credit: Callie Richmond for The Texas Tribune

LUBBOCK  A rural Texas county that borders New Mexico is expected to consider a proposal Thursday that would make it illegal to travel on its roads seeking an abortion.

The proposed blockade in Cochran County, home to about 2,500 people, is the latest example of a Texas county attempting to restrict access to its highways to certain people  a move abortion-rights activists and legal scholars say is unconstitutional and meant to stoke fear.

According to media reports, at least two Texas counties have approved such bans. Cochran County would likely be the first county that borders a state where abortion is legal to put such a rule in place.

Since Texas instituted the strictest abortion laws in the country in September 2021, thousands of Texans have traveled to New Mexico, as well as Kansas, Colorado and other states, to terminate their pregnancies. Several Texas abortion clinics, pushed out by what is now a near-total ban, have reopened in New Mexico  and been followed by anti-abortion activists.

You may believe this isnt going to affect you because its in some tiny little town youre never going to drive through, said Wendy Davis, a former state senator who is now a senior adviser at Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. This is an effort, one by one by one, to create a statewide ban against travel to other states, literally creating a reproductive prison in the state of Texas.

Members of the Cochran County Commissioners Court were not available as of publication. In a phone call with the Texas Tribune, Judge Pat Henry, the countys elected executive, said he was asked to put it on the agenda by a commissioner.

Mark Lee Dickson, director of Right To Life of East Texas, an anti-abortion group that has lobbied for similar local ordinances across the state, said he believes they'll hold up in court.

"The abortion trafficking ordinances do not interfere with the right to travel," he wrote in a statement to The Texas Tribune. "The ordinances only impose penalties on those who are using roads within the county to traffic pregnant mothers across state lines for the purpose of an abortion."

Dickson's group is circulating a letter signed by 20 state lawmakers, including Sen. Charles Perry of Lubbock, that calls on local governments to put these policies into place.

[Texas highways are the next anti-abortion target. One town is resisting.]

While it is a small county that is about 60 miles west of Lubbock, its location could be crucial for pregnant people traveling through. There are three state highways that cross through Cochran County  highways 114, 214 and 125.

Nevermind that Texas has one of the most restrictive bans on abortion in the U.S., the fight over access has continued with travel ordinances. Proponents behind these ordinances are following a familiar playbook, which rely on local governments to pass policies, creating a dubious legal patchwork that could lead to court fights.

The Supreme Court has given a lot of protection to the right to travel from state to state in a lot of prior decisions, said South Texas College of Law professor Charles Rocky Rhodes.

Mitchell County, in West Texas, and Goliad County, near South Texas, passed similar ordinances earlier this year prohibiting traveling for abortions on county roads. Both rely on residents bringing civil action against others they believe violated the ordinance.

[Even after Planned Parenthood stopped performing abortions, Texas is still trying to shut it down]

Rhodes said there are two aspects that present problems to this ordinance  the constitutional protection to travel and how the ordinance would be enforced. In civil cases, Rhodes said the person suing typically has to show how theyve been personally injured by the other party.

There was a similar provision in Texas 2021 ban  often referred to as Senate Bill 8  on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy that is enforced entirely through private lawsuits. So far, Rhodes said, Texas courts have rejected these lawsuits, saying the people who brought the test cases were unable to sue because they had not been directly impacted by the prohibited abortions

That issue is winding through the Texas appellate system right now, Rhodes said, referring to similar laws including the state law that allows people to sue fellow Texans if they seek an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Rhodes continued, So with respect to these two problems, you really have to understand these ordinances more in terms of trying to scare people, rather than something that will be able to be enforced in court.

Llano, a Central Texas city about 75 miles northwest of Austin, previously debated the so-called abortion trafficking ordinance, but the suggestion was temporarily tabled by the city council. In Chandler, about 13 miles west of Tyler, council members held off on passing the ordinance because of legal concerns.

The Washington Post reported that Chandler council member Janeice Lunsford said, I believe were making a mistake if we do this.

With the right to travel being constitutionally protected, Davis said these ordinances are unenforceable, and they are meant to confuse and create fear.

Its kind of a joke to believe that somehow, a person would know that someone traveling down a roadway beside them was on their way to get an abortion, Davis said. The idea that we would set up some kind of checkpoints to determine why someone was traveling through a local community is just absurd.

Davis said despite the rules being unenforceable, they still have consequences. More rules and rhetoric could push away medical professionals and intimidate pregnant people.

We are losing OB-GYNs who were in our state and fear practicing here in the future because of absurd extremists, Davis said. At the end of the day, even people who want to be pregnant and need help in having healthy pregnancies are going to lose the medical access they need.

Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

As The Texas Tribune's signature event of the year, The Texas Tribune Festival brings Texans closer to politics, policy and the days news from Texas and beyond. On Sept. 23, we wrapped our 2023 Festival  three lively days packed with 125+ sessions and events. Browse on-demand recordings and catch up on the biggest headlines from Festival events at the Tribunes Festival news page.
A Texas family is suing a Houston mortuary for negligence after they said employees dropped a loved one's body, causing bruising to appear during an open-casket wake.

The Mejia family sued Twinwood Mortuary Services in June this year for dropping Juan Mejia's body down a flight of stairs hours after his death more than two years ago, his son William Mejia and family attorney Rick Barrera told USA TODAY. They alleged two employees transported Juan Mejia's body on June 14, 2021 without a licensed funeral director present, per Texas state law, according to a suit filed in Harris County District Court.

"We don't want another family to have to go through this," William Mejia, Juan's son, told USA TODAY.

Barrera said they haven't heard from the Twinwood Mortuary Services since the incident. According to court records, the business was served on June 23 but hasn't responded to the lawsuit nor do they have a lawyer retained.

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Twinwood Mortuary Services didn't immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

Twinwood was contracted to transport Juan Mejia's body to Yaeger Barrera Mortuary, of Eagle Pass, the border town where he grew up for funeral services, the lawsuit states.

"We have these battles we go through and we can't ask for a time machine," Mejia said. "We wish this memory and experience didn't exist."

Juan Mejia's wife Margaret Mejia, and daughters Michelle Mejia and Melody Mejia-Barrios also said they saw further bruising and dents on Juan Mejia's head during the June 18 wake, according to the lawsuit.

More: Kentucky coroner left dead man's body in a hot van overnight, traumatizing family, suit says

Mortuary accused of mishandling relative's body

In the lawsuit, the family alleges two Twinwood workers were struggling to carry Juan Mejia's body down the stairs outside of his condo. During that, William Mejia said he heard thumps and saw a stretcher tipped aside, with his father's upper body exposed on the ground.

"I picked him up with my bare hands so that neighbors wouldn't see it," the son said.

The Mejia family alleges a funeral home director wasn't present when the two workers removed Juan Mejia's body from the condo, despite Texas law requiring a licensed funeral director to be present.

More: When the dead don't stay buried: The grave situation at cemeteries amid climate change

A Twinwood employee apologized to Mejia after the incident, saying in part no one should've seen what he witnessed, the suit alleges. But when Mejia contacted the Yaeger Barrera Mortuary about the incident, the mortuary told Mejia that Twinwood said they safely transported his father's body down the stairs with no incidents.

The family is seeking a jury trial, according to the lawsuit.

"It's the hope we can figure out why and what policies and procedures are in place to protect families," Barrera said.

Juan Mejia, 69, cheers at a Dallas Cowboys football game. He died on June 14, 2021, in Houston after a battle with cancer.

Who was Juan Mejia?

Juan Mejia was a postal worker, William Mejia said. He died in hospice after a battle with cancer.

Mejia said his father would give the shirt off his back to anyone in need. He recalled his father pushing him and his sisters to get a good education and be involved in several youth activities.

"He was my hero and someone I always looked up to and sacrificed everything for us to get a better life," he said.

More: Police discover body in shallow grave in Vermont man's backyard

Mejia said his father was the protector of the family, but as he grew older, the roles reversed after his dad began to have problems with his leg. The son turned protector, saying he'd walk in front of his father at Dallas Cowboys games to keep people from bumping into him. He added they would buy seats at the edge of rows so his father could comfortably stretch out his legs.

"This was a tough thing to work through, to live through," the son said. "For this to happen, hours after losing him, it's just weighing on me because I was always wanting to protect him, his honor and his name."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas mortuary sued over allegations body was dropped down stairs
A federal judge in Texas declared on Tuesday that a state law that bans sexually oriented performances on public property and in the presence of anyone younger than 18 is unconstitutional.

Senate Bill 12 impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech, US District Judge David Hittner wrote in his ruling that blocked state authorities from enforcing the law.

The bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in June and went into effect on September 1. It states that sexually oriented performances are restricted on the premises of a commercial enterprise, on public property and in the presence of anyone younger than 18.

Without mentioning drag specifically, the law deemed sexual conduct as the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics.

Hittner called SB 12 substantially overbroad and unconstitutionally vague.

But even if SB 12 were not unconstitutionally vague, it would still fail due to it being an impermissible prior restraint on speech, the ruling states.

Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican who sponsored the legislation, said he will to continue to fight for the legality of the bill.

Surely we can agree that children should be protected from sexually explicit performances. Thats what Senate Bill 12 is about. This is a common sense and completely constitutional law, and we look forward to defending it all the way to the Supreme Court if thats what it takes, Hughes said in a post on X.

ATX Drag Queen Brigitte Bandit gives testimony in the Senate Chamber at the Texas State Capitol on March 23, 2023 in Austin, Texas. People across the state of Texas showed up to give testimony as proposed Senate bills SB12 and SB1601, which would regulate drag performances, were discussed before the Chamber. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) - Brandon Bell/Getty Images

CNN has reached out to Abbotts office for comment.

Brigitte Bandit, a drag performer and plaintiff in the case, said she was relieved by the injunction.

My livelihood and community has seen enough hatred and harm from our elected officials. This decision is a much needed reminder that queer Texans belong and we deserve to be heard by our lawmakers, Bandit said in a statement.

Efforts to restrict drag show performances have taken shape in many Republican-led legislatures across the country this year. Those who advocate for restricting the performances say they expose children to sexual themes and imagery that are inappropriate, a claim rejected by advocates, who say the proposed measures are discriminatory against the LGBTQ community.

Several of the new laws have been paused by courts.

In June, a federal judge temporarily blocked a Florida law that opponents claim targets drag shows. That measure allows Gov. Ron DeSantis administration to take away licenses from establishments if they allow children into an adult live performance. That same month, a federal judge ruled that a Tennessee law limiting the shows represented an unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of speech.

In July, a judge ordered a pause on a Montana law that bans drag performers from hosting childrens story hours at public libraries and bars sexually oriented shows on public property that can be seen by minors.

Sarah Warbelow, the legal director for Human Rights Campaign, said trans rights activists have been vindicated by the recent court decisions.

That being said, these laws and bills that are being considered continue to have real harms as they impact LGBTQ people by putting them under a cloud of suspicion or engaging in allegedly inappropriate behavior  rather than recognizing that drag is a long standing tradition that has different types of performances for different audiences, she told CNN.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
An off-duty state police officer in Houston shot a neighbour through a closed door when he mistook the man for an intruder, police said.

The incident occurred on Monday just steps away from the Houston Astros' Minute Maid Park. Gunshots rang out shortly after midnight, ending with a bullet lodged in the shoulder of a 35-year-old man.

The state trooper who shot the man thought "someone was trying to break into his apartment," so he "discharged his weapon one time," according to Assistant Houston Police Chief Yasar Bashir.

"We don't know why he was at that apartment, but the initial assessment is that trooper believed he was trying to break in," the chief said, noting that both of the men lived in the same building.

The men live one floor apart in units that share the same last two numbers, according to ABC13.

A spokesperson for Finger Companies, which owns the apartments, said they believe the resident who was shot mistook the trooper's apartment for his own.

The trooper said during the press conference that have gave the man several verbal warnings to "get away" before he shot him through the door. The wounded man then reportedly ran down the hallway until police caught up with him on his own floor.

The neighbour, who was only identified as a Black man in his mid-30s, is expected to live.

The state policeman was not injured in the shooting.

Neighbours speaking to local media outlets had a mixture of reactions, with some questioning the judgement of the trooper who fired blindly through the door, while others understood the fear that might come with believing someone was trying to break into their home.

"I dont know how I feel about [the shooting]. I guess I would want to know who was outside and what was going on. Maybe he felt threatened, right," one neighbour told Fox26 Houston.

Another neighbour spoke to ABC13 and questioned why the interaction ended with a shooting, "especially from a cop who is supposed to protect you."

No charges have been filed as of yet. However, a grand jury is expected to determine whether the trooper should be indicted in the wake of the shooting, according to ABC13.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office said it intended to present the case like any other.

The Houston Police Department and the Texas Rangers are investigating the incident.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro refuted a Chinese officials allegation that the national government is looking for trouble in the West Philippine Sea.

Di naman tayo nag-i-istir ng trouble. Di naman tayo nagkukubkob. Yan di nila maintindihan, he said Wednesday during a chance interview with reporters.

Yan banta na yan. Ano reaksyon ng Pilipino? Syempre lalo tayo malalayo sa kanila, Teodoro added, apparently referring to China's aggressive actions, including putting up a floating barrier at Scarborough Shoal.

[Translation: We are not stirring up trouble. We are not besieging them. They don't understand that. Thats a threat already. What would be the reaction of Filipinos? Of course, we would be more detached from them.]

He added that it is clear that China's intent is "to control the whole South China Sea."

This was his response to Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbins statement, calling on the Philippine government not to make provocation or stir up trouble.

READ: 'Don't make provocation or stir up trouble': China warns PH over floating barrier

Wangs remarks came after the Philippine Coast Guard removed Chinas floating barrier at Scarborough Shoal that prevents Filipino fishers from venturing to the area.

Meanwhile, during the Senate deliberation on the proposed 2024 budget of the Department of National Defense (DND), Teodoro said that the Philippines is open to diplomatic ways to lower the tension with China.

It should be in accordance with principled talks that are open and transparent, he added.

Ang ginagawa lang po natin ay matagal na po, kaya nga po gusto natin baguhin ang plano ng pag-iisip natin. Nagre-react lang po tayo sa ginagawa po nila. So sila po ang nangunguna. Sila po ang nagbigay ng barrier sa Scarborough, he added.

[Translation: We have been doing this for a while now, so we really want to change our thinking. We react to their actions. They provoked us first, they built barriers in Scarborough.]
[Source]

More than 2,000 people reportedly flocked to register for a Studio Ghibli-themed matchmaking event organized by the government of Aichi Prefecture in Japan, way past its 400-participant limit.

About the event: The event, reported to be a konkatsu  which literally translates to marriage activities, as per SoraNews24  will pair 200 men and 200 women with each other. It will take place at Aichi Expo Memorial Park, where Ghibli Park is also located, on Oct. 7.

Requirements: Each participant must be single, aged 20 to 39 and living, working or studying in the prefecture. They must also be a fan of Studio Ghibli as they will have to look for related art pieces scattered throughout the park.

Lottery held: A total of 2,249 people  1,175 men and 1,074 women  registered between Aug. 1 and Sept. 18 to join the event, The Mainichi reported. As this significantly exceeds the 400-participant limit, organizers had to hold a lottery.

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The big picture: The event appears to be an effort of the Aichi government to help address declining birth and marriage rates in Japan, which have resulted in a shrinking population. A 2021 survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security, which was published last September, found that 17.3% of men and 14.6% of women between 18 and 34 have no plans of getting married. These are said to be the highest figures recorded since the survey began in 1982.

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Officers arrested a 15-year-old boy after threatening messages and a photo of a gun posted on social media prompted a campus lockdown Tuesday at an Auburn high school.

Placer High School administrators on Tuesday afternoon received information indicating that a person who is not a student at the school was on campus and could pose a potential threat, the Placer Union High School District announced in a news release. It was students at the school who notified administrators.

Officers were called to Placer High for a report of a person possibly armed on the campus, according to the Auburn Police Department. The campus was placed on a precautionary lockdown at 1:07 p.m. while officers searched the campus.

The officers later confirmed the person in question was no longer on campus. School district officials said the campus lockdown was lifted at 1:38 p.m. after police determined there was no threat to the students and staff.

We are extremely grateful for the swift and thorough handling of this incident by our law enforcement partners, school district officials said in the news release. The safety of our students and staff is a top priority in our District. As such, our students and staff practice drills throughout the year for situations such as this. The manner in which the Placer High School students and staff handled todays incident is to be commended.

Police said officers later learned the 15-year-old boy had posted threatening messages and a photo of a gun on social media and was spotted on the Placer High campus around lunchtime.

Officers found the teen at his home in an unincorporated area near Auburn, where he was taken into custody. Police said the boy was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats and booked at the Placer County Juvenile Hall.

The Police Department commended the students for informing school staff about the alleged threats. Police officials asked parents speak to their children about using social media and ensure their children feel comfortable talking to their parents about concerning online messages.
A crash near Emmett in Gem County killed left three people dead and one hospitalized on Tuesday night.

A 22-year-old man from Meridian was driving an Audi S5 west on State Highway 52 with a 20-year-old female passenger, also from Meridian, when the car crossed the median into the eastbound lane of traffic at about 9:46 p.m., according to Idaho State Police.

The Audi collided with a Dodge pickup truck driven by an 18-year-old man from Emmett with a juvenile passenger.

The two people in the Audi and the Dodge driver died from their injuries at the scene near milepost 26, while the Dodge passenger was transported by ambulance to a local hospital, police said in a news release.

Everyone involved was wearing a seat belt, police said. Their names have not been released.

The highways lanes were blocked for about six hours after the collision.

Police said they were continuing to investigate.
Timberline High School teacher Laura Boulton was accused of inappropriate behavior toward students and of soliciting complaints against her colleagues when she was placed on paid leave by the Boise School District.

In the letters the school district wrote to Boulton placing her on leave, officials accused her of undermining other educators and emotionally abusing students.

Boulton has denied all the claims and said her suspension is an act of retaliation for actions that were made to support students.

Since Boulton was suspended, parents and teachers have demanded answers. The Boise School District has declined to explain the action, citing an exemption in Idahos Public Records Act that allows agencies to withhold personnel information.

The suspension letters, obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a parent, provides the first glimpse into the reasons the school district cited for her paid leave.

It has come to our attention that you may have conducted yourself in an inappropriate manner and may be in violation of the Idaho Code of Ethics for Idaho Professional Educators, Board Policy of the Boise School District and the Certified Employee Handbook, the letter stated.

Boise School District spokesperson Dan Hollar confirmed that Boulton received a letter on Sept. 7 placing her on paid administrative leave. That suspension letter and two follow-up letters were placed in Boultons personnel file. At the request of Boulton, the school agreed to provide the letter to parents and students who requested it. Timberline parent Stephanie Taylor provided that letter to the Statesman.

Laura Boulton addresses hundreds of students who protested her suspension by walking out of class.

The letters said six colleagues filed complaints against Boulton. At least four of them alleged bullying, hazing, harassment, and what appears to be retaliation, according to the school. The most recent complaints included allegations of repeated attempts to undermine the academic environment with colleagues, inappropriate relationships with students, emotional abuse of students and false accusations against staff.

The school district also included one colleagues allegation of grooming behaviors in the letter. Hollar clarified that the school district has a broad definition of the term grooming that is not strictly defined as sexual in nature. Boulton is not being investigated for inappropriate sexual relationships with students, Hollar said.

These staff members allegations are under investigation, according to Hollar.

Boulton denied all claims against her outlined in the letters.

I wholeheartedly, with all the love I have in my soul for my superiors, my students, and community refute ALL charges against me, Boulton wrote in a message to the Statesman.

Boise trustees receive letters in support of Boulton

Boulton said she believes her suspension  just 22 days into the new school year  is tied to five letters sent to members of the school board from students who graduated in the spring. These letters, according to Boulton, gave the school the excuse they had been looking for to suspend her.

Boulton said she believes that her districts intentions are to discredit her and make the community confused so that everyone pays less attention to the districts many illegal activities.

I am confident in my communitys ability to see my childrens need and focus on the truth at hand: Boise School Districts schools are not safe for its children because powerful people are making bad choices, Boulton told the Statesman.

The first letter was sent in late June and the last was sent on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 4. School officials appeared during the last class period that Thursday to inform her of her suspension and escort her to her car.

Four of these letters to the school board, which were sent to the Statesman by Taylor, referenced two other Timberline teachers the students compared unfavorably to Boulton. Three writers to whom the Statesman spoke gave permission to publish parts of their letters.

Annie Kyambala, 18, said Boulton told her and her family that she had gotten in trouble for allegedly saying negative things about other teachers. Kyambala said she never heard Boulton do that.

The former student said she believed one teacher was just jealous, because Mrs. Boulton is a way better teacher, and said she was really upset that the lies told by two other teachers have hurt Mrs. Boulton and I am here to help stand up for her.

The fact that her bosses at Timberline did not even try to pretend to hear about what she had to say and just took action based on a one-sided story is unbelievable, Kyambala wrote.

Students brought signs of support to the walkout.

Anistyn Moore, 18, sent the first letter, in June. She said Boulton told her about issues she was having with the school. Moore told the Statesman she was upset with Timberline for a variety of reasons, including the suspension of another favorite teacher of hers the year before. She said she hoped her letter would encourage the school to be more empathetic toward Boulton.

In her letter, Moore wrote about how supportive Boulton was during her time at Timberline, with Boulton once attending an administrative meeting to discuss Moores needs as a student with disabilities.

Although Boulton was not my teacher, she was my support, my academic help, and a mom to me, Moore wrote. Only one of my parents was able to attend, so I asked Boulton to join me also. At the meeting, she was extremely helpful and supportive of what I had to say.

Dylan Simmons wrote in a letter that the school objects to the loving way in which Boulton treats students.

BSD seems to think loving your students is inappropriate which might just be one of the dumbest claims the scandalous and ignorant (Timberline Principal) Diana Molino has made, Simmons told school board members. Boultons love for students comes from an eastern culture that she has adopted into her life. It is seen as a normal thing for educators where shes from to embrace their students as their own and take care and nurture them. There is zero sexual love, zero abusive love, zero inappropriate love, and absolutely zero things wrong with what shes done.

School district officials told the Statesman that Ms. Boultons leave was not related to any letters to the Board of Trustees.

Boulton said she saw these letters before they were sent. She said she edited them for some grammatical reasons but didnt change the substance of them.

Kyambala told the Statesman she had not known how to add her signature to her document, so Boulton added it for her. Moore said she came up with the idea to write letters because she wanted to make sure Boulton did not lose her teaching job. Moore said Boulton was one of the only Timberline staff members who was supportive toward her during difficult moments in her life.

She needs her career, Moore said. Shes literally meant to be a teacher.
The second debate of the 2024 presidential race is Wednesday.

Seven candidates will take the debate stage, despite eight appearing at last month's two-hour showdown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Some candidates have risen in the polls since the first debate in late August, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur and Cincinnati native Vivek Ramaswamy.

So when and where is the debate? Where can you stream the Republican matchup? How is Vivek Ramaswamy doing in the polls?

Here's everything you need to know.

What time is the Republican debate?

The second GOP presidential debate begins at 9 p.m. E.T. Wednesday, Sept. 27.

Where is the Republican debate?

The Republican debate is at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California.

Where to watch the second Republican debate

Fox Business Network will air the debate, with pre-coverage starting at 6 p.m. E.T. Post-debate coverage will run through 1 a.m., per The New York Times.

Fox News will also show the debate, with coverage starting at 8:30 p.m. The channel's streaming service, Fox Nation, will broadcast it.

Viewers can also watch the debate in Spanish through Univision, UnivisionNoticias.com and the streaming platform ViX.

The Republican National Committee will also stream the event on the video-sharing platform Rumble.

Who is moderating the Republican debate?

Fox News Media's Stuart Varney and Dana Perino and Univision's Ilia Calderon will co-moderate the second Republican presidential debate.

According to USA TODAY, Calderon will be the first Afro-Latina to moderate a Republican primary debate.

Which Republicans will be at the second debate? Is Donald Trump coming?

Republican presidential candidates (L-R), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 presidential race.

Former President Donald Trump will not appear in Wednesday's GOP presidential primary debate. Trump also missed the first primary debate last month.

Trump cites his strong lead in the polls as reason for not participating in the debates. Trump leads with 58% support in the latest polling by Morning Consult. DeSantis follows with 13%, then Ramaswamy with 10% and Haley and Pence, tied with 5%.

Former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson will not participate either, despite appearing at the first debate in August.

Here are the seven candidates taking the stage Wednesday:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis .

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy .

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley .

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Former Vice President Mike Pence .

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie .

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Who won the last Republican debate?

Of the participating candidates, Ramaswamy garnered the most attention during the first Republican primary debate.

The 38-year-old from Cincinnati received the most attacks from his opponents, clashing with Pence, Haley and Christie. With Ramaswamy rising in the polls, the focus was mainly on his inexperience in elected office.

Trump, who skipped the first GOP presidential debate, declared Ramaswamy the winner in his absence after the biotech entrepreneur called Trump "the best president of the 21st century."

"This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH," Trump posted on Truth Social with a clip of Ramaswamy's comments. "Thank you Vivek!"

Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?

Cincinnati native Vivek Ramaswamy is one of six GOP candidates participating in Wednesdays debate at Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California.

Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, grew up in the Cincinnati suburb of Evendale and graduated from St. Xavier High School in 2003. The 38-year-old has a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School, where he graduated with U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, a fellow southwest Ohio native.

Ramaswamy founded the pharmaceutical research company Roivant Sciences in 2014 and Strive Asset Management, an investment firm that aims to persuade companies to stay out of politics and social issues, in 2022. He's also the author of three books, including "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam."

Ramaswamy entered the presidential race earlier this year promising to out-Trump former President Donald Trump. He has since campaigned heavily in Iowa and New Hampshire, and some recent polls show him competing with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place nationally.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Republican debate: What channel is it tonight? Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?
The Massachusetts legislative leadership announced its compromise tax relief package that they guarantee will put more money in many residents' pockets, from left, Sen. Michael Rodrigues, D-Westport, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, House Speaker Ronald Mariano, D-Westport, and Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland.

BOSTON - Theres something for everyone in the new tax relief bill announced by legislative leaders Tuesday.

Lawmakers came up with a comprehensive package they claim is the largest bipartisan tax relief proposal in over a generation.

This bill could help alleviate many financial burdens on families, seniors and renters, said Senate President Karen Spilka , D-Ashland.

In formulating the proposal, which still needs to be voted on by both the House and the Senate before finding its way to the governors desk, lawmakers sought to help as many residents in as many ways as possible. The cost: some $519.3 million for the current fiscal year, with an annual cost of almost $1 billion by 2027 when all its measures are implemented.

Proposal after proposal, iteration after iteration, lawmakers worked hard to bring it close enough together to get a deal, said House Speaker Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy. Included in the bill is a measure to close the marriage loophole for high-income earners. It requires taxpayers filing joint federal taxes to file jointly in Massachusetts as well.

A main driver behind the bill was to increase the child and dependent tax credit for low-income families. Spilka estimated that a low-income household with two children could see an extra $1,000 at tax time.

The highlights

Increases in the tax credits for dependents  children, disabled adults or seniors  from $180 to $310 this reporting cycle and increasing to $440 per in the 2024 taxable year. The expanded credits also eliminated the cap on the number of dependents a household can claim. Legislators calculate the changes will benefit 565,000 Massachusetts families and believe it is the most generous in the country.

Estate tax: Heirs of estates valued at $2 million or less will not pay taxes on the value of the property; the state grants a $99,600 uniform credit.

Earned income tax credit: Increases from 30% to 40% of the federal credit allowance, benefiting some 400,000 families with incomes under $60,000.

Senior circuit beaker tax credit: This yearly subsidy for the states senior residents doubles from $1,200 to $2,400.

Rental deductions: Renters, some 800,000 strong in Massachusetts, will be allowed to deduct an extra $1,000 a year, up to $4,000 of their housing costs.

Capital gains: The bill reduces the tax on short-term capital gains, from 12% to 8.5%. And businesses based in Massachusetts will no longer face a sales tax apportionment system that factors in property, payroll and sales. Only sales will be considered, in a move the legislature hopes will encourage companies to stay in state.

Addressing the housing crisis

On the housing front, legislators sweetened the deal for investment in construction of dwellings. Changes include benefits for developers of both low-income and market-rate housing especially, in so-called Gateway cities such as Worcester and Fitchburg.

For the Housing Development Incentive Program, the tool that facilitates development of market-rate housing in certain cities, the bill increases the statewide cap from $10 million to $57 million for one-time use, with a $30 million annual cap. Legislators believe the cap increase will spur $4 billion of private investment in the development of more than 12,500 homes in Gateway cities.

Theres an increase in the low-income housing tax credit, up $20 million to $60 million annual authorization. The authorization cap increase could provide enough funding to facilitate the creation of thousands of new affordable units.

And for landlords, municipalities will be able to offer a local property tax exemption for units rented by low-income residents.

Other perks

More money for septic tank replacement or repair. The legislation triples the tax credit available to $18,000 and allows a $4,000-a-year deduction.

Lead paint abatement credit: $3,000 for full abatement or $1,000 for partial abatement.

Dairy tax credit to support the states farmers and dairy industry.

Student loan repayments by employers are not considered income and exempt from taxation.

Apprentice tax credits to help workforce development.

Senior property tax volunteer program: Increases to $2,000 the amount seniors can work off their property taxes through a volunteer program.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: What to know about Mass. legislative leaders tax relief plan
Sicilian mob boss Matteo Messina Denaro, widely thought to be the last godfather of his kind, was buried Wednesday in a private funeral in Castelvetrano, Sicily. But he wont be the last leader of Italys most famous Mafia organization.

The mobster will likely be remembered for his bloody legacy  sentenced to 20 life sentences in absentia for the murders of 26 victims.

His victims include Nicola Consales, who ran a beach hotel in Sicily, who Messina Denaro was convicted of murdering after he flirted with a girl the mobster had his eyes on.

And there was Antonella Bonomo, the pregnant wife of a rival boss who got in the way. And Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a turncoat who was held hostage and tortured for 779 days before being dissolved in acid. And anti-Mafia magistrates Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone , blown up in car bombs 57 days apart.

But when Messina Denaro  aka Diabolik  was laid to rest in the elaborate marble family mausoleum, the only names being mentioned were those of potential successors.

A police handout photo shows Matteo Messina Denaro after he was arrested in Palermo, Italy, on January 16, 2023. - Carabinieri/Handout/Reuters

Italys anti-Mafia investigators agree on four or five possible names: Giovanni Motisi, a 64-year-old Palermo boss nicknamed u pacchiuni or the fat guy  a former hitman for the late boss of bosses Toto Riina  leads the pack. Hes been in hiding since 1998 after being convicted of a string of murders including of two police officers.

Also mentioned are Stefano Fidanzati, a 70-year-old drug kingpin, who former anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso suggests has a good shot at the job, and Giuseppe Auteri, 49, known as Vassoio or tray, who had been a close associate of Messina Denaro for years while he was in hiding.

With the death of Matteo Messina Denaro, a life full of violence, plots and mysteries ends, Grasso told CNN. An era of Cosa Nostra also ends, but not Cosa Nostra itself Cosa Nostra changes, evolves, transforms, but remains the main obstacle for a Sicily and for an Italy free from the yoke of violence, blackmail and poverty.

Before him, Salvatore Toto Riina led the bloodiest era of the Sicilian Mafias storied history, and hand-picked Messina Denaro to carry out some of his bloodiest crimes, including murdering the anti-Mafia magistrates.

It was that trajectory that led Messina Denaro to the top in 2016. But it was cancer that led to his arrest in a private clinic in Palermo in January 2023 and what eventually put him in his grave.

Denied public funeral

In keeping with all mob bosses in Italy, Messina Denaro was denied a public funeral, but it was he who shunned the church, writing once in a coded note that he wanted to reject every religious celebration because it is made up of unclean men who live in hatred and sin, according to the dossier of his belongings collected by Italys anti-Mafia unit.

Messina Denaro, even with his rap sheet of murders, was highly critical of the Catholic church over the clerical sex abuse scandal.

It is not those who proclaim themselves the soldiers of God who can decide and execute my lifeless body, said the note that the unit found in his hideout in Campobello di Mazara. God will be my judge.

After an autopsy revealed that he died of natural causes tied to his battle with colon cancer, his casket was taken in an armored police van from Abruzzo, where he died, to Calabria, where it crossed the strait by ferry. Once in Sicily, his body was transferred to a cedar coffin he had apparently requested in his last wishes, then moved into a hearse with wide windows.

Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested at a private health clinic in Palermo after 30 years on the run. - Carabinieri/Handout/Reuters

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, the hearse was escorted through the backstreets of his hometown to avoid any semblance of a procession, but onlookers lined the streets leading to the cemetery, taking photos as if he was a celebrity.

Police prohibited anyone but the immediate family from entering the cemetery and blocked all the entrances at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, though there were flowers along the road.

Inside the family chapel, his body was laid to rest beside that of his mobster father, Don Ciccio Messina Denaro.

It was the same chapel that had been previously bugged by police when the younger Messina Denaro went into hiding, since the family and associates might feel safe discussing business there. But family members later discovered loose wires from the listening devices and reported the bug to police, according to a police report of the incident.

The private burial lasted an hour and police kept the cemetery closed and guarded all day.

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This TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet seems to have no atmosphere  the truth may hide in its star, James Webb Space Telescope reveals

Efforts to observe the atmospheres of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system are being stymied by rambunctious activity on the surface of the red dwarf star at its center, new findings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show.

In March 2023, the JWST 's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) observed a secondary transit of one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, known as TRAPPIST-1b. The observatory found that the planet, which is the innermost world of this system and a little more massive than Earth , is probably bare rock with no atmosphere to speak of and a surface temperature of 232 degrees Celsius (450 degrees Fahrenheit). Similar results came for the next planet in this system, TRAPPIST-1c, three months later. These two worlds seem analogous to Mercury , which is the innermost planet of our solar system .

And new observations, from a team of astronomers led by Olivia Lim of the University of Montreal, corroborate these earlier findings by taking the first ever spectrum of a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system, specifically TRAPPIST-1b.

While a thin atmosphere cannot yet be ruled out on TRAPPIST-1b, the spectrum captured by JWSTs Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) shows no evidence for a thick, hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. However, there is one interesting caveat to these findings.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope finds no atmosphere on Earth-like TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet

"What we do see is that the star is absolutely the biggest effect dominating our observations, and this will do the exact same thing to other planets in the system," said team-member Ryan MacDonald of the University of Michigan in a statement .

Or in other words, that tumultuous red dwarf might be preventing scientists from learning the truth about whether TRAPPIST-1 can be considered habitable or not.

To take a spectrum of an exoplanet 's atmosphere requires use of a method known as transmission spectroscopy. When a planet transits between its star and our vantage point on Earth, much of the starlight is blocked by the planet itself, but some of that light also shines through the planets atmosphere (if it has one). Those rays that go through the atmosphere also get absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere at characteristic wavelengths. And if that light hits our Earth-based detectors, scientists can then look for the absorption lines in a planets spectrum to discern what gases are present in the world's atmosphere.

But the problem is that red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 are typically very active stars, with bright faculae and large, dark star-spots. These features interfere with measurements of a planet's spectrum, creating contrasting bright lines and dark lines that can mimic absorption lines.

"In addition to the contamination from stellar spots and faculae, we saw a stellar flare , an unpredictable event during which the star looks brighter for several minutes to hours," said Lim. "This flare affected our measurement of the amount of light blocked by the planet."

There are ways to mitigate this, though.

One solution is to try and model what the stellar activity on the surface of TRAPPIST-1 is like, and then remove it from the data before analysis  the other is to model the stellar contamination and the planets atmosphere together and fit them to various models of what the planets spectrum might look like depending on different kinds of atmospheres.

Lims team took both approaches, and came up with the same result both times: TRAPPIST-1b lacks a thick hydrogen atmosphere, and its spectrum can be fully described by the stars activity.

Related Stories:

 Exoplanets in the Trappist-1 system more likely to be habitable than scientists once thought, study suggests

 The TRAPPIST-1 solar system not bombarded by space rocks like early Earth, study suggests

 James Webb Space Telescope could help hunt for habitable alien worlds

This is not surprising; of all seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, planet b is the most likely not to have an atmosphere because it feels the full brunt of the stars stellar wind and violent flares that can blow an atmosphere away. However, its impossible to say whether the planet has a thinner atmosphere of water vapor, carbon dioxide or methane, as the uncertainties incurred by the stars activity are an order of magnitude greater than the precision required to detect such an atmosphere.

This will pose serious problems for observing the spectrum of the other worlds in the system.

"If we don't figure out how to deal with the star now, its going to make it much, much harder when we look at the planets in the habitable zone  TRAPPIST-1d, e and f  to see any atmospheric signals," said McDonald.

The findings were published on Sept. 22 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters .
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  A bill seeking to establish the Magna Carta for Filipino seafarers hurdled the Senate plenary on Wednesday following hours-long debates.

Three-term Senator Pia Cayetano had several questions to fine-tune the measure, but they did not sit well with the bills sponsor, first-time senator Raffy Tulfo.

Senate President Juan Miguel Migz Zubiri had to suspend the session a number of times as tensions ran high.

One instance was when Cayetano sought clarification on which government agencies can issue the certification required for Filipino seafarers to be allowed to work.

"Mr. President, tapos na po yung period of interpellation natin. Period of amendments na ito.," said Tulfo.

"Sana ang request ko lang po sabihin lang niya sa akin kung ano ang amendments niya and I will say whether I accept it or not and if I dont accept it, then I will explain," he also said,

"Humahaba lang po tayo, Mr. President, your honor. Kung gusto niyo po maglatag na ako ng banig dito tsaka unan," Tulfo added, which prompted Zubiri to temporarily suspend the deliberations.

[Translation: Mr. President, the period of interpellation is over. This is the period of amendments. My request is that she can just tell me what her amendments are and I will say whether I accept it or not and if I dont accept it, then I will explain. This is just taking longer, Mr. President, your honor. If you want, I can lay down a sleeping mat and pillows here.]

Cayetano then replied, "Welcome to legislative work, Mr. President."

After the period of amendments, all 14 senators who remained at the session hall voted to approve the measure past 9 p.m.

The bill was certified as urgent by President Bongbong Marcos, allowing the chamber to fast-track the measure's approval in a single day. Wednesday was the last session day before the month-long congressional break.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2023/9/26/marcos-certifies-magna-carta-for-seafarers-urgent.html

Marcos said the bill would address the recurring deficiencies in our domestic laws pertaining to the training and accreditation of thousands of Filipino seafarers which endanger their employment in the European market in particular, and the global maritime arena, in general."

Tulfo thanked his colleagues for supporting its passage, noting that it was his first pet bill that secured third reading approval.
Army Pvt. Travis King is back in U.S. custody after North Korean officials released the service member who crossed into their country in July.

Senior administration officials confirmed he was safely in American hands and was in good health and spirits. King, who is currently headed back to the U.S. mainland, is happy to return and is looking forward to seeing his family, they added.

U.S. officials said they worked for months to bring King home, and the past few weeks involved close coordination with North Korea to ensure the service member was safe and could soon return home.

The successful diplomatic effort is also a positive sign for future communication channels with North Korea.

This incident to our minds demonstrates that keeping lines of communication open, even when ties are strained, is a really important thing and can deliver results, a U.S. official said, adding they were ready for any further diplomacy that might be possible.

In the process, the Biden administration also connected with Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, and with China.

Sweden played a vital role, constantly keeping in contact with the Biden administration during negotiations. While there was a real fear that Pyongyang might hold King to extract concessions, that changed earlier this month, when officials working on the case learned from Sweden that North Korea wanted to release King.

Beijing also played a very constructive role in the process, officials said. North Korea transferred King to China, where he was picked up by U.S. officials Wednesday.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan thanked the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

In addition, we thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, he said in a statement.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder also thanked the hard work of personnel in the Army, United States Forces Korea, and across the Department of Defense, along with our State department colleagues, to bring Private King back to the United States.

King, 23, was the first American to be detained in North Korea in roughly five years. The private was stationed in South Korea and crossed over the border during a civilian tour of a border village. The unexpected escape came as he was awaiting a transfer back to the U.S. amid possible discipline for an assault conviction in South Korea.

Pyongyang was silent for weeks until confirming he was in custody in August. On Wednesday, North Korea state media suddenly announced King would be released after another period of uncertainty.

North Korean media has claimed that under questioning, King said he fled because of racial discrimination in the U.S., a claim Pyongyang also aired earlier this year.

He harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society, state media wrote.

The claim is unverified and considered dubious in Washington.

Senior officials said they are focused on the privates well-being in the immediate term, but that King may still face administrative action at a later time. King was labeled AWOL, which could mean jail time or a dishonorable discharge.

When he arrives on U.S. soil, he will be evaluated by some very talented and experienced team that are going to guide him through a reintegration process that will address any medical and emotional concerns and ensure we get him in a good place to reunite with his family, a U.S. official said.

As far as anything after that, again, our focus right now is caring for him and his family. And well work through all those administrative status questions following completion of his reintegration, they added.

Updated at 11:52 a.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
After 71 days in North Korean custody, U.S. soldier Travis King is heading home. The authoritarian state announced King's expulsion Wednesday, saying King confessed that he "illegally intruded" into the country.

In a White House statement, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said U.S. officials "secured the return" of King from North Korea and confirmed that Sweden and China helped with his release.

Citing two officials, CNN reported that King, 23, would be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio upon his return. Fox News Pentagon producer Liz Friden reported on X that King was bound for the same location Thursday, citing a U.S. defense official familiar with the plans.

Here's what we know about King's situation.

Travis King crossed into North Korea after 2-month prison sentence in South Korea

King served more than two months in prison in South Korea after he failed to pay a fine for damaging public property. According to legal documents, King caused damaged to a police car.

He was fined $4,000 for the damage but, after failing to pay, spent 48 days in a prison in Cheonan, a city about 50 miles south of Seoul.

American soldier Travis King was returning to the U.S. to be released from the Army when he "willfully and without authorization" ran into North Korea.

What did Travis King do after prison?

King, who joined the military in 2021, was released on July 10 and due to return to Fort Bliss in West Texas, where he could have faced military discipline for his actions, including possible discharge from the service.

King went through customs at the airport, but did not board his plane. Instead, on July 18, he joined a tour inside the Demilitarized Zone that borders both North and South Korea.

He ran across the border into North Korea, where officials detained him. A month after his capture, North Korean state media claimed he did so due to concerns over racial inequalities in the United States.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Travis King coming to San Antonio after going into North Korea: report
A Yonkers activist known for fostering warm relations between police and citizens has sued the city police department over an incident in which officers removed him from a rowdy City Council meeting, punched him in the face, tackled and arrested him.

Hector Santiago, whose right arm was in a sling from shoulder surgery at the time, was cleared of any wrongdoing in July, when a judge acquitted him on a disorderly conduct violation. That low-level offense was the only charge left after the rest of the police case against Santiago crumbled before and during his trial.

Now Santiago, a former gang member who initiated the "Stop and Shake" program in 2015 to build trust in the Yonkers Police Department, has brought a federal civil-rights lawsuit against that very force and six of its detectives, seeking damages for their conduct in a two-minute encounter recorded on video at City Hall on Nov. 22.

Yonkers activist alleges excessive force from police in lawsuit

The case, filed Sept. 14 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, accuses police of using excessive force against Santiago and falsely arresting and imprisoning him. Santiago, who says he was detained for 20 hours after his arrest and lost his job due to resulting medical and court trips, is seeking an undetermined amount in damages for his eight-month ordeal.

"I just want to finish what I started," Santiago, a member of the Yonkers Human Rights Commission, said in an interview this week. "It's been really hard."

The police department declined to comment on pending litigation. A spokesman had said after Santiago's acquittal that an internal investigation found its officers did nothing wrong in their handling of the incident.

Hector Santiago closes his eyes as he listens to White Plains City Court Judge John Collins Jr. render a verdict of not guilty in Santiago's trial on disorderly conduct July 25, 2023. Santiago was charged with several crimes after he was removed from a Yonkers City Council meeting in November 2022. The most serious charges, including assaulting a police officer, were eventually abandoned and he was only tried on the disorderly conduct charge. The trial took place in White Plains City Court after several Yonkers City Court judges recused themselves.

Santiago is also seeking criminal charges against Detective Russell Kilgore, the officer who punched him in a hall outside the council chambers. His lawyer made that request to Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler, whose office prosecuted the charges against Santiago, and Hoovler's office sent it to state Attorney General Letitia James for consideration, according to letters published by the Yonkers Ledger.

Orange County handled the case after Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah recused herself, since Santiago had worked on her 2020 campaign. The case was heard in White Plains court because every Yonkers judge also declined to take part.

Santiago, who had rotator cuff surgery days before the encounter, says his rough treatment by police prolonged his recovery. He says he lost his job at Y-Zone  a Yonkers program that helps low-income residents with computers and internet access  because he had used all his vacation time for surgery and then had to make six doctor's visits and 20 trips to court after his arrest. He remains unemployed.

Acquitted: He was punched by a cop at a rowdy Yonkers meeting. Now he's been acquitted

What led to Santiago being punched by police at Yonkers meeting?

His run-in took place during a raucous meeting about extending term limits so Mayor Mike Spano could run for a fourth term. The proposal  which passed in 4-3 vote  sharply divided residents and council members alike. A similar vote had taken place in 2018, when the council extended term limits to three from two so Spano could seek a third term.

Hector Santiago is removed from the Yonkers City Council chambers during a tense session Nov. 22, 2022 in which the city council voted to extend term limits for city officials. The vote will allowed Mayor Mike Spano to run for a fourth consecutive four year term.

An official city video recording shows audience members shouting, booing and chanting. Kilgore is visible crossing the chambers and speaking to Santiago after he called out, "stop talking and vote," according to witness testimony. Several officers then led Santiago into the hall, where another recording showed Kilgore take Santiago by the arm and punch him in the face after Santiago flicked Kilgore's hand away.

Extension vote: Yonkers City Council votes to extend term limits, giving Mayor Spano a shot at fourth term

Police charged Santiago with two misdemeanors  obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest  and disorderly conduct, a violation akin to a traffic ticket. The prosecutor later withdrew the misdemeanors and replaced them with harassment, another violation. The White Plains judge dismissed that offense on the second day of the trial and found Santiago not guilty of disorderly conduct at the end.

Hector Santiago hugs his partner Madeline Ortiz after he was found not guilty of disorderly conduct in White Plains City Court July 25, 2023. Santiago was charged with several crimes after he was removed from a Yonkers City Council meeting in November 2022. The most serious charges, including assaulting a police officer, were eventually abandoned and he was only tried on the disorderly conduct charge. The trial took place in White Plains City Court after several Yonkers City Court judges recused themselves.

In the arrest report, Kilgore said he removed Santiago because he cursed and acted defiant after being asked to lower his voice. He said he later punched Santiago to "stop his actions" after Santiago hit him with his elbow and forearm, "forcefully jolting me back." He initially charged Santiago with assault, but that charge was dropped before Santiago was brought to court the following day.

Also pending for Santiago is a long-shot political run: he'll be on the Working Families ballot line on Nov. 7 as a City Council candidate. His opponent? Democrat Tasha Diaz, the councilwoman whose tirade had stirred up the crowd on Nov. 22 when Santiago was confronted by police.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers NY activist Hector Santiago sues police for City Hall run-in
Donald Trump could not have picked a more perfect gun shop to make a campaign stop.

The Palmetto State Armory retail outlet in Summerville, South Carolina, did not only have a Glock semi-automatic pistol inscribed with his name and likeness. The company itself has a history of capitalizing on the crazy core of Trumpism: insurrection and racial conflict and disrespect for democracy.

Palmetto State Armory manufactured the assault rifle that a racist gunman decorated with two white swastikas before he used it to murder three Black people at a Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Florida, late last month. But that could have just as easily been Smith & Wesson or Bushmaster or Daniel Defense.

Only Palmetto State Armory has painted a whole line of assault weapons in the style of an Hawaiian shirt, the unofficial uniform of the Boogaloo Boys, a militant movement that calls for the violent overthrow of the federal government accompanied by a racial civil war.

Indicted Trump Asks to Buy a Glock at Campaign StopWhich Would Be Illegal

The company marketed these weapons as the best American-made AK-47s with a Big Igloo Aloha finish. In the Boogaloo movements parlance, the Big Igloo and the Big Luau are slang for the second civil war. Boogaloo Boys took part in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol and they also figured in a 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

In June of 2020, another Boogaloo Boy fatally shot two sheriff's deputies in Santa Cruz. The killer wrote boog in blood on the hood of a car. That same month, a trio of alleged Boogaloo Boys were arrested with assault rifles and explosives in Las Vegas allegedly headed for a George Floyd protest.

Also that month, another alleged Boogaloo Boy murdered a federal security officer and got into a shootout with police in Oakland, California. He was wearing a patch that combined an American flag and an igloo on an Hawaiian background. He is now serving a 41-year prison term.

For a time, Palmetto the company also offered assault rifle lower receivers the core working assemblystenciled with Trumpian slogans such as Build the Wall, and Lets Go Brandon. One bore the words that Rep. Joe Wilson shouted from the House floor during President Obamas 2009 State of the Union address: You lie!

Only 999 of these will be produced, get yours before they are gone! the company said when announcing this new customized line to honor our esteemed congressman Joe Wilson.

In a Trumpian oversight, Palmetto State Armory failed to mention that Wilsons son, Julian Wilson, is one of three partners in JJE Capital Holdings, the private equity firm that owns the company.

The House subsequently voted to censure Wilson. He came to reconsider his violation of congressional decorum, but made no mention of his sons ownership stake when he released a letter to Palmetto State Armory President Jamin McCallum.

I thank you for quickly suspending sales of the product that uses my words, Joe Wilson wrote to Julians Wilsons partner as if there were no connection.

The Trump supporter who posted the viral video of Donald insisting he wanted to buy a Glock  which legally could have gotten Donald in a lot of legal trouble  DELETED it.



Too late. I already put it in the family archive.  pic.twitter.com/gN2buUVlLd  Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) September 25, 2023

The younger Wilson was present at Palmetto State Armorys retail store in Summerville on Sunday. He stood with McCallum and witnessed Trumps excitement on seeing a pistol bearing his likeness.

"Oh, I like that one, Trump said. Wow.

He then said, I want to buy one.

But federal law prohibits anyone under indictment from purchasing a firearm, and Trump left the perfect gun shop without the gun.

Even so, he departed this bastion of Trumpism with what he is always looking for, what he hopes will make a majority of us so blind as to put him back in power.

They like me, he said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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MASON, Tenn.  A Fayette County truck stop owner says a company hired to secure his parking lot is ruining his business.

The owner of the Shell Station at I-40 and Exit 35 didnt want to be identified but said he canceled a contract with S-Line Truck Parking one day after signing after he realized S-Line was working with A1s Towing and Hauling to boot and tow 18-wheelers from his business  he claims illegally.

They put a banner at the entrance of the truck stop to pay for parking over there. People were there before the sign was up, they didnt know anything about it. When they came Friday, the towing company started towing trucks out of the parking lot, he said. They charge between $3,300  $3,600 for one day.

He said S-Line was hired to clean his lot, provide security, and collect fees for truck drivers who want to park for 12 or 24 hours. Instead, he said they are towing or booting tractor-trailers minutes after they pull onto his lot.

Let me tell you what happened. They waited about five minutes. They let a truck on the lot and followed the truck. The driver went to the bathroom, and he came out, and they were towing the truck, the truck stop owner said. One driver, they towed the truck while they were sleeping, and they made him pay $300 just to unhook the truck.

The truck stop owner says S-Line has refused to cancel their contract, and he trying to get an injunction to keep S-Line and A1s off his property.

In the meantime, he said he has put up posters warning customers to be on the lookout for the A1s drivers and is even using his own vehicle to block their tow trucks. He said the Fayette County Sheriffs office told him they couldnt do anything because he had a parking contract with S-Line.

I never thought I was going to hurt anybody, or hurt my business, or hurt myself, or have this to think about.

The City of Memphis told WREG its permits office is investigating A1s Towing and Hauling after receiving nearly a dozen complaints from truck drivers from across the country over the last year.

The Tennessee Attorney Generals Division of Consumer Affairs has received seven consumer complaints against A1s towing since 2022.

City investigating A1s Towing after truck drivers file complaints

During the last five months, five A1s employees and one S-Line worker have been arrested in separate cases involving the illegal towing of 18-wheelers. In one incident, an A1s Towing and Hauling driver was charged with robbery, and in another, three others were charged with carjacking for allegedly taking the trucks by force.

The S-Line signs at the Shell station near Mason say drivers must pay immediately after parking, but in the list of services provided to the truck stop owner, S-Line said truck drivers would have twenty minutes to pay. The truck stop owner said he told S-Line twenty minutes was not long enough for his customers.

They said we can make a designated area for you, and I said, A designated area? For how many trucks? Thats what we were negotiating before all this happened, he said.

Now, he said he wants nothing to do with the company. He said several truck stops in the Memphis area are in the same predicament and are considering suing S-Line and A1s.

Someone needs to stop them, said the Shell Station owner. The truck drivers dont have the $3,300 to pay when they leave their truck or go to sleep or take a shower. I can give you the names and numbers of truck drivers. Its all the same story, and its sad, and some of them have loads, and I feel so bad for them, and Im really under a lot of pressure because I feel like I caused this problem.

WREG tried contacting A1s and S-Line but could not speak to anyone with either business.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised on Wednesday, 27 September, on behalf of the state for inviting a veteran of the SS Galicia division to the Canadian Parliament during the visit of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Source: European Pravda, referring to CBC

Details: In a brief statement to reporters, Trudeau said he and all those present in Canada's parliament "deeply regret having stood by and applauded" 98-year-old SS Galicia veteran Yaroslav Hunka.

"It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust," he said, adding that Yaroslav Hunka's celebration was "deeply, deeply painful" to Jews, Poles, Roma, the LGBT community, and other groups that were exterminated by the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

In addition, Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Ottawa, was pictured applauding for Hunka, and Russian propagandists have used this image to their advantage. Trudeau added that "Canada is deeply sorry" for the incident.

Earlier, Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of Canada, announced his resignation over the scandal involving the invitation of the 98-year-old veteran.

Reference: The Waffen-SS Galicia Division was formed in 1943 by German troops who recruited Ukrainians to fight against the Red Army. The Nuremberg trials and the so-called Deschenes Commission, set up in Canada in the 1980s, did not confirm the involvement of the division's members in war crimes. Nevertheless, the division has been blamed for punitive Wehrmacht operations against Poles and Jews.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!
OTTAWA, Ont.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he is offering Parliaments unreserved apologies to the world, several days following scandalous revelations that lawmakers mistakenly praised a man who fought in a Nazi division in WWII.

This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada, Trudeau said Wednesday in a televised address ahead of his apology in the House of Commons.

He acknowledged the incident during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Ottawa visit struck a blow to Ukraines public relations efforts as it tries to rally support for its fight against Russia as Moscow uses the debacle to its advantage.

All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped, even though we did so unaware of the context, he said.

It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and it was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people. It also hurt Polish people, Roma people, to LGBTQI+ people, disabled people, racialized people and the many millions who were targeted by the Nazi genocide.

Trudeau did not take questions from reporters and pointed blame at the House of Commons speaker.

This follows the delayed resignation on Wednesday of the speaker, Anthony Rota, who has assumed responsibility for inviting Yaroslav Hunka, 98, to Parliament and publicly praising him as a Ukrainian and Canadian hero, netting Hunka a standing ovation from Canadian politicians and Zelenskyy.

Rota apologized for the incident after it came out that Hunka served in the First Ukrainian Division, also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS under the Nazis.

Trudeaus Liberals have squarely blamed Rota for causing the incident. But the opposition Conservatives blame Trudeau.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is surging ahead of Trudeau in the polls, said it has left Canadas image in tatters.

This is by far the biggest hit Canadas diplomatic reputation has ever taken in its history, he told reporters Tuesday.
A New York judge found the former president and his business associates liable for fraud on Tuesday, arguing that they inflated the value of his properties and other assets.

The Associated Press reported that in a civil lawsuit brought to Judge Arthur Engoron by New York Attorney General Letitia James , the ruling found that Trumps company had deceived banks, insurers and others by not accurately valuing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans.

Related

Why is there another case against Trump? CNN reported that the lawsuit brought forward by James is seeking $250 million in damages, a ruling that cuts the Trumps off from being officers of a New York business and prevents the company from engaging in business transactions for five years.

Today, a judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in years of financial fraud, James said in a statement regarding the ruling on Tuesday. We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.

The Hill reported that Trump responded to the ruling, saying, It is a terrible reminder that the radical left Democrats will stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 presidential election.

Trump continued, Regardless of party, we can not let this happen in the United States of America.

The trial will reportedly start next week with no real insight as to how this lawsuit will play out in the end.

If the decision is upheld, they have to liquidate the LLCs which actually hold the enormous bulk of the assets, said Bill Black, the distinguished scholar in residence for financial regulation at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Related

What evidence was presented in the Trump fraud case? Court documents involved in the case said, Following a comprehensive three-year investigation by the Office of the Attorney General, involving interviews with more than 65 witnesses and review of millions of pages of documents produced by Defendants and others, the attorney generals office found that Trump, along with some of his business associates, engaged in numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation in the preparation of Mr. Trumps annual statements of financial condition covering at least the years 2011 through 2021.

The first three strategies out of a total eight strategies listed as evidence in court documents were:

Relying on objectively false numbers to calculate property values. For example, Mr. Trumps own triplex apartment in Trump Tower was valued as being 30,000 square feet when it was 10,996 square feet. As a result, in 2015 the apartment was valued at $327 million in total, or $29,738 per square foot.

Ignoring legal restrictions on development rights and marketability that would materially decrease property values. One of three pieces of evidence used to support this claim was, In the 2012 Statement, rent stabilized apartments at Trump Park Avenue were valued as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation for those units  but an appraisal accounting for those units stabilized status valued them collectively at just $750,000.

Failing to use basic rules of valuation to ensure reliable and accurate results  such as discounting revenue or cash flow that might be obtained from a speculative development far into the future to its present value. The evidence linked to this claim was a series of high-value properties estimated the profits from developing and selling homes without accounting for the years it would take to plan, build, and sell the homes and instead operated under the impossible and thus false premise that the homes could be planned, built, and sold instantaneously.

In Trumps response to the ruling, he said, I am worth much more than the numbers shown on my financial statements. I didnt even include my most valuable asset, my brand.

There were no victims, Trump said.

Related

How many lawsuits has Donald Trump faced? Donald Trump has garnered a total of 4,095 lawsuits over the past three decades in various courts, according to the USA Today analysis of legal filings across the United States.

Along with these lawsuits, Trump is the only president to be impeached twice.

The former president reportedly plans to appeal the decision, according to The Associated Press.

It is a great company that has been slandered and maligned by this politically motivated witch hunt, Trump wrote, according to The Hill. It is unfair, and I call for help from the highest court in New York State, or the federal system, to intercede. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!
A group of Republicans will march onto the debate stage Wednesday night to argue that each of them could stave off another Donald Trump defeat against President Joe Biden .

Polling increasingly shows its not true.

Far from being an electoral liability, the former president is starting to lead  or at the very least tie  Biden in general election polling.

Not only is Trump the top choice of a growing majority of Republican primary voters in national surveys, but Republicans overwhelmingly think hes the candidate with the best chance of beating Biden next fall. And poll after poll suggests Biden and Trump are essentially tied with just over a year until the general election.

That undermines many of the arguments Trumps rivals made last month at the first debate. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called on Republicans not to focus on the 2020 election and instead to look forward and adopt the message that can win in November of 2024.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley , whos vaulted to third place in the polls behind only Trump and DeSantis, went further.

We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America, she said. We cant win a general election that way.

So as seven of Trumps lower-polling rivals prepare to take the stage in Southern California, lets look at how the race has changed from the first debate and what to make of the Trump wont win case still being peddled by his opponents.

GOP voters continue to see Trump as the most electable candidate, but DeSantis and Haley have cases to make

DeSantis and Haley may be trying to convince Republicans that theyre better bets to oust Biden next November, but so far GOP voters arent buying it.

A Monmouth University poll out this week asked Republican voters whether they saw Trump as the strongest Republican candidate for beating Biden: Nearly half, 48 percent, said Trump definitely was the strongest candidate, and another 24 percent said he was probably the strongest. That combined 72 percent marked an increase from 63 percent who thought Trump was the strongest candidate in May.

Only a quarter of Republicans, 25 percent, said another Republican would definitely or probably be a stronger general-election candidate than Trump.

That doesnt mean DeSantis and Haley are going to cede the electability argument in the second showdown.

A pre-debate memo authored by DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier called the Florida governor the only candidate that can beat both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a nod to DeSantis second-place position and generally positive image with Republican primary voters.

In this weeks NBC News poll, even though DeSantis trails Trump by a yawning 43-point margin, 59 percent to 16 percent, hes still the second choice of 37 percent of Republicans. When first- and second-choice votes are added together, Trump is at 70 percent, but DeSantis isnt too far behind with 53 percent. No other candidate is even above 20 percent.

The latest RealClearPolitics averages show Biden leading DeSantis by 2.5 points nationally, compared to Trumps 1.5-point lead over Biden. Still, the president isnt elected by national popular vote, and DeSantis  who won a landslide reelection victory in Florida last year  could be better equipped to claw back some of the Sun Belt states Trump lost to Biden in 2020, like the traditionally Republican states of Arizona and Georgia.

Haley potentially has a stronger electability case to make, based on the polling. She isnt offered as often as Trump or DeSantis by pollsters as a Biden opponent, but a sparse RealClearPolitics average shows Haley leading Biden by 4.3 points.

Haley actually had a slight lead over Biden in the NBC News poll, 46 percent to 41 percent, compared to a tied race between Biden and Trump and an insignificant 1-point Biden lead against DeSantis. Her campaign touted that result in a press release on Tuesday, calling Haley the only candidate who handily beats Biden, and viewers should expect to hear the same message in this debate.



Haley up, Ramaswamy down: How the race has changed since the first debate

Its easy to look at the overriding reality of the GOP primary  Trumps increasing dominance over the field  and conclude that last months first debate did little to alter the race.

But the debate did seem to reorder the candidates beneath Trump, setting the stage for a more consolidated opposition to nominating the criminally indicted former president.

After months of steep decline, DeSantis may have steadied his campaign a bit: The RealClearPolitics national average shows him at 14.5 percent  more than 42 points behind Trump but essentially unchanged from his 14.3 average on Aug. 23, the day of the first debate.

Meanwhile, Haley has bounced into third place, from 3.2 percent on Aug. 23 to 5.6 percent today.

She supplanted businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy, who was the subject of more attacks during the first debate than any other candidate. Ramaswamy has dipped about 2 points, from 7.2 percent going into the debate to 5.1 percent now.

The other candidates to qualify for Wednesdays debate  former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum  are at 4 percent or lower, roughly where they were before the first debate.

Trump, meanwhile, has actually gained some ground since the first debate. Hes at 57 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics average, up from 55.4 percent on Aug. 23.

Though it may seem like Trump is an unstoppable force, Trump did see a dip in the week or two after skipping the first gathering, suggesting the other candidates could actually use Wednesday nights debate to weaken Trumps stranglehold over the primary. Still, Trumps numbers are slightly higher now than they were before the first debate.



What to actually make of Trumps lead over Biden (Hint: Its not 10 points.)

An ABC News/Washington Post poll this week had the political class chattering because it showed Trump 10 points ahead of Biden among registered voters. But thats quite likely an outlier; the balance of public polling pegs the likely Biden-Trump rematch next fall as a tighter race than Bidens 2020 victory.

Of the 14 other polls in the RealClearPolitics database conducted in September: Trump led in 5, Biden led in 5 and the two men were tied in the other 4. And even pollsters worry that Trump's potential presence on the ballot could make polling less accurate.

Four years ago, when Biden was struggling to assert himself in the Democratic primary, his campaign pointed to public polls that showed he would be the strongest Democrat against Trump.

And the numbers were striking. As of this date in 2019, Biden held a 9.5-point lead over Trump, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Biden was up double digits in Sept. 2019 polls from Fox News (14 points) and ABC News/Washington Post (15 points).

Most Democrats and even some Republicans believe the latest polls overstate Trumps position, given Bidens weak marks with key parts of the Democratic coalition  like young voters and African-Americans  they view as likely to come home over the next 13 months.

But the Biden campaign and its allies are working to bring those voters back now, running ads in the swing states theyve identified as essential to the presidents reelection bid: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Theres a dearth of polling from those states for now, so the national surveys serve as imperfect proxies for the Electoral College race.

The fact that were talking about the general election underscores how uncompetitive the GOP primary has been so far. Its not clear whether anything that happens on the Trump-less stage Wednesday night will change that, but the electability argument isnt the silver bullet the former presidents competitors had hoped it would be.
Former President Trump shot back at a judges ruling that he and his company committed fraud by exaggerating his net worth, calling out the highly politicized Democrat judge for the ruling.

It is a terrible reminder that the radical left Democrats will stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 presidential election, Trump said in a set of lengthy statements Tuesday on Truth Social. Regardless of party, we can not let this happen in the United States of America.

New York prosecutors alleged that Trump and his two sons purposely misled banks and insurance companies about the value of their properties by as much as $2.2 billion in order to get larger loans and lower insurance rates than they otherwise would have received.

A judge ruled Tuesday against Trumps attempt to dismiss the case, determining that the former president committed fraud based on the evidence provided by the prosecution. A trial is scheduled to begin Monday.

I am worth much more than the numbers shown on my financial statements. I didnt even include my most valuable asset, my brand, Trump said. There were no victims!

He added Wednesday that the judge made up this crazy KILL TRUMP decision, assigning insanely low values to properties, despite overwhelming evidence.

[The judges] anger & hatred is politically motivated & unprecedented by those who watched! Trump continued.

Trump said he will appeal the decision.

It is a great company that has been slandered and maligned by this politically motivated witch hunt, Trump wrote. It is unfair, and I call for help from the highest court in New York State, or the federal system, to intercede. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!

New York prosecutors are seeking $250 million in civil penalties in the case and to bar Trump and his sons from being able to run businesses in the state.

Trump later attempted to direct attention away from the ruling by noting what he claims is rising violent crime in New York City. According to New York Police Department data, rates of violent crime, including murder, went down in the past year.

Todays Ruling about a Company that has done a magnificent job for New York State fails to acknowledge the fact that Murder and all other forms of Violent Crime have reached record levels in New York State, Trump said late Tuesday. A very sad Day for the New York State System of Justice!

The former president faces other legal troubles, including 91 criminal counts in four cases. Trials for all four cases are expected in early 2024.

Updated at 9:18 a.m. ET

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Former President Trump says he doesnt see a future White House bid in the cards for Michelle Obama .

I dont see that, no, Trump said in an interview with The National Pulse, when asked about Obama entering the 2024 race, after remarking that he didnt envision President Biden making it through the starting gate.

I dont see that, Trump repeated of the former first ladys chances of a presidential run.

The 45th presidents comments were a break from other prominent Republicans, who in recent days have floated Obama as a potential Democratic candidate.

Last week week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claimed Democrats could parachute in Obama as a presidential nominee if Biden were to drop out of the race.

I think in terms of a solution that unifies Democrats, there aint nothing like that, Cruz theorized on his podcast.

Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin responded to a series of election conspiracy theories on social media on Monday, saying that she believed Biden would be out in 2024.

But I still say itll be Michelle O #2024Election, Palin, Alaskas former governor, said.

Obama has repeatedly denied having any interest in running for office. In 2018, she said, I dont want to run for president.

Just because I gave a good speech, and Im smart and intelligent doesnt mean I should be the next president, she said at the time.

Obama reiterated the sentiment in 2019, saying there was zero chance that she would return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as commander in chief.

There are so many ways to improve this country and build a better world, and I keep doing plenty of them, from working with young people to helping families lead healthier lives. But sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office will never be one of them. Its just not for me, Obama said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Former President Trumps violent rhetoric toward Gen. Mark Milley is raising fears he will use a second term in the Oval Office to seek retribution against his enemies.

Trump suggested Friday that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is stepping down from his post at the end of the week, deserves the death penalty for allegedly betraying him and committing an act of treason.

The threat came just days after Milley warned that if Trump wins the presidency in 2024, he would enact vengeance against those he felt have done him wrong.

And Milley believes he is at the top of that revenge list.

Hell start throwing people in jail, and Id be on the top of the list, Milley told The Atlantic in a profile of the four-star general published last week.

Kristy Parker, a legal counsel at Protect Democracy who leads litigation on abuses of power and interference with government functions, said Trumps comments about Milley are deeply troubling for American democracy.

Even just the threats have an incredibly chilling effect on public actors ability to do the jobs we need them to do to have a functional democracy, she said.

Trump has shown and talked about weaponizing the Justice Department to retaliate against people who he perceives as his enemies and he did, in fact, do that to people when he was president the first time.

The Trump-Milley feud has simmered for years, with the two clashing over the militarys role in the 2020 racial justice protests and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But long after the administration ended, Milley remains at the top of Trumps mind as books and articles have documented steps the general says he took to protect against Trumps erratic behavior.

Last weeks death threat stems from reports that at the end of his presidency, Milley reassured Chinese officials there would be no threat to Beijing in the final days of Trumps administration, according to the 2021 book Peril by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The communication has long infuriated Trump, who took to Truth Social last week to condemn Milleys years of service as treasonous ahead of his retirement from the Joint Chiefs later this week.

[Milley] was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States, he posted. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!

Peter Feaver, a civil-military relations scholar who recently published a new book on public confidence in the military, said Trump is so enraged by Milley because of these public accounts portraying the general as a protector against his presidency.

Feaver said Trumps quest to castigate Milley is also designed to warn other potential critics from speaking out. He said the strategy has damaged the civilian-military relationship and could backfire on Trump and his allies.

Trump thinks he can just personalize this to Milley, said Feaver. But hes failing to understand how this is going to be corrosive of civil-military relations more generally [because ] if they havent done something wrong and youre punishing them, then you get a perverse civil-military relationship.

The spat is the second time this year their feud has come into the spotlight. Trump has also lobbed accusations at Milley over Iran, disputing claims that the general moved to ensure he wouldnt attack the country and arguing Milley was the one who recommended an attack.

But Milley is not the only one in Trumps crosshairs: Former Attorney General Bill Barr and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper have also drawn his ire.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Esper, Barr and Milley were all once praised by Trump but are now all regularly attacked by Trump because they had the nerve to put the country ahead of him.

What kind of person threatens execution on a third-tier social media site? A sad and disturbed person who has no place being near the White House, let alone living inside it, said Christie, a Republican presidential candidate challenging Trump.

Esper told CNN that Milley deserves praise and thanks and does not deserve what he is receiving from President Trump right now.

Referring to the China conflict, Esper said after the 2020 election, he told Chinese officials the U.S. was steady and directed Milley to send a similar message to his Chinese counterpart.

Esper said the way Milleys main offense was offering candid, frank advice did not comport with Trumps expectations.

He wants to find yes men in his office, Esper said.

The president has also said that a second term would be about retribution, right? So, I think these are all legitimate concerns, he later added.

While experts agree Trump would have no case to prosecute Milley for treason, the death threats alone are already alarming advocacy groups.

Abe Bonowtiz, the founder of Death Penalty Action, an organization working to abolish the death penalty, said, Trump has an unhealthy addiction for the dictatorial power to execute political rivals.

The death penalty is a very serious matter, he said in a statement, and its being tossed around as a political tool by Republican presidential candidates, which should concern everyone.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Former President Trumps unfavorability among registered voters has topped 55 percent, according to a new poll.

A NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll found roughly 44 percent had a very unfavorable view of Trump, the highest such rating across the other seven GOP contenders tested. Another 13 percent reported a somewhat unfavorable view, for around 56 percent overall unfavorability.

But the polarizing former president, the front-runner of the GOP primary race, also boasted the highest percentage of voters who viewed him as very favorable  with roughly 22 percent expressing strong favorability.

By contrast, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)  long considered Trumps closest challenger  saw around 34 percent of voters view him very unfavorably, and 11 percent view him very favorably.

Trumps numbers come as he faces a myriad of legal battles, including multiple criminal indictments, while he campaigns to return for another four years in the White House. Citing his significant lead in polling, he skipped the first GOP presidential debate and plans to do so for the second debate on Wednesday night, as his fellow 2024 Republican contenders gather in Simi Valley, Calif.

The former president was also the only GOP contender tested in the new poll whose very favorable rating was higher than his somewhat favorable score.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, by contrast, scored around 7 percent very favorable and 22 percent somewhat favorable, compared to 33 percent very unfavorable and 28 percent somewhat unfavorable.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy came in at 13 percent very favorable and 21 percent somewhat favorable, compared to 22 percent very unfavorable and 15 percent somewhat unfavorable.

Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) received significant percentages of voters who said they were not sure about their favorability: 28 percent unsure of Ramaswamy, 29 percent unsure of Haley and 38 percent unsure of Scott.

Voters were most uncertain about former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), with around 51 percent saying they are unsure about his favorability. Hutchinson didnt make the cut for the partys second debate stage in California.

Just around four percent in the poll said they were not sure of Trumps favorability.

Roughly nine percent each found Haley and Scott very favorable. Another 22 percent viewed Haley somewhat favorably, and similar shares  19 and 20 percent  viewed her somewhat and very unfavorably, respectively.

Around 19 percent viewed Scott somewhat favorably, and roughly 17 percent each viewed him somewhat and very unfavorably.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had around 5 percent very favorable and 17 percent somewhat favorable  as well as 27 percent somewhat unfavorable and 30 percent very favorable.

The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters between Sept. 19-20, and had the margin of error varied across questions, reported as 3 percentage points. Numbers have been rounded.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Donald Trump will attempt to woo blue-collar workers in Michigan in an intensifying political tug-of-war with Joe Biden a day after the sitting president visited a picket line to declare support for a trade union strike against the USs three flagship carmakers.

Related: Joe Bidens visit to the UAW picket line is historic  and may pay off politically

Targeting working-class voters in the key battleground, the former president will attempt to upstage Tuesdays appeal by Biden to union members on the frontline of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, which is turning into a proxy struggle for next years presidential election.

Trump will address about 500 workers, including UAW members, at Drake Enterprises, a non-unionised car parts maker in Macomb county, a few miles from where Biden spoke to striking employees picketing a Ford facility.

Wednesdays speech is timed to coincide with the second Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan library in Sima Valley, California, which Trump is avoiding to cement his self-anointed status as the partys presidential candidate-in-waiting. Seven Republican candidates, all of them trailing Trump by wide margins in opinion surveys, will take part in the debate.

Trump has emitted a sympathetic feeling towards workers striking against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis without explicitly endorsing their demands for a 40% pay rise, shorter working hours and better pensions  which polls show a majority of Americans support.

Instead, he has accused the UAWs leadership of selling its members down the river and attacked Bidens clean energy policy of incentivizing the three car giants to convert to manufacturing electric vehicles.

REMEMBER, HE [Biden] WANTS TO TAKE YOUR JOBS AWAY AND GIVE THEM TO CHINA AND OTHER FOREIGN COUNTRIES, Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. I WILL KEEP YOUR JOBS AND MAKE YOU RICH.

Shawn Fain, the UAW president, who stood beside Biden on Tuesday after inviting him to join the picket line despite having so far withheld his unions endorsement of the presidents re-election bid, has unequivocally dismissed Trumps efforts at drumming up union support.

Every fibre of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers, he said when the strike started on 15 September.

We cant keep electing billionaires and millionaires that dont have any understanding of what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.

But Trump has a track record of winning electoral support among union members  despite implementing a tax cut as president in 2017 that was overwhelmingly viewed as favoring the rich and corporate America.

He narrowly won Michigan, seen as a must-win state in the 2024 race, in 2016 before losing it in his defeat to Biden in 2020.

Nowadays, social issues seem to move union members as much as anything and posturing works, as Trump has proved, said Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Just playing the tough guy, the way Trump does, excites labour union members in many states. He isnt going to win an outright majority of blue-collar workers, but he could persuade enough of them to repeat the success he had in 2016 in the right sort of circumstances  and they wont be particularly influenced by criminal convictions.
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday found Donald Trump and his real-estate company liable for fraud.

The judge ordered the Trump Organization's New York corporate charters revoked immediately.

A receiver will be appointed to "dissolve" the company  but years of appeals may play out first.

Experts are calling it the "corporate death penalty." And what happens next is uncharted territory.

In a stunning decision Tuesday, a Manhattan judge found that Donald Trump committed widespread, long-standing, and ongoing fraud at the Trump Organization and ordered what experts in New York financial crimes say amounts to the dissolution of his company.

The penalty, awarded on behalf of New York's attorney general, Letitia James, is so extreme that Trump may fight James and the judge for years before anything actually happens.

And the penalty is so rare that the only previous time it's been attempted on such a grand scale  when James sought the corporate death penalty in her three-year-old, ongoing fraud lawsuit against the NRA  has failed.

"It's a staggering judgment," said John Moscow, a former financial-crimes prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney's office.

"It means you are no longer a company, and the judge is appointing someone to take over the assets and distribute them as the court sees fit."

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron's order dissolving the Trump Organization. New York Supreme Court/Insider

The ruling by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron spends some 35 pages describing Trump's frauds and disassembling his lawyers' arguments; it yanks the corporate charter in two short paragraphs.

The first paragraph orders the immediate cancellation of any "certificates," meaning corporate licenses, that are held by Trump, his two adult sons, the Trump Organization, and its underlying LLCs.

The second orders that "within 10 days of the date of this order, the parties are directed to recommend the names of no more than three potential independent receivers to manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs."

"The findings of fraud are just so obvious," said Moscow, who's now the senior counsel at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in New York.

James has alleged that Trump exaggerated the worth of his assets to banks and insurers by as much as $3.6 billion in a single year.

"But how it unfolds, I just don't know," Moscow said.

Trump continues to own his buildings, agreed Moscow and another veteran Manhattan financial-crimes prosecutor, Diana Florence, who's now also in private practice.

Florence likens it to losing a driver's license  it doesn't change that you own the car, but it changes everything about what you can and can't do with it.

"Without a corporate charter, you can't operate as a corporation," she said. "You can't get loans, you can't apply for a government contract.

"It's comparable to once a person dies. A dead person can't sell property. Only the executor of the estate can do that  or in this case, the receiver."

Florence continued that when corporations go away, it's usually because of bankruptcy.

"This is the same thing, but it's called a judicial dissolution," she said. "It's something that is almost never done. It's a big mess, actually."

In theory, the receiver would continue to collect rents, pay taxes, and pay the bills and the company salaries until the assets are sold off, with Trump, who is the Trump Organization's sole beneficiary, receiving what's left over after any debts and liabilities are met, Florence said.

Those debts may include a $250 million judgment the attorney general is seeking when the case goes to trial next month.

Could Trump transfer everything to a new, non-New York corporation and keep running things from out of state? Florence thinks not.

"He can't because he, Donald Trump, is no longer in charge," she said.

She continued: "The receiver will be in charge, and they are answerable to the court. Trump can't tell the receiver what to do."

Still, she added: "I think nothing will happen for a long time. It'll be years, I think."

But if the court has its way, and the ruling survives the inevitable appeals, "Trump will ultimately get the cash," she said, though "he could try to bid on the properties like anybody else."

Lawyers for Trump and the attorney general are back before the judge Wednesday for a final pretrial hearing.

Correction: September 27, 2023  An earlier version of this story misstated one of the allegations against Donald Trump. New York's attorney general, Letitia James, has accused him of exaggerating the worth of his assets by as much as $3.6 billion in a single year, not $3.6 million. It also misstated the name of the law firm Moscow works for. It's Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Whats the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise youll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopScis hit podcast . The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple , Spotify , YouTube , and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. Its your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee youll love the show.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/show/1l3aIVJ1FVrHSixsgrJ1f4?utm_source=generator

FACT: Curly hair may have evolved to keep our heads cool

By Rachel Feltman

As a certified Curly Girl, Ive always been fascinated by the different shapes human hair can take . But for most of modern history, science has woefully neglected the study of curly and tightly-coiled hair . Thankfully thats starting to change, due in large part to the curiosity-driven research and advocacy of Dr. Tina Lasisi. You can read more about Lasisi and her work on the morphology and evolution of human hair here, in an awesome article by PopSci alum Hannah Seo .

https://youtu.be/faK5H19Yju4?si=Zln5I7-_Vxh1L1sF

On this weeks episode of Weirdest Thing, I dig into the findings of one of Lasisis most intriguing studies . In 2021, she and her colleagues were able to demonstrate that curls help keep our heads cool. Humans evolved to rely on thermoregulation from sweat, which uses evaporative cooling. But our big ol brains are prone to overheating, so in a perfect world, we dont want them getting hot enough to produce sweat in the first place. Thats likely why we kept the fur on our heads while losing almost all the rest of it, which makes us look pretty bizarre lined up with other mammals and even other apes. Hair can block the radiant heat of the sun, thereby preventing it from scorching up our scalps and cooking our noggins.

https://youtu.be/Me4IljEafZA?si=3TNqODNBkVdwdQRh

Heres the problem: While hair does physically block sunlight from hitting our heads, it also serves as insulation, trapping any heat that makes it through.

Because tighter curls tend to correspond with areas with higher UV exposure , globally speaking, Lasisi and her colleagues decided to test whether coils and ringlets did a better job of keeping heads cool than straight hair. They tested this using a delightfully odd looking setup involving mannequins with glamorous wigs and power cords plugged into their eye sockets .

Sure enough, they found that wavy hair kept heads cooler than straight hair , while tighter cools provided the greatest cooling effect at all. And having any kind of hair was better than being bald, in terms of the suns ability to sizzle the skin atop your skull.

Lasisi and her colleagues think that curls create a sort of spongy effect, allowing air to circulate freely and keeping heat from getting trapped there. Listen to this week's episode of The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week to hear more interesting facts about the evolution of curls and coils.

FACT: Turkey Vultures projectile vomit in self defense

By Liz Clayton Fuller

Turkey Vultures are one of the heroes of the bird world. Often misunderstood, these incredible birds perform a service to society by eating carrion, the decaying flesh of dead animals. Carrion can carry (see what I did there) all kinds of toxins and diseases like anthrax, tuberculosis, and even rabies. Incredibly, Turkey Vultures can ingest all of the aforementioned contaminants unharmed because their stomachs are so highly acidic! The acidity of their stomachs makes their projectile vomiting strategy particularly effective. While consuming their carrion prey they stay nice and clean by having bald heads with no feathers and huge nostrils so that no bits of carrion get stuck to them. They also engage in a practice called " urohidrosis " which is where an animal urinates on itself in order to cool down when it gets hot out, so Turkey Vultures have certainly earned their reputation for being a little nastybut still amazing.

So Turkey Vultures perform this incredible service to humanity by cleaning up carrion, but how do they find the carrion to take care of? Turkey Vultures have the largest and most powerful olfactory system in the bird world which helps them find their (already deceased) prey. Their sense of smell can lead them to carcasses miles away and in fact many other Vultures rely on Turkey Vultures to locate carrion and then they follow them to it! As for what kind of carrion is on the menu, they prefer freshly dead meat. It is a common misconception that Turkey Vultures stalk and kill their prey, but they only arrive after their prey is deceased. Other than the common denominator of being freshly dead, Turkey Vultures aren't picky at all. In Tennessee alone I've seen them on the clean up crew of Armadillos, Skunks, Cow, Deer, Groundhogs, and more. So next time you see a Turkey Vulture soaring by, tell them thank you for being nature's clean up crew!

Fact: Renegade Zambian astronauts tried to beat Americans to the moon

By Purbita Saha

In 1964 the world was buzzing about the space race between the US and the Soviet Union. But a feature in Time magazine brought forth a new contender: Zambia, a southern African country that had recently won independence from the British. In the article, a science teacher named Edward Makuka Nkoloso shared that he was training a team of 12 astronauts to catapult his nation to the surface of the moon. No, they werent literally building a space catapultthey had a claustrophobic barrel-shaped rocketbut the candidates were learning to walk on their hands because thats how Nkoloso thought they would have to navigate inhospitable lunar terrain. Ultimately, the teacher settled on a crew of a teenage girl, a missionary, two cats, and his own dog, Cyclops. But without any funding, Nkolosos dream to send his country folk beyond Earths orbit fizzled into legend. No one could ever confirm if his endeavor was genuine or an attention-grabbing stunta 2014 short film called The Afronauts reimagines it as pure fiction.

Maybe Nkoloso would be proud of his regions emerging importance in astronomy today. From the MeerKAT radio array to the Africa Millimeter Telescope , multinational teams of scientists are finding never-before-seen wonders in the stars, all thanks to the clear skies of southern Africa. If nothing else, the proud Zambian who was interviewed by Time more than 60 years ago had a vision for the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Do3dz9TR0
Last fall, Floridas Duval County Schools pegged 450 eighth graders who were off-track for high school algebra to take part in an ambitious new tutoring effort.

The results caused a stir among principals. By the end of April, nearly half the students did well enough on tests to skip a second year in lower-level math.

Some of the schools we targeted typically dont see high performance, said Jasmine Milner, the director of K-12 math in the district, which includes Jacksonville.

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Thats what the district hoped when it entered into what is known as an outcomes-based contract with FEV Tutor, which provides virtual, one-on-one sessions during the school day. The company stood to make more money for better results  as much as $750 per student more, over a base of $670, depending on the amount of progress. Proponents of the model, more common in the health care and energy industries, say it increases accountability for both providers and school districts.

It ups the stakes for everybody to really pay attention to the data, said Brittany Miller, who leads a 10-district outcomes-based initiative at Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit focused on equity.

With research showing that far fewer students took advantage of online tutoring than districts expected, the outcomes-based model is one way to ensure districts use public funds wisely. In education, we can pay for things a long time before we realize no children are participating in it, Miller said.

Facing overwhelming declines in achievement as a result of remote learning and growing pressure to show a high return on federal relief funds, more districts are taking an interest in such transactions.

Because of relief funds, districts have been able to make investments in public education like weve never been able to do before, said Scott Muri, superintendent of the Ector County Independent School District in west Texas. I could have done a small pilot, but even coming up with a million [dollars] to do the [tutoring] work would have been incredibly challenging.

Related

Cardonas Tutoring Charge, 1 Year Later: Some Progress, but Obstacles Remain

The Ector district spent $10 million in relief funds on three years of virtual tutoring, most of it going to contracts with two leading tutoring companies, FEV and Air Tutors.

But first, there was some matchmaking to do.

The district whittled down a list of 11 companies to five and set up what Lilia Nanez, the districts associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction, called speed dating sessions with school principals.

FEV and Air Tutors hit the mark because they had clear objectives for vetting and training, Nanez said during a May conference on high-dosage tutoring at Stanford University.

Like Duval, Ector was among the original four districts in the Southern Education Foundations project in 2022. The network has grown to 10 districts, but Miller said any district can use the organizations resources, such as its template for contracts.

Since the 2021-22 school year, over 10,000 Ector students have received tutoring.

Itzel Espinoza credits the program with helping her graduate on time. Texas students must pass three of five end-of-course exams to earn a diploma, but she kept failing the Algebra I assessment.

Itzel Espinoza, 17, graduated on time from Odessa High School in Ector County, Texas, this year after tutoring sessions helped her pass the math portion of a state test. (Courtesy of Itzel Espinoza)

She struggled with graphing and knowing which variables to enter into her calculator. She failed four times before the district matched her with John Villamor, an Air tutor. He found that Itzel lacked some basic understanding of fractions and order of operations.

After meeting virtually twice a week, sometimes for more than an hour, the equations began to make sense. He just knows how to explain it, she said. By the fifth try, she said, the test was easy. I knew I was going to pass.

Providers say the financial incentive to boost student performance helps them prove their value to district leaders.

Outcomes-based contracting is a great way to get a footing into a district and make sure that the promises a provider tells in their pitch are actual deliverables, said Hasan Ali, founder and CEO of Air Tutors.

In return, he said, districts have to dedicate energy to develop the contract, schedule tutoring sessions and follow up with students who dont participate.

Related

NCES: 49% of Students Started Year Below Grade Level, Usually in Math, Reading

Not the only way

One drawback of such arrangements, however, is that they dont allow much wiggle room if a provider needs to add students, sessions or any other specifics not nailed down in the contract.

The model marks a significant shift from how districts have traditionally approached academic interventions, said tutoring experts. Officials who review bids from outside contractors dont typically sit at the table with a districts academic team.

Some leaders might find it too daunting to get staff from different departments to work together and could give up on tutoring efforts completely, said Kathy Bendheim, managing director of the National Student Support Accelerator, which researches high-dosage tutoring and organized the Stanford conference.

What I dont want is people to think [outcomes-based contracting is] the only way to do it, she said.

On the flip side, a superintendent could say, Lets re-do all our contracts this way, said Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank. Shes currently researching three tutoring efforts, including one in a district using outcomes-based tutoring.

Overall, she thinks the increased attention to contracts with outside vendors is healthy. She called districts business deals the least sexy and probably the most impactful way that this sausage gets made.

A focus on attendance

In education, the practice is still relatively new, but many providers are following it with interest.

Kate Bauer-Jones leads Future Forward, which provides in-school tutoring for struggling readers in seven states. But many of the districts using the program are in rural areas, and she doubts they have educators with the time and expertise to manage and analyze the data in the way such contracts require.

There are superintendents who are also running the transportation department, she said.

Districts using the approach spend a lot of time up front discussing the outcomes they want, which students theyll target and what assessments to use to measure progress.

Providers also want to know how their bottom line would be affected if students dont show up.

Jessica Sliwerski, co-founder and CEO of Ignite! Reading, which provides in-school virtual tutoring, said her team works hard to recruit and train tutors and has literacy specialists who meet monthly with district leaders.

What we cannot control is student attendance, she said. The attendance issues post-COVID in economically depressed areas are worse than they were prior to the pandemic. This is a significant and real pain point for schools.

While data from 2021-22 is not yet available, rates of chronic absenteeism doubled in several states during the 2020-21 school year. And research on pandemic recovery shows that even when students go to school, they might not participate in optional before or afterschool tutoring because of their parents schedules or lack of transportation.

To address those concerns, some districts  including the Denver Public Schools, Colorado Springs District 11 and the Uplift charter network in Texas  have included clauses in their contracts stating that if a students attendance in tutoring falls below 70%, the district still has to pay the provider the highest rate.

Knowing when students are more likely to participate  and what incentives theyll respond to  is part of making the arrangement work. Muri said he learned not to schedule tutoring for older students before the school day because they werent likely to get up any earlier for it. And some schools in Duval County purchased snow-cone and popcorn machines as an added bonus for students.

But Sliwerski said before shed consider such a contract, shed want to know how districts are communicating with families about the importance of coming to school every day.

The data from schools offering Ignite! Reading shows that 75% student attendance at tutoring sessions is necessary for incredible results, she said. Accountability doesnt scare me; I love accountability as long as its a two-way street.
The four siblings were travelling as passengers in an Amish buggy when the crash happened (Wikimedia Commons)

Two children have died in a crash between an Amish buggy and a car in Minnesota.

Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge said that the buggy and the Toyota SUV were travelling in the same direction along County Road 1 in Fillmore County when they collided at around 8.25am on Monday.

Two children died in the crash, while another two were taken to St Marys Hospital with injuries.

All four children  who are all siblings from the small rural city of Stewartville  had been travelling in the buggy.

The victims were identified as siblings Wilma Miller, seven, and Irma Miller, 11, while the survivors were named as Alan Miller, nine, and Rosie Miller, 13.

The injuries of the two surviving children are currently unclear.

The horse leading the buggy also died during the collision, KAALTV reports.

The driver of the SUV is a 35-year-old woman from Spring Valley, according to local news outlet KTTC.

No charges have been brought in the case with the investigation  led by the Fillmore County Sheriffs Office, Mower County Sheriffs Office and Minnesota State Patrol  still ongoing.

Officials are planning to reconstruct the crash to work out what happened (Filmore County Sheriffs Office/Facebook)

Minnesota State Patrol officers are planning a reconstruction of the crash to determine how it unfolded.

The tragedy comes just one week after another fatal crash involving an Amish buggy over in Alexandria, New York.

On 20 September, two children aged one and three were killed when a pickup truck drove straight into the back of the buggy.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will depend on the political prowess of two of the best-known consultants in North Carolina to help pass a record bond referendum.

The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, a champion of CMS $2.5 billion bond package to build or replace 30 facilities, has hired a Raleigh Democrat and Republican whove worked for Gov. Roy Cooper and Senate leader Phil Berger to pass the measure. Succeeding means passing the largest bond referendum ever for a public school district in North Carolina.

Ive pledged to bring together both the funding and the best bipartisan advocacy team we can assemble to pass this school bond proposal, said Janet LaBar, president and CEO of the business alliance and mom of three CMS students. Im personally committed to this effort.

The consultants include Jim Blaine, of the Raleigh-based firm The Differentiators, Morgan Jackson, of Raleigh-based firm Nexus Strategies, and Doug Wilson, founder of Alexander Wilson Consulting in Charlotte.

Those projects include replacing and renovating school buildings along with building new schools. Members of the trio say they took on the campaign because of the importance of safe and up-to-date schools.

It is imperative for our children to learn in a safe environment, said Wilson, who served as a senior advisor for the Biden Harris Coordinated Campaign for North Carolina in 2020 and has lived in Charlotte for 22 years. Many of our schools were built during the Kennedy and Roosevelt administration. We have schools that have asbestos and water leaks, which make learning hazardous for our children. This is why I am helping to make these bonds a reality.

Who are the consultants pushing the bond?

 Jackson has served in senior roles on the campaigns of presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional candidates and advised some of the states top elected officials. Those clients include Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein. Jackson, according to his firm, was instrumental in the 2016 campaign that defeated then-Gov. Pat McCrory.

In 2020, Nexus Strategies worked with failed U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham. Jackson also worked with former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards. He was field representative for former U.S. Reps. Mel Watt and Bill Hefner, according to his LinkedIn page.

We are passionate about public education and believe every child deserves the opportunity to learn in an environment that gives them the best chance to succeed, Jackson said. This bond will transform and replace outdated and overcrowded schools and make schools safer.

Jacksons clients also included Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Tricia Cotham until she flipped parties.

Jim Blaine

 Blaine, who was appointed this year to the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, served as Bergers first chief of staff from 2011 to 2018.

Prior to joining Bergers legislative staff, Blaine was the director of the Republican State Senate Caucus political organization, where he led the 2010 campaign that put Republicans in control of the North Carolina Senate for the first time in 140 years, according to his website.

Blaine also was key in implementing Bergers legislative agenda on education, tax policy and budget issues and helped craft Bergers message to the media and the public, according to the News & Observer.

Blaine is advising U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop in the Republican congressmans campaign for North Carolina attorney general.

Former state Sen. Patrick Ballantine, who hired Blaine for his first job in politics, told the News & Observer in 2018, Jim is one of the most powerful people in the state that no ones ever heard of, because he is effective and knows how to get things done at the legislature.

Jacksons and Blaines firms also received federal loans meant to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised questions because of their political work, according to the News & Observer. The Department of Justice launched a task force to investigate possible fraud involving Paycheck Protection Program loans, but no firms in North Carolina have publicly come under federal scrutiny.

Doug Wilson is founder of Alexander Wilson Consulting in Charlotte.

 Wilson worked as Kay Hagans state political director during the 2014 election. He also served as regional field director for President Barack Obamas campaign during the 2008 Presidential General Election, according to his website. Hes the former deputy executive director for the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Wilson also served on the Charlotte Relations Committee starting in 2011 and Charlotte Zoning Board of Adjustment in 2018.

Wilson says the key to passing CMS school bond is to show up

Direct voter contact, Wilson said. We are going to speak to as many voters as possible. We want to and will meet voters where they are, whether that is at community events, places of worship, etc. We will do what is necessary to ensure that voters know how important it is for our kids to learn in an environment in which they can learn safely and effectively.

Wilson says his message to voters is that the bond, which will likely require tax increases if approved, is an investment in childrens education.

We cannot allow our children to sit in schools that dont have central air or that have tree roots growing through the foundations of buildings, overcrowded classrooms that will affect their concentration, Wilson said. By voting yes for the bonds, our children will have access to state-of-the art classrooms, which will set them on the path of learning for the 21st century.

Charlotte Regional Business Alliance Communications Director Tanya Mendis declined to say how much the group will spend on consultants. Mendis told the Observer the cost of hiring the three firms will be available once campaign finance reports are filed and made public. Those reports, which show donations and spending on the bond campaign, are due Oct. 30.

Charlottes grassroots campaign

LaBars organization is a product of the Charlotte Chamber and Charlotte Regional Partnership merger in 2018. She said an educated workforce is vital to fulfilling the regions long-term economic potential. She calls the bond a well-balanced package.

(It) fairly allocates resources among schools in the fastest-growing, overcrowded suburban parts of our county and schools in the older, established parts of our county that are outdated and dont meet modern safety standards, she said. Passing this school bond will provide our students with state-of-the-art new schools, giving them the opportunity to learn in modern facilities that meet their needs.

Wilson says the historic low voter turnout during this months primary in Charlotte is something the campaign will address through a grassroots campaign.

Part of the promotion leading up to the November vote includes the Vote Yes for School Bonds Campaign that launched Sept. 7. A group of business leaders, community advocates, parents and educators, including Mary McCray, a retired educator and former chair of the CMS board lead the campaign.

Its critically important that the community come together and support our schools, Wilson said. And its our job to make sure voters know whats at stake. Well communicate that message directly to voters, and we have an army of volunteer advocates who are mobilized and going out in the community to talk directly to voters.
Southern Living recently released its "Best Places to Retire in the South" list, featuring 12 cities  and two are in North Carolina.

The ranking used top-rated cities and towns from the lifestyle brand's 2023 Souths Best awards and finalists were selected using data from Investopedia to compare and analyze a "variety of economic and lifestyle criteria" including affordability, average resident age and access to restaurants, hospitals, colleges, airports, and green spaces.

More: Hundreds of new apartments and townhomes are coming to Fayetteville. Will rent prices drop?

Beaufort, North Carolina

Recognized by Southern Living as "best for healthy living" among the retirement destinations, Beaufort is the fourth oldest town in North Carolina, established in 1709. The coastal landscape has plenty of activities for new retirees, including kayaking in areas around the Atlantic Ocean and participating in fishing tournaments. There are also many seasonal events that bring the town together, such as the annual Music Festival in May and the Wine and Food Festival in October.

View of marina in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Blowing Rock, North Carolina

For those looking for peace and quiet in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, Southern Living recommends their best mountain town for retirement: Blowing Rock, North Carolina. With a population of less than 1,400 people, residents can look forward to a simple life in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where new retirees can ski, hike and enjoy other outdoor activities. Nearby, Appalachian State University also offers free class auditing for those ages 65 and older.

One of the longest scenic drives in the world, the Linn Cove Viaduct.

The rest of Southern Living's Best Places to Retire in the South list

Here are the 10 other Southern cities listed as great options for retirement:

Greenville, South Carolina

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Abingdon, Virginia

St. Augustine, Florida

Huntsville, Alabama

Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Lexington, Kentucky

Savannah, Georgia

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Fort Worth, Texas

More: Who's the city of Fayetteville's top earner? Here's what city records show.

Public safety reporter Joseph Pierre can be reached at jpierre@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Beaufort, Blowing Rock in NC are best for retirement, says Southern Living
After one of the hottest summers in the history of Dallas-Fort Worth, dreams of building a swimming pool in the backyard has to be high on Texans wish lists to keep things cool the next time hellish heat visits North Texas.

According to experts from Pool Gnome, a swimming pool company, 40 Texas cities made the 2023 Best Cities to Own a Swimming Pool list. They compared over 380 of the biggest U.S. cities based on four categories. We considered access to pool installers and maintenance providers, costs, yard size, and even drought risk, among 15 total metrics. Top cities had ideal swimming weather and high access to pool pros.

Conroe in Montgomery County made the fourth best city in the U.S. to own a swimming pool, with an overall score of 56.80 based on pool readiness, installation, maintenance and climate.

Average yard square footage: 19,991.43 (Rank: 11)

Pool installers per 100,000 detached homes: 326.86 (Rank: 2)

Pool maintenance and repair services per 100,000 detached homes: 487.78 (Rank: 5)

Average per-visit pool cleaning cost (as % of income): 1.59% (Rank: 88)

Historical average number of extremely hot days: 105 (Rank: 36)

Tyler in eastern Texas made the sixth best city, with a score of 56.31. Allen, Flower Mound and Lewisville followed, making it into the top 20 cities ideal for a backyard splash. Richardson, Sugar Land and McKinney were in the top 50 list.

Its website states that it compared over 380 of the biggest U.S. cities based on four categories. We considered access to pool installers and maintenance providers, costs, yard size, and even drought risk, among 15 total metrics.

Does a swimming pool add value to a home?

Salil Sarkar, professor of finance and real estate at the University of Texas at Arlington told Pool Gnome: It depends on the neighborhood: If the home is the only house without a pool, adding a pool will avoid the additional discount while selling. If the residents dont care for a swimming pool, the property taxes would be low without the pool.

How do you keep costs down when owning a swimming pool?

Reduce your water and electricity bills with the following tips from Pool Gnome:
A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Aug. 16, 2023. King is now in U.S. custody after North Korea announced that it would expel King. | Ahn Young-joon, Associated Press

Over two months after U.S. Army soldier Travis King was detained by North Korea for crossing the border illegally, Pvt. King has been released from the country and is now in U.S. custody.

On Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency stated that North Korean authorities had concluded their investigation into King.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, under the law of the Republic, the state media said.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that King was transferred to American custody in China.

Who is Travis King?

King ran across the border between North Korea and South Korea on July 18, and was promptly detained by North Korea.

King is a private second class and cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who was arrested by South Korea for assault and was scheduled to be escorted back to the United States before he crossed into North Korea, the Deseret News previously reported.

A U.S. official told CBS News that King was being escorted back to the U.S. but, after going through airport security, returned to South Korea to join a border tour.

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During the tour, King ran across the Military Demarcation Line, witnesses stated.

A report released by KCNA last month claims that King defected from the Army because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.

What will happen to Travis King next?

Though King has been released from North Korean custody, it is unclear what will happen to him next.

His release almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans, The Associated Press reported.

King was previously declared AWOL by the U.S. government while he was in North Korea.

This means that King could face time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain took a swipe at former President Trump, saying he serves a billionaire class, a day ahead of Trumps visit to Detroit, where he will speak to union workers.

When asked on CNN about the former presidents trip to Detroit, Fain said, I see no point in meeting with him, because I dont think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for.

He serves a billionaire class and thats whats wrong this country, Fain continued.

Trump is expected to travel to Detroit on Wednesday, where he will meet with current and former union workers amid their ongoing strike against the Big Three automakers  Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Fain said it is a pathetic irony Trump will reportedly hold a rally at a nonunion plant in Macomb County, Mich.

All you have to do is look at his track record, Fain said. His track record speaks for itself. In 2008, during the Great Recession, he blamed UAW members, he blamed our contracts for everything that was wrong with these companies  thats a complete lie.

Fain pointed to Trumps discussion during his 2016 presidential campaign to move jobs in the Midwest to the South, which he said would make people beg for their jobs back at lower wages.

And the ultimate show of  how much he cares about our workers was in 2019, when he was the president of the United States, Fain said. Where was he then? Our workers at [General Motors] were on strike for 60 days, for two months. They were out there on the picket lines; I didnt see him hold a rally. I didnt see him stand up at the picket line.

Meanwhile, President Biden joined the picket line with union autoworkers Tuesday, becoming the first sitting president to do so. The move was seen by some as a likely offense against Trump, who is likely to be his 2024 presidential opponent.

The president spoke to a group at a General Motors facility in Belleville, Mich., alongside Fain, who has yet to endorse Bidens reelection bid, citing concerns over the Biden administrations push for electric vehicles (EVs), which put autoworkers jobs at risk.

When pressed on if his jabs at Trump indicate an endorsement for Biden, Fain said, Its not an endorsement for anyone, its just flat out how I view the former president.

The UAW began its historic strike against the automakers nearly two weeks ago after ongoing negotiations failed, and the workers contracts expired.

The union is asking for wage increases, cost-of-living pay raises, a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay, union representation at new battery plants, restoration of traditional-defined benefit pensions for new hires who currently receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, and pension increases for retirees.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
By David Shepardson, Joseph White

DETROIT (Reuters) -The United Auto Workers union could strike additional Detroit Three automotive facilities on Friday if there is no serious progress in labor negotiations, a source familiar with the talks said.

The union did not elaborate ahead of a planned video address by UAW President Shawn Fain at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT) on Friday. Bargaining continues at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis.

If Fain triggers walkouts at more plants starting at noon (1600 GMT) on Friday, the UAW is expected to continue work stoppages currently underway until a new contract is ratified, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The union has already shut down one assembly plant at each of the Detroit Three, and 38 parts distribution centers at GM and Stellantis.

About 18,300 UAW members are on strike, but that is only about 12% of the total number of union members working at the three automakers. Strikers are getting $500 a week from the UAW's strike fund.

The UAW launched its walkouts on Sept. 15, its first simultaneous strikes at General Motors, Chrysler parent Stellantis and Ford. The union on Sept. 22 expanded its strikes against GM and Stellantis, but kept its Ford walkout limited to a single plant. It is unclear whether Ford will be targeted in the next round of actions.

So far, the union and the companies remain far apart on key economic issues. Fain has stuck with a demand for 40% pay hikes over a four-year contract, a position supported by President Joe Biden during a visit to Detroit on Tuesday. The companies have countered with offers of about 20%.

The UAW also is pushing automakers to eliminate the two-tier wage system, under which new hires can earn far less than veterans.

The union has said negotiators at Ford are making the most progress toward an agreement. But Ford has said wide differences remain over key issues.

The UAW and GM plan talks on Wednesday afternoon, two sources familiar with the discussions said.

GM, Ford and Stellantis were not immediately available for comment.

The UAW's list of potential next strike targets includes engine and transmission facilities, as well as factories producing large pickup trucks and SUVs.

A wider strike that shuts down production of large trucks and SUVs could cost the automakers billions of dollars in revenue and profit. Analysts estimate GM, Ford and Stellantis earn as much as $15,000 per vehicle on each of their respective large pickup truck models.

The UAW, which represents 46,000 workers at GM, 57,000 at Ford and 43,000 at Stellantis, began negotiations with the companies in July.

Along with Biden, other politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have expressed support for the UAW's drive for higher pay.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 nomination, will speak in Michigan on Wednesday evening at a non-union auto manufacturer, as he skips the second Republican U.S. presidential debate. The UAW is not involved with that visit, and Fain has been critical of Trump in recent days.

The visits by Biden and Trump highlight the importance of union support in the 2024 presidential election, even though union members represent a tiny fraction of U.S. workers.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Joseph White; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)
The autoworkers' union leader blasted Donald Trump on CNN Tuesday night, foreshadowing a chilly reception ahead of the former president's planned visit to Michigan Wednesday.

I dont think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain told CNNs Wolf Blitzer, adding that he will not meet with Trump while he's in town. He serves the billionaire class and thats whats wrong with this country.

Trump will skip the second Republican primary debate in California Wednesday night, opting instead to speak with current and former members of the autoworkers union on the 13th day of their strike. Workers began striking after their four-year contracts expired and the three major automakers  General Motors, Stellantis and Ford  did not meet the union's demands.

The event will be held at a non-unionized auto parts supplier located near Detroit. Fain called it a pathetic irony that the former president chose a non-union venue to host a rally for union members, slamming Trumps record on labor.

In 2008 during the Great Recession, he blamed UAW members.  In 2015, when he was running for president, he talked about doing a rotation, taking all these good-paying jobs in the Midwest and moving them somewhere in the South, where people will work for less money and then to make people beg for their jobs back at lower wages, Fain said.

Fain added that Trump had been missing in action during his presidency.

And then the ultimate show of how much he cares about our workers was in 2019. ... Where was he then? Our workers at [General Motors] were on strike for 60 days, for two months, they were out there on the picket lines, Fain said.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign defended his record in a statement to POLITICO, claiming the former president had "always been on the side of American workers."

"Theres a disconnect between the political leadership of some of the labor unions and the working middle class employees that they purport to represent," spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote in the statement.

Fain praised President Joe Biden for visiting the UAW picket line on Tuesday, where he spoke alongside the president in Wayne County, Mich.

Fain called Bidens visit a great thing for the union, noting that it was the first time a sitting president had joined a picket line. That cannot be minimized, it cant go unnoticed, Fain said.

Despite Fains appreciation for Bidens visit, the UAW has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.

Today was really about our workers, Fain told Blitzer, and said endorsements would come at the appropriate time.
Russia has begun deploying units of its fresh 25th Combined Arms Army "piecemeal" to reinforce the over-stretched lines, indicating that a new Russian offensive is unlikely in the coming weeks, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest intelligence report on Sept. 27.

The ministry pointed out that Russia had "only rarely maintained an uncommitted army-size grouping which could potentially form the basis of a major new offensive thrust" since the start of the full-scale invasion.

The report noted that since mid-September, Moscow had most likely started committing elements of the 25th Army to action for the first time. Russia started building the new formation earlier this year to "add depth to its ground forces" in Ukraine, the U.K. ministry said.

Forces of the 67th Motor Rifle Division and the 164th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade are reportedly fighting west of Sievierodonetsk and Kreminna along the border between Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the ministry said.

Russia began concentrating its forces in the northeastern part of Ukraine since the summer, trying to take back initiative as Ukraine pushes forward on the southern front and around Bakhmut.

Ukrainian troops in Kreminna, a town in Luhansk Oblast not far from the administrative border with Donetsk Oblast, have sustained a particularly heavy onslaught by Russian forces.

Read also: Overcoming setbacks, NATO-trained brigade breaches Surovikin line in Zaporizhzhia Oblast

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
(Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said pressure on the Kremlins military-industrial complex needs to be ramped up further and indicated his forces would continue to attack Russian targets.

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Sanctions are not enough, Zelenskiy said in his evening address to the nation Tuesday. As long as Russias aggression continues, Russias losses must be tangible.

In its latest Defense Intelligence Update, the UK government said that Russia has likely sent elements of its new Combined Arms Army into action since mid-September. However, according to the update, its troops are apparently being deployed piecemeal to reinforce the over-stretched line and a concerted new Russian offensive is less likely over the coming weeks.

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Wheat edged higher as traders weighed heightened tensions in the Black Sea against plentiful supplies, particularly from Russia. Futures in Chicago are up almost 3% since Thursdays close following a series of attacks by Ukrainian and Russia forces, including a drone strike on Ukrainian port infrastructure close to the Romanian border.

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(Bloomberg) -- Ukraine resumed operations at a Danube River border checkpoint with Romania after a Russian drone strike damaged port facilities in the region overnight.

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Crossing at the Orlivka ferry checkpoint has started after a halt to carry out stabilization measures, the Ukrainian State Border Service said on its website Tuesday. Governor Oleh Kiper of Ukraines southern Odesa region said port infrastructure was hit in the area close to the Romanian border.

Russia has been stepping up attacks on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure near the Danube to prevent Kyivs attempt to use alternative river, rail and road routes to ship its crops after Moscow exited a Black Sea commerce deal in July.

The strikes in the border region are ratcheting up tension, with incidents of spillover into Romania, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member state. Romanian authorities have reported several incidents of Russian drone parts landing on its soil.

Romania and NATO authorities have so far been cautious on the matter. The military alliance has previously said its found no information indicating an intentional attack. The government in Bucharest currently has no intention to escalate the latest incident near the checkpoint, since there has been no damage on Romanian soil, according to a Romanian official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Shipping on the stretch of the Danube that divides Ukraine and Romania, a key route for grain transit, is operating normally, according to an official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified.

Read More: Ukraine Reaps a Big Harvest, But War Risks Trapping It at Home

Such attacks in Ukraine are likely to continue after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week said a United Nations proposal to revive a deal to allow safe passage for Ukrainian grain exports wouldnt work. Russias conditions for restarting a deal to secure Black Sea commerce are meanwhile impossible, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told Bloomberg TV last week.

--With assistance from Irina Vilcu, Andra Timu and Alberto Nardelli.

(Updates with reopening in first two paragraphs)

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Key developments on Sept. 26:

Ukraine reportedly hits Russian command post in occupied Kherson Oblast

Russian overnight attack damages infrastructure in Odesa Oblast

UK Defense Ministry: Strikes on Black Sea Fleet hinder Russia's blockade capabilities

Polish investigation concludes Ukrainian air defense missile fell on Polish soil last year

At least eight Russian officers of Russia's 70th Motorized Rifle Division were killed, and seven others were injured when a Ukrainian HIMARS missile hit a command post in the occupied parts of Kherson Oblast, Hromadske media outlet reported on Sept. 26, citing its intelligence sources.

The media hasn't specified the attack date on the Russian command post at the Russian-held east bank of the Dnipro River. The Kyiv Independent couldn't verify this claim.

Schemes, an investigative project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, later reported it had geolocated a Security Service (SBU) video of the strike in occupied Radensk, some 30 kilometers southeast of Kherson.

Another media outlet, Ukrainska Pravda, reported, citing its SBU source, that Ukrainian forces struck the command post on Sept. 18.

Ukrainian forces intensified attacks on Russian command posts in recent weeks, however the information provided by both sides remains scarce and often hard to verify.

Ukraine's military reported on Sept. 25 that the Russian Black Sea Fleet commander, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, was killed in a strike on the fleet's headquarters in occupied Sevastopol, southwestern Crimea.

The next day, the Russian Defense Ministry showed footage alleging that Sokolov, previously reported by Ukraine as killed, took part in a meeting with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu through a video call.

The Kyiv Independent couldn't immediately verify the date of the footage.

Ukraine's Special Operation Forces Command said on Sept. 26 that its sources confirmed Sokolov was killed, adding that the agency is still verifying the information.

Meanwhile, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on Sept. 26 that Russia's Black Sea Fleet after Ukrainian strikes "likely has a degraded ability to defend its assets in port and to conduct routine maintenance."

In recent months, there were several high-profile strikes on Russian forces in the area, including one on Sept. 13 against the Russian repair facility using marine drones and missiles that damaged landing craft, and a submarine, both of which were undergoing repairs at the time of the strike.

Read also: Overcoming setbacks, NATO-trained brigade breaches Surovikin line in Zaporizhzhia Oblast

Russian attacks

Russian forces conducted over 100 attacks throughout Ukraine over the past day, including an overnight attack that killed and injured civilians and damaged infrastructure, the authorities reported on Sept. 26.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its evening update on Sept. 26 that Russia launched 38 Iranian Shahed-136/131 loitering munitions, damaging the port infrastructure of Odesa Oblast.

The attack hit port infrastructure near Izmail, wounding two men, Governor Oleh Kiper reported on Sept. 26.

Ukrainian air defense intercepted 26 kamikaze drones. Six out of 26 drones were downed over southern Mykolaiv Oblast, neighboring Odesa Oblast, Vitalii Kim, the oblast governor, said in a Telegram post.

The official reported that drone debris fell on an agricultural enterprise in the Bereznehuvate community, some 80 kilometers northeast of Mykolaiv, causing a fire. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties.

Air defenses destroyed four more drones over Cherkasy Oblast, but an infrastructure facility in the region was hit, Governor Ihor Taburets reported. No casualties were reported.

Russian forces launched a total of seven missiles, conducted 73 air strikes, and shelled Ukrainian troops and settlements 37 times with multiple rocket launchers, the military said.

In Kherson, a 48-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man sustained minor injuries, the Kherson Oblast Military Administration reported on Sept. 26.

Roman Mrochko, the head of the Kherson city military administration, reported on Telegram that a separate attack around 3:10 p.m. local time injured two men aged 40 and 79, and a 52-year-old woman.

The regional capital is subjected to daily attacks.

Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said that six people were killed and 10 more were wounded by Russian attacks on Kherson Oblast on Sept. 25.

A Russian artillery strike on Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast also injured a 64-year-old man, the General Prosecutor's Office reported on Sept. 26.

Read also: Uncertain Triumph: Ukraine picks apart Russias best air defenses in Crimea

Ukrainian air defense missile allegedly fell in Poland in 2022, Polish media reports

Polish experts had concluded that the projectile that caused the death of two people in Poland's Przewodow last year was a stray Ukrainian air defense missile launched to intercept a Russian strike, the Polish Rzeczpospolita newspaper reported on Sept. 26, citing its sources.

On Nov. 15, 2022, an explosion killed two civilians in a Polish grain facility near Ukraine's border. On that day, Russian forces carried out a massive attack against Ukraine, launching around 100 missiles against the country's energy infrastructure.

According to the report, the Polish Prosecutor's Office has "categorically" denied the possibility that Russia launched the missile. They have allegedly identified the projectile as an S-300 5-W-55 anti-air missile launched from Ukraine's territory.

Russia attempted to attack a thermal plant near Lviv. Two missiles were launched to intercept Russian missiles. According to the report, one of them hit the Russian missile, while the other accidentally flew into Poland's territory.

In November 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that according to the ongoing investigation, the projectile was identified as a Ukrainian air defense missile. However, he added that Russia was ultimately to blame for the tragedy.

Read also: US will reportedly give ATACMS to Ukraine. Will it change the war?

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Key updates on Sept. 27:

Guardian: Ukraine sends letter to G7 on use of Western parts in Shahed drones

Bulgarian parliament approves providing Ukraine with S-300 missiles

Media: Germany investigating possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine

Ukraine's military confirms Wagner fighters return to front

Official: Russia starts building railway links to occupied cities in Donetsk Oblast

A letter from the Ukrainian government to G7 nations says that some of the components used in the manufacture of Shahed-type drones come from companies based in the West, The Guardian reported on Sept. 27.

The letter alleges that more than 50 electrical components originally stemmed from companies located in countries allied with Ukraine and involved in the sanctions coalition. The countries named include the U.S., Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Canada, and Japan.

According to the letter, Shahed-type drones with Western components have been used in at least 600 strikes on Ukraine.

The drones, originally produced in Iran and first used in attacks against Ukraine in September 2022, are cheap to manufacture and when used in swarms can be a headache for Ukrainian air defense, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.

There have been previous reports that Shahed drones were being manufactured with parts from Western countries. The letter further purports that Iran has begun to disassociate itself from providing Russia with weapons, adding that it cannot cope with Russian demand.

As a result, drone manufacturing locations have shifted to Russia in addition to Iran, as well as in Syria, another Kremlin ally.

The letter also notes that it is unclear if the Western companies mentioned were fully aware that their components were being used in drone production because the parts are largely of a commercial nature and are thus poorly regulated. The components have typically reached Iran through intermediary countries, thereby evading sanctions.

Spokespeople for some of the companies identified in the letter have condemned the usage of their components in the manufacturing of drones and have participated in sanctions but have acknowledged it is difficult to fully control sales throughout the entire lifetime of a product."

Read also: Oleg Sukhov: The West lacks political will to ensure Ukraines victory

Bulgarian parliament approves providing Ukraine with S-300 missiles

The Sofia Globe, an independent Bulgarian news agency, reported on Sept. 27 that the Bulgarian parliament voted to transfer to Ukraine an unspecified number of unserviceable S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

The primary reason for the need to transfer the missiles, argued Parliamentary Defense Committee Head Hristo Gadzhev, was that they were too old to be of use to the Bulgarian military and that even their original manufacturer would be unable to repair them.

Unnamed experts and officials from Bulgarias Ministry of Defense claimed that despite their condition, Ukraines military would be able to render the missiles serviceable, according to the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Bulgaria previously promised to deliver military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine for similar reasons, including 100 unused armored vehicles that are expensive to store and maintain.

The transfer of military aid to Ukraine has been a contentious issue in Bulgaria, which has long-standing historical ties to Russia and a pro-Kremlin minority in parliament. In November 2022, Bulgaria agreed to send military aid to Ukraine following many months of debate.

Although it was not publicly stated initially, various investigations additionally revealed that Bulgaria was secretly supplying Ukraine with fuel and ammunition in the first few months of the full-scale invasion.

Read also: Overcoming setbacks, NATO-trained brigade breaches Surovikin line in Zaporizhzhia Oblast

Media: Germany investigating possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine

The German Federal Prosecutors Office has launched an investigation into the alleged shooting of civilians, including a German citizen, by Russian troops at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the German news agency Tagesschau reported on Sept. 27.

The prosecutors office is investigating evidence that Russian troops shot at and injured civilians in Hostomel, a suburb of Kyiv, and the site of major battles in February-March 2022.

A spokesman for the prosecutors office confirmed that an investigation was ongoing and that German authorities were working alongside their Ukrainian counterparts.

Germany has compiled extensive evidence of Russian war crimes and is just one of many organizations, both abroad and in Ukraine, working to document and investigate them. A recent report in August 2023 revealed that there have been nearly 100,000 Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Ukraine's military confirms Wagner fighters returning to front

Some of the mercenaries from Russia's Wagner Group have left Belarus and returned to the front in Donetsk Oblast, RBC Ukraine reported on Sept. 27, citing the spokesperson of the Eastern Grouping of Forces, Illia Yevlash.

The spokesperson said that of the roughly 8,000 Wagner fighters stationed in Belarus, some departed for Africa, and around 500 are returning to Ukraine's eastern front.

Russia's Defense Ministry is renegotiating contracts with these mercenaries to serve as combatants or instructors, Yevlash clarified.

However, he emphasized that Wagner fighters do not pose a "significant threat" since the death of their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia's Tver Oblast on Aug. 23 under mysterious circumstances. Prigozhin's demise occurred two months after he negotiated an end to his brief armed "rebellion" against the Kremlin earlier in the summer.

"These individuals are indeed among the most well-trained Russian forces, but their presence will not be a game-changer," Yevlash said.

Although the media have already reported the return of Wagner contractors to Ukraine's battlefields, this is the first official confirmation of their presence by the Ukrainian military.

Wagner mercenaries were a crucial component in Russia's invasion force. They were primarily responsible for capturing the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast in May after a prolonged siege.

Following their insurrection against the Russian government in June, many of the Wagner Group mercenaries left for Belarus to provide training support to the Belarusian military.

Both Ukraine and the U.S. later said that the mercenaries were no longer taking part in hostilities in Ukraine. However, reports emerged following Prigozhin's death that Wagner contractors began leaving Belarus for Russia. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko later denied this.

Official: Russia starts building railway links to occupied cities in Donetsk Oblast

Russia has started building direct railway links to the occupied Ukrainian cities of Mariupol, Volnovakha, and Donetsk, which could decrease Moscow's logistical dependence on the Crimean Bridge, Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to Melitopol's exiled mayor, said on Sept. 27.

The official noted that if these efforts are successful, Russia will connect the Mariupol-Aslanove-Kalchyk-Volnovakha railway line in occupied Ukraine with the Russian cities of Taganrog and Rostov-on-Don.

Volnovakha also links through the railway to occupied Rozivka, Melitopol, and Crimea, he added.

Building these new connections would be a boon for Russian military and civilian logistics in the occupied territories and reduce Russia's reliance on the Crimean Kerch Bridge, according to Andriushchenko.

The work on the new railway sections has reportedly already begun, specifically on a bridge over the Kalmius River near the village of Hranitne in Donetsk Oblast.

The Crimean Bridge, a vital connection linking the occupied peninsula with Russia's Krasnodar Krai, was severely damaged in a Ukrainian strike on July 17.

The Ukrainian military said earlier in September that the bridge had not been made fully functional yet. Drone and missile strikes against Crimea also cause regular closures of the Crimean Bridge, further hampering Russia's logistics.

Read also: Uncertain Triumph: Ukraine picks apart Russias best air defenses in Crimea

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
More than US$6 billion have been pledged to support Ukraine, most of which is for military support, in the bill on additional funding for the US government.

Source: Oksana Markarova , Ukraines Ambassador to the United States, on Facebook

Markarova commented on the bill on the short-term budget resolution, which is being debated by the Senate and which is designed to prevent a shutdown of the US federal government amid disputes over budget legislation in Congress. This bill is supposed to fund the work of the US government for the next 45 days, during which they hope to reach a compromise on the budget for the 2024 fiscal year.

Quote: "The bill introduced on continuous appropriations for 2024 provides for the allocation of US$6.152 billion for additional assistance to Ukraine, in particular: US$4.499 billion for defence expenditure, US$1.650 billion for economic support, including direct budgetary support," the ambassador said.

Oksana Markarova emphasised that so far this is only a draft and active discussions will continue in the Congress in the following days.

The ambassador also explained the difference between the previously mentioned request of the White House to Congress for an additional 24 billion dollars to support Ukraine and the amount in this draft.

"The US$24 billion for Ukraine is the US administrations proposal for the quarter (the first of fiscal year of 2024, i.e. the last calendar quarter of 2023). Now a resolution for 45 days is being considered because there is no agreement on the US budget for the quarter and for the year. Accordingly, the Senate has proposed a stopgap 45-day resolution to avoid a stoppage of federal government funding," Markarova elaborated.

Background:

Prior to that, the Senate debated whether to include funds for Ukraine in the draft, so that the Republicans in the House of Representatives, sceptical of supporting Ukraine, would not reject it for this reason, while there was very little time to pass the law and avoid a government shutdown.

The US State Department has reiterated that Washington is capable of continuing to provide military and security assistance to Kyiv even in the event of a temporary shutdown of the government.

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Some mercenaries of the Russian Wagner Group have left Belarus and returned to the front in Donetsk Oblast, RBC Ukraine reported on Sept. 27, citing the spokesperson of the Eastern Grouping of Forces, Illia Yevlash.

The spokesperson said that of roughly 8,000 Wagner fighters who were stationed in Belarus, some departed for Africa, and around 500 are returning to Ukraine's eastern front.

Russia's Defense Ministry is renegotiating contracts with these mercenaries to serve either as combatants or instructors, Yevlash clarified.

However, he emphasized that Wagner fighters do not pose a "significant threat" since the death of their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin .

The group's founder died in a plane crash in Russia's Tver Oblast on Aug. 23 under mysterious circumstances. Prigozhin's demise came around two months after he negotiated an end to his brief rebellion against the Kremlin earlier in the summer.

"These individuals are indeed among the most well-trained among Russian forces, but their presence will not be a game-changer," Yevlash said.

Although the media have already reported the return of Wagner contractors to Ukraine's battlefields, this is the first official confirmation of their presence by the Ukrainian military.

Wagner fighters were a crucial component in the Russian invasion forces. They were primarily responsible for capturing the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast in May after a protracted siege.

Following their insurrection against the Russian government in June, many of the Wagner Group fighters left for Belarus to provide training support to the Belarusian military.

Both Ukraine and the U.S. later said that the mercenaries were no longer taking part in hostilities in Ukraine.

However, reports emerged following Prigozhin's death that Wagner contractors began leaving Belarus for Russia. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko denied this information.

Read also: This Week in Ukraine: Wagners mutiny attempt in Russia, and its consequences on Apple Podcasts

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Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the head of the Presidents Office of Ukraine, thinks that the "media" effect of the return of the Wagnerites to the east of Ukraine is more significant than the return itself.

Source: Podoliak on Telegram

Quote: "Concerning the "return of the Wagner PMC to the Bakhmut front". Remember: the Wagner PMC does not exist anymore. It ended with the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin (founder of Wagner PMC  ed.) and Dmitry Utkin (military commander of Wagner PMC), a raid of the companys structure by the [Sergey] Shoigu (Russias Defence Minister) and [Valery] Gerasimov's (head of Russias General Staff) group and elimination of the leadership of the organisation.

Today, there are only former mercenaries of the terrorist group who were headed in different directions: some to Africa, some to criminal life of Russias regions, and some signed a contract with Russias Defence Ministry and agreed to play the last note by covering the breach in the Russian defence on the Bakhmut front with their own bodies.

So the "media" effect of this event is more significant than the event itself."

Details: Podoliak believes that the Russians aimed to "try to distract the publics attention from the news about the liberation of Klishchiivka and Andriivka by the Ukrainian army and elimination of main combat-ready Russian formations on this front for some time".

Background:

Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of Forces, said that former mercenaries of the Wagner Group who were in Belarus had signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence and moved to the eastern front in Ukraine, and some of them had gone to Africa.

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The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has posted a video showing how Ukrainian pilots are adapting to the US F-16 fighter jet using an aeroplane flight simulator.

Source: Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook and Telegram

Quote from Air Force: "Of course, our goal is to have fully fledged F-16 aircraft training facilities on the territory of Ukraine, training aircraft (Polish Iskras (Sparks)) and flight training centres. But it all starts with small things.

So, while our brothers-in-arms are mastering the F-16 abroad, Ukrainian Air Force pilots continue to fight for the Ukrainian sky and wipe out the occupier on the ground. When there is a bit of free time, pilots get acquainted with the cockpit of the F-16 in virtual reality and perform joint missions over the territory of Ukraine as part of a pair, flight, squadron, while being in different regions of Ukraine."

Details: The video shows a pilot on an aeroplane simulator using virtual reality goggles, an engine control knob, pedals, and a monitor to learn how to control the US fighter jet.

The pilot also learns how to aim missiles at targets.

Thus, the pilot can train to "fly" both alone and as part of a group. At the same time, pilots can undergo this training while being in different parts of Ukraine.

Almost all tactical aviation brigades already have flight simulators, said Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force. This will allow pilots to master Western fighters in Europe and America faster in the future.

Ihnat also noted that the software has real maps of Ukraine, including the occupied territories.

Background:

Three countries - the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway - confirmed their readiness to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets after training pilots and engineers as of 24 August 2023. A number of countries were ready to train Ukrainian pilots on these aircraft.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has agreements to supply 50-60 F-16s, but that it needs about 160 of these aircraft to defend its sky.

In September, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that Ukrainian pilots were learning and training on F-16s.

The US Air National Guard said that the first group of Ukrainian pilots could be trained on F-16s in the US by the end of the year, but they would be able to perform combat missions later.

The media reported that the Ukrainian military leadership expects the Defence Forces to be able to use F-16s on the battlefield in the winter of 2023-2024.

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Ukrainian troops have continued to advance on the Melitopol and Bakhmut front and repelled Russian attacks on the Avdiivka and Marinka fronts.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 06:00 on 27 September

Quote from the General Staff: "The Ukrainian defence forces continue to conduct offensive operations on the Melitopol front and offensive (assault) operations on the Bakhmut front, inflicting losses in manpower and equipment on the occupation forces, and exhausting the enemy along the entire line of contact."

Details: In the area of responsibility of the Odesa Operational Strategic Group on the Kherson front, the defence forces continue to conduct counter-battery combat, destroying storage points and successfully striking at the Russians rear.

In the area of responsibility of the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group on the Kupiansk, Lyman and Bakhmut fronts, the Russians did not conduct any offensive (assault) actions.

In the area of responsibility of the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group on the Avdiivka front, the Ukrainian Defence Forces successfully held the line and repelled Russian attacks near Sieverne, Donetsk Oblast.

On the Marinka front, the Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in the vicinity of Marinka in Donetsk Oblast, where they made 14 unsuccessful attempts to force Ukrainian units out of their positions over the past day.

At the same time, on the Shakhtarsk front, Ukraine's defenders continue to hold the line and defend Ukrainian land from the invaders.

On the Zaporizhzhia front, Ukrainian defenders repelled a Russian attack south of Novodarivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

In the area of responsibility of the Pivnich (North) Operational Strategic Group on the Volyn and Polissia fronts, the operational situation remains without significant changes.

On the Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna fronts, the Russians are maintaining a military presence in the border areas, conducting active sabotage activities to prevent the deployment of Ukrainian troops to threatened areas, and increasing the density of minefields along the state border in Belgorod Oblast, Russia.

Over the past day, Ukrainian aircraft conducted 12 strikes on areas where Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment were concentrated.

Ukraines Rocket Forces and Artillery destroyed five artillery pieces, three clusters of Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment, one command post and two ammunition storage points.

A total of 26 combat engagements took place at the front yesterday. The Russians launched 10 missile strikes and 77 air strikes, firing 44 times from multiple-launch rocket systems at both Ukrainian positions and civilian facilities.

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The Security Service detained two Russian agents who adjusted the fire of a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on 21 September 2023.

Source: Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)

Quote: "Cyber specialists of the Security Service detained two Russian agents who adjusted the fire of the Russian missile attack on Kyiv on the night of 21 September 2023.

It is established that the detainees sent the Russians coordinates for a strike on the city on the eve of this date.

The main targets of the Russian attack were the capital's crucial facilities, including power generating facilities."

Details: The SSU reports that the two citizens who worked for the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (known as GRU) were helping to direct Russian missiles towards Kyiv.

Photo: SSU

They came to the attention of Russia's military intelligence because of their anti-Ukrainian posts on social media, which were distributed after the start of the aggressor's full-scale invasion.

A representative of Russian defence intelligence remotely recruited both men and set them the task of collecting intelligence on the territory of Kyiv.

On the instructions of Russian secret services, they tracked the locations and movements of Ukraines Defence Forces in the capital district.

Malefactors recorded points of deployment of Ukrainian defenders and questioned their friends for necessary information under the guise of everyday conversations.

In addition, the agents sent their Russian handler photos and geolocations of strategically important energy infrastructure facilities.

The malefactors received money from the Russian Federation for each completed task, which was transferred to their bank cards from anonymous payers.

A conversation between a malefactor and a representative of Russian defence intelligence

PHOTO: SSU

A conversation between a malefactor and a representative of Russian defence intelligence

PHOTO: SSU

Now, SSU investigators have served both detainees with a notice of suspicion under Art. 28.2 and Art. 111.2 of the Criminal Code (high treason committed by prior agreement by a group of persons under martial law).

The malefactors are in custody. They face life imprisonment.

Note:

On 21 September, air defence was responding and explosions were heard in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Rivne, as well as Cherkasy, Khmelnytskyi and Lviv oblasts. The Russian occupiers launched a large-scale missile attack.

On the night of 21 September, Russia launched 43 missiles on the peaceful cities of Ukraine.

On 21 September, Defence Forces shot down 36 Russian cruise missiles out of the 43 launched from 10 Tu-95Ms strategic aircraft from the area west of Engels.

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Macao readied with cultural, leisure events for upcoming long holiday

Xinhua) 10:09, September 27, 2023

MACAO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) is set to present a series of cultural, artistic and leisure events for the upcoming eight-day holiday from Sept. 29.

This year, the National Day holiday extends from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6, including the Mid-Autumn Festival. China's National Day is celebrated on Oct. 1, and the Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept. 29, a traditional Chinese festival of family reunions.

The Macao SAR government has displayed national flags and festive lanterns, a traditional decoration for the Mid-Autumn Festival, at around 80 venues across the city, including main streets, squares and parks.

Two outdoor concerts themed on the moon and the Mid-Autumn Festival will be staged on Friday evening in front of the landmark Ruins of St. Paul's, inviting local residents and tourists alike to indulge in the joyous moments.

The last two shows of the 31st Macao International Fireworks Display Contest are scheduled for Oct. 1 and 7. Audiences can watch the shows while enjoying food and taking part in games.

Other activities, such as outdoor musical performances, workshops and guessing lantern riddles, will be organized at the city's several cultural spaces and artistic venues, including the former sites of a firecracker factory and a shipyard.

The month-long 35th Macao International Music Festival will kick off on Saturday with the opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, The Barber of Seville, an adaptation of the eponymous comedy by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais.

The Macao SAR government tourism office expects 80,000 to 90,000 daily visitor arrivals during the holiday.

Industry insiders predicted that hotels in Macao would be fully booked during the holiday.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest over the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - International mediators have stepped up efforts to prevent a new round of armed confrontation between Israel and the Islamist Hamas group, which runs Gaza, amid an escalation in violent protests along the border fence.

"The United Nations is talking to and working with all concerned to improve the lives of people in Gaza, particularly the most vulnerable," U.N. Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland said on social media platform X on Wednesday, a day after he met Hamas officials in Gaza.

"The situation inside the Strip is dire and we must avoid another conflict that will have grave consequences for all. The people of Gaza have suffered enough and deserve more than a return to calm."

A regional diplomat said Egypt, which brokered numerous truces between Israel and Gaza militants in the past, had also stepped up its efforts to prevent a slide into another war.

Palestinians in Gaza have held protests along the fence for nearly two weeks, breaking from a period of relative calm.

Gazans say they are protesting over issues including the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and Jewish visits to the Al Aqsa mosque compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount.

Youths have thrown stones and improvised explosive devices at Israeli troops, who have responded with live fire, killing one Palestinian and wounding dozens of others.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told Israel's Kan Radio the protests would fail to win concessions from Israel.

"The priority is to mount a strong defence and prevent the incidents going beyond the fence. Whoever turns the incident into one of terrorism - gets hit and is killed ... They won't get concessions through terrorism," said Hagari.

Israel had shut crossings and stopped workers from coming into its territory since early last week. Israel said reopening "will be subject to ongoing evaluation on the evolving situation in the region".

ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENTS

A Hamas spokesman had no immediate comment. The group has defended the demonstrations, saying they aimed to protest at Israel's closure and "assaults" against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Several wars and a 16-year Israeli-led blockade, backed by Egypt, have devastated the economy of Gaza and sent the unemployment rate to around 46% percent, one of the highest in the world.

The regional diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said mediators sought more Israeli economic improvements, further ease up on crossings it controlled with Gaza, and an increase in the number of work permits.

In return, he said, Hamas would curb protests and end the use of improvised bombs and incendiary balloons.

He said the protests were not isolated from a financial problem Hamas is facing, worsened by Qatar's slashing of funds.

Qatar has cut a grant it used to offer to support the wages of 40,000 Hamas employees to $5 million from $7 million.

In August, employees received 55% of the wages, not the usual 60%. The group has not paid wages in full for many years.

"Hamas understands that it is not in the interest of anyone in Tel Aviv, Washington, or the region to have wars or engage in open battles with Gaza and therefore, it began to activate tough tools and demonstrations along the border east of Gaza as tools of field pressure on the politicians in Tel Aviv and Washington," said Gaza economist, Mohammad Abu Jayyab.

(Reporting by Nidal Almughrabi; Additional reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Alison Williams)
Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), above, and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced the Rape Kit Backlog Act on Wednesday morning.

Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), above, and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced the Rape Kit Backlog Act on Wednesday morning.

There are more than 100,000 rape kits sitting untested in police storage units across the country. California has nearly 14,000 untested rape kits, Texas just over 6,000 and New Jersey around 1,200. In several states the number of untested rape kits is completely unknown due to a lack of oversight and reporting.

The Rape Kit Backlog Act, a bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday, is designed to change that. The bill, whose details were shared exclusively with HuffPost, was introduced by Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and seeks to improve reporting requirements on the number of untested rape kits in each state.

My life was completely upended when I was raped at 16 years old. It took years to regain my voice as a survivor, Mace told HuffPost in a statement. Today, over 100,000 women across the country cannot regain their voice because their rape kit sits unprocessed on a shelf, depriving these women of their due process and ability to get justice. Its unacceptable.

A rape kit, also known as a sexual assault kit, is created during a medical exam to collect physical evidence left on a survivors body after an assault. Once a rape kit is compiled at a hospital, it is sent to police to be tested for DNA, which can then be used to prosecute the attacker and, in some cases, identify serial predators. But rape kits  which cost $1,000 to $1,500 to test  often end up sitting untested in law enforcement facilities around the country due to inadequate resources or funding.

The bill would require state and local governments to report whether or not they have conducted a comprehensive inventory of rape kits in their possession. The inventory would identify the physical location of the kits, whether they are tested or untested, and review if the results of tested kits were uploaded into a database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which in many states allows survivors to track their rape kit.

The law says that rape is a severe offense. But while rape is technically illegal, the lack of justice for survivors means it is effectively decriminalized, Lee told HuffPost in a statement.

In my home state of California alone, we have over 14,000 untested rape kits  each one representing a rapist who got off unscathed and a victim demoralized, she continued. This bill will strengthen reporting of rape kit backlogs across the nation, improve accountability and take a meaningful step in the fight to end violence against women.

The legislation does not provide new funds to states but instead brings critical oversight to an issue that has been plaguing the justice system for decades. State and local agencies will be mandated to complete the reporting requirements annually. If an agency does not meet the annual requirement, it will become ineligible to use the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, which is the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local governments.

The Rape Kit Backlog Progress Act is a crucial step towards accountability and transparency in addressing the backlog crisis, Mace said. By mandating reporting of comprehensive inventories and tracking the upload of results into CODIS, we are empowering law enforcement agencies to swiftly identify perpetrators and bring them to justice. Together, we can fight for a system which prioritizes survivors and ensures that no kit is left untested.

Testing rape kits is important for several reasons. A kit can identify an unknown perpetrator or confirm the presence of a known suspect. A rape kit can also confirm a survivors account of an assault, help solve other cases that might not involve sexual violence and exonerate innocent people. And it can connect a suspect to other crimes around the country.

The rape kit backlog hit the public consciousness in the last decade in large part because of the work of a program called End the Backlog, a campaign created by the nonprofit Joyful Heart Foundation, which, along with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, has endorsed Mace and Lees bill. At least 225,000 untested rape kits have been discovered in the last 10 years, according to End the Backlog.

When a survivor goes to authorities to get a sexual assault kit administered, theyve done their part to find justice. Its past time for states to do the same, Stefan Turkheimer, interim vice president of public policy for RAINN, told HuffPost. This bill will shine a light on these untested kits, each one of which represents a human being who went through an awful trauma and deserves their chance at justice.

Scroll below to read the Rape Kit Backlog Act in full.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Rape Kit Backlog Act of 2023 by Alanna Vagianos

Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website.
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators show their support for U.S. President Biden in front of the U.S. Consulate in Tel Aviv

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government announced on Wednesday it is admitting Israel into a program that will allow visa-free entry by Israeli citizens starting Nov. 30.

Admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which Israel's Foreign Ministry said was expected, is a win for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when relations between his religious-nationalist government and Washington have been strained over its judiciary overhaul plan and policies toward Palestinians.

Some Palestinians have protested against Israel's entry into the program, saying Israel for decades has discriminated against Arab Americans and harassed them at its borders. Four Democratic U.S. senators including Chris Van Hollen said Wednesday Israel has failed to meet requirements to treat all American travelers equally.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the announcement further "strengthens the security, economic and people-to-people ties between the United States and Israel."

Palestinian-Americans living in the West Bank or living in the United States now can enter Israel visa free, and fly in and out of Ben Gurion airport, reducing barriers to travel for these Americans, the U.S. said.

Netanyahu praised the decision as a "significant and joyous moment for all Israeli citizens."

For admission to the program allowing visitors to stay up to 90 days without a visa, Washington requires countries to meet requirements on issues such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security, and border management. They also must treat all U.S. travelers equally, so Israel must allow free passage for Palestinian Americans at Ben Gurion airport.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged the United States to guarantee equal treatment for Palestinians.

"At a time when the American administration has repeatedly said that its goal is to provide the same opportunities for freedom, equality, prosperity, and security for both Palestinians and Israelis, we expect this administration to work to implement what it says," the ministry said in a statement.

In a pilot period since July 20, Israel has eased access for Palestinian Americans through its borders and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to Israel's Interior Ministry, more than 130,000 Americans entered Israel since the pilot began, including 6,070 Palestinian Americans.

Between 45,000 and 60,000 Palestinian Americans live in the West Bank, a U.S. official estimated. An Israeli official put the figure lower, at 15,000 to 20,000.

There were previously 40 countries in the VWP, with nations added infrequently. Croatia was the most recent in 2021.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the announcement "will enhance freedom of movement for U.S. citizens, including those living in the Palestinian Territories or traveling to and from them."

On Tuesday, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed suit seeking to block Israel's entry to the program. A U.S. judge in Detroit denied an emergency motion, saying the Homeland Security Department had not received proper notice of the lawsuit.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Ali Sawafta and Henriette Chacar; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, William Maclean and David Gregorio)
The U.S. has added Israel to its visa-free travel program, allowing Israelis to travel to the U.S. without a visa process  a long-sought win for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu .

The Department of Homeland Security announced the previously speculated move late Tuesday, a week after Netanyahu met with President Biden at the United Nations in New York City.

Israels designation into the Visa Waiver Program helps the United States and Israel meet key national security goals and enhances  including through the enhanced Israeli cooperation with the U.S.  counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security and border management, a DHS spokesman said on a Tuesday call with reporters.

The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) covers 40 mostly European and Asian countries and is reciprocal, meaning American citizens  including Palestinian Americans  can also visit Israel without a visa.

This program not only benefits Israel and the United States, but also citizens who live in the West Bank and Gaza who can now visit Israel visa-free. This effort holds great promise for people-to-people ties between the United States and Israel, the spokesperson said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen discussed the move before the announcement Tuesday. He said it will begin in November.

This is a great achievement that testifies to the close relations between Israel and our great ally, the USA, Cohen said in remarks in Hebrew.

Multiple Israeli leaders have sought admission to the VWP, which has strict requirements, including a high visa acceptance rate and low visa overstay rate. Reciprocity was a difficult requirement to meet, The Associated Press reported, due to Israeli concerns over Palestinian-American access to the country.

Israel has run a separate immigration and screening process for Palestinian Americans than other U.S. citizens, which raised complaints that the process is discriminatory and often results in Palestinian Americans not being able to use Israeli airports.

The political victory for Netanyahu comes as he faces significant backlash at home over proposed changes to the countrys judicial system, which have resulted in mass protests.

The DHS spokesman said the change enables easier travel for Americans, especially those who have been discriminated against in attempts to travel to the country, notably Americans with Palestinian heritage and Muslims.

More Americans now have easier access to Israel, due to the recent change in long-standing Israeli policy and practices that barred or restricted access to certain U.S. citizens, dual nationals, and often subject to U.S. citizens of Palestinian or Arab heritage, or Muslim faith to significant difficulties and unequal treatment, he said.

The move drew pushback from four Democratic senators on Wednesday, who said Israel has failed to meet the requirements of reciprocity for U.S. citizens with Palestinian residency, adding they have heard from Palestinian Americans who have been denied entry through Israel border entries.

Adherence to this important American tenet of reciprocity and equal treatment of all U.S. citizens is critical to the integrity of the Visa Waiver Program, and we are deeply concerned with the Administrations decision to move forward in violation of that principle, they wrote.

The statement was issued by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

The senators said they are going to monitor whether Israel comes into full compliance with the Visa Waiver Program and determine whether Americans continue to face discrimination based on their ethnicity, national origin, or religion.

We will keep pressing for answers as to how the U.S. government will ensure that Israel ultimately comes into full compliance with VWP requirements as well as what mechanisms the U.S. has to monitor the implementation of one system for all U.S. citizen travelers by May 1, 2024.

Palestinian American activists also criticized the move.

There are so many problems with this decision, Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine-Israel Program and senior fellow at Arab Center Washington, told the AP. The reciprocity requirement is clearly still not being met since Israeli policy continues to treat some Americans, specifically Palestinian Americans, differently.

The [Biden] administration however seems committed at the highest levels to overlooking this continued discrimination against American citizens to rush Israel into the program before the deadline, he said.

Updated at 10:58 a.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A US Army soldier who crossed into North Korea is back in American custody, the White House said.

Pvt. Travis King was on a civilian tour of the DMZ in July when he sprinted across the border.

Senior administration officials on Wednesday detailed aspects of the "complex operation" to bring him home.

A US Army soldier who unexpectedly crossed into North Korea two months ago is now in American custody, senior Biden administration officials revealed on Wednesday.

North Korea said earlier that it would expel Pvt. Travis King, who sprinted across the border into the country on July 18 during a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area, a portion of the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement shortly after 11:30 EST Wednesday morning that US officials "secured the return" of King. A senior administration official confirmed that King has left Chinese airspace and is on his way to an unidentified US military base.

Senior administration officials detailed in a call with reporters the months-long effort to get King out of North Korea, which they said was a "complex operation" that involved multiple US government agencies and two external countries: Sweden, a partner nation, and China, with whom Washington maintains a frosty relationship. The officials said the process was initiated out of concern for King's wellbeing and a desire to reunite him with his family.

After King dashed across the border into North Korea and was subsequently detained by authorities there, the US began engaging in "intense diplomacy" and using multiple channels to urge North Korea to allow him to leave, an official said.

Officials said the US became aware through Sweden, which has helped broker talks with Pyongyang in the past, that North Korea wanted to release King earlier this month. At an unspecified date, they said, the American soldier was transferred out of North Korea and across the shared border with China, where the US received him and then began the process of transferring him home.

The "operational complexity" of the situation involved several factors, an official said, including the fact that the Swedish government had to transit into North Korea and the US needed to be ready to receive King in China. The US did not give any concessions to North Korea in exchange for King.

An official said the US is grateful to the Swedish government for its "diplomatic role in serving as the protecting power" for the US in North Korea, meaning it represents Washington there because there are no diplomatic ties between the two countries. The official also extended gratitude toward the Chinese government for help "facilitating the safe transit" of King, although Beijing did not play a mediator role.

The US remains "very open" to the possibility of diplomacy with North Korea, an official said, and that the transfer of King underscores the importance of keeping lines of communication open between the two countries.

Relations between Washington and Pyongyang, already extremely strained, have been tense in recent months as the White House has accused North Korea of engaging in secret arms negotiations with Russia to potentially help fuel its ongoing war in Ukraine.

King's situation is unusual. Before running across the border to North Korea in a shocking move, King had been held for several months in a South Korean prison over assault charges and was due to be sent back to a military base in Texas to face discipline. The US government declared him AWOL, which could lead to punishment.

King confessed to illegally entering the country because "he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society," according to state-run media outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which reported on Wednesday that Pyongyang had finished its investigation into King and decided to expel him.

US officials said King was "very happy" to be on his way home and "looking forward" to being reunited with his family. When he arrives on US soil, he'll be evaluated and guided through a reintegration process, while addressing medical and emotional concerns. "Administrative status questions" will follow King's reintegration, an official said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairs of three U.S. House of Representatives committees demanded Ford Motor turn over documents tied to its partnership with Chinese battery company CATL and threatened to call CEO Jim Farley to testify before Congress.

Republicans Jason Smith, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Mike Gallagher - who chair the Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and China select committees - jointly wrote to Farley with a new deadline seeking documents about the CATL partnership and the automaker's plan to build a $3.5 billion battery manufacturing plant in Michigan using Chinese technology.

"Fords ongoing refusal to provide substantive responses ... raises serious concerns regarding its licensing agreement with CATL," the lawmakers wrote on Tuesday in a previously unreported letter seen by Reuters.

Republicans have been probing Ford's battery plant plan for months over concerns it could facilitate the flow of U.S. tax subsidies to China and leave Ford dependent on Chinese technology.

On Monday, Ford said it paused work on the Michigan battery plant, citing concerns about its ability to operate it competitively as it remains in broader contract negotiations, drawing condemnation from the United Auto Workers union.

The lawmakers want documents including the Ford/CATL licensing agreement, communications between Ford and the Biden Administration referring to the licensing agreement and achievable tax credits, and records of Ford's knowledge of CATL's "apparent attempt to shield its connection to Xinjiang-based companies."

Human rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Xinjiangs Uyghur inhabitants, including the mass use of forced labor in internment camps. China denies the allegations.

CATL did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The lawmakers said if Ford does not disclose records sought previously by Oct. 6 "we will consider other means to obtain the documents, including compulsory process or insisting that you appear before Congress to publicly explain your failure to comply."

A Ford spokeswoman said the company had answered multiple congressional letters and "thoroughly responded to questions and shared detailed information about Fords work to strengthen domestic battery manufacturing" but did not say if the company would comply with the document request.

In 2022, Congress passed legislation barring $7,500 in future consumer EV tax credits if any battery components are manufactured or assembled by a "foreign entity of concern."

Ford has been awaiting guidance to determine if batteries produced by the Marshall plant would run afoul of the requirements.

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also faced questions from Smith about the automaker's relationship with CATL.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sonali Paul)
U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken addresses the press on sidelines of UN General Assembly

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is pausing certain foreign assistance programs benefiting the government of Gabon following last month's coup, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement released by the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.

THE TAKE

The U.S. is holding back assistance that might aid the Gabon government but continuing operational activities in the country, including diplomatic and consular operations supporting U.S. citizens.

The move is in line with steps taken by Economic Community of Central African States, the African Union, and other international partners.

KEY QUOTE

"The U.S. government is pausing certain foreign assistance programs benefiting the government of Gabon while we evaluate the unconstitutional intervention by members of the countrys military," Blinken said.

CONTEXT

* Army officers in Gabon seized power on Aug. 30, annulling an election minutes after an announcement that President Ali Bongo had won, which they said was not credible. Bongo had been in power since 2009.

* The junta has promised to oversee free and fair elections, but has not given a precise timetable for organising them.

* A 24-month transition to elections in Gabon would be "reasonable" after last month's coup, junta-appointed Prime Minister Raymond Ndong Sima was quoted as saying by French news agency AFP earlier this month.

* The Bongo family's dynastic rule in the Central African oil producer had created widespread discontent, with critics saying the Bongos did little to share Gabon's wealth with its 2.3 million people.

* The African Union suspended Gabon's membership following the coup.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Sonali Paul)
Private Travis King , the US Army soldier who fled to North Korea rather than board a US-bound plane for discipline by authorities at home, is back in American custody nearly two months after he broke away from a tour group in the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea and crossed the border into the North.

US officials on Wednesday said the errant American soldier had been turned over to American authorities in China, and has now been transported to a US military installation.

In a statement, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan praised what he described as the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

A senior US official who briefed reporters on the developments said the US government had successfully facilitated his departure from North Korea following what the official described as a months-long effort involving multiple US government agencies which had been undertaken out of concern for Private Kings well-being and a desire to reunite him with his family.

The official added that the US had been reaching out to Pyongyang through multiple channels over the last two months  including through the United Nations and the United Nations Command which oversees the allied military presence in South Korea  to gain information on Pvt Kings welfare and to secure his safe return home.

Because the US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, US officials have also been in touch with the DPRK through the government of Sweden, which represents US interests in the North.

Im pleased to share this morning that Private King appears to be in good health and good spirits as he makes his way home. We are grateful to the Swedish government for its diplomatic role in serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and to the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the safe transit of Private King, the official said.

Mr Sullivan, the presidents national security adviser, also thanked both the Swedish and Chinese governments for their respective roles.

A State Department official told reporters that Swedish officials had indicated that North Korea was interested in releasing the US soldier earlier this month. He also said Mr Kings release was the result of intense diplomacy through every available diplomatic channel, and told reporters that Mr Kings family has been in contact with the government throughout the process.

Separately, a different administration official said Swedens role in Mr Kings release had been really vital. They also said he was very happy to be on his way home and very much looking forward to being reunited with his family.

The news of Mr Kings return to American custody comes just hours after North Korea announced that it would expel Mr King, who crossed into the country while taking part in a guided tour of a border village in a demilitarised zone.

State news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday that Mr King, 23, had confessed to illegally entering the country back in July.

Pyongyang reportedly deported him after concluding its investigation into his illegal entry into the country, the report said.

North Korea claims that its investigation into Mr Kings crossing had revealed that he was seeking refuge in the country due to inhuman treatment in the US military, antipathy to racism and disillusionment with the unequal US society.

Prior to fleeing across the border, Mr King had been detained for more than 40 days in a South Korean penal facility after he was convicted on assault and destruction of private property charges.

He was sentenced on 24 May to serve in a labour camp at the Cheonan correctional facility, which is intended to house US military members and other foreigners convicted of crimes in South Korea.

On his release on 10 July, he was scheduled to return home to the US to face disciplinary action at his home base at Fort Bliss in Texas, the SCMP previously reported. But he skipped his flight and crossed into North Korea.

A Defence Department official said the militarys focus at this time is caring for Private King and his family, and stressed that upon arrival in the US, he will be evaluated by some very talented, experienced and experienced team who will guide him through a reintegration process that will address any medical and emotional concerns and ensure we get him in a good place to reunite with his family.

The official said questions of the soldiers disciplinary status and any possible court-martial would be resolved following completion of his reintegration.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Pvt Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said Ms Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

He added that the soldiers family was asking for privacy, and said Ms Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

US Army soldier Travis King (VIA REUTERS)

The Pentagon confirmed in July that US forces in Korea and Army counter-intelligence were conducting an investigation into Mr Kings disappearance over the border.

The United Nations Command asked North Korea for information, which finally released information about his crossing in August.

During the investigation, Travis King confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harboured ill feelings against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army, state-run news agency KCNA said last month.

It added that Mr King was kept under control by soldiers of the Korean Peoples Army and they were still probing the circumstances surrounding his crossing into the country.

While Mr Kings uncle Myron Gates told ABC News last month that his nephew had been experiencing racism during his military deployment, and after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he no longer sounded like himself.

The private was a reconnaissance specialist who had served in the army since January 2021 and was in South Korea as part of his rotation.

Throughout the years, other US Army soldiers have also defected to North Korea, with some cases dating back to the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.

With additional reporting by agencies
Its been about two weeks since the Utah Department of Health and Human Services placed the states first order for the new COVID-19 vaccine from the federal government, but so far, nothings been received.

Now that the COVID-19 vaccine has been commercialized, the state only orders shots for Utahns who dont have health insurance that will be available primarily through local health departments.

Thanks to the same vaccine supply issues faced by pharmacies and other health care providers, the states order isnt expected to be filled until sometime next month, said Rich Lakin, immunization director for the state health and human services department.

Related

We have ordered 2,500 to start and none have been delivered at this point. I think they will start to arrive the first and second week of October, Lakin said, adding hes not too happy with the federal government right now.

The updated COVID-19 shots that target a recently circulating version of the virus are now being distributed like other vaccines, with doses for insured patients no longer coming from the federal government through the state.

We really dont want it to be the governments responsibility, Lakin said of the change that followed the end of the national pandemic emergency. We want to have it really be privatized and people can purchase it and bill insurance as their patients come in.

The shots received federal approval in mid-September for everyone 6 months and older amid a rise in COVID-19 around the country and in Utah. But the rollout of the latest vaccine has been bumpy, thanks to the delays.

Like the state, some health care providers like Intermountain Health are still waiting to see the shots. And even those whove gotten the vaccine have had to turn away patients due to their limited supply running out.

Lakin blamed the vaccine manufacturers.

Its a Pfizer, Moderna issue. Its on their end. So any pharmacy, clinic, private physician, state health department, local health department, whatever, its all going to be delayed somewhat so its not coming in as fast as we anticipated, he said.

There might be some production issues, the vaccine manufacturers just may not be able to keep up with demand, Lakin said.

The Salt Lake County Health Departments website says its supply of the new COVID-19 vaccine is expected during the last week of September, but appointments for the shots wont be made until theres an exact date for their arrival.

Besides asking the state for 3,300 doses of vaccine for uninsured patients, the county health department has also directly ordered 6,000 private pay shots for those with insurance or willing to cover the cost out-of-pocket, spokesman Nicholas Rupp said.

Some scaled-down doses for younger children have shown up, but the plan is to wait to start vaccinations until we have all of the doses available, both for private pay and uninsured, Rupp said.

We dont think its equitable to offer one and not the other, particularly if it were our private pay that were in and not for the uninsured. Thats not OK. People who are uninsured deserve equal access to the vaccine as people who have insurance, he said.

But if the state-ordered vaccine ends up taking too long to arrive, Rupp said the county health department may borrow from their supply of private pay doses to provide vaccinations to those without insurance.

We dont want to have a delay unnecessarily. So if we need to juggle inventory and just keep a very good accounting, thats what well do, he said, noting it complicates audits and all of that. But we do it when we need to, to meet the need.

Related

Rupp said the county health department has been hearing from a pocket of folks that are really interested in getting the latest shots. The last time an updated COVID-19 vaccine was offered was just over a year ago.

But that dose, a bivalent booster because it targeted the original strain as well as versions of the omicron variant, hasnt been popular. Only a handful of states report more than 25% of their population are up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations; in Utah, less than 16% are.

Lakin said a new TV commercial for Pfizers updated COVID-19 vaccine featuring the Kansas City Chiefs Travis Kelce could make a difference, now that Kelce is getting attention for dating pop superstar Taylor Swift.

If Kelce and Taylor Swift cant convince anybody, then, he trailed off, laughing. Hopefully they listen.
Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, a Republican, is set to announce Wednesday his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Mitt Romney .

Wilson confirmed to Fox News Digital on Wednesday that he launched an exploratory committee in April to consider running for the seat. A number of factors played into his decision to enter the race, he said.

One is just the overwhelming support weve had from everyone in the state  from elected officials to grassroots support. Just a lot of people encouraging us to run, whether its been support in terms of wanting to go out and knock doors or get supporters on board [with] financial support, Wilson told Fox. I mean, thats been overwhelming.

Romney announced earlier this month that he would retire from the Senate when his term ends in 2025. He said in a statement that it is time for a new generation of political leaders to step in.

Wilson has represented Utahs 15th District since 2011. He is expected to announce his run at 6 p.m. MST at an event in Draper, Utah on Wednesday.

At the end of the day, our country is not on the right path and we all know it. People feel like Utah is on the right path, and I feel like Ive got a lot and a tremendous amount to offer in terms of being able to go back to Washington, D.C. as a conservative, as a conservative fights and representing Utahs values back in the U.S. Senate, Wilson said.

Wilson said the issues he will focus on to get the country on the right path are fiscal health and responsibility.

Weve got to get off the road of reckless spending, mandates, and growing socialism, which were seeing all across this country, he said. Weve got to get back to being more responsible. We need to think about how we can actually reduce the tax burden on the middle class.

He wants to see energy policy become energy independent, instead of being energy dependent, he added.

Wilson said he is running because people in Utah would really like to feel like theyre being represented in Washington, D.C., not having Washington, D.C. represented to them.

Utah GOP Chairman Robert Axson confirmed that roughly 30 people have expressed interest in Romneys seat. A dozen of them are seriously considering right now, he said.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs and Roosevelt Mayor Rod Bird Jr. have both declared their candidacy for the seat.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A Virginia pastor recalled the chilling moments Sunday when a man armed with a loaded gun and knives entered his church during worship services.

Barry White, the founder and pastor of Park Valley Church, in the northern town of Haymarket, said the 10 a.m. service had just begun and music was playing when the man entered the building.

White, who was backstage preparing for the service, said a member of the churchs safety team told him about having noticed a man arriving through a north entrance, dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses indoors.

It was raining, and there was no need  no one was wearing sunglasses, let alone in the building. So that member right away said, Hey, this doesnt look right to me, White said.

So we shadowed him throughout the entire time that he was in the building, he said.

At some point, the man left the auditorium and the safety team confronted him in the lobby, White said.

As soon as that happened was when Prince William County police came in, he said.

Prince William County police arrested Rui Jiang, 35, of Falls Church, Virginia. He was found to be carrying a loaded handgun, along with an additional magazine, a folding knife and a folding credit card-style knife, police said.

Park Valley Church in Haymarket, Va. (NBC Washington)

Police said in a news release that an off-duty, uniformed officer, who was working a detail assignment at the church, and church staff members coordinated to detain the man without incident.

Meanwhile, worship continued. It wasnt until the end, after all services were over, that I really started to get informed and briefed on how dangerous the situation was, said White, who called the incident a sobering moment.

Police said they acted on an out-of-state tip after authorities in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, received a report from a nearby resident who noticed suspicious and concerning Instagram posts from the suspect.

After they found Jiangs potential address in Falls Church, police from Fairfax County dispatched officers to the home but didnt find him there, the release said. After they obtained additional information, Prince William County police were alerted and sent to the scene.

Officers found a kill manifesto, the likes of which Ive never read, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis told NBC Washington. But he also articulated that he didnt know anyone at that church.  He knew he was going to take many lives yesterday, and he also said, I dont know any of them.

Jiang, who was being held without bond, was charged with making threats of bodily harm and carrying a dangerous weapon to a place of religious worship.

The Prince William County Public Defenders Office, which is representing Jiang, did not respond to a request for comment.

White said the church has been overwhelmed with positivity since the incident.

Everybody has been so incredibly courageous and just supported us, he said.

White also said he hopes the suspect gets help, adding that he believes theres definitely a mental health crisis.

Anybody thats faced any kind of trauma or any kind of loss, I get it. Theres churches everywhere. It takes a village, White said. The bottom line is were here. Were here to help anybody thats hurting in any way, shape and form.

For more from NBC Asian America, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
1988-present

Who is Vanessa Kirby ?



Vanessa Kirby is an acclaimed English actor who received a 2020 Academy Award nomination for her performance as a grieving young mother in Pieces of a Woman. She first garnered widespread attention in 2017 when she was portrayed Princess Margaret in the Netflix series The Crown, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination and won her a BAFTA Award. Kirby has appeared in theater, television, and movies, including supporting roles in the action movie franchises Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious. Kirby will portray Empress Josephine in Napoleon, the upcoming Ridley Scottdirected biopic featuring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role.

[table-of-contents] stripped

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Vanessa Nuala Kirby

BORN: April 18, 1988

BIRTHPLACE: London, England

ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries



Early Life

Vanessa Nuala Kirby was born on April 18, 1988, in London to Jane and Roger Kirby. Her father is a prominent retired prostate surgeon currently serving as president of the London-based Royal Society of Medicine, and her mother is a former editor of Country Living magazine. Kirby grew up in Wimbledon, London, as the middle child of three siblings. Her family and friends call her Nu, a nickname derived from her middle name; Kirby says the name Vanessa is way too formal and mumsy.

Kirby began to develop her interest in acting from watching movies with her father at a young age, but she truly decided to become an actor at age 11 after watching Corin and Vanessa Redgrave in a production of The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre in London. Although she described her childhood as a happy one, Kirby was bullied in primary school and said she became self-conscious about everything I did but found an escape in drama and local theater. As a child she also suffered from giardia, an intestinal parasite that often made her nauseated.

After attending the Lady Eleanor Holles school in southwest London, Kirby applied for the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but was rejected, partially because she was too young. She took a year off to travel, then attended the University of Exeter, where she obtained an English degree and appeared in school plays.

Early Career: Theater Success and First TV and Movie Roles

Getty Images

Before her TV and movie career began, Kirby made an appearance in the music video for British pop band McFlys 2007 song The Heart Never Lies, which reached No. 3 on the U.K. chart. Kirby considered using a version of Nu as a stage name when she embarked on her professional career but decided to stick with Vanessa after her agent said she reminded her of Vanessa Redgrave.

Kirby was offered and initially accepted a place at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art but turned it down after meeting theater director David Thacker through her agent. This led to Kirbys theater debut in leading roles at the Octagon theatre in Bolton, Manchester, including productions of All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, and A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare. Kirby said of her audition at the Octagon: I flopped into the audition all sweaty, a total nobody whod been taken on by an agent by chance. Her days of anonymity were numbered, however, as Kirby won the BIZA Rising Star Award at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards in 2009.

Over the next two years, Kirby appeared in Marianne Elliotts production of Women Beware Women at the National Theatre and starred as Rosalind in Shakespeares As You Like It at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. For those things to happen in succession made me feel like less of a fraud, Kirby later told The Scotsman.

While continuing to appear in theatrical productions, Kirby made her television debut in 2011 in The Hour, a BBC drama series starring Dominic West and Romola Garai. That same year, Kirby portrayed Estella Havisham in the BBCs 2011 television adaptation of Charles Dickens Great Expectations. Her character was the adopted daughter of Miss Havisham, who was played by Gillian Anderson.

In 2012, Kirby appeared in a National Theatre production of Benedict Andrews Three Sisters. She also acted in one of her early movie roles in the British crime film The Rise. She portrayed Queen Isabella in a 2013 National Theatre production of Christopher Marlowes play Edward II and, the next year, appeared alongside Anderson again in a production of Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire that ran on both Broadway and Londons West End. One night during the plays run, she got stuck in a revolving stage while carrying a birthday cake intended for Andersons character.

Achieving Stardom with The Crown

Robert Viglasky - Netflix

Kirby appeared in several movies in the 2010s, such as Queen & Country (2014), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and Kill Command (2016). However, she first earned widespread attention in 2016, when she played a young Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II (portrayed by Claire Foy) in the Netflix drama series The Crown. She called filming the show the best time of my life. Rather than portray Princess Margaret simply as a younger version of her adult persona, Kirby sought to find the person she was before she hardened, before she became bitter and self-loathing.

Kirby was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2018 for her portrayal and received two BAFTA Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, winning the award in 2018. The cast of The Crown changes every two seasons as it depicts Queen Elizabeth and others at different stages of their lives, so the Princess Margaret role was turned over to Helena Bonham Carter in Season 3. Saying goodbye to [the role] was awful, I really grieved it, actually, Kirby said.

Becoming an Action Movie Star

Getty Images

Kirby joined one of Hollywoods most popular film franchises when she was cast as Alanna Mitsopolis, also known as the White Widow, in Mission: ImpossibleFallout (2018). Her character is a well-known philanthropist who secretly engages in illegal arms dealing and money laundering. I would never have thought of it myself to be somebody that sort of so in charge of this really dark, you know, hugely powerful organization, but to do it with lightness and play, rather than being assertive or menacing, Kirby said. She performed many of her own stunts for the part and described the movies star Tom Cruise as absolutely disciplined [and] super enthusiastic, adding that he always wants everything executed at a super-high level, so you have to train really hard.

During this time, Kirby continued appearing in theatrical productions. In 2018, Kirby portrayed the title role in the National Theatre production of Julie, playwright Polly Stenhams adaptation of August Strindbergs Miss Julie.

In 2019, she joined yet another popular action movie franchise when she was cast in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. She played Hattie Shaw, an MI6 agent and the younger sister of protagonist Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham. The role involved a great deal of fighting, and Kirby once again performed many of her own stunts, saying she was constantly in pain. She said she was drawn to the characters strength, noting: I felt like it was so important as the lead female that she wasnt falling into any tropes. Like shes never got saved by the guys, she was a capable fighter, and she never got rescued.

Academy Award Nomination

Kirby received widespread critical praise for her appearance in Pieces of a Woman (2020), a drama directed by Kornel Mundruczo. Her character was a young woman mourning her babys death immediately after birth. Kirby called the movie almost a character study on grief [and] how this person reacts to this kind of trauma, because of the generations of trauma and unresolved grief thats been passed down. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe wrote, Kirbys performance is multilayered, with sorrow buried far down beneath strata of denial, stoicism, coping, fury. Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote, Kirbys authority is commanding, even unassailable.

Kirby won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for the performance and went on to receive many more nominations, including for a Golden Globe, BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award. It was her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, though she ultimately lost to Frances McDormand in Nomadland (2020).

The release of Pieces of a Woman was partially marred as Kirbys co-star Shia LaBeouf faced allegations of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional abuse. In a statement, Kirby said of the controversy: I stand with all survivors of abuse and respect the courage of anyone who speaks their truth. Regarding the recent news, I cant comment on an ongoing legal case.

Additional and Upcoming Movies

Kirby has continued appearing in movies, including dramas like The World to Come (2020), Italian Studies (2021), and The Son (2022) with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.

She also reprised her role as the White Widow in Mission: ImpossibleDead Reckoning, Part One. I love coming back to Mission: Impossible because it really is like a family, she said. It has such a history to it, and Ive found the White Widow a very complex and unusual character to play. Kirby will return for the next film in the installment, Mission: ImpossibleDead Reckoning, Part Two, which is scheduled for release on June 28, 2024.

Apple

Kirby will also portray Empress Josephine in Napoleon, the upcoming Ridley Scottdirected biopic that stars Joaquin Phoenix as the infamous French military commander Napoleon Bonaparte. The movie releases in theaters on November 22, 2023. Jodie Comer was originally cast as Josephine, the wife of Napoleon, but Kirby took over the role after Comer dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Kirby and Phoenix agreed to surprise each other and go to dark places during filming so that their performances would avoid the usual cliches of period dramas. This led to an unscripted moment in which Phoenix slapped Kirby during a divorce scene, a decision that drew considerable media attention.

Personal Life

Kirby is not married, though she has reportedly dated several fellow actors over the years, including Callum Turner, Douglas Booth, and Paul Rabil.

Quotes

I never thought that stunts and action would be my genre, but Im understanding now that you can transcend genre, as long as you try and find the real woman behind the part.

We women have got to be the generators of the material, and in order to do that, we have to understand the system were in, which Im really trying to do.

I dont want to be shot through a lens of sexualization. Thats not me. Thats the distorted feminine and the distorted masculine that is creating so much of the toxic energy in our society.

So many times you pick up a script and you think, OK, so shes the hot one, or, Shes the ex-girlfriend. When I was auditioning for drama school and looking for a monologue, it was all, Im whining about my period or my baby that has died or my boyfriend Why cant you have a normal girl, talking about ideas?

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesnt look right, contact us!

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NEW YORK  A Vermont-based business has opened its first retail location, a pop-up store in the heart of one of Manhattans hipper districts.

Commando, which began nearly two decades ago specializing in womens undergarments, has since expanded its line to include a variety of womens fashion. The company was founded by Kerry OBrien of Shelburne and is based in South Burlington.

The pop-up shop opened Sept. 7 at 75 Greene St. in SoHo. The 2,200-square-foot shop will remain at the lower Manhattan location through December.

The Burlington Free Press took the occasion to reach out to OBrien by email for an update on all thats happening with Commando.

Kerry O'Brien of Shelburne, founder/CEO/designer for the clothing company Commando.

Burlington Free Press: Why open a pop-up store in New York City?

Kerry OBrien: We are coming up on our 20th anniversary and the Commando brand has never been stronger. Our first retail location had to be NYC and had to be SoHo, and it feels like a homecoming for me because we are just blocks from where I started Commando nearly 20 years ago. We've been patient and discerning waiting for the right location. This temporary pop-up location in SoHo became available and we seized the opportunity. We found it a bit uncanny how it checked so many of our must-have boxes. Residential in feel, ample storytelling space, a separate room to tell the closet story and well it's Greene Street! While I am a proud sixth-generation Vermonter, NYC has always been my second home. I love the energy of the city, there is truly nothing like it. Both my family and our Commando headquarters reside in VT, but NYC feeds my creativity and I love the energy and badass attitude that it has.

The growth of our digital business in recent years has enabled us to get closer to our customer than we have ever been and it's accelerated our learning curve. The evolution of our ready to wear line was born out of a desire from our customers for more from the brand. Experimenting with a physical store where she can touch and feel the product will continue those learnings. Not only informing our DTC (direct to consumer) channel but also strengthening our wholesale partners Commando businesses. Greene Street will inform so much of our future products and experiences. Nothing replaces standing face-to-face with a customer in a dressing room. We've had the very best premium wholesale partners with us on this journey and our wholesale business continues as an important part of our strategy. We've been slow and exacting in our growth, never compromising.

The Commando pop-up store at 75 Greene St. in Manhattan, shown Sept. 10, 2023.

BFP: Does Commando have stores elsewhere or is this the only one? If so, where do you sell your items primarily?

KO: We have the very best wholesale partners, Commando can be found in the United States at Net-a-Porter, ShopBop, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks 5th Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman as well as hundreds of boutiques across the country (including right here in Burlington at Green Envy, Harbour Thread and Bertha Church, Mendys and Monelle in Shelburne and livresse in Essex). We are also in the UK and Australia and of course on our website wearcommando.com

BFP: We last profiled Commando in 2014; how has company growth been since then?

KO: We are privately owned and do not disclose this information. I will say I am proud that Commando has grown every year since we began nearly 20 years ago.

The New York City pop-up store of Commando, a Vermont-based clothing company.

BFP: What is the companys presence in Vermont, in terms of employment, etc.?

KO: Our company headquarters are in South Burlington, Vermont, but my relationship with Vermont is so much deeper. I am a sixth-generation Vermonter. My great great great (great) Grandfather William Cockle was born in Burlington in 1816! The majority of our team is here. Our product development, product design, production, HR, and finance teams are all based in Vermont as well as our warehouse  employing roughly 80 local employees. We also have several teams working remotely (20 team members) including marketing, digital commerce, supply chain, and sales.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Commando, a Vermont clothing company, opens retail store in Manhattan
Vesna Vulovic, 23, the stewardess who was the sole survivor of a Yugoslavian Jetliner which crashed in January 1972, smiles from her hospital bed in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on March 2, 1972. She holds a puppet given to her by her colleagues from Yugoslav Airlines. Vulovic suffered several broken bones and bruises of the brain and several organs, in the 30,000 foot fall over Czechoslovakia, which took the lives of 27 passengers and crew members. | Associated Press

Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic, 23, survived a 33,000-foot fall after a terrorist attack detonated a bomb on her airplane on Jan. 25, 1972.

In an interview 30 years later with Philip Baum on Green Light, Vulovic told her own story. This catastrophe began by chance when her employer, Jat Airways, mixed up her schedule with another attendant named Vesna. The scheduled flight was to Denmark, and she said since she had a deep love for the Beatles, she always dreamed of staying in a Sheraton Hotel. She took the shift and was very happy.

Vesna Vulovic holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute, she fell 33,330 ft. Her remarkable survival followed a tragic incident on January 26, 1972, when a briefcase bomb detonated in the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367, leaving her pic.twitter.com/J60cmES8SH  Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) September 4, 2023

She recalled that one particularly grumpy passenger had checked his bag for the connecting flight, but didnt board. She believes that the bomb was placed inside his bag.

The last thing I remember is boarding the plane by the rear door and seeing a few women cleaning the plane. She has no recollection of the flight itself.

How did Vesna Vulovic survive the fall?

All of the 28 people on the flight died except for Vulovic, and since she has no memory of the flight or the landing, no one is quite sure how she survived.

Some believed she was belted into a seat that fell into a river. A Belgrade newspaper reported she was in the back of the plane which landed at the perfect angle on a snow-covered slope upon impact. Doctors told Vulovic that her heart should have burst upon impact, but attributed her survival to low blood pressure.

Where did she land?

The planes fuselage (main body) separated from the rest of the plane and landed in a heavily wooded area near the Czechoslovak village of Srbska Kamenice, according to GWR.

Baum asked about the theories, saying, The reports say that you fell in a part of the fuselage that remained intact. Some of the reports said that you were in the back of the aircraft.

Vulovic replied, No I was not in the back. The man who found me he told me that I was in the middle part of the plane. I was found with my head down and my colleague on top of me. One part of my body with my leg was in the plane and my head was out of the plane. A catering trolley was pinned against my spine and kept me in the plane.

Former World War II medic Bruno Honke found Vulovic screaming inside the wreckage, according to GWR.

What were Vesna Vulovics injuries?

She had a broken skull that led to hemorrhaging, three broken vertebrae (one that was completely crushed), a broken pelvis and broken legs. Though she was paralyzed from the waist down when she woke up in the hospital, she eventually regained motion and the ability to walk.

BBC reported that Vulovic made a full recovery and returned to the airline to work at a desk job until she was let go in 1990 after taking part in protests against President Slobodan Milosevic but avoided arrest.

In 1972, Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant, fell 33,000 feet in an aircraft explosion and survived. She now holds the Guinness world record for highest freefall without a parachute. #Aircraft #Aviation pic.twitter.com/c88p5Dp3Vd  Aviation Facts (@AirplaneCentral) February 12, 2023

She told The New York Times, I am like a cat, I have had nine lives. But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst.  I dont think of the accident every day. I am strong. But the politics in this country are making me tired. My heart cant take much more. I have had enough.

What was Vesna Vulovics cause of death?

In 2016, at the age of 66, a Serbian radio station reported Vulovics death without specifying the cause, per The New York Times.
WASHINGTON  A Space Force mission that successfully demonstrated the ability to buy, build and fly a satellite to orbit on rapid timelines highlights the need for more flexibility within the acquisition and launch enterprise, according to service officials.

The Victus Nox mission  Latin for conquer the night  launched Sept. 14, proving that a satellite can be built in less than a year and sent to orbit within 27 hours of receiving launch orders. It also made clear that as the service seeks to operationalize a tactically responsive space capability by 2026, it may need to make its systems and organizations more nimble to respond to real-time needs.

Space Force, partners to craft global supply chain strategy

I think you could walk through every single phase and every single step of this and kind of refine those processes, Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough told reporters during a Sept. 26 virtual briefing. And thats what this mission was all about.

Birchenough, senior materiel leader in Space Systems Commands Space Safari Office  which was created in 2021 to respond to urgent operational needs  said her team has documented dozens of lessons from Victus Nox ranging from technical issues to logistics to minor adjustments to government processes.

Really, its tightening up all of the different timelines of how we do things better, she said. How do we transport [space] vehicles around the country faster? How do we properly store them? How do we work with the range to make sure that when a mission like this has to go off, weve properly deconflicted with other launches?

The Space Force defines tactically responsive space as the ability to launch satellites on short notice, maneuver a spare spacecraft to augment a degraded system or buy data from a commercial partner in a crisis. Whatever the means, the goal is the same: to quickly adapt to the threats that come from an increasingly congested and adversarial space environment.

Victus Nox was designed to demonstrate the rapid acquisition and launch approach.

Against the backdrop of the Earth, Firefly Aerospaces Alpha rocket successfully deployed the VICTUS NOX satellite into orbit on Sept. 14 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. (Firefly Aerospace)

Last year, the Space Force chose Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, to build the spacecraft and ground system and Firefly Aerospace to launch it on its Alpha rocket. The mission entered its hot standby phase in August, when the service notified the companies that the 24-hour launch window could open at any moment.

During that period, Millennium sent the satellite from its facility in El Segundo, California, to Vandenberg Space Force Base. There, the mission team tested, fueled and mated it to its launch adapter in less than 58 hours. Following the launch, Millennium initiated early satellite operations within 37 hours.

For a standard mission, many of these processes can take weeks or months.

Lt. Col. Justin Beltz, chief of SSCs small launch and targets division, said during the Sept. 26 call that one factor in Victus Noxs success was the ability to manage the parameters. For example, he said, the service provided Firefly with a menu of potential launch scenarios, which allowed them to prepare.

In an operational environment, the Space Force cant control those conditions, which means the service and industry will need to be even more agile in how they respond to real-time needs.

Launch has always been a very deliberately planned, scripted event  weeks, months, sometimes years in advance. Thats how our entire launch enterprise is structured to do these kinds of missions, Beltz said. As we look at trying to make this not a single demonstration where we fly it and were done and then we go back to our day jobs, but something that ready all the time, there will be implications for how were organized to do that.

Beyond Victus Nox

As SSC looks to implement the lessons it learned from Victus Nox, its already planning future demonstrations to further explore responsive space capabilities and inform a long-term acquisition strategy.

The Defense Innovation Unit announced in August it would partner with SSC for its next mission and plans to launch contracts later this fall. SpaceWERX, the Space Forces technology hub, is also leading a tactically responsive space challenge, through which companies can compete for $34 million in small business innovation research awards.

On Sept. 15, Space Systems Command awarded ABL, a small launch company, $15 million to design a proof of concept for responsive launch. Under the contract, the firm will craft a mission design for launching multiple satellites from various locations.

Maj. Jason Altenhofen, deputy branch chief of the Space Safari office, said during the media briefing that the follow-on efforts will help the service better understand what companies can provide and how fast they can deliver.

Our goal with these efforts is to continue to push the timeline faster and also deliver more capability, he said. We believe that by leveraging the commercial investment thats out there, the commercial speed at which the commercial industry moves that we can hopefully get to a point where we can scale fairly quickly once we prove additional capabilities.

That work will also help the service determine how much funding it will need to make tactically responsive space capabilities a more regular part of doing business. The Space Force requested $30 million for the effort in fiscal year 2024 and expects to need another $30 million in FY25, but it hasnt projected what it will need in future years.

Were working through the budget process to figure out what . . . size of funding is needed to make a truly operational, repeatable capability for the future, Altenhofen said.

Birchenough noted that the Space Safari office is making a concerted effort over the next year to better understand what capabilities industry and the services international allies can offer.

If one of them has something that can allow us to respond quickly, we are definitely open to partnering with them, she said. That will allow us to get closer to that operational capability over the next couple of years.
Tuesdays fraud verdict against Donald Trump mightve been bad news for his finances, but it was great joke fodder for hosts of The View.

Judge Arthur Engorons ruling that the former president had committed fraud for years by overvaluing his assets was naturally a topic of conversation on Wednesdays broadcast  and the source of much mockery.

It started after Whoopi Goldberg asked if the ruling would finally pull back the curtain on who Trump is.

That prompted Joy Behar to exclaim, Wait till Melania [Trump] finds out hes worth 800 bucks!  to which Sara Haines responded, Thats all he paid in taxes!

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the Donald Trump White House in 2020, pointed out just how much the former president overvalued his properties.

This is how crazy it is: He inflated the value of Mar-a-Lago, his club down in Florida, by 2,300%, Griffin said. That would be like me saying that my two-bedroom apartment is like a multifloor penthouse and then trying to get a line of credit off of it. Its insanity! An average person would be in jail for doing it.

Griffin then offered a theory on why Trump, who plans to appeal the judges decision, may have felt the need to overstate the value of his assets.

He thinks that being a loser or being poor or struggling financially  those are the absolute worst things, she said. He never learned that playground lesson we did: that winning isnt everything.

She added, I honestly think potentially seeing the sign Trump Tower taken off of Fifth Avenue [in New York] would be more devastating to him than sitting in a prison cell, because it says unequivocally he is a loser in the place he always wanted to be.

Behar couldnt help piling on.

Hes a loser! she said.

Check out the full discussion in the video below:

TRUMP FOUND LIABLE FOR FRAUD: After a New York judge ruled that the former president defrauded banks and insurance companies by inflating the value of his assets, #TheView co-hosts weigh in. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjApic.twitter.com/1SHQGcHsP6  The View (@TheView) September 27, 2023

Related...
(Bloomberg) -- Virgin Australia says it was blindsided by a government rejection in July of additional flights into Australia by partner airline Qatar Airways as pressure mounts on authorities to explain the decision.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Speaking at a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra on Wednesday, Virgins Chief Executive Officer Jayne Hrdlicka said a meeting with Transport Minister Catherine King in January made her believe that Qatar Airways request to operate more flights would be granted. I was left with a very clear impression that a decision to proceed was imminent, Hrdlicka told senators on the panel.

But Hrdlicka said her doubts grew after a May 1 conversation with King, who raised concerns about a 2020 incident at Doha airport in which Australian women were subject to invasive, naked inspections after a baby was abandoned in the terminal. I was now concerned that the air rights might not be granted, Hrdlicka said. She had a phone call with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on July 13, when he also expressed concern about the same matter.

Read More: Qatar Apologizes for Strip-Searching Women at Airport

Hrdlickas disclosures shed the most light yet on a government decision that has baffled academics and CEOs from aviation to banking. Qatar had asked to operate 28 more flights into major Australian airports, effectively doubling its capacity into the country. Demand for international flights is outstripping supply and fares have soared. The extra services would have delivered annual economic benefits of about A$1 billion ($638 million), according to the University of Sydney.

According to Hrdlicka, approving the Qatar Airways request was a no-brainer.

Our assumption was that this was an easy decision to make, she said. If anything, I regret that we did not lobby on this issue more actively and aggressively. The case of granting rights seemed so compelling that we didnt believe it either necessary or appropriate.

The parliamentary inquiry is exploring Qantas potential influence on the decision after the airline, which controls 60% of the domestic market, lobbied the government over Qatar Airways application. Bain Capital-owned Virgin Australia argues the extra Qatar Airways passengers would have fed its own domestic network in Australia.

Unthinkable

Hrdlicka said Virgin thought the economic benefits of the extra flights would win the day and concerns about humans rights would be dealt with separately. She had a further conversation with Minister King on Sept. 1 to discuss the rejection. Hrdlicka said she was told it was about the national interest.

Executives from Qatar Airways earlier told the inquiry they were confused about the decision and didnt receive an explanation.

Matt Raos, senior vice president of global sales at Qatar Airways, said the rejection didnt help Australian exporters who need freight capacity, or travelers heading in and out of Australia who are paying too much for fares. Some key interests may have been missed, he said.

Raos described the incident at Doha airport in 2020 as a one-off.

We are completely committed to ensuring nothing like this happens again, he said.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Stephanie Dixon, whose pregnant daughter Sade was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Markeith Loyd in 2016, discusses her daughter's loss and the need for more awareness of domestic violence during a town hall hosted by the Beacon Center board in Daytona Beach.

Volusia County's only certified domestic violence shelter, beset with problems including an exodus of employees following the resignation of its CEO last month, hosted a town hall Tuesday which underscored the life-and-death nature of the services it provides.

Stephanie Dixon, whose daughter died in a high-profile, domestic-violence murder in Orlando in 2016, said at the town hall she missed signs  signs she now advocates for others to learn.

After Sade Dixon, Stephanie's daughter, met Markeith Loyd, she withdrew. The 24-year-old "social butterfly" stopped posting as much on social media. She told her mom to get a gun. Pregnant with two children and on her way to a real-estate career, Sade broke up with Loyd and moved home. Meanwhile, he drove up and down the family's Orlando street before confronting her outside the home on Dec. 13, 2016.

Loyd killed Sade Dixon, and shot her brother, Ronald Stewart, who was critically injured. He fired shots at Stephanie Dixon, too, but missed. While on the run, Loyd later killed Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton before finally being arrested and convicted in both murders. He's on Death Row.

"So for me to be burying my child and raising her kids, it's a hard situation," Dixon said. "I should be traveling right now, taking my vacations, but I have to be a mom again."

The issue of domestic violence continues to bedevil the judicial system.

Seven people died as a result of violence at home in 2022, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said at the event. And his Orange County counterpart, Sheriff John Mina, said the number there was 12.

State Attorney R.J. Larizza, who was not at the town hall, told The News-Journal he has consistently seen domestic violence account for about 25% of homicides in the 7th Circuit during his 15-year tenure. This year, he asked for and received funding to hire four additional prosecutors he will dedicate solely to domestic violence cases.

Lisa Alexander, executive director of Stand Up Survivor Inc., an Orlando nonprofit that helps domestic violence survivors, told the town hall audience even when the consequences aren't fatal, they reach far and wide.

Domestic violence may start at home. but it spills out into every area of life," Alexander said. "And so we always try to do our best to educate, from churches to schools to businesses to organizations, because what happens is the idea that it could never happen here. Thats just a false narrative.

Board president addresses shelter 'mismanagement'

Carmen Ruiz, the Beacon Center's board president, addressed problems at the shelter, which she said has had "major changes" in leadership in the last month.

Beacon Center Board President Carmen Ruiz hosts a town hall on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, at the Brown & Brown community room in Daytona Beach.

"This is the very real reality: We are facing major internal challenges and we are learning more every day about organizational issues, mismanagement, violations and discrepancies. Thats the truth," Ruiz said.

"This is going to be a process. And its not going to be a quick fix," she said. "But we are in the gathering and the development phase and well be updating the community as we move forward."

The nearly two-hour town hall involved lots of questions from Ruiz, event sponsors and the audience, but those were filtered and read by Beacon Center staff. When one man attempted to ask a question, he was made to sit down.

Ruiz urged the community to show financial support for the center and announced a Day of Unity breakfast event on Oct. 30. Chitwood announced the Volusia County Sheriff's Office would be a $5,000 sponsor.

Ruiz hasn't detailed mismanagement and violations, while Florida Department of Children and Families officials have not responded to News-Journal inquiries about what, if anything, they are reviewing.

Longtime CEO Angie Pye, who resigned on Aug. 30, and former board members have defended her leadership, saying the shelter has financial problems and the building is old and in need of repairs, but many shelters across the state face similar challenges.

Ex-CEO: Senator banned from shelter, made false allegations

Present at the town hall sitting front and center, was Florida Sen. Tom Wright, R-New Smyrna Beach. He was seen on video placing his hand on the shelter's then-interim CEO, Jessica Rivers, during an angry confrontation outside the Beacon Center on Sept. 2. Wright walked away, then returned, jawing at Rivers, who said she was attempting to keep him from stepping onto a bus of survivors, whose identities she was legally bound to protect.

Wright was trespassed from the shelter that day, but only after going through with a tour of the building with officials from the Department of Children and Families.

Wright has made "very serious allegations regarding the living conditions and financial management" at the shelter which are under review, according to a statement by Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.

In her statement, Passidomo failed to address other serious allegations involving the shelter. So, too, did everyone at the town hall. Wright later posed for photos with the panelists and shook hands with attendees.

Florida Sen. Tom Wright, R-New Smyrna Beach, listens during a town hall on domestic violence in Daytona Beach on Tuesday. Wright was accused of accosting a shelter worker and was previously banned from the shelter for his behavior, according to the former CEO.

Wright had supported the shelter as a donor and volunteer prior to his 2018 election but was banned by Pye from the center after she witnessed him acting flirtatiously with a survivor who had returned from an evacuation during a hurricane several years ago. Another former shelter resident told The News-Journal that he had flirted with her during that evacuation, too, including offering her a trip to Las Vegas.

After banning him, Wright made untrue allegations against the Beacon Center for years, Pye said. She said he gained the ear of Ruiz starting in June, leading to Pye's resignation.

Wright has not addressed Pye's allegations and told Daytona Beach police he thought he was in the right during the Sept. 2 confrontation.

Pye wrote in a text Tuesday: "I'm super-disturbed he is still connected and assessing Beacon Center and the board president would just ignore his assault of an employee."

Another shelter advocate resigns

One of the shelter's most immediate problems is an exodus of employees. In addition to Pye, the interim CEO who confronted Wright, Jessica Rivers, was demoted the following day and later resigned. And there have been others, the latest being Cheri Brant, who worked as an advocate.

Brant said she arrived at the shelter five years ago as a survivor.

Her experience changed her life, she said, and she started volunteering at the Beacon Center. Pye offered her a job, first working in maintenance and later as an advocate/peer support counselor.

Domestic Violence Shelter Turmoil: Florida Democrats seek investigation into Sen. Tom Wright's involvement with Beacon Center

"Angie gave me a chance," she said.

When she left, things soured for Brant, she said. An employee who she did not name started screaming at her, triggering anxiety and panic attacks she developed when she was being abused. Also, Brant said she worked more than 21 hours of overtime and was not compensated.

"All of the circumstances surrounding the Board of Directors, Sen. Tom Wright and the assault on our interim CEO have been causing me such panic and anxiety that it has been incredibly difficult for me to function," Brant wrote in her resignation letter. "The bullying and harassment in the workplace that has erupted has now made it impossible!"

Sept. 2 incident: Senator angrily confronts domestic violence worker after shelter leadership resignations

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mother of domestic-violence victim speaks at Beacon Center town hall
One of three businessmen federally charged with coordinating hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and his wife was arrested Tuesday after flying into New York.

Wael Hana, 40, was taken into custody at JFK Airport, according to the Associated Press. His attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, told CBS News in a statement that Hana "returned voluntarily from Egypt so that he would have the opportunity to prove his innocence which we are confident he will be able to do after a full and fair trial."

Hana, a New Jersey resident originally from Egypt, was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, according to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Prosecutors allege Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes in exchange for using the senator's power and influence to enrich and protect Hana and the two other indicted businessmen, as well as benefit Egypt's government.

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez flanked by supporters is pictured during a full room press conference at the Hudson County Community College - North Hudson Campus in Union City, New Jersey, on Sept. 25, 2023. / Credit: Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images

Menendez chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee until he stepped down last week following his indictment, as required under Senate Democratic Caucus rules.

The alleged bribes included cash, gold bars, mortgage payments and compensation, the indictment reads, and federal agents found more than $480,000 in cash during a search of the couple's home in June 2022.

Beginning in 2018, according to prosecutors, Hana and Nadine Menendez "worked to introduce Egyptian intelligence and military officials to" the senator with the goal of establishing a "corrupt agreement."

Among the allegations was that Hana hired Nadine Menendez at his halal meat export certification company, IS EG Halal Certified, for a "low-or-no-show" position, in exchange for the senator facilitating foreign military sales and financing to Egypt, which had been withheld for years, the indictment read.

Menendez also in 2019 intervened to protect a monopoly for Hana's company which led to increased costs for U.S. meat suppliers and others, the charging documents said. The monopoly in turn provided a revenue stream for the bribes, prosecutors said.

Nearly two dozen Senate Democrats have called on Menendez to step down, but he has so far rejected those calls, saying that he will "be exonerated."

The other two New Jersey businessmen charged in the case, 56-year-old Jose Uribe of Clifton, New Jersey, and 66-year-old Fred Daibes, face the same charges as Hana.

If convicted as charged, Hana could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison for the bribery count, and 20 years in prison for the fraud count.

 Melissa Quinn, Caroline Linton and Stefan Becket contributed to this report.

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Former mercenaries of the Wagner Group who were in Belarus signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence and moved to the eastern front in Ukraine. Some of them went to Africa.

Source: Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of Forces, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda; CNN; Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda

Quote from Yevlash: "Former members of the Wagner private military company are now actually present on the territory of the Eastern Grouping of Forces.

They are taking part in the fighting. In particular, they are coming from the territory of Belarus, where they had their camps.

They are now being disbanded. These servicemen are sent to different units  some of them are sent to Africa, some re-sign contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry and participate [in the war] in various positions, including instructors. Some go to regular combat units.

They do not pose such a threat as they did, for example, a year ago, due to the loss of their main leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin."

Details: The Ukrainian Border Guard Service clarified that there were more than 6,000 Wagnerites in Belarus. Currently, as Demchenko said, about 500 of them remain in Belarus.

Earlier, an aerial reconnaissance operator of the Code 9.2 unit of the 92nd Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told CNN that Wagnerites had returned to the Bakhmut front.

The soldier said the mercenaries quickly changed commanders and returned to Bakhmut.

Ukrainska Pravda is the place where you will find the most up-to-date information about everything related to the war in Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, support us, or become our patron!






TECUMSEH  Here, in this overlooked brick building now serving as a post office, was a general store that was a center of trade for the sleepy town of Tecumseh, Carter Vincent points out.

Right next door, an old barn structure is all that remains of the original medical practice, whose physician has long since passed but whose legacy is best seen in the hundreds of babies he helped deliver through the turn of the 19th century.

Less than a block away are the sites of several firsts for Shawnee County  a first courthouse, a first church  that served as the foundation for the area's eventual future as the seat of Kansas' state government.

These pieces of history could be easily missed when walking by, much more so when driving. But it's history that Vincent, a freshman at Shawnee Heights High School, is keen to preserve through his Eagle Scout project.

Carter Vincent points toward the current U.S. Post Office in Tecumseh as he talks about the building's past as a general store last Tuesday.

Carter Vincent's Eagle Scout project is a walk through time

Vincent, now an Eagle Scout at Tecumseh United Methodist Church's Troop 18, had always known he wanted to join the Boy Scouts because of the experiences and opportunities for leadership it provided.

But it wasn't until COVID struck that he began forming an idea for his eventual Eagle Scout project, which is a capstone of the various leadership and organizational skills Scouts learn throughout their years in troops.

"During COVID, my family and I traveled around the state, and we learned about the history in these little towns," Vincent said. "I combined my love of history and my love of walking, which I grew during COVID, to feature historic Tecumseh."

For Vincent Carter's Eagle Scout project, he created a 3-mile walking tour of historical buildings and sites in Tecumseh, which was the original Shawnee County seat.

As he began his research, he talked with Roy Bird, a local retired librarian and author of several Kansas history books, including as a co-author on "Things Ended and Things Begun: A History of Tecumseh, Kansas" by Douglass Wallace.

Using that book, Bird's guidance and other research, Vincent spent over a year putting together a 3-mile historic walking trail that loops through 10 historic sites around Tecumseh.

Bird said he was impressed with Vincent's passion for keeping history alive, particularly through such a labor- and research-intensive project.

"(The walking trail) maintains the stories, the facts and the atmosphere," Bird said. "We talked some about why Tecumseh was important, because at one time, it was very important. That was antebellum pre-Civil War days. It was a southern town, and a lot of people are unaware of that. They know about Bleeding Kansas, but heres something right here in Shawnee County that was a way to give new life to that information."

Carter Vincent shows off an old photograph of the Tecumseh rail depot. Vincent, who created a 3-mile walking tour of the town for his Eagle Scout project, will formally receive that rank at a ceremony in November.

With support from the Tecumseh Kiwanis Club, signage provided at discount from FASTSIGN and tools lent from the Kansas Department of Transportation, Carter led a group of Scouts to install signage with information and scannable QR codes that allow anyone to find out more about a particular site.

He said the online component is especially helpful for many of the town's historic sites, which are simply plots of land now that their structures have long faded away.

"Even in Tecumseh, a lot of times, these kinds of monuments arent there anymore," Vincent said. "By walking past these, you can create a mental image in your head of the way these places used to be, and you can connect with people form the past."

There'd be no Topeka without Tecumseh

A boulder in front of Tecumseh North Elementary School features a plaque that states the site was the first Shawnee County Courthouse from 1856-1859. Shawnee Heights freshman Carter Vincent used the site last for his historical walking tour Eagle Scout project.

At the site where Tecumseh North Elementary School sits, a portion remains of the 90-year-old historic high school, which itself was built on top of the original Shawnee County Courthouse.

In those days, Vincent explains, settlers had seen the Kansas River landing as a potential county seat, and Tecumseh served that purpose for the first three years of Shawnee County's history.

But it was a pro-slavery town, and when the Civil War ended slavery as an American institution, power, attention and resources shifted to the free-state town of Topeka just up the river, Vincent said.

The courthouse was eventually sold, jobs left and trains no longer stopped by the once-bustling town. Today, Tecumseh is an unincorporated community of about 700 people that sits in the shadow of Topeka, Carter said.

However, he sees Tecumseh as just as integral to the history of Topeka as a county seat and a state capital.

More: How eighth-grader Carter Vincent helps history come alive at the Combat Air Museum

"A lot of times, what pushes people and places to become what they are today is having that competition," Vincent said. "In cross country, Im always striving to be faster than my PRs and when Im racing against other people, I always push myself to do better. Thats what allowed these communities to grow, because they were in competition with each other over people, resources and power."

For all its blemishes, Vincent hopes his project can spur more people to remember history or perhaps learn it for the first time.

Shawnee Heights freshman Carter Vincent points toward the starting point of his historic walking tour of Tecumseh, where those interested in learning about the town's history can use an interactive QR code to view a digital map of the town.

"Nowadays, there are a lot of older people here in Tecumseh who are aware of the history, but my generation isnt as aware of it," he said. "In order to keep it alive, we need to pass it down, to make us think about all that came before us and the roots of our communities."

View Vincent's online guide for his historic walking tour of Tecumseh at sites.google.com/view/tecumseh-historic-walking-tour/home.

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at 785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Historic tour of Tecumseh is Carter Vincent's Eagle Scout project
The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal admonished former President Trump this week for his refusal to participate in any Republican primary debates and his rhetoric on social media.

In an editorial published Tuesday evening, the Journal ripped Trump for a series of aggressive social media posts threatening to investigate Comcast, the parent company of NBC Universal, over its coverage of him. The posts also accused Gen. Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of treason.

Some Republicans are feeling giddy these days because Mr. Biden is down in the polls, losing head-to-head even against Mr. Trump. But many voters may have forgotten what it was like to hear from, and live with, Mr. Trump day after day, the Journals editorial board wrote. As President, Mr. Biden gets more attention now, and Mr. Trump is ducking the GOP presidential debates.

If Trump wins the GOP nomination again, the outlet warned his every word will get attention.

Thats the baggage Republicans will carryand the reason Democrats think even Mr. Biden can win, it concluded.

The Journal is owned by NewsCorp., one of the media properties founded and operated by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, an influential media titan Trump has been feuding with for months.

In one recent social media post, Trump called Murdoch a globalist who is trying to use his vast media empire, which also includes Fox News Channel and the New York Post, to keep him from a second stint in the White House.

Murdoch, 92, announced this month he would retire in November and cede control of his media properties to his eldest son, Lachlan  a major shift for a powerful family that has helped shape political discourse for decades.

Fox News Media hosted the first GOP primary debate and is hosting Wednesdays second event.

Trump has said he does not intend to debate the other GOP primary candidates, citing his large lead in most national polls and what he has said is a hostile relationship with the network.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The exterior of the National Ornamental Metal Museum can be seen at 374 Metal Museum in Memphis, Tenn. on Sept. 21, 2023.

Halloween is right around the corner, and it brings the perfect opportunity to take in some of the more frightening sites of Memphis. Memphis is home to some of the finest buildings and attractions in the nation, but some of the older establishments have patrons that never leave.

Here is a list of The Commercial Appeal's top picks for spooky attractions to celebrate Halloween.

The Metal Museum

The buildings that now host the Metal Museum, formally known as the National Ornamental Metal Museum, were first home to a healthcare facility. The Marine Hospital Service was established long ago, dedicated to caring for sick and disabled American veterans, and what is now the Metal Museum was a former Mid-South home for that service.

The current facility was reportedly built in 1881, as the previous hospital commissioned to service the region in Napoleon, Arkansas was washed away in the 1870s due to continuous flooding of the Mississippi. The facility also treated yellow fever patients and completed specialized research to find a cure.

The exterior of the National Ornamental Metal Museum can be seen at 374 Metal Museum in Memphis, Tenn. on Sept. 21, 2023.

The ghosts of the Metal Museum are reported to appear late at night. Those who have dared to stay past dark say they have heard whispers and footsteps, along with having an overwhelming feeling of being watched. There have also been some reports of ghosts dressed like Marines on the grounds.

Court Square

Court Square, located at 62 N. Main St. and home to the magnificent Hebe Fountain, might not be an obvious contender on the list, but nonetheless, it is home to the ghost of a young boy.

Court Square Park can be seen at 62 N Main St. in Memphis, Tenn. on Sept. 21, 2023.

Court Square was littered with people enjoying a late August afternoon in 1884. Claude Pugh, a 10-year-old newsboy was playing in the Hebe Fountain with a toy boat. The fountain was deep at the time, reportedly over six feet deep, and had slopped sides.

Pugh fell in, and even though the park was crowded no one rushed to save him. After several minutes of struggling, he drowned and fell to the bottom of the fountain. It was only after he had sunk to the bottom that a fireman arrived to pull him out. But it was too late.

Pugh reportedly will interact with young children, sometimes even showing himself to them. Local paranormal investigators have also reported that Pugh's ghost is more active when children are around.

Now a museum and popular wedding venue, the Woodruff-Fontaine House was once the private residence of businessman Amos Woodruff. Noland Fontaine then bought the house from Woodruff but was soon sold again and then left vacant for a few years.

Located at 680 Adams Ave., the house was completely renovated by the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities in the historic Victorian image it was created in.

The exterior of the Woodruff-Fontaine House can be seen at 680 Adams Ave. in Memphis, Tenn. on Sept. 21, 2023.

The mansion was at one point home to Mollie Woodruff, daughter of Amos, and her husband. Mollie is said to haunt the bedroom where her newborn child passed shortly after being born. Tragedy struck again when Mollie's husband died only a few months after their baby.

Mollie is said to sit on her bed in The Rose Room she shared with her husband, but will disappear leaving only an imprint on the bed where she sat. Woman's perfume can be smelled at times, along with hearing odd noises throughout the home.

Orpheum Theatre

Opened in 1890, the Orpheum Theatre has gone through a variety of changes in its lifetime in Memphis. A staple of Downtown Memphis, the Orpheum has ghosts of its own.

A view of the historic Orpheum Theatre from the roof of the Downtown Mobility Center in Downtown Memphis.

According to numerous reports, a ghost by the name of Mary haunts the famous theatre. While Mary did not die in the establishment, she still makes her presence known to those to visit. How Mary died is up for debate, as some claim she was hit by a trolly at 12 years old. Others say she died in a fire nearby. She is said to be most active during performances geared towards children.

Some paranormal websites claim there are other ghosts in the theatre, but Mary is the only ghost specifically mentioned on the Orpheum website. Other ghosts include a couple who watches performances on the balcony, an usher who helps patrons who are lost and a man who died of a heart attack during a performance. To learn more about the ghosts of the Orpheum, check out this video that was posted to their YouTube channel that details more stories.

Ernestine & Hazels

The building that hosts Ernestine & Hazel's has taken many shapes over the course of its history. What started out as a church changed into a pharmacy and then turned into a cafe and music lounge. It was home to some illustrious happenings, and the upstairs portion of the building was also a brothel.

While there are no reports of repeated paranormal visitors, guests might hear the chatter of ghostly entities close by  some have even said the conversations sound like gossip about them. The upstairs is where a lot of activity happens, as many prostitutes were reportedly murdered there. Sometimes, when patrons take pictures inside the restaurant, they have reported faces appear and unexplained orbs can be seen in the photos.

If that isn't enough evidence to prove the restaurant is haunted, back in 2019 bones were found during a renovation project at Ernestine & Hazel's. If you dare, the restaurant offers ghost tours for guests to see if they can catch a glimpse of the mysterious happenings that occur.

Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County Government for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at Brooke.Muckerman@commercialappeal.com and followed on X/Twitter @BrookeMuckerman

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Want a good scare for Halloween? Here are 5 haunted places in Memphis
The seal of the United States Department of Justice is seen on the building exterior of the United States Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, New York City

By Sarah N. Lynch

(Reuters) -Washington Trust Bank, the largest community bank in the country, will pay $9 million to settle civil rights charges that it discriminated against primarily Black and Hispanic mortgage applicants in Rhode Island, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

The department's complaint against the bank alleges that from 2016 through 2021, it engaged in a practice known as redlining by failing to provide lending services to residents in primarily Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island.

Top department officials said that despite expanding across the state, it never opened a branch in a Black or Hispanic neighborhood, and that it relied on mortgage loan officers working out of majority-white areas as the primary source for generating new lending applications.

"Through this agreement, we are sending a strong message to the financial industry that we will not stand for discriminatory and unlawful barriers in residential mortgage lending," said Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, at a press conference on Wednesday.

A Washington Trust official said Rhode Island has been home to the bank for 223 years. "We believe we have been fully compliant with the letter and spirit of fair lending laws, and the agreement will further strengthen our focus on an area that has always been important to us," Edward O. Handy, Washington Trust's chairman and chief executive, said in a release.

Redlining refers to racial discrimination in lending practices by banks and other financial institutions, a practice that has harmed Black and Hispanic communities for decades.

In September 2021, research from the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis concluded that residents in redlined neighborhoods across the country could not afford to buy homes or pay for their upkeep and as a result could not accumulate wealth at the rates other groups did.

A month later, the Justice Department launched a coordinated enforcement effort to crack down on redlining. Since then, it has brought nine redlining cases and secured $98 million in relief.

Under the terms of the settlement with Washington Trust, which must still be approved by a federal court, the bank has agreed to take certain steps.

These include a plan to invest at least $7 million in a loan subsidy fund to increase access to home mortgages, home improvements, home refinance and home equity loans and lines of credit for residents who live in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island.

The bank will also spend an additional $2 million on community partnerships and for advertising and consumer outreach in Black and Hispanic communities.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Mark Porter, Timothy Gardner and Kat Stafford)
Some of the 100 teenagers stealing clothes and iPhones were wrestled to the ground by police but officers were vastly outnumbered

More than 100 teenagers swarmed Apple, Lululemon and Foot Locker stores in Philadelphia, making off with clothes and expensive technology.

Some of the looters in the Centre City district were wrestled to the ground by police on Tuesday night. However, officers were vastly outnumbered.

Footage shows hooded rioters piling through the door of an Apple store at around 8pm, grabbing display models as sirens wailed in the background.

Got one, someone off camera says, before chanting: Free iPhone, free iPhone.

More people run into the glass-fronted building despite warnings that security is on the way. One looter in an orange hoodie and mask showed off a handful of iPhones to the camera.

Philadelphia police said in a statement that they pursued looters fleeing from the scene, recovering abandoned iPhones and iPads along the way.

A security guard at a Foot Locker was assaulted, CBS Philadelphia reported.

At the Lululemon store in Rittenhouse Square, police struggled to detain looters fleeing the sportswear shop, laden with stolen clothes.

One person who fled the scene wearing a white skeleton mask and dark clothes is also present in video footage captured in the Apple store.

A couple of rioters staggered outside the shop and were promptly pinned down by police.

One man in a black hoodie was hauled away in a headlock by an officer before being pushed to the ground and punched in the head, as a woman screams and laughs in the background.

Protests took place earlier on Tuesday when a judge dismissed a murder charge against a police officer who shot and killed a 27-year-old driver he had pulled over.

However, several police commanders told CBS Philadelphia that the looting was not connected to earlier demonstrations.

On the same day, discount chain Target announced it was closing nine stores, including three in San Francisco, as a result of theft and crime fears.

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MEXICO CITY (AP)  A Mexican mother bravely shielded her son after a bear leapt on a picnic table and devoured the tacos and enchiladas meant for the boys birthday dinner, inches from his face.

Silvia Macias of Mexico City had traveled to the Chipinque Park on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey to celebrate the 15th birthday of her son, Santiago, who has Down syndrome.

Soon after they sat down to eat the food they had brought, the bear showed up and gulped down french fries, enchiladas, tacos and salsa. A video shot by her friend, Angela Chapa, shows Macias sitting stoically, inches from the bears mouth, holding Santiago and shielding his eyes with her hand. She kept her eyes downcast, to avoid anything the bear might consider a challenge.

View the latest headlines from Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas at fox4kc.com

The worst thing was that Santiago might get scared, Macias recalled Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. Santiago is very afraid of animals, a cat or a dog, any animal scares him a lot.

Thats why I covered his eyes, because I didnt want him to see it and scream or run. I was afraid that if he got scared or screamed or scared the bear, that the bear would react, she said of the incident Monday.

Macias said that she and Chapa had previously thought about the possibility of a bear encounter  they are not unknown in the park, though usually the bears come out more toward dawn or dusk, not midday  and they had come up with a plan.

We are going to play a game where we cover Santiagos eyes and we are going to act like statues, she recalled rehearsing the plan.

And that is exactly what they did: Santiago remained motionless, even though the bear was very close to us, we heard him as he growled, as he ate, you could smell the bear. It was really very very close.

Asked if he had been scared, Santiago, who attends middle school in Mexico City, said yes, a lot.

Missouri news: Headlines from St. Louis, Jefferson City and across the Show-Me State

Their resourceful friend Angela, who filmed the scene, lives in Monterrey and knew the proper behavior for a black bear encounter: never run.

She noticed a plate of enchiladas the bear had not eaten  the bear appeared to prefer french fries, and as a true Mexican, had eaten the salsa  and she tossed the enchilada far away, after showing it to the animal. As expected, the animal followed the food and Angela stood in front of the bear, shielding Macias and her son and allowing them to retreat quietly and slowly.

Eventually, the bear went away.

Santiago got his birthday tacos replaced, and all ended well.

Macias says she doesnt consider herself a hero.

I just think Im a mother who protected her cub, she said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
A mother calmly shielded her son's face away from a bear mere inches away as the hungry animal devoured their picnic food.

Silvia Macias was celebrating her 15-year-old son, Santiago's, birthday in Chipinque Park on the outskirts of Monterrey in Mexico when a bear jumped up on their picnic table, the Associated Press reported.

The bear then devoured the french fries, enchiladas, and tacos that Macias had brought for the celebration. Macias bravely but stoically pulled Santiago, who has Down syndrome, into her arms. She shielded his eyes with his hands, and stood still while looking down as the bear munched on their food, the AP reported.

The worst thing was that Santiago might get scared," Macias told the AP. Santiago is very afraid of animals, a cat or a dog, any animal scares him a lot.

That's why I covered his eyes, because I didn't want him to see it and scream or run. I was afraid that if he got scared or screamed or scared the bear, that the bear would react, she said.

Santiago told the AP he was very scared. The bear was very close and the two heard it growl, but for their safety they remained stoic.

Macias was prepared for bear encounter

In that moment, Macias told the AP, she wasn't being a hero, just "a mother who protected her cub."

Macias and Angela Chapa, a friend who recorded the interaction and lives in Monterrey said they knew there was a chance they could encounter a bear during their picnic. They had rehearsed what to do if the came across one.

The National Parks Services advises anyone who encounters a bear to remain calm, avoid sudden and loud noises, not to run or climb trees, and to not allow it access to your food.

While the bear gulfed down almost everything Macias brought for the party, Chapa noticed that it hadn't touched the enchiladas, so she picked it up, made sure the bear saw it and tossed it away from the group. Sure enough, the bear followed the food, and Chapa was able to stand in front of the bear, giving Macias and her son a chance to slowly back away, AP reported.

The bear eventually went on it's merry way, and Santiago was able to get new food to enjoy his special day.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video: Mom shields son from black bear as it eats meal in Mexico
Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson , former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie , former Vice President Mike Pence , Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , businessman Vivek Ramaswamy , former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley , Sen. Tim Scott , R-S.C., and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum stand at their podiums during a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by Fox News Channel on Aug. 23, 2023, in Milwaukee. | Morry Gash, Associated Press

The second Republican presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday night at 9 p.m. EDT, 7 p.m. MDT. It is being hosted at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California, and will be moderated by Fox News Stuart Varney and Dana Perino, and Univisions Ilia Calderon, per The Associated Press.

Related

Who is participating in the second GOP debate?

The candidates who have qualified for the second debate include:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Former Vice President Mike Pence.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Former President Donald Trump, who is 40.9 points above DeSantis in a poll as of Sept. 27, will be speaking to workers in Michigan instead.

How to watch the Republican debate

For English coverage, Fox News is broadcasting the debate live at 9 p.m. EDT.

For Spanish coverage, Univision is broadcasting live translation of the debate.

The Republican National Committee partnered again with Rumble, a video platform to provide a free broadcast.

Things to watch for

The Sept. 27 debate offers each presidential candidate the potential of gaining momentum, but could also hurt them if they make a gaffe. In polls conducted soon after the first debate, the three candidates who got a post-debate bump appeared to be DeSantis, Ramaswamy and Haley.

Debate watchers will be paying particularly close attention to Ramaswamy and Haley. GOP strategist Dave Carney said, You need to have a strong night, and you cant fall off the stage, literally or figuratively, at the debate. Both of them have to perform as well as they did or better, per ABC.

DeSantis will also have to make up for some lost ground in this debate as polls show he is losing some steam. CNN reported, DeSantis decline stems from a sharp drop-off among moderates, from 26% backing him in July to 6% now. He fell a smaller 8 points among conservatives.
Update: On Thursday morning, SpaceX rescheduled the next Falcon 9 Starlink 6-19 mission to liftoff on Friday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. No reason for the delay was immediately provided by SpaceX.

SpaceX teams are set to rattle windows on the Space Coast again this week with another Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff of the Starlink 6-19 mission with more of the company's internet-beaming satellites is tentatively targeted for Friday night.

Everything to know about the SpaceX launch on Friday:

Liftoff of the 230-foot rocket from Launch Complex 40 has been rescheduled for 6:39 p.m. EDT Friday, with a window that stretches until 10:15 p.m. EDT.

For Friday, the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron calls for a 30% chance of "go" conditions for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Clouds and a chance of lightning in the area from lingering thunderstorms were cited as the primary risks.

After lofting the stack of flat-pack satellites on a southeasterly trajectory, the 130-foot first stage rocket booster will target a drone ship landing in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas.

This photo shows a stack of SpaceX's Starlink V2 Mini satellites during payload processing before being encapsulated inside the protective nosecone fairing of a Falcon 9 rocket.

Starlink is SpaceX's version of a globally available internet service. With more than 5,100 satellites launched since 2019, service is now available on every continent and for many customer bases stretching from residential to government.

If schedules hold, this would become Florida's 52nd launch so far this year.

Could a government shutdown impact the next Florida rocket launch?

For now, at nearby Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX teams are preparing a Falcon Heavy rocket for liftoff during the first week of October. The payload of that mission is NASA's Psyche spacecraft, which will study a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.

It remains to be determined how the mission's status or launch date could be impacted if a partial government shutdown occurs this weekend. When asked, NASA directed all queries to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which did not return a request for comment.

Technicians connected NASAs Psyche spacecraft to the payload attach fitting inside the clean room at Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.

The Psyche mission marks the first time the triple-core rocket has been selected to host a dedicated payload for NASA. Previous Falcon Heavy missions have supported commercial satellites and national security missions for the U.S. Space Force.

Liftoff of the interplanetary mission is tentatively slated for no earlier than 10:34 a.m. EDT, Thursday, Oct. 5, from pad 39A. For the latest schedule updates, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.

Contact Jamie Groh at JGroh@floridatoday.com and follow her on X at @AlteredJamie.

Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here.

September 29: SpaceX Starlink 6-19

Company / Agency: Internal SpaceX mission

Rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9

Location: Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Launch Time: 6:39 p.m. EDT

Trajectory: Southeast

Weather: 30% "go"

Landing: Drone ship

Live coverage: Starts 90 minutes before liftoff at floridatoday.com/space

About: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the company's latest batch of Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Notes: Rescheduled from Thursday, Sept. 28

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX reschedules next Falcon 9 Starlink launch to Friday night
The News

The pressure is on for Ron DeSantis to deliver a dazzling performance in California on Wednesday night  or else. Some supporters are concerned that a lackluster debate could be the beginning of the end for the Florida governor after a rough few weeks of polling.

If he doesnt do well, if he doesnt clearly establish that hes the leader of this debate, then I think [Nikki] Haley probably moves to the second place position kind of firmly, and probably becomes a donor favorite, and probably continues to get a lot of good media treatment, a Republican consultant backing DeSantis told Semafor. If he doesnt do well here, in my opinion, hes gotta drop out  if he doesnt want to be embarrassed.

That sense of urgency was echoed by other Republicans keeping a close eye on the race. Voters will be watching for likely the last time to see if they see at least a flash of Superman in DeSantis, one Republican strategist said. Failure to deliver? Well, that would likely be a politically fatal dose of kryptonite, the person added.

Taking down Trump was always a tall task, but at this point DeSantis has to do more than just stay alive: He has to prove its possible for anyone to chip away at Trumps massive lead.

DeSantis has lost donor support in recent months and continued to drop in the polls (a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll had DeSantis sliding to 15% nationally among Republicans and Republican learners, down from 25% in May). None of this was due to a particularly bad first debate, either: While DeSantis entered with low expectations, especially after a leaked debate memo from his allied super PAC telegraphed potential attacks, his team was more than satisfied with his execution and polls showed Republican voters viewed his performance positively. To the extent there was an impact from the debate, however, it was a slight bump for Haley in early states that pushed DeSantis as low as fifth place in one New Hampshire poll and in a fight for second in Iowa.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump  who wont even be on the debate stage  is seen by many as running away with the nomination.

Theyre cutting into his margins, one former DeSantis staffer said of the Florida governors opponents. He needs to cut into Trumps margins, and other people are cutting into his margins  If it just looks like youre stuck in second gear, whether thats true or not people, you know, perception is reality, right?

The View From Shelby and Morgan

The ultimate question here is this: How much does the debate really affect the overall race? Sure, a good performance could provide DeSantis some momentum and dispel worries among supporters that Haley could surpass him for second place. It would also likely reassure jumpy donors that DeSantis is the guy to stick with, and allow him some breathing room to work with as the race ramps up.

That could buy him time, but its still just one night in the midst of a long campaign cycle where Trump is the indisputable frontrunner  and none of Trumps rivals seem to have a found a way to eat into his vote share, rather than keep dividing up their smaller pie in marginally different ways. Haley, most often cited as one of the winners of the first debate, did see a surge in polling afterward. But that surge still put her at a fraction of Trumps support and theres been no evidence that a fantastic night on stage will catapult any candidate into a real battle with the former president.

The only way Ron DeSantis can conceivably get back in this race is if something happens to Trump, said another Republican strategist, describing the contest as a one-person race.

Room for Disagreement

While candidates are certainly prepping for the upcoming debate, their main focus is the daily on-the-ground events in early voting states, where they can talk to voters face to face and hopefully find a weak spot in Trumps armor. If theres an opportunity for DeSantis to regain momentum, it may be more likely to come from his efforts out in Iowa than on the stage this week.

The View From Team DeSantis

DeSantis campaign is still billing this as a clear two-man race, arguing in a recent memo to donors that hes the only candidate that has both the vision to reverse the nations decline and the proven conservative record to show he can get the job done. The memo, which was focused on the upcoming debate, only called out Trump and Joe Biden by name, seeking to further the message that the other candidates simply dont matter.

While other candidates may take this opportunity to distract or level false attacks, DeSantis stays laser-focused on the mission at hand of reviving the American Dream and delivering victories for hardworking families, DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier wrote. He is undoubtedly the strongest leader in this race, the leader who has both the courage to fight and the strength to Win.

Notable

In The Dispatch, Nick Cattogio is skeptical that DeSantis has room to grow given his inability so far to capitalize on issues like abortion, where hes likely to attack Trump from the right: In time we may look back and think of the second debate as the consolidation debate. That is, the moment when the GOPs sizable Trump-leery minority began to unify behind a single challenger. Unfortunately, that single challenger is unlikely to be Ron DeSantis.
Lawmakers vented their frustration Wednesday after a government watchdog report detailed squalid living conditions in military barracks that included overflowing sewage, rampant mold, bed bug infestations and squatters.

In the first public hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's recently launched military quality-of-life panel, both Republican and Democrat lawmakers blasted the findings of last week's Government Accountability Office report on barracks conditions as "deplorable," "unacceptable" and "appalling."

"If I would have had these conditions in any of our barracks, I would have gotten fired," said panel Chairman Don Bacon , R-Neb., a retired Air Force brigadier general who served as a wing commander at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. "Where is the accountability at with these barracks? Has anyone been held accountable? And what are we going to do to get this right and get this fixed?"

Read Next: Catcalling, Racist Comments, Burnout: Alaska Troops Eyed as Prestigious Arctic Force Face Problems in First Year of Service

"We cannot allow this situation to persist," Bacon added. "It is an issue not only of justice and dignity, but also of military readiness."

The GAO report, issued last week, illuminated and confirmed complaints that service members have sounded for years about barracks that are unlivable.

Based on visits to 12 installations, the 118-page report featured accounts of undrinkable brown water, broken air conditioning during heat waves, broken and unsecured doors and windows, and, in one of the most extreme cases, service members having to clean up "biological waste" themselves after a suicide attempt.

At Wednesday's hearing, Elizabeth Field, who led the GAO's audit, said conditions were allowed to deteriorate so badly because of chronic underfunding of barracks maintenance, coupled with officials' indifference to junior enlisted members' opinions and a lack of attention to the issue from the highest levels of the Pentagon.

"One of the most troubling things that we observed during our audit was that the Office of the Secretary of Defense -- which is supposed to oversee the barracks programs, give guidance to the military services -- very much had a hands-off approach to this topic," Field said. "When we asked them some basic questions at the beginning of our audit about how many barracks there were, whether they were not complying with standards, how many service members lived there, they couldn't tell us."

Witnesses from the departments of the Army, Air Force and Navy acknowledged issues with housing and vowed to improve living conditions but offered few specific solutions, which appeared to frustrate lawmakers further.

When Carla Coulson, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, housing and partnerships, attributed housing issues to a lack of funding, Bacon noted Congress typically provides the Pentagon more funding than it asks for.

"It doesn't add up," Bacon said.

When Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., raised the possibility of Congress requiring funds be spent specifically on barracks so it doesn't compete with other facilities funding, officials said they would oppose taking away "flexibility" in how they can spend money.

"We all like flexibility, but I think we're clearly seeing that the barracks are not being invested in, so maybe flexibility is not the only priority here," Jacobs shot back.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., a Navy veteran whose Hampton Roads-area district includes a significant Navy presence, said she was "almost in tears" when she saw the living conditions on bases in her district.

"It hurts my heart when I hear other Navy and military parents say, 'I can't recommend this job to my kids for these reasons,' so we have to do better," Kiggans said.

Some lawmakers, including Kiggans, raised the possibility of privatizing more barracks to improve their quality.

While Field said that privatized barracks the GAO toured in San Diego were in "amazing condition," she also stressed privatization is not a "silver bullet." The military's family housing, which is largely privatized, has faced its own issues with unsafe and unhealthy living conditions in recent years.

Pressed on what Congress should be doing to ensure the military improves the barracks, Field suggested mandating the GAO's 31 recommendations in law if the Pentagon does not follow through on them itself.

"The department concurred with most of our recommendations, but in some cases, they were partial concurrences and statements that they've already implemented the recommendations and so they're good. They're not good," Field said.

Bacon, who is planning for his quality-of-life panel to release a report in the coming months recommending reforms to include in next year's defense policy bill, said there is a "smorgasbord" of changes lawmakers will need to look at.

"This isn't just a money problem, which it is and we need to know definitively what it's going to cost to get this right," he said. "But it's also policy, accountability."

Robert Thompson, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and environment, appeared to concede that top officials need to change their mindset and consider housing as "mission critical" as other facilities before barracks will improve.

"There needs to be a standard for livability," Thompson said, adding that conversations with the defense secretarys office on what that means started after last week's GAO came out. "There needs to be a plain-eyed, clear-eyed view of what the standard is for this place to be dignified, safe and comfortable."

-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on X @reporterkheel.

Related: Bedbugs, Brown Water, Squatters: Military Barracks Blasted over Horrid Living Conditions, Lack of Accountability
A Target store is seen June 29, 2016, in Hialeah, Fla. Target announced on Sept. 26, 2023, that it will close nine store in four states, including one in East Harlem, New York and three in San Francisco, saying that theft and organized retail crime have threatened the safety of its workers and customers. | Alan Diaz, Associated Press

Target is closing nine stores, all but one of them in the West, because increasing theft and organized retail crime are putting employees and customers in harms way.

Meantime, people broke into several stores in Philadelphia on Tuesday night in a looting spree that went on for eight hours.

Three Target stores in Californias Bay area, three in Portland, Oregon, two in Seattle and one in New York City will shut their doors Oct. 21, according to the Minneapolis-based company.

Target says it cannot continue operating those stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of its workers and customers and contributing to unsustainable business performance.

We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all, the company said in a statement.

Before making this decision, we invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft and organized retail crime in our stores, such as adding more security team members, using third-party guard services, and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business. Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully.

Related

Targets still has more than 150 locations open in the markets where the closures are taking place.

Per CBS News, the rise in shoplifting and other incidents at Target locations comes as other retailers say a rise in crime is hurting their business. Whole Foods in April temporarily closed one of its flagship stores in San Francisco, citing concerns that crime in the area endangered employees. Other retailers including Dicks Sporting Goods and Ulta Beauty have also pointed to rising theft as a factor in shrinking profits.

In Philadelphia on Tuesday, police arrested more than a dozen people who looted multiple stores in the Center City area. Footlocker, Apple and Lululemon were among the stores broken into.

Acting Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Stanford said at a news conference Tuesday night that the looting had nothing to do with an earlier protest over charges being dismissed against a former police officer who fatally shot a 27-year-old man last month. Prosecutors refiled the charges hours after the judge dismissed the case, according to USA Today.

What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists taking advantage of a situation and making an attempt to destroy our city, the commissioner said. Its not going to be tolerated, weve made arrests and we will continue to make arrests.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that the White House is aware of reports of footage showing Admiral of the Black Sea Fleet Viktor Sokolov alive despite Ukraine previously reporting him dead.

"Weve seen the reports, and certainly we are  we are aware of the video. I just dont have anything to confirm at this time. But obviously, were aware of the reports."

Russia's Defense Ministry published a video on Sept. 26 of a meeting between military leadership with Admiral Sokolov, previously reported by Ukraine as killed, joining the meeting through a video call. The Kyiv Independent couldn't immediately verify the date the meeting took place.

Sokolov is only seen on the screen and does not speak throughout the video.

The Special Operations Forces Command of Ukraine's Armed Forces announced that last week's strike against the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea killed 34 Russian officers, including Sokolov.

Read also: Ukraine war latest: Another Russian command post reportedly hit; Supposedly dead Russian general shown alive

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The White House warned Wednesday morning that Americans could face travel delays if the government shuts down, as Congress only has a few days left to fund the government.

The Biden administration says that a shutdown would mean more than 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 transportation security officers wouldnt be paid. It noted in its latest memo to highlight the impacts of a government shutdown that those personnel are deemed essential so would go to work but receive no pay, which has led to issues for air travelers in the past.

They would have to show up to do their critical jobs without getting paid until funding becomes available. In previous shutdowns, this led to significant delays and longer wait times for travelers at airports across the country, the memo read.

And it warns that air traffic controller training would stop, potentially leading to long-term disruptions to the industry at a moment when weve seen critical progress filling a backlog of controllers.

The memo also highlights the states with the most traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, including California with 1,418 and 5,469, respectively, and Texas with 1,264 and 4,720, respectively.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to hold a press conference on Wednesday to highlight the impact a shutdown would have on transportation, during which he will also call on House Republicans to honor the bipartisan deal made with President Biden earlier this year.

Biden has accused Republicans of not abiding by the debt-ceiling-raising agreement he made with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in May. Under that deal, lawmakers voted for legislation that set ceilings on spending for the next year. Now conservatives in the House are seeking to make deeper cuts than it included.

Congress faces a Saturday deadline to pass legislation to fund the government and prevent a shutdown. So far, House Republicans have not agreed to a deal amongst themselves, let alone with the Senate and White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday unveiled a bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government until Nov. 17 and avert a shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) then endorsed the CR, which also includes some money for Ukraine and disaster relief.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The lawsuit states the incident created a scene reminiscent of 1960s Birmingham, Alabama, when white law enforcement officers used fire hoses to douse, assault, and batter African Americans participating in civil rights demonstrations in an attempt to get them to disperse.

The first physician to receive the COVID-19 vaccination in the United States is among a group who have filed a lawsuit after being repeatedly drenched with a water hose in what they consider a racially motivated event.

Dr. Yves Duroseau and his wife, Claude Duroseau, hosted about 15 guests in the back garden of their Forest Hills, Queens, New York home on Sept. 17, 2022, to celebrate his sister Rosevony Duroseaus birthday, according to The Daily Beast.

Dr. Yves Duroseau, seen getting the COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, has sued a neighbor who he said turned a water hose on him, his wife and party guests at their New York home last year. (Photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images)

The lawsuit alleges the weird turn of events started when an unidentified white woman, referred to as Jane Doe, showed up with a large, menacing German Shepherd, demanding they turn down the music playing in the backyard.

Yves Duroseau reportedly told the woman that they were celebrating a birthday and that it would soon be over, asking her to leave his property. However, the party abruptly and forcefully ended when white neighbor Marcus Rosebrock grabbed his backyard hose and sprayed the guests with water pressure extremely powerful and stinging in nature, apparently because they didnt end the celebration quickly enough.

According to the lawsuit, Rosebrocks actions created a scene reminiscent of 1960s Birmingham, Alabama, when white law enforcement officers used fire hoses to douse, assault, and batter African Americans participating in civil rights demonstrations in an attempt to get them to disperse.

Yves Duroseau and two others tried to negotiate with Rosebrock who, looked directly at them and proceeded to violently spray them with increased water pressure, drenching them and making them fearful of serious bodily harm because they were afraid they would be knocked to the ground from the tree house.

Yves Duroseau and his sister, a Washington-based asylum officer with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, are Haitian Americans, and all but one of the party guests were Black or Latino. Chef Vanessa Cantave, the 2011 champion of Bravos Roccos Dinner Party, catered the nine-course meal.

Rosebrock also allegedly sprayed the caterers helper as she cleaned the dinner dishes.

Mina Q. Malik and co-counsel Derek Sells of The Cochran Firm represent the Duroseaus and the guests at the dinner party. She said the incident left the party hosts, guests, and caterers deeply scarred, adding that they were degraded, humiliated and made to feel less than human.

In their lawsuit, the Duroseaus allege that Rosebrock violated their civil rights under Title 8 of the New York City Administrative Code by interfering with their right to enjoy the ownership of real property within the City of New York, County of Queens. Since the incident, the couple havent hosted a backyard event, and have practically turned into, in Maliks words, prisoners in their own home.

Rosebrock, a German national, and his attorney, Brandon Gillard, failed to respond to theGrios repeated requests for comment. However, Gillard told The Daily Beast that his client denies the accusations and rejects any characterization that he is racist, or that his actions were motivated by race.

Sells said two NYPD officers responded to the scene to take a report, but have not been in contact since then, even though this incident should be investigated and treated as a hate crime.

Yves and Claude Duroseau, the 15 guests, the caterer, and her sous-chef request that Rosebrock pay an undisclosed sum for the mental pain and emotional distress they claim he and Doe caused them.

I was appalled and disgusted that water hosing and German Shepherds were being used against people of color in New York City in 2022, said Malik, The Daily Beast reported. I was in utter disbelief.

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The post White man doused Yves Duroseau, first doc in US to take COVID vaccine, and guests with water hose, suit alleges appeared first on TheGrio.
A white man, 19, has been arrested for allegedly threatening to rape and kill his Black neighbours after the mother and daughter moved into the same Oregon apartment complex as him.

NuBrittany Smith said that she and her mother Tasha found themselves on the receiving end of Dominic Austins violent threats and racist slurs almost as soon as they moved into their Gresham apartment, the Landings at the Morrison.

Some of Mr Austins terrifying behaviour was captured on a Ring doorbell camera, including capturing him pounding on Ms Smiths door and threatening her with a knife, according to KOIN 6.

You have to make sure you look outside your peep-hole. You look at your Ring camera before you exit your home, Ms Smith told the outlet.

Honestly, its like you live inside of a jail or something.

In one Ring camera recording, Mr Austin can be heard saying: Youre about to get murdered.

Another tenant had also spotted the 19-year-old wielding a knife, the outlet reported.

We were terrified, we were upset, we didnt know what was going on, Ms Smith said.

Instantly, we took the videos from the Ring camera, attached them to an email and sent them to the Landings at the Morrison.

Ms Smith said she alerted police and property management the day after the first incident with their new neighbour on 30 June.

The threats  and their reporting of them  continued from then on, Ms Smith said.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

But, despite the threatening behaviour, she said that no steps were taken for months to have Mr Austin removed from the apartment complex.

Part of the rental agreement says that if a tenant should threaten another tenant, the landlord can throw the offender out in 24 hours notice, her attorney Greg Kafoury told the outlet.

According to KOIN 6, Mr Austin wasnt contacted by the building until 8 September, with an eviction notice then sent last week.

Both Mr Kafoury and Ms Smith said that more should have been done to protect the buildings residents.

The people who run this very large apartment complex didnt give a damn, Mr Kafoury said. The police didnt give a damn. And I dont know how anyone can look at those videos and come to any other conclusion.

As a Black woman, we, (my mother and I), I felt that we werent heard, Ms Smith said. I feel that we were not important.

Ms Smith and her mother arent the only tenants who have complained about the 19-year-old. Another resident made complaints about Mr Austin back in August, The Root reported.

Gresham Police confirmed that Mr Austin has now been arrested and is in police custody.

NuBrittany and Tasha Smith started fundraising page to fund relocation costs (GoFundMe)

We are aware of the terrible conduct of the suspect in this case, including statements that indicate the motivation for the crime is hate or bias. We share in our communities concern and appreciate the unique impact bias crimes, in particular, have on victims, police said in a statement to KOIN 6.

We are working with the district attorneys office to ensure the suspect is charged with the appropriate crimes.

According to arrest records, Mr Austin was arrested on 19 September for unlawful use of a weapon  a felony  and two counts of menacing  a misdemeanour. He also faces 10 counts of violating a restraining order; these violations fell across three dates in September, records showed.

The 19-year-olds next court hearing is scheduled for 27 September.

I was failed by the system and by the Landings at the Morrison, Ms Smith told KOIN 6. I dont feel safe. Because hes in jail today but I dont know what tomorrow is going to be. He could be released at any time. Then what happens next?

Ms Smith started a GoFundMe page asking for $5,000 in order to help pay to relocate.

An individual is struggling with mental health and has been coming down to my unit making death threats, racial slurs and rape threats, she wrote.

Every time he comes down he is either holding a knife or beating on ur door. The property management is aware of the situation and appears not to be concerned in our health or safety. My mother has requested accommodations as far as being transferred to a different unit or paying for to place us in a hotel. The property management declined both accommodations.

She continued: My mother and I dont feel like enough is being done and that the local authorities & property management dont care until someone is hurt. We have given notice because our health and safety is a concern, Ms Smith added. The page has raised over $10,000 since launching a week ago.
Bids for the next big election cycle, the presidential election in 2024, are already in and the second debate in the race for the Republican nomination is Wednesday night.

Rumors, thoughts and speculation of who could be on the 2024 presidential ticket swirled at the beginning of 2023, but now the field of candidates vying for the presidential seat has solidified in both parties and debates have started. The GOP party is a diverse mix of people with 13 people vying for the spot including the likes of former President Donald Trump , former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Senator for S.C. Tim Scott and even Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence . And that's just naming a few.

On the Democrat's side, the group is a bit thinner. Joe Biden is making a run for re-election while self-help author Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vying to take the spot.

Here's what's already happening in the bid for the White House:

Who is running for president in 2024?

The list of candidates putting their hats in the ring for the 2024 presidential election has grown over the last few months to include 13 candidates vying for the Republican nomination, three for the Democratic and one running as a third party candidate.

Here's who has announced campaigns so far:

Democrats:

Republicans:

Third Party

Want to know more about each candidate? Take a look at USA Today's closer look at each one here.

Who are the front runners in the 2024 presidential race?

It was expected to be a Trump-Biden rematch of 2020, but don't count anyone out yet.

The Democratic Party is expected to rally behind President Biden and on the Republican side, it still kind of a toss-up. Former President Trump is still leading, but there are still charges that loom which looks to have shaken some support in the polls. And there are plenty of other GOP hopefuls that have their hat in the ring and are vying to overtake Trump.

Where can I watch the Republican debate tonight?

The second Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election will be on Fox Business Network and Univision Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 9 p.m. ET. The debate will be held in person at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

'Delicate dance': Here's how Republican candidates might target Trump during the second GOP debate

Who will be at the second Republican debate Sept. 27, 2023

Only seven of the 13 candidates have qualified to take part in Wednesday's debate.

Former Vice President Mike Pence

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott

Entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

Former President Donald Trump declined to participate and will instead hold a rally with current and former United Auto Workers members in the Detroit area amid an ongoing strike.

Possible showdown in the Sunshine State: How Fla Gov. DeSantis decision to send migrants to blue states could help a 2024 showdown with Trump

Pence on voting for Trump in 2024: Pence might not vote for Trump in 2024, says there might be 'somebody else' he'd prefer

When is the presidential election?

The next presidential election is in 2024, but like in years past the start of the campaign trail begins early.

After the midterms, more speculation on who will and who won't run for president until official candidacy announcements are made.

The 2024 election will be the 60th quadrennial presidential election and is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.

USAToday contributed to this report.

Joyce Orlando is an Audience Engagement Specialist out of The Tennessean. She can be reached at jorlando@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: 2024 presidential election: Who is running? When is the debate?
The candidates in the second GOP presidential debate are (clockwise from top left) South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott , Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy , North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum , former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie . (Associated Press)

Seven Republican hopefuls vying to carve out a lane in the presidential primaries race will face each other in a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley on Wednesday evening.

The Republican National Committee has announced that seven candidates meet the requirements to stand on the debate stage:

Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota

Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the U.N.

Mike Pence, former vice president

Vivek Ramaswamy, businessman

Tim Scott, senator from South Carolina

The debate will air on Fox Business Network and Univision as well as on the streaming service Rumble. It will begin at 6 p.m. PST.

To qualify for the debate, candidates had to reach at least 3% in multiple polls and have at least 50,000 unique campaign donors. They also must pledge to participate only in RNC-sanctioned debates, to share certain data with the RNC and to support the party's eventual nominee.

Former President Trump, who leads the Republican field in polls by a wide margin, will again sit out the debate, instead opting to hold an event with striking autoworkers in Michigan. Rather than joining the first GOP debate last month, Trump released a one-on-one recorded interview with former FOX News host Tucker Carlson.

Read more: Trump-less Fox News Republican debate draws better-than-expected 12.8 million viewers

Wednesday evening's forum will offer a space for the candidates to differentiate themselves from Trump  and each other. At the first GOP debate last month, Ramaswamy stole the spotlight as he fielded attacks from most of the other candidates on stage on issues such as foreign policy and climate change.

DeSantis, who has averaged second place in polling since announcing his presidential bid earlier this year, has continued to slide in popularity. A poll released earlier this month showed that Trump's support among likely Republican primary voters in California had soared, with DeSantis and Haley falling into distant second and third places.

Democrats have mounted a debate counter-programming effort, with President Biden touring campaign fundraisers in San Francisco this week. The Democratic National Committee is reportedly planning to fly a plane over the Reagan library and drive a billboard truck around the venue.

Get the best of the Los Angeles Times politics coverage with the Essential Politics newsletter.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM - 2009: Visitors to the British Museum are seen outside the entrance in this 2009 London, United Kingdom, cityscape photo. Credit - George Rose/ Getty Images

The British Museum has solicited the publics help in finding an estimated 2,000 artifacts that had been stolen from the institutions collection over the course of several years. The famed museum launched a new website and email hotline on Tuesday requesting help in sharing information that might lead to the items recovery.

"If you are concerned that you may be, or have been, in possession of items from the British Museum, or if you have any other information that may help us, please contact us," the museums website said.

In August, the museum announced that around 2,000 artifacts with a net value of millions of pounds were believed to have been stolen from its collection. It said 60 items had been returned to the museum, and another 300 were identified and in the process of retrieval.

The theft has renewed debate over contested artifacts in the museums collection, many of which were acquired under British colonial rule. Countries, including Greece and China have called for the museum to return artifacts to the countries which created them.

What was stolen?

The missing artifacts are dated from between 15th century BC and the 19th century AD and include gold jewelry and semi-precious gemstones. They were not on public display, with most confined to a museum storeroom.

The British Museum is working with the Art Loss Register, the world's largest database of stolen art. The museum has established a hotline for anyone with information to come forward and plans to continue to provide updates on the material that we have recovered and recognition of the many people offering us help.

As a security precaution, the website only shares the type of material stolen and includes images of similar itemsincluding a Greek gold chain from 3 B.C. and classical Greek and Roman gems.

More From TIME

The British Museums approach has carefully balanced the need to provide information to the public to assist the recovery efforts with the fact that providing too much detail risks playing into the hands of those who might act in bad faith, said James Ratcliffe, the Director of Recoveries at the Art Loss Register said in a statement.

Calls for return

Accusations about the museums handling of artifactsand the practices through which the museum acquired themhave been thrust back in the spotlight, with several countries calling for the museum to repatriate their holdings back to their countries of origin.

Some items were being sold on the ecommerce platform, eBay, including one Roman artifact valued at over 50,000offered on the platform for 40, according to the Telegraph.

The thefts are under investigation by Londons Metropolitan Police Service. Hartwig Fischer, the museums previous director, resigned from his role late last month after it was revealed that an antique dealer reportedly notified the museum of the thefts in 2021, but no action was taken.

Peter Higgs, a senior curator for the museum, was fired last month and has been accused of selling the artifacts online, though his family has denied any wrongdoing.

The museum does not have a full catalog of all the items in its collection of more than 8 million artifacts, according to the Guardian, which may be why losses went unnoticed for so long.

Someone with knowledge of whats not registered has a big advantage in removing some of those items, said George Osborne, chair of the British Museum, and former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the Guardian.

The news of the thefts has prompted calls for the museum to return the items to the countries they came from. Nigerias government has called for the return of Benin Bronzes, which were looted by British troops in 1897.

The Museum is committed to active engagement with Nigerian institutions concerning the Benin Bronzes, including pursuing and supporting new initiatives developed in collaboration with Nigerian partners and colleagues, the British Museum says on its website. This includes full participation in the Benin Dialogue Group and working towards the aim of facilitating a new permanent display of Benin works of art in Benin City, to include works from the British Museum's collections.

The British Museum has long claimed to have a higher standard of care for the artifacts than the countries they were taken from, as justification for keeping hold of them.

An op-ed in Chinas state-run newspaper, Global Times requested the return of over 23,000 artifacts in the museums possession. The vast majority of the British Museums huge collection of up to eight million items came from countries other than the U.K., and a significant portion of it was acquired through improper channels, even dirty and sinful means, the editorial noted.

The British Museum has a long history of cultural collaboration in China, the museum said in a statement to TIME. The museum believes that displaying objects from China alongside cultural material from other parts of the world helps people understand Chinas long history better. We have received no official request for the return of any objects in the collection by the Chinese government.

Read More: European Museums Keep Talking About Repatriating Colonial Objects. African Artists and Curators Have Ideas on How to Actually Make It Happen

In another op-ed published in response to the scandal, Greeces culture minister Lina Mendoni called for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures long held by the museum, arguing that the theft was proof the museum was not capable of safeguarding the items in its possession.

The unprecedented case of the theft of hundreds of valuable objects of the British Museum, with perpetrators appointed to protect its collections, in addition to criminal and moral responsibilities, raises the major question of the credibility of the museum organization itself, she wrote. At the same time, the last argument of the British that the Parthenon Sculptures are supposedly safer in this particular Museum than in Athens, in the Acropolis Museum, collapses once again. The museum maintains that it obtained the sculptures legally and that successive Greek governments have refused to consider borrowing or to acknowledge the Trustees ownership of the Parthenon sculptures in their care.

The missing artifacts are not the only scandal the museum has been caught up in. Earlier this week, The National reported that the museum had purchased an ancient Egyptian artifact from a dealer in New York who had been convicted of smuggling artifacts. A British Museum representative told The National, Establishing the provenance of an object is an integral part of the museums acquisition process. We have been offering assistance to the US authorities in New York with enquiries since 2019. It would be inappropriate to comment further while these remain ongoing.

Write to Simmone Shah at simmone.shah@time.com.
Just over a week ago, an 11-year-old girl in Chicagos Lawndale neighborhood reported a brutal attack by two local women. Now, her family, including Trinity Washington, not only grapples with the aftermath of the assault but also fears for their safety.

A man has been threatening them with a gun, and the family is so frightened by the threats theyve received that they refuse to return home. They said they didnt feel protected because police have consistently been delayed in their response to their 911 calls, and the women who initially hurt the child have not been held responsible.

Trinity Washington says she was attacked by two women. (Photo: YouTube screenshot/ABC 7 Chicago)

Community leaders are outraged, calling for justice in a rally on Tuesday, Sept. 26.

During Mexican Independence Day weekend, two women reportedly attacked Trinity outside her North Lawndale apartment, hitting her in the face with a bottle, resulting in multiple injuries, and causing her to nearly lose consciousness.

Related:What Gives You the Right: Georgia Man Damages Womans Car with Pocketknife After He Wrongfully Assumed She Illegally Parked In Handicap Spot, Video Shows

The neighbors called her and her family the N-word and pummeled her in her right eye, causing her to undergo two surgeries. She also suffered a broken nose.

I looked up, and a bottle was being thrown to my face; I dropped down because I felt something hard. She punched me in my nose. When she punched me, I almost blacked out, and I fell again, Trinity said. My eye is in so much pain, my eye and my nose.

Wanda Porter, Trinitys mom, says the sixth-grader has missed school and has been traumatized by the ordeal. What is making it worse is her daughter is being harassed.

She said a man asked her daughter, Why did you bring the news people to my f***ing house? according to CBS News.

The same individual, Deandre Carroll, returned to their home and flashed the gun multiple times.

Carroll, 32, has since been arrested and charged with one misdemeanor count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

She also says that the person who pulled a gun on her daughter is dating one of the women who assaulted her. He was upset because the family reported the incident.

The 10th Chicago Police District Council members believe that the ordeal should be considered a hate crime against a minor, shifting their focus on police accountability and calling into question why they are not responding appropriately.

Read the full story here.

The newly elected officials are calling on the Chicago Police Department to arrest both women accused in this attack. They are also requesting the states attorney to upgrade charges against them. One woman involved in the incident now has been arrested and charged with aggravated battery to a child, authorities said Tuesday.

The CPD said they are not ignoring the cries of the people and that the investigation is ongoing.

The Chicago Police Department will not tolerate violence in our communities, especially violence against children, the department said in a statement. We stand with the child who was injured and will continue to support her and her family as she recovers from this heartbreaking attack. This remains an active and ongoing investigation as the detectives work to hold the offenders accountable.

Trinity is noting all of the support and appreciates it even while she is healing.

The world can be good, but people can actually be bad, the young victim said to FOX 32. I just want to say, we will pray for them, pray for us, and see if life can get a little bit easier, even though its already a little hard for us right now.
For more than six years, the USS Vicksburg has sat idle at a shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, undergoing repairs that have cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet the 567-foot guided-missile cruiser might never return to sea. The USS Vicksburg is one of 11 vessels that the Navy is seeking to retire but members of Congress may not let it.

Im sure most taxpayers look at the situation and say, 'No, this is not acceptable,'" Diana Maurer, the director of defense capabilities and management for the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said. Why are we spending money on a ship that was supposed to be modernized, that is not modernized, that is currently not sailing and may never sail again?

The Vicksburg's long and costly ordeal highlights the Navy's struggle to modernize its fleet as China seeks naval supremacy in the Pacific. A different ship, the USS Boise, a nuclear attack submarine, has been under repair for eight years.

It is unacceptable, Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti said about the Boise this month at her Senate confirmation hearing to run Naval ship operations. Franchetti cited lack of manpower at shipyards as contributing to the delay.

Maurer's office released a report this year that found the Navy is spending more money repairing its warships while its vessels are spending less time at sea. From 2011 through 2020, operating and support costs across 10 ship classes grew by $2.5 billion, or 17%. That included a $1.2 billion increase in maintenance costs  a 24% jump, according to the GAO report.

Maurer said the rising maintenance costs are due in part to the Navy's having put off the upkeep of the ships when they were involved in combat in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Similar to your car, if you dont do the necessary or the recommended maintenance on your car, youre going to save a few hundred dollars this year, but next year when your transmission goes, when your brakes no longer work, when your engine fails, youre going to face a much higher price tag," she said.

Mauer said a lack of spare parts and unfilled jobs also contributes to ships languishing at shipyard ports.

In response to questions from NBC News, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said that we will continue to review the material conditions of the ships, hull by hull, to ensure we extend the service life of ships, when possible.

Continuing to spend money on legacy systems that do not contribute to our advantage in strategic competition is not a smart or effective use of taxpayers dollars, Del Toro added

The USS Vicksburg. (Laura Strickler / NBC News)

Each year, the Navy sends Congress a list of ships that officials want to decommission or retire. In March, the Navy submitted to Congress a list of 11 ships it sought to retire, including the Vicksburg.

It wasn't the first time the Vicksburg appeared on the list. But it hasn't been decommissioned because of opposition from lawmakers.

Members of Congress often object to a ship's retirement because the repair work means jobs at shipyards in their district. Others oppose the decommissioning of a ship for another reason: They want the Navy to maintain a high number of ships in its fleet regardless of their condition in order to deter China.

The Navy currently has a goal of 355 ships but has maintained a fleet of 270 to 300 battle force ships since 2003, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Most of the ships on this years retirement list, like the Vicksburg, are more than 30 years old. But two of the ships are just seven years old and part of the troubled Littoral Combat ship class that has been sharply criticized by watchdogs for wasteful spending.

The USS Vicksburg was first launched in 1991.

While the Navy has spent at least $175 million on its contract with BAE Systems, which operates the Norfolk shipyard, to modernize and repair the Vicksburg, the total cost of maintenance is likely much more.

At a House Appropriations Committee hearing last year, Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, said that the Navy had awarded $500 million in contracts to update the Vicksburg. The Navy says that total cost includes various availabilities, material procurements, and advanced instillations, but it declined to say how much of the $500 million has been spent to date.

Despite years of repairs, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., still objects to decommissioning the Vicksburg. But he said he's now resigned to the ships fate.

"Im not in favor of it, but I think its a fait accompli," Wittman said. "I think its one of those courses that were going to have to take. Its a tougher argument to put that much money into that ship where we could take the same amount of dollars and put them into multiple other ships and get more service life out of them."

A BAE Systems spokesperson said in a statement that "we continue to work under contract with the Navy to achieve its desired outcome for the USS Vicksburg."

Senators have begun to describe the maintenance delays in dire terms.

I think its time for a hair-on-fire task force on this issue," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this month.

"We can improve productivity at those facilities. But looking at the numbers, it just doesnt seem like that will be enough."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Whats the most maddening stretch of road in South Florida?

With so many, its just so hard to choose. You will get a chance in the survey below.

 Is it the Palmetto Expressway in Doral at rush hour, an hour that seems to run all the time?

 Is it the stretch of I-95 from Ives Dairy Road to downtown Miami, where even the express lanes seem to be standing still for a morning peak toll price of 9 bucks?

 Perhaps its State Road 836 in West Miami-Dade or in the eastern construction corridor between the airport and downtown.

 Maybe your gridlock nightmares are on city streets like West 49th in Hialeah or U.S. 1 in Aventura. Or perhaps its West Flagler Street at school dismissal and early afternoon rush that has you gripping the steering wheel tight.

A Google satellite view from 2013 shows the Golden Glades interchange as it existed then, with I-95 running from the lower left to upper right, Floridas Turnpike at the upper left and the Palmetto Expressway at the middle left. This was the spaghetti bowl that confused drivers. Now, it could be any highway in South Florida as road patterns have changed amid constant construction of the Palmetto, Airport Expressway, Interstate 95 and more.

What about the Golden Glades and other choke points?

Or is the winner in the traffic frustration sweepstakes the Golden Glades Interchange, a root of all gridlock in all directions? The Golden Glades is known as the spaghetti bowl in North Miami-Dade, where I-95, Floridas Turnpike, U.S. 441 and State Road 826 converge in one clump of immobility.

Oh, and lets not forget road construction through South Florida, turning our routes into an obstacle course of traffic barrels and nightly lane shutdowns.

Wherever the clog in the artery, it comes down to this: No matter how much road-widening, the lanes just cant keep up with the number of cars. Among the reasons:

 School is back in session.

 More people are commuting again.

 Gleaming new buildings are all filled with drivers.

 More package and food delivery and ride shares.

 Add in all the newcomers to South Florida as well as the regions status as a tourist and nightlife destination. Then throw in some rain on the asphalt or a crash or a break-down.

And these backups arent just during rush hour. South Florida runs 24/7, with its tourist and healthcare economies humming around the clock.

There you have it: gridlock every which way.

It makes a 15-minute trip turn into an hour, like getting from the Golden Glades to downtown Miami, or 45 minutes to from the eastern end of Doral to Floridas Turnpike.

Mass transit?

That can be slow or just not as convenient as you need. It takes two buses and two hours, for instance, to get from South Beach to the Miami airport area business district. And trains can only take you so close to your destination without having to hop into a ride-share for a slow-motion last leg.

And its not just you.

The Golden Glades Interchange in a rare moment of movement.

READ MORE: Youre not wrong, Miami: Study says we have some of the worst traffic in the world

Why Miami is among the most traffic-choked places in world

A report released earlier this year ranks Greater Miami one of the worst metro area for traffic in the country and world.

Just think of all that lost work productivity and personal time.

One of the big drivers is people going back to work after the pandemic, said Bob Pishue, who wrote the report for INRIX.

Its a global phenomenon, he said. Were starting to see telecommuting decrease and hybrid work increase. Even full-time telecommuters in 2021 were back to the office in some capacity this year, though it differs from area to area and industry to industry.

Let us know your worst traffic spot

We want to know the stretch of road or highway that ties you in knots. Let us know in the survey below. Its not scientific, but it might give an idea of our biggest choke points in South Florida. If you cant see it, turn off your ad blocker.

The survey
Flamingos stand by the water along a Lake Michigan beach on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, in Port Washington, Wis. The American flamingos spotted Friday at the beach, about 25 miles north of Milwaukee, marked the first sighting of the species in Wisconsin state history, said Mark Korducki, a member of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. | Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via Associated Press

Typically native to the Caribbean Islands, five American flamingos were spotted in Port Washington, Wisconsin, over the weekend, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wildlife biologists attribute the 1,500-mile displacement of these tropical birds to Hurricane Idalia, the article noted. Reported as a Category 3 hurricane, Idalia hit Keaton Beach near Tallahassee on Aug. 30, according to CBS.

Not only did the storm cause massive power outages, building damages and flooding, it also displaced flamingos, leaving them in Alabama, North and South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and now Wisconsin, per USA Today.

Related

Media and beachgoers watch flamingos along a Lake Michigan beach on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, in Port Washington, Wis. | Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via Associated Press

Bill Pranty, author of Birds of Florida, said that birds can be displaced from their homes by traveling in the eyes of hurricanes, getting caught in a storms outer bands, or attempting to fly around storms. He suspects that as Idalia moved north from the Yucatan, the birds traveled into the U.S. in the storms counter-clockwise rain bands, according to USA Today.

Regardless of how the flamingos arrived, crowds of bird-lovers have given these Wisconsin visitors a warm welcome.

Related

Conservation biologist Ryan Brady said the five birds mainly just slept on the beach of Port Washington after landing, according to the New York Post.

Ive only ever seen (flamingos) on our trips to Aruba, said Debbie Gasper of Port Washington, who made the short trip to the lakefront with her husband Mark, to the Post. Im going to have to send photos of this or our relatives in Georgia arent going to believe it.
MOUNT HOLLY - A Willingboro man has received a 25-year prison term for killing a woman at a Maple Shade apartment complex.

Semaj T. Pittman, 24, admitted guilt earlier this year to the aggravated murder of Kayla Winkler, a 22-year-old resident of The Arbors complex on Lenola Road.

Winkler's boyfriend, Ramek Bass, then a 24-year-old from Philadelphia, survived a gunshot wound to his shoulder in the February 2020 attack.

Bullet grazed fleeing victim's head Absecon man receives 60-year prison sentence for Buena home-invasion robbery

Police, responding to a report of gunfire, found the victims coming out of an elevator in the building's lobby, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

Investigators found Pittman and a juvenile teenager went to the complex to rob Winkler and Bass, with whom they were acquaintanted, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Pittman pulled a gun in Winkler's apartment and shot the victims as they fled, the statement said.

Pittman must serve more than 21 years before parole eligibility under the sentence imposed Sept. 22 by Superior Court Judge Christopher Garrenger in Mount Holly.

His accomplice, an Evesham resident, admitted guilt last year to murder. His name was not released due to his juvenile status.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: jwalsh@cpsj.com.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Semaj Pittman shot at robbery victims fleeing Maple Shade apartment
FILE - A map of a GOP proposal to redraw Alabama's congressional districts is displayed at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., July 18, 2023. The Supreme Court is allowing work to proceed on a new Alabama congressional map with greater representation for Black voters, rejecting the states plea to retain Republican-drawn lines struck down by a lower court. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler, File)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP)  Alabama is headed to the first significant revamp of its congressional map in three decades after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state's bid to keep using a plan with a single majority-Black district.

The decision on Tuesday sets the stage for a new map with greater representation for Black voters to be put in place for the 2024 elections. The ruling marks a victory for Black voters in the state who had challenged the existing districts as racially discriminatory. Advocates said they hope it will bolster similar redistricting challenges elsewhere around the country.

WHAT HAPPENED

Justices denied Alabama's emergency request to keep Republican-drawn congressional lines in place and stop a three-judge panel from drawing new lines as the state appeals. The three-judge panel had ruled the state plan  with one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black  likely violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act. The three-judge panel said the new lines must include a second district where Black voters constitute a majority or quite close to it.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

The three-judge panel will quickly proceed with the redrawing of new districts for use in the 2024 elections. The panel will hold a Tuesday hearing on three possible replacement plans proposed by a court-appointed special master. The court told plaintiffs and the state to submit any objections to the proposed plans this week. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state will continue the legal fight to restore state-drawn lines, but Alabama will face a court-drawn map for the 2024 election cycle.

WHAT WILL THE NEW LINES LOOK LIKE

The three proposals would alter the boundaries of Congressional District 2 in southeast Alabama, now represented by Republican Rep. Barry Moore, so that Black voters comprise between 48.5% to 50.1% of the voting-age population. It's a shift that could put the seat in Democratic hands. The special master said that candidates supported by Black voters would have won 13 or more of the last 17 elections in the district. By contrast, the district drafted by GOP lawmakers had a Black voting-age population of 39.9%, meaning it would continue to elect mostly white Republicans.

WHAT IS THE REACTION

The decision was a victory years in the making for Black voters and advocacy groups that had filed lawsuits challenging the Alabama districts. Deuel Ross, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said the high court rejected Alabama's bid to "relitigate issues that have already been decided and openly defy what the court has said is a Voting Rights Act violation."

Plaintiffs had likened the state's resistance to that of segregationist Gov. George Wallace's efforts in 1963 to fight integration orders. Despite these shameful efforts, the Supreme Court has once again agreed that Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district," plaintiffs in the case said.

The decision was a loss for the state that had tried to argue the Supreme Court's June ruling didn't necessarily require the creation of a second majority-Black district. Marshall accused plaintiffs of prioritizing racial quotas over traditional redistricting principle, and said the state will now be encumbered with a racially gerrymandered, court-drawn map for the 2024 election cycle.

We are confident that the Voting Rights Act does not require, and the Constitution does not allow, separate but equal congressional districts, Marshall said.

A WINDING PATH

The winding legal saga in Alabama began when groups of Black voters challenged Alabamas congressional map as racially discriminatory. A three-judge panel agreed and ordered new lines drawn, but the Supreme Court in 2022 granted Alabamas request to put that order on hold ahead of the 2022 elections. However, justices in a 5-4 June ruling upheld the panels decision. Lawmakers in July drafted new lines that maintained one majority-Black district. The three-judge panel on Sept. 5 chastised the state for flouting their directive and said they would step in to oversee the drawing of new lines.

OTHER STATES

The redraw in Alabama comes as redistricting cases are moving through the legal pipeline in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere, making similar arguments that the states illegally weaken the political influence of Black voters. Ross, who is involved in the Louisiana litigation, said he hopes the Supreme Court decision sends a message that the Louisiana case should move forward" similar to how Alabama did.

Kareem Crayton, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, which had filed a brief on behalf of the Alabama plaintiffs, said, I do think everyone in these other states is paying attention to this case.
A 34-year-old woman was stabbed to death inside a Brooklyn apartment early Wednesday, police said.

Cops called to the 14th-floor Starrett City apartment found the victim sprawled on the floor suffering from multiple stab wounds about 6:15 a.m. She died at the scene.

The victims name was not immediately released.

A 31-year-old man found inside the apartment on Pennsylvania Ave. near Geneva Loop when cops arrived was taken into custody for questioning.

A bloody knife was recovered from the scene, police said.
A bullet through the jaw left a Texas woman unable to speak, but she led police to her accused shooter without saying a word before dying, San Antonio investigators say.

Klauda Canales, 23, was riding in a car with friends on Aug. 31, sitting in the backseat with her boyfriend, investigators said in an arrest affidavit.

Christian Eric Rios, 19, was in the front passenger seat while his girlfriend drove the group around, drinking and smoking marijuana.

Rios and Canales boyfriend had taken Alprazolam, documents said, an anti-anxiety drug sometimes abused for the sense of euphoria it can give.

The group stopped at a gas station before driving to a parking lot near Rios apartment and, along the way, he rolled down a window and fired a handgun into the air, investigators said.

After arriving at the parking lot, Rios pulled out the handgun again, investigators say, and aimed it at his girlfriends head. He pulled the trigger but nothing happened.

Rios got out of the car and adjusted the gun, documents said. Now it would fire.

This time he aimed at Canales. She threw a hand up to protect herself and the bullet tore straight through, striking her in the jaw, police said.

Canales boyfriend exited the car and confronted Rios. The driver left them there, and headed to a hospital with Canales in the backseat, the documents read.

Canales underwent reconstructive surgery and couldnt talk, but was able to communicate with police by typing and signing, according to investigators.

While in the hospital, she typed out what happened, police said. She accused Rios of shooting her and signed her name on a photo of him provided by police.

Ultimately, Canales was unable to recover and died Sept. 19 at the hospital due to her injuries, documents read.

Rios is charged with murder, according to police.

Gun violence in the US

Thousands of people die every year from firearm injuries in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Firearm injuries are a serious public health problem, officials said. In 2020, there were 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the United States  thats about 124 people dying from a firearm-related injury each day.

Firearm-related injuries were one of the top leading causes of death for people ages 1 to 44 in 2020, the CDC reported.

More than half of firearm-related deaths were suicides and more than 4 out of every 10 were firearm homicides, the CDC says.

The impact of gun violence, however, goes beyond the death toll, experts said.

The effects of firearm violence extend beyond victims and their families, according to the CDC. Shooting incidents, including those in homes, schools, houses of worship, workplaces, shopping areas, on the street or at community events can affect the sense of safety and security of entire communities and impact everyday decisions.

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On the morning of Sept. 25, 2023, Phoenix Police followed Omar Rivas into this industrial lot near 2nd Avenue and Broadway Road in South Phoenix after he was speeding from an accused home invasion.

A man was charged with first degree murder after his accused co-conspirator of a South Phoenix home invasion died on Monday.

Court documents show that the incident that led to police chasing a car and finding two people shot, one fatally, in it Monday morning stemmed from an exchange of sex for money.

Around 2:15 a.m. Monday, Phoenix police were on routine patrol in the area of Central Avenue and East Carter Road, south of Southern Avenue. At that time, they heard gunshots east of their direction, according to court documents.

Shortly after police heard the gunshots, they saw a black Chrysler speeding and leaving the area, court documents show. Police followed the car and tried to initiate a traffic stop, but the car continued for several blocks without stopping.

The car finally stopped and pulled into an industrial lot near 2nd Avenue and Broadway Road. The car drove through the lot and collided with a stack of wooden pallets, court documents show.

After crashing the car, the driver, later identified as 23-year-old Omar Jaquez Rivas, got out and started to run. According to court documents, police saw Rivas throw a semiautomatic handgun onto the ground as officers chased him.

Officers were able to take him into custody and retrieved the handgun.

When police approached the Chrysler, they found Ricardo Mendoza Sanchez sitting in the front passenger seat with a gunshot wound to the leg, court documents show. Police found a second semiautomatic handgun on the floor near Sanchez's feet.

Sanchez was transported to a hospital and remained in stable condition.

In the backseat behind Sanchez, police found Mia Padilla, 19, with multiple gunshot wounds to her lower body. Padilla was transported to the hospital where she died from her injuries.

Car chase linked to reported armed robbery and home invasion

While police were dealing with the passengers of the Chrysler, additional officers were dispatched to an armed robbery and home invasion call near 7th Street and Carter Road, according to court documents.

Upon arrival, officers contacted a man who said he was at his house with a friend, Padilla. Then two armed men, Rivas and Sanchez, entered his house and one pistol-whipped the man in the face, according to court documents.

The man told police he went to the back of his house as both intruders chased after him. He went to his bedroom and pulled out his AK-47 semi-automatic rifle and shot at them, according to court documents. He then chased the men out of his house, along the sideyard, and into the front driveway of the main house, all while continuously shooting his rifle, court documents show.

Rivas, Sanchez, and Padilla got into the black Chrysler and started to drive westbound on Carter Road toward Central Avenue. The resident told police that he fired his rifle at the car as it drove away from his house, according to court documents.

The man told police he believed the two men were attempting to rob him and that Padilla had set him up for the home invasion.

Police observed multiple pistol and rifle casings in the driveway and backyard of the house, court documents show.

A set up

In a post-Miranda interview, court documents show that the resident admitted to police that he had solicited Padilla for prostitution at 27th Avenue and Indian School Road. He told police that he gave the woman his home address for them to meet and have sexual intercourse.

Court documents show that after 1 a.m. Padilla arrived at his house, the two engaged in intercourse and after he paid her, she left.

Around 45 minutes later, the resident said he received a text from Padilla saying she left something at his house. Once she got to the house and left again, the resident said that Rivas and Sanchez appeared and showed handguns, according to court documents.

He told police he attempted to call 911 but that was when he was pistol-whipped. He said he felt that Rivas restricted his movements by pointing a firearm at him.

The man told police that a gun battle ensued after he obtained the AK-47 rifle, court documents show. He said he felt his life was in danger by the actions of Rivas and Sanchez.

Court documents show that the man told police Padilla's name as he was ashamed of soliciting a prostitute.

After being advised of his Miranda warnings, Rivas refused to answer questions in a police interview and asked for legal representation.

It was not clear in court documents how Padilla was shot or where she was prior to getting into the car before they left the area.

In addition to first degree murder, Rivas was charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, burglary in the first degree, aggravated assault, possession of a weapon by a prohibited possessor, and unlawful flight from law enforcement.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: First-degree murder charges for man accused of south Phoenix break-in
Akron police are investigating a shooting that left a 33-year-old woman in critical but stable condition Tuesday night at Cleveland Clinic Akron General Medical Center, according to an Akron Police Department news release.

Investigators suspect a verbal dispute led to the shooting that took place at 10:46 p.m. in the 1200 block of Moore Street, police said.

The suspect has yet to be identified as the incident remains under investigation.

'It's just out of control.': Summit County data paints grim picture of growing gun violence

Anyone with information can call the Akron Police Department Detective Bureau at 330-375-2490 or 330-375-2Tip. Any can provide anonymous information by texting TIPSCO to 274637 or downloading the Akron PD app and messaging Tips411.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron shooting: Woman injured after incident on Moore Street
Hes a big biochem buff on a mission to help those with Sickle Cell Disease -- and thats because Kweku Akese has watched his younger sister live with the condition for 14 years.

Sickle Cell Anemia is a blood disease that essentially misshapes ones blood cells, said Kweku. Instead of the blood cells being shaped like a round disk, theyre shaped like a crescent moon.

And that has two primary effects. First, the crescent-shaped cells lack the durability of the normal round ones -- and so they only last about 1/5 as long. With red blood cells turning over that quickly, the body gets less oxygen. So fatigue and lack of energy are common, everyday side effects. Second, the shape of the cells can clog up blood vessels -- leading to a number of serious complications -- including stroke, blindness and severe, localized, pain incidents known as crises.

Kweku has seen his sister go through a few of these crises -- but he said the main pain shes complained about over the years has to do with the frequent blood testing required to manage Sickle Cell.

Bloodwork often involved multiple needle sticks because nurses had trouble finding his sisters veins, he said.

Its not a fun day, especially if you have nurses poking, trying to find the vein, he said. It can be super painful.

Last year, Kweku, a senior at the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science in Worcester, began an internship at UMass Memorial Medical Center. And that is where he learned about vein finders -- devices that use Near-Infrared Light to quickly locate veins -- and thus virtually eliminate the need for multi-sticking. .

Kweku initiated a fundraising effort to help UMass Memorial, where his sister is treated for Sickle Cell, purchase a vein finder.

Were trying to raise around $3,000 for a single vein finder, Kweku said.

Of course, a hospital the size of UMass Memorial really needs more than just one vein finder -- and Kweku would like to see all patients benefit from its use -- so hes probably not stopping at fundraising for just one.

Hes also not stopping his explorations into better treatments for Sickle Cell. Last year, for his junior science project, Kweku experimented with adding a Fluorine molecule to a primary drug used for Sickle Cell, hydroxyurea. His hope was to create a more effective drug, and he chose fluorine because... well...

Fluorine is something thats super electronegative, he said.

Of course it is. Who didnt know that?

Despite his vast knowledge of chemistry and biology, Kweku said hes not just interested in concentrating on research when he grows up. Hed like to be an advocate, too, for patients dealing with diseases, he said, that seem to go unseen.

If the world did end up forgetting about Sickle Cell, I would just try to remind them that, as a society, I feel like its our job to make sure that everybody is included, Kweku said. Just making sure that everybody, no matter what your disease is, feels seen.

If youd like to help Kweku Akese raise funds for the vein finder, click here.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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Years after a worker fell 50 feet to his death from the roof of a Missouri soybean storage tank, a construction contractor has been ordered to pay $370,000, federal authorities say.

The U.S. Department of Labor said Skinner Tank Co. did not require its workers to use fall protection, nor did they provide fall protection training. The construction contractor is now considered liable for the Oct. 14, 2019, death of a worker at a St. Joseph construction site, officials said.

The worker, identified in media reports as 56-year-old Tony Wilson, was on the roof of the tank when he fell more than 50 feet to the ground.

An inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration revealed Skinner Tank Co. provided inaccurate safety information to its employees by telling them that wearing fall protection actually presented a greater hazard than wearing it.

Skinner, based out of Yale, Oklahoma, was issued a $370,680 fine and will avoid federal prosecution. The company could not be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

The resolution of this case sends a strong message that OSHA will hold employers accountable for willful violations of federal safety regulations that seriously or fatally injure their workers, OSHA Region Administrator Billie Kizer said. Each year, too many workers lose their lives from falls  the leading cause of workplace deaths in the construction industry  because employers fail to provide fall protection.

Wilson was married and had two children and seven grandchildren, according to an obituary.

He was fearless when it came to new adventures and was always fun to be around, the obituary states. Most of all he was an excellent grandfather who loved spending time with his grandchildren and will be dearly missed.

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The News

Scale up and speed up: Thats the motto for reshaping the global financial architecture to deliver the funds developing economies need to transition. Few organizations symbolize this more right now than the U.N.s flagship climate fund.

Mafalda Duarte, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund, recently unveiled a vision to triple its capitalization to $50 billion by 2030, while promising reforms and partnerships with multilateral development banks and private actors to get more dollars to carbon-cutting and adaptation projects in vulnerable countries.

Her ambition comes amid growing discussions over whether the existing international financial system is sufficiently able to respond to the climate crisis. Critics variously call for reform  Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley s blueprint to refashion finance is gaining traction  or replacement: Countries like Kenya and the UAE are setting their sights on creating entirely new institutions to channel the funding needed to green economies.

There is movement. The question is can we get that movement to be bigger and faster, said Rachel Kyte, dean emerita of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Chloes view

Developing countries need cheap, long-term, and easily accessible financing to decarbonize and develop their economies. Duarte gets it. But her efforts, and those of the GCF, wont be enough on their own  not by a long shot.

The GCF is the worlds largest dedicated climate fund, a pillar of the grand bargain between rich and poorer nations which underpins the 2015 Paris Agreement: Developing countries agreed to cut emissions in exchange for financial support from their wealthier peers. The replenishment of the GCF is critical for vulnerable nations to access affordable funding for climate investments, and Duarte is seeking fresh contributions at a pledging conference next week.

On its own, however, the GCF is too small to move the needle. Duarte acknowledged last week in remarks to the U.N. that even $50 billion was a drop in the bucket when compared to the additional climate finance needs of developing and emerging economies other than China, estimated at around $1.8 trillion a year by 2030.

But the GCF stands out for its ability to focus on the most vulnerable, and take more risks than most investors because it doesnt have to worry about credit ratings. To scale financial flows, the GCF will double down on mobilizing domestic private capital, Duarte told CSIS, a Washington-based think-tank, on Monday.

Yet still more is required, and Duartes is one of multiple efforts aiming to bolster funding for developing nations. The Bridgetown Agenda  a blueprint for reforming the financial system championed by Mottley  is the most advanced diplomatic initiative responding to that scaling challenge. It calls on multilateral development banks to triple their lending from $100 billion a year currently to $300 billion, urges the banks shareholders to increase their capitalization, and demands developed countries rechannel about $130 billion of International Monetary Fund financing as additional lending for vulnerable nations.

A group of countries recently agreed to increase multilateral development bank lending by an extra $20 billion annually by optimizing the banks balance sheets. But Mottley warned leaders last week the ambition shouldnt be below $100 billion. An influential recent report for the G20 concluded that the MDBs could increase their lending by several hundreds of billions of dollars over the medium term if they followed a series of recommendations, including on risk tolerance.

The issue is poised to be a major talking point at World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings next month in Marrakech, where Barbados and its allies will push for higher numbers, Avinash Persaud, Mottleys special envoy on investments, told me.

Other efforts are underway, too. There are calls on multilateral development banks to loosen their insistence on maintaining AAA ratings and increase lending; momentum is building behind debt-for-climate swaps, which can free up capital for heavily indebted nations; while the World Bank is increasing its lending capacity by loosening its equity-to-lending ratio to take on a bit more risk.

Developing countries climate and development finance needs are acute and growing. But ideas for financing mitigation and adaptation efforts are on the table. The question remains whether they can be seriously implemented.

Quotable

 Selwin Hart, special adviser on climate action to the U.N. chief, reflecting on last weeks Climate Ambition Summit.

Room for Disagreement

Not all politicians and financial experts believe that simply making the existing system bigger and bolder will be sufficient to meet the needs of developing economies. The current, traditional financial architecture cannot solve climate change. It is not wired for it, it has no capacity, Kenyan President William Ruto told the Financial Times. Instead, Ruto proposed the creation of a new Green Development Bank funded by carbon taxes and climate levies.

The View From Abu Dhabi

The UAE, which is hosting COP28 in December, is considering creating a multibillion-dollar fund to spur clean energy investments across the world. It could amount to tens of billions of dollars of lending at market rates, Politico reported. The proposal has raised concern among developing countries, which need below-market-rate finance to leapfrog to cleaner energy sources, invest in resilience, and unlock private capital.

The lending body the UAE envisions may complement the existing architecture but cannot substitute for it, Joe Thwaites, senior advocate on international climate finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. Thwaites said a more urgent question was whether the UAE, which got rich on oil and gas and has some of the worlds highest per capita emissions, will contribute concessional finance to global funds, such as the GCF.

Notable

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijings answer to the World Bank, plans to triple its climate change lending by 2030 from 2022 levels. This will make climate finance the banks top lending priority, accounting for more than half of the funds disbursed over the period, Danny Alexander, the banks vice-president for policy and strategy, told the Financial Times.
A man convicted of robbery, kidnapping and sexual assault has been released from prison after 28 years after it was determined he was wrongfully convicted, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office.

Last week, the conviction of Gerardo Cabanillas was vacated after evidence was reexamined by the DAs Office Conviction Integrity Unit.

In a press release issued Tuesday afternoon, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon called Cabanillas imprisonment a grave injustice.

Upon thorough reexamination of the evidence and a comprehensive review of the case by my offices Conviction Integrity Unit, it has become abundantly clear that a serious error was made, Gascon said. I extend my deepest apologies to Mr. Cabanillas for the miscarriage of justice and the failure of our criminal legal system.

Gerardo Cabanillas shakes hands with Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon following a press conference in which the DA announced his release from prison and vacation of his conviction from 1996.

Cabanillas was convicted for 14 felony counts and sentenced to prison in April 1996. He was 18 years old at the time.

His original sentence was for 15 years to life in prison, in addition to a consecutive sentence for 72 years in prison.

The conviction was obtained through a false confession, Gascon said. No physical evidence was ever obtained, and his fingerprints did not match those collected from the scene. If not for DNA evidence that eventually proved him innocent, Cabanillas likely wouldve spent the rest of his life behind bars.

Alissa Bjerkhoel, interim director of the California Innocence Project and Cabanillas attorney, called false confessions one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the American justice system.

Police are permitted to lie to suspects, including promises of leniency if the person confesses, Bjerkhoel said. That is exactly what happened here.

Gerardo Cabanillas stands with loved ones and supporters alongside Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon at a press conference in which the DA announced his release from prison and vacation of his conviction from 1996. (Los Angeles County District Attorney's Offce)

Bjerkhoel submitted a claim with the Conviction Integrity Unit to request a review of his case for factual innocence. After an exhaustive investigation and a review of existing evidence, as well as new discovery, the DAs Office lost confidence in his conviction.

Last week, the DAs Office asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to vacate the conviction and grant his permanent release from prison on the grounds that he was factually innocent.

It is imperative that we reflect upon this case as a stark reminder that our criminal legal system is not infallible, Gascon said. We must collectively commit to doing better, to continuously improving our procedures, and to ensuring that every person who enters our legal system is afforded a fair and just process.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon, right, announces the exoneration of Gerardo Cabanillas, left, after more than 28 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

For the record:

7:44 p.m. Sept. 26, 2023: An earlier version of this article said police suspected Gerardo Cabanillas of being involved in a separate robbery. He was only a suspect in the case for which he was wrongfully convicted.



Gerardo Cabanillas swore on his child's life that he was innocent when he was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault at the age of 18, his attorney said. Yet, he confessed anyway when a South Gate police detective allegedly promised he'd be given probation as long as he admitted to the crime.

That false promise left Cabanillas in prison for nearly three decades, until DNA evidence showed someone else had committed the crime, officials said.

Flanked by his family, attorneys and Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon, Cabanillas stood in the downtown Hall of Justice as an innocent man Tuesday, as officials discussed his bittersweet recently vacated conviction.

"Justice has been a very long time coming ... if we can even call it that at this point," said attorney Alissa Bjerkhoel, who represented Cabanillas through the California Innocence Project.

Cabanillas was accused of a brutal robbery at gunpoint and sexual assault of a young woman in South Gate in 1995, officials said.

During a seven-hour interrogation during which Cabanillas didn't have access to an attorney, South Gate Det. Jack Lee Alirez promised the young man he would be released on probation if he admitted to what he was being accused of, according to Bjerkhoel and Gascon. Instead, Cabanillas was charged with 14 felonies, convicted and sentenced to a de facto life sentence, court records show.

Read more: Frustration and criticism as L.A. County D.A. struggles to reform sentencing

Bjerkhoel said there were obvious problems with the case from the beginning. There was no physical evidence linking Cabanillas to the assault, she said. The victim pointed out Cabanillas from a police six-pack of suspect photos but never identified him in court, through a preliminary hearing and two trials, court records show.

The victim's boyfriend said he identified Cabanillas only after a detective showed him a picture and told him, "Cabanillas was the person they got and that he had confessed," records show.

Cabanillas denied all wrongdoing for decades, and his case was finally taken up by the California Innocence Project in 2017, Bjerkhoel said. This year, DNA evidence not only cleared Cabanillas, but also identified another suspect, who was already in prison awaiting trial for murder, Gascon said.

That suspect, whom prosecutors declined to identify Tuesday because the investigation is continuing, went on to commit additional sexual assaults, Gascon said.

"When the wrong person is convicted of a crime, not only do we make a mockery of the system ... but the actual assailant remains free," Gascon said.

Cabanillas declined to speak during Tuesday's news conference. Attempts to contact Alirez were unsuccessful. The South Gate Police Department said it planned to issue a statement on the case later Tuesday.

Tiffiny Blacknell, director of communications for the district attorney's office, said it wasn't clear whether prosecutors would file charges against the new suspect, as it was unclear whether the victim would want to move forward with charges.

Improving L.A. County's conviction review unit was one of several planks on which Gascon based his reform-focused run for district attorney in 2020. While some questions have been raised about his ability to deliver on his large-scale promises of post-conviction relief, at least five people with highly questionable convictions have been exonerated under Gascon.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Elon Musk leads the social media giant X from his iPhone, employees told the Financial Times.

The billionaire doesn't like to see attachments, documents, or spreadsheets in emails from staff.

Musk is known for his tough, demanding leadership style, and desire for quick solutions to problems.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, runs the social media giant from his iPhone and expects staff to send emails in a format that's easy for him to read on his phone, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday .

Several former and current X employees told the FT that Musk steers the ship from his iPhone and if staff want to get his attention, their emails needed to be sent in a specific format. This includes no attachments, documents, or spreadsheets within the email.

Instead, Musk wants all information to be within the body of the email, per the FT.

Musk, who heads up four companies outside X  Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink  is renowned as a tough leader and has a long list of demands for his staffers.

Several executives from Tesla and The Boring Company, who make up part of Musk's inner circle , were brought in to help X make the transition when he bought the company for $44 billion in October 2022.

The old timers advised X staffers that Musk didn't have the tolerance for people who said things just to sound smart. He expected them to admit when they didn't know something and get back to him within a reasonable amount of time about the particular matter.

In November 2022, just weeks after Musk's takeover, it was reported that Musk's external advisors were referred to be some Twitter staff as "Elon's goons."

One former employee told the FT that Musk prefers "effective operators who are happy doing the bidding of someone else without question" rather than opinionated staffers.

"That's not a knock at him. He clearly has a track record of getting it right a lot," they said.

Musk even sent an ultimatum to X staff in November 2022 telling them to commit to an "extremely hardcore" vision of the company and work "long hours at high intensity," or they will be laid off.

Since becoming owner Musk has made many changes to the platform from launching a new $8 verification model called Twitter Blue , to reinstating previously banned accounts including that of Donald Trump, Kanye West, and Andrew Tate , and rebranding Twitter to X .

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping urged cadres to strengthen efforts to safeguard the nations security and interests in the process of opening up, as he pledged to actively take part in adjusting international trade rules.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The country should participate comprehensively and deeply in the reform of the World Trade Organization, as well as resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights of China and other developing nations, he said.

China has benefited from joining the WTO more than two decades ago and Xi said the country has evolved into an important participant in forming global trade and economic rules. He made the comments at a group study session of the Politburo, the Communist Partys decision-making body, on Wednesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Xis comments coincide with Chinas efforts to stabilize ties with major trading partners including the US and Europe as the economy loses steam.

Read More: China Shies Away From Confrontation With Europe Over EV Probe

China has hosted four cabinet-level White House officials in Beijing in recent months, and reestablished working groups with the US ahead of a potential Xi meeting with President Joe Biden in November. Meanwhile, officials have shown a willingness to talk with European Union counterparts even after the bloc announced a probe into Chinas electric vehicle subsidies.

Xi also vowed to continue to expand access to the Chinese market and attract foreign capital, but stressed the need to safeguard the countrys economic security, according to Xinhua.

He urged officials to strengthen their capabilities to use international rules to safeguard Chinas developmental rights, according to the report. They should balance opening up with security and safeguard security in the process of fighting  a term Xi usually uses in response to perceived foreign coercion.

Chinas 24-member Politburo also vowed to enhance anti-corruption efforts at state-owned enterprises and the financial sector at a separate meeting on Wednesday, as the country closes a six-month graft-busting inspection in the sector.

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By Catarina Demony

(Reuters) -Six young people from areas in Portugal ravaged by wildfires and heatwaves went head-to-head with 32 European governments on Wednesday, alleging in court that their failure to act fast enough on climate change is a violation of their human rights.

The case - filed in September 2020 against the 27 EU member states as well as Britain, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey - is the largest climate case ever to be heard by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

A ruling in the case is expected in the first half of 2024.

The applicants argue inaction to tackle climate change threatens their rights including to life, physical and mental wellbeing.

"Due to heat extremes, I'm limited in how I exercise and how much time I can spend outdoors," 15-year-old applicant Andre Oliveira said outside court. "I'm forced to stay inside, I struggle to sleep and thanks to the weak climate policies of these governments, things are getting worse."

Backed by the British-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), the Portuguese applicants, aged between 11 and 24, want a legally-binding decision that would force states to act.

If the complaint is upheld, it could result in orders from national courts for governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change faster than currently planned.

A lawyer for the Portuguese government told the court that the evidence provided failed to show the specific damages caused by climate change on the lives of the young applicants.

Gerry Liston, one of GLAN's lawyers, said: "Portugal stood up on behalf of all respondent states and claimed what the applicants had been describing was just a figment of their imagination and that's gaslighting."

'UNPRECEDENTED'

Greece, in a submission sent to the court before the hearing, said "effects of climate change, as recorded so far, do not seem to directly affect human life or human health", an argument another GLAN lawyer, Gearoid O'Cuinn, described as "climate denialism".

Responding to criticism, Petros Varelidis, from the Greek environment ministry, said the case had no legal grounds and highlighted Greece's ambitious climate legislation.

Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the United Nations General Assembly the wildfires and floods that struck his country this summer led to deaths and destruction.

Applicant Oliveira previously told Reuters their goal was to force governments to "do what they promised they would do", referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut emissions to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and ideally 1.5C. Current policies would fail to meet either goal, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Four of the six applicants are from the central Portuguese region of Leiria, where two wildfires killed more than 100 people in 2017.

A lawyer representing Britain said the consequences of climate change were "global" but that the protection of applicants' interests fell under Portugal's jurisdiction. He said the case should be rejected.

More than 80 lawyers represented the accused countries, while the applicants were represented by six lawyers.

Climate litigation is growing, both in Europe and beyond.

Last month, a judge in Montana, in the United States, handed a historic win to young plaintiffs in a climate change case. In addition to Wednesday's youth case, there are two other climate cases pending before the ECHR's Grand Chamber.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony in Lisbon; Additional reporting by Angeliki Koutantou in Athens; Editing by Aislinn Laing, Alex Richardson, Christina Fincher and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
A 73-year-old Wheatland woman died early Tuesday after her car drifted into oncoming traffic and crashed head-on with another vehicle on Highway 65 in Yuba County, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The crash happened shortly after 6 a.m. on Highway 65, just south of Oakley Lane near Wheatland.

The Wheatland woman was driving a 2017 Toyota Corolla north on the highway when her car moved over the double-yellow lines in the road into the oncoming lane, the CHP Yuba-Sutter office announced in a news release.

The CHP said the Toyota Corollas front end collided head-on with a 2002 Ford Explorer driven by a 22-year-old Marysville man, who suffered minor to moderate injuries in the crash including a loss of consciousness.

The Wheatland woman suffered fatal injuries in the crash.

The CHP said it was unclear whether driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs were factors in the deadly crash.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been briefed on the progress in the Donetsk front on a conference call.

Source: Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Telegram

Quote: "Daily conference call.

I received reports on the situation at the front, the supply of equipment and ammunition, and intelligence data. We are making progress on the Donetsk front. There are other plans that are being implemented.

I received a report on the situation in Kherson Oblast. The enemy continues to terrorise the territories it can reach. Twenty-six subversive KAB-500 [precision guided weapons] attacks in the last 24 hours. The aftermath is being dealt with, people are receiving help. I instructed [those present on the call] to find additional solutions to stop this terror.

There are results from the SSU. They caught the fire adjusters of the night strike on Kyiv a week ago. This is a good signal to all traitors: there will be retribution."

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Zendaya remembers Angus Cloud a month after his death. The Euphoria actors cause of death was revealed last week. He died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and benzodiazepines, according to the Alameda County Coroners Office.

I dont think a spirit like his could be defined, Zendaya told People. He was one of the most unique and pure-hearted people Ive ever met. I hope he knows how loved he is, how much we miss him and how much better the world is for having felt his glow.

Cloud was set to reprise his role as Fez in the upcoming season 3 of Euphoria. He starred alongside Zendaya, who played Rue, a young addict. The HBO show was his first major acting job after being noticed by a casting director in the street in New York City.

He felt like a little brother instantly; ironic because we played characters with the exact opposite dynamic, Zendaya added. Im lucky because I got to experience the most beautiful parts of him. I got to watch him create, and I got to watch him discover the fact that he was an actor. A damn good one at that, and as many times as I would tell him or compliment his performance, I dont think he ever truly believed it.

Cloud had been dealing with addiction, which the shows creator, Sam Levinson , said he confronted him about on various occasions. Levinson told the news outlet that he had suggested rehab and regularly checked in on Cloud while filming season 2.

Clouds mother, Lisa, said her son was prescribed opioid pain medication after falling into a construction pit and suffering minor brain damage at 15 years old.

Thats really what started his drug-seeking behavior, she said.

I always knew he was special, and Im so glad the world also found out he was special, she added. My son will always shine bright.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  It may not feel like it, but fall has technically arrived in Kansas City. Now Zona Rosa is ready to celebrate.

The leaves will soon start changing colors, Halloween decorations are already going up, and soon it will be time to bring out apple cider and have a warm bowl of soup.

Travis Kelce breaks the silence after Taylor Swifts Chiefs appearance

Zona Rosa will host fall concerts in the park every Friday in September through mid-October, plus other events and festivals.

The events will start this weekend. Here are the events you can expect to see at Zona Rosa this season:

Fall Concerts

Sept. 29: Steve Bankey and the Flatland Band

Oct. 6: Quite Frankly

Oct.13: The Champagne

Outdoor Movies

Oct. 7: Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone in North Park

Oct. 20: Hocus Pocus in Central Park

Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android

Events

Hanging with Heroes: Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Fall Fest: Oct. 7, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m .

Sips & Treats, Adult Trick-or-Treat: Oct. 13, from 4-8 p.m.

Beats and Broomsticks: Oct. 20, from 5-9:30 p.m.

To learn more details about each event going on at Zona Rosa, click here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
As organizers of the Blue Ridge Rock Festival plead with fans for more time to hash out refund details, the Virginia Department of Health is investigating reports of illnesses associated with the event cut short at the nearby Virginia International Raceway.

The Southside Health District  an area that includes Halifax County, where VIR is located  has an online survey looking into complaints of gastrointestinal illness in groups of patrons who attended the Blue Ridge Rock Festival.

Even if people did not feel sick, they are still asked to compete the form.

Collecting information on both those who became ill and those that did not become ill helps us identify and evaluate differences between the two groups, the survey explains.

Information provided will remain confidential, according to the health department.

The four-day event commenced on a rocky note Sept. 7 when a severe thunderstorm sent fans scurrying for cover. Some had to wait for hours for shuttles to arrive while heavy rain  and hail  poured and winds roared through the event landscape, tossing tents and creating damage.

Two days later, a rainy morning eventually canceled activities for that day. A few hours following that announcement, the festival said the final day also would be shut down.

By this time fans were already clamoring on social media about conditions.

The Virginia Department of Health found violations surrounding sanitary conditions at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, but did not play a role in shutting down the event thats come under extreme fire from fans.

At any given time, there were between two and a dozen members of the health department at the festival, Brookie Crawford, a spokesperson for the Southside Health District, told the Register & Bee.

No, the Virginia Department of Health did not shut down the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, she said earlier this month when asked if the agency had any part in the decision to scuttle the final two days of the four-day run.

Crawford confirmed there were violations around sanitary conditions, but did not elaborate on how many issues surfaced.

The health department also received complaints about the port-a-jons and the availability of drinking water, Crawford said.

The sold-out event was expected to bring 45,000 people to VIR, but about 50,000 to 60,000 showed up, Halifax County Sheriff Fred S. Clark told The Gazette-Virginian newspaper in South Boston.

Late last week, festival officials urged more patience from fans.

We are continually working around the clock for you, a message on Facebook stated. As one of the few true independent entities remaining, and with just one event a year, the process we are currently working through does unfortunately take additional time.

Saying the regretted the the unexpected turn of events that led to the festival cancellation, the decision was made with local and state officials.

It was a collective choice made in the best interest of everyones safety, including attendees, musicians and campers, the post continued. Contrary to some claims, the decision was based solely on safety concerns caused by the weather.

Eluding to more details forthcoming in that respect  the same message previous statements have stated  the festival leaders said they would communicate more when they are able.

We want you to know that we hear you and understand your concerns, the post stated. We ask for your continued patience.
Four graduates of the Lynchburg Adult Drug Treatment Court received diplomas before an audience of supporters  family, friends, drug court staff and local officials  in City Council Chambers Monday night.

Drug Court Judge J. Frederick Watson said graduation is the culmination of participants hard work.

These individuals are graduating from drug court because they made a commitment to themselves and they made a commitment that they have followed through on, Watson said.

They worked hard and they never gave up on themselves. Drug Courts not easy.

Five individuals: Quincey Stewart, Stanley Hubbard, Regina Hall, Lewis Washington and Meisha Franklin (not present for the ceremony) graduated from the program Monday.

Watson said 20 other participants are currently making their way through the program, a collaborative initiative established by the Central Virginia Health District, the Lynchburg Commonwealths Attorneys Office, Horizon Behavioral Health, the Lynchburg Circuit Court, the Lynchburg Public Defenders Office and the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Two Lynchburg representatives offered congratulations and advice to graduates.

Today you have a new lease on life, Del. Wendall Walker, R-Lynchburg, said.

Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, commended graduates for taking the tough road.

You are not alone as you can see, he said of the audience. Peake advised graduates to avoid temptations to relapse because its much easier to avoid than it is to resist.

Retired drug court senior probation and parole officer Lydia Baber told graduates their commitment to recovery is not one and done.

This is a lifetime commitment, Baber said.

One of her messages to graduates was to seek out people who encourage them, and those who challenge them.

Remember that you are worth it and youre not alone.

Each graduate spoke briefly after receiving their diplomas, demonstrating the eloquence Watson said hes come to expect: I dont know why this happens but it seems like not only do you kick your addiction but you become wonderful speech makers.

Stewart said he wanted to get better for his daughter. Hubbard said through drug court hes learned the skills to cope with recent struggles without resorting to substances.

Hall said, I always thought that I would never stop using drugs. I thought that was the way I was going to die.

They gave me a second chance which they did not have to do, she continued.

I took the bull by the horns and I havent stopped and Im not going to. I will not die from the disease of addiction.

Hall is the recipient of the first ever Carla Heath Leadership Award, which Watson and representatives from the Lynchburg League of Women Voters presented her with during the ceremony.

Watson said the award, named for longtime League of Women Voters member Carla Heath, is given to the graduate chosen by fellow graduates as someone who exemplifies the triumph of recovery, who is supportive of others, and who shows leadership among his or her peers.

Heath, recently deceased, served in various leadership roles with the organization, and also taught at the former Randolph-Macon Womens College, now Randolph College. Watson said Heath was an avid supporter of the drug court.

I wish some of you could have seen Stanley, Lewis, Quincey and Regina when they entered drug court and compare it to where they are now. Its almost a miracle and its something that the first time I ever saw it happen in drug court I couldnt believe it. Now Ive come to expect it. And so it taught me not to give up on anybody, Watson said.
As the need for mental health support increases, Nelson County Public Schools will add another in-person behavior specialist to help serve students in that area.

Rachel Reutinger, director of special education and student services, presented a proposal to the Nelson County School Board at its September meeting to enter into a contract with Maxim Healthcare Staffing Services to bring on a behavior specialist for the current school year.

Maxim Healthcare was established in 1988 to address the national nursing shortage, according to Reutinger. The company now provides educational services as a staffing agency, which includes school psychologists, occupational therapists, special education teachers and more.

Maxim serves more than 1,000 education institutions and 16 school divisions in Virginia, according to Reutinger.

The company maintains a talent pool of specialized behavior and mental health professionals; and Reutinger said the company allows the school division to vet the candidates and make a determination of who to bring on.

Currently, the division has one behavior specialist on staff, Krystal Vest, and at the time of the meeting, she has 34 students on her caseload.

That number doesnt highlight the full amount of students that she sees, Reutinger explained.

As we know, if our students arent emotionally regulated then theyre not really able to access the curriculum and learn what we want them to learn, she said.

In terms of bringing in the new specialist, Reutinger said they want to pair the need with the strength.

Reutinger said the day-to-day needs for a behavior specialist includes:

Providing individual and small group counseling sessions based on student needs;

being available at moments notice for struggling students;

traveling to any of the four schools during a student crises both emotionally and behaviorally;

attending meetings to give input and strategies;

conducting functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans;

observing students in the classroom;

and providing behavioral and emotional screenings.

What our vision is  really not only to help more students but to help more students better, she said. To help them more frequently and to have an additional set of hands for those students.

In terms of a contract, it will be established from the date the county identifies the best candidate, through May 31, 2024.

Reutinger said funding from the federal Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act will be used to bring the specialist on board and the daily rate to Maxim Healthcare Services range from $62 to $70 per hour.

The county pays the company for its services and Maxim in-return pays the employee.

She said that price is the projected amount for a staff member in this position.

Superintendent Amanda Hester said they are seeing more of a need for mental health support.

Its a very important need to be able to support our students and our staff, and the community, Hester said.

Caesar Perkins, South District board member, said he thinks its a great idea.

Its a growing concern across the country  its not getting any better, he said.

Looking forward, East District board member George Cheape said this is definitely an area he would like to add staff long-term.

With a traveling person, I would worry that theyre here this year, establish relationships and then theyre gone, he said.

The board voted 3-0 to accept the proposal.
BEDFORD  A Florida man pleaded guilty in Bedford Circuit Court on Tuesday to one felony count each of abduction and computer solicitation in a case involving a minor victim.

Alexander Gene Baab, 18, of Tampa, Florida, was sentenced to a year and 10 months in jail after entering the pleas.

Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance said Baab earlier this year met the victim online and believed the minor was 14 years old. The child was a few years younger and the two entered into a relationship where they believed they were dating, according to Nance.

A forensic evaluation of devices showed explicit photos were shared in the course of the communication, Nance said. Baab arranged to travel to Virginia, pick the child up and leave the area, and told his mother the child was 18, Nance said.

In June, Baab and his mother picked the child up without the victims' parents knowledge and they were located in Florida after an extensive search by law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Nance said.

Cameron Warren, Baab's attorney, said the commonwealth's statement of events is fair and accurate and described the incident as more of a "teenage runaway case" that triggered the legal statute of abduction.

"We don't believe this was the crime of the century and we think the commonwealth would agree with that," Warren said.

Baab was sentenced to 20 years with all but a year and 10 months suspended on the conditions of good behavior of 10 years upon his release and four years supervised probation. Judge James Updike also ordered that Baab have no contact with the victim and receive credit for just more than three months of jail time served.

- Justin Faulconer, The News & Advance
To understand the breakdowns that led to one of the most tumultuous medical device recalls in generations, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and ProPublica spent a year probing what happened inside Philips Respironics after the company first learned that contaminants were turning up in breathing machines designed to save lives.

The news organizations also tracked what has happened since the recall as the company claimed that the devices  including ventilators and continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP machines  were safe despite multiple test reports showing that foam embedded in the devices to reduce noise was breaking down and potentially sending dangerous particles and chemicals into the masks of patients.

Reporters for the two news outlets collaborated with NRC Media in Amsterdam, where Philips parent company, Royal Philips, is headquartered, as well as with student journalists from Northwestern Universitys Medill Investigative Lab.

Reporters obtained newly unsealed court documents, internal emails, text messages and public records in the United States and other countries to track Philips and its parent companys response to the problem. Those documents included records from four tests conducted by independent labs brought on by Philips that describe the chemicals released by the foam.

The reporting team also drew on thousands of complaint reports spanning 13 years that were submitted to a national repository known as the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database. The records are maintained by the Food and Drug Administration and describe reports of patient deaths and injuries as well as device malfunctions.

To better sort and examine the reports from MAUDE, the team used a proprietary system called Device Events, a search engine developed by former FDA analyst Madris Kinard.

Over the course of months, reporters pulled every report about the recalled machines. More than 100,000 had been filed with Philips or the government since 2010 by patients, doctors and others. (It is possible that some reports were submitted more than once.)

Because the records include the date the company received each complaint, reporters were able to determine how long it took Philips to submit them to the FDA. Under federal law, medical device makers must file a report with the government within five days for the most serious complaints and 30 days for all others.

The reports described thousands of cases of cancer, liver and kidney conditions, respiratory infections and other illnesses among device users. Some users or their family members directly tied those illnesses to the use of recalled machines. Others simply reported illnesses without elaborating.

Philips has said new tests on its DreamStation CPAP show that the machines are unlikely to result in an appreciable harm to health in patients and that testing on ventilators is ongoing. The company has also said that it properly responded to complaints about the foam and launched a recall when the problem became clear.

Testing to determine the level of health risk posed by the foam could take years. The FDA has classified the recall as its most serious: one for device defects capable of causing severe injury or death.

The reporting team interviewed more than 200 people in the United States and a dozen other countries, including former Philips employees who described lapses inside the company that allowed problems to go unaddressed for years. Reporters traveled the country to interview doctors, researchers, patients and the family members of those who died, and consulted public health researchers and physicians on risks posed by the devices. Dr. Ronald Chervin, director of the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Centers, provided guidance on the science behind sleep apnea and CPAPs.

The news organizations have requested dozens of additional documents from the FDA. In April, ProPublica and the Post-Gazette sued the FDA in federal court in New York over the agencys refusal to expeditiously release the records, which include company test results from the years before the recall. The case is ongoing.
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Mohammed VI has sent a message of condolences and sympathy to the King Hamad Ben Issa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, following the death of two Bahraini soldiers while they were fulfilling their Arab solidarity duty in defending the sovereignty of Yemen.

In this message, the Sovereign expressed to the King of Bahrain, and through him to the bereaved families and the brotherly Bahraini people, his deep condolences and sincere feelings of solidarity and compassion, imploring the Almighty to surround the two martyrs with his infinite mercy, to welcome them into his vast paradise and to grant patience and solace to their families, and speedy recovery to the injured.

The King reaffirmed that the Kingdom of Morocco always stands by the brotherly Kingdom of Bahrain, and implored the Almighty to preserve the Bahraini Sovereign and people and to grant them health, serenity, and long life.

The two Bahraini army personnel were killed and many others were injured in a terrorist attack that targeted forces participating in operations Decisive Storm and Restore Hope on the southern border of Saudi Arabia.

Morocco has also condemned, in a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, the despicable terrorist act targeting the positions of Bahraini forces taking part in the operation on the southern border of Saudi Arabia.

The Kingdom of Morocco affirms its full and constant solidarity with the brotherly Kingdom of Bahrain and stands by its side to confront this cowardly act of terrorism, said the statement.
The Morocco-proposed autonomy initiative, within the framework of the Kingdoms territorial integrity and national sovereignty, is the One and Only solution to the artificial regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, stressed, Tuesday in New York, the permanent representative of Morocco to the United Nations, Omar Hilale.

In Moroccos address during the general debate of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Omar Hilale stressed that the Moroccan initiative is backed by more than 100 countries around the world, at a time when almost 30 states and regional organizations opened consulates general in the cities of Laayoune and Dakhla, thus reaffirming their full support for the Moroccanness of the Sahara.

The diplomat pointed out that the Kingdom remains committed to a final political solution to the artificial regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara that would strengthen development and stability in the region as well as in Africa.

Noting that Morocco continues to support the efforts of the UN Secretary General and his Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, aimed at relaunching the roundtable process in the same format and with the same participants, particularly Algeria, the main party to the conflict, in accordance with the Security Council resolution 2654, the ambassador reiterated that the final solution to this regional dispute can only be political, realistic, pragmatic and based on compromise.

Referring to the current socio-economic dynamics in the southern provinces, the diplomat said that as part of the new development model to which the Kingdom has mobilized a budget which now exceeds 10 billion dollars and whose completion rate is at around 81%, several social and economic projects have been launched, thus enabling the region to establish itself as a hub for commercial exchanges between Africa and the rest of the world.

Hilale underlined that the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, witnessed these achievements first-hand during his visit, in early September, to Laayoune and Dakhla.

This major effort is part of the implementation of the high instructions of King Mohammed VI, as outlined in the Sovereigns speech on the occasion of the 47th anniversary of the Green March dated November 6, 2022, he recalled.

In this speech, the King had pointed out: Our action to defend the Moroccanness of the Sahara is based on a holistic approach that combines not only political and diplomatic action, but also efforts to promote economic, social and human development in the region.

The ambassador stressed that Morocco once again expresses its deep concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Tindouf camps, where the host country, Algeria, ceded its powers, illegally, to an armed separatist militia with proven and confirmed links to terrorist and criminal networks.

This situation calls out to the international community regarding Algerias refusal to allow the registration and census of populations held against their will in the camps, in flagrant violation of international law and calls from the Security Council launched since 2011, said the Moroccan diplomat who condemned the misappropriation of humanitarian aid intended for people held in the Tindouf camps as evidenced by reports issued by international and regional NGOs, the latest of which being that of the World Food Program (WFP) published in January 2023.
King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, Prince Moulay Rachid, Prince Moulay Ahmed, and Prince Moulay Ismail, presided over a religious ceremony on Wednesday evening at the Hassan Mosque in Rabat, in commemoration of Eid Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi Acharif.

This religious ceremony was marked by the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran and panegyrics of the Prophet Sidna Mohammed.

On this occasion, the Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, presented the report on the activities of the Supreme Council and the Local Councils of Ulemas, before handing over the report to the Sovereign.

In his address, the minister noted that the scholars are aware of the action taken by the King, Amir Al-Mouminine, to provide them with the necessary conditions to fulfil their mission. He mentioned that the latest manifestation of this royal attention is the support provided this year to the Secretariat General of the Supreme Council of Ulemas, the establishment of Regional Councils of Scholars, and the increase in the number of members of the Local Councils of Scholars.

Toufiq also assured that the scholars, through their main task of Tabligh or communication, are working to establish a sound methodology based on their rich experience.

Subsequently, the King awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Islamic Thought and Studies (Merit and Tribute) to Mr. Ibrahim Id Ibrahim from the city of Agadir.

This prize is awarded annually to reward eminent scientific personalities and encourage them to conduct research in the field of Islamic studies, in accordance with the teachings of the noble Sharia, which advocates the pursuit of knowledge and encourages its beneficial use.

The King was then greeted by Hamza Sabou from the city of Tangier, who received the International Mohammed VI Prize for Memorization, Recitation, and Exegesis of the Holy Quran from the hands of the Sovereign.

The Sovereign also presented the International Mohammed VI Prize for Quranic Recitation with Memorization of five Hizbs to Omar Ben Abdelaziz El Baridi from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The King also awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Calligraphic Art (Tribute) to Mrs. Saida El Kayal from Casablanca and the Mohammed VI Prize for Excellence in Moroccan Calligraphic Art to Mr. Khalid Essbissi from the city of Taroudant.

The Sovereign then presented the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Decorative Art on Paper (Tribute) to Mohcine El Gharnati from the city of Chefchaouen and the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Decorative Art on Paper (Excellence) to Mrs. Safae Laftih from the city of Casablanca.

The King also awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Arabic Lettrism [Al Horoufia] (Tribute) to Lahcen Farsaoui from the city of Marrakech and the Mohammed VI Prize for Arabic Lettrism [Al Horoufia] (Excellence) to Mrs. Asmae Ait Oukhti from the city of Sale.

The King was greeted by the jury members of the Mohammed VI Prize for Islamic Thought and Studies.

The celebration of this religious event by King Mohammed VI, Amir Al-Mouminine, is in line with the tradition observed by his illustrious ancestors, who consistently commemorated the anniversary of the birth of the Messenger of Mercy, their Ancestor, the Prophet Sidna Mohammed, Peace and Blessings be upon Him.

This anniversary marks the emergence of the lights of guidance for humanity, thanks to the message carried by the Seal of the Prophets, to spread the highest virtues and values of justice, and to recommend good deeds so that all human beings can live in peace and harmony.
The federal governments top two railroad officials heard directly Monday from North Platte rail union leaders and two elected officials about their safety worries before and after the Sept. 14 Bailey Yard fire and evacuation.

Amit Bose, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, and senior advisor Lynda Tran toured the Union Pacific yard early Monday with several leaders of Bailey-based locals.

The tour, which included the site where a shipping container with perchloric acid ignited and exploded, opened a day that ended in Lincoln as the North Platte union leaders and Lincoln County Commissioner Chris Bruns met with Bose, Tran and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

In between, the two FRA leaders met with U.P. management before a 90-minute Prairie Arts Center discussion with the Bailey union leaders and North Platte state Sen. Mike Jacobson.

Railroaders warned at Mondays meetings about U.P. safety shortcuts at Bailey and the ongoing safety impact of shrunken workforces under precision scheduled railroading, said Midwest Nebraska Central Labor Council President Jeff Cooley of Lemoyne.

Our agenda was all on solutions to the problems they already knew about and how one problem will snowball to another problem and another one and cause a bottleneck all along the line, Cooley said Monday night as he and three other Bailey union leaders drove home from the meeting with Buttigieg.

FRA and Union Pacific investigators continue to probe the cause of the Sept. 14 fire, which wasnt extinguished before five hours and sent plumes of smoke into the air that caused North Platte first responders to evacuate about 25 homes north of Bailey. No one was hurt inside or outside the yard.

Buttigieg said that though the FRA probe isnt finished, its not too soon to say that what happened in North Platte could have been something that grabbed national headlines had the wind been blowing a little bit different or things had gone just a little bit different in the yard that day.

The transportation secretarys words were captured in one of several video clips from Mondays meetings that Central Labor Council leaders shared with The Telegraph.

Dan Griffin, FRA communications director in Washington, D.C., said in a Tuesday statement that we appreciated the opportunity to join front-line workers in North Platte this week.

Agency officials were onsite monitoring Union Pacifics response at Bailey Yard from the early moments of the Sept. 14 fire, he added. We need railroads to take FRAs recommendations seriously and take steps to ensure safety at all times.

Union Pacific spokeswoman Robynn Tysver said Tuesday that U.P. and FRA leaders are united in our shared goal the safety of our employees and the communities where we operate.

U.P. leaders had a meaningful conversation with Bose in North Platte to discuss the progress weve made and how we can continue to collaborate as we enhance our safety processes.

Discussion Monday about the perchloric acid fire was limited because the FRAs investigation continues, said Cooley, a U.P. conductor who also is president of SMART-TD Local 200.

They were interested in why workers were still out there when the (North Platte) emergency workers had evacuated everybody within a certain radius but the workers were still in the yard, he said.

Cooley said Travis Kuenning, local chairman of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Local 388, told Bose and Tran that Union Pacific was doing substandard inspections at Bailey and using people who werent qualified to do them.

That increased the frequency of car breakdowns on trains, Cooley added, causing engineers and conductors to exceed the federal 12-hour limits on their duty shifts.

Another local union chair from Baileys car department told the FRA leaders that Union Pacific had been shutting off detectors and (doing) things to manipulate the low manpower in inspection of rail cars, Cooley said.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroaders voiced similar concerns in the North Platte and Lincoln meetings, he added. Several leaders of Alliance-based BNSF locals drove to North Platte for the Prairie Arts Center discussion.

For their part, Cooley said, Bose throughout the day and Buttigieg in Lincoln said they wont let the Bailey fires successful ending dissuade them from pushing Union Pacific for improved safety measures at the worlds largest rail yard.

You see all these safety concerns emerging, and thats been part of the environment around railroading and around transportation in general for at least a couple of decades, Buttigieg said at Lincolns IBEW Local 265 hall.

In crafting corrective measures, were making sure that the unions are part of that process, not just (as) an afterthought and not lip service, Bose said at the Prairie Arts Center. Were very focused on hours of service, especially in the context of (job) reductions and furloughs that are in place.

The Sept. 14 Bailey fire came nearly eight months after a disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment Feb. 3 of multiple cars carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

In separate interviews Tuesday, Jacobson and Bruns expressed their dismay over the conditions reported by North Plattes railroaders.

Jacobson noted the apparent connection between growing U.S. rail safety concerns and PSR, a popular concept among Class I railroads adopted by Union Pacific in fall 2018.

It emphasizes longer trains needing fewer locomotives across rail systems, thus allowing railroads to boost profits by greatly reducing their payrolls.

Layoffs at Bailey right after PSRs implementation totaled around 200, and 11 more were furloughed at the North Platte yard in late August.

My genuine concern here is the railroad fulfills a tremendous need in transporting goods throughout the state and the country, Jacobson said.

And Im very concerned that (due to) these short-term savings that theyre trying to create by laying off workers and allow deferred maintenance to occur, theyre putting the transportation system in jeopardy along with public safety concerns.

Jacobson said he plans to prioritize his 2023 Unicameral bill requiring railroads in Nebraska to keep at least two people on train crews. U.P. agreed in March with its engineer and conductor unions to keep two-person crews on tracks from Omaha to the Pacific Northwest.

Making that state law will provide for an additional level of public safety as we deal with the future impacts of the failures in proper car maintenance, he said.

At Mondays meeting with Buttigieg, Bruns said, I just highlighted that I was there as ears and a voice for local governments and first responders in our area.

The third-year County Board member expressed alarm at commissioners Sept. 18 board meeting at aspects of U.P.s response to the fire. He observed the Sept. 14 firefighting efforts from Region 51 Emergency Managements command post just north of the Bailey fire site.

We need greater, more transparent lines of communication, and we really need to take a look at the toxic materials and chemicals, how theyre being transported and whether the way theyre transported is appropriate and whether safer methods need to be put in place, Bruns said.

FRA officials, he said, have committed to join a series of post-fire meetings with Bailey stakeholders on how to refine both U.P. and local first responders procedures in the fires wake. Bruns and Commissioner Joe Hewgley are organizing the meetings.

A week before the fire, Bose wrote newly hired U.P. CEO Jim Vena and two other top executives about the results of FRA focused inspections of locomotives and rail cars at Baileys east departure yard during July and August.

They found defect ratios of 19.93% for rail cars and 72.69% for locomotives, twice the national average. But Union Pacific was unwilling or unable to take steps to improve the condition of their equipment, Bose wrote.

Additionally, it was clear throughout the focused inspection that U.P. did not take steps to improve the condition of their rolling stock as the defect ratio did not improve over time.

While FRA inspectors were at the North Platte yard, Bose added, they received numerous calls from U.P. managers requesting FRA leave the yard.

They complained that the railroad was having to assign extra workers to fix the defective cars and engines identified by inspectors, the administrator wrote.

Cooley said Mondays meetings were triggered by contacts he and Central Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Mike Gage made Friday with state and national union leaders.

The two and other leaders of Bailey union locals complained that Union Pacific was retaliating against some of their members who tried to help fellow workers during the Sept. 14 fire, he said.

Buttigieg had come to Grand Island for an event. Cooley contacted national AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler seeking a meeting, while Gage, local chairman of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1920, reached out to his unions leaders in Washington, D.C.

That led to a call to Buttigiegs office in which Gage told them what was going on in North Platte, Cooley said. U.S. DOT leaders set up a meeting with the transportation secretary, who had moved on to Lincoln Monday.

Shortly after that, Gage learned that after hearing what we had said, Amit Bose and Lynda Tran had committed to coming to North Platte on Monday, Cooley said.
Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Anytime a major criminal indictment hits the news, we all ask a deceptively simple question: How strong is the case? Its a more complicated inquiry than many people realize, since an indictment is a set of unrebutted allegations  the start of the criminal-litigation process, not the end. A prosecutor who has charged a high-profile case in a speaking indictment and cannot convince most readers that the defendant is probably guilty should find another line of work.

If you read the indictment of New Jersey senator Bob Menendez and assume that all of the allegations are materially true, he sure sounds guilty of a crime  or at least something that should be a crime. Prosecutors allege that Menendez and his wife agreed that he would perform a series of official acts and breaches of official duty in exchange for bribes, namely hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of cash, gold, home-mortgage payments, and a Mercedes-Benz, among other things. Menendez and his wife were charged with three different conspiracy counts: one to commit bribery, another to commit honest services fraud, and a third to engage in extortion on behalf of a public official. In the first two counts, prosecutors also charged three New Jersey businessmen who are allegedly at the center of the influence-peddling scheme.

Federal prosecutors usually get convictions, but over the past 15 years or so, public-corruption cases have become singularly challenging for the Justice Department, thanks mostly to the Supreme Courts corruption-friendly rulings and to Congresss self-serving acquiescence to them. As a result, Menendez has more ammunition for his defense than many people seem to realize, and the path to a conviction may not be as smooth as the government would like.

The seminal case involved former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who was convicted on bribery charges in 2014 after he and his wife accepted $175,000 in loans, gifts, and other benefits from a businessman who received their help persuading state universities to perform research studies on a nutritional supplement that his company was developing. In 2016, however, the Supreme Court unanimously threw out the convictions after concluding that the trial court had used a definition of official act that was too broad and, in particular, that setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an official act.

The dominoes have been falling ever since. Menendez himself beat a federal corruption case the year after McDonnell came down. In 2020, the Supreme Court rescued two New Jersey state officials after trial convictions in the Bridgegate scandal. Just last year, a trial judge dismissed corruption charges brought by the Southern District of New York  the same office now prosecuting Menendez  against former New York lieutenant governor Brian Benjamin. Even former Louisiana congressman William Jefferson, who was convicted on corruption charges in 2009 after $90,000 in cash was found in his freezer, went free after the McDonnell ruling. (While at the Justice Department, I assisted with the drafting of the governments submission to the sentencing judge that opposed his release.)

These rulings involved different facts and constellations of legal issues, but all of them followed the narrow and hypertechnical approach to public-corruption law that the Supreme Courts McDonnell decision crystallized. The jurisprudence leaves Menendez with at least two significant issues that he can and almost certainly will litigate in his defense.

The first is whether the government can establish that the alleged actions at issue on the part of Menendez were actually official acts within the meaning of the Supreme Courts interpretation of the law. Under McDonnell, an official act must be more than something a government official happens to do. The activity in question must involve a formal exercise of governmental power that is similar in nature to a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an agency, or a hearing before a committee, and it must also be something specific and focused.

If you read the Menendez indictment with this language in mind, some potential challenges become apparent. The government alleges, for instance, that Menendez provided sensitive U.S. Government information to the Egyptian government, apparently by giving them non-public information in the form of a text message about staffing at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, by disclosing non-public information about the status of U.S. aid to Egypt, and by ghost-writing a letter on behalf of Egyptian officials asking the U.S. Senate to release a hold on aid to Egypt.

This may all be extremely unseemly, but you can envision Menendez arguing that all of this is exempt from scrutiny under McDonnell. On their face at least, none of these actions appears to involve a formal exercise of government power along the lines contemplated by the Supreme Court or a readily identifiable breach of an official duty on the part of Menendez.

The second issue Menendez is likely to pursue is whether the government can establish that he agreed with his wife and his alleged co-conspirators to engage in a quid pro quo. On paper at least, the government appears to have Menendez and his wife dead to rights on the fact that they received things of value  many things of value, in fact  from their co-defendants, but that is the easy part. The government also has to establish that Menendez agreed to provide the alleged official acts in exchange for those things of value.

The agreement does not need to be explicit, and the indictment details a robust body of alleged circumstantial evidence on this point, including text messages from Menendezs wife and the close timing between some of the gifts and some of the alleged official acts. There are some wrinkles, though. Prosecutors acknowledge, for instance, that Menendezs wife and one of their co-defendants were friends for many years, so understanding that relationship  and, in particular, whether the lavish gifts began only after she became romantically involved with Menendez  will be important for the government to establish in a trial.

The indictment is strongest when it describes Menendezs alleged efforts to intervene in state and federal criminal investigations on behalf of his and his wifes co-defendants, but the particulars are curious in places. The government never alleges that Menendez asked the government to drop any investigation or prosecution, but rather that he sought to intervene or lobbied for prosecutors to favorably resolve these matters.

In one instance, prosecutors allege that a senior law-enforcement official in New Jersey ignored Menendez but that the defendant in question still ultimately received a deal  a plea agreement with a sentence of probation  that was more favorable than prosecutors initial plea offer. Exactly what happened is unclear, but this would seem to suggest that Menendez may have had a credible argument in favor of leniency that had nothing to do with all of the benefits that he and his wife allegedly obtained.

The possibility that these fact patterns are not as clean or unambiguous as prosecutors have publicly suggested may also have something to do with the fact that Menendez was not actually charged with bribery or extortion. As noted above, he was charged with conspiring to engage in these offenses, which requires the government to establish that he agreed to engage in the offenses but not that he actually completed the offenses.

On its face, this does not make much sense, since the governments theory, as a straightforward factual matter, is that Menendez engaged in bribery and extortion. But one advantage of lodging conspiracy charges  sometimes known as inchoate offenses  in lieu of substantive offenses in a case like this is that it can make it easier for the jury to convict when elements of the substantive offenses are otherwise contestable.

You could easily be forgiven for finding many of these arguments infuriating. If the allegations in the indictment are true, Menendez engaged in conduct that, at best, is wildly unbecoming of a U.S. senator. He may very well deserve to go to prison, and he may very well end up there when all is said and done, but the path ahead for the government will not be an uncomplicated one  and the main reason has nothing to do with the Justice Department itself.

In fact, as I was reading the indictment, I was struck by how carefully Menendez seemed to manage his and his wifes actions. In many places, you can practically see Menendez pulling out his copy of the McDonnell decision and thinking about how he can go right up to the legal line of bribery without crossing it. He may have pushed his luck, but when McDonnell came down, many good-government types warned about exactly this problem. They worried that the Court had effectively legalized a vast array of corrupt conduct and that the justices had essentially written a playbook for legal bribery.

The solution, both then and now, was for Congress to step in and amend the federal public-corruption laws. That never happened for reasons that are as unfortunate as they are obvious  namely, that members of Congress are among the principal beneficiaries when courts narrowly define public corruption.

That also makes it particularly rich to hear the chorus of indignation on Capitol Hill in the wake of the Menendez indictment. They all know that this is a problem that they could try to fix if they really wanted to. Instead, they seem content to condemn Menendez while leaving in place a deeply flawed legal regime that already saved him once and that, whatever the outcome this time around, is destined to produce more corruption and scandal.
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Donald Trump is not going to speak to striking autoworkers on Wednesday. He is going to a non-union auto supplier in Michigan, where he will perform a pro-labor routine in front of workers who are not represented by the UAW. You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise after reading recent press coverage, which has portrayed Trump as some iconoclastic friend of workers.

Take Politico, for example. The first line of a Wednesday night newsletter on the GOPs coming labor realignment said, falsely, that the former president will address striking auto workers. (Politico has since deleted striking, but without a correction. The original version is still visible on the Wayback Machine.) The piece, curiously, does note that the actual location of Trumps speech in a later paragraph is Drake Enterprises, a non-union shop  so why open with a falsehood? Everything else that follows is flawed.

The story goes on to make a muddled case for the supposed realignment, citing Senator Josh Hawleys visit to a Missouri picket line without mentioning his support for an anti-union right to work law. Senator J.D. Vance did say that workers deserve to get their end of the shake, but on X, the senator criticized UAW leadership for embracing Joe Bidens war on American cars. It does note that Trump did better than most Republicans have with union households in 2016 but adds that he did a lot worse in 2020. The best evidence Politico can muster for this labor realignment is polling from a right-wing think tank, which shows that 41 percent of Republicans believe unions are a positive force. Oren Cass, the former Mitt Romney adviser who leads the think tank, told Politico, There is no going back to a pre-Trump, 1980s-style conservatism.

Except once you strip away Trumps bluster, you see a recognizably Republican creature. His labor lies are proof. The former president wanted people to believe he was speaking to striking autoworkers, but the UAW had not invited him and its president, Shawn Fain, had sharply criticized Trump. The press fell for Trumps lies anyway.

It wouldnt be fair to single out Politico without mentioning the New York Times, which reported a day after Bidens appearance with the UAW in Michigan that Trump has a mixed legacy on unions. The accompanying story focuses more on Trumps personal record as a businessman than on his record as president, which was without exception anti-union and anti-worker. Though the Times does note that his picks to lead the labor department were anti-worker and that he issued executive orders hostile to unions, it makes a lot out of a Trump tale that turned out to be a lie. In 2016, he publicly supported workers facing layoffs at a Carrier plant in Indiana that was outsourcing to Mexico. He pledged a huge tariff to stop such a thing from happening. In the final line of the piece, a reader will learn that Trump, as president, did not follow through. He lied completely, as one worker put it. Instead, less than half the jobs were saved and only thanks to incentives from Indiana. Theres his real legacy.

Heres what else we know about Trump and labor. His Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia, was resolutely anti-union and anti-worker. Scalia rewrote dozens of rules that were put in place to protect workers, The New Yorker reported, and during his tenure, OSHA explicitly told employers that none of its COVID-19 recommendations impose new legal obligations. Under Trump, the National Labor Relations Board reversed some Obama-era regulations that made it easier for workers to organize. Politico itself reported in 2018 that the Trump administration was rolling back worker safety protections affecting underground mine safety inspections, offshore oil rigs and line speeds in meat processing plants, among others. On labor, Trump is an orthodox conservative.

We know that Trumps mixed legacy with labor is, in fact, clear. He likes to sound like a populist, but he is a proven con man. Yet those facts are relatively absent from mainstream coverage right now. Why are political reporters still making such basic mistakes? Why are they even furnishing his lies? Trumps claims deserve skepticism, at minimum, like any politician. As long as Republican voters prefer Trump in spite of his anti-worker record, and Republican lawmakers are still anti-union, we can hardly speak of a long coming convergence between his own party and union members, as Politico does.

That skepticism should have informed press coverage of Trumps Michigan speech. When the Trump campaign said the former president was speaking to striking autoworkers, reporters should have hedged. That is what Trump said. It is not necessarily what he will do. When additional reporting confirms that Trump was speaking to a non-union shop, that news should be reflected prominently in later coverage and analysis. This shouldnt be difficult, and yet the press struggles. The failures I address here exist, in part, because there are few labor reporters left on major mastheads. More broadly, they point to deeper problems within the media industry. As my colleague Eric Levitz recently argued, a paper or news channel can find it difficult to cover Trump without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet. Therefore the media comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesnt want to know. In such circumstances, the press should ask itself if objectivity is even possible, let alone desirable. The truth will not long withstand business as usual.

SIGN UP TO GET THIS COLUMN IN YOUR INBOX Sarah Jones covers politics and labor. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
11 items in this article 3 items on sale! Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers

For this weeks Dont DillyDally, weve surfaced a range of new things were sure will sell out, including Shake Shackinspired huggies, coquette-core dog gear, and Necessaires new body peel.

For those whod like to match their Always Pan, good news: Our Place has a new line of kitchen linens, which includes two apron styles as well as dish towels, napkins, and oven mitts.

Shake Shack X Studs Set $104 $104 For Shake Shack stans, check out this earscape set from Studs, which includes a pair of burger huggies, a 14K-gold plated smiley stud, and a 14K-gold plated cubic zirconia stud. Or, for $64, you can snag just the burger hoops. $104 at Studs Buy

Wild One HVN Collar Walk Kit $105 $105 Designer Harley Viera-Newton (yes, sister of Rio) has teamed up with Wild One on an accessories line that will ensure your pup is the chicest canine at the dog park. The walk kits include a collar, leash, and poop-bag carrier featuring the clothing brands signature prints: cheery cherry, coquette-core bows, and playful palm trees. $105 at Wild One Buy

Caraway Squareware Set $715 Caraway has added a new addition to its easy-to-clean cookware lineup: Squareware. The collection includes a roasting pan, a double-burner griddle, a grill pan, and a griddle pan, and is available for purchase as a set or individually. It also includes Caraways signature storage to keep things tidy when not in use. $715 at Caraway Buy

Tecovas, the brand two Strategist staffers rely on to live out their cowgirl cosplay, has partnered with fashion designer Kristopher Brock on a collection chock-full of cottagecore dresses and boots in fun new designs, like the ditsy-floral-embroidered brown suede boots above.

Dyson Airwrap Ceramic Pop $600 $600 In honor of Dysons 25th anniversary since launching in Japan, the hair-care brand has released a new poppy colorway for its cult hot tools. While everyone might have an Airwrap, very few will have one in this eye-catching palette of pink, orange, and blue. The Supersonic hair dryer and Corrale straightener are also available in the Ceramic Pop colorway, and all three feature a matte finish. As with past limited-edition Dyson launches, we expect this one to fly off the shelves. $600 at Dyson Buy

Omnigod x Alex Mill 5 Pocket Selvedge Jean $215 $215 For the first time in ten years, Alex Mill has partnered with Omnigod, a Japanese denim brand known for its selvedge pieces. The collection, all made on vintage power looms in Omnigods factory in Kojima, Japan, includes a pair of five-pocket jeans, a work coat, a chore shirt, and a frontier jacket, all of which feature selvedge fabric, top-needle stitching, and reinforced seams. $215 at Alex Mill Buy

get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
A Phenix City woman allegedly acted in character to defraud victims out of more than $48,000, the Lee County Sheriffs Office announced on Tuesday.

Meredith Diane Craft, 45, was arrested and charged with two counts of third-degree forgery, first-degree theft of property, possession of a forged instrument, second-degree forgery and one count of both second-degree theft of property and identity theft.

Additional charges are expected.

Craft was booked into the Lee County Jail, but she was released after posting a $34,000 bond.

Authorities launched on Sept. 20 after receiving a report from the University of Florida about someone assuming the identity of the president of the Council of Academic Deans for Research Education Institutions. The suspect instructed a payment of $23,400 be made to them.

Following the report, investigators executed a search warrant at Crafts residence on Lee County Road 2040 on Sept. 22.

After finding evidence of additional fraudulent activity and theft at the residence, investigators contacted multiple victims found in the evidence.

Authorities then determined that Craft assumed multiple identities and acted in character to defraud victims." Investigators said she stole approximately $48,000.

Other victims include a resident, the Idaho Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and American Board of Animal Acupuncture, Inc., according to the Lee County Sheriffs Office.

Anyone with information about the case has been asked to call the Lee County Sheriffs Office at 334-749-5651 or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers at 334-215-STOP (7867)
i've just never really gotten the Shrek Thing but ok!

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I'm not a huge Shrek fan but I kind of want to go to a Shrek rave because they look ridiculous in the best way

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Wow

Im personally offended



Like I cant believe I am because I realise how ridiculous that is but fuck me bitch this feels v personal



I am that snl sketch about shrek with sterling k brown

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Me either but I love a themed hotel/room/bnb so this is fun and Id totally go.

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I didn't either until 2020. Then I watched the films and got obsessed. They're so fun!

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ELLIE

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good for the shrek fans



I wouldn't go there tho

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This is kinda cute. Lol the outhouse is taking me out!

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Personally I'm a big fan of not having to go outside at night to go to the toilet but I don't want to kink-shame the writer, do you girl!

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fuck airbnb

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there are way too many reasons

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they contribute to the housing crisis, drive up rent prices, etc etc etc



they're bad news

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I personally know in my area (a semi-rural resort area near a National Park) people keep buying up homes just to convert them from long-term rentals or owner-occupied houses to AirBNBs or VRBOs, which drives up rent prices. It's hard for some employers around here, which also is home to a mid-size state university, to hire because it's unaffordable to live here. In five years, the value of my house, for example (especially since the pandemic) doubled in value because of the demand of people, generally from Florida or NY (or, more accurately, half-backs who are New Yorkers who moved to Florida, got tired of it, then moved to NC/TN mountains) to live in the country except with access to amenities.

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Huge contributor to the housing crisis

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Everything people have said, and I resent that people with investment 'portfolios' save their well-maintained properties for airbnb so they can make more money but are empty half the time, while people are forced to rent out often unsafe, unliveable shitholes or end up homeless

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Co-signed.

I was able to find a long-term rental by the skin of my teeth after my divorce, but it's going to end in the next year. I'll be living in a van down by the river next, I guess. All the other places are for tourists and part-timers or millionaires only in my little Nor-Cal town in the middle of absolute nowhere.

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it's cute!

I loved Shrek as a kid but I wouldn't want to stay in this

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That's honestly very charming.

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But for these special bookings (this one, the Goop pool house one, etc), how to they decide who actually gets to book it? Lotto?

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Yeah idk, the listing says you can request to book and it's "not a contest" but I can't find anything about how they select someone

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Not my dream home on Airbnb

At least its sans my dream man

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ONTD, how badly has airbnb destroyed the rental market in your city?



VERY badly

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Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ

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I want and deserve this. But we cant always have what we want. 

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So the million dollar question is who gets to live there outside the AirBnB dates? Does someone actually live in the Shrek swamp or is it their summer home or

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I'm not sure, but airbnb says it's "independently owned and operated by Ardverikie Estate " who rent out holiday cottages so maybe they'll continue or repurpose it

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I wonder how well this will do. How many people want an outhouse?

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Yeah STR have really fucked up my city and the local government keeps saying theyre going to start restricting them, etc. but theyve been saying that for a few years and nothing's really happened. Im so against them.



That being said there is one famous local house thats currently for sale (or recently was), thats been for sale for a while, and that I think no one would really live in due to location- actually in the middle of whats essentially swamp. But Im convinced if I bought it and renovated it and turned into an AirBnB, locals would absolutely do a night or two for the joke, without actually taking viable housing away from a long term resident.

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Actor David McCallum, who starred in the hit series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s and was the eccentric medical examiner in the popular NCIS 40 years later, has died. He was 90.David was a gifted actor and author, and beloved by many around the world. He led an incredible life, and his legacy will forever live on through his family and the countless hours on film and television that will never go away, said a statement from CBS.The Scottish-born McCallum had been appeared in such films A Night to Remember (about the Titanic), The Great Escape and The Greatest Story Ever Told (as Judas). But it was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that made the actor a household name in the mid-60s.McCallum returned to television in 2003 in another popular series, CBS NCIS. He played Dr. Donald Ducky Mallard, a bookish pathologist for the Naval Criminal Investigation Service.
OSHA Cites Pennsylvania Dumpster Manufacturer with Numerous Safety Violations

The company is hit with penalties amounting to $484,401.

Custom Container Solutionswith operations throughout Pennsylvaniaspecializes in manufacturing steel containers and is now under the spotlight for a series of OSHA violations.

According to a release dated Sept. 25, a recent OSHA investigation into the company identified a series of significant safety and health violations at its Milton, Pennsylvania location. OSHA launched the inspection in March 2023 as part of the agencys site-specific targeting program. The result was two willful, three repeat, 23 serious and two other-than-serious citations as well as $484,401 in proposed penalties.

OSHA cited Custom Container Solutions for violations such as failure to provide no-cost PPE, failure to establish and implement a respiratory protection program and related evaluations and training, failure to provide a hearing conservation program and training and improper storage of flammable materials. Other infractions include failure to complete PPE assessments, the lack of an energy control program, improper machine guarding and electrical hazards.

Safety and health should be a core value in every workplace, and Custom Container Solutions is placing its workers in jeopardy by disregarding required protections, OSHA Area Director Mary Reynolds in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said in a statement. They must correct the hazards identified before someone gets hurt.

Following these citations, Custom Container Solutions has 15 days to comply, request an informal conference with OSHAas it has already doneor challenge the agencys findings.
A controversial article from news conglomerate Bloomberg claims that cocaine is poised to overtake oil and become Colombias largest export. This worrying report came on the heels of the United Nations Office On Drugs And Crime (UNODC) announcing (Spanish) that cocaine production in Colombia, the worlds largest manufacturer of the narcotic, soared to a record high during 2022 for the fourth year straight. Colombia is also the worlds leading cultivator of the coca plant, the leaves of which are the essential precursor that provides the alkaloid required to manufacture cocaine. Bloombergs claim is of considerable concern not only for the U.S. and Europe, which are the largest cocaine consumers globally, but also for Colombia, where the vast profits generated by the narcotic drive conflict and extreme violence. There are fears booming cocaine production will cause Colombia to return to the dark days of the 1990s when acute drug-trafficking-fueled violence saw the country on the verge of becoming a failed state.

Bloombergs article triggered a massive backlash (Spanish) against Colombias first-ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro, himself a former guerilla and organizer for the socialist 19th of April Movement. Since Petro took office on August 7, 2022, crime has spiked significantly. The three main illegal armed groups still active in Colombia, who are responsible for most of the Andean countrys cocaine production, have ramped up operations. This is despite Petros plan for total peace and the opening of peace dialogues with the largest leftist guerilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN  Spanish initials). Those events, along with heightened tensions between Colombias public forces, the military as well as the police, and Petros administration, are responsible for law and order breaking down in the strife-torn country.

The sharp increase in Colombian cocaine production, along with related violence, is spilling over into neighboring Ecuador, which emerged in recent years as a key international transshipment point for the narcotic. According to the UNODC, the volume of land under coca cultivation (Spanish) in Colombia during 2022 rose 13% year over year to 504,000 acres, which represents a worrying 21% increase over the 418,00 acres being used to grow coca during 2018. That acreage, according to the UNODC, had the potential to produce 1.4 million metric tons of coca leaf, which was sufficient to manufacture 1,738 metric tons of cocaine hydrochloride, a very worrying 24% increase over 2021. If this trend continues, various pundits claim that cocaine will overtake petroleum to become Colombias number one export by value. Many prominent politicians, as well as analysts, are loudly voicing concerns that surging cocaine production will take Colombia back to the dark, lawless, violence-filled days of the 1990s. That alarm is easy to understand when it is considered that neighboring Ecuador is being shaken by extreme violence being perpetrated by the criminal bands trafficking vast volumes of cocaine through the country.

Data from Colombias statistics agency, DANE, shows oil exports generated $18.7 billion during 2022, which is a third of all export earnings that year, making petroleum Colombias largest export. According to Bloomberg economist Felipe Hernandez, cocaine exports last year were worth $18.2 billion, which is a mere $500 million less than export earnings from petroleum. He goes on to assert that with the value of Colombias first half of 2023 oil exports falling 30% and demand for cocaine consistently rising, the revenue earned from exporting the narcotic will shortly exceed that generated by petroleum. That, according to Hernandez, means the latter could be Colombias No. 1 export as soon as this year.

This, for obvious reasons, has sparked considerable alarm not only in Colombia but also in the primary markets for narcotics in the U.S. and Europe. Colombias surging cocaine production is being blamed on the 2015 decision, made during the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos, to end aerial fumigation of coca with glyphosate due to health and environmental concerns. Petros new drugs policy, which takes a public health-led approach to narcotics consumption and seeks to shift the emphasis from cracking down on coca growers to confronting cocaine trafficking networks, is garnering considerable criticism. While that change in policy will likely see coca cultivation continue to climb, it should lead to more arrests of senior members of illegal armed groups and increase interdictions of cocaine.

Petro has emphasized that Colombian authorities will take an intelligence-based approach to dismantle the countrys increasingly sophisticated criminal bands by targeting their finances, logistics and leadership. That change in direction is also drawing considerable criticism from Petros rightwing political opponents, notably those aligned with former President Alvaro Uribe and his Democratic Center party. Rightwing lawmakers allege that the new strategy will not only lead to cocaine production soaring even higher but strengthen the various illegal armed groups active in Colombia. This is despite the new policy mirroring the tactics used by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies to dismantle transnational organized crime syndicates.

Soaring coca cultivation, as well as cocaine production, is a major problem for Colombia and its neighbors. The vast profits being generated by the narcotic are responsible for fueling spikes in violence, corruption and conflict across the northern Andean region in South America. This is proving attractive not only for Colombias illegal armed bands to expand their territory and power but also for organized crime groups from Europe, Mexico and the Middle East. Whether cocaine exports from Colombia will overtake oil to become the crisis-riven countrys most valuable export is difficult to predict, but recent UNODC data coupled with the diminished value of oil exports indicates that it is a possibility.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

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China is set to raise its fuel exports in October as refining margins and international jet fuel demand rise and refiners are expecting another batch of fuel export quotas, analysts and industry sources have told Reuters.

Chinas exports of refined petroleum products are set to rise in October compared to September, with gasoline and jet fuel seeing the biggest increases month-over-month, according to industry estimates compiled by Reuters.

The third batch of fuel export quotas for refiners is also expected to lead to higher exports next month.

At the end of August, China issued a larger-than-expected fuel export quota in the third batch of allocations this year as authorities look to incentivize refiners to sustain economic growth and sell more product abroad at a time when Chinas 2023 fuel demand may have peaked.

With these allocations, China signaled it looks to support refinery operations and sales overseas amid a faltering economic recovery domestically that weighed on fuel demand and economic growth.

High margins on the export markets and peak domestic summer demand prompted Chinas refiners to boost crude oil processing to a record-high 15.23 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, official Chinese data showed earlier this month.

Refiners expect a possible fourth batch of export quotas to be issued this year, Sun Jianan, an analyst at Energy Aspects, told Reuters.

Higher October export plans suggest refineries are not worried about using up existing quotas and they are expecting additional export quotas, Sun said.

So far this year, Chinese refiners have tripled their exports of diesel as export quotas and rising refining margins in Asia proved incentives enough amid tepid domestic diesel demand.

Between January and August, Chinas exports of diesel soared by 197.2% compared to the same eight months of 2022, according to data from the General Administration of Customs cited by Reuters.

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The airline industry would be ready to embrace the fact that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will always be more expensive than oil-based jet fuel, Willie Walsh, Director General at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said on Wednesday.

SAF is likely to always be more expensive than kerosene even when SAF supply grows in scale from the current very low volumes, the industry associations head said at a conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

I believe the industry is ready to embrace that, Walsh said as carried by Reuters.

The industry recognises the problem, is doing everything it can to address it and we will achieve the targets because... there isn't an option here, the executive said, referring to the ambitions of the airlines to reach their emission reduction targets despite the higher costs of SAF.

Despite numerous pledges from airlines and government support for SAF production, the alternative of the petroleum-based jet fuel faces challenges in supply, costs, and feedstock, analysts say.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), increasing SAF use from less than 0.1% of all aviation fuels in 2021 to around 10% by 2030 in line with the Net Zero Scenario will require investment in production capacity and new policies such as fuel taxes, low-carbon fuel standards and mandatory blending.

According to the IATA, SAF has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80%.

Earlier this year, Boeing Companys president and chief executive officer David Calhoun said that SAF could never achieve price parity with jet fuel to be able to compete with conventional fuels and help decarbonize the aviation sector.

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Calhoun told the Financial Times We will create scale and get more economic, but warned, No, I dont think we will ever achieve the price of Jet A. I dont think that will ever happen.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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The French government will significantly increase public spending on green energy projects while curbing the support to households to help them with the high energy prices, according to the 2024 budget.

Budget 2024 will be the greenest in our history, Frances Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday, announcing that the government plans to spend more than $42 billion (40 billion euros) next year on investments to advance the energy transition, a jump by $10.54 billion (10 billion euros) compared to this years green energy investments.

The huge rise in clean energy investment is aimed at making France the leading low-carbon power in Europe in 2040, the minister added.

The budget will aim to reduce government debt and public spending, Le Maire said.

To do this, France will withdraw the support measures that were introduced last year to protect consumers from soaring power prices.

All studies show that French people are worried about climate change, but they want solutions that are affordable, Anne Bringault, programs director at NGO Reseau Action Climat, told Bloomberg.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron already unveiled some energy-related policies, saying that the government is exiting the whatever it costs approach.

The French government will ask the fuel industry to sell fuels at cost in a bid to cushion the blow of higher oil prices on end consumers, Macron said this weekend.

Last year, during the last oil price surge, the French government tackled the sensitive issue of fuel prices by subsidizing them heavily.

This year, Macron admitted there is no money for that. He also said the government could not afford to cut fuel taxes to cushion the price surge blow because it needed the money to finance the energy transition and the welfare state.

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Macron has also announced a plan to reduce Frances dependence on oil, gas, and coal, and cut national emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Iraqs oil export revenues hit $9 billion in August as the average crude price jumped by more than $6.50 per barrel last month compared to July, according to data from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil cited by Iraqi News.

The average price per barrel of oil was $84.78 in August, compared to just over $78 in July.

Iraq exported in August a total of 106.12 million barrels of oil, per data from the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO).

The oil export revenues in August exceeded the monthly revenues from each of the previous months this year when monthly revenues didnt exceed $8 billion.

International crude oil prices rose in August as signs started to emerge that the global market is tightening amid OPEC+ and Saudi Arabias production cuts, while the chances of a soft landing for the U.S. economy rose. Tighter markets and peak summer fuel demand pushed oil prices to a 10-month high earlier in September, when Brent Crude broke above $95 per barrel and the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, topped $90 a barrel.

Iraq, OPECs second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is currently exporting oil only via its southern oil export terminals. Around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of exports from the northern fields and from the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan continue to be shut in due to a dispute with Turkey over the Iraqi oil exports via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline and Turkeys port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.

Kurdistans crude oil exports were halted on March 25 by the federal government of Iraq. The halt came after the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in favor of Iraq against Turkey in a dispute over crude flows from Kurdistan.

The parties have been discussing a restart of the oil flows for months but have been plagued with repeated delayssome due to technical problems and others due to political ones.

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The amount of crude oil in the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub has fallen to 22 million barrels, which is dangerously close to the minimum operating level, prompting worry about quality and the possibility of the stocks falling below the minimum level.

Oil inventories at Cushing have fallen from a two-year high of 43 million barrels in June to less than 22 million barrels, according to the American Petroleum Institute, as of last week.

The substantial decline was the result of higher demand from refiners, Reuters reported, and equally higher export demand.

"Cushing inventory levels that are flirting near historical lows are driving WTI prices higher in an already tight market," Vortexa analyst Rohit Rathod told Reuters.

The state of inventories at Cushing could become one more factor in support of higher oil prices, not least because at a level of 22 million barrels, the oil still available at Cushing becomes difficult to pump out. The storage hub has a capacity of 98 million barrels.

"If you let the crude (level) drop too low, the crude can get sludgy and you can't get it out. What does come out - you won't be able to use," Wood Mackenzie sales director Carl Larry told Reuters.

Stocks at Cushing may yet inch up during refinery maintenance season but not everyone agrees that it would be enough to make it usable again: refiners may opt for a shorter maintenance season amid still strong fuel demand.

The decline in refinery inputs during maintenance season is seen at 1.8 million barrels daily, compared with 1.5 million bpd this time last year.

If the inventory level does not rise meaningfully, however, this would have an additional bullish impact on prices, pushing WTI closer to $100 per barrel.

Nine years ago, inventories at Cushing fell below 20 million barrels but that was before the United States became a major oil and fuel exporter, so stocks were replenished quickly.

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A 1963 John Wayne movie thats loosely based on William Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew will be on the big screen at the next benefit event from Omaha film historian Bruce Crawford.

McLintock! will be shown at 7 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Omaha Community Playhouse, 6915 Cass St. It also stars Maureen OHara and the evenings special guest, actor Stefanie Powers, best known for her television role on Hart to Hart with Robert Wagner.

Powers will speak to the audience before the film, sharing stories about her career and the making of McLintock! She also will be available afterward to sign autographs

The evening will mark Crawfords 49th classic film event. He said he has wanted to feature McLintock! for a long time, but the plans never jelled.

But, as it happens, the timing was fortuitous.

We have the only 60th anniversary showing in the country, Crawford said.

The event is a benefit for the Omaha Christian Academy.

McLintock! is an action-filled western comedy set in the 1880s, with Wayne as a wealthy cattle baron and OHara as his feisty estranged wife. Powers played Waynes daughter, Becky.

Powers received two Emmy Award nominations for Hart to Hart  and also was the star of the short-lived The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. on TV. She was in a number of films, including Herbie Rides Again and The Interns.

She spends her summers in Africa at a wildlife preservation named for her longtime life partner, William Holden. They were involved together in the conservation movement until he died in 1981.

Because of that, Crawford said, Powers requested a private tour of the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium while shes in Omaha. The zoo has a worldwide reputation for its leadership in animal conservation and research.

Brian Downs, director of the John Wayne Museum, also will be present at the showing. Wayne was born and grew up in Winterset, Iowa, a town about two hours east of Omaha, where the museum and his childhood home are open to the public.

Crawford said he encourages people who attend his events to dress up in costumes like those in the films, and many comply.

At his showing of ET in May, he said, one guy even made an ET phone home machine and put it in the Playhouse lobby.

People like to come and do stuff like that, he said. The events have been going on for so long that they have a big following.

Tickets to the screening and a special meet-and-greet beforehand are $30. Theyre available at 402-399-9565 or omahachristianacademy.org/movie.

Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of September 2023
LINCOLN  Days after he was fired from his job at a local community center for allegedly punching two teenage girls and mere hours after police knocked on his door to perform a welfare check, a Lincoln man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of shooting a Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services caseworker who had come to his house to check on his children, Lincoln police said.

Brent Lopez, 38, who days ago was a rec leader at the Air Park Community Center, is accused of shooting a caseworker in the leg outside Lopezs house in Lincolns North Bottoms neighborhood around 4 p.m. Tuesday, the Lincoln Police Department said in a press release.

The caseworker, whom police did not identify Tuesday, was one of two DHHS employees who had gone to Lopezs house near Seventh and Y Streets in response to a child welfare case, the Police Department said.

Lopez came outside and fired multiple rounds from a handgun from his front porch as the two approached his house, police alleged. The injuries to the caseworker, a 28-year-old man, are not life-threatening, police said. The other caseworker wasnt injured.

Police arrested Lopez on suspicion of felony assault on a health care worker and use of a firearm to commit a felony. He was taken to the Lancaster County Jail.

Lopezs three children, who were in the familys home at the time of the shooting, were interviewed at the BraveBe Child Advocacy Center and will be cared for at a safe location, police said.

The shooting came after his alleged assault of two teenagers at the northwest Lincoln community center Sunday afternoon and subsequent firing.

In a phone interview with the Lincoln Journal Star hours before Tuesdays shooting, Lopez cast the assault as a case of self-defense, pointing to threats he said the group of teens had hurled toward both Lopez and his 12-year-old son that preceded the altercation. Lopez said he was mobbed by a group of kids when he tried to physically remove one of the teens.

Cellphone footage of the incident, which captures less than a minute of the ordeal, at times seemed to show Lopez as the aggressor, chasing after teens who he said had mobbed him, his arms flailing. Lopez said he had chased the teens in an attempt to get them to leave.

The reported actions taken by Brent Lopez are in conflict with the law and our policies, Maggie Stuckey-Ross, the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department director, said in a written statement. The safety of the community members using our facilities is our number one priority.

Police, upon reviewing surveillance footage of the incident, cited Lopez on suspicion of two counts of misdemeanor assault.

Two days later, Lopez, a single father of three, had been fired from the role he called the best job I ever had and was at risk of losing his home, he said in a phone interview around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

In his interview with the Journal Star, which ended less than three hours before Lopez is accused of shooting the caseworker, Lopez did not indicate he intended to harm authorities  but did say he would stop at little to protect his family if his sons were in danger.

I hate that it happened, man, Lopez said Tuesday when asked whether he regretted his actions at the community center. A lot of times I could look back and say, You could have done this, you could have done that, but things happened how they happened. I feel terrible. Ive cried a lot. I never, ever, ever, ever want to hurt a child. Ever.

But Im there with me and my 12-year-old boy and, you know what, whoever gets in the way is gonna get it, man. Regardless. I dont care who. When its me and my son fighting, man, and Im getting  bro, I dont care, Im swinging as hard as I can. Especially when theres a mob of them.

Lopez, too, made multiple references to his gun, which he said police had briefly confiscated as they investigated Sundays alleged assault but returned to him after ticketing him. He said he was afraid of the police before quickly reneging.

Im afraid that theyre gonna try to get some revenge on me, he said of the police. And I dont have  you know, I shouldnt say that, man. I shouldnt say that. But Im just really paranoid right now, is what I should say. I cant trust anybody.

And in both his remarks to the newspaper and police  who arrived at Lopezs home for a welfare check during the phone interview  Lopez also repeatedly expressed a fear of retaliation over Sundays incident in Air Park.

I think the most important thing that I want people to know is I would never go (on) offense on any of you guys, he said. I love you guys, even if you dont believe me. I love my neighborhood. Air Park is my neighborhood. Thats where I was raised. It will always be my home in my heart, and Ive been fighting to get back there for a very long time.

I am not your enemy. And taking my life is not losing yours in prison or anything like that. Be smart. Be there for your family. Dont do nothing stupid. You dont have an enemy in me.

Police had knocked on Lopezs door about three hours before the shooting, after Lopezs wife asked law enforcement to perform a welfare check on their three kids.

My lifes in danger, Lopez told the police, while he stayed on the line with the Journal Star. So thats why you see a mess. This is not an insecure, dirty house. This is us trying to figure out how to get the hell out of here.

No big deal, an officer said, before he told Lopez that his wife had raised concerns about their safety.

Lopez implored the officers to check court records as evidence that she had tried to destroy him several times.

The 35-year-old woman filed for divorce from Lopez this month, according to court filings. And the two filed for dueling domestic abuse protection orders against each other in January, but judges in Douglas and Lancaster Counties denied both requests.

On Tuesday, the officer told Lopez and his sons that the 35-year-old woman had indicated Lopez had assaulted his son at the rec center, which both Lopez and his children scoffed at in their living room Tuesday afternoon.

She saw the video and was concerned about the video, an officer said.

Im sure she, yeah  but, sir, listen, I can show you court papers, Lopez told the officer, before raising separate concerns over his familys wellbeing.

Were not good, though, Lopez told the police. Welfare check is negative. Were in danger.

OK, the officer said. Well, what are you in danger for?

Because the medias got me on as beating up a bunch of kids at the rec center  when I was getting jumped, Lopez said.

The officer largely dismissed Lopezs concerns before asking, again, who might be out to get him. Lopez told police his life had been threatened by a mob of people who had gathered outside the community center while police investigated Sundays assault. The officer indicated that moving  which Lopez had indicated he was in the process of  might be a good step to avoid such threats.

I dont have any money, and I just lost my job, Lopez told him.

OK, the officer said. Well is there anything else we can do for you, though?

No, Lopez said.

The officer told Lopez to call police if he needed them and then left the familys house.

Two hours later, police returned  this time on the report of a shooting.
GERING, Neb.  Authorities apprehended the suspect in a two-day standoff in Gering on Wednesday night.

At 7:45 p.m., a Star-Herald reporter on the scene of the standoff reported several flash bangs and gunshots. Officers were heard shooting commands and soon after, scanner traffic indicated that the suspect, Bradley Garcia, had been taken into custody.

According to scanner traffic, the situation was being "demobilized." The man was reported to have suffered minor injuries and was being transported to Regional West Medical Center by ambulance.

The standoff began Tuesday and had lasted nearly 29 hours. A hostage was released about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Before the standoff, Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman said Wednesday, a Scotts Bluff County sheriffs deputy had tried to stop Garcia on Five Rocks Road for a traffic violation and Garcia refused to stop.

A Gering police officer also become involved in the pursuit, which ended as Garcia crashed his vehicle into a garage in the 2300 block of 19th Street in Gering and fled into the home. During the pursuit, Garcia allegedly fired at the deputy, but did not strike him or his vehicle.

Once inside the home, Garcia took two juvenile girls and a woman hostage, but eventually he allowed the two girls to leave the home. The woman was released Wednesday afternoon; details about her condition and release were not immediately available.

Law enforcement had remained stationed at the 19th Street and Kings Road area since about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. As the standoff continued, Overman said, Garcia had allegedly fired at officers multiple times using more than one weapon.

Much of Wednesday morning, the scene remained quiet. However, early Wednesday afternoon, Star-Herald reporters at the scene saw explosions, heard loud pops and bangs, believed from comments by officers on the scene to be gases being released into the home. Authorities also had used drones to monitor the home, and an ambulance and firetruck were among the vehicles on the scene.

Troy Brown, chief deputy with the Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs Office, told the Star-Herald that Garcia had reneged multiple times in negotiations on plans to surrender or release the woman.

The standoff also affected schools in the community. Shortly after law enforcement reported shots fired, school officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield Elementary around 3:38 p.m. Tuesday.

At 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High. A controlled release at Northfield and at other schools in the district had occurred earlier. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools, and all activities and other events were canceled. On Wednesday morning, the Gering Public Schools announced that classes were canceled for the day out of an abundance of caution.

After the standoff ended, Gering schools issued a release that classes would resume as normal Thursday.

The standoff scene included armored vehicles used by the Nebraska State Patrol and the Scotts Bluff County SWAT team, and a tactical vehicle used by the Alliance Police Department. By Wednesday, the response included a hostage rescue team from Quantico, Virginia.

At some points, reporters estimated that as many as 40 officers were on the scene.

Star-Herald staff writers Fletcher Halfaker and Jack Underwood contributed to this report.
A Douglas County judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit a state senator filed against a political action committee that made several social media posts claiming she was grooming her transgender child.

State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha sued the Nebraska Freedom Coalition for defamation in June, alleging that members Patrick Peterson, Robert Anthony and Malia Shirley made intentional, reckless, and knowingly false statements about her, saying she sexually abused and groomed her 13-year-old son.

After hearing arguments on the case in August, Douglas County District Judge Todd Engleman dismissed the case Wednesday, deciding that the coalitions posts were opinions, not fact, and thus couldnt be considered defamation.

To the extent that the Coalitions statements can be read to factually assert that Hunt actually engaged in sexual grooming or child abuse, the general tenor of the tweets and hyperbolic language therein negates that impression, Englemans decision reads.

The coalition made these claims on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after Hunt shared that her son was transgender during a contentious debate over a bill that will restrict access to gender-affirming care for individuals under 19. Since then, the coalition has repeatedly called Hunt a groomer and posted photos of her child.

Following these posts, the Nebraska Legal Action Fund requested the coalition retract its statements, but the coalition doubled down in a post that remained pinned on its page for months. The coalition celebrated the lawsuits dismissal in a new post Wednesday, citing the decision as a victory for free speech.

The Courts ruling is rooted in the profound national commitment to the principle that public discourse on critical issues should remain uninhibited, robust, and open, the coalitions post reads.

Hunt criticized the decision, and said she and her legal team are considering her options for appealing the decision. She noted that she has been subjected to violent threats that repeated language used in the coalitions posts  an argument that was also used by her attorneys during the case.

No mother regardless of whether they are an elected official or not should be accused of abusing their child when there is absolutely no basis in fact, Hunt said.

Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of September 2023
Hong Kong: Embrace fintech with caution: FS

Financial Secretary Paul Chan today said that while financial innovation is to be embraced, the public should beware of the risks associated with making transactions on unlicensed platforms.

Speaking to reporters after returning from his visit to Europe, Mr Chan noted the Government was of the view that blockchain technology is here to stay.

On the other hand, the Government will continue to impose balanced regulations to put in a balanced and proper regulatory framework to protect investors interests as well as protect financial stability and prevent risks associated with anti-money laundering.

The Government also encourages the responsible and sustainable development of the Web3 sector, he added.

Having just returned from a trip to France, the UK and Germany, the finance chief pointed out that the current geopolitical situation remained challenging.

We still need to proactively reach out and engage, and find the common ground.

The European business sector has been very forthcoming. Indeed, they agree with us on the special role that Hong Kong can play and the unique function that Hong Kong can (provide). They do recognise that the Greater Bay Area, Mainland (China) and the Asia market are the future of economic growth.

This story has been published on: 2023-09-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Commentary: China's vision of global community of shared future materializes into concrete actions

10:15, September 27, 2023 By Zheng Bofei ( Xinhua

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Facing an array of unprecedented crises and challenges, humanity today needs wisdom and action to surmount them for better lives.

A decade after Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed building a community with a shared future for humanity, this concept has garnered increasing recognition and has been translated into solid actions. It lights the path forward as the world fumbles for ways to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.

This vision aligns with the prevailing global trends, resonating with the call for international cooperation and contributing to a more just and equitable global order. Most importantly, this vision transcends the mindset of exclusive bloc politics and the notion of "might makes right." It reflects the common aspiration of people from all countries to pursue peace, development and stability, and has become the overall goal of China's major-country diplomacy in the new era.

This does not mean that the international system should be dismantled or started afresh. Rather, it means promoting greater democracy in international relations and making global governance more just and equitable. Humanity must engage in comprehensive global cooperation. Only when nations work collectively, aligning individual interests with the common good, can we navigate the crises that loom before us and sail toward a brighter future.

Over the past decade, China has contributed its strength to building a global community of shared future with firm conviction and solid actions, such as promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, implementing the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and proposing a range of regional and bilateral initiatives on building communities of shared future.

By July 2023, more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations had signed agreements on Belt and Road cooperation with China. Together, participants in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have jointly advanced infrastructure connectivity, trade connectivity, and people-to-people connectivity. According to Belt and Road Economics, a report released by the World Bank, the BRI, when fully implemented, will increase intra-BRI trade by 4.1 percent. By 2030, the BRI will generate 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars in annual global revenues.

At the bilateral and multilateral level, China has built communities of shared future with an increasing number of partners, in different forms. The Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative have gained support from over 100 countries and the Global Civilization Initiative has also received positive feedback.

Building a global community of shared future requires collective efforts, and it will certainly bring benefits to all involved in this endeavor.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
LINCOLN  Gov. Jim Pillen announced Wednesday that Nebraska will extend Medicaid coverage for mothers up to 12 months after giving birth.

He said the change, which takes effect Jan. 1, is part of the states commitment to the health and well-being of mothers and children. Nebraska currently provides only 60 days of postpartum coverage.

This decision ensures that nearly 5,000 mothers across our state will maintain access to a comprehensive range of behavioral and physical health services, Pillen said.

Our children are the future of this state, and we are dedicated to providing the strongest possible support system to help them thrive, he said. I am confident that this extension will provide Nebraska mothers with the resources they need to nurture and raise their children.

The announcement comes less than four months after Nebraska lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state to offer longer postpartum coverage. Legislative Bill 227 required coverage for at least six months.

State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, who introduced the extended postpartum coverage bill, called the governors announcement wonderful news. Her bill originally called for 12 months of coverage but was amended down to help win votes.

With this decision, Nebraska will become a leading state in providing a full year of health care to lower-income new mothers and their babies and we will see benefits of this policy change literally for generations to come, she said.

Nebraska Medicaid covers about 35% of all births across the state and plays a vital role in ensuring access to health care services for mothers and babies. Lack of access to care and financial resources are some of the most significant contributing factors to maternal mortality.

Pregnant and postpartum women can qualify for Medicaid at higher income levels than other adults. In Nebraska, women are eligible for pregnant and postpartum coverage with incomes up to 194% of the federal poverty level. Thats $2,358 per month for a household of one or $4,850 for a household of four.

Supporters of Wisharts bill argued that extended postpartum coverage is important for women who suffer pregnancy complications or have chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. It also helps those who develop depression or serious diseases like mastitis.

Dr. Ann Anderson Berry, a neonatologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, testified at the bills hearing that lack of care for the mother can affect the health and well-being of her newborn infant, as well as other family members. She said that when mothers get care, their children are more likely to get well-child visits, which are key in ensuring healthy development of children.

Keven Bagley, the state Medicaid director, said the 12-month postpartum extension represents a giant leap forward in ensuring that mothers have access to the care and support they need during a crucial period in their lives.

Nebraska Medicaid is working with advocates, health care providers and others across the state to ensure that the change is implemented smoothly and addresses the diverse needs of all mothers in the state.

45 behind-the-scenes photos of 45 of the best movies of all time 45 behind-the-scenes photos of 45 of the best movies of all time Psycho (1960) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Singin' in the Rain (1952) Some Like it Hot (1959) Children of Paradise (1945) Rosemary's Baby (1968) Gone with the Wind (1939) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Chinatown (1974) North by Northwest (1959) The Apartment (1960) Saving Private Ryan (1998) Taxi Driver (1976) Anatomy of a Murder (1959) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) The Godfather Part II (1974) The Night of the Hunter (1955) Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) La Dolce Vita (1959) Paths of Glory (1957) The Wild Bunch (1969) The Third Man (1949) The Lady Vanishes (1938) All About Eve (1950) Fanny and Alexander (1982) Double Indemnity (1944) Citizen Kane (1941) Vertigo (1958) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Apocalypse Now (1979) Alien (1979) Modern Times (1936) Ran (1985) The Godfather (1972) The Leopard (1963) Battleship Potemkin (1925) The Philadelphia Story (1940) Rear Window (1954) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) Notorious (1946) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Army of Shadows (1969) Touch of Evil (1958)
BLOOMINGTON  One of the five Texas men accused of bringing a multistate automobile theft ring to Bloomington has been released with pretrial conditions Wednesday, while two more were ordered to be detained.

Carlos G. Guzman-Toledo, 48; Henry Gomez-Gomez, 41; Anthony W. Gomez-Gomez, 34; Jesus Arriaga, 36; and Geovany M. Alvarez, 21, are charged with seven counts of aggravated unlawful possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

They are accused of moving stolen vehicles from city to city and across state lines, with noted connections to Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The McLean County States Attorneys Office filed petitions to detain the five men on the willful flight standard, and as previously reported, Judge Scott Kording granted the petitions in Guzman-Toledo and Alvarezs cases on Monday and Tuesday.

Anthony Gomez-Gomez was released Wednesday following a detention hearing during which First Assistant States Attorney Brad Rigdon argued, based on the scope of the operation and evidence of multiple fraudulent identification cards and passports found in the groups hotel rooms, that he should be detained.

However, upon questioning from the judge, Rigdon said he was not aware of any evidence that Gomez-Gomez possessed any of the fraudulent IDs or that his picture appeared on any of them, which was the case for the other four co-defendants.

While his co-defendants were believed to have traveled between multiple states, Rigdon said  expanding the list of possible connections to the group that was previously offered, to include North Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska, Florida and Georgia  he did not have evidence that Gomez-Gomez had traveled across state lines. However, based on police surveillance, Gomez-Gomez was believed to be part of a group that traveled from Bloomington to Pekin and back, returning with stolen trucks.

Rigdon argued Gomez-Gomez had no ties to Bloomington-Normal or Illinois other than this criminal conduct and is unlikely to appear for future court dates if released.

Brian McEldowney, the public defender representing Gomez-Gomez, argued there was limited evidence that this defendant was involved in a criminal enterprise.

He said his client was employed as an independent contractor working in construction and resided in Dallas, Texas, for the last four years, having come to the U.S. from Venezuela several years ago.

Gomez-Gomez has a valid Texas drivers license and U.S. Employment Authorization Document that allows him to work legally in the U.S., McEldowney said.

The defense attorney said Gomez-Gomez had no prior criminal record, and Its hard to prove a negative, but there is no evidence he would engage in willful flight.

Noting he was evaluating each case individually, Kording said while Gomez-Gomezs involvement with the group was relatively clear, he did not believe the state had offered sufficient evidence to keep this defendant detained.

He denied the petition to detain and ordered that Gomez-Gomez be released with conditions.

The state and defense agreed on Gomez-Gomezs conditions of release, which include the mandatory statutory conditions, and additionally:

he must reside in Illinois and not leave the state without permission by the court;

he must not possess firearms or firearm ammunition;

he must have no contact with any of his four co-defendants, which includes his brother, Henry Gomez-Gomez;

he must comply with any and all requirements of the pretrial services office.

The conditions that I have imposed are not suggestions, Kording told the defendant. No contact means absolutely no contact.

Gomez-Gomez agreed to abide by the conditions of release and told his attorney he would stay in a hotel while he awaits trial.

Henry Gomez-Gomezs case was also heard Wednesday, but Kording ordered that he be detained.

Andy Ybarra, an attorney from Franklin Park, entered his appearance and told the court his client had entered the country two years ago, a victim of political persecution fleeing President Nicolas Maduros government.

Ybarra said Gomez-Gomez has been fighting an asylum case in which he had been released from federal monitoring having routinely appeared for court and other requirements.

In his argument against the willful flight standard, Ybarra said his client had nowhere to flee to since he had left Venezuela under those circumstances.

He has nowhere to flee to. He came to this country asking for basic human rights. I think hed like to stay in this country, Ybarra said.

Rigdon argued Gomez-Gomez had a significant role in the auto theft organization and has the resources and mobility to flee, noting a fake Mexican passport bearing his name had been found, among other fake identification cards, in the hotel where they were staying.

Rigdon said the defendant had taken willful, intentional steps to evade prosecution, so he asked the judge to detain him.

He noted Gomez-Gomez did not have a place to stay locally because he had no ties to the area or the state, thus he could not be put on home detention.

Kording found that despite Gomez-Gomezs lack of criminal history, his alleged involvement in the coordinated effort to target this community coupled with the fraudulent passport, the state met its burden of proof to detain the defendant, granting the petition.

In Arriagas case, Public Defender Ron Lewis said the prosecution cannot prove he would be a flight risk because they would need to show his actions were made to intentionally evade prosecution.

Lewis added that Arriaga has the lowest possible score on the public safety assessment scale.

Assistant State's Attorney Ashley Scarborough argued he should be detained because there is a high likelihood of him willfully fleeing if he were released based on his and other defendants' residency and the nature of the crimes.

Scarborough said the crimes involved evading law enforcement and avoiding any sort of prosecution, making it even more likely for Arriaga to flee out of state.

She also said Arriaga can be physically traced traveling across state lines to commit these crimes, with flight itineraries as well as security camera footage tracking his movements.

Kording granted the states petition to detain Arriaga based on the belief that he has the means to flee and seems to have larger ties.

Arraignments for all five defendants are scheduled for Oct. 13.
BLOOMINGTON  Five men from Texas are in McLean County custody, accused of being involved with a multistate automobile theft ring.

The following defendants are charged with seven counts of aggravated unlawful possession of a stolen motor vehicle, as Class 1 felonies:

Carlos G. Guzman-Toledo, 48, of Houston;

Henry Gomez-Gomez, 41, of Houston;

Anthony W. Gomez-Gomez, 34, of Dallas;

Jesus Arriaga, 36, of Sugarland;

Geovany M. Alvarez, 21, of Sugarland.

They are accused of moving stolen vehicles from city to city and state to state, with connections to Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois.

According to court documents, Bloomington police were notified by law enforcement in West Allis, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, on Sept. 21 about a group of individuals selling "high-end luxury GMS and Chevrolet pickup trucks which were likely stolen."

Bloomington police found three GMC trucks and two Chevrolet trucks listed on Facebook Marketplace in the Bloomington area, all for under $55,000, prosecutors said. The vehicles were posted by four separate accounts that contained limited information about the users and were suspected to be fake.

After setting up surveillance at a Bloomington warehouse where the vehicles were seen, police traced the five suspects to a hotel in near Interstate 74 on the city's west side. Officers executed a search warrant at the warehouse and located eight luxury Chevrolet and GMC pickups. They confirmed seven of the eight were reported stolen out of Texas, according to court documents.

Officers then made contact with the five suspects at the hotel and detained them. Police said Alvarez had rented two rooms for them, and another search warrant was executed for the rooms and the vehicles.

There, according to court documents, officers found numerous key fobs in one of the vehicles and a handgun in one of the hotel rooms.

During an interview with Bloomington police, Alvarez said the suspects knew the vehicles were stolen and he had primarily been the one posting them to Facebook with a low enough price to generate interest, prosecutors said.

"Alvarez indicated he is working for an individual, who he would not name, who is organizing the theft ring and is shipping stolen cars all across the United States," according to court documents.

The five men appeared in court Saturday when Judge Scott Kording found probable cause for their arrest, but an initial appearance to determine whether they were to be held pretrial took place Monday. Alvarez was the only one of the five defendants who did not require the assistance of a Spanish language interpreter in court.

During Mondays hearings, prosecutors filed petitions to detain all five defendants under the willful flight standard of the Pretrial Fairness Act, arguing the offenses were eligible for detention.

However, public defenders asked that all but one case be held over to be heard Tuesday morning because they said the defendants were seeking to hire private counsel.

Guzman-Toledos detention hearing moved forward Monday afternoon.

Assistant States Attorney David Beard said when a search warrant was executed in the two local hotel rooms where the co-defendants were staying, police found multiple forms of identification suspected to be fraudulent, including Texas IDs, U.S. and Mexican passports, business cards and other miscellaneous cards, that featured various names, spellings and photos of the defendants and other unknown individuals.

Beard said this evidence showed they clearly intended to avoid prosecution.

Assistant Public Defender Mackenzie Frizzell argued Guzman-Toledo has minimal criminal history  one 2016 misdemeanor for failure to stop and give information in Texas  and that he was open to complying with any conditions of release, including GPS monitoring.

She also said he went willingly with officers and didnt try to run, and he has been living in the U.S. for many years, which contradicted the states claim that Guzman-Toledo had been in the country for about one year.

Frizzell also noted there was no evidence that Guzman-Toledo had any connection to the handgun found in the hotel.

Beard argued Guzman-Toledo had no local ties to Bloomington-Normal or Illinois, and electronic monitoring would not deter him from leaving the area because there is no local address to associate with his location.

The prosecutor said the group has been known to move around, going from city to city selling stolen vehicles. Beard called Guzman-Toledo the quintessential example of a flight risk.

Kording granted the states petition to detain Guzman-Toledo.

The other four defendants appeared Tuesday for detention hearings. However, Arriaga and Anthony Gomez-Gomez sought another delay because they were still working on getting private attorneys to appear in person; one attorney had sought to appear via video conference.

In Henry Gomez-Gomezs case, Joseph Cassidy, an attorney from Peoria, entered his appearance, but he asked that his clients detention hearing be pushed back as well, since he was appearing on behalf of a Chicago law firm that could not be present.

Detention hearings for those three are set for 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Alvarezs case proceeded Tuesday with Bloomington defense attorney Brendan Bukalski.

Assistant States Attorney Alex Shane made arguments for his detention that were similar to those made in Guzman-Toledos case.

He added that Alvarez told police several details about the operation, including the group's posting to local Facebook groups trying to draw interest to sell the stolen vehicles.

With no local ties, the prosecutor argued, Alvarez and the co-defendants were here for one reason: just to commit crimes and to prey on Bloomington-Normal.

Bukalski said no evidence showed significant criminal records following these men, and he noted Alvarez was the only one cooperating fully with police during this investigation.

The defense attorney said Alvarez planned to move to Illinois with his wife and newborn and would comply with any conditions of release, including electronic monitoring.

But Shane argued there were no less restrictive conditions, other than detention, that would deter Alvarez from fleeing, adding that he believed there was no lawful reason to have so many forms of ID.

Kording granted the states petition to detain, calling the theft ring organized and coordinated with access to significant resources that could help the defendant flee if he were released from custody.

How do people die in U.S. traffic collisions? How do people die in U.S. traffic collisions? What events or objects cause the most traffic deaths? Other vehicles cause the most traffic fatalities, but there are a surprising array of other causes Regional differences paint an unusual picture of national road safety
NORMAL  Heartland Community College music professor Afrim Shabani has been honored by the Royal Conservatory of Music as a Teacher of Distinction.

Shabani is an associate adjunct professor in humanities and fine arts at Heartland. Only six teachers were selected for this recognition out of a pool of thousands.

The award celebrates educators across North America who exhibit exceptional dedication, innovation and impact in music education.

The award recognizes Shabani's teaching methodologies, commitment to student success and ability to inspire and nurture young musical talents.

Courses taught by Shabani include piano, music appreciation, and jazz, blues, and rock and roll. He will be honored at the regional Celebration of Excellence this fall. He has been praised by his peers and students for consistently demonstrating a deep understanding of the importance of music education in the lives of his students.

The Royal Conservatory of Music is one of the largest and most respected music education institutions in the world, providing a standard of excellence in curriculum design, assessment, performance training, teacher certification and arts-based social programs.

Families of all kinds delight at Bloomington "DiverCITY" event WELCOMING WEEK 091823-blm-loc-2divercity.JPG 091823-blm-loc-3divercity.JPG
NORMAL  The assistant city manger for the Town of Normal has accepted a city manager position in Galesburg.

Eric Hanson has served in Normal for the last five years and has worked in other municipal administrative positions in Ballwin, Missouri; Indianola, Iowa; and Monmouth, Illinois.

Over the course of his tenure working in different city administrations, Hanson has worked on over $1.25 billion in economic development projects and over $100 million in capital improvement initiatives.

"Erics move to become Galesburgs next City Manager is a great opportunity for him and his family," Normal City Manager Pam Reece said in a statement. "He brings many strengths to the table which is why Galesburg selected him to lead their community."

Reece said Hanson will continue his work with the town until December and then move forward to Galesburg.

At this time, Reece said she has not determined a timeline to fill the position.

"While I am certainly sorry to see him leave, I know he will do great things in Galesburg," Reece said in the statement.

The position in Galesburg became available in June after a separation agreement with the previous city manager and has since been filled by several active and retired department heads on an acting and interim basis.

Hanson told The Pantagraph that multiple individuals reached out to him about the position, and he felt the decision to step in was an easy one since his family lives in or around Galesburg.

"There's no doubt I'm going to be a better manager going forward than when I arrived five years ago, just from the things that I've learned from the great people here and especially Pam," Hanson said. "I'm forever grateful for the opportunity, and I'm certainly going to miss coming to work in the town."

With budget meetings locked in until Thanksgiving, Hanson said he still hard at work in Normal.

"I'm just so grateful to have been able to live and work in such amazing town and receive all the support that I have," Hanson said. "I'm going to enjoy my time and work hard until December."

Photos: Intercity Volleyball tournament at Normal West High School
How Time Flies is a daily feature looking back at Pantagraph archives to revisit what was happening in our community and region.

100 years ago

Sept. 27, 1923: The Corn Belt Train, officially known as Route 8, will have the distinction of drawing the lowest bid recorded by the state highway department. Bids were opened for the 23.21-mile stretch between El Paso and a point east of Chenoa. Cameron Joyce and Company of Keokuk agreed to do the job for $399,995.

75 years ago

Sept. 27, 1948: Polio cases in Bloomington-Normal rose to five Monday after two more were reported. Frederic C. Baum, 1118 E. Olive St., is in St. Francis Hospital in Peoria. Three-year-old William Vernon Campbell Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. William Campbell, 702 1/2 W. Market St., is in Brokaw Hospital.

50 years ago

Sept. 27, 1973: Illinois Supreme Court announced the appointment of Associate Circuit Judge William T. Caisley to succeed the late Circuit Judge Stephen B. Adsit of Pontiac. Caisley, 33, of 409 Grant in Normal, was one of four appointments.

25 years ago

Sept. 27, 1998: Circuit Court Judge W. Charles Witte has been ordering parents to reimburse McLean County government for part of the cost of keeping their kids at the county's Juvenile Detention Center in Normal. In 1997, those reimbursements brought in $14,995. It's up to $16,996 through August of this year.
SPRINGFIELD  Nearly a year after legislative staff in House Speaker Chris Welch's office privately declared their intent to unionize, there finally appears to be a path forward into the unchartered waters.

Welch, a Democrat from suburban Hillside, filed legislation earlier this week that would authorize the Illinois Labor Relations Board to oversee an election on the formation of a collective bargaining unit within the legislative branch.

The ILRB, as it does with other public sector employers, would also have jurisdiction over collective bargaining matters such as investigating and attempting to resolve unfair labor practice charges and utilizing impasse procedures such as mediation and arbitration to resolve labor disputes.

Current law exempts employees that work for the Illinois General Assembly from the labor relations board's framework.

Further, the proposal would create a legislative agency to represent the interests of the General Assembly in the collective bargaining process.

Welch, in an interview with me Wednesday morning, said he plans to hold a vote on the legislation next month, when lawmakers return to Springfield for their fall veto session.

"Our record on labor is strong, it's clear (and) unequivocal," Welch said. "And what we have done here is create a legal pathway for legislative employees in the House and Senate to organize and collectively bargain through their representatives."

The House speaker has long been a champion of organized labor, supporting many initiatives over the years to advance worker's rights, most notably an amendment to the state constitution that enshrines the right to unionize. Voters approved the initiative at the ballot last year.

But Welch had taken some heat in recent months amid the unionization push within his own House. The Illinois Legislative Staff Association, the group of employees seeking union recognition, said earlier this month that Welch and his staff had refused to engage with them.

Welch disputed the notion and denied that the topic was contentious one for him, saying that it simply took time to work through the process.

"Did we have to slow it down and be thorough and get it right? Yes, we did," Welch said. "But at no time did we block their efforts. What we wanted to do was make sure that we had a legal pathway. Current Illinois law specifically prohibits what they were asking us to do. And we had to create a legal pathway that would allow us to do what they seek. And that's what this bill does, and that's what other states have done as well."

Welch said that his legal counsel and outside attorneys had determined that under current law, it would be unlawful for him to voluntarily recognize the staffers' union.

That was the path staffers were hoping for after a petition for certification with the ILRB, necessary to hold an election, was denied earlier this year due to the agency's current lack of jurisdiction over legislative employees.

But, even if he voluntarily recognized the union, Welch said there were still no procedures in place to handle matters such as unfair labor practice charges.

The remedy? A change in state law.

Brady Burden, a staffer and a member of the Illinois Legislative Staff Association's organizing committee, said the group welcomed the legislation.

"We are happy to see the Speaker file this bill," Burden said. "We look forward to working together in good faith and coming to an agreement."

Welch said his top staffers did "thorough and diligent research" all summer on the topic before making recommendations that he "was very comfortable with."

Part of this was looking at what other states were doing, such as Oregon, where legislative aides formed a first-of-its-kind union comprised in 2021. The union just recently reached a tentative agreement on their first contract.

Over the past couple of years, legislative staff in states like California, Massachusetts and New York have sought to unionize.

Legislators in the Golden State just a few weeks ago passed legislation authorizing legislative staff to unionize. It awaits Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature.

Welch said that some language in his bill was pulled from California's. Among the provisions: one that bars workers from striking during months the legislature is scheduled to be in session. Welch said this was inserted to ensure that any kind of labor dispute "does not interrupt the legislative calendar."

"There's only a certain period of time that we can conduct business when a simple majority is needed," Welch said. "And we believe that it's important that a strike does not interrupt the budget-making season. A lot is dependent on what happens in Springfield in May across the state. And so we put that into law. Now again, this bill is out there in advance, and we're going to continue to take input from those who have an interest in it."

Indeed, several stakeholders will likely get a say in shaping the proposal. It is extremely common for bills to be amended during the legislative process.

But with Welch's backing and personal sponsorship of the legislation, it seems all-but-certain that some version of it will pass out of the House.

It would then head to the Illinois Senate. The chamber is also controlled by Democrats, but there has been little to no evidence of any widespread desire to unionize among legislative staffers there.

This is the first weve seen this proposal. We will review it," said John Patterson, spokesman for Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park.

Welch said he gave Harmon "a heads up" that he was filing the legislation.

"I fully anticipate he's going to read it and we're going to go through the legislative process," Welch said.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker indicated earlier this month that he supported the efforts of legislative workers to unionize if that's what they choose to do.

"This is a paradigm shift," Welch said, acknowledging the fairly unprecedented nature of legislative staff unions. "This is a change in how legislatures work."

As proposed, the legislation would not take effect until July 1, 2026. Again, this longer ramp-up time mirrors the California proposal.

"Part of (the reason for) that is to implement this correctly, properly, it's going to take time, and that's why we put the 2026 effective date in ours as well," he said. "There's no way to do this and create a whole new office by rushing this. And so we want to get it right and that's why we put the effective date a couple of years down the road."

I wrote in my column a few weeks ago that this would be a test of whether Welch and House Democrats practiced what they preached when it came to supporting organized labor.

Well, Welch is now talking the talk. And in a few weeks, the fall legislative session will give him  and Democratic lawmakers more broadly  a chance to walk the walk.

What the Hollywood strikes tell us about the state of unions in the US What the Hollywood strikes tell us about the state of unions in the US Union support reaches levels last seen when Ronald Reagan led striking Hollywood actors Union drives grow more effective Clashes between workers and employers rising Union membership still below prepandemic levels
The leadership of the Ghana Police Service on Tuesday 19th September 2023, paid a visit to the pupils and staff of St. John the Evangelist Catholic School, Adenta, Accra, as part of the Snatch Them Young Policing Initiative dubbed STYPI.



During the visit, the Inspector General of Police Dr George Akuffo Dampare and his team engaged the pupils in an open dialogue on the role of the Police in society, and their responsibilities as young people in ensuring a safer environment for all.



The IGP emphasized the importance of the "Snatch Them Young Policing Initiative" as a programme which aims to make pupils and the younger generation comfortable with the Police and see them as their friends and partners in ensuring the safety of their communities.



He further added that the initiative represents a significant step towards building a safer and more trusting society while laying the foundation for mutual respect between the Police and the citizenry regardless of their age.



STYPI is expected to expand its reach to schools and communities across the country, with a focus on nurturing positive relationships between the Police and the nation's youth.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Mr. Chris Atadika, a prominent member of the communication team of the organisers of the #OccupyJulorBiHouse demonstration has expressed his views on the role youth activism can play in shaping Ghana's future.



The #OccupyJulorBiHouse protest, which took place in Accra, saw many concerned citizens expressing their discontent with Ghanas poor economic situation.



During an interview on Okay FM's Ekwansodwoodwoo program, Mr Atadika clarified that the recent protest was not aimed at advocating for a coup, but rather to draw the attention of government authorities to the importance of doing what is right.



He said, There is a prevailing misconception that Ghanas youth are advocating for a coup. Our message is clear: we do not seek coup; we demand proper governance.



Meanwhile, Atadika has expressed his dismay at how the Ghanaian police handled the protesters.

Source: Benjamin Koomson/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, a founding member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has expressed his concerns about the limitations placed on Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's independence within the party.



According to him, Dr. Bawumia has been the subject of discussion regarding his political future as the flagbearer of the party.



Speaking on Citi TV's Face-to-Face show, Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe clarified his stance: He feels sad for Dr. Bawumia, as he may not be allowed to think independently.



He stated, "I'm not against Dr. Bawumia; the only thing that I feel sad about is that he's not allowed to be himself. That is the only thing I feel sad for that young man [Dr. Bawumia]. If Dr. Bawumia can think independently, if I put it bluntly, he will go far. If he wins the elections, why not? I will support him."



Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe also expressed sympathy for Francis Addai-Nimoh, highlighting him as the individual who, in his opinion, possesses the capacity to unify the party in the lead-up to the 2024 polls.



"I won't support anybody, but I have sympathy for Francis Addai-Nimoh. He's the one who can bring the party together. He's the only one; none of them can bring the party together."



Ghanas leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.











Source: ghanaweb.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Former Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, has revealed that he and a few state officials defended the decision by the government to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2021, while Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta was nowhere to be found.



Kyerematen made this revelation during an interview on UTV on Tuesday, September 26 a day after he broke away from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).



He questioned the confidence of Ofori-Atta in defending the decision, saying, Did you hear from the Finance Minister, having the confidence to defend it? This contrasts with comments made by Kyerematen in July when he was campaigning to be the NPPs flagbearer in the Greater Accra Region, stating that if Ghanaians had listened to him, the country wouldnt have gone to the IMF.



In his latest interview, Kyerematen also implored supporters of other political parties to vote for him in the 2024 presidential elections while retaining their allegiance to their partys Members of Parliament.



This development is sure to create some unease within the New Patriotic Party as Ofori-Attas competence as Finance Minister comes under scrutiny.

It remains to be seen how the party hierarchy will manage this delicate situation in the coming days.











Source: Daily Guide









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Acrylate-based ultraviolet (UV)-curable resins are currently used as raw materials to obtain desired performance by adjusting the types and ratios of oligomer and reactive monomers in the resin system. However, due to low degree of free-radical polymerization, the elastomers prepared by vat photopolymerization (VPP) technology show low strength, poor resilience, and unsatisfactory mechanical properties.

In a study published in Advanced Materials , the research group led by Prof. Wu Lixin from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed 3D printing of high-performance elastomers through vat photopolymerization.

The researchers analyzed the structure-property relationship between molecular weight and mechanical properties, and selected polytetramethylene ether glycols (PTMGs) with different molecular weights (M n =1000, 2000, 3000 g mol-1, respectively) as reactants to react with isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI). The obtained polyurethane blocked oligomers (PUBs) exhibited high viscosities.

To increase the polymerization degree, increasing the proportion of oligomer is the most direct and effective way. However, the viscosity of the resin system also increases dramatically. The previously developed linear scan-based vat photopolymerization (LSVP) can effectively solve this problem by direct 3D printing the high-viscosity resin.

By the merit of the broadened process windows, the researchers synthesized oligomers containing tert-butyl hindered urea bonds (HUBs), which would deblock at high temperatures and re-block at room temperature. During the printing process, the HUBs and viscous compounded oligomers underwent cross-linking via a free radical polymerization mechanism to produce green parts.

With the wide process window capability of the LSVP system, which allows for 3D printing of high-viscosity resin, the researchers replaced the conventional monomer with a high-viscosity oligomer compounded with the as-prepared PUB to create the 3D printable UV-curable resin.

Corresponding mechanical tests revealed that PUB2000-HMDA showed the highest ultimate engineering stress of 25.9  1.6 MPa, along with the highest strain of 1605  63%. The tensile toughness, measured as the integral area beneath the strainstress curve, was 142.3 MJ m-3, indicating an overall superior mechanical performance.

Besides, to further investigate the structure-property relationship between the chain extender and mechanical properties, the researchers employed three different types of chain extenders to evaluate the corresponding mechanical properties. Experimental results showed that the HMDA-extended samples exhibited the highest tensile strength and elongation at break among the three chain extenders.

This study systematically investigates the mechanical properties of high-viscosity PUB-dominated UV-curable resin upon thermal treatment.

More information: Xianmei Huang et al, 3d Printing of High Viscosity UVcurable Resin for Highly Stretchable And Resilient Elastomer, Advanced Materials (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202304430 Journal information: Advanced Materials
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Bohemolichas incola (Barrande, 1872). a, Internal mold of specimen (inventory no. 8) in the nodule (coated with ammonium chloride). bd, Scan model of the same specimen in dorsal (b), ventral (c) and left lateral (d) view. Exoskeleton in cream, hypostome in gold, digestive tract contents in shades of red and blue. The red dotted line indicates an anomalous position of segments five and six. Voxel size, 11.35 m (applies for all figures and extended data). Scale bar, 10 mm. Credit: Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06567-7

Paleontologists from the Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, and their colleagues describes a 465-million-year-old trilobite with preserved gut contents in a new study. The research was published in Nature.

This unique fossil, three-dimensionally preserved in a so-called Rokycany ball, was found more than a hundred years ago. But it has revealed its secrets only now, thanks to the cutting-edge imaging methods of synchrotron tomography. The research fills a fundamental gap in our understanding of trilobite ecology and their role in Paleozoic ecosystems.

The fossilized trilobite was discovered by a private collector, Karel Holub, already in 1908 and has since been housed in the museum of Rokycany (today the Museum of B. Horak, part of the Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen). "I remember this specimen from my childhood," says the first author of the study, Petr Kraft from the Faculty of Science of the CU, "it was my grandfather's favorite fossil. That is why its photo once hung in the office of paleontology at the Rokycany museum, where he volunteered."

But it was not until the beginning of the 21st century that paleontologists realized that the bits of shells visible in the peeled-off median axis of the trilobite's trunk could represent preserved digestive tract contents. At that time, it was impossible to examine them without destroying the rare fossil.

Bohemolichas feeding on the sea floor, moments before it is engulfed, buried and preserved by an underwater mud flow. Credit: Jiri Svoboda.

A breakthrough came with the use of a powerful tool called synchrotron tomography, which enabled the scientists to non-destructively image all the shell fragments in the gut at high resolution. The Rokycany trilobite is among the first Czech fossils that were examined at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.

"Obtaining slice images, similar to what most people know from hospital CT scans, is only the first step. This is followed by manual segmentation of individual structures using a reconstruction software. The three-dimensional model of the fossil is then rendered in a virtual photo studio, which increases the image depth and results in an extremely informative figure," says Valeria Vaskaninova from the Faculty of Science of the CU, who first used this time-consuming but effective combination of imaging methods in a paper on the origin of vertebrate teeth published in 2020 in Science.

The digestive tract of the trilobite Bohemolichas incola was tightly packed with calcareous shells and their fragments that belonged to marine invertebrates such as ostracods, bivalves and echinoderms, some of them identifiable to the species level. The authors propose that the trilobite was an opportunistic scavenger, a light crusher and a chance feeder that ate dead or living animals, which either disintegrated easily or were small enough to be swallowed whole, without any attempt to reject the hard shells.

It is remarkable that even the thin-walled calcareous shells are not even partially dissolved throughout the digestive tract. This indicates that they were not exposed to an acidic environment. A near-neutral or slightly alkaline gut environment can also be observed in modern crustaceans and horseshoe crabs, suggesting that it might be an ancestral character of arthropods.

After death, this scavenger became scavenged. The researchers discovered numerous tracks of tiny scavengers that burrowed into the trilobite's carcass buried in a shallow depth in the muddy sea floor.

They apparently targeted soft tissue but avoided the gut, which is unusual. The scavengers may have sensed that the internal environment of the digestive tract was noxious and contained still-functioning digestive enzymes. But they were also unlucky as they were soon trapped by a solid "ball" rapidly forming around the dead trilobite, as evidenced by the absence of exit tracks.

More information: Petr Kraft et al., Uniquely preserved gut contents illuminate trilobite palaeophysiology, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06567-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06567-7 Journal information: Science , Nature
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According to the findings of a new study, AMPs were detected in cloud water samples from mountain summits in Japan, which confirms that they play a key role in rapid cloud formation. Credit: Hiroshi Okochi from Waseda University

Plastic particles less than 5 mm in size are called "microplastics." These tiny bits of plastic are often found in industrial effluents or form from the degradation of bulkier plastic waste. Research shows that large amounts of microplastics are ingested or inhaled by humans and animals alike and have been detected in multiple organs such as lung, heart, blood, placenta, and feces.

Ten million tons of these plastic bits end up in the ocean, are released with the ocean spray, and find their way into the atmosphere. This implies that microplastics may have become an essential component of clouds, contaminating nearly everything we eat and drink via "plastic rainfall." While most studies on microplastics have focused on aquatic ecosystems, few have looked into their impact on cloud formation and climate change as "airborne particles."

In a new study led by Hiroshi Okochi, Professor at Waseda University, a group of Japanese researchers has explored the path of airborne microplastics (AMPs) as they circulate in the biosphere, adversely impacting human health, and the climate. Their study was recently published in the journal Environmental Chemistry Letters with contributions from co-authors Yize Wang from Waseda University and Yasuhiro Niida from PerkinElmer Japan Co. Ltd.

"Microplastics in the free troposphere are transported and contribute to global pollution. If the issue of 'plastic air pollution' is not addressed proactively, climate change and ecological risks may become a reality, causing irreversible and serious environmental damage in the future," explains Okochi.

To investigate the role of these tiny plastic particles in the troposphere and the atmospheric boundary layer, the team collected cloud water from the summit of Mt. Fuji, south-eastern foothills of Mt. Fuji (Tarobo), and the summit of Mt. Oyamaregions at altitudes ranging between 1,300 and 3,776 meters. Using advanced imaging techniques like attenuated total reflection imaging and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR ATR imaging), the researchers determined the presence of microplastics in the cloud water, and examined their physical and chemical properties.

They identified nine different types of polymers and one type of rubber in the AMPs detected. Notably, most of the polypropylene that was detected in the samples was degraded and had carbonyl (C=O) and/or hydroxyl (OH) groups. The Feret diameters of these AMPs ranged between 7.1 m and 94.6 m, the smallest seen in the free troposphere.

In addition, the presence of hydrophilic (water loving) polymers in the cloud water was abundant, suggesting that they were removed as "cloud condensation nuclei." These findings confirm that AMPs play a key role in rapid cloud formation, which may eventually affect the overall climate.

Accumulation of AMPs in the atmosphere, especially in the polar regions, could lead to significant changes in the ecological balance of the planet, leading to severe loss of biodiversity. Okochi concludes by saying, "AMPs are degraded much faster in the upper atmosphere than on the ground due to strong ultraviolet radiation, and this degradation releases greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming. As a result, the findings of this study can be used to account for the effects of AMPs in future global warming projections."

More information: Yize Wang et al, Airborne hydrophilic microplastics in cloud water at high altitudes and their role in cloud formation, Environmental Chemistry Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s10311-023-01626-x
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This graphic shows antihydrogen atoms falling and annihilating inside a magnetic trap, part of the ALPHA-g experiment at CERN to measure the effect of gravity on antimatter. Credit: U.S. National Science Foundation

For those still holding out hope that antimatter levitates rather than falls in a gravitational field, like normal matter, the results of a new experiment are a dose of cold reality.

Physicists studying antihydrogenan anti-proton paired with an antielectron, or positronhave conclusively shown that gravity pulls it downward and does not push it upward.

At least for antimatter, antigravity doesn't exist.

The experimental results have been reported in the Sept. 28 issue of the journal Nature by a team representing the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) collaboration at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The gravitational acceleration of antimatter that the team comes up with is close to that for normal matter on Earth: 1 g, or 9.8 meters per second per second (32 feet per second per second). More precisely, it was found to be within about 25% (one standard deviation) of normal gravity.

"It surely accelerates downwards, and it's within about one standard deviation of accelerating at the normal rate," said Joel Fajans, a UC Berkeley professor of physics who, with colleague Jonathan Wurtele, a theoretician, first proposed the experiment more than a decade ago. "The bottom line is that there's no free lunch, and we're not going to be able to levitate using antimatter."

The result will not surprise most physicists. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, though conceived before antimatter was discovered in 1932, treats all matter identically, implying that antimatter and matter respond the same to gravitational forces. All normal matter, such as protons, neutrons and electrons, have anti-particles that bear the opposite electrical charge and, when they encounter their normal matter counterpart, annihilate completely.

"The opposite result would have had big implications; it would be inconsistent with the weak equivalence principle of Einstein's general theory of relativity," said Wurtele, UC Berkeley professor of physics. "This experiment is the first time that a direct measurement of the force of gravity on neutral antimatter has been made. It's another step in developing the field of neutral antimatter science."

Fajans noted that no physical theory actually predicts that gravity should be repulsive for antimatter. Some physicists claim that, if it were, you could create a perpetual motion machine, which is theoretically impossible.

Nevertheless, the idea that antimatter and matter might be affected differently by gravity was enticing because it could potentially explain some cosmic conundrums. For example, it could have led to the spatial separation of matter and antimatter in the early universe, explaining why we see only a small amount of antimatter in the universe around us. Most theories predict that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced during the Big Bang that birthed the universe. An artist's conceptual rendering of antihydrogen atoms falling out the bottom of the magnetic trap of the ALPHA-g apparatus. As the antihydrogen atoms escape, they touch the chamber walls and annihilate. Most of the annihilations occur beneath the chamber, showing that gravity is pulling the antihydrogen down. The rotating magnetic field lines in the animation represent the invisible influence of the magnetic field on the antihydrogen. The magnetic field does not rotate in the actual experiment. Credit: Keyi "Onyx" Li/U.S. National Science Foundation

Gravity is incredibly weak

According to Fajans, there have been many experiments, all indirect, that strongly suggest that antimatter gravitates normally, but these experiments have been relatively subtle.

"You might ask, why not do the obvious experiment and drop a piece of antimatter, a sort of leaning tower of Pisa experiment? You know, the experiment that Galileo didn't actually doit was apocryphalwhere he supposedly dropped a lead ball and a wooden ball from the top of the tower and proved that they both reached the ground at the same time," he said.

"The real problem is that the gravitational force is incredibly weak compared to electrical forces," Fajans added. "So far, it has proved impossible to directly measure gravity with a drop-style measurement with a charged particle, like a bare positron, because any stray electric field will deflect the particle much more than gravity will."

In fact, the gravitational force is the weakest of the four known forces of nature. It dominates the evolution of the universe because all mattertheoreticallyis affected by it over immense distances. But for a tiny piece of antimatter, the effect is minuscule. A 1 volt/meter electrical field exerts a force on an antiproton that is about 40 trillion times larger than the force of gravity exerted on it by planet Earth.

The ALPHA collaboration at CERN suggested to Wurtele a new approach. By 2010, the ALPHA team was trapping significant quantities of antihydrogen atoms, and in 2011, Wurtele insisted to Fajans that since antihydrogen is charge neutral, it would not be affected by electric fields, and they should explore the possibility of a gravity measurement.

Fajans dismissed the idea for many months, but was eventually persuaded to take it seriously enough to perform some simulations that suggested Wurtele's ideas had merit. UC Berkeley lecturer Andrew Charman and postdoctoral fellow Andrey Zhmoginov became involved and realized that a retrospective analysis of prior data could provide very coarse limits on antimatter's gravitational interactions with Earth.

With help from their ALPHA colleagues, this led to a paper that concluded that antihydrogen experiences no more than about 100 times the accelerationin the up or down directiondue to Earth's gravity, compared to regular matter.

That underwhelming start nevertheless convinced the ALPHA team to build an experiment to make a more precise measurement. In 2016 the collaboration began to construct a new experiment, ALPHA-g, which conducted its first measurements in the summer and fall of 2022.

The results published in Nature are based on simulations and a statistical analysis of what the team observed last year and puts the gravitational constant for antimatter at 0.75  0.13  0.16 g, or, if you combine the statistical and systematic errors, 0.75  0.29 g, which is within error bars of 1 g. The team concluded that the chance of gravity being repulsive for antimatter is so small as to be meaningless.

UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Danielle Hodgkinson, right, running the ALPHA-g experiment from the control room at CERN in Switzerland. Credit: Joel Fajans, UC Berkeley

At least a dozen UC Berkeley undergraduate physics majors participated in the assembly and running of the experiment, Fajans and Wurtele said, many of them from groups not well represented in the field of physics.

"It's been a great opportunity for many Berkeley undergraduates," Fajans said. "They're fun experiments, and our students learn a lot."

A balance

The plan for ALPHA-g that Wurtele and Fajans proposed was to confine about 100 antihydrogen atoms at a time in a 25-centimeter-long magnetic bottle. ALPHA can only confine antihydrogen atoms that have a temperature less than half a degree above absolute zero, or 0.5 Kelvin.

Even at this extremely low temperature, the antiatoms are moving at speeds averaging 100 meters per second, bouncing hundreds of times per second off the strong magnetic fields at the ends of the bottle. (The magnetic dipole moment of an antihydrogen atom is repelled by the pinched 10,000 Gauss magnetic fields at each end of the bottle.)

If the bottle is oriented vertically, the atoms moving downward will accelerate due to gravity, while those moving upward will decelerate. When the magnetic fields at each end are identical, that is, balanced, those atoms moving downward will have, on average, more energy. Thus, they will be more likely to escape through the magnetic mirror and hit the container, annihilating in a flash of light and producing three to five pions. The pions are detected to determine whether the antiatom escaped upward or downward.

The experiment is like a standard balance used to compare very similar weights, Fajans said. The magnetic balance makes the relatively tiny gravitational force visible in the presence of much larger magnetic forces, much the same way that a normal balance makes visible the difference between 1 kilogram and 1.001 kilograms.

The mirror magnetic fields are then very slowly ramped down, so that all the atoms eventually escape. If antimatter behaves like normal matter, more antiatomsabout 80% of themshould escape out the bottom than the top.

"The balancing allows us to ignore the fact that the antiatoms are all of different energies," Fajans said. "The lowest energy ones escape last, but they're still subject to the balance, and the effect of gravity is enhanced for all antiatoms."

The experimental setup also allows ALPHA to make the bottom magnetic mirror stronger or weaker than the top mirror, which gives each antiatom a boost in energy that can cancel or overcome the effects of gravity, allowing equal or greater numbers of antiatoms to go out the top than the bottom. An artist's conceptual rendering of the antihydrogen atoms contained within the magnetic trap of the ALPHA-g apparatus. As the field strength at the top and bottom of the magnetic trap is reduced, the antihydrogen atoms escape, touch the chamber walls and annihilate. Most of the annihilations occur beneath the chamber, showing that gravity is pulling the antihydrogen down. Credit: Keyi "Onyx" Li/U.S. National Science Foundation

"This gives us a powerful experimental knob that allows us, basically, to believe the experiment actually worked because we can prove to ourselves that we can control the experiment in a predictable manner," Fajans said.

The results had to be treated statistically because of the many unknowns: The researchers couldn't be certain how many antihydrogen atoms they'd trapped, they couldn't be sure they detected every annihilation, they couldn't be sure there were not some unknown magnetic fields that would have affected the antiatom trajectories, and they couldn't be sure they'd measured the magnetic field in the bottle correctly.

"ALPHA's computer code simulating the experiment could be subtly wrong because we don't know the precise initial conditions of the antihydrogen atoms, it could be wrong because our magnetic fields aren't correct, and it could be wrong for some unknown unknown," Wurtele said. "Nonetheless, the control provided by adjusting the balance knob lets us explore the extent of any discrepancies, giving us confidence that our result is correct."

The UC Berkeley physicists are hopeful that upcoming improvements to ALPHA-g and to the computer codes will improve the instrument's sensitivity by a factor of 100.

"This result is a group effort, although the genesis of this project was at Berkeley," Fajans said, "ALPHA was designed for spectroscopy of antihydrogen, not gravitational measurements of these antiatoms. Jonathan's and my proposal was completely orthogonal to all the plans for ALPHA, and the research would likely not have happened without our work and years of lonely development."

And while the null result could be dismissed as unexciting, the experiment is also an important test of general relativity, which to date has passed all other tests.

"If you walk down the halls of this department and ask the physicists, they would all say that this result is not the least bit surprising. That's the reality," Wurtele said. "But most of them will also say that the experiment had to be done because you never can be sure. Physics is an experimental science. You don't want to be the kind of stupid that you don't do an experiment that explores possibly new physics because you thought you knew the answer, and then it ends up being something different."

Undergraduate students who participated include Josh Clover, Haley Calderon, Mike Davis, Jason Dones, Huws Landsberger, Nicolas Kalem James McGrievy, Dalila Robledo, Sara Saib, Shawn Shin, Ethan Ward, Larry Zhao and Dana Zimmer.

More information: Jeffrey Hangst, Observation of the effect of gravity on the motion of antimatter, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06527-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06527-1 Anna Soter, Free-falling antihydrogen reveals the effect of gravity on antimatter, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-023-02930-w , www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02930-w Journal information: Nature
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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

High school students in poor, rural Appalachian areas face several obstacles in attaining a college education. One of those impediments may be their own sense of powerlessness over their academic futures, according to new research published in The Career Development Quarterly journal.

Appalachian students whose parents have no college education are particularly prone to believing they lack command over their higher-education prospects, the study at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, shows. They may believe they can't afford to attend the college of their choice, switch majors or transfer to another school if they want.

"Students' sense of control over or volition in the college-going process may be a key factor in understanding their access to postsecondary education," the researchers wrote.

Researchers Danielle L. Graham, Ph.D.; Erin E. Hardin, Ph.D.; and Melinda M. Gibbons, Ph.D., used a version of a tool originally used to gauge an individual's sense of control over their careers. They used a modified version of the tool to test its utility with high school students.

The researchers surveyed 452 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in areas that government agencies label as economically distressed. They used questionnaires designed to assess the students' confidence in their ability to enroll in and complete college and their perceptions of financial and logistical barriers to a college education. They also asked students to rate their agreement with statements ranging from "I feel total control of my choices regarding college" to "Due to my financial situation, I will need to pursue any college option I can find."

They found that students who felt the most control over their college options were also the most confident in their ability to get into and complete school. But prospective first-generation college students reported a lower sense of control over their college choices compared with students with at least one college-educated parent. Students whose parents lack a college degree tend to live in relatively lower-income households, enter the workforce upon graduating from high school, and doubt their ability to attend college, previous research has shown.

"Thus, we conclude that volition is not just another way of perceiving [lack of] barrier, but an additional influence on how students feel about the prospect of going to college," the researchers wrote.

They caution that many of the survey participants had attended a program designed to change perceptions about college enrollment. However, they were unable to identify those students, nor account for the influence of that intervention.

The findings signal that counselors might consider addressing students' sense of control over their futures when advising them about college, the authors said. Those conversations may help students feel empowered to access meaningful education and careers, they added.

More information: Danielle L. Graham et al, Conceptualizing collegegoing volition in rural Appalachian high school students, The Career Development Quarterly (2023). DOI: 10.1002/cdq.12333

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NASA's Osiris-Rex mission successfully landed in the western United States on September 24, 2023.

After a seven-year wait, NASA scientists on Tuesday finally pried open a space probe carrying the largest asteroid samples ever brought back to Earth, finding black debris.

Researchers "found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the OSIRIS-REx science canister when the initial lid was removed today," the US space agency said, though without specifying whether they definitely belonged to the asteroid.

Scientists are eagerly awaiting researching the bulk of the sample, which will require "intricate disassembly" of the probe.

OSIRIS-REx launched in 2016, landing on the asteroid Bennu and collected roughly nine ounces (250 grams) of dust from its rocky surface.

Even that small amount, NASA has said, should "help us better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth."

It ended its 3.86-billion-mile (6.21-billion-kilometer) journey after touching down in the desert in the western state of Utah on Sunday, following a high-stakes, fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere.

Lockheed Martin Recovery Specialists Levi Hanish and Michael Kaye remove the lid of the sample return canister. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowiz

The residue on the avionics deck found Tuesday was likely a result of issues during the collection, which NASA said were eventually solved, allowing the secure transfer of the sample.

The lid was opened in an airtight chamber at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

A news conference is scheduled October 11 in which the bulk of the sample will be revealed to the public.

The analysis of the asteroid, scientists believe, will help researchers better understand the formation of the solar system and how Earth became habitable.

Most of the sample will be conserved for study by future generations. Roughly one-fourth will be immediately used in experiments, and a small amount will be sent to mission partners Japan and Canada.

 2023 AFP
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Smoke rises from the chimneys of the Suralaya coal-fired power plant in Cilegon on September 14, 2023 Less than a year after it was announced, a USD 20 billion bet to wean Indonesia off coal is mired in controversies over financing and the construction of new plants to power industry.

Less than a year after it was announced, a $20 billion bet to wean Indonesia off coal is mired in controversies over financing and the construction of new plants to power industry.

The Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) for Indonesia was unveiled last November, as the country hosted the G20 summit in Bali.

It follows a model first trialed in South Africa, and subsequently announced for Vietnam and Senegal, with rich countries pledging funds for the developing world's energy transition.

The basic premise is simple: public and private financing of up to $20 billion, in exchange for Indonesia peaking power sector emissions by 2030 and reaching net-zero power sector emissions by 2050.

That brings forward Jakarta's previous pledges and would see one of the world's top coal exporters and coal power generators weaning itself from the polluting fossil fuel.

But after the initial fanfare has come the much tougher business of plotting a path to those goals.

In August, Jakarta postponed the release of its JETP roadmap, in part over problems calculating its expected emissions.

Indonesia's JETP assumes the power sector was on track to emit 357 million tons of carbon by 2030, and will now limit that to a peak of 290 million tons.

A man walks past a pile of coal at the Karya Citra Nusantara (KCN) Marunda port in Jakarta on January 17, 2022.

But those figures failed to account for a number of new "captive" coal plants, which power factories rather than feeding into the grid.

So, "the question arises: can the target of 290 million tons still be achieved," asked Fabby Tumiwa, executive director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), an Indonesian energy think tank.

"And is the commitment of $20 billion... adequate to achieve that target?"

The JETP secretariat did not respond to a request for comment.

'Not the way to do it'

Jakarta is reportedly also unhappy about the deal's proposed mix of financing, worried it will be offered mostly market-rate loans that saddle it with debt.

"Indonesia is hoping for a larger share of grants," said Anissa Suharsono, energy policy associate at the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

She pointed to a Bloomberg report suggesting Indonesia could expect just $289 million in grants, with half earmarked for technical assistance.

Chart showing Indonesia's electricity generation by source, 2000-2021.

"That is, in my view, outrageous. If it's meant to be a climate fund to encourage a developing country to faster transition, then this is not the way to do it," Suharsono told AFP.

The scale of the funding is another sticking point.

The JETP is not intended to cover all transition costs, with backers saying it should encourage other investors.

But estimates for the cost of achieving Indonesia's pledged goals are upwards of $100 billion, Tumiwa said, and that figure could be higher given the emissions miscalculation.

Even if an agreement on the financing mix can be hammered out, there are other stumbling blocks.

Indonesia, which generates over 60 percent of its power from coal, has many more coal plants than South Africaone of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, and they are much younger.

That makes them more expensive to retire, with many more years of potential returns on investment to compensate when shuttering them.

Coal is transported on barges in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia on January 11, 2022.

'Nothing is perfect'

Solar and wind power account for less than one percent each of Indonesia's current power mix, and the archipelago's grid is both decentralized and needs upgrading to handle the intermittent nature of renewable energy.

The appetite for financing those upgrades may be low because state-owned Perusahaan Listrik Negara, commonly known by its acronym PLN, has a monopoly on the power sector, added Suharsono.

"Who's going to invest money in a grid that is going to belong to someone else?"

Experts also warn Indonesia needs to prepare for the economic impact of shifting from coal, an industry that directly employs around 250,000 people, according to IESR.

"The coal regions like in Kalimantan and south Sumatra, they are very reliant on the income from coal extractions and economic activities created from these coal extractions," said Rezky Khairun Zain, climate and energy senior analyst at the World Resources Institute, Indonesia.

"The government needs to set up capacity building not only for the workers but also the (local) governments, for them to find another way to increase the income not from the coal activities," he told AFP.

For all the challenges, Tumiwa believes the program is the best option on the table.

"Nothing is perfect. The funding is still insufficient, and the negotiations are still challenging," he said.

"But we must proceed, at least to demonstrate that this concept can work and serve as a model."

 2023 AFP
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This is the entrance to a lava tube on Hawaii's Big Island. Credit: By dronepicrLava tube Big island Hawaii, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75616740

Caves were some of humanity's first shelters. Who knows what our distant ancestors were thinking as they sought refuge there, huddling and cooking meat over a fire, maybe drawing animals on the walls. Caves protected our ancient ancestors from the elements, and from predators and rivals, back when sticks, stones, furs and fire were our only technologies.

So there's a poetic parallel between early humans and us. We're visiting the moon again, and lunar caves could shelter us the way caves sheltered our ancestors on Earth.

On the moon, astronauts will need protection from a different set of hazards. They'll have to contend with cosmic and solar radiation, meteorites, wild temperature swings, and even impact ejecta. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has found hundreds of lunar "skylights," locations where a lava tube's ceiling has collapsed, making a natural opening into the tube. It's hard to tell without exploring, but lava tubes several hundred meters in diameter could exist on the moon. That's a lot of room to work with, and they could provide the shelter astronauts will need. The idea is to build a base inside a lunar lava tube, where astronauts gain additional protection from the thick rock ceiling overhead.

China is considering the idea now, just like others before them. Lunar lava caves might be a resource too valuable to ignore.

Lava tubes are also called pyroducts. They formed when lava flowing across the surface of the moon began to cool. The top of the flowing lava formed a hardened crust, but the molten lava kept flowing underneath it and eventually drained, leaving an empty tube. They're here on Earth as well.

Spectacular high sun view of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. The 100-meter pit may provide access to a lunar lava tube. Credit: By NASA/GSFC/Arizona State Universityhttp://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13518, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54853313

Scientists aren't sure when lunar volcanism ended. It may have been as far back as one billion years ago, though some evidence shows there was small-scale volcanism in the last 50 million years. In either case, these lava tubes are ancient and untouched.

On the moon, astronauts will have to contend with the temperature swings. Earth's natural satellite is a world of temperature extremes. One side of the moon is in direct sunlight for half of the time, and surface temperatures reach as high as 127C (260F.) The side that's shrouded in darkness sinks as low as -173C (-280F.) That wild temperature swing makes it challenging to work on the lunar surface, and to engineer and build equipment that can be effective in such a large range. Lava tubes provide a natural steady-temperature environment that can't be found elsewhere on the moon.

Radiation is also hazardous on the lunar surface. It can be as much as 150 times more powerful than on Earth's surface. That's deadly, but in lunar caves astronauts would be sheltered by several meters of overhead rock. That's a thick enough barrier to provide effective protection.

The risk of impacts and impact debris is much smaller, but it has to be accounted for. Obviously, lava tubes provide shelter from small impacts.

Different teams of scientists from different countries and agencies have studied the idea of using lava tubes as shelter. At a recent conference in China, Zhang Chongfeng from the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology presented a study into the underground world of lava tubes. Chinese researchers did fieldwork in Chinese lava tubes to understand how to use them on the moon.

On the left is an LRO image of a pit in the center of Mare Fecunditatis, and on the right is a context map showing the pit with a yellow arrow. This is just one of the pits begging to be explored. Credit: NASA/LRO

According to Zhang, there's enough similarity between lunar and Earthly lava tubes for one to be an analog of the other. It starts with their two types of entrances, vertical and sloped. Both worlds have both types.

Most of what we've found on the moon are vertical-opening tubes, but that may be because of our overhead view. The openings are called skylights, where the ceiling has collapsed and left a debris accumulation on the floor of the tube directly below it. Entering through these requires either flight or some type of vertical lift equipment.

Sloped entrances make entry and exit much easier. It's possible that rovers could simply drive into them, though some debris would probably need to be cleared. According to Zhang, this is the preferred entrance that makes exploration easier. China is prioritizing lunar lava tubes at Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) and Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fecundity) for exploration.

China is planning a robotic system that can explore caves like the one in Mare Tranquillitatis. The primary probe will have either wheels or feet and will be built to adapt to challenging terrain and to overcome obstacles. It'll also have a scientific payload.

Auxiliary vehicles can separate from the main probe to perform more reconnaissance and help with communications and "energy support." They could be diversified so the mission can meet different challenges. They might include multi-legged crawling probes, rolling probes, and even bouncing probes. These auxiliary vehicles would also have science instruments to study the lunar dust, radiation, and the presence of water ice in the tubes.

This image shows a proposed 1,400 km traverse across the moons Mare Fecunditatis, a region rich in volcanic features, including lava tubes and the pit craters that could provide access. Credit: Zhao et al, 2022

China is also planning a flight-capable robot that could find its way through lava tubes autonomously using microwave and laser radars.

China's future plan, after successful exploration, is a crewed base. It would be a long-term underground research base in one of the lunar lava tubes, with a support center for energy and communication at the tube's entrance. The terrain would be landscaped, and the base would include both residential and research facilities inside the tube.

China doesn't have the same enthusiasm for information-sharing that an organization like NASA has, so details are more difficult to uncover. But there's no question that China's space activities are ascendant right now, with multiple successful missions completed, some still in progress, and future ones planned. In the Spring of 2023, China announced plans to start building a moon base by 2028, though it's not clear if that announcement referred to a lunar lava tube base. That seems to contradict the most recent statement saying that China plans to "realize manned lunar landing by 2030."

But regardless of when they start, China seems committed to the idea. Ding Lieyun, a top scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told the China Science Daily that "Eventually, building habitation beyond the Earth is essential not only for all humanity's quest for space exploration but also for China's strategic needs as a space power." This language almost exactly mirrors the language used by NASA when talking about its Artemis program.

In preparation for more lunar missions and an eventual base, Chinese researchers have studied both Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Fecunditatis. In 2022 a team of scientists published a study on Mare Fecunditatis' volcanic features in the journal Remote Sensing.

Mare Fecunditatis is rich in volcanic features, including lava tubes. The 2022 paper pointed out that no mission to the moon's surface has traveled more than 40 km (25 mi.) But that will change in the future. The researchers behind this work propose a five-year long mission similar to NASA's Mars rover missions. In five years, a Chinese rover could explore Mare Fecunditatis during a 1,400 km (870 mi) traverse. By studying volcanic features like lava tubes, domes, and rilles, they would develop a more comprehensive understanding of the moon's regional geology. They may also select a site for a lunar base.

China is not the first to wonder about lava tubes as bases. The idea has been around for a long time. But before long, China and other spacefaring nations will be in a position to explore them, and to begin to get serious about building one.

Space exploration and politics are intertwined, and in China, they're even more intertwined than other countries. The inner machinations of both are sometimes hidden behind an opaque wall, and details aren't always readily available. It's as if people are afraid of saying the wrong thing. But China's intentions are clear, and if past is prolog, they'll get to the moon and build a base.

Maybe some of the Chinese taikonauts who eventually shelter in these lunar caves will spend a moment or two thinking about our ancient ancestors and how caves sheltered them. Maybe one of them will be the first human to make marks on the wall of a lunar lava tube.

Then one day, after humanity fades away, future alien explorers might find these marks and ponder their meaning.
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The shipping industry accounts for nearly three percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The UN called for rapid decarbonization of the shipping industry on Wednesday, warning that the price tag could top $100 billion a year as the sector's emissions continue to swell.

The UN's trade and development agency, UNCTAD, highlighted the vital role shipping plays in the global economy, with over 80 percent of all traded goods in the world moved by sea.

But it also accounts for nearly three percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.

At a time when industries are under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint to avert catastrophic climate change, emissions from the global maritime fleet has increased by 20 percent in the past decade.

"We call for global action to decarbonize shipping," UNCTAD chief Rebeca Grynspan told reporters, presenting an annual report on the industry.

"Balancing environmental sustainability, regulatory compliance and economic demands is vital for a prosperous, equitable and resilient future for maritime transport," she said.

The agency is calling for a rapid shift towards cleaner fuels across a shipping industry, where nearly 99 percent of the global fleet remains reliant on conventional fuels.

"Fuel transition in shipping is still in its infancy," Shamika Sirimanne, head of UNCTAD's technology and logistics division, told reporters.

UNCTAD cited some promising developments, including that 21 percent of vessels currently on order are designed for alternative fuels.

But the agency stressed the need to step up the pace, while acknowledging that "the transition comes with substantial costs".

The UNCTAD report found that up to $28 billion would be required annually to decarbonize ships by 2050.

And even more investmentsas much as $90 billionwould be needed each year to develop the necessary infrastructure for 100 percent carbon neutral fuels by then, it said.

In addition, full decarbonization could raise annual fuel expenses by as much as 100 percent, potentially taking a heavy toll on small island developing states and other poor countries that rely heavily on maritime transport.

Net-zero target

The International Maritime Organization clinched a deal in July to cut the shipping industry's total annual emissions by at least 20 percent by 2030 and by at least 70 percent by 2040 compared to 2008 levels.

The revised strategy also aims for the industry to reach net-zero emissions "close to" 2050. That compared with the prior target for a 50-percent reduction by mid-century.

The IMO is discussing economic measures to generate funds to help support poorer countries' decarbonization efforts and close the price gap between traditional and alternative fuels.

To ensure an equitable transition, UNCTAD is also calling for a universal regulatory framework, applicable to all, to help avoid a "two-speed decarbonization process".

Clear regulations would help remove a large element of uncertainty facing the world's ship owners, many of whom are preparing to renew ageing fleets.

At the start of 2023, the world's commercial ships were on average 22.2 years old, with more than half of the global fleet over 15 years of age.

"This is a challenge and an opportunity," Grynspan said, pointing out that it could provide incentive to build more sustainable ships.

But given the current lack in clarity regarding regulations and incentives to shift to alternative fuels and green technologies, ship owners in need of renewing their fleet could also opt for old-style ships that could roam the seas for decades.

Longer routes

Wednesday's report highlighted that the global shipping industry remains resilient despite challenges stemming from the Covid pandemic and Russia's war in Ukaine.

Global maritime trade volumes and containerised trade are both forecast to grow this year after declining in 2022.

The report also pointed to how the Ukraine war had "led to changes in shipping patterns and increased the distances traveled for commodities, especially oil and grain".

Global oil cargo distances reached an all-time high last year.

Grain shipments have also traveled further than in any year on record in 2023 as countries that have traditionally sources wheat and other products form Ukraine have been forced to find new suppliers such as the United States and Brazil, UNCTAD said.

 2023 AFP
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Credit: Russian Foundation for Basic Research

RUDN University ecologists found a parameter in satellite images that allows accurately calculating and increasing the wheat yield. Such technology helps agronomists monitor crops and make decisions. These results were published in The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science.

Low crop yields are usually associated with disturbances in agro-climatic conditions, improper or untimely tillage, diseases, and pests. Laboratory analyses require a lot of time and equipment, and cannot provide a complete spatial picture. To solve the problem of yield instability we need new approaches. One of them is satellite monitoring.

Images obtained from satellites make it possible to assess crop growth rates over a large area at once and take timely measures to prevent a decrease in yield. RUDN University ecologists and colleagues from Algeria, Egypt, and Russia have determined an indicator that will help calculate the yield with almost 100% accuracy. They made an experiment using several varieties of winter wheat as an example.

"It is necessary to improve cultivation technologies taking into account varietal characteristics and soil and climatic conditions. We need to increase the potential of new varieties of winter wheat and solve problems of crop instability. That is why modern crop management technologies are important for agriculture," said Dmitry Kucher, Ph.D., head of the Scientific Center for Research, Integrated Design and Development of Urban and Agriculture at RUDN University.

Over a year, ecologists observed the growth of wheat that was grown under three different soil, seed, and plant treatment regimes, from standard to high intensity. To do this, the authors used Sentinel-2 satellite images with a resolution of 10 to 60 meters. At the same time, RUDN University ecologists monitored the "ground" indicators of wheat: the crop yield and the grain quality. With satellite images in different ranges, they determined the wheat growth indicatorsvegetation indices, which reflect vegetation density, photosynthesis activity, chlorophyll content, and others.

The results showed that the treatment method significantly affects all vegetation indices. The indices themselves correlate well (by no less than 83%) with the final indicatorthe crop yield. The green chlorophyll index (CGI) turned out to be the most effective for predicting harvest volumeits correlation with yield was 98%.

"We have uncovered the potential of crop management using remote vegetation indices. The results show the advantages of remote sensing in terms of cost and monitoring area compared to traditional methods. Remote sensing reveals spatial variation in growth. This will improve cultivation and help achieve optimal production in terms of quantity and quality," said Dmitry Kucher, Ph.D., head of the Scientific Center for Research, Integrated Design and Development of Urban and Agriculture at RUDN University.

More information: N.Y. Rebouh et al, Towards improving the precision agriculture management of the wheat crop using remote sensing: A case study in Central Non-Black Earth region of Russia, The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.ejrs.2023.06.007

Provided by Russian Foundation for Basic Research
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Leaf fossils in rocks from the early Paleocene from a site in Mexican Hat, Montana. Credit: Peter Wilf

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid the size of San Francisco crashed into a shallow sea off the coast of modern-day Mexico and plunged the world into an extinction event that killed off as much as 75% of life, including the dinosaurs.

But a debate remains about how the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction (K-Pg) impacted plant life on land, in part because global studies of the fossil record have shown that no major plant families went extinct.

A new analysis of emerging fossil data from North and South America sheds light on how plants fared during the K-Pg boundary and points to a true plant extinction, a team of scientists reported in the new journal Cambridge Prisms: Extinction.

"There has been a trend in the literature to say maybe this event was bad for the dinosaurs and lots of marine life, but it was fine for plants because the major groups survived," said Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences at Penn State and lead author. "Our review counters that idea, because everywhere we looked, more than half of the species went extinct."

Understanding what happened to ancient plants during the extinction requires suitable fossil-plant collections, and, for the K-Pg, these were limited previously to just a few areas in the United States, the scientists said. New fossils from Colombia and Argentina and the United States have provided a broader geographic range to study the severity, ecosystem effects and legacies of the event on plant life.

"You need really strong sampling and to know where the rocks with plant fossils are," Wilf said. "Differences in DNA among living plants are not going to tell you anything about deep-time species extinctions. You need plant fossils from before and after. You need layers of rock that show the extinction. And the more indicators you have, the more complete your story is."

The researchers reviewed emerging fossil data from North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico in the United States and from Colombia and Argentina. The evidence points to a significant plant species loss, greater than 50% at each site, the scientists said.

This loss of species represents a real extinction, the scientists said. Modern conservation efforts, for example, focus on saving specieslike the polar bearnot the larger group that it belongs toall bears or all mammals. Applying this to plants, the extinction of an entire modern plant family, like Fagaceae, would require killing off all the species of beeches, chestnuts and oaks.

"You really can't kill most plant families, so that argument is a bit pointless," Wilf said. "By the end-Cretaceous, each family had too many genera with too many species and individuals. Plants outweigh all animals combined, more than two hundredfold. Dinosaurs were many times less diverse and abundant than plants, and thus it was much easier to kill off nearly all major categories of themonly birds survived."

"We are reminding our colleagues that these plant species extinctions were real, very significant extinctions. In every place we look that has the record preserved, there were huge losses of plant species, followed by an amazing series of evolutionary events that made our modern world what it is."

The K-Pg extinction ushered in the rise and true dominance of flowering plants and helped establish the planet's tropical rainforests that hold most of its biodiversity, Wilf said.

"Mass extinctions are not just about taxonomic loss," said Monica R. Carvalho, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and co-author on the study. "There is a transformative effect on ecosystemswhat they are made of, how they operate. Fossils show that post-extinction tropical rainforests were profoundly different from their predecessors in composition, structure and ecology."

At all the locations studied, the extinction event had a transformative impact on plant life and terrestrial ecosystems, the scientists said.

"The purpose here was to update everybody that we have these different areas and to compare them," Wilf said. "This allows us to address this question of heterogeneitywas everything a monolithwas the end-Cretaceous plant extinction the same everywhere. This paper shows that is really wasn'tthat very different things happened in different places."

Those differences likely were influenced by factors like distance from the impact site, the Chicxulub crater off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and how susceptible local plant life would have been to freezing conditions brought on by the global darkness following the impact.

"These extinctions partly resulted from planetary freezing and could have been particularly severe at the tropics," Wilf said. "That's an area that really doesn't like to be frozen and is also very biodiverse. This was a warm world, without much frost. The best place to be, after the initial tsunamis, shock waves and so forth passed, was near the coasts for maritime temperature buffering."

The K-Pg extinction is considered an analog for the modern biodiversity crisis because both involve massive environmental changes over a geologically instantaneous period of time, the scientists said. Global conservation assessments show that a comparable number of plant speciesaround 40%are threatened with extinction now and losing them could lead to ecological impacts comparable to the K-Pg extinction, Wilf said.

"Although the worst outcomes are still preventable, the sixth mass extinction could mirror the K-Pg event by eliminating comparable numbers of plant species in a geologic instant, to the great detriment of biodiversity, ecosystems and civilizations," Wilf said. "It could eventually transform terrestrial ecosystems while having little effect on global plant-family diversity."

More information: Peter Wilf et al, The end-Cretaceous plant extinction: Heterogeneity, ecosystem transformation, and insights for the future, Cambridge Prisms: Extinction (2023). DOI: 10.1017/ext.2023.13 Journal information: Cambridge Prisms: Extinction
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Fungal biomass after fermentation on oat followed by harvesting (left) and sieving (right). Credit: Neda Rousta. https://hb.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1778041/FULLTEXT01.pdf

They are sustainable and healthyfilamentous edible fungi that are fed with, for example, oats. The latest addition to the world-leading research at the Swedish Center for Resource Recovery is Neda Rousta's doctoral thesis on filamentous fungi with the potential to transform our food systems.

"In my doctoral studies, I focused on harnessing the potential of microbial fermentation, specifically edible filamentous fungi such as Aspergillus oryzae, to address the current shortcomings in our food systems," said Rousta, who defended her doctoral thesis on 11 September.

Her work delves into various aspects, ranging from optimizing the production of fungal biomass using different substrates to investigating the synthesis of the substance L-carnitine by these fungi. Additionally, she explored the possibility of using fungal biomass to create sustainable and nutritious food products, such as fungi burger patties.

Improved nutritional content

In her doctoral thesis, Rousta shows the potential of filamentous fungi as a sustainable and healthy food source. Cultivation trials with Aspergillus oryzae on oat flour resulted in nutritious fungal biomass with an improved nutrient content.

In addition, her work demonstrated the fungi's ability to synthesize bioactive substances such as L-carnitine, where Aspergillus oryzae outperformed other fungal species. Rousta was pleasantly surprised by the adaptability, productivity, and nutritious properties of the filamentous fungi.

Tackling societal issues

The University of Boras has been conducting world-leading research on fungi for more than 20 years in the area of Resource Recovery. The research relates to issues such as the environmental sustainability of our food systems and the promotion of human health. Today, conventional animal husbandry is a part of our food systems that contributes to the emissions of a large amount of greenhouse gases. Rousta's work offers a potential solution by showing how fungal fermentation can offer sustainable, nutritious food alternatives, potentially mitigating emissions from traditional agriculture.

When asked about her plans after finishing her thesis, Rousta is eager to continue research.

"Whether in academia or in collaboration with the food industry, I am determined to continue exploring the use of filamentous fungi in sustainable and healthy food production. I hope for continued experiments, to scale up processes, and possibly work with practical implementations."

A challenging but rewarding journey

When she reflects on her time as a doctoral student, Rousta describes it as both challenging and incredibly rewarding. Her deep dive into microbial fermentation and sustainable food production involved rigorous experimentation, data analysis, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

"The topic itself was fascinating and it feels meaningful to contribute to a more sustainable and healthy future for global food systems," she concluded.

More information: Harnessing the potential of filamentous fungi for sustainable and healthy food system. PhD dissertation. Hogskolan i Boras. urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-30011

Provided by University of Boras
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NEW YORK  U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges accusing him of pocketing bribes of cash and gold bars in exchange for wielding his political influence to secretly advance Egyptian interests and do favors for local businessmen.

Menendez led his wife, Nadine, who also pleaded not guilty in the case, by the hand out of the courtroom after the brief hearing in the lower Manhattan federal courthouse days after prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging vast corruption by the Democrat. The couple ignored shouted questions from reporters as they left the courthouse. Menendez gave a tight-lipped smile as he stepped into a car.

A defiant Menendez has said allegations that he abused his power to line his pockets are baseless. He has said he is confident he will be exonerated and has no intention of leaving the Senate.

Still, calls for Menendez to resign continued to mount Wednesday with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, saying he should step down. More than half of Senate Democrats have now said Menendez should resign, including fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking to reporters hours after Menendezs court appearance, did not call for Menendez to resign and said Menendez would address his Democratic colleagues Thursday. We all know that senators  for senators, theres a much much higher standard. And clearly, when you read the indictment, Sen. Menendez fell way, way below that standard, said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Menendez spoke in court only when each defendant stood to acknowledge that they understood the charges against them. A lawyer entered the not guilty plea for Menendez, who was forced to step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted.

The senator was released on a $100,000 bond, and he must surrender any personal passports but will be allowed to keep an official passport that would allow him to travel outside the U.S. for government business. The judge ordered him not to have contact outside of the presence of lawyers with his co-defendants except for his wife.

He also cannot talk about the case, outside of the presence of lawyers, with members of his Senate staff, Foreign Relations Committee staff or political advisers who have personal knowledge about the allegations. It was not immediately clear how those restrictions would affect his work.

Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin was approved Wednesday as the new chairman of the Foreign Relations panel.

Its the second corruption case in a decade against Menendez, whose last trial involving different allegations ended with jurors failing to reach a verdict in 2017.

Authorities say they found nearly $500,000 in cash, much of it hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than $100,000 in gold bars in a search of the New Jersey home Menendez, 69, shares with his wife.

Menendezs wife was released on $250,000 bond secured by her home in her Englewood Cliffs, Bergen County. Prosecutors say she played a key role in collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes from three New Jersey businessmen seeking help from the longtime lawmaker.

Prosecutors allege repeated actions by Menendez to benefit the authoritarian government of Egypt. They say Menendez also tried to interfere in criminal investigations involving associates, in one case pushing to install in New Jersey a federal prosecutor who he believed he could influence to derail a case.

Two of the businessmen, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, also pleaded not guilty and were freed pending trial. They did not speak to reporters as they left the courthouse, and their attorneys also declined to comment.

The third, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery. Hana was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges, and was freed pending trial.

Menendez, in his first public remarks after last weeks indictment, said Monday that the cash found in his home was drawn from his personal savings accounts over the years and that he kept it on hand for emergencies.

John Fetterman calls on Menendez to resign, says he plans to return campaign donation in cash-stuffed envelopes Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has called on fellow Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to resign in the wake of the federal bribery charges filed last week against the New Jersey senator and his wife.

One of the envelopes full of cash found at his home, however, bore Daibes DNA and was marked with the real estate developers return address, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Hana promised to put Menendezs wife on his companys payroll in a low- or no-show job in exchange for Menendez using his influential post to facilitate foreign military sales and financing to Egypt. Prosecutors allege Hana also paid $23,000 toward her home mortgage, wrote $30,000 checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars that were found in the couples home.

The indictment alleges repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt, despite U.S. government misgivings over the countrys human rights record that in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid.

Prosecutors, who detailed meetings and dinners between Menendez and Egyptian officials, say Menendez gave sensitive U.S. government information to Egyptian officials and ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of U.S. military support.

Prosecutors have accused Menendez of pressuring a U.S. agricultural official to stop opposing a lucrative deal that gave Hanas company a monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards.
A second former Stockton University employee is suing the school over claims it failed to accommodate religious beliefs in its COVID-19 vaccine policy.

The suit was filed Tuesday by attorney Daryl Kipnis on behalf of Sami Doganay, 26-year-old resident of Wharton, Morris County, who worked at Stockton starting in 2021.

Stockton declined to comment on the latest suit Wednesday.

The complaint comes after Kipnis earlier this month filed a similar suit on behalf of Kim A. McCabe, who alleges the university denied her accommodation request to forgo the schools COVID-19 testing and vaccine mandates in 2021.

Doganay says the university failed to respect his Christian obligations against the vaccine, writing in an email to staff given to the courts, I am offended that you have the audacity to reach into my private life and examine how I practice my religion. What is in my heart, and my relationship with God is not for you to know.

Stockton, as in the McCabe case, told Doganay he did not submit appropriate paperwork for the administration to consider omitting him from vaccine and testing requirements.

Doganay, according to Stockton, provided to the university vaccine exemption papers from Pastor David Hall of True Hope Ministries in California. Stockton said it was aware that templates for those papers are available online for purchase for individuals to submit to request religious exemptions from employers or schools.

In filing both lawsuits, Kipnis said both clients rights are protected through Groff vs. DeJoy, a U.S. Supreme Court opinion delivered earlier this year that states an employer must reasonably accommodate an employees practice of religion, not merely that it assesses the reasonableness of a particular possible accommodation.

Stockton University failed to tailor COVID-19 protocols to worker's religion, lawsuit alleges A former Stockton University employee is suing over the school's COVID-19 policies that she said violated her religious obligations.
STONE HARBOR  A drawbridge mechanism that has been in use for close to a century is slated for replacement on the primary route connecting the island borough to the mainland.

The movable span on the 96th Street bridge connecting Stone Harbors main shopping area to Middle Township is scheduled for replacement, according to county officials, with work expected to start in 2025.

A new movable span is expected to be in use by 2028, according to information recently released by Cape May County.

We plan to seek approvals over the next year. We hope to advertise for bids in May of 2025, and then in September of 25 issue a construction contract, said county engineer Bob Church. The design phase of the work is expected to take more than a year.

Plans are to minimize the disruption to car and boat traffic while the project is underway, but some disruptions will be inevitable.

Right now, Church said, the bridge is in the worst shape of any in Cape May County.

The bridge is at the end of Stone Harbor Boulevard, also known as County Route 657, and appears on maps as Gull Island Thorofare Bridge, for the channel it crosses. Thats part of the intracoastal waterway, a 3,000-mile inland waterway that runs from Massachusetts to Florida. In South Jersey, the route runs between the mainland and the barrier islands.

The movable span on the bridge was built around 1930. County officials say it has reached the end of its useful life.

State awards $6.6 million for local bridge projects Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties will share in approximately $6.6 million in state funding for local bridge projects, the state Department of Transportation said Thursday.

Still, the project will have to justify the removal of a structure that has been deemed of historic significance to the state Office of Historic Preservation. According to Church, there is just no practical way to keep a 90-year-old mechanism functioning.

The bridge is opened to make way for boat traffic about 475 times a year, Church said. Most of those take place in the summer, but there are requests for openings all year, from commercial boats such as back-bay dredging companies and others.

The area does not have the clearance needed to construct a fixed-span bridge that would be tall enough to allow boat traffic, Church said, and not doing anything is no longer practical.

There are significant structural issues with what exists, he said. Aside from the drawbridge portion, the rest of the bridge is in good structural shape.

A virtual meeting was held Tuesday to discuss plans for the bridge with boaters, including the proposed clearances under the bridge and the impacts of the work. That meeting was to focus on matters relating to navigation, and would not include much detail about the impact of the work to motorists or the design of the new bridge.

A recent notice from the county states another meeting with details for the general public is planned for an unspecified later date.

Church did not have an exact amount for the cost of a new bridge but said it will likely come in around $30 million. Hes hoping to cover a significant portion of that through grants.

Plans also call for part of the bridge to be raised on either end, to reduce the impact of flooding and to keep the causeway passible in future storms, accounting for expected increases in sea levels. Raising the bridge approaches by about 12 to 16 inches will also reduce contact with salt water, reducing corrosion.

Stone Harbor bridge to close overnight next week The 96th Street bridge along Stone Harbor Boulevard will be closed overnight for several days next week while it undergoes repairs, Cape May County officials said Thursday.

Years ago, the bridge had to be closed to boat traffic, and there have been other closures needed, requiring delays or detours into Avalon or over the Ocean Drive bridges to get to Stone Harbor.

This month, the bridge was closed at night for repairs, with traffic heading into Stone Harbor detoured to Avalon Boulevard. The bridge had also been closed for repairs in July, according to information on Stone Harbors website.

In 2016, a significant crack was discovered in the bridge, leading to a bridge closure for cars and boat traffic.

There was no response to requests for more details on the bridge plan and the potential impact of the work from Mayor Judith Davies-Dunhour.

The bridge is a Rall-type bascule and one of only six of its kind in the United States, and has been deemed of historical significance. In the design, which was more often used for railroad bridges, the two leaves of the drawbridge draw back as it lifts, allowing for additional clearance.

Church believes it is the only one of its kind functioning in New Jersey. The county will document its operation and include displays describing the original bridge so that people walking across the bridge in future generations will be able to understand its workings.

He said plans also call for improvements to the pedestrian walkway, including adding a section on the north side of the bridge so people will not have to cross the road on foot.

In the early 1980s, the approach spans to the bridge were replaced, and mechanical components were replaced in 1999.

As proposed, the new span will have 50 feet of boat clearance across and less than 9 feet of height, the same as the existing span. When the bridge is open, boat height will not be a factor, with unlimited vertical clearance.
An unfortunate incident has happened where the newlyweds who got married on Sunday drowned after returning from Jejuri. The family was returning in an auto rickshaw from Jejuri on Monday when the tragic accident occurred. Due to the brake failure of the rickshaw, the rickshaw broke the embankment and fell directly into a field well. Because of the deserted place and the darkness of the night, no one understood the accident. The accident was noticed on Tuesday morning. In this accident, three people, including the newly married couple, have died, and two people, including the rickshaw driver, have been rescued. Due to this accident, the Dhayri area of Pune is expressing grief.
A movement to create a trail from Washington state to Washington D.C. is finding momentum in the Quad-Cities.

The Great American Rail Trail began in 2019 with a goal to create a multi-use path reaching more than 3,700 miles across 12 states. Since the route was first announced, more than $84 million in funding has been secured.

Currently, 2,050 miles of trail exist, or 54% of the goal. Brandi Horton, VP of Communications for Rails-to-Trails, said the group hopes to have the trail complete within the next few decades. In the Quad-Cities, trail gaps exist from Davenport to Buffalo, Buffalo to Muscatine and Muscatine to Conesville and from Colona to East Moline on the Illinois side. Other trails have been planned to help expand a cohesive path from one state to the other.

Tuesday, a group of cyclists and advocates for the trail gathered at Union Station in downtown Davenport to discuss the importance the Quad-Cities region plays in connecting Iowa and Illinois.

"This is such an important place along the Great American Rail-Trail that signifies so many important things," said Rails-to-Trails Midwest Regional Director Eric Oberg. "You sit on a state border and jurisdictional boundaries are challenging. What you're doing in the Quad-Cities is showing that you can get across these boundaries and do it in such an amazing way."

Oberg said the area is setting the bar high for other communities, by setting an example that dedication and teamwork pays off. The pedestrian path on the I-74 bridge, he said, is a prime example of how the two states worked together for the benefit of the community.

"You've done an amazing job over the last 50 years in creating trails in your community, in your neighborhoods, in your state and in your region, but now it's time to connect everything together," he said. "You guys are truly an inspiration to the country in how you are getting things done."

Trails are crucial for transportation and recreational purposes, said Denise Bulat, executive director of the Bi-State Regional Commission. The region is already the crossroads of two national trails with the Mississippi River Trail and the American Discovery Trail.

Keeping up these trails requires support from both states, she said, and the commission is happy to be part of it. Already, the bi-state region has more than 200 miles of trails and will now add more with the Great American Rail-Trail.

Big ideas, like a multi-state bike trail, have an immense impact on not only travel and tourism, but health and well being, said Visit Quad Cities CEO Dave Herrell.

"The list goes on and on and on of positive outcomes that something like this will yield for our community, our states and our country," he said.

Following the press conference, a small group embarked on a 100-mile tour from Davenport to Ottawa, Ill. There are parts of that trail that are still missing, Horton said, but the tour was designed with that flaw in mind.

"We're going to shuttle the gaps so we can show people, 'This is what's missing. This is what we need to actually make this experience happen all the way across the state,'" she said.

A big focus in Illinois is closing the gaps between the Hennepin Canal Trail and the Illinois and Michigan Canal State Trail. Leaders at both the state and federal level have been tapped to help create a trail that will extend across the state. It's a slow process, she said, but worth it to create a safe place for travel.

"Every mile we get is a mile we didn't have before and every mile we get is one people can use right now," she said.

Close 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-001 Lee Marbach of Bettendorf rides his fat-tire bike towing daughter, Lisa, 3, as Kelsey, 5, and wife, Julia, follow behind while approaching Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday during Ride the River, the 33rd annual bi-state tour of the Quad-Cities along the riverfront trails. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-002 Jill and son, Ethan Dykstra, 9, of Waconia, Minnesota, play a game of croquet while taking a break at one of the Ride the River stops at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-003 A cyclist crosses a replica bridge, modeled after the first area railroad bridge built in 1856, in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-004 Cyclists cross the Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday as part of the Ride the River tour. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-005 Christy McNeal and daughter Kate, 11, of Hudson sit on a dock at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-006 Nat, 10, rear, and Toby Augspurger, 8, of Davenport have a tug-of-war battle at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-007 Grace Schmidt, 8, of Port Byron rides with Jen and Mic Penry of Taylor Ridge across the Government Bridge in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-008 Cyclists stop for food and drink at Don Monico's at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-009 Signs mark the bike route as well as a Ride the River stop at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-010 Frank and Diane Kelly of Muscatine ride their tandem bike at the Rowing Club in Moline on Sunday. The two have participated in Ride the River for 24 years and adopted the use of the tandem bike after an accident made cycling difficult for Diane. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-011 Cyclists biking the Ride the River event stop for a chat in the Quad-City Times parking lot in Davenport on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-012 Cyclists take the bike ramp up to the Government Bridge in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-013 Mike Augspurger of Davenport takes part in a tug-of-war at the Rowing Club in Moline on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-014 A family of cyclists waits for an opening before crossing the Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-015 Croquet balls and clubs are seen at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-016 Cyclists pass over a replica of the area's first railroad bridge. Photos: Ride the River 2017 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-001 Lee Marbach of Bettendorf rides his fat-tire bike towing daughter, Lisa, 3, as Kelsey, 5, and wife, Julia, follow behind while approaching Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday during Ride the River, the 33rd annual bi-state tour of the Quad-Cities along the riverfront trails. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-002 Jill and son, Ethan Dykstra, 9, of Waconia, Minnesota, play a game of croquet while taking a break at one of the Ride the River stops at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-003 A cyclist crosses a replica bridge, modeled after the first area railroad bridge built in 1856, in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-004 Cyclists cross the Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday as part of the Ride the River tour. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-005 Christy McNeal and daughter Kate, 11, of Hudson sit on a dock at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-006 Nat, 10, rear, and Toby Augspurger, 8, of Davenport have a tug-of-war battle at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-007 Grace Schmidt, 8, of Port Byron rides with Jen and Mic Penry of Taylor Ridge across the Government Bridge in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-008 Cyclists stop for food and drink at Don Monico's at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-009 Signs mark the bike route as well as a Ride the River stop at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-010 Frank and Diane Kelly of Muscatine ride their tandem bike at the Rowing Club in Moline on Sunday. The two have participated in Ride the River for 24 years and adopted the use of the tandem bike after an accident made cycling difficult for Diane. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-011 Cyclists biking the Ride the River event stop for a chat in the Quad-City Times parking lot in Davenport on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-012 Cyclists take the bike ramp up to the Government Bridge in Davenport. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-013 Mike Augspurger of Davenport takes part in a tug-of-war at the Rowing Club in Moline on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-014 A family of cyclists waits for an opening before crossing the Government Bridge in Davenport on Sunday. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-015 Croquet balls and clubs are seen at the Rowing Club in Moline. 061817-RIDE-THE-RIVER-016 Cyclists pass over a replica of the area's first railroad bridge.
Editor's note: This meeting has since been cancelled. This story may be updated as more information is available.

Pleasant Valley Community School District planned to hold a special meeting to review Tracey Rivera's nomination paperwork for the upcoming school board election.

The district received three objections to Rivera's paperwork, Pleasant Valley Superintendent Brian Strusz announced Monday during a regular school board meeting. The special meeting to consider the objections is set for 8 a.m. Wednesday at the Belmont Administration Center.

Rivera was unanimously appointed to fill Christina Anderson's vacant seat for the board's Director District 6 in October of 2022.

The objections alleged that Rivera's nomination petition included signatures from outside District 6's boundaries and question the validity of 18 signatures found on the backside of her petition form.

The district only planned to consider two of the objections, Strusz said, as one came from an individual outside of Pleasant Valley's voting boundaries.

According to Iowa law, objections to school board nominations must be reviewed within two days of receipt, hence Wednesday's special meeting.

Typically, a school board's president, secretary and another board member (selected via ballot vote) review these objections. Since Dr. Nikhil Wagle, Pleasant Valley's school board president, cannot attend Wednesday's special meeting, vice president Molly Brockmann was planned to serve in his place.

Director Kathryn Kunkel was elected as third member for the review, joining Brockmann and board secretary Deborah Dayman.

A Pleasant Valley Class of 1996 graduate, Rivera has children in the district and teaches Spanish at North Scott Junior High School.

Photos: Pleasant Valley volleyball beat Davenport North at Pleasant Valley
DES MOINES  Iowa will end fiscal year 2023 with a budget surplus of $1.83 billion, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced on Wednesday.

Reynolds said in a press release the surplus is an indication that the state is collecting more than it needs in taxes, rather than a sign it is not spending enough, and vowed to pursue more tax cuts in the coming legislative session.

"Weve seen what the powerful combination of growth-oriented policies and fiscal restraint can create, and now its time for Iowans to directly receive the benefits," Reynolds said. "I look forward to cutting taxes again next legislative session and returning this surplus back to where it belongs  the people of Iowa.

In addition to the general fund surplus, Iowa holds $902 million in cash reserves and $2.74 billion in the taxpayer relief fund. Combined with a projected $233 million Economic Emergency Fund, Iowa's unspent funds total $5.7 billion.

The budget surplus is slightly below what it was in fiscal year 2022, when Iowa ended the year with $1.91 billion. The state's revenues are expected to decline as tax cuts signed last year take effect, which will slowly reduce the individual income tax to 3.9% for all taxpayers over coming years.

Republican Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver said the surplus indicates lawmakers should pursue "bigger and bolder" income tax cuts.

"As long as I am Majority Leader, the Senate will continue to reduce taxes on Iowans and in the 2024 Legislative Session we will again work with Governor Reynolds and the House to achieve that goal," he said in a written statement.

In statements on Wednesday, Democrats criticized Reynolds' tax policies and said she has prioritized corporate interests while neglecting low-income families.

Iowa's top corporate tax rate fell last week to 7.1% because corporate revenue met thresholds placed in the 2022 tax law.

Gov. Reynolds talks a big game about relief for Iowa families, but shes always put rich corporations and special interests first  and she always will, said Sen. Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. While Gov. Reynolds is again slashing corporate taxes and promising more giveaways to come, middle-class families still arent getting ahead.

Iowa City VA awarded $1.5 million to improve health care access to veterans

The Iowa City VA Health Care System will receive $1.5 million in federal funding to expand telehealth services and health care access to veterans in rural Iowa.

The health care system was one of five rural hospitals in the Midwest to receive funding from the Office of Rural Health as part of a project to increase availability of specialty care and bridge the gap in healthcare access for veterans in rural areas.

Funding will be used to support technology to expand telemedicine capabilities, including real-time consultations among patients, VA clinicians and hospital specialists.

The model emphasizes patient comfort and convenience, reducing the burden of travel and providing timely and effective interventions closer to home, according to a VA news release.

The aim, according to the health care system, is to promotes cost-effective care delivery without compromising on quality, by utilizing telemedicine and advanced practice providers  nurses, social workers and other ancillary services  with physician support.

Furthermore, it increases rural healthcare capacity and reduces unnecessary transfers to tertiary care centers, according to the announcement from the Iowa City VA Health Care System.

The program also allows providers to receive training and mentorship at the VA hospital, helps with recruitment and retention, and promotes collaborative care teams, which improve patient outcomes, the release states.

Pate urges Iowans to turn to trusted sources for election information

Republican Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and county election officials are urging Iowans to turn to trusted sources for information ahead of city-school elections this November.

There has been an alarming increase in the spread of false claims regarding elections across the country despite there being no evidence of intrusions into Iowas election systems, according to a statement from the Iowa Secretary of States Office.

Pate and county auditors said Iowans can be assured elections in the state are some of the safest and securest in the country, and Iowa election officials take multiple steps to ensure election integrity.

Those steps include:

Requiring Iowans vote on paper ballots.

Publicly testing voting equipment before each election.

Conducting post-election audits in all 99 counties.

Collaborating with agencies like the Iowa Office of the Chief Information Officer and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on cybersecurity protections.

Requiring voters to provide an ID at the polls and on absentee ballot requests.

In addition to the many steps election officials take each year to ensure safe and secure elections in our state, we have 10,000 Iowans who step up each election to be poll workers, Pate and the auditors said in a joint statement. Poll workers are trusted faces in your community, they are your friends and neighbors. Iowans from both sides of the aisle play a key role in protecting the integrity of our vote, and we have the highest respect for their service.

Pates office has created a website and a five-minute video debunking election myths and detailing security measures Iowa has put in place to protect elections, including how ballots and election equipment are maintained.

Which states collect the most in tax dollars Which states collect the most in tax dollars #51. Missouri #50. South Carolina #49. Texas #48. South Dakota #47. Florida #46. Alaska #45. Arizona #44. Ohio #43. Louisiana #42. Georgia #41. Tennessee #40. Oklahoma #39. Colorado #38. New Hampshire #37. Alabama #36. Mississippi #35. Michigan #34. Oregon #33. Kentucky #32. Nebraska #31. North Carolina #30. Montana #29. Arkansas #28. Idaho #27. Nevada #26. Maine #25. Rhode Island #24. Wisconsin* #23. Utah #22. Indiana #21. Virginia #20. West Virginia #19. Iowa #18. Wyoming #17. Pennsylvania #16. Kansas #15. Maryland #14. Vermont #13. Illinois #12. Washington #11. New Jersey #10. New Mexico #9. Massachusetts #8. Minnesota #7. Delaware #6. North Dakota #5. Connecticut #4. New York #3. California #2. Hawaii #1. Washington, DC
Conti Federal Services has been awarded a $43,924,087 contract for the construction of a B-21 Weapon Loader Training Facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base.

The B-21 Weapon Loader Training Facility project is one of several major construction initiatives integral to the multi-year facilities beddown strategy for the B-21 program at Ellsworth Air Force Base.

The project entails renovating the bases Pride Hangar," which was originally built to house the B-36 aircraft, to allow for the creation of state-of-the-art weapons loader training bays. This newly designed space will house mock-ups of an aircraft fuselage, facilitating advanced training activities related to weapons loading.

Additionally, the project includes the renovation of administrative, training, and utility areas, enhancing the overall functionality and efficiency of the facility.

"This contract award win shows our commitment to supporting the national defense infrastructure of the B-21 beddown program at Ellsworth Air Force Base, and furthers our partnership with the local trade community, said Ryan Kanzleiter, Conti Federal Regional Business Development Director. We look forward to continuing our commitment and collaboration with the USACE Omaha District and other key stakeholders to ensure the successful completion of this vital training facility, further solidifying our role in shaping a safer and stronger future for our nation.

Work is estimated to be completed on this project by Sept. 2025.

Conti Federal is currently working on several mission-critical projects in the region in collaboration with the USACE Omaha District. These include the development of a B-21 RF Hangar Facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, a DRP Formal Training Unit building renovation at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, a helicopter operations facility at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and an F-35 Fighter Alert Shelter at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin.
Another legislator has signaled support this week for bringing a school lunch bill that will alleviate costs for some students and their families.

Rep. Fred Deutsch (R-Florence) provided the Argus Leader a copy of a bill he wants to bring during the next legislative session that would provide free school meals for K-8 students who qualify for both free or reduced-price lunch.

Last week, Rep. Kadyn Wittman (D-Sioux Falls) said she was interested in a bill for free school meals for all K-12 students, regardless of their familys income eligibility guidelines, after a similar bill she brought, HB 1221, was killed last session.

HB 1221 failed a 14-1 vote in the House Education committee in February and after it saw opposition from the South Dakota Department of Education.

More than 38,000 K-12 students in South Dakota are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Wittmans bill would cover all those students, and the 99,000 of their peers who pay full price. Deutschs bill would cover only K-8 students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, not all 137,000 K-12 students.

While the Argus Leader reported last week that its unclear if Wittmans bill would see support from the South Dakota Department of Education, fellow legislators, school boards or school district administrators, its likely Deutsch may gain more traction because hes asking for less with his bill.

Wittmans bill had a fiscal note that estimated ongoing budgetary impacts at $38.6 million, while Deutsch said his bill, which he directed the Legislative Research Council to draft at his direction, has a fiscal impact estimated by the LRC to be $394,095.

Thats compared to the $96.8 million surplus the state ended fiscal year 2023 with, and the $115.5 million surplus the state ended fiscal year 2022 with. This summer, the state decided against applying for a federal program, the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, to provide $7.5 million to feed an estimated 63,000 children from low-income families over the summer.

Deutschs bill is modeled after an idea the Sioux Falls School District had for this school year: All students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch are getting free school lunch. This is the first year the district has tried this approach, and its meant to serve as a pilot program to see how its received.

Funding for this pilot program is being covered by some money the child nutrition budget had in reserves, district child nutrition coordinator Gay Anderson explained, estimating waiving the fee for students on reduced-price lunch costs the district about $116,000 this year. They typically pay $0.30 for breakfast and $0.40 for lunch.

Deutschs bill states the DOE will reimburse each school district for costs incurred by providing breakfast or lunch to students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch with money appropriated in the general appropriations act, less any amount reimbursed through the National School Lunch Program or the School Breakfast Program.

Families of each student must complete and submit school meal applications through their district to see if they qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Wittman said earlier this month that she sees her bill as something she might need to move slowly over time and could consider offering free lunch for families in the bottom 30-40% of incomes.

She said Monday shes put a great deal of effort into building a statewide coalition of invested stakeholders on this issue, and that she would welcome a conversation with Rep. Deutsch about the best way to ensure school children get the nutrition that they need to thrive.

I am passionate about ensuring our kids are able to access meals regardless of whether their parents can afford it. That's why I've brought this bill in the past, Wittman said. I welcome Rep. Deutsch's efforts and his party's recognition of the importance of feeding kids in schools. However, I am perturbed that this appears to be one of many great ideas that Democrats have brought to the state house that Republicans have aligned themselves with over the years.

This story originally appeared in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
More than $1.4 billion has been allocated by the Biden administration to projects that increase railway capacity and safety, with most of the funding coming from the 2021 infrastructure legislation.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in a statement that the projects will "make American rail safer, more reliable, and more resilient," benefiting dozens of towns where railways are situated and boosting supply linkages for the whole nation.

Railroad Safety

There are 70 projects receiving financing in 35 states and Washington, D.C. After a train carrying toxic materials derailed and caught fire in February in East Palestine, Ohio, railroad safety has risen to the forefront of the public's mind throughout the country.

The tragedy has been blamed on Norfolk Southern, the train's operator, and President Joe Biden has urged government authorities to investigate the incident. However, a package of planned rail safety measures has been stuck in the Senate without a vote.

The White House has also warned that a government shutdown brought on by House Republicans would threaten train safety.

Improvements to track infrastructure and bridge maintenance will help make train lines more accessible to one another and less susceptible to natural disasters.

See Also: Florida Train Crashes Into Family's SUV, Killing At Least 6 People, Including 3 Children

Track and Bridge Improvements

According to AP News, passenger service along the Gulf of Mexico in areas of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi will be restored for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, thanks in part to a $178.4 million investment in various reconstruction projects.

Senator Roger Wicker said in a statement, "This is a significant milestone, representing years of dedicated efforts to reconnect our communities after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Restoring passenger rail service will create jobs, improve quality of life, and offer a convenient travel option for tourists, contributing to our region's economic growth and vitality."

After Amtrak and the freight railways CSX and Norfolk Southern agreed last year to allow passenger trains to resume running on the rails owned by the freight railroads, this award should make it feasible to restore passenger service to the Gulf Coast.

Hurricane Katrina shut down Gulf Coast passenger trains. Rail Passengers Association President & CEO Jim Mathews said the last 17 years have been challenging but rewarding, with local activists working towards improving Gulf Coast connectivity.

The Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad in Washington state will get $72.8 million as part of one of the largest other awards. This money will be used to update the track and associated infrastructure so the railroad can carry contemporary railcars weighing 286,000 pounds.

A project in the state of Kentucky will be awarded $29.5 million in order to make upgrades to 280 miles of track in addition to other infrastructure along the Paducah and Louisville Railway.

A total of 42 bridges on ten separate short-line railways in Tennessee will also get funding totaling $23.7 million.

See Also: Freight Train Destroys Pickup Truck on Texas Railway: Watch the Shocking Video

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Kathmandu, Nepal, September 27, 2023: The 44th World Tourism Day is being marked across the world including in Nepal with various programs today. World Tourism Day used to be marked every year on September 27.





The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Nepal Tourism Board and Department of Tourism and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations in the tourism sector are marking the day with various programs.





The Nepal government has fixed the slogan as Tourism and Green Investment to mark the day. Likewise, the government of Nepal has also formed a Main Ceremony Committee under the coordination of Tourism Minister Sudan Kirati to mark the World Tourism Day.




ITEACH

Virginia is grappling with a teacher shortage, and one of the most critical shortfalls is in the area of special education.

The state Board of Education in June approved a new partnership with iTeach, a for-profit company offering online teacher training, as a way to help curb Virginia's teacher shortage and allow aspiring educators to bypass the high cost and years-long commitment of earning an education degree from a university. The approval included authorization to certify special education teachers through iTeach.

Members of the state Board of Education did not know at the time that Virginia Department of Education staff had reviewed iTeach's special education courses and found that they do not meet minimum state standards.

Documents the Richmond Times-Dispatch obtained through a public records request show that the special education courses provided by iTeach do not cover several key areas that state regulations require. Emails from state superintendent Lisa Coons to other state education officials show that she was looking for a way to limit the dissemination of records to the newspaper.

The state requires special education preparation courses to include "minimum competencies" that address dozens of key requirements for educating students with disabilities, including special education law, behavior management and individualized education plan (IEP) development.

The Virginia Department of Education staff 's review of the iTeach courses in March included 46 instances of comments that say "no evidence of competency addressed" referring to state required competencies. Department of Education staff pushed back against department leadership for pressing ahead with the special education courses even though they did not meet the state's standards.

The Youngkin administration did not provide this document to members of the state Board of Education before they unanimously voted in June to approve partnerships with iTeach.

There are conflicting accounts regarding who in the Youngkin administration decided to withhold this information from the State Board of Education. Former state superintendent Jillian Balow, who resigned in March, said in an interview that she did not withhold any documents that came to her.

Department of Education spokesman Todd Reid, who joined the agency this month, said he does not know who made the decision.

"I was not with the agency, and the Superintendent (Lisa Coons) was on her first few days," Reid said in an email.

"The employee who made that particular presentation is no longer with the agency, and there's no records of which we are aware that document why that decision was made," Reid said. "The Department of Education's focus is on ensuring that the Commonwealth's educational program is high quality for all students."

He went on to say that the department is partnered with Southeastern Cooperative Educational Programs, a Virginia-based special education nonprofit, as well as the National Council on Teacher Quality, a national teacher development expert, "to ensure iTeach provides exceptional content to all educators and make certain that Virginia special education students receive instruction from well-qualified, well-trained teachers. Virginia's children deserve nothing less."

After The Times-Dispatch requested records from the Department of Education in July regarding staff notes from the department's iTeach review panels, a public records officer emailed Coons and said, "I have attached all the responsive records that I received for this request. I didn't see anything on the documents that needed to be redacted."

Coons responded to the records officer in an August email saying, "I am confused. It feels like much of this should be redacted." Coons called for a meeting with her Chief of Staff Jeremy Raley and Melissa Velazquez, the department's assistant superintendent of policy and communications.

Two days later, the Department of Education sent The Times-Dispatch an $800 cost estimate for the records request and said, "VDOE staff has determined that it will take approximately 33 hours for staff to search, review, and possibly redact the requested document."

The department's staff had gathered documents days before, according to the email exchanges.

The Virginia Board of Education's president Grace Creasey, who was appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year, said that during the July meeting  one month after the board's initial vote to approve iTeach partnerships  the board exhaustively discussed iTeach's special education courses.

"The Board has instructed the Department to engage with national experts to ensure that iTeach meets the rigorous standards that both the Board and the Department expect they meet," Creasey said via email.

During that July meeting, board member Anne Holton said that it had come to her attention that the board did not have the necessary information from iTeach about special education teachers.

The board in April had received information about how well iTeach courses meet state competencies in all other areas except for special education. The board did not receive the Department of Education's March staff review document showing that the special education courses did not meet state standards.

"We can't waive our regulatory requirements by approving this," Holton said at the time. "So somehow iTeach has got to teach this material and I'm sure they're working to do that and it would certainly be my hope that they can come back to us in September  or whenever we next meet when this matter next comes before us so that we can then approve these applications. But with the gaps in our knowledge, I think it would be hasty to approve it on final review today."

Board member Alan Seibert used the metaphor of a construction zone; you go slow and pay close attention.

"That was the guidance the Board members gave the Department  move forward, but be thoughtful and pay attention to the details of the program," said Reid, now the spokesman for the Department of Education.

After that discussion, board members approved the second batch of applications from school divisions for partnerships with iTeach on a 7-2 vote with Holton and board member Andy Rotherham, a Youngkin appointee, in opposition.

Rotherham said at the time he would be prepared to approve the item "on first review," the regular preliminary review that happens before a final vote, "but I do think there's enough questions here to pause," he said.

Virginia Education Association President James Fedderman said in a statement, "We all want our schools to be fully staffed with highly qualified and trained educators, but it hurts our students when we take shortcuts.

"It is confusing and disappointing that most members of the Board wouldn't wait for proof that iTeach met minimum requirements for special education licensure, and it's our students who will lose out most from under-trained and -qualified instructors."

Reid, the Department of Education spokesman, noted that iTeach is already a provider of special education teacher preparation for nine states, and to date has certified more than 3,000 special education teachers in those states  "experience valuable to their work here in Virginia."

Many states' teacher licensure processes differ from Virginia's. In most states, those who want to be a special education teacher must first pass an exam that tests candidates' knowledge of specific tenets of K-12 special education. But there is no such exam in Virginia, so quality control largely comes down to relying on preparation programs meeting minimum standards.

Virginia school divisions have long relied on underprepared teachers to fill gaps in special education teaching positions, according to a 2020 report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission the state legislature's watchdog agency.

Since 2003, the state Department of Education has consistently identified special education as one of the top three critical teaching shortage areas.

When school divisions are unable to fill teaching positions with fully licensed special education teachers, they primarily resort to provisionally licensed special education teachers, according to the JLARC report. These provisionally licensed special education teachers are only required to complete one foundational special education course before being hired. Across the state, school divisions are, on average, three times more likely to employ provisionally licensed special education teachers compared with provisionally licensed teachers in other subjects, the report shows.

Data from the U.S. Department of Education shows a significant shortfall in credentialed special education teachers graduating from higher education institutions in Virginia to meet the statewide demand.

There is not a large body of data on the effectiveness of iTeach. For alternate route programs in general, research shows a considerable amount of variation in the quality of the programs.

Research consistently shows that teacher turnover is higher for teachers from alternative route programs overall, and even more so for fast-track alternate route programs that are less selective  like iTeach. In Texas, where iTeach was founded in 2003, more than half of the state's teachers are now alternatively certified teachers, rather than traditional university-certified teachers. Texas also has one of the most diverse teacher workforces in the U.S.

The state Board of Education members in June added several conditions to the state's partnership with iTeach. School divisions that choose to partner with iTeach must comply with the provisions of the Virginia Literacy Act. Divisions, along with iTeach, must submit data on effectiveness and quality to the state Department of Education every year.
TUESDAY, Sept. 26, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Registered nurses, health technicians, and health care support workers have an increased risk for suicide compared with non-health care workers, according to a study published in the Sept. 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City, and colleagues conducted a cohort study to estimate the risks for death by suicide among U.S. health care workers using data from a sample of workers from the 2008 American Community Survey linked to death records through Dec. 31, 2019. Age- and sex-standardized suicide rates were estimated for six health care worker groups and non-health care workers.

The researchers found that the annual standardized suicide rates per 100,000 persons were 21.4, 16.0, 15.6, 13.1, 10.1, 7.6, and 12.6, respectively, for health care support workers, registered nurses, health technicians, physicians, social/behavioral health workers, other health care-diagnosing or treating practitioners, and non-health care workers. Compared with non-health care workers, the adjusted hazards of suicide were increased for health care workers overall and for health care support workers, registered nurses, and health technicians, but they were not increased for physicians, social/behavioral health workers, or other health care-diagnosing or treating practitioners.

"As the pandemic has receded, efforts to improve the mental health of health care workers could lose momentum," the authors write. "The present analysis, which involves the period before the pandemic, underscores mental health risks for health care workers."
Virginia State Police are investigating a three-vehicle crash that left one person dead and four hospitalized Tuesday night on Interstate 64 in Henrico County.

Police said that a 2011 Toyota Avalon was traveling westbound near the 192-mile marker at Mechanicsville Turnpike on I-64 when it struck a 2000 Honda CRV from behind. The Avalon lost control and drove into the center of the median, where it struck a guardrail and overturned into the eastbound lanes of I-64. The Avalon then collided head-on with a 2017 Acura MDX that was traveling east, police said.

The driver of the Avalon, identified by police as DaQuana Shawnae Turner, 32, of Henrico, was ejected from the vehicle. She succumbed to injuries at the scene.

The driver of the Acura, a 70-year old male from Glen Allen, was the only occupant of his vehicle and was transported to VCU Medical center with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

The driver of the Honda CRV, a 37-year old male from Henrico, and two adult male passengers, were transported to Richmond Community Hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

This crash remains under investigation.

From the Archives: Photos of the State Fair of Virginia
A Hanover parent is suing the Virginia School Boards Association for refusing to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request for the organizations financial records.

According to court documents, the VSBA claimed it is not a public body and is not subject to requests under the FOIA. The state law allows the citizens to access public documents and records, with certain exceptions.

The suit was filed in Hanover Circuit Court by the Founding Freedoms Law Center on behalf of the parent, Sabrina Civils. The law center is the legal arm for the socially conservative, faith-based Family Foundation.

The VSBA is operating with zero public accountability, transparency, or oversight, while everyday exercising significant influence over the education of children and school policy throughout Virginia, said Victoria Cobb, head of the Founding Freedoms Law Center. (Civils) simply wishes to see how they are spending those taxpayer dollars, and Virginias FOIA entitles her to that information.

Civils request asked for financial records showing the total dollar amount paid to the VSBA for annual dues from public schools, conference expenses, legal fees and other services going back to 2010. She also requested the names and titles of employees plus their compensation and all tax returns, statements or other filings dating back to 2018.

The initial filing alleges that the VSBA responded by saying that it would not fulfill the request as it was not a public body and that no other exemptions were cited as part of the suit.

Attempts to contact the VSBA were not returned by deadline on Tuesday afternoon.

The suit is asking the court to make an official determination on whether or not the VSBA should be subject to Freedom of Information requests and to require the body to fulfill Civils request.

The Virginia code definition for public bodies includes agencies, political subdivisions and other organizations that are supported wholly or principally by public funds. It also writes in other entities designated by the public body to perform delegated functions of the public body.

The suit argues that VSBA fulfills the definition as it acts as an agent for public bodies. Virginia school boards are members of the VSBA and appoint their members to participate in the organization.

(The VSBA) is an entity comprised of and established for the purpose of serving the interests of Virginia school boards and is designated by them to perform certain delegated functions, the filing reads.

The suit also writes that the VSBA is supported by public funds, with school boards paying annual dues, conference and convention fees, legal assistance fees, policy fees and other services, alleging that the average school board in Virginia pays thousands of dollars to the VSBA annually.

The suit also alleges that the VSBA has failed to file tax forms for at least the past 30 years, offering no account of the information that was requested in Civils Freedom of Information Request.

Richmond fall festival guide: Pumpkin picking & fall festivities FALL WEEKENDS AT ASHLAND BERRY FARM PUMPKIN PICKING AT HANOVER VEGETABLE FARM PUMPKIN PICKING AT CHESTERFIELD BERRY FARM RICHMOND VEG FEST POWHATAN'S FESTIVAL OF THE GRAPE 2ND STREET FESTIVAL HOG ON THE HILL OYSTOBERFEST RICHMOND FOLK FESTIVAL RICHMOND OKTOBERFEST SCOTT'S ADDITION PUMPKIN FESTIVAL VIRGINIA CZECH AND SLOVAK FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL HARVEST FEST
Given the opposition to an elected school board in Hanover County, its tempting to ask, When did democracy get such a bad name?

The honest answer is that America has always been ambivalent about voting. Unpropertied white men, Black men, women, Indigenous Americans and Asian Americans were among the classes of people denied access to the ballot during this American experiment.

Hanover County Public Schools is one of the outliers; its members are appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Hanover Citizens for an Elected School Board finally garnered enough signatures to place the question on the ballot this November. Another group, Keep Hanover Students First, has risen in opposition, with signs that read, VOTE NO POLITICAL SCHOOL BOARDS.

Oh please.

The message on that sign is beyond laughable; its a form of gaslighting.

The school boards that affixed the names of Confederates on two of the countys schools were political. The removal of those names three years ago was politically unpopular, but just. The purging of school board members who voted to change those names, by their former patrons on the Board of Supervisors, was political retribution.

In few places has public education been more political than in Hanover County, whose School Board famously  and in hindsight, embarrassingly  banned To Kill A Mockingbird in 1966, with one board member, W.C. Bosher, branding the literary classic as immoral.

The current School Board in Hanover apparently draws inspiration from that earlier board with its obsessive micro-managing of the districts reading materials. Its swept up in the culture wars, including book ban fervor and animus toward diversity and transgender rights.

But the current system is broken.

Supporters of this system tout Hanovers standing as a high-performing school district. But its difficult to draw a correlation between academic performance and whether a board is appointed or elected.

The relative affluence of a community is another matter. Hanover has a median household income thats higher than those of both Chesterfield and Henrico counties, and substantially above the state and national average. Its hard for a school district with Hanovers demographics to fail.

No, this issue is primarily about governance.

The Hanover school system courts failure as long as it is guided by members who prioritize ideology over academics, undermine education professionals, perform the publics business in the shadows, and cater to the shrillest, angriest voices  all while treating dissenting constituents, inside and outside the schools, with contempt.

Lets be real: The current appointed system is awash in politics. The Hanover County Republican Committee is leading the charge against the elected school board  an odd anti-vote posture for a political organization, but on brand with the voter suppression mode of the modern GOP. But its arguments to keep the current system dont hold up under scrutiny.

The county GOP flyer says appointed school boards more often reflect the demographics of the community, are more responsive to the public will, and have a more cooperative relationship with the Board of Supervisors.

Thats true, if your community is comprised of all white men except for a lone Black woman, which until June was the composition of the board.

As for that cooperative relationship, there was palpable friction between the School Board and the Board of Supervisors over the formers clandestine recruitment of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)  a national faith-based outfit notorious for its hostility toward LGBTQ rights  as a legal ally in the School Boards resistance to trans rights. That gambit was part of the School Boards slow walk to compliance with state policy, which came to a screeching halt when like-minded Republican Glenn Youngkin replaced Democrat Ralph Northam as governor.

Then-board member John Axselle III communicated with ADF using his personal email account, amid allegations that private student information was shared  just one example of the lack of transparency under this current system. Another was the successful behind-the-scenes email lobbying of Mechanicsville Supervisor Canova Peterson by Johnny Redd to obtain a School Board seat.

More recently, several candidates for the Beaverdam seat on the School Board  including people of color and a woman  had job interviews that amounted to an unscheduled phone call from Beaverdam Supervisor J. Robert Monolo on the Saturday before the decision was announced. Monolo chose William Greg Coleman, an Air Force veteran and sales rep with seemingly less relevant experience than the other candidates.

The process in which its members are chosen is in desperate need of sunlight and oxygen. I realize that democracy has somehow fallen into disfavor. But Hanover would benefit from School Board campaigns in which candidates publicly air their platforms and make a pitch directly to voters, rather than the perfunctory charade of a last-minute phone call by a supervisor.

Another slogan behind the vote no movement is students first. But were teaching our students a dubious lesson if we are fomenting distrust in open debate and the ballot. Efforts at voter suppression in America have always landed on the wrong side of history.

No one should be under any illusion that an elected school board will change the conservative nature of any school board in Hanover. But to label this elected school board campaign as a partisan conspiracy of liberals and progressives is to deny both political reality and the problems with a system lacking in transparency and accountability.

This is about empowering residents to have a direct say on who sits on their school board. Once upon a time, we called that the American way. What are the opponents truly afraid of?

Close 08-06-1979 (cutline): Antoi Harrington (left) and Robert Winthrow are friends. In October 1954, students crowded into the new Douglas S. Freeman High School in Henrico County. The school, which cost about $1.1 million, opened the previous month and had roughly 500 high school and 500 elementary students. NL Published Caption: Benedictine High School's Cadet Corps in formation behind the school. 10-8-61 50th anniversary In September 1961, students entered Westhampton School in Richmond. That fall, Daisy Jane Cooper became the first African-American student to integrate the junior high school; the following year, she made similar history at Thomas Jefferson High School. In July 1968, a summer session class of journalism students worked on the yearbook, The Sunfire, at the Collegiate Schools in Henrico County. In April 1955, students at Ridge School in Henrico County enjoyed their new merry-go-round. It was presented to the school by the PTA, which had collected donations for playground equipment. In September 1967, students motorcycles lined the parking lot at Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond on the first day of school. In March 1961, Robert K. Crowell, a teacher at George Wythe High School in Richmond, held his first class on communism. The six-week course was reported to be one of the first in the country and drew national attention from newspapers and television. Crowell said his method of teaching the class was to emphasize that communism was not merely an economic system but a way of life. NL Published caption: Children romp at William Fox Elementary School before classes. The Christmas holidays ended today for pupils in the area 08-31-1970 (cutline): Students wait for transfer buses at corner of Westover Hills Blvd. and Forest Hill Ave. 05-03-1979 (cutline): Pupils sit under an atop homemade wooden loft at Cary Elementary School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Miss Susan R. McCandlish greets her fifth graders on their first day at Chimborazo School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Mrs. Gayle Graham (right) calls roll in her fifth grade class at Lakeside Elementary School. 03-29-1971: Young student listeds to playback in reading class. The program was to be used the following fall for first graders in Richmond city schools. 04-18-1982 (cutline): Video equipment used in a visual literacy program, paid for by Title I in Richmond. 09-06-1989 (cutline): Thelma Smith, a former teacher who came to school yesterday to help, pinned bus numbers on pupils at Bellevue Elementary School. 09-03-1985 (cutline): Corey Green on bus, ready to head home after 1st day of school at John B. Cary School. 05-03-1979: John B. Cary Elementary School library. 06-16-1989 (cutline): Doing something--Patricia Lancaster, Boushall Middle School curriculum specialist, is surrounded by some of the pupils taking part in the "Becoming a Woman" program. 07-13-1979 (cutline): In Super Mint factory--Stephanie McIntosh, Becky Blum and Chris Minney (left to right) made Astonishments this week in the Superintendent's School for the Gifted. 09-08-1972: Students cross street on Forest Hill Avenue aided by crossing guard. 09-01-1970 (cutline): "It's different. It's a new experience. Everybody's trying to make it work. I think it will work." These comments by Susan Lippsitz, a new student at Thomas Jefferson High School, are reflective of those by several high and middle school students in their second day of the school term under a new court-ordered desegregation plan. 07-11-1976 (cutline): Blackwell Elementary students examine a bell in front of Treasury building in Washington D.C. The Richmond elementary school class was part of Class-on-Wheels, a summer school program. The federally financed program was designed to give disadvantaged studens the opportunity to travel by bus throughout Virginia. 09-01-1970 (cutline): Students leave a city school bus at Thompson Middle School, where some of them are to board a Virginia Transit Co. bus taking them to Maymont School. Thompson, in the annexed area on Forest Hill Avenue, and Maymont, near Byrd Park, are paired under the city's court-ordered desegregation plan. Some confusion yesterday about busing students to Thompson and then to Maymont was alleviated this morning through a new, direct VTC bus schedule. 10-02-1975 (cutline): Counselor Libby Hoffman uses pictures, recorded story to teach 'self worth.' 05-14-1971 (cutline): Mr. J.C. Binford with his 11th grade American History Class. This was one of the largest classes at George Wythe. From the Archives: A look back at Richmond schools 08-06-1979 (cutline): Antoi Harrington (left) and Robert Winthrow are friends. In October 1954, students crowded into the new Douglas S. Freeman High School in Henrico County. The school, which cost about $1.1 million, opened the previous month and had roughly 500 high school and 500 elementary students. NL Published Caption: Benedictine High School's Cadet Corps in formation behind the school. 10-8-61 50th anniversary In September 1961, students entered Westhampton School in Richmond. That fall, Daisy Jane Cooper became the first African-American student to integrate the junior high school; the following year, she made similar history at Thomas Jefferson High School. In July 1968, a summer session class of journalism students worked on the yearbook, The Sunfire, at the Collegiate Schools in Henrico County. In April 1955, students at Ridge School in Henrico County enjoyed their new merry-go-round. It was presented to the school by the PTA, which had collected donations for playground equipment. In September 1967, students motorcycles lined the parking lot at Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond on the first day of school. In March 1961, Robert K. Crowell, a teacher at George Wythe High School in Richmond, held his first class on communism. The six-week course was reported to be one of the first in the country and drew national attention from newspapers and television. Crowell said his method of teaching the class was to emphasize that communism was not merely an economic system but a way of life. NL Published caption: Children romp at William Fox Elementary School before classes. The Christmas holidays ended today for pupils in the area 08-31-1970 (cutline): Students wait for transfer buses at corner of Westover Hills Blvd. and Forest Hill Ave. 05-03-1979 (cutline): Pupils sit under an atop homemade wooden loft at Cary Elementary School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Miss Susan R. McCandlish greets her fifth graders on their first day at Chimborazo School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Mrs. Gayle Graham (right) calls roll in her fifth grade class at Lakeside Elementary School. 03-29-1971: Young student listeds to playback in reading class. The program was to be used the following fall for first graders in Richmond city schools. 04-18-1982 (cutline): Video equipment used in a visual literacy program, paid for by Title I in Richmond. 09-06-1989 (cutline): Thelma Smith, a former teacher who came to school yesterday to help, pinned bus numbers on pupils at Bellevue Elementary School. 09-03-1985 (cutline): Corey Green on bus, ready to head home after 1st day of school at John B. Cary School. 05-03-1979: John B. Cary Elementary School library. 06-16-1989 (cutline): Doing something--Patricia Lancaster, Boushall Middle School curriculum specialist, is surrounded by some of the pupils taking part in the "Becoming a Woman" program. 07-13-1979 (cutline): In Super Mint factory--Stephanie McIntosh, Becky Blum and Chris Minney (left to right) made Astonishments this week in the Superintendent's School for the Gifted. 09-08-1972: Students cross street on Forest Hill Avenue aided by crossing guard. 09-01-1970 (cutline): "It's different. It's a new experience. Everybody's trying to make it work. I think it will work." These comments by Susan Lippsitz, a new student at Thomas Jefferson High School, are reflective of those by several high and middle school students in their second day of the school term under a new court-ordered desegregation plan. 07-11-1976 (cutline): Blackwell Elementary students examine a bell in front of Treasury building in Washington D.C. The Richmond elementary school class was part of Class-on-Wheels, a summer school program. The federally financed program was designed to give disadvantaged studens the opportunity to travel by bus throughout Virginia. 09-01-1970 (cutline): Students leave a city school bus at Thompson Middle School, where some of them are to board a Virginia Transit Co. bus taking them to Maymont School. Thompson, in the annexed area on Forest Hill Avenue, and Maymont, near Byrd Park, are paired under the city's court-ordered desegregation plan. Some confusion yesterday about busing students to Thompson and then to Maymont was alleviated this morning through a new, direct VTC bus schedule. 10-02-1975 (cutline): Counselor Libby Hoffman uses pictures, recorded story to teach 'self worth.' 05-14-1971 (cutline): Mr. J.C. Binford with his 11th grade American History Class. This was one of the largest classes at George Wythe.
A partial home collapse in Petersburg that trapped a man in the basement for hours is under investigation.

Fire crews responded to the 1400 block of Halifax Street between Custer and Hawk streets for reports of the collapse at around 11 a.m. Monday. According to authorities, two people were renovating the house when a section of the structure crumbled, burying one of the workers.

The mans coworker remained on the scene until emergency responders arrived and began working to clear the debris. Nearby Cool Springs Elementary School was used as a staging site for the rescue operation, with a medical flight on standby, according to an employee at the school.

Authorities said emergency responders successfully freed the man between 3 and 4 p.m. and took him to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment.

The nature and extent of the mans injuries was not immediately clear. He was reported to be in stable condition.

Tax and property records from 2022 identified the owner of the property as Richmond-based Millennium Property, LLC, although it is unclear whether the company still owns the house. Millennium Property agent German Bustillo could not be reached for comment on the collapse.

From the Archives: 27 photos of Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn Willow Lawn
WASHINGTON  Congress remains starkly divided over very different paths to preventing a federal shutdown  the Senate charging ahead with a bipartisan package to temporarily fund the government but the House slogging through a longshot effort with no real chance of finishing by Saturday's deadline.

With days remaining before a federal closure, the stakes are rising with no resolution at hand.

A shutdown would furlough millions of federal employees, leave the military without pay, disrupt air travel and cut off vital safety net services, and it would be politically punishing to lawmakers whose job it is to fund government.

President Joe Biden, who earlier this year reached a budget deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy that became law, believes it's up to the House Republicans to deliver.

A deal is a deal, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. This is for them to fix.

Late Tuesday, the Senate pushed ahead in sweeping bipartisan fashion to break the stalemate, advancing a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep government running through Nov. 17. It would maintain funding at current levels with a $6 billion boost for Ukraine and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief, among other provisions.

It's on track for Senate approval later this week but faces long odds in the House.

The Republican McCarthy, pushed by a hard-right flank that rejects the deal he made with Biden and is demanding steep spending cuts, showed no interest in the Senate's bipartisan effort  or the additional money for Ukraine.

"I think their priorities are bad, he said about the Senate effort.

Instead, McCarthy is reviving plans for the House Republicans' own stopgap funding measure that would slash federal spending by 8% for many agencies and attach a hardline border security measure that conservatives are demanding. But Biden, Democrats and even some Republicans have said it is too extreme.

McCarthy is trying to goad Biden into negotiations over the border package, highlighting the record numbers of migrants crossing the Southern border with Mexico, but the speaker has little leverage at this point and the White House has downplayed the prospect of talks.

But first, McCarthy is expected to spend much of this week trying to pass some of the bills needed to fund government agencies  Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State and Foreign Operations.

It's a daunting task ahead. The House Republicans advanced those bills late Tuesday after a days of setbacks and disarray, but it is not at all clear McCarthy has the votes from his hard-right flank to actually pass the four bills this week.

One of the key right-flank holdouts, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is fighting for more cuts and opposes the funds for Ukraine, said she voted against advancing the package because the bills are headed toward defeat anyway.

Im trying to save everybody from wasting time, she said.

The 79-page Senate bill would fund the government at current levels and would include the Ukraine and U.S. disaster aid that has been in jeopardy. It also includes an extension of Federal Aviation Administration provisions expiring Saturday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate bill shows bipartisanship can triumph over extremism.

Schumer said, We all know together that a government shutdown will be devastating, devastating to this country.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared on board with the bipartisan Senate plan, saying, Government shutdowns are bad news.

The hard-right House Republicans are being egged on by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who has urged them to stand firm in the fight or shut it down.

It is setting up a split-screen later this week as House Republicans hold their first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing probing the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. It also comes as former Trump officials are floating their own plans to slash government and the federal workforce if the former president retakes the White House.

McCarthy, who said he spoke to McConnell on Tuesday, brushed off Trumps influence as just a negotiating tactic, even as the far-right members keep torpedoing his plans.

While their numbers are just a handful, the hard-right Republican faction holds sway because the House majority is narrow and McCarthy needs almost every vote from his side for partisan bills without Democratic support.

The speaker has given the holdouts many of their demands, but it still has not been enough as they press for more  including gutting funding for Ukraine, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Washington last week is vital to winning the war against Russia.

The hard-line Republicans want McCarthy to drop the deal he made with Biden and stick to earlier promises for spending cuts he made to them in January to win their votes for the speaker's gavel, citing the nation's rising debt load.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a key Trump ally leading the right flank, said on Fox News Channel that a shutdown is not optimal but it's better than continuing on the current path that we are to America's financial ruin.

Gaetz, who has also threatened to call a vote to oust McCarthy from his job, wants Congress to do what it rarely does anymore: debate and approve each of the 12 annual bills needed to fund the various departments of government  typically a process that takes weeks, if not months.
Virginia is grappling with a teacher shortage, and one of the most critical shortfalls is in the area of special education.

The state Board of Education in June approved a new partnership with iTeach, a for-profit company offering online teacher training, as a way to help curb Virginias teacher shortage and allow aspiring educators to bypass the high cost and yearslong commitment of earning an education degree from a university. The approval included authorization to certify special education teachers through iTeach.

Members of the state Board of Education did not know at the time that Virginia Department of Education staff had reviewed iTeachs special education courses and found that they do not meet minimum state standards.

Documents the Richmond Times-Dispatch obtained through a public records request show that the special education courses provided by iTeach do not cover several key areas that state regulations require. Emails from state superintendent Lisa Coons to other state education officials show that she was looking for a way to limit the dissemination of records to the newspaper.

The state requires special education preparation courses to include minimum competencies that address dozens of key requirements for educating students with disabilities, including special education law, behavior management and individualized education plan (IEP) development.

The Virginia Department of Education staffs review of the iTeach courses in March included 46 instances of comments that say no evidence of competency addressed referring to state required competencies. Department of Education staff pushed back against department leadership for pressing ahead with the special education courses even though they did not meet the states standards.

The Youngkin administration did not provide this document to members of the state Board of Education before they unanimously voted in June to approve partnerships with iTeach.

There are conflicting accounts regarding who in the Youngkin administration decided to withhold this information from the State Board of Education. Former state superintendent Jillian Balow, who resigned in March, said in an interview that she did not withhold any documents that came to her.

Department of Education spokesman Todd Reid, who joined the agency this month, said he does not know who made the decision.

I was not with the agency, and the Superintendent (Lisa Coons) was on her first few days, Reid said in an email.

The employee who made that particular presentation is no longer with the agency, and theres no records of which we are aware that document why that decision was made, Reid said. The Department of Educations focus is on ensuring that the Commonwealths educational program is high quality for all students.

He went on to say that the department is partnered with Southeastern Cooperative Educational Programs, a Virginia-based special education nonprofit, as well as the National Council on Teacher Quality, a national teacher development expert, to ensure iTeach provides exceptional content to all educators and make certain that Virginia special education students receive instruction from well-qualified, well-trained teachers. Virginias children deserve nothing less.

After The Times-Dispatch requested records from the Department of Education in July regarding staff notes from the departments iTeach review panels, a public records officer emailed Coons and said, I have attached all the responsive records that I received for this request. I didnt see anything on the documents that needed to be redacted.

Coons responded to the records officer in an August email saying, I am confused. It feels like much of this should be redacted. Coons called for a meeting with her Chief of Staff Jeremy Raley and Melissa Velazquez, the departments assistant superintendent of policy and communications.

Two days later, the Department of Education sent The Times-Dispatch an $800 cost estimate for the records request and said, VDOE staff has determined that it will take approximately 33 hours for staff to search, review, and possibly redact the requested document.

The departments staff had gathered documents days before, according to the email exchanges.

The Virginia Board of Educations president Grace Creasey, who was appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year, said that during the July meeting  one month after the boards initial vote to approve iTeach partnerships  the board exhaustively discussed iTeachs special education courses.

The Board has instructed the Department to engage with national experts to ensure that iTeach meets the rigorous standards that both the Board and the Department expect they meet, Creasey said via email.

During that July meeting, board member Anne Holton said that it had come to her attention that the board did not have the necessary information from iTeach about special education teachers.

The board in April had received information about how well iTeach courses meet state competencies in all other areas except for special education. The board did not receive the Department of Educations March staff review document showing that the special education courses did not meet state standards.

We cant waive our regulatory requirements by approving this, Holton said at the time. So somehow iTeach has got to teach this material and Im sure theyre working to do that and it would certainly be my hope that they can come back to us in September  or whenever we next meet when this matter next comes before us so that we can then approve these applications. But with the gaps in our knowledge, I think it would be hasty to approve it on final review today.

Board member Alan Seibert used the metaphor of a construction zone; you go slow and pay close attention.

That was the guidance the Board members gave the Department  move forward, but be thoughtful and pay attention to the details of the program, said Reid, now the spokesman for the Department of Education.

After that discussion, board members approved the second batch of applications from school divisions for partnerships with iTeach on a 7-2 vote with Holton and board member Andy Rotherham, a Youngkin appointee, in opposition.

Rotherham said at the time he would be prepared to approve the item on first review, the regular preliminary review that happens before a final vote, but I do think theres enough questions here to pause, he said.

Virginia Education Association President James Fedderman said in a statement, We all want our schools to be fully staffed with highly qualified and trained educators, but it hurts our students when we take shortcuts.

It is confusing and disappointing that most members of the Board wouldnt wait for proof that iTeach met minimum requirements for special education licensure, and its our students who will lose out most from under-trained and -qualified instructors.

Reid, the Department of Education spokesman, noted that iTeach is already a provider of special education teacher preparation for nine states, and to date has certified more than 3,000 special education teachers in those states  experience valuable to their work here in Virginia.

Many states teacher licensure processes differ from Virginias. In most states, those who want to be a special education teacher must first pass an exam that tests candidates knowledge of specific tenets of K-12 special education. But there is no such exam in Virginia, so quality control largely comes down to relying on preparation programs meeting minimum standards.

Virginia school divisions have long relied on underprepared teachers to fill gaps in special education teaching positions, according to a 2020 report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission the state legislatures watchdog agency.

Since 2003, the state Department of Education has consistently identified special education as one of the top three critical teaching shortage areas.

When school divisions are unable to fill teaching positions with fully licensed special education teachers, they primarily resort to provisionally licensed special education teachers, according to the JLARC report. These provisionally licensed special education teachers are only required to complete one foundational special education course before being hired. Across the state, school divisions are, on average, three times more likely to employ provisionally licensed special education teachers compared with provisionally licensed teachers in other subjects, the report shows.

Data from the U.S. Department of Education shows a significant shortfall in credentialed special education teachers graduating from higher education institutions in Virginia to meet the statewide demand.

There is not a large body of data on the effectiveness of iTeach. For alternate route programs in general, research shows a considerable amount of variation in the quality of the programs.

Research consistently shows that teacher turnover is higher for teachers from alternative route programs overall, and even more so for fast-track alternate route programs that are less selective  like iTeach. In Texas, where iTeach was founded in 2003, more than half of the states teachers are now alternatively certified teachers, rather than traditional university-certified teachers. Texas also has one of the most diverse teacher workforces in the U.S.

The state Board of Education members in June added several conditions to the states partnership with iTeach. School divisions that choose to partner with iTeach must comply with the provisions of the Virginia Literacy Act. Divisions, along with iTeach, must submit data on effectiveness and quality to the state Department of Education every year.

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The State Corporation Commission has enough judges to make decisions again, thanks to the temporary return of former Judge James C. Jimmy Dimitri from retirement.

Dimitri, who retired in 2018, was recalled under state law to serve as a replacement judge on the commission with the departure of another former judge, Patricia West, who had been serving as a substitute to ensure that the depleted panel had a quorum to act on cases of vital importance to Virginias economy.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin had appointed West, a former circuit court judge and longtime Republican official, as chair of the Virginia Parole Board, but she had waited until recently to assume her new role to ensure a quorum for SCC business.

She was a participant in final orders and cases up until last week, SCC spokesman Andy Farmer said Wednesday.

Farmer said Dimitri had been recalled to the commission as a substitute judge and will begin participating in cases moving forward.

The SCC was created in the 1902 state constitution as a body independent of the General Assembly in order to counteract the railroad industrys political control of the legislature. It now regulates public utilities, insurance companies, banks and financial institutions, and registers corporations and other entities doing business in Virginia.

But the commission has been held hostage by legislative politics. Only Judge Jehmal Hudson, whom assembly Democrats had elected to replace West in 2020, is currently seated on the bench. One seat has been unfilled for 19 months, after House Republicans retaliated for Wests replacement by refusing to re-elect Judge Angela Navarro, a former official under Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat.

After Judge Judy Jagdmann resigned early this year to return to legal practice, the assembly had the opportunity to fill two seats  with the House and Senate each getting its choice. But House Republicans balked at electing Navarro, whom Senate Democrats wanted back on the bench, so the assembly didnt fill either seat during its regular session this winter or special session on the budget earlier this month.

Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, who takes the lead for the Senate Democratic Caucus on electing judges, accused House Republicans of not following the precedent they set last year for filling two empty seats on the Virginia Supreme Court by giving each chamber its choice.

Im glad they were able to find someone to make quorum so they can continue business, Surovell said in a text message on Wednesday in response to Dimitris return to the SCC. Its disappointing (that) the SCC has to continue to solve our problems because the House refuses to select nominees using their own rules.

Dimitri, as a retired judge over 70, did not have to agree to his recall as a substitute judge under state law, but he has deep ties to the SCC as an institution. Before serving on the commission for 10 years, he was a member of the SCC staff and worked for the attorney generals office. He also had represented Dominion Energy, the states largest electric utility, as a lawyer at McGuireWoods.

However, he broke with his colleagues on the SCC in 2017. He offered a dissenting opinion in a case that challenged the constitutionality of the Dominion-backed law adopted in 2015 that effectively suspended regulation of base electric rates in response to the Clean Power Plan President Barack Obama proposed.

Dimitris retirement in late February, 2018, prompted the first deadlock in the assembly on replacing him that year. The next year, the Republican-controlled legislature elected West over the objections of Democrat. They retaliated in 2020, after taking majorities in both chambers, by electing Hudson to replace West.

In 2021, the Democratic assembly elected Navarro to replace Judge Mark Christie, a longtime Republican official, after his appointment to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Close The deal includes more than $900 million in tax cuts, almost all of it through one-time payments of $200 to individual taxpayers and $400 to couples filing jointly. It does not include cuts in the corporate and individual tax rates that Gov. Glenn Youngkin had proposed, but it would raise the standard deduction for taxpayers who don't itemize their deductions by half of what the governor had sought and would eliminate the age limit on a new exemption for military retirement income. Youngkin said this week that he can live with a budget agreement that prioritizes one-time rebates over ongoing tax cuts, but expects to seek additional cuts in the two-year budget that he will propose in December. Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach (left) is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, a University of Virginia alumnus, demanded UVa President Jim Ryan repudiate a statement by UVa's Students for Justice in Palestine, which, among other things, described the Hamas attacks as an unprecedented feat for the 21st century." $1 billion in tax cuts: 4 things to know about the state budget deal General Assembly budget leaders have reached an agreement that ends a six-month standoff on revisions to Virginia's two-year budget. The deal includes more than $900 million in tax cuts, almost all of it through one-time payments of $200 to individual taxpayers and $400 to couples filing jointly. It does not include cuts in the corporate and individual tax rates that Gov. Glenn Youngkin had proposed, but it would raise the standard deduction for taxpayers who don't itemize their deductions by half of what the governor had sought and would eliminate the age limit on a new exemption for military retirement income. Youngkin said this week that he can live with a budget agreement that prioritizes one-time rebates over ongoing tax cuts, but expects to seek additional cuts in the two-year budget that he will propose in December. Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach (left) is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, a University of Virginia alumnus, demanded UVa President Jim Ryan repudiate a statement by UVa's Students for Justice in Palestine, which, among other things, described the Hamas attacks as an unprecedented feat for the 21st century."
Is your internet speed becoming too slow? If yes, then your ISP (internet service provider) might be throttling your WiFi.

Here are some tips you can follow to determine if your internet suffers from throttling and how you can prevent your ISP from doing so.

Internet Too Slow? Your ISP Could Be Limiting Your WiFi's Speed

When internet speeds are slow, many users tend to forget that their ISPs could be one of the main reasons behind poor WiFi performance.

Instead, they blame outdated routers, not-so-ideal router placements, bad weather, and other reasons. But, CNET reported that slow internet speeds could also be your ISP's fault.

In fact, some WiFi service companies intentionally decrease their customers' internet speed limits. This is called internet throttling.

Avast explained that internet throttling is used by ISPs to regulate network traffic, as well as clear up network congestion. They commonly throttle internet speeds when their users already reach a data usage limit within a fixed period.

However, there are some instances when ISPs do this just to influence their consumers' browsing behavior or gain more profit. Another questionable reason for throttling is prioritizing streaming services affiliated with ISPs.

This means that some ISPs tend to throttle internet speed limits when users access websites that don't benefit from just forcing them to use their partnered streaming services.

Read Also: Social Media Investment Scams 2023: Here's How to Avoid Them-Red Flags, Other Details

How To Identify Internet Throttling

There are many methods you can try to check if your internet speed is being throttled. These include the following:

Basic WiFi Troubleshooting

The very first thing you need to do is conduct a basic WiFi troubleshooting. These include checking if the router is centrally located in your house, double-checking internet security, etc.

Using Online Internet Speed Checkers

If you know the internet speed that your ISP promises, you can check if it is accurate with what you are getting by using online WiFi speed checkers, such as Ookla and M-Lab.

Activate and Deactivate Your VPN

If you already know that your internet issue is not a normal one, you can use a VPN to confirm if your ISP is throttling your service. This is because ISPs need to know your location if they are going to reduce your internet speed limit.

With a VPN, you can confirm this since if your VPN is activated, they will not be able to throttle your WiFi. You can turn off your VPN again to double-check. If your internet becomes slower, then it's definitely because of throttling.

How to Prevent Internet Throttling

You can't really stop ISPs from doing throttling because they also need it in many situations to ensure their services will not get interrupted by too much traffic.

Although this is the case, there are still some things you can do to prevent your internet from getting throttled. These include the following:

Switching to a new ISP that promises no throttling is your best option.

Monitoring your monthly data usage will also help so you can make plans to avoid exceeding your internet speed limits per month.

VPNs can also help you avoid content-based throttling.

Related Article: Who's More At Risk of Harmful Online Content, Boys or Girls? New Study Provides the Answer

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As Virginia Democrats work tirelessly to grow and di-versify our economy, invest in education and support hard-working families, extreme congressional Republicans are working to dismantle it by marching us closer and closer to a devastating government shutdown while Gov. Glenn Youngkin and General Assembly Republicans remain silent.

In 2013, we witnessed thousands of federal workers and furloughed contractors forced to apply for unemployment and government benefits. Unemployment claims skyrocketed in Northern Virginia by a staggering 236%. Veterans were unable to have their disability claims processed. These impacts forced our already stretched localities and charitable safety net organizations to step in and provide resources to families who were fearful of losing their homes. Over $4 billion in tax refunds were delayed. Federal loan approvals were delayed while food, hazardous waste and accident inspections and investigations stopped.

At the time, and in the midst of the election for his successor, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell spoke up. He gave a 45-minute press conference demanding the end to Republican obstruction and took extended questions from the press. He said, "The primary solution is democracy. It's called the ballot box. That's how you resolve these issues. You don't shut down government and have the people that depend on government suffer because that's really what will happen." What have we heard from today's Virginia Republicans?

Virginia's economy has long been reliant on the federal government due to our proximity to Washington, D.C. Virginia is home to 64 federal agencies, 27 military bases, 22 national parks and 15 federal wildlife refuges. While Democrats have made significant strides in diversifying our economy, ensuring that we can weather economic challenges, we remain home to more than 170,000 federal workers, including over 135,000 military and service members, and 375,000 government contractors, according to the Northern Virginia Regional Commission.

Tourism is a $7.5 billion industry in Washington, D.C., and National Parks contribute $1.8 billion to the overall Virginia economy through over 22 million visitors in 2022 and supported 17,662 jobs. This will all come to a halt.

For Virginia families and businesses still recovering from the blows of the COVID-19 pandemic, this shutdown could be catastrophic. In 2021 alone, Virginia was No.1 in defense spending among all states receiving a staggering $62.7 billion. During prior government shutdowns, we've seen small businesses like restaurants or dry cleaners take a tremendous hit both from a reduction in consumer spending and in direct revenue losses. In 2013, roughly 700 small businesses applied for roughly $140 million in loans during the shutdown and none of these loans could be approved until the shutdown ended.

Beyond the potential for lost jobs and wages, extreme Republicans are working to cut programs that hardworking Virginians rely on to put food on their tables. In fact, more than 750,000 Virginians rely on SNAP benefits to balance the rising costs of groceries. To make matters worse, experts predict that a government shutdown would result in higher costs, further burdening these families. Without these programs in place and with higher costs, we can expect to see hunger in our communities grow.

We are in a battle to attract the new $4 billion Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters and its 8,700 employees to Springfield, Virginia. How can we say Virginia is a better state when the governor will not fight for federal workers while Maryland's governor vocally demands an end to the shutdown?

The looming Republican-led government shutdown is not merely a political showdown; it is a threat to the well-being of Virginia's residents and the stability of the Virginia economy. It is incumbent upon Gov. Youngkin to rise above partisan politics and prioritize the interests of Virginia families. His voice is essential in urging his party to find common ground, authorize the necessary funding, and avert the needless suffering that a government shutdown would inflict upon our commonwealth.

It is time for Gov. Youngkin to set aside his national ambitions and to take the side of Virginia in this battle. He must call on his party to protect Virginia families and prevent this impending crisis.

Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton, is chair of the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus. She can be reached at senlocke02@gmail.com.
Cancun prison guard shot to death in broad daylight leaving shift

Cancun, Q.R.  A Cancun prison guard was shot to death in broad daylight Tuesday outside the facility he worked at. The shooting was captured on city C5 surveillance cameras that showed an adult male in a red shirt aiming a gun at the downed custodian.

Security cameras captured the prison guard, Jonas GregorioM, being shot several times before the gunman fled. State Police activated a Red Code in search of the gunman, however, arrests have not been announced.

The shooting happened outside the Social Reintegration Center (Cereso) in SM 99 of Cancun Tuesday morning when the man was leaving work. He was shot point blank while walking toward his vehicle.

In a brief message, the State Attorney General (FGE) reported the FGE of Quintana Roo reports that it began an investigation into events that occurred in the streets of Supermanzana 99 in the municipality of Benito Juarez, where a guard was killed by gunshots.

City C5 cameras captured the deadly daylight shooting Tuesday morning. Photo: SSC September 26, 2023.

This autonomous body regrets this loss and reaffirms its commitment to investigate and locate those responsible for acts of violence that occur in the state in order to guarantee the tranquility of the citizens and all those who visit Quintana Roo.

The executed man was an element of the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) assigned to the Cancun prison.

Last week, an off-duty female prison guard was shot while outside her Cancun home. The female officer was with the Cancun Municipal Police. She was reported to be a detention officer with Centro de Retencion Municipal.
Felipe Carrillo Puerto woman dies after falling into homes septic system

Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Q.R.  A woman who fell into her homes septic system has died. The 52-year-old woman was rushed to Jose Maria Morelos hospital after family members found her Monday night.

She was rushed to the Comprehensive Hospital where she died shortly after being admitted. The accident happened around 8:30 p.m. in the Maya town of Chunhuhub in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto when she accidently fell into her homes open septic system.

She was rushed to the Jose Maria Morelos hospital by family since it was closer. She arrived around 9:00 p.m. where she died in hospital of bronchoaspiration. The woman has been identified as 52-year-old Dely N.

It is not clear exactly how she fell into the septic system.
More than 8,000 migrants relocated to INM camps due to unusual concentration

Tapachula, Chiapas  More than 8,000 migrants have been relocated into several camps to relieve congestion. On Monday, the Instituto Nacional de Migracion (INM) carried out the placement of the migrants to different points in Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz.

INM Commissioner Francisco Garduno Yanez toured the rescue points. In a statement, the INM said that given the unusual concentration of migrants in the facilities of the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar) in Tapachula, Chiapas, the National Migration Institute depressurized the place, relocating more than 8,000 migrants.

The migtants were moved to avoid situations that put them in danger due to the agglomeration registered days before.

INM Commissioner Francisco Garduno Yanez, left, tours the Huixtla migrant point. Photo: Courtesy INM September 25, 2023.

On a working tour of the state, Garduno Yanez supervised several humanitarian rescue points. He was also aware of the camp that the INM installed for Comar in the ecological park in Tapachula.

According to an INM statement, 189 buses and 73 vans were used to transport 8,152 migrants to different points in Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz.

The migrants who had gathered at the facilities of the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees, were relocated to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Huixtla, San Cristobal and Palenque, in Chiapas, Villa Hermosa, Tabasco and Acayucan, Veracruz.

The Comar camps are set up to provide aid to migrants in the south of Mexico. Photo: Courtesy INM September 25, 2023.

The head of the INM also supervised the humanitarian rescues located in CAIFT-Huixtla, Hueyate, Huehuetan, the town of Viva Mexico, Umoa, as well as in Paso del Coyote, Rio Suchiate and Puerto Fronterizo in Ciudad Hidalgo.

His tour was with the purpose of addressing the immigration issue and developing attention strategies so that the integrity and life of migrants traveling through the southern border are not endangered.
Search continues for shooter in Tulum mugging

Tulum, Q.R.  Authorities continue their search for the shooter after a man was shot in central Tulum. The shooting happened Tuesday afternoon in the Centro area when a man was reportedly shot for resisting an assault.

The Argentinian man was shot in his right leg during an attempted robbery. The incident happened around 2:00 p.m. Police responding to the emergency 911 report arrived at the scene on Coba Avenue between Polar and Sagitario Streets where they found the victim laying on the ground.

Agents from the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) arrived after the report of the shot male who was allegedly hit by the bullet for resisting a daytime mugging. Paramedics transferred the unnamed 35-year-old man to local hospital for treatment.

Authorities continue to work to identify and arrest those responsible.
Senate approves proposal for Mexicos CURP to include a photograph

Mexico City, Mexico  The Senate of Mexico has approved the proposal for CURPs with photos. In a Monday vote, Mexico City Senate members voted 15 in favor of and 12 against the revision of the countrys CURP.

Mexicos Clave Unica de Registro de Poblacion (General Population Registry) or CURP will now have an identifying photo. The General Population Law of 1974 will be revised that will also see the CURP moved under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior.

Specifically, Article 63 When a person is incorporated into the National Population Registry, they will be assigned a key that will be called the Unique Population Registry Key which will contain the photograph of the face and will be called CURP with photo, the record of which will have the character of official identification document in the terms provided by this law and its regulations.

Article 64  The Secretariat will establish the standards, methods and procedures of the National Population Registry. Likewise, it will coordinate the identification and registration methods of the federal public administration agencies.

Article 69  The National Registry of Citizens and the issuance of the CURP with photos are services of public interest provided by the State through the Secretariat.

Other Articles detail the obligation for Mexican citizens to register for a CURP and that once the established requirements have been met, the Secretariat must issue and make available to the citizen the respective CURP with photo.

The new CURP format will include an identification photo of the registered carrier.

The CURP with photo will have value as a means of personal identification before all Mexican authorities, whether in the country or abroad, and natural and legal persons domiciled in the country.

No person may be sanctioned for not carrying the CURP with a photo. The CURP with photo will contain name and surname, Unique Population Registry Code, photograph, place of birth, date of birth, signature and fingerprints.

It has been proposed that the CURPs photo be refreshed every 15 years when the physical features of a person change in such a way that they do not correspond to those of the photograph that the ID carries.

The approved opinion was presented Tuesday before the Plenary Session of the Senate of the Republic for final voting.
David Berlinski has been provoking debate on a variety of subjects for decades. His new book is a sampler of his challenges to Darwinism, materialism, and the hubris of scientism.

I can find no better way to summarize David Berlinskis book Science After Babel than to say that it is classic Berlinski. The man himself defies a simple summary. He is a polymath and raconteur, as even his bio at the accompanying website explains. His Ph.D. in philosophy is from Princeton, where he studied with the great logician Alonzo Church. But his many books on the history of math and science might lead one to expect him to be a mathematician or a scientist.

He was, as it happens, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. And over the years, he has taught both mathematics and philosophy in the U.S. and in France. But he is best known for his books and essays, which he has continued to produce as a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute from his apartment in Paris, where he has lived for many years.

I remember the first Berlinski essay I read. The Deniable Darwin appeared in Commentary in 1996, just as my own doubts about Darwinism had started to harden. The essay provoked a lengthy back and forth between Berlinski and leading Darwinians in a later issue of the magazine.

Berlinski is worth reading for both his insights and his prose, which manages to be both crisp and florid. Science After Babel is no exception. The book gathers his essays, notes, excerpts from previous books, letters to the editor, and the like written over the past few decades on the scientific enterprise.

Think of Science After Babel as a sampler platter of Berlinskis thought and writing on science and math. Its purpose, I presume, is to leave you hungry for more.

In contrast to the current academic fashion in disciplines with studies in their name, Berlinski never treats science as just another power trip or language game. He knows and values the achievements of science, or rather of scientists. He especially admires math and mathematical physics but seems to return, again and again, to biology. So we get glimpses of the work of Newton, Einstein, Turing, Godel, von Neumann, as well as Darwin, Crick, Kolmogorov, Chaitin, and Thom.

Despite his admiration, or perhaps because of it, Berlinski knows when scientists are bluffing.

As the book title suggests, he likens the great edifice of science to Bruegels famous painting of the biblical Tower of Babel. It is a great human achievement, still piercing the clouds. But because it is human, it smacks of hubris. The Tower is still there, he writes. It is, in fact, larger than ever. But, he continues,

it has neither reached the sky nor left the ground. It resembles Bruegels Tower of Babel far more than the Chrysler Building, and if it suggests anything at all, it suggests that its original plans have somehow been lost. Some parts of the Tower are sound and sturdy; but, my goodness, the balustrade devoted to the multiversewhat were they thinking?

Who knows? In looking at the Tower, if we are moved to admire its size, we are also bound to acknowledge its faults.

And what makes it sound and sturdy? Berlinski credits the algorithm and the calculus as the two great ideas of the scientific revolution. Indeed, hes written books on each of these topics. Despite his fondness for such edifices, hes quick to remind the reader how much reality these formalisms fail to capture. He can praise such abstract thought while retaining a commonsense wisdom that has no patience for naive reductionism. Noting the gestures of Plato and Aristotle (the one pointing up, the other down) in Raphaels School of Athens, Berlinski manages to keep one eye on the empyrean above and the other on the solid ground below.

So why should you, dear reader of Religion & Liberty, bother with a book about neither religion nor liberty? Simple. Berlinski is second to none in deflating ideas that are a threat to both.

Nineteenth-century materialists denied not just the cogency of religious faith but the cogency of human agency. And materialism became a dominant faith for the first time in Western history not because of new arguments but because it enjoyed the prestige of science.

One of its most malevolent offspring in economics, namely Marxism, was the chief foe to friends of liberty for more than a century. And rather than dying a respectable death with the Soviet Union, even now it animates one of the worlds most populous countries and roams the halls of our own institutions as a mutant zombie in the form of critical theory.

Berlinski does not hold science blameless for these developments. Indeed, he credits the perversions of science for a popular culture littered with ideological detritus: atheism, of course, or naturalism, or materialism, or physicalism, or scientism, or even, God help us, trans-humanism.

In combating these -isms, he points to the fact that even the hardest and mathiest of the sciences, quantum physics, seems to focus less and less on anything we might plausibly call matter:

On current physical theories, that material base is occupied by various quantum fields, where, like so many electric eels, they occupy themselves in quivering with energy. Leptons and bosons emerge as field excitations, and so does everything else. The great merit of materialism has always been its apparent sobriety. A world of matter? Look around! Bang the table, if necessary. Quantum fields do not encourage a look-around. There is no banging them beyond banging on about them. And for the most obvious of reasons. Quantum field theory, Lisa Randall writes, the tool with which we study particles, is based upon eternal, omnipresent objects that can create and destroy those particles. This is an account that suggests the dominion of Vishnu as much as metaphysical materialism, a point not lost on Indian physicists.

If materialists were hoping for physics to ratify their faith, they must surely be disappointed.

Berlinski brings the same sharp rapier to another child of materialism, namely Darwinisma subject that occupies the first third of the book. Yes, Darwins mechanismnatural selection acting on random variationsexplains some things, and very well. It can adjust the size of Galapagos finch beaks to take advantage of droughts and wet spells. It can give rise to a bevy of bacteria that resist some or another antibiotic. We may presume it accounts for fluctuations in the color of Peppered Moth populations, depending on local conditions.

But its reach is limited. Darwins disciples hoped, and hope, for far more. They imagined this designer substitute would explain all the adaptive complexity of the biological worldthe peering eye, the pumping heart, the tiny, flailing flagella of bacteria. Indeed, its supposed to explain the origin of speciesand for that matter, the origin of body plans, and phyla, and kingdoms.

Theres never been any evidence that Darwins tool has such sweeping power, and theres plenty of evidence against it. Berlinski has for decades been willing to speak bluntly about this fact. And he has refused to be intimidated, even as many religious intellectuals found clever ways to accommodate Darwinism.

Indeed, none of his objections is religious. His thought on this subject resembles the work of two formidable French skeptics of the Darwinian faithboth of whom Berlinski discusses in this book. Marcel Marco Schutzenberger, a mathematician and a doctor of medicine, was Berlinskis friend and sometime collaborator. Rene Thom was a towering 20th-century mathematician who won a Fields Medal in 1958the highest honor for that profession. No honest person can read Berlinskis treatment of Darwinian thought in these pages and dismiss it as religious prejudice.

Berlinski is at his best as an analyst and critic of complex and controversial ideas. When it comes to his own convictions on matters metaphysical, however, he tends toward the epigrammatic and cryptic. He is associated with the intelligent design movement, for instance. But his own position of the subject has always been agnostic.

My sense is that he suspects more than hes willing to say. In the short conclusion, for instance, he observes that life itself suggests a kind of intelligence evident nowhere else; reflective biologists have always known that in the end they would have to account for its fantastic and controlled complexity, its brilliant inventiveness and diversity, its sheer difference from anything else in this or any other world.

Science After Babel is a foretaste of David Berlinskis seminal work on science. I commend it as an appetizer, followed by The Advent of the Algorithm, The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays, and The Devils Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. These, especially the latter two, will help inoculate you against the bad ideas that may enjoy the prestige of science but scarcely deserve it.
Botetourt County supervisors gave their approval Tuesday to a proposed solar power facility on a farm outside of Buchanan.

TotalEnergies Renewables USA, part of an international energy company based in France, is seeking to install 11,160 solar panels on about 17 acres of pasture. The land is part of a 405-acre farm located off Pattonsburg Lane. Dubbed Solar Star Buchanan 2, the project would have the capacity to produce 4.5MW of alternating current.

For a comparison, A Dominion Energy statement about the companys solar energy plans said that 1MW of generation capability was enough to power about 250 homes at peak output.

TotalEngeries needed a special exception permit to construct the solar facility  the first such request to be considered by the Botetourt County board.

Supervisors unanimously approved the special exception permit after praising several aspects of the proposal, including that it would help a multi-generation farm continue its agriculture, and that the solar panels would not be visible from surrounding properties, according to a study TotalEnergies commissioned as part of its permit application.

At a public hearing held before the supervisors vote, Alex Fox of TotalEnergies said that his company is building Solar Star Buchanan 2 to take part in Dominion Energys Virginia Community Solar Pilot Program. The program aims to help lower-income electricity customers lower their monthly bills. TotalEnergies will look for local Dominion customers to take part in the program, Fox said.

The solar facilitys lifespan is estimated at 25 to 35 years, according to Tuesdays presentation. When the facility is no longer in use, TotalEnergies agrees to restore the land to its present condition, according to the presentation.

The companys application said that it expects six to nine months of construction and for the solar facility to start producing power next year.

The two residents who spoke at the public hearing supported TotalEnergies proposal.

One of the speakers was Lindsay Finster, who said that she and her brother were the sixth generation of their family to farm the property that includes the solar generation site. She said the money that the family will receive from leasing space to TotalEnergies will be invested in continued farming.

The returns from this project are going to be far greater than the returns of running cattle on this land  and I want to buy more cattle, Finster said.
Impassioned pleas, some shouted, rose from Roanokes Washington Park Wednesday morning as a group of residents called for saving a historic cottage from being razed for a new public pool.

City officials removed the pool in the upper park last year and then found out they could not build a new one in the same location because of issues related to the sites former use as a garbage dump. But on another site under consideration in lower Washington Park, there stands the historic home where the parks caretakers once lived. Deteriorated and covered with vines and protective material, it has not been used in many years.

With the house as its backdrop, a previously formed group, Friends of Washington Park, urged the city to build the pool but spare the house. The gathering, made up of at least 30 people standing as advocates before a small audience of spectators, drew honks from motorists passing on Orange Avenue.

This is not a new issue. At earlier gatherings, including before city council, individual speakers have spoken out for the pool, even if it means losing the house. Preservation advocates called for saving the building.

City officials reiterated this week that they await guidance from a design firm. The city is negotiating a contract with its preferred firm.

The design of the pool in lower Washington Park will be the determining factor in whether or not the house is demolished, said Michael Clark, who directs the city Parks and Recreation Department, also known as Play Roanoke.

The Roanoke Park and Recreation Advisory Board last month asked city officials in a letter to ask the pool designer to incorporate the caretaker house into one of the options for the pool design ultimately presented to city council. The advisory board, with members appointed by council, also asked city leaders to ask the designer to draw a version of the pool complex that goes around the house, but does not require its demolition.

Be creative. Were going to need some kind of buildings, said Terry McGuire, who chairs the board, after the gathering Tuesday.

McGuire provided a copy of an early September reply in which City Manager Bob Cowell said he would review the information. Cowell went on to state that the city decided to halt demolition of the structure on the property while design on the pool progressed to determine if the design necessitated removal of the structure.

Cowells letter did not address the advisory boards specific request that city leaders ask the designer present options to both incorporate and build around the house.

During the Friends gathering Wednesday, several speakers reflected on the parks history as what they called a safe gathering place for Black people during segregation overseen by the reassuring presence of a caretaker who lived in the house. Their words signaled that a segment of the community feels an emotional bond with the building. One man equated the importance of the house to community residents today with that of the Roanoke Star.

Just imagine the star being gone, how much would that affect the community, Ricardo Stovall said. Its the same thing with this house.

In a letter to city leaders last month, the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation described the house one of the oldest surviving structures in the city and owned by the city since 1922. The house is both architecturally and historically significant as rare, surviving tangible evidence of the lives of Roanokes earlier settlers, as well as the vibrant Black community of Roanoke during the years of legalized and de facto segregation. It should not be lost to demolition or neglect, the letter reads.

Brenda Hale, president of the Roanoke chapter of the NAACP, called the citys plans for a new pool appeasement of the black community.

Its insufficient on so many levels. Dr. King often spoke of the check owed us stamped insufficient, she said in a loud voice as she spoke during Wednesdays event. Today I declare that a pool here will be insufficient. Its a quick fix for the African American community. Lets give this thing another thought. We will not be quiet. We must say no.
(Photo : Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 12: (L-R) Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner attend the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California.

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas have agreed to temporarily keep their two daughters, Willa and their younger daughter, in New York City according to court documents filed on September 25.

The documents specify that the children must remain in the Southern and Eastern districts of New York, including New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley, as per E! News.

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas Temporarily Agree on Child Custody

Turner, 27, and Jonas, 34, have consented to these conditions, as outlined in the documents. The agreement states, "The parties have agreed to the entry of the attached proposed Interim Consent Order, without prejudice to either party's claims and defenses, prohibiting the removal of the parties' children from the jurisdictions of the United States District Courts for the Southern & Eastern Districts of New York pending further order of this Court."

In the event of any violation of this order, the documents affirm that the court has the authority to take or cause to be taken measures under Federal or State law, as appropriate, to protect the well-being of the child involved or to prevent the child's further removal or concealment before the final disposition of the petition.

This temporary agreement follows closely on the heels of Turner's lawsuit against her estranged husband, Joe Jonas, in which she sought the return of their two young daughters to England.

According to court documents, Turner filed a petition on September 21 in the southern district of New York, claiming that their daughters had been wrongfully retained in New York City, away from their habitual residence in the United Kingdom.

The documents explain that the former couple had established England as their permanent residence in April 2023, to enroll their children in school there. The filing reveals that Jonas and Turner began renting a home in May 2023 and planned to move into a permanent residence by December 2023.

However, due to complications arising from their relationship and travel arrangements over the summer, they decided to have their daughters accompany Jonas on his band's US tour, which commenced in July.

During this period, Turner was occupied filming a new drama series in the UK. Jonas initiated divorce proceedings in Miami Dade County, Florida, on September 1. Turner learned of the divorce filing through media reports on September 5, according to The Independent.

Read Also: Doja Cat Bashed by Filipino Netizens After Explaining Her Single 'Balut'

Court Order Restricts Child Relocation Amid Jonas-Turner Divorce

In response to these developments, a representative for Joe Jonas stated that following his divorce filing in Florida, a court order had already been issued that prohibited both parents from relocating their children.

Turner was reportedly served with this order on September 6. The representative explained that Jonas and Turner had a constructive meeting in New York on a Sunday discussing co-parenting arrangements.

However, less than 24 hours later, Turner indicated her desire to take the children to the UK permanently and demanded their passports.

While Jonas is reportedly open to their daughters being raised in the US and the UK, his representative emphasized that their children are American citizens born in the United States and have spent most of their lives there.

The representative characterized this situation as an unfortunate legal dispute arising from the end of their marriage and refuted the use of terms like abduction"as misleading and potentially harmful to the legal process, Daily Mail reported.

Related Article: Some of South Korea's Language Textbooks Feature BTS To Help Learners Study

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Now, as interesting as this concept is, you might well wonder how all of this ties together into a hypothesis about the origins of consciousness. What is this bicameral voice anyway and why would it be experienced as an auditory hallucination?

Jaynes argued that the brains of bicameral humans used language to convey experience from the right to the left hemisphere.

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As explored in the work of neuroscientists Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga in the 1960s and 70s, the two hemispheres of the brain are quite divided and can act independently, almost as if they are two separate individuals. They explored this via the separation of animal brain hemispheres and by studying humans who had undergone a corpus callosotomy to treat severe epilepsy. Via this surgical procedure, the part of the brain known as the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres and allows communication between them, is severed.

While the patients seemingly felt mentally whole afterward, laboratory experiments revealed the subtle ways in which the hemispheres worked independently. This led Gazzaniga to formulate his left-brain interpreter theory, in which the language-centered left hemisphere generates a kind of story explaining why the non-dominate right hemisphere did something. He argued that our sense of self emerges out of this "interpretation."

Gazzaniga's theory concerned the modern human condition, while Jaynes thought that the brain used language to convey experience from one hemisphere to another in ancient humans  what we would today call an auditory hallucination.

" " Gazzaniga's left-brain interpreter theory, in which the language-centered left hemisphere generates a kind of story explaining why the non-dominate right hemisphere did something, posited that our sense of self emerges out of this "interpretation." Tumisu/Pixabay

Kuijsten points to studies of modern voice-hearers that show that they often experience what are called "command hallucinations" that direct their behavior, very much like what Jaynes documents in the ancient world. Additionally, while Jaynes died in 1997, subsequent neuroscientific findings strike Kuijsten as supportive.

"By 1999, brain imaging technology had progressed to the point that a study was done that imaged the brain of someone at the exact moment that they were hallucinating," Kuijsten says. "It showed the right/left temporal lobe interaction during auditory verbal hallucinations that Jaynes's neurological model predicted. Since then, this finding has been confirmed by dozens of other studies."

So what, according to Jaynes, changed beginning roughly 3,000 years ago?
" " The Large Hadron Collider has made significant strides in revealing the secrets of our universe, including the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

The Large Hadron Collider has made significant strides in revealing the secrets of our universe, including the discovery of the Higgs boson particle.

The Quest for the Higgs Boson

In an effort to understand our universe, its workings, and structure, scientists proposed a theory called the Standard Model. This theory attempts to define and explain the fundamental particles that constitute the universe.

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It marries concepts from Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum theory and addresses three of the four basic forces of the universe: the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electromagnetic force. However, it does not tackle the effects of gravity, the fourth fundamental force.

The Standard Model has made several predictions about the universe. Thanks to the LHC, one of its major predictions, the existence of the Higgs boson particle, was confirmed in 2012. The Higgs boson is crucial in explaining why some elementary particles have mass. While neutrinos and certain other particles lack mass, the Higgs mechanism theorizes a particle and a corresponding force that account for mass in other particles.

The discovery of the Higgs boson via the LHC was a monumental step in validating this theory. With this discovery, scientists continue to probe the LHC for further insights and possibly information not yet contemplated.

Mysteries of Antimatter and Dark Matter

" " Engineers install a giant magnet inside the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Another question scientists have about matter deals with early conditions in the universe. During the earliest moments of the universe, matter and energy coupled. Just after matter and energy separated, particles of matter and antimatter annihilated each other.

If there had been an equal amount of matter and antimatter, the two kinds of particles would have canceled each other out. But fortunately for us, there was a bit more matter than antimatter in the universe.

Scientists hope that they'll be able to observe antimatter during LHC events. That might help us understand why there was a minuscule difference in the amount of matter versus antimatter when the universe began.

Dark matter is another focal area for LHC research. Current knowledge suggests that the observable matter makes up about 4 percent of the universe's total content.

The motion of galaxies indicates a significant amount of unseen matter, termed dark matter, accounting for about 25 percent of the universe. The remaining is attributed to dark energy, a force believed to drive the universe's expansion.

Scientists are optimistic that further LHC experiments will shed light on these enigmatic components of our universe.

Big Bang on a Small Scale

By smashing protons together hard and fast enough, the LHC causes protons to break apart into smaller atomic subparticles. These tiny subparticles are very unstable and only exist for a fraction of a second before decaying or recombining with other subparticles.

But according to the Big Bang theory, all matter in the early universe consisted of these tiny subparticles. As the universe expanded and cooled, these particles combined to form larger particles like protons and neutrons.
The beginning of the fall season means that Halloween is on its wayand more than two-thirds of households plan to celebrate by handing out ca
Episode 105: We talk a lot about diversity in this country, and while many Americans seem to like the idea of having a country that is welcoming, most of us still choose to spend most our time with people who are a lot like ourselves.

And this is especially apparent when it comes to class.

Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada talk about why far too many people are comfortable in discriminating in people who are different from us economically.

Links to stories discussed during the podcast:

Where do socioeconomic classes mix? Not church, but Chilis, by Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post

Barbara Kingsolver thinks urban liberals have it all wrong on Appalachia, The Ezra Klein Show podcast

About the hosts: Scott Rada is social media manager with Lee Enterprises, and Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dalondo Moultrie is the assistant managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at dalondo.moultrie@seguingazette.com .
If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE).
Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong spoke on Singapore's inequality and social mobility challenges at the Economic Society of Singapore's 2023 annual dinner. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  On Tuesday (26 September), Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong outlined the government's plans to deal with the challenges of inequality and social mobility, in a speech at the Economic Society of Singapore's 2023 annual dinner.

Here are three key highlights from his speech:

1. Revamp of SkillsFuture

In the face of technological disruptions from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the quick pace of change in the economy, Wong said that the government will need to do more for the broad middle-class segment in Singapore. This includes helping them secure jobs with good salaries and enabling their real incomes to grow.

Wong said that the government plans to "step up investments in adult education and training, and significantly strengthen SkillsFuture as a key part of our social system". The initiatives include top-ups to the SkillsFuture Credit for mid-career workers, training allowances for mid-career workers who take time off to pursue full-time training, better job matching and support for career planning and guidance.

The revamped SkillsFuture system will also be used to provide support for workers who are involuntarily unemployed. Wong said that while the government has long been very cautious about introducing unemployment benefits, the faster pace of change in the economy has called for the government to revise and refresh its thinking.

"We don't have to do this as an insurance scheme. Instead, we can have a government-funded benefit, appropriately sized, to help these workers tide through their immediate difficulties  while supporting them to continue with their upskilling and job search, and eventually bounce back stronger," said Wong.

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2. Increasing starting salaries of ITE graduates

On the topic of uplifting the lower-income group, Wong said that the government is focused on ITE (Institute of Technical Education) students and graduates as the key segment to close income and wealth gaps over time. He said while the starting salaries of ITE, polytechnics, and autonomous universities graduates have all increased meaningfully over the past decade, those with higher qualifications, such as university graduates, have been pulling further ahead and resulting in a growing divergence.

Wong made it clear that the government will not be able to completely remove wage disparities in the economy but acknowledges that a wage difference that is too large will create problems. To tackle the disparity, Wong said that the government will assist in industry efforts such as "redesigning jobs, raising productivity, upgrading skills, and establishing better progression pathways" and work closely with ITE educators with the aim of pushing up the starting salaries of ITE graduates.

Wong also pledged to help ITE graduates upgrade their skills over time, such as introducing the option for them to enrol in a work-study diploma or a part-time diploma and gain industry-relevant skills.

Other studies have shown that people are often more concerned about their income relative to others', than about their own absolute income. Happiness at your own pay vanishes very quickly when you learn that your colleague has been given more.DPM Lawrence Wong

3. More money does not automatically make you happier

Wong also addressed the high-income households in Singapore, acknowledging that this segment has its own share of stresses and that some of these pressures "may arise because people compare their lot with that of others".

The Deputy Prime Minister cited a Harvard study from the 1990s, where participants were asked to choose between earning $50,000 a year, but everybody else gets $25,000, or the second option, which is to earn $100,000 a year, but everybody else earns $200,000.

"As economists, you should know that the rational choice is option two. $100,000 is more than $50,000. But interestingly, in the survey, the majority preferred the first option. They were happy with less, as long as they were better off than others.

"Other studies have shown that people are often more concerned about their income relative to others', than about their own absolute income. Happiness at your own pay vanishes very quickly when you learn that your colleague has been given more," said Wong.

"The implication is that beyond a certain point, more money does not automatically make you happier," said Wong, adding that it will be self-defeating if the chase for more material success is motivated solely by social status and peer approval.

A key feature in our social compact, which is individuals here, Singaporeans, enjoy the opportunity to generate and accumulate wealth, but part of that wealth must be recycled and invested back into society to expand opportunity for others.DPM Lawrence Wong

Wong reminded his audience that no one succeeds alone and that a large part of an individual's success is derived from the society of which we are a part. "It is because we operate in a Singapore system that we are able to thrive and excel," said Wong.

He also encouraged those who have done well for themselves to feel "a sense of responsibility to do their part and help uplift their fellow citizens", emphasising that a culture of giving and philanthropy must be an integral part of the system in Singapore.

"A key feature in our social compact, which is individuals here, Singaporeans, enjoy the opportunity to generate and accumulate wealth, but part of that wealth must be recycled and invested back into society to expand opportunity for others," said Wong.

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Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump (left) and Pete Wentz performing at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. (PHOTO: Monica Schipper/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)

SINGAPORE  American rock band Fall Out Boy will be returning to Singapore for their fifth gig, as they are set to play at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre Halls 401-403 on 12 December.

The Chicago-based band - who gained global popularity with hits such as "Sugar, We're Goin' Down", "Dance, Dance" and "Thnks fr th Mmrs" amid their 22-year career - first played in the city-state in 2007 at the Singapore Expo Max Pavilion.

They have since played at the Singapore Indoor Stadium (2009), Fort Canning Park (2013) and the former Zepp@BigBox (2018).

Consisting of Patrick Stump (vocals), Pete Wentz (bass), Joe Strohman (guitars) and Andy Hurley (drums), Fall Out Boy were formed in 2001 in Chicago, and got their major breakthrough in 2005 with their major-label debut "From Under the Cork Tree", which sold over seven million copies worldwide.

Since then, they have released six more albums, with the latest being "So Much (For) Stardust" which came in March this year.

According to concert organiser LAMC Productions, tickets for the concert go on sale on Friday (29 September) at 10am via Sistic outlets and website.

Do you have a story tip? Email: sgnews.tips@yahooinc.com.

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The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said on Monday, September 26, that the sea ice that covers the waters surrounding Antarctica reached record-low levels this winter. This undoubtedly adds to scientists' concerns about the intensifying effect of climate change near the southern pole.

Scientists are concerned about the impact this change might have on sea ice-dependent species like penguins, as well as on the global climate as a whole since fewer rays of sunlight will be reflected back into space by less white ice.

Lowest Winter Maximum Since 1979

According to the NSIDC, the maximum winter extent of Antarctic sea ice was 16.96 million square kilometers (6.55 million square miles) on September 10. This was the lowest winter maximum since satellite records started in 1979. There are now nearly a million fewer square kilometers of ice than there were in 1986, which was the previous winter record.

NSIDC senior scientist Walt Meier said, "It's not just a record-breaking year, it's an extreme record-breaking year." as stated in Reuter's report.

A thorough study will be provided by NSIDC next month, but for now, they are only saying that these numbers are preliminary.

In the Southern hemisphere, the sea ice often reaches its maximum extent around September, which is close to the end of winter. Then, it begins to recede, reaching its lowest point in February or March, when the summer is ending.

Notably, the amount of summertime sea ice in Antarctica fell to its lowest level on record in February, surpassing the previous record established in 2022.

See Also: UN Chief Antonio Guterres Warns 'Humanity Has Opened Gates of Hell' as He Calls for Climate Change Action

Damage From Climate Change in the Arctic

Climate change has devastated the Arctic over the last decade, with sea ice quickly diminishing as the northern area heats four times faster than the world average.

Sea ice near the south pole is melting, but the effect of rising temperatures on the continent's glaciers is less clear. Between 2007 and 2016, the area covered by sea ice increased.

Changes in recent years toward record low conditions have scientists worried that climate change may be manifesting in Antarctic sea ice for the first time.

While Meier emphasized it is too soon to say, a study published this month in the journal Nature suggested climate change as a possible influence. Findings suggest that rising ocean temperatures, mostly due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions, contribute to the decline in sea ice extent seen since 2016.

"The key message here is that to protect these frozen parts of the world that are really important for a whole number of reasons. We really need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," said Ariaan Purich, a sea ice researcher at Australia's Monash University and co-author of the study.

See Also: African Leaders Call for Global Taxes, International Finance Reforms To Fund Country's Fight Against Climate Crisis

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Singaporeans can look forward to a spectacular sight in the night sky on Sept. 29, as the Harvest Moon will grace the horizon with its bright and large appearance.

The Harvest Moon (not the video game nor the Neil Young song) is the Full Moon that occurs closest to the Autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, which marks the start of the fall season. It is also the last of the four Supermoons this year, a phenomenon that happens when the moon is closer to Earth than usual.

The Harvest Moon got its name from the farmers who relied on its light to harvest their crops in the evening. The moon rises earlier than usual during this period, providing more hours of illumination. The moon also appears more orange or yellow in color, due to the scattering of light by the atmosphere when it is low in the sky.

According to the Science Centre Observatory, the Harvest Moon will begin rising at 7pm on Sept. 29 from the East, and should be at an appreciable height 9pm onwards. It will be easily visible anywhere in Singapore as long as the skies are clear and there are no obstructions. However, some places may offer a better view of the moon and its surroundings, such as Marina Barrage, East Coast Park and the Southern Ridges.

The Harvest Moon can be enjoyed with the naked eye, but viewers may also use binoculars or telescopes to get a closer look at its features. The moons appearance may vary depending on atmospheric conditions and viewing location, so it may not look exactly like what you see in pictures or online.

Dont miss this rare and beautiful event that celebrates the changing of seasons and the bounty of nature. Happy viewing!
DES MOINES  The Iowa Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld convictions in two separate Woodbury County murder cases.

Tayvon Davis and Robert Buel, who both were found guilty at jury trials, had appealed their convictions on grounds of insufficient evidence to support their convictions.

The court ruled in both cases that evidence supported the jury's verdict.

Davis, 27, of Sioux City, was found guilty in June 2022 of first-degree murder, child endangerment resulting in the death of a child and multiple acts of child endangerment for the August 2018 death of 19-month-old Maelynn Myers, the daughter of his girlfriend. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors said the death was the result of weeks of abuse by Davis. The defense argued that Maelynn was alone with others, including her mother and grandmother, during that same time.

Tayvon Davis murder trial verdict Tayvon Davis looks back to his family as he is led out of a Woodbury County courtroom after being found guilty of first-degree murder on June 

On Aug. 22, 2018, Davis ran to the grandmother's apartment carrying an unconscious Maelynn. He later told investigators he had given the girl a bath to calm her down because she had been fussy, and she stopped breathing when he dropped her after the bath. The girl never regained consciousness after she was rushed to a Sioux City emergency room. She died three days later at an Omaha hospital.

A medical examiner ruled Maelynn's death was caused by blunt-force injuries. The girl also had new and healing bone fractures resulting from trauma. A defense expert disagreed and offered alternative medical explanations to show the injuries were accidental or occurred naturally.

The three-judge panel that heard Davis' appeal said evidence supported his conviction on all three charges. A reasonable juror, Judge Paul Ahlers wrote in the opinion, "... could conclude Davis did an act with the specific intent to cause pain or injury ... when he inflicted the injuries that resulted in the child's death."

A separate three-judge panel upheld Robert Buel's conviction of going armed with intent in connection with the Aug. 22, 2021, shooting death of Jason Lafferty, 41, at their home at 211 21st St. A jury found Buel guilty of that charge and second-degree murder in August 2022. Buel, 55, was sentenced to 50 years in prison and must serve 35 years before he's eligible for parole.

He appealed the sufficiency of the evidence only in the going armed with intent charge, saying the shooting was justified, contrary to the jury's finding.

Buel and Lafferty had gotten into an argument inside the residence, and Buel later shot Lafferty twice with a handgun in the garage.

Chief Judge Thomas Bower said there was substantial evidence to support the jury's decision the shooting was not justified.
YANKTON, S.D. -- A Yankton man has been sentenced to 65 years in prison for the November 2022 shooting death of his former girlfriend.

Trevor Harrison, 36, had earlier pleaded guilty of first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced Monday in Yankton County Circuit Court to 85 years in prison, with 20 years suspended. He also will have to pay restitution.

Harrison shot 26-year-old Jade Rembold, of Yankton, inside a home in Yankton.

"This sentence brings resolution to a violent crime and perhaps some comfort to the victims family," South Dakota Attorney General Jackley said in a news release. "I want to thank all of the law enforcement officers and prosecutors who worked to bring justice in this case."

Agencies involved in the investigation were the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and the Yankton Police Department.

The South Dakota Attorney General's Office and Yankton County State's Attorney's Office prosecuted the case.
SIOUX CITY  Bryant Elementary students were given the opportunity to throw water at Principal Angela Holcomb on Tuesday as a reward for attending school.

The new initiative, called surprise attendance days, is intended to reward students for attending school, said Bryant Attendance Specialist Tara Holdsworth. Students will not know until they get to school if it is a surprise day; they also wont know what the surprise activities are.

Were hoping that it creates that kind of mystery  and it makes them continue to come to school on top of everything else that they already get to do at school thats fun, Holdsworth said.

Tuesday was the first surprise of the year. Students lined up and threw cups of water at Holcomb, who was sitting in a small pool in front of the school, dressed in a cap and rain poncho.

It was awesome, said fifth-grader Nora Taubert. It was a very good idea.

Bryant Elementary students soak the principal Kohyn Howe, a fourth-grader at Bryant Elementary School throws a cup of water at principal Angela Holcomb as a reward for coming to school Tue

Taubert said while she goes to school because shes told to, she also goes to school because she wants to so she can do things like splash her principal.

When asked if she thought her classmates had fun, she responded Who didnt have fun?

Holcomb pitched the idea and volunteered to be soaked with water by the whole school.

Anything I can do to help motivate [the students] to be here at school is a good thing, she said. I think they need to see that as adults, we are also along this journey with them and we are here to support them and we are here to put ourselves out there and try new things and be silly and have fun with them.

Bryant Elementary students soak the principal Bryant Elementary School students throw cups of water on principal Angela Holcomb as a reward for coming to school Tuesday. The school is hold

The schools attendance goal is 96 percent for the year, Holdsworth said. Last year the school had 95 percent attendance and already this year they have higher than average attendance.

Since Bryant doesnt have busing, getting students to school is the biggest challenge Bryant's parents face, Holdsworth said. Other factors such as weather, family issues, and emergencies are all other reasons students regularly miss school.

The new initiative is a way to celebrate all kids for their attendance. Last year, Bryant gave out perfect attendance awards, but this year, Holdsworth said they tried to think outside the box to celebrate every students attendance.

A lot of our staff, we dont even have perfect attendance, to expect that from kids is hard because kids get sick, things happen, life happens, she said. We want to celebrate the kids who are showing up and are consistently here.

The surprise attendance days will occur approximately once a month, with a variety of different activities planned for the students.

Bryant Elementary students soak the principal Bryant Elementary School principal Angela Holcomb reacts as a cup of water hits her in the face at the Sioux City school Tuesday, Sept. 26, 20
MIAMI  A Pacific white-sided dolphin who shared a tank with Lolita the orca at the Miami Seaquarium until Lolita died last month has been moved to SeaWorld San Antonio, where he will live with others of his species, officials said Monday.

Lii will be joining other Pacific white-sided dolphins in San Antonio, some of whom he lived with previously, the park said in a Facebook post. SeaWorld San Antonio is one of only two places in the United States to care for his species, officials said.

The 40-year-old aquatic mammal had been the only remaining Pacific white-sided dolphin at the Seaquariam, according to a Seaquariam Facebook post. After Lolita's death, animal care experts at the park suggested his relocation to a habitat with other peers of his species.

Although we will very much miss him, we feel happy to know this is the best for him, the Seaquariam statement said.

Liis trip was a success, Dr. Christopher Dold, SeaWorlds chief zoological officer, said Monday. Hes an older dolphin who has never moved before but he was very calm throughout the flight. We placed him in the water here early this morning and he is alert and interactive. He can see the other animals he will soon be living with.

Once Lii is oriented to his new home in Texas, he will be moved into one of SeaWorlds largest habitats, a 2.5-million gallon pool, which he will share with Beluga whales and the other six Pacific white-sided dolphins.

Lii, captured off the coast of California in 1983, had been living in the Whale Bowl tank with Lolita, the orca whale.

Lolita  also known as Tokitae, or Toki  died Aug. 18 after spending 53 years in captivity. The 57-year-old orca died from an apparent renal condition, officials said.

Animal rights activists had been fighting for years to have Lolita freed from her tank at the Seaquarium. The park's relatively new owner, The Dolphin Company, and the nonprofit Friends of Toki announced a plan in March to possibly move her to a natural sea pen in the Pacific Northwest, with the financial backing of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.

Lolita retired from performing last spring as a condition of the parks new exhibitors license with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She had not been publicly displayed since. In recent months, new upgrades had been installed to better filter the pool and regulate her water temperature.

Federal and state regulators would have had to approve any plan to move Lolita, and that could have taken months or years. The 5,000-pound orca had been living for years in a tank that measures 80 feet by 35 feet and is 20 feet deep.

Our main aim was to provide the best welfare for Lii at a place where he could live with other dolphins of his species, said Dr. Guillermo Sanchez, chief veterinary officer for The Dolphin Company, which owns Seaquarium and 29 other facilities throughout the world. As soon as Toki died, we started immediately to plan Liis future. San Antonio has a lot of experience with geriatric animals.

The Associated Press and Tribune News Service contributed to this report.

Photos: Humpback whales draw thousands of visitors to Colombia's Pacific coast
An Iowa roofing company has lost its legal battle to avoid paying employment taxes by classifying its workers as independent contractors.

The company had argued that because it doesnt treat its workers as employees  requiring them to use their own cars and tools while denying them training and benefits  it was not liable for taxes as an Iowa employer. The case illustrates how some companies have sought to avoid certain tax liabilities by denying workers benefits that are traditionally afforded company employees.

Court records indicate Iowa Workforce Development audited Contreras Roofing, run by Leonel Contreras of Des Moines, at some point in the past two years, reviewing its practices as far back as 2017.

After the audit was completed, IWD concluded the companys 10 workers were each employees as defined by Iowa law, which would mean the company should have been making unemployment-insurance payments related to their work.

Contreras argued otherwise and said the workers, several of whom are his relatives, were independent contractors.

As evidence of that, he cited the fact that the workers show up on job sites without knowing how much theyll be paid; they use their own vehicles; they supply their own tools; they have no set hours and no company-provided training; they have to return to job sites at their own expense to fix any mistakes; and they have no benefits or health insurance.

All of that, he argued, showed the workers were independent contractors which relieved him of the obligation to pay any unemployment-insurance taxes that might be tied to their work.

IWD disagreed and noted that the workers were not incorporated as their own businesses, had never registered with the state as contractors as required by law, and had never invoiced Contreras for any of their work.

The agency also reviewed payroll records and found that although the workers were allegedly being paid according to piece-work, their total annual wages were all reported in round figures, such as $90,000 or $70,000, which suggested they were employees being paid a fixed salary.

After concluding Contreras Roofing was, in fact, the workers employer, IWD informed the company it owed $64,862 in unpaid unemployment-insurance taxes.

The company appealed that decision, but Administrative Law Judge Joseph Ferrentino sided with IWD. He noted there was no evidence the workers performed any labor for other roofing companies or for the general public, as they would if they were independent contractors.

In seeking to have the courts overturn that decision, the companys attorney, Valerie Cramer, argued IWDs actions ignore decades of past practice in treating construction workers as independent contractors. She also alleged racial discrimination, claiming IWD has avoided reclassifying white-owned companies as employers.

Polk County District Judge David Nelmark recently ruled in favor of the state, stating the evidence was overwhelming that Contreras was the workers employer.

As for the claim of selective and racially motivated actions by IWD, Nelmark noted that Cramer provided no legal support or evidence for this argument. He pointed out that Cramer represents several Spanish-speaking clients who were recently audited by IWD.

Without more evidence, the court can only surmise that this argument arose from sample bias, Nelmark ruled. Cramers sample, i.e., her clients who have recently been audited, is an unbalanced representation of the overall population being audited by the IWD. Cramer focuses representation on Spanish-speaking clients, so in her limited sample pool, primarily Spanish speakers are being audited.

Metros in Iowa where jobs are growing fastest Metros in Iowa where jobs are growing fastest #7. Sioux City #6. Des Moines #5. Waterloo #4. Iowa City #3. Cedar Rapids #2. Dubuque #1. Ames
DES MOINES  Iowa will end fiscal year 2023 with a budget surplus of $1.83 billion, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced on Wednesday.

Reynolds said in a press release the surplus is an indication that the state is collecting more than it needs in taxes, rather than a sign it is not spending enough, and vowed to pursue more tax cuts in the coming legislative session.

"Weve seen what the powerful combination of growth-oriented policies and fiscal restraint can create, and now its time for Iowans to directly receive the benefits," Reynolds said. "I look forward to cutting taxes again next legislative session and returning this surplus back to where it belongs  the people of Iowa.

In addition to the general fund surplus, Iowa holds $902 million in cash reserves and $2.74 billion in the taxpayer relief fund. Combined with a projected $233 million Economic Emergency Fund, Iowa's unspent funds total $5.7 billion.

The budget surplus is slightly below what it was in fiscal year 2022, when Iowa ended the year with $1.91 billion. The state's revenues are expected to decline as tax cuts signed last year take effect, which will slowly reduce the individual income tax to 3.9% for all taxpayers over coming years.

Republican Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver said the surplus indicates lawmakers should pursue "bigger and bolder" income tax cuts.

"As long as I am Majority Leader, the Senate will continue to reduce taxes on Iowans and in the 2024 Legislative Session we will again work with Governor Reynolds and the House to achieve that goal," he said in a written statement.

In statements on Wednesday, Democrats criticized Reynolds' tax policies and said she has prioritized corporate interests while neglecting low-income families.

Iowa's top corporate tax rate fell last week to 7.1% because corporate revenue met thresholds placed in the 2022 tax law.

Gov. Reynolds talks a big game about relief for Iowa families, but shes always put rich corporations and special interests first  and she always will, said Sen. Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. While Gov. Reynolds is again slashing corporate taxes and promising more giveaways to come, middle-class families still arent getting ahead.
An agriculture mogul who has a significant role in a pending carbon dioxide pipeline proposal will not be required to testify during its permit proceedings, the Iowa Utilities Board decided Tuesday.

Several people sought a subpoena to compel the under-oath testimony of Bruce Rastetter, a co-founder of Summit Carbon Solutions. Pipeline opponents wanted him to elaborate on the companys ownership and the potential conflicts the company might have with Rastetters other business ventures.

The five-state pipeline system would transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground sequestration. Rastetters Summit Agricultural Group developed the concept of the project and is part-owner of Summit Carbon Solutions, one of its executives testified earlier this month.

If called to testify, Rastetter might have also faced questions about his interactions with elected officials. Pipeline opponents have speculated that his wealth and political influence have accelerated Summits project toward approval.

But in a unanimous decision on Tuesday, the IUB said: Mr. Rastetters testimony does not appear relevant.

There has been no showing as to why Mr. Rastetter, who is not an employee of Summit Carbon, is the best person to testify in this proceeding regarding the corporate structure of a non-party, the board said.

The IUB further noted that the subpoena request did not meet a deadline for such requests and that there was ample opportunity to seek Rastetters testimony earlier in the proceedings. Summits permit process has been ongoing for more than two years.

Hearing resumes

The approval of Summits pipeline permit in Iowa appears to be a foregone conclusion and, as such, it is futile to resist negotiating with the company, according to a fifth-generation farm owner in Wright County.

I feel like its something I have to do, said John Taecker, whose family has owned his farm near Eagle Grove since the late 1800s. I dont really have much other choice.

Taecker testified Tuesday at the start of the sixth week of an evidentiary hearing for Summits hazardous liquid pipeline permit request with the IUB.

His familys original farm of 670 acres was bought by Taeckers great-great-grandfather in 1893, according to an application with the state to be noted as a Century Farm. The cost of the land at the time was $30 per acre.

Summits pipeline route passes through 10 of the familys land parcels, which are the subject of ongoing negotiations for land easements, Taecker said. Because an agreement has not yet been reached, Taecker is among hundreds of landowners who are subject to the companys eminent domain requests.

The easements allow Summit to build and operate its pipeline system on land it doesnt own.

Taecker asked the board on Tuesday to allow his negotiations to continue rather than granting the company eminent domain.

He said he opposes hosting the pipeline on his property  primarily because of the damage to the land and underground tiling and because of safety concerns  but has negotiated with the company due to the threat of eminent domain. He hopes those negotiations will minimize the projects effects.

Taecker said the project is likely to gain approval in Iowa because of the political forces at work. He was not more specific.

Taecker was among 17 landowners subject to eminent domain who were scheduled to testify on Tuesday, but only about half of those did testify. The hearing has seldom held to its schedule, and it appears the hearing will not conclude at the end of this week as the board had wanted.

The IUB has yet to say how the hearing might proceed after this week.

Attorney allowed to participate

A former attorney for the Office of Consumer Advocate can continue to represent the daughter of an affected landowner during Summits permit proceedings, the IUB has decided.

The office sought to disqualify attorney Anna Ryon from participating in the process because she was formerly its lead representative for the process. The office argued Ryon was privy to internal information and strategy discussions and could use that knowledge against the offices interests.

The office is an advocate for residents in utility proceedings. Ryon has said she left the job because the office became less of an advocate for landowners after a new state attorney general, Brenna Bird, was elected last year and state lawmakers gave Bird greater authority over the office.

The IUB, in a split decision, said it is likely there is sufficient evidence to support the disqualification of Ms. Ryon, but that such a move would negatively impact her client.

While the board does not appreciate the eleventh-hour maneuvers, the board nonetheless respects the rights of a party to select the counsel of its choosing, board members Josh Byrnes and Sarah Martz concluded.

Board chairperson Erik Helland disagreed. He said Ryon failed to get permission from the Office of Consumer Advocate to represent other clients in the pipeline proceedings and that her client, Kerry Hirth, had plenty of time to find a different attorney.

At some point there needs to be recognition that the ethical requirements, procedural rules and rules of evidence that apply to these matters are developed and adopted for the very purpose of ensuring transparency and the protection of the rights of participating parties, Helland said in his dissent.

Ryon is a frequent participant in the hearing and filed the request to subpoena Rastetter.

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Here is the in-town acreage youve been waiting for with county taxes, hard surface road, Sgt Bluff schools, close to shopping, easy access to major streets/highways & in a highly desirable area with picturesque views of rolling hills. This two-story home sitting on 2.27 acres has charm & offers so much space. This home features 5 beds, a bonus office/possible 6th bedroom on the main, heated floors throughout including garages, 4.5 baths, 3 car attached garage, & 4 car detached garage. Classic design with a timeless curb appeal & a half circle driveway brings guests right to the front door where they are welcomed and enter a grand foyer with a volume ceiling. As you pass through the living room youre drawn to the French door which takes you outside on the covered deck with amazing views!! Adjacent to the living room is the Chef's Kitchen with some serious capacity to entertain & seat a crowd. Custom Alder cabinets, stainless steel appliances, ample cabinet space, an oversized center island with a breakfast bar, a cozy breakfast nook, & additional dining space w/ French door leading you to the front porch!! The main floor also has a fabulous laundry room with sink/built-in cabinets( what a dream), a guest bath, & a spare bedroom/office. Left of the foyer you will find the main floor master suite complete with a nice size walk-in closet, French door leading you to covered deck, & an en suite master bath. Double sink vanity, walk in marble shower, jacuzzi tub framed by columns & has a very spa-like feel. Going upstairs? Take your pick of stairs because theres a front grand staircase & a back of the house access too, how convenient!! Upstairs has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, & a nice bonus room. The walkout basement has a wet bar area open to the family room w/ a cozy fireplace & daylight windows. A billiards area is just off the family room as well as a 3/4 bath & another bonus room with endless possibilities but is currently a hobby room. Come check it out!!!!
Sci-tech meteorological cooperation deepens ties between China, Arab states

Xinhua) 11:15, September 27, 2023

This photo taken on Sept. 21, 2023 shows the smart meteorology exhibition area at the sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

YINCHUAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- As the sixth China-Arab States Expo rang down the curtain on Sunday in Yinchuan, the capital city of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, international cooperation between China and Arab countries in the field of meteorology entered a new chapter.

Ten years on, it was the first time for the biennial expo to include a conference on meteorological development and cooperation, addressing natural disasters and climate change, while also providing meteorological services for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the context of global warming, the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, including high temperatures, typhoons and rainstorms, poses a great threat to human beings. This situation necessitates international cooperation to effectively address this issue.

For the meteorological experts from China and nine Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Mauritania, Comoros and Egypt, who attended the conference, it's high time to discuss these shared challenges and search for joint opportunities in terms of global climate changes.

"China and Arab states built a good friendship thousands of years ago through the ancient Silk Road. Now the two sides are deepening their ties in meteorological exchanges and cooperation," said Zeng Qin with the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

Meteorological science and technology were highly mentioned throughout the conference, which also included an exhibition for Chinese advanced meteorological equipment and technologies, earning interest and appreciation from the Arab experts.

Juma Said Ahmed Al-Maskari, meteorologist of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) told Xinhua that he was fascinated by the science and technology showcased at the exhibition. He believes that these advancements can greatly enhance the field of meteorology by offering more specific, specialized, and timely services.

"International meteorological cooperation is really important. In the forum on satellites we learn quite a lot of expertise from both sides," he said, "We also enjoy the exhibition where we see a lot of companies and CMA products. Companies show lots of equipment that can be used in various fields like meteorological station, new mechanics, and weather prediction."

The meteorologist added that he looks forward to signing a memorandum of understanding between GCC countries and CMA with China's Fengyun meteorological satellites' services included.

According to Wang Jinsong, director of the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC), Fengyun meteorological satellites play an important role in early warnings in terms of disaster prevention and reduction. Among the nine Fengyun meteorological satellites on orbit, there is a satellite, which is known as the "Belt and Road satellite," as it addresses the previously unmet need for meteorological satellite observation on the Indian Ocean and provides 24-hour monitoring services and meteorological data for most Arab countries.

So far, Fengyun meteorological satellites have provided services for 129 countries, among which 10 Arab states have become users of the satellites' data. China has offered meteorological training to more than 2,000 people from 22 Arab League member states.

China has always highlighted meteorological collaborations with Arab states, said Chen Zhenlin, director of CMA, adding that the CMA and the National Center of Meteorology (NCM) of UAE signed a bilateral intergovernmental memorandum of cooperation on meteorological science and technology early this year, while during the conference the two sides agreed to further cooperate in fields such as AI, satellites' monitoring, information and communication, and education and training.

Abdulla Ahmed Yousuf Ahmed Almandous, president of the World Meteorological Organization and also director general of the NCM of UAE, said he hopes that China's high-tech and modernization development will help better carry out the memorandum and deepen international meteorological cooperation.

The state-owned company China Huayun Meteorological Technology Group Corporation signed a framework agreement on meteorology with Mauritania and Comoros, agreeing to cooperate in early warning, meteorological science and technology and other fields. The company will conduct online and offline training for staff in both countries.

"This agreement is quite important for us, and I believe it will help tie our two countries closer and achieve a win-win result," said Mohamed Mahmoud Ba, general director of the National Office of Meteorology of Mauritania.

According to Luo Hui, director of the Ningxia meteorological bureau, with the support of the NSMC and World Meteorological Centre Beijing, Ningxia launched a platform during the expo to help countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt with disaster prevention and reduction.

"The platform can now provide 26 kinds of remote-sensing monitoring services including the monitoring of real-time weather, land surface and disastrous weather," Luo said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Prosecutors in California charged a sheriff's deputy on Monday, September 25, with two felonies related to possessing more than 100 pounds of fentanyl in his vehicle. They also made the first allegations of his possible connections to a Mexican drug gang.

Accused of Two Crimes

Jorge Oceguera-Rocha, a 25-year-old sheriff's officer in Riverside County, was arrested and charged with criminal possession of fentanyl for sale and felony transportation of drugs. He faces a lengthier possible term since he is also accused of carrying a loaded firearm while committing the crime.

In a report by The Press-Enterprise, Oceguera-Rocha resigned after being detained on September 17 and pleaded not guilty to all allegations during a court appearance in Banning on Monday. Banning is located about 80 miles west of downtown Los Angeles.

Soon after his arrest, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department requested that his bond be increased to $5 million, citing his status as a flight risk due to his alleged ties to a Mexican drug cartel. The District Attorney's Office for Riverside County stated on Monday that a judge approved the motion but would be revisited at a later court session.

Also Read: New York Authorities Discover Trapdoor Under Bronx Day Care, Find Drugs Hidden Beneath Nursery

Oceguera-Rocha's Arrest

Last week, the sheriff's office said in a press statement that an employee, Oceguera-Rocha, had been identified as a key figure in the transit of drugs inside the county for an investigation into a drug ring, according to USA Today.

The affidavit, authored by investigator Joshua Ricard, and previous bail application were presented to the court. Information concerning the inquiry that was not previously known to the public is included in the papers.

Through the interception of Oceguera-Rocha's phone conversations, investigators discovered on September 16 that he was planning to visit an "identified narcotic stash location" in Victorville.

They first observed Oceguera-Rocha in Banning at about 1:00 PM local time and then again in San Bernardino County a few hours later. Oceguera-Rocha called a relative shortly after arriving at a Victorville residence at approximately 3:00 PM. The affidavit states that Oceguera-Rocha went inside the garage and returned after approximately 10 minutes.

Investigators followed him on the drive back to Banning. When he got close to Calimesa, a drugs detection interdiction deputy performed a traffic stop at the Oak Valley exit of I-10. During the check, a trained dog was alerted to the possible presence of narcotics in the car.

According to the affidavit, officers found four trash bags with square parcels wrapped in transparent cellophane in the trunk. Further inspection showed all parcels contained bulk blue fentanyl-laced M30 tablets.

There were around 520,000 tablets in the bundles, and analysis verified that they were really fentanyl. Ricard reported finding a loaded Glock pistol in a suitcase on the backseat of Oceguera-Rocha's automobile.

The sheriff's office has said it does not think the officer was peddling narcotics while on duty or transporting inmates in the prisons.

Also Read: South Korean Police Raid US Military Bases in Drugs Inquiry

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Episode 109: A competitive race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates has been in the spotlight since it was revealed that the Democratic candidate, Susanna Gibson, had streamed sex acts with her husband.

As first reported by The Washington Post, the couple appeared on the website Chaturbate, on which they urged viewers to give the couple tips to perform certain crowd-sourced requests.

Gibson, whose full-time job is working as a nurse practitioner, said the exposure of the content is an illegal invasion of my privacy and designed to humiliate me and my family.

Hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss whether this was a legitimate news story, whether the issue should matter to voters and how whether it showed poor judgment by the candidate.

About the hosts: Scott Rada is social media manager with Lee Enterprises, and Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis. His forthcoming book, "Finding Your Third Place," will be published by Fulcrum Books.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jared McNett is an online editor and reporter for the Sioux City Journal. You can reach him at 712-293-4234 and follow him on Twitter @TwoHeadedBoy98.
Californias climate disclosure bill could have a huge impact across the U.S.

Posted on 27 September 2023 by Guest Author

This re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Andy Furillo was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

The California Legislature took a step last week that has the potential to accelerate the fight against climate change within the state and have a transformative effect across the nation. It also marked the rise of a more forceful climate caucus in the legislature, led by new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, bucking an intense industry lobbying push that killed a similar bill last year.

Senate Bill 253, which would force companies that generate revenues of more than $1 billion a year to fully disclose their total greenhouse gas impact, cleared the Capitols lower house on a 49-20 vote. The state Senate, which had already approved the measure, concurred on a few minor amendments, and the bill now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Oct. 14 to sign it. (Editors note: Newsom announced Sept. 17 that he plans to sign the bill.)

This is really a national bill

If he does, and Newsoms past record suggests that he will, California will essentially establish a national policy that compels big business to be transparent about its emissions, according to at least one analyst.

I think this is a really big deal, said Lynn M. LoPucki, a professor at the University of Florida law school, noting that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been working on its own corporate disclosure rule for years to no avail.

LoPucki, who recently had a paper published in the UC Davis Law Review on the shortcomings of voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, said that once the California law takes effect, it wont matter what the SEC or other states might do, because nearly every large company in the United States that does business in California will be forced to report its emissions.

So this is really a national bill, LoPucki said.

By requiring businesses to provide the complete picture on their greenhouse gas profile, California is betting that market forces will put pressure on companies to cut down on their emissions.

As a result, investors may be less likely to put money into companies that are warming the globe and customers may be less inclined to buy products that they know contribute to climate change.

The idea is that companies will make a greater effort to reduce their GHG emissions once theyre reporting them. They know investors care, and they also, I think, know that consumers and the public care, LoPucki said. Virtually every company is doing corporate social responsibility reporting, or webpages in which they profess concern about corporate social responsibility. And today, that means reducing GHG.

LoPucki said that about half of reporting companies obtain third-party assurances  essentially outside audits  of the emissions they report. Such assurances, he said, provide additional reason to believe that the data the companies supply to investors and the consuming public are accurate.

Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, SB 253 requires businesses to report not only their own direct and indirect emissions, but also those of their upstream suppliers and downstream customers. Companies would have to begin publicly disclosing their direct emissions annually in 2026 and their indirect emissions starting in 2027.

Opponents of the bill said these scope 3 reporting requirements would place an undue burden on the suppliers and customers of the scope 1 company. Wiener, however, said in a letter to an Assembly committee that the scope 3 emissions can be calculated with secondary data. The scope 1 companies wont need to collect data from the supplier or customer companies and can rely on well-established formulas to appropriately estimate emissions, the letter said.

In another climate disclosure action, the Legislature also approved Senate Bill 261, which would require companies with more than $500 million in annual revenues to report their climate-related financial risk.

By shedding light on the potential financial impacts of climate change, SB 261 encourages businesses to adopt sustainable practices, invest in renewable energy, and transition away from a pollution-based economy, said California Environmental Voters in a statement. This will set the precedent for nationwide climate risk reporting standards, amplifying the impact of climate resilience efforts on a national scale.

A recent peer-reviewed study in the journal Science found that mandatory reporting such as that required by SB 253 could pressure firms to reduce their GHG emissions, especially the bad actors whose discharges range wildly beyond their industry medians.

We believe that Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeiss famous 1913 prescription that sunlight is the best disinfectant for social and industrial diseases still has merit more than a century later in confronting the climate challenge, concluded the authors.

Down to the wire

Despite an intense lobbying campaign against SB 253 by some business associations, the bill made it out of the California Assembly fairly easily Sept. 11. No Republicans stood up on the floor to argue against it. With no debate, it took only 18 minutes to complete the vote.

A similar measure last year fell four votes short of approval. Most of this years difference was made up by 16 new Democrats in the Assembly, 12 of whom voted for SB 253. The final yes tally included eight more Democrats who last year did not vote on the measure. Another Democrat, Sharon Quirk-Silva, switched her vote from a no to a yes.

This years Assembly vote also proved to be a big leadership test on climate policy for new Speaker Rivas, according to some Sacramento insiders.

It didnt look like a heavy lift at the end of the day, because of his leadership, said Steve Maviglio, a political consultant who advises Rivas. He got people together to bring it through in overwhelming fashion.

As for Newsom, Being a climate hero is essential to his ambitions, Maviglio said. So it would seem to be a natural that he would sign it. That said, hes always been business-friendly.

The California Chamber of Commerce led the business lobbys opposition to the bill, in spite of major support for the legislation from big corporations such as Salesforce, IKEA, Apple, Patagonia, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. CalChamber spokeswoman Denise Davis declined to say what the groups next move may be other than we remain opposed to the bill.
Slate Plus members get more How to Do It each week. How to Do It is Slates sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. Its anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

Im in my mid-20s and until recently had never used a vibrator or any type of sex toy. Not for any particular reason, I just never felt the need to (I can easily come from manual clitoral stimulation).

During a threesome, I got to use a vibrator for the first time and while it didnt bring me to orgasm, it felt great. I wanted to explore more on my own so I bought my own vibrator and its been great! I still dont orgasm from it but Im honestly fine with that because it feels very relaxing (I also have endometriosis and pelvic floor tightness and have noticed less pain after using the vibrator). Sometimes I even use it when Im just lying around watching TV for the relaxing effect, not necessarily in a sexual way. My question is that sometimes afterward my vulva/pelvic area feels kind of numb. Is this normal? Ive noticed my clitoral orgasms have been slightly weaker too and overall, I feel a bit desensitized during penis-in-vagina sex. Am I doing some sort of damage with it?

Doing It Wrong?

Dear Doing It Wrong,

I reached out to Stacy De-Lin, MD, associate medical director at Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, New York, for some added expertise into the numbness you describe. First, I think theres plenty on the internet about vibrator desensitization, but Im not sure its necessarily a real phenomenon, De-Lin said. There hasnt been definitive clinical evidence proving that vibrators cause long-term desensitization. Most reports are anecdotal. While some users may report decreased sensitivity after using a vibrator, this is often temporary and resolves after a short period of non-use. So either try using a different setting than usual or put the vibe away for a while.

Many women need clitoral stimulation to orgasm, so you might go the other direction entirely and bring that vibe into penis-in-vagina sex. Meanwhile, its never a bad idea to check in with a gynecologist for an exam. Finding a medical provider you can trust, and building a relationship with them, is one of the best things you can do for your sexual health.

Stoya

More Advice From Slate

Im a 28-year-old woman whos been married to my husband for five years now. He is the only sexual partner Ive ever had (for penetrative sex at least), and I generally enjoy what we do a lot. I just have one issuean issue Ive always had, now that I think about it. I hear about women having multiple orgasms.
On Monday, Team Trump filed a blistering opposition to the DOJs request for the judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case, Tanya Chutkan, to issue a narrowly tailored gag order limiting the former presidents ability to make what the DOJ described as extrajudicial statements that present a serious and substantial danger of materially prejudicing this case.

With the filings on the DOJ motion now complete, a critical conflict in the 2020 election case is now ripe for decision. The pending ruling is not only crucial to the progress of the D.C. case, but will impact all prosecutions of the former president.

Arguing that any gag order would be a blatant violation of the former presidents First Amendment rights, especially given his role as a candidate for the countrys highest office, Trumps lawyers assert that Judge Chutkan is barred from doing anything to limit what their client says, regardless of how inflammatory she believes those statements may be.

Notwithstanding the aggressiveness of this black-and-white approach, we already know two important things. First, based on her earlier protective order and previous statements, we know that the judge believes Trumps screeds threaten the administration of justice and cannot be ignored.

Weeks before the government sought the gag order, Chutkan warned Trump counsel John Lauro about the consequences of his clients continuing inflammatory public statements. Such statements, she said, will require her to take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.

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Related From Slate The 2020 Election Was a Nightmare. 2024 Will Be Something Else. Read More

The second thing we know is that Chutkan is already considering an indirect yet devastating action she can take to punish Trumps contemptable behavior in a way that has no impact on his First Amendment rightsmoving up the trial date.

As Chutkan advised defense counsel in that same session: The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly.

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Citing the need to limit the exposure of potential jurors to Trumps inflammatory statements, she can order the trial to begin on, say, the January 2024 date originally requested by the government.

Objections based on the defense counsels inability to prepare in the shortened time can be met by Judge Chutkans confidence in defense counsel and the adequacy of the many months already utilized plus the three months going forward. She can also address counsels concerns by noting that the additional time pressure of which they complain is entirely the responsibility of their client, who could stop his inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric at any time.

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A federal judges authority over her courtroom calendar is near absolute, leaving Trump without a valid basis to appeal.

A January trial date would end the infamous delay tactics upon which Trump has always relied. Most importantly, it meaningfully increases the odds that Donald Trump will be a convicted felon before the July 15, 2024, Republican conventiona status likely to give delegates cause to pause before supporting his nomination.

Lets play it out.

Jury selection can take place in the weeks prior to the trial date set. Even if the governments case takes, say, two months to present, we are now roughly in the first half of March. There is no real defense case, as Trump taking the stand would be an act of self-immolation. There are, at best, a limited number of documents counsel can place in evidence in a defense case, and most all relevant potential defense witnesses, such as John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, have their own legal problems that will force them to invoke their Fifth Amendment privileges and not testify.

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Even if we give the defense roughly a week or so to present a case, and add a few days to resolve legal disputes, such as conflicting versions of proposed jury instructions the parties will submit to the court, summations should take place around the middle of April under this timeline.

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While predicting the length of jury deliberations is impossiblegiven the strength of the prosecutions case and the weakness of the defendants, and given the reality that by the time deliberations begin, jurors will have sat anonymously and under the intrusive protection of the U.S. Marshals Service for two and a half monthsdeliberations by people anxious to get back to their lives should not last more than a few weeks. We are now in early May.

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Assuming, as I do, a guilty verdict, even if the trial and/or jury deliberations exceed my guesstimates, Donald Trump would very likely be a convicted felon facing imprisonment before the July 15 Republican convention begins under this calendar.

While MAGA delegates may find that reality yet another reason to support him, other delegatesfaced with the prospect of trying to win the 2024 election with a candidate convicted of trying to undo the prior one, and one they now have much less reason to fearmay not feel the same way.

If the pathway about to open proceeds in the direction it is now pointing, Donald Trumps return to Washington is far more likely to be for his criminal sentencing than his presidential inauguration.
When Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez was indicted on bribery charges by federal authorities on Fridaycharges that included the allegation that hed accepted actual bars of gold in exchange for pressuring prosecutors to go easy on an individual accused of bank fraudthe response from his partys national leaders was kind of a sluggish Ah, crap. (Menendez has categorically denied that he has committed any crimes.)

This was an understandable reaction. Menendez is a machine politician who has been in Congress since 1993 and beat similar corruption allegations in 2017 before winning reelection in 2018. Pressure him to resign and he might refuse, creating a mess in the 2024 primary that he might well emerge from as a winner if no other candidate consolidated the field. (As 2018 showed, name recognition and allies within a state party can go a long way.) And while New Jersey is a blue state, a Democratic candidate whos running postsecond indictment could conceivably lose a general-election race to a Republican running on a platform of, lets say, not having been indicted twice for corruption. (Also: Menendez, in the scenario where party leaders have basically called him a crook, might not feel compelled to vote the way they ask him to, which would be a problem in a 50-50 Senate.)

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On the other hand, not pressuring Menendez to resign risks creating the impression that the Democratic Party condones corruption, which is not the image it wants to project heading into an election that will, at the national level, be defined by the question of whether Donald Trump is too corrupt to be president. It would also still result in Menendez running as the partys nominee in 2024 while under indictment (or on trial). What would be great for Democratic leaders is if Menendez would decide to throw in the towel on his own, but he said at a Monday press conference that hes not going anywhere.

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Related From Slate The Uproar Over John Fettermans Outfits Is Really Missing the Forest for the Trees Read More

Tricky stuff! But less tricky if youre a Democratic senator from a swing state (or red state), where theres an incentive to find issues on which you can show thats youre independent-minded. The first senator to say Mendendez should resign, on Friday afternoon, was Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, whose political profile combines relatively mainstream liberal positions with a maverick-styled manner of casual dress and personal bluntness. (Last week, Fetterman was criticized by a number of his colleagues for inspiring Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to change the chambers dress code so that he can preside over it in shorts.) Fetterman was followed on Monday by Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brownup for reelection in a red state in 2024and Vermont Sen. Peter Welch (Vermont is the most maverick state), Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin is possibly the most 50-50 state in the country), and Montana Sen. Jon Tester (Montana is redder than, uh, the summer dust that cowboys  dust  off their boots).

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From there, the dam has cracked open. As of Tuesday afternoon, the should resign caucus was up to 16 Dems, including more senior figures like Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Most prominently, it includes New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who stood by his home state colleague in 2018 after the last set of corruption charges. (New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was also early to call for Menendez to step down; he and Booker might not want that characteristic New Jersey indictment smell lingering on them if they run for higher office, again in Bookers case.) In sum, Fetterman got his wish:

This week, I hope to see my colleagues fully address the alleged systemic corruption of Senator Menendez with the same vigor and velocity they brought to concerns about our dress code.  Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 26, 2023

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Not calling on Menendez to resign: The Senates Republicans, who would love to run someone against Mr. Bribery Pants in 2024 and who, because of Trump, are now obligated to characterize corruption prosecutions as deep state interventions in the peoples business. (To be clear, at this point Menendez is only Mr. Alleged Bribery Pants.) Heres Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is to using periods in his tweets as Fetterman is to wearing a suit:

The allegations against the Senior Senator from New Jersey are nasty & the evidence offered difficult to explain away



But in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) September 26, 2023

Getting a free shot at a presidential-year Senate flip? Now thats a golden political opportunity! (Sorrywell be calling for our own resignation shortly.) Anyway, my two cents is that if Democrats really want Robert Menendez to resign, they should tell him that if he does, theyll give him $480,000 in cash that he can hide in his clothes. Maybe he has a sense of humor!
On Wednesday evening, seven Republicans will take the stage for the second GOP primary debate, vying, it seems, for second place. (The front-runner, Donald Trump, will not attend.) And as in the first debate, there will only be one woman on stage: former South Carolina Gov. and former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Haley has carved out a space for herself as the reasonable, honest, experienced candidate in a field of MAGA acolytes, religious ideologues, interchangeable nonentities, and narcissistic loudmouths. The question is whether Republican primary voters want even the veneer of restraint, reasonableness, and authorityespecially coming from a woman.

Thats partly because the Republican Party has a reasonableness problem, and partly because it has a woman problem. The stark 1-out-of-7 underrepresentation well see on the debate stage Wednesday isnt aberrational for the GOP, even in 2023: Just 8 percent of members of Congress across the House and Senate are Republican women. There are nearly as many Democratic congresswomen as congressmen, but just 1 in 5 House Republicans is female.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a party that has spent so much time taking away womens rights, the party also has problems with female voters. Across nearly every racial, educational, and socioeconomic demographic, female voters are more likely than male voters to support Democrats. And women may be even more likely to vote for Democrats in 2024, given that the last Republican president appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and set into motion a series of abortion bans that have left women across conservative states with very few legal options to end unwanted pregnanciesand left some women badly injured or nearly dead after experiencing serious pregnancy complications and being refused standard and necessary medical care.

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This has not been goodfor the women, obviously, but also for Republicans electoral prospects, a reality with which the GOP struggles to reckon. And as more and more stories come out about sympathetic white women who are trying to become mothers only to have their pregnancies go tragically wrong and wind up trapped in Handmaids Talestyle dystopian nightmares, we may see a further shift among voters who say abortion should always be illegal (its already a minority position). Once people see the reality of abortion bans, those bans become harder to stomach, and harder to defend. That, coupled with the leftward lurch of younger voters, has at least some Republicans understandably worried about how the partys extremism on abortion might hurt them.

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Not that they are doing much about it. Some Republican candidates still take the long-held conservative position: Ban abortion with few exceptions. Some try not to talk about it much. Others, including Trump, flip-flop, trying to locate an impossible position that the anti-abortion right will support while not alienating the majority of American voters.

And then theres Nikki Haley. The only woman in the race has pieced together a platform on abortion that she seems to believe can actually appease everyone. Heres how she does it: Haley says shes personally strongly pro-life. She says she wants to criminalize many abortions, and would sign a federal ban of some kind if it came across her desk. But she also says consensus building is a better route than taking principled but impossible-to-carry-out positions, and that shes being honest with voters when she tells them that a total federal ban is unlikely to happenunless Republicans have a surprise sweep in Congress.

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But as a politician, Haley has not been an abortion moderate. While in the South Carolina House, she was enthusiastically anti-abortion, voting to ban state employee health insurance plan funding of the procedure for rape and incest victims; as governor, she signed a conservative anti-abortion bill that largely banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Her position seems savvy in the sense that she is advocating for consensus building not because she actually wants moderation, but because she thinks its a wiser strategyand a more effective way to ban as many abortions as possible, as quickly as possible.

But its not clear it will be effective. It wont land with the extremists, and there dont seem to be enough Republicans who are moderate on abortion and are voting primarily based on that position on abortion.

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Related From Slate Nikki Haleys History of Having It Both Ways Read More

Further, Haley has to walk a fine line with a voter base that is generally misogynistic and more hostile to women in power than the left. If she gains any more traction against Trumpand right now she doesnt have much beyond being in second place in New Hampshireshes likely to risk his ire, and its clear that he has a particular kind of derision for women who challenge his authority, an unvarnished misogyny that Republican voters tend to reward. So Haley is going to have to deal with both her gender and the misogyny it brings. And on that, shes been unsteady. She shies away from mentioning gender on the campaign trail. But in the first debate, she interrupted a squabble between Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy to quip, This is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman. 

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For all of Haleys miming of Thatcheresque (and, in style if certainly not politics, one might say Clintonesque) female power, though, the GOP electorate remains loyal to Trumpa man who is the antithesis of the kind of reasonableness, steadiness, and compromise in the pursuit of outcome Haley is trying to perform. Which leaves Haley threading a very slender needle, both embracing the anti-woke Republican rhetoric that says identity doesnt matter (and that identity is dangerously weaponized against white men), and emphasizing her identity as a mom, a wife, and a badass woman.

Do I happen to be a woman? Yes. Do I happen to be Indian? Yes. Do I happen to be a military spouse? Yes. Do I happen to be a mom? Yes. All those things are great, she told Politico this August. I think that when I become the first female president, it wont be because Im a woman. Itll be because  Im the right person for the job.

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Its a clever ploy, and the same have-it-both-ways thing shes doing on abortion. Haley gets to join voters in rejecting the idea that identity matters or that women bring anything unique to the tablewhile also letting them feel good about voting for a woman. Haley gets to gesture at the idea that what the people want on abortion is what should happenwhile making it clear that she would sign extreme anti-abortion legislation if it came across her desk. Nikki Haley keeps contorting herself into positions that might allow her to attract the extreme wings of the GOP while also holding on to some of the more moderate types. Unfortunately, she doesnt seem to be attracting enough of either.
On March 9, 1979, Linda Morabito discovered a volcanic plume on Io, a moon of Jupiter, in one of the photos from Voyager 1. She wrote, I could feel tears begin to roll down my face at the sight of a world more unexpected than imagination itself.  It was as if I had been gazing into destiny.

In the 44 years since, Io has continued to amaze. Observations made by other spacecraft Voyager 2, Galileo, Cassini, New Horizons, and currently, Junohave revealed that Io is a dynamic hellscape of fire and ice. The surface temperature is a frigid 250 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but Ios volcanic eruptions produce extremely hot lavas that could be as high as 3,000 degrees (much hotter than we see today on Earth). Enormous lava lakes reaching more than 100 miles across dot Ios surface. Fire fountains sporadically erupt and volcanic deposits change over a period of months. Amirani is the solar systems longest active lava flow, stretching more than 200 miles. Ios volcanic gases interact with Jupiters powerful magnetosphere to create the ominous-sounding Io plasma torus, bathing Io in radiation.

Towering mountains, in the shape of tilted blocks and more than twice as tall as Mount Everest, were likely formed by Ios crust fracturing as Io continuously turns itself inside out. And just like we have ocean tides on Earth, Io has tides of rock: Its mountains rise and fall and rise again by 200 feet in 42 hours (the time it takes Io to orbit Jupiter). The tides are caused by the synchronous dance of the inner three Galilean moons (Io, Europa, and Ganymede) in a gravitational tug-of-war with Jupiter. The flexing and friction of rock tides creates the heat that fuels Ios volcanism; the heating is so severe that an ocean of magma more than 30 miles thick likely lies beneath Ios crust.

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On Feb. 22, 2001, astronomers using the Keck telescope in Hawaii (only 35 miles from the active volcano Kilauea) witnessed the most powerful volcanic eruption ever seen. With an enormous geyser of lava that would dwarf Kilaueas eruptions, Ios Surt volcano erupted with a power output of 80,000 gigawatts. For a short time, this one volcano on Io put out five times the power of all the worlds power plants combined.

To further study Ios volcanoes, it would be best to send a trained geologist there to survey the landscape and then collect rock and gas samples for lab analysis, the way we study volcanoes here on Earth and discovered volcanism on our own moon. Debris from ancient volcanic eruptions on the moon was spotted by the Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Gene Cernan, who were shocked to see orange glass beads on the colorless lunar surface. These volcanic beads (produced in a fire-fountain eruption more than 3.5 billion years ago) hold secrets not recorded in other moon rocks: They contain volatiles (including water!) from the lunar interior.

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We cant do the same thing on Io, howeverits too dangerous. If astronauts ever actually did make it to the surface of Iolike the poor saps in the 1981 Sean Connery film Outlandthey would only survive a few hours (at the very most). For Io, a repurposed Agent 007 wont work; well need a different strategy.

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Im currently leading a group of scientists and engineers in developing an exciting robotic space mission to explore Ios volcanoes the same way a human geologist would: by observing eruptions up close and bringing samples back to the lab. If selected as part of NASAs New Frontiers Program, the mission will launch in the early 2030s, and will be implemented by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL pulls off daring feats of space exploration, like landing a car-sized rover on Mars (twice), which is why their motto is Dare Mighty Things.

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Since Ios volcanic plumes are spewing gas and dust more than 100 miles into space, collecting samples from Ios volcanoes is easier than getting samples from other worlds. Instead of performing a soft landing, trying to find the perfect spot to collect a sample, collecting a sample, and then launching again to return the sample to Earth, we can just fly through one of the volcanic plumes.

Our mission, named Prometheus, would go into orbit around Jupiter and fly by Io a few times to scope out the active volcanoes and their plumes. Then wed target one particular plumemost likely the Old Faithful of Io: Prometheus (after which our mission is named). Using autonomous navigation, wed fly through the center of the plume several miles above Ios surface while carefully avoiding those tall mountains. We would trap dust and gas within the plume in a pizza-sized collector while the rest of the spacecraft was safely shielded from impacts.

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Flying at the altitude of a commercial airliner, wed capture images and video of Ios volcanic hellscape (lava lakes, foundering mountain blocks, fire fountains, lava flows) at high resolution, which would surely be some of the most stunning space images ever captured. With a powerful burn from the spacecrafts rockets, we would leave the Jupiter system and bring pieces of Io home for high-precision analyses in laboratories on Earth.

Is this bonkers? Yes.

Is it possible? Also yes.

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A rendering by James Tuttle Keane depicts what our spacecraft might look like in the moments after it passes through a volcanic plume on Io and collects a sample (with Jupiter in the background). The collected Io plume particles would probably be similar to those orange glass beads collected by Cernan and Schmitt on the moon, and wed get as much mass as is in a pinch of table salt. This may seem miniscule, but modern lab techniques are so sensitive that well be able to answer questions about the origins of Jupiter, its moons, and the rest of the solar system with less than a gram.

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Measuring the composition of the returned dust will let us see into Ios deep past, back to the beginning of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Do the Io pyroclastics contain trace amounts of water (like the orange glass beads on Earths moon) hinting that Io was once like its famous neighbor, the wet and possibly habitable Europa? What were the building blocks of the giant planets in the outer solar system? We can only answer these questions with an Io sample analyzed by modern laboratory techniques. And we can do even more in the future. The moon rocks are being analyzed in ways that we couldnt have even imagined 50 years ago when we got them. Sample return is the gift that keeps on giving.

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Though Io appears to be the eccentric oddball of the solar system, exploring it will help us understand the distant past of the Earth and worlds elsewhere in the universe. During Earths Archean period about 3 billion years ago, the mantle was hot and dry and some volcanoes erupted extremely hot lavas called komatiites, possibly similar to Io lavas. Only through detailed chemical analyses of Ios volcanic material can we explore this connection to ancient Earth. The tidal heating that drives Ios volcanism operates on exoplanetary systems too, and can generate exo-Ios, volcanic exomoons detectable by their sodium and potassium clouds near hot-Jupiter exoplanets.

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Related From Slate Sharks Lived on a Golf Course for 17 Years. Why Did They Leave? Read More

Holding an ancient artifact in your hands, a natural artifact like a meteorite or man-made artifact like an arrowhead, invokes a sense of awe: What stories can this object tell? Scientific analyses of samples returned from the sun, comets, asteroids (including the just-returned Bennu samples), Mars, and the moon can reveal these stories. Measurements of space samples have repeatedly upended expectations and led to scientific discoveries more unexpected than imagination itself. The early dynamics of the outer planets were likely responsible for the structure of the solar system we see today, and dictated the delivery of the ingredients necessary for life to the inner planets. But the outer planet region is unsampled, so these stories remain a mystery. Understanding Ios present and past, as well as our own origins and place in the local cosmos, requires bringing a piece of Io back to Earth.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Leaflet featuring late Milan Lasica and Julius Satinsky available online.

Milan Lasica (in the black background) and Julius Satinsky (in the white background) are having a conversation about the upcoming election over the phone. (Source: Duro Balogh)

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What are you doing? asks Julo over the phone.

Im pickling fruits. And you? replies Milan.

Im not pickling fruits says Julo.

(their phone conversation about pickled fruits continues for a few more minutes)

video //www.youtube.com/embed/j6GS8WafZQg

A famous scene involving arguably Slovakia's two greatest comics has been recreated, years after their deaths, to encourage Slovaks to vote in the elections this weekend.

Telephone, created by Julius Julo Satinsky and Milan Lasica decades ago, has been remade in a comic style flyer called Im calling and Im Voting (Volam a volim) which can be downloaded online in Slovak.

Satinskys daughter, Lucia Molnar Satinska, published the first visuals from the flyer, created by illustrator Duro Balogh and designer Petro Hajdin, on social media a week ago.

Before every election, I remember my parents with their phones close to their ears, calling family and friends and checking if they were going to vote and if they were going to vote pro-democratic parties, said Molnar Satinska. They explained, explained, explained.

Satinsky, who spent most of his life under communism, did not shy away from being part of pre-election campaigns. He often said that he was educating people about democracy.

Now Im big too, so Im picking up the phone. I wouldnt even think of pickling. Im calling and voting, Molnar Satinska said.

In the flyer, the two late comedians discuss the 2023 election instead of pickling fruits.

Hello. Is that you? asks Milan.

Yes, it's me. What are you doing? asks Julo.

Me? Thinking, says Milan.

Thinking? About what? asks Julo.

You knowthe election, replies Milan.

About the election? What election? asks Julo.

About the usual.what we can do so that we dont end up where weve already been, says Milan.

Ah, have you come up with something? asks Julo.

No, I havent. And you? asks Milan.

Me? Im not thinking, replies Julo.

Nooo, thats not what I meant. What would you do? asks Milan.

Oh, Id call someone who is not thinking about the election either, says Julo.

(the conversation continues for a little longer)
Interview with state secretary at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Peter Misik.

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If the forces that want to direct Slovak foreign policy away from its euro-atlantic direction come to power, they could succeed in doing so, says Peter Misik, an experienced diplomat and deputy foreign minister.

Slovakia would benefit from Ukraine's accession to the EU, but enlargement must happen simultaneously with the reform of the Union and must be prepared on both sides so that it turns out to be a success story as opposed to a disappointment. The situation around Ukrainian grain also shows that our market is not yet ready to accept products from Ukraine, and we should learn from this, Misik points out in an interview with The Slovak Spectator.

Read this interview to find out: why the EC President mentioned Ukraine only in passing,

what Ukraine's accession to the EU will mean for Slovakia,

whether the State Secretary shares the concerns about Slovak foreign policy after the elections,

whether the EU really needs to be completed,

why the Secretary of State would not interfere with the veto in decision-making in Brussels.

In her recent State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not mention Ukraine as much as last year. How is the Slovak audience supposed to understand this? Has the EU cooled towards Ukraine?

Not at all. The EU has taken a specific step by giving Ukraine candidate status in 2022, and Slovakia has also strongly supported this. If you had asked about this before 2022, everyone would have shaken their heads in disbelief and say that Ukraine would never become a member. Now the accession process is under way and there is no need to talk about whether Ukraine will be or is part of this project. We know it is.

What will the EU accession of Ukraine and the Western Balkans mean for Slovakia?

When Slovakia joined in 2004, there was also a big discussion about what enlargement would mean. And the countries that benefit the most from it today, like Germany and Austria, were the most vocal at the time in their concerns about what it would bring them. They were worried that cheap labour would come in, that investment would go out. It turned out to be just the opposite. Further enlargement is a great opportunity for Slovakia as well. The accession of Ukraine means huge opportunities for eastern Slovakia, just as our accession was for the east of Austria. I remember what it looked like at the end of the 1990s and everyone can see what it looks like today. Of course, there is a price. The enlargement will bring more competition for our companies, but competition is not a bad thing. It forces us to innovate, to look for ways to increase our efficiency, to be better. So, on the whole, it can drag us down, but it has to be well prepared. Today, for example, we see that our market is not ready to receive agricultural products from Ukraine. This is a warning to both sides to prepare well for this.

Charles Michel mentioned Ukraine could join the EU in 2030. Is that a realistic, optimistic or pessimistic scenario?

There is no clear answer to that. Because when you say that something will happen at a definite moment, you raise expectations that may not be entirely realistic. The second thing is that you are depriving the candidate countries a little bit of the motivation to make an effort. In the EU, on the other hand, things will only move when we set deadline. I think the exact date is important, but even more important is that the accession is a success. That is why we must be responsible and only promise what we can deliver.

The head of the European Commission also mentioned Georgia, saying that the European perspective is also important for its people.

Georgia has a different status from Ukraine because it is not a candidate state. But it has a guarantee that its potential candidacy status will be considered. If the Georgian government sees a future in Europe, Europe will be open. We are keeping our fingers crossed for them to choose a future in the EU, but it's their decision.

We in Slovakia had the 1990s, where it was decided whether this country would go one way or the other. That was an absolutely crucial moment in terms of Slovakia's development, although people take it for granted now. Georgia may be experiencing something similar today.

Some commentators say that Slovakia is experiencing something similar today, too. Colleagues from abroad tell us that even abroad they are looking at Saturday's elections with concern as to whether the direction of Slovakia will change. Do you share these concerns?
Prior to Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, accounts of news agencies that were "state affiliated" were labeled such as to highlight potential government bias, disinformation, and propaganda. After Musk took over and rebranded it into X, the labeling process was removed.

In the aftermath, a new research report by media analysis firm NewsGuard suggested that user engagement with foreign propaganda skyrocketed since the Tesla and SpaceX boss took over.

NewsGuard: Removing 'State Affiliated' Label Means Uptick in Propaganda Engagement

The study claimed that sites like Russia's RT and TASS, China's Global Times and China Daily, and Iran's PressTV have seen huge upticks in user engagement over the last several months. In the 90 days after X removed the "state affiliated" labels, engagement with posts from English-language versions of their accounts increased by 70%.

Out of all state media accounts, the study found that Russian state media Russia Today (RT) gained the most engagement since X removed the labeling, removing alongside it the information that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is operating it. This multiplied its engagement to 2.5 million likes and reposts from 1.3 million after the removal of the disclosure. TASS, another Russian state media outlet, also grew its engagement by 63% post-Musk takeover.

The same trend was also observed for PressTV (97%) and the Global Times (26%).

On the other hand, Gizmodo emphasized that the US government officially accused many of the organizations mentioned as propaganda outlets despite some previously disavowing claims they lacked editorial independence. There was also a broader argument over what exactly counted as "state affiliated" media.

No matter the labeling or the refusal of such, media outlets that received public funding have long been accused of being mouthpieces for the governments funding them.

Read Also: Recently-Declassified US Intel Reveals Russia Uses Influence Laundering to Spread Propaganda to the West

Algorithm Assist

NewsGuard also reported that X's own algorithm appeared to be amplifying content posted by state media, which, in turn, created a larger audience for it.

It could be remembered that content from accounts the site deemed as "state affiliated" media could never be boosted by its algorithm. When Musk took over, stories from such state media were algorithmically recommended in users' "For You" feeds with some regularity.

NewsGuard Analyst Jack Brewster told Gizmodo that the post-Musk site gave readers much less information about the sources where the news was taken from and that the site's recently-tweaked information filtering processes have had a substantial effect on how disinformation is being propagated on the platform.

From Complicated to Confusing

Musk was not the only culprit for the disinformation issues Twitter/X had, as it has always been a place where propaganda is mostly delivered by everyday users, from government agencies to political operatives to celebrities to contractors, as well as an army of bots and trolls.

It also recently came to light that, in the years prior to the rollout of state-affiliated media labels, Twitter assisted in amplifying US propaganda efforts in the Middle East.

The media labeling policy Musk ditched was also a problem in itself, as the state-affiliated label was given to the US's geopolitical adversaries but not to Western outlets, such as Radio Free Europe or Voice of America.

But no matter how flimsy the guardrails were designed to combat a certain amount of information pollution on the platform, Brewster acknowledged the guardrails were designed to combat a certain amount of information pollution on the platform.

Related Article: EU Accuses Elon Musk's X of Allowing Russian Disinformation in Platform

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
SaS support holds firm, latest polls show, despite OLaNO leader's claims about rival.

One of the OLaNO billboards: We will not sell you to the mafia. (Source: TASR - Jaroslav Novak)

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It is no secret that OLaNO leader Igor Matovic and SaS leader Richard Sulik do not get along, and that their conflicts contributed to the fall of OLaNO-led governments in the past three years.

Before the end of last year, Matovic announced that he would publish evidence about alleged corruption involving his now political rival during the election campaign. And last Sunday he published a photo that purports to show communication between Sulik, a former economy minister in the OLaNO-led governments, and oligarch Jaroslav Hascak of the Penta financial group.

The correspondence allegedly comes from autumn 2020.

Hascak is a key character the Gorilla file, leaked online in 2011, which documents alleged political corruption. Its publication led to a wave of mass protests in Slovakia, but the allegations themselves have not yet been proved. In December 2020, Hascak was charged with corruption and money laundering. The charges were later dropped on the orders of the Prosecutor General. Hascak is currently facing charges of legalising income from criminal activity.

Matovic is now blaming Sulik for promoting the interests of private health insurance company Dovera, which Penta owns. In 2020, OLaNO planned to pump 300 million into state-owned health company VsZP, but SaS blocked the proposal and demanded money for private health insurance firms. In return, Matovic alleges, Hascak made sure Suliks colleague, SaS MP Jana Bitto Ciganikova, got publicity in media owned by Penta.
Read their brief profiles.

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Voters in Slovakia will go to the polls on Saturday September 30 to elect its next parliament.

The latest polls suggest that Smer or Progresivne Slovensko could win the Saturday election.

To help readers understand what these and other parties stand for, The Slovak Spectator prepared their short profiles in collaboration with MEMO 98, an international organisation that specialises in media monitoring.

Here are brief profiles of the Slovak political parties that have a chance to win parliamentary seats on September 30: Smer, Progresivne Slovensko, Hlas, Republika, OLaNO, SaS, SNS, KDH, Sme Rodina, Demokrati.

Smer

Smer leader and former three-time PM Robert Fico. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Smer was registered in November 1999, and originally profiled as a third-way party. Later, it moved towards the left and started focusing on social democracy, gradually becoming a dominant player on the political spectrums left wing. In 2004, it merged with three other left-wing parties which were polling low levels of voter support.

Smer has been led by Robert Fico since its founding and it has had MPs in parliament since the 2002 election. The party has been part of three governments: in the years 2006-2010, 2012-2016 (a one-party government, garnering historically the highest vote share for a party in a parliamentary election  44.41 percent of the vote), and 2016-2020. Fico served as prime minister in all three governments, although he was forced to leave the post in 2018 after the murders of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova; he was replaced by Peter Pellegrini (now Hlas).

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

Progresivne Slovensko

European Parliament Vice-President and PS leader Michal Simecka. (Source: SME - Jozef Jakubco)

Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia; PS) was registered in November 2017, aiming to present progressive solutions to social problems, and connect like-minded people.

The party failed to make it into parliament in the 2020 general election. It won 6.96 percent of the vote, but needed to pass a 7-percent threshold as it ran in a coalition with the Spolu (Together) party.

PS is currently led by Michal Simecka, who became the first Slovak to be elected European Parliament vice president in 2022.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

Hlas

Hlas leader and ex-PM Peter Pellegrini. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Hlas, registered in September 2020, was established by former Smer politicians who left the party only a few months after the parliamentary election. It profiles itself as a social democratic party that wants to be the voice of the working people, weaker people, the ill, anybody who needs help, young families and seniors, as well as the voice of Slovak regions.

It is headed by Peter Pellegrini, who served as prime minister in 2018-2020, replacing Robert Fico.

In the last local and regional elections in 2022, the party, alone and in various coalitions, won the most mandates for mayors (649, alone 267) and councillors (2,700, alone 2,068) of all parties.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

Republika

MEP and Republika leader Milan Uhrik. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Republika originated from another party registered in 2002. Since then, the movement has reprofiled several times. The last change came in March 2021, when it was taken over by people who had left the far-right Kotleba  Peoples Party Our Slovakia (LSNS). It profiles itself as a national conservative and nationalist political movement.

The party is led by MEP Milan Uhrik. Despite his claim that the party is not simply LSNS under a different name, several commentators have pointed out that all of the leading representatives also held top posts in the LSNS.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

OLaNO leader Igor Matovic. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Obycajni Ludia (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities; OLaNO) was registered in November 2011. It has been led by Igor Matovic since it was founded.

The party has been in parliament since 2012. It managed to defeat Smer in 2020, winning the general election with 25.02 percent of the vote. Matovic became prime minister, but was replaced by his then party colleague, Eduard Heger, in April 2021.

In the 2023 parliamentary election, OLaNO is running in a coalition with the Christian Union (led by Anna Zaborska) and Za Ludi (led by Veronika Remisova), which is officially named OLaNO and Friends. Its election leader is Erika Jurinova, current governor of the Zilina Region.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

SaS

SaS leader Richard Sulik. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Sloboda a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity; SaS) was registered in February 2009. It profiles as a liberal centre-right party presenting itself as Eurorealistic or mildly Eurosceptic.

It has been led by Richard Sulik since it was established.

SaS has been in parliament since 2010. The party has been part of two coalitions: in 2010-2012, and again in 2020-2023.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

SNS

SNS leader Andrej Danko. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Slovenska Narodna Strana (Slovak National Party; SNS) was established in March 1990. It claims allegiance to the legacy of the historic Slovak National Party which was active between 1871-1938, and has a policy emphasis on national and conservative ideas. It often supports pro-Russian narratives and rejects integration and liberal democracy.

The party has been led by Andrej Danko since 2012. SNS deputies have sat in five parliaments: after elections in 1994, 1998, 2006, 2010 and 2016; it has been part of two coalition governments (2006-2010, and 2016-2020).

The party failed to pass the 5-percent threshold in the 2020 general election, scoring its worst result in the history (3.16 percent of the vote). For the 2023 election, SNS has joined forces with the Zivot party led by Tomas Taraba, who made it to the parliament in 2020 with the far-right party LSNS, and is known for ultraconservative and often controversial opinions.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

KDH

KDH leader Milan Majersky. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Krestanskodemokraticke Hnutie (Christian Democratic Movement; KDH) was established in February 1990. Catholic anti-communist dissenters and people linked to the Public Against Violence (VPN) movement, which was an integral part in the 1989 Velvet revolution, played an important role in its founding and subsequent political focus.

It describes itself as a centre-right, conservative and democratic party striving to apply Christian and conservative values in the politics of society, the state and international community. In terms of foreign policy, it profiles as a pro-European and Euro-Atlantic party supporting Slovakias membership in the EU and NATO, and criticising non-democratic regimes, including in Russia and China.

KDH first made it to parliament in 1994, and remained there until 2016. It has been part of three governments: 1998-2002, 2002-2006, and 2010-2012. In the two last general elections, it failed to pass the 5-percent threshold.

The party is led by Milan Majersky, current governor of the Presov Region, who was chosen as its chair in August 2020.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

Sme Rodina

Boris Kollar has served as Speaker of Parliament since 2020. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Sme Rodina emerged from a party that had been active since 2011, reprofiling in 2015 and changing to its current name when taken over by entrepreneur Boris Kollar, who also became its chair.

The partys representatives claim it was established in reaction to the alleged growing influence of oligarchs and financial groups on Slovak politics and public money and to problems in Europe such as the migrant crisis or the support of LGBT+ rights. The party very sensitively perceives the threats to the Slovak families from both outside and inside Slovakia. On cultural and ethical issues, it promotes conservative values, and uses strong anti-immigration rhetoric.

Sme Rodina got into parliament for the first time in 2016 and was part of the government in 2020-2023.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

Demokrati

Andrea Letanovska and Eduard Heger (l). (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Demokrati (Democrats) was established on the foundations of the Spolu party, which itself was founded in 2018 as a centre, pro-European, green party.

Spolu was renamed the Blue Coalition at the beginning of 2023, and aimed to unite the parties active on the right wing of the political spectrum. However, the Modri (Blues) platform led by former two-time PM Mikulas Dzurinda left the coalition. In March, the party was joined by several former members of OLaNO, including ex-PM Eduard Heger, and the party was renamed Demokrati.

Dr Andrea Letanovska, who also serves as the partys deputy chair, is its election leader in the 2023 parliamentary election.

Read more about the party (in Slovak): Manifesto | Slate | Web

MEMO 98, in cooperation with the Czech organisation KohoVolit.eu, runs the VoteMatch project. Its ambition is to help Slovak voters find their way around the offer of the parties running in the September 30 parliamentary election.
A Slovak mother founded a children's library in the USA, comic legends call on Slovaks to vote, and why to head to Bratislava's V Klub tomorrow evening.

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Good evening. Here is the Wednesday, September 27 edition of Today in Slovakia - the main news of the day in less than five minutes.

Slovakia summons Hungarian ambassador

Hungarian MFA Peter Szijjarto shakes hands with Aliancia - Szovetseg leader Krisztian Forro. (Source: Facebook/Peter Szijjarto)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto urged Hungarian people in southeastern Slovakia on Tuesday and in southwestern Slovakia on Wednesday to vote for a "united Hungarian party".

During his tour in the south of Slovakia, he met with Aliancia - Szovetseg leader Krisztian Forro. Aliancia is a Hungarian minority party.

In response, on September 27, 2023, the Slovak Foreign Ministry summoned the Hungarian ambassador to Slovakia, Csaba Balogh. Slovakia asked the Hungarian ambassador to explain Slovakia's reservations against interference in the election campaign in Slovakia by supporting specific political entities to the Hungarian minister.

The Slovak ministry said that it considers such actions to be outside the standards of diplomatic communication.

Related: In August, Szijjarto criticised the arrest of former police chief Tibor Gaspar, who is now running in the election on the slate of the Smer party. He said that Gaspar was a victim of the "liberal mainstream".

More stories from The Slovak Spectator website

Election: Read brief profiles of the political parties that might get into parliament.

Read brief profiles of the political parties that might get into parliament. Politics: OLaNO leader Igor Matovic accused his former partner SaS leader Richard Sulik of lobbying for a financial group in 2020. His strategy appears to be working.

OLaNO leader Igor Matovic accused his former partner SaS leader Richard Sulik of lobbying for a financial group in 2020. His strategy appears to be working. Opinion: Rebooting with the Bridge.

Rebooting with the Bridge. Polls: Here's what the last polls tell us about the upcoming election.

Here's what the last polls tell us about the upcoming election. Business: The business environment for the Slovak economy and the growth of living standards have taken up little space in most political parties' manifestos.

The business environment for the Slovak economy and the growth of living standards have taken up little space in most political parties' manifestos. Culture: Comic legends call on Slovaks to vote.

If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription with no ads and a print copy of The Slovak Spectator sent to your home in Slovakia. Thank you.

FEATURE STORY FOR WEDNESDAY

Slovak books bring joy to children across America

Ivana Brezinska in her library at her home in the USA. (Source: Courtesy of I. B.)

When Ivana Brezinska packed her suitcases before she and her family moved to America nine years ago, she made sure to take children's books  50 of them in a single suitcase, in fact. She did not want her children, Nina and Michael, to forget Slovak.

Once they had grown up, Brezinska decided to share the books with other families in the USA.

EVENT FOR THURSDAY

Folk dance classes

On Thursday, V Klub on the SNP Square in Bratislava will host the Tanecny Dom (Dance House) event during which people can learn to dance traditional Goral, Ruthenian and Vojvodina Slovak dances. Learn more.

Hour: 20:00

Admission: 9. Tickets can be purchased in the club.

In other news

President Zuzana Caputova called on people to participate in Saturday's early parliamentary election . "For me personally, this election is about the courage not to succumb to the fear that many try to induce in us. It is about our self-confidence. That we are able to believe in democracy and do not need to back down to autocracy. That we are able to see the strength of a politician in their arguments and abilities, and not in their shouting at press conferences and on social media. And they will also be about where we want to belong as a country - whether on the edge of the communities we are a part of, or among respected partners," said the president.

. "For me personally, this election is about the courage not to succumb to the fear that many try to induce in us. It is about our self-confidence. That we are able to believe in democracy and do not need to back down to autocracy. That we are able to see the strength of a politician in their arguments and abilities, and not in their shouting at press conferences and on social media. And they will also be about where we want to belong as a country - whether on the edge of the communities we are a part of, or among respected partners," said the president. Hlas leader Peter Pellegrini said on Wednesday night that Smer is a natural partner for him . "In terms of values and ideology, we have a more intensive penetration with Smer than with the PS," he said. Pellegrini has not ruled out cooperation with Smer. He refuses to sit in a government with Smer leader Robert Fico.

. "In terms of values and ideology, we have a more intensive penetration with Smer than with the PS," he said. Pellegrini has not ruled out cooperation with Smer. He refuses to sit in a government with Smer leader Robert Fico. More than 54,000 voters have so far voted by mail from abroad. Altogether, almost 73,000 citizens applied for mail. About 26 percent of those registered have not voted yet.

Altogether, almost 73,000 citizens applied for mail. About 26 percent of those registered have not voted yet. Marian Kotleba (LSNS), MP Miroslav Suja and MP Milan Mazurek (Republika) spread the most hate on Facebook , a new analysis by the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights shows.

, a new analysis by the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights shows. In the Global Innovation Index, published annually by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Slovakia finished in 45th place out of 132 assessed economies, up by one place. However, Slovakia achieves worse results than the European regional average in all studied areas of the innovation index, the Office of Industrial Property (UPV) said on Wednesday.

Baroque altar in the interior of the wooden Gothic Church of All Saints in Tvrdosin, northern Slovakia, on Saturday, September 2, 2023. The wooden Gothic church has been included in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List since 2008. (Source: TASR)

WEATHER FOR THURSDAY: You can expect clear skies, light wind and high temperatures. The highest daytime temperature will rise to 28C. (SHMU)

Thank you for subscribing and reading. It means a lot to us.

P.S. If you have suggestions on how our news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk.

Follow The Slovak Spectator on Facebook, Instagram (@slovakspectator) and Twitter (@slovakspectator).
Crema Coffee Roasters has been a Nashville institution for 15 years now. In that time, Crema has expanded their Music City footprint to include three cafes, including their original downtown location that is a must-visit for any Nashville-based coffee crawls. But now, Crema is leaving the confines of the city limits and heading 10 miles south to Brentwood.

Even though they are leaving home, Crema is maintaining the same standards and values that earned them their place in the Nashville coffee pantheon. This includes meticulous sourcing, quality drink creation, and a thoughtful food menu, all served within the comforting wooded warmth akin to the downtown cafe. It just goes to show, when it comes to coffee and top-notch cafes, you can never have too much of a good thing.

The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is presented by DONA. The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is sponsored by La Marzocco, Pacific Barista Series, Acaia, and Marco Beverage Systems.

As told to Sprudge by Diana Barton.

For those who arent familiar, will you tell us about your company?

In 2007, founders Rachel and Ben Lehman set out to create a unique coffee experience in Music City. Now with three locations, an e-commerce market, and the forthcoming Williamson County expansion, Crema Coffee Roasters prides itself on creating welcoming cafe spaces and roasting exceptional coffee. Named one of the 100 Best Coffee Shops in America and Best Coffee Roaster in Tennessee by Food & Wine, the brand is known for its single-origin and blended coffees, espresso drinks, coffee classes, and bites from local purveyors.

Can you tell us a bit about the new space?

Crema Coffee Roasters, the beloved Nashville coffee brand founded in 2007, will open its first location outside of Metro Nashville on Wednesday, August 30th. Located in the ever-popular Brentwood Place Shopping Center, the new shop will serve its classic coffee drinks alongside an expanded food menu. Rooted in transparency and ethically-sourced products, the team behind the Nashville staple looks forward to serving and sharing knowledge with their new community.

Whats your approach to coffee?

Since opening the first location of Crema, the team has been committed to transparently sourcing coffee and teaching guests about the nuances within their different offerings. Favorite drinks from the menu include the Cuban (a latte made with sweetened condensed milk) and the Coffee Soda (carbonated iced coffee, demerara sugar syrup, orange peel garnish). Classics include coffee by the cup, espresso, filter coffee, iced coffee, and a selection of teas by Rishi. Guests can also purchase bags of coffee beans that are roasted at Cremas East Nashville roastery. Crema also offers a selection of rotating specialty drinks that change seasonally.

To compliment the larger space, the new location will offer an expanded breakfast and lunch menu created by Courtney Whitsett of Pour La Mere (a locally based Certified Natural Chef), that will include nourishing and delicious food for Brentwood locals to enjoy on the go or while dining in. Standout items include Cremas Breakfast Sandwich (sourdough toast, egg bake, sharp white cheddar, arugula, homemade tomato-bourbon jam), fan-favorite Avocado Toast (sourdough toast spread with Noble Springs goat cheese, smashed avocado, red pepper flake, microgreens and a squeeze of lemon) and Housemade Granola. Crema has partnered with the organization Nashville Grown, to help get access to local farmers and makers such as Noble Springs Dairy, Stooksbury Creamery, Dozen Bakery, and more to craft their menu items with locally sourced goods.

How is your project considering sustainability?

Every aspect of Cremas business is approached with carefrom serving guests to fostering relationships with coffee producers and taking care of employees. The teams mission is to serve exceptional coffee, inspire learning, and provide an approachable and welcoming space for their gueststo both new guests and regulars alike. In addition to warm and expert service, Crema takes pride in being a good steward of the planet by creating a zero-waste footprint and sharing knowledge of roasting techniques, preparation, and origin of products.

Coffee devotees across the country can experience Crema at home by shopping online for transparently-sourced and expertly-roasted coffee, instant coffee, home brewing equipment, coffee subscriptions, and more. Passionate about quality of goods and leaving a zero-waste footprint, the team strives to provide a look into the unparalleled adventure of the coffee experiencefrom seed to cupwhile also working to enhance the communities they call home.

Whats your hopeful target opening date/month?

August 30, 2023

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that youd like to mention?

Crema is working with Powell to bring a unique and curated experience to its newest location. The inspiration for the space embodies the evolution of a coffee bean throughout the roasting processstarting with the coffee beans initial pale green flush, moving to the profound allure of a caramelized brown reflected in the interior palette and woven into the fabric of the design. A mix of organic materials, rich woods, and foliage will be present throughout the space, tying the design back to nature and serving as a reminder of Cremas steadfast commitment to sustainable practices.

Thank you!
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/at-least-100-killed-over-150-injured-after-fire-breaks-out-during-wedding-in-iraq-1113707384.html

At Least 100 Killed, Over 150 Injured After Fire Breaks Out During Wedding in Iraq

At Least 100 Killed, Over 150 Injured After Fire Breaks Out During Wedding in Iraq

At least 100 people have died and over 150 have been injured in a fire at a wedding in the Iraqi governorate of Ninewa, the region's health authority said Wednesday.

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fire

wedding

middle east

fireworks

death toll

casualties

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"According to preliminary information, 100 deaths and more than 150 injuries have been recorded in a fire at a wedding hall in the Al-Hamdaniya [district]," the authority told Iraqi media. Citing Iraq's civil defense authorities, reports indicated preliminary findings suggested the blaze broke out after fireworks were ignited in the event hall, which was fitted with prefabricated "highly flammable" panels. Photos shared from the scene captured dozens of firefighters working to combat the flames as first responders worked to provide first aid, with some video showing emergency personnel climbing over wreckage.Unconfirmed surveillance footage said to be from inside the venue has since surfaced, reportedly showing both the bride and groom near the center of the dance floor as pieces of the ceiling began to fall toward the ground.Images taken from inside the venue provided further insight into the extent of the damages at the scene.Early reports indicate that more than 700 individuals were said to have been inside the wedding hall when the fire broke out at about 10:45 p.m. local time.Imad Yohana, who managed to escape the flames, told US media they "saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall."Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani has since called on authorities to "mobilize all rescue efforts" to assist in the aftermath. Officials have warned that the final death toll and injury total could change as the situation remains an active scene.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/bacteria-found-in-bento-box-lunches-in-japan-that-poisoned-nearly-400-people---reports-1113709711.html

Bacteria Found in Bento Box Lunches in Japan That Poisoned Nearly 400 People - Reports

Bacteria Found in Bento Box Lunches in Japan That Poisoned Nearly 400 People - Reports

Pathogenic bacteria have been found in rice and snacks from bento box lunches  a traditional Japanese meal packed in a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal mostly for lunch  that caused food poisoning in nearly 400 people, Japanese media reported Wednesday.

2023-09-27T04:40+0000

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2023-09-27T04:40+0000

beyond politics

japan

bacteria

poisoning

science & tech

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The food poisoning of 394 people from 26 prefectures has been caused by 12 variations of bento box lunches, all prepared by Japanese maker of bento meals Yoshidaya in Aomori Prefecture, Japanese broadcaster reported, adding that staphylococcus aureus and wax bacillus have been found in the meals. The lunches were believed to be the cause of food poisoning - people who had the meals complained of stomach upset and vomiting, the report said. Public health authorities in Aomori Prefecture have banned Yoshidaya from operating amid food poisoning, the report said. The investigation into the incident was underway.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230902/surging-cases-of-flesh-eating-bacteria-spook-us--1113072474.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/bbc-admits-ukrainian-counteroffensive-failed-1113739632.html

BBC Admits Ukrainian Counteroffensive Failed

BBC Admits Ukrainian Counteroffensive Failed

Contrary to Western expectations, the much-touted counteroofensive attempt launched by the Kiev regime on June 4 has stalled without a breakthrough, a BBC news report said, citing Ukrainian soldiers.

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2023-09-27T18:33+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

bbc

ukraine

russia

ukrainian crisis

ukrainian conflict

ukrainian defense ministry

ukrainian counteroffensive attempt

ukrainian army

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The broadcaster's correspondent spoke to servicemen of the 24th Mechanized Brigade and their families, who have complained about preparing for "a long war with no end in sight."Despite the enormous amount of military equipment supplied by NATO countries to Ukraine, the West has failed to "outgun Russia," with Russian forces successfully repelling Ukrainian attacks, destroying and capturing foreign military equipment.The BBC correspondent noted that Russia surpasses Ukraine in number of drones, which have been ravaging Ukrainian positions and armored vehicles. Thus, Kiev's troops are forced to hide as much as possible due to poor air defense and the total dominance of Russia in the air.If Ukrainian forces fail to hide, Russian troops wipe out their vehicles and military personnel. Moreover, even when Zelensky's troops do take cover, the Russian forces reduce their strongholds to rubble. Hence, the Ukrainian troops either continue protecting NATO's interests in constant fear, or they desert to save their lives. However, those who fail to surrender to the Russian forces are killed by their own comrades, as there are special units in the Ukrainian Army tasked with murdering their own men for refusing to "die a pointless death."Adding up to a rather bleak mood among the Ukrainian soldiers, the BBC reporter mentioned the uncertainty of when their demobilization will happen.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230821/watch-russian-drones-wipe-out-ukrainian-armored-vehicles-1112762543.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230406/ukrainian-artillery-kills-its-own-soldiers-who-surrendered-near-avdeyevka-russian-defense-ministry-1109213198.html

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BBC on Ukrainian counteroffensive BBC on Ukrainian counteroffensive 2023-09-27T18:18+0000 true PT1M39S

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/canada-must-bring-to-justice-nazi-ss-veteran-who-spoke-in-countrys-parliament---kremlin-1113731392.html

Canada Must Bring to Justice Nazi SS Veteran Who Spoke in Country's Parliament - Kremlin

Canada Must Bring to Justice Nazi SS Veteran Who Spoke in Country's Parliament - Kremlin

The Canadian government must bring to justice or extradite Ukrainian Nazi SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, who has been given a standing ovation by the Canadian parliament last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

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world

dmitry peskov

canada

ukraine

nazi

poland

kremlin

russia

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"We have heard statements from Poland that they also plan to initiate the legal persecution of the Nazi [Hunka]. There is obviously no statute of limitations possible for such crimes. In this regard we, of course, believe that the Canadian government must bring [him] to justice and transfer [him] to those who will bring him to justice," Peskov told reporters. On September 22, Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi veteran, received a standing ovation from the Canadian legislature. Hunka's recognition came as House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota gave introductory remarks prior to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to the Canadian parliament. Later, Canadian lawmakers decided to condemn Hunka's invitation to the parliament and "recall" the honors rendered to him.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/wests-anti-russia-discourse-wwii-history-obfuscation-led-to-canadas-nazi-travesty-1113685995.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/canadian-government-must-apologize-to-all-russians-for-honoring-nazi---ambassador-stepanov-1113707758.html

Canadian Government Must Apologize to All Russians for Honoring Nazi

Canadian Government Must Apologize to All Russians for Honoring Nazi

Canada's parliament and government owe an apology to all Russians for honoring a Ukrainian Nazi tied to a division involved in war crimes, Moscow's Ambassador to Ottawa Oleg Stepanov said in a statement.

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americas

canada

oleg stepanov

volodymyr zelensky

russia

ukraine

russia-canada relations

apology

ukrainian nazis in europe

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On Friday, Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi veteran who fought in the ranks of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS during the Second World War, was given a standing ovation by the entire Canadian legislature. Hunka's recognition happened as the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, was giving introductory remarks prior to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to the Canadian parliament. Stepanov said "it is a proven fact" that the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS "Galicia" committed multiple war crimes, including mass murder against the Russian people.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/legendary-nazi-hunter-canada-failed-miserably-in-bringing-nazi-mass-murderers-to-justice-1113694491.html

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russian ambassador to ottawa oleg stepanov, canada, canadian parliament, apology, ukrainian nazi yaroslav hunka,
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/disgraced-ukrainian-ex-army-spox-slams-zelenskys-theatrics-complains-about-drugged-up-mercs-1113735627.html

Disgraced Ukrainian Ex-Army Spox Slams Zelenskys Theatrics, Complains About Drugged Up Mercs

Disgraced Ukrainian Ex-Army Spox Slams Zelenskys Theatrics, Complains About Drugged Up Mercs

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (formerly Michael John Cirillo), the 46-year-old US-born Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesperson who garnered international media attention and scorn earlier this month after calling for Russian journalists and officials to be hunted down, was suspended last week as the scandal reached Washington.

2023-09-27T14:04+0000

2023-09-27T14:04+0000

2023-09-27T16:27+0000

world

petro poroshenko

volodymyr zelensky

ukraine

russia

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Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (formerly Michael John Cirillo), the 46-year-old US-born Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesperson who garnered international media attention and scorn earlier this month after calling for Russian journalists and officials to be hunted down, was suspended last week as the scandal reached Washington.Speaking by video on two separate occasions (before and after their suspension) with legendary Russian pranksters Vladimir "Vovan" Kuznetsov and Alexei "Lexus" Stolyarov, who posed as former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Ashton-Cirillo revealed important details on the seedier underbelly of their work for Ukraine, including minutiae they didnt really get into while acting as a military spokesperson.Problems With Morale, Corruption, and MercsAnd so we are dealing with the reality that until we win the information war, our Western partners wont feel the pressure. But we must win the information war both here on the streets of Ukraine, and in the newsrooms in New York and London and elsewhere, the spox said, pointing to their personal efforts to change language surrounding the conflict to smooth over unpleasant realities, like calling foreigners serving in the ranks of Ukraines Armed Forces foreign fighters instead of what they actually are  mercenaries.I also know that many of them are doing this because they have no lives in their own countries. And so we have security risks and more importantly we have morale and psychological issues because foreign soldiers are here for the money  most of them. And those people are going to be the ones willing to engage in drugs, willing to engage in fundraising where theyre putting the money in their own pockets. Its something we have to be very careful about, they stressed.Commenting on the state of Ukraines Armed Forces, Ashton-Cirillo admitted that the situation is terrible, and appeared to confirm longstanding speculation about Ukrainian officials pilfering stocks of Western-supplied weapons deliveries.Ashton-Cirillo also privately accused members of Ukraines political and military elite of trying to profit off of the blood of our lost soldiers, and trying to profit off the blood of the men and women who are losing arms and legs.They also complained that the unrealistic promises being made to Kievs patrons, including about the now-stalled counteroffensive, means that our partners cant trust us in negotiations and our partners cant trust our projection for whats going to happen in the future. Because all they can judge us on are the results.The suspended spox stressed that while its okay to spread propagandistic messaging about Ukraines "successes" on the battlefield in public, its not good when were using this in discussions with our partners in Washington, our partners in Brussels, and especially our partners in the Eastern European nations.Russians Should Be Hunted DownAshton-Cirillo doubled down in private to the pranksters on comments they made publicly calling for Russian propagandists to be hunted down, saying that Russian journalists should not be able to hind behind their status as news people, and that Kiev should use all our weapons, including attacks targeting Russian media figures and officials.Recalling, for example, the tributes paid to the late Daria Dugina, who was killed in a car bombing last year, Ashton-Cirillo suggested that that goes to show that who she was in [Russias] eyes. It wasnt some woman who was accidentally killed. This was an evil creature who died a death they deserved for trying to genocide innocent people.Ashton-Cirillo also reiterated that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova should of course be targeted for elimination. The worst part with her is she gets accepted in the same way that a State Department spokesperson would be accepted. To me theres nobody who should be off limitsover the course of being able to carry out our full liberation.Russians Are Not EuropeanExpanding on comments they have made publicly referring to Russians as inhuman orcs, Ashton-Cirillo offered their interlocutor a brief "history" of the Russian people, emphasizing that the reality is Russians are not European, but have a different culture.While I dont know every Russian, I will say that whats happening in the Kremlin and whats happening to every Russian that supports Vladimir Putins decisions are not human. These people are not human. They are enemies of humanity, they added.Post-Suspension BluesIn the second conversation, conducted after her suspension, Ashton-Cirillo called their removal political, and said the decision came from the highest levels.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/zelenskys-failed-visit-to-us-shows-end-is-coming-for-ukraine-1113666534.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230914/they-will-be-hunted-down-ukrainian-military-speaker-threatens-russian-journalists-1113379420.html

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US President Joe Biden visited United Auto Workers (UAW) union members on the picket line in Michigan on Tuesday, September 26, showing support for the striking employees.

After 12 days of strike action, the president encouraged employees to "stick with it," arguing that they are entitled to a significant pay hike and other incentives for their efforts, as reported by CBS News.

While making short comments at a General Motors (GM) distribution site outside Detroit, the president told UAW members, "The fact of the matter is that you guys, the UAW, you saved the auto industry back in 2008 and before. Made a lot of sacrifices. Gave up a lot, and companies were in trouble. But now they're doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too."

Biden Admin's Stance on UAW Strikes

According to CBS News, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been clear that the government would not enter discussions and has refused to declare whether or not the White House backs the latest proposal made by the UAW.

And while it was initially planned that interim Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior White House advisor Gene Sperling would go to assist with negotiations, the Biden administration opted last week to keep the two in Washington. Jean-Pierre noted that Su and Sperling have constantly communicated with everyone involved during the last several weeks.

Last week, after former President Donald Trump revealed his trip to Detroit on Wednesday, September 27, and his decision to miss the Republican presidential debate in California on the same day, Biden indicated he would join the picket line. Trump has claimed that Biden's visit only happened because of Trump's commitment.

Trump said in a statement, "Crooked Joe should be ashamed to show his face before these hardworking Americans he is stabbing in the back. With Biden, it doesn't matter what hourly wages they get, in three years there will be no autoworker jobs as they will all come out of China and other countries."

Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre said Biden's attendance in the strike was meant to convey a message that the present government supports the auto workers.

See Also: UAW's Next Step is the 'More Nuclear Option,' Claims Top Analyst

Demand for Improved Pay and Working Conditions

Since beginning their strike against the major automakers on September 15, UAW members have targeted 20 more states and the distribution hubs of GM and Chrysler's parent company, Stellantis. The UAW has almost 150,000 members, but only around 20% are on strike at any time.

The UAW has asked for a 36% salary raise, yearly cost of living increases, pensions, and a four-day work week.

Biden, who calls himself the most pro-union president, pointed out that auto companies had made big offers but must do more to guarantee record corporate earnings imply record contracts. The president has said workers should get a reasonable portion of the profits they help generate for their company.

See Also: UAW Walkout Demanding for Pay Raises Gives Republicans Potential Lifeline in Michigan

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/hes-toast-strong-case-against-senator-menendez-just-tip-of-corruption-iceberg---experts-1113740971.html

Hes Toast: Strong Case Against Senator Menendez Just Tip of Corruption Iceberg - Experts

Hes Toast: Strong Case Against Senator Menendez Just Tip of Corruption Iceberg - Experts

While US Sen. Bob Menendez is far from the only corrupt politician in DC, the case against him is exceptionally strong, experts told Sputnik, noting it was likely only the tip of the iceberg of a larger network of corruption.

2023-09-27T18:22+0000

2023-09-27T18:22+0000

2023-09-27T18:22+0000

analysis

bob menendez

fault lines

jack rasmus

corruption

bribery

egypt

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After being indicted last week on corruption charges that include bribery, US Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has faced increasing calls to resign, including from within his own party. The senator has already stepped down as chair of the powerful Armed Services Committee.Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, who was also implicated in the scandal, have denied the charges against them. The senator has claimed that money found in their home was a family practice learned during persecution by the US-backed Batista regime in Cuba in the 1950s.He provided no explanation for the gold bars or other items they are accused of accepting as bribes, which includes a Mercedes c300 convertible and more than $100,000 in gold bars.Following their arraignment on Wednesday, the two were released on bail and their passports were confiscated.Menendez is widely known as a foreign policy hawk who has supported US sanctions policies against Cuba and other states, as well as armed US interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and other nations.Economist, radio show host, and author Jack Rasmus told Sputnik on Tuesday that there was no hope Menendezs political career would survive the case against him.Asked about the situation by the hosts of Radio Sputniks Fault Lines on Tuesday, retired US Navy Captain and political strategist Armen Kurdian coyly replied: Is this really a big deal? I mean, doesn't everybody in public office do this?You just don't see that anymore, he said of the photos in the indictment. You don't see bundles of cash in envelopes, you don't see those gold bars - it's absolutely fascinating. Heres a little bit about the senator: he's basically a middle-of-the-pack Democrat when it comes to his voting record, he's got a daughter on MSNBC and his son is now in Congress in New Jersey, which I guess makes them the second father-son combo where somebody is having some kind of corruption going on.I mean, really, is that worth, you know, putting your career and everything that you worked for in jeopardy? I mean, you know, it sounds like a lot of money to a lot of Americans - and it is - but for somebody in that position, it really isnt.Kurdian clarified, though: I do have some amount of faith in public officials that I do believe that most of them are not corrupt like this. I'm sure a lot of them push it to the edge and do what's necessary. But I think there's also a lot of just I don't want to get caught doing something stupid. I need to be careful, and these rules are throughout government.This is the second time charges have been brought against Menendez. A 2017 trial on charges of conspiracy, bribery, and honest services fraud resulted in a hung jury, which in the American system of common law means the jury failed to deliver a decision because its members could not unanimously agree on whether he was guilty or not, so the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors later failed to launch a new trial on the charges.Kurdian noted that not long after that debacle was when Menendez met his now-wife, Nadine Arslanian, a Lebanese Armenian who Kurdian noted had all these connections.It originated with her, he noted. She was in action. She had a lot of intention, she knew a lot of these people, he knew a lot of these people, and she introduced her husband to some of these folks. And you wonder whether he was like, did he fall into a honey trap of his own making?Kurdian said the prosecutors have a very strong case this time around.Asked about what happens when Menendez resigns or is removed from office, Kurdian explained that New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy would appoint someone to serve the rest of Menendezs term, which ends in 2024.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/menendez-arrives-to-manhattan-federal-court-to-face-bribery-arraignment-1113735945.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/hunter-biden-payments-from-china-list-joes-home-as-beneficiary-address-panel-reveals-1113709162.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230921/can-ukraine-use-corruption-charges-to-blackmail-biden-into-sending-more-arms-1113566345.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/iraqi-security-forces-arrest-14-suspects-including-wedding-hall-owner-after-deadly-fire-1113749039.html

Iraqi Security Forces Arrest 14 Suspects Including Wedding Hall Owner After Deadly Fire

Iraqi Security Forces Arrest 14 Suspects Including Wedding Hall Owner After Deadly Fire

The security forces of Iraq's Kurdistan region, by order of the Iraqi government, have arrested the owner of a wedding hall in Al-Hamdaniya District in Nineveh governorate where about 100 people died in a fire.

2023-09-27T20:23+0000

2023-09-27T20:23+0000

2023-09-27T20:20+0000

world

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iraq

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The Iraqi Interior Ministry issued arrest orders for several people, including the wedding hall's owner, Samir Suleiman Karume Ravo Aso, after which he was arrested in the Erbil governorate and handed over to the ministry, media reported. Later in the day, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said security authorities had detained 14 people involved in the incident. The ministry pledged to announce the results of the investigation within 72 hours. About 900 people were in the wedding hall where the fire broke out, the ministry said. Earlier reports citing the Iraqi Interior Ministry, detailed that many people had died because the emergency exits in the wedding hall were closed. At least 1,000 people were reportedly present at the celebration. One of the guests posted a video on social media of the canopy on the ceiling in the center of the hall, which was crowded with tables with food, catching fire from floor fireworks. The Iraqi Red Crescent Society said that more than 450 people had either died or had been injured as a result of the fire at the wedding hall. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said the death toll was 93, while about 100 people had been injured. Two emergency workers were killed during the rescue operations. Nineveh Governor Najim al-Jubouri has declared a week of mourning in the province in connection with the incident, while Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani announced a three-day nationwide mourning.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/at-least-100-killed-over-150-injured-after-fire-breaks-out-during-wedding-in-iraq-1113707384.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/israeli-archaeologists-find-possible-first-known-grave-of-ancient-greek-courtesan-1113749681.html

Israeli Archaeologists Find Possible First Known Grave of Ancient Greek Courtesan

Israeli Archaeologists Find Possible First Known Grave of Ancient Greek Courtesan

Archaeologists believe they may have found the grave of a Hetaira, a type of upper-class courtesan from Ancient Greece, for the first time along the old road from Jerusalem to Hebron.

2023-09-27T21:30+0000

2023-09-27T21:30+0000

2023-09-27T21:28+0000

beyond politics

israeli antiquities authority

jerusalem

israel

ancient greece

prostitute

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The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the find on Wednesday, estimating the woman lived some 2,300 years ago, around the time of Alexander the Great, a Macedonian Greek king who conquered the region from the Persian Empire.Hetairae were part of the elite circles of Greek society, and although they were prostitutes, they were allowed to be educated and amass wealth and power. Thus, why no identifiable grave of a hetaira has ever been found until this point has been something of a mystery to archaeologists and historians.Guy Stiebel of Tel Aviv University told Israeli media that while theres no certainty the grave site found in Jerusalems Talpiot neighborhood belonged to a hetaira, it seems the most likely interpretation of the evidence.Stiebel, along with Liat Oz of the Israel Antiquities Authority, jointly authored a paper on the find, which is set to be published in Hebrew in the peer-reviewed journal New Studies on Jerusalem.The tomb was found in 2019, carved into the limestone bedrock on a hillside near the road from Jerusalem south to Hebron and includes an entrance room and interior burial chamber, both of which were coated in plaster. The womans remains were first cremated, and her bones were buried with a number of items, including a bronze mirror inside a case and some nails, which were held to have magical properties by many in the ancient world. The whole thing was then sealed with a massive stone and bitumen gathered from the nearby Dead Sea.According to the archaeologists, this was not at all typical for burial customs of the time in Greece or Judea, adding to the mystery of the site. It was dated to the Hellenistic period by the mirror found inside, which matches statues from that time portraying women holding mirrors.Once they had determined it was most likely a powerful woman, the archaeologists said the most logical conclusion was that she was likely a hetaira, since the wives of military officers and aristocrats rarely traveled when their husbands did and would have been at home.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230921/new-undersea-find-off-egyptian-coast-reveals-wealth-of-ancient-pharaohs-greeks-1113547416.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/new-day-another-lawsuit-hunter-biden-sues-rudy-giuliani-for-spreading-contents-from-laptop-1113705877.html

New Day, Another Lawsuit: Hunter Biden Sues Rudy Giuliani for Spreading Contents From Laptop

New Day, Another Lawsuit: Hunter Biden Sues Rudy Giuliani for Spreading Contents From Laptop

The son of US President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden is suing former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani for his role is revealing the contents of the younger Biden's abandoned laptop.

2023-09-27T00:30+0000

2023-09-27T00:30+0000

2023-09-27T00:31+0000

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hunter biden

joe biden

rudy giuliani

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california

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Embattled first son Hunter Biden is continuing to file lawsuits against individuals he blames for the release of the contents of a laptop he reportedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair store.The lawsuit is against former New York City mayor and Donald Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The suit, filed in the Central District of California, accuses the former mayor of looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, [and] disseminating  data that was taken or stolen, thereby violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.It is the latest string of lawsuits brought by Hunter Biden against individuals surrounding his laptop. He also sued the owner of the non-profit Marco Polo, which has been publishing the contents of the laptop, the owner of the computer repair shop where Biden reportedly abandoned the laptop and the FBI for allegedly violating his privacy when two FBI agents told Congress and the media they were concerned the agency was slow-walking the investigation.The laptop in question first made headlines in October 2020, shortly before the 2020 presidential election. Reportedly, the computer repair shop owner had given the laptop to the FBI months before, but after not hearing anything about it on the news, contacted Giulianis lawyer at the time Bob Costello and provided him a copy of the computers hard drive.Costello is also a defendant in Bidens latest lawsuit.Contents of the laptop were published by the New York Post, showing the future first son smoking what appears to be crack cocaine, fornicating with suspected prostitutes and other salacious details. Further reporting on the laptop revealed emails related to Hunter Bidens foreign business deals and financial records showing the Biden family received millions of dollars from foreign businesses, including those in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China and Russia.Some of the email and text messages found on the iPhone backup implied that current US President Joe Biden may have joined in on some business calls with his son and references to payments made to the big guy have been pointed to by critics as proof the elder Biden was more involved in his sons business deals than the president claimed.As recently as August, the US president has reiterated he never talked business with his son.The laptop was originally called Russian disinformation by multiple media outlets in the United States, and more than 50 former senior intelligence officers signed a letter saying it had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.One by one, the various outlets who discredited the laptop as disinformation quietly admitted it was legitimate and a former CIA official testified to the House Judiciary Committee that former Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken played a role in the inception.Giulianis spokesman Ted Goodman pointed to the changing story of the laptops detractors when responding to the lawsuit.The growing number of lawsuits filed by Hunter Biden follows the collapse of a plea deal he had struck with prosecutors. That deal would have allowed the younger Biden to plead to a few misdemeanors while avoiding a felony gun charge if he completed the terms of the deal.The deal collapsed when the defense team and prosecutors could not agree on how much immunity it granted Hunter Biden against potential prosecution stemming from the contents of the laptop. A short time later, Biden was indicted on gun charges; additional charges for alleged tax crimes are expected to come in the future.Famed whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld told Sputniks Political Misfits on Tuesday that he believes the lawsuit is just a harassment suit, and that Hunter Biden is trying to deflect blame from himself.Birkenfeld added the Biden family may not want to see the suit move forward, noting that Joe Biden may be deposed in the case. He said he never talked to his son about his business, he never got involved, he never invested, he never did anything, but in fact the laptop contradicts that.Instead, he believes the suit is made to punish those who revealed the laptop in a personal vendetta.He is using every little kind of trick in the book here to say oh it's not me, everyone else has ganged up on me. Quite frankly, you made your bed, now its time to sleep in it.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230913/hunter-biden-sues-former-trump-aide-who-published-laptop-from-hell-materials-1113355820.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230625/fbi-knew-hunter-bidens-laptop-was-reliable-before-smearing-it-as-russian-disinfo-1111457950.html

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hunter biden laptop, laptop from hell lawsuit, hunter biden sues to stop laptop, crimes in the biden laptop, joe biden business deals with son
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/new-york-city-faces-mammoth-1b-costs-on-housing-migrants-amid-biden-border-crisis-1113738525.html

New York City Faces Mammoth $1B Costs on Housing Migrants Amid Biden Border Crisis

New York City Faces Mammoth $1B Costs on Housing Migrants Amid Biden Border Crisis

US President Joe Bidens migrant policies are forcing New York City to face a staggering price tag of more than $1 billion to house illegals inundating the Big Apple.

2023-09-27T15:49+0000

2023-09-27T15:49+0000

2023-09-27T15:49+0000

americas

us

joe biden

new york city

texas

greg abbott

us-mexico border

migrants

illegal migrants

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US President Joe Bidens migrant policies are forcing New York City to face a staggering price tag of more than $1 billion to house illegals inundating the Big Apple.NYC is extending its contract with local hotels to shelter migrants for up to three more years. The anticipated cost of paying the hotels rental fees will be around $1.365 billion, according to US media reports. At this point it is worth noting that the sum, staggering as it is, fails to take into account cost of city facilities and other rented sites housing asylum seekers.Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk went on X to weigh in on what he called a "severe crisis."NYC Mayor Eric Adams recently admitted that the officials were past our breaking point, adding:New York City became what is referred to as a "sanctuary city" under Mayor Ed Koch in the 1980s. The term is loosely used to refer to places politically sympathetic to undocumented immigrants who are in the US illegally. Now, with the influx of migrants straining the city's resources, Adams is limiting the extent of the city's right to shelter obligations. Asylum seekers arriving for the first time get a 30-day period to find alternate housing outside a city-run facility, supported by "intensified casework services" to "discuss their options and plan their next steps," according to Adams' office.After US President Joe Biden got rid of the federal COVID emergency Title 42 health order on May 11, which dated back to the Trump administration and allowed US Border Patrol to turn migrants away at the border, migrant numbers have surged due to expectations of more lenient immigration policies, according to US media reports. Furthermore, as border towns in states like Texas are overwhelmed by thousands of people illegally crossing in from Mexico because of Bidens immigration policies, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been sending busloads of migrants to Democratic-run destinations. His actions have been echoed by authorities in Arizona and Florida.According to recent reports, El Paso in Texas is looming on the cusp of a third wave of migrant arrivals. Shelters there are "over capacity," Opportunity Center for the Homeless Deputy Director John Martin was cited as sayingAccording to Texas Governor Abbott, his state has bused over 35,000 migrants to Democratic strongholds, with "over 11,300 to D.C., Over 13,300 to NYC, Over 6,700 to Chicago, Over 2,600 to Philadelphia, Over 1,000 to Denver, Over 480 to L.A."

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230909/gov-abbott-warns-biden-of-more-buses-of-migrants-amid-mulled-remain-in-texas-policy-1113226165.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230615/texas-gov-busses-migrants-to-la-says-biden-refuses-to-secure-border-1111169891.html

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biden's border crisis, influx of migrants, asylum seekers in new york, hotel fees for housing migrants, joe biden's border policies
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/nord-stream-attack-anniversary-evo-morales-presidential-bid-canada-nazi-gaffe-1113706312.html

Nord Stream Attack Anniversary; Evo Morales Presidential Bid; Canada Nazi Gaffe

Nord Stream Attack Anniversary; Evo Morales Presidential Bid; Canada Nazi Gaffe

The first anniversary of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline arrives as EU investigations flounder and mountains of evidence point to the Biden Administration neocons as the culprits.

2023-09-27T04:25+0000

2023-09-27T04:25+0000

2023-09-27T11:06+0000

the critical hour

radio

israel

ukraine

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Nord Stream Attack Anniversary; Evo Morales Presidential bid; Canada Nazi Gaffe The first anniversary of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline arrives as EU investigations flounder and mountains of evidence point to the Biden Administration neocons as the culprits.

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to discuss the anniversary of the Nord Stream attack. The first anniversary of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline arrives as EU investigations flounder and mountains of evidence point to the Biden Administration neocons as the culprits. Ray McGovern says that it is evident that the Biden administration was involved and Sy Hersh had it right. He reminded us that the UN needed more votes for a Security Council investigation.Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Ukraine and Russia. There are allegations that Russia destroyed a Russian tank with a German military crew on board in Ukraine. Mark Sleboda says many have speculated that Western forces have manned NATO equipment in Ukraine. Also, as was reported in Western media, the Russian Black Sea Fleet commander was not killed in a missile attack as he turned up alive.Rachel Blevins, journalist and host of The Backstory, joins us to discuss Canada's Nazi heritage. Canada faces international condemnation for openly supporting a WW2 Nazi fighter in its Parliament. Rachel Blevins says that the House Speaker has resigned after he celebrated a Nazi simply because he "fought the Russians." Also, President Trudeau made a fake apology and immediately returned to allegations of Russian propaganda. Also, the faux outrage over Nazis from Poland and Canada seems absurd as they support Nazi units in Ukraine today.Misty Winston, radio host and political commentator, joins us to discuss domestic politics. President Biden and Donald Trump are battling for working-class votes in Michigan. Misty Winston says this is being used as a political weapon, and neither cares about the workers. She says this is about talking points and soundbites rather than substantive policies. She also says that the Biden administration suppresses votes and free speech.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, joins us to discuss the economy. President Biden is facing criticism for his economic policies. Dr. Tauheed says that people are distrustful of the media, and their attempt to act in defense of Biden has an adverse effect. He says that many people see this election discussion as a struggle of the elites. Also, he says that the economic measures taken during COVID-19 have expired, and millions are losing health coverage.Thomas Mountain, journalist and historian, joins us to discuss Africa. Fighting has broken out for the first time in Port Sudan. Thomas Mountain says that the leader of Sudan flew to Port Sudan, and the area's tribesmen have long been unhappy with the leadership in Khartoum. He says that the US is on the side of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and will support him and use lawfare and sanctions to attack his enemies.Dan Kovalik, writer, author, and lawyer, joins us to discuss the Global South. Evo Morales is running for President of Bolivia. Dan Kovalik argues that this was a coup made by the US government and aided by the Western press. Dan also says that if Morales returns to power, it will be a significant blow to US imperialism.John Kiriakou, former CIA Officer and Co-Host of "Political Misfits" on Radio Sputnik, joins us to discuss torture. John Kiriakou was the only US official over the torture program because he opposed it. John says that after the 9/11 attacks, he volunteered to go to the Middle East to address terrorism. He found that his colleagues started ignoring international law and treaties. John says this reality changed his opinion about whether we stood for justice.The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sputnik.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.comCatch us at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM

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the critical hour, anniversary of the nord stream attack, nato equipment in ukraine, canada's nazi heritage, biden's economic policies
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/north-korea-to-deport-us-soldier-who-fled-over-border--state-news-agency-1113736911.html

North Korea to Deport US Soldier Who Fled Over Border  State News Agency

North Korea to Deport US Soldier Who Fled Over Border  State News Agency

North Korea has decided to expel Travis King, the US soldier stationed in South Korea who fled into the country in July, a state news agency reported on Wednesday.

2023-09-27T13:45+0000

2023-09-27T13:45+0000

2023-09-27T13:45+0000

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An investigation found that King confessed he had "illegally intruded" into North Korea because of "ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society," the report said. It is unclear when King will be deported. On July 18, King was scheduled to board a flight to return to the US to face further disciplinary action after being jailed for assault in South Korea. Instead, he managed to leave Seoul's airport and join a tour to the border village of Panmunjom, where he fled over the border to North Korea.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230816/us-soldier-defected-to-n-korea-seeking-refugee-in-pyongyang-third-country---state-media-1112628942.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/outrage-over-canada-nazi-row-comes-as-west-sends-taxpayers-funds-to-ukraine-1113732482.html

Outrage Over Canada Nazi Row Comes as West 'Sends Taxpayers Funds to Ukraine'

Outrage Over Canada Nazi Row Comes as West 'Sends Taxpayers Funds to Ukraine'

Amid outrage over how the Canadian government honored a Ukrainian Nazi veteran, the Nazi ideology is being supported by taxpayers in the US, Canada and other Western countries as they fund Ukraine, Rachel Blevins told Sputnik.

2023-09-27T15:44+0000

2023-09-27T15:44+0000

2023-09-27T15:44+0000

analysis

canada

justin trudeau

nazis

neo-nazis

ukrainian neo-nazis

volodymyr zelensky

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It is astonishing to see the outrage over the case of the Canadian government honoring a veteran Ukrainian Nazi when, in fact, Nazi ideology is currently being supported by taxpayers in the US, Canada, and other Western countries as they fund Ukraine, independent American journalist Rachel Blevins told Sputnik.Furthermore, in this specific case, it was as if the Canadian Parliament was excited to get an individual who was a Ukrainian veteran who fought the Russians, because it fit their narrative, the journalist added.After the stomach-churning scene of Canadian lawmakers giving a standing ovation to a former Waffen SS Nazi made the rounds on the Internet, Rota at first issued an apology for lauding the man. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in light of the scandal, faced the media and said with apparently feigned indignation that it was, "extremely upsetting that this happened. The speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized." However, he added, without blinking an eye: "I think it's going to be really important that all of us push back against Russian disinformation and continue our steadfast unequivocal support for Ukraine."Trudeau was at once ripped for grasping at the Russian disinformation" narrative, typically used in the West, with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk taking to X (formerly Twitter) to scathingly remark that not everything is Russian disinformation.Trudeau's office claimed that neither the Canadian prime minister nor Zelensky's delegation were notified in advance of the invitation of Hunka. Warsaw also demanded an apology from Canada, with Polish Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski saying on Monday that Poland would never agree to "whitewash" Nazis. The House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota finally resigned on Tuesday over the scandal.'Fits the Narrative'Looking at the flurry of weak" explanations for the incident from Ottawas officials, one cannot but wonder if the Canadian government chose to do this, said Rachel Blevins, adding:The journalist underscored that only after the footage from the Canadian Parliament had gone viral on the Internet, even the mainstream media felt like, Okay, this is ridiculous. Now we have to report on this.'Tone Deaf' ResponseWhile Anthony Rota made a feeble attempt to present it as though Hunka was just a random constituent whom he had decided to honor, one has to wonder about the tone deaf response from the government, the journalist pointed out.As for Warsaw's outrage, Blevins notes:I know Poland has stepped in and now they're saying that they want to extradite this 98-year-old man to face war crimes charges... If you want to push for justice for someone like him, for the crimes that he was likely a part of many years ago, that's all fine and good. But it's still going on today.Despite the recent spat over Warsaw's ban of Kievs grain imports, Poland has been one of Ukraine's main supporters amid Russias special military operation. Warsaw ranks sixth among the countries giving Ukraine military aid, having sent $3.3 billion worth of military supplies to Kiev, including tanks, fighter jets, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), artillery, and ammunition since the conflict there escalated.As for Canada, PM Tustin Trudeau unveiled a military aid package for Ukraine worth CAD $500 million (USD $373 million) during his surprise visit to Kiev in June.And in Canada, you're expected to celebrate the fact that the Canadian taxpayers are forced to pay for all of this military aid for the Ukrainian military, which has adopted these far-right neo-Nazi units into their military. And then we're told here in the US as well, Oh, it's fine. Don't worry about the Azov* battalion [an infamous Ukrainian neo-Nazi unit]. Don't worry about those articles that were written just a couple of years ago talking about their Nazi beliefs. Those don't matter anymore because now they've slapped on a Ukrainian military uniform. And it's just to put people in a position where on one hand, you're telling them that they can only be outraged about something if you say that it's okay, and only if it's in this specific case. It's just a reminder that people are expected to be ignorant and not to ask questions," Rachel Blevins pointed out.Honoring the Ukrainian Nazi WWII veteran fit the narrative of fighting the Russians, Blevins reiterated.And it seems to be the case also when you look at the aid and the support that the US and its Western allies have given to Ukraine as well, they're like, Hey, don't question, you know, these extremists that we're funding. They are getting the goal done... Therefore, we're using your taxpayer dollars to fund these extremists to then get what we want done.The leaders of Western countries funding NATOs proxy war with Russia in Ukraine are just expecting that people will not question this, will not stop to think, "wait a second, I thought that Nazis were bad. Why are we acting like they're good, and they're our allies? And also we're giving them funding and weapons?" said Rachel Blevins.* The Azov Battalion is regarded as a terrorist organization by Russian authorities and is outlawed in Russia.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/musk-shreds-canadas-trudeau-for-russian-disinformation-blather-amid-nazi-row-1113674363.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/untold-story-of-how-canada-became-a-safe-haven-for-ukrainian-wwii-era-nazis-1113656627.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230921/us-may-be-supporting-neo-nazis-by-aiding-ukraine-congressmans-letter-to-blinken-and-austin-1113566796.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/philippines-us-to-hold-maritime-drills-in-south-china-sea-from-october-2-13-1113730007.html

Philippines, US to Hold Maritime Drills in South China Sea From October 2-13

Philippines, US to Hold Maritime Drills in South China Sea From October 2-13

The Philippines and the United States will hold annual maritime military drills dubbed Samasama from October 2-13 in the southern part of the island of Luzon, the Philippine armed forces said on Wednesday.

2023-09-27T10:11+0000

2023-09-27T10:11+0000

2023-09-27T10:11+0000

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"The Philippine Navy is set to host this year's iteration of the PH-US Exercise SAMASAMA that is scheduled from 02 to 13 October 2023 at the Naval Forces Southern Luzon (NFSL) Area of Operations. SAMASAMA is a bilateral exercise between the United States Navy (USN) and the Philippine Navy (PN)," the armed forces said in a statement. The exercises are expected to enhance the Philippines' naval warfare capabilities, such as the offshore combat force for maritime security operations, and "cover the fundamentals of anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-air warfare, and electronic warfare," the statement read. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday that Beijing had advised the Philippines to avoid any provocations in the disputed areas of the South China Sea. Earlier this week, Philippine newspaper The Manila Times reported that the Philippines had removed the floating barriers in the South China Sea, saying they were illegally placed by the China Coast Guard near the disputed area of Scarborough Shoal. Scarborough Shoal is located about 123 miles west of Subic Bay and is claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan.The training will also involve the navies of Japan, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom to improve maritime integration and combined interoperability, conduct exchanges of subject matter experts and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief events, the statement added. The drills will be held in the disputed waters of the South China Sea to counter China's influence in the region.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/beijing-warns-philippines-against-provocations-in-disputed-waters-of-south-china-sea-1113678160.html

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philippines and the united states, annual maritime military drills, southern part of the island of luzon
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/poland-investigating-if-hunka-took-part-in-genocide-of-poles-1113711511.html

Poland Investigating If Hunka Took Part in Genocide of Poles

Poland Investigating If Hunka Took Part in Genocide of Poles

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (INR) is investigating whether former SS officer Yaroslav Hunka participated in the genocide of Poles in the Lviv region, INR spokesman Rafal Leshkevich said Wednesday.

2023-09-27T06:56+0000

2023-09-27T06:56+0000

2023-09-27T06:56+0000

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"Immediately after receiving the information about Yaroslav Hunka, and after the ovation given to him in the Canadian parliament and by President [of Ukraine Volodymyr] Zelensky, the prosecutor began to analyze volumes of books about the Huta Pieniacka massacre," Leshkevich told reporters. He added that the prosecutors were investigating whether Hunka participated in the massacres against Poles, clarifying that Ukrainians from the SS Galicia Division participated in the killing of nearly 800 Poles in the village of Huta Pieniacka in February 1944. He said that prosecutors were analyzing tens of volumes of the case to check whether Hunka's name was among the other accused. The Polish side intends to seek legal assistance from Canada and Ukraine in this matter, the spokesman added. On Friday, Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi veteran who fought in the ranks of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS during the Second World War, received a standing ovation from the entire Canadian legislature. Hunka's recognition came as House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota gave introductory remarks prior to Zelensky's address to the Canadian parliament. On Tuesday, Rota announced that he would be stepping down from his position in the wake of the Hunka scandal.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/canada-house-speaker-rota-resigns-over-recognition-of-ukrainian-nazi-veteran-hunka-1113700847.html

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poland's institute of national remembrance, poland investigating if hunka, genocide of poles
The U.S. Senate introduced a short-term spending deal, which leaders believe could prevent the feared government shutdown.

However, experts said that there's no guarantee that the House will pass this bill into law. Here's what you need to know about the proposed stopgap bill.

US Senate Introduces Short-Term Spending Deal to Prevent Government Shutdown

According to CNN Politics, U.S. Senate leaders unveiled the new bipartisan stopgap bill, claiming this would keep the government from running out of money until Nov. 17.

If passed into law, it can also allow the $6.2 billion military aid for Ukraine. However, the funding for Ukraine could worsen tensions with the House.

This is because many conservative Republicans are against the U.S. government's effort to financially support the European country.

"We will continue to fund the government at present levels while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine's security and humanitarian needs," said Democratic Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer.

Aside from this, Schumer also promised that they would not compromise the funding needed for those impacted by natural disasters across the country. This means that the stopgap bill also includes the $6 billion in financial aid for natural disaster victims.

But, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opposed the inclusion of Ukraine military aid, saying that this budget should not be included in the short-term spending package. He explained that there should be a standalone legislation for the U.S. government's financial support for Ukraine.

"I don't quite understand when you have all these people across the country talking about the challenges happening in America today, that people would go and say, 'Oh we need to go and do Ukraine and ignore what's happening along our border,'" explained McCarthy.

Read Also: US Spending Battle Drags On as Deal Still Unclear; Congress Remains Using 'Emergency Funds' for Non-Emergencies

Will The Stopgap Bill Be Approved?

France24 reported that the new stopgap bill was introduced by Schumer and Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.

However, factions of House Republicans haven't confirmed that they will support the bill if passed in the Senate.

If this legislation is not approved, by Saturday, Sept. 30, the government shutdown will likely happen, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without salaries.

McConnell said that shutting down the federal government just because of a domestic budget issue will not strengthen anyone's political position.

As of writing, the U.S. Senate scheduled an initial procedural vote on Tuesday, Oct. 3, to advance the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill.

Experts said that the stopgap bill could be tacked onto the FAA bill since this legislation's authority to operate is expected to expire at the end of September.

Related Article: US Government Shutdown: Millions of Federal Workers Could Have Their Pays Halted-Here's Why Americans Should Be Concerned

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/report-uk-navy-vessels-may-all-contain-traces-of-life-threatening-asbestos-1113708611.html

Report: UK Navy Vessels May All Contain Traces of Life-Threatening Asbestos

Report: UK Navy Vessels May All Contain Traces of Life-Threatening Asbestos

The United Kingdom's Royal Navy vessels may reportedly all contain asbestos, a dangerous substance that can lead to lung diseases if inhaled over long periods of time.

2023-09-27T03:21+0000

2023-09-27T03:21+0000

2023-09-27T03:18+0000

military

united kingdom (uk)

british royal navy

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asbestos

contamination

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Citing a letter sent from UK Minister of State for Defense Procurement James Cartlidge to the Labour Party, UK media reported that all four of the UKs Vanguard-class of submarines, which are equipped with Trident ballistic missiles and carry the UK's nuclear deterrent, have asbestos-containing materials.The report also added that the submarines had completed a six-month tour, a record amount of time spent underwater. The Daring-class Type 45 destroyers and the Duke-class Type 23 frigates, as well as an Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines, six Duke-class minesweepers and 28 Wildcat helicopters are said to also have asbestos-containing materials. UK Shadow Secretary of State for Defense John Healey told the newspaper that the findings were "alarming," adding that "ministers have serious questions to answer about sailors exposure to asbestos while they fly the flag for Britain at sea." The outlet also quoted a UK Defense Ministry spokesperson as saying "the safety of our service personnel is our highest priority and the fleet remains safe to deploy on global operations."The official further stated there were plans to "eliminate asbestos in our equipment as soon as possible, with risk assessments undertaken to keep our sailors protected," before adding that "the presence of asbestos containing materials in itself does not create a health risk." "Where asbestos remains in equipment, risk assessments have been undertaken in line with Health and Safety Executive guidance to ensure the highest level of protection for our people," the official was quoted as saying. The newspaper reported last week that the UK Defense Ministry had acknowledged that as many as 2,699 pieces of its military hardware contain asbestos. The equipment includes 765 Bulldog armored personnel carriers, 324 Challenger 2 tanks, 841 Pinzgauer military utility vehicles and 540 Warrior infantry fighting vehicles.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230922/uk-military-assistance-to-ukraine-could-have-contained-tanks-tainted-by-deadly-asbestos-1113580538.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/russias-state-duma-plans-to-back-bill-allowing-lng-exports-from-arctic-areas-1113710330.html

Russia's State Duma Plans to Back Bill Allowing LNG Exports From Arctic Areas

Russia's State Duma Plans to Back Bill Allowing LNG Exports From Arctic Areas

Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, plans to pass a bill in October authorizing the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from subsoil areas of the Arctic region north of the 67th parallel north, Pavel Zavalny, the chairman of the State Duma Energy Committee, said Wednesday.

2023-09-27T05:37+0000

2023-09-27T05:37+0000

2023-09-27T05:37+0000

russia

russia

arctic

duma

state duma

liquefied natural gas (lng)

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"A bill to amend Articles 2 and 3 of the federal law On Gas Exports is being prepared for the second reading. It provides for the granting of an exclusive right to export LNG from onshore subsoil areas located in whole or in part in subsoil areas north of the 67th parallel north ... The bill is a government one, and we plan to pass it in the third reading in October," Zavalny told a plenary session of the Far Eastern Energy Forum. In May, the State Duma passed in the first reading a bill authorizing LNG exports to users of onshore subsoil areas located in whole or in part north of the 67th parallel north. The bill concerns gas fields located in the Arctic areas of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Nenets Autonomous Area and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area. The share of the state in the authorized capital of such subsoil consumers should be more than 50%. Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anastasia Bondarenko told a meeting of the State Duma Energy Committee in April that the bill applies to 36 fields owned by Russian oil company Rosneft.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/eu-to-rely-on-us-lng-for-decades-amid-backfiring-anti-russia-sanctions-1113650822.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/terrorist-attack-on-nord-stream-de-facto-organized-by-us-uk---kremlin-1113731507.html

Terrorist Attack on Nord Stream De Facto Organized by US, UK - Kremlin

Terrorist Attack on Nord Stream De Facto Organized by US, UK - Kremlin

The terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was somehow organized by the United States and the United Kingdom, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

2023-09-27T11:44+0000

2023-09-27T11:44+0000

2023-11-01T18:59+0000

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nord stream pipeline

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dmitry peskov

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On Tuesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report said that the US involved in the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines left no traces, no significant information about the mission was entered into any computer in the United States. A British newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing findings by Norway's NORSAR seismic data center, that there were four blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines, and not two, as it was previously believed.One explosion occurred southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, and the other three occurred northeast of the island, the report said. The seismology center also does not rule out the possibility that there could have been more explosions.The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to the EU, were hit by explosions in September 2022. The pipelines' operator, Nord Stream AG, said that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the timeframe for repairing them.Denmark, Germany, and Sweden have left Russia out of their investigations into the attacks, prompting Moscow to launch its own investigation. Russia designated the attacks as international terrorism.No official results of the investigations have yet been announced, but Hersh published a report in February saying the explosions were organized by the US government with the support of the authorities in Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the attack.In addition, the Kremlin spokesman commented on the words of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the expansion of NATO addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that it is an attempt to substitute concepts.Earlier in the day, Clinton said "too bad, Vladimir, you brought it on yourself," commenting on the expansion of NATO, according to a video published by an American news agency.In this case, it is worth recalling all the waves of NATO expansion, the spokesman said.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/biden-admin-blew-up-nord-stream-because-us-feared-losing-primacy-in-western-europe---sy-hersh-1113684346.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/nord-stream-blast-why-the-west-still-cant-name-the-culprit-1113665071.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230712/74-years-of-nato-expansion-in-a-minute-1111832901.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/ukraine-loses-390-military-in-donetsk-direction-in-past-day---mod-1113734342.html

Ukraine Loses 390 Military in Donetsk Direction in Past Day - MoD

Ukraine Loses 390 Military in Donetsk Direction in Past Day - MoD

Ukraine has lost up to 390 military both killed and injured in the Donetsk direction over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

2023-09-27T12:40+0000

2023-09-27T12:40+0000

2023-09-27T12:40+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

ukraine

donetsk

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russian defense ministry

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Over the given period, the Russian armed forces have repelled 10 attacks by Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk direction, two attacks in the Krasny Liman direction and one attack in the South Donetsk direction. In the South Donetsk direction, Ukraine has lost over 150 military, the statement read.Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering over 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials have also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has not been successful.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/watch-russian-tornado-g-mlrs-blows-up-ukrainian-observation-posts-1113711034.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/us-aid-to-ukraine-may-dry-out-but-not-because-of-house-gop-1113709308.html

US Aid to Ukraine May Dry Out, But Not Because of House GOP

US Aid to Ukraine May Dry Out, But Not Because of House GOP

The US may run out of money to support Ukraine "in a few weeks," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby warned. However, it's not the potential government shutdown that could make the Ukrainian aid shrunk, former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

2023-09-27T09:40+0000

2023-09-27T09:40+0000

2023-09-29T17:42+0000

analysis

karen kwiatkowski

kevin mccarthy

ukraine

kiev

taiwan

pentagon

congress

gop

white house

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The Biden administration wants the US Congress to pass a $24 billion package for Ukraine along with other spending initiatives as soon as possible. Washington has already committed over $110 billion in Ukraine assistance to date.While House Republicans appear skeptical about further financial and military assistance to the Kiev regime, which has failed to succeed with its summer counteroffensive, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed to pass a stopgap measure to avoid a looming government shutdown. September 30 is the deadline. GOP lawmakers have signaled that they won't include any funds for Ukraine in their stopgap bill. On September 22, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill to lobby for a hefty multi-billion package. Even though McCarthy (unlike his predecessor Nancy Pelosi) did not provide the Ukrainian president with an opportunity to address the House, he held a conversation with Zelensky.The day after the meeting with Zelensky, McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol that he had decided to keep the $300 million in Ukraine aid in the Pentagon funding bill, adding that another spending measure set for the State Department and foreign operations would also include money for Kiev. The development is by no means surprising, according to retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense.When it comes to the larger $24 billion package, the former Pentagon analyst has a sense that "if serious negotiations are forced on Speaker Kevin McCarthy, they will find a way to reduce this amount, or to separate this aid out for separate and subsequent Congressional consideration." The Biden administration has publicly promised this aid to Ukraine, but they do not control the appropriations - the House does, she emphasized.For example, in late June, the Pentagon said that it had overestimated the value of the arms it supplied to Kiev by $6.2 billion over the past two years. Four weeks earlier, the US Department of Defense cited an accounting error of at least $3 billion. Eventually, the "surplus" simply went back into the Pentagon's pot allocated for Ukraine within the president's drawdown authority (which allows providing Kiev with weapons directly, without Congressional approval).Still, trouble is brewing for Kiev: it seems like many in Congress on both sides of the political aisle are beginning to understand the practical and political need for Kiev and Washington to end the conflict immediately, according to the former Pentagon analyst.She suspects that "the truth about the terrific loss on the battlefield and in Ukrainian military capability in the past 18 months is getting to the various committees in both the House and the Senate."In August, a majority of US respondents told pollsters they oppose more aid for Ukraine. In September, another survey indicated that 41% now say the United States is doing too much to support Ukraine, up from 33% in February and 14% in April 2022. Remarkably, even Democratic voters now appear to hold this stance, despite previously being staunch supporters of more US spending on Ukraine.Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific topic has steadily been getting hotter this year: first, the Pentagon announced about speeding up the provision of weapons to Taiwan island; then, in August, the White House signaled that it would ask Congress to fund arms for Taiwan as part of a supplemental budget request for Ukraine; in mid-September, the mainstream press reported that the US plans to redirect $85 million in military aid allocated for Egypt to Taiwan. If the pivot to Asia becomes the main focus of US lawmakers, the flow of funds to Kiev may soon start drying out.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230918/house-republicans-fed-up-with-bidens-ukraine-aid-requests-1113469428.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230924/mccarthy-reverses-course-maintains-ukraine-aid-in-pentagon-funding-bill-1113616729.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230922/pentagon-ukraine-aid-operations-will-remain-despite-potential-us-government-shutdown-1113572847.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230803/is-biden-preparing-to-dump-ukraine-for-taiwan-1112361859.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/us-made-abrams-vs-russias-t-90-which-battle-tank-has-better-odds-in-ukraine-conflict-1113746320.html

US-Made Abrams vs Russia's T-90: Which Battle Tank Has Better Odds in Ukraine Conflict?

US-Made Abrams vs Russia's T-90: Which Battle Tank Has Better Odds in Ukraine Conflict?

With the first batch of US-made M1 Abrams tanks having arrived in Ukraine, Sputnik has reached out to military expert Boris Rozhin to find out which Russian main battle tank can knock out the American "wonder-weapon."

2023-09-27T19:14+0000

2023-09-27T19:14+0000

2023-09-27T19:14+0000

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russia's special operation in ukraine

t-90

leopard 2

t-72

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ukraine

west

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The US press has hailed the delivery of American main battle tanks to Ukraine, claiming that the Abrams are among the world's most sophisticated tanks and boast technical advantages many other tanks can't match. Is that true?The Russian T-90 is a worthy adversary for the much-lauded M1 Abrams tank, according to Boris Rozhin, a military expert at the Center for Military-Political Journalism think tank.What are T-90's Advantages Over M1 Abrams?"Now in Ukraine we see quite active use of the T-90 in combat operations. The tank is used as a means of supporting infantry, and the T-90 performs well. It is still difficult to say how the Abrams will perform in this work," the military expert pointed out.Rozhin noted that the Abrams was extensively used during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, at the time there were no unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that hunted main battle tanks. It's unclear how the Abrams will cope with this problem, according to the expert.The T-90 is lighter than the Abrams, more maneuverable, and is adjusted to Eastern European terrain and bad weather. For its part, the Abrams risks getting trapped in the mud, according to Rozhin.The Ukrainian battlefield poses a challenge to NATO-grade tanks in the fall and winter seasons, while for T-90s it's not a problem at all, according to the analyst. Moreover, in terms of maneuverability, the Abrams is inferior even to the old Soviet T-64s, which are in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he added.What If T-90 and M1 Abrams Engage in a Duel?Per Rozhin, tank duels are rare in the zone of the special military operation since tanks are typically employed for infantry support or for assaulting enemy strongholds.However, the M1 Abrams was specifically designed in 1972-75 to fight Soviet tanks and other armored fighting vehicles.Having undergone a number of upgrades, the Abrams now is equipped with a gun capable of firing both sub-caliber armor-piercing and cumulative projectiles. Some of its armor-piercing munitions have tungsten alloy heads and some incorporate depleted uranium.When it comes to Russia's T-90, a third generation main battle tank and successor of the T-72, the nation's arm-makers have also improved it over the past several years. The latest version is the T-90M "Proryv" ("Breakthrough") which is well-protected against conventional ammunition, precision guided weapons and anti-tank rockets. The tank is armed with the 125 mm enhanced-accuracy smoothbore cannon (with an autoloader) and a remote-controlled 12.7 mm machine gun.Furthermore, the Russian tank also boasts armor piercing capabilities due to 3BM59 Svinets-1 and 3BM60 Svinets-2 munitions, according to Rozhin. Earlier this year Russian military observers suggested on Telegram that 125 mm armor-piercing shells 3BM60 "Svinets-2" had been employed against the enemy in the zone of a special military operation.What Missions Could Abrams Conduct in Conflict Zone?Rozhin does not rule out that the Ukrainian military will specifically use the Abrams to inflict damage on Russia's armored vehicles and main battle tanks.Nonetheless, one should bear in mind that Washington is supplying legacy models, he noted.In any event, a total batch of 31 Abrams tanks will not be able to change the status quo on the battlefield, Sputnik's interlocutor concluded.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230926/abrams-achilles-heel-how-russia-will-deal-with-american-tanks-in-ukraine-1113688746.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/armored-behemoths-comparing-nato-and-russias-top-tanks-1113657752.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230923/head-of-ukraines-military-intelligence-doubts-abrams-tanks-will-last-long-on-battlefield-1113604875.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230902/why-abrams-armor-wont-be-able-to-jumpstart-ukraines-stalled-offensive-1113058667.html

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The crews of the T-90M Proryv ('Breakthrough') destroyed strongholds with personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces The crews of the T-90M Proryv ('Breakthrough') destroyed strongholds with personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces 2023-09-27T19:14+0000 true PT0M30S

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230927/us-ukraine-reforms-is-signal-to-president-zelensky-that-his-time-is-up-1113742101.html

US' Ukraine Reforms is Signal to President Zelensky That His Time is Up

US' Ukraine Reforms is Signal to President Zelensky That His Time is Up

The White House gave the Kiev regime a set of conditions for receiving aid from the West. Ukraine is required to conduct a series of sweeping reforms concerning its courts, security service, Defense ministry, and economy.

2023-09-27T18:16+0000

2023-09-27T18:16+0000

2023-09-27T18:27+0000

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Earlier this week, Deputy White House National Security Adviser for International Economics Mike Pyle sent a draft list of reforms to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, as per Ukrainian media.The document was also forwarded to the multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform, a group of organizations including the EU, G7 governments, and the main international financial organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and others.Later, the US Embassy in Ukraine confirmed that Kiev had been "provided a proposed list of priority reforms for discussion and feedback at the multi-donor coordination platform in Brussels".'Reforms Linked to Conditions on US Assistance'The document titled "Reforms Linked to Conditions on US Assistance" details the necessary changes in order of urgency  0-3 months, 3-6 months, one year, and 18 months.Some of the provisions have additions in italics, like "EU MFA [macro-financial assistance] conditionality"; "IMF Structural Benchmark"; "requirements for Ukraine to begin EU accession process"; and "IMF MEFP [Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies]" suggest that the list covers not only US assistance, but also aid from Western-led international organizations. The document clearly indicates Ukraine will further lose its sovereignty in favor of EU and NATO institutions.Anti-Corruption MeasuresPer the White House list, the elimination of corruption in Ukraine is the number one priority: reforms in this sphere should be accomplished within a three-month timeframe. Ukraine has to reform the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), in line with the parameters of the IMF structural benchmark. Increase the number of detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) by at least 300; provide them with wiretapping capability; and preserve the agency's "independence and exclusive investigative authority over high-profile corruption matters." Reinstate mandatory asset and financial disclosure requirements for public officials, judges, and political parties. Select new head of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP). Complete the High Council of Justice (HCJ) reboot by establishing a Service of Disciplinary Inspectors with direct and meaningful participation of independent experts to restore the HCJ "disciplinary function."Furthermore, in the three-to-six month timeframe, the Kiev regime has to expand the number of judges on the nation's High Anti-Corruption Court; establish a new specialized court (the High Administrative Court of Ukraine [HACU]) for administrative cases against national state agencies; reform Ukraine's Supreme Court (SC).Remarkably, at the same time, Kiev is required to "limit" the powers of the infamous Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) "to those associated with counter-intelligence, counter-espionage, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism," and reshuffle the agency.New Supervisory Boards at State-Owned Energy Companies and 'Liberalization' of TariffsUkraine is obligated to expand or establish "independent supervisory boards" for its state-owned enterprises in energy and defense sectors, including UkrEnergo, Naftogaz, Energoatom, and Ukrainian Defense Industries JSC (formerly Ukroboronprom); implement natural gas and electrical tariffs "liberalization"; and prepare for "green energy generation" and "EU-Ukraine energy grid integration" (one-year priority).Stamp Out Corruption in Defense Ministry & Increase Interoperability With NATOThe White House document specifically demands that Ukraine "re-design both military armament and public procurement processes and procedures reflecting NATO standards of transparency, accountability, efficiency, and competition in defense procurement" within a year.The Kiev regime has to strengthen "democratic civilian control" and oversight of the military and "modernize command and control architecture in accordance with NATO principles." Governance and defense planning processes should also be transformed "to increase interoperability with NATO." The White House has also obligated Kiev to increase transparency and reduce corruption in its defense sector.Is US Fixing for Ukraine Reconstruction?One of the document's provisions requires that Kiev establish an office of Inspectors General within each key ministry involved in "reconstruction" within 18 months. The IG should have the authority to: first, "make pro- active criminal referrals to the NABU or other appropriate anti-corruption investigating authorities," and, second, "to intercept and prevent waste, fraud and abuse within the ministry."What's Really Behind the Reforms?The proposed reforms are typical of all US-backed puppet regimes, according to Vladimir Olenchenko, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Studies, Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences."In this situation, as I understand it, we are seeing attempts to propose to the leadership of Ukraine to adopt American standards of government management and American standards of corporate governance," said Olenchenko. "In particular, corporate governance by American standards suggests that a third of the directors should be independent. One might assume that these will be American citizens. This means that no decision will be made without their consent."Liberalization of energy prices means that they will be dictated by transnational companies. The Ukrainian population will pay, and the Western companies will benefit, the expert continued. He recalled that similar liberalization reforms were carried out in Poland: they backfired on the nation's consumers and households and led to their impoverishment.It's by no means surprising that NABU's powers would be expanded, while those of the SBU are designed to be reduced: the former has been closely collaborating with the FBI, while the latter remains subservient to Ukraine's national government. According to Olenchenko, the US is seeking to take more control over the law enforcement and judicial branch, and place its own appointees in top positions.In fact these reforms create a stalemate situation for the Ukrainian president and his entourage, according to the expert: if Zelensky adopts these demands, Kiev will be placed under tighter management of Washington and the present Ukrainian government would no longer be relevant. If Zelensky rejects these measures, the West will stop providing financial aid to Ukraine.Given that the list provided to the office of the Ukrainian president was drafted by a deputy national security adviser, i.e. a relatively low-ranking official, one might interpret it not as a "directive" but a "hint" to Zelensky that it's time for him to step down, suggested Olenchenko.Is Washington Seeking Face-Saving Exit From Ukraine Quagmire?Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Policy Committee of Ukraines Verkhovna Rada Yaroslav Yurchyshyn denounced the White House's list of priority reforms as a "wrong step" on the part of the US."In fact, this is a big challenge - linking reform to receiving weapons," Yurchyshyn told a Ukrainian radio station on Tuesday. "As for me, this is a very wrong step by our partners. Because, be that as it may, reform is our internal task. It can be tied to IMF funds, it may be tied to the European integration plan, to joining NATO. And the defense of Ukraine is actually the defense of Western values.""Its a shame that it has come to this," Yurchyshyn emphasized.On Wednesday, an unnamed US national security official was quoted as saying that the list of "priority reforms" is not a condition for further military assistance. "Reforms are needed for Ukraines European integration," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Apparently, Washington expected this sort of reaction from Ukrainian lawmakers and politicians, according to Olenchenko. In some sense, the list of reforms provides the US foreign policy establishment with a good pretext to reduce or halt Ukraine aid altogether, the expert notedRemarkably, the document in question came on the heels of a series of corruption scandals that have recently engulfed the Ukrainian government. Earlier this year, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited CIA officials as saying that President Zelensky and his entourage embezzled around $400 million from US aid packages in 2022 alone.Currently, the Biden administration is trying to ram a new $24 billion aid package for Ukraine through the US Congress. House Republicans oppose the measure, especially after Kiev failed to make any progress during its three-month counteroffensive.

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With Warm Heart and Cold Mind: How Russian Volunteers Help Residents of Liberated Lugansk Villages

With Warm Heart and Cold Mind: How Russian Volunteers Help Residents of Liberated Lugansk Villages

No food, no electricity, no medicine, no clean water - in many recently liberated settlements of the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), people are not living, they are surviving. And they are immensely grateful for any help they receive. The volunteers of the Russian Humanitarian Mission are actively working in the conflict zone. Their credo is to work where others cannot go. This Sputnik report sheds light on their efforts.

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The volunteers of the Russian Humanitarian Mission are actively working in the conflict zone. Their credo is to work where others cannot go. This Sputnik report sheds light on their efforts.Aiding InfantsWe leave Donetsk early in the morning for the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR). Daylight is getting shorter, and we have several remote locations to visit today. We are not going empty-handed: we have about 200 food kits, generators, and medical equipment on pallets in the GAZelle cargo van. Each kit is designed to feed a family of three. The boxes contain cereal, pasta, canned meat, and condensed milk. The Russian Humanitarian Mission is particularly proud of its water filters, which can purify 25,000 liters of water.Our first stop was the Lugansk Republican Clinical Hospital, where a perinatal center has been established. We brought screening and diagnostic equipment and, most importantly, a supply of a special protein-free formula for newborns with a rare genetic condition called phenylketonuria. Simply put, it's a protein intolerance. These babies cannot be fed breast milk.Humanitarian workers recall how they traveled from Donetsk to Kherson last year because a child in that city had the same diagnosis. They admit that working with children is the most emotionally challenging. Unlike many adults, they are not to blame for their condition.A Village Reduced to a Single StreetWe left Lugansk and headed west. The Lugansk People's Republic has been almost completely liberated. The Russian Army managed to drive out the enemy, who didn't always cling to populated areas as stubbornly as in the Donetsk People's Republic. However, there are exceptions - Severodonetsk, Lisichansk, Popasnaya, and Rubezhnoye. The Ukrainian Armed Forces held on to these cities, usually taking cover in urban areas. Meanwhile, they quickly abandoned the smaller villages, often covering them with artillery fire after leaving.Only one street remains standing in the village of Orekhovo. Everything else has been reduced to rubble, with not a single intact house in sight. Now only 44 residents remain. It takes about an hour for the humanitarian GAZelle to gather them. The sun is scorching and there is little shade; people remain at home. We distribute food kits and load a gasoline generator into the vehicle of a local pensioner. They use the generator as a "public outlet" to charge cell phones and flashlights.Hearts and MindsOnly 380 residents remain in Nizhneye, and about half of them come out to meet the humanitarian workers. They surround the GAZelle, collect the aid packages and express their heartfelt gratitude. The Ukrainian shelling did not seriously damage the village. The villagers themselves have gradually rebuilt what the artillery destroyed during their frequent community work days. They rebuilt the ambulance station practically from scratch. However, they still lack construction materials for the kindergarten. Construction and utility workers cannot reach the village because of the poor roads. And here, as in Orekhovo and dozens of other villages in the Lugansk region, there is no electricity.After we finish in Nizhneye, we go to Metelkino. We need to provide targeted assistance to the Goncharov family - deliver a generator to them. The yard of their house was hit at least 18 times, and they spent many months in the basement. The head of the family, Kirill, along with his wife, Irina, and their two children, Prokhor and Kira, couldn't take it anymore, so they moved to Lugansk and rented an apartment. However, their parents have firmly refused to join them and are asking for help with electricity.But getting to Metelkino is not so easy. The only way is through Lisichansk, a restricted city, where entry is possible only with proper residence registration or special permission from the commandant's office. After more than an hour of waiting for orders from headquarters, we decided to return. Kirill Goncharov has a car and offers to drive us himself. We unloaded the generator in front of their rented house, presented toys to Kira and Prokhor, and drove back to Donetsk. An 18-hour workday comes to an end.Sergey recalls an incident when he gave a package of food to a man who had lost his home in Volnovakha. The man looked at him with contempt and said, "I won't thank you. I won't thank your army. I won't thank your authorities." The experienced humanitarian worker remained silent and listened - in moments like this, you have to let a person pour out his heart. Then the man burst into tears, spoke rapidly and incoherently for a long time. And then suddenly he clung to Sergey and cried, "Thank you, thank you." They parted as friends.To deal with such situations, one needs not only a warm heart and a cold mind, but also immense experience. And the volunteers of the Russian Humanitarian Mission have a wealth of experience that spans five lifetimes.

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Grand Circuit stakes-winning trotter Branded By Lindy has been retired and will stand stud in 2024.

Lindy Farms of Connecticut, LLC has announced that their outstanding son of Chapter Seven, Branded By Lindy, 2,1:52, '21, 3, 1:50.3 '22 ($567,456) will be syndicated and stand at Hickory Lane Farm, Ohio beginning with the 2024 breeding season.

Branded By Lindy (Chapter Seven-The Lindy Label) is the sixth fastest son of Chapter Seven behind the likes of Gimpanzee and Walner. He was a brilliant two-year-old in 2021 winning eight out of his 11 starts (seven in a row) and finished out of the top three once. His victories were all stakes wins, including but not limited to the Breeders Crown elimination, where he beat the likes of King Of The North, Double Deceiver and Fast As The Wind; the Bluegrass Stakes where he bested Rebuff and Temporal Hanover; and the International Stallion Stakes where he again beat King Of The North and 2022 Hambletonian champion Cool Papa Bell.

As a three-year-old, he won the $400,000 Kentucky Sires Stakes final and finished second in both the Breeders Crown elimination and the Empire Breeders Classic and third in the Stanley Dancer Memorial.

Frank The Elder Antonacci of Lindy Farms says that, Branded By Lindy represents a deep Lindy Farm pedigree on both the paternal and maternal side. Chapter Sevens dam, La Riviera Lindy, traces back to Dream Vacation, Harmonius and the outstanding mare, Vanessa Hill. On the maternal side through Candy Crown, he is a direct descendent of the dams of Lindys Crown and Speedy Crown. Lindy Farms will retain an interest in Branded By Lindy and support him."

Trainer, Domenico Cecere stated, Branded By Lindy was a top two-year-old in 2021. He was an extremely fast and talented colt. He was my top Hambletonian horse for 2022.

Kevin Greenfield, President of Hickory Lane Farm, believes Branded By Lindy will be a perfect fit for the very successful and ultra-rich Ohio program.

Branded By Lindy was a fast and talented two-year-old, who won often and beat the best of his age," said Greenfield. "With his pedigree, outstanding looks and conformation, he will be a very positive addition to Hickory Lanes deep stallion roster.

For more information regarding the Branded By Lindy Syndicate and breedings, contact either R. Kevin Greenfield, Syndicate Manager, at 419-346-0609 or [email protected]; or Ashley Stickel, Office Manager, Hickory Lane Farm, at 419-422-3004 or [email protected].

(With files from Hickory Lane Farm)
Trainer Joe Holloway returns to The Red Mile with another promising pacing prospect on Friday afternoon (Sept. 29): the Always B Miki colt Newsroom, who will try to raise his unbeaten streak to seven in the third of four divisions for the $348,000 Bluegrass Stakes for two-year-old pacing colts and geldings.

Newsroom will start from post two in race 11 on Friday off a 1:51.4 victory in the $116,000 Elevation Stakes at Harrahs Hoosier Park. Hes already taken a mark of 1:49.4 when winning the start prior in a steamroll mile to take the $150,000 New Jersey Classic by open lengths. Eight other foes will look to upend Newsroom, including Pennsylvania Sires Stakes champ Captain Albano from post three for trainer Noel Daley as well as Tony Alagna pupil Remember The Alamo, who exits a sixth-place finish in the $970,000 Metro Pace.

Kentucky Sires Stakes champ Better Is Nice and driver Andy McCarthy will look to open the stakes action for the pacing freshmen when he starts from post two in race three. Listed at 9-5 on the morning line, the son of Bettors Wish trained by Tony Alagna enters from a 1:50.3 coast job in the $400,000 Kentucky Sires Stakes final and faces only one familiar rival in Dancin Champion, starting from post three off a fourth-place effort. The field also includes Tall Dark Strangers full brother Total Stranger from post four along with New York Sires Stakes final runner-up Avenger Force from post five.

Ivy Park, runner-up to Better Is Nice in the Kentucky Sires Stakes final, lands post five in the third Bluegrass division, race seven, for the boys as the 5-2 choice on the morning line. The Nancy Takter-trained colt by Captaintreacherous keeps Yannick Gingras in the sulky as hell spar with the likes of Arson, the Kentucky Golden Rod champ and a three-quarter brother to sophomore stakes filly Charleston. The Kentucky Commonwealth champ Sir John B, trained by Tony Alagna and reined by Andy McCarthy, also lands in the third division and starts from post six.

A batch of nine rounds out the action for freshman pacing colts and geldings in tace 13. Tony Alagna pupil Rock The Captain N goes as the slight morning-line favourite from post four with Todd McCarthy in the bike. The ridgling by Captaintreacherous has only missed the board once from six starts and won a preliminary for the Kindergarten Classic back on July 28 in 1:52. The field also includes Kentucky Golden Rod runner-up Steely Knife from post nine and Kentucky Commonwealth third-place finisher Swaggy Cal from post five, among others.

Freshman trotting fillies share the spotlight on Friday with five divisions of the Bluegrass Stakes, with purses totalling $429,000 for the set.

The card on Friday kicks off a bundle of seven trotting fillies going to post. Chaparmbro will start as the 9-5 choice from post two for the tandem of trainer Trond Smedshammer and driver Brian Sears off a close defeat in the $150,000 New Jersey Classic final to Soiree Hanover. The daughter of Chapter Seven will try to return to the winners circle against the likes of New Jersey Classic consolation runner-up Glamorous Hanover from post three, Kentucky Commonwealth third-place finisher One World from post one and New Jersey Classic consolation third-place finisher Cocktailwithakick from post six.

Division two for the fillies wraps up the early daily double with eight starters competing. Ake Svanstedt student Warrawee Michelle, a son of Walner, will attempt to rebound from a fourth-place finish to Soiree Hanover in the New Jersey Classic final when she starts from post six, just to the inside of Tony Alagna upstart Honeys Sweet. Honeys Sweet will make her fourth start and currently holds a mark of 1:54.1 over the clay set in a non-winners of one event on Aug. 22. Yannick Gingras has the drive in a group that also includes 2022 Hambletonian winner Cool Papa Bells half-sister Cool Ma Belle from post four.

New Jersey Sires Stakes champ Buy A Round will also look for vengeance off a loss to Soiree Hanover when she starts from post two in the third division for the fillies, carded as race four. Andy McCarthy pilots the Noel Daley-trained daughter of Walner who snagged a 1:55 victory on Hambletonian Day in the New Jersey Sires Stakes final, but more recently finished third in the $150,000 New Jersey Classic. Shell face morning-line chalk Sierra Girl, a daughter of the late Bar Hopping starting from post four for trainer/driver Ake Svanstedt off a 1:55.4 victory as the odds-on choice in the $252,000 Pennsylvania Sires Stakes final.

Svanstedt has another developing talent in division four, race eight, with undefeated French Champagne. The daughter of Muscle Hill has ripped off five straight wins in progress to a 1:54.1 win in the $100,000 Kentucky Commonwealth final. She lands post six against Kentucky Sires Stakes champ Date Night Hanover, who will start from post four in rein to Brian Sears for trainer Marcus Melander.

Race 12 wraps the set with eight going to gate. Melanie Wrenn trainee Bonn will start from post eight as the 2-1 morning line favourite off a fourth-place finish in the $266,000 Kentuckiana Stallion Management Stakes in rein to Peter Wrenn, who has the drive on Friday. The daughter of Tactical Landing squares off against seven others looking to breakthrough, including Dustin Jones pupil Draw The Line, who was fifth in the $425,000 Peaceful Way and fourth in a $90,500 Champlain division, as well as Green Mercedes, the fourth-place finisher in the Golden Rod Series final, from post one.

Three of the four divisions of the Bluegrass Two-Year-Old Colt and Gelding Pace go as The Stay Hungry, sponsored by the Stay Hungry Syndicate and Hanover Shoe Farms. Race 11, the third of the four divisions, is named The Arlene Siegel Memorial Race and is sponsored by Jules Siegel and Fashion Farms.

Each division of Bluegrass Two-Year-Old Filly Trot is named the Norman Woolworth Memorial presented by Arden Homestead Stable, ET Gerry and Peter Gerry, Margareta Wallenius-Kleberg, Stoner Manor Inc., Menhammer Stuteri AB, Jorgen Jahre Jr., LST Stables, Lawrence DeVan and William DeVan.

Fridays card features 14 races in total beginning at 1 p.m. (EDT). The Red Mile offers a $5,000 guarantee on the Pick-5 pool, starting in race three and a $10,000 guarantee in the Pick-4 pool starting in race sox. Both the Pick 5 and Pick 4s feature an industry-low 12 per cent takeout.

(With files from The Red Mile)
(Photo : Yuki IWAMURA / AFP) (YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)

A Staten Island judge orders New York City to stop housing migrants at a school in the area as the public has filed a legal challenge against the "Right to Shelter" mandate.

A Staten Island judge ordered New York City to stop housing migrants inside schools, citing the use of the site of a former Catholic school being transformed into a 300-person shelter, criticizing the "Right to Shelter."

Judge Wayne Ozzi also called the Big Apple's policy a "relic from the past" as he issued a preliminary injunction to block the city from filling the former St. John Villa Academy with asylum seekers. However, it remains unclear whether the facility would be forced to close.

Read Also: Govs. Gavin Newsom, Ron DeSantis Will Debate Over Differences in Visions for the Future

NYC's Right to Shelter

Last month, NYC Mayor Eric Adam's administration convinced the state Appellate Division to keep the Staten Island shelter open hours after the same judge ordered it to be shut down in a previous order.

Immediately, the city's officials committed to appealing the Tuesday decision as a representative for Adams, saying that the order threatens to disrupt efforts to manage the current national humanitarian crisis.

In the meantime, the State Island jurist also gave harsh words regarding the city's Right to Shelter mandate. That particular policy has, since 1981, required the five boroughs to provide housing to anyone who applies for it, as per the New York Post.

The judge argued that the more than four-decade-old mandate is "intended to address a problem as different from today's dilemma as night and day." He added that the consent decree was entered into to address a specific problem that existed at the time.

Ozzi said that this was to provide housing for unfortunate New Yorkers who needed shelter, adding that no one can argue that, at the time, there was a situation of the magnitude that existed today. He noted that this was a virtual flood of migrant asylum seekers whose numbers are capable of filling two Yankee Stadiums and equate to one-fifth of the population of Staten Island.

The judge's ruling comes two weeks after lawyers representing Staten Island local Scott Herkert, who is seeking a court order to close down the site, argued during a hearing that the shelter was creating an "unreasonable public nuisance." He also argued that he has been smelling raw sewage from the site at his home next door.

Housing Migrants

In a statement, Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said that they were pleased with the ruling and noted that they would continue to fight if needed. According to CBS News, she argued that common sense prevailed when Ozzi issued the injunction.

Ozzi's ruling also came after several weeks of angry protests as residents of Staten Island opposed to the shelter said that it simply does not belong in a residential neighborhood across from a girl's school.

On the other hand, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, which was the one that filed the litigation that led to the "Right to Shelter," Joshua Goldfein, said that the decision is wrong on the law, adding that they do not expect it to stand.

Ozzi's decision could complicate the situation in the city as various legal cases support either side of the argument, said the New York Times.

Related Article: Biden Visits UAW Picket Line in Michigan, Showing Support for Striking Workers

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Ola Yoder, the founder and owner of the uber-successful Kountry Wood Products in Nappanee, Indiana has put the same amount of effort, forethought and savvy into his harness racing breeding program that he has into his cabinetry business, and it is paying off.

Yoders list of broodmares and stallion investments reads like a whos who of the Standardbred industry, and as an astute businessman, Yoder has a clear vision of what he wants to accomplish in his 79th year.

Growing up, we farmed with horses, draft horses, explained Yoder. I had always been around horses and, in 1997, I got into the draft horse business a bit and then, in 2016, I started buying roadsters, but Im a businessman and was looking to make a profit, and that didnt happen with the roadsters. So, in 2018, I began investing in Standardbreds, first by purchasing some broodmares.

Yoder also invested in stallions, purchasing shares of Lazarus N (Bettors Delight), Bulldog Hanover (Shadow Play) p, 4, 1:45.4 ($2,789,271) and the stallion Enterprise (Chapter Seven) 3, 1:52 ($389,282), who stands at Dublin Valley Farms in Ohio.

When I first got involved, I purchased some mares that were just okay and I quickly learned that their foals were just mediocre on the track, stated Yoder. It wasnt going to be a profitable venture unless I started improving the quality of the mares I was buying.

True to his word, Yoder began upgrading his stock, purchasing five quality mares from the White Birch Farm, and later, in 2020, the mighty mares Shartin N (Tintin In America) p, 6, 1:46.4 ($2,667,563), Lyons Sentinel (Captaintreacherous) p, 4, 1:48 ($2,325,124), Plunge Blue Chip (Muscle Mass) 3, 1:49.4 ($1,596,841), and Custom Cantab (Mr Cantab) 4, 1:52f ($1,036,153), Peaky Sneaky (Bettors Delight) p, 3, 1:48 ($803,211), and Uffizi Hanover (Well Said) p, 2, 1:50.3 ($767,258), among others. He also purchased and developed a state-of-the-art farm in Wakarusa, Indiana and has turned it into a first-class breeding facility under the moniker Kountry Lane Standardbreds.

With the breeding farm, our goal is to have great yearlings to sell, offered Yoder. We dont really want to get involved in the racing end. Its been my experience that its better to concentrate on one thing and do that one thing well. We want to be a top breeder and focus our efforts on that aspect of the Standardbred business. We will let the folks at the sale tell us what our babies are worth and that will help dictate who we breed the mares back to in the future. Weve done our best to establish a top broodmare band here and are confident in that.

Yoders stallion interests now include the Walner stallions Temporal Hanover 3, 1:52.2 ($991,847) and King Of The North 3, 1:50.3s ($1,370,242)who spends half the year in Australia. King Of The North is managed by Tara Hills Stud in Ontario, while Temporal Hanover resides at Premier Acres in Middlebury, Indiana, who also handles the stallions Capt Midnight (Captaintreacherous) p,3, 1:48.3s ($662,286) and You Know You Do (Muscle Hill) 3, 1:53.2f ($541,030) for Kountry Lane Standardbreds.

Raised in Tuscola, Illinois, Yoder was one of 12 children and learned early on that hard work, coupled with honesty and integrity, paid off.

My mom and dad did everything to raise their children right, Yoder told writer Colleen Callahan in a feature in The Standardbred Journal. My dad was a farmer and a very humble man. He taught me accountability at a young age. If I wronged somebody, he taught me the power of an apology. He taught me the definition of integritydoing the right thing in the worst of conditions. They are some of the greatest lessons I have ever learned.

Those lessons have obviously paid off well for Yoder, who will sell eight yearlings at the upcoming Lexington Selected Yearling Sale at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion during the first, second and fourth sessions.

We really excited to have three of our best babies selling the first day, said Yoder. Were hearing nothing but very good things about the Shartin N, Plunge Blue Chip and Custom Cantab babies.

Hip No. 42 is Kountry Meadow, a daughter of Chapter Seven, out of Plunge Blue Chip 3, 1:49.4 ($1,596,841), who aborted her 2022 foal by Walner and was bred back this season to Chapter Seven.

Shes a very nice filly, with great confirmation and as this was the first foal, the mare was very professional, confirmed Yoder. We sent her to New York to get bred and then she foaled at Anvil And Lace Farm in Kentucky. We like to keep our foals, the ones we consider Grand Circuit quality, in Kentucky so that they get dual eligibility. I was just tickled to see how great this filly looks.

Shartin Ns foal, a daughter by Captaintreacherous named Caroline Kountry, sells as Hip No. 61, while Custom Cantabs first foal, a colt by Muscle Hill named Kountry Shoe, sells as Hip No. 108. She has a Swan For All sucking by her side and was bred back to King Of The North this season.

Shartin Ns filly is just outstanding and Custom Cantabs colt is quite nice and has a great way of going, noted Yoder. We keep the mares here for 180 days and split up their time between here and Anvil and Lace. For instance, weve got Shartin N and Lyons Sentinel here until the first of the year.

Selling in the second session on Tuesday, Oct. 3 is the first foal out of Winndevie 3, 1:53s ($863,257), a daughter by Gimpanzee (Chapter Seven) 4, 1:50 ($2,792,478), who is known as Windy Kountry and who sells as Hip No. 269 at Lexington. Winndevie was bred to King Of The North this season.

Kountry Joal, Hip No. 768, is a son of Chapter Seven out of Whispering Oaks (Father Patrick) 2, 1:54 ($306,744). This mare has a two-year-old daughter and full sister to Kountry Joal named Just Kountry, Q2:04.1s, who just began his racing career and was a $82,000 purchase by the Alabama Harness Associates LLC at the 2022 Lexington Sale.

Another of Yoders top mares is the Mcardle daughter Belclare, p, 3, 1:55.1f ($47,877), a proven broodmare that finds her seventh foal, Kountry Grace (Lazarus N) selling as Hip No. 801 at Lexington. Belclare is also the dam of Captain Victorious (Captaintreacherous) p, 3, 1:48.3f ($469,143); High Baller (Captaintreacherous) p, 4, 1:50 ($182,004); Paddy All Day (Western Ideal) p, 3, 1:52.4f ($123,347); Counterparty Risk (Captaintreacherous) p, 3, 1:53.2f ($100,036); the three-year-old Be The Captain (Captaintreacherous) 3, 1:55.2 ($35,490); and the two-year-old Kountry Diamond (Lazarus N) p, 2, Q1:57.3s.

At the 2023 Ohio Selected Sale on Sept. 15, Yoder sold two yearling fillies by Enterprisethe first for $13,000Kountry Behave, out of the unraced Muscle Hill mare Please Beehave; and Kountry Muck, out of the Credit Winner broodmare Credivida ($6,000), sold for $9,000.

One thing, when I buy mares, I like to look at the pedigrees and their racing history, and I also study the history of their familys racing history and pedigrees to see if theyve had a lot of success, concluded Yoder. Buying some in a group can be tricky and Ive learned now how to buy mares with a little more quality.

"Also, as a broodmare owner, you have to try to match them with stallions that will give you the best resultsthe foalsso that you can generate the interest in them that people will want to buy. We raised all of our foals to sell, we dont buy anything back, we concentrate on breeding them, not on the racing side of things.

(With files from Kountry Lane Standardbreds; Photo of Shartin N pictured in foal)
The Scotts Bluff County Board of Commissioners voted to approve its budget and property tax request following a public hearing Monday afternoon. Commissioners discussed the rise in valuations and the boards lowering of the mill levy during the hearing.

The hearing began with Management Accountant Lisa Rien reviewing the budget with the commissioners, as it had been through several revisions and changes by that point. The commissioners had been careful to balance lowering their tax request with the rise in valuations to avoid attending the joint public hearing last week, otherwise known as the pink postcard meeting.

Rien began by reading aloud the budget statement at the beginning of the document, explaining how the commissioners and the accountants office had arrived at the decisions they did.

The Scotts Bluff County Board of Commissioners remains committed to providing the best possible services in a fiscally conservative manner, said Rien, quoting the budget statement.

In previous meetings, the budget had undergone a number of changes including large cuts to transportation and roads projects, among others in order to lower their tax request below the threshold to attend the joint public hearing.

Commissioner Mark Harris continued to voice concern about the rise in the countys tax request, since even though they had lowered their request, valuations had increased enough that the request rose regardless.

I know our biggest concern is always tax (request), said Harris because thats what affects the taxpayer the most, said Harris.

Rien said she felt that the budget had already been squeezed enough and there was not much more room to reduce the request while running services like the county jail and paying county employees, saying We still have to operate.

Harris also discussed his disappointment that the county continued to have one of the higher tax requests in the state and expressed optimism that in coming years they may be able to find ways to lower Scotts Bluff County in those rankings. Rien did not share his optimism.

I dont see how you will with our valuations, she said.

The budget resolution passed unanimously.

Commissioner Charlie Knapper took issue with a line item in the tax request resolution related to the Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts and while the item confused other members of the board as well they decided that if it became an issue it could always be resolved later with an amendment. Knapper did not feel the same and voted no on the resolution, which passed four to one.

The commissioners also passed a resolution to authorize a fare free week on the Tri-City Roadrunners route from Oct. 2-Oct. 8. The resolution was a part of an initiative by the Disability Mobility Initiative and America Walks to declare a National Day without Driving.

The commissioners heard from Public Transit Manager Curtis Richter who explained that the measure would cost the city around $500.

The Scotts Bluff County Board of Commissioners will meet again Monday Oct. 2 at 4:30 p.m. on the second floor of the county administration building.
I recently listened to an interview with Nebraska Senator Megan Hunt about how children in foster care often are entitled to Social Security benefits, but those benefits are taken by states, under the guise of using those funds to pay for the expenses of caring for these youth. She introduced a legislative resolution in 2021 to find out the extent of this happening in Nebraska.

Most children in foster care do not qualify for Social Security benefits. About 10% do qualify; death of a parent or a disability entitles them to benefits. Many are diagnosed with mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or PTSD, often related to the reason they are in foster care. This diagnosis also qualifies them for Social Security.

In 2021 NPR broadcast a series on this issue. They found that in at least 36 states foster care agencies comb through their case files to find kids entitled to these benefits, then apply to Social Security to become each childs financial representative, a process permitted by federal regulations. Most states pay an outside firm to handle this. Once approved, the agencies take the money, almost always without notifying the children, their loved ones or lawyers.

This includes Nebraska.

Foster care expenses are paid for by taxpayers. In Nebraska, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) oversees foster care.

State agencies like DHHS take kids Social Security money as reimbursement for the cost of foster care, to recoup what the state has paid for each childs room and board. This has been happening since the 1980s. Each year the state receives about $3,000,000.

Most people, including Sen. Hunt, believe this money should not be used for taxpayer relief. Instead, it should be placed in a fund to allow that foster youth to get established when he/she ages out of the system at age 19.

In Nebraska, about 200 children age out of the foster care system each year. The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports 21%-46% of children who age out are homeless by age 26.

How does Nebraska help foster youth make the transition to living on their own? The Bridge to Independence Program (b2i), established in 2014 and managed by DHHS, helps. Young adults who aged out of foster care will receive housing support in the form of monthly stipends (payments). The amount of the stipend will be the same as the monthly foster care maintenance payment from when the young person was still in foster care.

To remain eligible for b2i, youth must be working towards a productive adulthood in one of these ways: completing a high school diploma or attaining a GED, taking classes at least part time at a college or vocational school program, working at least 80 hours a month, engaging in an activity designed to allow the young adult to address barriers to workforce participation, or be medically incapable of the above activities. Young adults must also meet with their Independence Coordinator monthly and be permanent residents of the State of Nebraska, unless they reside out of state through an Interstate Compact Placement Agreement.

Senator Hunt would like to see Social Security funds allocated to a specific youth be put in an account for that youth, money to use after aging out of the system. Instead, the Nebraska Legislature agreed to let youth and their families know that the funds are going to DHHS to provide for their care.
Authorities appear to be in the process of attempting to apprehend the suspect in a two-day standoff.

As of 7:45 p.m., a Star-Herald reporter on scene reported several flash bangs and gunshots. Officers

According to scanner traffic, the situation is being "demobilized". The man is reported to have suffered minor injuries.

The standoff began Wednesday and had lasted nearly 29 hours. A hostage had been released at about 1:30 p.m.

The standoff began at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a Scottsbluff man, now identified as Bradley Garcia, 37, barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering.

Garcia has been in contact with law enforcement, confirmed by a Facebook live video that he shared online. The woman who had been hostage is also heard talking to law enforcement. The video has since been removed, and the Star-Herald is waiting for the standoff to be resolved before detailing contents of the video. She is reported to have been Garcias sister-in-law.

Prior to the standoff, Overman released Wednesday, a Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs deputy had attempted to stop Garcia on Five Rocks Road for a traffic violation and Garcia refused to stop.

A Gering Police officer also become involved in the pursuit, which ended as Garcia crashed his vehicle into a garage in the 2300 block of 19th Street in Gering and fled into the home. During the pursuit, Garcia allegedly fired at the deputy, but did not strike him or his vehicle.

Once inside the home, Garcia took two juvenile girls and a woman hostage, but eventually, he allowed the two girls to leave the home. The woman was released on Wednesday afternoon; details about her condition or her release had not yet been made available as of publication.

Law enforcement have remained stationed at the 19th Street and Kings Road area since about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. As the standoff has continued, Overman released Garcia has allegedly fired at officers multiple times using more than one weapon. Officers have not fired at Garcia at anytime as of late Wednesday morning, according to the release.

Star-Herald reporters at the scene heard gunshots Tuesday afternoon. Much of Wednesday morning, the scene remained quiet. However, early Wednesday afternoon, Star-Herald reporters at the scene observed explosions, heard loud pops and bangs, believed from comments from officers on the scene to be gases being released into the home. Authorities were also using drones to monitor the home and an ambulance and fire truck were among the vehicles pulling up to the scene.

Throughout the night, vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT vehicle, remained positioned during the standoff at or near the intersection. By Wednesday, the response included specialized teams from the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI, including a Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia.

Troy Brown, chief deputy with the Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs Department, told the Star-Herald that Garcia had reneged multiple times in negotiations on plans to surrender or release the woman.

Were hoping he wears down and decides enough is enough, she gets to come out and he walks out, Brown said late Wednesday morning.

Among the apparatus at the scene has been armored vehicles used by the Nebraska State Patrol, the Scotts Bluff County SWAT team and a tactical vehicle used by the Alliance Police Department. At some points, reporters have estimated as many as 40 officers on scene. On Wednesday, law enforcement officers used Northfield Church to stage during the standoff, explaining some of the lack of activity at the scene. Garcia had not yet been reported to have surrendered or the standoff resolved.

Throughout the entirety of the event, streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters. Neighbors who live in the area have been allowed to walk to and from their homes when it is safe to do so, reporters advise.

The standoff has also effected schools in the community. Shortly after law enforcement reported shots fired Tuesday, school officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary and at other schools in the district had occurred earlier. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools and all activities and other events were cancelled. On Wednesday morning, Gering Public Schools announced it was cancelling schools for the day out of an abundance of caution.

Visit starherald.com for more on this story as it develops.

PHOTOS: At the scene of Gering standoff
A standoff in Gering continues into Wednesday morning, nearing 20 hours that a man keeping a hostage has held people at bay.

At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a Scottsbluff man barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering.

He has firearms, and he is barricaded," Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman told the media at abut 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. "We believe he has a hostage. There were some children inside the home, they were released safely. Right now, we are in negotiations with him. We are trying everything we can do to get him to come out safely.

The man has been in contact with law enforcement, confirmed by a Facebook live video. The video has since been removed, but a woman is also heard talking to law enforcement. The Star-Herald is waiting to confirm the identity of the man or the standoff has been resolved before detailing contents of the video.

Prior to the standoff, Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs deputies had been involved in a vehicle pursuit, which began on Five Rocks Road. Shots were fired during the pursuit, which Overman said were not fired by officers. As officers pursued the man, he abandoned his vehicle, entering a house in the area of Kings Road and 19th Street.

Law enforcement converged on the 19th Street and Kings Road area at about 3:30 p.m. Shots were again reported in the neighborhood near two schools, Gering High School and Northfield Elementary.

School officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m., when an alert was sent out to parents.

Parents and students monitored alerts and social media as officials then placed the schools on secure status, meaning no one was allowed in or out. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary had occurred earlier and at the other schools in the district. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools and all activities and other events were cancelled. On Wednesday morning, Gering Public Schools announced it was cancelling schools for the day out of an abundance of caution.

Star-Herald reporters on the scene Tuesday afternoon and evening reported hearing from the subject inside the home at about 5:30 p.m.

Throughout the night, vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT vehicle, remained positioned during the standoff at or near intersection.

As the standoff continued into late Tuesday night, specialized teams from the Nebraska State Patrol were seen arriving, with another armored vehicle having arrived and a helicopter having transported officers to the site. At about 11 p.m., SWAT teams were readying for response, but still had not entered the home or taken other overt action as of about 11:40 p.m.

Throughout the entirety of the event, streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters.

Additional information has not been released by law enforcement. Visit starherald.com for more on this story as it develops.
A man who has barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering is believed to have a hostage, Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman released to the media.

"He has firearms, and he is barricaded," Overman said, confirming that the standoff had begun with a pursuit." We believe he has a hostage. There were some children inside the home, they were released safely. Right now it is negotiations with him. We are trying everything we can do to get him to come out safely.

Law enforcement converged on the 19th Street and Kings Road area at about 3:30 p.m. after a report of shots being fired had been reported. Shots were again reported in the neighborhood near two schools, Gering High School and Northfield Elementary.

School officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m., when an alert was sent out to parents.

Parents and students monitored alerts and social media as officials then placed the schools on "secure" status, meaning no one was allowed in or out of the school. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary had occurred earlier and at the other schools in the district.

Star-Herald reporters on the scene have heard gunshots fired at least twice since the incident began, reportedly from the subject inside the home. Officers from multiple law enforcement vehicles, including a SWAT vehicle, have been positioned at the intersection of Kings Road and 19th Street. Other streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters.

The Star-Herald will update this report as information is released by law enforcement.
The countdown is on for an evening that promises to be nothing short of spectacular! R. Gregory Jewelers, High Roller sponsor, invites the public to Vegas in the Ville Diamonds & Denim fundraiser. Get ready to roll the dice, try your luck at blackjack, roulette craps, and Texas Hold Em, all while contributing to a great cause.

Events like Vegas in the Ville are made possible by sponsors. In addition to R. Gregory Jewelers, this event is also sponsored by Piedmont Forklift, Kinsleeshop Farm, Jon C. Packman, DDS, Mitchell Community College, Extravaganza Events,Char-Bridal, Iredell Free News and WAME radio. Sponsorships are still available through the chamber.

Vegas in the Ville: Diamonds and Denim will be held on Oct. 28 from 6-9:30 p.m. at Kinsleeshop Farm, 2027 S. Chipley Ford Road, Statesville. Tickets are $75 for members and $85 for nonmembers.

Ticket includes a barbecue dinner, soft drinks, $1,000 of chips and fun the entire evening. There will be a photo booth from Char-Bridal to capture all the fun and a cash bar for beer, wine and cocktails.

The Kinsleeshop Farm, a venue known for its charm and elegance, will set the stage for this night.

But thats not all. Support will have a profound impact on the community. Proceeds from the event will fund essential chamber programs, including Leading Ladies, Business Advocacy, Youth & Adult Leadership programs, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, milestones and various member events.

Prizes Include:

A $4,000 diamond necklace from R. Gregory Jewelers

A mountain getaway weekend

Panthers tickets

A night out on the town basket

A local wine basket

Seating is limited. To purchase tickets and for more information, visit the event website at www.statesvillechamber.org/2023/10/28/149781/savethe-date-casino-night/ or call 704-873-2892, ext. 0.
A Florida man was bitten and scratched by a rabid otter. Authorities said that the animal attack happened last Wednesday, Sept. 20.

They added that he was attacked by the rabies-infested otter while feeding dicks in a pond located in Jupiter town.

Florida: Rabid Otter Bites, Scratches Man While He Feeds Ducks

According to Fox News' latest report, the 74-year-old man was bitten by a 3-year-old make otter. The Florida Department of Health said that the wild animal also bit a dog on the same day.

As of writing, the status of the canine is unknown. But, the otter was confirmed to be infected with rabies, as stated by a veterinarian who checked the animal.

Authorities said that they were called to the scene and found the otter in a driveway, under a recycle bin. They captured the wild animal and conducted tests to see if it had rabies.

Unfortunately, the otter tested positive. Because of this, the vet had to euthanize the animal.

Joseph Scaglione talked to the officials regarding the incident, saying that he was feeding ducks before the otter attacked him.

The Florida man added that he heard the sound of ducks flying away when he was about to return to his residence. After that, the rabid otter bit him.

The Palm Beach County Animal Care & Control said that Joseph tried to avoid the animal by slowly walking away while facing the otter. But, the rabid otter still went for the attack after a few minutes.

The organization added that Scaglione suffered from bites and scratches on both of his legs and arms.

Read Also: Missing Florida Boy Murdered by Dad; Body Later Seen in Alligator Jaws

What to Know About Rabies

Since rabies is a very deadly viral disease, the Floridian resident quickly received medical care. The Florida Department of Health warned that rabies can be fatal to humans and other warm-blooded animals.

CDC explained that it is hard to determine if animals are infected with rabies just by looking at them. The only way to do this is through laboratory tests.

But, rabid animals usually act strangely. They can be super aggressive and try to bite anything they see moving. Aside from this, they also drool and have their mouths foaming.

However, there are some instances when rabid wild animals act timid or tamed. They will let you get close to them, and then they attack.

To help you avoid rabid animals, here are other signs you can look for:

An animal that's having trouble moving or may even be paralyzed

General sickness

An animal that bites at imaginary objects (sometimes called "fly biting")

Problems swallowing

An animal that appears tamer than you would expect

A bat that is on the ground

Related Article: Domestic Rabbit Invasion Hits Florida-Rescue Efforts Could Cost Up to $40,000

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The U.S. Embassy in Syria affirmed its support for the protests in Suweida via its X platform account, according to Athr Press.

Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri recently received a call from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Das Goldrich, as conveyed by the US Virtual Embassy in Syria through their account on the X platform.

The virtual U.S. Embassy in Syria affirmed its support for the protests in Suweida via its X platform account.

This interaction marks the inaugural official communication between U.S. authorities and Sheikh Hijri, following previous engagements between U.S. lawmakers and Sheikh Hijri that were not formally disclosed by the Washington administration.

US Representatives who communicated with Hijri

Sheikh Hijri received a call from Republican U.S. Representative French Hill, a key figure among U.S. lawmakers behind the proposed sanctions legislation aimed at countering Arab normalization with Syria and bolstering the Caesar Act. Representative Hill, also renowned as the architect of the U.S. Penal Codes Combating Captagon initiative, emphasized the importance of establishing a strong and ongoing relationship with Sheikh Hijri. He underscored that Sheikh Hijris personal safety is a matter of utmost concern.

Following Hills call, Democratic U.S. Representative Brendan Boyle, another prominent supporter of the sanctions bill targeting Arab normalization with Syria and expanding the Caesar Act, reached out to Sheikh Hijri. Representative Boyle, recognized as a driving force behind the U.S. sanctions legislation titled Combating Captagon related to Syria, conveyed his interest in maintaining a close connection with Sheikh Hijri.

Additionally, Republican Representative Joe Wilson, who is among the U.S. lawmakers advocating for sanctions to combat Arab normalization with Syria and extend the scope of the Caesar Act, also contacted Sheikh Hijri.

The United States strongly supports continuation of protests in Suweida:

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ethan Goldrich stated, It is imperative to sustain the Suweida movement against the Syrian government. He emphasized that the United States considers it crucial for the Suweida movement to persist until the protesters demands are met. This statement was reported by the opposition channel Syria TV.

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 has been criticism within the Arab world regarding the Syrian regime's response to normalization, according to Syria TV.

Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, expressed his support for the Syrian regimes return to the Arab League as the right decision. However, he emphasized that it is essential for Damascus to demonstrate a commitment to addressing the concerns of neighbouring countries, including issues related to refugees and Captagon smuggling.

Gargash made this announcement during a seminar titled The Arab Region: Scenario and Future held as part of the Arab Media Forum in Dubai. He underscored the UAEs significant role in facilitating the Syrian regimes reintegration into the Arab community, as reported by the Emirati newspaper al-Ain News.

He viewed the Syrian regimes return to the Arab League as the initial step in reinstating Syrias Arab role, highlighting the need for Arab support for this decision. Simultaneously, he stressed that the Syrian government must proactively engage in addressing these concerns, with the ultimate responsibility lying with Arab nations.

We remain particularly concerned about the Captagon issue, the situation in Lebanon and Jordan, and the repatriation of refugees, Gargash noted. He acknowledged that the resurgence of the Arab role in Syria would be a gradual process, requiring time to take effect.

In recent days, there has been criticism within the Arab world regarding the Syrian regimes response to Arab initiatives aimed at normalizing relations. Key issues include combating Captagon smuggling, facilitating the return of refugees, and engaging in a political solution to the ongoing conflict.

King Abdullah II of Jordan expressed doubts about Syrian President Bashar al-Assads full control over the country, particularly concerning drug and arms smuggling into Jordan. Additionally, a Saudi newspaper, Asharq al-Awsat, accused the Syrian regime of failing to address security and political concerns, such as stopping contraband exports and participating in the transition towards a political solution in Syria.

The Syrian regime has also been criticized for shifting blame onto the international community for not accepting refugees and not contributing to Syrias reconstruction.

Regarding the cessation of contact with the Syrian regime, Arab diplomatic sources revealed that the Arab Liaison Committee had informed the Syrian regime to halt contact while waiting for a response to the Arab initiative for a solution in Syria. This cessation of contact is not equivalent to cutting off relations with the regime but rather a pause in the pursuit of the proposed Arab League solution.

The committee may convene a meeting to evaluate its progress in the near future, excluding the participation of Syrias Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad. The issue of declaring the Arab initiative for a solution in Syria as a failure is not currently on the table.

In May, Arab foreign ministers established a ministerial liaison committee, consisting of countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and the Secretary-General of the Arab League. This committee was formed to oversee the implementation of the Amman statement and engage in direct dialogue with the Syrian regime to reach a comprehensive political solution in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview broadcast by Sky News in early August, criticized the Arab League, stating his lack of interest in positively engaging with an Arab initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis. He characterized Arab-Arab relations as superficial and called for practical ideas and solutions to address regional challenges, emphasizing that the nature of these relations needed to change for Syria to consider rejoining the Arab League.

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.
This latest incident marks the 11th such attempt this year, according to Zaman al-Wasl.

On Tuesday, the Jordanian army made an announcement regarding the interception of two drones carrying narcotics, believed to have originated from Syria. This development brings the total number of intercepted drones this year to 11.

In a statement posted on its website, the Jordanian army explained that their border guard forces, in collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Administration and military security agencies, successfully detected and halted an unlawful attempt by two drones to cross the border from Syrian territory into Jordan.

According to an official military source, the two downed drones were found to be transporting a quantity of crystal narcotics, which have been subsequently handed over to the relevant authorities for further investigation.

This latest incident marks the 11th thwarted attempt this year to infiltrate drones from Syria into Jordan, with their payloads ranging from narcotics to weaponry and explosives.

In early September, Jordan reported the interception of a drone carrying narcotics from Syria, bringing the total count at that time to nine intercepted drones this year.

In recent years, Jordan has faced numerous infiltration and smuggling attempts, particularly from its northern neighbour Syria and eastern neighbour Iraq, owing to the unstable security situations prevailing in these neighbouring regions.

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.
Your daily brief of the English-speaking press on Syria

Iran intends to construct a fresh oil refinery in Syria, boasting a daily capacity of 140,000 barrels. This project is rooted in a three-way memorandum of understanding involving the Iranian government, Syrias President Bashar al-Assad, and Venezuela. Concurrently, Republican Senators Marco Rubio and James Risch have introduced a sanctions bill known as the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023. This proposed legislation aims to deter the normalization of diplomatic ties with the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad, specifically targeting allies of the United States in the Middle East.

Iran to build new oil refinery in Syrias Homs in tripartite deal with regime, Venezuela

Iran is planning to build a new oil refinery in Syria with a capacity of 140,000 barrels a day, based on a tripartite memorandum of understanding with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Venezuela, an Iranian official has said.

The three countries are under heavy US embargoes, affecting their ability to export oil to the world. Iran and Venezuela have gravely suffered economically in part due to these sanctions.

The studies that were conducted found that Syria and its neighbouring countries are in need of petroleum products, therefore a refinery with a capacity of 140,000 barrels was identified next to the two existing Syrian refineries of Homs and Bania, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) Jalil Salari told Fars news agency.

It was included on the agenda to enter the financing and construction phase, he added.

He pointed out that the Homs refinery, with a capacity of 110,000 barrels, was repaired by Iranian engineers during the Iranian presidents last visit to Syria in May, after which a team from the National Iranian Oil Company was sent to conduct the necessary talks and studies for the work.

Salari said that Iran will be able to export 100,000 barrels per day of its oil to Syria after carrying out these works. He added that these types of projects contribute to increasing the export movement of technical and engineering services and generating income for Iranian technological companies.

We have appointed a director to supervise the basic repair works of the Homs refinery, and after completing the studies, we will soon enter the contract signing and operation phase.

The Homs refinery was built to process crude from Syrias Al-Thayyim, Al-Ashara and Al-Ward fields. Al-Thayyim and Al-Ward oilfields were captured by the Islamic State (IS) group in 2014 before being recaptured by Syrian regime and Iranian forces.

Jordan downs two drones carrying drugs from Syria -army

The Jordanian army on Tuesday said it downed two drones carrying drugs from Syria in the latest incident raising concerns over increased smuggling across the border, according to Reuters.

The army statement said the drones had crossed into its territory and their hauls of crystal methamphetamine were seized. It warned it would act forcefully to prevent any attempt to destabilize the countrys security.

Jordanian officials say the increasing use of drones carrying drugs, weapons and explosives is adding a new dimension to a cross-border billion-dollar drug war the U.S. ally has blamed on Iranian-backed militias that hold sway in southern Syria.

Syria is accused by Arab governments and the West of producing the highly addictive and lucrative amphetamine captagon and other drugs, and organizing its smuggling into the Gulf, with Jordan a main transit route.

President Bashar al-Assads government denies allegations of Syrias involvement in drug-making and smuggling, as well as any complicity by Iranian-backed militias protected by units within the Syrian army and security forces.

Iran says the allegations are part of a Western plot against the country.

Jordanian officials say talks with senior Syrian officials to curb Iranian-run smuggling networks have reached a dead end due to the inability of Damascus to impose order over its southern region where a state of lawlessness prevails.

Jordans King Abdullah said last week that Iran and elements within the Syrian government were benefiting from the drug trade, adding he was not sure if Assad was fully in charge of the country in view of the major problem of drugs and weapons being smuggled.

New sanctions bill targets US allies normalizing Assad government

MEE has published an article that discusses a new sanctions bill introduced by Republican Senators Marco Rubio and James Risch called the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023. This legislation is designed to counteract the normalization of relations with the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad, particularly by US allies in the Middle East.

Syria has been embroiled in a civil war for over a decade, leading to the displacement of millions and a humanitarian crisis. The Assad government, backed by Russia and Iran, has faced international criticism for its actions during the conflict.

The article highlights that several US allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Lebanon, have been moving towards normalizing relations with the Assad regime. This shift has been prompted by various factors, such as addressing refugee crises and drug trafficking.

The proposed bill seeks to extend existing sanctions on Syria, known as the Caesar sanctions, until 2032. These sanctions were initially imposed in 2020 under the Caesar Act and target individuals and entities associated with the Syrian government.

The bill aims to prevent the US government from normalizing relations with the Assad regime. It calls for diplomatic and economic isolation, highlighting concerns about whitewashing the regimes crimes.

To deter recognition of Assad by other governments, the bill requires the US State Department to report all high-level meetings between Syria and its neighbours, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Turkey. This provision seeks to increase transparency and accountability regarding diplomatic engagements.

The legislation proposes expanding sanctions to include members of Syrias parliament, senior officials of the Baath Party, and those accused of diverting humanitarian aid. This broadening of sanctions targets a wider range of individuals and entities associated with the Syrian government.

Critics have accused the Biden administration of not vigorously enforcing existing sanctions against Syria. Some argue that while sanctions provide leverage over Assad, they also risk worsening the humanitarian crisis in the country.

Lawmakers are concerned about Syrias manipulation of its currency exchange rate with international donors. Syrias currency has experienced significant devaluation since the start of the war, and lawmakers want an assessment of Damascus role in this manipulation.

Despite outreach efforts, Assad has struggled to secure funding for Syrias reconstruction, which is estimated to cost around $250 billion. The sanctions and international reluctance to invest in Syria have hindered these efforts.

In summary, the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023 is a response to the evolving diplomatic landscape regarding Syria and aims to maintain pressure on the Assad regime through sanctions and increased transparency. It reflects ongoing debates about the effectiveness of sanctions as a foreign policy tool and the complex balance between exerting pressure and addressing humanitarian concerns in conflict zones.

Chinas outreach to Syria signals its growing sway in the Middle East as a counterweight to West

A Chinese media outlet published an op-ed by Alessandro Arduino, in which he discusses the significance of Syrian President Bashar al-Assads visit to China for a bilateral summit with President Xi Jinping. The visit is seen as a turning point in China-Syria relations and reflects Chinas growing influence in the Middle East as a counterweight to Western powers. Heres an analysis of the key points:

Arduino says Assads visit to China during the 19th Asian Games is a notable event given his international isolation due to sanctions and ostracism stemming from the prolonged Syrian civil war. It signifies Chinas willingness to engage with leaders who are shunned by the Western world.

For him, while Western countries have largely avoided engaging with Assad, some Middle Eastern regional powers, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have shown cautious willingness to engage with him. This reflects a shift in the regions dynamics, with some Arab states seeking to rehabilitate Assad.

Chinas commitment to Syria, according to the op-ed, extends beyond the current visit. President Xis support for Syria includes backing its reconstruction efforts, enhancing counterterrorism capabilities, and promoting a political resolution in line with the Syrian-led, Syrian-owned principle.

It adds that Syria was among the first Arab nations to recognize the Peoples Republic of China, and this historical connection has influenced Chinas stance. Additionally, China has been concerned about the potential spread of the Arab Spring across the region.

Despite pledges of investments in Syrias reconstruction, Chinas economic slowdown raises doubts about the actual flow of substantial investments into the country. This situation is in contrast to Chinas generous financing under the Belt and Road Initiative in the past.

Chinas interest in Syria goes beyond its energy resources. It values the geopolitical significance of Syrian ports, Tartus and Latakia, which are strategically located for Chinas broader Belt and Road plans, according to the article.

China faces competition from Russia and Iran in Syrias reconstruction and broader influence in the region. Russia has openly expressed interest in Syrian ports, while Iran aims to participate in various sectors of the Syrian economy.

Chinas diplomacy in the Middle East is evolving from a traditional non-interference policy to a more proactive role in regional affairs. This shift includes involvement in diplomatic efforts, like Saudi Arabia and Iran rapprochement.

China seeks to promote a multipolar world order that reduces Western dominance. It involves closer ties with Middle Eastern nations through organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Brics+ initiative.

While Chinas engagement in Syria and the broader Middle East strengthens its diplomatic position, economic constraints at home could limit its ability to provide effective reconstruction assistance to war-torn nations.

The op-ed concludes that Assads visit to China and Chinas broader engagement in the Middle East reflect the evolving dynamics in the region, with China positioning itself as an alternative player to Western powers. However, China faces challenges in balancing its diplomatic initiatives with economic constraints and competition from other regional actors.
Are conspiracy theories such as the moon landing was faked merely modern myths and legends, or are they true?

Or does the actual truth exist in some blurry between-point?

Yankee Tavern, which opens Friday at Stageworks Northwest Theatre, will leave audiences pondering long after the play ends.

Set in New York City in 2006, the play revolves around four people in the titular bar: Adam (Davey Flock), a university student in international studies who tends bar in the business he inherited from his dad; Janet (Michaelyn Steiner), Adams fiancee and co-worker; Ray (Steve Thorpe), who knows every conspiracy theory forward and backward; and Palmer (Dylan Disch), a mysterious stranger.

The spectre of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a presence inside and outside each character. Davey, for example, is cynical about Rays conspiracy theories but is basing his thesis on them. He sees conspiracy theories as more dangerous than the events they deny.

Everything in this play is related to 9/11 or some fallout from it, Thorpe said.

If you go What: Yankee Tavern," by Steven Dietz. (The play contains adult language.) When: Sept. 29 through Oct. 15; 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Talkbacks with cast and director follow the Saturday performances. Where: Stageworks Northwest Theatre, 1433 Commerce Ave., Longview. Tickets: $20 adults, $18 seniors/students. Group rates available. Box office open 3 to 6 p.m. Wed.-Fri., and one hour before showtime. 360-636-4488, www.stageworksnorthwest.com

Describing himself as an itinerant homesteader, Ray squats in the crumbling, rat-infested, defunct hotel that houses the tavern, which faces demolition at some unscheduled point. The best friend of Adams late father, Ray claims to have nightly chats with his ghost.

You get started with Ray and you dont know where to stop, said Thorpe. He is always on, and by that I mean hes always got some theory or story for whatevers happening around him.

Steiner said her character, Janet, often humors Ray when he goes down one of his rabbit holes. She has a lot of affection for him and regards him as kind of a father figure, she said. But she also questions his theories, doesnt buy into them, and can find him frustrating.

As for Adam, she cares deeply for him, Steiner said, but Janets logical mind cant understand whats going on in his head. When she asks him for addresses of friends to invite to their wedding, he provides her with a list of fake names on the excuse that, You like big weddings.

And whats up with those secret meetings with his beautiful former professor?

Speaking of secrets, theres Palmer, who spends most of Act I quietly drinking a beer while listening to the conversations around him. Suddenly, he casually drops a bombshell.

Its pretty intense, said Disch, who doesnt want to give away spoilers. Hes got so many fun, crazy things.

Flock, a Lower Columbia College student appearing in his first Stageworks show, said hes enjoying the experience and hopes audiences will have an entertaining time.

Yankee Tavern is directed by Jamie Hegstad, who also designed the lighting. Set design is by Charlie Hegstad. Jacob Rohrbach is sound designer. Matt Pollock composed original music. Steve McElhinney is stage manager.

Editors note: This story has been updated to include the correct name in a cutline.
A California man has received a 15-year federal prison sentence for leading a transnational drug-trafficking organization that distributed narcotics across Western Washington.

The U.S. District Court in Seattle sentenced Jose Maldonado-Ramirez, 35, on Tuesday for leading a methamphetamine and fentanyl distribution ring. The organization distributed narcotics in counties such as King, Pierce, Thurston, Lewis, Mason and Kitsap. Drugs were also distributed across the southeastern United States all the way to Fiji, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

Maldonado-Ramirez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and conspiracy to commit money laundering in March 2023. Eighteen people were arrested and charged in relation to this case, the release said.

During an 18-month investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized about 128 pounds of methamphetamine, 37,000 fentanyl pills and dozens of handguns. DEA agents also intercepted a call between Maldonado-Ramirez and his girlfriend in which they discussed the identity of a local officer and plotted to kill him.

This [drug trafficking organization] was well-organized, well-sourced, and well-connected, and they were prepared to take drastic measures to protect what they had built as they openly discussed killing an officer during an intercepted conversation after a large shipment of drugs was seized, assistant U.S. Attorney C. Andrew Colasurdo said in a statement to the court.
A jury on Tuesday convicted a Salem man of aggravated first-degree murder in the 2021 fatal shooting of Clark County sheriffs Sgt. Jeremy Brown.

The Clark County Superior Court jury also convicted Guillermo Raya Leon, 28, of first-degree trafficking in stolen property, first-degree burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and two counts of possession of a stolen firearm.

Raya Leon stared straight ahead, with a defense attorney on either side of him, while Judge Derek Vanderwood read the guilty verdicts on all six counts. The jury also found in favor of the aggravating factor that Raya Leon knew Brown was a law enforcement officer, along with a firearm enhancement on four of the counts.

Raya Leon is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5. Aggravated murder carries a mandatory minimum of life in prison.

After the jury left the courtroom, the Brown family and supporters gave the prosecution a round of applause. They embraced and shook hands with the three prosecutors.

Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik thanked the group for being present throughout the trial. He reminded them to be prepared for an emotional sentencing hearing.

Defense attorney Therese Lavallee thanked jurors for their time and attention during the lengthy trial that entered its fourth week. She said she respects their decision.

Outside the courtroom, Clark County Sheriff John Horch said he was pleased with the convictions. Still, he said they dont bring Brown back.

Its still a very sad day, Horch said. You see a lot of tears here. But justice was served.

Browns widow, Jill Brown, embraced jurors outside the courtroom and thanked them.

Two jurors, who wished to remain anonymous, said they heard a lot of information over the weeks of trial, and it was difficult at times to make sense of it.

They felt the 10 women and two men on the jury were largely on the same page at the start of deliberations Tuesday morning. After some discussion, those who werent sure were fairly quick to agree to convict, they said.

It was tough to see Jeremy Browns loved ones each day in the courtroom, they added.

Raya Leon shot Brown on July 23, 2021, as the detective conducted surveillance in his unmarked Jeep SUV at an east Vancouver apartment complex. Law enforcement officers from several agencies were watching Raya Leon, his brother and his brothers wife as part of an investigation into stolen firearms.

He claimed self-defense in the shooting.

Raya Leons defense attorney didnt contest many of the charges during closing arguments Monday afternoon. But the attorney argued Raya Leon did not intend to shoot the detective, only to confirm if he was watching the trio.

Prosecutors said Raya Leon knew Brown was an officer and took time to think things over before arming himself and confronting the detective. They said Raya Leon snuck up on Brown and shot him from behind.

A jury convicted Raya Leons brother, Abran Raya Leon, 30, last month of second-degree murder, possession of a stolen firearm and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. He was the getaway driver in the shooting, and a judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison.

Trial for Abran Raya Leons wife, Misty Raya, 37, who is accused of initiating the firearms trafficking scheme, is scheduled to start Oct. 9.
(Photo : Odd ANDERSEN / AFP) (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Germany is set to impose checks on borders with Poland and the Czech Republic amid a migrant surge in the region.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is set to announce that the country would impose checks on borders with Poland and the Czech Republic amid a surge in migrants.

Faeser is expected to unveil the new temporary checks that would be imposed at selected border crossings and would begin in the next few days. German leaders have recently come face-to-face with mounting pressure to crack down on the growing numbers of asylum seekers in the region.

Germany To Impose Checks on Borders

Many of the migrants are now crossing the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic, as there are roughly 204,000 people who requested asylum in Germany within the first eight months of this year, which is 77% more than the same period last year.

Lawmakers are also trying to make a particular effort to sound tougher on migration ahead of state elections in Bavaria and Hesse on Oct. 8. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, during a political rally in Bavaria over the weekend, linked the border crisis with an alleged visa-for-bribes scandal that has rocked Poland's anti-immigrant government, as per Politico.

Scholz told a crowd in Nurnberg that he does not want Poland to wave people through the process and then have a talk about the asylum policy afterward. He also demanded the Polish government to "clarify" recent accusations that officials in Polish consulates handed out large numbers of visas across Africa and Asia in exchange for bribes.

Additionally, members of Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) Party reacted angrily to Scholz's suggestion that the border crisis is connected to the visa scandal. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau also asked the German Chancellor to "refrain from statements that damage our mutual relations."

The issue of border controls is expected to be a particularly sensitive topic in Poland, which is holding a parliamentary election on Oct. 15. Members of the PiS party have tried to whip up Polish voters in the lead-up to the election with anti-German rhetoric and by demanding reparations for Nazi Germany's crimes.

Read Also: Russia Places ICC Judge on Wanted List Amid Ukrainian Torture Allegations

Migrant Surge

The situation comes as Germany has maintained stationary controls on the Bavarian border with Austria since the European migrant crisis 2015. At the time, more than 1 million migrants arrived in the country, many of whom were trying to flee the war in the Middle East, according to the Straits Times.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative, was praised for her policy. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party currently stands to win in three regional elections in eastern Germany next year, polling 32% to 35% there and 21% nationwide.

A German Interior Ministry spokesperson also said that additional border police measures were currently being reviewed. Faeser is also in talks with the Czech Republic about the possibility of German police officers operating on Czech territory, similar to an agreement Germany has struck with Switzerland.

The minister said that German police officers, in close coordination with Swiss police forces, are allowed to inspect Swiss territory and to prevent any unauthorized entry into Germany, said the Associated Press.

Related Article: Three Major Asian Powers Agree to Meet, Discuss Common Interests

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KELSO  A legacy of obsolete logging practices popularized more than a century ago remains etched in the way the Coweeman River moves.

Long before rail lines and logging roads existed, massive tree stands were transported on waterways  like the Coweeman  throughout Western Oregon and Washington.

Fir trunks threaded through dense forestland that blanketed rolling hills. A streams natural flow successfully pushed logs downstream, but creating and controlling a reservoir expedited the journey, leading to the popular emergence of wooden splash dams.

This practice, spanning from the 1880s through the 1950s, was a spectacular feat  and one that readily fed a market hungry for timber, according to 1977 Cowlitz Historical Quarterly entries.

But, during its prime, splash damming could be explosive and, according to the U.S. Forest Service, is considered one of the earliest management disturbances to the Pacific Northwests rivers.

Watershed groups say the dams legacy can still be observed along the Coweeman main stem and its tributaries today  an influence theyre attempting to reverse, returning the waterway to its natural state.

Every tree that was growing along the banks was scarred. Every pebble of gravel got flushed out. It was just terrible, said Brice Crayne, restoration program manager for the Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group.

Lasting impacts

Historical documents point to the Coweeman River system hosting as many as five splash dams. The river was a prime pathway for pioneer loggers to make a living. Great fir stands, ready to be cut and sent to a sawmill, grew near the stream and its tributaries.

The Coweemans first splash dam appeared in 1880 on the confluence of the main stem and Baird Creek, with others later appearing in Moreland Creek, Mulholland Creek, Sam Smith Creek and Hill Creek.

As water pooled, logs would float and accumulate until timber companies opened a spillway, releasing an explosive flood. Loggers would stand along the water with pike poles, orienting logs so they would be straight when exiting. Downriver, they would be directed into the mill pond and held for processing.

Locals recollected seeing oxen haul logs from where they were cut and down to the river, they wrote in the quarterly. Eventually horses replaced the oxen, then came steam-powered engines followed by small tractors. Soon, the dams became obsolete as railways and roads became prominent means of transporting timber.

Today, when standing by the river, habitat loss may not look substantial to an untrained eye, Crayne said. An intact floodplain is teeming with life  bugs, beavers and at-risk fish species. But the Coweeman isnt intact, he said. Splash damming flushed out entire aquatic systems.

Loggers would remove boulders and fallen trees in rivers by blowing them to bits with dynamite, creating a clear path for logs. In doing so, they ruptured native habitat and transformed how water flowed, Crayne said.

Many sites have been reduced to bedrock, allowing water to slide across the land effortlessly and speedily. Cold pools of water, fine sediments and woody debris needed for salmon refuge and spawning waned. As a result, their flashy fish bellies are seldom seen in the Coweemans currents.

The Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group began addressing this oversimplified habitat and altered stream channel movement in 2016, the first of their many subsequent projects.

Rebuilding a natural habitat involves introducing bedrock, boulders and logs to a river channel. This will eventually develop an alluvial layer  or a thick underwater sheet of silt, sand and gravel mixed with other organic deposits  which is necessary to support fish migration.

Incrementally, the Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group has expanded its restoration work along the Coweeman main stem to surrounding creeks. The project, called Baird Creek Liberation, is an amalgamation of small pilot projects, which enabled the group to learn more about the watershed and balloon their approach based on results, Crayne said.

Scientists have already seen an improvement in fish populations.

Preliminary data indicates that juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead appeared in slightly larger numbers last fall in the Coweeman River, according to Cramer Fish Sciences, a consultant company involved in Baird Creek Liberation.

A fuller report of how wildlife is responding to restoration will be available this winter.

The Coweeman Rivers response to habitat work is already encouraging at its early stage, said Hans Berge, a program manager with Cramer. As the site matures, its natural processes will return and, with it, a mosaic of life  as small as invertebrates and as large as beavers. If the rivers current trend continues, it will fully recover, which may take a couple of decades, he said.

Regional impacts

Legacy impacts arent isolated to Southwest Washington.

Dam remnants, archive searches and personal anecdotes point to the structures history throughout the region. Researchers identified 232 splash dams in Western Oregon, where most research is centered, but they existed as far north as southeastern Alaska, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Each season water flows through the channels, sediment will find a place to stop among imported wood debris and rocks. But, for the most part, the water is doing all the work, Berge said.

Although splash damming had far reaches, impacted rivers and estuaries can recover through minimal intervention, like that of the Baird Creek Liberation.

If you fight nature, you wont get results, he said. If you use the river as a tool to complement restoration work, it almost always plays out.
SILVERDALE, Wash.  The infants doctor visit was supposed to be a routine wellness check. Mother Emily Massaro had a list of questions, one of them about bluish gray marks that looked to her, and then the pediatrician, like bruises. Massaro explained the 2-month-old boy recently fell off a bed, something she had told another doctor at the time.

But this pediatrician was suspicious. Massaro and her husband, Dan, soon found themselves at the center of an abuse investigation  one that intensified when the doctor directed them to an Everett hospital, which said X-rays showed one or possibly two healing fractures to a rib and leg.

The Massaros said they didnt know how such fractures could have occurred.

Police and a state social service worker arrived, informing the couple their son would be taken away. The parents handed over their infant, blanketed in his dads sweatshirt, in the hospital parking lot.

I collapsed on the ground, said Dan Massaro. I was bawling.

Then, Dr. Niran Al-Agba got on the case.

A second-generation pediatrician in the Kitsap Peninsula town of Silverdale, operating a thriving practice out of a split-level office she designed with her father, Al-Agba has become a vital part of the defense of many parents who say they were wrongly accused. Typically, she becomes involved in cases where other medical providers have reported or diagnosed abuse in an evaluation for the state.

She is referred to parents lawyers through the state Office of Public Defense, one of only a few on the agencys list of pediatricians located in Washington. As such, she plays a key  and, to at least one pediatrician long relied on for abuse consultations, unwelcome  role as the state faces calls to move more cautiously in separating children from their parents.

While Al-Agba never categorically says abuse didnt occur, shes found more likely explanations for a childs condition in 47 of the 61 cases  77%  she consulted on as of late August. She tends to review the most questionable cases, in defense lawyers eyes. Even so, her findings underscore longstanding complaints from parents and defense attorneys who claim the state regularly makes abuse allegations on the basis of doctors insufficiently vetted suspicions.

Shes an essential component to our system right now, said Tacoma family law attorney Chris Torrone.

In her office overlooking a row of plum trees, Al-Agba examined the 2-month-old with bluish gray marks, entrusted to a grandmother last May after a night in foster care. The moment I looked, I said: Those are Mongolian spots, the pediatrician recalled.

The so-called bruises were in fact birthmarks, as later confirmed by a hospital provider consulting with the Department of Children, Youth and Families, according to a DCYF document obtained by The Seattle Times, along with other records in the case.

It was the beginning of the end of the states dependency case, requesting custody from a court. The reported fractures remained a mystery. No breaks turned up in a second set of X-rays Al-Agba ordered, though she said the hospitals earlier films might indicate a birth injury.

The state dismissed its custody request in July, citing no ongoing safety concerns, and sent letters to the couple saying its abuse allegations were unfounded. Even so, the couple said they were left traumatized and distrustful of health care providers.

Al-Agba says such cases have changed her views of medicine.

If you asked me five years ago would I be doing this work, I would have said no, she said, talking in characteristic rapid fire. Doctors would never wrongly accuse someone, she thought.

She has come to believe doctors too often jump to suspicion of abuse without fully exploring other possibilities. While this can affect all demographic groups, Al-Agba finds people of color are particularly hard hit. Black, Native American and multiracial people make up roughly 12% of the states population but constitute one-third of last years requests for state custody.

These are people who as a general rule do not have resources, Al-Agba said of many parents accused of abuse. We always seem to believe theyre bad parents. And sometimes thats true. Sometimes, someone has hurt the child. But actually, my experience is that more often than not, they havent.

A brewing backlash

Two years ago, DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter told The Seattle Times he sought to halve the number of kids in foster care, then at 7,400. A rethinking of the child welfare movement was afoot, with some calling for supporting families rather than breaking them apart.

In July, a state law took effect that raises the standard for removing children from their homes from serious threat of substantial harm to imminent physical harm.

Meanwhile, child poverty  strongly correlated with involvement in the foster care system  dropped nationwide as families received federal relief benefits. DCYF officials say thats a big reason the number of Washington children placed outside the home as of June 30, just below 6,000, is the lowest its been since the agency began keeping track in 1979.

Child poverty jumped back up when the benefits expired, so the decline in foster placement may not hold.

Its also unclear whether the states rethinking of separating families will affect abuse cases triggered by health care providers. DCYF, declining an interview request, said in a statement it relies on medical professionals, including consultants contracted to review cases, to help protect children. The agency, balancing competing pressures, faces heavy criticism when it ignores red flags.

Child safety is our paramount concern, and when we receive reports of alleged child abuse or neglect, we exercise precaution to protect the child, while also assessing new information as it arises, DCYF said.

Critics say the doctors the agency relies on  many of whom built careers on identifying abuse and may not have broad pediatric experience  make mistakes.

While all physicians do, Amelia Watson, a supervising attorney with the state public defense office, said shes been shocked by what seems to her like a high error rate of doctors reporting abuse. Shes judging by what shes heard about case resolutions; her office doesnt keep statistics.

A state law allows for a second opinion by a doctor of parents choosing, but DCYF doesnt usually tell parents that, and the agency often takes children away before the parents are aware of their rights, according to Watson and several defense attorneys.

Further, some critics say DCYF doesnt fully grasp the gravity of what abuse allegations mean for parents and their children.

The harm of removal and destruction of families is simply not appreciated and understood by those who have no follow up responsibilities or accountability for errors and lack of judgment, said Rae Lea Newman, a Puyallup nurse who reviews cases for parents attorneys.

A backlash is brewing.

A dozen parents filed a federal lawsuit in November accusing Dr. Elizabeth Woods, formerly of Mary Bridge Childrens Child Abuse Intervention Department and an expert state witness, of providing false, incomplete, and/or unsupportable evidence as a basis to remove children from their homes. The parents also filed a parallel state lawsuit against DCYF for relying on Woods.

DCYF and the doctor, who left the Tacoma childrens hospital in 2021, deny the allegations.

The lawsuits follow a King County judges 2019 ruling, in a case highlighted by an NBC News and KING 5 investigation, that Woods made allegations against one mother mostly without supporting factual basis and that a consulting Seattle Childrens physician was factually mistaken at times and at other times did not support her opinion with the underlying facts.

Steve Fogg, a lawyer representing Woods, said the Tacoma pediatrician stands by her judgments and made them in consultation with other doctors.

Mary Bridge spokesperson Kalyn Kinomoto said a subsequent independent review of its abuse intervention department found it to be high-performing but suggested strengthening peer review and adding additional leadership.

A Seattle Childrens spokesperson didnt respond to specific questions but sent a statement saying health care providers are required to report what they believe to be child abuse or neglect.

The hospitals Dr. Kenneth Feldman refuted criticism more forcefully.

Feldman is a member and former medical director of Seattle Childrens Safe Child and Adolescent Network (SCAN), a team devoted to identifying abuse and neglect for the childrens hospital and Harborview Medical Center. It also consults on cases for other medical facilities and DCYF.

SCAN members look at all possibilities for childrens injuries, communicating with doctors around the hospital on every case, he said. Its not us as the lone ranger.

Feldman recently reviewed his own determinations in cases over a five-year period and calculated he diagnosed abuse in 40% of them  lower than the 50% rate in roughly two dozen similar programs around the country, according to a study conducted by a SCAN fellow.

In 40 years of doing this work, he said he could think of only a handful of cases where hes been wrong.

In Feldmans view, Al-Agbas arrival on the scene hasnt been a positive development.

Basically, the consultations Ive seen are totally incompetent, he charged, saying Al-Agba has no training in abuse beyond her medical school and residency and that judges believing her findings got the wool pulled over their eyes.

Al-Agba has become a professional witness, he added. Shes making quite a bit of money from that.

The Silverdale pediatrician said she earns about as much from her case reviews, $400 an hour, as she does seeing patients. She makes $500 an hour for court testimony. (Feldman says he earns $300 an hour for testifying in cases that dont involve Seattle Childrens or Harborview.)

As for Al-Agbas training, she said she agreed with Feldman. Im not a child abuse expert. What I am is a general pediatrician. And my job is to properly diagnose children with diseases.

She does this work, she said, because this is justice to me.

Heartbreaking assumptions

In many ways, Al-Agba, 48, exemplifies a small-town doctor. She was born in the county where she now sees some 4,000 patients, and Central Kitsap Reporter readers recently voted her the regions best pediatrician.

With a University of Washington medical degree, she returned to the area in the early aughts after a Colorado residency, joining her fathers practice.

Dr. Saad Al-Agba was the kind of a pediatrician who once promised a patient a watch if the teen got straight As. He practiced until he had a heart attack at 81, then died soon after in 2017.

It was a rough period for Al-Agba, dealing with her dads illness and taking over his patients on top of her own. Patients families rallied.

I would be three hours behind and coming to the exam room and be like, Im so sorry. Those waiting for her would not only be understanding but ask: Did you eat today? Let me buy you lunch.

She wrote a column for the Kitsap Sun about their kindness. It drew so many readers, she said, that the paper asked her to contribute regularly.

She had written a previous opinion piece or two, including about what she saw as a worrisome trend toward health care consolidation. With a twice-monthly column, she covered all sorts of topics: racism, immigration (her dad had emigrated from Iraq) and her experience with a patients family DCYF had accused of abuse after one of its physician consultants, Woods, evaluated a bruise.

Fogg, Woods attorney, said by email the Tacoma pediatrician had a narrow role in the case and was asked by DCYF, on the basis of a photo, to give her preliminary medical opinion as to whether the concerning marks could be the result of non-accidental trauma (not whether abuse had in fact occurred).

Al-Agba had seen the bruise herself and believed it consistent with the mothers explanation that the toddler had fallen while climbing over a baby gate. In the 2019 column, Al-Agba questioned overzealous child abuse pediatricians.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade, then-president of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, objected in a letter to the editor. Anecdotal stories ... do not provide a balanced look at the systems we have in place to keep children safe, she wrote. They do not shed light on the countless lives saved by pediatricians who use their training to recognized signs that children are being hurt.

But Al-Agbas view resonated with others, leading to her role on behalf of parents.

Her presence in Washington allows her to physically examine allegedly abused children instead of just looking at records, as consulting physicians on both sides of cases sometimes do. In many instances, the Office of Public Defense taps out-of-state doctors, as its difficult to find local physicians willing to subject themselves to complaints known to come from child abuse pediatricians whose judgments were questioned.

In at least one of our cases, the court commented on the fact that the only doctor who had seen the child in person was saying that this was not abuse, recalled Seattle defense attorney Elena Trebaol. That was pivotal.

Al-Agba likens her work to solving a puzzle. For the many professionals looking at a case, definitive conclusions arent always easy to piece together. Family situations can be complicated. Domestic violence may be involved. DCYF and other authorities often have to make quick decisions.

In the aftermath, Al-Agba sorts through the medical clues. For example: She looked at lab results during one infants hospital stay and suggested a diagnosis of a rare liver disease  one that can cause poor weight gain, as well as easy bruising and fractures  before the diagnosis was officially confirmed.

There is something terribly wrong, Al-Agba wrote in an email to the mothers lawyer, urging her to ensure the child be brought to a specialist immediately. The child is now being treated for the disease, and DCYF eventually dropped its request for custody.

The family was referred to Seattle Childrens, where the girl had surgery and the SCAN team raised suspicion not only about her elbow but other possible fractures, as well. DCYF placed the child in protective custody with a grandmother.

But were there actually fractures? Al-Agba, one of several doctors the Wilkinsons consulted, testified she didnt see evidence of any, with the possible exception of the elbow injury. It was hard to tell because of the surgery.

If there was an elbow fracture, it could have been caused or exacerbated by the urgent care doctors manipulation, she and another doctor suggested, according to the ruling. Al-Agba also noted babies occasionally fracture their elbows while rolling from their stomach to their back.

All the doctors offering second opinions made abuse seem unlikely, and Judge Nicole Gaines-Phelps was persuaded. In her March ruling, she said the case, first reported by Fox 13, was emblematic of how the medical community often reaches decisions based on conscious and unconscious bias. Sam Wilkinson is Black; Grace Wilkinson is Filipino and Puerto Rican.

The judge called out a doctors note provided to DCYF. Bio-dad not involved at this time due to physical abuse concerns, it read.

In fact, Sam Wilkinson, then a maintenance supervisor for an apartment complex company, didnt come to the agency-mandated checkup because he was working.

The assumptions that were made are just heart-breaking, said the judge. A note like that ... could change somebodys life.

She ordered the child be returned to her parents, who later received DCYF letters saying the abuse allegations were unfounded.

The Seattle couple  $75,000 in debt, largely over medical costs  did get one thing out of the ordeal: a new pediatrician. They found Al-Agba to be so knowledgeable and compassionate that they now trek to her Silverdale office for their daughters care.

We dont trust any other pediatrician, Grace Wilkinson said.
Pegasystems announced new enhancements in Pega Smart Dispute to help retail banks streamline time-consuming chargeback processes. By infusing its Pega Process AI technology into the software, Pega helps banks make smarter decisions to resolve each case, enabling them to save time, money, and effort while accelerating the resolution of transaction disputes and fraud claims for its customers.

Chargebacks  the process by which consumers dispute the validity of a card transaction  are on the rise around the world, partially driven by an increase in fraud. Each request kicks off a time-intensive process for the card-issuing bank, which needs to carefully investigate these disputes, determine if a refund is warranted, and work with the various payment networks complex and ever-changing rules to process them.

Adding AI to Pega Smart Dispute to drive chargeback efficiencies

By using Pega Process AI within Pega Smart Dispute, the software automatically analyzes a transaction dispute to predict the likelihood of it being approved through the validation rules of payment networks like Visa. With that critical information, banks can optimize an efficient and low-cost path to resolution. For example, the bank might automate cases with a high success probability while assigning more human resources to investigate low probability cases. This not only saves banks labor costs but also leads to faster resolution for their customers.

Pega Process AI combines Pegas industry-leading workflow automation with real-time AI-powered decisioning, natural language processing (NLP), and complex event processing to optimize and automate business processes. It simplifies complex real-time decisioning with data-driven, AI-infused arbitration to resolve cases quickly and efficiently. Pega Process AI continuously learns from the outcomes of its previous predictions and decisions, helping to improve accuracy and effectiveness over time. Pega Smart Dispute comes preconfigured with Pega Process AI use cases to predict chargeback outcomes for network acceptance and representments. Pega Process AI can also escalate work that may be in danger of missing a deadline or to optimize workflows to make processes more efficient. Clients around the world leverage Pegas AI engine to make hundreds of millions of decisions every day.

Extending the value of Pega Smart Dispute

In addition to Pega Process AI, the latest version of Pega Smart Dispute includes several other significant updates to its proven solution to help banks further streamline the disputes process, including:

Expanded support for different payment types: Building on Pegas pre-built workflows for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, Pega Smart Dispute now provides improved workflow templates that help banks quickly build workflows to manage new and emerging payment types. The solution ships with pre-configured resolution pathways for Zelle or ACH exceptions.

Building on Pegas pre-built workflows for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, Pega Smart Dispute now provides improved workflow templates that help banks quickly build workflows to manage new and emerging payment types. The solution ships with pre-configured resolution pathways for Zelle or ACH exceptions. Support for Regulation II: The software also supports compliance with new Regulation II rules from the US Federal Reserve System for cases of card-not-present (CNP) transactions.

The software also supports compliance with new Regulation II rules from the US Federal Reserve System for cases of card-not-present (CNP) transactions. Updated compliance rules: Pega updates Pega Smart Dispute with the latest chargeback rules from Visa and Mastercard twice per year (effective in April and October), helping clients process disputes against the latest guidance.

Pega Smart Dispute governs payment dispute and exception processes throughout the payment lifecycle across any channel  managing all aspects of this unique moment of truth in banking. It provides a centralized resource to both guide employees in agent-assisted channels and automate processes within self-service channels. This helps issuers unify dispute and fraud claim operations to increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, and compliance. Built on Pegas leading low-code platform, Pega Smart Dispute also enables clients to adapt rapidly to changing conditions and new payment types for rapid extensibility.
(Photo : Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

New York City authorities arrested husband of Bronx day care owner charged in the death of a one-year-old boy due to fentanyl exposure.

New York City authorities have arrested the husband of a Bronx daycare owner where a one-year-old boy died of fentanyl exposure.

Law enforcement personnel said that the fugitive was hunted down in Mexico on Tuesday after spending roughly ten days on the lam. The man was identified as Felix Herrera, who was captured on surveillance video sneaking out of the nursery minutes before first responders found the victim, Nicholas Feliz Dominici, dying.

Bronx Day Care Death

The U.S. Marshal Service was able to track down Herrera in Texas, where they got a tip that he was hiding south of the border. Mexican authorities were the ones who captured the suspect as they worked with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Marshals Service.

The 34-year-old fugitive is expected to face extradition to the United States and become the fourth suspect charged in the young boy's tragic death. Authorities also charged 36-year-old Grei Mendez Ventura, Herrera's wife and the owner of the Divino Nino Daycare, and 41-year-old Carlisto Acevedo Brito, Herrera's cousin, as per the New York Post.

Bronx prosecutors charged the suspects with murder, assault, and child endangerment the day after the victim died. Three other children were sickened by fentanyl exposure on Sept. 15. The initial two suspects and a third individual, 38-year-old Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, also face federal drug charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.v

Authorities noted that the suspects also ran a narcotics mill out of the basement of the daycare center, where they discovered drugs and paraphernalia stashed on top of children's play mats and in two trap doors underneath where the children ate, played, and slept.

Law enforcement sources also noted that Herrera was believed to be the "main player" in the alleged drug operation hidden inside the daycare center. Prosecutors argued that Mendez found the children unresponsive shortly before 2:39 p.m. on Sept. 15 and made three calls before calling police, one to a co-worker and two to her husband.

Read Also: California Deputy Busted With Over 100 Pounds of Fentanyl Pills

Fentanyl Exposure

The former chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ray Donovan, noted that Herrera's arrest was made in a significant location. According to CBS News, he added that the suspect has contacts because of his illicit drug activity in Mexico within the Sinaloa cartel.

A New York City grand jury indicted Mendez and Brito after the fentanyl exposure death. Before that decision, the two suspects were both charged in state court with murder, manslaughter, assault, endangering child welfare, and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Andres Manuel Aranda, Mendez's defense attorney, said last week that his client will fight the charges against her. He noted that the daycare owner had nothing to do with the case "besides taking care of the kids."

The attorney said that Mendez claims she has no previous knowledge of contraband in the apartment. Aranda added that his client "feels horrible about what happened," adding that she was the one who called 911 to report the incident, said CNN.

Related Article: More Than 1000 Minors Reported Missing in Cleveland This Year, Including Nearly 50 This Month

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In an era of rapidly evolving financial technologies, a game-changer has emerged, promising to revolutionize the way we conduct transactions and manage our finances. NAKA, a forward-thinking company, is at the forefront of this financial revolution, introducing the world to its groundbreaking self-custodial payment card and blockchain-based payment scheme.

Bridging the Gap Between Traditional Finance and Cryptocurrencies

NAKAs innovation represents a significant step in bridging the gap between traditional finance and the blockchain world. At its core is a unique payment scheme driven entirely by smart contracts, complemented by a self-custodial payment card that requires no intermediaries or banks. The beauty of this system lies in its compatibility with the EMV standard, the gold standard in the payment industry representing Europay, Mastercard, and Visa. This compatibility opens the doors for NAKA to work seamlessly with virtually any point-of-sale (POS) terminal worldwide.

Pioneering Testing in Switzerland and El Salvador

To validate the effectiveness of NAKAs cryptocurrency and card payments, the company has chosen two strategic locations for its initial testing phase: Switzerland and El Salvador. These regions have already established robust infrastructure for accepting Bitcoin payments at POS terminals, making them ideal testing grounds. NAKAs payment acceptance system will not only support Bitcoin on the Lightning Network (LN) but also the stablecoin USDt on the Polygon, Tron, and Ethereum networks, enhancing its versatility and usability.

NAKA Card: Empowering Financial Freedom

At the heart of NAKAs innovation is the NAKA card, a self-custodial payment card accessible to anyone. This card connects seamlessly to a non-custodial wallet, allowing users to take full control of their funds. This empowering feature opens the door to decentralized financial services, benefiting both the unbanked population and those who seek an alternative to centralized financial institutions.

The NAKA Difference

One of the standout features of NAKA is its compatibility with existing payment acceptance infrastructure. Unlike many other blockchain-based solutions, NAKA seamlessly integrates with legacy payment industry standards. This means that the NAKA scheme and card have the potential to be used on any conventional POS device.

During the testing phase, NAKA cards will be supported at all NAKA point-of-sale locations across Switzerland and El Salvador, starting in October and November of this year. This means that users in these regions will be among the first to experience the convenience and security of NAKAs self-custodial payment card.

Empowering the User

The NAKA card is truly self-custodial. NAKA cardholders have the freedom to manage their cards using the NAKA decentralized application (dApp), connecting to a wallet managed by MetaMask. Users can fund their cards with their MetaMask assets, including USDt on Polygon. Alternatively, they can top up their cards directly with USDt on the Polygon network. This flexibility gives users full control over their financial assets.

NAKA: Opening Doors for Issuers

Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of NAKA is its inclusivity. Anyone can issue the NAKA card without the need for additional licenses. Legitimate companies can become primary issuers by communicating directly with NAKA, or they can partner with NAKA as sponsoring issuers. This openness ensures that NAKAs financial empowerment is accessible to a wide range of businesses and organizations.

Where Can You Experience NAKA?

The official launch of the NAKA card is scheduled for the Plan  Forum in Lugano, Switzerland, on October 20th and 21st, 2023. During this event, NAKAs CEO, Dejan Roljic, will perform the first-ever transaction with the NAKA card live in Villa Ciani. Those attending the two-day event will have the opportunity to become among the first NAKA cardholders, allowing them to explore card payments with USDt across the venue and the entire Lugano region.

NAKA: Powering Bitcoin Cities

Following the official launch, NAKA will extend its support to three Bitcoin Cities around the globe: Lugano, Switzerland; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Ljubljana, Slovenia. This expansion marks the beginning of NAKAs journey into various markets, where it aims to redefine financial empowerment.

In conclusion, NAKAs self-custodial payment card and blockchain-based payment scheme are pioneering innovations that promise to change the way we think about finance. By seamlessly integrating with traditional payment systems, empowering users with self-custodial control, and offering accessibility to issuers of all kinds, NAKA is breaking down barriers and forging a path toward a more inclusive and decentralized financial future.
An anonymous report was sent to the schools administration and the school resource deputy pulled the student in question from class, according to the Brazos County Sheriffs Office. The student was later arrested after an investigation.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday said next months special session will include border security proposals, following increased pressure from bipartisan lawmakers.

The news comes as a recent increase in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has paralyzed a small city along the Texas border. Abbott pointed to reports in conservative media about an alleged housing development of undocumented immigrants north of Houston.

Speaking on Fox News, Abbott said that the fast-approaching 30-day session would get to the bottom of the allegations, which he noted that hes taking seriously while also conceding that he does not know if any of the reports about the community are true.

Lawrence Jones, a Fox News host, asked the governor whether it was true that the people living in the area did not have social security numbers or Texas drivers licenses. Abbott said he did not know.

During the first special session in June, Abbott asked the Legislature to pass a law increasing the penalty for human smuggling. No such law ever made it to his desk. In July, Abbott did not include the smuggling issue on his call for that next special session as the House and Senate had not agreed to a property tax cut yet.

The governor did not provide details on what proposals he wants lawmakers to pass relating to the development. He has deployed state agencies to the area to conduct investigations, including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, he told Fox News.

Spokespeople for DPS and TCEQ did not immediately respond to questions asking for any reports or information they have obtained on the alleged development.

Octobers special session, which he told Fox News would begin in about two weeks, was primarily going to deal with legislation that would allow for public funds to help families afford private-school tuition.

But a massive influx of migrants along the Rio Grande in recent weeks has resulted in repeated calls on Abbott to include border security topics on the 30-day session  from both Republican and Democratic legislators.

Abbotts comments on Fox News  and on another conservative radio show earlier this week  havent provided many details. The governors office did not respond to an email Wednesday morning asking for more information on the upcoming session.

Abbott has increasingly made immigration enforcement among his top priorities. Operation Lone Star, a multi-billion dollar border security effort between DPS troopers and Texas National Guard members, has been going on for more than two years.

Over the summer, Texas installed buoys in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass to stop migrants from entering the state illegally, he previously said. The Justice Department sued Abbott over the buoys, saying the state broke a 19th-century law that forbids unauthorized construction along navigable waterways. That lawsuit is ongoing.

The governor has repeatedly butted heads with the White House during Joe Bidens time in office.

There is a war going on on the border, and that war is between Texas and the United States of America, Abbott told Fox News on Wednesday. Its outrageous.

The states Republican party unanimously passed a resolution last week calling on Abbott to put the development on the special session agenda. Last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on a radio show that he would ask Abbott to put the issue on the special session.

This massive complex of people here illegally creating their own city just north of Houston is just unacceptable, Patrick said Sept. 19 on The Michael Berry show.
American Well Co. (NYSE:AMWL) posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February, 22nd. The company reported ($0.22) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.25) by $0.03. The business earned $79.20 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $78.05 million. American Well had a negative net margin of 226.24% and a negative trailing twelve-month return on equity of 29.76%. American Well's quarterly revenue was up 8.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.18) earnings per share.
iShares Russell Mid-Cap ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares Russell Midcap Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Russell Midcap Index (the Index). The Index measures the performance of the mid-capitalization sector of the United States equity market. The Index is a float-adjusted, capitalization-weighted index of the 800 smallest issuers in the Russell 1000 Index. The Index includes equity securities issued by issuers, which range in size between approximately $1.7 billion and $12 billion, though these amounts may change from time to time. The Index is a subset of the Russell 1000 Index and serves as the underlying index for the Russell Midcap Growth and Value Index series. The Fund invests in a representative sample of securities included in the Index that collectively has an investment profile similar to the Index. The Funds investment advisor is BlackRock Fund Advisors.
Caterpillar Inc. is a Fortune 500 company that designs, manufactures and markets construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, diesel-electric locomotives and industrial gas turbines. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment and one of the world's largest manufacturers of diesel and natural gas engines. Caterpillar is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, and operates in more than 180 countries worldwide.

Caterpillar is well-positioned for long-term growth with a strong balance sheet, a diversified product portfolio and a solid presence in international markets. The company has continued to invest in research and development, intending to "develop innovative products and services that leverage the power of technology to improve customer productivity and reduce costs." Caterpillar has also expanded its presence in Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world, allowing it to capitalize on the growth of developing markets.

Caterpillar has been a leader in the construction and mining equipment market for many years, offering tractors, excavators, wheel loaders, backhoe loaders, engines, transmissions and more. Caterpillar has invested heavily in its dealer network, providing customers access to its products and services in over 180 countries.

In addition to its construction and mining equipment business, Caterpillar also has a strong presence in the power systems industry, providing power solutions such as diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. The company's services include parts, repairs and maintenance and financing. Caterpillar is dedicated to providing innovative and efficient power solutions and has invested in research and development to advance their products and services.

Caterpillar has a long history of financial strength and stability. The company has consistently reported revenue growth and strong profits in recent years.

Caterpillar is a leader in the construction and mining equipment market, and its presence in the power systems sector provides additional growth opportunities. The company's diversified product portfolio and solid presence in international markets make it well-positioned for long-term growth. The company has a strong balance sheet, a diversified product portfolio and a long history of generating consistent revenue and profits.
Chevron Corporation, through a network of subsidiaries, engages in integrated energy and chemicals operations worldwide. The company is the 7th largest integrated oil company worldwide, the 2nd largest in the US, and has been in operation since 1879. Chevron was part of the original Standard Oil Company and is one of the 34 successor companies that were formed when it was broken up. Today, the company brings in roughly $160 billion in annual revenues and is the last remaining oil and gas component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Originally called Standard Oil Of California the company grew quickly via mergers and acquisitions. It was hailed as one of the Seven Sisters to dominate the US and global production throughout the mid-20th century and became even bigger in 1985 when it merged with Gulf Oil. The merger with Gulf Oil resulted in the rebranding from Standard Oil Of California to Chevron (a brand used by the company outside its California jurisdiction) and then ChevronTexaco Corporation in 2005 when that merger took place. The company rebranded again in 2005 to what we know today as Chevron Corporation.

Chevron Corporation is now based in San Ramone, California, and has operations in 180 countries. The company employs more than 42,500 people who operate 5 refineries and 8,000+ Texaco, Chevron, and Standard Oil service stations in the US alone. The company's Exploration and Drilling operations produced a record 3.1 million barrels per day and its US refineries process more than 1 million barrels per day. At the end of 2021, the company has more than 11.3 billion barrels of proven oil and liquid-equivalent reserves and boasted a 112% reserve replacement rate.

The company operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment explores new reserves, develops known reserves, produces petroleum and gas products as needed, transports, processes, pipes, stores, and markets petroleum worldwide. The Downstream segment refines and markets the full line of petroleum-based products including but not limited to fuels such as gas, diesel, and aviation fuel, as well as lubricants, petrochemicals, and plastics. The company transports products via pipeline, rail, marine vessels, and truck.

Chevron recognizes the need to lower the worlds carbon output and is working toward that end. The companys strategy is two-pronged and includes reducing its own carbon output while investing in green and lower-carbon technologies. The companys goal is to invest $10 billion or more into lower carbon energy sources and technologies by 2028.

Chevron is a Dividend Aristocrat. The company has been paying a dividend since 1989 and it has raised it every year since its inception.






iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Standard & Poors 500 Index (the Index). The Index measures the performance of the large-capitalization sector of the United States equity market. The component stocks are weighted according to the total float-adjusted market value of their outstanding shares. The Fund invests in a representative sample of securities included in the Index that collectively has an investment profile similar to the Index. The Fund invests in sectors, such as consumer non-cyclical, financial, energy, technology, communications, industrial, consumer cyclical, basic materials and utilities. BlackRock Fund Advisors (BFA) serves as the investment advisor to the Fund.
(Photo : Patrick Doyle / POOL / AFP) (PATRICK DOYLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota announces his resignation following the controversy where he invited a Nazi veteran who was praised in parliament.

Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota announces his resignation following a controversy over his remarks where he praised a Nazi veteran that Russia said helped justify its war on Ukraine.

Rota, the North American country's House of Commons lower chamber speaker, announced on Tuesday. He told legislators that he had made a mistake when he invited former soldier Yaroslav Hunka, nine years old, to attend a session in the House honoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday.

Canadian House Speaker Announces Resignation

At the time, the Canadian House speaker publicly recognized the former soldier and called him a hero. His position quickly became untenable after it emerged that Hunka, who received two standing ovations from lawmakers, was found to have served in one of Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS units during World War II.

In a statement, Rota said that the public recognition has resulted in pain to individuals and communities, including the Jewish community in Canada and worldwide. He added that he was taking full responsibility for his actions, saying his resignation would take effect on Wednesday, as per Reuters.

The situation played out into the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted that he sent his army into Ukraine last year to "demilitarize and denazify" the nation, a claim that Kyiv and Western allies called baseless.

The furor also helped tarnish the visit by Zelensky, who expressed his gratitude to Canada for the billions of dollars in aid and weapons provided to Ukraine since Russia's initial invasion in February 2022.

Additionally, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joy said previously that Rota should resign while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on him to think about his future. However, opposition parties blamed what they called failings by Trudeau's Liberal government for the affair.

According to Inquirer, House government leader Karina Gould said that all of the main opposition parties called for Rota's resignation following the controversy, saying that lawmakers had lost their confidence in the House speaker.

Read Also: Nagorno-Karabakh Exodus: Fuel Depot Explodes in Gas Station, At Least 20 Dead

Honoring a Nazi Veteran

Gould added that Rota did not inform the government or the delegation from Ukraine when he invited and recognized Hunka. She added that the House speaker also did not inform anyone and did not do diligence, which broke the trust with lawmakers.

The government leader noted that she had never imagined that the speaker of the House would have asked his colleagues to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis. She said the situation was very emotional as her family are Jewish holocaust survivors.

Earlier this week, Peter Julian, the progressive New Democratic Party's House leader, said that Rota had made an "unforgivable error that puts the entire House in disrepute." When asked about the House speaker's resignation announcement, Julian said that the steps need to be taken to ensure that the incident does not happen in the future in a Canadian Parliament.

Julian also noted that it remains unclear when a vote to determine the next speaker will occur. Fellow parliament members are the ones who elect the speaker of the House of Commons to preside over the proceedings in the chamber, said Aljazeera.

Related Article: Germany Orders Checks on Borders With Poland, Czech Republic To Address Migrant Surge

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Fidelity National Financial (NYSE:FNF) pays an annual dividend of $1.80 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 4.61%. FNF has a dividend yield higher than 75% of all dividend-paying stocks, making it a leading dividend payer. The company has been increasing its dividend for 11 consecutive years, indicating the company has a strong committment to maintain and grow its dividend. The dividend payout ratio is 95.24%. Payout ratios above 75% are not desirable because they may not be sustainable. Based on earnings estimates, FNF will have a dividend payout ratio of 35.43% next year. This indicates that the company will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

Read our dividend analysis for FNF.
The following companies are subsidiares of UnitedHealth Group: 1070715 B.C. Unlimited Liability Company, 1st Avenue Pharmacy Inc., 310 Canyon Medical LLC, 4C MSO LLC, 4C Medical Group PLC, 5995 Minnetonka LLC, ABCO International Holdings LLC, ACN Group IPA of New York Inc., ACN Group of California Inc., AHN Accountable Care Organization LLC, AHN Central Services LLC, AHN Target Holdings LLC, AMIL International S.a.r.l., APS  Assistencia Personalizada a Saude Ltda., ASC Holdings of New Jersey LLC, ASC Network LLC, ASC Operators-East Bay LLC, ASC Operators-San Francisco LLC, ASC Operators-San Luis Obispo LLC, ASC Operators-Santa Rosa LLC, ASC Operators-South Bay LLC, ASV-HOPCo-SCA Cornerstone LLC, ASV-HOPCo-SCA Florida LLC, AbleTo Behavioral Health Services P.C., AbleTo Inc., Accurate Rx Pharmacy Consulting LLC, Administradora Clinica La Colina S.A.S., Administradora Country S.A.S., Administradora Medica Centromed S.A., Advanced Surgery Center of Clifton LLC, Advanced Surgical Center LLC, Advanced Surgical Hospital LLC, Advocate Condell Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate Southwest Ambulatory Surgery Center L.L.C., Advocate-SCA Partners LLC, Aliansalud Entidad Promotora de Salud S.A., All Savers Insurance Company, All Savers Life Insurance Company of California, Alliance Surgical Center LLC, Allina Health Heart and Vascular Surgery Center LLC, Allina Health Surgery Center-Brooklyn Park LLC, Aloha Surgical Center LLC, Ambient Healthcare Inc., Ambient Holdings Inc., AmeriChoice, AmeriChoice Corporation, AmeriChoice of New Jersey Inc., American Health Network of Indiana Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Indiana II LLC, American Health Network of Indiana LLC, American Health Network of Kentucky LLC, American Health Network of Ohio Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Ohio II LLC, American Health Network of Ohio LLC, American Physicians Inc., Amico Saude Ltda., Amil, Amil Assistencia Medica Internacional S.A., Angiografia e Hemodinamica Madre Theodora Ltda., Anne Arundel-SCA Holdings LLC, Anne Arundel-SCA Surgicenter LLC, Antelope Valley Surgery Center L.P., Analisis Clinicos ML S.A.C., Apothecary Holdings Inc., AppleCare Medical Management LLC, Aquitania Chilean Holding SpA, Arcadia JV Holdings LLC, Arcadia Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., ArchWell Health LLC, ArchWell Health MSO LLC, ArchWell Health Professional Services Holding Co., ArchWell Health Professional Services of Alabama LLC, ArchWell Health Professional Services of North Carolina P.C., ArchWell Health Professional Services of Oklahoma LLC, Archwell Health Professional Services of Arizona LLC, Archwell Health Professional Services of Nebraska LLC, Arise Physician Group, Arizona Physicians IPA Inc., Arlington Surgery Center LLC, Aspectus Inc., Associacao Lusiadas Knowledge Center  Health Education and Research, Audax Health Solutions LLC, Aurora Hospitalist P.C., Austin Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., Avella Specialty Pharmacy, Aventura Medical Tower Surgery Center LLC, Avery Parent Holdings Inc., Aveta Inc., AxelaCare Intermediate Holdings LLC, AxelaCare LLC, B.R.A.S.S. Partnership in Commendam, BOSC Holdings LLC, BSC Holdings LLC, Ball Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Banmedica Colombia S.A.S., Banmedica Internacional SpA, Banmedica S.A., Barranca Surgery Center LLC, Beach Surgical Holdings II LLC, Beach Surgical Holdings III LLC, Beach Surgical Holdings LLC, Beaver Medical Group P.C., Bedford Physicians Risk Retention Group Inc., Behavioral Healthcare Options Inc., Beltway Surgery Centers L.L.C., Benefit Administration for the Self Employed L.L.C., Benefitter Insurance Solutions Inc., Bergan Mercy Surgery Center LLC, Bergen-Passaic Cataract Laser and Surgery Center LLC, Bessler MD PLLC, Bind Benefits Inc., Bind LH Holdings Inc., Bind Re Inc., Birmingham Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Birmingham Outpatient Surgical Center LLC, Bloomfield ASC LLC, Blue Ridge Day Surgery Center L.P., Blue Ridge GP LLC, Blue Ridge Properties LLC, Boca Raton Outpatient Surgery & Laser Center LTD., Bordeaux Barbados Holdings I SRL, Bordeaux Barbados Holdings II SRL, Bordeaux Barbados Holdings III S.r.l., Bordeaux Holding SpA, Bordeaux International Holdings Inc., Bordeaux UK Holdings I Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings III Limited, Bosque Medical Center Ltda., Brandon Ambulatory Surgery Center LC, BriovaRx Infusion Services 102 LLC, BriovaRx of Florida Inc., BriovaRx of Maine Inc., BriovaRx of Massachusetts LLC, CCEC Anesthesia Management LLC, CDC Holdings Colombia S.A.S., CLISA  Clinica de Santo Antonio S.A., CMO  Centro Medico de Oftalmologia S/S Ltda., CMS  Central de Manipulacao e Servicos Farmaceuticos Ltda., COI  Clinicas Oncologicas Integradas S.A., Cabin Enterprises LLC, Cabin Holdings LLC, California Medical Group Insurance Company Risk Retention Group, Camp Hill Ambulatory Centers, Camp Hill-SCA Centers LLC, Capital City Medical Group L.L.C., Cardinal Holding Company LLC, Care Improvement Plus Group Management LLC, Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus Wisconsin Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus of Texas Insurance Company, Care Logistics LLC, CareMount Dental Member LLC, CareMount Health Solutions ACO LLC, CareMount Health Solutions Employer LLC, CareMount Health Solutions LLC, CareMount Holding LLC, CareMount Medical Foundation Inc., CareMount Value Partners IPA LLC, Carr PLLC, Casa de Saude Santa Therezinha Ltda., Castle Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Castle Rock SurgiCenter LLC, Catalyst360 LLC, Catamaran 2 Unlimited Company, Catamaran Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, Catamaran S.a.r.l., Cedar Park JV Partners LLC, Cedar Park Surgery Center LLC, Cemed Care  Empresa de Atendimento Clinico Geral Ltda., Center for Quality Improvement LLC, Center for Restorative Surgery at Maple Grove LLC, Center for Surgery of North Coast L.P., Central Indiana Care Organization LLC, Central Ohio Care Organization LLC, CentriHealth Corporation, CentrifyHealth LLC, Centro Medico Hospitalar Pitangueiras Ltda., Centro Odontologico Americano S.A.C., Centro de Entrenamiento Capacitacion en Reanimacion y Prevencion Limitada, Centro de Servicios Compartidos Banmedica SpA, Centromed Quilpue S.A., Centros Medicos y Dentales Multimed Ltda., Centura-SCA Holdings LLC, Centurion Casualty Company, Channel Islands Surgicenter L.P., Channel Islands Surgicenter Properties LLC, Charleston Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Charleston Surgery Properties LLC, Charlotte Surgery Center LLC, Charlotte Surgery Properties LTD., Charlotte-SC LLC, Chatham Orthopaedic ASC LLC, Childrens Surgery Center LLC, Citrus Regional Surgery Center L.P., Claims Management Systems Inc., Cleburne Surgical Center LLC, Clinical Partners of Colorado Springs LLC, Clinton Partners LLC, Clinica Alameda SpA, Clinica Bio Bio SpA, Clinica Ciudad del Mar S.A., Clinica Davila y Servicios Medicos S.p.A., Clinica Iquique S.A., Clinica Medico Cirurgica de Santa Tecla S.A., Clinica Portoazul S.A., Clinica San Felipe S.A., Clinica Santa Maria S.p.A., Clinica Sanchez Ferrer S.A., Clinica Vespucio S.A., Clinica del Country S.A.S., Coachella Valley Physicians of PrimeCare Inc., Coalition for Advanced Pharmacy Services Inc., Cobranzas Banmedica SpA, Cogent Healthcare IPA of New York Inc., Cogent Healthcare Inc., Cogent Healthcare Management of New York Inc., Cogent Healthcare of Arizona P.C., Cogent Healthcare of California Prof. Corp., Cogent Healthcare of Georgia P.C., Cogent Healthcare of Illinois LLC, Cogent Healthcare of Iowa P.C., Cogent Healthcare of Jackson MS LLC, Cogent Healthcare of Jacksonville LLC, Cogent Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Cogent Healthcare of Missouri Inc., Cogent Healthcare of Montana P.C., Cogent Healthcare of New Jersey P.C., Cogent Healthcare of North Carolina P.C., Cogent Healthcare of Oregon P.C., Cogent Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Cogent Healthcare of Pensacola L.L.C., Cogent Healthcare of Tennessee P.C., Cogent Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Cogent Healthcare of Washington P.C., Cogent Medical Care P.C., Cogent Patient Safety Organization Inc., Cogent/Endion Medical Care of New York P.C., Collaborative Care Holdings LLC, Collaborative Care Services Inc., Collaborative Realty LLC, Colmedica Medicina Prepagada S.A., Colonial Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Colorado Innovative Physician Solutions Inc., Colorado Springs Surgery Center Ltd., Comfort Care Transportation LLC, Comprehensive Hospital Physicians of Florida Inc., ConnectYourCare Inc., ConnectYourCare LLC, Connecticut Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Connecticut Surgery Properties LLC, Connecticut Surgical Center LLC, Consorcio Regenero S.A., Constructora Inmobiliaria Magapoq S.A., Consumer Wellness Solutions Inc., Continuum Physicians Group Inc., Continuum Physicians Group of Washington PLLC, Cornell Surgicenter LLC, Cornerstone Surgery Center LLC, Cornerstone Surgicare LLC, Corpus Christi Endoscopy Center L.L.P., Country Scan Ltda., Critical Care Physician of New York P.C., Critical Care Physicians of Illinois LLC, Critical Care Physicians of New Jersey PC, Critical Care Physicians of Pennsylvania P.C., Cross Timbers Surgery Center LLC, Cypress Care Inc., DBP Services of New York IPA Inc., DSP Flint Real Estate LLC, DSP-Building C LLC, DTC Surgery Center LLC, DWIC of Tampa Bay Inc., Dallas Inpatient Specialist PLLC, Danbury Surgical Center L.P., Day-Op Surgery Consulting Company LLC, Definity Health, Dental Benefit Providers Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of California Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of Illinois Inc., Denton Endoscopy Surgery Center LLC, Denton Surgery Center LLC, Derry Surgical Center LLC, Diagnostico Ecotomografico Centromed Ltda., Diasnostico por Imagenes Centromed Ltda., Digestive Disease Center L.P., Dilab Medicina Nuclear Ltda., Diplomat Blocker LLC, Diplomat Corporate Properties LLC, Diplomat Pharmacy, Diplomat Pharmacy Inc., Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy Great Lakes Distribution Center LLC, Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy of Chicago LLC, Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy of Ft. Lauderdale LLC, Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy of Los Angeles County LLC, Distance Learning Network Inc., Divisadero Holdings LLC, DocASAP Inc., DocASAP India Technologies Private Limited, DocASAP US LLC, Doctor + S.A.C., Dry Creek Surgery Center LLC, Dublin Surgery Center LLC, Duluth Surgical Suites LLC, Durable Medical Equipment Inc., E Street Endoscopy LLC, EM Orange Tree LLC, EP Campus I LLC, EPIC Health Plan, EPIC Management Services LLC, East Bay Endoscopy Center L.P., East Brunswick Surgery Center LLC, Echo Locum Tenens Inc., Electronic Network Systems Inc., Elual Participacoes S.A., Emerald Coast Surgery Center L.P., Emisar Pharma Services LLC, Emmaus Holdings LLC, Emmaus Surgical Center LLC, Empire Physician Management Company LLC, Empremedica S. A., Endion Hospitalist North P.C., Endion Hospitalist of Western New York P.C., Endion Medical Healthcare P.C., Endion Medical Services P.C., Endoscopy Center Affiliates Inc., Enterprise Life Insurance Company, Equian, Equian LLC, Equian Parent Corp., Esho  Empresa de Servicos Hospitalares S.A., Everett MSO Inc., Excelsior Insurance Brokerage Inc., Executive Health Resources Inc., Executive Surgery Center L.L.C., Eye Clinic Oftalmologia Clinico Cirurgica e Diagnostico Ltda., Eye Specialists Surgery Centers LLC, FMG Holdings LLC, Family Health Care Services, Family Home Hospice Inc., Ferrell Physician Services P.C., Fideicomiso Clinica Barranquilla Portoazul FA-517, First Coast Orthopedic Center LLC, First Family Insurance LLC, Florence Surgery Center L.P., For Health Inc., For Health of Arizona Inc., Fort Sutter Medical Building a California Limited Partnership, Fort Worth Endoscopy Centers LLC, Fortified Provider Network Inc., Foundation Surgery Affiliate General of Huntingdon Valley LLC, Foundation Surgery Affiliate of Huntingdon Valley L.P., Franklin Surgical Center LLC, Freedom Life Insurance Company of America, Freeway Surgicenter of Houston LLC, Frontier Medex Tanzania Limited, FrontierMEDEX Inc., FrontierMEDEX Kenya Limited, FrontierMEDEX US Inc., Fundacion Banmedica, GLBESC LLC, GRANTS PASS SURGERY CENTER LLC, Gadsden Surgery Center LLC, Gainesville Surgery Center L.P., Gainesville Surgery Properties LLC, Genoa, Genoa Healthcare Inc., Genoa QoL Wholesale LLC, Genoa Technology Canada Inc., Genoa Technology Inc., Genoa Telepsychiatry Inc., Genoa of Arkansas LLC, Gladiolus Surgery Center L.L.C., Glenwood Surgical Center L.P., Glenwood-SC Inc., Global One Ventures LLC, Golden Gate Endoscopy Center LLC, Golden Outlook Inc., Golden Rule Financial Corporation, Golden Rule Insurance Company, Golden Triangle Surgicenter L.P., Grandview Surgery Center LTD., Greater New Haven ASC LLC, Greensboro Specialty Surgery Center LLC, Greenville Surgery Center LLC, Greenway Surgical Suites LLC, Grossmont Surgery Center L.P., Grove Place Surgery Center L.L.C., H&W Indemnity SPC Ltd., H.I. Investments Holding Company LLC, HCP ACO California LLC, HCentive Technology India Private Limited, HFHS-SCA Holdings LLC, HMG Holding Corporation, HMG Holdings LLC, HMP of Baltimore  USH P.C., Harken Health Insurance Company, Harrison Endo Surgical Center LLC, Hawthorn Place Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Hays JV Partners LLC, Hays Surgery Center LLC, Health Care-ONE Insurance Agency Inc., Health Inventures Employment Solutions LLC, Health Inventures LLC, Health Plan of Nevada Inc., HealthCare Partners ASC-LB LLC, HealthCare Partners Affiliates Medical Group, HealthCare Partners Management Services California LLC, HealthCare Partners RE LLC, HealthEast Surgery Center-Maplewood LLC, HealthFirst IPA Inc., HealthMarkets Group Inc., HealthMarkets Inc., HealthMarkets Insurance Agency Inc., HealthMarkets LLC, HealthMarkets Services Inc., HealthSCOPE Holdings Inc., HealthScope Benefits Inc., Healthcare Solutions Inc., Healthplex America LLC, Healthplex Dental Services Inc., Healthplex I.P.A. Inc., Healthplex Inc., Healthplex Insurance Company, Healthplex of CT Inc., Healthplex of DC Inc., Healthplex of MD Inc., Healthplex of ME Inc., Healthplex of NC Inc., Healthplex of NJ Inc., Healthplex of TX Inc., Heartland Heart and Vascular LLC, Help Seguros de Vida S.A., Help Service S.A., Help SpA, Hemonefro  Hemodialise e Nefrologia Ltda, Highlands Ranch Healthcare LLC, Home Medical S.A., Honodav SpA, Hospice Inspiris Holdings Inc., Hospitais Associados de Pernambuco Ltda., Hospital Alvorada Taguatinga Ltda., Hospital Ana Costa S.A., Hospital Santa Helena S.A., Hospital de Clinicas de Jacarepagua Ltda., Hospitalist Medicine Physician of Broome County PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physician of New York - Binghamton P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physician of New York - Buffalo P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physician of New York - Newburgh P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physician of New York - Nyack P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physician of New York - Patchogue P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Alabama  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Alabama  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Alaska  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Alaska  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Goodyear Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Nogales Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Phoenix II Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Phoenix Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Sierra Vista Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Tucson II Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona - Tucson Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arizona  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arkansas  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Arkansas  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Buncombe County PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Apple Valley PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Bakersfield PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Camarillo PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Crescent City PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Fairfield PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Fremont PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Grass Valley PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Jackson PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Oceanside PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Oxnard PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Salinas PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - San Bernardino II PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - San Bernardino PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - San Leandro PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Sonoma PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Stockton II PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Stockton PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Thousand Oaks PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California - Vacaville PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of California  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Colorado - Brighton PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Colorado - Denver PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Colorado  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Colorado  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut - Manchester LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut - Rockville LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut - Wallingford LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Connecticut  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of DC PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of DC  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of DC  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Delaware  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Delaware  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida - Ft. Lauderdale LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida - Jacksonville II LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida - Jacksonville LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida - Palm Coast LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Florida  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Fredericksburg LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia - Atlanta PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia - East Point PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia - Lavonia PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia - Savannah PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Georgia  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Hawaii - Kealakekua Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Hawaii  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Hawaii  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Idaho - Nampa PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Idaho  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Idaho  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois - Downers Grove LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois - Elmhurst LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois - Rockford LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois - Winfield LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Illinois  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana - Clinton LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana - Mishawaka LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana - Terre Haute LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Indiana  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Iowa - Cedar Rapids PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Iowa - Mason City PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Iowa PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Iowa  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Iowa  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Kansas - Topeka LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Kansas - Wichita II LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Kansas - Wichita LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Kansas  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Kansas  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana - Alexandria Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana - Bossier City Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana - Lake Charles Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana - Shreveport Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Louisiana  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maine - Bangor PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maine - Lewiston PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maine  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maine  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland - Cheverly PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland - Cumberland PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland - Frederick PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland - Laurel PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland - Rockville PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland P.C., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Maryland  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Brockton PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Dorchester PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Framingham PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Holyoke PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Natick PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Norwood PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Springfield PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Stoughton PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Taunton PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts - Worcester PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Massachusetts  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Alpena PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Dowagiac PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Escanaba PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Grand Blanc PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Grayling PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Kalamazoo PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Plainwell PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Port Huron PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Saginaw PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan - Tawas City PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Michigan  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Minnesota  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Minnesota  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Mississippi LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Mississippi  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Mississippi  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Missouri - Bridgeton Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Missouri - Richmond Heights Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Missouri  TCG Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Missouri  TCS Inc., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana - Billings PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana - Butte PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana - Miles City PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana - Missoula PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Montana  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Multiple Practice Sites LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nebraska  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nebraska  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada - Henderson Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada - Henderson II Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada - Las Vegas Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada - Las Vegas II Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada  TCG Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Nevada  TCS Bessler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Hampshire  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Hampshire  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Jersey - Hackensack PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Jersey - Paterson PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Jersey - TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Jersey  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Mexico - Clovis LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Mexico - Rio Rancho LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Mexico - TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New Mexico - TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of New York PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - Burlington PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - Clyde PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - Elizabeth City PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - Jacksonville PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - New Bern PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina - Rocky Mount PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Carolina  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Dakota  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of North Dakota  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Akron Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Batavia Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Canton Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Cincinnati II Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Cincinnati III Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Cincinnati Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Circleville Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Columbus II Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Columbus Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Dover Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - East Liverpool Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Fairfield Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - Martins Ferry Professional Corporation, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Ohio - 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Aiken LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of South Carolina - Rock Hill LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of South Carolina  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of South Carolina  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of South Dakota  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of South Dakota  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Tennessee  Columbia PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Tennessee  Franklin PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Tennessee  TCG PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Tennessee  TCS PC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Amarillo PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Atlanta PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Austin II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Austin PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Bryan PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Burnet PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Corpus Christi II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Corpus Christi PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Cypress PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Dallas PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - El Paso II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - El Paso III PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - El Paso PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Fort Worth II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Fort Worth PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Fredericksburg PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Houston PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Humble PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Kerrville PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Kyle PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Livingston PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Lubbock PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Lufkin PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Mount Pleasant PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Plainview PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Rockwall PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Round Rock PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio III PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio IV PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio V PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio VI PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Antonio VII PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - San Marcos PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Texarkana PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas - Tyler PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Texas  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Utah  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Utah  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Vermont  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Vermont  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Alexandria LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Front Royal II LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Front Royal LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Mechanicsville LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Midlothian LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Richmond II LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Richmond LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia - Winchester LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Virginia  TCS LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Arlington PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Auburn PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Bellingham PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Bremerton PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Burien PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Coupeville PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Enumclaw PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Federal Way PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Gig Harbor PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Lakewood PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Mount Vernon PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Puyallup PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Tacoma II PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Tacoma III PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Tacoma PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington - Vancouver PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington County LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Washington  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia  Martinsburg PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia  South Charleston PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia  TCG PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia  TCS PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of West Virginia  Wheeling PLLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Wisconsin Ltd., Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Wyoming - Casper LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Wyoming  TCG LLC, Hospitalist Medicine Physicians of Wyoming  TCS LLC, Hospitalists Management Group LLC, Humedica, Humedica Inc., Hygeia Corporation, Hygeia Corporation Ontario, IEC Holdings LLC, IHD Holdings LLC, INOV8 Surgical at Memorial City LLC, INSPIRIS of Texas Physician Group, Illinois Independent Care Network LLC, Imagen Technologies Inc., Impel Consulting Experts L.L.C., Impel Management Services L.L.C., InTouch Pharmacy LLC, Indiana Care Organization LLC, Indiana Endoscopy Centers LLC, Inland Surgery Center L.P., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3001 S.A., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3600 Ltda., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo S.A., Inmobiliaria Clinica Santa Maria S.A., Inmobiliaria Vinamed Ltda., Inmobiliaria e Inversiones Alameda S.A., Inpatient Services P.C., Inpatient Specialists of California P.C., Inspiris, Inspiris Inc., Instituto Radium de Cammpinas Ltda, Inter-Hospital Physicians Association Inc., International Healthcare Services Inc., Inversiones Clinicas Santa Maria SpA, Ironman Holdco Inc., Ironman Intermediate Holdco LLC, Isapre Banmedica S.A., JPM Healthcare LLC, Johnston Surgicare L.P., Joliet Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Jordan Ridge Family Medicine LLC, Joyable Inc., Kansal Inc. A Professional Corporation, Knox Diagnostic Imaging Center LLC, Kokomo Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, LDI Holding Company LLC, LDI Management Services LLC, LGH-A/Golf ASTC L.L.C., LHC Group, La Esperanza del Peru S.A., Laboratorio ROE S.A., Laboratorios Medicos Amed Quilpue S.A., Landmark Group Holdings LLC, Landmark Health Holdings LLC, Landmark Health LLC, Landmark Health NY IPA LLC, Landmark Health NY PO LLC, Landmark Health Technologies Private Limited, Landmark Health of California LLC, Landmark Health of Massachusetts LLC, Landmark Health of North Carolina LLC, Landmark Health of Oregon LLC, Landmark Health of Pennsylvania LLC, Landmark Health of Washington LLC, Landmark India LLC, Landmark Intermediate Holdings LLC, Landmark MSO LLC, Landmark Medical of Idaho PC, Landmark Medical of Massachusetts PLLC, Landmark Medical of Tennessee PC, Landmark Primary Care LLC, Laser Acquisition Holdings III LLC, Leehar Distributors LLC, Lemhi Ventures Fund I LP, Lemhi Ventures Fund II LP, Level2 Medical Services P.C. Alaska, Lexington Surgery Center Ltd., Liberty Anesthesia Services LLC, LifePrint Health Inc., LifeWell. Ltd. Co., Lifeprint Accountable Care Organization LLC, Limestone Medical Center LLC, Litomedica S.A., Logan Surgical Suites LLC, Lotten-Eyes Oftalmologia Clinica e Cirurgica Ltda., Louisville S.C. Ltd., Louisville-SC Properties Inc., Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook Inc., Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook L.P., Lusiadas - Parcerias Cascais S.A., Lusiadas A.C.E., Lusiadas Algarve S.A., Lusiadas S.A., Lusiadas SGPS S.A., Lutheran Campus ASC LLC, MAMSI Life and Health Insurance Company, MCNA Health Care Holdings LLC, MCNA Insurance Company, MCNA Systems Corp., MD Ops Inc., MD-Individual Practice Association Inc., ME AHS UC LLC, MGH/SCA LLC, MHC Real Estate Holdings LLC, MIAMI SURGERY CENTER LLC, MSLA Management LLC, Main Line Spine Surgery Center LLC, Managed Care of North America Inc., Managed Physical Network Inc., Mansfield Endoscopy Center LLC, March Holdings Inc., March Vision Care IPA Inc., March Vision Care Inc., March Vision Care of Texas Inc., Marin Health Ventures LLC, Marin Specialty Surgery Center LLC, Marin Surgery Holdings Inc., Marlin Holding Company LLC, Maryland Ambulatory Centers LLC, Maryland-SCA Centers LLC, Massachusetts Assurance Company Ltd. PIC, Massachusetts Avenue Surgery Center LLC, McKenzie Surgery Center L.P., MedExpress Primary Care West Virginia Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care Alabama LLC, MedExpress Urgent Care Inc. - Ohio, MedExpress Urgent Care Maine Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care New Hampshire Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care of Boynton Beach LLC, MedSynergies, MedSynergies LLC, Medical Clinic of North Texas PLLC, Medical Hilfe S.A., Medical Support Los Angeles Inc., Medical Surgical Centers of America Inc., Medical Transportation Services LLC, Melbourne Surgery Center LLC, Memorial City Holdings LLC, Memorial City Partners LLC, Memorial Houston Surgery Center LLC, MemorialCare Surgical Center at Orange Coast LLC, MemorialCare Surgical Center at Saddleback LLC, Mesquite Liberty LLC, Metro I Stone Management Ltd., Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee, Midlands Orthopaedics Surgery Center LLC, Midwest Center for Day Surgery LLC, Mile High SurgiCenter LLC, Mississippi Medical Plaza L.C., Mobile Medical Services of New Jersey PC, Mobile-SC LTD., Modality Accountable Care Organisation Limited, Moen M.D. P.C., Mohawk Surgery Center LLC, Monarch Management Services Inc., Montgomery Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Monument Health LLC, Moore Orthopaedic Clinic Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Morris County Surgical Center LLC, Mt. Pleasant Surgery Center L.P., Multiangio Ltda., Murrells Inlet ASC LLC, Muskogee Surgical Investors LLC, Mustang Razorback Holdings Inc., My Wellness Solutions LLC, NAMM Holdings Inc., NPN IPA Washington PLLC, NSC Channel Islands LLC, NSC Greensboro LLC, NSC Greensboro West LLC, NSC Lancaster LLC, NSC Seattle Inc., NSC Upland LLC, Naperville Surgical Centre LLC, National Foundation Life Insurance Company, National Pacific Dental Inc., National Surgery Centers LLC, Navigator Health Inc., Nebraska Spine Hospital LLC, Neighborhood Health Partnership Inc., Netwerkes LLC, Nevada Pacific Dental, New Orleans Regional Physician Hospital Organization L.L.C., New West Physicians Inc., New York Proton Management LLC, Newton Holdings LLC, Niagara Hospitalist P.C., Nomad Buyer Inc., North American Medical Management California Inc., North Coast Surgery Center Ltd. a California Limited Partnership, North Dallas Surgical Center LLC, North Kitsap Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, North Puget Sound Oncology Equipment Leasing Company LLC, Northern Nevada Health Network Inc., Northern Rockies Surgery Center L.P., Northern Rockies Surgicenter Inc., Northern Utah Surgery Center LLC, Northwest Hills JV Partners LLC, Northwest Medical Group Alliance LLC, Northwest Spine and Laser Surgery Center LLC, Northwest Surgicare LLC, Northwest Surgicare Ltd. an Illinois Limited Partnership, OC Cardiology Practice Partners LLC, OCC MSO LLC, OSB  Tecnologia e Servicos de Suporte Lda., Omesa SpA, OmniClaim LLC, Oncocare S.A.C., One World Surgery, Ophthalmology Surgery Center of Dallas LLC, Optimum Choice Inc., Optum Bank Inc., Optum Biometrics Inc., Optum Care Inc., Optum Care Networks Inc., Optum Care Services Company, Optum Care of New York Management Inc., Optum Clinics Holdings Inc., Optum Clinics Intermediate Holdings Inc., Optum Compounding Services LLC, Optum Digital Health Holdings LLC, Optum Direct To Consumer Inc., Optum Financial Inc., Optum Frontier Therapies Holdings LLC, Optum Frontier Therapies II LLC, Optum Frontier Therapies LLC, Optum Genomics Inc., Optum Global Solutions Colombia S.A.S., Optum Global Solutions India Private Limited, Optum Global Solutions International B.V., Optum Global Solutions Philippines Inc., Optum Government Solutions Inc., Optum Growth Partners Holdings Inc., Optum Growth Partners LLC, Optum Health & Technology Holdings US Inc., Optum Health & Technology Hong Kong Limited, Optum Health & Technology India Private Limited, Optum Health & Technology Servicos do Brasil Ltda., Optum Health & Technology Singapore Pte. Ltd., Optum Health & Technology US LLC, Optum Health Plan of California, Optum Health Services Canada Ltd., Optum Health Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Optum Health Solutions UK Limited, Optum Health and Technology FZ-LLC, Optum Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services LLC, Optum Inc., Optum Infusion Services 100 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 101 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 103 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 200 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 201 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 202 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 203 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 204 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 205 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 206 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 207 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 208 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 209 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 301 LP, Optum Infusion Services 302 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 305 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 308 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 401 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 402 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 403 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 404 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 500 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 501 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 550 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 551 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 553 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 554 Inc., Optum Insurance of Ohio Inc., Optum Labs Inc., Optum Labs LLC, Optum Life Sciences Canada Inc., Optum Management Consulting Shanghai Co. Ltd., Optum Networks of New Jersey Inc., Optum Operations Ireland Unlimited Company, Optum Oregon MSO LLC, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Pennsylvania Inc., Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Texas Inc., Optum Perks LLC, Optum Pharma Services Holdings Inc., Optum Pharmacy 601 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 700 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 701 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 702 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 704 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 705 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 706 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 707 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 800 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 803 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 805 Inc., Optum Pharmacy 806 Inc., Optum Public Sector Solutions Inc., Optum Rocket LLC, Optum SCA CS JV Holdings LLC, Optum Senior Services LLC, Optum Services Inc., Optum Services Ireland Limited, Optum Services Puerto Rico LLC, Optum Solutions UK Holdings Limited, Optum Technology LLC, Optum UK Solutions Group Limited, Optum Venture Global Partners II LP, Optum Venture Global Partners LP, Optum Venture Partners II LP, Optum Venture Partners III LP, Optum Venture Partners LP, Optum Washington Network LLC, Optum Women's and Children's Health LLC, Optum of New York Inc., Optum360 LLC, Optum360 Services Inc., Optum360 Solutions LLC, OptumCare ACO New Mexico LLC, OptumCare ACO West LLC, OptumCare Clinical Trials LLC, OptumCare Colorado ASC LLC, OptumCare Colorado LLC, OptumCare Colorado Springs LLC, OptumCare Endoscopy Center New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Florida CI LLC, OptumCare Florida LLC, OptumCare Holdings Colorado LLC, OptumCare Holdings LLC, OptumCare Management LLC, OptumCare New Mexico LLC, OptumCare New York IPA Inc., OptumCare Portland LLC, OptumCare South Florida LLC, OptumCare Specialty Practices LLC, OptumHealth Care Solutions LLC, OptumHealth Holdings LLC, OptumHealth International B.V., OptumInsight Holdings LLC, OptumInsight Inc., OptumInsight India Private Limited, OptumInsight Life Sciences Inc., OptumRx Administrative Services LLC, OptumRx Discount Card Services LLC, OptumRx Group Holdings Inc., OptumRx Health Solutions LLC, OptumRx Holdings I LLC, OptumRx Holdings LLC, OptumRx Home Delivery of Ohio LLC, OptumRx IPA III Inc., OptumRx Inc., OptumRx NY IPA Inc., OptumRx PBM of Illinois Inc., OptumRx PBM of Maryland LLC, OptumRx PBM of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx PBM of Wisconsin LLC, OptumRx PD of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx Pharmacy Inc., OptumRx Pharmacy of Nevada Inc., OptumRx of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumServe Technology Services Inc., Oregon Healthcare Resources LLC, Oregon Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Orlando Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., OrthoNet Holdings Inc., OrthoNet LLC, OrthoNet New York IPA Inc., OrthoNet West Inc., OrthoNet of the South Inc., OrthoWest MSO LLC, Orthology Inc., Orthopedic Center of Palm Beach County LLC, Orthopedic Surgery Center of Palm Beach County LLC, Orthopro Management LLC, Ovations Inc., Owensboro Ambulatory Surgical Facility Ltd., Oxford Benefit Management Inc., Oxford Health Insurance Inc., Oxford Health Plans CT Inc., Oxford Health Plans LLC, Oxford Health Plans NJ Inc., Oxford Health Plans NY Inc., P2P Link LLC, PCCCV Inc., PHC Subsidiary Holdings LLC, PHYSICIANS DAY SURGERY CENTER LLC, PMI Acquisition LLC, PMSI Holdings LLC, PMSI Settlement Solutions LLC, POMCO Inc., POMCO Network Inc., PPH Holdings LLC, PPH Management Company L.L.C., PPH-Columbia Inc., PPH-Gardendale Inc., PS Center LLC, PacifiCare Health Systems, PacifiCare Life Assurance Company, PacifiCare Life and Health Insurance Company, PacifiCare of Arizona Inc., PacifiCare of Colorado Inc., Pacific Cardiovascular Associates Medical Group Inc., Pacific Casualty Company Inc., Pacifico S.A. Entidad Prestadora de Salud, Panama City Surgery Center LLC, Park Hill Surgery Center LLC, Parkway Surgery Center LLC, Patient Care Associates L.L.C., PatientsLikeMe, Patrimonio Autonomo Nueva Clinica, Payment Resolution Services LLC, Peninsula Eye Surgery Center LLC, Penzo Enterprises LLC, Peoples Health, Peoples Health Inc., Perham Physical Therapy LTD, Perimeter Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., Pharmaceutical Technologies LLC, Physician Alliance of the Rockies LLC, Physicians Health Choice of Texas LLC, Physicians Health Plan of Maryland Inc., Physicians' Surgery Center of Downey LLC, Pinnacle III LLC, Plano de Saude Ana Costa Ltda., Plus One Health Management Puerto Rico Inc., Plus One Holdings Inc., Pocono Ambulatory Surgery Center Limited, Polar II Fundo de Investimento em Participacoes Multiestrategia, Polo Holdco LLC, Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center L.P., Post-Acute Care Center for Research LLC, Practice Partners in Healthcare LLC, Preferred Care Network Inc., Preferred Care Network of Florida Inc., Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp., Preferred Care Partners Inc., Preferred Care Partners Medical Group Inc., PreferredOne, PreferredOne Administrative Services Inc., PreferredOne Insurance Company, Premier Choice ACO Inc., Premier Surgery Center of Louisville L.P., Premiere Medical Resources LLC, Presidio Surgery Center LLC, Prime Health Inc., PrimeCare Medical Network Inc., PrimeCare of Citrus Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Corona Inc., PrimeCare of Hemet Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Inland Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Moreno Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Redlands Inc., PrimeCare of Riverside Inc., PrimeCare of San Bernardino Inc., PrimeCare of Sun City Inc., PrimeCare of Temecula Inc., PrimeDoc St. Francis P.C., PrimeDoc of Richmond P.C., ProHEALTH Care Associates L.L.P., ProHEALTH Care Associates of New Jersey LLP, ProHEALTH Medical Management LLC, ProHealth Physicians ACO LLC, ProHealth Physicians Inc., ProHealth Proton Center Management LLC, ProHealth/CareMount Dental Management LLC, Procura Management Inc., Professional Coverage Services PLLC, Progressive Enterprises Holdings Inc., Progressive Medical LLC, Promotora Country S.A., Pronounced Health Solutions Inc., Prosemedic S.A.C., Prospero Benefits Management LLC, Prospero Care Management LLC, Prospero Management Services LLC, Providence & SCA Development LLC, Providence & SCA Off-Campus Holdings LLC, Providence & SCA On-Campus Holdings LLC, Providence & SCA Outreach Markets Holdings LLC, Pulse Platform LLC, QoL Acquisition Holdings Corp., R Cubed Inc., RABessler M.D. P.C., ROC Surgery LLC, ROCS Holdings LLC, RX Ricardo Campos Ltda., Rally Health Inc., ReMedics LLC, Real Appeal Inc., Redding Surgery Center LLC, Redlands Ambulatory Surgery Center, Redlands-SCA Surgery Centers Inc., Reliant MSO LLC, Reliant Medical Group Inc., Reliant Medical Group The Endoscopy Center LLC, Research Surgical Center LLC, Resonancia Magnetica de Colombia Ltda., Resonancia Magnetica del Country S.A., RightCare Solutions Inc., River Valley ASC LLC, Riverside Corporate Wellness LLC, Riverside Electronic Healthcare Resources Inc., Riverside Medical Management LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Meadowlands LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Newark LLC, Robert A. Bessler MD PLLC, Rockville Eye Surgery Center LLC, Rocky Mountain Health Maintenance Organization Incorporated, Rush Oak Brook Surgery Center LLC, SC Affiliates LLC, SCA AHN JV Holdings LLC, SCA Alaska Surgery Center inc., SCA Athens LLC, SCA Austin Holdings LLC, SCA Austin Medical Center Holdings LLC, SCA Aventura Holdings LLC, SCA BOSC Holdings LLC, SCA Bloomfield Holdings LLC, SCA Cedar Park Holdings LLC, SCA Clifton LLC, SCA Colorado Springs Holdings LLC, SCA Community Service Foundation, SCA Cottonwood Holdings LLC, SCA Danbury Surgical Center LLC, SCA Denver Holdings LLC, SCA Development LLC, SCA Duluth Holdings LLC, SCA Duncanville Holdings LLC, SCA Duncanville MSO LLC, SCA ESSC Holdings LLC, SCA Englewood Holdings LLC, SCA Global One Holdings LLC, SCA Greenway Holdings LLC, SCA Grove Creek Holdings LLC, SCA Guilford Holdings LLC, SCA Hays Holdings LLC, SCA Health Value Enterprise LLC, SCA Heartland Holdings LLC, SCA High Point Holdings LLC, SCA HoldCo Inc., SCA Holding Company Inc., SCA Holdings Inc., SCA IEC Holdings LLC, SCA Indiana Holdings LLC, SCA Lutheran Holdings LLC, SCA Maple Grove Holdings LLC, SCA Mohawk Holdings LLC, SCA Murrells Inlet LLC, SCA Northern Utah Holdings LLC, SCA Northwest Holdings LLC, SCA Outside New Jersey LLC, SCA Pacific Holdings Inc., SCA Pacific Surgery Holdings LLC, SCA Palisades Holdings LLC, SCA Pennsylvania Holdings LLC, SCA Pinnacle Holdings LLC, SCA Premier Surgery Center of Louisville LLC, SCA Providence Holdings LLC, SCA ROCS Holdings LLC, SCA Rockledge JV LLC, SCA Rush Oak Brook Holdings LLC, SCA SSSC Holdings LLC, SCA Sage Medical LLC, SCA Sage Medical MSO LLC, SCA San Diego Holdings LLC, SCA Skyway Holdings LLC, SCA South Ogden Holdings LLC, SCA Southwestern PA LLC, SCA Specialists of Florida LLC, SCA Specialty Holdings of Connecticut LLC, SCA Stonegate Holdings LLC, SCA Surgery Holdings LLC, SCA Surgicare of Laguna Hills LLC, SCA Teammate Support Network, SCA West Health Holdings LLC, SCA Westgreen Holdings LLC, SCA Woodbury Holdings LLC, SCA eCode Solutions Private Limited, SCA of Clarksville Inc., SCA-Albuquerque Surgery Properties Inc., SCA-Alliance LLC, SCA-Anne Arundel LLC, SCA-Applecare Partners LLC, SCA-Bethesda LLC, SCA-Blue Ridge LLC, SCA-Bonita Springs LLC, SCA-Brandon LLC, SCA-Castle Rock LLC, SCA-Central Florida LLC, SCA-Charleston LLC, SCA-Chatham LLC, SCA-Chevy Chase LLC, SCA-Citrus Inc., SCA-Colonial Partners LLC, SCA-Colorado Springs LLC, SCA-Connecticut Partners LLC, SCA-DRY CREEK LLC, SCA-Davenport LLC, SCA-Denver LLC, SCA-Denver Physicians Holdings LLC, SCA-Derry LLC, SCA-Doral LLC, SCA-Downey LLC, SCA-Dublin LLC, SCA-Encinitas Inc., SCA-Eugene Inc., SCA-First Coast LLC, SCA-Florence LLC, SCA-Fort Collins Inc., SCA-Fort Walton Inc., SCA-Franklin LLC, SCA-Frederick LLC, SCA-Freeway Holdings LLC, SCA-Ft. Myers LLC, SCA-GRANTS PASS LLC, SCA-Gainesville LLC, SCA-Gladiolus LLC, SCA-Glenwood Holdings LLC, SCA-Grove Place LLC, SCA-Hagerstown LLC, SCA-Hamden LLC, SCA-Hilton Head LLC, SCA-Honolulu LLC, SCA-Houston Executive LLC, SCA-IT Holdings LLC, SCA-Illinois LLC, SCA-JPM Holdings LLC, SCA-Kissing Camels Holdings LLC, SCA-MC VBP Inc., SCA-Main Street LLC, SCA-Marina del Rey LLC, SCA-Mecklenburg Development Corp., SCA-Memorial City LLC, SCA-Memorial LLC, SCA-Merritt LLC, SCA-Midlands LLC, SCA-Midway Management LLC, SCA-Mobile LLC, SCA-Mokena LLC, SCA-Morris Avenue LLC, SCA-Morris County LLC, SCA-Mt. Pleasant LLC, SCA-Naperville LLC, SCA-Naples LLC, SCA-New Jersey LLC, SCA-Newport Beach LLC, SCA-Northeast Georgia Health LLC, SCA-PORTLAND LLC, SCA-Palm Beach LLC, SCA-Palm Beach MSO Holdings LLC, SCA-Panama City Holdings LLC, SCA-Paoli LLC, SCA-Phoenix LLC, SCA-Pocono LLC, SCA-Practice Partners Holdings LLC, SCA-River Valley LLC, SCA-Riverside LLC, SCA-Riverside Partners LLC, SCA-Rockville LLC, SCA-Sacred Heart Holdings LLC, SCA-San Diego Inc., SCA-San Luis Obispo LLC, SCA-Sand Lake LLC, SCA-Santa Rosa Inc., SCA-Somerset LLC, SCA-South Jersey LLC, SCA-Sparta LLC, SCA-Spartanburg Holdings LLC, SCA-St. Louis Holdings LLC, SCA-St. Louis LLC, SCA-St. Lucie LLC, SCA-SurgiCare LLC, SCA-Swiftpath LLC, SCA-VERTA LLC, SCA-VLR Holdings Company LLC, SCA-Wake Forest LLC, SCA-Western Connecticut LLC, SCA-Westover Hills LLC, SCA-Winchester LLC, SCA-Winter Park Inc., SCA-Woodlands Holdings LLC, SCAI Holdings LLC, SCLHS-SCA Holdings LLC, SCP Specialty Infusion LLC, SHC Atlanta LLC, SHC Austin Inc., SHC Hawthorn Inc., SHC Melbourne Inc., SJ East Campus ASC LLC, SRPS LLC, SSSC Holdings LLC, SVHS-SCA Florida JV LLC, Sacred Heart ASC LLC, Saden S.A., Sage Medical Prof. LLC, Salem JV Holdings LLC, Salem Surgery Center LLC, Salveo Specialty Pharmacy Inc., San Diego Endoscopy Center, San Diego Sports and Minimally Invasive Surgery Center LLC, San Francisco Endoscopy Center LLC, San Luis Obispo Surgery Center a California Limited Partnership, Sand Lake SurgiCenter LLC, Santa Barbara Endoscopy Center LLC, Santa Cruz Endoscopy Center LLC, Santa Helena Assistencia Medica S.A., Santa Rosa Surgery Center L.P., Santos Administracao e Participacoes S.A., Sanvello Health Holdings LLC, Sanvello Health Inc., Sanvello Health Limited, Scanner Centromed S.A., Seashore Surgical Institute L.L.C., Seisa Servicos Integrados de Saude Ltda., Senate Street Surgery Center LLC, Senior Benefits L.L.C., Serquinox Holdings LLC, Servicios Integrados de Salud Ltda., Servicios Medicos Amed Quilpue S.A., Servicios Medicos Bio Bio Ltda., Servicios Medicos Ciudad del Mar Ltda., Servicios Medicos Santa Maria Ltda., Servicios Medicos Vespucio Ltda., Servicios de Entrenamiento en Competencias Clinicas Ltda., Serviclinica Inmobiliaria S.A., Serviclinica S.A. Ex Los Leones La Calera, Servisalud Inmobiliaria S.A., Servisalud S.A. Ex Los Carrera Quilpue, Shark Holdings P.C., Sierra Dental Plan Inc., Sierra Health Services Inc, Sierra Health Services Inc., Sierra Health and Life Insurance Company Inc., Sierra Health-Care Options Inc., Sierra Home Medical Products Inc., Sierra Nevada Administrators Inc., Sistema de Administracion Hospitalaria S.A.C., Small Business Insurance Advisors Inc., Sobam  Centro Medico Hospitalar S.A., Sociedad de Inversiones Santa Maria SpA, Solstice Administration Services Inc., Solstice Administrators Inc., Solstice Administrators of Alabama Inc., Solstice Administrators of Arizona Inc., Solstice Administrators of Missouri Inc., Solstice Administrators of North Carolina Inc., Solstice Administrators of Texas Inc., Solstice Benefit Services Inc., Solstice Benefits Inc., Solstice Health Insurance Company, Solstice Healthplans Inc., Solstice Healthplans of Arizona Inc., Solstice Healthplans of Colorado Inc., Solstice Healthplans of New Jersey Inc., Solstice Healthplans of Ohio Inc., Solstice Healthplans of Tennessee Inc., Solstice Healthplans of Texas Inc., Solstice of Illinois Inc., Solstice of Minnesota Inc., Solstice of New York Inc., Solutran LLC, Somerset Outpatient Surgery L.L.C., Sound Inpatient Physicians Inc., Sound Inpatient Physicians Medical Group Inc., Sound Inpatient Physicians of Ohio LLC, Sound Inpatient Physicians of Texas I Inc., Sound Inpatient Physicians  Michigan PLLC, Sound Intensivists of Nevada RBessler M.D. PLLC, Sound Kenwood Hospitalists of Cincinnati Inc., Sound Kenwood Hospitalists of Cincinnati LLC, Sound Physicians Advisory Services Inc., Sound Physicians Alaska Hospitalist Group LLC, Sound Physicians Anesthesiology of Texas PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Arizona Inc., Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Georgia P.C., Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Illinois LLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Kansas LLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Kentucky PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Louisiana Inc., Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Michigan PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Nevada Bessler PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of South Carolina LLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Southern California P.C., Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Texas PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of Washington PLLC, Sound Physicians Emergency Medicine of West Virginia PLLC, Sound Physicians Holdings LLC, Sound Physicians Intensivists of Arizona Inc., Sound Physicians Intensivists of Georgia PC, Sound Physicians Intensivists of South Carolina LLC, Sound Physicians Intensivists of Virginia LLC, Sound Physicians Intensivists of Washington PLLC, Sound Physicians Palliative Care of Maryland P.C., Sound Physicians Telemedicine Inc., Sound Physicians of Florida IV LLC, Sound Physicians of Georgia III P.C., Sound Physicians of Hawaii Inc., Sound Physicians of Idaho PLLC, Sound Physicians of Illinois LLC, Sound Physicians of Indiana LLC, Sound Physicians of Iowa PLLC, Sound Physicians of Kankakee Illinois LLC, Sound Physicians of Massachusetts II P.C., Sound Physicians of Massachusetts Inc., Sound Physicians of New Jersey LLC, Sound Physicians of New York PLLC, Sound Physicians of North Carolina PLLC, Sound Physicians of South Carolina LLC, Sound Physicians of Wyoming LLC, South Arlington Surgical Providers LLC, South County Surgical Center LLC, South Sound Inpatient Physicians PLLC, Southern California Medical Practice Concepts LLC, Southland Hospitalists P.C., Southwest Medical Associates Inc., Southwest Michigan Health Network Inc., Southwest Surgery Center LLC, Southwest Surgical Center LLC, Space Coast Surgical Center Ltd., Spartanburg Surgery Center LLC, Specialists in Urology Surgery Center LLC, Specialized Pharmaceuticals Inc., Specialty Benefits LLC, Specialty Billing Solutions LLC, Specialty Surgical Center LLC, Spectera Inc., Spectera of New York IPA Inc., Sports and Spinal Physical Therapy Inc., St. Cloud Outpatient Surgery Ltd. a Minnesota Limited Partnership, St. Cloud Surgical Center LLC, St. Louis Cardiovascular Institute LLC, St. Louis Specialty Surgical Center LLC, Stonegate JV Partners LLC, Stonegate Surgery Center L.P., Summer Street ASC LLC, SunSurgery LLC, Surgery Center Holding LLC, Surgery Center at Cherry Creek LLC, Surgery Center at Cottonwood LLC, Surgery Center at Grove Creek LLC, Surgery Center at Kissing Camels LLC, Surgery Center at South Ogden LLC, Surgery Center at St. Vincent LLC, Surgery Center of Boca Raton Inc., Surgery Center of Colorado Springs LLC, Surgery Center of Des Moines LLC, Surgery Center of Easton LLC, Surgery Center of Ellicott City Inc., Surgery Center of Fairfield County LLC, Surgery Center of Fort Collins LLC, Surgery Center of Lexington LLC, Surgery Center of Louisville LLC, Surgery Center of Maui LLC, Surgery Center of Mt. Scott LLC, Surgery Center of Muskogee LLC, Surgery Center of Rockville L.L.C., Surgery Center of Southern Pines LLC, Surgery Center of The Woodlands LLC, Surgery Centers of Des Moines Ltd. an Iowa Limited Partnership, Surgery Centers-West Holdings LLC, Surgical Care Affiliates, Surgical Care Affiliates LLC, Surgical Care Affiliates Political Action Committee, Surgical Care Partners of Melbourne LLC, Surgical Caregivers of Fort Worth LLC, Surgical Center of Greensboro LLC, Surgical Center of San Diego LLC, Surgical Center of South Jersey Limited Partnership, Surgical Center of Tuscaloosa Holdings LLC, Surgical Eye Experts LLC, Surgical Health LLC, Surgical Health of Orlando LLC, Surgical Hospital Holdings of Oklahoma LLC, Surgical Management Solutions LLC, Surgicare LLC, Surgicare of Central Jersey LLC, Surgicare of Jackson LLC, Surgicare of Jackson Ltd. a Mississippi Limited Partnership, Surgicare of Joliet Inc., Surgicare of La Veta Inc., Surgicare of La Veta Ltd. a California Limited Partnership, Surgicare of Minneapolis LLC, Surgicare of Minneapolis Ltd. a Minnesota Limited Partnership, Surgicare of Mobile LLC, Surgicare of Mobile Ltd., Surgicare of Oceanside Inc., Surgicare of Owensboro LLC, Surgicare of Salem LLC, Surgicenters of Southern California Inc., Symphonix Health Holdings LLC, T.M. Carr M.D. P.C., THE SURGICAL CENTER OF THE TREASURE COAST L.L.C., THR-SCA Holdings LLC, TeamMD Holdings Inc., TeamMD Iowa Inc., TeamMD Physicians of Texas Inc., TeamUP Insurance Services Inc., Tecnologia de Informacion en Salud S.A., Texas Health Craig Ranch Surgery Center LLC, Texas Health Flower Mound Orthopedic Surgery Center LLC, Texas Health Orthopedic Surgery Center Alliance LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Alliance LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Bedford LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Chisholm Trail LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Irving LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Las Colinas LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Preston Plaza LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Rockwall LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Southwest Fort Worth LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Waxahachie LLC, Texas Health Surgery Center Willow Park LLC, The Advisory Board Company, The Alaska Hospitalist Group LLC, The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company, The Eye Surgery Center of the Carolinas L.P., The Intensivist Group of Langhorne LLC, The Lewin Group Inc., The Outpatient Surgery Center of Hilton Head LLC, The Polyclinic MSO LLC, The Surgery Center of Easton L.P., The Surgical Center of Connecticut LLC, Thomas Johnson Surgery Center LLC, Three Rivers Holdings Inc., Three Rivers Surgical Care L.P., Tmesys LLC, Topimagem Diagnostico por Imagem Ltda., Touchpoint Health Plan, Trails Edge Surgery Center LLC, Trauma Surgery Affiliates LLC, Travel Express Incorporated, Treasure Valley Emerald Properties LLC, Treasure Valley Hospital Limited Partnership, Tri-City Medical Center ASC Operators LLC, Tri-County Surgery Center LLC, Trinity Cardiovascular Care PLLC, Tufts Health Freedom Insurance Company, Tufts Health Freedom Plans Inc., Tuscaloosa Surgical Center L.P., U.S. Behavioral Health Plan California, UCSD Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, UCSD Center for Surgery of Encinitas L.P., UCSD Surgical Center of San Diego LLC, UCSD-SCA Holdings I LLC, UCSD-SCA Holdings II LLC, UHC Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, UHC International Services Inc., UHC of California, UHCG Holdings Ireland Limited, UHCG Services Ireland Limited, UHCG  FZE, UHG Brasil Participacoes S.A., UHG Holdings UK IV Limited, UHG Holdings UK V Limited, UHG Holdings UK VI Limited, UHIC Holdings Inc., UMR Inc., UPHT-SCA Holdings LLC, USHEALTH Academy Inc., USHEALTH Administrators LLC, USHEALTH Advisors LLC, USHEALTH Career Agency Inc., USHEALTH Funding Inc., USHEALTH Group Inc., USMD ASC IV1 LLC, USMD ASC IV2 LLC, USMD Administrative Services L.L.C., USMD Affiliated Services, USMD Holdings Inc., USMD Hospital at Arlington L.P., USMD Hospital at Fort Worth L.P., USMD Inc., USMD PPM LLC, Unidad Medica Diagnostico S.A., Unimerica Insurance Company, Unimerica Life Insurance Company of New York, Unison Health Plan of Delaware Inc., United Behavioral Health, United Behavioral Health of New York I.P.A. Inc., United Group Reinsurance Inc., United Health Foundation, United HealthCare Services Inc., United Medical Park ASC LLC, United Resource Networks IPA of New York Inc., United in Advancing Health Equity Foundation, UnitedHealth Advisors LLC, UnitedHealth Group Employee Assistance Fund, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, UnitedHealth Group International Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, UnitedHealth International Inc., UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services LLC, UnitedHealthcare Benefits Plan of California, UnitedHealthcare Benefits of Texas Inc., UnitedHealthcare Children's Foundation Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of California Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Georgia Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas L.L.C., UnitedHealthcare Consulting & Assistance Service Beijing Co. Ltd., UnitedHealthcare Europe S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare Global Medical UK Limited, UnitedHealthcare Inc., UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of America, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of Illinois, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of New York, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of the River Valley, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Designated Activity Company, UnitedHealthcare Integrated Services Inc., UnitedHealthcare International Asia LLC, UnitedHealthcare International I B.V., UnitedHealthcare International II S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International III B.V., UnitedHealthcare International III S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International IV S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International VII S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International VIII S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International X S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare Life Insurance Company, UnitedHealthcare Parekh Insurance TPA Private Limited, UnitedHealthcare Plan of the River Valley Inc., UnitedHealthcare Service LLC, UnitedHealthcare Specialty Benefits LLC, UnitedHealthcare of Alabama Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Arizona Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Arkansas Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Colorado Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Florida Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Georgia Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Illinois Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Kentucky Ltd., UnitedHealthcare of Louisiana Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New England Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New Mexico Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New York Inc., UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Ohio Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Oklahoma Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Oregon Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., UnitedHealthcare of South Carolina Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Texas Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Utah Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Washington Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Midlands Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Midwest Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Rockies Inc., Unity Health Network LLC, Upland Holdings LLC, Upland Outpatient Surgical Center L.P., Urgent Care Holdings Inc., Urgent Care MSO LLC, Urology Associates of North Texas P.L.L.C., VERTA MANAGEMENT SERVICES LLC, VPay Benefits Corporation, VPay Inc., VPay Intermediate Holdings LLC, Valley Hospital L.L.C., Valley Physicians Network Inc., Vascular Labs of the Rockies ASC LLC, Vascular Labs of the Rockies PLLC, Via Vitae MSO LLC, Vida Integra S.p.A., Vida Tres S.A., Virtua-SCA Holdings II LLC, Virtua-SCA Holdings LLC, Vivify Health Canada Inc., Vivify Health Inc., WESTMED Practice Partners LLC, Wake Forest Ambulatory Ventures LLC, Walnut Creek Endoscopy Center LLC, Walnut Hill Surgery Center LLC, Wauwatosa Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Wauwatosa Surgery Center LLC, Wayland Square Surgicare Acquisition L.P., Wayland Square Surgicare GP Inc., Waypoint Minnesota PC, WellMed Medical Management Inc., WellMed Medical Management of Florida Inc., West Coast Endoscopy Holdings LLC, WestHealth JV Holdings LLC, WestHealth Surgery Center LLC, Western Connecticut Orthopedic Surgical Center LLC, Westgreen Surgical Center LLC, Wilson Creek Surgical Center LLC, Winchester Endoscopy LLC, Winter Park LLC, Winter Park Surgery Center L.P., Woodbury Surgery Center LLC, XAS Infusion Suites Inc., XLHealth Corporation, XLHealth Corporation India Private Limited, divvyDOSE, divvyMED LLC, eCode Solutions LLC, gethealthinsurance.com Agency Inc., hCentive Inc., inPharmative Inc., naviHealth Care at Home LLC, naviHealth Coordinated Care LLC, naviHealth Coordinated Care SC P.C., naviHealth Holdings LLC, naviHealth Inc., naviHealth Michigan HBPC P.C., and naviHealth SM Holdings Inc..

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Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. provides financial products and services in South Korea and internationally. The company operates through six segments: Banking, Credit Card, Securities, Life Insurance, Credit, and Others. It offers retail banking services, including demand, savings, and fixed deposit-taking; checking accounts; mortgage and home equity, and retail lending; electronic banking and automatic teller machines (ATM); and bill paying, payroll and check-cashing, currency exchange, and wire fund transfer services. The company also provides corporate banking services, such as investment banking, real estate financing, overseas real estate and development project financing, infrastructure and structured financing, equity/venture investments, mergers and acquisitions consulting; securitization and derivatives services comprising securities and derivative products, and foreign exchange trading; and working capital loans and facilities loans. In addition, it is involved in treasury and investment activities in international capital markets consisting of foreign currency-denominated securities trading, foreign exchange trading and services, trade-related financial services, international factoring services, and foreign banking operations. Further, the company offers real estate trust, investment advisory, venture capital, non-life insurance, trust account management, securities brokerage, and asset management services, as well as leasing and equipment financing, savings banking, loan collection and credit reporting, collective investment administration, private equity investment, and financial system development services. Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.
Mastercard Inc. is a leading technology company in the payments industry that provides payment processing solutions to businesses and consumers worldwide. Mastercard is one of the largest payment processors in the world by market cap and the number of payments processed.

Mastercard was founded in 1966 as Master Charge: The Interbank Card. The company was created to respond to the growing need for a secure and reliable payment processing system. In 1979, the company changed its name to Mastercard. Mastercard is in over 200 countries and territories and serves over 2.8 billion cardholders.

Mastercard operates on a business-to-business (B2B) model, providing payment processing services to financial institutions, merchants and governments. The company earns revenue primarily through transaction processing fees, cross-border fees and other value-added services. Mastercard's business is divided into four segments: domestic assessments, cross-border volume fees, transaction processing fees and additional revenue.

Mastercard's financial performance has been consistently strong in recent years, with revenue and earnings growth driven by increased transaction volumes and higher fees. Mastercard faces significant competition from other payment processing companies, including Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) and PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL). However, Mastercard has maintained its position as one of the largest payment processors in the world due to its strong brand recognition, global network and innovative technology solutions.

Mastercard has consistently invested in innovative technology to enhance its payment processing solutions. One of the company's most significant innovations in recent years is Mastercard's tokenization technology, which provides a secure way to process payments without exposing cardholder data. Mastercard has also invested heavily in contactless payment technology, which has become increasingly popular during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mastercard has a solid commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The company has set ambitious goals to reduce its carbon footprint, increase financial inclusion and promote gender equality. Mastercard is also actively involved in philanthropic efforts, including the Mastercard Foundation, which focuses on advancing financial inclusion in Africa.

As with any company, Mastercard faces several risk factors that could impact its financial performance. One of the most significant risks facing Mastercard is the potential for increased regulation of the payment processing industry. Mastercard is also vulnerable to changes in consumer behavior, such as a shift away from traditional payment methods toward mobile payments. Additionally, Mastercard's business depends on the overall health of the global economy, which could be impacted by factors such as inflation, geopolitical tensions and natural disasters.
As the AI market heats up, investors who have a vision for artificial intelligence have the potential to see real returns. Learn about the industry as a whole as well as seven companies that are getting work done with the power of AI.
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President Joe Biden on Friday signed a bill that will bring sweeping changes to organ transplantation in the U.S., effectively ending the total authority given to the Richmond-based United Network for Organ Sharing almost 40 years ago.

The bill breaks up the federal contract to oversee the transplant of kidneys, livers and lungs. Bidens signature comes less than two months after Congress unanimously approved the measure, called the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act.

For years, the transplant network run by UNOS has been accused of poor logistics, a lack of oversight and outdated technology.

This is a banner day in the effort to improve the organ transplant system in the United States, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in a statement. For too long, thousands of families have had to watch a loved one struggle while waiting for an organ transplant because the system has been inefficient and unaccountable.

UNOS intends to bid for one or more of the new contracts, Anne Paschke, a spokesperson for the nonprofit, said Friday. She added UNOS does not oppose the legislation and supports a more competitive and open bidding process for a new set of contracts.

Last summer, transplant experts testified before Congress and reported numerous shortcomings. One in four kidneys removed from a dying patient never makes it to a needy one. A transplant surgeon said couriers left one kidney overnight in an airport hangar, untracked. Another kidney arrived with tire marks across its box. Kaiser Health News reported in 2020 that couriers who transport organs are 15 times more likely to damage or lose them than an airline is to damage luggage.

Technology has been an issue for UNOS, too. The IT unit of the executive branch, U.S. Digital Services, called UNOS technology old, slow and cumbersome. Brian Shepard, who resigned as CEO of UNOS last year, defended the nonprofits network before Congress, saying it runs flawlessly more than 99.9% of the time.

UNOS has been accused of failing to reprimand the failing organizations within the network; 40% of the organ procurement organizations tasked with recovering organs received a failing grade from the federal government, but UNOS rarely disciplined them. Shepard told Congress last year that it was the governments job to discipline, not UNOS.

These combined failures have led to patient deaths and an increased cost of care, the Senate Finance Committee reported. In the past three decades, 249 patients have developed diseases because they received infected organs, and 70 of them died, the committee said.

More than a dozen people told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that UNOS has long resisted change and dismissed concerns from whistleblowers.

In March, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency that oversees UNOS, announced it intended to split the sole contract for managing organ transplantation and allow groups to compete for its pieces.

Carole Johnson, administrator of the agency, asked for Congress approval. Both chambers approved the bill without opposition, and Bidens signature was the final hurdle.

In 1984, Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act and sought a nonprofit to oversee transplantation at a national level. UNOS won the first contract in 1986 and every contract thereafter. Its most recent contract, which is worth about $6.5 million, expires Sept. 30.

UNOS employs 450 people, according to its website, and is on North Fourth Street downtown. As the operator of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, UNOS oversees 252 transplant centers, including Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Hume-Lee Transplant Center, and 56 regional organ procurement organizations.

UNOS continues to offer its expertise to support a shared goal of increasing accountability, transparency, performance and oversight, Paschke said. The nonprofit is committed to working with the federal government to ensure the best system possible.

No organization knows the incredibly complex system and the transplant community as well as UNOS, Paschke said. As this law goes into effect, we look forward to taking part in the new bidding process and demonstrating how our expertise should remain an integral part of this system.

The Senate Finance Committee recommended splitting UNOS contract into five pieces: policy development, compliance, patient safety monitoring, IT infrastructure and logistics. Wyden, the Oregon senator, promised accountability, know-how and improvements to the transplantation network under the new direction.

Molly McCarthy, a three-time kidney transplant recipient and vice chair of the volunteer patient advisory committee, said numerous organizations inside and outside the world of organ transplantation could bid for the contracts. Large technology companies could improve upon UNOS IT, she said, and even online retail giant Amazon could manage logistics.

You dont have to have an MD to run most of the parts of the business, McCarthy said earlier this year.

In 2022, there were 43,000 organ transplantations in the U.S., the most ever. UNOS has applauded the increase as a milestone.

But a researcher told Congress last month that much of the progress isnt due to UNOS improvement, but to the scourge of opioids killing young and middle-age Americans.

Meanwhile, there are more than 100,000 people on the waitlist for an organ, and 24 Virginia residents die each month before they can obtain one, according to data from the network.

Todays bill signing opens a new chapter in our nations organ donation system by addressing the many failures that have plagued the organ procurement network, with disastrous consequences, said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
A standoff in Gering continued into Wednesday afternoon, marking nearly 22 hours that a man keeping a hostage has held people at bay.

At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a Scottsbluff man barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering.

Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman said in a news release Wednesday that the man has been identified as 37-year-old Bradley Garcia.

Garcia fled after a Scotts Bluff County deputy attempted to stop his vehicle Tuesday for a traffic violation.

A brief pursuit ensued that included Gering Police, during which Garcia fired shots at pursuing officers, although he didn't hit anything. The pursuit ended when Garcia crashed his car into a garage in the 2300 block of 19th Street in Gering, Overman said.

Garcia then entered the home and took three female occupants hostage, Overman said.

Law enforcement converged on the area at about 3:30 p.m. Shots were again reported in the neighborhood near two schools, Gering High School and Northfield Elementary.

School officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m., when an alert was sent out to parents.

Parents and students monitored alerts and social media as officials then placed the schools on secure status, meaning no one was allowed in or out. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary had occurred earlier and at the other schools in the district. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools and all activities and other events were canceled. On Wednesday morning, Gering Public Schools announced it was canceling schools for the day out of an abundance of caution.

Garcia eventually allowed two girls to leave unharmed, but he kept an adult woman as a hostage.

Throughout the night, vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT vehicle, remained positioned during the standoff at or near the intersection.

As the standoff continued into late Tuesday night, specialized teams from the Nebraska State Patrol were seen arriving, with another armored vehicle having arrived and a helicopter having transported officers to the site. At about 11 p.m., SWAT teams were readying for a response, but still had not entered the home or taken other overt action as of about 11:40 p.m.

Throughout the entirety of the event, streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters.

Overman said negotiators and tactical teams from Scotts Bluff County, the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI were at the scene as of Wednesday afternoon.

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Court orders Vietnam's Rang Dong Holding to pay $6.4 mln to Japans Sojitz Pla-Net

By Tri Duc Wed, September 27, 2023 | 4:34 pm GTM+7

Rang Dong Holding has lost a court case and will have to pay Japans Sojitz Pla-Net Corporation a sum of VND156.9 billion ($6.4 million), excluding fees and interest.

Listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) as RDP, the plastics maker made the disclosure last Saturday following a decision from the Ho Chi Minh City Court of Appeal.

Rang Dong Long An Plastic factory in Long An province, Mekong Delta, southern Vietnam. Photo courtesy of the firm.

In September 2017, Sojitz Pla-Net, under Sojitz Corporation, signed a contract which the former purchased five million RDP shares for VND174.4 million ($7.2 million).

Soon after, Sojitz Pla-Net terminated the contract, accusing RDP of violating its terms. It asked RDP to return 90% of the contract value, equivalent to VND156.9 billion ($6.4 million)

When RDP did not oblige, Sojitz Pla-Net sued it at the Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC) in July 2022. The SIAC ruled in favour of Sojitz Pla-Net and asked RDP to compensate it with VND156.9 billion ($6.4 million), plus an interest of 10% per year starting April 2020 as also other legal fees.

In reply, RDP said the SIACs decision was not lawful. It said Sojitz Pla-Net failed to prove RDPs violations and damages in the case. It also maintained that Sojitz Pla-Net had not submitted legal evidence and that documents lacked accreditation. The contract had unlawful terms related to employment at RDPs subsidiary Rang Dong Long An, it alleged.

At the first-instance trial in January 2023, the HCMC court agreed with RDP and dismissed Sojitz Pla-Nets request.

Later, the Court of Appeal in HCMC overturned the previous ruling and enforced the Singapore International Arbitration Centers decision.

RDP made post-tax profits of VND11 billion ($451,050) on revenues of VND1.36 trillion ($55.8 million) in the first six months of this year, down 18.1% and up 7.6% year-on-year, respectively.
Revenue of 19 state-run groups, corporations equal to 20% of Vietnam GDP

By Huu Binh Wed, September 27, 2023 | 9:55 pm GTM+7

Nineteen business groups and corporations under Vietnam's Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises (CMSC) reported revenue of nearly $82 billion last year, equivalent to 20% of Vietnams GDP.

Among them, Petrovietnam and mining group Vinacomin posted record revenue.

The 19 business groups and corporations' consolidated equity hit over VND1,150 trillion ($47.18 billion) in 2022, an increase of nearly 10% from 2018 when they were transferred to the CMSC for management, according to Pham Van Son, head of the CMSCs general department.

Their consolidated assets rose from VND2,300 trillion to nearly VND2,500 trillion ($102.56 billion), equal to 65% of the figure held by state-owned enterprises nationwide, Son told a seminar on state capital management on Tuesday.

State-run Petrovietnam's headquarters in Hanoi. Photo courtesy of the group.

Son said that the groups and corporations now play a dominant role in many key areas of the economy. Power plants developed by Vietnam Electricity (EVN), Petrovietnam and Vinacomin provide about 87% of electricity output for the country. In the petroleum sector, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their subsidiaries make up more than 84% of the retail market share.

However, he noted that large SOEs have not yet utilized their resources efficiently and have not allocated capital to the industries and fields that are driving forces of the economy. They also lack products and services in the fields of core technology and high technology that could lead the countrys economic restructuring.

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, former deputy director of the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM), said that the commission must change its operating model to suit new trends.

The agency needs to reform and develop under a model similar to fund management companies, he said, noting this would fix current shortcomings in its operating and management mechanisms, and keep pace with new trends.

At the same time, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) should accelerate the piloting of the sandbox model, which gives a number of corporations investment autonomy and self-determination of salaries and bonuses to earn higher profits, he said.

"We need to learn how to monitor and set strategic goals from fund management companies around the world to ensure flexibility in state capital management," Thanh stated.

MPI Deputy Minister Do Thanh Trung said that SOEs have not developed in commensuration with the resources they hold, and lack key products and services with high added value and competitiveness that can reach the international market.

We need to push for stronger decentralization so that state capital allocated to these businesses is used effectively, he said, adding the CMSC needs to demonstrate its role as a conductor in coordinating and mobilizing resources for the 19 enterprises.

Trung added that SOEs must clearly identify areas and industries prioritized for investment and develop large-scale companies with pioneering and leading roles.

"SOEs should take on big, difficult and new things like offshore wind power, green hydrogen or chip manufacturing to create momentum for economic development, leaving room in other fields for private enterprises," he suggested.

Currently, the MPI is finalizing a project on developing large-scale SOEs to be submitted to competent authorities for approval, which aims to promote their role in paving the way for and leading other economic sectors.
(Photo : OLIVIER MORIN / AFP) (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Google's Bard AI conversation product is under scrutiny after it was found that Google Search is indexing conversations and placing them on search results pages.

Google's Bard AI conversation product is under scrutiny after it was found that Google Search is indexing conversations that users have with the artificial intelligence chatbot and placing them on search results pages.

The situation comes after Bard AI received a significant update last week and follows SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra observing that Google Search started to index the conversational links into its search results pages. The incident could expose various information users who talked with Bard AI wanted to keep contained or confidential.

Google's Bard AI Conversations

What this means is that if an individual uses Bard AI to ask it a question, possibly even a question related to the contents of their private emails, then shares the link with a designated third party, such as their spouse, friend, or business partner the conversation that is accessible at the link could be scraped by Google's crawler and be shown to the public in its Search Results.

Ghotra posted a screenshot on X, formerly known as Twitter that provided evidence of several Bard conversations being indexed by Google Search. In response, Google Brain research scientist Peter J. Liu said that the indexing process only occurred for conversations that users had elected to click the share link on, not all Bard conversations, as per Venture Beat.

However, Ghotra explained that most users would not be aware that shared conversation means that Google would index it and then show up in SERP. He noted that most users, including himself, thought of it as a feature to share conversations with some friend or colleague and have it visible only to people who have the conversation URL.

Later on, Google's Search Liaison account on X, which provides "insights on how Google Search works," replied to Ghotra's concern. It said that Bard allows people to share chats if they do so but noted that they did not intend for these conversations to be indexed by Google Search.

Read Also: EU Accuses Elon Musk's X of Allowing Russian Disinformation in Platform

Unintentionally Indexing Potentially Private Conversations

Despite Google saying it was already working on fixing the issue, the mistake does not reflect well on Bard AI or Google's consumer AI ambitions. This is particularly true in the face of intense competition from rival AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The recent discovery has sparked a wave of concern among people who use Google's Bard AI to ask various questions. According to the Search Engine Journal, users should now be aware of the situation and be careful of what information they input into the artificial intelligence chatbot.

Bard AI is used for various applications, from customer service to personal assistance. While the artificial intelligence chatbot aims to provide helpful information to users, the revelations about public indexing raise additional privacy concerns.

Additionally, Ghotra said that Google also ranked Bard AI conversations as featured snippets, which are brief descriptions of web pages that appear in search results. The website's algorithms commonly generate these, but site owners can also provide custom snippets for their pages, said HackRead.

Related Article: X Allegedly Allows Increased Engagement with Foreign Propaganda Since Elon Musk Took Over Platform

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Taiwan electronics firm Lite-on to build new plant in northern Vietnam

By Tri Duc Wed, September 27, 2023 | 5:00 pm GTM+7

Lite-on Technology Corporation, a world-leading Taiwanese provider in optoelectronics and power management, plans to build a factory in Quang Ninh province.

The plant will be located at the Thai-invested Amata Song Khoai Industrial Park in Quang Yen town, Gary Lin, CEO of Lite-on Vietnam Co. Ltd., said at a Tuesday meeting with Quang Yen chairman Tran Duc Thang.

As Thang suggested, the firm would strive to begin construction of the factory this year to mark the 60th anniversary of Quang Ninh province (October 30, 1963-2023), Lin said.

Gary Lin (standing), CEO of Lite-on Vietnam Co. Ltd., speaks at a meeting with the authorities of Quang Yen town, Quang Ninh province, northern Vietnam, September 26, 2023. Photo courtesy of Quang Yen's news portal.

Thang highlighted Quang Yens several advantages including proximity to the Lach Huyen international seaport and Cat Bi airport in the neighboring city of Hai Phong, Van Don airport in Quang Ninh province, and connection to expressways.

In the first eight months of this year, Quang Yen town, with 4,600 hectares for industrial parks, attracted foreign direct investment worth $832.2 million, official local data shows.

Lite-on Vietnam, headquartered in Hai Phong city, inaugurated last November a $96 million manufacturing facility at the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) Hai Phong.

Lite-on Vietnam earned a net income of TWD6.3 million ($195,440) on net revenues of TWD2,269 million ($70.4 million) in 2022, according to the parent firms report for last year.

Lite-ons investment in its Vietnamese subsidiary reached TWD2,766 million ($85.8 million) as of end of second quarter of 2023, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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CARBONDALE  During its regular meeting Tuesday evening, the Carbondale City Council discussed what to do about the old Carbondale Community High School building on Springer Street.

During its June 28, 2022, meeting, the Carbondale City Council approved a grant to the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Illinois (BGCSI) in the amount of $518,000 using ARPA funds. The BGCSI had requested the grant to pursue demolition of the old CCHS property adjacent to their Springer Street site to enhance safety and to create additional space to expand their facilities.

In December 2022, Carbondale City Manager Gary Williams and City Attorney Jamie Snyder were notified that the club was declining the offer because they did not have a clear consensus on future plans.

The council had previously approved the city attorneys office pursuing a deed on the property as abandoned property. The previous owner of the property is a dissolved not-for profit agency whose owner resides in Bolivia.

On Tuesday, the council discussed whether or not to still seek a title on the property. Snyder said he does not believe their insurance company will insure the building in its present state.

The council saw photographs and a drone video from December that shows the building in disarray. The building has a lot of debris in it, the roof has several holes that are letting water pour into the building and the rafters are pulling away from a wall.

Once we take the deed, we have to take it down or rehab it pretty fast, Snyder said.

Several people asked questions during the meeting.

Councilperson Adam Loos asked if asbestos was present in the building. Williams said it would take $30,000 worth of clean up to determine if asbestos is present.

I think theres something we could do with the property, Councilperson Ginger Rye-Sanders said.

Sandy Litecky asked if there is a cost to obtain the title. Snyder said there is no cost for a judicial title.

This puts the council in a difficult position, but who else is there? Don Monty asked.

Justin Zurlinden, who serves on the citys Preservation Commission, said the property cannot be designated to preserve.

Snyder will file the papers for a judicial title and the council will discuss demolition or rehabbing the building at a future meeting.

The council also extended public possession and consumption of alcohol during 2023 SIU Homecoming. Instead of beginning at noon Oct. 21, the hours were expanded to begin at 9 a.m. The SIU Homecoming Parade begins at 10 a.m.

During the Liquor Control Commission meeting before the council meeting, they approved a change in officers for Budslick Management, which operates Westroad Liquors at 1701 W. Main St. and approved a secondary on premises liquor license for Pita Alley at 1711 W. Main St.
CHICAGO  The invasive spotted lanternfly has been identified in Illinois for the first time, the Illinois Department of Agriculture said Tuesday.

Environmentalists across the state have long dreaded the arrival of the nuisance species, notorious for its spotted red and brown wings and the threat it poses to the more than 70 types of fruit trees and other plants it is known to consume. The East Asian insect was first identified in Pennsylvania around eight years ago and has been making its way west with rides hitched on railroad cars, semitrucks and other vehicles.

It has worked its way into Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.

Spotted lanternfly has been inching closer to the Midwest and Illinois for close to a decade, said Agriculture Department Director Jerry Costello II in a news release Tuesday. We have had a multi-agency team working to prepare for this scenario  including efforts on readiness, informing and educating the industry and the public, as well as monitoring early detection.

Reports of a live spotted lanternfly in Illinois were first received by the state Agriculture Department on Sept. 16. Officials from the federal, state and local governments visited the site and identified a moderately populated area, according to the release. The investigators collected specimens and received results Tuesday that confirmed the species had arrived.

There is no reason to believe widespread plant or tree death will result from the insects presence, said Scott Schirmer, the Agriculture Departments nursery and northern field office section manager.

This is likely going to be a nuisance pest that interferes with our ability to enjoy outdoor spaces and may have some impact on the agritourism industry, including orchards, pumpkin patches, and vineyards, Schirmer said.

The insect moves easily on trains, wood surfaces, products and more, making it hard to contain, the news release said.

Prevention and early detection are vital to limiting its ability to move and intrude upon new areas, it continued. We need the publics help to look for and report this pest, and to also strengthen the outreach about it. It will likely impact everyone in Illinois one way or another, so the more awareness we have the better.

Authorities encouraged people who see the bug to report sightings to lanternfly@illinois.edu  and to crush it. Illinoisans should also check their vehicles and outdoor gear for bugs and eggs and destroy them if found, the release said.

The state Agriculture Department is trying to determine how widely the pest has infested the state, it continued.

The spotted lanternfly has become the target of kill-on-sight requests in places including New York City, where it swarms outside buildings and lands on pedestrians, all the while secreting a sticky honeydew substance that can cling to outdoor furniture.

Its known to feed on plants that grow apples, peaches, cherries, hops and grapes. It also feeds on trees including maple, oak, walnut, sycamore, pine and willow.

Its not likely to kill a tree on its own, but if the tree is already weakened by drought stress or disease, an infestation by spotted lanternflies could be the knockout punch, Tricia Bethke, forest pest outreach coordinator at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, told the Tribune last year.

Photos: Illinois State Fair political days through the years 2012 State Fair 2012 State Fair 2015 State Fair 2015 State Fair 2015 State Fair 2007 State Fair 2008 State Fair 2008 State Fair 2009 State Fair 2012 State Fair 2012 State Fair 2005 State Fair 2004 State Fair 2003 State Fair 2003 State Fair 2006 State Fair 2007 State Fair 2012 State Fair 2018 State Fair 2012 State Fair 2021 State Fair 2021 State Fair
Orangeburg County and the City of Orangeburg have entered into an agreement to establish a civil rights museum at the historic Railroad Corner in Orangeburg.

County Council unanimously approved a resolution last week to partner with the city to bring the museum to fruition with the understanding that the county will be involved with the city in the development of the museum.

Under the agreement, the city will give the county the properties located at 111 and 115 Boulevard St.  the former Old State Theatre and Soda Shop  which the county will help refurbish with $1 million from the capital project sales tax previously approved by voters several years ago.

The money was allocated for a civil rights museum.

A bridge downtown: Orangeburg to receive $22.8M for Railroad Corner Orangeburg will receive a $22.8 million federal grant to build a pedestrian bridge and help redevelop Railroad Corner.

The $1 million will primarily go toward refurbishing the buildings.

Local photographer Cecil Williams is planning to relocate the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum to Railroad Corner.

Our architects will be working with the developers of the city to end up with the same design they have for the boulevard, Orangeburg County Administrator Harold Young said.

The Orangeburg County Legislative Delegation has secured $250,000 for the museum.

Another $700,000 in U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development funding was awarded to the city for the renovation of the old State Theatre.

Railroad Corner, located where Russell, Magnolia, and Boulevard streets meet, has long been touted by city officials as the gateway to the city and has been a target for development over the years.

The plans for the corner include adding four-story, mixed-use development with ground-floor commercial and upper-story residential.

Plans include the creation of walk-through opportunities with urban and plaza spaces combined with retail. A pedestrian bridge connecting both South Carolina State and Claflin universities will be a part of the project.

Orangeburg University District Partners has been chosen to develop the property.
Orangeburg County

Sheriffs Office

A 42-year-old North man was injured in a Saturday night fight, but he wasnt touched by the bullets that were fired into his car, according to an incident report.

The fight happened at 11:30 p.m. on Block Road in Norway.

The North man reported that he got into a fight with another man. The right side of the North mans face was injured.

The North man tried to leave in his 2007 Lexus, but he soon heard gunshots, the report said.

A bullet struck a car door and another hit a car window.

The man wasnt physically injured by the bullets.

In unrelated reports:

 Two teenagers were released to their parents after they allegedly vandalized 14 vehicles parked at Ballards Pointe apartments, located on Ballard Lane in Santee.

The incident was reported at 4 a.m. Sunday.

The two males  ages 16 and 17  allegedly told deputies that they thought it would be funny to open all of the gas caps on the vehicles parked there, according to an incident report.

It was a joke to them, the deputy wrote in his report.

The teens were placed on trespass notice.

 A womans 2007 black Honda Accord was stolen Saturday. It was parked at a gas pump of EZ Trip, located at 5290 Five Chop Road, near Santee.

The incident happened around 7:35 p.m.

The woman said she left her drivers window down and keys in the ignition, but the engine was off when she went inside the store, the report said.

Video surveillance shows a silver SUV pulling up to a gas pump next to the Honda. A male wearing a white hoodie and dark-colored pants exited the SUV and got into the drivers seat of the Honda. The male then drove away in the Honda.

The Honda contained disc jockey equipment valued at $1,200.

The value of the stolen car and equipment is $11,200.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. secured the release of a U.S. soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, and he is on his way back to America, officials said Wednesday.

U.S. ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

Left unanswered were questions of why Pyongyang  which has tense relations with Washington over the North's nuclear program, support for Russia's war in Ukraine and other issues  agreed to turn him over and why the soldier fled in the first place.

North Korea abruptly announced earlier Wednesday that it would expel Pvt. Travis King  though some had expected the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

"U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. "We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private King's well-being."

Officials said they did not know why North Korea decided to expel King, but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information. One official, who requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that King, 23, was more trouble to keep than to simply release him.

Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China, and at least one U.S. Defense Department official. Biden administration officials insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldier's release.

King was flown to a U.S. military base in South Korea before being returned to the U.S.

His expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans. He was declared AWOL from the Army, which can mean military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

In the near term, officials said their focus would be on helping King reintegrate into U.S. society, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, a senior Biden administration official said.

The soldier was in "good spirits and good health" upon his release, according to one senior administration official. He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and was expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in almost five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, after his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

After arriving on the Texas military installation, King is expected to undergo psychological assessments and debriefings. He will also get a chance to meet with family.

Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for China's assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing King's release. The U.S. first learned through Swedish officials this month that North Korea wanted to expel King. That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the United States' behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities finished their questioning of King. It said he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored "ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination" within the U.S. Army and was "disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society."

It attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible. Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and U.S. society.

Both Koreas ban anyone from crossing their heavily fortified shared border without special permissions. The Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world's most cloistered societies.
We Are China

Singapore-born panda to return to China in December

Xinhua) 13:10, September 27, 2023

SINGAPORE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Le Le, a two-year-old giant panda cub, will return to China in December, according to a recent message from Singapore's Mandai Wildlife Group.

The panda will farewell its fans on Nov. 20 at the Pavilion Capital Giant Panda Forest exhibit of River Wonders Park, a renowned zoo of the city-state.

Kai Kai and Jia Jia, Le Le's parents, will remain at River Wonders and focus on planning for their future breeding cycles.

Le Le is the first panda born in Singapore.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
(Photo : ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)

North Korea's flag is displayed with others at the United Nations in New York on June 21, 2023.

North Korea accused the United States of making 2023 an "extremely dangerous year," claiming that its actions are intended to provoke a nuclear war.

North Korean UN ambassador Kim Song stated that Washington was attempting to form "the Asian version of NATO," a military alliance comprised of European and North American nations.

US is Accused of Making 2023 'Extremely Dangerous'

In his speech to world leaders, Kim used harsher language than he did at the same United Nations General Assembly meeting last year. It is always noteworthy when a nation developing its nuclear program uses such forceful language, but Pyongyang's government frequently employs hyperbole in its public statements.

Pyongyang also condemned both US and South Korean leaders for "hysterical confrontational remarks" that, according to North Korea, are increasing tensions in the region.

Kim took particular issue with what he termed US and South Korean statements that he said were about "the end of the regime" and the "occupation of Pyongyang," the capital of what the country calls the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korea stated last month that it had practiced how it would occupy South Korean territory in the event of a conflict. North Korea's military stated that it launched two tactical ballistic missiles from Pyongyang to rehearse "scorched earth" attacks on main South Korean command centers and operational airfields.

The North claimed that its missile tests were in response to a US flyover of long-range B-1B bombers for a joint exercise with South Korea, a close ally. Periodically, the North launches what it claims are test missiles, often in response to perceived provocations from the United States or South Korea, as per The Independent.

After its liberation from Japan's 35-year colonial rule at the conclusion of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into the US-supported, capitalist South Korea and the Soviet-supported, socialist North Korea. Since the conclusion of the 1950-1953 Korean War, the two Koreas have maintained the world's most severely fortified border and are technically still at war 70 years after the armistice was signed.

According to Business Standard, Kim Jong Un presides over an autocratic government and represents the third ruling generation of his family. His father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, and his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, was a former revolutionary who founded the state. Kim Song stated that the DPRK must urgently accelerate the development of its self-defense capabilities in order to defend itself impregnably.

The greater the rash military maneuvers and provocations of hostile forces that imperil the sovereignty and security of our nation, the greater our efforts to bolster national defense capabilities will increase proportionally.

Read Also: Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota Announces Resignation Following Controversy of Praising Nazi Veteran

South Korea Showcases Military Might

Meanwhile, South Korea marched thousands of troops and an array of military equipment through its capital as part of its largest Armed Forces Day ceremony in a decade, as its president pledged to create a stronger military to counter any provocation by the North.

In exchange for supplying Russia with conventional arms depleted by its invasion of Ukraine, there is a developing fear that North Korea is pursuing Russian assistance to expand its nuclear arsenal. Earlier, South Korea carried tanks, artillery systems, drones, and potent ballistic missiles capable of striking the entirety of North Korea through the streets of Seoul despite the persistent autumn rains.

Approximately 4,000 South Korean personnel carrying rifles or flags followed them, accompanied by approximately 300 American soldiers in the first military parade of this type since 2013. Per The Independent, Yoon waved, applauded, and displayed a thumbs-up as the soldiers and their weapons passed by.

Since assuming office a year ago, he has exerted great effort to strengthen South Korea's defenses and expand military exercises with the United States in response to North Korea's growing nuclear arsenal. The latest North Korean effort to deepen military cooperation with Russia, however, complicates Seoul and Washington's efforts to curtail the North's nuclear ambitions.

Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia's far eastern region earlier this month in order to meet with Vladimir Putin and visit critical military installations. According to reports, North Korea desires Russian technologies to aid in the development of surveillance satellites, nuclear-powered submarines, and potent long-range missiles.

Related Article: US Warns Not To Sell Arms to Russia as Kim Jong Un Arrives in Moscow To Meet Vladimir Putin

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
(TBTCO) - Cac quan chuc Cuc Du tru Lien bang My (FED) uoc cho la se giu nguyen lai suat on inh o muc cao nhat trong 22 nam khi ket thuc cuoc hop keo dai hai ngay vao thu tu, 1/11. Tuy nhien, cac nha au tu va nha kinh te se theo doi cac dau hieu e thay lieu lai suat co giu nguyen nhu vay hay khong - hoac lieu ngan hang trung uong co con nghi rang ho co the can phai tang lai suat tro lai trong nhung thang toi hay khong?
Lebanon's army said on Wednesday it exchanged smoke bombs with Israeli troops at the border, the second of such incidents in a week.

The Lebanese Army stated online that Israeli troops fired smoke bombs at a Lebanese patrol that was accompanying workers removing "infringements" that the Army said had been set up by the Israelis north of the Blue Line.

Lebanese army troops "responded by firing smoke bombs toward enemy troops," the statement said.

It was the second of such incidents in a week, after troops exchanged tear gas and smoke bombs over a similar dispute along the Blue Line.

UNIFIL spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti told L'Orient Today Wednesday that the organization's "peacekeepers were fully engaged to de-escalate the situation."

UNIFIL leadership was "also engaged with the parties, urging restraint to decrease tension and prevent the escalation of the situation. According to the latest reports, the situation in now calm," Tenenti continued.

Tensions have flared along the frontier this summer, with rockets fired during flare-ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence and face-offs between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

Neither the Israeli military nor the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment.

The current demarcation line between the two countries is known as the Blue Line, a frontier mapped by the United Nations that marks the line to which Israeli forces withdrew when their occupation of south Lebanon ended in 2000.
26/09/2023

Carabao Cup Preview



Arnaut Danjuma could return to the starting XI after coming off the bench against Brentford at the weekend Arnaut Danjuma could return to the starting XI after coming off the bench against Brentford at the weekend

Everton are back at Villa Park, the scene of their worst result so far in 2023-24, on Wednesday evening for a third round Carabao Cup tie hoping to build on Saturday's win at Brentford.

The Blues picked up their first victory of the Premier League campaign with a handsome 3-1 win at the Gtech Community Stadium to ease the pressure on the shoulders of Sean Dyche and his players and they can travel down the M6 in greater heart than they otherwise would.

Indeed, Dyche will be impressing on his charges not only the need to atone for what was an atrocious performance against Aston Villa in August when they deservedly went down 4-0 but also that they are more than capable of getting the result that would book the Blues' passage to the fourth round for the first time since 2020 under Carlo Ancelotti.

With no new injury concerns and Jack Harrison nearing full fitness, Dyche will have the luxury of making changes to the side that started in London at the weekend if he is moved to do so, although too big a reshuffle would risk upsetting any momentum Everton might take out of the Brentford win.

Article continues below video content

Harrison has been out of action since injuring his hip in May but has been working his way back and played 45 minutes for the Under-21s against Norwich City last Friday. Whether that makes him sufficiently "Dyche fit" and therefore able to take a place in the starting XI remains to be seen but the expectation is that his name will be somewhere on the team sheet when it is revealed at 6:45pm.

Meanwhile, Dominic Calvert-Lewin came off the bench for a second successive game against the Bees and is in the frame for what would be his first start since suffering a fractured cheekbone at Villa Park five weeks ago. He will be vying with Beto for a starting role, with the Portuguese looking to add to the goal he scored on his debut in the previous round at Doncaster.

The tie may also provide an opportunity for the likes of Nathan Patterson, Michael Keane, Ben Godfrey, Lewis Dobbin and Youssef Chermiti to get some game time and for Arnaut Danjuma to return to the team. Patterson recently lost his place to Ashley Young when he switched flanks to accommodate the return of Vitalii Mykolenko to left back but will be hoping to be named in the line-up should the veteran be rested.

Both Godfrey and Keane played the full 90 minutes of the tie at Doncaster and while Dyche may not elect to partner the pair together again, he could give at least one of them a chance alongside either James Tarkowski or Jarrad Branthwaite.

In Unai Emery, Dyche will be going up a consummate "cup manager", with the Spaniard having won three successive Europa League titles with Sevilla between 2014 and 2016, managed Arsenal to the final in 2019 and won the tournament again with Villarreal in 2021.

The furthest he ever got in the League Cup with the Gunners was the Quarter-Finals in 2019, however, and with Villa involved in the Europa League this season and looking to challenge for a place in the Premier League's top four, Emery might feel as though he has bigger priorities, especially as his side host Brighton in the lunchtime kick-off on Saturday.

That could see him make a number of changes and, potentially, open the door to Everton to take advantage, provided of course that Dyche doesn't make too many of his own.

Villa will definitely be without Emiliano Buendia, Bertrand Traore and Tyrone Mings as well as Timothy Iroegbunam and Diego Carlos.

If Everton can spring a surprise and negotiate their way into the next round, they would be one of a maximum of 10 Premier League clubs left in the competition.

Kick-off: 7:45pm, Wednesday 27 September, 2023

Last Time: Aston Villa 1 - 0 Everton, League Cup SF (22 February, 1984)

Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Patterson, Keane, Tarkowski, Mykolenko, Onana, Garner, Danjuma, Harrison, Doucoure, Beto

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Pamiri people in the Badakhshan highlands bemoan the plight of Afghan kinfolk in areas recently seized by militants. From Eurasianet.

Scanning the view of Afghanistan from Tajikistan across the Panj River reveals small visual clues about the Talibans newly won dominance over the area.

In each hamlet along the river, the militant group has hoisted the white flag that has become their identifying standard. Fighters have avoided commandeering the homes of local residents and have instead pitched white tents, also visible from a distance.

A man raises a white flag on the Afghan side of a bridge over the Panj River at Khorog, Tajikistan, on 7 July. Image via Pamir Daily News Facebook page.

They are a literal stones throw away from Tajikistan, but people in the Pamir Mountains, a region that shares hundreds of kilometers of border with Afghanistan, show no sign of being perturbed.

We are mountain people. We have no fear in our DNA. We can rely only on ourselves. We are not afraid. If the Taliban decided to come here, we would fight them back ourselves, said Hamza, 30, a passenger in a shared taxi making the trip from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, to Khorog, the administrative center of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, or GBAO.

There is a yawning chasm between the faint alarmism being telegraphed by President Emomali Rahmons government and the realities on the ground.

As the Talibans advances appeared to be picking up momentum last week, Dushanbe appealed to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization for help securing the border.

Considering the current situation in the region, as well as the fact that certain sections of the border with Afghanistan are located in remote mountainous terrain, it will be difficult to cope with this task alone, Hasan Sultonov, Tajikistans representative at the CSTO, said on 7 July.

More than 1,500 Afghan troops had by that point fled into Tajikistan in the face of Taliban onslaughts.

Vacationers from sticky, hot Dushanbe are not dissuaded by any of this from heading for cooler climes in the highland valleys on the border.

Were finding passengers quickly and getting away from Dushanbe, said Nuqmon, a shared taxi driver. There are few people wanting to come the other way, so we return mostly empty.

The only difference now, says Nuqmon, is fares have gone up  from around $25 per person to $40  but it has nothing to do with Afghanistan.

This is due to the increase in fuel prices and the lack of customers on the way back, he said.

For the first 400 or so kilometers, up to the Darvoz district, the roads are smooth. After that, it is off-road terrain. The next crumbling 250 kilometers of glorified mule trail to Khorog instill more alarm into travelers than any militant does.

Despite assurances from state news media of an intensified security presence on the frontier, locals have said there appear to be no more patrols of young, rifle-toting border guards than usual. The cash-strapped governments appeals for military aid may be more an exercise in angling for gifts of fresh equipment and money than anything else.

The Talibans white flags have also been pinned to the handful of bridges connecting the two neighboring countries. There is not much traffic going across them, however. The bridge at Khorog used to open every Saturday so local people could engage in trade, but that was stopped when the COVID-19 outbreak struck. It is not known when that arrangement will resume.

Instead, the bridges have become something of a sightseeing destination as locals arrive to investigate the Talibans white flags, and the militants themselves, with their own eyes.

News of the situation across the border is traveling in strangely slow ways.

Komron, a resident of Khorog, told Eurasianet that the day Afghan troops fled into the town, residents heard gunfire for a handful of minutes.

After some time, we saw in the Afghan media that the territory bordering Khorog had come under Taliban control. And our media said the national [Afghan] army had retreated, he said.

Hamza had a similar story about Ishkashim, the name shared by two small towns on either side of the Tajik-Afghan border a little further up into the mountains from Khorog.

I was in Garm-Chashma when there was a panic about how the Taliban were supposedly coming to this area. I came out of our hotel and went to see what was happening, he said. They fired a few times, and after that the soldiers started crossing the bridge to us.

These accounts of relatively cursory confrontations between Afghan troops and Taliban fighters appear to lend weight to widespread reports that Afghan government forces are simply surrendering their weapons without putting up any resistance.

On 9 July, the Afghan ambassador in Dushanbe posted images to Facebook that he said showed a tent camp for refugees in the Shamsiddin Shohin district, in southern Tajikistans Khatlon province. He said in a post that more than 1,000 people were in the camp. It has now emerged that these evacuees were in fact troops and possibly other government-affiliated individuals, and that they have since been sent back to Afghanistan.

Although there is no terror on the Tajik side of the border, there is creeping anxiety about what the Talibans rise means for Badakhshani kinfolk in Afghanistan. The militant groups rigid adherence to a radical strand of Sunni beliefs is violently at odds with the Ismaili Shiism practiced by many Pamiris.

There is hope that the Taliban may not enforce their religious positions  for now. But the consequences of the evolving situation for womens basic freedoms are already being felt, as Sukhrob, a 60-year-old from Khorog, learned when he called a friend in the Afghan Shughnon district.

The friend, Ali, said that while daily hardships have worsened because of a lack of food and money, the Taliban are already turning to more trivial matters, such as peoples clothing.

Girls over seven have to wear the burqa, and they cannot leave their house without a male chaperon. Girls cannot go to school, and they are being told to get married once theyre 15, Ali told Sukhrob in a phone conversation held in Eurasianets presence.

The militants are already collecting property taxes from locals, as well as charging fees from the truckers still somehow making it across frontier checkpoints wrested from government control.

Contradicting the images of jubilant, welcoming villagers spread by the Talibans adept online propagandists, there is anecdotal evidence that the movement is enforcing its writ with familiar brutality.

My uncles son was killed in front of everybody because he worked for the Afghan army, and according to the Taliban, that means he was fighting against Islam, Ali said. My uncle is going out of his mind. It is going to be like this for everybody now who somehow speaks positively about the government.

This is in turn engendering ill-will among Tajik Pamiris toward fleeing Afghan troops, who they feel are doing too little to save their friends and relatives from the incipient repression.

We are only getting troops and civil servants escaping from the Taliban here, said Komron, the Khorog resident. After that, they get sent to Kabul. And the poor people continue to live in misery under Taliban control.

Kamila Ibragimova is the pseudonym for a journalist in Tajikistan. This article originally appeared on Eurasianet.
Natrona County School District No. 1 will have a new leader at the helm when school starts next August after the Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday evening to name Angela Hensley the districts next superintendent.

Hensley will now serve as superintendent elect for the rest of the school year as NCSD transitions leadership ahead of Superintendent Mike Jennings retirement next year.

Trustees thanked Jennings during Mondays meeting for serving NCSDs students and shepherding the district through the turbulence of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, they lauded Hensley, praising her knowledge, professionalism and plans for Wyomings second largest school district.

If [school leaders] can grasp her vision, I think we as a school district are going to be in a great place, said Trustee Thomas Myler.

The board announced that Jennings will retire next June after more than 30 years with the district, four of them as superintendent. Hensley will officially take over the district on July 1. Hensleys appointment did not appear on the boards original agenda, but Chair Raymond Catellier moved to add the recommendation and vote to the school boards schedule.

Catellier did not return a request for comment on the superintendent change and the boards replacement process. Hensleys promotion marks the third consecutive NCSD superintendent hiring that has taken place behind closed doors.

For Hensley, it marks the culmination of a steady rise through NCSDs ranks. Originally from Casper, Hensley has worked for the district for more than three decades, first serving as a teacher before becoming assistant principal at Dean Morgan Middle School and principal of North Casper Elementary. She currently serves as NCSDs associate superintendent of Human Resources after holding several other administrative positions with the district, according to Tanya Southerland, a spokesperson for NCSD.

Trustees heaped praise on Hensley before and after their vote, sharing their experiences working with her and their excitement about serving on the board during her tenure. Trustee Kevin Christopherson described Hensleys knowledge as second to none.

Your integrity, your faith and your experience will be fantastic assets for this district, Catellier said.

Though the process of appointing a new NCSD superintendent has largely taken place out of the public eye, Myler spoke about conversations he has had with Hensley and her plan to build a culture of success in the districts schools.

I could also see your vision and I shared your vision. I could really get behind you, he said. She knows where this district needs to go in terms of school improvement.

Over the next 10 months, Hensley will work with Jennings, district administration and the board of trustees as superintendent in waiting for a well-planned and seamless transition, according to an NCSD press release. Southerland said in an email that the district will share more information about the transition process moving forward. NCSD took a similar approach when Jennings assumed leadership from former Superintendent Steve Hopkins in 2020. After trustees approved his hiring in August 2019, Jennings served as superintendent elect for a school year as he transitioned to full responsibilities.

While the board welcomed Hensley, they also expressed sadness at Jennings departure. Jennings took over NCSD as it was emerging from an economic downturn, a wave of reconstruction and a shift in district leadership. He has led the implementation of the districts most recent strategic plan and piloted NCSD through pandemic, though not without controversy after the districts abrupt pivot away from masking. Most recently, Jennings has helped NCSD navigate the growing politicization of schools and a shifting K-12 landscape following the pandemic.

As sad as this is honestly its congratulations, said Trustee Kyla Alvey. You have carried us through some of our hardest times and it has been wonderful to work with you.

In a statement to the Star-Tribune, Jennings said he was excited to work with Hensley over the next year and to continue to support the NCSD community.

"I am extraordinarily grateful for and humbled by the opportunities and experiences Natrona County School District has provided me, he said. As I continue into my thirty-first year at NCSD, I am dedicated and focused on the work ahead of us while recognizing and celebrating student and staff successes and achievements along the way. As a district, we are focused on our strategic goals while striving for continued educational excellence.

Addressing the trustees on Monday, Jennings said he remains committed to NCSD even as retirement nears.

Theres a lot of work to be done, he said. I'm not going anywhere.

Your news on your smartphone Your story lives in Wyoming, and our new mobile app is designed to make sure you dont miss breaking news, the latest scores, the weather forecast and more. From easy navigation with the swipe of a finger to personalized content based on your preferences to customized text sizes, the Star-Tribune app is built for you and your life. Dont have the app? Download it today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
CHEYENNE  The teen charged with pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Angelina Harrison as she rode in a car Jan. 9 on Dell Range Boulevard was sentenced Monday to 15 to 20 years in prison.

Tirso Munguia, 19, was sentenced on one count of involuntary manslaughter by Goshen County District Judge Edward Buchanan, who described the defendant as stupid for cavalierly flaunting the law due to his conduct that led to Harrisons death.

I cannot fathom the level of stupidity and recklessness it takes to point a firearm just in the general direction of someone else ... and pulling the trigger, Buchanan said to Munguia.

Munguia is the second of three defendants to be sentenced in connection with the death of Harrison, 16. He was one of three people present in a vehicle traveling down Dell Range Boulevard on the evening of Jan. 9.The other two defendants, Sarah Heath, 26, and Cody Nicholson, 18, have also pleaded guilty.

According to court documents, the three defendants were traveling with Harrison that night when Nicholson handed Munguia a loaded handgun, which went off while Munguia was handling it.

Initially, Munguia maintained that this discharge was an accident, but when proving a factual basis for his guilty plea earlier this year, Munguia said he pulled the trigger.

At Mondays hearing, Harrisons parents, David and Amanda Harrison, cited this as an example of the deception Munguia used to protect himself and his co-defendants instead of helping their daughter and getting her medical treatment.

Both parents said that the three co-defendants pulled into an urgent care parking lot, but decided against taking her to medical providers, instead taking her to the Frontier Mall parking lot to establish an alibi.

When reading his victim impact statement to Judge Buchanan, David Harrison said that medical professionals told him Angelina Harrison might have lived if she had been taken for medical treatment soon enough.

Munguia was represented by Steven Iberlin, a Casper attorney. Iberlin argued for a lighter sentence for the defendant, citing his young age, lack of criminal history and cooperation with law enforcement as mitigating factors. He asked that Munguia receive a five- to seven-year prison sentence.

The Harrison family categorically rejected the idea of Munguia cooperating with law enforcement, however.

Iberlin characterized Munguia as being a key part of the investigation into Heath, the driver of the vehicle at the time of the shooting.

David Harrison said, however, that Munguia was only cooperative with the state after the Laramie County District Attorneys Office offered him a bond reduction.

David Harrison called this a bribe by the state.

Iberlin addressed Buchanan first on Monday, and after his statement, Munguia addressed the judge directly.

I never meant for any of this to happen, Munguia said in tears. ... (Its) my fault, but Im going to be better.

He added that he took full responsibility for his actions.

Laramie County assistant district attorney William Edelman asked Buchanan for the states arguments to begin with victim impact statements from David and Amanda Harrison and a close personal friend of Angelina Harrison, Meadow Roher.

All three of them struggled to remember Angelina Harrison without crying.

Angelina Harrisons parents both recalled the chain of events that led to them discovering their daughter had been killed.They both said that law enforcement and the district attorneys office were not helpful from the beginning.

Theres a chance that he could have saved her, Amanda Harrison said of Munguia. ... No matter what the sentence is,Tirso will still get to live his life.

Amanda Harrison said her family and loved ones will not get the same opportunity, and that they were serving a life sentence without Angelina Harrison.

At several points during his statement, David Harrison addressed Munguia directly, condemning him for the harm he caused the Harrison family.

You were supposed to be her friend, he said. ... She always defended you.

He emphasized that Munguia chose to kill her, saying, You owe me everything.

(Angelina Harrison) didnt do anything wrong except trusting you and the people in that car, David Harrison said. The only forgiveness youll get is on your own judgment day. ...The courts will never punish you enough.

The family expressed their disappointment for the involuntary manslaughter charge Munguia pleaded to instead of the original second-degree murder charge.

The state clashed with Iberlin over the ability to allow a statement from Roher, who was described as like a daughter by David Harrison, but not an immediate relative.The argument centered on who could be qualified as a victim in the eyes of the court.

Iberlin argued that, although Wyoming statute was broad in its definition, Roher should not be allowed to speak due to her not being a direct relative.

Buchanan called a five-minute recess to review the statute himself, but ultimately allowed Roher to speak.

Angelina never gave up on me, Roher said. She gave me purpose. ... Until this day, I will do anything for Angelina.

After the statements, Edelman spoke to Buchanan directly, arguing for the maximum punishment allowed by law. He said that America has experienced gun violence almost daily and that a lot of people were getting numb to it.

Edelman added that, especially in Wyoming, it takes extreme recklessness to point a gun at someone without intending to shoot at them. He wanted the maximum sentence to send a message to Munguia, and other young people with guns, to learn more discretion with deadly weapons.

Buchanan ordered that Munguia be sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison without the possibility of parole, along with $6,625.52 in restitution, $5,000 in public defenders fees and $275 in other fees. He is allowed to appeal his sentence.

The sentence also came with a recommendation from Buchanan for the Intensive Treatment Unit for substance abuse problems because all three defendants seemed to be intoxicated on the night of the shooting.

No sentence could ever make you pay the price, Buchanan said to the defendant. There will never be a punishment that I could give that brings back a life. ... You will have an opportunity to make correct decisions in the future, someday.

Heath was sentenced last month to nearly four-and-a-half years in prison for her role in Angelina Harrisons death, which included driving the car that night, furnishing alcohol to minors and a marijuana possession charge.

Nicholson, the third and final defendant in the case, is set for sentencing on Nov. 6.
(Photo : Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images)

ECKERNFOERDE, GERMANY - FEBRUARY 21: A submarine emerges next to the frigate Hessen during the inaugural visit of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (not pictured) to the German Navy (Marine) on February 21, 2023 at Eckernfoerde, Germany. Pistorius, who took office in January, has promised an effective modernization of the German military with the EUR 100 billion special defence fund announced last year by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The new underwater kamikaze drone 'Marichka' is tested prior to its deployment against Russian President Vladimir Putin's navy, as captured on footage.

The newly designed torpedo, capable of carrying approximately 1,000 pounds of explosives, will be launched against Russian warships and submarines as Ukraine continues to repel Vladimir Putin's navy in the Black Sea.

Ukraine's Game-Changer: Underwater Kamikaze Stealth Drone

It is also anticipated to target the $3.64 billion Crimean Bridge, a vital Russian supply route into Ukraine that Kyiv's forces have already struck twice during the conflict, which the Russians have only partially repaired.

The footage depicts the 20-foot-long, $430,000 sea weapon being tested in the water prior to its deployment at a top-secret location. It is a creation of Ammunition. Volunteers from Ukraine possess immunity to Russian radio-electronic warfare systems, rendering them largely "invisible to the adversary."

In addition, it has a unique communication system with the operator that allows the submersible to be controlled from vast distances and depths. It is an innovation distinct from Ukraine's 'Sea Baby' drone, which has been employed against the bridge and other vessels.

The Marichka drone, according to its manufacturers, "cannot be detected by radars, scanners, or echo sounders" and has a range of approximately 620 miles, which is sufficient to strike critical Russian targets stationed around occupied Crimea in the Black Sea.

The submarine drone can be used to strike enemy targets but also for reconnaissance, and has the capacity to loiter on standby mode in the water before being directed at a target. To bolster its arsenal, and in the face of Russia's superior long-range missiles, Ukraine has taken to manufacturing drones, which have proved to be one of the deadliest and most prevalent weapons since Putin's invasion.

According to The Economist, an army of volunteers constructs up to 90 percent of Ukraine's military drones in garages and warehouses scattered across the country, with approximately 200 drone start-up companies now functioning within its borders.

The majority of drones are deployed above land by soldiers who can fly them with pinpoint precision to drop munitions on Russian positions, destroy trenches and shelters, or crash explosive-laden drones into concealed targets. According to The Sun, the high-tech weapon possesses reconnaissance capabilities and the ability to loiter in inactive mode prior to engaging targets.

It differs from the 'Sea Baby' drone, which can travel 500 miles and transport 300 kilograms of explosives and is responsible for a spate of audacious attacks on Russian vessels over the past few months.

Read Also: Moscow Court Rejects Dissident Alexey Navalny's Appeal Against 19-Year Prison Sentence

Marichka vs. Sea Baby Drone

The Marichka has been added to Ukraine's arsenal of ambitious, experimental drones after Kyiv dramatically increased production of the do-it-yourself armaments.

The nation's drone revolution has generated some of the most devastating weapons of the conflict so far and provided a critical answer to Moscow's superior long-range missiles. Using 3D printers, readily available parts, and donated materials, game-changing weapons are being cobbled together in dormitories, garages, and covert factories across Ukraine.

And recently, newly designed maritime drones have taken center stage in the conflict, instilling dread in the formerly Russian-dominated Black Sea. In their extraordinary campaign to end Putin's naval superiority, Ukraine's sea drone pilots have been labeled the "new Dambusters."

On September 16, a 'Sea Baby' drone violently struck a Russian missile hovercraft, making it the fourth Russian vessel to be damaged in the preceding three days. Samum, a Black Sea vessel, had to be towed into Sevastopol harbor after suffering "significant damage" from the attack.

Per Daily Express, it poses a formidable menace to hostile targets, with a warhead weighing approximately 200 kilograms. Notably, the drone has been designed to resist electronic warfare systems, providing a significant advantage against potential foes.

Given the prospective impact of the drone on Ukraine's defense strategy, this expenditure appears reasonable. The dual-purpose functionality of the Marichka drone is one of its distinguishing characteristics. It can also be used as a kamikaze drone when necessary.

In addition, the Marichka is outfitted to conduct reconnaissance missions, thereby enhancing Ukraine's capacity to collect vital intelligence. The successful demonstration of the Marichka drone represents a major milestone in Ukraine's efforts to bolster its defense capabilities and protect its national security from Russian aggression.

Related Article: New Russian Units Allegedly Being Established; Will These Overwhelm Ukraine's Counteroffensives?

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
FORMER finance minister, Winston Dookeran, is calling for a shift in the Caribbean integration model in order to forge wider convergence spaces for approaching production, the institutional framework and economic frontiers.

Dookeran, an economist and former central bank governor, said the current integration model seems limited by size, design an inertia.
Before the railway system closed, and reversed the fortunes of vast swathes of Trinidad, there was a thriving village called St Johns, deep in the interior of Trinidad, where people lived with little complaint.

No one became rich, but no one went without since there was wildlife cavorting right behind your house, you ate what you planted in forest gardens, and people lived in airy homes constructed strong by the village men using the timber pulled out of the bush by bison power.
Various business chambers have welcomed the call-out of members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force volunteers to support the crime fight.

However, they have some concerns.

This follows a proclamation from President Christine Kangaloo on Monday calling out to duty 100 Trinidad and Tobago Volunteer Defence Force to strengthen the TTDF capabilities to support the police The proclamation went into effect on Monday and will end February 29, 2024.
Officials in Indonesia announced a new regulation on Wednesday (September 27) about banning goods transactions on social media platforms to rein in direct sales by major tech firms. Officials said it harmed millions of small businesses, especially in the retail industry.

The new regulation was a blow to Chinese short video app TikTok, which was doubling down on Southeast Asia's biggest economy to boost its e-commerce business, Reuters reported.

According to Indonesian trade minister Zulkifli Hasan, the move, which was to take effect immediately, aimed at protecting offline merchants and marketplaces. The official also said that predatory pricing on social media platforms was threatening small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The new regulation required e-commerce platforms in the country to set a minimum price of $100 for certain items that were directly purchased from abroad and that all products offered should meet local standards.

Earlier this week, Indonesian officials stated their intention to ban social media goods transactions to consider the livelihood of more than six million local sellers active on TikTok.

Read Also: Target Announces Store Shutdowns Affecting Major US Cities

Jakarta Backpedals from TikTok's Investment Pledge

The ban came just three months after TikTok pledged to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, over the next few years in a major endeavor to build its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop.

China's ByteDance owns the app and has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia alone. It has been looking to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source.

Zulkifli told reporters Wednesday that the regulation was implemented to ensure "fair and just" business competition, adding it was also intended to ensure data protection of users. He additionally warned of making social media a one-stop shop for financial and business matters, such as being an e-commerce platform, store, and bank all at the same time.

The minister also gave TikTok one week to comply with the regulation or face the threat of closure.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to reporters' requests for comment.

Public Reaction and Reception

Research firm BMI said earlier on Wednesday that TikTok would be the only business affected by the transaction ban, and Jakarta's move was unlikely to harm the digital marketplace industry's growth.

On the other hand, retailers have a mixed reception to the news. Some view TikTok as a way for stores to recover from the blow dealt by the COVID-19 pandemic, while others see the regulation as a necessary way to limit the items being sold online.

Meanwhile, traditional e-commerce players in Indonesia, such as Sea Ltd.'s Shopee, are expected to receive the news positively, global investment bank Citi told CNBC.

Related Article: Indonesian Government Considers Ban on TikTok Sales Amid Discussions Over Country's E-Commerce

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
For saying absolutely nothing in 126 words, yesterdays media release from Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley on the crime crisis would be hard to beat.

Following the fatal shooting of eight men between Sunday night and Monday afternoon, Dr Rowley issued a statement describing crime in Trinidad and Tobago as now gone beyond concerning to the ridiculous.
Gary Raffanelli was bluffing that day about 20 years ago when he told producers at Harrahs casinos in Vegas that he had an ABBA tribute show ready to roll.

He didnt.

He threw out ABBA because he had been listening to the iconic bands music right before that casino meeting.

He had pitched an Elton John show and two other concepts; they loved both. Then the producer asked for just one more.

He didnt have a fourth one up his sleeve.

So he bluffed that his ABBA show was in production.

The producer got so excited that he ordered everyone in the room to keep quiet. Apparently he worried that someone would steal the idea.

I told him the show wouldnt be ready for eight months, Raffanelli recalled.

Then he scrambled to find the perfect cast to pull off the 1970s Swedish hit-making pop quartet whose catchy songs were the basis for the jukebox Broadway musical Mamma Mia!

In a twist of irony, the excited Vegas producer was gone before Raffanelli, who took the role of Benny Andersson, was ready to launch the show. But he had no problem finding a home for Abbacadabra, which looks at the band from the time the two married couples  Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad  divorced in 1980.

Theres that friction and a little bit of fighting, said Raffanelli, who saw ABBA live in 1979 outside San Francisco and during that show, Ulvaeus announced his pending divorce from the stage and I heard 9,000 people go, Ahhhhhh.

In the 19 years since he launched Abbacadabra, it has become one of the leading ABBA tribute shows touring the U.S.

The show makes its Tucson debut on Saturday, Sept. 30, headlining the 46th annual Tucson Pride Festival at Reid Park.

Raffanelli and his castmates  Lesley Green as Frida, Susie Campbell as Agnetha and Rich Hamelin as Bjorn  have been doing the show together for 14 years with a singular goal: perform the songs as close to the record as we could possibly get them, Raffanelli said.

The show will feel like youre spinning through ABBAs greatest hits recreated live in a way that might take you back to the late 1970s-early 80s when those hits were Top 40 radio mainstays. The quartet, backed by a full band, draws from a setlist that includes S.O.S., Super Trooper, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Waterloo, The Winner Takes It All, Fernando, Take a Chance on Me and Voulez Vous. In between songs, the band interacts with the audience and they become characters in this divorce drama/tension playing out on stage.

The Tucson show is one of about 80 that Abbacadabra will do this year.

There isnt an ABBA band working that much in the United States, said Raffanelli, who said he has only missed five or six shows in the 19 years he has been doing them. I believe we are the biggest and the best.

Tucson Pride Festival runs from noon to 10 p.m. at Reid Parks DeMeester Performance Center, 900 S. Randolph Way.

General admission is $15 in advance, $20 the day of the event at tucsonpride.org. VIP tickets are $100 in advance, $150 at the gate. Tickets for students, seniors, civil servants and veterans are $15.
Emergency managers in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties are still straining to manage the arrival of legal asylum seekers released by U.S. border agents, who are facing record numbers of migrant families crossing the southern border.

The number of arrivals in Pima County eased slightly over the weekend, said Shane Clark, director of Pima Countys Office of Emergency Management. But county officials and partner humanitarian organizations, like Casa Alitas in Tucson, are still walking a tightrope, he said.

Its kind of a daily chess game, Clark said. We are always reactive to how many (people) Border Patrol releases. We are appreciative of the partnership we have with Border Patrol.  But really, were at their mercy.

Typically, Border Patrol agents are able to give advance notice before releasing asylum seekers directly to county- or state-funded buses for transport to shelters in Tucson or Phoenix. After these coordinated releases, migrants usually stay in Arizona shelters for less than 48 hours before traveling to family or sponsors in the interior of the U.S.

But since mid-September, a surge in encounters at the border with Mexico has compelled Tucson Sector border officials to process migrants as quickly as possible to maintain safe conditions in their detention facilities.

Thats meant small border towns like Bisbee, Naco, Douglas and Nogales, Ariz. have had to cope with unannounced, and usually hourly, releases of asylum seekers in communities that dont have the infrastructure to care for them.

The migrants released into border communities have been legally cleared to await their asylum hearings in the United States. Most only stay in those small towns for a few hours until buses arrive to transport them to shelters in Tucson or Phoenix.

Pima County and the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, or DEMA, have been sending dozens of buses across the state each day to transport asylum seekers to aid groups like Casa Alitas.

But local emergency managers have had to scramble to connect those travelers with transportation, plus food and water, to ensure they wont remain unsheltered overnight.

Casa Alitas in Tucson is still receiving upwards of 1,000 migrants a day, Clark said.

Casa Alitas has come close to exceeding capacity, but so far that hasnt happened, said Diego Pina Lopez, agency director for Casa Alitas. The lack of predictability remains a challenge, he said.

Because were not getting clear insight into the numbers being dropped off at any given time, its still challenging to know what were working with for the day or the next day, he said. We need more clear information on whats coming down the pipeline to us, as best as DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) is able to provide.

August statistics

The latest statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that in August, Tucson was once again the busiest of the nine southern-border sectors, with border agents encountering nearly 49,000 people between ports of entry. An additional 4,115 people presented themselves at ports of entry to request asylum.

For the first time since President Biden took office, more people crossing the southern border were part of a family unit, rather than single adults, said Ariel Ruiz Soto, senior policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute. The increase in Tucson was largely driven by families coming from Mexico and Central America, he said.

Border-wide, apprehensions were up significantly in July and August, after dropping in May and June, when Bidens new border policies and restrictions were implemented.

The volume of arrivals has rivaled the crisis situation in May, when Pima County nearly experienced the street release of migrants due to lack of shelter capacity. That came on the eve of the expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era measure that allowed the federal government to expel some migrants from the country immediately, before giving them the opportunity to request asylum.

After days of receiving dozens of daily street releases in Cochise County  including many dropped off at a Safeway parking lot in Bisbee, before the town established a respite-shelter location  the volume of arrivals has slowed this week, giving officials more time to gather supplies and engage volunteers.

This week, our shelter and respite operations are in a much more prepared stance, Daniel Duchon, director of Cochise County Emergency Management, said Tuesday.

On Sept. 15, Cochise County received 132 asylum seekers in one day, compared to 36 on Monday, Duchon said. Since August, the community has received more than 680 asylum seekers released from Border Patrol custody.

Santa Cruz County has been receiving between 200 and 300 asylum seekers released by border agents each day since mid-September, said Sobeira Castro, director of emergency management for Santa Cruz County.

Nogales has a small homeless shelter, but its capacity of 10 wouldnt help much if Tucson and Phoenixs shelters end up reaching their capacity, Castro said. That could force asylum seekers to stay in border communities overnight, which could become a humanitarian and safety issue if they are unsheltered, she said.

Earlier this month the Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved devoting up to $4.1 million of the countys federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to go toward the purchase of Casa Alitas Drexel Road congregate shelter, which the county has been leasing. The shelter provides 350 beds for the regions migrant-aid effort.

The state, through its ARPA allocation, will pay the remaining half of the buildings purchase price, said Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, who sponsored the motion.

The purchase will ensure continuity for shelter managers and will allow for needed renovations. If the number of asylum seekers relents in the future, all or part of the shelter can easily be modified for other uses, such as general emergency housing, she said on Tuesday.

Back in late 2022, it took months to find this Drexel facility, and we wouldnt want to have to uproot all of those services if the property owner decided to stop leasing it, she said. The purchase is crucial for the countys continued ability to house large numbers of migrants from throughout the region, Grijalva said.

Pima County has been doing a lot of heavy lifting, for not just the state of Arizona, but for the country, when it comes to asylum seekers coming across our border, she said.

Officers reassigned

This month U.S. Customs and Border Protection reassigned 50 officers from Arizonas ports of entry to instead focus on processing migrants, in order to decompress the regions busy detention facilities and to ensure the safety and well-being of those in the agencys custody, a CBP statement said. The reassigned officers have been supporting the Tucson and Yuma border sectors with processing migrants since Sept. 16.

That support will continue on an as-needed basis, the statement said. CBP will work to return to normal operations as quickly as feasible.

Travelers and the cross-border trade community may face longer than normal crossing times at Arizona ports of entry, CBP acknowledged. The public can view current wait times at the CBP website.

In a Sept. 21 news release, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said the decision has resulted in extended wait times at the ports, and quicker migrant processing has resulted in the accelerated release of asylum seekers into border communities. That is shifting pressure from federal facilities to local communities, the release said.

Time and again Ive asked the Biden administration for assistance at the border, but instead they have chosen to redirect resources to speed the release of migrants, without the support and coordination our local communities deserve, Hobbs, a Democrat, said in a statement. Arizona is being overwhelmed, and we cant afford to lose manpower at our ports of entry. ... The federal government needs to do its job and take action to ensure our border is secure and the migration process is orderly and humane.

Driven by misinformation

The Biden administrations border policies that replaced Title 42 are focused on expanding legal avenues to enter the U.S., while increasing penalties for those who enter without authorization. Penalties include a five-year bar on re-entry and loss of eligibility to access lawful pathways to enter the country. The primary lawful pathway to enter the U.S. is by making an appointment through the CBP One mobile app.

In August, more than 45,400 people used the app to make an asylum appointment, CBP data show. Advocates have criticized the app for being insufficient for the large number of migrants waiting for appointments in Mexican border towns, where theyre vulnerable to exploitation or kidnapping.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say migrants are being fed misinformation about how easy it is to cross the border by human smugglers, who seek to prey on vulnerable individuals.

A new poll, first reported on Tuesday by the Dallas Morning News, suggests disinformation is encouraging migrants to make the trip.

The poll, funded by Americas Voice, a national advocacy group that supports immigration reform, interviewed 600 randomly selected Central Americans between the ages of 16 and 39 who were living in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Nearly one in five people surveyed said they believed the U.S. had open borders and that most migrants can apply for asylum if they make it to the border. Among the youngest cohort surveyed, ages 16 to 24, more than one-third reported hearing U.S. officials or politicians claim the border is open, and most of them reported hearing it on social media.

Human smugglers are echoing pundits rhetoric on open borders in order to profit off migrants who decide to make the journey north, Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of Americas Voice, said in a Tuesday statement.

Right-wing politicians and media outlets are some of the leading drivers of open borders disinformation, Cardenas said in the statement.

Politicians are likely spreading this fabrication for political purposes, she said. Yet this relentless political disinformation about the state of the U.S. border filters into Central America, falls on the ears of desperate people looking for a way out and empowers smugglers and other bad actors.
Habitat for Humanity Tucsons CHUCK Center: Habitat for Humanity Tucson was honored at the Arizona Housing Forum with one of six Housing Hero Awards. The Arizona Department of Housing recognized the Connie Hillman Urban Construction Knowledge (CHUCK) Center with the Outstanding Affordable Housing Initiative award. This award recognizes the efforts of a local program that creates, improves or promotes affordable housing.

The CHUCK Center, a 15,000-square-foot classroom, indoor construction space and warehouse, is Habitats response to accelerate the production of housing. The CHUCK increases the speed and volume of production through off-site prefabrication of innovative modular designs.

The center is also designed to serve as a workforce development program.

Invisible Theatre: Invisible Theatre has been awarded $25,350 from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, an agency of the State of Arizona. The grant was one of 367 grants awarded for Fiscal Year 2022, representing a total investment of $5,425,146 in nonprofit arts organizations across the state.

Invisible Theatre is dedicated to producing quality theater and arts education experiences for all facets of the community in an intimate setting that showcases local professional talent and guest artists. Schools and nonprofit arts organizations were awarded grants based on such factors as community investment, quality of programming, fiscal ingenuity and responsible stewardship of public funds.

Pima Community College: Pima Community College has been named the best university/college employer in the state in Forbes annual list of Best Employers To Work For in Arizona. Forbes surveyed companies with a minimum of 500 employees to compile the list.

Pima Community College also ranked as the 11th best employer overall in the state. PCC was the surveys top-ranked employer for Pima County.

According to Forbes, more than 70,000 employees nationwide were surveyed anonymously and asked to rate their employers on a variety of topics, including diversity, compensation packages, potential for development, company image and more.
Two teens are facing charges in connection with the killing of two men last week on the city's south side, Tucson police say.

In the Sept. 18 killing, the body of Bryan Antonio Torres, 18, was found on the pavement of South Fremont Avenue near East Calle Nevada, near South Park Avenue and East Irvington Road, Tucson police have said.

The body of Emir Arreola-Morales, 18, was then found in a vehicle down the street, police said.

Both men had been fatally shot, police said.

Jacob Sosa, 16, and Trystn Montoya, 17, now face charges of second degree murder in connection with last week's killing, police said Tuesday in a news release.

Sosa, who was arrested Friday near South Mission and West Irvington roads, has been booked into the Pima County jail. Bond was set at $1 million, police said in Tuesday's news release.

Detectives had an arrest warrant for Montoya on identical charges. But Monday, police say they learned Montoya had been arrested by police on Clovis, New Mexico on suspicion of first degree murder, the release said.

Montoya is now being held at the Lea County Detention Facility and is awaiting extradition, the release said.
Tucson-based Ascent Aviation Services plans to hire about 300 workers at its Marana facility at Pinal Airpark, where it will convert passenger airliners into cargo planes for one of Israels biggest aerospace companies.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Ascents Marana Aerospace Solutions signed a 15-year agreement to establish a conversion site and carry out passenger-to-freighter conversions on twin-engine Boeing 777-300ER long-haul aircraft starting in 2024.

The local company has begun early work to erect two 90,000-square-foot hangars at its site at Pinal Air Park to support the conversion work, said Scott Butler, chief commercial officer for Ascent.

The prefabricated fabric-covered metal buildings, which will join an existing, somewhat smaller hangar for widebody planes, will go up relatively quickly after ground and utility work is completed, Butler said.

IAI launched its B777 conversion program in 2020 with partner AerCap, an Irish aircraft leasing company. Besides the Marana site, the company plans conversion centers in Seoul, South Korea, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

In March, IAIs Aviation Group completed the initial test flight of its first-of-its-kind B777 cargo conversion, known as the B777-300ERSF.

The company, one of Israels biggest aerospace and defense firms, is in the final stages of the certification process for the converted planes and expects to receive required supplemental-type certificates from the Federal Aviation Administration and Israeli aviation regulators sometime in 2023.

Cargo demand

IAI President and CEO Boaz Levy said in prepared remarks that the agreement will support the advanced capabilities his company offers customers to meet the growing demand for cargo aircraft around the world.

Levy expressed confidence Ascent can set up the hangar facility in time to deliver its first plane conversion next year.

Ascent, an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider at Tucson International Airport for decades as successor to the former Hamilton Aerospace, merged with Marana Aerospace in 2016 after expanding at TIA.

Ascent is one of North Americas largest independent aircraft aftermarket services providers in the world, offering heavy maintenance, component maintenance, flight-line and reclamation services for widebody jetliners, as well as smaller narrowbody and regional aircraft.

Between the TIA and Pinal sites, the local operations now employ about 550 workers, Butler said. The company also opened a small maintenance operation last year in Roswell, New Mexico.

Lasting growth

We look forward to getting started on our hangar buildout and bringing dozens of aircraft to Arizona to support the maintenance and modification services required, said David Querio, president and CEO of Ascent Aviation Services. This long-term collaboration agreement will bring lasting growth to the Tucson aviation community.

Butler noted that IAI has been converting planes like four-engine Boeing 747 jumbo jets and Boeing 757 and 737 airliners for decades.

Theyre leaders in the industry there, so it made a lot of sense when they approached us to work with them, he said.

And there should be plenty of work to do, as many older airliners are being retired in favor of newer, more fuel-efficient models such as Boeings 787 Dreamliner.

As operators look to retire those 777s, it makes sense to give them a home in the freighter world, because two engines are more efficient than four engines on the (Boeing) 747s companies are operating, Butler said.

Ascent already has begun some training with existing staff on IAIs conversion program, which involves cutting a cargo door in the aircraft and reinforcing the door area and the overall airframe to handle palletized cargo, Butler said, adding that some employees will be sent to Israel for training.

Wide hiring net

The company is seeking to hire for a range of positions, including licensed airframe and power-plant mechanics, but the company has its own training programs for less experienced workers, who can perform many tasks under supervision of a licensed mechanic, Butler said.

Job listings can be viewed at ascentmro.com/careers.

Ascent has hired many graduates of Pima Community Colleges FAA-accredited aviation technology program, located next door to the companys site at TIA, and Butler said Ascent is looking forward to more after the school recently completed a major expansion that will double its enrollment to about 250 annually.

But while Ascent got a temporary bump in business by storing commercial airliners grounded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic has only worsened the shortage of skilled aircraft mechanics by prompting more older workers to retire, Butler said.

Entry-level wages will start at $22 to $25 per hour, plus overtime, and the company is hiring full-time workers with benefits, Butler said.

Experienced and licensed mechanics can earn much more  the median national wage for aircraft and avionics equipment mechanics and technicians in 2022 was $34.01 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Butler said the company is working with the Arizona Commerce Authority to identify state financial incentives, which are conditioned on hiring and wage levels.
The Chinese government has just issued a list of app stores that are complying with its new rules. However, Apple's store is not included in the listing.

Apple's Store Not Complying?

Following the enactment of a new rule in China that requires businesses managing app stores to provide information about their operations, the country has now made public a list of companies adhering to the law. But apparently, Apple is missing from this list of companies.

In a story published by Reuters on Wednesday, September 27, other rivals in this field have reportedly filed the aforementioned data, and they conform with the requirements.

There are a total of 26 firms on the list, six of which are considered to be among the most powerful in the industry. These are Baidu, Huawei, Tencent, Xiaomi, Samsung, and Alibaba-owned Ant Group.

The cutoff date for the submission of information has been determined, and it is less than a year away. According to Apple Insider, companies have until March 2024 to submit their applications. This is based on the directive of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), issued in August 2023.

In addition to app stores, the rule mandates that app developers must either have a business presence in China or collaborate with a publisher based there.

The new regulation in China covers much more ground than simply big app stores. Any business that provides online information services through apps in certain industries, including journalism, publishing, education, cinema and television, and religious practice, is required to provide comparable paperwork under the new laws enforced by the CAC.

There is a lack of clarity around how or when Apple will comply with the demand imposed by China. It is less obvious how smaller organizations, including news venues, would handle this situation.

See Also: Apple Exec Eddy Cue to Testify in Google's Search Engine Dominance Trial

Recent Crackdown on App Developers

Major smartphone apps like X, Facebook, and Instagram are blocked in China because of the government's longstanding monopoly on app distribution there. Even whole classes of software have been outlawed by the government, such as VPNs and, more recently, generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs. There has also been a push to restrict gambling by requiring individual licenses for mobile gaming apps.

And the most recent crackdown on app developers was revealed last month.

In a report by 9to5Mac, the new legislation mandates that anybody wishing to make an app accessible in China's App Store must first "file business details" with the country's government. Developers will also be required by law to establish a local Chinese publishing entity.

The first step in enforcing the rule is for app stores to establish filing systems to verify the legality of newly released apps. This had to be completed by the end of August.

See Also: iPhone 15 Pro Chaos: Store Worker Brutally Attacked by Customer Over Apple's Latest Phone Availability

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Congress needs to do whats right

As a pediatric nurse working with children who are battling a range of illnesses at the childrens hospital, I am a firm supporter of and believer in the power of medical innovation that helps our patients live healthier, fuller, and more active lives.

To protect medical innovation while still benefiting patients, Congress should look to reform Pharmacy Benefit Managers and rein in the outsized control they have over the prescription drug marketplace. These groups, usually owned by insurance companies, employ a number of business practices that chip away at patient access and increase out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs.

Hopefully, Arizonas congressional leaders can help steer the conversation away from misguided price-setting policies and toward real reform of PBMs and their profit-focused business practices that threaten patient access and contribute to the high out-of-pocket expenses too many Americans pay at the pharmacy counter.

Alexis Ortega

Northeast side

Star is neither liberal or conservative

Re: the Sept. 20 letter Daily Stars radically liberal slant.

A recent letter writer complains the Star has a liberal bias because it fails to report that homelessness, crime and drug flow are caused by the Democrats open border. This is simply not true. Homelessness is largely due to increased rents, not an open border. Criminologists say that criminal behavior is inherently a state/local problem, not a result of who is in the White House. Drug seizures spiked in 2016 and continue despite the building of an ineffective border wall. The Star regularly publishes conservative columnists, including Cal Thomas, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Gerson, and George Will. The Star recently published an op-ed by James Quigley, which made numerous unsubstantiated claims attacking Bidenomics and disparaging attempts to mitigate climate change damage. The writer wishes to see solely his own unsubstantiated, false viewpoints published. The Star is a community newspaper and regularly publishes a variety of voices, including his. Some of those voices are liberal; some of those are conservative. That is totally appropriate.

Mike Carran

Oro Valley

HSSAs demise

What has happened to our venerable Humane Society of Southern Arizona? I volunteered there for two decades before electing to leave and volunteer at PACC one year ago. Every new story paints an ever-darker portrait of the HSSA. Numerous letters tell of their callous treatment of pets, including unwarranted euthanizations. Now theres an ominous report of 250 animals currently unaccounted for.

Steve Farley, CEO, contends a Maricopa rescue group adopted out all 250 animals in a few short weeks with no public announcements. Rescue professionals dont believe this is possible. Farley refuses to name the rescue. Also disturbing is the absence of social media posts by the adopting families. New pet parents love to share their joy with comments on HSSAs Facebook or Instagram pages. From among those supposed 250 adopters, weve seen not one post! The HSSA Board must take this seriously with a thorough investigation.

John Lacinski

North side

Thank you, Eddie

Today we were in Sahuarita, going to pick up our dogs from camp, when we got a flat tire on Wilmot.

We called AAA and were told it would be an hour for help to arrive. After about 50 minutes, a man stopped and asked if we needed help and we said we did. His name is Eddie. He works at TEP and is a member of the IBEW Local 1116. He jacked up the car and had the tire change in short order. He was on his way home after working the night shift and was still happy to stop and help. We are very grateful.

Bruce Wysocki

Southwest side

Tucson is about to get ugly

Our street corners are about to get ugly with the posting of campaign signs. They litter our city and are an eyesore. Not to mention a distraction for motorists. Does anybody really vote for a candidate because they saw their name on a sign posted on a street corner? If so, thats pretty pathetic, dont you think?

Lets clean up this mess before it starts. What we need is a city and county ordinance prohibiting any printed or audio campaign message from being seen or heard from any public thoroughfare. That ought to go a long way towards helping keep our city clean and beautiful, or at least less ugly.

Frank Cara

Southeast side

Homeless camps

Re: the Sept. 24 letter Homeless camps.

This letter was the best solution I have seen so far. A copy of that letter should be sent to every elected official in Arizona. It is an outrage that taxpayers cant use facilities on public property that they paid for because someone has put a tent on it. What is going on now cannot continue.

Jeff Britt

East side

Whats at stake in Presidential election

Re: the Sept. 25 letter The Roberts Court: A supremely bad example, allowing outright bribes for decisions and SCOTUS and Democracy are at stake. Deja vu?

Two letters presented crucial points that help us understand what is truly at risk in next years Presidential election: the future of The Supreme Court of the United States.

One letter writer noted how Justices Thomas and Alito have repeatedly accepted gifts worth great sums of money, and they knew it was wrong because they did not report the gifts until outed. The letter writer added, They shouldnt need rules to know what is right and wrong, which is what the Supremes should be arbitrating.

Another letter writer wrote about the reminder that the Supreme Court and democracy were at stake in the 2016 and 2020 elections. The letter writer concluded with this point we MUST have in mind when we cast our ballots next year: As many of No. 45s mistakes over four too long years have been rehashed, we cannot forget his biggest, most dangerous action (except for treason)  his lifetime SCOTUS appointments.

The ageism issue being touted is not anything compared to the SCOTUS being destroyed, possibly forever!

John Roldan

West side

Triumph of OSIRIS-REx

We watched the reentry and recovery of the capsule on NASA-TV Sunday morning and were thrilled to see how well it went. The whole mission was an engineering triumph for NASA, the U of A, and the rest of the team members. They were able to launch the spacecraft and rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu 3 years later and to establish an orbit around it. A recovery vehicle landed and vacuumed up a sample and returned it to the spacecraft. Then there was a long ride back to Earth and at the precise moment the capsule with the sample was jettisoned and proceeded to re enter earths atmosphere with the shield reaching 5,000 degrees but the sample was protected and kept cool. The parachutes were deployed and and the capsule slowed from 27,000 mph down to 11 mph for a soft landing on the preselected spot. Wow, what technology we have developed. The spacecraft is now on its way to a rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis in 2029.

Jim Killackey

Oracle

What about the students?

In all the letters regarding Arizonas universal scholarships being bad for our public schools, Ive seldom seen concern for our students. Nationally, as of 2019, only 37% of our high school graduates were proficient or above in reading. In math, 38% rank below basic. Internationally, we rank 30th in math. Almost 20% of Arizona schools are rated D or F. In any other enterprise, these results would be considered abject failure.

Despite massive increases in public school spending, student results over the last three decades remain flat. Comparisons on standardized tests show that private, parochial and charter schools and even homeschooling give better results.

These scholarships benefit working people most who struggle to give their children a better education. Certainly, the rich benefit, but they already pay much more of the school budget in higher real estate taxes.

Let parents decide whats best for our children.

Al Westerfield

Southwest side

RIP John C. Scott

The recent loss of long-time Tucson Radio personality John C. Scott reminds me of a moment in time, 28 years earlier, when our new Green Valley development, Madera Reserve, engaged his hour-long program to help promote our project.

One day, I related to him a story about the mother of my second wife, having told me how she had been bilked out of some money by a local (Tucson) church.

Sometime later, he asked me how that was turning out, and I told him not very well.

So, one day, he, too, without my knowledge, contacted that same pastor and told him that he was an investigative reporter who had heard a story and asked for a comment before potentially airing it. That same day she got her money returned. (John asked that I not tell that story to anyone.)

Thank you, John, for being a great human being. Rest in Peace.

Carl A. Bosse

Green Valley

Government spending

The US has spent 10s of billions of dollars on Ukraine support (which I basically support, but Europe has to stand up as they are most threatened), multiple billions of dollars on migrant housing, food, healthcare, etc. (to those who have done nothing for the US but take) and now $100 million to Haiti via Kenya (Haiti has received multiple billions over 30 years, all down the toilet). Why cant the government support Americans: Provide school breakfast/lunch, provide mental health care for those with issues so they dont have to commit crimes to get help, provide plans to assist homeless, particularly Veterans, among other local/national issues that affect citizens?

Robert Emery
Longtime Coweta City Manager, Roger Kolman, resigned from his position on Sept. 11.

The City of Coweta held a special meeting on Sept. 18 to discuss who would handle the City Manager duties until a replacement could be found.

Assistant City Manager Julie Chasteen will take care of the day-to-day details while the search begins. However, no interim City Manager has been appointed.

The Oklahoma Municipal Management Services firm led by Steve Whitlock is in charge of the City Manager search. Whitlock knows the area since he is a former Coweta City Manager.

Kolman had been the City Manager since 2017.

No reason was given for his decision to leave the job.
Curtis Killman Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Curtis Killman Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

A Broken Arrow woman pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to defrauding Oklahoma State Medical Center out of more than $8.2 million over a nine-year period.

Leslie Ameen, 62, faces up to 20 years in prison after admitting to one count of wire fraud in Tulsa federal court.

U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson filed the single count Aug. 28 against Ameen, who is also known as Leslie Garrett.

The charge alleges that she forged invoices from a Tulsa company that caused OSU Medical Center to purchase various electronic items, which Ameen would then steal and sell for profit.

The scheme cost OSU Medical Center about $8,293,611, according to the charge.

Ameen brazenly defrauded a state-funded institution without regard for the impact it might have on the medical needs of the community it serves and its related educational mission, Johnson said. The U.S. Attorneys Office together with our law enforcement partners will continue to hold fraudsters and embezzlers accountable for their criminal conduct.

In her written plea, Ameen admitted that between 2013 and 2022 while employed as a telecommunications specialist at OSU Medical Center she would issue bogus invoices with forged supervisor signatures for laptop computers, phones, tablets and other electronic equipment.

After stealing the items, which werent needed by the hospital, Ameen said she would sell them to acquaintances and other individuals.

The defendant exploited a healthcare system funded by taxpayer dollars in order to line her own pockets, said FBI Oklahoma City Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Gray.

The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively pursue those who seek to enrich themselves by diverting critical healthcare resources from where they are truly needed.

In addition to facing prison time, Ameen faces a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the pecuniary loss caused by her acts.

Ameen also faces forfeiture of any property linked to proceeds from the fraud, including a money judgment of at least $8,293,611.

A date for sentencing has not been set. Ameen remains free on bond pending sentencing.

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Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

As part of its accreditation renewal, officials with Tulsa Public Schools are slated to appear before the Oklahoma State Board of Education at its monthly meeting Thursday in Oklahoma City.

Scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., the meeting will be livestreamed on the Oklahoma State Department of Educations Facebook page.

Under the terms of its accreditation renewal, TPS officials are now required to present to the state board each month in-person updates on its progress toward addressing areas of concern.

Specific deliverables that were included in that accreditation vote include creating a professional development plan to train all TPS teachers in the science of reading, an action plan for improvement for all schools that received an F on the most recent state report card, and the development and publication of new internal controls to prevent embezzlement.

During July and August, State Superintendent Ryan Walters repeatedly said in press conferences and interviews that all options were on the table regarding TPS accreditation status, including nonaccreditation, which would close the district, or probation, which has been used once in recent years as a vehicle for the Oklahoma State Department of Education to take over the Western Heights school district in southwest Oklahoma City.

Although TPS was accredited with deficiencies as initially recommended by Oklahoma State Department of Education staff, Walters said at the boards August meeting that the district would be on a very short rope, and he threatened to seek additional authority from the board if he did not see adequate progress within a few months.

As worded, Thursdays meeting agenda allows for possible board action regarding the districts accreditation status. When reached Wednesday afternoon for clarification, a spokesman for the Department of Education described the agenda items wording as a legal formality and said he did not anticipate any action being taken.

In a written statement released last Thursday afternoon, TPS officials acknowledged that interim Superintendent Ebony Johnson and school board President Stacey Woolley met with Walters and other OSDE staff via Zoom Sept. 21 to discuss their expectations for this Thursdays presentation but said they had not expected to see the possibility of action regarding the districts accreditation status listed on the agenda.

During last weeks meeting, Superintendent Walters team requested that Tulsa Public Schools develop objectives, milestones and metrics for each area and share when presenting to the state board on Sept. 28, the statement reads in part.

While we were surprised upon seeing the language of the agenda published today and we are not privy to the rationale, Dr. Johnson is prepared to address the items voted upon by the state board of education at their meeting in August.

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Sherman Ray, a longtime Tulsa tailor shop owner who as a young Polish Jew survived the infamous Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War II, died Sunday at 102.

A graveside service is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday at Rose Hill Memorial Park. Fitzgerald Ivy Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

A native of Poland whose parents and three younger siblings were murdered by the Nazis, Ray, born Szasa Rako, was imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp until being liberated by Allied forces in 1945.

He later immigrated to the United States and settled in Tulsa, where he built a career as a respected tailor.

Ray owned and operated Ray's Tailor Shop, 3107 S. Jamestown Ave., for more than 50 years. It wasn't until 2020, at age 98, that the COVID-19 pandemic forced him reluctantly to close for good.

A member of Tulsa's Jewish community and Congregation B'nai Emunah, Ray took seriously his position as an eyewitness to the Holocaust. He shared his story often over the years, including at schools and churches.

"I saw it all with my own eyes," Ray said of the Nazis' systematic effort to wipe out the Jewish people. "Anyone who says the Jews are making it up, let him come talk to me."

Born in 1921 in Bialystok, Poland, Ray was captured for the first time after the Germans invaded the country in 1939.

At a pivotal moment, he tried to persuade his family  his parents and younger siblings  to escape with him, jumping from the train where they and other captive Jews were being held for transport.

They wouldn't. So he jumped alone.

Ray wouldn't learn until later his family's fate  that they were transported to the Treblinka camp and killed.

Ray, too, eventually was recaptured. He was sent to Auschwitz.

What seemed like a certain death sentence  almost 1.1 million prisoners who arrived at the camp, 83% of the total, died there  would turn out differently for Ray, though.

His tailoring skills, which his family had taught him, proved useful. He was put to work mending uniforms, which allowed him to stay alive until the war's end in 1945.

Ray would immigrate to the U.S. a few years after the war.

He started as a tailor with Greenberg's department store in Tulsa, where he worked nearly two decades before opening his own shop.

Over his career, he made suits for judges, lawyers, oil men and other of the city's most prominent citizens.

Ray never took for granted the new life and opportunity he found in America.

"I love this country," he said. "And I will until the day I die."

The longer Ray's life went on, the more he recognized what it had come to symbolize. For a Holocaust survivor, he knew, a long life was the ultimate act of resistance, a final triumph over the forces that had tried to annihilate his people.

"I never dreamed I would make a hundred," Ray, who at 99 survived a bout of COVID, told the Tulsa World ahead of his birthday in 2021.

"God looked after me," he said.

"I will tell you, if I survived the Holocaust, I will survive anything."

Ray's survivors include his children, Ralph Ray and Frieda Young.

Memorial donations may go to Congregation B'nai Emunah.

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Barbara Hoberock Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer Follow Barbara Hoberock Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

OKLAHOMA CITY  A legislative panel was told Tuesday that the state needs to reform its eviction process and provide protections for tenants from the process, which one speaker called an on-ramp to homelessness.

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard an interim study on housing availability, safety and stability requested by Sens. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, and Chuck Hall, R-Perry.

Oklahoma has one of the highest eviction rates in the country, Kirt said.

Bryce Lowery, associate professor of regional and city planning at the University of Oklahoma, told the panel that there is not enough housing in Oklahoma. Also, housing that is affordable to entry-level workers is older and in need of repairs and updating, he said.

One in four people pay more than 30% of their income in rent, he said.

Katie Dilks, executive director of Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation, told the committee members that for far too many people, rental housing is not affordable.

Lack of affordable housing forces people into untenable situations where they are living in dangerous environments, she said.

Beyond that, Oklahoma law offers very few protections and is one of six states that offer no anti-retaliation safeguards for those who report problems or ask for repairs, she said.

Amy Coldren, CEO of Shelterwell, a nonprofit focused on housing stability and eviction prevention, said the eviction process in Oklahoma is very fast. Only five days are required between when an eviction is filed and a hearing is set, she said.

Imagine having to pack up all your belongings, search for and secure new housing in a limited market and move out of your home all in 48 hours, she said. Anyone in this room would find it to be very overwhelming and a scary process.

Trying to navigate it as a single mother or an elderly individual on a fixed income could be even more difficult, Coldren said.

Coldren said that while evictions are sometimes necessary, the current process is too cheap, too fast and too easy.

The cost to file an eviction is $45, she said, adding that Oklahoma is in the very bottom when it comes to filing fees.

While evictions are cheap for landlords, they are costly to tenants, she said.

In July in Oklahoma County, 1,593 evictions were filed resulting in 754 families losing their homes, she said.

An eviction filing is an on-ramp to homelessness, she said.

According to one study, 56% of landlords would not rent to a tenant with a prior eviction filing, Coldren said.

An eviction is a stain on a tenants record that never goes away, she said.

Coldren said the filing is on the tenants record forever and impairs the persons ability to find housing, secure a job and more.

Expunging eviction records that do not result in an eviction should also be considered, she told the committee.

Incentivizing mediation programs should also be considered, she added.

Ginny Bass Carl, executive director of Community Cares Partners, a public-private partnership that disburses CARES and Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds to those financially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, said lawmakers should consider increasing the eviction timeline by adding $100 to the filing fees to make it a little bit uncomfortable for a landlord to evict someone.

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Randy Krehbiel Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Randy Krehbiel Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

If Gov. Kevin Stitt wants the Legislature to cut taxes during a special session that begins next Tuesday, he better tell lawmakers how he proposes it be done.

The onus is on him, Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said during a Tuesday press conference at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa.

I didnt call this special session. The speaker of the House didnt call this special session. The governor did, Treat said.

Miffed at the Legislature over several issues, including their own special session to make sure they could override several of his vetoes, Stitt summoned lawmakers to reduce the states income tax to zero, either through a series of planned reductions or in one fell swoop should the state lose a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court that would effectively exempt tribal citizens in much of Oklahoma from state income taxes.

Income taxes are one of state governments two major revenue sources  an estimated $4 billion a year, or about one-third of operating revenue.

Treat invited Stitt to explain how he would implement such a reduction. Treat said hes had no reply from the administration.

The governors office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

I have yet to hear him articulate a plan or defend a plan or even say what hes aiming for, Treat said. But Ill look forward to it. I hope that he will show up. We will treat him with the respect his office deserves but we will also ask tough questions about how he gets there.

When he talks about  the insatiable desire to spend money on behalf of the Legislature, I think thats a misnomer. I think weve been very restrained in our spending and spent under the amount weve been authorized to every year that Ive been pro tem. And every year hes been governor, hes proposed (one of) largest budgets in state history.

But maybe he has a plan to shrink spending and\or come up with other revenue. I think we deserve to hear that, Treat said.

Treat reminded reporters the Senate has been studying tax reform for years, and said that over the last five years almost $1 billion in projected revenue has been trimmed through several reductions.

It is a very complicated ordeal to go through tax reform and tax cuts, he said.

He also noted the state this past year invested a great deal of money in common education, both public and private, and said those are simply not sustainable with the kind of tax cuts Stitt seems to want.

Treat said he is opposed to cutting taxes at the expense of substandard government.

I dont believe theres $4 billion of bloat in state government, he said.

Treat said Stitts use of the phrase tax fairness is really good bumper sticker philosophy and bumper sticker policy but that implementing it is another matter.

Were not opposed to tax cuts or tax reform, Treat said. What we would be opposed to is doing it without a plan, without a long-term strategy for sustainability to pay for critical services like public safety, health, education.  Were answering the call, well be there, but were not going to do anything reckless.

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Travis King, the US soldier who sprinted into North Korea in an attempt to escape disciplinary charges during his tour in South Korea last July, has been released by North Korea and is now in US custody.

Officials in Pyongyang earlier confirmed they have King in their custody and are set to expel him, an unprecedented move that surprised some Korean Peninsula observers who were expecting the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

One of the US officials familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that King was transferred to American custody in China with the help of the Swedish government.

Both the White House and the Pentagon have not responded to reporters' requests for comment.

North Korea Deems King Strategically Irrelevant

King served in Korea prior to the desertion incident. After at least two altercations which brought him under South Korean police custody, he was supposed to be sent home to face disciplinary charges when he failed to board the plane bound for the US and instead joined a civilian tour of a border village near Panmunjom.

North Korean state media KCNA reported Wednesday (September 27) that authorities have concluded their questioning of King. The African-American soldier confessed he illegally entered the country because he harbored ill sentiments about alleged inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination against both the South and the US Army.

According to Sejong Institute analyst Cheong Seong-Chang and Kyungnam University North Korean studies professor Lim Eul-chul, Pyongyang's decision to release King was based on its conclusion that he was not someone of high value to be kept in the hermit kingdom and did not have any worth in terms of military intelligence.

Read Also: House Foreign Affairs Chief Michael McCaul Warns of North Korea's Potential Demands as US Urges Release of Soldier Travis King

King's Fate To Be Determined by US Army Court Martial

While King's whereabouts and condition have been confirmed, this would not be the end of his troubles as he would still face disciplinary charges against him prior to his crossing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). On top of that, he would also likely face a court martial as the US government has declared him absent without official leave (AWOL).

If convicted, he would be sentenced to military jail time, forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge, or a combination of any of the three.

Related Article: North Korea Responds to UN Over Travis King Request, US Pentagon Confirms

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This home is for the person looking for ample space, and who appreciates beautiful architectural details. Versatile and Inviting, the curved sidewalk and beautifully landscaped entry evoke the feeling of a cottage, but its interior is a wonderful mixture of grand open spaces and intimate, comfortable areas to relax and be home. There are lovely views out every window, green spaces with filtered sunlight. The flexible floorplan affords you two dining areas and 3 large living rooms. Of the 5 bedrooms, two can be easily used for an in-law suite, or quarters for an au pair, or would work beautifully for a home business (allowing you to shut the door and go "Home" at the end of your work day). Nice hardwoods, Floor to ceiling windows, Extensive Crown Moldings, Great Room w/Floor to Ceiling Stacked Stone Fireplace off the Open Kitchen Floor Plan with Island & Newer Appliances, Built-In Counter Depth Extra Wide KitchenAid Refrigerator, Beamed Ceiling, Corner Downstairs Office with Built in Bookcases, 2 Powder Baths, Large Master Suite Down,4 Bedrooms + Billard/Game Up, Oversized Rms, Good Storage, Two Fireplaces, Fresh Exterior Paint in 2022, Beautifully landscaped yard on a third of an acre, Truly a beautiful setting, Private Covered Patio with Koi Pond and Fountain, New Roof in 2020, Custom Draperies, 3 Car Garage, Sprinkler System, Zoned HVAC, Close to some of the areas finest Public and Private Schools, Beautiful Gated Neighborhood with Easy Access to the Creek Turnpike Bike and Walking Trails as well as RiverParks, Surrounded by beautifully appointed homes and landscapes and ponds.
Vietnamese plastic producer Rang Dong Holding JSC recently lost a lawsuit against Japans Sojitz Pla-Net Corporation regarding their shareholding agreement and is obligated to return nearly VND157 billion (US$6.4 million) to the Japanese corporation and pay for related fees and charges.

In 2017, Sojitz Pla-Net Corporation and Rang Dong Holding inked a share transfer contract in which the former acquired five million shares at Rang Dong Long An Plastic JSC, a member of Rang Dong Holding, at over VND174 billion ($7.2 million).

The Japanese firm made full payments for the batch.

After the share transfer, Sojitz accused Rang Dong Holding of failing to fulfill its obligations as stated in the contract.

As a result, the Japanese corporation terminated the contract and requested Rang Dong to return 90 percent of the paid share cost, equivalent to nearly VND157 billion.

Since Rang Dong refused to return the amount, Sojitz filed a lawsuit at the Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC).

In July last year, an SIAC arbitration council issued a ruling that Sojitz won the lawsuit and Rang Dong had to return VND157 billion to the Japanese firm.

The Vietnamese plastic producer was also required to pay Sojitz the interest of the amount, at 10 percent per year from April 1, 2020 to the payment date.

Rang Dong Holding was also told to pay fees and charges totaling S$371,563 ($271,100) to the arbitration council and SIAC.

However, Rang Dong did not pay the amount to Sojitz and lodged a complaint, saying that the ruling was against the principles of free and voluntary commitments and agreements.

Rang Dong also claimed that the proof provided by Sojitz was illicit and their contract included unreasonable articles.

It objected to the entire ruling.

The Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court said it did not recognize the SIACs ruling in January this year.

However, Sojitz later appealed against the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Courts decision, forcing the court to review documents and litigation results before it accepted the Japanese corporations appeal and agreed to the SIACs ruling.

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Vietnamese agricultural giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai JSC (HAGL), whose HAG shares are traded on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, plans to raise VND1.3 trillion (US$53.6 million) through the private sale of 130 million HAG shares to make debt payments.

The HAGL management board passed a non-public offering plan, with each share offered at VND10,000 ($0.41).

The company, whose board chairman is Doan Nguyen Duc, will offer these shares to less than 100 professional stock investors as per the prevailing regulations, after its share sale plan is approved by the State Securities Commission of Vietnam.

HAGL will tap VND323 billion ($13.3 million) from the proceeds of the share sale to pay the principal and interest on the bonds issued on June 18, 2012 and VND277 billion ($11.4 million) for restructuring its subsidiary Lo Pang Cattle JSCs debts at TPBank.

VND700 billion ($28.9 million) from the share sale will be added to HAGLs working capital and help Hung Thang Loi Gia Lai Company, another HAGL subsidiary, restructure its debts.

The given amount of money is expected to be disbursed in the 2023-24 period.

At a recent shareholder meeting, Duc received many inquiries about HAGLs VND7.6 trillion ($313.7 million) debt.

In response, he said this given amount of debt remains much lower than the companys current assets worth VND21.34 trillion ($880.6 million).

In the near future, HAGL will adopt multiple debt-paying measures, including selling non-income producing assets and issuing more shares.

Duc revealed that one institution, whose name was not mentioned, is in talks with HAGL to buy back VND580 billion ($23.9 million) worth of bank debts.

HAGL is trying to pay off the principal in the next three years, Duc said.

During the first half of 2023, HAGL booked over VND3.14 trillion ($129.6 million) in revenue, up 55 percent over the same period last year, and earned nearly VND405 billion ($16.7 million) in after-tax profits.

In the local stock market, HAG sold for VND7,800 per share on Wednesday afternoon, down some 15 percent compared to one month ago amid a market downtrend.

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Vietnamese-American chef Christine Ha met with her fans in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday at an event where she shared her real-life experiences and how she overcame her tumultuous journey.

The event, held by the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in collaboration with the Center for Disability and Development, aimed to direct positive energy from Ha's story to those who need it.

She was born in 1979 to Vietnamese parents in California.

In 2004, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and gradually started losing her vision.

Ha is the first blind contestant of the American competitive cooking reality television series MasterChef and became the winner of its third season in 2012.

She published her cookbook Recipes from My Home Kitchen with Vietnamese food recipes one year later.

Ha is currently running three restaurants in the U.S..

At the event on Monday at the American Center under the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in District 1, Ha not only encouraged people with her positive messages about life, but also touched the hearts of the listeners with her spirit of self-love and acceptance of hard circumstances, thereby turning it into motivation.

Christine Ha is seen at an event at the American Center under the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in District 1 on September 25, 2023. Photo: Dong Nguyen / Tuoi Tre News

When I started losing my vision, people always asked me if I was angry or how long I stayed sad, Ha recalled her own experience when an audience member asked her about the self-victimization feeling of people with disabilities.

I was definitely sad, it was not easy. I don't feel like I was ever angry or questioning why it was happening to me or that it was unfair.

It's really about how you play the hand that you're dealt. So I think for me, I chose not to victimize myself, I just figured vision loss was something that just happened to happen to me.

I could either give up on life, but I realized that the earth keeps rotating, the sun still rises, the sun still sets. So I could either give up or I could figure out, okay, how I can still change my life or the way I view life to make my life still feel purposeful in spite of the vision loss.

And that's the decision I chose to make.

Christine Ha poses for a photo with her audience at an event at the American Center under the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in District 1, September 25, 2023. Photo: Dong Nguyen / Tuoi Tre News

The achievements Ha has made, she said, result from a journey of small steps and her appreciating each of them.

Look back at your small achievements and what you've been able to accomplish day by day, hour by hour even, and you'll realize that you are achieving small goals slowly," Ha told her audience.

"It's okay because the small goals that you reach will lead to bigger things, and to more self-confidence.

And then the more confidence you have, I think the less fear you have to take greater risks in life.

"Always the biggest rewards in life come from the greatest risks.

When asked about self-limiting beliefs, Ha answered that limitations are not always bad.

I think limitations are something we try to always view as negative, she said.

But I think limitations are sometimes a way for the world to tell us it's not time or we're not ready or this is not the right path for you to take and I think that's okay.

You should listen to the limitations as well.

I was always taught to deliver more and more and be an overachiever, and a perfectionist, and that leads to a lot of pressure on myself.

But I think sometimes you have to limit yourself to preserve your mental health and your emotional health, and I think it's okay to say no to things.

I think in some ways it's okay to limit yourself if you don't feel emotionally or mentally or physically ready for a challenge, that's perfectly okay.

According to the restaurateur, it is really about 'a balance' and people should listen to their intuition to say what they really want to do, whether they are ready for something or not.

An audience member uses sign language to ask Christine Ha via a translator in the Q&A session of an event at the American Center under the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in District 1, September 25, 2023. Photo: Dong Nguyen / Tuoi Tre News

Ha also told her audience the story behind one of her most significant core life values.

It is turning better today than you were yesterday, she shared.

How I came up with that core value was actually during the time I was competing on MasterChef.

Every day I would go into the kitchen or the studio to film, and I wouldn't know what challenge we had that day for cooking.

And of course being visually impaired, I never knew how anyone else was also doing at their station or what ingredients my co-contestants decided to use.

So I realized after a while that I felt like I really wasn't competing with anyone else.

I was really just competing against myself or the version of myself the day before. So I felt like the only way I could succeed was I went into that kitchen every day and became a better cook or a better person than the day I was before.

That core value has stuck with me throughout the last 10 plus years.

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JAKARTA/HANOI -- Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) discussions on the early retirement of coal-fired power plants in Indonesia may have hit a snag as a local official said on Monday that western countries are not ready to finance such projects.

JETP, a financing scheme made up of equity investments, grants and concessionary loans from members of Group of Seven (G7), multilateral banks and private lenders, is aimed at helping developing nations accelerate their shift towards cleaner energy sources in the power sector and cut reliance on dirty fuel such as coal.

South Africa was the first country to reach a deal under the JETP, securing a $8.5 billion financing pledge in 2021. Indonesia secured $20 billion and Vietnam $15.5 billion in deals struck in late 2022.

Here's an update of JETP's progress in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Indonesia

Indonesia had planned to announce in August its investment plan for the funds pledged under JETP, but it has since delayed the announcement to later this year.

Indonesia's finance minister had said talks with international partners were made complicated by rising borrowing costs.

A member of the technical working group tasked to draft the plan said JETP Indonesia's Secretariat had to factor in additional captive coal capacity in its calculation. These include power plants built by industrial firms such as nickel smelters for their own consumption.

Under JETP, Indonesia is committed to cap and peak power sector's carbon emissions at 290 million metric tons by 2030. The 2030 peak would be at a level 25 percent lower than a previously forecasted peak in 2037.

The plan will eliminate 300 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions through 2030 and reduce well over 2 billion tons through 2060.

How does Indonesia plan to deploy JETP funds?

Little has been revealed on JETP's projects, but Indonesian senior government official has said he hoped JETP would help finance state utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara's (PLN) plans to upgrade its electricity grid to connect more renewable power to its network.

PLN is planning to add 32 gigawatts (GW) of baseload renewable power capacity and upgrade its grid to increase its variable load from renewables to 28 GW from 5 GW currently. The additional capacity and new grid would require up to $172 billion in investment until 2040, a PLN official said.

Indonesia also wants JETP to finance the early retirement of some of its coal power plants, however some banks are reluctant to finance these early retirement for fear of being seen as financing coal projects.

What are Indonesia's rules for green financing?

Indonesia is revising its green taxonomy to align with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which has included coal power plant retirement in its green taxonomy which defines environment-friendly investments.

Indonesia is also considering expanding the green label to loans for coal power plants used by industries that make products considered sustainable, such as batteries for electric vehicles (EV).

Vietnam

The JETP deal is expected to help Vietnam peak greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector by 2030, earlier than a previous 2035 projection, and cap the sector's CO2 emission at 170 million tons by 2030 and 101 million tons by 2050.

In July, Vietnam set up a secretariat led by the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh and comprised of officials from the ministries of finance, industry and trade, and planning and investment, to implement the JETP.

What are the targets?

The JETP plan, approved by Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha on August 31, will mobilize international finance and technologies to switch from coal to renewable energy and new energy sources such as green hydrogen and ammonia.

It also aimed to cap the total installed capacity of coal-fired power plants at 30.13 GW by 2030 from 25.3 GW at the end of 2022.

Vietnam aims to terminate coal-fired power projects that are facing financing difficulties, and shut down existing aging facilities.

The government also wants to encourage the development of electric vehicles, including EV-based public transport and install EV chargers across Vietnam.

What needs to be done?

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will coordinate with relevant stakeholders to complete a plan on mobilising resources for the implementation of the JETP by November.

The ministry is also tasked with building a mechanism and creating policies for carbon credit trading and to complete the National Marine Spatial Planning to facilitate offshore wind development.

Vietnam said it aimed to complete legal frameworks to facilitate renewable development and enhance efficiency of its power grid, including building a smart grid that can better integrate renewable sources.
Soaring demand for the raw materials needed for the transition towards renewable energy is creating dilemmas for investors weighing the economic, environmental and human rights risks of such projects.

With demand for fossil fuels expected to peak by the end of the decade, the focus is shifting towards lithium, cobalt, copper and other materials that are extracted from the earth through heavy labour and leave scars in the environment.

Demand for lithium -- an essential component of car batteries -- could increase ninefold between 2022 and 2050, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Lithium demand has already tripled in the past five years.

Lithium and other metals that the IEA calls "key to the clean energy transition" will be the topic of a summit hosted by the global energy watchdog in Paris on Thursday.

Demand for cobalt will have increased from 171,000 metric tons to 524,700 metric tons by 2050, according to the IEA, with nickel requirements set to soar 120 percent in the same timeframe.

The IEA said in a July report that investment in the mining sector is still insufficient to meet demand, and also flagged concerns that a high concentration of new projects were clustered in a small number of countries.

"This is a huge issue," said Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics. "We have massive shortfalls across commodities."

Swedish management company AuAg Funds has developed an investment portfolio dedicated to "essential metals", where the money placed in the fund is invested in shares of mining companies, smelting, refining and other parts of the supply chain.

"We give exposure through equity to all metals: copper, silver, aluminium, lithium, uranium, cobalt," Christopher Svensson, founder and co-portfolio manager at AuAg Funds, told AFP.

To comply with financial regulations, however, it is not possible for them to invest directly in a specific project, only in the companies.

Schenker warns a lot of investment is needed in projects that will take a long time to deliver.

"The amount of additional mining, refining, smelting, and everything that's going to be needed to get us where we need to be in terms of supply is a number very difficult to come to, because every time you're opening a new mine, it involves a lot of money," he said.

"These are large capital investments and they take many years to put in place before you really begin to see that return and the number of mines," added Schenker.

Svensson said it needs "15-20 years to start a new mine".

The mining sector also presents significant concerns around human rights and environmental pollution.

Cases where the lives of mine workers are endangered, natural habitat is destroyed or local populations are negatively impacted regularly steal headlines.

Others express concerns over carbon emissions from production and refining sites.

"If you feel passionately about sustainability, I imagine it's got to be pretty tough to hear that the future of clean energy requires a trade-off, as more mining and that's also going to have negative impacts," said Schenker.

Investors in environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) have to choose "do we sacrifice the S, or the G, or the E for the energy transition," said Margot Seeley, ESG analyst at ABN AMRO Investment Solutions.

AuAG claims to have a strict policy for selecting its portfolio companies, and Svensson said their structure allows institutional investors to get involved.

"We want companies that are extracting metals in the best environmental way," he added.
Read what is in the news in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- President of the National Assembly of Peoples Power of Cuba Esteban Lazo Hernandez on Tuesday offered flowers in remembrance of Cuban leader Fidel Castro at the Fidel Park in Quang Tri Provinces Dong Ha City, located in central Vietnam.

Society

-- Rescuers safely brought ashore ten fishermen from a sunken fishing boat on Con Dao Island off Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province in southern Vietnam on Tuesday afternoon.

-- Intense rainfall on Tuesday caused landslides, flooding, and numerous impassable roads in Quang Binh Province, north-central Vietnam.

-- A teenager drowned while going fishing with three friends in bad weather conditions in Quang Binh Province on Tuesday.

-- The Ministry of Home Affairs has voiced support for the proposal from the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs to set the 2024 Lunar New Year holiday as a seven-day period.

-- Vietnam documented over 5,600 cases of dengue fever between September 18 and 24. Hanoi alone reported 2,400 cases across 95 clusters.

Business

-- Vietnamese plastic producer Rang Dong Holding Joint Stock Company recently lost a lawsuit against Japans Sojitz Pla-Net Corporation regarding their shareholding agreement and is obligated to return nearly VND157 billion (US$6.4 million) to the Japanese corporation and pay for related fees and charges.

Lifestyle

-- The International Union for Conservation of Nature on Tuesday launched a three-day painting contest centered on the Lang Sen Wetland Reserve in Long An Province, southern Vietnam, with the participation of nearly 600 students.

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The national government has required the administration of Khanh Hoa Province in south-central Vietnam not to join hands with foreign partners, including overseas Vietnamese people, during the execution of a social housing project in Cam Nghia Ward, Cam Ranh City.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha made the requirement following a proposal by the Ministry of National Defense.

The Khanh Hoa authorities have green-lighted Cam Ranh Salt JSC to convert over 87.6 hectares of salt fields for a social and commercial housing project.

The fields are part of the 124 hectares of land that Cam Ranh Salt JSC has leased from the Khanh Hoa authorities. The land lease contract will expire in August 2026.

Of the total area, the housing area will measure 30.1 hectares with 20 percent being used for the development of commercial houses and villas for sale.

The remaining 24.5 hectares will accommodate social houses.

In addition, the company can use over 3.33 hectares to make room for trade and service activities.

The project is expected to accommodate some 20,250 people and requires an estimated investment of nearly VND3.8 trillion (US$156.6 million).

Deputy PM Ha concluded that the project was subject to the governments decree on the management of people and vehicles in maritime border areas of Vietnam and the prime ministers decision on ensuring the security and safety of the Cam Ranh military base.

In a document on comments on the project sent to the Khanh Hoa Peoples Committee in September last year, the Ministry of National Defense required the province to coordinate with military units in the province to strictly comply with the 2003 Law on National Borders and regulations on the management of people and vehicles within the countrys waters and the protection of Vietnams airspace.

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A middle school student in Dak Lak Province, located in Vietnams Central Highlands region, died after running 250 meters in a physical education (PE) class on Wednesday morning, a local official confirmed on the same day.

The female victim, named D.V.G.H., was studying at Tan Loi Middle School in the provincial city of Buon Ma Thuot City, according to Pham Tien Hung, vice-chairman of the citys administration.

She and her classmates were attending a short- and long-run session in the PE class on Wednesday morning.

After running about 250 meters at around 7:30 am, she staggered and fell onto the floor while walking toward the finish line.

Her PE teacher immediately gave her first aid before asking for help from the schools healthcare specialist, who called an ambulance and the schoolgirls mother.

H. was rushed to a local general hospital where she received emergency treatment for nearly two hours but she was unable to overcome it and was pronounced dead at around 10:00 am the same day.

She died due to underlying heart disease, Nguyen Thi Hong Thao, vice-principal at the school, said, citing a doctors diagnosis.

Before the incident happened, the schoolgirl went to school in good health and reported no underlying health issues, the vice-principal added.

Representatives from the Buon Ma Thuot education authority and the school visited the bereaved family to offer their condolences.

The family members declined an autopsy on the victim, the citys vice-chairman said.

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The life expectancy of men and women in Vietnam ranks fifth and second, respectively, in Southeast Asia but Vietnamese people have to live with diseases for a longer time than those in other regional countries, for 10 years on average, according to the World Health Organization and the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.

The World Health Organization reported that Vietnamese peoples average life expectancy increased to 73.7 years before inching down to 73.6 in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The extended time they spend suffering from diseases significantly affects their quality of life.

There are three key reasons for the prolonged illnesses of the Vietnamese people, namely nutrition, lifestyle, and environmental factors, according to experts.

As for nutrition, some 59 percent of the population do not eat enough vegetables and fruits.

Up to 78 percent of the Vietnamese always or usually add salt or salty spices to their dishes.

An average Vietnamese adult consumes 8.1 grams of salt per day, while the World Health Organization recommends people use less than five grams of salt daily, said doctor Nguyen Trong Hung from the National Institute of Nutrition.

The environment in many places in Vietnam is severely polluted, which results from peoples low awareness, which is another cause of diseases.

Vietnamese people mainly suffer from non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Vietnam is facing alarmingly increasing non-communicable diseases, which currently account for up to over two-thirds of the number of patients nationwide and are the leading cause of deaths, the Ministry of Health reported.

Two key reasons leading to such non-communicable diseases are smoking and obesity.

A national survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2021 showed that nearly 21 percent of the Vietnamese people aged 15 and older smoked cigarettes, and one-third of the population used to be exposed to second-hand smoking.

Doctor Do Hung Kien from K Hospital in Hanoi said smoking is the number-one risk factor for lung, bladder, throat, and oral cavity cancer.

Besides active smoking, passive smoking, such as second-hand smoke, also harms human health.

Smoking results in cardiovascular diseases, strokes, diabetes, osteoporosis, and a risk of tuberculosis.

Nearly two-thirds of Vietnamese men consume alcoholic drinks.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the population do not engage in sufficient physical activity and close to one-fifth of the Vietnamese are overweight or obese.

Obesity is the cause of over 200 diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, and fatty livers, among others, said Associate Professor Nguyen Anh Tuan, head of the department of digestive surgery at the Hanoi-based 108 Military Central Hospital.

Tuan noted that obesity has become an epidemic, so solutions to control the disease are needed.

Locals awareness of the prevention of non-communicable diseases remains low, according to the Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, some localities have yet to set aside at least 30 percent of the healthcare funding for preventive healthcare to improve medical service quality.

As a result, the ministry proposed screening, early diagnosis, and managing chronic diseases, together with a reasonable financial investment, to help Vietnam prevent, detect, and treat non-communicable diseases, reducing treatment costs and other negative consequences.

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Google released a homepage special doodle and some special surprises as the company marked its 25 years of service today.

Read Also: Google Pixel 8 Lineup Price Leak Reveals More Expensive Units

Google's Special Doodle and Surprise

Google is known for featuring doodles from various artists as a way of commemorating important events. This year, Google had a trip down to memory lane as the company features the evolution of Google's logos over the two decades.

"From all of us at Google, thanks for an amazing 25 years. Here's to many more years of curiosity," Google wrote on a post.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also reflected on the greatest achievements and challenges faced by the company over the years. The CEO also shared his thoughts on the company's move towards AI and how other opportunities will let the company do things in a much bigger scale.

"It's a huge privilege to reach this milestone, made possible by the people who use our products and challenge us to keep innovating, the hundreds of thousands of Googlers past and present who have given their talents to building those products, and our partners who believe in our mission as much as we do," Pichai wrote.

Google's 25 Years of History

Although Google was originally founded on September 4, the company picked September 27 as its birthday after setting the idea that they will have a tradition to commemorate its birthday. On some other years, the birthday celebration of Google still changed and fortunately, the company has already settled the date.

Google Search was launched 25 years ago with mission to help people on their everyday queries. From cutting a pineapple to navigating a business, all of these questions were answered by Google for 25 years.

Over the years, Google has proven to be an efficient tool for many people as the company now not only offers a search service but also various tools that are useful in the workplace. Despite celebrating a quarter of a century in service, Google remains positive that there are still things to look forward into such as AI.

Related Article: Google To Retire Gmail's HTML View in 2024
Two award events, the annual Casting Guild of Australia Awards Ceremony and the Asian Academy Creative Awards have announced upcoming plans.

The Casting Guild of Australia Awards aremoving to at Establishment Hotel on Friday 24 November. Nominees for the awards are set to be announced early-November.

Launched in 2015, the CGA Awards is the only casting awards ceremony in the southern hemisphere that celebrates and recognises casting across all mediums including film, television, advertising, theatre and online content.

The 2023 CGA Rising Stars will also be announced in early November.

The Asian Academy Creative Awards have slated its two awards ceremonies, red carpet events, power lunch, cocktails and afterparty for Thursday December 7th.

The events, including the Grand Awards and Gala Final, will return to the historic Chijmes Hall Singapore, a major location in the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians.

The After Party will have a 20s Dress Theme to honour achievement in film and television 100 years ago and also as a nod to many of the major period productions which are expected to feature across the categories.

The National Winners Conference will be staged as a full day event on Wednesday December 6th.

AACA will announce over 300 National Winners across its 36 categories in a special livestreamed programme 6oday at 12 Noon SGT via their Facebook, YouTube and the AACAs website.
Its a wild, unhinged ride from writer / director Kick Gurry when 4 soldiers are taken hostage on the fictional territory of Behati-Prinsloo. Thursday on Stan.

Love is in the Air

Survivor

Gogglebox

30 Years of the Grand Final Footy Show

The Front Bar
IBA SA



Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, September 27, 2023 - IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A., EURONEXT), the world leader in particle accelerator technology and the worlds leading provider of proton therapy solutions for the treatment of cancer, today announces it has signed the final contract with Medtechnica Ltd for the installation of two ProteusONE1compact proton therapy solutions at the Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) in Tel Aviv, Israel. This follows the signature of a binding term sheet previously announced in May 2023 .



Sourasky Medical Center has been selected by the Israeli Ministry of Health to host the first national proton therapy center in Israel, bringing this cutting-edge technology to hundreds of patients per year. The project is fully financed and IBA received the first payment in July 2023.

The integrated solution also includes a fully integrated quality assurance (QA) hardware and software package from IBA Dosimetry. Once approved by regulatory authorities, IBA will upgrade the two systems with DynamicARC2, IBAs unique Arc Proton Therapy solution. The contract includes long-term operation and maintenance services to be provided by IBA.

***ENDS***

About IBA

IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.) is the world leader in particle accelerator technology. The company is the leading supplier of equipment and services in the field of proton therapy, considered to be the most advanced form of radiation therapy available today. IBA is also a leading player in the fields of industrial sterilization, radiopharmaceuticals and dosimetry. The company, based in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, employs approximately 2,000 people worldwide. IBA is a certified B Corporation (B Corp) meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance.

IBA is listed on the pan-European stock exchange EURONEXT (IBA: Reuters IBAB.BR and Bloomberg IBAB.BB).

More information can be found at: www.iba-worldwide.com

Story continues

About Ichilov Hospital / Sourasky Medical Center

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) is the largest acute care facility in Israel, treating about 400,000 patients and hosting 1.8 million patient visits per year. A 1500-bed world-class governmental academic medical center, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center serves a population of one million people, including residents from the greater Tel Aviv area and visitors to the metropolis.

About Medtechnica Ltd

Founded in 1953, Medtechnica specializes in importing, marketing, sales and technical support of medical devices and equipment. A subsidiary of the Ilex Group (TASE:ILX), the company partners with international blue-chip companies healthcare professionals and purchasing departments to provide them with holistic solutions for the Israeli market. Our customers include HMOs, public hospitals, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, the Israeli Police Department, and private health institutions and clinics, as well as private customers.

CONTACTS

Soumya Chandramouli

Chief Financial Officer

+32 10 475 890

Investorrelations@iba-group.com

Olivier Lechien

Corporate Communication Director

+32 10 475 890

communication@iba-group.com

Consilium Strategic Communications

Amber Fennell, Matthew Neal, Lucy Featherstone

+44 (0) 20 3709 5700

IBA@consilium-comms.com







1 ProteusONE is the brand name of Proteus235

2 DynamicARC is a registered brand of the IBAs Proton Arc therapy solution currently under development phase





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(Images: Elska)

Elska, the queer magazine focusing on the lives of everyday queer men in global cities, is focusing on Haifa, Israel for its next instalment.

Described as Israels most diverse city by Elskas editor, readers can get to know locals with Jewish, Arab, and post-Soviet backgrounds through the intimate photography and personal stories included in the issue.

Avis S (Image: Elska)

Boris L (Image: Elska)

Amir S (Image: Elska)

The cover of the new issue (Image: Elska)

Dotan M (Image: Elska)

Or R (Image: Elska)

In a statement, Elska editor Liam Campbell explained why he chose Haifa to platform over the most famously gay-friendly Haifa.

The citys beautiful sun, sea and mountains setting, made the choice easy.  Liam Campbell, editor of Elska

We had countless requests from readers to make an issue in Israel, he explains. Though undoubtedly it was Tel Aviv that they were hoping for.



However, I felt strongly that if we were to take Elska to this country then we needed to ensure particularly that we would include men from Arab and Jewish backgrounds in particular. However when we looked at Tel Avivs demographic statistics, revealing the Jewish population at 92%, we knew it wouldnt be the right choice.



So we looked at Haifa, the countrys third-largest city, Campbell, also Elskas chief photographer, went on. Which boasts almost equal proportions of Jews, Arabs, and people from the former Soviet Union. This fact, plus the citys beautiful sun, sea and mountains setting, made the choice easy.

Added Campbell: Even with Haifas diversity, the vast majority of people who responded to our call for participants came from Jews, perhaps suggesting that their community was less conservative or more LGBTQ-friendly.

But rather than ignore the issue, I told our Jewish subjects about our goals and they were extremely helpful to spread the word to their non-Jewish friends, passionate that a view of Israel as a multi-ethnic, multi- religious state must be portrayed. Despite the various troubles that beset this land, the issue we made here turned out more hopeful and harmonious than we could have imagined.

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Amir (Image: Elska)

Urik (Image: Elska)

Yuval (Image: Elska)

Dotan M (Image: Elska)

Guy L (Image: Elska)

Or R (Image: Elska)

Boris L (Image: Elska)

Yaniv P (Image: Elska)

Shay G (Image: Elska)

Aviv S (Image: Elska)

The cover of Elska (Image: Elska)

For more information, visit elskamagazine.com.

The post 11 sexy and intimate images of queer men and allies in Haifa appeared first on Attitude.
ALDIs announcement of a new supplier contracts worth 22.5m with Lakeland Dairies, Clandeboye Estate Yogurt, Donnelly Fresh Produce and Velo Coffee Roasters are: Bryan Boggs, general manager, Clandeboye Estate Yogurts, Brendan Lappin, commercial manager, Lakeland consumer foods division, Colin Breslin, managing director of buying and services, ALDI Ireland, Charlie McConalogue TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Rob Horgan, Velo Coffee Roasters and Martin Gaffney, Donnelly Fresh Farms (Photo: u)

ALDI Ireland has agreed a major new deal with Bangor-based Clandeboye Estate Yogurts worth over 8.6 million.

The supermarket chain, which has no presence in Northern Ireland, announced four new contracts with suppliers from across Ireland worth 22.5m.

Clandeboye has been working with ALDI for more than 10 years, and this new two-year deal worth 8.6m will see the Bangor-based supplier continue to supply ALDI Ireland with granola and Greek style craft yoghurts, as well as supplying ALDI UK stores for the first time. The international expansion should allow the supplier to grow its sales volumes by more than 450% and expand its 20-strong workforce.

The biggest deal, worth 13.3m with Lakeland, will see the islands biggest dairy co-op continue to supply milk and dairy products, including Clonbawn fresh and light milk, to Aldi stores across the Republic.

Aldi has also signed a new contract with Cork-based Velo Coffee Roasters, which has a base in Northern Ireland, and Donnelly Fresh Produce.

Announcing the new contract with Clandeboye, Colin Breslin, managing director of buying and services, ALDI Ireland, said: At ALDI, we are committed to supporting our Irish producers, meaning our customers can enjoy the very best products the island of Ireland has to offer, and our suppliers can reach new markets with their produce. We have worked with Clandeboye Estate Yogurts Dairies for almost 10 years already, and this new deal we are announcing today is testament to the partnership we have built. The scale of this investment, worth more than 8.6 million, shows how much we value our relationship with Clandeboye. Were delighted to be able to help them expand their offering across our UK stores, as well as across our stores in the Republic of Ireland, and are delighted this should enable them to grow their workforce.

Bryan Boggs, general manager, Clandeboye Estate Yogurts, added: Clandeboyes partnership with ALDI over the years has been absolutely central to our growth, including the recent opening of a new state of the art creamery on our farm here in Co. Down. We are grateful for the loyalty ALDI show to local suppliers and hope our authentically strained products continue to add to their offering across Ireland and the UK. Key to us is maintaining really high quality as production grows and working with organisations like ALDI that understand this is so important.
Artist's impression of the redevelopment at Dundonald International Ice Bowl. Photo: Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council

During a meeting of the local authority yesterday evening (Tuesday), councillors agreed to invest 52 million in the project over the next three years.

The UK Governments Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has already pledged 12.2 million in financial support.

Speaking at the meeting, LCCC Chief Executive, David Burns described the investment as a landmark commitment and highlighted the strategic importance of Dundonald International Ice Bowl to Northern Ireland as a whole.

Marking the multi-million pound investment in Dundonald International Ice Bowl are: (l-r) Andrew Dickson, Goaltender for Belfast Giants; David Burns, Chief Executive of Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council; Mayor of Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council, Councillor Andrew Gowan and Jodie Dowling from Lisburn, competitive figure skater. Photo: McAuley Multimedia

LCCC Mayor, Councillor Andrew Gowan said: Dundonald International Ice Bowl is a major tourist attraction in Northern Ireland, bringing more than half a million people to Dundonald every year since opening in 1986.

"As the only Olympic-sized ice rink in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland, it is the training home for the Belfast Giants and provides unique facilities for elite ice skaters.

After 37 years, the building is no longer fit for purpose. This announcement means we will see an exciting new leisure facility open to the public in 2026. We expect visitor numbers to rise to over 700,000 in the first year. During construction, the existing ice bowl will remain open for business with full access to all activities.

Read more: CUBE Challenges and Laser Tag coming soon to Airtastic Lisburn

This flagship facility will help to grow our economy regionally, create jobs and enhance tourism within the LCCC area and greater Belfast. It will also contribute to local regeneration and support inclusion and equality of access.

"The councils ambitious capital programme also includes proposals for further development at Lough Moss and Laurelhill with works commenced on 3G pitches, Hilden Primary School, Wallace playpark and Royal Hillsborough public realm.

In less than three years time, local people and visitors from across Northern Ireland and beyond will be able to enjoy a state-of-the-art leisure facility with an Olympic-sized ice rink; a 24-lane bowling alley; 100-station gym; community rooms; restaurant and coffee shop.

We are committed to ensuring this is a positive experience for everyone and have carefully considered access arrangements. The new facility will include changing place facilities and a full range of accessible equipment supporting people to enjoy the gym, ice and bowling. We anticipate that works will commence later this year.
By Yi Whan-woo

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choo Kyung-ho visited SK hynix plant in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday  a move in line with the governments commitment to spur chip industry in the midst of its downturn.

Yongin is where the government plans to build the worlds largest semiconductor cluster, with goals of harboring five advanced chip fabrication facilities and around 150 materials, parts and fabless companies by 2042.

The minister said the government will spare no efforts to support the semiconductor industry.

In particular, he said the ministry will consider allotting budget to set up mini fab, a streamlined, small-scale production line for chips.

The government is committed to boost the chip industry through tax cuts and other financial support, he said, noting the industry is strategic and at the center of the Korean businesses.

He was referring to chips accounting for 18.9 percent of exports and 41.5 percent of the manufacturing investment in 2022.

Significance of the chip industry will increase down the road despite the latest downturn, with emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated digital transition, he said.

For SK hynix, the minister viewed its plans to expand production facilities for high bandwidth memory products will significantly contribute to securing a leading position in the next-generation semiconductor market.

He promised to consider allocating budget for mini fab in 2025. The country also allocated 2.8 trillion won ($2 billion) in next year's budget to back the chip industry.
A logo depicting an electric car is seen on the floor of a charging bay inside an ALDI supermarket car park in Manchester, Britain

A logo depicting an electric car is seen on the floor of a charging bay inside an ALDI supermarket car park in Manchester, Britain

By Riham Alkousaa

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany on Wednesday halted a subsidy scheme less than 24 hours after it was launched due to strong demand for the payments to install rooftop solar panels, storage and charging points, highlighting questions about the effectiveness of one-off subsidies in the switch to green energy.

With a budget of 300 million euros ($317 million) from the transport ministry for this year, the programme offered a subsidy of up to 10,200 euros for homeowners with electric cars to install a photovoltaic system and a charging station.

The exhaustion of the program's funds so quickly raised questions in the solar power market about the effectiveness of one-time market interventions in creating sustainable demand and boosting the switch to renewables.

"On the scale of 33,000 cars in a market where you have 3.3 million new cars per year ... it's not very effective," Philipp Schroeder, chief executive of solar company 1Komma5, told Reuters.

The programme, launched on Tuesday morning, was aimed at boosting the switch to electric cars and reducing the need for public charging stations.

Around 33,000 applications were submitted within 24 hours of launch, meaning the earmarked funds had been exhausted, a spokesperson for KfW bank, which is giving out the funds, said.

The transport ministry announced the program earlier this month and had allocated a total of some 500 million euros for the programme, with 200 million reserved for next year.

The programme was thus disrupting the already-booming market and creating uncertainty as most consumers who were considering installing a solar system with a wallbox may wait for the second part of the subsidy to kick in next year, Schroeder added.

"The message from our side is: Please, please don't make it worse. Just do not come up with any one-time subsidies ever again," he said.

BIGGER WALLETS

The application for the subsidy was open online on Tuesday morning around 0800 am CET and closed at around 2 am on Wednesday, the KfW spokesperson said, adding that the initial application only requires an investment plan, with documents needed within two years of the bank's approval.

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The eligibility conditions for the program do not include a maximum household income but do require ownership of a house and an electric vehicle.

"The big share of the population who are tenants are excluded, and those who own apartments are excluded too," Lion Hirth, energy markets professor at Hertie School, told Reuters.

The program was introduced by the ministry of transportation, whose sector has been consistently failing to meet its climate targets.

The transport ministry was not immediately available to comment.

Germany's solar power association BSW said it was not surprised the funds were exhausted so quickly, citing booming demand for residential photovoltaic systems and wallboxes to charge electric vehicles.

Demand for solar power systems more than doubled in the first half of 2022, compared with the year before, and one in six German homeowners are planning to install panels on their roofs, BSW said.

As the cost of electric car charging at home with home-generated solar power falls to less than third compared with purchasing from the grid, some 42% of people installing panels on their roofs would install a wallbox, it added.

A typical 70 square meter residential photovoltaic system could offer electricity for up to 20,000 kilometers of electric travel in addition to powering a four-person household.

($1 = 0.9463 euros)

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Friederike Heine and David Holmes)
FILE PHOTO: A migrant stands in the Mavrovouni camp on the island of Lesbos

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's conservative government is working on a plan to integrate hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants to fill worker shortages in agriculture, construction and tourism, ministry officials said on Wednesday.

Like other European countries, Greece faced an exodus of workers from the labour force, both natives and legal immigrants, during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, many of whom never returned.

The new proposal would look at allowing the 300,000 migrants estimated already to be living illegally in Greece to work in some sectors, Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis told state broadcaster ERT.

"We need to see what to do with the population that is already in our country, without creating further magnets for others to come illegally," Kairidis said.

He gave no further details on the plan, which is still in an early stage. Kairidis is expected to formally outline the initiative at a cabinet meeting next month, a migration ministry official told Reuters.

Greece has taken a tough stance on migration since Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was first elected in 2019, hiring more border guards and boosting patrols on its land and sea borders to stop new arrivals.

The country of 11 million has long attracted thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe seeking jobs and a better life, many of whom end up working illegally for years, mostly on farms or in construction or as domestic workers.

Agriculture Minister Lefteris Avgenakis said he was in talks with the migration ministry to tackle this problem. He said Greece needs about 180,000 land workers each year, traditionally filled using worker schemes with Albania, Bangladesh, India and Egypt, but bureacucratic delays were leading to shortages.

"It is a fact that we have several thousand illegal workers in our country, who, for many years, have known the particularities and difficulties of raising sheep and goats," Avgenakis said.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Additional reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Peter Graff)
Trish Hegarty, Inis Communications. Picture Conor McCabe Photography.

Its creator, ex-BBC and Irish Times journalist Trish Hegarty of Inis Communications, says it offers high quality interactive tools combined with one-to-one expert mentoring.

Trish said: In the PR industry, we are always adapting to a constantly changing digital world. But before now, we havent really adapted the way we deliver the service.

The Inis exPRtise PR Toolkit changes that and offers a timesaving and transparently priced PR service to businesses who lack this essential part of the marketing mix. We have basically distilled three decades of professional PR and media experience into this toolkit, which aims to revolutionise PR for Irish SMEs.

Market research for the exPRtise PR Toolkit showed that over 75% of SMEs rarely or never use external PR but almost 50% of them are interested in an online PR toolkit with transparent pricing. Respondents also cited the expertise of the provider as one of the most important features of the service.

If youre serious about growing your business, PR offers an authentic, organic, and highly effective way to reach target audiences, says Trish. The PR Toolkit offers five modules, which can be bought individually or in bundles. The modules provide practical, actionable tools and steps to achieve clear PR goals. It covers everything from strategic PR planning to helping clients improve their website or create relevant online content. Most important, it is supported by one-to-one advice tailored to each individual business.

Trish says the toolkit evolved from tools and templates she had developed over the years. During Covid, I mentored over 30 businesses in one year who rapidly needed to improve their online presence. So, I had to adapt all my tools to provide a streamlined but quality service in a limited time frame.

Post-Covid, I realised we had a suite of tools we could develop into a new online service, says Trish. Ultimately, the exPRtise Toolkit has a universal appeal across industry sectors.

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Inis Communications received LEADER and Donegal Local Enterprise Office support to develop the toolkit. This included funding for technical work to integrate the tools into the Inis Communications website to create an interactive online service.

Andrew Ward, Joint CEO of the Inishowen Development Partnership (IDP) said: LEADER in Inishowen are excited about this project because it proves that you can lead innovation from small rural communities in Donegal.

Gillian McColgan, IDP Development Officer said: It has been a pleasure to work with Trish on the Inis exPRtise interactive online PR Toolkit. The PR Toolkit is the first of its kind in Ireland or elsewhere. So, it has global export and franchising potential too.

Learn more about the exPRtise PR Toolkit at https://iniscommunications.com/pr-toolkit/
Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard, and Chris Wolstenholme of Muse perform onstage during the 2023 iHeartRadio ALTer EGO at The Kia Forum on January 14, 2023 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images)

Muse will be bringing the Will of the People World Tour to London for back-to-back shows.

The legendary rock band will be playing a final flourish of stadium shows in support of their ninth studio album of the same name. It will include stops in Dublin, Manchester and two nights in London.

The tour originally kicked-off in 2022 and has seen Muse play 90 shows since April last year - spread across eight different legs. Muse have sold over one million tickets for the Will of the People World Tour, according to reports.

Having played shows in Europe and even Malaysia during the summer, Muse will return to the UK and Ireland before finishing the tour on 4 November in Toluca, Mexico.

If you are heading to shows at The O2 in London here's what you need to know:

What time do doors open for Muse in London?

The doors will open at 6pm at the O2 in London on Sunday, 1 October and Monday, 2 October. The concert will start at 7.30pm, the venue has announced.

How long is a Muse concert?

A support act - Nova Twins - will perform before Muse take to the stage, but fans can expect plenty of bang for their buck. The band have performed sets lasting around 2 hours each for recent shows on the Will of the People World Tour.

For example at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan, Italy on 22 July the band were on stage from 9.25pm until 11.25pm - a two hour set.

Muse played their first show at The O2 on Sunday, 1 October and were on stage from 8.35pm to 10.30pm - a set lasting 1 hour 55 minutes. The set length has been similar for all of the recent UK and Ireland tour dates.

Can you get tickets?

Ticketmaster is warning that there is "low" availability for tickets for the show at 3Arena in Dublin. There are also ticket warnings in place for gigs in Manchester and Dublin in the coming days.

For the show in Dublin on Wednesday night, Ticketmaster Ireland has resale tickets available from 69 Euros each.

What could the setlist be?

Muse have already played the vast majority of shows on the Will of the People World Tour - which began back in April 2022 - and that gives fans plenty of examples for what to expect from the setlist.

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But here's the tracks performed at The O2 on Sunday, 1 October - according to Setlist.fm:

Who is the support act for Muse concert in London?

The opening act for the Will of the People World Tour shows in September and October will be the Nova Twins. They are a rock duo formed in 2014 and are made up of vocalist/guitarist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South.

Nova Twins debut album Who are the Girls? was released in February 2020 and then their most recent album Supernova dropped in June 2022.
Technology consortium Smart Nano NI, formed to further the development of smart manufacturing in Northern Ireland, has launched the largest 5G testbed in the country. The new ground-breaking Londonderry facility is the first significant step in a five-year plan to accelerate smart manufacturing in the province (Photo: Shutterstock)

Technology consortium Smart Nano NI, formed to further the development of smart manufacturing in Northern Ireland, has launched the largest 5G testbed in the country.

The new ground-breaking Londonderry facility is the first significant step in a five-year plan to accelerate smart manufacturing in the province.

Led by consortium partner Digital Catapult, the UK authority on advanced digital technology, the 5G testbed is the organisation's latest innovation activity to bolster local economic growth and investment opportunity.

The investment by the Smart Nano NI consortium will create a valuable, open access facility and provide expert technical support to start-ups and businesses through the Digital Catapult Smart Nano Accelerator Programme.

The testbed facilities will be delivered by the global IT and business consulting services firm CGI, in partnership with Digital Catapult Northern Ireland. The cutting-edge 5G and 4G private network is a first-of-its-kind smart manufacturing and education setting in Northern Ireland, providing access to the latest network technologies including 5G and NarrowBand-Internet of Things (NB-IoT), and will be instrumental in upskilling the next generation of innovators and experts across the country.

William Revels, managing director at Digital Catapult Northern Ireland, said: This is an exciting milestone for the project as we bring access to the latest 5G technology to both industry and academia and enable businesses to take advantage of the substantial market opportunities offered by 5G. Derry/Londonderry will be the ninth 5G testbed in Digital Catapults nationwide network and weve seen the opportunities that can be opened up from providing the equipment and in turn de-risking innovation.

The development of these facilities follows CGIs opening of a new delivery centre in Northern Ireland as part of its commitment to developing skills and talent in the region.

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Volkan Pakoglu, director consulting services at CGI, added: The integration of this new 5G platform will demonstrate the value of creating mobile private networks within business by taking full advantage of the power, performance, and connectivity of 5G. We are committed to working together with Smart Nano NI and its partners to support and facilitate innovation, sustainable solutions and use technology for good.

The smart education site at the Industry 4.0 Centre in the Northwest Regional Colleges Springtown Campus, will give both students and industry access to test and explore new use cases of the 5G private network, while the manufacturing site, hosted at Seagates manufacturing facility, will give businesses the opportunity to test the technology in a live manufacturing setting.

Dr Fergal Tuffy, business support centre manager at North West Regional College, explained: We are delighted to have the 5G testbed installed at our Springtown Campus, adding to our automation and robotics equipment at the Industry 4.0 Centre. This exciting collaboration will allow us to support students and businesses to gain skills and knowledge to take advantage of the opportunities that these cutting-edge technologies present.

As part of the announcement, Digital Catapult have launched an open call for the latest Smart Nano Accelerator Programme, giving businesses access to the 5G testbed for the first time. The Manufacturing Innovation Challenge is inviting innovative Northern Ireland start-ups and SMEs to join the programme and submit ideas for new technology solutions to solve manufacturing challenges.

Following the completion of the programme, the participating Northern Ireland-based companies will have the opportunity to compete for a 75,000 grant from Techstart Ventures to continue to develop their business idea. Funded through Techstart's Proof of Concept Grant Fund, this pre-commercial grant awarding fund supports entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland with grants to explore the viability and commercial potential of an innovative concept.

Kathleen Garrett from Techstart Ventures, stated: We are delighted to have partnered with Digital Catapult, Seagate and the Smart Nano NI consortium on this Manufacturing Innovation Challenge. We look forward to seeing the innovations develop through the accelerator programme and have no doubt that some exciting businesses will be formed during this process with the support & guidance of the accelerator and the 75k grant funding from ourselves.

Jason Wiggins, programme manager for Smart Nano NI, added: The combined investment in infrastructure, the Smart Nano Accelerator programme and the Techstart competition creates a supportive environment for companies to develop and test new technologies. This collaboration will deliver new business resources to Northern Ireland and will drive growth and innovation across many sectors.

The Manufacturing Innovation Challenge will take place from January to March 2024, with applications closing on November 15 2023. Businesses who are interested in participating can apply online here.
Armenian authorities said on Wednesday they have received 42,500 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, following Azerbaijan's lightning offensive last week.

That's more than a third of the separatist Caucasus region's total population.

Baku has promised to guarantee the safety of residents, but Armenia's prime minister warned of "ethnic cleansing".

The mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but was largely controlled by Armenian separatists.

A ceasefire agreement was signed last Wednesday that handed the territory of around 120,000 people to Baku, following its 24-hour military offensive.

On Sunday, Azerbaijan reopened the only road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and pledged to allow rebel fighters who surrender their weapons to flee.

The influx of refugees has caused huge traffic jams, with an endless stream of overcrowded vehicles carrying families and their belongings passing through the Lachine corridor.

Many refugees say it took 24 hours to travel the 80 kilometres between Nagorno-Karabakh's de facto capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenians and Khankendi by Azeris, and the Armenian border.

This is often a journey without food and sometimes water, as the separatist region lacks crucial essentials due to Baku's months-long blockade.

They expelled us, says one ethnic Armenian who arrived at the frontier on foot.

FILE Refugees wait in their car to cross the border, leaving Karabakh for Armenia, at Lachin checkpoint, on September 26, 2023. - EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP or licensors

I left my house to stay alive, adds another woman in a green jacket, who insists on speaking: Let the world know that we are homeless dogs now!

The Azeris have said they want to treat ethnic Armenians as "equal citizens".

On Monday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev renewed his promise that the rights of ethnic Armenians in the enclave would be "guaranteed".

That same day a massive blast at a fuel depot killed at least 68 people attempting to leave. Nearly 300 more were injured and 105 are missing.

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Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics, fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s and 2020. The fighting claimed around 36,500 lives.

The death toll from last week's rapid invasion is 200 dead, according to the Armenian side. Dozens of Azerbaijani soldiers were killed as their army poured across the border.

The European Union brought together senior French, German, Azerbaijani and Armenian officials in Brussels on Tuesday.

Talks involved "intense exchanges" over the relevance of a possible future meeting at the start of October.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged Baku to protect civilians in the region and allow in humanitarian aid.

Blinken "spoke again with President Aliyev today and emphasised the urgency of ending hostilities, ensuring unconditional protection and freedom of movement for civilians," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

France called for "international diplomatic action" amid "Russia's abandonment of Armenia."

Paris estimated that the massive exodus of Armenians is taking place under the complicit eye of Russia, which deployed a peacekeeping force in this region in 2020.
WNC has investments in controversial countries such as Qatar and Chine. Cllr Malcolm Longley (right)

New data has revealed West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has a whopping 108million invested in controversial countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, China and the United Arab Emirates.

Chronicle and Echo recently submitted a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to WNC asking to see all of its financial investments.

The latest financial data reveals WNC continues to invest in ethically questionable countries such as Qatar, which has the death penalty, is against same-sex relationships and much more, according to Amnesty International.

Fixed Deposits

Here's the data, correct as of of August 25, 2023, on the outstanding investments in fixed deposits:

Bank of Montreal: Starting on November 29, 2022, and maturing on August 29, 2023, WNC has invested 5,000,000.

Landesbanken Hessen-Thuringen Girozentrale (Helaba): An investment of 5,000,000 was made on December 8, 2022, with maturity set for October 9, 2023.

Qatar National Bank: A strong commitment with two deposits, each worth 5,000,000, with one maturing on October 6, 2023, and the other on November 3, 2023.

First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC: An investment of 5,000,000, started on April 12, 2023, and maturing on October 12, 2023.

Lloyds Bank Corporate Market (NRFB) PLC: Two deposits totalling 3,000,000, both maturing on October 12, 2023.

National Bank of Kuwait (International) plc: A 2,000,000 investment with maturity set for October 12, 2023.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp: Two investments, each worth 5,000,000, with one maturing on February 2, 2024, and the other on February 9, 2024.

National Bank of Canada: A significant 5,000,000 deposit with maturity on December 8, 2023.

In addition to fixed deposits, WNC also has investments in Variable Net Asset Value (VNAV) funds. Here they are:

Royal London Enhanced Cash Plus Fund Y Inc: A substantial investment of 1,468,815 made on May 12, 2017.

The UK Municipal Bond Agency: A commitment of 100,000 made on September 25, 2014.

Pathfinder Legal Services (formerly LGSS Law): An investment worth 237,500 started on April 15, 2020.

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CCLA Local Authorities Property Fund: A significant investment of 6,945,068 made on November 29, 2018.

In total, VNAV funds contribute 8,751,383 to WNCs financial market.

Council response

Cllr Malcolm Longley, WNCs cabinet member for finance, said: "All of our investments are in line with our investments policy which was reviewed and agreed for the financial year 2023-24 in February 2023.

Its important to emphasize that the council's treasury management activities have undergone scrutiny and review, with recommendations made by the Treasury Management Strategy Task and Finish Group. The recommendations concluded that WNC is conducting treasury management in accordance with the CIPFA Treasury Management Code of Conduct and appropriate risk management practices.

No concerns were raised by opposition councillors when the full council meeting approved the investment policy earlier this year.

Opposition reaction

Opposition councillor Keith Holland-Delamere, the finance spokesperson for the WNC Labour Group, said: The WNC Labour Group has concerns about aspects of our investment policy and how ethical the investments are. We urge that the administration brings forward an ethical investment policy that ensures our investments do not go into questionable investments such as Qatar.

Independent councillor Julie Davenport (Delapre and Rushmere ward) added: They havent said how much better the investments are compared to more ethical investments. What was the difference in income for WNC by deciding to invest in countries like Qatar?

Read more: Data reveals West Northants Council has U-turned and reinvested 15million of taxpayer money into human rights abusing Qatar

WNC has been asked for further comment.
A shocking incident in Kosovo this weekend saw 30 armed men take refuge in a monastery after the killing of a police officer.

During the ensuing siege, multiple assailants - apparently "masked and equipped with heavy weapons" - were killed in "several battles" with Kosovo police, according to the authorities.

Kosovo's president, Vjosa Osmani, claimed the violence could be traced back to neighbouring Serbia, which refuses to recognise its independence.

"These attacks prove, if it was still necessary, the destabilising power of criminal gangs, organised by Serbia, who have been destabilising Kosovo and the region for a long time, she said.

Serbia, meanwhile, has distanced itself from the attack, but it has been defended by none other than Russia, which blamed the recent violence and heated rhetoric in the region squarely on Kosovo.

"There is no doubt the bloodshed [on Sunday] is a direct and immediate consequence of the policy of inciting conflict of the so-called Prime Minister Albin Kurti", said the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It warned any attempt to escalate the situation would be likely to lead "the entire Balkan region over a dangerous precipice".

Kosovo police officers display weapons seized after 30 heavily armed Serbs barricaded themselves in an Orthodox monastery in northern Kosovo. - Visar Kryeziu/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved.

According to Moscow, the Kosovo police "have long since discredited themselves through systematic punitive acts against the Serbian community".

They have tried to "push Serbs out of Kosovo" via the deployment of "heavily armed special forces" in "non-Albanian areas", it continued.

"There is a direct threat of a return to the ethnic cleansing practised by Kosovo Albanian extremists."

Whatever the truth or otherwise of these statements, they are indicative that despite its relatively small size and its non-membership of major international institutions, Moscow still views Serbia as an important European ally.

Power plays

One of Russia's key strategic priorities outside Ukraine is to disrupt any further political and military consolidation in Europe, whether under the auspices of NATO or the EU.

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The potential "Europeanisation" of Ukraine is one of several dubious justifications the Kremlin has cited for its invasion.

That's despite the fact the war is widely seen as having helped spur the EU into formally granting Ukraine candidate status in June last year  along with Moldova, whose breakaway Transnistria region is claimed by Russia.

Serbia and the wider non-EU Balkans, however, present at least one opportunity to shore up a few European partners for Russia. And the more inflamed Balkan tensions are, the more distracted and stretched Ukraine's European allies will become.

Russia has fiercely backed the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, who is agitating for the sub-state entity Republika Srpska to unilaterally separate itself from Bosnia and Herzegovina and unite with Serbia proper.

Were the proposal to be put into practice, it would be in direct contravention of the US-brokered 1995 agreement that ended the genocidal 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Dodik, who is facing potential legal consequences for his secessionist activities, has advocated for the establishment of a standalone army in the interests of ethnic Serbs living outside Serbia.

He has also called for Bosnia to join the BRICS political bloc instead of the EU.

This is seen by observers as an extremely unlikely prospect, not least since Serbia has been an EU membership candidate since 2012. Yet the path toward accession has stalled.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May 2023. - Alexey Filippov/Sputnik

In its most recent annual summary, the European Council insisted Belgrade's progress on fundamental rights and the status of Kosovo remain crucial  and pointed specifically to concerns thrown up by Serbia's relationship with Russia.

"In the context of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, the Council expects Serbia to show unequivocal commitment to the EU, to stand up for our common principles and values and to communicate objectively on the EU and actively engage in preventing disinformation and foreign information manipulation," the statement read.

"The Council also deeply regrets Serbia's backsliding in alignment with the EU common foreign and security policy, notably the non-alignment with EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus."

Across non-EU states in eastern Europe, scorning the idea of EU membership is a consistent point of pride for pro-Russian and right-wing nationalist politicians.

As Serbian and Bosnian Serb hardliners rail against Brussels's requirements for joining the club, they too are increasingly pointing to Russia's support and protection as an alternative.

Members of the Kosovan police's Special Intervention Unit escort a arrested Serb gunmen out of court after a shootout in the capital, Pristina. - Visar Kryeziu/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved.

The implications of this Moscow-Belgrade alignment have hardly escaped the West, and in recent months, the issue has been forced onto the discussion table time and again.

Things hit a new low when the US sanctioned Aleksandar Vulin, currently head of Serbia's intelligence agency, for facilitating Russia's "malign activities" in the region.

He has used his public positions to support Russia, facilitating Russias malign activities that degrade the security and stability of the Western Balkans and providing Russia a platform to further its influence in the region, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

Not since the wars of the 1990s has a Serbian official been sanctioned while in office  and not since then has the balance of power and security in the western Balkans felt so fragile.
Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said Wednesday that he expects Korea's exports to rebound as early as October, voicing hope of recovery in the nation's main growth sector.

"Exports will also turn to 'plus' in October or as late as November," Choo told reporters as he visited a production line of SK hynix in southern Seoul.

"Although uncertainties have been rising recently due to the hike in global crude prices and expanding volatility in the financial market, the overall recovery trend in the economy is being maintained," Choo said.

Korea's exports fell for the 11th consecutive month in August due mainly to weak demand for semiconductors and petroleum products.

Touching on the recent hike in the U.S. dollar, Choo said the Korean won is showing no abnormal movements compared to other currencies, but the government will take necessary measures should the market instability escalate.

Earlier in the day, Choo said the government will spare no effort to support the country's chip industry through tax cuts and other financial support amid the sector's downturn.

"The chip sector is the strategic and core industry for the Korean economy, responsible for 18.9 percent of exports and 41.5 percent of the manufacturing investment in 2022," Choo said. (Yonhap)
A Ryanair plane travelling from Edinburgh to Spain had to divert

A RYANAIR flight travelling from Edinburgh to Spain had to be diverted due to an emergency onboard.

The FR5663 flight departed the capital for Malaga shortly before 5pm on Tuesday but was forced to divert to Manchester Airport after take-off following reports a passenger had taken ill.

After broadcasting an emergency squawk signal, the plane touched down in Manchester around 5.55pm.

READ MORE: 'World's oldest whisky' found hidden in Blair Castle in Perthshire

Emergency crews met the plane on the runway and the passenger was taken to a nearby hospital.

Their condition is currently unknown.

A spokesperson for Ryanair told the Daily Record: This flight from Edinburgh to Malaga (September 26) diverted to Manchester after a passenger became ill onboard.

The crew called ahead for medical assistance to meet the aircraft upon landing at Manchester Airport.

The passenger was disembarked and transported to a nearby hospital for further treatment. This flight continued to Malaga following an approximately one hour delay and is due to land at around 22.45 local time.
President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. Biden was in New York to address the 78th United Nations General Assembly. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Biden administration is admitting Israel into a select group of countries whose citizens are allowed to travel to the United States without getting a visa in advance.

The decision announced Wednesday comes despite Washingtons concerns about the Israeli governments treatment of Palestinian Americans and marks a major accomplishment for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sparred frequently with the Biden administration.

Under the waiver program, as of Nov. 30, Israelis will be able to travel to the U.S. for business or leisure purposes for up to 90 days without a visa simply by registering with the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. But even if they are authorized to travel under that system, U.S. officials at the airport can still bar them from entering the country.

Israel had been facing a Saturday deadline, the end of the U.S. government's budget year, to gain admission to the program without having to requalify for eligibility next year.

The Department of Homeland Security administers the program, which currently allows citizens of 40 mostly European and Asian countries to travel to the U.S. for three months without visas.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the agreement, after more than a decade of work, will enhance our two nations collaboration on counterterrorism, law enforcement and our other common priorities and make the allies more secure.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a joint statement with Mayorkas, cited enhanced "freedom of movement for U.S. citizens, including those living in the Palestinian Territories or traveling to and from them.

Israels admission has been a priority for successive Israeli leaders. It comes as Netanyahu is facing months of mass protests against his proposed remake of Israels judicial system that critics say will make the country less democratic.

Today we mark an important and joyful moment for all citizens of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. This will save you, citizens of Israel a lot of time, a lot of trouble and a lot of money.

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He described the decision as further evidence of the strong ties between Israel and the Untied States and thanked President Joe Biden and other officials who helped make it possible.

Palestinian diplomats complained that the U.S. had allowed Israel into the program without the country fulfilling its commitments of equal treatment for Palestinian Americans. Palestinian advocacy groups have reported that even during the test phase of the visa waiver agreement, Palestinian Americans have faced discrimination and harassment by Israeli authorities at airports and checkpoints.

At a time when the U.S. administration has repeatedly said that its goal is for Israel to provide the same opportunities of freedom, equality, prosperity and security for both Palestinians and Israelis, we expect the Biden administration to implement what it believes, works on and promises, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Countries that want to take part in the visa program have to meet three critical benchmarks.

Israel met two of those benchmarks over the past two years: a low percentage of Israelis who applied for visas and were rejected and a low percentage of Israelis who have overstayed their visas. Israel had struggled to meet the third, for reciprocity that essentially means all U.S. citizens, including Palestinian Americans, must be treated equally when traveling to or through Israel.

Aside from the reciprocity requirement, which is disputed by some Palestinian American groups, a rejection of Israel would mean the country would have again had to meet U.S. standards for low rates of visa application refusals and visa overstays.

Israel had not met those criteria for years, but the numbers for both came down significantly in part due to coronavirus travel restrictions and an educational campaign in Israel sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and the Israeli government to discourage Israelis with questionable eligibility for visas from applying in the first place. Some officials said it was not clear whether Israel would have been able to meet those statistical standards in the next U.S. budget year.

Claiming national security reasons, Israel has long had separate entry requirements and screening processes for Palestinian Americans. Many complained that the procedures were onerous and discriminatory. Americans with Palestinian residency documents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were largely barred from using Israels international airport. Instead, like other Palestinians, they were forced to travel through either Jordan or Egypt to reach their destinations.

U.S. officials have stressed that Israel's status in the program will be constantly monitored and if it is seen to fall out of compliance, the special visa waiver status can be revoked.

But even before the announcement was official, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it had filed a federal lawsuit aiming to stop Israel from being allowed into the program. The group claims that despite American assertions, Palestinian Americans were still facing discrimination when traveling to Israel.

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
Commander was gifted to the US president by his brother (AP)

Joe Bidens German Shepherd dog has bitten another US Secret Service worker at the White House.

The uniformed division officer was bitten by the US Presidents dog around 8pm on Monday and was treated onsite by healthworkers, the Secret Service confirmed, adding that the officer is doing just fine.

The German Shepherd purebred, named Commander, has bitten or otherwise attacked Secret Service personnel at least 10 other times between October 2022 and January.

One injured officer had to be treated in hospital, according to records from the Department of Homeland Security.

Records show Commander also broke the skin of a different Secret Service members hand and arm weeks later after the president unleashed him outside the White House after First Familys movie night.

The New York Post also reported the dog bit the back of a security technician at Bidens Wilmington, Delaware home.

Elizabeth Alexander, communications director for first lady Jill Biden, said the White House can be a stressful environment for family pets, and the first family continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds.

She said the Bidens are incredibly grateful to the Secret Service and executive residence staff for all they do to keep them, their family, and the country safe.

The beloved pooch was in isolation with the US President when he tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this year.

He shared a picture of the pair on the residence balcony on Twitter with the post Took some calls this morning with mans best co-worker.

(Potus)

Commander is the second dog of Mr Bidens to behave aggressively, including biting Secret Service personnel and White House staff.

They eventually sent the first dog, a German Shepherd named Major, to live with friends in Delaware after those incidents.

According to CNN, Major was well-known for his agitated behaviour which includes charging barking and jumping at members of staff in the White House.

The Secret Service provides security protection for the president and his family, and scores of its officers are posted around the executive mansion and its sprawling grounds.

Mr Biden was gifted the dog in December 2021 from his brother James. The family also has a cat, Willow.
Jonathan Hinkles, Chief Executive of Loganair

There are now 119 destinations across 56 countries from City of Derry Airport via London Heathrow. The business leaders discussed what this connectivity will yield for the local economy and tourism sectors.

Keynote speaker, Jonathan Hinkles, Chief Executive of Loganair, said: Its a pleasure to be here celebrating the connectivity that our partnerships offer our customers on the north coast of Ireland. As the UKs largest regional airline, enhancing connectivity is one of our top priorities and its so important for the communities that we serve. Not only does the Heathrow route offer customers faster access to the heart of London and our vast range of partnerships with worldwide airlines at Heathrow, but it also creates new tourism opportunities to City of Derry and the wider region.

To help celebrate the event, Loganair launched a 59.99 sale on routes between City of Derry and London Heathrow. The sale runs 26th September  1st October for travel from 1st November onwards, subject to availability. No discount code is needed to access the rate.

Loganair Global Connections from City of Derry Launched with Northwest Business Leaders

Steve Frazer, Managing Director at City of Derry Airport, said: It was fantastic to bring the local business community together today to discuss the benefits the take-off of the new City of Derry  London Heathrow service will bring to us all. This is a significant milestone not only for the Airport, but the entire Northwest region. Gaining international hub access is a substantial step in the economic and strategic growth of the region and our vision for the future of the Airport.

In terms of outbound travel, London Heathrow truly opens a Gateway to the World, as corporate travellers can now book through ticket connections to and from City of Derry Airport via London Heathrow to 119 destinations across 56 countries. Destinations across Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia are available with Loganairs international airline partners, all from the convenience of your local Airport.

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We look forward to welcoming the world to the Northwest and connecting both business and leisure travellers across the globe.

Selina Horshi, President of Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, added: City of Derry Airport is such an important component in our economic engine in the North West and provides a crucial link for businesses operating here, to the rest of the world. One of the most important assessments a company will make when it is establishing its presence in any region, is that of connectivity. Similarly, any business that needs to grow must be able to demonstrate that is well connected to both domestic and global markets.

Loganair Global Connections from City of Derry Launched with Northwest Business Leaders

The new City of Derry - London Heathrow service immediately enhances our attractiveness as a region and means that businesses already operating here have much better access to their customers and new markets. It also means that more visitors can come direct to the North West and enjoy all of the wonderful things we have in terms of our tourism and hospitality offering. Our members are not short on energy and ambition and the international hub access we now enjoy via City of Derry Airport will greatly help our members fulfil those ambitions and deliver economic growth to our region.

For more information on Loganairs global connectivity from City of Derry via London Heathrow, as well as the new sale launched on the direct City of Derry - London Heathrow service, please visit www.loganair.co.uk.
Three further arrests made in connection to 157 million euro cocaine haul

Police in Ireland have made three further arrests in connection with a 157 million euro haul of cocaine seized when an elite army unit stormed a cargo ship off the Irish coast.

Six men have now been detained for questioning about the largest drugs haul in the history of the Irish state.

A total of 2,253kg of cocaine was found on the Panamanian-registered vessel in a major joint agency operation off the south-east coast of Ireland on Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, a further three men were arrested for alleged organised crime offences.

They are detained at Garda stations in the Southern Region.

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter on to the MV Matthew as it tried to sail out of Irish waters and evade capture.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Irish Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction after it failed to obey orders.

The vessel had been under surveillance since Friday when a multi-agency operation responded to intelligence of a major international drug smuggling operation.

Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior member of the Irish police described the operation as hugely significant.

The MV Matthew is now moored at Marino Point in Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly said: I think its really important to note, this is the largest drug seizure in the history of the state.

This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

Given the scale of the haul, Irish authorities do not believe the cocaine was solely destined for Ireland.

They suspect the drugs were being transported from South America for distribution across Europe.

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Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly said it was a hugely significant operation (Brian Lawless/PA)

The MV Matthew was escorted to Cork harbour on Tuesday.

A fishing trawler that grounded off the coast of Co Wicklow late on Sunday was also being monitored as part of the operation, amid suspicions it was en route to rendezvous with the cargo ship.

The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.

It will be treated as a crime scene when it is accessed, police said.

Three people, aged 60, 50 and 31, previously arrested during the course of the operation, remain in custody in police stations in Co Wexford on Wednesday.

It has emerged that one of those arrested was medically evacuated off the MV Matthew before the military operation to seize it.

The operation involved the Defence Forces, customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit.

Commander Tony Geraghty said there was an escalated use of force (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Kelly said the cocaine on the ship originated in South America.

This product was supplied by a South American cartel, one of the murderous cartels that are behind cocaine shipments into Europe, he said.

A shipment like this into Europe is partly destined for the Irish market.

Obviously, with the size and intelligence we have, we know the organised crime group behind this comprises of a number of different elements across Europe.

Asked if those on the cargo ship had tried to dispose of the cocaine by burning it or throwing it overboard, Mr Kelly said more information on this would be provided in the coming days.

He said such a large shipment would not have entered the states waters without the involvement of an Irish gang.

He said there are a number of gangs in Ireland with direct links to South America.

There is no large ship like this coming into our waters or our ports or transiting across our country, without an Irish organised criminal group involved in it.

Gerry Harrahill, director general Operation, Revenue and Customs (left), Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly, Garda Serious and Organised Crime (centre) and Tony Geraghty, Fleet Operations Commander Irish Naval Service (Brian Lawless/PA)

There is an increase in the amount of cocaine available for a number of geopolitical reasons in South America. There is basically a glut of cocaine on the market, he said.

And when you combine that with the increased consumption across Europe, Europe is now the biggest market for cocaine in the world.

So when you combine those two things together, absolutely, its inevitable that were going to see organised criminal groups trying to leverage on that, make more money from it, as they always do in situations like this.

Its inevitable that well see more large shipments.

He said increased large shipments had also been seen in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, explained why warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel before the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship, he said.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

The ship was escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy (Irish Defence Forces/PA)

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain.

Cdr Geraghty said it had been an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defence Forces headquarters.

He said the poor weather made the fast rope aerial boarding more complex.

He said there was no evidence of the crew being armed when the Army Rangers boarded and took control of the vessel.

This ship is very large, shes 190 metres long, with an exceptionally high freeboard. So very difficult to get on, he added.

He said a great deal of skill was demonstrated by the Army Ranger Wing and helicopter pilot during high winds.

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences (Niall Carson/PA)

Cdr Geraghty said the ship also altered course when the Army Rangers were initially trying to descend.

The Naval Service, the Air Corps and the Army Ranger Wing rehearse for these type of operations. The Air Corps pilots are really top notch guys, theyre highly trained, he said.

Whilst the environment is always dangerous  the weather yesterday was very bad  the operation was carried out in a successful manner.

Gerry Harrahill, director general of customs in Ireland, hailed the professionalism and the resilience of those involved in seizing the ship.

I had a personal opportunity last night down in Cork to meet with some of the teams involved, he said.

While they were tired and exhausted, I think there was a real sense of having done a really good job and delivered a really good outcome.
KDIC signs cooperative MOU with FDIC

By Anna J. Park

The Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have agreed to enhance mutual cooperation and strengthen information sharing between the two organizations. The FDIC is a U.S. government corporation that supplies deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks.

KDIC Chairman Yoo Jae-hoon and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg signed a Cross-border Resolution Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a Cooperative Arrangement (CA) at the headquarters of the FDIC in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, local time.

Under the MOU, the two institutions aim to exchange knowledge regarding risk monitoring and resolution planning for insolvencies for financial companies that operate in both countries. The CA emphasizes the strengthened mutual cooperation between the two parties.

The KDIC was keen to highlight that it is significant that it has established a mutual cooperative relationship with the financial resolution authorities of the U.S. and Europe, the two main regions where most foreign financial companies operating in Korea come from.

It is very meaningful to discuss the improvement of the deposit insurance system with the FDIC, which has always played a leadership role in the global financial world, " KDIC Chairman Yoo said, adding that the signing of the agreements shows a strengthened partnership in the realm of finance between the two countries.

Todays signing of these documents is an important next step in the FDICs efforts to build meaningful partnerships with foreign counterparts through knowledge sharing and bolstering lines of communication and coordination, said Chairman Gruenberg. I thank Chairman Yoo for his longstanding commitment to this partnership and to financial stability.

It is the KDIC's second time to formalize a partnership with overseas resolution authorities, since the agency signed a resolution-related cooperative agreement with the Single Resolution Board (SRB) in July last year.

The SRB is the central resolution authority within the European Banking Union, which includes 20 eurozone countries and Bulgaria, to ensure an orderly resolution of failing banks and to protect the taxpayer from state bail-outs.
HA NOI  China is the largest export market of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables, accounting for nearly 65 per cent of the total fruit and vegetable export value, according to ang Phuc Nguyen, general secretary of the Viet Nam Fruit and Vegetable Association.

Besides durian, Viet Nam hopes to be granted official export permission for jackfruit and dragon fruit to this market from now to the end of this year.

With increasing quality, Vietnamese fruits are popular among Chinese consumers. The fruit exports are forecast to maintain growth, especially with increasing demand during the holiday season.

Last year, Viet Nam signed fruit protocols with China, bringing many advantages to Viet Nam's fruit and vegetable export activities.

Phung uc Tien, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that Viet Nam would continue to negotiate with China on protocols for many products, including watermelon, frozen durian, chilli, medicinal herbs and citrus fruits.

Watermelon, in particular, has been traditionally exported via border gates, so the signing of the protocol would remove problems and create more favourable conditions for Viet Nam to increase watermelon exports.

Regarding export prospects to China in the last months of the year, MoIT said the export of fruit and vegetable products, including durian, watermelon and frozen fruit, was expected to continue to grow. Meanwhile, dragon fruit and mango exports were likely to decline as China increases domestic supply.

Viet Nam still has room for growth of agricultural product exports to China, because the products meet the increasingly strict quality requirements of this market.

According to World Bank forecasts, China's economic growth will recover to 5.6 per cent in 2023. Therefore, agricultural exports to this market are expected to increase slightly from now until the end of the year. Of which, some products such as vegetables, rice and cashews still maintain their growth rate, while seafood, wooden furniture and cassava products may recover only slightly.

Experts have recommended that to increase fruit exports to China in the coming years, key issues are fruit quality control and compliance with China's regulations on coded growing areas and coded export enterprises.

Therefore, Hoang Trung, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the ministry requested provinces and cities to carry out inspection and supervision of growing areas and packaging facilities that had been granted codes.

At the same time, they would need to strengthen the publication of Chinese regulations, as well as issue technical guidance to the Plant Protection Department for producers and exporters of products shipped to China.

According to MARD, the export value of fruits and vegetables in the first eight months of 2023 reached US$3.45 billion, up 57.5 per cent over the same period last year, reported the Thoi bao Tai chinh (Financial Times) newspaper.

The items that accounted for a high proportion of fruit and vegetable exports were durian (35 per cent), dragon fruit (13 per cent), bananas (6 per cent), mango (6 per cent), and jackfruit (5 per cent). China had a high demand to import those products.

MARD quoted data from the General Department of Customs of China saying that Chinas durian imports in the first half of this year reached 787,000 tonnes, worth $3.83 billion, up by 57.1 per cent and 64.9 per cent respectively, over the same period last year. The main suppliers were Thailand (600,000 tonnes), Viet Nam (186,000 tonnes) and the Philippines (484 tonnes).

The ministry also reported that in the first eight months, the export value of agricultural, forestry and fishery products was $33.21 billion. Of which, the exports to China alone reached $7.28 billion, up 9.8 per cent over the same period in 2022, accounting for the highest proportion, 22 per cent of the total.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Asia-Africa Market Department, China is currently Viet Nam's most important market and largest trading partner for many products.

The export proportion of some key Vietnamese agricultural products to China is 53.7 per cent for vegetables, 71 per cent for rubber, 80 per cent for dragon fruit, 90 per cent for lychee, and 91.5 per cent for cassava and products from cassava.  VNS
HA NOI  The Deputy Prime Minister has requested the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to direct the review, authentication, and cleaning of information on securities traders, including relatives participating in transactions.

The Government Office on September 23 conveyed the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang to the State Securities Commission, the Vietnam Stock Exchange (VNX), and the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VDSC) to connect the national database on population, electronic identification and authentication system.

The move aims to clean up the data of individuals involved in securities trading. This task is expected to be completed in November.

Cleaning up user data involves cross-referencing their information with the national database on population to ensure consistency and eliminating incorrect, duplicate or fictitious data.

The direction was issued as a result of numerous individuals being prosecuted for manipulating the stock market to gain profits.

In March 2022, former chairman of FLC, Trinh Van Quyet, was indicted by the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Public Security (C01) for the crime of market manipulation, as stipulated in Article 211 of the Criminal Code.

In the first months of this year, the market continued to have many other cases of stock price manipulation, resulting in administrative sanctions and/or additional penalties (if applicable).

For example, in the case of 1369 Construction JSC (C69)s stocks, oan Ba Hong was fined VN550 million (US$22,511), while in the case of APG Securities JSC (APG)s shares, Le Thi Hai Binh was fined VN1.5 billion, prohibited from securities trading for two years, and banned from holding positions in securities companies and funds for two years.

Previously, the MoF had set a direction for the number of investors in the stock market to reach 8 per cent of the population by 2025 and 10 per cent by 2030, focusing on developing institutional and professional investors and attracting the participation of foreign investors.

Data of VSDC showed that the number of domestic retail investor accounts recorded a rapid increase in the last four months, reaching over 100,000 accounts per month.

As of the end of August, the number reached 7.59 million units, which is approximately 7.6 per cent of the population.

The markets participants are increasingly diverse in terms of profession and age.  VNS
North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday his country is "urgently" required to bolster its self-defense capabilities, claiming the Korean Peninsula faces the "immediate danger of nuclear war breakout."

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Ambassador Kim Song attributed the "current dangerous situation" to South Korea and the United States, lambasting a series of steps that the allies have taken to bolster deterrence against evolving North Korean threats.

"Given the prevailing circumstances, the DPRK is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably," the ambassador said during his live-streamed speech. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"It is only too natural that the more the reckless military moves and provocations of the hostile forces are intensified , the more our endeavors to enhance national defense capabilities would increase in direct proportion," he added.

Kim catalogued a series of defensive exercises between the U.S. and South Korea namely the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, the launch of the Nuclear Consultative Group and repeated verbal warnings against the North's potential use of nuclear arms.

"From the beginning of the year, the U.S. and the 'Republic of Korea' made hysterical remarks of confrontation such as 'end of the regime; and 'occupation of Pyongyang' in flagrant violation of the principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter," he said.

Calling South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol only by his name, Kim criticized Yoon's warning at the U.N. General Assembly that any arms deal between Russia and North Korea would be considered a "direct provocation" against South Korea.

"Development of equal and reciprocal relations between and among independent sovereign states is not an issue for the "ROK" to interfere in as it is no more than a colony of the U.S.," Kim said.

He described the Yoon administration as a "puppet" government, accusing it of raising tensions.

"The Korean Peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout," he said.

Kim Sang-jin, South Korea's deputy permanent representative to the U.N., hit back, chastising the North for making "groundless, illogical and absurd" allegations.

"Do you really believe as the DPRK claims the Republic of Korea, together with the U.S., conspires to provoke a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula without reasons that will cause catastrophic casualties?," he asked. "How many member states in this chamber are seriously aligned with the DPRK's false assertions? My answer is clear: untrue, absolutely incorrect," he said. (Yonhap)
HAU GIANG  Work began on 27 September on the construction of the Hau Giang Agricultural and Food Processing Factory Complex (Westfood Hau Giang Factory) in Song Hau Western Industrial Park, Chau Thanh District, Hau Giang Province.

The Westfood Hau Giang factory, financed by the Westfood Hau Giang Joint Stock Company, will be constructed to European standards. It will cover an area of seven hectares, with a total investment of over VN666 billion and a projected capacity of 30,000 tonnes of finished products annually.

The factory is slated to commence operations in the first quarter of 2025, providing employment for thousands of workers.

Once finished, Westfood Hau Giang will rank among the largest agricultural product processing factories in the West, producing an array of new, high-quality product lines. This venture will significantly contribute to local socio-economic growth and promote Western agricultural products on the global stage.  VNS
HA NOI  The US Department of State, Viet Nams Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology (PTIT) and VMO Holdings Technology JSC (VMO) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and launched the Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship (CCE Hub).

The parties agreed to work together to promote start-up activities in the field of climate change by using start-up resources and exploiting technology, thereby minimising climate change and increasing economic growth with clean energy sources.

Speaking at the event, Dorothy McAuliffe, Special Representative for Global Partnerships in the US Department of State, said that the US State Department, along with the hosting and implementing partners, is prepared to use this hub in the coming years to identify sustainability-focused entrepreneurs, convene them in this space, and equip them with the tools and resources they need to scale climate solutions to market.

We are confident this hub will build upon the momentum of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership issued between Viet Nam and the US during President Bidens recent visit as we work together to address the climate crisis, McAuliffe said.

Tran Quang Anh, Deputy Director of PTIT, hopes that the CCE Hub will create a dedicated creative space designed for creators and start-ups, focusing on sustainable research areas such as clean energy, sustainable agriculture, climate finance, and resilience projects.

The CCE Hub management unit in Viet Nam will strive to be a bridge between the business community and make practical contributions to sustainable environmental development, climate change, and community benefits, he added.

The CCE Hub, located at PTIT, is a dedicated innovation space designed to provide a community space for founders and start-ups. This is the first of its kind in Asia.

The hub's goal is to facilitate the creation of market-viable businesses that pioneer emerging sustainable solutions or innovate existing ones, focusing on sustainability, which includes clean energy, sustainable agriculture, climate finance, climate resilience and adaptation, and recovery projects.

The project will help raise awareness of climate issues among Vietnamese people, especially the youth. And even though we have to invest a lot at the moment, the economic potential of the project is huge, Quang Anh told Viet Nam News.

Earlier this month, Viet Nam and the US announced the establishment of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for peace, cooperation, and sustainable development. The two countries' relationship was upgraded during the state visit of President Biden to Viet Nam.

The president applauded Viet Nams climate commitments under its Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), as well as the countrys 2050 net-zero greenhouse emissions target.  VNS
HCM CITY  Cutting-edge technologies along with the latest advancements and innovation in the printing and packaging industry are on display at the 21st Vietnam International Printing and Packaging Industry Exhibition that opened in HCM City on Wednesday.

The expo, VietnamPrintPack, has attracted 411 exhibitors from 17 countries and territories, including mainland China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan (China), Thailand, UK, and the US.

VietnamPrintPack serves as a platform for global suppliers and local manufacturers to engage in business exchanges and establish partnerships.

The exhibition will host a series of seminars with speakers from influential industry associations providing participants with in-depth industry perspectives.

Judy Wang, President of Yorkers Trade & Marketing Service Co Ltd, the expo organiser, said: With the growth of e-commerce and the expansion of the domestic market, companies are becoming increasingly aware of the need to impress customers with improved packaging and high-quality products. The printing and packaging industry is expected to increase by more than 13 per cent each year, indicating significant growth potential.

Jointly organised by Yorkers and Vinexad National Trade Fair & Advertising JSC under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the exhibition, being held at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre, will run until September 30.  VNS
HCM CITY  Thanh Quang Group and Australias Acuity Funding on September 27 signed a funding approval agreement in which the latter will provide up to US$450 million for the formers two cemetery projects in Viet Nam.

The funding provides capital to Thanh Quang Group for the Vinh Long Province Peoples Cemetery project in Vinh Long Province and the Chau uc Cemetery Park project in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

These two projects are in the process of development and lack financial resources to be completed in a modern and professional manner and ensure the needs of the area.

These projects are highly appreciated for their humanitarian benefits, creating local jobs and ensuring environmental protection.

Besides the boards of directors of the two companies, representatives of local and foreign banks and Australias Ambassador to Viet Nam Andrew Goledzinowski also attended the ceremony.

The organisation arranging and managing the capital is Australia-based Acuity Funding, one of the largest fund arrangers in the Asia Pacific with current projects across 20 countries.

Acuity Funding is a non-supervised member of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and has the capacity to arrange and manage hundreds of billions of dollars for large-scale projects.

It is also one of the very few organisations capable of arranging cross-border funding and managing international debt.

Acuity is a pioneering business leading the export of investment and services from Australia.

We are looking for projects that have humanitarian benefits, and these projects in particular serve real needs in Viet Nam, said Ranjit Thambyrajah, founder and managing director of Acuity Funding.

We have been in the industry now for 40 years and we bring that expertise to Viet Nam, he said.

Acuity Funding and Thanh Quang Group have been working together for a long time and have gone through a due diligence process to reach the funding approval for the two projects in Vinh Long and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces, he said.

This is not a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) but a legally-binding agreement that provides funds for execution. After the signing ceremony, funds will be ready for distribution and the management of the implementation of business plans in phases.

Thanh Quang Group operates in the field of investment, construction and operation of projects in residential areas, industrial parks, resorts, manufacturing plants and cemeteries of medium and large scale. VNS
HA NOI  A business promotion programme, which runs a 1,000m2 space for introducing investment opportunities, business networking, and partnership, opened in Ha Noi on September 27.

Co-organised by the Hanoi Promotion Agency (HPA) and Hanoi Young Business Association (HanoiBA), it aimed to help enterprises and investors introduce their strength and potential, and showcase their products and needs for cooperation.

Bui Quang Minh, HanoiBA vice president, said that the programme reflects the authorities attention to and support for the business community toward the expansion of their trading opportunities and socio-economic development of the city.

The space is divided into many sections, with about 100 businesses displaying their goods and services. Cultural and tourism promotion activities and trade-investment networking sessions will also be held on the occasion.

Nearly 1,000 visitors are expected to visit the space.  VNS
HA NOI Australia and Viet Nam are strong partners with converging strategic interests and a long-term, constructive development partnership.

This statement was made in the Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 released early this month by Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The Strategy oversees Australias economic relationship with 10 Southeast Asian countries and highlights Viet Nam as one of the countries projected for continued growth over the next two decades.

The document defines general and sector-specific recommendations and recognises the significant opportunities and importance of Viet Nams role in boosting economic engagement and two-way trade and investment in Southeast Asia and Australia.

According to the strategy, Australia and Viet Nam are strong partners with converging strategic interests, fast-growing trade, expanding education links and a long-term, constructive development partnership. Viet Nam has demonstrated impressive growth (averaging 6.7 per cent annually over the past 30 years), with projections indicating maintenance at this level for the next five years before falling to 4 per cent by 2040.

To increase Australias trade and investment in Viet Nam, the Strategy lists four key sectors to watch.

The first sector is agriculture and food. As the economy expands, demand for premium food and beverages will grow. Two-way trade in agriculture, fisheries and forestry surpassed A$6 billion (approximately US$4,2 billion) in 2022. Australia and Viet Nam have committed to expanding market access, including fresh fruits. Opportunities exist for investors to expand food production and add value to downstream processing industries.

The second sector is resources. Energy and resources exports make up over half of Australias merchandise exports to Viet Nam. Coal is the top export and Australian iron ore exports have also increased. Demand for Australias resources exports will grow further, including in aluminium, copper, zinc and lead. Australias mining sector could also assist with resources exploration, new innovations and the supply of critical minerals.

The third is green energy transition. Opportunities exist for investors in renewable energy (solar, wind and battery storage). Australian capabilities in clean energy supply chains and services will find viable markets. Viet Nams regulatory and investment framework and complicated approval processes remain obstacles.

The last sector is education and skills. As competition for international students is strong, Australia needs to focus on marketing, promotion and alumni support. There is potential for universities to cooperate in program delivery, staff and student exchanges, and research. Opportunities also exist in vocational education and training and for Australian schools.

Australias Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 affirms that significant progress has already been achieved in strengthening the relationship between Australia and Viet Nam as work continues towards the goal of establishing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. It recommends, in a Viet Nam action plan, the need to continue raising awareness, removing blockages, building capability, and deepening investments in the region to foster a robust partnership.  VNS
SOFIA  Viet Nam is resolved to consolidate and strengthen its relations with Bulgaria in all the Party, legislature, government and people-to-people diplomacy channels, as well as connectivity between businesses and localities of the two countries, National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong inh Hue told Chairwoman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Korneliya Ninova, who is also President of the Parliamentary Group "BSP for Bulgaria".

At the meeting on September 26 (Bulgaria time), part of Hue's official visit to Bulgaria, the Vietnamese top legislator thanked the Bulgarian NA for approving the EU-Viet Nam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) just before his visit, which he said is an important step for the agreement to take effect.

The leader lauded contributions by Ninova and members of the BSP parliamentary group to the new memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the two legislatures signed during his visit.

Viet Nam treasures the time-honoured friendship with Bulgaria  one of the first 10 countries to establish diplomatic ties with the Southeast Asian nation, he stressed, appreciating Bulgarias whole-hearted support to Viet Nam in its past struggle for national liberation and reunification.

The Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) is willing to closely cooperate with Bulgarian political parties, contributing to promoting cooperation between the two countries across spheres, consolidating their mutual trust, and enhancing the relations in the State channel intensively, substantively and effectively, he went on.

Hue spoke highly of cooperation between the CPV and the BSP, and noted his hope that they will step up the exchange of experience in Party building and education about the traditional friendship and cooperation.

The top legislator invited Ninova and other members of the BSP parliamentary group to visit Vietnam and conveyed an invitation from Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to the BSP leader, who accepted the invitations with pleasure.

Ninova said she believes that the EVIPA, once put into force, will help the two countries raise competitiveness of their goods and attract more investments.

Viet Nam and Bulgaria should further tap their cooperation potential, and foster collaboration in both traditional and potential new areas, she said.

The BSP and its parliamentary group always wish to promote the traditional friendship and multi-faceted cooperation with Viet Nam, she affirmed, adding that as a bridge between Asia and Europe, Bulgaria stands ready to work to reinforce the connectivity between the two countries as well as the two regions.

The same day, Hue received Desislava Atanasova, Chairwoman of the GERB-UDF parliamentary group, who expressed her belief that after the Vietnamese leaders visit, the Viet Nam-Bulgaria relationship will see new developments in many spheres.

Hue said on the basis of the MoU between the two legislative bodies, the Vietnamese NA will do its best to promote the Viet Nam-Bulgaria relations, expressing his hope that Atanasova and other members of the GERB-UDF parliamentary group will continue their support for the enhancement of the bilateral legislative ties as well as the traditional friendship and multi-faceted between the two countries.

He called on Atanasova and the group to urge the European Parliament (EP) to remove the yellow card warning on Vietnamese seafood, which has impacted not only the livelihood of Vietnamese fishermen, but also millions of European consumers.

Given the evolving world, Vietnamese and Bulgarian leaders and people should further cultivate and forge their long-standing friendship and multi-faceted collaboration, the leader suggested.

On this occasion, Hue invited Atanasova and parliamentarians who are members of the Gerb-UDF Party to visit Viet Nam in the time ahead.

Atanasova pledged that the parliamentary group will raise more proposals to support Viet Nam's rights and interests, and suggested Viet Nam further facilitate the access of Bulgarian products to its market.

She held that Hue's visit has demonstrated the importance both countries attach to their cooperation in politics, trade and investment.

Also on September 26, Hue and his entourage visited Burgas city  a centre of industry, transportation, culture and tourism in Bulgarias southeastern region.

Mayor Dimitar Nikolov highlighted the sentiments of him and Burgas residents to Viet Nam, saying Burgas established twinning relationship with Viet Nam's northern province of Quang Ninh in 2013.

Nikolov expressed his hope for stronger cooperation with Viet Nam in education, and for expanded collaboration with other Vietnamese localities.

Hue suggested Nikolov visit Viet Nam and Quang Ninh at an early date to promote the relations, especially in tourism.

Nikolov said he is impressed by Viet Nam's outstanding development achievements, and suggested Viet Nam open Vietnamese language classes in Bulgarian localities, contributing to promoting their mutual understanding and friendship.

Burgas authorities always create favourable conditions for businesses to operate in the locality, he said, adding that the city is building industrial parks and will zone off land for Vietnamese investors.

The city will also work as a bridge for Vietnamese enterprises in Europe and create optimal conditions for Vietnamese people to integrate into the host society, he said.

The official suggested the Viet Nam-Bulgaria intergovernmental committee add tourism to its agenda, which is the citys strength. His suggestions received the support from the Vietnamese top legislator.

While in Burgas, Hue visited BMF Port Burgas built in 2011, and the Burgas Museum of Ethnography.  VNS


HA NOI  Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong met Cuban National Assembly President Esteban Lazo Hernandez in Ha Noi on Wednesday, highlighting the significance of the Cuban diplomats visit to the long-standing Viet Nam-Cuba friendship.

Welcoming the Cuban delegation to Viet Nam, General Secretary Trong expressed his appreciation for the positive development in the relationship between the two countries and their respective parties.

Multiple activities have been organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castros historic visit to the liberated zone in southern Viet Nam in 1973.

These events have helped promote the extensive history of the Viet Nam-Cuba relations to younger generations, consolidating the comprehensive cooperation between the two countries.

General Secretary Trong underlined that Viet Nam always treasures and hopes to further deepen the special, solidary and comprehensive ties with Cuba, and calls for the removal of embargo policies against the South American country.

Cuban NA President Hernandez said that the Cuban party, government, and people always attach great importance to the relations with Viet Nam, which saw tremendous efforts from the two countries late leaders, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh.

The leaders and people of Cuba wish to carry on and promote this valuable heritage to expand and reinforce the ties between the two parties and countries for the benefit of the people as well as socialism, peace, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

Cuba sees its relations with Viet Nam as one of strategic significance, while the late Cuban leader Castro said that the Cuba-Viet Nam ties were the symbol of an era.

Viet Nam always appreciates the heartfelt support that the country received from Cuba during its fight for national independence and unity in the past, as well as the countrys course of development today, said General Secretary Trong.

The Vietnamese leader believed that under the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba headed by First Secretary Diaz-Canel, the Cuban people would certainly overcome every challenge and successfully achieve the goals set out for socio-economic growth and the path to socialism.

Viet Nam is willing to share the burdens with Cuba and increase cooperation and assistance to the best of its ability, he said.

The two leaders also agreed to strengthen the foundation of political relations between the two parties, which will serve as the compass for bilateral relations.

They also asked that the countries respective ministries, sectors, organisations, and localities enhance cooperation and implement high-level agreements and programmes.

They should also increase knowledge and experience exchanges, especially in highly potential areas for growth in the fields of economy, trade, investment, agriculture, education, biotechnology, and health.

Congratulating Viet Nam on its growth achievements under the leadership of the Communist Party, Cuban NA President Hernandez expressed appreciation for the countrys supportive policies towards Cuba.

He also gave high regard to the multifaceted cooperation between Viet Nam and Cuba, which ranges from technology transfer, expert visits to food security support in the difficult contexts that Cuba is facing.

Presenting Cubas plans and areas of interest for investment cooperation, the Cuban leader said that Cuba will take action on the commitments it has made and will facilitate Vietnamese businesses operations in Cuba, in addition to promoting collaboration between companies, organisations, and localities of the two countries.

General Secretary Trong sent his regards to Cuban General Raul Castro Ruz and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Diaz-Canel and hoped to soon receive them in Viet Nam. VNS
HA NOI  Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Secretary General of the Steering Committee for Viet Nam-China Bilateral Cooperation Nguyen Minh Vu held talks with Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister and Secretary General of the Steering Committee for China-Viet Nam Bilateral Cooperation Nong Rong in Ha Noi on Wednesday.

At the event, both sides spoke highly of the positive development of the Viet Nam-China ties, especially after the official visit to China by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong from October 30 to November 1, 2022.

They agreed to continue fully carrying out the perceptions reached by high-level leaders of both nations, make meticulous preparation for the 15th meeting of the Steering Committee for Viet Nam-China bilateral cooperation, and promote collaboration into a more practical fashion, with new advancement expected to be attained.

Vu suggested both sides join hands to organise exchange and contacts at all levels, while urging China to expand the import of Vietnamese agro-aquatic products, announce the market opening for certain Vietnamese fruits soon, as well as allow the opening of Viet Nam's trade promotion offices in China.

Both nations should work together to accelerate transport infrastructure connectivity, handle bottlenecks in several projects, and speed up the implementation of the projects using non-refundable aid, he said, adding tourism cooperation, with the pilot opening of Ban Gioc-Detian Waterfalls as the highlight, should be promoted.

Nong Rong, for his part, affirmed that China attaches importance to cooperation recommendations from Viet Nam, and stands ready to coordinate with Viet Nam to enhance high-level exchanges, restore exchange and cooperation mechanisms as before COVID-19, and bolster cooperation across fields in the more specific and practical manner.

Touching on the territory and border issues, both sides concurred to strictly implement the perceptions reached by high-level leaders of the two countries, well control disagreements, and maintain peace and stability at the sea.

Vu asked both nations to comply with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), fully carry out the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (internationally known as the South China Sea) (DOC), respect legitimate rights and interests of each other, and avoid unilateral actions that complicate the situation and expand disputes.  VNS
BEIJING  Politburo member and Secretary of the Ha Noi Party Committee inh Tien Dung voiced proposals to boost ties between the two Parties, States and capitals in the coming time during talks with his Beijing counterpart Yin Li in Beijing on Wednesday.

Dung suggested the further exchange of visits, especially those at the highest level, in order to keep strengthening mutual understanding and trust, as well as to provide direction for the healthy and stable development of the Viet Nam-China relationship.

He proposed continuing to follow common perceptions reached by the two Party leaders and the Viet Nam-China Joint Statement, as well as the leaders directions in order to enhance bilateral substantive cooperation across various fields and encourage localities to increase friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation.

It is a need to cultivate ties between the two capitals via effectively following the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation between Ha Noi and Beijing signed in 2022 and other MoUs between their units and agencies, he said, calling for increased exchanges at all levels and jointly holding activities marking the 30th anniversary of the friendship between the two capitals.

Agreeing with Dung's proposals, Politburo member and Secretary of the Beijing Party Committee Yin Li said his visit holds significance at a time when the two countries are celebrating the 15th anniversary of comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and the 29th anniversary of twinning ties between Beijing and Ha Noi.

Beijing, with its rich cultural heritage and experience in preserving and promoting cultural and historical values and urban development, especially in transportation infrastructure, construction and operation of its urban rail system consisting of 27 lines, is ready to share experience and cooperate with Hanoi in these fields, he said.

Speaking highly of the signing of the MoU on cooperation in six areas between the two capital cities, Li also agreed to deepen cooperation and enhance people-to-people exchange with Hanoi, thus nurturing a solid people-based friendship foundation.

Later, the two city leaders witnessed the signing of six memoranda of understanding on cooperation in specialised fields, including personnel training, urban planning, health care, heritage preservation, sports, film and youth exchange.  VNS
Tanzania welcomes more Chinese investors to support industrialization drive

Xinhua) 13:46, September 27, 2023

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa (L) shakes hands with Chen Mingjian, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, at the China Tanzania Investment Forum Zhejiang (Jinhua) -Tanzania Trade and Investment Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Sept. 25, 2023. (Photo by Emmanuel Herman/Xinhua)

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Monday that the country has opened its doors wide to more Chinese investors to support the East African nation's industrialization drive.

"Tanzania is ready to do business with you; our doors are wide open," Majaliwa assured the Chinese investors as he closed a one-day China Tanzania Investment Forum Zhejiang (Jinhua) -Tanzania Trade and Investment Conference held on Monday in the port city of Dar es Salaam.

He added that Tanzania has a conducive business environment, politically sound economic policies, macroeconomic stability, abundant natural resources, a relatively educated labor force, and a sizeable market because of the country's unique geographical location.

The forum attracted more than 100 economic and trade representatives led by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Zhejiang Provincial Committee and the Jinhua Municipal People's Government in east China's Zhejiang Province.

Kitila Mkumbo, minister of state in the President's Office responsible for planning and investment, urged local investors to team up with their Chinese counterparts to create a strong and robust industrial base in Tanzania.

Mkumbo said Tanzania's industrialization agenda could be realized by inviting and attracting large-scale investors from across the globe, especially China.

Chen Mingjian, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, said Tanzania, as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, has made attracting investment and foreign capital a crucial economic policy goal.

Chen said Chinese companies view Tanzania as a place for mutual development and growth, adding that many Chinese companies have established Tanzania as an essential production base, exporting products to various African countries, and creating over 150,000 jobs in Tanzania.

The Chinese delegation came with areas of interest in investment, including pharmaceuticals, food production, agricultural machinery, agricultural products, logistics, building machinery and materials, aluminum and copper raw materials, hardware tools, mining machinery, machinery products, and industrial and domestic boilers.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
South Korea's point man on North Korea "strongly" called on North Korea on Wednesday to respond to Seoul's offer for talks to discuss the issue of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho made the call during a ceremony commemorating Separated Families Day.

Earlier this year, South Korea designated Aug. 13 on the lunar calendar, which is two days before the Chuseok fall harvest holiday, as a commemorative day to raise public awareness of the issue of separated families.

The divided Koreas have held 13 rounds of reunions since a landmark summit in 2000, bringing together more than 20,000 family members who had not seen each other since the war.

South and North Korea have usually staged family reunions around Chuseok, a major holiday that is celebrated in both countries, and other important national holidays. The two sides last staged temporary family reunions in 2018.

Last September, South Korea proposed holding talks with North Korea to try to discuss family reunions, a pressing humanitarian issue on the Korean Peninsula, as most separated family members are in their 70s and 80s and wish to see their long-lost relatives before they die.

Still, North Korea has remained silent on South Korea's offer and cut off inter-Korean communication channels amid tensions over Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.

On Monday, North Korea called South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol a "puppet traitor," and South Korea's unification ministry criticized North Korea for rebuking Yoon with "vulgar" remarks, saying it is not even worth commenting on.

"I am strongly urging North Korea to respond to it before it's too late when it comes to the issue of divided families and show the responsible attitude in front of history and people," Kim said.

In South Korea, some 133,700 have applied for family reunions. More than 93,000 of them have already died, according to the unification ministry.

There are no direct means of contact between ordinary civilians of the two countries that remain divided by a heavily fortified border.

The inter-Korean border has been sealed since the war, and no South Koreans or North Koreans can visit the other side without government approval, which is rarely given. (Yonhap)
ASTANA  National Assembly (NA) Vice Chairman Nguyen Khac inh is paying a visit to Kazakhstan from September 24-28.

During his stay, the official held talks with Speaker of the lower house of Kazakhstans parliament (Majilis) Erlan Zhakanovich Koshanov and Speaker of the Senate Ashimbayev Maulen Sagathanuly.

He also had meetings with Deputy Speaker of the Majilis Albert Rau and Deputy Speaker of the Senate of Kazakhstan Zhakip Asanov, as well as Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency of Kazakhstan Askhat Zhumagali. The official also met officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Kazakhstan and representatives from the Vietnamese community in the country, and visited Almaty city.

At the talks and meetings, NA Vice Chairman inh affirmed that Viet Nam always attaches great importance to relations with traditional friends, including Kazakhstan, and thanked Kazakhstan for supporting the State and people of Viet Nam during the past struggle for independence and present national construction and defence. He affirmed that Vietnam is keen on further boosting relations with Kazakhstan in all fields for the benefits of both peoples.

He highlighted progress in bilateral ties, especially after the Viet Nam visit by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev last August and highly valued the mutual support and coordination that the two sides have shown at international organisations and multilateral forums, especially the UN.

The Kazakh officials hailed the Vietnamese NA Vice Chairmans visit, which they believed will help promote the friendship and all-round cooperation between the two countries in general and the two legislatures in particular.

They affirmed that Kazakhstan considers Viet Nam as a leading important partner in Southeast Asia and hopes to strengthen partnership with Viet Nam through all channels and in all fields, especially economy, trade and investment.

The two sides agreed that there is plenty of room for the two countries to bolster their economic, trade and investment cooperation and optimise the free trade agreement between Viet Nam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) towards the goal of US$1 billion in two-way trade. The two countries boast high potential of collaboration in other fields such as logistics, transportation, finance, digital transformation, agriculture and mining, they said, pledging to provide favourable conditions for businesses to seek investment opportunities in each others market and form joint ventures in the fields of garment and textile and processing.

Kazakh leaders underlined that with its location in the centre of the Eurasian region, Kazakhstan wishes to strengthen cooperation with Vietnam in the field of transport and railways, exploiting transnational railway routes and direct flights between the two countries to increase goods exchange between Viet Nam and Kazakhstan in particular and EAEU countries in general, and transshipping goods to Europe through the trans-Caspian international transport route.

Kazakhstan also wants to beef up bilateral collaboration in digital transformation, artificial intelligence and high-tech finance, they said, vowing to remove obstacles and provide optimal conditions for businesses of the two sides to partner with each other, and back Vietnamese firms in investing in strong areas of Kazakhstan such as processing, garment, agriculture, finance and banking. Kazakhstan wishes to increase the exports of cereals, wheat, and petrochemical products to Vietnam, they said.

Both sides agreed that the signing of an agreement on visa exemption for citizens holding ordinary passports and the opening of direct flights between Viet Nam and Kazakhstan (from Cam Ranh to Almaty and Astana) will facilitate the development of bilateral partnership in trade, tourism and people-to-people exchanges.

Regarding parliamentary cooperation, inh and Kazakh leaders concurred to promote ties between the two legislatures in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks. They agreed to increase delegation exchanges and continue to support each other at multilateral parliamentary forums, and strengthen supervision over the implementation of agreements signed during President Tokayev's visit to Viet Nam and other important agreements between the two countries.

During his stay, NA Vice Chairman inh also attended the inauguration of a showroom of Vietnamese consumer products.  VNS
HA NOI  Dialysis treatment for people with chronic kidney disease can be tough at the best of times.

But when you live hundreds of kilometres from the hospital providing that care, it makes pain relief all that more painful.

Nguyen Thi Hue experiences this every time she needs dialysis.

The 41-year-old lives in Yen Bai Province, around 300km from Ha Noi where she needs regular treatment.

Often she has to stay in the capital for many days to receive care. Away from her family and far from home.

The financial implications of her travel and accommodation expenses add to the already heavy weight on her shoulders.

I receive kidney treatment at Bach Mai Hospital, so I have to travel to Ha Noi every month, Hue said.

Sometimes, I need to rent a place to stay longer for dialysis. My children are still small and our finances are limited so my family has faced significant hardships since my illness began.

Viet Nam currently has more than 10 million people suffering from chronic kidney disease, accounting for 10.1 per cent of the population.

This disease ranks eighth among the top 10 causes of death in Viet Nam, with more than 8,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

The challenge of kidney treatment

The treatment approach for chronic kidney disease varies depending on the stage of the patients condition. Patients in the late stages often require dialysis or even transplants.

Associate Professor Dr Nguyen Thi Xuyen, President of the Vietnam Medical Association, said: Currently, in Viet Nam, we have only 5,500 dialysis machines used for 33,000 patients, while there are more than 800,000 patients require dialysis.

Her data also shows that half of the patients receiving dialysis treatment die within five years while being charged medical costs three times higher than those who received treatment in the early stages.

Xuyen said: The treatment burden for chronic kidney disease patients is rapidly increasing and is predicted to become the fifth leading cause of years of life lost worldwide by 2040.

This burden is increasing faster in low and middle-income countries, including Viet Nam.

Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Khoa Dieu Van, Vice President of the Vietnam Endocrinology and Diabetes Association, emphasised that impaired kidney function significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular complications and deaths while reducing the quality of life.

Van said: Around 1.2 million people die from chronic kidney disease each year, in addition to 1.4 million people who die from heart disease due to impaired kidney function and over 2 million people who die due to a lack of access to dialysis.

Chronic kidney disease is silently increasing globally, with more than 840 million cases worldwide, accounting for 11 to 13.4 per cent of the population. Of these, two-thirds of the cases are in low and middle-income countries.

Early diagnosis is crucial

There are no clear symptoms in the early stages of chronic kidney disease and most of the patients receive their diagnosis in the later stages.

Van said: Almost no patient mentions kidney disease when they go for check-ups and health examinations. This explains why only 4.5 to 15.5 per cent of adults with chronic kidney disease are diagnosed. Typically, when it is discovered, patients have already reached stages three or four.

Only 5 per cent of adults are diagnosed with the disease at stage 3 while most cases are discovered when they are already at stages four or five requiring kidney replacement.

It is estimated that by 2030, there will be 5 million people in need of kidney replacement. Therefore, early diagnosis and intervention in chronic kidney disease distributes great significance to patients.

Studies on the group of SGLT-2i inhibitors, especially Dapagliflozin, have shown positive results in managing chronic kidney disease. However, this is the best approach to managing chronic kidney disease from its early stages.

It has shown a 39 per cent reduction in the risk of disease progression and a 31 per cent reduction in mortality risk of patients with chronic kidney disease.

Xuyen added: The Ministry of Health has recently encouraged the implementation and development of clinical research, alongside the establishment of national treatment guidelines based on research results to enhance the effectiveness and quality of patient care.

In addition, we should enhance the early diagnosis of chronic kidney disease through high-sensitivity diagnostic tests.

This solution should be implemented at the grassroots healthcare level to enable earlier detection and intervention.

Viet Nam has become an important research hub and actively participated in global clinical development programmes in various fields, particularly in the areas of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic diseases, especially chronic kidney disease.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Health (MoH) has proposed amending the regulations related to COVID-19 as the number of new cases has consistently remained low in recent weeks.

In the draft proposal submitted to the government, the ministry suggested shortening the average incubation period to four days and the time without detecting new cases to eight days.

These changes could serve as a basis for declaring the end of the infectious disease outbreak earlier than the current regulations, which stipulate that the average incubation period is 14 days and the time without detecting new cases is 28 days.

According to MoH, this amendment is based on scientific evidence, the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and recommendations from the World Health Organisation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.

Additionally, in the proposal, the ministry highlighted a comparison between the regulations in the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases and the actual pandemic situation in Viet Nam. This comparison indicates that COVID-19 no longer meets the criteria for an infectious disease in group A.

Specifically, from the beginning of the year to 31 August, Viet Nam recorded 97,628 cases of COVID-19, with an average of approximately 12,000 cases per month. The monthly average cases have decreased 12 times compared to 2021 (around 144,000 cases per month) and 68 times compared to 2022 (about 816,000 cases per month).

The death rate due to COVID-19 reduced from 1.86 per cent in 2021 to 0.1 per cent in 2022 and currently stands at 0.02 per cent in 2023. This is equivalent to or lower than the mortality rates of some common infectious diseases in group B recorded in Viet Nam over the past five years, such as dengue fever, malaria, diphtheria, and whooping cough.

The causative agent of COVID-19 has been identified as the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

According to MoH, since the beginning of the pandemic, Viet Nam has recorded 11,623,605 cases, ranking 13th out of 231 countries and territories.

Viet Nam ranks 120th out of 231 countries and territories in terms of the infection rate per one million people.

The total number of deaths due to COVID-19 to date is 43,206, or 0.4 per cent of the total infections.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Health (MoH) has sent a letter asking provinces and cities to speed up the programme for screening and diagnosis of prenatal and neonatal diseases by 2030.

In the letter, the MoH requested localities to ensure human resources and infrastructure for prenatal and newborn screening for nine diseases and congenital defects.

The programme for screening, diagnosis and treatment of prenatal and neonatal diseases by 2030 was approved by the Prime Minister on 7 December 2020.

The MoH then issued the official dispatch No 7375/BYT-TCDS on 31 December 2020, asking provinces and cities to set up plans for the programme.

To date, 60 out of 63 localities have issued plans to implement the programme.

However, after more than two years, reports from provinces and cities showed that the implementation results were low.

To ensure the programme's effectiveness, the MoH requested provinces and cities to find solutions to achieve the programme's goals.

For the three localities that have not issued plans to implement the programme, it is necessary to speed up the work following the MoH's instructions in the official dispatch No 7375/BYT-TCDS.

From now to 2025, there is a focus on the target that 50 per cent of pregnant women should receive prenatal screening for at least the four most common congenital diseases.

About 70 per cent of newborns should be screened for at least the five most common congenital diseases.

As many as 70 per cent of communes, wards and towns should have adequate facilities to provide prenatal screening services.

About 70 per cent of medical facilities at district level or higher should be capable of providing prenatal screening services and newborn screening based on professional guidance.

The MoH requests municipal and provincial people's committees to ensure resources in terms of facilities and professional capacity for prenatal screening of four congenital diseases and defects, including Edward syndrome, Down syndrome, Patau syndrome and Thalassemia.

They must also ensure newborn screening for five congenital diseases and defects, including congenital hypothyroidism, G6PD deficiency, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, congenital heart defects and congenital heart disease.

During the implementation process, if localities experience any difficulties or problems, they should send reports to the MoH for timely support and resolution.  VNS
HCM CITY  Quang Binh's tourism industry set a target of welcoming between 3 million to 3.5 million tourists in 2023, but in just the first nine months of the year, the region attracted nearly 3.7 million tourists, which is 2.32 times more than the same period in 2022.

Among these tourists, about 89,400 were international tourists, which is 4.07 times more than the same period last year; revenue from accommodation services is estimated to reach VN454.3 billion, which is 1.35 times more than the same period last year.

Notably, in the first nine months of the year, Quang Binh tourism continued to receive high praise from reputable domestic and international magazines such as Lonely Planet from the USA, The Travel from Canada, Wanderlust from UK, and Booking.com.

According to the Quang Binh Department of Tourism, in recent times, the unit has been actively promoting and introducing Quang Binh tourism to domestic and international markets at tourism events and festivals.

To diversify tourism products and enhance the visitor experience, the Quang Binh tourism industry has also developed many new and unique products.

From the beginning of the year until now, there have been 34 tourism products and attractions approved or allowed for trial operation in the province.

Currently, the Department of Tourism is also in the process of finalising the evaluation of two new tourism product development projects, namely "Experiencing the life of a fisherman in Quang Binh" by Nhat Le Travel Company and "Tram Me - Chay Lap Nature and Glamping Experience by Vinh Hung Group.

The development of connected tourism products and links among provinces, cities, and regions is also a goal of the provincial Department of Tourism through exchange activities, sharing experiences with provinces such as Lai Chau and Binh inh, and conducting surveys of tourism products in western Quang Tri.

That being said, Nguyen Ngoc Quy, Director of the Quang Binh Department of Tourism, noted that many tourism businesses and service providers had not yet reached their full capacity as before the COVID-19 pandemic.

They were still facing difficulties due to the impact of the pandemic. The quality of infrastructure and human resources had not fully met the requirements for tourism development in the new conditions.  VNS
Alleged delays in salary payments over the last two months were cited as a critical driver behind this exodus, according to information acquired by Reuters.

This development mirrors the ongoing structural reshuffle within the organisation encompassing flight networks, air fleets, and human resources. The company conveyed to Reuters that the restructuring has been vigorous and included downsizing pilot staff, although specific figures remain undisclosed.

Several employees, primarily foreign pilots who form a substantial part of the crew, are reportedly contending with late salary payments, further aggravating the company's internal climate. A message dated August 21 from company representatives informed foreign pilots that they would receive 35 per cent of their salaries that day, already overdue by a week, with the balance to be cleared subsequently. Reuters disclosed that a similar message was relayed in the previous month, with salaries eventually paid in full. However, foreign pilots are yet to receive their September salaries, due on September 15.

Bamboo Airways maintains that it is operating stably and is in the process of mobilising capital from strategic shareholders. One of its major creditors, Sacombank, has expressed confidence in the airline's long-term prospects and is reportedly willing to increase its investments in the airline. Sacombank has not yet commented on the current salary delay issues.

The airline, which had been planning a US listing back in 2021, is grappling with rapid leadership changes and intense restructuring since the arrest of a former chairman on charges of stock market manipulation in March last year.

Operating both international and domestic flights and holding about 17 per cent market share in Vietnam, the airline recorded a net loss of approximately $30.5 million in 2022.

Despite these tribulations, flights continue to depart regularly and on schedule from the country's two main airports. According to Planespotters.net, seven of Bamboos thirty aircraft, including some recently acquired, are currently parked for maintenance.
BAC A BANK is offering practical incentives that help businesses optimise cash flow

Actively promoting businesses to seize all opportunities to maximise profits on the basis of optimising business costs, BAC A BANK is applying policies on fee support for business-oriented essential corporate financial services within the framework of a preferential fee combo programme.

Conditions for participating in the initiative are rather simple. Current business customers of BAC A BANK only need to use three of the seven basic or essential products/services: loans, factoring/discounting of documents, guarantees, credit commitment, international payments, electronic banking, and demand deposits with an average of at least VND300 million ($12,660) in the previous six consecutive months.

The programme also applies to new business customers that have never had an account at BAC A BANK or have an inactive account status.

Accordingly, the preferential fee combo is being deployed from now until the end of 2023 nationwide, with a policy of exemption and reduction of many extremely attractive fees, contributing to increasing the businesses competitive advantage in the market.

BAC A BANK is waiving a series of fees for the first year from the date of opening the customer information file, including domestic money transfer within the banks system and interbank at the counter; electronic banking services and SMS banking; and deposit/withdraw cash from accounts.

In addition, it is also waiving up to 30 per cent of guarantee fees and other international payment fees and trade finance service fees from the date of opening the customer file, including loans under export letters of credit; loans for exports before delivery; discounting export documents; and buying and selling foreign currencies to transfer payment abroad.

This significant exemption is a practical incentive that helps businesses in optimising their cash flow efficiency.

Known for its many credit packages to support businesses in seizing business opportunities, BAC A BANK continues to completely exempt or offer attractive incentives for early debt repayment fees, depending on the term of the debt agreement and the early repayment period of businesses.

With the goal of constantly enhancing the customer experience, the preferential fee combo is specifically designed to meet a variety of business needs, helping enterprises improve capital efficiency and minimise operating costs.

With a system of 171 transaction points spanning 41 provinces and cities across the country and a team of professional staff, BAC A BANK expects to contribute to helping business customers develop strongly.

Meanwhile, the bank is also offering safe services for salary payment, with more benefits provided for employees.

In order to provide safe financial solutions for businesses to save operational costs and to bring assorted incentives for businesses employees, BAC A BANK has been making non-stop efforts to improve the quality of its account-based salary payment service.

The service not only helps companies and organisations to save time and costs, and stabilise operations to focus on production and business activities for further growth, but it also brings their employees opportunities to access BAC A BANKs many programmes and services.

Since December 2022, and continuing to the end of this year, the lender has been offering up incentives to enterprises and their employees who use the lenders payroll service, with the preferential time of up to 12 months as from the date of service registration.

BAC A BANK will waive credit card issuance fees and two years of annual fees for enterprises and individuals

A series of policies are being applied to enterprises paying salaries via BAC A BANK and employees receiving salary through the bank. Specifically, they are not required to have a maximum remainder in the account to maintain it, and they are exempt from fees for electronic banking services such as registration and usage of internet banking, SMS banking, and interbank transfer of money and rapid money transfer on NAPAS 24/7.

After issuing credit cards, BAC A BANK will also completely waive card-issuance fees and two years of annual fees for enterprises and individuals participating in the programme.

Enterprises using such a service will be exempt from fees for salary payment and money transfer  including transfer to accounts of BAC A BANK and other banks.

What is more, in order to meet increasing demand for payment and transactions via cards, BAC A BANK has completely waived fees for using domestic debit cards for employees receiving their salaries through the bank.

With an advantage of a wide network nationwide of branches and transaction offices, as well as a large system of ATMs, the bank can make it favourable for customers to conduct transactions and use its products and services.

If they cannot physically come to the bank to access products and services, individuals can experience electronic know-your-customer technology on the BAC A BANK mobile app, with numerous convenient features at home, anytime and anywhere.

Steadfast in following the core value of For human development over the past 29 years since its establishment, BAC A BANK has consecutively introduced products and services which can help customers optimise their benefits.

For more information: Website: www.baca-bank.vn ; Customer Care line: 1800 588 828

BAC A BANK supports next generation With the new 2023-2024 school year here, many banks have launched individual credit packages for education and training purposes, with BAC A BANK exclusively offering attractive products and programmes to parents and students of the TH School system.

BAC A BANK wins Priority Services of the Year award Bac A Commercial Joint-Stock Bank (BAC A BANK) has been presented with the Priority Services of the Year Award at VIRs 2023 Vietnam Wealth Advisor Summit (VWAS).
Some of the biggest telecoms groups know that going digital will help claw back disinterest in more traditional areas

Bui Anh Tuan, deputy head of Viettel Telecoms IT Solution and Digital Service Centre, and his team are preparing to introduce new digital platforms to meet growing demand in the local smart home market.

We are developing new products, platforms, and services for smart homes such as fire alarm services connecting to security units, security services, and maid services, which are expected to come to the market by end-2023, or early 2024, he told VIR.

Smart homes are one of the businesses that Viettel has developed in the past two years in an effort to offset losses from its traditional business lines. One of its products being the Home Camera, an AI smart security camera solution, which is now found in 300,000 households. Meanwhile, its TV360 app boasts around 10 million users.

Tuan said that like other mobile network operators, Viettel faced drops in revenue from traditional businesses like mobile networks, fixed phones, and broadband in recent years.

In other countries, revenue from new digital products constitutes about 10-15 per cent of total revenue of a mobile network operator. We expect a similar result for Viettel, he said.

VNPT, Vinaphone, and MobiFone and others are also transforming. At the first national forum on digital economy and society development held by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) and the Central Economic Commission in the northern province of Nam Dinh in mid-September, a range of top companies showcased their new products. They included digital payment apps; e-wallets; digital signatures; cybersecurity products; near-field communication; and blockchain offerings.

Tran Tuan Huy, head of digital transformation at MobiFone, said the company was accelerating its digital transformation in its operation from a traditional mobile network into a technology company, enabling it to become the first mobile network operator in Vietnam completing its digital transformation by 2025.

To offset losses from traditional businesses, we are investing in new technologies and new businesses such as a 5G network for digital economy and social development. We are focusing on cybersecurity, the Internet of Things, big data, AI, games, mobile and smart education, and smart travel, he said.

We have also been investing in developing human resources from 60 programmers to the current 500 to focus on new digital businesses. We set up many digital tech trading centres in different regions across Vietnam to provide solutions and services to customers.

The digital economy accounted for 11.91 per cent of Vietnams GDP in 2021 and then 14.26 per cent in 2022, according to the MIC. Vietnam has set a target of having its digital economy account for 25 per cent of national GDP by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030.

In 2022, more than 1,400 Vietnamese digital tech enterprises made revenues from foreign markets, increasing by nearly 20 per cent compared to 2021.

The annual Southeast Asia e-Conomy report by Google and Temasek noted that the growth rate of Vietnams digital economy in 2022 was 28 per cent, leading Southeast Asian countries.

This will bring new development space for enterprises like MobiFone, VNPT, and digital service providers in the future because not only companies but also state agencies and cities and provinces have growing demands for related services and platforms, said Tran Minh Tuan, director of the Department of Digital Economy and Society under the MIC.

Management software company MISA JSC is among the beneficiaries amid acceleration of digital transformation of enterprises and household businesses, and growing readiness to spend on solutions thanks to its strengths in accounting software, electronic invoices, and e-signatures.

MISAs CEO Dinh Thi Thuy said, We have seen a growth in the number of customers over the past five years. The total number of customers now reaches 230,000 businesses, and we expect more in the months to come. We will continue to develop more skills and software to serve their needs.

MISA is targeting to expand not only at home, but also abroad. At present, about 5,000 restaurants globally are using MISA management solutions, Thuy explained.

According to Le Nguyen Truong Giang, head of the Digital Transformation Strategy Institute, the trend for developing digital economy and society is opening new opportunities for businesses.

The local demand for new products, platforms, and services is becoming bigger. Companies should take advantage of the governments favourable policies and market conditions to tap into new development space and to increase competitiveness amid stiffening competition, Giang said.

Businesses in Vietnam are still in the early stage of digital transformation, even VNPT and MobiFone. It does not simply mean applying technology to improve business efficiency, but a comprehensive change in operation and business model towards a new approach and creating new value, Giang added.

Every market experiences stagnation after a period of strong growth. The Vietnamese market is no exception. Companies need long-term strategies and vision to grow sustainably.

Toni Eliasz, senior digital development specialist at the World Bank, said the digital economy is growing faster than the traditional economy and creates significant benefits. However, Vietnam lags in relevant skills. Despite the widespread popularity of basic technologies, advanced technologies such as the cloud, robotics, and big data analytics are still young in Vietnam.

The most effective online activities require a computer. However, in Vietnam, although the rate of households with an Internet connection is 85 per cent, the rate of households with a computer in the home is only 28 per cent, said Eliasz. Vietnam needs to prioritise to achieve digital transformation goals.

Tran Tuan Anh, Head Central Economic Commission Investment in digital infrastructure has increased, and many digital platforms have been developed. A total of 60 mobile platforms and applications serving people in Vietnam have over one million monthly users, an increase of nearly 10 per cent from 2022. The total number of monthly users on Vietnamese mobile applications in the first six months of 2023 exceeded 500 million, a rise of nearly 16 per cent compared to the same period in 2022. Furthermore, there are new bright spots in digital society development in localities. In the first half of this year, several provinces had a number of payment accounts opened at banks or other authorised institutions that exceeded their average population level. The results are very positive, but there are still many challenges facing the development of the digital economy and society. The number of widely deployed national digital platforms is small. Human resources for digital transformation still do not meet the needs in terms of both quantity and quality. Legal issues, safety, network security, and ensuring users privacy still pose many potential risks, while peoples awareness and habits are not really ready for the digital economy. A controlled testing institutional framework for new technologies, products, services, and business models emerging from the trend of the Fourth Industrial Revolution should have been rolled out, but in reality it is still slow. To achieve the goal of increasing the proportion of digital economy in GDP to 30 per cent by 2030, ministries, agencies and localities need to pay attention to certain areas. They include increasing societys awareness of digital transformation; promoting digital economic development driven by science and technology; prioritising resources and policies to create a legal framework for smart manufacturing; upskilling the digital workforce; and much more besides. Nguyen Manh Hung, Minister of Information and Communications To grow faster and higher, Vietnam needs new development space, production resources, and motivation  and this new space includes the digital economy, digital technologies, digital manpower, and digital data. Developing a digital economy requires building of institutions, infrastructure, and trust. It must be driven by innovation into all industries and fields, implementation of digital governance and training of relevant skills, and human resources and attraction of talents. Developing this in Vietnam is based on three pillars: digital governance; exploitation of data to create value for the economy; and development of related production forces, of which the core is ICT. There is a long way to go in digital transformation and the development of the digital economy. In application, ethnic characteristics, culture, country context, and characteristics of each industry and field will be deciding factors. Digital tech businesses that want to be successful must understand the Vietnamese context. Vietnamese problems will create Vietnamese solutions and products.

Vietnam Airlines steadfast in going digital by 2025 Vietnam Airlines is accelerating its digital transformation in order to compete with the best. Hoang Ngoc Chi, deputy director of the Digital Transformation Centre, talked to VIRs Tung Anh about the airlines digital journey.
Keijo Norvanto, Ambassador of Finland to Vietnam On behalf of the Embassy of Finland to Vietnam and the Finnish business communities in Vietnam, I would like to congratulate Vietnam Investment Review on its 32nd anniversary. I would like to express our appreciation to the VIR editors and its dedicated and talented reporters for their continuous work, introducing the Vietnam business environment and opportunities to Finnish businesses. Moreover, VIRs continuous cooperation with us provides the audience with Finnish experiences and know-how in education, circular economy, and other advanced technologies. The Vietnamese government committed to net-zero by 2050 and recently joined the Just Energy Transition Partnership declaration that aims to contribute to Vietnams sustainable development. In that, Finland possesses globally competitive technology and expertise in many areas, which will help Vietnam achieve the country-set targets. Additionally, our proven technology in flexible energy, waste-to-energy, meteorology, sustainable forestry, sustainable water and waste management, telecommunications, smart cities, digitalisation, startups, and innovation will contribute to Vietnams sustainable development, energy transition, climate change mitigation, digital economy, and many more areas. This year, Vietnam and Finland mark 50 years of a long-lasting friendship and fruitful cooperation. VIR has contributed to the achievement and we are looking forward to working closely in connecting more businesses between Vietnam and Finland, for the mutually beneficial development of both countries. Kees van Baar, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Vietnam This year is special for Vietnam and the Netherlands, as we celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations. In Vietnam and in the Netherlands, meaningful events and activities have taken place, and we can find much of that information in the Vietnamese media. VIR has been a reliable and rich source of information on Vietnams economy and business development for international investors, traders, innovators, and also for the diplomat community. For Dutch stakeholders, it is even more important since for years, the Netherlands has been the largest EU investor in Vietnam with a cumulative investment of $13.7 billion by the end of 2022. Our countries have established close and deep cooperation in sectors which each has its own advantages, such as water and climate, agriculture, logistics, green energy, and the circular economy. Moreover, Dutch high-tech companies are eyeing Vietnam to expand their businesses, with 10 high-tech manufacturing companies visiting Vietnam in March this year and another much larger business delegation in the same sector will be visiting the country this November. For the years to come, the Netherlands will closely cooperate with Vietnam to foster cooperation in aquaculture, smart logistics, and other priority sectors as well as to develop policy frameworks to be in line with European and international regulations in green transformation. On the occasion of 32 years of VIR, we celebrate the great things you have accomplished and look forward to all that is to come. Nguyen Hong Ngan, senior external relations officer, World Bank in Vietnam As one of the pioneering newspapers targeting expatriate and business communities, VIR has experienced continuous growth, consistently delivering accurate, insightful, and current information to its readers. It has firmly established itself as an indispensable part of Vietnams media landscape, earning the trust and loyalty of international organisations such as the World Bank, foreign enterprises, and investors engaged in Vietnam. VIRs commendable efforts have provided invaluable information, reports, and perspectives in this era of media prominence. The newspapers commitment to professionalism in reporting has consistently garnered public appreciation. Throughout our years of collaboration, we have witnessed its role as an effective conduit for disseminating government policies and the latest developments in the Vietnamese economy. As Vietnam embarks on a new phase of development this year, VIR, too, is evolving to meet the rising demands of its audience. The public now expects higher standards in content, presentation, and timely information delivery. Numerous opportunities await the newspaper in continuing to captivate and engage the new generation of readers. I would like to extend special appreciation to the dedicated VIR team for their significant contribution to promoting national development priorities, particularly in achieving inclusive, green, and sustainable growth, which align with the World Banks support for Vietnams development agenda. Denny Abdi, Indonesian Ambassador to Vietnam As nations strive to face the current global situation, we realise that cooperation is the only means to address these transnational challenges. Indonesia and Vietnam have made significant progress in collaborating in various sectors to address common challenges. This constant cooperation between us has resulted in our rapid economic recovery. Last year, Indonesia and Vietnam enjoyed a respectable GDP growth of 5.31 and 8.02 per cent respectively, higher than the global average of 3.1 per cent. In 2023, Indonesia and Vietnam commemorate 10 years of our strategic partnership. Going forward, cooperation in future economics is important. This includes high-tech industries, renewable energy, digital economy, fisheries, and agriculture. These are economies of the future, ones that will pave the way for a sustainable and prosperous economy for the people. Collaboration between Indonesia and Vietnam in these areas will be fundamental in our pursuit to become high-income countries by 2045 and at the same time also achieve our net-zero commitments. Given the dynamics and complexity of global challenges, nations need to collaborate and navigate challenges into opportunities. This spirit of collaboration was highlighted by President Joko Widodo at the 2023 ASEAN summit as the current chair of the bloc. Deriving from this statement, Indonesia and Vietnam must continue to foster cooperation to ensure that the ship can continue to sail amidst the storm. The role of information in uncovering opportunities and showcasing potential cooperation is significant. However, the complexity rises given todays democratisation of information that makes the acquisition and spread of information accessible to anyone. Hence, in this digital era where unreliable information can circulate faster than the truth, it is important to be able to seek a reliable source of information. For 32 years, VIR has become a top source of information for business leaders, diplomats, researchers, experts, and others in Vietnam. It has put itself at the forefront of credible journalism, providing extensive and inclusive articles, and can showcase different perspectives. This reliable journalism is important for Vietnams efforts in attracting investment from various stakeholders, as well as to enhance its economic cooperation with other countries. The outlet has stood through challenging times, and now there is a global shift from text-based media to visual-based media. On VIRs anniversary, I wish for prolonged success for years to come. Ramla Khalidi, resident representative in Vietnam, UN Development Programme This publications broad coverage of the Vietnamese governments work on socioeconomic development and other issues has provided an important platform for exchanging information and opinions on Vietnams journey to achieve global sustainable development goals. This includes diverse perspectives on progress and achievements in implementing key strategies and plans for socioeconomic development, green growth, climate change, and business development in Vietnam. VIRs weekly updates on the economy, business, investment, industry, technology, and the environment are a valuable resource for a diverse audience of readers. The commitment to green and low-carbon sustainable development, focusing on renewable energy, energy efficiency, green transportation, the circular economy, environmental protection, climate change, and disaster risk management is commendable. We are also delighted to see VIR championing green and low-carbon sustainable development and resilience building by serving as a reliable source of information. Working closely with the government, we help strengthen the resilience of vulnerable people and communities in different regions of Vietnam, accelerate a just energy transition, expand renewable energy, conserve biodiversity, and promote nature-based solutions. We extend our best wishes for VIRs continued success. Dang Huu Cu, communications specialist in Vietnam, Asian Development Bank The press is particularly important in following and reporting news and events, as well as disseminating information and data on socioeconomic development in Vietnam and around the world. The press facilitates two-way communications between the government and the people, providing information and opinions from society for policymakers to consider and promptly make decisions. We follow the media for up-to-date policies of the government of Vietnam, and supplementary data for reference and use in our multi-sectoral research on the country. For us, VIR is one of the must-read newspapers because of its interesting content and useful data. Local media in general has been frequently publishing interviews and articles by our experts, which encourage discussions among a wide range of readers about challenges and opportunities in Vietnams development endeavours. These opinion-sharing articles or policy recommendations also helped readers have broader perspectives, thereby making positive contributions to the countrys policy development and innovation, supporting consensus in the public on new policies. VIR has helped raise public awareness about our operations in Vietnam, and features assorted stories about the successes and impacts of financed projects nationwide. It does not only publish positive aspects of the implementation of projects financed by the Asian Development Bank - some stories have also highlighted shortcomings in project administration. These stories not only help the project executing agency to promptly handle the violations, but also help the sponsors find out those defects in time to coordinate with the management agency in order to strengthen measures and management tools, strengthen monitoring and supervision, aiming to ensure transparency and effectiveness in investment. I commend the way VIR features the macroeconomic situation of the country via in-depth stories. We are also proud to have contributions to those stories, when reporters often ask for our views on issues related to socioeconomic development in Vietnam. Michele Wee, CEO, Standard Chartered (Vietnam) VIR plays a pivotal role in providing the latest updates about Vietnams economic developments, and its business and investment climate. My colleagues and I have benefited a lot from the news and reports carried by VIR. As Vietnam is making efforts to attract high quality overseas funding and promote green growth and sustainable development, it is important that outstanding achievements of businesses are recognised. VIR not only highlights the contributions of Standard Chartered Bank to Vietnams economic growth but also inspires other businesses in general to strive for success, excellence, and innovation. The conference themed Strong Investment Partnerships for a Thriving Vietnam organised in May, for example, was an event we were honoured to take part in. Standard Chartered Vietnam has made a significant milestone in our commitment to Vietnam, marked by a substantial $60 million capital injection. This injection underscores our banks unwavering dedication to the country and its long-term strategy of bolstering onshore business operations through the foreign direct investment. We will celebrate 120 years of operation in Vietnam in 2024, reaffirming our long-term investment and commitment in the country. We look forward to our continued strong collaboration in providing valuable insights to readers and contributing to economic growth. Gregory Testerman, chairman of the Board, American Chamber of Commerce Vietnam For three decades, VIR has provided great insight into the driving forces behind Vietnams dynamic economy. We appreciate the coverage of every sector, from the digital economy to healthcare to renewable energy to manufacturing, including hot topics like AI, the semiconductor industry, and evolving supply chains. Our members also appreciate your events, which provide real-time engagement with experts. We look forward to many more years of successful coverage of topics that matter to investors in Vietnam. The leadership team, editors, and reporters have worked hard to bring hot news and profound articles to readers. The success of VIR is all due to the dedicated team. We greatly appreciate VIRs support in conveying our activities to the community. Marko Walde, chief representative Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos, AHK Throughout our longstanding partnership with VIR, we have witnessed the newspapers evolution into a multi-product press agency, serving as a steadfast companion to both domestic and foreign enterprises. Over the years, it has played a vital role in shaping the business landscape in Vietnam, and we are proud to have been a part of this journey. As an organisation dedicated to fostering economic cooperation between Germany and Vietnam, AHK Vietnam has had the privilege of collaborating closely with VIR to promote investment opportunities that benefit both countries. Thanks to its comprehensive coverage and insightful analysis, we have successfully demonstrated the enormous potential of the Vietnamese market to our German counterparts. As a result, we have witnessed a substantial surge in German investments in Vietnam, which has led to the growth of various sectors and the creation of numerous job opportunities. Furthermore, through the media, we have effectively conveyed our message and recommendations to government authorities at all levels, supporting them in enhancing the investment environment. This proactive approach will enable Vietnam to draw in high-quality and sustainable green capital inflows from Germany and the rest of Europe, fostering long-term investments that prioritise both economic growth and environmental sustainability. In the realm of international business, media engagement plays a crucial role, and VIR has been an exceptional partner in this endeavour. Its professionalism and dedication have been instrumental in fostering fruitful connections between German and Vietnamese enterprises. The influential platforms provided by VIR have allowed us to effectively communicate the investment climate in Vietnam to our German audience, highlighting the attractive opportunities available. Trang Bui, country head, Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam The celebration of 32 years of VIR is a significant milestone that reflects its contribution and commitment to Vietnams business landscape. Establishing a presence in the media landscape shortly after the Law on Foreign Direct Investment in Vietnam was introduced, I firmly believe that VIR has contributed greatly to the growth and development of the market since then. We appreciate the opportunities to share our expertise on commercial real estate and take part in driving transparency and excellence for the property market. Through the years, VIR has built a strong platform that acts as a bridge between foreign business communities and the public. For many investors and businesses that are interested in exploring opportunities in Vietnam, it offers valuable information, diverse expert insights, and crucial analysis for business decision-making. Beyond traditional news reporting, we appreciate that the outlet continuously expands its role by organising special conferences like the M&A Forum and Industrial Property Forum where businesses can meet, connect, and share their ideas and insights. These events are undoubtedly a highlight in our business calendar and we are excited about whats next on VIRs future journey. Edwin Tan, deputy CEO, Frasers Property Vietnam We would also like to express our heartfelt appreciation for the valuable support of VIRs reporters and the editorial board for our company over the years. The newspaper provides excellent information on the current business environment and provides insight into how local enterprises and the government interact with foreign corporations for the benefit of Vietnams continued economic development. We are unified by our commitment to deliver inspiring experiences, creating places for good. With deep and localised knowledge, we continue to seize opportunities to expand real estate assets, from industrial and commercial to residential, as our long-term commitment to being vested in Vietnam. VIR is a partner that helps us to deliver our purpose, and has long been an indispensable media partner for our business operations in Vietnam. Binh Le Vandekerckove, CEO, ASART Deal Advisory Vietnam has been an attractive destination for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and international trade, despite the current global challenges and uncertainties. Domestic companies are also taking the initiative in seeking strategic partnerships with foreign investors to enhance their competitiveness and innovation. VIR and its sister publications have played an important role in reporting these developments, as well as providing insights and analysis on the drivers, opportunities, and challenges of M&A transactions in Vietnam. They also help inform and educate their readers about the benefits and risks of such deals, as well as foster a positive environment for M&A transactions in Vietnam. I believe that VIR and its sister publications can improve their roles by continuing to provide high-quality journalism that is objective, accurate, timely, and relevant. A paper presence is a valuable tradition we should keep, and VIR and its sister publications can enhance their creditability by having more subject-matter experts in their editorial and award assessment boards and enhance their digital presence and engagement with their readers to create more interactive and dynamic content. Tim Evans, CEO, HSBC Vietnam The Vietnamese economy has experiencing significant challenges this year. Most are to do with the impact of becoming more globally integrated and therefore exposed to economic downturns in key export markets. It is at times like this, that people seek to understand the environment and what the outlook might be so that they can make informed decisions about how to position their companies for today and the future. The media has an important role in informing people about the external environment so that they can take well-judged decisions for their businesses. VIR, together with its professional conferences, have helped to inform about the dynamic and fast-moving Vietnamese economy. They have helped inform readers both locally and internationally about the opportunities that Vietnam offers and have helped fly the flag for the country as it continues to transition to a middle-income country. It has also not limited its information to purely economic and business issues but has also been an active voice in highlighting the need for the country to embrace the transition to net-zero, given how much the country is being adversely impacted by climate change. Ronald Tay, CEO, CapitaLand Development (Vietnam) This year, we celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations and 10 years of a strategic partnership between Vietnam and Singapore, a milestone that reflects the strong friendship between the two countries. As a part of this celebration, we are also delighted to mark the 32 years of VIR. We value the publications role in providing reliable and timely information on the economic and social developments in Vietnam, as well as the opportunities and challenges for foreign investors. VIR has also been a platform for dialogue and collaboration among the government, the private sector, and the society, fostering mutual understanding and trust. My company has been operating in Vietnam for nearly three decades, and in recent years we have participated in many of VIRs special publications on sustainable development and property. Next year will mark 30 years of CapitaLands presence in Vietnam. We hope that VIR will continue to be our media partner for business promotion and contributing to the socioeconomic development of Vietnam. Paul Fisher, country head, JLL (Vietnam) JLL Vietnam greatly appreciate our partnership with VIR, a publication that demonstrates both expertise and dedication in fostering insightful discussions within the Vietnam business community. VIR is an invaluable platform facilitating dialogue and meaningful interactions among market participants and playing a crucial role in elevating Vietnamese commerce. The events organised by VIR are of the highest standard and provide opportunities for businesses to engage directly with key stakeholders and share perspectives on the latest business trends, key market dynamics and thought leadership. JLL Vietnam was delighted to collaborate with VIR on two significant events in 2023, where both JLL colleagues and our clients could benefit from the insightful presentations, panel discussions and networking opportunities. We hold this partnership in the highest regard and eagerly anticipate these occasions. Angus Liew, chairman, Gamuda Land Vietnam VIR delivers reliable information about the Vietnamese market, as well as timely transmission of new government policies, and business and investment recommendations. VIR is a trustworthy news source for Malaysian developers like Gamuda Land, as well as foreign corporations looking to expand into Vietnam. I appreciate the ability of VIR reporters to create highly intellectual products, covering many fields, from diplomacy, investment, finance, banking, to the environment and tourism. Gamuda Land and VIR have both changed dramatically in 10 years of collaboration. The articles carefully reflect the projects, talk shows, sponsorship programmes, and social activities that Gamuda is implementing in Vietnam, serving as a bridge to bring Gamuda Land closer to the Vietnamese market. Along with print and online publications, VIR now boasts newer, more special developments, typically multi-disciplinary events, discussions, and seminars for businesses and investors. In the future, as one of the businesses advocating sustainable development, Gamuda Land hopes to cooperate with VIR to organise seminars to exchange with businesses and investors interested in this realm. Pham Duy Khuong, managing partner, ASL LAW In todays environment, information and communication are crucial elements in the operations of both local and international businesses, as well as diplomatic institutions within Vietnam. VIR has effectively fulfilled its role of providing information and communication support to these entities. VIR has delivered high-quality information to individuals and enterprises, aiding their comprehension of the Vietnamese business market. The newspaper has played a vital part in fostering a welcoming, open, and transparent business environment. Notably, VIR has consistently provided accurate and up-to-date information about Vietnams market, business landscape, and macroeconomics. This has instilled confidence in foreign investors and aided them in making effective investment decisions in Vietnam. ASL LAW has maintained a close partnership with VIR in various events and legal analysis reports, contributing to the enhancement and upkeep of legal information pertaining to Vietnam for the global market. On the occasion of VIRs 32nd anniversary, ASL LAW extends its heartfelt wishes to the dedicated staff of VIR. We hope that VIR will continue to be a reputable, high-quality, and transparent source of information, supporting businesses both within and beyond the borders, overcoming all obstacles, and expanding development in Vietnam and around the world. Warrick Cleine, CEO, KPMG Vietnam and Cambodia As a source of up-to-date information on the Vietnamese economy, business environment, and government policies, VIR provides foreign businesses with current information. Our firm belief is that well-informed investors make better decisions, and the contribution made by VIR in providing reliable and comprehensive business news has played a significant role in supporting this endeavour. The newspaper also plays a crucial role in providing accurate, timely, and in-depth coverage that aligns perfectly with our commitment at KPMG. We hope that VIR will continue to provide high-quality information and analysis on the Vietnamese economy, business environment, and government policies. Lance Li, CEO, BW Industrial Development On the occasion of VIRs anniversary, BW extends our heartfelt congratulations and gratitude for the valued partnership over the past few years. Since inception, the outlet has become a trailblazer in Vietnam, covering comprehensive political, social, business, and economic life. VIR is BWs strategic communication partner and plays an important role as a vital bridge connecting foreign-invested enterprises with government ministries. Through their ongoing transformation and diversification of media products, we believe that VIR will continue to uphold its foremost status in the media landscape, providing essential support for the growth and expansion of enterprises in Vietnam.
Investments are being made in educational projects, particularly through scholarships

In September, the global multi-asset broker gave $45,000 to students at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. The 35 beneficiaries are third year students with a CPA of 2.5/4 or higher and competent in English.

Martin Thorvaldsson, corporate social responsibility (CSR) director of Exness Group shared, We hope that this scholarship will help the students and also indirectly help the country develop further. We had some difficult beginnings to become the big company we are today. I believe the students here can also do the same in the future.

The company is investing in projects across the educational spectrum, from providing crucial supplies to primary schools to top academic scholarship programmes. Through CSR, it aims to create its own approach, homing in on different focus areas.

Educational odyssey helping students

In June, the company also funded the education of three students through a partnership with the University of Cape Town, the oldest and most prestigious university in South Africa.

This is the first time that the broker has given university students in South Africa the chance to continue their education at the post-graduate level through scholarships. The candidates were selected based on strict academic standards and individual interviews were also held by Exness and the university.

The programme seeks to give ICT-talented students the chance to further their academic training and pursue careers in technology.

Our aim is to unleash human potential to create a fair and just society  in core academic functions, the cross-cutting responsibilities of transformation and social responsiveness, and the systems that support and sustain UCTs work, said Stafford Bomester, head of fundraising at the University of Cape Town.

We strive to connect with like-minded visionary partners like Exness to aid us to reach our mission. We are appreciative of this partnership, and we continue to be optimistic to further expand our partner network.

Deserving students in Cyprus have previously received scholarships under the Exness Fintech Scholarships initiative; however, in 2023-2024, it will also be available in Vietnam, Thailand, and the Seychelles.

It is not just in education where Exness is offering a hand. In April, it accompanied the An Phuc charity organisation and others to co-sponsor the building of Phuc An 3 Bridge in the northern province of Ha Giang.

The aim is to unleash human potential and create better societies

Some of the funding has gone to people in remote areas

Traffic in the area is difficult due to the often harsh weather conditions. Especially on days of heavy rain, temporary bridges built by local people are often washed away. The construction of Phuc An 3 Bridge is necessary to ensure that primary school education for children here is not interrupted, as well as to maintain the activities of people in the commune taking place without delay.

Thai Viet Dung, commercial director off Exness Vietnam said, We are committed to supporting projects that have a positive and long-term impact in the countries where we operate. Issues related to educational support receive special attention from us and we are very happy to participate in supporting this project. Basically, we want to help students not miss a single lesson in all weather conditions.

Elsewhere, as a pioneer in fintech with a strong focus on the advancement of the financial markets, Exness teamed up with the University of Nicosias (UNIC) Institute For the Future to offer blockchain courses to all its employees last year.

With this collaboration, Exness provided its employees with the tools and knowledge that will encourage its prospects and product development.

The partnership has helped develop the next generation of industry leaders by giving all Exness employees the chance to enrol in any of the top blockchain courses that UNIC offers, such as an open online course in blockchain and Blockchain Academic Certification programmes.

Exness teams up with University of Nicosia to provide blockchain education Exness  a pioneer in fintech with a strong focus on the advancement of the financial markets  teams up with the University of Nicosia's (UNIC) Institute For the Future to offer blockchain courses to all its employees.

Exness welcomes new chief marketing officer Exness, one of the largest financial trading platforms, welcomes its new chief marketing officer, Alfonso Cardalda.
North Korea has decided to expel Travis King, a U.S. soldier who has been detained after "illegally intruding" into the country by running across the inter-Korean border in July, state media said Wednesday.

Pvt. King made an unauthorized crossing of the Military Demarcation Line into the North during a tour to the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas on July 18.

"The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, under the law of the Republic," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing the final findings of an investigation into King. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It did not provide further details on when and how King will be expelled.

Later in the day, the Associated Press reported that King was in U.S. custody after being transferred in China, citing two unidentified U.S. officials.

The KCNA said King was "disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society" and crossed the border due to "inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army," reiterating the North's interim results of its investigation into King last month.

The North confirmed King's detention for the first time on Aug. 16 and claimed the U.S. soldier expressed willingness to seek refuge in the North or a third country.

Shortly after the North's first confirmation of King's detention, the U.S. Department of Defense said the alleged comments by King cannot be verified and that it is focused on bringing him back home.

Observers have said Pyongyang could seek to use King for its propaganda efforts or as a bargaining chip to demand concessions from Washington as dialogue between the two sides has remained at a standstill since 2019.

King has faced legal trouble after being stationed in South Korea. He was detained in a South Korean prison workshop from May 24 to July 10 after failing to pay a fine for damaging a police patrol car last year.

On Oct. 8, South Korean police apprehended King for suspected violence at a nightclub in western Seoul. He reportedly did not cooperate with police officers demanding his personal information and kicked the door of their vehicle.

King had been set to return to the United States on July 17, where he could have faced additional disciplinary action, but he did not board his flight at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, and took part in the JSA tour the next day. (Yonhap)
Empowering Women through Entrepreneurship: Breaking through the Glass Ceilings event by KPMG

On September 14, there was a thought-provoking discussion between KPMG and top female leaders about the role of women leadership in the tech world. This was a part of KPMG Global Tech Innovator 2023 Award Ceremony in Vietnam and Cambodia, identifying and support the emerging tech entrepreneurs in Vietnam and globally.

In the evolving landscape of technology, staying updated and relevant is paramount. For women in the tech industry, this often translates into juggling roles both at work and home, said Quyen Phan, chief marketing and operations of Microsoft Vietnam.

For many women, this is a dual challenge, as we navigate the ever-evolving tech landscape and balance domestic responsibilities. But the key, at least for me, is focus. When I'm at work, I give it my all. At home, it's undivided time with my family, Phan said. I consider myself fortunate to be with Microsoft. The company's technology allows for flexible work arrangements, and the culture is supportive of women.

Linh Nguyen, managing partner from Plus One Investment Advisory said, During my university days, out of 150 students, only a handful were female. We often felt the need to double our efforts compared to our male counterparts. But it was, and still is, about empowering oneself, finding passion, and rallying with like-minded peers towards shared goals.

She elaborated on her journey through industry giants such as Schlumberger, IBM, and Salesforce, emphasising that empowerment and self-belief were crucial.

According to recruitment services Zippia, approximately one-quarter of tech jobs at Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are held by women. This is shockingly low, but basically on par with national employment levels for women in tech, Zippia said.

In a January report, UN Women highlighted a stark disparity: women make up just 28 per cent of engineering graduates, a mere 22 per cent of AI professionals, and fewer than one-third of global tech employees.

Without equal representation in these fields, womens participation in shaping technology, research, investments, and policy will remain critically limited, the UN Women report said. The same challenges apply to their access to fast-growing and high-paying careers - an inequality compounded by the fact that, as tech and digital innovation disrupt industries, women will bear the brunt of job losses.

The conversation shifted to the present, focusing on the culture within rapidly growing tech firms. Trang Nguyen, head of Marketing at TikTok Vietnam said, Diversity and inclusion is core at TikTok. We encourage everyone to bring their unique cultures and perspectives. There's no bias regarding gender or position. Its about collaboration and performance.

She highlighted how TikTok's flat hierarchy and open communication channels have created an environment where meritocracy reigns supreme and where gender, seniority, or titles do not overshadow capability.

Focusing on Microsoft, Quyen Phan explained how the company's culture underwent a transformation under Satya Nadella as the firms CEO. We've evolved from being intensely competitive to cultivating a culture where potential isn't predetermined. The belief now is that everyone can learn and grow," she said.

In addition, a notable element is to focus on mentorship. As the tech community continues to grow, inviting mentors to share their experiences and guidance becomes increasingly vital.

"Mentorship is paramount. During my time working at big tech companies, having seasoned professionals guide my path was invaluable. At the end of the day, it's about being authentic, being resilient, and driving value," said Nguyen from TikTok.

At KPMG, mentorship holds a similar reverence regardless of gender, age, or identity.

John Ditty, managing partner, head of Trust from KPMG Vietnam and Cambodia said, "Throughout my journey at KPMG, I've been fortunate to have mentors. While they're vital in providing clarity, it's essential to approach them with a clear objective. The essence of mentorship is having someone you trust, but who can offer an unbiased perspective."

Mentorship isn't just a one-off interaction - it's deeply embedded in our DNA. We believe in fostering growth and guiding the next generation of leaders, making mentorship an integral part of our organisational culture, the representative added.

According to UN Women, as the labour market evolves, specialised reskilling and upskilling initiatives are vital for women's advancement, particularly for those at the highest risk of being sidelined. Furthermore, enhanced labour standards are crucial to elevating women's status rather than perpetuating existing disparities.

This includes a living minimum wage, regulations against pay discrimination, and social protection systems that address, for example, discrepancies between the unpaid care burdens of women and men, the organisation noted.

Decoding preferences of investors in tech startups In an exclusive interview, VIRs Luu Huong explored Vietnams vibrant startup ecosystem with Hung Truong, senior investment director at SK Vietnam and judge for the KPMG Global Tech Innovator 2023, discussing investor preferences, regional competition, and strategies for startups.

KPMG tech innovator contest unveils top 6 finalists The 2023 KPMG Private Enterprise Global Tech Innovator is a prestigious global competition hosted by KPMG Private Enterprise that recognises groundbreaking companies in the technology industry from 26 countries around the world. During the semi-final stage in Vietnam and Cambodia on July 20, the top six finalists in their respective markets were unveiled.
Ericsson and RMIT University have signed an agreement to launch an AI lab at RMITs campus in Hanoi. How important is this to you, as well as to the development of qualified human resources in Vietnam?

Denis Brunetti, president of Ericsson in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos

The joint initiative, which we hope will be launched by the end of this year, is an extension of the existing 5G education collaboration between RMIT and Ericsson that helps educate Vietnamese students on 5G and emerging technologies, such as AI, machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing, AR/VR and automation. It enables RMITs science, technology, and engineering students to actively participate and contribute to the countrys digital economy and digital transformation journey.

The partnership is also an industrial research and education initiative focusing on the application of AI to Industry 4.0 initiatives enabled by the roll-out of 5G in Vietnam. Through this initiative, Ericsson and RMIT will support industry, academia, and community partners to create and implement AI solutions that will spearhead the adoption of Industry 4.0 across a multitude of industries.

In Vietnam, the government has targeted clear objectives to accelerate the adoption of Industry 4.0 as part of its national strategy for digital transformation.

This lab builds on a previously launched 5G education collaboration with RMIT in Vietnam and represents a significant step in building a high-tech industry-ready workforce in Vietnam through strategic industry-academia partnerships, whilst helping further advance the startup and innovation ecosystem across the nation.

The 5G-ready young talent and AI applications that this collaboration expects to produce will serve to accelerate Vietnams Industry 4.0 agenda, as well as its ambition to become an AI hub in ASEAN by 2030. It will drive and create the next wave of sustained and inclusive socioeconomic development in Vietnam, enabled by sci-tech and innovation.

Which sectors will benefit most from the initiative?

The collaborations activities are expected to include work integrated training/learning in 5G, AI/ML, AR/VR, automation, cloud and edge computing, blockchain, and related technologies, coupled with the ambition to jointly research, create, and implement AI applications that can serve the needs of industries across Vietnam, such as manufacturing, energy, education, transport, and logistics.

In addition, the lab will enable Ericsson and RMIT to connect with community partners over time to potentially create a broader ecosystem in AI and communications technology, leveraging 5G as a critical national infrastructure.

It will also contribute to further advancing the startup and innovation ecosystem across the nation, whilst also nurturing and developing the high-tech human capital capabilities of the workforce of the future.

How far can this Ericsson and RMIT cooperation go over the next few years and beyond?

The collaboration began in late 2021 with the launch of our Ericsson Educate online platform in Vietnam, which has already been delivering 5G training for RMIT students in the School of Science, Engineering, and Technology. This collaboration will ensure that graduates have the practical skills necessary to succeed in fast-evolving business environments, equipping them with the capabilities and competencies that are required for the jobs of the future.

The collaboration with RMIT University will further support Vietnams ambition of accelerating the development of IT and STEM-related human capital capabilities across the nation. With around three-quarters of jobs globally requiring STEM-based competencies by 2050, Vietnam will be well positioned to meet the needs of the future workforce, whilst also driving innovation and startup entrepreneurship to create new industries, companies, and jobs.

Upskilling the workforce is one of Vietnams top priorities in its digital transformation journey. How does Ericsson Educate help support the countrys efforts in this regard?

We are helping prepare the country for 5G by educating young people. We opened the Ericsson Educate platform to RMIT students in addition to collaborating with the university for guest lectures, research projects, internships, and industry projects as well as creating relevant opportunities for students to benefit from our technology and 5G leadership.

Ericsson Educate is a digital skills portal that provides access to learning material on key technologies. The collaboration to include content from the portal provides students and lecturers with access to quality digital learning resources that draw on our expertise in telecommunications and ICT. This is the first formal collaboration for this programme in Vietnam.

The initiatives content will be provided without cost by Ericsson during the collaboration period, which has the potential to reach up to 1,300 students. Content from the platform is being utilised to complement RMITs science, engineering, and technology courses for university-level students.

The 5G-ready young talent that this collaboration will produce will also serve to accelerate Vietnams Industry 4.0 agenda and boost the countrys digital transformation initiatives.

5G growth continues in Southeast Asia 5G subscriptions continue to grow in Southeast Asia and Oceania highlights, with 5G subscriptions forecast to reach around 430 million by the end of 2028 and to contribute 34 per cent of all mobile subscriptions, according to the June 2023 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report.

Building more sustainable mobile networks with 5G Today, we are at the epicentre of a powerful trend where anything that can go wireless will go wireless. Digitalisation is already a driving force in every industry across our planet, and mobile networks have been a key enabler of digitalisation, which puts our industry at the centre of a powerful trend.
Vinh Hoan Corporation and Vietnam Food Company (VNF) were two of over 1,000 local and international food entrepreneurs from more than 45 countries to attend Food Ingredients Asia 2023 and Vitafoods Asia 2023 last week.

Organised by Informa Markets in Bangkok on September 20-22, the two businesses from Vietnam were busy taking care of people visiting their booths.

We focus on exporting to the EU and Asia, and participating in exhibitions is an effective solution to find partners and distributors, said Thu Tran, chief sales officer of Vinh Hoan Corporation. We have regularly participated in exhibitions, especially international ones. This year alone, we have attended exhibitions in South Korea, Thailand, and Germany as well as Vietnam.

Seafood processor and exporter Vinh Hoan has a subsidiary named Vinh Wellness, which was the first in Vietnam to apply high technology to produce collagen peptides and gelatin from basa fish skin.

Participating in international exhibitions and fairs is expensive but it is the most effective method to promote exports. We have an addition of 20-30 more customers and distributors after each exhibition. The larger the exhibition, the higher the chance of finding partners and customers, Thu said.

Furthermore, its products have international certification, so exhibitions can help reach as many partners and distributors as possible, Thu added.

VNF, meanwhile, which specialises in processing shrimp co-products, has also been adding to its customer and distributor base.

Over the past two years, when the company gained a certain foothold in the international market, we often participated in three international exhibitions, excluding domestic exhibitions, said Ngoc Tran, deputy sales manager of VNF. One of our most important targets is to find international distributors because currently most of the companys products are exported.

However, the companys sales team is not strong enough to sell products worldwide and to exploit the potential of the market.

That is why we need support from big international distributors, Tran explained.

Manu Leopairote, chairman of Informa Markets, said, I believe that the exhibition platforms will support and enable Thailands and Asian food, drinks, and nutraceutical manufacturing industries to achieve higher quality and standard of products with a sustainable approach.

According to the organising board, by participating in these events, companies will have the opportunity to discover trends and innovations in health and nutrition, meet suppliers to source white-label products and engage with a wide range of specialist solution providers.

Rungphech Chitanuwat, ASEAN regional director for Informa Markets in Thailand, said the events unlock opportunities for entrepreneurs to share and update global food trends, aiming at amplifying potential and ensuring local raw material and beverage operators are well-armed for the global arena.

This years events have been revamped to give a more modern sense, solidifying our position as tastemakers, being a hub that gathers raw materials from every corner of the world, Chitanuwat said.

Within the events, over 1,000 operators and product owners and over 30,000 local and international buyers can be interacted with. In addition, more than 30,000 visitors were expected for both events, which will generate added value and shape solid business networks in the future.

F&B groups snapping up new stores in bid for victory Consumer belt-tightening is not having much impact on the revenues of food and beverage businesses in Vietnam, with many maintaining stable growth rates.

ASEAN, RoK boost business ties in food, beverage The ASEAN-Korea Centre (AKC) on May 30 opened an ASEAN Trade Fair in the framework of the Seoul Food 2023 (SF2003) to showcase food and beverage products from ASEAN countries and create opportunities for ASEAN companies to connect and establish business partnerships with partners from the Republic of Korea (RoK).

Pioneering advances in Vietnamese F&B Vietnams food and beverage sector is poised for substantial growth. In an exclusive interview, Eliseo Barcas (left), managing director of Tetra Pak Vietnam, and CEO of DenEast Vietnam Johan Boden (right) talked to VIRs Celine Luu about Bloom., a pioneering partnership that hopes to revolutionise the industry.
Some property ventures are closer to admin issues being ironed out, Photo: Dung Minh

A report from the Ministry of Construction (MoC) on the results of implementing Resolution No.33/NQ-CP and proposing solutions to remove complexities for the real estate market last month noted that the ministry continues to actively work with related bodies and localities to solve obstacles in delayed projects.

During the last two years, Hanoi has resolved issues for more than 420 projects, equivalent to less than 60 per cent of those with documented problems. In that time, Ho Chi Minh City has resolved 67 projects, equivalent to 37 per cent, according to the report.

The remaining localities are continuing to resolve business problems, while projects being dismantled will contribute to ensuring supply and promoting the market, it added.

According to a report from the MoC on the first eight months of the year, a working group under the ministry has received an additional 112 documents reporting problems and recommendations from localities, businesses, associations, and individuals related to over 170 other real estate projects.

These updated projects will be added to the list of those waiting for issues to be ironed out.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said that the efforts of MoC and related bodies have initially achieved positive results, contributing to increasing confidence in the real estate market.

The city is aiming to group projects with the same issues to speed up resolution. This is the citys strong commitment to completely handling legal backlogs, opening up the supply of legally complete housing and promoting market development, Chau said.

In a notable development, according to Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment, two projects from Hung Thinh Group have had bottlenecks related to investment procedures removed. The ventures are Moonlight Avenue in Thu Duc city, and Moonlight Centre Point in Binh Tan district.

In addition, four other ventures also found solutions related to issuing ownership to customers and residents. Accordingly, it is expected that by the end of 2023, more than 2,000 apartments at Moonlight Park View, Moonlight Boulevard, 9 View Apartment, and 8X Dam Sen will hand over ownership certifications.

In addition to difficulties in legal procedures, meeting fire prevention conditions is one of the major problems slowing down the progress of many real estate projects.

With that, the MoC said that it is coordinating with relevant ministries and sectors to systematically review and advise the government to amend provisions of the related regulations and standards for improving the conditions of more than 38,000 existing projects, which occupy more than 3 per cent of total constructions currently underway.

If stopped, these projects will affect jobs and the supply of goods and services, the ministry said.

Top projects reap returns despite slowdown The luxury apartment market has been resuscitated with the sale and construction of new projects, as real estate consultants believe the time is right to re-enter the market.

Top Thai power firm announces funding for renewable projects in Thailand and Vietnam Prestigious Thai power generation company B.Grimm Power Plc (BKK: BGRIM) has announced it would allocate THB3 billion ($91 million) in funding for solar and wind energy development in Thailand and Vietnam raised through its green debenture offerings.
The investment is made via a wholly-owned subsidiary, Solarvest (Vietnam) Co., Ltd. The Malaysian group's entry into the Vietnamese market is in line with its commitment to meet the soaring demand for sustainable energy solutions.

Solarvest currently has a sizable project tender book of 100MWp in the nation, proving its commitment to the expansion and development of renewable energy efforts in the region.

Davis Chong Chun Shiong, executive director and group CEO of Solarvest said, We are delighted with the progress of our overseas expansion efforts, which are well-aligned with our five-year strategic roadmap. Including Vietnam, our overseas project tenders now stand at 620MWp, indicating a strong job pipeline for the group. This expansion positions Solarvest favourably to tap into new streams of overseas income.

"As part of our strategic expansion plan, we are advancing across the value chain as a comprehensive clean energy developer for our overseas projects," Shiong added.

"Given the focus on solar and wind energy within the Power Development Plan VIII (PDP8), where solar and wind energy are projected to account for approximately 34 per cent and 27 per cent of the 500GW installed capacity respectively, we are actively exploring wind energy projects alongside our ongoing solar ventures in Vietnam."

"Furthermore, we are venturing into innovative sustainable solutions, including battery energy storage systems, to enhance energy supply reliability and efficiency within our projects in the nation. These efforts are aimed at strengthening our foothold in both the domestic and international clean energy markets," the group CEO concluded.

Another Malaysian energy company, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) is also scaling up energy access through cross-border partnerships with key energy players in Vietnam.

The company has inked strategic partnerships with the major energy players in Vietnam. These MoUs were between TNB Renewables Sdn Bhd and Saigon Gia Dinh Electric JSC, and between TNB Repair and Maintenance Sdn Bhd and North Power Service JSC.

The prospects in Vietnams clean energy market are highly promising, with its commitment to transition away from coal as outlined in PDP8. The plan establishes ambitious goals in the countrys energy generation mix, aiming for the installed capacity of renewables to reach 150GW by 2030 and 500GW by 2050.

Consequently, Vietnams Ministry of Industry and Trade recently introduced a mechanism to incentivise the development of rooftop solar power systems, with a vision of equipping half of the countrys office and residential buildings with rooftop solar panels by 2030.

Malaysia eyes wave energy for electricity generation When one mentions renewable energy, the mind often jumps to familiar sources like solar energy, hydroelectric dams, and wind power. However, Malaysia is seeking measures to turn wave energy for electricity generation.

Malaysia attracts foreign investment through friendly approach Malaysia is expected to receive more investments going forward, supported by investors confidence in the Madani Economy framework and from offshoots from existing investments, said Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association (MSIA).
An art performance celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - President Vo Van Thuong on September 26 sent a letter extending his best wishes to Vietnamese children inside and outside the country as well as foreign children living in Vietnam on the occasion of the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival 2023.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, the 15th day of the eighth lunar month which falls on September 29 this year, is a festival of love and sharing, and also an opportunity for adults to remind themselves to pay more attention to children with love, responsibility and practical actions, he wrote.

The State leader called for more efforts to support children in difficult circumstances, orphans, and those living in remote, border and island areas so that all children can fully enjoy the festival and have fun with their family and community.

Thuong said he is moved and proud to see many children performing good deeds, showing love to their parents and grandparents, and helping and sharing with unfortunate peers. Many children have studied hard, recording high achievements and becoming the pride of their family and fatherland.

He encouraged children to nurture their dreams and wished them a happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2023.

Moonglow persimmon at Park Hyatt Saigon Amidst the romantic appeal of autumnal hues, the soulful beauty of branches laden with persimmons resembles moonlit lanterns, depicting good fortune and prosperity. Soft as egg yolk, smooth as velvet, divinely sweet and fragrant like honey, a sonata of autumn flavours is utterly enveloped in this precious gift from nature.
The strategic partnership between Rang Dong Plastics and Sojitz Planet dates back to 2017, when the two sides signed a share purchase contract. Sojitz bought five million ordinary shares of Rang Dong Long An, worth over VND174 billion ($7.1 million). Rang Dong Long An was an 80:20 venture between Rang Dong Plastics and Sojitz.

Sojitz made full payments for the tranche but following the share transfer, Rang Dong was accused of violating a number of obligations post-transfer. The Japanese corporation then exercised its rights to terminate the contract and requested Rang Dong to immediately refund 90 per cent of the payment, equivalent to nearly VND157 billion ($6.4 million).

However, Rang Dong refused to make the refund payment, so Sojitz initiated a lawsuit at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and on July 6, last year, an arbitration council issued a ruling that Rang Dong had to return the requested VND157 billion ($6.4 million).

The Vietnamese manufacturer was also requested to pay Sojitz 10 per cent annual interest on the sum, from April 1, 2020 until payment was made. At the same time, Rang Dong was required to pay fees and charges exceeding $270,000 to the arbitration council and SIAC.

Rang Dong lodged a complaint against the ruling, saying that there are no grounds to prove the violations or damages.

Ho Chi Minh City People's Court declared in January of this year that it did not recognise the SIAC's ruling. However, Sojitz later filed an appeal against the judgment of Ho Chi Minh City People's Court, requiring the court to examine the evidence and the outcomes of the trial.

Following the review, Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court accepted Sojitz's appeal and has allowed the enforcement of the SIAC's ruling.

Rang Dong Plastic JSC inks strategic tie-up with Sojitz Pla-Net Rang Dong Plastic Joint Stock Company and Japan's Sojitz Pla-Net Corporation on March 9 signed a strategic business alliance agreement to provide new distribution solutions for the ancillary industries for the plastic sector.

Japanese Sojitz Planet forms $32-million venture with Rang Dong Plastics Japans Sojitz Planet Corporation formed a strategic partnership with Rang Dong Plastics JSC today to set up a new venture called Rang Dong Long An.
According to research by the World Health Organization, for every $1 spent on early childhood development interventions, the return on investment can be as high as $13. Therefore, investing in the development of the younger generation is a cost-effective way to promote shared prosperity, economic growth, and expand equal opportunities.

Shinhan Life aims to build a sustainable future for the next generation of Vietnam

Sharing this common perspective, Shinhan Life has been integrating business development with social responsibility since its inception in the Vietnamese market.

In addition to charity programmes and support for the basic needs of underprivileged children, the company has collaborated to implement long-term educational programmes aimed at comprehensive child development, enabling them to lead fulfilling lives and become valuable citizens for society, thus promoting Vietnam's sustainable future.

Supporting nearly $19,000 in treatment costs for paediatric leukemia patients

On September 15, Shinhan Life Vietnam donated more than $6,300 in treatment costs to pediatric leukemia patients in difficult circumstances at Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital.

Additionally, over 120 gifts were presented to paediatric hematology clinical patients to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival. This is the second consecutive year the company has sponsored treatment costs for paediatric leukemia patients, with a total sponsorship approximating $19,000.

Thirty families of paediatric leukemia patients with difficult circumstances have received timely support to continue their battle against the disease.

Shinhan Life donates $6,300 to support paediatric leukemia patients

Directly visiting and giving gifts to these children, Bae Seung Jun, general director of Shinhan Life Vietnam, expressed his heartfelt sentiments.

In addition to sponsoring medical treatment costs, Shinhan Life provides warm care to paediatric patients and their families through practical sharing programmes on holidays.

Jun noted that one of Shinhan Life Vietnam's priorities is to enhance social responsibility and spread love through community activities, and that he expects the company's financial support to boost the spirits and strength of these children and their families, helping them to overcome illness and return to normal life.

In addition to sponsoring medical treatment costs, Shinhan Life provides warm care to paediatric patients and their families through practical sharing programmes on holidays.

The company's Board of Directors and employees visited and distributed 1,300 lunches and 200 gifts to the families of paediatric patients receiving treatment at Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital 2 on International Children's Day on June 1.

Hand-delivering meals to the families of patients, Bae Seung Jun expressed his hope that programmes like these would spread widely, allowing young patients facing illnesses to live in an atmosphere of love and community sharing.

Shinhan Life Vietnam's free lunch programme at Children's Hospital 2 on International Children's Day on June 1

Alongside the programme supporting paediatric patients, Shinhan Life continues to provide more than 50,000 free Shinhan - An Binh packages of blood cancer insurance to protect the future of children with a simple online registration process.

Providing development opportunities for underprivileged adolescents

In an effort to contribute to the sustainable development of future generations, Shinhan Life general director mentioned that the company is not only limited to supporting basic needs but also implementing long-term programmes to help underprivileged adolescents develop comprehensively, take control of their lives, and become valuable citizens.

This motivation has led the Korean insurer to collaborate with BNJ Vietnam to launch the iLead education programme for adolescents at SOS Children's Villages in Vietnam.

Teenagers from SOS Children's Village in Go Vap (Ho Chi Minh City) participating in 2023 iLead programme

Under the programme, adolescents participate in iLead to learn and explore the values and qualities that they can apply to their personal development. The adolescents select personal values to apply to their self-development, embark on a journey to develop leadership abilities, starting with self-leadership, and increase their ability to integrate effectively into life and the labour market.

Moreover, Shinhan Life provides opportunities for skill training, internships, and future employment for those with the desire and appropriate capacity.

The project is being implemented until 2025 at SOS Children's Villages in Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City.

The journey to improve the quality of life and contribute to a sustainable future for Vietnam's young generation is an essential part of Shinhan Lifes sustainable development journey in Vietnam.

Smart city training programmes seek to enhance capacity for future development While more than 40 cities and provinces across the country have smart city operation centres, many experts believe that urban development progress still falls short of expectations and call for better training programmes for future management.

Overcoming challenges to achieve sustainable development goals There are unprecedented challenges facing companies and the government to fulfil the sustainable development goals.
Co-hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Quang Ninh Peoples Committee, the event will feature between 200 and 250 booths and is expected to attract around 7,500 on-site visitors, with about 10,000 attending online. The demonstration area will be of interest to educational institutions and high-tech investors, particularly foreign invested enterprises seeking to introduce their technology to Vietnam.

Vietnamese-based firms will have the opportunity to connect with domestic and foreign enterprises about technology transfer, and there will be activities promoting investment cooperation in research and development between Vietnamese and overseas partners.

The technology on display will include innovative textiles, smart footwear, and microchips, along with solutions for green energy, waste material management, and supply chain concerns. In addition, there will be new approaches to wind, solar, and biomass power on display, with booths featuring the latest biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies, and AI applications that can optimise production processes.

There will also be discussions on outstanding issues with a forum on digital and green transformation for sustainable development.

Held since 2011, Techconnect and Innovation Vietnam aims to build a national system of innovation to help put new knowledge and technology into practice. The event aims to connect different parties, including policymakers, to sign cooperation agreements and facilitate the exchange of ideas and technology.

Vietnam and Singapore expand co-operation in innovation and technology Vietnam and Singapore will expand co-operation in innovation and technology, particularly through the formers National Innovation Centre, a new area of partnership to sit alongside more traditional avenues.

MB Innovation Lab: a nudge for digital innovation of Vietnamese bank ecosystem Digital transformation has been embedded into the DNA of banks across the globe as a prerequisite for long-term, sustainable growth. Adding to its broad set of cutting-edge banking services, digitally-led Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) has just embarked on a new journey with its new Digital Innovation Lab.

Vietnam, RoK boost cooperation in technology, innovation The State Agency for Technology Innovation (SATI) under the Ministry of Science and Technology on June 22 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on strategic cooperation in advanced technology development with the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT).
Around $1 billion will be used to develop four biomass power plants and thousands of hectares of sorghum cultivation in central and southern Vietnam, and a further $1.7 billion will be allocated for Tin Thanh Group (TTG) to build a tyre retreading and truck service plant in South Carolina to serve over one million trucks in the US with the goal of reducing emissions, saving costs, and transitioning to green energy.

The remaining $3.7 billion in funding will be spent on the establishment of a green hydrogen manufacturing facility in South Carolina.

Land grant approvals and support have also been given to TTG from the state of South Carolina, totalling huge incentives of over $500 million.

TTG is partnering with Air Products, a $67 billion corporation on the New York Stock Exchange, to implement this project. The results will contribute to revolutionising the automotive industry and replacing outdated and polluting coal-fired power plants.

Tran Dinh Quyen, chairman of TTG (left), and Ranjit Thambyrajah, president and managing director of Acuity Funding, at the signing ceremony. Photo: Le Toan

During the ceremony, Tran Dinh Quyen, chairman of TTG, said that the above projects have been approved by Vietnamese and US authorities, and many patents have been registered.

The business models and technologies for the projects are highly practical, so they can be applied on a global scale. The business activities will raise the annual trade between Vietnam, Australia, and the US to hundreds of billions of dollars, and bring significant bilateral benefits in the exchange of technology, capital, and labour, Quyen said.

The signing ceremony was a historic milestone marking the largest cross-border trade transaction between Vietnam, the US, and Australia. It also attracted huge interest from representatives of the South Korean and Indian governments, who attended the ceremony.
South Korea's ambassador to the United States on Tuesday called the apparent strengthening of cooperation between Russia and North Korea "most concerning," while stressing Seoul and Washington will "not sit idly by."

Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong made the remarks amid concerns that a recent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un might have led to an arms deal feared to help enhance Pyongyang's military capabilities and support Russia's war operations in Ukraine.

"What is the most concerning is the strengthening of cooperation between Russia and North Korea," Cho told a press meeting as he touched on a series of recent developments that could affect the security landscape in Northeast Asia.

"While circumstantial (evidence) regarding illicit arms trade between Russia and North Korea has emerged, the international community's concerns about the two countries getting closer -- as seen in their recent summit having taken place for the first time in four years -- have been growing," he added.

Cho said that what Russia and the North seek to gain through a deal is "directly linked" to not only Ukraine's security, but also that of South Korea, as he noted that Russia is striving to secure military supplies in its war in Ukraine, with the North seeking technology to address failures in satellite launches earlier this year.

"The South Korea-U.S. alliance will never sit idly by when it comes to any threat to our security," Cho said.

He also commented on the U.S. Department of Commerce's recent announcement on the finalized national security "guardrails" aimed at restricting semiconductor subsidy recipients from expanding their manufacturing capacity in China and other "foreign countries of concern."

"For South Korean semiconductor companies investing in the U.S., uncertainties have been addressed, and we expect that it would help their normal business activities regarding factories operating in China to a certain extent," he said.

He pledged to provide necessary support for South Korean businesses regarding the guardrails while maintaining close consultation with the U.S. government.

Last Friday, the Commerce Department announced the final guardrails of the CHIPS and Science Act, which are seen as an effort to prevent China's technological advancements that could pose security risks to the U.S. and its allies.

It prohibits the material expansion of semiconductor manufacturing capacity for advanced facilities in China for 10 years from the date of award. The rule defined material expansion as increasing a facility's production capacity by "more than five percent." It also prohibits the expansion of production capacity for legacy facilities beyond 10 percent. (Yonhap)
That was the viewpoint of Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh, speaking at the third P4G Summit in Colombia that took place on September 22-23, as Vietnam won the right to host the fourth summit in 2025.

Vietnam has proposed six priority topics for the next summit in two years' time, including food security and poverty reduction; the sustainable use of cross-border water resources; monitoring climate change impacts; funding for net-zero initiatives, carbon-smart agriculture; and a circular economy for plastics.

"Vietnam issued plans to implement a specific roadmap right after COP2, including the National Strategy on Climate Change and the National Action Plan on Green Growth. Vietnam became one of the first three developing countries in the world to join the Just Energy Transition Partnership with very ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop renewable energy to replace coal-fired thermal power," Khanh said.

The Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 is a multilateral initiative for inclusive solutions to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. The forum involves 12 countries, including Denmark, Chile, Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and South Africa, along with several international organisations and private companies. The summit is held every two years.

Remarks by PM Pham Minh Chinh at 2021 P4G Seoul Summit Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended and addressed the 2021 P4G Seoul Summit on May 31 evening. The following is the full text of his remarks.
A 60-year-old Waco man was arrested Monday after a woman escaped from his residence and called police, telling them he had kidnapped and sexually assaulted her, according to an arrest affidavit.

Thomas Wayne Fauver was booked into McLennan County Jail early Tuesday morning on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated kidnapping.

According to Fauvers arrest affidavit, police were dispatched to a residence on Kendall Lane after a third party called 911 Monday night because a woman had run from the next house over, telling the caller she had been held against her will at the house since Thursday.

The affidavit says the woman reported Fauver had picked her up in San Antonio on Thursday and drove her to his home in Waco, locking her in a bedroom. The woman reported Fauver had threatened to harm her family if she did not come with him, the affidavit says.

On Saturday, the woman told police Fauver became out of control after taking an unknown narcotic and over the next few days, sexually assaulted the woman repeatedly and assaulted her by shoving her head through a door and choking her until she lost consciousness, the affidavit says.

Fauver also superglued the womans teeth shut in an effort to prevent her from screaming for help, the affidavit says.

On Monday night Fauver took a dog outside and when he was gone, the woman escaped by breaking a dog door and crawling through it, running to another residence for help, the affidavit says. Police found Fauver nearby and arrested him, the affidavit says.

Fauver remained jailed Wednesday on $100,000 bond.
Cameron Park Zoo will have a new leader starting in November, the city of Waco announced Tuesday.

A selection committee picked Brendan Wiley as the new director of the Cameron Park Zoo, and he will take his post Nov. 27, according to a city press release. Wiley is now the director of the Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center in Topeka, Kansas, a job he started in 2010.

Wiley will take over at Cameron Park Zoo from Duane Hills, the deputy director who became interim zoo director in March following the retirement of Johnny Binder. Hills will continue to serve as interim director until November and will resume his duties as deputy director after that, zoo spokesperson Duane McGregor said.

During Wiley's time at the Topeka zoo, its attendance has grown by 159% and its operating budget has grown by 267%, with $21 million worth of infrastructure projects developed between 2017 and 2022, according to the press release.

Wiley started his zoo career in 1994 as a zookeeper at the Kansas City Zoo, where he worked with a wide variety of animals and eventually oversaw about half of the 212-acre zoo's staff and animals, the press release says. He left the Kansas City Zoo in 2005 to become the executive director of Animal Haven, a nonprofit animal shelter in Kansas City, Kansas, where he was responsible for fundraising and program development.

In the press release, Waco City Manager Bradley Ford thanked Hills for his leadership during the recruitment process, and said Waco is confident Cameron Park Zoo's success will continue under Wiley.

Cameron Park Zoological and Botanical Society board President Nancy Lacy also said in the press release that the board is excited to work with Wiley.

"The Zoological Society appreciates the collaboration in this process and is excited about the selection of Brendan Wiley," Lacy said. "His background and experience are a strength to this leadership role, and I look forward to the work we get to do together.
Rock legend Journey will trek to Omaha for an April 15 show at the CHI Health Center.

The concert will be part of the band's 50th anniversary Freedom Tour 2024 and feature special guest Toto.

Tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members, who will visit 30 cities across North America, are known for chart-topping hits including "Don't Stop Believin,'" "Any Way You Want It" and "Faithfully."

The band will be joined by Toto, best known for hits "Rosanna," "Africa" and "Hold the Line."
Korean Industry Minister Bang Moon-kyu is scheduled to visit Cabo Verde in an effort to win its support for Busan's bid to host the 2030 World Expo, his office said Wednesday.

Bang will visit the African country Friday (local time) as President Yoon Suk Yeol's special envoy, along with an economic delegation involving 30 officials from the agriculture promotion institution, Korea Electric Power Corp. and other relevant organizations, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

He will be the first Korean minister-level figure to make a visit to the African country.

Bang plans to meet with senior government officials there to discuss ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in agriculture, trade, investment, energy infrastructure and various other sectors by using Korea's official development assistance programs and other tools.

The selection of the host country is less than two months away, and the Korean government has gone all-out to win the bid.

"Due to geographical constraints, the two nations have not built a strong partnership. The upcoming visit is expected to serve as a chance for the two sides to initiate close ties," the ministry said in a release.

Ahead of the visit, Bang will visit France to attend a summit of the International Energy Agency on supply chains of critical minerals and clean energy slated for Thursday, his office said. (Yonhap)
A standoff that began Wednesday continued into 24 hours, as of press time, though law enforcement reported a hostage had been released by early afternoon.

As of 5 p.m. (MT), a man who had barricaded himself in a Gering home Tuesday afternoon was still keeping officers at bay. However, an officer on scene told the Star-Herald that a woman being held as a hostage had been released about 1:30 p.m.

The standoff began at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a Scottsbluff man, now identified as Bradley Garcia, 37, barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering.

Garcia has been in contact with law enforcement, confirmed by a Facebook live video that he shared online. The woman who had been hostage is also heard talking to law enforcement. The video has since been removed, and the Star-Herald is waiting for the standoff to be resolved before detailing contents of the video. She is reported to have been Garcias sister-in-law.

Prior to the standoff, Overman released Wednesday, a Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs deputy had attempted to stop Garcia on Five Rocks Road for a traffic violation and Garcia refused to stop.

A Gering Police officer also become involved in the pursuit, which ended as Garcia crashed his vehicle into a garage in the 2300 block of 19th Street in Gering and fled into the home. During the pursuit, Garcia allegedly fired at the deputy, but did not strike him or his vehicle.

Once inside the home, Garcia took two juvenile girls and a woman hostage, but eventually, he allowed the two girls to leave the home. The woman was released on Wednesday afternoon; details about her condition or her release had not yet been made available as of publication.

Law enforcement have remained stationed at the 19th Street and Kings Road area since about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. As the standoff has continued, Overman released Garcia has allegedly fired at officers multiple times using more than one weapon. Officers have not fired at Garcia at anytime as of late Wednesday morning, according to the release.

Star-Herald reporters at the scene heard gunshots Tuesday afternoon. Much of Wednesday morning, the scene remained quiet. However, early Wednesday afternoon, Star-Herald reporters at the scene observed explosions, heard loud pops and bangs, believed from comments from officers on the scene to be gases being released into the home. Authorities were also using drones to monitor the home and an ambulance and fire truck were among the vehicles pulling up to the scene.

Throughout the night, vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT vehicle, remained positioned during the standoff at or near the intersection. By Wednesday, the response included specialized teams from the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI, including a Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia.

Troy Brown, chief deputy with the Scotts Bluff County Sheriffs Department, told the Star-Herald that Garcia had reneged multiple times in negotiations on plans to surrender or release the woman.

Were hoping he wears down and decides enough is enough, she gets to come out and he walks out, Brown said late Wednesday morning.

Among the apparatus at the scene has been armored vehicles used by the Nebraska State Patrol, the Scotts Bluff County SWAT team and a tactical vehicle used by the Alliance Police Department. At some points, reporters have estimated as many as 40 officers on scene. On Wednesday, law enforcement officers used Northfield Church to stage during the standoff, explaining some of the lack of activity at the scene. Garcia had not yet been reported to have surrendered or the standoff resolved.

Throughout the entirety of the event, streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters. Neighbors who live in the area have been allowed to walk to and from their homes when it is safe to do so, reporters advise.

The standoff has also effected schools in the community. Shortly after law enforcement reported shots fired Tuesday, school officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary and at other schools in the district had occurred earlier. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools and all activities and other events were cancelled. On Wednesday morning, Gering Public Schools announced it was cancelling schools for the day out of an abundance of caution.

Visit starherald.com for more on this story as it develops.

PHOTOS: At the scene of Gering standoff
PRESS RELEASE

Friday, September 22nd, at the evocative setting of the renovated MUSAM (Museo Storico dellAeronautica Militare) in Vigna di Valle, the prestigious ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Landmark award ceremony was held for the Macchi MC-72 seaplane. The ceremony, chaired by the Commander of COMAER (Rome Air Force Command), Air Team General Giandomenico Taricco, was attended by numerous military, civil, scientific, and university authorities. To do the honors, the Commander of the CSSAM (Centro Historico e Sportivo AM) of Vigna di Valle, Colonel Luigi Barbagallo, and the Director of MUSAM, Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Alfredo Caccetta. Also present at the event was Dr. Elena Guerri DallOro for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

The coveted recognition is assigned by ASME to those products of human inventiveness that most of all have contributed to the development of mechanical engineering, with effects and benefits also on the social and economic aspects of society, and in this perspective the Macchi MC-72 seaplane has marked an epochal step: in fact, in 1932 first and in 1934 then, it established the speed record for seaplanes with traditional piston engines, Still unbeaten, over 709 km/h. This was possible thanks to the use of a very powerful FIAT AS6 engine of about 3100 horsepower and the use of extreme technological solutions, such as two counter-rotating coaxial propellers.

In his welcome speech, General Taricco underlined: Todays is the result of an evaluation process by a competent committee that took into consideration the characteristics not only of the aircraft but also of the engine that equipped it. The technological solutions adopted for this aircraft have earned the MC.72 this prestigious award. The fact that the event takes place right here where the MC-72 is kept is a source of pride for the entire Air Force, in the year of our Centenary, which had among the flagships the reopening of the Historical Museum of Vigna di Valle after its renovation. A special thanks to the students present here, who represent our future

The promoter of the initiative and member of the Commission of History and Heritage of mechanical engineering of ASME, Prof. Marco Ceccarelli, of the Mechanics of Robots department of the University of Tor Vergata, in his speech in addition to explaining the importance of the ASME Landmark program, also exposed the technical-scientific value of the MC-72 and its peculiarities, not only the speed record, which have earned him the prestigious LANDAMARK ASME award.

I am very proud of the unanimous awarding of this ASME landmark to the M.C.72 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.  said Ph.D. ing. Giuseppe Genchi, Technical Superintendent of the Museum System of the University of Palermo.  It is the epilogue of a long research and preparation activity, started during the pandemic, which was inspired by the experience gained on the occasion of the one assigned to the Motor Museum in 2017. This prestigious international award contributes significantly to the promotion of the vast historical heritage of the Air Force in the centenary year of its establishment and represents one of the most indicative results of the many forms of technical, scientific, and cultural collaboration that have existed for over a decade between the Air Force and the University of Palermo, through its Museum System and, in particular, its Historical Museum of Engines and Mechanisms.

Karen Ohlan, President of ASME, closed the speeches: ASME is particularly honored to award this 281st award in our history to the MC.72, the only one left in the world, which with its design and innovative solutions presented by engineer Mario Castoldi for the Schneider Cup represented an epochal leap in engineering history. This ASME Landmark also wants to remember where we come from and where we are going: towards a world of new solutions and new challenges in terms of sustainability, clean energy, transport and safety. The members of ASME, mostly engineers and technicians, care about the well-being of our planet, not surprisingly we are committed to the greatest of challenges, the one against climate change, towards which we have an opportunity but also a responsibility. Thanks to the Italian Air Force and the Historical Museum for their work in promoting aeronautical culture.

At the end of the speeches, right in front of the MC-72 speed record holder, today exhibited at the Velo hangar of MUSAM, a souvenir plaque was unveiled. A guided tour of MUSAM for guests and school groups concluded the event.

The ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) is an American engineering association founded in 1880 that has thousands of members around the world, including engineers, professionals, researchers, and entrepreneurs. Known for its norms and standards, ASME conducts one of the largest technical publications operations in the world, organizes numerous technical conferences and hundreds of professional development courses each year, as well as sponsors numerous education programs, and awards several annual awards, including the ASME award just received by the Macchi MC-72. Since 1971, ASME has assigned 280 landmarks worldwide, of which 18 in Europe and only two in Italy: the first, awarded in 2017 to the entire collection of the Historical Museum of Engines and Mechanisms of the University of Palermo, the second to the MC-72 of MUSAM. The MUSAM (Museo Storico dellAeronautica Militare), has the task of disseminating the aeronautical culture, history, and traditions of the Armed Forces. As part of the celebrations for the centenary of the establishment of the Air Force it has been expanded and completely renovated and can now be visited according to the methods indicated on the official website.
CEDAR FALLS -- Andy Pattee, superintendent of Cedar Falls Public Schools, will speak at 6:30 pm. Wednesday, Sept. 27, at First Christian Church, 1302 W. 11th St.

Pattee will address plans for the new high school and projected uses for the old high school.

Enter the basement entrance on Division Street for the meeting in Fellowship Hall. Call (319) 266-5959 with questions.
WATERLOO  A judge blocked testimony of a defense expert witness in the trial of a Waterloo man accused of shooting and killing a former friend outside a convenience store in 2022.

Eugene Octavius Love Jr., 21, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 18-year-old Courtney Harris, and testimony in his trial wrapped up Tuesday in Black Hawk County District Court.

Prosecutors said Love walked up to Harris Ford Escape while Harris was waiting at the drive-through window at Prime Mart, 508 Broadway St., shortly before 10 p.m. Jan. 8, 2022.

Love allegedly fired four shots into the rear passenger side window with one of the rounds striking Harris in the head and arm. Love then had his girlfriend drive him away from the scene.

As the defense began to present its evidence Monday, another female friend of Love -- Makayla Tillis -- took the stand to testify that Harris had pulled a gun on her weeks before the shooting. She said she told Love about the encounter in a video call minutes before Love traveled to Prime Mart for the shooting.

The defense plans to seek a lesser charge of manslaughter, arguing Loves actions were in response to a serious provocation and that he didnt have enough time to cool down before he acted.

To that end, the defense hired Frank DiCataldo, a forensic psychologist and psychology professor from Bristol, Rhode Island, to examine Love during three interviews in 2022 and 2023.

DiCataldo appeared Tuesday morning through video conference for an evidentiary hearing. He noted Love was exposed to numerous traumatic events in his life -- witnessing domestic violence, being stabbed at ages 11 and 17, losing two cousins and a friend to violence and being the target of a shooting.

Because of these events, Love was often hypervigilant and was prone to overreacting to situations.

DiCataldo noted Love exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder but he stopped short of diagnosing Love with that condition.

The prosecution objected to the prospect of calling DiCataldo to the stand, in part because there was no diagnosis. Assistant County Attorney Heather Jackson said the defense was trying to use the psychologist as a conduit for hearsay evidence without having Love testify.

Defense Attorney Nichole Watt argued the testimony was important to explain Loves state of mind shortly before and during the shooting.

Judge Joel Dalrymple ruled the psychologists testimony wasnt relevant, and defense rested its case without calling Love to the stand.

Closing arguments in the case are anticipated for Wednesday in Black Hawk County District Court.

Photos: Broadway Street homicide trial 092023jr-love-trial-2 092023jr-love-trial-1 092023jr-love-trial-4 092023jr-love-trial-3 092123jr-love-trial-2 092123jr-love-trial-1 092123jr-love-trial-3 092123jr-love-trial-4 092123jr-love-trial-5 092123jr-love-trial-7 092123jr-love-trial-6 092223jr-love-trial-1 092223jr-love-trial-2 092223jr-love-trial-3 092223jr-love-trial-4 092223jr-love-trial-5 092523jr-love-trial-2 092523jr-love-trial-1 092523jr-love-trial-3 092623jr-love-trial-2
WATERLOO  Two people have been arrested after a man was shot in the leg early Wednesday morning.

Police allege Dakota Bradley Wells, 20, and David Andrew Myers, 20, approached a home at 303 Adams St. around 2:20 a.m. and became involved in an altercation with a man at that address.

Myers allegedly swung a hammer at the man. When the mans wife intervened, Wells pulled out a handgun and fired two shots with one of the bullets striking the mans upper left thigh, police said.

Wells and Myers fled, and officers stopped their vehicle a short time later and found a .22-caliber handgun, marijuana and seven oxycodone pills.

The victim was taken to the hospital for what were described as non-life-threatening injuries.

Wells was arrested for willful injury causing serious injury, reckless use of a firearm, carrying weapons, possession of marijuana and unlawful possession of a prescription drug.

Myers was arrested for assault while displaying a weapon and carrying weapons.

Photos: Guns in Northeast Iowa crime cases
WATERLOO  Students could explore new high-demand career paths if four proposed Waterloo Career Center programs win approval.

The Board of Education held a work session Monday prior to its regular meeting to discuss the potential programs. The board is expected to consider approving them in October.

The career center serves high school students from the Waterloo Community Schools and surrounding districts.

Four areas of study, which the district is calling academies, could be implemented next school year. They include beauty and wellness, agri-science, power tech, and criminal justice and police science.

The sectors were chosen after center staff looked at what is needed in the current job market.

Jeff Frost, executive director of professional education, said there is a lengthy process for selecting new programs and educators arent just throwing a dart at a board. Committees look at job growth projections in Iowa, receive input from business partners and nearby colleges, assess potential program spaces, gauge student interest, consider available district funds, and determine teacher possibilities.

The proposed program garnering the most excitement, it seems, is beauty and wellness. It would focus on training cosmetologists and barbers, estheticians, nail technicians, and massage therapists.

Counselors think (the beauty and wellness program) will be full in the first year, Frost said.

Board members said there is a need for cosmetologists in the Cedar Valley  especially ones specializing in Black hairstyling.

The career center worked with Capri College to determine how the course would be set up but Frost said the district isnt locked in with anyone to provide instruction.

While there would be one teacher for the class, people with expertise in niche specialties like hair braiding would be brought in to the class.

During the first semester of the course, students would explore all types of careers. By the end of that semester, students would decide what area they want to focus on and hopefully earn a certification to be able to practice what they learned in school.

Another new academy would focus on agricultural science. It includes a combination of curriculum for agriculture in science education and courses from Hawkeye Community College. Curriculum for agriculture in science education is what is taught in most college agricultural programs, including at Iowa State University.

The CASE courses include agriculture, food and natural resources; plant science; animal science; natural resources and ecology; and food science and safety. Courses from Hawkeye include introduction to ecology and farm business management. Frost said the program is intended to be broad so students can discover their interests.

If approved, adding agri-science to the career center would change the exploratory program for middle schoolers. Currently in sixth grade, students have classes in computer technology and biology. The computer technology class would be replaced with a course in agriculture.

A power tech academy also is under consideration. It would include areas such as auto tech, diesel tech and collision. The program would make use of multiple Hawkeye Community College courses such as gas engine rebuild, introductions to automotive technology, automotive engine repair and introduction to collision repair.

The final proposed academy deals with criminal justice and police science. Criminal justice credits could be applied to the University of Northern Iowas criminal justice track and police science courses could be applied to Hawkeye Community Colleges police science track. Completing the career centers police science course could allow future Hawkeye students to skip their first police science course.

Courses would include criminal justice, criminology and juvenile justice.

Frost is also recommending changes to current programs offered at the career center.

The cyber program would add courses such as introduction to databases and programming for network administrators. It would also offer college experience through an internship.

The sustainable construction program will add construction safety, residential construction, site layout and blueprint reading, building science, and carpentry fundamental courses.

The advanced manufacturing program will offer courses in machine trade print reading, intro to CNC programming, machine theory and 3D modeling.

The emergency medical technician program will add fire science to its curriculum.

All of these courses will allow students to obtain certifications they can use after they graduate from high school.

The hospitality program also will return to the career center after being discontinued. Courses provided will include menu planning and design, event planning and customer service, safety and sanitation, and general introduction to hospitality.

During the boards regular meeting, members heard from current career center students in the cyber program. Students who took part in a Cybercade event, where they learned about cybersecurity, told the board how the career center helped them excel.

Board member Sue Flynn said the career center is a place students are excited to attend.

We are giving more and more opportunities for students to hone in on what works for them, she said. (The students) are your testimony.

In other business, the board approved the student disclosure of identification and instructional material selection policies. They needed to be added to Waterloo Schools policies after Senate File 496 passed in the Legislature earlier this year. The new law restricts explicit school library books and addresses LGBTQ topics.

5 ways high school students can earn college credit 5 ways high school students can earn college credit Advanced Placement classes International Baccalaureate program Dual enrollment College-Level Examination Program Summer school programs 5 ways high school students can earn college credit Advanced Placement classes International Baccalaureate program Dual enrollment College-Level Examination Program Summer school programs
WATERLOO  The Waterloo Center for the Arts, 225 Commercial St., in partnership with Drum Iowa and coordinator Myquawn Bailey Sr., will host an evening of spoken word artists and djembe drummers from 6-9 p.m. Saturday.

The featured artists are Mohagany, Mendoor Smith, Jaelon Jones, and Ashley Kay Andy who will be showcasing their lyrical-like talents.

Mohagany has been actively creating spoken word poetry for more than 15 years, inspired by the talents of Mahogany L. Browne, Maya Angelou as well as other poetic greats.

Waterloo native Mendoor Smith paints a vivid picture of his life crafted into spoken word.

Jaelon Jones, a lyricist since the age of 13, is a local recording artist who runs a studio/stream and mental health platform. Spoken word is another avenue for him to connect with people.

Ashley Kay Andy is a professional weaver of words, holistic wellness educator, energy healer, and guide of meditation and mindfulness. Her emotion-filled poetry has touched the hearts of thousands.

Tickets are $25 and available at https://waterloocenterforthearts.activityreg.com/selectactivity_t2.wcs

Tickets are limited, and beverages will be available for purchase.

For more information on this or other events and programs, phone (319) 291-4490, visit waterloocenterforthearts.org or follow the Waterloo Center for the Arts on social media.
By Kim Hyun-bin

The defense ministry's war remains excavation agency will launch a month-long project on Sunday to search for the families of those who were killed during the 1950-53 Korean War but whose remains have yet to be identified, the agency said Wednesday.

The ministry's Agency for Killed in Action Recovery & Identification said the project is set to take place across 25 districts in Seoul throughout next month.

The primary objective of this project is to categorize the fallen soldiers according to their places of origin and addresses, and share the list with relevant local authorities to reach out to their families and identify their remains.

The agency said it needs to reach out to approximately 6,200 family members in the nation's capital.

Families of the fallen soldiers will have the opportunity to participate in the identity confirmation process by providing their DNA samples. In cases where a positive identification is made using the provided genetic information, 10 million won ($7,400) will be provided to the confirming family.

As war veterans and bereaved families are aging, the task of locating descendants of fallen soldiers becomes increasingly challenging, Lee Keun-won, the head of the agency said. We are fighting against time, which makes civil-military cooperation more crucial than ever before.

Commencing in 2021 in South and North Gyeongsang provinces, the project has contributed to collecting DNA samples from 30,000 bereaved families and identifying the remains of 4,400 fallen soldiers.
DETROIT  Hyundai and Kia recalled almost 3.4 million vehicles in the U.S. and told owners to park them outside due to the risk of engine compartment fires.

The recalls cover car and SUV models from the 2010 through 2019 model years including Hyundai's Santa Fe SUV and Kia's Sorrento SUV.

Documents posted Wednesday by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the anti-lock brake control module can leak fluid and cause an electrical short, which can touch off a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven.

The automakers advised owners to park outdoors and away from structures until repairs are done.

Dealers will replace the anti-lock brake fuse at no cost to owners. Kia said in documents it will send notification letters to owners starting Nov. 14. For Hyundai the date is Nov. 21.

Hyundai reported 21 fires in the affected vehicles in the U.S., and another 22 "thermal incidents" including smoke, burning and melting of parts, the documents say. Kia reported 10 fires and melting incidents.

Hyundai said in a statement that owners can continue to drive the vehicles and that no crashes or injuries have been reported. The automaker said it was doing the recall to ensure safety of its customers.

The company said an O-ring in the antilock brake motor shaft can lose sealing strength over time due to the presence of moisture, dirt and dissolved metals in the brake fluid, causing leaks. The new fuse limits the operating current of the brake module, the statement said.

In a statement, Kia said an engine compartment fire could happen in the area of the brake control unit due to an electrical short that results in excessive current.

Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, questioned why the companies aren't fixing the leak problem and why they are waiting so long to send letters to owners.

The remedy is replacing one fuse with another, but brake fluid can still leak, potentially causing a safety problem, Brooks said.

"Why not fix the problem?" he asked. "What you're not doing here is fixing the O-ring and the leak that's causing the problem in the first place. You're combating a symptom or part of the problem without actually fixing the underlying design issue."

Brooks also questioned why NHTSA is allowing the companies to only replace a fuse, and why owners aren't being sent interim letters immediately warning them of a serious problem.

"You would think that you should be notifying those owners right now that they shouldn't be parking in their garages or their house could catch fire," he said.

Statements from both companies don't address why the fluid leaks aren't being repaired or why it will take about two months to notify owners by letter. Spokespeople for both companies said they would check into the questions.

NHTSA said that under the federal motor vehicle safety act, automakers can choose the remedy to fix a defect. The agency said it will monitor the effectiveness of the repairs and open an investigation if warranted.

In addition, automakers have 60 days to notify owners of recalled vehicles by letter, but often the mailings can happen sooner, the agency said.

Affected Kia models include the 2010 through 2019 Borrego, the 2014 to 2016 Cadenza, 2010 through 2013 Forte, Forte Koup and Sportage, the 2015 to 2018 K900, the 2011 to 2015 Optima, the 2011 to 2013 Optima Hybrid and Soul, the 2012 to 2017 Rio, the 2011 to 2014 Sorento, and the 2010 to 2011 Rondo.

Hyundai models covered by the recall include the 2011 to 2015 Elantra, Genesis Coupe, and Sonata Hybrid, the 2012 to 2015 Accent, Azera, and Veloster, the 2013 to 2015 Elantra Coupe and Santa Fe, the 2014 to 2015 Equus, the 2010 to 2012 Veracruz, the 2010 to 2013 Tucson, the 2015 Tucson Fuel Cell, and the 2013 Santa Fe Sport.

Owners can go to www.nhtsa.gov/recalls and key in their 17-digit vehicle identification number to see if their vehicle is affected.
Iowa cities and counties have the authority to restrict building permits for the carbon-capture facilities that would feed proposed carbon dioxide pipelines in the state, the Hardin County attorney argues in a recent state regulatory filing.

That has the potential to empower local elected officials to restrict or block the controversial pipeline projects by depriving them of their sources of the greenhouse gas. Some counties that are wary of the projects have sought to limit where the pipelines can be built, which a federal judge rebuffed.

Summit Carbon Solutions seeks to build a five-state pipeline system that would transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants  13 of which are in Iowa  to North Dakota for underground sequestration.

The company would install and operate equipment at each of those facilities to capture, process and compress the gas into a supercritical fluid to inject into the pipeline system.

Summits permit was recently denied in South Dakota because it didnt comply with ordinances that several counties adopted in response to pipeline proposals. That state allows the ordinances, but state regulators can overrule them.

An Iowa county has tried to restrict pipeline routes but has been unsuccessful in the courts. A federal judge said in July that a new Shelby County ordinance that dictates how close a pipeline can be to cities, homes and other facilities overstepped the countys authority. But counties and cities have jurisdiction over building permits.

Hardin County Attorney Darrell Meyer on Thursday asked state regulators to publicly clarify that the capture facilities are not part of the pipeline and are subject to local ordinances and permitting requirements.

I know not what impact this motion will have, but raising local awareness and transparency are always positive supports of good government, Meyer told the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

The revelation opens a new avenue for pipeline opponents to attempt to block the three projects currently proposed in Iowa, but would likely require a concerted effort by the cities and counties where the ethanol plants are located.

If they cant get the capture facilities, Summits project is dead, said Wally Taylor, an attorney for the Sierra Club of Iowa. Its clear that counties or cities have the ability to require the capture facility to comply with the local zoning and land use requirements.

Its unclear whether that strategy is palatable, even among elected leaders who have decried Summits proposal. Supervisors in several counties either declined to comment or did not respond to requests to comment for this article.

Dean Kluss, a Wright County supervisor who has been a frequent critic of Summits pipeline permit process, said he is unsure whether he would support blocking building permits for the capture facilities.

Further, the ethanol plant that is part of Summits system in his county is within the city limits of Goldfield and would be subject to that towns requirements, Kluss said. Goldfield Mayor Gabe Fiscus declined to comment for this article.

Summit objection spurred idea

In August, Summit applied for a building permit in Hardin County to construct a capture facility at the Pine Lake Corn Processors ethanol plant near Steamboat Rock.

The county has participated heavily in an ongoing evidentiary hearing for Summits hazardous liquid pipeline permit request with the Iowa Utilities Board. Hardin County officials have sought to preserve their permitting authority and other local powers, said Meyer, the county attorney.

To that end, the county submitted the building permit application as evidence during the hearing to show Summit must still seek some permission from counties for its project despite the federal court ruling about siting ordinances.

A Summit attorney objected to the evidence, in part arguing that it is irrelevant to the companys permit request with the IUB.

That objection lingered in my mind, causing me to give closer attention to the permitting of and jurisdiction over this capture facility and such facilities in general, Meyer said. Safe to say, local authority over the actual CO2 capture facilities appears to have been overlooked until now.

He said its unclear yet whether his countys supervisors would use that authority to block a capture facility. Hardin is in the path of two carbon dioxide proposals  by Summit and by Navigator CO2  and some of its landowners have been among the most vocal opponents of the projects.

The county is also the home of Summit Agricultural Group, which spawned Summit Carbon Solutions and its project.

A Summit spokesperson did not respond to a request to comment for this article.
A nurse who resigned from an Iowa care facility, which has been cited in multiple deaths, testified at a hearing recently that she was instructed to falsify medical records and have unqualified aides administer medications to residents.

The testimony of Teressa A. Hansen came during a Sept. 13 hearing on her request for unemployment benefits.

In late June, Hansen resigned Countryside Health Care Center in Sioux City where she had worked for six months as a registered nurse. As a charge nurse in the facility, Hansen was responsible for overseeing certified nursing assistants and passing out medications to residents.

In the spring and early summer of 2023, she testified, management at Countryside cut the number of employees working in the home to the point where it was difficult to maintain the staffing levels needed to provide care to the homes 52 residents.

In June 2023, she testified, the facilitys management instructed her to train a certified nursing assistant, or CNA, on how to perform the duties of a licensed registered nurse. According to state records, she also testified that managers informed her that moving forward, the CNA would take over certain nursing duties, such as passing out medication, and that Hansen would be required to sign off on the related documentation  making it appear she had performed the work.

When Hansen objected, management allegedly told her not to question the decision. The next day, Hansen testified, she resigned, effective immediately.

At the recent hearing on her claim for unemployment benefits, Hansen testified that providing medical treatment to residents falls outside a CNAs scope of practice, and that signing false documentation would be illegal and would jeopardize her nursing license. Countryside opted not to have a representative testify at the hearing, according to state records.

Administrative Law Judge Patrick B. Thomas ruled that Hansens allegations were credible and that she had resigned for good cause attributable to the nursing home. She was awarded benefits.

Nursing home cited in multiple deaths

Countryside closed in late July, one month after Hansens departure. State records indicate the homes administrator in early June was Jackie Loghry-Pirner, and that before the home closed in late July, Loghry-Pirner was replaced by Scott Mow. The nursing home administration licenses of both Mow and Loghry-Pirner are in good standing with the state, with no public record of disciplinary action.

In the seven months leading up to Countrysides closure, the home was cited for several violations related to resident injuries and deaths:

One resident death: In January, the home was cited for an incident that involved a female resident who was found unresponsive on the floor of her room. The woman was sent by ambulance to a hospital and died en route. Countryside was cited for failing to provide the woman with adequate supervision and for failing to report the incident to the state.

Two resident deaths: In April, state inspectors visited the facility in response to a backlog of 19 uninvestigated complaints. While there, they cited the home for 20 federal violations and five state violations. The state proposed $44,000 in fines but held those in suspension to give federal regulators at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services an opportunity to impose penalties. One of the citations was for failing to inform the state about a resident who fell and died, while another was for failure to intervene when open, foul-smelling wounds on a residents legs led to her hospitalization and, one week later, her death.

One resident death: In May, inspectors returned to Countryside in response to three complaints, all of which were substantiated. While there, they cited the home for four federal violations and one state violation. The state proposed $30,000 in additional fines but held those penalties in suspension. One of the citations was for failing to check vital signs and contact a physician after a residents blood pressure and urinary output dropped and her abdomen became distended. The resident died shortly after being hospitalized.

Unreported injuries: In June, inspectors were back at the facility and cited the home for eight federal violations and one state violation. The states proposed $500 fine was held in suspension. The violations included failure to report to the state major injuries sustained by residents of the home, and failure to report a resident being hospitalized with sepsis, a life-threatening blood infection.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that Countryside Health Care Center was fined 14 times by the federal government in three years leading up to its closure. The most recent fine, imposed in June 2022, was for $28,191.

Countryside Health Care Center was owned 6120 Morningside Avenue Propco, a New York-based real estate company, and operated by Opco Sioux City, a for-profit Iowa corporation tied to Isaac Dole, the CEO of the investment firm Birchwood Healthcare Partners. Dole is also the former managing director of acquisitions at Aviv REIT, one of the nations largest nursing home real estate owners.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch was not able to reach Dole for comment.

Countryside and Opco are currently being sued by former resident Darcy Basalyga and her family. The lawsuit alleges that during the eight weeks in 2021 that Basalyga lived at Countryside, the home repeatedly failed to check her blood-sugar levels, resulting in two separate hospitalizations and a diagnosis of infection, diabetic coma, pneumonia, dehydration and severe open wounds.

State records indicate the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing cited the facility for the alleged deficiencies in Basalygas care. Opco has denied any wrongdoing and the case is scheduled for trial in June 2024.
A mid-August police raid of the Marion County Record, a small, family-owned weekly newspaper in Marion, Kansas (population 1,922), ignited justified outrage among First Amendment advocates and civil libertarians across the U.S.

During the raid, local police, using the dubious pretext of identity theft, seized computers, cellphones and other equipment belonging to the paper  which, perhaps unsurprisingly, had been critical of the police.

While Americans expect this kind of behavior in places such as China, Cuba and Russia, were always shocked when it happens here. Were especially shocked when the culprit is usually considered a resolute defender of freedom.

Eight decades ago, one such defender of freedom  or, at least, a resolute opponent of Nazism  President Franklin D. Roosevelt, unleashed his Justice Department on another small-town, family-owned newspaper, the Boise Valley Herald in Middleton, Idaho, (population 477 in 1940). Many in the Roosevelt administration disliked the paper because of its unflinching criticism of FDRs foreign policy, his complicity in racial discrimination, and his civil-liberties abuses.

Like the Marion County Record, the Herald featured such routine fare as births, deaths and weddings. The publisher, Adelbert Cornell, who had Quaker-inspired pacifist beliefs, described himself as a daylight farmer and lamplight editor.

But in 1942, the Herald faced a challenge that threatened to destroy it. Postmaster General Frank Walker, relying on a letter from Attorney General Francis Biddle, branded the papers content seditious and pulled its low-cost, second-class mailing privileges. Congress had granted the low rates to newspapers in 1792 because of the presss important contribution to the public good. This was no small matter for a shoe-string publication such as the Herald.

The governments case was flimsy. It did not even imply a conscious attempt to aid the enemy or advocate illegal acts. Instead, the charge of sedition centered on editorial opinions, such as claims that the U.S. embargo on Japan had helped provoke the Pearl Harbor attack, that income-tax withholding imposed an onerous burden on the poor, and that wartime mobilization was suppressing individuality.

The government also deemed as seditious several of the papers articles opposing government discrimination against Japanese Americans. One, for example, had accused the FBI of pulling a typical Nazi stunt in this section of Idaho in the form and manner of raiding and searching the homes of every Japanese resident within many miles of Caldwell.

The Cornells fought back by personally delivering copies locally and sending papers in sealed envelopes without return addresses to out-of-towners. Adelbert Cornell hoped to reprint all of the offending material in a pamphlet, suggesting half-seriously that it might be valuable to writers who wish to avoid the pains and penalties of the law, as a handbook of forms of what not to write for publication. The postmaster general finally lifted the restrictions in 1944, but warned the Cornells to tone it down. They ignored him.

The fallout from the Herald affair produced almost no national media coverage, though two prominent Idaho dailies, one of them reliably supportive of FDRs foreign policy, expressed solidarity on First Amendment grounds. Shortly before an ACLU-recruited lawyer appeared before the Post Office Department Board, he was privately warned: Apparently, the boys in Justice are dead set against the newspaper even though it is a relatively unimportant one.

Attorney General Biddle may have felt special disdain for the Herald because it was not an ordinary pacifist publication. The Cornells, instead of confining themselves to purely symbolic gestures, such as appealing for more conscientious-objector exemptions, pushed an aggressive political agenda. They advocated a negotiated peace and stressed the underside of wartime mobilization and New Deal regimentation.

The pages reprinted articles by such Civil Rights champions as Bayard Rustin and highlighted disparate racial treatment in criminal justice. That the Cornells were not just armchair crusaders might have sharpened the governments animus. Two of Adelbert Cornells sons had gone to jail for refusing to register for the peacetime draft in 1940.

The experience of the Boise Valley Herald some 82 years ago underlines the importance of protecting free speech and freedom of the press. It also illustrates how governments, when given the chance, often seek to quash criticism.

The Heralds David versus Goliath showdown with the Roosevelt administration also stands as a timely lesson in how a charge of sedition  like todays charges of racism, sexism, ableism and all the other forbidden isms  can easily be abused because of its open-ended and malleable nature.
Russian Defence Minister inspects fulfillment of the state defence order at a defence industry enterprise in Moscow region

Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation General of the Army Sergei Shoigu has inspected the fulfillment of the state defence order at Tactical Missiles Corporation defence industry enterprise in Moscow region.

 The Head of the Russian Defence Ministry together with the Governor of Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov inspected production departments of the enterprise and the technological process of assembling high-precision weapons of mass destruction.

 Boris Obnosov, CEO of the Corporation, reported to General of the Army Sergei Shoigu on the fulfillment of the instructions of the Russian Minister of Defence to increase production rates, which were given as a result of an inspection in March 2023.

 Over the last six months, the output volumes of high-precision means of defeat have been increased twofold, and for certain nomenclatures of products, 3.5 and 5 times. The output volumes have increased due to modernisation of production, increase in the number of personnel, increase in labor productivity and transition to a 24/7 working schedule.

CEO of the Corporation reported that additionally specialists from other cooperative enterprises with relevant specialised education were involved: They come here from Orenburg, from Perm, we work very closely with local educational institutions  with technical schools, with the Corporations training centre. We have recently taken 40 graduates from there.

 The Corporations management presented to the Russian Minister of Defence the latest weapons received as part of the operational development and modernisation of high-precision weapons that have been put into mass production.

 Following the results of the work, the Head of the Russian Defence Ministry held a meeting with the participation of the companys management and the relevant military authorities.

 The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation heard a report by Boris Obnosov, CEO of the Corporation, on the progress of the project to develop a highly mobile MLRS equipped with guided rocket projectiles with enhanced accuracy characteristics and guided interspecies glider munitions.

 Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu noted that Tactical Missile Corporation is developing for the benefit of the Armed Forces modern aviation weapons, including those belonging to the high-precision nomenclature.

 Tactical Missile Corporation occupies the first and advanced positions, we very much hope that the gained rates will be maintained not only in 2024, but also in some areas they will be increased. To date, our joint work is yielding results, we have an increase in production volume, not in percent, but in times, and all this is in high demand in the special military operation zone,  Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation noted.

 What we have seen today and what we are planning to launch in the coming months, we will now consider in detail. What to help you with and what to support you with, in addition to solving financial issues related to the state defence order. Naturally, there are other issues as well  these are specialists who have been attracted from other enterprises, from other cities and from other regions. Quite young people are doing very serious and important tasks, Sergei Shoigu said.

 The Head of the Russian Defence Ministry set tasks to the management of the enterprise to continue the fulfillment of the state defence order taking into account the comments and suggestions.

Earlier in March 2023, Russian Defene Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu inspected the progress of the fulfillment of the state defence order at Tactical Missile Corporation in Moscow region. In the course of the inspection, the Corporation was tasked with increasing the rate of production output this year and doubling the volume of production of high-precision weapons.

 Russian Defence Ministry

WtR
No one wants to face an emergency, least of all Ben Klinger.

But as the Winona County emergency manager, Klinger said he's prepared for when an emergency comes his way.

"Thankfully, emergencies don't happen every day," Klinger said. "I'd be fine if they don't happen. I just want to make sure we're ready when they do."

On Tuesday, Sept. 19, Klinger was named Minnesota Emergency Management Director of the Year.

A member of the Winona County Jail staff as well as a volunteer police officer, firefighter and EMT for the city of Goodview, Klinger has been the county's emergency management director since May 2018.

It's been an eventful five years.

His work this past year, though, set him apart from his peers across the state. Klinger was the organizer and point person for the county during the search for Madeline Kingsbury, a Winona woman who was reported missing on March 31, 2023, and whose body was subsequently found in Fillmore County on June 7, 2023, near the town of Mabel.

"I can remember where I was when I got the phone call that she'd been found," Klinger said. "I was picking up one of my kids from school. I thought, 'Now, it's real. She really is gone.' I felt sadness for her family. I was talking with her parents every couple of days."

Klinger said he first got involved in the case the day after she went missing when Winona Police Chief Tom Williams reached out to ask for assistance from the county's search and rescue team.

When initial efforts failed to located Kingsbury, a call for volunteers went out, and Klinger was there, organizing the efforts. The regional incident management team for Emergency Management Region I, a region that includes Winona County, was mobilized. Madeline Kingsbury's friends and family brought groups to the effort.

All this effort needed logistical control and a leader. In stepped Klinger.

"I can tell you that we could not have done this investigation without Ben's leadership," said Williams in nominating Klinger for the award. "Ben stepped in and took over the searches and was the point of contact for anything search-related, which allowed law enforcement to focus on the investigation."

Kingsbury's ex-boyfriend and father of her two children, Adam Fravel, has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder in her death. He is being held in jail with a pretrial hearing scheduled for Oct. 13 in the case.

Throughout the search, Klinger said his experience as a police officer and first responder helped him understand the needs of people working an emergency situation and how to best help them do the job.

In the case of the search, it was more than just organizing groups to cover areas of interest in the investigation. Klinger made sure that groups were led by people with awareness of public safety issues so that lay volunteers would know what to do if they found something suspicious.

"We gave them a handout. This is what you're looking for. If you find something, send your GPS location and don't touch anything," Klinger said. "Don't take photos and put it on Facebook. Thankfully, we didn't have any of that."

And, being that point person, Klinger spent a lot of time working with and talking with those who loved and knew Kingsbury.

Through a lot of false leads and sometimes frustrating efforts, he communicated with organizers of groups such as Kingsbury's sorority sisters, her family and Minnesota United, a group that helped in the search efforts.

When it was all done, when Kingsbury was found, Klinger said the emotions ran the gamut.

Of course, the search for Maddi was not his first full-scale emergency. In 2020, the world was hit with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"When I applied for this job, I knew pandemics were listed in our emergency management plan, but I never thought I'd be dealing with it," Klinger said.

That emergency, he said, was a lot different than things like a derailed train or a multicar pileup on the highway.

"It's not like a house that's on fire that you can get water on," Klinger said of the COVID emergency. "It was a large team effort. I felt like a ringmaster bringing all these people together. We had a lot of great people."

After the initial public health concern of masking, keeping safe distances and shutting down to slow the spread of the virus, there came the multilayered efforts of getting vaccinations out to people in descending order of need.

That, he said, relied a lot on logistics. Did the county have enough vaccine, but not too much so it didn't go to waste? Were there enough syringes? Did they have a space to administer the vaccines and the personnel to do the job?

"Emergency management is all about making relationships and knowing the people in your community so you can call on them in an emergency," Klinger said.

For distributing the COVID vaccines, that meant finding people qualified to administer shots. A retired pharmacist who was still licensed was a big help, he said.

And of course, he needed to arrange for people to return for a second dose, track which people got which vaccine, and keep tabs on who from which risk group had been vaccinated.

It's an emergency management plan Klinger hopes to never implement again. In fact, he'd be happy if his job consisted of training and teaching for emergencies that never happen.

"If I put a plan into place, something bad has happened to somebody," Klinger said.
Reedsburg Public Library

Take advantage of programs at Reedsburg Public Library. In addition to the already busy Youth Services schedule, a cartooning workshop, a homeschool woodworking program, and a retirement seminar are planned.

Cartoonist Jay Rath will present cartooning workshops from 4-5 p.m. on three Tuesdays, Oct. 3, 10 and 17, in the librarys Community Room. The workshops follow the presentation Rath did on local cartoonist Clare Briggs on Sept. 25. The fast-paced and funny classes are geared toward teens but any age may participate. Sign up is now open on the librarys website at reedsburglibrary.org or call the library. Sign up for any, or all three. The Clare Briggs and the Art of Cartooning series is supported in part by a grant from the Sauk County Extension Education, Arts & Culture Committee and Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding was provided by the Reedsburg State Bank.

On Oct. 4, Reedsburg Public Library will facilitate a Homeschool Woodworking Program at 2 p.m. in the librarys Community Room. Plans are being made for two separate projects, one for younger woodworkers, and another for older participants. All equipment and supplies will be provided. The monthly homeschool program is intended for families with homeschooled children ages 5 and older. Pre-registration is not required, but if you would like to be added to the monthly email reminder list, email jmccarlson@reedsburglibrary.org.

The Aging and Disability Resource Center of Sauk County, in partnership with the Reedsburg Public Library, will host the program Finding Purpose in Retirement at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in the librarys Community Room. Amanda Retzlaff of Reminisce Adult Day Services will talk about stages of retirement, formulating a plan for your time, and finding the best activities to make the golden years especially meaningful. Retzlaff has a degree from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in therapeutic recreation, and has worked for several years as an activity and life enrichment director.

Looking ahead to Octobers calendar, the library will celebrate 25 years in the new building with an Open House from noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 15. Stop by and enjoy music, dessert and information on the Friends of the Library. Staff will be happy to answer questions on fall programming and will be available for tours and library card sign-ups.

If you have questions about any library service or program, call the library at 608-768-READ (7323) or email info@reedsburglibrary.org.

The Reedsburg Public Library is located at 370 Vine St. in downtown Reedsburg. The library is open 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday.
The otters might be her favorite. Maybe the prairie dogs. Its a hard choice picking her favorite animal at Baraboos Ochsner Park Zoo.

Theyre fun to watch, Czech-born artist Marie Homolkova-Michalek said of both the otters and the prairie dogs. They brighten you up.

The 32-year-old Baraboo resident is hoping to brighten up the days of Ochsner Park Zoo guests with the creation of a new mural that will be placed by the zoos north gate when completed.

Shes currently finishing it up in her garage. Its fun, she said of creating the mural. It brings a lot of people together. It exposes you to new people. It unites you with the community.

The artist said locals have popped into her garage, seeing how the art shes doing is progressing. Some neighborhood children have even sat opposite her garage and watched her work with pairs of binoculars. Its wonderful doing this and making connections, she said.

The mural is nearly done. It features creatures like ducks, a bear, a bald eagle, goats, owls, and more. She started work on it in July. She hopes that it will be formally installed at the zoo by late October.

The act of creating art was installed in Homolkova-Michalek when she was in 7th grade. Her friends began complimenting her on her drawing, but she didnt take it very seriously. She wanted, at that time, to be a dentist. Maybe an architect, some technically focused job that needed honed and dedicated skills.

But, she was good at drawing. A high school teacher took note of it and told Homolkova-Michaleks parents that their daughter was talented. Perhaps, her teacher said, Homolkova-Michalek should pursue art.

She did, getting a fine arts degree. Her art, though, maintained that eye toward technical aspects. Thats why she gravitated toward doing mural work. Its a puzzle that I have to put together, she said. Its a problem-solving process that I like.

Homolkova-Michalek already has a mural at the zoo. In late October of 2022, one of her murals was installed. It features 16 animals from the zoo on two wood planks.

Shes created murals elsewhere, as well. Most of them reside in Illinois, where she used to call home. Hospitals, law offices, private residences, and more all have Homolkova-Michaleks work displayed.

As a volunteer at the zoo, the idea came to her to add some beauty to the zoo facility. There are an amazing group of volunteers here working on all sorts of projects, she said. The zoo is a fantastic place to volunteer. Theyll find good use of your skill sets, whatever they may be.

Through the efforts of Friends of the Baraboo Zoo, a nonprofit organization that helped fund the new mural project, Homolkova-Michaleks efforts will soon be on display.

With thoughts of yet another mural already percolating in her mind -- shes looking at the blank walls of the zoos docent building -- shes hoping this new work of hers gives zoo-goers a more interesting experience.

To volunteer at the zoo, contact Amber Giddings at 608-393-7206, or visit friendsofbaraboozoo.org.

GALLERY: Ochsner Park Zoo introduces new bear cub to Baraboo community
A Janesville man charged with homicide in the shooting death of a woman at the VUE Boutique Hotel in 2021 was convicted on Monday.

Jeremy Mondy, 36, pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide with a domestic abuse modifier in the womans death in February of 2021. He also pleaded guilty in Columbia County Circuit Court to possession of a firearm by a felon and felony and misdemeanor bail jumping.

Mondy will be sentenced at a later date. The first-degree intentional homicide conviction carries a mandatory life sentence, but a judge will decide if Monday will be allowed to petition for release from prison on extended supervision after serving a specified amount of time.

According to the criminal complaint, a Wisconsin Dells police officer responded to a request for a welfare check from hotel staff regarding two people staying in a room at the hotel just after 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 14, 2021.

Officers knocked on the door of the room and did not receive a response. They knocked again and heard music playing, then knocked a third time, and Mondy opened the door.

Mondy stood with the door half open when an officer said he was there to do a welfare check. VUE staff reported the room occupants were past the checkout time and housekeeping staff saw a man passed out on the bed and a woman on the bathroom floor.

Mondy told an officer he was OK and referred to the woman as crazy when the officer asked him about her. Asked if the woman was alive, Mondy looked at the officer with a blank stare and said no.

Another officer handcuffed Mondy and took him to the Wisconsin Dells Police Department precinct. The officer could smell intoxicants on Mondys breath and reported that he appeared to be under the influence. After Mondy was detained, an officer entered the room and saw the woman dead on the bathroom floor.

At the police department, Mondy identified the woman who died. The woman is not identified in the criminal complaint due to Marsys Law, and the family has requested privacy, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

Mondy told state special agents that he and the victim had lived together for a month in 2020. They checked into the hotel together on Feb. 13 had alcoholic beverages in the room, according to the complaint. He told law enforcement that they later struggled over a gun in the bathroom before he overpowered the woman and that the gun accidentally went off, and the woman fell to the floor.

He later changed his statement and said he pulled the trigger on purpose to defend himself, adding that he panicked and left to discard the firearm then returned to the hotel, the complaint states.
'North Korea holds key to easing inter-Korean tensions'

By Kim Hyun-bin

South and North Korea have engaged in a heated exchange of words regarding a nuclear war, intensifying the military tension on the Korean Peninsula.

On Wednesday, Shin Won-sik, the nominee for South Korea's defense minister, delivered a resolute message regarding the North Korean nuclear threat, saying, "If North Korea attempts a nuclear attack, the North Korean regime will face its ultimate demise."

He made the remarks during his opening statement at his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly.

Shin's remarks came a day after President Yoon Suk Yeol made a forceful response to North Korea's rhetoric during his speech at the 75th anniversary celebration of Armed Forces Day.

"If North Korea provokes, our military will respond immediately, and if North Korea uses nuclear weapons, we will bring the North Korean regime to an end through an overwhelming response from the ROK-U.S. alliance," President Yoon said.

Yoon also stressed the inadequacy of nuclear weapons in guaranteeing North Korea's security, emphasizing that South Korea, fortified by its military capabilities and the robust ROK-U.S. alliance, stands ready to respond decisively to any nuclear provocations.

Following Yoon's speech, North Korea's Ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song said, "The Korean Peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout," at the 78th U.N. General Assembly in New York, Tuesday (local time).

In his address, Kim reiterated North Korea's commitment to enhancing its self-defense capabilities and its resolve to safeguard its sovereignty and security. He firmly restated North Korea's enduring position of retaining its nuclear arsenal.

Given the prevailing circumstances, the DPRK is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably, he added.

Responding to Kim Song's speech, Kim Sang-jin, South Koreas deputy permanent representative to the U.N., delivered a rebuttal after the conclusion of the 78th UN General Assembly's proceedings.

Do you really believe, as the DPRK claims, that the ROK, along with the United States, conspires to provoke nuclear war? the South Korean official said. How many member states in this chamber are seriously aligned with the DPRKs false assertions?

In the view of many experts, North Korea remains the central player in efforts to ease tensions.

"The key player in this situation remains North Korea. South Korea and the U.S. have consistently sought avenues for unconditional dialogue with North Korea, with Japan also participating in these discussions. Nevertheless, despite these sustained efforts, North Korea has refrained from engaging in dialogue and has instead chosen to provoke and strengthen its military relationships with Russia," said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University.

"As a result, in the current circumstances, both South Korea and the U.S. feel compelled to bolster their deterrence capabilities, as strengthening deterrence could potentially pave the way for North Korea to reconsider returning to the negotiation table."
Federal relief money has been allocated to parks and cleanup efforts in Juneau County, along with housing provisions that help tenants and property owners.

On Sept. 20, the County Board approved two measures involving parks, recreation and sanitary initiatives, as well as one that will make housing more affordable while protecting landlords from consequences of delinquent renters, according to County Board Chair Tim Cottingham.

Just over $150,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds were approved for disbursement over eight county projects. The projects include adding a dog park in New Lisbon, an outdoor event space and cleanup efforts in Necedah, and play equipment at parks in Lyndon Station and the town of Germantown. The measure approving the funding passed unanimously. The ARPA-funded initiatives largely matched contributions from the municipalities and organizations leading them, Cottingham said.

Each (community) had their own little projects that we were taking on and were helping support that through the ARPA, Cottingham said.

Another recreation-related ARPA allocation approved at the Sept. 20 meeting authorized $17,500 to match a state grant for a canoe and kayak launch in Union Center. Sup. Roy Granger was one of two board members to vote against the measure, citing redundancy with similar launches existing in nearby Elroy and Wonewoc. Sup. Aimee Stieve also voted against the boat launch.

Also, $100,000 in ARPA funds was committed to create the Landlord Support Program. The program will help cover financial losses for property owners from rent-delinquent tenants and tenants who cause costly needed repairs to rental properties, according to Cottingham.

This investment will lead to lower rent costs and will help solve the ongoing housing issues in Juneau County, he added. Property owners will have an incentive to offer lower rents under the new program.

Affordable housing was part of our program with ARPA funds, Cottingham said. The Landlord Support Program helps protect the landlords a little bit, too.

A former salvage yard that burned during the 87-acre wildfire on April 12 near Necedah caused metal contamination in nearby soil and water samples. The county approved the application for a Site Assessment Grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation in a 20-1 vote. Stieve casted the lone vote against the measure.

These grants assist local governments with assessment and demolition activities for eligible abandoned or idle land areas. The salvage yard property is currently under private ownership but has been abandoned for a few years, and the county did not assume ownership at the time of the fire because cleanup efforts would have become solely the countys responsibility, Cottingham said.

In July, the county worked with the state Department of Natural Resources to examine samples from the site, which the grant application resolution listed as a brownfield due to contaminants limiting reuse of the property. Cottingham said the County Board wants to get the property cleaned up before possibly taking ownership of it and making future plans.
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A group of former commanders of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on Wednesday hailed the alliance between Korea and the United States ahead of its 70th anniversary next week, highlighting the two countries' commitment to each other.

The six retired generals made the remarks in separate messages sent to the Korea-U.S. Alliance Foundation as the two countries are set to mark the anniversary of the 1953 signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty, a bedrock alliance document, Sunday.

The messages were sent by Ret. Gen. Thomas A. Schwartz, Ret. Gen. B. B. Bell, Ret. Gen. Walter L. Sharp, Ret. Gen. James D. Thurman, Ret. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti and Ret. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks.

Thurman, who served as the USFK commander from 2011 to 2013, described the treaty as the "glue" that kept the two countries together and expressed hopes for a reunited Korea.

"The mutual defense treaty between Korea and the United States has remained the glue that has held the ROK-US Alliance together," Thurman said, referring to Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Republic of Korea.

"I hope that someday we will see a reunited Korea, and there is no more threatening behavior in the region."

Scaparrotti, who succeeded Thurman to serve as the USFK chief until 2016, called for "modernizing" the alliance to face current and future challenges.

"As the alliance has strengthened over time, so have our adversaries," he said. "We must be vigilant and scan the horizon for looming threats while simultaneously modernizing and transforming the alliance to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow."

Bell, who led the USFK from 2006 to 2008, said Korea continues to face threats from its neighbors and called for the allies to "resolutely" commit to their alliance treaty.

"Because of this continuing threat, it is crucial for our now 70-year time-honored and tested alliance to remain the cornerstone of stability on the Korean Peninsula," he said. "We must both continue to resolutely commit to the provisions of this treaty throughout this century and beyond."

Korea and the United States signed the alliance document three months after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap)
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The pop rock band, made up of Matt Willis, James Bourne and Charlie Simpson, gushes that they still feel 'fresh' and inspired as they are currently celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Busted has promised fans the "best f**king album" they've ever heard when they head back into the studio. The "Year 3000" pop rockers, made up of Matt Willis, James Bourne and Charlie Simpson, are currently celebrating 20 years since they burst onto the scene with "What I Go To School For", but they still feel "fresh" and inspired.

Speaking to the crowd at Manchester's AO Arena on Sunday, September 24, James said, "Even though we are celebrating our 20th anniversary, we were in a freezer for, like, 14 years. So, we're still fresh and we are gonna make the best f**king album you've ever f**king heard. It's gonna be our second number one album!"

Last week, the trio topped the charts for the first time with their "Busted 2.0" greatest hits release, which featured re-recordings of their classic tracks both as a trio, and with special guests ranging from Hanson and You Me At Six to Wheatus and Neck Deep. Matt added to the audience, "We decided, we're gonna go away and make the greatest hits, we're gonna re-record them because the idea of just re-releasing s**t you've already bought? F**k that!"

The band isn't going anywhere, and once their tour is complete, they'll be heading straight into the studio to work on their next collection of new songs. Matt said, "That's what we're doing straight after this f**king tour, we're going back in the studio. You wanna hear a new record? Us too!"

The trio delighted fans in Manchester, coming to the stage after being introduced by Christopher Lloyd, who reprised his role as Doc Brown from "Back to the Future". The career-spanning set kicked off with "Air Hostess" and saw the band play fan favorites like "What I Go To School For", "Who's David?" and "You Said No" alongside the likes of "Meet You There".

They were also joined by Hanson to perform "MMMBop" and "Sleeping With The Light On", while Doc Brown returned on screen at the end of the night to bring everyone into the "Year 3000" for a triumphant end to a night as much about looking to the future as it was celebrating the past.

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While admitting that he and his former co-stars like John Cleese, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam aren't in touch a lot, he is moved by their 'very touching' reactions.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Michael Palin received "very touching" and sincere reactions from his former "Monty Python" co-stars after his wife's death. The 80-year-old actor, who was part of the iconic comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones, has revealed while he and his surviving co-stars aren't in touch a lot, they did reach out after his beloved wife Helen died in May.

Asked if he still talks to John, Eric and Terry, he told the Radio Times magazine, "No, we don't speak to each other very often. There's no ex-Pythons WhatsApp group or anything. But we are in touch, and their reactions to Helen's death, from all of them, were very touching, very immediate and very sincere. I really appreciated that."

Despite his grief, Michael feels "very fortunate" to be working on projects he enjoys, particularly as he's able to "go out into the world" and embrace all life has to offer. He added, "Well, I still love doing the things I love. I still find I'm able to get up and go out into the world. And there's still so much to do, so much to see, so many people to meet. I'm very fortunate."

Michael, who had children Thomas, 54, William, 52, and Rachel, 48, with his partner of 57 years, revealed in a post on his official website that Helen has passed away, seven months after it emerged she had been moved into respite care. Hailing Helen as the "bedrock" of his life, the presenter said, "My dearest wife Helen died peacefully in the early hours of Tuesday morning. She had been suffering with chronic pain for several years, which was compounded a few years ago by a diagnosis of kidney failure. We first met on a summer holiday on the Suffolk coast when we were both sixteen and we married in our early twenties. Two and a half weeks ago we celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary. Her death is an indescribable loss for myself, our three children and four grandchildren. Helen was the bedrock of my life. Her quietly wise judgment informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was was at the heart of our life together. The family ask that their privacy be respected at this time."

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Korea extended a natural decrease in population in July amid rapid aging, with the number of babies born recording yet another fresh low, data showed Wednesday.

Only 19,102 babies were born in July, down 6.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the monthly report from Statistics Korea. The number of babies born in South Korea has fallen on-year for 10 consecutive months.

It was the first time for July figures to fall below 20,000 since the agency started compiling related data in 1981.

In contrast, the number of deaths in the country jumped 8.3 percent over the period to 28,238 amid the aging population, resulting in a natural decrease in population by 9,137.

The trend of deaths surpassing births has continued for 45 straight months.

The data showed that the number of marriages also fell 5.3 percent over the period to 14,155. Divorces also edged down 0.5 percent to 7,500.

Last month, the agency said South Korea's total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, came to a record low of 0.7 in the second quarter of 2023, down 0.05 from a year earlier.

It was much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 that would keep South Korea's population stable at 51 million. (Yonhap)
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The writer, who was best known for being the granddaughter of South Africa's first democratically elected President, passed away following a rapid battle with cancer, her family have confirmed.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Zoleka Mandela has died at the age of 43. The writer was best known for being the granddaughter of South Africa's first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela, who died himself in 2013 at the age of 95, but passed away on Monday, September 25 following a rapid battle with cancer, her family have confirmed.

In a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday, the family said, "On Monday, September 18th. Zoleka Mandela was admitted into hospital for ongoing treatment for metastatic cancer to the hip, liver, lung, pelvis, brain and spinal cord. Recent scans revealed significant disease progression including fibrosis in the lungs as well as several emboli. Zoleka passed away on the evening of Monday, September 25th, surrounded by friends and family. Our sincerest gratitude to the medical team that took care of her."

Following the news of her death, The Nelson Mandela Foundation was quick to pay tribute to Zoleka as they remembered her as a "beloved" member of the Mandela family who was "tireless" in her activism. In a statement, the organization said, "The Nelson Mandela Foundation extends its heartfelt condolences to the Mandela family on the passing of Zoleka Mandela, tragically last night."

"We mourn the loss of a beloved grandchild of Mum Winnie and Madiba and a friend of the Foundation. When her inspiring memoir 'When Hope Whispers' was published, she graciously signed copies for all our staff and ran a leadership session for the staff around the book," they continued.

"Zoleka was a tireless activist for Healthcare and justice. Her work in raising awareness about cancer prevention and her unwavering commitment to breaking down the stigma surrounding the disease will continue to inspire us all. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this most difficult time. Hamba kahle Zoleka, we will remember you," they added.

The activist, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and again in 2016 before having the tumor removed, is survived by two of her children. Zoleka openly wrote about her struggles with addiction as well as the deaths of her children Zenani, who died in a car accident at the age of 13 in 2010, and Zenawe, who died just days after being born three months prematurely.

Just last month, Zoleka took to social media where she questioned what she was supposed to tell her children about her terminal illness amid her rapid decline. She wrote on Instagram, "What do I tell my children? How do I tell them that this time around I may not get to live my life as a survivor? How do I tell them everything will be OK when it's not? I'm dying... I don't want to die."

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In his summary judgement, Justice Arthur Engoron criticizes the former president and his company for living in a 'fantasy world' after he is accused of lying about his net worth and the value of his assets between 2011 and 2021.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Donald Trump "repeatedly" misrepresented his wealth by up to $3.6 billion to defraud banks and insurers, a New York judge has ruled. The former president was sued last September by Attorney General Letitia James, who accused him, his two sons and the Trump Organization of lying about his net worth and the value of his assets between 2011 and 2021 by issuing false business records and financial statements in order to get better terms on bank loans and pay less tax, and on Tuesday, September 26, Justice Arthur Engoron made a ruling in her favor ahead of a trial to resolve the claims in the civil lawsuit, which is due to begin next Monday, October 2.

The judge wrote, "The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business, satisfying [the attorney generals] burden to establish liability as a matter of law against defendants. Defendants respond that: the documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as 'objective' value; and that, essentially, the court should not believe its own eyes.

The judge declared that Trump's defenses "are wholly without basis in law or fact" and found he "seems to imply that the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a 'buyer from Saudi Arabia' to pay any price he suggests."

Letitia had asked the Manhattan judge to rule on her claims as finding certain facts to be beyond dispute would speed up the trial, and during the ruling, the judge rejected a request by Trump's legal team to dismiss the case, and ordered the Trump Organization to cancel its New York Business certificates. Justice Engoron criticized the 77-year-old business mogul and his company for living in a "fantasy world."

He wrote in his summary judgement, "In defendants' world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air. That is a fantasy world, not the real world."

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The 'Bongos' raptress ends her social media break and goes on Instagram Live to share details of her scary encounter with a randy poltergeist in her L.A. home.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Cardi B doesn't feel at peace despite living in a luxurious mansion. The Bronx native, who has a house in Los Angeles which she shares with her husband Offset, claims to have been tormented by a perverted ghost in the crib.

On Tuesday, September 26, the Grammy winner ended her social media break and went on Instagram Live to detail her scary encounter with the spirit. "I go and take a shower and I get out the shower and go lay on my bed. I start hearing like a fly sound. Bro, I haven't been able to find the f**king fly," she shared.

The mother of two continued, "I told my driver to get one of those things you kill the fly with, the spatula s**t to kill the fly. I don't see the f**king fly. Then I start hearing this sound in the hallway. It sounds like somebody's on the phone. I call the security guard to tell the other security guard that's guarding the house outside to come in the house to hear the sound."

"B***h, tell me how the sound is gone. It's gone out of nowhere," so she claimed. "All I'm saying is that there's a f**king ghost or spirit in this f**king house and what I don't like about it is that the ghost be f**king with me."

The "WAP" hitmaker elaborated, "Because when Offset is in this house, nothing ever happens, but when I'm alone it always wanna f**k with me. Mind you, when I be in the house in Atlanta or New York, there's nothing. But this house in L.A. is always some weird vibe."

Cardi said that she's reached the point where she believes the ghost wants to have sex with her and is considering staying in a hotel to get away from it. She said, "At this point, I feel like if I go to sleep, the f**king ghost is going to finger pop me. Because, b***h, the n***a wants me. He wants me. I kid you not, like, I'm not even in my main bedroom."

"I'm so disoriented in this house alone with the ghost who clearly wants to f**k me because he only comes around when I'm here by myself," she went on arguing. "And I'm gonna call my security guard to put me in a f**king hotel because I can't take it anymore!"

This isn't the first time Cardi talked about her ghostly encounter in her L.A. home. During a visit to Real 92.3's "Big Boy's Neighborhood" earlier this month, she said, "The [house] in L.A., there's definitely a ghost in that b***h. There was this one time that I felt like I heard something. I got security outside my house. I told one of the security to sleep inside the house. Yep, you gotta sleep [on] the couch because I swear to God, I hear something."

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The 'Dynasty' actress has shared an important key to maintaining her long lasting marriage to husband Percy Gibson despite their age gap and occasional arguments.

Sep 27, 2023

AceShowbiz - Dame Joan Collins has said "separate bathrooms" are the secret to her long lasting marriage. The 90-year-old actress - who marked her 20th anniversary last year with fifth husband Percy Gibson, 58 - has opened up on their love for each other, and pointed to the importance of giving each other space, which they're able to do thanks to properties in London, St. Tropez and Los Angeles.

"Percy and I became really good friends first. So we had this connection. We really knew each other. And separate bathrooms is key! Although we are very lucky. I know that's not something everyone can have," she told the Daily Mirror newspaper.

For Dame Joan and Percy, they have their separate officer areas, where she can focus on "writing or phoning [her] friends" and he can manage their three properties. She explained, "Then we'll do something together. Like any couple we have our ups and downs. We do occasionally argue - it's normally when we're working together."

The "Dynasty" star heaped praise on her partner, hailing him as her "accomplice" and someone who is "wonderful, kind" and "extremely handsome." She added, "It is fifth time lucky. I've been feeling that for years. He's a wonderful, kind, truly good man."

"He's my - what's the thing he always says? - my accomplice, yes, and my best friend. Plus he's extremely handsome - and he just gets better and better... Everyone says how lucky I am. And how good he's looking right now!"

She shrugged off the idea that she's found someone to treat her like a queen, insisting "it can't work like that," with a relationship needing balance with two people helping and supporting each other. However, she added, "Every morning before he goes for a run he brings me a coffee in bed while I read all the papers... And he leaves me little notes under the kettle."

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Hashtag Orange, a prominent digital marketing solutions provider in India, has partnered with LPU Online, one of the leading private universities in India that offers online degree programmes, to launch a campaign aimed at transforming careers.

Titled Career Ka Turning Point, this initiative is designed to help individuals realize their professional aspirations with the help of contemporary upskilling techniques backed by technologically enabled study options.

The "Career ka Turning Point" campaign has kicked off videos that highlight the essence of today's competitive world. Individuals often wait for that elusive big break or a stroke of luck to elevate their careers. Ambitious individuals aspire for higher salaries, superior job designations, a great work environment, and recognition. However, challenges such as inadequate skills, low confidence, and limited opportunities often stand in their way.

LPU Online empowers professionals and students with UGC Entitled programs that offer a contemporary curriculum delivered via LIVE lectures on weekends, Masterclasses by industry and academic experts, a vast lecture library, and an industry-oriented approach. With top-tier faculty, a Professional Enhancement Programme, placement support, flexible online exams, and a diverse selection of programs like Online MBA, MCA, MSc Mathematics, MCom and MA at Masters level and BCA, BA, BCom at Bachelors level, LPU Online offers a holistic educational experience.

Alka Vij, Director of Hashtag Orange, commented on the campaign, saying, "We are excited to partner with LPU Online in launching the 'Career Ka Turning Point' campaign. In today's dynamic job market, individuals need every advantage to succeed, and LPU Online is providing them with the tools and knowledge they require to excel. Through this, we aim to reach aspiring professionals and empower them to take the next big step in their careers."

Amit Shankar, CCO of Hashtag Orange, expressed, "At Hashtag Orange, we're dedicated to leveraging the power of digital marketing to create meaningful impact. Partnering with LPU Online for the 'Career Ka Turning Point' campaign is a testament to our mission of facilitating positive change through innovative solutions. We look forward to inspiring and supporting individuals on their journey towards achieving career goals."

Ginni Nijhawan, Senior Director of LPU online, said, "We are thrilled to partner with Hashtag Orange for the 'Career Ka Turning Point' campaign. At LPU Online, we believe in providing accessible and quality education to individuals, and this campaign aligns perfectly with our mission. Together with Hashtag Orange, we aim to inspire and empower countless individuals to achieve their career aspirations."

Hashtag Orange has previously collaborated with LPU on innovative campaigns, including the launch of an ingenious AI product, "LPU Meet JPT," through a spoof campaign. This campaign, aptly titled #MeetSeJeet, aimed to liberate employees and consumers from the obligations of attending meetings. Hashtag Orange also created a compelling short film, #ToughTeachers, for Lovely Professional University Online (LPU), known for its online degree courses. This short film paid tribute to the teachers who played pivotal roles in shaping students' lives and contributing to their personal growth.
Bollywood superstar Kartik Aaryan, known for his charismatic screen presence and deep love for his furry companions, has been roped in as the brand ambassador by Drools, one of Indias leading pet food brands. This collaboration aims to further strengthen Drools' commitment to providing nutritious and wholesome pet food for our four-legged friends.

To unveil this exciting partnership, Drools harnessed the power of social media, sharing a captivating teaser on their Instagram page prior to the official announcement. The teaser featured Drools' very own canine celebrity, Aaryan, engrossed in a scene from one of Kartik's films. When quizzed about any concerns, Aaryan playfully expresses himself by re-enacting Kartik Aaryan's iconic monologue from 'Pyaar Ka Punchnama.' In this comical moment, Aaryan, the dog, humorously ranted about the common perceptions and societal expectations associated with being a golden retriever. This amusing post caught the attention of fans, who eagerly tagged Kartik Aaryan on Instagram.

Speaking about his association with Drools, Kartik Aaryan said, I have always been a pet-person and as a pet parent, I always believed in providing the best for my munchkins. Drools dedication to offering nutritious food for pets aligns perfectly with my values. I am genuinely thrilled to embark on this new journey with Drools as their brand ambassador and look forward to contributing to the overall health and well-being of our furry companions.

We are thrilled to extend a warm welcome to Kartik as he joins the Drools as the brand ambassador. An avid pet parent himself, he shares an unbreakable bond with his pet and understands the importance of its well-being. At Drools, we are dedicated to providing pet owners with the best nutrition options. Kartik's popularity among Gen Z and Millennials, coupled with his genuine love for pets, will help us reach a wider audience to create awareness about the importance of pet nutrition, said Dr. Shashank Sinha, CEO & Veterinarian, Drools Pet Food Pvt. Ltd.

Drools consistently endeavors to provide the best quality nutrition and products to pets. The brand understands the importance of a healthy and nutritious diet for a pet's growth hence their in-house team of vets and nutritionists formulate the product which then undergoes stringent quality checks to ensure superior quality food, specific to the growing needs of pets.
PepsiCo Indias brand, Sting is all set to electrify consumers across India with the launch of its limited-edition flavour, Sting Blue Current, a captivating new addition to its Sting Energy lineup. The launch of Sting Blue Current is accompanied by a quirky new brand campaign that reaffirms Sting's mantra of electrifying energy with, 'Sting Blue Current, Kamaal ka Current tagline  inviting consumers to experience the exhilaration of Sting Blue Current firsthand.

The film starts with a young couple sitting under a star - lit sky. The girl hopes to see a shooting star to share her secret wish. The boy, in his quirky Sting style, decides to jolt himself up by getting a bolt of energy as he takes a sip of the new Sting Blue Current. He creatively turns himself into a shooting star as the girl closes her eyes to make her wish. The film concludes with an electrifying note, echoing the brand's tagline Sting Blue Current, Kamaal ka Current, igniting a sense of possibilities through Sting Blue Currents Can-Do energy.

Speaking about the launch of Sting Blue Current and the new campaign, Ankit Agarwal, Associate Director, Energy & Hydration, PepsiCo India said, Over the past few years, Sting has carved a special place in the hearts of consumers across India. Building on the love we have received in the Indian market, we're adding Sting Blue Current to the line-up, a new variant that gives consumers the choice to experience Sting energy with a refreshing new flavour. Sting Blue Current embodies our brand's core of energizing consumers and represents our commitment to giving our audiences an electrifying boost, all while staying faithful to the brand they've grown to adore."

The new Sting Blue Current TVC will be amplified through a 360-degree campaign across television, digital, outdoor, and social media.

Sting Blue Current is available at Rs 20/- at 200 ml in single serve packs across India. Stings red flavor will continue to be available in small single serve packs in 200ml and 250ml and multi serve pack of 500 ml across all modern and traditional retail outlets in India, as well as on leading e-commerce platforms.
By Lee Hae-rin

Over 40 million people in Korea are expected to hit the road to visit their hometowns for family reunions or take trips during the nation's extended six-day holiday known as "Chuseok," which officially begins on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Wednesday, the number of Koreans expected to be traveling as of Wednesday to next Tuesday is estimated to be over 40.2 million, which is around a 26.7 percent increase from last year.

This year's Chuseok falls on Friday, with the holiday originally running from Thursday to Sunday. But a six-day extended break was declared as the government designated Monday a temporary holiday, thereby bridging it to National Foundation Day  another public holiday  that falls on Tuesday.

According to the ministry, traffic congestion is expected to peak on Thursday morning, which is the day most people will depart, and on Friday and Saturday afternoon, when they are expected to return home.

The ministry expects around 5.3 million vehicles to be on the highway each day during the holiday season, down 4.3 percent from a year earlier, but a 12 percent jump from the usual traffic average during the weekend at 4.7 million.

The estimated time from Seoul to the southern coastal city of Busan, 428 kilometers away from the capital, will be around 10 hours and 10 minutes, the ministry said. The trip is expected to take eight hours and 40 minutes for the respective journey back to Seoul from Busan.

The ministry designated a four-day special traffic-monitoring period from Thursday to Sunday, during which all drivers are exempted from expressway toll fees.

The government first introduced the toll-free policy for Chuseok in 2017 and has enforced the measure almost every Chuseok and Lunar New Year season to revitalize the domestic economy when people visit their hometowns and travel over the long holiday.

The extended holiday period will also spur a major increase in air travel and outbound tourism.

Over 1.66 million people are expected to travel by air  1.33 million taking domestic flights while 330,000 will fly internationally  nationwide during the six-day holiday, according to Korea Airport Corp. (KAC), which operates 14 airports nationwide except Incheon International Airport.

According to global online travel company Klook, Koreas outbound travel bookings for this Chuseok holiday season jumped 568 percent compared to the same period last year.

The company saw that the increase was driven by the extended length of the holiday, which can be further prolonged to 12 days with the use of annual leave. Bookings to the Americas and European countries saw sales jump with a 283 percent year-on-year increase and a 24 percent improvement from this years summer vacation peak season in August.
After the success of Shantit Kranti, Sony LIV is now gearing up for the release of the highly anticipated second season of its hit Marathi original. The critically acclaimed show is set to take viewers on another enthralling journey filled with laughter, relatability, and introspection. Adding a fresh twist to the narrative, the makers have unveiled two new additions to the cast  Priyadarshini Indalkar and Priya Banerjee.

This season will see Priyadarshini Indalkar, known for her remarkable stint on Maharashtrachi Hasyajatra, step into the shoes of Samruddhi, who navigates through the complexities of an arranged marriage with Shreyas. On the other hand, the versatile actress Priya Banerjee will be seen essaying the role of Kani, an NRI from San Francisco.

Expressing her excitement about Shantit Kranti 2, Priyadarshini Indalkar shared, I instantly resonated with Samruddhis character when it was first pitched to me. Shes a straightforward woman who believes in the power of genuine connections. Her journey in the show is a testament to the power of loves potential. I cant wait for the audience to witness my character and her relationship with Shreyas in the series.

Talking about her role in the series, Priya Banerjee added, Kanis character is such a beautiful blend of spontaneity and self-reflection. I think a lot of our generation can relate to her earnest search for happiness. Kanis journey reminded me that lifes most special moments can be found in the simplest, most unexpected places. Shantit Kranti 2 is a rollercoaster of emotions and Im so grateful to be a part of this incredible project.

Created by TVF in association with BhaDiPa and produced by Arunabh Kumar, the show is Directed by Sarang Sathaye and Paula McGlynn. The series stars Abhay Mahajan, Alok Rajwade, Lalit Prabhakar, Mrinmayee Godbole, Priya Banerjee, Priyadarshini Indalkar among others.

Shantit Kranti 2 streaming on 13th October only on Sony LIV!
Swiss Beauty is Indias leading and fastest growing beauty and cosmetics brand that started in 2013 and aims to be every makeup lovers BFF. With an in-depth understanding of Indian beauty needs, Swiss Beauty incorporates global cosmetics standards to create products that are highly innovative, longwear and comfortable to wear.

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Saahil Nayar, CEO, Swiss Beauty, speaks about the growth of company and the journey so far, along with some insights into the research and development process of Swiss Beauty, and more.

What inspired you to establish Swiss Beauty, and what is the companys mission and vision in the beauty industry?

Amit and Mohit Goyal, co-founders of Swiss Beauty, established the company in 2013 with a clear vision and mission in the beauty industry. The brand was created because there was a need for high quality makeup that does more than it costs. The Indian makeup landscape either had costly brands that were not value for money or brands that did not offer quality. Swiss Beauty bridged this gap and gave the Indian consumer what they deserve  a high-functioning, comfortable, makeup brand.

Swiss Beautys mission is to provide Indian consumers with high-end and aspirational cosmetic products, enabling them to feel their best selves. Our diverse product range is mindfully curated to cater to a range of Indian skin tones.

At Swiss Beauty, we firmly believe in celebrating the uniqueness of every Indian and their ability to exude confidence and individuality. Our vision is to offer a diverse range of products that cater to various premium and professional needs, focusing on colour cosmetics. Along with building a robust presence in India, we plan to foray into global territories. At the same time, we are determined to explore new product categories, such as body care and grooming tools, to meet the evolving demands of our discerning customers.

What sets Swiss Beauty apart from other beauty brands in the market, and how do you maintain a competitive edge?

The key reason is that the brand offers makeup that does more than it costs, moreover it caters to every age, every skin, every tone, regardless of the demography.

We do not restrict our products to a certain gender or skin type. Our focus is on setting new beauty standards, and our cosmetics range caters to every gender, skin tone and shade. Embracing all forms of beauty is at the core of our brand philosophy, which resonates deeply with our diverse customer base.

To maintain a competitive edge in this open market, we embrace our individuality while acknowledging the healthy competition from other brands. We believe in continuous innovation, which drives us to elevate our products and services. This constant vigilance and motivation to strive for perfection enable us to serve our consumers with the finest cosmetics and skincare products. Our ultimate goal is to maintain exceptional standards while ensuring accessibility and approachability for all our valued customers.

Could you share some insights into the research and development process for your beauty products and the role of innovation in your brands success?

Innovation in beauty products has always been a driving force behind Swiss Beautys success. Identifying untapped opportunities is a significant aspect of our research and development process. For instance, we were the first to introduce liquid eyeshadow, a concept that had already gained prominence internationally, but was novel in India during our launch. Moreover, our R&D has achieved excellence in formulating matte lipsticks that are exceptionally smooth, non-transferable, and matte  all at once. Now, our primary focus is on infusing beauty products with skin-enhancing serums and ingredients. Last year, we added Pro Primer with Vitamin C and Airbrush foundation with the goodness of Hyaluronic acid. These two are excellent makeup products and benefit skin health under makeup.

Without R&D you cannot really go, you have to keep following trends, consumer insights and source the best material and product for the customer, a product that can be the next trend. Moreover, without R&D and innovation, every brand becomes monotonous at some point both in terms of its product offerings and its language.

How does Swiss Beauty prioritise sustainability and ethical practices in its operations, including sourcing, manufacturing, and packaging?

In the last decade or so, there has been an increased emphasis on the beauty industrys impact on the environment. This has increased the surge in demand for cruelty-free and vegan makeup. As a beauty brand, we take a firm stance against animal cruelty and support sustainable approaches. We believe that aligning beauty routines with values allows us to consciously minimise harm to animals and the planet. Our cruelty-free and vegan formulations not only provide exceptional results, but also demonstrate our commitment to the well-being of animals and the environment. We prioritise sustainability and ethical practices throughout our operations, encompassing sourcing, manufacturing, and packaging. Swiss Beauty is also a certified animal test-free and vegan brand by PeTA, which clearly shows the brands commitment towards the greater cause.

What are some of the most popular or best-selling products from Swiss Beauty, and what makes them unique or effective?

We have multiple best-selling products across categories. However, one product that most of our customers love is the Liquid Concealer, which sells every 30 seconds. Besides that, our makeup palettes have emerged as the top-selling products in online and offline markets. Additionally, our Makeup Fixer, Colored Eyeliner, Plump Up Lip Gloss, HD Matte Lipstick, and Airbrush Foundation, have gained significant popularity among consumers. During festive seasons, our makeup kits and combos witness substantial sales, making them essential SKUs in our product line-up. These products stand out for their effectiveness, quality, and appeal to our diverse customer base.

How does Swiss Beauty engage with customers and build a strong, loyal community around your brand?

The Indian beauty and makeup market has become a paradise of trends. From no-makeup makeup looks to multifunctional and minimalist looks, Indian consumers have opened up to new experiences and experiments. The consumer also expects high performance from the product, while being environmentally friendly. Besides having a product portfolio over 1,500 SKUs, we keep engaging with our customers through social media posts, lives, email journeys, Whatsapp and AMAs on our brand handles.

What challenges and opportunities do you see in the beauty industry, and how does Swiss Beauty plan to adapt and thrive in the future?

AI is something that we are looking forward to, and we want to see how itll take shape around the makeup and beauty industry in India. We are constantly looking out for innovations and want to build a complete world of beauty for the consumer.

Could you share some upcoming plans or initiatives from Swiss Beauty that customers and the beauty community can look forward to?

We intend to go strong with our expansion plans. We recently launched our Exclusive Beauty Outlet at Elante Mall, Chandigarh and we are planning to expand rapidly in this space by next year. Apart from that, well also see the brands presence across certain modern trade stores. With new launches and innovations, one thing that we can promise is that Swiss Beautys customers are in for a delightful makeup journey.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of leading Swiss Beauty so far, and what lessons have you learned along the way?

One of the most rewarding aspects is getting to shape the Indian Beauty landscape with a solid narrative around making high-functioning and affordable beauty available for everyone. Another one would definitely be working with Founders, who have such a positive outlook both for the brand and for the greater good of society, its also been about learning and growing with an exceptional team.

When you are working in a beauty brand, you get to meet a lot of people, you see how the consumer market is changing, how consumer perspective and brand perspective can be very different, there are a lot of things to learn every day. And I believe that you should never stop learning.

How do you see Swiss Beauty contributing to the global beauty industry and making a positive impact on customers lives?

At Swiss Beauty, we believe that beauty is more than just looking good. It is more about how one feels. For the last one decade, we have devoted our competencies to meeting the beauty desires of women of all ages and from all walks of life. We intend to make our customers, in India and international markets, feel the best version of themselves with our all-inclusive high-quality cosmetics range. The aim is to make Swiss Beauty and Makeup the BFF of every consumer, something that can be their sounding board.
In his role, Mr. Jain will be responsible for spearheading the Wholesale Banking business at YES BANK encompassing the Banks Large Corporates portfolio that includes Investment Banking, Project Finance Business & Loan Syndication, Emerging Local Corporates, Transaction Banking Group and Institutional & Government Banking (Government Banking, Multinational Corporate Banking, IFSC Banking Unit, Indian Financial Institutions Banking and Corporate & Government Advisory) and Business Economics Banking. Mr. Jain will be based in Mumbai, at YES BANK House, and will report to Mr. Prashant Kumar, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK.

Mr. Jain is a seasoned banking professional with over three decades of experience within the Banking and Financial Services industry. He has worked in several geographical locations across India serving diverse client segments like, Large Local Corporates, Strategic Groups, Middle Market Companies, Corporate Commercial & Institutional Banking (CCIB), Supply Chain Finance, Transaction Banking sales, Multinational Corporates, Financial Institutions, and SMEs.

Mr. Jain joins YES BANK from Standard Chartered Bank, where he last served in the capacity of Managing Director & Co-Head, CCIB Client Coverage, India & Corporates, South Asia. In his previous roles, he has been associated with organisations like Ernst & Young Consulting India, GE India and Maruti Suzuki.

Commenting on the appointment, Mr. Prashant Kumar, Managing Director and CEO, YES BANK said, YES BANK is on a strong growth trajectory, and we are very pleased to have Manish on board to accelerate the momentum. He is a seasoned banker with a proven track record of delivering value to institutional clients across diverse sectors. His appointment reinforces our commitment to growing, as well as strengthening our Wholesale Banking portfolio which continues to be an area of continued focus for the Bank. I wish him the very best for all his future endeavours at YES BANK.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis scheduled arrival in Bhopal, senior BJP leader Uma Bharti said on Monday she expects the PM to give a positive signal about carving out a quota for OBCs within the recently passed womens reservation bill.

Earlier last week, Bharti expressed her disappointment for not including the OBC (Other Backward Classes) quota within the constitutional amendment bill which provided 33 per cent reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state legislatures.

Prime Minister is welcomed in the land of Bhopal. He is the messiah of the poor and backward; I am sure he will give a positive signal on the OBC reservation for women, Bharti posted on X on Monday morning, hours before the PM visits Bhopal, where he will address a mega meeting of BJP workers.

Bharti had told PTI last week that she was happy that the womens reservation bill was introduced in Parliament but was feeling somewhat dejected because it doesnt have the provision for reservation for OBCs.

The senior BJP leader, who has been expressing her displeasure on various issues, denied that she quit politics.

I had refused to contest elections because it had been many years since I had been working. I thought of taking a break for five years. People thought that I had left politics. I am tired of saying that I have not left politics, she told a rally in Sagar district.

Bharti was last elected as Lok Sabha member from Uttar Pradeshs Jhansi.

Earlier this month, Bharti, also the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, expressed her displeasure over not being invited to attend the Jan Ashirwad Yatra, which was launched by party president JP Nadda on September 3. Bharti had also run a campaign demanding a stringent liquor policy in Madhya Pradesh and had allegedly thrown stones at a couple of shops as a mark of protest. She also stayed in a temple to protest, demanding amendments to the liquor policy. Elections are due in Madhya Pradesh later this year.
Image: Agency

Canada is a hub of Sikh separatists; all the plans are made there and unrest is created on Indian soil. Fortunately, Indian Sikhs have no time to buy into this conflict but the conditioning of Sikhs is always on the agenda of these groups. There are many extremist Khalistani outfits, such as the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI). There are many countries that shelter these separatists, including Canada, the US, Australia, the UK, and Greece.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the chief of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), had joined hands with Pannun in 2019. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who lives in the US and has been running a Khalistan Referendum campaign, has been missing for the past few days after his aide, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was shot dead in Canada on June 18th. Pannun and Nijjar used to work together and had visited Australia, among other countries, to launch the Khalistan Referendum campaign. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who would usually take credit for terror-related incidents in India, has been silent about the killings, besides the mysterious death of Avtar Singh Khanda. Pannun even halted his propaganda after Nijjar was shot dead and has not released any audio/video since then. Nijjar was shot as he was leaving the parking lot of the Gurudwara where he served as president in British Columbia. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the spot.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada alleged the role of Indian intelligence agencies in Hardeep Singh Nijjars murder. It asked Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fully investigate the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, including the role of foreign interference, specifically from India. It is not only Pannun but several other Khalistani exponents and terrorists, based in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and Pakistan, who have gone into hiding after the spate of deaths.

The NIA has issued lookout notices against dozens of Khalistani radicals, including Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dala, Gagandeep Singh, Goldy Brar, Gurpinder Singh, Satveer Singh, Charnjeet Singh, and Ramandeep Singh. Most of them are hiding in Canada. Nearly a week after Nijjars slaying, about 200 protesters from Canadas Sikh community gathered in front of the Indian Consulate in Vancouver to demonstrate. Many of the protesters were convinced that Nijjars killing was linked to his calls for an independent Sikh state.

In 2016, Indian media reported that Nijjar was suspected of masterminding a bombing in the Sikh-majority State of Punjab and training terrorists in a small city southeast of Vancouver. Last year, Indian authorities accused Nijjar of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India and announced a reward of about $16,000 for information leading to his arrest. The modern Sikh independence movement dates back to the 1940s but eventually became an armed insurgency that shook the country in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a raid to capture armed separatists taking refuge in Sikhs holiest shrine.

The raid killed hundreds of people, and two of Gandhis Sikh bodyguards assassinated her shortly after. In response, anti-Sikh riots took place across India, in which members of the minority were dragged out of their homes and killed. The insurgency was eventually suppressed in a crackdown during which thousands of people were killed, but the goal of Sikh independence still has support among some in northern India and in the Sikh diaspora.

More recently, the Modi government has cracked down on both non-Hindu rights movements and dissidents. Sikh diaspora activism has been a source of tension between India and Canada for years. Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside India, and India has repeatedly accused it of tolerating terrorists and extremists. At present, in India, there is no Khalistan movement, nor will there be one in the future. Most Sikhs are patriotic, as 20% of them are in the Indian Army. This Khalistan movement was created by a few radical Sikh extremists on foreign land and they are still continuing to do so but the reality is that, they will never get a separate Khalistan. The extremists will come and go but they will not be able to get an inch of separate land in the name of Khalistan.

Its high time these Sikh separatists utilized their energy in some constructive work that will benefit the entire humanity, this is the ideal way of life that a Sikh is supposed to live. The Langar practice (distribution of free food in the community kitchen of Gurudwra) is a living example of that tradition. Moreover, when millions of Sikhs settle outside Punjab, most of them out of India, what are they going to achieve when their community is jeopardized?
South Korea on Thursday expressed deep concern and regret over a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin that was apparently focused on expanding military cooperation as the two isolated, nuclear-armed leaders align over their escalating confrontations with the United States.

Washington has warned that the summit on Wednesday between Kim and Putin could lead to a deal to supply ammunition for Moscows war in Ukraine.

Theres widespread concern in Seoul that the North in return would receive advanced weapons technologies from Russia, including those related to military spy satellites, which would increase the threat posed by Kims military nuclear program.

We express our deep concern and regret that despite repeated warnings from the international community, North Korea and Russia discussed military cooperation issues, including satellite development, during their summit, said Lim Soo-suk, South Koreas Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Any science and technology cooperation that contributes to nuclear weapons and missile development, including satellite systems that involve ballistic missile technologies, runs against UN Security Council resolutions, he said in a briefing.

Lim also pointed out that Kims delegation in Russia included several individuals sanctioned by the Security Council over involvement in illicit North Korean weapons development activities, including Korean Peoples Army Marshal Ri Pyong Chol and Jo Chun Yong, a ruling party official who handles munitions policies.

Lim said Moscow should realise there will be very negative impacts on its relations with Seoul if proceeds with military cooperation with Pyongyang.

Seouls Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho, who handles affairs with North Korea, warned that potential arms transfers between Pyongyang and Moscow would only invite stronger responses from South Korea, the US and Japan, which have been stepping up their trilateral security cooperation to cope with regional threats.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that North Korea would face consequences if it supplies arms to Russia.

No nation on the planet, nobody, should be helping Mr. Putin kill innocent Ukrainians, Kirby said. If the countries decide to move forward with an arms deal, the US will take measure of the arrangement and deal with it appropriately, he said.

He said that any deal that would improve North Koreas military capabilities certainly would be of significant concern to us. North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency said on Thursday that Kim invited Putin during their meeting to visit North Korea at a convenient time and that Putin accepted with pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward the history of friendship between the nations.

Putin told Russian state TV after the summit that Kim will visit two more cities in Russias Far East on his own, flying to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he will visit an aircraft plant, and then go to Vladivostok to view Russias Pacific Fleet, a university and other facilities.

During their meeting on Wednesday at Russias spaceport in the Far East, Kim vowed full and unconditional support for Putin in what he described as a just fight against hegemonic forces to defend its sovereign rights, security and interests, in an apparent reference to the war in Ukraine.

The decision to meet at the Vostochny Cosmodrome suggested that Kim is seeking Russian help in developing military reconnaissance satellites.

He has previously said that is crucial to enhancing the threat of his nuclear-capable missiles, and North Korea has repeatedly failed to put its first military spy satellite into orbit.

The aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur would be another location that possibly hints at what Kim seeks to gain from Russia in exchange for help fuelling Putins war on Ukraine.

Some analysts question whether Russia, which has always closely guarded its sensitive weapons technologies, would be willing to share them with North Korea in exchange for what may end up being limited supplies of munitions moved slowly through their small land link.

They say military cooperation between the countries could be more about conventional capabilities, such as Russia possibly helping North Korea improve its badly aged air force that remains reliant on fighter jets sent by the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Putin told reporters that Russia and North Korea have lots of interesting projects in spheres like transportation and agriculture and that Moscow is providing its neighbour with humanitarian aid.

But he avoided talking about military cooperation, saying only that Russia is abiding by the sanctions prohibiting procuring weapons from Pyongyang.

Wednesdays meeting came hours after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward the sea, extending a highly provocative run in testing since 2022, as Kim used the distraction caused by war in Ukraine to accelerate his weapons development.
Federal investigators are looking into a conservative activists claim that several scholarship programs at The University of Alabama at Huntsville discriminate against men.

Justin Gaffney Samuels, a New York-based blogger and filmmaker who graduated from Cornell University, according to his website, has filed multiple complaints against womens colleges and other universities in recent months, claiming they violated federal anti-discrimination laws and would be tested by the U.S. Supreme Courts affirmative action ban.

In a letter to AL.com, Samuels said he didnt want to stand by and watch potential discrimination take root in Alabama universities that he said were offering scholarships exclusively to women, LGBTQ, Latino and Black students.

Read more: Supreme Court blocks race conscious admissions. Heres what that means in Alabama.

Samuels filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights in April, alleging that University of Alabama at Huntsville had violated Title IX by exclusively offering scholarships to women.

In his complaint, he alleged that UAH denied opportunities to men by promoting the following scholarships:

Heritage Junior Womans Club Scholarship

University Womens Club scholarships

Huntsville Womans Club Memorial Scholarship

ASIST (Adult Students in Scholastic Transitions) Scholarship from the Huntsville Chapter of Executive Women International

American Association of University Women Fellowship

Samuels provided AL.com with a notice from the Office for Civil Rights stating the office would partially investigate the claims. AL.com verified the notice through the OCRs federal database.

The office dismissed allegations against two of the scholarships  the University Womens Club Scholarship and the Huntsville Womans Club Memorial Scholarship  stating that there was not enough information about the awards, or that Samuels could not provide examples of anyone who had been denied a scholarship because of their sex.

UAH did not respond to a request for comment.

This investigation has far-reaching implications, not just for Alabama but for educational institutions nationwide, Samuels wrote. It will determine if these well-intentioned scholarships inadvertently perpetuate discrimination and if universities must adjust their policies accordingly.

The Supreme Courts decision doesnt mention scholarships, but some states have already issued directives to immediately stop considering race-based financial aid, according to USA Today.

Recent reports found that the decision has emboldened antiaffirmative action groups, including the The Equal Protection Project and the American Enterprise Institute, to file numerous federal complaints targeting scholarships for women and minority students.

According to the Office for Civil Rights federal database, the office is currently investigating 265 complaints about single sex scholarships and campus programs  the majority of which were filed after 2020. The office has resolved about 40 scholarship-related complaints in the past decade.
Many more Alabama teachers may be eligible for a $10,000 stipend this year, thanks to an expansion of schools offering free meals.

Whats the connection between free- and reduced-price lunch and teacher pay? Alabama gives National Board Certified teachers $5,000 each year. And teachers in some subject areas who work in certain schools  including those with high rates of students eligible for free lunch  can get an additional $5,000.

Last year, 511 Alabama schools were on the targeted supplement list for that extra stipend. This year, 999 schools are on the list. The list grew due in large part to many more schools choosing to participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which automatically adds a school to the targeted supplement list.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards lists just under 3,500 teachers as having obtained NBCT status. The certification is considered the gold standard of teaching. Through the process, which can take as little as one year from start to finish, teachers get better at the art and craft of teaching.

To be eligible for the additional $5,000 targeted supplement, teachers must have the National Board certification in one of these subject areas:

Literacy-Reading language arts in elementary grades,

English as a new language in all grades,

Math in sixth through 12th grades,

Science in sixth through 12th grades,

Career and technical education in sixth through 12th grades,

Special education in all grades

During the 2021-22 school year, 156 NBCTs across 104 qualifying schools earned the additional $5,000 stipend. About half of those teachers earned National Board Certification in Literacy-Reading language arts for elementary grades.

When the percentage of students whose families receive government assistance is 40% or higher, schools can participate in the federal CEP program, meaning all students can get free meals at school.

The targeted supplement is intended to attract NBCTs to teach in challenging schools, but according to information from the Alabama Department of Education, while some NBCTs earn the additional $5,000, the incentive so far hasnt caused much movement.

See the list of eligible schools below.
The new original series Love in Fairhope is now available for your binge-viewing pleasure on Hulu, so welcome to Fairhope. Or rather, welcome to TV Fairhope, where Weve got two traffic lights, one bar, a beach, and the biggest bash on the Mobile Bay, the Magnolia Ball.

TV Fairhope: Come for the belly laughs of two traffic lights and one bar, stay for the gentle puzzlement of hearing someone say on the Mobile Bay. I mean, theres only one proper response to that: You aint from around here, are you?

In a second, well talk about what Love in Fairhope is and isnt. But, based on a careful viewing of all nine half-hour episodes, heres a quick overview of TV Fairhope.

READ: Love in Fairhope: Meet the new Hulu reality shows cast

The one bar in town is the Bone and Barrel. Hey, if you can only have one, its not a bad pick.

One of the five women looking for true love in the show, LaShoundra Young, is portrayed as the wife of the pastor of the most prominent church in Fairhope, which happens to be a Black Baptist church. From the outside it looks very much like an Anglican church in Point Clear, but the inside belongs to a Baptist church in Mobile. See, going to TV Fairhope is like going to Narnia.

As you drive the picturesque roads of Fairhope, you might suddenly find yourself on the avenue of oaks at Spring Hill College in Mobile.

When the county fair is on, it is A time in Fairhope where everyone is intoxicated by the whiff of corn dogs, cotton candy, and yes, casual romances. Incidentally, the drone shot of this fair definitely isnt the Baldwin County Fair and doesnt look like Mobiles Greater Gulf State Fair either. Narnia.

The Magnolia Ball has been the biggest event in Fairhope for over 50 years and drives the whole social calendar even though it looks kind of like a wedding reception where they booked catering for 150 and 40 people showed up. Also, in non-TV Fairhope, its totally not a thing. As far as being the biggest bash on the bay, or on Mobile Bay, but never on the Mobile Bay, Mardi Gras would like a word. And Joe Cain Day is tapping on its shoulder saying, step aside, I can field this one myself.

If you were wondering how real this reality show was going to be, those are some handy benchmarks. Here are a couple more: Barry Poznick, the president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Unscripted Television, has referred to the series as a reality soap a la the Hills, set in the South. Cast member LaShoundra Young has described her piece of the show on social media as the perfect blend of my real life, and real emotions, with a little bit of HOLLYWOOD MAGIC mixed in. Another, Olivia Ogletree, posted: If you were given the chance to bring your fantasy love story to life, how would it look?

Best to consider it a pleasant fantasy, presented to amuse and entertain, rather than a documentary. Love in Fairhope certainly has an appealing cast, in part because of the range of race, age, and sexual orientation. The youngest, Mya Jo Williams, is fresh back from college and trying to choose between an old friend and an old flame. The oldest, Claiborne Walsh, is trying to fend off alone-ness after the death of the man she was married to for 55 years. In between theres Abby Mannich, back in town in her early 30s after a breakup in New York City, dallying with a bad boy despite copious signs hes not the one; Olivia Ogletree, considering whether she and a same-sex partner are right for each other; and LaShoundra Young, who has very mixed feelings about her breakup with her husband.

LaShoundra Young grapples with separation from her husband, Kendell Young, in "Love in Fairhope." (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

Theres no shortage of situation, and Love in Fairhope serves up ample beefcake and cheesecake  particularly where its younger cast members and their oft-shirtless boyfriends are concerned. What there is a lack of is actual romantic tension and a sense that anything very important is at stake.

Love in Fairhope frequently has the feel of a soap opera or a telenovela. Each scene exists so that a specific conversation can be had. The actors are perfectly made up, well-dressed and impeccably lit, and they hit their marks in workmanlike fashion. But a good melodrama punctuates the awkward pauses with revelations: So-and-so is somebodys father; the company is going bankrupt; youll never believe who just got charged with murder.

This show doesnt have any of that, but it does have Heather Graham as a narrator, alternating banalities with the occasional zinger. In the former category: You see, to move forward you have to put the past behind. But when it comes to matters of the heart, its not that simple. In the latter: Moving on to Abby, down the street, whos also lying to herself.

At its weakest, Love in Fairhope gives us Graham as a benign sage of romance who wants to make specific points about love, then tries to illustrate them with footage that fails to crackle with any particular passion. At its best, well, its pleasant enough. In a world of reality shows stuffed with damaged exhibitionists willing to do anything for a smidge of celebrity, its pretty down-to-earth.

On the other hand, you never get the feeling that those exhibitionistic would-be celebrities are holding back because they dont want this to haunt them later. I did have that feeling during Love in Fairhope, and it made me think about different ways the show might have achieved something with a little more edge.

Some possibilities:

Going full telenovela: Im convinced that Id enjoy Love in Fairhope more if all the dialogue was spoken in a language I dont understand, and if dramatic music and other elements suggested a convoluted and dangerous subplot, like if all the characters were afraid that they might be the next victim of the Fairhope Strangler, and also that any one of them might turn out to be the Fairhope Strangler.

Going full Fairhope: All she wants is true love, and to build a 1,600-unit apartment complex with quasi-affordable rents on a former cotton field. Hes ready to open his heart, and his boutique parka shop, to the right woman  but he also has concerns about scarce public parking, bitter zoning disputes, water pollution and Democrats. Its complicated.

Going full Gump: Grahams narration is rich, engaging and hard to fault, except that the platitudes she often delivers are so lame. But you could lean into that. I mean, just imagine Tom Hanks saying any of these things in full-on Forrest Gump drawl. You can preface them with My momma says, if it makes you feel better.

The heart, well, that thing has a mind of its own  it just wants what it wants.

Then it hit LaShoundra: The realization that breaking up is easy but breaking away is tough. Especially when deep down, you really dont want to.

A full day with someone you like can feel like 10 minutes. And the next thing you know, youre staring at the stars asking existential questions like, Who am I in this world?

Im as fond of musicians as every other girl. But I cant help but wonder: How much in like do you have to be to follow somebody elses dream instead of your own?

But anyway, here we are. Reality is what it is, and Love in Fairhope is a gentle, light, reality-adjacent omnibus of love stories. As any of these women might tell themselves at any point in the show, you could do worse.

It doesnt feel exploitive of its cast and for all its geographical fudging, it doesnt make Fairhope look bad either. In fact, they do make it look like a very attractive place, which it is. If youre thinking about visiting you do need to understand that it has more traffic lights than you mightve been led to expect, but also more bars.
'Ex-soldiers should be honored every day, not just on Memorial Day'

Editors note This article is the first in a series of interviews to highlight the significance of the ROK-US alliance on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Mutual Defense Treaty, signed on Oct. 1, 1953, in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War.  ED.

By Lee Hyo-jin

The seven-decades-old alliance between South Korea and the United States formed with the signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty on Oct. 1, 1953, has played a vital role in South Korea's history as a safeguard for the peace and prosperity of the nation, according to Patriots and Veterans Affairs Minister Park Min-shik.

The post-war treaty has, and will, continue to protect South Korea from another North Korean invasion, he said.

"The Mutual Defense Treaty has played a pivotal role in preserving the peace established by the Korean Armistice Agreement, and still continues to serve as the foundation for the prosperity we enjoy today," Park said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Sept. 22.

"Even though North Korea has carried out numerous provocations in the past seven decades, the fact that the North has not initiated another war is attributable to the overwhelming deterrence created by the Mutual Defense Treaty. The ironclad alliance has left North Korea with virtually no opportunity to start a war, not even a 0.1 percent chance."

And this "hard-won" peace should not be taken for granted, Park stressed.

He viewed that the country's inaugural President Syngman Rhee played an instrumental role in securing U.S. support for South Korea during the period leading up to and following the 1950-53 Korean War, and such an effort eventually led to the signing of the defense treaty.

"If you take a closer look at how the treaty was ratified with all the negotiation process, the U.S. side was initially reluctant to sign the agreement. But President Rhee, a remarkable politician with excellent diplomatic skills, ultimately persuaded U.S. officials to commit to the treaty," the minister said.

Rhee's legacy remains a subject of ongoing debate and historical research. He is revered by some for his role in establishing the foundation of modern Korea and fostering a strong partnership with the U.S. On the other hand, he is criticized for solidifying the division of the two Koreas and for his authoritarian rule during his presidential tenure. He was ousted by a civil uprising in 1960.

During the interview, Park renewed his support for the swift establishment of a memorial for Rhee, an ongoing project led by the Memorial Association for Founding President Syngman Rhee.

Following an upgrade of the veterans ministry from a sub-ministry unit to full-fledged ministry status in June this year, Park was sworn in as the inaugural veterans minister of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.

Park said the elevated status of his ministry reflects the government's commitment to recognizing and rewarding patriotic services. Through the upgrade, the scope of veterans entitled to government support has been largely expanded, and the ministry is developing various sustainable support policies for them.

As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement signed on July 27, 1953, Park has been ramping up efforts to strengthen relations with countries that helped South Korea during the Korean War. In July, the ministry hosted a major commemoration ceremony in Busan where 62 foreign veterans who fought for the South under the U.N. flag and their descendants were invited.

"The relationships and friendships forged with the 22 countries that participated in the Korean War have grown stronger and more robust over time through various cooperations in veterans affairs on government levels. I believe these partnerships are a valuable diplomatic asset for our nation," Park said.

"Our ministry is currently expanding the scope of international veterans' policies to include the descendants of U.N. Korean War veterans and soldiers who were deployed after the Armistice Agreement, in order to ensure that their contributions are remembered not only in South Korea but also in their own nations."

In September, Park met with Ukrainian Minister for Veterans Yuliia Laputina on the sidelines of the Invictus Games held in Germany, during which the two sides agreed to cooperate in Ukraine's projects honoring the fallen soldiers in its ongoing war with Russia.

"I think the situation in Ukraine due to Russia's agression is similiar to what we have experienced decades ago," Park said. "As a nation that has successfully rose from the ruins of war, we should support Ukraine not only in their reconstruction projects but also regarding policies needed to honor their fallen soldiers."

Renovation of Seoul National Cemetery

In Korea, commemorating the fallen heroes is widely percieved as a solemn occasion that takes place nationwide on June 6 Memorial Day. However, Park views that honoring patriotic services should be entrenched in the nation's culture and identity that people can experience in their daily lives.

"Honoring veterans should not only be about visiting graves and paying tribute on Memorial Day," he said. "What's even more important is for people to carry a sense of respect and gratitude in their hearts throughout the remaining 364 days of the year."

Against this backdrop, the veterans ministry is planning to renovate of the Seoul National Cemetery located in Dongjak District, with an aim to make the facility more accessible to the public. The renovation project, launched in June, will transform the cemetery into a cultural park and tourist spot similar to the Arlington National Cemetery in the U.S. state of Virginia.

"People tend to think that rewarding veterans is about remembering the past. But actually, the core value of rewarding patriotism lies in shaping the nation's identiy that empowers future generations," Park said.
Love in Fairhope hits Hulu on Wednesday, using the Eastern Shore as a backdrop while five women search for true love. Heres a quick introduction to the ladies and their romantic challenges before you begin your binge.

Bear in mind that theres an element of fantasy to this. One of the cast members, LaShoundra Young, has described her piece of the show on social media as the perfect blend of my real life, and real emotions, with a little bit of HOLLYWOOD MAGIC mixed in. Another, Olivia Ogletree, posted: If you were given the chance to bring your fantasy love story to life, how would it look?

And Barry Poznick, the president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Unscripted Television, has referred to the series as a reality soap a la the Hills, set in the South. So, all in all, you might want to take the reality part of this with a grain of salt.

The cast, as presented by Hulu:

Abby Mannich and Trevor Chunn made a pretty pair in "Love in Fairhope," but that doesn't mean the chemistry is right. (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

Abby Mannich

Abby Mannich, 33, has crash-landed back in Fairhope after a few years in New York City that ended with a breakup. Right as Abbys about to get back on her feet, she gets sucked back into a spin cycle with ex-boyfriend and town-bad-boy Trevor. But as it turns out, Trevors not the only option.

After more than 50 years of marriage, Claiborne Walsh begins dating with a mix of curiosity and trepidation in "Love in Fairhope." (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

Claiborne Walsh

Claiborne Walsh, 76, is a beloved artist and poet in town who prides herself on romantic wisdom. At least until she finds herself venturing back into the world of dating following the death of her husband of 55 years.

Being single doesn't come easy for LaShoundra Young in "Love in Fairhope." (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

LaShoundra Young

LaShoundra Young is the town pastors wife at a serious crossroad in life. After learning that her husband Kendell made a few risky business decisions that put their family at risk, shes forced to decide whether she wants to stay in a marriage with a man she can no longer trust. Venturing out on her own at mid-life presents uncertainties of its own.

Mya Jo Williams finds herself choosing between and old friend and an old flame in "Love in Fairhope." (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

Mya Jo Williams

Mya Jo Williams is back in town at 21 after college, interested in longtime friend Nick. But Nick has a new girlfriend, and Mya Jos high school boyfriend Kirk also catches her eye.

Olivia Ogletree has two children of her own, but the question of whether she's ready for more becomes an issue in "Love in Fairhope." (Photo by: Dan Anderson/Hulu) HULU

Olivia Ogletree

Olivia Ogletree is the daughter of town socialite and real estate mogul Paige Dawson. Focused on growing the family business and the family she built, Olivia wasnt looking for a relationship until a chance encounter with a childhood crush changed her mind. Having just come out a few years back, Olivia and Tori are newly dating and navigating a gay relationship in the Bible Belt of America.

All nine half-hour episodes of Love in Fairhope will be released on Hulu on Wednesday, Sept. 27.
A midday shooting in Tarrant left one man injured and another in custody.

The shooting happened about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on Maple Street.

Police Chief Wendell Major said the victim was taken to the hospital. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, led Tarrant police on a chase before he was taken into custody in Birmingham.

The chief said the suspect has outstanding warrants with the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office for failure to appear in court on a previous charge.

The investigation is ongoing.
A 15-year-old boy has been indicted for his alleged role in the deadly April shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville.

A 5th Judicial Circuit grand jury indicted Sherman Peters, who will turn 16 in December, on four counts of reckless murder, 24 counts of first-degree assault and one count of third-degree assault, District Attorney Mike Segrest announced Wednesday. The grand jury met Friday.

Peters last week was denied bond following an Aniahs Law hearing. Authorities announced earlier this month he would be charged as an adult.

He is one of six suspects charged in the case. The other five charged are: 19-year-old Willie George Brown Jr. of Auburn; 20-year-old Wilson LaMar Hill Jr. of Auburn, Johnny Letron Brown, 20, of Reeltown, and brothers Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, of Tuskegee.

Aniahs Law, passed in 2022, adds a list of serious crimes other than capital offenses for which a defendant could be held without bail before trial. Aniah Blanchard, a 19-year-old college student from Homewood, was abducted from a convenience store in Auburn in 2019 and found dead a month later.

The man charged in Blanchards kidnapping and murder, Ibraheem Yazeed, had been released from jail on a $280,000 bond after being charged with kidnapping, robbery and attempted murder from a January 2019 incident in Montgomery.

Those killed in the April 15 shooting at a Dadeville dance hall were Phil Dowdell, 18, Shaunkivia Nicole Keke Smith, 17, Marsiah Emmanuel Siah Collins, 19, and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23.

Here is full coverage of the case

In a previous hearing, SBI Special Agent Jess Thornton testified there were 50 to 60 people inside the dance hall, which is 38-feet-long and 26-feet-wide.

At one point in the evening, a DJs speaker fell over, making a sound similar to a gunshot, Thornton said. When that happened, several of the young people there lifted their shirts to show they had guns.

LaTonya Allen, mother of Phil Dowdell and birthday girl Alexis Dowdell, said anyone over 18 or carrying a gun needed to leave.

Not long after that, shots rang out leaving multiple shell casings, blood everywhere, Thornton testified.

One of the guns was found sitting on the chest of Holstons lifeless body. The gun had been fired, Thornton said.

Witnesses also said Holston at one point wore a ski mask.

Most of the suspects said he fired first, Thornton said.

Another gun was found in Collins waistband, but it had not been fired.

Those were the only two guns recovered from the scene. At least four different caliber weapons were fired, Thornton said. Those were a 9 mm, 22 caliber, 40 caliber and 45 caliber.

Witnesses reported hearing rapid fire and Thornton testified one defendant admitted his gun had been altered to be fully automatic and investigators believe another gun had also been converted to automatic.

The six defendants are all relatives or friends, Thornton said. They were not invited but knew of the party and met up there from Auburn and Tuskegee.

Of the six, only Willie Brown denied being at the party. Thornton said, however, shell casings from an unrelated incident in Auburn in which he is a suspect matched one used in Dadeville.

One of the juvenile suspects, it was not clear which, had an ankle monitor from an unrelated shooting in Tuskegee and its GPS tracker showed he was in Dadeville.

Under Alabama law, the crime of reckless murder is committed when a person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to a person other than himself or herself and causes the death of another person.
The police chief of a north Alabama town, calling it the toughest moment in his career, today announced his resignation, along with three officers and a town council member in an apparent dispute over funding.

In a social media post, Powell Police Chief Gage Wilson announced that he had officially resigned as police chief, as well as Assistant Police Chief Nick Morgan, two officers and Councilman Ronnie Helton.

Wilson has served as police chief for eight months in the DeKalb County town of roughly 1,000. Attempts to reach town officials for comment were not immediately successful.

I have enjoyed my time here as an Officer, Assistant Chief and Chief. My team and I have worked diligently to make Powell safer, Wilson said. We have worked with other agencies and took more drugs off the streets than ever before in Powell. We have had a great working relationship with all businesses and have prosecuted a handful of shoplifting cases.

According to Wilson, the resignations came following a dispute over hours and funding.

I feel as if my team and I were really moving in the right direction for this town, Wilson said. However, we were shut down on hours worked at the last meeting. We were also passed up for new equipment so the town could build a new town hall with Covid money provided for first responders. This is things that I can not stand for as a man or a Chief.

In comments to others on his social media post, Wilson said officers were working part-time for the town without insurance or retirement.

I have no personal issues with anyone at Powell, he wrote. I love Powell and the Citizens there of. I am forever grateful for my opportunities here and will continue my career elsewhere.
A Birmingham doctor has been convicted of first-degree domestic violence in an attack on his wife.

Dr. Brett Tyler Wahlgren, a former UAB anesthesiologist, was initially charged with misdemeanor third-degree domestic violence assault and first-degree domestic violence in March. A grand jury later indicted him for attempted murder and first-degree domestic violence assault.

In July, he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge and received a one-year suspended sentence.

Authorities said the 41-year-old Wahlgren on March 19 attacked the victim by throwing the top of a bourbon barrel and a chair at her before repeatedly punching her in the face and slamming her head against a granite countertop.

Wahlgren then dragged the victim by the hair through the kitchen used one of the knives from knife block in that kitchen to stab her.

Wahlgren testified that the victim was injured by the knife while in the process of him attempting to take his own life.

Wahlgrens trial began Sept. 19 before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Kechia Davis.

The jury returned the guilty verdict on the domestic violence charge Friday afternoon. He was acquitted on the attempted murder charge.

Jefferson County deputy district attorneys Amanda Wineman and Warren Brooks prosecuted the case. Wahlgren was represented by attorneys Bill Dawson and Tommy Spina.

The case was investigated by Birmingham police.

Domestic violence is real and just like mental health issues, including depression, needs to be dealt with in the court system, taking into account all facts and circumstances of any given event,' Spina said. Brett has never denied that he assaulted his wife. He had already plead guilty to doing so before his trial and remorsefully and emotionally admitted to the jury that he had assaulted his wife when he took the stand in his own defense.

However, Brett has always maintained that he never intended to nor attempted to murder his wife during the altercation that took place at their residence on March 19th, 2023,' Spina said.

Brett introduced the knife into the altercation intending to kill himself,' he said. A struggle ensued and after his wife called 911 and vacated the premises, Brett slit his own throat. The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and he survived.

Wahlgren has been held without bond in the Jefferson County Jail since March 19.

Sentencing is set for Nov. 7.
The number of public-school book bans nationwide increased by 33% between the 2021-22 school year and the 2022-23 school year, according to a new PEN America study.

The study, Banned in the USA: The Mounting Pressure to Censor, found 3,362 book bans that will affect 1,557 different titles throughout the 202223 academic year and will influence the works of 1,480 authors, illustrators, and translators.

Florida topped Texas this year in terms of the number of books taken off the shelf, according to the study by PEN America, defines itself as a nonprofit organization that protects free expression in the United States and around the world. Driving these bans are the proliferation of legislative initiatives to limit teaching about subjects like race, gender, American history and LGBTQ+ identities, as well as the rise of educational intimidation mandates that demand intrusive monitoring of teachers and librarians.

Related: Alabama library controversies over inappropriate childrens books draws scrutiny from Kay Ivey

A schoolbook ban is defined by PEN America as any action taken against a book based on its content, as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by legislators or other governmental officials, that results in a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or access to a book being restricted or diminished.

In Florida, there were 1,406 examples of book bans, followed by 625 in Texas, 333 in Missouri, 281 in Utah and 186 in Pennsylvania, according to PEN America. On these occasions, books were either banned from libraries or classrooms, or from both, or they were restricted while the matter was being investigated.

Over 75% of the banned publications are young adult, middle grade, chapter or picture books, which are expressly written and selected for younger audiences, according to the study.

During the 2022-23 school year, nearly half of all book bans (48%) deal with violence or physical abuse, including books about sexual assault; 30% include characters of color and themes of race and racism; 30% represent LGBTQ+ identities; and 6% include a transgender character. The research highlights the growing student resistance to book bans nationwide as one encouraging trend.

Youth opposition to book bans has taken the form of demonstrations, speaking out during school board meetings, and the founding of national organizations devoted to safeguarding the availability of reading in schools.

The toll of the book banning movement is getting worse. More kids are losing access to books, more libraries are taking authors off the shelves, and opponents of free expression are pushing harder than ever to exert their power over students as a whole, said Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer of PEN America.

Alabama isnt mentioned in the study.

Contrary to other states, Alabama doesnt have any banned books because its up to the individual libraries to decide.

But two bills were enacted into law in Alabama in 2022 that forbid textbooks and literature that impute fault, blame, have a tendency to suppress others, or create the need to feel guilt or anguish to persons solely because of their race or sex, but Alabama does not have the authority to decide which books are permitted in specific libraries.

Read more: Book bans are a local affair in Alabama schools. That could change.

These Alabama authors made list of most banned books
Fresh off guest-hosting The View last week, Deborah Roberts has been announced as the new co-anchor of 20/20.

ABC News president Kim Godwin said Tuesday that the multiple Emmy and Peabody Award winner will join David Muir as a permanent co-anchor on the long-running newsmagazine series, which will return for a 46th season Friday.

Im thrilled to announce that Deborah Roberts will be elevating her role to co-anchor of 20/20, after her elevation to contributing anchor of the program one year ago, Godwin said in a statement.

Sharing the news on social media, Roberts wrote: Im honored and humbled to step into a new role as co-anchor at 20/20, alongside my colleague David Muir. Following in the footsteps of Barbara Walters is an honor.

Roberts replaces Amy Robach, who exited the network in January following a controversial affair with her GMA3 co-host T.J. Holmes.

Roberts, whos married to Today weather anchor Al Roker, has been reporting for 20/20, since 1995. Recruited by Walters  a correspondent, producer and co-host on 20/20 from 1979-2004  she has gained recognition as a skilled investigative journalist covering political figures, world events, crime cases and newsmakers.

Throughout her near 30-year career at ABC News, Roberts has worked for Nightline, Good Morning America and World News Tonight with David Muir. The New York Times bestselling author has also served as a substitute anchor on The View.

Deborah Roberts is one of a kind  a first-class journalist who brings heart, authority and integrity to every story she covers, Godwin added. Along with David Muir, she embodies the DNA of 20/20, inspiring the team and people around the world with every thoughtful word, inspiring report and impactful review.



2023 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The Congress is starkly divided over very different paths to preventing a federal shutdown  the Senate charging ahead with a bipartisan package to temporarily fund the government but the House slogging through a longshot effort with no real chance of finishing by Saturdays deadline.

With days remaining before a federal closure, the stakes are rising with no resolution at hand.

A shutdown would furlough millions of federal employees, leave the military without pay, disrupt air travel and cut off vital safety net services, and it would be politically punishing to lawmakers whose job it is to fund government.

President Joe Biden, who earlier this year reached a budget deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy that became law, believes its up to the House Republicans to deliver.

A deal is a deal, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. This is for them to fix.

Late Tuesday, the Senate pushed ahead in sweeping bipartisan fashion to break the stalemate, advancing a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep government running through Nov. 17. It would maintain funding at current levels with a $6 billion boost for Ukraine and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief, among other provisions.

Its on track for Senate approval later this week but faces long odds in the House.

The Republican McCarthy, pushed by a hard-right flank that rejects the deal he made with Biden and is demanding steep spending cuts, showed no interest in the Senates bipartisan effort  or the additional money for Ukraine.

I think their priorities are bad, he said about the Senate effort.

Instead, McCarthy is reviving plans for the House Republicans own stopgap funding measure that would slash federal spending by 8% for many agencies and attach a hardline border security measure that conservatives are demanding. Hes planning a Friday vote, but Biden, Democrats and even some Republicans have said the package is too extreme.

McCarthy is trying to goad Biden into negotiations over the border package, highlighting the record numbers of migrants crossing the Southern border with Mexico, but the speaker has little leverage at this point and the White House has downplayed the prospect of talks.

But first, McCarthy is expected to spend much of this week trying to pass some of the bills needed to fund government agencies  Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State and Foreign Operations.

Its a daunting task ahead. The House Republicans advanced those bills late Tuesday after a days of setbacks and disarray, but it is not at all clear McCarthy has the votes from his hard-right flank to actually pass the four bills this week.

One of the key right-flank holdouts, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is fighting for more cuts and opposes the funds for Ukraine, said she voted against advancing the package because the bills are headed toward defeat anyway.

Im trying to save everybody from wasting time, she said.

The 79-page Senate bill would fund the government at current levels and would include the Ukraine and U.S. disaster aid that has been in jeopardy. It also includes an extension of Federal Aviation Administration provisions expiring Saturday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate bill shows bipartisanship can triumph over extremism.

Schumer said, We all know together that a government shutdown will be devastating, devastating to this country.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared on board with the bipartisan Senate plan, saying, Government shutdowns are bad news.

The hard-right House Republicans are being egged on by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who has urged them to stand firm in the fight or shut it down.

It is setting up a split-screen later this week as House Republicans hold their first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing probing the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. It also comes as former Trump officials are floating their own plans to slash government and the federal workforce if the former president retakes the White House.

McCarthy, who said he spoke to McConnell on Tuesday, brushed off Trumps influence as just a negotiating tactic, even as the far-right members keep torpedoing his plans.

While their numbers are just a handful, the hard-right Republican faction holds sway because the House majority is narrow and McCarthy needs almost every vote from his side for partisan bills without Democratic support.

The speaker has given the holdouts many of their demands, but it still has not been enough as they press for more  including gutting funding for Ukraine, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Washington last week is vital to winning the war against Russia.

The hard-line Republicans want McCarthy to drop the deal he made with Biden and stick to earlier promises for spending cuts he made to them in January to win their votes for the speakers gavel, citing the nations rising debt load.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a key Trump ally leading the right flank, said on Fox News Channel that a shutdown is not optimal but its better than continuing on the current path that we are to Americas financial ruin.

Gaetz, who has also threatened to call a vote to oust McCarthy from his job, wants Congress to do what it rarely does anymore: debate and approve each of the 12 annual bills needed to fund the various departments of government  typically a process that takes weeks, if not months.

Even if the House is able to complete its work this week on some of those bills, which is highly uncertain, they would still need to be merged with similar legislation from the Senate, another lengthy process.
The chairman of the Alabama House Ethics and Campaign Finance Committee said Wednesday he expects to propose changes to the state ethics law during the next legislative session.

Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, is leading a series of meetings by the committee to examine issues identified by a study commission a few years ago and by Alabamas appellate courts.

Most of those are areas where the law is confusing, ambiguous, or unclear, Simpson said.

I think an overwhelming majority of people want to do the right thing, said Simpson, a former Baldwin County prosecutor who was elected to the Legislature in 2018. They want to follow the law. They just dont know where the lines are. They dont know what they can and cant do. The purpose of this is to draw some lines, to make some clarity, some clarification.

At a meeting Wednesday, James Entrekin, general counsel for the Legislative Services Agency, presented an overview of the ethics law, a recap of the 2019 report by the Ethics Clarification and Reform Commission, and a summary of open questions and lingering issues from the case of former House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who was convicted of ethics violations in 2016.

The Alabama Supreme Court overturned some of Hubbards convictions and noted what some of the justices said was a lack of clarity in the law.

One of the lingering issues is the precise definition and scope of the term principal, which refers to organizations and individuals that employ lobbyists. Public officials are prohibited from accepting things of value from principals, just as they are from lobbyists. But what about the managers or officers of a company that has a lobbyist? Are they considered principals, even if they are not directly involved in hiring or supervising the lobbyist?

One of Hubbards convictions was for accepting a thing of value from the former chairman of the Business Council of Alabama, which employs lobbyists. The Alabama Supreme Court overturned that, finding that the former chairman did not fit the definition of a principal.

An issue included in the Clarification and Reform Commission report concerns conflicts of interest.

The law prohibits legislators from voting for bills when they have a conflict of interest, such as in certain cases where a bill would help a business with ties to the lawmaker. The ethics law defines conflict of interest in two ways, similar but distinguishable, according to the commission report.

One definition is based on ownership or control of more than 5% of a business, or being an officer or director. The other says if there is a unique financial benefit to the lawmaker, family member, or a business with which the person is associated.

The commission said it found it hard to define the appropriate standard for a conflict of interest because those decisions depend on specific circumstances.

Although sorting out some of the legal questions could be a tedious job, Simpson noted the importance. About 300,000 public officials and public employees fall directly under the ethics law, including not only elected officials and public agency heads but teachers, police officers, and others in public service. Including their family members, the estimated total is close to 1 million.

We want good people to be able to be public officials and public employees, Simpson said. We want the best of the best. Not just running for office. But youre talking about the employees of the city, the employees of the county. To understand, hey, if I get in this work to serve, to be a public servant, I dont know want to hurt my family or potentially go to prison just because I served in public and I dont know what the laws are.

Simpson encouraged people to follow the committees work, ask questions, and express their concerns. The next meeting is Oct. 26.

Were going to get into the weeds as far as what are we looking for in a bill, Simpson said. What definitions do we want to use? What bills do we have that we can do to actually correct the ethics laws? And thats my plan. Thats my intention, is to file a bill for this session.

The legislative session begins Feb. 6.

Related: Former Alabama Ethics Commission director says new law could silence whistleblowers
An investigation is underway after a Montgomery woman was found slain inside her burning home.

Montgomery police and fire medics responded at 5:30 a.m. Sunday to Jacqueline Bests house in the 3500 block of Fairground Road on a report of a fire.

The 39-year-old Best, a mother and grandmother, was found dead inside. An autopsy showed she had been shot, police Maj. Saba Coleman said Wednesday.

Police said the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made.

Bests family is devastated by her death.

My mom was the kind of women who could walk through the room and fill it with laughter, said daughter Jasmine Freeman. My mom was my hero through everything.

I just want to find out how this happened to her and why, Freeman said. Im just so thankful to call Jacqueline Marie Best my mother and my hero.

Anyone with information is asked to Montgomery police at 334-625-2831, the Secret Witness tip line at 334-625-4000, or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers at 334-215-STOP.
Chinese mining firm pledges more investment in Zambia to boost industry development

Xinhua) 14:17, September 27, 2023

LUSAKA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China-Zambia joint venture, Non-Ferrous Corporation Africa Mining PLC (NFCA), marked its 25 years of operation in Zambia's Chambishi district in the Copperbelt Province on Monday, with a promise to increase its investment in its operations.

Li Zhanyan, chairman of NFCA, said the company plans to invest about 400 million U.S. dollars and increase its annual copper production to 110,000 tonnes per year. The company's current cumulative investment was 1.5 billion dollars, which has resulted in the creation of 5,600 local jobs, Li said. "Our commemoration of NFCA's 25th anniversary is a new starting point for us to accelerate our progress in building a world-class mining company."

Zambia's Minister of Mines Paul Kabuswe commended NFCA for transforming the Chambishi mine, which was once closed for 13 years, into a vibrant and focused mining company through the introduction of appropriate technology and expertise.

He said the company's investment was a perfect example of China's efforts to catalyze investments in projects of strategic and critical minerals to build more transparent, predictable, secure and sustainable supply chains that will drive the energy transition and climate-smart economy.

He pledged the government's commitment to continuously implementing various policy and legislative measures aimed at providing an enabling environment for the mining sector to thrive. "As a government, we are headed in the right direction. This is because the prospects for the mining sector are positive, and we are committed to ensuring that the mining sector continues to play its role in national development."

Xi Zhengping, chairman of China Non-ferrous Metal Mining Group, the parent company of NFCA, commended the NFCA for its technological advancement of the mining industry in the southern African nation. He said the company has adhered to the principle of extensive consultations, joint contributions, and shared benefits, and actively participated in Zambia's economic development.

"This has unlocked the value of Zambia's non-ferrous metal mineral resources development and promoted the upgrading of the mining and smelting industries," he said. He noted that the visit by Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema to the company's headquarters during his recent visit to China, which resulted in the signing of relevant projects with the company, has injected new impetus into Zambia's economic and social development.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has narrowly averted what could have been its most significant factional split, after a court rejected an arrest warrant sought for its leader, Lee Jae-myung, with the focus now shifting to building his leadership for next year's general elections.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed the warrant sought by the prosecution against Lee over corruption charges, a decision that spared the former presidential candidate and the DPK from potentially facing their most significant crisis yet.

The court's decision came after the DPK-controlled National Assembly voted to lift Lee's immunity to arrest, in an unexpected outcome that reflects growing divisions within the party between lawmakers aligned with Lee and those who are not.

Despite what some hard-line pro-Lee faction lawmakers referred to as "betrayal" for voting in favor of the motion in anonymous voting, it is widely expected that the party will now first focus on uniting for April's parliamentary elections.

Rep. Hong Ihk-pyo, elected as the new floor leader on Tuesday and one of Lee's closest allies, has expressed his determination to support Lee's leadership. The three-term lawmaker was chosen after his predecessor, Rep. Park Kwang-on, resigned to take responsibility for the motion's passage.

"I will create momentum and a unified force within the Democratic Party of Korea so that we can win next year's general elections with Chairman Lee Jae-myung," Hong said in his acceptance speech.

The DPK also witnessed a rising number of new party members following the parliamentary passage of the motion, suggesting that the solidarity of the pro-Lee faction has strengthened.

However, some DPK lawmakers close to Lee have shown resentment and hinted at possibly seeking out those who voted in favor of the motion, suggesting that the faction split could possibly continue.

The motion needed at least 148 votes in favor to pass. Given that Lee's DPK has 168 lawmakers in the 298-member National Assembly, the result suggests that at least 39 DPK lawmakers broke away from the party line and voted in favor, abstained or cast invalid votes.

"Reconciliation may not be possible forever," said a DPK lawmaker who requested anonymity, citing a previous case nearly two decades ago in which some party lawmakers were excluded after voting in favor of an impeachment motion against then President Roh Moo-hyun.

Some DPK officials also hinted at the possibility of excluding non-Lee faction lawmakers from nominations ahead of the election.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, some reformist members of the DPK, such as Rep. Cho Eung-con, openly called for Lee to stay true to his word of giving up the privilege of arrest immunity and endorsing the motion to rally public support for the party.

Following the parliament's decision, Lee ended his hunger strike that he had launched since Aug. 31, in protest of what he called the "incompetent and violent" government of Yoon Suk Yeol and a slew of his policies.

Despite some lingering resentment, Lee is highly likely to focus on unity, as the election is only six months away.

"Chairman Lee has already stated his commitment to do whatever it takes to win the general election," said a DPK official on the condition of anonymity. "We cannot afford to leave factional divisions unresolved if we want to secure victory in the upcoming general election."

Nonetheless, risks regarding Lee's legal problems persist as he has already been indicted for two other separate charges -- an election law violation and corruption case.

Legal experts also say the prosecution will proceed with the third indictment. Lee has been accused of breach of trust, bribery and other charges stemming from his time as mayor of Seongnam, south of Seoul, years ago in connection with a scandal-ridden land development project and his alleged involvement in a company's illegal cash remittance to North Korea.

There is also the possibility of the prosecution re-seeking an arrest warrant for Lee.

Most political analysts had earlier predicted that Lee would not step down from his post, regardless of the court's decision, with his course of action most likely to determine the party's fate in the upcoming election.

Bae Cheol-ho, a senior analyst at the Realmeter polling agency, has said the DPK's approval rating is likely to continue on a downward trend due to Lee's legal problems and the party's internal split.

It would be considered a loss for the DPK if it fails to secure a majority of 170 seats in the upcoming election, with some forecasts suggesting the possibility of both the DPK and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) securing around 140 seats each.

Some PPP lawmakers cautiously predict that the court's decision may not be a direct barometer of next year's elections and could even be favorable in the long term.

"Conflicts within the DPK are inevitable," said a PPP lawmaker on the condition of anonymity, adding that Lee's leadership will eventually lose steam. (Yonhap)
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is back on solid ground today after an American record-breaking 371 days in space aboard the International Space Station.

Rubio landed safely in Kazakhstan along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin at 6:17 a.m. CDT. He had flown to the station with the same two Russian astronauts on Sept. 21, 2022 on what was his first spaceflight.

Franks record-breaking time in space is not just a milestone; its a major contribution to our understanding of long-duration space missions, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. Our astronauts make extraordinary sacrifices away from their homes and loved ones to further discovery. NASA is immensely grateful for Franks dedicated service to our nation and the invaluable scientific contributions he made on the International Space Station. He embodies the true pioneer spirit that will pave the way for future exploration to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Rubios flight yielded some amazing numbers: 157 million miles traveled, 5,936 orbits and the equivalent of 328 trips to the moon and back, NASA said. He saw 15 spacecraft arrive at the station and 14 depart. A single Soyuz capsule remains.

During the mission, he conducted hours of research in topics including plant research and physical sciences. One of those studies was bio-printing knee cartilage tissue. Scientists on Earth will evaluate the result and see if it advances the in-space manufacturing of human organs for transplants.

Rubio, a board-certified family physician, flight surgeon and former Blackhawk helicopter pilot with more than 600 hours of flight in deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, is heading back to his home in Houston where his wife, Deborah Rubio, and four children await his arrival.
A 19-year-old New Orleans resident told investigators he woke up angry and then shot his mother and her dog while they slept, according to the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriffs Office.

Johnathan Payne Kliebert called 911 about 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, telling a sheriffs dispatcher he had just shot and killed his mother inside their home. He also said he was at a hospital, waiting to turn himself in.

Sheriffs deputies responded to the hospital and located Kliebert in the parking lot, while others went to the home on Sisters Road in Ponchatoula, north of New Orleans, where they located the body of 46-year-old Ashley Kliebert in the master bedroom, with a gunshot wound to the head.

Located nearby was Ashley Klieberts dog, also dead from an apparent gunshot wound.

Investigators interviewed Johnathan Kliebert, who said he awoke in an angry state, before using a shotgun to kill his mother and the dog, who were both asleep on the bed.

Kliebert is in the Tangipahoa Parish Jail, charged with 1st-degree murder, armed robbery, cruelty to animals, and aggravated crimes against nature.
Add another business to the roster of tenants to desert Brookwood Village, once one of the Birmingham areas largest shopping malls.

Hickory Tavern, a bar and eatery at 595 Brookwood Village, has closed its doors. A Google search marks the business as permanently closed.

With its departure, Five Guys, at 585 Brookwood Village, remains the only business in the traditional shopping center area.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based Hickory Tavern chain was founded in 1997 and still has locations in North and South Carolina. The Brookwood Village location, its first in Alabama, opened in 2015 in the former Zea Rotisserie Grill space next to Books-A-Million.

Built in 1974, Brookwood Village later had a $35 million remodeling in the late 1990s, which added a streetscape with dining, and underwent a $20 million renovation after Cypress Equities bought the 816,000-square-foot mall in 2015. It still fell prey to the diminishing fortunes of enclosed shopping malls, brick-and-mortar retail and the proliferation of other shopping destinations in the area.

The COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown was particularly unkind to Brookwood Village, prompting an exodus of tenants such as Jasons Deli, Cocina Superior, Brio Tuscan Grille and Books-A-Million. Eventually Macys left as well.

The future of the property remains uncertain, as various plans for revitalizing the area have been floated over the years but with little action.
A partnership between tourism development groups in the Florida Panhandle will result in the creation of the second largest artificial reef in the area when the 239-foot research vessel R/V DEEP STIM III is sunk in October.

Officials say the deployment, or sinking, is a boon for divers and fishermen alike.

According to Destin-Fort Walton Beach tourism officials, the vessel will be deployed centrally between the three destinations which partnered on the project -- Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Panama City Beach and Walton County.

Additionally, Emerald Coast Reef Association and South Walton Artificial Reef Association provided funding for additional reef modules to be placed on the deck of the vessel, while the Coastal Conservation Association is funding the towing fees necessary for the project.

This former oil exploration vessel, the R/V DEEP STIM III, will be deployed off the Florida Panhandle to become what will be the 2nd-largest artificial reef in the area.

The Okaloosa County Tourist Development council in February approved funds from a tourism bed-tax for this next phase of the five-year artificial reef plan, according to the Panama City News Herald. The project, including the acquisition, prep work, towing and deployment, is estimated to cost $750,000.

The water surrounding our collective region boasts an abundance of opportunities for fishing and diving activities, so it only makes sense that we work together to protect and grow the unique experiences that set us apart, said Alex Fogg, Coastal Resource Manager for Destin-Fort Walton Beach.

Collaborative projects like this will open the door for future opportunities that continue to benefit locals, visitors and the environment.

The R/V DEEP STIM III is a former offshore supply vessel used in oil exploration. At 239-feet, it will be the second largest deployed off Floridas Emerald Coast.

Once deployment occurs, it will sit at a depth of about 70 feet at the top of the wheelhouse, to 135 feet at the sand bottom -- accessible to a wide range of divers of varying skill levels.

The new artificial reef will also serve as a fishing location, providing habitat for popular species such as amberjack, officials said. The reef modules which will be added to the vessels deck are designed to attract additional species including grouper and snapper.

The vessel is set to be deployed in what is known as Large Area Artificial Reef Site A, 22 miles from Destin East Pass, 29 miles from St. Andrews Pass and 16.5 miles south of Walton County.
A body found on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River has been identified as missing 21-year-old Tamia Taylor, Tennessee police said.

Taylor hadnt been seen since she vanished during a riverboat cruise for her birthday, according to the Memphis Police Department.

Officials said she got on the boat the evening of Sept. 9, but when the boat docked a few hours later, she couldnt be found. A city watch was issued for Taylor, and a search for her began.

Two weeks later, the Crittenden County Sheriffs Department in Arkansas pulled a body out of the Mississippi River, Memphis police said. As investigators worked to identify the body, Taylors family held out hope and asked the community not to give up.

Now, the body has been identified as Taylor, Memphis police told McClatchy News. Her cause of death is still being investigated, officials said.

A spokesperson for the Dock Ellis Foundation, a nonprofit that supports families of minority victims who go missing, said in a statement that law enforcement went to the home of Taylors mother to deliver the news.

Shes devastated, spokesperson Jasmine Ellis said. You have that type of hope that its not your loved one and you get the answer and its a different type of feeling. So right now, shes overwhelmed and naturally (has) the feelings a mother would feel if they lose their daughter.

Tamia Taylor was also a mother, WREG reported.

Memphis Riverboats previously shared a statement saying Taylor was last seen as the boat was pulling into the harbor, and they had no reason to believe she had gone overboard.

Now, the Dock Ellis Foundation insists the riverboat company re-evaluates the safety features on their boat.

When does the questioning begin? Ellis asked on Facebook. When do we start peeling back the layers of the individual who said he saw her get off the boat? When do we peel back the layers of the friends who were on the boat? When do we peel back those layers and even Tamias mother has said, If thats my child, this takes this to another dimension, and were there now. Were there today.

2023 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Baltimore police are on the hunt for a convicted felon suspected of killing Pava LaPere, a 26-year-old tech CEO found dead at a downtown apartment building earlier this week.

The suspect, Jason Billingsley, is wanted on charges of first-degree murder, assault and other offenses in connection with Pavas death, acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley announced. He should be considered armed and dangerous.

We implore residents to be aware of your surroundings at all times, Worley told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday. This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm.

LaPere was reported missing Monday morning, police said. Hours later, authorities were called to carry out a welfare check at her apartment building on the 300 block of West Franklin Street in the Bromo Arts District. Her body was found with apparent signs of blunt-force trauma around 11:30 a.m.

LaPere, a Johns Hopkins graduate, was the CEO and cofounder of EcoMap Technologies, a digital information and access technology company. She had a team of 30 workers and some of her clients included the Aspen Institute, Meta, the WXR Fund and the T. Rowe Price Foundation. Her work also earned her a spot in Forbes 30 Under 30 feature for 2023.

According to court records cited by NBC News, Billingsley was sentenced in 2015 to 30 years in prison, with 16 years suspended, after he pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offense. The Maryland sex offender registry placed him in tier 3, a designation for those with the most serious charges, which also requires offenders to register for life. He was released from prison in October.

Billingsley also previously pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011, NBC reported.

There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said. When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case  and the states attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction.

We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again.

A spokesperson for Marylands Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said Billingsley had not been paroled but was released on mandatory supervision as required by statute, The New York Times reported.

Authorities have not yet provided any link between Billingsley and LaPere. A possible motive was also unclear.

2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
An Alabama woman is under arrest after authorities say she assumed multiple identities in a theft scheme that seemingly targeted higher education officials in other states.

Meredith Diane Craft, a 45-year-old Phenix City woman, is charged with multiple crimes, according to the Lee County Sheriffs Office. Investigators believe Craft has stolen more than $48,000 so far, and more charges are expected, said Sheriff Jay Jones.

The investigation began Sept. 20 when the sheriffs office received an online report from the University of Florida in reference to someone assuming the identity of Donald Pope-Davis, the president of the Council of Academic Deans for Research Education Institutions.

Pope-Davis is dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University.

Craft, using the identity of Pope-Davis, instructed the payment of $23,400 be paid to her by another organization officer. That happened in August, according to charging documents.

On Sept. 22, sheriffs investigators carried out a search warrant at Crafts home in the 200 block of Lee Road 2040 in Phenix City.

At that time, authorities said, investigators found evidence of more fraudulent activity and identified more victims, including Seneca Jensen, president of the Idaho Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and Dr. Gene Bruno, of the American Board of Animal Acupuncture.

It was determined that Craft assumed multiple identities and acted in character to defraud her victims, Jones said.

Investigators have determined that bout $48,267 so far.

Craft is charged with three counts of criminal impersonation, two counts each of third-degree forgery, first-degree theft of property, possession of a forged instrument, and second-degree forgery. She is charged with one count each of second-degree theft of property and identity theft.

Craft is out of jail on $34,000 bond.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Lee County Sheriffs Office at 334-749-5651 or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers at 334-215-STOP (7867).
Sheffield police are looking for a man in connection with the fatal shooting of a man Tuesday morning.

Police Chief Ricky Terry said the body of Thomas James Hairrell, 64, of Sheffield, was found at about 4:55 a.m. Tuesday at 812 West Montgomery Ave., Apartment B. Police responded to a call of an unconscious person found Hairrell with gunshot wounds, lying beside the front door.

Hairrells body was transported to the Alabama Department of Forensics Science for an autopsy.

Terry said police are looking for Dedrick Deshann Pride, 40 in connection with the incident. He is described as standing 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighing 135 pounds.

Anyone with information is asked to call Sheffield police at (256) 386-5630.
Alabama is on a path to elect its members of Congress next year with a map approved by a three-judge federal court, as opposed to the state Legislature.

Thats where the two-year-old case stands after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down Alabamas request for an emergency stay on the three-judge courts preliminary injunction that blocks the state from using the Legislatures map. The judges ruled the map did not fix the dilution of Black voters that they said was a likely violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state will continue to defend the map approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature. That map did not add a second district with a Black majority or close to a Black majority, as instructed by the court in an earlier ruling affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

Marshall and Solicitor General Edmund LaCour say the Legislatures map came as close as possible to doing that without racial gerrymandering and violating other redistricting principals.

But, for now at least, it appears their next chance to present a full defense of that map will come after next years elections, which begin with the primary set for March 5.

Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer are following a schedule they spelled out in orders throughout the summer, a plan that started by giving the Legislature a chance to fix the map, which the judges say did not happen.

This manner of proceeding is consistent with the Defendants request that the Court conduct remedial proceedings at this time and delay any final trial on the merits of the Section Two violation until after the 2024 election, the judges wrote in an August 1 scheduling order.

What happens next?

The court is accepting objections to the three remedial maps proposed by Special Master Richard Allen.

Allen submitted those maps on Monday, as directed by the court. All three would raise the Black voting age population in District 2 from 40% on the Legislatures map to about 50%, making it a second opportunity district for Black voters.

The court gave parties in the case, as well as others, three days to file their written objections to the special masters maps.

The congressional map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, left, and Remedial Plan 2 proposed this week by the federal court's special master. The special master's three proposed plans all extend District 1 across the width of the state and raise the Black voting age population in District 2 to about 50%, making it the second opportunity district for Black voters, along with District 7.

The congressional map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, left, and Remedial Plan 3 proposed this week by the federal court's special master. The special master's three proposed plans all extend District 1 across the width of the state and raise the Black voting age population in District 2 to about 50%, making it the second opportunity district for Black voters, along with District 7.

Next week, the judges will hold a hearing. They have scheduled that for Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Hugo L. Black United States Courthouse in Birmingham.

The court has not given a date when it will approve a map. But the courts handling of the case so far indicates a decision will be early next month.

The judges sought guidance from Secretary of State Wes Allen on when a new map needs to be in place to conduct the elections. Allen said by early October, and the judges have mentioned that repeatedly in their orders.

We are acutely aware of the exigent nature of these proceedings, the judges wrote in the Aug. 1 scheduling order.

This weeks developments -- the special masters proposed maps and the Supreme Courts decision not to intervene -- set the stage for potential candidates to express interest and speculation about who else might be on the ballot.

Who could be running in the open Alabama Congressional District 2 race?

State Sen. Singleton looking forward to making a run for District 7 seat held by Sewell

Alabama Democratic Conference to file objection to special master, offer own redistricting map

The Alabama case has national implications. Federal lawsuits over state and congressional districts are pending in Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, the Associated Press reported. The outcomes in Alabama and those states could help determine who controls Congress. Republicans held a narrow 222-213 majority to begin the 118th Congress.
An Alabama man pleaded guilty to two counts of financial exploitation of the elderly and other charges for schemes that bilked more than $236,000 from his victims, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Nicholas Houston Allen, 35, of Montgomery, also pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of theft of property, said Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl D. Bailey and Alabama Securities Commission Director Amanda Senn.

Allen prowled neighborhoods for elderly victims and came up with reasons to engage them in conversation, Senn said in a statement. Once he gained the victims trust, he persuaded them to invest in his endeavors and stole their money.

Allen used deception, intimidation or the threat of force to obtain unauthorized control of the victims property, prosecutors said.

The two elderly victims targeted by Allen lost more than $236,000 while a third victim lost more than $1,700.

Allen falsely claimed he was going to flip houses and/or invest the victims money in his company, Professional Fix, LLC.

Instead, Allen used the money to pay personal living expenses, prosecutors said.

A state law helped notify prosecutors about the schemes.

Because two of Allens victims were 80 and 86 years old, the crimes against the victims fell under Alabamas Protection of Vulnerable Adults from Financial Exploitation Act.

Provisions of the law allow financial professionals to notify the ASC and the state Department of Human Resources of suspicious activity in a clients account.

A member of Alabamas financial community alerted ASC, DHR and Baileys office about the activity, leading to the charges against Allen.

One of the financial exploitation of the elderly counts is a Class B felony, with a punishment ranging from two to 20 years in state prison and a $30,00 fine, while the other is a Class C felony, punishable between one and 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

The securities fraud count is a Class B felony while the theft of property count is a Class C felony.

Jimmy Pool, the 15th Judicial Circuit Court judge presiding over Allens case, has not yet set a sentencing date.
DPK demands presidential apology, prosecutors vow to continue investigating opposition leader

By Nam Hyun-woo

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and its chairman Lee Jae-myung narrowly avoided a crisis after a court rejected an arrest warrant sought for Lee early Wednesday, which could have dealt a devastating blow to his political career and the party's campaign for next April's general election.

With the DPK striving to blame the Yoon Suk Yeol administration for persecution, Lees grip on the party appears to be strengthening, and the confrontation between the ruling bloc and the opposition is likely to escalate further.

The Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday morning rejected the arrest warrant sought for Lee on charges of breach of trust, bribery, and other offenses related to his alleged involvement in a scandal-ridden land development project and an illegal cash remittance to North Korea by a South Korean company.

The warrant review gained keen attention as it was the first time that the leader of the main opposition party had to show up at such a hearing.

I am deeply grateful to the judiciary for proving itself as the last bastion of human rights, Lee told reporters as he left a detention center in Gyeonggi Province at 3:50 a.m. After speaking at the court review, Lee was moved to the detention center until the judge's decision was made.

I hope that both the ruling and opposition parties, as well as the government, never forget the fact that politics is always about caring for the peoples lives and pioneering the future of the nation. It is time to return to the true essence of politics, which is not a war to eliminate opponents, but a competition to see who can better fulfill their roles for the sake of the people and the nation.

After his defeat in the presidential election last year, Lee has been struggling with the prosecutions investigations into suspicions surrounding him. Lee became a lawmaker in June last year and took the helm of the party two months later. But those moves were viewed as an attempt to avoid arrest by using privileges given to lawmakers and a party head.

Against this backdrop, the courts dismissal came as a turning point for Lee to counter attacks by the ruling bloc, the prosecution, and some anti-Lee faction members within his own party. The rejection of the arrest warrant also gives a boost to Lees claims so far that the investigation is politically motivated.

Following the dismissal of the warrant, prosecutors said that the decision could have been affected by Lees political status.

There seems to be a stark difference between the prosecution and the court regarding the decision and its grounds, Prosecutor-General Lee One-seok told reporters Wednesday.

Although the court recognized the prosecutions claims of illegalities, it apparently focused on providing defense rights to Lee based on his status as the chairman of a political party. He added that judicial matters should not be influenced by political factors.

An arrest warrant is nothing more than part of the process of investigating crimes, and the dismissal does not mean innocence, Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon said.

Even if a politician commits a crime, the judiciary does not and should not become political, Han added. I believe the prosecution will continue its investigation without being swayed.

The DPK is gearing up for an offensive against the prosecution and the ruling bloc, demanding a public apology from the president and the dismissal of the justice minister.

I strongly urge President Yoon to stop using the prosecution to incapacitate politics, and restore politics with an attitude of respecting the National Assembly and the main opposition party, the DPKs new floor leader Hong Ihk-pyo said during a supreme council meeting. And this will begin with the presidents official apology and dismissal of Minister Han.

Hong, a member of the pro-Lee faction within the DPK, was elected a day earlier, claiming he will lead the party to victory in the general election under Lees leadership.

DPK lawmakers also released a statement saying, the Yoon administrations tyranny to attempt to kill Chairman Lee has failed and the arrest warrant was an act of violence and political persecution to cover up the failures of the administration.

The DPKs criticism of the government is anticipated to pick up momentum after the Sept. 28-Oct. 3 Chuseok holiday.

The first battle will take place when the Assembly votes on whether to approve Yoons nomination of Lee Gyun-ryong as the new chief justice of the Supreme Court on Oct. 6. Given that the DPK holds a majority in the Assembly, the party alone can reject the nomination.

The confrontation is anticipated to peak at the National Assembly's audit of the government, which will begin on Oct. 10, with the DPK heralding scrutiny of the governments policies over the past year.

Scenarios for next years general election also became more complex after Lee avoided arrest.

Initially, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) sought to take advantage of Lees arrest, but the party is now taking on an urgent task of exploring its own tactics to secure swing voters.

I express my strongest regret at the courts dismissal of Chairman Lees warrant, PPP Chairman Kim Gi-hyeon said Wednesday. Today, it was again revealed that the judiciary was contaminated by some politically motivated judges. The stark reality of judges disregarding even fundamental ethics based on their political inclinations has become apparent to the public.

As the court rejected Lees warrant, the DPK earned a chance to pull itself together from its ever-deepening infighting between the pro-Lee and anti-Lee factions. However, it remains uncertain whether the pro-Lee faction, which is the partys mainstream, will end up punishing some anti-Lee faction members who voted for the National Assemblys consent to arrest the chairman.

Meanwhile, the presidential office did not release a message on the warrant dismissal, in an apparent attempt to distance the president from political matters.
Make no mistake, the crisis at the border is a direct result of the Biden Administrations failures. pic.twitter.com/InMyZV9YXg  Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) September 27, 2023

Sen. Katie Britt delivered an emotional plea from the southern border on Wednesday, urging reporters to tell the horror stories like the ones the Alabama senator has witnesses over several visits.

Drug cartels, guys, they have their tentacles all over this country, Alabamas junior senator said from Eagle Pass, Texas pm Wednesday. We need you to start telling that story.

Those tentacles extend to Alabama, according to Britt, where the senator said she talked recently with a constituent in rural Montgomery County who told her undocumented immigrants owe the cartels money for getting them across the border.

Just the other day in Alabama a gentleman told me, If you will come back here with me in this neighborhood right behind you, you will see migrants who are here illegally, and they will tell you about the drug cartels coming around every other week to collect, Britt recounted.

Guys, thats not the American Dream, the senator said. Thats an American nightmare.

Britt has made a handful of visits to the southern border, which she deemed a top priority when she ran for the Senate in 2022.

During one stop, I looked in the eyes of [Customs and Border Patrol] agents who said Were exhausted, were not only having to be paper pushers, were often trying to do what we took an oath of office to do and that is to protect this border, Britt recounted on Wednesday.

But when they tell you about finding small children who had drowned in that river or pulling a lifeless body of a woman who is pregnant with twins it changes the way you think about whats happening, she said.

Britt said she agreed with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who also participated in the news conference and said it was the medias responsibility to report on the border crisis.

To Sen. Cruzs point, if youre not telling it, thats on you, she said.

Because when a woman sits there and she tells you not just about being raped, but how many times a day shes raped -- when she tells you about having to lay in that bed while they come in and out, in and out its disgusting and its despicable, Britt said, pounding the podium with her fist in anger.

She blamed President Biden for the crisis at the southern border.

Folks, you look at the number of people that have died at the border because Joe Biden has made it more and more enticing to come here, she said. Make no mistake, this is the result of failed policies. We can fix this. We cannot throw money at this and fix it, we have to actually change the policies.
Alabama voters will be racially gerrymandered under a court-ordered redistricting map after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the states emergency stay to use a map drawn by the Republican state Legislature in July, state Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

The State will now be encumbered with a racially gerrymandered, court-drawn map for the 2024 election cycle, the attorney general, who argued for the stay, said in a statement.

While a three-judge federal court found a 2021 map drawn by the Legislature likely violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered a second majority-Black congressional district be drawn, Marshall said that proposal was fair and reasonable.

Marshall went on to claim that the new map drawn by lawmakers in July took out the purported discrimination and applied neutral principles fully and faily, even though the map did not include a second majority-Black district.

It is now clear that none of the maps proposed by Republican supermajorities had any chance of success, the attorney general said. Treating voters as individuals would not do. Instead, our elected representatives and our voters must apparently be reduced to skin color alone.

No Alabamianblack, white, Republican, or Democratcan look at the court-drawn maps that will soon be imposed on us and see anything other than the prioritization of race above all else, Marshall continued. Our communities, local economies, and basic geography will be cast aside in the radical pursuit of racial quotas. There simply is no other explanation for the absurd disfigurement.

The attorney general claimed left-wing activists in Alabama and elsewhere are advancing a racial agenda that is brazen and divisive.

There should be nothing more offensive to the people of our great state than to be sidelined in 2023 by a view of Alabama that is stuck in 1963, Marshall said. This racial agenda is pressed by left-wing activists, not just in Alabama, but in any Republican state where it might advantage Democrats. If this brazen and divisive commandeering is permitted without even a whisper of concern from other quarters, Americas congressional elections as we know them will never be the same. We will be grouped together by race alone, with counties and cities split down the middlethe same way that we were so wrongfully segregated once before.

The three-judge court has not yet decided on a new redistricting map.

Marshall said his office will continue our fight to defend the 2023 map, which was enacted by the peoples representatives, and which complies with both the Voting Rights Act and the Constitutions promise that governments should be colorblind.

We will comply with the district courts preliminary injunction order, while building our case for the 2023 map, which has yet to receive a full hearing, he said. We are confident that the Voting Rights Act does not require, and the Constitution does not allow, separate but equal congressional districts.

The dispute started in 2021 when the Legislature passed a new map, as it does after every census. Three groups, including Evan Milligan with Alabama Forward, filed separate lawsuits challenging map.

In January 2022, the three-judge court held a seven-day hearing and ruled that the 2021 map likely violated the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in June 2023, sending the case back to the three-judge court.

The court gave the Legislature a chance to pass a new map, which lawmakers did in July. But the plaintiffs challenged that map, too. The judges held a hearing Aug. 14 and ruled Sept. 5 that the new map did not fix the likely Voting Rights Act violation.

The Milligan plaintiffs, who were represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others, issued a statement about the Supreme Courts denial of the stay.

It has been a long and frustrating battle holding the Alabama legislature accountable, but today it is a rewarding one, they said. Even after the highest court in the land sided with Black voters in June, our elected officials still chose power over people by outright defying multiple court orders, and the loud cries of their constituents to do the right thing.

Despite these shameful efforts, the Supreme Court has once again agreed that Black Alabamians deserve a second opportunity district. This additional representation in Congress will undoubtedly change lives, especially for the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians residing in the Black Belt who suffer from lack of healthcare access, job opportunities, and crumbling infrastructure. We look forward to a new era in our states history, in which power is shared and Black voices are heard.
"Cultural humility training" for therapists and counselors is making the rounds. It purports to improve the skills of mental health providers by attempting to entrain a humbling self-critique regarding the biases and values that may be impeding therapeutic care. That is a cover story for what cultural humility really is: a philosophy that imputes compulsory collective racist guilt to white culture. The term "cultural humility" is a dog whistle for the assumption that white culture is incurably racist and white professionals carry collective racial guilt for their ongoing and incurable oppression of non-whites, with no possibility of forgiveness  only permanent, humiliating white self-denigration.

The experience of guilt in human consciousness takes many forms. The most spiritual is the emotion of genuine, individual guilt, which arises from awareness of having committed actual wrongdoing. Admission of sincere guilt is the path to unqualified repentance, with heartfelt repentance offering restoration and renewal of the guilt-ridden conscience. True repentance does not plead for forgiveness or demand acceptance. The gift of humility is inseparable from the pride-killing nature of true remorse and repentance. Importantly, though amends may be ongoing, the accounting of guilt and the effort of repentance are encapsulated in time and do not go on forever.

Another form of individual guilt is when a person feels guilty for circumstances beyond his control. For example, a soldier feels guilty because he came home while his dearest buddy perished. This is a real experience of guilt, but it arises from the mind's need to claim powers it does not have. If the guilt-ridden one can be helped to accept that he cannot control destinies, he can find more peace, and humility grows.

Now the experience of guilt turns down a dark alley into induction, which is inflicting awareness of guilt as a weapon of control. An example is a spouse keeping alive the memory of long past betrayal, though the spouse who committed the wrongful deed is sincerely remorseful and humbled, and there is no reason to believe that the betrayal will be repeated. Here begins the difference between the liberating experience of internal humility and the mental captivity of externally inflicted humiliation. Ongoing guilt induction imprisons both the person who inflicts the guilt and the one who accepts the manipulation.

Historians debate the role of biblical teachings regarding the Mark of Cain and its justification of slavery in American history. However those passages were used as apologia for slavery, there is no doubt that a destructive aspect of religion is its power to compel belief in collective guilt solely on group identification rather than any individual wrongdoing by members. Today, federal and state governments attempt to brainwash and compel anti-white prejudice and practices through fear of reprisal, exactly paralleling the religious dogma that justified slavery. In the 1700s, that dogma acted upon rigidly moralistic, materially advantaged slave-owners to maintain the justification of oppression. Today, the ascription of white guilt and white cultural oppression is an artifact of anti-moral society, where God-based moral precepts have been abandoned and psychological experts are de facto clergy with the power to preach human good and evil. Politicized psychology functions as priestcraft, attempting to instill guilt in people who have done no racial wrongdoing and entraining assumed humility, which fortifies egoism and pride.

In the 20th century, as actual white racist oppression dwindled to a trickle, focus shifted from uplifting historically disadvantaged people to castigating imaginary white oppressors. The diagnostic manual of white-guilting includes white privilege theory  that all European-Americans, regardless of poverty, disease, or trauma, are always privileged above non-whites  and white fragility theory  that being white is psychopathology that paralyzes whites from recognizing their bigotry.

White cultural humility training turns a corner into the presumption of incurability and hopelessness, where European-Americans are to be permanently humbled. It is a framework of religion without forgiveness for whites, who must self-flagellate forever and parrot humility for the supposed sins of their culture.

The following quotes are from a popular training course in cultural humility, endorsed and disseminated by powerful state licensing boards.

Inequities in social relations reflect a society structured on White supremacy that serves as a foundation for the continued social and economic disparities existing between White people and people of color living in the same society. ... The cultural humility framework recognizes the concepts of power, privilege and oppression and thus calls on counselors to be agents of change and promoters of social justice.

The course describes oppressors as white, male, and heterosexual and the oppressed by race, sex, sexual orientation, transgender identification, and disability. The training is a scholarship-free zone. References tend to favor political and government websites rather than peer-reviewed articles.

"Culturally humble counselors are able to set aside their own beliefs and values and act as allies with clients, working toward positive personal change as well as advocating for larger societal change." Anyone who sets aside beliefs and values is psychopathic. This course confuses biases and values by urging "reflecting on one's own possible biases, religious values and family values." Biases are mental limitations; values are the jewel box of human consciousness. Right valuation based on unchanging truth not only safeguards against biases, but is the foundation of happiness in life.

Cultural humility indoctrination prescribes permanent self-denigration for European-Americans, calling down the self-doubt of incurable guilt: "Lifelong learning, critical self-reflection and self-critique ... are imperative in facilitating the therapeutic relationship and addressing existing societal inequities. [It] requires counselors to reflect continually and critically on themselves and how their personal biases and deficits play into each counseling session."

Cultural humility improves on fuddy-duddy training in cultural competence! "Cultural humility de-emphasizes cultural knowledge and competency focusing instead on lifelong nurturing of self-reflection and self-critique. Self-reflection and self-critique are best incorporated into practice on a reflexive basis." Oppressor-group therapists are to automatically blame themselves for racism, which amounts to self-inflicted mental illness.

In addition to permanent guilt of whites, males and heterosexuals, the cultural humility framework envisions permanent victimhood for non-whites and LGBTers: "It is important to understand the unavoidability of oppressive forces for many groups. ... Oppression is not something individuals can work their way out of or avoid by changing their behavior." Most odd, inasmuch as the purpose of therapy and counseling is to help people change their behavior.

Nor is beloved marginalization neglected: "Marginalization is the pushing aside and exclusion of certain groups ... cultural humility focuses on the cultural context within America that marginalizes and oppresses some groups of people, while privileging and empowering others."

The training becomes hilarious as the author explains why historic "Irish, Italian and German" immigrant groups assimilated better than recent "Asian and Latina/os"  not because Europeans were legal immigrants, grateful and responsible to become English-speaking, patriotic, successful Americans. Not at all. The training concludes that their assimilation was aided "by their physical appearance and language being similar to earlier settlers." Yes, we remember Tommaso Jefferson and Giacomo Monroe. Didn't they write the founding documents in Italian first, before the English translations came out?

The central dysfunctionality of cultural humility philosophy is that a therapist and a client with an a priori oppressor/oppressed psychological relationship could form a therapeutic alliance. It's absurd. An ethical principle in psychotherapy is that there be no pre-existing relationship between therapist and client. Any pre-existing connection, or dual relationship, is unethical. A permanent pre-existing cultural power imbalance in favor of the therapist based on race makes therapy out of the question.

Cultural humility training explains how white oppressors cannot help but commit "microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations." It suggests the use of an observer, preferably of a different race and culture, to sit in on the therapy session, on the lookout for these microinfamies. Ridiculous. Not only does it undermine confidentiality and destroy confidence the patient needs to have in his therapist, but is the client supposed to pay not only for the therapist, but also for the therapist's therapist?

The compulsory collective guilt of cultural humility training is manipulation by frauds who know nothing of psychotherapy or humility. The sincere effort to help the broken-hearted, the jittering fearful, the cage-banging addicted ones is humbling. Destructive swindlers should not be selling this perverted theory to therapists who are trying to help others.

Image: stevepb via Pixabay, Pixabay license.
President Zelensky's recent visit to America suggests that Ukrainians do not appreciate conservatives in Congress. The Ukrainians either do not know or intentionally ignore the right side of the aisle and enthusiastically work solely with left-wingers in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere.

However, the truth is that the United States federal government has no money. American leftists devoted all the money to encouraging a multi-million invasion on our southern border; implementing unprofitable, wasteful "green" technologies; and nurturing woke, feminized, toothless military (and, in part, the general population).

The United States federal government has to borrow money from future generations of Americans to survive the present. Allocating money to Ukraine automatically degrades young Americans' prospects for a good life. Sad to say, American money is depleted; what the outside world sees is merely a shell of former American glory.

Besides, the exact expenditure of American taxpayers' money remains unknown to everyone (it applies not to just the Ukrainian case). Yes, the White House directs a portion of American taxpayers' money toward various weapons systems observable in the combat zone. However, the public is unaware of how significant that segment is. What about the money we do not see on the battlefield? Who controls the feedback loop from the American Treasury to Ukraine and back to the Democrat operatives, including the "big guy"? What is the rate of return on the money funneled into the Ukraine-enabled left-wing patronage machine?

If Ukraine accepts American funds, it must accept traditional American accounting practices, with mandatory periodic financial audits. Unfortunately, the Biden clique, along with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) plankton, does things to remind everybody of Biden's lucrative deals in China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and here and there. The Biden administration blocks all efforts to implement even rudimentary accountability.

That leads us toward the loudest issue, at least from the American perspective: the catapulting of Ukraine into the DNC client state.

History demonstrates that a political party could have a satellite military force that bypasses the official military chain of command. These legions report exclusively to party bosses. For example, the Nazis had their military branch, the SS, outside the Wehrmacht. Putin's party army, Rosgvardia, is not answerable to the Russian Ministry of Defense, either. While these examples are well known, history has never witnessed a political party forming not its military offshoot, but a client state. It looks as though Ukraine constitutes itself as the first state on a short leash by a foreign political party: the Democrat party of America.

In the past, the Democrat Party successfully attempted to establish party-aligned military or quasi-military wings. Recall the KKK, Antifa, numerous "Occupy" movements, and BLM thugs. Now a supposed sovereign country, Ukraine, has willingly submitted itself to Democrat party serfdom, along with a carefully established and well oiled money-laundering conveyor.

The deliberate weakening of the United States and Russia by their respective presidents mandates prolonged, bloody trench warfare. That is why neither the United States, NATO allies, nor Russia is rushing. China's Politburo, directly or indirectly, demanded the piecemeal delivery of armaments to Ukraine. Everyone on the left side of the political spectrum stays committed to the plan.

The world  not to mention Ukrainians  must understand that the de-Ukrainization of Ukraine at the hands of Russian revanchists is just a sideshow. This bitter truth is hard to swallow, but the main event is the de-Americanization of America and the de-Russification of Russia by Chinese communists. The end of bloodshed may reside well outside the kill zone that separates the defender and the aggressor.

Conservatives worldwide are traditionally against war (any war, by the way). Biden's political opponents have an entirely distinct vision of the situation. They prefer a one-time delivery of overwhelming military might to expel Russian invaders for good and generate revenue by rebuilding Ukraine after that. For instance, the pre-woke military establishment, per General McMaster, considers 30 Abrams tanks for Ukraine laughable and advocates for 300 as a minimum.

However, Donald Trump, one of the conservative movement's leaders, is persona non grata in Ukraine.

Regrettably, the "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax has warped minds on both sides of the Atlantic. Ukrainian society continues to view Trump as a Kremlin agent. Ukrainians contributed significantly to the deception. Recall that the DNC's squadron to dig dirt on Trump during the 2016 election cycle headquarters was at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Since then, Ukraine elected a new president, Zelensky, who refused to honor Trump's call to help root out Biden clan corruption. That paved the way for Trump's first impeachment.

The irony is that Trump is the only politician who can realistically halt the largest shooting war in Europe since World War II. Stop quickly  and, as such, ruin leftists' endgame. Almost everyone wants more weapons for Ukraine, but Trump keeps his eyes on the strategic rather than tactical goal. From his perspective, the objective is not to arm Ukraine, but to stop the bloodshed. Trump has tools at his disposal that operatives in the bowels of the DNC (or Ukrainians, for that matter) cannot foresee.

To illustrate, Trump-47 could declare the removal of the American nuclear arsenal from Japan and its relocation to Taiwan  complemented with implicit permission for Japan to acquire its own nuclear weapons.

Such a move would shake the leftist endeavors for World Domination because China would suddenly have to deal with nuclear-armed Japan. Japanese scientists will complete their Manhattan Project in less time than the American one. In a few years, China will face the possibility of losing Taiwan  probably forever. Also, China's world dominance fantasies will evaporate (also forever) because China understands that it can negotiate with nuclear America but not with nuclear Japan.

Basically, Trump would make China the offer it could not refuse: keep the status quo  on the condition of ordering its vassal state, Russia, to withdraw from Ukraine  or gravely jeopardize the whole Mao ideological experiment.

Americans, especially conservative Americans, respect Ukraine's national hero Stepan Bandera and his WWII-era Ukrainian nationalism while detesting his left-wing, proto-fascist ideology. In return, Americans expect Ukrainians to respect American nationalism. Ukrainians cannot count on sympathy from American conservatives for their cause to surpass American nationalism. True nationalism does not come at the expense of somebody else's.

The Ukrainian government must not hire a disgraced (now suspended) American transgender as the Ukrainian army spokesman. Ukrainians must not offer the ambassador position to a tasteless promoter of satanic rituals. The president of Ukraine must not weaponize science by stating that "humanity is failing on its climate policy objectives" while begging for money at the United Nations. Picking up an economic fight with Ukraine's most staunch supporter, conservative Poland, is ludicrous.

On the contrary, the young nation that fights for its existence must look beyond its nose and choose friends and enemies wisely.

Gary Gindler, Ph.D. is a conservative columnist at Gary Gindler Chronicles and a new science founder: Politiphysics. Follow him on Twitter/X.

Image via Pxfuel.
In April 2019, Ukraine was brimming with optimism as it elected Volodymyr Zelensky, a candidate who promised peace, an end to government corruption, and economic prosperity. Fast forward four years: a civil war within the Donbas region turned into a European war raging on Ukrainian territory, destroying the countrys infrastructure, killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens, and creating millions of refugees. Government corruption is an all-time high, and the country is in a state of material poverty.

When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, its national debt was $0.4 billion; in 2018, before Zelensky was inaugurated, it was $76 billion, and by 2023, it had reached $120 billion and kept growing. The country survives on international assistance, and people who four years ago promised     (free and independent Ukraine) proved to be liars and hypocrites.

So, what went wrong in Ukraine? To understand the present, we have to look at Ukraines past. Ukraine is a child of Bolsheviks geopolitical engineering. Created on the land of the former Russian Empire in 1919 and governed by Moscow until its independence in 1991, it found itself without adult supervision. Its leaders understanding of geopolitics, management of risk, and the ability to formulate short and long-term national interests and make meaningful economic and political choices proved beyond their experience and analytical skills.

Ukraine inherited one of the world's largest agricultural and industrial bases from the Soviet Union. Ukraine manufactured tractors, airplanes, ships, locomotives, turbines for hydropower plants, electrical motors and transformers, and a huge assortment of consumer goods. It also manufactured a variety of military hardware, including tanks, missiles, and jet fighters. Its steel mills produced millions of tons of steel, and its coal mines were a major supplier for the Soviet Unions steel mills and power plants. Having a well-educated population, Ukraine could have become one of Europe's economic powers. Regrettably, inept Ukrainian leaders have plundered most of the Soviet inheritance into disrepair while the ravages of war further erode what remains of this once-thriving legacy.

Zelensky understood that corruption was the cancer eating at Ukraine's core, and after his inauguration, he moved swiftly to replace corrupt bureaucrats and enact anti-corruption legislation. The changes did not affect the business relations established over six previous administrations nor the culture enamored with corruption.

What he did not understand was that Ukrainian corruption is systemic: it is not people; it is a system. Moreover, this system was built into all aspects of society, including the judiciary, defense, law enforcement, banking, health care, and, of course, the economy, and perpetuates itself.

Therefore, it doesnt matter how many officials are replaced and how many new anticorruption agencies are created. New appointees immediately begin filling their pockets, and new agencies add more layers of corruption.

As Zelensky grappled with the formidable challenge of rooting out corruption, he realized that it requires more than election oratory but governance skills, subtly, and political ruthlessness. Hence, he did not just accept the system; he did the unthinkable. He ushered Ukraine into a new corruption era by replacing its raison d'etat  calculable principles of national interests -- with calculable principles of personal interest. As they say in Ukraine, if you live with wolves, you should howl like a wolf.

Nowadays, every government decision, whether it is the economy, social programs, or foreign affairs (including the issues of war and peace), is guided by consideration of corruption.

Corruption played an important role in Ukraines ethnic conflicts in Eastern Ukraine. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got its borders within which it achieved independence, and millions of Russians, Poles, Hungarians, and Romanians were trapped in a newly created country exposing ethnic incompatibilities.

So, it was easy for President Poroshenko, Zelenskys predecessor, to provoke a conflict with the Eastern region by imposing the Ukrainian language on non-Ukrainian people.

Zelensky had the opportunity to pursue a conciliatory approach, offering limited autonomy for the belligerent East that it demanded from the outset, avoiding a bloody conflict altogether. Instead, he decided to continue the policy of his predecessor, resolving ethnic conflicts by force. The reason for the continuation of combat was primarily financial.

Depicting Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression, Zelensky, just like his predecessor, claimed that Ukraine was about to be defeated by a superior force and traveled the world to raise military and economic aid. For Zelensky and his cronies, war and corruption are inseparable.

It was, therefore, inevitable that the quest for cash would drive Zelensky & Co. into war with Russia. Inevitably, before leading his country into a disastrous and ultimately self-destructive war, Zelensky must have known that his country was expendable in the geopolitical struggle between the US/ NATO and Russia. He could have avoided military conflict by forgoing NATO membership.

Instead, prior to the invasion, Zelensky worked hard to ensure that no third party would step in to prevent the impending calamity when he told reporters,

There are signals even from respected leaders of states, they just say that tomorrow there will be war. This is panic - how much does it cost for our state?" he told a press conference in Kyiv. The "destabilization of the situation inside the country" was the biggest threat to Ukraine, he said. The "destabilisation of the situation inside the country" was the biggest threat to Ukraine, he said.

For him the invasion was not a threat -- it was an opportunity.

Afterward, Zelensky dragged Hitler's moldy corpse out, comparing Putin to Hitler to build international support for Ukraine. According to Zelenskys logic, since Ukraine defends Europe from Putins imperialism, Europe has to pay for it. Never mind that, at the same time, he wants Ukraine to become a member of NATO so that NATO would protect Ukraine from Putins imperialism.

The virtuosity of his strategy is that while Ukraine burns in death and destruction, the conflict has led to an unlimited influx of funds that line the pockets of Zelensky and the political and military elites.

In the annals of history, it would be difficult to name another case when a nation's elected leader has frittered away so much political capital, betrayed the people's trust, and traded his dazzling ambition for personal enrichment.

Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a think tank that examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alexander.g.markovsky@gmai.com

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab
In 2017, New Jersey Democrat senator Bob Menendez endured a three-month trial for eighteen counts of alleged corruption. The procedure ended in a mistrial. Ten jurors found Menendez guilty with two dissenting. Prosecutors can retry defendants in trials that result in a hung jury. The Justice Department opted not to retry Menendez.

Does the prosecution have a sufficient case this time to avoid another mistrial, or is the evidence of corruption weak because this is just another presidential vendetta against Menendez for disagreeing with the Democrat policy agenda?

Per the Washington Post, in that trial prosecutors said Menendez took gifts from Doctor Salomon Melgen, including a luxury hotel stay, private jet flights, and campaign donations, in exchange for which he tried to help Melgen get U.S. visas for his girlfriends, intervened in the doctors $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare (Melgen was subsequently found guilty), and assisted with a port security contract of the doctors in the Dominican Republic.

Juror Ed Norris, a 49-year-old equipment operator from Morris County, said that the evidence was mostly emails and that he didnt see a smoking gun. I dont think the government proved anything, Norris said. I didnt see anything bad that he did.

Menendez and Melgen were longtime friends. Both defendants denied any wrongdoing, arguing the gifts were merely evidence of their close friendship.

What does a smoking gun in a case like this look like? Per WAPO, Barbara Van Gelder, a lawyer with Cozen OConner, Once you blur business with friendship, its very hard to ask the jury to untangle that. . . The jury is looking for a concrete quid pro quo, not just a plausible quid pro quo.

Although the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Senator Menendez, he hung on to his seat as Chair of Foreign Relations Committee (FRC). In April 2018, the Committee stated that Menendez knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Dr. Melgen without obtaining required Committee approval, and that you failed to publicly disclose certain gifts as required by Senate Rule and federal law. Additionally, while accepting these gifts, you used your position as a Member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgens personal and business interests.

This time, based on corruption allegations alone, Senator Menendez has stepped down from the FRC. He was found guilty of ethics violations and will be again, in all likelihood. Under the law Menendez merits a presumption of innocence until proven guilty of a felony in a court of law.

Are the current bribery charges just another vendetta like the corruption charges brought by the Obama Justice Department in 2017. At the time, Andrew McCarthy asserted that the original reason for the charges is that Menendez had angered President Obama, who as payback went after him through the Justice Department. Menendez has also not backed Bidens every policy.

As in the first case, there are rumblings that the Biden administration is pursuing corruption charges motivated by a vendetta against Menendez. Which makes some sense if you consider the Constitution does not prohibit felons from holding elected federal office. Such an action would serve to motivate compliance with the party line without losing a coveted Senate vote. The Democrats can't afford to lose his vote.

All the same, Menendez could face impeachment, which would remove him from office.

NBC News 4 has reported criminal investigators are attempting to determine if Menendez or his wife had taken up to $400,000 worth of gold bars from Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer and former bank chairman, or his associates in a swap for Menendez reaching out to the Justice Department to aid the admitted felon accused of banking crimes.

The bribery charge against Menendez, his wife, and the three New Jersey businessmen alleges that the group schemed to pay Menendez in exchange for political favors.

The Hill is reporting that he and his wife allegedly accepted bribes from a group of New Jersey businessmen on behalf of interests in Egypt, totaling over $600,000. Prosecutors allege that the senator and his wife accepted cash, gold bars and a luxury car in return for assisting the businessmen. Nearly $500,000 in cash and more than $100,000 in gold were found at Menendezs home in a raid last year, allegedly payment for the bribes.

Additionally, Menendez allegedly took bribes from interests in Egypt, and in exchange advocated for issues important to Egypt in Congress. That includes pressuring the State Department to encourage the construction of a dam considered important to Egyptian interests and advocating on behalf of the Egyptian military in encouraging U.S. arms deals.

Menendez also set up a fraudulent business -- Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC -- to facilitate the bribes, prosecutors allege, as well as used his influence to protect a business monopoly of a second business related to Egyptian interests and the businessmen.

The Hill further reports that according to prosecutors, Menendez directly and indirectly, would and did corruptly demand, seek, receive, accept, and agree to receive and accept something of value personally and for another person and entity, in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act and for being induced to do an act and omit to do an act in violation of his official duty.

Furthermore, prosecutors allege that Menendez, et al met multiple times, and communicated via text through his wife. Menendez also pressured New Jersey prosecutors to interrupt the prosecutions of multiple federal and state criminal cases.

These are serious allegations that could have negative consequences for Democrat political aspirations in 2024. More importantly, if the allegations are determined to be true by a criminal court of law, then justice needs to be served.

Ed Norris wanted to see a smoking gun in the first trial. If jurors need a smoking gun to convict now, then it is hoped that the prosecution can present them with one.

Image: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service
Another judicial book thrown at President Trump, and sure enough, it coincided with some very bad news about Joe Biden's corruption.

Start with how news flashed about a New York judge throwing out this ruling to Get Trump at 4:43 p.m. Eastern yesterday:

NEW YORK (AP)  A judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House, and he ordered some of the former presidents companies removed from his control and dissolved. Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans. Engoron ordered that some of Trumps business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York, and said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee Trump Organization operations.

Now let's look at the kind of news that came just before it, at 2:08 p.m. Eastern:

BREAKING



I just subpoenaed & obtained two bank wires revealing Hunter Biden received payments originating from Beijing in 2019 when Joe Biden was running for President.



Joe Bidens Delaware home is listed as the beneficiary address for both money wires from China. pic.twitter.com/jzRX2o1hB1  Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) September 26, 2023

Well, what a coincidence. The fact that the bad news for Trump tightly followed the bad news for Biden, and swamped the news cycle was so obvious, even the press noticed, or at least, those with brains and a keen sense of the political landscape:

Now we know why the NY judge decided to move on trump today. It's all so obvious. And disgusting https://t.co/KwusGJoDNJ  Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) September 27, 2023

Those without brains, the narrative-parroters, the lapdogs, the performing seals, presented this picture, which RealClearPolitics's Tom Bevan couldn't help noticing:

As expected, massive coverage of Trump-related stories across legacy media, but not a single mention of the revelation that Chinese nationals sent $260,000 in bank wires to Hunter Biden in 2019 and listed Joe Biden's home address. pic.twitter.com/OgQP9aLlrl  Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) September 27, 2023

The Biden news is serious and bad, showing in concrete terms that a foreign bribe from America's top adversary was paid, it was a big bribe, and Joe Biden was directly involved as the recipient, the bribe itself going to Biden's own home. It also was recent, dating from 2019. And Hunter Biden was living in Malibu at the time the Chinese paid it, meaning, he was not the recipient, so there is no way to blame it on Biden's dissolute and drug-addicted son.

That's a major smoking gun in Biden's impeachment inquiry, and it will be all but impossible for Biden to gaslight his way out of it.

As for the charges against Trump, they were bee ess, generic charges that could be leveled at any real estate developer. Somehow only Trump got them and the timing was amazing.

They were also bee ess because valuing of properties is highly subjective. The judge valued Trump's Mar-a-Lago properties at $18 million, while the vacant lots in the area are going for $400 million. That sounds like corruption on her side of the bench, not Trump's.

As I wrote here, commenting on an attempted Washington Post hit job on Trump's banker in San Diego, a good banker always checks out the collateral on a client's loan forms to make his own assessment before offering a loan. This banker profiled in the Washington Post, from Axos Bank, named Gregory Garrabrants, in fact, found the Trump empire to be reasonable and honest, giving the Post's reporter the fisheye by saying:

"It wouldn't matter if I was friends with someone, I'm not going to make a loan that's no good," he said. "I don't like anyone that much."

It's garbage charges, amplified by garbage reporting, and the main aim seems to be to cover up news about Joe Biden's increasingly obvious corruption.

That's despicable machine politics going on here which makes a mockery of justice and shows just how coordinated and sleazy the Biden political machine is. This isn't the first time they've done it -- hit Trump with charges in order to deflect attention from revelations about their own scandals.

What it tells us is that Comer is onto something dangerous for Biden and the Biden machine will stop at nothing to protect its kingpin and take down his rival. Call that corruption piled upon corruption. One can only hope that Comer will recognize that he's over the target and expose these thugs to the max, then getting to the bottom of the whole corrupt foundation of House Biden before they can do any more damage to the country.

Image: Twitter screen shot
Finally, there is proof that California Governor Newsom has gone around the bend into full hypocritical insanity. Thats because the State of California has announced lawsuits against Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP. Its not just climate change insanity, though. When you look at Newsoms own history, his hypocrisy comes shining through.

The official statement from the governors office quotes Newsom proudly saying,

For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us - covering up the fact that theyve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels are for our planet, California taxpayers shouldnt have to foot the bill for billions of dollars in damages - wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record breaking droughts parching our wells.

Apparently, Governor Gavin Newsom, aka Hair Gel, is blaming Big Oil for the tired lie of climate change. Record-breaking droughts? Id like to point out to Governor Hair Gel that, years ago, researchers found tree stumps 150 feet underwater in Lake Tahoe indicating the region suffered a historic megadrought over a thousand years ago, a drought lasting so long that trees lived long enough to grow to maturity. The study shows other megadroughts enabled trees to grow on land now underwater several times. These were droughts far worse than anything California has seen since records have been kept.

Image: Governor Gavin Newsom. YouTube screen grab (cropped).

Climate change? Long before those evil oil companies started drilling oil to power the creation of an industrial and economic powerhouse called the United States, California experienced a flood in 1862 that is unmatched to this day (hyperlinks omitted):

The entire Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys were inundated. An area about 300 miles (480 km) long, averaging 20 miles (32 km) in width, and covering 5,000 to 6,000 square miles (13,000 to 16,000 km2) was under water. The water flooding the Central Valley reached depths up to 30 feet (9.1 m), completely submerging telegraph poles that had just been installed between San Francisco and New York.

Image: The great California flood of 1862. Public domain.

Has Governor Hair Gel totally forgotten the billions of dollars of taxes that California collected on fossil fuels such as the highest gas tax in the nation at nearly $.80/gallon. These taxes built California roads, only to have them fall into disrepair as Governor Hair Gel has spent billions to half build the choo-choo train to nowhere? Is Hair Gel planning on suing every person who bought a tank of gas or diesel? After all, the little guy is as guilty as Big Oil, for it was ordinary citizens who bought and burned the fossil fuel.

Does Hair Gel galivant around the state in a motorcade powered by electric vehicles? Does Hair Gel fly around the world in solar-powered jets promoting how great he and California is? Of course not.

Interestingly, Hair Gel is one of the founders of PlumpJack Winery, a self-described boutique winery nestled in the Napa Valley. He founded it with his longtime friend Gordon Getty. Getty, in turn, just happens to be the son of the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. Gordon, born in 1933, inherited his fathers $2 billion trust in 1976.

At Gettys palatial mansion overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, Hair Gels oil-fortune-rich good buddy hosted fundraisers for democrat politicians like Hair Gel and cackling Kamala Harris. Gettys largesse helped Hair Gel become the mayor who, more than any other of San Franciscos Democrat mayors, started San Francisco on its journey to perdition. Hes now the Governor who is leading California down the same road.

Hair Gel couldnt care less about the malarkey hes spouting. What Hair Gel is doing is doing what he does best, which is grifting. When he says, Its time they pay their fair share as California faces unprecedented budget shortfalls now and into the foreseeable future, he means, We cant pay our bills and we need more money from Big Oilthe same Big Oil that helped fund his career. Hypocrite much, Hair Gel?
By Olivia Ingraham

South Korea has firmly established itself as a global economic powerhouse, extending its influence far beyond its borders. From corporate giants to nimble startups, South Korean enterprises are rapidly expanding their global reach. In this era of relentless globalization, the cornerstone of success for their businesses is none other than cultural intelligence (CQ). Cultural intelligence is a multifaceted skill that forms the foundation upon which South Korean companies can build their prowess in international markets, forge formidable global alliances and secure an unassailable competitive edge.

Adaptation to the ever-changing business landscape:

The business terrain is in a state of perpetual flux, with global trends, cutting-edge technologies and ever-shifting consumer preferences redefining the landscape. South Korean enterprises armed with organizational cultural intelligence excel at adapting to these fluctuations. They possess the acumen to spot opportunities on the horizon, anticipate impending challenges and architect strategies that seamlessly align with the pulse of global dynamics, ensuring their sustained eminence.

The role of cultural intelligence in technological innovation:

In the contemporary interconnected world, technological innovation is the catalyst propelling societal advancement and economic prosperity. However, in this age of globalization, the capacity for technological adaptation and innovation hinges not only on technological prowess but also on an astute comprehension and ability to harness the power of understanding diverse mindsets and national cultures. Cultural intelligence whether individual or organizational plays a pivotal role in creating an environment conducive to all facets of innovation.

Navigating ambiguity and change:

Technological innovation typically springs forth in complex and dynamic realms characterized by ambiguity and relentless change. Culturally astute individuals and organizations are well-equipped to navigate volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity with ease and finesse. Those with robust cultural intelligence quotient (CQ) excel at managing change, have better judgment and decision-making and emerge as invaluable assets in creativity and innovation.

The art of successful negotiation:

In the realm of successful negotiation, understanding the intricate nuances of the cultures involved is often the pillar of triumph. Enterprises with elevated levels of cultural intelligence are better armed to navigate the negotiation table across diverse corners of the world. Cultural adaptability empowers them to tailor their negotiation strategies, whether adopting the assertiveness prevalent in Western negotiations or embracing the consensus-building approach commonly found in Asian markets. Furthermore, it serves as a robust shield against risk stemming from misinterpreting cultural norms, which can lead to legal entanglements, reputational harm, losing face or even international disputes. By cultivating these culturally intelligent skills, businesses can effectively mitigate these risks and drive through the labyrinth of complex global business endeavors with success.

In an era where technological innovation stands as the keystone of progress, cultural intelligence emerges as the pivotal factor propelling these innovations and business triumphs. By fostering cross-cultural collaboration, nurturing creative ideation, expanding market horizons and enhancing problem-solving capabilities, cultural intelligence clears the path for groundbreaking technological leaps. To thrive in todays intricately woven global landscape, both individuals and organizations must acknowledge and harness the profound impact of cultural intelligence in shaping the future of business.

Olivia Ingraham (olivia.ingraham@gmail.com) is an experienced business consultant specializing in innovative change and transformation.
Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian World War II veteran, recently received not one, but two standing ovations from Canadian lawmakers during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

What's wrong with that, you ask?

Well, Hunka served in a Nazi SS unit.

Oops.

Canadian parliament speaker Anthony Rota buoyantly introduced Hunka as "a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians" and further branded him "a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero." Rota later hastily issued an apology and insisted he had no idea of Hunka's past Nazi associations. Way to vet your heroes, Tony. Say, who fought the Russians on the Eastern front again?

Talk about an unforced error! This handed Russia a bit of a P.R. victory. Indeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the episode showed a careless disregard for historical truth. He told reporters, "Such sloppiness of memory is outrageous."

Worse still, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and a liberal Canadian M.P. both previously essentially called the freedom convoy truckers Nazis. (They claimed that the "honk, honk" of the trucker's horns meant "heil Hitler." I wish I were kidding.) Leftists have a hard time getting their Nazis straight. They tend to accuse those lobbying for their freedom of being Nazis, while applauding  accidentally or not  those who actually are or were Nazis.

"Arbeit macht frei"? Nein.

Ignorance doesn't make us free, either.

Quite the opposite.

Image: paul_houle via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).
On the left, there seems to be an obsession with denying women their womanhood. You can't be a woman if you're not a leftist first, so the argument goes.

They used to do it a lot to Margaret Thatcher, but there have been other conservative women they have pulled this on, too. Lately, they have split off into all kinds of strange manifestations of denying women their womenhood, in promoting the transgender agenda, -- in the odd relative-mindedness of a then-Supreme Court justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson who couldn't say what a woman was; in reducing women to their body parts and degrading those body parts, e.g., 'bonus holes;" in converting pregnant women to "pregnant people;" and this far from all of it. The left seems to have a cold spot for recognizing women as women if they aren't left-wing. They do the same thing to black conservatives, as Larry Elder who was declared "the black face of white supremacy" can attest. Or, to put it more crudely, look to Joe Biden: "If you don't vote for me, you ain't black."

Which brings us to Rep. Katie Porter, who's running for the Senate in California after Sen. Dianne Feinstein retires, one of the two frontrunners alongside Rep. Adam Schiff.

Here she is, carrying on the leftist tradition of conditioning womanhood on leftwingery:

Katie Porter, the Democratic congresswoman running for U.S. Senate in California, said Republican women do not count as women when it comes to achieving gender equality in Congress. "To me, equality is not electing Joni Ernst" the Democrat told the Washington Post, referring to the female GOP senator from Iowa. "Like, thats not helping." It's funny Porter should mention equality in Congress because she is currently trying to prevent a black woman from being elected to the Senate. Her opponent in the Democratic primary, Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), would be the first (fully) African American to represent California in the upper chamber.

Which is pretty darn disgusting, and probably to be expected given Porter's far-left stances.

What's vivid here is how destructive it is to her own election prospects. California has a top-two election system for senators, meaning, the top two vote getters in the primary are the ones who appear on the ballot. If it's two Democrats, that will be what the voters get to choose from, and there won't be a Republican.

That's also the likely scenario with this coming Senate race, with Porter and Schiff most likely to duke it out after the primary.

Despite the lack of representation, California does have a sizable base of Republicans in its voter pool. Schiff is detested beyond measure, so Porter was set to be the default vote, if for nothing else, to punish Schiff. I was actually planning to cast my ballot for Porter to keep Schiff from failing upward, but if she can't admit that I'm a woman, she can't get my vote. I guess there's Barbara Lee, a Berkeley radical, to vote for now, since neither Schiff nor Porter has managed not to become utterly offensive to conservatives.

Too bad about that, Katie. You could have scarfed up the Republican vote in California without having to lift a right-wing finger in concession, simply because Schiff is so odious. But you just blew it. No vote for you.

Image: Screen shot from HollyM video, via YouTube
Americas southern border is completely broken. Thats not because we cannot have a secure southern border. Its because the Biden administration, violating all immigration laws, has deliberately opened the border, allowing every unvetted, uneducated, un-Western, third-world immigrant (mostly military-age males) to come pouring in. Meanwhile, the same administration is on the verge of deporting a law-abiding German family thats been here for 15 years and that sought asylum in America after the German government criminalized the familys homeschooling its children.

In 2008, Uwe Romeike, a German native, sought asylum for himself, his wife, and his five children because the German government persecuted him for trying to homeschool his children. In the 15 years since then, two of his older children have married U.S. citizens, and he and his wife had two more children (who, if they were Hispanic or Chinese, would be known as anchor babies).

Image: The Romeikes. YouTube screen grab (cropped).

Although they were initially granted asylum, the Obama DOJ really, really didnt want law-abiding, Christian Northern Europeans in America, and worked to deport them:

An immigration judge initially granted the family's application for asylum. The U.S. Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals revoked the family's asylum status, documents show. The family, with the help of the U.S. Home School Defense Association, appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the family.

According to the same article quoted above, the Sixth Circuit effectively held that, because the German government hates all attempts to avoid government schooling, and discriminates equally against all religions, the Romeikes could not claim religious discrimination. So, its bad if a government hates one religion; its fine if it hates them all. (E.g., see China.)

Despite the decision, the Romeikes have been allowed to remain in America, living in a kind of legal twilight zone. Now, though, the Biden administration is again trying to deport them.

Meanwhile, Biden officials have been blocking Texass efforts to slow the flood of illegal immigrants:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott shared a video on social media this week showing President Joe Bidens Border Patrol cutting razor wire that the state of Texas had placed alongside on the Rio Grande to stop illegal aliens from flooding into the country. Texas installed razor wire in Eagle Pass to stop illegal crossings, the governor wrote on Twitter. Today the Biden Admin CUT that wire, opening the floodgates to illegal immigrants.

In August alone, the Border Patrol encountered more than 232,000 illegal aliens. That doesnt count all the ones whom the Border Patrol did not encounter. Because Biden has erased the Southern border (both a felony and a violation of his oath of office), we know that almost 4 million illegal aliens have entered America since he took office. We have no idea how many entered who avoided being counted. In addition to doing away with Americas border, effectively destroying her sovereignty, Biden has stopped all deportations of Venezuelans, who are now laying claim to whole islands.

And yet, the Biden administration is still determined to evict a single, self-sufficient, law-abiding German family.

As always, when it comes to leftism, their policies are never the policies they say they are. The Biden administration doesnt believe in open borders and the free flow of peoplea stupid idea but still an idea. Instead, it believes in the free flow of people who will ensure that Democrats have permanent political power. Those who came here honestly and legally seeking asylum, but who arent part of Team Democrat, are a danger that must be removed.
Remember the Steele Dossier, the document commissioned by the deep state and passed off as legitimate intelligence that asserted then-candidate Donald Trump participated in damning and disgusting urinary escapades with hookers in a Moscow hotel, and because sexual acts which involve urination are vulgar and shameful, Trump was compromised? Of course you do, the government racked up a $32 million debt (partly, in your name), all to discover it was a scam. How could you forget?

Well, in a strange turn of events, political figures and pee play do go hand in hand, but unsurprisingly, its a gay Democrat (not President Trump) implicated in debauched exploits of urination for sexual purposes. And, its the gay Democrat that seems to always be leading the parade of perversity, Californias most notorious state senator, Scott Wiener. From a story published at The Post Millennial yesterday:

On Sunday, the infamous Folsom Street Fair took place in San Francisco, with the kink festival celebrating its 40th year. California state Senator Scott Wiener, who has been photographed at the event in previous years, applauded the day as one of the best days of the year in San Francisco.

See Wieners post to X below:

Today is Folsom Street Fair! One of the best days of the year in San Francisco



We kicked it off with the amazing Donna Sachets 25th annual Folsom Leather Brunch. Im so grateful to Donna & all of the kick ass community leaders who make our city a better place. pic.twitter.com/BvZuI8KX5i  Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) September 24, 2023

Reader and viewer discretion is advised, but the sort of degenerate behavior marketed to the normal person as acceptance and expression and the kind that Wiener celebrates, includes this:

Photos and videos of the event circulating on social media show men dressed in fetish attire openly participating in sexual acts on the public street. One photo shows two men sitting in a kiddie pool while another standing along the side pees into it.

See below:

This would be the street fair where you can see grown men fucking each other on the streets like dogs and if you're feeling hot you can jump in a kiddy pool and have a man piss on you.

What a delightful place. https://t.co/EJ0hQBJpju pic.twitter.com/JiL0WiVU2G  Aja the Empress  (@Aja02537920) September 25, 2023

Also from the report:

The event featured a number of booths for vendors and groups, including Cute Little F*ckers, which is described as a "gender-inclusive" sex toy company, as well as the Satanic Temple. Another vendor present at the fair was Tykables, a company specializing in disposable diapers and onsies, with designs that resemble those for infants and toddlers, made for adults with diaper fetishes.

Other images from Folsom, too pornographic and filthy to include, showed public exhibitions of anal sex and men covered in fecesto Wiener, these are kick ass community leaders who are making the city a better place.

This is the man who consistently supports and sponsors legislation to push lewd and lascivious content in the classroom, and the confiscation of children by the state.

(Whats the common denominator? Innocent children.)

Language warning, but as noted by a social media personality:

Of course the guy who wants to take your kids away and have them chemically and physically mutilated goes to public shit and piss orgies[.] These ppl are evil and should have zero say on what is appropriate for kids[.]

Agreed Ahmed, agreed.

Image: Pax Ahimsa Gethen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
I am confident that most Americans are worn down by all the chaos that exists in our country, Independent, Republican, and Democrat voters alike. We have a president who is clearly age-disabled. We have 2024 presidential elections where both party leaders are accused of corruption. Women and girls are under attack. Parents are asked to surrender their children to the state. Children are taught to lie to parents. Religious freedom is considered a terrorist act. Crime and homelessness are rampant in cities. We cant afford food, gas, or a house. Our educational standards have failed. A costly war is in Ukraine. Simply being white makes you racist. Immigration is out of control and destroying communities. The black communitys need for school choice is ignored. Citizens are fearful after defunding the police. Radicals are destroying American history. Corruption exists with our press and social media.

As an older senior, I ask, how did it get this bad in just three years? I have lived through multiple generations and experienced many of our nations crises. The serious, satanic chaos of this age though, has torn the country apart and Americans are frightened. Perhaps John Adamss observation that a democracy never lasts long can be applied to our heritage too; a republic soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.

Our nations first president, George Washington, predicted what could happen. His fears described how an unprincipled group of men and women would take over a political party and subvert the Constitution. Radical activists including communists, socialists, Marxists, progressives, LGBTQ++, and haters of religion and family, have adopted the Democrat party as their vehicle of choice. They have coalesced with naive political leaders and the media. They are now using this power to destroy Americas culture. Deviant thinking seeks to replace absolute truth with ever-changing concepts of identity, whims, and moods. News organizations, social media, and politics have knowing or unknowingly spread their identity to create a godless culture.

An excellent example of what radicals fear is found in a purported quote from Washington: Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society. These concepts are deeply troubling to radicals since they dont know how to deal with the moral God. They face upsets because religion, and Judeo-Christian morality, is embedded in Americas culture; God is even included in our Pledge of Allegiance. Think about Thomas Jefferson who is credited with saying, The Bible makes the best people in the world. We can reflect on Proverbs, with adages like Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord but those who deal truthfully are His delight and wise men are concerned about truth; liars are anxious to be heard.

Radicals, through deception, are using government to impose their values, but Benjamin Franklin is said to have had the answer: Trickery and treachery are the practices of fools that have not wits enough to be honest. When American parents teach their children the importance of truth, and morality, theyre endowing the next generation with the antidote to our current state of chaos, and were already seeing it come into play. Radicals have found that there are still Americans, and the movement is growing, who maintain and are restoring a moral code that is defeating their process of reducing people and issues to crude identity politics.

Many of these radical thinkers and their philosophies have been shaped by our education system. Public school teachers and professors, a small minority of the population, have pushed an agenda on the majority; but parents have formed national organizations to push back, along with conservatives and patriotic Americans. Ordinary citizens must continue to come together and use their care and wisdom to stop this slippery path toward destruction. The outcome of this war will be fought by Americans with, truth, honesty, integrity and religion, all of which are the foundations of our nation.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.
The Action Network is a behind-the-scenes umbrella organization, a highly influential tech company most have never heard of that provides digital support to Democratic Party fundraising and the unions for organizing. It also services progressive organizations, including fanatical neo-Marxist organizations like Black Lives Matter or the communist Democratic Socialists of America. The Action Network was highly instrumental in the anti-Trump movement. Although it shares the same name with Al Sharpton's nefarious charity, it is not affiliated.

It began in 2011 as the Corporate Accountability Project charity ((501(c)(3)) to partner with labor unions and community organizations to expose and prosecute businesses. Later, it rebranded to the Action Network Fund and expanded its scope into progressive politics. Highly partisan Democrats lead the board. Founder Mark Fleischman is a former union organizer and formerly served as vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Douglas Land, who serves as chairman of the board, is affiliated with the Anti-Defamation League. AFL-CIO President Elizabeth Shuler serves on the board.

The Action Network, a sibling social welfare non-profit ((501(c)(4)), created Action Square, a robust digital platform to organize activists, mobilize supporters, and generate event campaigns, crowdfunding, and petitions for Democratic Party and progressive causes. The non-profit boards are interlocking, with Laura Quinn added as an Action Network member-at-large. Quinn is the president of the for-profit Catalyst, an election data repository of over 256 million voters providing behavior, demographic, and issues analysis and modeling to the Democratic Party and progressive organizations. Catalyst is integrated into the Action Square platform and collects fees from the members who utilize its service. The 990 tax returns fail to disclose the related party arrangement.

Action Square is a "Swiss army knife" that provides mobile messaging, mass emailing, scheduling events, demonstrations, call campaigns, petitions, fundraiser solicitations, and letter campaigns. The platform incorporates a handy smartphone app. The toolset is available in multiple languages for international campaigns. Membership in each campaign is by invitation only, which conceals activists and donor identities from the public, an opportunity for "dark money" influence.

In 2019, the Action Network organized the for-profit Action Squared, LLC, transferring the digital platform to a wholly-owned subsidiary. The legal structure conceals consulting and membership revenue, subcontractors, and director and officer compensation. For example, according to the Federal Election Committee, Action Square received over $11.6 million for marketing and fundraising fees for Democratic candidates, including President Biden, and political action committees. There is no public record that Action Network filed a required business income tax return. Did the Action Network evade paying corporate income taxes?

Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(4) provides for the exemption of civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare. The organizations must promote the common good and general welfare, benefitting the community, not select populations or groups within the community. To satisfy this requirement, the organizations engage in educating the community and conduct their activities in a non-partisan manner.

The Action Network appears to flunk the dual test by advocating exclusively for the Democratic Party and progressive organizations and running an opaque for-profit subsidiary. It enables organizations like BLM to foster hate and polarization. The Action Network may well be viewed as a for-profit organization subject to federal and state taxation.

Bob Bishop is a forensic investigator and retired CPA.

Image: Action Network
Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the all-knowing librarian.

A few years ago, the staff at the New York Public Library discovered a box of cards containing questions posed to the librarian by members of the public. These question were asked either in person or received via telephone. The telephone ask a librarian service was set up in 1967 and operates to this day. And surprisingly, despite people having information on their finger tips these days, the New York Public Library receives roughly 30,000 calls per year.

Any statistics on the life span of the abandoned woman?, a caller wanted to know in 1963.

People have been reaching out to librarians for as long as there have been libraries, Rosa Caballero-Li, the manager of Ask-NYPL, told Great Big Story. Often time people do not have access to the technology at home, she explains, and I honestly think some just want somebody to talk to.

Between 9 AM and 6 PM, from Monday through Saturday, anybody can dial 917-275-6975 and speak to a live personone of ten who mans the operation. At any time, at least five are available for taking calls.

Most people call just to ask about library services. Others want to fact-check things theyve heard on the news. Queries about news, science, and history come in about once an hour. People also dial with basic grammar questions.

When did Moses first come into the public eye?, a caller asked in 1963.

Over the decades the library has received some of the most bizarre questions: Why do 18th Century English paintings have so many squirrels in them, and how did they tame them so that they wouldn't bite the painter? What is the life cycle of an eyebrow hair? How many neurotic people were in the United States? What does it mean when you dream youre being chased by an elephant? One person just wanted to know how to put up a wallpaper. I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper? I've tried both and it doesn't seem to work.

"There are no stupid questions," Caballero-Li told NPR. "Everything is a teachable moment. We don't embarrass people; we try to answer any questions they have with honesty and we try to refer them to appropriate resources that they might find useful."

The library keeps records of the most absurd and memorable questions asked to them. Some of these date as far back as the 1940s. Here, we have reposted a few from their Instagram account.

How many neurotic people in the US? (Dec 30, 1946)

What does it mean when you dream youre being chased by an elephant? (May 27, 1947)

Where can I get all available statistics on volume of business, money involved, etc. in the sale of cadavers? (Nov 30, 1948)

Why do 18th Century English paintings have so many squirrels in them, and how did they tame them so that they wouldn't bite the painter? (Oct, 1976)

Is a black widow spider more harmful dead or alive?

Is there a full moon every night in Acapulco? (Oct 6, 1961)

What was the origin of bedsheets? (Jan 30, 1950)

Off-hand do you happen to know a really good book about having twins?

Nutritional value of human flesh. (June 6, 1958)

Do you have information about permanent people? (Feb, 1966)

Do you have any books on the science of ATHAR, which is the science of deducing information from camel tracks? (June 23, 1949)

Can you give me a reference book listing the colors of the different countries? (Nov 20, 1946)

How do you spell S p i z z e r i n c t u m? (Feb, 1949)

I'm looking for a book about Helen of Troy by Holmes. (i.e., Homer's Iliad.) (Jan, 1961)

Is it good poetry where every other line rhymes, instead of having each line rhyme with the one before it? (Feb 14, 1944)

Can you tell me how much water I use? (Nov, 1949)

Somebody in 1962 was looking for Charles Darwin's book. Oranges & peaches." The librarian politely directed the person to On the Origin of Species.

If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die? (Sep 22, 1949)

When West Point Cadets throw their hats in the air at graduation, do they ever get them back?

What lassitude is New York City on? (June 2, 1959)

Is it proper to wear a veil at night time?

Q: "If self-preservation is the first law of nature, what's the second?" A: "Exploitation is the second - see Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man. 1943 p. 132" (June 23, 1949)

May a funeral be held July 4? (July 10, 1945)

Can mice "throw up"? Referred to Amer. Mus. of Nat. History (May 25, 1949)

Follow-up: "Writer of article using this question was told by a laboratory assistant that mice do throw up. 4/6/72

"How do I put up wallpaper? I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper? I've tried both and it doesn't seem to work."

When, before 1866, was there no full moon in February? (Feb 9, 1950)

Answer: According to our research, the answer is 1847! And in 2018, we'll see it happen again - this phenomenon happens about every 19 years.

Does the female human being belong to the mammal class?

List of famous men born prematurely. (June 7, 1950)
In his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville recounts numerous cases of cetaceans turning against whalers who were hunting them, attacking their boats and even their ships. We know that the creator of the literary white whale was inspired by the case of the Essex, sunk by a sperm whale, combining it with a story from the same era about another giant, albino to boot, known as Mocha Dick. But Melville also dedicates a few lines to recall a much earlier case, which occurred in the 6th century AD: that of Porphyrios, a sea monster that struck terror into Byzantine sailors, sinking so many ships that it concerned the Emperor Justinian himself.

As mentioned in the initial text, the primary account of the threat posed by Porphyrios was left by Procopius of Caesarea, a historian whose works are the main sources for understanding the reign of Justinian I. In both "History of the Wars" and "Secret History," he speaks of that beast, which he identifies as a whale and even provides its measurements: 45 feet long (13.7 meters) by 15 feet wide (4.6 meters). As Melville notes, Procopius does not specify whether it was male or female or what type of whale it was, among other things because in his time, not much was known about marine life; the American writer believes it was a sperm whale.

Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

In reality, it is not clear, nor is there any evidence to establish to which species it belonged. Some authors speculate that it could have been an orca, given that they are often found in the Mediterranean, but this does not correspond to the dimensions mentioned by Procopius, as orcas do not typically exceed eight meters, and that's for males, as females are smaller. Therefore, the more widely held opinion is that Porphyrios was a sperm whale, a marine mammal that can reach over 20 meters in length and exceed fifty tons, sufficient to dare to confront ships.

In fact, as mentioned earlier, there are plenty of accounts of sperm whales that, either feeling harassed or to protect their calves, ram the hulls of the pursuing vessels with their enormous heads - which make up one-third of their total length. Sometimes, these encounters are mistakenly perceived as attacks. Sperm whales live in pods and lack natural predators, even though orcas and sharks may hunt an occasional individual that is too young, old, or sick. Even then, they need to hunt in groups to break through the so-called Margeurite formation, which these cetaceans adopt to protect the vulnerable individual by surrounding it.

Contrary to the hypothesis of Porphyrios being a sperm whale is the fact that Procopius mentions that it ate dolphins - although this could be an embellishment of the story or a mistake in observing them swimming together - and sperm whales typically do not venture into the eastern Mediterranean. They are found in the western Mediterranean, but the geographic area where the attacks reported by Procopius occurred is in the eastern Mediterranean.

Distribution of sperm whale sightings around the world. Image by Kurzon/Wikimedia Commons

Specifically, the Sea of Marmara, at that time called the Propontis, which separates the Aegean Sea from the Black Sea through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and whose waters were adjacent to Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, in the same passage from Moby Dick, Melville is not so sure:

For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.

There's another point in favor of this theory, and that's their age. Sperm whales are long-lived; they can reach up to 70 years of age, and it just so happens that reports of attacks on Byzantine vessels occurred for more than five decades, with periods of activity alternating with calm, possibly related to seasonal migration ("...it would sometimes disappear for a fairly long interval," as Procopius recounts). Apparently, Porphyrios didn't discriminate and would ram humble fishing boats as well as merchant and even warships, usually in the vicinity of the Bosphorus, which must have been quite a spectacle because, aside from the sailors who endured it, there were sometimes witnesses from the shore.

The frequency of these incidents led sailors to take a detour to avoid such formidable encounters, which raised concerns for Emperor Justinian I, fearing it could become an obstacle to maritime trade or simple navigation ("And he sank many ships and terrified the passengers on many others, diverting them from their course and taking them great distances," as Procopius describes it). It is known that Byzantine soldiers traveling to Italy to fight the Ostrogoths carried amulets for protection. However, there was little that could be done to address the problem, as, while whaling has existed since prehistoric times, up until the Modern Age, the prey usually consisted of smaller cetaceans (dolphins, belugas, porpoises...), and in any case, there was no whaling tradition among the Byzantines.

Sperm whale attack a row boat from a whaling ship. Circa 1851.

Some articles and books mention that Empress Theodora commissioned the famous general Belisarius to solve the issue, and he embarked with archers and a catapult to try to shoot and harpoon the animal, but with no success. This is fascinating but fictional because it actually originated in the imagination of a writer; we are talking about Robert Graves, who found it interesting to draw a parallel between the empress and Porphyrios in his novel "Count Belisarius," published in 1938. By the way, this novel is based on the previously mentioned works of Procopius, just as his famous "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina" are based on "The Lives of the Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius.

Graves leans towards identifying Porphyrios as an orca seeking revenge for the mistreatment inflicted by fishermen (similar to the plot of the 1977 movie "Orca," starring Richard Harris, also known as "Orca: The Killer Whale"). Interestingly, since 2020, there have been documented about fifty attacks by orcas on boats in the area around the Strait of Gibraltar and the Spanish Levant (not including accidental collisions). To explain these incidents, experts consider two hypotheses: the aversive situation (an adverse experience with a boat drives the animal to confront others) and self-induced behavior (play).

In any case, the real Porphyrios continued to build his bad reputation year after year to the point where the Byzantines eventually gave him a name, a tradition that would repeat itself over the centuries with the most fearsome cetaceans. We mentioned Mocha Dick and there were others. The curious thing about the chosen name is that the exact cause is not known, and several explanations have been proposed. Some believe that Porphyrios could be an allusion to Porphyrius Caliopas (a famous charioteer with the same name, considered the best of his time) or to Porphyrio (a mythological giant, son of Gaia, who rebelled against the gods and was struck down by Zeus with a lightning bolt).

However, most researchers believe that Porphyrios was a name derived from "porphyra," the word that referred to the color purple, either as a reference to the hue reserved for imperial garments - thus acknowledging the majesty of that animal - or to the coloration that the cetacean's skin may have had.

Regarding the latter, sperm whales are gray, and orcas are black, but perhaps the sun reflecting on their surface gave the impression of a dark reddish tone, at least at certain times of the day, confusing witnesses. Recently, it has been suggested that the literal translation should be "purple child."

What's truly important is that, despite Edward Gibbon's insinuation that Porphyrios's exceptional size and location could indicate that it didn't actually exist and was merely a metaphor, this was the first documented instance of a whale attacking humans (the biblical episode of Jonah doesn't count because there is no direct animal aggression involved; the fish mentioned in the text simply swallows the prophet by God's command, sparing the ship he was on). As we saw, these actions repeated themselves over time without anyone being able to stop them. So, what happened to Porphyrios and his uncontrollable rage? Well, he had a sad ending; it's best to let Procopius tell the story:

It happened that while a deep calm reigned over the sea, a large number of dolphins gathered near the mouth of the Euxine Sea. Suddenly, they spotted the whale and fled in every direction they could, but most of them ended up near the mouth of the Sangarius River. Meanwhile, the whale managed to capture some of them, which it immediately swallowed. And then, driven either by hunger or a contentious spirit, it continued its pursuit just as fiercely as before until, without realizing it, it came very close to the shore. There, it ran aground in very deep mud, and although it struggled and made every effort to get out of it as quickly as possible, it was still completely unable to escape from this shoal and sank even deeper into the mud. Now, when this became known to all the people living in the vicinity, they immediately rushed upon the whale. Even though they attacked it persistently with axes from all sides, they still could not kill it. Instead, they dragged it up with some heavy ropes, placed it on carts, and found that its length was about thirty cubits, and its width was ten. Then, after forming several groups and dividing the whale accordingly, some ate the flesh immediately, while others decided to cure the portion they received.

This article was originally published in La Brujula Verde. It has been translated from Spanish and republished with permission.
Many of you know that the Google vs DoJ (Department of Justice) antitrust case is ongoing. Well, during the latest day of trial, Apples Eddy Cue was called to testify. He said, according to The Verge, that Apple chose Google as the default search engine because the company thought it was the best. He said that Apple picks the best one, and then lets users change it, if they want to.

Apple chose Google as default search engine because its the best, says Eddy Cue

For those of you who are out of the loop, Eddy Cue is Apples Senior Vice President. He basically defended Apples choice, and kind of helped Google along the way.

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He said: I always felt like it was in Googles best interest, and our best interest, to get a deal done, while adding: Certainly there wasnt a valid alternative to Google at the time.

He did also say, that Apple always thought that it had better privacy than Google, while adding that there are some protections against tracking in Safari, Apples web browser.

Many documents that are thrown around the courtroom these days are not available to the public. Thats why the trial has been mostly closed for days now.

The DoJ is hoping to prove that Google violated anti-monopoly law

The DoJ is trying to prove that Google violated anti-monopoly law. As its well-known at this point, Google has a number of agreements with smartphone manufacturers and browser makers to make its search engine default.

Google argues that everything is by the book, and that companies and users choose its search engine because its the best, as Apple also stated. The Department of Justice is not alone in this lawsuit. Its joined by a coalition of 39 states from the US.

As a reminder, Google holds about 88% of the domestic (the US) search market, based on the Public Data Sources. Needless to say, thats a lot. If the DoJ wins, that could not only affect Google, but a number of other companies.

The trial is expected to last for about two months, and it started on September 12. So we still have a long way to go.
By Kang Seung-woo

Former President Park Geun-hye attended a flamboyant military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing in 2015, standing on the reviewing stand at Tiananmen Square alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She was the lone leader of the U.S. allies to attend the event, which was shunned by many Western leaders who were concerned about Chinas growing influence regarding territorial disputes.

At the time, her drastic decision was mainly based on the belief that her attendance may lead to China playing a more constructive role in the denuclearizing of North Korea.

However, eight years later, looking back on the Souths past efforts toward China  regardless of the political orientation of its government  Pyongyang has been never prepared to give up its nuclear ambitions, raising important questions like, is it even a realistic goal?

Last week, the Chinese president was in the headlines once again after he met with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, during which, Xi expressed support for inter-Korean reconciliation and pledged continued efforts for peace on the Korean Peninsula after Han asked China to play a constructive role.

Despite the Chinese leaders tentative commitment to help address North Koreas nuclear issue, few buy into the idea that China, the Norths lone economic pipeline and diplomatic protector, will step up efforts to exert its influence on the Kim Jong-un regime to give up its nuclear weapons.

Any potential intervention would depend on how the hegemonic rivalry between the United States and China develops.

Many diplomatic observers believe that China sees North Korea as an asset, not a liability, amid the intensifying Sino-U.S. competition unlike their estrangement  from 2012 to 2017  during which China gave the nod for the international community to impose sanctions on the North due to its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile-related programs.

In that respect, without drastic rapprochement between the U.S. and China, there is little chance that Beijing will do something to resolve North Koreas nuclear matter.

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration already does not seem to expect great things from China in terms of North Koreas nuclear matter.

Earlier this week, National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong said during a TV interview that it appears unlikely that China will be able to bring North Korea into denuclearization talks because it has never responded to denuclearization talks since Kim Jong-un took the helm in 2011.

With no signs of reconciliation between Washington and Beijing, South Korea is at this point required to manage its ties with the Chinese government well to move closer to the long-term goal of denuclearizing North Korea.

Currently, China is suffering from domestic issues, which prevents it from waging a full-blown war with South Korea despite Seouls diplomatic stance leaning toward the U.S. over China and the current situation is giving South Korea diplomatic leeway.

In addition, Beijing is distancing itself from North Korea and Russia at the same time as relations between the two pariah states are improving.

Under these circumstances, South Korea, now establishing a relationship with China from the former Moon Jae-in administrations low-key diplomacy, is advised in order to specify its mid- and long-term policies toward China.

The writer is the politics desk editor.
The European Union (EU) may force Apple to open up its device ecosystem to rivals. Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner for International Market, recently said that the iPhone maker must allow consumers to access third-party app stores and other competing services on their devices. Breton cited rules under the newly adopted DMA (Digital Markets Act) for these requirements, which are also applicable to other tech firms.

The next job for Apple and other Big Tech, under the DMA, is to open up its gates to competitors, the EU Commissioner said on Tuesday. Be it the electronic wallet, browsers or app stores, consumers using an Apple iPhone should be able to benefit from competitive services by a range of providers. Breton made the comments shortly after meeting Apple CEO Tim Cook in Brussels, Belgium. The duo probably discussed this during the meeting.

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Apple switched to USB-C charging on iPhones due to EU rules

The EUs DMA is a new antitrust legislation that aims to control tech companies. The primary objective is to increase competition with rules that prevent existing major players from abusing their dominance to unfairly influence the market. The DMA sets out a list of dos and donts for these companies so they cant subjugate smaller rivals.

Among other things, the impending legislation requires smartphones and other electronic products to use a common charger. It also requires smartphone makers to allow access to third-party app stores or sideloading of apps from other sources. While Android already does that, Apples iOS is a closed ecosystem with the App Store being the only source for downloading apps. Breton is now publicly calling the company to act fast.

The EU Commissioner said this is the next job for Apple because it has already adopted USB-C charging on iPhones. The newly released iPhone 15 series ditches the companys proprietary lightning charging port for a more universal solution. However, its unwilling to open up its closed hardware and software ecosystem to rivals due to potential security and privacy issues arising from being installed via third-party sources.

Brenton doesnt buy Apples arguments, though. He says the DMA ensures better competition in the market without increasing security risks. EU regulation fosters innovation, without compromising security and privacy, a Reuters report cites the Commissioned as saying. It remains to be seen how Apple responds. The company has until March 5, 2024, to comply with the DMA. As of this writing, Apple hasnt responded to Brentons comments.
Samsung seems to be in a hurry to release the stable Android 14-based One UI 6.0 update. It has just rolled out the fifth beta build to the Galaxy S23 series. The latest release comes less than a week after the Beta 4, which suggests a nearing stable rollout.

One UI 6.0 Beta 5 for the Galaxy S23 fixes several bugs

The latest One UI 6.0 beta update for the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with the build version ZWIK (last four characters). The OTA (over the air) package has a size of 750MB for the Ultra model in the UK. It should be a similar-sized download for the other two models as well. The update is also available in Germany, the US, and other markets.

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Since Beta 4 bundled the October security patch, the new release doesnt bring a newer patch. However, there are plenty of bug fixes to look forward to. The official changelog supplied by Samsung states that the update fixes the problem that blocked users from recording ongoing voice calls. It has also addressed the display issue where the screen occasionally failed to read touch inputs or detected ghost touches.

The previous One UI 6.0 beta build had a camera bug that sometimes froze the camera app after opening it, forcing an unwanted termination of the app. Users couldnt take pictures. The latest release fixes this issue. Motion photos are also finally available. It was one of the known issues of One UI 6.0 so far. A Maintenace Model bug that sent the device to an infinite rebooting loop has been fixed too.

Samsung says the new update contains many other minor bug fixes as well. With this release, One UI 6.0 should be a lot more stable to use, with fewer known issues and functional anomalies. While the company has yet to announce a stable rollout roadmap, rumors are that the Galaxy S23 series will get it in late October. Other models will follow the new flagships, with most flagship devices making the jump to Android 14 before the end of the year.

The Galaxy A53 5G is also getting Samsungs Android 14 beta

Samsung opened its first One UI 6.0 public beta for the Galaxy S23 series on August 11. It has now pushed five beta updates to the phones. In the meantime, the company has also launched beta programs for several other devices. The Galaxy S22, Galaxy S21, Galaxy A54, and Galaxy A34 got it over the past few weeks. Today, One UI 6.0 beta expanded to the Galaxy A53 5G. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 will probably join this list next week.
The Google antitrust trial is taking another turn, albeit an expected one, as public availability of the trial documents will be opened back up. Earlier this month shortly after the trial began, Google told Judge Amit Mehta that the Department of Justice was sharing trial documents by posting them publicly online via its website. Mehta in the interim ruled that the DOJ had to stop publicly posting these documents. And that a decision would be made in the near future. Mehta has now made that decision and ruled that the Google antitrust trial documents may once again be made publicly available.

For anyone who wishes to know more about the trial, this is good news. As it means more details of the trial can make it out to the public. Google has made it rather difficult for the majority of the public to ascertain what is most likely important information. Notably because the search company has very loudly opposed live streaming of the trial. So unless youre able to hit the courtroom every day for the trials duration, theres a good chance you might miss information about Googles allegedly monopolistic practices.

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But with posting of the documents being approved, that should be prevented somewhat. Having said that, there are still caveats to Mehtas decision. As documents wont be made available immediately. And there is a chance they may have to stay closed off from public eyes.

Google can dispute public availability of these antitrust documents

Heres how things will work. The DOJ has agreed to inform Google of any documents it plans to post online. Google will then have until 9pm Easter Standard Time the day of posting to dispute. If it misses that window, then public posting is fair game. If it does dispute in time, though, then the DOJ will need address Googles concerns by the next business day. This should allow for some leniency on both sides of the courtroom.

And it could (and should) lead to the documents that were pulled down coming back online. When or if that happens of course is still unclear. Googles antitrust trial is expected to last for several more weeks leading well into late Fall. So expect more documents about the trial to surface.
Google managed to place a veil of secrecy over its antitrust trial. As many of you know, the Google vs DoJ antitrust trial is ongoing, and it has been that way since September 12. For a while now, however, the trial has been basically closed to the public.

Google basically managed to place a veil of secrecy over antitrust trial

Google managed to close off testimony and exhibits in the public trial, reports Prospect. All kinds of private documents are being thrown around the courtroom, and Google doesnt want them to be public. The same goes with testimonies, it seems.

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The companys attorneys argue that publicizing private info will only create clickbait all over the Internet. It seems like Googles strategy is working thus far, as the federal district court judge, Amit Mehta, is playing along.

Google has actually been doing this from the beginning of the trial. Most recently, the testimony of Apple senior executive, John Giannandrea, and portions of testimony from Googles VP of finance, MIke Roszak, have been in private.

The Prospect reports that one of the attorneys representing the delegation of state attorneys general, who joined the DoJ in the lawsuit, said that the truncated public accessibility in the trial was totally unprecedented.

Not much info was publicized from Monday or Tuesday

The same practices continued during both sessions this week, on Monday and Tuesday. Were getting only bits and pieces of info, and no real details from the testimonies at this point.

It remains to be seen if this practice will continue. As a reminder, this trial is expected to last for around two months, and it started on September 12. So, we still have a long way to go.

If Google ends up succeeding in keeping the documents and testimonies a secret, we wont find out much until the very end. It is worth noting that the federal judge could change his mind at any point, though. So theres a chance well start getting more information.

It is, however, understandable why Google wants to keep those documents private. It probably learned its lesson from Microsofts antitrust case from the 1990s, as bad headlines were all over the place.
Microsoft reportedly plans to remove some of the Surface products from its lineup, according to XDA Developers. The decision was made after the company concluded that these products werent profitable.

The Surface department at Microsoft has undergone serious changes. Windows and Surface chief Panos Panay left the company a few days ago after nearly 19 years while he was appointed to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) two years ago. Microsoft executives Pavan Davuluri, Mikhail Parakhin, and Yusuf Mehdi are now in charge of the Surface department.

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The sudden departure of this senior executive had fueled whispers of massive changes at Microsoft. Now, sources report that the Redmond tech giant wants to ditch some experimental Surface products.

While Microsoft firmly confirms its committed to launching Surface products, the reports suggest that Surface Duo, Surface Studio, and Surface Headphones are more likely to be removed from the companys lineup. Of course, the products arent officially canceled yet, but they will no longer get new product launches. In other words, theyre no longer a priority for Microsoft.

Microsoft to remove experimental Surface products from its lineup

This week, Microsoft held its Surface Event to introduce Surface Laptop Go 3, Surface Laptop Studio 2, Surface Hub 3, and other AI-driven initiatives. This proves Microsoft keeps the Surface brand alive, but the strategy will change.

Back in January, Microsoft confirmed that Surface sales plunged, and they expect the decline to continue. Again, in Aprils report, the company said its Surface revenue has dropped by 30%. However, the company didnt mention which Surface products are falling behind in sales. The collapse of the Surface business will make the Redmond tech firm want to narrow its focus and develop products that drive sales.

The impacted Surface products failed to meet the company and customers demand for various reasons. For example, the Surface Duo had many build quality issues and software bugs. The Surface Studio also had a mind-blowing price tag that automatically led customers to rival products like the Apple iMac. It remains to be seen if Microsofts decision could impact its declining Surface business.
Sonys latest compact flagship smartphone, the Xperia 5 V, wont arrive in the US. The company recently confirmed that it has no plans to launch the device in North America. The Xperia 1 V, which debuted a few months back, will remain the only flagship Sony phone in the region this year.

In a statement to Android Police, Sony said that it will not [be] carrying the Xperia 5 V in the North American market this year. The Japanese firm didnt make it clear if the device is planned for a 2024 release in the US. However, thats unlikely as the market will welcome new models from several other brands over the next few months. Consumer interest in the Sony phone, which is already quite low, may die down by the time we step into the new year.

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This doesnt come as a surprise, to be honest. Sony isnt among the best Android OEMs anymore. No doubt it still makes great hardware, particularly the cameras. However, Xperia phones leave a lot to be desired in the software department. The companys software support and update policy isnt the best either. No wonder it doesnt sell many phones outside its home country of Japan. The figures have been constantly declining in recent years.

As such, it makes sense for Sony to not launch the Xperia 5 V in the US. Its still a bummer for the most loyal Sony fans, though. The phone in question is one of the best compact Android flagships out there. Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the device features a vibrant 6.1-inch FHD+ OLED panel, IP68 dust and water resistance, 48MP main camera with 4K video recording, 12MP selfie camera with 4K video recording, stereo speakers, and more.

Sony will continue selling the Xperia 1 V in the US

In its official statement, Sony added that it wants to focus on improving the sales of the Xperia 1 V in the US. This phone was released in late July and packs slightly better specs than the Xperia 5 V. It gets a 6.5-inch 4K display, a telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, and a few other upgrades.

However, The Xperia 1 Vs price tag of $1,400 is a bit too high. Samsungs Galaxy S23 Ultra costs $200 less while giving you better specs in many areas, though the Sony phone trumps it in some areas. The Xperia 5 V would have been a great affordable alternative for Americans looking to buy a new phone from the Japanese firm this year. Its available in Europe for 999 and in the UK for 849.
Many people use Google Photos on their phones to upload their latest snaps, but many people use the web version as well. According to 9To5Google, Google Photos for the web is getting an update that will make upload a little bit better. Its a slight update, but it will still help a bit.

Google Photos for desktop gets a nice update

When youre uploading content to Google Photos from your computer, youre used to seeing a dropdown menu with several options. You can upload from your computer or Google Drive. Theres also an Add from other places section where you can transfer from your photo collections, transfer from photography services, digitize physical photos, backup from your computer, or scan photos with your phone.

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After this update, youll see a slight change to the menu. The Google Drive option will be a part of the Add from other places section.

The next visual change comes when youre in the process of uploading the files. The company changed the upload UI. Youll see the text telling you how many files youre uploading to the cloud. Under that, it will show you how much time is left in the upload, which is a neat addition. If you need to cancel the upload, theres a blue Stop button that you can use. Under that, youll see the list of files that youre uploading.

This is a minor change, but its useful especially if youre uploading large files and you want to know how long it will take.

In other Google news

Google is now in the midst of a lawsuit over its ad business. Iriss VP of media Christine Yang alleged that Google inflated its ad prices by as much as 100% without telling its customers. The CPC (cost per click) for certain companies has jumped up in price significantly over the past six months. If found guilty, Google could face some consequences.
So, youre in charge of setting up the next big conference for the company, and you want to make sure that it goes off without a hitch. Sure, you can set up the meeting on the day, but why not just schedule it ahead of time? You can schedule that meeting in Google Meet and have more time to prepare.

But how do you do it? Heres a handy guide to show you how to schedule a meeting in Google Meet. Its a pretty simple and straightforward process.

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How to schedule a meeting in Google Meet

Before we start, youll want to have the Google Meet app installed on your device if youre planning on using it on the go. When you open the app and sign in, youll see a pretty barebones screen. Theres a search bar at the top of the interface with the list of calls youve made under that.

At the very bottom of the screen, youll see the New button. When you tap on it, youll be taken to the screen where youll customize your meeting. At the top of the UI, youll see some options. Tap on the Schedule in Google Calendar option.

From this point, youll be transported to Google Calendar. It will be on the New Event screen where you can enter the details of the meeting.

Setting up time

So, if youre used to using Google Calendar, then setting up the meeting should be a piece of cake. At the top of the screen, youll see the text field where youll enter the name of the meeting. Make sure to give it a short, sweet, and distinctive name. That you can recognize when looking at your calendar.

The next section will show you all of the accounts you want this event on. This only applies to the Google accounts that you have on your device, it doesnt refer to the people who youre trying to invite. Tap on it to choose which accounts you want the event to be visible on.

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Under that, youll start choosing when you want the meeting to happen. Toggle the All-day switch if you want the event to show up at the top of the day on the calendar. Since were talking about a meeting that starts at a specific time, you might want to leave that off.

Under that, youll pick the start and end time of the meeting. First, youll choose the date of the meeting. Tap on the date to do that. To the right of the date, choose the time that you want it to start. Under that, youll do the same thing for the end time of the meeting.

Next, choose the time zone that youll be in when you hold the meeting. This is extremely important because most companies have meetings with people across time zones or across countries.

Lastly, youll want to choose if this is going to be a recurring meeting. Maybe you have meetings on a weekly or monthly basis.

Adding people

The next section is where youre going to be adding attendees for the meeting. Tap on the Add People text. When you do that, youll see a list of people who are in your circle of contacts. Just tap on their names to add them to your list.

If there are a ton of people on the list of available contacts, you can use the search bar on the top of the UI to type in the names of people you want. That makes things much easier. When youve added all the people, you can tap on the Done button at the top of the screen.

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If youre wondering if the meeting clashes with any of your colleagues schedules, tap on the View Schedules button below the people. It will lower the UI to show the day of the meeting. It will show you if you or any of the other people have something scheduled during the time of the meeting. When youre done, just swipe up on the lowered schedule screen.

The next section will let you add the location of the meeting. Youll be able to type in the location where the meeting will take place. This section is optional, however.

Setting up the notification

The last thing you want to do is forget about this meeting. This is why you should set up some notifications to sound off before the meeting happens. Under the location, youll see a section with some pre-set notifications. Youll see one notification 10 minutes before the event and at the time. If thats not enough time, dont worry.

Tap on the X icon on the right of the notification if you want to delete it. Then, tap on the Add notification to set up a new notification. When you do that, youll see a popup with six options: At time of the event, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, and one day before the time of the meeting.

Under those options, youll see the Custom button. This will let you do two things. Firstly, it will let you choose how many minutes, hours, days, or weeks before the event you want the notification. Secondly, it will let you choose if you want a Google Calendar notification or an email. Feel free to add as many notifications as you think youll need.

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If you choose to get a Google Calendar notification, then youll be notified on all devices with that account logged in.

Adding the final bits

Now, its time to finish this up. If youre into color coding, then youll like this next step. Youll be able to choose the color that you want the meeting to be on the calendar. You have your choice between 12 color options for the event.

Under that, you can add a description of the meeting. Youll use this if you want to be more descriptive. You can say what you want to discuss, what you want to accomplish, or other notes like The CEO will be attending, so no phones!

Lastly, you can attach any files you want to the event. Youre able to add pictures, videos, audio files, or documents from your Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.). You can paste notes to keep in mind during the meeting or other information that you think will be helpful.

Sharing options

You have a couple of sharing options when youre setting up your meeting. If you want to have the meeting open to people you didnt directly invite, you can share it with others.

The top option will make it so that only people with a Google account can see your event. The second option will make it so that anyone can view it, regardless of whether they have a Google account. Lastly, the bottom option will block the event from being shared.

Once you press the Save button on the top right of the screen, youll be asked if you want to send the event to the contacts.

When the people tap on the event, theyll see who set up the meeting, the title, description, files, and the link to the actual meeting. Theyll also receive the same notifications that you set when setting up the event.

With that said, you can now go and schedule your meetings.
So, you broke your phone. Dont worry, it happens, but now its time to remedy the situation. Its time for you to do your due diligence and send it off to be repaired. Before you do that, theres something you need to do first; secure it. Heres how to secure your Android phone before sending it off.

In this piece, well go over some useful actions you can take to make sure that your phone is safe when you send it off to be repaired. You dont necessarily have to do all of these methods. However, its advised that you do something.

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Why should you secure your Android phone?

Securing your phone before sending it to be repaired is an extremely important thing to do. Your phone, especially if youve used it for a while, holds a ton of important and sensitive information about you. Were talking about your email address, home address, phone number, banking information, etc. Thats not to mention the media on your phone like pictures and videos.

When you send your phone to be repaired, you never know if the person taking apart your phone can be trusted. If they manage to gain access to your phone, they could possibly gain access to your sensitive information. You never know if they could steal any of your information or anything else.

Securing your phone makes it so that no one has access to your data when repairing it. Its not as much of an issue if youre sending your phone back to the actual OEM to be repaired. However, youll want to be careful when youre sending your phone to independent repair shops.

Remove external storage

People typically keep their files on a micro SD card. Also, people typically forget that its in their phone when getting it repaired. Its extremely easy to forget, and that could be bad if you have sensitive files on your card. The thing is that an SD card is the easiest thing to infiltrate. All the person has to do is pop your SD card out of your phone and copy the files to their device.

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Factory reset your device

One recommended way to secure your Android phone is completely erasing all of the data on it. This is called factory resetting it. This means restoring it to the condition that it was in when it left the factory. This way, theres no way that anyone could gain access to your data. There are a few things to know before factory resetting your phone.

Back up your app data beforehand

The most important thing to know is that factory resetting your phone is not reversible. Once your data is gone, its gone for good. This is why you need to back up your data. Doing this will save your data to Googles cloud servers. After you get your phone back, you can redownload your data and more or less pick up from where you left off.

Depending on what company made your phone, the process could be a little different. Since most Android phones either use stock or near-stock Android, well explain how to do it on stock Android.

Go to your settings and tap on the Google button. On the resulting page, scroll down to the Backup button. On this page, youll see how much storage you have left on your Google account. In the middle of the page, youll see the Back up now button.

When you press that button, your phone will start uploading your data to the cloud.

Back up your files

The backup feature saves most of your data like your app data, passwords, etc. However, it doesnt affect your actual files. This means that files like pictures, music, documents, and other files will be deleted. For something like this, youll need to save the files in a different location. This could be in the cloud or on an external storage device.

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Be careful about the accounts

Android has a security protocol where, when you factory reset the device, youll need to sign in with a Google account previously on that device in order to get into it. If you cant log into that account, the phone is as useful as a paperweight.

So, if you know how to log into your Google account, then you can proceed. This means that if someone turns on your phone while repairing it, they wont be able to use it. So, its highly recommended that you keep your account on the phone.

Just make extra sure that you remember how to log into your account. If you dont remember, then youll want to remove your account from the phone. In the settings, go to the Passwords & accounts button. Find the Google account(s) on your phone and tap on the Remove account button.

When you do that, youll get a popup saying that the devices security will be disabled. Just know that if you remove your account, it makes it possible for anyone to turn on your device and set it up as their own.

Resetting your phone

After your data is completely backed up and your accounts squared away, its time to actually reset your phone. Go to your settings and go to the System button. On that page, scroll all the way down to the bottom to the Reset options button.

There, youll see some options for things to reset on your phone. On the very bottom, tap on the Erase all data button. The system will ask you if youre sure. Take this time to make doubly sure that you backed everything up on your phone. Once you press the reset button theres no going back.

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Lock your apps

If you dont want to bother with setting up your device again, you can simply lock your apps. When you lock an app, you restrict access to that app and only allow people to access it if they put in a password.

This is something that might come with your phone depending on the software you have. For example, phones from Infinix and Tecno both have a function called App Freezer. Check to see if you have an app lock function.

If you dont, then you can look for one on the Google Play Store. A good app to consider is simply called AppLock. Youll set up a screen pattern when you start up the app. Youll choose the apps that you want to lock. You can also make it so that you need to enter the pattern just to access the UI.

When you set a pattern for your apps, make sure to use a pattern thats different from your devices pattern.

Make sure that the person repairing your phone actually needs to access your UI

If the person repairing your phone asks for access to your UI, make sure that the repair job actually requires access. This is a good way to secure your Android phone. If youre getting your battery or your screen replaced, chances are that they dont need access. Make sure you keep an eye on that.
By Simon Hutagalung

The continuing separation between North and South Korea has made the Korean Peninsula a subject of global attention for several decades. The division at hand is a consequence of a multifaceted interplay of historical, geopolitical and ideological elements, originating from the period of the Cold War. The Korean Peninsula continues to be one of the few unsolved remnants of that historical era. This essay article endeavors to explore the complex matter of the resolution of the Korean Peninsula, examining its historical backdrop, the imperative for a regime change, the engagement of the Korean governments, the participation of significant states, and the crucial element of their eventual withdrawal. In light of these complexities, this essay argues that the Korean Peninsula, a Cold War-era issue, necessitates a unified government transition. Collaborative efforts from Korean governments and major countries are crucial. Major Powers should gradually reduce their influence to establish a sustainable peace state, ensuring a unified government.

The Korean Peninsula's partition into North and South Korea was a result of the Cold War, a geopolitical conflict that led to the global separation into two ideological factions, one led by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union (Kim). Korea, previously under Japanese colonial rule, played a significant role in the competition. After World War II, Korea was liberated in 1945, but the nation was partitioned at the 38th parallel, with the Soviet Union controlling the northern region and the United States controlling the southern region. This split laid the groundwork for the ongoing conflict (Matray). In 1948, distinct governing bodies emerged in North Korea and South Korea, with Kim Il-sung and Syngman Rhee leading the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea respectively. The Korean War from 1950 to 1953 further cemented this division, resulting in the peninsula's separation by a heavily fortified demilitarized zone (Eui Gak Hwang). Although the armistice in 1953 effectively ended hostilities, the two nations remained in a state of technical warfare. This historical backdrop set the stage for the divergence of the two regimes that continue to shape the Korean Peninsula today.

The issue concerning the Korean Peninsula may be traced back to the ideological schism between North and South Korea, wherein the North has adopted an authoritarian system while the South has embraced democracy and capitalism (Gills and Rocamora). The aforementioned division not only serves to sustain ongoing tensions but also poses a significant threat to the security and overall welfare of the Korean populace. To effectively handle the situation, both regimes must experience substantial transformation. Specifically, the North regime should undergo a regime change, while the South regime should demonstrate a firm commitment to democratic values and the protection of human rights. The realization of this vision necessitates the implementation of economic and social reforms.

Consequently, the future of the Korean Peninsula should be primarily determined by the South and North Korean governments. While external parties can facilitate negotiations and provide security assurances, the responsibility for determining their future lies with the Korean government. Inter-Korean dialogue and collaboration are crucial for a peaceful conclusion. Trust-building initiatives, economic collaboration, and interpersonal interactions can cultivate confidence and facilitate reunion (Husenicova). A unified Korean government should use shared cultural heritage to reconcile divisions and foster stability and prosperity for the entire Korean population.

Moreover, the Korean Peninsula conflict requires the involvement of key global powers like the United States, China, Japan, and Russia. The U.S., a key ally of South Korea, can offer security guarantees to both North and South Korea through diplomatic engagement and negotiations (Carson). China, a key economic partner of North Korea, has significant influence over the regime in Pyongyang and can support denuclearization and stability (Nanto and Manyin). It can also facilitate economic integration between North and South Korea. Japan and Russia, although less directly involved, have a vested interest in maintaining peace within the region. Resolving Japan's historical conflicts with both Koreas requires comprehensive attention, and Russia can play a constructive role by engaging in diplomatic channels and fostering regional cooperation (Blair and Hanley).

The Korean Peninsula resolution should involve the removal of major nations, particularly the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia to establish a unified Korea. Addressing security and diplomatic issues promptly and preventing outsider interference is crucial. The negotiated removal of foreign military forces is essential for long-term Korean sovereignty and stability. The Korean population should have the authority to determine their security arrangements without outside intervention.

For the long-term resolution of the conflict, the Korean Peninsula issue requires a comprehensive strategy, including inter-Korean engagement, confidence-building initiatives, and denuclearization (Kwak). This should involve global participation, ensuring disarmament, and providing North Korea with security assurances. Diplomatic pressure and support should be used to foster reform and improve human rights in North Korea while upholding South Korea's democratic institutions. Major countries should demonstrate commitment by offering security guarantees and economic incentives. Coordination is crucial when devising withdrawal strategies for large countries, especially their armed forces, to ensure a smooth transition and maintain regional security.

The Korean Peninsula issue, originating from the Cold War era, requires acknowledging past grievances, shifting governing regimes, promoting collaboration between North and South Korea, and active participation from global powers. The Korean people must have final authority to determine the peninsula's destiny, and a unified government requires major powers' withdrawal to protect sovereignty and promote peace. Despite challenges, the collective aspiration for reunification and active global involvement presents a promising prospect for resolution. This global issue is not only regional but also aimed at fostering peace and stability, requiring collaboration among all relevant parties.

Simon Hutagalung is a graduate of the City University of New York and received his master's degree in political science and comparative politics. He is presently working at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry. The opinion and views are his own not representing the view of CUNY or the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.
(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 27 - A Bologna appeals court on Wednesday upheld a life sentence for former NAR rightist terror group member Gilberto Cavallini for his part in the August 2, 1980 Bologna train station bombing that killed 85 people and injured 200.

Cavallini was again found guilty of helping convicted bombers Giuseppe Valerio (Giusva) Fioravanti, his girlfriend Francesca Mambro and Luigi Ciavardini, all NAR members.

The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing of the Central Station at Bologna on the morning of 2 August 1980, carried out by the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR, Armed Revolutionary Groups), which has always denied any involvement.

Other theories have been proposed, especially in correlation with the rightist 'strategy of tension' designed to keep the Italian Communist Party (PCI) out of power.

The bombing is the fourth deadliest terrestrial terrorist attack in Western Europe behind the Nice attack in July 2016, the Paris attacks in November 2015, and the Madrid train bombings in March 2004. (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 27 - Chiara Colosimo, the president of the Parliamentary Anti-mafia Commission, on Wednesday blasted the fact that a priest in a town near Naples had considered holding a Mass for the repose of the soul of late Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

Tommaso Izzo, the parish priest of the church of Maria SS Annunziata in Casalnuovo di Napoli, told ANSA that a member of his flock had asked him to hold the service and he initially agreed, only to change is mind of out "pastoral prudence" after the move sparked an outcry.

"I wish to strongly condemn what happened in the church in Casalnuovo di Napoli, where a mass was about to be celebrated in memory of Matteo Messina Denaro," Colosimo said via X.

"It was a horrific initiative that contrasts with the excommunication process the church has initiated for mafiosi and deserves the unconditional condemnation of all those who believe in the State.

"This warns us that we can never let our guard down when it comes to law and order and justice'.

Izzo subsequently apologized for what had happened via Facebook.

Three Benedictine nuns from a convent near L'Aquila, meanwhile, confirmed to Corriere.it that they went to the mortuary of the hospital where Messina Denaro died "to pray for him, despite everything" on Tuesday but were turned away by police. (ANSA).


A bus driver and a passer-by desperately tried to save a teenage girls life after she was stabbed to death on her way to school in south London.

The pair were seen trying to resuscitate the injured 15-year-old on the pavement in Wellesley Road in Croydon after horror unfolded in the morning rush hour on Wednesday.

A mother-of-two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain speaking at the scene of the fatal stabbing (Lucy North/PA)

The driver was holding her, and a lady.

The emergency services were already here when I walked back.

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victims friends, were trying to get back through the police cordon but were held back.

James Watkins, from Mainz World which runs prevention and intervention projects for children and young people, was with the girls family at the scene between 9am and 10am.

He said: They were devastated and I would say more importantly in shock, I dont think it feels real for them.

The girl who died was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School, a private girls school in Croydon.

The school released a statement that said: We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

Officers have made an arrest after a teenager was stabbed and sadly died this morning Ch Supt Brittain: Our immediate thoughts are with this young girls family who are facing the most tragic of news. My officers are with her family to support them."https://t.co/Jc26Dasspn  Croydon MPS (@MPSCroydon) September 27, 2023

It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girls family at this unimaginably distressing time.

Footage posted on social media showed several police cars and ambulance vehicles near a bus in Croydon on Wednesday morning.

A boy who knows the victim has been arrested, the Metropolitan Police said.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said: Our immediate thoughts are with this young girls family who are facing the most tragic of news. Our officers are with the girls family to support them.

I am in contact with the local community, who are clearly as concerned as we are about this tragic incident. I shall continue to update them throughout the day.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was absolutely heartbroken at the news of the girls death.

Emergency services at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed on Wednesday morning (Jordan Reynolds/PA)

Emergency services were called to Wellesley Road in Croydon at around 8.30am to reports that she had been stabbed.

Both the land and air ambulance attended but she was pronounced dead at the scene 50 minutes later.

Around an hour and 15 minutes after the stabbing police arrested a teenage boy in connection with the girls death.

Mr Brittain added: My officers were immediately on scene to provide first aid and support paramedics.

Acting on information provided to them, officers also worked closely with colleagues from across the Met and the British Transport Police to track a teenager in connection with the stabbing.

I can confirm that an arrest was made at about 9.45am in the Croydon area. At this early stage we believe that he may have known her.

A crime scene will be in place for some time, and I am grateful for the co-operation of residents.

I am absolutely heartbroken by the death of a 15-year-old girl in Croydon this morning. My thoughts and prayers are with this young girls family and friends and the whole community, at this unimaginably awful time. My full statement: pic.twitter.com/IM0vDels87  Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@MayorofLondon) September 27, 2023

A spokesman for London Ambulance Service confirmed that three ambulance crews, an incident response officer, an advanced paramedic in a car as well as the air ambulance were sent to the scene.

A large police cordon was put in place outside the Whitgift Centre, with a red double decker bus on route 60, three police vehicles and about a dozen officers behind the police tape.

A bunch of flowers had been placed directly next to a forensic tent within the cordon.

The attack is not believed to have happened on the bus.

Forensics officers and a dog handler were working at the scene as the police investigation continued.

Transport for London said bus routes 60, 407 and 455 were being diverted away from the area due to a police incident.

Witnesses or anyone with information can contact police on 101 quoting reference CAD 1601/27Sep, to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online.
A 157 million euro (136 million) haul of cocaine seized when an elite army unit stormed a cargo ship off the Irish coast is the largest drugs capture in the history of the state, police have said.

A total of 2,253 kg of cocaine was found on the Panamanian-registered vessel in a major joint agency operation off the south-east coast of Ireland on Tuesday.

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter on to the MV Matthew as it tried to sail out of Irish waters and evade capture.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Irish Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction after it failed to obey orders.

The vessel had been under surveillance since Friday when a multiagency operation responded to intelligence of a major international drug smuggling operation.

Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior member of the Irish police described the operation as hugely significant.

The MV Matthew is now moored at Marino Point in Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly said: I think its really important to note, this is the largest drug seizure in the history of the state.

This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

Given the scale of the haul, Irish authorities do not believe the cocaine was solely destined for Ireland.

They suspect the drugs were being transported from South America for distribution across Europe.

Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly said it was a hugely significant operation (Brian Lawless/PA)

The MV Matthew was escorted to Cork harbour on Tuesday.

A fishing trawler that grounded off the coast of Co Wicklow late on Sunday was also being monitored as part of the operation, amid suspicions it was en route to rendezvous with the cargo ship.

The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.

It will be treated as a crime scene when it is accessed, police said.

Three people, aged 60, 50 and 31, arrested during the course of the operation, remained in custody in police stations in Co Wexford on Wednesday.

It has emerged that one of those arrested was medically evacuated off the MV Matthew before the military operation to seize it.

About 25 remaining crew will be interviewed in Cork and police have said further arrests may follow.

The operation involved the Defence Forces, customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit.

Commander Tony Geraghty said there was an escalated use of force (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Kelly said the cocaine on the ship originated in South America.

This product was supplied by a South American cartel, one of the murderous cartels that are behind cocaine shipments into Europe, he said.

A shipment like this into Europe is partly destined for the Irish market.

Obviously, with the size and intelligence we have, we know the organised crime group behind this comprises of a number of different elements across Europe.

Asked if those on the cargo ship had tried to dispose of the cocaine by burning it or throwing it overboard, Mr Kelly said more information on this would be provided in the coming days.

He said such a large shipment would not have entered the states waters without the involvement of an Irish gang.

He said there are a number of gangs in Ireland with direct links to South America.

There is no large ship like this coming into our waters or our ports or transiting across our country, without an Irish organised criminal group involved in it.

Gerry Harrahill, director general Operation, Revenue and Customs (left), Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly, Garda Serious and Organised Crime (centre) and Tony Geraghty, Fleet Operations Commander Irish Naval Service (Brian Lawless/PA)

There is an increase in the amount of cocaine available for a number of geopolitical reasons in South America. There is basically a glut of cocaine on the market, he said.

And when you combine that with the increased consumption across Europe, Europe is now the biggest market for cocaine in the world.

So when you combine those two things together, absolutely, its inevitable that were going to see organised criminal groups trying to leverage on that, make more money from it, as they always do in situations like this.

Its inevitable that well see more large shipments.

He said increased large shipments had also been seen in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, explained why warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel before the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship, he said.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

The ship was escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy (Irish Defence Forces/PA)

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain.

Cdr Geraghty said it had been an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defence Forces headquarters.

He said the poor weather made the fast rope aerial boarding more complex.

He said there was no evidence of the crew being armed when the Army Rangers boarded and took control of the vessel.

This ship is very large, shes 190 metres long, with an exceptionally high freeboard. So very difficult to get on, he added.

He said a great deal of skill was demonstrated by the Army Ranger Wing and helicopter pilot during high winds.

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences (Niall Carson/PA)

Cdr Geraghty said the ship also altered course when the Army Rangers were initially trying to descend.

The Naval Service, the Air Corps and the Army Ranger Wing rehearse for these type of operations. The Air Corps pilots are really top notch guys, theyre highly trained, he said.

Whilst the environment is always dangerous  the weather yesterday was very bad  the operation was carried out in a successful manner.

Gerry Harrahill, director general of customs in Ireland, hailed the professionalism and the resilience of those involved in seizing the ship.

I had a personal opportunity last night down in Cork to meet with some of the teams involved, he said.

While they were tired and exhausted, I think there was a real sense of having done a really good job and delivered a really good outcome.
DPK should focus on peoples livelihood

President Yoon Suk Yeol may be popular in the U.S. and Japan, but he is not favored as much in Korea.

Yoons approval rating has rarely exceeded 40 percent since he took office nearly 17 months ago. And his social, economic and foreign policies have won the support of only some right-wingers and those with vested interests.

However, the conservative leader seldom appears to put the best interests of the nation before his own, acting as he pleases. Thats mainly because the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) gets an even lower popularity rating than Yoon and his rubberstamp ruling party. Pity the Korean voters.

At the center of the struggling DPK is its leader, Rep. Lee Jae-myung.

Lee, who lost to Yoon by a wafer-thin margin of 0.7 percent in the last election, has been exposed to judicial risk for nearly two years. He is accused of bribery, breach of trust, and other charges. The center-left politician pleads his innocence, saying the prosecutor-turned-president is trying to kill a political rival by using law enforcement officers.

Many voters suspect Yoon has political motivations persecuting Lee. Still, they dont feel much sympathy for Lee, thinking the opposition leader uses his party for personal purposes. A few days ago, Lee ended his 24-day hunger strike aimed at protesting against a prosecutorial dictatorship. Unlike the struggles of the 1980s to regain democracy from military dictators, the latest one failed to trigger much support for similar reasons.

On Wednesday, Lee staved off another prosecutorial attempt to detain him as a Seoul court rejected their arrest warrant. By avoiding a worst-case scenario, the opposition leader will hit back against the prosecution and strengthen his weakened party leadership. A new DPK floor leader elected the previous day also called for unity under Lee until they win next April's parliamentary elections. Lee might think he has surmounted the first big hurdle toward rechallenging the presidency.

As everybody knows, however, avoiding detention is different from acquittal. Lees legal battle will continue until he is cleared of all charges by the court  or until Yoons term ends.

The president has refused to meet Lee face to face, saying, Meeting with a suspect will influence legal proceedings. Yoons behavior is problematic less because the former prosecutor does not respect the presumption of innocence than because he stifles domestic politics by not recognizing his opposition counterpart. Yet, voters weary of partisan bickering rebuke both sides.

What Lee should do going forward is clear.

Above all, he must minimize his legal battle's effects on his party and the overall political scene. He must unite the DPK by embracing the non-Lee faction. If Lee yields to his fanatical followers in and outside the party to ferret out and punish about 30 rebels  those who voted to let prosecutors seek the arrest warrant  voters will turn away from the DPK. He must make his fight personal.

Lee has some things in common with Donald Trump. They are election losers and want a rematch. Both are involved in multiple trials but claim they are the victims of a political vendetta. However, unlike Trump, who is popular and may win, Lee has a long way to go to win over voters.

That adds a critical reason why Lee and his party must stop political bickering, both internal or external, and focus on substantive issues. The center-of-left party must show why it is an alternative to the far-right Yoon and his People Power Party (PPP). The opposition party must make Koreans feel safer and better-to-do by promising to resume inter-Korean dialogue amid balanced diplomacy, pursue better redistribution, and guarantee genuine, instead of ideological, freedom, including press freedom.

If Lee and the DPK remain mired in a personal, shortsighted power struggle, they will not win the next parliamentary polls six months later. Suppose they fail to put the nation and the people ahead of their party, let alone its leader. In that case, the opposition cannot rectify the incumbents wayward conduct of state affairs.

That will not end up as the progressive partys misfortune but rather that of the entire nation.
Developing Rosebank is the wrong decision while new oil and gas licences will slow down the energy transition, Scotlands First Minister has said.

Humza Yousaf expressed his opposition to the project after the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) announced it had given its consent for the largest untapped oil reserve in UK waters to be developed.

The UK Government said it supports the decision and wants hundreds of new licences to be awarded to producers of North Sea oil and gas.

(PA Graphics)

Doorstepped at the Scottish Parliament, Mr Yousaf told Bauer Media: What I would say is I think Rosebank is the wrong decision. The decision that has been made today it is not the right decision to be made.

Scotlands future, the north easts future, is as the net zero capital not just of Europe but of, I hope, the world.

And, of course, new oil and gas licences being given the go-ahead will slow the pace of that transition down.

I want to accelerate that transition and take the workers with us.

The decision made today is not the right decision@HumzaYousaf says the UK Government is wrong to approve the Rosebank oil field off Shetland The First Minister believes itll slow down the transition to net-zero pic.twitter.com/l3ewgSW9qN  Alan Smith (@Political_AlanS) September 27, 2023

The UK Government said Rosebank will provide more jobs and reduce the need to import fuel from hostile countries such as Russia.

Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Claire Coutinho said it makes sense to use our own supplies of North Sea oil and gas, although any fuel extracted from Rosebank will mostly belong to Equinor, whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian state.

As the majority of this fuel is expected to be sold internationally, many researchers, campaigners and opposition MPs have questioned whether adding a significant amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is worth any economic and security gains.

Ms Coutinho said: The jobs and billions of pounds this is worth to our economy will enable us to have greater energy independence, making us more secure against tyrants like (Vladimir) Putin.

We will not play politics with our energy security. Even the independent Climate Change Committee has said that in 2050, we will need oil and gas for a quarter of our energy.  Claire Coutinho MP (@ClaireCoutinho) September 27, 2023

We will continue to back the UKs oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.

Rosebanks owners say its development will create 1,600 jobs during the peak of its construction and 450 over the long term, while producing 6.3 billion that could be invested in UK businesses.

The oil and gas industry currently supports tens of thousands of jobs in Scotland and Rosebank has been the centre of a debate around how fast North Sea rigs should be shut down, if at all.

Labours policy of stopping the approval of new licences was criticised by the leader of the GMB union who called the policy naive, while the Scottish Government has been reluctant to take a strong opposing view until today.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said at Cop27 last year that it was important to move away from fossil fuels, but did not take a stand on Rosebank specifically.

BREAKING  #Rosebank oilfield just given go-ahead  the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime, causing emissions equal to 28 lowest income countries, busting #climate targets & doing nothing for energy security since vast majority is for export #climatecriminals  Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) September 27, 2023

After the NSTA announcement she wrote on social media that she agrees with Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who described the decision to give consent to Rosebank as the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime.

Ms Sturgeon said: Agree with @CarolineLucas. Also, by consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, it risks slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it.

Thats not in interests of those who work in oil & gas  they need that transition to happen at pace.

The Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK Government on how to reach net zero, said many jobs will also be created by replacing oil and gas with renewable power.

The International Energy Agency said that globally, replacing fossil fuels with renewables and going net zero by 2050 would save the world economy 12 trillion dollars (9.8 trillion).
Girl fatally stabbed on way to school was very comedic with bright future

Tributes have been paid to a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death on her way to school in south London, with the teenager described as very comedic and with a bright future.

The much-loved girl died after being stabbed in the neck with a foot-long knife during the Wednesday morning rush hour in Croydon, a witness said.

A 17-year-old boy who knew the victim has been arrested over the attack which took place in Wellesley Road at around 8.30am.

Flowers and cards have been left near the scene and the girls school paid tribute to its valued friend and pupil.

Anthony King, chairman of My Ends  a project helping combat youth violence in Croydon  was with the girls family after the incident and said they were heartbroken.

She had a bright future ahead of her, he said. She was in her GCSE year.

He described the girl as an absolutely incredible young lady and told of how others said she was jovial, very comedic.

Floral tributes at the scene in Croydon (Lucy North/PA)

One of the cards left near to where the attack took place read: Sorry we live in this crazy world this makes no sense.

Fly high up there my mummy will look after you. RIP beautiful, forever young, taken too soon.

Thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends, God bless.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley visited the scene and said: The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

It was moving and humbling to meet many members of the exceptional Croydon community who have come together in support of a family now dealing with the most unimaginable grief.

Emergency services at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London (Jordan Reynolds/PA)

Mr King said the arrested boy had been known to local community groups for the past couple of years.

The girl was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School, a private girls school in Croydon.

The school released a statement that said: We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girls family at this unimaginably distressing time.

The girl was a pupil of The Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon (PA)

Security worker Victor Asare told the PA news agency that blood ran like water and members of the public rushed to help after the girl was attacked.

Mr Asare said: The blood was coming like water. A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus.

(The suspect) ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. Its somebodys daughter.

I finished work but couldnt sleep, so came back, I wanted to see if the girl was OK.

Mr Asare said the girl, who was wearing a green school blazer, looked as if she didnt want the boy to come closer before she was stabbed in the neck with a knife that was black, thin and about a foot long.

Emergency services were called to Wellesley Road at around 8.30am but the girl was pronounced dead at the scene 50 minutes later.

Forensic investigators at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre (Lucy North/PA)

A bus driver and a passer-by were seen desperately trying to save the girl before emergency services arrived, with police at the scene within two minutes.

A mother of two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victims friends, were trying to get through the police cordon but were held back.

James Watkins, from Mainz World  which runs prevention and intervention projects for children and young people, was with the girls family at the scene between 9am and 10am.

He said: They were devastated and I would say more importantly in shock, I dont think it feels real for them.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain speaking at the scene of the fatal stabbing (Lucy North/PA)

A red double decker bus on route 60, three police vehicles and about a dozen officers, as well as a forensics tent, could be seen in the taped off area outside the Whitgift Centre.

Met Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said: This is every parents worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victims death.

This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

The victims family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was absolutely heartbroken at the news of the girls death.

Witnesses or anyone with information can contact police on 101 quoting reference CAD 1601/27Sep, and to remain anonymous can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online.
British filmmaker Ken Loach has voiced strong criticism of Sir Keir Starmer and Labours handling of disputes, especially those related to allegations of antisemitism.

A staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, Loach rejoined the Labour Party in 2017 but faced expulsion in 2021 during the partys antisemitism crackdown.

He has consistently challenged such allegations, hinting at political motivations aimed at destabilising the leadership of the former Labour leader.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4s World At One programme to discuss his new film The Old Oak, Loach expressed his profound lack of confidence in Sir Keir, suggesting he often backtracks on his statements.

He also claimed Jewish members of the Labour Party are four times more likely to be expelled than non-Jewish members.

Asked about Labours position on migration, given his new film is a story of two traumatised communities thrown together when a group of Syrian refugees is housed in a neglected former mining village in the north east of England, he said: I have no confidence in Sir Keir Starmer whatsoever.

Everything he says he rejects a few months later. I dont believe a word the man says. And I dont think people should either.

They moved so that they are one millimetre closer to the centre than the Tories. I have no trust in Starmer personally or the clique he represents.

On whether his criticism of Sir Keir stems from the fact that in your own words, you said you were kicked out of the party, the director and screenwriter, 87, replied: It was like an abusive relationship, to be honest.

I mean, the Labour Party is  its whole processes of dealing with disagreements is very flawed. I mean, its something I think BBC News should examine more closely.

The fact that now, I think, Jewish members of the Labour Party are four times more likely to be expelled than non-Jewish members.

The interview with BBC presenter Sarah Montague then took a particularly heated turn when she told him the Campaign Against Antisemitism complained to the BBC about their involvement in one of his other films because of his appalling views on antisemitism.

In response, Loach accused the public broadcaster of diverting serious conversations into fraudulent campaigns aimed at discrediting interviewees.

Ken Loach criticised Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (James Manning/PA)

He said: Have you got any evidence for that?

Because otherwise, if you have no evidence, I think you should withdraw it. Youre now purveying another misleading, insulting misrepresentation.

He went on: I think the way you and the BBC constantly divert serious conversations into this fraudulent campaign in order to discredit people that you choose to interview on another premise, I think thats disgraceful.

Ms Montague told listeners the exchange on whether the BBC should have asked him about allegations of antisemitism was much, much longer, but as it involved a lot of heat, but not much light, we edited it down.

She added: We also asked Labour if Mr Loach was right when he says that Jewish Labour members are four times more likely to be expelled from the party than non-Jewish members.

A spokesperson came back from Labour saying the implication of deliberate targeting made by Mr Loach is completely false and not based in reality. Indeed, it isnt even clear from this quote on what statistically reliable basis Mr Loach is attempting to justify such a claim.

The Labour Party has been approached for comment.
A man has been arrested in Dover following the death of a woman believed to have died attempting to cross the English Channel.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said a 21-year-old Sudanese national was arrested on suspicion of illegal entry and facilitating illegal immigration, in Dover, on Wednesday.

It comes after a woman was found dead on a beach near Calais on Tuesday.

The womans death is being investigated by French police, supported by the NCA and Kent Police.

The man arrested by NCA officers is suspected of piloting a boat which entered UK waters on Tuesday.

NCA deputy director Craig Turner said: This incident demonstrates the danger posed to those making these crossings.

Targeting the criminal networks involved is a priority for the NCA, and we are working with French partners to identify those responsible for this tragic death.
Storm Agnes has hit the UK with gale force winds, floods and power outages after battering Ireland.

The first named storm of the season drummed up a high of 79mph winds in Capel Curig, a village in Wales, on Wednesday evening.

Elsewhere, winds were recorded reaching speeds of 68mph in Aberdaron, Wales, 58mph in Glenanne, Northern Ireland, and 54mph in Camborne, Cornwall.

Agnes triggered a series of Met Office yellow weather warnings for wind and rain across the UK, with forecasts of damaging winds and big stormy seas.

The UK has experienced flooding, travel disruption and power outages.

A woman had to be rescued from her car in Co Londonderry, Northern Ireland, after it was trapped by floodwater.

An easyJet plane was unable to land in Belfast on Wednesday afternoon and the airline told the Belfast Telegraph that the difficulty was due to winds gusting outside the limits of the aircraft.

Around 135 properties on the Isles of Scilly, in the south-west of England, experienced power outages for just under four hours earlier on Wednesday, according to National Grid.

Waves hit rocks in Dublin (PA)

But the Met Office said the main impact on the UK has been strong winds.

Meteorologist Dan Stroud told the PA news agency that gusts are starting to ease in England and Wales.

He said: Its an improving picture across England and Wales but theres still some very strong gusts actually further north across Northern Ireland and Scotland.

But were expecting the peak of the wind gusts in Storm Agnes to gradually ease during the overnight period.

Ireland, where Agnes first made landfall, saw flooding and travel disruption, with fallen trees blocking roads and flights and ferries also being affected.

A roof was blown off a building in Co Cork.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) had warned of dangerous conditions on the coasts.

Clifden and Achill Island RNLI braved the storm to rescue a lone sailor in a vessel located 10 miles west of Clare Island.

Cars pass waves crashing over a wall into the road in Youghal, Co Cork (PA)

The rescue organisation said in a statement: Sea conditions at the time were very difficult and the lifeboat crews faced four meter swells, driving rain and Force 8 winds out at sea.

Alerts triggered by Storm Agnes included a wind warning until 7am on Thursday, which was cancelled early on Thursday morning.

The warning stretched across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as the south-west of England, the West Midlands and most of the north of England.

There were also rain warnings for much of Scotland until Thursday at 3am.
Veteran MSP Fergus Ewing has been suspended from the SNPs parliamentary group at Holyrood for a week.

The Inverness and Nairn MSP  son of the late SNP trailblazer Winnie Ewing  has been an outspoken critic of the partys leadership in the past year.

The former rural affairs secretary has publicly objected to a number of policies, most notably plans for highly protected marine areas (HPMAs), the deposit return scheme and the Scottish Governments deal with the Scottish Greens.

Former leadership contender Kate Forbes stood by Mr Ewing as he spoke to the press after the vote (Paul Campbell/PA)

Before summer recess, Mr Ewing voted with the opposition in favour of a motion of no confidence in Green co-leader and Government minister Lorna Slater.

On Wednesday evening, 48 of his colleagues  not including First Minister Humza Yousaf who returned home due to illness before the vote  backed the one-week suspension, which will see the MSP sit as an independent for the duration.

Nine of his colleagues voted against the sanction and four abstained.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was also not present for the vote because she was elsewhere in parliament hosting an event.

Flanked by his sister and fellow SNP MSP Annabelle Ewing, former party leadership contender Kate Forbes and MSP Christine Grahame, as well as his lawyer John Campbell KC, Mr Ewing said: I bit my tongue when I didnt agree with certain policies the party was was promoting.

I did so because I thought fundamentally that the party that has been such a big party of my life was fundamentally proceeding in the right way for Scotland  standing up for Scotland.

The SNP is not an ordinary party  we are a party that has always put Scotland first, and that means to me, putting the interests of the people of Scotland first.

But in good conscience, and it grieves me to say this, I dont believe that is any longer the case.

Asked how he would conduct himself in the future, Mr Ewing said: What am I to do now?

Am I to pretend that the promises to provide the Highlands with safe roads were never made and can be ignored?

Or am I to proceed as I have done, and speak out fearlessly on these matters, as Ive done and apply the same pressure, which I did along with others, which has already junked the deposit return scheme and the HPMAs?

I choose to defend my constituents interests and let the cards fall where they may.

Mr Ewing has traded barbs with the Scottish Greens in recent months, describing the party as wine bar revolutionaries and hard left extremists, as well as calling the atmosphere within the SNP group toxic.

The decision to suspend Mr Ewing will not impact the Scottish Governments ability to pass legislation, with the Greens providing more than enough votes for a majority in his absence.

A spokesperson for the SNP said: At a meeting this evening, a proposal was carried to suspend Fergus Ewing from the SNP Holyrood Group for a period of one week.

Mr Ewing has been given 14 days to appeal the decision.
Weather warnings will come into force as the UK and Ireland brace for the arrival of Storm Agnes, which will bring damaging winds and big stormy seas.

The first named storm of the season is due to make landfall on the west coast of Ireland on Wednesday before its strong winds hit the UK closer to midday.

A string of Met office alerts will activate, with a yellow wind weather warning from midday on Wednesday to 7am on Thursday stretching across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as the south-west of England, the West Midlands and most of the north of England , and two yellow rain warnings covering areas of Scotland from 3pm on Wednesday to midnight.

(PA Graphics)

Storm Agnes, which was described as intensifying quickly in the Atlantic during Tuesday evening, is expected to generate winds of up to 75mph and cause dangerous conditions along coastlines, especially Irish Sea coastlines.

Its main impact will be strong winds and large waves.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan told the PA news agency: We are likely to potentially see some damaging winds, the possibility of some brief power interruptions, particularly in Irish sea coastal areas.

So Northern Ireland, north-west England, west Wales, and south-west Scotland, thats where well probably see gusts of up to 75mph (Wednesday) afternoon, (Wednesday) evening, thats when the peak of the winds will be and then Storm Agnes will move across Scotland clearing away from Shetland through Thursday morning.

 As well as strong winds, #StormAgnes will also bring very rough seas and large waves, especially through the Irish Sea  With high spring tides, some coastal areas are at risk of flooding and some ferry services may be disrupted pic.twitter.com/EJm2eUpa1F  Met Office (@metoffice) September 26, 2023

He added: In addition to the winds, theres going to be some large waves as well, so some big stormy seas, and therefore there might well be some coastal flooding where the waves break on to promenades and on to coastal roads.

The storm is likely to cause dangerous conditions on the coasts around the UK and Ireland, according to The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

They advised staying a safe distance away from the water and cliff edges to avoid being knocked over or washed into the sea.

RNLI water safety partner Sam Hughes said: It is not worth risking your life.

Surfers make the most of the conditions at Sandy Bay in Porthcawl, Wales (Joe Giddens/PA)

If you see someone else in danger in the water, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard. If you have something that floats that they can hold on to, throw it to them. Dont go in the water yourself  you may end up in difficulty too.

Disruption to ferry services across the Irish Sea, bridge closures, power cuts and small amounts of damage to buildings are also expected.

Storm Agnes will be more widespread than the last named storm to hit the UK, Storm Betty, but it will not produce significant widespread and long lasting travel disruption, it is understood.

On Thursday, most parts of the UK will be poised for a much calmer forecast and further spells of wet and breezy weather should peter out by the end of the week for a drier weekend.
Forecasters have warned the worst conditions are still to come, with Storm Agnes set to make landfall in the UK after battering the south of Ireland with gale force winds.

Agnes, the first named storm of the season, has triggered a series of Met Office yellow weather warnings for wind and rain, with forecasts of damaging winds and big stormy seas.

Gusts of up to 70mph had already been recorded in south-west Ireland, with the storm set to hit areas of northern England and Scotland later on Wednesday.

Met Office meteorologist Marco Petagna said: This evenings rush hour could be quite tricky in some north and north-western areas of the UK, as it is expected to coincide with expected periods of strong wind and rain.

Waves crash over a wall in Youghal, Co Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

He added: Some of the worst conditions are still to come. The rain warnings are out to cover through the evening and the wind warnings are into the overnight period.

We are looking at high gusts developing.

Gusts of 53mph were recorded in the Isles of Scilly on Wednesday and well into the 40mph (zone) across parts of Cornwall and parts of Wales, but the winds are picking up, Mr Petagna said.

He said there is a contrast in the South East as it is escaping all this and has seen some bright weather.

The alerts include a wind warning until 7am on Thursday stretching across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as the south-west of England, the West Midlands and most of the north of England.

There are also rain warnings for much of Scotland through to Thursday at 3am.

 Yellow weather warning UPDATED  #StormAgnes is expected to bring strong winds across a large part of the UK Today 1200  Thursday 0700 Latest info  https://t.co/QwDLMfRBfs Stay #WeatherAware pic.twitter.com/yQ59zaWm47  Met Office (@metoffice) September 27, 2023

Just after midday on Wednesday the Met Office tweeted: Gusts of 65-70 mph have already been recorded in southwest Ireland.

Strong winds are expected to affect much of the UK as the storm tracks northeastwards this afternoon.

The roof of a building in Youghal, Co Cork, was blown off.

A yellow rain warning for parts of Northern Ireland, which runs to Wednesday at 8pm, says: Some areas will see 20-30 mm of rain within a few hours as the storm pushes northeast across the country, whilst some parts of the Mournes and Sperrins may catch up to around 40-50 mm.

Leaf fall and other debris from strong winds may block some drains, leading to an increased risk of flooding in a few spots.

Several regions have been alerted to strong winds in a yellow warning that runs to Thursday at 7am.

A roof blew off a building in Youghal, Co Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

Injuries and danger to life from flying debris are possible, along with a small chance of such risks from large waves and beach material being thrown on to sea fronts, coastal roads and properties, the forecaster says.

Storm Agnes will bring a spell of strong and potentially disruptive winds through Wednesday afternoon into early Thursday, after approaching southwest Ireland early on Wednesday and then tracking northeast across Northern Ireland and Scotland before clearing on Thursday.

The Met Office said: Whilst there is still some uncertainty in the exact track and depth of Agnes, gusts of 45-55 mph are expected widely inland and 50-60 mph over hills and around coasts.

The strongest winds are expected to affect eastern parts of Northern Ireland, southwest Scotland, west and northwest Wales, Cumbria and Lancashire where some inland locations may see gusts of 50 to 60 mph, and perhaps 65-75 mph over hills and around some coasts.

The strongest gusts are most likely during the second half of Wednesday afternoon and through the evening.

#StormAgnes is set to hit the UK and Ireland this week. If youre at the coast, stay back from stormy seas and cliff edges, check the weather forecast and tide times and take a phone with you. If you see someone in danger in the water, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard. pic.twitter.com/qOk2mGkZLR  RNLI (@RNLI) September 27, 2023

The storm is likely to cause dangerous conditions on the coasts around the UK and Ireland, according to The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

They advised staying a safe distance away from the water and cliff edges.

Humber Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Commander Bev Allen said: The first few storms of the autumn and winter are always a little frightening for us, as people are still in summer mode, the power of the waves can take them by surprise.

We would encourage people to stay away from the waters edge in stormy weather  its not worth risking your life for that selfie. Keep off groynes, piers, jetties and harbour walls. If you can feel the spray, youre too close.

On the weather from Thursday, Mr Petagna said: The weather will stay unsettled for the next few days but we are not expecting it to be as impactful.
A Virginia man was arrested over the weekend after police said he was making threats and was close to carrying out a "potential threat of violence."

Police coordinating from three counties in northern Virginia arrested 35-year-old Rui Jiang on Sunday in connection with a threat to a church in Haymarket, Virginia, a small town about 37 miles west of Washington, D.C. According to police, Jiang was reported after he had been posting "vague threats of violence" on Instagram, including images of the church.

Police eventually tracked Jiang's car to the church's parking lot. Around the same time, police said church staff were monitoring a "suspicious person" that was determined to be Jiang, who had previously been inside the church.

A Prince William County off duty officer and the church staff were able to detain Jiang. Church services were going on at the time, and no injuries were reported.

State trooper arrest: State trooper indicted, accused of 'brutally beating' 15-year-old who played ding dong ditch prank

According to police, Jiang had a loaded handgun and additional magazine, a folding knife and a folding "credit card" style knife. He had a concealed weapons permit, and the firearm was not reported stolen.

Jiang was arrested and charged with treats of bodily harm and carrying dangerous weapons to a place of religious worship. His court date is pending, and he is being held without bond.

Terrorism watchlist allegations: Federal terrorism watchlist is illegal, unfairly targets Muslims, lawsuit says

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Armed man threatening attack on Virginia church arrested, police say
Sen. Bob Menendez, charged last week with secretly aiding the Egyptian government in exchange for bribes, single-handedly blocked passage of bipartisan legislation in 2020 that would have strengthened the law regulating foreign influence and lobbying in Washington, Senate records show.

The proposed Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act grew out of widespread concerns that the current law regulating foreign lobbying had seldom been enforced and that foreign influence campaigns had infiltrated American politics. Strengthening the law had drawn support from Democrats and Republicans on key committees.

In December 2020, after a Republican senator asked for unanimous consent to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, Menendez, D-N.J., stood and objected. He argued that while enforcement of foreign lobbying rules needed to be strengthened, more thought needed to be put into exactly how to do it.

It seems shortsighted to provide additional enforcement tools before we have figured out what that regime should look like, Menendez said on the Senate floor. The disturbing rise of foreign influence campaigns that use a variety of measures to mask who is the ultimate source or beneficiary should serve as an alarm bell for all of us."

He added, "So, before this body passes any tweaks or new tools and adds to the current patchwork of FARA regulations and exemptions, I think we should take a step back and take a comprehensive look, and we have not done that.

Two congressional aides said it was clear that Menendez was objecting for himself, not for another senator. They also said the bill had significant support from key Democrats, including Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, then the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

After this article was published, a spokesperson told NBC News that Menendez objected to the bill on the recommendation of staff members, in part because it had not been through a review by the Foreign Relations Committee.

A partially redacted email obtained by NBC News supports that account but also expresses concern that the Rs will seek to weaponize the bill against President Joe Biden  presumably a reference to his son Hunter Bidens foreign business dealings, which Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had investigated. The email did not explain why other Senate Democrats who supported the bill apparently did not share that concern.

Three years later, the act has not been updated. At the time Menendez blocked it, senators said it was a huge missed opportunity.

Grassley, who had asked for the unanimous consent, noted that the bill had drawn support from a bipartisan group of senators, and he appeared surprised that Menendez had objected.

It took a lot of work to put together the bill that I asked unanimous consent on, Grassley said then. To work out the differences with several different approaches, and I thought that we had taken everything into consideration, particularly bringing together people from the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee.

The existing Foreign Agents Registration Act, which was enacted in 1938 and last updated in 1966, requires agents of foreign entities to register with the Justice Department and file detailed public disclosures detailing their lobbying and influence campaigns. Failure to register is a crime, but prosecutions have been rare.

According to a detailed analysis of the text by a law firm, the bill Menendez blocked would have:

Increased the criminal penalties for willful violations and material misstatements to $200,000 from $10,000.

Created a new criminal offense for meeting with a member of Congress or staff members without disclosing that a person is a registered foreign agent.

Required the Justice Department to develop a comprehensive strategy to enforce FARA, including examining all of its registration exemptions. The bill also would have required various reviews by the departments inspector general, reports by the attorney general and audits by the Government Accountability Office.

Give the attorney general the authority to issue civil investigative demands to require the production of documents.

NBC News reported Tuesday that in addition to the criminal allegations, the FBI is conducting a counterintelligence investigation into whether Egyptian intelligence agencies were involved in efforts to influence Menendez, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, which supervised billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt. Investigators want to know whether Egyptian intelligence officials or their associates tried to gain access to Menendez through his wife, Nadine, sources familiar with the matter said.

Menendez and his wife pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York City on Wednesday to a three-count indictment alleging they were part of a bribery scheme. Among the allegations were that the senator accepted bribes from an Egyptian American businessman with ties to the Egyptian government. The indictment says Menendez passed on sensitive U.S. government information to Egyptian officials.
Former President Donald Trump submitted "fraudulent valuations" for assets that were then used by himself, his eldest sons and his business to obtain better loan and insurance terms, a judge in New York decided Tuesday before ordering the cancelation of the company's business certificates in New York.

The judge's determination came as he granted partial summary judgment in New York Attorney General Letitia James' multimillion-dollar civil fraud lawsuit.

Judge Arthur Engoron cites "false and misleading square footage" of Trump's Fifth Avenue apartment among other faulty valuations.

MORE: 'You were warned': Judge reprimands Trump's lawyers in New York AG's $250M fraud case

The judge immediately canceled all of the defendants' business certificates in New York, and ordered that they must recommend no more than three potential independent receivers to manage the dissolution of the canceled LLCs within 10 days.

The move severely restricts Trump's ability to conduct business in New York going forward.

The judge said Trump and the other defendants have a "propensity to engage in persistent fraud," severely undercutting the defense Trump will offer when the case goes on trial next month.

Engoron wrote in his order that Trump, his adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and the other defendants fraudulently inflated the value of properties including Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida and his own triplex apartment in New York City, as well as 40 Wall Street, Trump Park Avenue, multiple golf courses, and an estate in upstate New York.

PHOTO: In this June 24, 2023, file photo, Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at an event in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, FILE)

Eric Trump, who runs the Trump Organization's day-to-day operations, responded on X, previously known as Twitter, saying, "Today, I lost all faith in the New York legal system. Never before have I seen such hatred toward one person by a judge."

"We have run an exceptional company -- never missing a loan payment, making banks hundreds of millions of dollars, developing some of the most iconic assets in the world. Yet today, the persecution of our family continues..." he said.

Donald Trump, also on X, reposted a previous post in which he said, "THE BANKS WERE PAID BACK IN FULL, SOMETIMES EARLY, THERE WERE NO DEFAULTS, THE BANKS MADE MONEY, WERE REPRESENTED BY THE BEST LAW FIRMS, & WERE VERY 'HAPPY.' THERE WERE NO VICTIMS!"

In a statement to ABC News, Trump attorney Alina Habba said they intend to "immediately" appeal the decision, calling the Trump Organization "an American success story."

James, in a statement, said, "Today, a judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in years of financial fraud. We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial."

Trial is currently scheduled to begin Oct. 2, although upcoming rulings may alter that schedule. Among other determinations, the trial will decide how much Trump will have to pay in penalties.

MORE: Judge says New York AG's $250M lawsuit against Trump will proceed without delay

In his ruling Tuesday, Engoron said Trump inflated the value of his own Trump Tower residence between $114 million and $207 million -- including claiming the property was triple its actual size in square feet.

"A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud," Engoron said in his order.

Engoron also found that Trump inflated the value of his Mar-a-Lago club by at least 2,300%, claiming the property assessed by the county between $18 million and $27.6 million was actually worth between $426,529,614 and $612,110,496.

In total, Engoron wrote that the New York attorney general "submitted conclusive evidence" that the defendants overvalued their assets between $812 million and $2.2 billion.

In his 35-page order, the judge described the conduct of the defendants in the case as belonging in a "fantasy world," and sharply criticized what he called the "bogus arguments" made by the defense.

MORE: 'You were warned': Judge reprimands Trump's lawyers in New York AG's $250M fraud case

"In defendants' world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party's lies..." Engoron wrote, citing multiple arguments made by defense to justify the allegedly inflated valuations of Trump's assets. "That is a fantasy world, not the real world."

Engoron also appeared to use the words of former President Trump against him, citing a transcript from a deposition of Trump about the inclusion of so-called "worthless clauses," disclaimers included in financial statements which defense has argued insulate the defendants from liability.

"However, defendants' reliance on these 'worthless' disclaimers is worthless," Engoron wrote, rejecting a frequent argument cited by the defense.

Engoron similarly disagreed with the defense's argument that property values were "subjective" and therefore could not be fraudulent.

"The defenses Donald Trump attempts to articulate in his sworn deposition are wholly without basis in law or fact," Engoron wrote, saying that the documents presented to the court "clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business."

Engoron also sanctioned Donald Trump's lawyers for peddling "bogus arguments," ordering five attorneys to pay $7,500 each. Christopher Kise, Michael Madaio, Clifford S. Robert, Michael Farina and Armen Morian were each ordered to pay within 30 days.

A lawyer for the New York attorney general's office had earlier described "staggering" misrepresentations about the value of Trump's properties and assets, arguing that Trump engaged in a prolonged "bait-and-switch" to lower his tax burden while inflating his assets to obtain favorable loan terms.

ABC News' Olivia Rubin and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.

Judge rules Trump engaged in repeated fraud, effectively deciding central question in $250M civil trial originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
(Reuters) - Private Travis King, the U.S. soldier who ran into North Korea in July, is in U.S. custody after North Korea expelled him into China, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, following rare diplomatic cooperation between the U.S., North Korea and China.

U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea rarely try to desert or defect to the authoritarian North, but here are some cases that have occurred since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty:

- Joseph T. White shot off the lock on a gate leading into the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the Koreas while a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea in 1982, before surrendering to North Korean troops, according to an account published by the Korea Times.

The North claimed he had defected, though Pyongyang refused a request by the United Nations Command to meet him. A U.S. military spokesman later said an investigation indicated that White crossed into North Korea of his own free will. In a video released by the North, White denounced the United States and praised North Korea and its then leader Kim Il-Sung.

White's parents later received a handwritten letter believed to be from their son, in which he said he was working as a teacher and happy in the North, the Washington Post reported. White drowned in a swimming accident in the North in 1985, according to a media report, citing information received by his parents.

- Charles Robert Jenkins walked into North Korea when on patrol on the DMZ in 1965. He later expressed regret for fleeing and explained at his court marital that his motive was to avoid hazardous duty in South Korea and combat in Vietnam. Jenkins said he had drunk 10 beers before the incident.

During his near four decades in the North, he taught English and also portrayed a U.S. spy in a propaganda film. Jenkins married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman abducted by Pyongyang. Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002 and Jenkins joined her with their two daughters in 2004. Jenkins died in 2017.

- James Joseph Dresnok was a 21-year old U.S. army private stationed in South Korea in 1962 when he fled to the North. Facing a court martial for skipping duty, Dresnok describes in a film about his life how he bolted across the DMZ, through a minefield.

Dresnok and three fellow American military defectors including Jenkins, Jerry Wayne Parrish and Larry Allen Abshier lived in relative isolation for years before becoming stars of North Korean cinema by depicting evil Americans in propaganda movies promoted by then leader Kim Jong-Il. Reports, citing Dresnok's sons, say he died in Pyongyang in 2016.

(Reporting by Josh Smith, David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
The family of a 19-year-old woman found dead in the woods near her Orlando, Florida, apartment is suing the Orange County sheriffs office and two deputies for negligence and civil rights violations over their handling of the 2021 case, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

Miya Marcano, a Valencia College student who went missing from her apartment in the Arden Villas complex on September 24, 2021, was found dead in a wooded area on October 2. Her hands and feet were bound and her mouth covered in tape, officials said.

Marcanos parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the apartment complex and its management partner, the Preiss Company, with all sides settling out of court last month for an undisclosed amount, court records show.

Now, two years after her death, attorneys for the Marcano family have filed a lawsuit in the Orange County Ninth Judicial Circuit Court alleging the sheriffs office and two of its deputies had enough evidence to save Marcanos life or lead to her discovery sooner.

According to the lawsuit, deputy Samir Paulino, the first deputy to respond to Marcanos apartment for a welfare check, failed to treat the apartment as a crime scene despite obvious warning signs that a crime had been committed.

In the initial welfare check, Deputy Paulino did not inform anyone about the evidence of a potential crime he observed inside of Miyas apartment, the complaint stated.

Paulino had sufficient evidence that could have led to the discovery of Miya much sooner, but the case was not a priority, said the complaint.

Evidence that was allegedly ignored during the investigation included blood on a pillow and several pieces of broken jewelry, according to the lawsuit, which also alleges Paulino failed to ask to search the vehicle of Armando Caballero  a maintenance man at the complex who Orange County Sheriff John Mina later said investigators pretty conclusively believed was responsible for Marcanos death.

Authorities believe Caballero, who was found dead from an apparent suicide on September 27, 2021, had accessed Marcanos apartment without her permission. His estate was named as a defendant in the earlier wrongful death lawsuit.

Marcanos father contacted the sheriffs office to lodge a complaint because of Paulinos failure to treat Miyas disappearance with a sense of urgency, the complaint stated.

Paulino allegedly shared what he learned with his supervisor, Cpl. Kenneth Dale, and the two discussed the case over the phone, according to the lawsuit.

But neither shared extremely critical information about Caballero, whod had a heated exchange with family members at the scene, with anyone before completing their shifts, the lawsuit stated.

Meanwhile, Dale testified he was not aware of any information regarding a bedroom window or blood on the scene and the furniture up against the door was not accurately portrayed to him.

The day after the 19-year-old went missing, Paulino returned to the Arden Villas to meet with Jacolby Coleman, a security guard at the apartment complex.

Coleman also advised Deputy Paulino that he had lifted fingerprints from the scene using tape and attempted to provide the evidence to Paulino but Deputy Paulino, with a smirk on his face, told Mr. Coleman to keep the evidence in case it would be needed later, the lawsuit stated.

According to the complaint, discrimination against missing women was a motivating factor in the refusal to properly investigate.

The sheriffs office has a policy, practice, or custom of law enforcement that provides less protection.to missing female victims than to victims of other assaults, by not responding or purposefully delaying its response, the lawsuit states.

A sheriffs office spokesperson declined CNNs request for a statement, citing the agencys policy not to comment on pending litigation.

CNN has reached out to the deputies named and the police union for comment on the lawsuit but has not yet heard back.

Last year, both deputies were disciplined in connection with this case for violating department policies, according to CNN affiliate WESH.

Paulino received a 150-hour unpaid suspension for unsatisfactory performance, while Dale received a 10-hour unpaid suspension as discipline, according to WESH.

In a statement following the suspensions, Mina said, Managers in the responding deputys chain of command recognized a lack of urgency on his part, and asked that his role  and the role of his Corporal  in the first hours of that incident be investigated by our Professional Standards division.

That deputy was sustained for Unsatisfactory Performance and the discipline was harsh. As a result of this incident, we are in the process of making changes to policy that will direct first-responding patrol deputies to immediately notify their supervisors, and the Missing Persons Unit, in any case in which someone is considered a Missing Endangered Person.

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A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Texas law that LGBTQ advocates feared would ban drag shows in the state and imprison performers.

The law, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed in June, expanded existing state law to prevent children from exposure to sexually explicit performances. While the legislation, Senate Bill 12, does not cite drag specifically, drag performers feared that it was passed with the intention of criminalizing the art form, which has deep ties to the LGBTQ community, and that it would repress their freedom of expression.

The bills statement of intent leads with and repeatedly cites drag shows as a threat to children. And on the day Abbott signed the bill into law, he shared an article about it and wrote, Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public. Thats right.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that the law impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech.

Not all people will like or condone certain performances, Hittner wrote. This is no different than a persons opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection.

Hittner  who temporarily blocked the law from taking effect last month  added that the chilling effect S.B. 12 will have on speech in general outweighs any hardship on the State of Texas.

LGBTQ advocates and drag performers celebrated the ruling.

LGBTQIA+ Texans, venue owners, performers, and our allies all came together to uphold free expression in our state  and we won, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. This work isnt done but for now we celebrate. Long live Texas drag!

Texas drag performer Brigitte Bandit, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement to NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin that she was relieved and grateful for the courts ruling.

My livelihood and community has seen enough hatred and harm from our elected officials, Bandit said. This decision is a much needed reminder that queer Texans belong and we deserve to be heard by our lawmakers.

A spokesperson for State Attorney General Ken Paxton  the lead defendant in the case who was acquitted during a historic impeachment trial earlier this month  confirmed in a brief email late Tuesday evening that Paxton will appeal the ruling.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, also suggested after the ruling that legislators will again try to restrict drag performances in the state.

"#SB12, which restricts children from being exposed to drag queen performances, is about protecting young children and families," Patrick wrote on X. "This story is not over."

Republican legislators in more than a dozen states are trying to restrict drag performances, particularly in the presence of minors.

Montana and Tennessee have passed laws that explicitly limit drag performances in some capacity, and four other states  Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Texas  passed laws this year that regulate adult performances and could be used to target or restrict drag, according to the LGBTQ policy think tank Movement Advancement Project. Tennessees drag law was similarly ruled unconstitutional this year, and the laws in Arkansas and Florida are not enforceable pending ongoing lawsuits.
NORFOLK  After months of legal wrangling, a federal judge on Tuesday issued an order setting the attorney fees that must be paid in a wrongful death case involving a man killed by a Virginia Beach police officer in March 2021.

The order from U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen came nine months after attorneys for the city of Virginia Beach and Wayne Lynch, the father of Donovon Lynch, announced theyd reached a $3 million settlement agreement in the case.

The final plan entered by Wright Allen calls for Wayne Lynch to receive $2,034,729, with the rest of the nearly $1 million to go to attorneys fees and expenses. Wayne Lynch also will receive $12,000 for his sons funeral expenses.

Donovon Lynch, a 25-year-old cousin of musician Pharrell Williams and a former offensive lineman for the University of Virginias College at Wise, was fatally shot March 26, 2021, by Virginia Beach police officer Solomon Simmons during a chaotic night at the Oceanfront. One other person was killed and eight were injured in separate shootings that night.

Wayne Lynch filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city and Simmons in 2021 in federal court in Norfolk. While Lynchs family and a friend who witnessed the shooting have said the officer had no reason to fire at him, the city has repeatedly said Donovon Lynch was brandishing a handgun at the time. A special grand jury investigated the incident and determined no charges should be filed against Simmons.

Lawyers for the city and Lynch announced in December theyd reached an out-of-court settlement. But just a few weeks later, Lynch said hed parted ways with attorneys Justin Fairfax and Martin Thomas and that the agreement wasnt final. Fairfax, a former Virginia lieutenant governor; Martin; and the city then filed motions asking to have the agreement enforced.

The order issued by the judge this week calls for the majority of the attorneys fees to go to Fairfax and Martin, with Fairfax getting $348,120 and Martin receiving $232,080.

Anchor Legal Group, which initially represented Lynch, will be paid $229,635 in fees, attorney Joseph Sherman will get $30,374 and $14,025 will go to attorney Trey Kelleter. Legal expenses submitted by the various lawyers in the case came to nearly $125,000, according to the order.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 17 states have accused Amazon in a major antitrust lawsuit of illegally shutting out competition to become one of the worlds most powerful companies.

The landmark case presents a significant threat to Amazons dominance in the online retail industry, and is a major test of antitrust law and the FTCs power.

Related: US government accuses Amazon of using its power to inflate prices

At the core of the case is whether Amazon used its immense power in the online retail industry to illegally disadvantage rivals, leveraging tactics that punished sellers for offering lower prices elsewhere while coercing businesses into paying fees to use its fulfillment services. The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction to prohibit many of Amazons business practices.

The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them, Lina Khan, the FTC chair, said in a statement.

Amazon has denied the allegations, with Amazons general counsel David Zapolsky stating that the companys practices have benefited consumers, spurred competition and led to innovation in retail.

Amazon is accused of illegally monopolizing online retail

In the complaint, the FTC repeatedly presents Amazon as a company that is willfully stifling competition while restricting consumer choice in order to maintain its monopoly.



In a competitive world, Amazons decision to raise prices and degrade services would create an opening for rivals and potential rivals to attract business, gain momentum and grow. But Amazon has engaged in an unlawful monopolistic strategy to close off that possibility, the complaint states.

The FTC and states allege Amazon imposes anti-discounting measures that prohibit merchants who sell products on Amazon from offering lower prices elsewhere; strong-arms third-party sellers to use its expensive fulfillment services; requires merchants to use the companys delivery and fulfillment system in order to qualify for its popular Prime subscription service; and prioritizes the companys in-house line of products over others.

Amazon issued a lengthy response to the suit, written by Zapolsky, its general counsel, which alleges the FTC had a fundamental misunderstanding of retail and rejects any coercion in making sellers or consumers buy its products.

The FTC is not seeking to break up the company, but instead is asking for a permanent injunction from a federal court that would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and pry loose Amazons monopolistic control to restore competition.

Big tech faces an antitrust reckoning

The suit against Amazon is part of a spate of attempts at regulating big tech, which have included congressional hearings, state attorneys general lawsuits and marquee trials of major companies such as Google.

The FTC and the US justice department started investigations into Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon during the Trump administration.

Since then, the justice department has sued Google twice, with one case now the subject of a high-profile trial.

The FTC sued Facebook during the Trump administration, and Bidens FTC has pressed forward with the lawsuit. An FTC request to block Microsofts acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard was rejected.

Under Khan, the FTC has taken a more aggressive stance against the power of big tech and intensified the broader government push to loosen the grip a few top companies have over industries such as online retail and internet search engines.

Khan gained attention as a law student in 2017 after writing a much-cited Yale Law Journal paper arguing that Amazon was a predatory monopoly.

Critics of big techs monopoly over various industries have long called for regulators to take a stronger stance. As the FTCs suit against Amazon loomed, a coalition of authors and booksellers issued an open letter last month with an antitrust thinktank urging the government to take action over its impact on the publishing industry.

Today the free exchange of ideas is impeded and warped by opaque algorithms and sales practices controlled by Amazon and premised on which publisher and/or author is willing and able to pay the highest extortionary tax to get their books promoted on Amazons website, the letter stated.

Several tech reform organizations on Tuesday praised the suit against Amazon as a positive move toward enforcing antitrust regulations and breaking up tech monopolies.

For far too long, Amazon has manipulated the online marketplace to position itself as the worlds largest digital retailer, and in the process, they jacked up prices, stole competitors products, and gate-kept consumers from better products, Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the non-profit Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement.

But it remains to be seen how Khan and the FTCs spate of antitrust lawsuits and attempts at increased regulation will fare, with an uneven record so far. Amazon agreed to pay $25m to settle allegations from the DoJ and FTC that it violated child privacy protections by failing to delete childrens data, including voice recordings. But the FTC has also faced several losses in court this year while trying to take on big tech, including attempts to block mergers and acquisitions by Meta and Microsoft. The case against Amazon is expected to take years.
The attorney for Gilgo Beach, New York, murder suspect Rex Heuermann on Wednesday denied that his client is a "monster of a person" and maintained Heuermann's innocence.

Heuermann returned to court Wednesday following his July arrest for the murders of three sex workers -- Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello -- whose bodies were found on Long Island in 2010. He has pleaded not guilty.

PHOTO: Authorities continue to work at the home of suspect Rex Heuermann in Massapequa Park, N.Y., July 24, 2023. (Seth Wenig/AP, FILE)

MORE: Gilgo Beach murders: A timeline of the investigation

Heuermann is also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007, though he has not been charged in that case. Prosecutors said the investigation into Brainard-Barnes' murder is ongoing.

The sisters of Barthelemy and Brainard-Barnes were among the relatives at Wednesday's hearing.

Male hair was recovered from the burlap used to wrap Waterman's body, and that DNA was found to be a match to leftover pizza crust Heuermann threw into a Manhattan garbage can in January 2023, according to court documents. Prosecutors on Wednesday confirmed that the pizza crust DNA was consistent with the DNA swab provided by Heuermann after his arrest.

PHOTO: In this handout provided by the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, Rex Heuermann poses for his booking photo on July 14, 2023. (Suffolk County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

MORE: Gilgo Beach: Police identify another victim in serial killing investigation

Defense attorney Michael Brown said he's been given very little discovery and hasn't received any DNA evidence, but noted that he received a flash drive of materials Wednesday morning that include an additional 5,000 pages of discovery and 10,000 photos.

Brown said the five hard drives he received in August included over a year's worth of video surveillance of Heuermann outside his Long Island home capturing the New York City architect "heading to work, spending time with family, chopping wood and hanging out on his porch."

PHOTO: Authorities continue to work at the home of suspect Rex Heuermann, bottom right, in Massapequa Park, N.Y., July 24, 2023, charged with killing at least three women in the long-unsolved slayings known as the Gilgo Beach killings. (Seth Wenig/AP, FILE)

Heuermann told the judge that he's allowed to view up to four hours of discovery materials a day, but has been viewing two to three hours of material each day.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told reporters the case will "be a lengthy process."

MORE: No known link between Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann, Atlantic City slayings: Prosecutor

"There is a lot of material that [the prosecutors] have to provide to the defense," he said. "You don't take a 13-year investigation and turn it over in a day or two."

Brown said he hopes to have all of the discovery by Heuermann's next court date, which was set for Nov. 15.

PHOTO: Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann appears in Judge Tim Mazzeis courtroom at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, Sept. 27, 2023. His lawyer, Michael J. Brown, is at left. (James Carbone/Newsday via Pool)

Gilgo Beach suspect Rex Heuermann not a 'monster,' maintains his innocence: Attorney originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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Former president Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United State, was born on October 1, 1924 in rural Georgia. After serving as president from 1977 to 1981, he and his wife Rosalynn Carter returned to their hometown of Plains, where they have lived ever since.

He didn't want to "capitalize financially on being in the White House," he said in 2018, instead choosing to focus on humanitarian efforts. The former peanut farmer and Navy man shared, "it just never had been my ambition to be rich."

He's been an ex-president longer than anyone else in history; Carter became the oldest living former president in American history on his 95th birthday three years ago, and he makes history every single day. "I think the best explanation for [a long life] is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you and keep you alive and interested in life," Carter said in 2019. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married for 78 years.

As Jimmy Carter celebrates his 99th birthday this weekend while in hospice care, we look back on the best photos of him throughout his life.

Circa 1920s

Jimmy Carter was born James Earl Carter, Jr. in October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia.

Historical - Getty Images

Circa 1920s

Jimmy is pictured here with his sisters Gloria and Ruth, and his father James Earl Carter Sr. His father ran a general store.

Historical - Getty Images

Circa 1920s

He grew up in Plains and attended college in Georgia.

Pictured: Carter petting a colt in a field.

Historical - Getty Images

1928

Jimmy and his sister Gloria in a portrait.

Historical - Getty Images

1944

Carter was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1943.

"When I was five years old, if anybody asked me what I wanted to do in the future, I would say I want to go to the Naval Academy and be a naval officer. My daddy was a first lieutenant in the First World War, and my unclemy favorite uncle, my youngest brother of my mother, was in the Navy. And he traveled in the Philippines and Japan and China and so forth and sent me a lot of mementos and letters back," Carter later recalled. "So between the two, between West Point and Annapolis, which was the only two free universities we knew about in those days, I chose Annapolis. So that was my longtime commitment."



PhotoQuest - Getty Images

Circa mid-1940s

Carter's Naval Academy yearbook picture.

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Circa mid-1940s

Another photograph of Carter at the Naval Academy.

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1946

Carter at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis with a classmate.

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1946

On his graduation, Jimmy's mom Lillian (right) and Rosalynn (left) pinned on his Ensign bars.

Jimmy Carter Library and Museum/Wikimedia Commons

Circa late 1940s

After graduation, Carter was assigned to the U.S.S. Wyoming, where he worked for two years and then transferred to the submarine force during the Korean war.

"I was in battleships first which did experimental gun programs. And I was the electronics officer and the photography officer. And that was on two battleships, the Wyoming and the Mississippi," he shared. "And then I went in the submarine force and I was in the Pacific almost all the time."

Library of Congress - Getty Images

Circa 1950s

Jimmy and Rosalynn married right after his graduation, and quickly welcomed three sons, John William "Jack" (b. 1947), James Earl III "Chip" (b. 1950) and Donnell Jeffrey "Jeff" (b. 1952). Their daughter, Amy, was born in 1967.

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1971

After his father died, he moved home to Plains, and soon entered politics in Georgia. He was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 1962, and as Georgia's governor in 1970.

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1970s

He remained a peanut framer until his election to the presidency.

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1970s

Carter pets his dog behind a tractor on his peanut farm in Plains.

Archive Photos - Getty Images

1974

Plains has always been his home throughout his entire political career. "The Georgia governorship is one of the most powerful in the nation. And I enjoyed being Governor. That was one of the most pleasant four years of my life," he would later reflect.

Archive Photos - Getty Images

1975

He declared his candidacy for presidency in 1974, and began campaigning soon after.

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1976

Carter, his wife Rosalynn Carter, and their daughter Amy in Plains.

Michael Brennan - Getty Images

1976

During a break from his presidential campaign, Carter played softball in (you guessed it!) Plains.

Owen Franken - Corbis - Getty Images

1976

Carter hugs his wife after learning he won the presidential election. He won the popular vote by 50.1 percent, and received 297 electoral votes.

Hulton Archive - Getty Images

1977

A photo from Carter's inauguration, as Rosalynn looks lovingly at her husband.

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1977

The Carters dance at a ball.

Universal History Archive - Getty Images

Circa late 1970s

A portrait of Carter with his mother Lilian, his brother Billy, and his sisters Gloria and Ruth. All three of his siblings died of pancreatic cancer.

Historical - Getty Images

Circa late 1970s

And here is a portrait of President Carter with his extended family. Left to right: Jack's wife Judy, grandson Jason, son Jack, Jeff's wife Annette, son Jeff, wife Rosalynn, daughter Amy, President Carter himself, Chip's wife Caron, grandson James IV, and son Chip.

Historical - Getty Images

1977

During his time as president, he normalized relations with China, helped oversee the Camp David Accords, signed the Panama Canal Treaty, and advocated for human rights worldwide.

Bernard CHARLON - Getty Images

1977

"During my administration, we tried to keep the peace. And we cherished our human rights," Carter said in July 2021. "We came out of the White House completely satisfied with the way we had acted in the trial that we made to overcome difficulties. And most of the time, we succeeded. At least we thought we did."

HUM Images - Getty Images

1977

The Carters' first White House Christmas; they pose with a Christmas tree located in the Blue Room of the White House.

Consolidated News Pictures - Getty Images

1978

Carter fly fishes on a private trout stream during a brief vacation.

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1978

One of Carter's notable foreign policy achievements during his presidency was the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. Here, Carter walks with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David.

Consolidated News Pictures - Getty Images

1978

Carter with his wife Rosalynn at Camp David.

HUM Images - Getty Images

1980

Jimmy Carter's official presidential portrait.

Hulton Archive - Getty Images

1980

Carter was the Democratic nominee again for the 1980 presidential election, but he lost to Ronald Reagan.

Bettmann - Getty Images

1981

After his term as president ended, former president Jimmy Carter returned to his hometown of Plains.

Chuck Fishman - Getty Images

1981

The original caption here is worth reading: "the former President thoroughly enjoys the woodworking tools given to him as a going away gift from his Cabinet and staff. Carter is sanding a table he built for Rosalyn to use as a typewriter stand when she starts to write her book." Rosalynn wrote First Lady from Plains about growing up in small-town Georgia and her role in the White House.

Bettmann - Getty Images

1988

The Carters founded the Carter Center in 1982, with the goal of advancing human rights.

Consolidated News Pictures - Getty Images

1992

Carter, a longtime Braves fan, threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game One of the 1992 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays.

MLB Photos - Getty Images

1992

In 1984, Jimmy and Rosalynn began working with Habitat for Humanity. "Habitat has successfully removed the stigma of charity by substituting it with a sense of partnership," Carter said.

mark peterson - Getty Images

1993

He also kept woodworking; he made this chess set.

Rick Diamond - Getty Images

1994

"I have one life and one chance to make it count for something... My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference," Carter said.

Rick Diamond - Getty Images

1996

The Carters pictured at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum in Atlanta.

Diana Walker - Getty Images

1998

Carter playing softball in Plains wearing a t-shirt that says "Jimmy Carter and the Secret Service."

Erik S. Lesser - Getty Images

2002

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

BJOERN SIGURDSON - Getty Images

2005

Until 2020, the Carters spent one week a year volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.

R. Diamond - Getty Images

2013

Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton at the Lincoln Memorial celebrating the anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Alex Wong - Getty Images

2014

Carter frequently taught Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church.

Chris McKay - Getty Images

2015

In 2015, he was diagnosed with melanoma and started immunotherapy and radiation therapy. By the end of the year, his scans no longer showed cancer.

Jessica McGowan - Getty Images

2018

Jimmy Carter walks hand-in-hand with his wife former First Lady Rosalynn Carter towards their home in Plains.

The Washington Post - Getty Images

2019

Carter smiles as he speaks to the congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church, before teaching Sunday school. Carter has taught Sunday school for decades in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

NurPhoto - Getty Images

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BALTIMORE  The mother of the suspect sought in the slaying of a Baltimore tech CEO said she spoke with her son over text message Tuesday and urged him to surrender.

"I told him to turn himself in because theyre going to kill him," said Scarlett Billingsley, 72, who spoke to NBC News on Wednesday afternoon. She identified herself as the mother of Jason Billingsley, 32, who's wanted on first-degree murder and other charges in the death of 26-year-old Pava LaPere, CEO and founder of EcoMap Technologies.

I dont want police to shoot him because they think he has a gun," Scarlett Billingsley added.

A spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department told NBC News theyre aware of who Scarlett Billingsley is.

Pava LaPere. (Courtesy Pava LaPeres family)

Authorities said they found LaPeres body with apparent blunt-force trauma at an apartment late Monday morning. A cause of death has not been determined.

Police did not say if there was a possible motive in LaPeres death and have not said if the two knew each other.

Scarlett Billingsley said she last saw her son Monday when he was at her home for a few minutes.

She said she does not know if her son knew LaPere.

I dont even know how he met that girl, where he met that girl, or how he got into her apartment.

She said her son showed her a gun Monday, but believes hes trying to sell it.

She said that she doesnt know where her son is and that hes not going to tell me.

Scarlett Billingsley also said she's sorry for the pain the LaPere family is experiencing.

I am so sorry for what that mother is going through, she said. Im very sorry if he did it."

I wont know until I see some evidence if he did it. Where is the truth at  show me some evidence," she added.

Scarlett Billingsley added that she is scared because she lost her oldest son to gun violence in 2013.

Hes the only one I got left. Hes my baby boy.

Authorities said Jason Billingsley is a repeat violent offender and should be considered armed and dangerous. He was sentenced in 2015 to 30 years, with 16 years suspended, after pleading guilty to a first-degree sex offense, according to court records.

He was released in October, the Maryland sex offender registry shows, which listed him as tier 3, a designation that includes the most serious charges and requires offenders to register for life.

Police said he should not have been free.

This individual will kill, and he will rape, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said Tuesday. He will do anything he can to cause harm.

Court documents also show Jason Billingsley pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in 2009 and second-degree assault in 2011.

According to records obtained Wednesday by NBC News from the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City, Billingsley was arrested following allegations he forced a woman to perform oral sex on him at knife-point on June 23, 2013. His accuser told police he struck her in the face and choked her with both hands. After he assaulted the woman, court records said, he stole $53 from her wallet.

Other district court records show that on Sept. 4, 2010, Billingsley was accused of punching his ex-girlfriend in the face, pinning her down and taking her phone. He was charged with second-degree assault, false imprisonment and theft of less than $100. He pleaded guilty to assault 2 on June 22, 2011, according to the records.

On Sept. 15, 2009, Billingsley and another man was arrested and accused of robbing $10 from a man, court records show. He was charged with robbery, theft and second-degree assault, according to court records.

Billingsley pleaded guilty to assault 1 on Dec. 3, 2009, according to online court records and violated his probation in that case. He pleaded guilty to the probation violation in July 2011, online records show, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Dodgers pitcher Bobby Miller gave up two runs over seven innings while striking out nine against the Colorado Rockies in the second game of a doubleheader Tuesday in Denver. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press)

There had been more than a few grumbles from the Dodgers about this day on the schedule, a double-header Tuesday against the Colorado Rockies during what could have been a critical closing week of the campaign.

Its not ideal, manager Dave Roberts acknowledged of the schedule quirk, which was implemented to give the teams an off day Monday. Its certainly helpful that were coming off an off day and weve got guys fresh. But this is a place where games can get out of hand. You can run out of arms.

By the end of Tuesday, however, all those concerns had dissipated.

No, these games didnt mean much to the Dodgers season, thanks to them clinching the National League West this month and virtually cementing their place as the NLs No. 2 playoff seed.

And, in a surprise twist that could bode well for their postseason fortunes, the Dodgers (96-60) didnt run out of pitching either.

Instead, the club pieced together 18 strong innings on the mound at Coors Field, following a 4-1 loss in the afternoon matinee with an 11-2 defeat of the Rockies in the nightcap.

We know what were capable of doing, Roberts said. And the most important thing is that those guys are bought in on the pitching side."

Indeed, for a Dodgers club poised to use a patchwork pitching plan in the playoffs, Tuesday offered a stress test of sorts.

Read more:Dodgers struggle against Chase Anderson in rare loss to Rockies in Game 1 of doubleheader

In the first game, the lone blip came at the start, when opener Caleb Ferguson surrendered three quick runs while collecting only two outs.

That continued an increasingly troublesome trend for Ferguson, a neutral-splits left-hander the club has indicated could open playoff games next month. While he has a 2.41 ERA and 1.29 WHIP as a reliever, his numbers as a starter (albeit in a small 6-inning sample size) are significantly worse, with a 6.75 ERA and 2.10 WHIP.

Were gonna keep an eye on it, Roberts said. I know he has no problem with opening, and actually likes it. So if we can just clean some things up, then I think we can manage.

From there, it was smooth sailing. Ryan Pepiot followed Ferguson as the bulk pitcher in Game 1, in another potential preview of how he could be used in the playoffs.

Over the six innings that followed, the rookie right-hander was dominant. He struck out a career-high nine. He gave up only one run, on a solo blast from Nolan Jones at the very end of his outing. And he lowered his ERA over 39 innings (he missed the first half with an oblique injury) to a minuscule 1.85, building his case to handle extended innings as a starter or bulk pitcher in October.

He's right there, Roberts said of Pepiots place in the playoff plans. He's really tightened up his delivery. Everything he throws from the fastball, the changeup, the slider, it's coming out of the same window  And he's always on the attack.

Dodgers' Chris Taylor, left, congratulates Freddie Freeman, who hit a two-run home run off Colorado Rockies pitcher Gavin Hollowell during the sixth inning on Tuesday in Denver. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press)

Fellow rookie Bobby Miller was equally impressive later in the night.

Already entrenched as the Dodgers likely Game 1 or 2 starter, Miller only added to his productive debut campaign, giving up two runs over seven innings while striking out nine.

I know its a little mental block when you come pitch here in the altitude, but you cant let that get to you, said Miller, who was aided by four hits from James Outman, three hits from Max Muncy and two RBIs apiece from Chris Taylor, Freddie Freeman and David Peralta.

You just have to stay in attack mode, stay in the zone and dont try to walk anybody, Miller added after improving to 11-4 with a 3.89 ERA.

Miller will make one more start in the regular-season finale Sunday in San Francisco, according to Roberts. That lines him up a day after Clayton Kershaw, and potentially hints at the order of the Dodgers rotation for the best-of-five NLDS that begins Oct. 7  though their pitching plans for the playoffs have yet to be finalized.

Worried he might have to burn through all 14 pitchers on the roster Tuesday, Roberts ended up needing only six

Concerned their young arms might struggle in a doubleheader at high altitude  even against a last-place team  the Dodgers instead got a reminder of the potential they possess.

Read more:Who replaced Julio Urias on Dodger Stadium mural? The players who caught him

Theres still doubt about the Dodgers ability to hold up on the mound during an extended playoff run. But if Tuesday was another obstacle, they cleared it with ease.

Looking at a doubleheader a ways back, this is something that was pretty daunting, Roberts said. And we couldn't have got through it any better.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Samsung SDI will spend $1.97 billion on its second battery manufacturing facility it is building in the United States jointly with Stellantis N.V., the South Korean battery maker said in a filing Wednesday.

The disclosure came about two months after their U.S. venture, StarPlus Energy, announced a plan to build a second battery plant in Indiana in addition to the first factory under construction in the U.S. state.

The amount of investment for the second plant corresponds to Samsung SDI's 51 percent stake in the envisioned project. The investment will be made over the period of April 2024 to November 2027, the filing showed.

The second battery plant will aim to go into operation in 2027 with an initial production capacity of 34 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year.

The location of the new plant has not been decided.

The two companies established the battery venture in October 2021 and announced in May 2022 the plan for the first battery manufacturing facility in Kokomo, Indiana.

The first factory aims to have an annual production of 33 GWh, up from the initial target of 23 GWh, with operations set to begin in the first quarter of 2025. (Yonhap)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey businessman pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges of bribing U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.

Wael Hana, 40, entered the plea at a hearing before Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in federal court in Manhattan.

Menendez, 69, his 56-year-old wife, Nadine Menendez, and two other businessmen accused of bribing the senior New Jersey senator are scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Hana, who is originally from Egypt, arranged meetings in 2018 between Menendez and Egyptian officials. At the meetings, officials pressed the senator - who until shortly after his indictment was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - to sign off on military aid Washington had withheld over concerns about the country's human rights record.

In exchange, prosecutors said, Hana put Nadine Menendez on the payroll of a company he controlled that had the exclusive right to certify halal meat shipped to Egypt from the United States.

Menendez and his wife have denied wrongdoing. The senator has rejected calls from fellow Democrats to step down.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
A Bay Area man accused of a bizarre drug trafficking and identity theft case that included forging phony federal court documents was sentenced Tuesday in a Sacramento courtroom to seven years in prison.

Quinten Giovanni Moody, 39, who the government says is also known as Christano Rossi, was sentenced after one of his attorneys told U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez that Moody understood the reality of his criminal actions.

Mr. Moody does understand the seriousness of his offenses, attorney Anthony Brass said. This is not isolated conduct.

Its a lifetime of conduct.

Moody, of Dublin, also was ordered to face 48 months of supervised release after his prison time is up.

He and two other defendants were accused of a variety of offenses ranging from marijuana trafficking to identity theft to unemployment insurance fraud.

Moody and other coconspirators generated hundreds of thousands of dollars by transporting marijuana from California to Georgia, Nevada, Texas, and other locations, the Justice Department said. Moody and others bought marijuana in California and then transported the marijuana to distributors in other states via couriers and baggage traveling on commercial airplanes and commercial shipping services.

Once the marijuana was sold, Moody and others caused the proceeds of the marijuana sales to be returned to them in California by using couriers to travel on commercial airline flights carrying cash, using shipping services to ship cash, and causing others at their direction to deposit cash into bank accounts.

Moody and two others  former Roseville resident Myra Boleche Minks and Sacramento resident Jessica Tang  were indicted by a Sacramento federal grand jury last year; charges against the women are pending.

Moody pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, aggravated identity theft and obstruction of justice and could have faced a sentence of more than 40 years in prison.

Court records describe elaborate efforts to stay ahead of law enforcement, including allegations that Minks impersonated a Secret Service agent, agents with the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, federal prosecutors and a Justice Department employee who submitted fake search warrants.

In April 2022, after authorities seized a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro and 1956 Chevrolet pickup truck Moody allegedly purchased using drug proceeds, he hatched a plot to retrieve them from an FBI lockup in Georgia, court records say.

Moody and Minks concocted phony court orders and gave them to a tow truck driver sent to get the vehicles back, the Justice Department says, but the ruse failed.

This defendant committed felonies involving drugs and identity theft, then doubled down by obstructing justice, U.S. Attorney Phil Talbert said in a statement. After making hundreds of thousands of dollars distributing marijuana across the country and fraudulently claiming unemployment insurance benefits during the coronavirus pandemic, he used phony court documents in a failed attempt to get the FBI to release property seized during the federal investigation.
A group of Mecklenburg County leaders wants to change the way the regions public transportation system is managed.

The city of Charlottes dominance over the Charlotte Area Transit System has been unfair to residents in other parts of the county whose tax dollars also help support the system, said Mecklenburg County Commissioner Leigh Altman and the mayors of Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Matthews, Mint Hill and Pineville in a letter Tuesday addressed to Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles.

Altman and the mayors want to change the regions transportation agreement to give more power and oversight over CATS to the Metropolitan Transit Commission, a body that includes voting members from all the cities and towns in the county and non-voting members from surrounding counties.

Their push comes during a tumultuous year for CATS, including a change in leadership and train derailment that raised questions about safety.

Over the past year, it has become increasingly clear that the parties original agreement did not provide the MTC sufficient authority to direct and oversee CATSs operations or to ensure its accountability to the taxpayers, the letter said.

What changes do county leaders want for CATS oversight?

Tuesdays letter outlined amendments to the regions first agreement that would:

Clarify the Metropolitan Transit Commission is the governing body of CATS and represents the interests of all the local governments that contribute to the system.

Ensure the commission is involved in the selection and evaluation of the CATS CEO. Former CATS CEO John Lewis resigned in November. The agency is currently led by interim CEO Brent Cagle.

Revise CATS budget process to give the commission early involvement in its development before it goes to the Charlotte City Council.

Provide mechanisms for resolving differences between the commission and the City Council on CATS budget issues

We believe that these are common-sense measures that will ensure greater transparency and accountability at CATS, as well as equal representation for the City, County, and Towns, the letter says. We also hope that these measures will help bridge the gap as we consider the formation of an independent regional transit authority.

Altman told the Observer she currently serves on a separate committee with Lyles and other regional leaders intended to help develop a regional transit authority to better connect the growing area.

Thats why this is so important, she said of Tuesdays letter. Because its an opportunity to hit the reset button in a way that hopefully will give everyone the confidence and comfort to build upon what we have now for the future.

Altman added that she and the MTC have been impressed with how Cagle has handled CATS since taking over as interim CEO.

This is really about the governance structure for the next time we have a problem, she said of Tuesdays letter.

City ignored commission vote on CATS investigation, letter says

A flashpoint for the groups request: a decision by the city of Charlotte to not follow through on a vote to hire an outside investigator to examine CATS management and operations. The citys decision to not conduct such an investigation was made in part because Charlotte believes the MTC is only an advisory body and its votes only constitute recommendations, the letter claims.

We do not know when the City began to take this view, but it is not what was originally intended. The MTC was never meant to be just an advisory body. the letter says.

The commission was intended to give everyone in the county equal representation on transit decisions, Altman and the mayors continued.

This is only fair given the tens of millions in tax dollars the County and Towns contribute to CATS each year through the transit sales tax, the letter says.

Altman said the citys decision was really something we did not agree with.

So, we discussed how best to ensure that the voters across Mecklenburg County who contribute to the budget for CATS can have real representation on the MTC, she said.

The letter also notes a consultant hired by the city concluded CATS current structure, which splits responsibilities between the Charlotte City Council and the commission, creates confusion and a lack of transparency.

Charlottes response to letter

Lyles said in a statement the city was reviewing the proposed amendments provided today by some members of the MTC regarding the future of public transit governance in our county.

Lyles added she agrees on the need to update the interlocal agreement and that a regional transit authority is in our future.

This spirit of cooperation to reach the best solutions is what is expected of us as public officials, Lyles said

History of the Metropolitan Transit Commission

The Metropolitan Transit Commission dates back to the 1990s, CATS notes.

It was formed as part of the Transit Governance Interlocal Agreement, signed in 1999 by Mecklenburg County, Charlotte, Davidson, Huntersville, Cornelius, Pineville, Matthews and Mint Hill. Months before that agreement was signed, Mecklenburg County voters in 1998 approved a one-half cent sales tax to be used to finance public transportation systems.

The voting members of the commission are the mayors of Charlotte, Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Matthews, Mint Hill and Pineville; the chairman of the Board of Mecklenburg County Commissioners and the regional representative from the North Carolina Board of Transportation. Altman currently serves as county board Chairman George Dunlaps designee to the commission.

The five non-voting members representing local governments outside Mecklenburg are from the South Carolina Department of Transportation.

The commission holds monthly meetings and helps gather public input on transit planning.
A death in Colorado has been linked to a case of the plague, health officials said.

Laboratory tests confirmed the death of an Archuleta County resident was associated with the plague, according to a Sept. 25 news release from the San Juan Basin Public Health.

The health department said the disease is very rare but the public should be informed on what precautions to take in regards to peoples interactions with animals.

Although treatable, the plague is caused by a bacteria called yersinia pestis that can be given to people after getting bitten by infected fleas or having direct contact with infected animals, officials said.

Symptoms include swollen lymph nodes and a high fever, officials said.

Animals that frequently have plague, per the health department, include:

Rock squirrels

Prairie dogs

Woodrats

Chipmunks

No details about the person or how they became infected were released by the health department.

Ways to avoid getting infected:

Wearing repellent and appropriate clothing when outside

Keeping pets up to date with vaccinations

Avoiding sleeping next to your pet

Not feeding or handling wild animals

Not handling dead animals

Staying out of areas where rodents live

Treating known rodent sites around your house

Contacting your vet if your pet gets a high fever and open sores or swollen lymph nodes, per the health department.

The bacteria that causes plague occurs in rural and semi-rural areas of the western United States and is usually in grasslands where rodents live, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cases of plague can be treated with antibiotics and infected people are asked to seek medical attention as soon as possible for a better chance of a full recovery, according to the CDC.

San Juan Basin Public Health asks the public to report any active colonies of prairie dogs, officials said. Health officials said to not kill the prairie dogs as this can increase the risk of exposure to plague-infested fleas.

The case of the plague death remains under investigation.

Archuleta County is about 280 miles southwest of Denver.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com that accused the online retail giant of overcharging customers and independent sellers on its platforms as the $1 trillion company sought to illegally maintain monopoly power.

These are the specific allegations included in the FTC's 172-page complaint:

ONLINE SUPERSTORE, SERVICES MONOPOLIES

*The agency alleged that Amazon had a monopoly in an online superstore market. In 2021, Amazon had 77% of the market, Walmart had 13% and Target 2%.

*The agency also said that Amazon had a monopoly in the online marketplace for services, where Amazon has more than 70% of the market. The FTC said that more than 160 million people in the United States visit Amazon's website each month.

PUNISHES SELLERS FOR LOWER PRICES ELSEWHERE

* The complaint alleged Amazon uses a sophisticated network of web crawlers that identify which of its sellers offer their products more cheaply on other platforms. Amazon allegedly punishes those sellers, who make up about 60% of Amazon's sales, by making them harder to find on its platform.

"Because Amazon's anti-discounting conduct punishes sellers who offer lower prices at rival online stores with lower fees, many sellers set their price on Amazon- high fees and all - as the price floor across the internet," the FTC said in the complaint.

REQUIRES USING AMAZON LOGISTICS

* Amazon requires sellers under Amazon's Prime feature to use the company's logistics and delivery services even though many would allegedly prefer to use a cheaper service or one that would also service customers from other platforms where they sell.

CHARGES HIGH FEES

*The complaint alleges Amazon raised average fulfillment fees to sellers about 30% between 2020 and 2022, as well as requiring them to pay for referrals and advertising. The FTC alleged that between sellers paying for search placement, fulfillment and other charges that Amazon takes nearly half of what sellers make on their sales.

MONITORING PRICES

* Amazon used the Project Nessie pricing system as an unfair method of competition. A description of Project Nessie was heavily redacted. An Amazon blog described it as "a system used to monitor spikes or trends on Amazon.com."

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Jamie Freed)
A lawyer working for Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said she raised concerns that the attorney generals office was violating legal and ethical rules. Less than three hours later, she was fired.

Former Deputy Attorney General Daphne Huang on Friday filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, alleging she was fired in retaliation for raising concerns that executives in the attorney generals office were breaking laws and ethical rules.

Defendants terminated Ms. Huang within three hours of receiving written documentation related to her concerns about possible violations of law, rule or regulation, attorneys representing Huang wrote in the lawsuit. There is a causal connection between Ms. Huangs protected activity and her termination.

In her lawsuit, Huang alleged that she was fired after she raised concerns that attorneys were being forced to take positions hostile to their clients at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Executives in the office created an untenable conflict of interest and ethical conflicts that she refused to participate in, attorneys for Huang wrote in the lawsuit.

Beth Cahill, Labradors spokesperson, declined to comment on the litigation. She said officials in the office havent received Huangs legal complaint.

Firing amid exodus of Health and Welfare attorneys

The Idaho Statesman previously reported that Huang, a deputy attorney general for more than a decade, was fired in March amid an exodus of attorneys representing the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Earlier that month, the attorney generals office launched an investigation into the health departments administration of Community Partner Grants, federal funds that address learning loss among children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen and two other health officials sued to block the attorney generals investigative demands.

Labradors office demanded that the health officials hand over records related to the program around the same time Idaho lawmakers approved an audit of the grants, amid concerns that the federal funds werent distributed properly. Lawmakers restricted the funding to programs that serve kids 5 to 13. The audit found that nearly 30% of grant applicants planned to use the funds on programs that served children outside that age range.

An Ada County judge last month ruled that Labrador had a notable conflict of interest when his office began investigating the grants and ordered the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to enforce the investigative demands.

At least six of Labradors attorneys assigned to represent the health department have quit or been fired, the Statesman previously reported. Huang and one other former deputy attorney general accused Labrador and his aides of unethical conduct by urging attorneys to side with him, and against their Health and Welfare clients.

Huang was a lead deputy attorney general assigned to the health department. Her job was to give health officials legal advice, as part of the offices role as legal representative for state agencies and officials. Previously, Huang served as an assistant attorney general in Washington for 10 years and also worked as a federal law clerk, according to her lawsuit.

Huang fired after criticizing Labrador

In November and January, Huang issued two legal opinions that found the health departments distribution of the child care grants was legally sound. The health departments requests for the opinions were routine and did not raise any red flags, according to Huangs lawsuit.

But former Chief Deputy Attorney General David Dewhirst and Solicitor General Theo Wold, who both worked under Labrador at the time, in a March 27 meeting with Huang insinuated that the department had acted nefariously in asking for the legal opinions and told Huang to view the departments requests for legal advice with a jaundiced eye, the lawsuit said.

When she protested that doing so would place her in an adversarial position with her client, they accused her of being in an adversarial position to her employer, Huangs attorneys wrote. Ms. Huang felt pressured by the (Office of the Attorney General) to take a hostile position towards her client and regarding advice that she herself had given to her client. This was ethically unacceptable to Ms. Huang.

Dewhirst and Wold also told Huang that she should have refused health officials access to the phone of a former deputy attorney general who represented the department, the lawsuit said. Health and Welfare previously told the Statesman the phone had been wiped of its data before being returned to the attorney generals office, and that its standard procedure to reset a departing employees phone.

Dewhirst and Wold tried to pressure Ms. Haung to agree with them that the department had acted inappropriately in taking the phone, according to the lawsuit. Huang responded that tension between executives in the attorney generals office and the health department put attorneys in a very awkward position given that they had to continue to represent the department, the lawsuit said.

Idaho law and Idaho State Bar ethical rules prohibit attorneys from advocating against their clients interests or breaching their clients confidence.

After the meeting with Dewhirst and Wold, Huang wrote a letter to Tom Donovan, who had recently been appointed chief of the attorney generals health division. Huang wrote that Labrador and executives in the office presented an untenable conflict of interest without concern for our ethical responsibilities, according to a copy of the letter previously reported by the Statesman.

They instead appear intent on dismantling government, and doing so without regard for the people who believe in public service who fall in their wake, Huang wrote.

Dewhirst on March 29 asked for Huangs resignation, records obtained by the Statesman showed. Huang refused to resign and was fired. Dewhirst has since left the office for a position with presidential candidate and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Huangs lawsuit asked the court to rule that her firing violated whistleblower protections and to award lost wages as well as attorney fees and compensatory damages for emotional distress and harm to her reputation. Huang also requested a jury trial.
Five people were injured when a vehicle drove through a crowd of United Auto Workers members protesting outside of a GM facility in Swartz Creek, Michigan.

The incident occurred at around 4pm on Tuesday, sending two to the hospital, according to the Metro Police Authority of Genesee County.

It was uncalled for, UAW Region 1-D President Steve Dawes told MLive-The Flint Journal. These people are out here, you know these are my membership, and theyre out here doing a peaceful, legal demonstration.

This is very serious and were going to be pushing this issue, he added.

Officials are still searching for the individual responsible, described as driving a dark vehicle that may be a PT Cruiser.

The workers outside the GMs Flint Processing Center are part of the 38 different shops which have walked off the production line since the UAW went on strike earlier this month.

Plant leadership is working closely with local authorities to investigate and understand what happened, Jack Crawley, a spokesman for General Motors, told ABC News.

Joe Biden visited strikers in Michigan on Tuesday to show support, appearing at a picket line in a UAW hat.

The fact of the matter is is that you guys  the UAW  saved the automobile industry back in 2008 ... you gave up a lot and the companies were in trouble, but now theyre doing incredibly well, he said. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too.

Mr Biden said the workers should stick with it because they deserve a significant raise and other benefits, and to get back what [they] lost during the crisis.

You saved them, now its time that they step up for us, he added.

As The Independent has reported, protesters across the country have faced a spate of vehicle attacks, particularly those advocating for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd.

In the summer of 2020, between May and July alone, there were 104 vehicular attacks at Black Lives Matter protests all across the country, according to a USA Today analysis, from Albuquerque to Visalia, California, to Minneapolis, where a man drove a semi-truck through a crowd of demonstrators on Interstate 35.
Before the election of Donald Trump, it would have been more or less unthinkable for a Republican to be criticised for invoking Ronald Reagan.

But as college graduates move towards the Democrats and more socially conservative working-class voters towards the GOP, Republican candidates can no longer invoke the Golden State governor and B-list actor and be sure that whatever they say will be a slam dunk.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott figured this out the hard way on the campaign trail. As both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump speak to the United Auto Workers Union this week, both of them will attempt to appear to be on the side of the workers.

Mr Scott was hit with a complaint from the union after he was asked about his view of the labour negotiations following the UAWs decision to strike against the Big Three automakers.

Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike, he said.

Mr Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers after they went on strike in 1981.

He said, You strike, youre fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely, Mr Scott said in Iowa earlier this month, even as the GOP has come to rely more and more on blue-collar workers.

But the Republican Party today remains anti-union, especially when considering what General Dwight Eisenhower told the American Federation of Labor when he was running for president in 1952.

Today in America unions have a secure place in our industrial life, he said. Only a handful of unreconstructed reactionaries harbour the ugly thought of breaking unions. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

Ahead of the second Republican primary debate on 27 September, heres what each of the Republican presidential candidates have said about strikes and unions.

Tim Scott

Tim Scott said workers who strike should be fired (AP)

The senator later elaborated on his comments, saying Obviously the president doesnt fire folks in the private sector, but he can do in the public sector.

I brought up the Ronald Reagan years because I do think that we need to have front and centre the example of a president who stood strong, and todays president, he stands weak, he added.

The UAW is one of the most corrupt and scandal-plagued unions in America, Mr Scott said in a statement. They are showing their true colours once again and autoworkers and taxpayers will be left holding the bag together. They want to threaten me and shut me up.

They dont scare me. I will truly fight for American workers and jobs, promote the dignity of work, and end the Biden retreat from the values that make our nation exceptional, he added.

American workers continue to witness how a weak president leads to all sorts of chaos at home and abroad, Mr Scott said. Joe Biden and Big Labor bosses are undermining the dignity of work and setting autoworkers up for failure. Theyre playing politics with peoples lives.

Donald Trump

Trump has tried to drive a wedge between union leaders and their members (Getty Images)

When the former president appeared on NBCs Meet the Press, he was asked by moderator Kristen Welker to say which side he was on regarding the UAW strike.

Mr Trump avoided the question, saying he was on the side of making our country great before going on to his regular talking point of slamming electric vehicles.

He blasted UAW leaders and members for attempting to save jobs and raise their pay while the industry is in the middle of the transition to electric.

The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, he said.

He claimed that UAW president Shawn Fain is not doing a good job in representing his union, because hes not going to have a union in three years from now. Those jobs are all going to be gone because all of those electric cars are going to be made in China.

An ad for Mr Trump told auto workers always had their back, even as union leaders have said that a second term for Mr Trump would be a disaster.

Nikki Haley

Halkey has pushed her reputation as a union buster (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor has pushed her reputation as a union buster from her time in her home state, where historical levels of union membership have been the lowest in the US.

She slammed the UAW strike and President Bidens support of the workers, even appearing on the picket line on 26 September.

When you have the most pro-union president and he touts that he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get, she said after the strike had started. The union is asking for a 40 per cent raise, the companies have come back with a 20 per cent raise. I think any of the taxpayers would love to have a 20 per cent raise and think thats great.

Ms Haley didnt note that the UAW asked for the 40 per cent increase over the course of several years following the sacrifices made by workers to help the companies survive during the 2008 recession.

She also didnt say that the proposed raise for workers was in line with the CEO pay rise.

Ron DeSantis

DeSantis signed legislation that banned union dues from being automatically taken from paychecks to fund teachers and public employees unions (Getty Images)

The Florida governor has put in place fresh restrictions on a number of unions in his state and he also rejects the idea of raising the minimum wage.

In May, he signed legislation that banned union dues from being automatically taken from paychecks to fund teachers and public employees unions. The bill also allows members to leave their union at any time.

But the legislation mostly doesnt affect unions for workers in traditionally Republican professions, such as firefighters, police officers, and correctional officers.

In 2017, when he was in the US House, he supported the National Right-to-Work Act, which would have stopped unions from requiring workers to pay dues. The bill stalled in committee but is often brought up again by Republicans.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Ramaswamy is only matched by Haley in the GOP field when it comes to union-bashing (AP)

The biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke author aims to completely remove unions as an option for federal workers as well as teachers.

Mr Ramaswamy is only matched by Ms Haley in the GOP field when it comes to union-bashing, The New York Times notes.

Just hours before the UAW strike began, Mr Ramaswamy claimed to have deep sympathy for the frustrations of autoworkers regarding pay.

Wages have not gone up in a meaningful sense, while costs have gone up in this country, he said.

The following day, he added: I understand the frustration, but I think union bosses may be directing that ire in the wrong direction when it belongs at the feet of our current federal government.

At the first Republican debate, Mr Ramaswamy said he wanted to end the teachers unions at the local level and in an April video he praised a charter school in South Carolina because it wouldnt be shackled by some of the same constraints as public schools because their teachers wont be unionized.

He claimed that the president of the American Federation of Teachers was seizing power for those teachers unions, holding our public schools and our children hostage.

If you cant beat the teachers unions, were going to void them, he added.

Mike Pence

Pence voted against a minimum wage raise as a member of the US House in 2007 (AP)

The former vice president and Indiana governor voted against a minimum wage raise as a member of the US House in 2007.

He claimed that an increase would to entry-level jobs being lost and that it would hurt the working poor.

As governor, he worked against minimum wages on the local level and defended the states right-to-work legislation.

In the US House, he voted against the Employee Free Choice Act  the legislation would have supported the process of workers showing their willingness to join a union by signing cards and it would have hiked penalties against employers who punish union members.

Two days after the start of the UAW strike, he told CNN that he had sympathy for the workers but didnt criticise the salaries of the CEOs. He also slammed the Biden administrations policies.

I dont think its about the usual fault lines of the difference in salaries between white collar and blue collar  I think its that everyday Americans out there working hard are living in the midst of the failed policies of Bidenomics, he told CNN.

Chris Christie

Christie battled teachers unions during his time in office (AP)

The former New Jersey governor battled teachers unions during his time in office.

At the first debate, he said he went right after the teachers unions in New Jersey and drove them down to an all-time low popularity rating because theyre putting themselves before our kids.

Public-sector unions, I believe, are an awful redundancy, he said in New Hampshire this year, according to The New York Times. I think the private-sector unions have a place in our society, a historical place in our society. They ensure quality of work.

Mr Christie also slammed the Biden administrations push for electric vehicles when asked about the UAW strike.

What a president would need to do is to make sure hes understanding both sides of that argument and putting the type of political pressure on them to come to a resolution, he told CNBC.

The government shouldnt be dictating either wages or prices, he added.

Asa Hutchinson

Labor unions have played an important role in our nations history, Asa Hutchinson has said (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The former Arkansas governor took part in a 2022 rejection of a Biden administration policy to give more government contracts to unionized construction projects. Mr Hutchinson was joined by 17 other governors in opposing the measure.

Labor unions have played an important role in our nations history, but the governments role in business is to provide an avenue for success and not a roadblock, Mr Hutchinson said.

He said he would stay in the 2024 race after not qualifying for the second debate.

I entered this race because it is critically important for a leader within the Republican Party to stand up to Donald Trump and call him out on misleading his supporters and the American people, he said. I intend to continue doing that and look forward to holding a press conference in Detroit on Wednesday where I will highlight his false promises to blue-collar and union workers in Michigan and across America.

Doug Burgum

Doug Burgum has slammed federal incentives for unions (AFP via Getty Images)

The North Dakota governor and underdog presidential candidate has slammed federal incentives for unions, telling NBC News in July that they hindered economic growth.

People said, Wow, were going to try to get onshoring for critical aspects of what we need for communications, for transportation, for military equipment  that made a bunch of sense, he said referring to the CHIPS Act passed by the US Congress last year to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the US.

He went on to slam the idea of connecting such measures to unions.

There are plenty of people in this country that want to work for a good wage that dont feel like they want to pay union dues, he said. So I just think that the red tape, the ideology, that it gets in the way of actually driving the economy forward.

Will Hurd

Will Hurd told The New York Times that the UAWs pay concerns were fair (Getty Images)

The former US House Representative and CIA agent told The New York Times that the UAWs pay concerns were fair.

If workers feel like theyre underpaid, theyre well within their right to protest for better wages, he told the paper. I dont believe its the governments role to tell businesses how much they should pay their workers. Its free speech and capitalism at work. However, if executives of companies have received government bailouts, have not returned those taxpayer dollars, and are receiving excessive bonuses, thats something the government should stop.

While in the House, he voted against the Protecting the Right to Organize Act in 2019. The legislation would have served as a response to right-to-work laws on the state level and boosted rules against punishing workers who are active in their union.

He also supported an amendment to that bill that would have removed the workers rights to join a union via a card check to instead require an election.

The Republican candidates of 2024 clearly remain a far cry from then-candidate Eisenhower, who ridiculed rightwing members of his party attacking labour laws for being stupid.

I have no use for thoseregardless of their political partywho hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labour was a huddled, almost helpless mass, he told the AFL just over 71 years ago.
Immigrant-rights advocates are calling on the Biden administration to immediately suspend all deportation flights to Haiti, citing the inconsistencies in its policies and the deteriorating security situation in the gang-ridden Caribbean nation.

Immigrants rights organizations from across the country have sent a letter to the administration asking for the deportation flights to stop and decrying the administrations refusal to implement a November 2022 call by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to suspend the forced return of Haitians to their country.

We believe that silence is not enough, and at this time the government must take a stand, said Shalyn Fluharty, executive director of the Americans for Immigrant Justice.

The request from the 74 groups comes on the heels of repeated warnings by both the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince for U.S. citizens to leave Haiti as soon as possible, and amid continued deportations to Haiti by the U.S., which has recognized that the country is unsafe. As a result, the Biden administration has afforded tens thousands of Haitians the legal right to temporarily live and work in the U.S. through a designation of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti, and the countrys inclusion in a humanitarian parole program for nationals of Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In a press conference about the deportations, advocates, most of whom represent South Florida-based organizations, said the U.S. is inconsistent and hypocritical. The U.S. is deporting Haitians at the same time it is asking countries around the globe to support a foreign intervention in Haiti due to the safety issues. It is also deporting Haitians while telling Americans to leave the country as soon as possible.

The life of every single Haitian should be valued just as the life of every American as it should be, said Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

A child looks at the camera as Haitians who were deported from the United States line up as they arrive at a hotel where they will be quarantined as a measure against the spread of the new coronavirus, in Tabarre, Haiti, Thursday, April 23, 2020.

Since late July, Haiti has seen a resurgence in violence in many metropolitan Port-au-Prince neighborhoods. Despite a truce between the G-9 and G-pep-la, gang coalitions, which led to a lull in violence in the Cite Soleil slum, gangs have expanded their control in other areas. The violence has led to growing tensions in communities such as Tabarre, where the U.S. Embassy was forced to curtail services due to rampant gun violence.

The countrys largest hospital, University of Mirebalais, came under a barrage of gunfire at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. Although none of the 350 patients were injured, the hospitals administration condemned the attack. A known gang leader, Izo 5 Segonn, released a video complaining that an arms shipment he was expecting from the closed Dominican border had been diverted.

The attack on the Mirebalais hospital is the latest in a series of attacks on hospitals and health care facilities in Haiti, said William ONeill, the U.N. independent human rights experts on Haiti who has also called for a suspension in deportations to Haiti. These are egregious human rights abuses and those responsible must be brought to justice. Truly deplorable and devastating to a health community already on its knees.

READ MORE: Mayorkas says Haitian gangs targeted American personnel, prompting evacuation order

Paul Christian Namphy, the program director for the Family Action Network Movement, said those are not conditions that people should be returned to.

Gangs have essentially taken over life in Haiti.... Peoples lives are grinding to a halt out of fear, said Gepsie Metellus, the executive director of the Sant La Neighborhood Center. In all good conscience, deportations to Haiti must stop.

Vanessa Joseph, an immigration lawyer with Catholic Legal Services, said that given the United States historical commitment to assisting refugees, we cannot ignore the grief and humanitarian concerns associated with these deportation flights.

We have heard stories and witnessed the hardships that individuals face upon theyre forced to return to Haiti. And these are real people with real lives who deserve protection, she said. Its the responsibility of the Biden administration to ensure that deportations do not lead to serious harm for those who are returned to Haiti. ... Sending more individuals into such a volatile situation is not a solution.

While there have been nine deportation flights since November, Guerline Jozef of the San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance said more than 30,000 Haitians have been deported since President Biden came into office. She noted that the end of this month will mark the two-year anniversary since thousands of Haitian migrants showed up under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, and many of them were deported back to Haiti.

Those same people are still being deported back to Haiti, she said.

Haitians detained for deportation stand in a police truck on a border bridge between Dajabon, Dominican Republic, and Haiti, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. The president of the Dominican Republic announced Thursday that he would close all borders with neighboring Haiti starting Friday in response to the construction of a supposed canal on Haitian soil that targets waters from the Massacre River, which runs along the border shared by both countries.

Advocates say they have reason to believe that despite the deteriorating security situation in Haiti, the Biden administration intends to send another deportation flight to Haiti before the end of this month.

Florida state Rep. Dotie Joseph said given the dire situation in Haiti the administration, the U.S. should adhere to refugee protocols to afford Haitians the same protections as other refugees. It should also authorize Deferred Enforced Departure for Haiti similarly as it has done for other countries, which protects nationals from deportations.

I am reiterating the UNHCRs call on member states in the region, hopefully led by the United States to suspend the forced return of Haitians to their country of origin, with a devastating humanitarian and security crisis going on right now, she said.. We recognize the State Departments own findings buttressing their TPS designation for Haiti, with the need to cease deportation.
A Black man is suing a Louisiana sheriffs office for allegedly using facial identification software as the basis for a wrongful arrest that kept him in jail for days on theft charges, despite having never been to the state before.

In late 2022, Randal Quran Reid, 29, was driving to his mothers house the day after Thanksgiving and was pulled over by a Georgia state trooper.

When he learned why, he was stunned.

The officer informed him he was being arrested in connection with a stolen credit card used to buy $8,000 worth of purses outside of New Orleans earlier that year.

Mr Reid said he had never even visited Louisiana before, let alone use a boosted credit card to buy luxury goods.

I was confused and I was angry because I didnt know what was going on, he told The Associated Press. They couldnt give me any information outside of, Youve got to wait for Louisiana to come take you, and there was no timeline on that.

Every time I see police in my rearview mirror, he added, it just flashes back my mind to what could have happened even though I hadnt done anything.

Randal Quran Reid poses for a portait at his attorney's office, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Atlant (AP)

After spending six days in jail and missing work, he was eventually released and the warrant against him was dropped, but now hes suing the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Department, claiming the agencys faulty use of artificial-intelligence facial identification software wrongly put him behind bars.

The suit accuses Jefferson Parish officers, including a detective named Andrew Bartholomew, of using a face ID programme to match surveillance video in the case to a motor vehicle department photo of Mr Reid, a link they used as the basis for his arrest.

Bartholomew did not conduct even a basic search into Mr. Reid, which would have revealed that Mr. Reid was in Georgia when the theft occurred, the lawsuit reads.

The sheriffs office has said it doesnt comment on pending litigation.

In court filings, police said a credible human source helped identify Mr Reid as a suspect.

Mr Reid is one of many people around the country, disproportionately Black, who have been targets of wrongful arrests based on police facial identification software.

As The Independent reported, in February, the Detroit police department wrongfully arrested an eight-month pregnant mother of two for a suspected carjacking and robbery.

Im like, What,? I opened my door so he could see my stomach. Im eight months pregnant. You can see two vehicles in the driveway. Why would I carjack? she told The Independent. Youve gotta be wrong. You cant have the right person.

She was put in handcuffs and taken to jail, where she had panic attacks and early contractions.

I definitely believe that situation wouldve gone differently had it been another race, honestly, just my opinion. There was no remorse shown to me and I was pregnant. I pleaded, she told The Independent.

At least six people around the US have been falsely arrested using facial ID technology. All of them are Black.

These misfires havent stopped the technology from proliferating across the country. At least half of federal law enforcement agencies with officers and a quarter of state and local agencies are using it.

We have no idea how often facial recognition is getting it wrong, Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), told The Independent.

When you have facial recognition being used thousands of times, without any accountability for mistakes, its inviting injustice, he added.
President Joe Biden grabbed a bullhorn on the picket line Tuesday and urged striking auto workers to stick with it in an unparalleled show of support for organized labor by a modern president.

Donning a union ballcap and exchanging fist bumps, Biden told United Auto Workers strikers that you deserve the significant raise you need as he stopped in the Detroit area just a day ahead of a planned visit by former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in next year's election.

No deal, no wheels! workers chanted as Biden arrived at a General Motors parts distribution warehouse, one of several facilities that has been targeted in a widening strike now in its 12th day. No pay, no parts!

Despite concerns that a prolonged strike could undermine the economy, particularly in the crucial battleground state of Michigan, the Democratic president encouraged workers to keep fighting for better wages at a time when car companies have seen rising profits.

Asked if UAW members deserved a 40 percent raise, one of their demands over the course of negotiations, Biden said: Yes. I think they should be able to bargain for that.

Hes repeatedly argued that auto companies have not gone far enough to meet union demands, especially after making concessions in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The fact of the matter is that you guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 ... you made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble. Now theyre doing incredibly well and guess what? You should be doing incredibly well.

The White House said Biden was the first modern president to visit a picket line, a sign of how far hes willing to go to cultivate union support as he runs for reelection.

Lawmakers often appear at strikes to show solidarity with unions, and Biden joined picket lines with casino workers in Las Vegas and auto workers in Kansas City while seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

But sitting presidents, who have to balance the rights of workers with disruptions to the economy, supply chains and other facets of everyday life, have stayed out of the strike fray ? until Biden.

Unimpressed, Trump called Bidens visit nothing more than a PR stunt from Crooked Joe Biden to distract and gaslight the American people from his disastrous Bidenomics policies that have led to so much economic misery across the country.

The president spent less than half an hour at the Willow Run parts distribution warehouse, where he was joined by UAW President Shawn Fain, who rode with Biden in the presidential limousine to the picket line.

Thank you, Mr. President, for coming to stand up with us in our generation-defining moment," said Fain, who described the union as engaged in a kind of war against corporate greed.

We do the heavy lifting. We do the real work," Fain said. "Not the CEOs.

Labor historians said they could not recall an instance when a sitting president had joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited labor leaders alongside mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision that was seen at the time as a rare embrace of unions as Roosevelt tried to resolve the dispute.

Biden's visit to the picket line was the most significant demonstration of his pro-union bona fides, a record that includes vocal support for unionization efforts at Amazon.com facilities and executive actions that promoted worker organizing. He also earned a joint endorsement of major unions earlier this year and has avoided southern California for high-dollar fundraisers amid the writers' and actors' strikes in Hollywood.

The United Farm Workers announced their endorsement of Biden on Tuesday, calling him an authentic champion for workers and their families, regardless of their race or national origin. Bidens campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, is the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, the unions co-founder.

The UAW has not endorsed Biden. Asked about that after landing in Michigan, Biden told reporters that Im not worried about that.

Fain later said any endorsements would come later. Weve got to get good contracts first and well work out those things down the road, he said.

At least one warehouse worker on the picket line was not swayed by the visit. Curtis Cranford, who has 38 years with GM, was happy that Biden visited, but said it wouldn't necessarily deter him from voting Republican in 2024.

I think it means a lot. It should hopefully put some pressure on the company. The White House is behind us Cranford said.

Still, he said he and many union members disagree with Democrats on securing the borders, abortion and other issues. And he said both Trump and Biden were too old for the job.

Biden and other Democrats are aggressively touting the president's pro-labor credentials as Trump works to make inroads in critical swing states where unions remain influential, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden is leaning on his union support at a time when labor enjoys broad support from the public, with 67 percent of Americans approving of labor unions in an August Gallup poll.

The UAW strike, which expanded into 20 states last week , remains a dilemma for the Biden administration since a part of the workers' grievances include concerns about a broader transition to electric vehicles. The shift away from gas-powered vehicles has worried some autoworkers because electric versions require fewer people to manufacture and there is no guarantee that factories that produce them will be unionized.

Adrian Mitchell, who works at the GM parts warehouse, said Biden would be better for the middle class than Trump. He supports the people in regards to coming out here, showing solidarity with the UAW workers, Mitchell said. Hes always been for the middle class. I cant speak about Trump."

On electric vehicles, Mitchell said workers are concerned that the transition from internal combustion vehicles may cost them jobs. We havent really gotten to that point to see the job losses yet, he said. "So we cant look into the future to kind of see whats really going to happen. But were all a little worried about that right now.

Trump is skipping the second Republican primary debate on Wednesday and will meet with striking autoworkers in Michigan, seeking to capitalize on discontent over the state of the economy and anger over the Biden administrations push for more electric vehicles ? a key component of its clean-energy agenda.

White House officials dismissed any notion that Trump forced their hand and noted that Biden headed to Michigan at the request of Fain, who last week invited the sitting president to join the strikers.

The Biden administration has no formal role in the negotiations, and the White House pulled back a decision from the president earlier this month to send two key deputies to Michigan after determining it would be more productive for the advisers, Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, to monitor talks from Washington.

Fain said Tuesday that negotiations were moving slowly and theyll escalate the strike to more plants if they need to. (AP)
Lex Villena

In July 2001, a dozen Google techies pondered their mission mantra. In essence, they aimed "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." However, their ambition was celestial. They grasped for a moniker.

The network of networks was expanding exponentially in every direction, with websites stacking up data everywhere. The informational jumble was messier than a teenager's bedroom floor.

AltaVista, AskJeeves, Excite, Overture, InfoSpace, Lycos, Inktomi, and other websites were using keyword search tools. But the scammers, hackers, and porn hubs were sending masses of these keywords into their databases, hijacking innocent web surfers. The question then arose: How to create a navigational app that separates the wheat from the chaff?

Don't be evil.

These were computer science nerds, of course. Philosophers, preachers, or landscape architecture majors might have dug deeper. Yet, off these merry programmers marched into Cyberspace, brimming with idealism and armed with code.

Damned if they didn't tidy up that packet-switched thicket. Keyword searches once again became great with Google Search. Billions of people began googling their every thought, and the business model achieved miracles. Google created over one thousand five-millionaires when it went public in 2004 each lucky individual (if leaving their stake unsold since) now holds $370 million, minimum. Company founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin are each 100-billionaires.

The innovation was simple in design, complex in execution, and radical in result. The business achieved a rare triple play: First, a robust new web crawler devised a superior method for finding and tagging the world's digital content, deploying cheap PCs linked in formations to achieve momentous computing power (Brin's genius). Second, this more prolific database of global digital content was better cataloged. A clever "Page Rank" score evaluated keyword matches, countering the influence of scammers by scrutinizing the quality of their web page links (Page's inspiration). Third, "intention-based advertising" displayed commercial messages to searchers self-identified as ready to buy. For instance, the internet user wondering about "coho salmon, Ketchikan, kids" gave Hank's Family Fishing B&B in Alaska a digital target for its 10 percent off coupon, while signaling to Olay not to bother advertising its skin care products. This solved the famous marketing dilemma: "I know I'm wasting half my ad budget, I just don't know which half." Businesses loved these tiny slices of digital real estate, and Google mined gold.

The bountiful cash flow funded vast computer overhead and an elite army of software programmers, enabling Google to deliver truly extraordinary benefits to the mass marketall for free. According to Stanford University economist Eric Brynjolfsson's conservative empirical estimate, each Google user in the U.S. enjoys an astounding $750 a year in consumer surplus, amounting to around $184 billion annually for the 246 million daily Google users the equivalent to 1 percent of GDP.

Such boffo success for a capitalist start-up, ingeniously solving the needs of the World Wide Webwell, that's your American Dream scene, just as Norman Rockwell sketched it for the brochure. It's a generational blockbuster, with 200,000 Google professionals living large and enjoying a median 2022 compensation equal to $279,802. Naturally, all of this leaves public policy experts with just one option:

Sue the bastards!

Is Google Search the greatest product since sliced bagels, or is it monopoly extraction? The query is getting its day in antitrust court, presided over by Judge Amit Mehta, a Georgetown University law graduate nominated to the Washington D.C. federal court by President Barack Obama. Mehta is hearing U.S. v. Google, a case filed in October 2020 by Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ). Then-Attorney General William Barr signed the complaint, attacking "Google's grip over the internet for millions of American consumers and entrepreneurs beholden to an unlawful monopolist."

For convenience, Mehta relocated the proceedings to a facility in Northern Virginiaa wry sense of topographical irony! The prosecutors argue that one of the core issues in the case against Google revolves around having a search engine conveniently placed in the right spot. Google pays browser developers, device makers, and mobile operators for preferred (if non-exclusive) placement of its prized app. Of particular interest is Apple, which receives $10 billion a year to integrate Google's search engine into Safari, a web browser that comes pre-installed in all of Apple's iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs. According to the DOJ, this arrangement means that Apple is giving preference to Google over its competitors, hindering newcomers like the fledgling Microsoft and its software, Microsoft Bing, from gaining users.

I say that Google is the better search engine, but don't trust meonly 3 percent of U.S. web searches take place on Microsoft Bing, while a whopping 93 percent use Google. Is it possible that that is simply because Bing is being suppressed by the all-powerful Google? Not likely. Google's lawyers argue that not even the greater share of browsers distributed by Microsoft (which come pre-installed on the majority of computers sold globally) significantly boost Bing's popularity. This prompts a word of caution: try not to get between a happy new owner of an HP, Dell, or Acer laptop and her keyboard, as her fingers pound with zeal in a race to replace the default Bing app with her preferred choice.

If Mehta were to use Bing, he would discover two things: First, it is a snap to launch Bing even when Google is the default search engine; assuming a standard broadband connection, it pops up in a flash. (Google engineered noticeable speed increases in its searches, and they became a trademark innovation.) Second, it wouldn't take long to notice how the score in this game ran up to where the DOJ is attempting to administer its own form of a mercy rule.

No smart pundit ever risks making a bold prediction about an antitrust trial, where differences in lawyering, mood swings by the judge's irritable adolescent son, unpredictable courtroom testimony, and facts yet to be discovered influence outcomes. Hey, there could even be jury tampering! So, rejecting all wisdom, here's mine:

JK.

This case, brought mainly by the DOJ (although 35 state attorneys general have joined), largely falls under Section II of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (although Section IV and the Clayton Act have received mention). Section II makes it illegal to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations." A long list of Supreme Court cases, however, shows that having a high market share, even if it resembles a monopoly, is not per se unlawful. Instead, the law targets those abusing market power to damage the market: reducing consumer choices, raising output prices, and slowing benefits to the public that would otherwise result from robust competition.

The government will attempt to prove that Google's deals with Apple, Mozilla, Samsung, T-Mobile, and Verizon for favorable screen placement provided an advantage by suppressing competition. Google Search won in the marketplace, but not "on the merits," hindering innovation and, more importantly and broadly, consumers, who lost options, the argument goes. The government claims the case parallels the 1998 action by the DOJ against Microsoft in the "browser wars" case. Microsoft, once the perp, is now the victim.

Indeed, the DOJ wants to believe it is on something of a roll. Twenty-five years ago, it beat Microsoft's lawyers, obtaining a judgment against the Beast of Redmond and even a divestiture order that split the firm into two separate companies. Alas, that order was overturned on appeal. Ultimately, a 2001 settlement mandated Microsoft to open their Windows operating system interfaces to allow other companies a fair chance to offer computer users their software innovations on Windows-run machines, fostering competition with those written by Microsoft.

This 10-year probation was the DOJ's answer to the browser "jihad" waged by Microsoft. When Netscape's Navigator took the world by storm in late 1994, it jumped onto over 38 million Windows computers in just 18 months. The innovation was groundbreaking, triggering mass market adoption of tools to access the World Wide Web. In response, Microsoft developed its rival, Internet Explorer, in 1995. Microsoft gave the browser away for free, while Netscape began charging $50 a unit, and spent $100 million a year on a team of programmers to improve their product. By the release of Internet Explorer 3.0 in August 1996, independent reviews reached a consensus that Microsoft's product was superior, the price of the browser was $0.00, and the Internet-connected world was exploding.

But that was bad. The government's theory was that low prices and better browsers were suppressing competitionnot in browsers but in operating systems. Navigator was itself increasing demand for Windows, as the added ability to surf the web was a huge plus. The trick was that Microsoft feared that its Windows software could benot immediately, but down the roadreplaced by rival software that snuck onto its operating platform and hosted other third-party apps, as well. Indeed, Netscape's strategy had stoked this vision by embedding a programming language, JAVA, within Navigator. This did allow software developers to write programs that interacted directly with JAVA, not Windows, and created the thought (and fear, harbored by Microsoft) that just such a transition might one day undercut Microsoft's ultra-profitable core product.

Smoking gun!

Nice theory, but a quarter century on, it's been tested. The government's legal win against Microsoft did not perform as promised in the marketplacebringing competitors to Windows via transparent protocols that promote innovation atop the Windows ecosystem. When the antitrust sanctions expired in 2011, Windows still claimed 92 percent of the global desktop PC operating system marketan increase from the 60 percent share it had at the time the DOJ filed the case. JAVA, conversely, claimed 0 percent, having failed to materialize as any sort of competitive threat, despite the DOJ's prediction and protections. Perhaps even more revealing was that Apple had arisen to grab 6 percent of the global computer operating system market, using a proprietary model that owed nothing to the Windows sharing protocols supervised by regulators. (Apple's share rose to 18 percent in 2020, as two rival behemoths, Microsoft and Apple, accounted for 95 percent.) Even a supporter of the government's case as stalwart as legal scholar and activist Lawrence Lessigdisqualified from his Special Master appointment by trial Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson by the D.C. Circuit due to his bias against Microsoftconceded the long-run verdict in 2007: "I blew it on Microsoft."

Microsoft competitors have nonetheless flourished, bashing Microsoft in software apps (like search) and out-maneuvering the tech "monopolist" elsewhere. Note the remarkable history.

Microsoft's pointed effort to control the television market through the cable set-top box fizzled, despite Microsoft's $1 billion equity investment in the leading U.S. cable operator, Comcast. This took place just when a firm with no existing business, Netflix, was entering the mail-order video rental business, ultimately establishing supremacy via streaming. Then, driven by a hunger for new content to feed its burgeoning subscriber base, the firm became America's largest movie studio in less than a decade.

The rise of wireless eclipsed plain old telephone service. Apple's iPhone launched and revolutionized internet access, taking it mobile. This gave Apple's iOS (with Safari) and then Google's Android operating system (featuring Google Search as its prized application) massive markets to serve and multi-trillion-dollar valuations to enjoy.

Microsoft made every effort to conquer this domain. Early in digital cellular, Microsoft widely supplied its own wireless operating system, Windows Mobile, which was crushed by the rise of Apple's iPhone and the Google-sponsored Android ecosystem.. Microsoft then regrouped, partnering with Nokia, the world's leading smartphone maker pre-iPhone. Their Symbian platform continued to plummet, so Microsoft proceeded to buy Nokia's entire cellphone business in 2014, only to write-off that entire business for $8 billion in losses in 2015.

Sounding familiar yet?

Through these waves of creative destruction, Netflix emerged to make itself the king of internet video; Apple the leading money-maker of wireless; Samsung the top producer of $1,000 non-iPhone cellphones; Google the king of search; and Amazon the titan of the Cloud. Microsoft still reigns as the top dog in computer software.

And the DOJ's antitrust theories win in Washington. Announcing the Google case in October 2020, Attorney General Barr said:

Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Justice sued Microsoft, paving the way for a new wave of innovative tech companiesincluding Google. The increased competition following the Microsoft case enabled Google to grow from a small start-up to an Internet behemoth.

Let's Google that. The Microsoft antitrust sanctions were imposed years after Google's search engine burst on the scene and took Silicon Valley by storm; like numerous search apps before, it was easily accessed by millions using Windows. Today, Google Search continues to flourish even over the hurdles posed by Microsoftwhich favors its Bing app in Windows, "foreclosing" Google Search now. U.S. regulators could not possibly miss the fact that European antitrust authorities have been investigating Google for competition law violations since 2010, filing antitrust suits since 2015, and fining the firm three times, dinging the hipsters from Sunnyvale over $9 billion between 2017 and 2019. Still, Europeans love Google. In April 2023, it held 92.5 percent of Europe's market share, exactly where it was in January 2015.

It is curious that Barr would state the antitrust claim so succinctly. In fact, we know where the next Google is likely to come fromwhence the current one emerged. Wonderfully, the most important single strategic business event in the history of this storied innovator is thought by company biographers to have occurred in May 2002. At the time, the firm was still a start-up looking for a path to stardom. The company's big break came when it had the opportunity to cut a deal with the world's largest Internet Service Provider, AOL.

With 34 million subscribers, AOL was a most imposing presence on the burgeoning Internet. When its subscribers went to their start-up page, which tool would they use? The old search engine, produced by Inktomi, was good, as was Overture's companion service serving up Internet ads to monetize the searches. But the buzz about the hot new app was intense: The New York Times reported that Google's search results were "widely regarded as the best on the Web." AOL wanted in: it invited Google to bid for placement in their featured search slot.

Brin and Page could scarcely believe it. They saw the deal as an answer to their prayers. It was a shock to them that Eric Schmidt, the company's CEO brought in by investors as the adult supervision tempering the brash, brilliant young bucks, informed them it was a non-starter. The firm, still more than two years from its IPO, had only tiny cash reserves. Capturing the AOL business could easily turn into a winner's curse, delivering the Google vision into bankruptcy. "I was terrified," said Schmidt in an exchange captured in David Vise's 2005 The Google Story. "Larry and Sergey and I argued hard. I understood that if you ran out of cash, you were done. They were more willing to take risks than me. They turned out to be right."

No kidding.

The deal committed Google to pay AOL 85 percent of the revenues Google search would generate on AOL's site, and guaranteed at least $150 million per yearmind-boggling for a firm with a cash balance of $10 million at the time. The youngsters simply laughed at the old man, outvoted him, and bet the farm. With another 34 million Americans nudged their way, the world would soon be their oyster.

It is crucial to recall that it was not yet theirs in 2002. Google was a phenom, yes, and it attracted 16 percent of U.S. search traffic. But Yahoo still had 36 percent, and strong rivals such Overture, Excite, andyesMicrosoft were all in the mix. Yet, once Google scraped together the coin to launch on the big stage, consumers flocked. In just two years, Google passed Yahoo. The better mousetrap broke into a market where the giants demanded pay-to-play. So the upstart paid. Soon, the little guy owned the world. It is unfortunate that the then-ISP monopoly (as per the Federal Trade Commission's official position), AOL, is not around to see it.

So that's where the last Google came froma place that the DOJ now dubs anti-competitive.

The Google case takes the U.S. towards the European Union's model. It is an antitrust epiphany of not just Lina Khan, the FTC activist appointed by President Joe Biden, but also of Donald Trump, the former president who, like Microsoft, knows about being a defendant. Trump is caught flat-footed, however, embracing the European approach to zap American-made products. Referring to the E.U.'s top antitrust regulator, he exclaimed in 2019: "She's suing all our companies. We should be suing Google and Facebookwhich perhaps we will."

And we are. Google is on trial now; the Trump-filed Facebook case is scheduled for next year. It's a bit of an irony. The European approach, while considered yet ineffective in halting American entrepreneurship, has been nearly airtight in suppressing European digital enterprise. The entire continent, with perhaps the best educational systems in the world, has not produced a single Top 30 Tech firm, as measured by market capitalization in tech guru Mary Meeker's annual "Internet Trends." In contrast, the U.S. has 18, China 7. The only E.U. entry is Sweden's Spotify at No. 30.

The policy switch apparent in U.S. v. Google represents a bizarre trade flow: Trump, an amateur protectionist, is stealing from professional anti-American protectionists in Brussels.

Fifteen years ago, when "neutrality" debates were all the rage in the internet policy world, I encountered a friend from Japan. He was an executive at one of the three mobile carriers. Japan, with its innovative iMode, launched the wireless web in 1999 and was long thought of as the premier Internet-connected market.

We chatted about competition. I asked about what appsthe search engine, in particularwere pre-loaded on the carrier's devices. The Japanese mobile sector has been routinely dubbed "strong vertical," meaning that the mobile networks exercise great control over what business models develop and services are supplied.

The exec evinced a pallor. With uncharacteristic emotion, he responded with staccato: "Google." I inquired, "But they are paying you for product placement, you're getting money to feature them, correct?"

To which my friend conceded: "Yes, but we don't like it. We have no choice. Our customers want Google!"

The post Maybe Google Is Popular Because It's Good? appeared first on Reason.com.
Wael Hana, an alleged co-conspirator indicted in a bribery scheme with New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, pleaded not guilty and was released on bail in federal court Tuesday.

Hana was arrested Tuesday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport upon his return from Egypt, his attorney Larry Lustberg told reporters after the hearing. His wife and children remain in Egypt where they all live much of the year. Hana returned to the US to face the charges, Lustberg said.

Hana was charged in an indictment last week with Menendez and others and faces one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, which carry maximum prison sentences of five and 20 years respectively.

Prosecutors allege that he facilitated an agreement to provide bribes to the senator and his now-wife in exchange for the senators influence in matters benefiting himself, the Egyptian government and others. The couple has denied wrongdoing.

Hana is being released on a $5 million personal recognizance bond and surrendered his travel documents. Hes also subject to GPS location monitoring and a curfew requiring him to be at his New Jersey home from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

All of his shares in his company Capital Management EG will also be held as collateral for his release. Lustberg said Hana will try to run his halal business but whether the business will survive remains to be seen.

Hana is also banned from contact with co-defendants and case witnesses without attorneys present.

RELATED: Read the indictment against Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife

Prosecutors allege Menendez, who held significant influence as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed and sought to pressure a senior official at the US Department of Agriculture in an effort to protect a business monopoly granted to Hana by Egypt.

The Department of Agriculture in 2019 had contacted Egypt to object to it giving Menendezs contact, Hana, monopoly rights related to supplying halal meat to the US.

When Official-1 attempted to explain why the monopoly was detrimental to U.S. interests, MENENDEZ reiterated his demand, in sum and substance, that the USDA stop interfering with IS EG Halals monopoly. Official-1 did not accede to MENENDEZs demand, but IS EG Halal nevertheless kept its monopoly, the indictment says.

According to the indictment, the senators wife, Nadine, facilitated meetings with Hana and Egyptian officials requesting military sales and financing.

Lustberg said Hana has been friends with Nadine Menendez for many years, long before she began dating the senator in 2018. The attorney also said he wouldnt consider the New Jersey Democrat to be a friend of Hana and said hes unaware if Hana has any connections with Egyptian intelligence.

The Egyptian businessman is due back in Manhattan federal court October 2.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Tuesday insisted hes innocent as more than a dozen of his Senate Democratic colleagues called on him to resign over last weeks indictment on bribery charges.

Asked by a reporter on Tuesday at the Senate over why he isnt resigning, Menendez had a quick and simple retort.

Because Im innocent, Menendez said in response to a question from NBC News correspondent Ryan Nobles.

Whats wrong with you guys, Menendez added.

In keeping with Senate Democrats protocol, Menendez stepped down from his powerful position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez is accused of corruption and bribery, including accepting cash and gold bars in exchange for help through his influence as a senator and as chairman of his powerful committee. The indictment accused him of aiding New Jersey businessmen as well as those with connections to Egypts government.

He has maintained his innocence and refused to resign from the Senate.

On Tuesday, a wave of new Democratic senators joined calls for Menendezs resignation, including his junior senator from New Jersey, Sen. Cory Booker (D). The chair of the Senate Democrats campaign arm, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), also called for Menendezs resignation.

Senate Republicans have not been as quick to call for Menendez to step down, perhaps an acknowledgement of Menendezs weakness going into the next campaign cycle. If Menendez resigned, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey would select his replacement.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) was the first New Jersey Democratic lawmaker to call for Menendezs resignation. He also launched a primary bid to replace Menendez in the Senate.

Updated at 6:55 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
US Army Private Travis King is on a flight back to the United States after being returned to American custody weeks after he crossed into North Korea, according to State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller.

We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing. In addition, we thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in the statement.

The freeing of King represents a rare diplomatic success in relations between the US and North Korea. The efforts to retrieve him came at a particularly tense time, as US officials have recently publicly warned Pyongyang against providing weapons to Russia for its fight in Ukraine. Earlier this month, North Koreas Kim Jong Un traveled into Russia for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The US has also condemned North Korea as it carries out a series of ballistic missile tests that are particular unnerving to South Korea.

Earlier Wednesday, North Korean state media KCNA reported that the secretive state had decided to expel King, who entered its territory during a tour of the Joint Security Area (JSA) between North and South Korea in July.

The KCNA report said a North Korean investigation into King has been finished.

Miller said that King is now on his way back to the US and is expected to arrive in the coming hours.

King was handed off from the North Koreans to the US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns in Dandong, China, according to Miller.

Two US officials told CNN King was brought by a Swedish convoy to the Friendship bridge on the border between North Korea and China.

On the Chinese side of the bridge, the US Defense Attache to China Brigadier General Patrick Teague and Burns met King and took him into US military custody.

Miller said that King then flew to Shenyang, China, and then to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea before departing for the US.

King is expected to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio upon his return to the US, two US officials said.

Located at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, the medical center is the largest hospital within the Defense Department, according to the hospitals website.

Brooke Army Medical Center also has a Department of Defense Program known as PISA (Post Isolation Support Activities) to help Americans acclimate back to normal life after being detained. Both Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner went there after they were released from detention in Russia.

Intense diplomacy

US officials said King was released after intense diplomacy between multiple countries culminating in Wednesdays transfer across the border into China and onward to US custody.

The US government has successfully facilitated Private Travis Kings departure from the DPRK. His transfer culminates a monthslong effort involving multiple US government agencies undertaken out of concern for Private Kings well-being and a desire to reunite him with his family, a senior administration official said.

In a statement Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder thanked the US Army, US Forces Korea, and the Defense Department for efforts in bringing King home  as well as the governments of China and Sweden for their assistance.

The US received word earlier this month from Sweden, which acts as the US protecting power in North Korea, that Pyongyang wanted to release King. Swedish embassy spokesman David Lunderquist confirmed that Sweden played a role in getting King released.

Another US official added Wednesday that Chinas role was limited to helping facilitate Kings transfer out of North Korea, but otherwise Bejing did not play a mediating role.

Asked whether the US made any concessions to North Korea for the transfer, officials emphatically said no.

The answer is simple: There were none. Full stop, the senior official said.

President Joe Biden and other top administration leadership have been closely briefed and following events as they unfold, the official added.

Future disciplinary actions unclear

US military officials have said that King, a junior enlisted cavalry scout, willfully and without authorization crossed into North Korea in July. King had been released from a detention facility in South Korea just over a week before running across the demarcation line  punishment which appeared to stem from an October 2022 incident in which he allegedly pushed and punched a victim in the face at a club in Seoul, according to court documents.

The day before he crossed into North Korea, King was supposed to board a flight to Texas, where he was to face disciplinary procedures. But after Army escorts released him at a security checkpoint at Incheon International Airport near Seoul, King left the airport on his own.

The next day, he joined a tour of the JSA he had previously booked with a private company.

There is no physical barrier inside the JSA, and a US official previously said that after bolting over the demarcation line delineating the border, King tried to enter a North Korean facility  but the door was locked. He then ran to the back of the building, at which point he was hurried into a van and driven away by North Korean guards.

North Korea claimed on Wednesday that King has confessed that he illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK as he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

CNN cannot verify whether these are Kings own words. But pressed on Wednesday by CNNs Jeremy Diamond whether King wanted to return to the US, the official said, it became quite clear to US diplomats that Private King was very happy to be on his way home.

Its unclear if King could face additional disciplinary actions by the military upon his return. Asked Wednesday if King could be facing court martial, an official emphasized that the focus for the next several weeks would be on Kings health as he gets back on solid footing.

Well address any administrative actions that may follow after the reintegration process, the official said.

The official added that the focus within the military is having a very talented and experienced team evaluate King and address any medical and emotional concerns. Asked about his absent without leave, or AWOL, status, the official said they would work through all those administrative status questions following the completion of his reintegration.

King is looking forward to being reunited with his family

As King makes his way back to the US, an official said that he is currently in good health and good spirits. His health had been of particular concern to officials who previously said they had been trying to get more information from North Korea.

A high-profile incident of another American being held in the country ended tragically, as American college student Otto Warmbiers health seriously deteriorated while in North Korean custody. Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, but was returned to the US in 2017 and died of severe brain damage less than a week after his return to the US.

A spokesperson for Kings mother, Claudine Gates said she will be forever grateful for the efforts to free her son.

Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done. For the foreseeable future, the family asks for privacy, and Ms. Gates does not intend to give any interviews, the statement from Jonathan Franks said. Officials added on Wednesday that a call was facilitated between King and his family.

He is very much looking forward to being reunited with his family, an official said. That is the sentiment that is pervading all else right now.

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An aerial view of dredging operations to build an underwater sill in Plaquemines Parish, La., with the city of New Orleans in the distance. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Officials in Louisiana are warning that saltwater coming up from the Gulf of Mexico could affect the availability of safe drinking water for millions of people along the Mississippi River, including those in New Orleans.

The so-called saltwater intrusion was triggered by a severe drought, with months of extreme heat and low rainfall leading to unusually low levels of fresh water in the Mississippi.

What are officials saying?

Yahoo News

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell signed an emergency declaration last week, warning that saltwater encroaching upriver could impact safe drinking water for 1.25 million residents of the city and surrounding parishes.

Louisiana Gov. Bel Edwards sent a letter to President Biden earlier this week requesting that he approve a federal emergency declaration to assist those in the lower Mississippi River region affected by the saltwater intrusion.

The rate of fresh water flowing down the Mississippi River has been low due to extended drought conditions in Louisiana and across the Mississippi River Valley, Edwards said in a statement. As a result of these historic low flow conditions, an intrusion of saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico is making its way upriver.

Also read

Plaquemines Parish in southeastern Louisiana has already been impacted by the saltwater intrusion, the governor noted, as residents there have been under a drinking water advisory since June.

Edwards said that the increased salinity from the saltwater intrusion is forecast to exceed the Environmental Protection Agencys standards for safe drinking water. The salty water in the public water supply also increases the risk of corrosion to machinery and appliances, such as washing machines, he added.

In a separate statement, Edwards said he was optimistic Biden would approve the emergency declaration, which would unlock federal aid for the affected communities.

What else is being done to help?

Engineers are using barges to build the underwater sill in Plaquemines Parish. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

The United States Army Corps of Engineers next month is planning to bring 36 million gallons of fresh water daily into New Orleans on a barge as the expected saltwater intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico threatens the areas drinking water supply.

It is also adding 25 feet of height to a 1,500-foot-wide underwater sill that was constructed in July to slow the saltwaters progression up the Mississippi River. But the expansion wont be completed for a few weeks and will delay the intrusion by only 10 to 15 days, Army Col. Cullen Jones told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps is also monitoring the location of the encroaching saltwater, which forms whats known as a saltwater wedge as it moves up the river. As of last week, the wedge had toppled a sill at mile marker 63.8 near Alliance, La., just 23 miles south of New Orleans.

Edwards urged residents in New Orleans and the surrounding areas not to panic or rush to buy bottled water, saying that they will be notified in advance if the saltwater intrusion is imminent.

Big picture

A dwindling supply of bottled water at a supermarket in Port Sulphur, La., on Monday. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Droughts are relatively common in Louisiana and throughout the southwest, but climate change is increasing the risk that they will occur more frequently and intensely and for longer periods of time.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year has been the hottest on record for Louisiana.

Most of the state has been experiencing prolonged drought and above-average heat, and has presented a number of challenges including wildfires, drought, heat-related deaths, injuries and so forth and now saltwater intrusion, Edwards said during a news conference on Sept. 22. Unfortunately, we just havent had the relief from dry conditions, so that intrusion is worsening.
By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru is looking to put the "chaos" of months-long protests earlier this year behind it to revitalize flagging mining investment in the world's no. 2 copper producing nation, even as executives demand more stablity to boost spending.

As a mining conference in the southern Andean region of Arequipa got started this week, Prime Minister Alberto Otarola addressed concerns about political instability and protests that have led to an expected 18% drop in mining investment this year.

"We are not going to allow the country to fall into chaos, disorder and insecurity," Otarola told hundreds of gathered mining business leaders, adding the government was also working to streamline environmental permitting regulations.

In interviews with Reuters, senior executives said that while things had improved since major nationwide protests at the start of the year, governance remained weak, while unclear rules and red tape for issues such as using contractors and securing environmental permits remained an obstacle to new investment.

Copper output has rebounded this year, but sliding investment in the Andean country, which has had six presidents in the last five years, has put production and the wider economy at risk. Mining makes up 60% of Peru's total exports.

"There is concern because there is not much clarity regarding where the new government is going," said Raul Jacob, vice president of finance at Grupo Mexico's Southern Copper, Peru's third largest copper producer.

He cited uncertainty around a law that limited the use of contractors that mining firms used, in part, to cut costs, which he said the government should repeal.

Peru's president Dina Boluarte took office late last year after former leader Pedro Castillo was impeached following an attempt to shutter Congress illegally. That sparked off months of deadly protests. Boluarte herself has weak popular support.

At the mining conference, Minister of Energy and Mines Oscar Vera argued that the government had "unlocked" nine projects this year, although all are expansions or medium-sized ventures.

The last major investment in Peru was Anglo American's $5 billion Quellaveco project, which came online last year and has helped buffer production figures.

Victor Gobitz, president of Peru's biggest copper mine Antamina - controlled by Glencore, BHP, Teck and Mitsubishi - said the constant political crisis mainly hurt investment in "greenfield" copper sites.

"For new mines, political risk and the lack of a clear mining policy is key," Gobitz, also the head of the main mining chamber, told Reuters by telephone, citing long waits to obtain mining concessions and risks linked to local community protests.

Gobitz said the government needed more "agility" to approve expansion projects, and should focus more on developing local areas around mines to avoid conflicts, often sparked by anger at mineral riches bypassing local communities.

"Peru has been growing and that is good, but at the institutional level we have not grown at the same speed, with the level of political maturity," he said. "We have a fragmented political system, which takes its toll on the entire country."

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Sonali Paul)
Richard Allen escorted out of court from a hearing in late 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

A week after Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen alleged that two teenagers were killed as part of a ritualistic sacrifice of a white nationalist cult, the prosecutor called it a fanciful theory.

Attorneys for the 50-year-old accused killer claimed in a filing that a pagan Norse religion and white nationalist group, called Odinists, ritualistically sacrificed Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi, Indiana in 2017.

Now Carroll County prosecutor, Nicholas McLeland, blasted the defences filing, according to The Journal & Courier.

Mr McLeland wrote that only 13 pages of the defences 136-page filing made any relevant allegations: The remaining 90 per cent of the Memorandum outlines its fanciful defense for social media to devour.

Libby and Abbys bodies had both been staged with tree branches and sticks across their bodies in the shape of pagan symbols, the defence teams documents stated  which resembled possible Odinism signatures left behind at the crime scene.

Law enforcement had explored possible links between the killings early on in the investigation  but then quickly abandoned the theory after speaking to an unidentified professor who refuted any possible link, the defence argued.

However, three law enforcement officers continued to probe a possible connection.

Those documents make many claims about Odinisms ties to the case, including possible Odinism signatures left behind at the crime scene, and even accusations that Odinites are working as corrections officers at Westville Correctional Facility where Mr Allen is being held awaiting trial.

On 13 February 2017, Libby and Abby went for a hike along the Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi. During the walk, Libby posted a photo of her best friend on Snapchat as they walked along the bridge.

Moments later, Libby captured a video of a man  known as Bridge guy  dressed in blue jeans, a blue jacket and a cap walking along the abandoned railroad bridge. In the clip, the man tells the pair: Guys, down the hill. Investigators have since said they believe Mr Allen to have been Bridge guy.

Later that day, the teenagers were reported missing when they failed to return to a spot where a family member was picking them up.

The next day, their bodies were discovered in a wooded area less than half a mile off the trail along the side of Deer Creek. Although few details about what happened to the duo have been revealed, the court documents detailed that the girls necks had been slashed.

Mr Allen has been charged with two counts of murder; he has pleaded not guilty.

Since his arrest in October 2022, Mr Allen has confessed to the 2017 murders multiple times behind bars  including in a phone call with his wife. His attorneys, however, said that Mr Allens confession cannot be believed due to his current mental state.
By Felix Light

GORIS, Armenia (Reuters) - A former head of the breakaway ethnic Armenian government in Nagorno-Karabakh was arrested by Azerbaijan on Wednesday as he tried to escape into Armenia as part of an exodus of tens of thousands of people that has triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker and philanthropist, headed Karabakh's separatist government between November 2022 and February 2023.

His wife Veronika Zonabend said on his Telegram channel that he had been arrested while trying to flee as part of a mass departure by ethnic Armenians after Azerbaijan took back control of Karabakh in a lightning offensive last week.

Azerbaijan's border service said he had been taken to the capital Baku and handed over to other state agencies.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic Armenians who broke away in the 1990s in the first of two wars there since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim country, says it wants to peacefully reintegrate the Armenians and will guarantee their civic rights, including to practise their Christian religion. It says no one is forcing them to leave.

But given the bloody history between the two sides, ethnic Armenians are fleeing in fear, abandoning their homes and boarding cars and trucks that have jammed the snaking mountain road that leads to Armenia.

Karabakh authorities said more than 50,000 had left so far, out of an estimated ethnic Armenian population of 120,000.

Azerbaijan rejects Armenian accusations of ethnic cleansing, but images of tens of thousands of desperate people on the move have provoked widespread international alarm.

The European Union said it was sending more humanitarian aid "in solidarity with those who had no choice but to flee" - a significant change from an earlier statement where it referred to people who had "decided to flee".

U.N. special rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz said Azerbaijan must "promptly and independently investigate alleged or suspected violations of the right to life reported in the context of its latest military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh".

Germany added its voice to U.S. calls for Azerbaijan to allow international observers into Karabakh.

"What is needed now is transparency, and the eyes and ears of the international community on the spot," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X, formerly Twitter.

MOUNTAIN ROAD

It was not clear on what grounds Vardanyan, the former Karabakh state minister, had been held, but Azerbaijan has signalled it will seek to prosecute some of the separatists.

"We have accused elements of the criminal regime and we will bring them to justice," President Ilham Aliyev said last week, without naming anyone or specifying any crime. He described the Karabakh leadership as a "criminal junta" and a "den of poison".

During his short time in office, Azerbaijan had called Vardanyan an obstacle to peace. He had also fallen out with Armenia's prime minister over the role of Russian peacekeepers.

His wife Zonabend said she asked for people's "prayers and support for my husband's safe release".

Tens of thousands have been killed in wars over Karabakh since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, of which both Armenia and Azerbaijan were part.

Karabakh authorities said they lost at least 200 people in Azerbaijan's offensive last week. Baku said on Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers had been killed, and published their names and photographs. More than 50 were young men in their teens.

The mountain road that winds out of Karabakh towards Armenia has been choked for days, with many people sleeping in cars or searching for firewood to keep warm. The journey of just 77 km (48 miles) to the border was taking at least 30 hours.

"I left everything behind. I don't know what is in store for me. I have nothing. I don't want anything," Vera Petrosyan, a 70-year-old retired teacher, told Reuters.

Local authorities said at least 68 people had been killed, 105 were missing and nearly 300 were injured in a huge explosion at a fuel station in Karabakh on Monday. It was unclear what caused it.

Russia said its peacekeeping force in the region had evacuated more than 120 people by helicopter.

Armenia is angry that the Russian peacekeepers, in place since a 44-day war in 2020, did nothing to prevent Azerbaijan from launching its offensive, which swiftly forced the Karabakh leadership to agree to disband and disarm.

With Russia distracted by the war in Ukraine, the crisis has highlighted its waning ability to play the role of security guarantor in the Caucasus region, where Turkey, Iran and the United States are competing with it for influence.

(Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones, Philippa Fletcher and Alison Williams)
Confusion plagues the Trump campaign after differing reports emerged over whether the former president bought a firearm during his trip to a gun store while in South Carolina on Monday  despite facing multiple criminal charges.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung posted a clip on Monday, in which Mr Trump can be heard saying, I wanna buy one, while touching a gun. Mr Cheung wrote, President Trump buys a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!

That post has since been taken down.

Mr Cheung later walked back the comment, telling CNN later on Monday that Mr Trump did not purchase a firearm at the gun store.

To add to the confusion, Mr Trump shared a post from a Truth Social user, who, alongside a clip of Mr Trump seemingly in awe of the gun, wrote: MY PRESIDENT Trump just bought a Golden Glock before his rally in South Carolina after being arrested 4 TIMES in a year. LIKE A BOSS!!!

The New York Times said it had asked the gun store in Summerville, South Carolina whether the former president had purchased a gun during his visit; the salesperson said he hadnt.

If he had in fact bought one, it would have been illegal. A federal law prohibits people under felony indictments  a group that includes the former president  from purchasing firearms.

The 2024 Republican frontrunner faces numerous federal indictments, including for his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in his favour.

Former DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weissmann took the implications one step further by pairing the law with a photo posted by Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, who travelled to the gun store with the former president.

He wrote on X, It is a felony for Trump to receive a firearm that has travelled in interstate commerce (the latter requirement is almost always satisfied as it just means the gun at some point after manufacture went from one state to another prior to the receipt).

Mr Weissmann then added, So this photo is proof of the crime: he is in receipt, while including tweet from the Georgia Republican that included a photo of a smiling Mr Trump holding a gun.

President Trump doing a little shopping in South Carolina!



He will protect our great Second Amendment!! pic.twitter.com/Qs6Imc8LEb  Marjorie Taylor Greene  (@mtgreenee) September 25, 2023

It shall be unlawful for any person who is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to ... receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, he wrote, noting that Glocks are manufactured overseas or in Georgia  so receiving a Glock in South Carolina would mean the interstate or foreign commerce requirement was met.
The U.S. has added Israel to its visa-free travel program, allowing Israelis to travel to the U.S. without a visa process  a long-sought win for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the previously speculated move late Tuesday, a week after Netanyahu met with President Biden at the United Nations in New York City.

Israels designation into the Visa Waiver Program helps the United States and Israel meet key national security goals and enhances  including through the enhanced Israeli cooperation with the U.S.  counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security and border management, a DHS spokesman said on a Tuesday call with reporters.

The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) covers 40 mostly European and Asian countries and is reciprocal, meaning American citizens  including Palestinian Americans  can also visit Israel without a visa.

This program not only benefits Israel and the United States, but also citizens who live in the West Bank and Gaza who can now visit Israel visa-free. This effort holds great promise for people-to-people ties between the United States and Israel, the spokesperson said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen discussed the move before the announcement Tuesday. He said it will begin in November.

This is a great achievement that testifies to the close relations between Israel and our great ally, the USA, Cohen said in remarks in Hebrew.

Multiple Israeli leaders have sought admission to the VWP, which has strict requirements, including a high visa acceptance rate and low visa overstay rate. Reciprocity was a difficult requirement to meet, The Associated Press reported, due to Israeli concerns over Palestinian-American access to the country.

Israel has run a separate immigration and screening process for Palestinian Americans than other U.S. citizens, which raised complaints that the process is discriminatory and often results in Palestinian Americans not being able to use Israeli airports.

The political victory for Netanyahu comes as he faces significant backlash at home over proposed changes to the countrys judicial system, which have resulted in mass protests.

The DHS spokesman said the change enables easier travel for Americans, especially those who have been discriminated against in attempts to travel to the country, notably Americans with Palestinian heritage and Muslims.

More Americans now have easier access to Israel, due to the recent change in long-standing Israeli policy and practices that barred or restricted access to certain U.S. citizens, dual nationals, and often subject to U.S. citizens of Palestinian or Arab heritage, or Muslim faith to significant difficulties and unequal treatment, he said.

The move drew pushback from four Democratic senators on Wednesday, who said Israel has failed to meet the requirements of reciprocity for U.S. citizens with Palestinian residency, adding they have heard from Palestinian Americans who have been denied entry through Israel border entries.

Adherence to this important American tenet of reciprocity and equal treatment of all U.S. citizens is critical to the integrity of the Visa Waiver Program, and we are deeply concerned with the Administrations decision to move forward in violation of that principle, they wrote.

The statement was issued by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

The senators said they are going to monitor whether Israel comes into full compliance with the Visa Waiver Program and determine whether Americans continue to face discrimination based on their ethnicity, national origin, or religion.

We will keep pressing for answers as to how the U.S. government will ensure that Israel ultimately comes into full compliance with VWP requirements as well as what mechanisms the U.S. has to monitor the implementation of one system for all U.S. citizen travelers by May 1, 2024.

Palestinian American activists also criticized the move.

There are so many problems with this decision, Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine-Israel Program and senior fellow at Arab Center Washington, told the AP. The reciprocity requirement is clearly still not being met since Israeli policy continues to treat some Americans, specifically Palestinian Americans, differently.

The [Biden] administration however seems committed at the highest levels to overlooking this continued discrimination against American citizens to rush Israel into the program before the deadline, he said.

Updated at 10:58 a.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
(This Sept. 26 story has been corrected to show the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas represented the plaintiffs, not the national ACLU, in paragraph 5)

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas ruled on Tuesday that the state's new law limiting public drag performances was an unconstitutional restriction on speech and he permanently forbid enforcement of it.

"Not all people will like or condone certain performances," U.S. District Judge David Hittner wrote. "This is no different than a person's opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection."

More than a dozen states have sought to restrict drag shows over last year, with Texas one of at least four to pass restrictions into law, part of broader Republican efforts to regulate the behavior of LGBT people.

Hittner ruled that the Texas law was discriminatory and improperly vague. He said drag performances were not inherently obscene, and were the sort of expressive speech protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Drag performers and Pride march organizers joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in a lawsuit in Houston's federal court seeking to block the law. Modern drag has roots in musical and dance performances in LGBT venues.

The office of the Texas attorney general defended the law, which, among other restrictions, banned "the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics" in public, or in venues where people under 18 may see it. Violations could be punished by fines and a jail sentence of up to one year.

Texas lawmakers said the law was needed to protect children from seeing "sexually explicit" content.

Opponents of the law said it was so broad that it appeared to criminalize acts by pop stars and cheerleaders, and that it was explicitly intended to target LGBT performers.

Other federal judges in Tennessee, Florida and Montana have blocked similar new drag restrictions, finding similar free-speech violations.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by David Gregorio)
By Rami Ayyub, Daphne Psaledakis and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Wednesday placed sanctions on entities and people based in China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran for aiding the Iranian attack drone program, which Washington accuses of supplying such weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The U.S. Treasury said it put sanctions on five entities and two people who were part of a network helping procure sensitive parts - including servomotors, which help control position and speed - for Iran's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program.

The network facilitated shipments and financial transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' procurement of such motors used in Iran's Shahed-136 drones, it said, adding that a motor procured by the network was found recently in the remains of a Russia-operated Shahed-136 drone shot down in Ukraine.

"Iranian-made UAVs continue to be a key tool for Russia in its attacks in Ukraine, including those that terrorize Ukrainian citizens and attack its critical infrastructure," Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement.

Iran says it has not provided Russia with drones for use in Ukraine.

The United States and its allies imposed extensive sanctions on Russia after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But supply channels from Black Sea neighbor Turkey and other trading hubs have remained open, prompting Washington to issue repeated warnings about the export of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow's war effort.

Washington has also previously said there is "poor sanctions compliance" in the United Arab Emirates.

The Treasury named the sanctions targets as Iran-based Pishgam Electronic Safeh Company (PESC), which it said had procured thousands of servomotors with one-way attack drone uses, and its chief executive Hamid Reza Janghorbani.

The Treasury targeted Hong Kong-based Hongkong Himark Electron Model Limited (Hongkong Himark), which it said had fulfilled servomotor orders for PESC in Iran, and China-based Hongkong Himark official Fan Yang.

In addition, the Treasury targeted two Turkey-based firms with long names - Dal Enerji Madencilik Turizm Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi and Anka Port Ic Ve Dis Ticaret INSAAT Lojistik Sanayi Limited Sirketi - accusing them of facilitating transactions in support of PESC's servomotor procurement from Hongkong Himark.

The Treasury also put sanctions on UAE-based Farhad Ghaedi Goods Wholesalers LLC, accusing it of facilitating the shipment of servomotors via Dubai for delivery to PESC in Iran.

Among the sanctions' consequences, all property of the targets that fall under U.S. jurisdiction must be blocked and reported to the Treasury.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington and by Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minn.; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Susan Heavey and Timothy Gardner)
A Utah man is suing the American Fork Police Department after he was accused of running an international sex trafficking ring, claiming their since-dropped charges ruined his life and stemmed from "stereotypical generalisations regarding 'Asian culture.'"

Joseph Ferreri, a former state prison employee, was arrested in February 2021. His mugshots  as well as the mugshots of five massage parlor employees, including his wife  were circulated online and in local media, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Mr Ferreri lost his job and started working in a coal mine. He was ostracised from his community in Lindon, lost his health insurance, and nearly wound up divorced due to the fallout.

Joe Ferreris life was in ruins  and all for nothing, the lawsuit says. Charges were dropped nine months later.

The suit, which is aimed at the American Fork Police Department and city, claims his only "crime" was being "married to a Chinese woman" who worked in a massage parlour.

That was it, the lawsuit says. Knowing that millions of men do the same thing every day, and wanting a career-boosting arrest, the local officer in charge of the investigation [Shawn Lott] embellished, omitted, and made up facts to paint Joe Ferreri as an international sex trafficker.

Mr Ferreri charges were dropped in December 2021 after prosecutors and his defense attorneys agreed that the move would be "in the interest of justice."

The charges against the five massage workers, including his wife, were also dropped, according to court records.

Mr Ferreri's attorney, Karra Porter, said she wasn't sure why the charges were dropped, but guessed that the police simply didn't have the evidence to back their claims.

The investigation into Mr Ferreri began in 2020 after a "concerned citizen" saw a Chinese woman leave the Sunflower Massage parlour and drive to a home in Lindon.

A sign for Sunflower Massage in American Fork, Utah, lying on the ground after police raided the business on suspicion that illegal sex services were being offered by workers (screengrab/KSL5)

Police had already been looking into local massage parlours after receiving a tip that the businesses, including Sunflower, were offering illegal sexual services.

They began performing "John stops" on customers leaving the massage businesses, and claimed in the probably cause affidavit that the customers "acknowledge[d] there are 'happy endings' offered to customers."

Mr Lott, the investigator leading the probe, also claimed in the probably cause affidavit that officers went into the businesses  including Sunflower  undercover and claimed they were offered sexual services. He continued, saying the officers turned down the services, but were able to identify individual workers who made offers.

He continued, asserting that "most, if not all, Asian massage businesses operate the same," and added that it was not "uncommon for trafficked girls to be dropped off and picked up by someone other than the business owner" in an attempt to "thwart law enforcement investigations."

Mr Ferreri allegedly told police after they arrested him that he had become "suspicious" that his wife was working at a massage business that offered illicit services, but said he still picked her up and dropped her off because she was his wife and needed a ride.

The lawsuit alleges that Mr Ferreri was not given the chance to contact his attorney during his talks with police, despite requesting legal representation. It also points out that Mr Lott referred to all of the adult women working at the businesses as "girls."

Ms Porter said Mr Lott relied on stereotypes of Asian businesses and language that implied sexual contact with a minor to help build his case to go after the massage workers.

American Fork and its police department has not filed a formal response to the complaint as of the time of this report.

The Independent has reached out to the city and police department for comment.
SEOUL, South Korea  Travis King, the U.S. Army private who intentionally ran across the border into North Korea this summer, is in U.S. custody in China, United States officials said Wednesday, shortly after the isolated East Asian country said it would expel the soldier.

U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement. He went on to thank the U.S. military personnel who worked to "bring Private King home," as well as the governments of Sweden and China.

Later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told NBC News's Lester Holt that King was with U.S. officials in China.

King, 23, bolted across the heavily armed border July 18 during a public tour of the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea.

North Korea says on Wednesday, Sept. 27, it has decided to expel a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed inter-Korean border in July. (Ahn Young-joon / AP)

A statement reported by the state-run news agency KCNA said King had confessed he illegally intruded into North Korean territory because he was disillusioned about inhumane treatment and racial discrimination in the Army, as well as the inequality existing within the American Society, KCNA said.

The United States has not yet officially responded to these claims.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Kings mother Claudine Gates, said she would be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

Speaking to NBC News, Milley said that the important thing was that King was safe and he would be reunited with his family in the U.S.

We certainly appreciate the efforts of all those involved, he said.

Before he crossed the border, King had not long been released from a South Korean prison and was being escorted by the military to Incheon International Airport near Seoul to possibly face further disciplinary action in the U.S.

King had violated part of the joint security agreement and was being escorted to the airport after having completed his punishment, a senior administration official said.

The official told NBC News that King instead joined a commercial tour group headed for the Joint Security Area, an area administered by the United Nations between the North and the South.

King's detention has come at a time of elevated tension between the isolated communist state, its southern neighbor and the U.S.

Pyongyang has escalated its nuclear threats and embarked on a campaign of weapons tests, while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently embarked on a rare trip outside the country for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The growing ties between the two regimes have fueled Western fears that Kim may be willing to supply ammunition for the Kremlin's war in Ukraine in exchange for military technology or economic aid that would negate international sanctions.

North Korea remained silent on King for weeks until it confirmed his detention in August with a statement attributing comments to him that were critical of the U.S.

King's mother, Claudine Gates, later cast doubt on any suggestion that her son may have defected because of dissatisfaction with life in the Army.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, Gates, from Racine, Wisconsin, told The Associated Press.

Stella Kim reported from Seoul, Patrick Smith from London, Courtney Kube reported from Washington and Mosheh Gaines reported from Luanda, Angola.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Tuesday called the charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) nasty, while arguing a jury, not his Senate colleagues, should decide his fate.

The allegations against the Senior Senator from New Jersey are nasty & the evidence offered difficult to explain away, Rubio wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. But in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat.

The U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of New York charged Menendez and his wife last week with bribery, fraud and extortion. The pair are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three businessmen in New Jersey in exchange for using the senators power and influence to benefit the business and Egypt.

Prosecutors said the FBI discovered nearly $500,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than $100,000 in gold at Menendezs home in a raid last year.

Rubios argument echoes that of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who said Tuesday the jury and voters should determine the New Jersey lawmakers fate.

More than a dozen Democratic senators, several House Democrats and state leaders from New Jersey have called on Menendez to resign.

The embattled lawmaker has pushed back against the charges, telling reporters on Monday he has no plans to step down, arguing New Jersey Democrats are making a mistake by calling on him to resign and that he fully expects to remain in the Senate in the coming years.

Menendez did step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hours after the indictment was unveiled last Friday.

This is the second time the embattled lawmaker has faced a federal indictment. The first ended in a mistrial in 2015.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A Delaware State Police trooper has been indicted after an investigation into him "brutally beating" a 15-year-old boy who had pranked his house last month.

In a joint announcement Tuesday, the Delaware Department of Justice and Delaware State Police announced felony charges against 29-year-old Dempsey R. Walters, who has been with the state police agency for almost seven years. He remains suspended without pay or benefits, though has not been terminated.

Officials said Walters was on duty when the incident occurred. He turned off his body camera during the assault, officials said, but a program in the device meant it was still capturing video. There was no audio.

Officials released Walters' body-cam video, showing him walking up to the back of a Delaware State Police SUV that was holding the handcuffed boy. Another trooper backs out of the way as Walters strikes the boy in the face.

Walters then walks around the SUV until he again comes to where the boy is being held and flashes a light at the teen, who turns his body to face the inside the the vehicle. Walters hits the button to turn his body camera on, activating its audio.

"You sure about that?" Walters is heard saying.

"Please tell me what I did? Please tell me what I did?" the boy asks.

Walters was charged with second-degree assault, a felony; deprivation of civil rights, a felony; two counts of third-degree assault, misdemeanors; and two counts of official misconduct, also misdemeanors.

Attorney General Kathy Jennings said Tuesday that the man "chose to extract his own form of personal justice" by "embarking on a violent rampage."

As a mother and grandmother, the footage in this case is hard to watch," Jennings said Tuesday. "As a prosecutor, the constitutional violations are stunning."

State Police Col. Melissa Zebley apologized to Walters' victims on Tuesday, including one who did not participate in the prank, and said the agency recognizes "the gravity of the situation."

Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings (left) speaks at a press conference on Tuesday afternnon announcing charges filed against a Delaware State Police trooper.

"We assure you all that we are taking every possible step to prevent such things from happening in the future," she said.

What happened to these teens?

Walters was off duty and on his way home on August 17 when he saw a 17-year-old boy near the entrance to his neighborhood in Elsmere, Delaware, according to the indictment. Believing the boy was up to wrongdoing, Walters confronted him causing a verbal altercation, court documents say.

Walters called Elsmere police, who picked up the teen and took him to his home in the nearby development of Lancaster Village.

The teen was not charged, but the indictment says the following day Walters looked up the teen on the states law enforcement information database that contains addresses, pedigree and background information.

A few days later, on August 21, a 15-year-old boy and his friends were pranking homes in Elsmere by knocking on doors, then running away also known as ding-dong ditch. About 8:30 p.m. that day, the 15-year-old kicked Walters door, startling the troopers girlfriend. She called Walters, who was on duty.

Walters drove toward his home, calling Delaware State Police troopers and other police agencies for assistance, the indictment said. Police said it was reported as an attempted home invasion, prompting the deployment of the state police helicopter and various K-9 units.

While at his house, the indictment said, Walters spoke to a witness who told him several juveniles had run past him and toward the street where the 17-year-old boy from the earlier incident lived.

Walters and an officer from nearby Newport went to the home of the 17-year-old boy and, at gunpoint, removed them from the house, according to the indictment. The 17-year-old and his friend had not been involved in the ding-dong ditch prank.

The teens were forced to the ground, where one can be heard on body camera video saying "please help me" and calling for his mom.

The teen's family said they were held in hot police cars for hours before they were released. The mother of the 17-year-old boy was told it was all a "misunderstanding," The Delaware News Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, has previously reported.

"Some kids were over in the other neighborhood playing [ding-dong ditch] and they hit a door that belonged to a state trooper police officer," the mother said an officer told her. "Your son is not on the video. He has nothing to do with it."

Her son was released after being detained for about four hours with police not providing an incident report. She said Walters had been knocking on doors in the neighborhood and told one of the neighbors that someone had tried to break into his home.

The indictment claims Walters left the scene after handcuffing the 17-year-old and went to where another trooper had detained the 15-year-old boy and his friends. The 15-year-old was face-down on the ground being handcuffed when Walters arrived.

Walters then struck the 15-year-old in the back of the neck and head with his knee, according to the indictment.

With the 15-year-olds hands cuffed behind him, another trooper took the boy to a state police SUV and was placing him in the rear passenger seat. Thats when the indictment said Walters turned off his body-cam, walked to the police vehicle and struck the boys face twice causing an orbital fracture.

Another black eye for the badge

Walters' indictment adds to the growing list of Delaware law officers who have been recently charged with or convicted of crimes.

Delaware State Police trooper James D. Boyda was placed on six-month probation after he pleaded guilty last year to illegally using a criminal justice computer system to find New Jersey vehicle information for a friend.

Edwin Ramirez, a former Delaware State Police corporal, was indicted in 2021 in a fraudulent traffic warning scheme. He pleaded guilty to falsifying business records and official misconduct in October and was sentenced to a year of probation and 33 hours of community service  one hour for every false e-warning he filed.

A state police spokesperson said the agency will be looking to see if other officers violated policies in the instance for which Walters was indicted.

"When an incident involving the Delaware State Police occurs, we follow a bifurcated process," Sgt. India Sturgis, a police spokesperson, told The Delaware News Journal. "First and foremost, we prioritize the criminal investigation as was announced today. The next step in the process is for DSP to identify any potential policy violations committed by troopers on the scene."

Contact Esteban Parra at eparra@delawareonline.com, Xerxes Wilson at xwilson@delawareonline.com, and Isabel Hughes at ihughes@delawareonline.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @izzihughes_.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware state trooper charged with assaulting teens playing pranks
BI

Deutsche Bank cut its 12-month Tesla's stock price target on Wednesday.

The bank's analysts warned that the EV maker faces headwinds to earnings growth in 2024.

The bank lowered its estimates for total vehicle deliveries this quarter by 15,000.

Deutsche Bank Wednesday downgraded its price target for Tesla stock, warning that the electric vehicle maker's earnings face strong headwinds in 2024.

The bank reiterated its buy rating for the stock but trimmed its price target for Tesla stock to $285 a share, representing a 5% decrease from its previous $300 target. That's largely due to the muted outlook for production over the next year.

The bank predicted Tesla would report deliveries of 440,000 units in the third quarter, lower than estimates of 455,000 units. That could result in lower quarterly revenue than the bank previously estimated, at $23.3 billion, down from $24.1 billion. Meanwhile, the bank said earnings per share could fall to $0.71, down from Wall Street's estimates of $0.87 a share.

"Looking at 2024, however, we see considerable downside risk to earnings expectations, due to much lower volume outlook than the market believes," the analysts wrote.

They noted that Tesla suggested in an investor meeting that it was no longer planning to ramp up production in its Austin and Berlin factories next year to 10,000 units per week.

The bank trimmed its 2024 production outlook for Tesla to just 2.1 million units next year, down from the consensus expectation of 2.3 million units.

On a positive note, Tesla could face less pricing pressure next year, resulting in a modest price dip of 1% for its cars. The bank sees earnings per share of $3.90 in 2024, lower than consensus estimates of $4.76.

Deutsche added that the next-generation vehicle platform will the key to unlocking further growth for Tesla, and that investors are closely watching the roll out of next-gen vehicles.

"Beyond 2024, all eyes remain on Tesla's next-gen platform," the analysts wrote. "However, keeping the timeline to 2025 is critical, in our view, for investors to look past the soft 2024 and view it as a transitory year."

Tesla has enjoyed a strong run up in its stock price in 2023, with shares rebounding from a dismal slide in 2022 amid Wall Street's optimism for artificial intelligence and renewed enthusiasm for high-flying growth stocks.

Tesla stock traded around $235 a share on Wednesday, up 118% since the start of the year.

Read the original article on Business Insider
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. Senator Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, as calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats escalated.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week accused Menendez, 69, and his wife of accepting gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for the senator using his influence to aid Egypt's government and interfere with law enforcement investigations of the businessmen.

Menendez entered the plea through his lawyer, Seth Farber, at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in Manhattan.

Wang said Menendez could be released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond. The senator will be required to surrender his personal passport, but may retain his official passport and travel abroad on official business.

Wearing a pin-striped suit, Menendez smiled and chatted with his lawyers after the hearing before being led out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals. After exiting the courthouse, Menendez and his 56-year-old wife, Nadine Menendez, walked past dozens of reporters without answering questions, got into a black car, and left.

The senator's wife and businessmen Jose Uribe, 56, and Fred Daibes, 66, also pleaded not guilty. Nadine Menendez was released on a $250,000 bond, while Uribe and Daibes were released on bonds of $1 million and $2 million, respectively.

A third businessman, Wael Hana, 40, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday and was released on $5 million bond.

All defendants are set to make their first appearance before U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein, who will oversee the case, on Monday.

Menendez, one of two senators representing New Jersey, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as required under his party's rules. But on Monday he said he would stay in the Senate and fight the charges.

More than half of all U.S. Democratic senators - including Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey - have called on Menendez, a powerful voice on foreign policy who has at times bucked his own party, to resign since the charges were unveiled on Friday. Senator Dick Durbin on Wednesday joined fellow Senate Democrats urging Menendez to step down, saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he believed the lawmaker could no longer serve.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Menendez would address Senate Democrats on Thursday.

"For senators, there's a much, much higher standard. And clearly when you read the indictment, Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard," Schumer said.

Democrats narrowly control the Senate with 51 seats, including three independents who normally vote with them, to the Republicans' 49. Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who would appoint a temporary replacement should Menendez step aside, has also called for him to resign.

The indictment contained images of gold bars and cash investigators seized from Menendez's home. Prosecutors say Hana arranged meetings between the senator and Egyptian officials - who pressed him to sign off on military aid - and in return put his wife on the payroll of a company he controlled.

The probe marks the third time Menendez has been under investigation by federal prosecutors. He has never been convicted.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Rami Ayyub, Patricia Zengerle, Doina Chiacu and Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Timothy Gardner and Jonathan Oatis)
Chinese Embassy in Kenya awards prizes to winners of photo and video contest

Xinhua) 14:19, September 27, 2023

NAIROBI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Kenya on Tuesday handed over prizes to winners of a photography and video contest themed "Shared Future" and aimed at celebrating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries alongside the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Held at the University of Nairobi, Kenya's oldest university, the award ceremony of the contest was graced by senior officials, diplomats, scholars and students.

More than 300 visual images and videos were submitted depicting the vitality of Sino-Kenyan cooperation across various fields, including infrastructure development, people-to-people exchanges, trade and skills transfer.

A team of judges drawn from media houses from Kenya and China reviewed the submitted works and shortlisted 30 pieces that were outstanding in highlighting milestones achieved courtesy of 60 years of Kenya-China diplomatic ties.

Arthur Andambi, the director for Asia, Australasia and Pacific Islands Directorate of Kenya's Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, said that enthusiasm among Kenyan creatives to participate in the photography contest reaffirmed the value they attach to the bilateral cooperation with China.

According to Andambi, the relationship between Kenya and China has thrived over the last decade, based on trust, respect, mutual benefits and shared goals. He added that Kenya and China have journeyed together in the pursuit of inclusive growth through leveraging education, trade and infrastructure development in line with the objectives of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Both Kenyan and Chinese artists submitted high-quality and persuasive photographs and videos to shed light on successes achieved over the last six decades of bilateral cooperation, said Joan Pereruan, the visual and syndication editor at Nation Media Group, and one of the photo contest judges.

"The entries this year were very competitive, especially for the video section. The entries were more and the quality of photographs had really improved," Pereruan said.

Enock Sikolia, a Kenyan digital content creator, received the first prize for his works that highlighted the socioeconomic transformation unleashed by the China-built 27.1-km Nairobi Expressway. He noted that through visual arts such as photography, Kenyans will be able to appreciate the benefits that cooperation with China has brought to different sectors of the economy.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
MUFG Bank is among three Japanese firms leading a US$290-million fundraising round for US spaceship company Sierra Space, spearheading a commercial "spaceport" project in the southwestern region of Oita, the Nikkei daily said on Tuesday (Sep 26).

Despite recent setbacks for national space missions, Japanese companies aiming to foray into space are increasingly deepening ties with private companies, from American giants such as SpaceX to home-grown startups.

MUFG Bank, insurer Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire and trading house Kanematsu together invested several tens of billions of yen in Sierra, gaining a stake in the unlisted company that was now probably valued in excess of $5 billion, the paper said.

Sierra Space, spun off in 2021 from billionaire-owned Sierra Nevada Corp, is among a handful of space industry players attempting to build a private space station that NASA hopes will replace the two decade-old International Space Station by 2030.

Sierra signed a partnership in December with Kanematsu, Japan Airlines and the Oita prefectural government to turn a regional airport into Asia's first "horizontal spaceport". ...continue reading
One of the best-known dance companies in the world is taking a bow with the celebration of a major milestone.

It was a joyful moment on stage when the New York City Ballet marked 75 years of excellence with a performance that included dancers from the program's very beginning.

Ruth Lawrence Doering was 16 when she starred in the ballet's first performance in 1948.

"Look how much the seats were, $3!" she exclaimed, looking at a cherished old program.

But during that first show, her shoe broke mid-performance.

"The show must go on. I mean, what am I gonna say? 'Excuse me, please. I have to go off stage and fix my shoe?' she said. "Yeah, no, you do what you have to do."

Doering said the applause from the audience on that first night was "thunderous."

The first performance was borne out of the creative genius of renowned choreographer and company co-founder George Balanchine.

The company's first female associate artistic director, Wendy Whelan, a former principal dancer, now helps decide what's performed.

"Balanchine would commission female choreographers, always a little bit," she told CBS News. "Now we have a full-on commitment to it. But especially to diverse women. That's very, very important to me."

The company today is one of the world's most prestigious.

"Nobody knew it was gonna be this great company," Doering said. "It's wonderful."

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Festival Chairman ANDO Hiroyasu delivered opening remarks at the conference, outlining a range of enhancements that are being made to this years edition, including an expansion of the number of films in the lineup, a five-fold increase in international guests, special screenings and events dedicated to Ozu, strengthened collaboration with other countries/regions in Asia, and the launch of a program aimed at reaching both Japanese and foreign students studying film in Japan. (See full press release for more in the link below.)

TIFFCOM Managing Director KURIHASHI Mikiya then discussed TIFFCOM 2023 , the TIFFs affiliated marketplace, which will be marking its 20th edition and the first to be held physically since 2019, due to Covid. Running from October 25 to 27 at the new Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsucho Building, TIFFCOM will now be located closer to TIFFs venues, and feature expanded space for overseas exhibitors, the new TOKYO Story Market, an expansive lineup of talks and events, and the 4th annual Tokyo Gap-Financing Market program.

Internationally acclaimed German filmmaker, writer and photographer Wim Wenders , who will serve as the President of the International Competition Jury at the 36th TIFF, sent a message that was shared with the audience (See full press release for his message) . His fellow jurors will be Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra, Chinese actress and producer Zhao Tao, Vietnamese producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc , and Japanese producer KUNIZANE Mizue.





The 36th TIFF Festival Navigator ANDO Momoko then took to the stage, wearing the same outfit that she posed in (with her father, actor OKUDA Eiji) for the TIFF poster, and shared her thoughts on serving in the position, which was previously called the Festival Ambassador. (See full press release for more in the link below).





Following an introduction to TIFF Opening Film Perfect Days (by Wim Wenders) and Closing Film Godzilla Minus One (by YAMAZAKI Takashi), TIFF Programming Director ICHIYAMA Shozo greeted the audience and shared highlights of the festivals nine sections, including the Competition, Gala Selection, Nippon Cinema Now and others. The Competition includes 15 films*, ten of them world premieres, selected from among 1,942 titles from 114 countries and regions.

(*See the full release for the full list of Competition titles.)

Two Japanese directors whose work will be world premiered in the TIFF Competition section then joined Ichiyama on stage to make remarks about their selection: KOTSUJI Yohei ( A Foggy Paradise ) and TOMINA Tetsuya ( Who Were We? ). (See full release for comments.)

Senior Programmer ISHIZAKA Kenji introduced the Asian Future section lineup and provided highlights of the 10 films from emerging filmmakers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Iran, Israel, Thailand, Turkey and Japan, all of whom are receiving their world premieres and will be eligible for awards. He noted that three of the films were directed by women, and nearly all the titles focus on families grappling with modern life, reflecting deep insights into the areas in which they live.

Animation Programming Advisor FUJITSU Ryota provided an overview of the revitalized Animation section, which will now include internationally acclaimed animated works as well as Japanese titles. It will feature seven recent Japanese masterworks, as well as five films from overseas, including two from China. There will also be seminars on the Portrayal of Youth and the Possibilities of Animated Expression.

*Please refer to TIFFs official website for the full lineup of the Animation section.



For the fourth year, TIFF and The Japan Foundation will be co-presenting the popular TIFF Lounge talk sessions, featuring leading auteurs from Asia and beyond. This years participants include Zhang Yimou, Tran Anh Hung, Yamada Yoji, Yang Yonghi, and the two recipients of the Kurosawa Akira Award, Mouly Surya and Gu Xiaogang. Among the many other event highlights will be a masterclass with Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung; a Kerings Women In Motion event; an Ozu Yasujiro Shoulders of Giants symposium with Jia Zhangke, KUROSAWA Kiyoshi and Kelly Reichardt; a discussion between TAKASAKI Takuma, the screenwriter of TIFF Opening Film Perfect Days and filmmaker Kawamura Genki, who produced Kore-edas latest film, Monster ; and a TIFF Roundtable highlighting the Female Gaze on Film Journalism, with international practitioners.





The 36th TIFF will be held from October 23 to November 1, 2023 in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi- Ginza area and other venues in Tokyo.


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Brown bears usually wait to feed on pink salmon swimming upstream at the estuaries in Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido from mid-August to early October.

In 2023, they have been unable to find the fish at the mouths of the rivers, reported The Asahi Shimbun on Monday. Instead, the brown bears have been swimming in the sea to look for food.

On Sept 19, images taken from a tour boat off the coast showed a thin bear swimming, turning rocks on a beach and rummaging through washed-ashore seaweed. The bear was searching for fish, shellfish and insects, said The Asahi Shimbun.

Some bears have grown really thin, and they are having a tough time, said Mr Katsuya Noda, who operates the cruise and told the newspaper. There are no fish in the rivers, just like last year.

This year, in addition to the lack of salmon, acorns also have a poor harvest, Mr Masami Yamanaka, a researcher at the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, told The Asahi Shimbun.

An estimated 70 to 80 percent of the cubs born this year are dead. Its really a serious situation.

Pink salmon is an importance source of food for the estimated 500 brown bears that inhabit Shiretoko Peninsula, a Unesco World Natural Heritage site, known for its landscapes and wild animals. ...continue reading
Mr Rajamony played a pivotal role in promoting external cooperation for the state government during his tenure

Ambassador Venu Rajamonys two-year tenure as officer on special duty (external cooperation) for the Kerala government ended unexpectedly when he declined a two-week extension offered by the state government. The extension was slated to run until September 30, 2023.

According to sources, Mr Rajamony wrote to the Kerala governor requesting permission to terminate his services as of September 17, 2023. His decision appears to have stemmed from a belief that the extension might have been intended to complete an official task that was no longer relevant, rendering his continued role for another two weeks unnecessary. But speculation still persists about the circumstances surrounding this unexpected conclusion to his tenure.

Mr Rajamony played a pivotal role in promoting external cooperation for the state government during his tenure, notably facilitating the repatriation of students from Ukraine, establishing direct flight connections between Kochi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and arranging meetings between chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and foreign diplomats, besides the chief ministers official visits to countries like Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and Cuba.

Before serving the Kerala government, Mr Rajamony held several prominent positions in a career spanning 34 years. He was Indias consul general in Dubai, joint secretary overseeing World Bank and Asian Development Bank assistance to Kerala and, press secretary to then President Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He was also the Ambassador of India to the Netherlands.

IAS vs IPS: Roopa, Rohini resume work

In a significant development in Karnataka, IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri and IPS officer D. Roopa Moudgil have resumed their official duties after a highly publicised dispute that unfolded on social media earlier this year. The move to reassign both senior officers to new roles is aimed at restoring administrative harmony.

Six months after the heated exchange on social media, Rohini Sindhuri has taken up the position of chief editor at the Karnataka gazetteer department. Meanwhile, IPS officer D. Roopa Moudgil has been transferred to the post of inspector general of police (IGP) within the internal security division (ISD).

The public spat between the two officers erupted in February when Ms Roopa, serving as the managing director of the Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation at the time, made serious allegation against Rohini Sindhuri, who was then holding the position of Muzrai department commissioner. Ms Sindhuri denied these allegations, dismissing them as baseless and suggesting that personal animosity motivated Ms Roopa.

While it remains to be seen how these two officers navigate their new roles, the dispute has escalated to the legal realm, with Rohini Sindhuri initiating a criminal defamation case against Ms Roopa. Recently, the Karnataka high court refused to quash the case, emphasising the need for a fair and thorough examination of the matter. Watch this space for updates!

From piped water to political tangles

Transfers are an essential tool for the government to maintain control. However, frequent transfer of babus, especially those who perform exceptionally well, is a recurring issue. The recent transfer of the district magistrate of Mirzapur, Divya Mittal, in Uttar Pradesh may be one such example. In the heartland of UP, where the political landscape is often turbulent and governance challenging, Divyas tale is inspiring of hope.

In an attempt to transfer the lives of residents of a village which had never received regular water supply, she successfully facilitated the provision of piped water to their homes. The happy villagers celebrated the arrival of piped water with a ceremony. However, Divya was transferred to Basti district, and later put on a waitlist by the state government, leaving her work unfinished. Curiously, the precious pipeline was vandalised by anti-social elements and the villagers are back to their dependence on expensive private tankers.

Those in the know believe that the local political leaders did not appreciate Divyas hard work and feared that she was stealing their thunder. Many people suspect political motivation behind the sudden transfer of their popular DM. It has not only disrupted the implementation of long-term projects underway in the district but also demotivated the residents as well as other district officials. Hopefully, the young DM will continue to do good work wherever she is posted.
The Chaldean patriarch visits the Christian town in northern Iraq scene of a tragic fire, triggered by fireworks. At least 114 people have died and more than 200 have been injured. The toll is bound to rise because some of the injured are in very serious conditions. Christians, Muslims, Arabs and Kurds showing solidarity amid the tragedy is a sign of hope.

Qaraqosh (AsiaNews)  It was a real carnage, said Card Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans, as he described to AsiaNews the horrific tragedy that took place yesterday evening in Qaraqosh, the most important Christian town in the Nineveh Plain, northern Iraq.

The disaster unfolded during wedding celebrations. Suddenly, those present were caught unaware by a huge fire that broke out inside the hall.

"The provisional toll is at least 114 dead and over 200 wounded, the cardinal said by phone, but it is bound to rise because some of the injured are in very serious conditions. Some sources put the number of wounded at 500.

"I saw in person the large hall where the feast took place. Nothing is left; everything has been destroyed; it is clear that the structure was not up to standard, the patriarch added.

"I met a priest, whose name is Petros, who lost at least 10 members of his family in the accident. His nephews died, still children, brothers. A tragedy.

For the primate, what happened is a catastrophe". He personally expressed solidarity and closeness to the victims and their families at a troubled moment for the Chaldean Church with the transfer of the patriarchal see, a move that has affected the entire Christian community.

"The wounded are treated in hospitals in Mosul and Erbil, but what is impressive is the number of victims, very high, Card Sako lamented. This is the first time that we have such a high number of deaths in our community. The [2010] massacre at the cathedral saw about 50 deaths; here, the number is twice.

Nineveh Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaq told Reuters that the fire broke out around 10.45 pm yesterday local time, taking by surprise people who were celebrating.

The incident has shocked Qaraqosh, the most important Christian town in northern Iraq. Quickly, the festive mood was replaced by a silence mixed with grief and mourning as people try to figure out what caused the fire.

This morning Nineveh Governor Najim al-Jubouri said no final casualty figures are available yet, which suggests the death toll is expected to rise.

The fire hit and partially destroyed an event hall. In a statement, Iraqi civil defence authorities said that fireworks used during the celebration may have caused the fire.

Fireworks are a common practice at wedding celebrations in Iraq. Early reports indicate that at least a thousand people were inside the hall when the fire broke out.

Things were made worse by the use of flammable material in the structure, as well as poor safety standards, like emergency exits, which proved fatal.

Highly flammable prefabricated panels inside the hall, which clearly violated the most basic safety standards, fuelled the fire.

Pictures and videos taken by those present after the fire show rescuers climbing over the rubble, including a collapsed roof and charred metals (and bodies). One video shows burning panels falling from the ceiling and guests trying desperately to flee the flames.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation and urged security forces to provide relief, as truckloads of aid and medicine arrive in Nineveh from Baghdad and other provinces.

Although the final impact of the tragedy will not be measured for a while, the Chaldean patriarch sees a silver line and some hope. I see solidarity among Iraqis, by everyone: Christians, Muslims, Kurds, Arabs who have expressed closeness, offered to take in those in need, who have sent aid.

Card Sako, who is expected in Rome for the Synod in a few days, will stay for a few more hours in Qaraqosh "to attend the funeral of a first group of people, at least 40, although it is still difficult to identify the victims because the corpses are charred. At present, the fate of the newly-wed is unknown.

Solidarity among Iraqis is a sign of hope, but we must not wait for carnage to occur; it must be strengthened every day, in everyday life, which is also the way to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.

In Iraq, safety standards are poorly enforced in both construction and transport. After decades of strife, the country's crumbling infrastructure is regularly the scene of fires and fatal accidents.

In July 2021 a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in the south caused the death of more than 60 people. A few months earlier, in April, oxygen cylinders exploded in a fire at a Baghdad hospital, killing more than 80 people.
by Nirmala Carvalho

The nun, who pioneered the prison ministry in the Indian Catholic Church, passed away at the age of 92. Speaking about prejudices against inmates, she said: If Christ did not discriminate, why can't we, who claim to be his disciples, do the same?

Mumbai (AsiaNews)  Mumbais Catholic community bid a final farewell yesterday to Sister Rosita Gomes, a member of the Franciscan Hospitaller Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and a pioneer in the pastoral ministry among inmates in the great Indian metropolis.

Sister Rosita passed away in the house of her institute in Bandra after more than 70 years of religious life. She would have turned 92 in November.

Known for her work among the poor and the marginalised, she was instrumental in getting homes built for lepers in 1967, during his stay in the convent of Agra. But she is remembered above all for the impetus she gave to the birth of pastoral ministry in prisons in India.

In the early 1980s, even before this ministry was established in the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, she delivered letters to and from inmates and their families in Mumbai, going every week to the juvenile prison to pray and promote recreational activities.

It was God's Providence that showed her the way. She was asked to visit a man in prison who had accidentally killed his wife. After that she began to visit him periodically and bring his letters to his children to help them maintain good relations.

During those visits she met 21 other Catholic detainees, and came to realise the importance of having a contact person between them and their families.

Later, she began to devote herself to the rehabilitation of 42 Catholic boys in juvenile prison arrested for drug addiction, helping them reintegrate into society.

She loved to repeat the words of Jesus: "I was in prison and you visited me: now you enter the kingdom of heaven".

Starting in 1983 Sister Rosita organised Masses and cultural events in Bandra police jail and Umerkhadi juvenile home.

Despite her advanced age, she continued to visit these places until a few years ago, bringing food and other gifts, especially at Christmas and Easter and on 14 August, the feast day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.

Sister Rosita also invited many lay people to help her in her prison ministry, getting them the necessary permits.

The Church, in particular, has a special task towards the marginalised and those who languish in remand homes and prisons. Many, through no fault of their own, are victims of unjust and oppressive structures, she said.

If Christ did not discriminate, why can't we, who claim to be his disciples, do the same? Why not let our Christianity come to life, bringing God's message of justice, peace and love to those who are locked up in prison?"

Sister Rosita was also known for her devotion to the Way of the Cross. For more than 20 years, she revived the devotion of the Via Crucis every Friday during Lent in the six inner streets in suburban Bandra.

She was a tireless missionary, who responded to the needs of the time. Another mission in which she was actively involved was helping orphans and destitute children, welcoming them to the boarding school and taking care of them until they completed their studies.

"Sister Rosita was a person of great faith, faithful to God, to the Church and to her congregation, said Fr Vernon Aguiar, rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount (Mount Mary) who accompanied her to prisons to celebrate Mass.

She was constantly nourished by the reception of the sacraments in a deep relationship with Jesus with the good work she did. Now her memory will remain alive through the love she brought into the lives of so many.
At the general audience Pope Francis reviewed his apostolic journey to Marseille. "The sea is a cradle of civilisation for life, it is not tolerable that it becomes a graveyard. Young people who are poor in hope, closed in their private lives, preoccupied with managing their precariousness, how can they open themselves up to encounter and sharing?"

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Europe needs to rediscover passion and enthusiasm". Pope Francis said this today at the general audience with the faithful in St. Peter's Square, retracing the apostolic journey that took him to Marseille in recent days for the conclusion of the Rencontres Mediterraneennes, which involved bishops, mayors and young people from the Mediterranean area.

The Mediterranean is the cradle of civilization  Francis recalled  and it is a cradle for life. It is not tolerable that it becomes a tomb, nor even a place of conflict. The Mediterranean Sea is the most opposite there is to the clash between civilizations, to war, to human trafficking. It is the exact opposite: the Mediterranean connects Africa, Asia and Europe; the north and the south, the east and the west; people and cultures, peoples and languages, philosophies and religions.

What came out of the Marseille event?  Francesco asked himself. "A look at the Mediterranean that I would define as simply human, non-ideological, non-strategic, not politically correct nor instrumental. Human, that is, capable of referring everything to the primary value of the human person and his inviolable dignity".

At the same time a look of hope emerged. This is surprising every time  he added -. When you listen to witnesses who have gone through inhuman situations or who have shared them, and from them you receive a 'profession of hope', then you find yourself faced with the work of God. And you realize that this work always passes through brotherhood : through the eyes, hands, feet, hearts of men and women who, in their respective roles of ecclesial and civil responsibility, seek to build fraternal relationships and social friendship".

Precisely this hope is the most precious legacy which - the pontiff warned - "must not evaporate", but "concrete in long, medium and short term actions".

It means working so that people, in full dignity, can choose to emigrate or not to emigrate  he exemplified -. Let us all work so that everyone can live in peace, security and prosperity in their country of origin. But there is another complementary aspect: we need to restore hope to our European societies, especially to the new generations. In fact, how can we welcome others if we do not first have an open horizon to the future? How can young people lacking in hope, closed in their private lives, worried about managing their precariousness, open up to meeting and sharing? Our societies, sick with individualism, consumerism and empty evasions - he concluded - need to open up, to oxygenate the soul and the spirit, and then they will be able to see the crisis as an opportunity and face it in a positive way"
The Russian embassy in Pakistan reported the delivery, which took place via Irans special economic zone in Sarakhs, paid in Chinese currency. Its value is not known or whether a discount was applied. Russian oil was delivered to Pakistan earlier.

Islamabad (AsiaNews)  Pakistan has received the first shipment of Russian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), Russias embassy in Islamabad announced.

This is Pakistans second most important energy purchase from Russia, thanks to Iranian help. The first one involved Russian crude and was delivered under a deal struck between the two countries earlier this year.

In January, a Russian delegation held talks in Islamabad to finalise the deal. During the three-day visit, all technical issues  insurance, transportation, and payment mechanisms  were addressed before an agreement was signed in late March. The part on financial transactions was particularly tricky since Russia is under international sanctions over its war in Ukraine.

After consensus on the technical specifications approved, the oil and gas trade transaction will be structured in a way it has a mutual economic benefit for both countries, a joint statement read.

In a post today on social media, the Russian embassy confirmed the delivery of 100,000 metric tonnes of LPG to Pakistan through Iran's Sarakhs Special Economic Zone.

The embassy noted that consultations are underway for a second shipment. It did not provide details on Irans involvement, and it was not immediately clear how much the LPG cost or if it was discounted.

Pakistan said that it paid Russian crude in Chinese currency but the value of the deal was never disclosed.

Energy imports make up the majority of Pakistan's external payments, and discounted imports from Russia offer a respite at a time when the country faces a major economic crisis and an acute balance of payments problem, with the serious risk of default on its external debt.
Today's news: official Riyadh delegation in the West Bank, an Israeli minister visits Saudi Arabia for the first time. Evergrande president under police control. A suicide attempt and the wounding of a protester during protests in Bangalore over a water dispute. Pyongyang ready to reopen borders to foreigners, closed since first phase of Covid-19 pandemic. Chinese holding company presents project to pump and distribute drinking water from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek basin.

VIETNAM - UN

The United Nations human rights office has expressed its concern to Hanoi over the arrest of Ngo Thi To Nhien, environmental and green energy expert, head of the energy transition project (VIET), former collaborator of UN agencies and the United States . A stop a few days after the visit of US President Joe Biden, celebrated for the agreements on trade and human rights.

SAUDI ARABIA - PALESTINE - ISRAEL

For the first time in over 30 years, an official delegation from Riyadh visited the West Bank yesterday, to assure the Palestinians of their intention to defend their cause, even following the normalization of relations with Israel. Cooperation between the Wahhabi kingdom and the Jewish state is increasingly evident: Israeli Tourism Minister Haim Katz will go to Saudi Arabia for two days, the first public visit by an Israeli minister to the country.

CHINA

Billionaire Hui Ka Yan, president of Evergrande, is under surveillance by the police. A source reports that officers picked him up earlier this month and he is being monitored in an unknown location under "residential surveillance". The measure does not imply formal detention, but it remains impossible to leave the place or meet and communicate with others without authorization.

INDIA

Police arrested some protesters yesterday in Bangalore, India's technological centre, after a suicide attempt and an injury among those who took to the streets to protest against the sharing of water from a river that crosses two states. The demonstrations forced multinational employees to smart-work from home, schools and universities remained closed. Some farmers are threatening to continue the protests and spread them across Karnataka.

NORTH KOREA

Pyongyang is reportedly ready to allow foreigners to enter for the first time since its borders were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. In the past, tourism was an essential source of foreign exchange for North Korea strong in the country. According to initial information released by Chinese CCTV, visitors will have to undergo quarantine for two days.

RUSSIA

From the facade of the Lutheran church in Priozersk, in the Leningrad region, the memorial stone of the Finnish soldiers who fell in the Russo-Finno battles of the two world wars, dating back to before the occupation of the area in 1940, was dismantled and removed by unknown persons. In many other cities have been defaced and monuments to Polish soldiers from the twentieth century wars have been destroyed.

ARMENIA - AZERBAIJAN

There are at least 30 thousand, equal to a quarter of the enclave's population, Armenian refugees who fled Nagorno Karabakh and are being identified for the assignment of a refuge, while reception places are being prepared throughout Armenia. A meeting announced in Granada (Spain) on 5 October between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Pasinyan and Aliev, the Frenchman Macron, the German Scholz and the EU commissioner Michel.

UZBEKISTAN - KYRGYZSTAN - CHINA

The Chinese holding Sinomash has presented a project for pumping and distributing drinking water from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek basin of Kempir-Abad to the city of Fergana in eastern Uzbekistan, where it is already active in the reconstructions of all social structures in the region, with a financing of 300 million dollars for a period of 20 years.
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Building on its pioneering role in renewable energies, Morocco aims to become a major player in the green hydrogen market in North Africa both for export to Europe and for use in fertiliser production.

At the end of July, King Mohammed VI reaffirmed his country's ambition in a speech and called on the government to "rapidly and qualitatively implement" the "Moroccan offer" of green hydrogen.

It is necessary to "highlight the virtues of our country and respond in the best possible way to the projects proposed by world investors in this promising field".

Hydrogen is obtained through the electrolysis of water, which separates this gas from oxygen. But it is only "green" when it is produced by electricity from renewable energies: wind, solar or hydro.

AP/ABDELJALIL BOUNHAR - Aerial view of a solar power plant in Ouarzazate, central Morocco

There are high hopes for this resource, which can be used to reduce carbon emissions in the iron and steel, cement, chemical and fertiliser industries, but also to store clean energy.

Morocco wants to become a regional leader, even if the sector is "embryonic and the big global projects will not see the light of day for three to five years", Samir Rachidi, director of the Moroccan research institute Iresen, told AFP.

In mid-August, the economy ministry announced that it had set aside 1.5 million public hectares - almost twice the size of Puerto Rico - to host "eight green hydrogen and ammonia production plants".

Moroccan media reported projects by Australian, Indian, German, French and British investors.

Morocco is entering this race with the advantage of having invested heavily over the past 15 years in clean energy, which generates 38% of the electricity produced today and is expected to reach 52% by 2030.

This industry requires low-cost electricity production. The aim is not to exceed a cost of one to two dollars per kilo of green hydrogen, Ahmed Reda Chami, president of the Economic Council (a public body), explained to the weekly La Vie Eco.

PHOTO/FILE - Phosphate fertilisers

Algeria and Tunisia on the lookout

Rabat also sees green hydrogen as crucial to help in the production of ammonia, the basis for agricultural fertilisers, a sector in which the country stands out globally for its huge phosphate reserves.

On the back of strong global demand, which has driven the price to more than $1,000 per tonne since COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, the public phosphate management monopoly expects to produce one million tonnes of "green ammonia", produced from green hydrogen, by 2027. The plan is to triple this by 2032.

The rest of the Maghreb is also taking positions in this race. According to a recent report by the consulting firm Deloitte, North Africa will be the world's leading region in green hydrogen exports by 2050.

Algeria "aspires to be a major player" by taking advantage of "one of the most important potentials in the world" in terms of solar and wind energy and "its transport infrastructures" such as gas pipelines, Rabah Sellami, director of the Commission for Renewable Energies, told AFP.

The oil- and gas-producing country currently generates only 3% of its electricity from renewables, but has invested massively to achieve an installed capacity of 4 gigawatts by 2024.

Its roadmap for the development of green hydrogen envisages "an annual production of one million tonnes in 2040, destined for export to the European market" and 250,000 tonnes for domestic consumption, says Sellami.

As for Tunisia, it will be "capable of exporting between 5.5 and 6 tonnes of green hydrogen to Europe by 2050," Belhassen Chiboub, director general at the energy ministry, said recently.

But to do so, it will have to increase its clean electricity production rate from the current 3 per cent to the promised 35 per cent by 2030.
TOKYO, Sep 27 ( News On Japan ) - The Chiba District Court has handed down a 13-year prison sentence to a former police inspector who was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and other crimes against several women.

The defendant, former Chiba Prefecture Police Inspector Makoto Okada (46), was accused of sexually assaulting three women in Chiba Prefecture from 2014 to August of last year, as well as secretly filming three other women.

In previous court proceedings, the prosecution had sought a 17-year prison term.

In its verdict on Sep 27, the Chiba District Court pointed out that the defendant held a position where strict adherence to the law was strongly expected, yet had betrayed those expectations, causing significant impact on society. The court also noted that the extent of psychological suffering endured by the victims was immeasurable and ongoing. As a result, the court handed down a 13-year prison sentence.
Kia North America has been hit with the mother of safety recalls. A scarcely believable 1.7 million vehicles produced for the 2010 through 2019 model years are called back due to an increased fire risk. As it happens, an electric short of the hydraulic electronic control unit may result in engine compartment fire whether the vehicle is parked or driven.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Photo: Kia

NHTSA

UPDATE

This wouldn't be the first time Kia North America recalled a large number of vehicles over said condition, though. In March 2021, the South Korean automaker called back 380k examples of the 2017 to 2021 Sportage and 2017 to 2019 Cadenza. Fast forward to October 2022, and that's when a further 71k units of the 2008 to 2009 Sportage were recalled in the US.On this occasion, we're dealing with quite a few more nameplates, beginning with the long-discontinued Borrego). The list continues with Optimas manufactured at the Hwasung plant in South Korea, Optimas manufactured at the West Point plant in the state of Georgia, the Optima Hybrid, Cadenza, K900, Forte Sedan and Forte Koup, Rondo, Soul, Rio, Sorento, and  of course  the ever-popular Sportage crossover.Supplied by South Korea-based Mando, the hydraulic electronic control units are listed in documents filed with theunder two part numbers. Unfortunately, the latter halves of said part numbers feature asterisk symbols instead of actual letters and digits. Kia isn't sure what causes the electrical short circuit, although the company understands that the chance of an electrical short circuit grows over time. As for the underhood fire, excessive current within the HECU leads to the aforestated engine compartment fire.The Kia mothership in South Korea informed Kia North America of said problem on July 11. Through August 10, the local division reviewed available filed data. No fewer than 10 incidents were identified, including an engine compartment fire, three localized fires, and six localized melting events. Two of those vehicles, namely 2012 and 2013 Soul crossovers, had their HECUs retrieved by Kia Corporation for investigation.The automaker's engineering department in South Korea discovered internal fluid leakage and localized melting in the upper area of the printed circuit board. Come September 18, the Kia North America Safety Office updated its field data analysis with a further 13 unconfirmed but potentially related incidents.Even though investigations are ongoing, Kia North America preferred to issue said recall (number 23V-652 in the's database) for extra peace of mind. Rather than replacing the hydraulic electronic control unit, affected vehicles will be installed with a new fuse (or fuses) to prevent an overcurrent condition in the hydraulic electronic control unit's circuit board.In the meantime, owners are urged to park their vehicles outside and away from structures until the remedy is performed. Owners will be informed of this recall between November 14 and November 23 by mail.Affected model years and nameplates are listed in the document attached below.Hyundai recalled 1.6 million vehicles over the very same problem.
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An evolution of the car launched in 2017 with previous-gen VW Tiguan (Allspace), SEAT Tarraco, and Audi Q3 underpinnings, the all-new Skoda Kodiaq has new everything, including second-gen Matrix LED headlights, squared-off wheel arches, and 17- to 20-inch alloys. The rear pillars will be available in a Dark Chrome finish as an option, which will be limited to this model.Making their debut on the 2024 Kodiaq are the so-called TOP LED Matrix headlights, whereas at the opposite end, it will feature C-shaped taillights with a thin strip linking them together on the lower ends. The new Skoda lettering will decorate the tailgate, between the light strip and the rear windshield, and further down, we might see additional emblems, depending on the powertrain and trim.Measuring 4,758 mm (187.3 in) in length, which is 61 mm (2.4 in) more than its predecessor, the new Kodiaq should offer improved interior space and a slightly bigger cargo area. The interior was already revealed and seems to have been inspired by the new VW Tiguan and Passat Variant. It has a 10-inch digital instrument cluster, a 13-inch touchscreen infotainment system, and three 1.25-inch displays on the rotary push-button dials on the center console that can be customized to control different aspects.Besides revealing the cabin of the mid-size crossover and speaking about some of the tech highlights, the Czech automaker, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, has also detailed the powertrain family. As expected, it will launch with gasoline, diesel, mild hybrid, and plug-in hybrid options.In theconfiguration, it will have an electric range of over 62 miles (100 km), Skoda claims, and a combined 201 horsepower to play with. This model will be front-wheel drive, featuring a six-speed DSG transmitting the power to the wheels. A 1.5-liter mild-hybrid with 148 hp will also be on deck, with a seven-speed DSG and, joined by a 2.0L TSI gasoline mill with 201 hp and. The diesel family will comprise the 148 hp and 190 hp 2.0L TDIs, with front- and all-wheel drive, respectively. Both oil burners have a seven-speed DSG.A battery-electric alternative is not coming, not yet anyway, as the car manufacturer will introduce a zero-emission seven-seater crossover in 2026, which is said to be sold alongside its-powered siblings. Skoda is just about ready to uncover the all-new Kodiaq . The grand unveiling will be hosted one week from today, on October 4, and will be streamed online on the company's official channels. The order books should open shortly after the premiere.
Samsung's latest and greatest devices are struggling with the same connection errors, with users explaining on Google's forums that the Galaxy Z Fold5, currently the newest foldable launched by the South Korean phone maker, fails to run Android Auto.The whole thing happens in a car where Android Auto launches and runs correctly with the same cable but a different mobile device, sometimes even from Samsung.Someone says on the forums that they tried a Samsung Galaxy S10+ with the same USB-C cable, and everything worked properly in a car where the Galaxy Z Fold5 failed to launch Android Auto. The same goes for other non-Samsung phones, so the culprit appears to be the new foldable launched by this brand earlier this year.There are no workarounds, as the generic fixes, which involve things like clearing the cache, downgrading or updating Android Auto, and changing cables, proved to be a waste of time.A Google Community Specialist has already chimed in, asking for additional information on the bug. However, earlier this week, it was revealed that Google is investigating the connection issue hitting Samsung devices, but it's too early to tell when a fix could ship.Meanwhile, users have no other option than to try various combinations of cables and Android Auto versions. For the reason that nobody can determine, random cables could allow Android Auto to launch with Samsung devices, though there's no universal pattern here. It's a trial-and-error kind of test, so you'd better try out all the cables you have around to see if they produce an improvement. Oddly, the genuine Samsung cable that ships with the foldable doesn't work, exhibiting the behavior described above.Samsung has so far remained tight-lipped on the whole thing, but these connection problems are nothing new for its long-time customers. Similar errors occurred when the company launched the Galaxy S22 series , with updates supposed to improve the general reliability and stability in the car shipped nearly a year later.The same thing is happening today with foldables and the Galaxy S23 series, and once again, it looks like Samsung and Google are struggling to figure out what happens.A new Galaxy S series is just around the corner, as the South Koreans are expected to unveil the upgraded models in early 2024. Time will tell if the company ships an update to resolve the Android Auto connection issues by that point, but it'll be even more interesting to see if the new Galaxy S24 series struggles with the same problems. Based on Samsung's typical launch schedule, the new models should be here in February.
TabiEats - Oct 23

Kyoto has tons of street food and we're here to help you find the best! We're trying out some of the newer shops that have opened since we last visited.
In March 2022, a gentleman by the name of Dan Parker clocked 211 miles per hour (make that 340 kilometers per hour) in a Corvette on the runway at Spaceport America. What is special about that?

Well, as it happens, Dan lost his vision after a serve crash while racing a Pro Mod in 2012. Even so, he successfully graduated from the Louisiana Center for the Blind. On this occasion, however, we'll be covering a different gentleman who is also blind.Meet Sheldon Wilson, a.k.a. @moparmuscle14 on Instagram. Last year, he drag raced his buddy's Ram 1500 TRX at the Alaska Raceway Park in Butte with said buddy riding shotgun. His time? 12.728 seconds at 107.28 miles per hour (173 kilometers per hour), which is truly impressive given his lack of vision.This year, Sheldon returned to Alaska Raceway Park with the clear objective of running 11s in his 2022 model year Super Stock. A development of the Hellcat we all know and love, this version is best described as being half Redeye and half Demon.It's not your usual Super Stock, though, for it features a mid-muffler delete, front skinnies in combination with stock DOT-legal drag radials out back, and an LMI (Legmaker Intakes) air intake. Going forward, Sheldon intends to modify his Hellcat-powered muscle car with headers, a less restrictive exhaust, and a 2.85" pulley for the IHI-supplied blower.His end goal is to crack into the 9s, and the end goal after that is to hit 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) on a runway. Sheldon's best quarter mile is a 10.9 at 128 miles per hour (206 kilometers per hour) in his old 2018 Challenger SRT Hellcat.Can he go even quicker in the Super Stock? The answer is no, but an elapsed time of 11.517 seconds at 123.18 miles per hour (198.23 kilometers per hour) is pretty darn good. His reaction time? That would be 0.485 seconds, thank you! From the way he smiles and his conversation with Frederick White of 1320Video, it's also crystal clear that Sheldon Wilson is more than simply pleased by the 11.5-second pass.As you're well aware, 2023 is the final year of the Challenger SRT Hellcat and its more powerful siblings. Chrysler is discontinuing the 5.7-liter HEMI V8 engine as well, and chances are the punchier 6.4-liter HEMI V8 won't survive much longer.With the 2025 model year Ram 1500 TRX getting a twin-turbo sixer and the Charger being replaced by a three-door fastback coupe with electric oomph, Mopar will never be the same again. On the upside, remember that Direct Connection offers a Hurricane crate engine with over 1,000 ponies on deck. The range-topping powertrain of the zero-emission Charger is also believed to pack four-digit power.If you can't imagine a muscle car without eight cylinders arranged in a V shape, fret not because Ford's pony car offers around 800 horsepower in GTD flavor. The 5.2-liter supercharged V8 of the GT3-inspired special edition is a development of the Predator in the S550-gen Shelby GT500, meaning that the S650-gen Shelby GT500 is likely to match  if not surpass  the power output of the GTD.
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Back in 2010, the electric vehicle revolution was a relatively new term, and only a few automakers dared a leap of faith into the sector. Of course, Nissan was among the fastest to adopt the fresh lifestyle with the original LeafAlways offered solely as a five-door hatchback, the Nissan Leaf evolved from a quirky model titled the world's first mass-market electric vehicle with zero emissions into the second-generation iteration that no longer needs eccentricity to capture people's hearts easily. At one time, it was even the world's best-selling EV. Still, that title is long gone as the Japanese automaker failed to adapt to the brisk pace of changes brought upon the EV sector by a particular American automaker.Of course, many more Teslas have been sold since Nissan bragged about having the nameplate with the most significant EV sales worldwide. Still, even today, the company offers the Leaf across the US market with two battery pack versions  40and 62 kWh. Indeed, these specifications clearly show how the world of EVs evolved around them  a lot faster than Nissan could adapt. Maybe that's why they also took so long before introducing the Ariya compact EV crossoverAnyway, the Nissan Leaf can be had in America from $28,140, which is not a very bad deal when the Hyundai Kona electric starts at $33,550, for example. However, a 60-kWh Nissan Leaf SV Plus with the 160(215 hp) electric motor starts from $36,190, and that's dangerously close to Tesla territory  a Model 3 RWD has more power, more range (272 miles), and a $40,240 starting price. If you also factor in the $7,500 IRA Federal Tax Credit, then a Model 3 RWD is suddenly a lot cheaper than the smaller, less powerful Leaf SV Plus!Alas, this time around, we are not here to discuss the trials and tribulations of the Nissan Leaf in America. Instead, let's take a moment to see how far the age-old car versus jet trope has gone into oblivion that the Japanese automaker thinks it can get away with something like this. But what is this? Well, what you are about to see in the short clip embedded below (we hope you know Japanese to help us translate some of the details) is a jet aircraft  most likely a sub-sonic trainer, not a fighter  duking it out with the Nissan Leaf in a classic drag race confrontation We will not spoil the result, but instead, we will retreat in our little corner to laugh or cry (depending on our fleeting emotional states) the fact that Nissan thought it could get away with something like this. Well, it's obviously fake marketing, and the professional videographers couldn't even cover the gimmicks despite their best efforts. Nissan, we really hope you try better next time!
What Kia calls HECU (hydraulic electronic control unit) in documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, sister brand Hyundai refers to as the anti-lock brake system module. As fate would have it, Hyundai Motor America has issued a mammoth safety recall encompassing more than 1.6 million vehicles due to a fire risk stemming from brake fluid leaking within the ABS module.

ABS

Photo: Hyundai

If the brake fluid makes a mess of the printed circuit board, the resulting electrical short leads to an overcurrent condition that increases the risk of a fire. Hyundai Motor America started investigating this problem in June 2019 after receiving a report of an overheatedmodule in an Elantra Come August 2019, the company became aware of another overheated module in a customer's Accent. Both modules were damaged beyond the ability to determine the root cause behind the underhood fires. The third confirmed incident followed suit in July 2020, involving a 2015 model year Elantra. Fast forward to September 2023, and the grand total is 21 vehicle fires in addition to 22 thermal incidents.Think smoking, melting, and burning. Those 43 thermal incidents and fires occurred in the United States market alone between June 2017 and June 2023.Remember the 2015 model year Elantra from July 2020? Its module was promptly shipped to South Korea, with Hyundai Motor Company's engineering department identifying an internal brake fluid leak. Even so, the automaker decided to investigate some more before deciding whether to recall or not.Third-party engineering analysis firm Exponent started helping the Ulsan-based automaker in October 2021. The folks at Exponent discovered foreign contaminants in the residual brake fluid inside certain ABS modules, reporting said findings to HMC in May 2023. Two months later, Exponent also discovered O-rings with varying rubber material formulations. Certain formulations are prone to losing the rubber's hardness over time, resulting in internal brake fluid leakage.Hyundai reviewed this information with the supplier of the ABS module, namely South Korea-based Mando. The part number of the suspect ABS module is 58900-*****, whereas the HECUs recalled by Kia to the tune of 1.7 million vehicles bear part numbers beginning with 58910 and 58920. It's not clear why Hyundai and Kia used asterisks to hide said part numbers, more so considering that all three versions have been discontinued from vehicle production.In any case, Hyundai isn't aware of any crashes, injuries, or fatalities attributable to the described condition. As per the document attached below, the supplier improved the ABS motor shaft O-ring's material formulation in September 2014 at its South Korean plant and in February 2015 at its US plant.Affected vehicles include the 2010 to 2013 model year Tucson, followed by the 2015 model year Tucson Fuel Cell, 2013 Santa Fe Sport, 2010 to 2012 Veracruz, 2014 to 2015 Equus, 2013 to 2015 Santa Fe and Elantra Coupe, 2012 to 2015 Accent, Veloster, and Azera, plus the 2011 to 2015 Elantra, Sonata Hybrid, and Genesis Coupe. Hyundai states that owners can continue driving said vehicles, although Hyundai also advises them to park outside and away from structures. Why?As it happens, an ABS module fire can occur both while driving and when the vehicle is parked. The remedy doesn't come in the form of a replacement O-ring or ABS module, but a replacement ABS fuse rated at a lower amperage to limit the operating current.Both dealers and owners will be informed of the supplier's blunder on or about November 21.
Surely you remember the Cadillac XLR , don't you? It was a front-engine and rear-wheel drive model with seating for two and almost perfect weight distribution. Made at the Bowling Green factory in Kentucky, it shared many components with the C6 Chevrolet Corvette and came with a choice of two V8 engines.Presented at the North American International Auto Show in 2003, it entered production the same year. Some of the highlights were the adaptive suspension, head-up display, transmission (five-speed auto or six-speed auto) mounted at the rear, and the Bulgari-designed instruments on the inside. It was also Caddy's first vehicle to feature a radar-based adaptive cruise control and was part of the nominees for the 2004 North American Car of the Year.The spiritual successor to the Allante manufactured between 1986 and 1993, the Cadillac XLR stuck around until 2009, when the GM-owned premium car brand pulled the plug on it, though not before expanding the offering with a V-Series variant. The XLR-V came with a supercharged V8 shared with the STS-V, albeit featuring a bit less power at 443 horses. It featured the Z51 Corvette's brakes, had a six-speed automatic transmission and 19-inch alloys, and took a little over four and a half seconds to hit sixty mph (97 kph).Now, since the XLR was basically a re-bodied 'Vette, some are still wondering what a modern-day take on it would look like. And if you're part of that crowd, which you probably are otherwise, you wouldn't be reading these lines, then the rendering signed by Jlord8 and shared on social media recently could make your heart go racing. The pixel manipulator modified the C8 Corvette with a few styling traits inspired by Cadillac's modern-day vehicles, and the result is worth a look.It has new LED headlamps, LED DRLs, Caddy's grille decorated by the premium car marque's logo, new wheels, and a few other tweaks that make it worthy of unofficially using the XLR moniker. But as we already told you, chances are Cadillac will never launch a two-seater ever again, even if they have all the right tools and access to other platforms and motors to make it happen. The reason is obvious, as such a model would not sell in great numbers, especially since it would be pricier than a 'Vette.But assuming they might give it another shot and use the C8's underpinnings to bring it to life, would it be something you'd perhaps consider, or is the normal 'Vette simply enough to quench your thirst?
There are many companies in the business of making electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, but none of them is yet in a position to brag about having an operational fleet anywhere in our skies. Yet this is a future that will happen, and one doesn't need anything more than NASA and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) saying so to be convinced that's true.

Both the space agency and the military branch just said so as they announced, together, the start of two separate research programs using the same Joby Aviation eVTOL, freshly delivered to the Edwards Air Force Base in California.The base is where the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center is located, but also home to a military unit called Emerging Technologies Integrated Test Force (ET-ITF - part of the 412 Test Wing).It was on September 25 when Joby delivered the aircraft to the base. The configuration of the machine for the task at hand is not exactly clear, but we do know what the company is making for the civilian market.Joby's proposal for the future of urban transportation is an aircraft capable of carrying four people and a pilot under the power provided by six electric motors. They spin an equal number of propellers with 316 horsepower each, and can move with speeds of up to 200 mph (322 kph). The maximum range of the bird is 100 miles (161 km).The test vehicle received at Edwards will be jointly used by NASA and the USAF. The space agency will fly it starting next year with its own pilots as a means to "evaluate how this kind of vehicle could be integrated into our skies for everyday use."That doesn't only include commutes but also uses such as emergency response, fighting wildfires, and the delivery of medical supplies. NASA will not only focus on the aircraft's behavior in flight, but will also look into what's needed in terms of traffic management, flight procedures, and ground-based infrastructure.The Air Force, on the other hand, will use its own ET-ITF people to research potential military applications of the eVTOL . It will do so starting immediately as part of a program called Agility Prime and run by AFWERX. That would be an effort meant to look into emerging technologies like vertical lift and new power sources (electric, hybrid, hydrogen).Neither NASA nor the USAF said anything about when we should expect the first results of the flight tests, but this being a novel technology with a lot of PR potential, we expect to get updates at every turn and with any achievement. Especially given how a second Joby eVTOL is expected to be shipped to Edwards as part of a $131 million contract between the company and the USAF.
27 September 2023 08:30 (UTC+04:00)

Rena Murshud Read more

"Since the war is over, now Azerbaijan's economy will develop in a commercial direction. If we take into account that until today Azerbaijan devoted its resources to war preparations, that is why the indicator in the economy of Azerbaijan was low in the last decade. If there was no war, I am sure that the trade turnover would have reached at least 50-70 billion."

Turkish economist expert, Professor Jamal Zehir said these words in his comment to Azernews on the recent meeting of the heads of state in Nakhchivan. According to him, with the opening of the Zangazur corridor, Azerbaijan's trade turnover can reach 50 billion in a short time. Because according to the expert's analysis, 15 billion trade turnover is a very low figure for the two countries.

"Azerbaijan's greatest trade opening potential to the West will be presented through Turkiye. With serious purchases from Turkiye, Azerbaijan will slowly begin to grow even more than production. Currently, Azerbaijan has a great potential of personnel," the economist added.

Jamal Zehir noted that Garabagh, which has great natural resources, will be turned into an economic region in the future, as stated by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. Because this region is considered favorable for industrialization.

"Azerbaijan will be a trade center for both the West and the East. Because China's One Belt, One Road project has passed through Azerbaijan, but it will also pass through Turkiye. In a nutshell, Turkiye and Azerbaijan will be an important corridor, and both countries will get a lot of income from Trans-Logistics transit.

Also, other countries that are aware of this will be interested in making large investments. This is the reason why neighboring Russia, regardless of its power in the region, looks further relaxed. Also, due to the Russia-Ukraine war, European countries will want to benefit from this trade because Europe will not get along with Russia for many years."

Speaking about the memorandum signed on December 15, 2020, the economist said that according to the Igdir-Nakhchivan agreement, excess natural gas will be supplied directly from Turkiye to Nakhchivan, which simultaneously will reduce Nakhchivan's gas supply dependence on Iran under the previously signed swap agreement.

For many years, due to the events of 1920 and 1990, Azerbaijan could not invest in Nakhchivan, so Turkiye provided the first commercial support. However, although Turkish businessmen and companies tried to establish serious business in Nakhchivan, it was not enough. It is for this reason that the contract of the project signed 3 years ago has already been realized and construction has started. With this, natural gas lines will meet the energy needs of Nakhchivan. In another signed document, it was stated that a serious investment in green energy (1000 megawatts) will be obtained. However, since Nakhchivan does not have the capital potential to use energy, therefore it will be exported to Turkiye.

"We believe that this agreement will boost the economy of Nakhchivan and accelerate the commercial integration between Turkiye and Azerbaijan," Cemal Zehir opined.

In conclusion, the economist also spoke about the importance of the Zangazur corridor on a large scale. Which, along with Turkiye and Azerbaijan, many Western countries also want the opening of the corridor.

"I think that maybe other Turkish states will be added to the natural gas pipeline coming from Baku. Because only Azerbaijan's natural gas is not enough to meet Europe's needs. Therefore, the corridor is more likely to be a huge carrier of natural gas, energy, and oil. If other Turkish states join, it may be possible to form a large economic region by exporting energy to the main market," the expert concluded.

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Rena Murshud is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @RenaTagiyeva

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27 September 2023 16:15 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

The 7th DokuBak International Documentary Film Festival has opened its doors to cinema lovers.

The documentary festival has been held yearly since 2017. For the last two years, it was financially supported by the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry, Azernews reports.

The theme of the 7th edition is "CosmoDarwinism: Age of Aquarius". The festival program consists of 43 screenings.

Within the festival, over 60 films from 29 countries will be screened in five categories: Best Feature Film, Best Short Film, DokuDarwin, No Main Competition, Out of Competition and DokuKids - films for children.

Head of the Cinema Agency Department Rashad Gasimov welcomed the guests of the event.

In his speech, he noted that the festival is supported by the Culture Ministry and Cinema Agency.

The festival director, Imam Hasanov expressed gratitude to everyone who assisted in holding the festival and declared the festival officially open.

Next, the film "Live a Century: Centenarians of Lerik" by director Maria Ibrahimova was presented to the public.

Before the screening, Ibrahimova noted that this was her first film shot in Azerbaijan.

"I am happy finally to share this cinema work with the audience. I am very grateful to the festival organizers for the opportunity to present my film," she said.

Live a Century: Centenarians of Lerik is a story about a unique place not only by the standards of Azerbaijan but also of the whole world. It is not unusual for Lerik residents that their neighbors live for a hundred years, because their fellow countryman is the world-famous long-liver Shirali Baba Muslimov.

The 7th DokuBak International Documentary Film Festival runs until October 1.

The winners in each category will be determined by an international jury of 20 experts, including renowned masters of the genre such as Francois Sculier, Nik Voigt, Michael Graversen, Andrea Culkova, Emil Najafov and Fuad Shabanov. The best films in each category will be awarded.

This year, in addition to the existing "iHuman", "iCyborg", and "NewEye" awards, the new "CosmoHuman" award will be presented as well.

Number of festival partners is increasing every year. Yanis Palavos, a representative of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and Justin Jaeckle, a programmer of the Doclisboa Festival are participating in this year`s festival.

Media partners of the event are Azernews.Az, Trend.Az, Day.Az and Milli.Az.

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The International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation and Kyrgyz National University named after Yusuf Balasagun have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Kyrgyzstan.

The document was signed by President of the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation Gunay Afandiyeva and Rector of Kyrgyz National University Tolobek Abdyrakhmanov, Azernews reports.

The document envisages the opening of the "Turkish Heritage Center" and "Journalism Center of Turkic-Speaking Countries" at the Kyrgyz National University.

Within the meeting, Gunay Afandiyeva and Tolobek Abdyrakhmanov discussed the prospects of cooperation between the foundation and the Kyrgyz National University towards promoting the centuries-old values of the Turkic peoples.

The sides hailed the signing of MoU as an important step towards the beginning of effective partnership and mutual realization of common goals.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Latif Gandilov, as well as Kyrgyz representatives of the International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation Mirbek Karibayev and Nazgul Omurzakova also took part in the meeting.

Initiated in 2012, the foundation provides assistance in the protection, study, and promotion of Turkic culture and heritage through supporting and funding various activities, projects, and programs.

The organization carries out its activities in cooperation with TURKSOY and the Turkic Academy.

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27 September 2023 16:50 (UTC+04:00)

YARAT Contemporary Art Space is hosting a solo exhibition project by Maxim Tatarintsev.

"MONO"  derived from the ancient Greek word "" (monos, translates to "alone, solitary, or lonely"), Azernews reports.

The exhibition MONO talks about a man alienated in the absurd, making sense of a rapidly changing reality as a mirror to his time.

Obviously, the instability of human experience has become more common. Todays increasing geopolitical conflicts and immigrations, as well as natural disasters, have deeply affected peoples lives on a personal level. At the same time, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies is progressing in parallel with these events. This exhibition incorporates the author's reflections brought by the sense of meaninglessness and absurdity of the post-immigration period, reflecting the artist's subjective reality by means of artificial intelligence. While the exhibition is a completely personal monologue of the artist, throughout the exposition, there is a constant dialogue with artificial intelligence. In this dialectic, artificial intelligence plays the role of a guide, serving as a kind of solution provider, accompanying the author in their search for meaning and raising questions within the absurd. Artificial intelligence dictates the author through all of their steps. Despite the often-irrational nature of these instructions, the fact that the author follows them points to how external forces and circumstances affects their perception and life, even to the extent of control. In the exhibition, the artist proposes a critical question: should one surrender to events beyond their control or resist against them?

By establishing a mutual relationship with artificial intelligence, Tatarintsev examines the possibilities and limitations of the interaction and explores the potential consequences of AIs rapid development. Thus, the exhibition raises questions related to ethics and responsibility and emphasizing how it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from surreal, original from counterfeit. Note that the exhibition is curated by Zahra Mammadova.

Maxim Tatarintsev (b.1991, Ukraine) is an artist, works in genres of video, installation, public-art and painting. The main plot to his work is the social environment, as the main source of personality development.

He graduated from the "Environmental Design" faculty in Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts named after S. Stroganov in 2014. In 2018, he graduated from ICA. Solo exhibtions of the artist include "By my side" solo exhibition ("DORDOR" gallery, New York, 2021); "Timekeeping" ("PRO ART`S" gallery, Kaluga, Russia, 2020). He also participated in numerous exhibitions and projects: SafeZone (ARTIM Project Space, Baku, 2022), "Things" ("ART4" Museum, Moscow, Russia, 2022), Fisura International Experimental Film and Video Festival ( Mexico, 2021), "COSMOSCOW" Art Fair (Moscow, 2020), International Biennale of Young Art (2018, 2016; Moscow) and etc. His works have been awarded a number of prizes.

Opening: September 28th, 19:00

Venue: ARTIM Project Space

Exhibition Duration: September 28th December 30th

Address: Icherisheher (Old City), Kichik Qala Street, 5

Exhibition Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00 PM  8:00 PM

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27 September 2023 17:55 (UTC+04:00)

Rena Murshud Read more

The Rabbinical Center of Europe sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemning the campaign of demonization launched by Armenia against Azerbaijan, Azernews reports.

As rabbis of Jewish communities across the European continent, we write to you following interviews given by senior Armenian government officials to international media on issues related to the conflict with Azerbaijan. These statements use language and comparisons that are appropriate solely to describe the deliberate, systematic, and largest genocide inflicted on the Jewish people in human history - the Holocaust.

During World War II, the Jewish people were persecuted, killed, burned, tortured, drowned, and buried alive. The Holocaust was not limited to any locality but occurred across almost the entire European continent and with the cooperation of a large number of countries.

The use of terms such as ghetto, genocide, and Holocaust, belittles the terrible suffering experienced by the victims of the Holocaust and by the entire Jewish people, who still feel the indescribable pain of the greatest tragedy ever experienced by a single group.

We call on you to make it clear to the government of Armenia and all other countries that they must recognize and respect the terrible human suffering endured by the Jews. We urge you to bring to their attention that the practice of minimizing and downplaying the suffering of the Jewish people to further a political agenda through the continued use of Holocaust-related slogans must cease immediately and completely,"- the letter says.

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Rena Murshud is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @RenaTagiyeva

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27 September 2023 16:34 (UTC+04:00)

On September 27, Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, and other high-ranking officers of the Ministry visited the Second Alley of Martyrs on the occasion of Remembrance Day, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry.

First, the National Anthem of the Republic of Azerbaijan was performed by the military orchestra.

The memory of the sons of Azerbaijan, who became Martyrs for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, was honored with observing a minute of silence, prayers were made for their souls, and flowers were laid at their graves.

In the end, the Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, and other high-ranking officers of the Ministry met with Martyrs families and relatives and enquired about their concerns.

Members of Martyrs' families expressed satisfaction with the reconstruction and landscaping work done in the Alley, including the conditions created for visitors. They expressed gratitude for the respectful and careful attitude towards the graves of Martyrs.

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27 September 2023 13:40 (UTC+04:00)

Rena Murshud Read more

Azerbaijani Embassy in Pakistan held an event on the occasion of the Remembrance Day in the capital city Islamabad, Azernews reports, citing a post on X by the Embassy.

The post says that the Embassy made a presentation of the book called The History of the Patriotic War-Personality Factor.

Happening now: September 27- #RemembranceDay and book presentation ceremony The History of the Patriotic War - Personality Factor is being held in #Islamabad, #Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/T94Zjzf4xS  Azerbaijan Emb. to Pakistan (@AzEmbPak) September 27, 2023

To recall, 27 September is marked as the Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan in accordance with the decree of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, signed on December 2, 2020.

The Remembrance Day is a public day in Azerbaijan for honoring the military personnel who have been martyred in the Patriotic War in 2020.

On the morning of September 27, 2020, the Armenian Armed Forces initiated a large-scale sabotage and intensively fired at the civilian settlements and military positions located near the front line. In order to prevent the military activity of the Armenian army and ensure the safety of the civilian population, Azerbaijan conducted a rapid counter-attack operation. As a result of the counter-offensive operation, most of the territories that Armenia kept under occupation for 30 years were liberated.

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Rena Murshud is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @RenaTagiyeva

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27 September 2023 14:15 (UTC+04:00)

A total of 10 vehicles and a 50-person team of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) have been involved in search and rescue and other necessary security measures relating to the fire and explosion at a petrol station near Khankendi, Azernews reports.

It should be noted that the fire at a petrol station near Khankendi was extinguished quickly by the State Fire Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Besides, 53 MES vehicles together with personnel and necessary equipment will be sent to the construction of a field hospital near Khojaly.

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27 September 2023 17:12 (UTC+04:00)

Former Prime Minister of Moldova, Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Kirill Gaburich has sent a letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

The letter reads:

His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Dear Mr. President,

I extend my heartfelt congratulations on this historic event - the return of Azerbaijans historical territories, a recognition celebrated by the international community. Having had the privilege of working in Azerbaijan from 2012-2015, I had the opportunity to meet numerous individuals from Karabakh who were displaced from their homes during those challenging times. I came to understand their deep emotions and the significance of this momentous return.

This development holds the promise of new beginnings for the countless refugees who were once compelled to leave their native lands. Your vision and strategic approach in addressing this formidable issue are truly commendable and will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact for generations to come.

I trust that this landmark event will contribute significantly to fostering peace and cooperation throughout the region, ultimately resulting in an improved quality of life for all South Caucasians. Your leadership and unwavering commitment to transforming this historic vision into reality serve as an inspiration to us all.

I strongly believe that with common efforts, we can create a better world for our next generations.

Wishing you and your nation continued success and prosperity along this transformative journey.

Sincerely,

Chiril Gaburici

Prime Minister of Moldova (2015)

Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center

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27 September 2023 19:20 (UTC+04:00)

There is no way that this continued illegal presence of Armenian armed forces in the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, as well as fake "state structures" could continue to exist, Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Special Assignments Elchin Amirbayov told BBC, Azernews reports.

"We have tried to make our best in order not to make any collateral damages during the operation, which actually lasted like a lightning, for one day, it was like a surgeon precision type of action, which addressed, or tried to neutralize the legitimate military targets that is the outpost of Armenian armed forces inside Azerbaijans Garabagh region," he said.

This shows that Azerbaijan's intention was to have this action to last as short as possible, and also to convince the other side that there is no way that this illegal presence and fake "state structures" could not continue to exist within the sovereign Azerbaijani territory, he concluded.

Meanwhile, in order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, suppression of large-scale provocations in Azerbaijan's Garabagh economic region, disarmament, and withdrawal of Armenian armed forces formations from the territories of Azerbaijan, localized anti-terrorist activities were carried out in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian population of Garabagh through the Russian peacekeeping contingent, an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities.

Later, at the invitation of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ramin Mammadov, responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Garabagh, met with representatives of the Armenian residents of Garabagh on September 21, 2023, in Yevlakh.

In the context of discussing social and humanitarian issues, the representatives of the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan's Garabagh region informed that there is a special need for fuel. At the same time, they asked for humanitarian assistance in the form of foodstuffs.

As a result of the meeting, their request was taken seriously. Until now, Azerbaijan has already supplied fuel for the heating systems of kindergartens and schools, as well as the emergency medical service and fire department, and provided humanitarian support for Garabagh residents.

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27 September 2023 17:48 (UTC+04:00)

Former Serbian Foreign Minister, Chairman of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly, Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Vuk Jeremic has sent a letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Azernews reports.

The letter reads:

"His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Your Excellency,

I write to congratulate you on the consolidation of Azerbaijans sovereignty and territorial integrity.

I salute Azerbaijans pledge to establish an environment on the ground that will enable the ethnic-Armenians who remain in your country to make informed decisions about their future in safety and security and those who have departed the territory to freely exercise their right of return.

I also remain deeply grateful for Azerbaijans principled and consistent support of Serbia on the Kosovo and Metohija issue.

Lately, I wish you success in ongoing efforts to complete the peace process with neighboring Armenia. This will go a long way towards unlocking the full strategic potential of the South Caucasus and, indeed, of all Eurasia, in this time of tumultuous geopolitical transformation.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Vuk Jeremic

Former Foreign Minister of Serbia

President of the 67th Session of UN General Assembly

Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center"

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27 September 2023 22:40 (UTC+04:00)

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Tuesday said the free trade agreement between Georgia and China had played a crucial role in ensuring greater trade between our countries, Azernews reports, citing Agenda.

In his remarks at the official reception to mark the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Garibashvili noted the cooperation between the two governments was at the highest level.

The free trade agreement between Georgia and China, which entered into force in January 2018, played a crucial role in ensuring greater trade between our countries that has reached $2 billion annually since its signing, Garibashvili told the audience.

As we consider the depths of our cooperation, it is important to note that trade has always been one of the cornerstones of our bilateral relations. [...] As a result, China is constantly among the top three trade partners of Georgia, the Government head continued.

Garibashvili also welcomed active cooperation with China in culture and education, and further pointed out that the growing interest of Georgian citizens in the Chinese language and culture is extremely gratifying that creates the basis for promoting the necessary relations between people.

It is in this sense that we have recently issued a decree establishing visa-free travel for Chinese citizens. This decision reflects our unwavering commitment to strengthening the friendly ties between our citizens. We hope that this initiative will contribute to the establishment of greater cultural ties and provide tourism flows between our countries, he noted.

The Prime Minister expressed his confidence that the strategic partnership would further deepen, bringing prosperity and mutual benefits to our great nations.

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27 September 2023 23:45 (UTC+04:00)

The ban on import of wheat by road into Kazakhstan has been extended from October 11 of this year for a period of 6 months, Azernews reports, citing Trend.

As noted by the Ministry of Agriculture, this step was taken to eliminate illegal imports of wheat.

In addition, from September 26, 2023, a ban was introduced for a period of 6 months on the import of wheat by rail, except the import of grain intended for licensed elevators, as well as grain processing and poultry enterprises.

The restrictions imposed on imports by rail do not apply to transit transportation through the territory of Kazakhstan.

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The Sheikh Ebrahim Center has collaborated with Embassy of the Italy to bring to fashion enthusiasts in Bahraini an exciting exhibition titled 'Tales of Italian Fashion'.

Read More: Hussain Al Jassmi to Dazzle Audiences in Bahrain on This Date

The exhibition has been curated by the Honorary President of Gattinoni Fashion House Stefano Dominella.

'Tales of Italian Fashion' will run from Sep. to Sep. 28 at the Bin Mattar House in Muharraq.

On Sep. 27, the exhibition will be open to visitors from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Read More: BNP Paribas Jazz Festival Is Returning to Bahrain This November

On Sep. 28, the exhibition will be open to visitors from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Entrance to the exhibition is free.

The exhibition will shed light on the colors, textures, designs, manufacturing processes, and many other things that have contributed to the history of international fashion and have enhanced the prestige of 'Made in Italy' across the world.

If you want to learn more about Italian fashion, then head to this exhibition!

Image source: @italyinbahrain Instagram page
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This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal . The author of this post is CJ Staff The N.C. Coalition of Charter Schools is urging the N.C. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court's decision against a proposed charter school in Wake Forest. A new friend-of-the-court brief filed Friday targets the state Appeals Court's 2022 ruling supporting the town.The state Supreme Court agreed in April to take the case, Schooldev East v. Town of Wake Forest.The outcome of the legal dispute is unlikely to affect the school, Wake Preparatory Academy, which chose a different location after losing an earlier round in the courtroom battle.wrote the charter school coalition's lawyers, led by former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot.The Appeals Court split 2-1 in July 2022 when it issued its ruling supporting Wake Forest's decision to block a new charter school. The coalition's brief highlighted dissenting Judge John Tyson's assessment thatcoalition lawyers wrote.the brief continued.coalition lawyers wrote.Schooldev's lawyers also submitted their latest brief in the case Friday.according to Schooldev's court filing.the brief continued.In November 2019, developers submitted plans to Wake Forest that included Wake Prep, a proposed K-12 charter school. Wake Forest officials rejected the plans in October 2020, citing concerns about a lack of pedestrian and bicycleThe developer sued Wake Forest. Superior Court Judge Vince Rozier upheld the town's decision in April 2021.Wake Prep eventually chose another location in an existing building on Capital Boulevard in Youngsville. But an Appeals Court panel ruled unanimously in July 2022 that Wake Forest could not have the lawsuit tossed out as moot.Judges Jeff Carpenter and John Arrowood still ruled in favor of town officials.to get necessary development permitsCarpenter wrote.Tyson's dissent cited Wake Forest's decision to ignore plansThat pathTyson wrote.Appellate judges disagreed about the proper application of a state law, N.C. General Statute  160A-307.1. It limits city government requirements forCarpenter and Arrowood did not believe the law limited Wake Forest's requirements in the Wake Prep case. Tyson disagreed.Tyson wrote.When Carolina Journal reported on the Appeals Court ruling last year, the head of the John Locke Foundation's Center for Effective Education noted the problems created by local governments that oppose new charter schools.said Terry Stoops, who directed the center at the time.Stoops said.The N.C. Supreme Court has not yet scheduled the Schooldev case for oral arguments.
This post appears here courtesy of ECU News Services . The author of this post is Lacey L. Gray There's nothing like being at the beach in the summer. The sun is shining, the water is sparkling and the science is flowing. Yes, summertime at the beach is synonymous with science, at least when East Carolina University researchers are out in full force.Dr. Hannah Sirianni is a Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment who specializes in geographic information science and technology. She is leading a team of researchers and ECU graduate students in studying the erosion of Sugarloaf Island, a popular, undeveloped recreational beach off Morehead City's downtown waterfront along the North Carolina coast.Sirianni said.Since 2014, the island's shoreline has eroded about 10 feet per year and lost nearly 10,000 cubic meters of sand. It would take 800 average-sized dump trucks to hold the amount of sand lost from the 47-acre island.she said.Sirianni's team includes a group of multidisciplinary scientists, engineers and administrators from ECU, as well as leaders and representatives from local government, academic and business entities that include the town of Morehead City, North Carolina Coastal Federation, UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, Sea & Shoreline LLC, and Quible and Associates.The group is working together to design and implement a restoration project of shoreline stabilization techniques to help mitigate the erosion on the island. Stabilization techniques may include wave attenuation devices, living shoreline oyster reefs and terrestrial/aquatic plantings.This summer, to aid the project, Sirianni's Coastal Geography and Terrain Analysis lab used cutting-edge geospatial technologies, including GPS, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), modeling software and drones to map and monitor seasonal changes to the island.Sirianni said.Sirianni's graduate students Michael Moody and Sarah Pettyjohn are applying the technological skills gained from the project toward their master's degrees. Moody, who enjoys field research, has helped design field protocols. He conducted an initial drone survey of Sugarloaf Island in November.Moody said.Pettyjohn, who found Sirianni's lab website and Moody's drone footage of Sugarloaf Island through a Google search, said Sirianni's research is what attracted her to ECU.This summer, Sirianni and Moody trained Pettyjohn, who begins her master's program in geography in the fall. Pettyjohn assisted in current research, monitored the island's changing shoreline and participated in another drone survey. She will use Moody's baseline dataset of Sugarloaf Island, along with repeat surveys over the next two years, to better understand the efficacy of the shoreline stabilization techniques on the island and to support knowledge-based decision making along North Carolina's coastline.In addition to Moody's continued research in Sirianni's lab, he participated in an internship this summer with Florida Fish and Wildlife and intends to complete his master's degree in geography in spring 2024.
Tom Campbell

Our legislature continues to dance to the tunes played by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC promotes conservative agendas and legislation and encourages the narrative that the 2020 election was stolen through voter fraud. Never mind 60 courts have ruled to the contrary.Our state passed SB747, a restrictive election law, claiming it was anGovernor Cooper vetoed SB747 saying,Cleta Mitchell, likely one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Jack Smith federal case against Trump, actively advised our lawmakers in drafting 747. That should worry us.SB747 states that no longer will an absentee ballot be counted if it is received within three days of the election, even if postmarked on or before election day. An absentee ballot will only be counted if it is received by 7:30 p.m. (time the polls close) on election day. Mail-in voting is totally dependent on the US Postal Service....the agency that has seen staff reductions, largescale elimination of mail processing equipment and less dependable mail delivery service.There have been very few documented examples where our election officials have not made consistent and wise decisions regarding absentee ballots and, in the one congressional election where ballot harvesting took place, election officials took firm action to throw out the results and hold a new vote. But let's make it as difficult as possible to vote by mail and call it election integrity.Same-day voter registration and voting will now only count if that same US Postal Service is able to deliver the voter registration card to the listed address after one attempt.Certain counties will be required to conduct a signature match to determine if the signed ballot matches the voter registration. And pollare given more leeway to intimidate or influence voters, along with more opportunities to challenge registrations. These observers may take notes, listen in on conversations between election officials and voters, have almost totally free access to the voting space and watch setup and tear down procedures at each site. Why was this necessary, since there have been few significant substantiated disputes about interference or improper conduct by officials inside the polling place? Election officials from both parties uniformly state this is neither necessary nor desirable.SB747 further restricts outside donations aimed at helping assist counties in conducting elections. Face it, elections have become more complicated, more contentious and require more voter assistance, therefore more personnel. What are local election boards to do if the legislature won't provide adequate funding?Another bill which has passed the Senate but (at this writing) has not passed in the House is SB749 and is mislabeledHistorically, the State Board of Elections has consisted of 5 members - three from the party of the sitting governor and two from the other political party. This bill would reverse this longstanding practice at both the state and county election levels to include two members from each party. Further, they want to take away the power of the Governor to name these members, giving legislators this authority. If you are ahead of me (and jumped to the same conclusion as I) you're asking what is going to happen when there are tie votes, which in our hyper partisan culture is a dead certainty? And you guessed it, the legislature will break the tie. Is this your definition of nonpartisan? This bill hasn't passed but the governor promises to veto it if it does pass.The Cooper veto of SB747 will most likely have been overridden by the time you read this, but the Governor promises court action.To further compound election issues, beginning this year you must have a valid photo ID to vote. There has been some effort put into approving a wide variety of photo identifications. We think a good case can be made for having to prove your identity when you vote and hope this new wrinkle will go smoothly.Here's my spin: By following theALEC agenda, our legislature is mandating solutions in search of a problem. They seem intent on undermining our trust in the election process, which repeatedly has been proven safe, well administered and without corruption.It really feels as if they (legislative leaders) don't want us to vote. Why? And why are they insistent on creating distrust in our election process? The only conclusion a reasonable person can reach is that Republicans are afraid they will lose elections if there is a level playing field and all were encouraged to vote.
Airport workers backed by one of the biggest labor unions in the nation protested at LAX Airport this week for stricter airline emissions regulations to combatThe protesters are members of the Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW) organization, Airport Workers United (AWU).The protest occurred in front of a departures terminal at the airport. Protestors used the phrase,a popular chant in Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and riots, as well as the environmentalist alternative,The protestors called on the California Air Resources Board (CARB) - which approved California's gas-powered car ban - to regulate airline industry emissions like other industry emissions during their next meeting on Sept. 14. CARB will consider increased regulations on the airline industry by adding jet fuel into the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).LCFS regulation currently doesn't apply to conventional jet fuel, aviation gasoline, deficit-generating fuel used in military tactical vehicles, and certain credit-generating fossil compressed natural gas or fossil propane fuels.In a press release, SEIU-UWW said that the airline industry is the fourth-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, causingand disproportionate levels of respiratory disease among minorities.stated the press release.Featured speakers at Thursday's protest included workers JoVann Houston and Oscar Antonio, as well as Democratic California State Senator Henry Stern.Houston claimed that environmental racism was to blame for her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory disease which causes breathing issues.said Houston.Houston has been a featured face of SEIU advocacy for stricter emissions regulations since March 2020, as well as increasing the minimum wage to $25 or more an hour.In June, Houston was invited to testify on behalf of the SEIU before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the Biden administration's proposed changes to carbon pollution standards.Antonio claimed that he and his co-workers developed various breathing ailments due to working at LAX. He echoed the union's advocacy for airlines to lower the carbon content of the jet fuel they use.said Antonio.Featured in the protest was a poster that read:Stern said that airlines have too much of an emission impact under their present practices that even a drastic measure like shutting down every Los Angeles highway wouldn't make a difference. Stern fully supported California's total vehicle electrification through its ban of new gas-powered cars. The EPA gave California special permissions for the ban in March.said Stern.A month after approving California's gas car ban, the EPA proposed a similar crackdown nationwide.Regulations of the airline industry in the name of combating climate change have resulted in drastic policy changes with outsized economic impacts.Last October, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) pledged during its annual assembly to reach net zero emissions by 2050; during that same assembly, the United States was elected to join ICAO's Member Governing Council as one of 10 states of chief importance in air transport. W. Brent Christensen serves as the nation's representative on the council; Christensen formerly served as the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy from 2018 to 2021.John Kerry, the nation's first Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, applauded the ICAO pledge. Kerry, a member of the Forbes family, was former President Barack Obama's secretary of state, and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee.In April, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general warned Bloomberg panelists that proposedaviation fuel would result in steep airline ticket prices. In May, France banned short-haul domestic flights to make headway on its goal of carbon neutrality. Like the U.S., France was elected one of the ICAO Member Governing Council states of chief importance in air transport last year.
This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire . The author of this post is Leif Le Mahieu A ship that sank into the depths of Lake Michigan in 1881 has been discovered by shipwreck hunters, who described the ship as being likeinto the past because of how well it has survived over the years.The Trinidad, a schooner that transported grain between Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York, was found in July by Brendon Baillod and Robert Jaeck. The remains of the ship were found roughly 10 miles off the Wisconsin coastline two years after the two maritime historians began their mission.Baillod told the New York Times.There were eight men aboard the ship who escaped in a lifeboat and made it to Algoma, Wisconsin, in May 1881. The ship's dog went down with the wreck.the Wisconsin Historical Society said.Baillod and Jaeck used the account written by John Higgins, the ship's captain, to help them locate areas to search for the wreck.a press release on the ship's finding said.The Wisconsin Historical Society helped to charter an underwater craft to survey the wreckage of the Trinidad and confirm its location.The ship was originally constructed in 1867 and used to facilitate grain trade between the upper Midwest, Pennsylvania, and New York. The 140-foot long schooner went down with a load of coal after it sprung a leak going through the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Door County Wisconsin, according to the Associated Press. The ship was reportedly not well kept, which contributed to its demise.Baillod told the Times.Baillod said that he hopes that the wrecked ship could be made visible to the public.he said.A 3D model of the ship, posted by Ship Wreck World can be viewed here.WATCH:
Nurse practitioners are compensated the least in Florida, where they earn an average of $99,390  24 percent less than the national average  according to career website ZipRecruiter.

The site compiles salary data, which was updated Sept. 11, from both employer job postings and third-party data sources.

The average annual salary for nurse practitioners in the U.S. is $131,543. They earn $155,981per year in Nevada, the highest-paying state  19 percent more than the national average.

Here are the 10 states where nurse practitioners are paid the least, along with the average annual salary, starting with the lowest-paying state:

1. Florida ($99,390)

2. Alabama ($99,492)

3. West Virginia ($99,890)

4. Louisiana ($101,038)

5. Kansas ($104,974)

6. Mississippi ($109,177)

7. Tennessee ($110,113)

8. Utah ($110,389)

9. Ohio ($112,503)

10. New Mexico ($112,505)






Charlotte, N.C.-based Sudipta Mazumder, MD, was found guilty for her role in a medical equipment scheme that defrauded federal benefits programs of more than $5 million.

In 2019 and 2020, Dr. Mazumder, 47, worked as a physician and independent contractor for a telemedicine company and signed fraudulent orders for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment for patients insured by the Medicare and Tricare programs, according to a Sept. 27 Justice Department news release. Dr. Mazumder received unsigned orders for the devices from the telemedicine company for beneficiaries she had little to no interaction with, which she signed and returned in exchange for $20 for each purported assessment she performed.

Dr. Mazumder falsely stated in those orders that she was treating the patients for the listed medical conditions and that the braces she ordered were medically necessary, despite never examining the patients  for which she was also charged with six counts of making false statements relating to healthcare matters, according to the release.

The charge of making false statements relating to healthcare matters carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count, according to the Justice Department.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry opened two student clinical rotation sites.

The clinic sites are in Crossville and Knoxville, Tenn., according to a Sept. 25 news release from the university.

Fourth-year dental students will gain clinical experience under faculty supervision during the rotations. The Knoxville rotation also gives the students the opportunity to spend time at the general practice residency program at the University of Tennessee Medical Center.

The university also has clinical sites in Union City, Bristol and Chattanooga, Tenn., the release said.
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Several reports have come out in recent months highlighting physician compensation trends. While data periods, criteria and samples differed over such reports, some trends emerged that showed consistent data, including a strong correlation between compensation increases in certain specialties.

Compiled below are some headline categories from three reports: The "2023 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives" from AMN Healthcare, the Medscape "Physician Compensation Report 2023" and Sullivan Cotter's "2022-2023 Physician Compensation and Productivity Report."

Highest- and lowest-paid specialties

$619,000: Plastic surgery (Medscape)

$249,000: Public health and preventive medicine

*$677,691: Cardiology (Sullivan Cotter)

*$270,666: Pediatrics

*of specialties showing highest increases

$633,000: Orthopedics (AMN)

$233,000: Pediatrics

Specialties with consistently high pay raises across reports

Anesthesiology: Compensation increases were between 10 percent and 12.5 percent, with median salaries ranging from $448,000 to $472,727.

Oncology: Compensation increases were between 9 percent and 13 percent, with median salaries ranging from $406,258 to $463,000.

Psychiatry: Compensation increases were between 8 percent and 19 percent, with median salaries ranging from $281,262 (child/adolescent only) and $355,000.

Highest and lowest pay raises

Psychiatry had a 19 percent increase to a median of $355,000, according to AMN. The largest decrease was a 10 percent decline in noninvasive cardiology to a median of $433,000.

Oncology was up 13 percent to a median of $463,000, while ophthalmology was down 7 percent to $388,000, according to Medscape.

Hospitalist-internal medicine salaries rose 14 percent to $326,417, Sullivan Cotter said.

Incentive payments

The average signing bonus for physicians increased 21 percent from 2022 to $37,473 this year, according to AMN. The average signing bonus for nurse practitioners and physician assistants is $8,355, down 7 percent from $9,000 last year.

Gender and minority pay differences

Male primary care physicians earned 19 percent more than their female counterparts, a "significant disparity" but lower than recent years, when it averaged around 25 percent, Medscape said. Male specialists earned 27 percent more than female specialists compared with a 31 percent gap in the 2022 report.

White physicians ($358,000) and Asian Americans ($351,000) earn more than their Black ($311,000) and Latino ($338,000) counterparts, the 2023 report said.
Prospect Medical's Waterbury (Conn.) Hospital and Eastern Connecticut Health Network in Manchester have struggled to pay physicians amid financial difficulties and a cyberattack in August that crippled their computer systems and disrupted operations, according to the CT Mirror.

During a Sept. 26 meeting with lawmakers, leaders from both hospitals said some contracted physicians hadn't been paid in recent weeks. Sen. Saud Anwar was in attendance at the meeting and recounted details from the discussion, which noted the cyberattack exacerbated an already challenging financial situation.

"I know [some of] the hospital doctors have not been getting paid. Many of them are planning to leave," Mr. Anwar told the CT Mirror. The report also noted the hospitals owe $40 million to vendors, and some have them on a credit hold and won't do more business until their balances are paid.

The hospital leaders met with lawmakers to request a speedy approval of Prospect Medical's sale of the hospitals to Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health, which was announced last year.
The Indiana Supreme Court has revived part of a lawsuit against Indianapolis-based Community Health Network, which alleges that the health system disclosed a patient's medical information to a third party, who then posted the information to Facebook.

The lawsuit stemmed from an instance in 2018 when a patient visited Community Health Network's emergency department and needed to receive follow-up information regarding her care.

The employee from the emergency department tried to contact the patient, but could not, and decided to write a letter regarding the diagnosis and treatment the patient received. However, the letter was mailed to the wrong address and the person who received it posted it to Facebook.

The patient sued the health system, alleging that it invaded her privacy, that its training was negligent and that it was liable for its employee's unauthorized disclosure of her private health information.

The lawsuit also claimed Community was liable for negligently maintaining the confidentiality of her private information.

In a previous trial, the court granted Community summary judgment on all the counts.

On Sept. 25, in a court document obtained by Becker's, Chief Justice Loretta Rush concluded that the hospital is "not entitled to summary judgment on the patient's privacy claim because the hospital did not negate the public-disclosure tort's publicity element."

Ms. Rush also stated that the hospital is "entitled to partial summary judgment on the patients negligence claim."








The American Hospital Association told Congress it favors a "sector specific approach" to regulating artificial intelligence.

"AI is not a monolithic technology, and a one-size-fits-all approach could stifle innovation in patient care and hospital operations and could prove inadequate at addressing the risks to safety and privacy that are unique to health care," the AHA wrote in its Sept. 22 letter to Congress. "Just as software is regulated based on its use in different sectors, the AHA urges Congress to consider regulating AI use in a similar manner."

The AHA addressed its comments to U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who earlier in the month released a white paper on AI regulation.

"While AI has the potential to streamline health care administration and address spending by optimizing provider resources and improving patient care, there are still questions about how patient information will be used to advance care and whether this may weaken patient privacy protections," Dr. Cassidy wrote in the report. "Leveraging individual health data is essential to deliver specific care outcomes to a patient, but Congress must ensure that AI tools are not used to deny patients access to care or use patient information for purposes that a patient has not given consent for."

In its letter, the AHA said it is "critical to both mitigate patient risk and allow hospitals and clinicians to harness the benefits of these powerful technologies for the good of their patients."
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Justin Lundbye, MD, CEO of Waterbury (Conn.) Hospital, and Deborah Weymouth, president and CEO of Eastern Connecticut Health Network in Manchester, asked lawmakers to accelerate approvals for a planned sale from Prospect Medical to Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health, according to a report from CT Mirror.

The deal was announced in 2022 and certificate of need is still pending. The wait, coupled with a recent cyberattack on Prospect Medical that forced a computer outage and EHR downtime at the facilities, have put the hospitals in a "dire" financial situation, according to the report. Both hospitals diverted patients and halted some services during the cyberattack, and spent weeks recovering.

Yale is also now questioning whether purchasing the hospitals would be the right move. According to the report, Yale leadership is concerned with the outdated computer systems at the hospital, which led to the cyberattack, and a myriad of other issues, including physicians who haven't been paid and Waterbury owing vendors $40 million.

"With their lack of funding and capacity with the cyberattack, their survival may be impacted if the state delays this sale or [approves it] with contingencies that are going to make Yale walk away," said state Sen. Saud Anwar, MD, who attended the meeting with Dr. Lundbye and Ms. Weymouth.

The hospitals may face closure if the sale isn't finalized, according to the report.
Medicare Advantage provides health coverage to more than half of the nation's seniors, but a growing number of hospitals and health systems nationwide are pushing back and dropping the private plans altogether.

Among the most commonly cited reasons are excessive prior authorization denial rates and slow payments from insurers. Some systems have noted that most MA carriers have faced allegations of billing fraud from the federal government and are being probed by lawmakers over their high denial rates.

"It's become a game of delay, deny and not pay,'' Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of San Diego-based Scripps Health, told Becker's. "Providers are going to have to get out of full-risk capitation because it just doesn't work  we're the bottom of the food chain, and the food chain is not being fed."

In late September, Scripps began notifying patients that it is terminating Medicare Advantage contracts for its integrated medical groups, a move that will affect more than 30,000 seniors in the region. The medical groups, Scripps Clinic and Scripps Coastal, employ more than 1,000 physicians, including advanced practitioners.

Mr. Van Gorder said the health system is facing a loss of $75 million this year on the MA contracts, which will end Dec. 31 for patients covered by UnitedHealthcare, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, Centene's Health Net and a few more smaller carriers. The system will remain in network for about 13,000 MA enrollees who receive care through Scripps' individual physician associations.

"If other organizations are experiencing what we are, it's going to be a short period of time before they start floundering or they get out of Medicare Advantage," he said. "I think we will see this trend continue and accelerate unless something changes."

Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health System took it a step further and was not only considering dropping all Medicare Advantage plans, but also encouraged its older patients not to enroll in the private plans during the upcoming enrollment period in October. The health system's president and CEO, CFO and chief clinical officer cited high rates of denials, longer hospital stays and overall administrative burden for clinicians. Ultimately, the health system has decided to remain in network with four MA carriers and will not renew contracts with three.



"We recognize changing insurance options may create a temporary burden for Central Oregonians who are currently on a Medicare Advantage plan, but we ultimately believe it is the right move for patients and for our health system to be sustainable into the future to encourage patients to move away from Medicare Advantage plans as they currently exist," St. Charles Health CFO Matt Swafford said.

"I feel terrible for the patients in this situation; it's the last thing we wanted to do, but it's just not sustainable with these kinds of losses," Mr. Van Gorder added. "Patients need to be aware of how this system works. Traditional Medicare is not an issue. With these other models, seniors need to be wary and savvy buyers."

Here are seven more recent examples of hospitals dropping Medicare Advantage contracts:
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has urged Vancouver, Wash.-based PeaceHealth to delay the planned closure of its hospital in Eugene, describing the current timeline of the system's plans as "woefully inadequate" in a Sept. 22 The Lund Report article.

PeaceHealth announced plans to close the University District Hospital in Eugene on Aug. 22. Hospital officials have said that, as part of the closure, they want to move emergency services to PeaceHealth's RiverBend hospital in Springfield, leaving Eugene without an emergency facility.

In a letter to PeaceHealth executives, Ms. Kotek urged a nine-month minimum period from Oct. 1 for the closure of the emergency department. The health system has said it wants to close emergency services in November and to shift inpatient beds to RiverBend in early 2024 to expedite the hospital closure.

"As I shared, PeaceHealth's proposed transition period will not allow for the thorough coordination and communication that PeaceHealth's decision requires and that impacted communities demand," Ms. Kotek wrote in the letter.

Ms. Kotek's intervention comes after Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis condemned the planned closure and said she was in contact with the governor about the move.
Hospitals in Idaho may be creating increasingly coordinated healthcare models to curb rising costs and catch health issues earlier, but they are not receiving enough support from lawmakers, according to the Idaho Hospital Association.

The state is "at a crossroads" between the reality of it being one of the fastest-growing states in the country and facing inadequate healthcare resources, IHA's vice president of government relations, Toni Lawson, said in a commentary piece in the Idaho Capital Sun on Sept. 26.

Almost 70 percent of Idahoans say they worry about people in the state getting sufficient access to healthcare over the next 10 years, and about two-thirds of them they would be willing to pay more to safeguard such access, Ms. Lawson said.

"They understand healthcare is not just another resource," she wrote. "Its a lifeline that can mean the difference between survival or tragedy. With increasing challenges to recruit and retain healthcare professionals in Idaho, I wonder  when your family needs that lifeline, will there be a doctor in the house?"

More needs to be done to invest in expanded capacity, especially in rural areas, according to Ms. Lawson. It is the wrong approach, conversely, to cut services to lower costs.

"Idahoans understand there is a critical connection between health and access to care," Ms. Lawson wrote. "Policymakers should take these findings to heart as they shape the future of our state. It's time to ask lawmakers to commit to creating a healthier, more resilient Idaho."
Ascension is a St. Louis-based nonprofit and Catholic health system that operates more than 2,600 care sites, including 139 hospitals in 19 states. Eduardo Conrado serves as president of Ascension, and Joseph Impicciche is CEO.

Here are 12 executive appointments at Ascension this year:

1. Scott Kashman was named president of Ascension St. Vincent's Riverside in Jacksonville, Fla., effective July 17. He previously served as market president for St. Dominic Health Services and CEO of St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Miss.

2. Bo Beaudry was named senior vice president, serving as ministry market executive for Ascension Oklahoma, effective Sept. 25. He previously served as CEO of Cedar Park (Texas) Regional Medical Center.

3. Daniel Jackson was named ministry market executive for Ascension Wisconsin and senior vice president for Ascension. Matthew Hanselman, who had been serving as interim ministry market executive in recent months, will continue to serve as CFO of Ascension Wisconsin.

4. Anthony Meador is the new COO of Austin, Texas-based Ascension Seton Medical Center. He previously served as vice president of operations at Baltimore-based MedStar Harbor Hospital.

5. Ashley Dickinson accepted a position as COO for Ascension Texas, where she oversees operations of the health system's ministry markets throughout the state. She previously served as CEO of Valparaiso, Ind.-based Northwest Health.

6. Kevin Speer was tapped to lead Indianapolis-based Ascension St. Vincent. He returned to Ascension St. Vincent as senior vice president and ministry market executive, Ascension Indiana, effective May 1. Earlier in his career, Mr. Speer served as system vice president and chief strategy officer for St. Vincent Health, now Ascension St. Vincent.

7. Michael Wiggins was named president of Austin, Texas-based Dell Children's, part of Ascension's Texas operations. He previously served as president and CEO of Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

8. Robyn Morrissey was named chief strategy officer of Nashville, Tenn.-based Ascension Saint Thomas. She previously served as Ascension's chief strategy officer of ambulatory surgical services.

9. Ruth Portacci was named vice president of joint ventures and chief integration officer of Nashville, Tenn.-based Ascension Saint Thomas. In her role, she manages the health system's joint venture relationships in Middle Tennessee.

10. Eduardo Conrado was named president of Ascension, effective Feb. 1. Joseph Impicciche, who was serving as president and CEO, remains in the CEO role.

11. Fahad Tahir was named president and CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based Ascension Saint Thomas. He previously served as the system's chief strategy officer and, before that, president and CEO of Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown and West campuses.

12. Tim Adams was named regional operating officer and senior vice president for Ascension. He oversees Ascension ministry markets in Alabama, Florida and Gulf Coast, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, D.C.
Pam Galley, RN, was appointed senior vice president and area manager of the Kaiser Permanente Diablo Service Area.

Ms. Galley has filled the role on an interim basis since May, when Chris Boyd retired, according to a news release shared with Becker's. Her service area of responsibility, which serves 500,000 people, includes facilities in Walnut Creek, Antioch and Dublin, Calif.

Previously, Ms. Galley was vice president of continuum care for the Kaiser Permanente Northern California and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Kaiser Permanente is based in Oakland, Calif.






Radnor, Pa.-based Main Line Health named Leigh Ehrlich as its next executive vice president and CFO, replacing Mike Buongiorno, who is retiring from the position at the end of 2023 after 25 years.

Ms. Ehrlich joins the health system from Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health, where she served as senior vice president and CFO for hospital operations, according to a Sept. 26 Main Line Health news release.

She begins Dec. 1. Mr. Buongiorno will work alongside Ms. Ehrlich through the end of 2023 to assist in the transition.
After 13 years of leadership, Cynthia Sparer will step down as executive vice president of ambulatory services at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health at the end of 2023.

Ms. Sparer will return full time to New York City to "continue to spend time on issues that have been important to her throughout her career, including children's health and mentoring future healthcare leaders," a health system spokesperson told Becker's on Sept. 27.

Yale New Haven Health appointed Ms. Sparer as executive director of its children's hospital and vice president for women's and children's services in 2011. Before that, she had served as interim executive director of Yale New Haven Children's Hospital since May 2010. She has been in her current role since 2017.
Last week, I received a call out of the blue from an old friend. I immediately could hear in his voice that he was upset and shaken.

A long-standing physician leader with a history of excellence, he had been summarily relieved of his management duties in the wake of pending management reorganization. His dismissal came without any consideration of his years of service and dedication, his strong reputation in the community, his talent and passion as a physician, and his track record of providing exceptional care and delivering best-in-class results for the organization he had served for nearly a quarter-century.

I certainly understand the need to make management and leadership changes. I recognize that its hard and unpleasant, but I also know from my own experience that there are ways to do it while honoring a team members service and demonstrating compassion and respect. I was sad and frustrated for my friend, but I was also frustrated by the industry in which I have dedicated my lifes work. I was left to wonder why there seems to be a mounting and continuous devaluing and disrespect of physicians, viewing them as easily replaceable cogs in a giant machine, as opposed to seeing them as the talented and, for the most part, compassionate and dedicated healers they are.

In the complex web of healthcare, physicians have long been the linchpin holding it all together. They are the diagnosticians and the guardians of our well-being. Yet, in recent years, there's a growing concern that the very backbone of our healthcare system is being devalued by the industry itself. Not so coincidentally, physician burnout and depression are at an all-time high.

In fact, in a 2023 Medscape survey, "'I Cry, but No One Cares': Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2023," over 50 percent of physicians reported experiencing burnout in the past year and nearly 25 percent of doctors expressed feeling depressed  the highest percentages in over five years. In this same report, nearly 40 percent of physicians attributed "lack of respect by co-workers" as the factor contributing most to their burnout  second only to "too many bureaucratic tasks."

Not only is this trend negatively impacting the doctors themselves, but it also has a rippling effect on patient care and health systems. For health systems to thrive, we must retain top talent instead of deterring folks from entering the profession. Additionally, the treatment of physicians, like that of my friend, can have a negative impact on the culture of the organization by fostering bad feelings and a decrease in team member engagement. More importantly, when doctors are respected, supported, and given the time and resources they need, they can deliver a higher level of care. (See Health Care Management Review, Williams, et al, 2007).

But beyond the impact on health systems and patients, there is a moral and ethical imperative to treat physicians with dignity, respect and reverence. They shoulder the weight of life-and-death decisions, work long hours and face an emotionally taxing profession. Recognizing their dedication and sacrifice is simply the right thing to do.

So, then what are we to do to turn the tide?

First, we must acknowledge that burnout and mental health challenges are real and provide a safe space for folks to get help or take a respite without fear of repercussions. This, unfortunately, is all too common in our industry today. As Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, president of the American Medical Association, wrote in an opinion piece about the need to address physician burnout that was published in The Boston Globe this past July, "Seeking care for burnout, mental illness, or a substance use disorder is a sign of strength  an act that takes courage and deserves our health system's unconditional support. As physicians, we need to be leaders to deliver and model that message and behavior in our practice every day."

At Florida Health Sciences Center/Tampa General Hospital, where I am president and CEO, we have embraced providing mental resources for everyone with whom we work in hopes of helping our colleagues as well as removing the stigma of mental health. In fact, we established It's Okay Not to Be Okay, a collection of emotional and mental health resources ranging from wellness and resilience-building activities to professional counseling and crisis support.

Second, we need to provide more professional/administrative support for physicians. At Tampa General, we have deployed a dyad model for clinical service line operations. This means we pair a physician clinical leader with a non-physician administrative leader to manage, lead and oversee each service line. This collaborative approach not only brings a host of benefits to the health system and the patients they care for, but also contributes significantly to the satisfaction, engagement and well-being of the physician leader. It promotes shared responsibility and shared decision-making, decreasing the burden on physicians and providing clinical leaders with the opportunity to develop leadership skills beyond their clinical expertise. It also promotes a more positive work environment driven by a spirit of collaboration and innovation  all of which likely contribute to a decrease in physician burnout and dissatisfaction.

The third and equally important approach is to lead everyone across your organization with love, from those in patient transport to our physicians in the emergency department. I have written and deployed the concept of leading with love across my own organization, working with nonclinical and clinical staff.

The compassionate leadership approach of leading with love validates the inherent humanity in each person we lead and work with and acknowledges that although we come to the table with different experiences, we all are looking for a sense of belonging and acceptance. When we lead with love, we foster an environment where all people, including physicians, feel psychologically safe to be seen and heard and feel valued and respected, and we create a culture of care where everyone is celebrated for their achievements and supported during challenging moments. Ultimately, we see people for who they truly are, the challenges they face and the aspirations they hold dear.

At Tampa General, we deploy leading with love through a leadership model, AKTiVe, built on four qualities of leaders and leadership: authenticity, kindness, transparency and vulnerability. When these qualities are embraced and enacted by leaders, it creates a more positive and psychologically safe environment for physicians, team members and patients. In fact, we launched AKTiVe in 2022 and we are seeing both quantitative and qualitative positive effects of this work. Six months after team member participation in AKTiVe leadership training, we saw a measured increase of 5 percent in participants in relation to their feeling psychologically safe. They felt freer to be themselves, speak up and voice their opinions, take risks and make mistakes.

This feeling of psychological safety is important not only for the health of the individual and their engagement, but studies have shown, including the 2016 Project Aristotle study out of Google, that there is a direct correlation between psychological safety and innovation. The more team members feel free to take risks and speak their minds, the more prone they are to innovation and creativity. They are also more likely to feel a stronger sense of engagement. This has certainly been true at Tampa General, where we have unofficially been practicing tenets of AKTiVe for several years and have seen our team member engagement scores (as measured by a third-party vendor) rise from the 40th percentile to the 87th percentile.

In addition to the three steps I have suggested, there are countless other ways we can and must address the state of physicians in healthcare. At the end of the day, it is high time that we, as a society, recognize the vital role physicians play and show them the respect and reverence they deserve. Our health and well-being depend on it.

John Couris is president and CEO of Florida Health Sciences Center/Tampa General Hospital. You can engage with him on LinkedIn here.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, is rolling out a national health innovation network with Dallas and Cambridge, Mass., as the first two hubs, the agency said Sept. 26.

Rather than centering its activities all in one city, ARPA-H is using a "hub-and-spoke" model in which three regional hubs will oversee specific focus areas aimed at improving health outcomes. Dallas will serve as the customer experience hub, focusing on developing accessible solutions to eliminate health disparities. Cambridge, Mass., will serve as an investor catalyst hub to accelerate the development of health solutions.

Numerous private, public and nonprofit organizations will serve as "spokes," conducting research alongside these regional hubs. Health systems involved in the effort include Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic; Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth and Orlando Health.

ARPA-H has not selected a location for a third operations hub, which will work with the federal government.

Learn more here.
Big tech giant NVIDIA helped launch Invenio, a medtech company using artificial intelligence to allow clinicians to evaluate biopsies in the operating room, through an NVIDIA-sponsored program that helps startups evolve faster.

Through the startup support program, NVIDIA provided Invenio with AI platform guidance and interface using NVIDIA's graphics processing unit, according to a Sept. 27 NVIDIA news release. The NVIDIA Jetson-powered Invenio AI tool is used in Europe, while the company is looking to run a clinical trial before seeking FDA approval.

The company aims for its imaging system to allow clinicians to receive surgical biopsy results in three minutes, bypassing the pathology lab process, which could take weeks.

"This technology will help surgeons make intraoperative decisions when performing a biopsy or surgery," Chris Freudiger, chief technology officer of Invenio, said in the release. "They'll be able to rapidly evaluate whether the tissue sample contains cancerous cells, decide whether they need to take another tissue sample and, with the AI models Invenio is developing, potentially make a molecular diagnosis for personalized medical treatment within minutes."
Since 2012, Sacramento, Calif.-based UC Davis Health has retained 93.8 percent of its first-year nurses, and its nurse turnover rate is hree times better than the national rate.

Nearly 33 percent of new hospital nurses leave their jobs within the first year, according to a 2023 report from NSI Nursing Solutions. The average hospital nurse turnover rate  regardless of tenure  in the U.S. is 22.5 percent, and at UC Davis Health, it's less than 7 percent.

UC Davis leaders attribute their retention success to its yearlong nurse residency program, support for nurses achieving a BSN, and relationship-based care model and culture.
After Texas lawmakers passed a bill in June to close its longstanding "Dr. Death" loophole, some are worried it is too cumbersome to implement, NBC affiliate KXAN reported Sept. 21.

The "Dr. Death" loophole allowed an infamous physician to keep practicing despite concerns of harm being done to patients.

The new law technically went into effect Sept. 1, however the Texas Medical Board has said it could take up to two years to fully implement.

The state's medical board has previously been criticized for prioritizing "protecting physicians over patients," KXAN reported in a Sept. 5 article.

But a spokesperson for the medical board stated that the lengthy timeline to scale implementation of the law is due to funding mechanisms.

"Based on the statute and funding mechanism, the Board is not concerned it will take two years to have physician and physician assistant licensees enrolled in NPDB CQ," Texas Medical Board spokesman Jarrett Schneider told KXAN about the National Practitioner Data Bank 'Continuous Query,' a monitoring program to oversee physicians and one of the requirements of this new law. "The timeline is what is feasible under the method to fund the program using licensing fees. The board is eager to have the new NPDB CQ up and running as we believe it will be of great benefit to our licensure and enforcement programs."

The continuous query monitoring system is a confidential federal database that will allow for new information about any physician's discipline records nationwide to be shared in real-time as an alert to other state medical boards to warn them, according to the outlet.

Patient advocates have said that the timeline is simply too long and have concerns that are more immediate.

"[T]here were a lot of physicians in Texas that come from states that had taken action against them," Robert Oshel, PhD, a retired HHS employee, told KXAN. "And that's something people in Texas ought to know about on an individual physician basis, not have to wait two years to find out."
One cancer drug shortage has ended and at least 14 oncology drugs are in short supply, according to the FDA, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and physicians.

Here are the latest supply updates:

Azacitidine injections: Three drugmakers stopped making 100 milligram solutions of the leukemia drug.

Bacillus Calmette-Guerin: Merck, the only maker of the bladder cancer drug, has had the solution on allocation for years. "To minimize disruption to patient care and address the current imbalance between supply and increased global demand, Tice BCG will be under allocation when demand exceeds production plans and available inventory," Merck told the ASHP.

Carboplatin injection: Fifteen solutions are in short supply and none are available. Drugmakers report the shortage is because of manufacturing delays and high demand, and resupply dates hover between September and November.

Cisplatin injection: As of Sept. 8, 12 solutions are in shortage and two are available. The White House announced in mid-September that the nation's cisplatin supply levels are close to 100 percent of what they were before the shortage, which began in late 2022 and early 2023.

Dacarbazine injection: There is insufficient supply for usual orders because three drugmakers  Fresenius Kabi, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Hikma Pharmaceuticals  have solutions on back order or allocation. Fresenius Kabi expects its supply to rebound in late September, and the other two drugmakers did not share release date forecasts.

Decitabine injection: One solution is available and seven are not as of Sept. 12. None of the drugmakers reporting shortages of the leukemia drug could predict a release date. Hospitals are recommended to evaluate current supply and consider alternative regimens for a drug that lacks a replacement agent.

Docetaxel injection: Three-fourths of the nation's supply of docetaxel is in shortage as 14 drugmakers report supply issues. Six pharmaceutical companies said they could not predict a resupply date, and provided release dates are between September and April.

Doxorubicin liposomal injection: There are eight unavailable solutions of the drug that treats bladder, breast, lung, stomach and ovarian cancer. The shortages are expected to resolve in September and October, drugmakers said, but in the meantime, "no single agent can be substituted for doxorubicin liposomal, including doxorubicin," the ASHP said.

Fluorouracil injection, or 5FU: Six solutions are in shortage. Fresenius Kabi expects its supply to rebound between September and October, and Accord Healthcare and Sagent Pharmaceuticals did not share forecast release dates.

Iobenguane I-131 injections: Progenics Pharmaceuticals stopped making two solutions because of low demand for the oncology medication.

Methotrexate: Twelve solutions are on back order among five drugmakers. Most companies did not share a predicted resupply date, but Fresenius Kabi forecasts its two solutions to escape their shortages between September and October.

Pluvicto (Lutetium lu-177 vipivotide tetraxetan) injection: Novartis' prostate cancer drug went into shortage in March, and as of Sept. 14, the supply levels have stabilized.

Topotecan capsules: Novartis' Sandoz has two solutions, 0.25 milligram and 1 milligram bottles, on back order. There are no other presentations available as of Sept. 26, and the drugmaker told the ASHP it expects the shortage to end in November.

Vinblastine sulfate injection: There are no available solutions as Fresenius Kabi's 1 milligram per milliliter, 10 milliliter dose vials are on back order, The drugmaker expects the shortage to ease in September. The FDA advises healthcare workers to check wholesalers for inventory.

Vincristine: Neither the ASHP nor the FDA is reporting a shortage of the leukemia and lymphoma drug, but pediatric physicians have raised concerns about access tightening.
Some CVS pharmacists in Kansas City are calling out of work Sept. 27 to bring attention to increasingly difficult working conditions, USA Today reported.

Kansas City organizers have encouraged CVS pharmacists across the nation to join them in the protest. It is unclear how many pharmacists are participating. Mike DeAngelis, executive director of corporate communications for CVS, told Becker's the company was experiencing normal pharmacy operations nationwide and in its Kansas City market Sept. 27.

The protest is the second in less than a week. On Sept. 21, nearly two dozen pharmacists called out of work, forcing about 10 CVS locations in eastern Kansas and western Missouri to close, according to a separate USA Today report. All locations resumed normal operations Sept. 23.

Kansas City pharmacists say their actions are in response to increasingly challenging working conditions, which is putting patients and pharmacists at risk. Pandemic-related stressors have worsened existing pharmacy shortages over the past few years and magnified burnout among staff members nationwide, causing many to leave the field.

"The workload is so heavy and the amount of staff they allot us is so low that Im unable to go to the bathroom during my 10-hour shift," one pharmacist, who wished to remain anonymous, told the publication.

Mr. DeAngelis said industrywide pharmacist shortages have made it difficult to staff the retail chain's more than 9,000 stores and that demand for vaccinations is further straining pharmacies this fall. After the Sept. 21 walkout, CVS executives met with pharmacists and pharmacy staff at several Kansas City locations to understand their concerns.

"Our pharmacy leadership team is in Kansas City this week to listen to feedback from our pharmacists," Mr. DeAngelis said. "We always seek to work with our pharmacists to directly address any concerns they may have  which is why we've taken several actions to support our local teams in Kansas City and Missouri, including bringing in more staffing support and providing additional training."

CVS Chief Pharmacy Officer Prem Shah, PharmD, also issued a memo to staff in the Kansas City market Sept. 26, which was obtained by USA Today.

"I want to apologize to our pharmacy teams that we haven't addressed these concerns in the region more quickly," Dr. Shah said. "With the currently unprecedented demand for vaccinations from our patients in mind, we are taking a series of actions effective immediately."

These efforts include providing additional resources for pharmacies, adjusting appointments, filling open positions and removing unnecessary tasks for pharmacists.

The American Pharmacists Association and Kansas Pharmacists Association have both released statements in support of Kansas City pharmacists.

Editor's note: This article was updated Sept. 27 at 4:15 p.m. CT.
Ninety-four percent of Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes across the U.S. experienced a nurse staffing issue during the pandemic, according to a report released in September by the U.S. Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.

The nursing shortage crisis extended into other federal healthcare programs as well. According to the report, 91 percent of VA-run facilities, 88 percent medical treatment facilities run by the Department of Defense, and 69 percent of facilities run by the Bureau of Prisons.

These programs also reported shortages of medical officers.

On top of that, "officials at Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes reported that personnel quit their jobs because of their fear of COVID-19 infection while caring for nursing home residents," the report states.

These findings come on the heels of a new initiative from the Biden administration that aims to impose nurse staffing minimums at nursing homes across the U.S. to improve patient safety and care. However, the report findings highlight that these facilities are largely struggling to keep the staff they currently have.
The Leapfrog Group, known for its annual hospital safety grade rankings, elected three new members to its board of directors, according to a Sept. 26 news release.

The new board members are:

Janet Lucas-Taylor, senior director of employee benefits at Northwestern Mutual

Susan Sheridan, founding member of Patients for Patient Safety

Karen van Caulil, PhD, president and CEO of the Florida Alliance for Healthcare Value

The leaders have been a part of the organization for years, the national patient safety watchdog group said. Their board appointments come as Leapfrog plans to launch a number of niche hospital recognition programs for hospitals. In August, the group launched a recognition program for facilities and systems that exhibit a commitment to the care and safety of inpatients with diabetes.

Read more about the new board members here.
Mandated nurse-to-patient ratios span the West Coast as more states have signed related legislation. Meanwhile, other states continue to consider the issue.

Here are five updates:

1. The Ohio Nurses Association joined state Reps. Haraz Ghanbari and Elgin Rogers on Sept. 27 to introduce staffing legislation. The bill would establish legally enforceable minimum staffing standards for nurses at hospitals in the state and incentivize people to go into nursing, according to a union news release. A spokesperson for the Ohio Hospital Association, which has expressed opposition to mandated approaches to nurse staffing, told Becker's the association will evaluate this potential legislation.

2. In Michigan, legislation is on the table that would require hospitals to meet nurse-patient staffing ratios, limit mandatory nurse overtime and require transparency about staffing. The Michigan Health & Hospital Association estimates 5,100 hospital beds would close if the legislation is enacted and staffing levels do not change. The Michigan Nurses Association supports the legislation.

3. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek in August signed a minimum nurse staffing mandate for hospitals. House Bill 2697 establishes enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios in state statute for various hospital settings, as well as staffing committees for other hospital workers.

4. The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Act, which would mandate nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals, was passed in June by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. It was referred to the Pennsylvania Senate Health and Human Services Committee on July 17.

5. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in April signed legislation requiring hospitals to follow staffing standards. It does not establish specific, required patient-to-staff ratios in state law. However, if hospitals fall below 80 percent compliance with their staffing plans, they are required to report noncompliance to the state.
Becker's reported on three orthopedic surgeons who won awards in the third quarter of 2023.

1. Quin Throckmorton, MD, and Tyler Brolin, MD, orthopedic surgeons with Memphis, Tenn.-based Campbell Clinic won the Neer award for their shoulder and elbow research. This is the second time the duo won the award since 2016. This year, they won for their study, "Muscle Activation Patterns during Active External Rotation after Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty: An Electrophysiological Study of the Teres Minor and Associated Musculature."

2. Orthopedic surgeon Joseph Zuckerman, MD, earned the Orthopaedic Summit: Evolving Techniques Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Zuckerman's career spans nearly 40 years, and he specializes in shoulder arthroplasty and hip and knee reconstruction. He was president of the American Shoulder Elbow Society from 2003 to 2004 and president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons from 2009 to 2010.
Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Memorial Medical Center has added Erik Freeland, DO, to its orthopedics team.

Dr. Freeland specializes in both the operative and nonoperative treatment of foot and ankle disorders, according to a Sept. 26 news release from the hospital.

Dr. Freeland previously served as an orthopedic surgeon, division head of foot and ankle and assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J.

He is also a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics and the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society, the release said.
Wrightbus's Hydroliner at Titanic Quarter in Belfast. Nuclear power station Sizewell C is testing the suitability of the buses for transporting workers to and from the nuclear power station

Ballymena bus manufacturer Wrightbus has signed a deal with a nuclear power station project which could lead to one of the largest bus fleets of its kind in the world.

The company has signed up to provide up to 150 hydrogen buses for the site of Sizewell C in Suffolk.

Sizewell C, owned by EDF Energy and the UK Government, has ordered four Hydroliners from the company to test if they can be used in the construction of the power station.

The Streetdeck Hydroliners will be part of a pilot scheme to test their suitability for transporting thousands of workers to and from the construction site near Leiston, Suffolk.

But a company spokesman said it had no figure yet for the potential value of the deal.

Sizewell C will test the operational performance of the double decker buses, which are cleaner than diesel or petrol-powered vehicles as hydrogen fuel doesnt produce carbon emissions.

If the pilot is successful, Sizewell C will order up to 150 buses, making it one of the largest hydrogen bus fleets in the world.

The four buses in the pilot scheme are expected to be delivered in early next year and will be among the first hydrogen buses in Suffolk.

Julia Pyke, joint managing director of Sizewell C, said: Once it starts generating, Sizewell C will be one of the biggest generators of low carbon electricity in the country.

"Our plans for hydrogen buses show we are determined that the construction of the power station will also be as clean as possible.

A hydrogen fleet will lower our carbon emissions and reduce the impact of workforce transport on local communities.

"At the same time, I am excited that we will potentially kickstart a market for this important low-carbon fuel in the east of England.

Wrightbus chief executive Jean-Marc Gales said: We are delighted to be working with Sizewell C on this pilot and the fact that it could lead to a fleet of up to 150 hydrogen buses is testament to the potential hydrogen has for both passenger transport and construction sites.

We continue to invest in hydrogen technology as a driver to developing cleaner, more efficient transport solutions.

According to Wrightbus, Sizewell C is also paving the way for hydrogen-powered equipment to be used on large construction sites.

The project is part of a consortium led by Wrightbuss sister company Ryze, which has just been awarded more than 3m of Government funding to test a mobile hydrogen refuelling system. If successful, the technology could eventually reduce the need to use fossil fuels in machinery and equipment.
The Scottish First Minister described Scotlands future as the net zero capital of Europe (Robert Perry/PA)

Developing Rosebank is the wrong decision while new oil and gas licences will slow down the energy transition, Scotlands First Minister has said.

Humza Yousaf expressed his opposition to the project after the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) announced it had given its consent for the largest untapped oil reserve in UK waters to be developed.

The UK Government said it supports the decision and wants hundreds of new licences to be awarded to producers of North Sea oil and gas.

(PA Graphics)

Doorstepped at the Scottish Parliament, Mr Yousaf told Bauer Media: What I would say is I think Rosebank is the wrong decision. The decision that has been made today it is not the right decision to be made.

Scotlands future, the north easts future, is as the net zero capital not just of Europe but of, I hope, the world.

And, of course, new oil and gas licences being given the go-ahead will slow the pace of that transition down.

I want to accelerate that transition and take the workers with us.

The UK Government said Rosebank will provide more jobs and reduce the need to import fuel from hostile countries such as Russia.

Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Claire Coutinho said it makes sense to use our own supplies of North Sea oil and gas, although any fuel extracted from Rosebank will mostly belong to Equinor, whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian state.

As the majority of this fuel is expected to be sold internationally, many researchers, campaigners and opposition MPs have questioned whether adding a significant amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is worth any economic and security gains.

Ms Coutinho said: The jobs and billions of pounds this is worth to our economy will enable us to have greater energy independence, making us more secure against tyrants like (Vladimir) Putin.

We will continue to back the UKs oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.

Rosebanks owners say its development will create 1,600 jobs during the peak of its construction and 450 over the long term, while producing 6.3 billion that could be invested in UK businesses.

The oil and gas industry currently supports tens of thousands of jobs in Scotland and Rosebank has been the centre of a debate around how fast North Sea rigs should be shut down, if at all.

Labours policy of stopping the approval of new licences was criticised by the leader of the GMB union who called the policy naive, while the Scottish Government has been reluctant to take a strong opposing view until today.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said at Cop27 last year that it was important to move away from fossil fuels, but did not take a stand on Rosebank specifically.

After the NSTA announcement she wrote on social media that she agrees with Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, who described the decision to give consent to Rosebank as the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime.

Ms Sturgeon said: Agree with @CarolineLucas. Also, by consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, it risks slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it.

Thats not in interests of those who work in oil & gas  they need that transition to happen at pace.

The Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK Government on how to reach net zero, said many jobs will also be created by replacing oil and gas with renewable power.

The International Energy Agency said that globally, replacing fossil fuels with renewables and going net zero by 2050 would save the world economy 12 trillion dollars (9.8 trillion).
Ten former Wilko stores are set to reopen as Poundland outlets on Saturday after being bought out of administration by the value retailer (PA)

Ten former Wilko stores are set to reopen as Poundland outlets on Saturday after being bought out of administration by the value retailer.

Poundland owner Pepco agreed earlier this month to buy up to 71 Wilko stores from administrator PwC following the collapse of the high street chain.

They will all be relaunched under the Poundland brand, with the first 10 to reopen their doors on September 30.

The shops will open across Stafford, Nelson, Barking, Stockport, Eccles, Leigh, Southport, Maidenhead, Jarrow and Scunthorpe.

Poundland is encouraging former Wilko staff to apply for roles at the shops, including store assistants and managers, and said it would prioritise them for the jobs.

Poundland said the stores will stock customer favourites, including clothing, alongside any existing Wilko clearance items.

Darren Kay, Poundland retail director, said: Were pleased to be able to re-open so quickly  not least because our ambition is to provide job opportunities for former Wilko colleagues.

Of course, were not yet in a position to offer our fullest ranges in these stores, but we know customers will appreciate a shop thats open, trading and employing colleagues to one thats got its shutters closed.

Poundland aims to open all the former Wilko stores it bought by the end of 2023, with its new lease agreements set to be completed in early autumn.

The group said it is planning to roll out a full makeover of the stores throughout 2024 to become fully operational Poundlands.

Family-owned Wilko employed 12,500 staff and ran 400 shops before it hired administrators early last month after it came under pressure from weak consumer spending and debts to suppliers.

Administrators at PwC were forced to sell off Wilkos assets after failing to secure a rescue deal for the whole business.

PwC also struck a deal for fellow discount chain B&M to buy 51 other Wilko stores, while The Range agreed a deal to buy Wilkos brand for around 5 million.

But all 400 Wilko stores will close, with the last remaining shops set to shut on October 8.

The following former Wilko stores will reopen as Poundland shops on September 30:

 Broad Street, Chell Road, Stafford, Staffordshire, West Midlands

 Pendle Rise Shopping Centre, Nelson, Lancashire

 The Peel Centre, Great Portwood Street, Stockport, Greater Manchester

 The Mall, Church Street, Eccles, Manchester

 London Street, Southport, Merseyside

 Lord Street, Leigh, Greater Manchester

 East Street, Barking, London

 High Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire

 Bede Precinct, Viking Centre, Jarrow, South Tyneside

 The Broadway, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire
The award-winning producer of BBC NIs Nolan Show is set to leave his post for a new role, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

David Thompson, who has been a producer and assistant editor on the biggest radio show in the country for over 10 years, is set to leave his role in the coming weeks.
Police failed us, says Co Down pastor who was cleared in nonsense theft and assault case

Judge had blasted PPSs decision to prosecute pair after un-Christian items were thrown out

Charges against pastor Paul Gray (pictured) and Carolyn Murray were dismissed at Newtownards Magistrates Court

Amy Cochrane Wed 27 Sep 2023 at 07:00

A Co Down pastor says he is glad that justice has been served after a case which a judge branded as nonsense was thrown out.
Pupils are opting against studying modern languages like French and German at exam level as theyre too hard, according to a new report from the Education and Training Inspectorate.

While the report only focused on Key Stage 3 (Years 8-10) in 12 Northern Ireland post-primary schools, the results will be concerning as the number of pupils taking languages at GCSE and A-level has been declining.

Much attention in school has been concentrated on STEM subjects of physics, chemistry, biology and maths, and the most recent study from the British Council showed that pupils here were required to learn fewer languages than those elsewhere in Europe.

The report revealed that though pupils enjoyed language games, quizzes and competitions, and working in pairs or groups to help them learn, the level of academic achievement was putting them off taking their studies any further than the end of Key Stage three.

While pupils particularly enjoyed learning to speak another language and being taught about the culture, food and festivals of different countries, there remains a belief that languages are difficult to study and achieve top grades.

The latest study follows a separate report from the NI exams board, the CCEA, which revealed there has been a significant drop in the number of pupils studying languages at GCSE and A-level in recent years.

Those sitting GCSE in French fell from 4,251 in 2018 to 3,010 in 2023, while German GCSE was studied by 932 pupils in 2018, but in 2023 it was 557.

ETI inspectors spoke to staff in those schools and over 100 pupils (aged 11-14) to find out what worked well in encouraging pupils to learn languages.

Despite their best efforts to promote languages and make the pupils learning experiences at Key Stage 3 meaningful and enjoyable, the teachers report that the perceived difficulty of studying, and achieving well in, modern languages is a key reason why pupils do not choose languages at Key Stage 4, the report said.

Pupils who had learnt languages at primary school said they were more confident in post-primary language lessons, though taking a second language is not compulsory for pupils in primaries in Northern Ireland.

A scheme to teach primary pupils additional languages was scrapped by the Department of Education due to financial cuts in 2015

In 2019, CCEA began a review into whether GCSE and A-level languages were marked too severely in response to concerns from schools, though results of that have not yet been published.
China-Norway cooperation on climate change set to prosper

Xinhua) 14:37, September 27, 2023

OSLO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Cooperation between China and Norway on tackling climate change and in other fields is on the right track, a senior official in the Norwegian government said on Tuesday, expressing his optimism over such bilateral efforts.

Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, state secretary of Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that Norway and China have collaborated extensively in tackling climate change and environmental issues despite the fact that challenges on this front are ever-present.

"Today, we are facing other challenges, though, with issues connected to climate change and environment at the forefront. This is an area where Norway and China have substantially cooperated over a number of years. And we are hoping that we can continue to do so, and ... achieve the sustainable development goals," Kravik said during a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Norway to celebrate the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Kravik applauded the progress made by China in recent decades in eradicating poverty, saying that "during the last decades, the Chinese government has made huge strides in alleviating poverty. China is now an advanced, sophisticated and prosperous nation. The transition is remarkable."

Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Norway and China, a milestone that Kravik believes will provide opportunities to boost collaborative efforts. "I'm certain that the business community and our respective diplomatic and trade representatives will contribute to making the years to come prosperous for both our countries," he said.

Hou Yue, Chinese ambassador to Norway, said that China has become Norway's second-largest source of imports, and the largest destination for exports outside Europe. High-quality Norwegian seafood is becoming popular in more Chinese households, while Chinese electric cars are now more commonly seen on Norwegian roads.

"China and Norway share common values in addressing climate change, upholding multilateralism, and there is tremendous potential for cooperation in areas such as marine economy, green transformation and multilateral affairs. All in all, the future of China-Norway relations holds great promise," said Hou.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)


Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said Vibrant Gujarat is not a branding but a bonding event linked to "me and capabilities of the seven crore people of the state". The Prime Minister made the remark while addressing the event to commemorate two decades of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.



He said, "I remember in 2009 everyone asked me to not hold the summit as there was a global slowdown. But I refused and said at the worst, the summit would not be successful."



The journey of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit began on September 28, 2003, under the visionary leadership of the then Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.



From its humble beginnings with 300 international participants in its debut year, the summit flourished exponentially, hosting thousands of delegates from more than 135 nations in 2019.



Modi took to Twitter to write, Marking two decades of fostering business, innovation and growth! At 10 AM, will be joining the programme to mark 20 years of the @VibrantGujarat. Summit, which is a testament to Gujarats unwavering commitment to economic development. Over the years, the Summits have brought together key stakeholders across sectors, furthered growth and most importantly, created opportunities for several youngsters of Gujarat.



The summit's trajectory over the last 20 years traces its evolution from being a platform focusing on making Gujarat as the preferred investment destination to one that aspires to shape a new India.



On Tuesday, Modi addressed a gathering of women leaders and members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at GUJSAIL building compound at Ahmedabad Airport, soon after his arrival here on two days Gujarat visit.



Over 20,000 women attended the event.



Prime Minister Modi said We have made so many schemes that simplify the women of the house. We started Kanya Kelavni Abhiyan to educate young girls in Gujarat. I have put efforts to elevate womens position at every level. Gujarat has played an important role in whatever we have done for women's empowerment from their home to Parliament.






A bomb disposal expert who pioneered an innovative technique during the Troubles has died at the age of 83.

Major Mike Coldrick passed away earlier this month and is known for popularising the use of shotguns to disrupt detonation mechanisms.

The shotgun was fired from a remote-control motorised wheelbarrow into improvised explosive devices and was often seen on TV news reports during the conflict.

Major Coldrick joined the Army in 1957, and following operational tours in the likes of British Guiana, he was sent to Belfast.

It was a particularly deadly period in which three ammunition technical officers were killed, and one wounded, during a 14-day period in 1972.

During his time in Northern Ireland, he personally dealt with 91 explosive incidents.

He was also named the Army Man of the Year for his outstanding service in 1973.

However, in 2005, Major Coldrick told the Belfast Telegraph he and his fellow officers were accused of cowardice by members of the public and security forces after a standing policy was reversed which meant every device wouldnt be defused.

To save lives, it was decided to reverse the standing policy that bomb squad teams would try to defuse every device.

Instead, unless there was immediate threat to life, the suspected bombs would be allowed to soak or cook for up to two hours.

It came about as experts believed a sophisticated bomb-maker was at large in Belfast who would set devices to explode just as an ammunition technical officer was approaching.

Major Coldrick left Northern Ireland in 1973, before returning in 1975 for two more years where he was involved in covert weapons and explosives intelligence.

Following retirement from the Army in 1980, he joined the Metropolitan Police as a bomb disposal officer, serving for 17 years.

He later became an adviser to the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, and chaired the World EOD Foundation.

Major Coldrick is survived by a daughter and two sons. His was married to Faye Wildgoose, who predeceased him
Exclusive | Cop recommended pastor linked to disappearance of Belfast boys be charged with perjury over 1971 indecent assault case

Alan Campbell was recently linked to the disappearances of four Belfast boys and the murder of another in the late 1960s and mid 70s

Alan Campbell. Picture by Justin Kernoghan

Andrew Madden Wed 27 Sep 2023 at 07:00

A senior RUC officer recommended that a loyalist pastor recently linked to the disappearance of four Belfast schoolboys and the murder of another be charged with inciting perjury in a 1971 indecent assault case against a child.
The Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris is set to sign off on plans to allow the Policing Board to appoint an interim Chief Constable to oversee the PSNI.

The PSNI remains in crisis following the resignation of Simon Byrne earlier this month.

Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton was to assume the duties of the Chief Constable until a replacement could be recruited, however, he has been on sick leave and is not expected back to work in the near future.

In the meantime it has been left to a number of Assistant Chief Constables to take care of the day to day running of the force. However, they do not have the rank to deal with some serious policing matters that require urgent sign off.

The Board will now appoint a temporary Chief Constable until the recruitment of a permanent replacement can be found.

Announcing the development Chair of the Board Deirdre Toner said: The Policing Board has been working over the last number of weeks with partners to explore options available to increase operational resilience for the Service Executive Team prior to the appointment of a substantive Chief Constable.

The Board welcomes the positive response received from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to fast-track the legislation needed to enable approval of an interim appointee and has today moved to advertise the post of interim Chief Constable with the aim of making an appointment swiftly.

The Board continues to work at pace on the recruitment and appointment of a substantive Chief Constable with the selection process on schedule for week beginning 6 November however the Board recognises that the preferred candidate may have a notice period to work.

The appointment of an interim Chief Constable will strengthen the Service Executive Team of the PSNI pending the permanent appointee taking up post.

The advertisement for the job went live on Wednesday afternoon. It states that an interim Chief Constable is required a minimum of three months, with the potential for further extension.

Policing is one of Northern Irelands most prominent public services. The Chief Constable position carries significant leadership, operational and representative responsibilities. The role is demanding, high profile and often fast paced.

Expressions of interest are welcome from Chief Constables, or Deputy Chief Constables who would be temporarily appointed into the post.

Consideration will be given to recently retired Chief Constables or Deputy Chief Constables who otherwise demonstrate they can meet the criteria.

Recently retired, in this context means within the previous two years unless a candidate can demonstrate relevant experience in policing or the wider criminal justice system since retirement which demonstrates their ability to operate as a credible strategic leader.

Expressions of interest are welcome from those who are considering submitting an application for the substantive Chief Constable of the PSNI position and are equally welcome from those who are not, but who consider they have the experience and ability to lead the Service at this critical time.

It adds that Board is seeking to fast track the appointment with the successful candidate expected to be available to take up the post at the earliest possible date and to reside in Northern Ireland for the duration of the contract.

The 220,000 a year job also comes with a relocation package, with the successful candidate expected to be recruited from another force.

The Interim will be appointed by a panel chosen from the Board advised by a policing expert and HR/equality adviser.

A Northern Ireland Office spokesperson said: "Following a request by the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Justice the UK Government is bringing forward regulations to allow for the approval of a Chief Constable appointment for an interim period. This will provide the PSNI with the operational resilience required at this critical time.

"Decisions regarding the role of Chief Constable are a matter for the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which is an independent body."
Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council has given the green light to the redevelopment at Dundonald International Ice Bowl.

Councillors agreed to invest the money over the next three years.

The redevelopment would see an Olympic-sized ice rink, a 24-lane bowling alley, a gym, community rooms, restaurant and coffee shop.

But the SDLP has raised concerns about how it will impact community infrastructure across the borough.

The ice bowl opened in 1986 and has over 500,000 visitors each year.

Lisburn & Castlereagh Mayor Andrew Gowan said the exciting plans would see numbers rise to more than 700,000 in the first year.

But there is concern from others on the council.

SDLP councillors voted against the plan on Tuesday night amid concerns around how the project will be funded, the burden on ratepayers and the displacement of what they say is long overdue investment in the Castlereagh South area.

SDLP group leader John Gallen said serious concerns had yet to be addressed.

He said Castlereagh South, which includes Carryduff, Four Winds and Newtownbreda, was chronically underfunded.

For the last few years I have been campaigning for a fair deal for Castlereagh South, which has not had sufficient attention paid by LCCC or its predecessor, Mr Gallen said.

"Through Freedom of Information requests the SDLP have identified that ratepayers in this area get the least in return for their money.

"Council capital spend in this area in the period from 2015 to 2021 was 49 per person compared to the DEA, Lisburn South which was 270, or indeed the 141 in Castlereagh East where the ice bowl is.

Castlereagh South is an area where a number of projects are currently in need of funding and with so much money committed to the ice bowl there is a real possibility that other groups in need will see their plans kicked into the long grass.

We are not opposed to the development of the ice bowl, but cannot offer fulsome support until these disparities are addressed.

"The council needs to consider the needs of ratepayers right across the district as well as a real risk that we could see costs associated with this project spiral in years to come."

At the meeting, the council chief executive David Burns described the investment as a landmark commitment and highlighted the strategic importance of the ice bowl to Northern Ireland.

Mr Gowan, meanwhile, said an exciting facility would be opened in under three years.

Dundonald International Ice Bowl is a major tourist attraction in Northern Ireland, bringing more than half a million people to Dundonald every year since opening in 1986, he said.

"As the only Olympic-sized ice rink in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland, it is the training home for the Belfast Giants and provides unique facilities for elite ice skaters to develop their talents.

After 37 years, the building is no longer fit for purpose. Todays announcement means we will see an exciting new leisure facility open to the public in 2026. We expect visitor numbers to rise to over 700,000 in the first year. During construction, the existing ice bowl will remain open for business with full access to all activities.

This flagship facility will help to grow our economy regionally, create jobs and enhance tourism within the LCCC area and greater Belfast.

In less than three years time, local people and visitors from across Northern Ireland and beyond will be able to enjoy a state-of-the-art leisure facility with an Olympic-sized ice rink, a 24-lane bowling alley, 100-station gym, community rooms, restaurant and coffee shop."

The Governments Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has already pledged 12.2m in financial support.
The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) has released guidance for Northern Irish XL Bully owners.

On September 15, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced plans for the American Bully XL dog breed to be banned in England, Scotland and Wales by the end of the year.

The ban followed a series of serious and, in some cases, fatal attacks.

This ban will not apply to Northern Ireland.

USPCA Chief Exec Nora Smith said: We understand the recently announced plans for the American Bully XL from the UK Prime Minister are worrying for owners  especially as there are still many details unknown.

So we have pulled together our most asked questions about the proposed XL Bully ban.

What will happen in Northern Ireland?

The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 does not apply to Northern Ireland, except for S.8 which makes provision for corresponding legislation to be made here.

That corresponding legislation is The Dangerous Dogs (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 and is enforced by district councils.

A ban on the XL Bully would require a separate change to legislation in NI, either by a sitting Assembly and Executive or through an intervention by the NI Secretary of State.

What should I do if I own an XL Bully?

As the legislation change will not apply to Northern Ireland, there is no requirement to do or make any changes.

The USPCA recommends that owners of American XL Bully dogs should continue caring for their pet as normal.

The USPCA also recommends that all American XL Bully owners ensure their dog is registered at a vet, microchipped and licensed, which is a legal requirement.

The organisation has said it encourages owners to practice responsible ownership. This includes providing your dog with appropriate physical exercise, as well as using reward-based techniques.

A USPCA spokesperson outlined the organisations position on breed specific legislation.

Unfortunately, since the Act was introduced 32 years ago, it has not been effective in reducing dog bites and human deaths. Simply adding more breeds to the banned breed list, without addressing other aspects of this complex multi-factorial issue, will not protect the public.

There's no robust research to demonstrate that these breeds or types are any more aggressive than other dogs.

Aggressive behaviour can be influenced by factors such as how they are bred, raised and experiences throughout their lives. Breed is not a good way to predict risk of aggression.

The factors behind dog bite incidents are complex and multi-factorial. Rather than banning breeds, evidence-based, well thought out strategies are required to prevent incidents from occurring and leading to serious consequences, including human death.

Preventive strategies to deal with this serious issue should include enforcement of existing dog control legislation, along with enforcement against unscrupulous breeders who put profit before welfare is needed. We must look behind the dog to the actions of humans.

"Demonising a particular breed of dog will not reduce the number of dog attacks.
Gardai forensics will start pulling apart the containers holdIrish Navy fired warning shots in effort to force MV Matthew to stopFind is largest drug seizure in the history of the State

The value of the huge cocaine haul seized off a vessel off the coast of Ireland is now estimated to be 136m, it can be revealed.

The ship arrived in Cork Port last night as gardai continue their investigation into what they are describing as the largest drug seizure in the history of the State.

It can be revealed that the cocaine was discovered hidden on a life raft on the Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel.

It is believed there was an attempt to dump the drugs as members of the Irish Army Rangers boarded the vessel.

Army Rangers rappel from helicopter onto suspected drugs 'mothership'

Initially, gardai believed the haul was worth close to 100 million but that has now been revised upwards due to the purity of the haul.

They have now put the seizure at 2,253 kilogrammes of suspected cocaine worth 157m.

Speaking to the media at an operational briefing, Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly described the action as hugely significant.

Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

Read more How tale of stricken fishing trawler morphed into one of Irelands most bizarre drug busts

The Irish Independent understands detectives are now investigating if Kinahan Cartel or their European Super-Cartel allies were involved in the drugs shipment.

The Kinahan gang have long-standing alliances with gangs across Europe, dubbed the Super-Cartel, and they regularly pool their resources to buy cocaine in bulk.

Three men  aged 60, 50 and 31  remain in custody this morning as garda forensic and technical experts continue to dismantle the interior of the vessel.

It appears, at this stage, the mothership had no other cargo and was described as empty.

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, said: There was an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defense Force headquarters.

And then it was even more complex by environmentals that we had no control over. The weather was extremely poor.

And also we were trying to predict the the actions of the number of crime gangs and how that would impact on us.

It was very successful from a Defense Force point of view, it showed the ability we have to operate in the joint environment.

Read more Elite Irish army unit storms cargo ship suspected of drug trafficking

Commander Geraghty said warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel prior to the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain, he said.

Asked if they believed any cocaine had left the ship before the insertion, Assistant Commissioner Kelly said he was not able to comment on that as three people were in custody.

One of the arrested men, who was taken into custody on the mothership is from the Middle East, while a Ukrainian and a UK national are also in garda custody.

It is believed the Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel acted as the mothership that supplied a trawler that ran aground off Co Wexford on Sunday.

The suspected mothership  the MV Matthew which originated in South America  will now have its interior hold dismantled by garda forensic and technical experts to determine if it had carried cocaine across the Atlantic and into Irish waters.

One of the suspects was arrested on the mothership, according to sources, and he was the only crew member arrested during yesterdays early-morning raid off the south-east coast.

Military personnel onboard the MV Matthew as it was escorted into Cobh. Photo: PA

The vessel was attempting to leave Irish waters when it was intercepted.

It was eventually boarded by an armed party from the elite Army Ranger Wing before an arrest was made.

A number of other crew members on board were not arrested as they are not thought to have had any knowledge of the suspected drug-smuggling and distribution racket.

The 22-year-old Panamanian freighter left the Caribbean on August 18.

It is understood the 28,000-tonne ship was operating for a time in South America under a different name, MV Honmon.

On August 18, the ship left waters off Venezuela and was last reported at Willemstad, the capital of Curacao.

The MV Matthew is escorted into Cobh. Photo: PA

The freighter crossed the Atlantic and then spent over a week in waters near the Canary Islands.

It then skirted Spain and France before heading towards Ireland and the UK, finally entering Irish waters off the Cork coast.

Members of the Irish Army Ranger Wing as the MV Matthew is escorted to Cobh. Photo: PA

The ship issued an emergency alert to the Irish authorities indicating that its captain had been injured in a serious fall onboard and required medical attention.

Bizarrely, over the past 48 hours it signalled it was also having engine trouble and required maintenance work in Cork Port.

However, the vessel then abruptly headed towards international waters at high speed on Monday before it was intercepted by the Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing members in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The dramatic raid on the mothership happened just over 24 hours after a trawler which had been the focus of a special operation targeting cocaine distribution was discovered off the coast of Blackwater, Co Wexford.

The container ship appears to be the supply vessel for the trawler that ran aground in Co Wexford on Sunday, a source said.

Two male suspects who have been described as incompetent sailors spent almost 24 hours on a sandbank off the Co Wexford coast while their trawler was battered by rough seas.

Gardai believe that the time spent before emergency services arrived could have given the pair ample time to discard any suspected cocaine they had in their vessel which is being described as very badly damaged and almost completely broken up.

No trace of any drugs has been found despite two days of a major search operation involving gardai, the Naval Service, Revenue and Customs, the Irish Coast Guard and the Air Corps in the Irish Sea near Blackwater.

Sea conditions were very bad and they are lucky to be alive

The State security agencies now face a major race against time to retrieve any potential cocaine bales off Co Wexford  with the operation set to be hampered by the imminent arrival of Storm Agnes, which is to be particularly forceful in the south-east, with gusts of up to 130kmh forecast.

The two men were arrested under anti-gangland legislation and at least one of them was treated in a hospital in the south-east yesterday where he was monitored by armed gardai.

It is understood that last night he was back in garda custody.

They were stuck on that sandbank for up to 24 hours and both are not in great health because of this  sea conditions were very bad and they are lucky to be alive, a source told the Irish Independent last night.

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter hovers above a stranded boat off the coast of Blackwater, Wexford. Photo: PA

The boat they were travelling in had been the focus of a joint surveillance operation for at least two days before it got wedged on the sandbank on Sunday, and it is important to emphasise that the purpose of this was to establish what was on board the vessel.

The suspects, who can be held in garda custody for up to a week once they are medically fit to be interviewed by officers, are a UK national and an Eastern European man who is understood to have been living in England.

The boat they were travelling in had been tracked by the Irish navy before it became stricken.

One of them looked like he had never been on a boat before

Weather conditions so far have made it impossible to access the boat, land a search team on it or tow the trawler to shore.

Security officials have described a scene of utter chaos and incompetence on board the trawler before it ran aground.=

Authorities became aware at 11.30pm on Sunday that the trawler  which had been purchased in Castletownbere in west Cork just days earlier  ran onto a sandbank off Blackwater, Co Wexford, but it had been stuck there for many hours before this.

The stranded trawler off the coast of Blackwater, Wexford. Photo: PA

It has now emerged that the men identified themselves as fishermen in west Cork when purchasing an old trawler which had been in dock and for sale for some time.

However, as locals watched the men prepare to take the trawler to sea on Friday, their suspicions were piqued.

They certainly didnt look like fishermen as they handled the boat  it looked as if they hadnt a notion what they were doing, one local said.

One of them looked like he had never been on a boat before.
A forensic investigator puts flowers into a container at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre (Lucy North/PA)

Tributes have been paid to a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death on her way to school in south London, with the teenager described as very comedic and with a bright future.

The much-loved girl died after being stabbed in the neck with a foot-long knife during the Wednesday morning rush hour in Croydon, a witness said.

A 17-year-old boy who knew the victim has been arrested over the attack which took place in Wellesley Road at around 8.30am.

Flowers and cards have been left near the scene and the girls school paid tribute to its valued friend and pupil.

Anthony King, chairman of My Ends  a project helping combat youth violence in Croydon  was with the girls family after the incident and said they were heartbroken.

She had a bright future ahead of her, he said. She was in her GCSE year.

He described the girl as an absolutely incredible young lady and told of how others said she was jovial, very comedic.

Floral tributes at the scene in Croydon (Lucy North/PA)

One of the cards left near to where the attack took place read: Sorry we live in this crazy world this makes no sense.

Fly high up there my mummy will look after you. RIP beautiful, forever young, taken too soon.

Thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends, God bless.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley visited the scene and said: The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

It was moving and humbling to meet many members of the exceptional Croydon community who have come together in support of a family now dealing with the most unimaginable grief.

Emergency services at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London (Jordan Reynolds/PA)

Mr King said the arrested boy had been known to local community groups for the past couple of years.

The girl was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School, a private girls school in Croydon.

The school released a statement that said: We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girls family at this unimaginably distressing time.

The girl was a pupil of The Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon (PA)

Security worker Victor Asare told the PA news agency that blood ran like water and members of the public rushed to help after the girl was attacked.

Mr Asare said: The blood was coming like water. A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus.

(The suspect) ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. Its somebodys daughter.

I finished work but couldnt sleep, so came back, I wanted to see if the girl was OK.

Mr Asare said the girl, who was wearing a green school blazer, looked as if she didnt want the boy to come closer before she was stabbed in the neck with a knife that was black, thin and about a foot long.

Emergency services were called to Wellesley Road at around 8.30am but the girl was pronounced dead at the scene 50 minutes later.

Forensic investigators at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre (Lucy North/PA)

A bus driver and a passer-by were seen desperately trying to save the girl before emergency services arrived, with police at the scene within two minutes.

A mother of two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victims friends, were trying to get through the police cordon but were held back.

James Watkins, from Mainz World  which runs prevention and intervention projects for children and young people, was with the girls family at the scene between 9am and 10am.

He said: They were devastated and I would say more importantly in shock, I dont think it feels real for them.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain speaking at the scene of the fatal stabbing (Lucy North/PA)

A red double decker bus on route 60, three police vehicles and about a dozen officers, as well as a forensics tent, could be seen in the taped off area outside the Whitgift Centre.

Met Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said: This is every parents worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victims death.

This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

The victims family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was absolutely heartbroken at the news of the girls death.

Witnesses or anyone with information can contact police on 101 quoting reference CAD 1601/27Sep, and to remain anonymous can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online.
Writers have agreed to call off strikes after board members approved a contract agreement with Hollywood studio bosses.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced it had voted to accept the deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the group which represents studios, streaming services and producers in negotiations, after nearly five months on the picket line.

In tweets from its eastern and western branches, the WGA said: The WGA reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. Today, our Negotiating Committee, WGAW Board, and WGAE Council all voted unanimously to recommend the agreement. The strike ends at 12.01am.

Late-night talk shows are likely to be the first shows that will resume.

The writers still have to vote to ratify the contract themselves, but lifting the strike will allow them to work during that process, the Writers Guild told members in an email.

After Tuesdays board votes, the contracts were released to the writers who had not yet been given any details on the deal, which their leaders called exceptional.

The three-year agreement includes significant wins over compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence (AI).

The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings of between 5% and 6%, depending on the position of the writer, while the studios had wanted between 2% and 4%. The compromise deal was a raise of between 3.5% and 5%.

Demonstrators walk with signs during a rally outside the Paramount Pictures Studio in Los Angeles (AP)

The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows  a proposal studios initially rejected.

The writers also got the requirement they sought that shows intended to run at least 13 episodes will have at least six writers on staff, with the numbers shifting based on the number of episodes.

They did not get their desire for guaranteed staffs of six on shows that had not yet been ordered to series, settling instead for a guaranteed three.

Writers also got a guarantee staff on shows in initial development will be employed for at least 10 weeks and those on shows which go to air will be employed for three weeks per episode.

On AI, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought.

Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as literary material which means they will not be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered source material.

Writers have the right under the deal to use AI in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use AI.

The members will vote between October 2 and 9.

Since May 2, more than 11,000 WGA members have been on strike over issues including pay and the threat of artificial intelligence.

However, this does not mean that Hollywood stars will be back at work as talks have not yet resumed between studios and striking actors who are part of Sag-Aftra (the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists).

While writers picket lines have been suspended, they were encouraged to walk in solidarity with actors, and many were on the lines Tuesday, including Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner.

We would never have had the leverage we had if SAG had not gone out, Weiner said. They were very brave to do it.
Azerbaijans border guard has detained the former head of Nagorno-Karabakhs separatist government as he tried to cross into Armenia.

The arrest of Ruben Vardanyan appears to reflect Azerbaijans intention to quickly enforce its grip on the region after a swift military operation last week.

Mr Vardanyan, a billionaire businessman who made his fortune in Russia where he owned a major investment bank, moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as the head the regional government for several months before stepping down earlier this year.

Azerbaijans border guard service said Mr Vardanyan was escorted to the countrys capital, Baku, and handed over to the relevant state bodies that will decide his fate. It posted a picture of Mr Vardanyan held by two border guards next to a helicopter.

The arrest came after Azerbaijans Health Ministry revealed a total of 192 soldiers were killed and more than 500 were wounded during the countrys offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last week.

A convoy of cars of ethnic Armenians leaves Nagorno-Karabakh (Vasily Krestyaninov/AP)

Nagorno-Karabakh officials said earlier that at least 200 people on their side, including 10 civilians, were killed and more than 400 were wounded in the fighting.

The military operation allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim full control over the breakaway region that was run by separatists for about 30 years.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians have already left the region and more are likely to do so after separatist troops agreed to lay down arms and Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockage of the road linking the territory to Armenia.

Azerbaijan and separatist officials have held two rounds of talks on the reintegration of Nagorno-Karabakh and its ethnic Armenian population into the mainly Muslim country but how exactly it would happen remains unclear.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region of Azerbaijan that came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.

An ethnic Armenian girl from Nagorno-Karabakh looks out from a car packed with belongings (Vasily Krestyaninov/AP)

In December, Azerbaijan imposed a blockade of the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, alleging that the Armenian government was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the regions separatist forces.

Armenia said that the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakhs approximately 120,000 people.

Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, arguing the region could receive supplies through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam  a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities who called it a strategy for Azerbaijan to gain control of the region.

More than 47,000 people, or nearly 40% of Nagorno-Karabakhs population of 120,000, have left the region for Armenia as of early afternoon on Wednesday, according to the Armenian authorities.

An explosion at a petrol station near the regions capital Stepanakert, where people were queuing to fill up their cars before leaving for Armenia, on Monday night killed at least 68 people, according to Nagorno-Karabakhs human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan.

Another 290 were wounded and a total of 105 were considered missing as of Tuesday evening, he said.

Those wounded in the blast were taken by ambulance and helicopter to hospitals in Armenia.

Tatev Mirzoyan, a 27-year-old resident of Stepanakert who arrived in the Armenian city of Goris with her family after a 28-hour drive, said they used fuel they had stashed for emergency purposes.

We were seven in one little car, she said. That was a horrible journey as people are in panic and nervous.

Ms Mirzoyan said she and her family are planning to stay with her sister who lives in Armenias capital Yerevan, adding that she does not want to think about the future for now.

Some of her relatives are still searching for fuel to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, she added. My cousin is still under siege in Martuni, she is waiting to be taken out to Stepanakert, and after that figure out what to do next.
The German government has banned a far-right, racist group known for its indoctrination of children as police raided dozens of homes of its members and other buildings early on Wednesday morning.

A statement from the German interior ministry said it banned the Artgemeinschaft group, an anti-democratic association with around 150 members.

All of its sub-organizations, including the Gefaehrtschaften, Gilden, Freundeskreise, and Familienwerk eV, were also banned, the ministry said.

We are banning a sectarian, deeply racist and antisemitic association, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.

This is another hard blow against right-wing extremism and (those) who continue to spread Nazi ideologies to this day, she said, adding that the organisation had attempted to indoctrinate their children and young people with their anti-democratic ideology.

Under the cover of a pseudo-religious Germanic belief in gods, the Artgemeinschaft spread its Nazi world view, the ministry said.

The groups central goal was the preservation and promotion of ones own kind which can be equated with the National Socialist term race, according to the statement.

In addition to the ideology of racial doctrine, the symbolism, narratives and activities of the group showed further parallels to the Nazis ideology.

The group gave its members instructions on how to choose a proper spouse within the northern and central European human kind in order to pass on the correct genetic make-up, according to the associations racist ideology. People of other origins were degraded, the ministry said.

In early-morning raids across 12 states, police searched 26 apartments of 39 group members as well as the organisations club houses.

Last week, the German government banned the neo-Nazi group Hammerskins Germany and raided homes of dozens of its members. The group was an offshoot of an American ring-wing extremist group and played a prominent role in the far-right scene across Europe.


At least 114 people were killed and more than 200 injured after a massive fire ripped through a wedding hall in Iraq's Nineveh province, a top official announced on Wednesday. The updated figures were confirmed to the media by Nineveh Governor Najm al-Jubouri, reports Xinhua news agency.



The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in al-Hamdaniya town, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the Iraqi Civil Defence as saying.



It said that initial reports indicated that fireworks were used during the celebration, which may have caused the fire.



The building was covered with highly flammable materials, which accelerated the blaze that led to the collapse of part of the building, the INA said, adding that an investigation was launched into the incident.



It was not clear if the bride and the groom were among the victims.



Initial reports in Iraqi media said they had died in the blaze, with news agency Nina later reporting that they were alive but were being treated for burns.



Health Ministry spokesman Sayf al-Badr said that the situation is under control and that they were following the incident closely.



The INA reported that the Health Minister directed authorities in the neighboring provinces of Kirkuk and Salahudin to send ambulances to help evacuate the victims.



A statement by his media office said that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani made a phone call to the Nineveh Governor to learn about the situation and ordered the interior and health ministers to support the affected people.



"We are following the tragic developments in the town of al-Hamdaniya following the painful accident that caused a number of victims and injuries," Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi said in a tweet.






Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has kicked off the tech giants Connect developer conference in California with a focus on virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

The company behind Facebook, which renamed itself Meta two years ago, unveiled the next version of its virtual reality headset, the Quest 3. It will cost 499 US dollars (412) and begin shipping from October 10.

Standing in a courtyard at his companys Menlo Park headquarters, Mr Zuckerberg told the audience of developers, employees and journalists that Meta is focused on building the future of human connection  and painted a near-future where people interact with hologram versions of their friends or coworkers and with AI bots built to assist them.

Soon the physical and digital will come together in what we call the metaverse, he said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the tech giants Connect developer conference (Godofredo A Vasquez/AP)

Mr Zuckerberg introduced an AI personal assistant people can interact with using any of Metas messaging apps  along with a smattering of AI characters he called a bit more fun, such as Max the sous chef, who can help come up with ideas for dinner, or Lily, a personal editor and writing partner.

These are just a few we have trained, there are a lot more coming, he said.

He also introduced the next version of Metas Ray Ban Stories smart glasses, which let people record video or photos, livestream, listen to music and interact with the Meta AI assistant.

Smart glasses are the ideal form factor for you to let an AI assistant see what you are seeing and hear what you are hearing, Mr Zuckerberg said. The glasses will launch on October 17 and cost 299 dollars (247).

Meta is in the midst of a corporate transformation that it says will take years to complete. It wants to evolve from a provider of social platforms to a dominant power in a nascent virtual-reality world called the metaverse  sort of like the internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D.

Metas Ray Bans offering (Godofredo A Vasquez/AP)

But this transformation has been slower than expected, and Metas main business remains advertising on its social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

Competition with TikTok remains Metas biggest challenge, said Insider Intelligence analyst Yoram Wurmser.

A lot of this effort around chatbots and stories and other ways just to keep engagement going (like) AI-driven personalisation and stuff like that, thats the overarching challenge for the company, he said.

Squeezed by a slump in online advertising and uncertainty around the global economy, Meta has cut more than 20,000 jobs since last November.

Mr Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the companys year of efficiency as it reduces its workforce while focusing on more technical hires such as experts in AI to focus on Metas long-term vision.

Artificial intelligence is central to that vision. Over the summer, Meta released the next generation of its AI large language model and made the technology, known as Llama 2, free for research and commercial use.

Much like tech peers Google and Microsoft, Meta has long had a big research team of computer scientists devoted to advancing AI technology.

But it has been overshadowed as the release of ChatGPT sparked a rush to profit off of generative AI tools that can create new prose, images and other media.

Mr Zuckerberg said at the time that people can download its new AI models directly or through a partnership that makes them available on Microsofts cloud platform Azure along with Microsofts safety and content tools.
The US has secured the release of an American soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, the White House has announced.

US ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

Left unanswered were questions about why Pyongyang  which has tense relations with Washington over the Norths nuclear programme, support for Russias war in Ukraine and other issues  has agreed to turn him over and why the soldier fled in the first place.

North Korea abruptly announced earlier on Wednesday that it would deport Private Travis King  despite some expecting the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

US officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

American soldier Travis King has been expelled by North Korea (Ahn Young-joon/AP)

We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

Officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to expel King but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information.

One official, who was not authorised to comment and requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that the 23-year-old was more trouble to keep than to release him.

Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China and at least one US Defence Department official.

Officials from US President Joe Bidens administration insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldiers release.

We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, Mr Sullivan added.

King was being flown to a US military base in South Korea before being returned to the US.

His expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

And there remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place.

His fate in the US remains uncertain, having been declared absent without leave by the government.

That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonourable discharge.

In the near term, officials said their focus will be on helping King reintegrate into US society upon his return, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, according to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on the transfer.

The soldier was in good spirits and good health upon his release, according to one senior administration official.

He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Centre at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea after an assault conviction.

Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for Chinas assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing Kings release.

The US first learned through Swedish officials earlier this month that North Korea was looking to kick out King.

That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the USs behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King.

It said he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

It had attributed similar comments to King before and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and US society.

One senior administration official said King was very happy to be on his way back to the US.
More than 100 people died in the fire in Hamdaniya (Farid Abdulwahed/AP)

A fire which raced through a hall at a wedding in northern Iraq has killed at least 114 people, authorities said.

The blaze in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya, close to the city of Mosul, in Nineveh province injured 150 others with authorities warning the number of fatalities could rise.

The health department in Nineveh province raised the death toll to 114.

Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr, who put the number of injured at 150 via the state-run Iraqi News Agency, said: All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident.

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals.

He cautioned there were no final casualty figures from the blaze.

Prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the countrys interior and health officials to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the prime minister said he had phoned the governor and the Ministers of Interior and Health are directed to mobilize all efforts to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate incident.

An Iraqi girl with burns to her hand lies on a hospital bed (Farid Abdulwahed/AP)

Television footage showed flames rushing over the wedding hall as the fire took hold.

In the aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene of the fire, the only light coming from TV cameras and the lights of onlookers mobile phones.

There was no immediate official word on the cause of the blaze but initial reports by the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested fireworks at the venue may have sparked the fire.

Footage aired by Rudaw, apparently shot by a guest, showed fireworks shooting up from the floor and setting a chandelier overhead ablaze.

Other footage appeared to show the bride and groom on the dance floor when the fire began, stunned by the sight of the burning debris. It was not clear if they were among those hurt.

People gather at the site following a fatal fire at a wedding celebration (Farid Abdulwahed/AP)

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, told Rudaw that many of those injured suffered serious burns.

The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60% of their bodies burned, he said. This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.

Civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding halls exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that was illegal in the country.

The officials said: The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when the fire breaks out.
The Providence Lithograph Company/WikiCommons

An Old Testament prophet named Isaiah foretold many things about Jesus life and His Second Coming. In fact, Isaiah is one of the most important books in the Old Testament. It is not only a narrative story, but also a collection of oracles, prophecies and parables. Isaiah, who authors the book, wrote it around 700 B.C. The book Is the first of the Major Prophets as well as the first of the Latter Prophets. Isaiahs purpose was to bring back the nation of Judah  Gods nation  back to the faithfulness as well as proclaim the coming of the Savior, and His future reign. He brings the message to Judah and Israel of condemnation as well as a message of hope and salvation through the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Because Isaiahs prophecies about Jesus Christs life are true, we can know that his prophecies about the Second Coming will be fulfilled.

Isaiahs name means The Lord is salvation. He lived in Jerusalem and the prophecies God gave him were directed toward Israel, Judah and other nations. Isaiahs style of writing reveals a well-educated background. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says, For versatility of expression and brilliance of imagery Isaiah had no superior, not even a rival. His style marks the climax of Hebrew literary art. Jewish tradition says he was of royal descent and he may have been a cousin of King Uzziah. This may have given him access to the kings of Judah in Jerusalem. Many of the prophecies in Isaiah begin with historical conditions and prophecies for his day and then move forward to a far greater fulfillment prior to the return of Jesus Christ. The first, historical fulfillment is lesser in scope and is followed by the greater future fulfillment at the end of this present age.

He is often called the evangelical prophet because he says more about the coming of the Messiah and the redemptive work of Jesus than any other book in the Old Testament. As a result, there are many important and loved passages in this book. It was also a book that Jesus referenced often. This explained His reason for using parables to teach. One example is Isaiah 6:9-10, which says, He said, Go and tell this people: Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. Another example is when Jesus told that salvation had come to them. Isaiah 62:11 which says, The LORD has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: Say to Daughter Zion, See, Your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.' Jesus quotes Isaiah to highlight the disconnect between God and the people, but he also quotes Isaiah to remind people to the comfort God will bring through Him as the Lamb of God and the reigning King.

What was very profound about Isaiah is that he is recognized as a witness during one of the most unstable periods in Jerusalems history, from both political and religious point of view. Around 735 B.C.E., the nations of Aram and Israel threatened to invade Jerusalem, the capital of the city of Judah, if King Ahaz didnt join their anti-Assyrian coalition. Later, Assyria invaded Judah to suppress a rebellion by King Hezekiah in 701 B.C.C. As a prophet, Isaiah delivered messages from Yahweh about these events to political leaders and social elites in Jerusalem. He enjoyed a good relationship with the royal members and had free access to the palace.

Saying that he was a part of the Jerusalem aristocracy, Isaiah took an active part in events and guided people of the higher authority. However, this position didnt stop his from being outspoken. He is known to have attacked the ruling classes, in defense of common people, against the corruption that they faced.

The Book of Isaiah had many prophecies in it that came true in the New Testament, prophecies that came true in history and prophecies that are still coming true today. He prophesied many things about Jesus life and Second Coming. For example, the prophet Isaiah wrote in the 53rd chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah that the Messiah would die for the sins of others, indicating that the Messiah would be mortal. Isaiah also wrote in chapter 9 that the Messiah would be referred to as God and as being eternal. In regards to His nature, Jesus is both man and God, fully human and yet fully God  God incarnate as a human. As God, He is eternal. As a man, He was mortal and died by death on a cross, and was later resurrected. Isaiah said Gods Son would be despised, afflicted and oppressed by many people. Yet, He would not speak against those who would hurt and kill Him. He would suffer for our sins and sorrows. At Jesus Second Coming, all mankind will live in peace. Isaiah taught that at this time, even the animals will live in harmony: wolves, leopards, lions and bears will no longer hunt lambs, goats and calves.

His ministry lasted approximately half a century, continuing through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. We are told through tradition that he suffered a martyrs death during the reign of King Manasseh. His work brought him into direct contact with kings and priest and he encountered strong opposition from both groups. At times, this opposition was so strong that he was forced to give up speaking in public and confine his ministry to a group of disciples with whom he met privately.

Isaiah expressed convictions that were similar to those spoken to the people of Israel by Amos and Hosea. Despite the immediate dangers that the nation of Judah faced, Isaiah was confident of the ultimate triumph of the Hebrew people. Isaiah was sure that any temporary disaster would not be the final end of the Judean kingdom.

We can learn a great deal from the book of Isaiah. While we dont have a lot of information about his life, his inspired writings and prophecies have been preserved for generations in the Bible. The prophecies of Isaiah point to the end of age when Jesus Christ will return and set up the Kingdom of God. The book is also filled with warnings  warnings of the Day of the Lord and warnings to Israel and Judah which are very relevant to us today. We should take these warnings seriously. If we pay attention to these warnings, we can be assured of the promises of mercy and salvation through Jesus Christ.

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.
Customers look at Chinese-made laptops displayed at a retail shop in Bandung, Indonesia, July 15, 2023.

Lush green hills and a majestic lake surround a private university here that is training tomorrows elite Indonesian digital workers with help from a Chinese technological powerhouse viewed with distrust by the U.S. government.

The Del Institute of Technology, or IT Del, founded by a key aide to Indonesias president, has been collaborating since 2013 with Huawei, Chinas leading tech company.

Through the partnership, faculty members and students have access to cutting-edge training, certification and research opportunities in fields such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and cyber security.

Its a win-win situation for Huawei and us, Humasak Simanjuntak, IT Dels deputy president, told BenarNews, a news network affiliated with Radio Free Asia. One of the ways they achieve success is by supporting education in Indonesia.

Indonesia has welcomed Chinese investment to develop its digital ecosystem. IT Del was founded by Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister for investment and maritime affairs, and its top official coordinating cooperation with China.

Huaweis interaction with Indonesia is part of Chinas broader strategy of expanding its economic and political influence across Asia and beyond through its Belt and Road Initiative  a global infrastructure, technology and investment program launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping 10 years ago.

That includes developing digital systems, which Jakarta views as key to future prosperity. Indonesias internet economy is projected to reach US$124 billion by 2025, according to a 2020 report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.

But Huaweis dominance has raised alarm among experts who spoke to BenarNews, amid warnings from the U.S. and other Western countries that the Chinese firm engages in espionage and sabotage activities, which it denies.

Students walk on the campus of the Del Institute of Technology in Toba, a regency in North Sumatra, Indonesia, July 27, 2023. [Ahmad Syamsudin/BenarNews]

Ardi Sutedja, chairman of the Indonesia Cybersecurity Forum and a former government consultant, said Huawei is deeply embedded in the national telecommunications infrastructure, from the core network to the end-user devices.

Its going to be so difficult for us to transition to another company because from upstream to downstream, our 3G and 4G infrastructure is already being managed by Huawei, he told RFA.

Technology can colonize them

Huawei has been providing its products and services to Indonesia since 2000, according to its website.



It has established partnerships with more than 100 local companies and more than 30 universities, and created more than 20,000 jobs directly and indirectly, according to the companys website. It also has an agreement on cybersecurity cooperation with Indonesias National Cyber and Crypto Agency, or BSSN.

Ardi warned of the potential dangers of Indonesia relying on one foreign company, especially for cybersecurity. He noted that people enjoy the wave of new technology without realizing that technology can also colonize them.

Alfons Tanujaya, another cybersecurity expert, said Indonesia needs to be careful about allowing outsiders controlling its networks -- not only China but also the United States.

When we talk about spying, without 5G we can already be spied on, he said. All our hardware is from China, we use modems, CCTV cameras, and everything from China.

Customers shop at a retail store displaying Chinese-made mobile accessories, in a mall in Bandung, Indonesia, July 15, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Photo

The United States has voiced increasing concern over Huawei. It has banned Huawei from its 5G networks and put pressure on its allies to do the same.

In 2020, Robert OBrien, then the U.S. national security adviser, said the United States had evidence that Huawei could access sensitive and personal information in the systems it maintains around the world. He contended that Huawei is influenced by the Chinese government and must comply with directives of the Chinese Communist Party.

Huawei has repeatedly denied these allegations, saying it is an independent company and that no government has ever asked it to compromise its products or customers data.

BenarNews repeatedly requested an interview with Huawei for this story, but the requests were declined.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a Roundtable Summit Phase One session of the Belt and Road Forum, at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake in Beijing, May 15, 2017. Credit: Lintao Zhang/Pool/Reuters file photo

Provider of choice

Huawei devices and networks are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia.

Last year, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, said that Huawei has positioned itself as Indonesias cybersecurity provider of choice through its vast cybersecurity and other training programs for groups ranging from senior government officials to rural students.

Luhut, the minister who leads Jakartas cooperation with Beijing, summed up the approach in 2021  under which China provides hardware and training, and Indonesians install, maintain and use the networks.

Why do I get along with China? China is very generous in sharing its technology with us, he said then. They have always been willing to give us whatever we ask for. This helps us to keep up with technological advancements.

Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment (left), meets with then-Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, April 12, 2018. Credit: Naohiko Hatta/Pool via Reuters file photo

Some Western tech companies, such as Ericsson, Nokia and Google, also cooperate with the Indonesian government and its educational institutions, but not as extensively as with Huawei, according to experts.

They said Huawei had dominated Indonesias telecommunications infrastructure by offering low prices, credit from Chinese banks, and training for locals.

Huawei equipment is mainly used in the Palapa Ring project, a 35,000-kilometer (22,000-mile) national fiber-optic network that covers more than 500 regions and cities in the Indonesian archipelago, the first phase of which was carried out by Huawei Marine.

We welcome Huaweis support for developing digital talents in Indonesia and around the world, said Wayan Toni Supriyanto, the director general of international cooperation at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Smart watches made by Chinese tech giant Huawei are displayed at a retail shop in Bandung, Indonesia, July 15, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Photo

Hurdles for Huawei

With an average rate of 4 U.S. cents per gigabyte, Indonesia has some of the lowest cellular data costs in the Asia-Pacific, according to the Indonesian Telematics Society, a forum for stakeholders in the Indonesian digital industry.

The Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association says internet penetration in Indonesia has reached 78%, or 215.6 million users -- although there is still a significant gap between urban and rural areas. The government said around 7,000 small and remote villages are still underserved by internet providers.

Against this backdrop, Huawei still faces headwinds in building its business.

It confronts legal challenges in several countries over its alleged theft of trade secrets, violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, fraud, racketeering and patent infringement. Huawei has denied or contested these charges as well.

It faces restrictions or bans on its equipment or services in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

These moves have hampered Huaweis global expansion and market share, especially in the 5G sector.

Huawei has also faced supply-chain disruptions due to the U.S. sanctions that prevent it from accessing key components and technologies from American suppliers. This has affected its ability to produce and sell its products, such as smartphones and network equipment.

Huawei has sought to develop its own alternatives, such as its HarmonyOS operating system and its HiSilicon chips. It has also been seeking new markets and partners in other regions, such as in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Huawei has also been lobbying and suing to defend its rights and reputation, as well as engaging in P.R. campaigns to win over public opinion and trust.

Career boost

Among tech-savvy Indonesians, the cachet of Huawei appears high.

Muhammad Ihsan Fawzi, a lecturer at South Tangerang Institute of Technology near Jakarta, said he had received several job offers and speaking invitations after obtaining a Huawei certification for mobile development. He learned how to create applications for Huawei devices and platforms, and to include features such as location, analytics, push notifications, in-app purchases, and cloud functions.

After I received the certification and published it on my LinkedIn, several companies contacted me and offered me a job position as a mobile developer or a project manager, he said.

He didnt take up those offers as he did not want to leave his present job.

The Indonesian name for the Del Institute of Technology is seen on a sign at the campus in Toba, a regency in North Sumatra, Indonesia, July 27, 2023. Credit: Ahmad Syamsudin/BenarNews

Istas Manalu, a lecturer from IT Del who participated in a summer camp organized by Huawei in China in June, said the camp offered leadership sessions and further training in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and IT governance.

He said it was an opportunity for both lecturers and students to familiarize ourselves with the development of 5G technology, cyber security, cloud computing, and AI, as they have a strong base in those areas.

Onno W. Purbo, a computer engineering lecturer and a proponent of open-source tech, warned however that digital colonization by China was now a reality in Indonesia.

We are really dependent on them because we dont have the capacity, said Purbo, a deputy rector at the South Tangerang Institute of Technology.

But he likened it to Indonesia being colonized by Japan through the domination of Japanese car and motorcycle brands.

Simanjuntak of IT Del, however, dismissed concerns about Huawei.

He said that his institutions partnership with the company was purely technical and practical. He noted that his institution also collaborates with Western companies, including Cisco and Google.

We are not discriminating against specific companies, but its free competition, let it be free. When we partner with someone, there should be mutual benefits, he said.

BenarNews and Radio Free Asia collaborated on this special report.
A survivor of the Sept 28, 2018 earthquake walks between two temporary shelters in Petobo, Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023.

A cherry tree stands out among the rows of shabby shelters in Petobo, a village in Indonesias Central Sulawesi province that was once swallowed by the earth.

Its green canopy offers a refuge for the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the area five years ago, as they gather to share their stories and frustrations.

There is no clarity on when we will move to a permanent house. Just now, there was another census of shelter residents by the government. Its the usual annual census, Abdul Naim, a resident of the shelters, told BenarNews.

Abdul, 37, is among about 2,500 people who are still living in temporary accommodation in Petobo on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Palu, waiting for the government to fulfill its promise of permanent housing.

The shallow magnitude 7.5 quake and tsunami, which struck on Sept. 28, 2018, killed more than 4,600 people and displaced more than 220,000. Many of the victims were killed when their homes were sucked under by torrents of mud, in a process called liquefaction where water-logged soil turns into quicksand.

This aerial photograph shows devastation from soil liquefaction at Petobo in Palu on October 7, 2018, following the September 28 earthquake and tsunami. [Adek Berry/AFP]

One of the worst-hit areas was Petobo. There, the residents witnessed their homes, belongings and loved ones being swept away.

But as Central Sulawesi prepares to mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster, some survivors are still living in 3-by-4-meter (10-by-13 feet) temporary shelters, each shared with up to six people.

Inside, walls are cracked and broken, some floors are leaking and some toilets are damaged. The residents also face problems with clean water and electricity supply.

The government built the Petobo shelters in 2019 for people who lost their homes in the disaster. The residents moved in during the emergency response period.

The Public Works and Housing Ministry had planned to use the shelters for one to two years, but none of the 655 permanent houses for evacuees being built in Petobo are finished.

Look at our condition in this shelter: the rooms are small, hot, and the material is damaged, Naim said. We have conveyed all our complaints to the government, but there is no response.

To make ends meet, most residents work odd jobs, such as construction workers or scrap collectors. Others who still have farmland or livestock continue farming.

A resident checks a cellphone during a lunch break inside a temporary shelter in Petobo, Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. [Taufan Bustan/BenarNews]

Lukman Tenggo, 57, the leader of the Petobo Shelter Neighborhood Association, said he did not think survivors would get permanent houses this year.

We cant move there until the construction is finished, including the road and other public facilities, he told BenarNews. The construction process is only around 70% done. It may take until 2024 for people to move.

He is worried about the houses quality.

They say the houses are earthquake resistant, but the construction appears shaky, Tenggo said. We will live in those houses forever, so they have to be strong.

No excuses

Only 3,463, or 45%, of the total 7,682 permanent houses needed for the survivors have been built, according to the Central Sulawesi Disaster Management Agency. About 1,330 families were still living in temporary shelters and had not received permanent housing, the agency said.

When the permanent houses are finished, all families in shelters have to move, the agency's head of rehabilitation and reconstruction, Budi Yunus, told BenarNews. Now we just have to wait for the completion of the construction.

A resident passes by the construction site of permanent houses in Petobo Village, Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. [Taufan Bustan/BenarNews]

Land acquisition issues caused the delay, Budi said.

Some of the land was only released last year by the government, he said. Thats why the construction only started this year. Land was the problem but now everything has been sorted out.

The provincial government set aside 10 billion rupiah ($646,000) to buy land for permanent houses in Petobo.

Central Sulawesi legislative council chairwoman Nilam Sari Lawira expressed concerns that some residents still lived in shelters.

We agreed to give 55 billion rupiah (about $3.5 million) in grant assistance for land acquisition for Palu, Sigi and Donggala in the revised 2021 budget, she said, referring to the areas worst hit by the twin disaster.

So, there are no more excuses about land acquisition because the central government will build directly when the local government provides the land.

Five survivors gather in front of a temporary shelter in Petobo, Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. [Taufan Bustan/BenarNews]

Despite the hardships of living in the temporary shelters, the families have no choice but to stay.

Mulyadi Hasan, 53, another resident of Petobo, said his house was destroyed by the earthquake and liquefaction.

If I leave the shelter, where else can I live with my family? he said.

Hasan recounted how he and his family ran for their lives when the earthquake struck. Afterwards, the ground he stepped on turned into mud and moved in several directions. Everything on top of it was destroyed.

He said he was grateful they survived, but he still felt haunted by the memories of that day.

If I think about what happened, it seems impossible that we are still alive, he said.

Besides a house, he also had several motorcycles. But when the disaster came, everything was gone.

Nothing was left. My family and I who survived only had clothes on our backs, he said.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare gestures during a press conference at Honiara International Airport on Sept. 27, 2023 after returning from the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who declined to attend a United States-Pacific islands summit earlier this week, said Washington should show respect to the regions leaders rather than lecturing them.

The summit in Washington, the second in a year between President Joe Biden and leaders of Pacific island nations, was part of U.S. efforts to counter Chinas inroads in the region that include a burgeoning relationship with the Solomon Islands.

They must respect Pacific leaders and change their strategies of meeting with Pacific leaders, Sogavare said Wednesday after returning to the Solomon Islands from New York, where he spoke last week at the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Sogavare, who often echoes Beijings talking points, said he returned to the Solomon Islands rather than attending the Washington event so he could give attention to pressing domestic issues.

The island nation of some 700,000 people was represented at the two day summit, which ended Tuesday, by Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele and Colin Beck, permanent secretary of the foreign affairs ministry.

At least we have our representatives there. We were always given three minutes to talk and we will be sitting down only to listen to them lecturing us of how good they are, Sogavare told reporters at a press conference at Honiaras international airport.

A Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition they werent named, had said it was disappointing that Sogavare did not attend the summit, Reuters reported.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (center left) walks across the tarmac at Honiara International Airport on Sept. 27, 2023 after returning from New York where he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly. [Charley Piringi/BenarNews]

At the summit, Biden called on Congress to approve an additional U.S. $200 million of assistance for Pacific island nations, the latest move in his administrations push to counter Chinese influence in a region crucial to U.S. defense.

U.S. interest in Pacific island nations was galvanized in early 2022 after Beijing and the Solomon Islands signed a security pact that the U.S. and allies such as Australia fear could lead to a Chinese military presence in the region.

Since then the U.S. has agreed to increase its financial and economic assistance for Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau  three North Pacific countries that delegate their defense to Washington under longstanding compacts of free association. Subject to budget appropriations, the three nations would receive more than U.S. $7 billion over 20 years.

The first Pacific Islands-U.S. summit in September last year announced plans for more than U.S. $800 million in assistance to island nations over a decade. The figure included nearly tripling the payments tied to a tuna fishing treaty with Pacific nations to a total of U.S. $600 million between 2023-33.

Sogavare said his Cabinet will meet from Thursday to determine what bills to submit to parliament during the remainder of its sessions this year.

I have a commitment and dedication to tackling domestic matters, especially with approximately 10 weeks remaining in the parliamentary calendar, he said.

Under Sogavare, the Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019. His government has capitalized on the U.S.-China rivalry by securing more development assistance for a country that grapples with lack of roads, hospitals and jobs.
The Philippine Coast Guards BRP Malapascua sails near the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era ship used by Manila as a military outpost at the Ayungin Shoal in the disputed South China Sea, April 23, 2023.

Updated at 07:50 p.m. ET on 2023-09-27

The Philippines is in the process of crafting a more assertive strategy for waters it claims in the disputed South China Sea, a Navy commander said on Wednesday.

Philippine Western Command chief Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos comment came days after Manila accused China Coast Guard ships of installing a floating barrier  removed later by the Philippines  at the seas disputed Scarborough Shoal, which China on Monday reiterated was its territory.

Manila, which also claims the shoal, was in the midst of forming a national strategy with a stronger assertion of rights in the sea, Carlos said, referring to waters within the Philippines jurisdiction.

Carlos command is in Palawan, the countrys western frontier facing the West Philippine Sea  Manilas name for the South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone.

For the military alone, our line of efforts include the effective occupation of the islands that we already occupied and also establishing a stronger naval presence in our area, he said.

The strategy would allow the military to know what is happening in our area, precisely where they are, where are all the vessels of interest, the militia vessels, the Chinese Coast Guard, Carlos said.

A United Nations tribunal in 2016 dismissed Chinas sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing has refused to recognize the ruling.

Instead of seeking to enforce the ruling, then-President Rodrigo Duterte sought to ingratiate himself with China in exchange for pledges of investments.

In contrast, his successor as president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has been firm on the Philippines position and has sought stronger defense alliances with the United States and other western countries including Australia and Britain.

China reacts

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday maintained his nations hardline stance on the shoal.

What the Philippines did looks like nothing more than self-amusement, he told reporters.

China will continue to safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests over Huangyan Dao, he said, using the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal.

Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos speaks to reporters at the Western Command headquarters in Palawan, Philippines, Aug. 10, 2023. [Eloisa Lopez/Pool via AP]

Carlos rejected the Chinese stance on the barrier at the shoal, which the Philippines calls Bajo de Masinloc.

We are not stirring [up] any trouble. We are just asserting our rights in the area, he said.

Our duty is to defend and protect our sovereignty and sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. We are just doing our job, we are doing our job as far as asserting our jurisdiction over our exclusive economic zone.

China has disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan over the South China Sea and has become more aggressive in the region.

In addition to the floating barrier, Chinese ships have harassed military resupply missions to troops on the Philippine-occupied Ayungin Shoal in recent months.

The troops are stationed on a World War II-era ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, that was grounded at the shoal in 1999 to serve as a military outpost. The China Coast Guard has fired water cannons and taken steps to harass Philippine Coast Guard ships escorting missions to the BRP Sierra Madre.

The Philippine Western Command chief said Marcos directive was to ensure that BRP Sierra Madre remains where it is and strong enough to be able to fly the Philippine flag.

We intend to comply with that order, Carlos said.

More training

Meanwhile, the Philippines and the United States navies are set to launch joint exercises in the South China Sea next month, said Lt. Col. Enrico Gil Ileto, military public affairs chief.

More than 600 U.S. Navy personnel are expected to attend the 12-day drills dubbed Sama-Sama. Representatives from Britain, France, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand are scheduled to attend as observers.

Ileto said the annual exercise aims to further strengthen international defense cooperation and advance a rules-based international order.

He said the Philippine Navys guided missile frigate BRP Antonio Luna will be joined by the USS Dewey, a guided missile destroyer, and the USNS Wally Schirra cargo ship.

The exercises are part of the Mutual Defense Treaty signed in 1951, which calls on both countries to aid each other in times of aggression by an external power.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Rinoza in Manila contributed to this report.

This story has been updated to clarify the comments from the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman.
Reserve Bank Investigation into Geneva Subsidiary

Geneva advises that its subsidiary Quest Insurance Group Limited (Quest) has received notification from the Reserve Bank enforcement team that a formal investigation in relation to certain matters involving Quest has commenced.

The enforcement team has advised that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that contraventions of part 2 of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 have occurred by and in relation to Quest by its apparent failures to:

(a) establish a statutory fund when required; and

(b) maintain the minimum solvency margin imposed by its conditions of its insurance licence.

These relate to matters occurring in 2021 and 2022, and in respect of which Quest has been in frequent contact with the Reserve Bank. Quest self-reported to the Reserve Bank the apparent breaches of the legislation.

Quest maintains that at all times it had adequate cash and overall solvency to meet all immediate and future obligations.

ends

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Kevin Squires fills jugs of fresh apple cider at Bartlett's Orchard in Richmond on in this file photo from 2013.
This Story in History is selected from the archives by Jeannie Maschino, The Berkshire Eagle.
Stay up to date on Berkshires news with Berkshires in Brief, our free daily newsletter

LANESBOROUGH  The State Ethics Commission has dismissed its case against Barbara Davis-Hassan now that she has admitted to multiple violations of two sections of the state's conflict of interest law and has paid a $30,000 civil penalty.

The penalty will go into the Commonwealths general fund.

The state Ethics Commissions authorized the final order in Davis-Hassans case Sept. 21. It was signed by Chair Margot Botsford, Josefina Martinez, Wilbur P. Edwards and Thomas A. Connors. The fifth commissioner, Eron L.A. Hackshaw, was not in attendance.

Davis-Hassan holds two positions in town government: as the chair of the towns Economic Development Committee and as a member of the Planning Board. As the owner of Barb Hassan Realty, she also represented Durga Property Holdings in the sale of the Berkshire Mall. She made a $240,000 commission on the $8 million sale in July 2022.

"I was unable to participate in a fair hearing regarding the complaints issued against me due to personal health issues," Davis-Hassan wrote in an emailed statement to The Eagle on Wednesday. "At all times, my actions were done in the open with full disclosures on record while serving on various committees. Furthermore, I have always served the Town of Lanesborough ethically and lawfully and will continue to do so in the future."

Some of the conflicts of interest arose when she acted as an agent for Durga in connection with its Baker Hill Road District taxes, the proposed dissolution of the district, Durga's application for an abatement of its property taxes, and a water and sewer infrastructure grant for the Berkshire Mall, according to the final order.

Those actions constituted violations of Massachusetts General Law Chapter 268A, Section 17(c), which prohibits a municipal employee from, otherwise than in the proper discharge of her official duties, acting as agent for anyone other than the municipality in connection with a particular matter in which the municipality is a party or has a direct and substantial interest.

In addition, Davis-Hassan admitted violating Massachusetts General Law Chapter 268A, Section 19 as a Planning Board member. That section prohibits a municipal employee from participating in a particular matter in which, to her knowledge, she has a financial interest.

Specifically, Davis-Hassan participated in the Planning Boards discussion and vote on whether to rezone the mall when she had an exclusive marketing agreement with Durga to lease space in, or to sell the mall. Davis-Hassan had a financial interest in the Planning Board's decision to rezone the mall because it was reasonably foreseeable that the zoning change would affect the sale of the mall and Davis-Hassan's commission on the sale, according to the order.

As a member of the Planning Board, Davis-Hassan participated in the Planning Board's decision to rezone the Williamstown Road property when she was also serving as the listing agent for the property. Davis-Hassan had a financial interest in the Planning Board's decision to rezone the parcel because it was reasonably foreseeable that the zoning change would affect the sale of the property and Davis-Hassan's commission on the sale.

Davis-Hassan realized a $25,000 commission on the $250,000 sale of the Williamstown Road property.

Asked how the state Ethics Commission arrived at the $30,000 fine, Gerry Tuoti, senior public information officer, wrote, The State Ethics Commission is authorized by statute to impose a maximum penalty of up to $10,000, or $25,000 for bribery, for a violation of the conflict of interest law.

The penalty in a disposition agreement is a result of an agreement between the Enforcement Division and the subject that has been approved by the Commission. Approval of a disposition agreement is up to the discretion of the Commission, he wrote.

Davis-Hassan's term on the Economic Development Committee expires in 2025. Her term on the Planning Board expires in 2024.
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PITTSFIELD  John Krol provided The Berkshire Eagle with an email narrative and several documents late Tuesday night that he says prove his prior statements that withdrawals he made from a local nonprofits bank account were by mistake.

Krol emailed an Eagle reporter at 8:42 p.m. Tuesday. The email contained multiple bullet points explaining a series of emails, a credit card statement and screenshots of what appears to be a Greylock Federal Credit Union account.

The Eagle is reviewing the documents Krol provided and will make attempts to verify their authenticity on Wednesday.

Krols email comes in response to a Saturday Berkshire Eagle editorial that called on the mayoral candidate to release his bank and American Express card statements from Jan. 1, 2018, through Jan. 1, 2020.

The request, made on this papers opinion page, asked Krol to share those statements with voters in order to back up his claim that his withdrawals from the Animal Dreams account were a mistake. Krol has not disputed the accuracy of The Eagle's story.

Krol did not initially make a statement in response to the editorial but did intimate on a Monday post to his personal and campaign Facebook accounts that he would have something to say about this tomorrow as I've been sorting this out with the bank.

On Tuesday morning, an Eagle reporter followed up with the candidate about when Tuesday he planned to release his account records. The candidate responded, "As you know, these things can take some time, adding that hes been in regular communication with Greylock and will reach out when we have something to provide on the record."

Last week, Stacey Carver, the former Animal Dreams president, came forth with documentation that showed that five withdrawals totaling more than $6,800 were made from the nonprofits account at Greylock Federal Credit Union in late 2018 and early 2019. The withdrawals were made by way of an e-payment to an American Express card under the name John Krol.

Krol had been a member of the nonprofits board of directors and was one of two check signers for the organization with access to its bank account. He was not on the board during the period the withdrawals were made. Krol made an initial payment of $750 to Carver but then waited several weeks to pay off the remaining amount.

Krols final payment to Carver came 45 days after he was notified about the withdrawals and after Carvers husband gave him a check for $6,800 to secretly pay off his balance to the nonprofit. That tax year, the nonprofit organization's accountant noted on the group's tax return the financial discrepancy was "embezzlement" by a former director.

In a sit down last week between the two mayoral candidates and The Eagle, both Krol and his opponent Peter Marchetti were offered the chance to speak to the story. Krol said he felt the story spoke for itself.

I've had my conversations with people and I understand that this story ran, Krol said. I was able to get a limited amount of time to respond to it [Wednesday] night, approximately 47 minutes to it  I didn't think that was fair. However, I've made it clear in a variety of ways that while mistakes were made, there was no malintent. And I think that's something that I made very clear in the story and that I'll continue to make as we talk to voters moving forward.

When The Eagle gave Marchetti a chance to speak on the story, the candidate said: That is an issue between John and the other parties and has nothing to do with my campaign and well stay out of it.

In last Tuesdays preliminary election for Pittsfield mayor, Krol finished second in the vote count with 1,807 votes. Marchetti received the most votes, with 2,298 votes. Karen Kalinowsky was eliminated in the election, setting the stage for a Marchetti-Krol matchup in Novembers general election.
You are the owner of this article.
Joe Durwin is a local historian specializing in research on residential and commercial properties for owners in Berkshire County. He can be reached at berkshirehomehistorian@gmail.com.
EQS-Ad-hoc: SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA / Key word(s): IPO

SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA: Final offer price for shares in SCHOTT Pharma set at EUR 27.00 per share



27-Sep-2023 / 21:39 CET/CEST

Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN OR SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.

Final offer price for shares in SCHOTT Pharma set at EUR 27.00 per share

The final offer price for the initial public offering (IPO) of SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA (SCHOTT Pharma or Company) was set at EUR 27.00 per share today. A total of 34,641,362 existing ordinary bearer shares with no-par value from the holdings of SCHOTT Glaswerke Beteiligungs- und Export GmbH (a wholly-owned subsidiary of SCHOTT AG  Selling Shareholder) are being placed with investors, including 4,518,438 shares from an over-allotment option. This results in a placement volume of EUR 935 million and an expected free float of up to 23% assuming a full exercise of the Greenshoe option. After the IPO, the Selling Shareholder will retain a stake of at least 77% of SCHOTT Pharmas share capital as a long-term committed shareholder.

SCHOTT Pharmas shares will be listed on the Regulated Market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Prime Standard) under the ISIN (International Security Identification Number): DE000A3ENQ51, WKN (Wertpapierkennnummer): A3ENQ5, Ticker Symbol: 1SXP.DE. The first day of trading is scheduled for September 28, 2023

Important Notice

The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities referred to herein in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any jurisdiction. It does not replace the securities prospectus which is available free of charge, together with the relevant translation of the summary, at www.schott-pharma.com. The approval of the securities prospectus by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority ("BaFin") should not be understood as an endorsement of the investment in any shares in SCHOTT Pharma. It is recommended that investors read the securities prospectus before making an investment decision in order to fully understand the potential risks and rewards associated with the decision to invest in the shares. Investment in shares entails numerous risks, including a total loss of the initial investment, which will be described in chapter 1 "Risk Factors" of the securities prospectus

This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States (including its territories and possessions, any State of the United States and the District of Columbia), Australia, Canada, Japan or South Africa or any other jurisdiction in which the distribution or announcement would be unlawful. This announcement does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan or South Africa or any other jurisdictions where to do so would constitute a violation of the laws of such jurisdiction. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act).

The securities may be offered in the United States to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act only, and outside the United States in offshore transactions in reliance on Regulation S under the Securities Act. There currently is, and there will be no public offer of securities in the United States. The securities may not be offered or sold in Australia, Canada, Japan or South Africa, subject to certain exceptions.

In any EEA Member State, other than Germany, this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of Article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation.

In the United Kingdom, this publication is being distributed only to and is directed only at persons who are qualified investors within the meaning of Article 2 of the Prospectus Regulation as it forms part of retained EU law in the United Kingdom as defined in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (as amended) and who (i) have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within the definition of investment professionals in Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the Order), or (ii) are persons who are high net worth bodies corporate, unincorporated associations and partnerships and the trustees of high-value trusts, as described in Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order or (iii) are persons to whom this communication may otherwise be lawfully communicated (all such persons together being referred to as Relevant Persons).

The securities are available only to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be available only to or will be engaged in only with, Relevant Persons. Any person who is not a Relevant Person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are sometimes, but not always, identified by their use of a date in the future or such words as will, anticipates, aims, could, may, should, expects, believes, intends, plans, prepares or targets (including in their negative form or other variations). By their nature, forward-looking statements are inherently predictive, speculative and involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results, performance and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to SCHOTT AG or its respective affiliates, including SCHOTT Pharma or any member of SCHOTT Pharma, or any persons acting on their behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the factors referred to above. No assurances can be given that the forward-looking statements in this document will be realised. Any forward-looking statements are made of the date of this announcement.

To cover potential over-allotments, the Selling Shareholder has agreed to make available a specified number of ordinary bearer shares of SCHOTT Pharma (the Shares) to the Underwriters. In addition, the Selling Shareholder has granted the Underwriters an option to acquire a number of Shares equal to the number of Shares allotted to cover over-allotments during the Stabilisation Period (as defined below). In connection with the placement of Shares, BofA Securities Europe SA will act as the stabilisation manager and may, as stabilisation manager, make over-allotments and take stabilisation measures in accordance with legal requirements (Art. 5(4) and (5) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 in conjunction with Articles 5 through 8 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052) to support the market price of the Shares and thereby counteract any selling pressure. The stabilisation manager is under no obligation to take any stabilisation measures. Therefore, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and may cease at any time. Such measures may be taken on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierborse) from the date when trading in the Shares is commenced on the regulated market segment (regulierter Markt) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierborse), expected on or around 28 September 2023, and must be terminated no later than 30 calendar days after this date (the Stabilisation Period). Stabilisation transactions aim at supporting the market price of Shares during the Stabilisation Period. These measures may result in the market price of Shares being higher than would otherwise have been the case. Moreover, the market price may temporarily be at an unsustainable level.

Solely for the purposes of the product governance requirements contained within: (a) EU Directive 2014/65/EU on markets in financial instruments, as amended ("MiFID II"); (b) Articles 9 and 10 of Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 supplementing MiFID II; and (c) local implementing measures (together, the "MiFID II Product Governance Requirements"), and disclaiming all and any liability, whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise, which any "manufacturer" (for the purposes of the MiFID II Product Governance Requirements) may otherwise have with respect thereto, the Shares have been subject to a product approval process, which has determined that such Shares are: (i) compatible with an end target market of retail investors and investors who meet the criteria of professional clients and eligible counterparties, each as defined in MiFID II; and (ii) eligible for distribution through all distribution channels as are permitted by MiFID II (the "Target Market Assessment"). Notwithstanding the Target Market Assessment, distributors should note that: the price of the Shares may decline and investors could lose all or part of their investment; the Shares offer no guaranteed income and no capital protection; and an investment in the Shares is compatible only with investors who do not need a guaranteed income or capital protection, who (either alone or in conjunction with an appropriate financial or other adviser) are capable of evaluating the merits and risks of such an investment and who have sufficient resources to be able to bear any losses that may result therefrom. The Target Market Assessment is without prejudice to the requirements of any contractual, legal or regulatory selling restrictions in relation to the offering. For the avoidance of doubt, the Target Market Assessment does not constitute: (a) an assessment of suitability or appropriateness for the purposes of MiFID II; or (b) a recommendation to any investor or group of investors to invest in, or purchase, or take any other action whatsoever with respect to the Shares. Each distributor is responsible for undertaking its own target market assessment in respect of the Shares and determining appropriate distribution channels.

The date of the admission to trading of shares of SCHOTT Pharma on the regulated market segment (regulierter Markt) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierborse) with simultaneous admission to the sub-segment of the regulated market with additional post-admission obligations (Prime Standard) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierborse) (together, the "Admission") may be influenced by things such as market conditions. There is no guarantee that Admission will occur and no financial decision should be based on the intentions of SCHOTT Pharma in relation to Admission at this stage. Acquiring investments to which this release relates may expose an investor to a significant risk of losing all of the amount invested. Persons considering making such investments should consult an authorized person specializing in advising on such investments. This release does not constitute a recommendation concerning the Offering. The value of shares can decrease as well as increase. Potential investors should consult a professional advisor as to the suitability of the Offering for the person concerned.
Its not easy to imagine Jesus as the Lamb of God. For one thing, animal sacrifice is so foreign to our modern minds. We can easily imagine Jesus as a powerful preacher and resurrected man, but a slain lamb is harder to think of when you think of Christ.

But to His followers, those three words, declared in the context of their Jewish history, revealed worlds to them about the character and fate of the One whom they were giving up their lives for. To understand Jesus as the Lamb of God, we must put ourselves in the mindset of a first-century Jew. In doing so, we will get a fuller picture of Jesuss sacrifice on the cross, to which He went like a lamb that is led to slaughter (Isaiah 53:7).

Who First Calls Jesus the Lamb of God?

We first read of Jesus being referred to as the Lamb of God in the gospel of John when John the Baptist sees Christ and declares, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).

But the picture of Christ as a lamb did not originate in Johns imagination. Centuries earlier, Isaiah prophesied about what would be required for our freedom. Gods Servant is central to the prophetic vision: a man despised and abandoned, oppressed and afflicted, bearing the sins of many (Isaiah 53:3, 7, 12).

Isaiah vividly described how He would be like a lamb that is led to slaughter, silently bearing the punishment we deserve. When Isaiah likened Him to a lamb being led to slaughter, he painted a picture that was all too familiar to his audience. For centuries, lambs had been routinely offered up to God as a sacrifice. That practice continued when Jesus walked the earth when John could be heard calling out to Him, Behold, the Lamb of God! Thus, the allusion to Isaiahs prophetic pronouncement and the significance of a slaughtered lamb would not have been lost on the people who heard Johns cry.

What Kind of Sacrifices Did Jews Use Lambs For?

Exodus 7-12 describes a series of events known as the 10 plagues, dealt out against the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites. Before the night of the final plague, God had instructions on how to protect themselves from the destroyer who would take the lives of the firstborn sons in every home who chose not to obey God.

Following Gods instructions, they selected a lamb without defect, slaughtered it at twilight, sprinkled its blood on their doorpost, roasted the lambs flesh, and ate it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Ex. 12:1-8).

After being freed from Egypt, the Israelites commemorated Passover yearly with a lamb. They remembered their liberation from the forces of evil which had held them captive.

Lambs were also used daily for burnt offerings. Every morning and every evening, a spotless lamb was offered to Yahweh at the temple in Jerusalem (Ex. 29:38-42). Burnt offerings were the most common offering practiced within the Mosaic Law. They acted as a means of general atonement, allowing an unholy people to remain in relationship with a holy God. The daily offerings constantly reminded them of their need for Gods mercy and willingness to give it. They did not cleanse the people of their sins nor make them holy, but they provided a means by which they could dwell with God.

When Christ was sacrificed as the one perfect Lamb, He fulfilled the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:31: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah

Unlike the old covenant, in which sacrifices had to be offered daily, Jesus one sacrifice was sufficient for the continual forgiveness of sins. Moreover, what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3).

The law, with all of its sacrifices, could not make people clean. It could not give them new hearts. Only Christ could do thatthrough His sacrifice on the cross as the spotless Lamb of God.

Did Jesus  s Audience Expect Him to be the Lamb of God?

Knowing the prophecy that all of the Jews would have been familiar with and witnessing John the Baptists readiness to refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, one would assume that it would have been no surprise to the men and women who Jesus focused much of His ministry on that He was to be sacrificed like a lamb led to slaughter. Not if they took their professed beliefs seriously, at least. And yet, even John questioned whether or not Jesus was the real deal when His ministry did not align with Johns expectations (Matthew 11:3).

Despite the prophetic vision of a coming Messiah who would have to suffer and die for His people, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was not what people anticipated or hoped for. They wanted a powerful warrior, a mighty King. Someone who would rule according to their wishes. Someone to eviscerate their enemies. Not someone to die for them.

It was not until after His resurrection, when Jesus opened the minds of His disciples, that they understood His death had been written into their history from the beginning (Luke 24:44-46). Countless moments in the gospel narratives attest to their blindness. In all of these instances, Jesus could not fit into the mold that their biases had created.

In one example, while walking with James and John, Jesus confronted their assumptions about His intentions. Do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? They asked, referring to the Samaritans that had just refused to receive Christ. Rebuking their hard hearts, Jesus responded, the Son of Man did not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them (Luke 9:54, 56). They evidently did not understand His mission.

In another instance, Jesus spoke to His disciples about His coming death and met with pushback from Peter: God, forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You (Matthew 16:22). Peter clearly could not conceive of His Master being led like a lamb to the slaughter. After years of ministering side by side, Jesus intimate friends were confused by his attempts to forewarn His coming crucifixion (John 16:18). How could one die victoriously?

The time came that Isaiahs words were realized, and Jesus was led to slaughter. His disciples still did not understand what was happeningPeter denied him three times.

After his resurrection, Jesus crossed paths with some of His disciples. They did not recognize their risen Savior. When Jesus asked why they were mourning, they told Him about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people. And how the chief priests and rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. Then they lamented, We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel (Luke 24:19-21). Jesus told them they had misunderstood the prophets words about the Messiah.

Had they truly believed the words of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44), had they humbled themselves and laid aside their preconceived notions to accept Christ as He had revealed Himself to them, then His death would not have come as such a grievous surprise. Had they truly put their hope in what was written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:46), then even His death could have been reason for hope.

Who is the Lamb of God in Revelation?

Nowhere else in Scripture will you find the Lamb referenced more often than in the book of Revelation. As is true of all references to the Lamb of God in Scripture, Jesus is being spoken about. No longer, though, do we see Him slaughtered, crucified on a cross. In Johns prophetic vision, Jesus more closely reflected the glorious ruler that His followers had anticipated. Rather than a wounded body, laboring for breath on a tree, John saw a lamb standing, as if slaughtered, triumphantly on His throne (Rev. 5:6). All around Him the angels declared Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing (Rev. 5:12), and all created beings on heaven and earth shouted forth to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion forever and ever (Rev. 5:13).

In this very chapter, the portrait of Christ is painted by two other vivid descriptors. He is called the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah and the root of David. Both of these titles can be found all over the Old Testament, giving us a better understanding of why first-century Jews might have been anticipating a more ferocious warrior, a lion laying in wait for its prey.

But they did not understand that the forces that needed conquering were not from without (formidable armies or barbaric leaders) but from within (the evil running through each persons blood). They were not physical but spiritual. The ruler and authorities whom Jesus disarmed and put to open shame (Col. 2:15) were the forces of evil that reigned before His coming through each persons enslavement to sin. To defeat the darkness, He needed to set captives free. The Lion of Judah conquered the blood of the Lamb.

Photo Credit:  iStock/Getty Images Plus/kevron2001

Meghan Trapp earned her Masters of Arts in Applied Theology from Heartland School in Ministry in Kansas City in 2021, and is now joyfully staying home to raise her daughter. When she is not reading childrens books or having tea parties, Meghan is volunteering with a local anti-trafficking organization, riding bikes with her family, writing or reading (most likely Amy Carmichael or C.S. Lewis). Her deepest passion is to share the heart of Christ with teenagers and young adults.

This article is part of our People from the Bible Series featuring the most well-known historical names and figures from Scripture. We have compiled these articles to help you study those whom God chose to set before us as examples in His Word. May their lives and walks with God strengthen your faith and encourage your soul.

The Bible Story of Elijah

The Life of Ruth - 5 Essential Faith Lessons

The Bible Story of Queen Esther

The Greatest Villain - King Nebuchadnezzar

The Bible Story of Mary Magdalene

Related podcast:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Salem Web Network and Salem Media Group.

If youve ever felt like Jesus couldnt love you, then please keep reading. The Bible is filled with unlikely people Jesus loved. Has life tarnished you, and perhaps you feel unworthy of Gods love? I certainly didnt live a saints life, but I believe God forgave me and loves me. I just didnt understand the depth of His love, nor the power of it.

While all of us can be unlikely candidates for the love of Christ, we will focus on the unlikely people Jesus loved.

Video Stock Footage & Music Courtesy of Soundstripe.com Thumbnail by Getty Images.
Esther 4:14

For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time

And will not speak to the king in favour of the Jews, because of the danger she would be exposed to in doing it:

then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from

another place;

Mordecai seemed confident of it, that by some means or another the Jews would be delivered; if not through the intercession of Esther, yet from some other quarter, or by some other hand:

but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed;

for such neglect of the people of God when in distress, want of pity to them, and not exerting herself as she might in their behalf; so that seeing she and her family must perish, it was better to perish in a good cause than in a bad one:

and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as

this?

he intimates that he believed that the providence of God had raised her to that dignity, that she might be an instrument of saving his people in the time of their distress; and this he said to encourage her to make the experiment.
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The 61st D&AD Annual , a free digital resource showcasing all shortlisted and winning work of 2023 has launched.

Image supplied. The 61st D&AD Annual has launched and features a trends report

This years Annual features:

Interviews with winners and industry leaders exploring major cultural themes.



Curations of the judges' favourite work and their opinions on the most talked-about entries.



Letters from D&AD CEO Jo Jackson and the 2022/23 D&AD president, Richard Brim.

Annual trend report

In addition, in this edition, D&AD goes even more in-depth than ever before with an Annual Trend Report providing an analytical observation of todays global creative industry.

Behind the Work interviews offer an insight into how the work was made, from the inside story on the development of Vogue Brazils award-winning Typeface to Muskrat Magazine and BBDO Canada casting culturally sensitive projects and preserving the past by rewriting Pocahontas.

D&AD Voices provides broader context and perspectives on key ideas in this year's winning work, such as how AI is raising new and age-old questions about photography, how brands and advertisers are responding to consumer climate anxiety, and perspectives on colour theory, branding ubiquity, healthcare design, and more.

Six trends

Shaped by shifts in the wider world and pointing towards whats coming next, six trends are unpacked in the report.

These are:

Joyful surrealism



Open-source casting



Ownable Iconicity



Augmentation for all



Preserving the past



Pay it forward

Creative work that surprises and thrills

Joyful surrealism explores creative work that surprises and thrills, transporting audiences to unexpected worlds with engaging, surreal concepts.

This was demonstrated in Black Pencil-winning work Pharrell Williams - Cash In Cash Out, a music video pushing the creative boundaries of video production with a realistic fantasy world created entirely through CGI. This trend shows if you tap into awe and joy, you will reach consumers seeking escape, creating goose-bump-inducing effects that will engage audiences.

Anti-perfection in an imperfect world

Open-source casting is the trend for casting real people. Presenting authentic and socially inclusive depictions of society reflects anti-perfection in an imperfect world. Pencil-winning work tore down societal barriers to inclusivity. Lacoste knows its community is not defined by demographics; its formed of diverse social groups and subcultures.

Unexpected Encounters by BETC Paris drew on this with an authentic and bold campaign shot by Irish photographer Ronan Gallagher. The refreshing use of casting brings strangers, from infants to octogenarians, to meet in surprising moments, united by a piece of clothing bearing the iconic Lacoste crocodile emblem.

Overall findings are clear that the TikTokification of social media means audiences now expect real-life, unfiltered content.

Future focus: AI

In 2023, the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence (AI) as a creative co-pilot were entertained.

Coca-Cola Masterpiece took home a Yellow Pencil and two Graphite Pencils for its groundbreaking application of AI, with a two-minute fizzy film explosion set in a gallery where Andy Warhols 1962 artwork Large Coca-Cola comes to life.

Although not yet widespread, the jury predicts that AI will be a dominating trend next year. If 2023 was the year of experimentation, 2024 will be the year of refined sophistication. The report looks at how AI is developing a presence at the Awards, and predictions on how it will develop in the creative industry.

Educational and inspirational resource

The D&AD Annual continues to serve as an educational and inspirational resource for both emerging and established creatives. The recent digitalisation of the Annual means the latest editions have been widely accessible, reaching over 200,000 users.

Free to access

The Annual is free to access to all and is now available to view via the D&AD website. With 300+ world-leading designers, advertising experts and skilled creatives casting their eye over a record number of more than 12,000 entries from 70+ countries, D&AD is in a unique position to truly understand the industry today.

Created with The Thought Partnership, the Trend Report examines emerging themes that dominated the D&AD Pencil winners in 2023. It distils the catalogue of insights gathered from the jury rooms as well as the impact of wider cultural and societal shifts in the world at large.

Read the full D&AD Annual Trend Report here.
Business is experiencing strong growth in the Cape Town's Central City with 135 new entities opening in 2022, bringing the total number of businesses to 3,116 compared with 2,981 in the previous year. Retail showed impressive growth in spite of consumer's facing challenging times, with 80 new retailers included in the new-business mix.

This is one of the key findings of the State of Cape Town Central City Report 2022  A year in review (SCCR), released by the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID). The report provides extensive evidence of an investment-friendly CBD, with local government pushing growth through a comprehensive Ease of Doing Business strategy.

The robust post-pandemic recovery included growth in at least 10 of the 17 sectors that do business in the CCIDs 1.6km2 footprint in the Cape Town CBD, on which the report is based.

Rob Kane, chairperson of the CCID and CEO of Boxwood Property Fund, says, The CBDs remarkable recovery is a testament to the resilience and adaptability of business owners. Its heartening to see how their hard work, innovation and passion has paid off post-Covid-19. The inner city remains a source of niche retailers with authentic offerings that attract the interest of local, national, and international visitors and investors.

Business confidence

Confidence among business owners in the CBD has also remained consistently high despite the countrys economic woes, according to the report, which published the full 2022 results of the CCIDs quarterly Business Confidence Index.

In the latest survey, done in Q3 of 2023, 87.5 % of the business owners who responded said they were satisfied with current business conditions. While this is marginally less than the 90.5 % recorded in Q2 of 2023, it remains elevated and way above the 51 % of business owners who said they were satisfied with prevailing conditions in Q4 of 2021.

Most respondents (62.7 %) indicated that they did not plan to make any adjustments to their businesses during the year ahead, the survey showed that a growing number of respondents were planning on increasing staff numbers and extending their trading hours.

Retail mix

The Central City retail mix comprises destination establishments, including award-winning restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. The report, which reflects on a full year in review, showed that the retail economy  the CBDs largest sector  rebounded in 2022, with retail occupancy levels rising.

The retail sector has recovered steadily since the pandemic, notes Kane, and in 2022 the number of retailers in the Cape Town CBD had returned to pre-Covid levels, with six more entities than in 2019.

Of the 3,116 businesses in 2022, 1,243 were retail establishments. In 2022, 80 new retailers opened their doors in the inner city in 2022. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, there were 1 237.

The top retail sectors in 2022 were health & beauty (which grew by 16 entities) and coffee shops & cafes (which also grew by 16 entities).

The majority of business owners (60.2 %) felt that business activity had almost fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Non-retail on the rebound

After retail, the second-largest sector is legal services (which includes law firms and advocates). In this sector, 26 new businesses opened in the CBD, bringing the total number to 681. In 2021 there were 655. This bodes well for the return to the CBD of office workers as does the fact that the number of medical practices in the inner city grew from 228 to 246 in 2022, says Kane.

There was also an increase in the number of general corporates and head offices opening up in the CBD in 2022 with the number of entities growing by nine to 72.

Ease of doing business

The CBDs business-friendly reputation affirms the success of the City of Cape Towns mission to make Cape Town the easiest place to do business in Africa. Kane says, Local government is making moves in the right direction to facilitate successful business investment in the CBD and greater city metropole. The strategy is already paying dividends as seen in the progress and growth of myriad industries.

The Citys Ease-of-Doing-Business Index tracks its progress to create conditions that allow businesses to flourish. These conditions include fostering a culture of business-friendliness at every level, leveraging the latest technology to improve service delivery, forging public-private growth partnerships in priority industries, ensuring a sustainable pipeline of well-positioned commercial and industrial land to develop a quality-built environment, and ensuring regulations align with business interests.

The strategy focuses on areas like urban mobility, safety and security, water, economic growth, energy and more to deliver on its goals, with a clear view of the citys progress throughout the journey. The purpose is to build a thriving business community to cement Cape Town as a city of hope for all, according to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

Kane concludes, Theres no doubt that business is booming in Cape Towns Central City. With a reputation as a world-class destination to stay and play, do business and invest, the business-friendly CBD is an attractive investment opportunity. We salute business owners and will continue to play our part, as the CCID, to support by ensuring the CBD remains the most successful in the country.
Wahed Khan, co-owner of an export-oriented wine brand in Robertson has been appointed as the non-executive board chair for Wines of South Africa (WoSA). He takes over from marketing expert Carina Gous, who served in this role for a period of six years.

Khan, who has a background in finance and operations, has been a member of WoSAs board since 2020.

Experience

Said WoSA CEO Siobhan Thompson: Wahed brings wide-ranging skills and experience in production, operations, market development and culture change and management. His focus is on conceiving and executing strategies designed to enhance value-chain integration.

He combines business acumen with personal integrity, compassion and optimism, and is very generous in sharing his knowledge.

Khan left the packaging sector, where he built his reputation on large-scale turnaround projects, to enter the wine industry in 2012. He did so to join his wife Bunty in Cape Dreams Wines, the venture that she had established just a few years earlier and was ready to expand.

The couple currently exports to 20 countries worldwide with a footprint across well-established and nascent wine markets, targeting on-consumption, retail and e-commerce channels. Cape Dreams featured on Tim Atkins MW 2021 South Africa Special Report roll of honour, when its Chardonnay was rated the countrys Best Value White.

Confidence

He said the confidence and trust the WoSA board had expressed in him was a great honour but equally, a great responsibility. I hope to contribute to wine industry growth, stability, and sustainability by prioritising end-to-end integration of the value chain.

He stressed value-driven transformation would form a strong part of the focus.

South Africas wine industry has made significant headway in becoming more demand-driven and customer-centric, and more economically and socially inclusive, but there is still urgent work to be done all round to enhance our agility.

Internationally, wine consumption is entering a new momentum as consumers gravitate towards more mindful drinking for reasons of personal health, environmental impact, and ethical awareness. Wine lovers are drinking less but better.

To enhance our position and competitiveness in the global market, we need to reimagine our industry as one entire value chain competing against the similarly integrated value chains of each of our competitor countries.
SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) has developed a series of Falcon SLV (Satellite Launch Vehicles) rockets that are cheaper, more reliable and available in so many configurations that no other SLV manufacturer can compete. While some major SLV users, like China, continue to use older SLV technology but have developed, but not successfully used, a reusable rocket similar to Falcon. As of early September, Falcon SLVs have carried out 63 successful launches. The means a launch, on average, every four days. In all of 2022 there were only 61 launches.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 returns to earth and lands intact. This first stage is reusable and SpaceX has its reusability technology to the point where booster rockets can be recovered, refurbished and reused up to 20 times. Already, many boosters are being reused at least ten times. Each refurbishment costs about $500,000 and performs as well as a new booster. This reduces the cost per launch from $62 million to about $30 million, and gives SpaceX a major advantage against the competition. The SpaceX reusable rockets currently reduce costs by more than half and have forced American and foreign launch providers to try and come up with something that can compete. SpaceX has been using its reusable first stage tech successfully for ten years and that track record has caused most SLV providers to lose business. Even American startups like Blue Origin and Rocket Lab failed to create viable competition for SpaceX. Several foreign nations, including China, are trying to emulate SpaceX, but so far have not been successful.

SpaceX is a non-government operation that takes the lead and does not fear failure. The early development of Falcon was full of expensive failures that eventually, and rather quickly produced a cheaper and more reliable series of SLVs. The American competition, and some foreign government owned companies, were unable to compete.

Economic disruptions created by the current Russian invasion of Ukraine had some beneficial effects. Two examples are the accelerated demise of the American ULA (United Launch Alliance) monopoly and the elimination of Roscosmos, the Russian government organization controlling all space program activities, as major competitors for new companies like SpaceX.

ULA was already in trouble before the invasion. In 2006 veteran space program suppliers Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed a legal cartel that monopolized satellite launch services for the U.S. government. After 2006 all this business was to go to a government-approved monopoly called the ULA which gets Atlas 5 SLVs (Satellite Launch Vehicles) from Lockheed Martin and Delta 4 SLVs from Boeing. These two firms have dominated U.S. space launches for over half a century and in 2006 they monopolized it. But not for long, as the future arrived unexpectedly in the form of SpaceX, a new firm that required no guaranteed government contracts or any government subsidies and did what ULA did but faster and cheaper.

If you want speed of launch after a request is made, there is Firefly Aerospace and its Alpha rocket. This 54-t0n rocket can carry a 1.1-ton payload into a 200 kilometers LEO (Low Earth Orbit) or a 630 kg payload into a 500 kilometer SSO (Sun Synchronous Orbit). The body of the Alpha rocket is made of composites, which are lighter and reduce the fuel needed. Alpha has demonstrated that it can be kept standing by, unfueled, but be fueled, payload added to the second stage and launched within 24 hours. Normally it takes at least a week, and usually longer to carry out a launch. Using solid fuel rockets for quick launch limits payload weight because liquid fueled rockets can carry more weight into orbit. Despite that, some retired ballistic missiles have been used successfully for quick satellite launches.

Russia has tried this, but the state-owned Roscosmos has been a monopoly since 2015 when it absorbed the few remaining space program entities it did not already control. One item Roscosmos and ULA had in common was the Russian RD-180 rocket engine, which is used for both the Atlas and Delta SLVs. The Atlas SLV is retiring in a few years and the ULA already received all the RD-180 rockets needed for its remaining Atlas SLV launches. This was demanded by Congress after the 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine.

The ULA monopoly is not absolute. Since 2013 NASA has been using the Antares SLV from Northrup-Grumman, a veteran aerospace firm that was getting back into the SLV business via this medium sized rocket. Antares uses RD-181 rockets, which consist of components made in Russia and Ukraine. Russia is now banned from supplying its RD-181 components while the two Ukrainian firms that build RD-181 components have been attacked by Russian missiles during the current invasion and may undergo more such attacks. One of those Ukrainian firms also produced the RD-843 rockets for upper stages of European Vega SLVs. Russia has threatened to cease all cooperation on supporting the ISS, but quietly suggested that a deal was possible if adjustments were made to the economic sanctions recently inflicted on Russia because of its current Ukraine invasion.

Russian threats have accelerated efforts by American and European firms to build supply and crew capsules to replace the Soyuz capsules. SpaceX has already developed a cargo capsule that has been in regular use since 2010 and its crew capsule was recently approved for regular use.
The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education has adopted the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill.

In a statement on Tuesday, committee chairperson, Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba, said this brings the bill, which has been more than 20 years in the making, in line with continuing the transformation agenda of the basic education sector.

Some of the proposals that were adopted in the bill include making Grade R the new compulsory school-starting age; penalties for parents who do not ensure that their children are in school and confirmation that corporal punishment is no longer allowed at schools, with penalties for those found guilty of such offences.

Mbinqo-Gigaba said during voting on the bill, the majority of members of the committee voted in support of the bill, while three members voted against the adoption of the bill.

Mbinqo-Gigaba said the proposed amendments are to align the bill with developments in the education landscape and to ensure that systems of learning are put in place in a manner that gives effect to the right to basic education, as enshrined in section 29(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.

She emphasised that the committee extensively deliberated on all clauses of the bill.

In some instances, all members of the committee agreed that certain proposed amendments did not belong in the bill and ensured that they were removed, whereas in other instances, the committee vigorously debated clauses which saw the majority of members of the committee agreeing to retention of such clauses. This is all to ensure that we better the education landscape of the next generation.

The committee held extensive public hearings across the country. We heard oral submissions in Parliament from stakeholders and thousands of written submissions were considered when debating and drafting this legislation, Mbinqo-Gigaba said.

In terms of language policy, the amendment states that the governing body must submit the language policy of a public school and any amendment thereof to the Head of Department (HOD) for approval.

The language policy must also take into consideration the language needs of the broader community. The committee further adopted the proposed amendment that the Head of Department, after consultation with the governing body of the school, has the final authority to admit a learner to a public school.

The contentious proposed amendment, regarding home education, was partially agreed to. This amendment provided for the HOD to, when considering an application, require a delegated official to conduct a pre-registration site visit.

It was agreed that the said site visits can happen at any place of choice, should parents not agree to such visits at their homes. Furthermore, a report at the end of each phase will now be required by a qualified educator or assessor to prove the competency of the learner in that phase, the committee said.

Some proposed amendments were scraped in totality. The proposed amendment regarding the sale of alcohol on school premises after hours during functions did not get support from the committee.

The proposed amendment dealing with members of a governing body, who must disclose on an annual basis all their financial interests and the financial interests of their spouse, partner and immediate family members also did not garner support and was deemed too onerous an administrative task.

The bill and the report of the committee will now be referred to the National Assembly for debate and consideration.
This latest round of Career Fairs is aimed at high school learners, particularly matric and grade 11 students, as they embark on their higher education journey. Eduvos understands that it is only the first step in its students career journey, and therefore wants prospective students to understand the career paths available to them and what qualifications they will need to get there.

With the goal of providing valuable insights and resources to young learners, Eduvos is proud to offer a unique opportunity for students to engage directly with industry professionals. The Career Fairs will feature experts from various companies in different fields, who will share their personal experiences, expertise, and knowledge about potential career paths. This interactive platform will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of what various professions entail and what it takes to succeed in them.

The primary objective of Eduvos' Career Fairs is to equip students with the information they need to make informed decisions about their future studies. Attendees will have the chance to learn about the educational requirements and pathways to pursue their chosen careers.

The employability of our students is a core focus at Eduvos. We are committed to equipping our students with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in their chosen careers. By opening our Career Fairs to prospective students, we are offering them a glimpse into the transformative power of education and how Eduvos can help them succeed, says Eduvos head of campuses and customer experience, Kevin Lazarus.

Eduvos staff members will be on hand to provide guidance and information about the over 27 qualifications on offer at Eduvos. Prospective students can explore the various academic programmes available to them, ensuring they have the tools necessary to make choices that align with their career aspirations. Students scared that they might not have the necessary marks for a certain degree can find out more about Eduvoss one-year higher certificate courses and pre-degree foundation programmes.

Higher education is a critical stepping stone for individuals striving to reach their full potential. Individuals with a higher education qualification, on average, earn 50% more than workers with only a secondary education attainment. Eduvos firmly believes that investing in education is not only an investment in an individual's future but also in Africa's economy as a whole. By providing quality education and guidance to young learners, Eduvos is contributing to the development of a highly skilled and empowered workforce, which is essential for the growth and prosperity of the continent.

Eduvos invites all high school learners, parents, and educators to participate in these informative and inspirational Career Fairs. The events will be held at all 12 Eduvos campuses nationwide on 6 and 7 October 2023. Attendees can expect a day filled with career exploration, valuable insights, and opportunities to connect with industry professionals.

About Eduvos

Eduvos is one of South Africas largest private higher education institutions with 12 campuses nationwide. They offer over 27 fully accredited qualifications, internationally recognised.

Eduvos acknowledges that the world of work is constantly changing, and innovative technologies are disrupting industries. For this reason, Eduvos is constantly updating its curriculum, academic offerings and campus spaces to meet the ever-changing demands of the world of work and to prepare students to be future-ready. The institution equips its students with the current and relevant skills and knowledge they will need to prosper in their careers.

Prospective students can still enrol for the fourth and final intake of 2023, starting 2 October. Alternatively, prospective students, including matriculants, can pre-enrol and reserve their seat for 2024.

Media are more than welcome to attend the event. For press enquiries, contact Kara van der Berg at moc.sovude@grebdv.arak

Find Eduvos online:

Website: eduvos.com

Twitter: @edu_vos

Instagram: @eduvoseducation

YouTube: noitacudEsovudE@/moc.ebutuoy
Christian Scherer has been appointed the dedicated head of its commercial aircraft business for Airbus SE (AIR).

Source:  Airbus Airbus Christian Scherer has been appointed the dedicated head of its commercial aircraft business for Airbus

Since 2019, the leadership roles of Airbus and its commercial aircraft business have been combined, providing alignment and speed of execution during a period of multiple crises and change.

Airbus has now put itself on a clear trajectory in line with its purpose of Pioneering sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world, says Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO.

Empowering Scherer in the commercial aircraft CEO role will enable us to reinforce a focus on the success of our commercial aircraft business while allowing me to dedicate my time to steering Airbus in a complex and fast-evolving global environment, he explains.

Scherer and I have been working hand in hand over the last five years and we will continue to do so in this new configuration. I admire Scherers business acumen and Im happy to move forward with him to deliver on Airbus ambitions, adds Faury.

At the service of customers

It is an honour and a thrill to be called upon to lead our commercial aircraft business at such a critical time for our industry, says Scherer.

Ill put my passion and that of Team Airbus at the service of our customers to meet our operational objectives as we work to consolidate our success, continuously improve, and prepare the future of our products and services.

As we do so, we will work closely with our partners and suppliers worldwide on our common roadmap to decarbonise aviation, he adds.

This new organisational set-up will be established in the next months in collaboration with the companys social partners, with a target go-live in project mode from 1 January 2024 onwards.
Africa has long been a sought-after destination for leisure travellers and in recent years, a growing trend has emerged, demonstrating that business tourism in Africa is making significant contributions to the continent's overall tourism GDP...

Africa, known for its breath-taking landscapes, rich cultural heritage, and diverse wildlife, has long been a sought-after destination for leisure travellers. However, in recent years, a growing trend has emerged, demonstrating that business tourism in Africa is making significant contributions to the continent's overall tourism GDP.

In fact, tourism  both business and leisure  showed a sizable surge of 78.2% in the first half of 2023 on arrivals to South Africa when compared to the same period in 2022 with the latest reports showing that business spending represents a share of 43% of overall tourism contributions.

This development reflects the increasing recognition of Africa's potential as a hub for international conferences, conventions, and corporate events. This remarkable growth can be attributed to several factors that have combined to make Africa an increasingly attractive destination for business travellers, says Devi Paulsen-Abbott, chairperson of the Association of African Exhibition Organisers.

According to Paulsen-Abbott, there are five key factors contributing to the rise of business tourism in Africa:

1. Infrastructure investment

African countries have made substantial investments in infrastructure development, such as modern airports, state-of-the-art convention centres, and top-notch hotels. These facilities have enhanced the continent's capacity to host large-scale business events, conferences, and exhibitions.

2. Improved connectivity

Enhanced connectivity through expanded flight routes and airline networks has made it easier for international business travellers to access African destinations. Major airlines have increased their services to African cities, providing convenience for corporate travellers.

3. Political stability

The continent's political stability in many regions has fostered an environment conducive to hosting international business events. This stability has increased confidence among organisers and attendees alike.

4. Economic growth

Africa's emerging economies and growing middle class have attracted more business investment. As a result, the continent has become an attractive location for global companies to expand their operations, leading to an influx of business travellers.

5. Cultural diversity

Africa's diverse cultures and unique experiences are increasingly incorporated into corporate events and conferences. This blend of business and cultural experiences adds to the allure of the continent.

As business travellers explore African destinations, they often extend their stays to explore the continent's natural beauty and cultural heritage, contributing to the growth of leisure tourism as well.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the travel and tourism sector contributed 7.6% to global GDP last year alone - an increase of 22% from 2021 and only 23% below 2019 levels  showcasing the contribution of business tourism on the global GDP.

Business tourism has also led to job creation and economic empowerment in local communities which has a ripple effect on various sectors, including hospitality, transportation, and local businesses, thereby fostering sustainable economic development.

Industry experts and stakeholders see this trend continuing in the coming years, with Africa poised to become a premier destination for international business events. Governments and tourism authorities across the continent are recognising the potential of business tourism and are actively working to attract more conferences and conventions, adds Paulsen-Abbott.

Africa's rising prominence in the world of business tourism signifies a new era for the continent, one in which it plays a pivotal role in shaping the global business landscape while sharing its unique cultural and natural treasures with the world.
This past Heritage Day, in addition to Bokomo celebrating South African culture in South Africa, it also reached out to South Africans living abroad - to make sure they start their day in a truly South African way - with Bokomo cereal.

Image supplied. This Heritage Day, Bokomo delivered free cereal to South Africans living in the UK

Bokomo marketing manager Diyaana Allie explains, We are celebrating our diverse community of South Africans living in the UK. We want to ensure that they can relive the tastes and memories of home and by delivering our cereal for free, we hope to add a sprinkle of South African joy to their day."

The SA cereal brand that has been bringing the taste of home to South Africans for generations and is a household name, offered a number of lucky South Africans living in the UK free cereal by whatsapp Hi to its Bokomo number.

Allie adds: "At Bokomo, we understand the deep connection South Africans have with their homeland and we recognise the importance of maintaining those cultural ties, especially on Heritage Day.

"That's why we're thrilled to bring the flavour of South Africa to the UK this year. Our aim is to provide a taste of home, a moment of nostalgia and a sense of togetherness for our fellow Saffas living abroad."

Bokomo's Message to South Africans in the UK says: Maybe you don't miss load shedding, but we know you're missing the comforting taste of Bokomo. Well, we're bringing it to you, Saffas, right to your doorstep. Happy Heritage Day. Bokomo is good for every kind of South African, even those who don't live on home soil. Our delivery team is en route, and we'll see you soon.

The moment was captured by Saffas, who tagged the brand on Instragram and Facebook.
In the current climate, the pursuit of healthier, more contented workplaces has evolved from a mere luxury to an absolute imperative. Research indicates that corporations that prioritise enhancing employee wellbeing not only yield greater profits but also attract loftier valuations. This change in thinking is expressed in ongoing trends such as the "Great Resignation", "Quiet Quitting", and the persistent influence of COVID-19 on employee mental health.

The economic impact of mental health

The undeniable link between employee stress and productivity levels has been well-established. Poor mental health can significantly impact a businesss bottom line, with studies revealing that it costs the South African economy up to R200bn annually.

These costs manifest through absenteeism, presenteeism (working while ill), and high staff turnover. Employers often observe decreased productivity levels in highly stressed employees, leading to issues such as reduced motivation, diminished creativity, lack of innovation, and difficulty concentrating.

Moreover, stress does not stop at the individual level; it permeates through entire organisations. High-stress environments can harm team morale, trigger communication breakdowns, and initiate a vicious cycle of falling productivity, increased pressure, and heightened stress levels, all of which impact overall business performance.

Modern problems require modern solutions

To address this critical issue, businesses must implement strategies to reduce stress and prioritise mental health as a cornerstone of their corporate wellness programs.

Companies in the tech-driven financial services sector are advocating for initiatives such as flexible work hours, remote work opportunities, and access to counselling services through Employee Assistance Programs.

These measures aim to support employees in effectively managing their stress. In a time where workplace dynamics are rapidly transforming, these companies are at the forefront of redefining employee wellbeing.

YuLife is at the forefront of this transformation, advocating that employee wellbeing should not only be an important consideration, but it is now a business imperative, says Jaco Oosthuizen, managing director of YuLife South Africa and co-founder of the YuLife group.

We believe that employee benefits can play a pivotal role in creating workplaces of the future. This happens by creating comprehensive employee benefits packages, which include robust mental health support and demonstrate an employer's commitment to their team's financial, mental, physical and social wellbeing, he continues.

Create an environment of psychological safety

In addition to tangible initiatives, creating an environment of psychological safety is paramount. Businesses are encouraged to cultivate a vulnerable environment where open dialogue around mental health is encouraged.

This assists in reducing the stigma around mental health and will help to foster an atmosphere where employees feel comfortable discussing their mental health without fear of judgment.

The role of technology in promoting wellbeing is also emphasised. Digital tools and apps can facilitate stress management, offering mindfulness practices, cognitive behavioural therapy techniques, and sleep aid strategies.
Transformational journeys often lead to unexpected destinations. This rings true for Naledi Gallant, founder of Dalitso Consulting . With a background in accounting and auditing, her initial career path took an unexpected turn when she found herself in the recruitment space. Today, she shares her story of growth, evolution, and the pivotal role that the Innovator Trust has had in helping her identify technology and human synergy's crucial role in her business journey.

Tech-driven business evolution

Seventeen years ago, Gallants vision centered on becoming a chartered accountant. A brief stint in the equity industry led to a fortuitous encounter with a recruiter who saw potential in her skills beyond finance. Despite her doubts about HR, she ventured into matching talent for the financial services sector.

Working closely with her recruiter mentor for two years, Gallant noticed a significant gap in the market for highly skilled, black-female, chartered accountants, and senior professionals in the financial space. Driven by her passion for connecting people and identifying synergies, she embarked on a journey that would transform the HR landscape in South Africa. From the days of fax machines and physical desktops, the company embraced the digital era and became constantly connected in a 24/7 global marketplace. Technology spearheaded the company's growth, allowing it to expand nationally and eventually beyond African borders.

Gallant reflects on the impact of technology, stating: "Technology has revolutionised how we connect with clients and candidates. It has enabled us to provide numerous opportunities to the financial services sector."

These tools have played a vital role in refining the company's service offerings and engaging with the target audience more personally. "Our use of AI and tech systems helps us tailor our services and engage effectively with our clients and candidates," she notes. Gallant also emphasises that we live in an augmented workforce where technology and humans collaborate more and more seamlessly.

"Undoubtedly, tech plays a significant role in the HR sector. We're utilising various aspects of AI and internal tech systems that help us refine our service offering and engage with our target audience in a more tailored manner. These tools have been instrumental in increasing our competitiveness and efficiency. In the future, we aim to integrate AI more deeply into all facets of HR. By harmonising tech and the human touch, we can create a more efficient and empathetic work environment," Gallant explains."

Addressing skills shortages and empowering SMMEs

As a company committed to empowering others, Dalitso Consulting is crucial in addressing the skills shortage in South Africa. By providing practical, hands-on skills training, the company prepares graduates for the rapidly evolving job and technology market and fosters a pool of skilled professionals for SMMEs.

Gallant emphasises: "Skills training is vital in Africa's competitiveness. Empowering SMMEs with skilled employees stimulates economic growth, reduces poverty, and elevates education standards. This is our opportunity to gain massive ground as a continent."

Growth, empowerment, and a global vision

With recent registration in the UAE and plans to establish a presence in all African countries, her dream of becoming a global entity is well underway. The company's mission is to formalise and support SMMEs across Africa, making a tangible difference in people's lives. According to Gallant, the Innovator Trust has enabled that substantial difference: "Being part of their Supplier Development Programme through Vodacom, I've received incredible support that helped me identify and implement the technology and service refinement we needed.

By adopting cutting-edge tech solutions, her company became more competitive and efficient. Enabled by Vodacom, the Innovator Trust's partnership empowered her and her team to leverage technology effectively, ultimately propelling their business to new heights in international markets and fulfilling her vision of becoming a leading HR company on a global scale.

Changing SMMEs through tech and human connections: The power of equality

"Our growth is driven by our commitment to adding value and supporting SMMEs beyond HR services. We focus on creating attractive work environments that care for employees' well-being and work-life balance, which sets us apart. We don't merely find the ideal candidates; we ensure that organisations become the most attractive environments that candidates want to be part of, shares Gallant. While tech brings undeniable advantages, she acknowledges the need for humanising tech. "Tech and human interactions can work hand in hand to build workplaces where everyone feels valued and supported," says Gallant.

Gallant's odyssey from accounting to HR innovation, fuelled by technology's dynamic embrace, is an inspiring testament to the boundless synergy of human vision and digital evolution.

Visit the Dalitso Consulting company website for more information on the products and services available: www.dalitso.co.za.

Women in Tech invites SMMEs to join the Shevolution Movement

Envisioning a world where technology is not only powered by women, but where women power technology.




Japan wants to build two seagoing BMD (ballistic missile defense) ships and is faced with two options. The first, which was discarded, was a ship design that only contained the Aegis BMD radar and Aegis system BMD missiles. That would be the sole purpose of these ships. Instead, Japan decided to build two more Maya-class destroyers with additional BMD capabilities. Japan is calling these modified destroyers ASEVs (Aegis system equipped vessels). This is part of the Japanese effort to expand its ballistic missile defenses. Most of these will still be based on the Aegis system, which is normally installed on large (8,000 tons and up) warships. Japan has eight Aegis anti-missile system destroyers but was unsuccessful in placing Aegis Ashore in Japan. There was too much local civilian opposition. Civilians do not object to Aegis equipped ships. Not all the Japanese Aegis destroyers are the same. There are two Maya-Class ships, two Atagos and four Kongos. By 2030 Japan plans to have twelve Aegis equipped warships. Japan was unsuccessful in getting the ASEV ships built. These are 12,000 -ton ships that are 620 feet long and 82 wide and are armed with 128 VLS cells each containing an antiaircraft or BMD missile. A dozen or so cruise or anti-ship missiles are also carried. ASEV has a crew of 240 and a top speed of 58 kilometers an hour. There is an Aegis radar and fire control system to quickly launch the right missile at targets detected by the radar. Working with the radar is ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) that detects electronic threat and an electronic jammer to disrupt that threat if the chaff and decoys do not work. There is one five-inch gun, and a helicopter flight deck with a hangar for one helicopter.

While the Japanese destroyers are smaller than the ASEV, their armament is more diverse and capabilities more extensive, which requires larger crews, usually 300 sailors. The destroyers are faster, can travel farther from Japan and more expensive to build and operate than the ASEV. Despite that the first two ASEVs will cost more than a destroyer because of development costs. If Japan builds more ASEVs they will be cheaper than destroyers. The Navy would rather have more destroyers because the ASEV is more of an Aegis system platform than a traditional destroyer.

The Maya class destroyers are improved versions of the earlier Atago class. The Mayas also borrow much from the first four Japanese Aegis-ABM ships, the 9,500-ton Kongos, which were built during the 1990s and modeled on the American Burke class Aegis destroyers. The Kongos have 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for anti-aircraft/missile missiles as well as ASROC anti-submarine rockets that carry an anti-submarine torpedo to, in effect, extend the range of the torpedo by 22 kilometers. Japanese Burke type destroyers also carry a five-inch gun and eight Japanese designed anti-ship missiles which are similar to the American Harpoon. The Maya class has 96 VLS cells (as does Atago) as well as more advanced electronics that enable the Mayas to link with the U.S. Navy CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) that allows real-time sharing of sensor and other data in real-time between other CEC equipped ships and even shore-based systems like Aegis Ashore.

The two land-based Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems were not expected to be in service until 2024, but popular opposition caused the ashore program to be terminated. The ASEV was developed to do what Aegis Ashore was intended to do but wont be in service until 2027 and 2028. ASEV can operate from coastal waters or a harbor as well as on the high seas to protect the fleet. ASEV is a more flexible and more expensive, at $2.6 billion each, substitute for the $1.6 billion Aegis Ashore now operational in Romania and Poland.

Japans eight destroyers armed with Aegis anti-missile systems (four Kongos, two Atagos and two Mayas ) and the proposed two ASEVs will give Japan ten Aegis systems, all of them operating from ships. North Korea continues to be a threat and how much more of a ballistic missile threat China becomes is still considered less of a problem now but could escalate in the future. China has a long history of threatening but not acting. North Korea has demonstrated an ability to attack without warning and did so in 2010. North Korea has always been less cooperative than China although the Chinese are still a threat.

What prompted the original Aegis Ashore concept was the Japanese decision, in 2017, that it did not need the more expensive THAAD anti-missile system when it realized that two land-based Aegis systems on the main island could do the same job at less cost. That plus the Aegis equipped destroyers armed with the SM-3A anti-missile missile would enable those two land-based Aegis systems to protect all three of the home islands. Local civilians protested because the missile launches were noisy and the Aegis radar generated a lot of microwave radiation. This forced government officials to oppose the Aegis Ashore and Japan lost the cost savings of a land based system. The expensive ASEV was developed to replace Aegis Ashore.


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Islamic terrorist violence in the north has left nearly 200 dead in the last month. The military government of Mali was dismayed to discover that the expensive Russian mercenaries were unable to deal with the rebels in the far north. Now these Islamic terrorist rebel attacks are moving closer to the capital in the far south. The failure of the Russian mercenaries was partly due to the recent demise of their leaders back in Russia. Soon after the Wagner Group business jet went down in Russia, apparently due to sabotage by the Russian government, a Russian general showed up in Mali to inform the Russian mercenaries and their Mali employers that there were some changes. Wagner Group no longer existed and has been replaced by another mercenary outfit controlled by the Russian government. The general told the Wagner men in Mali that they could continue operating as mercenaries but that the Russian Ministry of Defense would command and pay them. Any men who did not want to work for the new organization could just leave, but not return to Russia, where they might be arrested for criminal behavior in Mali.

Back in Russia, the government has settled its disputes with the Wagner Group by giving Wagner Group personnel overseas a choice of either working for the Russian military or being declared outlaws and no longer have any official or financial connection with the government. The Mali government was informed of this change and advised that it was in Malis interest to deal directly with the Russian government about Russian troops in Mali and requisitions for more weapons and munitions from Russia. Previously the Mali military government used locally mined gold to pay for Russian weapons and the services of Russian mercenaries and soldiers. Mali is a major producer of gold and the Russians have always been willing to accept payments in gold. Russia maintains a huge gold stockpile (about 2,300 tons), the fifth largest in the world. The Russian gold is an emergency fund that is now being tapped to pay for military operations in Ukraine.

The military government in Mali hoped that hiring Russian Wagner Group mercenaries would enable Mali to maintain control of northern and central Mali. These two regions have been under growing attack by Islamic terror groups but the Russians made it worse. The Mali military government is running out of people to blame for the mess they got themselves into. The problems began when the military government ordered the independent French Barkhane counter-terrorism force out of Mali and it was gone by the end of 2021. More recently Mali forced the 15,000 UN peacekeepers to start withdrawing.

The government forced the French and African G5 peacekeepers out by the end of 2021. In 2017 Mali, Chad, Niger, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso agreed to form a new G5 counter-terrorism force that would work in cooperation with the similar but larger and better equipped French force that had been operating in the Sahel since 2014. The Sahel is the semi-desert area south of the Sahara Desert that covers much of northern Africa.

Back then the French concluded that the Sahel was still troubled by thousands of Islamic terrorists and that this situation could not be taken care of quickly. In order to maintain pressure on the Islamic terrorists, France established a special force of 3,000 troops to fight Islamic terrorists throughout the Sahel. In practice this meant just part of the Sahel and included Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso. This French force grew to some 4,000 troops equipped with 200 armored vehicles, 20 transport and attack helicopters, six jet fighters and three large UAVs. There are also two twin engine C-160 air transports available for use within the Sahel. Supplies and reinforcements were regularly flown in using long-range transports (like the C-17) belonging to NATO allies (especially the U.S. and Britain). From the beginning the French force included a thousand French troops in Mali and the rest dispersed to other Sahel bases and ready to quickly move anywhere in the region where Islamic terrorist activity had been detected. The G5 nations already cooperated by sharing intelligence and providing quick access to their territory by the French force. In addition, the Americans provided satellite and UAV surveillance and other intel services (especially analysis and access to nearly all American data on Islamic terrorist activities in the region). Each of the G5 member countries contribute from 500 to 2,000 personnel and consist largely of special operations troops. Many of these troops have already worked with their French counterparts or been trained by French or American special operations advisors.

All this was meant to keep the Islamic terrorists in the Sahel weak and disorganized. That worked until recently when the current Mali military regime ordered the French/G5 force out. AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), which has been around since 2007, was still in business as gangsters smuggling drugs and illegal migrants north and getting support from Islamic terrorists in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Islamic terrorists continue to carry out attacks in Mali, mainly the north and the G5 states to let the world know that Islamic terrorists are still present in the area.

Another reminder has been the high casualty rate among peacekeepers in Mali. UN peacekeepers in Mali suffered 26 dead during 2016, the highest number of any UN peacekeeping operation and 90 percent of the UN peacekeeper deaths in 2016, even though the Mali force comprises less than 15 percent of all UN peacekeepers. The Mali peacekeepers have been in this situation for three years in a row. Over a hundred peacekeepers (mostly UN, but some French) have died in Mali since they arrived in 2013. This is the highest casualty rate of all current UN peacekeeping operations.

Mali wanted to keep the 13,500 UN peacekeepers who maintain government control over the rebellious north. These peacekeepers are supplied by AU (African Union) nations and some of the African nations supplying these peacekeepers are withdrawing that support. A few percent of the peacekeeping force consists of troops from NATO nations that supply specialized services, especially transport helicopters and other services. People in areas where the peacekeepers are stationed warn that the security situation will deteriorate once the peacekeepers depart because the military government has not got the ability to maintain local security. Thats going to hurt the economy and cause more residents to flee the country. This is how corruption often ruins the local economy. Then again, elected officials were often corrupt. The pattern is that too many corrupt elected officials leads to rebellion or, more likely, a coup by the military, who tend to be no more effective than the people they replaced.

There was growing opposition among UN members for maintaining the expensive peacekeeper force, which is the most dangerous the UN is currently involved with. The Mali peacekeeping operation costs about half a billion dollars a month and that is about the only foreign aid Mali gets now that the military government is in control. Most foreign aid was halted because the government was stealing so much of the aid. It is difficult to steal any of the money spent on peacekeepers but the government seems to be trying to do just that.

Once the UN voted to maintain the Mali peacekeeping force for another year, the military government began harassing the peacekeepers and threatening to expel all of them. The peacekeepers serve on contracts (with the UN) for varying periods usually between two and six months. The withdrawal of the peacekeepers began on July 1st and will be completed by the end of 2023.

Foreign aid is crucial in Africa because corruption limits the amount of money governments can spend on essential infrastructure, health or food aid programs. That means, when a coup takes place, the new military government finds itself isolated, criticized and denied most forms of foreign aid or cooperation. In Niger that meant the air space over Niger was closed after the recent coup there. Neighboring nations closed their borders with Niger. The coup leaders are isolated, criticized and left with few options other than abandoning their effort to make their version of local government work. Some military governments last for years by creating a plausible, to most of the locals, external threat. Their neighbors and foreign aid donors usually quickly denounce this fiction. The Niger military government will remain in power for a while.

During the Cold War unelected governments could keep the aid coming by playing off the Western and communist donors against each other. After the Cold War ended in 1991, the only donors left were Western democracies. Dictatorships tend to be much less affluent and unable to provide much aid to anyone. Such an environment is common throughout Africa, especially where there are valuable raw materials that generate even more corruption. Niger does not have any valuable natural resources and must import more than it exports. This imbalance is made possible by lots of foreign aid. When there is a coup, the food, medical and similar aid generally continues unless the new government tries to steal the aid.

The current Niger coup has shut down American military operations because air space has been closed by neighboring countries that do not permit legal aircraft operations into or out of Niger. This is what has put the two American air bases at risk of being shut down permanently. Before the coup, Niger was considered one of the more stable African countries foreign air forces could operate out of. There are about 2,000 American and French military personnel in Niger and the longer the coup continues the more likely those troops will be withdrawn.

American UAV bases in Niger have been operational since 2019. The Niger government gave American and French UAVs operating in or over Niger permission to carry Hellfire missiles and other guided weapons inside Niger. For the most part this means U.S. and French MQ-9 Reaper UAVs operating from existing bases in Niger, Mali and Djibouti. France also operates manned combat aircraft from bases in Mali. EU peacekeepers also operate armed UAVs and helicopters in northern Mali. Initially there were only about 800 U.S. troops in Niger, most of them maintaining the aerial surveillance UAVs and other aircraft and helping train Niger troops. Then there was an incident where four American Special Forces soldiers were killed when the training exercise (a large patrol) they were supervising clashed with Islamic terrorists operating near the Mali border. Four of the Niger troops were killed as well and even more American and Niger troops were wounded. This led Niger to allow armed UAVs to operate in Niger. In the past there had not been many situations calling for rapid response by armed aircraft. The early Special Forces incident made it clear the situation had changed. Before that it was possible to get foreign aircraft to come and carry out an air strike but the process took time. The Niger and American troops were not expecting to encounter such a large force of Islamic terrorists and having armed UAVs on call would have made a big difference. The military coup in Niger has not shut down American UAV operations from the Niger airbases. The military governments in Mali, Niger and now Burkina Faso all want the American UAV operations to continue, as do nations in the area with elected governments and fewer problems with Islamic terrorists. The American UAVs track the operations of Islamic terrorists and provide aerial photos and videos to document what is happening on the ground. The return of military governments in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso were the result of poor performance by elected, but very corrupt, governments. The military governments are not much of an improvement and their ability to deal with Islamic terrorists or local rebels is largely an illusion. Without the foreign peacekeepers Western specialists the Islamic terrorists run wild. Not all African nations are afflicted by this, but most are and Islamic terrorists thrive in that kind of environment.

The current problem is largely the result of the success of French counter-terror operations in Mali a decade ago and the more recent defeat of Boko Haram in Nigeria. In both cases many of the surviving Islamic terrorists fled to Niger. This has been going on for some time and Niger has responded by allowing in more and more foreign assistance.

The army and a small number of Russian (Wagner Group) military contractors have been unable, or unwilling, to carry on with that effort or prevent the Islamic terror groups from crossing the Niger border and advancing into Mali. Thes include an al Qaeda alliance called JNIM (Jamaah Nusrah al Islam wal Muslimin, or Group for the support of Islam and Moslems) and the more violent groups like ISGS (Islamic States in Greater Sahara), which is one of the two ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) groups in the region. When they showed up in 2018, ISGS operated mainly in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, especially the area where the three borders met. Until recently those Islamic terrorists were a problem but now they are a real threat to the normally well defended capitals of all three countries.

September 25, 2023: The military government that has ruled Mali since 2020 announced that promised elections in February 2024 were not taking place on time because of problems with organizing the voting. In June there was a national vote on a new constitution to replace the military government and the 30 percent of voters who participated approved the proposal. The new constitution is supposed to make possible a return of elected government in 2024 with another round of elections. Details of the new constitution indicate that the military will still have a lot of power. The return of elections is mainly about reviving foreign aid, which largely stopped because of the military government and expulsion of peacekeepers. Mali replaced the peacekeepers with a smaller force of Russian Wagner Group mercenaries.

September 21, 2023: The Mali military government has canceled any festivities to celebrate Mali Independence Day on the 22nd. Its too dangerous and the army cannot provide sufficient security to prevent a catastrophic attack.

September 16, 2023: In the Mali capital, representatives from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso worked out details of forming AES (Alliance of Sahel States). The alliance is meant to improve security for all these nations. Currently Islamic terror groups are attacking all AES members. Burkina Faso is the worst hit, with about 40 percent of its territory controlled by Islamic terrorists. Mali and Niger fear the same fate will befall them.

September 12, 2023: In the north (outside Gao and Timbuktu) the Tuareg CMA (Coordination of Azawad Movements) mobilized its armed members to join the fighting in the north. Over a decade ago, most Tuareg groups agreed to put aside their disagreements and form a unified group. CMA had long been a pro-government Tuareg coalition that had not resolved all their clan and family disputes. Azawad is the Tuareg term for their homeland in northern Mali and several other North African nations. The 2015 peace deal ended the Tuareg support for Islamic terrorism, but not the ethnic animosities. These local, and often ancient, disagreements and feuds are often not connected with the 2012 rebellion in the north nor the continuing Islamic terrorism problems, but they do cause security problems that interfere with rebuilding the economy and much else. The Tuareg peace deal was stalled for years because the black majority in the south did not want to even consider granting as much autonomy as the Tuaregs demanded. The two groups have always been at odds but were only united in the same country by the colonial French in the 19th century. Like most African countries that were formerly European colonies, dividing the post-colonial nation is not an acceptable option and the colonial borders are considered sacrosanct. The current mess began when France took swift action in January 2013 by leading a military operation to clear Islamic terrorists out of northern Mali. Aided by Chad and a growing number of other African peacekeeping contingents, this effort continues and is somewhat open ended. The French acted because in 2012 Tuareg tribal rebels (with the help of al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorists) in northern Mali chased out government forces and declared a separate Tuareg state. The Mali army mutinied because of a lack of support from the corrupt government down south and took control of the capital. The army is still in charge and not showing any signs of confirming the old peace deals with the CMA. So, the CMA will defend its people in the north.

September 11, 2023: In the north (Timbuktu) the only commercial airline operating between Timbuktu and the rest of the country ceased operations in Timbuktu because of the increasing violence. Islamic terrorists have besieged Timbuktu and threatened the airport. Only some military air traffic uses the airport now that may soon cease if the Islamic terrorist siege force around the city advances. In Gao, the other major town in the north, a Belorussian Il-76 transport crashed while landing at the Gao airport. The large aircraft was delivering military supplies and personnel for Russian mercenaries in the area.

September 7, 2023: In the north (near Gao) JNIM gunmen attacked river traffic and an army base, killing at least 49 civilians and 15 soldiers. The army claims to have killed 50 of the attackers but that is unlikely. Islamic terrorists tend to back off if they encounter armed resistance. JNIM tried to gather a large armed force and attack military bases or convoys at night, or just before dawn. They achieve surprise and these attacks usually work. The recent attack near Gao was only a partial success. With the peacekeepers withdrawing and the Mali soldiers intimidated, the Islamic terror groups are making the most of it and attacking more frequently.

August 25, 2023: Northwest of Moscow, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and six of his associates died when the business jet they were on crashed, apparently because of an explosion on the aircraft. Prigozhin had long worked directly for Vladimir Putin but the two now had a number of disagreements. Putin was blamed for the crash, but there was no proof and probably never will be. Putin had recently told Russians working for Wagner in Mali that they were now working for the Russian government, not Wagner. Prigozhin refused to cooperate and Putin saw this as treason but had not made any official move to punish Prigozhin. Some Wagner Group members accused Putin of complicity in the death of Prigozhin. Many Russians agree but do not do so publicly. Putin expressed condolences to the families of those who died in the crash and noted he and Prigozhin had worked together since the 1990s and that Prigozhin and Wagner Group had fought well for Russia in Ukraine. Putin will continue to offer Wagner Group members jobs with the Russian military.
The five-star Ashford Castle hotel is on course this year to top the 27.1 million revenues recorded by the luxury resort in 2022.

That is according to managing director at Ashford Castle, Niall Rochford who said on Wednesday that "the Covid-19 bounce to business from 2022 has continued into 2023".

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In an interview on Ashford Castle Hotel Ltds new 2022 accounts, Mr Rochford said that 2023 "will be a very strong year building on success of 2022 with an increase in revenues but the challenge is the cost base in terms of food and energy costs.

The new accounts show that the hotel firm last year recorded pre-tax profits of 19.33 million as revenues more than doubled. The 19.33 million pre-tax profit followed a pre-tax loss of 3.06 million in 2022.

The new accounts filed by Ashford Castle Hotel Ltd show that the hotel returned to pre-tax profit as revenues increased by 117 per cent rising from 12.5 million to 27.1 million last year.

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The hotel firms pre-tax profits were boosted by the non-cash reversal of a property impairment of 17.6 million.

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The firm recorded operating profits of 20.46 million and interest payments of 1.13 million reduced profits to a pre-tax profit of 19.33 million.

The directors state that the overall results of the year "are due to improved market conditions and the return of international travel.

They state that "the company is expecting the continued trading improvements in the market to continue in 2023 and has seen an uplift to date. The directors state that the firms earnings before tax interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) last year totalled 7.68 million.

Mr Rochford said that last year, there was a strong rebound from the US market with US visitors now making up 60 per cent of bed nights.

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He said: We now have product in Ireland that has put the country on the ultra luxury map and is a destination of choice for ultra luxury for US travellers. "

Mr Rochford said that the Red Carnation-owned hotels US business "is now year round as is our Irish business".

Mr Rochford said that Irish customers who stayed at the hotel during Covid when international travel restrictions were in place have remained loyal and the hotel is enjoying repeat business from Irish guests.

Looking ahead to 2024, Mr Rochford said: "We are cautious about 2024 - we won't see the same percentage increase as last year.

The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of 4.8 million. Numbers employed last year increased from 264 to 326 as staff costs rose from 7.53 million to 8.43 million.

The hotel firm received 950,222 in Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) payments last year compared to 4.88 million under the same scheme in 2021. Cash funds last year increased from 4.85 million to 6.09 million.
A 157 million haul of cocaine seized when an elite army unit stormed a cargo ship off the Irish coast is the largest drugs capture in the history of the State, gardai have said.

A total of 2,253 kg of cocaine was found on the Panamanian-registered vessel in a major joint agency operation off the south-east coast of Ireland on Tuesday.

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Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter on to the MV Matthew as it tried to sail out of Irish waters and evade capture.

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The elite unit boarded the ship after the Irish Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction after it failed to obey orders.

The vessel had been under surveillance since Friday when a multiagency operation responded to intelligence of a major international drug smuggling operation.

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Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior member of An Garda Siochana described the operation as hugely significant.

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The MV Matthew is now moored at Marino Point in Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly said: I think its really important to note, this is the largest drug seizure in the history of the state.

This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

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He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

Given the scale of the haul, Irish authorities do not believe the cocaine was solely destined for Ireland.

They suspect the drugs were being transported from South America for distribution across Europe.

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Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly said it was a hugely significant operation (Brian Lawless/PA)

The MV Matthew was escorted to Cork harbour on Tuesday.

A fishing trawler that grounded off the coast of Co Wicklow late on Sunday was also being monitored as part of the operation, amid suspicions it was en route to rendezvous with the cargo ship.

The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.

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It will be treated as a crime scene when it is accessed, police said.

Three people, aged 60, 50 and 31, arrested during the course of the operation, remained in custody in police stations in Co Wexford on Wednesday.

It has emerged that one of those arrested was medically evacuated off the MV Matthew before the military operation to seize it.

About 25 remaining crew will be interviewed in Cork and police have said further arrests may follow.

The operation involved the Defence Forces, customs officers and the Garda national drugs and organised crime unit.

Commander Tony Geraghty said there was an escalated use of force (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Kelly said the cocaine on the ship originated in South America.

This product was supplied by a South American cartel, one of the murderous cartels that are behind cocaine shipments into Europe, he said.

A shipment like this into Europe is partly destined for the Irish market.

Obviously, with the size and intelligence we have, we know the organised crime group behind this comprises of a number of different elements across Europe.

Asked if those on the cargo ship had tried to dispose of the cocaine by burning it or throwing it overboard, Mr Kelly said more information on this would be provided in the coming days.

He said such a large shipment would not have entered the states waters without the involvement of an Irish gang.

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He said there are a number of gangs in Ireland with direct links to South America.

There is no large ship like this coming into our waters or our ports or transiting across our country, without an Irish organised criminal group involved in it.

Gerry Harrahill, director general Operation, Revenue and Customs (left), Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly, Garda Serious and Organised Crime (centre) and Tony Geraghty, Fleet Operations Commander Irish Naval Service (Brian Lawless/PA)

There is an increase in the amount of cocaine available for a number of geopolitical reasons in South America. There is basically a glut of cocaine on the market, he said.

And when you combine that with the increased consumption across Europe, Europe is now the biggest market for cocaine in the world.

So when you combine those two things together, absolutely, its inevitable that were going to see organised criminal groups trying to leverage on that, make more money from it, as they always do in situations like this.

Its inevitable that well see more large shipments.

He said increased large shipments had also been seen in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, explained why warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel before the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship, he said.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

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The ship was escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy (Irish Defence Forces/PA)

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain.

Cdr Geraghty said it had been an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defence Forces headquarters.

He said the poor weather made the fast rope aerial boarding more complex.

He said there was no evidence of the crew being armed when the Army Rangers boarded and took control of the vessel.

This ship is very large, shes 190 metres long, with an exceptionally high freeboard. So very difficult to get on, he added.

He said a great deal of skill was demonstrated by the Army Ranger Wing and helicopter pilot during high winds.

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences (Niall Carson/PA)

Cdr Geraghty said the ship also altered course when the Army Rangers were initially trying to descend.

The Naval Service, the Air Corps and the Army Ranger Wing rehearse for these type of operations. The Air Corps pilots are really top notch guys, theyre highly trained, he said.

Whilst the environment is always dangerous  the weather yesterday was very bad  the operation was carried out in a successful manner.

Gerry Harrahill, director general of customs in Ireland, hailed the professionalism and the resilience of those involved in seizing the ship.

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I had a personal opportunity last night down in Cork to meet with some of the teams involved, he said.

While they were tired and exhausted, I think there was a real sense of having done a really good job and delivered a really good outcome.
The number of families and children who were supported by Focus Ireland last year increased by 9 per cent and 27 per cent respectively as the charity called for a fairer allocation policy for social housing in order to lift people out of homelessness more quickly.

Publishing its annual report for 2022, Focus Ireland said it noted a 30 per cent increase in the number of people it helped last year, reaching approximately 16,000 compared to 12,300 in 2021.

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A breakdown of the figures showed 4,235 children were supported by the charity last year, up from 3,338 in 2021, and 1,668 families, increasing from 1,527 the year prior.

The number of people availing of Focus Ireland's Advice & Information service was up 8.5 per cent, totalling over 8,165, while 613 households were aided to keep their homes, up from 521 the previous year.

The charity welcomed the 24 per cent increase in the number of households it supported to prevent homelessness, or aided in leaving homelessness, and added that the Focus Housing Association delivered 130 homes in 2022.

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Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan noted the number of people who were homeless in the State increased by 27 per cent in 2022, with the charity's staff working "harder than ever" to provide support.

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'Stroke of a pen'

While he said the increased number of people helped by Focus Ireland last year is due to many factors, including new services and housing developed during the year, "it is also very clear that the main reason for the rise is that more people than ever before are now homeless or at serious risk of losing their home".

"Sadly, the crisis has continued to deepen again this year as now a record total of 12,847 people are homeless. Despite the increasing numbers we must always remember that homelessness is not inevitable. There are some initiatives that could be taken now to help ease this crisis with the stroke of a pen," Mr Dennigan said.

Calling for a new process for the allocation of social housing "which gives fairer access to households trapped in homelessness for extended periods", Mr Dennigan said the record delivery of social housing "is having no impact on the number of families" impacted by homelessness.

"The Government must address this urgently. A fairer distribution of new housing would lift many children, families, and individuals out of homelessness more quickly - which would have the knock-on positive impact of easing the burden on over-stretched homelessness services," he added.

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Addressing the report's figures relating to children, Focus Ireland's life president and founder Sr Stanislaus Kennedy noted that while homelessness "causes terrible trauma for anyone", it "hurts children the most".

"It is beyond shocking that over 3,800 children are homeless. As a society we must move beyond saying that it is 'disappointing' to see the latest record homelessness figures each month.

"We must state very strongly and consistently that these numbers are unacceptable. We need to see far more urgency by the Government to tackle this issue and ease human suffering," Sr Kennedy said.
A judge has granted an Emergency Care Order (ECO) for an out of control young teen after his parents surrendered him to gardai at their local garda station.

At the Family Law Court, Judge Alec Gabbett said that the threshold for the application for the ECO by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency (CFA) has been met "because the parents have effectively handed him over to the gardai as they cant control him.

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Judge Gabbett said that he understood the parents' predicament and told the boys mother in court you are at your wits end and said she has taken the action because of assaults by her son on her.

Judge Gabbett said that in the case, the parents "have effectively surrendered their son to the gardai.

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Judge Gabbett said that the secondary school-going boy is out of the home because he is out of control. Effectively, he has been turned out because the parents say they can no longer manage his behaviour.

Visibly emotional in court, the mother said: "I would do anything to help him.

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Gardai invoked special powers under the Childcare Act after the parents handed their son into their local garda station necessitating the CFA ECO application.

A Garda witness in the CFA application told Judge Gabbett "both parents say they have unwanted people coming to their doorstep because of their son and he is continuously coming to garda attention in relation to thefts, fighting, sneaking out of the house and not coming back for days.

The Garda Tusla Liaison Officer also said that the boy has got physical with his mother concerning her parenting choices such as not allowing him watch TV.

Solicitor for the CFA, Kevin Sherry said that there is "a disturbing social media image going around at the moment" of the teen assaulting another individual.

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In evidence, the boys mother told Judge Gabbett that she has viewed the video. The woman told the court that she told her son that he "could have killed the other person in the video.

She said: And a few seconds later he is asking for money to go to the shop. He doesnt get the seriousness of anything. It scares me.

The mother told the court her son "has been quite physical with me a number of times - I have had the gardai out.

A Tusla Team Lead social worker said that the mother in the case "doesnt want her son to come back to the family home.

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The mother told Judge Gabbett that she has other children and there are no such issues with them.

Judge Gabbett said an ECO for the boy will mean that the boy is going to be in transit at various Tusla residential placements for the next few months "and will probably miss half his school year".

Judge Gabbett said that the situation may arise where the boy is placed in a residential care arrangement "and you have three to four staff available 24 hours a day to make sure that he is not absconding, stealing or assaulting.
Updated: 1.20pm

Orange alerts are in place for eight counties in the south of the country as Storm Agnes makes landfall.

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The orange warnings began at 9am, with Cork, Kerry and Waterford covered by both wind and rain alerts.

The wind warning is also in place for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow, and will last until 5pm while the rain alert ends at 3pm.

Some flights to and from Cork Airport have been impacted by adverse conditions, with passengers advised to check the status of their flights and allow extra time when travelling to the airport.

The airport's communications manager Barry Holland said flights are operational, but confirmed there have been three outbound and two inbound cancellations so far on Wednesday morning.

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A car driving through floodwater in Cork. Photo: PA Images

Thousands are without power across Cork, Kerry and Tipperary. According to the ESB webiste, major outages have been reported in Cashel, Clonmel, Tipperary Town, Macroom, Bandonand Woodford.

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The website estimates that most of the outages will be restored by the early afternoon.

Earlier, a yellow wind alert took effect in Munster, Leinster and Galway at 7am, joined by a yellow alert for rain covering Carlow Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Waterford. Both of these warnings will remain in place until midnight.

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Met Eireann said Storm Agnes will bring "very strong and gusty southerly winds, with some severe and damaging gusts".

The AROME model showing the forecast rainfall for #StormAgnes also. It shows potential for some very heavy rain and local strong gusts in the East as squall feature shows. These are hard to forecast but can result in sudden and local damaging winds. pic.twitter.com/eBJJHkEOId  Carlow Weather (@CarlowWeather) September 26, 2023

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There will also be heavy and occasionally intense spells of rain in the affected counties.

In addition to poor visibility and difficult travel conditions, the forecaster warned of potential localised and coastal flooding, while strong winds may lead to power outages and fallen trees in parts.

The UK Met Office has also issued a yellow wind warning for the six counties, lasting from midday on Wednesday to 7am on Thursday.

Storm Agnes is likely to make landfall late Wednesday morning and for now a number of weather warnings have been issued in response. Check out https://t.co/WYHso6okOM for updated weather information #StormAgnes. pic.twitter.com/Ye5I3WSi42  Irish Coast Guard (@IrishCoastGuard) September 26, 2023

Storm and gale warnings will also be in place for much of Wednesday, with the south coast covered by an orange warning from 9am to 7pm.

A further yellow gale warning for all Irish coasts and the Irish Sea will also be in place from 7am to midnight.
The way in which Ireland is handling security around drugs smuggling is "highly, highly unusual," former Army Ranger and Kildare TD Dr Cathal Berry has warned.

Most international observers would be horrified by how Ireland does its business, he told RTE radios Morning Ireland.

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Dr Berry's comments come after a multi-agency operation on Tuesday resulted in a "significant quantity" of drugs being seized after Army Range Wing personnel boarded the MV Matthew off the south coast.

There was "a direct correlation between what's happening in OConnell Stree [in Dublin] right now and what's happening on our territorial waters and on the high seas as well," he said.

"The drugs are coming in from somewhere, they might come in on the wind and they are coming in on the sea, and the big problem in Ireland is we do actually have the hardware.

Advertisement "This Joint & multiagency Op demonstrates the interoperability of Oglaigh na hEireann, underlining the unique capability that we bring to the defence of the State. The significant intel led planning by the JTF enabled the coordination & execution of this complex multiagency Op. pic.twitter.com/2bcsZkyxdg Advertisement  Oglaigh na hEireann (@defenceforces) September 26, 2023

"We have eight naval vessels in Cork Harbour, but unfortunately, incredibly, we only have crew for two, so that's about 300 million worth of State vessels tied up and lying idle in Cork Harbour."

Dr Berry pointed out there is also an issue with semi-submersibles, the so-called 'narco subs' which had been found off the coast of Portugal and Spain. These vessels had not been detected in Ireland, he said, pointing out that a reason for this may be because Irish naval vessels do not have sonar, which he described as "incredible".

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The successful operation by the Defence Forces on Tuesday had been "well within the comfort zone" of the Army Ranger wing, Dr Berry added.

"These guys are so well trained and have such expertise that they're very comfortable with uncertainty, and if you saw the footage yesterday, I mean, it's not just a heaving deck that they were fast dropping onto, but you can see that the crew were aggressively manoeuvring the vessel as well, just to make it as complex as possible.

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"But that would have been easily anticipated and the Rangers wouldn't be deterred by something as small as that," he explained.

The Ranger wing was the only outfit in the State with the expertise to carry out a mission like that on Tuesday, he said, adding its success was an important signal.

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Dr Berry said the operation had been of international significance, adding: "It wouldn't have gone unnoticed in South America and Latin America as well.

"The cartels would see this and modify their approach to Ireland, but it won't stop them because it's well known at this stage that Irish territorial waters are notoriously unprotected. They just tweaked their procedures, but they'll continue as before."

Sonar

Retired naval commander Eugene Ryan echoed Dr Berry's thoughts on the need for the Navy to have sonar capabilities.

Also speaking to Morning Ireland, Mr Ryan said it was necessary not alone to combat drug smuggling, but to inspect vital TransAtlantic cables.

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He pointed out that when he joined the Navy as a cadet in 1972, there were approximately 350 personnel and 32 officers.

"When I retired 40 years later, the strength was 1,200 [across] all ranks and eight operational ships.

"In my 11 years of retirement I have seen the Navy being decimated to approximately 700 personnel and two operational ships, despite the Navy's fleet being the newest and best equipped we've ever had.

"Hundreds of millions of taxpayers money is lying alongside, not being used due to personnel shortages."

Mr Ryan said he had great admiration for the people still serving, but said the demands on the Navy were in excess of what they could do. The people still serving were not being paid the money they deserved, he added.

The Garda members involved in Tuesday's operation were on "multiples" of allowances compared to the navy personnel, Mr Ryan claimed, adding: "There's no excuse for this. We've got to pay our people if our naval service is to exist."
A total of 2,253kg of suspected cocaine with a street value of 157 million has been seized from a cargo vessel off the south-east coast.

It came as an elite unit of the Defence Forces stormed the Panamanian cargo ship in a major operation on Tuesday.

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Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior Garda member said the discovery is the largest drug seizure in the history of the State.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly described the action as hugely significant.

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Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

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He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

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Investigators believe not all the drugs were destined for Ireland.

Members of the highly-trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter onto the ship on Tuesday, which became the focus point of a multi-agency operation which began on Friday.

The co-ordinated response from the Irish Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing also involved customs officers and the Garda national drugs and organised crime unit.

The agencies said the seized MV Matthew is a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America.

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It was intercepted by the Army Ranger Wing and detained in the early hours of Tuesday.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction.

Two helicopters and two planes were also involved in the operation.

The Air Corps and Naval Service had been tracking the container ship over a number of days.
A woman accused of spraying an unknown chemical substance to "temporarily blind" a Dublin garda has been further remanded in custody pending possible extra charges.

Frances Harrison (31), with an address at College Hill, Terenure, Dublin, was charged with assaulting the officer at Basin Street flats in the south inner city during the incident on the night of September 21st.

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She is also accused of a connected offence of being a passenger in a stolen rental GoCar car on the same date.

She was held in custody following her unsuccessful bail application at Dublin District Court on Saturday.

The accused faced her second court appearance on Wednesday when Judge Treasa Kelly noted that potential further charges were pending.

Ms Harrison's solicitor, Eddie O'Connor, said her client consented to a four-week adjournment. Judge Kelly remanded her in continuing custody to appear again on October 25th for directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

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Earlier, Garda Sergeant Hugh O'Carroll alleged the incident happened at 9.45pm after GoCar notified gardai that a tracking device had been removed from one of their cars.

Two gardai observed it at Basin Street flats "driven at speed with no lights" and the tracking device was on the side of the road.

The sergeant alleged the accused was identified at the scene by the officers and from mobile phone footage circulated on social media.

The sergeant said there was also CCTV footage from the area. He alleged she had been a passenger in the car before it stopped.

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The sergeant said the two officers were trying to arrest the driver when the accused allegedly "sprayed an unknown chemical substance".

The court heard both gardai were injured, one "temporarily blind" after the chemical was sprayed into his eyes.

He must go to a follow-up appointment with an eye specialist.

The contested bail hearing was told, "a number of locals came out to intimidate gardai", and the driver escaped. More gardai arrived after an urgent call for assistance.

The sergeant accepted that she had not rented the vehicle and did not drive the car.

The defence said Ms Harrison, who has been allowed free legal aid, maintains her innocence and "says she had obviously nothing to do with it, that there were other people there, and it was not her involved in this incident".

Gardai are to recommend to the DPP that the case should be dealt with on indictment at a higher level with greater sentencing powers.
Giant panda Fan Xing has begun a long journey home  to a country she has never visited.

Onlookers applauded as the three-year-old was given a ceremonial send-off from Ouwehands Zoo in the Netherlands, where she was born, for the first leg of her journey to China, where she will join a breeding programme that is helping preserve the vulnerable species.

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Wouter Jurgens, director of Asia and Oceania at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he hoped the panda would be an ambassador for relations between the Netherlands and China.

A special ceremony was held at the Ouwehands Zoo (Peter Dejong/AP)

Those links have been strained in recent months by the Dutch decision to limit sales of advanced semiconductor processor chips.

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The government called the move country neutral but it was seen as part of a US policy aiming at restricting Chinas access to materials used to make such chips, which can be used in military technology.

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Mr Jurgens said Fan Xing represented a sign of the special relationship between the Netherlands and China in the field of nature conservation, but of course also much broader.

So today I would also like to express the hope that this Dutch-born panda, Fan Xing, will contribute not only to the protection of nature, the protection of a species and of biodiversity, but also continue to contribute to the relationship between the Netherlands and China.

Fan Xing was born on May 1st, 2020, the first cub born in the Netherlands as part of what was once known as Chinas panda diplomacy programme.

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Zookeepers walk ahead of the van carrying Fan Xing (Peter Dejong/AP)

At the time, a quick check determined that the cub was male but a test late last year that was part of meticulous preparations for her trip to China established that Fan Xing is female.

For decades, China gifted friendly nations with its national mascot. The country more recently has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms.

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Fan Xings parents, Xing Ya and Wu Wen, were sent to the Netherlands from Sichuan province in 2017. Under the terms of the deal that brought them to a small town in the central Netherlands, any cubs they produce must be sent to China before they reach the age of four.
The US Congress remains divided as a deadline for preventing a government shutdown draws near.

While the Senate is pushing through a bipartisan package to temporarily fund the government, members of the House are working on an alternative which has little chance of completion ahead of Saturdays deadline.

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A shutdown would furlough millions of federal employees, leave the military without pay, disrupt air travel and cut off vital safety net services.

US president Joe Biden, who earlier this year reached a budget deal with Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy that became law, believes it is up to the House Republicans to deliver.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is surrounded by reporters at the Capitol in Washington (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

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A deal is a deal, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. This is for them to fix.

On Tuesday, the Senate aimed to break the stalemate, advancing a temporary measure called a continuing resolution to keep government running until November 17 by maintaining funding at existing levels with a $6 billion boost for Ukraine and $6 billion for US disaster relief among other provisions.

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It is on track for Senate approval but faces long odds in the House.

The Republican Speaker, pushed by a hard-right flank which rejects the deal he made with Mr Biden and is demanding steep spending cuts, showed no interest in the Senates bipartisan effort  or the additional money for Ukraine.

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I think their priorities are bad, Mr McCarthy said about the Senate effort.

US president Joe Biden joins striking United Auto Workers on the picket line in Michigan on Tuesday (Evan Vucci/AP)

He is reviving plans for the House Republicans stopgap funding measure which would slash federal spending by 8% for many agencies and attach a hardline border security measure demanded by conservatives.

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The president, Democrats and even some Republicans have said it is too extreme.

The White House has downplayed the prospect of talks and Mr McCarthy is expected to spend much of this week trying to pass some of the bills needed to fund government agencies  Defence, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State and Foreign Operations.

The House Republicans advanced those bills on Tuesday after a day of setbacks and disarray, but it is not at all clear if the Speaker has the votes from his hard-right flank to pass the four bills this week.

The hard-right House Republicans are being egged on by former US president Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who has urged them to stand firm in the fight or shut it down.

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The hard-line Republicans want Mr McCarthy to drop the deal he made with Mr Biden and stick to earlier promises for spending cuts he made to them in January.

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a key ally of Mr Trump, said on Fox News Channel that a shutdown is not optimal but its better than continuing on the current path that we are to Americas financial ruin.
North Korea has said it will expel a US soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed border with the South in July.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency said that authorities have finished their questioning of Private Travis King.

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It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

Verifying the authenticity of the comments attributed to Mr King is impossible.

The agency did not say when authorities plan to expel the soldier or to where.

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Mr King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

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At the time he joined the civilian tour and crossed the border, he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

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Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained Mr King and was questioning the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Mr Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

The 23-year-old was among about 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea.

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US officials had expressed concern about his well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

They also said that King has been declared Awol, which can be punished by time in detention, forfeiture of pay or dishonourable discharge, with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

Unauthorised crossings of the Koreas heavily fortified border are extremely rare.

The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most secret societies.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire former biotech executive, has a chance to build on the attention he has been getting in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination at Wednesday night's second debate.

Here are some facts about Mr Ramaswamy's life and career:

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A Hindu riased in the American Midwest

Mr Ramaswamy, 38, was born in Ohio to immigrant parents from southern India. He was raised in the Hindu faith of his parents, but went to a Roman Catholic high school. He earned a biology degree at Harvard University before moving on to Yale Law School.

Mr Ramaswamy worked as a hedge fund investor and says he had already made several million dollars before graduating from Yale. In 2014, he founded his own biotech company, Roivant Sciences, which bought patents from larger companies for drugs that had not yet been fully developed and marketed.

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He resigned as CEO in 2021. In 2023, the business magazine Forbes estimated Mr Ramaswamy's wealth at $630 million.

A former Libertarian rapper with a patchy voting record

Mr Ramaswamy says he was a libertarian during college. While at Harvard, he would perform libertarian-themed rap songs under the stage name Da Vek. He has reprised some of his rap skills on the campaign trail this year. His performance of Eminem's Lose Yourself at the Iowa State Fair this month went viral on social media.

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Mr Ramaswamy says he voted for a libertarian in the 2004 presidential election, but did not vote in 2008, 2012 or 2016. He has contributed to both Republican and Democratic candidates. He says he voted for Republican then-president Donald Trump in 2020.

An 'anti-woke' crusader

In recent years, Mr Ramaswamy has become a fierce conservative. In his 2021 bestseller Woke, Inc., Mr Ramaswamy decries decisions by some big companies to base business strategy around social justice and climate change concerns, and lambastes "wokeism" as an insidious influence on hard work, capitalism, religious faith and patriotism. The book raised Mr Ramaswamy's profile among conservatives, and he began his rapid ascension as a right-wing star.

Republican presidential campaign

Mr Ramaswamy declared his campaign for president in February, at a time when his bid looked like a long shot. He still languishes in the single digits in most opinion polls but has been gaining on many of his rivals, most notably Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is now fighting to retain his second-place status.

World Is America heading towards its last election in 20... Read More

Mr Ramaswamy's strong, pugnacious performance in the first debate last month, when he laid out an agenda even further to the right of Mr Trump on some issues, earned him a lot of attention, as well as criticism, and boosted him in some Republican primary opinion polls.

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He has been a fierce defender of Mr Trump while seeking to appeal to Christian evangelicals, an important part of the Republican primary electorate. Although a Hindu, Mr Ramaswamy has been telling voters that the US is based on "Christian values" and "Judeo-Christian values" and has described himself as an American nationalist.

His policy positions are mostly deeply conservative. He opposes affirmative action and supports state-level bans on abortion after six weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest and if the mother's life is in danger. Mr Ramaswamy wants to greatly expand the powers of the presidency and dismantle much of the federal government, including the FBI, the Department of Education and the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service.

He opposes Nato membership for Ukraine and has said Kyiv should make concessions to Russia to end the war, including allowing it to retain parts of Ukraine it already occupies.
The US has secured the release of an American soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, the White House has announced.

US ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

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Left unanswered were questions about why Pyongyang  which has tense relations with Washington over the Norths nuclear programme, support for Russias war in Ukraine and other issues  has agreed to turn him over and why the soldier fled in the first place.

North Korea abruptly announced earlier on Wednesday that it would deport Private Travis King  despite some expecting the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

US officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

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American soldier Travis King has been expelled by North Korea (Ahn Young-joon/AP)

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We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

Officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to expel King but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information.

One official, who was not authorised to comment and requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that the 23-year-old was more trouble to keep than to release him.

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Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China and at least one US Defence Department official.

Officials from US President Joe Bidens administration insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldiers release.

We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, Mr Sullivan added.

King was being flown to a US military base in South Korea before being returned to the US.

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His expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

And there remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place.

His fate in the US remains uncertain, having been declared absent without leave by the government.





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That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonourable discharge.

In the near term, officials said their focus will be on helping King reintegrate into US society upon his return, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, according to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on the transfer.

The soldier was in good spirits and good health upon his release, according to one senior administration official.

He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Centre at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea after an assault conviction.

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Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for Chinas assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing Kings release.

The US first learned through Swedish officials earlier this month that North Korea was looking to kick out King.

That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the USs behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King.

It said he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

It had attributed similar comments to King before and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and US society.

One senior administration official said King was very happy to be on his way back to the US.
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley appears to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Florida governor Ron DeSantis' faltering campaign, with more donors saying they are looking more closely at her candidacy as an alternative to frontrunner Donald Trump.

Reuters spoke to four donors and one source close to a major donor who were impressed by the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations in the first Republican presidential debate in August and said they were keen to donate should she continue to strengthen as a candidate.

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They will be watching to see how she does at the second debate in California on Wednesday night among those vying to win the party's nomination to run for president in the 2024 election.

Mr DeSantis, once seen as the most formidable challenger to former president Trump, has struggled to catch fire amid missteps and relentless Trump attacks on his candidacy. Despite his campaign's struggles, he has retained the support of some major donors.

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Donors are crucial to keeping White House hopefuls afloat, and the willingness of some to now look beyond Mr DeSantis underscores his struggle to convince donors that he is the best alternative to Mr Trump. It also shows the despair of some Republican establishment donors looking for a viable candidate who is not Mr Trump.

Of the five donors looking at Ms Haley, three have so far broadly sat out the campaign, while one has donated to Mr DeSantis and another was supportive of him but did not donate. Reuters also spoke to a half dozen Haley donors, advisers to donors, and even supporters of other candidates who said more donors are looking at Ms Haley.

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DeSantis doubts

One Republican donor, who gave more than $1 million to help Mr DeSantis' presidential bid, told Reuters he has doubts that Mr DeSantis can win and is now open to Ms Haley, 51, who is campaigning as a foreign policy hawk while emphasising her relative youth compared to the 77-year-old Mr Trump.

"Until the first debate I hadn't seen her force of will and her presence. I absolutely would consider donating to her," the donor said, asking to remain anonymous.

He said his decision to support either Ms Haley or Mr DeSantis would come down to who he thinks is "most capable" of taking on Mr Trump and, eventually, Democratic president Joe Biden in the election.

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Uncommitted cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder is also interested in Ms Haley following the first debate, although he has not decided whether to support her, according to a source aware of his thinking.

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To be sure, some of the Haley buzz has been generated by uncommitted donors paying closer attention to the Republican race now that summer is over. While more are looking at her it does not mean they will ultimately back her quest for the party's nomination.

The Haley campaign did not respond to requests for comment about donor support. Mr DeSantis campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo said in a statement that the campaign continues to see "overwhelming enthusiasm from grassroots and major supporters" and that it was looking forward to "continued fundraising success this quarter".

Voters' favourite

Winning the Republican nomination will be a monumental task for either Mr DeSantis or Ms Haley. Even if more donors do line up behind Ms Haley, it may be in vain, as so many Republican voters appear set on Mr Trump.

Mr Trump is almost 40 points ahead of Mr DeSantis, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, although some recent polls in states like New Hampshire show Ms Haley gaining ground or even jumping ahead of Mr DeSantis.

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John Yates, a New Mexico-based donor who was initially somewhat interested in Mr DeSantis, said he likes Ms Haley's positions on China and Israel but would like to hear more about her domestic plans.

Ultimately, Mr Yates stressed, he was looking for a "dark horse" to beat Mr Trump. "I don't want a loser," Mr Yates said.

But donors like Frayda Levin, a New Jersey-based former book industry executive, despair of finding a candidate who can defeat Mr Trump, whom she opposes for what she considered his "crude" personality and "populist" policies.

"Money is not going to change the dynamic in this primary race," she said.

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World Is America heading towards its last election in 20... Read More

One of the complications of Ms Haley's bid has been running against senator Tim Scott, a fellow South Carolinian who is also seeking to win over party moderates.

Fred Zeidman, an early Ms Haley fundraiser, said her debate performance convinced some donors who were hanging back to commit. "I've had a bunch of people wanting to connect and write checks," said Texas-based Mr Zeidman.

Rob Godfrey, a Republican strategist who advises some donors, said he has also seen an uptick in support for Ms Haley in South Carolina.

"It's up to her campaign and in some ways dependent on her second debate performance as to whether or not this is momentum or a moment," said Mr Godfrey, who was Ms Haley's spokesperson as governor but is neutral in the primary.
US senator Bob Menendez has pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of accepting bribes of cash and gold bars in exchange for using his political influence to secretly advance Egyptian interests and do favours for local businessmen.

The New Jersey politician made his initial court appearance in Manhattans federal court on Wednesday, days after prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging vast corruption by the Democrat, who was forced to step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted.

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A lawyer entered the plea on his behalf.

A defiant Menendez said allegations he abused his power to line his pockets are baseless.

He said he is confident he will be exonerated and has no intention of leaving the Senate.

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Menendez and his wife Nadine arrive at the federal courthouse in New York on Wednesday (Seth Wenig/AP)

But calls for Menendez to resign continued to mount on Wednesday, with Illinois senator Dick Durbin saying he should step down.

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More than half of Senate Democrats have now said Menendez should resign, including fellow New Jersey senator Cory Booker, who said the indictment includes shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing.

It is the second corruption case in a decade against Menendez, whose last trial involving different allegations ended with jurors failing to reach a verdict in 2017.

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Authorities say they found nearly $500,000 in cash, much of it hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than $100,000 in gold bars in a search of the New Jersey home Menendez, 69, shares with his wife.

Charged alongside Menendez is his wife, Nadine, who prosecutors say played a key role in collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen seeking help from the veteran politician.

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez entered a not guilty plea for her on Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege repeated actions by Menendez to benefit the authoritarian government of Egypt.

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Wael Hana, centre, leaves court (Seth Wenig/AP)

They say he also tried to interfere in criminal investigations involving associates, in one case pushing to install in New Jersey a federal prosecutor who he believed he could influence to derail a case.

Two of the businessmen, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, were also arraigned and pleaded not guilty.

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The third, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery.

Hana was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges, and he was ordered freed pending trial.

Menendez, in his first public remarks after last weeks indictment, said on Monday the cash found in his home was drawn from his personal savings accounts over the years and kept on hand for emergencies.

One of the envelopes full of cash found at his home, however, bore Daibes DNA and was marked with the property developers return address, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Hana promised to put Menendezs wife on his companys payroll in a low or no-show job in exchange for Menendez using his influential post to facilitate foreign military sales and financing to Egypt.

Fred Daibes arrives at court (Jeenah Moon/AP)

Prosecutors allege Hana also paid $23,000 toward her home mortgage, wrote $30,000 checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars found in the couples home.

The indictment alleges repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt, despite US government misgivings over the countrys human rights record which in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid.

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Prosecutors, who detailed meetings and dinners between Menendez and Egyptian officials, say Menendez gave sensitive US government information to Egyptian officials and ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of US military support.

Prosecutors have accused Menendez of pressuring a US agricultural official to stop opposing a lucrative deal that gave Hanas company a monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards.
The United States has suspended most non-humanitarian aid to Gabon after Augusts military takeover in the country.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken announced the pause in certain foreign assistance programs, pending a review into the outing of the countrys former president Ali Bongo Ondimba.

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Mr Blinken said the suspension would not affect US government operations in the oil-rich west African nation and his statement on Tuesday did not elaborate on which US funding would be affected or how much money would be placed on hold.

The US also suspended some aid to Niger when the military overthrew the government earlier this year, but has yet to formally determine if what happened was a coup.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken (AP)

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Mr Blinken said: This interim measure is consistent with steps taken by the Economic Community of Central African States, the African Union, and other international partners, and will continue while we review the facts on the ground in Gabon.

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We are continuing US government operational activities in Gabon, including diplomatic and consular operations supporting US citizens.

Gabons new military leader was sworn in as head of state less than a week after ousting the president whose family had ruled the nation for more than five decades.

General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema took the oath in the presidential palace in Libreville. He is a cousin of the ousted president, served as a bodyguard to his late father and is head of the Republican guard, an elite military unit.

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The ousted president had served two terms since coming to power in 2009 after the death of his father, who ruled the country for 41 years. Another group of mutinous soldiers attempted a coup in 2019 but was quickly overpowered.

According to the World Bank, the former French colony is a member of OPEC, but its oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and nearly 40 per cent of Gabonese aged 15 to 24 were out of work in 2020.
Riley Clemmons with Capitol CMG Team | PFA Media / Riley Clemmons

NASHVILLE, TN  Last Thursday, Capitol CMG presented multi-talented artist and one of People Magazines Emerging Artists Riley Clemmons with a plaque recognizing the Gold certification of her single, Fighting For Me, alongside co-writers Jordan Sapp and Ethan Hulse and producer Jordan Sapp at an intimate album release party. This milestone marks a first for Riley, who has amassed over half a billion global streams and 85 million YouTube views since the beginning of her career. Fighting For Me was released as the lead single for Rileys sophomore album, Godsend, and quickly became her top performing song with over 160 million worldwide streams.

Truly, Im just so excited and completely overwhelmed with gratitude, shares Riley. Fighting For Me was written from such a deeply personal place, so watching it resonate with so many people has been surreal. My entire team surprised me with the Gold Record plaque, and I cried like a baby. It was such a special moment. Im so grateful for every single person on the team that worked to make this milestone possible.

Last week, Riley released her long awaited third album, Church Pew, to great critical acclaim. The 11 songs on the album tackle topics of self-discovery, heartbreaking loss, grief, and ultimately triumphant joy and share a full picture of who Riley has become since releasing her first album in 2018. Out of the gate, Church Pew has made waves across all streaming platforms with inclusion on major playlists such as Spotifys New Music Friday, Apple Musics Todays Christian, Amazon Musics Divine Sound, and a Pandora Takeover. Additionally, YouTube selected Riley for their coveted billboard in Nashville in honor of the release. Church Pew is now available HERE.

Riley Clemmons is a rising artist from Nashville, TN who has accumulated over half a billion global streams and 85 million YouTube video views since the beginning of her career. After spending years refining her craft in writers rooms, Riley sky-rocketed onto the scene with her 2017 Capitol CMG debut single Broken Prayers, which has generated over 56 million global streams since its release. Her 2018 self-titled album debut quickly entered the Billboard Heatseekers chart, debuting at No. 13 and resulting in a New Artist Of the Year nomination and coveted performance spot at the 50th GMA Dove Awards. Riley released her much-anticipated sophomore, Godsend, in 2021 which cemented her place as an artist to watch with accolades from Rolling Stone and People Magazine as well as performances the TODAY Show, FOX & Friends, and debut at the Grand Ole Opry. The Gold Certified lead single, Fighting for Me, became her top performing song with 160 million worldwide streams and For The Good has received over 40 million global streams to date. In 2021, Riley was nominated as Female Artist of the Year at the 9th Annual K-LOVE Fan Awards making her the youngest nominee in the shows history and Billboard named her one of the top Christian Artists for the year ending 2022. An accomplished composer, performer, producer, and recording artist, Riley draws inspiration from her life and faith, pulling from musical influences ranging from her hometown of Nashville to classic southern gospel, creating music that is as inspiring as it is honest.

Connect with Riley Clemmons:

Website
TikTok is fuelling the latest craze for tweens: adult skincare. Influencers and brands are introducing serums, creams and beauty routines to children as young as 10 under the allure of radiant skin and peer approval.

For tweens, aged between eight and 12, TikTok is the preferred social media and a major influencer of cultural trends, surpassing recommendations from friends, brands and magazines. The Australian Retailers Associations 2023 insights report says more than half of Gen Z start their buying journey on social media.

Does using adult skincare too early come with risks? Credit: Nathan Perri

As a mother of a tween girl, I often find myself negotiating access to the trending products, and it is not always easy to say no when all the friends are talking about them.

But how bad is this obsession?
Thanks for your company this afternoon. Here are some of todays top stories:

Transport Minister Catherine King will be called to front the parliamentary inquiry into Qatar Airways rejected bid for more Australian flights.

China will lift its ban on Australian hay imports after years of restrictions.

The most significant army restructure in over a decade has faced some backlash, with Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie arguing the relocation of hundreds of troops would make us weaker.

A traditional owner has successfully challenged Woodside Energys seismic blasting plan for its $16.5 billion Scarborough gas project off WA.

And overseas, Republicans presidential candidates  minus Donald Trump  faced off in a messy televised debate.

And in the latest in our ongoing investigation into Home Affairs chief Michael Pezzullo, we report today that he gave British American Tobacco access to a top official after a lobbyist friends request, and spoke to the boss of controversial consulting firm PwC about privatising the pandemic quarantine system.

Well be back with more news tomorrow.
Ulysses was required as replacement for the New Zealand frigate Rotoiti during Operation Grapple Y, one of a series of four British nuclear weapons tests conducted over Christmas Island (Kiritimati), one of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (Kiribati) in the Pacific Ocean.

In March 1957 he joined the frigate Ulysses as engineer officer; after a few weeks on patrol off Cyprus, intercepting arms being smuggled to the Greek insurgents EOKA (The National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), orders arrived for it to return to the UK to prepare for a special assignment.

Rear admiral Paul Bass, who has died aged 98, rose from the lower deck to flag rank, and witnessed some of the key events of the 20th century.

Bass recalled the bucolic nature of the islands: At night the place was teaming with land crabs that scuttled everywhere. In the lagoon I saw manta rays about six feet across, and the ships company had good fishing from the quarterdeck for wahu, a very tasty game fish.

A fishing vessel was stationed in the islands whose sole task was to catch fish every day and test for radioactivity. So far as I know, they never had a positive finding, and all the fish finished up in the galley. Crayfish were also plentiful and small eats with our evening drinks usually consisted of one-inch cubes of [them] which we dipped in tomato ketchup  a nice change from chips!

The bomb was dropped at 10:05 on April 28, 1958 from a Valiant bomber [between May 1957 and September 1958, the British government tested nine thermonuclear weapons on Kiritimati for Operation Grapple]. It had an explosive yield of about three megatons, the largest British nuclear weapon ever tested. Its design was regarded as successful because much of its yield came from its thermonuclear reaction instead of fission, making it a true H-bomb, and because its yield had been closely predicted, indicating that the scientists knew what they were doing.

When the test was imminent, Bass recalled, we had to sit on the upper deck, on the side remote from the target area, with our heads between our knees and eyes tightly shut. About 20 seconds after the burst, we were allowed to open our eyes and go to the other side of the ship, where we saw an enormous orange ball of fire in the sky, which slowly developed into the now familiar mushroom cloud.
Australias top universities have slipped down the worlds most prestigious academic league table, with every institution in the top 200 recording a lower rank than 12 months ago.

The slide down the Times Higher Education rankings comes after an overhaul of the methodology used to score universities, but analysts say Australias poor performance is because of a research funding shortfall as well as student to staff ratios, which are among the worst in the world.

The University of Sydney dropped six places to rank 60th in the world; behind the University of Melbourne, which dropped three places to 37th on the list; and Monash University, which dropped 10 places to 54th.

Australian National University dropped five places to 67th spot; the University of NSW dropped 13 places to 84th; and the University of Technology, Sydney dropped 15 places to rank 148th.
MBABANE  Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy are stranded, following the breakdown of the laboratory tools used to blend their drugs.

This has resulted in patients waiting for the treatment for months, since June. In an interview, one of the patients stated that he was supposed to start the chemotherapy treatment in June 30, 2023, but to date he had undergone it. The patient said he was told by nurses at the Moneni Cancer Hospital, which also provided chemotherapy, that they would call to notify him once they were ready with the treatment. He said they, however, did not explain the challenges they were facing. According to the patient, his fears were that his condition was worsening and by the time help was available, it would already be at an advanced stage. He said he also approached the Mbabane Government Hospital, where he was diagnosed following the challenges, and was told that there were no drugs but he was referred to Manzini.

Other patients also confirmed to have been through the same challenge and said they were frustrated by that no explanation was being made, except that nurses promised to notify them when the treatment is available. A reliable source close to the matter, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the blending machine for the cancer drugs had broken down and cracked a glass, which made it difficult to mix the drugs. The source said following the breaking down of the machine at the cancer hospital in Manzini, the blending was done at the Mbabane Government Hospital, where also the glass broke.

Repaired

She said the machine was being repaired. The source further mentioned that from the first quarter (April to January) they had been unable to get companies who could tender for cancer drugs because most of the time patients were being transferred to South Africa (SA). The source said they then purchase a few drugs, which made the vendors less interested. According to the source, recently they were able to tender for the cancer treatment successfully, such that government was now ready to receive the drug tenders. She said government, through the support of sponsors could now purchase the drugs. However, she said there was currently minimum stock, which they could assist patients with.

Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) Secretary General (SG) Mayibongwe Masangane said cancer had to be treated delicately and it was wrong for patients to lack treatment.

The SG said the reason the patient was not being contacted by the nurses was that there was still no drugs. Masangane said what was painful was that cancer advanced at a high rate in other parts of the body when one has not started the chemotherapy. This means that if the cancer progresses, it may reach a point where the patient cannot be treated. Masangane said chances of the patients surviving were reduced when each day passed by without them receiving the much needed chemotherapy, which is why, as SWADNU, they referred to the drugs and medicine shortage as a silent genocide. In other countries people die through the barrel of the gun, but here they die because of diseases which could be prevented if there were drugs.

Painful

Masangane said the situation was a painful one and nothing showed to be improving in the health system despite government assuring that they were addressing the state of affairs and drugs were being delivered. For those patients who had already begun the chemotherapy and were no longer receiving it, Masangane said they could end up stopping the procedure all together, as the cancer was advancing. He said the stage the country was in meant that emaSwati would get sick and die. Masangane said even if government brought specialist doctors it would not help because there were no drugs and medicine supplies in the country.
A teenage worker who fell several metres at an inner Brisbane job site remains in hospital fighting for life after suffering serious injuries.

Paramedics were called to the CS Development Group building site on Victoria Street in West End on Tuesday about 1.30pm.

The 17-year-old was treated after reports he had fallen more than 2 metres, and rushed to the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital in a serious condition. On Wednesday, he remained in a critical condition.

The accident came about three months after the CFMEU posted a video to social media, highlighting its safety concerns at the site.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size This story was first published on July 30 last year, when Jacinta Allan was named Victorias deputy premier. Jacinta Allan is widely tipped to become Victorias next Labor premier, but you wont hear her admit it. I am not going to deny its not flattering to be thought of in those terms, of course, she says. But the thing that gets me out of bed is the work I get to do in Bendigo and my portfolio and, I know it might sound corny, but making my family proud. Not tempted to fall into the trap of exposing any leadership ambitions, Allan's answer reveals much about her approach to politics. Allan is a self-confessed goody two shoes, and caucus colleagues describe her as diligent, dutiful and even boring. She has studiously avoided controversy and, according to staff, prides herself on being on top of her portfolios of transport infrastructure, Suburban Rail Loop and delivering the Commonwealth Games. Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan joined state parliament at the age of 26. Credit: Eddie Jim In many ways, Allans approach to her political career was shaped by her arrival at Spring Street at the age of 26. I was conscious that I was a very young woman, she says. The way I approached it was to always do my homework.

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Allan was a young political staffer with ambitions of one day becoming a ministerial adviser when she agreed to run for Bendigo East at the 1999 state election. Her public profile had risen when she led the campaign against a proposed table-top dancing club in her home town of Bendigo. She didnt do it strategically, Allans close friend Marika McMahon says. She was disgusted and thought it was a backwards step. The seat was then held by Michael John, a one-time Liberal cabinet minister who had represented the area for 15 years. Allan didnt expect to win. States youngest minister Yet a wave of anger at the Kennett government at that election resulted in a swing of about 5 per cent in regional centres and 7.5 per cent in rural Victoria. In Bendigo, there was a 9 per cent swing to Labor, catapulting Allan to Spring Street.

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She turned 26 the day after the election. She was the youngest woman to be elected to Victorias parliament. Allan admits she was shocked by the result, describing it as quite an adjustment and transition. In her first term, she was elevated to the front bench as minister for employment, education services and youth, becoming the states youngest minister, aged just 29. Allan describes herself as a real Hermione Granger in reference to the bookish Harry Potter character who, like Allan, was dedicated to her school work and at times, a bit of a know-it-all. Jacinta Allan pictured after becoming an MP, aged 26. Credit: Craig Sillitoe After leaving school, she studied arts at La Trobe University in Bendigo after missing out on a journalism cadetship at the Bendigo Advertiser. It was there she joined the Labor Party, travelling to Melbourne on weekends for party events with her Labor Party contemporaries, including Daniel Andrews, former attorney-general Jill Hennessy and federal Labor politicians Andrew Giles and Julian Hill. For her honours year, she interned for federal Labor MP Lindsay Tanners office in Canberra before slotting into a spot in the electorate office of Neil OKeefe, and later Stephen Gibbons in Bendigo. Other than a brief stint on a Coles checkout, Allans entire career has been in politics.

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In early interviews, Allan spoke openly about her life away from politics. These days, she is more likely to sidestep personal questions. Colleagues and friends believe her reticence may stem from spending more than half of her life as a high-profile MP, while juggling a career, a marriage breakdown and motherhood. A private person As a young minister, Allan was married to Australian Workers Union Victorian branch secretary Ben Davis. Four years later, she married Yorick Piper, who had worked as a ministerial adviser to Allan and other ministers in the Brumby government. The couple have two children and live on a farm near Bendigo. She is guarded about her two children, who are 10 and eight years old, but says becoming a mother changed her approach to politics. Friends say Allan and husband Piper have raised beautifully balanced kids despite the unrelenting demands of her job. The biggest impact on my outlook and the way I work has been having kids, Allan says. Having kids is motivating. Politicians and public servants who have worked alongside her praise Allans work ethic and enthusiasm, but describe her as more of a manager than a visionary. Melbourne Metro Rail Authority chief executive Evan Tattersall, who has worked closely with Allan for the past seven years, describes her as tough in meetings but willing to take advice.

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She is pragmatic, and she listens, he says. Shes one of the most open and honest people that I have dealt with in politics. Its a view shared by former COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar, who worked alongside Allan in her various transport portfolios and more recently when, as acting premier, she decided to shut the NSW border during the busy summer holiday period, due to rising COVID cases. The decision meant 60,000 people were forced to frantically abandon long-awaited holidays and return to Victoria before midnight on New Years Eve to avoid 14 days of home quarantine. Some were trapped, locked out of their home state. Allan is announced as a minister in 2002 by then-premier Steve Bracks. Credit: Jason South Recalling daily  sometimes hourly  conversations with Allan between Christmas and New Years Eve, Weimar praises her for engaging with the problem, not avoiding it. It was a really difficult time, none of us wanted to be there, he says. Initially, she pushed back on the advice, understanding the gravity and consequences of not only ruining holidays for COVID-weary Victorians, but the potential border crush the decision would create. I dont think it was very enjoyable for her, but she backed us. I think thats what she does. Allan expects the highest standards from her department and will forensically grill bureaucrats. Its a skill she has honed over her two decades in parliament and more than 15 years as a minister.

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War crimes investigators and the Australian Federal Police have been granted access to restricted documents on the court file in Ben Roberts-Smiths failed defamation case amid active investigations into allegations Australian soldiers broke the rules of engagement in Afghanistan.

Federal Court Justice Robert Bromwich on Wednesday granted the AFP and the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) access to some material on the sensitive court file in the defamation case, after amending national security orders. The OSI is the agency investigating the war crimes allegations.

Ben Roberts-Smith outside the Federal Court in Sydney last year. Credit: Kate Geraghty

The court heard Roberts-Smith did not oppose the Commonwealths application on behalf of the OSI to access a list of documents that had been narrowed following out-of-court discussions. However, he did not actively consent.

Bromwich said the former Special Air Service soldiers neutral stance was understandable, and he was not standing in the way of the order.
WA Police are probing a mystery incident after arriving at the scene of a potential roadside altercation in Perths north-east to find only debris.

Perth detectives said officers were called to an incident on Reid Highway in Bennett Springs about 1.50am on Wednesday over reports of a possible crash or altercation taking place between a group of people in the westbound lanes.

The Reid Highway scene on Wednesday morning. Credit: 9 News Perth

However, when they arrived, no one was located, and debris and other items of interest were strewn across the road.

Around an hour later, at 3am, two men presented to Joondalup Health Campus, one in a critical condition. His age is unknown, however the other man who presented was 20 years old.
Police have laid charges over an incident in Cervantes where a naked man acting erratically was pulled from the ocean by fishermen, but are continuing to investigate the discovery of human remains in a burnt-out car on a nearby major road.

Major crime Detective Senior Sergeant Greg McDonald said on Tuesday investigators were still trying to ascertain if there was a link between the two incidents after a charred white two-door Mitsubishi Pajero was discovered on its side on Indian Ocean Drive about 12.30am Tuesday.

Police are investigating whether the discovery of a charred white vehicle with a body inside, is linked to the discovery of a red car and naked man in the ocean nearby. Credit: Nine News Perth

The human remains inside are yet to be identified, with the case being treated as a suspected homicide.

We havent established identification, we dont know a cause of death, and we dont know how that person came to be in that vehicle, McDonald said.
Deaf and blind voters are being left behind in the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum debate which should be using similar methods and avenues of outreach used during the COVID-19 pandemic, a leading deaf Indigenous advocate says.

First Peoples Disability Network Australia advocate Daniel McDonald is in Perth for a forum on the Voice referendum and people with disabilities, to be held in Cloverdale on Wednesday night.

First Peoples Disability Australia advocate Daniel McDonald.

The deaf Gadigal and Wonnarua man, who is a strident supporter of the Voice, said many deaf and blind people he spoke to had very little knowledge of the referendum.

I try and explain to them to get them aware and understand about whats happening because theres not much on the websites, on AEC, nothing about that in Auslan for deaf-blind people to contact, McDonald said through an interpreter.
Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed concern about the strip-searching of women at Doha Airport when discussing Qatar Airways bid for increased flights to Australia this year.

Fronting a parliamentary inquiry into the governments rejection of Qatars application, Hrdlicka also said Transport Minister Catherine King told her in May this year that the October 2020 incident, which saw a number of Australian women subjected to intimate physical examinations at Doha airport, presented challenges relating to the airlines request.

Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka told the inquiry Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed concerns to her about the strip-searching of women at Doha Airport in 2020.

My recollection of the conversation is that her view was that it had been raised and was a concern of [Foreign Affairs] Minister [Penny] Wongs, and this had come up as a challenge, and she didnt see a way around it, said Hrdlicka, whose airline has strong commercial links with Qatar.

We remain confused about what has actually happened in relation to this matter, and that to this day, there is still no coherent logic for this decision when all of the data suggests that supporting the Qatar Airways rights expansion is strongly in the national interest.
The news

Queenslands chief health officer has been called in to address growing pressure on the government over rotten egg gas and chemical odours near Ipswich.

Dr John Gerrard, who appeared before the media on Wednesday just hours after renewed opposition calls for a public health inquiry, hosed down the need for such action.

Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard says his department has only received one report from a GP about symptoms linked to waste dump odours. Credit: Matt Dennien

I dont think it would add anything, were already doing the public health work, Gerrard said.
Washington: Private Travis King, the US soldier who ran into North Korea in July, is in American custody and heading home after being expelled by North Korea into China, the United States said on Wednesday.

While details about the diplomacy that led to Kings transfer remained scarce, the positive resolution of the case was a rare example of cooperation between the US, North Korea and China.

A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul. Credit: AP

King, 23, made a sudden dash into North Korea from the South on July 18 while on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area on the heavily fortified border between the neighbours and was immediately taken into North Korean custody.

The incident triggered heated discussions inside the US government, but Washington declined to declare him a prisoner of war. For its part, North Korea appears to have treated his case as one of illegal immigration.
New York: Over the past week, 130 world leaders and more than 50 ministers addressed the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, but fewer than 12 per cent of those to stand at the lectern were women.

We have to be courageous enough ... to call people out, delegation by delegation, when you meet them, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told reporters after the last country had spoken in the 193-member General Assembly.

UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis delivers his closing remarks to this years event. Very few women stood where Francis is standing. Credit: AP

Its clear and abundant in the hall, when youre sitting at the podium and youre looking down, its true  Im searching for the women and that has to get better, she added.

Only four countries did not address the six-day meeting - Niger, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Madagascar, diplomats said.
MBABANE  Kareem Ashraff has alleged that Auditor General Timothy Matsebula showed and allowed him to take pictures of parts of the drugs shortage forensic report during the purported visit to his residence.

The honourary consular general for the Republic of Indonesia in the Kingdom of Eswatini also alleged that Matsebula informed him that the report implicated the two Ministry of Health officials who took government to the Industrial Court over the investigation into medical drugs and supplies shortage. Ashraff submitted that he had purportedly neither interacted with Matsebula previously, nor knew him, until they met at his residence. He made these allegations in an urgent application for an order directing the attorney general (AG), prime minister (PM), ministers of Finance and Health and Auditor General, Matsebula, to produce, for purposes of copying, a report styled Forensic Investigation Report into Allegations of Irregularities Relations to Procurement, Acquisition and Distribution of Medicines to Public Health Facilities in Eswatini, that was carried out by Funduzi Forensic Services (Pty) Limited at their instance to the applicants. The applicants are Swazi Pharm Wholesalers (Pty) Ltd, Ashraff and David Melvin.

In the application, Ashraff submitted that on July 17, 2023, he received a telephone call from one John Bukutu, who is a businessman. He alleged that Bukutu informed him that he needed to see him as a matter of urgency. Ashraff said he had known Bukutu for a considerable period as a fellow businessman. Having enquired on the exigency of the visit, and given his insistence on seeing me, I relented and agreed to meet him in the evening at my residence. To my surprise, Mr Bukutu arrived at my residence accompanied by the Auditor General, Mr Timothy Matsebula. I point out that although I had heard and read about Mr Matsebula, I did not at that time know him. I may have met him in other places but did not have any recollection of interacting with him. This was my first formal meeting with him, he alleged. The veracity of these allegations is still to be tested in court. The respondents are yet to file their answering papers.

Ashraff told the court that after the standard introductions, and Bukutu having explained the purpose of the visit, Matsebula allegedly explained that it was at his instance that the meeting had been convened. The auditor general, according to Ashraff, was allegedly carrying what looked like a green file and from there he produced a document, which he made reference to as the forensic report. He then took me through extracts of the report, particularly highlighting those portions that implicated the applicants. He also showed me and permitted me to take pictures of extracts of the report using my mobile phone.

Discussion

In the course of the discussion, he indicated that the report also implicated the two Ministry of Health officials that had taken government to court. In this regard, I took a picture of one of the exhibits, which was contained in the report and related to one Sincedile Dlamini. There were other allegations that were made by the auditor general, which I intend to address in full in the review application. It became evident to me that the purpose of the visit was a pursuit of reciprocal benefit. In light of potential consequences, I immediately informed the auditor general that I would have to challenge this report in a court of law. I consciously avoided the insinuation of reciprocity for the disclosure of the report. I did, however, subsequent to the visit, alert certain authorities about this unusual occurrence that had taken place in my residence. I did so for purposes of transparency and in good faith, Ashraff added.

He argued that on a conspectus of the facts and the law, he and the other applicants were entitled to have access to the report and to subject it to judicial scrutiny. The report, which may be adopted by Cabinet at its final meeting, according to Ashraff, would have a direct and external effect in that certain resolutions may be taken by Cabinet on its (report) strength. The applicants have been condemned in the eyes of the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini, suppliers in the pharmaceutical industry, role players in the diplomatic corps, members of the public and the international community, in circumstances that are patently unfair and wrong. It is conceivable that criminal or civil proceedings may even be constituted on the strength of a false report. The entire process has been prejudicial to us." The matter is pending in court.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for swift and tighter regulation, warning of "Ponzi schemes" emerging in the cryptocurrency markets.



(Photo: REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo)

In May of the previous year, Sweden and Finland jointly applied to join NATO. By April of the following year, Finland had officially become the 31st country to join the alliance, while Sweden's application was blocked by Turkey and Hungary.

Turkey's primary grievance with Sweden stems from the latter's support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian branch, the People's Protection Units (YPG), as well as members of the Gulen movement, which Turkey accuses of orchestrating a failed coup. Both Turkey and the U.S., along with the EU, have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

In June of the previous year, a trilateral agreement was reached between Turkey, Sweden, and Finland regarding NATO membership. The two Nordic countries compromised, pledging to curb the activities of the PKK and its affiliates within their borders. However, earlier this year, far-right groups in Sweden held anti-Turkey protests outside the Turkish embassy in Sweden, where some demonstrators burned the Quran and waved PKK flags.

This incident infuriated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who criticized Swedish authorities for harboring terrorists and temporarily halted negotiations with Sweden. In the lead-up to the July NATO summit, various countries, including the U.S., pressured Turkey to greenlight Sweden's NATO membership.

While Turkey remained resistant, an agreement was eventually brokered with Sweden under the facilitation of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Terms of the Agreement Sweden agreed to provide a roadmap demonstrating its continued commitment to combating terrorism, fulfilling its trilateral agreement promises, ceasing support for the YPG, enhancing bilateral trade and investment with Turkey, and actively supporting Turkey's EU membership bid. Previously, Sweden had amended its constitution to bolster counter-terrorism efforts and resumed arms exports to Turkey.

In return, the Turkish government agreed to present Sweden's NATO application for a parliamentary vote and work closely with the parliament to ensure its approval.

The F-16 Bargaining Chip

The U.S.'s F-16 fighter jets were not explicitly mentioned in the agreement. However, since Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, the F-16s have been central to Turkey's negotiations with the U.S.

The Biden administration has shown interest in selling F-16s to Turkey, but there's bipartisan opposition in Congress. Members from both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have stipulated that Turkey must first approve Sweden's NATO membership and address Greece's security concerns before the U.S. agrees to the F-16 sale. Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, have long-standing territorial and energy resource disputes.

On September 26, Erdogan explicitly told the U.S. that if the promise to sell F-16s is fulfilled, the Turkish parliament would vote on Sweden's NATO membership. The Turkish parliament is currently in summer recess and will reconvene in October.

Erdogan noted that while the U.S. has linked Sweden's NATO membership to the F-16 deal, Turkey also has a parliament to consider. He emphasized that if the U.S. fulfills its promise, the Turkish parliament would reciprocate, with the final decision on Sweden's NATO membership resting in its hands.

U.S. Congressional Stance

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Bob Menendez, has been a vocal opponent of the F-16 sale to Turkey. He has called for Turkey to change its "hostile" attitude towards NATO allies and neighbors and improve its record on freedom of speech and human rights.

However, Menendez's opposition to the F-16 sale is no longer an obstacle. He and his wife were recently indicted for bribery after investigators found $500,000 in cash and gold bars at Menendez's residence. Following the charges, Menendez stepped down as chairman.

Erdogan acknowledged this development, stating that while Menendez's indictment gave Turkey an advantage, the F-16 issue wasn't solely dependent on him.

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Mike McCaul, clarified that to provide Turkey with upgraded F-16s, the U.S. would need to supply Greece with more advanced fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets to maintain a balance of power against Turkey.

Turkey's F-16 Ambitions

Turkey's push to purchase upgraded F-16s is also tied to the F-35 program. As NATO's second-largest member, Turkey was part of the U.S. F-35 program, with plans to buy over 100 F-35s and having already paid the U.S. $1.4 billion in advance.

However, after Turkey purchased Russia's S-400 missile defense system, the U.S. expelled Turkey from the F-35 program and imposed sanctions. Turkey's F-35 purchase was intended to replace its aging fleet of older F-16s. Currently, Turkey has 270 older F-16s, making it the third-largest F-16 operator globally, after the U.S. and Israel.

After being barred from purchasing the F-35, Turkey began seeking 40 new F-16s and 80 F-16 upgrade kits in 2021, a deal worth up to $20 billion. The U.S. has not refunded the $1.4 billion Turkey previously paid for the F-35s, which will be used towards the new F-16 purchase.

Due to U.S. Congressional opposition, Turkey's plans to purchase the new F-16s have been delayed. Earlier this year, Erdogan complained that Turkey had already paid the U.S. $1.4 billion but received nothing in return. He warned that if the U.S. doesn't deliver, there would be consequences.

Hungary, on the other hand, rejected Sweden's NATO application due to Sweden's criticism of Hungary's rule of law. Hungary had expressed similar concerns about Finland's application but approved it after Turkey did.

Following Finland's NATO membership, NATO's border with Russia has doubled. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, the longest among EU countries. If Sweden joins NATO, the Baltic Sea would be surrounded by NATO countries.

Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are all NATO members, as are Poland, Germany, and Denmark on the southern and western shores of the Baltic Sea. Estonia and Latvia share borders with mainland Russia, while Poland and Lithuania border Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.

Sweden's strategic Gotland Island in the Baltic Sea is about 300 kilometers from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia's Baltic Fleet.
TikTok Search Results Are Full Of Misinformation: Report (Photo: REUTERS)

In a move that has caught the attention of the global digital commerce community, Indonesia's Ministry of Trade announced a significant regulatory change: the prohibition of e-commerce transactions on social media platforms. This decision, which seeks to clearly demarcate the roles of social media and e-commerce, has profound implications, particularly for platforms like TikTok that have been making inroads into the e-commerce space.

The Indonesian government's directive is unequivocal: social media platforms should primarily serve as promotional tools, not avenues for direct sales. This distinction is motivated by concerns surrounding potential misuse of public data. During a media conference, Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan articulated the government's stance, emphasizing the need to separate the realms of social media and e-commerce. By doing so, the government aims to ensure that algorithms aren't monopolized by singular entities, thereby safeguarding against potential misuse of personal data for commercial objectives.

Further tightening the regulatory framework, the Indonesian government has also announced plans to regulate the sale of overseas goods on its digital platforms. Such products will now be treated on par with offline domestic goods. This decision is a response to the increasing influx of foreign goods in Indonesia via social media platforms. President Joko Widodo voiced concerns about the impact of these platforms on local businesses, micro-enterprises, and the broader economy, noting the decline in sales in certain markets due to the surge in online sales via social platforms.

This regulatory shift poses a significant challenge for TikTok, which had ambitious e-commerce plans for Indonesia. With a user base of 113 million, Indonesia is TikTok's second-largest market, second only to the U.S. Earlier in June, TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, had unveiled plans to invest billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia in the coming years. Responding to the new regulations, a TikTok spokesperson emphasized the platform's role in supporting local traditional small sellers by connecting them with local creators. The spokesperson expressed hope that the new regulations would consider the impact on the livelihoods of the millions of sellers and creators who use TikTok Shop.

Financial analysts predict that this move will benefit traditional e-commerce players in Indonesia. A recent report by Citi highlighted the potential advantages for Shopee, the e-commerce arm of Sea Limited, and other domestic players. The report suggests that any disruptions TikTok sellers face during this transition could benefit traditional e-commerce platforms in the subsequent months.

As Indonesia recalibrates its digital commerce landscape, the global tech community watches closely, anticipating the potential ramifications of such regulatory shifts.
The Group of 20 includes Western countries that have accused Moscow of war crimes in Ukraine. (Photo: Hannah McKay/Reuters/File Photo)

Despite the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine for over a year and a half, and the European Union's (EU) dual approach of sanctions and decoupling from Russia, has the EU truly severed its economic ties with Russia?

The answer appears to be no.

Media reports revealed that in July of this year, Swiss commodities trading giant Glencore used Turkey as a conduit to ship thousands of tons of Russian copper to Italy. This underscores that beneath the facade of sanctions, the EU still can't fully break away from its dependence on Russian products.

Customs documents and photos obtained by the media show that in 2019, Glencore ordered at least 5,000 tons of copper sheets produced by Russia's Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) from UAE entity Haldivor Energy. Then, in July of this year, this batch of copper sheets was exported from Turkey to the port of Livorno in Italy. The copper will be transported to a wire factory in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, where it will be used to produce copper products for cables, transformers, and electronic devices.

Glencore stated that this transaction was the "final part" of a contract signed before the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted. Since February of the previous year, the company hasn't initiated new business with UMMC, aligning with the company's policy of not undertaking new ventures in Russia.

UMMC, Russia's second-largest copper producer, was listed in July by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN), bearing "nuclear-level sanctions."

However, while the EU and the UK have sanctioned UMMC's executives, they left a loophole by not sanctioning the company itself.

Thus, legally speaking, Glencore did not violate any sanctions. These transactions highlight Europe's dependence on Russia for key commodities and the pivotal role of countries like Turkey and the UAE as transit hubs and intermediaries.

An Italian government official commented to the media, noting the challenges the EU faces in implementing sanctions due to imports and exports conducted through third countries.

Russia is one of Turkey's most important trading partners, with Turkey heavily reliant on vast amounts of energy imported from Russia.

Serving as a bridge between Europe and Asia, Turkey has not joined the Western sanctions against Russia. It has maintained close diplomatic and economic relations with the Putin administration and is currently a crucial transit point for Russia to transport zinc, copper, and aluminum to Europe.

Data from Trade Data Monitor shows that in the first seven months of 2023, Turkey's imports of Russian copper nearly doubled from the same period last year, reaching 159,000 tons, accounting for a third of Turkey's copper imports.

Research firm CRU Group estimates that in the first six months of 2023, Turkey's overall imports of cathode copper and wire amounted to 330,000 tons, an increase of 125,000 tons from the previous year. The firm noted that this "far exceeds Turkey's domestic demand."

In Europe, Italy has become Turkey's largest copper export destination, growing by 3% this year. However, exports to Germany and the UK have declined significantly. Analysts point out that this indicates Italy is becoming an indispensable part of the Russian copper trade route.
UN, ASEAN, and China Collaborate: The Evolving Landscape of Southeast Asian Telecom Scams (Photo: Pixabay)

Telecom scams in Southeast Asia are rampant, prompting international collaborative action.

On Tuesday, the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and China jointly announced a new agreement in Bangkok, Thailand, to combat organized crime and human trafficking. The plan, co-hosted by the Philippines and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has been finalized and will be presented at the next ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime by the Philippines.

The agreement states that recruiting victims for criminal activities is just a part of transnational organized crime. Digital tech fraud, extortion, money laundering, and corruption are proliferating. Illicit financial flows have reached a level that threatens governance and stability in certain regions.

To ensure regional safety and prosperity, ASEAN and China aim to establish a comprehensive strategic roadmap for the entire region, focusing on four main areas: preventing organized crime from infiltrating communities, economies, and political institutions; tracing organized crime groups and their illicit gains through criminal justice procedures to enhance corporate accountability and reduce risks of illegal operations; protecting vulnerable groups and victims from further harm; and promoting partnerships and cooperation at all levels.

Specific measures include establishing inter-agency coordination centers in ASEAN countries and China and holding annual regional liaison network meetings.

Jeremy Douglas, UNODC's representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, noted the rapid increase in human trafficking related to casinos and scams operated by organized crime in Southeast Asia, especially in the Mekong region. He emphasized the urgent need for regional cooperation to address the increasingly integrated and interconnected crime issues and dismantle their ecosystems, with the UN ready to offer support.

The Unquantifiable Scale

Chinese internet users are no strangers to telecom scams, with news of Chinese victims frequently sparking public outrage. A UN report confirms some of these grim rumors.

According to a report released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on August 29, hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia are being forced by organized crime groups to engage in cybercrimes such as romance investment scams, cryptocurrency fraud, and illegal gambling. However, due to its clandestine nature and challenges in official tracking, the exact scale of online scam transactions in Southeast Asia remains elusive.

The report cites "reliable sources" claiming that at least 120,000 people in Myanmar might be forced into online scams, with Cambodia estimated to have around 100,000. Other countries in the region, including Laos, the Philippines, and Thailand, have also been identified as major destination or transit countries, with tens of thousands involved.

The report found that these transnational organized crime groups operate openly, not in the shadows. In some cases, they even masquerade as legitimate business entities or even charitable organizations. Some crime leaders have even formed public alliances with influential business leaders and officials.

While some Southeast Asian countries have established legal and policy frameworks related to combating trafficking, the report believes that in some cases, these frameworks do not meet international standards. Additionally, there are instances where crimes go unpunished.

Through various operations, criminal organizations are generating unprecedented profits. The UNODC estimates that in one Southeast Asian country, scam groups generate annual revenues between $7.5 billion and $12.5 billion, "amounting to half of the country's GDP."

The UN's latest press release cites regional security officials saying that scam groups are increasingly diverting illicit gains through the gaming industry and other large cash flow businesses, including using hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies. Additionally, they are venturing into real estate and luxury sectors from Bangkok to Singapore.

This was corroborated by a news story that went viral in Singapore last month. On August 15, Singapore arrested 10 foreigners suspected of forging documents and laundering money for overseas crimes. The case involved nearly SGD 1 billion (approximately USD 736 million), with 94 properties and 50 vehicles seized, making it one of the largest money laundering and forgery cases in the country's history.

The Profound Impact of the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on telecom scam activities in the region. The report states that due to pandemic measures, many countries closed offline casinos, leading organizers to shift their operations online and to less regulated border areas and special economic zones.

In this context, stranded foreign migrants became one of the targets for criminal groups. Due to border closures and limited business activities, some unemployed individuals were lured into the organizations by fake high-paying job offers. Additionally, during strict pandemic measures, many were forced to stay home, spending more time online, providing fertile ground for online scam activities.

The report states that most victims are not citizens of the countries they are in. They mainly come from the ASEAN region (Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), South Asia, as well as mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and even as far as Africa and Latin America. Most are males, with a small number of females and teenagers. Many victims are well-educated, some with postgraduate degrees, computer literate, and multilingual.

They have experienced a series of severe human rights violations and abuses. For instance, many have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment.

The UNODC predicts that these scam groups will quickly adapt to the new situation and will increasingly rely on highly skilled tech workers. Furthermore, the development of artificial intelligence and translation tools has greatly increased the efficiency of scammers, which may reduce the demand for multilingual victims and shift towards those with IT skills and/or experience using various social media platforms and communication channels.

In response to the evolving situation, regional actions are increasing. In May, ASEAN leaders agreed at a summit in Indonesia to strengthen border controls and law enforcement and expand public education. In June, Philippine police launched a raid, rescuing over 2,700 victims from China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and several other countries. Meanwhile, China will establish a temporary strict border control zone in Tengchong, Yunnan, starting October 1, to address telecom scams related to northern Myanmar.
India's NMDC is unable to export low-grade iron ore to China, the country's biggest iron ore customer, due to logistics issues, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The miner did not immediately reply to a Reuters email seeking comments.

"There is a severe shortage of rakes to move the ore anywhere in the country which is affecting exports," the source said, declining to be identified as details of the challenges are not public.

China imports around 80% of India's overall shipments.

Indian producers of low-grade ores largely depend on foreign markets because most major domestic steel producers use high-grade iron ores.

Separately, NMDC is also on track to receive forest clearances for diamond mining in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the source said.

The mine produces around 10 carats of diamond per 100 tonnes of Kimberlite processed, according to details provided by the company's website.

Meanwhile, the company's joint venture with Australia's Hancock Prospecting Pty was yet to start lithium production, the source said.
The US, the UK and Bangladesh were the top three source countries for foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) in India in 2022, according to official data.

The data was shared by the Ministry of Tourism in a statement on the occasion of World Tourism Day on Wednesday.

"Top 3 source countries for Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during 2022 include United States of America (USA), Bangladesh and United Kingdom (UK)," the statement said.

India received 6.19 million FTAs during 2022 as compared to 1.52 million in 2021, it said.

There were 10.93 million FTAs in India during pre-pandemic year 2019. The tourism industry has shown good signs of revival after the pandemic, Union Minister of Tourism G Kishan Reddy had shared this in a written response to a query in Rajya Sabha in April.

In the data, shared on Wednesday, the Ministry of Tourism also said that India received Rs 1,34,543 crore (USD 16.93 billion) in foreign exchange earnings, a "remarkable increase" from Rs 65,070 crore recorded in 2021.

Also, India's portion of international tourism receipts, measured in US dollars, stands at 2.08 per cent. India holds the 14th position in the world ranking of tourism receipts, it added.

In terms of percentage share of top eight ports for FTAs in India in 2022, 31.21 per cent was constituted by the Delhi airport, according to the data.

Also, the number of domestic tourist visits to all states and Union Territories in India surged to 1,731 million in 2022, marking a "significant growth" from the 677 million in 2021, it said.

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PIGGS PEAK  Morris Nhlanhla Dlamini, the soldier accused of shooting and killing three family members, has been slapped with a total of five charges.

These are three counts of murder and two counts of malicious injury to property. The 53-year old Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF) member made his maiden court appearance before Piggs Peak Magistrate Sakhele Hlophe yesterday morning. He also consented to giving blood samples to assist the Crown in leading evidence. The accused has been charged with the murder of Andy Dlamini (54), Thandi Lukhele (72) and Dumisile Dlamini (52). It is said that upon or about September 24, 2023, and at or near Lomshiyo area in the Hhohho District, the accused person wrongfully, unlawfully and intentionally (allegedly) killed the trio, all of Lomshiyo and did thereby commit the crime of murder.

Injury

For the two counts of malicious injury to property, the accused person is said to have, on the same day, damaged a brown BMW 1Series valued at E95 000, black Lenovo laptop valued at E5 000 and money in cash valued at E1 000. The items had a combined valued at E101 000, the property of or in the lawful possession of Lungile Dlamini. The accused allegedly further damaged a blue Ford Ranger valued at E1 million, the property of or in lawful possession of Gcebile Dlamini. The Crown moved an application under Section 342(2) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act of 1938, for an order authorising the taking of blood samples from the suspect. Magistrate Hlophe advised the accused on the application moved by the Crown to have blood samples extracted from him to lead more evidence on the allegations levelled against him.

Morris was asked if he consented to this application or he had an objection and he responded to the affirmative. The order was granted by Magistrate Hlophe. In the meantime, Magistrate Hlophe ordered that the accused person be remanded in custody until October 18, 2023, pending committal to the High Court. The accused was duly advised that in the event he was desirous to be admitted to bail, he could move a bail application at the High Court, as per the stipulations of Section 95 and 96 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (As Amended). He may do so through the aid of his legal representative or may personally file the application at the High Court.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has decided to set up 350 public electric vehicle charging points, officials said on Wednesday.

The NDMC, in its Council Meeting, also discussed the framing and amendment of Recruitment Rules (RRs) for different posts in the civic body.

"The indicative scope of work for setting up Public EV charging stations includes selective quantities/locations for installation of Public EV charging stations that will be provided to the PSUs in the initial stage. Further allocation of quantities/locations will be decided by the NDMC considering the performance parameters delivered by the PSUs, NDMC vice-chairman Satish Upadhyay said.

Collaborating with the PSUs on promoting electric vehicles, including two-wheelers, in the NDMC area was also approved by the council, he said.

The NDMC approved the signing of MoU between the NDMC and HLL Infra Tech Services Ltd., Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Limited (REIL) and Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KELTRON) for setting up of public charging related infrastructure pertaining to National Electric Mobility Program in NDMC, he added.

There are 100 public EV charging stations in the NMDC area already.

NDMC member Kuljeet Singh Chahal said the entire investment in the installation, operation, and maintenance of EV charging stations shall be borne by PSUs.

"NDMC shall provide space, electricity connection and all other clearance to the PSUs for the installation of EV charging infrastructure. All PSUs shall give as land rental of Rs.1 per unit against energy consumption for charging of e-vehicle to NDMC, apart from the electricity bill, Chahal said.

Additional revenue shall be generated through outdoor advertisement on public EV charging stations, which will be shared between NDMC and the PSUs i.e. 60 per cent for NDMC and 40 per cent for PSUs.

Chahal also alleged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is also a member of the NDMC, has not attended three consecutive council meetings on July 27, August 23 and September 27.

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"An advice is being sought from the law department to get the seat of Kejriwal vacated as member, NDMC as per Section 8 of the NDMC Act due to not attending three consecutive meetings," he added.

Despite being an MLA of New Delhi constituency, Kejriwal remains absent from such meetings and is not taking any interest, Chahal said.

If the law department advises so, a proposal to cancel Kejriwal's seat will be moved in the next council meeting, he said. No immediate reaction was received from either the Delhi government or the Aam Aadmi Party on the matter.

The NDMC also passed a special vote of thanks to acknowledge the successful organisation of the G20 Summit.

During the meeting, a proposal to ensure that the services of contractual workers continue till they attain the age of 60 was also approved.

Irrespective of whether they are regularised or not, contractual workers will continue to be employed with NDMC, Upadhyay said.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Electoral Commission Chairperson of Seychelles Danny Lucas on 'Electoral Cooperation' in the capital of Seychelles.

The MoU was signed to boost the exchange of best practices in election management and training officials.

Taking to their social media 'X', the Election Commission of India stated, "#ECI Expands Electoral Collaboration. CEC @rajivkumarec & Mr. Danny Lucas, Chairperson, Electoral Commission #Seychelles sign MoU on 'Electoral Cooperation' at Victoria, Seychelles. MoU to strengthen the exchange of best practices in election mgt. & training of officials."

Indo-Seychelles relations have been characterised by close friendship, understanding and cooperation. To facilitate cooperation further a number of bilateral agreements/MOUs have already been signed during the last few decades.

Earlier this year, Rajiv Kumar held productive discussions with the Chief Election Commissioner of Bhutan Dasho Sonam Topgay in Bhutan.

According to an official press release by the Election Commission of India, the visit to Bhutan by CEC Rajiv Kumar happened almost after a decade, on the invitation of the CEC of Bhutan to further strengthen the cooperation between the two EMBs.

Earlier in March this year, a delegation of the French Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs led by its chairman Jean-Louis Bourlanges held a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar at Nirvachan Sadan.
EID Milad-un Nabi is one of the most precious festivals for all Muslims across the world, which celebrates the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Allah's final messenger. According to the Islamic calendar, Barelwis and Sufis are the main groups who celebrate the Eid-e-Milad un-Nabi festival the most in the month of Rabi al-Awwal.

This festival is observed on the 12th day of Rabi al-Awwal in the Islamic lunar calendar and this is the day to spread spiritual awareness and Prophet Muhammad's learning. Here is the collection of best wishes, quotes and messages that you can share with your loved ones.

EID Milad-un Nabi: 10 best wishes

May the virtues of the Prophet Muhammad be your guiding light to the right path, and may you find strength and solace in his teachings. Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!

Eid Milad-un-Nabi is a reminder of the Prophets timeless wisdom and the beauty of his character. May the example of his teaching and learning always be with you to inspire and grow.

On this special day, may your prayers be answered, and your life be filled with prosperity and happiness. Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!

Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak! Let us honour the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad by following his path of kindness, love and compassion.

May the joyous celebration of the Prophets birth fill your life with love, happiness, and prosperity. Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!

Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak! May the love, wisdom, and guidance of the Prophet be a source of inspiration for you and your family to find happiness and solace.

May the divine blessings of the Prophet bring peace to your heart and happiness to your soul.

On this blessed day, may the light of the Prophets teachings guide you towards a path of righteousness and peace.

As we celebrate the birth of the Prophet, let us remember his message of unity, tolerance, and brotherhood. Eid Milad-un-Nabi Mubarak!

May your life be as bright as the full moon of Rabi al-Awwal, and your heart be as pure as the Prophets teachings.

EID Milad-un Nabi: 10 best quotes

A fundamental aim of Mawlid al-Nabi a is to attain love and proximity of the Prophet and to revive the believers relationship with his most revered person.  Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri

Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave.  Prophet Muhammad

Eid Milad Un Nabi is a great opportunity to associate with Allah with new wishes, hopes and strengths. Lets make the day precious together.

Blessed Mawlid to everyone as we celebrate the birth of The Teacher of teachers; mercy upon mankind and all of existence; the manifestation of Love, Peace and Kindness.  Sami Yousuf

None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.  Hadith

The Prophets character was termed tremendous because his concern was for God alone.  Imam Junayd al-Baghdadi

Every religion has its distinct characteristic, and the distinct characteristic of Islam is modesty.  Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

He, who wishes to enter paradise at the best gate, must please his father and mother.  Prophet Muhammad

Reverence of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is at the core of our Imaan and to celebrate the auspicious occasion of Mawlid al-Nabi (PBUH) is an act of expressing our love & happiness upon the blessed birth of the most exalted Prophet of Allah Almighty.  Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri

The greatest Jihad is to battle your own soul. To fight the evil within yourself.  Prophet Muhammad

EID Milad-un Nabi: 10 best messages
The National Investigation Agency Wednesday detained several suspects during a massive multi-state crackdown on a nexus of terrorists, gangsters and drug-smugglers, an official said.

The raids related to cases against the associates of Arsh Dalla, a listed terrorist, and many dreaded gangsters, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The respective state police force provided necessary support to the daylong raids carried out at 53 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, a spokesperson of the federal agency said, the official said.

The official said pistols, ammunition, a large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raids aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-smuggler nexus.

The action focused on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs working with drug-smugglers and terror outfits based in Pakistan, the UAE, Canada, Portugal and other countries, he said.

Some of the locations where raids were conducted included Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka , Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozepur, SAS Naga and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand, the spokesperson said.

Raids were also carried out in the southeast district of Delhi-NCR and Chandigarh, he said.

Besides Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri and Deepak Tinu, the spokesperson said.

The raids were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by the NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new registered against organised criminal gangs in July this year.

The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits and extortion by gangsters many of whom are lodged in jails or are operating from various foreign countries, the spokesperson said.

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Investigations have revealed that these conspiracies were being hatched in jails in various states and were being executed by an organised network of foreign-based operatives.

These conspiracies included the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year, the spokesperson said.

The official said many of the criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now carrying out terror and violence-related activities from there.

"These criminals have been engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions," the spokesperson said.

The official said the spotlight on these gangs got sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail.

The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition.

The agency has so far frozen 87 bank accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles.

Also, two absconders have been declared designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused as Proclaimed Offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) issued against nine others as a result of NIA's efforts to destroy and dismantle the deadly nexus between terrorists like Dalla and dreaded gangsters and drug smugglers, the spokesperson said.
Google turned 25 on Wednesday and marked the silver jubilee occasion with a special doodle that depicted the journey of the company from its humble origin in a rented garage in the US to becoming a global search giant.

The 25th anniversary doodle also visually portrayed the evolution of the software bellwether's logo over these years.

The firm is recognised around the world for its vibrant logo that embrace colours and simplicity.

On Wednesday, visitors to Google's homepage were welcomed with a dynamically changing logo with one of these being 'G25GLE', the numerals 25 being interlooped in a way that it formed the two 'Os' in the company's name.

On a note shared on its website on Wednesday, the search giant said," Today's Doodle celebrates Google's 25th year. And while here at Google we're oriented towards the future, birthdays can also be a time to reflect. Let's take a walk down memory lane to learn how we were born 25 years ago...".

By fate or luck, doctoral students Sergey Brin and Larry Page met in Stanford University's computer science programme in the late '90s. They quickly learned they shared a similar vision: make the World Wide Web a more accessible place, it said.

"The pair worked tirelessly from their dorm rooms to develop a prototype for a better search engine. As they made meaningful progress on the project, they moved the operation to Google's first office a rented garage. On September 27, 1998, Google Inc. was officially born," the firm said in the note.

"Much has changed since 1998 including our logo as seen in today's Doodle but the mission has remained the same: to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Billions of people from all over the globe use Google to search, connect, work, play, and SO much more! Thank you for evolving with us over the past 25 years. We can't wait to see where the future takes us, together," it added.

Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California in the US.

The corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc, is called 'Googleplex'.

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Andersen, the fastest-growing independent, multidisciplinary professional services firm in the world, has launched a new global valuation practice to broaden its platform of tax, legal and related services for clients. Andersens global valuation team works with companies, funds, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices to provide valuations of businesses, tangible and intangible assets, and complex securities for tax, financial reporting, and transaction advisory purposes. Its clients span a wide range of industries from technology to manufacturing, and agriculture to biopharmaceuticals.

At launch, Andersens global valuation practice has a presence in more than 20 countries worldwide, throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

Tax, legal and valuation are intricately related, yet no other professional services firm offers all of these capabilities on a global scale under one roof, said Andersen Global Chairman and CEO Mark Vorsatz. Our vision at Andersen is to create a platform where clients can have a seamless experience working with one multidisciplinary firm they can trust, anywhere in the world. Were aiming to become one of the largest independent valuation firms in the world within the next few years.

Andersens new global valuation practice is led by Managing Director Sid Luckenbach, who has been the national leader for the firms valuation offering in the U.S. for the past 18 years.

Business structures and financial instruments are becoming more complex, Luckenbach said. It gets even more complicated when youre dealing with cross-border and multi-jurisdictional transactions. Thats why the traditional approach is no longer sufficient. Our global valuation practice brings together deep expertise and the geographic reach that clients need, regardless of where their assets are located.

Andersen Global is an international association of legally separate, independent member firms comprised of tax, legal and valuation professionals around the world. Established in 2013 by U.S. member firm Andersen Tax LLC, Andersen Global now has more than 14,000 professionals worldwide and a presence in over 400 locations through its member and collaborating firms.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927288846/en/
Lightbits, the innovation leader in simple, flexible, and cost-efficient data platform solutions for any cloud, today announced the availability of the Lightbits Cloud Data Platform in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Lightbits customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform, with streamlined deployment and management.

Lightbits eliminates the performance and cost limitations associated with native cloud storage, enabling enterprises to migrate their storage-intensive workloads to Azure. By clustering virtual machines connected by NVMe over TCP, Lightbits creates a high-performance SAN in the cloud to power demanding database, analytics, and transactional workloads on Azure while also providing essential enterprise data services. Lightbits is available through the Marketplace as a Managed Application, making it as easy to provision and manage as the native storage offerings.

Now in Preview in eu-west, us-east, and us-west Azure regions, Lightbits enables customers to:

Accelerate migration to the cloud. Lighbits is capable of delivering up to 1 million IOPS per volume and consistent latency as low as 190 microseconds. This high-performance scales linearly as the Lightbits cluster size increases.

Lighbits is capable of delivering up to 1 million IOPS per volume and consistent latency as low as 190 microseconds. This high-performance scales linearly as the Lightbits cluster size increases. Control cloud storage costs. Organizations can save up to 85% on their storage costs. Customers are charged on a capacity consumption basis, not provisioned IOPS or volumes, with capacity usage minimized through thin provisioning, data reduction, and other efficiencies.

Organizations can save up to 85% on their storage costs. Customers are charged on a capacity consumption basis, not provisioned IOPS or volumes, with capacity usage minimized through thin provisioning, data reduction, and other efficiencies. Remain hands-off from managing storage. Lightbits purchases from Azure Marketplace include support services for managing the storage cluster within the customers Azure subscription. Managed application services include 24/7 health monitoring, high availability with SLAs, proactive software upgrades, critical vulnerability patches, auto-healing notifications, and guidelines for cluster expansion.

Lightbits purchases from Azure Marketplace include support services for managing the storage cluster within the customers Azure subscription. Managed application services include 24/7 health monitoring, high availability with SLAs, proactive software upgrades, critical vulnerability patches, auto-healing notifications, and guidelines for cluster expansion. Scale services flexibly. Lightbits disaggregated architecture enables the cluster to scale capacity and performance independently. QoS ensures users dont experience any service impact as workloads are added to the Lightbits cluster.

Lightbits disaggregated architecture enables the cluster to scale capacity and performance independently. QoS ensures users dont experience any service impact as workloads are added to the Lightbits cluster. Simplify provisioning and volume management. With Lightbits, resources are provisioned and managed like a SAN in the cloud instead of on a volume-by-volume basis, preventing overprovisioning of direct attached cloud storage.

With Lightbits, resources are provisioned and managed like a SAN in the cloud instead of on a volume-by-volume basis, preventing overprovisioning of direct attached cloud storage. Maintain high availability across availability zones. Data is protected using synchronous replication within or across availability zones (AZs) and self-healing capabilities ensure business continuity.

Data is protected using synchronous replication within or across availability zones (AZs) and self-healing capabilities ensure business continuity. Be agile with any cloud flexibility. Lightbits licenses are portable between public clouds on Azure and private clouds at on-premises data centers. The multi-tenant environment services multiple heterogeneous app environments.



"As organizations prioritize cloud-first strategies, many are discovering they have mission-critical workloads that wont be able to meet SLAs running in the public cloud, or that it comes with costs that make it infeasible, said Kam Eshghi, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Lightbits. With Lightbits they get the highest performance possible on Azure at a lower cost than native cloud storage, plus hands-off operations as a managed service. Now they can migrate all their workloads to the cloud and be confident that they wont have to repatriate them back on-premises due to skyrocketing costs.

Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure, said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp.Were happy to welcome the Lightbits solution to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem.

The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

The market needed a cloud data platform like Lightbits that removes the bottlenecks associated with cloud-native storage and enables the migration of critical, storage-intensive workloads to Azure, said John Barnes, Sales Director, at Sycomp. Our customers running high-speed databases and AI workloads needed a solution on Azure that delivered the best price/performance capabilities while also being simple to deploy and manage. Today that unmatched solution is Lightbits.

For more information, reserve your front-row seat for the Lightbits on Azure launch event live on September 29, 2023.

Additional resources:

About Lightbits Labs

Lightbits Labs (Lightbits), offers a complete data platform that enables organizations with a cloud-first strategy to migrate storage-intensive workloads to the cloud or to build a high-performance cloud. It eliminates the performance bottlenecks commonly associated with legacy, traditional, or cloud-native storage and delivers high performance, consistent low latency, and predictable low costs. The native NMVe/TCP and clustered architecture, coupled with essential data services solve the common cloud storage challenges of performance, efficiency, and cost. Lightbits is backed by enterprise technology leaders [Cisco Investments, Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital, Lenovo, and Micron] and is on a mission to deliver a robust cloud storage platform with unmatched simplicity, efficiency, agility, and flexibility.

Lightbits and Lightbits Labs are registered trademarks of Lightbits Labs, Ltd.

All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926030793/en/
NTT DOCOMO, INC. announced today its brand-new service lineup of OREX RAN, OREX SMO, and OREX Services, part of its commitment to becoming an Open RAN service provider for international telecom operators. Through this announcement, the company aims to provide clarity and mutual understanding among international telecom operators regarding the services offered by OREX, thereby facilitating its further expansion.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926843087/en/

Open RAN services provided by OREX (OREX Packages) (Graphic: Business Wire)

OREX is DOCOMOs Open RAN service brand, developed in collaboration with multiple global vendors. It can be customized to address the unique challenges of each customer. The introduction of OREX Open RAN services is expected to reduce clients total cost of ownership by up to 30% when the costs of initial setup and ongoing maintenance are taken into account. It can also reduce the time required for network design by up to 50%. Additionally, OREX reduces power consumption at base stations by up to 50%.

In the OREX RAN offering, OREX leverages the features of Open RAN, allowing the combination of various vendor products to provide base stations that are highly cost-effective. Leveraging the knowledge gained from DOCOMOs unique experience in building mobile networks with multiple equipment vendors since the 4G era, OREX integrates the strengths of its 13 OREX PARTNERS to offer an extensive range of virtualized radio base networks (vRANs) and radio units (RUs) compatible with the range of different frequencies in use in various countries. With the addition of seven new RU vendors, OREX is poised to meet the demands of an even larger customer base.

With OREX SMO, OREX provides software developed by NTT Corporation to facilitate the efficient design, configuration and monitoring of wireless access networks, enabling autonomous and optimized device operation. Adoption of OREX SMO allows the automatic optimization of network design, reducing design workload by up to 50%, particularly in complex cases that would normally take several weeks. It also reduces operational workload by automating tasks such as the adjustment of the antenna angle of base stations, which is critical for securing the coverage area. OREX SMO is compliant with the standard specifications defined by the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

OREX Services provide the procurement and system integration required for the adoption of OREX RAN and OREX SMO, as well as post-implementation operational support and maintenance.

On September 22, DOCOMO initiated the deployment and operation of OREX RAN and OREX SMO in its domestic 5G network, incorporating base station software from Fujitsu Limited, cloud platform from Wind River, hardware accelerator from NVIDIA, and COTS server with Intel processors. Building on the operational experience they have accumulated within DOCOMOs network, these companies plan to enhance OREX Open RAN services and expand their product combinations, striving to offer improved cost-effectiveness and reliability.

Going forward, DOCOMO will continue to support global telecom operators in their adoption of Open RAN with its new OREX offerings, strengthening its cooperation with global partners to make Open RAN a reality. In addition, DOCOMO will leverage the technology by applying the All-Photonics Network to transport network in Open RAN, following the concept of the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) promoted by the NTT Group. It will also utilize low-power servers equipped with photonics-electronics convergence technology and integrate OREX SMO with IOWNs Cognitive Foundation.

OREX is a trademark of NTT DOCOMO, INC.

For more detailed information, please refer to the full press release available at www.docomo.ne.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/

About NTT DOCOMO

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's leading mobile operator with over 87 million subscriptions, is one of the world's foremost contributors to 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network technologies. Beyond core communications services, DOCOMO is challenging new frontiers in collaboration with a growing number of entities ("+d" partners), creating exciting and convenient value-added services that change the way people live and work. Under a medium-term plan toward 2020 and beyond, DOCOMO is pioneering a leading-edge 5G network to facilitate innovative services that will amaze and inspire customers beyond their expectations.

https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926843087/en/
Google, Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices have jointly announced they are renewing their partnership to help upskill Irish SMEs by launching the 2023 Youre The Business competition.

This initiative aims to reward businesses across Ireland that have demonstrated a commitment to digital at different stages of their journey, from those who have launched a website, through to those who are just starting to export.

Expert Mentorship

The successful SMEs selected by a panel of established judges, will receive a digital support package from Google which includes a 1,000 Google ads package as well as expert mentorship across a range of technical areas that will help them to develop their business.

An additional prize of a video creation kit will also be awarded to one SME that has demonstrated great efforts in promoting their business online.

Digital Enhancement

SMEs will be invited to submit a video no longer than two minutes in duration detailing what their business means to them as well as an example of how they have used digital to enhance their business.

Entries are open now until October 31st 2023.

'Digital Journey'

We were so inspired by last years entries that really showed how SMEs strived to get their business online and how being online has helped them to succeed and grow, both domestically and further afield," said Cera Ward, managing director at Google Ireland.

"We are excited to launch this years competition and look forward to learning about more SMEs, their challenges, and digital ambitions."

"Google wants to support these companies as they take the next steps on their digital journey.

Source: www.businessworld.ie
MANZINI  It was a smooth special voting exercise yesterday, with some electorate wondering who the prime minister would vote for.

Who are the lucky candidates? was the question that was asked by some electorate, upon catching sight of the Prime Minister (PM), Cleopas Sipho Dlamini, casting his votes yesterday. The PM voted under Madlangampisi Constituency at the SEDCO pavilion, at the Mavuso Trade and Exhibition Centre, where the special voting took place yesterday. He was welcomed by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Deputy Chairperson, Sipho Tembe and Chief Mawandla Gamedze, among others.

Attendance

He first signed the attendance register and was number 60. At around 10:20am, the PM cast his votes. He was appreciated by the electorate under his constituency, who felt he was a good leader and led by example. Interviewed after casting his votes, the PM said the 2023 General Elections were remarkable, as emaSwati had come out in their numbers to vote. Dlamini said emaSwati needed to elect a government of their choice, adding that in the past two years, some people had been making certain demands. This time, emaSwati have been given a chance to choose their government, which they took advantage of. He said their attendance showed their interest, especially because the numbers were overwhelming, yet it was just special voting.

Meanwhile, Velibanti Lukhele, who is an indvuna yenkhundla candidate under the PMs constituency, appreciated the PM for taking part in the voting process. Lukhele said they were proud to have someone of Dlaminis calibre voting under their constituency. Speaking about himself, Lukhele said he was nominated because he was a hard worker and liked development. He said in his priority list, he was hoping to bring water, for the people to explore commercial crops. Such, he said, would develop the constituency. Also, he stated that they would like to have a one-stop-shop at the constituency, to issue identity documents and birth certificates. Musa Simelane, a bucopho candidate under Madlangampisi Constituency, said they were humbled to have the PM voting under their constituency. Simelane said if elected, he would be serving his third term and still felt he had some projects to take forward. These projects, he said, included a bridge construction through the assistance of Micro-Projects.
Nathan Gardels at Noema:

Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind and former vice president for AI products and policy at Google, offers some deep thoughts in his just-released book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the 21st Centurys Greatest Dilemma (written with Michael Bhaskar).

The wave he sees washing over all aspects of society, for better and worse, is propelled by generative AI and another general-purpose technological innovation  synthetic biology, which, powered by the processing prowess of intelligent machines, can read and rewrite genetic code and then boot up life in the lab. For the first time core components of our technological ecosystem directly address two foundational properties of our world: intelligence and life. In other words, technology is undergoing a phase transition. No longer simply a tool, its going to engineer life and rival  and surpass  our own intelligence, Suleyman writes.

more here.
On Friday, September 22, Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, claimed that his country had given India proof of "credible allegations" that Indian operatives had killed pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar some weeks before.

Tuesday, September 19, saw the start of a diplomatic standoff between Canada and India when Trudeau suggested there may have been a "potential link" between the Indian government and the killing of Nijjar in Canada earlier this year. Ottawa was accused of harboring "Khalistani terrorists and extremists" by New Delhi in reaction.

Following the diplomatic instability brought on by Canada's repeated charges surrounding the assassination of the Khalistani terrorist, both nations have since taken a number of actions. Due to Ottawa's passivity in addressing threats against terrorist groups, the Indian government has immediately suspended all visas, including electronic visas, for Canadian citizens.

The Sikh diaspora in Canada has once again come under the limelight as a result of the rising tensions between India and the Western country. According to the Canadian census of 2021, Sikhs make up 2.1% of the population. Let's examine the history to learn how the Sikh migration to the western country started and what difficulties they have encountered since Canada is home to the largest Sikh population outside of India.

After 1991, the number of Sikhs in Canada began to increase. Economic and employment concerns, which are still regarded as the main causes of emigration from the Indian state of Punjab, increased. Initially, Punjab's militancy and the growth of the Sikh population were related.

What Year Did Sikhs First Arrive In Canada?

According to Sardar Harjeet Singh Grewal, a professor in the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary, the first significant wave of Sikh immigrants to Canada arrived in the 1900s, largely to work as laborers in British Columbia and Ontario, according to The Washington Post. In addition, he asserted that partition, the 1947 division of India and Pakistan after the end of the British colonial rule, increased the emigration of Sikhs from Punjab.

Tens of thousands of Sikhs with skills and some with advanced degrees settled across Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the urban corridor from Toronto to Windsor. As their numbers increased, Sikhs built temporary gurdwaras in every significant city, and it is thought that the community's tremendous growth in Canada is largely due to the networking of gurdwaras.

The First Sikhs To Enter Canada

Sikhs first arrived in Canada in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The first Sikh immigrant to the nation is regarded as Kesur Singh, a Risaldar Major in the British India Army who arrived in 1897. As a member of the Hong Kong Regiment, which also included Chinese and Japanese soldiers traveling to celebrate the jubilee, he was one of the first Sikh soldiers to arrive in Vancouver.

Sikhs were employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway, in timber mills, and in mines during Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Despite having lower wages than white employees, they were nonetheless able to send money to India and sponsor their relatives' immigration to Canada. Sikh immigrants to Canada have also been driven by employment.

What Obstacles Did Sikhs Face Upon Arrival?

The migrants had no trouble obtaining work, but they ran into antagonism because it was thought that they were stealing locals' jobs. Due to their race and culture, the Sikhs also faced racism. The situation grew worse as more Sikhs immigrated to the country.

Sikhs' current situation in Canada

Sikhs currently have a big impact on politics and society in Canada. The New Democratic Party's leader, Jagmeet Singh, is Sikh. He has been outspoken against how Sikhs are treated in India, and he was reportedly denied a visa to enter the country in 2013 because of his opinions.
The story so far: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada stood up in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa to make a shocking statement hours as Indian lawmakers prepared for a special session in the new Parliament building in Delhi during last week. He said that members of the Indian government were responsible for the murder of Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) in India who had been designated as a terrorist.

In June of this year, while Nijjar, 45, was leaving a gurdwara in Surrey, two hooded shooters shot and killed him. Despite the fact that the Canadian Prime Minister admitted that the investigation was still ongoing, his administration had already chosen to dismiss a senior diplomat from the Indian High Commission.

What was India's response?

The claims surfaced a week after Mr. Trudeau's tense "pull-aside" encounter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi while he was in India for the G-20 summit. Both sides published readouts after the meeting accusing the other of "foreign interference in Canada's affairs" and "providing safe havens to anti-India extremists," but neither had made it known that Nijjar's murder had been brought up.

Furthermore, it was revealed that Canadian National Security Adviser (NSA) Jody Thomas had been to India twice in the previous month to discuss the subject with India's NSA Ajit Doval, despite the government's repeated claims that no "specific evidence" had been presented by Canada.

The "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance, which consists of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, was reported to have exchanged information with partners before the G-20 summit, and some of its leaders are said to have spoken with Mr. Modi about the matter.

Following Mr. Trudeau's speech in Parliament, India reciprocated by expelling a Canadian diplomat. In response to the claims, the Ministry of External (MEA) Affairs sent a demarche to Cameron McKay, Canada's High Commissioner to India, ordering him to reduce the number of diplomats assigned to his mission since some of them were allegedly meddling in internal Indian affairs. The MEA categorically refuted Mr.

Trudeau's claims, calling them "absurd," but noted that in spite of numerous requests for their extradition by India, many individuals, including Nijjar, who were sought for Khalistani separatist violence in India, were given "safe haven" in Canada. According to the MEA, India has stopped providing visa services throughout Canada and will not accept Canadian applications at any of its other missions abroad due to security reasons.

What's the evidence on the Nijjar killing?

A breach of "Canadian sovereignty" and "international rule of law" would result from Mr. Trudeau's failure to disclose any concrete information linking India to the murder. According to Canadian government sources, there were both SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) and HUMINT (Human Intelligence) inputs that included diplomatic correspondence within the Indian High Commission that pointed to the Nijjar killing. If so, it would also suggest that Canadian security services were spying on the Indian mission, which would be against accepted diplomatic practice.

How did the 'Five Eyes' Alliance react?

Each of the nations that make up the Five Eyes alliance, which was formed in the years following World War II, has released a statement expressing worry about Canada's accusations and urging India to assist with the probe. Anthony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, Penny Wong, James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, and Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister of New Zealand, have all made statements, but none have yet provided more support for the proof that Canada claims to have. Additionally, their responses stood in stark contrast to the "Skripal case" in the U.K., where the British government accused Russian agents of assassinating a former Russian officer and his daughter.

Each of the Five Eyes nations had swiftly ejected a number of Russian diplomats from their embassies, and the discrepancy in stance now suggests a desire to avoid upsetting New Delhi as they strengthen their strategic alliance with India.

However, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that if Mr. Trudeau's charges were verified, the US would not grant India any "special exemption." Indian officials have denied the allegations of an assassination, but several former Indian diplomats have criticised what they call a "western double standard" in which the killing of designated terrorists by the United States in drone strikes or other operations, such as the killing of Iranian General Soleimani in Iraq or al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, is proudly announced but an allegedly similar operation by India is subject to such scrutiny.

Why are there conflicts between India and Canada?

With the exception of Manmohan Singh, who travelled to Toronto for the 2010 G-20 summit, tensions between India and Canada over the Khalistan issue have always been strong. This is the main reason that no Indian prime minister visited Canada on a bilateral basis between 1973 and 2015. This was due to the fact that beginning in the late 1970s, a growing number of Sikhs living abroad, particularly in nations like Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, began to support the Khalistani separatist movement in Punjab.

Canada was the most challenging country for India to work with because the Canadian government and politicians took the position that many people in the diaspora were escaping human rights abuses by Indian security forces in Punjab. For instance, Canada refused India's plea to extradite Khalistani leader Talvinder Singh Parmar in 1982. A few years later, in June 1985, Parmar planned the bombing of the Air India flight 182 from Toronto to Mumbai, which resulted in the deaths of 329 people.

What lies ahead?

Even though Mr. Modi tried to restart relations with his trip to Canada in 2015, things haven't gone well. Several issues plagued Mr. Trudeau's "return" trip to India in 2018, including the presence of a supporter of Khalistan at his dinner reception. After Mr. Trudeau criticised Mr. Modi's handling of the farmers' protests in India in 2020, New Delhi put engagements with Ottawa on hold. They only resumed after a Modi-Trudeau meeting on the fringes of the G-7 summit in Germany in 2022, at which point the two sides started to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Following the Nijjar murder, Canada postponed FTA negotiations, cancelled a trade delegation's trip to Delhi, and there may potentially be repercussions for the $55 billion Canadian pension funds had invested in India. Last year, India and Canada jointly issued 500,000 visas to each other's nationals; 2,26,000 Indian students were admitted to Canada; and there are already 1.4 million members of the Indian diaspora living there.

Canada may take retaliatory measures in response to India's move to suspend visas for Canadians, which would have an impact on hundreds of thousands of people waiting for visas, including professionals and students. This is already at its lowest point in decades due to the termination of trade negotiations and visas; in the past, when political involvement was halted, people-to-people contacts had been permitted to continue.
Subhash Chandra Bose was a mysterious figure. As much as his life was filled with unyielding fervour and gusto for a sovereign India, despite being at odds with the stalwarts who went on to be our nation's founding fathers, his death has also been a source of consternation.

Netaji is claimed to have died of third-degree burns on August 18, 1945, after his plane crashed during takeoff in Taiwan's Taipei, which was then under Japanese occupation. Bose had fallen into a coma before passing away between 9 and 10 p.m.

The pilot, co-pilot, and Lieutenant General Tsunamasa Shidei of the Imperial Japanese Army were all killed in the crash. Their plane crashed just after Japan's declared surrender. Shidei and Bose were on their way to Dairen, where Bose was scheduled to meet with USSR negotiators about political asylum and handing over control of the Indian National Army (INA) to the Soviets in order to continue the fight for Indian independence. Shidei was to be Bose's primary negotiator.

No images were taken of the injured or deceased Bose, and no death certificate was given. For these reasons, INA refused to believe he had died. While many of Bose's fans hesitated to believe the news and the circumstances surrounding his death, conspiracy theories surfaced within hours of the fatalities, claiming that the plane crash was not an accident. These theories continue to circulate, perpetuating some martial stereotypes about Netaji.

Col. Habib ur Rahman, Bose's chief of staff on that fateful journey, survived. He testified at an inquiry committee about Bose's death a decade later. Bose's ashes are supposed to be kept at Tokyo's Renkoji Temple.

The Origins of the Netaji 'Mystery'

Since 1940, when he fled house arrest in Calcutta, rumours have circulated concerning his location and if he was still alive. When he arrived in Germany in 1941, he and his activities were shrouded in obscurity. In the 1950s, rumours circulated that Bose had become an ascetic. According to historian Leonard A. In the 1960s, some of Bose's associates founded 'Subhasbadi Janata,' an organisation to propagate the idea that Bose was heading a refuge in north Bengal's Shaulmari. Certain sources, however, unequivocally confirm Netaji's death when the Mitsubishi Ki-21 bomber he was aboard crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei.

So far, the Indian government has commissioned three inquiries regarding Netaji's death/disappearance. Only the first two decided that he died on August 18, 1945, in a military hospital in Taihoku after his plane crashed, and that the mortal remains at Renkoji Temple in Tokyo are his. They are as follows:

Figgess Report: 1946

Following the plane accident, the Supreme Allied Command of South-East Asia, led by Lord Mountbatten, charged Colonel John Figgess, an intelligence officer, with investigating Bose's death. Figgess' report, which was submitted on July 5, 1946, was strictly confidential. Figgess was interviewed by Leonard A. Gordon in the 1980s, and he verified writing the report.

The British Government made the majority of the IPI (Indian Political Intelligence) data available to the public in the British Library in 1997. The Figgess report, on the other hand, was not one of them. The Figgess study and Gordon's studies confirm four points: On August 18, 1945, a plane crashed near Taihoku airport, killing Subhas Chandra Bose; he died the next day in a nearby military hospital; he was cremated in Taihoku; and his ashes were flown to Tokyo.

Shah Nawaz Committee: 1956

In 1956, the sovereign Government of India created a three-member committee headed by Shah Nawaz Khan, who was then a Member of Parliament, to investigate rumours regarding Bose and the plane disaster. He had previously served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian National Army. Other important members of this committee included S. N. Maitra, a Civil Servant appointed by the West Bengal government, and Suresh Chandra Bose, Netaji's elder brother. The 'Netaji Inquiry commission' is another name for this commission.

From April to July 1956, this group questioned 67 witnesses in India, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam, focusing on individuals who survived the plane crash and bore the marks of their injuries. Dr. Yoshimi, the surgeon at the Taihoku Military Hospital who treated Bose in his final hours, and Habibur Rahman, who left India after the Partition, were among those interviewed. Despite a few minor differences, two-thirds of the committee, namely Khan and Maitra, concluded that Bose died in the plane crash in Taihoku on August 18, 1945.

Suresh Chandra Bose refused to sign the final report and filed a letter of dissent saying that the other members and staff of the Shah Nawaz Committee had suppressed vital material on purpose and that Nehru had directed the committee to infer death by plane crash. According to Gordon, one of the primary principles for dealing with evidence in the 181-page report was that if two or more witness statements differed, the entire testimony of the witnesses concerned was discounted and presumed to be fraudulent.

Bose deduced from this that there was no crash and that his sibling was still alive. Rumours of Netaji's survival grew louder in the early 1960s.

Khosla Commission: 1970

The Government of India created a "one-man commission" to investigate Bose's "disappearance" in 1970. G.D. Khosla, a retired Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court, was the sole investigator. His report was published in 1974.

On the main facts of Bose's death, Justice Khosla agreed with Figess and the Shah Nawaz Committee's prior reports. He also assessed the alternate hypotheses for Bose's disappearance as well as the motivations of individuals publicising sightings of Netaji.

"Justice Khosla suggests that many of the story-purveyors' motives are less than altruistic," Gordon writes. Some, he claims, were clearly motivated by political objectives or simply wished to draw attention to themselves. His patience in listening to some stories is admirable. "What could he, or anyone, have thought as he listened to the testimony of P.M. Karapurkar, agent of the Central Bank of India at Solapur, claimed that he receives direct messages from Bose by tuning his body like a radio receiving apparatus."

Mukherjee Commission: 2005

Following a court decision, the Government of India asked former Supreme Court judge Manoj Kumar Mukherjee to re-investigate Bose's death in 1999. The group reviewed hundreds of data on Bose's death from several nations and travelled to Japan, Russia, and Taiwan.

Although oral accounts supported the plane accident, it was deemed that such accounts could not be trusted and that there was a secret plan in place with the knowledge of Japanese authorities and Habibur Rahman to assure Bose's safe passage to the USSR.

According to Justice Mukherjee's findings, the Japanese military plane carrying Netaji nosedived from 12,000 to 14,000 feet, citing Netaji assistant and co-passenger on the voyage Habibur Rahman as a firsthand witness. After arguing that no one could possibly survive such a terrible crash, Justice Mukherjee determined that there could have been no such incident at all.

The truth is that neither Habibur Rahman nor any other survivor ever said anything like that. What they did say was that the plane had hardly taken off from Matsuyama Airport in Taiwan's Taihoku region before encountering severe engine failure.

The commission made no progress regarding Bose's activities following the plane crash. Another problematic feature of the report is its conclusion that the ashes reported to be Bose's at the Renkoji temple were actually those of a Japanese soldier who died of cardiac arrest. Because of the alleged "reticence" of the temple administrators, Justice Mukherjee opted not to proceed with the DNA tests.

However, the panel determined that 'Gumnami Baba' was not Subhas Bose based on a DNA profiling test. After three delays, the Mukherjee Commission submitted its report on November 8, 2005, and it was tabled in the Indian Parliament on May 17, 2006. The findings of this commission were rejected by the central government.

The report's principal findings, particularly the rejection of the plane crash scenario, have been criticised for blatant flaws. Sugata Bose, a historian and Netaji's grandnephew, observes that Mukherjee admits to having a preconceived concept about Netaji being alive and living as an ascetic. Gordon observes that the report neglected to name all of the people interviewed by the committee (including him), and that several of the books referenced as sources were mis-listed and mis-titled.

Japanese government's 1956 report, declassified in September 2016

The Japanese government declassified a report titled "Investigation into the Cause of Death and Other Matters of the Late Subhas Chandra Bose" on September 1, 2016. It was determined that Bose perished in a plane crash on August 18, 1945, near Taiwan. The report was finished in January 1956 and delivered to the Indian embassy in Tokyo, but it remained classified for 60 years until it was declassified.

According to the report, shortly after takeoff, a propeller blade on the plane carrying Bose broke off, and the engine fell off the plane, causing it to crash and burst into flames. When Bose stepped out of the jet, it had crashed, his clothes had caught fire, and he had been seriously burned. He was admitted to the hospital and was cognizant enough to speak for a while. He passed away a few hours later.

Conclusion

Most people agree that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died on August 18, 1945, in a military hospital in Taiwan, when the Japanese military plane he was travelling in crashed. However, persistence in reaching a different conclusion implies that the evidence to support the previously stated conclusion was insufficient.
It's common to refer to Bangalore (now Bengaluru) as India's Silicon Valley. Bangalore is home to some of the biggest technology businesses in the world, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, according to a simple search. Anyone looking to make a living by spending the most of their time in front of a computer screen is thought to find refuge in Bangalore. If you have the necessary talents, it's not difficult to find a job in Bangalore.

Finding a job that one enjoys, however, seems to be an impossibility for the majority of today's working population due to increased competition. Nowadays, rather than being driven by the profile of the job, people are only motivated by the pay they will receive for the work they will put in. Silicon Valley in India, however, has you covered there as well. Bangalore boasts a lot of well-paying opportunities, particularly for tech experts.

To help you in your hunt for the highest paid jobs in Bangalore, we have put together this list. All of the highest-paying positions in Bangalore that we could locate are listed below, in no particular order. Remember that even though we have shown the typical wage for each job, the more experience you have, the more money you will make.

Highest Paying Jobs In Bangalore

1. Machine Learning Engineer

Data-driven employment has dramatically increased. The first of these is machine learning. Machine learning, expressed simply, is the process of building intelligent systems and technologies that can truly understand on their own, independent of human intervention.

Machine learning has become more widely used during the past ten years. This is due to an increase in computer processing capability. Anyone with the required skill set is accordingly well compensated for their efforts. To succeed as a machine learning engineer, you must have strong math and programming skills. You should feel at ease using R or Python; MATLAB knowledge is also an advantage.

2. Blockchain Master

Blockchain, and particularly bitcoin, began as a fad but has now solidified its position in the tech industry. Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin helped it acquire popularity, they still have a lot of potential. Blockchains' incredible rise in security and usability is made possible by their safe and decentralized nature. Blockchain has the ability to affect and advance numerous industries, including banking (smart contracts), logistics, health care, and even communication.

3. Data Scientist

According to Harvard University, data science is the hottest career in the twenty-first century and is experiencing a growth in India. The number of jobs has increased by over 200 percent yearly. Bangalore has a significant impact on both the number of new jobs and the average wage of an Indian data scientist.

The following are a data scientist's primary attributes. It requires a strong background in programming, as well as analytical thinking, business sense, consumer psychology, and machine learning. You should be well-versed in statistics because you'll spend the most of the day gathering and evaluating data.

4. A web developer

The technological advancements of our time will live on in history. One of the main, if not the main, contributing factors to the technology sector's explosive expansion is the Internet. Building an online presence is essential in a field that moves so quickly.

Creating a website is undoubtedly the best approach to grow your internet following. For precisely this reason, businesses continue to spend a decent sum for a web developer nowadays. There are two aspects to web building. Depending on your preferences, you can choose either one or both sides.

5. Android Developer

Any Android developer's responsibility is to create functional and aesthetically pleasing Android applications. The demand for android developers has increased along with the explosive growth of smartphones over the past ten years. Many companies, especially those that are relatively new to the digital revolution, have a top-notch android developer on staff. Android development jobs are likely to pay well, especially in India's Silicon Valley. It would be necessary to have a strong foundation in Java and its offshoots, such as Kotlin.

6. Corporate Lawyer

If you have a legal degree and are particularly interested in working with large corporations as clients, you should think about becoming a corporate lawyer. You would get to live the life of famous lawyers as they are portrayed on your favorite television show as a corporate lawyer. It would be your responsibility to help your clients with any legal requirements.

The mergers, contracts, and small print, such as terms and conditions, would fall under your purview. You would want outstanding business judgment, discretion, research abilities, and a quick eye for any irregularities. If you are hired, you could earn up to Rs. 10 lacs per year as a corporate lawyer.

7. Business Development Associate

An individual who works to support a company's expansion and sales is known as a business development associate. As a corporate development associate, your responsibilities would include market research, long-term client relationships, and the discovery of novel ideas with the potential to become successful ventures. As a business development executive in Bengaluru, you would make about Rs. 5 lacs per year.

8. Management Consultant

You are supposed to be the go-to person in your organization whenever a problem emerges as a management consultant. You are required to find a solution that would help your employers. There will always be a demand for management consultants because they are so crucial to the success of any business. It would be good if you were familiar with banking and finance.

Along with having exceptional communication abilities, a management consultant needs to be open to any challenge. In Bangalore, a management consultant makes about Rs. 11 lacs per year.

9. Content Writer/Marketer

Although the sword is believed to be mightier than the pen, in this instance, the pen is more expensive. Yes, you are qualified to work as a content writer/marketer if you have a good command of the English language and its intricacies, a strong eye for detail, knowledge of SEO, and exceptional expertise in digital marketing. A content writer in Bangalore may expect to make about Rs. 4 lacs per year on average.

10. Human Resource(HR)

Every company, regardless of size, has a human resources division. The hiring procedure will be under your control as an HR expert. Additionally, you will act as a mediator between the employer and the workforce. The salary and benefits of the employees will also fall under your management. A human resource manager in Bangalore typically makes roughly Rs. 9 lacs annually.
In what comes as a bit of a shock, Mazda has announced that will cease production of the CX-8 in its home market of Japan by December 2023. ...
Wellington, New Zealand-based animation and vfx house Floating Rock Studio has released the trailer for its first original IP, a post-apocalyptic story about genetically enhanced samurai dinosaurs living in Japan after the fall of humanity. The studio is currently developing narrative and video game formats of the property.

Floating Rock Studio was founded in 2020 by a quartet of industry vets: Stephanie Parker, Garrick Rawlingson, Lukas Niklaus, Laurent Herveic. It began life as a vendor studio, doing commissioned animation and vfx work. In 2022, the company received an AUD 4 million ($2.55M) growth capital investment led by New Zealand-based Hillfarrance Venture Capital and used the money to assemble a team of experienced and ambitious animation and vfx artists and expand its original IP division.

Given the diverse nature of work that Floating Rock and its employees have done in the past, we asked Niklaus about the companys long-term plans for its original IP division and whether it would be focusing on animation, vfx-heavy live-action, or other storytelling mediums. He explained:

We want to tell great stories; the medium doesnt matter. We have seven more IPs in development at the moment. Some of them are live action with heavy vfx, some are full cg R-rated animation, and some could even be video games. All that matters is that we tell great, meaningful stories and that their creators voice and vision is being realized. We believe that if we give artists agency and responsibility over their work and, instead of managing them, start removing obstacles from their path, we will see a new renaissance of filmmaking and storytelling, unlike anything weve seen in a long time.

The studios first original IP, Kyoryu, unspools in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Japan where genetically engineered dinosaurs have outlasted humanity. Despite being built for the future and far more intelligent than their ancient ancestors, prehistoric instincts still dominate much of the beasts behavior, and tribal wars break out among them.

Benjamin Mulot, an animator at Floating Rock, created the project. He specializes in creature animation and has worked in the Hollywood film industry for over a decade, picking up credits on films such as Jumanji, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Avatar: The Way of Water.

The project was selected from while Floating Rock was developing its in-house platform Pitchfest, a call for the studios artists to develop their pitches with the help of more experienced industry professionals.

Mulot is excited to have his idea realized, but hopes that hes only the first in a long line of Floating Rock artist that get to enjoy that feeling. He explained:

I am grateful for the opportunity to lay the potential pathway for future creators that may come from Pitchfest. Floating Rock and Hillfarrance believed in my project from the beginning, supporting me throughout the process of creating an epic pitch deck and fulfilling my vision of a breathtaking trailer. Floating Rock and their team removed hurdles that I could not do on my own, which allowed me to focus on the creative vision of Kyoryu.

We asked Floating Rock co-founder Lukas Niklaus what about Mulots project made it the right fit for the companys original IP pipeline. He explained:

For me, the reason was twofold. Benji is a fantastic creative with a great vision and collaborative spirit. He lives and breathes his work. That was reason number one. Reason number two was that his idea just felt fresh and new and like something we hadnt seen before. The dinosaur movie genre has gotten quite stale recently, with Jurassic World on one end and Prehistoric Planet on the other, but theres nothing more imaginative in the middle. I felt like this was a fantastic niche to fill. And, of course, as an animator myself, I wanted to help animate cool samurai dinosaurs. Thats an animators dream.

According to the studios bosses, the teaser was produced and released as a type of beacon to see what other creative, strategic, and financial partners we could attract to join us along our journey of developing this property.

Floating Rock is currently developing the Kyoryu property further, adapting its narratives to both series and video game formats that will overlap but also stand on their own as independent stories.
White cement anti-dumping duties issued in South Korea

27 September 2023

South Korea is to impose anti-dumping duties on white Portland cement imported from Egypt, said the industry ministry. Following a preliminary examination, the Korea Trade Commission (KTC) recommended the Ministry of Finance to levy provisional duties of 72.23 per cent on Egyptian white cement imports to protect the local cement industry while it carries out an additional probe.

The probe came as domestic cement producer Union Corp filed a complaint in March against Egypt's Royal El Minya Cement Co (SESCO) and Albatros International Cement Trading Ltd, complaining that their cheap imports have negatively affected its business and the cement industry in South Korea.

The Ministry of Finance is expected to make a decision by October, and the KTC, which is under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, will conduct an additional probe for a final determination of tariff rates.

Union Corp is South Korea's only manufacturer of white Portland cement, which is used for general construction and decoration. Egyptian white cement accounted for 10 per cent, or 10,000t, of the South Korean market, in 2022, according to the trade ministry.

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The Chattanooga Division of Transportation announces the following upcoming construction and special event related road closures:Construction closures -Lake Resort Drive - Brief Full ClosureOn Wednesday, Sept. 27 starting at 9:30 a.m., Lake Resort Drive will be fully closed at the bridge construction site for an estimated 30-45 minutes. This brief closure is needed for materials delivery to the work site.HWY 58 at Clark RoadThe southbound right lane of HWY 58 will be closed at Clark Road every weekday beginning Wednesday, Sept.27 until Friday, Nov. 3 from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.110 Summerville AvenueThe 100 block of Summerville Avenue will be closed every weekday beginning Thursday, Sept. 28 through Friday, Nov. 10 from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. for sewer repair.402 Thompson StreetThe 400 block of Thompson Street will be closed every weekday beginning Thursday, Sept. 28 through Wednesday, Nov. 15 from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. for utility construction.Special event closures -Noontunes on BroadBroad Street southbound between Aquarium Way and 3rd Street will be closed every Friday from Sept. 8 through Oct. 27 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. for Noontunes.Tennessee Tow ShowThe following roads will be closed on Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 8 a.m. until Sunday, Oct. 1 at noon for the Tennessee Tow Show: 13th Street between Fort Street and Chestnut Street; and Fort Street between 13th Street and 14th Street.Tennessee Valley Heart WalkOn Sunday, Sept. 30 from 6 a.m.-11:30 a.m. the following locations will see walkers/runners as part of the 2023 Tennessee Valley Heart Walk: Renaissance Park outer perimeter pathway; Frazier Avenue eastbound right lane will be closed between Market Street and Walnut Street; and Walnut Street across the bridge southbound until 3rd Street (participants will be walking with traffic).MOMentum Network Block PartyOn Saturday, Sept. 30, O'Neal Street between Lincoln Park Lane and Blackford Street will be closed from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. for the MOMentum Network Block Party.Chattanooga Football ClubThe following roads will be closed on Sunday, Oct. 1 from 4:30 p.m.-midnight: Reggie White Boulevard between the Chattanooga Skate Park north entrance and W. 20th Street; Chestnut Street between W. 17th Street and W. 19th Street; and W. 19th Street between Reggie White Boulevard and Chestnut Street.Street parking will be prohibited on Chestnut Street within the closure on the dates/times listed above. Vehicles left within the closure will be towed at the owner's expense.Chattanooga MarketReggie White Boulevard between W. 19th Street and the Skate Park access road will be closed on Sunday from 6 a.m. until after the CFC Home Match.View CDOT's map of events and road closures for full details of these activities and other projects underway in our public space.
Another unidentified, dissatisfied source expressed their opinion that it might not be just a coincidence that the metropolitan counties that seem to be having a few minor social problems are New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The unsubstantiated allegations necessitated a trip to various sources to attempt to get a definition of this humanitarian term.

In reality each of the above venues have their own political statements as to what a sanctuary city in the area of immigration policies is defined.

A general definition of Sanctuary City could be a city whose municipal laws tend to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation or prosecution, despite federal immigration law.

Specifically the Big Apple obtained the status of distinction in the 1980s under Mayor Ed Koch and the then city council passed laws that said police officers will not disclose information about a persons immigration status to immigration officials unless they are required to do no for a variety of reasons.

Recently the current leader of Broadway town Mayor Eric Adams has claimed that the influx of migrants to NYC was straining the city resources and that he wants more help from the federal government. (Per a quiet, orderly citizen protest on Sunday, August 6, 2023.)

The beautiful City by the Bay in sunny California became a destination for immigrants in 1989 and the Office of the Mayor has expressed a priority of proudly being a Sanctuary City with the following declaration of support.

We will stand shoulder to shoulder with out immigrant communities and fight for the progress weve achieved in this city. We are a sanctuary city now, tomorrow, and forever.

The last of the Big Three (there are several others) the Windy City has also adopted its own Welcoming City Ordinance which expresses its support that the City (Chicago) will not ask about your immigration status, disclose that information to authorities, or most importantly, deny you City Services based on your immigration status.

However in fairness to the leader (Mayor Rahm Emanuel) in the home of former Atlanta Brave Shortstop, Dansby Swanson, it should be pointed out that the only circumstances in which Chicago will detain undocumented individuals is if they are wanted on a criminal warranty by local or federal authorities if they have been convicted of serious crimes and remain in the United States illegally or if they are otherwise a clear threat to public safety or national security.

(With only 2349 plus a new one 501(c)(3) non-profits and 171 private foundations it may only be a matter of time until the Re-Imaged Gig City may apply to join their ranks as a showing of philanthropic support?)

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You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com
A woman on E. 34th Street called police and said she was upset because she believed her husband was cheating with another woman. She was very upset and said she confronted them. An argument ensued. The husband and other woman denied the allegations. The woman put her husband out.



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While on a separate call on Rossville Boulevard, a woman handed officers a bag full of unused needles. She said her boyfriend had found it on the side of the road and wanted to turn it in to officers. The needles were turned over to CPD Property.

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A manager at the Ulta Beauty, 2220 Hamilton Place Blvd., told police a black female, who she knows from a previous shoplifting case, was observed walking past the point of sale with a large bag of miscellaneous bottles of perfume/cologne. The manager called out the woman's name and she dropped the bag and its contents just before the front door of the store. The manager believes that the woman was with two other unknown black females. The manager will be contacting corporate to see if they wish to trespass the woman, due to her reoccurring involvement in shoplifting at the store. She said the woman has stolen approximately $2,067 worth of perfume/cologne.

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A woman on Bachman Street called police about a man who she said has been walking up and down the street. Police spoke with the man, who said he was walking from the store over to Appling Street. The man continued to walk away and police aided the woman who called in moving her gutters.

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A woman on Tacoa Avenue told police she and her granddaughter were in a verbal disorder and the granddaughter was taking out her belongings and setting them in the front yard. Police told the grandmother that since the granddaughter lives at this residence, police could not make her leave. As police left, the granddaughter said she was leaving.

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A man on Frazier Avenue told police someone stole his company's information and began posting job requests on a broker site. This caused at least six fraudulent jobs, where payment went to the suspects who have no affiliation with his business. He said his company had no monetary loss, but the drivers who completed the jobs will not be paid by his company. According to the man, the incident has been reported at the federal level.

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A person on Kellys Ferry Road reported a suspicious vehicle on their property. The vehicle was found to be not stolen. Police notified the person of their options in regards to removing the vehicle from their property.

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A man on Torey Court told police his specialty saw was stolen from the back of his truck sometime the evening before. He said the saw was secured by a security tether that was cut. The approximate value of the saw was $2,900. There is no suspect information.

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A man told police he was having issues with an ex-employee at his business on Nowlin Lane. He said the ex-employee had been recently fired from the business and keeps trying to find ways to come back to the property to retrieve items. The items he wants are not there and he believes he is using it as an excuse to come back onto the property. He said he has told the ex-employee in person, as well as by text messages, that he is not allowed to come back onto the property. He said today the ex-employee hid in some bushes and waited for the business door to open and rushed inside. Although he left the scene before police arrived, he wanted this incident to be documented.

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A woman on Portview Circle told police that after being away from her home over the past few days, she returned to notice she had patio furniture and plant potters destroyed. She was unable to provide any suspect information.

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A business owner on Hixson Pike called police about a man disturbing his business. Police made contact with the man, who was standing outside the door of the business talking on his cell phone. Police informed the man that he was now officially trespassed from this business and, if he returned, he would go to jail. The man left the property to "protest" across the street.

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A man on Roanoke Avenue/Citico Avenue told police he recovered his stolen vehicle on N. Orchard Knob Avenue. He said the person who had his vehicle gave him the keys. He said he did not know the name or any other information regarding the person. The vehicle was removed from NCIC.

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A man told police he arrived to eat at Amigos, 5450 Hwy. 153, at 6:40 p.m. When he left the restaurant, he noticed that there was damage to the second row passenger side door of his vehicle. He said that there was no vehicle next to him when he parked. He did not have any possible suspect information.

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A woman on Lake Resort Terrace told police there was a couple there she invited to stay in her apartment until they found other living arrangements. She said she allowed them to stay as long as they needed and had a verbal agreement, but it was now time for them to go. Police spoke to the couple who were staying in the apartment and both said they were actively packing and would be leaving in the morning.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee celebrated the groundbreaking on a Multi-Agency Law Enforcement Training Academy (MALETA) at Cockrill Bend in Nashville. The $415 million campus will include training facilities for state and local law enforcement, housing and dining for cadets and in-service staff, and a new administrative headquarters building for the Tennessee Department of Correction and the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security. The vast majority of law enforcement officers across the state will receive training at MALETA, officials said.

As Americans face rising crime nationwide, Tennessee is equipping law enforcement with the tools needed to keep every community safe, said Gov. Lee. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented support. Ive always said that every Tennessean deserves to feel safe in their community, and this shared facility will significantly enhance training and resources that law enforcement agencies need to deliver that quality of life.

The MALETA campus is designed to provide greater training for law enforcement staff, increase collaboration and information sharing across agencies, and save significant dollars in the process. The campus is designed for flexible scheduling of more than 400 cadets and 200 in-service personnel to be housed on-site. Additionally, the training facilities will accommodate commuting employees and students who train and attend classes daily.

MALETA will be constructed on approximately 800 acres of State-owned property along the Cumberland River in the Cockrill Bend area of Nashville. Phase one of construction will begin by Spring 2024, with the third and final phase of construction beginning in 2025.

"The safety of our citizens and the enforcement of our laws is our primary responsibility as a state government, said Lt. Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge). This outstanding new campus will allow our law enforcement officers to be trained in a truly state-of-the-art facility. The multi-agency nature of the MALETA campus will encourage collaboration between agencies and efficient use of taxpayer resources. Tennessee is one of the few states in the nation to invest in this type of shared law enforcement training campus facility. I believe this facility will be critical in ensuring our law enforcement officers remain the best in the nation at keeping citizens safe."

This is a historic day as we break ground on the new MALETA facility, said Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville). The Governor and the General Assembly partnered to provide a state-of-the-art law enforcement training facility for the professionals who protect and serve our communities and families every day. Todays groundbreaking is an indication of our states commitment to law and order.

MALETA facilities will be utilized by the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance (TDCI), Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Academy (TLETA), Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST), Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security (TDOS), Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) for training local law enforcement, members of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and corrections officers.


Three members of the Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ say they are learning more about the northwest Georgia area and its people thanks to classes at Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges Adult Education program in Cedartown.

Sisters Antonella and Neriah are natives of Brazil, and Sister Bernada is originally from Paraguay. The sisters came to the United States about 18 months ago as missionaries to the homeless and poor; GNTC Adult Education instructor Angela Freeman teaches them English as a Second Language (ESL) at GNTCs Adult Education Learning Center in Cedartown.

Wherever we are sent, we try to speak the language of the people, Sister Bernada said. Its a necessity. It helps us to evangelize and to live our vocation if we speak the language.

People here are very welcoming, Sister Antonella said. Its a good place to live. Its good for our ministry and our religious life.

Sister Antonella said their outreach extends to Rome. There are not as many homeless and poor in the region as they have encountered in their native countries or the larger cities where they have served previously.

In addition to working with the areas homeless and poor, as well as working with the local parish, the sisters make bracelets, candles, food and rosaries as fundraisers to support their ministry.

Sister Neriah said Sister Bernada is artistic and makes many of the crafts and candles.

We pray, work and study, Sister Bernada said. The most important part of our day is praying.

This is our second year here, and we expect to be here for five, but that could change, Sister Antonella said. We could stay here, go elsewhere in the United States, elsewhere in the world or return to South America.

The sisters said they prefer taking the ESL classes in-person because they get to meet new people and learn from each other. They learn grammar rules and build their vocabulary in class.

Sometimes we hear or see things we dont understand, Sister Antonella said. By talking with people, we learn not just for our personal education but also our ministry.

Sister Bernada said in-person classes are a great opportunity to practice what the sisters are learning without the distractions that can happen when taking class online.

I encourage students to talk with each other so that they learn to speak English better, Ms. Freeman said.

Sister Antonella said she has lived in both small and larger cities; Cedartown is a lot like her hometown. Sisters Bernada and Neriah said they are from rural areas.

Sisters Antonella and Bernada have been nuns for nearly eight years and were novitiates (novice nuns) together before coming to the United States. Sister Neriah has been a nun for 12 years, they explained.

They live in a house in downtown Cedartown, where they cook, clean and perform other housekeeping chores, Sister Neriah said. The sisters appreciate labor-saving machines, like dishwashers, that make living in America more convenient.

People here are very independent in everything, Sister Antonella said. They go to the gas station and grocery store themselves to get their purchases. In Brazil other people do it for you.

The sisters said they enjoy Cedartown and the weather in the South. The summers resemble those in their native countries, but the winters are colder here.

We had never seen snow (firsthand) until January 2023 when were in Kansas, Sister Neriah said. While the sisters were enchanted with the snow, Sister Bernada said she was soon ready to return to the South.

The sisters said their change of seasons is also different in the Southern Hemisphere. They marveled that plants die after the first frost and come back in the spring in the South.

For more information about their ministry, visit https://www. sisterspoorofjesuschrist.com/ .
The 35th annual Tennessee River Rescue will take place Saturday, Oct. 7.

Volunteers are still needed for the clean-ups that will be conducted between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. at 38 sites across Hamilton, Bradley, Marion and Rhea counties in Tennessee as well as Catoosa County in Georgia. Timing for each clean-up may vary by location.

Even after decades of work, the abundance of trash dumped into or carried to the river by runoff each year means theres no shortage of waste to dispose of, said event organizer Mary Beth Sutton.

It's a shame we are still cleaning, but we have to keep raising awareness, said Ms. Sutton, the executive director of WaterWays, a Chattanooga-based nonprofit devoted to watershed health and restoration.

The bottom line is that it takes all of us to take care of our river, whether it's someone who accidentally lets plastic fly out of their truck or someone who illegally dumps their tires into the river, she added. If we don't continue to raise awareness about the importance of caring for our river, for all of our water resources, it will get a lot worse.

When the Rescue was founded in the 1990s, there were far more large items to collect, whether cast-off appliances or mounds of tires. The items may be smaller today, but the predominant material has shifted to plastic debris. Ms. Sutton said more than 80 percent of material recovered from Chattanooga Creek by a litter boom was plastic waste, a trend reflected in other parts of the river system.

Floatables like Styrofoam and plastic bottles are dominant, she said. We also see more refuse originating at homeless encampments, and this can include some larger things, like furniture, as well as more dangerous items such as needles or syringes.

Ms. Sutton said she expects more than 1,000 volunteers this year. Participants are encouraged to wear clothing they dont mind getting wet or dirty. Organizers at some clean-up sites may also recommend wearing long pants or close-toed shoes.

As part of this years Rescue, freshwater scientists from the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute and other Aquarium personnel will participate in a special clean-up effort on Thursday, Oct. 5, near the Chattanooga Pier behind the Aquarium.

The Southeast is home to many biologically rich rivers, many of which wind their way through Southeastern cities, from the Cahaba River, which flows through Birmingham, Alabama, to the Cumberland and Mississippi rivers, whose waters lap against the waterfronts of Nashville and Memphis.

In addition to their importance to humans, rivers like the Tennessee support a huge variety of aquatic life, thanks to their abundance of nutrients and the range of habitats they encompass. The combined Southeastern watersheds of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and the Mobile Basin represent just 1.5 percent of the land area of the United States and Canada but are home to almost half of those countries freshwater fish species.

This is a small amount of land for that much biodiversity, said Dr. Anna George, the Aquariums vice president of conservation science and education. Every time I think about this or look at the maps that showcase this, I get a little chill and get excited all over again about working where we do.

At the same time, we have a plenty of humans living in this area also trying to use those rivers for the things we need every day. We need to be thoughtful about how we use our rivers and how we return the water we use back to them so its healthy for all those animals beneath the surface as well.
SK Food Group Inc., one of North Americas leading custom food manufacturers, gathered with local city, county, and state of Tennessee officials for a groundbreaking ceremony on the site of their future 552,000 square foot food processing and cold storage distribution facility.

The first phase of this three-phase project, which will include the latest state-of-the-art automation technology for sandwich assembly and food handling, is expected to be completed in 2025.

In conjunction with the project, SK Food Group will be entering into a partnership with the PIE Center, a Bradley County Schools educational and industrial training program, to provide specialized employee training.

The project is expected to create 840 new jobs to the local area by the year 2030 and includes a variety of environmental, social and governance focused initiatives such as pursuing LEED Silver certification for the new facility through special design features including harvesting rainwater and using heat from refrigeration compressors to heat water and office spaces, and developing an exterior covered pavilion for employee breaks and other activities.

We are very excited to be officially breaking ground on our newest state-of-the-art facility, said Dustin Dixon, president of SK Food Group. We are also pleased that we will be generating 840 new jobs in the Cleveland region and leveraging Clevelands best-in-class PIE Center, coupled with our own proprietary training and educational programs, to provide skills development to community members.

We are very much looking forward to becoming part of the fabric of the local community and economy, added Mr. Dixon
Low Cut Connie will play Barrelhouse Ballroom on Oct. 3 in support of their new album Art Dealers that is out now.

In addition to the new album, Adam Weiner co-directed an 80-minute feature film that will premiere late this year as a companion piece to Art Dealers.

The film is a hybrid-genre documentary that combines a stellar run of NYC concerts from 2022 shot at Sony Hall and the Blue Note, as well as 15 years of performance footage and personal misadventures that led up to Art Dealers.




The royal insider weighed in on rumors that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's reps tried to control commentary during a 2021 appearance in NYC.

Royal insider Lady Colin Campbell shared her fury over a reported gag order set in place by representatives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during a 2021 New York City appearance. She put the former senior royals on blast, calling the couple control freaks and dictators who want critics to be silenced.

Royal insider weighs in on Prince Harry and Meghan Markles reported gag order

Lady Colin Campbell discussed emerging reports that claim advisers for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle tried to place a gag order against those who worked at a New York public school while filming their Netflix series Harry & Meghan. The order was reportedly placed before the couples visit to Public School 123 in New York through the Archewell Foundation in 2021.

She spoke to GBNews of reported agreements signed by school officials not allowing for criticism of the couple after their visit. Lady Colin Campbell expressed her fury regarding the idea that representatives for the couple had this plan in motion.

Meghan and Harry are dictators, said Campbell. Theyre trying to dictate to everybody what you have to say about them. Whether you believe it or not, or then you have to be silenced. I mean, its actually outrageous.

If you stop to think of it, this sort of behavior is unprecedented. Nobody in government, no royal, would ever behave like this, except for Harry and Meghan, she concluded.

Lady Colin Campbell discussed rumors Prince Harry has nowhere to stay when visiting London

The royal insider also addressed rumors Prince Harry has nowhere to stay when he visits London. Despite stepping down as a senior royal, he remains a Counselor of State for his father, King Charles.

A Counselor of State is authorized to carry out most of the official duties of the sovereign. Subsequently, the current Counsellors of State are Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Prince Harry, Prince Andrew, and his daughter, Princess Beatrice.

Lady Colin Campbell weighed in that the Duke of Sussex, as a Counselor of State, must have a home in the United Kingdom. I was told that all the royals have a standing invitation to Balmoral, she says, of the Scottish royal estate Harry could reside when visiting the U.K.

However, visiting a royal residence when other senior royals are in attendance could be troublesome for Harry. Campbell says, Nobody wants to see him, and he doesnt really want to see them either.

Can you imagine how excruciating it would be if he and Meghan showed up? But the air would absolutely be fraught with ice, she continued.

They all have a standing invitation. However, that doesnt mean he should take it up.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are setting themselves up for success outside of the royal family

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, and Portia DeRossi attend the One806 event in Santa Barbara, CA | One805Live! Music Festival/PR Newswire

On the heels of the success of their Invictus Games appearances, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attended Kevin Costners One805 charity event. The soiree, which raises money for first responders, was held at the Yellowstone actors Santa Barbara estate.

Meghan and Harry posed alongside Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, her wife Portia de Rossi, and Costner. Lady Colin Campbell spilled some royal tea regarding information she learned from the event.

She claimed Costner kept Harry and Meghan at arms length. Campbell also said the couple were parachuted in by Ari Emmanuel of William Morris Endeavor.

Campbell called Costner a regular guy, and he went along with it. But evidently, very reluctantly.

PR powerhouse William Morris Endeavor took on Meghan Markle as a client in April 2023. The public relations experts will focus on building Meghans global enterprise. Reportedly, as a way to rebrand Team Sussex in Meghan Markles favor.
The 2023 Invictus Games might be over, but Prince Harry and Meghan Markles appearances havent stopped. Back home in California, the pair were spotted at a local charity event where, according to an expert, the Duchess of Sussex, guided her sheepish husband, the Duke of Sussex.

Harry and Meghan attended a charity event for Santa Barbara first responders

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Joshua Sammer/Getty Images

On the heels of the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany, Harry and Meghan returned to Montecito, Calif., where they continued making public appearances. Albeit a little more low-key compared to the international sporting competition for wounded war veterans.

On Sept. 22, 2023, the couple attended a local charity event hosted by Yellowstone alum Kevin Costner. Harry and Meghan attended the One805 First Responder Fundraiser in Santa Barbara, Calif., at Costners estate, which celebrated the areas first responders.

The goal? To raise essential funds through the evenings star-studded event, including not only VIPs like Harry and Meghan but also $12,000 last chance tables and musical guests.

Additionally, Harry and Meghan took the stage to present Costner, an ambassador to the charity, with an honorary award. They reportedly talked with the actor upon their arrival and proceeded to chat with other VIP guests, such as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres.

Harry looked out of place next to Meghan, expert says

Body language expert Judi James analyzed Harry and Meghans demeanor in footage from the charity event. In her opinion, it appeared Meghan looked more at ease than her husband of five years.

Meghan clearly stamps this one as Her event, with Harry looking slightly sheepish and out of place as they mingle with the guests and celebrities at this Santa Barbara charity bash, James told The Suns Fabulous.

Meghans body language reflected her excitement, the expert noted pointing out her hand motions and beaming smile. Meghans trait of hand-clenching, with her hands clasped high at chest level, and her rather overkill smile shows how delighted she is to be there, James said.

The way she steers Harry about makes him look suspiciously like a trophy husband, she added.

Meghan had a toe-curling moment of being Harrys parent at Santa Barbara charity event

James continued, highlighting a slightly awkward moment between Meghan and Harry as they gave Costner his honorary award. Standing onstage, they played a small game of pass-the-award before it found its way to the Let Him Go star.

A toe-curling moment came as Kevin Costner arrives to accept his award from the pair, James told the outlet. Harry has been relegated to stand behind his wife so she can for some reason take the award off the stand to hand it to Harry first, placing her in the role of parent.

Meghan then places a hand on Harrys back as though steering a small, sheepish child on speech day, with what looks suspiciously like a bit of a push as he steps obediently towards [sic] Costner.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet acknowledges conditions and cultures can impact body language and is sensitive to all backgrounds.
The Talking Leaves Job Corps Center operated by the Cherokee Nation will celebrate 45 years of service next month. The facility is located at 22717 S. Bald Hill Rd. in Tahlequah.
Biden aiming to scrub medical debt from people's credit scores, which could up ratings for millions
What should ministers do about artificial intelligence? Over the last year or so, weve been inundated with breathless stories about ChatGPT and similar programs that eerily mimic, equal, or surpass the voice, language, and powers of the human mind.

Some of us have had fun with them (Please write a Shakespearean sonnet in celebration of the San Antonio Spurs); some of us are already seeing them used in the workplace. Those of us who teach young people have been scrambling to rewrite assignments, since AI is basically a perfect cheating machine.

But what about churches? And what about the churchs leaders?

Some have argued that AI is like other technology, a neutral tool that can be used for either good or ill. If the end served is the mission of Christ, then the means of AI is not only justified; its a no-brainer.

Moreover, though their footprint is expanding, well-funded, large-staffed megachurches arent representative of the average congregation, neither here in the States nor around the world. Most churches are small and under-resourced, their pastors exhausted and stretched thin. As Christian communities continue to crawl out from beneath COVID-19s long shadow, surely relieving the pressure from ministers packed schedules and overflowing commitments is a worthy goal.

And if AI can do that, as a young Taiwanese pastor recently argued in an article reprinted at CT, then why say no to this time-saving, labor-saving technology? Its not as though ministers forsake other digital tools. They have email and smartphones and Google Calendar. They dont ride a horse and buggy to the office.

Above all, suppose AI could eliminate the bulk of a ministers busywork: the inefficient box-checking that saps energy and takes time from pastoral care. Wouldnt the effect, on balance, be positive? A net win?

In what follows, Im going to suggest the answer is no. Not because the arguments above are unreasonable; not because all digital technology is evil; not because Christians should be alarmist or apocalyptic about artificial intelligence. You dont have to believe the sky is falling to decline ChatGPT a role in your ministry. You dont have to use a dumb phone or live off the grid to agree that some technologies dont have a place in the life of Gods church.

The first question for ministers regarding any new technology is not how but whether. The difference between the two is important. Christians should never assume in advance that a given technology is suitable for the gospel. Maybe it is, but maybe it isnt.

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Its not that all technology is guilty until proven innocent. Its that a verdict either way is requiredand verdicts require human judgment. Wisdom, in other words, is necessary for Christian adoption of new tools. Wise discernment is nonnegotiable. And both wisdom and discernment require (among other things) discipline, leadership, patience, and corporate practices of decision-making. No pastor is competent to answer this question alone. It requires the church. And the church takes time.

Next, we should ask an additional question: What are the primary tasks of ministry? The classic answer, laid out most simply by John Calvin but common across Christian tradition, is the service of Word and sacrament. A pastor is called by Christ to preach and teach the gospel, to baptize and administer the Lords Supper, to lead Christs body to worship him by his Spirit, and to shepherd Christs flock through times of plenty and times of lack.

These tasks cannot and should not be replaced by lifeless technology, though technology may be able to aid or mediate some of the work. For example, a sermon recording may be distributed to those not present to hear it. Or consider calling a parishioner by phone: This isnt a substitute for pastoral care; its using a technological medium to facilitate that care.

Even these cases, as obvious as they seem, require prudence. If you only called and never visited hospitals, prisons, or living rooms, you would be shirking your duty. A preacher whose sermons were delivered exclusively in podcast form would be failing to minister to an actual body of believers. Extensions of ministry are just that: They expand or enrich concrete pastoral practice. They are not its substitute.

AI and ChatGPT represent the temptation of substitution rather than extension. They make a tantalizing, almost irresistible offer: Theyll do your work for you. Theyll write the sermon, exegete the passage, draft the lesson plan, and outline the discussion questions while you get to the real work of ministry.

But wait. That cant be right. We just saw that those very things are the work of ministry. Ministers cant be freed from writing sermons and preparing lessons. Thats the heart of the job. A preacher who wants to be liberated from preparing to preach sounds like someone who wants to quit altogether. There may be good reasons to quit, but AI isnt an acceptable workaround. The pastoral vocation is what it is.

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Artificial intelligence also fails to serve the ends of preaching and teaching in profound ways. The thing to see at the outset is that study and writing arent a mere means to an endunfortunate but unavoidable. Both entail a crucial spiritual and intellectual process that should not be circumvented.

Pastors are students of Gods Word. They are learners in the school of Christ. He teaches them by the mouths of his servants, the prophets and apostles, who speak through Holy Scripture. There is no shortcut to sitting at their feet. The pointthe entire businessof pastoral ministry is this calm, still, patient sitting, waiting, and listening. Every pastor lives according to the model of Mary of Bethany. Strictly speaking, only one thing is necessary for the work of ministry: reclining at the feet Jesus and hanging on his every word (Luke 10:3842).

In this sense, no one can do your studying for you. Ill say more below about appropriate forms of learning from professional scholars and commentaries, but thats not what I have in mind here. What I mean is that studying Gods Word is part of what God has called you to do; its more than a means to an end. After all, one of its ends is your own transformation, your own awesome encounter with the living God. Thats why no one can listen to Jesus in your stead. You must listen to Jesus. You must search the Scriptures. This is what it means to serve the church.

The same goes for writing, whether it be a sermon from the pulpit or a lesson in the classroom. Writing is an iterative process. You discover what you will sayindeed, what you thinkin the time that writing takes. Its full of stops and starts, dead-ends and cul-de-sacs, wrong turns and bursts of inspiration. The Spirit is present throughout, albeit discernible often only in retrospect.

Moreover, preaching and teaching are personal acts. When I preach, it is I and no one else speaking. I speak as myself, from the heart and out of my life. God, in his grace, speaks through mebut I remain the medium, the weak and earthen vessel of his holy power. This is just how God wants it; its a feature of the gospel, not a bug. Christ wants his heavenly voice to be heard in and through Pauls voice and Apolloss voice and Peters, and even yours and mine. One may be frail, another eloquent, another bold, another quiet, another professorial, but all these are human voices in every casedistinct, individual, and unique, created and called to speak aloud with one voice the one gospel of the one God for all peoples (Rom. 15:6).

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Artificial intelligence shortchanges this marvelous personal intersection. Pastors are the Lords co-workers (1 Cor. 3:9). ChatGPT is not. ChatGPT has neither soul nor body, is neither he nor she but only it. It is a thing, not a person. It cannot preach or teach. It does not know the gospel. It has no voice, and certainly no voice Gods people need to hear in public worship. The human voice is alive, gathering and reflecting a lifetimes worth of embodied response to the call of God. Not so a machine.

At this point, it is worth recalling what ChatGPT is: a large language model (LLM). Though it may well mark a milestone in the development of what we call artificial intelligence, for now, it is effectively a hyper-fast digital assistant, like Apples Siri or Amazons Alexa, that performs certain kinds of task for users. It has been trained (note the anthropomorphic language we use) on reams of data from the internet as well as various pre-digital sources. Based on that training, its capable of producing coherent text that usually fulfills the users request. And because the text appears almost instantly and the sources imitated are so numerousif undisclosed and therefore uncitedthe LLM appears human-like, intelligent, even sentient.

It isnt, though. This is why the most common objection to my argument against AI in ministrythat its just a tool, no different in principle than a biblical commentarydoesnt hold water. There is a world of difference between the two.

For one thing, commentaries and other sermon-writing aids arent substitutes for the pastors own work. They wont write your sermon for you (however much we might like thatN. T. Wright, please draft a 22-minute sermon on Galatians 3). They offer one perspective, and usually just one of many. Theyre guides, not ghostwriters.

For another, just as a preacher has a living voice, so does an author. Calvins voice is not Augustines is not John Wesleys is not Karl Barths is not Origens. Each was (and is) a living soul created by God to see the world and his Word in unique ways, as a gift to the rest of Gods people. We receive their words as the gift they are when we learn from them, inhabiting their perspective on a text or the gospel or our neighborsif only for a moment.

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ChatGPT is neither living nor trustworthy. In truth, it does project a certain slantits corporate owners will never make a profit if it regularly makes statements widely seen as inappropriate or immoralbut this is only more reason to refuse its use. An AI-generated sermon is the proclamation of a gospel sanitized and approved by Silicon Valley. It is obvious why we should want nothing to do with that.

To proclaim the gospel is to speak a human word about the divine Word become flesh. Ministers preach in and as the flesh they are, which is one and the same flesh that Christ assumed for our sake (Rom. 5:1721). To repurpose a line from theologian Stanley Hauerwas, pastoral ministry means working with words. More than that, yes, but not less than that. The aim should not be to avoid word work but, with the Spirits power, to do it well.

In fact, well is too ambiguous. Perhaps ChatGPT writes a better sermon than you do, a sermon with better grammar or nicer turns of phrase. What of it? You arent called to be a good preacher, not in that sense. Youre called to be a faithful preacher. God wants you to preach his Word as the person you are, not to serve as a mouthpiece for a proprietary algorithm.

You arent judged by standards of eloquencethat would have disqualified Moses and Paul both! Youre judged according to your submission to Christs will and your fidelity to his Word. Intelligence of any kind is not the highest virtue here. The relevant virtues are obedience, honesty, and courage; faith, hope, and love. The fruit of the Spirit blooms in soul and body, not in digital devices.

Nor, it should be added, is reliance on liturgical or other scripts a kind of analog shortcutthe best we could do, you might say, before OpenAI came along. When I recite the Apostles Creed, I am submitting to the doctrine of the church as led by the Spirit over the centuries. I am not representing the words as my own (as I might by delivering an AI-generated sermon to an unsuspecting congregation); I am not outsourcing my intellect to a machine (as I might by bypassing study with ChatGPT).

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The Creed is not a detour but a pathway, its well-worn course trod by countless saints whove gone before me. To make their steps and words my own is an act of humility, not a shortcut. Its a chance to mortify the pride of my flesh, not a chance to save time. Its a way to offer my heart to Christs bridemy mother and teacherand to be formed by the Spirit into Christs own image.

In a word, I imitate the saints (1 Cor. 4:1617) as they imitate Christ for a simple reason: because they are saints. I want their words to become my words, because their words reliably reflect him. Software does not. It will indeed shape us into its image, but that is an altogether different image than Christs.

As all of us (not only the churchs leaders) think about navigating these challenges together, it seems to me that there are two situations in which pastors may find themselves.

The first is that some pastors have come to believe (or are tempted to believe) that all the inglorious inefficiencies of daily ministry are a problem to solve rather than a fact to accept, or even a gift to receive with gratitude.

The second is that some pastors wish they had the kind of time Ive outlinedbut they dont. They want to read and write and sit at the feet of Christ, but a thousand demands distract them from this all-important work.

In both cases, the remedy is the same: for elders and vestries and other governing boards to help pastors avoid the circumstances that make ChatGPT look like an attractiveor, at least, acceptabletool for preaching. Pastors, ask for this help. Elders, give your pastors the time needed to study and serve the church in all their fallibility and finitude. Such limits cannot and should not be overcome.

My hope is that pastors will lead their churches in saying no to AI in preaching and teaching. But I hope, too, that churches will show their support of this answer, not least by honoring, compensating, and otherwise creating space for the mundane tasks of pastoral ministry. Shortcuts are less alluring when you have good work to do and enough time to do it.

Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University.
Help for Morocco is coming from Turkey. While humble in scope, the biggest impact may be on the church.

First Hope Association (FHA), a Turkish Christian disaster relief agency that provided aid after the massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey in February, was granted permission to assist in Morocco after its own devastating quake. A four-person team arrived in Marrakesh last week.

Consistent with its Turkish policy, FHA serves all victims without discrimination, in cooperation with the local church. Connecting with a house church network in southern Morocco, the Turkish believers have distributed $30,000 worth of clothes, blankets, and hygiene kits in four mountain villages not yet reached by other aid.

Our country has gone through the same hardships and difficulties, so we came to help and support, said Demokan Kileci, FHA board chairman. This is an amazing opportunity for Gods church here to show his compassion and love.

In many ways, the parallels are striking.

Morocco and Turkey are both Muslim-majority nations, and they both have small Protestant communities that largely emerged from an Islamic background. The churches in both nations suffered in their respective earthquakes but also rallied support to aid in overall relief. And while enduring varying degrees of ostracism, the believers solidarity with fellow citizens has begun to win each a slowly increasing level of social respect.

Their expression of love was immediate, without any thought of self, said Tim Ligon, pastor of Marrakesh International Protestant Church, of the local believers he has partnered with in relief. They counted no cost but responded with everything they had.

But there is one major difference between the nations: Morocco does not recognize an indigenous Christian faith, while Turkey affords its people freedom of religionincluding religious conversion.

Turkish Christians shared their story of faith to CT in hope that the small believing community in Morocco might profit from their experience. For there is another parallel between the nations that Turkish Protestants have taken significant steps to overcome: a history of internal division.

The Bible tells us that spiritual power comes in unity, said Ali Kalkandelen, president of Turkeys Association of Protestant Churches (TeK). It wont be easy, but if Moroccan believers support one another and see the church as one body, the Lord will bless them, and fruit will come.

Moroccan sources uniformly told CT about their love for Jesus and respect for King Mohammed VI, the Moroccan monarch and head of state. They also would like to see their faith recognized equally alongside Islam and Judaism.

But beyond these shared views, the sources had many different perspectives.

Some spoke of a government that discriminated against them and would not help displaced Christians. Others said the government was helping everyone and generally left the believers alone.

Some said their witness employs the Arabic word for Lord to hint at their distinction from Islam. Others said they say Allah to connect with normal Muslim use. Some distribute literature; others foreswear it as illegal. Some speak of their Christian faith to the media; others are suspicious of those who make it public.

Some said there was good cooperation between Moroccan churches and that donations should go to local believers working in the field. Others said there was distrust between the churches and that donations should be given through the national bank.

In some sense, each of these perspectives could be true. Experiences differ, as do theology and outlooks on mission. But there are Christians who exaggerate their earthquake and overall ministry for the sake of financial support, said some, while others said there were self-professed Christians who were not true believers at all.

To any who would criticize, Jack Wald counseled patienceand self-reflection.

Foreigners tend to have an idealistic vision of a young church, said the former pastor of Rabat International Protestant Church in Moroccos capital, and overlook the dysfunction of their own church at home.

Such struggles should not surprise anyone, he said, for the Bible is replete with similar stories. Ananias and Sapphira lied to better their reputation. Super apostles in Corinth used their position to make money. And the opponents of Paul used his imprisonment to expand their ministry.

Now retired in America, Wald sees similar ministry-as-business mentalities there.

The good news is that Jesus has a couple thousand years of experience in knowing how to deal with dysfunction, said Wald, who spent 22 years in the North African nation. And in Morocco as elsewhere, he continues to use dysfunctional people to build his kingdom.

Which is exactly what happened in Turkey, including in earthquake relief.

They are running around like a chicken with its head cut off, said Kileci, of the fledgling Moroccan believers efforts to help. We were once like that too.

Kileci speaks not of the recent earthquake along the Turkey-Syria border, but of the 1999 disaster that killed 17,000 people. The Turkish church was eager then to serve its nation, flailing alongside the rest of the community. But rather than winning social favor, the accusation spread that Protestants were assisting simply to preach the gospel. Vilified, many shrank back.

But not Kileci. As a respected employee in the Turkish defense industry, he had many trusted relationships in both government and civil society. Reaching out to volunteer, he received training from the Turkish Red Crescent and AFAD, the national disaster management agency. Learning the ropes, with additional education and support from Samaritans Purse, Kileci was able to legally register FHA in 2014.

Working in partnership with TeK, the FHA was initially not taken seriously. But dedication wins allies, whoespecially after their joint and ongoing work in the February earthquakesupported the association in its first international outreach.

Live your faith through your professional values in the workplace, Kileci said. Show society that you are a normal person, raising a familyand yet a Christian.

Unfortunately, in Morocco, this is the crux of the problem. Sources say that many in the churchlike the surrounding societyare poor, without gainful employment. And if a believers faith becomes public, even with good marks in school, it may become impossible to find work and get married.

This has led not only to a reticence to engage with wider Christian fellowship, but a reliance on Western sources of support. Some reported it creates a competition for denominational funds alongside theological markers often little understood among the young in faith, dividing the community further.

But spurred by zealand perhaps a desire for attention, as some saya number of Moroccan believers have turned to YouTube.

Turks did the same at a similar stage in the spiritual development of their nation.

While Protestant mission began in Morocco in the late 19th century, it was not until the 1980s that a wider house church movement began to grow. But scattered by repression at a time of feared political instability, it reemerged a decade later. The church is young, with most senior leaders in their 30s.

By comparison, Turkey had Protestant faith through its ethnic minorities, though in much smaller numbers after the massacres and exodus that accompanied the demise of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Muslim-background churches began in the 1970s, with TeK formed as a representative council in 1987.

Whether through correspondence courses or the internet, both realized seekers needed initial anonymity.

Media ministry has always been a part of Turkey, and one of the most important, said Gokhan Talas, founder of Miras Publishing House. In a situation of persecution, it is an effective way to spread the message.

Talas became a Christian after reading the Bible online in 2002. He and his wife created Miras in 2011, with a bimonthly magazine as its primary offering. Having now sold thousands of copies, the ministry has expanded to include multilingual and digital content. Other Turks work in radio, satellite television, and social mediasometimes to their peril.

Four years before creating Miras, Talas was the chief witness to the murders at a Christian publishing house in Malatya, which killed two converts from Islam and a German citizen. He said that believers, as citizens of Turkey, have the right to circulate their religious materialsbut social and unofficial discrimination creates many obstacles.

These pressures are less today, he said. But publicly Christian ministries can still be subject to closure, frozen bank accounts, and harassment of employees families.

There is freedom, Talas said. But there is always risk.

As there is to the fellowship of believers.

The Turkish church has suffered rivalries in media ministry, as outside denominations sometimes wish to control the powerful medium. Finances have not always been transparent, and links to foreign countries create suspicion in the minds of many ordinary Turks.

Miras has tried to model three solutions: First, to be upfront about where money is received from and where it is spent. Second, to be similarly open to explain the global body of Christ to a suspicious society. And third, to insist on inclusive ministry that represents the entirety of the local church.

While not against theological particulars, Talas said Miras focuses on the essentials and cooperation, a now-common Turkish mentality. Content should be thoroughly biblical but also attractive to Muslim readers looking for new perspectives on the issues of life.

We live here, share the same problems, but offer society a different vision, said Talas. And we also realized: As Christians we are a very small community. We all need each other.

But this was not all they needed.

A secular state offered significant benefits, said Kalkandelen. But it also nurtured a nationalistic ethos that to be Turkish meant to be Muslim. Christian converts were often not only viewed as apostates but as a security threattreated in the same vein as Islamist movements seeking power.

Which Recep Erdogan eventually did, peacefully, elected as prime minister in 2003. Primarily to benefit his allies, Kalkandelen said, the new leadership loosened the security apparatus to give more space to religion.

But the Protestant church benefitted also. TeK took the opportunity to cultivate relationships with open-minded officials and to tell their story to the mainstream press.

Mentalities are slow to change, but they do. After the Malatya murders, a justice ministry official said missionary work was more dangerous than terrorism, wishing it would be made illegal. But Erdogan condemned the killingslater pledging to defend the churchand journalists rallied to defend the rights of Christians.

Allies were needed elsewhere also.

With Turkey aiming for European integration, TeK began publishing a bilingual yearly human rights report in 2009. Its leaders met with international officials, but also with Armenian and Assyrian members of Parliament. And especially helpful was the domestic cultivation of relationships with Orthodox and Catholic clerical leaders.

In 2018, they jointly published a 95-page unified picture of faith.

It took many years, with great effortvisiting, supporting, and honoring these communities, said Kalkandelen. They now speak to the government on our behalf.

But early on, many Protestants would not even speak to each other.

There have always been power struggles in the church, Kalkandelen said. It has not been easy to keep our unity.

For some, differing theological perspectives was cause for division. For others, it was personal rivalry. Some had unique church-planting strategies. Others wanted to fundraise in likeminded networks. It is somewhat in our nature, the TeK leader said. Evangelicals tend to be independent individualists.

To their detrimentuntil forced otherwise.

TeK began to grow in strength as persecution increased in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kalkandelen said. Today, though members are a minority of overall churches, he estimates that, through larger congregations, the association represents about 70 percent of all Turkish Protestants.

Membership fees, though modest, prevent many small churches from joining. So also does the commitment and cost of attending three gatherings per year. Yet having established that TeK will also support any non-member that faces problems with the government, nearly all Christians, he said, are comfortable with their national leadership.

It is not important to be one church with the same doctrine. But weep, rejoice, and do projects together, Kalkandelen advised the Moroccan believers. God gave us favor, and he can give it to you.

Back in Morocco, there is no bigger project than earthquake relief. FHA is raising funds to stay for a month, and after that, will assess the situation again. Its own ministry is quiet, even as the displaced assume they are Muslims. But as Kileci advised foreigners coming to help Turkey, he now advises his team: Trust the local church to know how and when to witness appropriately.

FHA will return home again. Moroccan believers must continue to serve their nation.

We share a similar history, Kileci said. Disasters bring people together.
Can artificial intelligence save churches from mass shooters? Ex-Navy SEALs are using technology to do just that

With artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly evolving and expanding in its size, scope and abilities, houses of worship are beginning to look at ways to harness its power to protect congregants from mass shootings.

Matt Montana, director of safety at Valley Baptist Church out in Bakersfield, California, told the "Higher Ground With Billy Hallowell" podcast how his church is preparing to use AI to stop gunmen in their tracks.

"I came on staff here a little over three years ago after retiring from law enforcement," he said. "And as I assessed the safety needs of our community.  I really felt it was important to kind of identify some sort of technology that would allow us to identify if somebody had weapons on our campus."

Montana, whose church has four campuses, said guns themselves aren't his concern. His worries center on preventing people from "having weapons on campus for nefarious means."

As he began his quest to find innovative ways to protect Valley Baptist Church, a company called ZeroEyes came across his desk, and he was immediately intrigued.

Founded by a team of former Navy SEALs and technology experts, ZeroEyes describes itself as a "human-verified proactive gun detection and situational awareness software that integrates into existing digital security cameras with a mission to stop mass shootings and gun-related violence."

Rob Huberty, COO and co-founder of ZeroEyes, told "Higher Ground With Billy Hallowell" that he and his team began laying the groundwork for the company after the infamous 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

"A bunch of us, we saw a video of the shooter who was out, and he had his gun out in front of a camera, and he actually talked to another student. He said, 'Get out of here. It's going to be bad,'" Huberty recounted. "And we said, 'There's an opportunity here to see a gun and do something before anything happens. What if somebody was watching this?'"

Considering many people aren't actively monitoring security video to vet for such occurrences, the ZeroEyes team pondered how technology could fill that gap and become a proactive tool.

"We said, 'Could we use AI and leverage it in a way to spot guns?" Huberty said, noting his team quickly realized there was nothing like that on the market. "So, we're like, let's create this, and let's do it in a way that  is the least intrusive."

ZeroEyes uses video cameras that already exist at various institutions. The company started by working with schools, processing images frame-by-frame to see if and when guns might show up.

"We took images of ourselves carrying guns on these types of cameras, and we just compiled a massive database for what the definition of a gun is," Huberty said, explaining the software will then flag any gun that shows up on security cameras. "If there's an image, it's going to send out an alert, and it's going to give that image of that location."

The flagged image can then make its way into the hands of first responders to prepare them to take quick and decisive action to neutralize threats more readily. The use of current cameras, Huberty said, doesn't invade privacy while simultaneously elevating security.

As for Montana and his planned use of the technology, he was initially intrigued not only by ZeroEyes' mission but also by the veterans behind the company who had given their "service to the nation."

"I really just started  studying it and thought it'd be a perfect fit for us," Montana said.

Valley Baptist Church hasn't yet turned on ZeroEyes, but parishioners support the coming effort to protect them.

"They're grateful for the efforts we're putting forward to protect the congregation," Montana said.

The former law enforcement officer, who spent the last 14 years of his career assigned to an FBI international terrorism squad, said some people want to harm innocents  and that churches and houses of worship should take heed.

"That's just a fact of life," Montana said. "I think it's extremely important for me personally, for churches, houses of faith to recognize that and be vigilant  not to be paranoid, but be vigilant."

Find out more about ZeroEyes here.

Get more uplifting stories from journalist and author Billy Hallowell here.
Illinois city seeks to force Christian campground to demolish buildings, impose financial 'ruin'

An Illinois city is seeking to force a Christian campground to demolish most of the buildings on its property damaged by flooding, a request the ministry believes is retaliation for holding a revival event during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chicago District Camp Ground Association, Inc., also known as the Methodist Campground, filed a motion earlier this month to amend its pleadings in Cook County Circuit Court in response to a lawsuit filed by the City of Des Plaines.

The campground, nestled on the banks of the Des Plaines River, was founded in the 1860s and, throughout its history, has hosted several revival events and other Christian gatherings.

At issue are the demands of officials with the city, which, according to the complaint, have subjected the campground to flood control operations in recent years.

Over the past 15 years, the campground has suffered from repeated flooding events, the intensity of which has exceeded previous flooding on the site. The ministry's court filings contend that the flood was "no act of God" but rather a "result of novel flooding infrastructure owned and operated by the City."

The motion states that the damage was caused by a flood prevention project called Levee 50, which became operational in 2008 with the knowledge that if two pumps of the levee are operated at the same time it could cause substantial flooding on the campground property.

The campground accuses the city of operating Levee 50 in a "manner that caused the Campground to suffer flood damage, including but not limited to operating more than one pump of Levee 50 simultaneously."

The flooding has damaged around three-quarters of the buildings on the campground, several of which are over a century old. The city demanded that the facilities be demolished.

"By seeking to demolish over 75% of the Campground's structures, the City's enforcement proceeding substantially burdens the Campground's religious exercise," claimed the motion.

"Further, by seeking to impose the costs of demolition and daily fines dating back to March 8, 2021, the City seeks to financially ruin the Campground and take its Property, thereby decimating the Campground's ability to engage in religious exercise."

Earlier this year, the campground ministry agreed to be represented by the First Liberty Institute, a legal organization based in Texas that often handles First Amendment cases.

Ryan Gardner, an attorney with First Liberty, told The Christian Post that the court is scheduled to hold a hearing about the motion in November.

"The campground filed a motion to amend its pleadings so that it could assert a variety of constitutional, federal and Illinois state law claims and defenses against the City of Des Plaines," said Gardner, who labeled the city's actions "reprehensible."

"Not only has the City flooded the Campground for years, but now it seeks to regulate the Campground out of existence with a lawsuit that is nothing more than retaliation against the campground for hosting a religious revival in defiance of the City's unlawful attempt to stifle religious gatherings in 2020."

The campground's motion claims that the city has "not taken similar aggressive enforcement actions against similarly situated secular entities," thus showing "religious animosity."

Gardner said the "law is clear that government action motivated by religious hostility cannot stand and must be set aside."

The Christian Post contacted the City of Des Plaines for comment on the case. However, the city's media representatives did not return comment by press time.

Des Plaines Mayor Andrew Goczkowski told Journal & Topics that the city's priority is safety.

"It's always been the city's interest that the campground not be full of death traps," Goczkowski said. "What if someone or children are in one of those buildings and it collapses? We have always been safety focused. Maybe they can play by the same rules as everyone else does."

Although the campground and city used to have a working relationship, the campground's motion states that its relationship with the town "soured" after hosting a 10-day religious tent revival in July and August of 2020.

"City officials invoked the COVID-19 pandemic and repeatedly pressured the

Campground to cancel or end its religious exercise, but the Campground stood firm refusing to suppress prayer and worship on the Property," the motion states.

"The Campground's decision to invoke its First Amendment rights deeply angered

City officials, who also saw an opportunity to take this valuable property for itself. The City crafted a plan to retaliate against the Campground with the goal of shutting it down permanently through the facade of an enforcement action based on flood damage to the Campground's structures  damage that the City itself had caused. City officials openly referred to the Campground's First Amendment rights as "bull" that could be disregarded."

This is not the first time Des Plaines has found controversy in its dealings with religious groups.

In 2013, city officials denied a zoning request by The Society of American Bosnians and Herzegovinians to convert an old building into a mosque.

The city was eventually found guilty of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 and, in 2017, agreed to a settlement in which it paid $580,000.
Police arrest Virginia man who took gun, 2 knives to church on Sunday after online threats

A man who made online threats against a Virginia congregation has been arrested after he was discovered allegedly trying to enter the church with weapons during a worship service.

Rui Jiang, a 35-year-old resident of Falls Church, was arrested Sunday outside Park Valley Church in Haymarket, according to a Prince William County Police Department press release.

Prince William authorities worked with the Fairfax County Police Department and the Anne Arundel County Police Department in Maryland to coordinate their efforts.

According to authorities, Jiang had made vague threats of violence on Instagram that included images of Park Valley Church, which a person residing in Maryland had made them aware of early Sunday morning.

An off-duty police officer who was working an assignment at the church discovered Jiangs vehicle at the church, while others in the congregation noticed him on the property.

The off-duty officer and church staff coordinated and detained the accused near the entrance without incident, stated Prince William police. The accused apparently entered the building through a separate door and had been inside the location prior to being stopped.

When detained, Jiang had a loaded handgun, an extra ammunition magazine, and two knives. The firearm was reported as legally purchased and owned by the accused.

Jiang has been charged with carrying a dangerous weapon to a place of worship and for making threats of bodily harm. He is being held without bond and a court date is pending.

Law enforcement credits the concerned citizen who contacted police regarding these suspicious online postings, joint law enforcement efforts from multiple police agencies, and the staff of Park Valley Church for their vigilance, stated the police.

In a statement, Fairfax County authorities explained that they and the other police departments acted swiftly and thus were able to stop a potential active shooter.

Since the arrest, detectives from our Threat Assessment Management Unit have been assigned to assist with the investigation, said FCPD. TAM detectives assisted with the execution of a search warrant at Jiangs home.

Evidence supporting Jiangs intent to cause harm was recovered from the scene. Detectives will work with our multidisciplinary team to determine the appropriate resources for threat mitigation and management of the case.

In a statement posted on Facebook Tuesday, the church thanked authorities for their swift and courageous actions of working across state and county lines to locate the threat that took place on our campus this past Sunday.

We are a church that deeply cares about the welfare of those attending our Sunday services and church events, and we thank God for His hand of protection along with our safety ministry and everyone else involved that saw something that looked concerning and quickly addressed the situation, stated Park Valley Church.

We love our church family and surrounding communities and will continue to remain vigilant to ensure the safety of our congregation, their families, and all seeking to know Christ.
National prayer movement hopes to meet Gen Zers 'hungry' to know God better

A worldwide ministry effort hopes to reach Gen Zers who have strayed from God by challenging students to see Him with their whole heart by observing prayer time around their schools flag pole.

See You at the Pole is an annual student-led prayer movement that consists of students gathering together in prayer on the fourth Wednesday of September. Students in elementary, middle school and high school, as well as university students, can participate. Adults are also invited to pray at their work, church or any other location.

Last year, SYATP held its 33rd annual event, and the theme, Aflame, was centered around the Bible verse Romans 12:11-12. For the 34th annual event, the theme is focused on Jeremiah 29:13.

Doug Clark, national field director for the National Network of Youth Ministries, which is involved with SYATP, told The Christian Post that the verse has a special meaning for him.

According to Clark, when most people quote this chapter of the Bible, they cite Jeremiah 29:11, which states: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

But in the context of that, God says through Jeremiah, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart, Clark said, quoting a later section of the chapter.

The national field director said that he interpreted the verse as a condition to the promise that God made in verse 11 about the future, in which Clark noted that the Lord promises what lies ahead will be wonderful.

But in the context, theres a question of: Are you seeking me with your whole heart? Clark said. So, the theme this year is wholehearted. We want to challenge students to see God with their whole hearts.

Explaining the process for selecting a theme for the year, Clark said that he, a representative of Claim Your Campus  another organization that helps with the event  and several others pray over it. The group then makes a decision once it feels that there is an agreement about the theme.

Clark also shared with CP how an event like this can impact young people, particularly Gen Zers. As some recent studies have shown, younger generations appear less likely to embrace religion.

The Christian leader noted that at the time the book of Jeremiah was written, the people of Judah were living in exile, but God spoke through Jeremiah to offer words of hope. He contended that there is always a sense of hope, even in what he described as the most crushing of prophecies in the Old Testament, that God watches over those who pursue Him with a whole heart.

I think theres a remnant of students in Gen Z that are very hungry to know God better, Clark said.

The field director detailed the events history, which goes back to 1990 when a youth group in Texas felt compelled to create a sense of togetherness, Clark said. The students started discussing the possibility of hosting a prayer gathering at school by a flag pole, as every school has one.

After 45,000 teenagers participated in the first SYATP event on Sept. 12, 1990, the youth group asked the National Network of Youth Ministries to help due to its platform of working with multiple denominations and ministries.

In terms of turnout, previous SYATP events have drawn around a million students. As Clark explained, students involved in a Christian group on campus typically plan and lead the event.

The SYATP website offers resources for organizing a prayer event, and it helps students understand their rights. According to the site, the students are praying outside of school hours, so the prayer time does not interfere with academic instruction.

Clark said that he believes the prayer movement is building momentum, as he has noticed an increase in the number of people requesting resources, both this year and last year. He also told CP that youth groups, various denominations and organizations such as Youth for Christ are helping to spread the word about the event.

I think I can confidently say that there will be students praying in all 50 states, he said.
Revelation 16: A world shaken and pummeled to the ground

Within the sacred pages of Revelation chapter 16, the reader encounters a compelling portrayal of Gods incomparable power, the gravity of human defiance, the somber consequences of rebellion, and Gods unswerving commitment to truth and holiness.

As seven angels pour out seven bowls, the narrative unfolds with powerful and evocative imagery of the affliction of grievous sores, oceans and rivers lethally polluted, scorching heat from the sun, darkness that falls which is so dense it can be felt, and the Great River Euphrates dries to make a way for demonically inspired armies to gather at Armageddon for the greatest war in human history.

This chapter is a poignant call to repentance, a stark reminder of the consequences of unrepentant sin, and a testament to the imminence of Gods ultimate triumph over the forces of evil.

Starting with verse 17, a seventh angel pours out the seventh and last bowl of wrath. This is what the Scriptures say happens:

Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air. And a mighty shout came from the throne in the Temple, saying, It is finished! Then the thunder crashed and rolled, and lightning flashed. And a great earthquake struck  the worst since people were placed on the earth. The great city of Babylon split into three sections, and the cities of many nations fell into heaps of rubble. So, God remembered all of Babylons sins, and he made her drink the cup that was filled with the wine of his fierce wrath. And every island disappeared, and all the mountains were leveled. There was a terrible hailstorm, and hailstones weighing as much as 75 pounds fell from the sky onto the people below. They cursed God because of the terrible plague of the hailstorm (Revelation 16:17-21).

The seventh angel pours out the contents of its bowl into the air. In the apostle Pauls letter to the church at Ephesus, he says that before their conversion to Christ, they were dead in their sins. They followed this worlds value system and the ruler of the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2), which is a reference to Satan and his domain. In the same letter, the apostle admonishes them, Our fight is not with people. It is against the leaders and the powers and the spirits of darkness in this world. It is against the demon world that works in the heavens (Ephesians 6:12). Therefore, it may be deduced from this that the seventh angel is in some way emptying his bowl on the air, on the atmosphere, on the heavens, on the very headquarters from whence the Evil One and his devils work.

There are many today who scoff and laugh at the idea of a personal devil and demons. But the Bible is full of passages that confirm their reality.

For example, in the Gospels, Jesus engages in direct confrontations with Satan during his temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). Jesus casting out of demons is a recurring theme in the New Testament (The Healing of the Gadarene Demoniacs  Matthew 8:28-34; A Mute Man with a Demon  Matthew 9:32-34;The Syrophoenician Womans Faith  Matthew 15:21-28;The Healing of a Boy with a Demon Matthew 17:14-21;Jesus Authority Demonstrated in the Synagogue  Mark 1:21-28;The Healing of the Demon-Possessed Man of the Gerasenes  Mark 5:1-20).

If the Bible is true in what it says about Jesus, then it is true about the devil and demons, too. Moreover, if it is true as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:19-20, that Gods existence is inferred from the observation of the natural world, in a similar manner the devils existence is inferred by examining the world and the wicked influences attributed to him.

It is much the same way a lawyer would use circumstantial evidence to prove a case in court. The presence of evil and negative influences, as well as the idea that the devil can influence human behavior, are presented as strong evidence for the reality of the devil and demons.

Once the bowl is voided a mighty shout comes from the throne in the Temple, declaring, It is finished.

Remember Jesus declared, It is finished on the cross (John 19:30). What Jesus had done by his blood-atonement on Calvarys tree purchased redemption in full. It was a finished work, but it had ongoing benefits for everyone who believes.

However, when the last bowl is dispensed and the Lord speaks these words from the Temple, it means the work of judgment on this God-hating, unbelieving, pervasively dark world of doubt and indifference, where the cacophony of skepticism constantly drowns out the Spirits whispers of hope, is completed and done. And, in this case, there are no benefits, none whatsoever for those who reject the Savior.

In an instant, deafening thunder is said to have reverberated through the air, accompanied by brilliant, flashing lightning. This has happened before.

In Exodus 19:16-19, when God descended upon Mount Sinai to deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses, there was thunder, lightning, and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. The people trembled at the display of Gods power. In 1 Kings 18:38, during Elijahs showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, God sent fire (lightning) from Heaven to consume Elijahs offering, accompanied by thunder and rain, demonstrating his supremacy. In Revelation 4:5 and Revelation 8:5, thunder and lightning occurred as a part of Johns heavenly visions, emphasizing the awe-inspiring nature of Gods divine revelation.

The thunder and lightning are impressive symbols of Gods majesty, authority, and presence, leaving a profound impact on those who witness them.

The Psalmist says, Who can be compared with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high? He stoops to look down on Heaven and on earth  Let the whole world fear the Lord, and let everyone stand in awe of him  Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him (Psalm 113:5-6; 33:8; 96:9).

Yet more, a colossal earthquake strikes, the worst since people were placed on the earth (vs. 18).

Earthquakes, as recorded in Scripture, serve as potent manifestations of Gods presence, judgment, deliverance, or significance, illustrating Gods authority over the natural world and his involvement in human history.

The prophet Haggai recorded the Lord saying, In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. I will shake all the nations (Haggai 2:6-7).

Earthquakes accompany very significant events such as when God descended on Mount Sinai to give the Ten Commandments, and the mountain quaked (Exodus 19:18). An earthquake also occurred at the crucifixion of Jesus, signifying the solemnity of his sacrifice, which inaugurated a new covenant of grace and faith (Matthew 27:51-54). There was also an earthquake at the resurrection when the angel rolled away the great stone from the tomb, which marked Gods approval and acceptance of Christs sacrifice (Matthew 28:2).

The three worst earthquakes in world history were:

1. The Jiajing Earthquake (1556), which struck Shaanxi, China, was the deadliest. It claimed approximately 830,000 lives. It was estimated to have been around 8.0 to 8.3 on the Richter Scale.

2. The Tangshan Earthquake (1976), happened in Tangshan, China, and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 242,000 people. It also caused extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure. Its magnitude was approximately 7.5 on the Richter Scale.

3. The Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami (2004), was an undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It triggered a massive tsunami that affected several countries around the Indian Ocean, resulting in over 230,000 fatalities and widespread destruction. It was estimated to be between 9.1 and 9.3 on the Richter Scale.

However, the earthquake foretold in Revelation 16:18 is unlike any earthquake that has ever shaken the earth before. The worlds worst earthquakes will only seem like a tremor compared to the one predicted in this passage.

How bad will it be? It will split the great city of Babylon in three different ways, but Babylon at this point, will not be entirely destroyed. Daymond R. Duck and Larry Richards in The Book of Revelation: The Smart Guide to the Bible Series, contend:

This great earthquake will split the great city of Babylon into three parts, but it will stand. This cannot be said for other cities because they will be leveled. Every city on earth, except Babylon, will be in ruins as the end of the Tribulation Period approaches. With Babylon still standing, it will come into remembrance before God. One of the three angels (Revelation 14:8) predicted Babylons doom just a short time before this. The Old Testament prophets predicted her doom long before that. It will be time for those prophecies to be fulfilled. She will get the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

Many people remember the classic Etch-A-Sketch. This nostalgic toy has entertained kids and adults for decades. I used to play with one when I was a boy. It consists of a red plastic frame with a gray screen, and inside is a mixture of aluminum powder. To create a drawing, you simply turn two white knobs on the right and left on the front of the frame, which are connected to a stylus inside. As you turn the knobs, the stylus moves through the aluminum powder, presenting dark lines on the gray screen. If you want to start over, you simply shake the Etch-A-Sketch, and all the lines will fall and erase your drawing.

Imagine the world as an enormous Etch-A-Sketch. Just like when you shake the Etch-A-Sketch and all the lines fall and disappear, in Revelation 16:20, Gods mighty power shakes the earth so profoundly that its as if every island and mountain on this Etch-A-Sketch world disappears. The familiar landscapes and features we know are completely transformed, just as the Etch-A-Sketch starts fresh with a clean slate when you shake it. This dramatic event, this unprecedented earthquake, signifies the incredible power and sovereignty of God in reshaping the world and preparing it for his purposes. Its a forceful symbol of the profound changes and divine renewal that will take place during this momentous time in biblical prophecy.

The prophet Isaiah has written of this moment, saying:

Destruction falls like rain from the heavens; the foundations of the earth shake. The earth has broken up. It has utterly collapsed; it is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunk. It trembles like a tent in a storm. It falls and will not rise again, for the guilt of its rebellion is very heavy (Isaiah 24:18-20).

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were struck by commercial airliners, they swayed and tilted, somewhat like a drunkard does before falling. The impact of the planes and the subsequent fires weakened the structural integrity of the buildings, causing them to sway and lean before eventually collapsing catastrophically.

At the end of the Tribulation, God shakes this rebellious planet with an earthquake so massive entire cities, even the largest and most prosperous, such as New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Mexico City, Cairo, and London, will tumble to the ground as the Twin Towers did on September 11, 2001.

Duck and Richards note:

This seems hard to believe, but the 2004 Sumatra earthquake [Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami] that killed more than 280,00 people moved islands and caused the earth to tilt on its axis. Some islands temporarily disappeared under a thirty-foot-high wall of water.

Still, there remains one final cataclysmic event of biblical proportions, an event that will serve as the climax of this apocalyptic narrative in Revelation chapter 16. A hailstorm of unparalleled magnitude descends upon the earth, its scale eclipsing any previous meteorological event.

Hailstorms have had devastating consequences, causing loss of life, destruction of property, and significant economic impacts. The seventh plague in Egypt involved a devastating hailstorm. Hail and thunder, along with fire, rained down upon the land, causing unprecedented destruction (Exodus 9:22-26).

The renowned Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, describes what the hailstorm in Egypt did to them:

What desolations it made upon the earth. It killed both men and cattle and battered down, not only the herbs but the trees. The corn that was above ground was destroyed, and that only preserved which as yet had not come up.

In other words, the hailstorm that pummeled the Egyptians was not only a deadly disaster, but it crushed the nations economy.

Some scholars and scientists have attempted to offer natural explanations for certain biblical events, such as suggesting a volcanic eruption might have caused the hailstorm in Egypt, just as some suggest the hailstorm in Revelation 16:21 might be precipitated by a nuclear war.

In The Book of Revelation, Edward Hinson, Dean of the Institute of Biblical Studies at Liberty University, writes:

It is certainly possible that these judgments are cosmic (an asteroid collides with earth) or geological (volcanos and earthquakes). But the clear references to men fighting, armies marching, and fire falling certainly sound like a great world war involving nuclear weapons. How ironic that John locates this last great conflict between the forces of God and Satan at Armageddon, near Mount Carmel where Elijah stood against the prophets of Baal and called down the fire of God in a demonstration of his mighty power.

Whatever the cause, the Scriptures make it abundantly clear that this event is providential, guided, and directed by the hand of God. At the root of it, is Gods fierce and unrelenting anger. This is why speculation about natural causes is not part of the biblical narrative.

One of the deadliest hailstorms ever recorded happened in Gopalganj, Bangladesh in 1986. It killed at least 92 people and injured over 500. The hailstones also extensively damaged crops, livestock, and property. The hailstones were said to be the size of oranges.

Nevertheless, according to Revelation 16:21, each hailstone that falls to the earth because of the seventh outpouring of Gods bowls of wrath is said to weigh about 75 pounds.

No question, whatever the earthquake didnt shake down, the hailstorm will beat down.

Its interesting that after the horrific hailstorm that occurred in Egypt, Pharoah humbled himself and spoke the language of a penitent man. He quickly summoned Moses and Aaron. This time I have sinned, he confessed. The Lord is the righteous one, and my people and I are wrong. Please beg the Lord to end this terrifying thunder and hail (Exodus 9:27). He even set the Israelites free. Yet, Pharoah later changed his mind and repented of his repentance and sought to chase down and recapture his former slaves.

After the seventh bowl is emptied, those who survive will stand amidst the debris, their lives having been shaken asunder, their spirits tested by the fury of frozen missiles, if they show any remorse, if they should weep and blame themselves, if they should look toward heaven and beg God for mercy, it will not last. Like a dog that turns back to eat its own vomit, they will repent of their repentance and curse God.

Dr. Chuck Missler in his commentary handbook on The Book of Revelation provides an excellent closing. He writes:

Many are trying to reduce the population of the earth; it seems more appropriate to reduce the population of hell! God changes hearts through his grace and mercy. This book was sent to the seven churches. It was given to us in order to change our lives right now!

Be saved. Be forgiven. Be changed by Christ, right now!
Biden sees big drop in approval among black, Hispanic voters

President Joe Biden is facing a significant drop in approval among both African American and Latino voters as the 2024 presidential primary season is beginning to take shape.

According to a recently released poll from NBC News, 56% of respondents disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president, while 41% of respondents approve and 3% are not sure how they would rate Biden.

Additionally, 59% of respondents disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy versus 37% who approve, while 53% disapprove of his handling of foreign policy versus 41% who approve.

Biden has seen his support among minority voters decline over the first two years of his presidency. His job approval rating among African American voters dropped from 80% in 2021 to 63% this year, while approval among Latino voters declined from 61% in 2021 to 43% this year.

The NBC News survey was conducted by Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies from Sept. 15-1. It included 1,000 registered voters, including 848 people interviewed via cellphone, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.

The survey also found that 74% of respondents considered the age of 80-year-old Biden to be either a "major" concern or a "moderate" concern for them. Meanwhile, 59% of likely Democratic primary voters say they want to see a challenger to Biden.

The same poll also found trouble for former president and current GOP primary frontrunner Donald Trump, who had 62% of respondents express "major" or "moderate" concern over his civil and criminal charges in four different courts.

Sixty percent of respondents expressed major or moderate concern with "Joe Bidens possible awareness or involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, including alleged financial wrongdoing and corruption."

Additionally, the poll saw a hypothetical matchup between Biden and Trump in 2024 being a tie, with each getting 46% support from respondents. By contrast, a hypothetical matchup between Biden and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had Haley leading, 46% to 41%.

The NBC News poll echos similar findings from New York Times/Siena College national polls over the last year, showing Biden underperforming with nonwhite voters.

New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn wrote in an analysis that, on average, Biden leads Trump 53% to 28% among registered nonwhite voters in a compilation of Times/Siena polls from 2022 and 2023.

"The results represent a marked deterioration in Mr. Biden's support compared with 2020 when he won more than 70 percent of nonwhite voters," Cohn wrote. "If he's unable to revitalize this support by next November, it will continue a decade-long trend of declining Democratic strength among voters considered to be the foundation of the party."

The tepid support for Biden among nonwhite demographics "appears to be mostly responsible for the close race in early national surveys," Cohn wrote.

"But the possibility that [Biden's] standing will remain beneath the already depressed levels of the last presidential election should not be discounted," he added.

"Democrats have lost ground among nonwhite voters in almost every election over the last decade, even as racially charged fights over everything from a border wall to kneeling during the national anthem might have been expected to produce the exact opposite result. Weak support for Mr. Biden could easily manifest itself as low turnout  as it did in 2022  even if many young and less engaged voters ultimately do not vote for Mr. Trump."

On Sunday, The Washington Post and ABC News released a poll indicating that, if the 2024 election were held today, 51% of respondents would vote for Trump while 42% would vote for Biden.

The Post/ABC News poll, conducted by Abt Associates, drew from a telephone survey conducted Sept. 15-20 of 1,006 adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for the full sample.

The Washington Post published an analysis dismissing the findings as "probably an outlier," contending that "Trump's lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat."

"Biden and former president Donald Trump appear headed for a rematch of their 2020 contest, although more than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than the president," the analysis added.

"Biden's advisers have argued that he is the strongest Democrat for 2024 and those who wish for someone else share no consensus on who that should be, with 8 percent naming Vice President Harris, 8 percent naming Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and 20 percent saying they prefer 'just someone else.'"
Candace Owens spars with 'demon possessed' sex worker who rejected her prayer

Candace Owens recently sparred with a sex worker she said seemed to be possessed by a demon and tried to trigger her by discussing her marriage.

In a recent episode of her podcast, the 34-year-old author, who is also a wife and mother, discussed how she recently appeared on the Whatever podcast as part of her press tour for the Daily Wire series "Convicting a Murderer."

During the podcast, she debated with several sex workers about whether its appropriate for women to prostitute themselves. Tensions escalated as Owens challenged one sex worker who suggested she actually saves marriages by fulfilling mens unconventional sexual desires.

I honestly felt like, and I never say this, that she was possessed by a demon, Owens said. She really was. And she was growing frustrated in me remaining logical and explaining to her that obviously, her career was going to follow her for the rest of her life. And she tried to, I guess, trigger me as she was explaining how she saves marriages and she tried to trigger me by creating a what if scenario regarding my own husband.

The 22-year-old sex worker presented a hypothetical scenario in which Owens husband approached her with unconventional sexual desires, questioning the implications for the relationship.

If you are not going to be acceptant with your partner if he comes to you and is like, Hey, I really like getting p--ed. I want you to p-- me. And you're like, Ew. that's so disgusting. Like, I would never do that. You want me to [expletive], I would never do that. Well then, OK, what are you going to do, divorce him? Or what are you going to do? Realistically? the sex worker asked.

Obviously disgusted, Owens said she believed such behaviors might indicate a divergence into a "perverse world," possibly influenced by external factors like pornography.

It would probably indicate to me that my husband was involved in some perverse world, whether it was through pornography, that something else was happening on the side. These aren't normal things that people just think of when they wake up, the conservative author said.

Reflecting on the interaction, Owens said, What was weird about that is suddenly it seemed like she was suffering from a demonic possession. Like she was just a Chucky doll. And she was just trying to say the most perverse thing that she could possibly say to trigger me.

But instead of feeling triggered Owens said she felt disturbed that a 22-year-old was even coming up with this concept. She pointed out that while the young woman sees her involvement in sex work as purely a choice and a source of income, its actually a cry for help and a sign of deeper issues.

I realized that her entire reality had been warped because she works in a brothel and she sees up to 10 clients per day," Owens said. "And you have to imagine that she thinks that this must represent what all men are like. It never occurred to her that actually, she is seeing the most debased, pathetic men that are in this society today. She is seeing men who have drug addiction. She is seeing men who have a sex addiction. She is seeing men who have gone so far into their perversions that they might actually be requesting this from her. It is not the average man that goes into a brothel.

Later in the podcast, the sex worker detailed her lucrative earnings from the industry, almost half a million dollars annually, she claimed. Owens lamented that society has become numb to sexual perversion and that sex workers can justify their behavior due to their earnings.

This is why I spend so much time talking about perversity, talking about pornography, talking about the ills, not just of graphic pornography, which her mind is utterly polluted by because it's a form of her every single day, it's a facet of her every single day, but also the soft pornography that we have all become accustomed to, the pornography that we see when we scroll Instagram, Owens said.

And you have Instagram models with their butt cheeks and their chests out. This is the stuff that is desensitizing us, right? It is desensitizing all of us. We're all victims to it. I say this all the time when I see an ad, I don't even flinch  because we have become accustomed to seeing it everywhere. It's leading to women that are quite literally prostituting themselves in and out because they know that they can make a quick buck, and you can do that, it's true.

Owens revealed that at the end of the interview, she offered to pray for the possessed sex workers, but the young woman "rejected the prayer on the show.

She said she didn't want me to pray for her. What kind of person rejects a prayer? You might not believe in prayers. You might not pray yourself, but if any person walked up to me, no matter what phase they were in, and they said that they were going to pray for me, I wouldn't reject it, she said.

I think that what the 'Whatever' podcast taught me is that we are definitely facing a possession in America. People are possessed by the concept of fame. We are possessed by perversions; we are possessed by sexuality. And all of these things are destroying people's souls, honestly, genuinely. And when I left that podcast, I still prayed for those young women because I think they need it.
Christian actress Jen Lilley leaves Days of Our Lives,' says promiscuous role taught her grace

Christian actress Jen Lilley, who stars in the NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives," has announced she is leaving the show after years of playing a "promiscuous" and "manipulative" character, a role that taught her no one is too far beyond God's reach.

The 39-year-old devout Christian actress played the role of a troubled woman named Theresa Donovan in the soap opera from 2013 to 2016 and made select-episode appearances on the show from 2018 to 2023.

Lilley's last day performing on the show was on Sept. 22.

Before her final day, Lilley took to social media to express gratitude for nearly a decade of playing the role  a character whom she said demonstrated to her the power of God's love.

"Last week of me exploring this girl's shenanigans on screen," wrote Lilley in a Sept. 19 Instagram post. "Playing Jeanne Theresa Donovan off and on for the last 10 years has taught me so much about empathy and grace."

"I have enjoyed every moment of her hilarious sass and ferocity, layered with brokenness," she added. "To the cast and crew at @dayspeacock, I love you forever. You're my family."

In her post, Lilley thanked her fans for supporting her through to the end.

"To the best fans a girl could ask or hope for: remember there is no pit so deep you could ever find yourself in where God's love cannot find you still," she wrote.

"You are never beyond redemption. You are called by grace and marked with love. Thank you for supporting me on this decade-long journey."

As a devout Christian who has starred on Candace Cameron Bure's Great American Family network, which prides itself on wholesome family programming, Lilley received scrutiny from her Christian fans for returning to the Theresa Donovan role.

In a 2015 interview with the Christian daily talk show "100 Huntley Street," she said Christians often ask, "How can you be Christian and play this role?" She said she has learned about God's mercy through playing the role.

Lilley described her character on the soap opera as being "extremely destructive, manipulative, vindictive and very promiscuous." But she said she felt called by God to take the part because she "really felt like the Lord was like, 'This is your role.'"

The actor said John 10 is a Bible verse that moved her to take the role. In the verse, Jesus says that His "sheep hear his voice."

Despite admitting she was confused about why God was calling her to take the role, she said she was confident enough that God's voice told her to take the part.

"The truth of the matter is that from a human perspective, Theresa's kind of a horrible person," Lilley said. "But from a God perspective, she's exactly who Christ came and died for."

She cited Romans 5 and Ephesians 3:18-19.

Lilley told "the Theresas of the world  you are so loved and you are not unredeemable."

Lilley said in a 2020 interview with Movieguide that she felt God told her that if someone takes on the role of Theresa, He would rather it be a Christian "because you can play the unspoken moments when the guy leaves the room."

"'You play the emptiness the girls actually feel where they've sold themselves short of their value," Lilley said the Lord told her. "'Those are the exact conditions of humanity that I sent my Son to die for.'"

Lilley has also appeared in a variety of other roles in television and film, such as the 2011 Oscar-award-winning movie, "The Artist." She also played a role on "General Hospital" before she was cast in 2013 as Theresa Donovan in "Days of Our Lives."

Lilley co-hosted the 2020 Movieguide Awards and also made appearances in a variety of Hallmark films.
Joni Eareckson Tada shares COVID-19 update: 'What COVID meant for evil, Christ meant for good'



Just days after testing positive for coronavirus, Joni Eareckson Tada, the founder of a Christian ministry devoted to extending outreach to the disability community, shared an update on her condition, highlighting how what COVID meant for evil, Christ meant for good.

Tada, the founder of the Joni and Friends ministry, tested positive for coronavirus after experiencing flu-like symptoms, according to a Sunday post on the Joni and Friends Facebook page. Tada posted an update to her personal Facebook page Wednesday, indicating that she was in good spirits.

What COVID meant for evil, Christ meant for good, she declared in a Wednesday morning Facebook post. My faith has widened, my hopes are higher, my love for Jesus has skyrocketed, my appreciation for others has deepened, and Gods promises are cemented further into my soul. This is how Christ meant COVID for my good.

Tada added that my lungs are clear and my temperature is down. While she had to go to the emergency room so she could receive an antibody infusion, she took solace in the fact that her trip to the hospital enabled more people to experience the joy of the Gospel, which her husband, Ken, shared with hospital staff.

He was constantly giving out Gospel tracts, blessing nurses and aides in the name of Jesus, stopping to pray for them, and speaking words of Spirit-based blessed encouragement, she said. He even did this at the pharmacy. But isnt this what the Christmas season is all about? Using this season to share the Good News that Light has come into our darkness through Jesus Christ?!?

As the Joni and Friends ministry noted in a separate Facebook post on Wednesday, Joni says I always go by a 20%/80% way of praying  20% for physical stuff and 80% for increased faith, an embrace of Jesus and His promises, bright spirits, a singing heart, sure hope, the ability to endure, patience, concern for others in greater need, and thinking on things that are praiseworthy and true. Tada referenced the 20%/80% way of praying in her Facebook update.

What COVID meant for evil, Christ is using to spread His fame! she wrote. Tada urged her followers to keep spreading that wonderful word this week, and as you do, keep praying using that 80%/20% matrix.

Psalm 84:11 assures us that No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly, and we are being showered with good courage, good endurance, good healing, good confidence in our great Savior, and really good opportunities to tell others about his great Name, she added.

Tada, who was paralyzed in a diving accident more than a half-century ago, founded Joni and Friends 40 years ago in an effort to present the hope of the Gospel to people affected by disability through programs and outreaches around the world. The ministry believes that a relationship with Jesus Christ will enable those with disabilities and their families to cope with their feelings of poverty, pain, and despair.

Paralysis and coronavirus are not the only challenges Tada has experienced throughout her life. The disability rights advocate also survived two battles with breast cancer.

In addition to Tada, several other prominent figures in the Christian community have tested positive for coronavirus in recent weeks. Jentezen Franklin, the senior pastor of the Georgia-based multi-campus church Free Chapel, tested positive for coronavirus shortly after attending a White House Christmas party.



In October, California megachurch Pastor Greg Laurie tested positive for the virus after attending the White House ceremony announcing President Donald Trumps nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the United States Supreme Court.



While Laurie recovered from the virus and Franklin and Tada look on track to do the same, others in the Christian community have not been as lucky. Earlier this month, eight Catholic nuns residing in a Wisconsin retirement home died from coronavirus in a timespan of just one week.
Over 1 Million Christian Students to Unite in Prayer for 24th Annual 'See You at the Pole' Event

Across the United States, students will soon go to their respective school campuses' flag poles and pray together for friends, family, their teachers and the nation.

Known as "See You at the Pole," the annual event will take place on Wednesday and is expected to have over 1 million participants.

Doug Clark, promotion coordinator for See You at the Pole, told The Christian Post that it is "vital" for students to gather together and pray at their schools.

"The heart of God that has been revealed to us about this event is that students might feel ownership and vision to represent Him to their schools," Clark said.

"The unity factor of SYATP is key," he asserted. "Students are involved in many different churches, but they come together as the body of Christ when they pray at SYATP."

The event, which was started by a small group of teenagers in Burleson, Texas, in 1990, has blossomed into a widely observed event with participants throughout the country.

While the event has received occasional push back from groups that question its constitutionality, the ACLU released a statement in 1995 acknowledging that the SYATP observance does not violate the Constitution.

"Student participation in before or after school events, such as 'see you at the pole,' is permissible. ... School officials, acting in an official capacity, may neither discourage nor encourage participation in such an event," the ACLU stated in its "Joint Statement of Current Law on Religion in the Public Schools" released in 1995.

Clark told CP that while the observance used to be held on the third Wednesday in September, over the years the date has changed to the fourth Wednesday in the month to accommodate students who attend schools and universities that start their fall terms after Labor Day.

"SYATP began as the third Wednesday, but we were getting consistent feedback from schools that began after Labor Day and colleges that were starting their fall terms later in September that it didn't allow them time to organize," Clark said.

Clark also noted that they recently added a "Global Week of Student Prayer" to the overall See You at the Pole event, which began Sunday and concludes on Saturday.

"Two years ago, we made a change to the format of SYATP, to Global Week of Student Prayer. That shift was another accommodation, since many were saying that for one reason or another there was no school on Wednesday," Clark added.

"This encouraged them to do it another time during the week that includes the fourth Wednesday. It also was a push for students to think 'outside the box' and do something creative with SYATP in their context."

The theme for this year's See You at the Pole observance is Ephesians 6:18a, which reads "Never stop praying, especially for others" in the Contemporary English Version of the Bible.

"There are many See You at the Pole gatherings where dozens of students, sometimes even hundreds, gather to pray at their school flagpoles. Yet there are thousands of campuses where just a handful meet to pray," noted lifesongs.com.

"Regardless of number, God takes each situation seriously and promises to be in their midst. So, whether your school has a huge group that covers the front of the school or you have just two or three, there is power in each group."
See You at the Pole leaders pray for students' boldness and courage on campuses worldwide Romans 12

Students across the United States and worldwide gathered in prayer Wednesday morning as ministry groups work to ensure that Christian outreach on school campuses lasts the whole year.

The 33rd annual See You at the Pole event held today was a student-organized "global movement of prayer."

Each year, students gather in a circle around their school's flagpole to pray together on the fourth Wednesday of September. Students can participate in elementary, junior high and high schools, as well as at universities worldwide.

Adults can also participate by praying at the same time at their work, church or at their local city hall.

The theme of this years See You at the Pole event was Aflame, specifically focusing on the Bible verse Romans 12:11-12 proclaiming, Never let the fire in your heart go out. Keep it alive  PRAY!

Student activists affiliated with the group Claim Your Campus hosted a livestream featuring prompts for participants in See You at the Pole to consider. They called on students to turn this moment into a movement, pointing to the ministrys app and free campus prayer guide as tools to continue to gather with your friends to pray for change in your school.

Following each prompt, participants had 90 seconds to reflect in prayer. The first prompt asked students to pray for what God is doing in us, receive Gods joy in our own hearts so that we may experience revival in our own lives and ask Jesus for a fire and passion so that we may surrender to what God has called each of us to do this year.

After participants had a chance to reflect on the prompt, Aondover from Michigan led a prayer requesting that God will fill us up with a fire and a passion for you. He also prayed that our schools will be changed and that He will give us boldness and courage this upcoming school year, expressing a desire that we may be as lights in our hallways, that we may be the salt of the Earth.

The second prompt encouraged students to pray around us for our schools. Brayden from Kansas, who led the prompt, urged participants to know that God is using you to be a light on your campus and a light to everyone that you meet.

Be patient as you pray for change [at] your school. God is working even when we cant see it. Pray for all the things you want to see differently on your campus, entrust in God that it will happen in His time, not in your time, he added.

Following a 90-second pause, Brayden prayed to God that everyone at all the campuses, all the schools around our nation will just be filled with you and they will all come to know you. Additionally, he prayed for all of the tough things that people are going through in our schools, that it will just end and that all the struggles, all the depression, all the anxiety will subside because you will reign over our schools. He concluded by reiterating his hope that See You at the Pole participants can be a light in their school sharing the love of Jesus with everyone.

The third prompt, led by Kristiana of New York, encouraged participants to think of those who are sick, neglected, forgotten and unreached and continue to pray for what is going on in our world, our nation and our communities. She also asked students to think outwardly, pray big and pray without giving up because God has not given up on the world.

Following the 90 seconds set aside for reflection, Kristiana offered a prayer of thanksgiving for Gods mercy, graciousness and goodness in addition to the ability that we as believers have to come before you in prayer. She prayed that God would intervene on behalf of those who have yet to hear your Gospel, requesting that He change their lives as youve changed the lives of so many people.

The annual event dates back to 1990, when a high school youth group in Burleson, Texas, felt compelled to go to the flagpoles at schools in their area and pray for their friends, schools and leaders. Shortly thereafter, youth leaders across the state envisioned simultaneous, student-led events at school flagpoles statewide. The first See You at the Pole event occurred on Sept. 12, 1990, with 45,000 teenagers at schools in four states participating.

The following year, the movement expanded to include approximately 1 million students nationwide. In the past 30 years, See You at the Pole has spread to 64 countries and about 1 million students take part each year.

While See You at the Pole does not have an official sponsor, the Baptist General Convention of Texas has the rights to the trademarked phrase See You at the Pole and Student Discipleship Ministries in Burleson, Texas, creates and distributes promotional materials for the event such as videos. The National Network of Youth Ministries handles media relations for the event.

See You at the Pole is not the only event held annually to encourage students to share their faith. Bring Your Bible to School Day, scheduled to take place on Oct. 6 this year, empowers Christian students of all ages to speak Gods grace and truth into the culture around them, starting with two simple steps  bringing their Bibles to school and sharing what Gods word means to them.
Wedding inferno kills at least 100 in Iraqs biggest Christian town; bride and groom survive

Family members of a Christian bride and groom confirmed Wednesday that they survived a massive fire that erupted during their wedding celebration that killed at least 100 and injured more than 150 of their guests in Iraqs biggest Christian town in northern Nineveh province Tuesday.

The bride and groom, who have been identified as Haneen and Ivan Esho, are receiving treatment at a hospital in Erbil, the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Iraqi Joint Operations Command Spokesperson Major General Pilot Tahseen Al Khafaji told CNN that there were some 1,300 guests in attendance at the event when the fire broke out at approximately 10:45 p.m. local time. Survivors told Reuters that the guests had gathered at the banquet hall following an earlier church service. They were only inside for about one hour when fireworks ignited a fire among the decorations in the ceiling as the newlyweds danced.

Video reportedly shows moments before the deadly fire at a wedding in Hamdaniyah where the bride and groom are dancing.



pic.twitter.com/sYFeoEWP11  Sardar Sattar (@SardarSattar) September 27, 2023

Initial information indicates that fireworks were used during the wedding ceremony, which initially ignited a fire inside the hall. The fire spread very quickly, and the matter was exacerbated by the toxic gas emissions associated with the burning of the highly flammable Ecobond plastic panels, which caused casualties and injuries among families, a statement from Iraqs Ministry of Interior said. An investigation was also opened and a forensic expert was summoned to ascertain the causes of the fire.

It was also noted by the ministry that the banquet hall was covered with highly flammable Ecobond panels which is a violation of local building codes. He said the quick spread of the fire caused parts of the building to collapse on the wedding party even though first responders were also quick to respond to the fire alarm.

New video shows moment fire breaks out at wedding in Iraq, killing at least 114 people. Death toll expected to rise pic.twitter.com/IK0yEZDkEO  BNO News (@BNONews) September 27, 2023

The father of the groom who also confirmed that the couple had survived, said he blamed the owner of the banquet hall for the tragedy. Officials say warrants have already been issued for the arrest of the halls owners.

I hold the owner of the hall responsible for what happened at the party because there are no extinguishers or safety measures in the hall, he said as family members of the dead mourned their loved ones outside a morgue in the nearby city of Mosul, a Christian town that survived occupation by the Islamic State terrorist group.

"This was not a wedding. This was hell," Mariam Khedr told Reuters as she cried and hit herself while she waited for officials to return the bodies of her daughter, Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren, who had attended the wedding.

Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the fire, said some people got stuck in the hall trying to escape.

"We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall, he told Reuters. Those who managed got out and those who didn't got stuck.

"I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3-year-old, another woman seen waiting outside the Mosul morgue told Reuters. They were all burned. My heart is burning.

Even though its around 03:00 a.m. I Iraq, thousands of people are visiting hospitals to donate blood for more than 200 people injured in Hamdaniyah fire incident.



pic.twitter.com/Cnksbt52MG  Sardar Sattar (@SardarSattar) September 27, 2023

A wedding guest told Iraqi channel Alawla TV that the bride and groom were devastated by the fire.

The bride and groom are fine. I was just with them now, but their condition is devastating due to what happened to people here, a guest said, according to CNN.

Video posted online shows hundreds of people lining up at local hospitals at 3 a.m. local time to give blood to help the survivors.

There are hundreds of people injured, we are in need of blood, Nader Salm, a 49-year-old translator from Qaraqosh, told CNN. This tragedy hurt us more than ISIS. At least when ISIS came, we could escape, but now a wedding became a graveyard for us.
Do Jesus and Paul contradict one another?

Some have sought to pit Jesus ethical teaching over against the writings of the Apostle Paul. Such false dichotomizing is often driven by a desire to distance oneself from the Apostles clear condemnation of homosexuality (Rom. 1:2627; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10) and restrictions regarding roles in the church (1 Tim. 2:12; 1 Cor. 14:35).



But interpreting what Jesus taught during His earthly ministry against what His Apostles subsequently wrote reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of biblical revelation. The desire to set Jesus and Paul at odds  or to subtly downplay the fact that the Apostolic writings are the very words of Christ (Col. 3:16)  will inevitably backfire on those who believe they are helping others embrace a more tolerant brand of Christianity.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Church faced the attacks of a theological liberalism in which theologians sought to divide Jesus and Paul. Although the driving factors in the theological liberalism of the twentieth century were somewhat different from our current church controversies, the method and desired end are strikingly similar. Attacks on the organic unity of Scripture led professors at Princeton Theological Seminary to write some of the greatest arguments for the defense of the unity and progressive development of the canon of Scripture. For instance, Geerhardus Vos, professor of biblical theology at Old Princeton, helpfully explained: The relation between Jesus and the Apostolate is in general that between the fact to be interpreted and the subsequent interpretation of this fact ... It resembles the embryo ... which truly contains the structure, which the full-grown organism will clearly exhibit. 1

To understand this principle, we must first recognize that Jesus didnt personally write down what He taught. The content of the four Gospels, the Epistles, and the book of Revelation were written by holy men of God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). They are a unified record of the historical facts. Jesus also did many things that were not recorded for the faith and life of believers (John 21:25). Jesus promised the disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit to them to lead them into an even fuller understanding than that which He had given them during His time on earth (John 16:13). This promise was fulfilled in the completion of the canon through the writing of the book of Acts (Acts 1:12), the Epistles (2 Peter 3:16), and the Apocalypse (Rev. 1:19; 21:5). One scholar writes:

Things were to be said afterwards which had not been said then ... When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth. He shall guide you, as by successive steps ... into the whole of that truth of which the commencements have now been given; and especially into the highest and central part of it ... The testimony came; the things were spoken; and in the apostolic writings we have their enduring record. 2

While the New Testament canon is an impressive witness to the Spirits guiding His Apostles in the truth, we still need a satisfactory answer to why there exists Apostolic teaching that appears to be new ethical teaching distinct from what our Lord taught during His earthly ministry. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote a fuller explanation about lawful divorce:

"To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband ... To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him ... But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so" (1 Cor. 7:1015).

In these verses, the Apostle strategically employed the phrases not I, but the Lord and I, not the Lord to frame the fuller nature of this revelation. Biblical scholar John Murray has helpfully explained:

The passage in I Corinthians 7:1012 is sometimes understood as if Paul were instituting a contrast between the authoritative teaching of Christ and his own unauthoritative judgment on questions bearing upon marriage and separation ... A careful reading of the whole passage will, however, show that the contrast is ... between the teaching of the apostle that could appeal to the express utterances of Christ in the days of his flesh, on the one hand, and the teaching of the apostle that went beyond the cases dealt with by Christ, on the other. 3

Attempts to pit the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul against one another will result in a division of the canon. This can lead people to undermine both the Apostolic teaching on redemption as well as the Apostolic ethic for the lives of the members of the New Testament church. Far from helping those who are uncomfortable with the Apostolic denunciation of things such as homosexuality and women functioning in pastoral roles, this separation ultimately serves to undermine the entire revelation of God in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.

Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 202203. J.H. Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (London: Macmillan & Co, 1864), 8586. John Murray, The Attestation of Scripture, The Infallible Word, ed. N.B. Stonehouse (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Guardian Company, 1946).

This article was first published in Tabletalk, the Bible study magazine of Ligonier Ministries. Find out more at TabletalkMagazine.com or subscribe today at GetTabletalk.com.
Christian homeschooling family who fled to US face deportation after 15 years

(CP) A German family that fled to the United States over 15 years ago after being fined thousands for homeschooling their children may be deported within the next few weeks, the advocacy group representing them says.

The Home School Legal Defense Association says the devout Christian Romeikes, who came to the United States in 2008 on visas and lives in Tennessee, were told by their local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Sept. 6 that they have four weeks to leave the country.

The Romeike family garnered national headlines when they requested asylum status because they wanted to homeschool their children for religious reasons. Homeschooling is banned in Germany under nearly all circumstances, and any parents who refuse to send their children to school can face fines, imprisonment or even lose custody of their children.

The decision to homeschool came from what HSLDA calls a "growing concern that the content of the German public school's curriculum  particularly anti-Christian and sexual elements  threatened to harm their children."

Initially, the U.S. federal government agreed not to deport the family. Although the Department of Homeland Security granted the Romeikes asylum, officials overturned the decision, and the family was granted indefinite deferred action status in 2014 after years of legal battles, according to the HSLDA.

Over the last decade, the family has regularly reported to their local ICE office and has been allowed to work and homeschool their children.

ICE's decision to deport the family reportedly was announced during a routine check-in and came as a surprise to the couple and their seven children, two of whom are now adults and married.

"The Romeike family should be able to stay in the United States and home educate their children," said HSLDA President Jim Mason in a statement.

"America is a land of freedom and opportunity, and there are few freedoms or opportunities more important than the ability of parents to safely direct the education of their own children, without fear of punishment or persecution."

The father, Uwe Romeike, said in an interview with the Knoxville-based WBIR News that being forced to move back to Germany would be disastrous.

"[My family members] work here. Everything is here in America," said Romeike. "We don't have any place to live there. I don't have any work to provide for my family over there."

In 2008, the Romeike family immigrated to the United States after experiencing harassment from the German government over their decision to homeschool their children.

The Romeikes faced years of legal battles in the U.S. as immigration officials argued that they did not meet the parameters for receiving asylum.

In May 2013, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously ruled against the Romeike family, arguing that they were not being persecuted for their beliefs.

"Congress might have written the immigration laws to grant a safe haven to people living elsewhere in the world who face government strictures that the United States Constitution prohibits. But it did not," read the panel opinion, in part.

"There is a difference between the persecution of a discrete group and the prosecution of those who violate a generally applicable law. As the Board of Immigration Appeals permissibly found, the German authorities have not singled out the Romeikes in particular or homeschoolers in general for persecution."

In 2014, several months after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security granted the Romeike family a special status that allowed them to remain in the country.

 The Christian Post
Study links decline of Christianity to collapse of marriage and fatherhood

(CP) Churches must work to restore healthy marriages and fatherhood to combat a growing decline in Christianity, according to a survey released by a faith-based group.

J.P. De Gance is the founder and president of Communio, a nonprofit that equips churches to strengthen the marriage and relationship health of its members. On Monday, De Gance discussed the results of the Communio Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

The conversation also featured Delano Squires, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family. The director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, Jay W. Richards, served as a moderator.

During his speech, De Gance said the study's results suggest that the decline in resident fatherhood and the collapse of marriage are likely explanations for the increase in religious non-affiliation throughout the United States.

The study's conclusions are drawn from a nationwide survey completed by 19,000 attendees at 112 different churches across 13 different states. The survey also analyzed a variety of denominations, including Protestant and Catholic churches.

Overall, the survey found that 80% of church attendees grew up in a home where their mother and father stayed married, a trend that remained true regardless of age. In addition, 87% of all 25- to 29-year-old never-married men in church had parents who remained married.

"So what this means is folks in church on Sunday are categorically more likely to have grown up with a resident dad in the home than someone who is not in church on Sunday," De Gance said, noting that the results are not "definitive," as one in five people in church grew up without married parents.

"But it does make it less likely for those folks to show up on Sunday morning," he said.

Presenting the data on the growth of non-religious affiliation, De Gance said the findings show that religious non-affiliation began to increase between 1986 and 1991 and then rapidly grew in the mid-90s. According to De Gance, this result makes sense, as the children who grew up in homes where their parents didn't remain married became adults.

The Christian leader asserted that a "married dad" is the "missing ingredient now," citing an Oxford University Press longitudinal study referenced in the Faith and Relationships study. The longitudinal study followed 3,000 adults and 350 families within a 40-year time frame.

One of the study's most notable findings, according to De Gance, is that adults who reported a close relationship with their fathers were more likely to report having the same faith as their parents by 25 percentage points.

On the other hand, the study found that a closer relationship with their mother did not appear to have a statistical effect on whether an adult had the same faith as their parents.

De Gance referenced a book by Paul Vitz titled Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, which analyzed 30 of the world's most well-known atheists. Throughout the book, according to De Gance, there is a reoccurring theme of absentee fathers or broken relationships with a dad.

The Christian leader asserted that Christians should not find this information surprising, highlighting the Bible's allusions to marriage.

"The most common analogy that God tells for the divine love story is the spousal love story, right?" he asked.

"So, renewal, fundamentally, for those in the church interested in seeing a renewal of faith, need to see a renewal of marriage," De Gance added. "Christian marriage is central to that."

The Communio president contended that if churches can accomplish this, then they can also resolve the loneliness epidemic.

As the Faith and Relationships survey highlights, 50% of all adults in the United States are experiencing loneliness, while 22% of churchgoers are considered lonely. In addition, the survey noted that single churchgoers are more than three times more likely to be considered lonely compared to their married counterparts (15%).

The survey also addressed cohabitation, finding that the lifestyle is rare among regular church attendees; however, the study cited research that indicates a cohabitating man in his 30s (77%) is more likely to report that he is struggling in his relationship than a married man in the same age group.

A cohabitating man in church was 53% more likely to report that he was struggling in his relationship compared to a married man.

For cohabitating women, 73% were more likely to report struggling in their relationship compared to a married woman in church. As for women attending church while cohabitating, they were 87% more likely to report that they were struggling in their relationship than a cohabitating man in church.

After De Gance concluded his speech, Squires and Richards asked him questions before allowing the audience to do the same. At one point, De Gance clarified what he believes the church's role should be in forming healthy relationships, emphasizing that it must teach kids what that looks like before they start dating.

According to the Faith and Relationships survey, 85% of all churches in the United States report spending $0 annually on marriage and relationship ministry.

In an interview with The Christian Post, De Gance explained how churches can reach adults who have already reached a point where they believe cohabitation is acceptable. De Gance encouraged spiritual leaders to educate themselves on the issue and the negative side effects of cohabitation, which research suggests leads to a higher risk of divorce.

"Once someone starts to understand that because that's basically the choice [with cohabitation], then there can be a moment where you can actually inform them on the positive reasons why you would pursue marriage," he told CP.

As the Communio president explained, when the nonprofit works with churches, it teaches ministries to adopt a "full-circle approach," which includes teaching relationship skills to various age groups, as well as discernment in a relationship.

He also called it "sinful" for pastors to avoid the topic due to fears of creating controversy, highlighting the influence of family origins on faith and church affiliation.

"If we can't help Christians form the kind of relationships that lead to lifelong marriages ... if your concerns with the political hot buttons around this prevent you from doing this, you should probably get out of ministry."

 The Christian Post
CIO Leadership Live Canadas Rennick recently spoke with Boudreaux-Dehmer about cross-sector collaboration, getting a seat at the board table, and setting a CIO standard within a vast and globally interlinked alliance. Watch the full video below for more insights.

On seizing opportunities: When I worked at Compaq, Latin America, the job required Spanish, so I learned Spanish. Since then, Ive had other experiences where you just have to go for it, like the NATO job, which I found on LinkedIn. I was convinced I wasnt going to get this job. I have no public sector or military experience. Ive been in the private industry all my life, and I was shocked when I was invited to participate in the selection process. I thought I was going to be the token external candidate, but I decided to lean in and give it my best in all the various tests and interviews that came. So that worked out. If you feel you can reach the requirements of the job, then go and reach them, and then do everything possible to get there. Just strive toward excellence and lead deliberately. Really think about what kind of leader you want to be. Whats important and acceptable to youand whats not acceptable.

On being the first: People ask why there wasnt a CIO before I was appointed nearly two years ago, and the answer is that NATO is a very decentralized organization. Its almost 75 years old and IT has grown very organically over that time. So a decision was made a few years ago to bring on a CIO to harmonize IT within the NATO enterprise. So harmonization goes across enterprise architecture, technology choices, coordinated portfolio management, coordinated service level agreements, and so on. And when I was waiting for my security clearance, I got a call from the person who ran the hiring process, and was told my mandate expanded to include cybersecurity for the NATO enterprise. So now Im also whats called the single point of authority for cybersecurity, risk management, as well as the top level incident manager.

On leadership: When I started out as a leader and a manager, which is not the same, I had a small team of five people. I just thought, those are going to be five of me, so whatever I do is going to be the same output times five, and this is all going to be great. But it doesnt work like that. That was the first realization. At that time, I also worked in an environment that was fairly hierarchical and a bit of command and control, and I thought Id get a task on my desk, translate it, and then give it out to other people. But its really different. So I think as a leader, you need to define a vision with your team thats in line with the business vision. But for IT, theres no such thing as just an IT vision. It needs to be fully supported with the business vision. Thats the North Star, and you need to constantly refer to it and be able to calibrate the entire organization so people are like magnets toward it, regardless of what happens.

On board ambitions: Managing stakeholders is not just telling people what to do. I think the board is the cart and making yourself heard is the horse. So lets not put the cart before that horse. You need to start by contributing something of value to you, insights you have, things that are of interest to your IT peers or business counterparts. If you do that, and bring your lessons, insights, ideas, and passion forward in conversations, then heads of departments will listen, and then the CFO, CMO, COO, and then the CEO is going to listen. And before you know it, the CEO is going to take you in front of the board, and then thats where you contribute. Many CIOs talk about the need for personal branding and I think that shifted a lot because during the pandemic, the CIO became more of an integrated leader into the overall business because IT became so much a bigger part of any digital transformation.
People in Need (PIN) Moldova este in cautarea unui grup de experti pentru a organiza si facilita un curs de formare de doua zile privind scrierea si raportarea proiectelor
Job Description

Background and Organizational Context

The UN Human Rights Office (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  OHCHR) represents the world's commitment to universal ideals of human dignity. It has a unique mandate from the international community to promote and protect all human rights.

The OHCHR field presence in Moldova, led by the Human Rights Adviser, assists the UN RC Office, UN Country Team in Moldova (UNCT), Government and civil society in strengthening human rights and human rights-based approaches, working closely with the UN Country Team on capacity building and mainstreaming human rights in their work, as well as providing support in engagement with national actors on human rights, including advising national authorities upon request. Thematic priorities for work are: Strengthening rule of law and accountability for human rights violations; Enhancing equality and countering discrimination Integrating human rights in sustainable development; Enhancing civic space and peoples participation.

Position Purpose

Under the direct supervision of the Human Rights Adviser of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the incumbent supports and guides the effective and efficient management through a range of actions contributing to the design, planning, management and monitoring of activities of OHCHR in the Republic of Moldova. The Associate applies and promotes the principles of results-based management (RBM), as well as a client-oriented approach consistent with the relevant UN rules and regulations, in harmony with rules and regulations of donor organisations or entities.

The Associate is the focal point in the field for all OHCHR administrative and financial matters in the Republic of Moldova. The Associate works closely with all OHCHR personnel, including those working on the implementation of projects, in OHCHR Moldova and ensured good coordination with respective staff of OHCHR HQ. The incumbent also works in close collaboration with the Programme, Operations, Communications and other UN staff for effective achievement of results, anticipating and contributing to resolving complex programme/project-related issues and information delivery.

The incumbent is expected to exercise full compliance with UN programming, financial, procurement and administrative rules, regulations, policies and strategies, as well as implementation of the effective internal control systems.

Key Duties and Accountabilities

Administrative Management

Under the direct supervision of the Human Rights Adviser of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as well as in coordination with relevant OHCHR ECA, Finance, DEXREL and related personnel, manages day-to-day OHCHR financial and administrative matters in the field;

Coordinates the work of other OHCHR administration/financial-related personnel in the field;

Pro-actively contribute to day-to-day OHCHR Annual Work Plan and project-related implementation and ensure conformity to expected results and project work-plans;

Supports key OHCHR processes, including budgeting and reporting;

Works with UNDP, UNOG and other relevant entities to ensure smooth processing of payments, contracting;

Maintains records on all project personnel/national consultants and their respective status (contracts, ToRs, time and attendance  if appropriate, etc.) in accordance with accepted policies and procedures;

Prepares and issues contracts;

Makes pertinent logistical arrangements for the prompt and effective implementation of activities;

Maintains files and records;

Provides support to international consultants as concerns communication, contracts, agenda, visas, hotel reservations, etc.;

Arranges external and internal meetings.

Financial Management

Prepares requests for advance of funds and/or direct payments;

Monitors budget expenditures and maintain a proper record of budgets and spending;

Prepares proposals for budget revisions;

Prepares and submits expenditure and budget status reports;

Liaises with internal or external auditors wherever required;

Prepares reports as scheduled and special reports as required for budget preparations and audit;

Advises and assists international and national consultants and others on all aspects of allowances, travel claims and other financial matters and calculate payments due for claims and services;

Undertakes other financial and administrative tasks on an ad hoc basis.

Procurement

Arranges for procurement of equipment, supplies and services as needed;

Arranges for equipment maintenance and insurance as required;

Ensures that contractual processes follow the stipulated UNDP, OHCHR and/or UNOG procedures;

Physically clears and ensures delivery of equipment and supplies procured.

Research and Practical Support

Attends meetings and prepares minutes or meeting summaries;

Assists in the drafting of concept notes, budgeting, logical frameworks, or other project design.

Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities:

Coordinates and supervises the work of other OHCHR administration/financial-related personnel in the field.

Education

Secondary Education is required.

University Degree in economics, finance, accounting, law, human rights, public administration or another related field will be given due consideration..

Experience, Knowledge, and Skills

At least six years(with high school) or 3 years (with a Bachelors Degree) of progressively responsible administrative or programme experience is required at the national or international level.

Previous experience in an international organization, consulting company, or NGO is a very strong advantage.

Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and advanced knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages, experience in handling of web-based management systems.

Knowledge of specifics of UNDP, OHCHR and/or UNOG rules and procedures; knowledge of multiple rules frameworks, in particular OHCHR frameworks, is an advantage.

Knowledge of and experience with EU and other donor financial or grant-related rules is an advantage.

Experience with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as Umoja and/or Inspira is desirable.

Fluency in oral and written English, Russian and Romanian is a must.

Knowledge of one or more additional languages relevant for Moldova, including Bulgarian, Gagauzian, Romani, Ukrainian is an advantage.

Core Competencies

Achieve Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements Learn Continuously LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback Adapt with Agility LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible Act with Determination LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident Engage and Partner LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships Enable Diversity and Inclusion LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies Thematic Area Name Definition Business Management Business Acumen Ability to understand and deal with a business situation in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome. Knowledge and understanding of the operational frameworks in the organization and ability to make good judgments and quick decisions within such frameworks Business Management Communication Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience. Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media and other appropriate channels Business Management Working with Evidence and Data Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making Business Management Customer Satisfaction/Client Management Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers' needs. Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy. Look for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns Procurement Procure-to-Pay Knowledge of purchase-to-pay cycles, concepts, principles and policies, and ability to apply this to strategic and/or practical situations Finance Financial planning and budgeting Ability to create and manage processes to achieve long and short-term financial goals, including through planning, and reporting Administration and Operations Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights Ability to manage events, including venue identification, accommodation, logistics, catering, transportation, and cash disbursements, etc.

Non-discrimination

UNDP has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation and misconduct, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

UNDP is an equal opportunity and inclusive employer that does not discriminate based on race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status.

UNDP is committed to workforce diversity. Women, persons with disabilities, Roma and other ethnic or religious minorities, persons living with HIV, as well as refugees and other non-citizens legally entitled to work in the Republic of Moldova, are particularly encouraged to apply.

Scam warning

The United Nations does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.

Salariul lunar (net): 20.000 MDL - 24.000 MDL plus 8.33% fondul pensii de ONU

Pentru a aplica, va rugam sa adresati link-ul: Apply Now

Data de incheiere a postului vacant a fost extins pana la : 07 noiembrie 2023
Primeste notificari pe email Nota bene: Adresele email cu extensia .ru nu sunt acceptate.

Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare Granturi - Finantari Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele
The Charity Commission is reviewing its handling of a trustee dispute at the Actors Benevolent Fund (ABF), after it received a complaint.

Former trustees criticised the Commission for its handling of the dispute, after it opened a compliance case into the charity.

Actor Penelope Keith, former president of the ABF, accused the regulator of legitimising a board takeover of the charity, the Guardian reported .

Keith said the regulator had disregarded the law, breached its own code of conduct, and acted in biased and discriminatory fashion.

A Charity Commission spokesperson said: We have a clear complaints process that is open to everyone. We can confirm that we have received a complaint about our handling of the case involving ABF and are dealing with it in line with those standard procedures.

We have engaged with the Actors Benevolent Fund extensively in recent months to help the charity move forward from a damaging dispute. We hope and expect all parties to the dispute will work together in the interests of the charity and its beneficiaries.

The Guardian reported a joint statement on Monday evening from ABF: We confirm that mediation will take place very soon and until this important process is complete it would be unhelpful to comment further.

All parties maintain they have the best interests of the charitys future in mind and are committed to the ability of the charity to serve its beneficiaries and members to the full in the coming years.

The regulators data for the 2021 calendar year puts the charitys total income at 1.83m and total expenditure of 1.65m.

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Charities including RSPCA, Shelter, Dogs Trust, Battersea and Friends of the Earth have moved to reassure their supporters over their data as regulators assess a cyber attack at a sector supplier.

The Information Commissioners Office confirmed it is making enquiries into a data breach at research company Kokoro, a partner of charity sector consultancy About Loyalty.

Kokoro investigated the breach and told About Loyalty that hackers were able to access supporter details including names, email addresses and historic donation information.

The Charity Commission confirmed that a number of charities had been affected by the data breach and filed serious incident reports with it.

A Commission spokesperson said: We can confirm that, in line with our guidance, a number of charities affected by a data breach at a third-party company have reported a serious incident to us.

We are assessing the information provided to determine whether the trustees are handling the matter appropriately.

About Loyalty works with more than 40 UK charities but it is not known how many charities have been affected by the cyber attack.

Shelter said it had reported the incident to both the ICO and the Charity Commission and paused all work with the company.

RSPCA said it had similarly contacted the regulators and conducted its own investigation to ensure an incident like this will not happen again.

Financial information not accessed, say suppliers

About Loyalty said it informed the affected charities immediately after the breach last month and that hackers were not able to access postal addresses, financial information or identity documentation.

Our third-party research partner, Kokoro, recently informed us that they had experienced a cybersecurity incident which may have involved access to some data relating to a subset of About Loyaltys clients, a spokesperson for About Loyalty said.

This information was limited to supporter contact details and historic donation information.

Meanwhile, a Kokoro spokesperson said: We launched an immediate investigation with the support of external IT security specialists and engaged in mitigation, containment and recovery measures.

We are confident that the incident has now been contained and there is no ongoing risk to our systems and we have notified those whose data has been impacted.

Friends of the Earth: We have told our supporters potential risks to look out for

Hugh Knowles, co-executive director at Friends of the Earth, said: Weve been informed by a consultancy we work with, About Loyalty, that a supplier they work with has been affected by a data breach involving some of our supporters data.

We are taking this incident very seriously. While were certain that no sensitive or financial data has been accessed, we have been contacting our supporters to let them know about the breach, the potential risks to look out for and who to contact if theyre concerned.

Cyber-attacks of this nature are an unfortunate reality in our digital world and Friends of the Earth has robust processes and procedures in place to protect our supporters data.

Were reviewing what happened and working closely with About Loyalty to understand the details and extent of the data breach.

Shelter: Incredibly sorry

Tim Gutteridge, director of finance and strategy enablement at Shelter, said: The data breach at a research company we were working with did not include any sensitive or financial details, but we are incredibly sorry for any concern this incident may cause.



The research company has carried out a detailed forensic investigation and assured us there is no evidence to suggest the data has been shared further and all of the data has since been destroyed. We have reported the incident to both the ICO and the Charity Commission and paused all work with the company, he said.

We take our responsibility for protecting our supporters data very seriously, have robust measures in place, and have taken all the necessary steps without wanting to cause undue alarm. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will do everything possible to prevent this from happening again.

Battersea: The privacy of our supporters is of the utmost importance

A Battersea spokesperson said: About Loyalty has informed us that their sub-processor has recently been the subject of an IT security incident.

No sensitive personal data or financial information has been accessed, however some contact information for members of the public may have been and, whilst there is unfortunately no way to know if supporters have been directly affected by the incident, there is no evidence that any data has been used in an unauthorised way.

We have taken this matter very seriously and the safety and privacy of our supporters is of the utmost importance; therefore, as a precaution, we have contacted those who may have been affected to offer support and advice.

RSPCA: No evidence that this data has been shared further

An RSPCA spokesperson: We were concerned to hear about a security breach involving a company which holds limited information about some of our supporters  this does not include financial information.

Although there is no evidence that this data has been shared further, we contacted our supporters as a precaution to offer our reassurance and support. We also informed the ICO and the Charity Commission about the breach.

The safety and security of our supporters' details are paramount and we have a rigorous system in place to ensure that any personal data is safe and secure. We expect the same high standards from any company acting on our behalf.

We conducted a thorough investigation as soon as this was brought to our attention to ensure an incident like this will not happen again.

Dogs Trust: We take this breach very seriously

A Dogs Trust spokesperson said: We are reliant on the generosity of our supporters, and we take the security of the data they share with us very seriously.

As soon as we were informed that a third-party we have worked with for some time had experienced a data breach, we took action to establish what that meant for us and our supporters.

We are confident that no sensitive personal or financial data was accessed, and we are in the process of informing all those supporters affected as a precautionary measure.

Dogs Trust has been working closely with the third-party provider, the ICO and other charities affected, and we are confident that this security breach has been resolved and there is no continued risk to our supporters' information.

We take this breach very seriously, and we have undertaken all the necessary measures to ensure this incident was appropriately dealt with and that similar incidents are prevented in future.

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Helen Stephenson announced earlier this month that she will step down as chief executive of the Charity Commission in July 2024 after seven years. Many in the sector have expressed gratitude to the regulators longest-serving CEO and Stephenson herself said she was exceptionally proud of my time at the Commission so far. Here are a few closer reflections on both ups and downs of her tenure as she enters her final 11 months in the job.

The invisible work of the Charity Commissions CEO

Most of the work of the Commissions CEO is invisible to an outsider. We dont see the way she manages her staff. We dont see how she handles the board. We dont see the internal processes of decision-making that may result in improved effectiveness in different dimensions. Its relatively rare to find systematic, objective evidence about the Commissions impact and how it changes.

As a result, impressions based on her public messaging (as discussed below) can be inadequate. For beneath the public messaging lies a largely invisible whirlwind of activity. In Stephensons case, that is said to have resulted in a firmer grip on casework, with backlogs managed down; better services such as a contact centre open five days per week, and the user-friendly five-minute guides to help busy trustees and staff get quickly to the basics of the Commissions advice.

I have no reason to doubt the Commissions claims that she will leave a talented and cohesive staff team, and that the Commission is respected by other Whitehall departments as delivering good value for money.

Relationships with the charity sector

Stephenson also said that the relationship between the charity sector and the regulator has definitely improved since she joined the Commission. The charity sector is so vast and varied that such a statement has limited meaning, but in so far as NCVO and ACEVO represent important parts of the sector, it is encouraging that both speak of a positive and open approach on the part of the Commission to working with them during and since the COVID pandemic.

As Stephenson has herself acknowledged, its a pity that it took the pandemic  two and a half years after she arrived as CEO  before more regular and better communication with these umbrella bodies began. There is now, nevertheless, a feeling amongst national umbrella bodies and their allies that engagement and listening by the Commission is better than it was even a couple of years ago.

Has the Commission become more open and accessible to different parts of the sector across a wider front? Does the Commission engage more with critics rather than freeze them out? Perhaps we can look forward to yet more progress in Stephensons final year.

Public messaging

For all its limitations, this is the way most people in the wider sector and beyond hear and judge the Commissions CEO.

Looking back at Stephensons public messages, three strong plus points strike me.

Her personal enthusiasm for the work of charities comes across consistently and palpably.

From early on she has championed the Commissions supportive and preventive work, as well as investigation and compliance, binning the simplistic mantra of the Shawcross years that the role of the Commission was essentially a policeman.

And she has consistently defended the right of charities to engage in political activities in support of their charitable objects, as set out in CC9  a good anchorage in subsequent culture wars.

Her greatest misfortune

Stephenson was unlucky to arrive as CEO when the Commission was quite preoccupied with the abortive effort to raise part of its funding from charities themselves. She seemed to expend time and effort leading this wild goose chase for much of her first two years, before in the end it was abandoned.

Her greatest misfortune, however, was the appointment of Tina Stowell as chair of the Commission in February 2018, just a few months after she had become leader. Even the strongest or deftest CEO can only influence, not control, his or her chair. However, fairly or not, the world is bound to assume that much of the messaging of the Stowell era was a joint enterprise with Stephenson, who articulated a lot of it in her own name.

Rather than sticking to the regulation of charities as defined in law, the Commission appointed itself the guardian of charity  as if love, compassion, altruism and kindness were the distinctive preserve of charities alone, rather than seen in many non-charitable organisations, our informal relationships with neighbours, our families and many public services. It was a disastrous recipe for confusion and mission creep. Even in her departure announcement, Stephenson spoke of the Commissions role as to protect this thing called charity (sic) that we as a nation and society value.

The constant message from the leadership was that charities were failing to live up to the publics supposed expectations of behaviour, that how charities behaved was as important as what they achieved, that meeting such supposed public expectations was more important than accountability to beneficiaries, donors or other stakeholders (public benefit was exiled from most of the leaderships messaging), that it wasnt enough to have a worthy (ie charitable) cause or conform to charity law and formal guidance, because what really mattered was that vague spirit of charity.

The public was supposed to believe that charities should show higher standards of behaviour and integrity than other sectors, and the Commission was even at times said to represent the public (as opposed to the public interest). All these propositions were either untenable or contestable and imprecise.

The conclusions and accompanying press releases of high-profile investigations (not least that into the Oxfam safeguarding scandal) and the Commissions series of reports into public trust and confidence, repeatedly prioritised reinforcing these predetermined missionary messages over fairness and careful analysis, as I and others documented in detailed articles over the years.

Most of this has thankfully now vanished into oblivion, but we had to endure it for the majority of Stephensons tenure as CEO to date.

A good ending

Stephensons first six years have, therefore, had their ups and downs. But under Orlando Fraser as chair, the Commissions messaging is generally calmer, clearer, wiser and based on the remit given by parliament and on the Commissions true area of authority and expertise. There is more engagement and listening to important sector bodies within the framework of the Commissions independence, and this openness can develop further. The gains in effectiveness, less visible to outsiders, are significant and can continue.

If the CEO has some responsibility for the downs, she also deserves credit for the ups. Perhaps her last year will be the best of all?

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In the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, I interviewed Rick Perlsteina leading historian of the conservative movement, whose latest book, Reaganland, had recently been publishedfor CJR. We discussed the endless (but misleading) media comparisons between the 2020 and 1968 elections, but also the many media themes and foibles lurking beneath the surface of Reaganland and Perlsteins other booksfrom sensationalism to persistent false equivalence between Democrats and Republicansand how they echo in contemporary political coverage. (The secret is Ive really produced a three-thousand-page exercise in media criticism, Perlstein told me.) At one point, Perlstein noted overblown coverage of a scandal involving Jimmy Carters brother, Billy, in the run-up to the 1980 presidential election, and compared it to coverage, in 2020, of Joe Bidens son Hunter. In a separate interview around the same time, Perlstein characterized the Billy Carter scandal as the But her emails! of 1980.

Fast forward three years and But her emails! (a reference to overblown coverage, in 2016, of Hillary Clintons use of a private email server) is back in the discourse, as I wrote recently in this newsletter. And Hunter Biden never left the discourse. Recently, Republicans in the House opened an impeachment probe into Biden, Sr., over his supposed ties to his sons foreign business dealings, despite not yet having presented any compelling evidence of such a link (let alone any high crimes or misdemeanors). They will hold their first hearing tomorrow.

The recent Republican push to tie a president to an embarrassing relative, and the media coverage of those efforts, put me in mind of my earlier conversation with Perlstein, so I called him back up to dig deeper into the Billy Carter precedent. Perlstein sees the coverage this time around as less frenzied than in the Carter casethe Hunter Biden story, he says, does not have the same narrative thrustand yet there are some parallels, not least between the characters of Billy and Hunter themselves. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.



JA: The Hunter Biden scandalor scandalshave been going on for so long that its almost hard to remember where they began. How did the Billy Carter scandal(s) come to light and grow to become a national storyline?

RP: The two big parallels are that we had a close family membera loyal, loving family memberwho was president and who really had no interest in throwing their family member under a bus, [and] some real abuses involving money and corruption, but also, interestingly enough, involving substance abuse. [I once saw a speech by] Billy Carters widow, and she gave a very moving presentation about his alcoholism, how difficult it was having his little brother being in charge of the free world, and how he eventually cleaned up and unfortunately died of cancer soon afterward. We have an addict in recovery who behaved in terrible ways. And in both cases, both the mainstream political media and the Republicans really took advantage of this sensational story.

Basically, there are two kinds of Billy Carter scandals. One was that he was this embarrassing redneck lout who would cry out for attention, doing things like producing his own brand of beer, Billy Beer; saying embarrassing things; doing embarrassing things for the camera, like a giant belly flop in a swimming pool in front of the media; holding court at his gas station on the front seat of an old Chevy that he used as his throne. And the other was quite serioushe accepted money from the Libyan government to try and influence the Carter administration. Its not really in dispute. He traveled to Libya; he said terrible, embarrassing things. It was a drip, drip, drip that really came to a head around the time, embarrassingly enough, of the Democratic National Convention [in 1980]. And Jimmy Carter had absolutely nothing to do with it.

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The Republicans convened an investigative committee in Congress and very cleverly put a Democrat in charge of it; there was a little more trust in bipartisanship back then. And it was one of the things that hounded [Jimmy Carter] all the way to election day. The really striking media-criticism portion of this was that one of Ronald Reagans closest advisers, the guy he named national security adviser, [Richard Allen] was wrapped up in an influence-peddling scandal at around the same time. I discovered that it received hardly any attention; not a single article mentioned this in the New York Times. Billygate was the subject of over fifty New York Times articles in the previous month, even though, as I write, the best efforts of nine senators had yet to reveal anything worse than a few instances of poor judgment on the part of anyone but Billy; no one in the White House. So for some reason, this colorful Billy Carter was everywhere in the fall of 1980, and this parallel Reagan scandal was completely ignored.

To back up a bit, was there any sense in which Billy Carter was used to embarrass his brother or was featured in media coverage before the 1976 election, when Carter was running for president?

It was a different kind of narrative then: The basic story that the media was telling about Jimmy Carter in 1976 was that he was this refreshing, populist voice from the hinterlands, and that he had this colorful family. It was part of Jimmy Carters charm; it worked for him. And, just like the media suddenly started covering every time Gerald Ford stumbled when his presidency started stumbling, the media began to represent the louche and redneck associations of Jimmy Carter with the failures of his presidencythat he brought, as they called it, the Georgia mafia to Washington. The idea that these are people who dont play the Georgetown cocktail party game was a very serious concern of, for example, Sally Quinn in the Washington Post; there were front-page articles about it, that these guys dont go to parties, they work instead. The fact that these people were outsiders was to blame for the administrations failures. And the Billy Carter story carried in the wake of that. It really was related to the cultural-gatekeeping function of the guardians of polite Capitol opinion.

So in 1980, do you think the Billy Carter stuff impacted the result? It was such a blowout for various reasonsReagan beat Jimmy Carter in a landslidebut you do, in the book, challenge some of the historical narrative-making about what contributed to the result, for example around the Iran hostage crisis

I think [the Billy Carter scandal] did have an effect. But it was really a tributary to the larger torrent of narrative about the failure of the Carter presidency; that Carter wasnt presidential. The fact that he had this redneck brother who was taking cash on the barrelhead from an outlaw state was one more drop in the bucket. It was just one more way in which people thought Jimmy Carter was not impressive, and Ronald Reagan was.

You mentioned that the characters of Billy Carter and Hunter Biden are strikingly similar, as well as their relationships to their respective relatives who were president. How do you see the media coverage comparing, then versus now?

Any model that relies on the framework that we have two political parties and that they deserve an equal hearing in the annals of journalism will structurally advantage the side thats willing to lie and cheat, basically. I call it the booster-seat theory: if you have to give equal attention to the claims of someone whos telling the truth and the claims of someone whos provably willing to lie and distort, its like giving a little kid a booster chair in a restaurant so he can sit at the level of the grownups. And of course this can be, and is, weaponized by Republicans. When they hold Congressional hearings, almost exclusively for the purpose of entering into the public record disinformation that the media has to report on, that makes the media dupes.

I think that by the end of the Trump administration, and certainly after January 6, the media managed to form a habit of mind where a certain sort of liei.e., Donald Trump won the electionwould always be flagged as a lie. They somehow broke the seal on that taboo, and if they quoted Donald Trump saying, I won this election, thered be a parentheses saying, According to all experts, Biden comfortably won the election, freely and fairly. Theres no reason that that same practice, now that the precedent has been set, could not be used for all sorts of lies.

Do you have any reflections on what the role of the media should be in scrutinizing presidential families? If there are presidential relatives trading on the family name, that is something thats worthy of media scrutiny, even absent a tie back to the president. But the story structurally does tie back to the president, just by putting the name in the news.

The act of the family member is newsworthy

But its only newsworthy because theyre related to the president, who doesnt choose their relatives. Thats the conundrum, I guess

Then every storyat the top, at the bottom, and probably several times in the middleshould say that the president has nothing to do with this or that no evidence has been produced. And it also should affirmatively explainin the way that elite reporters always manage to introduce these opinionated notions that fit the narrativewhat the Republicans are doing: Some say that this is part of a strategy aimed at discrediting the president by X, Y, and Z. Which falls well within the norms of even both-sides journalism.

Finally, Billy Carter was in many ways a troubled character, as you noted. Do you have any sense of what his relationship with the media was like?

They loved him as a colorful rogue and he cultivated that. He was a media superstar from the beginning of the Carter presidency. He put on a good show; he made good copy, as they say. He was someone who courted the limelight from day one, day two, day three, all the way up to day, like, 1,463, including when he was under the most heightened scrutiny, for example peeing within range of the cameras. He was not his own best friend. Jimmy Carter had, I think, a really charming way of dealing with it. He was very playful about it. But he also was a loyal brother, and he refused to throw his brother under a bus. And Joe Biden refuses to throw his son under a bus. Thats a tough row to hoe for a politician.



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: Back to the future in Slovakia

Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
The defendants in the corruption case involving U.S. Senator Robert Menendez include a former New Jersey insurance broker who was convicted of premium fraud in 2011 and lost his insurance license.

Jose Uribe allegedly got involved with Menendez in his attempts to clear an agency employee and business associate who were suspected of involvement in his insurance fraud scheme.

Senator Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are charged with accepting bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, furnishings and a luxury car in exchange for the senators alleged favors that included sharing sensitive information and taking other actions to benefit the government of Egypt and pressuring government officials to aid three New Jersey businessmen including Uribe.

Menendez is accused of disrupting a criminal insurance fraud investigation related to Uribe undertaken by the New Jersey attorney general. In the other cases, the charges are for allegedly improperly pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a certification monopoly for food experts to Egypt held by businessman Wael Hana and recommending for nomination for U.S. attorney a person Menendez believed he could influence concerning a federal criminal prosecution by the U.S. attorney against the founder of a New Jersey bank, Fred Daibes.

Met in 2018

Hana, a friend of Nadine Menendez, introduced Uribe to Sen. Menendez in 2018. According to the indictment, the defendant Uribe now works in the trucking industry after previously owning his own insurance agency, Inter America Insurance Agency, LLC.

Uribe allegedly got caught up with the Menendezes while trying to limit the damage from his insurance fraud case.

In December 2011, Uribe pleaded guilty to third-degree theft by deception and was sentenced to three years of probation by a New Jersey judge. According to the New Jersey attorney general, the former insurance producer for the now defunct Inter America Insurance Agency, LLC, admitted that between May 30, 2003 and Feb. 22, 2010, he obtained $76,819 in insurance premiums from seven clients by creating the false impression that he was remitting the monies to insurance carriers to secure commercial automobile insurance. In reality, he did not remit the premium payments to the insurance carriers.

The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance revoked the insurance producer licenses of Uribe and his company and ordered him to pay $92,500 in fines.

Mercedes-Benz

In the Menendez affair, Uribe is accused of providing Nadine Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Senator Menendez intervening with the state attorney generals office on behalf of a business associate and an employee. The Uribe associate had been charged with insurance fraud relating to a trucking company the insurance for which was brokered by the Uribes agency. The insurance broker employee, whom Uribe referred to as a relative, was being investigated for allegedly submitting the insurance applications at issue in the criminal case.

According to the indictment, Uribe wrote to Hana in April 2018 that he wanted a deal to kill and stop all investigation.

According to prosecutors, Senator Menendez agreed to attempt to intervene in the cases in exchange for the Mercedes. Uribe provided the $15,000 down payment for the car and arranged for the monthly payments of the $60,000 balance to be paid.

Prosecutors allege Menendez contacted a senior prosecutor in the New Jersey attorney generals office in an attempt, through advice and pressure, to resolve these matters favorably.

According to the indictment, the official in the attorney generals office tried to avoid any potential inappropriate influence in the case by not sharing with the prosecution team that Menendez had contacted him about the matter, and he did not intervene in the matter.

Plea Agreement

Uribes associate was able to resolve his criminal prosecution with a plea agreement with no jail time. This resolution was more favorable than the prosecutors initial plea offer earlier in the case, according to the indictment.

About six months later, Senator Menendez attempted to intervene in the investigation of the employee who was Uribes relative. In late October, the Menendezes, Uribe and the relative met for a celebratory dinner, prosecutors claim, citing a photo they obtained apparently showing the three toasting with glasses of champagne.

In June 2022, federal agents executed search warrants on the New Jersey home and the safe deposit boxes of the Menendezes. Agents found certain of the fruits of the alleged corrupt bribery agreements with Hana, Uribe and Daibes. These fruits found in the home included $480,000 in cash much of it in envelopes, clothing, closets, and a safe plus $100,000 worth of gold bars, a $75,000 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, and home furnishings, according to prosecutors, who also said they found more than $70,000 in Nadine Menendezs safe deposit box.

Menendez Reaction

Senator Menendez has denied wrongdoing and said he believes that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator. He said the money found in his home was from his personal savings, not from bribes.

He has rejected calls by fellow Democrats and others to resign his seat. He has stepped down as required as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, assistant director in the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced the indictment on September 22.

Top photo: U.S. Sen Robert Menendez, center, speaks at a firehouse in Union Beach, N.J. on Oct. 29, 2018, the 6th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, as New Jersey Gov. Phil Muprhy listens. Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, on bribery charges that he called unfounded. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
SOLON, Ohio

Assault on a police officer: Solon Road

At 3:10 a.m. Sept. 22, Bedford police brought a Maple Heights woman, 23, to the Solon jail for processing and lockup. She had been arrested in Bedford for drunk driving.

The woman was uncooperative. She yelled at and spat on officers, kicked them and bit at least one officer, causing a laceration.

Police restrained the woman until she calmed. Once released from restraints, however, the woman kicked and damaged a jail window.

She eventually posted bond and was released, but not before she was charged with assault on a police officer, a fourth-degree felony, and fifth-degree felonies for harassment by an inmate and vandalism.

Theft: Aurora Road

At 1:10 p.m. Sept. 18, it was reported that a man had pushed a cart full of groceries out of the Giant Eagle store at 34310 Aurora Road, where he was confronted in the parking lot by an employee.

The suspect then drove from the lot in a van. Police located the van and conducted a traffic stop.

The driver, a Cleveland man, 63, was cited for theft, failure to reinstate his license and driving with expired plates. The stolen items totaled $284.

OVI: U.S. 422

At 12:40 a.m. Sept. 19, an officer followed a black Cadillac on eastbound U.S. 422 and watched as the car weaved between lanes. At times, it traveled as slow as 20 mph in the 60 mph zone.

The driver, a Cleveland woman, 23, smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech. When she opened her cars glove box, the officer saw a pistol. The woman failed field sobriety testing and refused to take a breath test.

Police arrested her for drunk driving, using a weapon while intoxicated, driving under suspension and driving outside of marked lanes.

Police seized the pistol and had the car towed.

Weapon incident: Inwood Road

At 9:10 a.m. Sept. 19, officers were called to Solon High School, 33600 Inwood Road, where a student was seen in possession of a weapon concealed in his clothing.

Police found that the weapon was an airsoft pistol, not a firearm.

Police contacted the boys parent and will introduce the case to Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. Charges under consideration are illegal conveyance, possession of a deadly weapon or dangerous ordnance, or possession of an object indistinguishable from a firearm in a school safety zone.

Criminal damaging: Solon Road

At 5:15 p.m. Sept. 20, a Willoughby woman, 30, reported that two of her cars tires had been slashed while the auto was parked in the University Hospitals lot at 34055 Solon Road.

Police investigated and found that a suspect -- a Cleveland woman, 38, who is known to the victim -- allegedly slashed the tires. Damage was estimated at $380.

The suspect was charged with criminal damaging.

OVI: SOM Center Road

At 8:20 p.m. Sept. 20, an officer found a Nissan car with rear-end damage stopped on SOM Center Road near Pettibone Road.

The driver said her car had been struck from behind by a white Mercedes that continued to travel toward the Twinsburg border.

Police checked and found that the Mercedes had been driven off the road near Canterbury Road. The Mercedes was resting against a utility pole, but the driver still had his foot on the gas pedal.

Police broke a window and opened the car. An ambulance was called because the driver was going in and out of consciousness.

Officers were unable to conduct field sobriety tests. At the hospital, the driver, 55, of Maple Heights, refused to take breath or urine tests.

Police cited the man for OVI, hit-skip, failure to control and failure to maintain an assured clear distance ahead.

The other driver, a Solon woman, 62, was not injured.

Theft: Kruse Drive

At 5 p.m. Sept. 22, Solon police received a bulletin from Macedonia police about a theft at an Ulta Beauty store in that city. Police were told that the suspect had left the scene in a blue Ford.

A Solon officer drove to the Ulta store at 6025 Kruse Drive and spotted the blue Ford in the parking lot. The officer saw a man and woman leave the store and get into the Ford.

The officer stopped the car and went on to learn that the woman, 27, of Cleveland, had stolen $800 worth of merchandise from the Solon Ulta store and concealed it in her purse.

Inside the car, police found the merchandise stolen from the Macedonia store.

Police charged the woman with theft and possession of criminal tools.

The man, 44, of Spencer, Ohio, was not charged.

Weapons under disability: Aurora Road

At 9:45 a.m. Sept. 24, police were called to the apartments at 33170 Aurora Road on a report of a disturbance between a man and woman.

Police found the couple, still arguing, in an SUV parked behind a building.

The man smelled of alcohol and the vehicle of marijuana. Inside the SUV, police found a loaded pistol.

The man failed field sobriety testing.

Police arrested the man, 34, of Maple Heights, on charges of OVI; having a weapon under disability, a third-degree felony; improper handling of a firearm, a fifth-degree felony; disorderly conduct; and having an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle.

The woman, 27, of Solon, was not charged.

Domestic violence: Park East Drive

At 9:15 p.m. Sept. 24, police were called to the Park East apartments in the 34000 block of Park East Drive on a report of a domestic disturbance.

A passerby witnessed a man strike a woman on the neck as the two argued on a balcony.

Police spoke with the couple and noted that the woman appeared to be frightened.

Police arrested the man, 25, of Solon, on a domestic violence charge. The Solon woman, 33, did not require medical attention.

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Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
AKRON, Ohio  A Summit County Probate Court judge is among several officials who agreed to pay $82,500 to settle a lawsuit filed by a court psychologist after he was attacked by sheriffs deputies entering the downtown courthouse.

Curtis Williams II will receive $42,500 from Summit County, $30,000 from Summit County Probate Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer and $10,000 from the city of Akron, according to Williams attorney, Peter Pattakos.

Summit County and the sheriffs office settled last week. Stormer settled her portion of the case on Wednesday, court records say.

While we believe we would have recovered substantially more at trial, this was never about the money for Dr. Williams, who is glad to put this behind him now that the county, city and judge finally agreed to a settlement that sufficiently reflects the seriousness of their violations of his constitutional rights and clears his name, Pattakos said in a statement.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to Marsh Stormer, her attorneys and spokeswomen for the county and city for comment.

The lawsuit was filed in September in federal court in Cleveland. It accused the deputies of excessive force and falsification of evidence and prosecutors of malicious prosecution.

It said deputies covered up the evidence and that Marsh Stormer lied about what happened in subsequent interviews with investigators.

Williams, a licensed psychologist, at the time of the Sept. 15, 2020, incident worked for a Summit County Common Pleas program aimed at helping those with mental illness.

After leading a therapy session outside the courthouse at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams tried to walk inside the courthouse through an employee-only entrance to use the restroom, according to the lawsuit.

Marsh Stormer, whom Williams did not know, confronted him at the doorway. Williams told her that he was an employee and urgently needed to use the restroom. Marsh Stormer shoved him, and he walked by her into the courthouse, according to the lawsuit.

Marsh Stormer followed him and shouted to nearby sheriffs deputies that Williams had assaulted her and posed a security risk, the lawsuit said. She left the building as four deputies rushed Williams.

The deputies beat, tackled, handcuffed and used stun guns on Williams, the lawsuit said.

Some surveillance video of the interaction went missing, according to the lawsuit. Sheriffs officials later cleared the deputies of any wrongdoing.

City prosecutors charged Williams with assaulting the judge, disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Prosecutors later told Williams that they would dismiss the criminal charges if he wrote a letter of apology to the judge and sign a waiver saying that he wouldnt sue. He refused, and prosecutors later dropped the charges after a judge found prosecutors violated Williams speedy-trial rights.

Adam Ferrise covers federal courts at cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. You can find his work here.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two men who each spent 15 years in prison for a crime that they were later acquitted of committing have sued the Cleveland police officers who put them behind bars.

Michael Sutton and Kenny Phillips accused Cleveland police officers Daniel Lentz and Michael Keane, as well as former detective Carl Hartman, of violating their civil rights by conspiring to fabricate and suppress evidence to pin the shooting on them.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, also accuses the Cuyahoga County prosecutors office of instituting and defending a decadeslong policy that allowed police to withhold police reports and witness statements favorable to defendants.

Sarah Gelsomino, an attorney at Friedman and Gilbert, announced the lawsuit at a news conference on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary that a jury acquitted Sutton and Phillips of the crime.

Phillips and Sutton toasted with champagne.

Im hoping were gonna get some justice, Sutton said in an interview. What weve been through is traumatizing. We got kidnapped for 15 years.

Phillips said the convictions stole their lives and ripped them from their family members.

We walked out our doors one day, and we didnt come back until 15 years later, Phillips said.

The men said that after spending their entire adult lives defending themselves against the accusations of being attempted murderers, they were excited to put the officials who pinned that label on them on the defense.

Theyre in the drivers seat now, Gelsomino said, referring to her clients. Its a powerful shift in dynamics.

Lexi Bauer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors office, said in a statement that the office does not have a policy of withholding evidence.

The Cuyahoga County prosecutors office has prosecuted more than 200,000 cases since the Sutton and Phillips case was tried in 2006, the statement said. With so few cases overturned, it is abundantly clear that the Cuyahoga County prosecutors office operates in an exemplary manner in the prosecution of criminal cases.

The federal filing comes after the men in November filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to declare the men wrongfully imprisoned. If successful, they each would be able to collect more than $56,000 for each year they spent behind bars.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yosts office has filed a response opposing the declaration, and the two sides are in negotiations.

A jury found Sutton, now 36, and Phillips, now 35, not guilty on Sept. 27, 2022, after a weeklong trial. Justin Herdman, the former U.S. attorney in Cleveland and now a lawyer at Jones Day, and Diane Menashe, then at the Columbus firm Ice Miller, represented the men for free.

Sutton, Phillips and two other men were arrested on May 29, 2006, after Lentz and Keane said they witnessed someone shooting from Suttons car into another car in heavy traffic on Woodland Avenue. Two men in the other car were shot in the head. They later survived.

The officers said they chased the car through the traffic until it stopped on a side street where the people inside bailed. Lentz said he chased Phillips and another man behind some houses when Phillips shot at him.

Police gathered no physical evidence that tied Sutton or Phillips to the crime. Prosecutors relied on the testimony of Lentz and Keane to convict Phillips and Sutton of attempted murder and other charges. The jury found the other two men arrested at the scene not guilty.

A judge sentenced Sutton and Phillips to spend a combined 138 years in prison.

The Ohio Public Defenders Wrongful Conviction Project and the Ohio Innocence Project began investigating the mens cases and discovered that there were two other Cleveland police officers who were at the scene. Their accounts of the shooting differed from those of Lentz and Keane.

One of the officers, Gregory Jones, wrote in a letter to Phillips that he told a prosecutor on the case what he saw, and the prosecutor elected not to call him as a witness. Jones was later fired after he was convicted of rape. He is serving a prison sentence.

Both Jones and the other officer said they relayed their version of events to Hartman, the detective, who told them that a prosecutor said they didnt need to file a report, the lawsuit claims.

The state never told defense attorneys in 2007 that any officer other than Lentz and Keane witnessed the shooting.

Defense attorneys say the mens convictions are among several that courts have overturned since the 1970s. The issue, the attorneys say, stems from Cleveland police and county prosecutors withholding evidence that called someones guilt into question.

The mens lawsuit pointed to a 1973 Cleveland police policy that quoted a letter from then-Prosecutor John T. Corrigan. The policy said that police and prosecutors were required to hand over to defense attorneys evidence favorable to a defendant, but written police reports and statements from witnesses or potential witnesses to state agents were exempt from that policy.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019, in another wrongful conviction case, ruled that a jury could find that the policy led to constitutional violations.
DULUTH, Ga.  A driver who police say was racing another vehicle at speeds topping 100 mph and sparked a fatal crash turned himself in to the police Tuesday.

Emanuel Rene Esfahani, 20, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, was booked on five counts of vehicular homicide, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department. Esfahani is also charged with reckless driving, racing, speeding, unsafe lane change and not wearing a seatbelt, police told The Telegraph.in Macon, Georgia.

Investigators say Esfahani was racing a pickup truck driven by 18-year Hung Nguyen and carrying five passengers on Labor Day, topping 100 mph on Georgia 316 just over 20 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.

The two came upon a slower vehicle. Police said they believe Esfahani, driving an Infiniti G35, swerved into the right-hand emergency lane on a curving flyover ramp that merges onto Interstate 85 to pass the vehicle, while Nguyen passed it on the left, The Associated Press said.

But Esfahani came upon a truck stopped in the emergency lane and swerved left, striking Nguyens Toyota Tacoma, causing it to spin and roll and plunge over a concrete barrier, dropping nearly 40 feet to the ground below. It landed upside down on an adjoining exit ramp, investigators said.

Nguyen and four passengers, three teen-aged girls and a 19-year-old man, all were killed. The girls were all students at Lakeside High School in DeKalb County.

One passenger in the Tacoma survived with minor injuries and was released from the hospital a day later.

Two people in the Tacoma were ejected during the crash. One was hit by another vehicle, AP said.

The driver of that vehicle also was injured when he pulled over and tried to get off the roadway by climbing over a wall on a bridge. That driver fell about 25 feet into a creek, breaking multiple bones.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Cleveland police and troopers of the Ohio State Highway Patrol made 43 felony arrests in a two-day sweep last week, the latest attempt to reduce violence in the city, authorities said.

The officers, working with other state law enforcement officials, also seized 27 guns that people possessed illegally, authorities say. In addition, the officers recovered six stolen vehicles. The arrests took place Sept. 21-22 in Clevelands Third and Fifth districts.

Agents also confiscated cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, ecstasy and prescription pills.

Officers from the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections and the Ohio Department of Youth Services assisted in the arrests.

This is the fourth crackdown in which Ohio law enforcement officers have made arrests and seized guns and illegal narcotics. Gov. Mike DeWine ordered the state officers to work in Cleveland after the city asked for help in July. The request came as gun crimes, homicides and carjackings spiked. Cleveland police, however, face a shortage of more than 200 officers in a department that has about 1,350.

A statement from the patrol said law enforcement officers will continue to work in the city.

The patrol used an aviation unit, a special response team, a vehicle theft unit and the Ohio Investigative Unit, which is made up of detectives working specific cases.

In a two-week period in August, state troopers and Cleveland officers made 100 felony arrests, seized guns and recovered stolen cars.
CLEVELAND, Ohio If youve been unable to find the latest COVID-19 booster for your child, it turns out you arent alone. Despite the fact that the new COVID-19 vaccines were approved on September 11, many locations have yet to start providing them.

This has made getting the updated vaccine difficult, especially for young children. Although pharmacies have been among the first to receive shipments, they typically do not administer the shots to all ages.

For example, CVS has been administering the new vaccines to adults for a little over a week now. But while the pharmacy chain currently has the pediatric Pfizer vaccine approved for ages 6 months and up in stock, its only vaccinating children aged seven and older.

However, according to the website vaccines.gov several CVS locations just across the border in Pennsylvania have the Pfizer vaccine in stock and will administer to children as young as three. Cleveland.com confirmed that the CVS in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is currently administering the new boosters to children aged three and up.

The Cleveland Clinic confirmed that shipments of vaccines had indeed been delayed, but they have now received them. The Clinic says their sites will begin administering the new Pfizer shots over the course of the next couple of days as individual locations receive their supply for both adults and children. Pediatric patients can receive their COVID-19 vaccine at the same time as their flu vaccine, at an already scheduled primary care appointment, the hospital said.

University Hospitals said it still has not received its vaccines but is expecting them for both children and adults early next week. The hospital system has confirmed that its Rainbow pediatric primary care practices will have them, and families can obtain one by scheduling an appointment with their pediatrician.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Health is not yet administering any of the new COVID-19 vaccines for children or adults and recommends checking back next week for updates.

Although the cause of the delays is still unclear, this is the first time that the vaccines are being ordered by pharmacies, clinics and hospitals direct from the manufacturer instead of being shipped centrally from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hospitals contend that the vaccine brand is not important, and that it is perfectly safe and equally effective to receive a booster vaccine from a different manufacturer than the initial vaccination.

Parents should continue to check vaccines.gov for updates on vaccine availability, but pharmacies and clinics also recommend calling ahead to ensure the appropriate vaccine is in stock and available for the age of the specific child in question.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Its never a boring day in Cudell or Detroit Shoreway.

The two vibrant neighborhoods are anchored by the Gordon Square Arts District around West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue, where visitors can find local theaters and art galleries stacked with incredible talent from all around Northeast Ohio. For a drink, choices range from dive bars to sleek cocktail lounges.

Detroit Shoreway also is home to some of the most eclectic restaurants in the city. (Have you ever tried fruit loops or peanut butter on a hot dog? Not a bad combination from Happy Dog.)

Unless one of the historic homes or century-old warehouses is in the way, the view of Lake Erie will call to you. Edgewater Beach is a short walk, bike or drive away. Both neighborhoods are walkable and bike friendly with pedestrian trails and sidewalks connecting to Edgewater.

Both Cudell and Detroit-Shoreway are diverse communities.

Cudell is 47% white and 32% Black, with other races or multi-race individuals making up the rest, according to research of census data by the Center for Community Solutions. Detroit Shoreway is 64% white and 23% Black. About a fourth of the people in each area are Hispanic.

This is part of a series of stories from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer exploring Clevelands neighborhoods. Follow ongoing coverage at Get to Know Clevelands Neighborhoods.

Cleveland's Cudell or Detroit-Shoreway neighborhoodsRich Exner, cleveland.com

Overlooking Lake Erie from Cleveland's Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.John Pana, cleveland.com

Since the early 1900s, Cudell has been a predominantly working class community with roughly 9,000 people living in the neighborhood today. Employment levels and median household income in Cudell are slightly lower than the citywide average. The first parts of the area were annexed to Cleveland 1894.

The area known as Detroit Shoreway was first part of Brooklyn Township in 1818 when white pioneers from the Northeast settled on the land. The neighborhood officially became a part of Cleveland when Ohio City was annexed in 1854. As the streetcar developed along Detroit Avenue, so did the neighborhood.

German immigrants flocked to Detroit Shoreway and worked along the Ohio and Erie Canal. Soon after, Irish, Romanian and Italian people also settled in the area. The neighborhood still has a large Italian population centered around Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

In the late 1800s, the neighborhood flourished with job opportunities and had nearly 40,000 residents. After World War II, many of the original residents moved to the suburbs and people immigrated in from Puerto Rico and, to a lesser extent, Mexico. Homes were demolished during the construction of Interstate 90 on the neighborhoods southern border in the 1960s, which led to the population to shrink.

Next door to the west, Cudell land in the late 1800s was owned by a settler from Connecticut who sold the property to German immigrant Jacob Mueller. He then gave the land to renowned architect Frank (or Franz) Cudell, who later married Muellers daughter, Emma.

Cudell remodeled a house on Detroit Avenue that Mueller had built in 1845. It is now where Cudell Fine Arts Center is located. It first opened in the 1930s as the Cudell Arts and Craft Center, one of the first arts centers in the country. Cudell also constructed the Cudell Commons apartments on W. 99th St. and deeded a portion of the area along West Blvd. to the City as a public park.

Fun fact: Gordon Square is home to some of the citys popular festivals like Snow Day, a free celebration in the neighborhood each December, and Dyngus Day, a Polish tradition to celebrate the end of winter and welcome warmer weather.

Landmarks: After Franz Cudell died in 1917, his wife Emma built as a memorial the Cudell Clock Tower at 9999 Detroit Ave. West Boulevard cuts through the Cudell neighborhood. It is one of the widest and most historic streets in the city, paved to connect Brookside Park to Edgewater Park with large homes lining the street.

The century-old former West Technical High School, 2201 W. 93rd St., offers luxury apartments but at one point West Tech was the largest high school in Ohio and prepared students for life-long careers. The school opened in 1912 before it was finished. Students used ladders because the stairwells werent done yet, and there was no heat in the building at the time.

Catch a film: At the Capitol Theatre, travel back in time to 1921 when the theater opened. The theater began as a vaudeville and silent film house. Now, it shows new releases as well as indie and foreign films.

Places to visit: In Cudell, Planet Claire Vintage Clothing, Shepard Records, City Dogs Cleveland animal shelter, Urban Kutz Barbershop, Good Earth Urban Farm and Cudell Fine Arts Center. In Detroit Shorway, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, Near West Theatre, 78th Street Studios, Superelectric Pinball Parlor, Cleveland Public Theatre, Oceanne Studio and Boutique, My Cuzin Vintage, Blazing Saddle Cycle, Hausfrau Record Shop, Talespinner Childrens Theater, Gordon Green

Eats and Drinks: Cudell: Judds City Tavern, Classic Gyro, Scoot! Cold Brewed Coffee, The Palazzo, Villa y Zapata in Cudell. In Detroit Shoreway, Wyne Tasting Bar, All Saints Public House, Terrestrial Brewing Co., Good Company, Astoria, Happy Dog, Brewnuts, Cleveland Bagel Co., XYZ the Tavern, Luxe, Toast, Il Rione pizzas, Parkview Nite Club, Tinas Nite Club, Ready Set Coffee Roasters, Franks Falafel House, Gypsy Bean Coffee.
PHILADELPHIA -- Authorities are investigating after a female flight attendant was found dead inside a Philadelphia hotel room Monday evening.

Officers responded to the Philadelphia Airport Marriott at about 10:41 p.m. after cleaning staffers reported finding a body in a hotel room. The 66-year old woman was found with a cloth in her mouth, authorities said, and was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC 10 Philadelphia reports.

Police said they are investigating the incident as a suspicious death, while noting there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle, and no weapons recovered from the scene.

Authorities found several sealed bottles of prescription in the room, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia reports. The woman was on several medications and is believed to have suffered a sudden death, said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small, per NBC 10.

The womans identity was not revealed, but authorities did confirm she was a flight attendant for American Airlines. Investigators said she was supposed to have checked out of the hotel two days earlier, per WPVI.

An autopsy to determine the womans cause of death is now pending and investigation into the incident is ongoing, authorities said.
WASHINGTON, D. C.  House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan on Wednesday accused the Georgia district attorney who indicted ex-President Donald Trump of focusing on advancing a political cause and her own notoriety instead of fairly administering the law as he demanded a response to his committees inquiries.

On the day that Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail on charges that he illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, Jordan announced a Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis coordinated her work with federal law enforcement.

Willis replied with a harshly worded letter that dismissed Jordans inquiry as an attempt to interfere with an active Georgia criminal case, a move she described as flagrantly at odds with the Constitution.

The defendants in this case have been charged under state law with committing state crimes, her letter said. There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution. That violation of Georgias sovereignty is offensive and will not stand.

Willis indictment alleges 161 improper acts by Trump and his associates, including a call where Trump urged Georgias Secretary of State to find the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss. The indictment also accuses Trump of making false statements and writings for telling state election officials that up to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls in the 2020 election, that more than 4,500 people voted who werent on registration lists and that a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, was a professional vote scammer, among other claims.

On Wednesday, Jordan shot back with another letter that said his committee has a strong legislative interest in ensuring that popularly elected local prosecutors do not misuse their law-enforcement authority to target federal officials for political reasons. We can only conclude from your hostile response to the Committees oversight that you are actively and aggressively engaged in such a scheme.

The indictment of a former President of the United States and other former senior federal officials by an elected local prosecutor of the opposing political party, who will face the prospect of re-election, implicates substantial federal interests, it continued. If state or local prosecutors can engage in politically motivated prosecutions of senior federal officers for acts they performed while in federal office, this could have a profound impact on how federal officers choose to exercise their powers.

It said Constitutional and legal precedents dont give Willis a legitimate basis to resist the Judiciary Committees oversight, and said her your refusal to cooperate with our oversight due to an ongoing prosecution is unpersuasive.

Federal court precedent, up to and including the Supreme Court, is clear that Congress may conduct oversight of matters, like this one, on which legislation may be had and that your reasons for noncompliance with the Committees requests have no merit, it continues.

Jordans letter says the committee appreciated a spreadsheet Willis submitted that described several federal grants her office obtained, but said it didnt satisfy the requests for material that Jordan requested in August.

His August letter asked about overlap and coordination between her investigation and that of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw indictments of Trump in Washington, D.C. for attempting to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election, and in Florida for improperly handling classified documents after he left office. It sought all communications between her office and Smiths investigators, as well as all documents and communications between her office and any federal Executive Branch officials over the probe of Trump an others charged in the case.

Accordingly, we reiterate the requests in our August 24 letter and ask that you comply in full as soon as possible, but no later than October 11, 2023, Jordans latest letter says. As an accommodation to you, we are willing to prioritize the production of documents and communications reflecting the coordination between your office and the Department of Justice.

Jordan announced similar probes against others prosecuting Trump. He held a hearing in New York in an effort to embarrass Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., who indicted Trump for falsifying business records.

He also sent Attorney General Merrick Garland repeated letters about Special Counsel Jack Smiths probes of Trump. Smith oversaw indictments of Trump in Washington, D.C. for attempting to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election, and in Florida for improperly handling classified documents after he left office.

Sabrina Eaton writes about the federal government and politics in Washington, D.C., for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
COLUMBUS, OhioThe Ohio Redistricting Commission on Tuesday night gave final, bipartisan approval to new state legislative district maps that could be in place for as long as eight years.

The new redistricting plan, unveiled after lengthy closed-door negotiations between Republican and Democratic commission members, gives Republicans an advantage in 61 of 99 Ohio House districts and 23 of 33 state Senate districts, according to State Auditor Keith Faber, the commissions Republican co-chair.

Thats more favorable to Republicans than the maps that were used in last years legislative elections, which the Ohio Supreme Court found to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. Those maps, which gave the Republicans an on-paper edge in 56 House seats and 18 Senate seats, resulted in the GOP winning 67 House seats and 26 Senate seats last November -- the largest majorities that either party has held since the Ohio legislature went to one-member districts in the 1960s.

Only 11 of 99 House districts, and just four of 33 Senate districts, are competitive tossup seats under the new maps, according to Faber.

The two Democrats on the seven-member redistricting commission previously said they would not vote for any redistricting plan that maintained or expanded Republican advantages compared to the current map.

But that has proved to be extremely difficult in the current environment, said House Minority Leader Allison Russo, a Democratic commission member from suburban Columbus, She said the Republicans who control the redistricting commission waited until the last minute to pass maps, and she called the states current redistricting process a sham and rigged.

Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio of Lakewood, the commissions Democratic co-chair, said the maps that the commission passed were more fair and would create more competitive races than the GOP-authored proposal that the commission had been considering up until now. That plan would have created 62 GOP-leaning House and 23 Senate districts, as well as fewer competitive districts than Ohio had last year.

We worked hard to find a compromise, and its illustrated by the amended maps that we have before us today, Antonio said.

Republicans on the commission offered more praise to Antonio and Russo for negotiating in good faith than they did for the maps themselves.

There are certainly things in this map that I dont like, and if I had my way, I would have changed, and have made suggestions to change, Faber said. But in the end, I think this map meets the constitutional test. It allows people to be represented by people who share their views and values, and it keeps communities together, certainly, where possible.

Tonight we proved that good-faith negotiations with our colleagues from both sides of the aisle guided by the process approved by the voters to draw legislative districts can work exactly the way it was intended to work, when not undermined by out-of-state special interest groups, said Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley, a Republican commission member from Northwest Ohio, in a statement, in an apparent reference to national Democrats who sued over GOP-backed legislative maps passed during the last redistricting cycle.

From the very beginning, we sought stability with achieving an 8-year map, said state Rep. Jeff LaRe, a Republican commission member from Fairfield County, in a statement. Were proud of the efforts and look forward to continuing to serve the people of Ohio.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission approved new state House and Senate district lines on Tuesday night, as seen in these posters unveiled at its meeting. (Jeremy Pelzer, cleveland.com)

The Ohio Redistricting Commission only voted on new state legislative maps. Ohios current congressional map will be used again next year after Democrats and good government groups dropped their legal challenges to it earlier this month.

The newly passed redistricting plan could still be challenged in court, just as last years maps were. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by ex-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, have already asked the Ohio Supreme Court to review any new state legislative maps before they go into effect for next years elections. McColley and LaRe filed a reply brief Tuesday agreeing that a court review of any new map is needed for the credibility of any new redistricting plan.

However, the Ohio Supreme Court is expected to be more sympathetic to GOP-passed redistricting efforts than it was last year. Republican Maureen OConnor, a crucial swing vote against the last round of redistricting plans, retired as chief justice earlier this year; her successor as chief justice, Republican Sharon Kennedy, repeatedly voted to uphold last years redistricting plans. The newest member of the court, Republican Joe Deters, was appointed to the court last year by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who voted for Mondays redistricting maps.

Another legal question that hasnt yet been definitively settled is how long the new maps will remain in place. Faber said Tuesday afternoon some people believe that a bipartisan map would last for eight years, until after the 2030 census. Others, he said, say the redistricting plan will only last for two years, no matter who votes for it.

Thats an open constitutional question, Faber said. He added Tuesday night that it will likely be up to the courts to determine the answer.

OConnor and a coalition of left-leaning good-government groups is attempting to hold a statewide vote in 2024 on a proposed constitutional amendment that would put redistricting in the hands of a 15-member commission divided equally among Republicans, Democrats and independents. If it passes, new maps would have to be drawn in 2025, making a moot point out of whether the redistricting commission passes a two-year-long map or one lasting eight years.

Antonio was asked Tuesday night whether, when deciding to vote for the redistricting plan, she factored in the potential effect that it might have on the proposed amendments chances of passing.

Look, Im a pragmatist, she replied. And I also try to be present right now, doing the work that Im doing right now. I feel a responsibility to the people and to my job right now. And so my focus was on whats the best work that we can do with the responsibility that we have for the people of the state.

Russo added: I think that the way that this process has played out, to me, I dont think that will deter citizens at all from [supporting] the [proposed] citizen-led commission.

Republicans on the commission previously emphasized that they strove to meet a number of requirements laid out in the Ohio Constitution, including that the districts be compact, that counties and cities be split into different districts a limited number of times, and that state senators who were elected to four-year terms in 2022 continue to serve in the Senate until their terms are up in 2026.

Faber said last week that instead of trying to hit some magical mystery ratio, its important to try to ensure that communities are represented by someone who shares their interests, especially as Ohioans with the same political bent increasingly cluster together geographically.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission held four public-comment hearings on the initial GOP redistricting plan, though it offered no chance for public input on the maps that it passed.

Most of the 70-plus people who testified at those four meetings spoke in opposition to the initial redistricting proposal, which was unveiled just last week.

This is really, in my mind and in the publics mind, a sham of a bipartisan commission, said Mike Halaiko, a retired public school administrator from Perry County.

One person who testified to defend the new maps on Tuesday was former state Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton Republican who helped negotiate the 2015 state constitutional amendment that created the Ohio Redistricting Commission. He pushed back on accusations that Republicans were passing a map even more gerrymandered than the current one.

Jacobson said it was ridiculousness to argue  as the Ohio Supreme Court ruled last year  the maps should be drawn to ensure that Democrats win a certain number of seats. The only way to increase the number of Democratic-favored seats to the level that critics want, he said, would be to gerrymander the map in a way that would deprive some conservative Ohioans of such a voice.

You cant gerrymander in the way that (proponents of) proportionality would like. The constitution says that you cant violate line-drawing rules (and) you cant cross county boundaries as many times as you want. You cant stick little pieces of an urban county with little pieces of a rural county three counties away, Jacobson said.

Faber was asked earlier on Tuesday why redistricting commission members werent negotiating with each other in public.

I think the legislative process works when you have people able to have candid conversations and candid assessments, Faber replied. He added that the negotiations take time because every proposed change to the draft maps has to be evaluated to see how it would affect other districts.

There is rarely, in drawing maps, a simple yes or no answer, he said.

Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  The Ohio Senate has approved a fast-tracked bill that would block Clevelands proposed Peoples Budget charter amendment from taking effect if city voters approve it in November.

The Senate voted Wednesday 25-6 to approve Senate Bill 158, with Democratic state Sen. Bill Demora of Columbus joining majority Republicans in voting yes. It now goes to the Ohio House, where it must get a two-thirds supermajority in order to take effect before the Nov. 7 election, a goal of the bills sponsor, state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Kirtland Republican.

The amendment would set aside 2% of the citys general fund each year roughly $14 million based on this years budget  so residents can choose how they want to spend it through a voting process overseen by an 11-person steering committee. Cirinos bill, introduced last week and fast-tracked through a series of committee hearings this week, simply would block any such proposals, known generally as participatory budgeting, from taking effect.

Backers of the Cleveland amendment say it would promote civic participation in a city marred by low voter turnout and give the public, including underrepresented groups, a greater say over how their tax money is spent. Democratic city leaders, as well as local labor unions, oppose the measure, saying it could force the city to make budget cuts, including to police and other public safety services. City Mayor Justin Bibb is among the bills opponents, but he also opposes SB158, calling it an encroachment on Clevelands self-governance.

In a floor speech, Cirino said legislators need to pass the bill to keep the concept behind the Peoples Budget amendment from taking hold in other cities.

Demora, a longtime Democratic political operative with close ties to labor unions, called the measure one of the worst ballot issues hed ever seen. He said hed been in touch with representatives of Clevelands police and firefighter unions.

Theyre worried about losing a portion of their budget and giving it to 16-year-olds without a plan, he said.

Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, a Toledo Democrat, said shed heard about problems with the proposal. But, she said residents introduce ballot issues because they find local leaders to be unresponsive to their concerns, and she said she understood that to be the case in Cleveland.

Let the citizens decide. Let the process work. If the folks that are objecting to it dont believe they can make the case, why are are we putting our thumb on the scale? Hicks-Hudson said.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, whose signature would be needed to get the bill over the finish line before the November election, said recently that he was unaware of Cirinos proposal.

Andrew Tobias covers state politics and government for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Backers of a proposal to replace the elected officials in charge of drawing Ohios political maps with a citizens commission are panning the new bipartisan maps that a state panel approved late Tuesday.

Maureen OConnor, a retired Republican Ohio Supreme Court chief justice whos a leader of the redistricting reform amendment effort, declined an interview request. But she issued a lengthy statement Wednesday morning calling the new maps a bipartisan gerrymander suggesting that both parties cant be trusted.

From waiting more than a year to get to work, to holding hearings in remote locations at times when working people are earning their living and cant participate, to voting for their own political interests, we have seen once again, that politicians  Democrats and Republicans both  cant be trusted to draw fair maps in an open and transparent process, OConnor said. How can anybody have confidence in what the seven politicians - both Democrats and Republicans  on the Redistricting Commission have done?

Its an open question though, whether the bipartisan agreement could give ammunition to Republicans who hope to persuade voters next year to reject the reform measure, if and when it appears on the November 2024 ballot.

This possibility led to a wave of social media backlash from some Ohio Democrats on Tuesday night who said the two Democrats on the commission, House Minority Leader Allison Russo and Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, had handed Republicans a potent argument that the process works as it is and reform is unnecessary.

George Clark, a Democratic operative, imagined what Republicans might tell voters next year in a post on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. Your elected representatives passed bipartisan maps to give you fair representation, Clark wrote. But now, out of state special interests want to appoint government bureaucrats to pick who represents youThe ads write themselves.

The quick rush to agreement fed the GOP a win that limits accountability, said Desiree Tims, leader of Innovation Ohio, a liberal think tank in Columbus. It was a win for the GOP.

Other Democrats, meanwhile, backed the party line that the vote was a shrewd tactical move that averts a more aggressively Republican map and gives them a chance at breaking the GOPs veto-proof supermajority in the legislature in next years elections, when national Democrats are expected to invest heavily in Ohio to protect Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. The move also allows the lines to be redrawn again in 2025 if voters approve the citizen redistricting amendment.

David Brock, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, said the vote allows Democrats to move on from redistricting fights they cant win to those they can, like passing ballot issues in November guaranteeing abortion rights and legalizing recreational marijuana.

What are we going to do? Drag this to a state Supreme Court that cares even less about the law and the people than last year? Brock said, referencing OConnors retirement from the court at the end of last year. It is what it is, and lets keep moving forward.

Brown, the states top Democrat, dismissed the question during a call with reporters on Wednesday.

Its clear that in the state, the people want to see redistricting reform, Brown said. Ill leave the strategy of Statehouse Republicans and Statehouse Democrats up to the political writers.

Last years decennial redistricting was the first done under reform measures overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2015. The commission was back at the drawing board this year, however, because Republicans and Democrats repeatedly failed to agree on maps. The maps the GOP did were ruled unconstitutional by the state supreme court on multiple occasions as unconstitutionally favored in favor of Republicans.

The state legislative map the court deemed unconstitutional was used anyway in 2022, but the court required it be redrawn this year.

State Rep. Josh Williams, a Toledo-area Republican whose slightly Biden-leaning district was converted to a district ex-President Donald Trump would have won in 2020 by 8 percentage points, said in an interview he thinks the bipartisan vote shows the process worked. The redistricting reform measure was designed to encourage Republican and Democratic cooperation by making bipartisan maps last longer than those passed only along party lines.

I think it speaks volumes that the Democrat leadership voted in factor of these maps, Williams said. I think the call for an independent commission now is wavering given that these are bipartisan maps that were negotiated by both parties.

Senate President Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, said the new redistricting system was meant to give the majority party control while ensuring the minority party had input, and thats what happened.

The thought that we would pass this and everybody would say my God, were all happy. Well, that will never happen. I think the process worked as it was designed and approved by voters in 2015, Huffman said.

Reform advocates, meanwhile, insisted the development benefitted them politically by giving them greater political distance from both parties and making it easier to present themselves as nonpartisan. Hence the term in OConnors statement: bipartisan gerrymandering.

I think it actually helps us, said Jen Miller, president of the Ohio League of Women Voters, a group that backs the reform measure and filed multiple redistricting lawsuits last year. It proves that politicians are always going to politician first. They will always work to get reelected over doing whats right by voters. I think it shows that who draws the map matters.

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio and a longtime redistricting reform advocate, also rejected the notion the bipartisan vote would undermine the reform cause.

I think this is an argument that some folks will make, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio and a longtime redistricting reform advocate. It doesnt make much sense to me, because this was a bipartisan sweetheart deal. This is not what the voters wanted.

On paper, the new maps would favor Republicans to retain a veto-proof supermajority in the House and Senate. Ex-President Donald Trump would have won 63 of 99 House districts and 24 of 33 Senate districts under the new map, or 66% of all districts. Thats similar to the current maps, in which Trump would have won 62 House districts and 20 Senate districts, or 62% of all districts.

However, the new map gives Democrats a firmer floor, by shoring up some Democratic-leaning districts that had been more competitive in the old maps. It still gives them an outside chance at breaking the Republican supermajority in the House, if they can win nine toss-up districts that favor either party by fewer than 2 percentage points, plus one of several Republican-leaning districts that Trump won in 2020 by 5 to 6 percentage points.

The Senate is much more of a longshot  Democrats would need to win five districts that Trump won by margins ranging from 3 to 10 percentage points to break the GOP supermajority there.

Antonio and Russo, the two Democrats on the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, cited the supermajority threshold in their calculations, while also reasoning that voters will approve the redistricting reform amendment in November 2024.

Speaking during the redistricting commission meeting Tuesday night and with reporters afterward, Russo trashed the process as nontransparent and said the maps she voted to approve may not meet political proportionality requirements in the state constitution.

The way that this process has played out, to me, I dont think that will deter citizens at all about the citizen-led commission, Russo said. But well see. Its in the hands of citizens and voters now.

Currently, either state lawmakers or a panel of elected officials  the governor, the secretary of state and the state auditor, plus Republican and Democratic legislative leaders  are in charge of redistricting, the process of drawing state legislative and congressional maps.

The new proposal would replace elected officials with a 15-member citizens commission, made up of equal parts Republicans, Democrats and independents. Anyone who had been an elected official, a political candidate, a political party official or lobbyist during the past six years, as well as their immediate family members, would be barred from serving on the commission.

The redistricting proposal is in the preliminary stages of qualifying for the November ballot. The group has submitted petition language to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost several times for approval, with Yost rejecting them twice. Once Yost eventually signs off, backers then would have to collect hundreds of thousands of voter signatures from around the state before a state deadline in July.

Andrew Tobias covers state politics and government for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer

Statehouse reporters Jeremy Pelzer and Jake Zuckerman contributed to this story
WASHINGTON, D. C. - The U.S. Senates banking committee, chaired by Ohios Sherrod Brown, on Wednesday signed off on legislation that would let cannabis companies access the banking system, the furthest such legislation has ever gone in the U.S. Senate.

The legislation, introduced by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley and Montana Republican Steve Daines, would let financial institutions do business with the legal cannabis industry without running afoul of federal laws that currently block their access because the federal government considers marijuana illegal.

It cleared the committee in a 14-9 vote. Most Republicans on the committee  including Ohios JD Vance  opposed the measure, and most Democrats supported it.

In remarks before the bill was considered, Brown said that because marijuana businesses have to operate on an all-cash basis, their employees become robbery targets and also face challenges proving their income when trying to rent a home or apply for a mortgage.

Cannabis banking is just one part of the necessary conversation about marijuana policy, said Brown, a Cleveland Democrat. There is still much work to be done to acknowledge and mend the damage done by the war on drugs, work to make sure everyone  including our veterans  has access to the medicine they need and allow medical and scientific research on cannabis.

Daines told the committee he opposes legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, but said the Safer Banking Act the committee approved is not about that, or even a step in that direction.

This bill is about public safety, first and foremost, Daines continued. The current all-cash model of legal cannabis businesses makes them targets for theft, for tax evasion and for organized crime. The key to addressing this risk is by ensuring that all legal businesses have access to the banking system.

Merkley, said the cannabis industry supports 428,000 jobs around the country, and accounts for $25 billion in retail sales. Thirty-seven states, including Ohio, have legal cannabis for medicinal purposes and 21 allow it recreationally. An initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana will be on Ohios November ballot.

Several Republicans said theyd oppose the bill on the Senate floor because the federal government regards marijuana as illegal, and the drugs use is associated with psychosis, motor vehicle accidents, respiratory problems and low birth weight.

This legislation, I believe, really is opening up a can of worms, said South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds, who said it would give special protections to businesses conducting a federally illicit activity, protections that legal businesses simply do not enjoy.

Versions of the bill have passed the House of Representatives seven times in past congressional sessions, but never progressed in the Senate. A statement from the National Cannabis Industry Association said the committee vote would clear a path for a floor vote in the Senate.

This uniquely bipartisan legislation has the potential to save lives and help small businesses; its time for Congress to get it to the presidents desk without further delay, said Aaron Smith, the associations CEO.

The organization noted that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration last month made an official recommendation to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III status in the federal Controlled Substances Act, but said that change would not affect the industrys current banking situation.

The bills House of Representatives counterpart is cosponsored by South Russell GOP Rep. Dave Joyce and Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer. They released a joint statement that said the legislation would save lives and livelihoods

The overwhelming majority of Americans live in a state where cannabis is legal in some form, their statement said. It is common sense and an urgent matter of public safety that these legitimate cannabis businesses have access to standard banking services.

Sabrina Eaton writes about the federal government and politics in Washington, D.C., for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The environment and economy of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River regions of the United States and Canada will be the central focus of U.S. governors and Canadian officials when they meet next month at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland.

A burgeoning cruise industry, ways to reduce the commercial shipping industrys carbon footprint, and finding more uses for commercially caught fish will be among the topics discussed at the Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers leadership summit from Oct. 13 through Oct. 15.

The conference holds a summit every two years in a different city. It was in Milwaukee and 2019, but held virtually in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ohio Gov.r Mike DeWine, current vice chairman of the conference, will provide welcoming remarks a dinner at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Others scheduled to speak at various times during the summit are Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Pennsylvania Gov. John Shapiro.

The governors of Illinois, Minnesota and New York, as well as the premiers of Ontario and Quebec, have yet to commit to attending, said Dave Naftzger, executive director of the organization.

Summit sessions will feature environmental issues, such as the conferences goal of planting 250 million trees in the region by 2023, as well as strategies to decarbonize regional shipping while simultaneously seeking to increase maritime trade, according to the summits agenda.

Another session will highlight the organizations 100% Great Lakes Fish project, which is an effort to find uses - other than as food - for commercially caught fish.

Commercial fishing is limited in Ohio waters of Lake Erie. Walleye, for example, can only be caught by recreational anglers. Yellow perch, on the other hand, is game for commercial fishing in Ohio. The executive secretary of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission will moderate a panel discussion.

Also, Ohio officials will share details of the states H20hio program, which includes efforts to reduce toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie, create wetlands and ensure safe drinking water throughout the state.

The last session of the conference will take aim at cruising on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. Cleveland has become a popular port of call in the growing industry.

Anna Tanski, tourism director for the Conference of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, will moderate a discussion with the director of the Port of Milwaukee, president of the Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce, and the head of expedition operations at Viking Cruises.

Naftzger said he expects about 150 to 200 people to attend the summit. They will include elected officials as well as staff members and other high-ranking government representatives Kirsten Hillman, Canadian ambassador to the United States, and U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, a Warrensville Heights Democrat, are scheduled to speak during lunch on Oct. 14.

Participation in the summit is by invitation only and is not open to the public, Naftzger said.
COLUMBUS, OhioDuring Ohios last redistricting cycle in 2021 and 2022, Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission repeatedly refused to vote for state legislative maps passed by the Republican majority, saying they were too gerrymandered to support.

On Tuesday, the commissions two Democratic members again had to decide whether to accept maps they believe unfairly help Republicans. But this time, they cut a deal with Republicans and voted to pass a redistricting plan that, while tweaked to help Democrats compared to an initial GOP proposal, could preserve the GOPs Statehouse supermajorities for the next eight years.

Why did the two Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio of Lakewood and House Minority Leader Allison Russo of suburban Columbus, make that decision, even though they believe the maps they voted for are gerrymandered? Why were Republicans willing to make concessions to Democrats instead of pressing their advantage on a commission they controlled? And what happens now?

The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com spoke with several individuals involved with the redistricting process as negotiations played out behind closed doors.

What did Democrats get

When the Ohio Redistricting Commission convened earlier this month, Antonio and Russo repeated statements they previously made that neither of them would vote for any redistricting plan that either maintained or expanded GOP advantages compared to the current map.

In the end, they voted for a redistricting plan that gives Republicans an advantage of 61 of 99 Ohio House districts and 23 of 33 state Senate districts, according to State Auditor Keith Faber, the commissions Republican co-chair.

Thats more favorable to Republicans than the maps that were used in last years legislative elections, which the Ohio Supreme Court found to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. Those maps, which gave the Republicans an on-paper edge in 56 House seats and 18 Senate seats, resulted in the GOP winning 67 House seats and 26 Senate seats last November -- the largest majorities that either party has held since the Ohio legislature went to one-member districts in the 1960s.

However, the final maps contained several Democratic-friendly tweaks compared to the initial plan introduced by Republicans earlier this month, which would have created 62 GOP-leaning districts in the House and 23 in the Senate.

Specifically, three Senate districts, all in urban and suburban areas, were modified to benefit Democrats. They are District 6, where the Republican incumbent, state Sen. Niraj Antani of suburban Dayton suddenly finds himself in a district with a significant Democratic majority; District 16, where Republican state Sen. Stephanie Kunze of suburban Columbus is term-limited; and District 24, a suburban Cuyahoga County district held by term-limited Republican Sen. Matt Dolan of Chagrin Falls.

The new Senate map includes only four competitive tossup districts. Antonio said Tuesday that if Democrats can win those seats, they would have 13 members  enough to break the Republican supermajority in the Senate.

Several House districts were also changed to become more friendly to Democrats, either compared to the legislative map used last year or the initial draft map from Republicans this year. The changes, among other things, help Democrats in Cuyahoga and Lucas counties

Russo, in an interview, said Republicans in negotiations werent focused as much on how many seats each party would be likely to get overall as they were about altering specific districts in specific areas of the state.

The Republican members of this commission have wanted just to focus regionally and not look at the map in its totality, she said.

Why Democrats made a deal

During and after Tuesday nights redistricting commission meeting to approve the maps, Antonio and Russo laid out two reasons for supporting them. Antonio called herself a pragmatist and said the final maps are more fair than the initial GOP proposal. In addition, both of them expressed hope that the plan they passed wouldnt be used beyond 2024, when redistricting reformists hope to pass a new constitutional amendment overhauling the states redistricting process entirely.

Russo, in an interview Wednesday, offered additional reasons why she didnt refuse to strike a deal with Republicans, as she did during the last redistricting process.

One is that the Ohio Supreme Court is expected to be more sympathetic to GOP-passed redistricting efforts now, as Republican Maureen OConnor, a crucial swing vote against the last round of redistricting plans, retired as chief justice earlier this year.

The districts are going to continue to get worse and worse every time we do these redraws, Russo said.

In addition, she said, if Democrats again refused to go along with any redistricting plan, it could result in Ohio having to redraw districts in 2025 for the third time in six years.

At the end of the day, that has very real consequences for voters, Russo said. It has very real consequences in the districts that are represented by members. It has very real consequences when voters dont know who their elected official or what their lines are going to be from election cycle to election cycle.

That stability, she said, gives the space and the time to pursue redistricting reform.

Why Republicans made a deal

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican commission member, said a bipartisan deal provides multiple advantages for the GOP, even though the party had to make concessions to get it.

Similar to Russo, DeWine believes passing eight-year maps was preferable to having to go through another round of redistricting in four years, Tierney said. In addition, he said, having Democratic support makes it less likely that the maps will be challenged or overturned in court.

Hopefully, because of this bipartisan agreement, there wont be litigation challenging the maps and there will be certainty moving forward, Tierney said. I think thats what everybody wanted.

Matthew Eiselstein, a spokesman for Faber, agreed that the benefits for Ohio Republicans from a bipartisan deal are the same as they are for everyone else in the state.

I think any time the parties can come together in agreement, Ohioans and everyone should celebrate that, he said. I know everybody didnt walk away with what they wanted. But at the end of the day, thats typically how compromise works.

Several people familiar with the redistricting negotiations said Faber played a prominent role in getting a deal done  an irony, given that Faber only reluctantly became the commissions co-chair after House Speaker Jason Stephens and Senate President Matt Huffman deadlocked on the issue for a week.

Lawsuits?

Democrats decision to join Republicans in passing a redistricting plan brought scorn from many redistricting reform activists, including some from groups that filed lawsuits against past GOP-authored redistricting maps.

This was a bipartisan sweetheart deal. This is not what the voters wanted, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, in an interview. They wanted transparent mapmaking -- they wanted, you know, communities kept together. They wanted to participate in meaningful elections. And they wanted you know, to end gerrymandering. ... The whole process was much different, but it doesnt mean that we actually got better maps.

Turcer said her group is still deciding whether to file suit against the redistricting commission  not only to challenge the constitutionality of the new maps, but also to assert that the commissions closed-door negotiations violated state open-meetings law.

Turcer said the main reason for the hesitation is that her group is wondering whether the time and money needed to launch such a legal challenge would be better spent working to get the proposed redistricting reform measure on the ballot next year. In addition, she said, we dont have faith that if they (the commission) were to go back and do it again, that it would be any different than the six previous times (the commission drew maps).

Freda Levenson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said her group is also still deciding whether to file suit. She said ACLU of Ohio leaders will likely make a decision by early next week.

Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

An earlier version of this story misstated the day of the Ohio Redistricting Commissions vote. It was Tuesday.
Jeff Johnson was a political shooting star who flamed out early. Handsome and charismatic, he embraced politics at a young age, earned a law degree at Case Western Reserve University in 1984, was immediately elected to Cleveland City Council and then to the Ohio Senate in 1990, where in 1997 he was named legislator of the year by two bar associations.

And then, position and power got the best of him. In 1998, he was convicted of using his position for financial gain, served nine months in prison, and has been trying to rebuild his reputation and career ever since.

Johnson has attempted unsuccessfully to return to the political forefront by running for a number of other positions, including Cleveland mayor and the U.S. Congress. He served eight more years on City Council and in a raft of other public service positions, and is currently a magistrate for Cleveland Housing Court.

It is time for voters to acknowledge his years of a clean record, oft-repeated remorse, and the public service he has contributed to this city over the last 25 years  and to grant him the redemption he seeks.

Johnson, 65, is running for Cleveland Municipal Court judge in the term that begins Jan. 5, replacing retiring Judge Michael Nelson Sr. He has two formidable opponents, but his combination of intelligence, broad experience and a deep connection to the city makes him the best choice.

Opposing Johnson are appointed Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Mark R. Majer, 58, and Heather McCollough, 57, who is a prosecutor and assistant law director for East Cleveland. Majer, who recently moved from Gates Mills to Clevelands West Side, was appointed in February to another seat on the municipal bench, but elected to seek Judge Nelsons spot on the municipal bench instead. He is thoughtful, with a significant legal background, and would make a fine choice. But it is Johnson, with his multifaceted experience with legal matters as an attorney, magistrate, on council and in the state legislature, and his passion for and understanding of the city and its residents, who is the best person for the job.

Voters in Cleveland and Bratenahl should elect Jeff Johnson to Cleveland Municipal Court in the Jan. 5 term. Early voting in the Nov. 7 election begins Oct. 11.

As part of its endorsement process, the editorial board of The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com on Sept. 18 interviewed two of the three candidates for Cleveland Municipal Court judge in the Jan. 5 term, an open seat since incumbent Judge Michael Nelson Sr. cannot seek another term because of Ohios age limits. Interviewed were former City Councilman Jeff Johnson, now a magistrate in Cleveland Housing Court and East Cleveland Assistant Law Director Heather McCollough. The general election race is nonpartisan but both Johnson and McCollough are Democrats. The third candidate, Mark R. Majer, was interviewed separately. Listen to audio of the interview with Johnson and McCollough below:

As part of its endorsement process, the editorial board of The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com on Sept. 25 interviewed Mark R. Majer, the third candidate in the race for Cleveland Municipal Court in the Jan. 5 term. Technical difficulties had prevented him from being able to participate in an earlier interview with the other two candidates. Judge Majer was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in February to finish out the Jan. 3 Cleveland Municipal Court term of former Judge Pinkey S. Carr. He chose to seek election for this seat instead. Listen to audio of the interview with Majer below:

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.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com

Other resources for voters:

League of Women Voters vote411.org voters guide.

Judge4Yourself Cuyahoga County bar association coalition 2023 judicial ratings.

Judicial Votes Count nonpartisan educational state website on judicial candidates.
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Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Stumbling along

Futures were higher Wednesday morning, but U.S. equities markets are coming off a rough Tuesday as September limps toward its last days of trading. All three major indices fell over 1%. The Dow had its worst day since March. It was just one of those days where nothing felt right. New home sales plunged in August, Amazon was hit with a big antitrust lawsuit (more below) and the Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell more than expected. Follow live market updates.

2. FTC accuses Amazon of monopoly

The Amazon Prime logo is displayed on the side of an Amazon delivery truck on June 21, 2023 in Richmond, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission filed a long-expected lawsuit against Amazon in federal court, accusing the e-commerce giant of using "monopoly power" to stifle competition. The agency, along with 17 states, said Amazon unlawfully uses anti-discounting measures to keep sellers from advertising lower prices, while also pretty much forcing sellers to use Amazon's "costly" fulfillment services. Amazon is geared up for the fight. "If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses  the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do," said Amazon's general counsel.

3. Back to the keyboards

SAG-AFTRA actors and Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers walk the picket line during their ongoing strike outside Netflix offices in Los Angeles, California, September 22, 2023. Mario Anzuoni | Reuters

Hollywood's writers are allowed to work again. The union representing the scribes, the Writers Guild of America, and the group representing the studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, unveiled the terms of their deal, which brought an end to a strike that helped shut down showbiz for nearly 150 days. The agreement includes pay increases, some protections against artificial intelligence, expanded contributions to health and pension plans, and residual payments from streaming. While writers can start working, the actors' union remains on strike, and production on narrative films and television shows will remain at an effective standstill until that's resolved.

4. 'Union Joe' joins the picket line

U.S. President Joe Biden joins striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the picket line outside the GM's Willow Run Distribution Center, in Belleville, Wayne County, Michigan, September 26, 2023. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

President Joe Biden showed off his pro-union bona fides Tuesday, joining striking auto workers on a picket line in Michigan. "Stick with it. You deserve a significant raise and other benefits," Biden said through a bullhorn to a crowd of United Auto Workers members, including President Shawn Fain. "We saved them, it's about time they step up for us." Michigan is a key state for Biden's reelection hopes next year. He won it by a narrow margin in 2020, while his likely rival, former President Donald Trump, won it in a close contest in 2016. Trump is headed to Michigan on Wednesday. Only, he'll be speaking at an auto supplier whose workers aren't represented by the UAW.

5. Target closes stores, citing crime

A shopper looks down an aisle in a Target store in Upper Saint Clair, Pa., on Friday, July 7, 2023. Gene J. Puskar | AP
Washington, D.C. - March 17, 2023: President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speak outside the Annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon at the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. is in a weaker position now than when S&P downgraded its sovereign credit rating in 2011, according to the former chairman of the agency's sovereign rating committee.

The world's largest economy is once again facing the prospect of a government shutdown unless lawmakers in Washington can pass a spending bill before an Oct. 1 deadline.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cannot afford to lose more than four votes among fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives, but faces resistance from hard-right members within his caucus, who are demanding deeper domestic spending cuts.

Moody's earlier this week warned that a government shutdown would harm the country's credit, after Fitch downgraded the long-term U.S. sovereign credit rating by one notch in August on the back of the latest political standoff over raising the debt ceiling.

S&P controversially downgraded the long-term credit rating from AAA representing a "risk free" rating to AA+ as early as 2011, citing political polarization after another debt ceiling squabble in Washington.

John Chambers, former chairman of the Sovereign Rating Committee at S&P Global Ratings at the time of that 2011 downgrade, told CNBC's "Capital Connection" on Tuesday that a government shutdown is likely and that the whole episode was a "sign of weak governance."

This was a factor that led to S&P's downgrade of 2011, and Chambers said the U.S. fiscal position is now even weaker than it was back then.

"Right now the deficit of the general government  which is the federal and the local governments combined  is over 7% of GDP and the government debt is 120% of GDP. At the time, we forecasted that it might get to 100% of GDP, and the government ridiculed us for being too scaremongering," he said.
Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Admiral Viktor Sokolov attends a ceremony marking 240th anniversary of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea May 13, 2023. Alexey Pavlishak | Reuters

Mystery continues to surround the fate of the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, who Ukraine claimed it had killed in a missile strike on the Russian naval headquarters in Crimea. Russia's Defense Ministry published a video Tuesday in which Adm. Viktor Sokolov was seen attending a video conference with Russian defense officials  although it is unknown if that meeting actually took place that day or when the video was filmed. Neither Sokolov or the naval commanders speak during the video. The plot thickened Wednesday when a television station run by the Defense Ministry published a second video purportedly showing Sokolov alive. The channel, Zvezda, posted the video on Telegram, calling it an "exclusive." Posting an excerpt from the interview and attributing the comments to Sokolov, it said: The Black Sea Fleet is successfully carrying out the tasks the command has set to us, this includes the surface and underwater forces, the sea aviation, the coastal troops. You know these reports which are almost constantly on TV telling about the heroic deeds of our marines." The post was translated by NBC. Again, it's unknown if the interview was filmed before or after Ukraine's strike on the headquarters.



Questions are being asked as to why Ukraine's claims over Sokolov's apparent death have not been referenced in either video, given that they offered ripe opportunities for Russia and Sokolov himself to rebuff the assertions. A top British defense analyst questioned the authenticity of the first Russian video, saying it looks "odd" and was not conclusive evidence that Sokolov is still alive.

Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Viktor Sokolov (left) appears on the screen at the meeting that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held with ministry officials in Moscow, Russia, on Sept. 26, 2023. Russian Defense Ministry | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

"We've looked at the video, it's not very clear and it jumps around quite a lot. We've located the person on the video who looks most like Sokolov, and it may be him, but it's not a completely clear match," defense and security analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News on Tuesday. "It could be Sokolov, looking at previous photographs of him. On the other hand, there's still no proof that this video is really current," he said, adding that "there's a lot of evidence that Sokolov was in the building that was hit on Friday by a couple of Storm Shadow missiles." "So, it is possible that Sokolov lives. But I think the Russians would have to produce more convincing evidence than this if they want to be taken seriously on this particular issue."

Viktor Sokolov attends a ceremony marking the 240th anniversary of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea, on May 13, 2023. Alexey Pavlishak | Reuters

Clarke noted that it was "odd that producing a rather vague video and saying he's here somewhere, and leaving it to news organizations like us to try to work out who it might be, is less than clear in the message they were trying to send."

Awkward for Ukraine

The emergence of the video certainly puts Ukraine in an awkward position as it appeared to directly contradict Ukraine's claims on Monday that its strikes on the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters in Sevastopol on Friday had killed the commander and 33 other naval officers, as well as injuring more than 100 other personnel. Ukraine did not say how it had counted the number of dead and injured and had not named any alleged victims. After the video's emergence, Ukraine conceded that Sokolov's death had not been confirmed, saying it was still "clarifying information" around the attack, stating on Telegram:



"As is known, 34 officers were killed as a result of a missile attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. Available sources claim that among the dead was the commander of the Russian Army. Many still have not been identified due to the disparity of body fragments," Ukraine's special operations forces said.

"Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish an answer with an apparently alive Sokolov, our units are clarifying the information," it added. Earlier, the Kremlin said it had no comment on Ukraine's claim that Sokolov had been killed in the attack. Close followers of the war say the episode could reflect badly on Ukraine because it could cast doubts on other information it publishes or claims it makes in the war. Sam Ramani, a geopolitical analyst and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, noted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that while many Ukrainian sources claimed that Sokolov was dead, Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, had been more cautious in his analysis "and focused on injuries to other key personnel." It now looked "like Budanov's cautious approach was correct," Ramani said. The Institute for the Study of War said in analysis Tuesday that "the situation remains unclear at this time" and that it was "unprepared at this time to make an assessment about the authenticity of the Russian MoD's footage of Sokolov or about Sokolov's status on Earth."

Why it matters

If it's proved that Sokolov is alive, it will be a disappointing blow for Ukraine as it looks to disable the capabilities of Russia's prized and historically important Black Sea Fleet in Russian-occupied Crimea. The fleet supports Russia's invading forces, launching attacks on Ukraine, and is important for Russia in guarding the strategically and economically important Black Sea trade route. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on the fleet in recent days with its strike last Friday causing significant damage to its headquarters. U.K. defense officials noted Tuesday that "a dynamic, deep strike battle is underway in the Black Sea." "This is likely forcing Russia into a reactive posture whilst demonstrating that Ukraine's military can undermine the Kremlin's symbolic and strategic power projection from its warm water port in occupied Sevastopol," the U.K.'s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update on X.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet warships take part in Russia's Navy Day celebrations in the port city of Novorossiysk on July 30, 2023. Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
Indonesia's ministry of trade said Tuesday it is working to further regulate e-commerce, adding that the country does not allow transactions on social media platforms.

"One of the things that is regulated is that the government only allows social media to be used to facilitate promotions, not for transactions," the ministry said in an official release.

This means that users in Indonesia cannot buy or sell products and services on TikTok and Facebook .

The government said it will also bar social media companies from doubling as e-commerce platforms to prevent misuse of public data.

In a media conference Monday, Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan said that "the connection [between social media and e-commerce] must be separated so that the algorithm is not all controlled" and this "prevents the use of personal data" for business purposes.

Indonesia also said it would also regulate which overseas goods can be sold, adding these products would receive the same treatment as offline domestic goods. The move comes as foreign goods become increasingly available in Indonesia through social media platforms.
Pedestrians walk past a Levi's store in Midtown Manhattan. Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The CEO of the world's most famous denim jeans company said he knew from his second day on the job that the best way to turn around the company was to fire more than half of his executives. "The easiest way to change the culture is to change the people. I had 11 direct reports, and in the first 18 months, nine of them were gone," said Charles Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss. Still, Bergh told CNBC's Christine Tan that his biggest regret was not firing the wrong people fast enough. "My biggest regret is that we didn't lean into some of these great leaders, and we lost some because I held on to somebody longer than I should have."

Bergh joined the apparel retailer in 2011 at the worst possible time  consumers were no longer buying Levi's jeans. "The brand was really lost. We had a whole generation of consumers that didn't grow up wearing Levi's like I did when I was a kid," Bergh said. "The company's performance had been really erratic for more than 10 years. One year the revenues would go up, but the profits would go down. The next year, they would fix the profits, but the revenues went down."

Charles Bergh, CEO of Levis Strauss & Co., speaks during the 2015 Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Six years later, Bergh brought what he called a once "broken" brand back into the limelight. In 2017, Levi's delivered 8% annual revenue growth  its highest in a decade and well above the 3.1% growth posted a year earlier. The company kept building, notching 14% year-on-year revenue growth in 2018. Bergh is stepping down as CEO next year and said his biggest legacies will be jolting the company out of complacency and building a team with the brand at the center of culture. "I am just the orchestra conductor and have built an amazing team around me," he added.

Trouble still brewing

Still, it's not all smooth sailing ahead. The company severely cut its 2023 profit outlook after it reported a steep decline in wholesale revenue and soft sales in the U.S., its largest market. It now expects sales to grow between 1.5% to 2.5% this year versus the prior range of 1.5% to 3%. Like many apparel companies, Levi's had to adapt to changing consumer preferences, especially the growing demand for comfortable and looser fit garments as workers returned to offices after the pandemic.

A guest wears a blue denim shirt from Levi's during New York Fashion Week, on September 13, 2022 in New York City. Edward Berthelot | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

In 2021, the company acquired activewear brand Beyond Yoga, a move that Bergh previously told CNBC would help grow its women's business. At the time, he said the goal is for women's wear to account for 50% of Levi's business. "It drives me crazy watching a woman walk into our store, buying our bottoms and then walking out and going to an unnamed competitor's store to buy their top," Bergh said. Sales of women's products made up 35% of net revenue in the first half of the year.

Expanding footprint in Asia

One promising area for Levi's growth is its expansion in Asia. "We're opening bigger stores [and] we're having more of a consumer impact," Bergh said, emphasizing how revenge spending among Chinese customers will be a "huge opportunity" for the brand. ho In the second quarter, revenue from Asia increased by 18% to $262 million.

Pedestrians walk past a Levis store in Hong Kong. Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Activists from the DC Marijuana Justice (DCJM) wave flags during a rally to demand Congress to pass cannabis reform legislation on the East Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, DC on October 8, 2019

A new bill that aims to give the marijuana industry access to banking services moved forward in the Senate on Wednesday.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators last week. The bill would provide legal protection to banks or other financial institutions that offer services to state-legal marijuana businesses.

The Senate Banking Committee voted 14-9 to advance the measure to the full chamber's floor.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill, called its passage a "historic moment" and an "example of significant bipartisan cooperation."

"Forcing legal businesses to operate in all-cash is dangerous for our communities; it's an open invitation to robberies, muggings, money laundering, and organized crimeand the only people benefiting from the current system are criminals," said Merkley in statement.

"I am committed to building bipartisan momentum to finally get a bill signed into law that ends the cannabis cash economy and improves public safety across the nation," he added.

The bill is also being led by Steve Daines, R-Mont.; Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., as well as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Mark Cuban says the "most important" advice he gives his children is simple: It's OK not to know exactly what you want to do with your lives.

The tech billionaire and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks had to reassure his oldest daughter, Alexis, when the Vanderbilt University sophomore admitted she's "not sure" what career to embark on, Cuban told GQ on Tuesday.

"Everybody goes through that process of trying to figure out who they are," Cuban, 65, said, adding that he told his daughter: "You don't have to know what you're going to be. Because everything's always changing. And you're changing, and you're evolving."

Plenty of teens and college students are uncertain about their career paths, rather than having their entire futures already set in stone. Cuban tells his own kids that's fine, just as long as they work hard to keep their options open and continue learning new skills.

"What you've got to be able to do is be agile and excited about learning  to be curious," Cuban said. "That's what's most important. If you're curious, and you're agile, you'll get there eventually. It might not happen when you want it to, but you'll get there eventually."

Don't miss: 31-year-old who brought in $101,000 in a month: I thought I'd 'make scraps' without a college degree

The ability to seek out and learn new skills as time passes  sometimes referred to as a growth mindset  is often cited as a key to success. It can be especially helpful while trying to prepare for an uncertain future, where the most valued skills and knowledge are constantly changing.

Psychologists often advise parents to avoid putting too much pressure on teens and college students to map out their futures: Many young people already have anxiety over getting into college, picking a major or settling on a career. Experts sometimes urge parents to remind their children that there's more than one path to success, and finding your ideal path can take time.

The children of billionaires might have less to worry about than the average teenager, but Cuban said recently that he and his wife Tiffany adamantly tell their children that they must strive to achieve their own success in life.

Cuban himself can also relate, having navigated plenty of uncertainty in his own youth. Years before founding his first successful company, he spent some post-college years sleeping on the floor of an apartment he shared with five friends after being fired from three straight jobs.

On Tuesday, he offered up his own experience as an example how it's OK to be young and not quite have your life figured out yet.

"When I was in my early 20s and I was broke  like, on my ass broke  I was terrified," said Cuban. "I was having fun, I enjoyed my life. But you're not two, three years out of college, sleeping on the floor, just having gotten fired, and thinking, 'This is exactly the way I planned it.'"

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Skyscrapers in the Canary Wharf financial, business and shopping district in London, UK.

LONDON  London's office market is in a "rental recession," according to financial services company Jeffries, who reported that vacancies in the capital's business hub had hit a 30-year high.

Jeffries analysts estimated there had been a 20% contraction in London office usage as working from home and hybrid working, as well as a move toward green offices, continue to be a priority.

It said the level of vacancies was also above the tipping point at which rents would typically start to fall, apart from in the case of sustainability-focused buildings.

Flexible, co-working and serviced offices take up around 9% of London's space and have moved into some of the vacant spaces, Jeffries said.
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A growing legal headache for early front-runner Donald Trump could pave the way for a "dark horse" 2024 Republican presidential candidate to win the backing of the party in the race for the White House. That's the view of one former U.S. ambassador ahead of the Republican Party's second televised presidential debate on Wednesday evening. Seven candidates will take the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California, seeking to close the gap with Trump  who holds a seemingly unshakeable lead over the rest of the field. The former president, who skipped the first Republican Party presidential debate in Wisconsin last month, boasts a lead of more than 40 points over his nearest competition, according to a recent national NBC News poll. Trump has said he doesn't plan to take part in the second Republican debate on Wednesday evening and will instead deliver a speech to autoworkers in Detroit. "I think we are just seeing the beginning of Donald Trump's legal issues starting to pile up on him and I think they are going to start to take its toll," Lew Lukens, former U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and senior partner at Signum Global Advisors, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday. Lukens said there are plenty of Republican Party voters open to alternatives to Trump but they hadn't found one yet, with many seemingly reluctant to get behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis  an early rival to Trump.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd during a campaign rally on September 25, 2023 in Summerville, South Carolina. Sean Rayford | Getty Images

"I still think there is a possibility of a dark horse candidate, somebody like Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, who could jump into the race, attract donors, coalesce the non-Trump voters and come out as the candidate," Lukens said. Youngkin, who spoke in May about ushering in "a new era of American values" in a presidential campaign-like video, has said he is not running for the White House next year, having previously declined to rule out the possibility of a campaign. Republican Party donors have encouraged Youngkin to enter the race and challenge Trump's sizable lead in the polls.

Looking ahead to the second Republican debate, Lukens said one to watch would be former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. "She is trying to carve out that ground where she could be an attractive, maybe not presidential candidate, but maybe on the vice presidential ticket," he said. Alongside DeSantis and Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will take part in the Republican Party's second debate.

Skipping debates 'does have some cost'

Trump's legal problems are well documented. He has been criminally indicted four times and currently faces a series of criminal and civil trials over the coming months that could derail his 2024 presidential run. Trump has repeatedly said he is innocent or not at fault in all of the cases.

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Tom Packer, honorary research fellow at UCL's Institute of the Americas, said it was worth noting that Trump's support fell back slightly after skipping the first primary debate and his decision to miss the second one could also harm his lead in the polls. "I can see why he's avoiding the debate because if he lost the debate that could hurt him more but not turning up to the debates does have some cost," Packer told CNBC's "Street Signs Europe" on Wednesday. "In many ways what the debates have ended up being is a competition as to who is going to be the alternative to Trump and that's perhaps the most important thing about them."

Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin addresses the Economic Club of Washington's luncheon event at the Marriott Marquis on September 26, 2023 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Asked what could disrupt Trump from securing the Republican Party's presidential nomination, Packer cited mounting legal challenges and potential weakness in some early voting states. "One thing to remember is we are still quite a few months away, people like us who follow it very closely are following it, but actually even the kind of people who vote in the Republican primaries  who are quite political people  just aren't following that closely," Packer said. "So, I can easily see Donald Trump having a consistent very large lead and then actually struggling a bit once people start voting," he added. A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden and Trump neck and neck

The latest national NBC News poll, which was conducted between Sept. 15 and Sept. 19, deadlocked President Joe Biden and Trump in a potential rematch ahead of next year's presidential vote. "The latest polls, and you'd always take polls with a grain of salt especially from the U.S., have Trump and Biden essentially neck and neck," Cailin Birch, global economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday.

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US Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife Nadine Arslanian, arrive at the US District Court, Southern District of New York, in New York City on September 27, 2023.

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to federal charges accusing him of pocketing bribes of cash and gold bars in exchange for wielding his political influence to secretly advance Egyptian interests and do favors for local businessmen.

Menendez led his wife, who also pleaded not guilty in the case, by hand out of the courtroom after the brief hearing in the lower Manhattan federal courthouse days after prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging vast corruption by the Democrat.

Menendez spoke in court only when each defendant stood to acknowledge that they understood the charges against them. A lawyer entered the not guilty plea for Menendez, who was forced to step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted.

The senator was ordered released on a $100,000 bond, and he must surrender any personal passports but will be allowed to keep an official passport that would allow him to travel outside the U.S. for government business. The judge ordered him not to have any contact with his co-defendants except for his wife. He also can't have contact with Senate staffers who know about the facts of the case outside of the presence of lawyers.

A defiant Menendez has said allegations that he abused his power to line his pockets are baseless. He has said he is confident he will be exonerated and has no intention of leaving the Senate.

Still, calls for Menendez to resign continued to mount on Wednesday with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, saying "he should step down." More than half of Senate Democrats have now said that Menendez should resign, including fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who said the indictment includes " shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing."

It's the second corruption case in a decade against Menendez, whose last trial involving different allegations ended with jurors failing to reach a verdict in 2017.

Authorities say they found nearly $500,000 in cash, much of it hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than $100,000 in gold bars in a search of the New Jersey home Menendez, 69, shares with his wife.

Charged alongside Menendez is his wife, Nadine, who prosecutors say played a key role in collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes from three New Jersey businessmen seeking help from the longtime lawmaker. An attorney for Nadine Menendez entered a not guilty plea for her on Wednesday, and she was ordered to be released on $250,000 bond secured by her Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home.

Prosecutors allege repeated actions by Menendez to benefit the authoritarian government of Egypt. They say Menendez also tried to interfere in criminal investigations involving associates, in one case pushing to install in New Jersey a federal prosecutor who he believed he could influence to derail a case.

Two of the businessmen, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, also were arraigned and pleaded not guilty. The third, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery. Hana was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges, and he was ordered freed pending trial.

Menendez, in his first public remarks after last week's indictment, said on Monday that the cash found in his home was drawn from his personal savings accounts over the years and that he kept it on hand for emergencies.

One of the envelopes full of cash found at his home, however, bore Daibes' DNA and was marked with the real estate developer's return address, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Hana promised to put Menendez's wife on his company's payroll in a low- or no-show job in exchange for Menendez using his influential post to facilitate foreign military sales and financing to Egypt. Prosecutors allege Hana also paid $23,000 toward her home mortgage, wrote $30,000 checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars that were found in the couple's home.

The indictment alleges repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt, despite U.S. government misgivings over the country's human rights record that in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid.

Prosecutors, who detailed meetings and dinners between Menendez and Egyptian officials, say Menendez gave sensitive U.S. government information to Egyptian officials and ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of U.S. military support.

Prosecutors have accused Menendez of pressuring a U.S. agricultural official to stop opposing a lucrative deal that gave Hana's company a monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards.
The Levi Strauss & Co. label is seen on jeans in a store at the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, New York, on Feb. 15, 2022.

Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading.

Sirius XM  Shares of the media company fell roughly 2% in premarket trading. A day earlier, Liberty Media proposed combining the Sirius XM tracking stock with the radio company. A special committee composed of board members of Sirius XM is currently considering the proposal.

Levi Strauss  The apparel maker advanced 1.3% in premarket trading after TD Cowen initiated coverage of the stock at an outperform rating. TD Cowen said Levi's is in the "early innings of a favorable denim cycle."

Costco  Shares of the club retailer fell more than 1% even though Costco's fiscal fourth-quarter response came in better than expected. The company generated $4.86 in earnings per share on $78.9 billion of revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, were looking for $4.79 per share on $77.9 billion of revenue. Comparable sales were up just 0.2% in the U.S., however.

ChargePoint  The electric vehicle charging stock popped more than 4% after UBS initiated coverage of ChargePoint with a buy rating, saying that the recent stock performance creates an attractive risk/reward.

XPO  The trucking company climbed about 2% following an upgrade to outperform from Evercore ISI. Analyst Jonathan Chappell forecast greater margin expansion and pricing power from the company.

Lucid , Rivian  Shares of the EV makers ticked up 2.1% and 2%, respectively. Both stocks rose a day earlier as the United Auto Workers strike deepened and garnered support from President Joe Biden, who joined a picket line in Michigan.

Mattel  Shares of the toymaker gained 2.4% in premarket trading Wednesday after Morgan Stanley initiated Mattel with an overweight rating, calling it a top pick. The firm said Mattel offers some of the best risk-adjusted returns despite a tough macroeconomic environment.

 CNBC's Alex Harring, Jesse Pound, Samantha Subin and Pia Singh contributed reporting.

Correction: LSEG was formerly known as Refinitiv. A previous version misstated the company's former name.
Ramp, a New York City financial tech company, is the No. 1 buzziest startup by growth and demand, according to LinkedIn's latest report on the top startups in the U.S.

Liquid Death jumped to the No. 2 top startup of the year from No. 25 last year, in part after leveraging a cameo from drummer Travis Barker in an ad campaign. And rounding out the top 3 is Whatnot, the livestream shopping platform currently hiring several six-figures roles across product and security functions.

LinkedIn's latest report recognizes the 50 young U.S companies growing quickly based on four factors: employment growth (percentage of headcount increase), engagement (how many non-employees are viewing the startup on LinkedIn), job interest (the rate at which people are viewing and applying to jobs there) and attraction of top talent (how many employees the startup has recruited away from LinkedIn Top Companies).

Retailers, health startups and tech companies leveraging artificial intelligence dominate the list. Overall, nearly one-third, 30%, of this year's top startups were founded in 2020, and many address gaps that the pandemic revealed, such as access to mental health resources and other forms of health care.

Many of the early-stage businesses are hiring for roles in engineering, product and design, analytics, sales and marketing, operations, customer service and security  many of which command six-figure salaries. Remote roles make up more than half of the available jobs at the top startups, says Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief.

Here are the top 10 buzziest startups, according to LinkedIn, along with some of their six-figure job openings based on available data on the job site in late September:
Members of the United Auto Workers, or UAW, Local 230 and their supporters walk the picket line in front of the Chrysler Corporate Parts Division in Ontario, California, on Sept. 26, 2023.

DETROIT  The United Auto Workers union will announce expanded strikes at General Motors , Ford Motor and Stellantis plants if the sides don't make significant progress in negotiations by 10 a.m. ET Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The new union-imposed deadline comes a week after the UAW announced it would expand its initial Sept. 15 strikes at assembly plants of each of the Detroit automakers to 38 additional parts and distribution locations for GM and Stellantis. The UAW did not expand its strikes at Ford , citing progress in those talks.

Like a week earlier, it's expected that UAW President Shawn Fain will host a Facebook Live event to announce which plants will walk out at noon Friday, barring progress in the talks.

The strikes currently involve about 18,300 workers, or 12.5% of the UAW's 146,000 members whose labor contracts expired on Sept. 14.

Fain previously said the union planned to increase the work stoppages, based on how negotiations with the companies were going. The union is calling the work stoppages "stand-up strikes," a nod to historic "sit-down" strikes by the UAW in the 1930s.
A view of Sullom Voe Terminal, an oil and gas terminal in the Shetland Islands on September 2021.

LONDON  British regulators on Wednesday gave approval for Norway's energy giant Equinor to develop the controversial U.K. offshore Rosebank field in the North Sea, just off the northwest coast of the Shetland Islands.

The North Sea Transition Authority said it has also given the necessary consent.

The U.K. government said it had given operator Equinor and British energy company Ithaca Energy  which hold respective 80% and 20% stakes in the field  permission to proceed following "extensive scrutiny by the regulators," including regarding the environmental impact of the development.

Ithaca Energy shares jumped 7% by 9 a.m. London time, following the announcement, with Equinor shares higher by roughly 1%. Rosebank stands as the largest untapped field in the U.K.

Equinor says the project will be pursued in two phases and estimates it will create 8.1 billion ($9.8 billion) of direct investment. The company expects the field's start-up stage to take place over 2026-27 and estimates that Rosebank's recoverable resources are over 300 million barrels of oil for its two phases.

"We are investing on our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognise, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank," U.K. Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho said in a statement.

Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said: "We are accelerating renewables and nuclear power, but will still need oil and gas for decades to come  so let's get more of what we need from within British waters."

The Rosebank development has faced repeated delays and intense public backlash amid questions over its environmental impact.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Tuesday plans to increase the supply of modern weapons to the Russian army, according to comments reported by Russian news agency Interfax.

"We continue to increase the combat power of the armed forces, including through the supply of modern weapons and improving the training of troops, taking into account the experience of a special military operation," Shoigu reportedly said at the board of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Shoigu said the plans were designed to be implemented by 2025.

Russian forces in the Southern Military District will receive 5,500 units of modern military equipment this year, he said, "and the commissioning of more than five hundred infrastructure facilities will be completed," he said without giving further details.

He also said that since the beginning of the year, the number of officers in the district has increased by 11,000 people, and contract military personnel by 30,000 people. Shoigu said combat training and training grounds were being modernized.

In addition, Shoigu said that new formations of the Airborne Forces are being created in Russia and their strike capabilities are being increased.

"We continue to equip the Airborne Forces with the latest weapons. Since the beginning of the year, formations and military units have received more than two thousand pieces of equipment and five and a half thousand sets of landing equipment and parachute systems."

Shoigu said that the plans would allow the Airborne Forces to increase their combat potential by 1.3 times by the end of the year, while its firepower would increase by 20%.

 Holly Ellyatt
The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is facing a severe drought that may affect around 500,000 people by the end of the year, authorities said on Tuesday.

Many are already struggling to access essential supplies such as food and water, because the principal means of transportation in the region is waterways, and river levels are historically low. Droughts also impact fishing, a means of subsistence for many riverside communities.

Amazonas state declared an environmental emergency two weeks ago in response to the prolonged drought and launched a response plan valued at USD 20 million.

Authorities will also distribute food and water supplies as well as personal hygiene kits, the state's civil defence agency said in a statement.

Governor Wilson Lima was in Brazil's capital, Brasilia, on Tuesday to meet with representatives of the federal government. Lima spoke with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the drought.

The different levels of government will coordinate measures in support of the people living in the affected municipalities, Lima said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.

Fifteen municipalities were in a state of emergency on Tuesday, while 40 others were on a state of alert, the civil defense authority said.

According to the port of Manaus, which monitors water levels, the river stood at 16.7 metres (55 feet) on Tuesday, around six metres (20 feet) below the same day last year.

The lowest level of water was recorded on October 24, 2010, when the river dropped to 13.6 metres (about 45 feet).

The drought is forecast to last longer and be more intense because of El Nino climate phenomenon, which inhibits the formation of rain clouds, the civil defence authority said.

Climate change exacerbates droughts by making them more frequent, longer and more severe. Warmer temperatures enhance evaporation, which reduces surface water and dries out soils and vegetation.
On September 26, the eve of World Tourism Day, Goa Minister Rohan Khaunte stressed that the state's commitment to focus beyond its beaches, with an emphasis on promoting green tourism is the right step to attract more footfalls. Khaunte said that green tourism represents a progressive path for an industry that forms the bedrock of Goa's economy, PTI quoted the Khaunte as saying.

The state government's "Goa beyond beaches" initiative seeks to shift the tourism spotlight from the coastline to the hinterland, thereby fostering green and sustainable tourism practices.

Speaking about the Goa's homestay policy, Khaunte emphasized its role in nurturing hinterland tourism and generating employment opportunities for locals. He elaborated that hinterland tourism would substantially benefit local communities.

Also read:

The theme of this year's World Tourism Day revolves around the principles of "people, planet, and prosperity." Khaunte underscored the focus on tourism and sustainable investments in line with this theme.

In discussing the concept of green tourism, Khaunte acknowledged the challenges involved, including mobilising citizen action for sustainable tourism, adopting improved measurement practices for better management, safeguarding and empowering local populations, supporting biodiversity conservation, and transitioning towards sustainable infrastructure and operations.

He highlighted the growing success of the youth Tourism clubs in colleges, with approximately 75 educational institutions now hosting such clubs.

Recently, the Khaunte had warned that foreign travellers were preferring Gulf states in the Middle East over Goa for leisure travel. He pointed out pointed out that the sector is facing new challenges from emerging destinations like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

He emphasised the need to explore new avenues beyond the traditional beach tourism and to promote sustainable tourism practices for future generations. Khaunte highlighted that the growing competition from Saudi Arabia which is working on an ambitious Red Sea Development project and is set to be completed ahead of schedule is something where tourists would want to go. Additionally, Bahrain is making strides as a preferred wedding destination, attracting couples from around the world. These developments present a potential threat to Goa's tourism industry.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  TV host and businesswoman Maggie Wilson called out content creators who allegedly accepted payment to join a disinformation campaign against her and her interior and decor company Acasa Manila on TikTok.

Upon a quick search on the app, several content creators can be seen reciting the opening line, "Habang nag-scroll ako sa Instagram nakita ko ang story ni Maggie Wilson.

[Translation: Upon scrolling on Instagram, I saw Maggie Wilson's story].

The influencers went on to talk about customers allegedly scammed by the company and Wilsons partner Tim Connor.

Wilson posted screenshots of the reported script and offer sent to the TikTokers.

Wilson asked the influencers who reportedly received up to 8,000 to record and post the videos to come forward to avoid facing legal actions. She also asked those who were part of the alleged coordinated attack to reach out to her and Connor to disclose the dealings.

"To all the content creators, organisers, and others that participated in this campaign: We have all your names and many of your IDs, places of work, school, etc. Even if the videos were deleted," she posted in a series of Instagram Stories.

"Once we receive it, we will decide whether to include you in our legal action through the criminal justice system. We encourage you to present this within the next 24 hours," she added.

Connor said they have received apologies from several TikTokers who participated in the malicious attack.

"What an absolute car crash of a smear campaign," he wrote.

TikTok user @rolyn_jay with 9.9 million followers posted an apology video on his account. He admitted that the video was scripted and he received 7,000 while 1,000 went to the person who recruited him.

Wilson claimed that Rachel Carrasco, the current partner of her estranged husband businessman Victor Consunji, is behind the campaign. But the said post is no longer available on her IG story. CNN Philippines has reached out to Carrasco but she has yet to respond.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 6)  The Office of the President (OP) has distanced itself from Vice President Sara Dutertes message to China on its 74th founding anniversary, in which she expressed hope that its partnership with the Philippines will prosper, according to ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Erwin Tulfo.

At the continuation of plenary debates Tuesday on House Bill 8980 or the proposed General Appropriations Act of 2024, Tulfo, the sponsor of the OPs budget, said Dutertes statement does not reflect the governments stand on China.

In a video greeting shown Sept. 21, Duterte expressed her hope for expanded areas of cooperation between the Philippines and China, especially in the field of education and youth development.

"We hope that our partnership will prosper in the areas of agriculture, trade, investment, science and technology," Duterte said.

Tulfo did not give a direct response when Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel asked if Dutertes statement can be considered an act of treachery, particularly in light of Chinas aggression in the South China Sea.

"Ang ganitong mga sinabi ng Vice President, this is not consistent with the remarks of the Defense Secretary. Ang sinabi ng Defense Secretary sa committee budget briefing ay nagpo-portray ng cold attitude towards China, given its encroachment in the West Philippine Sea," the lawmaker pointed out.

[Translation: These words of the Vice President, this is not consistent with the remarks of the Defense Secretary. What the Defense Secretary said in the committee budget briefing portrays a cold attitude towards China, given its encroachment in the West Philippine Sea.]

"How can the President reconcile these incompatible stances of his Vice President and his Defense Secretary?" Manuel questioned. "Maituturing ba nating pagta-traydor sa bansa ang ganitong mga mensahe ng VP?" [Can we consider such messages of the VP as treason?]

"Yung mensahe po ng VP ay sa kanya po yung mensahe but it doesnt reflect the message of the OP or the entire nation," Tulfo maintained. [The message of the VP is her own message and does not reflect the message of the OP or the entire nation.]

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin was present during the deliberations.

CNN Philippines reached out to the OP to confirm the matter.

Tensions continued between the two countries after China installed a "floating barrier" in an area in Bajo De Masinloc, also known as Panatag or Scarborough Shoal.

The Philippine Coast Guard has removed the 300-meter-long barrier that prevented Filipino fishermen from entering the shoal, while Beijing warned Manila not to "provoke and cause trouble" after this most recent incident over competing maritime claims of the two nations.

CNN Philippines' correspondent Xianne Arcangel contributed to this story.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  Leaders of the House of Representatives are asking the so-called big three oil playersShell Pilipinas Corporation, Petron Corporation, and Chevron Philippinesto increase the amount of fuel discounts to public utility vehicle (PUV) operators and even include private car owners in the coverage as a way of easing the impact of soaring prices.

House leaders appear to have become lukewarm to Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdezs earlier proposal to suspend the excise tax on fuel after the Department of Finance (DOF) opposed the idea, warning that as much as P15 billion in revenues will be lost until the end of the year.

In a consultative meeting with oil industry players held Tuesday, lawmakers told representatives of the oil companies to improve the discounts they offer to consumers.

ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Erwin Tulfo said the meager discount offered by oil firms at present is no longer sufficient.

"Ang pakiusap na lang ng Kongreso dagdagan ninyo yung discounts na pinamimigay ninyong Big Three. Baka pwede ninyong doblehin o dagdagan ng piso, 2 sa gasolina, diesel. Malaking maitutulong," he said

"Tapos baka pwedeng isama niyo na ang private sector, yung may sasakyan. Kasi hindi naman lahat ng tao nagco-commute," Tulfo added.

[Translation: Congress is asking that the Big Three add to the discounts you are giving. Maybe double it or add 1, 2 to gasoline and diesel. It would be a big help. And then maybe you could also include the private sector, those who have their own vehicles. Because not everyone commutes.]

Four fuel companies currently offer discounts ranging from 0.50 to 3 per liter for drivers of public utility vehicles, based on a list from the Department of Finance.

Tulfo said the House will consider reviewing the law requiring bioethanol to be added to the fuel mix sold commercially to further bring costs down.

With Congress set to go on a month-long recess on September 30, Tulfo said House leaders will no longer meet with oil industry players. The meeting between the private sector and lawmakers started last week to discuss possible solutions to the soaring fuel costs.

Tulfo said lawmakers will await the fuel companies decision on the Houses suggestion, with the warning that their failure to cooperate might result in tougher measures to be taken against them.

"Well just wait for their decision kasi alam naman nila, kahit si Congressman Marcoleta, nag-warning po ang Speaker na pag di kayo tumulong, may mga actions na gagawin" he said.

"Isa nga diyan inilatag ni Congressman Marcoleta during our first meeting, pwedeng i-review uli ang Oil Deregulation Law. Mas mabigat yun. Pag niregulate natin ang law ng oil deregulation. Pag ibinasura yan mas aaray sila. So meron pang weapons tayo," Tulfo added.

[Translation: We'll just wait for their decision because they know, and even Congressman Marcoleta, the Speaker has given a warning that if they don't help, actions will be taken. One of the things being prepared by Congressman Marcoleta during our first meeting, is to review the Oil Deregulation law. That's heavier. If we regulate the law. It will hurt them if we scrap that. So we still have weapons.]
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  Senators called on the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Tuesday to review the hiring process for airport personnel, especially security screening officers, following the recent incident of alleged theft.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian raised the concern a week after a screening officer was seen swallowing $300 allegedly stolen from a departing passenger at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 last Sept. 8.

DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista believes one way to solve this recurring problem is to regularize the security screening personnel under the Office for Transportation Security (OTS), adding that the screeners receive low salaries.

However, Sen. Ronald Bato dela Rosa does not believe regularization is the solution.

Siguro yung vetting, Sir. Kahit na napakababa yung sweldo, kahit na hindi sila regular, pero kung na-vet niyo nang properly yan, marami siguro mag-apply, he said.

[Translation: Maybe its the vetting process, Sir. Even if the pay is low and it is not a regular position, but if they were vetted properly, I think many will apply.]

We are not blaming you, the senator said. They were there before you assumed. Sana yung vetting lang natin ay siguruhin na matinong tao makuha natin kahit mababa yung sweldo [But the vetting should assure that we will hire decent people even it the position has a low pay].

Gatchalian backed the proposal of Dela Rosa, citing the need to instill confidence among local and foreign passengers.

Tourists that come here, visitors that come here from another country, it does not inspire them to come here seeing all these things that happen inside our airport, Gatchalian added.

For her part, Sen. Grace Poe proposed the inclusion of psychiatric evaluations in the requirement.

Another proposal from the DOTr chief was to transfer the responsibility of hiring and employment of personnel to the operator.

For example, in Cebu, the screeners are hired not by the OTS but by the Cebu authorities, the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority, Bautista said.

According to OTS Deputy Administrator Jose Briones, the monthly salary of a security screening officer is 16,000.

Briones said these security screening officers are directly hired, following an interview, scholastic record review, and background checks. He added that most of those hired are college graduates.

Briones said they expect the results of the investigation to be out in a months time.

We have investigated already the case. Initially that was the cover-up or the alibi of the security screening officer. But subsequent video footage as shown in the caught up by the video, it appears that what she has swallowed was the $300 dollar bill, he said.

In a statement, OTS Administrator Ma.O Aplasca recognized the systemic and cultural problem of the office, calling for short-term and long-term initiatives, including enhanced training and internal cleansing programs.

The OTS said it has investigated 68 administrative cases for disciplinary and administrative policies, of which 11 personnel have been dismissed.

It said it is seeking laws to make the office a more stable organization, as well as requesting the Department of Budget and Management to raise the salaries of personnel.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  The Philippines has secured the support of some nations in the country's campaign for a seat at the United Nations Security Council for 2027 to 2028, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) told a Senate panel on Tuesday.

RELATED: PH campaigns for a UN Security Council seat with 'rule of law, peace and stability' as key interests

So we have already a number, but many countries have not yet made a formal decision, but we already have a count of those who have already formally committed in writing to support our candidature either unilaterally or through some kind of a mutual arrangement, DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo said.

We are beginning to campaign because the earlier we start the better, he added.

Sen. Loren Legarda, who led the committee hearing, vowed full support for the Philippines' bid to secure the seat.

The election for the council seat for the 2027-2028 period will be in 2026. A country needs the votes of two-thirds of the members of the UN General Assembly to clinch a seat.

In July, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reaffirmed its support for the Philippines candidacy for the non-permanent seat.

Kyrgyzstan has already announced its candidature, Manalo said.

But for the Philippine UPR Watch, a delegation of human rights defenders and advocates engaged in the Universal Periodic Review process of the UN Human Rights Council, the Philippines is unworthy of membership in the UN Security Council.

It said the country simply lacks credibility because it is in violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.

How can the Philippines take on the task of international peace and safety when it is much of an epic fail on the domestic front? said National Union of People's Lawyers Kristina Conti, who is part of the Philippine UPR Watch.

Conti also raised that the refusal to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a direct challenge to international authority.

The so-called war on drugs and the war on terror have been bloody, intense, and continuous, she said. We have a long list of police abuses, military brutality, and government misuse of power.

On ASEAN chairmanship

Meanwhile, Manalo said it would need two years, at least to prepare the Philippines for the chairmanship of the ASEAN in 2026.

READ: PH to assume chairmanship of ASEAN in 2026

Kasi [because] as chairman, we will have to not only worry about logistics but we have to start preparing, you know, our themes, the issues that we will focus on, he said.

The DFA chief told Legarda that the country will have to host senior officials meetings and ministerial meetings, as well as the ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit in 2026.

However, he said the DFA may request additional funding in the 2025 budget instead.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Ombudsman Samuel Martires said on Wednesday his office can do without confidential funds in the investigation and prosecution of cases.

Id like to be the first from the investigating agencies to request Congress that if it will only taint the integrity of the office, Id rather not have confidential funds during my term of office, Martires said during a Senate finance sub-committee hearing on the Ombudsmans 2024 budget.

The Ombudsman, a constitutional commission, is responsible for investigating and prosecuting government officials accused of crimes, especially graft and corruption.

Martires made the statement after Senator Koko Pimentel pointed out that some agencies have not requested for confidential funds, namely, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Migrant Workers.

Maybe the Ombudsman can be the third agency but with those compromises, the use of savings ibigay po namin iyon [We'll give those] for the flexibility of the office, Pimentel said

He said accepting the fund will not taint the Office of the Ombudsman, however, rejecting it will encourage other agencies to follow suit if the item is not needed.

Senator Sonny Angara asked if the Ombudsmans functions would be affected without confidential funds.

Martires said he has other ways of gathering information.

I can always smile at my friends and treat them over a cup of coffee. They can do that for us, Martires said.

Baka iyong intel na ibibigay sa inyo justice pang-kape lang iyong intel na ibibigay, Im just playing devils advocate, Angara said.

[Translation: But maybe the intel that they will give the justice will also be like an amount of a cup of coffee.]

The Office of the Ombudsman is proposing a budget of around P5 billion for next year. The sub-committee endorsed it to the plenary.

It also approved the Commission on Audits 2024 budget with no questions asked.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  Two lawmakers on Wednesday weighed in on the legality of the allocation of 125 million to the Office of the Vice Presidents (OVP) confidential funds in 2022.

In a statement on Sept. 5, the Office of the Executive Secretary (OES) defended the decision of the Office of the President (OP) to approve the release of 221.42 million requested by the OVP, which includes the 125 million for confidential funds.

The OES said the OP complied with Special Provision No. 1 under the 2022 Contingent Fund, authorizing the OP to approve releases to cover funding requirements of new, existing, or urgent activities that need to be implemented.

Speaking to CNN Philippines The Source, House Deputy Majority Leader Janette Garin said the release of the funds was legal as it complies with Special Provision No. 1, noting that what was not allowed was the purchase of vehicles.

She also noted that the source of the funds was the contingent fund lodged before the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) under the special purpose fund and not the OP as earlier reported.

The usual process is the requesting agency submits to DBM, the DBM vetsand then they forward it to recommend approval to the president. Now the president approves, DBM releases the fund, Garin explained.

For Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas, the allocation for confidential funds is against Joint Circular No. 2015-01, which provides the guidelines on the entitlement, release, use, reporting, and audit of confidential and intelligence funds.

The circular states that such funds should be used only for activities that are confidential and those relevant to national security and peace and order.

The OES said the 125 million requested by the OVP was for newly created satellite offices.

While Garin maintained that the allocation of funds was legal, she agreed that the OVP should follow Joint Circular No. 2015-01 when utilizing the 125-million funding.

Brosas also said placing 125 million under the OVPs confidential funds violates Article 6, Sec. 25.6 of the 1987 Constitution that states Discretionary funds appropriated for particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.

Dapat ibalik kung hindi tamang ginamit yung pondo ng bayan (This should be returned if public funds were not used appropriately), Brosas said, adding that the Commission on Audit should release a report on the utilization of the fund.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday said the government's push for innovation by way of a revamped curriculum and bolstered spending will help propel the country forward.

Marcos made the statement in his speech at the launch of the National Innovation Agenda Strategy Document (NIASD) 2023-2032, which the National Economic and Development Authority says is "a document that contains the countrys vision and long-term goals for innovation."

Marcos said the NIASD was not just a document, but a commitment to make innovation part of the country's development agenda.

He said education and the academe were among the drivers of innovation.

"We shall reform our education curriculum design and learning platforms to develop the creativity, curiosity, problem solving skills and entrepreneurial abilities of Filipinos for the 21st century," Marcos said.

He called the academe "incubators of talent, skills, and ideas" that would shape the future.

RELATED: DepEd pilot tests MATATAG curriculum in 35 schools

The president added that similar attention will be given to areas that would further boost the economy.

"We shall bolster spending for research and development, support local enterprises, ensure food security through smart agricultural inputs to empower local producers, facilitate efficient and secure financial services, accelerate digitalization efforts to boost manufacturing processes and commercialization of products and services, improved mobility through better urban-rural linkages and reduce carbon footprints of our transport systems," he said.

Filipinos, Marcos said, will match the investments being made by the government as they will help fuel the drive towards innovation.

The president also called on foreign partners for collaboration.

"Let us join hands to advance our shared positive development goals," he said. "Let us foster unity not only here in our country but also across the globe through the transformative power of innovation."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 25)  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday signed into law a measure creating an employment master plan for the Philippines.

The enactment of the Trabaho Para sa Bayan Act seeks to provide a boost to employment recovery and give more jobs to Filipinos.

In his speech, Marcos said an inter-agency council would be created to focus on the establishment of the employment master plan.

He said the passage of the measure will support the current administration's target of achieving a "sustainable and inclusive development of the country."

Marcos said the law will address low-quality jobs, skills mismatch, and underemployment, as well as increase the usage of digital technologies.

The chief executive said the government would incentivize employers and private players who will facilitate skills development and knowledge sharing among businesses and workers.

Micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses can also expect expanded access to financial services, he added.

The Palace said the new law will spur Philippine economic growth as this would "create decent employment and promote the competitiveness, wellness and productivity of workers."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  The Office of the Vice President (OVP) on Wednesday clarified that it spent its 125-million confidential funds in 2022 in a span of 19 days, disputing the earlier claim of the Commission on Audit (COA) that the amount was exhausted in only 11 days.

Davao de Oro 1st district Rep. Ma. Carmen Zamora, who sponsored the OVP's budget before the House of Representatives plenary, said the agency only began implementing projects when it received the confidential funds on Dec. 13, 2022.

"To say that the Office of the Vice President spent the confidential fund in 11 days, the office submits its stand that it is inaccurate," she said.

"The implementation of the programs started on the day that the SARO was released on December 13 of 2022. Which means, after immediately the release of SARO the implementation has already started," she added.

This supports the earlier findings of ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro that the OVP spent all 125 million of its confidential funds, which the latter indicated would be used for "newly created satellite offices", in only 19 days.

But Marikina 2nd district Rep. Stella Quimbo, who sponsored COA's budget, said the confidential funds were spent in only 11 days.

Zamora stressed that the OVP already laid out its plans prior to the release of the confidential funds in 2022.

"Prior to the release of this fund, plans were already laid down by the Office of the Vice President. Which actually became the basis for the request of the Office of the Vice President for a confidential fund," she said.

Although the OVP reiterated that it complied with a 2015 government circular on the use of confidential funds, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas said that it must be known where the 125 million was used.

"Kailangan po nating talagang malaman kung ano ang pinagdalhan sa 125 million confidential funds. In the first place, we are questioning 'yung entitlement ng Office of the Vice President dito," said Brosas.

[Translation: We need to know where the 125 million confidential funds were spent. In the first place, we are questioning the entitlement of the Office of the Vice President on these.]

"Kaya we are asking to abolish these confidential funds. Actually, hindi lang sa ahensya ng OVP, gusto naitn maging accountable lahat ng ahensya na mayroon nito at 'yung mga gustong kumuha pa nito dapat magkaroon ng pamamaraan kung paano ito ginagastos."

[Translation: We want these confidential funds to be abolished. Actually, not just the OVP, but we want all agencies who have such funds to be accountable and those who want to have one should know how to properly utilize them.]

The OVPs budget has yet to undergo debates in the Senate. But Senator Risa Hontiveros and Vice President Sara Duterte already had a heated argument regarding the confidential funds.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 25)  Vice President Sara Duterte immediately sought an additional 403.46 million in funding for the rest of 2022, just less than a month after assuming office.

A copy of a letter sent to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Aug. 22 last year showed Duterte wanted the extra funds "to ensure continuous operations" of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

The letter noted that the additional budget would go to the following purposes:

 144.72 million for "augmentation of financial assistance/subsidy" for her OVP satellite offices in seven areas

 8.74 million for the creation of the Vice President Security and Protection Group

 107.46 million for an additional 192 positions to man her projects, such as satellite offices, free ride program, mobile kitchen, and peace-building initiative in Marawi

 250 million for confidential funds

The letter was signed by the vice president herself.

The DBM, however, only approved 221.42 million as based on a special allotment release order or SARO.

The funds were intended "to cover Financial Assistance/Subsidy and Confidential Fund per Office of the President Approval dated November 28, 2022."

Dutertes office has been on the hot seat over its quest to secure confidential and intelligence funds, even bigger than some agencies engaged in ensuring national security.

Under the General Appropriations Act of 2022, the OVP budget under the leadership of former Vice President Leni Robredo was only 713 million. The figure increased to 947 million after Duterte took over.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27)  The controversial group in Socorro, Surigao del Norte is nestling on 353 hectares of land owned by the government, the provincial governor said Wednesday.

However, authorities would need a search warrant before entering the enclosed and heavily guarded area as the group, Socorro Bayanihan Services Inc. (SBSI), has jurisdiction over it under a Protected Area Community-Based Resource Management Agreement (PACBRMA) for agricultural farming set to expire in 2029.

This is a government property which is being leased for 25 years, Surigao Del Norte Governor Lyndon Barbers told CNN Philippines Politics As Usual. The provincial inter-agency task force is trying to gather information in coordination with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Barbers explained that the task force is probing possible violations of guidelines in acquiring the PACBRMA lease with DENR -- especially since the agreement is for agricultural farming -- in order to cut the lease short and bring back the authority to the government.

If there are really violations, we could ask the DENR to cancel the lease agreement even before the agreed 2029, he explained.

There are around 4,000 members of the SBSI residing in the mountains of Sitio Kapihan.

The Senate is set to hold a hearing on Sept. 28 to look into claims that the SBSI is operating a drug laboratory and the reported presence of armed men believed to be former police officers.

Barbers said the Philippine National Police, along with its drug agency, is currently conducting an investigation into this claim, as he highlighted the challenges of doing so without getting to the area.

I would say it would take some time because for us to really go inside the property, whether it is a government property, it is being leased by an organization," he said. "We would need a search warrant."

Getting a search warrant would be difficult on the part of the PNP and PDEA because you have to identify the specific area to search, and the problem with 353 hectares, medyo mahirap halughugin (its difficult to search), the governor added.

Aside from operating an alleged drug laboratory, the SBSI is also being accused of conducting cult activities, which involved rape, sexual violence, child abuse, and forced marriage among at least 1,000 children,

The governor said he ordered the creation of a task force in May following reports of child labor and early marriages by a former provincial employee, whose husband is a member of the SBSI.

She was barred from entering the property and the only reason that she wanted to go back was to get her husband," Barbers disclosed.

"But she was informed that her husband was married to another woman na," he added. "That was the start."

Minor and adult members of the alleged cult were supposedly made to perform acts of forced labor under pain of physical punishment, and were also forced to surrender 40-60% of their social welfare benefits to a certain Jey Rence Quilario, who has styled himself as a Messiah with an alias Senior Aguila.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 28)  Former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Cielito Habito expressed disappointment after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. rejected the proposal to reduce rice tariffs.

"The idea of reducing or even cutting the tariffs on rice at this point was meant to support his rice [price] cap [implementation]," Habito told CNN Philippines' The Final Word on Wednesday.

Marcos  who's also agriculture chief  rejected his economic managers' proposal on Tuesday, saying it is "not the right time" to cut the tariff imposed on imported rice as world prices are seen to go down.

Habito said easier access to imported rice could have made local rice prices go down below the price ceiling.

"Without that reduction in tariff, it may be more difficult to precisely enforce that price cap," he added. "The tariff cut was meant to make it [rice price cap] unnecessary."

READ: Gov't warns of stricter rice price cap implementation in coming days

Under Executive Order No. 39, which took effect on Sept. 5, regular milled rice may only be sold for up to 41 per kilogram, while the price cap on well-milled rice is at 45 per kilogram.

The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura welcomed Marcos' decision to reject the tariff cut.

The group also said the government may already remove the price cap by October once rice prices reach lower than 45 due to the upcoming harvest season.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 28)  The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will immediately remove floating barriers if China installs them in Ayungin Shoal.

"If they do that in Ayungin we will also have to remove the barriers," AFP Western Command Chief Alberto Carlos said. "We don't have to wait for the order of the president to remove that."

Carlos also encouraged more Filipinos to fish in Ayungin Shoal  assuring them there will be more presence of the AFP, Philippine Coast Guard, and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to monitor the situation.

On Sept. 20, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) discovered that China's Coast Guard installed a 300-meter-long barrier in the southeast portion of Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal.

The PCG removed the barrier, which it said "posed a hazard to navigation, a clear violation of international law."

Bajo de Masinloc is located in the middle of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) inside the country's exclusive economic zone.

Beijing claims the shoal, which it calls "Huangyan Dao," is part of its territorial rights. It warned Manila not to make "provocation" or "stir up trouble" after the removal of the floating barrier.

"What the Philippines did looks like nothing more than self-amusement," China's Foreign Ministry said, adding that China will continue to assert its maritime rights over Scarborough Shoal.

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro has refuted China's allegation that the national government is looking for trouble after the barrier removal in the WPS.

He said it is clear that China's intent is "to control the whole South China Sea."

With reports from CNN Philippines correspondent Tristan Nodalo.
Last spring, Charlotte Combe 26 and Mona Hamad 25 founded Substance Use Harm Reduction at Colorado College with three goals in mind: to provide a small and consistent group of club members to train for and volunteer at the community partners syringe exchange program; to provide opportunities for CC students to learn about harm reduction and overdose prevention on campus through workshops, events, and the creation of education resources; and to organize for harm reduction advocacy at the city and state level through phone banking, writing legislators, and testifying in support of bills.

To accomplish this, the two students partnered with Love Alive, a community-based initiative created by CC alumni in response to the large overdose rates in El Paso County. Love Alive provides fentanyl test strips and Narcan to community members, as well as offering various training sessions, including Narcan administration, overdose prevention training for local businesses, and harm reduction training in faith communities.

Melissa Chizmar 15, who graduated from CC with a degree in Psychology, is the prevention services manager at Love Alive.

In El Paso County, overdose rates have increased in recent years, making harm reduction an even more vital tool in saving lives, says Combe. After meeting with Love Alive in person, we became excited about potentially providing consistent volunteers for their syringe services program. Through the syringe access program, people experiencing houselessness can get access to clean syringes for free and are connected to community resources like free bus transportation.

Combes journey with substance use harm reduction principles began after a student at her high school overdosed and passed away at a gas station a block away from their school during his lunch break.

My whole life, I've been taught an abstinence, D.A.R.E model of drug use; adults always told me to just say no to drugs, Combe says. The thing is that doesnt reflect reality. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 19.7 million American adults, aged 12 and older, battled a substance use disorder in 2017. Its likely that many people reading this right now have struggled with addiction or personally know someone who has. Clearly, the just say no model of drug use prevention doesnt meet people where they are.

Similar to Charlotte, my interest in safer substance use and harm reduction principles began as a response to restrictive education, says Hamad. Growing up in Texas, the heart of the Bible Belt, the only education we received was abstinence-based. Substance users were stigmatized and depicted as individuals with minimal formal education and violent criminals, not as humans with addictions. I vividly remember crowding around wheel-in TV screens as early as sixth grade to watch videos on how marijuana is a gateway drug and to never give in to peer pressure. I also watched how this form of education, and lack thereof, had significant negative repercussions.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, harm reduction is a practical approach that centers the lived and living experiences of people who use drugs and incorporates community-driven public health strategies.

Harm reduction recognizes that everyone is on their own journey with substance use, and that everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and respect regardless of whether they use drugs or not, Combe says. The purpose of harm reduction is to keep people alive so they can use drugs safely and have the option to stop using substances on their own in terms and in their own time. We use tools to mitigate potential harm everyday  seatbelts, sunscreen, birth control. Why should it be any different with drug use? Studies show that when people have access to clean syringes, naloxone, and education about safe drug use, lives are saved.

Working as an EMT in Houston, I also recognized how substance users are underserved and mistreated, Hamad says. Conservative legislature meant that my Narcan training was useless; no EMT-Bs are allowed to administer Naloxone in Houston. Overdose calls were heartbreaking, and individuals overdosing on opiates had to wait longer to get lifesaving treatment. This is why Substance Use Harm Reduction at CCs focus on political and legislative advocacy is so important; lawmaking without compassion leads to preventable deaths.

Combe is a double major in Sociology and Gender Studies and serves as a peer health educator on campus with the Wellness Resource Center, where she works to further promote harm reduction and other wellbeing practices on campus.

Overdose prevention is something I care deeply about, Combe says. I ultimately want to help shape public health policy as a public health attorney one day.

I joined Substance Use Harm Reduction at CC because there arent many resources like this in my hometown, so I want to empower these life-saving efforts, says Hamad, a Molecular Biology major and Global Health minor. I also plan on going into some form of patient care, so it is important that I am educated in how to help our vulnerable populations.

Substance Use Harm Reduction at CC meets once a week at the Wellness Resource Center. The club is open to any students who want to learn and practice substance use harm reduction principles. Students who can consistently commit to volunteering a few hours a week can be set up with the syringe access program at Love Alive. Interested students who cannot commit as much time are able to participate in monthly syringe clean ups and help pack safe-use kits.

Speaking to students at the club fair at the beginning of this semester was really encouraging, says Combe. Many people on our campus care about harm reduction and overdose prevention and want to get involved!

For more information or to join Substance Use Harm Reduction at Colorado College, please check out the clubs Instagram or email Charlotte Combe or Mona Hamad.
Today is Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, and here's what you need to know:

Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who refused to concede after narrowly losing the 2022 race for governor, is set to headline the Colorado GOP's annual fundraising dinner in November, state Republican Chairman Dave Williams announced on Tuesday.

The party's 2023 Centennial Dinner is scheduled for Nov. 4 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Loveland Hotel Conference Center & Spa in Loveland.

Williams said the state GOP has invited all "major" Republican presidential candidates to address the crowd at what could be the first opportunity to reach a large number of potential Colorado delegates ahead of next year's Super Tuesday primary on March 5.

Tickets to the fundraising dinner range from $125 for a single meal up to $14,650 to sponsor a table of 10 with access to a VIP reception.

A pulmonary physician said he believes health complications from Elijah McClains struggle with Aurora police officers contributed to his death, but said in testimony Tuesday he could not assign blame.

Defense attorneys for the two officers currently on trial sought to lay responsibility at the feet of the paramedics at the scene, repeatedly pointing out they did not examine McClain or monitor him after injecting him with ketamine.

David Beuther, a pulmonary and critical care doctor, acknowledged the paramedics actions. But he insisted, when pressed, that laying any fault for McClains death was not his role.

You cant state with a reasonable degree of certainty what specific law enforcement action caused Mr. McClain to have metabolic acidosis? asked Reid Elkus, one of Officer Randy Roedemas defense attorneys.

Correct, Beuther replied.

A federal judge earlier this month allowed a single excessive force claim to proceed against Denver's former police chief for his alleged role in directing the city's response to racial justice protests in the summer of 2020.

At the same time that U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martinez declined to dismiss the claim against ex-Chief Paul Pazen, he threw out the allegations against several other law enforcement officers, two local governments and the Jefferson County sheriff.

The lawsuit from Suzy Dennis was one of several filed in federal court following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. International demonstrations also erupted in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in America. Then-Mayor Michael Hancock imposed an overnight curfew for multiple days in the wake of violence and property damage. Officers enforced the curfew and used projectiles and tear gas to contain or disperse protesters.

Dennis alleged she was walking along Colfax Avenue during the curfew when she stopped and decided to record the non-violent protesters. Within minutes, police began using force. A projectile hit Dennis' hand, causing serious damage to her index finger that required extensive medical treatment.

For the first time in its history, a woman is set to lead Colorado Counties, Inc.

The statewide county association announced Tuesday that Kelly Flenniken, formerly of Xcel Energy, will become its next executive director, effective Oct. 16.

She will replace John Swartout, who is retiring after more than four years at the helm. CCI represents 62 out of the state's 64 counties.

Flenniken most recently served as director of community relations for Xcel. She is also the former executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, and has held local government positions in Denver and Chicago.

Flenniken brings nearly 20 years of experience in public policy, leadership, and government relations to the position, according to a statement from the CCI board of directors Tuesday.

North Korea said Wednesday that it will expel a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed border between the Koreas in July.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency said that authorities have finished their questioning of Pvt. Travis King. It did not say when officials plan to expel him or to where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the state news agency said that King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.
Cardinal Glass, represented by some of its Community Engagement Committee members, present the ceremonial check to FISH Food Bank. From left to right are Marianne Durkan, Jacqueline Carey, Maddy Blackburn, and Jane Burke, Nikkita Paulson, Trevor Dunbar and Yessica Campuzano.
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At a time when the US and China are embroiled in a chip war, the former has assured South Korean chipmakers, including Samsung and SK Hynix, that it is planning to extend a waiver that enables these firms to manufacture chips in China.

We understand the concerns that companies have and we'll do everything that we can to make sure that companies are able to continue to conduct their business, US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves was quoted saying by the Yonhap News Agency, during his two-day visit to Seoul to attend bilateral cooperation talks between the two nations.

South Korean chipmakers with factories in China had received a waiver for one year from the US government after the US put restrictions on exports of certain advanced semiconductor manufacturing items to China last October, in an effort to thwarts Beijing technology prowess.

These chipmakers, who want an extension to the waiver before the October deadline closes, are dependent on the US as the country controls the supply lines for some critical technology and items needed for manufacturing chips.

The US is expected to allow these Korean chipmakers to place their case for a continued waiver in the coming days, according to the report.

Currently, Samsung operates a NAND flash-producing plant in Chinas Xian and a semiconductor packaging factory in Suzhou. SK Hynix, on the other hand, manufactures most of its DRAM chips at a plant in the Chinese city of Wuxi along with other plants at multiple locations.

US and China still at war for tech supremacy

Neither the US nor China is showing any signs of backing out of the chip war or the extended struggle to gain technology prowess over the other.

Last month, US President Joe Biden ratcheted up the technology trade war with China, issuing an executive order to restrict investments in several sectors, including semiconductors and AI.

The US first imposed restrictions on the exports of chips to China in 2015, extending them in 2021 and twice in 2022. The most recent restrictions were introduced in December.

US lawmakers have also been urging the Biden administration to take more action to impede Chinas progress in gaining dominance in areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

The suggestions included imposing trade restrictions on Chinese memory chipmaker Changxin Memory Technologies as a counteroffensive to China banning the use of Microns chips.

In January, the US convinced the Netherlands and Japan to join it in expanding the ban on exports of chipmaking technology to China.

In a counteroffensive, Beijing, too, restricted the export of two metals required for manufacturing semiconductors, mostly used in electric vehicles, displays, and defense equipment.
On the same day that the US Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon for using anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain monopoly power in the online retail sector, Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, spent hours a few blocks away at the E. Barrett Prettyman US District Court House as a reluctant prosecution witness in the antitrust trial of Google.

The US Justice Department (DOJ) has accused Google of monopolizing the search engine market through exclusive deals to become the default search engine for device manufacturers and software companies. The feds say that Google's nearly 90% share of the search engine market hands it an unfair competitive advantage that makes it impossible for rivals to compete.

Roughly half of Cue's nearly four hours on the witness stand Tuesday, like much of the testimony in the three weeks of the trial so far, was hidden in a sealed courtroom, closed to the press and interested citizens. The rest of Cue's time on the stand took place in an open session, during which the DOJ questioned him on the revenue-sharing agreement between Apple and Google, Apple's decision to rely on Google for its default search engine, and the extent to which Apple might be ignoring Google's more undesirable characteristics.

Drill-down on Apple's revenue share

Megan Bellshaw, assistant chief of the DOJ's antitrust division, questioned Cue on Apple's information service agreement (ISA) with Google, first forged in 2002 and subsequently extended several times. Although Cue was not involved in the earlier versions, he was the lead negotiator for a revised ISA agreed to in 2016.

One of Cue's goals during the negotiations with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, which owns Google, was to increase revenue. Under an agreement hammered out during a sealed court session at the day's start, a "Rosetta Stone" was developed, a rubric that allowed Cue to use letters corresponding with numbers when answering questions by Bellshaw about the revenue-sharing arrangement.

"One of the goals was to increase revenue share back to where it was in the beginning," Cue said. Cue said Pichai couldn't agree to Apple's requested "c" percentage of revenue and felt that it should stay at the "a" level.

"I told him that he and I need to sit down alone next week," Cue said. "If we can't agree on a revenue share agreement, we should not move forward. Google ended up agreeing to pay "b" as a percentage of revenue, maintaining Google as "the default search engine on all Apple devices where we have a search engine," according to Cue.

Bellshaw continued questioning Cue on how much money Apple generates from its deal with Google, prompting Cue to say, "The deal has a lot more to it than just economics. I think it was fairly clear at the time that there was nobody out there in terms of search engines that was better than Google."

The complexity of search engine choice

Bellshaw presented Cue with the easy set-up options Apple offers to new iPhone users, including one-click selections of privacy and do-not-track choices. Regarding these simple options, Cue said, "The more options you get tend to frustrate customers."

But these convenient choices don't apply to Apple's choice of Google for the default search functionality for the Safari browser, Cue said. For one thing, the ISA with Google doesn't permit Apple users to choose a default search option.

Moreover, search engine choice is more complex. "Sharing location, being tracked, everyone understands," Cue said. But a lot more goes into selecting a search engine, which most consumers don't understand. "We wanted the capability to provide the best services for our customers, and Google does that best," he said. Later, Cue noted that customers are free to install any separate search engine app they choose, just not the default search engine used by Apples Safari.

Apple does, however, allow customers to opt out of the default search engine in some countries, such as China or North Korea, where the governments have banned Google search, Cue confirmed.

Challenging Apple's rosy view of Google

Bellshaw pressed Cue on evidence that undercut Cue's upbeat assessment of Google's search engine qualities. She pointed to an August 2012 FTC civil penalty of $22.5 million that Google paid for misrepresenting to Apple Safari users that it would not place tracking "cookies" or serve targeted ads to those users, a misstep that violated an earlier FTC privacy deal.

She also pointed to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who once said, "The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it." Cue's response to these examples of Google's less-than-desirable aspects was to point out that in providing users with a Google default engine, Apple steers clear of some of Googles problems by eliminating the need for users to log in. "When we did the deal with Google, from the very beginning, we didn't allow Google to make customers log in."

Bellshaw asked Cue if Apple has a contractual obligation to defend the ISA in situations involving government action. Cue said that Apple's lawyers know more about this contract provision than he does, but he thought the language was put in the contract by both counsels related to an EU investigation of Google.

A high-stakes antitrust trial effectively held in secret

It's difficult to place any of Cue's testimony in context because about half of it occurred during a sealed court, during which connections between the DOJ's allegations and Cue's answers might have arguably been made clear. The opaque nature of the trial, which began on September 12 and will last until mid-November, is a result of efforts by both Google and Apple, which combined are worth around $5 trillion, to maintain secrecy around the court's proceedings to protect competitively sensitive information.

Google successfully opposed a petition by a group of public interest advocates to make available a publicly accessible audio feed of the unsealed portions of the trial. Google also successfully challenged the DOJ's online posting of the company's emails, charts, and internal presentations used as evidence in the trial, forcing the federal prosecutors to remove them. (On September 26, Judge Mehta resolved the dispute, ruling that documents used during the trial can be published online at the end of each day.) On September 25, on the eve of Cue's testimony, the Justice Department objected to a request by Apple to seal exhibits it planned to use in questioning Cue.

The sealed proceedings have obscured so much of the trial that Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, calculates that by September 24, half of the week's courtroom days were sealed. A New York Times analysis revealed that two-thirds of thirty-five motions and responses filed by Google before opening statements began on September 12 were sealed.

As Stoller points out, the tech giants' demands for secrecy are finding a receptive audience with Judge Mehta. During a pretrial hearing, Mehta said, "Look, I'm a trial judge. I am not anyone that understands the industry and the markets in the way that you do. And so, I take seriously when companies are telling me that if this gets disclosed, it's going to cause competitive harm."

'Atrocious, highly unusual' secrecy fuels feelings of big tech capture

Megan Gray, former General Counsel and Vice President of Public Policy at search engine DuckDuckGo and a key player in the FTC case that cost Google $22.5 million for false privacy claims, tells Computerworld that the unparalleled degree of secrecy surrounding the case is "atrocious, highly unusual, and I think ultimately counterproductive. All it's going to do is generate more conspiracy theories and feelings of capture by big tech." (DuckDuckGo's CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified on the stand last week for nearly five hours, with only one hour of his testimony open to the public. Late on September 26, Mehta authorized the release of the under-seal portion of Weinberg's testimony.)

Gray also echoes the concern that Mehta has been too accommodating to the big tech players. "The judge has deferred to the companies on how to interpret the law on what justifies closure of a court trial," she says.

Moreover, she takes a dim view of what she perceives as the DOJ's weak objections to all the secrecy. "They have made a calculation that they don't want to ruffle this court's feathers," she says. "They also need the cooperation of a lot of third-party witnesses, all of whom, like Apple, want everything kept under wraps. So, they made a calculated decision that we're going to just focus on liability and the verdict, not the other equally important goals of a trial."

She further underscores the difficulty of making sense of what's being argued during the trial, given that only shards of information are poking through the veil of secrecy. "I'm sympathetic to a lot of positions, but I really have a hard time trying to understand what the competitive harm here is," she says.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the company has been engaging in a number of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.

In the complaint, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general claim that Amazons actions have prevented its rivals and sellers from lowering prices, leading to a decrease in quality for shoppers, sellers being overcharged, innovation being stifled, and Amazons market competitors prevented from fairly competing against the company.

Amazon hasnt violated the law because of its size but rather because its exclusionary conduct prevents current competitors from growing and new ones from emerging, the FTC alleges. It claims Amazons anticompetitive conduct has occurred in both its online shopping market that serves buyers, and its online marketplace that serves sellers.

Were bringing this case because Amazons illegal conduct has stifled competition across a huge swath of the online economy. Amazon is a monopolist that uses its power to hike prices on American shoppers and charge sky-high fees on hundreds of thousands of online sellers, said John Newman, deputy director of the FTCs bureau of competition, in a statement.

A core issue of the lawsuit is Amazon's practice of steadily increasing fulfillment fees for sellers on the tech giant's e-commerce platform, which the FTC says forces them to raise prices for customers. The FTC also notes that the company effectively punishes sellers that offer products for sale on other platforms at prices that are lower those on Amazon, and that punishment can include removal from the Amazon site.

After the FTC filed the lawsuit, Amazons senior vice president, global public policy and general counsel, David Zapolsky, posted an update on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, stating that Amazon believes the FTCs lawsuit is misguided.

Unfortunately, it appears the current FTC is radically departing from that approach, filing a misguided lawsuit against Amazon that would, if successful, force Amazon to engage in practices that actually harm consumers and the many businesses that sell in our store, the company wrote in a statement, going on to rebut the allegations laid out by the regulator.

We fundamentally disagree with the FTCs allegations We will contest this lawsuit, the statement said.

Although the FTC did not explicitly say that it would seek to break up Amazon, it did include a request for "structural relief," noted David Olson, associate professor at Boston College Law School. If the FTC prevails, it could mean "the court would order some change in the structure of Amazon, such as not running Amazon Marketplace and also competing there, or spinning off its fulfilment operation into a separate, unrelated business," Olson said.

Amazon is also facing an anticompetition probe in the UK after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced in July 2022 it was launching an investigation into Amazons UK Marketplace platform.

The investigation is focused on three competitive areas: The way that non-public third-party seller data may be used within Amazons retail business; how Amazon sets criteria selecting which product offer is placed within the "Buy Box," and which sellers can list products under Amazons Prime brand on its Marketplace in the UK.

As of now, no outcome has been published and the CMA is currently considering the comments received in response to the consultation on commitments put forward by Amazon.

Big tech faces antitrust probes by a number of global regulators

Big tech companies are facing antitrust investigations across a number of jurisdictions, most notably the in the US and the EU.

Google is currently defending itself against the first of two major lawsuits brought forward by the US government. In these cases, the government alleges that it illegally used its dominance in search to quash competition, to the detriment of the public at large.

The search engine giant also recently filed an appeal against a $2.6 billion fine imposed by the European Union in 2017 after it found the company had violated antitrust rules by using its dominant position in the search engine market to illegally promote its comparison shopping service.

That case was the first of three antitrust complaints levelled against Google by the EU Commission in the past decade. The other cases for which Google was found to be in breach of EU regulations were related to its Android mobile operating system  in which Google lost an appeal last year  and its AdSense advertising service.

As a result of the AdSense case, the EU Commission issued a threat earlier this year that they would try to break up Google if the company did not attempt to regulate its behavior. Under the terms of its recently enforced Digital Markets Act, the EU also retains the ability to oblige a companies that fall under the scope of its regulatory powers to sell parts of a business if it deems systematic infringements have occurred.

(This update includes addiitonal information about lawsuit details and additional reporting by Jon Gold on possible antitrust structural remedies.)
The funny thing about owning a Google Pixel phone is that you never know what interesting new treasures might be making their way into your world at any given moment.

Most mere mortals never notice, but Google's constantly sending out software updates to its Pixel products  not just new Android versions but also under-the-hood Pixel-specific feature rollouts along with platform-wide Android improvements provided through a variety of Play-Store-based system-level components.

It's one of Android's most interesting advantages over that other smartphone platform, even if Google doesn't do much in terms of making ordinary people aware of it.

But you're here! You're reading this column. You clearly aren't ordinary (and I mean that in the best possible way). So take a peek at these step-saving shortcuts that have quietly shown up on Pixels at varying points over the past months and see if any of 'em might be useful for you.

If you don't have a Pixel, don't worry: With just a couple exceptions, most of the items here are also available (or available in some comparable form, potentially with a quick app install) on other Android devices as well. I'll be sure to point that out as we make our way through the list.

And if you are packin' a Pixel, be sure to make your way to my free Pixel Academy e-course next. It'll show you all sorts of other experience-enhancing surprises lurking within your favorite Googley phone and just waiting to be found.

Google Pixel shortcut #1: Reading Mode

Your Pixel phone's Reading Mode is hands-down one of the most useful Android features you probably aren't using. And all core coolness aside, at some point along the way, Google added in a handy hidden shortcut to make it even easier to access anytime the urge strikes.

Reading Mode, in short, is an on-demand tool that takes practically anything on your screen  an email, a document, even an ad-cluttered article you're reading somewhere out on this wide, wild web of ours (insert awkward eye-darting here)  and turns it into a distraction-free delightful experience for your eager emu eyes.

Reading Mode eliminates any and all mid-text interruptions, and it also empowers you to pick any color, font, size, and general style your peepers prefer. And if all of that isn't enough, it gives you the option to play whatever you're reading out loud like a custom podcast, too  at any reading speed you like and even continuing in the background when you move onto other things.

JR

Specific to our purposes here today, though, what matters is the shortcut to summon Reading Mode from your phone's Quick Settings area whenever you want it.

First, make sure you have the Google-made Reading Mode app installed from the Play Store. Then:

Open your Pixel's Quick Settings by swiping down twice from the top of the screen.

Tap the pencil-shaped editing icon in the lower-right corner of the panel.

Scroll down until you see the section of inactive tiles  with the phrase "Hold and drag to add tiles" at its top.

tiles  with the phrase "Hold and drag to add tiles" at its top. Look for Reading Mode within that area. Press and hold your finger to it and drag it up into the section of active tiles toward the top.

JR

You can place it anywhere in that list you like  then just tap the back arrow in the upper-left corner of the screen when you're finished to save and exit. Open your Quick Settings again, swipe through it horizontally to find your newly added option (if needed, depending on where you placed it), and tap it anytime you've got any text open on your screen to fire it up and give yourself an immensely improved reading adventure.

 Samsung phone-owners: These same steps will work for you, so long as you've installed the Reading Mode app  only on your device, you'll tap the three-dot menu icon within the fully expanded Quick Settings panel, then tap "Edit buttons" and find Reading Mode within the list of inactive options at the top of the screen that comes up.

Google Pixel shortcut #2: On-the-fly font adjustments

While we're thinking about speedy ways to spruce up your reading setup, take note: Your Google Pixel phone has a hidden shortcut that'll let you increase or decrease the font size of anything you're seeing on your screen in a flash.

It's typically disabled by default, but once you find it and bring it up into a visible area, you'll be able to tap its tile within your Quick Settings area anytime and then make whatever text you're viewing larger or smaller with next to no effort.

JR

Just follow the same steps we went over in #1 to find the Font Size tile in your list of inactive Quick Settings options and drag it up into the active area  then adjust, adjust, adjust away.

 Samsung phone-owners: This one didn't make its way into Samsung's software, unfortunately. But you can dig up a similar adjustment the long way by heading into the Accessibility section of your system settings, tapping "Visibility enhancements," then scrolling down to the bottom of that screen and tapping the "Font size and style" option.

Google Pixel shortcut #3: Super-dim in a snap

Next up: If you're using your Pixel phone in a particularly dark environment  your bedroom at night, your office during a power outage, or perhaps a dank remote cave where you're trying in vain to evade Mark Zuckerberg's robotic gaze  get your phone ready to give you an exceptionally dim view with a single swift tap.

It's possible on your Pixel thanks to an Extra Dim option that popped up as a part of 2021's Android 12 update, and it, too, is available for easy ongoing access as a Quick Settings shortcut.

Follow the same steps from #1, above, to find it in your list of inactive Quick Settings tiles and drag it up into the active area so it'll be ready whenever you next need it.

 Samsung phone-owners: Good news  this one's available for you, too, so long as your device is running Android 12 or higher! Just follow the same Samsung-specific steps outlined in #1 to bring the tile into your active Quick Settings area within Samsung's software structure.

Google Pixel shortcut #4: On-demand number crunching

Here's an interesting one: At some point along the way, Google added the option to summon your system calculator from anywhere, anytime, simply by tapping a tile within your Pixel phone's Quick Settings section.

See?

JR

Considering that a calculator is usually something you need whilst looking at other stuff on your phone, it's a handy way to be able to get to it without stopping what you're doing and heading back to your home screen to find and open the app. And once more, all you've gotta do is add it into your active Quick Settings area once to make it available.

So follow those steps from #1, above, and drag the Calculator tile up into your active Quick Settings area. The next time you need to churn out some quick calculations, you'll be glad you did.

 Samsung phone-owners: You can get the Calculator tile in your Quick Settings area, too! You'll just need to install the Google Calculator app onto your phone first, then you can follow the Samsung-specific steps in #1, above, to find its tile and bring it into your active area.

Google Pixel shortcut #5: Fast file access

Similar to the Calculator shortcut, Google silently snuck in a Quick Settings shortcut for its Files app without telling anyone a while back. And if you take 10 seconds to unearth it now, you'll always have it available and no more than a swipe-and-tap away anytime you want to peek at your downloads or do anything else file-related.

So follow those same steps from #1 once more, only this time, look for the Storage tile in your inactive Quick Settings area.

Good to know, right?!

 Samsung phone-owners: If you install the Files by Google app from the Play Store, you'll be able to do this, too.

Google Pixel shortcut #6: Simple scanning

QR codes are all the rage these days, and while you can always scan one simply by firing up your Pixel phone's camera and getting the code into the viewfinder, you've got another snappy option.

With last year's Android 13 update, Google gave us a simple and specific standalone code scanner as a Quick Settings shortcut. Just find it in your inactive tile area, drag it into an active position, and then tap it anytime you've got a real-world code to interpret.

JR

 Samsung phone-owners: Samsung has offered a standalone QR code scanning shortcut for quite a while now. The tile is called Scan QR Code within the Samsung software setup, and it's probably already there and available within your active Quick Settings area. If you don't see it, though, just use those same steps from #1 to find it and move it into a visible spot.

Google Pixel shortcut #7: Simple screen recording

Sometimes, a static screenshot isn't enough to convey something you're trying to illustrate.

Android's had its own native screen recording system since 2020's Android 11 release, and  oh, yes  you can give yourself a zippy shortcut for activating it with a single tap anytime.

Look in your Pixel's inactive Quick Settings tile area, following those same steps from #1 again, to find the Screen Record tile and drag it up into an active spot.

 Samsung phone-owners: Samsung still makes its own similar (yet slightly different) equivalent of this function, and it should be available on any Galaxy phone you're using via a Screen Recorder tile in your Quick Settings section.

Google Pixel shortcut #8: Instant audio recording

Google's Pixel Recorder app is absolutely awesome. It's a super-effective way to record any manner of audio imaginable  an interview, a conversation, even just your own rambling thoughts  and then access that audio along with a searchable text transcription of it anytime on your phone or any other device (even a computer!) where you're signed in.

And with the Pixel Recorder Quick Settings shortcut, you can start a recording instantly anytime without having to first find and open the associated app.

Just edit your Quick Settings tiles (again, as outlined in #1, above  starting to feel familiar yet?!) and find the Recorder tile in the inactive area. Drag it up into the active part of the screen, and you'll then have a one-tap path to starting a new audio recording anytime the urge strikes.

JR

 Samsung phone-owners: This one is a Pixel-exclusive thing, but you can give yourself a broadly similar sort of voice recording capability, at least, with the third-party (and free up to a point) Otter app, if you're so inclined.

Google Pixel shortcut #9: On-demand amplification

This next Pixel shortcut is technically an Android accessibility feature, but it could be useful for anyone in the right sort of situation. It's a smart sound amplifying system that lets you zoom into spoken conversations in noisy environments and boost their volume while reducing unrelated noise around you.

And you'll always be able to activate it without any trouble via its disabled-by-default Quick Settings shortcut, once you reveal it. So follow those steps from #1 to shift it into your active Quick Settings area, then remember to swipe down twice from the top of your screen to seek it out when the need next arises.

 Samsung phone-owners: If you don't already see the same tile in the inactive area of your device's Quick Settings, download the official Google Sound Amplifier app from the Play Store. That oughta make it available!

Google Pixel shortcut #10: On-screen TV remote

This final Pixel shortcut might be my favorite of all: If you have any sort of Google-connected TV in your home or office  a set with Android TV or Google TV built in or any sort of screen with a Chromecast connected  you can call up a virtual remote for easy phone-based controlling without the need for any sort of physical remote.

The secret here is to first open up the Google TV app on your phone (and if for any reason you don't see it, go download it from the Play Store first). You'll have to open it once to establish the initial connection before the Quick Settings tile will appear, but once you've done that, you should be able to find the TV Remote tile in your inactive Quick Settings area and drag it up for easy ongoing access.

 Samsung phone-owners: The same exact setup applies for you here, too. Just be sure to download that Google TV app and open it once, then follow the Samsung-specific steps from the start of this story to find the tile and bring it into your active Quick Settings area.

So many shortcuts, such little time  a good kind of problem to have, wouldn't ya say?!

Don't let yourself miss an ounce of Pixel magic. Sign up for my free Pixel Academy e-course and discover tons of hidden features and time-saving tricks for your favorite Pixel gadget.
Nelson Mandelas granddaughter Zoleka Mandela loses battle against cancer

Tragedy struck the family of South African liberation hero Nelson Mandela, whose granddaughter Zoleka Mandela breathed her last on September 25, aftering battling cancer.

South African liberation hero Nelson Mandela's granddaughter Zoleka Mandela dies. Photo Courtesy: Zoleka Mandela Instagram page

She was 43.

Zoleka passed away on the evening of Monday, September 25th, surrounded by friends and family, a statement issued on her Instagram page said.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation also issued a statement to mourn the death of Zoleka Mandela.

"The Nelson Mandela Foundation extends its heartfelt condolences to the Mandela family on the passing of Zoleka Mandela, tragically last night. We mourn the loss of a beloved grandchild of Mum Winnie and Madiba and a friend of the Foundation. When her inspiring memoir When Hope Whispers was published, she graciously signed copies for all our staff and ran a leadership session for the staff around the book," read the statement issued by the Foundation.

The foundation said Zoleka was a 'tireless activist' for healthcare and justice.

"Her work in raising awareness about cancer prevention and her unwavering commitment to breaking down the stigma surrounding the disease will continue to inspire us all," the statement said.
A serial killer (or attempted killer or burglar or whatever) on the loose can panic a community, frightening residents into such drastic acts as locking themselves in their homes or starting podcasts. Obviously, you should secure your home before bed if theres a Night Stalker prowling around, but some of those people no doubt felt a little silly in cases where it turned out there never was any serial criminal at all. Such as

4 The Mad Gasser of Mattoon The Mad Gasser of Mattoon sounds like a rejected Superman villain, and thats basically what he was. He was blamed for a series of alleged attacks that occurred in the late summer of 1944 in Mattoon, Illinois, all of whose victims described smelling a strange odor and then experiencing sudden paralysis, nausea and vomiting, and coughing fits. One of the first so-called attacks was described breathlessly by the local newspaper as the work of an anesthetic prowler of whom a woman and her daughter were simply the first victims, and for the next two weeks, reports of similar incidents poured in. One woman was creatively gassed when she found a scrap of fabric sitting on her porch and made the unhinged decision to stick her face in it. Except the state crime lab couldnt find any trace of toxic chemicals on the fabric. In fact, there was no evidence of any attacks outside of sightings of vaguely suspicious figures near the crime scenes and a key and a tube of lipstick on the sidewalk near another (also known as street trash). When the local police started threatening to arrest people who made reports without agreeing to a medical exam, those reports mysteriously dried up. Experts have cited, with varying plausibility, potential pollution from nearby chemical plants, sleep paralysis (its more common than you think!) combined with the smell of late summer middle-of-nowhere Illinois drifting through open windows, and plain old mass hysteria to explain the experiences of the victims of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. The case for the only suspect seriously suggested by researchers basically amounts to There was a weird guy in town, and if every Town Weird Guy got blamed for everyones sleep paralysis, Americas small towns would be a lot less colorful.

3 Spring-Heeled Jack U.K. readers are no doubt puzzled by this subheading because Spring-Heeled Jack is kind of like Bigfoot over there. Of course, hes not real. But like Bigfoot, the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack began with what was presumably earnest confusion. It started in 1837 London with reports of a series of attacks in which a man described as looking like a bull, ghost or devil used metal claws to slash womens clothes before leaping away to supernatural heights, hence the nickname. These initial attacks may have been real, if deeply exaggerated. Officials suspected at the time that they were the work of a group of wealthy men dressing up and having some lightly criminal fun, like a reverse Batman, but he might have been a complete hoax perpetrated by women who didnt want to explain their disheveled appearance. This was Victorian London, though, which meant newspapers could print whatever they liked, so the shadier ones staunchly ignored such theories in favor of whatever would sell copies of the paper. Within a year, as credible reports dwindled, Spring-Heeled Jack became a true supervillain, earning additional magical powers like fire breathing and popping up in pulp stories. The last official alleged sighting was almost 70 years after the first, an impressive duration for a career based on agility.

2 The Kosovo Student Poisoning In 1990, the Albanian and Slavic populations of Kosovo werent exactly sharing a lunch table. In fact, they literally werent sharing any school space, because early in the year, the schools were segregated, with Slavs attending in the mornings and Albanians in the afternoon. Tensions were obviously high, which probably didnt help when a few Albanian students came down with a mysterious illness that caused fainting, vomiting and convulsions. Immediately, that number grew from a few to a few hundred, and within a year, to a few thousand. The Albanian community suspected poisoning by Slavic Kosovars. There was just one little problem: Independent commissions never found any evidence of poisoning. Foreign experts have repeatedly attributed the mysterious illness to mass hysteria brought on by political tensions that caused panic when combined with a handful of sick kids. Its important to note that this is an extremely contentious finding among Kosovar Albanians and Slavs, the former of whom still believe they were poisoned and the latter of whom have called the whole thing a false flag operation. The Wikipedia talk page is a mess. So for the record, we believe whatever you believe, Kosovar reader.
Jimmy Fallons post-Saturday Night Live dreams were to follow in the footsteps of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, and others who transitioned from the show into comedy movie stardom. Lorne Michaels (as well as box-office reality) had other plans.

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When Conan OBrien began planning to take over for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Michaels called to gauge Fallons interest in becoming a late-night talk show host  maybe Fallon would be a good Conan replacement when the time came. Fallon revealed his response on the latest episode of the Strike Force Five podcast: I dont think so," he replied. "In six years, ask me, and if Im around Ill think about it. (Lenos retirement was still a ways off at the time.)

Fast forward a few years and Fallon had changed his mind. Fallon says his wife pushed him to reconsider, but post-2006, most of Fallons movie roles had been reduced to voice-overs in second-tier animations like Doogal and Arthur and the Invisibles. That had to make the change of heart easier.

So, I call Lorne, and I go, Im in. Id love to do it, Fallon said. There was only one problem. Michaels told Fallon that NBC doesnt really want you. Apparently, the network had a list of potential Conan replacements and Fallons name was conspicuously absent. Whoops.

Even Fallon understood NBCs point of view. After leaving SNL in 2004, the comic didnt have much to show on his comedy resume. Taxi with Queen Latifah was savaged by critics. Fever Pitch with Drew Barrymore fared a little better but was no home run. By his own admission, Fallon was still trying to get his post-SNL career up and running.

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Leave it to Lorne to change the networks mind. Fallons old boss went to bat for him, even going so far as to issue an ultimatum: Either you do this with Jimmy, or Im not involved, Fallon reported. Or something like that. NBC caved, and Fallon says Michaels strong-arming changed my life.

History repeated itself when Fallon got The Tonight Show, another job that Lorne Michaels had something to do with. Seth Meyers was another former Weekend Update anchor who had no talk show plans for his future until he saw a New York Post article naming him as one of Fallons potential replacements on Late Night. Ring ring! Who could that be on the phone? Why, its Lorne Michaels!

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When you talk to Lorne, it often feels like a follow-up call to a conversation that never happened, Meyers told his fellow late-night hosts on the podcast. He literally just started saying, You know, I think youll do it, and it will be good, and it will take time, but youll have Jimmy as a lead-in. There was again no moment when anybody ever said to me, would you like to do this?

That didnt matter, apparently. Both Fallon and Meyers have been entrenched for years, all part of Lorne Michaels grand plan. Colin Jost, you might want to pencil in a late-night gig for 2028.
Iraqi Assyrians Struggle for Freedom of Expression Amid Political and Extremist Threats

( Noran Morsi/Global Voices.) In the vibrant landscape of the Middle East challenges, addressing Assyrians' freedom of expression necessitates examining the ongoing political marginalization they endure in their Indigenous homeland that spans contemporary Iraq, and some areas in Turkey and Syria. Their story is a reflection of the struggles faced by minority communities in a region marked by political turbulence.

As the world marked the Assyrian New Year, reaching the remarkable year 6773, celebrations echoed across Iraq, Syria and beyond. However, beneath the surface, a profound sadness gripped Assyrian minorities who stayed in their ancestral homelands, from Duhok, and Erbil to Nineveh, and Baghdad in Iraq.

Over the past two decades, ongoing oppression, ethnic and sectarian conflicts and political unrest have sharply reduced the Assyrian community in the Middle East. Many have fled to Europe, the US, and Australia, endangering the Assyrian language, with its 3000-year history in its native Middle Eastern home. The Assyrian population in Iraq has declined significantly, plummeting from an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million in the 1990s to less than 142,000 today, as reported by the Shalma Foundation, an organization dedicated to documenting the populations of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac people in Iraq.

This decline can be attributed to the region's shifting political landscape, particularly in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, which has cast a long shadow over the Iraqi people to this day. Successive Iraqi governments have failed to protect Assyrian communities from terrorist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The latter has aggressively sought control over Assyrian ancestral lands in Nineveh, even using Assyrians as human shields during confrontations along the Iraqi--Turkish borders. This coercive tactic aims to intimidate Assyrians into leaving.

These challenges have reshaped the Assyrians' way of life, affecting their human rights and, notably, their freedom to express their identity, culture, and language.

The struggle of the Assyrians to express their identity over the last century

In the Middle East's diversity, the Assyrians emerge as a distinctive Indigenous minority with unique ethnic, religious, and linguistic identities. They trace their ancestry back to the ancient Assyrian civilization that flourished in Mesopotamia, now Iraq. While predominantly Christian, the Assyrians also include smaller Muslim and Yazidi minorities who identify with their Assyrian heritage.

The Assyrians have endured marginalization since the collapse of their empire in 609 BC.

In the dawn of the 20th century, along with other regional ethnic groups, Assyrians suffered under Ottoman rule, marked by Turkification policies that aimed at imposing a singular identity. This era witnessed Ottoman genocides against Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, and others, forcing Assyrians to flee and hide their cultural, religious, and linguistic identity out of fear for their lives.

Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Assyrian oppression continued as the Kingdom of Iraq emerged under British mandate. Assyrians had sought an independent entity in exchange for their army service, but Britain's failure to uphold its promises led to hostility and oppression by the newly formed Iraqi government.

In 1933, the Iraqi army brutally targeted over 60 Assyrian villages in the infamous Simele massacre, claiming over 3,000 lives. This massacre posed a real threat to the Assyrian presence in the region, prompting another mass exodus.

In an interview with Global Voices, Saad Salloum, an academic specializing in Iraqi minorities, and an Assistant Professor in International Relations at Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, highlighted that the Simele massacre deepened the distrust between Assyrians and their Kurdish and Arab neighbors, especially that the oppression never stopped.

In 1933, the Simele massacre, led by General Bakr Sedqi, mirrored the horrific legacy of the 1915 massacre against minorities. By 2015, ISIS terrorist group continued this grim pattern of gradual attrition.

Massacres stories were passed down orally across generations, as Assyrians lacked the freedom of expression to document them. In the second half of the 20th century, following their mass migration to Western countries, they gained more freedom of expression to publicly share these stories through their descendants.

In the early 1970s, the Ba'ath government in Iraq tried to improve the status of Assyrians by enacting a law acknowledging their cultural and linguistic rights. Adad Youssef, head of the Alliance of Iraqi Minorities Network (AIM Network), noted in a conversation with Global Voices that, although the law was a step forward, it felt short. It recognized Assyrians as speakers of the Assyrian language, but not as an ethnic group, nor did it grant official recognition to the language. Nevertheless, this support helped preserve the language for a time.

The recognition of the rights of Assyrian speakers was far from the truth, as the Ba'ath Party categorized everyone as Arabs except Kurds and Turkmen. Nonetheless, this recognition enabled teaching Assyrian language in official schools in Assyrian-majority areas for many years until it stopped.

In the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein unleashed a campaign of oppression against his critics, including minorities such as the Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, and others. He stifled their expression of identity and Indigenous languages, wielding an iron fist over media and freedom of expression.

Under Hussein's rule, an unusual dynamic unfolded for some minority groups, as noted by Assyrian activist Juliana Khamo. It was a social contract where Hussein offered a relatively comfortable standard of living in exchange for minorities refraining from exercising their freedom of expression. For Assyrians, this meant preserving their religious identity and language by remaining on the fringes of society.

But this delicate balance shifted with the American occupation of Iraq, which not only dismantled Hussein's regime but also paved the way for the resurgence of militias and terrorist groups, most notably ISIS.

ISIS targeted Assyrian minorities among others, committing horrific atrocities against them. They destroyed churches, monasteries, and invaluable Assyrian cultural treasures, such as the ancient city of Nimrud, a vital archaeological site in the region.

Assyrians were coerced into converting to Islam, had their properties seized, and faced strict religious and linguistic restrictions. Assyrian women and girls, suffered repeated sexual violence and forced marriage. This reign of terror created a climate of fear, self-censorship, and silence.

The status of Assyrians' freedom of expression in contemporary Iraq

Before ISIS emerged, significant developments regarding Assyrian's freedom of expression in Iraq unfolded. In 2005, the Iraqi Constitution officially recognized the Assyrian language as a minority language, providing new opportunities for linguistic expression. Activist Adad Youssef says:

With the official adoption of the Assyrian language in Assyrian-majority areas, Assyrian education has flourished. Over 260 schools in Iraq now offer Assyrian, and the languages department at the University of Baghdad has established an Assyrian Language department.

Additionally, associations, clubs, and parties that publish material in both Assyrian and Arabic have been formed, covering a wide range of topics including religion, culture, politics, and education.

Constitutional recognition of Assyrian linguistic rights and technological progress has fueled optimism about Assyrian future. The digital age has equipped Assyrians with powerful tools to express themselves in their own language, and revitalize their mother tongue. Social media platforms, online forums, and Assyrian-language websites have become hubs for communication, content sharing, and cultural celebration.

Iraqi Assyrian journalist Khalpeel, detained by Kurdish troops in 2019, highlighted in a conversation with Global Voices that the Assyrian language gained support from iOS and Android mobile operating systems. A group of Assyrian youth is diligently working on integrating the Assyrian language into Google Translate. Khlapeel said:

Technology has been a tremendous asset for Assyrians, playing a pivotal role in revitalizing our cultural heritage. It has provided us with the means to use our language in the digital world. Today, Assyrians around the world can communicate using their own language.

Despite significant progress, freedom of expression in Iraq, especially for Assyrians remains grim, entangled in a broader context of fear, threats, violence, and persecution. In the World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) Iraq ranked 172 out of 180 countries in 2022.

In recent decades, Iraq's Assyrians were forcibly moved to Kurdish-controlled areas, facing severe penalties for non-compliance. Despite constitutional guarantees of religious and linguistic freedoms, ongoing oppression, religious discrimination, and movement restrictions, have left them with little choice but to emigrate.

Translated by Mariam A. and Honey Hashem.
What Britain needs is not High-Speed Two but Low-Speed One.

For a small part of the money already wasted on this gleaming fantasy, we could have restored the nice, slow railways that go everywhere that we lost 60 years ago. This loss was thanks to the Great Marples Scandal.

You haven't heard of it? You should have. How odd it is that nobody can shut up about the Profumo Affair, in which almost nobody was harmed and Britain lost no secrets or anything else  but we never dwell on the Marples Affair.

It began with the mad and greedy wrecking of a vital national resource. And it ended spectacularly with a former minister of the Crown, and peer of the realm, skipping the country in a moonlight flit to avoid a huge bill from the taxman, not to mention a long queue of other, less powerful creditors.

Lord Marples, who had closed so much of the British railway system, ironically fled the country by train, on the Night Ferry to Paris, a now-abolished midnight sleeper whose blue-and-gold carriages were actually loaded on to a Channel steamer each night, and then rolled off on their way to the French capital.

PETER HITCHENS: What Britain needs is not High-Speed Two but Low-Speed One

Rural lifeline: A scene from The Railway Children, before the Beeching's debacle

He is thought to have taken this route because he could get more of his possessions into the guard's van than he could have squeezed into a car. A report at the time said, 'He left by the Night Ferry with his belongings crammed into tea chests, leaving the floors of his home in Belgravia littered with discarded clothes and possessions'.

There may have been some naughty sex involved too, but that is enough for now. After spending his declining years in a chateau in Beaujolais, Marples died in 1978 in a hospital in Monte Carlo, the famous sunny place for shady people.

Those of my vintage remember the name Ernest Marples because he was Minister of Transport from 1959 to 1964, and actually opened the first section of the M1 in November 1959. A sparkling self-publicist, he was constantly innovating and trying to win popularity among Britain's then fast-growing number of car owners.

He was not a typical Conservative, having worked as a boy as a 'dodger' for a bookmaker, not the most respectable trade. He was like many of the businessmen of the era, with their hair oil, noisy pinstripes and big fat cars.

His entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography remarks that 'at a time when the typical Tory MP was a well-heeled old Etonian, he soon made a distinctive impression, not least through his liking for blue suits and orange-brown shoes'.

And like such businessmen, as we shall see, he regarded railways as an outdated relic. You may also blame him, if you wish, for the invention of double yellow lines and traffic wardens, as well as the introduction of parking meters and a forgotten type of pedestrian crossing known as the panda.

But he cared a good deal less about railway passengers than he did about motorists. Amazingly, while actually Minister of Transport, he still had close links with his construction company, Marples Ridgway. This company had had a fat finger in the motorway-building pie of the time.

London motorists will have many times driven over the Hammersmith and Chiswick flyovers which it built. Yet while he was transport minister, he continued to own shares in this firm until public outrage and parliamentary criticism forced him to sell them  to his wife, which was somehow all right.

An aerial view of the groundworks construction of the HS2 high speed rail network progresses around the A38 dual-carriageway near Streethay

One of the two Tunnel Boring Machines, (TBMs) run by HS2 ltd begins its operation on October 6, 2022

Those of my vintage remember the name Ernest Marples because he was Minister of Transport from 1959 to 1964

This was the man who appointed Dr Richard Beeching, a distinguished businessman and technocrat, as chairman of what was then British Railways. It was an age of fake modernity when Britain was busy tearing up and smashing down much of its past, and the railways, coated in soot and run down after the war years, were widely regarded as a thing of the past.

This was the 1960s, when it often seemed as if someone had put something in the water, the age of the tower block and the comprehensive school, of the white heat of technology, which turned out to be the age of the spiv and the asset-stripper. It was also still the age of cheap imported oil.

Thanks to this wild mood, and presumably also thanks to nods and winks received from the pro-motorway Marples, Beeching's 1963 report was more or less unhinged. It concluded that the railways had to pay (unlike the equally nationalised road system, which ran at a total loss) and that the lesser-used lines should be closed to concentrate effort on the busier ones. This was like closing most of the B-roads in the country, to save the A-roads.

Thousands of miles of track were shut, just in time for the giant spike in the oil price which followed the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Among them was England's only East-West line from Oxford to Cambridge.

Even Beeching did not recommend this shutdown, which can most easily be explained as an act of actual industrial sabotage. Near my home town of Oxford there are half a dozen populous and important market towns which now have no stations. Anybody starting a long journey from them will do so by car, and stay in that car. If they once again had stations, all that would change.

Great quantities of railway stations in flourishing market towns and rural areas were destroyed and wiped out, just in time for the explosion of environmental concerns which made the adaptable, low-pollution, low-friction railway a far more intelligent way of transporting people and goods than the high-friction, high-pollution car and the countryside-devouring motorway.

But these lost lines were not served by high-speed trains and never could be.

What they provided, and what we need now, was good, safe, clean, medium-speed connections (much as you still find today in the Netherlands and Belgium) between modest but flourishing towns, as well as big cities.

A woman walks past advertising hoarding for the HS2 High speed rail link by the Cursor Station terminus in Birmingham

HS2, essentially an earthbound aeroplane, offers nothing of this kind. It actively and deliberately bypasses such towns and turns its flashy back on them.

It is enormously expensive to build because very fast trains need many tunnels and cuttings where ordinary lines do not. This is why it has created so much misery, by forcing the uprooting of people from long-established settlements.

If we restored the lost lines of the 1960s, we might need to reclaim small amounts of land lost to building, but nothing on this scale. The outline of a network for this country still exists  including several excellent main lines. It only needs to be restored.

In any case, why do we need 200mph trains? Great Britain, whose mainland is just 80,000 square miles, is far smaller than France (212,000 sq m), Spain (195,000) and Germany (138,000). The distance from London to Birmingham is 120 miles.

The distance from Paris to France's equivalent second city, Lyon, is 243 miles. In any case, high-speed trains drain resources from the rest of the network. Rail travellers in France who venture beyond the high-speed network know only too well how poor the service often now is.

Let us avoid this mistake, and welcome the return of the branch line, the slow train, the station master and the railway cat slumbering next to the coal fire in the waiting room. Long live Low-Speed One.
The family of the 15-year-old girl knifed to death near her school in Croydon today are living every parents worst nightmare. Its hard not to speak in cliches when things like this happen, but my heart bleeds for them.

I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through, how it must feel to have waved their child off in the morning  only for her never to come home. The shock, pain and inescapable anguish must be overwhelming.

Losing a beloved child suddenly in a tragic accident is bad enough; but for her to die like this, bleeding out on a pavement in front of her horrified school friends, the victim of a split-second act of arbitrary violence, is a thousand times worse.

And all because of what? We dont yet know about this case other than the fact a teenager has been arrested, but a toxic, macho culture of death and destruction has infected the nations youth, fuelled by the misplaced adoration of gang culture fed by TV, films, fashion and pop music  in particular, drill, trap and grime  and enabled by misplaced bleeding heart liberalism and a police force powerless to impose any sort of order.

Police cordoned off the scene where a 15-year-old girl was fatally stabbed earlier today

Police at the scene of today's fatal stabbing in Croydon, South London

For the awful truth is that while we must all grieve the loss of this young girl, this kind of thing is no longer a rare occurrence on the streets of London  or elsewhere in Britain. The carrying of blades among young people has become endemic, as normal to some as keeping your phone or your keys in your pocket.

Schools, playgrounds, nightclubs, pubs, the top floor of double-decker buses: knives are like rats. Youre never more than a few feet away from one, especially in London.

Almost every parent of teenagers lives in fear of something like today's tragedy happening to their child. At the Notting Hill Carnival a few weeks ago, the son of a friend of mine was set upon by a gang, at least one of whom had a machete. He was injured, mercifully not badly, but it was still terrifying for his poor mother and deeply traumatising for the whole family.

And earlier this year my own boy was attacked outside my house in Chiswick by two boys the same age as him who held a so-called zombie knife to his throat.

They stole his scooter and his phone, and then went on to hack his bank account, his social media accounts and his email.

Fortunately for us he had the presence of mind not to fight back: he just handed over the goods and they legged it. But it could so easily have gone the other way.

All it takes is a wrong word or a misplaced gesture, and the unthinkable can happen.

A forensic investigator puts flowers into a container at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon

These are not small knives, either, little flick knives or Swiss Army knives. These are huge blades, the kind that can all too easily inflict fatal injuries in the blink of an eye. And in the hands of an angry, hormonal young teenager with a head full of violent images and lyrics and a misguided desire to prove himself the big man, they are as dangerous as any firearm.

Unless we want senseless deaths to become the norm, we have to be honest about where this culture is coming from.

We HAVE to make young people understand that it is not brave, or manly, or impressive to swagger around town with a blade stuck down the front of your Calvin Kleins. We have to make it clear that such behaviour will not be tolerated, under any circumstances.

There is only one way to do that: give the police greater powers to stop and search.

This would no doubt provoke howls of protest from the Left. But I cant see any other way. How else are you going to deter people from carrying knives if not with the threat of arrest?

The reason so many young people carry knives is that kids know the police cant really touch them. Restricting powers of stop and search has created a reckless culture of impunity  one which the wicked, the wily and the just plain opportunistic have taken full advantage of.

So long as knives go unchecked on our streets, there can be no winners.

If the individual who committed this terrible crime today had not been carrying a blade, this girls family would not be mourning the death of a daughter.
I'll never forget the heat, the sounds and the smells of my first trip to visit family in Ghana at the age of 11. The sun was so bright it hurt my eyes.

My elder brother and I were walking through the outskirts of the African country's second city, Kumasi. The paved road came to a sudden halt, replaced by a dirt track with deep ditches on either side, both filled with effluent.

The local children were playing on a stinking rubbish heap and I remember my brother pointing at a man in a pristine white suit, wondering how on earth he kept it so clean in such a filthy place.

One of the local kids shouted at us: 'Go back where you came from!'

With those words, it suddenly became clear to me where my home really was.

When my parents came to Britain from Ghana, they made a positive decision to embrace everything British. My upbringing in Essex was one of white sliced Mother's Pride, fish-and-chips and ketchup on everything.

NANA AKUA: When I heard Suella Braverman's speech this week at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, this memory came flooding back

I wished in that moment I could go home to the green fields, tarmac streets and cooler air of England.

When I heard Suella Braverman's speech this week at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, this memory came flooding back.

The Home Secretary warned that uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration and the failed, misguided dogma of multiculturalism has proved to be a toxic combination for many European countries.

'Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate,' she added. 'It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it.'

Unsurprisingly, her speech has sparked fury among the usual suspects - the liberal Lefties for whom 'multiculturalism' has long been a fashionable creed.

NANA AKUA: It suddenly became clear to me where my home really was

Mrs Braverman has been accused of 'dogwhistle' racism by those who point out that her parents were ethic Indian immigrants from Mauritius and Kenya and that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's parents also came to this country from East Africa. Surely, they say, both their life stories are triumphs of multicultural Britain.

This ill-informed opprobrium shows just how little the champions of multiculturalism understand of the cause they promote.

Yes, Britain is multicultural, as anyone who walks round with their eyes open can see. But 'multiculturalism' is a different thing altogether.

It's a philosophy of allowing - even encouraging - different ethnic groups to live separately in our towns and cities. It encourages the growth of monocultural areas over integration - and it is profoundly dangerous.

Yes, Suella Braverman's and Rishi Sunak's parents came here from other countries, but like my mum and dad they didn't want their new lives to be corralled in smaller versions of where they came from.

I'm sure my parents - and the Home Secretary and Rishi Sunak's parents - would have wanted no part in multiculturalism. They engaged with British society on its terms, they soaked up British traditions and lived British lifestyles. They encouraged their children to study hard, work hard and succeed.

All our stories are the very antithesis of multiculturalism, which for nearly 50 years has dictated that immigrant communities should be supported in maintaining their own culture and identities.

The creeping, insidious result of all this has been that Britishness has become a dirty word.

Our country is a patchwork of monocultural pockets where often English is not the first language, where mainstream education and assimilation is not deemed important and where the dominant values can be those of a place many thousands of miles away.

Not only, as Braverman said, is this imperilling the 'cultural institutions of the West', it has been a corrosive influence on the peace of our nation - and other European countries.

For perhaps one of the gravest dangers to multi-ethnic harmony is not white racism, though of course that is utterly abhorrent, but imported grievances that fuel tensions between isolated minority communities.

It's almost impossible to integrate so many people from different cultures into a country in a short period of time. Pictured: A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover on September 4

This is what we saw in last year's large-scale public disorder in Leicester, primarily between Hindu and Muslim youths.

Only two weeks ago race-based tribalism reared its ugly head in the South-east London district of Peckham after a physical altercation between a British Asian shopkeeper and a black woman he accused of theft. There were angry demonstrations outside the shop and racist graffiti such as 'go to hell Patel' was scrawled on the building. The shopkeeper is still in hiding.

Meanwhile a string of post-industrial midlands and northern English towns and cities continue to struggle with the consequences of ethnic and religious segregation  from Leicester and Birmingham to Blackburn in Lancashire and Dewsbury in Yorkshire.

Yet it wasn't always like this. The first wave of immigrants to this country from the Indian sub-continent were, like my parents, anxious to enjoy British life to the full.

Most wore Western clothes, they celebrated Christmas and Easter alongside their own religious festivals and were keen for their children to learn English and pursue professional careers.

This is exactly the model of immigration and integration that Suella Braverman is promoting, suggesting people who come to live here should 'embrace and respect this country' just as her parents and my parents did.

But from my own experience, I'd suggest that slowing the rate of immigration into this country is a crucial factor, too.

When I was growing up, there were hardly any other black children in my school. Sometimes when I'd go to my friends' houses, I'd be the first black person their parents had ever met.

I've no doubt that some of them might have been knee-jerk racists. I can remember being told more than once that I was 'all right for a black person'.

But the families I'm still friendly with to this day saw that little Nana was no different from their own daughters. We spoke with the same accent, liked the same things and loved ketchup on our chips. They saw the person, not the skin colour.

But that becomes difficult when Britain has seen such unprecedented levels of migration - levels that threaten to change the fabric of our nation.

A lot of fuss has rightly been made about the more than 45,000 people who crossed the Channel in small boats last year, but their numbers are dwarfed by the same year's figure of net legal migration of 606,000 people.

It's almost impossible to integrate so many people from different cultures into a country in a short period of time.

And with the lack of any meaningful plan to encourage this to happen - and no legal requirement for local authorities and other public bodies such as schools and NHS trusts to publish their own strategies for doing so, these newcomers will inevitably gravitate towards their own communities in the inner cities.

So the real question for all these champions of multiculturalism, as well as for a Government that seems happy to allow mass immigration, is this: where do you want British immigrants to consider home?
Will he, won't he? One moment we hear that Rishi Sunak is considering abolishing inheritance tax, or at any rate raising the threshold at which it becomes payable. The next moment, No 10 says the idea has been chucked into the wastepaper basket.

And then, lo and behold, reports emerge that Rishi is having another look at getting rid of inheritance tax (IHT), after being rightly reminded by advisers that it is the most hated tax in Britain.

Why doesn't he do it? What's holding him back? For I predict that consigning this detested tax to history would transform Tory fortunes, and blow a hole in the side of HMS Starmer, which is already beginning to list quite noticeably, with gusts of black smoke periodically discharging from its funnel.

I say this with confidence because when George Osborne promised as shadow chancellor in 2007 to raise the limit at which it was paid, the Tories' popularity rose so quickly that Gordon Brown decided to call off the election he was contemplating. An instant poll found that 62 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Osborne's plan.

Even though the majority of people are in no immediate danger of having to pay the tax, they nonetheless dislike it. (In 2020-21, slightly less than 4 per cent of deaths resulted in an inheritance tax charge.) The widespread loathing for IHT is particularly interesting because polls suggest most Britons favour higher capital taxes, including one on wealth.

'One moment we hear that Rishi Sunak (pictured on Monday) is considering abolishing inheritance tax, the next moment, No 10 says the idea has been chucked into the wastepaper basket,' writes STEPHEN GLOVER

Inheritance tax is seen differently. Many think it intrinsically unfair to tax the assets of those who have already paid tax on them. Moreover, it is a natural human instinct to wish to pass on hard-earned cash to one's children without the State helping itself to another hefty slice.

A YouGov poll last year suggested that 63 per cent of voters support increasing the existing threshold at which an inheritance levy becomes payable. An amazing 48 per cent of respondents wanted to abolish the tax altogether, with 37 per cent opposed.

IHT is charged at 40 per cent on estates worth more than 325,000, with an extra 175,000 allowance towards a main residence if it is passed on to children or grandchildren. A married couple can share their allowance.

For the very rich, of course, inheritance tax is essentially voluntary. They employ expensive accountants, who come up with clever schemes for avoiding the tax, such as buying agricultural land, which is normally exempt.

Alternatively, the truly wealthy are advised to set up complex trusts, or to transfer some assets to their children, which don't attract IHT when given more than seven years before death. If you are worth many millions, handing some of them to your offspring is no great sacrifice.

It is the not-so-rich who get clobbered - people who have built up modest fortunes through thrift and hard work. Glimpsing the Grim Reaper on the horizon, they may consider selling the family home to lessen the blow of IHT - and then pay more tax to the insatiable State by way of stamp duty to buy a smaller property.

No wonder, though there may be little prospect of their having to pay inheritance tax, that so many people are opposed to it. They can imagine being ensnared, and they appreciate the fundamental injustice of it.

A YouGov poll last year suggested that 63 per cent of voters support increasing the existing threshold at which an inheritance levy becomes payable. An amazing 48 per cent of respondents wanted to abolish the tax altogether, with 37 per cent opposed (Stock Image)

So I repeat my question: Why doesn't Mr Sunak have the courage of what I believe to be his inclination, and either get rid of the tax, or increase the threshold by a significant amount? Is it because he's worried about losing the 7 billion annual revenue that IHT brings in  a figure which the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasts will climb to 15 billion over the next decade, as more and more people are pulled into the net?

It may be a consideration, though 7 billion represents much less than 1 per cent of Government spending, and in public expenditure terms is loose change you might find down the back of the sofa. Besides, there's no need to get rid of inheritance tax in one go. A Tory manifesto could pledge its phased abolition.

Might Rishi be a little frightened of his hair-shirt Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who only last week said that tax cuts will be 'virtually impossible' this autumn, and last November mean-spiritedly froze existing IHT thresholds until 2028?

It doesn't seem very likely. Is anyone afraid of Mr Hunt? In any case, Rishi understands numbers better than the Chancellor, and seems master of his ship. He could get IHT reform past the Treasury if he wished.

Perhaps both men feel that, if there are going to be any pre-election bribes next year, a penny or two off income tax would be preferable. It's a reasonable point, though jettisoning inheritance tax would be a bold and popular statement, and could be deferred until the next Parliament, if the Tories win.

And here we come to the nub. Sir Keir Starmer could in theory spike Rishi's guns by undertaking to match Tory plans to get rid of death taxes. After all, he seems intent on narrowing the gap between Labour and the Tories, so as not to frighten centre-ground voters.

But I submit that championing the abolition of inheritance tax would be a bridge too far for Sir Keir. The Labour Left, who are not a spent force, would be apoplectic. I don't believe he could sell such a policy to his party, even if he wanted to, which he almost certainly doesn't.

No, getting rid of IHT is one policy the Conservatives can have for themselves  if only they have the courage. The milksop Lib Dems are surely no more likely than Labour to appropriate it.

Isn't this exactly what the Tories need? A highly popular measure of their own that Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP would attack at their peril. In politics, it doesn't often get better than that.

Doubtless some would accuse the Tories of favouring the rich (and possibly suggest that the PM, as an immensely rich man, was looking after his own). The proper response is that abolishing IHT isn't a wacky idea beloved of extreme governments.

Countries without any inheritance tax include Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Portugal, Israel, Sweden and Norway, nearly all of which have recently had, or still have, left-of- centre administrations.

In many other countries, the threshold is higher than in the UK. In the United States, for example, only estates worth more than $13 million (about 10.7 million) are subject to federal death taxes. Rates are also often lower. In Germany, the top rate is 30 per cent, in Italy 4 per cent.

Britain, by contrast, has one of the most onerous rates of inheritance tax in the developed world. And this  despite George Osborne's famous pledge in 2007  after 13 years of Conservative rule.

Rishi Sunak is at his best when he listens to his inner Tory voice. He did so last week, announcing that some of the most unrealistic net zero targets will be relaxed to protect ordinary people.

Here is another opportunity for him to do the right thing, if only he has the will. Lift the burden of inheritance tax and the Tories will reap their rewards.
Rishi Sunak's dithering over the possible abolition of inheritance tax commands the full attention of Prince Harry.

Although living in California, he is officially domiciled in the UK.

Any inheritance he might have received from the Queen and Prince Philip and, in due course, his father could be taxable.

Should he change his domicile, he would need to sever most ties with the UK.

The advantage for him is the absence of a US federal inheritance tax. Only six states impose their own. California isn't one of them.

Rishi Sunak's dithering over the possible abolition of inheritance tax commands the full attention of Prince Harry (pictured on Friday)

The late Queen, to avoid any inheritance tax, is believed to have left everything to Charles with a separate set of instructions as to whom she wishes to be given what.

That way the taxman can't get his pound of flesh. In 1993 then PM John Major agreed that bequests made from sovereign to sovereign were exempt from inheritance tax.

However, there is no legal obligation on Charles to carry out his mother's wishes when passing on bequests.

So it could be up to William eventually to decide whether to pass on any of his father's largesse he might leave to Harry. With fraternal relations in the freezer, it might not be a foregone conclusion.

Whispers that BBC Radio 4 Today's Amol Rajan doesn't get on with fellow presenters Nick Robinson, Martha Kearney and Mishal Husain have been firmly dismissed by the multi-tasking Rajan.

'The idea that this is some hotbed of tension and difficulty is wrong,' he tells Radio Times.

'I really like Nick, I respect him. It's the same with Martha and Mishal.'

But then, in a Bridge Too Far comment, he adds: 'I'm full of unashamed love for Today. I'm also full of love for the BBC.' Steady Amol.

Reprising her role as Doctor Who's assistant, Catherine Tate, pictured, alarms Tardis aficionados by admitting she is not a fan.

'No I am not,' she says. 'I don't understand it. It is probably not childish enough for me. I think my comprehension is probably a bit too low for sci-fi. It just baffles me.'

And she doesn't even watch it, saying: 'I had no idea they even carried on when David Tennant and I left.'

Shouldn't the name of her character Donna Noble be changed to Don't Know Noble?

Catherine Tate, pictured, alarms Tardis aficionados by admitting she is not a fan of Doctor Who

Rupert Everett says his days of describing Madonna as 'a whiny old barmaid' and Julia Roberts as 'smelling vaguely of sweat' are over.

'I can't any more,' he says, 'It's just too exhausting. And too terrifying. You have to be incredibly careful now.'

Too late to make amends to Michael Jackson, RIP. Rupe said he 'looked like a character from Shrek'.

University Challenge viewers' sympathies were with announcer Roger Tilling, who this week faced the nameplate for a Warwick student that read AKARAPONGPISKADI.

'This is a wonderful, beautiful Thai surname,' wailed Roger in a tweet. 'But just bear with me while I go off and have a quick cry...'
The style allows the Princess's long hair to shine though

Kate Middleton began experimenting with headbands in the Spring of 2018

Their heyday was in the 1980s, when the Sloane Rangers ruled and Sarah Ferguson was rarely seen without one.

But the Alice band has made something of a come-back - at least where the Princess of Wales is concerned, establishing them as part of her signature style.

Already known for experimenting with fascinators, statement hats and pillbox toppers, Catherine first turned to headbands in 2018. Since then, she has worn some sensational pieces, notably from milliners Jane Taylor and Juliette Botterill.

It's a perfect look for the princess as it allows her hair to shine through, instead of remaining hidden beneath wide-brimmed hats.

Catherine's stylish Alice bands made their Middleton debut at the 2018 christening of Prince Louis, when she chose a refreshing new look with a Jane Taylor applique design.

Since then, we have seen floral, tweed and velvet versions, plus a dazzling cross between a tiara and headband for the Kings Coronation.

Coronation Glamour

Catherine, Princess of Wales wears a floral crown with three-dimensional leaves created by Alexander McQueen and milliner Jess Collett. She wore this instead of a tiara

The Princess of Wales with her flower crown entering Westminster Abbey for the May 6 Coronation of King Charles III

Princess Charlotte wore a miniature version of her mother's flower crown on the balcony at Buckingham Palace

The Kings Coronation was a spectacle of royal jewels, but none shone as brightly as Catherines dazzling floral headband with Princess Charlotte's mini version which matched her mothers perfectly. which she wore instead of a tiara.

The floral crown featured three-dimensional leaves and was created by Alexander McQueen and milliner Jess Collett and which she wore instead of a tiara.

Jackie O Style

Kate attending the Anzac day service wearing a 830 Calypso Halo by Jane Taylor. This was made from British tweed and featured a satin bowtie at the nape of the neck

The back view of Kate's Calypso Halo headband with the bow - and her glossy hair - in clear view

As Kate stepped out to mark Anzac Day in April 2022 wearing Alexander McQueen, it was her headband that took centre stage.

The 830 Calypso Halo was by Jane Taylor and was made from iconic Bristish tweed featuring a tuxedo satin bow at the nape of the neck giving chic Jackie O vibes.

Shades of Blue

Kate attends the Easter service at St George's Chapel in 2022 in a Jane Taylor 975 Diamond Crepe Pleated Band

The view from the back with the deep teal headband and the cornflower blue Emilia Wickstead dress coat complimenting each other

Dressing in cornflower blue Emilia Wickstead for the 2022 annual Easter Sunday service at Windsor Castle, Kate chose a Jane Taylor headband in a deeper shade of teal.

The 975 Diamond Crepe Pleated Band was first worn in 2019 and features bows at the side which matched Princess Charlottes hair ribbon.

Irish Greens

Kate wore Irish designer, Lele Sadoughi's padded headband on a tour of Ireland in March 2020

Paying homage to Ireland in green Alessandra Rich during a tour in March 2020, the Princess of Wales pulled back her hair with a chic Lele Sadoughi padded headband.

The classic 70 black velvet band added height to her hair and tied in with the crystal buttons on her dress.

High Street Sparkle

Kate wore a Zara 17.99 headband to the Royal Albert Hall for the Festival of Remembrance in 2019 to go with her Jenny Packham dress

Mixing high street with designer at the Royal Albert Hall for the Festival of Remembrance in 2019, Catherine wore a Jenny Packham dress, Alexander McQueen clutch and her trademark glossy loose waves pulled back with a 17.99 padded rhinestone headband from Zara.

Fuchsia Pink

Kate looked stunning at Archie's christening in 2019. She teamed Juliette Botterill velvet plaited pink design headband with Stella McCartney dress

Stunning in pale pink Stella McCartney for Archies christening in 2019, it was Kates fuchsia headband that stood out. Her hair was held in place with a 340 velvet plaited pink design by Juliette Botterill which perfectly matched her Gianvito Rossi heels.

Christmas Reds

Kate wore a Jane Taylor Halo Band on the crown of her head on Christmas day 2018

The sideview of the Jane Taylor Alice Band reveals a chocolate brown bow.

From the back, there is a sculptural effect

It was festive shades of burgundy for Christmas Day in 2018 when Kate stepped out in a Catherine Walker coat and Jane Taylor headband.

The 830 Halo Band perched on the crown of her head and featured a chocolate brown bow, adding a 1930s touch to her Christmas ensemble.

Velvet Details

Kate wore her hair in a chic updo with a 695 black velvet Jane Taylor headband at the 2018 Armistice Day service

At the 2018 Armistice Day service Kate wore her hair in a chic updo with a 695 black velvet Jane Taylor headband.

The velvet texture perfectly coordinated with the lapel, cuffs and pockets on her emerald Catherine Walker coat and the crescent shape gave her look a fashion forward edge.

Floral Blue

Kates 430 Juliette Botterill rose headband matched the cerculean shade of her Catherine Walker coat at the wedding of her friend, Sophie Carter to Robert Suggs in 2018

Kates Juliette Botterill rose headband complemented the page boys and bridesmaids perfectly

Florals reigned when Kate attended the wedding of Sophie Carter and Robert Snuggs in September 2018.

Coordinating with Princess Charlottes flower garland, Kates 430 Juliette Botterill rose headband matched the icy shade of her Catherine Walker coat.

Cream Applique

One of Kate's most striking looks at Archie's Christening in 2018 wearing a 1100 Jane Taylor bespoke creation with an Alexander McQueen cream coat

The Cassandra headband features a thick platform with striking applique flowers stitched on top giving her the perfect look for this special occasion

Catherine wore her most elaborate headband for the christening of Prince Louis in August 2018, pairing the 1100 Jane Taylor bespoke creation with an Alexander McQueen cream coat.

The Cassandra headband features a thick platform with striking applique flowers stitched on top giving her the perfect crowning glory.
Allyson, who lives in a van with her dog, said the pair 'fit right in' in the town

McCarthy, Alaska is a remote village home to only 100 people - and dogs

Who run the world? In this remote Alaskan town, it's the dogs.

A travel influencer has shared her tales after adventuring to the town of McCarthy that is home to only 100 people - and almost all of them have dogs.

In her video shared to TikTok, user Allyson Overland - who vlogs her travel with her beloved pooch Kenai - told her followers: 'When I heard there was a town in Alaska ran by dogs I had to check it out.'

The remote village is located 120 miles northeast of the foot of the Wrangell Mountains, and as Allyson explains, it is quite hard to get to.

TikTok content creator Allyson Overland said as soon as she heard about the village in Alaska, she had to go

The tiny town is only accessible by a footbridge, which boasts beautiful scenic views

'This is pretty much off the beaten path so to get there you have to drive 60 miles down a narrow dirt road with a lot of potholes,' she explained in the voiceover, as she showed footage of winding roads and breathtaking mountains.

'Despite the fact that it took me four and a half hours to get 180 miles today the views were incredible the entire drive,' she continued as she showed footage of her beautiful - but treacherous - journey.

After finally getting in to the remote town - which was only accessible by foot - she made it to McCarthy.

Even though it was quite an ordeal to the dog haven, Allyson set up camp in a beautiful area as soon as she got there, and was walking around the quiet streets with her own pup.

'I was told that pretty much everyone in this town owns a dog,' she said, panning around the community.

'And they weren't wrong.'

According to Allyson, most of the dogs are allowed off leash and are well behaved.

'[Some of them are] hanging around the restaurants and waiting for someone to give them scraps,' she explained, filming one dog hovering near a doorway.

Allyson said they felt right at home in the adorable town. Pictured is one of the businesses

Although the journey was long and not linear, Allyson said it was worth it for stunning views like the ones pictured

The loving dog owner said the views 'were incredible the entire drive'

Allyson said most dogs were off-leash, but are well behaved. This pup is hanging around for scraps outside a restaurant

'But they do know their boundaries,' she added.

In the caption, Allyson quipped her and Kenai 'fit right in.'

According to the Travel Alaska website, dogs have a long history in McCarthy.

'It was the dog mushing (transport method powered by dogs) capital of Alaska's early days and they help keep unwelcome wildlife away from the center of town,' it reads.

'They're not feral, they're joyful. It's no coincidence that the dogs of McCarthy will welcome your dog to our town.'

Commenters were in awe of the gorgeous scenery - and that the dogs could roam so freely.

'This looks like heaven,' one user gushed.

Allyson and her dog, Kenai, have been traveling for four years in her van

As a remote worker, the social media manager decided to travel indefinitely, writing in her bio she's 'on a mission to give my dog the best life possible'

Many TikTok users loved the tour and expressed that they wanted to go themselves, describing it as 'heaven'

'Sounds like McCarthy is where I belong,' another TikTok user joked.

'I need to live there. A town of dogs is heaven,' a third agreed.

'I need to go,' someone else said urgently.

Allyson started travelling with her seven-year-old pooch four years ago, documenting her renovations after purchasing a new van in 2021.

As a remote worker, the social media manager decided to travel indefinitely, writing in her bio she's 'on a mission to give my dog the best life possible.'
A young European man has revealed how having tattoos has made his visit to Japan more difficult and a little bit uncomfortable.

Speaking to a roving Japanese reporter, the unnamed man said he loves going to the gym, but has to lie about his tattoos to be let in.

'I like to go to the gym every day, to go to the gym I need to cover myself and to lie to them. I don't like to lie,' he said with a smile.

He said the person at the counter will ask him if he has tattoos before letting him into the gym.

'Otherwise they don't let me go,' he said.

A young traveler has revealed how having tattoos has made his time in Japan more difficult

This means wearing long sleeves and slacks to the gym - despite the hot weather.

'It is very difficult, you know,' adding that he doesn't mind. 'It is the only way, I think we need to respect [that].'

He added that his tattoos and large frame also seem to make locals uncomfortable on the train.

'We use perfumes, we are large and people don't like it, I understand, but I also know because of the tattoos people don't like it,' he said.

The reporter asked him if he likes onsen - but he admitted he hadn't been to the spas.

'It's not possible for me, I tried a few times but they don't accept me,' he said.

He added that the onsens that will accept him are 'a long way away' and he has been too 'lazy' to travel there.

'Even in my hotel there is an onsen I can't go there,' he said.

The video was posted to Reddit where a thousand people commented.

Onsen's are another place people often can't go of they have a tattoo

'I have nothing but positive memories of Japan and being heavily tattooed didn't affect the few trips I've had there at all,' one man said.

'I went earlier this year, and as a white male with tattoos, I faced very little discrimination. honestly I think they judge you more as a foreigner, than as a person with tattoos,' said another.

Some revealed their experiences having tattoos in Japan.

'I have a small tattoo and went to an onsen in Noboribetsu. I asked if it was okay and then told me to go to the onsen after 22:00,' one person wrote.

'I had the whole place to myself which was nice. Then a young man walked in and saw me covering my tattoo with my small towel and he said 'don't worry, that's just old men that care about that stuff'.'

'It's getting a lot better every time I go. I just got back form a month long trip and I got into like 5 or 6 different onsen and sento, and I have full Japanese sleeves and chest. In the last place the attendant said he can't say yes but would pretend he didn't see,' said another.

This confused many.

'I always thought that they hated tattoos because of the yakuza bur why do they care if it's a foreign who is clearly not a gangster,' one person asked.

But people were quick and blunt with their answers.

'Because Japan doesn't like foreigners either, it is an easy excuse to deny them. If you aren't Japanese and are not travelling in a place frequented by tourists you will be surprised how many places point blank refuse to serve you or let you in,' one man said.

This comment had 2,000 likes and was quickly followed up by others.

'See signs everywhere that say stuff like 'No Westerners' it's really weird,' said another.

'I have been in Japan several times. In many occasions I am far away from any other tourists. The Japanese are surprised to see me. They tell me they are surprised to see me. In 2 occasions in high end restaurants I was told that they cannot accommodate my requests, but I have not even said anything I was at the door.

'My wife talked in my behalf and they let us in. Also, deep inside japan most Japanese assume you speak Japanese, but I don't and they get mad. An old man got crazy mad at me because I could not talk to him in the ferry,' said another.
As Caroline Parker pushes her shopping trolley out of the supermarket, she experiences a frisson of excitement. An electrifying buzz, if you will.

It might seem an odd feeling to elicit from a mundane weekly chore, but in fact it has nothing to do with the act of buying groceries. No, it is because Caroline has a guilty secret.

Only she knows that hidden beneath the carefully packed bags in her trolley are a few loose items - cheese, bags of pasta, chocolate - all of them stolen.

'The thrill lies in getting away with it, I certainly don't do it for financial gain because I don't need to,' says Caroline, 53, who is married with two children in their 20s.

Dressed in tailored trousers, heels and a jacket, with immaculately styled hair and make-up, she hardly fits the stereotypical image of a thief, but neither is she alone.

Welcome to the world of the middle-class, middle-aged shoplifter - women with zero financial reasons to steal, but for whom doing so appears to be a reaction to feeling unfulfilled (Stock Photo)

According to statistics released earlier this month by the British Retail Consortium, shop thefts have more than doubled in the past three years. Pictured: The moment a shopkeeper sprinted and tackled an attempted robber

Welcome to the world of the middle-class, middle-aged shoplifter - women with zero financial reasons to steal, but for whom doing so appears to be a reaction to feeling unfulfilled in their 40s and 50s.

This year, shoplifting has become the curse of the High Street. Dame Sharon White - chair of John Lewis Partnership, which owns John Lewis and Waitrose, both temples to middle-class retail - has described it as an 'epidemic' and every day brings new cries for help from Britain's supermarket bosses.

That's why the Mail on Sunday recently launched its End The Shoplifting Epidemic campaign.

According to statistics released earlier this month by the British Retail Consortium, shop thefts have more than doubled in the past three years, and currently cost retailers some 953 million a year. About 70 per cent of this figure is for crime prevention costs including security, and the remaining 30 per cent direct losses due to theft.

The Co-op said recently it had recorded its highest-ever levels of retail crime, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour in the six months to June, with almost 1,000 incidents each day.

The trend isn't limited to larger department stores and supermarkets. The Association of Convenience Stores, the voice of more than 33,500 shops, has also recorded its highest-ever levels of shoplifting over the last year, with 1.1 million incidents reported to the police.

And while most of this is down to the usual suspects - those in need, teenage chancers or criminal gangs - hidden in plain sight is a secret subculture of affluent women for whom shoplifting has become a surprising compulsion.

A retired executive office manager who owns a small portfolio of rental properties close to her home in Gloucestershire, Caroline says it all began for her one day in 2021 in a well-known DIY superstore.

A hero businesswoman tackles a thief and chases him out of her shop in Worcestershire

'I'd gone to collect some pre-ordered items but I also needed to buy a 150 power drill on the day,' she explains. 'I suddenly had this compulsion to peel the 'already paid for' sticker from one of my pre-ordered items and put it onto the power drill instead. To avert suspicion, I picked up a few bedding plants costing around 5, which I put through the till.

'My heart was hammering, and I fully expected to feel the hand of a security guard on my shoulder. But by the time I got to the car, I felt such a buzz. I couldn't believe I'd got away with it. I can explain it only as a sudden, impetuous two fingers up to the fact that life was - and still is - very stressful.'

Many a middle-aged woman will empathise with Caroline's emotional burdens: an empty nest, elderly parents, a major health scare and, to top it all, the menopause. Her tipping point came when tenants in one of her rental properties caused damage costing over 10,000 when they were evicted by bailiffs for non-payment of rent.

'As soon as I got home, I confessed I'd stolen something to my husband, who thought I was joking, as I've never been one to break the rules in that way before,' she adds. 'But despite his horror, he just shook his head, probably because there were bigger worries for us at the time.

'Since that first time I've continued to shoplift sporadically. It's wrong, but it gives me a sense of being in control when everything else in my life feels anything but.'

Not surprisingly, most shoplifters try to justify their actions by arguing that they steal through necessity. But with what psychologists describe as 'non-professional shoplifters' - those, like Caroline, who don't steal for profit or resale, or to feed a drug or alcohol addiction - there is something much more unusual going on.

Bhavna Jani-Negandhi, a clinical psychologist and spokesperson for the British Psychological Society, says midlife can be such a melting pot of emotional change and upheaval for women that it can lead them to behave in ways that are out of character.

'Too much stress - which can be accompanied by anxiety and depression - coupled with boredom and lack of fulfilment can cause women to try to find something that gives them some excitement,' she explains.

'Shoplifting can be very easy, and this can be thrilling. Research monitoring chemical levels in the brain concluded that shoplifters experience a high, with a release of adrenaline and dopamine, meaning they can experience an addictive compulsion to steal, like some people are addicted to alcohol or drugs.'

As Caroline is quick to point out, part of the power she feels is that nobody would ever have her down as a shoplifter. She's bright, articulate, well-spoken, takes pride in her appearance and makes a point of chatting to shop staff as she goes about her business.

A woman is spotted stealing a bag with 300 worth of jewellery in Islington

A retired executive office manager who owns a small portfolio of rental properties close to her home in Gloucestershire, Caroline says the shoplifting all began for her one day in 2021 in a well-known DIY superstore (Stock Photo)

'I've witnessed shoplifters running out of the supermarkets with staff chasing after them,' she adds. 'I get away with it because I'm the calm, middle-aged, middle-class woman who looks so normal and respectable. I've seen other women like me fill up their trolleys and walk brazenly past security staff without paying for a thing.'

She tends, however, to keep her thoughts on this middle-class underworld  and her own part in it  to herself. 'I know that admitting it to friends or family would leave some of them shocked. But shoplifting has become something I do just for me.

'I only take small, fairly inexpensive items of food, stationery and make-up, such as the odd lipstick or mascara, and I don't sell the stuff on, I'm not a career criminal.

'I've learned to be alert but not too alert, otherwise I'll get picked up on the cameras.

'You have to appear confident and be prepared to act your socks off if you get caught.

'I've rehearsed my response if ever I do: 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't realise, I've got so much in my head at the moment, I'll go and pay for them now'.'

Most law-abiding people would feel disgust at her actions. Caroline knows what she is doing is wrong and she does sometimes feel guilty at the stress she causes the shop staff.

'Of course, I feel morally conflicted by my own behaviour as it goes against the way I've always been and the way I've raised my children  if they ever shoplifted, I'd be a complete hypocrite and bawl them out. I'm certain it wouldn't have happened at all if I hadn't been perimenopausal and stressed to the hilt  but that's still no excuse.'

Shoplifting is an offence under the Theft Act 1968, punishable under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, with a maximum sentence of six months' custody if the goods are worth less than 200, and up to seven years if the value is more.

Last March, Nina Tiara, thought to be Britain's most prolific middle-class shoplifter, was sentenced to two years and nine months in jail at Gloucester Crown Court.

The moment two masked burglars raided a London tech shop - using power tools to cut through the steel shutters in London

To her neighbours Tiara, 53, seemed the picture of respectability. She drove a gleaming Mercedes and lived in a neat, 550,000 detached house in a Wiltshire hamlet - but much of her lifestyle was funded by crime.

Though Tiara was ultimately caught and punished, the reality is that many, less ambitious shoplifters get away with it.

Police tend not to prosecute in cases involving goods worth less than 200. A change in the law in 2014 redesignated such cases as antisocial behaviour.

Such thefts are therefore more likely to be punished by a fine than a court appearance  which many people believe has effectively 'decriminalised' shoplifting.

Even so, just being stopped by security and accused of theft is a matter for shame and embarrassment, so why  with the means to afford holidays, meals out and lovely homes  do women like Caroline take the risk?

'I do ask myself that question, and it makes me realise I couldn't cope with the stress if I did actually get caught,' she says.

'With shoplifting in the news, I've had to curb the temptation as I've noticed staff in the supermarkets I visit randomly checking trolleys. But I'll definitely shoplift again. I'm ageing, nobody's looking at me any more and I've thoroughly enjoyed tricking all those people who look straight past me in the supermarket. I should join MI5, nobody would notice me.'

Though not vastly different in age to Caroline, Lucy Collins is at a different stage of life with a young child and a high-flying career in senior management. Yet she has a similar urge to shoplift.

'I just take a few items every time I go food shopping, such as toiletries, fruit, veg, magazines and toddler paraphernalia,' says Lucy, 45, who lives in Hertfordshire with her insurance broker husband.

These barriers block customers from leaving Sainsbury's stores until they scan their receipts

'It's a doddle as I've always got the pushchair with me so I just put loose items in the storage underneath and only pay for things I put in a basket. It's become a thrill because I've never been caught.'

Lucy's habit began during an extended maternity leave.

'Like lots of new mums I felt resentful that my income nosedived during maternity leave, despite all those years working so hard. I'd always wanted to be a mum, and I love it, but hadn't realised how much my self-esteem is wrapped up in my career, nor that my independence would evaporate with motherhood.

'Shoplifting began in those early months as my way of retaining a bit of control, although I'm shocked to even hear myself say this.

'We have a good life and own a lovely four-bedroom home, but we moved out of London after having our child so my social life and circle of friends have dramatically altered. Shoplifting has become my thrill.

'Other than my husband - who pleads with me to stop - I haven't told anyone what I do because I know people would be shocked and I dread getting caught.

'I'd play the "baby brain" card, saying I'd innocently popped the items into the bottom of the pram because I couldn't carry everything, then forgotten to pay for them.'

Lucy targets items priced under 10, including make-up and food, but never clothes, alcohol or electrical items.

She sometimes selects supermarkets based on how easy it is to shoplift and has also 'forgotten to pay' for items such as candles and napkins in Ikea.

'There's no chance of stealing anything in Aldi, as that's where I do the big weekly shop, so I have to go through the till rather than the self-service checkouts.

'Stealing at self-service checkouts is so much easier  you can also put pricier items such as salmon fillets through as onions. I just walk past the security guards and smile. I do feel ashamed, but I know it's not just me.'

Fellow midlife shoplifter Claire Johnson confides she has sleepless nights about her light-fingeredness since it began during the first lockdown in 2020.

It was a habit which was triggered by the stresses most people felt at the time, though most didn't turn to crime.

'I took advantage of the chaos in the supermarkets, with people pushing and shoving to stockpile essentials, not knowing how long lockdown and supplies would last,' says Claire, 47, an executive PA who's married with two children and lives in Surrey.

'It started out with herbs and spices, then progressed to toilet paper and washing tablets. Part of my decision to shoplift was the pure thrill of taking the risk and getting away with it.

'At the same time, I was scared of losing my income during Covid and, recently, when the cost of living rocketed, shoplifting was my way of sticking two fingers up to the government.

'I have never stolen from local small businesses, it has only been the larger stores, such as Tesco and Asda, not that this makes it any less immoral.'

Claire is well aware that her feelings about shoplifting are contradictory: a deep sense of shame is offset by elation every time she gets away with it.

'At a time when  like most people  our family finances have been increasingly stretched, it feels embarrassing, but also slightly empowering, to get away with it,' she says, adding that she believes the perimenopause has contributed to her behaviour, as mood swings and the general stresses of midlife skewed her behaviour.

Claire has stolen bread, fruit, vegetables, cleaning products and dog food. Her university lecturer husband knows nothing of her secret.

'Shame prevents me from telling him,' she explains.

She has recently had a six-month hiatus from shoplifting: 'I was petrified of getting caught and increasingly aware that my luck may run out,' she says.

And she's not just scared of the law enforcement. She suspects that being branded a thief might blow up her family life and career.

Even so, she can't say for sure she won't be tempted again next time she's feeling stressed  such is the lure of the high, even if it means risking everything.

All names have been changed.
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden looked radiant in a formal ensemble as she attended the award ceremony for Bjorn Carlson's Baltic Sea Prize in Stockholm yesterday.

The Swedish royal, 46, was beaming with joy as she arrived at the prestigious ceremony, which celebrates green initiatives.

Upon her arrival, Victoria was greeted with a stunning bouquet of flowers from the chairman of the board, Bo Lehander.

Bjorn Carlsons Baltic Sea Prize is dedicated to increasing the appeal of the Baltic Sea and inspiring efforts to ensure a healthier seawater.

The mother-of-two opted for trendy suit separates for the outing, coordinating an elegant cream blazer with a pair of smart black trousers.

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden beamed with joy as she was greeted by Bo Lehander, the chairman of the prize's board

The mother-of-two swept her hair into a neat bun for the occasion and opted for minimal makeup.

Victoria added a touch of glamour to the outfit with a pair of stunning pearl drop earrings.

Upon her arrival, the royal looked pleased to accept flowers from the head of the boards committee, Bo Lehander.

The Bjorn Carlson's Baltic Sea Prize launched in 2022 and is an annual prize with a SEK 3 million prize, the equivalent to approximately 240,000, which is put towards research efforts.

Meanwhile Prince Daniel was absent from the award ceremony.

Victoria and Daniel, who share two children, Princess Estelle, 11, and Prince Oscar, seven, celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary this year.

Previously a gym owner, Daniel, who was born Olof Daniel Westling, met Victoria at a training session before the pair began dating in 2002.

The couple announced their highly-anticipated engagement in 2009 and tied the knot a year later.

The Princess swept her hair into a neat bun for the occasion and opted for minimal makeup, revealing her natural beauty

Upon her arrival, the Princess accepted a stunning bouquet of pink and white flowers from the chairman

Despite a number of joint appearances in the past month, the pair are facing swirling rumours about the state of their marriage.

In August, Daniel denied that there has been infidelity in his marriage and that the couple were ever on the brink of divorce in a rare television interview.

In the television interview, Daniel had slammed what he labelled a 'mean and false rumour' about his marriage to Sweden's heir apparent.

He lashed out at those circulating the suggestions on social media and in parts of the Swedish press, saying the claims had had 'serious consequences' for his family.

'Many friends from across Sweden and overseas have got in touch and things arrived at a certain point where we felt we could no longer accept it,' he revealed.

The mother-of-two smiled for cameras outside the award ceremony, which celebrates green initiatives

Victoria opted for trendy suit separates for the outing, coordinating her cream blazer with a pair of smart black trousers

'I don't think there is any sane person who believes in this rumour.'

Sweden's royal court was forced to deny reports last year that an 'incredible betrayal' had brought Victoria and Daniel's marriage to a point of crisis.

Victoria's appearance comes after a busy time for the royal, who put on a glittering display as she arrived for King Carl Gustaf's Golden Jubilee celebration in Stockholm earlier this month.

She wowed in a voluminous orange gown while her sister Princess Madeleine, 41, donned a stunning strapless outfit in lilac.

Sister-in-law Princess Sofia, 39, chose an eye-catching fuscia pink dress for the evening.

The royals were also joined by King Carl Gustaf, Prince Daniel and Prince Carl Philip in Stockholm.

Carl Gustaf, 77, is the first king in the Swedish monarchys more than 1,000-year history to reach 50 years on the throne.

And following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year, hes the second-longest reigning European monarch alive today, after Queen Margrethe, who celebrated her 50th anniversary on Denmarks throne last year.

The jubilee was four days of celebrations that culminated with a military parade through the capital.
Princess Elisabeth of Belgium swore an oath to become an officer last night

Princess Elisabeth of Belgium was beaming with joy after becoming an officer at the Royal Military Academy last night.

Elisabeth, 21, the eldest daughter of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde and heir to the Belgian throne, joined the military academy in Brussels in September 2020.

Yesterday, she took part in the ceremony of taking the oath as an officer - swearing 'loyalty to the King, obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the Belgian people.'

In snaps from the event, the Princess appeared serious as she took part in the ceremony - marching and saluting to the King alongside her comrades from the 160th Promotion of Social and Military Sciences.

It is not known how long Elisabeth plans to spend at the academy but her father King Philippe studied there for three years as a teenager.

Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, 21, was beaming with joy after becoming an officer at the Royal Military Academy last night

Elisabeth, the eldest daughter of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde and heir to the Belgian throne, joined the military academy in Brussels in September 2020

In photographs from the event, the 21-year-old can be seen wearing a smart blue military uniform, sweeping her blonde hair from her face into a low ponytail for the occasion.

Afterwards, she joined her family to pose for photos, where she was seen beaming proudly as she stood alongside her father, the King.

Her mother Queen Mathilde opted for a blush pink midi dress for the occasion, which featured a high neckline and a pleated skirt.

Meanwhile she paired the dress with brown heels and a matching hat, sweeping her blonde hair into gentle curls for the occasion.

Princess Elisabeth was also joined by her siblings Princess Eleonore, Prince Gabriel and Prince Emmanuel at the event.

Her younger sister Eleonore, 15, who recently joined their mother for a night at the opera, looked elegant in a blue patterned floor length dress.

Prince Gabriel was smart in his own military uniform, while Prince Emmanuel opted for a navy blue suit with a baby blue tie.

When the news hit the headlines, one of the training school's students offered insight into the course and some sage words of advice ahead of Elisabeth's enrolment.

Evelyn Gravez, 22, has almost completed her master's degree in social and military Sciences at the school.

In photographs from the event, the 21-year-old can be seen wearing a smart blue military uniform

King Philippe, 60, who spent three years at the esteemed institution between 1978 to 1981, posed for photographs alongside his daughter

Princess Elisabeth was joined by her younger brother Prince Gabriel at the event, who dressed in his own military uniform

The 21-year-old, who is heir to the throne, swept her blonde hair from her face into a low ponytail for the occasion

Afterwards, she joined her family to pose for photos, where she was seen beaming proudly as she stood alongside her father, the King

Her mother Queen Mathilde opted for a blush pink midi dress for the occasion, which featured a high neckline and a pleated skirt

Meanwhile she paired the dress with brown heels and a matching hat, sweeping her blonde hair into gentle curls for the occasion

She told local media: 'My advice? Above all, make as many friends as possible. They'll help you through if you're having a hard time.'

Speaking about what life would be like for the teenage princess, Evelyn revealed her first weeks would include learning to fire a gun, setting up an army tent, marching with a backpack, tactical training and reading maps.

She added that the experience is 'pretty tough' and that 'they really throw you in', warning the initiation period is not for everyone and that a number of students drop out each year.

However, Ms Gravez added that the camp is not like the cliches of military school often seen in Hollywood movies: 'They don't yell at you when you make mistakes. Of course, sometimes they have to be strict.

'Because mistakes, they have to be sorted out as quickly as possible. But if you are a bit slow to learn, they are there to encourage you, not to bark at you.'

Although there will be tough days ahead, the student believes that the princess will get used to it and that it might even help her lead the country in the future.

She added: 'I think Elisabeth will certainly get used to it. Even if she only stays one year.

King Philippe passed by his daughter Crown Princess Elisabeth during the ceremony last night (pictured)

She took part in the ceremony of taking the oath as an officer - swearing 'loyalty to the King, obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the Belgian people'

The royal took part in a ceremony during which the students of the 160th Promotion of Social and Military Sciences and the officer students of the 175th Polytechnic Promotion take the oath as Sub-lieutenant or ensign second class

Princess Elisabeth stood alongside her classmates as she made the oath in front of her family last night

Princess Elisabeth appeared deep in thought as she took part in the ceremony at the military academy last night

Alongside her classmates, Princess Elisabeth swore her allegiance to the King in a ceremony at the academy

The Princess spent 18 months boarding at UWC Atlantic College in South Wales before joining the military academy

'We learn to make decisions under stress, leadership techniques. That will be useful for her as head of state.'

A change in the law a decade ago made it possible for the eldest child, male or female, to ascend the throne in the country. She will become the country's first Queen Regent if she takes up the role.

Elisabeth spent 18 months boarding at UWC Atlantic College in South Wales before returning home to Brussels in March ahead of the government lockdown.

She spent lockdown living with her parents, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, and her three siblings in Brussels.

The course is said to teach in-depth about the four components of Belgian defence; Army, Air Force, Navy and Medical.

King Philippe, 60, spent three years at the esteemed institution between 1978 to 1981.
A British Sign Language interpreter appearing on this series of the Great British Bake Off has left a striking impression on viewers who have hailed him an 'unsung hero'.

Daryl, from Bristol, made his debut on the show in last night's episode to open the new series, aiding Tasha Stones (also from Bristol), the show's first ever deaf contestant, as she competes for the accolade of Star Baker.

The pair, who have been working together for years, went through the audition process together - and Tasha has previously revealed they both cried when they found out she had been selected to appear on the series.

As viewers watched Daryl interpret for Tasha throughout the signature, technical and showstopper challenges, they took to Twitter to praise the Channel 4 show for making accommodations for the 27-year-old.

They also joked they wanted to see him interpret some of the show's well-known cheeky catchphrases - including 'soggy bottom'.

As the new series opened, presenter Noel Fielding introduced Daryl to the other bakers.

In a sweet moment, Noel and Alison signed the words: 'Welcome to the tent.'

Ahead of the new series, Tasha recalled the moment she and Daryl found out Tasha had made it into the coveted Bake Off tent.

'When I had the Zoom call to tell me I was one of the 12, I cried. Daryl also cried. We were a mess,' she said.

In order to make the show run as smoothly as possible, presenters and judges - including newest addition Alison Hammond have learned the basics of British Sign Language.

Daryl, a BSL interpreter from Bristol, captured hearts around the nation after making his debut on GBBO on Tuesday night

Tasha Stones, 27, from Bristol, is GBBO's first ever deaf contestant and appeared on the show with her interpreter

Viewers took to Twitter after being impressed by Daryl's skills, and joked they wanted him to stay even if Tasha goes home

However, this proved to be an uphill battle for South African TV chef Prue Leith. While the dame boasts an OBE for her services to food, broadcasting and charity, she admitted: 'I'm not very good at sign language, but Paul is.'

Channel 4, who took control of the Great British Bake Off after six years with BBC ensured that the Bristol native would not feel isolated among the rest of the cast.

The first episode of the new series, which marked Alison Hammond's debut as host, tasked bakers with making a vertical layered cake for the signature challenge, an animal-inspired showstopper cake, and a Bake-Off cake for the technical challenge.

While Tasha excelled in the challenges, viewers were distracted by Daryl's interpretation of British Sign Language and praised the programme for increasing visibility for the deaf community by bringing Daryl and Tasha onto the show this year.

On Twitter, one person wrote: 'If Tasha goes home can we please just keep Daryl anyway?'

And when Tasha sailed through to the next round, another viewer said: 'Looks like Daryl is back for another week.'

One viewer said that they thought Daryl was going to be a 'surprise hit' from the series - a prophecy which appears to be ringing true already as praise for the interpreter piles in.

Another viewer said: 'Shout out to Bake Off for making Tasha's interpreter Daryl feel fully involved, it's amazing to see deaf representation included so easily.'

And one person said they wanted to extend Daryl's responsibility, having him on the screen to sign the entire episode.

As the new series gave viewers what they wanted with plenty of farcical innuendo, some people joked they wanted to see how Daryl interpreted such cheeky expressions.

One person wrote: 'I am very much hoping we see a shot of him signing "so tell me about your beaver" with a straight face.'
Princess Beatrice looked chic in a black blazer last night as she enjoyed a date night with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.

The Duke of York's daughter, 35, was beaming as she joined Edo and a host of other celebrities for the opening of The OWO in Whitehall yesterday.

Built on the historic royal site of Whitehall Palace, Britains Old War Office has undergone a monumental six-year transformation to become a hotel, as well as a selection of restaurants, bars and even a spa.

The couple appeared in high spirits as they attended the event last night - posing for photographs alongside TV personality Tamara Beckwith and Giorgio Veroni.

Mother-of-two Beatrice opted for an elegant blue patterned dress for the occasion, which she paired with a black blazer and stylish stiletto heels.

Princess Beatrice, 35, looked chic in a black blazer last night as she enjoyed a date night with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi

The Duke of York's daughter was beaming as she joined Edo and a host of other celebrities for the opening of The OWO in Whitehall yesterday

Indian billionaires, the Hinduja brothers, formally purchased the 580,000 sq ft site in March 2016 for in excess of 350 million.

The Hindujas, who are ranked as Britains richest businessmen with a 12billion fortune in steel, teamed up with Spanish group Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos to buy a 250-year lease on the historic premises.

The seven-story building, which was constructed in 1906 and bombed eight times in the Blitz, has 1,000 rooms and two-and-a-half miles of corridors.

The Old War Office hotel, which opened last night, has seven floors below ground and seven floors above.

There are 120 bedrooms, nine restaurants  including one on the roof  three bars, while the swimming pool, spa, gym and ballroom will all be underground.

Future hotel guests enter from Whitehall (although VIPs will also be driven into the court) and step into the Grand Hall, where they'll be greeted by the imposing Brescia marble staircase with richly veined alabaster balusters.

The staircase, which Princess Beatrice and Edo took a number of photographs upon, was William Young's great tour de force.

It was described by T. E. Lawrence , who in 1914 was employed in the Geographical Section of the War Office, as being of such opulence that it was 'only for the use of Field Marshals and charwomen'.

More recently the building featured in four James Bond films - Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Licence to Kill and Skyfall - portrayed as the MI6 headquarters, where Ms office was located.

Princess Beatrice's evening out comes after the couple celebrated their daughter Sienna's second birthday by sharing a rare glimpse at the young royal.

The couple appeared in high spirits as they attended the event last night - posing for photographs alongside TV personality Tamara Beckwith and Giorgio Veroni

Sienna, whose mother is Princess Beatrice, looks cool and stylish, despite only being two years old, in a photo shared by her property developer father on Instagram.

She is dressed in a long sleeved frock with red floral print, and dons a Mexican sombrero as she walks barefoot along a pathway which is layered with a soft material.

Sharing the photo to his Instagram followers last week, the 39-year-old wrote: 'Harry birthday baby girl. You bring us so much love and joy every day.'

The adorable snap of Sienna is a rare glimpse into the life of the young royal, with her parents choosing to keep her private.

Royal fans first glimpsed Sienna earlier this year when her aunt, Princess Eugenie, posted a photo on Instagram of the toddler with her cousin, August (Eugenie's eldest son) as they looked mesmerised by the penguin enclosure at London Zoo.

Edo's sweet tribute to his daughter comes days after another gushing post dedicated to his wife Princeaa Beatrice following their loved-up appearance at Vogue World in central London last week.

Sharing snaps from the event on social media, he wrote: 'My beautiful wife. Bringing joy to my life.'

Mother-of-two Beatrice opted for an elegant blue patterned dress for the occasion, which she paired with a black blazer and stylish stiletto heels

At the exclusive London Fashion Week event, the royal couple were joined by Beatrice's sister Princess Eugenie, who stunned in a teal frock as she made her first public appearance after giving birth to her son Ernest at the end of May.

Sharing a snap of the sisters - who are the daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York, on the way to the event, Eugenie wrote: 'It was so fun to attend Vogue World: London this week. The event celebrated the UK's rich cultural scene.

'"The arts are under threat in the UK and Vogue World will be a timely reminder of how important they are, how vital a part of our lives, and how much they need our support, Anna Wintour,' she wrote in the caption.

Alongside it was a pic of the sister in the back of the car on the way to the event - dubbed the UK's answer to the Met Gala.

Mother-of-one Beatrice sported a black floral flowing dress as she attended the Vogue World event at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in central London with Edo, who looked dapper in a white tuxedo jacket and black trousers.

As they posed for photographs, Edo kissed his wife, who in turns couldn't help but giggle sweetly during her husband's PDA.

The couple both appeared delighted to be at the event together, as they were snapped beaming, as they had their pictures taken.

Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's daughters Beatrice and Eugenie appeared to have left their children at home as they enjoyed their evening in the West End.
Paris is famously dubbed the city of love, and those hoping to spice things up while visiting Fashion Week in the French capital had plenty of food for thought at the Etam show, where models walked the runway in a series of racy looks.

Luxury French lingerie brand, Etam, unveiled its latest collection on the catwalk in Paris yesterday and the runway was awash with lace catsuits, cleavage baring leotards and sheer bralettes.

They seductive pieces also included lace catsuits and underwear made entirely from faux flowers.

Intricate designs from the lingerie giant have brought a range unique and saucy designs to one of the most renowned events when it comes to fashion.

The brand, which Harry Styles' ex Camille Rowe has modelled for, sent women down the runway in ultra feminine designs, including daring red lace and mesh capes.

Taking to the Etam runway for Paris Fashion Week, one model donned a striking sheer lace catsuit

One model sported a lace catsuit, which came fit with a matching bra and pant set covered in sparkling diamantes.

The racy look was accessorised with a black floral corsage around the model's neck and a dangling pair of glittering earrings.

Continuing with the sexy aesthetic, a second runway look repurposed a red faux flower as underwear, with clear straps holding the piece up.

The look, created by the team behind the Etam show, featured an equally striking flower corsage in the same bold shade.

The model wore her hair slicked back into a bun while opting for a red strappy heel, seemingly matching the theme of the look.

For makeup, a glossy aesthetic was achieved and matched with a bold red lip.

A third design showcased a mesh bodysuit with a pair of see through black tights.

The model posed for the cameras at the end of the runway by turning to the side and revealing the backless feature of the outfit.

A second model continued the sexy aesthetic with a red faux flower repurposed as underwear, with clear straps holding the piece up

French model Chloe Lecareux walked the Etam runway in a mesh bodysuit and a pair of black tights

In a unique look, a model donned a red cape as she strutted down the catwalk, creating a ruffled effect

One model sported a delicate all white lace look- with the intricate design featuring the word 'Etam' in the embroidery

Another design showed off a red mesh cape, which created a stunning rippled effect behind the model.

The unique creation revealed the models lacy red underwear and gave a clear glimpse of her red stilettos.

And it's not the only sexy look by the brand- which was founded by Max Linedermann, who first opened his stocking store in 1916 in Berlin.

One model donned white lace for the runway, and the delicate ensemble was completely sheer.

The German established brand focuses on innovating lingerie, and the pieces showcased in the Paris Fashion Week show demonstrates just that.

One model looked striking as she walked the runway in a see through top covered in diamantes

Sunglasses were also incorporated in the runway, with a model sporting a black pair of shades as she posed for cameras

Etam also designed intricate corsages, with the model above sporting the stunning hat as she smiled on the catwalk

During the show in Paris a model sported a emerald green cape- and strutted her stuff down the catwalk

One model donned a lace veil as she took to the catwalk- and paired it with a pair of stunning lace sleeves

The Etam runway featured a number of capes- including this lengthy black one, which added to the racy look

A model stunned in a more modest look- which featured a cut out bodysuit and dotted mesh tights

Diamantes were a common look on the Etam runway- the model above stunned in a lace bralette and sparkling skirt

An all-lace catsuit was a popular look for Etam in their most current runway- here it was paired with matching lace gloves
The latest charitable project from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Archewell Foundation has reached out to girls in Nigeria as they begin a new school term.

The charitable foundation, which was launched in 2020, has funded a project based in Nigeria called the The GEANCO Foundation, which provides school supplies and period products to girls and young women in the West African nation.

It comes as the Duchess of Sussex bonded with Nigerian athletes at the Invictus Games after finding out she had Nigerian roots, and said she couldn't wait to visit the country 'for [her] mum and the kids'.

A post on Archewell's website noted the latest contribution from the Sussexes' charity to the schoolgirls, offering them stationery, backpacks and menstrual products as they begin the new term.

The post also detailed more of GEANCO's work in the region, including providing education on menstrual health to teenage girls and taking steps to improve their overall health and wellbeing.

Meghan and Harry's Archewell Foundation has teamed up with the Nigeria-based GEANCO Foundation to support schoolgirls in the West African nation

The post explained: 'GEANCO provides critical health care and education services in Nigeria.

'Its David Oyelowo Leadership Scholarship provides full tuition, medical care, and social and emotional support to young female victims of terrorism and gender inequality in Nigeria.'

The project comes after the Sussexes spent a week in Dusseldorf, Germany, for the Invictus Games 2023.

At the opening ceremony for the tournament, Prince Harry revealed that his wife would be lending its athletes her personal support after finding through a genealogy test that she is 43% Nigerian.

In the subsequent days, she was seen hugging a competitor and describing her as 'my Nigerian sister', before being introduced to further members of the team and the defence chief, who gave her a nickname - Amira Ngozi Lolo - she could use if she ever visits the country.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (pictured at the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf this month) founded Archewell in 2020

The Archewell Foundation has provided funds to support schoolgirls in the West African nation as they begin a new term

As well as providing backpacks and other school supplies, Archewell and GEANCO are also providing period products

Amira is a warrior princess from a legend, Ngozi means 'blessed' and Lolo is 'royal wife'.

Meghan and Harry were serenaded in a group huddle, as one Nigerian led them in a chant of 'Gbosas', which roughly translates as 'kudos'.

Derek Cobbinah, who helped co-ordinate Nigeria's debut in this year's competition, told Hello! that the Duchess was 'deeply touched' by the nickname and that she is hoping to organise a family trip to the country.

'She said she couldn't wait to visit Nigeria for her mum and the kids,' he revealed.

'She's always welcome to visit Nigeria and other African countries.'

The revelation of Meghan's Nigerian heritage came on an episode of her Archetypes podcast after she did a genealogy test 'a couple years ago'.

She vowed to 'start to dig deeper into all this' during her discussion with comedians Issa Rae and Ziwe Fumudoh.

Archewell's latest project comes after Meghan's Spotify podcast, Archetypes, was axed following its first series. The Duchess also recently withdrew her bid to trademark the name.

The move to cancel the podcast in June was officially said to have been a 'mutual' decision between the streaming giant and Archewell Audio  the Duchess and Prince Harry's company.

But sources close to the 15million deal  which was signed by the couple in 2020  said it was was dropped after the pair did not produce enough content to warrant the full payout.

However, applications lodged with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveal that Archewell 'revived' its trademark bid for the Archetypes podcast title even after the Spotify deal had already been dropped.

But the application has now been withdrawn following an unsuccessful 17-month battle to have the title protected.

Meghan's quest to trademark the name began in March last year when the application was first lodged. But in January USPTO rejected it because of the 'likelihood of confusion' with an existing trademark of the same name.

Archewell's latest project to support schoolgirls in Nigeria is the first update on the foundation's website since August 12, when the organisation noted Prince Harry's participation in a polo tournament in Singapore in aid of Sentebale, a charity he founded alongside Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006.
A new documentary is lifting the lid on how Brits starting a new life in France aren't always greeted with the warmest of welcomes from their French counterparts.

The series, which airs on French and German channel Arte, is called Little Britain in the Dordogne, and follows the journeys of Britons who've moved to towns and villages in France's South-West - now dubbed 'Dordognshire' - to enjoy a taste of the Gallic life, and cheaper property prices.

The show shines a light on the tensions that have crept in between locals and the Brits who have snapped up country estates at bargain prices.

While the French locals are apparently bemoaning the infiltration of British culture - including the arrival of English butchers and barbers in their rural villages, the cultural differences are also felt by the ex-pats moving in.

One former Norfolk handyman, Graham Parker, airs his frustrations with the local French workers he's tried to employ to work on his 1million 18th century gite - saying they take two-hour lunch breaks and return to the job 'half-drunk'.

Norfolk handyman Graham Parker and his wife moved to the Dordogne for a better life, buying up country houses to rent out - but the Brit bemoans the French work ethic in the documentary series Little Britain in the Dordogne

The 30-minute episode also follows the story of British couple Steve and Helen Robbins, originally from Oxford, who moved to the small Dordogne village of Eymet eight years ago.

The couple now run a traditional English butchers at the local Thursday market, selling fare such as Cumberland sausages, back bacon and a variety of pies.

Although they've tried to learn French, they operate the stall in English and most of their customers are English, they say. Their meat comes from locals French farms.

The couple made the decision to move to the region in 2015 after watching a television show about it and decided to up sticks and move there - but say tightened laws post Brexit mean they wouldn't advise other Brits to follow their path.

A trader selling French baked goods at the stall next door to the Robbins admits that the locals in Eymet aren't all enjoying the impact on their village the new residents have had.

Steve and Helen Robbins, originally from Oxford, moved to Eymet eight years ago to set up a traditional English butchers - they're just one of a number of English shops now open in the Dordogne village

A stallholder who sells French baked goods next to Steve and Helen says he's happy to work alongside English people - but that their has been a negative response amongst some villagers

He said: 'There are English shops, an English barber. You're often among the British in the shops here. Some people are happy about it, others lukewarm.'

Another villager expressed frustrations at the Brits' reluctance to try and learn French, saying: 'They learn French slowly. They would need more lessons but they keep to themselves. So we have to speak English or there is no sale.'

And it seems the lack of entente cordiale works both ways.

Handyman Parker, who worked as a handyman for 38 years in Norfolk, decided to use his experience to makeover a French property - alongside wife Nicola, an accountant, but is frank about the struggles the couple have faced so far, saying he's working more than ever because he can't get the French staff.

The couple moved to Montignac-de-Lauzun, a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department just under a year ago.

After selling their barn conversion in Norfolk for 1.8million, the couple hoped to be able to buy more than one property in the Lot-et-Garonne region and, after renovating, let them out to tourists.

The couple have struggled to learn French and most of their customers - often seeking back bacon that's not traditional in France - buy their products speaking English

Ex-pats to the region have received a 'lukewarm' welcome, says one French stallholder

Sacre bleu, it's an English pie menu! The Thursday stall run by the Robbins sells English staples such as steak and kidney pie and sausage rolls

However, after snapping up a beautiful three-bedroom gite with a pool, built in 1780 and costing 1.2million euros (around 1million) they decided to add a fourth bedroom to capitalise on the space - but during the documentary face a race to finish the potentially lucrative addition in time after Nicola booked in prospective guests.

The couple say they have enough money to live off their savings for the first year - but must make money from their investment soon.

A frustrated Graham tells the show's makers how he's hasn't had much success getting workers to adopt British hours, saying: 'I just don't get it. 12 o'clock - everything stops. Literally they stop, doesn't matter what they're doing til 2 o'clock. And then they can't work because they're half-drunk!'

Post-Brexit laws mean Britons living in France have to prove they can speak A1 level French to be able to keep their working visa.

Recounting how a fire almost devastated their dream, Steve the English butcher gets emotional during an interview, saying he refuses to have his hopes of a better life in France dashed

Nicola and Graham Parker were hoping for less work, more revenue after buying a gite to renovate...but say their dream hasn't entirely materialised due a lack of French workers willing to their project on

The three-bedroomed gite that ex Norfolk handyman Graham Parker is converting; he says his dreams of working less have faltered because he can't get good local workers

The 18th century home is almost ready to rent out but Brits Nicola and Graham tell the show they're struggling to finish it in time for the first visitors

Nicola, who has grown-up children, recounts her difficulties in learning the language, telling the programme that the local accent makes it hard for her to understand.

She says if you fail the test, you get between 200 and 600 free French lessons to bring ex-pats up to speed but claims they can be up to a 90-minute drive away from their home.

Graham tells the documentary the welcome hasn't always been warm for the couple. He says: 'You've got the British coming over with their money and buying up all these old houses and renovating them.

'A lot of the French couldn't afford what we've bought, and that's where the divide comes.'

Little Britain in the Dordogne, an ARTE.tv documentary, is available to watch on YouTube
Princess Charlene of Monaco has once again denied rumours her marriage to Prince Albert is on the rocks, describing such reports as 'exhausting'.

The Monegasque royal, 45, has just returned to Monaco after a solo trip to her native South Africa where she was visiting family.

The trip marked her first visit to the country since 2021, when she suffered a horror illness which kept her away from her husband and eight-year-old twins for several months because she was unable to fly.

During her most recent visit, she revealed in an interview that she is tired of hearing rumours of trouble in her marriage to 65-year-old Albert, and admitted she has no idea where they come from - while also shedding light on her decision to delete her Instagram page this summer.

The comments come after she told a publication in Monaco that she is 'serene and happy' in her marriage - denying rumours that surfaced in German and French media that she was now 'living in Switzerland' and that her marriage was 'ceremonial'.

Princess Charlene, 45, has labelled rumours about trouble in her marriage to Prince Albert, 65, as 'exhausting'

Speaking to South Africa's News24, the princess, who shares twins Jacques and Gabriella with Prince Albert, said: 'I find the rumours [about my marriage] tiring and exhausting.'

In particular, she was referring to claims made in German newspaper Bild and French outlet Voici that she had moved to Switzerland and returned to Monaco 'by appointment' to carry out official engagements with the prince.

Insisting there is 'nothing wrong' with her marriage, the former Olympic swimmer said: 'I just don't understand where these rumours come from.'

The royal mother-of-two explained she deleted her Instagram account to protect her family's privacy

Speculation about the couple's marriage was further fuelled this summer when Charlene deleted her Instagram account.

However, the mother-of-two shut down speculation around her decision, claiming it was purely to protect the privacy of her children.

She revealed she wants to keep the twins away from the 'pressure' of life in the public eye for as long as possible - although she admits they are already picking things up.

Speaking about the close-knit siblings, she said she is 'grateful' to know they will always be there for one another.

Princess Charlene made her return to public engagements in Monaco on Monday night when she joined the Monegasque Seniors Association for a celebratory evening.

She beamed as she shared a ballroom dance with one of the members of the association, and received an elegant bunch of flowers from other members.

Reports that Prince Albert and Princess Charlene's relationship was on shaky ground date back to their wedding day in 2011 when she was dubbed the 'Runaway Bride' by French media for reportedly trying to flee before the ceremony (a suggestion she later laughed off).

In 2021, Princess Charlene's extended visit to South Africa once again fired up the rumour mill, as she was not seen in Monaco for ten months.

Upon her return to the principality, Albert claimed she was 'overwhelmed' and 'unwell', telling People magazine that it became 'pretty evident' a few hours after Charlene's return that she was 'unwell', before going to Switzerland for further treatment.

He said the former Olympian 'realised she needed help', adding: 'She was overwhelmed and couldn't face official duties, life in general or even family life.'

The prince said the final decision-making process about treatment involved an intervention-style meeting with family members, explaining: 'I sat her down with her brothers and a sister-in-law. She had already made her decision, and we only wanted her to confirm it in front of us. She wanted this.

'She already knew the best thing to do was to go and have a rest and have a real medically framed treatment. And not in Monaco. For privacy reasons, it would have to be someplace outside of Monaco.'

Meanwhile he revealed Gabriella and Jacques would 'visit' Charlene once they had the 'medical go-ahead', saying the twins 'knew she was tired' and 'not quite herself'.
Angelina Jolie has revealed how becoming a mom 'saved her' from going to a 'much darker' place while opening up about life as a 'single mother' following her divorce from Brad Pitt - as she stunned in a graffiti-covered dress on the cover of Vogue magazine.

The actress, 48, got real about how adopting her first son, Maddox, at age 26 'changed her entire life' and 'taught her to be in this world differently' while chatting with the publication.

She also spoke out about how 'wanting to live' for her six children has kept her going 'recently,' seemingly alluding to the bitter breakup she's endured with her ex Brad, 59.

'I was 26 when I became a mother. My entire life changed,' she shared. 'Having children saved me - and taught me to be in this world differently.

Angelina Jolie opened up about life as a 'single mother' following her divorce from Brad Pitt as she stunned in a graffiti-covered dress on the cover of Vogue magazine

The actress, 48, got real about how adopting her first son, Maddox, at age 26 'changed her entire life' and 'taught her to be in this world differently' while chatting with the publication

She also spoke out about how 'wanting to live' for her six children has kept her going 'recently,' seemingly alluding to the bitter breakup she's endured with her ex Brad, 59

'I think, recently, I wouldve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them.

'Theyre better than me, because you want your children to be. Of course, Im the mother, and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability.

'But Im also the one that they laugh at - and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family.'

Angelina admitted that she has felt 'a bit down these days,' adding, 'I dont feel like Ive been myself for a decade, in a way, which I dont want to get into.'

She also said she's in the midst of 'transitioning as a person.'

'We had a lot of healing to do. Were still finding our footing,' she explained.

The 48-year-old graced the front of the magazine's November 2023 issue in a white strapless gown that was covered in pink spray paint as she promoted her upcoming fashion company, Atelier Jolie.

She stared fiercely away from the camera and clutched onto two bottles of paint in the snap, while her long brown locks were pulled back into a tight bun.

Brad and Angelina met on set of the 2005 movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith (seen) and married in 2014

They welcomed three children - Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knox. They also adopted Zahara and Pax, and Brad adopted the son Angelina had adopted before they got together, Maddox

But in 2016, it came to an explosive end after the pair got into an alleged physical altercation while on a private flight with their six kids. They're seen in November 2015

'I dont want to be a big fashion designer, I want to build a house for other people to become that,' she said of her new brand.

'I'm hoping to change many aspects of my life. And this is the forward-facing one.'

Angelina told the outlet that she hopes Atelier Jolie will inspire women to 'feel safe enough' to be 'soft,' something she herself has had a hard time doing.

'Sometimes the way you dress says, "Dont mess with me - Ive got my armor on." But I want a woman to feel safe enough that she can be soft,' she continued.

'After I went through something where I was hurt, I had a therapist ask if I would try wearing a flowing garment.

'Sounds silly, but I assumed that pants and boots projected a "tougher" look, a stronger me.

'Was I strong enough to be soft? At the time, no. I felt vulnerable. Now I wonder if... I dont know what my style is because Im still understanding who I am at 48.'

Another image from the shoot featured her smirking subtly in a yellow, silky dress with a dark cape draped over her shoulder.

A third saw her chatting with collaborator Gabriela Hearst in a haltered black tank top and similar colored trousers, while a fourth showcased her standing alongside Helen Aboah, president and chief operating officer of Atelier Jolie, and Giles Duley, Atelier Jolies advisor for corporate impact, in a trendy white top, baggy pants, and gloves.

Angelina and Brad first started dating in 2005 and from the start, their romance was controversial.

They met on set of the 2005 movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith - while he was still married to Jennifer Aniston - and almost immediately, rumors erupted that he had cheated on the Friends alum.

Angelina (seen in 2021) admitted that she has felt 'a bit down these days,' adding, 'I dont feel like Ive been myself for a decade.' She also said she's in the midst of 'transitioning as a person'

It was a love triangle that seemed to capture the entire nation - and while Brad started dating Angelina almost immediately after he and Jennifer split, he has furiously denied that he was unfaithful to his ex.

Despite the allegations of infidelity, it seemed as though Brangelina was a match made in heaven, and for over a decade, they were Hollywood's 'it' couple.

They tied the knot in August 2014 during a secret ceremony in the South of France, and welcomed three children together during their romance - Shiloh, now 17, in 2006, and twins Vivienne and Knox, now 15, in 2008.

They also adopted two more, Zahara, now 18, and Pax, now 19, and Brad legally adopted the son that Angelina had adopted before they got together, Maddox, now 22.

But in 2016, it came to an explosive end after the pair got into an alleged physical altercation while on a private flight with their six kids.

Angelina later claimed that Brad 'choked' one of the children during the horrifying dispute and 'struck' another in the face, leaving her and the kids feeling like 'hostages' and towering in fear under a blanket for hours until they landed.

She also alleged that he grabbed her by the head, slammed her against a wall, and violently shook her at one point during the flight - which resulted in her injuring her back and elbow.

Brad's rep called Angelina's account 'completely untrue' to CNN at first, but then released an amended statement to the publication that read, 'Angelina's story continues to evolve each time she tells it.

'Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didnt do. He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.

'Thankfully, the various public authorities she has tried to use against him over the past six years have made their own independent decisions. Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done.'

Since they split, the two stars have been embroiled in one of the most publicized legal battles in Hollywood history over custody of their children, as well as the winery that they once owned together.

In May 2021, after years of duking it out in court, Brad and Angelina were officially granted joint custody of their six kids - but one month later, the judge's decision was thrown out.
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Savannah Guthrie has slashed the price of her Tribeca apartment by more than half a million dollars - eight months after listing the 'urban space.'

The Today show anchor, 51, and husband Mike Feldman, 54, are preparing for a major loss on their four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom abode.

The couple - who tied the knot in 2014 and went on to welcome two children together, daughter Vale, eight, and son Charles, six - purchased the condo for $7.114 million in June 2017, according to property records.

In January this year, the duo listed the 3,735-square-foot space for $7.1 million but have now drastically reduced the price to just $6.5 million.

It comes after house prices across America plummeted to historic lows as 31 per cent of the nation saw their property values decline in the first quarter of this year.

Savannah Guthrie has slashed the price of her Tribeca apartment by more than half a million dollars - eight months after listing the 'urban space'

The great room is nearly 50-feet long, and is divided into three different areas - one for relaxing, one for entertaining guests, and one for dining

Steel-framed glass walls, which can open and close, separate the dining area. It can seat up to eight people, and the room also comes with a marble and white oak custom-made bar

The couple - who tied the knot in 2014 and went on to welcome two children together, daughter Vale, eight, and son Charles, six - purchased the condo for $7.114 million in June 2017, according to property records

The stunning apartment features 10-foot ceilings, hand painted wall murals by Dean Barger Studios, white oak flooring, custom marble furniture, and bluestone finishes.

Savannah and Mike decided to get the apartment while they were pregnant with their second child, and it marked a major milestone in their relationship because it was the first home that they bought together.

After purchasing the beautiful abode, the talk show host and her communication consultant beau enlisted celebrity interior designer Monique Gibson to spice it up, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to Savannah, what drew her to the exquisite apartment - which is located in a boutique building in the heart of New York City's Tribeca - was the immense, concrete ceiling in what is known as the 'great room,' which Monique used as inspiration to stylize the rest of the condo.

'It looks so urban and cool,' Savannah told the outlet of the interesting ceiling. 'We just thought it added a certain edge.'

The 'great room' is nearly 50-feet long, and is divided into three different areas - one for relaxing, one for entertaining guests, and one for dining.

Steel-framed glass walls, which can open and close, separate the dining area. It can seat up to eight people, and the room also comes with a marble and white oak custom-made bar.

The listing describes the apartment as 'one-of-a-kind' and an 'architectural masterpiece,' writing, 'The elevator opens directly into a gracious foyer which leads to a great room. The space, renovated to perfection and with wall-to-wall south-facing windows, is ideal for entertaining.'

As for the spacious kitchen, the counters are made from Saint Laurent black honed-marble. It contains an enormous island in the center, up-to-date Gaggenau appliances, multiple ovens, a wine refrigerator, and sleek wooden floor-to-ceiling cabinets

Inside the master bedroom there's a fireplace and separate dressing room with custom oak millwork and antiqued mirror closets

It's no surprise that the primary bathroom comes with a slew of lavish amenities - like a deep soaking tub, a separate shower, and a flat screen TV, as well as Carrera marble and bluestone finishes throughout

The apartment - which stretches across 3,735-square-feet - is located in a boutique building in the heart of New York City's Tribeca

As for the spacious kitchen, the counters are made from Saint Laurent black honed-marble. It contains an enormous island in the center, up-to-date Gaggenau appliances, 30" Sub-Zero refrigerator and ice maker, multiple ovens, wine refrigerator, and sleek wooden floor-to-ceiling cabinets which offer plenty of storage space.

There is also a laundry room, home office - with a built-in desk and Murphy bed behind custom, millwork panels, giving it the ability to transform into a guest bedroom - and a second, informal dining area, which can 'easily be converted to a den or playroom.'

Inside the master bedroom there's a fireplace and separate dressing room with custom oak millwork and antiqued mirror closets.

Savannah told the publication that the dressing area was especially important since she has to wake up in the early hours most mornings to get ready for the Today show - and she doesn't want to wake her husband.

'My husband likes to sleep past 4 am. I dont have to tiptoe around,' she explained. 'He never said, "Oh my gosh, you were stomping around all night trying to find an outfit and kept me up all night."'

The apartment was the first home that the couple bought together

It's no surprise that the primary bathroom comes with a slew of lavish amenities - like a deep soaking tub, a separate shower, a flat screen TV, and a double vanity, as well as Carrera marble and bluestone finishes throughout.

Two more bedrooms share a 'sweet and spacious' bathroom with 'Ann Sacks tile floors and Hansgrohe fixtures in polished chrome.' The fourth bedroom has its own ensuite bathroom.

Another thing that drew them to the apartment was the quaint building it's located in, which has only 13 units in total.

'I've never been one to like those humongous buildings where you walk in and you feel like you could be at a hotel' Savannah explained. 'This is a small, sweet building.'

Despite it being more low-key, the building still comes with a 24-hour doorman, a full-time super, a fitness room, and a bike storage room.

As for why they're selling it, the mother-of-two said they have a 'vision and dream of living in a townhouse.' They plan to stay in the city, but didn't share what area they are eyeing.

And while they're excited for the future, saying goodbye to the place that they called home for the last six years will be difficult.

Savannah concluded: 'My fingernails will be scraping against the glass leaving this apartment.'

The couple also own a home in upstate New York, which they purchased for $2.7 million in 2014. The five-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion sits on 20 acres and boasts stunning views of the Catskill mountains.

The housing market is currently experiencing a dip with research from the National Association of Realtors, published in May, revealing that nearly a third of metro areas posted annual price declines, which comes off the back of a pandemic housing boom.

The startling drop was the highest percentage decline in the first quarter of the year for more than a decade, fueled by a mass exodus from Western states including California and Oregon.

While prices still rose in many regions in the Midwest, South and Northeast, several Western states have seen a stark decline in property values as homebuyers continue to flee amid concerns over crime, homelessness and waning living standards.

Other experts have since added that homeowners are sitting on a negative equity timebomb after losing $108.4 billion on their property values this year.

The average borrower saw their home equity plummet by $5,400 in the first quarter of 2023 compared to last year - with households in Washington, California and Utah worst affected.

And if prices tumble by give percent more than 200,000 households could be at risk of falling into negative equity - otherwise known as 'going underwater' on their home loans.

Negative equity occurs when an individual's outstanding mortgage balance is more than the value of their property. In a strong market, homes should appreciate in value over time - meaning borrowers have little risk of falling into negative equity.
Angelina Jolie has opened up about her daughter Zahara's troubles with finding clothing that will suit her skin tone - and how she has never encountered the same issue as a 'white woman.'

Zahara Jolie-Pitt, 18, was born in Ethiopia, and was adopted by her mother in 2005 when she was just seven-months-old.

Now, Zahara's struggles have come into consideration as her mother prepares for the launch of her fashion brand Atelier Jolie.

The range includes a silk slip dress that comes in various shades of nude - and it was her daughter who actually proposed the differing shades.

Speaking with Vogue, Jolie, 48, admitted she was unaware the troubles her daughter faced in fashion were even an issue until she began shopping with her.

Angelina Jolie has opened up about daughter Zahara's troubles with finding clothing that suits her skin tone - and how she has never had the same issue as a 'white woman' (seen in January)

The 48-year-old actress (seen with Zahara in 2021) admitted that 'it had never crossed her mind' that shopping as a person of color would bring about these experiences

'Obviously, as a white woman, Ive never had this experience,' Jolie told Vogue. 'It never crossed my mind until we went shopping together and I saw that theres so much room for improvement.'

The publication notes that 84 per cent of the collection has been crafted with sustainable and ethical materials.

Of her clothing range, she told the publication: 'Sometimes the way you dress says, "Dont mess with meIve got my armor on."

'But I want a woman to feel safe enough that she can be soft. After I went through something where I was hurt, I had a therapist ask if I would try wearing a flowing garment. Sounds silly, but I assumed that pants and boots projected a "tougher" look, a stronger me.

'But was I strong enough to be soft? At the time, no. I felt vulnerable. Now I wonder if I dont know what my style is because Im still understanding who I am at 48. I guess Im in transition as a person.'

In the interview, Angelina also revealed how becoming a mom had 'saved her' from going to a 'much darker' place while opening up about life as a 'single mother' following her divorce from Brad Pitt.

The actress got real about how adopting her first son, Maddox, at age 26 'changed her entire life' and 'taught her to be in this world differently' while chatting with the publication.

She also spoke out about how 'wanting to live' for her six children has kept her going 'recently,' seemingly alluding to the bitter breakup she's endured with her ex Brad, 59.

'I was 26 when I became a mother. My entire life changed,' she shared. 'Having children saved me - and taught me to be in this world differently.

The actress, 48, got real about how adopting her first son, Maddox, at age 26 'changed her entire life' and 'taught her to be in this world differently' while chatting with Vogue

Jolie opened up about life as a 'single mother' following her divorce from Brad Pitt as she stunned in a graffiti-covered dress on the cover of Vogue magazine

'I think, recently, I wouldve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them.

'Theyre better than me, because you want your children to be. Of course, Im the mother, and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability.

'But Im also the one that they laugh at - and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family.'

Angelina admitted that she has felt 'a bit down these days,' adding, 'I dont feel like Ive been myself for a decade, in a way, which I dont want to get into.'

She also said she's in the midst of 'transitioning as a person.'

'We had a lot of healing to do. Were still finding our footing,' she explained.

The star graced the front of the magazine's November 2023 issue in a white strapless gown that was covered in pink spray paint as she promoted her upcoming fashion company, Atelier Jolie.

She starred fiercely away from the camera and clutched onto two bottles of paint in the snap, while her long brown locks were pulled back into a tight bun.

'I dont want to be a big fashion designer, I want to build a house for other people to become that,' she said of her new brand.

'I'm hoping to change many aspects of my life. And this is the forward-facing one.'

Another image from the shoot featured her smirking subtly in a yellow, silky dress with a dark cape draped over her shoulder.

A third saw her chatting with collaborator Gabriela Hearst in a haltered black tank top and similar colored trousers, while a fourth showcased her standing alongside Helen Aboah, president and chief operating officer of Atelier Jolie, and Giles Duley, Atelier Jolies advisor for corporate impact, in a trendy white top, baggy pants, and gloves.

Angelina and Brad first started dating in 2005 and from the start, their romance was controversial.

They met on set of the 2005 movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith - while he was still married to Jennifer Aniston - and almost immediately, rumors erupted that he had cheated on the Friends alum.

Brad and Angelina met on set of the 2005 movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith (seen) and married in 2014

They welcomed three children - Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knox. They also adopted Zahara and Pax, and Brad adopted the son Angelina had adopted before they got together, Maddox

But in 2016, it came to an explosive end after the pair got into an alleged physical altercation while on a private flight with their six kids. They're seen in November 2015

It was a love triangle that seemed to capture the entire nation - and while Brad started dating Angelina almost immediately after he and Jennifer split, he has furiously denied that he was unfaithful to his ex.

Despite the allegations of infidelity, it seemed as though Brangelina was a match made in heaven, and for over a decade, they were Hollywood's 'it' couple.

They tied the knot in August 2014 during a secret ceremony in the South of France, and welcomed three children together during their romance - Shiloh, now 17, in 2006, and twins Vivienne and Knox, now 15, in 2008.

They also adopted two more, Zahara, now 18, and Pax, now 19, and Brad legally adopted the son that Angelina had adopted before they got together, Maddox, now 22.

But in 2016, it came to an explosive end after the pair got into an alleged physical altercation while on a private flight with their six kids.

Angelina later claimed that Brad 'choked' one of the children during the horrifying dispute and 'struck' another in the face, leaving her and the kids feeling like 'hostages' and towering in fear under a blanket for hours until they landed.

She also alleged that he grabbed her by the head, slammed her against a wall, and violently shook her at one point during the flight - which resulted in her injuring her back and elbow.

Brad's rep called Angelina's account 'completely untrue' to CNN at first, but then released an amended statement to the publication that read, 'Angelina's story continues to evolve each time she tells it.

'Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didnt do. He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.

'Thankfully, the various public authorities she has tried to use against him over the past six years have made their own independent decisions. Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done.'

Since they split, the two stars have been embroiled in one of the most publicized legal battles in Hollywood history over custody of their children, as well as the winery that they once owned together.

In May 2021, after years of duking it out in court, Brad and Angelina were officially granted joint custody of their six kids - but one month later, the judge's decision was thrown out.
READ MORE: Hoda says four-year-old Hope is 'on the mend' after health scare

Hoda has yet to address her absence, but fans have sent well wishes

Jenna confirmed that Hoda will return to the show, but didn't confirm a date

The host was absent from Wednesday's program with Sheinelle Jones filling in

Hoda Kotb was absent from Wednesday's episode of the Today show  with her co-host Jenna Bush Hager revealing to viewers that she's off sick.

Rather than presenting her usual morning NBC shows, the 59-year-old anchor was nowhere to be seen and was instead replaced on Today with Hoda and Jenna by correspondent Sheinelle Jones, 45, who gladly stepped in to help.

Jenna and Sheinelle kicked off the program by addressing Hoda's no-show and promised that she would be back - although they didn't confirm a return date.

'So happy you are here,' Jenna, 41, said while introducing her temporary co-host. 'Hoda is feeling a little under the weather, but she will be back.'

Hoda Kotb, pictured just yesterday, was absent from the Today show and Today with Hoda and Jenna this Wednesday

Today show correspondent Sheinelle Jones, 45, replaced Hoda while she was off sick

'Yesterday I felt like it was creeping,' Sheinelle said, referring to Hoda's sickness.

'Feel better, Hoda,' she added.

But Jenna made sure to tell viewers that Hoda wouldn't be tuning in to keep tabs on the program, and quipped: 'She ain't watching. I can promise you that.'

Fans at home eagerly shared their well wishes on X, formerly known as Twitter, with one writing: 'I hope @hodakotb is chillin today, and feeling better.'

Another said: 'I miss @hodakotb when she's not on.'

Hoda has been a mainstay on NBC's Today show since she joined the network in 1998 as a correspondent for Dateline NBC, a job she claimed paid so badly that she didn't have enough money to pay her bills.

She previously co-hosted the fourth hour with Kathie Lee Gifford between 2008 and 2019, before being joined by her current co-star, Jenna.

Hoda had been well enough to present on the Today show and Today with Hoda and Jenna on Monday and Tuesday this week.

Jenna and Sheinelle addressed Hoda's absence at the top of the program and said she was feeling 'under the weather'

Hoda and Jenna were shut down by Keke Palmer during Monday's episode of Today with Hoda and Jenna

Hoda's latest absence comes seven months after she sparked serious concern among viewers when she mysteriously vanished from screens - only to later reveal that her four-year-old daughter Hope had been hospitalized with a serious 'health issue'.

Hope spent a little over a week battling an undisclosed health issue in a New York City hospital in late February, including several days in the intensive care unit.

In the wake of the health scare, the popular morning show host shared several updates about her daughters condition, the details of which she has not publicly shared, revealing just last month that Hope was 'on the mend'.

Since then, it appears Hope has been going from strength to strength, with the anchor even taking a brief break from filming earlier this month in order to drop both of her daughters off for their first day of school.

The television host was updating viewers on what was coming up in the episode when she suddenly revealed she had to take her daughters, Hope and Haley, six, on their school run.

Hoda has not shared any details about her own illness, however she has been present for filming throughout the week thus far.

On Monday, she and Jenna were quickly shut down by actress Keke Palmer after probing her on-off relationship with Darius Jackson.

Hoda's own illness comes just months after she disappeared from the show when her four-year-old daughter Hope was hospitalized with an undisclosed health condition

Keke and her boyfriend Darius Jackson pictured in April 2023 with they baby son Leodis

It is not known when Hoda is expected to return to the Today show, but fans have been wishing her a speedy recovery

Keke, 30, and her boyfriend Darius - who welcomed their baby boy Leodis in February - were reportedly on the rocks after he went viral for publicly shaming her after she wore a sheer dress to an Usher concert in Las Vegas in July.

The hosts were keen to find out the latest about their romance when Keke joined them in the studio to talk about motherhood and turning 30.

Referring to her birthday celebrations in August, Jenna blurted out: 'Can I tell you, I was watching... it might have been on your 30th birthday... you and Darius out for drinks!'

Keke quickly replied: 'Oh, at the Beyonce concert!' as mother-of-three Jenna admitted: 'I was watching it live!'

The actress continued: 'The Beyonce concert... first of all, that was my second time going. I went first with my homegirls and he was like, 'I hear everybody's going for her birthday'... I was like, 'does that mean we're going again?'

'And the funny thing is, me and him we were trying to do a duck walk, and started doing the Vogue dance. We're all about it!' she added, referring to their date night at Bey's show.

Jenna then probed: 'Are you all about him?' as Keke laughed as she accused them of trying to 'get all into it'.

'Hey, listen, you were a talk show host. You know!' Jenna fired back as Hoda added: 'And you kind of brought it up!'

'We want to know if you're happy!' Jenna pleaded as Keke responded: 'Yes, life is good. I have nothing but gratitude, honestly, seriously,' as Hoda finished her sentence and suggested: 'For the relationship....'

'I'm not trying to be specific!' Keke fired back as Jenna asked: 'Well, are y'all together?'

'You know, I'm going to take a page out of my girl Beyonce's book... mind y'all's business!' she said as Hoda and Jenna said in unison: 'Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.'

Meanwhile, on Tuesday's show Jenna revealed how her father George W. Bush left her 'freaked out' as a child by exhibiting one particular habit that has impacted the Today host even in her adult years.
VIV, 59

Single for five-and-a-half years, no children.

Dating Past

I was married for ten years, followed by an 11-year relationship. Since then, nothing has gone beyond three months. But lockdown made me realise I was lonely, so I've been on a few first dates recently.

Pre-Date Nerves?

Of course  I'd be lying if I said otherwise. My hand was shaking when I took the first sip of my drink.

Viv, 59, is looking for someone taller than her  she's 5ft 9in and likes wearing heels. He'll enjoy keeping fit and healthy, and won't be old before his time

First Impressions?

Dutch definitely doesn't look his age. He arrived looking very dapper in a Panama hat and a lovely patterned shirt. He's slim and tall at 5 ft 11 in. We both complimented one another on our outfits, and it wasn't awkward at all.

Easy To Talk To?

The waiter taking our order had to return a couple of times because we were so busy chatting. We talked about Dutch's two sons, one of whom got married last month, while the other son married last year.

I instantly liked him: he's gentle, funny and a bit of a hero

We're both walkers, although Dutch plans his, with a rucksack and flask, whereas I like to stop at a pub or cafe en route.

He rescued a cat during lockdown  Finn was found with all his legs broken after being dropped off a tower block. Since then, he has gone from not trusting humans to sleeping on Dutch's bed.

To me, Dutch is a hero for taking Finn in, and the more he talked about his cat the more I found I liked him.

Embarrassing Moments?

Not really, although Dutch told our waiter we were on a blind date and he offered to act as wingman for both of us. Sweetly, at the end of his shift, he came to say goodbye.

Did Sparks Fly?

I instantly liked Dutch as he walked to the table. But I was too nervous to actively flirt with him.

Viv says she instantly liked Dutch when she saw him approaching the table, but she was too nervous to flirt with him

See him again?

Yes. Dutch is one of those gentle humans who is genuinely intelligent and funny. We went for a walk after our lunch. As we parted, we exchanged a hug and a kiss on the cheek. We've been in touch via messages and phone calls since, but not yet arranged to meet up.

What do you think he thought of you?

I think Dutch liked me. He certainly complimented me, saying I looked lovely and not at all my age.

Would your friends like him?

We took a selfie together in the restaurant and my girlfriends have said he seems really lovely and that we look good together.

BLIND DATE VITAL STATISTICS VIV Single for five-and-a-half years, no children. CURRENT ROLE Personal trainer. WOULD LIKE TO MEET Someone taller than me  I'm 5ft 9in and I like wearing heels. He'll enjoy keeping fit and healthy, and won't be old before his time. DUTCH Divorced, single for four years, two sons. CURRENT ROLE Record producer. WOULD LIKE TO MEET An adventurous, fun and physically active woman. I'm not looking for someone who is settled, retired, smokes or is a heavy drinker. Advertisement

DUTCH, 65

Divorced, single for four years, two sons.

Dating Past

When I left the Army in my late 20s, I met up with my school crush. We married, raising two fabulous boys, and divorced 23 years later, although we remain friends. Since then, I've been in three relationships over the past 13 years and been totally single since 2019.

Pre-Date Nerves?

Yes. This is a big thing for me. But I do love the company of women, so I reminded myself to focus on ensuring my match enjoyed the date.

Dutch, 65, is looking for an adventurous, fun and physically active woman. He doesn't want someone who is settled, retired, smokes or is a heavy drinker

First Impressions?

Viv looked great in a Pretty Woman-style polka dot dress. We greeted one another with a kiss on the cheek and I complimented her with a 'Wow! You look gorgeous'. I asked her if she'd like a glass of champagne as fizz seemed right for a special occasion.

Easy To Talk To?

Yes  Viv is a personal trainer and her clients are usually referred to her for medical rehabilitation. I was impressed that she had chosen a profession in which she is dedicated to helping people feel better; it says a lot about her.

I told her she looked gorgeous; we shared a rather magical kiss

We both love animals and walking in the woods. I told Viv about my rescue cat Finn. He was so angry and resentful at first, and I don't blame him. It took me four months to win his trust.

Embarrassing Moments?

No, nothing got knocked over.

Did Sparks Fly?

Yes, I think so. I had to remind myself to shut up and let Viv talk. I flirted with her by deliberately making good eye contact, smiling, complimenting and saying I'd like to do this again. I also found silly little things to make her smile because Viv has a lovely smile. At my instigation, we had a walk in the park after our lunch ended.

Dutch says he flirted with Viv by deliberately making good eye contact, smiling, complimenting and saying he wanted to see her again

See her again?

I told Viv I'd love to see her again. We said goodbye with a rather magical kiss. It was on the cheek, with a quick embrace, but it felt more exciting than that. Since then, I've been bonkers busy and I know Viv is, too  but we'll find a date. It will happen.

What do you think she thought of you?

I got the feeling we got on.

Would your family like her?

I showed our photo to my daughter-in-law, who told me we looked good together.

VIV'S VERDICT: 9.5/10

LIKED? Everything about my date with Dutch.

REGRETS? None at all.

COFFEE OR CAB? Coffee.

DUTCH'S VERDICT: 10/10

LIKED? Viv is a lovely, warm person.

REGRETS? No. I loved the date.

COFFEE OR CAB? Coffee.
She jokingly encouraged people to ask their partners about the 'brutal' scenarios

A comedian has been dubbed an 'agitator' and 'divorce lawyer saleswoman' for encouraging people to ask their significant other 'difficult' questions.

Hannah Jones, from Colorado, is an accomplished performer whose content often focuses on dating, family, and her personal life.

She recently went viral for the 'absurd' list of questions that thousands claimed would 'ruin' relationships.

'Here are some fun couple's questions where you can get to know your partner on a deeper level,' Hannah offered.

She followed up with queries like 'If you had to change one thing about my physical appearance, what would it be and why?' and 'There's a fire in the house and you can only save me or your mother, who do you choose?'

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Hannah Jones [pictured], from Colorado, is an accomplished performer whose content often focuses on dating, family, and her personal life

Hannah's comedic list of questions you should ask your partner * If you had to change one thing about my physical appearance, what would it be and why? * There's a fire in the house and you can only save me or your mother, who do you choose?' * If you had to cheat on me with one person that we both know, who would you pick? * Would you rather break up and never see me again, or we get to be together for three more years but then I die? * Would you rather be with my appearance but someone else's personality, or someone else's appearance and my personality? Source: Hannah Jones Advertisement

Hannah went on, 'If you had to cheat on me with one person that we both know, who would you pick?

'Would you rather break up and never see me again, or we get to be together for three more years but then I die?'

Her last question was: 'Would you rather be with my appearance but someone else's personality, or someone else's appearance and my personality?'

Thousands laughed at Hannah's 'devious' questions - offering amendments to make the hypothetical conversation more painful.

'If you don't have a significant other, wait until you're hanging out with a couple and surprise them with this game,' one said.

'Why limit it to a partner? You can also ask your bank teller, dentist, local librarian, or the middle-aged woman behind you at Costco,' another said.

'[My boyfriend's] mum is dead so they'd have to pick me for the house on fire situation - but what if I asked him if he'd rather be with me or have his mum come back to life?' a woman pondered.

Some actually ended up asking their partners the questions.

'I sent my husband this and he managed to answer all of them without hurting my feelings and actually made me feel very loved,' a woman shared. 'Absolutely insane.'

'My partner somehow found the correct answers to all of these questions, I can never leave him,' another wrote.

But not everyone was in on the joke.

'You're a divorce lawyer saleswoman - you clearly have goals of destruction,' a man said.

'How to end a relationship in five simple questions,' another wrote.

A third added: 'This sounds so toxic. There is no right answer other than not playing.'
A blood test that can help detect more than 90 per cent of prostate cancer cases is now available in Britain.

Currently, men who visit their GP with symptoms, such as trouble urinating, have a test that is around 55 per cent accurate.

This means thousands of men are wrongly told they may have prostate cancer and are sent for a painful biopsy or a scan unnecessarily.

The new test, available privately, can pick up signs of the cancer by identifying abnormalities in gene activity. Patients must fill in a form with their doctor and have a blood sample taken, which will be sent to a lab in the US for testing.

Early trials of the Prostate Screening EpiSwitch found that, when used alongside the standard test, 94 per cent of cases were picked up.

Currently, men who visit their GP with symptoms, such as trouble urinating, have a test that is around 55 per cent accurate, now a new test is being made available in Britain (stock photo)

The test looks for changes in immune cells within the blood, which flag up changes in gene activity seen in the early stages of cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, affecting one in eight. But delays to diagnoses mean around 12,000 men every year do not find out they have it until the disease has already spread.

This is partly because there is no single, reliable test, with the standard prostate-specific antigen tests notorious for giving both false positives and negatives. The PSE test has taken a decade to create with experts from Oxford BioDynamics working alongside Imperial College London, University of East Anglia, Imperial College NHS Trust and experts across the UK.

Mathias Winkler, consultant urologist and surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital and Imperial College London, said the test provides 'unprecedented accuracy'.

It is not yet available on the NHS and would need to be trialled on a broad range of men to ensure it is accurate, before it can be considered by regulators.

The Mail has fought for nearly 25 years to raise awareness of prostate cancer and treatments.
Sexism is leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths from preventable cancers every year, a new report claims.

'Unconscious' gender biases and discrimination are hindering women's access to cancer prevention, care and treatment, which is lowering their chance of survival, according to a report into gender inequalities in cancer.

A team of international researchers, who studied women and cancer in 185 countries, found 800,000 women worldwide, including 24,000 in the UK, are dying needlessly every year as a result.

The Lancet Commission criticised the narrow focus on 'women's cancers', with conversations focusing on breast and cervical forms of the disease and neglecting lung and bowel cancer  two of causes of cancer death among women globally.

They called for a 'feminist approach' to the disease to boost diagnoses and care, warning that women are dying 'in the prime of their life'.

Unequal power dynamics in society are negatively impacting on how women interact with cancer prevention, care and treatment, according to research into gender inequalities in cancer (stock image)

The commission, titled Women, Power, and Cancer, saw experts in cancer, gender studies, human rights, law, economics and social sciences, as well as patients, analyse how women experience cancer.

They said that women's healthcare is often focused on reproductive and maternal health, despite cancer being one of the top three causes of early death in almost every country.

They found discrimination influences women's rights and opportunities to avoid cancer risk factors, as well as seek and obtain timely diagnosis and quality cancer care  lowering their chances of survival.

Women are not fairly represented in research trials or in leadership roles in cancer workforces, they found.

Academics performed a global analysis on premature deaths from cancer among people aged 30 to 69.

READ MORE: Why are so many women under 40 being struck by breast cancer? Two of Britain's top experts, DR LIZ O'RIORDAN and DR ALICIA HEATH assess the evidence Nicky Newman, pictured, who died last week following a five-year battle against breast cancer. The 35-year-old campaigner had more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, who she regularly reminded about the importance of breast health Advertisement

When broken down by country, they estimate that 24,000 women in the UK die from cancer which can be avoided, rising to 800,000 worldwide.

Six out of these 10 premature cancer deaths among women in the UK can be averted through prevention and earlier diagnoses, they suggest, while the other 40 per cent, through improving access to timely and quality treatment.

Highlighting gender bias across cancer care, the researchers said women can face a myriad of factors which can 'restrict women's rights and opportunities to avoid modifiable cancer risks and impede their ability to seek and obtain a prompt diagnosis and quality cancer care'.

They said 'patriarchy dominates cancer care, research and policy making' and called for sex and gender to be included in all cancer-related policies and guidelines.

Smoking, high body weight and drinking alcohol are among preventable risk factors for women in the UK, they said.

Yet, only 19 per cent of women attending breast cancer screening in the UK are aware that alcohol is a risk factor for the disease.

Overall, they found some 2.3million women die prematurely from cancer each year in the 185 countries studied.

Some 1.5million deaths could be averted through prevention or early detection, and 800,000 deaths could be prevented if all women everywhere could access gold standard cancer care, according to the findings published in the journal The Lancet Global Health.

Dr Ophira Ginsburg, senior adviser for clinical research at the National Cancer Institute's Centre for Global Health and co-chair of the commission, said a 'feminist approach to cancer' is needed to redress the balance.

It is estimated that 24,000 women in the UK die from cancer which can be avoided (stock image)

She said: 'Globally, women's health is often focused on reproductive and maternal health, aligned with narrow anti-feminist definitions of women's value and roles in society, while cancer remains wholly under-represented.

'Our commission highlights that gender inequalities significantly impact women's experiences with cancer. To address this, we need cancer to be seen as a priority issue in women's health and call for the immediate introduction of a feminist approach to cancer.'

Co-author Professor Nirmala Bhoo-Pathy, from University Malaya and Queen's University Belfast, said: 'Gender norms mean women are often expected to prioritise the needs of their families at the expense of their own health, sometimes leading to the postponement of seeking healthcare.

'This can be exacerbated as gender norms also exclude men from participating in childcare in many settings, meaning it's hard for a mother to find childcare while they seek care for their own health needs.'
As infectious disease experts continue to probe the true origin of the Covid pandemic, new research is making a case for pangolins as the middlemen between the original animal host and humans.

The latest report on possible Covid origins was published this week in Nature and led by virus expert Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina.

The research team found the strain of coronavirus harbored in the rare animal was nearly identical to the one that has pummeled humans, leading them to theorize that the first cases of coronavirus likely jumped from pangolins to immunocompromised people.

This gave the novel virus ample opportunity to mutate and replicate until it reached its full pandemic potential.

Pangolins have long been suspected to have been the original go-between, but there is another camp of scientists who insist the pandemic was rooted in a leak from the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology, a theory that some US intelligence agencies support.

The coronavirus strain harbored in pangolins  the animals first blamed for transmitting coronavirus from bats to humans  was found to be nearly identical to the genetic makeup of the strain that infects people, suggesting it passed on a mutated version to infect people

While China has tried to insist the virus originated elsewhere, academics, politicians and the media have begun to contemplate the possibility it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology - raising suspicions Chinese officials hid evidence of the early spread

Scientists studying the origins of Covid-19, an ongoing effort that began in the early days of the pandemic, set out to trace the genetic lineage of the virus.

Genome sequencing, a process of determining the genetic coding of a virus to understand how it works, revealed a coronavirus in pangolins shared more than 90 percent of the same qualities with the strain that infects people.

The coronavirus experts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Vanderbilt University, Duke University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Tokyo called out in their study that multiple coronaviruses have emerged from animals in the 21st century and 'SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes Covid-19] mostly probably originated from strains that circulated in bats or other mammals.'

The team tested the strain in pangolins in the animals' nose cells and found it was adept at multiplying, suggesting it was highly adaptable to strike humans.

Based on the findings that the animal's strain binded to more receptors, had airborne transmission and had pronounced growth in their nasal cells, the researchers said they were able to 'suggest that individual pangolins, or perhaps some other rare wildlife species, was productively infected and served as a nearly untraceable pass-through species that transmitted virus to humans.

Pangolins are rare - scientists are not even sure how many are left in the wild.

They're also an elusive species that scientists have a hard time finding in the wild, though they are native to Africa and Asia. Yet they are the most trafficked species in the world, especially within Asia, because their meat is considered a delicacy.

Previous investigations into an origin animal host have produced mixed results.

In early 2020, researchers at the South China Agricultural University put forth the theory that pangolins served as an intermediate host based on genetic sequencing, but that the virus did not originate in the animal.

After testing more than 1,000 samples from wild animals, scientists from the university found the genome sequences of viruses found on pangolins to be 99 percent identical to those on coronavirus patients.

On the other hand, an Oxford University study in 2021 reported 'no evidence' that a single bat or pangolin was kept at China's wet markets, leading researchers there to conclude these species - frequently blamed for Covid-19 - 'were not the likely spillover host at the source of the coronavirus'.

This latest theory pointing to pangolins as animal intermediaries, with bats as the original hosts, contradicts arguments made primarily by Republican lawmakers that the virus likely leaked from a lab inside the Wuhan Institute of Technology.

The WIV specializes in the study of coronaviruses, particularly those that originate in bats.

Still, the authors insisted, Although speculative, a variety of data support this hypothesis' that the virus mutated in pangolins to become infectious among humans.'

Their findings were published Monday the journal Nature Microbiology.
More than 200 men have also joined the waitlist for a vasectomy

Appointments for free vasectomies at a Planned Parenthood facility in Oklahoma filled up in less than 48 hours as dozens of men signed up to get 'the snip.'

Tens of appointment slots at the Oklahoma City clinic were rapidly filled, staff said, with another 200 men added to the waitlist.

Staff at the clinic say more men are signing up for procedure because of the state's political climate, with Governor Kevin Stitt vowing to make Oklahoma the most anti-abortion state in the country. Under current state laws, abortions are illegal after fertilization with very few exceptions.

A vasectomy, which can cost $1,000, is a surgical procedure to sterilize a man in which the vas deferens, the tubes that carry sperm from the testicles to outside the body, are cut in half and sewn shut.

Men who have the procedure are still able to ejaculate, but their semen no longer contains sperm  removing the risk of a pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood's clinic in Oklahoma City (pictured) offered free vasectomies and the appointments were filled within 48 hours

Emily Wales (pictured), who heads up Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said they were seeing a rise in demand amid laws restricting abortions

The free vasectomies were advertised in the above post, which was shared more than 6,000 times and received 900 comments

The free vasectomy offer at the Planned Parenthood Great Plains clinic in Oklahoma City was announced in a post on Facebook, which quickly tallied up more than 6,000 shares and 900 comments.

The vasectomies were scheduled for October 20 and 21 and the men will have to undergo a consultation beforehand to ensure they understand the procedure.

A spokeswoman for the clinic revealed a total of 21 appointments were made available.

She said: 'At our free clinics, we don't ask for demographic information like insurance status or income; it's all based on a first-come, first-served basis, ensuring accessibility for all.

'Our waitlist for vasectomy appointments is growing, with more than 200 patients currently seeking this service.'

Previously, other clinics  such as Planned Parenthood of the St Louis Region  offered 100 appointments in its free giveaway.

Emily Wales, who heads up Planned Parenthood Great Plains, told local news channel News 4: 'Vasectomy is not something that's often available to people who have few resources, often cost is a barrier.

'It has meant we have a whole lot of people wanting to get in.'

She added: 'Right now, a lot of what we're hearing is that people do have concerns about government over-reach.

'So, for some people, that does mean that they want to plan for the long term and they do want to know that their contraceptive choices are their own.'

It is believed to be the first time that free vasectomies have been offered by this clinic in Oklahoma.

Men who signed up will first have a phone consultation with a clinic staff member to have the procedure explained, including the process, recovery and the fact that, in most cases, a vasectomy is irreversible.

For the procedure, doctors use a minimally invasive technique called a no-needle, no-scalpel vasectomy.

This is where a small puncture wound is made in the top of the scrotum to allow doctors to reach in and cut the vas deferens before removing a small section and sewing them closed.

This is done while patients are awake and under local anesthetic to numb the area. It can take around 30 minutes to complete.

A traditional vasectomy is when a small incision with a scalpel is made in the top of the scrotum to allow surgeons to cut the vas deferens.

Dr Esgar Guarin, who carries out vasectomies in his mobile clinic he calls 'The Nutcracker', previously said: 'It's worse to go to the dentist, I always tell my patients.'

A vasectomy is almost always effective at preventing a pregnancy, while oral contraception is around 91 percent effective.

While a vasectomy is normally irreversible, shortly after a man gets one it may be possible for doctors to successfully re-attach the vas deferens, this window closes within months.

The procedure is also not an instant birth control. Men will likely still have sperm in their semen for up to three months as this it is gradually cleared from the tubes with each ejaculation.

Vasectomies have been becoming more popular nationwide since Roe v Wade was overturned, with multiple clinics saying they are seeing more men than ever sign up for the procedure.

Data suggests a record number of Americans are now getting 'the snip,' while some clinics say they are seeing a rise of young men in their 20s and 30s wanting one.

And Oklahoma is no exception, with doctors saying they are seeing a spike in demand.

Dr Basel Hassoun, a urologist who runs a clinic in the state, told publication News From The States: 'We're seeing more and more vasectomies being done, especially after the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade.'

Governor Kevin Stitt has vowed to make Oklahoma the most anti-abortion state in America. It currently bans abortions after fertilization except for in cases where the mother's life is in danger

He added the shift appeared to stem solely from the change in abortion laws in the state.

Oklahoma enacted a law banning virtually all abortions  or abortions after fertilization  in August, with very few exceptions.

Upon signing, Gov Stitt said: 'I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that came across my desk and I am proud to have kept that promise.'

The state's supreme court overturned part of the ban in March this year, to make it easier for abortions to be done in cases where the mother's life is at risk.

Many women in the state, which is also one of America's poorest, will still need to travel to other states to get an abortion, however.

In addition to next month's Oklahoma event, Planned Parenthood also offered free vasectomies to young uninsured men in Missouri earlier this year for a third time.

A total of 100 procedures were offered to patients across its three locations in honor of World Vasectomy Day.
NatWest, HSBC, and Nationwide have already imposed restrictions

Research shows amount lost to crypto fraud jumped 40% in the past year

Chase, which has 1.6m UK customers, is banning customers from buying crypto

JP Morgan's UK bank is banning customers from buying cryptocurrencies following a surge in scammers.

Chase, an online bank with more than 1.6 million customers in the UK, will no longer allow them to make cryptocurrency transactions via debit card or outgoing bank transfers from October 16.

In March, NatWest joined HSBC and Nationwide in imposing restrictions on customers making payments to crypto exchanges.

JP Morgan's UK bank is banning customers from buying cryptocurrencies following a surge in crypto scams (Stock Image)

The amount of money lost to crypto fraud has soared by 40 pc in the past year, rising above 300 million for the first time, Action Fraud says.

Criminals typically lure victims into buying fake cryptocurrencies by impersonating financial advisers, company representatives or celebrities and promising high returns on any money invested.

A spokesman at Chase says: 'We're committed to helping keep our customers' money safe and secure.'
Smiths Group hailed record results driven by demand for new inventions including cutting-edge airport scanners and green energy products.

The London-listed engineer yesterday said revenue jumped 18.3pc to 3.04bn in the 12 months to the end of July  its largest ever haul.

Smiths, which was founded as a watchmaking shop in London in 1851, said demand for innovative new products helped to lift its sales, with organic revenue growth reaching a record 11.7pc.

Smiths Group invested more than 100m in research and development last year, with a focus on artificial intelligence and green energy innovations

The FTSE 100 company invested more than 100m in research and development last year, with a focus on artificial intelligence and green energy innovations.

It said product launches contributed more than three percentage points of growth in the most recent financial year, helping ease the impact of a slowdown in the semiconductor industry.

Smiths' boss Paul Keel (pictured) said roughly a third of the firm's revenue could be attributed to products that did not exist five years ago

Among Smiths' recent inventions is the technology that removes the need for travellers to take liquids and laptops out of their bags when going through airport security.

London City Airport was one of the first in the country to scrap the 100ml liquid rule after installing one of the high-tech 3D scanners.

Most UK airports will have followed its lead by mid-2024 in a bid to speed up boarding times.

Smiths has also developed ultra-high-pressure hydrogen gas seals, which will allow it to capitalise on the shift to hydrogen products as companies transition to green energy to reach net zero.

Boss Paul Keel said roughly a third of the firm's revenue could be attributed to products that did not exist five years ago.

Decarbonisation is another 'megatrend' helping it to boost growth, with the Smiths strategy unaffected by the Government's announcement last week that it will delay some climate policies.

'Every company has now made a net-zero commitment,' Keel said, saying the steel industry is a particular growth area for Smiths Group.

'What companies do when they make that commitment is look at where they are burning fossil fuels and how they can replace that with electric heating.'

Annual profit after tax fell 77.6pc to 232m, as the previous year's results included the profits from the sale of its medical business. But operating profit soared 244.4pc to 403m.
Manufacturer announced it will sell products in 100 Superdrug stores last week

Avon UK says it is moving more heavily towards selling its products in stores

Avon's UK boss has admitted that door-to-door selling is 'not for everybody' as the group moves to sell its cosmetics in stores and through TikTok.

For almost a century, the London-based company's 'Avon Ladies' have sold its beauty products through what managing director for Western Europe, Kristof Neirynck, calls 'pure ding-dong selling'.

Its representatives typically go door to door with a paper catalogue or host their own 'Avon parties' to showcase its wares.

For almost a century, 'Avon Ladies' have sold Avon beauty products by going door-to-door

But in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the rise of social media, the company has had to rethink.

Last week it announced that it will sell products in 100 Superdrug stores. The link-up with the retailer is its first bricks-and-mortar partnership, through which it hopes to reach younger shoppers.

'Not everybody wants to shop with representatives, and we need to recognise that,' Neirynck told the Mail. 'It has definitely shifted.

'Everyone thought off the back of the pandemic that nobody would ever go into stores but that shifted once lockdown was over. It is the same with direct selling but it is not for everybody.'

He said a High Street presence was 'the final piece of the puzzle'. Avon  founded in 1886  started selling a limited range of products on Amazon earlier this year. Its younger representatives are also using TikTok to entice customers.

Before the pandemic, just 10pc of sales contacts were made online. Now it is more than 30pc.

Neirynck said social media is 'an opportunity we hadn't necessarily leveraged until now', adding: 'We have all these reps who are really passionate about the brand.

Last week Avon announced that it will sell products in 100 Superdrug stores. The link-up is its first bricks-and-mortar partnership

'We were running the micro-influencer model way back when in an analogue way.'

But Neirynck said the Avon party was not over and there would 'always be a place' for face-to-face marketing.

'In beauty, it is about being able to play with the product and talk about how to get the right look,' he said.

Avon is owned by Brazil's Natura & Co, which also operates The Body Shop.

'In developing countries, for quite a few people, Avon is their main source of income,' said Neirynck. 'In the UK, it is more of a side hustle  extra income as part of the gig economy.
The share price of Videndum crashed by 36.9 per cent after the update

Shares in a British camera and lighting firm that supplies major TV and film projects slumped due to the impact of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes.

Videndum, a London-based company founded in 1910, said it is experiencing 'significantly more impact' from the strikes in the second half of the year than it expected.

Its share price crashed 36.9pc following the financial update.

Shares in a British camera and lighting firm that supplies major TV and film projects slumped due to the impact of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes (stock photo)

Writers went on strike in May and actors followed in July.

Videndum, which has worked on productions including Game Of Thrones said there has been 'encouraging news about the strikes' but it is not clear when productions will restart.

Screenwriters and studios have reached a deal after nearly five months, although it is still subject to a vote by union members. The actors' strike is ongoing.

The company, which also supplies news broadcasters and owns the Autocue brand, warned it might not be able to meet its debt repayments due to the financial impact of the industrial action.

Revenue fell 25pc to 165m in the first six months of the year and it swung to a loss of 50m having made a profit of 16.4m in the same period of 2022.
Soaking in the last of the Sardinian summer sun in the new 200mph soft-top Ferrari Roma Spider was wind in the hair motoring at its finest.

The sound of the suitably throaty twin exhausts around the Italian island resulted in admiring looks wherever I went.

And so it should with prices starting from 210,313  enough to buy you a studio flat in the less fashionable areas of outer London, a two bed flat in Bristol, a terrace in Sheffield, or a three-bed detached in parts of Newcastle.

That base price is a 30,000 uplift on the current hard-topped Roma coupe which starts from 182,675.

Full throttle: Our man Ray Massey took the new Ferrari Roma Spider out for a spin around Sardinia

But few, if any buyers, will pay the base price, given the array of temping 'extras' on offer in a 20-page price and options list  pushing the actual expended spend to closer to a quarter of a million pounds, or more.

Extras include:

- Magneride magnetic dual mode suspension dampers are a 3,390 option  but every car coming to the UK has them, perhaps to cope with the potholes;

- Carbon fibre on virtually everything from 7,190 for a rear diffuser, to 3,595 for boot trim and 5,341 for an under-door cover;

- 8,731 for an airbrushed logo badge;

- 2,054 for a neck warmer;

- 5,136 for a two-tone leather interior.

Ferrari says it is the first time for 54 years that there has been a soft-top front-engined prancing horse  since the 1969 365 GTS4.

And with a vast choice of colours  from a basic 18 options to special, classic and historical colours as a 7,601 option, plus hundreds of bespoke and personalised shades  you won't be lost for choice.

La Dolce Vita looks

The car looks gorgeous  whether with the roof up or down - but especially when exposed to the open air.

Ferrari says the simplified front with its overhanging shark-nose is designed to look as if were sculpted from single block of metal.

From the back, the Spider's long rear overhang echoes Ferraris of the 1950s and 60s but with low, compact axle-hugging proportions and a slim tail-light assembly.

New era: Ferrari says it is the first time for 54 years that there has been a soft-top front-engined prancing horse

There are 18 basic colour options along with special, classic and historical colours as a 7,601 option, plus hundreds of bespoke and personalised shades

A clever combination of design and tech creates a 'protective bubble' for the driver and front occupant even when open to the elements.

Ferrari believes the Roma Spider is the epitome of a new 'Dolce Vita' or sweet life.

Officially it plays down its attraction for women drivers, though a promotional film for it significantly features several glamorous stars of the Italian screen including Anita Ekberg (from the 1960s Fellini movie La Dolce Vita), Sophia Loren and James Bond star Monica Bellucci, though Marcello Mastroianni was among those representing male icons.

Slicing off the Roma coupe's metal roof creates engineering challenges to keep the soft-top Spider version sufficiently stiff and robust.

So the extra structural support for the all-aluminium chassis means the cabriolet weights around 84kg more than its hard-topped sibling  about the weight of the average man.

Sweet life: Ferrari believes the Roma Spider is the epitome of a new Dolce Vita

Top speed is 199mph-plus  let's call that 200mph with a fair wind

Power with responsibility

Driving performance is exciting and agile but not at all intimidating  as I found snaking with delight and confidence around tight Sardinian coastal and mountain roads.

Powered by a sprightly 620 horse-power 3855cc twin-turbo V8 petrol engine linked to an even sharper 8-speed F1 DCT automatic gearbox with manual paddle-shift over-ride, the Spider accelerates with super-fast throttle response from rest to 62mph in just 3.4 seconds and to 124mph, where legal or on a track, in 9.7 seconds.

Top speed is 199mph-plus (320 km/h plus)  so let's call that 200mph with a fair wind.

But while it's good to know the full power is there if you want or need it, you don't actually have to exploit it all to enjoy driving this car.

Having had fun tackling serpentine bends with vigour and grip, I was perfectly happy cruising calmly on open roads and feeling the breeze.

It has good manners in towns and villages where slower speeds are rightly demanded. And the locals clearly liked it judging by the waves  and even one gentleman's salute...

There are five driving modes which you can choose by twisting a small red dial - which Ferrari calls a 'manettino' or 'small lever' - on the steering wheel: comfort, sport, wet, race or the more extreme 'ESC off' which removes electronic stability controls  and is for the most experienced and professional drivers only.

Running on 20-inch wheels, a trick of design makes the back wheels beneath the rear haunches look bigger.

A rear aerodynamic spoiler is managed completely by the car, deploying into three different positions  for low drag, medium and high downforce - and retracting when necessary.

A compact aerodynamic diffuser incorporates the four twin-exhaust tailpipes.

Nifty extras: The 18-way-adjustable heated seats are also available with an optional neck warmer for colder days

Driving performance is exciting and agile but not at all intimidating, says Ray

Interior space

Described as a 'two-plus', it is in reality a sumptuous two-seater with a couple of barely-there half seats in the rear  big enough to squeeze in a couple of children up to 1.5m tall and the occasional adult for emergencies only.

But the rear space will be mainly used for overflow extra luggage, such as a soft bag.

That could be critical if the 255 litres in the boot (with the roof in place) isn't enough  or when that space is reduced significantly when you put the roof down.

However, a hatch via the rear seat backrests allows larger items to be carried.

Designed as a dual-cockpit  with separate spaces for driver and front passenger  the wrap-around trim extends, integrates, and rises behind the two rear seats.

Ferrari says the idea has its roots deep in the marque's history with cars from the 1970s.

Steering wheel controls have been refined with improved touch controls on the spokes.

The engine start button is now backlit in red and the track pad on the right-hand spoke has been improved to make it easier to swipe.

The 18-way-adjustable heated seats are also available with an optional neck warmer for colder days.

Roof: The clever soft-top Z-shaped folding mechanism retracts in 13.5 seconds when stopped or on the move at speeds of up to up to 37mph

Will it fit in my garage? Price: from 210,313 On sale: Now Length 4,656 mm Width 1,974 mm Height 1,306 mm Wheelbase 2,670 mm Dry weight: 1,556 kg Weight distribution 48% front/ 52% rear Soft-top opening: 13.5 seconds at up to 37mph (60 km/h) Soft-top composition: 5 layers for sound suppression. Engine: 3855cc V8 twin turbo Power: 620 horse-power Transmission: 8-speed F1 DCT automatic with manual paddle-shift Wheels: 20-inch Top speed: 199mph-plus (320 km/h plus) 0-62mph: 3.4 seconds 0-124mph 9.7 seconds Fuel consumption: circa 25mpg (11.4 l/100 km) CO2 Emissions: 258 g/km Braking distance 124mph to 0: 130m Braking distance 62mph to 0: 32m Fuel tank capacity 80 litres Maximum boot capacity 255 litres (with roof up and in place)

Raising the roof

The Roma Spider's smart low-slung roof comprises five layers of fabric and acoustic insulation which blocks out irritating exterior sounds when driving with it in place.

I did actually put the roof up for a short period.

And very snug it was, too. But let's face it, you buy a cabriolet with a view to having he roof down as often as possible.

The clever soft-top Z-shaped folding mechanism retracts in 13.5 seconds when stopped or on the move at speeds of up to up to 37mph (60 km/h).

Ferrari says that redesigning the coupe's tapering, fastback roofline meant modifying the rear screen to incorporate it into the soft top so that it can fold below the tonneau cover when open.

When the soft top is lowered, the active spoiler visually connects with the rear bench and head rests.

For the fabric roof, special weaves were selected in colour combinations designed to highlight the car's 'twin souls' of elegance and sporty performance. The bespoke finish with a two-tone weave draws on a palette of four colours.

An optional 'technical fabric' developed specifically for the Roma Spider gives it a shimmering sporty lustre and allure thanks to an innovative weave which creates a striking iridescent red finish designed to further enhance the roof's 3D surface.

Ferrari said: 'The automatic fabric soft top guarantees occupant comfort on a par with the retractable hard top system equipping the other spider models in the range.

'The five-layer fabric dampens wind and road noise, making it quiet even at high speeds.'

Designed to be light yet resilient, when stowed, the roof occupies a height of 220mm, which Ferrari says is the lowest in its category.

An optional 'technical fabric' developed specifically for the Roma Spider gives it a shimmering sporty lustre

The car looks gorgeous  whether with the roof up or down - but especially when exposed to the open air, says Ray

Taming the wild wind

One particularly clever element is a patented wind-deflector that pops out from the back of the two rear seats at the press of a dashboard button at speeds of up to 105mph (170km/h). And it works a treat at any speed.

I first drove the car with the roof and all windows down. At a suitably swift speed I pressed the button. Up popped the deflector  comprising the padded back-rest of the rear seats - and rotated into position behind my head.

And hey presto  instant calm as it tamed the previously wild inner-cabin air-flow. Ferrari reckons it reduces turbulence around the heads of taller drivers by around 30 per cent.

After your drive you simply push it back into place manually. The downside is that you can't deploy the deflector if there are people sitting in the back. But that's likely to be a rare occurrence.

Now all we need is some more sunshine - that, and a hefty bank balance.
First-half losses at Everyman Media Group soared more than fivefold due to a weaker slate of major film releases and the costs of new venue launches.

Britain's fourth-largest cinema operator reported a 4.3million loss for the six months ending June, against a 798,000 loss in the equivalent period last year.

It suffered the double whammy of an annual comparison with blockbuster releases in the first half of last year and from this year's two big films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, arriving later in summer.

The company noted that costs were primarily pushed up by salary hikes and the opening of new sites in Salisbury, Plymouth and Northallerton in Yorkshire.

Turkey: Everyman Media Group reported a 4.3million loss for the six months ending June

In addition, although average cinemagoers spent more on tickets, food and drinks, falling admissions led to the firm's turnover declining by 2.4million to 38.3million, which it blamed on the timing of big box-office movie screenings.

In the opening half of 2022, new releases included superhero movie The Batman, Kenneth Branagh drama Belfast and the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick.

By comparison, some of the most popular films this year only came out during the mid-summer, notably Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Many Britons have taken part in the 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon, viewing the two movies consecutively and helping Everyman achieve a record week of admissions in July and bumper trading last month.

Consequently, the company's turnover between the beginning of 2023 and the end of August was 60.2million, a 13.3 per cent increase on the previous year.

Alex Scrimgeour, the firm's chief executive, said: 'Everyman's strong year-to-date performance underpins our confidence in meeting market expectations for the full year, whilst equally demonstrating that the UK cinema sector is as vibrant as ever.

'We remain confident in our prospects as we continue to be supported by a slate of high-quality second half releases, a carefully expanded estate and new banking facilities which ensure we are well configured to take advantage of future opportunities.'

Upcoming blockbusters include the fantasy musical Wonka and the epic historical drama Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix as the titular French emperor.

The sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two was previously due to come out later this year but has been delayed into 2024 because of the labour disputes affecting Hollywood.

Yet Everyman expects to do very well from the screening of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concert film next month, which broke first-day presale records for distributor AMC in the United States.

Everyman Media Group shares were flat at 55.5p on late Wednesday afternoon and have slumped by approximately three-quarters over the past three years.
Dozens of volunteer rabbis traveled across the country to pray with inmates during the High Holidays and Jewish New Year.

Many of these convicted felons - some facing sentences of 4 to 30 years behind bars- are incarcerated for heinous crimes involving children, sexual assault and financial fraud, at some of the country's most dangerous state and federal facilities.

During the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and the holy day of Yom Kippur, which started on Sunday at sundown and ended at nightfall on Monday, many of these prisoners united with the rabbis, rabbinical and Hillel students from the nonprofit Jewish organization, The Aleph Institute, to seek forgiveness and repent for their sins.

An inmate at the Coleman Federal Correctional Facility in Florida, who attended last week's Rosh Hashana services was in awe and told DailyMail.com that 'Rabbi's Shmuli and Moshe lead one of the most complete and enjoyable services I've ever attended, inside prison or outside.'

'They tailored the services to the knowledge and comfort level of the inmates, taking time to explain the Halachic basis for the prayers and practices, not merely reciting them.'

A rabbi is seen with an inmate perform the mitzvah of tefillin- a blessing is recited and it is customary to read to the Shema prayer

Inmates wearing tallit (a prayer shawl) over their prison uniforms read from the Torah as a rabbi blows the shofar during a Rosh Hashana service. The shofar is blown roughly 100 times during a traditional Rosh Hashana service

A group of inmates wearing yarmulkes (a Jewish head covering) looking joyous as they dance in a circle with a rabbi from The Aleph Institute

He added: 'For myself and the others, who are separated from family during this significant time, their visit gave us the opportunity to feel a semblance of normalcy, and remind us that even in the worst of places we are not forgotten.'

At the Sumter Correctional Facility in Florida, a 58-year-old male inmate, who asked for anonymity, revealed how he had to hide being Jewish behind bars until he learned about The Aleph Institute. He soon found other Jewish inmates and recruited them into the program.

The organization has been his lifeline.

'Regardless how I'm feeling, I will never miss attending these services and visits,' he said. 'The volunteers present us with a pathway to forgiveness of ourselves, and from Hashem.'

Though he is serving a 30-year prison sentence with an expected release date of 2035, he said, 'I've been deeply touched and wondrously elevated by the constant vigilance of The Aleph Institute, the volunteers, rabbis and students.'

He added, 'I would hate to imagine where I might be today into what darkness I would find myself were it not for their dedication.

At Pensacola Federal Prison, a 25 -year-old male, who was sentenced to 45-months in prison for wire fraud, said the services have been very 'meaningful.'

'In an incarceratory environment you often feel as though you're down and out no matter how fortunate you may be on the 'other side, but having people willing to help -such as the volunteers that came-- truly made us or at least speaking for myself specifically - feel human.'

He said he has already served 16 months of his sentence and told DailyMail.com: 'They provide words of hope and inspiration in trying times as well as resolve to keep on pushing forward.'

This year, The Aleph Institute traveled to nearly 20 prisons in Florida, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania Rochester, New York, and New Jersey.

Many of the prison congregants wore tallit (a prayer shawl) over their prison uniform, and yarmulkes on their head (a skullcap and head covering worn by men during prayer) as they participated in Torah reading and listened to the shofar (a rams horn) being blown during the Rosh Hashana service.

The spiritual journey has not only elevated and inspired the inmates attending the services but also left a mark on the volunteers.

Rabbinical student Mendel Goldberg, 23, spent two days at Fort Devens FMC in Massachusetts leading the Rosh Hashana services for thirteen inmates with another volunteer.

He told DailyMail.com it was his first time conducting services at the prison and described the experience as 'surreal.'

'It was humbling to be able to provide services for those who otherwise wouldnt have been able to attend,' he said, in part.

'Finding the display of unity as the Jewish people as a whole turn to God on Rosh Hashana made me a little emotional.

Rabbinical student Avi Katz, 20, and another volunteer led the Yom Kippur services on Sunday at the Everglades Correctional Facility in Florida for thirty-six inmates.

During his time fasting and praying with the prisoners, he also got the opportunity to get to know some of the men on more of a personal level.

He recalled, 'We were saying a prayer about repentance which is what Yom Kippur is all about.'

'I explained the prayer to the prisoners and told them that everyone has regrets that they would like to repent for ... past sins...things they've done that wasn't in line with what G--d wanted.'

He added: 'One prisoner completely lost it and for me that was a very real moment to watch... a beautiful moment.'

The founder of The Aleph Institute, Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipsker (pictured) started the non-profit organization at the direction of the Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson

Rabbinical students congregating with inmates who are learning Torah

An inmate is engaged with a rabbi as they learn about the Torah principles taught by members from The Aleph Institute

An inmate wearing tefillin and sitting with a rabbi during a one-on-one meeting

The prisoners pictured wearing yarmulkes (a skullcap worn by Jewish men during prayer) listening intently as a religious leader shares stories and prayers from the Talmud

The Aleph Institute started in 1981 and serves individuals of all backgrounds and faiths. It is rooted in Torah principles that emphasize the values of human dignity.

Their motto is 'No one left. No one forgotten.'

Rabbi Aaron Lipskar, CEO of The Aleph Institute told DailyMail.com that the organization provides assistance to many different communities, but their overarching objective is to work with individuals that are institutionalized or in limited environments - prison environments, the military - anywhere that Jewish individuals are separated or disconnected from their local communities.

The prison program started as a grassroots effort with some local prisons in the Miami area, with roughly 20 Jewish inmates, who all had a desire to be more connected to their faith and have access to Jewish programming.

Rabbi Lipskar said: 'Wherever they went, they told others that they met that there are rabbis and people who would respond to your needs if you reach out to them, so within a short time the program grew exponentially.'

Pictured: Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. Though he died in June 1994, his teachings continue to live on

He said, today, their reach is approximately 900 institutions in the United States.

'We operate, of course, wherever there's a Jew incarcerated, but our services are not limited only to Jewish people,' he said.

'Any person of any background, race, religion that reaches out to us, we advocate for and we assist with whatever needs they have.'

Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipsker, founded The Aleph Institute under the direction of the Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.

Rabbi Schneerson, known to many as 'the Lubavitcher Rebbe' or 'the Rebbe' was an Orthodox rabbi and the most recent Rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty.

He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. Though he died in June 1994, his teachings continue to live on.

Rabbi Lipskar, who has led services in the most extreme and sometimes dangerous conditions, including for the Jewish military personnel stationed on Guantanamo Bay, 'Gitmo,' or for Jewish inmates on death row, or in environments where chaplaincy, he explained, is not available.

'We are there to bring them support. We are there to bring them that spiritual upliftment. We are there to bring them a connection without judgment,' he said.

'They are in the environments they're in for the reasons that society has deemed that it's necessary for them to be there or alleged to have done things, but our objective is not to be a judge. It's not to be the jury on this matter.'

'Our objective is just to be there to bring them some humanity, some love, some connection and acceptance, just as each one of us would want in our own lives.'
Fox Business will be showing the face-off at 9pm - this is the schedule

Seven Republicans are hoping for a second chance to prove they are better suited for the White House than Donald Trump as they prepare to take stage for another debate Wednesday evening in California.

Specifically, Ron DeSantis faces a decisive night in his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee.

Airing 9 p.m. on Fox Business, the second presidential debate is taking place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, where fireworks and furious exchanges are expected as the candidates make their case to be the next president.

Florida Governor DeSantis has slipped to as low as fifth place in some polls, and is expected to face attacks from his opponents as he tries to revive his challenge to frontrunner Trump.

Strategists tell DailyMail.com that DeSantis' team is prepared for an onslaught of criticism at Wednesday's debate, but insist he won't stoop to the level of initiating attacks on those beside him on stage.

Trump is skipping the event  again  and will instead speak to autoworkers and members of the striking United Automobile Workers (UAW) union in Detroit at 8 p.m.

Eyes are also on Nikki Haley on the back of her surging poll numbers in recent weeks, and Vivek Ramaswamy, after stealing the spotlight during the first round in Milwaukee last month.

The other contenders need critical support, or they will face growing questions about their future in the race. DailyMail.com answers the key questions about tonight's spectacle.

Who is debating?

Those on stage will be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Vice President Mike Pence; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

But with all candidates still polling so far behind Trump, many still view the debate as part of the race for second place.

The former president has repeatedly said the events are beneath him since no candidate can touch his polling levels.

Absent from the stage this time around will be former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who did not qualify for the second debate after narrowly meeting the polling and donor thresholds for the first debate last month.

He did manage to meet the qualifications in one national poll, but has not met the donor or state-level polling thresholds needed to debate.

Seven candidates met the Republican National Committee's heightened qualifications to participate in the second primary debate. Above is how they will line up on the stage in California on Wednesday night

QUICK GUIDE FOR SECOND GOP DEBATE Where: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California When: Wednesday 27, 2023 at 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET Who qualified: Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Doug Burgum Hosts: Fox Business and Univision Moderators: Fox News anchor Dana Perino, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Univison's Ilia Calderon Where to watch: Fox Business Network, Fox News, Rumble, streaming platform Fox Nation, Univision (in Spanish), its streaming platform ViX and website UnivisionNoticias.com Where will Trump be: Detroit, Michigan area, meeting with picketing auto union workers and delivering a speech Advertisement

When and where is the debate?

The debate will kick-off at 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California and is hosted by Fox Business and Univision.

Fox News anchor Dana Perino and Fox Business host Stuart Varney will co-moderate along with Univision's Ilia Calderon.

There are 750 seats in the Reagan Library for in-person debate spectators where the stage is set next to an old Air Force One. Additionally, there are multiple channels and streaming options for viewers to watch the debate.

With 600 reporters credentialed to cover the event on scene, the number of press to spectators nearly reaches a 1:1 ratio.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) released a statement in June stating that candidates who qualify for the debates will be placed on stage according to how well they poll, 'with the highest polling candidates in the center.'

This means that DeSantis is taking center-stage, flanked by Ramaswamy and Haley. The next layer out will include Scott and Christie while Pence and Burgum will round out the stage at either ends of the line of podiums.

Some expect the two-hour event to be overshadowed by what many see as a preview of a hypothetical general election rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden as both head to Michigan this week.

Biden joined the picket line with striking auto union workers Tuesday  and Trump is holding his prime-time speech where auto workers are expected to be in attendance Wednesday during the debate.

Besides Hutchinson, the other contenders who didn't make the cut are conservative radio host Larry Elder; Michigan businessman Perry Johnson; pastor and businessman Ryan Binkley; and former U.S. Rep. from Texas Will Hurd.

Miami Mayor Frances Suarez, who did not qualify for the first showdown, withdrew from the race between the first and second debates.

Despite skipping the debate, Trump will head to the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim just two days later for a lunch banquet at the California Republican Party's fall convention on Friday.

DeSantis will appear at the dinner banquet the same day, while an afternoon event will include remarks from Scott. Meanwhile, Ramaswamy will go to the convention on Saturday for a VIP reception and lunch banquet, according to an online schedule of events.

Trump calls debate 'stupid'

Trump already set a precedent by skipping out on the first in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last month.

He instead sat-down for a wide-ranging interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which started airing just five-minutes before the debate kicked-off.

Trump has suggested he could bypass all of the primary debates.

On Monday, during a campaign stop in Summerville, South Carolina, the ex-President called the Republican primary debates 'stupid.'

'Basically, it's a job interview. You look at the debates, it's a job interview, and so far, I'm not too interested,' he said at a campaign field office ahead of a rally in the early primary contest state.

Donald Trump said during a campaign stop in Summerville, South Carolina on Monday that the debates are 'stupid' and said they are 'a job interview' in which he's not 'interested' in participating

Convening at the Reagan Library in southern California, the candidates will go head-to-head for the second time in two months  many taking this opportunity to expand on ideas they presented at the first debate.

President of the Reagan Foundation & Institute David Trulio told DailyMail.com that the location of the second debate is significant because of the Reagan-like principals candidates are attempting to emulate.

'Back in the 70s and 80s, some questioned whether America's best days were behind her, and we see that today,' Trulio noted during a sit-down at the library on Tuesday.

'So President Reagan believed in debate when he established this library in November of 1991,' Trulio added. 'He said he wanted it to be 'a dynamic intellectual forum' where policymakers debate the future. So what better place in the Reagan Library for candidates in this case of the Republican Party to make their case for why they should attain the highest office in the land than this place?'

He also noted the disappointment felt that Trump will not participate in the debate.

'We would love for any candidate who meets the RNC qualifications to be here and that, of course, includes President Trump,' Trulio said. 'He has chosen not to sign the pledge as I understand it, which therefore precludes his ability to come on stage, but he met the other requirements that the RNC set.'

After failing to close the gap with Trump  and actually seeing it widen after the first debate  many political strategists say that the pressure is on for DeSantis to really perform alongside the other candidates essentially in the race for second place.

Meanwhile, others tell DailyMail.com that Scott needs to make this debate his moment if he wants to meet the enhanced criteria for the third debate later in the fall.

How are the candidates preparing for the debate?

Sen. Scott prepares mostly by praying, spending time with family and staying active by going to gym and playing pickleball, a person familiar with the candidate's preparations told DailyMail.com.

Speaking with Fox News last week, Scott said: '[What I] hope you see on Wednesday night is a guy being authentically who he is. I wanna be myself.'

'The goal is for us to be able to have a conversation about the most important issues facing this nation,' the senator added, later saying: 'I'm the defender for those who cannot find someone to stand up. I will be the voice for those who feel voiceless because I've been that kid.'

A source familiar with DeSantis' debate preparations and strategy said that his team expects the governor to face more attacks this time.

'Other candidates made a mistake last time by not attacking and I don't think they will make the same mistake again,' the source told DailyMail.com.

Ron DeSantis faces a decisive night in his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee as he takes the stage in primetime with six of his rivals in California

A letter sent to 'friends, donors and supporters' suggests that Desantis will not stoop to attacking his fellow candidates on-stage.

'While other candidates may take this opportunity to distract or level false attacks, DeSantis stays laser-focused on the mission at hand of reviving the American Dream and delivering victories for hardworking families,' the memo penned by DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier reads.

He continued by slamming Trump for his refusal to debate as well as his general absence from the primary campaign trail. Uthmeier compared the ex-Presidents campaigning style to that of Biden's 'campaign-from-the-basement strategy' in the midst of the 2020 pandemic.

Notorious for keeping strategy lock-lipped on debate strategy, Haley's team can expect a target on her back following her post-debate surge last time around, political strategists tell DailyMail.com.

It's unlikely, they note, that Haley, who is the only woman on stage, will back-down from attacks from her GOP competitors.

Vivek Ramaswamy stole the show at the first debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Can he capture the limelight again and cement his status as a candidate to be taken seriously

How did they qualify for the debate?

Criteria for the second debate include the candidates proving to the RNC that they polled above 3 percent in August or September in at least two separate national surveys.

Alternately, the candidates could only reach the national threshold with one poll, while polling above 3 percent in two separate early primary state polls in two of the four early primary states  Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.

The polls had to include at least 800 registered likely Republican voters and the survey couldn't be affiliated with any of the candidates.

Candidates also need to attract donations from a minimum of 50,000 individuals  including at least 200 from 20 different states or U.S. territories.

Like the first debate, candidates were required to sign a pledge vowing to support whoever becomes the GOP nominee in the 2024 race. This is something that has been criticized by some candidates, including Christie and Hutchinson. They claim the pledge caters to Trump, who is more than likely to be the nominee.

The third debate is scheduled for early November in Miami, Florida, sources told multiple media outlets.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, campaign manager for the Biden-Harris 2024 reelection, told reporters in southern California on Tuesday that the team is letting Republicans speak for their extreme agenda.

'We're going to stay focused on getting that message of our accomplishments out and making sure that voters understand the extreme agenda that we're gonna continue to see tomorrow night coming from that debate stage,' she noted during a press conference with unionized farmers endorsing the President's reelection bid.
'Instagram-famous' model Morgan Osman was on her way to surprise her mother who was about to be released from prison when she had her viral plane meltdown.

Osman, 35, had not spoken to her mother in seven years, but decided to surprise her upon her release from York Correctional Institute after she reached out through a family member.

Her mother, Mindy McGloin, 55, had been serving a six-month sentence for violating her probation earlier this year, after being found guilty of breach of the peace, drunk driving and criminal mischief in 2022.

The brunette model got on the plane from Miami to Connecticut on September 14  the day before her mother was set to be released - but never made it after her screaming match with another passenger.

'I've always told the truth. I've written about my mom being an addict and a super abusive mother,' Morgan told DailyMail.com. 'I don't even know what she was in prison for.'

Osman, 35, had not spoken to her mother in seven years, but decided to surprise her upon her release from York Correctional Institute after she reached out through a family member

Her mother, Mindy McGloin, 55, (left) had been serving a six-month sentence for violating her probation earlier this year, after previously being found guilty of breach of the peace, drunk driving and criminal mischief in 2022.

She said: 'My mom reached out to my aunt while she was in prison and asked for my number while she was in there.

'I started talking to her and tried to set her up for when she was getting out. My goal on the airplane was to surprise her and pick her up because I hadn't seen her in seven years.

'My mom had us too young, and she has mental health issues. She shouldn't have had any of us that young, as well as suffering with her mental health.

'She had me and my brothers by different fathers, my grandparents took care of my older brother very well. I got stuck with her.

'It was a very volatile and unfortunate time for me. I had a really bad childhood, but I became a really great person.

'I'm 35 years old. I don't feel bad for myself, and everything's fine. I hadn't seen her in seven years. The last time I saw her, I went up there I gave her $3,000 and set her up really nicely.'

Staff at York Correctional Institution confirmed that McGloin had been released from their custody on September 15  the day after Osman had tried to get to the facility.

McGloin has had a string of criminal convictions dating back to at least 2014 and was convicted of violating the conditions of her release in 2018, as well as criminal trespassing.

Staff at York Correctional Institution confirmed that McGloin had been released from their custody on September 15  the day after Osman had tried to get to the facility

Osman said that she had tried to get to Connecticut, where she grew up, on a JetBlue flight two hours earlier but it was canceled. Pictured with her new boyfriend, Wes Watson

'I've always told the truth. I've written about my mom being an addict and a super abusive mother,' Morgan told DailyMail.com. 'I don't even know what she was in prison for'

In 2019 the mother-of-three was found guilty of disorderly conduct, and was handed a 90-day suspended prison term.

She was handed a year-long suspended prison term in 2014 after being found guilty of prostitution, a category A misdemeanor.

McGloin denied the prostitution charges at the time, with her daughter adding that it was a 'set up' and her mother went to court to fight the charges after her conviction.

Osman said that she had tried to get to Connecticut, where she grew up, on a JetBlue flight two hours earlier, but it was canceled.

She rebooked on American Airlines in a bid to make it her, before she clashed with aa passenger sat next to her who she claims was shouting at her  adding that neither flight had business class available.

'I have a meltdown. I start crying my eyes out,' she said. 'I'm like, I've planned this for a month. My whole family's waiting. I have a great family. They all had a dinner setup and it was a really big deal.

She added: 'I'm already really nervous. And I'm the sweetest girl until you f*** with me. I'm surprising my mom. I bring just carry on. I'm there for one day just to pick her up.

'She has no idea I'm coming. I was sending her money in prison. And I hadn't seen her in seven years, I know that she has these problems and it breaks my heart.

'I'll let people borrow money I don't even have, I'm an angel, and I'll help anyone who needs it. And I would never let my mother be without.

'My family had a dinner setup when I got there, my brother had helped his girlfriend give birth on their bedroom floor it was amazing.

She told DailyMail.com: 'I plan to go back up there , and I laugh now and say I'll do economy again if I have to!'

The model has since debuted her new relationship with Wes Watson, a counselor who has turned his life around to help others after serving ten years in prison

'Film me - I'm Instagram famous, you f***ing bum,' Morgan shouted as she notices the passenger videoing her tantrum

She got his name inked on her face and has leaned into her viral fame with several posts referring to the incident on social media

'It went viral and I was just like, if only they knew I was going there to give my mother money. I've been speaking to her since she got out, she's driven me nuts but I want to help her because I'd help anyone.

'I plan to go back up there , and I laugh now and say I'll do economy again if I have to!'

When boarding the plane Osman says that she clashed with the woman she was sitting next to, who started talking about her while on the phone to a friend.

Osman said she told the woman that she was trying to see her mother, but decided to get off the plane so the situation didn't escalate.

'I called the girl a bum because she had her phone out, not because she was flying economy,' she said. 'The picture of me in a private jet wasn't planned at all, it all just snowballed.

She added: 'My new boyfriend has his own jet, and was going to San Diego anyway so I just went with him. I don't fly private, I'm not going to pay the money for that.

'I love JetBlue and I'll always fly with them if I can. I'll fly private, I'll fly economy, I'll take a f***ing Greyhound to see my mother if I have to.

'If your mom raises you as she's bipolar, manic schizophrenic, depressed, what do you think I'm gonna be - I'm a maniac, but I've cleaned myself up.

'And I don't go around the world like that, because I don't want to be my mother.'

When boarding the plane Osman says that she clashed with the woman she was sitting next to, who started talking about her while on the phone to a friend

In a blog post, Osman confirmed that her mother was a 'drug addict' who disappeared when she was just a teenager

Osman has been slammed by viewers of the footage, saying the glamourous influencer is 'entitled' and a 'clown' for throwing a tantrum on the American Airlines flight

The model has since debuted her new relationship with Wes Watson, a counselor who has turned his life around to help others after serving ten years in prison.

She got his name inked on her face and has leaned into her viral fame with several posts referring to the incident on social media.

In a blog post, Osman confirmed that her mother was a 'drug addict' who disappeared when she was just a teenager.

Osman admitted that her mother was suffering from bipolar disorder and moved her between two towns in Connecticut more than 15 times before she was 16.

The model said that her mother worked for the Department of Mental Retardation at the time of the alleged abuse.

Her claim to fame is appearing on two episodes of Oxygen's Bad Girls Club back in 2010 where she was nicknamed 'The Uber B****.'

The model found herself in the news again after her plane meltdown, where she was caught in a 20-second clip taking her luggage from the overhead locker while shouting at a fellow passenger.

Wearing a skin-tight gray unitard, she yells, 'call me a b***h again,' as the passenger filming lets out a snort of laughter.

Osman, who lives in Miami, was caught on the 20-second clip taking her luggage from the overhead locker while shouting at a fellow passenger

The Instagram model and swimwear designer was caught on camera having a meltdown at another passenger on board an American Airlines plane

'Call me a b****h again, I did nothing wrong!' she shouts as she holds her suitcase and a handbag by her side.

Someone tells her to shut up, to which she responds: 'No you shut the f*** up! You shut the f*** up, and your b***h.'

The brunette turns to walk down the aisle before noticing the woman filming the interaction on her phone.

Furious, she turns to her and shouts: 'Film me - I'm Instagram famous, you f*****g bum.'

She can be heard cussing at other passengers as she stomps down the aisle out of shot, as several people laugh at the performance.

American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment by DailyMail.com,

The unhinged reaction of Osman on the plane is reminiscent of Tiffany Gomas' viral plane meltdown on July 2 where she shouted 'that mother f***er isn't real' at another passenger as she left the aircraft.

Osman defended herself over the video, posting on her social media t the time saying: 'Don't act like y'all don't know who tf I am. From Bad Girls Club to the South of France with billboards all over LA. Come on now.'

Osman has been slammed by viewers of the footage, saying the glamourous influencer is 'entitled' and a 'clown' for throwing a tantrum on the American Airlines flight.

Posting on social media she said: 'I didn't get kicked off, I asked to leave instead of it turning violent. Thank u.'

Friends of hers appeared to be mocking the situation by lip-synching to the audio on Instagram, with one tagging her and saying, 'on my Morgan behavior in seat 36F, WITH my diamonds.'

She also filmed herself giggling after talking about her outburst in a Louboutin store in Miami, after brazenly bragging 'I said what I said' on her Instagram story.

The model laughed as she asked an employee in the designer store, 'You saw me fighting on the plane', before moving on to talk about her $1,995 boots and $795 mules.
Herman Cain, the 2012 Republican candidate, was hospitalized with Covid after going maskless at a Trump rally

Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims he stopped wearing masks because they smeared his bronzer, and that Mark Meadows admitted We killed Herman Cain during an Oklahoma rally at the height of the pandemic.

Hutchinson said she had pointed out to Trump that his makeup was getting everywhere.

She said Meadows admitted that a superspreader campaign rally Trump held indoors in Tulsa in June 2020 led to the death of 2012 GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, according to CNN.

Hutchinsons book provides new details about the Trump White Houses chaotic COVID response, which likely cost the ex-president reelection in 2020.

resident Donald Trump pulls off his protective face mask as he poses atop the Truman Balcony of the White House after returning from being hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center, October 5, 2020

Trumps supporters proudly flouted mask rules to follow their leader, but the ex-president initially tried wearing a mask while touring a mask-making facility in Phoenix, Arizona in May 2020, two months into the pandemic.

Trump decided on a white mask, Hutchinson wrote, according to an excerpt in The Guardian, and then asked staffers what they thought.

I slowly shook my head, Hutchinson recalled. The president pulled the mask off and asked why I thought he should not wear it. I pointed to the straps of the N95 I was holding. When he looked at the straps of his mask, he saw they were covered in bronzer.

Why did no one else tell me that? she recalled the president snapping. Im not wearing this thing.

She noted that the press criticized Trump for not wearing a mask during the trip not knowing that the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks - and then millions of his fans followed suit.

When Trump did finally don a mask publicly - in July of 2020 and on a trip to Walter Reed - he wore a Navy blue one, which would better hide makeup smears.

Trump also grew tired of social distancing and decided to, in June 2020, hold his first campaign rally in months.

Donald Trump with Herman Cain

Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testifies as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, June 28, 2022

The original plan for the rally - to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth - was criticized because Tulsa had been the site of a race massacre 99 years before.

Juneteenth was supposed to be an uplifting holiday for African-Americans, as it marked the day the final enslaved Americans were informed of their freedom.

Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said at the time, This isnt just a wink to white supremacists - hes throwing them a welcome home party.

The Trump campaign bowed to pressure from black leaders and changed the date - but they kept the city and venue, meaning attendees would be gathered inside and many flaunted health advisories to stay masked.

Among them was Cain, one of the highest-profile black Republicans.

By early July Cain had been hospitalized for COVID.

He died later that month.

We killed Herman Cain, Meadows told Hutchinson, she wrote in her book Enough.

She said he asked for Cain's wifes phone number.

A spokesperson for Meadows disputed Hutchinsons account to CNN.

The spokesperson said it was offensive for Hutchinson to suggest this was how Meadows reacted to 74-year-old Cains death.

In the days after he was expressing exasperation that the media would blame the president for Mr. Cains death, Meadows spokesperson said.
Nikki Haley is the best placed Republican candidate to beat President Joe Biden in next year's election, according to a new DailyMail.com poll that shows her crushing him with independent voters.

The former South Carolina governor leads Biden by two points in a hypothetical match-up.

It is the latest sign of a candidate who has surged in the polls since her strong performance in the first Republican debate, when she took on her opponents over foreign policy, abortion and climate change.

She will be hoping for a repeat in the second debate on Wednesday night.

However, former President Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the Republican primary race and is skipping the debate stage for the second time.

Nikki Haley's strong general election numbers are driven by her appeal to independent voters. She leads Biden by 19 points in this crucial group, and also does well with graduates

So while Trump retains a clear grip on the Republican base, the new DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners poll of 1,000 likely voters shows how Haley is winning over independents and graduates, eating into Biden's general election support.

She beats Biden by 19 points among independent voters (45 percent to 26 percent), according to the poll.

The only other candidate who comes close to that sort of broad appeal is South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott who beats Biden by 16 points among that group.

In contrast, Trump, known for his polarizing behavior and policies, leads Biden by just two points with independents.

James Johnson, Co-Founder of JLP, said: 'Haley is trouncing Biden with independent voters  by a margin of almost twenty points, more than any other candidate.

'Though her performance against Biden is held back by relatively shallow support amongst her own Republican voters, she is still the best-performing candidate against Joe Biden. This may well shift come a real election  independents may shed away as she moves to a traditional Republican position, and Republican support is likely to grow should she become the nominee.

'But it gives her a bounce going into the debate: one she will be hoping to build on with a win in our DailyMail.com post-debate poll.'

Viewers rated Haley as the fourth best performer of eight on stage for the first debate last month, according to DailyMail.com's post-debate poll.

But she won rave reviews among non-Republican viewers, such as New York Times writers, who judged her the winner on the night.

J.L. Partners asked 1000 likely voters for their views on the 2024 election. Nikki Haley would win a general election by two points against Joe Biden if it were held today

Nikki Haley's campaign is on the move after a strong first debate showing, and she would win a head-to-head match-up against Joe Biden if the election were held today

One of her best moments came when she cut into a squabble, delivering a famous line from Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister.

'If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman,' said the only woman on stage.

The performance delivered a fundraising bump. Her campaign said she raised at least $1 million in 72 hours, a record period for her.

That translates into growing, broad support in groups that Trump and other candidates struggle to reach.

She fares better with women and young voters in a match-up against Biden. And the new DailyMail.com poll shows she only loses graduate voters by one point to the likely Democratic candidate, compared with Trump's 17 point deficit.

However, that comes at a cost. She struggles among Republican voters compared with Trump: While he can count on 84 percent of party support against Biden, she would win only 67 percent of GOP votes in a general election held today.

One of Nikki Haley's best moments came when she clashed with Ramaswamy. 'You have no foreign policy experience and it shows,' she told him

Her message centers on a Ronald Reagan-like appeal to traditional conservatives who have been sidelined during the Trump years. Her campaign includes a robust foreign policy, with ongoing support to Ukraine, while cutting taxes for the middle-class and reducing federal government control.

The 51-year-old has also put the need for a new generation of leaders at the heart of her pitch. She is calling for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75.

The result is a string of good poll numbers and an influx of donor cash.

This week, a survey by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics put her in second place in the state. Trump still leads with 45 percent of likely Republican primary voters but Haley is his closest challenger with 15 percent.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will need to overcome the hurdles of voters' perceptions at the second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening.

A new DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners survey found voters mostly use the word 'unknown' when asked what they think about Ramaswamy, 38.

When asked what they felt about DeSantis, 'fascist' was the word most used to describe him by both Democrats and likely voters.

Meanwhile, Republican respondents used positive words like 'leader,' 'smart' and 'strong' to describe the 45-year-old father of three.

Still, some of the more popular words used by Republicans were 'unknown' and 'establishment.'

DeSantis needs a star performance if he wants to return to second place in the polls, after slipping to fifth in some states.

Ramaswamy is looking to capitalize on his show-stealing first debate performance that cemented his victory in DailyMail.com's poll.

Along with DeSantis and Ramaswamy, the five other candidates that qualified for the second debate stage are former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Vice President Mike Pence; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (right) and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (left) need a breakthrough moment at the second debate Wednesday evening to change voter perception. A DailyMail.com poll shows that of all voters surveyed, most call DeSantis a 'fascist' and Ramaswamy 'unknown'

Most likely voters describe Ron DeSantis with the word 'fascist,' others call him a 'leader' and others say he's 'racist' or 'unknown'

Julian Gallie, Research Associate at J.L. Partners, told DailyMail.com: 'Going into the next debate DeSantis needs to stand out  and one way he can do this is capitalize on what voters see as his biggest strengths, namely his record as Governor of Florida and that he is the best-placed candidate to take on Biden at the election.

'But above all he needs to get noticed  both by differentiating himself as the obvious choice against Trump, and as the most conservative person on the stage who can also get things done.

'Despite winning the last DailyMail.com post-debate poll, Vivek Ramaswamy has struggled to capitalize on his performance.

'The word most associated with Vivek is unknown, though the more Republican voters see of him the more they like him.

'Ramaswamy will do well if he showcases his talents and his conservatism. But fundamentally he may struggle in a race with Trump so dominant  his best bet might be if the former president drops out.'

The DailyMail.com poll conducted by J.L. Partners included surveying 1,000 likely voters between September 15 through 20.

When asked about the current leaders in the White House, who are running for reelection in 2024, most respondents described Vice President Kamala Harris as 'incompetent' and 'unqualified.' Democrats think she is 'smart.'

Meanwhile, 40 percent of voters say she is the worst vice president in modern history.

When Joe Biden is put in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up with Trump, the ex-President wins by just 1 percent with 45 percent to the current President's 44 percent.

DeSantis is also shown beating out Biden by the same margins with 44 percent to 43 percent.

Meanwhile, most of the likely 2024 voters described political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy as 'unknown' despite his star performance at the first debate last month

Some Republican voters viewed DeSantis more favorably by calling him a 'leader' and 'smart', while others were less kind

The results are a change from the survey taken in June that showed both Trump and DeSantis narrowly behind Biden in hypothetical general election match-ups.

Ramaswamy, however, would lose against Biden  41 percent to 38 percent  in a 2024 head-to-head, according to the poll.

While DeSantis garnered widespread name recognition due to his leadership in Florida through the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramaswamy is a complete political newcomer in this election.

Seven Republican contenders are descending on southern California this week for the second GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. ET.

The debate is being hosted by Fox Business and Univision and moderated by Fox News anchor Dana Perino, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Univison's Ilia Calderon.

Trump is again refusing to participate.

Instead, the former president and GOP frontrunner will attempt to steal the spotlight by delivering remarks at an event in Detroit, Michigan where automobile industry workers are expected to attend as United Automobile Workers (UAW) union negotiations are ongoing.

Biden visited Detroit on Tuesday and is making a west coast fundraising swing this week  both likely in response to Trump's visit and the Republican debate.
More than half of Americans believe President Joe Biden was probably involved in his son Hunter's foreign business dealings, including a majority of independents, according to exclusive polling for DailyMail.com.

A fresh poll conducted with J.L. Partners found that 51 percent suspected the president was complicit in the controversy, which is under investigation by Republicans in the House and the Department of Justice.

The latest troubling results come just 24 hours before the GOP holds its first impeachment inquiry hearing into the Biden family's overseas business.

Republican Rep. James Comer also revealed on Tuesday night that two wire transfers Hunter received from China worth more than $250,000 had Joe's Wilmington, Delaware, home listed as the address.

The president's involvement in his son's deals is also likely to be a topic at the second Republican presidential debate in California on Wednesday night.

More than half of Americans believe President Joe Biden was probably involved in his son's foreign business dealings, including a majority of independents, according to exclusive polling conducted for DailyMail.com

Republicans were most likely to believe that President Joe Biden was involved in son Hunter's controversial business dealings, while Democrats were the least likely. A troublesome number for Biden, however, is that 55 percent of independents thought that way

Another 34 percent of Americans said the president was probably not involved - as the White House has stated.

Republicans were far more likely to believe that the president was implicated - with 92 percent agreeing with that statement, compared to 11 percent of Democrats.

But the troublesome number for Biden, who is running for reelection, is that 55 percent of independents believed he was involved in Hunter's business practices.

Independent voters are needed to win a general election.

Hunter's dealings in Ukraine and China have long been under the public microscope.

Former President Donald Trump's first impeachment proceedings involved his failed pressure campaign of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce a probe into Hunter and Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, when the now-president looked like the strongest Democratic candidate.

Cut to 2023 and Republicans in the House have made it a central mission to try to connect the dots between Hunter's troublesome business practices - which took place amid a well-publicized crack cocaine addiction - and the president.

Earlier this month, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under pressure from his right-ward flank, announced the House would open an impeachment inquiry into the president to further investigate his son's business deals.

On Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said that President Biden's Delaware home was listed as the beneficiary address of two wire transfers Hunter received from China.

'Bank records don't lie but President Joe Biden does,' Comer said Tuesday night.

The DailyMail.com poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed that former President Donald Trump's criminal charges were worse that those against President Joe Biden's son Hunter

Among those polled, Hispanic Americans were the most likely to believe that the president was involved in Hunter's business deals - at 59 percent.

Republicans under Trump have made gains in Hispanic communities in recent years.

In addition, 55 percent of white Americans said the president was likely involved.

By comparison, just 24 percent of black Americans believed that there was this kind of corruption.

Overall, however, the DailyMail.com poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed the charges against Trump - who's been indicted four times since March - are more serious than those facing Hunter.

Trump is facing a litany of federal and state charges stemming from 2016 hush money payments, his mishandling of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Thirty-five percent of Americans said Hunter's criminal charges are worse.

Hunter was indicted earlier this month on charges related to lying on a form about his drug use while obtaining a gun.

The charges came after a plea deal fell apart that would have allowed him to avoid jail time on the gun charges by pleading guilty to not paying taxes.

'The Hunter indictment and inquiry might not be a central issue election but it allows the Republican nominee to sully any claim Biden might have to being the straighter candidate - something that helped elect him to office,' said Founding Partner of J.L. Partners James Johnson. 'Nonetheless for the key swing voters it is seen as small fry compared to Trump's indictments.'
Video shows Boles opened multiple gunfire at Bakersfield officers who fired back and shot Boles to death

Shocking camera footage captured the moment an off-duty cop interrupted an LA burglary leading to a shootout that left the suspect dead.

LAPD released a surveillance camera footage on Saturday that shows Bakerfield police officers in a gunfire exchange that killed 29-year-old suspect Jason Taylor Boles.

An off-duty police officer of the LAPD's reserve program called 911 at around 11.30am after he saw Boles possibly burglarizing homes in the 11300 block of Andretti Avenue in Bakersfield, California.

A nearby security camera shows Boles pulling a sweatshirt and a handgun out of the trash. He approached the officer's car with the gun.

'What happened, huh? I don't have anything,' Boles was heard asking the off-duty police officer while he was on the phone with the 911.

Jason Taylor Boles (pictured), 29, was killed on site after he was suspected of burglary by an off-duty police officer last month

Boles talked to the off-duty police officer across the street and opened fire at him while the officer was reporting the possible burglary to 911 in his vehicle

Boles pulled a sweatshirt and a handgun out of the trash. He then approached the officer's car with the gun

The officer drove a short distance away as he was waiting for on-duty officers' arrival. Boles turned and fired his handgun at three Bakersfield police officers who arrived on the scene later

'Get out of here,' the officer said, 'Stand back.'

'I'm an off-duty officer and I need help out here,' the officer was heard saying in the 911 call as the suspect fired multiple gunshots at him.

The officer fired back and drove a short distance away as he was waiting for on-duty officers' arrival.

Boles turned and fired his handgun at three Bakersfield police officers who arrived on the scene later.

Police bodycam footage shows officers repeatedly told Boles to drop his gun.

'Show me your hands,' officers were heard saying in the video. 'We will not shoot at you if you put both hands out.'

Boles was killed after attempts to get him surrender failed, Bakersfield Police Department said.

A semi-automatic handgun was recovered from Boles.

Sergeant Dennis Eddy, Officer Brandon Price, and Sergeant Ryan McWilliams opened fire at Boles in the confrontation and were placed on administrative leave.

Officer Price was struck in the leg and treated on site. The off-duty officer's vehicle was also struck by gunfire.

Police bodycam footage shows officers repeatedly told Boles to drop his gun

LAPD said the off-duty officer is an employee with a badge can carry around a weapon.

The off-duty officer who initially confronted Boles has not been identified.

'At this point in the investigation, the Bakersfield Police Department has not identified a victim of a burglary or location of a burglary related to this incident,' the Bakersfield police department said in a statement last month.

The shootout left two residents' property hit by stray bullets. One hit the front lawn of a resident, and other bullets hit the side of another home.

Boles' mother told KGET Bakersfield that Boles was released from jail two days before he was killed.

He was in the Andretti area looking for a friend, the mother said. Boles was said to be fearing for his life and struggled with addiction.

Boles was captured by a doorbell video sobbing and begging for help two weeks before the officer-involved fatal shooting.
Baccarat says the hack has not affected its glitzy Manhattan hotel

The email warns client to be wary of suspicious emails posing as the crystal firm

New York City's opulent Baccarat hotel has denied it is facing a cyber attack which impacted its crystalwear namesake brand.

Revealed Tuesday in an email from the CEO, the hack is currently affecting the venerable French crystal company of the same name.

The correspondence further warns Baccarat crystal customers to be wary of any suspicious messages from parties pretending to be Paris-based company.

Baccarat made a splash in New York with an eponymous luxury hotel that opened in March 2015, with rooms starting from $899-a-night. But the hack is not affecting the hotel, a spokesperson confirmed.

The Baccarat hotel in New York has denied claims it is facing a cyberattack that has hit the iconic crystal brand of the same name

Sent at 4:16pm Tuesday, the statement from the boss of the preeminent crystal factory, Maggie Henriquez, warns customers who pay for the pricey cut glass to watch out for rogue emails

Sent at 4:16pm Tuesday, the statement from the boss of the preeminent crystal factory, Maggie Henriquez, reads as follows: 'Your loyalty is our priority at Baccarat and I am contacting you to share an important message.

'As a matter of anticipation and risk prevention, I must inform you on behalf of Baccarat that our Maison is currently facing a cyberattack,' it continues.

'As a result, a portion of our activity is constrained.'

The message, obtained by DailyMail.com, does not specify the nature of the attack, but attempts to quell concerns by stating how 'at this stage, there is no indication that any of our customers personal or confidential data has been compromised.'

'Nevertheless,' it adds, 'we ask that you exercise the utmost vigilance with regard to any unusual message you may receive from Baccarat.'

Henriquez - tapped to head the 257-year-old French crystal-maker in 2021 - further warns: 'If you receive an unusual request from our Maison, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone to verify its authenticity.'

The message was sent at just after 4pm by the French firm's CEO Maggie Henriquez, who was tapped to head the 257-year-old company in 2021. She did not specify the nature of the hack

The lobby of NYC's Baccarat Hotel is stuffed with the firm's crystal - with the glassware brand now facing a cyber attack

There are 17 custom Baccarat chandeliers in the property and 100 custom-designed works of art. Pictured is the hotel's 'petit salon'

While not affected, the Baccarat Hotel is stuffed with fine crystal from the brand that is, and offers untrammeled luxury for guests lucky enough to enjoy its facilities.

It offers guest '1,740 sq ft of luxury and seclusion' on a private floor of hotel with its own elevator, as well as a complementary Mercedes.

Other suites are priced well into the thousands, with the cheapest coming in at just under $2,200 a night.

Normal rooms, meanwhile, cost roughly $900 nightly, with a large portion exceeding the thousand mark as well.
The UN has slapped down Suella Braverman after she called for changes to 'absurd' international refugee rules and warned uncontrolled immigration is an 'existential' threat to the West.

The Home Secretary made the comments in a bold speech in Washington DC - seen by many as a pitch to be the next Tory leader - as she pointed to the huge inflows being seen across Europe and the US.

However, she drew the ire of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which warned her about the importance of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which sets out the rights of people given asylum and when countries should grant it.

It also appeared to blame the UK government for not processing asylum seekers fast enough amid the ongoing Channel boats crisis, after Ms Braverman warned unless governments found a way of controlling their borders they would 'not endure'.

The intervention came as Ms Braverman called for an overhaul of the UN Refugee Convention to help end the Channel crisis - and took another swipe at the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Home Secretary had warned that uncontrolled immigration is an 'existential' threat to the West

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which warned her about the importance of the 1951 Refugee Convention

She branded the system 'unsustainable', complaining that it creates 'huge incentives for illegal migration'.

Additional 213,000 school places needed due to immigration, Braverman claims Suella Braverman has claimed that an additional 213,000 secondary school places will have to be found by 2026 due to a surge in immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers. The Home Secretary said current levels of immigration are unsustainable, with more than half of demand for new housing coming from new arrivals, the Times reports. In her speech in Washington DC, Ms Braverman said: 'Accommodation cannot be magicked up out of thin air. 'Nor can new schools, improved roads, extra police officers, additional healthcare, or any of the other public services upon which people rely. 'Immigration is behind at least 45 per cent of demand for new housing in England. 'More than one in five biths are to foreign-born mothers. Due to immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers, English secondary schools will need to find an extra 213,000 places by 2026.' Advertisement

Insisting being trafficked as a sex slave is completely different from paying a gang to smuggle you across the Channel, Ms Braverman raised the prospect of rewriting the UN's 1951 treaty to raise the threshold for asylum claims.

But last night the UNHCR appeared to hit back at the suggestions by taking the unusual step of commenting directly on the Home Secretary's speech.

It said: 'The Refugee Convention is the cornerstone of the international refugee protection regime and remains a life-saving instrument that ensures millions of people fleeing conflict and persecution each year can access safety and protection across borders.

'There are 35.3 million refugees worldwide, with 70 per cent remaining in countries neighbouring their own and 76 per cent hosted in low- and middle-income countries.'

It added that what is needed is not reform of the Refugee Convention, but a stronger and more consistent application of its protocols.

The UNHCR said: 'An appropriate response to the increase in arrivals and to the UK's current asylum backlog would include strengthening and expediting decision-making procedures.

'This would accelerate the integration of those found to be refugees and facilitate the swift return of those who have no legal basis to stay. UNHCR has presented the UK Government with concrete and actionable proposals in this regard and continues to support constructive, ongoing efforts to clear the current asylum backlog.'

In her speech in Washington DC the Home Secretary also delivered a stinging rebuke to those who dismiss people alarmed about immigration as 'idiots or bigots', arguing that the 'failure' of multiculturalism was evident from the streets of Paris, Brussels and Leicester.

She insisted migrants could no longer be allowed to come to the UK and 'live parallel lives' rather than integrating.

Suella Braverman (pictured) said international asylum laws are creating an 'absurd and unsustainable' system with 'huge incentives for illegal migration'

Mrs Braverman warned that 780 million people are eligible to claim asylum in the UK under 'absurd' rules and argue that Channel boat migrants should not be treated as refugees

Taking aim at advocates of multiculturalism, the Home Secretary said she supported immigration, having been the child of immigrants herself, but claimed that uncontrolled migration risked a threat to nationhood and national security due to a lack of integration.

She said migration had been 'too much, too quick' to the UK in the past 25 years, with 'too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion'.

'Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades,' she said.

READ MORE HERE: Suella Braverman warns West faces 'existential' threat from uncontrolled immigration as she says UK is living with consequences of people failing to 'integrate' Advertisement

'Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society.

'And in extreme cases they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.

'We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester.'

Mr Braverman added: 'If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted  eventually it will disappear.'

Pressed on how her views square with her background as the child of migrants from Mauritius and Kenya, the Home Secretary said: 'What you're suggesting is because I'm the child of immigrants, I have to adopt a position which is pro-migration and pro the status quo, and I totally and fundamentally refute that.

'I think that is totally at odds with the challenge that we are facing today, unprecedented levels of people coming into our country illegally with no right to be here. They are gaming our system, pretending to be refugees, pretending to be fleeing persecution to come to the country illegitimately.

'I think that cannot be how we conduct this conversation. We need to be honest with the British people and we need to be honest about the challenges and the solutions. Just because I have an immigrant background does not exclude me from this conversation.

'My job as Home Secretary is to be honest with the British people to tell them that the system as it currently stands internationally is not working. We need to start working towards a solution that is sustainable and fair.'

Ms Braverman pointed out that would-be refugees once had to show they were facing 'persecution' but now they must only prove 'discrimination'.

She suggested the UN treaty is 'an incredible achievement of its age', but highlighted its role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018.

Mrs Braverman suggested the UN treaty has played a key role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018

'More than 70 years on, we now live in a completely different time,' she said.

'According to analysis by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams for the Centre for Policy Studies, it now confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 million people.

'It is therefore incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the Refugee Convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age. Or whether it is in need of reform.'

Ms Braverman - who has been accompanied by a TV crew on her trip to the US - said in her speech: 'Nobody entering the UK by boat from France is fleeing imminent peril.

'The vast majority have passed through multiple safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. In this sense, there is an argument that they should cease to be treated as refugees when considering the legitimacy of their onward movement.'

Ms Braverman admitted the European and UN accords on refugee rights could be a struggle to update due to the unwieldy task of getting member states to agree on changes.

But she said there was also a 'more cynical' reason for not broaching reforms, arguing there was a 'fear of being branded a racist or illiberal'.

'The status quo, where people are able to travel through multiple safe countries, and even reside in safe countries for years, while they pick their preferred destination to claim asylum, is absurd and unsustainable,' she will say.

Mrs Braverman said the West had 'created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivising millions of people to try their luck, knowing full well that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand'.

She also launched a salvo at immigration lawyers and judges.

Asked after the speech whether the current interpretation of the ECHR was 'compatible' with the need to protect and control UK borders, Ms Braverman said: 'My personal views on the ECHR have been chronicled and they're very clear, but what I think is a legitimate question for all of us to be asking in the UK is whether its operation and its interpretation by the courts is compatible with our pressing need to control our borders and national sovereignty.'

She went on: 'We are wanting to work within those frameworks and we are confident that we can achieve that, but I do think legitimate questions need to be asked about the somewhat ill-fitting nature of how these  outdated international models are sitting with the global migration crisis of the 21st century.'

The Government's Illegal Migration Act, passed by Parliament earlier this year, bars 'irregular' migrants from claiming asylum.

However, its powers have yet to be brought into force and it remains unclear whether it will make it easier to remove migrants whose claims are denied.

Mrs Braverman's criticisms of the UN treaty has been disputed by many immigration lawyers and campaigners, who point to Britain's leading role in drawing it up after the horrors of the Second World War.

Migrants are picked up at sea while attempting to cross the English Channel last month

Ms Braverman pointed out that the convention defines refugees as those with a 'well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'.

'However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution, in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination,' she will say.

'And a similar shift away from a 'well-founded fear' towards a 'credible' or 'plausible fear'.

'The practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.'

She said: 'Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman.

'Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary.

'But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.

Mrs Braverman also highlighted 'asylum shopping' which sees migrants move through numerous safe countries to reach their target country.

READ MORE HERE: Migrant, 18, who piloted crammed inflatable boat full of asylum seekers after watching TikTok videos is jailed for two years Advertisement

The convention 'makes clear' that it is intended to apply to individuals 'coming directly from a territory where their life was threatened', she said, and that they must show 'good cause' for entering a country illegally in order to claim asylum.

'The UK along with many others, including America, interpret this to mean that people should seek refuge and claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach,' she will add. 'But NGOs and others, including the UN Refugee Agency, contest this.

'Seeking asylum and seeking better economic prospects are not the same thing.

'Seeking refuge in the first safe country you reach or shopping around for your preferred destination are not the same thing. Being trafficked  ie, transported against your will, perhaps to be sold into sex slavery  and being smuggled  ie, asking someone to sneak you into a country  are not the same thing.

'The extent to which the global asylum framework enables the merging of these categories creates huge incentives for illegal migration. This legal framework is rooted in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.'

Ms Braverman noted that when the convention was signed it conferred protection on two million Europeans, but a recent analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank concluded it now 'confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780million people'.

Any reform of the convention will be a drawn-out process and would need to secure widespread international support.

A Centre for Policy Studies report, published last year and co-authored by former Theresa May aide Nick Timothy, recommended the UK should 'work with international partners on updating the antiquated 1951 Refugee Convention'.

But Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the convention's principles were 'just as important today as they have ever been'.

'Abandoning them is not an option: We must stand firm in our commitment to all people fleeing persecution and the international frameworks that were created to protect them,' he said.

Policing minister Chris Philp supported Ms Braverman's view this morning, telling Times Radio the convention 'needs to be looked at on an international basis'.

He said the government had 'seen people shopping around between different countries to choose where to claim asylum'.

'That's not how the UN Refugee Convention was originally designed, it's not designed to allow people to circulate in Europe for a number of years before deciding where to claim asylum and making dangerous and illegal journeys doing so,' he said.

Mr Philp said some people are falsely claiming to be persecuted, saying that 'some people claim to be gay when they're not'.

'When I was immigration minister I came across a number of cases when people had claimed to be gay, produced photographs of them and a sort of same-sex partner and it turned out on further investigation it was a sibling, it wasn't a same-sex partner at all,' he added.
Real estate is 'one of the most data invasive industries'

Real estate agents are giving renters an ultimatum: submit invasive amounts of personal information to third-party website or face homelessness.

A parliamentary committee will continue its examination of the worsening impact of the nation's rental crisis during hearings in Melbourne on Wednesday.

Educational organisation Digital Rights Watch says real estate is 'one of the most data invasive industries'.

The increasing use of digital technologies and automated systems in real estate have allowed the sector to accumulate huge amounts of information on homebuyers, renters and those looking to inspect homes.

Renters specifically are often coerced into signing up to third-party sites and submitting sensitive information like birth certificates, passports and driver's licences as a condition to rent a home.

A parliamentary committee heard real estate is 'one of the most data invasive industries' during hearings in Melbourne

An April survey by consumer advocacy group CHOICE found 41 per cent of renters were pressured to use a third-party platform and about two-thirds of users were uncomfortable with the amount of information disclosed.

But many renters have no choice but to use these platforms.

One renter in the survey said some property agents would only accept applications through these websites.

'It's onerous, dangerous and unfair to tenants to have to provide so much detailed, personal information,' she said.

READ MORE: Sydney real estate agent boasts about upping rent Advertisement

Not only does this put renters' privacy and digital security at risk, it exacerbates pre-existing issues in the rental market like accessibility, fairness, affordability and the power imbalance between renters and landlords.

Some websites like Snug generate a score on each tenants' application which increases if a renter ups their offer, while other platforms have mandatory fees.

Consequently the sites could favour tenants with greater means.

The amount of information these platforms provide to landlords also allowed them to gate keep housing and potentially profile and racially discriminate against potential tenants.

According to CHOICE, one applicant was asked if they identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, despite questions about racial identification in private tenancy being prohibited.

Another submission from the First Peoples Disability Network Australia found those who were more identifiable as Aboriginal were less likely to be accepted as rental tenants and those who have their applications accepted were almost twice as likely to be paying more than 30 per cent of their household income on rent.

The committee heard potential tenants are often required to submit sensitive information like birth certificates, passports and driver's licences to third party websites

The parliamentary committee will also hear from renters' associations, public policy think tank the Grattan Institute, property owners groups, homelessness organisations and those with experience of the rental market.

Its final report on the rental crisis is due by November 28.

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READ MORE: Calls for Australia to become a republic

He will be facing the opposite direction from his mother

King Charles III coins to circulate by the end of the year

Coins featuring King Charles III will begin circulating in Australia in the coming months.

The Royal Australian Mint is set to start production on the coins and release them before the end of the year.

The news was confirmed by assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh, who did not outline a a date for the coins.

'I'm keen to make sure we get a lot of those new coins out, because I know for the vast majority of Australians, this will be the first time they hold a coin in their hand which has a King rather than a Queen on it,' he told ABC Canberra on Tuesday.

Mr Leigh described it as a 'big moment' for the country.

Coins featuring King Charles III will begin circulating in Australia by the end of the year

The Labor minister added that the process to produce the new coins was complex.

'There's a range of things we need to get right; the Mint's dies need to be appropriately tested, each of the dies need to sustain some 200,000 to 300,000 coin printings, so all of that testing process is in place,' he said.

'You can be confident that it will take place before the end of the year, and we'll have a big announcement on that.'

Coins with Elizabeth's effigy will still be in circulation and considered legal tender.

Mr Leigh added that the Royal Australian Mint will continue to 'run their dies with the Queen's effigies on them to the end of their natural life'.

'And then they'll just substitute in dies with the King's effigy, and so they're familiar with doing this,' he said.

The only difference between the Charles and Elizabeth coins is Charles will be facing the opposite direction to his mother.

While Elizabeth faces right on her coins, Charles will be looking left.

Elizabeth's effigy is on Australian coins and the five dollar note.

She is the only monarch to be featured on coins after Australia switched from pounds to dollars and cents in 1966.

Charles will only be featured on coins as Australia is set to release a new five dollar note with an Indigenous design in the coming years.

Charles became king following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8 last year.
A giant battery manufactured by Tesla has burst into flames at a major storage facility with firefighters told to not extinguish the blaze.

The new giant lithium battery ignited at Genex Power's Bouldercombe battery project, 20km south of Rockhampton, in Queensland, at 7.30pm on Tuesday.

However, firefighters from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services were told not to douse the flames.

The advice is understood to have come from Tesla with the manufacturer telling emergency crews to let the fire burn out.

Emergency crews rushed to a battery storage facility in Bouldercombe, south of Rockhamption on Tuesday night after a battery went up in flames (pictured)

Fire crews remained at the scene as of 6.20am on Wednesday as the blaze came under control.

A fire is currently burning on one battery at the site with crews stationed at the facility as a precaution.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services released a statement urging residents nearby to avoid the area and to stay indoors.

'Fire and Rescue Service crews remain on scene of a structure fire on Childs Avenue, Bouldercombe,' it read.

'The fire is currently contained with crews continuing to monitor the situation. Low-lying smoke is expected to persist in the area over the coming hours.

'Nearby residents are advised to keep doors and windows closed, and those suffering from a respiratory condition should keep their medications close by'.

Queensland Police are also monitoring the situation and have said they do not believe the fire is suspicious at this stage.

'Police will continue to monitor the situation as there are a large number of batteries on site and there is a possibility the fire may spread to other units, creating a larger hazard,' a spokeswoman said.

'Work is being done to douse the surrounding batteries and could continue for several days'.

Genex Power released a statement confirming the blaze was allowed to burn and water has not been used to douse the flames.

'On advice from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and established protocols the low intensity fire is being allowed to burn out under the supervision of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, with no water required to be used on the fire itself,' it read.

'The fire is currently contained and the site has been disconnected from the grid. No other Megapack modules have been impacted.'

A smoke warning is still in place, after fire and rescue advised residents that large amounts of smoke will cover the local area.

The Queensland Fire and Emergency Service warned urged residents to stay indoors and to shut the windows in their homes, due to smoke from the major blaze

The storage facility was a project (pictured) developed by Genex Power, a renewable energy company in Queensland, with the site the only major large scale battery system currently operated in Queensland

There are no reports of any injuries.

The $60 million facility houses 40 Megapack units of the lithium batteries, which was supplied by electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.

The site had it's first storage facility turned on in June this year by Genex, a renewable energy company who developed the site.

The centre is the only large scale battery storage system that is operated by the company in Queensland.

While lithium batteries very rarely catch fire they can be dangerous when it does ignite as it emits toxic chemicals.

According to the EV Fire Safe website the toxic and flammable gases released from the battery once it catches fire can cause the battery to explode.

The batteries can also cause breathing difficulties which can make it very difficult for emergency crews to put the fire out.
Russia struck the Black Sea region of Odesa in a drone barrage that damaged a warehouse, charred dozens of trucks and injured two drivers in fiery explosions that led to the suspension of the ferry service between Romania and Ukraine, officials said Tuesday.

Video shot from the Romanian side of the Danube River showed rapid bursts of Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire streaking through the night sky followed by two orange fireballs exploding near the port area. Photos showed burned-out frames of trucks.

Romanian Border Police said ferries were anchored on the Romanian shores of the Danube in Isaccea due to the attacks on Ukraine. Traffic was being redirected through Galati, a Romanian town upstream on the Danube.

Ukraine's air force said it downed 26 of 38 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Russian forces targeted the area of Izmail in the Odesa region, in what has become a sustained campaign to target Ukraine's ability to export grain. Attacks on Monday killed two people in a grain warehouse in Odesa and badly damaged an abandoned high-rise hotel, officials said.

Video shot from the Romanian side of the Danube River showed rapid bursts of Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire streaking through the night sky followed by two orange fireballs exploding near the port area

Romanian Border Police said ferries were anchored on the Romanian shores of the Danube in Isaccea due to the attacks on Ukraine

Russian forces targeted the area of Izmail in the Odesa region

After Moscow pulled out of a U.N.-brokered grain deal this summer, the strikes on Izmail and cities located in the southern part of the Odesa region became routine. Attacks on the cities on the Danube have been especially damaging because the route has emerged as the most promising for continued Ukrainian exports.

At least nine civilians were killed in Ukraine and 15 people were injured over the past 24 hours, the presidential office said, as Russian strikes hit several cities near the front lines of the war where Ukraine is waging its slow-moving counteroffensive.

Although neither side has released casualty figures, the counteroffensive is believed to have taken a heavy toll on both sides and it has been devastating to the towns and villages where fighting has raged.

New aerial video footage of Klishchiivka, on the outskirts of Bakhmut, shot with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the battle has turned the village in eastern Ukraine into a pile of rubble after months of fierce fighting.

At least nine civilians were killed in Ukraine and 15 people were injured over the past 24 hours, the presidential office said

Although neither side has released casualty figures, the counteroffensive is believed to have taken a heavy toll on both sides and it has been devastating to the towns and villages where fighting has raged

The footage shot two days ago shows the village in ruins with destroyed Russian tanks and military vehicles littering the main road. Barely a building remains intact in the village that was once home to almost 400 people.

A rare structure that still had four walls standing was missing its roof. Single walls stood like tombstones to mark where someone once lived.

Ukraine recaptured the village Sept. 17 after months of fighting, two days after it won back neighboring Andriivka, the Ukrainian military said.

Both are tiny towns but were considered tactically important for Ukrainian forces as they extend gains around Bakhmut, 6 miles (10 kilometers) to the north.

The commanding heights of the village offer a view into the Russian-occupied town of Bakhmut and open up new opportunities for Ukrainian forces to encircle the town.

It also potentially allows Ukrainians a better view of Russian logistic lines.
Labor is now promising to 'train Aussies first' as immigration surges to a record high.

With unemployment still low at 3.7 per cent, the immigration floodgates have opened as business groups claim they need more foreigners to alleviate skills shortages.

Treasury's Working Future white paper on employment, released this week, said skilled migration should not replace Australian workers with qualifications.

'Migration is not a substitute for investing in the skills of Australians,' it said.

'However, well-targeted migration can complement local skills while contributing to productivity growth.'

Education Minister Jason Clare seized on this objective to suggest Australians needed to be trained first before migrants were brought in.

'Well, the white paper makes it clear that there is a place for migration but we've got to train Aussies first, and that's what this is about,' he told reporters on Monday.

Labor is now promising to train Australians first as immigration surges to a record high (pictured is Melbourne stair builder Paige Hunter)

A surge in international students, however, is a major reason a record 454,400 migrants moved to Australia in the year to March.

This net figure, covering permanent and long-term arrivals, also included skilled migrants.

The foreign influx has also coincided with a productivity plunge with hourly output for every worker falling by 3.6 per cent during the 2022-23 financial year.

READ MORE: Westpac predicts immigration surge will more than make up for Covid border closure by Christmas Advertisement

The migration surge also saw Australia fall into a per capita recession, where output for every Australian is shrinking - something that last occurred in 2020 during the Covid lockdowns.

But the Treasury white paper suggested Australia would also need to continue accepting migrants, as more young Australians went to university or a vocational training centre like TAFE.

'Addressing skills shortages and proactively building a strong and skilled workforce will be fundamental to achieving full employment and productivity growth,' it said.

'This requires investments in domestic skills and training, complemented by targeted migration pathways.'

The Business Council of Australia last month argued the current immigration surge was necessary to fill 'major shortages' with outgoing chief executive Jennifer Westacott suggesting it would only be making up for Australia's Covid border closure.

'It is important to recognise migration numbers currently recorded simply reflect a rebalancing after the pandemic border closures in 2020 and 2021,' she said.

Nonetheless, Westpac is expecting recent immigration surge to make up for the Covid border closure by Christmas.

The big jump in new arrivals is expected to see Australia take in 240,000 more foreigners this year than it did, on average, annually before the pandemic.

That would be double the annual average of permanent and long-term overseas arrivals before the pandemic.

A surge in international students, however, is a major reason a record 454,400 migrants moved to Australia in the year to March. This net figure, covering permanent and long-term arrivals, also includes skilled migrants (pictured is Sydney's Wynyard train station)

In the five years before the pandemic began in 2020, Australia took in 235,000 overseas migrants, on average.

Westpac is forecasting that will rise to 475,000 in 2023.

Australia's border was closed to skilled migrants and international students from March 2020 to December 2021.

This caused the first quarterly population decline since 1916, with the number of people in Australia falling by 4,200 in the three months to September 2020.

Mr Clare is calling for Australians to be trained first but isn't calling for a cut to immigration levels.

In May 2020, Labor's then home affairs frontbencher Kristina Keneally called for Australians to 'get a fair go and a first go at jobs' and suggested temporary immigration levels would be lower under Labor to tackle low wages growth.

'The post-Covid-19 question we must ask now is this: when we restart our migration program, do we want migrants to return to Australia in the same numbers and in the same composition as before the crisis? Our answer should be no,' she wrote in an opinion piece for Nine newspapers.

Education Minister Jason Clare suggested Australians needed to be trained first before migrants were brought in

'Our economic recovery must help all Australians get back on their feet, and to do that we need a migration program that puts Australian workers first.

'Our post-Covid-19 economic recovery must ensure that Australia shifts away from its increasing reliance on a cheap supply of overseas, temporary labour that undercuts wages for Australian workers and takes jobs Australians could do.'

Ms Keneally was rebuffed by her own Labor colleagues with Tanya Plibersek, a frontbencher from the Left faction, calling for a high immigration intake when Australia's borders reopened.

'Immigration is a really important part of our economic success story. One of the reasons the Australian economy has been growing at all, frankly, in recent times is because of strong immigration numbers,' Ms Plibersek said in 2020.
The husband of the Bronx daycare owner who has been charged in the fentanyl-related death of a baby has been arrested in Mexico following an 11-day international manhunt.

Felix Herrera Garcia, believed to be from the Dominican Republic, was arrested in Mexico on a bus traveling through Sinaloa, ABC News reported.

He will be extradited back to the United States to face trial alongside his wife, Grei Mendez De Ventura, 36, and his cousin, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41.

A fourth person, Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38, has also been charged.

Herrera was seen escaping from the daycare shortly after four children fell seriously ill on September 15, having ingested fentanyl.

He was carrying plastic bags, fleeing from a back door - and then vanished.

One-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici died after ingesting fentanyl at the Divino Nino Daycare. Three other children were taken to hospital.

The husband of the Bronx daycare owner who has been charged in the fentanyl-related death of a baby was seen escaping the area on September 15. He was arrested in Mexico

Felix Herrera Garcia looks casual as he walks through a grassy area in ripped jeans and a black Levi's shirt while holding the bags, which seem to be full

The man was last seen leaving the daycare with plastic bags on September 15. He vanished for around a week, then was discovered on a bus in Sinaloa, Mexico.

Nicholas Feliz Dominici (pictured) , 1, died at Divino Nino Daycare on September 15

Authorities have already charged Grei Mendez De Ventura, 36, (pictured), Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38, in relation to the poisonings

Herrera was described by sources, who spoke to the New York Post, as the 'main player' in an alleged drug operation run out of the daycare's basement.

Mendez reportedly called her husband twice and then deleted more than 21,000 messages before alerting the authorities to the unresponsive children.

Mendez and Brito were charged with murder, assault and child endangerment a day after Nicholas and three other children were found critically ill at the childcare facility.

Nicholas was pronounced dead at the scene, with two boys, 2, and an eight-month-old baby girl were saved with overdose-reversal drug Narcan.

Authorities claim the business was a front for a drug-peddling operation, with Mendez and Brito remaining behind bars.

Manhattan federal prosecutors say that Paredes had 'tools and instruments that are used to prepare and distribute narcotics' at his apartment.

During the raid, they found strainers, tape, a grinder, plastic bags, digital scales and two clear bags filled with a 'greyish powder'.

Pictured: Nicholas Feliz-Dominici, 1, died on September 15 after ingesting fentanyl at a Bronx day care

De Ventura's alleged co-conspirator Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, (pictured) kept his head down as he left NYC's 52nd precinct after also being arrested in connection to the overdose

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post the NYPD and the Regional Fugitive Task Force are following up on leads that he may have fled to the Dominican Republic

Officers also found a 'rectangular, brick-shaped package which appeared to contain narcotics.'

Paredes was arrested on Saturday, and is being held in custody without bail. Mendez and Brito also remain behind bars.

Last week, officers found a cache of drugs hidden under a trap door at the nursery, including a large quantity of fentanyl.

Other paraphernalia, which matched what was found in Paredes's apartment, was also concealed by the plywood and tile flooring.

In the aftermath, photos shared by police showed bags full of powder inside the 'trap floor,' a few steps away from a shelf of children's toys.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: 'I promised last week that we would continue to work to bring those involved in the child poisonings at Divino Nino daycare to justice.

'Since then, this Office and our law enforcement partners have worked around the clock to identify and apprehend additional individuals who are responsible.

'Today's arrest is one more step toward obtaining justice for the child-victims of this heinous offense and their families.'

Before discovering the hidden stash, officers had already confiscated a kilogram of fentanyl that was stored near mats that children used for sleeping.

Last week officers found a cache of drugs hidden under a trap door at the nursery, including a large quantity of fentanyl

Law enforcement sources believe that the basement under the day care where Brito lived was actually a front for drugs

They also found multiple devices used by traffickers for mixing drugs and pressing it into bricks.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said last week 'one grain, two grains of fentanyl can take down a grown man so even the residue itself for a small child, would cause the death.'

According to reports, there were no previous complaints made against Divino Nino Daycare.

The daycare has a capacity of eight children between the ages of six weeks to 12 years old, records show.

Nicholas' heartbroken father, Otoniel Feliz, 32, told DailyMail.com it had been the boy's first week at the day care.

'We had a good recommendation. We were told it was a great place. It looked like a nice place,' he explained.

But within one week of being cared for at the daycare, Nicholas ingested fentanyl - a substance that has caused a spike in overdoses across the U.S.

Otoniel said they'd been given a tour of the daycare the first time they dropped their son off and it looked like any other, with toys and kids' furniture inside.

They also found multiple devices used by traffickers for mixing drugs and pressing it into bricks

US Attorney for the Southern District, Damian Williams announced the new charges against a third person

Paredes was arrested on Saturday, and is being held in custody without bail. Mendez and Brito also remain behind bars

But after enrolling their son, Otoniel and his wife were never allowed to come back in their son often being brought to them by their caretakers, he claimed.

'Parents don't have permission to go inside. You see it on the first day to see where your son will be, but after that you don't have permission to go in,' he claimed.

'They said they 'don't want contamination from the outside to go inside because they keep everything clean,' that's what they said.

'My wife called me saying our child is going to hospital. We thought he was fine, 10 minutes later, my wife called me back on the way to the hospital and said he died.'

Divino Nino Daycare passed its annual unannounced inspection with zero violations on September 6, city records note after receiving its license in May.

DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank A. Tarentino III said: 'As alleged, Paredes had an instrumental role in this conspiracy and is charged with narcotics distribution and death in connection with the poisoning of four children.

'The alleged drugs and materials seized in the trap are indicative of a prolific drug packaging operation.

'Traffickers often hide contraband in inconspicuous or unsuspecting locations with no regard for the safety of others.

'In this case, the Daycare's floorboards were used as concealment, putting children's lives at risk who innocently sat on the floor to play.

Police tape had been stripped from the street and hung across the doorway of the Divino Nino Daycare on Morris Avenue

Frank A. Tarentino III (pictured) Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Division said the traffickers had hidden contraband with 'no regard for the safety of others'

'I reiterate that DEA and our law enforcement partners will continue to pursue justice for all members of this trafficking ring.'

The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes Fentanyl as a powerful synthetic opioid that is FDA-approved to treat severe pain.

Over the past decade fentanyl has been made and distributed illegally and other illegally made synthetic opioids have been increasingly found in the drug supply.

During this time fentanyl and related substances have contributed to a dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States.

The rate of drug overdose deaths involving the synthetic opioid fentanyl more than tripled in the United States from 2016 through 2021, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, and has increasingly been mixed with other illicit drugs often with lethal results.

The CDC report showed that the rate of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased from 5.7 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 21.6 per 100,000 in 2021.

Fentanyl-related deaths rose by about 55% in 2019-2020, and 24.1% in 2020-2021, said Merianne Rose Spencer, one of the report's authors.
Charities and experts will blast the Government for the 'preventable' harm caused to children during lockdown in a damning report to an inquiry today.

Social distancing and the closure of schools and playgrounds wreaked 'long-lasting and era-defining' effects on young people's mental health, according to the Children's Rights Organisations alliance.

The group was set up to give evidence to the Covid Inquiry and includes charities Save the Children, Just for Kids Law and the Children's Rights Alliance of England, The Telegraph reports.

The inquiry, headed by Baroness Hallett, is scrutinising all aspects of Government decision-making during the Covid era and will resume hearing live evidence next week.

The report What About The Children? argues 'the worst impacts of the pandemic for children could have been prevented'.

It describes the pandemic as 'years of lost learning, lost freedoms and lost hope'.

The report What About The Children? categorises the pandemic as 'years of lost learning, lost freedoms and lost hopes' for children

The Children's Rights Organisations alliance accuses ministers of failing to consider children in their decision-making during the pandemic

The document accuses ministers of failing to consider children's rights when deciding how to contain the virus, while numbers of youngsters seeking mental health support has surged from 12.1 per cent in 2017 to 17.8 per cent last year.

In a survey of over 6,000 parents in England published last month, nearly half of all respondents said lockdown had damaged their child's mental health.

Standards in reading, writing and maths by the end of primary school have also dropped from a 65 per cent pass rate in 2018-19 to 59 per cent in 2022-23.

Former Children's Commissioner Anne Longfield who was in post during the first year of the pandemic said that the Government had questions to answer.

She said: 'This report sets out in very stark terms how children were frequently at the back of the queue when the Government made its biggest decisions about lockdown and reopening the economy.

'Three years on, and many children and families are paying the price for the mistakes that were made. So many of the long-term problems arising from Covid could have been alleviated, or even prevented altogether, had the interests of children been made a top priority by the Government. This must never happen again.'

Among criticisms, the report detailed that schools were not considered essential infrastructure on a par with hospitals and public transport, which continued during Covid.

The inquiry's chairman, Baroness Hallett (pictured), alone has cost nearly 200,000 since the probe was set up by former prime minister Boris Johnson in May 2021

It judged that if schools had been allowed to remain open, children may not have suffered problems in their learning, mental health and abuse at home.

It said that for early years children, there were particular concerns around speech and language development - with experts noticing delays in some babies' physical growth after nurseries were forced to shut.

The campaigners add that the recent concrete crisis - which has forced thousands of pupils back into remote learning - shows ministers have failed to learn lessons from the pandemic.

It states: 'Before the pandemic, mass closures of schools, nurseries and universities seemed unthinkable.

'But after multiple lockdowns, Covid bubble policies, teachers' strikes and the Raac crisis, it no longer feels like a priority to ensure schools are open for all pupils.'

Among the reports recommendations is for a new cabinet post to ensure children's interests are considered in times of crisis, with a recovery plan to address long-term implications of lockdown on youths.

This summer, the cabinet office lost an appeal to prevent Mr Johnson's WhatsApp messages - thought to include exchanges with Rishi Sunak (right) - being made available to the inquiry

Since the pandemic, problems with school attendance have hit headlines with absences in England up by 50 per cent since 2019.

The Covid inquiry was initially not granted scope to consider the impact on children, until a newspaper campaign by the Telegraph, however live evidence is not expected to be heard on it until 2025.

A Department for Education spokesman said: 'Time in school is vital for a child's education, well-being and future life chances. We know children were amongst those most affected by the pandemic, and we are helping them catch up academically as well as socially.

'We have made 5 billion available to help pupils recover from the impact of the pandemic, including over 1.5 billion for the National Tutoring Programme and 16-19 Tuition Fund, which have supported millions of students to catch up on lost learning.'

Dame Jenny Harries has suggested the UK will act more like Sweden and adopt a voluntary approach to social distancing when the next pandemic hits.

The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that keeping people informed on any future outbreaks will help build trust with the public and reduce the likelihood of imposing strict measures.

She explained that people can be trusted to make sensible decisions about limiting contact on their own, with data showing that later on in the Covid pandemic, footfall figures reduced even when there were no lockdowns in place.

The 64-year-old told the Sunday Telegraph: 'What we saw with omicron and later waves of the pandemic, and even now, is that people are good at watching the data and they will take action themselves.

'You can see it in footfall going down. People actually start to manage their own socialisation, and the waves flatten off and come down.'

Dame Jenny Harries (pictured) has suggested t he UK will act more like Sweden and adopt a voluntary approach to social distancing when the next pandemic hits

Harries said that keeping people informed on any future outbreaks will help build trust with the public and reduce the likelihood of imposing strict measures

Confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK and Sweden between May 2020 and November 2021

Harries said that she doesn't buy into the 'groupthink agenda', that is the idea that the UK's mamagement of the pandemic was unchallenged by individuals.

She added that the UK's pandemic plan was 'pretty advanced' compared to many other parts of the world that 'had no plans at all'.

In Sweden, logged one of the lowest pandemic death tolls in Europe despite its refusal to impose lockdowns, according to World Health Organization estimates.

The Scandinavian nation became an international outcast when it defied scientific advice and chose not to shut down in 2020  instead relying on people's common sense and light social restrictions.

Of the 194 countries looked at by the UN health agency, Sweden's pandemic death rate was 66 per 100,000  well below the average of 90.

It also puts Sweden below most other major European nations that locked down several times, such as Italy (133), Spain (111), Britain (109), Portugal (100), the Netherlands (85), Belgium (77) and Germany (73).

Harries was also asked about South Korea, who responded to the pandemic by closing its borders to some parts of China, implementing rapid testing and isolating any infected people.

This strategy, which is seen as a success story in dealing with the Covid outbreak, meant that it avoided strict public lockdowns like those seen elsewhere across Europe.

Harries said: 'I think this is where we need to be really careful because the culture in South Korea was very different

'In South Korea, they have had a different experiencecommunities, individuals and governments build on the experience and the culture that they have.'

Harries recently opened a new super-lab at Porton Down where experts are working on a high-security project to develop prototype vaccines to tackle the world's next deadly pandemic within 100 days of it breaking out.

The ambitious target would smash the 362 days it took to develop a Covid jab, potentially stopping crippling lockdowns in future.

Harries recently opened a new super-lab at Porton Down where experts are working on a high-security project to develop prototype vaccines to tackle the world's next deadly pandemic within 100 days of it breaking out

British scientists at the facility are currently leading the charge to create a vaccine for world's next deadly virus when it hits

Experts working on the high-security project at Porton Down, the top-secret government laboratory, to develop prototype vaccines to tackle 'Disease X' when it hits

Scientists agree it is only a matter of time until the next major pandemic which will be caused by the ominously dubbed 'Disease X' and has been put among the biggest threats to life this year.

British scientists at the facility are currently leading the charge to create a vaccine for world's next deadly virus when it hits.

It is geared to work with the world's deadliest live viruses, with more specialist 'high-containment' labs than anywhere in Europe.

Working alongside academics and industry, it is the only site in the UK equipped to create a vaccine from start to finish.

At the time of its launch Harries said Britain is already primed to launch a 'very slick and rapid response' to the next global threat.

Speaking at the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre earlier this year, she said it signalled a 'step change in terms of pandemic response', adding: 'The risk [of another pandemic] is growing.

'The 100-day mission is to identify a pathogen of pandemic potential and within 100 days, you have vaccines to try and manage that.

'This is shifting from being super ready to respond to actually trying to stop [pandemics] happening.

'For previous vaccines it would have been five to ten years. For Covid it was 362 days, so to get to 100 days is really stretching the ambition. But if we're going to prevent pandemics then that's exactly what we need to do.'
The daughter of a homeless Florida woman who was eaten by a 13ft alligator has revealed the moment she found out she was dead, after praying it wasn't her.

Sabrina Peckham, 41, was found in the jaws of an alligator after she was dragged by the 13-foot beast into a canal last Friday in Largo, Clearwater.

Several local residents spotted the gruesome sight as the alligator dragged Peckham away and began to record the scene while alerting the Largo Fire Department.

Her daughter, Breauna Dorris has now revealed that the moment she found out her mom had died, after 'praying' it wasn't her.

Doris told Wesh2: ' 'I think that she is just going to walk through the door any second, and then you remember. And then all of it comes back.

Her daughter Breauna Dorris, pictured here, announced the news of her mother's passing on social media

Several local residents spotted the gruesome sight of Peckham's death on Friday afternoon

'I'm sure my mother is just gleaming knowing that ever one person cared about her, let alone thousands.'

She continued: 'Me knowing that she was staying 50 feet from where it happened, I prayed 'I hope it's not her, I hope it's not her.

'Later that evening law enforcement arrived at my door and pretty much told me that it was her and she was gone.

According to Dorris, her mom had been struggling with homelessness and described her as kind and selfless.

Dorris continued: 'My mother was not cared about by many, but to know that in times like this were we need our community that people are coming out showing our support, donating, praying, sending kind words, it's all that I could ask for.'

Emergency responders, together with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, managed to pull the alligator from the water before shooting it dead, with officials describing it as having been 'humanely killed' following the horrific attack

Dorris announced the sad news on her social media, writing: ' 'The past 24 hours have been filled with grief and sorrow and unbearable pain for our family.

'My mother, Sabrina Peckham was the victim of the alligator attack at McCay Creek (rainbow village).

The Florida alligator was found with a dead body clamped between its jaws as it made its way down a canal near Clearwater

Sabrina Peckham (left) pictured with her daughter Breauna Dorris. Peckham, 41, was found in the jaws of the alligator after being dragged by the 13-foot beast into a canal on Friday

'Please understand that we do not have all information yet as the medical examiners report is not yet finished.

'Some details I would like to share is that my mother did not 'taunt' the alligator as some are saying in the news outlets comments.

'My mother was a part of the homeless population that lived in the nearby wooded area.

'It is believed that she may have been walking to or from her camp site near the creek in the dark and the alligator attacked from the water.

'We expected to have many many more years with her. Unfortunately god has called her home sooner than our hearts were ready.'

Dorris addressed her mother in a heartfelt statement: 'To my mother: I love you more than I ever expressed, I miss you more than you'll ever know and I pray that you are looking down over me and your grandchildren.

'Please protect us. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I pray you are at peace and you are no longer struggling or hurting. I pray you found momo and pop and you all are watching down from above.'

The large reptile held its victim tightly between its powerful jaws as is paddled down the waterway, in the small town of Largo

Emergency responders, along with the Florida FWC successfully removed the alligator from the water and subsequently euthanized it

Sabrina Peckham was named as the homeless Florida woman mauled to death and dragged into a waterway by a huge alligator in Largo, Clearwater

Jennifer Dean, who lived nearby to where the woman was killed, said: 'A lot of my neighbors were out here and they're the ones that told me about the gator.

'While we were standing here we heard a shot, I assume they killed the gator.'

Once the alligator was dead, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office were then able to retrieve the victim's body from the water.

'I could tell there was a body in his mouth, so I started recording,' JaMarcus Bullard said to Bay News 9.

'I came down to the fire department and reported it to them,' he said.

Investigators also took time to examine the gator, which measured 13 feet in length.

It's believed the deadly reptile had come from a nearby alligator-infested lake known as Ridgecrest Park.
At least 100 people killed and more than 150 injured after the fire broke out

This is the horrifying moment a deadly fire broke out during a bride and groom's first dance at a wedding ceremony in Iraq, before the raging inferno engulfed the hall and killed at least 100 people and injured 150 more.

Video purportedly shows the newlyweds Haneen and Revan slow-dancing before the blaze, believed to have been started by fireworks, tore through the large hall in the northern town of Qaraqosh near Mosul.

Haneen, wearing a large white wedding dress, turns around in horror to see flames rapidly climbing the walls before burning material falls from the roof.

Chaos ensues, with the up to 900 panicked guests rushing towards the exits as the hall is engulfed in flames and filled with toxic smoke in seconds. Survivors said many were left trapped in the burning building as they couldn't see through the black smoke.

The bride and groom were among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health officials, while 150 more are injured - 50 critically.

Hundreds of wedding guests, many of them children, were rushed to hospital with severe burns across their bodies, with many fighting for their lives.

Wedding guest Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as Haneen and Revan 'were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling and the whole hall went up in flames'.

'We couldn't see anything,' the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. 'We were suffocating, we didn't know how to get out.'

Civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall's exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country

This image shows the wedding moments before the blaze

The bride Haneen and groom Revan (pictured) are among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health official Ahmed Dubardani

Iraqi security officials inspect the site of the fire on Wednesday in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, Iraq

This picture shows the burnt-out interior of an event hall in Qaraqosh where the fire broke out during the wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration in the northern Nineveh province

An injured man lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at the wedding ceremony, killing at least 100 people

Other wedding guests also said that the blaze was caused by fireworks, which had been set off during the first dance.

A man injured in the fire, speaking from his hospital bed, said: 'They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.'

Witnesses said the wedding hall caught fire at around 10.45pm local time (8.45pm UK time) during the couple's first dance.

Video shows wedding guests dancing together before the newlyweds walked on to the dance floor.

Harrowing footage shows Haneen resting her head against Revan while he holds her waist as they share their first dance. But within minutes, the wedding turned into a nightmare as the blaze broke out, sending shards of burning material to the ground around them.

Panicked guests began running out of the burning building, but over 100 were trapped inside and died of burns and smoke inhalation.

Chaotic scenes were seen outside the building, with screaming guests crying for help from medics who had quickly arrived on the scene.

Injured wedding guests were later seen lying in hospital beds with bandages covering the burns they sustained in the horrific blaze.

Mr Dubardani, a health official in the province, said: 'The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60 per cent of their bodies burned.

'This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.'

In the blaze's aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as emergency crews sifted through the scene of utter devastation.

The charred remains of chairs are seen in the gutted wedding hall on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire on Wednesday

Video shows tables covered with white cloths set under chandeliers at the hall before the wedding ceremony turned into a nightmare

Firefighters check the damage in an event hall in Qaraqosh after the fire broke out during the wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lays on a hospital bed

Another injured child lays on a hospital bed

People gather around a truck carrying body bags after a fire broke out during the wedding

People walk past an event hall in Qaraqosh

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire at a wedding celebration with the charred remains of the building seen within

While there is no official word on the cause of the blaze, footage showed fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier alight, which echoes the testimony of injured wedding guests.

This was made worse by the wedding hall's exterior being decorated with 'highly flammable' cladding that is illegal in Iraq, civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency said.

The danger was compounded by the 'release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels', which contained plastic, they said.

'The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,' the civil defence authorities said, with 'preliminary information' suggesting fireworks were to blame for the blaze.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

'It could be a mistake by the event organisers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error,' Mr Khoury said. 'It was a disaster in every sense of the word.'

A man walks through the gutted remains of the wedding hall where at least 100 people were killed on Wednesday

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

Iraqi security men inspect the scene of a fire that broke out at a wedding hall in Hamdaniya, in Iraq's Nineveh province, on Wednesday

Soldiers and emergency responders gather around ambulances carrying wounded people

At least 100 people died in a fire at the wedding in a festival hall in Hamdaniyah

Soldiers and emergency responders outside Hamdaniyah general hospital in Bakhdida

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.

Anger is simmering in the area after it emerged that the exterior of the wedding hall had been covered in the illegal cladding.

It wasn't immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren't designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put on to buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze.

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Safety standards in Iraq's construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.

And in April of the same year, exploding oxygen tanks triggered a fire at a hospital in Baghdad - also dedicated to Covid patients - that killed more than 80 people.

Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, northeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh was ransacked by jihadists of the Islamic State group in 2014.

Qaraqosh and its churches were slowly rebuilt after the group was ousted in 2017, and Pope Francis visited the town in March 2021.
The fugitive ex-boss of collapsed tech firm Wirecard was the mastermind of a Russian spy ring in Britain which plotted to abduct individuals on UK soil, a court heard yesterday.

Five Bulgarians, three men and two women, are said to have worked with a 'tasker' named Jan Marsalek - an Austrian who became a wanted man in Germany after being suspected of a major company fraud.

His whereabouts are unknown and a 'red notice' has been issued by German authorities for his arrest, with reports suggesting he is now in Russia.

Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 31, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, who are all Bulgarian nationals with EU settled status, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court via videolink and spoke only to confirm their names and dates of birth.

Kathryn Selby, prosecuting, told the court the hub of the espionage activities was Roussev's home in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where forged documents and a 'significant amount of equipment involved in carrying out surveillance activity was recovered'.

Five Bulgarians, three men and two women, are said to have worked with a 'tasker' named Jan Marsalek - an Austrian who became a wanted man in Germany after being suspected of a major company fraud

Vanya Gaberova, 29 and 31-year-old Ivan Stoyanov appeared at the hearing via video links from prison

Fellow suspected spies (L-R) Orlin Roussev, 45, Katrin Ivanova, 31 and Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, were previously charged on February 11, 2023

Roussev lived in this guesthouse in the seaside town of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk

The court heard all five defendants were arrested in February for offences contrary to the Official Secrets Act.

Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova were charged and the other two held in Home Office detention. She said: 'Following their arrest, searches were carried out at their home addresses and a large amount of fraudulent identity documents were found at the addresses of Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova.

'Since then, an investigation into the use of those false documents has found they were used to open several false bank accounts.

'At those addresses, Roussev's in particular, a significant amount of equipment involved in carrying out surveillance activity was recovered. It is the Crown's case that Orlin Roussev's home was the base to carry out espionage involving surveillance of locations and individuals for the Russian state.

Alleged spies Katrin Ivanova (left) and Vanya Gaberova seen in an artist's illustration as they appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court via videolink

Alledged spies Orlin Roussev (left) Bizer Dzhambazov (centre) and Ivan Stoyanov seen in an artist's illustration as they appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court via videolink

'This includes the potential abduction of some of these targets. Information was fed back to the UK and reporting was sent from the UK to a tasker on behalf of Russia, a person known as Jan Marsalek.

'Given this case has a national security backdrop it should be dealt with in accordance with the terrorism protocol.'

The offence carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Dzhambazov and Ivanova, from north London, and Roussev are also charged with possession of false identity documents with improper intention, under section four of the Identity Documents Act 2010.

District judge Tan Ikram remanded all five in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on October 13.
A teenager is fighting for his life in hospital after falling from a construction site.

The young tradesman, 17, was on a building site on Victoria Street in the city suburb of West End, Brisbane, when he fell at about 1:30pm on Tuesday.

It's understood he was working on a level of the site when he fell through a hole and landed four metres below on another level.

The teen suffered a serious head injury and was rushed to Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital.

He is in an induced coma.

A young tradesman, 17, has suffered a serious head injury after falling at a construction site on Victoria Street (pictured) in the city suburb of West End, Brisbane

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland are investigating the incident.

It comes just a week after three teenagers were injured in workplace accidents in Queensland and Adelaide.

A boy, 15, suffered serious leg injuries at the intersection of Stebonheath and Hewittson roads in Edinburgh North, Adelaide, last Tuesday.

He reportedly became trapped underneath a three-metre-long concrete slab while work was underway to transfer the concrete barriers.

The injured teen was rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for treatment.

Meanwhile, twin brothers Ethan and Christian Desborough, 18, were both injured when they were struck by steel beams at a business in the Mackay suburb of Paget in north-east Queensland on the Monday.

Ethan bore the brunt of the tragedy, suffering massive injuries, including permanent damage to his spine.

Christian had one of his legs 'crushed by two beams' - he was fortunate as there were no fractures, but it was badly bruised.

The teenager was rushed to Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital and is in an induced coma (stock image)

He said Ethan is 'lucky to be alive' after seven steel beams fell on him.

'The doctor told us he has a very slim to none chance of ever walking again,' he told The Courier Mail.

The twins were initially taken to Mackay Base Hospital, but Ethan's injuries were so severe - he is paralysed from the knees down - he was flown to Townsville for treatment.

When Ethan's care there is completed with surgery, he is likely to be taken to Brisbane for therapy and rehabilitation.

The brothers had only been in their new jobs for a week when the incident occurred.
Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a Woolworths shopper smashed the perplex gates at the supermarket self-service checkout with a hammer.

The shopper erupted into the violent outburst at one of the stores in Moorabbin, south-east Melbourne.

Footage showed the woman, dressed in black pants and a purple top, walking up to the barrier at the self service checkout before smashing the hammer into it.

She is seen taking several swings before abruptly walking away and dropping the hammer to the ground.

Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a Woolworths shopper smashed the perplex gates at the supermarket self-service checkout with a hammer

The woman is understood be part of an activist group known as 'The Whistlebowers, Activists and Communities Alliance'.

'Fed up customers take matters into their own hands at Moorabin Woolworths today, attempting to disable the shopping giants new security gates,' the Instagram caption accompanying the video says.

READ MORE: Coles makes it harder for customers to pay by cash as Australia rapidly moves towards becoming a cashless society Advertisement

'The gates have been part of a highly contentious revamp on security to prevent theft during a cost of living crisis.

'Customers are held inside the shopping centre by a locked gate until they can prove they have paid for their goods.'

The group accused Woolworths of making higher 'profits than ever' during the Covid period.

'While people are struggling to put food on the table and take care of their families, Woolworths is paying their CEO's upwards of $20,000 per day,' the Instagram post said.

'Woolworths has also been accused of exploiting the public by significantly ramping up prices, while families struggle to put food on the table.

'Further escalations are likely and may cost the company thousands, repairing not just their security devices but also their image.'

Woolworths told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday that they were they 'thankful that no store team member or customer was injured in the incident'.

'There is no place for this type of vandalism, and were assisting police with their inquiries,' the store said.

Australians were quick to slam the actions of the shopper on social media platform X.

'This isnt OK,' one wrote.

'It's not the staff, like my son who works there to support himself while at uni, who make these decisions.

She is seen taking several swings before abruptly walking away and dropping the hammer to the ground

'Most staff hate it as much as you all do. Boycott, complain to higher management, whatever. Dont traumatise the staff in their workplace.'

'This is just vandalism, plain and simple,' another stated. 'You are complaining about price gouging but think this is ok?

'You do realise we the customer pay for this behaviour also, if you dont like their security shop somewhere else. Simple. They are doing this to stop thefts, we all pay for.

'This is just abusive and creating a dangerous workplace for the lowest paid casual retail staff. Take your violent protest to the decision makers, not the casuals.'

In August Woolworths announced it was trialling technology at stores across NSW and Victoria to stop increasing theft.

The new measures include rooftop sensors and an automatic gate at its self-service checkouts.

When shoppers enter the self-serve checkout area, sensors located on the roof will identify someone who has entered the vicinity and will receive a digital ID.

Alongside the digital ID will be a red marker until the customer has paid at one of the checkouts, at which point it will turn green.

If a shopper has paid, the sensors will then send a signal to open the exit gate, allowing them to leave.

However, if the sensors identify a shopper has not paid - either by pretending to pay or trying to walk straight out - the gates will remain closed and block their exit.

Woolworths told Daily Mail Australia shoppers will remain unidentifiable throughout the process as the technology does not use facial recognition or CCTV.

A rooftop sensor will identify shoppers in the self-service checkout area with a unique digital ID and will send a signal to the exit gate if the shopper has paid

Automatic gates (pictured) at the exit of the self-service checkout area and will only open if a shopper has paid for their goods

Shoppers are allocated a digital ID as they use the self-checkout, which is deleted the moment they exit the store.

The retail giant has seen a spike in shoplifting and hopes the technology will help combat theft at its stores.

'This is one of a number of initiatives, both covert and overt, to minimise instances of retail crime in store networks across the Group,' Woolworths told Daily Mail Austrlia.

'All retailers are experiencing an increase in retail crime, and were no exception.

'We continue to look at additional measures that will help reduce retail crime, however, we do understand that most customers do the right thing at the checkout.'
Gas and electricity prices rose 1.7% and 6.7% in the year to August 2023

It claims Britons are taking more showers to save money on water heating costs

Britons are taking fewer baths in order to save on utility bills, a hygiene manufacturer claims.

PZ Cussons, which owns brands including Imperial Leather and Original Source, has seen rising sales over the last year.

They claim the strong performance is due to consumers taking more showers in a bid to save money on the costs of heating up water.

Households have been hit with high energy bills over the past year.

Gas and electricity prices rose 1.7 per cent and 6.7 per cent, respectively, in the year to August 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics.

PZ Cussons says that Britons are taking less baths to try and cut down on water heating bills (Stock Image)

PZ Cussons chief executive Jonathan Myers said his company has been attempting to understand how consumers 'are changing their habits and their needs when they are really feeling the pinch'.

He said: 'It has meant different things in some of the different markets we operate in around the world.

'But here in the UK, in particular, what it has meant, is actually people have been changing their daily habits. For sure, people are taking fewer baths and avoiding those expensive energy bills, and using more showers.'

Sales at the London-listed company increased by 6.1 per cent for the year to May 31, 2023 thanks to popular products such as Cussons Creations, a value line of shower gels.

The company saw sales of its Carex hand sanitiser surge during the Covid lockdowns  but boss Myers said cost pressures rather than hygiene was predominately influencing shopper behaviour now.

He said: 'There's no doubt at the time of the pandemic, and even a bit again now as we have heard of some rising Covid rates, people have been reaching out for [Carex].

'No doubt, people are using it less now than in the peak of Covid. People have moved from hygiene concerns to cost of living concerns.'
Perth is facing what could be its hottest September day in almost 150 years.

The forecast predicts that temperatures in Perth on Wednesday could reach a maximum of 34C, which is significantly higher than the city's usual September average of 21.6C.

If this prediction holds true, it could mark the highest temperature ever recorded for September in Perth, surpassing the previous record of 34.2C set in 2014.

Weatherzone meteorologist Aline Ribeiro suggests that a trough might lead to this record-breaking temperature today.

Wednesday could be Perth's hottest day since records began in 1876 (pictured, Cottesloe Beach)

'There's a trough bringing a hot air mass from the Pilbara region and delaying the sea breeze (which would cool temperatures),' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'There's a chance of really hot temperatures in Perth today - it will be the hottest day for the fortnight.

'It's definitely well above the month's average - it will be really hot.'

However, the swelter won't last too long.

'Tomorrow will be hot as well before a cool change moves in on Friday,' Ms Ribeiro said.

That change is forecast to bring temperatures back down around the low 20Cs.

READ MORE: Australia weather Advertisement

But as the west coast cools, the east coast is set to heat up.

Showers hanging around Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday are expected to clear on Friday as temperatures warm.

A maximum of 28C and 27C are forecast for Friday and Saturday ahead of a 34C high on Sunday.

Melbourne will also see a warm weekend with maximum temperatures jumping from 17C and 21C on Wednesday and Thursday to 25C and 28C on Friday and Saturday.

The high end-of-week temperatures are forecast to couple with sunny conditions.

Wednesday is looking to be the hottest day for Brisbane this week with a maximum of 31C.

Those temperatures are set to fall as rainy and cloudy conditions move over the city from Thursday.

Hobart is also forecast to see cloudy weather from Wednesday with high temperatures hanging around the high teens to mid 20Cs.

A trough is forecast to drive a hot air mass from the Pilbara region while stunting sea breeze

Clouds over Adelaide will clear from Wednesday for a mostly sunny Thursday and clear skies on Friday.

Temperatures in the South Australian capital are set to peak on Saturday with a high of 30C.

The weather in Darwin is set to be hot, dry and sunny with clear skies and temperatures around the mid 30Cs forecast into next week.
A man who spent nearly 30 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape has been declared innocent and freed, prosecutors have announced.

DNA testing helped exonerate Gerardo Cabanillas in a 1995 attack on a couple sitting in a parked car in the city of South Gate, California, the Los Angeles county district attorney's office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Cabanillas' case was reexamined by the Conviction Integrity Unit of the DA's office, and last week a judge reversed his conviction, found him factually innocent and ordered his permanent release.

'I extend my deepest apologies to Mr. Cabanillas for the miscarriage of justice and the failure of our criminal legal system,' District Attorney George Gascon said after Cabanillas was exonerated last week.

The now 46-year-old was convicted in 1996 and spent 28 years in prison. He confessed to being one of two armed men who approached the couple, forced the man out and drove the woman to an abandoned house where both raped her.

DNA testing helped exonerate Gerardo Cabanillas (pictured above) in a 1995 attack on a couple sitting in a parked car in the city of South Gate, the county district attorney's office said in a statement on Tuesday

Cabanillas (center, with his wife Laura Cabanillas, left) was conditionally released from prison in May, CNN reports. Then he was permanently freed on September 21 as his conviction was vacated by a LA Superior Court judge (also pictured: Mike Semanchik, right, Executive Director of The Innocence Project)

Another couple in a car in the same area were robbed two days later, authorities said.

Cabanillas, who was 18 years old at the time, was arrested a few days after the kidnapping, robbery and rape because he generally matched the description of the suspects, the DA said.

Victims of the attacks were told of his confession and identified Cabanillas from photo lineups.

But they later expressed doubts in court and said they were pressured into identifying him, according to the California Innocence Project at the California Western School of Law, which represented Cabanillas.

Throughout his trial, Cabanillas maintained he was innocent, but was given a life-long prison sentence.

DNA testing on the rape kit, which the Innocence Project asked to be tested in 2019, showed that two other people committed the assault.

No other suspects were ever arrested, although one man later confessed to committing one of the crimes, the Innocence Project said.

'False confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States,' interim director Alissa Bjerkhoel said in a statement.

'Police are permitted to lie to suspects, including promises of leniency if the person confesses.

'That is exactly what happened here and, if it was not for the DNA evidence, Gerardo would have spent the rest of his life in prison.'

'We are thrilled for Gerardo and his family that the truth has finally set him free,' she said.

Gascon said in a press conference: 'I stand here with you with a deep sense of responsibility as a district attorney to address a tragic miscarriage of justice and to celebrate the exoneration and release of prison of an innocent man.

'Mr. Cabanillas always maintained that on the date of his arrest, he was coerced by the investigating detective into giving a false confession with a promise that he would be released on probation.'

'To you and your family, I offer our deepest apologies for the horrible injustice that was caused,' Gascon told Cabanillas (above smiling in a picture provided by The Innocence Project), who was also present at the news conference

The DA said despite there being no physical evidence connecting Cabanillas to the crime, he was charged with 14 felony counts.

'After a thorough review of all the evidence, including expert analysis of the purported confession and an interview with the sexual assault victim, we lost confidence in the conviction in this case,' Gascon said.

Cabanillas was conditionally released from prison in May, CNN reports. Then he was permanently freed on September 21 as his conviction was vacated by a LA Superior Court judge.

'To you and your family, I offer our deepest apologies for the horrible injustice that was caused,' Gascon told Cabanillas, who was also present at the news conference.

Investigators with the DA's office also identified a new suspect with the discovered DNA evidence.

The man is now custody in connection with an unrelated killing, Gascon said.

He added that the man matched the suspect description and 'had gone on to commit multiple serious felonies in the same area, including several rapes and murder.'
The arrest, the 40-year-old's lawyer said, came after 40-year-old Wael Hana voluntarily flew to the city to face the federal corruption charges

An Egyptian businessman accused of bribing New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez for legislative favors was arrested at New York's JFK International Tuesday morning.

The arrest, the 40-year-old's lawyer said, came after Wael Hana voluntarily flew to the city to face the federal charges - part of a sprawling, three-part indictment filed by the US attorneys office.

In it, federal prosecutors allege the Egypt national was one of three New Jersey businessmen who collectively paid hundreds of thousands to Menendez, 69, over the course of several years, in the form of cash, gold, and even a Mercedes Benz.

The bribes, fed say, came in exchange for Menendez agreeing to use his power and influence to personally enrich Hana, and to benefit the Government of Egypt.

Hours after being cuffed in Queens, Hana pleaded not guilty to the allegations before a federal magistrate judge, who ordered him released on a $5million bond on the condition he surrender his travel documents.

40-year-old Wael Hana was arrested at JFK in New York Tuesday morning after the Egypt national - who now lives in New Hersey voluntarily flew to the city to face the federal charges, part of a sprawling, three-part indictment filed by the US attorneys office.

He's accused of bribing Bob Menendez for legislative favors, in a plot where Menendez to use his power and influence - who until his indictment as the most powerful person in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to enrich Hana, while also benefiting the Government of Egypt

Hana complied, and also agreed to be subject to constant GPS monitoring via a device that must be worn at all times, and a curfew at his New Jersey home from 8pm to 8am.

He's accused of helping facilitate meetings and dinners between Menendez, the senator's wife Nadine, and Egyptian military and intelligence officials in a secret bid to increase US aid to Egypt.

At the meetings, officials pressed the senator - who until his indictment was the most powerful person in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - to sign off on military aid Washington had withheld over concerns about Egypt's human rights record.

In exchange, prosecutors allege, Hana put Nadine - who began dating the senator in 2018 before marrying in 2020 - on the payroll of a company he controlled.

That company - identified in the indictment as New Jersey-based IS EG Halal - had the exclusive right to certify halal meat shipped to Egypt from the US.

As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez - who has enjoyed his seat since 2006 - held sway over various military sales, financing and other aid.

Using this influence, feds allege the senator - who is now facing calls to step down from Democrats - sought to pressure an official at the Department of Agriculture in an effort to protect Hana's business, and disrupted a criminal case undertaken by the New Jersey AG related to associates of another one of the businessmen, Jose Uribe.

A 56-year-old former insurance agent from Union City and Hanas business associate, Uribe - who has also been arrested - was introduced to the senator by Hana, prosecutors said.

Hours after being cuffed by feds in Queens, Hana pleaded not guilty to the allegations before a federal magistrate judge, who ordered him released on a $5million bond. Hana, who now has to wear a monitoring device and had to surrender his passport, is seen leaving court Tuesday

Hana - seen at center - is accused of helping facilitate meetings and dinners between Menendez, the senator's wife Nadine, and Egyptian military and intelligence officials in a secret bid to increase US aid to Egypt

It is then alleged that Uribe asked the senator to intervene in the state attorney generals prosecution of one of his colleagues accused of insurance fraud, In exchange for $15,000 in cash that she used to make a down payment on a Mercedes-Benz C-class convertible.

Prosecutors said that Nadine then texted her husband, 'Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes.'

The last person named in the indictment, local real estate developer and longtime Menendez associate Fred Daibes, is charged with taking part in an insider loan scam at Mariners Bank, in which he reportedly asked Menedez to intervene in exchange for cash, furniture, and gold bars.

The scheme allegedly saw Menedez recommend a candidate for U.S. Attorney in New Jersey whom the senator could influence in Phillip Sellinger, who successfully became the top federal prosecutor in the state.

According to a report from NJ.com, Daibes pleaded guilty in 2022 to one count of concealing a $1.8 million bank loan made to him - in exchange for the government dropping the remaining 13 counts against him and promising not to seek a prison term.

All are expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday to face charges including conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

Authorities found two one-kilogram gold bars and eleven one-ounce gold bars in Menendez's home during a June 2022 search. The gold bars were part of the hundreds of thousands in bribes the couple allegedly accepted

Senator Menendez and his wife Nadine are charged with accepting gold bars as bribes

Cash was found in envelopes during a June 2022 raid of Menendez home; Menendez claims it was from his personal savings

Bob and Nadine Menendez also each face one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right - a charge that itself can warrant a 20-year prison sentence,

Altogether, the pair each face up to 45 years in a federal lockup, with both pleading not guilty - despite the bevy of evidence being held against them.

Legal experts have also claimed Menendez should be worried about the charges; Joseph Tully, a San Francisco criminal defense attorney said the 'monster' indictment is 'very strong'.

'The indictment charges Robert Menendez, his wife, Nadine Menendez, as well as three businessmen, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who are accused of being co-conspirators,' Tully told Fox.

'Sen. Menendez faces up to 45 years if convicted of all charges.'

Similarly, David Gelman, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, told Fox he thinks Menendez 'should be very concerned right now about these charges.'

He said: 'The charges are extremely serious and directly touch upon his public office.

'However, it's not the first time the senator has faced such allegations.

'If he were to resign, then the governor could appoint a replacement until the end of his term.'

Yet another Democrat has demanded New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez - seen here on Monday - resign following his indictment on federal bribery charges last week

Aired by Vermont's Peter Welch Monday, the call is the third from a Democratic senator in a matter of days, and comes on the heels of near-identical statements from both John Fetterman and Sherrod Brown

And former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis told 'Cavuto Live' the evidence against Menendez was 'the strongest [he's] ever seen.'

Set to appear in Manhattan federal court Wednesday to face the allegations, Menendez on Monday continued to face pressure from his fellow progressives to resign.

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, a 76-year-old who has served his state for nearly as long as Menendez, started by saying his colleague is 'entitled to the presumption of innocence' before making his true feelings known - insisting the Senate is 'entitled' to an 'effective' senator.

He wrote on X, formerly Twitter: 'The shocking and specific allegations against Senator Menendez have wholly compromised his capacity to be that effective senator.

'I encourage Senator Menendez to resign.'

The demand echoed statements from both Brown, 70, and Fetterman, 54, over the weekend and early Monday, after US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York unveiled the three-count indictment.

'He's entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations,' Fetterman said in a statement Saturday.

Earlier Monday, Brown insisted that Menendez '[had] broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate'.

Senator Menendez proclaimed his innocence in a press conference in New Jersey Monday - his first public statement since being hit with the three-count indictment on Sunday

Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis told Fox News Saturday that the evidence against the senator is 'the strongest [he's] ever seen'

The criminal indictment claimed the New Jersey senator Googled 'How much is one kilo of gold worth?' after arriving home from a trip to Egypt in October 2021.

Multiple gold bars were found during a court-authorized search of the couple's home in June 2022. The gold bars were part of the hundreds of thousands in bribes the couple are accused of accepting.

Menendez Googled the price of gold another time, soon after his wife thanked Fred Daibes, a New Jersey businessman and longtime Menendez associate, for 'Christmas in January,' according to the document.

Daibes and two others were involved in paying 'hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes' in exchange for the senator using his power to secretly benefit the Egyptian government, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors also accused Menendez of seeking to influence an ongoing federal prosecution of Daibes.

Menendez and his wife were accused of corruption allegations on Friday, involving the purchase of a luxury car, $400,000 in gold bars and cash, plus payments toward a home mortgage allegedly received by Menendez and his wife.

The indictment claims the couple had an improper relationship with three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who allegedly paid the couple in exchange for Menendez to use his influence in Washington D.C. to their benefit.

Pictured: Senator Bob Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. The indictment was released Friday as Menendez and his wife face three criminal counts each for their part in the alleged bribery scheme after a year long investigation

Pictured: Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., right, and his wife Nadine Arslanian. A criminal indictment claimed the New Jersey senator googled 'How much is one kilo of gold worth?' after arriving home from a trip to Egypt in October 2021

The couple face three criminal counts each: conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

The three businessmen face charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

In a statement on Friday, Menendez denied any wrongdoing.

'Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first generation Latin American from humble beginnings could rise to be a U.S. senator.'

'I have been falsely accused before because I refused to back down to the powers that be and the people of New Jersey were able to see through the smoke and mirrors and recognize I was innocent,' he said.

He added he would not be 'distracted by baseless allegations' but continue his work as senator.
EXCLUSIVE, WARNING: Graphic content

Internet sleuths helped take down a once-respected crocodile expert who filmed himself raping, torturing, and murdering dogs after successfully identifying a leash in an abuse video he posted online.

Adam Robert Corden Britton, 52, pleaded guilty in Darwin's Supreme Court on Monday to a string of charges relating to animal abuse, bestiality, and for the possession of child exploitation material.

The court heard Britton sourced about 42 dogs on Gumtree Australia, often from owners who reluctantly gave their pets away due to work commitments. This was solely for the purpose of sexually exploiting them for his own sadistic pleasure.

Britton operated two Telegram accounts called 'monster' and 'Cerberus' - the latter being a three-headed dog in Greek mythology - between 2020 and 2022.

Britton used the accounts to engage with like-minded people about animal cruelty and bestiality.

However, he was the master of his own undoing when he posted a disturbing video called '1B***h9Pups to an abuse website on March 22, 2022.

Adam Robert Corden Britton (pictured) was a respected zoologist until he pleaded guilty to a string of animal abuse charges

Pictured: A stock image of a dog wearing an orange City of Darwin leash - like the one the internet sleuth spotted in Britton's abuse video

The following day, an anonymous internet user noticed the adult female dog was wearing an orange City of Darwin leash with the slogan 'great pets start with you'.

They referred the footage to the NT Animal Welfare Branch via Gmail, which then referred the matter to police.

On April 22, a month after Britton posted the video online, NT Police and Australian Federal Police raided his McMinns Lagoon home, in Darwin's south.

Detectives seized computers, mobile phones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys.

They also found severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy in a pond on the property, and a severed dog head on a neighbouring property.

Britton was eventually charged with 37 counts of animal cruelty, 10 counts of raping or attempting to rape a dog, and four counts of possessing or transmitting child abuse material.

The video and descriptions of his abuse are so disturbing Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to publish it.

Britton (pictured left, with his wife Erin) once hosted Sir David Attenborough (right). There is no suggestion whatsoever that his wife knew about his offending

Britton not only tortured and sexually abused his own pets Ursa and Bolt (pictured together), who he created an Instagram page for, but also dogs from pet owners he had lured into his trap through the online marketplace platform Gumtree Australia

The court also heard he sexually abused his own Swiss Shepherd pets, Ursa and Bolt, for almost a decade until he eventually took to Gumtree Australia to source more dogs to kill.

After pleading guilty to all charges on Monday, Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the press gallery that the facts of the offending detailed 'acts that could only be described as grotesque cruelty which are both confronting and distressing'.

'Which in my assessment have the potential to cause nervous shock or some other adverse psychological reaction to a person exposed to those details,' he said.

Britton was charged last year, but his name was suppressed by the courts to ensure media attention would not bias a jury against him.

The order was lifted after his pleaded guilty on Monday.

His matter is set to return to court on December 13 for sentencing submissions.

Adam Britton is pictured with his wife, Erin. They were married for at least 15 years

Britton, who grew up in West Yorkshire before moving to Australia, began his sick abuse in 2014 and tortured and raped more than 42 dogs he called 'f*** toys' in the bleak container that was fitted with cameras until his arrest in April 2022.

The academic at Charles Darwin University, who once hosted broadcaster David Attenborough at his home, would post the horrific footage of the abuse on his Telegram channel.

READ MORE: Why crocodile expert dog rapist was on the path to becoming a serial killer Advertisement

The married zoologist kept his twisted double life and depraved fantasies from his wife Erin for years. Erin, a wildlife ranger who met Prince Harry and helped him catch a crocodile, has since reportedly changed her surname.

There is no suggestion whatsoever that Ms Britton, a biologist and wildlife ranger who has assisted in a range of projects on sea turtles and counting crocodiles, knew anything about her husband's crimes.

The National Geographic website suggests she will be on international wildlife expeditions for the next six months, and there is no mention in her bio of her husband and former business partner.

Britton would tell pet owners on Gumtree Australia that his old dog had died of cancer and he wanted a 'new family member' in order to make them have pity on him and sell them their dog, the court heard.

If the pet owners reached out and asked Britton how their old dog was doing, he would spin a 'false narrative' to say they were healthy and even send them old photos - when in reality their pet was already dead.

In one scenario, Britton sent a message to the owners of a large brown dog Wolfe to reassure them the animal was 'settling in well'.

'Wolfe was relaxed and eating well and enjoying her new home,' the message said.

'But unbeknownst to the previous owners the dog had already been 'sexually exploited, tortured and killed,' prosecutor Marty Aust told the court.

Prosecutors told the court how Britton has a 'sadistic sexual interest' in animals and in particular dogs since at least 2014

Britton grew up in England and received his Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Bristol before moving to Australia after 1996 to pursue his fascination with crocodiles.

He met his future wife and they set up a consultancy company, Big Gecko, which sold footage of crocodiles to television and film directors. They worked with natural history shows with the BBC and National Geographic.

Their saltwater crocodile, Smaug, became something of a celebrity in his field and appeared in two horror films.

Britton was a shameless self-promoter and would often update his social media profiles with photos of his crocodiles, property, and media clippings.

While he managed to hide his sick fantasies, one of the more disturbing posts on his public Facebook page was a post celebrating his Swiss Shepherd Bolt's first birthday in 2016.

The post included a photo of Bolt as a puppy in 2015. According to the court on Monday, Britton started sexually abusing his own dogs in 2014.
The bodies went undiscovered until a neighbor called police to complain of a foul order

One neighbor recalls Rivas 'was not herself' in the days leading up to her death

Azalea Rivas and her teenage daughter Azaria were found dead days after neighbors heard banging and screaming

A mother and daughter found dead in a suspected murder-suicide in their Brooklyn apartment have been pictured - as their neighbor revealed the woman appeared agitated less than an hour before residents heard screams.

The bodies of Azalea Rivas, 37, her 14-year-old daughter Azaria, and their pet dog were discovered at a residence on Brooklyn's New York Avenue in Little Haiti on September 25.

Kathleen Kiki, 57, told DailyMail.com that she crossed paths with her neighbor on Friday morning around 6.13am. Both women were walking their dogs.

'She was not herself,' Kiki said.

Rivas was wearing AirPods and talking to someone. She appeared 'very agitated.'

Kiki greeted her and asked if she was okay, to which Rivas replied, 'Yeah, you know.'

Azalea Rivas, right, and daughter Azaria, behind, were found dead in their Brooklyn apartment on September 25

A neighbor said Rivas 'was not herself' and seemed 'agitated' hours before screaming and banging were heard

The neighbor added that she often saw the mother and daughter walking together

This was out of character, as Rivas usually seemed 'happy, joyful and friendly.' Kiki would often see the mother and daughter walking together to the store.

The pair had talked about getting their dogs together for a doggie playdate.

She thought it was an older person in the building that died but when she found out it was her new neighbor and her daughter she was shocked and saddened.

'I cried,' she said. 'I don't think she would have taken her life and her daughter's life.

'I hope they get whoever did this.'

Kiki's 19-year-old daughter, Kiera, said she never met the mother or daughter, but was shocked to hear that such a horrific crime had taken place in her neighborhood.

'It's also the first time I ever heard about a murder taking place since we've lived here,' said Kiera, who moved to the block with her mother three years ago from Harlem.

'It is heartbreaking. You don't expect to hear stuff like that. And the dog!'

Azaria was stabbed once in the back, but blunt force trauma to the head was believed to have killed her.

She was found with a bag over her head, likely to contain blood spatter, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

Rivas died of a puncture to her lung, but she also had knife wounds on her neck and wrists that appeared self-inflicted.

The dog, named Biscuit, also had a bag over its head.

The 37-year-old died of a punctured lung but also had wounds on her neck and wrists that appeared self-inflicted

Azaria was stabbed once in the back, but she was believed to have died from blunt force trauma to the head

Police were unable to confirm if the deaths were caused by homicide or murder-suicide

'You see a mother and her daughter, there's always drama between mothers and daughters. I never saw anything that was concerning,' said neighbor Steve Schor.

The 38-year-old and his wife have occupied the apartment directly below the site of the grisly murder since June. They were the first residents to move into the building.

On Friday morning around 7.22am, Schor and his wife awoke to loud banging and screaming.

He said his dog Lucky started barking loudly. Concerned, the neighbor phoned 911 and told operators it sounded like someone was 'getting killed' upstairs.

This was not a typical noise, he said. We heard the whole thing go down - it was loud and there was banging and screaming - until there wasnt.

'What hit me really hard was that the dog was suffocated. It's very hard to shake that.'

Officers from the 67th precinct arrived and knocked on the door of Rivas's apartment, but no one responded.

Schor overheard one of the officers asking a supervisor if he should stay or leave. He said the officer left the scene a few minutes later.

All was quiet over the weekend, but on Monday around 2.30pm, a neighbor on the upper floor called the police about a foul odor in the building.

Following the call, Schor said a swarm of police, lieutenants and detectives were there 'all day and night.'

The police were there by the time the a man said to be Rivas's ex-boyfriend arrived and broke into the apartment, only to find the bodies. He was screaming before he collapsed and was taken to a hospital.

The bodies were wheeled out on stretchers around 10pm. Schor and other horrified residents watched as they were carried through the lobby.

Rivas's ex-boyfriend had been trying to contact the pair since Friday, he said, and they weren't answering.

'So this obviously took place on Friday when we had called 911, and nothing was done until yesterday,' Schor said. So that's two days that they were just sitting up there with no notice or anything.'

Schor's upstairs neighbors told him that they started to smell the decomposing bodies.

'When the police left (on Friday), I was like, they're leaving, and they're not doing anything about it. So it was concerning, but what can I do? I'm just a regular guy,' he said.

'I bet you if this was the Upper East Side, they would have broken the door down. I used to live on the Upper East Side, and if something like this happened they'd be there five minutes, not an hour later.'

Schor claimed to have overheard some details about the crime while detectives swarmed the building.

He said: 'I remember the cops saying yesterday there was blood everywhere. And they said that it seemed like that they were fighting on the floor.'

Another neighbor said he'd called 911 Friday morning after he heard shouting and banging coming from the apartment

Police knocked on the door of Rivas's unit, but no one answered. On Monday, a different resident called to complain of the stench of rotting flesh

The bodies were removed around 10pm, with residents watching as they were carried through the lobby

Rivas's uncle posted a message to social media reading: 'Mental health officials, NYC child protective services and NYPD failed them'

The 38-year-old, who already suffers from PTSD, said he has ongoing safety concerns.

'There's only one door with a piece of glass protecting us from the outside world. Whether it was a murder suicide or a murder, it doesn't matter. Make us feel safe in our apartment,' he said.

He added that the security camera outside the front door of the building was 'basically our only form of security.'

When asked if the building had informed tenants about the gruesome crime, Schor said the property manager called and assured him that he would stop by, but never did.

'I think the city is responsible for ensuring that they take care of us, especially since they are the ones who left and didn't do anything,' he said.

Schor said he and his wife moved to a house in Pennsylvania during the pandemic, but she worried about being in the middle of the woods and getting killed by an ax murder.

'So we moved here and then this happened. So I prefer the bears.'

On whether he planned to stay in the building in Little Haiti, Schor said that was up in the air. He planned on speaking with the landlord, as 'we pay a lot of money to live here.

'I'm going to be thinking about that every single day that I'm here,' he said. 'Replaying the noises over and over. Now that I know what happened, the visuals are coming of the anticipation of what it would have been like, and that's terrible.'

An NYPD spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the investigation is ongoing. The department could not confirm if it was a murder-suicide or a homicide.

One day after her death, Azalea's uncle posted on Facebook: 'Many stories are going to come out but the one true story to tell is that Azalea loved her baby!

'Mental health officials, NYC child protective services and NYPD failed them.'

No arrests have been made.
The boyfriend of a woman who was recovering in rehab from a horrific car accident has died in a motorbike crash while on his way to visit her.

Brad Hill was riding his motorbike on North East Road near Inglewood Inn, 20km from Adelaide, when he collided with an oncoming car just before 3.30pm last Tuesday.

Police said the 41-year-old Queensland man lost control of his bike while turning on a bend when he fell off and was struck by a Holden Astra travelling in the opposite direction.

The driver of the Holden, a 30-year-old woman, was not injured, however Mr Hill died at the scene.

Mr Hill was heading to Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre to visit his partner Daniiel Wilkey who was recovering from a head-on-crash at Williamstown in August.

Brad Hill was riding his motorbike on North East Road near Inglewood Inn, 20km from Adelaide , when he collided with an oncoming car just before 3.30pm on September 19

The 41-year-old (right) was on the way to visit his partner Daniiel Wilkey (left), who was recovering from a horrific car crash, when he was killed after being struck by an oncoming car

Ms Wilkey, who is still recovering from her injuries, shared a heartbreaking tribute on social media to the 'love of her life'.

'When I was in ICU and then in the ward at RAH (Royal Adelaide Hospital) for those three weeks Brad Hill didn't leave my side unless he had to, he stayed with me every night  he never complained and never gave up,' she wrote.

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'Then they moved me to Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre, he came along for the ride there in the ambulance with me, making me and the paramedics laugh the whole way.'

'We had already planned such an amazing future together and despite my current situation from my accident, every day we were together, we were happy.

'He would want me to be strong and keep pushing my recovery, and I will  just going to be a lot harder doing it without him, the love of my life.'

Ms Wilkey's sister Kandiice Dickson said the family was devastated by the two tragedies.

'It's unheard of, it's not something you think you have to go through,' she told The Advertiser.

'To almost lose someone and then a month later lose someone else, it's just not fair.'

Mr Hill's daughter Nateesha Hill, who started a GoFundMe page for her dad, described him as an 'amazing person who was quick to help all those around him.

Ms Wilkey shared a heartbreaking tribute on social media to the 'love of her life'

Ms Wilkey is still recovering at Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre after a horrific head-on-crash at Williamstown last month (pictured)

'He was an amazing person and always dropped everything to help the ones he loved and cherished,' she wrote.

'I just want to be able to give him the best possible funeral service. The funds will be used for my fathers funeral.'

At the time of writing, the GoFundMe page has received 16 donations totalling $1,400 and has a goal of raising $5,000.
An 87-year-old woman has been shot dead and a 91-year old man died from his injuries in hospital after a suspected murder-suicide in country Victoria.

Police were called to an address in Ararat, 200km north-west of Melbourne, close to the Grampians National Park, after reports of a shooting at 11.45am on Tuesday.

The elderly woman was found dead at the home on Kennel Road while the man suffered life-threatening injuries and airlifted to hospital. He died overnight.

The couple were found at a home on Kennel Road, Ararat in Victoria (pictured)

The case was initially being investigated by Victoria Police's homicide detectives but has now been handed over to the Family Violence unit

The case was initially being investigated by Victoria Police's homicide detectives but has now been handed over to the Family Violence unit.

'The parties were known to each other and detectives are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident,' said a police spokesman.

'Police will prepare a report for the Coroner.'
The civil lawsuit has been brought by four women including two ex-girlfriends who claim Masterson drugged, raped and sexually assaulted them

Resolving Masterson's appeal and sentence could take 'up to three years easy'

Its been more than four years since Danny Mastersons rape victims sued the star of That 70s Show and the Church of Scientology for harassment and intimidation.

And on Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge ruled that theyll have to wait at least another two years for their day in court.

LA Superior Court Judge Upinder Kalra lifted a stay on the civil case that had been in place since it was filed in August 2019, awaiting the result of the Scientologist actors criminal rape trial which ended with two convictions and a 30 years to life prison sentence earlier this month.

But the judge scheduled the trial for September 22, 2025, noting that resolving Mastersons appeal of his criminal convictions and sentence could take up to three years easy.

And a packed court calendar combined with an expected large amount of discovery evidence to be accumulated by the legal teams of the four women and the defendants are the main reasons why the civil case wont go to trial for two years.

A LA judge ruled that Danny Masterson's (right) rape victims have to wait at least another two years for their civil case after Masterson has been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison

Two of the women named in the suit were Masterson's ex-girlfriends - Chrissie Bixler and Bobette Riales - who claimed the 47-year-old convicted rapist drugged, raped and sexually assaulted them

LA Superior Court Judge Upinder Kalra (pictured) scheduled the trial for the civil case on September 22, 2025 as resolving Masterson's appeal and sentence could take 'up to three years easy'

The jury could not reach a verdict on Carnell-Bixler (pictured) who was Masterson's ex-girlfriend and Jane Doe #3 in the criminal case

The civil lawsuit against the 47-year-old convicted rapist has been brought by four women who claim he drugged, raped and sexually assaulted them.

The suit also names the Church of Scientology and its leader David Miscavige as defendants. The women claim they were stalked in a 'conspiracy to cover up that Daniel Masterson sexually assaulted four young women'.

Two of the women named in the suit were Masterson's ex-girlfriends - Chrissie Bixler and Bobette Riales - while the other two are listed as Jane Does #1 and #2. Masterson was convicted of raping Jane Does #1 and #2 but the jury could not reach a verdict on Bixler who was Jane Doe #3 in the criminal case and he was not charged in relation to Riales.

The civil lawsuit declares that 'When those women came forward to report Masterson's crimes the Defendants conspired to and systematically stalked, harassed, invaded their and their family's privacy, and intentionally caused them emotional distress to silence and intimidate them.'

In granting the plea from attorneys for the four womens for the stay on the civil case to be lifted to allow this matter to proceed, Judge Kalra rejected arguments from lawyers for Masterson and the Church of Scientology for the stay to continue.

Mastersons defense team contended that the civil case should be delayed at least till his criminal appeal is resolved.

His lawyers also said that because there was a hung jury on the charge relating to Bixler in both jury trials he faced, prosecutors could try him again on that count  so testifying in the civil case would jeopardize his 5th Amendment rights not to incriminate himself in a potential retrial.

Attorneys for the Church of Scientology  which vehemently denies harassing or stalking Mastersons victims  argued that the church has filed complaints with the LA Police Department against the four women for filing false police reports against Church defendants.

And they insisted that the stay should continue until LAPD investigations into those so-called false reports are finished.

In her report to cops, Bixler said that after she came forward with her rape allegations against Masterson, her dog mysteriously died.

An autopsy determined the dog 'died of unexplained traumatic injuries to her trachea and esophagus'.

Bixler claimed that she was run off the road by a car that had been following her.

Bixler also accused one of Masterson's friends of threatening to release nude photos of her taken when she was underage.

Masterson, 47, was convicted of raping two women in 2003 and sentenced to the maximum option of 30 years in federal prison last week. He is pictured in 2003

DailyMail.com reveals that Danny Masterson and wife Bijou Phillips had been living separately for five years, according to divorce papers she filed

Danny Masterson and his wife Bijou Phillips arrive for closing arguments in his second trial, on May 16, 2023

Masterson blew his wife a kiss in the court room as he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars, seen in a court sketch

Riales claimed that after going to police to report Masterson for rape, she experienced threats to silence her, including being followed, watched and having her trash stolen.

She told of a neighbor who saw a man in her driveway taking pictures and chased him away, but then added that her 13-year-old child's bedroom window was smashed.

Jane Doe #1 said that after she reported Masterson to LAPD the Church of Scientology 'mobilized against her.

Jane Doe #2 claimed her phone and computer have been hacked, her car was vandalized and she received harassment on social media.

And she said that she rarely left the house in the two years after reporting her sexual assault to law enforcement.'

In statement to DailyMail.com, the Church of Scientology called the lawsuit 'baseless' and the claims it is 'ludicrous and a sham'.

'It's a dishonest and hallucinatory publicity stunt, the church said.
A British woman has labelled Australia the 'worst country on earth' during a rant online - and intends to write a book about her terrible time Down Under.

Writer and former schoolteacher Sabrina 'Bree' Collins, who moved from the UK to Queensland, uploaded a video to social media about her experience living in Australia.

'Australia has destroyed everything that I was before I came here and there's so much that's happened while I've here but it's not safe to go public with everything that's happened to me,' she began.

'When you're a British woman on the other side of the world, you've really got to sit down and think was it worth it?

'If you're a British person sat home in the UK and you're wondering about this fantastic life you could have in Australia, you need to know a few things first.'

Ms Collins went on to label Australia as 'very sexist', 'abusive', 'isolated' and 'behind'.

'The internet is like really behind, technology is behind.

'When you are in Australia you feel really, really isolated. You feel like you're stuck in the 1980s, and if you're a woman it's even worse,' she said.

'And I know loads of people are going to contradict what I'm saying and say, 'I'm living a fantastic life in Australia'.

'Well look at me, look at my CV, look at all my accomplishments before I moved out to Australia, and look at the way I've been treated.'

Ms Collins' LinkedIn shows she has a masters degree in education, and more than five years experience as a teacher.

She claimed that her career as a schoolteacher had been ruined due to the abuse she received, and as a result, she now feels too frightened to set foot in a school in Australia.

'And that's why I cannot see a purpose or reason to stay in Australia.'

She expressed her wish to move to a 'more progressive country', and lists the US as a potential option.

She then hopes to write a book about her experiences in Australia.

'I want to get out of this country as soon as I can, and I want to write my book and start a new life somewhere else,' she added.

Ms Collins' rant was not well received, with many Aussies urging her to leave.

'Please leave.. and don't trash my country. I've seen yours and you all come over for many reasons,' one Aussie said.

Another said: 'Dont let the door hit you on your way out missy!! Bye Felicia.'

'UK is far more worse than Australia mate. Have lived in both countries here is lot lot better,' commented a third.

'I have a feeling no matter what county you came from you would still get the same reactions. it's more your personality rather than nationality,' another added.

Some users pointed out how Ms Collins was living up to the British stereotype of a 'whinging pom'.

Others joked about how she considered the US to be safer and more progressive than Australia.

'Your (sic) going to exactly the right place for you. Youll find the schools are really safe and the police...very safe country for women,' said one.

'Oh, boo hoo. Please move. As an American, its way more backwards than Australia,' wrote a second.

Ms Collins was featured in headlines across the country in 2021 over her relationship with dating app enthusiast Gable Tostee, now known as Eric Thomas.

Ms Collins labels Australia as 'very sexist', 'abusive', 'isolated' and 'behind' and claimed she had been constantly abused and threatened by people

Mr Tostee was cleared of murder after Tinder date Warriena Wright, 26, plummeted 14 floors from his unit balcony on the Gold Coast in 2014.

Ms Collins and Mr Tostee were a couple for a short period and later became 'friends', according to Ms Collins, but the relationship soured when she was contacted by an alleged friend of Tostee's who left menacing voicemail messages.

The abusive messages called her a 'f***ing disgusting psycho bitch', a 'pathetic cow', an 'obsessed loser' and accused her of being on meth.

One ended: 'Have a nice life, f***ing psycho, feel free to neck yourself.'

The unnamed woman added: 'You are no one to him and that's exactly why he blocked your psycho f***(en a**e.'

Ms Collins said she had got into an argument with the woman and called police over the messages, but the fight continued online with Mr Tostee himself.

'If you don't cease this, I and [his female friend] will pursue criminal charges. At the very least I'll report your actions to dept of education. I do not care about you, I am not interested, never will be. It's weird and creepy,' he told her.

Queensland Police said there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal complaint in relation to the messages sent to Ms Collins.

Ms Collins claimed she also received messages from Mr Tostee threatening court action and reporting her to her bosses.

He branded Ms Collins as 'delusional', denied her claims and lambasted her for 'obsessing' over him.

Last year, another British woman copped backlash after sharing a long list of the pros and cons of each country.

'Just came back from the UK and am feeling, so jet lagged and homesick,' Deborah wrote.

'Was up at 1:30 this morning writing a pros and cons list as feel so flat after a lovely time in the UK summer.'

Deborah posted a pros and cons list of living in Australia and the UK to a Facebook group for 'people thinking about moving back to the UK

Deborah split the page down the middle and wrote the pros for both countries first.

Pros for the UK included family, beautiful countryside, supermarkets, country cottages, school friends, universities, history, close to Europe, more fun things for kids, chocolate, Christmas atmosphere, pretty market towns and pubs.

Meanwhile, more space, more opportunities for kids, low unemployment rate, higher pay, schools, second safest country to live in, restaurants, everything is on her doorstep, low population density, less public debt, strong economy, greater life expectancy, delicious tap water and outdoor pools topped Australia's pros list.

Unsurprisingly, Australia's pros list included sun all year round, beautiful beaches, low pollution and happy people.

Deborah wrote 11 cons for Australia - two more than the UK - including that it's boring, so far away, lack of history, rubbish supermarkets, bad chocolate, bushfires, expensive, slow internet, everything wants to kill you, shopping is not as fun/as good and crumpets are so bad.

The UK's con list was made up of tap water being horrid, motorways gridlocked, cold and miserable most of the year, driving standards, have to travel hours for a concert/airport, hospital wait times, outside London restaurants are no comparison to Oz and political unrest.

She told Daily Mail Australia the items on the lists were thoughts and 'nothing is wrong or right.'

'I love Australia for the 'no worries' attitude,' Deborah said.

'Australia is an amazing country with amazing opportunities, beautiful rainforests, oceans and beaches and fantastic wine.'

'Unfortunately, what Australia does lack is prawn cocktail crisps, chocolate that tastes good and above all, proper crumpets!'
A child sex offender who rammed his vehicle into the gates of Downing Street in an 'attack on democracy' has been spared a prison term.

Seth Kneller, 43, drove his Kia Ceed into the gates of the Prime Minister's residence on May 25 in front of armed police, while terrified bystanders ran away.

In a TikTok video posted earlier that day, Kneller blamed politicians for society's ills and said 'someone has to pay'.

He said he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism and asked: 'What is there to live for anymore?'

The car's impact caused the outer gates to swing open and the main gates to shake, Southwark Crown Court was told yesterday.

Seth Kneller, 43, drove his Kia Ceed into the gates of the Prime Minister's residence on May 25 in front of armed police, while terrified bystanders ran away

A video shown on BBC shows the car crossing Whitehall from opposite into the gates and people subsequently running away

Police at the scene in London after a car crashed into the gates of Downing Street on May 23

Officers with firearms shouted 'armed police' and detained Kneller after his car came to a stop.

As he was being detained, he told them he had 'had enough', adding: 'I need help.'

When his phone was examined as part of the police investigation it was found to contain three category A indecent images of children, the most serious type, and five category C images.

The victims depicted were aged eight to 12.

Kneller was found to have accessed a website known to contain indecent images of children 393 times.

The defendant, from Crewe in Cheshire, pleaded guilty to a count of dangerous driving earlier this month and two of making indecent images of children at a hearing in June.

Prosecutor Alex Krikler said: 'Shortly before 4.30pm on May 25 2023 the defendant, quite deliberately, drove his vehicle, a silver Kia hatchback, at the gates of Downing Street.

'The defendant had driven down Whitehall towards Parliament Square and manoeuvred his vehicle so he was facing the gates.

'He drove at speed across the carriageway, slowing down to allow pedestrians to move out of the way before striking the outer gates with his vehicle. The impact caused them to swing open.

'The defendant's vehicle then collided with the main gates. They remained shut but were seen to shake with the force of the impact. The car then came to a halt.

This graphic shows how the car travelled across a line of Whitehall traffic and struck the Downing Street gates

A police officer stands guard near the scene of the crash outside the Downing Street gates

A crowd is pictured outside Downing Street where one person was arrested after a car crashed into the gates

'There is CCTV footage that shows... pedestrians running away from the scene following the collision.

'There were a number of armed police, unsurprisingly, on duty... who became aware of what the defendant had just done.

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'They immediately drew their weapons and approached and shouted, 'Armed police'. Officers approached and took the defendant out of the vehicle. He had just raised his hands.'

The prosecutor said Kneller's actions were 'pre-planned and deliberate', which 'clearly raised concerns' the attack was a terrorist one.

He added: 'He was well aware that armed officers were on duty and that the consequences of his actions could have been catastrophic.'

Kneller had no previous convictions but was cautioned for assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2007.

In mitigation, his barrister Charles Hannaford said his client was suffering from a 'mental health breakdown' at the time of the Downing Street crash.

He added: 'This is not an individual who has thought through the consequences of their actions and how they would affect another individual.'

Judge Christopher Hehir said Kneller launched an 'attack on democracy' but was persuaded to spare him prison.

He told him: 'You quite deliberately performed a highly dangerous manoeuvre. There was a real risk of serious injury or death to police officers or innocent members of the public.

'There are always members of the public thronging in the vicinity of 10 Downing Street.

'You chose to launch a violent attack on a place which is a government location and in many ways a symbol of democracy.

'Your violent attack on it must be regarded by the courts as being of the utmost seriousness.

'You are not guilty of any contact abuse of children, but if it was not for people like you who consume these images, the abuse in question would most likely not take place.'

The judge said the defendant's lack of previous convictions, early guilty pleas, the fact he has served the equivalent of an eight-month prison sentence, mental health and 'good prospect' of rehabilitation persuaded him to spare the defendant jail.

Kneller's 15-month prison term was suspended for two years and he must complete 30 rehabilitation days and 27 days of a separate rehabilitation programme.

He was also banned from driving for 18 months, can no longer use the phone and car used in the offending and was made the subject of a seven-year sexual harm prevention order.

The bespectacled defendant, who wore a blue shirt and purple tie, said 'thank you, I am very grateful, your honour' after being spared jail.
Facebook owner Meta has abandoned its lease on a major office block in London as tech companies cut back on space amid a global economic slowdown and the rise of hybrid working.

The firm has paid 149m to surrender its contract for 1 Triton Square, a development next to Regent's Park, despite having 18 years left on its lease for the site.

It comes as Big Tech moves to reduce costs and downsize offices in a move that has hit cities such as San Francisco but also spread to other major hubs including London.

Meta paid 149m to surrender its contract for 1 Triton Square, despite having 18 years left on its lease for the site

British Land, the owner of 1 Triton Square, said it expected Meta's decision would knock around 5.6m off its half-year earnings as it hunted for a new tenant to rent the space.

Despite this, the company reiterated its full-year guidance, saying it was being supported by better-than-expected collections of back rent from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The multi-million-pound sum paid by Meta was estimated by analysts to be the equivalent of around seven years' worth of rent and according to British Land boss Simon Carter would provide the property group with a cash injection to 'accelerate' plans to rework the office space to appeal more to life science companies.

Broker Peel Hunt also noted that there was potential for the firm to re-let the 310,000 square feet of space at a higher rent.

In December last year, Meta said it would not occupy the office in Triton Square and instead look to sub-let the space.

But a source close to British Land told the Mail the property firm had refused to allow this, triggering the decision to break the lease entirely.

Meta still rents another British Land office building nearby, 10 Brock Street, but has previously terminated leases in other cities such as New York as part of a move to cut costs.
A landlord in Victoria has said he views those living in his properties as 'customers' and does not rent out to people on JobSeeker, as an inquiry hears growing calls to increase rent assistance.

Long-time property owner Roman told a housing probe on Wednesday that while he had sympathy for those struggling to pay rent they posed too much 'risk' to his income.

'From my perspective, I see tenants like customers - people receiving Jobseeker or aged pensions are not my target market,' he told the inquiry.

'I try not to have an opinion, and I take what I can get.'

Long-time property owner Roman told a housing probe on Wednesday that while he had sympathy for those struggling to pay rent they posed too much 'risk' to his income

Rare evidence from a landlord followed weeks of testimonies from struggling renters across the country reporting large rent increases and a spike in last-minute evictions (stock image)

Rare evidence from a landlord followed weeks of testimonies from struggling renters across the country reporting large rent increases and a spike in last-minute evictions.

Roman, who migrated to the country as a teenager and borrowed heavily in his 20s to purchase six properties, said the Australian dream of owning a home 'was over.'

He said he would continue to increase rents based on the current market.

'There are two ways to fix it, one is to have more public housing and the other is to substantially increase rental assistance.'

Earlier, the inquiry heard details of a 71-year-old woman living with a broken shower being evicted from her home of 11 years after asking for repairs, and an 85-year-old woman being forced into a nursing home due to an unaffordable rent increase.

Housing for The Aged Action Group flagged serious concerns for older renters' health and safety amid a predicted spike in hotter-than-usual temperatures over the summer.

The organisation's executive officer Fiona Yorke said more and more older people will pass away due to a lack of air conditioning in rental homes and rising instances of people sleeping in their cars

'We will be seeing a lot of older people in their 80s and 90s dying from heatwaves due to poor quality housing,' Ms York said.

'You shouldn't be getting evicted at the age of 75 and (left) with the prospect of having to sleep in your car.

Longer leases, minimum accessibility standards and removing no-fault evictions are urgently needed to reduce the significant number of vulnerable renters calling for help, the inquiry heard.

He said he would continue to increase rents based on the current market

Longer leases, minimum accessibility standards and removing no-fault evictions are urgently needed to reduce the significant number of vulnerable renters calling for help, the inquiry heard (stock image)

According to tenancy advocacy organisation Tenants Victoria, rents in Victoria have increased from $30 a week to more than $500 a week since July 2022 (stock image)

According to tenancy advocacy organisation Tenants Victoria, rents in Victoria have increased from $30 a week to more than $500 a week since July 2022.

The organisation's director of community engagement Farah Farouque reported one renter experiencing a 40 per cent rent increase despite the home 'sinking' with 'freezing cold' conditions and 'black mould running through the bathroom and kitchens.'

'How did the rental market come to this?' she asked the committee.

Advocacy groups welcomed the federal government's passing of its first major housing fund since the rental crisis began and said it would help to relieve some pain points.

The government says about 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes will built over the next five years, under the $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund.

State and territory governments agreed to rental reforms at a national cabinet meeting last month, including limiting rent increases to once a year and creating minimum rental standards.

Victorian Public Tenants Association chief Katelyn Butters said timelines were critical due to the hundreds of thousands of people 'desperately' waiting for access to social housing.

'Part of our concern with the (Victorian government's) housing statement is there is not a lot of detail from this aspect,' she told the inquiry.

'The standard of these public high-rise apartment buildings right now is not what it should be - It's not genuine shelter from the perspective that it's not warm in winter, it's not cool in summer, it's not safe for people's health and safety.'

The inquiry also heard serious concerns about rental agents and landlords forcing renters to use digital platforms that collect excessive amounts of personal data (stock image)

Digital Rights Watch program lead Samantha Floreani said under current laws real estate agents face little to no consequences if people's private information is leaked online (stock image)

The inquiry also heard serious concerns about rental agents and landlords forcing renters to use digital platforms that collect excessive amounts of personal data.

Digital Rights Watch program lead Samantha Floreani said under current laws real estate agents face little to no consequences if people's private information is leaked online.

'The real estate industry is extremely data invasive,' she said. 'It accumulates large amounts of personal information with the majority of this occurring with no or little regulation.'

According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia about two-thirds of real estate agents do not have to comply with the Privacy Act due a small business exemption.

This means about 48,000 real estate business across the country are not required to protect the 'immense' amount of personal information submitted into housing applications - and are not required to disclose how they use it.

This puts people's sensitive information like addresses, job history and health data, at serious risk of being sold or stolen by cybercriminals, Ms Floreani said.

'If they are going to collect and use that information, it is absolutely vital that they should be required to protect - and if they fail to do so there should be repercussions,' she said.
Consulting firm McKinsey & Co has agreed to pay $230 million to resolve lawsuits by hundreds of U.S. local governments and school districts alleging it fueled an epidemic of opioid addiction through its work for bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and other drug companies.

The settlements, which require a judge's approval, were disclosed in papers filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco. The money is on top of $641.5 million that McKinsey already paid to resolve claims by state attorneys-general.

Under the settlements, McKinsey will pay $207 million to resolve claims by counties and municipalities, and another $23 million to resolve claims by public school districts.

The consulting behemoth is not admitting wrongdoing as part of the settlements.

McKinsey helped companies like Purdue Pharma market drugs like Oxycontin in the 1990s and early 2000s

McKinsey & Co has agreed to pay another $231million on top of the $641million it has already paid out over claims relating to Oxycontin and opioids

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed by states, local governments and Native American tribes accusing drug companies of downplaying the risks of opioid painkillers, and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring red flags that they were being trafficked illegally.

The litigation has resulted in more than $51 billion in settlements, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs, with deals already struck with major drug-makers and the nation's largest distributors.

The lawsuits accused McKinsey, one of the leading global consulting firms, of contributing to the deadly drug crisis by helping drug manufacturers including Purdue Pharma design deceptive marketing plans and boost sales of painkillers.

Nearly 645,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving opioids, both prescription and illicit, from 1999 to 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month agreed to hear a challenge by President Joe Biden's administration to Purdue Pharma's multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy settlement resolving related claims against the drug maker.

The recent Netflix series Painkiller tells the story of the Sackler family and the rise of the drug Oxycontin
A leading criminal psychologist claims crocodile expert turned dog rapist and killer Adam Britton could have become a serial killer.

Tim Watson-Munro, a renowned forensic consultant who has testified at some of Australia's biggest criminal trials, said Britton's cruelty to animals was a big factor in his potential to cross over to murdering humans.

Dr Watson-Munro also said Britton, 52, who sexually abused and killed dogs including his own pets in a secret 'torture room', will have a hard time in a Darwin jail and is unlikely to rehabilitate.

'I haven't examined him, but had he not been caught, he may well have escalated... moved on to killing humans,' Dr Watson-Munro told Daily Mail Australia.

'Cruelty to animals, killing animals, lighting fires, arson and bed wetting may point to serial killing later in life.

'In general terms somebody who is capable of committing this type of crime over a protracted period of time is clearly well organised, with no thought disorder or chaotic thinking.'

Adam Britton could have escalated from killing and torturing dogs to murdering humans, a leading criminal psychologist says

Criminal psychologist Dr Tim Watson-Munro (above) says that in a case like that of Adam Britton, his offending against animals could have escalated into killing humans

While the depraved former zoologist is yet to be sentenced, Dr Watson-Munro said a 'paraphilic' like Britton would resist treatment in prison.

Britton has admitted that he 'couldn't stop, and didn't want to stop' raping and killing dogs.

'The reason is they love what they do, they are excited by it. It's often the case they have one of two paraphilias - paedophilia, bestiality and, arguably, sadism which are all driven by sexual desire, twisted and perverted though it might be.

'(It's) sexual excitement and it's all about control. Animals don't have a voice, you can pick up strays.

'He had a whole set up involved in dark web activity, and it's horrifying to think there's like-minded people out there in abundance - but that's part of the thrill, sharing the guilt, sharing the thrill.'

Britton pleaded guilty on Monday in Darwin Supreme Court to killing at least 39 dogs and raping puppies inside a shipping container on his property at McMinns Lagoon in outer suburban Darwin.

He filmed his abuse of animals he called 'f*** toys', which he sourced on Gumtree after sexually abusing his pet Swiss Shepherd dogs, Ursa and Bolt, over nine years.

He confessed to 37 counts of animal cruelty causing serious harm or death, 10 counts of raping or attempting to rape a dog, four counts of possessing or transmitting child abuse material, animal cruelty, breaching duty of care to Bolt and Ursa, and using a carriage service in an offensive way.

Britton, who made documentaries about his work in wildlife management of crocodiles, posted films under topics like 'zoo-sadism' on encrypted messaging service Telegram under two accounts, 'Monster' and 'Cerberus'.

While he awaits sentencing, Britton is believed to be housed inside Darwin Correctional Centre where the inmate population will take a dim view of someone who harms pet dogs.

Adam Britton (above) sourced people's pet dogs off Gumtree which he sexually exploited for his own sadistic sexual pleasure, killing most of them

Dr Watson-Munro, along with a former inmate at the jail, said fellow prisoners would focus on Britton.

The criminal psychologist put it bluntly: 'People who screw dogs don't do well in jail. Some people probably view cruelty to animals as more heinous than cruelty to people.'

READ MORE: Single clue that brought down dog rapist Advertisement

Ex-bank robber turned TikTok star, Russell Manser, did a stretch in old Darwin jail in 1990 and said inmates would likely pelt Britton with faeces, and bash him in the yard in what he could expect to be a 'brutal' experience.

He would be regarded as on the lowest prison rung along with paedophiles, necrophiliacs, and people who offended against the elderly.

'He's going to be humiliated every day - he'll have faeces, old milk and eggs, boiling water with jam so it sticks tossed at him,' Manser said.

'They'll spit on him, stand over him, anything he's got they'll take. And it's coming into the wet season, it'll be suffocating in his cell and in crawl the lizards and snakes.

'He'll have an absolutely terrible time.'

A former Northern Territory Corrections senior prison officer told Daily Mail Australia that Darwin jail - one of Australia's most modern facilities - had 80 per cent Indigenous inmates, but white prisoners would cause Britton the most trouble.

The criminal pyschologist and others say that Adam Britton won't go well with the other inmates in Darwin Correctional Centre (above) and some inmates 'view cruelty to animals as more heinous than cruelty to people'

He said the jail had protective custody, 'but it's a little more flexible than in the Eastern states', however Britton 'will find it very difficult in custody'.

Britton, once a respected academic who worked as a Senior Research Associate at Charles Darwin University, had set up alerts on Gumtree for when a new dog or puppy was listed for sale in the Darwin area.

Between November 2020 and April, 2022, he sourced 42 dogs of varying breeds and ages after building rapport with owners 'many of whom had to reluctantly give their pets away due to travel or work commitments', before torturing and killing them.

Online he chatted with other other sick subscribers about bestiality, animal abuse, how to source dogs, and how to dispose of their bodies.

Police found 15 child abuse material files on Britton's laptop, including depraved material related to toddlers.

He faces a a maximum of five years for each of 37 counts of animal cruelty causing serious harm or death, and up to 10 years for each offence of possessing child abuse material.
The House voted to pass a rule vote to begin debate on four separate spending bills after two rules votes failed last week, prompting Republicans to burst into applaus on the floor.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was the only Republican to vote against the rule, opposing the 'blood money' it contained for Ukraine.

The House now moves on to debating amendments for the agriculture-FDA, defense, homeland security and state appropriations bills.

McCarthy celebrated the win in a news conference with reporters after the vote where he vowed to bring a stopgap spending bill to the floor to extend the September 30 deadline for a government shutdown.

He said he would bring it to the floor whether or not it had the votes to pass as multiple GOP members remain opposed to any CR, arguing the House must pass 12 single-subject spending bills or nothing.

'We want to make sure government stays open as we do our work,' he said.

But the speaker scoffed at the Senate's new bipartisan CR plan that includes money for Ukraine and disaster relief. He said the Senate's priorities are 'backwards' because their CR included money for Ukraine but did not include border security provisions.

With only four days to shutdown, the rule vote gave a hint of optimism to the House GOP, which is not facing new pressure to agree on spending legislation after the Senate released a bill that would kick the deadline for a government shutdown down the road by six weeks.

The continuing resolution (CR), endorsed by both Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would extend government funding from September 30 to November 17.

It includes over $6 billion in Ukraine aid, sure to trigger some House conservatives. It also includes $6 billion in disaster relief and no border provisions.

It's unlikely the deal could pass before Sunday if Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., holds up 'quick passage' - which requires unanimous consent. He claimed Tuesday he would continue to do so.

'I will object to any kind of easy passage or speeding up of the time. I think it's bad policy to borrow money from China to send it to Ukraine.'

The CR, endorsed by both Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would extend government funding from September 30 to November 17. It includes over $6 billion in Ukraine aid

Meanwhile Speaker Kevin McCarthy remained non-committal on whether he'd ever give a Senate-authored CR a vote on the House floor. He's also called for Ukraine aid to be dealt with separately from stopgap spending legislation.

On Tuesday he did say he would put a stopgap funding bill on the floor before Saturday but said he would continue pushing for one that included border security.

The Senate CR would likely pass both the upper chamber and the lower chamber with votes from Democrats and some Republicans if House GOP leadership put it up for a vote. But doing so could endanger McCarthy's speakership.

McConnell endorsed a 'standard, short-term' stopgap spending bill on the Senate floor Tuesday.

'Over the years, Ive been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news whichever way you look at them. They don't work as political bargaining chips,' the GOP leader said.

The Senate is set to advance the House's FAA reauthorization bill on Tuesday, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will use to advance a CR through the Senate.

Meanwhile the knives are out between Congress and the White House four days before a government shutdown, as McCarthy lays blame on Joe Biden's border policies and tears into right-wing Republicans who 'side' with the president.

The GOP leader said he would put a short-term continuing resolution (CR), or a stopgap spending bill to fund the government past September 30, on the floor before Saturday and it would likely include provisions to bolster border security.

'What's concerning to me is that there are people in the Republican Party who will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want,' McCarthy said Tuesday.

The speaker can only afford to lose four Republican votes and still pass a party-line CR loaded up with spending cuts.

More than four in his conference have expressed opposition to a CR - most vocally McCarthy opposer Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. They insist the House most move forward on 12 single-subject spending bills.

The knives are out between Congress and the White House four days before a government shutdown, as Speaker McCarthy lays blame on Joe Biden 's border policies and tears into right-wing Republicans who 'side' with the president

McCarthy, who cut a debt limit deal with President Biden that set top line spending numbers for fiscal year 2024, is now requesting a meeting him to cut another deal to keep the government funded.

'Why dont we just cut a deal with the president?' McCarthy told reporters who pressed him on when he would cut a CR deal with congressional Democrats.

The House is set to vote on a rule to advance four of 12 appropriations bills Tuesday night in what could be an bellwether for the week to come. It's not clear yet clear whether a handful of obstinate Republicans will allow the rule to pass.

He then suggested that if Biden fixed his border policy they could work together on funding - a seemingly infeasible tradeoff.

'Listen, the president, all he has to do  its only actions that he has to take. He can do it like that. He changed all the policies on the border. He can change those,' McCarthy said. 'We can keep government open and finish out the work that we have done.'

'What's concerning to me is that there are people in the Republican Party who will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want,' McCarthy said Tuesday

Border crossings in fiscal year 2023, which ends at the end of September, are on track to surpass that of 2022 after figures released Friday show an uptick of 50,000 in apprehensions in the month of August.

In recent days the Biden team has piled on to the GOP for causing the shutdown: Biden warned voters to 'stop electing Republicans' if they could not pass spending deals that keep the government open.
About twenty people have been arrested after widespread looting broke out in Philadelphia last night, with one woman who livestreamed the chaos.

Police in the city said that a large group of around 100 juveniles kept moving from store to store and looting them.

Videos shared on social media show officers attempting to grab thieves, some of whom are wearing Halloween masks, as they run riot through a Lululemon store.

One officer manages to hit one of the looters with a punch after tackling them to the ground.

The incident happened on Walnut Street in the heart of the city center and also involved a nearby Foot Locker and Apple store.

Police in the city said that they had so far made between 15 and 20 arrests and recovered two firearms from the scene.

Footage shows bikes and piles of merchandise piled up on the sidewalk outside of the Lululemon branch as officers arrived and started making arrests.

About twenty people have been arrested after widespread looting broke out in Philadelphia last night, with one woman who livestreamed the chaos

One woman, Dayjia Blackwell, had been livestreaming the chaos in the city onto her Instagram page and sharing clips of the looting, seemingly encouraging it.

Much to her dismay, social media users posted videos of what they described as Blackwell also later being apprehended by police officers while livestreaming.

Police are yet to confirm whether she was arrested or charged after the widespread crime spree, but footage was captured of her seemingly being handcuffed by officers.

Earlier footage from the Apple store shows the aftermath of the looting, with iPhones and other electronic goods seemingly ripped from their display stands.

What appears to be staff members can be seen standing around looking bemused.

Fox News reporter Steve Keeley also shared footage showing the fallout of the looting.

Officers can be seen placing handcuffs on one man, as they guard the exterior of the store.

Numerous people can be heard shouting in the background as he is led to the rear of a police van.

Another shot of looters outside the Lululemon store shows a large number of thieves making their escape as officers arrive on the scene.

Dayjia Blackwell, had been livestreaming the chaos in the city onto her Instagram page and sharing clips of the looting, seemingly encouraging it before she was later arrested

Another shot of looters outside the Lululemon store shows a large number of thieves making their escape, as stragglers are pinned down by officers

A police officer also told NBC Philadelphia that over 100 juveniles had looted the Lululemon store.

CBS3 said that multiple police commanders confirmed to them that the looting had no connection to earlier BLM demonstrations.

Protests had started round the city earlier in the day over the dismissal of charges against police officer Mark Dial who was involved in the fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry.

Hugh E. Dillon also shared a video showing the police response to his social media page.

Dillon wrote: 'Stay out of center city: Kids looted Apple Store , Lululemon and Chestnut street I hear footlocker has been broken into.

'The police are doing an incredible effort on bikes and in cars corralling the kids blocked by Block. They are pulling cars over a lot of kids are in cars.

'They stop and a whole bunch of them get out and then they start trying to break in the stores. But the police are on top of it.'

Security guard at a nearby Wendy's, Hakeem Russel told NBC that the store next to the fast food restaurant had been broken into, with a guard assaulted.

Russel told the outlet: 'A couple a kids decided they wanted to take full advantage of the unjust shooting that's happened.

'It's definitely been unrest around here since the verdict.'

Officers blocked off several streets in the area with crime scene tape due to the robberies.

A large number of people can be seen running towards the Lululemon store in this picture during the spree

Images shared on social media show a large group storming the Apple store in the city, raiding it in the process

Everybody must eat! Everybody must eat! Philadelphia tonight. pic.twitter.com/hIZ5mio4Eo  Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) September 27, 2023

Stay out of center city: Kids looted Apple Store , Lululemon and Chestnut street I hear footlocker has been broken into. this is 17th and Walnut pic.twitter.com/RjcGxu6lES  PhillyChitChat (@HughE_Dillon) September 27, 2023

ABC reported that police had detained individuals ranged from teenagers to young adults, and recovered one weapon.

DailyMail.com has approached the Philadelphia Police Department for comment on the situation.

Just three weeks ago, the Philadelphia Police Commissioner resigned from her post as the Democratic run city dealt with a wave of homicides and lawlessness.

Danielle Outlaw, 48, who has been Philly's top cop since February 2020, officially left the department on September 22.

Outlaw's new role will be the Deputy Chief Security Officer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she will oversee the airports, bridges, tunnels and other transportation infrastructure in the New York City area.

Before she took office, Philadelphia saw less than 400 homicides each year since 2007. Both 2021 and 2022 have seen more than 500 homicides across the city.

Latest figures, which are up until last Sunday, show how there has been 302 homicides in the city so far this year.

There has also been 402 reported rapes, 58,759 cases of property crime, 3,701 cases of aggravated assaults and 1,314 shooting victims.

As crime has soared across Philadelphia, it has come as homelessness and drug use on the street have become more prevalent.

Homeless people and drug addicts are often driven to petty theft as a way to find ways to sustain themselves or scrape enough money together to supply their addictions.

What appears to be a liquor store was also raided during the spree of robberies last night in the city

The inner city district has long been a magnet for drug users seeking their next high, but the scale of problems caused by xylazine is shocking even to locals who have become accustomed to such distressing scenes

Footage by Dailymail.com in May revealed the scale of Philadelphia's untamed 'tranq' epidemic, which has transformed the city's streets into a drug-infested hellhole.

One local activist revealed businesses are using booby traps like sprinkler systems to keep drug addicts away from their storefronts.

Footage of the looting on the streets earlier was also similar to footage captured of recent 'flash rob mobs' that have been plaguing the state of California.

The incidents, which have been involving as much as fifty people in the Golden State, has prompted the LAPD to form a taskforce.

At the end of last month, the taskforce, named the Organized Retail Crime Taskforce, said they had made eleven arrests in connection with four cases.

But detectives say the trend is not contained to the Golden State, and will end up costing America $30billion a year unless something is done.

One of the thieves is seen here laden down with numerous bags and even a small suitcase

One recent incident included the robbery of a Nordstrom in Topanga Mall in the city, which resulted in a gang of more than 30 making off with $300,000 in goods.

Videos circulating online show the thieves grabbing luxury goods from brands like Yves Saint Laurent, Burberry and Bottega Veneta.

The gang had also deployed bear spray to attack two security guards at the store, allowing them to cause chaos.

The LAPD later confirmed that the group had made off with items worth over $300,000.
Detailed forensic tests have determined that the three people who died after eating a Beef Wellington meal were indeed victims of mushroom poisoning, a prominent columnist has claimed.

Pastor Ian Wilkinson was the only person to survive the poisonous meal dished up on July 29 by stay-at-home mum Erin Patterson, 48, at her home in Leongatha, in Victoria's Gippsland region.

Pastor Wilkinson left hospital at the weekend after seven weeks of treatment.

His wife Heather, 66, along with her sister Gail and husband Don Patterson died after they were invited over for a 'mediation' lunch to discuss Ms Patterson's relationship with her estranged husband Simon.

Simon Patterson had also been invited to the lunch but pulled out of attending.

The forensic test development was first revealed by The Age's veteran crime journalist John Silvester on Wednesday morning.

The well-connected writer, author and podcaster wrote in a newspaper column: 'The good news is that detailed forensic tests have come back and confirmed the cause of the three deaths is indeed mushroom poisoning.

'The bad news is that how the mushrooms ended up on the lunch table remains a matter of conjecture.'

Victoria Police declined to comment on - or confirm - Mr Silvester's claims. 'The investigation remains ongoing.'

Erin Patterson is pictured outside her home days after serving the mushroom meal

The guests had attended a lunch at Ms Patterson's Leongatha property (pictured)

Erin Patterson told police the mushrooms used in the lunch were a mixture of button mushrooms bought from a supermarket and dried mushrooms she bought from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne months earlier.

In a statement, leaked to the media by an unknown source, Ms Patterson said she portioned the meal onto plates, let her guests pick their own and ate some of the last plate herself.

Police later found a food dehydrator at a local tip which Ms Patterson claimed she dumped amid concern her estranged husband would connect it to the meal and blame her for his parents' death and thereby gain custody of their two children.

Erin Patterson has denied any wrongdoing and Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that she intentionally poisoned her four relatives.

Indeed, Mr Silvester noted in his column that the court of public opinion is often wrong.

Ian Wilkinson (pictured right with wife Heather Wilkinson) has been released from hospital after spending weeks recovering from a poisonous mushroom lunch that claimed the lives of three others including his wife

Don and Gail Patterson also sadly died after attending the lunch (pictured together)

Daily Mail Australia revealed last month Mr Wilkinson only likely survived because he was rushed to a hospital known for its expertise in treating patients suffering from poisonings.

A hospital insider told Daily Mail Australia that Mr Wilkinson had been transported to the Austin Hospital - recognised as the go-to hospital for Victoria's most critically ill patients - for one specific reason that likely saved his life.

'The Austin was not the natural hospital to go to. From Leongatha the closest hospital is Monash Medical Centre - that's where they normally go. They've basically gone to the hospital the farthest away they could,' the source said.

'The main intensive care unit, and you need the best, you go to The Alfred or Royal Melbourne. They haven't done that either. The state's poison centre is at the Austin, so that's why he's gone there.

'That says they're more interested in dealing with the mushrooms than the intensive care part of it.'

Mrs Wilkinson will be honoured in a public service on October 4 in Korumburra.

Members of the tight-knit Korumburra Baptist Church met at a local bakery on Monday to plan the secret service.

The memorial is expected to be similar to that held for the Pattersons on August 31 when more than 450 mourners gathered at the Korumburra Recreation Centre.

Simon Patterson paid tribute to his parents at a public memorial last month

Mr Wilkinson has not been spotted in public since his release from the Austin Hospital and it remains unknown if he has yet spoken to homicide detectives.

It also remains unknown if his wife was buried while he was still recovering in hospital.

The Pattersons had been buried at a private service while he was still receiving treatment.

The 68-year old is expected to address mourners at the service as Simon Patterson did for his parents last month.

Mr Wilkinson's release from hospital is being hailed a miracle by his congregation.

His family confirmed on Saturday he is now making 'significant progress' at home.

'This milestone marks a moment of immense relief and gratitude for Ian and the entire Wilkinson family,' they said in a statement.
The second Republican presidential debate is near, with a smaller onstage lineup than last month's first event.

It is a decisive night for the seven candidates who have qualified in their bid to close the gap with frontrunner Donald Trump.

Personal attacks, arguments over policy, interruptions and fireworks are expected in the primetime event.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis needs a star performance to revive his campaign, former South Carolina Nikki Haley will be looking to build on her momentum in the polls and Vivek Ramaswamy will try and repeat his eye-catching performance from the first showdown in Milwaukee.

The rest will need a big night, or face the question of whether it is worth sticking in the race.

DailyMail..com breaks down all of the information on how to watch:

The two-hour debate will start at 9 pm (EST) on Wednesday.

Seven candidates met the Republican National Comittee's heightened qualifications to participate in the second primary debate. Above is how they will line up on the stage in California on Wednesday night

It's being moderated by Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney and Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, as well as Univision anchor Ilia Calderon.

The event will air on Fox News Channel and Fox Business, as well as on the network's website and other streaming and digital platforms.

There's also a Spanish-language feed airing on Univision.

As with last month's debate, the Republican National Committee has partnered with Rumble - a video-sharing platform popular with some conservatives - to livestream this one, in lieu of the networks YouTube channel.

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said earlier this year this was a decision aimed toward 'getting away from Big Tech.'

The setting for the second GOP debate is Ronald Reagan's presidential library in Simi Valley, California.

Many of the Republican hopefuls have made recent trips to the library for its 'A Time for Choosing' speaking series, named for Reagan's pivotal 1964 speech on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Some in the field also make references on the stump to the 40th president, who for decades has loomed large over Republican politics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has framed himself as a possible Reagan-esque figure, aiming to oust what he characterized as a weak and unpopular Democratic incumbent in President Joe Biden. Former Vice President Mike Pence often talks of how he 'joined the Reagan revolution and never looked back,' and took his oath with his hand on the Reagan family Bible.

In the first debate, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called himself 'the only candidate in this race, young or old, black or white, to bring all of those voters along to deliver a Reagan 1980 Revolution.'

The two-hour debate will start at 9 pm ET on Wednesday. It's being moderated by Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney and Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, as well as Univision anchor Ilia Calderon

Dana Perino, co-host of Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom, will be one of three moderators on the crucial night

The stage is set: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum entrance in Simi Valley, California

Univision anchor Ilia Calderon is also part of the team interrogating the candidates in Simi Valley on Wednesday night

Fox Business' Stuart Varney will also be throwing questions at the candidates

The RNC confirmed seven candidates will be on the Simi Valley debate stage. The party set a number of markers that candidates needed to meet to qualify, including achieving benchmarks in polling and donor numbers, as well as signing a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.

Those who qualified for the debate are DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who took part in last month's debate, missed making the cut.

Trump will miss his second debate in a row, deciding there is little upside in joining his lower-polling rivals on stage given his commanding early lead in polls. Instead, he will meet with current and former union workers in Michigan, where thousands of autoworkers have been on strike as part of a labor dispute involving Detroits Big Three and the United Auto Workers union.

In lieu of last month's debate, Trump participated in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a pre-taped sit-down that aired on social media just as eight of his rivals took the stage in Wisconsin.
Yes campaigner Noel Pearson has warned Indigenous people are terrified of the consequences if the referendum fails to back the Voice to Parliament.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, he pleaded with Australia to back the Voice and unite the whole country with its Indigenous people.

'We would be untruthful if we didn't say we have a mixture of hope and terror about the answer to this referendum,' he said.

'We are so few, and you are so many. We are three per cent, and you are 97 per cent.

'Australians mostly do not know our cultures, our languages - the things that make us the same as you, and the things that make us so unfamiliar.

'My people are a good people. They've done nothing to deserve contempt and disdain. They should not be feared or despised.

'They have suffered much - let's not prolong the alienation. They have much to contribute to their country, if only they be given the chance.'

Yes campaigner Noel Pearson has said Indigenous people are terrified the Voice referendum will lead to bitter division it fails

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Noel Pearson (pictured with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) pleaded with Australia to back the Voice to Parliament

The Indigenous activist said white Australia was not guilty for the nation's chequered past, but stressed: 'Neither are we.

'Our alleged inferiority is no justification for that history. Not then, not now. There is no peace dividend if we vote No.

'There is only the continued acrimony of endless debate, the harsh penalty of division, which will be paid in shame and mutual suspicion.

'On October 14 we the Australian people face a choice, a choice between crossing the bridge to our future or floundering in the past.

'No one wants the invitation of friendship and love to be unrequited.'

He blasted the 'misinformation' of the No campaign as 'nonsense' which he said had used scare stories to bolster fears in the community.

'Not one square inch of land was lost because of Mabo [land rights and native titles court ruling in 1992],' he said.

'All of these scare campaigns are just saying the things that never happened. Nobody lost any land.

'The High Court got it perfectly right. Now we have the Australian people's chance to get it right in relation to the Constitution.'

He said the Voice would help improve the health outcomes for Indigenous people.

'This is a problem only a Voice can overcome,' he said.

'To ensure people who represent us - who make laws about us, who determine so much of the reality of our lives - listen to our advice and have the opportunity to benefit from the power of our ideas.

'Rheumatic heart disease inflicts lifelong damage to the valves around a child's heart.

'But it's the lifelong damage to the ears of our nation's decision makers that has allowed this disease to prowl around Cape York, decades after it has been eradicated everywhere else in mainstream Australia and around the world.

'It is the disease of a people who have spoken but have not been heard.

'No gets us nowhere. When it comes to confronting rheumatic heart disease, Yes makes it possible. That's why your answer is so important to us.'

The Indigenous activist said white Australia was not guilty for the nation's chequered past, but stressed: 'Neither are we'

Noel Pearson said the Voice would help improve the health outcomes for Indigenous people

He added: 'One may sometimes feel it would have been easier to have never extended the hand of invitation from the heart.

'But whether out of naivety or faith, we had to ask all those questions.

'Will you walk with us on this journey to a better future? It is time to take our rightful place in our own land.

'Allow us to empower our people to take charge of our children, our families, and our people's destiny. We have many talents and gifts to contribute.

'Voting Yes crosses the bridge on the pathway to peace. Voting No is not a neutral choice.

'Voting No is an active choice to take us nowhere, but often leaves us suspended in the Neverland that exists between when two people love the same homeland but have not yet learned to love each other.'

He said that the nation could still use the referendum to rally around its 'mutual love of the country' - if not its people - and move forward into the future.

'It is not love of each other that joins us,' he said. 'It is our mutual love of country that unites us. We don't need mutual affection to succeed in this referendum.

'Our children and great children will be more likely to share affection between them than us.

'Because too many of us have grown up strangers. But when you bring your children to come to know our children, they will each be the better for it.

'That is the promise of the future....we would like Australia to be friendlier to our children.'

He said that even two centuries after colonisation, the nation's Indigenous people still did not have similar rights to New Zealand's Maoris.

And he said respect for the Indigenous people rarely went beyond admiring their sporting prowess.

'We don't have enough shared stories of loyalty friendship and mateship,' he said.

'What mate ship there was between our Diggers in the World War was not much known and remained unacknowledged.

'Australians have always admired our sporting and cultural heroes and little wonder - we are proud of their ability and enjoy your respect.

'But admiration is not what I am talking about here. It is the love of country.'

He said that the nation could still use the referendum to rally around its 'mutual love of the country', if not its people, and move forward into the future

He slammed the No campaign for not providing better alternatives, and have instead focused on simply stopping the Yes vote from winning by fighting a culture war.

'I don't see any solutions from the no camp,' he said.

'Nobody has a solution for rheumatic heart disease. Nobody has a solution for the problems facing our people.

'What they want is simply to kill the Voice proposal and to keep the country festering around issues of cultural war rather than real issues.

'And that's a tragic state of affairs.'
A photo of a group of Idaho high schoolers spelling a racial slur on their shirts has sparked fury among community members - and prompted parents to call out pervasive racism at the school.

The photo was posted to Instagram by a student at Salmon High School. It showed a mixed-race girl lying on the ground with six teens standing over her and letters on their shirts spelling out a racial slur. All students in the picture had their middle finger raised to the camera.

The offensive post has since been deleted.

Dr. Troy Easterday, Superintendent for Salmon School District 291, posted a video to Facebook on September 26 where he assured parents that the matter was being handled.

'I am well aware of the current situation happening within a social media post by our Salmon School District students,' he said.

The now-deleted Instagram photo showed a mixed-race student lying on the ground while six others stood over her, spelling out a racist slur with letters on their shirts

Dr. Troy Easterday, Superintendent for Salmon School District 291, posted a video to the Salmon Savages Facebook page where he swore that the matter was being dealt with

However, parents alleged that racism was a pervasive issue within the district and feared the students would not be disciplined properly

'At this time, our administrative team at the Salmon School District is investigating this post and will keep the community aware within the legal confounds of the law.'

However, his statement did little to satisfy parents who insisted students of color were being targeted and bullied at the school.

One parent told East Idaho News that she worried every day as the mother of mixed-race children. She called the post a 'hate crime.'

'Im ashamed and embarrassed,' she said. 'My husband is one of two, maybe three African-Americans in this town.'

She said she was afraid to speak out, as: 'Im afraid if I said too much it would affect my job or my small business.'

Another mother said she was thinking about pulling her children from the school district, as she feared the offending students would not be disciplined properly.

'The reason why theres hate in this community is because no one does anything about it. Period,' she said.

'These kids are old enough to know right from wrong. Parents, do better. But you cant blame the parents for this, because some of them are 18. Theyre adults. Its disturbing.'

Easterday said the incident was the first of its kind and the administration 'did all the right legal steps to make sure disciplinary action was taken'

He posted a follow up video promising that the students had been punished

Easterday told KTVB that the administrative team was brought in as soon as the school became aware of the post, which was 'not maliciously' made.

He said the racist instance was the first that knew of during his tenure as superintendent.

'Nothing has ever been brought to my desk that there's ever been a situation like this, and that it hasn't been taken seriously. Not while Ive been here,' Easterday said.

'Our team did not hesitate to act. We did all the right legal steps to make sure disciplinary action was taken.'

He said the district also reached out to police and board members.

At 7.40am, another video was uploaded to the school's Facebook page where the superintendent sat with his arms folded over his desk.

'Salmon School District does not condone, or has ever condoned, what was expressed on social media today,' he said.

And simply: 'Disciplinary action has been taken.'
A young woman faces heart surgery after a contraceptive rod that had been placed into her arm was found lodged in her pulmonary arteries.

Cloe Westerway, a 22-year-old woman from Melbourne, had the 4cm birth control device inserted into her upper arm at her local women's health clinic in 2021.

Ms Westerway then began to experience several symptoms including heavy bleeding, vomiting, and heartburn.

Unaware why she was feeling ill she visited her doctor and after they heard about her concerning reactions they decided to remove the rod known as Implanon.

Doctors made a horrifying discovery when they found the implant was no longer inside Ms Westerway's arm.

Cloe Westerway (pictured) was shocked to discover a birth control rod she previously had inserted into her, was no longer in her upper arm, after she began to experience several symptoms including heavy bleeding and vomiting, before doctors made the terrifying discovery

After conducting several tests doctors eventually found the device had managed to make its way to the patient's heart.

The four centimetre rod was lodged in Ms Westerway's pulmonary arteries - an organ that helps blood with low oxygen levels travel to the lungs to draw in air.

Doctors said the device had damaged a vein inside her arm which may have occurred because the rod was placed close to the vein.

Ms Westerway told news.com.au that doctors informed her the device had not been inserted correctly.

'After ten scans and blood work sent to the USA, the hospital finally found the rod lodged in my pulmonary artery, with the help of a fluoro X-ray,' Ms Westerway said.

'The doctors were absolutely shocked. They had no idea what to do or say, or how they were going to extract this'.

'They told me it has never happened before. I was totally lost for words and absolutely terrified'.

Ms Westerway will now need to undergo a major surgery to have the rod removed with doctors advising they may need to conduct open heart surgery if they cannot get the device out.

She will have the surgery at the Victorian Heart Hospital which will require her to be in the intensive care unit for three days.

The rod may have killed Ms Westerway if she had waited longer to consult a doctor about her symptoms.

Doctors discovered the four centimetre rod was lodged in Ms Westerway's pulmonary arteries after they conducted an x-ray (pictured) to locate the device

The small device known as Implanon (pictured) is a type of contraceptive that is given to women to prevent pregnancy and is inserted into the skin underneath a patient's arm

Implanon is a type of birth control which prevents pregnancy by releasing a hormone called etonogestral.

The rod is placed into the skin underneath a patient's arm.

The device is another form of contraception which works by stopping sperm from getting through the uterus.

The device very rarely moves to another part of a patient's body once the rod is inserted.
The body of a Baltimore tech entrepreneur found beaten to death on Monday in her luxury apartment complex was discovered on the roof of the building, sources told DailyMail.com.

Pava LaPere, the 26-year-old founder of EcoMap Technologies, was killed by 'blunt force trauma', police said on Tuesday.

They have issued an arrest warrant for a 32-year-old local man, Jason Billingsley, who was released from prison less than a year ago after serving only nine years of a 30-year sentence.

While investigators are remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances, police sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that LaPere's badly-beaten body was found on the roof of her luxury apartment building.

Reaching the area would have potentially meant climbing a ladder or fire escape, the source explained.

LaPere is believed to have lived and worked in the building where she was found dead on Monday

Billingsley has a criminal record dating back to 2009, and was sentenced to 30 years - but released after only nine

Officers arrived around 11:34am to her apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street on Monday. LaPere lived in the building, which is the former site of the Congress Hotel, where one bedroom apartments rent for $1,500 a month

The macabre twist raises the possibility that LaPere was either led up there before she was attacked, or that her body was discarded on the roof afterwards to try to hide the crime.

'That's pretty horrifying,' said Chris McNees, a tenant of the building.

He told WJZ, a media partner of The Baltimore Banner, that the apartment complex felt safe.

'I mean, just for that to happen anywhere in the city is obviously a bad thing, but it's hard to imagine why this would happen specifically in this building.'

Billingsley is not believed to have known LaPere, who lived on the seventh floor of the building.

Police on Tuesday would not comment on how he got into the building, other than to say it was 'secure'.

'It was a secure building where someone had to have allowed the individual into the building,' said Richard Worley, acting Baltimore police commissioner.

Billingsley is now believed to have struck days earlier in a knifepoint sex assault and arson attack that left two people fighting for their lives, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

He faces charges of first-degree murder, assault and reckless endangerment in the killing of 26-year-old LaPere, a rising star in tech who made the prestigious Forbes '30 Under 30' list.

The 6ft 4, 305lbs suspect had been jailed for 30 years in 2015, was set free in October 2022 - just nine years into his sentence. It is unclear why he was released so swiftly.

LaPere was found dead on Monday morning at her Baltimore apartment with blunt force injuries that one veteran officer described to DailyMail.com as 'absolutely brutal  some of the worst I've seen.'

Announcing the warrant for Billingsley's capture, Worley said the 'repeat violent offender' is a suspect in 'at least one other case,' without elaborating.

'BPD's Special Investigations Section is working to determine potential connections to Billingsley and other cases,' the police said.

DailyMail.com can reveal detectives are probing possible links to an assault and arson attack in West Baltimore on September 19 that left two people in critical condition and a child in the hospital.

The incident began when firefighters responded to smoke billowing from the basement of a townhouse at 9:24am.

They rescued a man and a woman, both aged 26, who had burns and 'multiple injuries', along with a five-year-old child found suffering from smoke inhalation.

A police source told DailyMail.com the attacker had initially targeted the woman, sexually assaulting her and slashing at her throat with a knife.

Asked if Billingsley was considered a suspect, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Police Department told DailyMail.com: 'We can't confirm that.'

She said of the arson incident: 'Officers located a 26-year-old male and an adult female, suffering from multiple injuries. On the upper level of the home, fire personnel located a five-year-old child, unharmed.'

Medics arrived to the scene and transported the victims to area hospitals where the adult male and female were both listed in critical condition.

Pava Marie LaPere, 26 (left), was killed by blunt force trauma inside her luxury Mount Vernon, Baltimore apartment, and her body was found by police on Monday. On Tuesday police announced they have issued an arrest warrant for Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, of Baltimore (right)

Billingsley was described on Tuesday as 'a repeat violent offender', and a suspect in at least one other case.

'He will kill, and he will rape,' said Richard Worley, the police commissioner, at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Billingsley is 'armed and dangerous,' and locals should stay alert, said Worley.

'To Jason Billingsley: I hope you are watching,' he added.

'Every single police officer in Baltimore and the state of Maryland is out there looking for you. We will find you, and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law. So please turn yourself in.'

Billingsley has a long criminal history, dating back to 2009 when he was arrested for robbery and assault in the second degree.

He was arrested in 2011, and again in 2013, for multiple charges to include sex offense, 2nd degree assault charges and robbery.

In 2015 he was given a 30-year prison sentence, with all but 14 years suspended, and served time at Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown.

It is unclear what he was jailed for.

Richard Worley, commissioner of Baltimore police, announced the name of the suspect and vowed to track him down and bring him to justice

Worley on Tuesday said that a special task force was working alongside U.S. Marshalls to capture Billingsley.

'We ask that anyone who has seen him or knows him, or knows his whereabouts, to contact police immediately,' said Worley.

'We warn residents to be aware of your surroundings at all times. This individual will kill, and he will rape. He will do anything to cause harm.'

The mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, said it was 'difficult to express the sorrow' for the murder of LaPere, calling it 'horrific, senseless and tragic'.

He said he knew LaPere, and said she 'would help anybody she could see'.

Scott vowed that Baltimore 'will not rest until we have him in custody', adding that he 'should not have been on the streets in the first place.'

Scott said he was 'extremely frustrated' that Billingsley was free to attack again.

'We need to get other parts of the system to understand that these cases impact people for an eternity,' he said.

'Pava's family is going to be dealing with the trauma and tragedy of their loss for the rest of their lives.

'Police go out and do their job, as they did in this case, and then the state's attorney goes out, does their work, and gives the conviction - the conviction should be the conviction.

'We are tired of talking about the same people doing the same crimes over and over again.'

Baltimore police on Tuesday announced the identity of the man wanted for LaPere's murder

Billingsley was described by the commissioner of Baltimore police as a repeat violent offender

LaPere was expected to speak at an industry forum in Pennsylvania on October 2, and EcoMap Technologies publicized the event yesterday - after she was found dead

Johns Hopkins University graduate LaPere lived and worked in the same building where she was found murdered, according to public records.

Officers arrived around 11:34am at her apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street on Monday.

Upon arrival, they found LaPere dead. She had signs of blunt-force trauma and detectives launched a homicide investigation, police confirmed.

Worley said it was 'a secure building,' but would not comment on where she was found, only confirming it was 'at that address'.

A neighbor, who lives across the hall from LaPere, said she woke up to police knocking on LaPere's door. There was no answer, she told local news.

The medical examiner's office took possession of the body, and an examination is pending.

LaPere, who attended Johns Hopkins University, was named on Forbes' prestigious 30 Under 30 list this year for her impact work

The tech CEO (center) is pictured with her parents, Caroline and Frank LaPere

According to investigators, there had been a missing person's call made for her a short time before her dead body was discovered. They declined to say who made the call, because the investigation is ongoing.

LaPere, who attended Johns Hopkins University before starting the company, was named on Forbes' prestigious '30 Under 30' list this year for her impact work.

She is the co-founder and CEO of EcoMap Technologies - which she launched at the age of 22 in her college dorm room.

As well as her Forbes recognition, she was named in Baltimore's '40 Under 40' and Maryland's '25 Under 25' lists for innovation.

LaPere was remembered as one of the 'brightest stars' in Baltimore, and a 'compassionate visionary force' by those who knew and worked with her.
Customised Harley-Davidsons and a hotted-up Commodore featured at the funeral of a much-loved motorcycle-enthusiast who died suddenly aged just 33.

Patrick El-Helou was farewelled at a service in Sydney's west attended by heavily-tattooed men wearing black T-shirts with a gold cross on the heart.

Motorcycles including a red Harley with RAPTR number plates - seemingly referring to the NSW Police bikie-busting Raptor Squad - were filmed at the ceremony.

Customised Harley-Davidson motorcycles and a hotted-up Commodore featured at the funeral of a much-loved father who died suddenly aged just 33

Patrick El-Helou was farewelled at a service attended by heavily-tattooed men wearing black T-shirts with a gold cross on the heart above 'RIP'

A gold-trimmed Harley with the same plates was featured prominently on Mr El-Helou's Facebook page.

Mr El-Helou, from Guildford in Sydney's west, died on September 13 and was buried on Thursday after a service at St John The Beloved Melkite Catholic Church at Greenacre in the city's south-west.

The exact cause of death is unclear.

When the funeral was over mourners released into the sky blue and white balloons in the shape of rosary beads.

Video posted on Instagram showed a procession of bikes next to Mr El-Helou's blue 1985 Holden VK sedan, which had a portrait of its late owner on the back seat.

The footage was accompanied by the messages: 'WE RIDE TOGETHER', 'WE DIE TOGETHER' and 'BROTHERS FOR LIFE'.

Video posted on Instagram showed a procession of bikes next to Mr El-Helou's blue 1985 Holden VK sedan, which had a portrait of its late owner on the back seat

Motorcylces including a red Harley with RAPTR number plates - a possible reference to the NSW Police bikie-busting Raptor Squad - were filmed at the ceremony

Mr El-Helou, from Guildford in Sydney's west, died on September 13 and was buried on Thursday. He is pictured right

Some of the bike riders who escorted Mr El-Helou's hearse from the church wore black face coverings below their helmets

Among the messages of condolences posted on social media was one from the younger sister of jailed former Auburn deputy mayor and property developer Salim Mehajer.

'Loyalty in a friend is a treasure, and this one's worth its weight in gold,' Khadijeh 'Kat' Sakalaka wrote.

Other messages offered support to Mr El-Helou's family and loved ones, who were distraught after the funeral.

'My condolences to you and the entire family you can see he was very loved!' one person wrote. 'May he Rest in Peace.'

When the funeral was over mourners released into the sky blue and white balloons in the shape of rosary beads

Mr El-Helou's coffin, covered in blue, white and yellow flowers, was driven to the cemetery in a black hearse

'Our deepest condolences to every single person this has impacted,' wrote another.

Two more said, 'What a beautiful send off. I'm sure you did him proud' and 'He would of been proud today by the side of his children'.

Mr El-Helou's coffin, covered in blue, white and yellow flowers, was driven to the cemetery in a black hearse.

At his graveside two boys in black suits and gold bowties threw white roses on top of the coffin after it was lowered into the ground.
EXCLUSIVE, WARNING: Graphic content

Emails from a disgraced crocodile expert show how he preyed upon innocent families by promising to give their dogs a good home - when he actually planned to rape, torture and murder the beloved pets.

Adam Britton, 52, obtained about 42 dogs between 2020 and 2022 by trawling through ads on Gumtree Australia searching for people in the Darwin area who were looking to rehome their animals.

He had alerts on his phone when a new dog was listed for sale, and would quickly email the owners and build rapport by telling them he could give their pets a good life, and that he was simply 'after a companion'.

In truth, Britton was taking the canines to sexually abuse and kill them on camera.

On Monday, the once-respected zoologist pleaded guilty in Darwin's Supreme Court to a string of charges relating to animal abuse, bestiality, and the possession of child exploitation material.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal one of the victims was a tan-coloured female dog called Kiki, who belonged to an ill woman who was no longer able to care for her.

Her family, who did not want to be identified, was horrified when NT Police phoned them last year and explained Britton's abuse. The woman's sister said that Britton 'didn't seem like that when you met him'.

Adam Britton (pictured) was a respected crocodile expert who had a sadistic interest in dogs

Kiki (pictured) was one of Britton's victims. Her owners believed they were giving her to a good home

She explained Kiki was one of three abandoned puppies adopted by her family.

'I kept one female, my sister kept one female, and a mate took the boy, but my sister got sick and had to go into hospital for a long time,' she said.

'My girl wouldn't have any other female dog in her yard as they were now almost two... so the only option for us was to search for a good home as we couldn't have them both.'

Britton contacted the woman four weeks later, on September 22, 2021, and spun a web of lies - claiming his dog had passed away a few months earlier and he was looking for a companion.

'I'm very interested to meet your 1.5-year-old girl with a view to giving her a good home,' he wrote.

'I live on a five-acre block in Humpty Doo, no other dogs too so she'd get the best of both worlds. I haven't had a dog since my last girl died a few months ago but I miss her and need another companion.

'I can help you out by offering her a great home.'

In reality, Britton owned two Swiss Shepherd pets, Ursa and Bolt - who he also sexually abused - and regularly bought other dogs from around the area.

Pictured: An email Britton sent to Kiki's owners, convincing them he could take good care of her

Pictured: Another email Britton sent to Kiki's owners, organising to pick her up

Britton then told the owners he was bonding with Kiki and that she would have a 'good home' with him

The woman replied to Britton's email and explained she was only giving Kiki up because she had to, and said she was a loving dog who was afraid of people she didn't know.

Britton replied: 'I'm sorry to hear that your health prevents you from continuing to keep Kiki, that can't be an easy decision.

'Perhaps I can make it slightly easier by ensuring she finds a good home with me.

'I'm the kind of person who wants a dog to be close all the time, the place seems empty otherwise.'

Four days later, on September 26, he sent another email to say Kiki was 'very sweet' and they were 'bonding already'.

'She will have a good home here,' he added.

According to court documents, Kiki didn't survive the week.

Between September 26 and 30, Britton took Kiki and two other large dogs named Rose and Marylou to a shipping container on his property and filmed himself raping and torturing each pet until they died.

The details are so gruesome Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to publish them.

Kiki was one of three rescue puppies. She is pictured, left, with her sister

Kiki had her own puppies within the two years she lives with the family (pictured)

On October 16, he replied to a message from the previous owner who asked how Kiki was settling in.

'She is doing great,' he wrote, adding that he was happy with her, and he believed she was she was doing well in her new home.

The woman told Daily Mail Australia she was devastated by Britton's depraved actions and questioned her decision to give Kiki to someone else.

'I just wish I never gave her up and could have kept her somehow and made it work,' she said.

'It's absolutely horrible that a human can do this to an animal... he is a sick twisted man.'

Kiki was one of at least 39 dogs Britton raped and killed. He operated two Telegram accounts called 'monster' and 'Cerberus' - the latter being a three-headed dog in Greek mythology - between 2020 and 2022.

He used accounts to engage with like-minded people about animal cruelty and bestiality, but his undoing came shortly he uploaded a video called '1B***h9Pups to an abuse website on March 22, 2022.

Adam Britton (centre) with his wife Erin (left) and David Attenborough (right) during filming for a BBC documentary

The following day, an anonymous internet user noticed the adult female dog was wearing an orange City of Darwin leash with the slogan 'great pets start with you'.

They referred the footage to the NT Animal Welfare Branch via Gmail, which then referred the matter to police.

On April 22, a month after Britton posted the video online, NT Police and Australian Federal Police raided his McMinns Lagoon home, in Darwin's south.

Detectives seized computers, mobile phones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys.

They also found severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy in a pond on the property, and a severed dog head on a neighbouring property.

Britton was charged with 37 counts of animal cruelty, 10 counts of raping or attempting to rape a dog, and four counts of possessing or transmitting child abuse material.

He has been on remand in custody since his arrest and will appear in court again for sentencing on December 13.
Katya Dossous had been attending doctor Yves Duroseau's surprise birthday party for his sister Rosevony in his Forest Hills home in Queens Sept 17 2022

The soiree came to an abrupt halt when a white woman and her German Shepherd came over demanding that they turn the music down at 9:50 pm

Dinner guests of a prominent black doctor, from Queens, felt dehumanized when they claim to have been hosed down by his white neighbor for 'being too loud'

A guest attending a surprise birthday dinner in Queens at the home of a prominent black doctor says being hosed down by his white neighbor made them feel 'like less than animals.'

Dossous, 47, attended doctor Yves Duroseau's soiree for his sister Rosevony at his Forest Hills home in Queens on September 17 2022.

The doctor's white neighbor, Marcus Rosebrock, allegedly sprayed down guests with a hose complaining that they were being 'too loud,' according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.

'We experienced a very specific, very heinous type of attack that harkens back to a dark period of this country's history,' plaintiff Katya Dossous told the New York Post in a statement through her lawyers Tuesday.

'An attack I believe was premeditated, deliberate and thought out with the intent to make us feel 'less than,' like animals.'

A guest attending a surprise birthday dinner in Queens at the home of a prominent black doctor (pictured) says being hosed down by his white neighbor made them feel 'like less than animals'

The Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit filed by 19 celebrants claims that Dossous 'attempted to speak calmly with [Rosebrock] in an effort to get [him] to stop.

All guests in attendance were black and Latino except for one white guest, the outlet reported.

'Rosebrock also turned his water hose on plaintiff Dossous at high intensity and viciously hosed her with water from head to toe,' the suit claims.

A statement given by the 47-year-old said 'water hoses have long been used against people of color... Mr Rosebrock chose this specific method with the intent of dehumanizing us.'

Among the A-list guest list was music executive Rigo Morales, former Fordham Law classmates of Rosevony's and was catered by Vanessa Cantave - winner of season 11 of Bravo show 'Rocco's Dinner Party.'

At about 9:50pm on Sept 17 the festivities came to a jarring halt after a white woman with a German Shepherd came over and demanded the music to be turned down, the suit claims.

Rosebrock then allegedly proceeded to drench guests with his hose a move 'reminiscent' of 1960s Birmingham Alabama when cops used to use fire hoses to break up civil rights activists, the court documents claim.

An aerial image shows how Dr Yves Duroseau's home abuts the property of Marcus Rosebrock in a leafy suburb of Queens, New York City

The group enjoyed a nine-course al fresco dinner cooked by TV chef Vanessa Cantave (pictured), who won the Bravo reality cooking competition Rocco's Dinner Party in 2011

Duroseau, pictured receiving the covid vaccine in 2020, and 18 others have filed a suit against Rosebrock and allege the incident breached their civil rights

'We feel completely aggrieved and obligated as proud New Yorkers and American citizens to share how deeply devastating, sickening and offensive this incident was,' Dossous told The Post.

'We will not let racist harassment stand. We feel obligated to use our voices against any kind of racist harassment.'

Plaintiff lawyer Mina Malik slammed Rosebrock's actions and said he's shown little remorse for his alleged actions.

'Our clients are gracious, hardworking and dedicated professionals who have made positive contributions to our society, and they should not have been treated as subhuman,' Malik said.

'Marcus Rosebrock's lack of responsibility and remorse speaks volumes.'

Rosebrock's lawyer, Brandon Gillard, said in a statement Tuesday that his client 'refutes any characterization that he is racist or that his actions were racially motivated.'

A Google Street View image shows the front of Dr Duroseau's home in Queens, New York City

The neighbor, Marcus Rosebrock, lives in a property which abuts Dr Duroseau's home

Gillard went on to say that it is a 'false equivalence' to compare party goers to civil rights protestors claiming Duroseau attendees were 'aggressive and violent.'

He did not go into further detail about the neighbors alleged actions that night, the Post reported.

Dereck Sells, another plaintiff attorney, said in a statement to the outlet that the statement from Gillard is 'an attempt to blame victims and rewrite history.'

He added that his clients showed 'remarkable restraint' after the alleged incident by only calling the cops and filing the suit.
A hit-and-run motorist who killed a man who had been left barefoot in the street by police three miles from his home has been jailed for nine years.

Officers attended the home of father-of-six Gareth Roper, 35, in the early hours of New Year's Day 2022 after his wife reported he was 'acting in a strange manner'.

Mr Roper was taken away to 'prevent any further difficulties' but was de-arrested nine minutes later and left outside the Iceland store in Platt Bridge, Wigan, without any money or his mobile phone, Bolton Crown Court heard.

Twenty-four minutes later Mr Roper was struck by a Volvo V60 driven by Jamie Evans, 30, as he walked along the centre of the single carriageway in Lily Lane, Bamfurlong. He was later pronounced dead at the scene with head injuries.

The police officers who left Mr Roper are under investigation for the offence of gross negligence manslaughter, the court heard.

Hit-and-run motorist Jamie Evans, 30, who killed a man that had been left barefoot in the street by police three miles from his home, has been jailed for nine years

Gareth Roper (pictured with his wife Rachel), 35, was killed after being hit by a vehicle on New Year's Day 2022. The police officers who left Mr Roper are under investigation for the offence of gross negligence manslaughter, the court heard

Mr Roper (pictured with his wife) was struck by a Volvo V60 driven by Jamie Evans, 30, as he walked along the centre of the single carriageway in Lily Lane, Bamfurlong

Unlicenced Evans, who had been drinking strong lager and spirits, was speeding at 55mph in a 30mph zone and drove off before he later handed himself in to police later that day.

Two taxi drivers had earlier managed to spot Mr Roper, wearing dark clothing, walking in the middle of the road and had slowed down to manoeuvre around him.

Road collision experts concluded the risk of death at the approach speed of 55 mph was 86 per cent while the risk of death had Mr Roper been struck at 30mph would have been just 7 per cent.

Evans was released on bail after his arrest in January 2022 but four months later got behind the wheel again and sped away in a van from a pursuing police vehicle, the court was told.

Evans, of no fixed address, was subsequently jailed for 26 weeks after he was convicted of dangerous driving, having no licence and failing to provide a specimen of breath.

Sentencing on Tuesday, Recorder Nicholas Clarke KC told the defendant: 'Frankly I find it utterly remarkable that having killed somebody on the 1st of January and knowing that you were under investigation for that you should continue to drive and drive dangerously still while not having any insurance or any driving licence.

'You clearly think that the laws of the road do not apply to you.'

He added: 'Despite there being pavement on the route, Mr Roper was observed walking down the middle of the road, it appears on the painted white lines.

'The police thought that the painted white lines were perhaps providing a smoother surface under his bare feet than the rest of the road and pavement.

Evans (pictured), of no fixed address, was subsequently jailed for 26 weeks after he was convicted of dangerous driving, having no licence and failing to provide a specimen of breath

Mr Roper was hit by a Volvo V60 car driven by Jamie Evans, 30, on Lily Lane (pictured) in Wigan

Mr Roper (pictured with his wife) was taken away to 'prevent any further difficulties' but was de-arrested nine minutes later

Mr Roper's wife Rachel (pictured right) told Bolton Crown Court of how Evans has 'ruined a happy family'

'It is clear Mr Roper placed himself in a vulnerable situation by walking along the centre of a road. However, if you had been travelling at or below the speed limit, the collision would have occurred at a much lower speed.'

Evans, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to causing the death of Mr Roper by dangerous driving, also receiving a 14-year driving ban.

Patrick Buckley, defending, said he thought the 'enormity of the situation finally hit' Evans when he was remanded into custody last Friday afternoon after the prosecution opened its case.

He said: 'He did express considerable remorse.'

Mr Buckley went on: 'I am at a loss as to why he [Mr Roper] was left where he was by who he was left.

'My understanding is that these officers are under investigation for gross negligence manslaughter.'

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after it probed the conduct of the four Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officers who had contact with Mr Roper prior to his death.

An IOPC spokesman said: 'Following the conclusion of the investigation in December 2022, we determined there was an indication the officers may have committed a criminal offence in relation to the decision to de-arrest Mr Roper and drop him off some distance from his home address.

'We referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider possible charges.

'It is important to note that a referral to the CPS does not necessarily mean that criminal charges will follow. It will now be for prosecutors to determine, applying the tests set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, whether charges should follow and, if so for whom and what those charges may be.'
A federal judge threw out a Texas law aiming to limit drag performances and ruled that the bill is an unconstitutional restriction on speech on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 12, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in June, banned minors from attending drag shows and 'sexually explicit' content.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner ruled that the law was discriminatory and improperly vague.

'Not all people will like or condone certain performances,' Judge Hittner wrote. 'This is no different than a person's opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection.'

He said drag performances were not inherently obscene and were the sort of expressive speech protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment.

The LGBTQ community have seen SB 12 as an attack on their existence. People are pictured marching in Austin on April 15

U.S. District Judge David Hittner ruled that the law was discriminatory and said drag performances were not inherently obscene

Bryan Hughes, the Republican state senator who introduced the bill banning drag shows for minors

Judge Hittner added that the 'chilling effect S.B. 12 will have on speech in general outweighs any hardship on the State of Texas.'

The judge nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan temporarily blocked the law from taking effect last month.

The decision was celebrated by many LGBTQ advocates and drag performers.

Pride march organizers joined the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit in Houston's federal court seeking to block the law.

'LGBTQIA+ Texans, venue owners, performers, and our allies all came together to uphold free expression in our state  and we won,' the ACLU Texas wrote on X.

The post continues: 'This work isnt done but for now we celebrate. Long live Texas drag!'

The law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on June was seen as a part of the Republicans' efforts to regulate and restrict behaviors of the LGBTQ groups.

People march to the Texas State Capitol in Austin on April 15, weeks before the legislature passed 'anti woke' bills on its final days

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, signed into law Senate Bill 12 in June

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican wrote on Twitter: 'SB12, which restricts children from being exposed to drag queen performances, is about protecting young children and families. This story is not over.'

The office of the Texas attorney general defended the law, which, among other restrictions, banned "the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics" in public.

More than a dozen states have sought to restrict drag shows over last year.

Texas followed the lead set by Montana, the first state to specifically ban people dressed in drag from reading books to children at public schools and libraries.

Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota also passed laws this year that regulate adult performances and are said could be used to target drag shows.

Bryan Hughes, the Republican senator who championed SB 12, celebrated the passage of the bill in May, saying it would protect children.

'Great News: Our bill protecting children from sexually explicit drag shows (S.B. 12) is officially headed to the Governor's desk,' he tweeted.

'These shows are indisputably inappropriate for minors, and we will not allow children to be sexualized nor preyed upon in Texas.'
The UK has given the green light to a clinic where addicts will be allowed to take hard drugs, including Class As heroin and cocaine, without fear of arrest.

Hunter Street Health Centre, a 2.3million facility in the east end of Glasgow, will be the UK's first sanctioned 'drugs consumption room' after it received approval today.

The pilot will see users take their own drugs under supervision of trained health professionals.

First proposed in 2016 following an HIV outbreak in the city, which was linked to injecting, drug consumption rooms sparked years of political wrangling between the Scottish and UK governments. Although Westminster disagreed with the pilot scheme, it said it would not intervene.

It comes amid fears raised by Portland's (in the US) commissioner of public safety, Rene Gonzalez, warning Scotland to 'avoid the tragedy we are going through'.

As exclusively revealed by the Mail on Sunday earlier this month, American officials issued an impassioned plea to the Scottish government to 'not make the same mistake we did'.

Hunter Street Health Centre, in the east end of Glasgow , will be the UK's first sanctioned 'drugs consumption room' and will be approved by the Scottish Parliament today

There were 1,051 deaths in Scotland due to drug misuse in 2022, a drop of 279 from the previous year but still 2.7 times the rate south of the border and the worst in Europe. Pictured: The entrance of the existing site

Comparisons have been made to Portland, in Oregon, decriminalising drugs in 2021. However, they were forced into a climbdown just two weeks ago and made to reimpose the drug ban due to concerns about increases in overdoses, deaths and property crime.

Commissioner Gonzalez said: The amount of human misery is just brutal. It is truly horrific. Portland and Scotland share many values but the addictive qualities of these drugs are so brutal that it simply overwhelms your systems.

Scotland has the worst drugs death rate in Europe, with 1,051 deaths from drug misuse in 2022, a drop of 279 from the previous year - but still 2.7 times the rate south of the border.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC announced earlier this month it would not be 'in the public interest' to prosecute people using such a facility, effectively giving the scheme the go-ahead.

The pilot was approved by health and council officials at the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board meeting on Wednesday morning.

The board involves NHS and council officials and recommended approval of the scheme in a report.

The report states: 'There is overwhelming international evidence which demonstrates that safer drug consumption facilities can improve the health, wellbeing and recovery of people who use the facility and reduce the negative impact that public injecting has on local communities and businesses.'

Data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 - a drop of 279, or 21 per cent, on the previous year.

It highlights that following the HIV outbreak, an assessment 'found there are approximately 400 to 500 people injecting drugs in public places in Glasgow city centre on a regular basis'.

It adds: 'Injecting in public spaces increases the risk of infection and other drug-related harms, and also causes a risk to the public from discarded injecting equipment and needles.'

Drug consumption room facilities typically provide users with sterile injecting equipment, counselling services before, during and after using, emergency care in the event of an overdose and referrals to social care and addiction treatment services.

Commissioner Gonzalez thought the facility in Oregon would help destigmatise drug addiction and reduce harm, but it was a position he and many citizens have been forced to rethink.

He said: There is still broad consensus we dont want to criminalise addiction, that it is to be viewed as a disease or a medical issue. But the part that has been very painful for Oregonians and Portlanders is we took away the prohibitions but we didnt stand up quickly enough the support to get people into treatment.

So we kind of have the worst of both worlds: we dont have anything disrupting self-destructive behaviours and we dont have a strong enough support system.

He continued: We hear from citizens every day that they can respect someones bodily autonomy for their right to use, but they dont want to see it in front of them, they dont want to breathe it and they dont want their kids to be exposed to it.

Drug user Chris, 28, in Portland, Oregon, openly smokes crack cocaine downtown in the city

There are tensions, we want people to get treatment, we dont want to criminalise addiction, but we also have rights for our common areas; they should be for everyone and not just folks that consume fentanyl and meth.

In a drug consumption room in Lisbon, it was said the most common substance being injected was a cocktail of heroin and cocaine - known as speedball.

Before Nicola Sturgeon quit as first minister she admitted her government had taken its 'eye off the ball' in regard to Scottish drug deaths.

Addressing a joint meeting of three Holyrood committees on Tuesday, Kirsten Horsburgh, the chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said the evaluation of the success of the Glasgow-based initiative should not delay more being opened in other parts of the country.

'We really welcome this news,' she said.

'The anxiety we have about it is we don't want to see one facility introduced in Glasgow that prevents anywhere else in Scotland being opened until the service is evaluated.'

Ms Horsburgh also said the model introduced in Scotland's biggest city should not necessarily be the same as those introduced elsewhere in the country.

She said: 'It's important when we are introducing these facilities that we have lots of different types.

'So we could have mobile units, we could have fixed-site units, we could have just a room within an area that's already providing needle exchange facilities.

'I would hope that we could not delay other areas by introducing this one.'

Portland, Oregon is suffering from the fallout from a prescription opioid epidemic. It decriminalised drugs in 2021, but earlier this month was forced to reimpose the ban

The 2.3million facility will be located in the city's Hunter Street, in the same building as a current drug treatment facility.

Saket Priyadarshi, a doctor who will help run the facility, said he would not feel 'nervous' about patients overdosing under his watch.

READ MORE: SNP demands ALL drugs are decriminalised for personal use saying addiction is a 'health' issue not a matter for the courts Advertisement

He told The Telegraph: 'It's much more preferable that happens in the vicinity of trained staff who can respond.'

Some MSPs have raised concerns about the impact on the local area, including on businesses.

Appearing before the committee, Scottish Recovery Consortium chairman Tracey McFall stressed the need to work with local communities in creating services.

'We can't do to communities, we have to take communities with us,' she said.

'There has been a number of examples over the years where there's been residential rehabilitation services set up and there was local opposition but actually in some of those rehabilitation services the community actually engaged.

'It's about demystifying some of the stigma that's attached with this work.

'We need proper consultation... we need to talk to the community, we need to acknowledge their fears and say "we get it, however there's an evidence base across the world to say there's not going to be that crime in that area, there's not going to be an increase in drug use in that area".'

She added: 'My experience in developing services over the years is if you take the community with you, they get it.

Scottish ministers had demanded in July the decriminalisation of all drugs for personal use (file picture)

'But don't just drop it in to say "this is happening in your area" and I don't think Glasgow are planning that.'

READ MORE: Drug addicts are given free taxis to pick up their NHS heroin at treatment facility at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer Advertisement

Simon Rayner, the service lead for Aberdeen Alcohol and Drug Partnership, said the creation of such facilities would require winning 'the hearts and minds' of communities, and ensuring they were properly staffed to avoid 'incidents and spill-out behaviours'.

Scottish drugs minister Elena Whitham was due to appear before the joint committee meeting but was ill.

In 2021, former drug policy minister Angela Constance described the shocking death rate as a 'public health emergency'.

Tory MSP Sue Webber said: 'Drug deaths are Scotland's national shame on the SNP's watch and ministers are still failing to act with enough urgency.'

A Scottish government spokesman said: 'We are taking action to save and improve lives with an evidence-based approach, implementing policies we know work to reduce harm and deaths from drugs and focusing on getting people into support and treatment.'

Last month, data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 - a drop of 279, or 21 per cent, on the previous year.

While the number of deaths linked to drugs misuse is now at the lowest it has been since 2017, the NRS report made clear that the rate of deaths is still 'much higher' than it was when recording the data began in 1996.

It found that 'after adjusting for age, there were 3.7 times as many drug misuse deaths in 2022 as in 2000.

Drugs and alcohol policy minister Elena Whitham said the decline shows policies like expanding residential rehabilitation were making 'significant progress'.

But Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the SNP should 'stop talking about decriminalisation', adding: 'While these latest numbers indicate some progress is being made from an utterly catastrophic base, Scotland's appalling fatality rate means we remain the drugs-death capital of Europe by an enormous and alarming distance.
Ministers hailed the go-ahead for a major new oil and gas development off the coast of Scotland today insisting it will protect jobs and stop Putin holding the country to ransom.

Tories welcomed the green light for Rosebank - one of the largest untapped discoveries in UK waters, said to contain 350million barrels - despite condemnation from Labour, the SNP and activists.

Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho said that even by 2050 oil and gas will still be producing a quarter of Britain's power, and accused critics of 'relying on foreign regimes'.

She said: 'The choice we face is this: do we shut down our own oil and gas leaving us reliant on foreign regimes?

'Do we lose 200,000 jobs across the UK? Do we import fuel with much higher carbon footprints instead? And lose billions in tax revenue?

'Keir Starmer's approach will lead to higher emissions and fewer British jobs. Labour would leave us worse off and threaten our ability to keep the lights on.'

The move widens the dividing line between Labour and the Tories over Net Zero, after Rishi Sunak signalled a shift in approach last week.

The PM pushed back the timetable for a ban on sales of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035, saying he wanted to be honest with the public about the trade-offs involved in cutting emissions.

Protesters against the Rosebank project in Edinburgh today

There was a small but noisy protest outside a government building in Edinburgh

Activists made their views felt about the Rosebank plan today

The Rosebank oil field is said to contain up to 350 million barrels of oil (pictured: an oil rig anchored on the coast of Scotland)

Protests have taken place across the UK in opposition to the Rosebank project, with Greta Thunberg among those to have rallied against it

Rishi Sunak scaled back the UK's net-zero plans in a major policy shake-up last week, with delays to a ban on petrol and diesel cars among other announcements made

Norwegian firm Equinor says $3.8billion (3.1 billion) will be invested in the Rosebank development, which it says will bring 'significant benefits' to Scotland and the UK as a whole.

Geir Tungesvik, executive vice president in projects, drilling and procurement, said: 'Developing the Rosebank field will allow us to grow our position as a broad energy partner to the UK, while optimising our oil and gas portfolio, and increasing energy supply in Europe.'

The NSTA, which oversees oil and gas production in the North Sea ahead of the UK's move towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050, said: 'We have today approved the Rosebank Field Development Plan (FDP) which allows the owners to proceed with their project.

'The FDP is awarded in accordance with our published guidance and taking net zero considerations into account throughout the project's lifecycle.'

Scottish secretary Alister Jack said the approval was 'great news', adding: 'The North Sea has a huge role to play in ensuring the UK's energy security while we transition to net zero.

'It's really important that we maximise our domestic oil and gas reserves, which mean lower emissions than imports, while reducing any reliance on hostile states.

'Rosebank will play a big role in that, as well as growing our economy and providing skilled jobs in Scotland for generations to come.'

But the SNP's Humza Yousaf, first minister of Scotland, said that he was 'disappointed' the plan had been given the go-ahead after previously failing to explicitly support the multi-billion-pound investment.

He tweeted: 'I'm disappointed Rosebank has been given the go-ahead. We've raised concerns that the majority of what is extracted from Rosebank will go overseas, not remain in Scotland or the UK.

'We recognise the significant contribution the oil & gas sector makes to Scotland. However, our future is not in unlimited oil & gas extraction. It is in accelerating our just transition to renewables.

'New oil & gas fields being approved risk the pace of that transition. 'In the face of a climate catastrophe, the UK Government have dropped their green pledges & committed to approving 100 new oil & gas licences.

'That isn't climate leadership. It is climate denial. Scotland will remain on the right side of history & demonstrate climate leadership.'

Mr Yousaf said in a tweet that he was 'disappointed' the scheme had been approved. His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, said the move would risk 'slowing the green transition' while Green Party MP Caroline Lucas called it an 'act of environmental vandalism'

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas added that the project's approval was 'morally obscene', but Labour has previously said it will respect any licences granted ahead of the next general election.

Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told Sky News: 'We will not revoke any licences that the Government chooses to grant but we don't think this is good value for money.'

Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon shared a tweet by Ms Lucas, adding: 'By consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, it risks slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it.'

Rosebank could produce 69,000 barrels of oil per day, about 8% of the UK's projected daily output between 2026 and 2030, and could also produce 44 million cubic feet of gas every day, according to Equinor.

The Norwegian driller also says 1,600 jobs will be supported during the construction phase of the Rosebank project, with 450 jobs maintained for the lifespan of the field.

However, it has admitted that oil extracted from the sea will not remain in the UK in the short term - instead being sold to refineries across Europe. Gas will be exported through the West of Shetland Pipeline system and will end up in the UK grid.

The UK Government welcomed the decision and said it has been subject to extensive scrutiny by the regulators, including undergoing a detailed environmental impact assessment process and a period of public consultation before approval was granted.

It said that all new projects, including Rosebank, will be in line with the natural decline of the North Sea basin.

Energy security secretary Claire Coutinho said: 'We are investing in our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognise, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank.

'The jobs and billions of pounds this is worth to our economy will enable us to have greater energy independence, making us more secure against tyrants like (Vladimir) Putin.

'We will continue to back the UK's oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.'

Equinor, a Norwegian energy firm, says more than 3billion will be invested in the Rosebank project, creating 1,600 jobs in the short term (pictured: an Equinor North Sea oil platform)

The North Sea Transition Authority oversees oil and gas production in the North Sea ahead of the UK's move towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050

Energy security secretary Claire Coutinho Claire Coutinho welcomed the announcement

But environmental campaigners have voiced strong opposition to the development, and today hit out at the decision.

Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Philip Evans said: 'Rishi Sunak has proven once and for all that he puts the profits of oil companies above everyday people.

We know that relying on fossil fuels is terrible for our energy security, the cost of living, and the climate. Our sky-high bills and recent extreme weather have shown us that.

'The ugly truth is that Sunak is pandering to vested interests, demonstrating the stranglehold the fossil fuel lobby has on Government decision making. And it's bill payers and the climate that will suffer because of it.

'Why else would he make such a reckless decision?'

Ithica, a partner in the Rosebank project, completed its acquisition of a stake in the controversial Cambo oil field earlier this month after Shell pulled out, amid pressure from environmentalists.
A shocking photo of a razor wire fence needed to protect the residents of a retirement village has exposed the desperate truth about an Outback Australian town.

The Old Timers facility in Alice Springs now shelters its elderly residents behind a razor wire fence that looks more like it should be keeping criminals in a prison rather than out of a retirement home.

The Northern Territory town has been making unwanted headlines for its out of control crime rates but for many locals, this is as low as it gets.

Businessman Darren Clark, who has long campaigned against lawless gangs and alcohol-fuelled violence, posted phots of the 'full compound style' fencing on his Action for Alice Facebook page.

'They've been broken into a few times, they get into the rooms and steal possessions from residents,' Mr Clark told news.com.au.

A shocking photo of a razor wire fence (pictured) needed to protect the residents of a retirement village has exposed the desperate truth about an Australian town

READ MORE: Peter Dutton says Indigenous people in Alice Springs living in 'absolute squalor' Peter Dutton has described the living conditions of First Nations people in Alice Springs as 'absolute squalor'. Advertisement

The amenity, which includes Old Timers Village, Flynn Lodge and the resident-run Old Timers Museum tourist attraction, put up the new fencing after break-ins, car thefts and ram-raids.

'One guy, his mum  they were in her room. They've stolen staff cars. They were breaking in, getting cars and ram-raiding out,' Mr Clark said.

Though the national media focus on Alice Springs' crime problems has faded since making headlines earlier this year - when Opposition leader Peter Dutton called it 'a national disgrace' - the issues have not gone away.

In January, Anthony Albanese was slammed for spending just four hours in the town for crisis talks with Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles.

The Prime Minister was also accused by Nationals leader David Littleproud of bringing on the law and order crisis in the outback town by not listening to the community.

Mr Littleproud also claimed the crime spree showed why an Indigenous Voice to Parliament would fail.

Crime had soared in the town and surrounding areas after a 15 year long alcohol ban lapsed in July 2022.

But it was reinstated in February - preventing the sale of booze in Indigenous town camps and remote communities - in response to the crime surge.

However, the latest figures from NT Police showed massive increases in crimes in the 12 months to August.

This included a 22 per cent increase in assaults, 28 per cent rise in domestic violence-related assaults, 28 per cent in alcohol-related assaults and a 23 per cent increase in sexual assaults.

Commercial break-ins were also up by 12 per cent, while property damage increased by 9 per cent in the town with a population of 28,000.

The amenity (pictured) put up the new fencing after break-ins, car thefts and ram-raids

Razor wire fencing is pictured at the Old Timers facility in Alice Springs, Northern Territory

The NT Police said it will be able to tackle an expected surge in crime similar to last summer's record-breaking levels of violence.

Acting Commander James Gray-Spence said the force had learnt from what happened then.

'For police, Operation Drina will continue, so that will be the high-visibility police  dedicated to being out there to reduce especially anti-social behaviour which we saw really peak in incidents over summer,' he told ABC radio.

'That's that in-your-face stuff that really affects your perception of safety when you're moving in and around those high public-use spaces.'

Commander Gray-Spence said disorderly behaviour and youth crime would be taken on through several government agencies.

'The broader planning for summer at the moment is coordination of government services,' he said.

'That's where we sit down as directors and regional directors to make sure that it's not just police out there  that we've got the referrals in place for other agencies for diversionary activities.'

Mr Clark disputed that the police are ready for the summer, saying their policy is 'bulls***'.

The property includes Old Timers Village, Flynn Lodge and the resident-run Old Timers Museum (pictured) tourist attraction

Businessman Darren Clarke (pictured) said the police are not ready for summer surge in violence in Alice Springs

'If you ring police you're lucky if they turn up. We just know nothing's going to happen, there's no ramifications  it'll ignite,' he said.

Commenters on his Facebook page expressed their shock at the razor wire fence around the retirement community.

'No respect for elders and so sad for the residents. They deserve to feel safe and be safe,' wrote one.

'(It) looks like a jail, so sad that our elderly need to be protected,' said another.
Online sleuths helped bring down depraved British animal abuser Adam Britton after they identified a leash in a dog torture video he posted online, it has been revealed.

The single clue led Australian police to the Darwin animal shelter owned by crocodile expert Britton, 51, where they found chopped up pets.

Britton pleaded guilty in Darwin's Supreme Court on Monday to a string of charges relating to animal abuse, bestiality, and possession of child exploitation material.

The court heard Britton sourced about 42 dogs on Gumtree Australia - often from owners who reluctantly gave their pets away due to work commitments - for the purpose of sexually exploiting them for his own sadistic pleasure.

Britton operated two Telegram accounts called 'monster' and 'Cerberus' - the latter named after a three-headed dog in Greek mythology - from 2020 and 2022.

He used the accounts to engage with like-minded people about animal cruelty and bestiality and to share videos of the sick abuse.

However, he was the master of his own undoing when he posted a disturbing video called '1B***h9Pups' to an abuse website on March 22, 2022, which revealed a clue to his identity and whereabouts that ultimately led to his downfall.

Online sleuths helped bring down depraved British animal abuser Adam Britton (pictured) after they identified a leash in a dog torture video he posted online, it has been revealed

Pictured: A stock image of a dog wearing an orange City of Darwin leash - like the one the internet sleuth spotted in Britton's abuse video which ultimately led to his downfall

The following day, on March 23, an anonymous internet user noticed the adult female dog was wearing a distinctive orange City of Darwin-branded leash with the slogan 'great pets start with you'.

The user alerted the Northern Territory (NT) Animal Welfare Branch to the video over email, prompting the organisation to refer the matter to the police.

On April 22, a month after he posted the video, NT Police and Australian Federal Police officers raided Britton's home in Mcminns Lagoon, found in south Darwin.

There, detectives seized 44 items including computers, mobile phones, cameras, external hard drives, tools, weapons, dog paraphernalia and sex toys.

The prosecution said police found 15 child abuse material files on his laptop.

They also found severed dog limbs in a freezer, a decomposing puppy in a pond on the property, and a severed dog head on a neighbouring property.

Documents say Britton used a shipping container on his property and frequented various locations outside of his property to carry out the acts on the animals.

According to the documents, Britton used a Gumtree Australia application to obtain custody of many of the 42 dogs, where he often 'built a rapport' with the owners who 'had to reluctantly give their pets away due to travel or work commitments'.

Britton operated two Telegram accounts under the names of Monster and Cerberus.

He would film himself hurting the defenceless animals in the container he called his 'torture room' - fitted with recording equipment - and use the Cerberus account to 'upload and disseminate' the sick material online, the court heard. 'Using these applications, the offender discussed his "kill count",' prosecutor Marty Aust said.

His account had 114 threads where he described how he acquired the pets, how he abused them and how he disposed of their bodies.

The court also heard he sexually abused his own Swiss Shepherd pets, Ursa and Bolt, for almost a decade until he eventually took to Gumtree Australia to source more dogs to kill.

Setting up alerts on the site for when a new dog or puppy was listed for sale in the area, he would build a 'rapport' with the unsuspecting owners in order to negotiate taking custody of their dogs, prosecutor Marty Aust said.

If the pet owners reached out and asked Britton for updates on their old pets, he would spin a 'false narrative' to say they were healthy and send them old photos.

In one scenario, Britton sent a message to the owners of a large brown dog to reassure them the animal was 'settling in well'.

'Wolfe was relaxed and eating well and enjoying her new home,' the message wrote.

But unbeknownst to the previous owners the dog had already been 'sexually exploited, tortured and killed,' Mr Aust said.

In 2016, Britton uploaded this photo of one of his dogs, Bolt, as a puppy. The court heard how Britton sexually abused and tortured the dog

The court heard Britton started abusing his dogs, Ursa and Bolt (pictured as an adult), in 2014

Britton not only tortured and sexually abused his own pets Ursa and Bolt (pictured together), who he created an Instagram page for, but also dogs from pet owners he had lured into his trap through the online marketplace platform Gumtree Australia

Britton (pictured centre, with his wife Erin left) once hosted Sir David Attenborough (right). There is no suggestion whatsoever that his wife or Sir David knew about his offending

Britton went on to be charged with 37 counts of animal cruelty, 10 counts of raping or attempting to rape a dog, and four counts of possessing or transmitting child abuse material.

The video and descriptions of his abuse are so disturbing MailOnline has chosen not to publish it in full.

After pleading guilty to all charges on Monday, Chief Justice Michael Grant warned the press gallery that the facts of the offending detailed 'acts that could only be described as grotesque cruelty which are both confronting and distressing'.

'Which in my assessment have the potential to cause nervous shock or some other adverse psychological reaction to a person exposed to those details,' he said.

Prosecutors told the court how Britton has a 'sadistic sexual interest' in animals, in particular dogs, since at least 2014.

The married zoologist was charged last year, but his name was suppressed by the courts to ensure media attention would not bias a jury against him.

The order was lifted after his pleaded guilty on Monday.

Britton's wife Erin, a wildlife ranger who met Prince Harry and helped him catch a saltwater crocodile, was unaware of her husband's disturbing fantasies and has since reportedly changed her surname.

There is no suggestion whatsoever that Britton's wife - whose name has been widely reported - or Sir David knew about his offending.

Britton, a leading zoologist who has worked with the BBC and National Geographic on productions, stood calmly as he pleaded guilty to 47 counts of animal cruelty at the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on Monday.

He also pleaded guilty to four counts of accessing and transmitting child abuse material, including of toddlers being forced to engage in depraved acts.

Adam Britton, 51, began his offending in 2014 and tortured and sexually exploited more than 42 dogs until his arrest in April 2022

His matter is set to return to court on December 13 for sentencing submissions.

Britton was born in Yorkshire and moved to Australia 20 years ago, and he has previously worked with the BBC and National Geographic.

Multiple reports say he hosted David Attenborough on his property as Mr Attenborough's team filmed the Life In Cold Blood docuseries.

Britton studied at the University of Bristol and Leeds University and held a senior research associate position at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory.
Tories lined up behind Suella Braverman today after she delivered a bold warning about the 'existential threat' the West faces from uncontrolled immigration.

The Home Secretary was praised for 'speaking the same language' as voters after her intervention declaring multiculturalism 'dead' and demanding an overhaul of international refugee rules.

Ms Braverman told a think-tank event that being gay should not by itself be a reason for claiming asylum, and being trafficked as a sex slave was different to paying a gang to take you across the Channel.

She also said it was wrong to dismiss people who were concerned about inflows as 'idiots' or 'bigots' - arguing that governments that do not get a grip on borders soon lose legitimacy.

The speech in Washington DC last night - seen by many as a pitch to be the next Tory leader - elicited fury from Labour MPs and the UN, which blamed the UK for failing to process asylum applications quickly enough.

The Home Secretary had warned that uncontrolled immigration is an 'existential' threat to the West

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which warned her about the importance of the 1951 Refugee Convention

Additional 213,000 school places needed due to immigration, Braverman claims Suella Braverman has claimed that an additional 213,000 secondary school places will have to be found by 2026 due to a surge in immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers. The Home Secretary said current levels of immigration are unsustainable, with more than half of demand for new housing coming from new arrivals, the Times reports. In her speech in Washington DC, Ms Braverman said: 'Accommodation cannot be magicked up out of thin air. 'Nor can new schools, improved roads, extra police officers, additional healthcare, or any of the other public services upon which people rely. 'Immigration is behind at least 45 per cent of demand for new housing in England. 'More than one in five biths are to foreign-born mothers. Due to immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers, English secondary schools will need to find an extra 213,000 places by 2026.' Advertisement

Taking aim at advocates of multiculturalism, the Home Secretary said she supported immigration, having been the child of immigrants herself, but claimed that uncontrolled migration risked a threat to nationhood and national security due to a lack of integration.

She said migration had been 'too much, too quick' to the UK in the past 25 years, with 'too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion'.

'Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades,' she said.

'Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society.

'And in extreme cases they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.

'We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester.'

Mr Braverman added: 'If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted  eventually it will disappear.'

Pressed on how her views square with her background as the child of migrants from Mauritius and Kenya, the Home Secretary said: 'What you're suggesting is because I'm the child of immigrants, I have to adopt a position which is pro-migration and pro the status quo, and I totally and fundamentally refute that.

'I think that is totally at odds with the challenge that we are facing today, unprecedented levels of people coming into our country illegally with no right to be here. They are gaming our system, pretending to be refugees, pretending to be fleeing persecution to come to the country illegitimately.

'I think that cannot be how we conduct this conversation. We need to be honest with the British people and we need to be honest about the challenges and the solutions. Just because I have an immigrant background does not exclude me from this conversation.

'My job as Home Secretary is to be honest with the British people to tell them that the system as it currently stands internationally is not working. We need to start working towards a solution that is sustainable and fair.'

The speech caused consternation among some One Nation Tories, but delighted other MPs.

Tory former minister Brendan Clarke-Smith told Sky News: This is speaking the same language as my constituents. Its what they wanted to hear.

She has emphasised the fact she is a child of immigrants herself, she knows what a welcoming country the UK is, she wants that to continue. But she wants to see some fairness.

Asked whether he thought Ms Braverman would make a good PM, he said: I think certainly shes a good Home Secretary Ive got a lot of time for the Home Secretary but this is of course part of the PMs plan

I genuinely think that we can win this next general election and Rishi Sunak is the person who is going to do that for us.

Ms Braverman raised the prospect of rewriting the UN's 1951 treaty to raise the threshold for asylum claims.

But last night the UNHCR took the unusual step of hitting back, saying : 'The Refugee Convention is the cornerstone of the international refugee protection regime and remains a life-saving instrument that ensures millions of people fleeing conflict and persecution each year can access safety and protection across borders.

'There are 35.3 million refugees worldwide, with 70 per cent remaining in countries neighbouring their own and 76 per cent hosted in low- and middle-income countries.'

It said a stronger and more consistent application of the convention's protocols was needed.

The UNHCR said: 'An appropriate response to the increase in arrivals and to the UK's current asylum backlog would include strengthening and expediting decision-making procedures.

'This would accelerate the integration of those found to be refugees and facilitate the swift return of those who have no legal basis to stay. UNHCR has presented the UK Government with concrete and actionable proposals in this regard and continues to support constructive, ongoing efforts to clear the current asylum backlog.'

Suella Braverman (pictured) said international asylum laws are creating an 'absurd and unsustainable' system with 'huge incentives for illegal migration'

Mrs Braverman warned that 780 million people are eligible to claim asylum in the UK under 'absurd' rules and argue that Channel boat migrants should not be treated as refugees

Mrs Braverman suggested the UN treaty has played a key role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018

Ms Braverman pointed out that would-be refugees once had to show they were facing 'persecution' but now they must only prove 'discrimination'.

She suggested the UN treaty is 'an incredible achievement of its age', but highlighted its role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018.

'More than 70 years on, we now live in a completely different time,' she said.

'According to analysis by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams for the Centre for Policy Studies, it now confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 million people.

'It is therefore incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the Refugee Convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age. Or whether it is in need of reform.'

Ms Braverman - who has been accompanied by a TV crew on her trip to the US - said in her speech: 'Nobody entering the UK by boat from France is fleeing imminent peril.

'The vast majority have passed through multiple safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. In this sense, there is an argument that they should cease to be treated as refugees when considering the legitimacy of their onward movement.'

Ms Braverman admitted the European and UN accords on refugee rights could be a struggle to update due to the unwieldy task of getting member states to agree on changes.

But she said there was also a 'more cynical' reason for not broaching reforms, arguing there was a 'fear of being branded a racist or illiberal'.

'The status quo, where people are able to travel through multiple safe countries, and even reside in safe countries for years, while they pick their preferred destination to claim asylum, is absurd and unsustainable,' she said.

Mrs Braverman said the West had 'created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivising millions of people to try their luck, knowing full well that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand'.

Asked after the speech whether the current interpretation of the ECHR was 'compatible' with the need to protect and control UK borders, Ms Braverman said: 'My personal views on the ECHR have been chronicled and they're very clear, but what I think is a legitimate question for all of us to be asking in the UK is whether its operation and its interpretation by the courts is compatible with our pressing need to control our borders and national sovereignty.'

She went on: 'We are wanting to work within those frameworks and we are confident that we can achieve that, but I do think legitimate questions need to be asked about the somewhat ill-fitting nature of how these  outdated international models are sitting with the global migration crisis of the 21st century.'

The Government's Illegal Migration Act, passed by Parliament earlier this year, bars 'irregular' migrants from claiming asylum.

However, its powers have yet to be brought into force and it remains unclear whether it will make it easier to remove migrants whose claims are denied.

Mrs Braverman's criticisms of the UN treaty has been disputed by many immigration lawyers and campaigners, who point to Britain's leading role in drawing it up after the horrors of the Second World War.

Migrants are picked up at sea while attempting to cross the English Channel last month

Ms Braverman pointed out that the convention defines refugees as those with a 'well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'.

'However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution, in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination,' she will say.

'And a similar shift away from a 'well-founded fear' towards a 'credible' or 'plausible fear'.

'The practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.'

She said: 'Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman.

'Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary.

'But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.

Mrs Braverman also highlighted 'asylum shopping' which sees migrants move through numerous safe countries to reach their target country.
Prosecutors in Bolivia have revealed they are investigating the alleged gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by 11 men.

Three of the suspects have already been arrested and police say they are hunting the other eight.

The men are said to have 'intercepted' the youngster at a cultural event she was attending with her family and plied her with alcohol before raping her at a 'remote spot'.

The horror attack happened in the early hours of Monday in the city of Oruro, which is about halfway between the capital La Paz and Sucre.

It lies around 3,700 metres (12,000ft) above sea level and is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by population.

Prosecutors in Bolivia have revealed they are investigating the alleged gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by 11 men in a remote spot of Oruro (pictured)

Bolivia's state prosecution service said in an overnight statement: 'The Departmental Prosecutor of Oruro, Aldo Morales Alconini, reported today that the Public Ministry is investigating an act of aggravated rape committed against an under-age girl aged 12, who was allegedly attacked by 11 individuals.

'So far Victor Q. R., Victor H.CH, and Adolfo C.C have been arrested and will be charged in the next few hours.

'The Prosecutor's Office will also request at a court hearing the preventive detention of the suspects, while police continue to hunt the other individuals.'

Mr Morales added: 'Once we became aware of the attack, we began the corresponding investigation covering the victim's psychological report, an identification parade and a forensic medical certificate that demonstrates the existence of the criminal act and helped to identify the first three suspects.

'We are going to continue working in a coordinated manner with the police to find the other people responsible and bring them to justice.

'The forensic report shows the girl has obvious signs of body violence and abrasions due to friction on her spine.

'We are analysing the information and assistance we are going to need from the Institute of Forensic Investigation and others with the aim of clarifying this incident so it does not go unpunished.

'We want to make sure those responsible receive a 30-year prison sentence.'

Oruro (pictured on map) lies around 3,700 metres (12,000ft) above sea level and is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by population. It is about halfway between the capital La Paz and Sucre

Ronald Vargas, the prosecutor assigned to the case, revealed the alleged gang rape occurred in Oruro around 1am on Monday after the 12-year-old went to a cultural event with her family.

The men involved are said to have forced her to consume alcohol before the sex attack.

It was not made clear how they had managed to get her away from her family and where exactly the alleged gang rape, which prosecutors said had taken place at at a 'remote spot', had occurred.

In June last year it was reported the baby of a 12-year-old raped by her grandfather in the town of Chimore in central Bolivia had died after the child was denied an abortion by her religious family.
MPs are calling for tougher measures to stop children missing lessons as Britain battles a school attendance crisis - with absence rates twice what they were before Covid.

A committee of MPs has said a more consistent approach to fines for parents whose children are absent from school is needed, as well as better support for pupils with mental health difficulties and those with special education needs.

Meanwhile, education bosses say poverty is a key factor in why children are not getting to school, as well as a lack of outside support - which they say has been eroded by austerity and funding cuts.

School absence rates which worsened during the pandemic have seen 'no significant improvement' and are 'of great concern', the Education Committee said.

The cross-party group of MPs, which launched an inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils in January, said more than a fifth (22.5 per cent) of pupils were persistently absent - around double the pre-pandemic rate.

MPs are calling for tougher measures to stop children missing lessons as Britain battles a school attendance crisis - with absence rates twice what they were before Covid (file photo)

School absence rates which worsened during the pandemic have seen 'no significant improvement' and are 'of great concern', the Education Committee said (stock photo)

Some 1.7 per cent of all pupils were severely absent compared to less than 1 per cent pre-pandemic, while the overall absence rate has risen to 7.6 per cent, up from around 4 to 5 per cent before the pandemic. A pupil is classified as a persistent absentee if they miss 10 per cent or more of their schooling and as a severely persistent absentee if they miss 50 per cent or more.

It comes after the Children's Rights Organisations alliance said social distancing and the closure of schools and playgrounds wreaked 'long-lasting and era-defining' effects on young people's mental health.

In the Education Committee's report published on Wednesday, it said: 'It is of great concern that absence rates have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, and there has been no significant improvement in the speed and scale of rate reduction which is needed to prevent long-term harm to pupils.'

Among a series of recommendations to the Government, MPs called for a national framework for fines and prosecution, as they had heard evidence that fines are used 'inconsistently due to local authority discretion'.

The committee warned that fines do not address barriers that low-income families face and can be counterproductive by adding to difficult financial circumstances, especially amid the cost-of-living crisis.

This sentiment was echoed by education chief Seamus Murphy, CEO at Turner Schools Trust, who said poverty is the 'key factor'.

He told BBC Radio 4: 'Children who are in families who are experiencing deep poverty are more likely to struggle to get to school, for all sorts of various obvious reasons.'

MPs have said financial pressures on families as a result of the cost of living crisis makes it harder for parents to afford transport and school uniforms.

Regarding the effectiveness of fines, Mr Murphy said: 'I think fines, in our context, are not effective in bringing children back into schools. Either parents who are financially able do a cost benefit analysis and argue that the holiday or whatever they are doing is cheaper, but for those families who are genuinely in crisis, fining them just drives them away from the services that we want to provide to help get kids back into school.'

In the report, MPs said they were 'disappointed by the lack of urgency and action' from the Department of Education (DfE) to implement change as a result of its 2022 consultation on the use of legal interventions to tackle absence, and said that the DfE 'should instruct schools and local authorities to explore methods of support for pupils and families before the use of fines or prosecution, ensuring legal intervention is a last resort only'.

Former DfE director General for Schools Sir Jon Coles, who now heads up the country's largest academy trust United Learning, said he feels fines are a 'very authoritarian method' and pointed to the need for better support for children and parents.

He said: 'I think fines are a very authoritarian method but I think you could justify a system of fines when there was also a really strong system of support and engagement which went ahead of fines and that relied, in the past, on a huge number of services outside schools.

'And most importantly on local authority services which overwhelmingly across the country have been decimated in recent years by austerity and funding cuts. I think before we get to fines, and start thinking about national systems of fines, I think we just need to think much more deeply about what's the support for children and families.'

Some 1.7 per cent of all pupils were severely absent compared to less than 1 per cent pre-pandemic, while the overall absence rate has risen to 7.6 per cent, up from around 4 to 5 per cent before the pandemic (file photo)

And while Sir Coles also felt poverty was a key reason in why children are missing school, he pointed to a change in attitudes among parents since the pandemic.

He said: 'I do think we have seen a shift in attitudes right across the social spectrum post Covid and that story, which I think is important, that every day in school matters, is just disbelieved by parents now and many feel 'well they were at home with me for weeks and weeks and nothing terrible happened and they'll catch up'.'

The education boss said focus should not be on fining, but that the government has a 'huge' job in 'getting better messages to parents' and improving engagement with them.

The committee said the DfE should review its framework for supporting low-income families in meeting the costs of school attendance, such as uniform and transport costs, and ensure support for low-income families is well signposted.

It also repeated its call for a register of children not in school, to identify and support children who are not receiving a formal education.

MPs said this should be 'fully operational for the 2024/25 academic year' and they therefore expect the Government 'to include a suitable legislative vehicle in the next King's Speech'.

The committee also noted 'overwhelming evidence indicating a radical increase in mental health difficulties amongst school pupils since' the pandemic, and described the current capacity of mental health services as 'grossly inadequate'.

The DfE must do more to improve help for pupils dealing with mental health issues, MPs also said, calling for a review of current support available both within and outside schools to be completed by summer 2024.

The committee said the DfE should introduce a mental health absence code 'and set clear thresholds for its use' and called for a public information campaign to guide parents on when children who are unwell should attend school - including highlighting that coughs and colds should not generally see children take time off.

Support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) must be improved, the committee said, while acknowledging that this group will have higher absences 'for legitimate and unavoidable reasons' and therefore should not be directly compared with other cohorts of children.

MPs called on the DfE to 'prioritise resource for inclusion and assessment in mainstream schools, to ensure they are adequately set up to support Send pupils and address the current level of unmet need, and therefore improve their attendance rate'.

Education Committee chairman Robin Walker said: 'Many in the sector are greatly concerned, even dismayed, that things aren't returning to a greater degree of normality, and in the meantime children are missing out.

'What happened during the pandemic is a crucial part of the story of how we got here, and recent research suggests some worrying changes in parental attitudes as a result.'

MPs have said financial pressures on families as a result of the cost of living crisis makes it harder for parents to afford transport and school uniforms (file photo)

He also flagged 'sky-high waiting lists for children's mental health services', and some children with Send 'not getting the right support quickly enough' as factors putting 'incredible pressure on families and schools'.

He added: 'We also need a consistent policy of issuing fines across the country, not a postcode lottery. The use of fines feels justified to discourage families from taking term-time holidays or where parents refuse to cooperate with reasonable requests, but offering support should nearly always come first.'

A DfE spokesperson said the Government remains 'focused on ensuring no child falls through the cracks'.

They added: 'We recently announced an expansion to our attendance hubs and mentors programme and we are also working closely with schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities to identify pupils in need of additional support.

'A key part of this includes ensuring children get the right support with Send and mental health including through our Send and AP (alternative provision) Improvement Plan and by increasing number of Mental Health Support Teams.'
To British firearms officers, it could be a tempting recruitment offer from police in Australia: 'We've got your backs, mate.'

The authorities Down Under yesterday stepped up their pitch to hire UK officers  pledging they wouldn't drag them through years of hell if they shot someone.

The message will not be lost amid the current furore over a Met policeman charged with the murder of Chris Kaba, who was shot in south London last year.

Western Australia is pursuing an audacious bid to 'steal' hundreds of police officers by luring them from Britain to work in the sunshine.

It can be revealed that more than 1,400 applied to make the move after the huge recruitment drive was launched in February promoting the area's wine regions, coral reefs and culinary scene.

Are you a UK police officer who has moved to Australia? Please email your story, with photos, to rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk

Police officers Anna Miller and Ben Woods (pictured) both left the UK and moved to Australia to start a new life

Western Australia is pursuing an audacious bid to 'steal' hundreds of police officers like Mr Woods and Ms Miller (seen while working in Britain) by luring them to work in the sunshine

Ms Miller moved to Perth with her family seven weeks ago. She's seen with her husband Andrew and their three children, Isabelle, seven, Tom, six and Emma, three

And as the first cohort of 23 Brits was sworn in this week  in a ceremony under 'magnificent clear blue skies'  the message from Aussie police chiefs was clear: 'We protect our officers.'

Western Australia's minister for police Paul Papalia told the Mail: 'It's very topical because yesterday we had a fatal shooting by police in Kalgoorlie.

'Without speaking in advance of the full investigation, I can tell you that our police officers behaved incredibly well. I've seen the body-worn camera footage.

'They acted entirely in accordance with their protocols, responsibly and properly. Sadly, they've had to shoot someone for their own protection. They did it absolutely correctly.'

Mr Papalia said that within an hour of the fatal shooting - of a 58-year-old man who had charged at officers with a gun - the commissioner of police and a local senator had publicly backed the officers.

Anna Miller, a 38-year-old recruited from West Yorkshire Police, said moving to Australia had made her feel 'supported and appreciated'.

Speaking from Perth, Western Australia, where she moved with her family seven weeks ago, she told the Mail: 'The biggest thing we like here is the appreciation for the police. I did not feel at all appreciated in the UK. In Australia, the community support their cops and they trust them.

'The feeling among myself and colleagues [in the UK] was that officers weren't backed it feels a little bit, as police officers, they will happily throw you under a bus to present a [more positive] picture to the public.

'Don't get me wrong, I had some fantastic supervisors, but I think policing as a whole, I don't think they feel supported.'

Ms Miller worked at West Yorkshire Police for 15 years. She moved to Australia with her husband Andrew and their children Isabelle, seven, Tom, six, and Emma, three, for 'an adventure', saying: 'It gives us the outdoor active lifestyle we wanted.

'It's fantastic. There is so much to do on your doorstep  we went kayaking and saw seals, there is snorkelling, fantastic cycle paths and the Australian people are so chilled, friendly and have an enthusiasm for life.'

Ben Woods, a 33-year-old sergeant from Sussex Police, added: 'My colleagues were naturally sad to see me go, but are now sick of my social media  "can you stop posting beautiful beaches, and posting views with koalas".'

He said: '[Perth] is one of the cleanest, tidiest cities I've ever been to. The sunrises and sunsets are just phenomenal. The crime rates are clearly lower, there's no graffiti, no gangs of kids - it feels like a nice safe place to be.'

The pair were sworn in as constables of the Western Australia Police Force on Monday, giving their allegiance to King Charles III, in a ceremony with an aboriginal theme.

Mr Woods said: 'An aboriginal lady came in and read scripture welcoming us, giving us strength and good spirits.'

Mr Woods, a 33-year-old sergeant from Sussex Police, added: 'My colleagues were naturally sad to see me go, but are now sick of my social media'

He said: '[Perth] is one of the cleanest, tidiest cities I've ever been to. The sunrises and sunsets are just phenomenal'

Peppermint leaves were lit to create aromatic smoke, and Ms Miller said: 'The smoke and the ceremony was around wishing us well, good luck and keeping us safe. It was lovely.'

All police officers in Western Australia are armed, meaning most UK recruits will need firearms training.

Ms Miller said: 'I don't have a strong feeling. It's just a piece of kit that officers have. I'll learn how to use it.'

The police minster told the Mail: 'We protect our officers. They've all got tasers, Glocks [pistols] and body armour.'

Mr Papalia said: 'I'm intent on stealing your best people. Unashamedly. You guys have been taking our best for decades, it's a rite of passage for Australians to go to the UK.

'We're aiming for 150 police officers this month, and 150 every year thereafter for five years. They come from a variety of forces. I've met all of them. They're a good crowd.

'They all love policing and had their expectations met when doing swearing in - the skies in Perth were magnificent clear blue skies. Everything they had hoped for.

'Western Australia is a great place to live and work. Compared to the UK, we have higher wages, a lower cost of living and the perfect climate for year-round adventure.

'The response has been extremely positive, meaning WA Police can handpick the best of the best.'

In a nod to the 'Ten Pound Poms' scheme introduced after the Second World War, Western Australia's shameless ambition is to grab 31,000 British workers, with police joining doctors, nurses and construction workers.

Mr Woods posing for the camera during a visit to an animal park

They can 'have it all', with energy bills almost half in Australia, allowing the savings to be spent on 183 pints of beer, 110 roast dinners or 500 jars of Marmite, boasted Mr Papalia.

The British Medical Association revealed before Christmas that a third of junior doctors are planning to leave the UK - with the majority choosing Australia or New Zealand.

The NHS is battling shortfalls of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives.

An Australian delegation arrived in the UK on February 25 and held jobs fairs in London, Edinburgh and Bristol.

The scheme also targeted those in other professions hit by labour shortages including miners, plumbers, mechanics and builders.

Almost 25,000 applications to get documents needed to secure a job overseas were made to UK healthcare regulators in 2022. The vast majority represent NHS workers.

The toll, uncovered by a MailOnline investigation, dwarfs the 10,000 figure seen before Covid struck.

Senior leaders in the health service warned 'the exodus is only just beginning' and said the stats should 'stun ministers into action'.

This chart shows the number of UK registered doctors who have requested documents for a job application overseas over the past five years. Interest peaked in 2022, but 2023 is also on track to be a bumper year

Interest in making a move overseas for nurses and midwives exploded last financial year, with over 16,000 applications

Disgruntled NHS medics say the pandemic has shone a light on how poorly they are valued in the UK, a factor that helped launched a wave of strike action across the UK to boost their pay.

Australia has also launched a wave of 'cheeky' tactics touting the merits of a move Down Under, such as deploying mobile billboards to NHS strike picket lines to recruit disenfranchised medics.

Yet some medics who've made the move Down Under have complained that it's not exactly the dream some are selling.

British health staff wanting to apply for a job overseas need to get documents from their UK regulator as part of the application.

These prove to their potential employers they don't have any marks on their record, their training is up to date, and they can be trusted with patients.

Figures obtained by MailOnline reveal nearly 7,000 doctors applied for documents to support an application to work abroad from the British medical regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), in 2022.

This was up from 6,100 in 2019.

Separate figures for 2023, which only go up until May, suggest this year will see an even bigger exodus, with almost 3,500 applying for their documents so far.

For nurses and midwives, the figures are even starker.

While Australia topped the list for both destinations other countries like the US and the United Arab Emirates are also of interest for UK medics looking for greener pastures

Interest in life Down Under has peaked for nurses and midwives in the most recent financial year, with some 4,000 applications made

Nearly 16,000 similar applications were made in 2022/23  compared to just under 5,500 in 2018, according to the UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Pristine beaches and sunny weather appear to have convinced many to seek a job in Australia.

Australia topped the charts for total applications in both professional groups.

Nearly 9,000 doctors have applied to work Down Under in the last five years. A third of these were made in 2022/23.

And Australian efforts to lure medics Down Under appear to be paying off.

Data from the Australian Medical Council, the Aussie equivalent of the GMC, show almost 1,000 British medics signed up in 2021/22, the latest data available, up 16 per cent on the year before, and the biggest number of any nation.

This is equivalent to roughly half the UK medics who applied to work Down Under getting a job there.

For nurses and midwives, 11,000 applications were made to Australia since 2017/18.

But the number has accelerated in recent years, with 4,000 making an application in the last financial year alone.

Are you a UK police officer who has moved to Australia? Please email your story, with photos, to rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk
Shocking surveillance video captured the moment a suspect raided an Atlanta hotel and held up a reception worker with an Uzi in order to steal just $100.

Fast-acting cops caught up with the suspect shortly after the robbery, retrieved the money and the gun while slapping the cuffs on him. The suspect has been named as 37-year-old Ramone Rivers.

The incident occurred around 7:40am on September 15.

A video released by the Atlanta Police Department shows an officer arriving at the Sonesta Select Hotel shortly after the robbery. A worker tells the cop that a man who he recognized came in, pointed the gun and then made off with the cash.

Another worker was able to show some surveillance to the officer. When the cop saw the caliber of weapon used in the crime, he exclaims: 'Oh wow!' The gun used was a Walther Uzi .22 caliber firearm.

Footage released by the Atlanta PD showed the suspect pointing a gun at a hotel worker

The suspect proceeds to rummage through a drawer at reception before finding some cash and leaving

The officer begins to scour the area on foot. Two good Samaritans were able to point him in the direction taken by the suspect.

The chase became a car pursuit with the officer eventually catching his man with help from the Georgia Tech Police Department.

Rivers is charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, theft by receiving and theft by taking. He's been held at Fulton County jail.

The incident occurred just north of the section of Atlanta that was seeking to secede from the state due to spiraling crime rates and resorted to paying off-duty cops to provide extra security.

In May, business owners in Buckhead neighborhood paid officers to carry out patrols in commercial areas, particularly shopping centers. To help with their efforts, the Atlanta Police Foundation has also contributed three police cruisers.

In 2020, Buckhead was one of the hardest hit areas in Atlanta in the wake of the rioting and looting that occurred following the murder of George Floyd.

The off-duty cops have the full power to arrest suspects, according to Atlanta Police Department Chief Darin Schierbaum. The announcement came just months after Buckhead failed to secede from Atlanta.

The scheme is being run by the Buckhead Safety Alliance. The group's coordinator Debra Wathen said at a press conference Monday that the $500,000 will cover security costs for 12 months - and they will continue to fundraise.

The new officers will be concentrating on vehicle and retail thieves, who activists say have been targeting the area. Each Buckhead police car will have a dedicated cell number that will be given to local business owners. Those in need of assistance are asked to call 911 first and then a local police cruiser.

After a brief chase, the officer caught up to the suspect standing on a street corner nearby

The suspect, named as Ramone Rivers, 37, was arrested

Rivers is facing charges that include armed robbery and aggravated assault

Crime in Atlanta has been ticking up for several years - commensurate with many major metropolitan areas - and control has not yet been effectively seized by law enforcement

In 2020, Buckhead was one of the hardest hit areas in Atlanta in the wake of the rioting and looting that occurred following the death of George Floyd

Atlanta City Councilwoman Mary Norwood said in May at a press event that private security protection in more residential sections of Buckhead have proved successful in reducing crime in recent years.

'The neighborhoods in Buckhead for the past two decades have had security patrols in their neighborhoods and that has been an effective deterrent to crime,' Norwood said.

'These security patrols will make us safer in Buckhead, for our residents and our visitors,' she added, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Another activist, Jim Durrett, told Axios that one of the most common crimes being seen in the area is criminals breaking into cars in search of guns.

'I think it will be a success,' one resident, Mimi Maslia, told Fox Atlanta.

At the same press conference, Chief Schierbaum said the city's homicide level is nearing the low level it was at prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, down 40 percent so far this year.

In 2022, the department opened a new police precinct in the area. This year, Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns put funds in the state budget to allow for the Georgia State Patrol to open an office in Buckhead.
An ex-clown who works as a special needs teacher has allegedly shot and killed his wife while she was desperately begging a 911 dispatcher for help.

James Anderson, 37, allegedly killed his 34-year-old wife Victoria Anderson in Cleveland, Texas, while their son aged three was in the house with them.

Anderson was arrested on Sunday after a five-hour standoff with police and a SWAT team, during which he allowed his son to exit the house. The toddler was unharmed but covered in his mother's blood, according to ABC13.

The alleged killer was the Special Education Department Chair for Santa Fe Middle School, where he started working in 2022.

But before his career as a middle school teacher, Anderson was a clown and balloon artist, calling himself 'Mister Jazzz' for performances at children's parties and public libraries.

James Anderson (right), 37, allegedly killed his 34-year-old wife Victoria Anderson (left) in Cleveland, Texas, while their son aged three was in the house with them

Before his career as a middle school teacher, Anderson worked as a clown and balloon artist, calling himself 'Mister Jazzz' (pictured as a clown above) for performances at children's parties and public libraries

Videos from nearly a decade ago show the father-of-one in a red shirt, black vest and red bowler while doing a tutorial on how to make balloon animals on Youtube.

He also owned a clown business under his pseudonym 'Mister Jazzz' and Mr. Jazzz the Clown', according to business records obtained by the US Sun.

Anderson was listed as the owner, but it is unclear whether the business is still running.

On his online biography for the school district's website, Anderson presented himself as a family man.

He wrote: 'When I'm not busy working, I love hanging out with my family. I also like doing stuff in my yard, but not when it's insanely hot outside! Another thing I'm really into is reading.'

The clown-turned-teacher has now been charged with his wife's murder.

Victoria dialed 911 just before 5pm on Sunday and said her husband was threatening to shoot her, according to a statement from the City of Houston.

The 911 dispatcher reported hearing a gunshot while on the phone with the victim.

Videos from nearly a decade ago show the father-of-one in a red shirt, black vest and red bowler while doing a tutorial on how to do balloon animals on Youtube

Victoria (pictured with their three-year-old son) dialed 911 just before 5pm on Sunday and said her husband was threatening to shoot her, according to a statement from the City of Houston

When officers arrived at the couple's home in the 4300 block of Vista Ridge Drive in Cleveland, they ordered Anderson to leave the house.

He refused, but eventually sent his toddler son outside, who was covered in his mother Victoria's blood.

SWAT team members and negotiators spent five hours outside the home until Anderson eventually surrendered without further incident.

Police then entered the home and found the victim unresponsive with a gunshot wound. She was confirmed dead at the scene by paramedics shortly after.

The couple's son was taken to a hospital for observation before being released into the care of family members, reported local news station KHOU-11.

The case was presented to the Harris County District Attorney's Office, who charged Anderson with murder. He has been booked into the Harris County Jail.

Yesterday a judge set his bond at $300,000 and he is set to be back in court on December 13. Authorities said they don't want him to have any contact with his son.

During Anderson's appearance in court, it was mentioned that the victim had recently removed guns from the family home, after which the suspect apparently called 911 to report this.

SWAT team members and negotiators spent five hours outside the home (some positioned on a roof, pictured above) until Anderson eventually surrendered without further incident

Yesterday a judge set Anderson's bond at $300,000 and he is set to be back in court on December 13. Authorities said they don't want him to have any contact with his son

After the long stand-off (members of SWAT and police pictured above while outside the home), police entered the home and found the victim unresponsive with a gunshot wound. She was confirmed dead at the scene by paramedics shortly after

The Cleveland Independent School District confirmed their employee's arrest on Monday and said in a statement: 'Cleveland ISD is deeply saddened to hear of the tragic domestic violence situation involving one of the staff members at Santa Fe Middle School, James Anderson.

'Mr. Anderson has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation.'

While authorities said they don't know what led to Sunday's killing, domestic disputes were previously reported at the home.

They also said the couple might have been going through a divorce.

'Domestic violence is a very serious thing in our city, and we want to make sure that we do our part to push the information out to get out of these violent relationships,' A. Rodriguez with the Houston Police Department said to ABC13.
Married British Airways pilot Mike Beaton sent text messages bragging about how he snorted cocaine off a topless woman's t*** and then 's*****d for ages' before he tried to fly a packed plane back to London.

The first officer was in South Africa for a stopover when he spent a debauched night full of booze, sex and drugs.

The father-of-one told all in a series of raunchy messages to a stewardess boasting about how he had been 'very, very naughty' with two women and two men in Johannesburg.

Telling her to 'get ready' for the tale, he goes into minute detail about how he met a 'Spanish bird', a 'Welsh chick', and two 'local lads' in a bar.

They downed some shots before staggering back to the hotel bar for 'one last one before bed' where there's a 'bit of snogging' before 'we're somehow all on our way to this dude's flat'.

First Officer Mike Beaton was suspended by British Airways and later sacked after a night of debauchery in South Africa

The bragging text messages sent by Mr Beaton to a stewardess about his sordid evening in Johannesburg

He recounted how he 'ended up snorting coke off a girl's t*** in Joburg' before he stayed with one of the women and 's*****d for aggges'

It is here that Mr Beaton goes into detail about his sordid drug-fuelled orgy.

'Welsh has decided that I should actually be her boyfriend - Spanish has hooked up with one of the two local lads and is having her t*** sucked on their sofa,' he said.

'We've polished off a bottle of vodka at this place now and the girls are dancing topless, I've lost my shirt somewhere and one of the local lads produces a plate with a few lines of coke.

'So then there's a debate about who's [sic] chest is the best to do a bump off. Not going to lie, I may have started this with ulterior motives.'

The stewardess appears to be impressed with his evening and replies 'Babes that's wild' before Mr Beaton says: 'That's the story of how I ended up snorting coke off a girl's t*** in Joburg.'

He 'came to my senses' when he thought things had gone too far and 'rescued the girls' and took them back to their hotel. But his night didn't end there.

'Stayed the night with Welsh, sha***d fo aggges (I guess the coke played a part) and then was so f****d I couldn't even lift my head until gone 2.'

A shocked co-worker raised the alarm on Mr Beaton hours before he was due to co-pilot a flight from South Africa back to Britain after he revealed his night of debauchery.

The married father-of-one, pictured, boasted to a colleague about having a drug-fuelled orgy before trying to fly a plane back to the UK

Beaton, pictured in uniform, claimed he had snorted cocaine off a topless woman during the orgy in texts to a colleague

British Airways was forced to delay the flight from South Africa to Britain for 24 hours while it found a replacement for him

A source at the airline told The Sun that managers were 'furious' when his behaviour was reported to them by his colleagues.

They said the pilot had 'hoisted himself by his own petard' and that although there would have been no alcohol in his system on his return to the UK, adding: 'He will never fly again.'

British Airways told MailOnline: 'Safety is always our top priority. The matter was referred to the CAA and this individual no longer works for us.'

The Civil Aviation Authority told The Sun it has strict procedures in place for when pilots misuse drinks or drugs.

'An airline must immediately inform us if a UK pilot has misused drink or drugs boarding, or being on board, an aircraft,' it said.

'In these cases we would immediately suspend the pilot's medical which means they cannot fly.

'In most cases the pilot would have an assessment with an expert medical team and if they wished to return to flying then a comprehensive rehabilitation programme would be put in place.

'The medical would only be reinstated if we were completely satisfied.'

When confronted by reporters from the paper, Beaton's wife refused to comment, saying: 'You must speak to my husband about it.'
A traumatised air hostess who dislocated her shoulder and fractured her knee when her plane passed a cyclone is suing British Airways for 80,000.

Laura Lannigan, 53, had to be wheelchaired off the jet due to injuries she suffered when the Boeing 777 she was flying on dropped violently, throwing crew and drinks in the air in the sky over India in 2019.

She landed heavily on the floor at the back of the plane, with metal cannisters full of water bottles raining down on her as the pilot continued to fight the weather conditions, suffering a dislocated shoulder and fractured knee.

Ms Lannigan, of Richmond, Surrey, is now suing British Airways for 80,000 compensation at Central London County Court, accusing her employers of failing to properly warn her about the dangerous weather conditions.

But BA denies liability for her injuries, claiming the experienced cabin service leader - who was left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the incident - had been warned of the possibility of a cyclone and that warning lights telling crew and passengers to stay seated were on.

Ms Lannigan (pictured in 2015) is suing British Airways for 80,000 following the incident in 2019

Laura Lannigan, 53, had to be wheelchaired off the plane due to injuries she suffered when the Boeing 777 she was flying on dropped violently

According to documents filed at the court, the stewardess was flying on a nine-hour journey from London Heathrow to Mumbai, in India, when the accident occurred in June 2019.

The pilot had warned the crew prior to takeoff there might be a cyclone in the Mumbai region and that the flight could be cancelled, but it was eventually cleared to leave.

'On the approach to Mumbai, the conditions were bumpy due to mild to moderate turbulence,' says her solicitor, Ali Mustafa, in claim documents.

'The claimant was working alone in the rear galley when the 20-minute call was made. The anticipated turbulence was then encountered, causing the aircraft to initially raise up and then drop significantly.

'She was flung into the air and landed heavily on the floor on her left side and twisting her left knee.

'The metal canisters filled with bottles of water fell onto the claimant's shoulder after she had hit the aircraft floor.

'This violent dropping and the continuous turbulence continued until landing, during which it was impossible for the claimant to get into a seat.'

Ms Lannigan sustained injuries to her knee and shoulder when she was hurled to the ground - including a serious 'degloving' wound to her knee, a traumatic injury where the top layers of skin and tissue are ripped away from the underlying muscle, connective tissue or bone.

According to documents filed at the court, the stewardess was flying on a nine-hour journey from London Heathrow to Mumbai , in India, when the accident occurred in June 2019

The pilot had warned the crew prior to takeoff there might be a cyclone in the Mumbai region and that the flight could be cancelled, but it was eventually cleared to leave (file picture)

She had to be taken off the plane in a wheelchair when it landed. The ordeal also caused her to suffer PTSD her barrister, Neil Vickery, told the court during a pre-trial hearing.

Her lawyers say BA is liable for the accident because her employers had 'failed to make and keep safe the claimant's place and system of work.'

She had not been warned of the turbulence in sufficient time to enable her to secure the cabin and then strap herself into a crew seat, they claim.

When it suddenly became apparent that turbulence was imminent, there had also been a failure to warn her that she had less time to secure the cabin than previously thought.

In BA's defence to the claim, its lawyers point out that Ms Lannigan had herself acknowledged that seatbelt signs were on and that there had been a pre-flight cyclone warning, with the pilot planning ahead to fly around it.

The warning lights had gone on an hour before landing when the aircraft suffered mild to moderate turbulence and remained on until the plane was safely on the ground, it claims.

'It is denied that the defendant failed to warn the claimant of the turbulence in sufficient time,' the company says.

'The seatbelt sign was turned on at 5.18am as the aircraft was experiencing mild turbulence.

'The turbulence was ongoing at the time of the sudden violent drop. Cabin crew are trained to use their own skill and experience to assess when they need to sit down at any time during a flight, depending on whether they are unable to walk/maintain their footing.'

The case reached court earlier this month for a brief pre-trial hearing focusing on the scope of the evidence ahead of a full trial on liability at a later date.
It may only be September, but Christmas has come early for some as the first decorations are now going up in Oxford Street.





While Mariah Carey 's smash-hit jingle All I Want for Christmas Is You has not yet become ubiquitous in shops, other signs of the festive season are creeping up on us with preparations being made for the bustling London street's illumination event.





The lights are set to be turned on November 2 and will last until January 5.





The lights on Carnaby Street are also set to be switched on the same day.

It may only be September, but Christmas has come early for some as the first decorations are now going up on Oxford Street

The lights are set to be turned on in early November and stay lit until a date in early January

The event saw 5,000 star-shaped lights introduced with over 300,000 energy-efficient LED lights, which are 75 per cent more efficient than standard bulbs

Last year's Christmas lights switch-on, which was the first since the pandemic hit, saw a shift to be more eco-friendly.

A bid to manage energy consumption was in large part due to skyrocketing bills and Britain's cost of living crisis, which meant that the lights were on for a shorter period of time than usual each day.

The event saw 5,000 star-shaped lights introduced with over 300,000 energy efficient LED lights, which are 75 per cent more efficient than standard bulbs.

The 5,000 star lights and 300,000 energy-efficient LED lights are again expected to create the 'beautiful sky of stars' this year, with the cost of living and high energy costs still looming.

Just like last year, the lights will be made from recycled polymer, meaning they are 100 per cent recyclable.

Last September, Hadas Kulcsar, Campaigns and Events Manager at New West End Company, which puts on the light display, said: 'In the current climate, it is also important that we reduce our energy consumption and help to promote a more sustainable Christmas in line with our ambitions to make Oxford Street a leading sustainable district.

'The reduced hours of our Christmas lights are a great step forward to achieving this.'

Last year, a video posted on TikTok of workers putting up the lights , which was captioned 'not them putting the lights up in Oxford street when it's not even October yet', racked up 85,000 views

Last year, a video posted on TikTok of workers putting up the lights, which was captioned 'not them putting the lights up in Oxford street when it's not even October yet', racked up 85,000 views.

Some users wondered if it was a joke, while others called the hanging up of lights so soon 'crazy'.

Meanwhile, some angry commenters expressed their disapproval at the move.

Several asked who will be footing the bill for the lights, as taxpayers struggle to cover their own rising costs.
GB News suspended Laurence Fox today after he was condemned for saying 'Who would want to sh*g that?' in a sexist series of comments about a female political journalist.

The broadcaster has apologised for Fox's remarks about Ava Evans, a Left-leaning reporter for news website Joe, last night on an episode of Dan Wootton Tonight.

Political activist Fox told the show: 'We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0' who, he said, are 'pathetic and embarrassing', adding: 'Who would want to sh*g that?'

He also called her a 'little woman' and asked: 'Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel?'

Ms Evans shared a clip of the comments on X, with the caption: 'Laurence Fox just did a whole speech on GB News on why men apparently won't sh*g me?'

The clip has been viewed more than ten million times already. In a follow-up tweet to her 100,000 followers, she added that the footage made her feel 'physically sick'.

Media regulator Ofcom said it had received an unspecified number of complaints about the comments, which its team would now assess against its broadcast rules.

But Fox doubled down today, saying that he 'stands by every word of what I said' and he 'wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended fourth wave feminist and not apologise'.

Laurence Fox (right) spoke about Ava Evans during Dan Wootton (left) Tonight yesterday

Ava Evans told Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show today that she is 'really hurt' by Fox's comments

It comes after Ava Evans made comments about men's mental health and suicide on the BBC's Politics Live on Monday, in which she dismissed calls for a dedicated minister on the issue

During last night's discussion on GB News, the strapline on the screen read: 'Smirking Face of Disdain', with the text under it reading: 'Hard-left commentator slammed for shrugging off male suicide crisis.'

What did Laurence Fox say on GB News? Laurence Fox: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel? 'That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day... starting with the lie of the gender wage gap, and she's sat there and I'm going, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just huge. 'We need powerful strong amazing women who make great points for themselves, we don't need these sort of feminist 4.0... they're pathetic and embarrassing. 'Who would want to sh*g that?' Advertisement

It comes after Ms Evans made comments about men's mental health and suicide on the BBC's Politics Live on Monday, in which she dismissed calls for a dedicated minister on the issue.

Fox told Wootton: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel?

'That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day... starting with the lie of the gender wage gap, and she's sat there and I'm going, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just huge.

'We need powerful, strong, amazing women who make great points for themselves, we don't need these sort of feminist 4.0... they're pathetic and embarrassing. Who would want to sh*g that?'

Wootton replied: 'Well, look, she, I'm just going to provide a touch of balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her comments but she didn't apologise.'

Wootton added: 'And she's a very beautiful woman, Laurence, very beautiful woman.'

The discussion came after Ms Evans, a former producer at LBC, appeared on BBC's Politics Live on Monday and made comments about men's mental health.

That BBC discussion featured Evans alongside comedian Geoff Norcott, who spoke about how suicide remains the biggest cause of death for men under 50.

During the discussion on GB News, the strapline on the screen read: 'Smirking Face of Disdain'

Fox made the comments about Ava Evans (pictured), a correspondent for online news site Joe

Ms Evans shared a clip of the comments on X, which has been viewed ten million times

The discussion came after Ava Evans (pictured) appeared on BBC 's Politics Live on Monday

When the host mentioned a Conservative MP's suggestion for a dedicated minister to look at these issues, Ms Evans said: 'I think that it feeds into the culture war a little bit, this minister for men argument.

What has Laurence Fox said after the backlash? Comments posted by Laurence Fox on social media platform X this morning: 'Morning, morning. 'First of all, don't take a pop at @danwootton for something I said. That's not fair. 'Secondly. I stand by every word of what I said. If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended 4th wave feminist and not apologise, just as people are totally within their rights to be offended by my stating I would run a mile in the opposite direction from women like her, should our paths cross in a bar. 'It's called free speech. 'I realise that the new woke world is low on laughter and high on offence, but it's still worth trying to find the lighter moments in this joyless new cancel culture which has been created for us. 'This lady has said on air that she wants men to be 'frightened' and 'terrified.' Tumbleweed from the media at her premeditation and malevolence. Because it's not a man saying it. Which rather proves my point. 'You are totally entitled to find my mockery of the insane hypocrisy in this world not to your taste, but that's me, and I will continue to be me, as a wise man once said 'Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.' 'So you keep trying to cancel away in your state of permanent offence, I've been cancelled already and may well be again, but I don't care one bit, and I will keep defending my right to have an opinion on issues which concern me. 'Without free speech and the presumption of innocence we are not free. We aren't quite communist Eastern Europe yet. We may very close, but not quite there. It's still worth fighting for. 'So if you are expecting a grovelling apology, I suggest you don't hold your breath. I won't ever apologise to the mob. 'Have a lovely day. 'In this self censoring world, speak your mind. 'Live strong and free.' Advertisement

'[Mental illness] is a crisis that's endemic throughout the country, not specific to men. And I think a lot of ministers bandy this about to - I'm sorry - make an enemy out of women.'

Ms Evans later said on X: 'I was a little rash on my anti-minister for men comments which I do regret and am actually very interested in a brief for a minister on young men's mental health.'

This morning, Ms Evans was asked about Fox's comments during an appearance on Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show. She confirmed someone had sent the clip to her and she did not see it live.

Questioned over how she felt about what Fox said, Ms Evans told Vine: 'I don't... I think the clip speaks for itself. I don't have anything to say about it at all.

'I'm actually a journalist rather than a commentator and I'd much rather be judged or asked about my work than have people talking about my body. I don't... sorry, I'm a bit speechless, I just don't really know what to say.'

After fellow panellist Carole Malone asked if she was hurt by it, Ms Evans added: 'I'm really hurt by it, I am. I'm shocked about by it actually, I'm shocked that it went out.

'Actually do you know this is the sort of talk that you worry that men have about you when you're not in the room. There is always sort of a worry in the back of your mind which is: 'Are people actually interested in what I'm saying or what I'm doing?'

'Or are they just looking at me... physically and I think that that clip proves that there are some men who are.'

Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf branded Reclaim Party leader Fox a 'vile neanderthal' over his comments.

Mr Yousaf said on X: 'What a vile neanderthal @LozzaFox is, and an example of bystander behaviour enabling such misogyny from the presenter.

'I'm so sorry @AvaSantina had to listen to this. It is why men have to step up and challenge misogynistic abuse wherever we see it. Pleased Ofcom investigating.'

Within ten minutes, Fox had responded, saying: 'The feeling is entirely mutual, you vile Neanderthal.' Fox's post included a clip of Mr Yousaf speaking at Holyrood while justice secretary, pointing out that the majority of those in powerful positions in Scotland were white.

Last night's comments by Fox drew a strong reaction on X, with broadcaster Carol Vorderman writing: 'Please know that ALL decent people are on your side. We're grateful for your voice. Do not let them bully you. I know only too well how difficult that can be. But we ARE winning. All of us together.'

And political commentator Usama Ijaz said: 'I am glad that Ava is standing up to Fox and calling him out for his misogynistic behavior. It is important to hold people accountable for their actions, and Fox deserves to be called out for his misogyny. Love you, Ava. We will always support you.'

In a statement posted to X this morning, GB News said: 'GB News has formally suspended Laurence Fox while we continue our investigation into comments he made on the channel last night.

Laurence Fox: From screen actor to founder of the Reclaim Party Actor Laurence Fox rose to fame through various acting roles and is most well-known for portraying DS James Hathaway in the long-running TV series Lewis, which came to an end in 2015. The actor, 45, has credits in films that include the 2001 production of Gosford Park, the 2007 TV movie A Room With A View and the recent 2022 film My Son Hunter, in which he plays the lead role of Hunter, the son of American president Joe Biden. Born into an acting dynasty, Fox is related to a slew of famous thespians, including his cousin Freddie Fox, who starred in the 2011 film The Three Musketeers and Netflix series The Crown, playing former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's son Mark. Laurence Fox married fellow thespian Billie Piper in 2007 and the pair split in 2016 Sister to Freddie and cousin to Laurence is Emilia Fox, known for her role as Dr Nikki Alexander in BBC TV series Silent Witness. The trio are grandchildren to actor and theatrical agent Robin Fox whose son James is father to Laurence and has starred in Downton Abbey, Sherlock Holmes, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks, among other TV series. Fox married fellow thespian and Doctor Who star Billie Piper in 2007 and the pair split in 2016. They share two sons together, Winston and Eugene. Fox has credits in films that include the 2007 TV movie A Room With A View In 2020, Fox appeared on BBC Question Time and was involved in a debate over Meghan Markle, white male privilege and racism which led to the actor saying he would take a break from social media. Following his appearance, the actor founded political party the Reclaim Party in October 2020, and the website says he did so after his appearance led to him being 'cancelled' from a 22-year-old acting career. After he set up the Reclaim Party, Fox unsuccessfully stood for London mayor during the mayoral election of 2021. Fox appeared on BBC Question Time in 2020 and was in a debate over Meghan Markle, white male privilege and racism His manifesto included promises to deliver 'free travel on the Tubes and buses for six months' and 'tough New York style community policing to target petty crime'. According to the Reclaim Party website, the party exists 'for patriotism and believes hard work should be rewarded.' Reclaim is strongly associated with the 'culture wars' and Fox has previously expressed scepticism about the Covid vaccine and opposed lockdowns during the pandemic. Fox has been a presenter on GB News and according to the broadcaster's website he 'tackles the issues of the day' with a 'unique and outgoing style'. Advertisement

'Mr Fox's suspension is effective immediately and he has been taken off air. We will be apologising formally to Ms Evans today.'

This followed another statement last night, in which GB News said: 'Comments made tonight on GB News by Laurence Fox were totally unacceptable.

'What he said does not reflect our values and we apologise unreservedly for the comments and the offence they have caused. We have launched an investigation and will be apologising to the individual involved.'

But Fox refused to apologised and posted a lengthy statement on X this morning, saying: 'First of all, don't take a pop at Dan Wootton for something I said. That's not fair.

'Secondly. I stand by every word of what I said. If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended fourth wave feminist and not apologise, just as people are totally within their rights to be offended by my stating I would run a mile in the opposite direction from women like her, should our paths cross in a bar. It's called free speech.'

He added that the 'new woke world is low on laughter and high on offence, but it's still worth trying to find the lighter moments in this joyless new cancel culture which has been created for us'.

In the post, Fox included a clip of Ms Evans saying on Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV that 'men should be frightened to touch women in a way they're not comfortable with'.

Fox added in his statement: 'You are totally entitled to find my mockery of the insane hypocrisy in this world not to your taste, but that's me, and I will continue to be me, as a wise man once said 'Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.'

'So you keep trying to cancel away in your state of permanent offence, I've been cancelled already and may well be again, but I don't care one bit, and I will keep defending my right to have an opinion on issues which concern me.

'Without free speech and the presumption of innocence we are not free. We aren't quite communist Eastern Europe yet. We may very close, but not quite there. It's still worth fighting for.

'So if you are expecting a grovelling apology, I suggest you don't hold your breath. I won't ever apologise to the mob. Have a lovely day.'

Signing off the message he said: 'In this self censoring world, speak your mind. Live strong and free.'

Following his suspension, Fox followed this post up with a claim that he had done a 'pre interview' with the channel 'so they knew exactly what I intended to say'.

While sharing a screenshot which appeared to look like an exchange about news stories he was being asked to comment on, Fox wrote: 'A phone call might have been polite.'

But Wootton apologised this morning for a 'very unfortunate lapse in judgment', in a follow-up post to an earlier apology.

He wrote on X: 'I want to reiterate my regret over last night's exchange with Laurence on GB News. Having looked at the footage, I can see how inappropriate my reaction to his totally unacceptable remarks appears to be and want to be clear that I was in no way amused by the comments.

'I reacted as I did out of shock and surprise in an off-guard moment while working out how to respond as he continued to speak by searching for tweets @AvaSantina had sent earlier in the day while having them read out in my ear at the same time. However, I should have intervened immediately to challenge offensive and misogynistic remarks.

'I apologise unreservedly for what was a very unfortunate lapse in judgment on my part under the intense pressure of a bizarre exchange. I know I should have done better. I'm devastated that I let down the team and our supportive GBN family.

'We seek to tackle the issue and not the person, which I intend to stress again on air tonight.'

In an earlier message last night to Ms Evans, he had said: 'I think you're brilliant. Earlier tonight I was attempting to find your tweets to read back from my iPad and couldn't locate them.

'I apologise for what was said during the course of my show and should have done this immediately on air. This is not what our channel is about.'

Cabinet minister Lucy Frazer was asked about Fox's comments today during an interview on Times Radio, and said it was a matter for the communications regulator.

Asked whether it was unacceptable behaviour, she said: 'Well as Culture Secretary, you will know that I'm generally in favour of the free press.

'And (in) recent days we've seen the power of investigative journalism.

'You know, issues like the one you raise are matters for Ofcom and that particular broadcaster, like many others, is regulated by Ofcom.'

Ms Frazer also defended Tory MPs who host shows on GB News.

Asked whether serving parliamentarians should have programmes on the broadcaster, she told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'Well, yes, because there is a broadcasting code which identifies the rules of broadcasting and that does allow presenters who are MPs to take part in current affairs programmes.

'There are specific issues that have been taken to Ofcom in relation to particular programmes and I know that Ofcom is coming to conclusions on those particular issues.'

She dodged a question on whether Conservative Party deputy chairman Mr Anderson should consider axing his show on the channel, saying: 'I think I've made my position clear that those comments were inappropriate and unacceptable.

'And I'm pleased that the channel has apologised and I know that Ofcom will be looking into this.'

Pressed on whether GB News should be shut down if it continues to break the code, the Cabinet minister said: 'I know that there are a number of issues in a range of broadcasters at the moment and I don't think all those broadcasters should be shut down because there are issues.'

Conservative MP Philip Davies, who hosts a show on GB News, condemned the comments made by Fox.

In a statement, he said: 'Laurence Fox's disgraceful remarks were completely unacceptable, unjustifiable and indefensible.'

GB News presenter Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said he had not seen the comments made on air by Fox.

Speaking to the PA news agency at Windsor Castle after receiving his knighthood he said: 'No I haven't seen his comments last night.

'I understand he has been suspended from GB News and we can see the outcome of that, but no I don't know the details.'

In a statement to MailOnline, an Ofcom spokesman said: 'We can confirm we've received a number of complaints about comments made by Laurence Fox on GB News last night. We are assessing these complaints against our broadcast rules and will publish the outcome as quickly as possible.'

GB News has been found to have breached Ofcom rules three times since it launched in 2021.

The watchdog has several further investigations open into GB News's compliance with due impartiality rules.

Ofcom rules bar serving politicians from acting as newsreaders, interviewers or reporters unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. They are allowed to host discussions about current affairs.

Fox, who was previously married to actress Billie Piper, founded the Reclaim Party in October 2020 after an appearance on the BBC's Question Time earlier that year, which the actor said resulted in him being 'cancelled from a 21-year acting career'.

According to its website, the party exists to challenge 'woke orthodoxy' and promote 'freedom of speech', which it views as being 'under grave peril'.

Fox has been approached for comment by MailOnline.
Denaro had spent 30 years on run for murdering 50 people before his capture

Ruthless mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro who spent 30 years on the run for murdering 50 people including a boy dissolved in acid was buried today in a private funeral attended by his family including his daughter he only met after his capture.

The mafia godfather, who once boasted he could 'fill a cemetery with his victims', died of colon cancer aged 61 in hospital on Monday - eight months after he was captured by armed police at a medical facility in Palermo, Sicily.

Messina Denaro, dubbed the 'last godfather' of the notorious Cosa Nostra gang, was buried in the cemetery of his home town of Castelvetrano, in Sicily, this morning in a funeral watched closely by specialist police officers.

The mobster's 27-year-old daughter Lorenza Alagna, who he only met following his capture, was seen sitting in the front passenger seat of the hearse carrying his coffin.

His other relatives, including his sisters Bice and Giovanna and brother Salvatore, appeared emotional as they followed his hearse into the cemetery while being escorted by officers.

Salvatore was seen holding a bouquet of yellow flowers for the ruthless mobster while Bice rested her head in her hands as she walked behind the coffin alongside her daughter.

Police normally ban funerals for mafia bosses but the small ceremony was allowed under strict security.

Lorenza, daughter of late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, arrives at the cemetery, in the front passenger seat of the hearse carrying his body

The grieving family of ruthless mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro who was dubbed 'Diabolik' following a string of brutal murders attended his funeral today in the mobster's Sicilian hometown amid tight security

The grieving family of ruthless mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro who was dubbed 'Diabolik' following a string of brutal murders attended his funeral today in the mobster's Sicilian hometown amid tight security. Pictured: Messina Denaro's sister Bice (right) and niece Lorenza (right) arrive at the cemetery this morning

The hearse carrying late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrives at the cemetery in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano, Italy. The mobster's brother Salvatore is seen holding a bunch of yellow flowers whilst his sister Bice touches the hearse

Ruthless mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro who spent 30 years on the run for allegedly murdering 50 people including a boy dissolved in acid has died of cancer aged 61 - eight months after he was captured by Italian police. Pictured: A mugshot of Messina Denaro from the time of his arrest in January (left), and the Mafia boss in the 1990s

In 1993, Messina Denaro helped organise the kidnap of a 12-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo (pictured), in an attempt to blackmail his father into not giving evidence against the mafia, prosecutors say

Messina Denaro was diagnosed with colon cancer in late 2020 while on the run but he was captured by armed police at a medical facility in Palermo while receiving treatment under a fake name.

His condition deteriorated in recent weeks and he was transferred to a hospital from the maximum-security prison in L'Aquila in central Italy where he was initially held. The local mayor confirmed he had died on Monday.

It has since emerged that the mobster's only child, Lorenza Alagna, 27, met him for the first time in prison on his birthday on April 26 and continued to do so for the months afterwards until he was hospitalised on August 7.

Lorenza, who brought her young son to visit Messina Denaro in prison, and her mother Franca had spent their lives away from the mobster - but it was when the 'godfather' was captured that his daughter reached out to him.

The mafioso had been forced into hiding 30 years ago after he ordered a series of deadly attacks, including the murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, as well as a series of car bombs in Florence, Milan and Rome that left 10 people dead and 93 injured in 1993.

One of his six life sentences was for the kidnapping and murder of the 12-year-old son of a witness in the Falcone case.

Messina Denaro, nicknamed 'The Devil', helped organise the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo in an attempt to dissuade his father from giving evidence against the mafia, prosecutors say.

The boy was held in captivity for two years before he was brutally strangled to death and his body dissolved in acid.

Perhaps his most shocking act came in 1993, when he is reported to have assassinated rival boss Vincenzo Milazzo. His attention then turned to his victim's pregnant girlfriend, who he lured to the murder scene on the pretext that Milazzo was waiting to see her, then strangled her to death.

As Messina Denaro put his hands around her throat, she pleaded with him to spare her unborn child, yet he took two innocent lives without an ounce of pity.

L'Aquila Mayor Pierluigi Biondi said the mobster's death 'puts the end to a story of violence and blood', Biondi said, thanking prison and hospital staff for their 'professionalism and humanity'.

The hearse carrying late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrives at the cemetery in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano, Italy, on Wednesday

Relatives of late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, including his brother Salvatore, holding flowers at left, and sister Bice, right, wait for Denaro's funeral hearse to arrive at the cemetery of Castelvetrano, in Sicily, on Wednesday

Messina Denaro's sister puts her hand on her face as the mobster's coffin arrives at the cemetery

The mobsters niece Lorenza and his sister Bice arrive at the cemetery this morning in Castelvetrano, Sicily

The hearse carrying late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrives at the cemetery amid police presence in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano on Wednesday

A police officer walks through the cemetery as the mobster's coffin arrives there on Wednesday

Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to a life term for his role in 1992 in the murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Pictured: The scene of the murder of Falcone in Palermo, Sicily, in 1992

It was 'the epilogue of an existence lived without remorse or repentance, a painful chapter of the recent history of our nation'.

Messina Denaro is not believed to have given any information to the police after he was seized outside a private health clinic in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, on January 16.

Denaro had requested no aggressive medical treatment, ANSA reported, adding that medics had stopped feeding him after he was declared to be in irreversible coma.

According to medical records leaked to the Italian media, he underwent surgery for colon cancer in 2020 and 2022 under a false name. A doctor at the Palermo clinic told La Repubblica newspaper that Messina Denaro's health had worsened significantly in the months leading up to his capture.

Preparations are already under way for his burial in the family tomb in his hometown of Castelvetrano alongside his father, Don Ciccio, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Messina Denaro was captured in January when armed police swarmed the private medical facility in Palermo where he was undergoing treatment.

The then 60-year-old had tried to outrun the police officers on foot and pushed his way through a series of hospital doors - but he only made it as far as a bar that was part of the same building where he had been seeing doctors for colon cancer checks.

As the officers cornered the frail mafia boss, Messina Denaro meekly gave them his name before they bundled him into a waiting black minivan in front of shocked patients and medical staff.

The Mafia boss, who had not been seen in public for three decades, was pictured sitting in a police van wearing a brown leather shearling jacket, a white skull cap and his trademark tinted glasses shortly after his arrest.

A trigger man who once reportedly boasted he could 'fill a cemetery' with his victims, Messina Denaro was a leading figure in Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in the Godfather movies.

For a mafia boss who evaded arrest for over 30 years, it was his frequent visits to a private clinic that led to his arrest.

Messina Denaro had been sitting in the private clinic waiting to see a doctor for colon cancer tests when he was surrounded and chased by a swarm of armed police officers.

Messina Denaro was arrested in January (pictured) after spending 30 years on the run

Pictured: Police reconstructions of the face of Messina Denaro shared to the public, depicting what he could look like today as an older man, and in costume as a woman

A member of staff who asked to remain anonymous told local media at the time: 'He'd been coming here on and off for about a year. He'd had an operation a few months ago and was back for more tests and chemotherapy.

'When I turned up for work this morning at 6am it was all quiet and then he arrived to do his Covid test.

'A few minutes later a police officer wearing full body armour as if he was going to war came in and said he was looking for a patient.

'He said to remain calm and that armed officers were on every floor of the clinic. We had no idea who he was or what his background was.

'The guy actually managed to get out and ran into a local bar but they tracked him down and that's when all hell broke loose.'

As news of his arrest spread across Palermo, local residents had emerged to applaud and shake the hands of the Italian paramilitary police officers involved in the operation.

The residents were seen cheering and wiping away tears as they felt a wave of relief that Messina Denaro, who had coordinated years of terror in Italy, had finally been detained.

Messina Denaro was born on April 26, 1962 in the small town of Castelvetrano near Trapani in western Sicily and grew up in the heart of organised crime.

He was the son of influential mafia 'capo' (captain) Francesco Messina Denaro, and he quickly rose through the ranks - and eventually followed in his father's footsteps to become the boss of Cosa Nostra.

He is said to have first used a gun at the age of 14 and allegedly killed at 18, and is accused by prosecutors of going on to be solely or jointly responsible for numerous other murders in the 1990s.

Messina Denaro is believed to have become the 'boss of bosses' following the death of Salvatore 'The Beast' Riina in November 2022. Messina Denaro was the last of three longtime fugitive top-level mafia who had evaded capture.

His first run-ins with the law began in 1989, when he took part in a bloody struggle between two clans.

He was accused that year of murdering Nicola Consales, a hotel owner who complained to an employee of always having 'these little mafiosos under our feet'.

Unfortunately for Consales, the employee was Messina Denaro's mistress.

In 1992, he was part of a mob group sent to Rome to try and kill anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone. The group was eventually recalled by Toto Riina, the Corleone boss dubbed 'the Beast', who decided on another approach.

He was found to have had a hand in the killing of Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police escort officers, who died in a blast on May 23, 1992, in Palermo, Sicily, as they crossed a bridge beneath which was planted 300kg of explosives.

Two months later, Denaro had a leading role in a second bomb attack which killed judge Paolo Borsellino, another judge who worked to rid Italy of organised crime.

As head of the Castelvetrano clan, he was allied to the Corleonesi clan, who were immortalised in the legendary 'The Godfather' films.

He also became one of Cosa Nostra's deadliest soldiers when a war erupted between the mafia and the state over stricter prison laws for convicted gangsters.

Messina Denaro, right, is seen in a car with Italian Carabinieri officers soon after his arrest at a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily, in January this year. He has now died of colon cancer

A composite picture shows a computer generated image released by the Italian police, right, in their efforts to track the mobster down, and a picture of Matteo Messina Denaro, left

The mafia boss, who comes from the small town of Castelvetrano in Sicily, faced a life sentence for his role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan which killed ten people the following year

Messina Denaro, head of the notorious Cosa Nostra gang and nicknamed 'The Devil' following a string of brutal murders, was captured when armed police swarmed a private medical facility in Palermo, Sicily, in January

Messina Denaro was also convicted for the murder of 12-year-old Giuseppe di Matteo, who was abducted and held captive for two years in a bid by the mafia to stop the boy's father from testifying against them to the state.

After all that time in captivity, he was brutally strangled to death and his body was disposed of in a bath of acid.

It was in the same year that Messina Denaro is accused of having a role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan that killed 10 people and injured 93.

The attacks were carried out alongside notorious hitman Giovanni Brusca, who boasted to murdering 200 people single-highhandedly.

The bomb attacks, that targeted some of Italy's most historic monuments, forced Messina Denaro into hiding.

Messina Denaro had faced multiple life sentences at the time of his death, including for the murder of Falcone and Borsellino and his role in the bomb attacks.

Messina Denaro had been number one on Italy's most-wanted list but the only known photo of him dated back to the early 1990. A new e-fit was created in 2014 with the help of an informant.

Police said in September 2022 that Messina Denaro was still able to issue commands around the running of the mafia in the area around the western Sicilian city of Trapani, his regional stronghold, despite his long disappearance.

In 2015, police discovered he was communicating with his closest collaborators via the pizzini system, where tiny, folded paper notes were left under a rock at a farm in Sicily.

Messina Denaro also used a five-year-old girl, Attilio Fogazza's young daughter, to run secret handwritten messages between himself and other mafia top dogs.

He was also held responsible for bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 which killed 10 people

The scene of the bomb attack which killed Judge Giovanni Falcone on 24 May 1992 in Palermo, Sicily

The scene of the bomb attack which killed Judge Giovanni Falcone on 24 May 1992 in Palermo, Sicily

The scene of the bomb attack which killed Judge Giovanni Falcone on 24 May 1992 in Palermo, Sicily

Fogazza, who himself is on a murder charge, said in 2016 that Messina Denaro's second-in-command Domenico 'Mimmo' Scimonelli approached his daughter to send the messages.

The right-hand man had taken his daughter for an ice cream and put the messages inside her jacket and backpack.

The daughter and the rest of Fogazza's family have been living in a secret location under police protection while he cooperates with the prosecutors as they attempt to bring down the 'boss of bosses' in the Italian mafia scene.

Fogazza ran a car dealership in south-western Sicily and decided to collaborate with Palermo investigators after he was arrested last December for the murder of Salvatore Lombardo in 2009, who was killed after he stole a van from Scimonelli.

'One day my daughter said Uncle Mimmo had taken her for a gelato and put the messages inside her jacket and her backpack,' Fogazza told prosecutors in Palermo.

Messina Denaro lived a playboy lifestyle. He was known for driving expensive cars and for having a taste for wearing finely tailored suits and Rolex watches. As a rising-star in the mafia in the 1980s, he dressed in designer brands Versace and Armani.

His womanising ways raised eyebrows among the clans more conservative members. He fathered a daughter in 1995, which was seen as not being in keeping with Cosa Nostra's more traditional family values.
This is the horrifying moment an enraged hippo started charging at its zoo keeper after he tried to break up its fight with another territorial bull in their enclosure.

Heart-stopping footage shows the man - who had entered the enclosure to feed the animal - scrambling out of the pen in a desperate bid to avoid a fatal attack at the Changsha Ecological Zoo in China's Hunan province.

Amid the rush to run for his life, the zoo keeper slips over on the wet concrete surface entrance with the hippo ready to launch what could have been a devastating assault.

With the furious hippo baring its huge teeth in a threatening display, the man uses his arms and feet to prevent the hungry animal from closing in on him.

The hippo momentarily left its keeper alone as it continued to feed on greens but as the man stood back up, it charged at him again just as he was leaving the enclosure. This time, he was able to run to safety.

This is the horrifying moment a hippo started baring its huge teeth as it closes in on its zoo keeper

The video shows the man trying to scramble out of the pen but he slips over and the hippo starts going for him

It's understood the zoo keeper had entered the enclosure to feed the animal before two hippos began attacking each other.

Footage shows the territorial bulls going at each other before the zoo keeper flies out of the pen.

The zoo keeper had tried to break up the fight by distracting one of the hippos - but was sent running when they turned their fury on him.

Astonishingly, the zookeeper escaped unharmed following the horror clash on Sunday, September 24.

Officials at the Changsha Forestry Bureau are now investigating the incident.

A spokesman said: 'Staff at the zoo have been instructed on when it is safe to enter the enclosure of all animals.

'They must take extra care and avoid situations where males are in combat or when females are in heat.'

Hippopotamus attacks on humans are rare, but they can be deadly. Hippos are highly territorial animals, and they will attack if they feel threatened.

The zoo keeper uses his hands and feet to try and get the hippo to leave him alone as it feeds on greens

Eventually, the hippo runs in the opposite direction. Astonishingly, the zookeeper escaped unharmed following the horror clash

They are also very large and powerful, and their bites can be fatal.

Last month, an environmental crime investigation boss died after being attacked by a hippo while camping with his wife in a national park.

Kobus De Wet was stormed and killed by the hippo while staying in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

A spokesman for the South African National Parks (SANParks) - where De Wet worked - said the tragedy happened on August 12 during the day.
A thug who killed a pensioner when he punched him to the ground in a petty parking row has been jailed for five and a half years.

Spaniard Abdelaziz Maaroufi, 26, repeatedly shoved 67-year-old Peter Marecheau as he backed away on the Abbey Industrial Estate in Alperton, northwest London on September 9, 2022.

A convention on the estate was that if anyone wanted a vehicle moved, they would beep their horn. The row erupted as Mr Marecheau parked his car outside a unit, leaving its owner having to beep three times before he emerged to move it.

The spat between Mr Marecheau and the owner was escalated by Maaroufi, who worked at the unit in question. He punched Mr Maracheau, known as 'Frankie', in the jaw, sending him to the ground and leaving him with a devastating head injury.

Mr Marecheau died in hospital three days later. A post-mortem concluded his death was the result of a blunt force head injury.

The killer, who had been in the UK for less than a year, went to his old boss and asked for money so he could leave the country.

Maaroufi was arrested on suspicion of murder. He denied and was cleared of the charge but was convicted of manslaughter by a jury at Harrow Crown Court in July.

Spaniard Abdelaziz Maaroufi, 26, repeatedly shoved 67-year-old Peter Marecheau as he backed away on the Abbey Industrial Estate in Alperton, northwest London on September 9, 2022

Peter Marecheau, pictured, suffered grave head injuries after he was punched to the ground on September 9, 2022. Maaroufi had denied and was cleared of murder however, he was convicted of manslaughter at Harrow Crown Court

Prosecutor Joel Smith earlier said: 'The deceased would often park his green Peugeot outside another unit on the industrial estate, and the owner would beep his horn if he needed him to move.

'The defendant was working for this neighbouring business. On the day in question, the owner had to beep his horn three times.

'The defendant then confronted Mr Marecheau and there was an altercation.'

Maaroufi pushed Mr Marecheau four times while others tried to diffuse the situation, the court heard.

'The victim was restrained by others, and the defendant punched him once in the jaw causing him to fall to the floor.'

Mr Marecheau was backing away when Maaroufi punched him causing a significant head injury, the court heard.

Mr Smith said the CCTV clearly showed the victim posed no risk to Maaroufi at the time of the punch.

Maaroufi, of Alperton, denied and was cleared of murder but was convicted of manslaughter.

He was jailed for five and a half years at Croydon Crown Court.

Detective Chief Inspector Linda Bradley of the Met's Specialist Crime Command led the investigation and said: 'This sentencing brings to a conclusion a tragic case - Maaroufi has never explained why he decided to involve himself in this incident and why he resorted to this extreme level of violence.

'Peter's family have not had all the answers that we hoped to get for them but I hope they can take some solace in the fact that Maaroufi has been convicted and jailed for his actions.'

Detective Inspector Louise Caveen of the Met's Specialist Crime Command said: 'We don't know what made Maaroufi involve himself in the argument or why he resorted to extreme violence.

'Violence is never the right option, no matter what the disagreement, and anyone who allows their temper free rein in this way risks finding themselves in the same position as the defendant.

'My thoughts are very much with Peter's family today. I hope that they can find a small measure of solace in knowing that Abdelaziz Maaroufi will face the consequences of his actions.'
A landowner has vowed to fight the council 'all the way' after being ordered to demolish a shed and toilet he built on protected land.

Stephen Windsor built the shed in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Quarry Woods, Box, Wiltshire, after purchasing land in 2021.

The 64-year-old had planned to turn the area into an accessible 'safe haven' for disabled people.

The first phase of the development included a tool shed, equipped with a composting toilet, and a 'nursery for trees'.

However, the area has been afforded a high level of environmental protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to a rare bat population - and Mr Windsor did not secure planning permission for the development.

Stephen Windsor built the shed (pictured) in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Quarry Woods, Wiltshire, after purchasing land in 2021

Pictures of the development show logs placed around what appears to be a table or a fire

A strange sign is pictured attached to a tree reading: 'Danger Keep out. protected by witchcraft'

Wiltshire Council ordered Mr Windsor to demolish the buildings as they were in the protected site but he has not done so.

Concerns have also been raised by a local community group over the use of the site - with worries people may be living there, or move onto the site as it develops.

Pictures of the development show logs placed around what appears to be a table or a fire, a half-built shed and ramps, as well as a blue tent.

There is also a free-standing gate, and strange signs saying 'Alarm mines, keep out' and 'Danger keep out, protected by witchcraft'.

At Salisbury Magistrates' Court on February 16, Mr Windsor, of Johns Road in Bathwick, was found guilty of failing to comply with an enforcement notice - which is a document signalling a breach of planning control.

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On July 28, he lost an appeal at the crown court and was also ordered to pay the council's costs of 1,700.

Despite these setbacks, Mr Windsor is adamant he will not allow the buildings to be demolished and says he will 'exhaust every avenue' to protect his work.

He said: 'We're appealing and will take this all the way, I'm not going to stop because the council can't get away with this.

'It's going to be a beautiful thing and it is in keeping with the woodland, there's no water, electricity or gas and you can't see it from more than 20 metres away.

'I think it's disgusting that the council would do this, I'm totally stressed all the time over this and just gobsmacked.'

Mr Windsor believes he does not require planning permission as the structure is moveable and not attached to the ground.

The council have now applied for an injunction from the High Court to push through the destruction of the shed.

Wiltshire Council ordered Mr Windsor to demolish the buildings as they were in the protected site but he has not done so

A picture shows a sign on one of the trees in the development, saying 'Alarm mines, keep out'

There is also a free-standing gate in the development, which doesn't appear to open onto anything yet

A blue tent is also pictured inside the area of woodland - which Mr Windsor purchased in 2021

Councillor Nick Botterill, cabinet member for development management, said: We are passionate about protecting Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty that fall within Wiltshire and our enforcement officers will take any action necessary to protect them.

'At this time Mr Windsor has still not complied with the enforcement notice and has in fact carried out further unlawful development on the site.

'As a result, an application for a High Court Injunction has been made, which if successful, will order the defendant to demolish the two buildings and remove the material.'

Friends of Quarry Woods, a community group set up to preserve the nature site, supports the council's intervention.

In a statement, a spokesman said: 'We are pleased to see that Wiltshire County Council are taking the strong legal protections of this site seriously, and hope they continue to do so for other sites across the county.

'The woods are hugely important for wildlife (including rare and protected bats) and for our community's wellbeing.

'We hope they will be safeguarded and appropriately managed for future generations.'
Leading No campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine has mocked the Yes vote at a packed speaking event, claiming they spoke like they had 'been to Nimbin and had a few joints'.

Nimbin is a town in northern NSW town populated by many people who aspire to live an 'alternative lifestyle' and where the smoking of marijuana is common.

Hundreds of No supporters packed the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane as Mr Mundine and Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price headlined the No campaign event organised by the conservative lobby group Advance.

They were greeted with a standing ovation as they took the stage on Wednesday night.

Mr Mundine opened the speech saying the Yes campaign focused on 'victimhood, grievance and lies' - 'The first is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have no voice'.

Indigenous leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine took a jab at Yes voters saying they sounded like 'been to Nimbin and had a few joints' during an address to the No campaign in Brisbane

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'(But) when I go to Canberra, I'm tripping over blackfellas everywhere.'

He said the No campaign was aimed at making Australia the envy of the world.

'The Yes is about dividing us, you know? You've got to pick a team,' Mr Mundine said.

He jabbed Yes voters that they talked about 'love' and spoke of it being 'the vibe' - referencing an iconic line from the 1997 Australian film The Castle.

'The Yes campaign ... it's the vibe. They talk like they've been to Nimbin and had a few joints,' he said.

'We're about real solutions ... we want outcomes, we want people to make accountable for that.'

An ad played by Advance featured several Indigenous Australians, who were not named, speaking against the Voice to Parliament.

It included snippets of Senator Price and her husband Colin Lillie explaining how it would affect their family.

Mr Mundine said: 'We're gonna make these people get to school, get people into jobs, make their communities safe and those family and community values are back there.

'No more virtue-signalling, no more dividing us. We're going to make all these people and politicians do their job and spend our money properly.'

Advance executive director Matthew Sheahan said polls still indicated the No vote would succeed but warned: 'Make no mistake, we can still lose this referendum'.

'We cannot allow that to happen, that's why you're here, to be the grassroots foundation of the campaign ... to say "No, we will not be divided".'

Wednesday's event follows thousands of No supporters attending a similar convention with Mr Mundine and Senator Price in Adelaide, joined by SA senator Kerryn Liddle.

Ms Price has previously been critical of the growing 'ugliness' of the campaign amid claims Yes supporters have hurled abuse at their opponents.

She has also claimed Indigenous Australians opposing the Voice, such as herself and Mr Mundine, have been subject to 'gaslighting and bullying'.

Hundreds of No supporters (pictured) packed the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane

No supporters in Brisbane are pictured holding posters expressing their views on Wednesday

'We are sick to death being told how racist we are, how horrible we are. Our own children are being taught not to be proud to call themselves Australians in this country,' she said last week.

Polls have indicated the Voice is headed to defeat at the October 14 referendum.

Support for the Voice has fallen to 36 per cent, while the No vote rose nationally to 56 per cent.

Earlier this month, a Redbridge poll revealed the Yes vote was sitting at only 35 per cent in Queensland.
Pret A Manger has been slammed for its 'ridiculous' price rises - as figures revealed it as hiked the cost of its lunch offerings by as much as 72 per cent.

A humble egg and mayonnaise sandwich on Pret's delivery menu would now set you back 3.25 - compared to 1.89 in August 2020.

Over the same time period the price of a can of Coke Zero has increased by 54 per cent to 1.70.

Other items to see dramatic rises include a tuna and cucumber baguette, up 42 per cent from 2.99 to 4.25; and a ham and greve baguette - up 38 per cent to 4.75, according to figures compiled by The Times.

Analysts believe Pret is opting to boost profit margins over volume. Its accounts, published in July, showed that gross profits had jumped by 83 per cent to 279million last year.

Pret said delivery options were a 'very small part' of their sales and attracted a 'higher premium due to associated fees with our delivery platforms'.

This graphic shows the rise in prices on Pret's delivery menu compared to 2020. The 7.15 for a 'posh cheddar and pickle baguette' is the amount it costs at 'travel hubs'

It came as furious Pret fans slammed the chain for charging 7.15 for a cheese and pickle baguette - with the price almost doubling if diners opt to add crisps and a smoothie.

Customers reacted with dismay on social media as the eye-watering 'dine in' price for the chain's 'posh' cheese and pickle sandwich was snapped at a London tube station branch.

The baguette costs 5.95 at transport hub stations to take away - and, when coupled with a 1.75 bag of crisps and a 5 green smoothie for a fully rounded lunch, costs 12.70.

To eat it in store, the chain then levies a 1.20 VAT charge on the sandwich - taking its price up to 7.15, and the total deal to 13.90.

The price of the subscription falls by more than 20 per cent to 5.72, including VAT, for those signed up to the 30-a-month Club Pret membership who want to eat in.

A Pret spokesman said: 'We continue to offer great value for high-quality, freshly made food and organic coffees, alongside a dedicated value range of sandwiches, Made Simple, which are priced from 2.99.

'We also recently doubled the Club Pret discount to help customers save even more, so subscribers now enjoy 20% off everything in shop as well as up to 5 barista prepared drinks per day for just 30 per month.'

'Prices of our products are typically higher at train stations or transport hubs, due to higher operational costs, and like all food-to-go retailers, dine in prices are subject to 20% VAT.

'Delivery, which represents a very small part of Pret's sales, also has a higher premium across our menu, due to associated fees with our delivery platforms.

'The sandwiches sold in our shops are prepared fresh in Pret kitchens every day and throughout the day by our Team Members. This is a fundamental difference to sandwiches available in supermarkets, which are made by food manufacturers in factories off-site, and so we are facing different cost pressures that we are trying to absorb as much as possible.'

Sophie Gallagher was 'fully tipped over the edge' by the price tag at Pret's high street Kensington branch, which is next to a tube station

Is the 'posh' cheese and pickle baguette Britain's worst value sandwich? Pret argued the operational costs hiked the price

Sophie Gallagher was 'fully tipped over the edge' by the price tag.

Her tweet went viral on X, formerly Twitter, with more than 1.4million views and 320 comments at the time of writing.

She wrote: 'What the f*** is happening here.' Before adding: 'I want it to own a country estate for that money.'

Many quipped about its 'posh' name tag, while others simply said she should have gone to Greggs instead.

Marie McEntree said: 'I deliberately didn't buy this baguette yesterday when I seen the price... nearly fell over with shock! Opted for the cheaper sandwich but still felt mugged off.'

While Philip Livchitz walked out of one London chain last week because of the prices and backed his own sandwich-making skills.

He said: 'I remember walking into a Pret near Piccadilly last week and instantly walking out. People must be mad for paying those prices for something that can easily be made at home far superior for less.'

Jess used to 'absolutely love Pret' but has now been put off by the extortionate 'wild' prices.

Another X user, under the handle @craig_arm, posted a picture of a bottle of Coca-Cola and a Pret baguette which set him back an 'outrageous' price of 9.60.

People reacted in dismay on X, formerly Twitter, about the price of the baguette, calling the chain 'bonkers expensive', while another said the cost is 'outrageous'

The baguette is reported to have been at the High Street Kensington branch, where prices are higher due to operational costs. The 'posh' sandwich costs 4.99 to takeaway in non-transport hub shops.

A Pret spokesman previously said: 'Prices of our products are typically higher at train stations or transport hubs, due to higher operational costs, and like all food-to-go retailers, dine in prices are subject to 20 per cent VAT, as is the case with the price quoted here for our Posh Cheddar Baguette.

'The vast majority (87 per cent) of our sales in the UK are for takeaway, so most customers are not subject to the additional 20 per cent VAT.

'Like all businesses, we are facing intense cost pressures, which we are trying to absorb as much as possible. We continue to offer great value for high-quality, freshly made food and organic coffees, alongside a dedicated value range of sandwiches, Made Simple.

'We also recently doubled the Club Pret discount to help customers save even more, so subscribers now enjoy 20 per cent off everything in shop and up to five barista prepared drinks per day for 30 per month.'

The chain hiked the cost of its popular coffee subscription by 5 earlier this year, as the price of a latte soared from 2.95 to 3.30.

The move came against the backdrop of big increases in the cost of ingredients, including milk, coffee and cheese, and the need to boost staff wages three times in a year.

Pret customers shared their anger about the news online, with many saying they are going to cancel their subscriptions as a result.
All three said it felt like he 'watched them sleep'

EXCLUSIVE

A young teacher has told how she is too afraid to sleep in her own apartment after waking up to an intruder trying to climb into her window.

Simone Wilkins, 28, who until earlier this month lived in the second floor apartment in Sydney's Bondi Beach, was woken up on Monday, September 11 at about 2.45am by a loud rustling in the tree outside her open window.

When she went to investigate, she was confronted by the silhouette of a man's head level with hers.

Police are now investigating a series of similar break-ins involving young female victims in the exclusive Sydney suburb, who claim a mysterious figure was watching them sleep.

So far no forensic evidence has been recovered from any of the scenes, but Ms Wilkins is hoping a discarded pair of black gloves she found outside her apartment could provide key clues for detectives.

'I saw the silhouette and I just jumped up and slammed the window shut with such force it cracked the glass,' Ms Wilkins told Daily Mail Australia.

'I screamed and ran out of the room. It was just like a horror movie.'

Simone Wilkins (pictured), 28, who until earlier this month lived in the second floor of a short-term rental in Sydney 's Bondi Beach, was woken up on Monday September 11 around 2.45am by a loud rustling in the tree outside her open window

Ms Wilkins said she is a 'deep sleeper' and the man must have been making a lot of noise in the tree to have woken her.

'He was watching me sleeping,' she said.

'I know that because he was there at the window, which was terrifying. I was just shaking  in total shock.'

Ms Wilkin's screams woke her flat mate and they both hurriedly checked all the windows and locks in the apartment.

But the horror of the evening intensified when she shared her story on a local Facebook page to warn others - only to have two separate women privately message her to report similar creepy experiences.

'The break-ins were exactly a week apart at the exact same time, around 2.30am - 3am, which is bizarre,' said Ms Wilkins.

'All three of us live within a five minute walk of each other. One of the girls lives a street away from me.'

Ms Wilkins (pictured) shared her story on a local Facebook page to warn others. But she was horrified when two other women came forward to report they had experienced an intruder attempting to break into their homes that same evening

Ms Wilkins claimed the other two women were too traumatised to speak about the incident out of fear the intruder might strike again.

'They experienced the same thing as me, the same watching in the window,' she said.

'He actually got into one of the girls apartments before she screamed and he fled.'

Ms Wilkins, who works as a teacher, is now back at home in the Gold Coast for the holidays.

However, she won't be returning to the apartment.

'I thought Bondi was safe, like I never had a worry at all,' she said.

'But I guess there's lots of weirdos around.'

Pictured: An ariel view of North Bondi

Ms Wilkins (pictured) said she had the horrifying sense the man had been watching her sleep

Ms Wilkins stayed in the apartment for several days after the incident but was barely able to sleep because of the fear he might come back.

'I just could not look at the window without thinking about his silhouette,' she said.

'Until the day I left I could not open the window or the blind.

'I sometimes left work early, came home and slept during the day so I could then be awake at night. That's how terrified I was.'

Ms Wilkins said she noticed something odd in the days following the incident.

'I don't know if I was paranoid or not, but a few days later when I was walking down the street, I found a pair of black gloves on the ground thrown on the ground,' she said.

She took a picture and shared it with police.

Ms Wilkins said the other victim had told her the police forensic unit recovered no fingerprints from the house the intruder had broken in to.

A spokesperson for NSW Police said: 'Officers attached to Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command have received a report and are conducting inquiries.

'Anyone with information, or who wishes to report an incident to police, is urged to contact police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.'
A teenage boy knifed a 15-year-old girl to death 'with a machete after an argument that began with him trying to give her flowers' while she was getting a bus to her 19,350-a-year private school in south London today.

The victim, a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, was attacked at 8.30am - less than a mile away from the school gates.

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre, where a row between the girl and boy - who were both in school uniform - 'spilled out' onto a street busy with pedestrians.

Chevanice Thomas, whose friend claims to have witnessed the stabbing, said the girl had rejected flowers from the boy moments before he attacked her with a knife that resembled 'a sword'. Another witness claimed she heard the girl saying she 'didn't want to go out with him any more'.

The bus driver and a passenger tried desperately to save the girl's life but she died at the scene at 9.21am. Officers arrested a 17-year-old boy in nearby New Addington at 9.45am.

Today, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said detectives believe the boy knew the victim. He added that police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Old Palace of John Whitgift School is a selective independent day school for girls aged three to 18. It is consistently ranked as one the best in London and is a sister school to Whitgift School for boys.

A bouquet of roses was seen on the ground at the scene - after witnesses claimed the boy had tried to give the girl flowers

Forensics at the scene of the attack outside the Whitgift Centre in Croydon, where a 15-year-old was stabbed to death

Police forensics officers gather evidence near a bus in central Croydon, South London after a teenage girl was stabbed to death

A police evidence tent has been erected near a bus in central Croydon after a teenage girl was stabbed to death

Speaking to journalists at the scene, Mr Brittain said officers arrived within two minutes of being called and gave the suspect's age as 17.

He said: 'This is every parent's worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victim's death.

'This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

'The victim's family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

'We carried out urgent inquiries to find the suspect and within 75 minutes of the incident happening a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington. He remains in custody and will be questioned by detectives.

'We remain in the early stages of our investigation, however based on what we know so far we believe that we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this offence.

'From our initial inquiries, we believe the suspect may have known the victim. However, we're not in a position to release the victim's identity at this time.'

A spokesman for the Old Palace of John Whitgift School said: 'We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

'It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

'Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girl's family at this unimaginably distressing time.

One witness to the attack claimed she saw a boy and a girl arguing, with the girl saying she 'didn't want to go out with him any more'.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, said: 'There were about seven or eight children who got off a bus which stopped outside the Whitgift Centre.

'There was a young girl and young boy arguing. He had flowers with him and they were arguing about the girl breaking up with him yesterday.'

The location of the stabbing is shown in the map above. The 60 route bus was heading towards Streatham station

A forensic investigator on a bus at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death on Wednesday morning

Chevanice Thomas, 28, who works on the nearby Landsdown Building site, said her friend saw a group of schoolchildren and adults running from the scene immediately after the stabbing at around 8.30am this morning.

'My friend said there was people with their children running everywhere,' she said. 'The only person who stayed was the bus driver. A lot of people got out their vehicles and started running.

'My friend said they were off the bus, talking, the boy and the girl. The boy gave her flowers, but she didn't want anything to do with him. Then he got violent and stabbed her. My friend said the knife was like a sword.'

This afternoon, a white tent could be seen within a police cordon next to the double-decker bus.

A mother-of-two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: 'I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

'The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.'

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victim's friends, were trying to get back through the police cordon but were held back.

Croydon MP Sarah Jones attended the police press conference alongside Croydon mayor Jason Perry.

Police and forensic investigators at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death

Police and forensic investigators at the scene near the scene outside Whitgift shopping centre

A forensic investigator takes photos of inside a bus where a girl was stabbed to death this morning

Ms Jones said: 'I'm heartbroken that a child in my town has been killed on her way to school and I cannot imagine the grief that her family will be going through at this time.

'I want to thank the police and the ambulance services for trying so hard to save her life. They run into danger and I know they will be suffering today, too.

'I want to repeat the request from the police that if anybody has any information so anything please do get in touch.

'We all hold our children close and our community will take time to grieve, but for today we are just thinking of this young girl and her family. I'm so sorry.'

Mr Perry added: 'We all personally feel devastated by the events that have happened here in Croydon this morning and the tragic loss of such a young life.

'The community are feeling that hurt right now and we will do everything we can to support the community through such a very difficult time.'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Greatest Hits Radio London: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved family of the 15-year-old child who has been stabbed in Croydon.

'I've been in touch with the commissioner [Sir Mark Rowley] and we are in touch with the police.

'It's heart-breaking. An arrest has been made of another teenager in relation to this matter.

'There were other people present and I'd encourage them to contact the police. If they are worried about the anonymity they can ring Crimestoppers.

'It's really important people come forward and support the police to make sure justice occurs for this poor girl's family.'

Pictured: Bunch of roses left at the scene in Croydon where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death

A police car at the scene of where a teenage girl was stabbed to death after a boy 'tried to giver her flowers'. A bouquet of roses can be seen beside a tent

Privacy screens and a tent can be seen outside the Whitgift centre in Croydon while a bus sits beside the pavement nearby

Police Forensic officers at the scene of a fatal stabbing in Croydon, South London this morning

Privacy screens and a tent can be seen outside the Whitgift centre in Croydon while a bus sits beside the pavement nearby

Video and pictures posted on social media showed huge police presence and two white privacy screens surrounding the scene.

A number of Scotland Yard officers can be seen standing behind a cordon, with one holding up a towel while a paramedic carrying a medic bag crouches to the ground.

Beldine Kutima, a receptionist at a nearby four-star hotel, told the Standard: 'One of our duty managers went to get the bus but she came back in total shock and was crying heavily.

'She ran back screaming and grabbed towels from the back room and ran back out there.'

An estate agent who works near the scene where the girl was stabbed complained Croydon had seen an upsurge in violence.

Leigh Thomas, 41, said: 'I came out of my office and there were two ambulances right across the road and about 12 police cars.'

He added: 'Croydon has gone to the dogs recently. The other side of the shopping centre is a war zone.

'There's drug dealing, fights, there was another stabbing recently. I grew up around here, it's not what it used to be.'

A huge police presence is in place while buses have been diverted because of the incident

Met Police cars can be seen surrounding a 60 route London red bus in Wellesley Road, in Croydon, near the Whitgift shopping centre

Scotland Yard has confirmed a 15-year-old schoolgirl has died after being stabbed. An arrest has been made and police believe he may have known her

A number of police officers and paramedics were called to the scene while the area has been taped off

Home Office minister Chris Philp posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: 'Devastating news that a 15-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in Croydon town centre and died soon afterwards on the scene, despite the best efforts of the emergency services.

'Our hearts go out to her family who must be in deep shock at their terrible loss.

'Nothing can be worse for a parent than losing a child.

'An arrest was made shortly afterwards of a teenager believed to be known to the victim.

'We must redouble our efforts to take all knives off the streets of London, using every means available.'

Transport for London (TfL) has diverted its 60, 407, and 455 routes due to the incident.

Wellesley Road has been closed northbound from Whitgift Centre to St Michael's Road.
The battle to be mayor of London looks to be on a knife edge in the wake of Sadiq Khan's controversial ULEZ expansion.

Tory hopeful Susan Hall is just three points behind the Labour incumbent, according to a poll by JL Partners.

The 35 per cent to 32 per cent gap is a boost for Ms Hall following fears that the contest in the capital could be a rout.

It suggests that anger at widening the 12.50-a-day charge to the whole of London - credited for the Conservatives unexpectedly hanging on in the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election - is lingering.

The London Mayor contest is being conducted under a first-past-the-post electoral system - the same used for Westminster - for the first time after the government passed new laws.

Tory hopeful Susan Hall is just three points behind the Labour incumbent, according to a poll by JL Partners

The contest will take place in May next year, likely to be a few months before the general election.

Surveys before the full slate of candidates were chose had indicated that Mr Khan had a significant lead over other parties.

But Redfield & Wilton Strategies research earlier this month suggested that Mr Khan was on track for the narrowest of victories, with 33 per cent support to 32 per cent for Ms Hall.

It also highlighted the peril for Mr Khan if Jeremy Corbyn made good on hints he could join the race.

In that instance the current mayor was estimated to lose by 30 per cent to 25 per cent, with the hard-left MP getting 15 per cent.

The JL Partners poll for the Sun found that Mr Khan was on 35 per cent, Ms Hall 32 per cent, while Reform candidate Howard Cox was on 8 per cent. The Greens and Lib Dems were both on 5 per cent.

Ms Hall risked a clash with the government over HS2 in an LBC phone-in this morning, saying she would 'obviously prefer' that the line went ahead in full.

She was also given a rough ride over her previous social media posts.

Ms Hall insisted she 'can't remember' supporting a post by Katie Hopkins which described Mr Khan as 'our nipple height mayor of Londonistan'.

She brushed off liking a tweet with a picture of Enoch Powell by saying: 'If you're a serial tweeter, you tend to go through liking all sorts of things.

'If anybody is offended, then obviously I would apologise.'

Challenged over a tweet in which she called Gemma Collins a 'stupid fat blonde', Ms Hall said: 'People will throw these tweets at me and I accept it and if I offended anybody, I apologise.'

Sadiq Khan could lose the London Mayor battle if Jeremy Corbyn runs as an independent, according to a shock poll earlier this month

Mr Corbyn has repeatedly refused to rule out a bid for the mayoralty after he was blocked by the Labour leadership from standing as the party's candidate in his Islington North constituency

Mr Corbyn has repeatedly refused to rule out a bid for the mayoralty after he was blocked by the Labour leadership from standing as the party's candidate in his Islington North constituency.

Mr Khan has insisted he is relaxed about whom he faces, saying he is not surprised that people want to get the 'best job in the world'.

The 74-year-old is still regarded as more likely to focus on defending that seat as an independent rather than turning his sights to City Hall.

The Tories declared Ms Hall would be their contender in July after a chaotic selection process that saw a minister left off the shortlist.

Many had feared that Ms Hall did not have the profile or charisma to stop Mr Khan winning a third term.
READ MORE: Rats as big as crocs! Woman's description of vermin on her block sparks hilarity on social media

Taryn Brady, 29, who filmed rat encounter, said she was left in 'fear and disgust'

This is the moment a group of horrified New Yorkers is forced to hop over scores of vermin scurrying across their path from bins outside a pizzeria.

Footage shows a few rats brazenly scurry across the pavement before scores of them emerge from an overflowing bin.

Taryn Brady, 29, who was with a group of friends when she filmed the rat encounter, said she was left in 'fear and disgust' after she and her friends had to hop over the rodents running towards them.

Soreya Scilipote, 28, Annika Bennett, 25, Shannon Bohack, 28, Andree Garcia, 30, and Ms Brady were all left frightened by what they witnessed.

This horrifying rat encounter comes after Dailymail.com reported that New York City is now so overrun with rats that tour guides are offering trips to see the worst rodent-infested areas.

Footage shows a few rats brazenly scurry across the pavement (like the one left) before scores of them emerge from an overflowing garbage can (right)

The recent skin-crawling video shows the group on 108 South Street, in the South Street Seaport, as they were walking home from a music show on August 30.

Ms Brady, a social worker from New York, said: 'We were walking from the venue to a bar where everyone was meeting afterwards.

'At first we only saw a few rats run across in front of us, but then we ended up seeing hundreds in the trash can and subsequent dumpster.

'We didn't want to walk past in case a rat ran at us.'

In the video, the women can be seen trying to escape the rats by frantically hopping across the sidewalk.

They are screaming in terror while dozens of rats scurry out of the bin, with 'hundreds' still inside, likely nibbling away at leftover pizza.

Meanwhile the rodents all hurry towards another food source in the next dumpster.

Eventually, they all managed to make their way past the mass of rodents safely.

Ms Brady added: 'We ran past and once safe, talked and laughed about it for the rest of the night.'

The group did not report the incident to animal control - but said it would have been a good idea since it happened right outside a pizzeria.

This horrifying rat encounter comes after Dailymail.com reported that New York City is now so overrun with rats (like the one pictured above in the city in August) that tour guides are offering trips to see the worst rodent-infested areas

Some tourists are now looking for rat-related experiences with tour guides have including stops at notoriously infested locations (left). Rat tourism has become an unexpected phenomenon in New York City with some of the most popular spots being livestreamed (right) on TikTok

It's no uncommon to see rats jumping into open garbage cans on the city's streets

But not everyone is as freaked out by the rodents - some even come to New York to see the furry vermins.

'Rat tourism' is the latest attraction to be launched in the Big Apple, with savvy chaperons capitalizing on the invasion of the disease-spreading vermin.

Some are offering walks across the boroughs, including to Central Park, the subway system, near the Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Chinatown.

Meanwhile tens of thousands are tuning into 'RatTok' - TikTok channels taking viewers through the city showing how many rats are living alongside New Yorkers.

The rat infestation has become so bad last year Mayor Eric Adams was forced to appoint a 'rat czar' with the official title of 'director of rodent mitigation'.

New York City leaders have been trying to control the rodent population for generations with mixed results, but sightings of rats in parks, sidewalks and other places in the city have increased with things only getting steadily worse since the pandemic.

Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, rats survived a multimillion-dollar effort that aimed to reduce their numbers with more garbage pickups and better housing inspections in targeted neighborhoods.

The city even launched a program to use dry ice to suffocate rats in their hiding spots - but still the rats remain.

City officials insist they are winning in the war against rats with Kathleen Corradi designated the city's rat czar.

In June, the mayor's office even reported a 15 percent drop in rat sightings compared to 2022.

'New York City used to be known for our mean streets, but, going forward, we're going to be known for our clean streets,' Adams promised at the start of summer.

Time will tell if Adams is able to fulfill his promise - but for now, the rats rule.
Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of Victorian parliament to celebrate Premier Daniel Andrews' resignation on Wednesday.

The ecstatic crowd joined together in a countdown to 5pm  the moment Mr Andrews officially stepped down as leader of the state after nine years in power.

Some revellers even wore party hats and drank champagne and beer to mark the occasion.

'This is just the start, we are pushing for justice,' a lead organiser told the crowd of an event which was half party, half protest.

Many of those attending sported t-shirts or banners demanding 'justice' for Melbourne's Covid-19 lockdowns.

Hundreds of people (pictured) have gathered on the steps of Victorian parliament to celebrate Premier Daniel Andrews ' resignation

READ MORE: Was video of Daniel Andrews smoking sign he was about to resign? An uncharacteristic video of Daniel Andrews puffing on a cigarette days before he announced his resignation may have been a sign he'd had enough. Advertisement

'The system isn't working in the interests of the people,' a man addressing the crowd said.

A large police presence was established in central Melbourne as trams and traffic had to be diverted to make way for the large demonstration.

In slightly confusing scenes many of the crowd wore 'Dan must go' t-shirts despite the fact the Premier's resignation had been made official just a few moments before.

Others wore 'Make Australia Great Again' merchandise and held banners which included the words 'Ban Dan' and 'Dictator Dan wanted for crimes against Victoria'.

Mr Andrews announced his resignation on Tuesday, after winning three elections for the Victorian Labor Party.

Despite his success, he will leave a divisive legacy due to Melbourne's Covid-19 lockdowns, which were among the longest of any city in the world.

There was certainly no fond farewell for the departing Premier from those who packed the parliament's steps on Wednesday.

One protestor (pictured) expressed her wish that Daniel Andrews would 'rot in hell'

Promoters of the event (pictured) said thousands would attend, but only about 250-300 showed up

The party continued as the night went on

A musician led the crowd in a loud chorus of 'You can shove your Daniel Andrews up your a***'.

The event did not live up to some earlier social media hype promising thousands would attend, though.

Only about 250-300 people were present around at 5.30pm.

One confused bystander summed up the question of many bystanders, asking: 'Isn't he (Andrews) already gone?'
Germany has dismantled a 'deeply racist and anti-Semitic' cult that officials say had planned to indoctrinate children with Nazi ideology.

Investigators launched several raids across the country today as Berlin continues its clamp down on right-wing extremism.

Officers stormed 26 apartments belonging to 39 members of the neo-Nazi Artgemeinschaft network in 12 states including Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Brandenburg.

The extremist group is made up of about 150 members and has links to several far-right groups, said the interior ministry. All of its sub-organisations, including the Gefaehrtschaften, Gilden, Freundeskreise, and Familienwerk e.V., were also banned.

'We are banning a sectarian, deeply racist and antisemitic association,' said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

German investigators have dismantled a 'deeply racist and anti-Semitic' cult that planned to indoctrinate children with Nazi ideology. Pictured: An officer with a hydraulic door opener in Essen, Germany, today

'We are banning a sectarian, deeply racist and antisemitic association,' said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (pictured)

'This is a further blow against right-wing extremism and against the intellectual agitators who still spread Nazi ideologies today,' she added.

'This far-right group tried to raise new enemies of the constitution through the disgusting indoctrination of children and youths.'

The neo-Nazi group uses the cover of a 'pseudo-religious Germanic belief in God to spread their worldview which violates human dignity'.

'The group's central goal was the preservation and promotion of one's own 'kind,' which can be equated with the National Socialist term 'race',' according to the interior ministry's statement.

In addition to the ideology of racial doctrine, the symbolism, narratives and activities of the group showed further parallels to the Nazis' ideology.

The group gave its members instructions on how to choose a 'proper spouse' within the Northern and Central European 'human kind' in order to pass on the 'correct' genetic makeup according to the association's racist ideology.

People of other origins were degraded, the ministry said in its statement.

Using Nazi-era literature, the association sought to convert the young to adopt its race theories.

Police officers are seen searching a property in Essen as they carried out raids across Germany

It also ran an online bookstore that sought to radicalise and attract non-members.

The Artgemeinschaft was founded in 1951 by old Nazi Wilhelm Kusserow and has been a registered association since 1957. Well-known neo-Nazi lawyer Jurgen Rieger ran the group from 1989 until his death in 2009. The group was then taken over by Axel Schunk.

The members see the Nordic-Germanic race as superior to others. 'Struggle is part of life; it is naturally necessary for all becoming, being and passing away,' according to their 'creed'.

There are few public events organised by the right-wing group, although it celebrates Germanic-pagan festivals behind closed doors and often organises 'community days'.

The Artgemeinschaft describes itself as a 'fighting group' that 'has to fight for the possibilities of a species-appropriate lifestyle.'

They use the 'Irminsul' - or the 'world tree' - as their symbol. It is a counter-symbol to the Christian cross used by SS genealogists during National Socialism, according to Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Germany has banned a series of right-wing extremist groups in recent months.

Last week, it outlawed the local chapter of the US-based Hammerskins neo-Nazi group known for its white supremacist rock concerts.

Last week, Germany outlawed the local chapter of the US-based Hammerskins neo-Nazi group known for its white supremacist rock concerts. Pictured: Police carry out a raid on the right-wing group

The group is an offshoot of an American ring-wing extremist group and plays a prominent role across Europe.

Worldwide, members of this association refer to themselves as 'brothers' practicing their subcultural way of life. The group also sees itself as the elite of the right-wing extremist skinhead scene, according to the ministry.

In Germany, the grouping comprises around 130 members. During the early morning raids in 10 states, around 700 police officers searched homes of 28 group members. It was not immediately clear if any members were detained.

The core element of the group's ideology is the propagation of a racial doctrine based on Nazi ideology. The purpose of the association Hammerskins Germany is to consolidate its right-wing extremist worldview, particularly through concerts where it tries to appeal to non-members to radicalise them, the ministry said.

There were some 38,800 people in the right-wing extremist spectrum in Germany in 2022, according to a report presented by the BfV federal domestic intelligence agency in June - up from 33,900 in 2021.

The number considered potentially violent also rose from 13,500 to 14,000.
A drunk wine importer groped an off-duty British Airways hostess during an overnight BA flight to Cape Town as he boasted 'I get paid to drink', a court heard.

Daniel Grigg, 37, consumed beer, wine and a Bloody Mary cocktail during a business trip to South Africa, the jury at Isleworth Crown Court was told.

Speaking from behind a screen, the 35-year-old complainant said: 'I was trying to get some rest and turned my back and I felt a hand tickling me on my leg and thigh.

'It was the top of my thigh area and then the hand went under my blanket. I did not think it was happening at first.

'He was tickling and rubbing my leg and then it was like a groping. He knew where his hand wanted to go.'

Daniel Grigg, 37, (left) arriving at Isleworth Crown Court to answer a charge of sexual assault

Grigg is accused of groping an off-duty British Airways hostess during an overnight flight to Cape Town

Grigg, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault on January 15 last year.

Grigg was seated next to the woman for the twelve-hour flight.

The multiple texts she sent her husband during the flight were shown to the jury.

They read: 'The bloke next to me is p****d. He is doing my head in. This bloke next to me is virtually lying on me.'

She told the trial: 'He made an odd comment that he was glad that I did not stink and that he was not sitting next to someone smelly and that he was glad he was sitting in that seat, having booked last minute.'

Grigg, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault on January 15 last year

Grigg watched as she Facetimed her 18-month-old daughter. He also talked about his five-month-old twin boys.

'He was very friendly and chatty and told me he was in the wine industry and that he got paid to drink,' the woman said.

'He smelled, he smelled of alcohol. He had been drinking a lot of alcohol and his behaviour changed and he was making odd comments.'

Grigg says he had no more than four alcoholic drinks during the flight and his chatting was merely 'light-hearted and jovial'.

But the woman added: 'He was shouting and the passengers were telling him to be quiet. The lights were off and the meal service was over.

'His demeanour really changed from the person who got on the flight. I told him to be quiet because people were sleeping and he said he did not care.

'When I came back from the toilet he said: ''Where have you been?'' as if I belonged to him and asked what was the craziest thing I had ever done.

'The cabin crew told me to put my earphones in and ignore him and I turned my back on him to discourage him.

'I have a blanket with a picture of my daughter on it that I carry everywhere and he said: ''Isn't an economy blanket good enough for you?''

The wine specialist is the boss of a wine importing company

'His hand went around me and I just shot up and woke the lady next to me and went to the back cabin.

'It made me want to get off the plane, but I was stuck on the aircraft.'

She told the jury that the touching was over her clothing, with Grigg's hand moving below her stomach after tickling her thigh and leg.

'I went to the galley and I burst into tears,' she said.

'He then came to the galley for more alcohol and was told because of the incident he would not be served any more.'

The woman was moved to another seat at the rear of the plane.

'I put the blanket over my head so he wouldn't see me,' she said.

A BA colleague advised her it would not be worth reporting Grigg to the local South African police.

She immediately filed an Air Incident Report and told her union what happened.

The BA employee denied a defence suggestion she was 'disenchanted' with her role, due to the time spent away from her daughter, telling the court: 'I love my job.'

Grigg says he had no more than four alcoholic drinks during the flight and his chatting was merely 'light-hearted and jovial'

Grigg's lawyer, Hannah Beer, also suggested she was unhappy about being seated in economy.

But the woman said: 'Everyone would prefer Business Class, but we have to take what we are given.'

She denied recommending Grigg try a Bloody Mary, but did agree she did not eat her airline meal and texted her husband to say the food was 'disgusting'.

Grigg's lawyer also asked if she was angry about fellow-cabin crew not bringing her food from Business Class.

She replied: 'No, I would get into trouble if I ordered a meal from Business Class.'

The defence say the woman gave different accounts of the incident to different people.

The trial continues.
Shocking footage has revealed the moment armed cops swarmed a city centre - before police were then surrounded by a baying mob and attacked.

Bradford descended into lawlessness yesterday afternoon after a brawl outside the city's magistrates' court led to huge crowds clashing with police.

Youths wearing hoodies and masks were filmed charging after police vehicles and hitting them, as officers attempted to get away from the disorder.

At one point a BMW X5 regularly used by armed police, was chased by several men before one appeared to kick it, prompting the driver to hit the brakes and reverse towards crowds before stopping and driving off.

In another clip, firearms cops were seen sprinting through the city centre while a large group of officers attempted to hold back crowds at the entrance to the shopping precinct in Market Street.

A huge police presence was called to deal with the disorder in Bradford city centre on Tuesday

Footage recorded the moment police cars were chased by some of the crowd before allegedly being kicked

Youths wearing hoodies and masks were filmed charging after police vehicles and hitting them, as officers attempted to get away from the disorder

West Yorkshire Police later arrested six teenagers following the mayhem, which was branded 'abhorrent' and 'despicable' by civic chiefs today.

The afternoon of chaos was sparked after a group of men in balaclavas were seen 'acting suspiciously' in the city centre.

Police were scrambled at 4.30pm but said they 'found all in order'. Then, a short while later, cops were called back amid reports of a knifeman near the city's magistrates' court where a brawl had broken out.

The knife was seized and a 16-year-old boy was arrested, police confirmed.

But the violence soon spilled out onto the streets as a huge crowd of people gathered, prompting a large scale police response to quell the disorder.

West Yorkshire Police arrested a further five youngsters - three 16-year-old girls, a 17-year-old boy and 18-year-old man, for offences including assaulting an emergency worker and criminal damage.

The mayhem has outraged civic leaders, who today insisted Bradford was 'safe' and the city centre was 'open for business'.

City ward Councillor Nazam Azam said those responsible for the 'abhorrent' incident - widely shared on social media - will feel the full wrath of the law.

Video footage appeared to catch the moment one person allegedly kicked a police car

Following the alleged kick, the response vehicle is seen reversing back towards the crowd before driving away

In other footage, officers could be seen confronting crowds as they attempted to move them on from the city centre

'What happened is absolutely unacceptable. Our emergency workers are there to save lives not to get assaulted. What happened is completely despicable,' he told MailOnline.

'We will not allow this to take place in our city. The perpetrators will be dealt with accordingly and the harshest possible treatment given to them for their actions... They will get the book thrown at them.'

Officers have since stepped up patrols of the city centre following Tuesday brawl.

West Yorkshire Police told MailOnline: 'Officers were called at 4.25pm yesterday (26 September) to reports a group of males were acting suspiciously. On arrival officers found all in order.

'A short while later it was reported that a knife had been seen as males were gathered to the rear of the magistrates' court.

'Armed officers were deployed to the location and a male aged 16 years old was arrested on suspicion of possession of a knife in a public place. A knife was seized at the scene.

'A further five people were arrested, three 16-year-old females and a 17 and 18-year-old males for offences including assaulting an emergency worker and criminal damage.'

Bradford CID is leading the investigation.

Anyone who was in the city centre yesterday and who witnessed anything suspicious is asked to contact Police via 101 or use the live chat facility at www.westyorkshire.police.uk/contactus quoting log 1145 of September 26.

Information can always be given anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111
A mother who went to the pub instead of seeking medical help for her 13-year-old daughter before she died is set to take part in a probe into the teenager's death.

Robyn Goldie developed peritonitis and died in July 2018 having suffered a perforated duodenal ulcer after Sharon Goldie, 45, failed to seek medical treatment for her.

The High Court in Glasgow was told that in the week before she died, the teenager tried to get treatment but Goldie stopped her from doing so.

Goldie later admitted wilful ill treatment and neglect of her daughter between July 2017 and July 2018 - and was jailed for three and half years in October 2020.

A fatal accident inquiry was ordered into the circumstances of her death earlier this year by Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC.

A preliminary hearing at Hamilton Sheriff Court heard Goldie will take part in the inquiry, but she did not personally attend court today.

Robyn Goldie, 13, (left) became unwell at her home in Scotland but rather than get her help, her mother Sharon Goldie (right) went out to the pub

Goldie later admitted wilful ill treatment and neglect of her daughter between July 2017 and July 2018 and was jailed for three years and six months in October 2020

Depute fiscal Aimee Doran said: 'The deceased child's mother Sharon Goldie is now represented.

'I understand her lawyers were only instructed last Friday and they have now submitted an application to the legal aid board for sanction to request counsel for any inquiry.'

Goldie's lawyer Emma-Louise Loran told the court she appeared at the hearing in 'special urgency' after only being instructed last week.

The court also heard from lawyers who represent North Lanarkshire Council and social workers who were involved with Robyn before she died.

Scott Blair, advocate for the council, said: 'The local authority is intending to tease out what the medical authorities may have known and what may have been done in this case.'

NHS Lanarkshire, Police Scotland and the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration have all been written to and asked if they want to take part in the inquiry.

Sheriff Linda Nicolson ordered another preliminary hearing for November.

The High Court in Glasgow previously heard Robyn had developed peritonitis and then suffered a perforated duodenal ulcer.

Goldie admitted failing to provide her with adequate food, clothing or heating, hitting her, and permitting her to smoke cannabis and drink alcohol.

She also pled guilty to exposing her to unhygienic living conditions including cat urine and cat faeces which led to her getting fleas.

Prosecutors accepted her not guilty plea to a charge of culpable homicide.

The court heard Goldie had claimed Robyn was 'attention seeking' despite being in agony and begging for help.

After jailing Goldie, Judge Lord Beckett said: 'Even if your daughter could sometimes be challenging and difficult, she was subjected to a terrible ordeal of neglect and ill treatment by you over a long period.

'You had enough money to provide food for your daughter but chose not to and purchased alcohol and cannabis, you gave this to your daughter instead of adequate nutrition.'
A jealous doctor faces being struck off after allegedly sending naked photos of his ex-lover to her former partner - with lurid details of her alleged sex life.

Dr Gary Lucitt repeatedly stalked the woman, turning up outside her home and leaving her 'terrified' after she ended the 18-month relationship.

The gynaecologist, who worked at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, was jailed for terrorising his former partner - named in documents as Miss E - after meeting her on dating site Tinder.

But Lucitt, 44, now also faces being struck off from the General Medical Council (GMC) register - meaning he would no longer be able to practise medicine in the UK.

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) fitness to practise hearing was told he was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison in August 2019, after pleading guilty to stalking without alarm or distress between May and June 2018.

Dr Gary Lucitt, pictured, sent naked photos of his ex-lover to her former partner, along with lurid claims about her sex life

The gynaecologist, pictured, was jailed for 16 weeks after admitting a charge of stalking against the woman

Lucitt worked at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, pictured, but was later suspended after

Evidence from the doctor's court case, read out as part of the hearing, detailed how Lucitt had begun seeing the woman after his eight-year marriage ended.

Alan Taylor, representing the GMC, told the independent tribunal that Lucitt had undermined confidence in the medical profession.

He said Lucitt had sent a letter to the woman's ex-boyfriend containing photos of her in bed, and explicit claims about her sex life.

Lucitt reportedly signed the letter as a senior gynaecologist despite then being a trainee - and claimed his former lover was also taking drugs.

Miss E contacted the police and Lucitt was then arrested, the tribunal heard, but after the doctor was bailed the woman began receiving anonymous messages, including one that read: 'I hope you realise your life is going to get a whole lot worse.'

Mr Taylor told the hearing Miss E was at the beach when Lucitt drove past her and 'raised a hand and dragged it across his throat'.

The doctor also turned up outside her house twice, despite it being against his bail conditions.

When he was interviewed by police Lucitt described the allegation of stalking as 'ridiculous'. He claimed he had been driving past Miss E's house to go to walk his dog.

In a victim impact statement read out at the MPTS hearing, Miss E said she was 'at times terrified' and had become too scared to be alone in her own home as she feared Lucitt would appear at the window.

She said that while she did not think Lucitt would become violent, she wondered what he was capable of, adding that the stalking had caused her to lose weight and left her feeling paranoid.

Mr Taylor said Lucitt - who did not attend the two-day virtual hearing and was not represented - had not demonstrated any remorse.

He said Lucitt had continued to indicate that others were to blame for what had happened in correspondence sent to the GMC.

Mr Taylor said concerns were raised with the GMC about Lucitt's fitness to practise in 2018, by the executive medical director for NHS Wales after a complaint about the malicious letter.

Lucitt, of Llanelli, was working as a 40,000-a-year trainee obstetrician and gynaecologist, at the Swansea hospital but was later suspended. He faces being struck off the medical register.

The MPTS hearing in Manchester is expected to last three days and is continuing.
China has issued a stark warning to Anthony Albanese about 'provocative behaviour' and economic sanctions before his expected visit to Beijing later this year.

The communist power used its propaganda outlet the Global Times to denounce a delegation of Australian MPs who met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen late on Tuesday.

The cross-party group of eight is spending four days in Taiwan's capital Taipei for a series of meetings with senior economic, foreign ministry and security officials.

Under its One China policy, China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and maintains it is not a separate country, and some experts fear China could invade Taiwan and that Australia would be dragged into the resulting war.

The Global Times reported the visit to Taiwan - led by Labor's Josh Wilson and Liberal Paul Fletcher - 'is a test' for Mr Albanese, which could end negotiations on China's crippling tariff on Australian wines.

China has issued a stark warning to Anthony Albanese about 'provocative behaviour' and economic sanctions before his expected visit to Beijing later this year. Mr Albanese is pictured with China's President Xi Jinping in Bali on November 15, 2022

Liberal MP Paul Fletcher is pictured with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday night

Australia's official view of the 'One China' policy Under the 'One China' policy, the communist power claims Taiwan is part of China and not a separate country. Australia's official policy is that it 'adheres to its one China policy, which means we do not recognise Taiwan as a country. 'We maintain unofficial contacts with Taiwan promoting economic, trade and cultural interests.' Source: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Advertisement

Qin Sheng, executive research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said 'The Taiwan visit will only bring embarrassment to the Albanese government, because it could disrupt its configuration of China policy.'

Mr Qin warned that 'there are still unresolved issues between China and Australia, such as the wine dispute. China is unlikely to discuss this issue with Australia against the backdrop of Australian MPs' Taiwan visit.'

The bilateral relationship became fractured during the final years of the last Coalition government.

The diplomatic spat was sparked when the Morrison government called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the Covid pandemic.

The move enraged the authoritarian nation, who slapped huge tariffs on key Australian exports including wine, barely and coal.

Things have since thawed considerably under the Labor government elected in May 2022.

But the visit of the delegation - which also includes Labor's Graham Perrett, David Smith, Daniel Mulino and Catryna Bilyk, and Liberals Matt O'Sullivan and Claire Chandler - has outraged Beijing.

'By playing the Taiwan card, these MPs aim to create troubles in bilateral relations, seek international attention and gain political capital,' the Global Times thundered.

In a change from previous visits by Australian politicians, the current group has allowed Taiwanese officials to issue photos of their meeting with President Tsai.

Taiwan is Australia's fourth-largest export market and fifth-largest trading partner, with gas, coal and iron ore being Australia's main exports there.

Mr Wilson told President Tsai those figures could increase 'in areas like the global clean energy transition, critical minerals, education and tourism.'

He did not shy away from mentioning Taiwan's increasing tensions with China, though.

'There is no doubt that the people of Australia and Taiwan have a shared interest in a region that is peaceful, stable, environmentally sustainable and prosperous  and together we support an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific based on respectful and collaborative participation in the rules-based order,' he told President Tsai.

'Australia is committed to working with all our Indo-Pacific partners on that basis, because in our judgement it is both sensible and the right thing to do ...

'It's the only approach that will succeed in addressing challenges that must be shared, like climate change,' he said.

Chinese troops are pictured taking part in marching drills on the outskirts of Beijing. Some experts fear China could invade Taiwan and Australia would be dragged into the resulting war

Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Centre of East China Normal University, called on the Prime Minister to distance himself from the delegation of Australian politicians.

'If Albanese truly wants to mend ties with China, he should oppose, condemn and then rein in the rogue behavior of MPs visiting Taiwan,' he said.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said 'Australia values its deep and productive unofficial relationship with Taiwan, focused on trade and investment, cultural and people to people ties'.

'There has been no change to Australia's longstanding bipartisan one-China policy position.'
At least 100 people killed and more than 150 injured after the fire broke out

Holding hands, the beaming couple were unable to hold back their smiles on what should have been the happiest day of their lives.

But unbeknown to newlyweds Haneen and Revan, this was to be their final picture together before a raging inferno swept through their Christian wedding in Iraq today.

The young couple are feared to have been killed along with at least 110 of their wedding guests after the blaze, believed to have been started by fireworks, tore through the large hall in the northern town of Qaraqosh near Mosul.

Those who survived the inferno have described it as 'hell' with children as young as eight months old and entire families - including a couple and their three-year-old child - among the dead.

'This was not a wedding. This was hell,' said Mariam Khedr, crying and hitting herself as she waited for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren - the youngest being eight months old.

Video purportedly shows the newlyweds slow-dancing in the hall moments before the blaze tore through the large hall in the Christian town, which had survived ISIS occupation.

Hanneen, wearing a large white wedding dress, turns around in horror to see flames rapidly climbing the walls before burning material falls from the roof.

Chaos ensues, with the up to 900 panicked guests rushing towards the exits as the hall is engulfed in flames and filled with toxic smoke in seconds. Survivors said many were left trapped in the burning building as they couldn't see through the black smoke.

But unbeknownst to newlyweds Haneen and Revan, this was to be their final picture together before a raging inferno swept through their Christian wedding in Iraq today

Civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall's exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country

This image shows the wedding moments before the blaze

A firefighter checks the damage in an event hall in Qaraqosh, also known as Hamdaniyah, after a fire broke out during a wedding, killing at least 100 people on Wednesday

A victim lies at a hospital following a fatal fire at a wedding celebration in the district of Hamdaniya on Wednesday

The bride and groom were among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health officials, while 150 more are injured - 50 critically. But there are conflicting reports about their wellbeing, with some others saying the couple were injured rather than killed in the blaze.

Nineveh province Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaf said 113 people had been confirmed dead whilst the head of the province's Red Crescent branch said the death toll was not final but that it 'exceeds hundreds injured and dozens killed'.

'I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3 year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning,' a woman said outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags as vehicles came to collect those that had been identified.

A man called Youssef stood nearby with burns covering his hands and face. He said he had not been able to see anything when the fire began and the power cut out. He had grabbed his 3 year-old grandson and managed to get out.

But his wife, Bashra Mansour, in her 50s, did not make it. She fell in the chaos and died.

Hundreds of wedding guests, many of them children, were rushed to hospital with severe burns across their bodies, with many fighting for their lives.

Wedding guest Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as Haneen and Revan 'were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling and the whole hall went up in flames'.

'We couldn't see anything,' the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. 'We were suffocating, we didn't know how to get out.'

Other wedding guests also said that the blaze was caused by fireworks, which had been set off during the first dance.

A man injured in the fire, speaking from his hospital bed, said: 'They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.'

Family members are overcome with grief during a funeral of victims of the fatal fire at a cemetary in Hamdanya in Iraq on Wednesday

Mourners are overcome with emotion during the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdaniya on Wednesday

Rana Yakoub, 27, a victim of the fire is pictured, after a wedding celebration disaster, in the district of Hamdaniya in Mosul on Wednesday

Mourners carry a coffin of a victim of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, during the funeral in Hamdaniya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdanya, Iraq, on Wednesday

A victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

A victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

A child victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

Firefighters work at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, on Wednesday

Witnesses said the wedding hall caught fire at around 10.45pm local time (8.45pm UK time) during the couple's first dance.

Video shows wedding guests dancing together before the newlyweds walked onto the dance floor.

Harrowing footage shows Haneen resting her head against Revan while he holds her waist as they share their first dance. But within minutes, the wedding turned into a nightmare as the blaze broke out, sending shards of burning material to the ground around them.

Panicked guests began running out of the burning building, but over 100 were trapped inside and died of burns and smoke inhalation.

'We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn't got stuck,' said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.

Chaotic scenes were seen outside the building, with screaming guests crying for help from medics who had quickly arrived on the scene.

Injured wedding guests were later seen lying in hospital beds with bandages covering the burns they sustained in the horrific blaze.

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, said: 'The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60 per cent of their bodies burned.

'This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.'

In the blaze's aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as emergency crews sifted through the scene of utter devastation.

A woman cries during the funeral of a victim of the fatal fire during the wedding celebrations on Wednesday

A woman cries during the funeral of a victim of the fatal fire during the wedding celebrations on Wednesday

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdanya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdanya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Iraqi security officials inspect the site of the fire on Wednesday in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, Iraq

This picture shows the burnt out interior of an event hall in Qaraqosh where the fire broke out during the wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration in the northern Nineveh province

An injured man lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at the wedding ceremony, killing at least 100 people

The charred remains of chairs are seen in the gutted out wedding hall on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire on Wednesday

Video shows tables covered with white cloths set under chandeliers at the hall before the wedding ceremony turned into one of nightmares

Firefighters check the damage in an event hall in Qaraqosh after a fire broke out during a wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lays on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration on Wednesday

An injured child lays on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration on Wednesday

People gather around a truck carrying body bags after a fire broke out during the wedding

People walk past an event hall in Qaraqosh where a fire broke out during a wedding on Wednesday

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire at a wedding celebration with the charred remains of the building seen within on Wednesday

While there is no official word on the cause of the blaze, footage showed fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame, which echoes the testimony of injured wedding guests.

This was made worse by the wedding hall's exterior being decorated with 'highly flammable' cladding that is illegal in Iraq, civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency said.

The danger was compounded by the 'release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels', which contained plastic, they said.

'The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,' the civil defence authorities said, with 'preliminary information' suggesting fireworks were to blame for the blaze.

The Interior Ministry said it had issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall, state media reported, and President Abdul Latif Rashid called for an investigation.

Three people who attended the wedding said the hall appeared poorly equipped for the disaster with no visible fire extinguishers, few exits, and draped in flammable material that one said lit 'like petrol'. Fire fighters arrived 30 minutes after the blaze began, they said.

Most residents of Qaraqosh, which is mostly Christian but also home to some members of Iraq's Yazidi minority, fled the town when Islamic State seized it in 2014. But they returned after the group was ousted in 2017.

At Mar Youhanna church, where the wedding service took place before the evening party, deacon Hani al-Kasmousa said prayers for the dead would take place at the cemetery because there was not enough room in the church for so many mourners.

'Yesterday there was a wedding and happiness. Now we are preparing their burial,' he said, new coffins stacked along an alleyway near his church.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

'It could be a mistake by the event organisers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error,' Khoury said. 'It was a disaster in every sense of the word.'

A man walks through the gutted out remains of the wedding hall where at least 100 people were killed on Wednesday

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

Iraqi security men inspect the scene of a fire that broke out at a wedding hall in Hamdaniya, in Iraq's Nineveh province, on Wednesday

Soldiers and emergency responders gather around ambulances carrying wounded people after a fire broke out at a wedding hall

At least 100 people died in a fire at a wedding in a festival hall in Hamdaniyah

Soldiers and emergency responders outside Hamdaniyah general hospital in Bakhdida

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.

Anger is simmering in the area after it emerged that the exterior of the wedding hall had been covered in the illegal cladding.

It wasn't immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren't designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze.

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Safety standards in Iraq's construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.

And in April of the same year, exploding oxygen tanks triggered a fire at a hospital in Baghdad - also dedicated to Covid patients - that killed more than 80 people.

Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, northeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh was ransacked by jihadists of the Islamic State group in 2014.

Qaraqosh and its churches were slowly rebuilt after the group was ousted in 2017, and Pope Francis visited the town in March 2021.
A soldier accused of killing a teenager during the Troubles more than 50 years ago has died, a statement from the victim's family has said.

Daniel Hegarty, a 15-year-old labourer, was shot twice in the head after encountering an Army patrol in Londonderry's Creggan area in the early hours of July 31, 1972.

His family said they take no delight in the news that the man who had faced the prospect of going on trial accused of murder, Soldier B, had died.

The Hegarty family statement added: 'We take no delight in the death of Soldier B...We will offer a Mass for Soldier B as well.

'Our mother did the same in 1972.'

Daniel Hegarty, a 15-year-old labourer, was shot twice in the head after encountering an Army patrol in Londonderry's Creggan area

Daniel's sisters Philomena, Kathleen and Margaret previously pictured

In 2021 the Public Prosecution Service announced that it would not be prosecuting Soldier B. But that decision was challenged by the family and it was quashed by the Court of Appeal this summer.

The family have accused the PPS of dragging out the case and said they never really wanted to prosecute Soldier B.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said there had been institutional failings in the Hegarty case and that it showed the UK government's strategy for dealing with legacy issues would not work.

'Daniel Hegarty was shot and killed more than 50 years ago.

'It is a damning indictment on this society that his family have had to fight a lifetime for truth, justice and accountability.

'The PPS decision to drop the case in 2021 was a significant low and forced this family to fight again for their right to justice.

'The Hegarty family have again demonstrated grace in their response to this news. There is no victory for anyone in any of this.'

Daniel's family said they had been informed by the PPS that Soldier B died on Thursday

Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Herron said Daniel's family were informed of Soldier B's death 'at the earliest opportunity'.

'Where the PPS is made aware of the death of a defendant, that is the end of any potential prosecution in relation to them,' he said.

'I appreciate that this is an extremely difficult time for the family of Daniel Hegarty who have hoped and campaigned for many decades to see a criminal justice outcome in this case.'

He added: 'This particular case presented complications and an evolving picture in terms of the relevant evidential and public interest considerations.

'These resulted in a series of judicial review challenges to decisions that were taken and we recognise the additional distress caused to the Hegarty family by the protracted nature of the various sets of legal proceedings.'

Mr Herron said that the PPS decision-making in relation to to Daniel's case was 'undertaken in good faith'.
This is the incredible moment commandos from Ireland's Army Ranger Wing stormed the deck of a cartel 'mother ship' off the coast of Ireland on Tuesday, after bungling subordinates led authorities to the country's biggest ever drugs bust.

In the daring operation, the assault-rifle-armed elite troops fast-roped down from a helicopter and stormed the Panamanian-registered MV Matthew cargo vessel which had refused to stop in the Atlantic, firing warning shots as they boarded.

Video of the operation shows the helicopter hovering above the 630-foot MV Matthew as the vessel makes a sharp turn in the water, with the Irish special forces abseiling down on to the ship before moving out across the deck.

Once the commandos secured the ship, members of the Irish navy and the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau came aboard, where they found more than 2,250 kilogrammes (5,000lbs) of suspected cocaine worth around 136 million.

The raid came after a fishing trawler ran aground off the coast of Co Wicklow late on Sunday, which was also being monitored as part of the operation, amid suspicions it was en route to rendezvous with the cargo mother ship.

Last night, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the drugs would have 'no doubt been destined for Irish and European markets' and this 'will represent a blow to the organised-crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally'.

Justin Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said the drugs racket was being operated by 'transnational groups' that are 'working all across the world'.

This is the incredible moment commandos from Ireland's Army Ranger Wing stormed the deck of a cartel 'mother ship' off the coast of Ireland on Tuesday. In the daring operation, the assault-rifle armed elite special troops fast-roped down from a helicopter (seen hovering above the bow of the ship) and stormed the Panamanian-registered MV Matthew cargo vessel

Military personnel onboard the MV Matthew whilst it was being escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy after a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences

The elite Army squad used a technique called 'fast-roping' - where they attach a rope from a helicopter and slide down - to get on board the container ship due to the vessel's height. It's believed to be the very first time the Army has had to use this technique in a real-world setting.

The ship refused to stop when ordered to do so by the Defence Forces, leading to the elite Rangers having to board it around Tuesday lunchtime.

The multi-agency operation came just 24 hours after it emerged a trawler that was being monitored on suspicion of carrying drugs ran aground off the Wexford coast on Sunday night.

The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.

The MV Matthew, which was registered in Panama, is believed to be the 'mothership'  an integral part of the transfer of a multi-million euro cocaine consignment.

Once off the coast in the Atlantic, the vessel would distribute the drugs to smaller boats which would then ship them to other European countries, officials believe.

Three men across the two boats - aged 31, 50 and 60 - have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences, and are detained at stations in Wexford.

It has emerged that one of those arrested was medically evacuated off the MV Matthew before the military operation to seize it. About 25 remaining crew will be interviewed in Cork and police have said further arrests may follow.

The head of the Irish Defence Forces said the Army and Gardai had been working together for weeks to bring down the smuggling gang, leading to the MV Matthew being stormed by the Army Ranger Wing on Tuesday and impounded.

The vast container ship was on Tuesday night brought to Cork's Cobh Harbour for an inspection. Crowds of people lined the walls of the harbour as the vessel was transported to a naval base in Haulbowline, County Cork.

Armed members of the Ranger Wing were seen on board alongside ship crew members and other Defence Forces personnel. The agencies said a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found on board the cargo ship.

This was later reported to be 2,250 kilogrammes (4,960lbs) of suspected cocaine worth around 157 million euros.

Military personnel are seen onboard the cargo vessel MV Matthew whilst it was escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy after a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter on to the MV Matthew (pictured) in the early hours of Tuesday, after the vessel became the focus point of a multi-agency operation which began on Sunday

Cops believe the ship was being used by Narco terrorists to smuggle drugs to Ireland and on to other European countries. The major multi-agency operation followed an alert after a separate boat (pictured as a helicopter hovers above on Tuesday) ran aground off the east coast

The MV Matthew is seen today moored at Marino Point in Cork which is being searched after a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences

The Navy's patrol vessel LE William Butler Yeats had fired warning shots at the vessel after ordering it to stop, but it did not come to a halt or comply with directions to allow Irish authorities to board the ship.

In response, military commandos engaged the vessel, as shown in the video.

Personnel from the Army Ranger Wing - armed with sniper and assault rifles - fast-roped onto the container ship's deck from helicopters, firing warning shots as they boarded, in what the Irish Defence Forces said were 'challenging conditions'.

After the ship was made safe, the Garda units (Irish police) and customs officers boarded the vessel alongside the naval service. Members of the crew were interviewed by Gardai, and their documents were seized.

Officers are understood to be working with Interpol and Europol to establish if any of the crew have links to known organised crime groups.

The naval service escorted the ship to an Irish port where it was impounded. It will be detained for a detailed search and investigation.

Forensic examinations of 'every inch' of the ship will now take place, according to security sources, who said that the actions since Sunday could represent one of the biggest, if not the biggest ever, seizures of drugs in the history of Ireland.

Two helicopters and two planes were involved in the operation. The Irish Air Corps and Naval Service had been tracking the container ship over a number of days.

In a statement, the Defence Forces said: 'A specialist team from the Army Ranger Wing (ARW) then deployed by helicopter on to the MV Matthew via fast-rope insertion in challenging conditions.'

Independent TD Cathal Berry, a former Army Ranger Wing soldier himself, told RTE's Morning Ireland: 'Obviously it was a very kinetic operation but it's well within the comfort zone of the Army Ranger Wing.

'They're basically the Jedi Knights of the Army really,' he said.

Military personnel are seen along-side what appear to be crew members of the MV Matthew

Military personnel are seen onboard the cargo vessel named MV Matthew whilst it is escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy on Tuesday

Police in Ireland are said to have found 100 million worth of cocaine onboard a cargo vessel after it ran aground on a beach following a chase across the Atlantic

Speaking to The Irish Sun, one source said: 'It looks like this bulk container was used to smuggle drugs across the Atlantic before rendezvousing with smaller trawlers.

'This was a very sophisticated operation at the upper levels of drug trafficking. Some of the drugs would have ended up in Ireland but other consignments would have been brought to other European countries.'

The major multi-agency operation followed an alert after a separate boat - the Castlemore - ran aground off the coast of Wexford.

The Irish Coast Guard said it received a distress call from a vessel in difficulty off the coast of County Wexford at about 10:10pm on Sunday evening, after the vessel had hit a sandbank. Its movements were being monitored from then onwards.

Waterford-based coast guard helicopter R117, and Rosslare RNLI were sent to the scene, and attempts to tow the vessel were unsuccessful.

Officers believe millions of pounds worth of cocaine were thrown overboard.

Two of the three men arrested in the operation were winched from this trawler, while the third was held after the MV Matthew was stormed by the elite unit.

Officials believe they have busted a significant drug smuggling route and operation that brings narcotics from Colombia to Europe.

It is thought that gangs would hold the drugs in Ireland before moving them on to be sold across the UK and the European continent. The Irish Sun has reported that one of the men arrested from the trawler is a UK national, while the other is from Russia.

According to Irish reports, the country is seen as an ideal route to smuggle drugs through on account of its lack of naval patrols.

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly described the action of seizing the vessel as 'hugely significant'.

Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: 'It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

'These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.'

He added: 'This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.'

Gerry Harrahill, Director General Operation, Revenue and Customs (left), Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly, Garda Serious and Organised Crime (centre) and Commander Tony Geraghty, Fleet Operations Commander Irish Naval Service (right) of the Joint Task Force (JTF), deliver an update on Wednesday on the MV Matthew from Dublin

The co-ordinated operation, involving the Irish navy, Army Ranger Wing, Revenue and the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, resulted in the 'detention of a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America'

Armed members of the Ranger Wing were seen on board alongside ship crew members and other Defence Forces personnel

In a joint statement, Revenue and An Garda Siochana said the operation was conducted using Air Corps and navy assets in challenging conditions off the south-east coast of Ireland. The agencies said 'a significant quantity of suspected controlled drugs were located onboard'.

They added: 'After Army Ranger Wing personnel secured the vessel, members of the Irish navy, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) and Revenue's Customs Service were transferred to the cargo vessel, which is currently under escort by a naval ship to an Irish port.

'The cargo vessel will now be the subject of a detailed examination by Revenue Customs and An Garda Siochana.

'This intelligence-led operation was conducted in collaboration with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC N) based in Lisbon, Portugal, and partners from the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) and French customs service DNRED.'

Last night the Defence Forces, gardai and the Irish Coast Guard were seen searching the waters. The level of cooperation is said to be similar to those international vessels suspected of trafficking drugs worth tens of millions or up to 100million, the Irish Times reported.

The Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces commended the efforts of all personnel involved in the operation.

Lieutenant General Sean Clancy said: 'I would like to personally commend the courage, discipline and professionalism of all personnel involved in this successful operation.'

He said the multi-agency operation demonstrates the interoperability of the Defence Forces, underlining the 'unique capability that we bring to the defence of the State'.

He added: 'The significant intelligence-led planning by the joint task force enabled the co-ordination and execution of this complex multiagency operation.

'This operation demonstrated the importance of all services of the Defence Forces and their ability to operate in the most challenging of conditions.'

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee congratulated the State and international bodies involved in the operation.

She said the drugs on board which would have 'no doubt been destined for Irish and European markets'.

Military personnel onboard a cargo vessel named MV Matthew whilst it's escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy after a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences

A cargo vessel named MV Matthew is escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy after a 'significant quantity' of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences

In a statement she said: 'It will represent a blow to the organised-crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally.'

She said it shows the success of An Garda Siochana in building coalitions to tackle transnational crime.

'Illegal drug distribution and misuse does untold damage to our communities. Criminals may seek to overcome the barrier of borders, but as shown today borders are not barriers to effective criminal co-operation.

'Tackling organised crime is a key priority for Government and is central to building safer, stronger communities. We will always provide An Garda Siochana with the support and resources they need.'
At 9pm, Dayjia Blackwell was full of mischief as she told her 181,000 Instagram followers to gather on Walnut Street in downtown Philadelphia.

By 10pm, the youngster - who calls herself 'meatball' online - was excitedly filming a mob as they looted Apple, Lululemon and Footlocker, before moving on to a liquor store where she herself boasted of grabbing a bottle of Hennessy.

'Tell the police if they lock me up tonight its going to be lit, its going to be a movie! Everybody's gotta eat!' she said confidently into the camera.

It was a quick thud back to reality for Blackwell when police arrested her in her friend's car a little after midnight.

Dayjia Blackwell confidently livestreamed the crime spree in downtown Philadelphia last night, blissfully unaware that just four hours later it would land her in handcuffs

One of the stores looted was a liquor and wine store. Dayjia boosted a bottle of Hennessy

Still filming herself and the night's events on an Instagram live stream, she tried to talk her way out of it.

'We didn't have anything to do with this!' she protested, clearly forgetting about the hours of footage she'd so keenly put together and brazenly shared.

Blackwell is just one of the 20-odd looters who were taken into custody last night following the shocking assault on the city.

Ill-planned and fruitless - the thieves ended up destroying the stolen Apple goods they stole once they realized they were being tracked - police say it was an 'opportunistic' crime of epic proportions.

Blackwell was in the thick of it, sharing incriminating footage of her friends as they piled into the stores in their dozens to steal.

The looters tried vaguely to connect their crimes to the earlier Black Lives Matter demonstrations being held in the city.

On her Instagram account, Dayjia said she was ready to 'fight the injustice'.

The earlier, legitimate protests were organized in response to the dismissal of all charges against police officer Mark Dial, who shot and killed armed black driver Eddie Irizarry on August 14.

Irizarry was armed with a knife which Dial's attorneys and his partners say he mistook for a gun.

Dial, the cop, shot him through a rolled-up window.

The judge agreed with his defense and threw out the case, to the horror of Irizarry's family.

Fun's over: By midnight, the police had caught up with Dayjia and her friends in their car. She tried to insist that they had 'nothing to do with it'

Dayjia was put in handcuffs in front of her friends, who remained in the car. She had less to say as she was taken away by cops

Only herself to blame: The youngster could be seen trying to tell police she wasn't involved

ABC reported that police had detained individuals ranged from teenagers to young adults, and recovered one weapon.

DailyMail.com has approached the Philadelphia Police Department for comment on the situation.

Just three weeks ago, the Philadelphia Police Commissioner resigned from her post as the Democratic run city dealt with a wave of homicides and lawlessness.

Danielle Outlaw, 48, who has been Philly's top cop since February 2020, officially left the department on September 22.

Outlaw's new role will be the Deputy Chief Security Officer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she will oversee the airports, bridges, tunnels and other transportation infrastructure in the New York City area.

Twenty people have been arrested after widespread looting broke out in Philadelphia last night, with one woman who livestreamed the chaos

Before she took office, Philadelphia saw less than 400 homicides each year since 2007. Both 2021 and 2022 have seen more than 500 homicides across the city.

Another shot of looters outside the Lululemon store shows a large number of thieves making their escape, as stragglers are pinned down by officers

A large number of people can be seen running towards the Lululemon store in this picture during the spree

Latest figures, which are up until last Sunday, show how there has been 302 homicides in the city so far this year.

There has also been 402 reported rapes, 58,759 cases of property crime, 3,701 cases of aggravated assaults and 1,314 shooting victims.

As crime has soared across Philadelphia, it has come as homelessness and drug use on the street have become more prevalent.

Homeless people and drug addicts are often driven to petty theft as a way to find ways to sustain themselves or scrape enough money together to supply their addictions.
This is the dramatic moment a giant 'Russian made' transport plane careered off a runway in Africa and exploded into a fireball amid suspicions the jet was linked to the Wagner army.

The Il-76 plane burst into flames in Mali - where Wagner's troops are stationed - just weeks after the private mercenary group's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in an exploding business jet near Moscow.

The Ilyushin was captured on film landing in Gao but failed to come to a stop and quickly transformed into a raging inferno. It was reported that the plane's Russian pilot had died.

Footage shows the stricken plane ablaze with large black plumes of smoke seen billowing into the sky.

Some reports had linked the flight to the controversial Wagner mercenary army who operate in Mali and while this has been denied, it was left open the possibility that the paramilitary group was associated with the plane.

The 'Russian made' Il-76 plane landed in Mali but then careered off the runway where it exploded

This is the dramatic moment that the plane exploded into a massive fireball after crashing in Gao, Mali

Footage shows the stricken plane ablaze with large black plumes of smoke seen billowing into the sky

Dambiev pro-war Telegram channel said the crashed Il-76 was operated by a company from Belarus - a close Russian ally. The company is named Ruby Star Airways and is headquartered in Minsk. Pictured: A Il-76 cargo plane of Belorussian 'Ruby Star' airlines

It has not yet been established how many casualties there were but there are fears up to 140 passengers may have been on board.

The footage seemingly dispels reports that the aircraft was shot out of the sky by a man-portable air defence system.

It's understood that the plane landed too far down the 2,500 metre runway. It failed to brake in less than 500 metres and overshot the runway, exploding in a huge inferno.

Sources close to Wagner have denied the Russian mercenary group was linked to the flight, even though its forces are active in the African country. It did not rule out the possibility that Wagner was linked to the plane.

The aircraft was used by the Malian military, according to Grey Zone Telegram channel, which is close to Wagner.

'This plane, or rather the flight, did not transport any personnel of the Wagner Group,' said the channel.

It said earlier: 'There were no fighters or pilots of the Wagner Group on board.'

It was close to the airport in Gao, a frontline city in the country's long-running armed conflict

The aircraft (pictured on fire) was used by the Malian military, according to Grey Zone Telegram channel, which is close to Wagner

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group private military contractor, looks from a military vehicle in June before his death

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, and his top lieutenants were among the 10 people killed in the crash northwest of the Russian capital in August

The crash took place on Saturday but new footage has emerged of the moment the plane blew up.

Gao is a frontline city in the country's long-running armed conflict.

The crash was one month to the day after Wagner's billionaire boss Prigozhin - once a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin - was killed when his Embraer Legacy 600 jet came down near Moscow.

An explosion on the plane was suspected, and there were unsubstantiated claims Prigozhin had been assassinated on the orders of Putin.

Dambiev pro-war Telegram channel said the crashed Il-76 was operated by a company from Belarus - a close Russian ally.

The company is named Ruby Star Airways and is headquartered in Minsk.

After a failed coup in Russia in June led by Prigozhin, a number of Wagner forces were sent to Belarus.
A man said he managed to buy 540 cans of beer for nearly half price after a Sainsbury's self-checkout glitch.

Stuart Hardy popped into his local supermarket to see what they had on offer. He quickly spotted a deal on Peroni beer.

The store in Stafford, Staffordshire was offering a deal on a 10-pack of 330ml cans of the Italian lager brand.

The crate was supposed to cost 11 with a Nectar card. But when Mr Hardy, 42, put it through on the self-checkout, he claims it only cost 6 each.

Stuart Hardy (left, with friend Dave Hopson) said he managed to buy 540 cans of beer for nearly half price after a Sainsbury's self-checkout glitch.

Stuart Hardy with the cases of Peroni at his home bar in Stafford, Staffordshire

Immediately, he rang his best friend, Dave Hopson, 38. Mr Hopson said he was so shocked, that he had to do a double-take and check his bank account in the car park.

The pair said they then took advantage of the self-checkout glitch and bought 54 boxes of beer - 540 cans in total.

They claimed they spent a total of just 324 - but it would have set them back 594.

Luckily for Mr Hardy, he recently created a home bar so has plenty of room for the beers.

He said: 'I just popped in for a couple of beers to top my bar fridge up.

'Sainsbury's is usually pretty good but there wasn't a lot on offer other than 10 cans of Peroni 330ml.

'I thought: "Oh I'll buy one as a treat before I went to Asda and see what they had on offer."

'I took the box of Peroni to the self-checkout, and scanned the beer and it came to 6.

Mr Hardy and Mr Hopson said they then took advantage of the self-checkout glitch and bought 54 boxes of beer - 540 cans in total

'I walked out thinking "Was that right what I saw", double checked my account in the car park, and it was, so I rang my mate Dave.

'He said he would meet me there and see if it happened again with more.

'We brought 54 boxes in the end. We left very happy.

'The best thing about your own bar is the entertaining of friends is so much better.

'It's such a good atmosphere and just amazing nights.'

Sainsbury's has been approached for comment.
Aldi plan to build new stores in as many as 22 new places with 1.4bn investment

Supermarket chain Aldi has revealed the areas it wants to create 22 new stores as it invests 1.4billion over the next two years.

'Priority' areas where it wants to create new shops include Kensington in London, Cambridge and Cardiff in Wales.

Aldi said it had attracted around a million extra customers in the past 12 months, the supermarket said in its annual trading update.

The discount supermarket said there was 'a new generation of savvy shoppers turning their back on traditional, full-priced supermarkets'.

Britain's fourth largest supermarket, which opened its 1,000th store earlier this month, said it is committed to a long-term target of 1,500 stores in the UK  meaning it is on the hunt for more locations across the UK.

Supermarket chain Aldi has revealed the areas it wants to create 22 new stores as it invests 1.4billion over the next two years

Aldi said it is searching for freehold town-centre, edge-of-centre, and retail park sites suitable for property development.

The supermarket chain said sites should be able to accommodate a 20,000 sqft store with around 100 parking spaces. Ideally the location will be near a main road with good visibility and access.

The supermarket will also be investing in the development of new and expanded distribution centres, including its new distribution centre in Leicestershire.

Richard Thornton, communications director at Aldi UK, said: 'We want to make our great value groceries accessible to all, and to do that we need more stores, particularly in towns and areas that don't have an Aldi already.

'The areas we've identified in our latest list are places where there is demand for stores and we are committed to continue investing until we can bring our quality products and unbeatable prices to as many people as possible.'
A prolific bicycle thief with a 'sense of entitlement' was tracked down by the frustrated mother of an alleged victim - who sat outside his house with a sign that read: 'Where's My Bike Dave?'.

David Seager, 49, stole eight bicycles in a summer-long spree last year - months after Fiona Bateman set up outside his house after allegedly seeing him steal her son Graeme's mountain bike on a neighbour's CCTV.

Seager, of Witney, Oxfordshire, was reportedly identified by social media users after Mrs Bateman made an appeal in November 2021 - but she claimed 'not much was happening' after she referred the matter to the police.

The 54-year-old alleged that officers from Thames Valley Police told her Graeme's bicycle was 'just a bike' - despite the fact the 20-year-old doesn't drive and had relied on the 450 two-wheeler to get around.

Fed up, she then tracked Seager down and sat outside his house for three days with her placard, to the amusement of residents. A local Facebook group even dropped off a hot chocolate and a bunch of flowers.

Fiona Bateman outside David Seager's house after she claimed that he stole her son Graeme's bike - with a sign reading: 'Where's my bike Dave?'

David Seager (left) dodged jail after he was convicted of eight bicycle thefts committed in the summer of 2022. Mrs Bateman claims that Seager is the man seen on CCTV stealing her son Graeme's bike months before (right)

But at Oxford Crown Court earlier this month, Seager swerved jail for a spate of bike thefts in 2022 - being given a suspended sentence and an order to complete a drug rehabilitation programme.

Following the sentencing Fiona, who runs a haberdashery in Kidlington with her husband Bob, 64, said: 'We had a bike stolen by him. Does that mean I should feel entitled to steal someone else's?

'It's just frustrating that he got a slap on the wrist. Where are the bikes? How about buying my son a new bike?

'We can't afford the four, five, six hundred pounds to replace it. He stole so my son has to now walk. But that's OK, just as long as Dave doesn't feel aggrieved.'

Seager was interviewed by the police a number of times. In court he was shown footage of one theft that was captured on CCTV - but denied it was him.

He was said to have used bolt cutters to slice his way through locks in order to get away with bicycles ranging in value from a few hundred pounds to an e-bike worth more than 2,000.

One victim was said to have returned from an appointment to find that his bicycle, left locked up outside a GP surgery in Witney, had vanished.

Another bicycle was taken from outside Witney leisure centre, the court was told.

The defendant was said to have come across as uninterested when he was interviewed by a probation officer for a pre-sentence report.

Fiona Bateman says that she feels Seager has 'got away' with allegedly stealing her son's bike after he dodged jail for another eight bike thefts

Mrs Bateman's sign, which she sat with outside Seager's house. Police reportedly told her that her son Graeme's bicycle was 'just a bike' after she tried to report the theft

Seager's barrister, Peter du Feu, characterised his attitude as 'I had my bike stolen, I've got mobility problems so really I'm fairly callous about taking other people's bikes'.

Passages of the report were read out by the judge, with the probation officer describing Seager as showing a 'sense of entitlement', stealing bikes 'deliberately and brazenly' simply to get him from A to B.

However, Mr du Feu said his client was 'quite upset' by the report and 'embarrassed' - both by the probation officer's words and the fact he had stolen others' property.

But Fiona and Bob have labelled the claim he was stealing bikes to get about his local area as 'ridiculous', and claimed he was behind 'dozens' of alleged thefts of bikes.

Fiona added: 'We just think police are overlooking crimes like bike thefts because they are not major crimes - but they really affect our lives.

'Our son Graeme cannot drive, and without his bike he's now having to borrow his father's bike.

'The bike was not cheap, the cheapest replacement for his bike we can find is over 400.

'It really does feel like Dave has just got away with it.'

Cyclists have long shared their frustration at a seeming lack of inaction by police on bike thefts.

Earlier this month, MailOnline reported on Damian Groves, 34, who tracked down four professional cycles valued at 36,000 that were stolen from him in Newcastle-upon-Lyme, Staffordshire, in June.

Mr Groves grew frustrated after police failed to act on information he gave them - including the names of two suspects - and eventually tracked the bicycles to Poland, spending a total of 6,000 to get them back.

Activist Omar Terrywall has taken the law into his own hands, reuniting 500 people with their stolen bikes after posing as a buyer before confronting thieves.
Tony Abbott has come out swinging in defence of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who he said was subject to 'ugly, bullying' comments from Yes campaigner Noel Pearson.

Speaking after a rally for the No campaign in Western Sydney, the former Prime Minister addressed comments made by Mr Pearson that he claims were a step too far.

'Noel Pearson, bless him, still hasn't apologised for accusing Senator Jacinta Price of 'punching down on black fellas',' Mr Abbott told NCA NewsWire.

'...that was an ugly, bullying thing for him to say.

Former Prime minister Tony Abbott pictured led the No rally event in Western Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Noel Pearson accused Jacinta Nampijinpa Price of 'punching down' on other Indigenous people in November 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Senator Price led her own No rally in Brisbane on Wednesday night. Picture: NCA NewsWIRE / John Gass

'I've got a lot of respect for him in other contexts but I think it would be easier to respect him on this issue if he had come out and said sorry for that.'

Mr Abbott was referencing comments the land rights activist had made in November 2022, claiming Senator Price was being used as a 'black fella to punch down on other black fellas'.

'She's caught in a vortex that reminds me of Pauline Hanson 26 years ago,' he told ABC radio.

'It's a celebrity vortex, it's very compelling, it gets her out in front of people and it gets a lot of cheers but it's also a redneck celebrity vortex.'

Mr Abbott was met with a rock star welcome at the No campaign rally held in St Marys on Wednesday night, spotted pausing for pictures after his speech.

He took particular issue with the accusations of racism peddled at the no camp.

'There has been a lot of bullying, and a lot of moral intimidation, and a lot of nasty vicious accusations of racism thrown at people who have had the temerity to say that, to say no, to this divisive proposal,' he told the crowd at Wednesday's event.

'And the hardest thing in the world is to go against your noisy peers.'

The comments come just weeks after fury over comments from co-author of the Voice's co-design report Marcia Langton, who criticised the No campaign's tactics.

'Every time the no case raises one of their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism. I'm sorry to say it but that's where it lands, or just sheer stupidity,' Ms Langton was quoted as saying.

The prominent Indigenous leader was slammed for the comments, with some arguing that she was calling No voters racist, an accusation she has strongly denied.

'I am not a racist, and I don't believe that the majority of Australians are racist. I do believe that the no campaigners are using racist tactics.' she said in the wake of the comments.

The former member for Warringah went on to say that Australia's 'greatest citizens' were those who are 'just as proud of being Australian' as they are to be 'proud Aboriginal people'.

Despite the No campaign currently being ahead in the polls, Mr Abbott would not confirm he was completely confident of a win.

'I think it's true that the more people find out about this Voice...the less they like it,' he said.

'But I'm certainly not complacent that I don't think anyone in this campaign is complacent.

'...I'll be encouraging people, right up to six o'clock on 14th of October.'
Pro-Voice supporters hurled vile abuse at No voters as clashes broke out at an anti-Voice rally last night.

Hundreds of angry Yes voters descended on the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane on Wednesday night for an event featuring outspoken Indigenous No campaigners Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine.

Guests were ushered toward a back entrance, away from the angry mob outside. But their chants were unmistakable even with a glass wall separating them.

'Jacinta Price, you picked a side: genocide,' the protesters chanted.

'Jacinta Price, go to hell. Take your racist s**t as well,' they said next.

Protesters crashed the No campaign event, telling attendees they were 'racists', 'scumbags' and 'dogs'

Meanwhile, inside, No voters were chanting Jacinta Price's name, crowding the stage hoping to get a photo or have a private word with the Country Liberal Senator from Alice Springs

Within the confines of Hall C at Brisbane 's Royal International Convention Centre, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was treated like a rockstar

Hundreds of people turned out for the No campaign

As the event concluded, Yes protesters crowded the exits of the venue and began verbally abusing attendees as they tried to leave.

When demonstrators began migrating to the car park the leader of the group took the megaphone and shouted that Senator Price was 'one of the most vile racists in the country'.

The comments enraged No voters who had just spent their night hearing Ms Price give a rousing speech about her concerns with an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

'She's a hero,' one person shouted back.

Within the confines of the venue, Senator Price was treated like a rockstar.

No voters were chanting her name, crowding the stage hoping to get a photo or have a private word with the Country Liberal Senator from Alice Springs.

But outside tensions boiled over as guests from the No rally held their own signs and proudly pointed to the merchandise they were wearing - primarily hats and shirts - to antagonise the protesters in return.

Over the next 30 minutes, the two groups traded barbs as police tried to keep the situation from escalating.

Pro-Voice protesters crowded the exits of the venue and began verbally abusing attendees as they tried to leave

The leader of the pro-Voice group took the microphone and shouted that Senator Price was 'one of the most vile racists in the country'

Over the next 30 minutes, the two groups traded barbs as police tried to keep the situation from escalating

Tensions simmered over as guests from the No rally held their own signs and proudly pointed to the merchandise they were wearing - primarily hats and shirts - to antagonise the protesters in return

Pictured: No voters holding up signs opposing the Voice

Attendees - including journalists and photographers - were branded 'racist scumbags', 'scummy dogs' and 'racist dogs' by protesters, who questioned 'how they can sleep at night' after attending rallies in favor of the No campaign.

One No voter who threw himself in the path of the protesters appeared to be punched in the face, as police lined the streets in an attempt to keep the two rowdy groups separated.

The aggressive display is just the latest example of the divide among Australians as the debate over the Voice referendum heats up.

Just two weeks ago No voters leaving a similar event in Adelaide were called 'racist dogs', 'pigs' and 'crazy w***ers'.

But Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine are undeterred.

Backstage before they both greeted the crowds, they were amped up and excited to be campaigning. There were no signs of exhaustion, despite the intense schedule they've each had these past months

No voters and 'undecideds' were amped up to see Senator Price and Mr Mundine speak

Senator Price noted they'd needed to order more merchandise during the campaign because they'd sold out of the initial order

Backstage before they both greeted the crowd, they were amped up and excited to be campaigning. There were no signs of exhaustion, despite the intense schedule they've each had these past months.

Mundine was the first of the two to take the stage. He warmed up the crowd with a joke at Peter Fitzsimmons' expense.

'This referendum is more than what they talk about. All of us, whether we've been here 5 minutes, came here in chains 200 years ago or were here years, we've all pulled together and built a great nation,' he said.

'Multicultural, multiracial we're so good here we even like atheists. Until Peter Fitzsimmons become an atheist. But anyway.'

Mundine had a second crack later in his speech, this time at the Yes campaign.

He said: 'The Yes campaign is all about the vibes. They talk like they've been to Nimbin and had a few joints.'

Police lined the streets separating the Yes protesters from the No voters

Mundine was the first of the two to take the stage. He warmed up the crowd with a joke at Peter Fitzsimmons' expense

'We are about real solutions, accountability. We want outcomes. We don't want to be spending all this money with no outcomes.

'Education is the key. My parents had very limited education but they made sure we turned up to school every day and got an education.'

The crowd cheered and clapped, but when Ms Price stepped onto the stage, there was no doubt her speech was the headline act.

As she blew kisses and did a lap around the stage, one person in the crowd shouted: 'you're my prime minister'. Those gathered erupted once again.

'Now we know why we ran out of our first lot of merchandise, Queensland ordered it all up,' she said.

'We have been subject to identity politics, to guilt politics, we have been told we're a racist country and these are all absolute lies and don't we know it. Enough is bloody enough.

Mundine had a second crack later in his speech, this time at the Yes campaign. He said: 'The Yes campaign is all about the vibes. They talk like they've been to Nimbin and had a few joints'

When Ms Price stepped onto the stage, there was no doubt her speech was the headline act

'No more will we be subject to the gaslighting, the bullying, the manipulation.

'No more will we be the quiet Australians. We will be the noisy Australians, the passionate Australians who want the best for every single one of us.'

The Sunshine State has long been considered a 'safe' No vote, home to some of the nation's most conservative voters.

But the official Yes camp has repeatedly expressed hope that it could win Queensland over during the course of the campaign, mindful of the need to win four of the six states to secure victory on October 14.

Guests told Daily Mail Australia they'd come to learn more about the referendum. Many said they were either undecided or a 'soft' voter who could be swayed either way.

But inside the venue, the crowd was a sea of Vote No merchandise - shirts, hats and corflutes as far as the eye could see in every direction.
A Korean War veteran feared he would be left on the curb after he was ordered out of his Staten Island nursing home to make way for the migrants overwhelming New York City.

Frank Tammaro, 95, was given six weeks to get out of the Island Shores Senior Residence when it was sold to city authorities last month.

Ten people were arrested amid furious protests when the first migrants were bussed to the facility last week after the last of the elderly residents were thrown out.

The thing I'm annoyed about is how they did it, it was very disgraceful what they did to the people in Island Shores, Tammaro told a press conference.

One day there was a notice on the board, I think that gave us a month and a half to find out where we were going to go.

Chaos erupted and 10 people were arrested outside Frank's former nursing home in Staten Island when protesters tried to stop asylum seekers from moving in

The mayor says the city has already spent $1.45 billion taking care of migrants this fiscal year

I thought my suitcases were going to be on the curb because I'm not that fast.

If it wasn't for my daughter, they would've been on the curb. That was it.

I said, 'No, no, no, no, you're not moving me,' and they said, 'Yes, yes, yes we are.'

Everything was done behind closed doors  we didn't have a chance to actually make any attempt to stop them because there wasn't enough time.

More than 113,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in New York after crossing the southern border since last year in a crisis mayor Eric Adams has warned will destroy the city.

And another 233,000 were recorded crossing the southern border in August.

And around 100 hotels have been turned into shelters including the The Paul Hotel, The Paramount Hotel, and the Roosevelt which alone is now housing some 3,000.

The mayor is planning to spend an extra $1billion on hotel accommodation for migrants over three years, it emerged yesterday, with the citys public services facing swingeing cuts to pay for it.

'The migrant crisis has evolved into a financial boondoggle, with quietly extended contracts fattening the pockets of a few at the taxpayer's expense,' said Democratic Queens Councilman Robert Holden,

Mayor Eric Adams has demanded federal assistance and warned that the 'financial tsunami' will 'destroy New York City'

Adams ordered city agencies - including the NYPD, fire department and Department of Education - to slash budgets by 15 percent this fiscal year

New York City's migrant crisis is expected to cost the city $4.7billion this year. Above is a list of some of the landmarks that have been turned into emergency shelters as officials struggle to house nearly 60,000 migrants in the city's care

City planners have estimated the cost at $4.7billion this year alone, equal to the budgets for the city's sanitation, fire and parks departments combined.

Adams has warned that the cost could reach $15billion over three years, and that library hours, meals for senior citizens, and day care for three-year-olds are at risk as he lops 15 percent of departmental spending.

The city has a legal obligation to give shelter to those who make their way to the metro, and Adams has desperately turned to a variety of city landmarks, makeshift shelters and temporary housing as short-term solutions.

While officials have not revealed how many hotel rooms have been designated for migrants, hotel industry experts believe it's as many as 10,000, as reported by The City.

Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to, the Mayor said earlier this month. We are about to experience a financial tsunami that I dont think the city has ever experienced.

Every service in this city is going to be impacted from child service to our seniors to housing.

'This issue will destroy New York City.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently dispatched a small team to New York City to help determine how the federal government should respond.

The federal government has so far promised the city $140 million to help, although the city has yet to receive any of that money.

Adams condemned the ugly display from a numerical minority who greeted migrants with protests when they arrived at the Staten Island facility.

The asylum seekers were eventually able to exit the buses under police guard - hours after they arrived at the newly repurposed nursing home on Staten Island

Thousands of migrants have been bussed to northern cities by southern governors after crossing the US-Mexico border

Migrants wait to be processed in a shut down bar near The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan

'I understand the frustration that New Yorkers are going through and understand the frustration that asylum seekers are experiencing as well,' he added.

But city councilor Nicole Malliotakis said the eviction of seniors shows our country and our city's priorities are backwards.

My blood pressure went through the roof when I found out Homes for the Homeless cut a deal with the City of New York to turn Island Shores into a migrant shelter, the GOP lawmaker said.

Our tax dollars as citizens of New York should not be utilized to house citizens of other countries, especially at the expense of our senior citizens and veterans who put their lives on the line, paid taxes their whole lives and built our communities.
Canadian police have launched a probe into a series of posters that were put up advertising 'whites only moms and tots' sessions for parents who want to 'escape forced diversity and join other proud parents of European children.'

The adverts popped up on the streets of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, last week. They were taken down, and the city's mayor Brad West slammed the 'vile garbage.'

According to locals, the posters were seen in Coquitlam Centre shopping mall, local coffee shops, and at bus stops nearby. Some had been partially ripped down.

The poster, which caused outrage online, read: 'Are you looking for somewhere your children can play with others that look like them? Are they tired of being a minority in their schools or daycare?

'Escape forced 'diversity' and join other proud parents of European children as we create an atmosphere in which our kids can feel like they belong.

Canadian police have launch a probe into a series of posters that were put up advertising 'whites only moms and tots' sessions for parents who want to 'escape forced diversity and join other proud parents of European children'

Mayor Brad West criticized the posters and said that hate like this is not welcome in his community

'Invest in your child's sense of well being and racial identity by giving them the gift of time spent amongst their own people - because they deserve it.'

Attached was a QR code and link to the parents' telegram group chat, as well as an email address.

The telegram link brought users to the group, named 'White tri-cities parents and tots.' The link was invalid when DailyMail.com attempted to enter - but CBC reports that there were at least 200 subscribers in the group on Sunday.

Tri-Cities refer to the Metro Vancouver municipalities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody.

Mayor Brad West criticized the posters: 'As soon as it was brought to our attention, Bylaw officers immediately searched the area and all bus stops in the surrounding area, to remove the posters but no signs were present.

'Perhaps, it was removed by someone else in the community.

'This vile garbage isn't welcome in our community, or anywhere else.

'We strive and continue to work on building the bonds of our community and breaking down barriers, promoting all the diversity our city has.'

The city continued: 'The City of Port Coquitlam condemns all symbols of hate. The City values being a welcoming and caring community for all persons.

'The City of Port Coquitlam condemns this in the strongest terms and promotes an environment without hate.

'The City appreciates the community for sharing their concerns and for bringing it to their attention.'

Steve September, director of Anti-Racism Coalition Vancouver, said: 'Canada is not a white nation. Canada is a multicultural nation.

'This poster you see is excluding everybody except white mothers and their children.'

Some conservative-leaning social media users, however, argued that other racial-based groups do exist. One person wrote: 'So this is controversial, but when they organize a black only event it is powerful and cultural so its okay.

'Double standard.'

Others said that while they do not agree, they respected Canada's freedom of association. One user said: 'I don't like it, but they have a right to freedom of association.'

And some people simply made light of the situation. One man, who identified himself as not white, wrote on X in jest: 'My wife is white and our children are a blend of both my wife and I...

'The question is, can I send them for half days [laughing emoji].'
Police launched a hunt for Billingsley and warned that he 'will kill and rape'

DailyMail.com previously revealed she was killed on the roof of her apartment

Jason Billingsley, 32, is the prime suspect in the murder of Pava LaPere, 26

A violent sex offender accused of killing Forbes 30 under 30 CEO on the roof of her luxury apartment had his parole denied twice before a state law automatically approved his release.

Convicted felon Jason Billingsley, 32, is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Pava LaPere, 26, at her apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland.

The violent criminal was released in 2022 because of 'good credit', after being convicted of attempted rape and handed a 30-year sentence by a judge.

Initial reports that Billingsley was paroled were incorrect, with the Chair of the Maryland Parole Commission confirming to DailyMail.com that the serial sex attacker was denied twice, in 2020 and 2022  just months before he was released.

David Blumberg said that Billingsley was released due to an 'operation of law' in Maryland, which allows offenders to be released early for good behavior and credits.

Convicted felon Jason Billingsley, 32, is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Pava LaPere at her apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland

Initial reports that Billingsley was paroled were incorrect, with the Chair of the Maryland Parole Commission (left) confirming to DailyMail.com that the serial sex attacker (right) was denied twice, in 2020 and 2022  just months before he was released

He told Dailymail.com: 'He was not paroled, he was released on October 5 last year by operation of law.

'He had one in-person hearing in 2020, which was denied by the Parole Commission, and he applied again for release in 2022 but was denied.

'We had concerns about him, or we would have considered parole. He was serving time for a crime of a very serious nature.

'With regard to his case, it was not a difficult decision to refuse parole. It's a very sad and tragic case, she was a bright young woman with a lot to look forward to and to see this happen is heartbreaking.

'As a lifelong resident of Baltimore City, I've had this job for more than 20 years, there are certain cases you will remember, and I will remember this one as it is very tragic and very sad'.

LaPere's badly-beaten and partially-clothed body was discovered on the roof of the luxury Mount Vernon apartment on Monday. Cops named Billingsley as the prime suspect in her death less than 24 hours later.

The sex offender register shows that the convicted felon lives just 1.3miles from LePere's apartment, who had been reported missing hours before she was discovered, as cops launch a manhunt for him.

He is also suspected in another knifepoint sex attack a week before her death, with authorities refusing to say if they were probing him over any other incidents.

Sources told DailyMail.com that Billingsley attacked the young CEO on the roof of her luxury building

LaPere is believed to have lived and worked in the building where she was found dead on Monday

Billingsley has a criminal record dating back to 2009, and was sentenced to 30 years - but released after only nine

Billingsley, a 6ft 2' and 305lb convict, has a history of violent offending with convictions dating back to 2009 when he was just 18.

The felon was convicted of first-degree assault in 2009, and was handed two years of supervised probation.

Billingsley violated the terms and was then convicted of a second-degree assault case in 2011 - serving two years in jail.

Months after being released for the violent attack, Billingsley was convicted of attempted rape in 2013.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after the first-degree sexual assault, with part of his sentence suspended.

Court records show that 16 years of Billingsley's sentence was suspended, and he was given five years of supervised probation upon his release.

Billingsley was going to be under probation supervision until 2027 and was ultimately released after racking up four years and three months' worth of credits.

He was sentenced in 2015, but his jail term started in 2013 when he was incarcerated after being convicted of the prior attempted rape.

The suspected killer was set to serve 14 years of the 30-year sentence, with a judge suspending 16 of his sentence.

But he was released after just nine years of the sentence, due to credits that he earned while being incarcerated.

Brandon Scott, Mayor of Baltimore, said it was 'difficult to express the sorrow' for the murder of LaPere, calling it 'horrific, senseless and tragic'.

He said he knew LaPere, and said she 'would help anybody she could see'.

Scott vowed that Baltimore 'will not rest until we have him in custody', adding that he 'should not have been on the streets in the first place.'

Richard Worley, commissioner of Baltimore police, announced the name of the suspect and vowed to track him down and bring him to justice

Pava Marie LaPere, 26 (left), was killed by blunt force trauma inside her luxury Mount Vernon, Baltimore apartment, and her body was found by police on Monday. On Tuesday police announced they have issued an arrest warrant for Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, of Baltimore (right)

Scott said he was 'extremely frustrated' that Billingsley was free to attack again.

'We need to get other parts of the system to understand that these cases impact people for an eternity,' he said.

'Pava's family is going to be dealing with the trauma and tragedy of their loss for the rest of their lives.

'Police go out and do their job, as they did in this case, and then the state's attorney goes out, does their work, and gives the conviction - the conviction should be the conviction.

'We are tired of talking about the same people doing the same crimes over and over again.'

Investigators are remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances of LaPere's death, but sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that her badly-beaten body was found on the roof.

Reaching the area would have potentially meant climbing a ladder or fire escape, the source explained.

The macabre twist raises the possibility that LaPere was either led up there before she was attacked, or that her body was discarded on the roof afterwards to try to hide the crime.

Investigators are remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances of LaPere's death, but sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that her badly-beaten body was found on the roof

LaPere, who attended John Hopkins University, was named on Forbes' prestigious 30 Under 30 list this year for her impact work

She is the co-founder and CEO of EcoMap Technologies - which she launched at the age of 22 in her college dorm room

Billingsley is not believed to have known LaPere, who lived on the seventh floor of the building.

Police on Tuesday would not comment on how he got into the building, other than to say it was 'secure'.

Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley confirmed that he had issued a warrant for Billingsley's arrest, and is 'not aware' of any link between him and LaPere.

He said Billingsley was considered armed and dangerous, and was a suspect in 'at least one other case' that he declined to describe. Worley did not say how investigators identified Billingsley as a suspect.

'This individual will kill and he will rape,' Worley said.'He will do anything he can to cause harm. Please be aware of your surroundings.'

LaPere, who attended John Hopkins University before starting the company, was named on Forbes' prestigious 30 Under 30 list this year for her impact work.

She is the co-founder and CEO of EcoMap Technologies - which she launched at the age of 22 in her college dorm room. As well as her Forbes recognition, she was named in Baltimore's 40 Under 40 and Maryland's 25 Under 25 lists for innovation.

Pava was remembered as one of the 'brightest stars' in Baltimore, and a 'compassionate visionary force' by those who knew and worked with her.

Her $7million company EcoMap Technologies said in a statement on Tuesday: 'With profound sadness and shock, EcoMap announces the tragic and untimely passing of our beloved Founder and CEO, Pava LaPere.

LaPere was expected to speak at an industry forum in Pennsylvania on October 2, and EcoMap Technologies publicized the event yesterday - after she was found dead

The EcoMap Technologies team, including Lapere, pictured in front of her apartment building

'The circumstances surrounding Pava's death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time.

'Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.

'Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country,and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a standard for leadership, and her legacy will live on through the work we continue to do.

'As a team, and on behalf of our customers and the EcoMap community, we are devastated by this loss, and we pledge our unwavering support to the LaPere family as they navigate this heartbreaking period.

'We would also like to express our gratitude to the authorities and emergency services for their efforts and professionalism.

'We understand the publics interest in this story, but we kindly ask for privacy and respect as we grieve and process this unimaginable tragedy. We will share more about how we intend to honor Pava's memory and legacy in the coming days.'
An XL Bully campaigner attacked by one of the dogs he advocates for has insisted he still blames 'the owner' who he said 'was telling the dog to do that to me'.

Married father-of-three Ben Czyzyk, 38, from Wolverhampton, had puncture wounds and deep bruising after the brutal attack just after 10pm on Friday September 22.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline on Sunday, Mr Czyzyk revealed that while out walking with family in the Tettenhall area of the city, he asked the owner of an unleashed XL Bully to put a lead on it. At that point, the owner began to attack him, as did the dog.

It came just nine days after Mr Czyzyk, who is a dog owner but not of an American XL Bully, put a social media post up with a picture of one of the dogs, saying: 'Any breed can be taught to be aggressive. It's time we quit blaming the wrong end of the leash.'

But despite suffering 12 fractures in one eye socket in Friday's attack, he still believes owners are to blame and insists this particular owner had 'trained' the dog to hurt him in that way.

Ben Czyzyk, 38, was set upon after the dog's owner ordered that it attack him on Friday night

Mr Czyzyk showed pictures of his wounds after the dog attack on Friday in Wolverhampton

Mr Czyzyk had posted this meme supporting the dogs just days before the nightmare unfolded

Speaking to TalkTV, Mr Czyzyk said he left his home on Friday to go for drinks and a meal with his wife, when he came across an unleashed XL Bully.

'I asked him to leash the dog and he proceeded to attack me and the dog also attacked me, as you can see from my injuries,' he said - taking off sunglasses to reveal severe bruising and swelling around his eyes. 'I didn't come off very well.'

Confirming he does not support a ban on this breed despite the attack, he said: 'That's absolutely correct yeah. I don't blame the dog, I blame the owner.

'I've got friends with XL Bullys and they're not like that, they've been brought up correctly. Every dog born into this world, it depends on the owner how it will end up, through its upbringing.'

Mr Czyzyk went on to say that the owner was 'telling the dog to do that to me, had trained the dog to do that to me', adding that the animal had not been on a lead.

Two in four deadly dog attacks in the UK in 2021 involved dogs thought to be XL Bullys - rising to six in 10 in 2022, including high-profile maulings that killed children Jack Lis, 10, and Bella-Rae Birch, aged 17 months. So far in 2023, the dogs have fatally savaged three people.

Hospital admissions for dog attack injuries also hit a record high last year, with an astonishing 9,424 admissions - 39 per cent of which were reported as 'emergency', NHS figures showed.

Dr Lawrence Newport, a law and criminology lecturer at Royal Holloway University recently published a detailed report on the Bully XL, is worried about the trend.

He said that despite being a small number of the dog population, XL Bullys are responsible for the vast number of maulings and attacks. He said that in just one week in July, there was one dog a day killed by an American Bully.

Married father-of-three Ben Czyzyk, 38, from Wolverhampton, had puncture wounds and deep bruising after the brutal attack just after 10pm on Friday night

Mr Czyzyk had heavy bruising on his ear too and showed off a bite mark inflicted on his hand

Mr Czyzyk said he asked the owner to put a lead on the dog but he began attacking him, ad did the dog. During the interview he then took off sunglasses to reveal severe bruising and swelling around his eyes (pictured)

'Something we have noticed, is that they are only very recent to the country. And since they have been imported, for the first time we saw attacks hit their all-time record highs last year and it looks like this year as well we will similarly see sky-high fatalities.'

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline on Sunday, Mr Czyzyk said: 'I was out and about enjoying my evening when I came across a very vicious dog owner. When asked to put his dog on a lead he proceeded to tell his dog to attack which he also did.

'I think I got a couple of defensive shots in but I was no match for a XL Bully and his vicious owner. Thank you to all the hospital staff who helped me.'

A relative told MailOnline: 'We were so shaken by what happened.

'The dog attacked his ankles and then the owner battered him on the ground. The police did turn up and took details but the owner and the dog had fled the scene.'

The relative added: 'Ben is still recovering, so isn't up to talking about it in full at the moment.

'We still don't think they should be banned, they need to be registered and looked after properly. These dogs shouldn't be used as weapons and that's what this user was using his as - a weapon.'

Details of the attack emerged just a day after hundreds of XL Bully owners massed in London to protest at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's plans to ban the breed.

The breed is set to be banned by the end of the year following a series of attacks, including that of father-of-two Ian Price from Staffordshire, who was killed by two XL Bullies after they jumped out of a neighbour's window earlier this month.

Owners are in a panic and abandoning their pets, or begging vets to change official records to say 'Staffies' because they're worried their dogs will be put down.

Most say their dogs are completely safe and insist it is the minority of the animals which are actually dangerous.

But while the owners were out in force in London they did not have any of their pets with them.

Before the event, the message went out: 'Please do not take your dogs to protest. The police will antagonise and seize your dog.'

They are understood to have taken the decision due to the mix of fears the dogs could be taken and an obvious PR disaster possibility if one became aggressive.

In the last week, West Midlands county has seen two horrific attacks by thought-to-be XL Bullys.

One of the placards read 'Don't bully our bullies' while another declared 'stop bullying our best friends'

Many of the protesters were wearing branded clothing and the placards looked professional

Mohammed Sami Raza was left covered in blood with horrendous injuries to his arms and legs after the mutt pounced on him in Bentley Drive, Walsall.

In another attack on Monday, two rottweilers charged into a family home and killed two beloved cats - leaving the occupant and her children screaming for help.

Chilling doorbell footage showed the family happily greet their beloved pets from the car in Solihull. Moments later the two big dogs ran into the driveway and into the house, before wrecking the kitchen and killing both cats.

Any ban will include an amnesty for existing owners as long as their pets are registered, neutered and muzzled when in public.

Government officials stressed by requiring all owners to get their bully dogs neutered, the breed would simply die out. There are currently no plans for a cull.

American bullies are a relatively new breed, having originated in the 1980s. They are mixed breed bulldogs, typically American pitbull terriers crossed with American, English and Olde English bulldogs.

Though the bully XL is the most common, the dogs can also be bred with mastiffs and other larger dogs to make them bigger, XXL or even XXXL.

Despite their relative popularity in the UK, they are not officially registered as a breed by the UK Kennel Club, making it difficult to know exactly how many are in the country.
The windows of the shuttered bar at New York City's The Roosevelt Hotel, now home to 3,000 asylum seekers, have been covered with trash bags and sheets after migrants were seen sleeping on the floor and chairs.

The historic hotel, dubbed 'the new Ellis Island' by one city official, has become the registering point for the 300 to 500 migrants who arrive by bus every day after crossing the US-Mexico border in Texas. Many of them have been moved north by Republican governors fed up with what they say are open-arms policies by Democrats.

Migrants were seen sleeping on the floor and upright in chairs at the hotels former Vander Bar on Monday, hours before the windows were completely covered the next day, hiding the scene inside as the Roosevelt hit capacity, The New York Post reported.

Exquisitely located between Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building, The Roosevelt, which has 1,025 rooms, was purchased in 2000 by Pakistani International Airlines and Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who gave up his shares in 2005.

The hotel shut down operations during the pandemic in 2020, and reopened its doors as an emergency shelter and intake point for the over 116,000 migrants who have arrived in just a year. The city is currently caring for about 60,000.

The Roosevelt Hotel, dubbed 'the new Ellis Island' by one city official, has become the home of 3,000 asylum seekers

As the shelter reached capacity, cots have been placed in meeting and conference rooms for migrants to sleep

The Roosevelt, which has 1,025 rooms, was purchased in 2000 by Pakistani International Airlines and Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who gave up his shares in 2005

New York City has an obligation to offer shelter to anyone who asks for it under its Right to Shelter policy, and the hotel is among many in Manhattan designated to house migrant families with children, who have started attending schools in midtown this Fall.

Migrant families are offered everything they need once they reach the shelter's registering center in the lobby - from health evaluations to children supplies. As the shelter reached capacity, cots have been placed in meeting and conference rooms for migrants to sleep.

While desperate mayor Eric Adams has asked a judge to temporary suspend the Right to Shelter policy after warning the situation could destroy the city if he doesn't get federal aid, he has extended the city's contract with the more than 100 hotels-turned-shelters.

This was supposed to finish this year but will now end in August 2026 and cost a total $1.365 billion - almost five times the original price tag of $237 million.

The local government is currently paying about $385 a night per migrant family that needs housing and feeding. According to Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, asylum seekers are costing the city roughly $10 million every day. Adams has said the crisis will cost the city $12billion over three years.

Because there are so many Muslim families housed at The Roosevelt, officials have now made sure all meals offered are Halal. Italian food has become the go-to to food of choice, as reported by CNN.

The hotel is housing families from all over the world, but the biggest portion are from Venezuela and say they're fleeing violence, hunger and repression under the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro.

Asylum seekers are not in the US illegally as they await their cases to be heard, which could take years, but they don't have work permits, which has created an unsustainable situation.

Last week the Biden administration approved Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans, which will allow them to work, as the NYC mayor had requested.

DailyMail.com spoke to a Venezuelan asylum seeker who made his way to New York from Peru, where he first migrated after leaving the socialist nation.

Jonathan Caro and his partner Yorgelis Almarza, both 29, crossed the dangerous Darien Gap that connects South and Central America before getting to the city. They were at the hotel asking for help buying a bus ticket to Utah, where they have relatives.

Caro, who arrived over a year ago on his own, said they decided to leave the city because it has become saturated with asylum seekers, and they heard the local government would help them purchase the ticket.

However, others told DailyMail.com they decided to board the bus from Texas to NYC because of the right to shelter policy.

Honestly its because of the support they give us  we dont have relatives here,' Melvin Pinto, 30, said. 'We're not lying about needing asylum, we're running from all the craziness in Venezuela, - and it's not just hunger, it's armed groups and corrupt police if there's no opportunity[at home] we're simply going to leave.

According to CNN, about one out of four migrants who arrive at The Roosevelt ask for help reaching relatives in other states and leave the city at once.

Pakistan International Airlines currently owns The Roosevelt Hotel. CEO Muhammad Amir Hayat is pictured above

New York City's migrant crisis is expected to cost the city $4.7billion this year. Above is a list of some of the landmarks that have been turned into emergency shelters as officials struggle to house nearly 60,000 migrants in the city's care

Jonathan Caro (pictured) and his partner Yorgelis Almarza, both 29, crossed the dangerous Darien Gap that connects South and Central America before getting to the city

As asylum seekers continue arriving in buses from southern border states, Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Monday that an additional 150 soldiers will join more than 2,000 servicemen already helping with the migrant surge across New York state.

The National Guardsmen will focus solely on case management for the Venezuelans who can apply for Temporary Protected Status and then get a work permit.

Hochul's move comes as the migrant crisis in both NYC and Chicago reach a boiling point as thousands continue crossing the US-Mexico border before heading to north to sanctuary cities, where they have a right to shelter.

Many of the migrants said they chose NYC because of the city's right to shelter law, which Adams is now seeking to axe.

Senior Adams administration official, Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for health and human services told WNYC last night: 'We're back in court next week to really say, 'I don't think that the right to shelter as it was originally written should be applied to this humanitarian crisis in its present form.'

The city first tried to amend the law in May and has been locked in court-ordered negotiations with NY State and the Legal Aid Society, which represents homeless people.

Last week governor Hochul warned that asylum seekers who arrive in New York City will not be housed in hotel rooms as they have been in the past.

'We have to get the word out, that when you come to New York, you're not going to have more hotel rooms, we don't have capacity,' Hochul said on CNN. 'So we have to also message properly that we're at a limit - if you're going to leave your country, go somewhere else.'

The Roosevelt Hotel (pictured), Paul Hotel and Paramount Hotel are among those designated for housing migrants in Manhattan

Migrants were seen sleeping outside The Roosevelt Hotel

It's a stunning reversal from her statements in December 2021, when she promised to house and protect asylum seekers - before thousands of migrants began arriving every month from Sothern border states. More than 113,000 migrants have arrived in the city since last Spring.

'As you know, the Statue of Liberty is inscribed. It says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free,' Hochul previously said. 'You're welcome with open arms and we'll work to keep you safe... We'll not only house you, but we'll protect you.'

Meanwhile Adams said on September 9 that city spending would be slashed by 15 percent through next spring to cope with the influx of 116,000 migrants in 2023.

Adams - who is up for re-election in 2025 - told city agencies that they would each need to cut spending by 5 percent by November at the latest. There will then be another 5 percent slash in January and a final hack down in April.

He has warned that the city's services will be affected by the incredible additional expenses on the budget. He has previously stated the city is planning on cutting services such as library hours, meals for senior citizens, and free, full-day care for three-year-olds.
Alonniea Ford-Theriot claims that you can't hear the gunshot go off - but this would appear to be because the surveillance video contains no audio

A Houston Jack in the Box employee has denied shooting at a drive-thru customer - despite video appearing to show the moment she fires out of the window at his car.

Alonniea Ford-Theriot defended her actions yesterday, claiming: 'I'm not an angry person, not a mad monster out here. I'm just a woman trying to work for my family.'

The mother of two told ABC13 'you didn't hear the gun go off at all.' But despite the footage lacking audio, there is clear muzzle flash and at least one bullet casing is ejected.

Ford-Theriot - who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge over the March 2021 incident - is now being sued by the customer, Anthony Ramos, who was in the car with his pregnant wife and their six-year-old daughter.

Ramos and his attorney held a press conference Monday to announce the civil suit which alleges assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence by Ford, as well as negligence by Jack in the Box in hiring her.

Alonniea Ford-Theriot, 30, stood up for herself after CCTV was released of her shooting customers at the Jack in the Box drive-thru where she worked

Ford-Theriot said you can't hear the gunshot fire in the audio of the video (there was no audio)

Attorney Randall Kallinen released the video he obtained through discovery in the civil case.

The lawsuit states that Ramos and Ford-Theriot had argued about curly fries which he claimed were missing from his order at the Jack in the Box on JFK Boulevard near Bush Intercontinental Airport on March 3, 2021.

Ford-Theriot allegedly refused 'to fulfill the order' and told the family to 'get the f**k outta here.'

The footage shows Ford-Theriot hurling ice at their car and the court dossier alleges she also threw ketchup out of the drive-thru window.

The video then appears to show Ford pull a gun from the waist of her pants and shoot at least two rounds at the vehicle as it speeds off.

Ford-Theriot claims she was being racially abused by Ramos and that they both owed each other an apology. Ramos denies making the offensive comments.

Ford-Theriot told ABC13: 'I'm not going to pull out no gun and shoot at somebody over no curly fries. Come on.'

She was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon which is a felony but eventually pleaded guilty to deadly conduct which is only a misdemeanor.

Ford-Theriot completed one year of deferred adjudication community supervision in June 2023 for her crime.

She said: 'I served my sentence. Paid my fees. I did what I had to do. What else do you want from me?

'I can't give you nothing but an apology if you want that but I need the same thing,

'We both need to apologize to each other.'

The gunshot came after a dispute with the Ramos family over curly fries because the Jack in the Box employees allegedly forgot the fries for the meal combo and said they weren't gonna get them

The dispute escalated and food was thrown out of the drive-thru window. Ford-Theriot claims Anthony Ramos used racial slurs while he verbally attacked her

Ramos had stopped by the chain's drive thru with his family after he picked up his pregnant wife and their six-year-old daughter from the airport.

He said: 'I was dumbfounded by it. I really couldn't believe what was happening. It was scary. It was very, very scary.'

'It was more of a panic mode at that moment. I'm lucky that I saw it when I saw it and I was able to pull off when I did and then my initial reaction was to call the police.

After launching a lawsuit last September, Ramos said: 'We are here today to ask Jack in the Box to get better policies and policies where potentially dangerous employees are not allowed to interact with the public where they could be a great danger.'

Randall Kalinen, the family's attorney said: 'When they asked to get curly fries, they were denied, and keep in mind, there's no car behind them.

'So, there was no rush to get them out. They offered to pay for the curly fries, even though they had already paid for it already, but the answer was no.

'Pretty soon there was shouting.'
Jackson, Mississippi, is deemed the worst, with a score of just 26.8

olumbia, MD came out top overall with a score of 73.96

Columbia in Maryland has been named the best city in the US for women to live in, according to a new study.

The community 20 miles south of Baltimore has the highest median earnings for female workers, along with one of the highest scores for women's health care and safety.

Women in the area can expect to earn a median salary of $51, 526 when adjusted for the cost of living, three times that of women in Anaheim, California, where median salaries are lowest.

The city also was ranked sixth best for women's safety and access to healthcare, based on metrics such as the quality of women's hospitals and female suicide rates.

Professors Diane F Halpern and Laurie Finke compared data from 182 cities across 15 key indicators of living standards for women to determine the results. Overall, they scored the city 73.96 out of a possible 100.

Researchers ranked criteria around women's economic and social wellbeing alongside health data to rank 182 US cities for the best and worst places for women to live

Columbia, Maryland, came out on top as the best place for women to live due to its higher than average median salary and the quality of female healthcare and access

South Burlington, VT came in second for the best standard of living for women and is known for its proximity to the Green Mountains

Fremont, CA was among three Californian cities tipped as the best place for women to live in 2023

The suburban city of Irvine in Orange County also ranked highly for women's quality of living.

Santa Clarita, CA rounded out the top five owing to its high score for women's safety and health

Women make up almost 52 per cent of the population of Columbia and account for around 54,000 of its residents according to the most recent census.

After Columbia, South Burlington, VT was the next best city for women, followed by three Californian cities: Irvine, Fremont and Santa Clarita.

Meanwhile, Jackson in Mississippi was branded the worst place for women to live with a score of just 26.8, according to Wallethub.

This was preceded by Gulfport around 160 miles away, then Brownsville in Texas, Huntington, West Virginia, and Shreveport, Louisiana.

The researchers analyzed standards across women's 'economic and social wellbeing' and 'health care and safety' for 150 of the most populated US cities including at least two of the most populated cities in each state.

Charleston, South Carolina was ranked best for women's economic and social wellbeing, while Yonkers, New York, came out top for female health care and safety.

Jackson, Mississippi, (pictured here during flooding of the Pearl River in August 2022) was determined the wort place for women to live

Brownsville, Texas achieved a score of just 32.38 out of 100 making it the third worst place for women to live

Shreveport, Louisiana was ranked low for both women's economic and social wellbeing as well as safety

Unemployment rates are lowest in Portland, Maine, while in Detroit, Michigan, where rates are highest they were seven times more.

Pearl City in Hawaii has the lowest levels of female poverty, but highest in Huntington where it is around seven times more.

Life expectancy for women in the West Virginia city is also lowest for the whole country.

By comparison women in San Jose, California, can expect to live the longest.

Other factors compared included the number of female-owned businesses, the number of of active and obese women and the female uninsured rate.
Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to explosive charges that he was bribed with $100,000 worth of gold bars and piles of cash to hand U.S. secrets to Egypt and do favors for New Jersey businessmen.

The embattled Democrat made his first appearance in a federal court in Manhattan as the unprecedented scandal rocked Congress and a clamor from colleagues for him to resign reached a crescendo.

Earlier, Menendez, 69, arrived at court hand-in-hand with his Lebanon-born wife Nadine, 56, who pleaded not guilty to the same charges related to a shocking alleged years-long corruption scheme.

The couple clutched on to each other, looking grim-faced but saying nothing, as they ran a gauntlet of protesters outside.

Fred Daibes, 66, a developer accused of bribing Menendez with gold bars and envelopes stuffed with bills, also arrived at the court to answer the charges.

Senator Bob Menendez (far left) and his wife Nadine Menendez (far right) sit in court with their lawyers

A protester holds a sign as the senator (middle) and his wife arrive at court

Fred Daibes arrives for his court appearance alongside Senator Bob Menendez at Manhattan Federal Court on September 27, 2023 in New York City

Lawyers entered not guilty pleas on behalf of both Menendez and his wife.

Following the hearing the senator was released on a bond of $100,000 and had to surrender his personal passport.

He was allowed to keep his official passport and will be allowed to travel overseas on official duties.

His wife was released on a bond of $250,000.

Neither made any comment as they left court holding hands.

Menendez was forced to step down as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee after the indictment was brought last week.

But he has been defiant and says allegations that he abused his power to line his own pockets are baseless.

He has said he is confident he will be exonerated and has no intention of leaving the Senate.

Authorities say they found nearly $500,000 in cash, much of it hidden in clothing and closets, at his home.

There were also gold bars worth more than $100,000 at the house in New Jersey which Menendez, 69, shares with his wife.

He has hired Hunter Biden's lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent him in the bribery case.

On Monday, Menendez launched a passionate defense, saying the cash found in his home was drawn from his personal savings accounts over the years, and that he kept on hand for emergencies.

It is the second corruption case in a decade against Menendez, whose last trial involving different allegations ended with jurors failing to reach a verdict in 2017.

Bob and Nadine Menendez attend an event in Italy on Sept 1, 2023

Two of the gold bars found during a search by federal agents of Sen. Bob Menendez's home and safe deposit box

Fellow New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker on Tuesday joined the calls for Menendez to resign, saying the indictment contains 'shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing.'

Around half of Senate Democrats have now said that Menendez should step down, including several running for reelection next year.

Also set to be arraigned Wednesday is Menendez's wife, Nadine, who prosecutors say played a key role in collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes from three New Jersey businessmen seeking help from the powerful lawmaker.

An attorney for Nadine Menendez has said she also denies the allegations and will fight the charges.

Two of the businessmen - Daibes and Jose Uribe, 56, - are also expected to be arraigned.

The third man, Wael Hana, 40, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery.

Hana was arrested at New York's Kennedy airport Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges, and was ordered freed pending trial.

Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine arrive for a reception in the East Room of the White House on May 16, 2022

One of the envelopes full of cash found at the senator's home bore Daibes' DNA and was marked with the real estate developer's return address, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Hana promised to put Menendez's wife on his company's payroll in a low-or-no-show job in exchange for Menendez using his influential post to facilitate foreign military sales and financing to Egypt.

Prosecutors allege Hana also paid $23,000 toward her home mortgage, wrote $30,000 checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars that were found in the couple's home.

The indictment alleges repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt, despite U.S. government misgivings over the country's human rights record that in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid.

Bob Menendez arriving at court in New York City

Fred Daibes arriving at court

A Mercedes-Benz convertible allegedly purchased as a bribe for Nadine Menendez

Prosecutors, who detailed meetings and dinners between Menendez and Egyptian officials, say Menendez gave sensitive U.S. government information to Egyptian officials.

They say he also ghost wrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of U.S. military support.

Prosecutors also accuse Menendez of pressuring a U.S. agricultural official to stop opposing a lucrative deal that gave Hana's company a monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards.

They also allege Menendez tried to interfere in criminal investigations involving associates.

In one case, he allegedly pushed to install a federal prosecutor in New Jersey whom Menendez believed he could influence to derail a criminal case against Daibes.
He was rushed to hospital and is now stable

A Senior Constable has been shot in the neck

A police officer has been rushed to hospital after he was shot during a firearms training exercise.

The Senior Constable, believed to be in his 30s, was hit in the neck with rogue bullet debris at Brisbane's Pistol Club in Belmont at about 1pm on Wednesday.

Queensland Police said that another officer shot a metal pole during the routine training which split apart and struck the Senior Constable from the Moreton District.

A Senior Constable in his 30s has been rushed to hospital in a stable condition after he was shot in the neck during a routine training exercise at Brisbane's Pistol Club (pictured)

A police spokesperson said that a stray bullet 'hit a metal bar on the target, causing a small piece of metal to ricochet back and hit the trainer in the right side of the neck'

The incident happened when the Senior Constable was 'supervising as part of his requalification rifle supervisor training,' a police spokesperson said.

A stray bullet 'hit a metal bar on the target, causing a small piece of metal to ricochet back and hit the trainer in the right side of the neck.'

Paramedics took the Senior Constable to the Princess Alexandria Hospital with a neck injury and he is now in a stable condition.

Support is now being offered to all officers involved in the incident.
A Republican congressman has claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci was invited to CIA headquarters to participate in the agency's probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, made the claim in a letter on Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General.

'According to information gathered by the Select Subcommittee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, played a role in the Central Intelligence Agency's review of the origins of COVID-19,' wrote Wenstrup.

'The information provided suggests that Dr. Fauci was escorted into Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Headquarterswithout a record of entryand participated in the analysis to 'influence' the Agency's review,' he added.

The letter does not specify the source of the information, the date of Fauci's alleged CIA visit, or the nature of his purported advice or influence on the CIA probe.

A Republican congressman has claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci was invited to CIA headquarters to participate in the agency's probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic

A spokesperson for the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'The SSCP has received information from multiple sources across multiple agencies regarding Dr. Faucis movements to and from the CIA.'

'As such, we have requested a range of relevant documents and a transcribed interview with the Special Agent who has direct knowledge of Dr. Faucis detail. The SSCP is and will continue to vigorously investigate the serious claims that Dr. Fauci potentially influenced the CIAs analysis,' the spokesperson added.

The CIA and NIAID did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday morning.

Ever since SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, first began spreading in Wuhan, China in late 2019, investigators around the world have been trying to definitively determine its origin.

The two central theories are a natural spread from animals to humans through close contact, or a laboratory leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studies similar viruses.

Fauci's public remarks, particularly early in the pandemic, tended to strongly downplay the lab leak theory, though he stated last November that he has 'a completely open mind' on the question.

The CIA ultimately refused to make an assessment on COVID's origins, even with low confidence, in a report declassified in June of this year.

'Both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting,' according to the agency.

Other intelligence agencies were split on the origins question, with some favoring natural spread and others a lab leak. But all agreed that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as an intentional biological weapon.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (above) of Ohio, who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, made the claim in a letter on Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General

In his letter, Wenstrup asked HHS to hand over any documents or communications related to Fauci's access to CIA facilities and CIA employees.

He also requested an interview with HHS-OIG Special Agent Brett Rowland, who was involved with Fauci's personal protection detail when he was NIAID director.

Fauci retired from NIAID in December, after leading the agency since 1984. He was considered the nation's top infectious disease expert, and it would not be unusual or unethical for the intelligence community to seek his input on COVID matters.

But in a statement, Wenstrup's subcommittee called Fauci's purported contact with the CIA 'questionable' and said that it 'lends credence to heightened concerns about the promotion of a false COVID-19 origins narrative by multiple federal government agencies.'

The Republican-led COVID subcommittee has been tasked with investigating the origins of COVID-19, gain-of-function research, coronavirus-related government spending, and mask and vaccine mandates.

Earlier this month, the subcommittee cited an unnamed CIA whistleblower as testifying that the agency bribed its own analysts to say COVID-19 did not originate in the Wuhan lab.

In a letter to CIA Director William J. Burns, Wenstrup and Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner, also an Ohio Republican, cited the testimony of a 'multi-decade, senior-level, current Agency officer.'

The CIA ultimately refused to make an assessment on COVID's origins, even with low confidence, in a report declassified in June of this year

The officer, who was not named, said that the CIA offered a 'significant monetary incentive' to members of a Covid Discovery Team to influence their findings.

The person said that six members of the seven-person team originally believed a lab leak was likely, but were persuaded to change their views. The seventh member assessed natural spread was more likely.

The CIA denied engaging in bribery and said it would investigate the allegations.

'At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them. We will keep our Congressional oversight committees appropriately informed,' CIA director of public affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp said in a statement.

Turner and Wenstrup set a September 26 deadline for the CIA to turn over all records involving the COVID Discovery Team and all communications with the FBI, State Department, Health and Human Services and Energy Department about the matter.

They threatened to slap the agencies with subpoenas if they do not comply. It was not immediately clear as of Wednesday whether the documents had been provided.
Health bosses in the US who re-imposed a drugs ban in Portland after overdoses, deaths and crime soared urged Scottish officials not to follow their original path.

The UK's first 'drugs consumption room' - the Hunter Street Health Centre in Glasgow - received approval today.

The pilot will see users take their own drugs under supervision of trained health professionals.

But, earlier this month, American officials issued an impassioned plea to the Scottish Government not to make the same mistake they did in 2021.

Town hall chiefs for 'right-on' Portland in Oregon decriminalised drugs in a bid to 'reduce stigma' and save lives.

But, earlier this month, they were forced to reimpose the drug ban due to concerns about increases in overdoses, deaths and property crime.

Health bosses in the US who re-imposed a drugs ban in Portland after overdoses, deaths and crime soared urged Scottish officials not to follow their original path. Above: Drug users in Portland, Oregon

Earlier this month, American officials issued an impassioned plea to the Scottish Government not to make the same mistake they did in 2021. Above: Homelessness on the streets of Portland, Oregon

Scottish drug addicts are more likely to be dependent on heroin and benzodiazepines, whilst in Portland there is a prescription opioid epidemic.

But Portland Commissioner of Public Safety, Rene Gonzalez, said there were similarities between the two areas.

He said: 'The amount of human misery is just brutal. It is truly horrific. Portland and Scotland share many values but the addictive qualities of these drugs are so brutal that it simply overwhelms your systems.'

Portland police officer Sergeant Kevin Allen added: 'It's a human tragedy that police officers, firefighters, paramedics, hospital staff, homeless services and our entire community are seeing unfolding before us every day.'

Almost 4,000 overdoses were treated by Portland's emergency services last year, while the city  which has a similar population to Glasgow  is on course to record 6,000 so far this year, according to Commissioner Gonzalez.

Police have logged record drug-related fatalities and an 'explosion' in crimes, which are believed to be a result of the controversial decriminalisation laws.

Meanwhile, as one part of Portland's homeless population grew by 29 per cent in the year to January, according to officials, reports of people wandering the streets naked, defecating in public and lying hunched in 'unnatural' positions on the streets are now commonplace, eyewitnesses claim.

Hunter Street Health Centre, in the east end of Glasgow , will be the UK's first sanctioned 'drugs consumption room' and will be approved by the Scottish Parliament today

Data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 - a drop of 279, or 21 per cent, on the previous year.

Oregon, one of the most progressive states in America, decriminalised possession of drugs including crystal meth, fentanyl and cocaine in 2020.

Out of that, legislation known as Measure 110, which allowed people to possess and consume small amounts of the narcotics, was born and implemented in Portland in early 2021.

It was widely supported by the left-leaning Portland public and elected officials alike, including Democrat Commissioner Gonzalez, who felt it would help destigmatise drug addiction and reduce harm.

But Commissioner Gonzalez said they had been forced to rethink: 'There is still broad consensus we don't want to criminalise addiction, that it is to be viewed as a disease or a medical issue.

'But the part that has been very painful for Oregonians and Portlanders is we took away the prohibitions but we didn't stand up quickly enough the support to get people into treatment.

Portland Commissioner of Public Safety, Rene Gonzalez said the amount of 'human misery' among drug users in Scotland and Portland is 'awful'

'So we kind of have the worst of both worlds: we don't have anything disrupting self-destructive behaviours and we don't have a strong enough support system.'

He continued: 'We hear from citizens every day that they can respect someone's body autonomy for their right to use, but they don't want to see it in front of them, they don't want to breathe it and they don't want their kids to be exposed to it.

'There are tensions, we want people to get treatment, we don't want to criminalise addiction, but we also have rights for our common areas; they should be for everyone and not just folks that consume fentanyl and meth.'

According to the official, one of the the main problems was Portland did not have enough addiction services to divert people from prosecution and into treatment.

Commenting on the number of publicly funded rehab beds in Scotland  about 425 in 2021  he said: 'I am deeply concerned. I would encourage Scotland to try to avoid the tragedy we're going through, and if you're going to go down this path, make a strong commitment to addiction services and emergency intervention.'

He added that, in a bid to prove 'how progressive we are', Portland had enacted 'bad public policy' and warned the Scottish Government against falling into the same trap.

In an alarming message to the SNP, he said that since decriminalising drugs, Portland had experienced a 'migratory effect' which had seen people descend on the city to take part in a perceived 'drug culture'.

Speaking directly to Scottish Ministers via this newspaper, he said: 'Whatever predictions you have on the number of people you need to support in the system with addiction services, I would consider the possibility more could migrate from somewhere else. We dramatically underestimated that impact.'

Portland police officer Sergeant Kevin Allen said the situation is a 'human tragedy' that cops, firefighters, paramedics, hospital staff and the community see 'unfolding before us every day'

At the start of this month, Portland City Council unanimously voted for a ban on the use of hard drugs on public property, but it will have to wait for state approval.

Commissioner Gonzalez added: 'We are seeing real outrage from ordinary citizens as to the public consumption of, particularly, fentanyl and meth.'

Humza Yousaf has previously insisted that decriminalisation would reduce Scotland's horrific drugs death toll, which last year claimed 1,051 lives - the worst death rate in Europe and almost three times higher than in the rest of the UK.

It comes as Oregon's Governor Tina Kotek said yesterday that she has directed state police to launch new strategies aimed at disrupting the fentanyl supply chain and holding sellers of the frequently deadly drug accountable.

Ms Kotek said in a statement that she made the announcement at a meeting of her task force created to revitalise downtown Portland.

'I want all Oregonians to know that the state is moving forward with several new fentanyl strategic enforcement and disruption strategies,' Kotek's statement said.

The plans include increasing and reallocating state police staff to local drug enforcement teams, holding training with the Oregon Department of Justice to address potential biases and avoid unlawful searches, and leading inter-agency patrols that emphasize intercepting fentanyl using drug dogs and detectives, Ms Kotek said.

She said a pilot project using a data-driven approach to identifying drug- and alcohol-impaired drivers would also be extended.

During one weekend in May, at least eight people in Portland died of suspected drug overdoses, according to the city's police bureau.

An addict sits passed out in Portland, Oregon, after taking drugs

A rubbusih-strewn area is seen in Portland, Oregon, amid a drugs crisis

Six of the deaths were likely related to fentanyl, police said.

So far this year, the Oregon State Patrol has seized nearly 233,000 fentanyl pills and 62 pounds of powder, the statement said.

'As we work to cut the supply of fentanyl and hold dealers accountable for selling dangerous drugs, I also remain fully committed to expanding access to critical behavioral health services,' Ms Kotek said.

No details about expanding access to health services were released.

The new clinic in Glasgow was first proposed in 2016 following an HIV outbreak in the city that was linked to injecting.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC announced earlier this month it would not be 'in the public interest' to prosecute people using such a facility, effectively giving the scheme the go-ahead.

The pilot was approved by health and council officials at the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board meeting on Wednesday morning.
Cruise lines are doubling down on private destinations and spending up to $250 million buying Caribbean islands as exclusive locations for their customers.

Norwegian, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney cruises are expanding their private beaches to help travelers avoid crowds and access an intimate resort experience.

Industry experts told the Wall Street Journal that major cruise lines have already spent tens of millions of dollars to secure the private properties.

'Having these company-owned destinations gives us a little more control,' says Chris Chiames, chief communications officer for Carnival Cruise Line said to WSJ.

Despite recent backlash, analysts claim that private islands that are closed to the general public attract customers and persuade them to book trips.

Cruise lines are doubling down on private destinations and spending up to $250 million buying private Caribbean islands as exclusive locations for their customers. The Royal Beach Club (pictured) at Paradise Island will offer cruise guests a new option for visiting Nassau, Bahamas

Disney, owns Castaway Cay, and recently purchased Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, which is set to open June 2024

This comes as cruise companies faced recent backlash for overrunning classic holiday destinations with with an overwhelming amount of tourists

It's additionally enticing as cruise lines compete over space and amenities at busy ports - such as Nassau in the Bahamas or Cozumel, Mexico.

Norwegian Cruise Line is credited with sparking the private-island idea and leading the way for other cruise lines after purchasing a Bahamian isle in the late 1970s, referred to now as Great Stirrup Cay.

Royal Caribbean spent $250 million at CocoCay in the Bahamas, according to WSJ, capturing the attention of competitors.

Others have since followed suit - purchasing land across the Bahamas and Caribbean. Carnival Cruise line owns Celebration Key, a section of Grand Bahama.

Disney, owns Castaway Cay, and recently purchased Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, which is set to open June 2024.

Royal Caribbean owns Royal Beach Club, and plans to open an expansion on CocoCay next year, called Hideaway Beach.

This comes as cruise companies face backlash for overrunning classic holiday destinations with an overwhelming amount of tourists.

Every year, about 4.8 million people join a cruise. The number pre-pandemic was even higher, reaching around 30 million passengers.

Earlier this month, citizens of a tiny Cornish town in the UK blasted the arrival of a massive cruise ship that increased the local population by 50 per cent during its visit.

While some admired the 58,000-ton Spirit of Adventure, many weren't pleased to see the 775ft ship dock at the Fowey Harbour in early September.

Residents said on social media the ship's visit was 'awful' and 'shouldn't be allowed'. Some said the fumes had affected air quality in the coastal town.

These are not the only locals who have openly condemned the arrival or cruise ships to their local towns.

In Portofino, Italy, hordes of selfie-obsessed tourists from huge cruise ships are accused of ruining La Dolce Vita in the Italian Riviera's most exquisite gem.

This tiny paradise is Italy at its best. But, as the Mail discovered on a visit in August, the morning's tranquility is fleeting.

Others followed suit since then - purchasing land across the Bahamas and Caribbean. Carnival Cruise line owns Celebration Key, a section of Grand Bahama

Norwegian Cruise Line arguably launched the private-island idea, leading the way for other cruise lines when it purchased a Bahamian isle in the late 1970s, referred to now as Great Stirrup Cay

Pictured: A satellite image of a docked cruise ship in Castaway Cay, Bahamas, a private island exclusive port. Collected on September 25, 2012

MSC Cruises own Ocean Kay, a private island marine reserve in The Bahamas

Pictured: A Busy Portofino on a day with two cruise ships with up to 3,000 passengers descending on the tiny, picturesque town of Portofino

Locals complained to Dailymail.com in August that the cruise ship tourists crowd the small pathways and don't spend any money in the shops

On the horizon sat two colossal cruise ships, black smoke billowing from their funnels.

Together, they carry more than 4,000 passengers from the US, Britain and several European countries.

Thanks to a local law allowing ships to anchor close to the protected bay, swarms of visitors can hop on tenders from the mothership to reach Portofino in just minutes.

Several times a week, tourists descend off packed ferries from the neighboring coastal towns of Rapallo and Santa Margherita.

But the visitors do not just arrive by sea. By 10am, the main public car park had already reached its 250-vehicle capacity.

Motorists were being turned away as buses from Genoa, 22 miles away, brought their own crowds.

Cruise ships, ferries and day-trippers: by 11am, this tiny village was under siege. Hundreds of tourists were approaching from every direction.

Portofino now finds itself caught in a battle between those wanting to protect its charm and those who argue that anyone has a right to visit it whenever they choose.

As the throngs arrive, the residents are forced to retreat from the mayhem, while luxury holidaymakers withdraw to their yachts and five-star hotels.

An American couple told Dailymail.com they are confined to the premises, unable to leave because of the volume of tourists.

Certain destinations are taking proactive steps to ban cruise ships from their city.

The Spirit of Adventure weighs about 60,000 tons

By 10am, the main public car park has already reached its 250-vehicle capacity. Motorists are being turned away as buses from Genoa, 22 miles away, bring their own crowds

The ship's lounge. Polruan Coastwatch station manage Ray Wrigg said the vessel's size was impressive and even hid most of the houses behind it

Many are not pleased about the massive ship docking at Fowey Harbour. 'Awful. Shouldn't be allowed,' said author Sasha Swire on X (formerly Twitter)

The massive cruise ship Spirit of Adventure looked out of place in the tiny town as it towered over St Fimbarrus (right), Fowey's parish church, and Place House's grade I listed tower (left)

Then there is the logistical pressure of so many tender boats, with about ten arriving and leaving each hour

Several mornings a week, the cruise-ship hordes descend on the town - just as other tourists are alighting from packed ferries from the neighboring coastal towns

Amsterdam, for instance, has taken a major step in protecting its air quality by banning cruise ships from its city center, the BBC reported.

This comes after City Councilor Ilana Rooderkerk complained cruise ships have led to masses of visitors descending like a 'plague of locusts.'

More than 100 cruise ships each year mount at Amsterdam's central cruise terminal, according to the BBC report.

In 2021, Venice banned large cruise ships from anchoring in the historic city center, according to Euro News.

The city cited damage to the lagoon which nearly put the city on UNESCO's endangered list before the ship ban.

The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, also recently promised to limit the amount of cruise passengers allowed in the city if she is re-elected in May.

The policy would restrict the number of tourists which reach up to 200,000 a month during peak seasons.

'Forty per cent of the cruise ships stop for four hours. They don't give the city economic return, and thousands of people disembark, create great mobility issues and then leave. It is an industry we have to limit,' she told The Times in February.

The mayor of Marseille also called out the cruise industry, claiming it is 'suffocating' the city with air pollution, according to the outlet. Santorini and Dubrovnik have also tightened their restrictions with cruise companies.
An Indigenous artist has argued the Voice referendum is sowing division in Australia.

Stan Yarramunua Dryden, a world-renowned Aboriginal artist and businessman, said he felt the Voice was being pushed by out-of-touch 'social elites'.

'All these people that are probably pushing the Voice and all the rest of it to keep themselves in jobs and their own immediate families,' he told Sam Newman and Don Scott's podcast You Cannot Be Serious.

'They're not thinking about the people living in tin shacks in Alice Springs and Darwin and Broome.'

He added: 'People have jumped onto it, the people with agendas, it's a cottage industry of division and people get delighted if they can create division because it gives them a sense of power and it gives them a source of income.'

Stan Yarramunua Dryden (pictured, left), a world-renowned aboriginal artist and businessman, told Sam Newman (pictured, right) and Don Scott's podcast You Cannot Be Serious he felt the Voice was being pushed by out-of-touch 'social elites'

Mr Dryden shared a racist encounter he had experienced at his gallery in Queensland's Burleigh Heads recently to illustrate his point that the Voice was dredging up old divisions.

'It's flaring a lot of stuff up this Voice, it's bringing a lot of issues,' Mr Dryden said.

'I had a guy who's 45 years old and he stood in front of my door with his dog and put his head in the door and said, 'are you an Abo?'  and I go, 'oh mate I don't think you should be saying that' and he goes, 'oh, you know what I mean, they're all a bunch of losers and bums',' Mr Dryden said.

'And this is what's flaring up - it's causing racism.'

Mr Dryden urged all Australians to come together and 'get over it'

Mr Dryden, who came from a deeply impoverished background with an alcoholic father before making millions as an artist, said people should 'get over it'.

'I'm Australian. All the stuff we're all talking about as Australians, there's something bigger than all of us anyway,' he told the podcast.

'We should all start getting over it, because I think everyone is equal.'

Last week, Newman, 77, explosively called on footy fans to boo the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Grand Final this weekend.

There have since been calls for the broadcaster and former player to be booted out of the AFL Hall of Fame.
READ MORE: Two left dead after fatal WA car crash

Two survivors are in serious conditions

Three men are dead after a high-speed crash

Three men have tragically died and two others are fighting for life after a horror head-on crash on a country road.

A Kia Stinger and an Audi sedan collided at high speed on Sixty Eight Road in Baldivis, 45km south of Perth at 5:10pm on Wednesday.

Four people were trapped in the Audi and a fifth was stuck in the Kia when paramedics arrived.

Emergency responders threw tarps over the Audi and used the jaws of life to tear apart one of the vehicles, miraculously saving a passenger from the wreckage.

Those who survived have since been rushed to the hospital for treatment.

A Kia Stinger and an Audi sedan collided at high speed on Sixty Eight Road in Baldivis, 45km south of Perth at 5:10pm on Wednesday

READ MORE: Car crashes onto on of Sydney's beaches A P-plater lost control of their car before crashing through a concrete wall and onto one of Sydney's busiest beaches - miraculously avoiding horrified families. Advertisement

'It's always a miracle when someone survives that sort of crash, it's quite confronting,' Western Australia Police Acting Inspector Brendon Barwick told The West.

'Hopefully they pull through.'

The man saved by the jaws of life was airlifted to Royal Perth Hospital in a critical condition.

The passenger in the other car was rushed to Rockingham General Hospital by ambulance in a serious condition.

Numerous firetrucks and ambulances were on the scene working to recover the bodies and clear the wreckage.

One witness of the crash said they had seen a car 'fly' past them before hearing the screeching of brakes and a loud crash.

Off-duty nurse Dina King said the impact caused one of the car's engines to dislodge from the vehicle and that it ended up 50 metres away from the crash site.

'I was holding the driver's hand and kept telling him to listen to my voice and take deep breaths,' Ms King said.

'It was just horrific ... it was very, very sad.'

The families of the dead young men were among those who gathered at the scene.

Major crash investigators remain at the scene late into the night attempting to figure out what caused the collision.

A/Insp. Barwick told reporters that he believed that speed may have been a contributing factor in the deadly crash.
A father whose 22-month-old toddler had 12 surgeries after a pitbull ripped off his face has warned pet owners that owning dangerous dogs 'puts everyone at risk'.

Jose Rodriguez' son JJ - short for Jose Joel - was playing outside in his front yard with his older sisters just before he was brutally attacked by his neighbor's pitbulls on February 20, 2022.

The toddler was left in a critical condition after the attack, with his face ripped apart and his skull exposed. His injuries were so severe a priest was called to his bedside.

JJ had to stay in the Oklahoma Children's Hospital for three-and-a-half months and has since had 12 surgeries - including extensive facial reconstruction.

Jose has now warned pet owners: 'When you own a pitbull, you're putting everyone around you at risk.'

The concerned father speaks out as a spate of fatal dog attacks in the UK caused Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to ban XL bullies, which will soon be considered as a 'dangerous' breed.

Jose Rodriguez' son JJ - short for Jose Joel - was playing outside in his front yard with his older sisters just before he was brutally attacked by a neighbor's pitbull on February 20, 2022 (pictured: JJ after his facial reconstruction surgeries)

JJ had to stay in the Oklahoma Children's Hospital for three-and-a-half months and has since had 12 surgeries - including extensive facial reconstruction. His father Jose (pictured with JJ) believes 'when you own a pitbull, you're putting everyone around you at risk'

The toddler was left in a critical condition after the attack with his face ripped apart and his skull exposed (pictured above in hospital shortly after the attack). His injuries were so severe a priest was called to his bedside

Mr Sunak has promised to ban the breed by the end of the year in response to a series of attacks, which could see owners having to neuter their dogs and muzzle them in public to prevent further violent attacks.

In a video announcement posted to his X - formerly Twitter - account this month, the Prime Minister said the breed would be banned following a 'pattern of behaviour [that] cannot go on'.

The little boy's father, a forklift operator, from Spencer, Oklahoma, said: 'JJ was a dog lover - but these pitbulls scalped him - they took his nose, jaw and cheekbones off.

'People have tried to say it was our fault for allowing JJ to play around the dogs - but the reality is, when you own a pitbull, you're putting everyone around you at risk.'

His parents were horrified at the attack as they previously warned the neighbor this would happen if they didn't control their pets.

The incident happened when Jose and his wife Cassandra's children played on their front lawn and the neighbor's dogs - who were allegedly off their leashes - charged at JJ.

Jose said they heard their son scream and when they ran into the garden, saw the three pitbulls maul him.

He added: 'I started screaming "no" and I just ran towards the dogs. I was fighting with them - trying to physically put myself between them and JJ.

'I got injured too - but it was like nothing compared to what happened to him. These dogs did not want to stop - it was like a pack mentality. They wanted to kill my son.'

Before the attack on JJ (pictured here aged 1), parents Jose and Cassandra Rodriguez had warned the neighbor something would happen if they didn't control their dogs

Cassandra (pictured here with JJ between his many surgeries) watched her kids from the front door as they played with teddy bears and sat down by some flower beds, while Jose was showering before work

'I turned JJ around,' Jose said. 'I thought he was dead. But then, he started crying and I was filled with hope.

'I looked at his face, and there was just nothing there. I could see into his throat - and he was choking on his own blood.'

JJ was rushed into surgery - and his parents were told his chances of survival were low.

'The nurse told us about dog attacks on toddlers and how 70 per cent of the time, they're fatal,' Jose said, adding that the surgeon asked if the parents wanted to call a priest.

JJ was in surgery for 16 hours - he had a tracheostomy, 'his face stitched back together', and a feeding tube inserted.

He was placed into an induced coma for four days and stayed in hospital for three months.

After the attack, Jose said JJ became frightened of dogs.

The family knew that their dogs at home could cause a problem to JJ's recovery and decided that if the therapy dogs were an issue they would have to rehome their own - but JJ overcame his fears and is now relatively comfortable with most dogs.

JJ, now three years old, is still in recovery - and surgeons have predicted he'll need a further 30 to 40 operations in his lifetime. He needed to learn to walk, talk, sleep and eat again from scratch.

Jose said: 'JJ is extremely confident - in fact, he radiates confidence - he has a very loud and charming personality.

'He agrees with people when they say he's a hero - and he's obsessed with the idea of becoming a policeman when he grows up. He's goofy, he's silly, he loves to prank people - and he's intelligent, too.'

Alongside JJ's rehabilitation, Jose and Cassandra are fighting for more legislation surrounding dangerous dogs - and they believe the current laws in Oklahoma are 'archaic'.

JJ was in surgery for 16 hours - he had a tracheostomy (he is pictured above after the surgery), 'his face stitched back together', and a feeding tube inserted. He was placed into an induced coma for four days and stayed in hospital for three months

After the horrific attack, JJ's parents didn't want him to live in fear for the rest of his life, so they made sure that part of his recovery included being around therapy dogs (pictured above)

Alongside JJ's rehabilitation (pictured here shopping with his family after his surgeries), Jose and Cassandra are fighting for more legislation surrounding dangerous dogs - and they believe the current laws in Oklahoma are 'archaic'

Jose said: 'In the state of Oklahoma, dog bites are very outdated. We have this thing called the 'One Bite' law - in which country dogs are allowed one free bite.

'I didn't know any of this until it happened to my son. The jaw-dropping thing is - nurses told us he was the 35th dog bite case they'd seen so far that year. It was February.'

Since the government in the UK announced plans to ban the XL bully by the end of the year, Jose said his family's activism has been partially blamed by angry social media users - despite them living across the pond in the US.

'We got a ton of hate as soon as the XL bully ban was announced,' he said. 'We've had to block hundreds of people over the last five days alone. They say JJ's story makes these breeds "look bad" - but we need to be realistic.

'It's clear as day that all dogs have inherent genetic traits. Golden Retrievers retrieve, right? So why is it that when it comes to breeds like pitbulls and bullies, it's suddenly all about how they're raised?

'We have to address the main issue. I want people to be cautious around all dangerous breeds. Of course, all dogs attack - but these seem to be the problem children.'
The grieving mother of murdered L.A. County sheriff's deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer is speaking out against California's soft-on-crime officials, including District Attorney George Gascon, who she says blindsided her at a press conference by announcing he would not seek the death penalty for her son's killer.

Newly-engaged Clinkunbroomer, 30, was killed in earlier this month while sitting in his patrol car at a red light.

Kevin Cataneo Salazar, a schizophrenic who is charged with killing him, is now facing life in prison.

Kim Clinkunbroomer and Brittany Lindsey, the murdered sheriff's deputy's fiancee, spoke out on GMA this morning

Newly-engaged Clinkunbroomer, 30, was killed in earlier this month while sitting in his patrol car at a red light

Los Angeles County DA George Gascon announced on Sept. 20 that he would not seek the death penalty. It was the first the Clinkunbroomer family had heard of the decision. They are shown standing behind him

At a press conference last week, Gascon - who is among a wave of Democrat DA's with soft-on-crime policies - announced that he would not go against Governor Gavin Newsom's moratorium on the death penalty.

Clinkunbroomer's mother, Kim, told ABC News today that was the first time she'd heard the decision from Gascon.

'How dare you, on national TV, tell me you're not seeking the death penalty because it won't bring my son back?

'My son's not coming back, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do your job. You can't do this to families. We need to defend our law enforcement officers, and that's not -- that's a disgrace.

'Life in prison? Im still paying for that then, as a parent, as a taxpayer. It just seems that the district attorney wants to spare a life, when he didnt spare my sons life.

'He executed my son. He assassinated my son. He assassinated her fiance. To me, we shouldnt even be going to court,' she said.

Kevin Salazar pleaded not guilty when he appeared before a judge on September 20

Salazar's family say he is schizophrenic and was off medication

She also fumed at Governor Newsom, who issued a moratorium to ban the death penalty within two months of taking office in 2019 even though California voters have approved it four times since the 1970s.

'People need to be punished for the crimes they commit,' Kim said, criticizing the ban.

She also urged Californians to vote differently - against Gascon - when the time comes.

'I truly hope the people of Los Angeles realize what this district attorney is not doing for us. And I hope when the election comes next, they really think hard about that bubble they fill in.'

Salazar did not have a criminal record prior to shooting the sheriff's deputy, but he did have a documented history of mental illness.

Kim said criminals deserve to be punished for the crimes they commit. She is calling for DA Gascon to revise his decision and seek the death penalty for her son's killer

Clinkunbroomer and his fiancee had only been engaged for four days when he was murdered

The sheriff's deputy had been sitting at a red light in his patrol car when he was ambushed

It should have stopped him from buying the weapon he was able to used in the attack.

At the press conference, Gascon said he would not seek the death penalty because it would nothing to bring the sheriff's deputy back.

'The death penalty doesn't serve as a deterrent.

'If I thought that seeking the death penalty was gonna bring Ryan back to us, I will seek it without any reservation. But it won't,' he said.

There has not been an execution in California since 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen, a 76-year-old murderer, was executed by lethal injection.

After Newsom took over, he dismantled the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison, where others had taken place, and started transferring death row inmates to other prisons to serve life.

Newsom has been criticized for the move, which came after a campaign promise to follow voters' wishes on the subject.
The Northeast Cartel claimed responsibility and warned the Sinaloa Cartel and one of it gangs, Rodos, of additional repercussions if they spy on them again

Seven bodies as well as five bags and ice coolers with human remains were found abandoned Tuesday across the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico's second-most populated city.

The gruesome findings were the result of the Sinaloa Cartel and an affiliated gang's attempt to infiltrate the Northeast Cartel, according warnings written on several poster sheets that were left at the seven different points.

The first three bodies were located in the municipalities of San Nicolas de los Garza. The remaining corpses and human remains were discovered in Apodaca, Juarez, Garcia, Monterrey and Santa Catarina.

'This happened to me for supporting the Rodos and the Sinaloas who wanted to infiltrate me with the C.D.N. and pass information to Toro, La Wera, in charge of drug stores in Juarez and Guadalupe,' one of two signs placed next two bags of remains read in Spanish. 'Leave because if not that's how you're going to end up. Attn Northeast Cartel.'

Forensic workers with the Nuevo Leon state attorney general's office inspect the scene were a body was abandoned by alleged members of the Northeast Cartel on Tuesday. In all, authorities found seven bodies and five bags and ice coolers containing body parts

Police officers in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, the second-most populated city in Mexico, guard the scene where a body was found abandoned Tuesday morning after the Northeast Cartel allegedly discovered they were being infiltrated by the Sinaloa Cartel and one of its affiliated gangs

Northeast Cartel henchmen also left a garbage bag and two plastic ice coolers with remains next to two poster sheets.

Those warned members of the Sinaloa Cartel and its gang, the Rodos, which is reportedly backed by cartel co-founder Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, of repercussions if they continue to spy on them.

'Send me more of these idiots who want to infiltrate us to send them to you as well as these. Don't be stupid idiots,' the poster sheet indicated.

Nuevo Leon state authorities said they were still analyzing the mutilated corpses to determine the exact number of victims who were killed by the cartel.

Local media have reported that 12 people were murdered.

The gruesome discoveries are reminiscent of the bloody period in the 2010s when cartel conflicts engulfed the city. Bodies were often left in the streets or hanging from bridges.

Authorities in the northeast Mexican state of Nuevo Leon found seven bodies and five bags and coolers with human remains on Tuesday morning

Two bodies lie on a sidewalk in the metropolitan area of Monterrey as part of a war being the Sinaloa Cartel, one of its affiliated gangs and the Northeast Cartel

Northeast Cartel henchmen left two signs written in Spanish that warned the Sinaloa Cartel and one of its gangs, Rodos, of infiltrating its criminal network

However, the brutality of the violence had subsided in Monterrey, which was recently chosen to be the home of a new Tesla car plant.

The Northeast Cartel, whose split from the Zetas, operates out of the nearby northern state of Tamaulipas across from Texas.

The criminal organization's leader is also involved in kidnapping and extorting migrants in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon before they can cross illegally into the United States.

The criminal organization's leader, Juan Trevino, a citizen of the United States, was arrested by the military and police on March 15, 2022 in Nuevo Laredo and deported the following day.
Political journalist Ava Evans today said she is 'shocked' and 'really hurt' by Laurence Fox saying 'Who would want to sh*g that?' while criticising her on GB News.

The channel has suspended Fox and apologised for his remarks about Ms Evans, a Left-leaning reporter for news website Joe, on yesterday's Dan Wootton Tonight.

Hours after Ms Evans's interview about the comments, Wootton was suspended by GB News.

Political activist Fox told the show: 'We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0' who, he said, are 'pathetic and embarrassing', adding: 'Who would want to sh*g that?'

He also called her a 'little woman' and asked: 'Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel?'

Responding today, Ms Evans told Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show: 'I'm really hurt by it... I'm shocked about by it, I'm shocked that it went out. Do you know this is the sort of talk that you worry that men have about you when you're not in the room.

'There is always sort of a worry in the back of your mind which is: 'Are people actually interested in what I'm saying or what I'm doing?' Or are they just looking at me... physically and I think that that clip proves that there are some men who are.'

She also said: 'I'm actually a journalist rather than a commentator and I'd much rather be judged or asked about my work... than have people talking about my body.'

Last night Ms Evans shared a clip of Fox's comments on X, captioning it: 'Laurence Fox just did a whole speech on GB News on why men apparently won't sh*g me?'

The clip has been viewed more than ten million times already. In a follow-up tweet to her 100,000 followers, she added that the footage made her feel 'physically sick'.

Media regulator Ofcom said it had received an unspecified number of complaints about the comments, which its team would now assess against its broadcast rules.

But Fox doubled down today, saying that he 'stands by every word of what I said' and he 'wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended fourth wave feminist and not apologise'.

Laurence Fox (right) spoke about Ava Evans during Dan Wootton (left) Tonight yesterday

Ava Evans told Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show today that she is 'really hurt' by Fox's comments

It comes after Ava Evans made comments about men's mental health and suicide on the BBC's Politics Live on Monday, in which she dismissed calls for a dedicated minister on the issue

During last night's discussion on GB News, the strapline on the screen read: 'Smirking Face of Disdain', with the text under it reading: 'Hard-left commentator slammed for shrugging off male suicide crisis.'

What did Laurence Fox say on GB News? Laurence Fox: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel? 'That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day... starting with the lie of the gender wage gap, and she's sat there and I'm going, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just huge. 'We need powerful strong amazing women who make great points for themselves, we don't need these sort of feminist 4.0... they're pathetic and embarrassing. 'Who would want to sh*g that?' Advertisement

It comes after Ms Evans made comments about men's mental health and suicide on the BBC's Politics Live on Monday, in which she dismissed calls for a dedicated minister on the issue.

Fox told Wootton: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an Incel?

'That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day... starting with the lie of the gender wage gap, and she's sat there and I'm going, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just huge.

'We need powerful, strong, amazing women who make great points for themselves, we don't need these sort of feminist 4.0... they're pathetic and embarrassing. Who would want to sh*g that?'

Wootton replied: 'Well, look, she, I'm just going to provide a touch of balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her comments but she didn't apologise.'

Wootton added: 'And she's a very beautiful woman, Laurence, very beautiful woman.'

The discussion came after Ms Evans, a former producer at LBC, appeared on BBC's Politics Live on Monday and made comments about men's mental health.

That BBC discussion featured Evans alongside comedian Geoff Norcott, who spoke about how suicide remains the biggest cause of death for men under 50.

During the discussion on GB News, the strapline on the screen read: 'Smirking Face of Disdain'

Fox made the comments about Ava Evans (pictured), a correspondent for online news site Joe

Ms Evans shared a clip of the comments on X, which has been viewed ten million times

The discussion came after Ava Evans (pictured) appeared on BBC 's Politics Live on Monday

When the host mentioned a Conservative MP's suggestion for a dedicated minister to look at these issues, Ms Evans said: 'I think that it feeds into the culture war a little bit, this minister for men argument.

What has Laurence Fox said after the backlash? Comments posted by Laurence Fox on social media platform X this morning: 'Morning, morning. 'First of all, don't take a pop at @danwootton for something I said. That's not fair. 'Secondly. I stand by every word of what I said. If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended 4th wave feminist and not apologise, just as people are totally within their rights to be offended by my stating I would run a mile in the opposite direction from women like her, should our paths cross in a bar. 'It's called free speech. 'I realise that the new woke world is low on laughter and high on offence, but it's still worth trying to find the lighter moments in this joyless new cancel culture which has been created for us. 'This lady has said on air that she wants men to be 'frightened' and 'terrified.' Tumbleweed from the media at her premeditation and malevolence. Because it's not a man saying it. Which rather proves my point. 'You are totally entitled to find my mockery of the insane hypocrisy in this world not to your taste, but that's me, and I will continue to be me, as a wise man once said 'Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.' 'So you keep trying to cancel away in your state of permanent offence, I've been cancelled already and may well be again, but I don't care one bit, and I will keep defending my right to have an opinion on issues which concern me. 'Without free speech and the presumption of innocence we are not free. We aren't quite communist Eastern Europe yet. We may very close, but not quite there. It's still worth fighting for. 'So if you are expecting a grovelling apology, I suggest you don't hold your breath. I won't ever apologise to the mob. 'Have a lovely day. 'In this self censoring world, speak your mind. 'Live strong and free.' Advertisement

'[Mental illness] is a crisis that's endemic throughout the country, not specific to men. And I think a lot of ministers bandy this about to - I'm sorry - make an enemy out of women.'

Ms Evans later said on X: 'I was a little rash on my anti-minister for men comments which I do regret and am actually very interested in a brief for a minister on young men's mental health.'

This morning, Ms Evans was asked about Fox's comments during an appearance on Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show. She confirmed someone had sent the clip to her and she did not see it live.

Questioned over how she felt about what Fox said, Ms Evans told Vine: 'I don't... I think the clip speaks for itself. I don't have anything to say about it at all.

'I'm actually a journalist rather than a commentator and I'd much rather be judged or asked about my work than have people talking about my body. I don't... sorry, I'm a bit speechless, I just don't really know what to say.'

After fellow panellist Carole Malone asked if she was hurt by it, Ms Evans added: 'I'm really hurt by it, I am. I'm shocked about by it actually, I'm shocked that it went out.

'Actually do you know this is the sort of talk that you worry that men have about you when you're not in the room. There is always sort of a worry in the back of your mind which is: 'Are people actually interested in what I'm saying or what I'm doing?'

'Or are they just looking at me... physically and I think that that clip proves that there are some men who are.'

Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf branded Reclaim Party leader Fox a 'vile neanderthal' over his comments.

Mr Yousaf said on X: 'What a vile neanderthal @LozzaFox is, and an example of bystander behaviour enabling such misogyny from the presenter.

'I'm so sorry @AvaSantina had to listen to this. It is why men have to step up and challenge misogynistic abuse wherever we see it. Pleased Ofcom investigating.'

Within ten minutes, Fox had responded, saying: 'The feeling is entirely mutual, you vile Neanderthal.' Fox's post included a clip of Mr Yousaf speaking at Holyrood while justice secretary, pointing out that the majority of those in powerful positions in Scotland were white.

Last night's comments by Fox drew a strong reaction on X, with broadcaster Carol Vorderman writing: 'Please know that ALL decent people are on your side. We're grateful for your voice. Do not let them bully you. I know only too well how difficult that can be. But we ARE winning. All of us together.'

And political commentator Usama Ijaz said: 'I am glad that Ava is standing up to Fox and calling him out for his misogynistic behavior. It is important to hold people accountable for their actions, and Fox deserves to be called out for his misogyny. Love you, Ava. We will always support you.'

In a statement posted to X this morning, GB News said: 'GB News has formally suspended Laurence Fox while we continue our investigation into comments he made on the channel last night.

Laurence Fox: From screen actor to founder of the Reclaim Party Actor Laurence Fox rose to fame through various acting roles and is most well-known for portraying DS James Hathaway in the long-running TV series Lewis, which came to an end in 2015. The actor, 45, has credits in films that include the 2001 production of Gosford Park, the 2007 TV movie A Room With A View and the recent 2022 film My Son Hunter, in which he plays the lead role of Hunter, the son of American president Joe Biden. Born into an acting dynasty, Fox is related to a slew of famous thespians, including his cousin Freddie Fox, who starred in the 2011 film The Three Musketeers and Netflix series The Crown, playing former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's son Mark. Laurence Fox married fellow thespian Billie Piper in 2007 and the pair split in 2016 Sister to Freddie and cousin to Laurence is Emilia Fox, known for her role as Dr Nikki Alexander in BBC TV series Silent Witness. The trio are grandchildren to actor and theatrical agent Robin Fox whose son James is father to Laurence and has starred in Downton Abbey, Sherlock Holmes, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks, among other TV series. Fox married fellow thespian and Doctor Who star Billie Piper in 2007 and the pair split in 2016. They share two sons together, Winston and Eugene. Fox has credits in films that include the 2007 TV movie A Room With A View In 2020, Fox appeared on BBC Question Time and was involved in a debate over Meghan Markle, white male privilege and racism which led to the actor saying he would take a break from social media. Following his appearance, the actor founded political party the Reclaim Party in October 2020, and the website says he did so after his appearance led to him being 'cancelled' from a 22-year-old acting career. After he set up the Reclaim Party, Fox unsuccessfully stood for London mayor during the mayoral election of 2021. Fox appeared on BBC Question Time in 2020 and was in a debate over Meghan Markle, white male privilege and racism His manifesto included promises to deliver 'free travel on the Tubes and buses for six months' and 'tough New York style community policing to target petty crime'. According to the Reclaim Party website, the party exists 'for patriotism and believes hard work should be rewarded.' Reclaim is strongly associated with the 'culture wars' and Fox has previously expressed scepticism about the Covid vaccine and opposed lockdowns during the pandemic. Fox has been a presenter on GB News and according to the broadcaster's website he 'tackles the issues of the day' with a 'unique and outgoing style'. Advertisement

'Mr Fox's suspension is effective immediately and he has been taken off air. We will be apologising formally to Ms Evans today.'

This followed another statement last night, in which GB News said: 'Comments made tonight on GB News by Laurence Fox were totally unacceptable.

'What he said does not reflect our values and we apologise unreservedly for the comments and the offence they have caused. We have launched an investigation and will be apologising to the individual involved.'

But Fox refused to apologised and posted a lengthy statement on X this morning, saying: 'First of all, don't take a pop at Dan Wootton for something I said. That's not fair.

'Secondly. I stand by every word of what I said. If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldn't want to sh*g a hyper offended fourth wave feminist and not apologise, just as people are totally within their rights to be offended by my stating I would run a mile in the opposite direction from women like her, should our paths cross in a bar. It's called free speech.'

He added that the 'new woke world is low on laughter and high on offence, but it's still worth trying to find the lighter moments in this joyless new cancel culture which has been created for us'.

In the post, Fox included a clip of Ms Evans saying on Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV that 'men should be frightened to touch women in a way they're not comfortable with'.

Fox added in his statement: 'You are totally entitled to find my mockery of the insane hypocrisy in this world not to your taste, but that's me, and I will continue to be me, as a wise man once said 'Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.'

'So you keep trying to cancel away in your state of permanent offence, I've been cancelled already and may well be again, but I don't care one bit, and I will keep defending my right to have an opinion on issues which concern me.

'Without free speech and the presumption of innocence we are not free. We aren't quite communist Eastern Europe yet. We may very close, but not quite there. It's still worth fighting for.

'So if you are expecting a grovelling apology, I suggest you don't hold your breath. I won't ever apologise to the mob. Have a lovely day.'

Signing off the message he said: 'In this self censoring world, speak your mind. Live strong and free.'

Following his suspension, Fox followed this post up with a claim that he had done a 'pre interview' with the channel 'so they knew exactly what I intended to say'.

While sharing a screenshot which appeared to look like an exchange about news stories he was being asked to comment on, Fox wrote: 'A phone call might have been polite.'

But Wootton apologised this morning for a 'very unfortunate lapse in judgment', in a follow-up post to an earlier apology.

He wrote on X: 'I want to reiterate my regret over last night's exchange with Laurence on GB News. Having looked at the footage, I can see how inappropriate my reaction to his totally unacceptable remarks appears to be and want to be clear that I was in no way amused by the comments.

'I reacted as I did out of shock and surprise in an off-guard moment while working out how to respond as he continued to speak by searching for tweets @AvaSantina had sent earlier in the day while having them read out in my ear at the same time. However, I should have intervened immediately to challenge offensive and misogynistic remarks.

'I apologise unreservedly for what was a very unfortunate lapse in judgment on my part under the intense pressure of a bizarre exchange. I know I should have done better. I'm devastated that I let down the team and our supportive GBN family.

'We seek to tackle the issue and not the person, which I intend to stress again on air tonight.'

In an earlier message last night to Ms Evans, he had said: 'I think you're brilliant. Earlier tonight I was attempting to find your tweets to read back from my iPad and couldn't locate them.

'I apologise for what was said during the course of my show and should have done this immediately on air. This is not what our channel is about.'

Cabinet minister Lucy Frazer was asked about Fox's comments today during an interview on Times Radio, and said it was a matter for the communications regulator.

Asked whether it was unacceptable behaviour, she said: 'Well as Culture Secretary, you will know that I'm generally in favour of the free press.

'And (in) recent days we've seen the power of investigative journalism.

'You know, issues like the one you raise are matters for Ofcom and that particular broadcaster, like many others, is regulated by Ofcom.'

Ms Frazer also defended Tory MPs who host shows on GB News.

Asked whether serving parliamentarians should have programmes on the broadcaster, she told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'Well, yes, because there is a broadcasting code which identifies the rules of broadcasting and that does allow presenters who are MPs to take part in current affairs programmes.

'There are specific issues that have been taken to Ofcom in relation to particular programmes and I know that Ofcom is coming to conclusions on those particular issues.'

She dodged a question on whether Conservative Party deputy chairman Mr Anderson should consider axing his show on the channel, saying: 'I think I've made my position clear that those comments were inappropriate and unacceptable.

'And I'm pleased that the channel has apologised and I know that Ofcom will be looking into this.'

Pressed on whether GB News should be shut down if it continues to break the code, the Cabinet minister said: 'I know that there are a number of issues in a range of broadcasters at the moment and I don't think all those broadcasters should be shut down because there are issues.'

Conservative MP Philip Davies, who hosts a show on GB News, condemned the comments made by Fox.

In a statement, he said: 'Laurence Fox's disgraceful remarks were completely unacceptable, unjustifiable and indefensible.'

GB News presenter Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said he had not seen the comments made on air by Fox. Speaking to the PA news agency at Windsor Castle after receiving his knighthood he said: 'No I haven't seen his comments last night.

'I understand he has been suspended from GB News and we can see the outcome of that, but no I don't know the details.'

Home Secretary Suella Braverman was asked about the row over comments made by Fox but said: 'I am not aware of this matter you are describing.

'We all need to maintain civility and respect in public and political discourse,' she added. 'Feelings might be strong, but at all times, even if we disagree strongly, we need to maintain respect for each other.'

GB News royal correspondent Cameron Walker said on X: 'What was said last night clearly crossed the line. I am glad GBN is taking this seriously.

'A vast majority of my colleagues, many in their first media jobs, work hard to deliver content giving voice to communities across the UK. Please don't chastise them for others' actions.'

In a statement to MailOnline, an Ofcom spokesman said: 'We can confirm we've received a number of complaints about comments made by Laurence Fox on GB News last night. We are assessing these complaints against our broadcast rules and will publish the outcome as quickly as possible.'

GB News has been found to have breached Ofcom rules three times since it launched in 2021. The watchdog has several further investigations open into GB News's compliance with due impartiality rules.

Ofcom rules bar serving politicians from acting as newsreaders, interviewers or reporters unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. They are allowed to host discussions about current affairs.

Fox, who was previously married to actress Billie Piper, founded the Reclaim Party in October 2020 after an appearance on the BBC's Question Time earlier that year, which the actor said resulted in him being 'cancelled from a 21-year acting career'.

According to its website, the party exists to challenge 'woke orthodoxy' and promote 'freedom of speech', which it views as being 'under grave peril'.

Fox has been approached for comment by MailOnline.
A council said it may be forced to create a new children's home solely to house unaccompanied minors crossing the Channel by small boat.

In July, the High Court ruled local authorities have a statutory duty to care for all children in their area, regardless of immigration status.

But last month, Kent County Council (KCC) revealed it is so overwhelmed by the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking (UAS) children on its books, it has run out of capacity to care for local youngsters.

Now it has been revealed the Council is considering creating a 'large' registered children's home to look after migrants under the age of 16.

Some 221 migrants crossed the English Channel yesterday, the first to have made the crossing in more than a week

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Yesterday, 212 migrants arrived on three small boats having crossed the English Channel.

They were the first group to arrive in a week because of poor weather conditions in the Channel.

So far 24,208 people have arrived in the UK, compared with 45,774 last year.

Although this year's running total is outstripping 2021 when 28,526 arrived on small boats.

In papers to councillors, KCC's Legal Counsel, Ben Watts, said Sarah Hammond, the authority's Director of Children's Services (DCS), has been searching for suitable premises for this purpose.

In the Section 5 report for August, he wrote: 'She has worked with the council's infrastructure team who have undertaken an extensive search for land or premises in our area that may be used or repurposed for accommodating UAS children.

'Work is ongoing to explore the feasibility of those sites.

'The DCS is also exploring the creation of a large registered children's home in Kent to provide temporary accommodation in-house to unaccompanied asylum seeking children aged under 16.'

More than 24,000 people have made the crossing in 2023 according to the Home Office

Speaking at a full council meeting last week, Ben reassured councillors that the authority is pressing for solutions to this issue.

He said: 'Members and Officers are continuing to press for solutions on UASC/Kent children's care issues for the short and long-term - both through the litigation and outside it - and will continue to do everything possible to return the Council to full statutory compliance.

READ MORE: More than 24,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel in 2023 Advertisement

'Further reports and briefings will follow over the next few months to cover legal and operational developments.'

This comes after it was revealed on Monday (September 25), that 15 unaccompanied 'child' migrants in the care of KCC were found to be adults.

Between January 2022 and June this year, 23 migrants who identified themselves as 'children' had their ages reassessed because there was reason to doubt their claims, according to figures released by the authority under freedom of information laws. Of these, 15 were found to be adults.

It is understood smugglers are actively briefing Channel migrants to pretend to be under 16 when they arrive in the UK in a bid to receive 'preferential treatment', such as securing foster care accommodation.

And this is expected to become more common after the High Court ruled in July it is unlawful to house unaccompanied child migrants in hotels.

Following the ruling, a Home Office spokeswoman said they would be working with KCC and other local authorities to find suitable placements for unaccompanied children.

There are now growing concerns that adult migrants posing as children will take up valuable foster care places and put vulnerable young people at risk of exploitation.

Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover, is urging the government to introduce compulsory age checks for all migrants who claim to be children.

She said: 'Grown men posing as children in our schools and children's care homes puts kids at risk. Urgent action is needed for compulsory age checks on illegal migrants who claim to be children.'
Israelis will be allowed to enter the US visa free for a 90-day stay from November 30 - despite outrage at Jerusalem's treatment of Palestinian Americans at its borders.

It grants a longstanding wish by Israel that its citizens should be in the same league as those of most Western nations by not needing visas for trips of 90 days or less to the world's largest economy.

'We have been working on this for years, almost a decade,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

'I would like to express our appreciation to US President Joe Biden for his support of the initiative, which will further strengthen ties between the two peoples,' he said.

The Biden administration made the decision after Israel in July promised a series of steps to comply with longstanding US demands to treat all US passport holders equally - without discriminating against Americans who are of Palestinian or other Arab heritage or who are Muslim.

People leave Israel's Ben Gurion Airport near Lod as anti-government demonstrators rally in July 2023

Visa-free travel marks 'a critical step forward in our strategic partnership with Israel that will further strengthen longstanding people-to-people engagement, economic cooperation and security coordination,' Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

He said that the efforts would also bring greater 'freedom of movement' for US citizens living in or visiting the Palestinian territories.

A US official briefing reporters insisted that the decision was not a 'favor' to Israel but the result of progress.

But Biden is also increasingly seeking to work with Netanyahu - whose hard-right government the US president has frequently criticized - to seek a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed Majdalani, the Palestinian social affairs minister, said the US decision 'appears to be a reward' for letting Palestinian Americans enter Israel.

'It also confirms that America stands by Israel all the time,' he told AFP.

A number of lawmakers from Biden's own Democratic Party had urged Blinken not to go ahead before a Saturday deadline and instead exert pressure for greater change.

'It is clear that Israel is not in compliance with this law as it relates to reciprocal treatment for all US citizens,' said a letter signed by 15 senators led by Chris Van Hollen and Brian Schatz, and including Bernie Sanders.

Enough progress?

Already, Israel does not require visas for Americans generally.

But until the July agreement, Palestinian Americans seeking to enter the West Bank were obliged to cross by the Allenby Bridge with Jordan and were not allowed through Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, Israel's main international gateway.

The Democratic senators said that more action was necessary as US citizens who hold Palestinian identification cards still cannot rent cars at Ben Gurion and cannot go through Israeli checkpoints that prohibit Palestinians.

Passengers arrive on the Jordanian side of the King Hussein Bridge, also known as Allenby Bridge, between the West Bank and Jordan on July 19, 2022

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed a lawsuit to prevent Israel's entry into the visa waiver program, a move it said 'would be an endorsement of discrimination against Palestinian and Arab Americans.'

J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group frequently critical of Netanyahu, welcomed easier travel for Israelis but said it was clear that the US requirements 'are being bent and adjusted to accommodate Israel in a way that they have not been for other countries.'

But another US official said Israel met demands by keeping refusal of Americans seeking to enter as non-immigrants at 2.27 percent in the last fiscal year, within the target of a maximum three percent.

US officials said they could rescind the visa waiver status if there is backsliding.

In Tel Aviv, student Daniela Stein said she has a US visa but can now travel on short notice with friends and family who did not.

'I know people who would like to fly and see the world, so it opens up opportunities for them, America is a special place that many people have not yet visited,' she said.

Nearly all Western nationals enjoy visa-free entry into the United States including people from all European Union members except Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania.

Other beneficiaries include people from high-income Asian societies -- Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Brunei.
Pictures reveal inside the UK's first-ever 'drugs consumption room' where addicts can use individual 'shooting' booths to legally inject heroin and take other hard substances.

Glasgow's Integration Joint Board rubber-stamped plans today to open the 2.3million a year Hunter Street Health Centre in the east end of the city.

The pilot facility will see 'drug kits' will be handed out on trays with syringes and cotton wool to heroin users in clean hygienic conditions rather than on the dirty back streets and public places in the city, where they will be able to 'shoot up' under the watchful eye of trained health professionals.

Pharmacists kitted in scrubs, face masks, and rubber gloves will prepare the pharmaceutical grade heroin and measure out dosages before it is taken. While medics use vein finders to assist users.

Images show the booths separated with boards for privacy, while a mirror hangs on the wall above a metal table and a single blue-cushioned chair. A yellow container for used needles and syringes is attached to dividers.

Addicts using the Hunter Street Health Clinic, in Glasgow, will use individual booths where they can inject heroin and take Class A drugs without fear of being arrested

Pharmacists kitted in scrubs, face masks, and rubber gloves and pictured in 2019 preparing the pharmaceutical grade heroin before it is taken

A medical professional uses a vein finder to assist an addict. The pilot will see users take their own drugs under supervision of trained health professionals

The green light came on Wednesday after Scotland's Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC announced it would not be in the 'public interest' to prosecute users of such a facility.

First proposed in 2016 following an HIV outbreak in the city, which was linked to injecting, drug consumption rooms sparked years of political wrangling between the Scottish and UK governments. Although Westminster disagreed with the pilot scheme, it said it would not intervene.

It comes amid fears raised by Portland's commissioner of public safety, Rene Gonzalez, warning Scotland to 'avoid the tragedy we are going through'.

As exclusively revealed by the Mail on Sunday earlier this month, American officials issued an impassioned plea to the Scottish Government to 'not make the same mistake we did'.

Comparisons have been made to Portland, in Oregon, decriminalising drugs in 2021.

However, they were forced into a climbdown just two weeks ago and forced to reimpose the drug ban due to concerns about increases in overdoses, deaths and property crime.

Commissioner Gonzalez said: 'The amount of human misery is just brutal. It is truly horrific. Portland and Scotland share many values but the addictive qualities of these drugs are so brutal that it simply overwhelms your systems.'

Medical professionals will prepare a 'drugs kit' tray with a syringe, cotton wool, and a dosage of the drug

Dr Saket Priyadarshi (pictured), associate medical director of Glasgow alcohol and drug recovery services, at the Enhanced Drug Treatment Service in 2019 where the Hunter Street Health Clinic will be based

Hunter Street Health Centre, in the east end of Glasgow , will be the UK's first sanctioned 'drugs consumption room' and will be approved by the Scottish Parliament today

There were 1,051 deaths in Scotland due to drug misuse in 2022, a drop of 279 from the previous year but still 2.7 times the rate south of the border and the worst in Europe. Pictured: The entrance of the existing site

Scotland has the worst drugs death rate in Europe, with 1,051 deaths drug misuse in 2022, a drop of 279 from the previous year - but still 2.7 times the rate south of the border.

The pilot was approved by health and council officials at the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board meeting this morning.

The board involves NHS and council officials and recommended approval of the scheme in a report.

The report states: 'There is overwhelming international evidence which demonstrates that safer drug consumption facilities can improve the health, wellbeing and recovery of people who use the facility and reduce the negative impact that public injecting has on local communities and businesses.'

It highlights that following the HIV outbreak, an assessment 'found there are approximately 400 to 500 people injecting drugs in public places in Glasgow city centre on a regular basis'.

Data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 - a drop of 279, or 21 per cent, on the previous year.

It adds: 'Injecting in public spaces increases the risk of infection and other drug related harms, and also causes a risk to the public from discarded injecting equipment and needles.'

Drug consumption room facilities typically provide users with sterile injecting equipment, counselling services before, during and after using, emergency care in the event of an overdose and referrals to social care and addiction treatment services.

Commissioner Gonzalez thought the facility in Oregon would help destigmatise drug addiction and reduce harm, but it was a position he and many citizens had been forced to rethink.

He said: 'There is still broad consensus we don't want to criminalise addiction, that it is to be viewed as a disease or a medical issue. But the part that has been very painful for Oregonians and Portlanders is we took away the prohibitions but we didn't stand up quickly enough the support to get people into treatment.

'So we kind of have the worst of both worlds: we don't have anything disrupting self-destructive behaviours and we don't have a strong enough support system.'

He continued: 'We hear from citizens every day that they can respect someone's body autonomy for their right to use, but they don't want to see it in front of them, they don't want to breathe it and they don't want their kids to be exposed to it.

There are tensions, we want people to get treatment, we don't want to criminalise addiction, but we also have rights for our common areas; they should be for everyone and not just folks that consume fentanyl and meth.'

Drug user Chris, 28, in Portland, Oregon, openly smokes crack cocaine downtown in the city

In a drug consumption room in Lisbon, it was said the most common substance being injected was a cocktail of heroin and cocaine - known as speedball.

Before Nicola Sturgeon quit as first minister she admitted her government had taken its 'eye off the ball' in regard to Scottish drug deaths.

Addressing a joint meeting of three Holyrood committees on Tuesday, Kirsten Horsburgh, the chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said the evaluation of the success of the Glasgow-based initiative should not delay more being opened in other parts of the country.

'We really welcome this news,' she said.

'The anxiety we have about it is we don't want to see one facility introduced in Glasgow that prevents anywhere else in Scotland being opened until the service is evaluated.'

Ms Horsburgh also said the model introduced in Scotland's biggest city should not necessarily be the same as those introduced elsewhere in the country.

She said: 'It's important when we are introducing these facilities that we have lots of different types.

'So we could have mobile units, we could have fixed site units, we could have just a room within an area that's already providing needle exchange facilities.

'I would hope that we could not delay other areas by introducing this one.'

A 2.3 million consumption room is now planned for Hunter Street in the east end of the city, however Susanne Millar, chief officer of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, said there are still 'operational challenges' to overcome.

Portland is suffering from the fallout from a prescription opioid epidemic. It decriminalised drugs in 2021, but earlier this month was forced to reimpose the drug ban

She told journalists legal advice has been sought on the issue of people being arrested on their way to the facility, with Police Scotland and Crown Office colleagues playing a 'key' role in those discussions.

'The work that we now need to do is the ongoing work with our colleagues in Police Scotland, and they're really key partners for us,' she said.

'We will be working with them to address these very kinds of operational challenges - we will have a number of operational challenges and that will be one of our considerations.

READ MORE: SNP demands ALL drugs are decriminalised for personal use saying addiction is a 'health' issue not a matter for the courts Advertisement

'We will open the service with a full understanding of what the set of circumstances are.'

Dr Saket Priyadarshi, associate medical director at Glasgow's Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services, however said there are ways around the issue, as exceptions currently exist to allow people to safely use injecting equipment services.

He said: 'The number one issue for people using these facilities is they would be bringing illegal drugs into the facility, so they'd be concerned about the risk of prosecution.

'We're working with our colleagues in Police Scotland and the Crown Office around how best the policing response to this service would work.

'We've still got a bit of the way to go around that but if you think of it at the moment, people use injecting equipment provision services and a whole range of other services in the city.

'I think we would be asking that this service in the way that's commensurate with other drug services as well.'

He said approval of the facility is a 'really important moment' for tackling drug misuse in the city, as it will give medical experts the ability to tailor rehab and housing support services to users' needs.

Scottish ministers had demanded in July the decriminalisation of all drugs for personal use (file picture)

Some MSPs have raised concerns about the impact on the local area, including on businesses.

Appearing before the committee, Scottish Recovery Consortium chairperson Tracey McFall stressed the need to work with local communities in creating services.

'We can't do to communities, we have to take communities with us,' she said.

READ MORE: Drug addicts are given free taxis to pick up their NHS heroin at treatment facility at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer Advertisement

'There has been a number of examples over the years where there's been residential rehabilitation service set up and there was local opposition but actually in some of those rehabilitation services the community actually engage.

'It's about demystifying some of the stigma that's attached with this work.

'We need proper consultation... we need to talk to the community, we need to acknowledge their fears and say 'we get it, however there's an evidence base across the world to say there's not going to be that crime in that area, there's not going to be an increase in drug use in that area'.'

She added: 'My experience in developing services over the years is if you take the community with you, they get it.

'But don't just drop it in to say 'this is happening in your area' and I don't think Glasgow are planning that.'

Simon Rayner, the service lead for Aberdeen Alcohol and Drug Partnership, said the creation of such facilities would require winning 'the hearts and minds' of communities, and ensuring they were properly staffed to avoid 'incidents and spill-out behaviours'.

Scottish drugs minister Elena Whitham was due to appear before the joint committee meeting but was ill.

In 2021, former drug policy minister Angela Constance described the shocking death rate as a 'public health emergency'.

Tory MSP Sue Webber said: 'Drug deaths are Scotland's national shame on the SNP's watch and ministers are still failing to act with enough urgency.'

A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'We are taking action to save and improve lives with an evidence-based approach, implementing policies we know work to reduce harm and deaths from drugs and focusing on getting people into support and treatment.'

Westminster's Home Affairs Committee recommended pilots of safe consumption facilities in areas across the UK where local government and others deem there is a need, in a report published last month.

Home Office minister Chris Philp said previously the UK Government does not support such facilities in England and Wales, over concern they 'condone or even encourage' drug use, but added his department is 'not going to stand in the way' of the pilot in Scotland provided the power is exercised lawfully.

Last month, data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed there were a total of 1,051 deaths due to drug misuse in 2022 - a drop of 279, or 21 per cent, on the previous year.

While the number of deaths linked to drugs misuse is now at the lowest it has been since 2017, the NRS report made clear that the rate of deaths is still 'much higher' than it was when recording the data began in 1996.

It found that 'after adjusting for age, there were 3.7 times as many drug misuse deaths in 2022 as in 2000.

Drugs and alcohol policy minister Elena Whitham said the decline shows policies like expanding residential rehabilitation were making 'significant progress'.

But Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the SNP should 'stop talking about decriminalisation', adding: 'While these latest numbers indicate some progress is being made from an utterly catastrophic base, Scotland's appalling fatality rate means we remain the drugs-death capital of Europe by an enormous and alarming distance.
A 15-year-old schoolgirl who was stabbed to death this morning on her way to school was trying to stop a fight between her friend and her ex-boyfriend, witnesses have claimed.

Tonight the girl, who was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, has been named locally as Eliyanna. She was attacked at 8.30am - less than a mile away from the school gates.

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre, where a row between the girl, wearing a green school blazer, and the boy - in a black blazer - 'spilled out' on to a street busy with pedestrians.

It was previously claimed that the girl had been attacked after she 'refused to go out' with the boy and 'rejected his offers of flowers', but it has now been claimed he was in fact trying to speak with her friend.

The friend had been trying to hand the boy back a bag of his belongings while he tried to give her flowers when the fight broke out, seeing the victim attempt to intervene, witnesses said.

This afternoon, a love note with the words 'special girl' and 'princess' written on it, along with blood stained red roses, were being examined by forensic officers. The note was then removed from the scene.

Chevanice Thomas, whose friend claims to have witnessed the stabbing, said the girl had rejected flowers from the boy moments before he attacked her with a knife that resembled 'a sword'. Another witness claimed she heard a girl saying she 'didn't want to go out with him any more'.

The bus driver and a passenger tried desperately to save the girl's life but she died at the scene at 9.21am. Community worker James Watkins said the girl's 'devastated' family were summoned to the scene this morning but were 'unable to make it' in time to say goodbye to their daughter.

Officers arrested a 17-year-old boy in nearby New Addington at 9.45am. Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Old Palace of John Whitgift School is a selective independent day school for girls aged three to 18. It is consistently ranked as one the best in London and is a sister school to Whitgift School for Boys. It is not yet clear which school the boy attended.

A forensic officer picks up the bunch of flowers from the scene of the fatal stabbing on Wellesley Road

The victim, who as a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, has tonight been named locally as Eliyanna

Witnesses said the boy had tried to give the girl flowers but she replied that she 'didn't want to go out with him anymore'

Today, forensics officers were seen removing a handwritten love note from the scene

Forensic officers walk past the scene, which features several privacy screens

One witness to the attack claimed she saw a boy and a girl arguing, with a girl saying she 'didn't want to go out with him any more'.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, continued: 'There were about seven or eight children who got off a bus which stopped outside the Whitgift Centre.

'There was a young girl and young boy arguing. He had flowers with him and they were arguing about the girl breaking up with him yesterday.'

Those who knew Eliyanna said she had a bright future ahead of her, on track to pass all of her GCSES later in the school year.

Anthony King, chair of the My Ends organisation which works with the Met Police in Croydon said: 'The victim was absolutely incredible with a very bright future. A very comedic young lady.

'The word I think that was used was jovial. She was on track to pass all of her GCSEs. She was very articulate.'

The girl's family had tried to rush to her side upon hearing that she had been hurt, but tragically arrived to late.

Mr Watkins, who works at the youth prevention and intervention programmes at Mainz World, added: 'It's disgusting, when we look at these children being killed that are from the borough it hurts you in the heart. These could be our kids, it's devastating.'

Amongst those who witnessed the stabbing were two girls, said to be the victims best friends.

Just 75 minutes after the attack, officers arrested a 17-year-old boy five miles away on tram tracks in nearby New Addington at 9.45am

Floral tributes and card laid at the scene in Croydon, south London

A forensic investigator puts flowers into a container at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon

Mr King added: 'Two 15 year old girls were absolutely devastated by witnessing their very close friend being stabbed. They're still being interviewed by police.'

Michael Fyffe, who witnessed the attack, told Sky News: 'I turned around and could see that someone was trying to resuscitate her.

'There were loads of people who had just come off the bus and then I think two of the girl's friends came out and they were trying to rush over towards the body.

'So myself and a few of the other people tried to hold her back and just say, ''Look let them try and help your friends" and she was just screaming, "Is my friend dead? She's my best friend".'

Speaking to journalists at the scene, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said officers were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

'This is every parent's worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victim's death,' he said.

'This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

'The victim's family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

'We carried out urgent inquiries to find the suspect and within 75 minutes of the incident happening a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington. He remains in custody and will be questioned by detectives.

'We remain in the early stages of our investigation, however based on what we know so far we believe that we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this offence.

'From our initial inquiries, we believe the suspect may have known the victim. However, we're not in a position to release the victim's identity at this time.'

Speaking to journalists this afternoon, Chief Superintendent Brittain said officers arrived within two minutes of being called and gave the suspect's age as 17

Privacy screens have been set up around the scene of the stabbing in Croydon, south London

The number 60 bus remains behind the police cordon, where forensics officers are carrying out inquiries

Today, the Met said officers were on the scene of the stabbing within two minutes

A spokesman for the Old Palace of John Whitgift School said: 'We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

'It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

'Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girl's family at this unimaginably distressing time.

Chevanice Thomas, 28, who works on the nearby Landsdown Building site, said her friend saw a group of schoolchildren and adults running from the scene immediately after the stabbing at around 8.30am this morning.

'My friend said there was people with their children running everywhere,' she said. 'The only person who stayed was the bus driver. A lot of people got out their vehicles and started running.

'My friend said they were off the bus, talking, the boy and the girl. The boy gave her flowers, but she didn't want anything to do with him. Then he got violent and stabbed her. My friend said the knife was like a sword.'

This afternoon, a white tent could be seen within a police cordon next to the double-decker bus.

The location of the stabbing is shown in the map above. The 60 route bus was heading towards Streatham station

A forensic investigator onboard the bus where the argument is believed to have started

A mother-of-two, who asked to be named only as Bridget, said: 'I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

'The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.'

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victim's friends, were trying to get back through the police cordon but were held back.

Victor Asare was on a bus on the way home from a night shift as a security worker when he said he saw a boy in a black blazer stab a girl in the neck with a knife which was 'black, thin and about a foot long'.

The 50-year-old said: 'The boy wore a black blazer, the girl wore green. It looked like the girl didn't want the boy to come closer.'

He then described the boy stabbing the girl in the neck with a black knife.

'A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus,' he said. '[The boy] ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

'We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. It's somebody's daughter.

'I finished work but couldn't sleep, so came back, I wanted to see if the girl was OK.'

Croydon MP Sarah Jones attended the police press conference alongside Croydon mayor Jason Perry.

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre

They said a row between the girl and boy - who were both in school uniform - 'spilled out' on to a street busy with pedestrians

Ms Jones said: 'I'm heartbroken that a child in my town has been killed on her way to school and I cannot imagine the grief that her family will be going through at this time.

'I want to thank the police and the ambulance services for trying so hard to save her life. They run into danger and I know they will be suffering today, too.

'I want to repeat the request from the police that if anybody has any information please do get in touch.

'We all hold our children close and our community will take time to grieve, but for today we are just thinking of this young girl and her family. I'm so sorry.'

Mr Perry added: 'We all personally feel devastated by the events that have happened here in Croydon this morning and the tragic loss of such a young life.

'The community are feeling that hurt right now and we will do everything we can to support the community through such a very difficult time.'

Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said tonight: 'The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

'It was moving and humbling to meet many members of the exceptional Croydon community who have come together in support of a family now dealing with the most unimaginable grief.

'The commitment of so many from the local community is inspiring. A powerful partnership between charitable groups, faith and community leaders, the local authority, the wider public and our officers has delivered so much work across the borough. They have collectively saved many lives from knife crime.

'Many are shocked and hurting. They care deeply and it's this passion which has made Croydon a safer place and will continue to in the future.

'I spoke to officers who, with members of the public, were among the first on scene with colleagues trying to save this young girl's life and have since supported her family and friends. Through diligent work by them all an early arrest was made and our major crime team now continue to investigate the events leading up to this awful attack.'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Greatest Hits Radio London: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved family of the 15-year-old child who has been stabbed in Croydon.

'I've been in touch with the commissioner [Sir Mark Rowley] and we are in touch with the police.

'It's heartbreaking. An arrest has been made of another teenager in relation to this matter.

'There were other people present and I'd encourage them to contact the police. If they are worried about the anonymity they can ring Crimestoppers.

'It's really important people come forward and support the police to make sure justice occurs for this poor girl's family.'

Privacy screens and a tent outside the Whitgift centre in Croydon while a bus sits beside the pavement nearby

A photo of police cars rushing to the scene of the stabbing in south London

Police cars surrounded the parked bus in Croydon shortly after the attack

Video and pictures posted on social media showed huge police presence and two white privacy screens surrounding the scene.

A number of Scotland Yard officers can be seen standing behind a cordon, with one holding up a towel while a paramedic carrying a medic bag crouches to the ground.

Beldine Kutima, a receptionist at a nearby four-star hotel, told The Evening Standard: 'One of our duty managers went to get the bus but she came back in total shock and was crying heavily.

'She ran back screaming and grabbed towels from the back room and ran back out there.'

An estate agent who works near the scene where the girl was stabbed complained Croydon had seen an upsurge in violence.

Leigh Thomas, 41, said: 'I came out of my office and there were two ambulances right across the road and about 12 police cars.'

He added: 'Croydon has gone to the dogs recently. The other side of the shopping centre is a war zone.

'There's drug dealing, fights, there was another stabbing recently. I grew up around here, it's not what it used to be.'

Scotland Yard has confirmed that a 17-year-old boy has been arrested

Transport for London (TfL) has diverted its 60, 407, and 455 routes due to the incident

Home Office minister Chris Philp posted on X: 'Devastating news that a 15-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in Croydon town centre and died soon afterwards on the scene, despite the best efforts of the emergency services.

'Our hearts go out to her family who must be in deep shock at their terrible loss.

'Nothing can be worse for a parent than losing a child.

'An arrest was made shortly afterwards of a teenager believed to be known to the victim.

'We must redouble our efforts to take all knives off the streets of London, using every means available.'

Transport for London (TfL) has diverted its 60, 407, and 455 routes due to the incident.

Wellesley Road has been closed northbound from Whitgift Centre to St Michael's Road.
Bill Maher has warned that Biden 'will lose' to Donald Trump at the next election and likened him to Ruth Bader Ginsburg over his inability to quit.

The Democratic comedian and writer issued a stark prediction for Biden's chances saying he is the 'only' candidate who can lose to Trump.

During a segment on his Club Random podcast, Maher branded the president, 80, 'Ruth Bader Biden' in a reference to the Supreme Court Judge who also refused to retire.

Liberal Bader Ginsburg died while in office at the age of 87 and was replaced by Trump with a conservative judge allowing him to further extend a right win influence over the Supreme Court's decisions.

Speaking to Dem strategist James Carville, Maher said: 'I think we're on the same page with Biden. Did a great service but whereas in 2020, maybe he was the only one who could have beaten Trump, I think now he's the only one who will lose to him.'

WARNING OBSCENE LANGUAGE IN EMBEDDED VIDEO

Bill Maher predicted Biden 'will lose' the election against Trump during an episode of his Club Random podcast

He cited several of Biden's perceived successes including his handling of Afghanistan, Ukraine and the post pandemic economy.

He also stated his belief the president could still do his job because government is 'done in small rooms like the Oval office, where people are talking quietly.'

But he was scathing in his assessment of Biden's election chances, saying he 'cannot run for president'.

Maher added: 'He'll look bad in the debates. It's just, it's too - it's too much. And he's, I think, going to lose.'

He then went on to dub the leader the 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the presidency', saying 'it's not a good look'.

Bader Ginsburg refused to step down in the Obama years and was ultimately replaced by Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Carville also pointed to polling which suggests that between 73 to 77 per cent of the country do not want Biden to run again.

Maher added: 'Its a very big number for something this crucial'.

Maher likened Biden to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg over his refusal to step down from the job. Bader Ginsburg worked up until her death at the age of 87 and was eventually replaced by Trump's nomination Amy Coney Barrett to further extend a conservative influence over the court's decisions

Carville claimed that the Democrats could achieve 55 per cent of the vote simply by having someone under 60 on the ballot.

While Maher said, 'any 50ish, not stupid woke Democrat with a D by their name- people just vote D and R. That person can win'.

His comments on Biden mark a distinct departure from previous comments to CNN where he stated he believed the incumbent would win against Trump.

He said in February: 'I think if it's Biden against Trump, Biden will win. I do. Not guaranteed, but I think that's a really good bet. It was the first time and I think it would the second time even more so.'
A single mom has revealed how she almost died after being stabbed in the chest by a 15-year-old who asked for help before attacking her and stealing her car.

Giselle Andino, 33, was parked at the Civic Center Transit Station in Vista, San Diego, when a 15-year-old approached her car asking for help.

The teenage boy went up to Andino in her car and asked to use her phone before attacking her through the drivers seat window. He brutally stabbed her three times in the chest.

Andino - a single mom to 8-year-old McKenzie - survived three stab wounds from the brutal attack but was left in critical condition.

She told ABC7: 'He was aiming for the heart every time so he wanted me dead'.

Giselle Andino, 33, was brutally stabbed three times but a 15-year-old boy at a San Diego parking lot at 10:30pm on Sunday

The single mom to an 8-year-old girl feared for her life after the teenage boy stabbed her in the heart with a steak knife

Andino said that all she could think about after the horrific incident was her young daughter

The attack happened at 10:30pm on Sunday.

The 33-year-old saw the teen leave and re-enter the parking lot before he approached her car to ask if he could use her phone.

Andino said: 'I didn't know if he needed to call his parents or what it was so so I was offering my help'.

The car window was down just enough for him to reach in and stab her.

He then opened the door and stabbed her twice more, dragged her out into the parking lot and hopped in the drivers seat before he drove off in her car.

The single mom described the weapon that the teen used as a 'steak knife' and said the stabs 'hurt like hell'.

Andino was afraid she would not survive and the only thing she could think about was her 8-year-old daughter.

She has a disease that causes her to bleed more than normal when injured so she was especially scared for her life.

The horrific stabbing attack left the victim in the hospital with life-threatening injuries - but Andino said she feels lucky to be alive.

'I do feel lucky yes because when I was calling for help I really didn't think I was gonna see my kid again'

The 15-year-old was tracked down by police and wrecked the stolen Mercedes after a car-chase that ended just before entering the State Route 76 freeway.

After he crashed the car he ran off and was finally arrested after a 20 minute foot chase.

As Andino recovered in hospital she said: 'Nowadays the way things are you can't trust anybody - not even a 15-year old kid,

'Much as you want to be helpful for someone you just can't trust anyone and it's sad.'

The teenager asked Andino if he could use her phone to make a call and then stabbed her through the driver's seat window before opening the car door and stabbing her twice more

Andino is recovering in hospital. She said: Nowadays the way things are you can't trust anybody - not even a 15-year old kid

San Diego had a population of 1,462,018 and the city saw around 31,000 crimes in 2022.

Statistics showed that overall crime rates in the California city fell from 2021 to 2022 - but violent crime hit a 10 year high in San Diego.

This rise was fueled by a 10 percent increase in robberies in the democrat-run city. 36 percent of robberies happened on the streets or in other public places. There was also a slight increase in burglary and motor vehicle thefts.

San Diego's mayor - democrat Todd Gloria - made an effort during his time in office to clear the sidewalks of homeless encampments for the overall safety and health of the progressive city's residents.
Germany has warned the Schengen Zone will be 'in danger' if the EU cannot protect its external frontiers, as Berlin imposes new controls on its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic after an influx of migrants.

Germany saw its first-time asylum requests rise by 78% in the first seven months of 2023, according to official data. In August, registered illegal border crossings to Germany reached 14,701, up 66% on the same month last year, police data shows.

The new controls will see an increase in policing along 'smuggling routes', and would begin immediately, Berlin official said today.

Announcing the new measures on Wednesday, German interior minister said more should be done to protect the European Union's fragile system of open borders.

'If we do not succeed in better protecting the external borders ..., then open borders within the EU are in danger,' Nancy Faeser told reporters in Berlin.

Germany has warned the Schengen Zone will be 'in danger' if the EU cannot protect its external frontiers, as Berlin imposes new controls on its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic after an influx of migrants. Pictured: A officer of German Federal Police stops a van to search for immigrants at the border crossing from Poland into Germany

She said the focus of the new measures would be people smugglers, which she said facilitated the passage of a quarter of the migrants entering Germany.

'We want to prevent evasive movements of smugglers through flexible and mobile controls at changing locations,' she said, adding that the measures would be initiated in concert with Poland and the Czech Republic.

The announcement came a day after police raids in Germany found more than 100 Syrian citizens inside apartments searched in connection with a smuggling ring.

Faeser did not offer any details on how many more border police officers would be deployed but stressed that no fixed border checks would be installed as Germany has been doing along the border with Austria since 2015. In order to introduce such controls, Germany would have to notify the European Commission.

She said new border controls would supplement the mobile police patrols already checking cars crossing the border or people trying to enter Germany on foot.

'We must stop the cruel business of smugglers who put human lives at risk for maximum profit,' Faeser said.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner wrote later on Wednesday on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, that his ministry would support the increased border control with additional customs officers.

'Border controls are to be intensified to stop smuggling and illegal migration,' he wrote. 'To ensure that this succeeds quickly, I have decided that customs will support this urgent task with 500 staff.'

Suspected illegal migrants sit on the ground after they were detained by German police during their patrol along the German-Polish border to prevent illegal migration, in Forst, Germany, September 20, 2023

Police officers on duty during a raid stand in front of an apartment building in Stade, Germany, Tuesday Sept. 26, 2023. During raids in five states, officers discovered several Syrians suspected of having been smuggled in early Tuesday morning

Germany has implemented new controls along its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic

Many migrants from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and elsewhere have been trying to get to Germany to apply for asylum.

Cities and communities across Germany have been sounding the alarm about the rising number of arrivals, saying they are running out of room to accommodate them and provide kindergarten and school places.

As a result, migration features high on the agenda in Europe's largest economy ahead of a string of state elections in which the far right is hoping to boost its sway, starting with polls in Bavaria and Hesse on Oct. 8.

Municipalities have called for more funding to cope with arrivals, pointing to stretched accommodation and services reminiscent of 2015, when Germany took in over 1 million refugees fleeing war in the Middle East.

This year, more than 220,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in the period from January to August.

In all of 2022, about 240,000 people applied for asylum. Those numbers are still a far cry from 2015-16, when more than 1 million migrants applied for asylum in Germany.

However, in addition to migrants, Germany has also taken in more than 1 million Ukrainians fleeing Russia's brutal war on their country.

About one quarter of all migrants who reach Germany come with the help of smugglers on dangerous routes across the Mediterranean Sea and through forests along the Balkans route, Faeser said.

They usually pay thousand of dollars to reach Germany.

However, even if migrants get stopped on the border by police because they don't have valid entry documents, they can still come to Germany if they apply for asylum.

'We want to prevent evasive movements by smugglers through flexible and mobile checks at changing locations,' Faeser said.

'At the same time, we will ensure that the controls have as little impact as possible on people, commuters and commerce in everyday life.'

Faeser also pointed out that 'for a significant reduction of irregular migration, a joint European asylum system remains the decisive step,' meaning that the EU's external borders must be strictly checked so that migrants cannot even reach countries like Germany, located in the center of the bloc.

People stand at the entrance to an immigration office in Berlin on September 26, 2023

Police detain suspects as they patrol along the German-Polish border to prevent illegal migration near Klinge, Germany, September 20, 2023

Ahead of the election in his state, Bavaria's conservative premier Markus Soeder suggested an upper limit on asylum seekers of 200,000 annually - a proposal rejected by Faeser.

The latest increase in numbers comes as thousands of migrants travelling on boats from North Africa have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Two weeks ago, Germany said it would suspend an agreement with Italy to take in some of its arrivals, arguing that Rome was not sticking to long-contested rules dictating that asylum applications should be processed in the EU country of first arrival.

Faeser withdrew that decision within days in light of the unfolding crisis on Lampedusa.

The surge in arrivals has also led to tensions with Germany's neighbour Poland, which said it may introduce border checks.

Warsaw on Tuesday, weeks ahead of its own national election, began conducting checks on some vehicles crossing the Slovak border, suspecting they could be carrying illegal migrants.

This week, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote to Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the weekend to complain about Berlin's funding of charity projects to help migrants either at sea or onshore in Italy.

A migrant holds a baby next to a police officer looking inside a van where the police found 30 migrants during their patrol along the German-Polish border to prevent illegal migration near Forst, Germany, September 20, 2023

'I have learned with astonishment that your administration - without coordinating with the Italian government - has allegedly decided to support with substantial funds non-governmental organisations engaged in the reception of irregular migrants on Italian territory and in rescues in the Mediterranean Sea,' Meloni wrote.

The right-wing Meloni is pursuing a hard line against illegal immigration but Italy has seen a surge in migrant arrivals this year with some 133,000 coming ashore so far against around 69,800 in the same period in 2022.

Rome blames the NGO boats that conduct rescue missions in the central Mediterranean - the world's deadliest sea crossing for migrants - for encouraging arrivals from North Africa.

As part of her efforts, Meloni's government has sought to limit the activities of charity rescue ships operating in the central Mediterranean, the world's deadliest sea crossing for migrants, drawing the ire of others within the EU.
Costa Rica has declared a state of emergency as it struggles to deal with an influx of migrants passing through the tropical paradise, with more than a quarter million asylum seekers crossing through the treacherous Darien Gap this year to get to the US.

President Rodrigo Chaves said on Tuesday he has ordered officials to declare a state of emergency as the number of migrants passing through the small Central American nation after crossing from South to Central America through the jungle jumped sharply, reaching 386,000 in 2023 alone.

'The people that arrive are passing across Costa Rica trying to get to the United States, basically... I have instructed the security ministry to take a firm stance with anyone who takes Costa Rica's kindness for weakness,' Chaves said at a press conference, referencing recent riots by migrants crossing the country.

So far in September, more than 60,000 people have passed through the Costa Rican border town shared with Panama, Paso Canoas, where fewer than 20,000 people live.

During the month of August, a record of more than 84,490 people entered Costa Rica through its southern border with Panama - a 55 percent increase from July.

Costa Rica has declared a state of emergency as it struggles to deal with an influx of migrants passing through on their way to the US. Asylum seekers are seen asking for money in San Jose

While the migrants are only passing through Costa Rica, they often stay in transit countries like the tourist haven for weeks or months while they make money to continue their journey

During the month of August, a record of more than 84,490 people entered Costa Rica through its southern border with Panama - a 55 percent increase from July

While the migrants are only passing through Costa Rica, they often stay in transit countries like the tourist haven for weeks or months while they make money to continue their journey. These migrants have filled refugee camps in the country, as well as in others such as Panama and Mexico.

Chaves said he will allow the migrants to get to the north of the country, and transport them via buses, but 'disrespect' towards authorities will not be allowed,' as reported by The Tico Times.

The migrant presence in Costa Rica has increased as a record number of asylum seekers cross the dangerous 575,000-hectare jungle called the Darien Gap, which connects Colombia and Panama and serves as a route to the US for desperate migrants.

The dangerous jungle crossing has been reduced from over a week to as little as two days for the strongest walkers, by a network of guides, established camps and rudimentary trail markers that start in the Necocli, on Colombias side of the gap.

Venezuelan migrants in Huehuetoca said the Darien operation appears to be dominated by Colombian paramilitary groups, which funnel part of their proceeds to Panamas autonomous Indigenous groups.

The dangerous jungle crossing has been reduced from over a week to as little as two days for strong walkers, by a network of guides, established camps and rudimentary trail markers

A Panamanian Senafront soldier is seen patrolling the lawless jungle where violent and armed gangs target the desperate travelers on their journey to the U.S.

Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves said he will allow the migrants to get to the north of the country, and transport them via buses, but 'disrespect' towards authorities will not be allowed'

If the pace keeps up, as many as 400,000 re expected to cross the gap by the years end

President Chaves said the migrants passing through Costa Rica come from all over the world, including from China, Yemen, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador and Bangladesh. However, most are Venezuelans who say they are fleeing violence, hunger and repression under the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro.

The United Nations has said that more than 330,000 people have crossed the Darien Gap on their journey towards North America so far this year. By comparison, less than 250,000 migrants crossed in all of 2022.

If the pace keeps up, as many as 400,000 re expected to cross the gap by the years end.

Costa Rica's Chaves will visit Panama in early October to hold discussions on the migrant crisis.

Last month the government of Panama said it would launch a new campaign to stem the flow of migrants through the Darien Gap.

'Despite all the efforts, meetings with other countries involved have not managed to stop (the flow of migrants),' Panamas Security Minister Juan Manuel Pino said.

Officials said the massive trekking of migrants through the gap  now running between 2,500 and 3,000 per day  has polluted and damaged the jungle, as well as exposed people to risks and rights abuses.

A Venezuelan migrant child remains in an improvised tent in the Colombian port town of Turbo, close to the Darien Gap

While the migrants are only passing through Costa Rica, they often stay in transit countries for weeks or months while they make money to continue their journey. These migrants have filled refugee camps in Costa Rica, as well as in others such as Panama (pictured)

Most of the migrants currently crossing the US-Mexico border have trekked through all of central America to get there

Moreover, the migrants are preyed upon by corrupt officials, gangs, thieves and sexual abusers almost every step of the way. At least a half dozen of the migrants in Huehuetoca, Mexico, described seeing the same dead bodies  a woman and her newborn baby, a young couple, an older, heavy-set man  decomposing along the jungle trail in Darien.

Of the 248,000 migrants who traveled through the jungle last year, 40,438 were minors, UNICEF data showed.

The agency also noted that more than 4,800 children and adolescents trekked through the dangerous rainforest in January, a seven-fold increase compared with the same period a year ago.

At least 36 people died in the Darien Gap in 2022, according to the International Organization Migration.

Most of the migrants currently crossing the US-Mexico border have trekked through all of central America to get there. Many end up in progressive sanctuary cities such as Chicago and New York City, bused north by Republican governors fed up with what they say are open-arms policies by Democrats.

The historic The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan - dubbed 'the new Ellis Island' by one city official - has become the registering point for the migrants and is currently housing 3,000 asylum seekers.

In the small border city of Eagle Pass, the Democratic mayor has declared a state of emergency as it's thought that 100,000 people waded through the Rio Grande last week.

Around two million migrants are believed to have crossed the US southern border in 2023, with many citing Biden's lax policies as a reason. Another 500,000 could cross by the end of the year.

Last week, Biden announced plans to quickly process more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants who have crossed the border since July 31 in order to provide some relief to the growing numbers that underfunded border officials are forced to deal with.

The numbers of migrants has been steadily rising since May 2023 when Title 42 expired. The Trump-era rule was enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic and allowed officials to turn away those crossing the border en masse citing public health risks.

That has resulted in more than double the amount of migrants crossing the border per day. This weekend, border crossings on average were recorded at 8,600, up from 3,500 which was the average prior to the expiration of Title 42.
Boston's new $2.2billion subway extension has been forced to slow trains to just three miles per hour, meaning it's quicker for most commuters to walk.

The Green Line extension, which was opened last year by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is already plagued by problems with its tracks - meaning train speeds have been reduced dramatically.

The defective tracks - caused by the metal being too close together in many spots - mean trains are moving slower than the average person can walk.

This is despite the fact they were closed just months after opening for repairs.

Running trains at full speed on the narrow tracks risks derailment, so an extra-slow service on the 11 on the Medford branch and 3 on the Union Square branch is now necessary.

The Green Line extension, which opened last year, is already plagued by problems with its tracks, meaning train speeds have been reduced dramatically

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng took over the embattled agency in April

Multiple gauge-related issues were found during various rounds of scans performed on the transport system.

Last month, the system added 18 speed restrictions and eliminated just one.

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said in a statement when he took over the embattled transit agency in April: 'We remain committed to addressing infrastructure problems that we have inherited caused by years of disinvestment and past decisions that have led us to this point in time.

'We know we have significant work to accomplish, not only to rebuild public trust as we remove speed restrictions but also to rebuild our workforce and reorganize our leadership team.'

Taylor Rossi, who was riding on the Medford branch, said she's come to accept occasional slow speeds - but Tuesday was the worst she had ever seen.

The defective tracks - caused by the metal being too close together in many spots - mean trains are moving slower than the average person can walk

She told the Boston Globe: 'I feel like I probably could have walked faster.'

MBTA's dashboard showed that during portions of the journey, trains moved at three miles per hour.

According to the newspaper, cyclists and pedestrians were speeding past the train on the tracks.

An MBTA spokesman told NBC10 Boston: 'Earlier this month, MBTA track inspectors performed a regularly scheduled geometry scan of the Green Line Extension tracks, and found some areas where the width between the rails was slightly out of the limits of the regular track standards.

'The MBTA is working to determine the cause of these aberrations in the track gauge.'

Plans are in place to have the three speed restrictions on the Union Square branch eliminated by the time the branch reopens, spokesperson Joe Pesaturo said.

He said: 'We're making every effort to resume that work this week.'
Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect Rex Heuermann has appeared in court and spoken for the first time - as prosecutors say there is DNA evidence linking him to a woman he's accused of killing.

Prosecutors say that a swab Heuermann, 59, submitted last month matched DNA from a pizza crust found outside his Manhattan office in July.

That DNA sample also matched a hair found on the body of Gilgo Beach victim Megan Waterman, who was killed in 2010.

Heuermann is charged with first- and second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of three victims, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.

He wore a white shirt, tan pants, and a new haircut in Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court today - and told a judge he is taking advantage of his reading time in jail.

Rex Heuermann has appeared in court today - with a new hairstyle. He wore a white shirt, tan pants, and a new haircut in Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court today - and told a judge he is taking advantage of his reading time in jail

Prosecutors say that a swab Heuermann, 59, submitted last month matched DNA from a pizza crust found outside his Midtown Manhattan office in July

In court, prior to this hearing, the defense had well over 8000 pages of evidence and today they were given an additional 5,000.

This included grand jury testimony and exhibits, property warrants, subpoenas, DNA reports, and memo books from officers, after they as carefully combed Heuermanns home and storage units in the days following his arrest.

Heuermann spoke for the first time in court today. He was handcuffed behind his back - compared to when he was handcuffed to the front at his August hearing.

Judge Mazzei asked the alleged murderer: 'Have you been taking advantage to review materials in jail?'

To which Heuermann said: 'Yes.'

The judge asked: 'For how long a day are they allowing you to do that?'

And Heuermann answered: 'Up to four hours, and I have been averaging up to two to three hours.'

Asa Ellerup, his wife, was not present in the court room today.

Suffolk County prosecutors say that Heuermanns sample matched DNA from a pizza crust found outside his Midtown Manhattan office in July

In January, with police surveilling him, police recovered a pizza box that Heurmann had tossed into a garbage can in Manhattan that they used to obtain his DNA

In addition to his cluttered home, Heuermann kept two storage units in Amityville. They were searched yesterday and today

In January, with police surveilling him, police recovered a pizza box that he had tossed into a garbage can in Manhattan.

They were able to match the DNA from the leftover pie with a sample that was taken from the burlap sack that the killer used to conceal Waterman's body.

The court-ordered DNA swab he gave last week came back as a positive link to the one found in the contents of the pizza box.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said at a press conference today: 'The surveillance team had observed the pizza box and were confident that that was the DNA, that the DNA profile would be consistent with the defendant because he left that material inside the box.

'And so the buccal swab just erases all doubt.'

Tierney also added: 'Our investigation is continuing. And when we're prepared to announce charges, if that day comes, we'll do it in court.

'We're working on the fourth Gilgo victim. And now we've expanded our investigation to include other bodies that were recovered in that area.

'And we'll speak about that when and if we're prepared to be charged.

'That investigation is continuing, so it takes time. I know that when you watch a show like CSI, everything gets done in one episode.'

Rex's defense attorney Michael Brown speaking outside of court this morning

Michael Brown, Heuermann's defense attorney, said: 'There is nobody on the face of the earth that is credible is going to say that hair is my clients hair.'

'Its impossible under science standards. What they can do is say he could potentially be a donor for that hair, but so could thousands and thousands of other people just in our area, so take that for what its worth.'

All three women he's accused of murdering were found in 2010 wrapped in burlap off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo State Park just minutes from the 59-year-old father of two's house.

Authorities said he's also the 'prime suspect' in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes and as of last week he is not being investigated in connection with the 1989 murder of sex worker Carmen Vargas.

Heuermann's dramatic arrest outside his offices in Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on July 13 came as a result of a decade-long hunt for the infamous Gilgo Bach serial killer.

He counted Nike, American Airlines and Target as clients during his three-decade architecture career, while allegedly also strangling three women and taunting their families with phone calls - often allegedly made from his New York office.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney looks on during Rex Heuerman's court appearance at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on Wednesday, September 27, 2023

The first victim, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, was discovered by Suffolk County Police on December 11, 2010. The body of Megan Waterman, 22, was found two days later

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old when she went missing (left). Amber Lynn Costello was 27 years old. Their bodies were found near Barthelemy's the same day

The first set of remains were found along the strip of coastline in December 2010, when the body of Barthelemy, 24, was discovered during a search for another missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, 23.

Two days later, cops realized they may have a manic serial killer on their hands when three additional sets of remains were discovered - those of Brainard-Barnes, Costello and Waterman.

The bodies were found along a half-mile stretch on Gilgo Beach, where several other bodies have been found - some of which police are still determining if Heuermann had anything to do with.

The three women he has been charged with killing and the one he is suspected of murdering were all found wrapped in camouflaged burlap, and worked as escorts on Craigslist, officials said.

The case has drawn immense public attention. The mystery attracted national headlines for many years and the unsolved killings were the subject of the 2020 Netflix film 'Lost Girls.'

Determining who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership.

Last year, an interagency task force was formed with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case.
BT's digital switchover is going 'too fast and too fast', campaigners representing elderly people have said - as fury grows over the telecom giant's plans to scrap landline phones by 2025.

BT yesterday confirmed the next phase of its rollout of Digital Voice, its new home phone service to replace existing analogue landlines, with the scheme coming to the North West and London.

The move is part of an industry-wide shift away from analogue to digital landlines, meaning calls are made over the internet via a broadband line.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, today told BBC Radio Oxford that many people are 'concerned about the reliability of a system based only on the internet' - and slammed the 2025 timetable as 'ludicrously short'.

From 2025, all households and businesses will need the internet to make calls under a major digital shake-up - meaning millions of customers will be pushed online for the first time or forced to rely on a mobile phone instead.

But the controversial shift has struck fear in the hearts of the elderly and those in rural areas who worry they might not be able to make 999 emergency calls, with charities warning landlines remain 'a lifeline' for many older users who do not have mobile phones and may live in remote areas.

This is when the change to traditional copper landlines will be rolling out across the UK

Dennis Reed (pictured), director of Silver Voices, today told BBC Radio Oxford that many people are 'concerned about the reliability of a system based only on the internet' - and slammed the 2025 timetable as 'ludicrously short'

BT has announced the next phase of its Digital Voice switchover - which will see the old copper network scrapped in favour of broadband phone calls

BT memorably used Maureen Lipman as 'Beattie' (pictured) to promote landline services in the 1980s

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, told BBC Radio Oxford today: 'A lot of people don't know about it yet but those that do are contacting us in large numbers expressing their concerns because they rely on the landline for a whole number of reasons, obviously emergency calls.

'They're very concerned about the reliability of having a system based only on the internet. They may not have a good mobile signal in their area. A lot of them have got emergency telecare or pendant alarm systems and not all of those are compatible with the Digital Voice system.

'So there's a whole range of concerns and we think it's going far too fast and far too far at this stage. I mean, 2025 is a ludicrously short timetable. It's a timetable which has been agreed for commercial considerations rather than the security of older and vulnerable people.

'If it's a question of choice, and a lot of people might be quite happy and rely on mobiles, have good mobile signal in their area, they might be quite happy to have an internet-based system as a backup to that. But they're forcing people to do this, or the intention is that they will force people to transfer over to Digital Voice by 2025.

'And there's no reason for this. BT say that the copper wire system has reached the end of its days. Well that may well be the case, but it's not suddenly overnight in 2025 going to reach the end of its days. And there's no reason why there shouldn't be a reasonable transition period so that all these concerns about reliability and safety are ironed out before they force everybody to transfer over.'

'What we're suggesting, and some Government officials have actually asked us recently for our advice on what to do about this, and our advice is very simple - that the timetable needs to be reappraised, there's no reason why the two systems can't work in parallel, say for up to five years, and then the move would be largely voluntary and it wouldn't have all this concern over people are very concerned about their safety with this new system.

'BT have come up with all these assurances about how they're going to be very careful and cautious with older people, but they've already started moving some people between the age of 70 and 75 in the East Midlands over to Digital Voice without advising them that it's voluntary at the moment.

'So they are really pushing, for commercial reasons, to get this done as quickly as possible. We think the Government should step in and say: 'Hey, wait a minute, folks. This timetable is too rushed and we are concerned about the impact on vulnerable people.'

Asked if he had a landline, Mr Reed said: 'Unfortunately we've moved into a new property and there's no landlines installed, and we can't get a landline installed. And that's part of the problem... that BT aren't putting in new landlines. So I haven't.'

A digital revolution of BT's home phone network has yesterday triggered fears millions of elderly and vulnerable people in Britain could be cut off from the world and left at risk.

Author Polly James led the backlash yesterday, writing on social media: 'What happens to vulnerable people who rely on landlines to call for help in an emergency? Broadband does crash occasionally and not all elderly people are confident with mobile phones.'

Industry insiders had previously compared the move to the switch to digital TV in 2012, when broadcasters stopped transmitting traditional analogue signals to household rooftop or indoor aerials.

Pensioner groups previously warned the move would leave millions of vulnerable people at risk and isolated if the system goes into temporary meltdown.

Jan Shortt, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, previously told The Mail on Sunday: 'What on earth was BT thinking when it decided to bring in such a huge change without properly consulting those who rely on traditional home phone lines the most?'

BT's digital changeover sees the traditional handset replaced by a new 'digital' phone (powered by electricity) that relies upon the internet for calls to be made.

If there is a power cut, this digital phone line will no longer work  and a potential lifeline for elderly people will be suddenly lost. Those needing to make an emergency '999' call or raise an alarm via a health pendant could be left stranded  and unable to call anyone to ask for life-saving support.

Despite further rollouts in the months ahead, BT says it is not forcing people with healthcare pendants, those without internet connections, those without mobiles or those with additional needs into making the switch yet.

But it has begun enrolling over-70s in the scheme, after previously granting them an exemption - but only if they live in built-up areas with good broadband and don't use landlines often.

The move is part of an industry-wide shift away from the copper network to digital landlines, where phone calls will be made using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology - the same technology that powers phone calls on apps such as Skype and Zoom.

Janet Brown, 87, a former teacher from Stratford-upon-Avon, has dementia and lives alone. She switched to Digital Voice in February but has been plagued by problems, and is regularly cur off from her phone.

Speaking about the nightmare, her daughter Maggie Collard said the changeover had left her mother distressed, confused and worsened her dementia symptoms.

'The longest the phone has continuously worked has been 11 days,' Maggie told The Mirror. 'During the past six months, my mother's dementia has become worse - she's had new symptoms such as hallucinating myself and my sister being there but she's unable to speak to us, which is such a metaphor for not being able to communicate.

It's an issue that plagues many frustrated Britons, and now a new report has revealed the UK areas with the fastest and slowest broadband

'We believe her dementia has escalated a direct result of not being confident that she can pick up the phone for support. There's been a couple of occasions where she hasn't been able to contact us and she's left the house and wandered around very confused.'

A Change.org petition against the upgrade has accumulated nearly 120,000 signatures.

Asani Andrews, its author, claims the forced upgrade will only confuse older people who are used to the ease of picking up a telephone.

They wrote: 'For many seniors, the simplicity of picking up a phone and dialing a number provides a sense of familiarity and security.

'However, the shift to VoIP may require them to learn new devices, applications, and processes, leading to potential feelings of confusion and isolation.'

It comes a decade after analogue TV signals were switched off in the UK - known as the digital switch-over - and amid dwindling support for analogue radio frequencies ahead of an expected permanent switch to digital radio in the next 10 years.

Q&A: WHAT IS THE SWITCHOVER AND WILL IT AFFECT ME? Will I need a fast connection? Internet speeds of just one megabit per second (Mbps) should be enough for a good digital phone service. And every UK household has the right to demand a download speed of at least 10 Mbps. Will my bills rise? Customers will have to pay for the internet to use their home phone. But experts have said providers are likely to offer cheap, basic deals similar to landline-only contracts. It is not known if customers with older phones will need to buy a new handset or if they will get one for free. What if the internet goes down? If the internet crashes or there is a power cut, digital phone lines will stop working. Those who are vulnerable or do not have a mobile phone should be offered a back-up such as a battery pack, emergency phone line or mobile phone so they can still call 999 in an emergency. What do I need to do? Nothing yet. Those on landline-only deals or without the internet will hear from their providers later on. Advertisement

BT insists it has been consulting with a 'Digital Voice Advisory Group, made up of organisations such as Age UK, consumer rights group Which? and the charity Independent Age, to ensure that pensioners are not left behind.

But Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, told MailOnline: 'Home phones are a lifeline for older people who don't use computers, don't use a mobile, or live in a rural or coastal area with poor connectivity at the best of times.

'As BT and other telecom providers move people from analogue to digital systems they need to provide clear communications about the changes, arrange an engineer visit to provide practical help where necessary, and make sure people have suitable back-ups in the case of power cuts.

'We are pleased that BT are meeting regularly with the (advisory) group and are rolling out the change on a regional basis, as the group suggested, and are currently exempting some people, such as the great majority of over-70s, from the programme, unless they choose to opt in.

'All older people will need to be included in the programme later on. We will be monitoring progress carefully as it is essential that no older person is left without a functioning phone as a result of the introduction of new technology.'

BT's digital changeover sees the traditional handset replaced by a new 'digital' phone that relies upon the internet for calls to be made.

The upgrade is likely to impact other services that rely on the existing telephone network such as alarm systems, phones in lifts, payment terminals and red telephone boxes.

However, the network has a fatal flaw - in the event of a power cut, broadband routers lose power, and without internet access, VOIP calls cannot be made.

BT says it is countering this by giving free battery backup boxes with enough power to keep a broadband connection active to customers with additional needs, those who are vulnerable, and those without mobile signal.

Others can purchase the battery box separately, and BT says it will also produce 'hybrid' phones that can make calls on both landlines and mobile networks for customers who don't use mobiles.

The programme is already well underway, with all new phone and broadband packages now coming with the digital landline rather than an analogue one - including those renewed under new contracts.

BT said following the programme being rolled out in the North West and London this autumn, it would move to the West Midlands, the South East, Wales and East Anglia in Spring 2024.

The North East, Scotland and the South West would then be switched over in summer next year.

Customers in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, and Northern Ireland have already been contacted or are in the process of being switched over, with the switchover for the whole of the UK set to be complete by the end of 2025.

The telecoms giant also confirmed that initially, customers with a healthcare pendant, only use a landline, have no mobile signal or those who have disclosed any additional needs will not be proactively switched.

Lucy Baker, from BT, said: 'Through the work with our Digital Voice Advisory Group and our regional engagement, we've held 40 events, placed local radio and newspaper ads and met over 4,000 customers in person.

'We understand that any change can be unsettling, and we're here to support our customers every step of the way. First-hand experience shows that once people have the facts and have spoken to one of our advisers, they feel confident to make the switch.

'If we've not been in touch or visited your area yet, don't worry. We'll be in touch when it's time to switch. For anyone who has any issues, questions or concerns, then I'd encourage them to get in touch and let us know.'

Sarah Brain, Free Services Manager at AbilityNet, said: 'Here at AbilityNet our staff and volunteers have been supporting BT to raise awareness of Digital Voice around the UK, and in particular to help those more nervous about the switch to give them the reassurance they need to make the move.

'As a charity we support older and disabled people with technology at home every day, so we know that the world of tech can seem daunting. The roadshows have been a great opportunity for us to work alongside BT to support those customers, and the 'in person' aspect is so important to answer any questions and concerns individual to them.'
The BBC has sparked a frenzy of speculation after unexpectedly announcing a 'special' edition of its investigative news series Panorama.

A new edition of the award-winning documentary series will air at 9pm on Monday October 2 - but details of the programme are being kept under wraps ahead of the broadcast.

The mysterious nature of the programme listing has set social media ablaze as people speculated about the contents of the show.

It comes just weeks after Channel 4 unexpectedly announced a special Saturday night edition of its Dispatches investigative programme, the details of which were initially kept under wraps.

Hours before broadcast, the channel revealed the programme would detail a litany of serious allegations against the comedian Russell Brand. There is no suggestion of a link between the Channel 4 and BBC programmes.

The 'special' edition of Panorama is airing on Monday October 2 at 9pm - and has been teased only as an 'investigative documentary'

Channel 4 previously teased its Dispatches documentary on Russell Brand in a similar fashion. There is no suggestion the content of the programmes is linked

Channel 4's programme was later revealed to be a hard-hitting expose of allegations against TV presenter and comedian Russell Brand (pictured), who has vehemently denied claims that he raped or sexually assaulted women

Panorama is known for its hard-hitting exposes - but the details of investigations are usually publicised ahead of broadcast, making the upcoming show an exception.

It has been listed in TV guides and on the BBC's website simply as an 'investigative documentary'.

Among its best-known investigations are scoops on the Vatican allegedly silencing allegations of sexual abuse laid against Catholic priests, revelations of abuse in care homes and, more recently, a probe into conspiracy theorists operating in the UK.

The BBC said it had no comment to make on the programme when contacted by MailOnline.

Dispatches' investigation into Russell Brand, a collaboration with The Times and The Sunday Times, was broadcast on September 16th.

Ahead of the programme's details being detailed by The Times hours before broadcast, speculation had mounted as to the nature of the programme.

Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy had teased the programme with a tweet of a screengrab of its listing on the Channel 4 website, captioned: 'Something's up.'

He later deleted the tweet; sources close to the broadcaster said he was told to take it down because of the documentary's 'sensitive' nature.

The 90-minute special detailed the accounts of four women who claimed to have been the victim of rape or sexual assault at the hands of the TV presenter and actor.

Staff who worked with Brand on shows across MTV and Channel 4 in the noughties claimed they acted as 'pimps', picking out audience members for him to have sex with after presenting shows like Big Brother's Big Mouth.

Brand has vehemently denied the allegations, and pre-empted the broadcast of the Channel 4 programme with a video of his own in which he said came amid a 'litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks' on his reputation.

Since the programme aired Brand has been demonetised on YouTube and podcast platform Acast, while the BBC and Channel 4 have removed content featuring the comic from their on-demand archives as they launched investigations into allegations regarding his behaviour.

The Metropolitan Police says it has received 'a number of allegations of sexual offences in London' as well as elsewhere in the country related to Brand.

Days after the Dispatches investigation aired, the Met had said it received an allegation of sexual assault in Soho, central London, in 2003. No arrests have been made.
Hundreds of mourners saw off 42 coffins at the cemetery

The dead are already being buried in a cemetery a mile north of Qaraqosh, Iraq

At least 100 people killed and more than 150 injured after the fire broke out

Family members have already begun burying more than 100 people who tragically died in an inferno that raged through a wedding in Iraq.

Young newlywed couple Haneen and Revan are feared to have been killed along with at least 110 of their wedding guests after the blaze, believed to have been started by fireworks, tore through the large hall in the northern town of Qaraqosh near Mosul on Tuesday night.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at the Cemetery of the Resurrection, just over a mile north of the town, to bid their last farewells to many of the blaze's victims.

Many were seen carrying pictures of their deceased loved ones, including young children, as a procession carrying 42 coffins slowly marched through the cemetery, which lies in a predominantly Christian part of Iraq.

Others were seen carrying depictions of Jesus Christ during the procession.

The Immaculate Church, a local parish in the town, said in a Facebook post that the funeral procession took place at 4pm local time today.

The mass funeral appeared to be open to everyone, with the church writing in the post: 'We ask the families of the victims to deliver the bodies to the cemetery at 3:30 pm.'

Mourners carry a coffin of a victim of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, during the funeral in Hamdaniya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Whole families are understood to have perished in the devastating blaze

The funeral saw 42 coffins being taken to the Cemetery of the Resurrection, just over a mile north of the town

The Cemetery of the Resurrection lies about a mile north of Qaraqosh

Workers are still searching the embers of the burned building

Unbeknownst to newlyweds Haneen and Revan, this was to be their final picture together before a raging inferno swept through their Christian wedding in Iraq today

Civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall's exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country

Video purportedly shows the newlyweds slow-dancing in the hall moments before the blaze tore through the large hall in the Christian town, which had survived ISIS occupation.

Hanneen, wearing a large white wedding dress, turns around in horror to see flames rapidly climbing the walls before burning material falls from the roof.

Chaos ensues, with the up to 900 panicked guests rushing towards the exits as the hall is engulfed in flames and filled with toxic smoke in seconds. Survivors said many were left trapped in the burning building as they couldn't see through the black smoke.

The bride and groom were among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health officials, while 150 more are injured - 50 critically. But there are conflicting reports about their wellbeing, with some others saying the couple were injured rather than killed in the blaze.

Nineveh province Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaf said 113 people had been confirmed dead whilst the head of the province's Red Crescent branch said the death toll was not final but that it 'exceeds hundreds injured and dozens killed'.

'I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3 year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning,' a woman said outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags as vehicles came to collect those that had been identified.

This image shows the wedding moments before the blaze

A firefighter checks the damage in an event hall in Qaraqosh, also known as Hamdaniyah, after a fire broke out during a wedding, killing at least 100 people on Wednesday

Burned objects belonging to guests of the wedding continue to be found

A victim lies at a hospital following a fatal fire at a wedding celebration in the district of Hamdaniya on Wednesday

A man called Youssef stood nearby with burns covering his hands and face. He said he had not been able to see anything when the fire began and the power cut out. He had grabbed his 3 year-old grandson and managed to get out.

But his wife, Bashra Mansour, in her 50s, did not make it. She fell in the chaos and died.

Hundreds of wedding guests, many of them children, were rushed to hospital with severe burns across their bodies, with many fighting for their lives.

Wedding guest Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as Haneen and Revan 'were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling and the whole hall went up in flames'.

'We couldn't see anything,' the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. 'We were suffocating, we didn't know how to get out.'

Other wedding guests also said that the blaze was caused by fireworks, which had been set off during the first dance.

A man injured in the fire, speaking from his hospital bed, said: 'They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.'

Family members are overcome with grief during a funeral of victims of the fatal fire at a cemetary in Hamdanya in Iraq on Wednesday

The bride and groom were among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health officials, while 150 more are injured - 50 critically

Panicked guests began running out of the burning building, but over 100 were trapped inside

Mourners are overcome with emotion during the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdaniya on Wednesday

Rana Yakoub, 27, a victim of the fire is pictured, after a wedding celebration disaster, in the district of Hamdaniya in Mosul on Wednesday

Priests were seen giving last rites to the victims of the blaze

A victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

A victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

A child victim of the fatal fire at a wedding celebration lies at a hospital in Erbil, Iraq, on Wednesday

Firefighters work at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, on Wednesday

Witnesses said the wedding hall caught fire at around 10.45pm local time (8.45pm UK time) during the couple's first dance.

Video shows wedding guests dancing together before the newlyweds walked onto the dance floor.

Harrowing footage shows Haneen resting her head against Revan while he holds her waist as they share their first dance. But within minutes, the wedding turned into a nightmare as the blaze broke out, sending shards of burning material to the ground around them.

Panicked guests began running out of the burning building, but over 100 were trapped inside and died of burns and smoke inhalation.

'We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn't got stuck,' said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.

Chaotic scenes were seen outside the building, with screaming guests crying for help from medics who had quickly arrived on the scene.

Injured wedding guests were later seen lying in hospital beds with bandages covering the burns they sustained in the horrific blaze.

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, said: 'The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60 per cent of their bodies burned.

'This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.'

In the blaze's aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as emergency crews sifted through the scene of utter devastation.

Mourners were overcome with grief as they said goodbye to their deceased loved ones

A woman cries during the funeral of a victim of the fatal fire during the wedding celebrations on Wednesday

A woman cries during the funeral of a victim of the fatal fire during the wedding celebrations on Wednesday

Mourners donned black clothes to bid farewell to their loved ones

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdanya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of victims of the fatal fire of a wedding celebration, in Hamdanya, Iraq, on Wednesday

Iraqi security officials inspect the site of the fire on Wednesday in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, Iraq

This picture shows the burnt out interior of an event hall in Qaraqosh where the fire broke out during the wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration in the northern Nineveh province

An injured man lies on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at the wedding ceremony, killing at least 100 people

The charred remains of chairs are seen in the gutted out wedding hall on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire on Wednesday

Video shows tables covered with white cloths set under chandeliers at the hall before the wedding ceremony turned into one of nightmares

Firefighters check the damage in an event hall in Qaraqosh after a fire broke out during a wedding on Wednesday

An injured child lays on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration on Wednesday

An injured child lays on a hospital bed after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration on Wednesday

People gather around a truck carrying body bags after a fire broke out during the wedding

People walk past an event hall in Qaraqosh where a fire broke out during a wedding on Wednesday

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

People gather at the site of a fatal fire at a wedding celebration with the charred remains of the building seen within on Wednesday

While there is no official word on the cause of the blaze, footage showed fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame, which echoes the testimony of injured wedding guests.

This was made worse by the wedding hall's exterior being decorated with 'highly flammable' cladding that is illegal in Iraq, civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency said.

The danger was compounded by the 'release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels', which contained plastic, they said.

'The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,' the civil defence authorities said, with 'preliminary information' suggesting fireworks were to blame for the blaze.

The Interior Ministry said it had issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall, state media reported, and President Abdul Latif Rashid called for an investigation.

Three people who attended the wedding said the hall appeared poorly equipped for the disaster with no visible fire extinguishers, few exits, and draped in flammable material that one said lit 'like petrol'. Fire fighters arrived 30 minutes after the blaze began, they said.

Most residents of Qaraqosh, which is mostly Christian but also home to some members of Iraq's Yazidi minority, fled the town when Islamic State seized it in 2014. But they returned after the group was ousted in 2017.

At Mar Youhanna church, where the wedding service took place before the evening party, deacon Hani al-Kasmousa said prayers for the dead would take place at the cemetery because there was not enough room in the church for so many mourners.

'Yesterday there was a wedding and happiness. Now we are preparing their burial,' he said, new coffins stacked along an alleyway near his church.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

'It could be a mistake by the event organisers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error,' Khoury said. 'It was a disaster in every sense of the word.'

Survivors stand in the wreckage of the hall that was consumed in the inferno

A man walks through the gutted out remains of the wedding hall where at least 100 people were killed on Wednesday

A view of the destroyed wedding hall in the northern Nineveh province in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday

Iraqi security men inspect the scene of a fire that broke out at a wedding hall in Hamdaniya, in Iraq's Nineveh province, on Wednesday

Soldiers and emergency responders gather around ambulances carrying wounded people after a fire broke out at a wedding hall

At least 100 people died in a fire at a wedding in a festival hall in Hamdaniyah

Soldiers and emergency responders outside Hamdaniyah general hospital in Bakhdida

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.

Anger is simmering in the area after it emerged that the exterior of the wedding hall had been covered in the illegal cladding.

It wasn't immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren't designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze.

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Safety standards in Iraq's construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.

And in April of the same year, exploding oxygen tanks triggered a fire at a hospital in Baghdad - also dedicated to Covid patients - that killed more than 80 people.

Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, northeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh was ransacked by jihadists of the Islamic State group in 2014.

Qaraqosh and its churches were slowly rebuilt after the group was ousted in 2017, and Pope Francis visited the town in March 2021.
Dame Priti Patel today formally received her honour from Princess Anne at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle.

The former home secretary was granted a damehood earlier this year by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson in his resignation honours list.

She received the award for 'political and public service' following her three-year spell in charge of the Home Office.

Her husband Alex Sawyer - a marketing consultant and former Tory councillor - appeared to be among the guests who watched on at Windsor Castle.

Dame Priti attended the investiture ceremony just days before she is due to cause a fresh headache for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party's annual conference in Manchester.

Dame Priti Patel formally received her honour from Princess Anne at an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle

The former home secretary's husband Alex Sawyer - a marketing consultant and former Tory councillor - appeared to be among the guests who watched on at Windsor Castle

Dame Priti received the award for 'political and public service' following her three-year spell in charge of the Home Office

She attended the investiture ceremony just days before she is due to cause a fresh headache for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party's annual conference in Manchester

She will reportedly attend a black-tie gala dinner on the first night of the Tory gathering, which is being hosted by a pro-Boris Johnson campaign group.

The Conservative Democratic Organisation was formed to push for an overhaul of Conservative Party rules following the ousting of Mr Johnson last summer.

It wants a series of reforms to allow Tory members to 'take back control' by increasing their influence over matters such as policy and the selection of parliamentary candidates.

CDO bosses have previously denied the group is a front to return Mr Johnson to Downing Street.

At a CDO conference in Bournemouth in May, Dame Priti hit out at Mr Sunak's leadership in the wake of poor local election results.

She also railed against the ousting of Mr Johnson as the Tories' 'most electorally successful prime minister since Margaret Thatcher'.

At the upcoming Conservative conference in Manchester, which starts on Sunday, Dame Priti is scheduled to speak at a CDO-hosted fringe event titled 'How Democracy can save Conservatism'.

She is a patron of the grassroots group.

Dame Priti quit as home secretary following Liz Truss's victory in the Tory leadership contest to replace Mr Johnson as PM.

She previously served as international development secretary in Theresa May's government but was sacked from the role for holding unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials.
He told cops he returned to the victim's apartment and covered up the scene of the crime by hanging him in the bathroom and placing a crucifix in his hand

A male prostitute has been arrested for the alleged murder of an architect and university professor at his apartment in Brazil on Monday.

Jose Aguiar, 22, confessed to police to covering up the crime scene by making it seem the 64-year-old man, who has not been named, had committed suicide.

He spent about eight hours on a date at the victim's home in the central city of Goiania and took multiple selfies in front of the bathroom mirror, including one which he posted to social media after the victim was dead.

At one point, Aguiar snapped a picture of the mans face to access his online mobile bank application via the facial recognition log in option to make several wire transfers, it is claimed.

Jose Aguiar confessed to murdering a 64-year-old architect and university professor after visiting the victim's home Sunday. The 22-year-old prostitute transferred about $11,800 from the victim's bank account to his own and stole credit/debit cards to make $780 in purchases. He returned to the apartment to cover up the crime by hanging the man in the bathroom and placing a crucifix on his hands before calling the police to say the he committed suicide

Jose Aguiar is seen leaving the apartment building of the university professor he confessed to killing after visiting his home on a date

However, he made the mistake of leaving his arm exposed to the cellphone camera, which caught the attention of the banks security team, who alerted police.

Security cameras spotted Aguiar was spotted leaving the elderly man's home Monday at 5am with a luggage bag and backpack.

He later used the victim's cards to shop at several different stores and dropped off the items at his home before returning in the afternoon cover up the crime.

Cops arrived at the man's building around 1:45 pm and spotted Aguiar, who gave police a fake name.

Jose Aguiar told police he transferred about $11,800 from the victim's bank account to his own and used the man's credit/bank card to go on a shopping spree

Civil Police displays items that Jose Aguiar purchased at area stores in Goiania with the credit cards he stole from the university teacher and architect he murdered Monday

Surveillance camera still image of Brazilian prostitute Jose Aguiar walking into of an elevator after he had murdered a 64-year-old university teacher

Police became suspicious of Aguiar and searched their database system, which revealed the he was linked to a string of thefts and embezzlements.

Law enforcement agents went to the victims apartment, where they broke the locked entrance door and found him with a crucifix in his hand and hanging from rope in the bathroom.

Aguiar told cops he had faked the suicide scene and called police to report that he had found the man dead.

He also confessed to transferring around $11,800 to his own bank account and spending $790 with a stolen debit/credit card.
Ten former Wilko stores saved from administration earlier this month will open as Poundland outlets on Saturday.

After the collapse of the high street chain, Poundland - owned by Pepco - signed a deal to save 71 Wilko store from its administrator PWC.

The first outlets, including store in Staffordshire, Berkshire and Greater Manchester will open its doors on September 30.

Poundland is encouraging former Wilko workers to apply for roles at the rebranded stores, with store assistant and manager jobs up for grabs. It said staff from Wilko will be 'prioritised' for all roles.

Family-owned Wilko, which was first launched in the 1930, employed 12,500 staff across 400 shops before ti came under pressure to close as a result of weak consumer spending and racking up debts to suppliers.

Ten former Wilko stores saved from administration earlier this month will open as Poundland outlets on Saturday

After the collapse of the high street chain, Poundland - owned by Pepco - signed a deal to save 71 Wilko store from its administrator PWC

Poundland said the stores will stock customer favourites, including clothing, alongside any existing Wilko clearance items.

The Wilko stores that will reopen as Poundland outlets this week: Ten Wilko stores will reopen as Poundland outlets on Saturday September 30. These include: Broad Street, Chell Road, Stafford, Staffordshire, West Midlands -

Pendle Rise Shopping Centre, Nelson, Lancashire

The Peel Centre, Great Portwood Street, Stockport, Greater Manchester

The Mall, Church Street, Eccles, Manchester

London Street, Southport, Merseyside

Lord Street, Leigh, Greater Manchester

East Street, Barking, London

High Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire

Bede Precinct, Viking Centre, Jarrow, South Tyneside

The Broadway, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire Advertisement

Darren Kay, Poundland retail director, said: 'We're pleased to be able to re-open so quickly - not least because our ambition is to provide job opportunities for former Wilko colleagues.

'Of course, we're not yet in a position to offer our fullest ranges in these stores, but we know customers will appreciate a shop that's open, trading and employing colleagues to one that's got its shutters closed.'

Poundland aims to open all the former Wilko stores it bought by the end of 2023, with its new lease agreements set to be completed in early autumn.

The group said it is planning to roll out a full makeover of the stores throughout 2024 to become 'fully operational Poundlands'.

Administrators at PwC were forced to sell off Wilko's assets after failing to secure a rescue deal for the whole business.

PwC also struck a deal for fellow discount chain B&M to buy 51 other Wilko stores, while The Range agreed a deal to buy Wilko's brand for around 5 million.

But all 400 Wilko stores will close, with the last remaining shops set to shut on October 8.

Wilko shoppers revealed how 'gutted' they were as stores began to clopse their doors earlier this month.

The Wilko store in Acton, West London, is just one of the two dozen set to shut down two weeks ago.

By mid-morning on the final day of business, most of the shelves had long been stripped of bargains.

But that didn't stop a steady stream of shoppers ferreting around for one last time at the high street giant this morning.

For many, including local mother-of-one and grandmother Sarah Seare, the store's closure means they will have to travel further afield for their Wilko favourites.

'I usually come a couple of times a week for everything,' the 49-year-old told MailOnline.

'Cleaning stuff, personal stuff, the pick & mix sweets, stationary for my grandchildren Pretty much everything.

The Wilko employee pulled a grim expression as she told her TikTok followers the news, and said she was 'gutted' to lose her job at the store in Thetford, Norfolk

Family-owned Wilko, which was first launched in the 1930, employed 12,500 staff across 400 shops before ti came under pressure to close as a result of weak consumer spending and racking up debts to suppliers

'I didn't think it would be saved, though. I saw what happened to Woolworths and thought it would be the same with Wilko.

'I'm really gutted. The prices here are so good.

'I care 24/7 for my son and only get out a few days a week. It's so handy to come here - a five-minute walk away - and get everything in one place.

'The staff are amazing as well - especially during the lockdown. They couldn't do enough to help you.'

Customers were uniform in their sympathy for the staff of the Wilko store, located inside The Oaks shopping centre and flanked on either side by a Lidl and Poundland. The Acton store is not among those snapped up in today's deal.

One Wilko worker filmed herself sharing her pain at learning the news outside her branch in Thetford, Norfolk, posting it to her TikTok profile.

The employee, using the handle @whayley, said: 'I'm gutted myself, I love my job.'

Wilko is to shut the doors of its last remaining stores on Sunday October 8.
Murdaugh's lawyers say Hill 'betrayed her oath of office for money and fame' and was motivated by a desire to secure a book deal and media appearances

South Carolina court clerk Becky Hill admits in her new book that she worried Alex Murdaugh would be found innocent of murder

The court clerk accused by Alex Murdaugh's lawyers of influencing the jury's guilty verdict with her personal bias has admitted that she worried that he would be found innocent when, she said: 'I knew in my heart he was guilty,' DailyMail.com can reveal.

Defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian filed a motion calling for a new trial earlier this month after unearthing evidence that, they claim, shows that Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill counseled jurors to disbelieve 65-year-old Murdaugh's testimony and pressured them to reach a quick verdict.

Griffin and Harpootlian allege that Hill, 55, was motivated by a desire to secure a book deal and media appearances  neither of which would have been possible had the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict and proceedings ended with a mistrial.

According to their motion, 'Ms. Hill betrayed her oath of office for money and fame.'

South Carolina court clerk Becky Hill admits in her new book that she worried Alex Murdaugh would be found innocent of murder. She appears in season two of Netflix 's documentary 'Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,' released last week

Alex Murdaugh's lawyers claim Hill counseled jurors to disbelieve Murdaugh's testimony and pressured them to reach a quick verdict

The ink was barely dry on Murdaugh's guilty verdict when Hill released her book, 'Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders,' and she is a prominent contributor on season two of Netflix's documentary 'Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,' released last week.

Now Hill's own words, as reviewed by DailyMail.com, confirm that while her role as an officer of the court requires her to be impartial, or recuse herself from proceedings should she find that impossible, she was extraordinarily partisan and believed, very strongly, in the disgraced lawyer's guilt from the get-go.

The defense motion for a new trial states that Hill 'instructed jurors not to be 'misled' by evidence presented in Mr. Murdaugh's defense', nor 'fooled by' Murdaugh's own testimony.

Hill released her book, 'Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders in July 2023

They have also accused Hill of fabricating a Facebook post that saw a juror removed because, they allege, the clerk was concerned the juror would not vote guilty.

Hill claimed to have seen a post made by the jurors ex-husband in which he claimed she was drinking with him and expressing opinions about Murdaughs guilt or innocence.

Griffin and Harpootlian say that the post, which Hill failed to produce and said must have been deleted, never existed  stating bluntly she made it up.

They also allege that a retraction she said was posted by the jurors ex-husband was from a fake account in a similar name, but which bore the wrong profile picture.

According to the defense motion Hill inappropriately questioned the juror herself and refused to let her see the post when she asked.

Later that day Judge Clifton Newman spoke to the juror who denied expressing any opinion and pointed out that she had not seen her ex-husband for three years.

After dismissing her, Murdaughs lawyers note Judge Newman said, Oh boy. Im not too pleased about the clerk interrogating a juror as opposed to coming to me and bringing it to me.

They add, He was right to be concerned.

The juror maintained she had neither formed nor expressed an opinion but was subsequently excused.

In her book Hill not only paints an excoriating picture of the defendant but repeatedly voices her belief in Murdaugh's guilt.

In fact, her personal certainty that Murdaugh murdered his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son, Paul, 22, appears to be the prism through which she viewed proceedings.

Maggie and Paul were gunned down near kennels at the family's property of Moselle, in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021.

Their bodies were found where they fell. Paul, blasted twice with a shotgun  the fatal shot blowing his brains from his head  was found by the feed room. His mother, apparently running towards her son as he was slaughtered, was shot multiple times with an assault rifle.

She may have already been dead when the final shot was dispatched to the top of her head.

Murdaugh's lawyers state in their filing that Hill 'betrayed her oath of office for money and fame' and was motivated by a desire to secure a book deal and media appearances

The brutality of the crime shocked the small community as did the identity of the suspect  Murdaugh, the scion of a once revered legal dynasty, husband of Maggie, father to Paul and Buster, 26, and a man whose world quickly and publicly unraveled in the wake of the crimes.

As the investigation unfolded, with law enforcement finding no other person of interest, the truth of Murdaugh's life of chronic addiction to opioids and embezzlement and theft of his clients' settlements to the tune of millions emerged.

By the time he stood to swear his oath in Colleton County Courthouse his reputation was in tatters, but Murdaugh was still due the presumption of innocence gifted by law.

Yet, recalling the moment, Hill appears to have been convinced of his guilt even then.

She writes in her book: 'Just before he took the witness stand for two days, I swore him in. It seems Alex's style on the stand as a witness was excruciating for everyone who watched.'

She said, 'I searched his eyes the whole time I was speaking to him. He seemed to be in a distant place, not really seeing me but seeing something else. Almost like he was programmed to do this. He knew exactly what to say. He said, 'I do,' even before I was finished He was just anxious to get on the stand to tell his version of the story.'

She states that she interpreted Murdaugh's habit of repeating prosecutor Creighton Waters's questions back to him as indicative of Murdaugh, 'buying time to figure out what he was going to say as opposed to being in the moment and answering questions.'

She refers to Murdaugh as 'an actor' and cites as proof of his guilt, 'The direction of his eyes, excessive fidgeting, changes in speech patterns, mostly talking way too much. I gleaned this from years of experience working in the courtroom and researching psychologists who study this.'

Hill states quite bluntly, 'I believe he was lying and changing his story on the fly, making it up as he went along, trying to deflect and distract Creighton.'

She writes that Murdaugh is a 'classic narcissist' with 'lofty thoughts about himself,' and says: 'I feel like he had convinced himself he was innocent and that he had cleaned up the murders so that he would not get caught.'

Hill also describes the defense's insistence on a jury site visit to the murder site of Moselle as a strategic misstep that may have cost them the case.

In their motion, Murdaugh's attorneys allege that during this trip Hill, who was one of several court officials to accompany the jury that day, had private conversations with the jury foreperson, separate from the rest of the group.

In her own recollection of that excursion Hill appears to suggest that she communicated her sense of Murdaugh's guilt  a breathtaking impropriety for an officer of the court.

She writes, 'While the jurors viewed the Moselle property, we all could hear and see Alex's story was impossible.

'Some of us either from the courthouse, law enforcement, or jury at Moselle had an epiphany and shared our thoughts with our eyes. At that moment, many of us standing there knew.

'I knew and they knew that Alex was guilty.'

Hill, pictured with Judge Clifton Newman, is being accused by Murdaugh's defense team of influencing the jury as they move for a retrial

Hill states quite bluntly in her book, 'I believe he was lying and changing his story on the fly, making it up as he went along, trying to deflect and distract Creighton'

Hill, who is seen swearing in a witness at the trial, writes that Murdaugh is a 'classic narcissist' with 'lofty thoughts about himself'

Hill also recalls sharing a birthday party with members of the regional and national media at which after 'a little 'truth serum' in the form of liquid refreshments,' some were asked how they would vote at that point in the trial.

She reveals, 'Before answering we pledged a 'cone of silence,' and for that reason I cannot reveal the results of our 'straw jury poll.' What I can say is that many of the party guests agreed with what ended up becoming the actual verdict of the trial.'

That verdict was, of course, guilty.

According to the South Carolina Code of Conduct Canon 3 'A staff attorney or law clerk shall respect and comply with the law and should conduct himself at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary and of his office.'

The code goes on to state, 'A staff attorney or law clerk shall disqualify himself in a matter where his impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where: (1) he has personal bias or prejudice concerning the matter.'

Yet, again and again in her book Hill voices her belief in Murdaugh's guilt, painting him as a narcissistic charlatan and even alleging: 'Word is from someone on the defense team that Alex had been practicing and perfecting his snot-and-crying display for weeks' and stating that Murdaugh's decision to take the witness stand directly contradicted his attorneys' advice.

She states, 'Perhaps the biggest challenge Jim (Griffin) had was his client, Alex, himself.

'It was clear to me from hearing courthouse conversations that Murdaugh was calling the shots. Behind closed doors in private conversations with members of the legal community, Alex was like an extra lawyer on his own case.'

Reading Hill's own account, it is hard to escape the feeling that she was caught up by the media attention and her key role in a trial that made national and international news.

The South Carolina code of conduct states: 'A staff attorney or law clerk should not engage in any activities that would put into question the propriety of his conduct in carrying out the duties of his office. He should not allow his family, social, or other relationships to influence his official conduct or judgement. He should not lend the prestige of his office to advance the private interests of others.'

Yet, according to Murdaugh's attorneys at the end of the six-week trial, 'Hill told jurors that ...they would be famous and predicted that the media would request interviews with them. Ms Hill even handed out reporters' business cards to jurors during the trial.'

Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were gunned down near the kennels at the family's property of Moselle, in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021

Alex Murdaugh was convicted in March of the brutal double murders of his wife and younger son in 2021

The defense claims, 'After the verdict and immediately before the sentencing, Ms. Hill pressured the jury to speak as a group to reporters from a network news show. She traveled with jurors to New York City when they appeared on the Today show. She got her book deal.'

Attorney General Alan Wilson filed the state's response to Murdaugh's motion last week. Pushing back on the motion's central claims he cast doubt on their credibility and cited a point of law that a motion for a new trial 'may not be made while the case is on appeal.'

Wilson stated that South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's investigation remains ongoing and has 'already revealed significant factual disputes as to claims in Appellants motion.'

But he acknowledged, 'It may well be that suspension of the appeal and a remand for an evidentiary hearing will be necessary to properly resolve some of the serious claims raised by the Appellant.'

Hill has lawyered up and has not commented on the allegations but Neil R. Gordon, co-author of her book, has vehemently denied any suggestions of impropriety or that she was motivated by a big pay day.

Speaking to CourtTV he said, 'I was pretty upset at what Harpootlian said was the motivation Becky had. Last time I checked Simon and Schuster did not send us a check for $200,000.'

In fact, Gordon pointed out, the pair had put up $30,000 of their own money to self-publish the book, 'because it was an interesting story to tell.'

Several legal experts have spoken out with concern about Hill's actions. Lawyer Daniel Karon, a former law professor at the University of Michigan and The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, told DailyMail.com, 'Where there's smoke there's fire and it looks a lot like Clerk of Court Becky Hill did something very wrong.'

He added, 'I can't know whether she entered the jury room or said anything inappropriate to the jurors [as alleged]. But the fact that she's already published a book about her story  when this wasn't her story to begin with  to me smacks of meddling and opportunism. It's people like her who tend to step over the line.'
A Missouri mom who was mistakenly declared dead in 2007 says she has been living a 'haunting' nightmare ever since.

Madeline-Michelle Carthen, 52, claims she has struggled to hold down a job, get a mortgage or rent an apartment due to an erroneous social security number error made nearly 20 years ago.

In 2007, she was denied financial aid as a student at Webster University, ultimately forcing her to drop out.

And since then, she hasn't been able to complete basic life tasks - like rent a car.

'It messed up my whole life,' she told KSDK.' It's impacted my life, financially. If I wanted to buy a house, that won't happen.'

Madeline-Michelle Carthen, 52, was mistakenly declared dead in 2007 and has been living a 'haunting' nightmare ever since

Carthen has not been able to keep a job, get a mortgage or rent an apartment ever since the government wrongly declared her deceased nearly 20 years ago

'I got denied my financial aid,' she told a local NBC affiliate KSDK when she was previously interviewed in 2007. 'Now, they're saying, 'Prove to us you're not dead.'

As she was preparing for a summer internship in Ghana 16 years ago, she received the startling news that according to her social security, she was dead.

When she found out that her social security number was associated with a deceased person, Carthen laughed - initially dismissing it as a 'simple mistake.'

She said to the outlet at the time: 'What do you mean? I'm sitting right here. I've been at school over a year and a half. How am I dead?'

But that was only the start of her troubles.

'It's like a haunting,' Carthen added.

Once her Social Security number is processed, she said Human Recourses isn't able to process payroll and she is typically fired from her job.

'It's just a matter before my Social Security number catches up with me, and then they have to let me go  H.R. can't process payroll,' she said.

Paperwork and credit reports document her as 'deceased.'

And Carthen is not alone. Over 12,000 living Americans are wrongly classified as dead every year, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

This is typically due to a simple small typo, which ultimately causes a catastrophic disaster for victims.

Carthen said she's been dealing with this headache for nearly two decades but nothing has changed.

'I just want direct answers, and I haven't been able to get that,' Carthen said.

In 2007, she told KSDK that she got denied financial aid as a student at Webster University, ultimately forcing her to drop out

When she found out that her social security number was associated with a deceased person, Carthen laughed - initially dismissing it as a 'simple mistake'

Creighton Cohn, a consumer protection attorney told KSDK that being put on the 'Death Master File' can make life impossible.

Once Social Security Administration adds someone, their identity is deleted from places like banks, the IRS, and Medicare.

'It can really impact every single aspect of your life,' Cohn, said.

Carthen filed a lawsuit against the Social Security Administration and several other government agencies in 2019 seeking more than $12 million in damages.

The judge, however, dismissed the lawsuit, as the government has 'sovereign immunity.'

In 2014, a keystroke error resulted in the agency declaring Kosara Mladenovic dead when it was her husband who had passed away.

After declaring her dead, the administration reportedly cut off her monthly benefits, which the family uses to support Mladenovic, paying her nursing home expenses.

To fix the administration's error, she has to prove she was still alive and this is no simple task. She was told to present a photo showing her holding newspapers with the day's date on them.

Additionally, she had to present a statement from her nursing home confirming she is a tenant, and present her husband's certificate as well as his obituary in the local newspaper.

Elder care advocate Gideon Schein told CBS NY that mistakes like this are very difficult to correct.

'It is much harder to undo a keystroke mistake than it is to do it,' Schein said.

'It's pretty complicated...social Security is our everything. If that gets somehow misused, we're in terrible trouble, so they're very careful and I do understand that.'
A Sudanese man has been arrested in Dover following the death of a woman who is believed to have died while trying to cross the English channel.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the 21-year-old was arrested on suspicion of illegal entry and facilitating illegal immigration on Wednesday.

His arrest came after a woman was found dead on a beach near Calais on Tuesday.

He is suspected to have been piloting a boat that entered UK waters the same day the women's body was found.

The woman's death is being investigated by French police, supported by the NCA and Kent Police.

A Sudanese man has been arrested in Dover following the death of a woman who is believed to have died while trying to cross the English channel. Pictured: Migrants crossing the English Channel in August

On Tuesday alone 212 asylum seekers were recorded making the perilous journey on Tuesday - including a number of small children. Pictured: Migrants arriving yesterday into Dover

NCA deputy director Craig Turner said: 'This incident demonstrates the danger posed to those making these crossings.

'Targeting the criminal networks involved is a priority for the NCA, and we are working with French partners to identify those responsible for this tragic death.'

The arrest comes as new figures revealed more than 24,000 migrants cross the English channel in dinghies this year.

On Tuesday alone 212 asylum seekers were recorded making the perilous journey on Tuesday - including a number of small children.

Migrants packed onto three boats were rescued and brought to the Port of Dover yesterday with small children wrapped up in puffer jackets seen arriving at the major port, alongside young men and women.

The photographs came just hours after Home Secretary Suella Braverman claimed those crossing the channel were not facing 'imminent peril'.

The crossing has become even more deadly in recent months as it was revealed traffickers are putting more migrants onto each boat to make up for money lost after they were forced to reduce Channel crossing prices to attract poorer asylum seekers.
Suella Braverman today admitted it was 'inevitable' that fentanyl would replace heroin among drug users in Britain.

The Home Secretary, who is on a trip to the US, saw first-hand evidence of how America is trying to combat its opioid crisis.

Fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, is a powerful synthetic opioid that has played a large part in the overdose epidemic in the US.

Mrs Braverman visited the Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, to talk to agents about the fentanyl crisis across America.

She voiced fears the drug could soon be more prevalent on the UK's drugs market.

Suella Braverman visited the Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland , to talk to agents about the fentanyl crisis across America.

Fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, is a powerful synthetic opioid that has played a large part in the overdose epidemic in the US

'In the UK it's mainly heroin, and we're seeing emerging signs of fentanyl coming into the drug-supply market, but it's not at the scale,' she told one of the agents.

'I think it's inevitable, personally, as the price of heroin will go up and supply goes down.'

The number of people who died from a druge overdose in 2021 in the US was more than six times the number in 1999.

Between those years, nearly 645,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid - including prescription or illegally-made fentanyl.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal.

During a discussion with Jarod Forget, the special agent in charge of the DEA Washington division, Mrs Braverman added: 'It's a crisis isn't it really, for Western countries?'

Mr Forget said the drug was sold online and there had been occasions when young people had died after buying pills they did not realise had fentanyl in.

He said: 'They don't know that they're getting a fake xanax that is in fact a fentanyl pill and it has over two milligrams of fentanyl.

'I've met a lot of parents in this area that have woken up the next day to find their son or daughter deceased because they bought a pill online, thinking it was a xanax or oxycodone when in fact it was a fake.'
The family of a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death this morning on her way to school raced to be her side but tragically 'were not able to arrive on time', witnesses have said.

The victim, who as a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, has tonight been named locally as Eliyanna. She was attacked at 8.30 am - less than a mile away from the school gates.

It was previously claimed that the girl had been attacked after she 'refused to go out' with the boy and 'rejected his offers of flowers', but it witnesses have now said he was in fact trying to speak with her friend.

The friend had reportedly been trying to hand the boy back a bag of his belongings while he tried to give her flowers when the fight broke out, seeing the victim attempt to intervene.

This afternoon, a love note with the words 'special girl' and 'princess' written on it, along with blood stained red roses, were being examined by forensic officers. The note was then removed from the scene.

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside Whitgift Centre when a row broke out between the girl wearing a green school blazer and the boy wearing a black blazer.

Community worker James Watkins said: 'I spoke to the family this morning. They're devastated and I think more importantly are in shock. I don't think it's real to them yet. Unfortunately the family were not able to arrive on time.'

The bus driver and a passenger desperately tried to save the teenager's life but she died at the scene at 9.21am. Officers arrested a 17-year-old boy in nearby New Addington at 9.45am.

Those who knew Eliyanna said she had a bright future ahead of her, on track to pass all of her GCSES later in the school year.

Anthony King, chair of the My Ends organisation which works with the Met Police in Croydon said: 'The victim was absolutely incredible with a very bright future. A very comedic young lady.

'The word I think that was used was jovial. She was on track to pass all of her GCSEs. She was very articulate.'

Police at the scene of the fatal stabbing behind the Whitgift Shopping Centre

The victim, who as a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, has tonight been named locally as Eliyanna

A forensic investigator puts flowers into a container at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon

Flowers laid by wellwishers at the scene of a fatal stabbing

Mr Watkins, who works at the youth prevention and intervention programmes at Mainz World, added: 'It's disgusting, when we look at these children being killed that are from the borough it hurts you in the heart. These could be our kids, it's devastating.'

Amongst those who witnessed the stabbing were two girls, said to be the victims best friends.

Mr King added: 'Two 15 year old girls were absolutely devastated by witnessing their very close friend being stabbed. They're still being interviewed by police.'

Michael Fyffe, who witnessed the attack, told Sky News: 'I turned around and could see that someone was trying to resuscitate her.

'There were loads of people who had just come off the bus and then I think two of the girl's friends came out and they were trying to rush over towards the body.

'So myself and a few of the other people tried to hold her back and just say, "Look let them try and help your friend's" and she was just screaming, "Is my friend dead? She's my best friend".'

Today, forensic officers were seen removing a bunch of roses and a handwritten love note from the scene. Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Floral tributes and card laid at the scene in Croydon, south London

Witnesses said the boy had tried to give the girl flowers but she replied that she 'didn't want to go out with him anymore'

A forensic officer picks up the bunch of flowers from the scene of the fatal stabbing on Wellesley Road

Today, forensics officers were seen removing a handwritten love note from the scene

Forensic officers walk past the scene, which features several privacy screens

Old Palace of John Whitgift School is a selective independent day school for girls aged three to 18. It is consistently ranked as one the best in London and is a sister school to Whitgift School for Boys. It is not yet clear which school the boy attended.

One witness who asked not to be identified, said: 'There were about seven or eight children who got off a bus which stopped outside the Whitgift Centre.

'There was a young girl and young boy arguing. He had flowers with him and they were arguing about the girl breaking up with him yesterday.'

Floral tributes to the young girl and the family began to build up this evening.

A note attached to some flowers read: 'RIP, beautiful, Forever Young taken too soon.

'Thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends. God bless.'

Someone else on the same note had added: 'Sorry, we live in this crazy world, this makes no sense. Fly high up there, my mummy will look after you.'

Speaking to journalists this afternoon, Chief Superintendent Brittain said officers arrived within two minutes of being called and gave the suspect's age as 17

Privacy screens have been set up around the scene of the stabbing in Croydon, south London

The number 60 bus remains behind the police cordon, where forensics officers are carrying out inquiries

Another heartfelt note read: 'RIP little princess, so sad your life is taken away at your prime. You have touched my soul.'

Speaking to journalists at the scene, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Britain said officers were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

'This is every parent's worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victim's death,' he said.

'This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

'The victim's family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

'We carried out urgent inquiries to find the suspect and within 75 minutes of the incident happening a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington. He remains in custody and will be questioned by detectives.

'We remain in the early stages of our investigation, however based on what we know so far we believe that we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this offence.

'From our initial inquiries, we believe the suspect may have known the victim. However, we're not in a position to release the victim's identity at this time.'

A spokesman for the Old Palace of John Whitgift School said: 'We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

The location of the stabbing is shown in the map above. The 60 route bus was heading towards Streatham station

Today, the Met said officers were on the scene of the stabbing within two minutes

'It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

'Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girl's family at this unimaginably distressing time.

Chevanice Thomas, 28, who works on the nearby Landsdown Building site, said her friend saw a group of schoolchildren and adults running from the scene immediately after the stabbing at around 8.30am this morning.

'My friend said there was people with their children running everywhere,' she said. 'The only person who stayed was the bus driver. A lot of people got out their vehicles and started running.

'My friend said they were off the bus, talking, the boy and the girl. The boy gave her flowers, but she didn't want anything to do with him. Then he got violent and stabbed her. My friend said the knife was like a sword.'

This afternoon, a white tent could be seen within a police cordon next to the double-decker bus.

A mother-of-two, who asked to be named only as Bridget, said: 'I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

'The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.'

A forensic investigator onboard the bus where the argument is believed to have started

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre

Privacy screens and a tent outside the Whitgift centre in Croydon while a bus sits beside the pavement nearby

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victim's friends, were trying to get back through the police cordon but were held back.

Victor Asare was on a bus on the way home from a night shift as a security worker when he said he saw a boy in a black blazer stab a girl in the neck with a knife which was 'black, thin and about a foot long'.

The 50-year-old said: 'The boy wore a black blazer, the girl wore green. It looked like the girl didn't want the boy to come closer.'

He then described the boy stabbing the girl in the neck with a black knife.

'A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus,' he said. '[The boy] ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

'We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. It's somebody's daughter.

'I finished work but couldn't sleep, so came back, I wanted to see if the girl was OK.'

Croydon MP Sarah Jones attended the police press conference alongside Croydon mayor Jason Perry.

Ms Jones said: 'I'm heartbroken that a child in my town has been killed on her way to school and I cannot imagine the grief that her family will be going through at this time.

'I want to thank the police and the ambulance services for trying so hard to save her life. They run into danger and I know they will be suffering today, too.

'I want to repeat the request from the police that if anybody has any information please do get in touch.

'We all hold our children close and our community will take time to grieve, but for today we are just thinking of this young girl and her family. I'm so sorry.'

Transport for London (TfL) has diverted its 60, 407, and 455 routes due to the incident

Police cars surrounded the parked bus in Croydon shortly after the attack

Mr Perry added: 'We all personally feel devastated by the events that have happened here in Croydon this morning and the tragic loss of such a young life.

'The community are feeling that hurt right now and we will do everything we can to support the community through such a very difficult time.'

Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said tonight: 'The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

'It was moving and humbling to meet many members of the exceptional Croydon community who have come together in support of a family now dealing with the most unimaginable grief.

'The commitment of so many from the local community is inspiring. A powerful partnership between charitable groups, faith and community leaders, the local authority, the wider public and our officers has delivered so much work across the borough. They have collectively saved many lives from knife crime.

'Many are shocked and hurting. They care deeply and it's this passion which has made Croydon a safer place and will continue to in the future.

'I spoke to officers who, with members of the public, were among the first on scene with colleagues trying to save this young girl's life and have since supported her family and friends. Through diligent work by them all an early arrest was made and our major crime team now continue to investigate the events leading up to this awful attack.'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Greatest Hits Radio London: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved family of the 15-year-old child who has been stabbed in Croydon.

'I've been in touch with the commissioner [Sir Mark Rowley] and we are in touch with the police.

'It's heartbreaking. An arrest has been made of another teenager in relation to this matter.

'There were other people present and I'd encourage them to contact the police. If they are worried about the anonymity they can ring Crimestoppers.

'It's really important people come forward and support the police to make sure justice occurs for this poor girl's family.'

Video and pictures posted on social media showed huge police presence and two white privacy screens surrounding the scene.

A number of Scotland Yard officers can be seen standing behind a cordon, with one holding up a towel while a paramedic carrying a medic bag crouches to the ground.

Beldine Kutima, a receptionist at a nearby four-star hotel, told The Evening Standard: 'One of our duty managers went to get the bus but she came back in total shock and was crying heavily.

'She ran back screaming and grabbed towels from the back room and ran back out there.'

An estate agent who works near the scene where the girl was stabbed complained Croydon had seen an upsurge in violence.

Leigh Thomas, 41, said: 'I came out of my office and there were two ambulances right across the road and about 12 police cars.'

He added: 'Croydon has gone to the dogs recently. The other side of the shopping centre is a war zone.

'There's drug dealing, fights, there was another stabbing recently. I grew up around here, it's not what it used to be.'

Home Office minister Chris Philp posted on X: 'Devastating news that a 15-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in Croydon town centre and died soon afterwards on the scene, despite the best efforts of the emergency services.

'Our hearts go out to her family who must be in deep shock at their terrible loss.

'Nothing can be worse for a parent than losing a child.

'An arrest was made shortly afterwards of a teenager believed to be known to the victim.

'We must redouble our efforts to take all knives off the streets of London, using every means available.'

Transport for London (TfL) has diverted its 60, 407, and 455 routes due to the incident.

Wellesley Road has been closed northbound from Whitgift Centre to St Michael's Road.
Sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos 'feared' for the safety of his partner and Team GB athlete Bianca Williams when police handcuffed them in front of their baby boy, a police misconduct hearing heard.

Mr Dos Santos and Ms Williams, both international athletes, believe they were racially profiled during their encounter with Metropolitan Police officers on July 4, 2020.

The incident took place after the couple drove to their west London home from training with their then-three-month-old son in the back seat of their Mercedes.

Dashcam footage from the Met Police vehicle which followed Mr Dos Santos' blacked-out car was shown at a disciplinary hearing in south-east London on Wednesday, where five officers could be sacked if gross misconduct is proven.

Mr Dos Santos said he was not trying to 'evade' the police or driving dangerously, and that he was 'just trying to get home' so that his son could reach safety, while taking questions from Nick Yeo, representing Pc Allan Casey, who was driving the police vehicle.

Team GB athlete Bianca Williams (left) and her Portuguese partner Ricardo Dos Santos (right) were detained by the Met Police in west London with their son (centre) in the backseat

Sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos 'feared' for the safety of his partner and Team GB athlete Bianca Williams when police handcuffed them in front of their baby boy, a police misconduct hearing heard

Mr Dos Santos, 28, who competed for Portugal in the 400m sprint at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, told the hearing on Wednesday that the 'traumatic' experience had affected his performance on the track.

He and Ms Williams, 29, a gold medallist in the 4x100m relays at the 2018 European and Commonwealth Games, were handcuffed and searched on suspicion of having drugs and weapons, after they pulled over outside their property.

Nothing was found.

PC Casey, Acting Sergeant (A/PS) Rachel Simpson, PC Jonathan Clapham, PC Michael Bond and PC Sam Franks deny all charges.

Mr Dos Santos, who often looked distressed throughout the hearing, told the panel: 'I didn't want anything to happen to my family and I wanted to get home.

'I realised that the police carrier was following me and I hadn't done anything wrong.

'I was afraid for the safety of Bianca and my son.'

When asked why he should be afraid of the police, Mr Dos Santos said he had 'traumatic experiences' as a young black person who had been stopped by the police on 'multiple occasions' in the past.

Bianca Williams won a Gold medal for Team GB in the 4x100m relays at the 2018 European and Commonwealth Games

Bianca Williams (pictured) was handcuffed for 18 minutes while her partner Ricardo Dos Santos was handcuffed for 45 minutes

He added: 'At that present moment my focus was the safety of Bianca and my son.

'I wanted to get home so they (the police) could see my other vehicles and know I wasn't evading them.'

When shown body-worn footage which recorded him mocking and swearing at the officers, he accepted his behaviour, saying: 'Everybody deals with trauma differently.

'I laugh, sometimes I shake. I'm shaking now. I can only speak for myself and my partner - it affected her so much she had to leave the media.

'She doesn't do media appearances any more. It has affected my performance on the track. I shouldn't be here.'

Mr Dos Santos said that his language was justified because the officers came up to his car and attempted to smash the window within seconds.

At one point, addressing the officers who were in the room directly, he said: 'Within a matter of seconds, you had a glass cutter and batons raised - if you come and try to smash the glass we can't conversate.'

The five officers all face allegations that they breached police standards over equality and diversity during the stop-and-search.

A/PS Simpson and Pcs Clapham, Bond and Franks also face allegations that their actions amounted to a breach of professional behaviour standards in relation to the use of force.

They are said to have failed in relation to their levels of authority, respect and courtesy, as well as in their duties and responsibilities.

PC Casey is also accused of breaching professional standards in the way he carried out his duties and responsibilities or gave orders and instructions.

It is also alleged that the honesty and integrity of PCs Casey, Clapham, Bond and Franks breached professional behaviour standards.

Ms Williams is expected to give evidence at the six-week hearing on Thursday.
San Francisco and nearby San Jose seem worlds apart when it comes to the challenges facing retailers.

On Tuesday, Target announced it would close nine stores across the country, including three in San Francisco, saying theft and organized retail crime were threatening the security of the retailer's employees and customers.

In a post on X, Marina Times journalist Susan Reynolds said that she had been interviewing retail employees around the Bay Area, and posted a clip from a San Jose Target that she called 'thriving and orderly' with 'no police or armed guards.'

'Here's the deal: it doesn't happen in cities just 20-30-60 minutes away. They're not closing,' she wrote.

San Jose is about an hour's drive south from San Francisco, and has a higher median income, and lower rates of crime and homelessness, than the Golden Gate City.

Heres the deal: it doesnt happen in cities just 20-30-60 minutes away. Theyre not closing. Ive been interviewing retail employees around the Bay Area for a story. This is a @Target in San Jose. Not only is it thriving and orderly, there are no police or armed guards.  https://t.co/rnhRLzE9r4 pic.twitter.com/GqZVStYH82  The Marina Times  (@TheMarinaTimes) September 27, 2023

This San Jose Target was described as 'thriving and orderly' by a visiting journalist, after the retailer said it would close three stores in nearby San Francisco due to high crime rates

In April, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan had harsh words for the city's northern neighbor as he discussed combatting crime in the city.

'I will say emphatically that San Jose will not become San Francisco. I think everyone deserves to live in a safe and clean environment,' he told the Mercury News.

Mahan is a Democrat, as are nine of San Jose's 11 city council members.

Target said on Tuesday it would close nine stores across four US states, including California, citing that theft and organized retail crime was threatening the security of the retailer's employees and customers.

The move, effective October 21, will see the closing of one store in New York City, two in Seattle, three locations across the San Francisco and Oakland markets and three in Portland.

Despite heavy investments in security, the company continued to face 'fundamental challenges' to running the stores safely, the retailer said.

It operates nearly 2,000 stores across the United States.

'We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,' Target said in a statement.

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Target said it would work with all eligible employees at the affected locations to offer opportunities for transfer to other Target locations.

Theft and retail crime has become an increasingly pressing issue for US retailers, with organized crime rings targeting retail inventories and causing more financial loss to companies.

A report by the National Retail Federation (NRF), a trade association, earlier on Tuesday showed inventory 'shrink' as a percentage of total retail sales accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021.

'Retailers are seeing unprecedented levels of theft coupled with rampant crime in their stores, and the situation is only becoming more dire,' said NRF Vice President for Asset Protection and Retail Operations David Johnston.

Retailers are either being forced to close a specific store location, reduce operating hours or alter in-store product selection to deal with the spike in retail crime, the report added.

A Target store in San Francisco locked its health and beauty products behind security glass. A video posted on TikTok on April 20 shows the items locked away from customers

Dollar Tree has said it plans to remove goods like men's underwear, an item most prone to retail theft, from its stores.

Retailers are ramping up prevention methods with 34% of respondents increasing internal payroll to support risks related to retail crime and 46% increasing the use of third-party security personnel among other methods, according to NRF.

Even Britain is seeing more instances of shoplifting with the fashion chain Primark stepping up spending on security guards, CCTV and equipping staff with body cameras to try and combat in-store theft.

Walmart CFO John Rainey on a post-earnings call with Telsey Advisory Group said the retailer was 'putting armed guards in certain cases' in some stores located in cities.

The NRF survey was conducted online among senior loss prevention and security executives in the retail industry with insights from 177 retail brands.

San Francisco has been an epicenter for retail store closures in recent months, though not all companies have specifically cited theft.

Others have noted the declining foot traffic downtown, which could be partially due to concerns about crime, as well as a shift to remote working following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her daughter was able to say farewell after she was taken back to hospital

An elderly woman 'died' twice in two days after doctors at a Spanish hospital wrongly certified her death and sent her to a local mortuary, only for her to be rushed back to a bed when a worker found her breathing.

Doctors at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Zaragoza, northern Spain, certified the death of the unnamed woman, 90, and sent to the city's mortuary after she went into cardiac arrest.

The woman's daughter was told, upon arriving at the hospital, that she would not be able to see her mother's body as it had already been sent to the mortuary at the city's Torrero cemetery.

But a mortician suspected that the elderly woman was still alive after seeing her breathing, and managed to find a pulse.

San Juan de Dios Hospital told local media that she was immediately taken back to hospital at around 4am, and the woman's daughter was notified that her mother had in fact not died.

Doctors at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Zaragoza, northern Spain , certified the death of the unnamed woman

She went to see her mother, who was comatose in a hospital bed by then, before she definitively passed away at 6:30pm.

Despite the bizarreness of the incident, the hospital claimed that this was 'relatively common in critically ill patients'.

It said that in some cases the body can have a reaction that makes the heart work again for a certain time.

Zaragoza cops are currently looking into whether there was malpractice from the hospital's staff, and whether their decision to transfer her to the mortuary may have influenced the actual death of the elderly woman.
Desperately ill baby Indi Gregory was granted more time by a judge yesterday  after doctors asked for urgent permission to let her die.

The fate of the seven-month-old, who has a rare mitochondrial disease  the same condition as baby Charlie Gard, who died in 2017  was due to be decided at the High Court yesterday.

But after Indi's stricken parents begged for extra time to save her, Mr Justice Peel adjourned the case until next week. Meanwhile the little girl has been christened in her hospital bed in a heart-rending ceremony attended by her mother Claire Staniforth, 35, father Dean Gregory, 37, and her three older sisters.

Mr Gregory told the Daily Mail: 'We are doing everything we can to keep Indi alive. But if we can't save her life, we have at least saved her soul.'

Yesterday the court was told that the little girl's chances are dire. Her doctors at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham believe it would be kinder to let her die than keep her alive, and are asking the High Court to sanction removing her breathing tube.

The fate of seven-month-old Indi Gregory, who has a rare mitochondrial disease  the same condition as tragic tot Charlie Gard , who died in 2017  was due to be decided at the High Court yesterday

Baby Indi pictured today at her christening alongside her parents Claire Staniforth and Dean Gregory

On top of the mitochondrial disease, Indi suffers a host of medical issues including cardiac trouble.

Indi's family disagree with her doctors, and say she is currently fighting off an infection.

The baby has been in hospital all her short life, mostly in intensive care but sometimes on a normal ward. The family keep a bedside vigil and Mr Gregory told the judge in an emotional letter how she responds to them and they just want to give her a chance at life.

They were given a boost yesterday when they were backed by a state-funded 'guardian'  appointed by the court to represent Indi's interests  who agreed the parents should be given more time.

But Emma Sutton, the hospital's KC, said: 'It is tragic to say, but Mr Gregory's take on things is at odds with the clinical picture. He is saying Indi is better. Well, she's not better. She is still critically unwell and unstable.'

The barrister told the court Indi's doctors were doing everything possible to keep her comfortable but it was not in her 'best interests' to continue to receive treatment. She said doctors were 'seeing Indi grimace when painful procedures are undertaken'.

Adjourning the case until Tuesday to give the family time to appoint a lawyer, Mr Justice Peel said: 'Indi is a much-loved child of parents utterly devoted to her, and she has siblings who are equally devoted.'

He said doctors did not believe her 'profound disorders' were treatable, but he added: 'The parents say Indi is able to interact with them and exhibit joy.

Dean Gregory, 37, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, the father of six-month-old Indi Gregory who has mitochondrial disease and is being treated at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, leaves the Royal Courts of Justiceon September 15

Indi has three older sisters who have accompanied their parents on visits to her in hospital

'The nature of proceedings involving end-of-life issues are so important that parents must be given every opportunity to put their case.'

Indi's parents, from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, were not in court. Last night Mr Gregory told the Mail: 'At least we now have some more time.'

He shared photographs from Indi's recent christening with her three elder sisters  Vienna, six, Olivia, 13, who is Ms Staniforth's daughter from a previous relationship, and a 19-year-old from Mr Gregory's previous relationship, also called Olivia, who herself has a baby.
READ MORE: Philly cops brawl with masked looters after they ransacked Footlocker, Apple and Lululemon

An old clip of Democrat radical Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defending shoplifters as 'hungry' people seeking bread has resurfaced in the wake of the Philadelphia lootings that have seen at least 30 people charged so far.

The New York Congresswoman sat down in a video from 2020 and described why she thought people loot.

'So, they go out and they need to feed their child and they don't have money... They are put in a position where they feel like they need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night,' said Ocasio-Cortez.

But she has since been ridiculed online after a mob of dozens of looters targeted stores such as Footlocker, Apple and Lululemon in the City of Brotherly Love on Tuesday night - with one social media user writing: 'This did not age well.'

Thieves also ransacked at least 18 liquor stores overnight, which led to all of Philadelphia's Fine Wine and Good Spirits locations closing their doors on Wednesday.

The US Representative for New York sat down in a video from 2020 and described why she thought people loot

At least 30 people have been charged after widespread looting broke out in Philadelphia last night, with one woman who livestreamed the chaos

Looters also rampaged through 18 liquor stores in the Philadelphia area which and has led to all of Philadelphia's Fine Wine and Good Spirits stores to close on Wednesday

The windows of a ransacked liquor store were demolished and hanging on by pieces of glass

In the targeted Apple store, iPhones and other electronic merchandise were grabbed from their displays as employees were puzzled by the events

At least 30 people - including three juveniles - have been charged so far in connection to the looting.

Most were charged with burglary and theft, and one with illegal gun possession, a spokesperson for the District Attorney's Office said.

Two firearms were recovered at the scene, and footage shows cops detaining the suspects as merchandise is piled high around them.

Additionally, looters rampaged through 18 separate liquor store locations on Tuesday night.

Press Secretary for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, Shawn M. Kelly, told The Philadelphia Inquirer no employees were hurt and that stores will reopen 'when it is safe to do so and when the damage is repaired.'

Many thieves covered their faces with Halloween masks in the Lululemon store.

The carnage took place on Walnut Street, at the center of the city, and involved a Foot Locker and Apple store as well.

One woman, Dayjia Blackwell, who also goes by the name 'meatball' had been livestreaming the chaos onto her Instagram page and sharing clips of the looting, seemingly encouraging it.

She went on to loot a nearby liquor store, where she snagged a bottle of Hennessey from the shelves.

'Tell the police if they lock me up tonight it's going to be lit, it's going to be a movie! Everybody's gotta eat!' she said confidently into the camera.

Dayjia Blackwell went on to loot a nearby liquor store, where she snagged a bottle of Hennessey from the shelves

Blackwell was later arrested by police in her friend's car just after midnight.

In the targeted Apple store, iPhones and other electronic merchandise were shed of their displays as employees were left panicked.

Just three weeks ago, the Philadelphia Police Commissioner resigned from her post as the Democrat-run city dealt with a wave of homicides and lawlessness.

Danielle Outlaw, 48, who has been Philly's top cop since February 2020, officially left the department on September 22.

Outlaw's new role will be the Deputy Chief Security Officer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she will oversee the airports, bridges, tunnels and other transportation infrastructure in the New York City area.

Before she took office, Philadelphia saw less than 400 homicides each year since 2007. Both 2021 and 2022 have seen more than 500 homicides across the city.

Latest figures, which are up until last Sunday, show how there has been 302 homicides in the city so far this year.

There has also been 402 reported rapes, 58,759 cases of property crime, 3,701 cases of aggravated assaults and 1,314 shooting victims.

As crime has soared across Philadelphia, it has come as homelessness and drug use on the street have become more prevalent.

Homeless people and drug addicts are often driven to petty theft as a way to find ways to sustain themselves or scrape enough money together to supply their addictions.
Dr. Jarrod Betz was performing surgery on the woman when he allegedly cut into an artery, resulting in another doctor taking over the procedure

The family of Sheila Sue Trimble, 65, claims that a hospital propped up the patient to look 'fake alive' despite having died two hours earlier in surgery

An Ohio woman who died during a routine surgery performed by a controversial doctor was allegedly propped up to make her look alive in an effort to fool her family into believing she had survived the procedure, a lawsuit claims.

The family of Sheila Sue Trimble claims that the 65 year-old was in 'good health' when she entered Adena Health in Chillicothe for a heart catheterization on August 18. That procedure was a straightforward and routine one, the suit claims.

They allege that they were urged to turn off Trimble's life support, despite hospital staff knowing that she'd already died..

Records seen by local newspaper the Scioto Valley Guardian show Trimble died at 1pm, according to the suit. Her death certificate records her time of death as 3:05pm - the same time her family were ushered in, it is alleged.

In Facebook posts, several members say that Dr. Jarrod Betz - Trimble's cardiologist - repeated the claim that he cut into an artery during the original surgery.

Betz has previously faced investigations into accusations that he is not properly credentialed to perform complicated and advanced heart procedures.

'Adena management you say these are false.. I know dam well my sister died from her aorta being cut by Dr Bets,' wrote Vickie Clark, an apparent family member.'

Talking to DailyMail.com, a representative for Adena Health said they had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and called any reports on the matter 'patently false.'

The family of Sheila Sue Trimble, pictured, allege she was propped up to look as if she was alive after she died during a routine medical procedure at Adena Health in Chillicothe in Ohio in August

In Facebook posts, several members say that Dr. Jarrod Betz (pictured) Trimble's cardiologist - admitted he had cut into an artery during the original surgery

This is Adena Health where Trimble died on August 18, allegedly during a routine surgery

Trimble's family members first shared the allegations of misconduct in mid-August after a Facebook account shared details of the woman's death.

Tracy Clark McManis, who identified the then-unidentified woman as her aunt, shared the post accusing Dr. Betz of cutting into Trimble's artery.

One of the woman's family members had seemingly reached out to the Facebook account - which is dedicated to sharing issues within the Adena Health System - to share that she had died after a doctor nicked the wrong artery.

The story was then picked up by the Scioto Valley Guardian which reported having seen the woman's own medical records.

In their story, the outlet stated the family noticed a two-hour discrepancy between Trimble's time on her death certificate and hospital records.

The Scioto Valley Guardian did not publicly name the woman who had died during the surgery, but DailyMail.com was able to independently confirm her identity.

The online publication reported that her family was brought in around 3.05pm to see her while she was propped up to look 'fake alive.'

They claim that they were urged to make an immediate decision to remove her from life support.

According to the family, however, her medical records showed her time of death as 1pm, placing her death during the hours of a second surgery.

Trimble alongside her granddaughter in a picture posted to Facebook

Dr. Jarrod Betz in a picture posted to Adena Health's website

The initial surgery had been performed by Dr. Betz, but after she wouldn't stop bleeding while in the Intensive Care Unit, she was taken back in to surgery.

A post from Trimble's daughter the day of the surgery confirms the story.

'Update on my mom. She wont stop bleeding. Tried 2 rounds of medication to try and stop the bleeding. No luck,' Jannell Fischer wrote on August 18.

'Going back in the operating room to open her back up to see if they can find something that might be causing the bleeding. Prayers needed,' she shared.

She was rushed back into surgery, this time with Dr. Atiq Rehman, but died during the follow-up procedure, records allegedly obtained by the Guardian show.

When the family was ushered in after the second surgery, they were urged to make an 'immediate decision' while she lay in the bed on a ventilator.

In May, it was reported that Betz - who has performed at least three transcatheter aortic valve replacements - is not properly credentialed for the surgery.

As of September, more than 30 people have allegedly come forward to the Guardian, accusing Dr. Betz of faking his credentials.

A second surgery to stop the bleeding was allegedly performed by Dr. Atiq Rehman (pictured)

A representative for the hospital told DailyMail.com these allegations are completely untrue and that the credentials of the doctor have been proven since the story broke.

Additionally, the outlet reported that Dr. Rehman and Dr. Matos Cruz, were once seen watching YouTube videos on medical procedures they were unfamiliar with.

Families said that one patient died after such a procedure while another had to undergo three additional procedures at Ohio State University.

The family of the 65-year-old woman who died during the heart catheterization requested an independent autopsy after the fact.

A representative for the hospital told DailyMail.com the Scioto Guardian's report is false and said that the outlet is 'discredited.'

The spokesperson said there is no legitimacy to the report or to any allegations of impropriety made in regard to Dr. Betz or Dr. Rehman.
Asylum seekers pretend to be gay to 'game the system' and stay in Britain, Home Secretary Suella Braverman claimed tonight.

The senior Cabinet minister insisted there are 'many instances' where people say they're homosexual to receive preferential treatment in asylum applications.

'That's not fair and it's not right,' said Mrs Braverman, adding: 'It's not the way our asylum system should work.'

The Home Secretary made the comments as she defended herself amid a fierce backlash against a speech she made on migration in the US yesterday.

In an address at a think-tank event in Washington DC, Mrs Braverman warned of an 'existential challenge' to the West from uncontrolled immigration and claimed multiculturalism had 'failed'.

She questioned whether the application of the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention was 'fit for our modern age'.

The Home Secretary also argued discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection.

Suella Braverman, pictured on a visit to the Drug Enforcement Administration in Baltimore, Maryland, today, doubled down on her asylum claims

Fury at Mrs Braverman's speech yesterday came from human rights activists, LGBT advocates, and prominent public figures such as pop icon Sir Elton John (pictured)

Fury at Mrs Braverman's speech came from human rights activists, LGBT advocates, and prominent public figures such as pop icon Sir Elton John.

Sir Elton warned the Home Secretary risked 'further legitimising hate and violence' against LGBT people and called for 'more compassion'.

But, in an interview with ITV News, due to air in full on the Peston programme on tonight, the Home Secretary doubled down on her claims.

She's right, says Parris A founder of the Stonewall gay rights group has backed Suella Braverman's suggestion that 'simply being gay' should no longer be grounds for asylum. Writing in The Times, former Conservative MP Matthew Parris said: 'Imagine you're a columnist, gay and a former campaigner for homosexual rights, and you hear that Suella Braverman doesn't think being gay should automatically qualify people for asylum here. 'If you disagree, and say so, you'll be accused of special pleading: "He would say that..." But if (as is the case with me, and however reluctantly) you think she's right, and write it, you'll be accused, amid cries of "betrayal", of letting down your side... Ah well. But she's right. There are just too many. "Too many" is the reasoning that dare not speak its name.' Advertisement

Asked about Sir Elton's response to her speech, she said: 'Well, I have huge admiration for Elton John, but what I would say is that we need to be, again, honest about what's actually happening on the ground.

'And as I said in my speech, we need to be clear about what constitutes persecution. Persecution is where people are being tortured, where they are receiving ill treatment, where they are having their human rights violated in a monstrous and grotesque way'

She added: 'And of course, we want to welcome people fleeing persecution to the UK. That's not the same as discrimination, and I fully acknowledge that it is miserable and incredibly tough around parts of the world to be gay or to be a woman.

'Being a victim of discrimination shouldn't necessarily qualify you for asylum protection in the UK.'

On whether she has any evidence that gay people are 'gaming the system', she said: 'Well, what we see operationally is that people do game the system.

'They come to the UK, they purport to be homosexual in the effort to game our system, in the effort to get special treatment. That's not fair and it's not right.'

Ms Braverman went on: 'I'm afraid we do see many instances where people purport to be gay when they're not actually gay, but in order to get special treatment. It's not the way our asylum system should work.'

Asked if she is prepared to leave the UN Refugee Convention, the Home Secretary reiterated that as the 'Prime Minister has said, we will do whatever it takes to stop the boats'.

According to Home Office data, sexual orientation formed part of the basis for an asylum claim in 1 per cent of all applications in 2021.

That was 77 per cent fewer than in 2019, when sexual orientation made up 5 per cent of all applications, and 7 per cent in 2017.

Earlier today, other Tories lined up behind Mrs Braverman following her controversial speech in the US.

The Home Secretary was praised for 'speaking the same language' as voters after her intervention declaring multiculturalism 'dead' and demanding an overhaul of international refugee rules.

Mrs Braverman herself dismissed 'flippant' questions that her US visit and speech were aimed at boosting her chances of becoming the next Tory leader - which is the view held by many in Westminster.

The Home Secretary had warned that uncontrolled immigration is an 'existential' threat to the West

Additional 213,000 school places needed due to immigration, Braverman claims Suella Braverman has claimed that an additional 213,000 secondary school places will have to be found by 2026 due to a surge in immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers. The Home Secretary said current levels of immigration are unsustainable, with more than half of demand for new housing coming from new arrivals, the Times reports. In her speech in Washington DC, Ms Braverman said: 'Accommodation cannot be magicked up out of thin air. 'Nor can new schools, improved roads, extra police officers, additional healthcare, or any of the other public services upon which people rely. 'Immigration is behind at least 45 per cent of demand for new housing in England. 'More than one in five biths are to foreign-born mothers. Due to immigration and high birth rates among foreign-born mothers, English secondary schools will need to find an extra 213,000 places by 2026.' Advertisement

Taking aim at advocates of multiculturalism, the Home Secretary said she supported immigration, having been the child of immigrants herself, but claimed that uncontrolled migration risked a threat to nationhood and national security due to a lack of integration.

She said migration had been 'too much, too quick' to the UK in the past 25 years, with 'too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion'.

'Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades,' she said.

'Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society.

'And in extreme cases they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.

'We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester.'

Mrs Braverman added: 'If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted  eventually it will disappear.'

Pressed on how her views square with her background as the child of migrants from Mauritius and Kenya, the Home Secretary said: 'What you're suggesting is because I'm the child of immigrants, I have to adopt a position which is pro-migration and pro the status quo, and I totally and fundamentally refute that.

'I think that is totally at odds with the challenge that we are facing today, unprecedented levels of people coming into our country illegally with no right to be here. They are gaming our system, pretending to be refugees, pretending to be fleeing persecution to come to the country illegitimately.

'I think that cannot be how we conduct this conversation. We need to be honest with the British people and we need to be honest about the challenges and the solutions. Just because I have an immigrant background does not exclude me from this conversation.

'My job as Home Secretary is to be honest with the British people to tell them that the system as it currently stands internationally is not working. We need to start working towards a solution that is sustainable and fair.'

The speech caused consternation among some One Nation Tories, but delighted other MPs.

Tory former minister Brendan Clarke-Smith told Sky News: 'This is speaking the same language as my constituents. It's what they wanted to hear.

'She has emphasised the fact she is a child of immigrants herself, she knows what a welcoming country the UK is, she wants that to continue. But she wants to see some fairness.'

Asked whether he thought Ms Braverman would make a good PM, he said: 'I think certainly she's a good Home Secretary I've got a lot of time for the Home Secretary but this is of course part of the PM's plan

'I genuinely think that we can win this next general election and Rishi Sunak is the person who is going to do that for us.'

Ms Braverman raised the prospect of rewriting the UN's 1951 treaty to raise the threshold for asylum claims.

But last night the UNHCR took the unusual step of hitting back, saying : 'The Refugee Convention is the cornerstone of the international refugee protection regime and remains a life-saving instrument that ensures millions of people fleeing conflict and persecution each year can access safety and protection across borders.

'There are 35.3 million refugees worldwide, with 70 per cent remaining in countries neighbouring their own and 76 per cent hosted in low- and middle-income countries.'

It said a stronger and more consistent application of the convention's protocols was needed.

The UNHCR said: 'An appropriate response to the increase in arrivals and to the UK's current asylum backlog would include strengthening and expediting decision-making procedures.

'This would accelerate the integration of those found to be refugees and facilitate the swift return of those who have no legal basis to stay. UNHCR has presented the UK Government with concrete and actionable proposals in this regard and continues to support constructive, ongoing efforts to clear the current asylum backlog.'

The Home Secretary said international asylum laws are creating an 'absurd and unsustainable' system with 'huge incentives for illegal migration'

Mrs Braverman warned that 780 million people are eligible to claim asylum in the UK under 'absurd' rules and argue that Channel boat migrants should not be treated as refugees

The senior Cabinet minister suggested the UN treaty has played a key role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018

Ms Braverman pointed out that would-be refugees once had to show they were facing 'persecution' but now they must only prove 'discrimination'.

She suggested the UN treaty is 'an incredible achievement of its age', but highlighted its role in the crisis that has seen nearly 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to reach Britain since 2018.

'More than 70 years on, we now live in a completely different time,' she said.

'According to analysis by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams for the Centre for Policy Studies, it now confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 million people.

'It is therefore incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the Refugee Convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age. Or whether it is in need of reform.'

Ms Braverman - who has been accompanied by a TV crew on her trip to the US - said in her speech: 'Nobody entering the UK by boat from France is fleeing imminent peril.

'The vast majority have passed through multiple safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. In this sense, there is an argument that they should cease to be treated as refugees when considering the legitimacy of their onward movement.'

Ms Braverman admitted the European and UN accords on refugee rights could be a struggle to update due to the unwieldy task of getting member states to agree on changes.

But she said there was also a 'more cynical' reason for not broaching reforms, arguing there was a 'fear of being branded a racist or illiberal'.

'The status quo, where people are able to travel through multiple safe countries, and even reside in safe countries for years, while they pick their preferred destination to claim asylum, is absurd and unsustainable,' she said.

Mrs Braverman said the West had 'created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivising millions of people to try their luck, knowing full well that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand'.

Asked after the speech whether the current interpretation of the ECHR was 'compatible' with the need to protect and control UK borders, Ms Braverman said: 'My personal views on the ECHR have been chronicled and they're very clear, but what I think is a legitimate question for all of us to be asking in the UK is whether its operation and its interpretation by the courts is compatible with our pressing need to control our borders and national sovereignty.'

She went on: 'We are wanting to work within those frameworks and we are confident that we can achieve that, but I do think legitimate questions need to be asked about the somewhat ill-fitting nature of how these  outdated international models are sitting with the global migration crisis of the 21st century.'

The Government's Illegal Migration Act, passed by Parliament earlier this year, bars 'irregular' migrants from claiming asylum.

However, its powers have yet to be brought into force and it remains unclear whether it will make it easier to remove migrants whose claims are denied.

Mrs Braverman's criticisms of the UN treaty has been disputed by many immigration lawyers and campaigners, who point to Britain's leading role in drawing it up after the horrors of the Second World War.

Migrants are picked up at sea while attempting to cross the English Channel last month

Ms Braverman pointed out that the convention defines refugees as those with a 'well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'.

'However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution, in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination,' she said.

'And a similar shift away from a 'well-founded fear' towards a 'credible' or 'plausible fear'.

'The practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.'

She added: 'Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman.

'Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary.

'But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.

Mrs Braverman also highlighted 'asylum shopping' which sees migrants move through numerous safe countries to reach their target country.
A Polish minister has said the government is considering the extradition of Ukrainian Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka from Canada after the north American country's parliament gave him a standing ovation last week.

Poland's education minister Przemysaw Czarnek said on Tuesday that he has made a request to extradite the 98-year-old accused Nazi.

He said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: 'In view of the scandalous events in the Canadian Parliament, which involved honouring a member of the criminal Nazi SS Galizien formation in the presence of President Zelensky, I have taken steps towards the possible extradition of this man to Poland.'

The 46-year-old politician said in a statement that he had urged the country's president to investigate whether Hunka is wanted for crimes against Poland and Polish Jews.

Poland's ambassador to Canada, Witold Dzielski, said the move was still in a preliminary stage.

Ukrainian Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka (pictured) was given a standing ovation by Canadian parliamentarians

Hunka's involvement in the 14th Waffen-SS 'Galacia' Division resurfaced after he was invited to Canada's House of Commons

Canada faced international backlash after dozens of its parliamentarians, including prime minister Justin Trudeau, were seen applauding the Nazi veteran, who served in 14th Waffen-SS 'Galacia' Division, a voluntary unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians under Nazi command.

Members of the division were accused of killing Polish and Jewish civilians during World War II.

The Nuremberg tribunals found the Waffen-SS guilty as an organisation of war crimes but not the Galicia division.

In recently unearthed blog posts dated as recently as 2011, Hunka describes 1941 to 1943 as the happiest years of his life and compares the veterans of his unit, who were scattered across the world, to Jews.

He also admits to having a 'profitable and affluent life in Canada' after he left Ukraine.

Hunka was invited by House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota to attend parliament as a guest while Ukraine's president

The Nazi veteran was hailed a 'Ukrainian hero' and a 'Canadian hero'

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised on Wednesday for the embarrassing incident.

'This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada,' Trudeau told reporters, saying he would shortly stand up in the House of Commons to formally offer Parliament's 'unreserved apologies' for what happened.

House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota resigned after the incident on September 22, in which he called the Nazi a 'Ukrainian hero' and a 'Canadian hero'.

The Liberal party said in a statement: 'In my remarks following the address of the president of Ukraine, I recognised an individual in the gallery.

'I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so.'

The praise for Hunka came after Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured left) was invited to speak at the House of Commons

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured, right) was seen applauding the Nazi veteran

Mr Rota said that 'no one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them.

'This initiative was entirely my own, the individual in question being from my riding [district] and having been brought to my attention.'

'I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my actions,' the speaker added.

Hunka isn't the only Nazi veteran who was allowed to live in Canada after World War II.

Roughly 600 members of Hunka's division were allowed to live in the country, a decision that has long been a source of controversy in Canada.

It was the subject of a government inquiry in the 1980s into whether Canada had become a haven for war criminals.
Good Morning Britain has been hit with hundreds of Ofcom complaints after Richard Madely furiously clashed with President of Guyana Irfaan Ali over slavery reparations.

The South American president, whose country received a formal apology last month from the family of 19th century Prime Minister William Gladstone for their historical connection to slavery, said that the UK must realise it 'still benefits from the greatest indignity to the human being'.

During the heated discussion the leader argued the UK, which according to a report owes 19trillion in reparations, should pay compensation for slavery, after a UN report suggested countries who benefited from the trade should do so.

The discussion sparked a frustrated response from Madeley, who became visibly furious with the President's suggestions and at one point slammed the table in anger.

He accused the Guyanan leader of not just asking for money but 'gestures' suggesting perhaps he he wanted the Royal Family to 'hand over a palace to your country'. Mr Ali said he simply wanted 'justice'.

Good Morning Britain has been hit with hundreds of Ofcom complaints after Richard Madely furiously clashed with President of Guyana Irfaan Ali over slavery reparations

The South American president said that the UK must realise it 'still benefits from the greatest indignity to the human being

The blazing row, that took place last week, has led to 334 viewers to complain to Ofcom.

One annoyed viewer took to X, formerly known as Twitter, during the episode last week, writing: 'Richard Madeley was so ignorant and disrespectful to the president of a Guyana.'

Another added: 'Who does Richard Madeley think he is? Slamming his hand down on the desk and talking to the president of Guyana in such a rude and disrespectful manner.'

A third said: 'Richard Madeley is arrogant and showed his ignorance on the topic of slavery. What a pathetic man.'

During the exchange, Madeley asked Mr Ali why today's generation should 'carry the burden' for what their ancestors did, the president told Good Morning Britain: 'Oh, it's not a burden at all.

'You are one of the beneficiaries of that slave trade, so this is not a burden.

'You should be concerned and you should pay because you today still benefit from the greatest indignity to the human being, and that is the slave trade.

'And not only did you benefit during the slave trade, and your country develop, but look at what it cost the developing world.

'During slavery, resources were used to build your country, build up your capacity. You were able to then become competitive, able to invest in mechanisation and developing countries like ours were left behind. So you should be very concerned, because you are prime beneficiaries of exploits of slavery.'

President of Guyana Mohamed Irfaan Ali speaks during the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters in New York later that day

Madeley went on to question why 'someone who maybe had an ancestor seven or eight generations ago should have to pay for what an ancient ancestor did'.

He also asked: 'How far back do we have to go on this? We are speaking exclusively on Western imperialistic slavery to summarise, but almost every civilisation on the planet owes its existence and prosperity almost always to crimes, in the past.

'Why just target one particular era in history? Some would argue that's the argument of political convenience. Its a handy handle to hang your argument on.'

But a defiant Mr Ali - speaking from New York - replied: 'I think you're doing a great injustice to compare slavery with any other historical facts that you are mentioning.

'It is a great injustice to the indignity that slavery brought to people.'

Madeley then appeared to get more wound up as the topic of the Royal Family came up.

'One of the points you've been making today is about our Royal Family,' he said.

'And you feel that it's not just about the finances involved here in terms of reparations for slavery.

As he thumped the table in frustration, Madeley continued: 'It's about the gestures.

'And you think that the British Royal Family should make a big gesture, don't you? What do you mean? Hand over a palace to your country?'

'Well no, we don't want the British to hand over a palace that we built,' the president replied.

He continued: 'If you go to many of the palaces in Britain, you'll see the lovely hard work from Guyana. You will see the sweat, tears and blood of the slaves who were exploited, and the revenue that was earnt from the exploitation. So we're not asking for a palace; we're asking for justice.'

The discussion sparked a frustrated response from Madeley, who became visibly furious with the President's suggestions and at one point slammed the table in anger

Earlier this month it was reported that Caribbean nations will make formal demands for the Royal Family to make slavery reparations by the end of the year.

Rather than trying to negotiate inter-governmental agreements, several nations want to put their case directly to descendants of those thought to have benefited from slavery, including King Charles.

Mr Ali added that when he came on to the programme, other topics such as net zero and climate injustice were being spoken about - something he believes is at the forefront of discussion.

He continued: 'This is the problem. We live in a very unjust society. We condemn completely the war in Ukraine. But if you look at the mobilisation of resources in the war in Ukraine in two years, you have mobilised more support for Ukraine than you have mobilised for Haiti for 60 years.

'You have mobilised more support for Ukraine than you have mobilised for Palestine in 20 years. You have mobilised more support for Ukraine in just one and a half years than you have mobilised to address hunger in Africa for three years.

'That is the type of unjust way we have been dealing with these crises. We are not going to tolerate the injustice that occurred during slavery to be compared with any other system. Slavery, we all agree, was the greatest injustice ever done to human beings.'

Last week a UN report on slavery was hailed by campaigners as an important step forward in the fight for reparative justice.

The report said: 'Under international human rights law, compensation for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, may also constitute a form of reparations.

'In the context of historical wrongs and harms suffered as a result of colonialism and enslavement, the assessment of the economic damage can be extremely difficult owing to the length of time passed and the difficulty of identifying the perpetrators and victims.'

It stressed that the challenge in making a legal claim for reparation 'cannot be the basis for nullifying the existence of underlying legal obligations'.

MailOnline has contacted ITV for comment.
Amazons new boss was handed another painful legacy from the Jeff Bezos era to deal with on Tuesday as the government launched a lawsuit that could break up the company.

Andy Jassy will have to fight off accusations that the online giant uses its market dominance to ramp up prices, overcharge sellers and stifle competition.

The investigation dates to Bezoss time at the head of the company he founded, and hard-headed Wall Street analysts voiced sympathy for Jassy as his predecessor enjoys a seemingly never-ending vacation with glamorous fiancee Lauren Sanchez after stepping back from the firm in July 2021.

He is cleaning up a mess that somebody else created, said Sucharita Kodali of Forrester Research.

And he is doing it while trying to keep the ship afloat.'

Billionaire Jeff Bezos has no difficulty keeping his ship afloat as he parties with fiancee Lauren Sanchez and his successor at Amazon fights to save the company

Bezos, 59, and Sanchez, 53, have posted a series of glamorous shot to social media as they have partied around the Mediterranean this summer

New CEO Andy Jassy first joined the firm three days after leaving Harvard Business School and has taken an ax to many of Bezos's pet projects

Bezos, 59, has been pictured relaxing on his latest ship as he took a Mediterranean holiday tour this summer, proposing to Sanchez while popping back for New York Fashion Week and Beyonce in LA earlier this month.

His $500million yacht named Koru, with a figurehead carved in the image of Sanchez, has docked in Sardinia, Croatia and Corfu where billionaire friends including Oprah Winfrey and David Geffen dined aboard.

The couple held the secret engagement party aboard the yacht off Italy's Amalfi Coast in July with guests including Kris Jenner and Bumble boss Whitney Wolfe Herd.

'He makes me laugh all the time, Sanchez, 53, revealed.

He can be goofy. He's so happy, he inspires me every day, he makes me a better person every day; he's the most loving human I know.'

Jassy meanwhile has been taking the ax to dozens of the billionaires pet projects, reversing the companys warehouse expansion program, scaling back investment in automated stores and laying off 27,000 employees.

He also demanded cuts at the companys $7billion TV production arm responsible for shows including The Boys and The Rings of Power.

Amazon's profits surged during the pandemic as it took advantage of lockdowns to increase its share of the retail market, but they crashed to a $2.7billion loss last year with analysts blaming the overexpansion of the Bezos era.

Jassy's moves helped return the company to profit in the last quarter and increase its share price by half since the start of the year - and he may have had his former boss in mind when he warned staff in March they needed to be back in the office or it's probably not going to work out for you.

As a leadership team, we've decided that we will be better for customers and for our business being in the office, he insisted.

The Federal Trade Commission suit filed on Tuesday in federal court in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, follows a four-year investigation into the company, and federal lawsuits filed against Alphabet's Google and Facebook-owner Meta.

It accuses the Silicon Valley giant of anti-competitive practices, including punishing sellers who offer lower prices on different websites by burying their listings on Amazon and making them harder to find.

The carefree billionaire accompanied his former news presenter wife to the Big Apple earlier this month for Ne York Fashion Week

The couple also popped up in Las Vegas where they joined Kris Jenner at Beyonce's star-studded LA concert

The good life: The buff billionaire has dropped in to a series of exclusive resorts

The complaint also says the company degrades the customer experience by replacing relevant search results with paid advertisements, biasing its own brands over other products it knows to be of a better quality and charging heavy fees that force sellers to pay nearly half of their total revenues to Amazon.

The filing also asked the court to consider forcing the online retailer to sell assets, hinting at a possible attempt to break up the online retail giant.

Many had wondered whether the agency would seek a forced break-up of the retail giant, which is also dominant in cloud computing and has a growing presence in other sectors like groceries and health care.

In a briefing with reporters, FTC Chair Lina Khan dodged questions of whether the agency will push for a break-up.

'At this stage, the focus is more on liability,' she said.

The company accused the regulator of being wrong on the facts and the law.

Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and Usher joined the couple for a stroll along the Dubrovnik's main street Stradun last month

If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses  the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do, Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky responded.

Jassy has told investors he plans to fight back with expansion in artificial intelligence, health care and restructured logistics to improve product delivery.

He has done a lot, but he clearly is going to have a lot more to do, DA Davidson analyst Tom Forte told the New York Times.

It was definitely going to be a harder act for Jassy, added Kodali.
In America's war on terror, there seems to be a new gleaming light of hope. US-trained Somalian government forces have been helping locals topple jihadists after their cruelty incited an uprising.

Al-Shabaab, the Somali branch of al Qaeda, are one of the most powerful Islamic State insurgency groups in the world, and the US have been helping the military battle against them for some 16 years.

The US's campaign has been littered with setbacks for years. However, breakthroughs in the last few months have made the battlefields of Somalia an optimistic spot in the fight on terror.

Somali government forces, who are led by 2,000 American-trained fighters called Danab, have recently joined in on uprisings against the 12,000-strong terror group.

In America's war on terror, there seems to be a new gleaming light of hope. US-trained Somalian government forces have been helping locals topple Islamist goons after their cruelty incited an uprising

The US-trained Danab's commander Maj. Aydarus Mohamed Hussein (pictured right) said last month: 'The government is winning the war. I wouldn't have said it two years ago, but I'd say it now'

The Somali National Army, US-trained Somali Special Forces, and local clan militias, have all banded together to press an offensive against al-Shabaab.

With the help of US drones, they have regained 20 towns and 80 villages from the terror group in the last few months - turning the tide on previous stalemates.

This win, encompassed by recapturing of a third of the land previously held by al-Shabaab, emblazoned troops to continue their offensive and recapture two more terrorist strongholds in Somalia.

The Danab's commander Maj. Aydarus Mohamed Hussein said last month: 'The government is winning the war. I wouldn't have said it two years ago, but I'd say it now.'

Optimism rung true within the Somali government too, reports WSJ. Somali National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh-Ali said: 'This is our planto finish them off before August next year. It might take longer, but definitely were going to defeat them.'

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added: 'They have retaken more territory in the last year than they had in the previous five years.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud speaks during a meeting with Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 in Washington

Soldiers of the Somali National Army (SNA) and Somalia security forces load onto vehicles at the airport in Baidoa, Somalia

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added: 'They have retaken more territory in the last year than they had in the previous five years'

'But we know that progress is not always a straight line.'

Since 2007, it's reported that the US have given half a billion dollars to help train and equip Somali forces in their fight against terrorism.

More methodical and practical offensives are set to ensue, government forces say, in a bid to keep towns that have been cleared free from the al-Shabaab hold for good.

Shane Dixon, the top U.S. diplomat in Mogadishu, told the WSJ: 'If you look at where this country was 10 years ago, and even two years ago, the progress made by the government and by the international community gives everybody hope that we can see a future of Somalia without Shabaab and without ISIS.'

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in May last year vowing 'all-out war' against Al-Shabaab, who were driven from Mogadishu in 2011 but control swathes of the countryside.

Mohamud, who has recently been visiting the frontline, said in August that government would 'eliminate' the jihadists by the end of the year.

But Somalia's national security adviser recently wrote to the United Nations requesting a 90-day delay to the planned pullout of 3,000 African Union troops by the end of September.

In the letter he said the government had 'managed to re-liberate towns, villages and critical supply routes' during its offensive but had suffered 'several significant setbacks' since late August.

'This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed vulnerabilities in our frontlines and necessitated a thorough reorganization to ensure we maintain our momentum in countering the Al-Shabaab threat,' the letter said.

The Somali National Army (SNA), U.S.-trained Somali Special Forces, called Danab, and local clan militias, all band together for the first to press an offensive against Al Shabab

Earlier this year, the Al Qaeda-linked jihadists killed six civilians and wounded ten in a six-hour siege at a beachside hotel in Somalia (pictured)

Security officers patrol near the destroyed Hayat Hotel after a deadly 30-hour siege by Al-Shabaab jihadists in Mogadishu on August 21, 2022

While it's yet to materialize, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have pledged to help kick al-Shabaab out of southern Somalia with thousands of troops.

It was President Bush in 2007 who sent a small force to Somalia to battle al-Shabaab, before Obama and Trump subsequently doubled the efforts.

Donald Trump organized 203 airstrikes on targets in the African country - before withdrawing all 700 US troops in January 2021.

When al-Shabaab ultimately started making their presence known again, local officials begged Joe Biden to reverse Trump's decision, which he did, but with less lethal vigor.

There have been a total of 15 US airstrikes on Somalian land this year, only authorized when there is guarantee that it will cause little to no civilian deaths.

Based in Kenya's eastern neighbor Somalia, Al-Shabaab has been waging a bloody insurgency against the fragile government in Mogadishu for more than 15 years.

Kenya first sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to combat the Islamist militants and is now a major contributor of troops to an African Union military operation against the group.

But it has suffered a string of retaliatory assaults, including a bloody siege at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 that cost 67 lives and an attack on Garissa University in 2015 that killed 148 people.

Earlier this year in June, the Al Qaeda-linked jihadists killed six civilians and wounded ten in a six-hour siege at a beachside hotel in Somalia.

Seven Al-Shabaab militants launched the attack on Pearl Beach Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia.
The mother of a violent sex offender accused of killing a Forbes 30 Under 30 CEO has urged him to surrender to police - days after he flashed a firearm at her.

Scarlett Billingsley, 72, said she spoke to her son Jason, 32, on Tuesday over text messages after Baltimore Police issued a warrant for his arrest.

He is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Pava LaPere, 26, who was discovered badly beaten on the roof of her luxury apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland.

Police confirmed he has been linked to a second incident of attempted murder, rape and arson on September 19.

His mother told NBC: 'I told him to turn himself in because they're going to kill him, I don't want police to shoot him because they think he has a gun.'

Scarlett Billingsley, 72, said she spoke to her son Jason, 32, on Tuesday over text messages after Baltimore Police issued a warrant for his arrest

He is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Pava LaPere, 26, who was discovered badly beaten on the roof of her luxury apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland

Scarlett says she last saw her son on Monday, when he was at her home for a few minutes before leaving.

Billingsley reportedly showed her a gun that he had on him, but his mother claims he is 'trying to sell it'.

'I don't know where he is, and he's not going to tell me,' she said. 'I am so sorry for what that mother is going through. I'm very sorry if he did it.'

His mother added that she is terrified her son will be killed by cops, after her eldest son died in 2013 after being shot.

She said: 'I won't know until I see some evidence if he did it. Where is the truth at  show me some evidence. He's the only one I got left. He's my baby boy.'

Authorities say they were able to connect Billingsley to LaPere's death after probing the incident which left a man and a woman in critical condition.

Firefighters were called to Edmondson Avenue at 9.30am on September 19 to reports of a fire in a basement.

A man and woman, both 26, were rushed to hospital with burns and multiple injuries, and child, 5, was treated for smoke inhalation but was otherwise unharmed.

In a statement Baltimore Police said: 'Multiple warrants have been issued for Billingsley and detectives continue to work with all of our law enforcement partners in apprehending him.

The serial sex attacker was denied parole twice, in 2020 and 2022  just months before he was released

Convicted felon Jason Billingsley, 32, is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Pava LaPere at her apartment building in Baltimore, Maryland

'Additionally, detectives are now reviewing all cases since October, 2022, to the present day in order to determine any other connections.

'The BPD urges all members of the community to stay on alert. Billingsley is considered armed and dangerous.

'Please contact 911 immediately if you come in contact with this individual or have any further information.'

The violent criminal was released in 2022 because of 'good credit', after being convicted of attempted rape and handed a 30-year sentence by a judge.

Billingsley was released in October due to a mandatory state law, with the Chair of the Maryland Parole Commission confirming to DailyMail.com that the serial sex attacker was denied parole twice, in 2020 and 2022.

David Blumberg said that Billingsley was released due to an 'operation of law' in Maryland, which allows offenders to be released early for good behavior and credits.

'We had concerns about him, or we would have considered parole,' he said. 'He was serving time for a crime of a very serious nature.

'With regard to his case, it was not a difficult decision to refuse parole. It's a very sad and tragic case, she was a bright young woman with a lot to look forward to and to see this happen is heartbreaking.'

Investigators are remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances of LaPere's death, but sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that her badly-beaten body was found on the roof

Sources told DailyMail.com that Billingsley attacked the young CEO on the roof of her luxury building

David Blumberg said that Billingsley was released due to an 'operation of law' in Maryland, which allows offenders to be released early for good behavior and credits

LaPere's badly-beaten and partially-clothed body was discovered on the roof of the luxury Mount Vernon apartment on Monday. Cops named Billingsley as the prime suspect in her death less than 24 hours later.

The sex offender register shows that the convicted felon lives just 1.3miles from LePere's apartment, who had been reported missing hours before she was discovered, as cops launch a manhunt for him.

He is also suspected in another knifepoint sex attack a week before her death, with authorities refusing to say if they were probing him over any other incidents.

Billingsley, a 6ft 2' and 305lb convict, has a history of violent offending with convictions dating back to 2009 when he was just 18.

The felon was convicted of first-degree assault in 2009, and was handed two years of supervised probation.

Billingsley violated the terms and was then convicted of a second-degree assault case in 2011 - serving two years in jail.

Months after being released for the violent attack, Billingsley was convicted of attempted rape in 2013.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after the first-degree sexual assault, with part of his sentence suspended.

Pava Marie LaPere, 26, was killed by blunt force trauma inside her luxury Mount Vernon, Baltimore apartment

Richard Worley, commissioner of Baltimore police, announced the name of the suspect and vowed to track him down and bring him to justice

Billingsley has a criminal record dating back to 2009, and was sentenced to 30 years - but released after only nine

Court records show that 16 years of Billingsley's sentence was suspended, and he was given five years of supervised probation upon his release.

Billingsley was going to be under probation supervision until 2027 and was ultimately released after racking up four years and three months' worth of credits.

Investigators are remaining tight-lipped about the circumstances of LaPere's death, but sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that her badly-beaten body was found on the roof.

Reaching the area would have potentially meant climbing a ladder or fire escape, the source explained.

The macabre twist raises the possibility that LaPere was either led up there before she was attacked, or that her body was discarded on the roof afterwards to try to hide the crime.

He was sentenced in 2015, but his jail term started in 2013 when he was incarcerated after being convicted of the prior attempted rape.

The suspected killer was set to serve 14 years of the 30-year sentence, with a judge suspending 16 of his sentence.

LaPere is believed to have lived and worked in the building where she was found dead on Monday

The EcoMap Technologies team, including Lapere, pictured in front of her apartment building

But he was released after just nine years of the sentence, due to credits that he earned while being incarcerated.

Billingsley is not believed to have known LaPere, who lived on the seventh floor of the building.

Police on Tuesday would not comment on how he got into the building, other than to say it was 'secure'.

Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley confirmed that he had issued a warrant for Billingsley's arrest, and is 'not aware' of any link between him and LaPere.

He said Billingsley was considered armed and dangerous, and was a suspect in 'at least one other case' that he declined to describe. Worley did not say how investigators identified Billingsley as a suspect.

'This individual will kill and he will rape,' Worley said. 'He will do anything he can to cause harm. Please be aware of your surroundings.'
A mayoral candidate in Tennessee who vehemently opposes LGBT events in her own town is facing questions about her husband's scantily clad appearance in Chicago's Pride Fest.

Gabrielle Hanson, a Republican alderman in Franklin, is running for mayor on a MAGA platform after unsuccessfully attempting to block the town's Pride Festival from being held in a city park.

But a photo published on Wednesday by Nashville CBS affiliate WTVF depicts her husband, Tom Hanson, frolicking in American-flag themed Speedos at Chicago's annual Pride Parade in 2008.

The outlet also cited an interview Tom gave at the time suggesting that his wife had encouraged him to participate in the event.

The latest campaign twist comes just a week after Gabrielle Hanson made national headlines for admitting that she unwittingly helped run an escort agency in the 1990s.

Gabrielle Hanson, a mayoral candidate in Franklin, Tennessee, opposed her city's Pride event, but in 2008 her husband frolicked in a Speedo at Chicago Pride

Gabrielle Hanson, pictured here with her realtor husband Tom, has pledged to 'defend our traditional values' and voted against granting a permit for an LGBTQ+ pride event in Franklin

EXCLUSIVE: Gabrielle Hanson fought Franklin Pride, but celebrated her scantily clad husband at Chicago Pride https://t.co/toLuP98piF  Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) September 27, 2023

Gabrielle Hanson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Wednesday afternoon.

The 2008 photo released on Wednesday depicts Tom Hanson looking buff at Chicago Pride, clad only in the Speedos, leather sandals, sunglasses, and a necklace with a small gold cross.

At the time, the couple lived in Chicago, and Tom was running as a Republican candidate for Illinois' 5th congressional district, a heavily liberal area that includes parts of Chicago's northwest side and suburbs.

In an interview with the Windy City Times, Tom explained that, due to a variety of timing factors, his campaign launched on the same day as the Pride Parade, and he decided to attend to promote his candidacy.

'I thought how was I going to make an impact in the parade? I'm a Republican, nobody's going to want to listen to me,' he told the outlet in 2008.

'So it just came to me. I said maybe I'll wear an American-flag Speedo and my wife said, 'If you do that, I'll hold you to it.''

Tom and Gabrielle Hanson moved to Franklin in 2012, and if she previously supported Pride events, her views appear to have changed since then.

In April, Gabrielle Hanson, an at-large alderman for the town, vehemently opposed a motion to grant a permit for the Franklin Pride Festival.

Hanson, a successful realtor and firebrand alderman, has been a lightning rod for controversy on her mayoral campaign trail

At a city council meeting, Hanson waved a photo of a drag queen she described as eating a 'live, bleeding heart' and proclaimed 'this could have happened in our park.'

The motion to grant the permit passed, and Franklin Pride Festival took place without incident, with Hardee's parent company CKE Restaurants as the primary sponsor.

Hanson's mayoral campaign made national headlines last week, after she admitted in a confessional Instagram post that she had accidently helped run a prostitution ring in the 1990s, an admission seemingly at odds with her family-values platform.

She claims the mix-up occurred after she took a job answering phones for a 'modeling agency' while a 30-year-old student in Dallas, Texas.

She explained how she responded to an ad offering $12 an hour to answer phones - around twice as much as other jobs were paying at the time.

She claims she thought she was taking names and dates to be used for model bookings for catalogues and advertisements for the likes of JC Penney.

But after after a year of working there, she received a knock on the door from police.

Hanson explained: 'Little did I know they had also been operating a lucrative casting couch. I was shocked, I was devastated.'

She said it should have been a happy time as she was due to be graduating from Southern Methodist University.

But she explained: 'It ended up being the absolute lowest. That was not who I was, but I was definitely in the middle of all of it.'

With no money to pay for an attorney, Hanson said she asked police what she could do to get out the charge.

She claims she was advised to plead no contest to one count of promotion of prostitution, an offence she likened to a 'speeding ticket' in terms of severity.

Her punishment was to leave Dallas for two years, which she accepted as she was due to move to Chicago for a job.

Hanson, a successful realtor and firebrand alderman, has been a lightning rod for controversy on her mayoral campaign trail.

In April, Hanson made unsubstantiated claims that the Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale was in a 'love triangle' with school staffers that motivated the deadly shooting spree.

Police said a love triangle never entered the investigation, and the wild allegation enraged grieving parents at the school, some of whom demanded Hanson's resignation, according to WSMV-TV.

Hanson also came under fire in June for an email citing her official position and demanding the Nashville International Airport withdraw its support for a local equality group and its Juneteenth event, drawing ethics complaints.

On Tuesday, the Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen met to consider an official censure for Hanson, but decided against doing so.

Hanson is running against incumbent Mayor Ken Moore, who is also a Republican.

The election is scheduled for October 24.
he friend said the 'prison' is more like a hotel as Miles has access to an Xbox

The British 'danger tourist' who was arrested by the Taliban' secret police is alive and 'living in luxury' after befriending his captors, a 'trusted friend' of his 'who talks to him regularly' has claimed.

During the past few months in 'prison' in Afghanistan, Miles Routledge, also known as Lord Miles, is said to have been in talks with Taliban officials over a gold mine, as he apparently has 'picnics and dinners with higher ups'.

The 23-year-old from Birmingham was arrested on March 2 by fighters from the extremist Islamic group, that once again controls Afghanistan, alongside two Polish nationals - updates on his whereabouts since then have been few and far between.

Using Lord Miles' X, formerly known as Twitter, account today, the friend posted a thread on his wellbeing: 'Miles is in a guesthouse and not an actual prison so he's very comfortable.'

The anonymous friend added the 'prison' is more like a hotel, as Miles has access to an Xbox, orders takeaways and has a 'servant'. According to the friend the Taliban are fans of Lord Miles' book and think he's a 'goofy guy'.

'Danger tourist' Miles Routledge from Birmingham was arrested on March 2 by fighters from the extremist Islamic group

During the past few months in 'prison' Miles Routledge is said to have been in talks with Taliban officials over a gold mine, as he apparently has 'picnics and dinners with higher ups'

Using Lord Miles' X, formerly known as Twitter , account today, the friend posted a thread on his wellbeing

In the thread the friend said he can't post photos of Miles 'for obvious reasons' and said this could lead to speculation that 'he's dead'. But added that people 'have no idea what Lord Miles is capable of thriving in'.

The thrillseeker's friend said: 'At first, like all of you, I was worried he was struggling in some bad place but then he described how the Taliban like the Titanic movie and Rambo 3.'

He added that Miles is writing his second book titled: 'Lord Miles' holiday in Taliban prison'.

This is the first update in months Miles' followers have had. The friend continued: 'If he wants eggs, his servants buy him eggs, if he doesn't like a dish, he gets pizza.

'When we called him he said "lovely holiday".

'When we learnt of his hotel like conditions Miles then said "Ill consider British ambassador to Afghanistan if the King asks nicely".'

According to the unnamed friend, Miles is also said to be filming YouTube videos whilst in 'prison'.

Miles' next steps are said to be to New York City after he is made 'rich' by the gold mine, according to the friend.

The last photo of the former physics student before he was held shows him giving the thumbs up while standing next to a member of the Taliban who is holding an automatic rifle.

Accompanying the photograph  which was sent from his phone or laptop on March 8th - was a short message downplaying the seriousness of his plight, even though the Taliban are notorious for torturing and murdering prisoners.

Routledge wrote: 'Yo guys, been taken by Afghan intelligence for taking like $1,000 out of Western Union (sus amount). No internet, no idea when this will send, everything is good but please excuse my lack of communication.'

MailOnline has obtained the final picture he took before being held which shows the 23-year-old Miles Routledge (left) giving the thumbs up while standing next to a member of the Taliban who is holding an automatic rifle

He added: 'It will be a few days of questioning.'

A friend who received the photo told MailOnline they have had no further communication from Routledge since his message was posted to his subscriber only blogging site on March 8.

The friend, who asked not to be named, said: 'I am now very worried for Miles. No one has heard anything from him in weeks after he said he was being arrested for withdrawing money from a Western Union.

'He had uploaded the message on March the 2 to the Patreon account I subscribe to, but it did not arrive until March 8 early in the morning when it is likely he re-established some internet access.

'We do not know if he sent it or someone else had access to the internet and switched on his phone. We know from the time stamp on the photograph it was uploaded on March 2.

Fears for Routledge's safety have increased as he is usually very active on social media and has not been able to contact any of his friends for over a month.

The Taliban have not confirmed that he is being held prisoner but aid workers in Kabul are aware he is a captive.

Routledge's family have previously said they have no idea if he is safe or why he is being held.

One of Miles's friends, who asked not to be named, said: 'I am now very worried for Miles. No one has heard anything from him in weeks after he said he was being arrested for withdrawing money from a Western Union. Miles is pictured with meeting a Taliban fighter for one of his YouTube videos

The 23-year-old shared footage of himself shooting an assault rifle given to him by a Taliban fighter. The video has since notched up more than a million views on Miles's YouTube channel

The former physics student's mother previously told MailOnline she has no idea of his whereabouts as her only contact is from following his social media postings.

'Of course, I am very worried, but I do not know anything or what has happened to him,' Susan Routledge said.

'No one has been in contact with me. I have not been contacted by the Foreign Office or anyone. I just hope that he is safe, and nothing happens to him.'

Routledge, who boasts on his YouTube channel of visiting the most dangerous places on earth 'for fun', travelled to Afghanistan against Foreign Office advice.

He was seized by the Taliban alongside Adrian Wojcik, 22, and Roman Bilsi, 24, who are understood to have entered the country with him.

Two other British nationals are also currently being held by the Taliban after being arrested earlier this year. Charity medic Kevin Cornwell, 53, and an unnamed British hotel manager have been in prison since January.

The pair - who were held after a licensed gun was found in a safe in Cornwell's hotel bedroom  have been allowed to contact relatives back in the UK by phone.

Thumbs up: Routledge, who boasts on his YouTube channel of visiting the most dangerous places on earth 'for fun', travelled to Afghanistan against Foreign Office advice.

Unconfirmed reports from a Twitter account linked to the Taliban claimed Routledge was suspected of being a spy.

According to an organisation calling themselves the Taliban Public Relations Commentary, Routledge is being held on suspicion of espionage and 'serving the notorious criminal organisation MI5'.

The Taliban PR is not an official mouthpiece of the country's rulers but have been posting about Routledge since March 15 and first suggested he was last seen in an area close to the Chinese border on March 6.

It is not known what they are basing their information on or if they have any access to Government officials or members of the GSI  General Directorate of Intelligence - the Taliban secret police.

In one tweet the group said Routledge, who uses the moniker Lord Miles for his online postings, was being held with two other Britons, two Polish nationals and 16 Afghans.

The group said one of their members attempted to see Routledge but was turned away by his captors.

In a tweet the group said: 'Ahmad (a member of the Taliban PR) travelled to the location where Miles is being held but was refused access. He was assured that he was being well looked after. There is not much our department can do apart from publishing information.'

The tweet ended with 'We pray that there is a positive conclusion to the case.'

Routledge appears to be known to the group as they had previously praised him for an earlier visit.

Danger tourist: Miles is pictured dangling off the gun of a Russian tank with its 'Z' insignia on it during one of his trips abroad

Foreign Office officials have confirmed they are working hard to secure consular contact with the three British nationals in Afghanistan.

In videos posted to his YouTube subscribers and on his Twitter account Routledge had talked about buying Taliban 'merchandise' and later selling it after leaving the country.

He was last known to have been in Afghanistan seven months ago where he posted a series of videos, including visiting a market in Jalalabad to look at the guns that were on sale.

Another video featured him firing a semi-automatic weapon and posing for photos with what he called the 'Talibro.'

He claimed in the video that he had entered the country on a fake US passport.

Routledge, a former physics student at Loughborough University, was previously branded an 'idiot' after he flew to the Afghan capital when US and UK forces were pulling out in 2021.

He boasted to his followers that he was given the last tourist visa by the Afghan Government before they fled and handed control of the country back to the feared Taliban.

He was evacuated from the country at a cost of tens of thousands to the taxpayer and accused of needlessly taking up a seat on a flight to Dubai at the expense of others fleeing the brutal regime.

Undeterred by criticism, Routledge wrote a book about his experiences called 'Lord Miles in Afghanistan'.

His latest trip appears to have been funded by donations to him on the Patreon site where bloggers can charge for their content to fund his trips abroad.

Miles charges from 3 a month to 19 a month for access.

Last year he travelled to the Ukraine and also war-torn Sudan with videos posted to YouTube detailing his experiences in the danger zones.

Mr Cornwell, from Middlesbrough, had been in Afghanistan for 11 months working as a medic for Iqarus International, which provides free healthcare to local people.

Charity medic Kevin Cornwell (pictured),53, and an unnamed British hotel manager are among the other prisoners being held by the Taliban

It's believed Miles was detained by the Taliban's ruthless secret police on March of this year. He is pictured on one of his earlier trips to Afghanistan

He was arrested in a raid at his hotel by officers from the General Directorate of Intelligence on January 11.

He is accused of having an illegal firearm in the safe in his room at the Darya Village Hotel, despite having a permit from the Taliban government.

A non-profit organisation called Presidium Network that works in conflict zones are supporting the families of the two men. The organisation has no contact with Routledge's family.

Its founder Scott Richards, an experienced negotiator, cast doubt on the claim that Routledge was accused of being a spy.

He said: 'Claims made by a particular Twitter account to this effect should not be taken with any authority. Although it refers to itself as a PR fo the Taliban  it is not an official account of the IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan).

'Speculative and sensational comments by unofficial sources are not conductive to helping any individual detained.'

The UK withdrew embassy and consular staff in 2021 and the Foreign Office continues to advise citizens against all travel to Afghanistan based on the security risks involved, including the possibility of detention by the Taliban authorities.

Student who has visited the world's most dangerous places is being held by Taliban secret police - as his mother says 'he just wanted to find himself' on his travels

by TOM COTTERILL FOR MAILONLINE

He is the notorious 'danger tourist' who has filmed himself shooting with the Taliban and sauntering around Ukraine 'on holiday' days after Russia invaded it.

But now thrill-seeking YouTuber Miles Routledge, 23, finds himself a hostage of the Taliban's brutal secret police, caged in an Afghan jail having been arrested last month.

The former physics student from Birmingham is one of three Britons locked up by the ruthless regime, who the UK Government is now negotiating with.

It's the first time the social media star, dubbed 'Lord Miles', has found himself jailed during his 'self-destructive' jaunts to the world's most deadly areas - which include South Sudan and Brazil's lethal 'Snake Island'.

Bragging to his 151,000-strong army of online fans, Miles says he travels to the 'most dangerous places on Earth for fun'. But his mother - now wracked with worry over his incarceration - insists he is just trying to 'find himself'.

Miles Routledge travelled to Afghanistan in 2021 on a tourist visa for 'fun'. Now he has been detained by the ruthless Taliban secret police. He is pictured on one of his tours of Afghanistan

He visited Afghanistan back in the summer of 2021 as the Taliban were retaking the country following the shambolic withdrawal of American forces. During his time there, he posed with an assault rifle he claimed he had been given by the SAS

'He keeps travelling because he loves it, he's only young and he's just finding himself after finishing university. I just want him to keep safe,' a tearful Susan Routledge, 64, said of the former Loughborough University student.

In August 2021, Mr Routledge sparked fury after travelling to Afghanistan for 'a holiday' as it fell into the hands of the Taliban.

He went against Foreign Office advice at the time not to travel to the 'extremely volatile country', which was plunged into chaos following the shambolic withdrawal of US forces after two decades of war.

During the carnage, Miles said he found his way into a NATO compound where he claimed he was invited to hold an assault rifle by 'tipsy British SAS soldiers'.

Other clips of his trips to the country showed him blasting automatic rifles with a Taliban fighter and visiting a weapons market in the city of Jalalabad, a stronghold for terrorists affiliated to Islamic State.

The social media star was later evacuated out of Kabul on a British military flight to Dubai, smirking as he left the tarmac alongside desperate Afghans.

But when news broke the student had essentially gone for jolly though a warzone, he was branded an 'idiot' by critics online.

However, the Afghanistan saga was just the beginning of a 'career' for Miles - one that's been described at best as foolhardy and at most brazenly inappropriate.

Miles travelled around Kabul in the days before the Taliban took charge of the country, documenting his journey online to his army of followers

He was eventually airlifted out of the country after the Taliban took control - but he was slammed for his trip, with critics branding him an 'idiot'

A young Miles: The adventurer shared a picture of himself as a child on his Twitter weeks before he was arrested by the Taliban

Since his Kabul compound days, the self-described 'British supremacist', has travelled to a host of dangerous places - ostensibly for 'war journalism and charity.'

Shortly after returning back from Afghanistan, Miles set his sights on Kazakhstan which was undergoing a period of civil unrest due to energy price hikes.

With Russian militia patrolling the streets on 'shoot to kill' orders, Miles shared pictures to his followers of him smiling in the snow.

Then, just before Christmas in 2021, he jetted off to the war-torn nation of South Sudan, in Africa.

Arriving in Juba after first flying to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, he claimed he was offered a tribal wife and quipped: 'I can honestly say I prefer it to London in many ways'.

Miles was invited to the country by a Sudanese local who followed his escapades in Afghanistan.

He told the Times he wanted to visit Sudan because he had heard the country was 'chaotic' and wanted to experience it for himself.

Miles flew to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia before catching a second plane to Juba in South Sudan, according to his Twitter profile

Then aged 21, he claimed he wanted to visit Sudan because he had heard the country was 'chaotic' and wanted to experience it for himself

The Birmingham youngster was invited to the nation by a Sudanese local who followed his escapades in Afghanistan. He later spent several weeks hiking in Uganda before crossing into Kenya to visit a fan

He added he had twice tried to travel to the north of the country but was stopped by soldiers - including children brandishing AK47s.

Mr Routledge claimed he was offered a Sudanese wife and a new name by a remote tribe, that he did not identify.

He also claimed to have heard gunshots going off at night, in scenes reminiscent of his time in Afghanistan, though the reports were rubbished online.

Shortly afterwards in February 2022 with tensions in Eastern Europe at breaking point, Miles travelled to Ukraine just as Putin's troops invade.

He reportedly spent 6 to go from Poland to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on February 25 - less than a day after Russian's launched their murderous assault.

Tweeting about his exploits, Miles wrote: 'It's official. Tintin goes to Ukraine, he's on the train' and has since been tweeting about his alleged journey.

The fearless traveller said Ukraine was still 'safer than London or Birmingham' at the time and previously boasted of visiting the country in 2019 to see Chernobyl - the site of the world's most deadly nuclear meltdown disaster in 1986.

He even claimed to have shouted at invading Russian troops while wearing a mask of Russian despot Vladimir Putin on his face and that 'friendly' Ukrainian troops in Donetsk had given him a military uniform to wear.

Miles said he travelled to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022 and was gifted a Ukrainian army uniform. He also claimed he shouted at Russians wearing a Vladimir Putin mask

Mr Routledge previously bragged of visiting Chernobyl, posting pictures in May 2021 saying it was two years since he visited the scene of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine

Speaking to MailOnline about his trip, Miles said: 'I've been to Ukraine before so I'm hoping to see something new.

'I want to see the war. I want to see the feelings of both sides, their opinions and hopefully I'll see the critical point of the conflict, if it is to come.'

His jaunt, which only lasted a few days, saw him sharing pictures and videos from a shell-shocked Kyiv, while he hid in bomb shelters.

He claimed to distribute charity to the vulnerable during his efforts and alleged Ukrainian soldiers confused him for a Russian spy.

But as with his ill-fated Afghanistan trip, Miles was accused of exploiting human tragedy for attention.

However, he dismissed those critics and said: 'I'd say I wish them all the best but truthfully they were never my audience and for every seething comment made against me, behind it was my friends and I eating popcorn and laughing at them.

'I'll continue to travel regardless of their opinions, I'll even go back to Afghanistan and there's nothing they can do about it.'

The self-declared danger tourist has been to Ukraine before, when he visited Chernobyl. He told MailOnline: 'I've been Ukraine before so I'm hoping to see something new'

Mr Routledge has said he has also spent time in Kazakhstan (pictured), South Sudan and Afghanistan

And go back he did. In April 2022, he claimed to have invested 15,000 in a trip to the Taliban-controlled country to rescue a tour guide and his family - but accused the guide of pulling out at the last minute, leaving him stuck.

Miles was forced to beg for money to continue the trip online - which he said was used for charity work in Kabul instead - while posting self-serving status updates about how his life has been 'ruined'.

In one such update last year, he wrote: '[This] means I can't go on a date with a girl I really liked, it means I can't sponsor a joint adventure with my friend, I will go home to an empty room. I am at my end.'

He departed on April 21 - describing himself as 'the only white person on the plane' - before 'walking 25km in a single day' towards his destination.

Four days later he arrived in Pakistan where the plan dramatically fell apart when the 'tour guide' he claimed to be helping pulled out.

Miles claimed he was left stranded in Pakistan after a trip to 'save the lives' of an Afghan tour guide and his family fell apart

Later, the former physics student at Loughborough University, posted videos of himself firing weapons with Taliban fighters

Miles, from Birmingham, boasts to his thousands of followers online that he travels 'to the most dangerous places on Earth for fun'

Mr Routledge (right) had recently returned to Afghanistan, filming videos shooting guns with Taliban troops, despite having to be evacuated from a 'holiday' in the country in 2021

'So bloody p****d, the person I've planned to save for seven months lied to me saying the border is closed for British people,' he wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Later, in September 2022, the 'professional explorer' released clips of his latest trip to Afghanistan, which showed him blasting automatic rifles with a Taliban fighter.

In the video - which has been watched more than a million times - Miles is seen firing the weapon indiscriminately into the sand flanked by grinning members of the Taliban, or as Miles calls them: 'Good guys.'

Grinning as the recoil hits him in the shoulder, he says: 'I like this', before firing off another round into the sky.

Later, he shows off a trip to the a weapons market in the city of Jalalabad, a stronghold for terrorists affiliated to Islamic State.

Other videos on his YouTube channel picture him attempting to spend 48 hours homeless in New York city and touring Uganda.

While in another he filmed himself at the Mexican border as illegal immigrants attempted to cross into the United States.

He captured the moment a family of four Venezuelans  two men and two young children - crossed the Rio Grande River into America.

The men wade through the river carrying the boy and girl on their shoulders as Miles watches from the bank, filming.

'Oh man, please don't go bad. I can feel it. This is not a good moment. He's got kids as well,' he says.

During one of his videos on his YouTube account, Miles filmed himself at the US/Mexico border and captured the moment a family, reportedly from Venezuela, crossed into America

He records a family of four Venezuela  two men and two young children - who are attempting to cross the Rio Grande River into America

The 'professional explorer' says in the description of one YouTube video, 'I do the most heinous stuff on the planet' and claims to be 'no longer welcome' in Kenya.

He even wrote a book of his experience, titled Lord Miles In Afghanistan, a 'first-hand account of his first and most infamous trip' to the country.

The blurb states: 'Miles experiences a fascinating kaleidoscope of natural beauty, war-torn desolation, poverty, humanity, courage, and generosity.

'He finds himself in many places off the beaten path and meets a colorful range of characters. Throughout it all, his eternal optimism and indomitable faith ensure an invigorating narration for this unique journey.'

In his last video on YouTube before being captured by the Taliban, Miles filmed his journey to the notorious 'Snake Island' off the coast of Brazil.

The isolated and forbidden Ilha da Queimada Grande is reportedly home to 430,000 serpents - including the deadly golden lancehead viper, which can kill an adult human within minutes.

In his video, the 23-year-old adventurer sneaked onto the island by boat, dodging coastguard officials, before slipping into a suit of armour to exploring it.

This Miles says, may have been a step too far. Speaking to the Mail he explained how he had terrifyingly lost control.

For his latest trip Miles visited Snake Island off the coast of Brazil - a forbidden rock crawling with venomous snakes

To protect himself Miles wore a full suit of armour which he claims was effective. He posed in the armour on the island (left) and before he arrived there (right)

The danger tourist says it was the only time on his trips he has felt like he lost control, as he was forced to ditch his armour and sprint through the undergrowth unprotected

He said: 'It's the most dangerous island in the world after the UK.

'The snakes there can liquify your insides and their bite is essentially a 100 per cent mortality rate.

'I walked up the hill in my armour and then was told we had to leave. It would take too long to take my armour so I had to run down without it.

'I was only dressed in jeans and a t shirt and in foliage up to my neck  I wasn't in control of the situation at all.'

His adventures have cultivated him a large social media following and he was even interviewed by disgraced influencer Andrew Tate - prior to his arrest on money laundering and people smuggling charges. Tate has since been released on house arrest.

Keen to cash in on the notoriety of his first trip, Miles released a book in which he makes a series of questionable claims about the events that led up to him 'goofing off' with the SAS units on the night of August 15 2021.

He writes: 'The soldiers were all tipsy and enjoying themselves and started telling me about what they'd experienced. {..}

'One of them handed me his black plate carrier vest: 'Here put this on.'

'I put on the body armour, which was weighed down by the magazines stored in the front pockets in addition to the plates.

'They also handed me a gun, after profuse warnings to keep my finger off the trigger since they didn't unload it. I handed one of them my phone and grinned as he snapped a picture to commemorate the occasion.'

Miles's social media accounts have been silent since he was detained by the Taliban. This is one of the last pictures he shared in February

When approached by the MailOnline for clarity on the alleged incident, the Ministry of Defence refused to confirm its veracity.

A spokesman said: 'It has been the policy of successive governments to neither confirm nor deny reports of special forces activity.'

The book titled 'Lord Miles in Afghanistan' contains many more claims about the student's time in Kabul including that he had attempted to hide the fact he was western by using a Burkha as a 'disguise'.

It also contains statements such as the 'Polish language is nonsense' and that Kabul - where gruesome terror attacks are common- is safer than London.

Miles - who has said he is estranged from his family - told the Mail that adventuring was now his full-time job which he did with the help of donors who 'liked his work.'

He explained: 'Most trips like Afghanistan and Ukraine I can do quite cheaply, so between 1000 to 2000 but some bigger ones like Brazil can cost more in the region of 1000.

'I get the money by fundraising and generous donors who like what I do.'

It is believed he set off on his latest visit to Afghanistan at the end of February and was reportedly arrested on March 2 alongside Polish nationals Adrian Wojcik, 22, and Roman Bilski, 24.

His mother Mrs Routledge, 64, from Birmingham, told the Daily Mail she usually kept up to date with her son's travels on social media, but he does not appear to have posted online since March 16.

She said: 'I'm distraught. It is so worrying. I just want help to find out what has happened to him and make sure he is OK.

Suella Braverman told Sophy Ridge on Sky News that the UK government would do 'whatever it takes' to ensure the safety of British nationals abroad

'If he is being treated well that is good to hear, as long as he is being well treated. If I can get a message to those who are holding him, I just want to ask them to tell him he has my love and support.'

Mrs Routledge said she had not been contacted by anyone from the Foreign Office.

'I am just desperate to know that he is safe,' she added. 'I don't know who is holding him or where he is'.

Miles is detained alongside a British medic Kevin Cornwell, 53, and another man who manages a hotel in Kabul.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the the UK government would 'do whatever it takes to ensure that they're safe'.

'The government is in negotiations and working hard to ensure people's safety is upheld,' she told Sky News.
An online backlash has hit Russia's bid to indoctrinate schoolgirls to fight for Vladimir Putin.

Most of the country's propaganda war has been aimed at boys, but now it is switching to girls.

An example is in Primorsky region where for the first time schoolgirls aged 15 and 16 are inducted in 'military-patriotic education'.

In neighbouring Belarus, beauty pageant contestants were recruited to 'inspire' girls and women to join up and fight for Putin-ally and vote-rigging dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

In Primorsky - in the far eats of Russia - some 75 schoolgirls were trained in military 'basics' including drilling, tactical, fire and physical training, and instruction in radiation, chemical and biological protection.

Miss Belarus beauty pageant contestants visit a military training ground to 'inspire' girls and women to join up and fight for dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

The contestants posed proudly during the PR stunt designed to inspire young women and girls to join the military effort

The women were inspected while donning their military equipment in the PR stunt designed to appeal to young girls

It was the first 'female session' at the Avangard centre for military-patriotic education of the youth.

By the end of the year another 300 girls - and 1,000 boys - will be enrolled on intense five-day courses seen as precursors to military careers or mobilisation.

Such moves are underway across Russia's 11 time zones amid Putin's war against Ukraine.

This comes as numbers have swollen in Putin's Yunarmia, or Young Army, likened to the Hitler Youth, with 1.4 million signed up.

The organisation has been accused of militarisation of young people in Russia.

In Primorsky senior education official Oksana Novikova told the girls: 'Love of the Motherland, patriotism, and responsibility have always been instilled in young people, regardless of gender.

'You are the first in our female team, so I want to wish you good luck, patience and, of course, unlock your potential - go for it.'

In Belarus, contestants from the Miss Belarus 2023 pageant were made to attend a course in military instruction.

Nadezhda Tolstikova, who won the Miss Top Model of Miss Belarus 2023 contest, said: 'The impressions are simply amazing, I've already practiced shooting, I've shot with a rifle, and now it's just...

'The smell of gunpowderdefinitely, I shall return to shooting.'

Colonel Sergei Grebennikov, deputy commander of dictator Lukashenko's internal troops, suggested the event was aimed at glamorising the military.

'They will see with their own eyes what our strong, respectable guys are capable of,' he said.

The contestants tried out a number of military practices during their visit to the training ground

Most of the country's propaganda war has been aimed at boys, but now it is switching to girls

A beauty pageant contestant practices her sharpshooting skills

A report said girls would be 'inspired' to join the military and security services in the repressive state.

But Telegram comments attacked the Primorsky militarisation of girls.

One said: 'Girls, girls, girls, what are you doing? Who were you going to fight with, who attacked you? Hitler? Obama? Zelensky? Or idiocy?'

Katerina commented on ChTD channel: 'The girls haven't even lived yet, but they are already rinsing their brains and preparing to die for the whims of crazy grandfathers.'

Another said: 'I don't have the strength to look at this.'

Tatiana asked: 'I would like to understand why?'

One more complained: 'We are awash with military indoctrination, first for boys and now, as we see, for girls.

'This war has already killed enough. How much longer? How many more must die?'

But Svetlana Tulinova said: 'There are only traitors in these comments.

'Well done, girls. Let them learn to fight.'
Mexican Costco has put restrictions on the number of cakes customers can buy over shoppers who resell them for a profit.

Cakes from the wholesale store have rocketed in popularity after TikTok users posted about how delicious they are - creating a secondary market for resellers.

A report by local station, Televisa's N+ Media, dubbed the trend 'Costconomics.'

Televisa's report revealed some people are making profits up to $430 a day for selling slices of the cake.

One reseller it interviewed, Ana, is part of a group of 15 people who take turns standing in lines outside Costco storefronts.

La reventa de pasteles del #Costco incendio las redes sociales durante dias. Hubo comentarios a favor y contra los revendedores. Que hay detras de esta oportunidad de negocio? pic.twitter.com/ohaSoMMaBR  N+Media (@nmasmedia) September 20, 2023

A report from Televisa's N+ Media interviewed resellers who wait in lines to get Costco cakes. One reseller uses the money to pay for her chemo

Another reseller is in a group of 15 people that takes turns waiting in lines outside of Costco so they can get the cakes

The video shows people using plastic bottles and cardboard to start saving spots in the queue.

'I've received plenty of criticism for doing this, but the truth is, we're all just looking for a way to get some money,' Ana said

She said depending on how much she invests into the cakes, she can make as much as $1,692 in profit over a four-day period.

One reseller named Karen said she uses the money she earns from selling the cake slices to pay for chemotherapy.

Many shoppers head to Costco to save money by shopping wholesale.

Costco's chief financial officer Richard Galanti said the chain is winning the war against rising retail theft.

'Our shrinkage has historically been low,' he said. 'And we've gotten better with time.'

He attributes that success to various things like store layout, but emphasized that only fee-paying members can enter Costco's retail warehouses.

Over the summer, one budgeting TikTok star filmed himself walking through Costco explaining the secret meaning to all of its price tags.

Costco in Mexico have instated restrictions on the amount of cakes customers can purchase due to resellers

On X, formerly known as Twitter, users expressed their appreciation for the business moves the resellers are making.

One user wrote: 'Why not? I know of restaurants that sell them as if "home made" for a good profit.'

'I love this! Entrepreneurs buying Costco cakes, selling them by the slice, making bank,' wrote another.
Speaker Anthony Rota resigned on Tuesday following the incident and apologized for inviting the man into Parliament

Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was invited to Parliament and praised as a Ukrainian and Canadian hero by Trudeau and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for giving recognition to a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized Wednesday for Parliaments recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II and said former Speaker Anthony Rota was 'solely responsible' for the incident.

Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was invited to Parliament and praised as a Ukrainian and Canadian hero by Trudeau and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It later emerged that Hunka had been involved in the Nazi division during World War II, prompting Speaker Anthony Rota to resign and Trudeau to apologize.

'This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada,' Trudeau said Wednesday in a televised address ahead of his apology in the House of Commons.

'It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and it was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people,' Trudeau said.

The PM did not take questions from reporters following the 'unreserved apology.'

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured far right) apologized Wednesday for Parliaments recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II

Yaroslav Hunka waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa Friday. Right: Hunka in his SS unit in the war

'All of us who were in the House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped, even though we did so unaware of the context,' Trudeau said before he entering the House of Commons.

'It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust, and was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people.'

Trudeau repeated the apology in Parliament.

'It also hurt Polish people, Roma people, to LGBTQI+ people, disabled people, racialized people and the many millions who were targeted by the Nazi genocide,' the PM said.

Just after Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Rota drew attention to him.

Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

'It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicized by Russia, and its supporters, to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for,' Trudeau said.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week that the standing ovation for Hunka was 'outrageous,' and he called it the result of a 'sloppy attitude' toward remembering the Nazi regime.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as 'neo-Nazis,' although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Rota apologized on Sunday, saying that he had 'subsequently become aware of more information' which caused him to 'regret' his recognition of Hunka

Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka. A spokesperson for the Conservative party said the party was not aware of his history at the time

The Ukrainian politician's visit came as part of the two country's continued alliance against Russia, and after he secured year another multimillion-dollar aide package from the US

The speaker of Canada 's House of Commons has apologized for recognizing a man who allegedly fought for the Nazi SS during World War II . Anthony Rota had hailed 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka (above) as 'a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians' and 'a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero.'

Speaker of the House Anthony Rota stepped down on Tuesday after meeting with the House of Commons party leaders, and after all of the main opposition parties called on him to resign.

House government leader Karina Gould said that Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine, and that his lack of due diligence had broken the trust of lawmakers.

In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speakers office said it was Hunkas son who contacted Rotas local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyys speech.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies has called the incident 'a stain on our countrys venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.'

Jewish advocacy group the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center called Rota's warm introduction' shocking' and 'incredibly disturbing' and said an apology is owed to Holocaust survivors and veterans.

In 1944, Hunka's unit - the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division - was visited by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who branded Jewish people a 'dirty blemish' and said his men would be 'eager' to 'liquidate the Poles'.

The division's involvement in war crimes and atrocities - particularly during the German occupation of Ukraine - remains a point of controversy.

The speaker's address had come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an impassioned address to the Canadian House of Commons.
A teenager separated from her family and held in a Florida hospital as a child after medics accused her parents of abuse has shared a heartbreaking letter she wrote to them while being detained.

Maya Kowalski, 17, was just ten years old when she was removed by the state after doctors at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital accused her parents of faking symptoms for her rare chronic pain condition.

During her three month stay, her mother Beata Kowalski was forbidden by law from seeing her. The stricken mom fell into a depression and ultimately ended up taking her own life amid the despair.

Now the family, whose story is at the center of explosive Netflix documentary 'Take Care of Maya', is in the process of a $200 million lawsuit against the hospital.

On Tuesday a heart wrenching letter was put before the court written by ten-year-old Kowalski during the separation, to determine if it can be used as evidence.

Maya Kowalski's story has been recounted in the bombshell Netflix documentary, 'Take Care of Maya'

Kowalski (seen here attempting to hold back tears during a previous hearing) has submitted the emotional letter to see if it can be used as evidence in her family's lawsuit against John's Hopkins All Children's Hospital which is being led by attorney Greg Anderson (right)

In the note she tells her family: 'I miss you guys so much you don't even know. I cried a ton when they mentioned your names. I just wish I could see you again, I pray every day that I will.'

Testifying about the letter, Kowalski told Sarasota County Court: 'At the time, I desperately missed my family.

'I wasn't allowed to really have any contact with them. So, in this document, I'm expressing how much I missed them. I was very depressed,' Fox News reports.

Kowalski was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) at the age of nine. The rare and debilitating condition was being treated with ketamine doses to help manage the pain until she relapsed in 2016 and was admitted to JHACH.

There medics accused Beata of faking her daughter's symptoms due to having Munchausen-by-proxy, a psychological disorder where care givers seek attention for their wards.

Florida's Department of Children and Families and a state judge supported hospital staff's suspicions of 'child medical abuse' and placed Maya under DCF custody.

But Kowalski's letter seems to support her family's claim she was not a victim of abuse. The note states: 'God knows that you guys didn't do a thing, I just wish everyone else knew the same'.

She adds all she can do is 'hope and wish' that her family can come and visit and be 'together forever and ever'.

The Kowalski family seeks $55 million in compensatory and $165 million in punitive damages according to AndersonGlenn LLP, who launched the lawsuit on their behalf

Maya's mom, Beata, (right) killed herself after she was diagnosed with a depressive mood and adjustment disorder upon being separated from her then 10-year-old for 87 days

Sadly her dream did not come true, as her mother killed herself on January 7 2016, after almost three months of separation from her daughter.

Kowalski's pediatrician, Dr. John Wassenaar, who kept the letter, also testified on Tuesday it 'underscored that she wasnt being abused' and how much she loved her family.

The hearing formed part of a civil trial expected to last eight weeks that began at the South County Courthouse in Venice, Florida last week.

In addition to damages, Judge Hunter Carroll ruled that the jury can consider awarding punitive damages for battery and false imprisonment - if they side with the Kowalskis.

Amid the allegations include claims that Kowalski's CRPS was exacerbated due to the misdiagnosis of Munchausen-by-proxy.

It was also claimed she was videotaped for 48 hours and on a separate occasion, stripped to her underwear and photographed with the consent of a guardian or the dependency court.

But JHACH stands by its initial assessment of medical abuse, after a court in Sarasota County court ruled that staff had reasonable grounds to suspect abuse.

JHACH previously released a statement to DailyMail.com which read: 'Our priority at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital is always the safety and privacy of our patients and their families.

'Therefore, we follow strict federal privacy laws that limit the amount of information we can release regarding any particular case.

'Our first responsibility is always to the child brought to us for care. Our staff are required by law to notify Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) if they suspect abuse or neglect.

'It is DCF and a judge  not Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital  that investigates the situation and makes the ultimate decision about what course of action is in the best interest of the child.

'We are determined to prevent any chilling effect on the obligation to report suspected child abuse in order to protect the most vulnerable among us.'
The Mexican government revealed Wednesday a mugshot of Felix Herrera, who was arrested in Culiacan, Sinaloa

A man arrested over the fentanyl death of a one year-old boy at his wife's NYC daycare has been pictured in his mugshot after going on the run and being arrested in Mexico.

Felix Herrera was arrested in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan during a traffic stop Tuesday, after the municipal and state police revised his legal documents and discovered that a warrant had been issued in the United States for his apprehension.

He was placed in custody of the National Institute of Migration as part of the legal proceeding. A federal law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told DailyMail.com they don't have a date as to when he will be extradited.

Herrera is one of four suspects facing charges in connection with the death of Nicholas Feliz after he came into contact with fentanyl on September 15.

Feliz was attending the daycare at the time of his death, with his stricken parents left distraught by his sudden and tragic death.

Three other children, including two siblings ages eight months and 2, were hospitalized.

Felix Herrera was arrested in the Sinaloa city of Culiacan during a traffic stop Tuesday. He is facing a federal murder charge in the death of one-year-old Nicholas Feliz, who died September 15 after ingesting fentanyl at a Bronx day care owned by his wife

Nicholas Feliz, 1, died on September 15 after ingesting fentanyl at a Bronx day care

Authorities escort Grei Mendez out of a police precinct in the Bronx following her arrest in connection to the death of a one-year-old boy who died at her day care center September 15

Texas Governor Greg Abbott made mention of Herrera's arrest at the Yale Club following a Manhattan Institute conference Wednesday.

The Republican governor slammed President Joe Biden and New York City Democrats over border policies and fentanyl.

'Democrats or community leaders in New York City, whatever the case may be, say, 'It is inhumane to do what [I'm] doing,' Abbott told the New York Post. 'Let's talk about what's inhumane. What's inhumane is a 1-year-old child dying in New York because of fentanyl.'

Abbott went after Biden and said his southern border policies were to blame as Mexican cartel have flooded streets across the United States with fentanyl and other narcotics.

'To think you had a 1-year-old child in New York exposed to fentanyl, probably because of the open border policies put in place by Joe Biden, that's inhumane,' he said.

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents seized 58.4 million fentanyl pills and 13,000 pounds of fentanyl powder in 2022. The totals equal to 387.7 million lethal doses.

In New York City alone, the DEA confiscated 1.9 million pills and 1,958 pounds of fentanyl powder, enough to make 7 million deadly doses.

Herrera's wife, Grei Mendez, 36; his cousin, Carlisto Acevedo, 41; and an associate, Renny Paredes, 38, have been arrested.

Felix Herrera, the husband of the Bronx daycare owner who has been charged in the fentanyl-related death of a baby, was seen escaping the area on September 15. He was arrested in Culiacan, Mexico, on Tuesday

Nicholas Feliz, 1, died at Divino Nino Daycare on September 15

Federal investigators accused Mendez of calling Herrera twice and deleting 21,000 messages before the sought emergency help from 911 after the children showed signs that they overdosed on the deadly drug.

A surveillance camera showed Herrera running out of the building through a backyard after the four children had fallen ill.

The four suspects, all Dominican Republic nationals, allegedly were running a drug ring out of the Divino Nino Day Care center located on the ground floor of an apartment building in the Bronx.

Mendez and Brito were charged with murder, assault and child endangerment September 16.

New York federal prosecutors revealed that Paredes, who was apprehended Saturday, had 'tools and instruments that are used to prepare and distribute narcotics' at his apartment.'

Investigators raided the day care facility and found strainers, tape, a grinder, plastic bags, digital scales and two clear bags filled with a 'greyish powder'.

They returned to the day care last week and found a cache of drugs hidden under a trap door at the nursery, including a large quantity of fentanyl.

Other paraphernalia, which matched what was found in Paredes's apartment, was also concealed by the plywood and tile flooring.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who issued a stunning summary judgment decision that Donald Trump and his company engaged in fraud, is making arrangements for a major civil trial next week to determine financial penalties with 188 witnesses in the queue.

He provided the readout as Trump's legal team  including a top attorney slapped with a $7,500 fine  pushed to find out whether Trump was expected to liquidate prized holdings such as Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street.

'Is it the court's position that those assets are now going to be sold or just going to be managed under the direction of the (receiver)?' asked Trump lawyer Christopher Kise, a multi-million dollar defense lawyer who also represents him in the classified documents case in Florida.

That came after the judge issued a summary judgement ruling finding fraud, ruling that the various company business certificates in New York state are cancelled and ordering the parties to find receivers to 'manage the dissolution' of the cancelled companies.

A New York judge ruled in summary judgment that former President Trump and his company engaged in fraud over a period of years. Trial to determine a civil damage award will begin Monday

But in court on Wednesday, the judge wasn't quite ready to answer the questions on whether the assets would get sold.

'I'm not prepared to issue a ruling right now but we will take that up in various contexts, I'm sure,' Engoron said.

Kise called the judge's ruling 'completely disconnected from the facts and governing law.'

The judge, who Kise also called 'extremely intelligent,' said at a pretrial hearing the case would go forward as planned on Monday.

State AG Letitia James is suing Trump and his companies for $250 million, and the penalty phase will determine how much he must pay. Under a receivership model, Trump would still own properties but lose operating control over them.

Kise pushed the judge for clarity, after his client teed off in a long, single-spaced statement where he called it a 'radical attack against me, my family' and supporters.

Trump also called James 'corrupt,' said the U.S. was becoming 'a Communist country' and that his 'Civil Rights have been taken away from me.'

'And don't take this the wrong way but what in the court's mind does this trial now look like? Like what are the issues?' Kise asked during the hearing. 'We certainly have our idea, we haven't spoken to Attorney General.

'I'm just wondering what's the point?' Kise said.

Engoron ruled that the fraud took place over a period of years, after prosecutors in James' office said the Trump Organization had overstated valuations by more than $2 billion.

Trump has repeatedly attacked New York State AG Letitia James and accused her of bias against him

Trump Organization exec Eric Trump fired off a series of angry tweets hitting back at the ruling, which also hits at any entity controlled or beneficially owned by his father, him, and Donald Trump Jr.

'As absurd as this case is, Judge Engoron knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong. Any impartial judge looking at the facts, and extensive testimony, would have never allowed my name to be dragged through the mud. Frankly, its cruel,' he posted on X, the former Twitter site Wednesday.

That came after a Tuesday post, where he wrote: 'While everyone can see that this case is egregious, the only thing worse than weaponizing the legal system against a political opponent is unfairly going after their family. Both the Attorney General and the Judge know I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this case.'

Online critics noted that Eric Trump reportedly took the 5th Amendment 500 times when he was deposed in the case.

Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and executive Allen Weiselberg, who was also named in the ruling, ran the company while Trump was in the White House.

He also blasted an assessment quoted in the ruling that Mar-a-Lago, the Florida private club where his father lives, was worth $18 million.

It cites the value by the West Palm Beach Assessor that the property was worth from $18 million to $28 million between 2011 and 2021, although some experts say it is worth far more.

Engeron cited discrepancies calculated by James' office between what the company claimed and what assets are worth.

'A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,' he said  pointing to Trump's assessments of his Trump Tower penthouse as being 30,000 square feet when in fact it was 11,000.
New aerial video footage of Klishchiivka, on the outskirts of Bakhmut, shows how the battle has turned the village in eastern Ukraine into a pile of rubble after months of fierce fighting.

The footage, shot two days ago, shows the village in ruins with destroyed Russian tanks and military vehicles littering the main road.

Barely a building remains intact in the village that was once home to almost 400 people.

A rare structure that still had four walls standing was missing its roof. Single walls stood like tombstones to mark where someone once lived.

Ukraine recaptured the village after months of fighting, two days after it won back neighboring Andriivka, the Ukrainian military said.

The footage was shot two days ago using a drone

Bakhmut has been flattened since Russia took control of it in May

Residents of the nearby village have been forced to pick up what's left of their homes

Bahkmut was captured by Russian forces in May 2023, more than a year after Russia invaded Ukraine

Both are tiny towns but were considered tactically important for Ukrainian forces as they extend gains around Bakhmut, 6 miles to the north.

The commanding heights of the village offer a view into the Russian-occupied town of Bakhmut and open up new opportunities for Ukrainian forces to encircle the town.

It also potentially allows Ukrainians a better view of Russian logistic lines.

The drone footage comes after Russia struck the Black Sea region of Odessa in a drone barrage that damaged a warehouse, charred dozens of trucks and injured two drivers in fiery explosions that led to the suspension of the ferry service between Romania and Ukraine, officials said Tuesday.

Video shot from the Romanian side of the Danube River showed rapid bursts of Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire streaking through the night sky followed by two orange fireballs exploding near the port area.

Ukraine did manage to take back control of neighboring Andriivka

The footage shows the village in ruins with destroyed Russian tanks and military vehicles littering the main road

The 'Ghosts of Bakhmut' were see preparing for their latest mission

The elite sniper squad prepared for their mission in an undisclosed location

At least nine civilians were killed in Ukraine and 15 people were injured over the past 24 hours

They were seen gearing up and preparing their weapons and loadouts

Romanian Border Police said ferries were anchored on the Romanian shores of the Danube in Isaccea due to the attacks on Ukraine. Traffic was being redirected through Galati, a Romanian town upstream on the Danube.

Ukraine's air force said it downed 26 of 38 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Russian forces targeted the area of Izmail in the Odesa region, in what has become a sustained campaign to target Ukraine's ability to export grain. Attacks on Monday killed two people in a grain warehouse in Odesa and badly damaged an abandoned high-rise hotel, officials said.

After Moscow pulled out of a U.N.-brokered grain deal this summer, the strikes on Izmail and cities located in the southern part of the Odesa region became routine. Attacks on the cities on the Danube have been especially damaging because the route has emerged as the most promising for continued Ukrainian exports.

At least nine civilians were killed in Ukraine and 15 people were injured over the past 24 hours, the presidential office said, as Russian strikes hit several cities near the front lines of the war where Ukraine is waging its slow-moving counteroffensive.

Although neither side has released casualty figures, the counteroffensive is believed to have taken a heavy toll on both sides and it has been devastating to the towns and villages where fighting has raged.
No has gained popularity through fear and negativity

A confusing message and too many voices hurt Yes

Marketing experts weigh in on Yes and No campaigns

A confusing message, a lack of detail and too many leading advocates has hurt the Voice Yes campaign, leading marketing experts say.

However, the No camp has gained popularity through its reliance on fear and negativity.

Both the Yes and No campaigns for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament have ramped up efforts to win over voters just weeks out from the referendum date.

Polling over the past year has showed the No camp break ahead and remain on top for the past two months, even gaining further ground.

Marketing Focus managing director and business strategist Barry Urquhart said a confusing and too many voices was the Yes campaign's downfall.

'You need a simple message. Like Coke with the real thing. When you have a Yes campaign with John Farnham, Wesfarmers, Bunnings and all saying yes yes yes  the people are saying what does this mean? You've got an audience who is asking what's in it for me?,' he told The Daily Telegraph.

Marketing experts have weighed in on the tactics of the Voice Yes and No campaigns to win over voters (pictured, Anthony Albanese at a Yes campaign event)

'With marketing, the real issue is you've got to be very focused and not confuse people with a whole series of messages, and the problem is you have too many spokespeople with too many subjects.'

Regeneration Media managing director Dr Natalie McKenna said the No campaign's tagline 'If you don't know vote no' was effective as it was 'simple and clear'.

She also believed the No camp had swayed voters through fear.

'The No vote is more of a fear campaign, and negative campaign strategies, although widely disliked, tend to be effective,' she said.

Marketing and political strategist Toby Ralph was scathing of both campaigns.

He described the Yes campaign as 'one of the worst campaigns that I can remember for a long time' and noted two strategic errors made by the government.

The first error was the Prime Minister's 'one-sided sales pitch' to voters, where voters were encouraged to vote Yes despite having little detail.

Mr Ralph noted the second huge error made by the government was 'to take a moral monopoly as in you're a good person and a nice person if you support it and you are probably reactionary or racist if you don't'.

The marketing expert was no less critical of the No vote, describing their campaign as 'hysterical', 'too right wing' and relying on 'misinformation' to convince voters.

The experts said the No campaign has been effective in swaying voters due to its 'fear campaign and negative campaigns strategies' (pictured, Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine at a 'VOTE NO' Campaign Event)

The most recent Newspoll survey has just over a third of Australians - 36 per cent -intending to vote Yes to the Voice to Parliament

The most recent poll for the referendum sees the Yes vote slump to its lowest level yet.

Just over a third of Australians - 36 per cent - say they will vote Yes to the Voice to Parliament, according to the Newspoll survey of 1,239.

It marks a two-point fall in the past three weeks - the lowest level yet for the beleaguered Yes campaign.

Meanwhile, opposition to the historic referendum has risen slightly to 56 per cent with less than three weeks until polling day.

The Voice referendum will be held on October 14.
British Airways has told its staff to report any concerns they have about senior colleagues taking drugs after a pilot had a drug-fuelled orgy.

The UK's flag carrier emailed its workers to remind them about the airline's 'zero tolerance policy to any inappropriate behaviour' after revelations about First Officer Mike Beaton were published on Tuesday.

The pilot was sacked after he bragged to colleagues about snorting cocaine off a woman's bare breasts in South Africa before trying to fly a packed plane back to London.

The incident caused British Airways to delay the flight by 24 hours while they tried to source a replacement First Officer, costing it 100,000. Beaton was sent home as a passenger, before later leaving the company.

In an email sent to staff today which has been seen by The Sun, British Airways warned they have a responsibility to speak up with their concerns about the behaviour of co-workers.

Revelations about First Officer Mike Beaton (pictured here with his wife) came after it was revealed he bragged about having a drug-fuelled orgy before trying to fly a plane back to the UK

First Officer Mike Beaton was suspended by British Airways and later sacked after a night of debauchery in South Africa

It said: 'Today's coverage is a reminder to everyone that we all have an obligation to immediately report any concerns that we have, even if they concern our close colleagues, be they our peers or those more senior to us.'

The paper also reported that the airline even contacted the Met Police about Beaton's antics, but the force said it was out of their jurisdiction.

It is a remarkable fall from grace for First Officer Beaton who lives in an idyllic 750,000 home in Devon with his Polish wife and their five-year-old daughter.

They run a luxury treehouse retreat business together called Happy Owls, which featured in The Times top 12 treehouse hotels this year.

Beaton's mother served as an officer in the RAF and has sat as a magistrate in Peterborough since 2005.

She lives with the disgraced pilot's stepfather, an RAF pilot who flew every member of the Royal Family in a career that saw him invested as a Member of the Royal Victorian Order.

Beaton's wife declined to comment when approached by The Sun, saying: 'You must speak to my husband about it.'

The Beatons live in a detached bungalow in Hartland, Devon that backs on to a former quarry where they built up the tree-house retreat.

A neighbour said: 'She seems to run the holiday business while he is flying. Although it looks like he won't be doing much more of that. It all sounds like spicy goings-on  not the kind of thing you usually come across in Hartland.'

In text messages to a stewardess, who later reported him to her bosses, he told how he had been 'very, very naughty' with two women and two men in Johannesburg.

Telling her to 'get ready' for the tale, he goes into minute detail about how he met a 'Spanish bird', a 'Welsh chick', and two 'local lads' in a bar.

The bragging text messages sent by Mr Beaton to a stewardess about his sordid evening in Johannesburg

He recounted how he 'ended up snorting coke off a girl's t*** in Joburg' before he stayed with one of the women and 's*****d for aggges'

British Airways was forced to delay the flight from South Africa to Britain for 24 hours while it found a replacement for him

They downed some shots before staggering back to the hotel bar for 'one last one before bed' where there's a 'bit of snogging' before 'we're somehow all on our way to this dude's flat'.

It is here that Mr Beaton goes into detail about his sordid drug-fuelled orgy.

'Welsh has decided that I should actually be her boyfriend - Spanish has hooked up with one of the two local lads and is having her t*** sucked on their sofa,' he said.

'We've polished off a bottle of vodka at this place now and the girls are dancing topless, I've lost my shirt somewhere and one of the local lads produces a plate with a few lines of coke.

'So then there's a debate about who's [sic] chest is the best to do a bump off. Not going to lie, I may have started this with ulterior motives.'

The stewardess appears to be impressed with his evening and replies 'Babes that's wild' before Mr Beaton says: 'That's the story of how I ended up snorting coke off a girl's t*** in Joburg.'

He 'came to my senses' when he thought things had gone too far and 'rescued the girls' and took them back to their hotel. But his night didn't end there.

'Stayed the night with Welsh, sha***d fo aggges (I guess the coke played a part) and then was so f****d I couldn't even lift my head until gone 2.'

The married father-of-one, pictured, boasted to a colleague about having a drug-fuelled orgy before trying to fly a plane back to the UK

Beaton, pictured in uniform, claimed he had snorted cocaine off a topless woman during the orgy in texts to a colleague

A shocked co-worker raised the alarm on Mr Beaton hours before he was due to co-pilot a flight from South Africa back to Britain after he revealed his night of debauchery.

A source at the airline told The Sun that managers were 'furious' when his behaviour was reported to them by his colleagues.

They said the pilot had 'hoisted himself by his own petard' even though there would have been no alcohol in his system on his return to the UK, adding: 'He will never fly again.'

British Airways told MailOnline: 'Safety is always our top priority. The matter was referred to the CAA and this individual no longer works for us.'

The Civil Aviation Authority told The Sun it has strict procedures in place for when pilots misuse drinks or drugs.

'An airline must immediately inform us if a UK pilot has misused drink or drugs boarding, or being on board, an aircraft,' it said.

'In these cases we would immediately suspend the pilot's medical which means they cannot fly.

'In most cases the pilot would have an assessment with an expert medical team and if they wished to return to flying then a comprehensive rehabilitation programme would be put in place.

'The medical would only be reinstated if we were completely satisfied.'
Police are to investigate the death of an Army soldier during a 'brutal' training exercise, the Mail can reveal.

Witnesses said Private Nabin Thapa, 35, of the Royal Logistics Corps, collapsed and died following a series of exhausting marches and battle drills.

Colleagues of Thapa claim Army instructors added additional serials to the training programme which allegedly caused his death.

A probe into what happened at the Driffield Training Area in East Yorkshire on September 21 will be led by detectives from Humberside Police.

Thapa's death came the day after another British soldier died on a separate exercise.

Private Nabin Thapa, 35, of the Royal Logistics Corps, collapsed and died following a series of exhausting marches and battle drills according to witnesses

File Photo: Soldiers demonstrate wade through thick smoke wearing EXO Insight glasses during a drill in Salisbury

Private Adam Brocklehurst, from the Infantry Training Centre Support Battalion, died at Sennybridge in Wales on September 20.

Thapa, from Nepal, joined the British Army in March 2019.

He was married and belonged to 6 Regiment RLC, based at Dishforth in North Yorkshire.

According to Army sources, his colleagues were furious about his death and accused their superiors of welfare failures.

Thapa was taking part in what soldiers called 'CT Bravo', a continuation training exercise.

A source said: 'Thapa collapsed after the instructors decided to thrash everyone even though the exercises was supposed to be finished.

'We all did extra attacks and firing drills. It was brutal. That's why police are involved.'

The civilian police probe takes precedence over any inquiries by military police.

Between January 2000 and August 2022, 155 UK troops lost their lives on military exercises, of which 104 were soldiers.

In that time, the Ministry of Defence is understood to have breached Health and Safety Executive regulations at least 40 times.

In 2013, SAS reservists Lance Corporal Craig Roberts and Trooper Edward Maher died during an exhausting march over the Brecon Beacons in extreme temperatures.

File Photo: Army recruits take part in a training session called 'The battle of Innoculation training' with members of Britain's Royal Marines

File Photo: A drill at Ministry of Defence (MOD) training base in southern England

File Photo: Soldiers from 4th Regiment Royal Artillery take part in a Regimental physical training session on Saltburn beach

Corporal James Dunsby died from multiple organ failure in hospital. Ten other soldiers suffered heat exhaustion.

A subsequent HSE investigation exposed a litany of risk assessment and planning failures.

Three years later, Corporal Joshua Hoole died of heat exhaustion after a similar march at the same location.

The number of deaths have led to families of the deceased demanding the Army loses its Crown immunity against prosecution.

Tonight, the Army released official tributes to Thapa from colleagues in 6 Regiment, but did not reveal the circumstances of his death.

Lieutenant Colonel Jen Lockett, Commanding Officer of 6 Regiment, said: 'Private Nabin Thapa's devastating death is felt very deeply. Private Thapa achieved an incredible amount since he joined the Army, including an operational deployment with the United Nations in Cyprus.

'He was an extremely hardworking and dedicate soldier who led by example. Often found using his knowledge to develop more junior soldiers, he was well-respected and a popular member of the regiment.

'He will be greatly missed. Private Thapa's family have our deepest condolences and are in the regiment's thoughts at this tragic time.'

Private Ramjali said: 'Nabin Thapa was like a big brother to me. I remember going to his wedding and dancing with him and his family. He was the happiest man in the world on that day. It feels like it was yesterday. He will always be remembered in our hearts, minds and souls as a loving and caring person.'

An Army spokesman said: 'The circumstances surrounding this death are being investigated by the civil police and it would be highly inappropriate to comment any further at this time.'
The husband of a Colorado woman whose body was found last week after a three-year search is 'relieved' and convinced he will be now cleared of any suspicion of involvement, a source has claimed.

Suzanne Morphew, a 49-year-old mother of two, vanished on May 10, 2020, after going on a bike ride on Mother's Day.

Her bike was found the day she went missing, discarded in a ravine near her mountain home in Salida, 140 miles south of Denver.

Investigators have revealed they found her 'scattered remains' 50 miles from her bike, in Moffat, Saguache County, while they were probing a completely separate case. She had been buried in a shallow grave, the coroner called to the site said, and her bones then dispersed over the years.

No arrests have been made since the remains were located on September 22, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation confirmed on Wednesday. Her identity was confirmed on September 27.

In May 2021, a year after Suzanne disappeared, her husband Barry Morphew was arrested and charged with her murder  despite police not having found a body.

Last year, prosecutors dropped all charges against Morphew after a judge sanctioned the district attorney's office for discovery violations.

The case was dismissed without prejudice, despite objections from the defense, which means it could still be re-filed should new evidence come to light.

A source close to Barry Morphew told The US Sun that they thought he would be completely exonerated.

Suzanne Morphew vanished without a trace on May 10, 2020 after setting off from her home on a Mother's Day bike ride. Her bike was found that same day, and now her body has finally been found, over three years later, in Moffat, Saguache County, while investigators were probing a completely separate case

Suzanne and her husband Barry had two daughters together. She vanished on Mother's Day in 2020

'It's a relief but also a great sadness,' a source close to Barry Morphew told the website.

'We now know she's not alive, which we'd desperately been hoping (for).

'But we hope that Barry's name can be cleared because of the location where she was found and the timing of it all.'

Barry Morphew was working in Broomfield, a suburb of Denver roughly 150 miles from the family home, at the time of his wife's disappearance, and the body was found even further away.

The source added: 'We are all in so much shock. Hopefully answers will be forthcoming.'

Barry Morphew is suing for $15 million after he was arrested on suspicion of his wife's murder, only for charges to then be dropped.

John Spezze, Chaffee County sheriff, said on Wednesday: 'While this case has garnered attention from around the world, it has touched our community and the sheriff's office deeply.

'We have never stopped our investigation and will continue to follow all leads in pursuit of justice for Suzanne.

'Although locating Suzanne's remains is a critical component of this investigation, and for her family, we are left with many more questions than answers, and it would be a disservice to conduct a news conference at this time.'

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has also refused to provide details about the discovery, but Tom Perrin, the coroner of Saguache County, said she was found in a remote, dry desert field of sagebrush and natural grasses south of Moffat.

He was called to collect her remains on September 22, and told The Denver Gazette it appeared that her body had been buried in a shallow grave before the remains scattered.

Melinda Moorman Balzer, Morphew's older sister, told The Denver Gazette that they were told on Wednesday morning that Suzanne's remains had been found. Barry Morphew, her next of kin, was informed first.

'This is a miracle. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack,' Moorman Balzer said.

'Colorado is a vast and rugged place and we have prayed that God would put light on where she is. We have been praying and here we are today.

'It's day of great sadness, but a day of celebration.'

She said the family still has unanswered questions.

'This is just a small little snippet,' she added.

'A lot more will be revealed in time. We will be patient and trust the process.'

Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on May 10, 2020 - with her bike gone from the garage.

Her bike was found later that day, discarded down a ravine.

Five days later, on May 15, her bike helmet was discovered on the side of a highway less than half a mile from where her bike was found, a short distance from the family's home.

No clothing, blood, or evidence of a struggle was found near the bike or helmet.

Her sunglasses and hydration backpack had been found inside her car, leading investigators to speculate that perhaps Suzanne never really went for a bike ride on the morning she vanished, and instead staged a scene.

Suzanne's body was found on September 22 this year, 50 miles from her bike.

After Barry was charged with murder and the case against him progressed, authorities revealed intimate details about their married life.

Suzanne had been having an affair with someone she met in high school, Jeff Libler, while Barry was signed up to online affair websites.

When the case was still active, it was revealed that Suzanne, Barry and Libler appeared in the local paper together in 1985.

Barry Morphew with his daughters Mallory (right) and Macy (left)

Both men attended the same high school as Suzanne, with Barry two grades ahead of his wife and Libler at the Alexandria-Monroe High School in Alexandria, Indiana.

At a preliminary hearing in 2021, law enforcement officials presented to the court Suzanne's text message exchanges with her lover, in which she told him she had a fine night and was looking at houses for sale.

When her husband came home from work that day, he found Suzanne sunbathing in the yard. She was sending pictures of herself to Libler via LinkedIn, which the couple had been using to communicate behind her husband's back.

The court was then shown a photo of Suzanne that she had sent to Libler that day, which depicted her laying on her front in a bikini and smiling at her $1.3million home.

Barry would later tell investigators his wife looked 'drunk' in that photo, which officials said was Suzanne's last proof of life.

The following day, Libler wished Suzanne Happy Mother's Day and said he knew it would be a hard day for her because she missed her mother. Suzanne never replied.

His last known text to Suzanne was sent on May 11, 2020, in which he offered her well wishes for her cancer treatment. That message also went unanswered.

Suzanne had survived two battles with Hodgkin's lymphoma, decades apart.

Barry Morphew with his two daughters on April 19 2022, after murder charges against him were dropped

Morphew was charged with his wife's murder in 2021 - the charges were later dropped

The hearing in 2021 also revealed that just days prior, Suzanne texted her husband and apparently signaled to him her intention to end their rocky marriage, which was marked by accusations of infidelity and abuse.

'I'm done,' Suzanne wrote to Barry on May 6. 'I couldn't care less what you're up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly.'

It has been revealed that Suzanne suspected her husband of being unfaithful to her and even purchased a spy pen to snoop on him.

Barry insisted to his wife that he was not cheating on her, writing in one text: 'I promise you, you are wrong about all the crazy thoughts about me. Why would I want another, only a fool would stray from an angel like you.'

Police said the pair had a tumultuous marriage, with the suggestion being that he might have killed her out of jealousy or to stop her from filing for a divorce.

But last year, the charges were suddenly dropped without prejudice by Assistant District Attorney Linda Stanley.

In May this year, Barry Morphew and his two daughters with Suzanne spoke to ABC News' Good Morning America.

They said Suzanne had made 'bad decisions' because she was struggling with drugs and chemotherapy while battling Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Barry Morphew sits with his daughters Mallory (right) and Macy (left) as they break their silence following the disappearance of their mom - and murder charges being dropped against the dad

Barry Morphew, 55, the husband of Suzanne Morphew (right) has since filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking $15M claiming he was wrongfully charged with Colorado mom's disappearance and murder

"It's very hurtful to lose your reputation and your integrity."



Barry Morphew and his daughters speak out for the first time since filing a $15 million lawsuit after murder charges against him were dropped. @eriellereshef has more. pic.twitter.com/v0Fh9LD4Ri  Good Morning America (@GMA) May 15, 2023

'We had a wonderful life, a wonderful marriage,' said Barry.

'She was just so loving and giving, and such a good mother.

'I know that she was going through chemotherapy for the last couple years before her disappearance.

'I know she was going through some hard things and made some bad decisions. She was really having trouble with the chemotherapy and the drugs.'

Barry said that his heart was 'broken' when he found out his wife was having an affair with a man who she went to high school with.

Holding back his tears, he told ABC News: 'My heart was broken. I didn't believe it.'

When asked how the ordeal has left them, her daughters Mallory and Macy told ABC: 'Very very sad. Very confused. So traumatic. Literally our worst nightmare.'

Asked if he had anything to do with the disappearance of his wife, Barry said: 'Absolutely not. It's very hurtful to lose your reputation and your integrity.'

Standing with their father, the women were asked if they ever questioned if their father's innocence.

Mallory responded: 'I've never had a shred of doubt.'

Macy added: 'Not one.'

The family huddled together and hugged amid their tears during the interview.

The family huddled together and hugged during their interview with ABC. As they were asked if they ever questioned if their dad was not innocent, Mallory said: 'I've never had a shred of doubt.' Macy added: 'Not one'

Barry said that his heart was 'broken' when he found out his wife was having an affair - and admitted that she made some mistakes while she was having cancer treatment

Slamming the prosecutors, who believed that Barry was involved with his wife's disappearance, he reiterated: 'They're wrong. They've got tunnel vision.

'They looked at one person and they've got too much pride to say they're wrong and look somewhere else.'

When asked what the hardest part has been, Macy told ABC News: 'Just not having mom.

'It's really difficult especially because of the lack of closure we have.'

Barry Morphew has filed a $15million federal civil rights lawsuit against more than 20 prosecutors and law enforcement officials for 'irreparably' tarnishing his 'name and reputation' with a 'conspiracy to violate his state and federal constitutional rights.'

The 185-page complaint claims that the authorities conspired to wrongly arrest Morphew, that they fabricated evidence, concealed exculpatory evidence and conducted a reckless investigation, all which led to Morphew being wrongly prosecuted.

Alexandria-Monroe High School 1987 yearbook reveals Suzanne Morphew was classmates with Jeff Libler - the same man she is reported to have had a two-year affair with before she vanished on Mother's Day 2020

Suzanne and Jeff were in the same grade, while her husband Barry Morphew was two years ahead

'As result of the Defendant's conduct Barry was charged, arrested, and prosecuted, and his property seized, for a crime he did not commit,' the lawsuit says.

'As result of the Defendants' conduct Barry spent five months in jail, approximately 6 more months wearing a GPS ankle monitor with severe restrictions on his movement, and almost a year defending against the criminal charges. To this date, Barry's property remains in the CCSD's possession.'

The lawsuit claims that Morphew's 'name and reputation has been irreparably tarnished in Colorado and all around the country.'

Those named in the lawsuit including Chaffee County, the sheriff's office and board of commissioners, 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley and her staff, and Colorado Bureau of Investigation and FBI agents.

Suzanne was 49 years old when she vanished, sparking a huge search and rescue effort.

At the time, Barry Morphew issued a series of tearful pleas for her return but soon became embroiled in the police investigation, with DailyMail.com reporting that Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials had descended on the home just three days after she went missing.

He had claimed to be on a landscaping job in Broomfield, Colorado, when his wife vanished but as DailyMail.com revealed in September 2020, co-workers were suspicious of his movements and said he had left his Holiday Inn hotel room stinking of bleach.

The lawsuit claims investigators and prosecutors withheld evidence of DNA from an alleged sex offender found in Suzanne's property. Pictured, FBI and CBI officials at the scene in 2020

Barry's defense team previously filed a lawsuit against 26 individuals in the investigation and prosecution of the case, alleging they intentionally with held evidence found at the crime scene

He also left a trash can filled with shredded correspondence that was later turned over to the CBI.

Morphew began the legal process of having Suzanne's assets and their joint property transferred to him shortly after she vanished.

In November 2020, he cast a vote for Donald Trump in her name - claiming she would have done it anyway.

Investigators later said Morphew had told them he did it 'just because I wanted to vote for Trump to win. I just thought, 'Give him another vote.'

'I figured all these other guys were cheating. I figured she (Suzanne) was going to vote for Trump anyway.'

In May 2021, a year after Suzanne disappeared, Morphew was arrested and charged with her murder  despite police not having found a body.

A hearing in September 2020 shredded Morphew's description of his marriage to Suzanne as being a happy and loving one, with investigators revealing she had been having a long-running affair with married dad-of-six Jeff Libler.

Morphew is accused of murdering his wife, Suzanne, right, who went missing on Mother's Day in 2020. Her body has never been found

Libler, who has never spoken about Suzanne, was due to testify at Morphew's trial and received Suzanne's final photo  a bikini selfie taken on May 9, 2020 in the garden of her $1.3m home.

The court also heard how spent tranquilizer cartridges were found inside the laundry room at the Morphew home, that Morphew had scratches on his arms in the days after Suzanne's disappearance and that she had complained of his controlling behavior to her family.

A series of text messages revealed how anguished Suzanne had discussed ending her marriage in conversations with friends and called Morphew 'a Jekyll and Hyde character'.

His defense attorneys spent most of the hearings attempting to pick holes in the prosecution case  pointing to unknown male DNA discovered in the glove box of her car and suggesting a link to a sex offender arrested in Arizona.

Morphew's case was then scheduled for a full trial beginning May 1 but it was dramatically halted a week before it was due to start when prosecutors announced they were tossing the case.

The move came after the judge due to preside over the trial banned the prosecution from using a series of witnesses on the grounds of discovery violations, while police said they were close to finding Suzanne's remains and were waiting for the snow to melt.
A former HS2 chairman has blamed 'short-sighted' ministers for the project's spiralling costs.

Allan Cook, who chaired the project between 2018 and 2021, accused Downing Street of trying to pass the buck over who was responsible for going over budget.

He said government officials agreed 'every penny spent' during 'monthly meetings' with ministers, No 10 staff, the Treasury and the Department for Transport. Mr Cook also said that allegations briefed by Downing Street sources that HS2 chiefs unilaterally 'over-specced' the project and acted like 'kids with the golden credit card' were incorrect and that 'nothing could be further from the truth'.

The war of words came as five Labour mayors joined forces to warn that failure to deliver HS2 in full would 'leave swathes of the North with Victorian transport infrastructure'.

Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham, Tracy Brabin, Oliver Coppard and Steve Rotheram gathered in Leeds yesterday to issue a joint plea to Rishi Sunak not to cut HS2 further.

Former HS2 chairman Allan Cook has blamed 'short-sighted' ministers for the project's spiralling costs

An artist's impression of an HS2 train on the Birmingham and Fazeley viaduct, part of the proposed route for the HS2 high speed rail scheme

The Prime Minister is weighing up whether to axe the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the project after becoming 'alarmed' at the surging costs. A decision to delay the leg by up to seven years is also being considered, as well as whether HS2 trains should run into London Euston or Old Oak Common.

Mr Cook said he was 'dismayed' the PM was thinking of scrapping the Birmingham to Manchester leg. He told the Mail: 'The implication, it would seem, is that the project is now out of control despite the Government's best efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

'Representatives from the Treasury and transport department sat on the HS2 board during my time as chairman. There was total transparency of every decision and every penny spent. HS2 had monthly meetings with ministers and officials from No 10, the Treasury and Department for Transport. Any suggestion the company is 'massively over-speccing' the structure is incorrect.'

He added: 'Perhaps my biggest frustration is the constant short-sighted approach to large infrastructure programmes.

'Uncertainty is the enemy of big projects. It drives up costs and slows down progress. The most scandalous waste of money would be to end the line at Birmingham, incurring all of the costs and delivering very little real benefit.'

A government spokesman said: 'The HS2 project is already well under way with spades in the ground, and our focus remains on delivering it.'

One of the two Tunnel Boring Machines, (TBMs) run by HS2 ltd begins its operation on October 6, 2022 in Ruislip
Breaktime at school, and 13-year-old Harry was crouching in the only place he felt safe  a bush in the corner of the playground.

Since returning to school after lockdown, he had been relentlessly bullied by a gang of children. 'I told loads of teachers multiple times. They never even talked to the bullies.'

That morning Harry had plucked up the courage to ask the deputy head if he could move to another school. 'The situation is even worse there!' he told the boy.

Now Harry heard the gang yell out his name. He felt so scared, he thought he was going to be physically sick. Suddenly he got up and walked out of the school gates. At home he told his parents, 'I don't want to go back. Ever!'

So he hasn't.

Around the country, children have been starting the new academic year. But an increasing number, like Harry, are being home-educated.

Many parents no longer see school as a safe place for their children, thanks to bullying and social media spats boiling over (Stock Image)

Indeed, the statistics are startling, as a report from the Centre For Social Justice (CSJ), called Out Of Sight And Out Of Mind, reveals. It estimates some 81,000 children were home-educated at the start of the 2021/22 academic year. That's equivalent to 80 average-sized secondary schools. Even more extraordinarily, half of those had only moved into home education since lockdown.

Local authority sources spoke to the Centre For Social Justice only on the condition of anonymity  proving how loaded the topic of home-schooling is. They revealed that, in some areas, home-education uptake shot up by 180 per cent when schools re-opened.

Of course, home-schooling has long been a feature of our education system, albeit a niche one  for wealthier families who can afford to have one parent educating their children, or for those who prefer a more alternative lifestyle. But as I've discovered in this exclusive investigation, the current explosion in home-schooling reveals something more disturbing than parents suddenly fancying a spot of teaching at their kitchen table  a worrying flight of children leaving state education.

And, make no mistake, the families abandoning formal education are not homeschooling because they want to. They are home-schooling because they are desperate. Last year, my two-part series for the Mail, The Lost Children Of Lockdown, revealed how profoundly teens and young children had been affected by Covid lockdowns.

Yesterday, the Education Committee revealed 22.5 per cent of pupils are consistently absent from school  almost double the pre-pandemic rate. It described this as a 'great concern'.

That might, in part, be explained by a study by consultancy Public First this month, which showed that factors such as Covid, teachers' strikes and, most recently, the RAAC concrete scandal, have also contributed to a 'seismic shift' in parental attitudes towards education.

Pre-pandemic, ensuring daily attendance was considered a tenet of good parenting, but now it's socially acceptable to take children on holiday in term time. From there, it's not such a big step to abandoning school altogether.

I found every sector of society was affected  from the most comfortable to the poorest: middle-class families; single parents; ethnic minorities; even parents whose own education was so bad they are, in effect, functionally illiterate  all forced to home-educate.

Some parents felt schools were hotbeds of violence and bullying (Stock Image)

All pointed to an education system in crisis. Some parents felt schools were failing their children academically or emotionally, painting a picture of a generation of children anxious in the aftermath of lockdown.

Others felt they were hotbeds of violence and bullying. Some cited a new educational 'woke' agenda which they felt had become uncomfortably prevalent, and was being presented to children at far too young an age.

And  as is always the case  I found the poorest hardest hit, with an absence of guidance or financial support.

'Home education is changing out of all recognition at the moment,' explained Jacky, the lead for home education at a local authority in the north of England, who spoke to me off the record.

'Covid revealed a lot,' added Ziggy Moore, founder of Moore Education, an online tuition programme for maths and English, who has seen a boom in business because of parents home-schooling and also using private tutors.

Thanks to online lessons during lockdown, parents observed how schools were educating their kids up close  and what they saw did not please them.

'I am now seeing with my own eyes that you are not educating my child to a level that is even passable. I can see first-hand how it's not benefiting my child,' as one African Caribbean mother from Brixton, South London, remarked about her 12-year-old daughter's school.

She now home-schools her, assisted by a part-time job with the local council which means she can work flexibly. She hopes to do the same with her two other children.

She's not alone. 'Online learning was a joke in my child's school,' said one parent. 'Some teachers disappeared abroad, we heard. And they never marked my son's work,' said one mother who now home schools, but to do so had to give up her job and go on benefits. 'Money is tight, I can tell you,' she admitted.

Some previously unhappy children blossomed away from school  especially those with special educational needs (SEN), such as the children of Natasha, who is self-employed and lives in a prosperous market town in the Midlands.

'My twins were failed by the school system from the moment they entered it,' she said. She saw her primary-aged twins just parked in a classroom with one teaching assistant and a group of other SEN children.

'Then, during the first lockdown, I was able to see the mental health issues and stresses from being let down by the school system melt away [from them].'

She started teaching them herself. Today, she says: 'My children are thriving. I have them back!'

Some parents acted to avoid disaster for their children's mental health. One single mother who lives in a leafy Essex suburb gave up a well-paid job in marketing to homeschool her child.

Some parents felt schools were failing their children academically or emotionally, painting a picture of a generation of children anxious in the aftermath of lockdown (Stock Image)

'She has suffered from anxiety and depression since lockdown and refuses to go to school. If I was not home-schooling, she would not have an education.' The school tried to help by offering flexible hours to her daughter, but as the mother pointed out: 'You can't force a 15-year-old into school.'

But even without the impact of lockdown, many no longer see school as a safe place, thanks to bullying and social media spats boiling over.

'My children need safeguarding from school,' said one father from Norfolk. He caught his teenage son stealing a kitchen knife from the house 'for a showdown with another lad'. They had been exchanging threats on Snapchat all night.

For today, social media means bullying continues 24/7 on children's smart-phones, with feuds erupting into sickening violence  no doubt contributing to the fact that, shockingly, boys under 16 are most likely to be stabbed on the way home from school.

'Around here,' said the Norfolk father who has reluctantly started home-schooling, 'you hear the police sirens at 8am then again at 3.49pm.'

It's not surprising, then, that parents of home-schooled teenage boys see a substantial reduction of peer-group influence and online bullying.

I also found home-schooling burgeoning among ethnic minorities. As one African Caribbean mother from Streatham, South London, explained: 'School is where our boys start on the trajectory to gangs, crime and prison. Why would I set my child on that path?'

Her son is 15. She credits home-schooling with the fact that he is focused on his education and hasn't been drawn into gang culture.

The curriculum is another cause for concern. Emily, from an upper-middle-class family, worked for a charitable foundation until an incident at her daughter's state school forced her to opt for home-schooling.

Her seven-year-old daughter had become increasingly anxious and depressed. 'She finally admitted she was scared men with terrifying weapons were going to come and take her away and told me: 'And I won't see you again!' '

Baffled, Emily looked through her daughter's school workbooks  and found they contained the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban aged 15 on her way to school.

'My daughter is seven. She does not know where Pakistan is. This is an issue in Islamic countries, but no teacher will point that out because it's considered racist. So my daughter thinks this is happening in Clapham.'

Another home-schooling mother who lives in Richmond, South-West London, discovered her seven-year-old son was encouraged to report on parents who held 'old-fashioned views' on trans rights and climate change. She said: 'My son's teachers are all young activists. They are trying to create a different belief system in my child which actively undermines my parental rights.'

I found some home-schooling parents were anxious about relationships and sex education classes. Indeed, Ziggy Moore explained that, for children from traditional communities, school can be a minefield: 'If you do not hold the prevailing view, you are in trouble.'

But the prevailing view changes from month to month and is very confusing for a child, especially for 'say, children from poor, African, church-going families whose parents work back-to-back shifts'.

They are unaware of the difference between LGBQ and LGBTQ or the potential offence leaving out a letter can cause. They soon learn.

Ziggy knows one West African 12-year-old who handed his relationships and sex education teacher a note two days before class. 'Please, Miss, don't ask me any questions. I will say the wrong thing and the other kids in the class will come after me.'

Three home-schooling Muslim mothers from North London told me they were disconcerted by 'the LGBTQ agenda that's being pushed onto our kids now', and what they saw as inappropriate sex education at too young an age.

One told me she also felt strongly that home-schooled children were more polite, articulate and confident than many of their school-educated peers.

While her child has been taught about the importance of diversity, trans rights and gay marriage, she believes the school failed her six-year-old on the basics. 'I had her in school for two years and she's so behind on reading and writing. The only thing she knows is what I've since taught her at home.'

Certainly, these parents felt they had no alternative. But the fact remains that little data is collected about home-educated children.

Indeed, nine in ten local authorities admit they are unable even to identify every child in home education. We have the highest rate of home education in Europe, but the least regulation.

What happens to these children? Do they pass exams  homeschooled children are not required to sit GCSEs  go to university, find employment, end up in prison? No one knows.

There is no legal obligation on parents to disclose their reasons to home-educate. In one local authority, according to the CSJ report, almost half of families did not give a reason at all.

In practice, home-educating means those 81,000 children could be anywhere. Enjoying an educational trip to a stately home. Selling pies on a market stall. Or on a train delivering drugs on county lines.

The only thing they have in common is that their parents have sent a letter to school de-registering them. Officially, at least, they are being 'home-educated', rather than just being persistently absent from school.

But even for those with the best of intentions, home-schooling can prove a challenge  especially for disadvantaged parents.

Just taking a GCSE can cost up to 300 each. Jacky, the lead for home education at a northern local authority, sees many families doing an excellent job. But many struggle. In the CSJ report, one local authority admitted that, of its 500 home-schooled children, only half were getting a suitable education.

Local authorities, too, are vague about what an education is  counting leaves in a park or baking a cake satisfies one, bedtime reading another. Working on a market stall full time  as one child was doing  does not.

The only tool Jacky has for children like this is a School Attendance Order, which is expensive to apply for and can take months to enforce, during which time the child is not being educated.

It's too easy for children simply to disappear. One officer admitted he had not seen a particular child for two years.

Harry, the bullied boy who walked out of school, shows the chalk and cheese elements of home education. Both his parents worked and could not afford to stop. Harry admits, left to himself, he would have sat in his room on his computer.

Fortunately for him, his aunt Mary stepped up. She explained: 'Not everyone has got a retired aunt with pointy elbows who was an accountant. And you need pointy elbows because kids like Harry have suffered so much.'

She was shocked to discover the lack of funds available for home-schooling families, and the complication of which syllabus and exam boards to choose. 'Every stage is a learning stage,' said Mary. 'But I like a challenge.'

She was dismayed to discover how far behind Harry was, and how damaged he had been by constant failure at school. He did not know his times tables or how to subtract. But she was soon rewarded by his transformation when they discovered physics together.

'That was the first moment I have been happy in years,' admitted Harry. Mary managed to get funding from a charity to pay for Harry to train as a car mechanic two days a week. He plans to have a career working with farm equipment.

The morning Harry got 100 per cent in an online maths quiz, 'he nearly cried', said Mary. 'I never got 100 per cent before,' Harry said. His aunt beamed: 'It's like changing someone's life story.'

What a shame it took such a crisis in his school, a place he should've been safe, to make that change.
A citizen sleuth has sued the FBI to get access to a key piece of evidence in the iconic DB Cooper case.

Eric Ulis, of Phoenix, filed the suit this spring - as part of a yearslong bid to try to identify the man behind the 50-year-old skyjacking.

The quest has been a difficult one - riddled with roadblocks from the federal government and physically demanding digs for the skyjackers still-lost parachutes and bag with nearly $200,000 in cash.

In 1980, a boy found $6,000 of the stolen sum on a sand bar along the Columbia River - a ransom Cooper got before he jumped out of a plane, never to be seen again.

In federal court in DC, Ulis - who was five when the plane-jacking happened - demands the bureau that headed the ensuing, unsuccessful search for the still-unidentified man give access to a black clip-on tie he left behind on the aircraft.

Scroll down for video:

Phoenix P.I. Eric Ulis, 57, sued the FBI this spring to get access to a key piece of evidence in the iconic case - which was closed six years ago by the bureau despite never being solved

Ulis was just five when the mysterious man known as DB Cooper boarded a commercial flight in Portland and handed a stewardess a handwritten note saying he had a bomb. After securing $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, he jumped out never to be seen again

The FBI, however, has denied his FOIA request to attempt to lift a DNA sample from the garment - something he claims he can use to solve the case.

In comments to CNN, Ulis, 57, outlined how his lawsuit - still making its way through the federal courts - may prove crucial in coming months, as the tie knot has a metal spindle that could contain undiscovered DNA.

He told the station Wednesday: 'Thats all I'm trying to get - access to that spindle to open it up. Have the DNA expert kind of swab it, and lets just see what we come up with.'

But the FBI - which closed the case unsolved six years ago - has refused to play ball, forcing him to continue to comb the stretch of river in Washington state where the money was found.

Hoping to secure more clues, he says the suit may be sleuths around the world's last hope - and told KOIN6 how he believes the FBI may have missed out on making a discovery with their own teams of scientists, who have already lifted DNA from it twice.

'They've given access to the tie two separate times before to private scientists, private individuals, once in 2009 and once in 2011,' he told the outlet after having his FOIA request shot down in March, paving the way for the current suit.

'This could actually solve the case,' he claimed, citing recent advances in ancestral genealogy.

'That gives us the ability to take DB Cooper's DNA and sort of reverse engineer this and identify his family, nephews, nieces, people of that nature.'

Ulis wants access to a black clip-on tie he left behind on the aircraft, which he say has a metal spindle that could contain undiscovered DNA

The quest has been a difficult one - riddled with roadblocks from the federal government and physically demanding digs for the skyjackers still-lost parachutes and bag with nearly $200,000 in cash

In 1980, a boy found $6,000 of the stolen sum on a sand bar along the Columbia River - a ransom Cooper got before he jumped out of a plane, never to be seen again

The Seattle-bound plane that the man the media erroneously labeled DB Cooper hijacked on November 24, 1971, out of Portland is seen here. He famously parachuted off the craft after securing the cash after landing to Seattle before heading to a new destination in Mexico City

While still in the skies over the Pacific Northwest, the eventual fugitive pulled off one of the most brazen getaways in American history - parachuting off the plane soon after takeoff with the money strapped to his waist into the night, never to be found again

The FBI, meanwhile, has yet comment - as more and more months continue to pass. Ulis told CNN that access to the tie.

Last year, Ulis claimed a deceased Pennsylvania man was Cooper, based on particles that the 2009 team of scientists lifted.

He claims those particles came from a Pennsylvania metals company that produced titanium materials found on the tie, and said the suspect, a man named Vince Peterson, worked with those metals and traveled routinely to Seattle to work with Boeing on aviation projects.

The Emerald City, as many know, was the destination of the fateful flight out of Portland that the man the media erroneously labeled DB Cooper hijacked, on the afternoon of November 24, 1971.

Dressed in a dapper suit and sunglasses, he actually bought the Northwest Orient Airline ticket under the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a media misunderstanding, he was branded with the name many know today.

One of the great unsolved mysteries in FBI history, the midair heist started when Cooper ordered a bourbon and soda from his seat in 18E - and then handed a flight attendant a handwritten note saying he had a bomb.

The iconic criminal bought the Northwest Orient Airline ticket under the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a media misunderstanding, he was branded with the name many know today

The canvas bag that contained one of the parachutes given to D.B. Cooper in 1971. Cooper asked for four chutes in all; he jumped with two

An otherwise quiet man who appeared to be in his mid-40s, he opened a carry-on bag to show a mess of wire and red sticks that resembled dynamite, and demanded four parachutes and the mass of cash.

After the plane landed in Seattle, as part of a ransom, he swapped three dozen passengers for the money and parachutes, and ordered the pilot to fly to a new destination in Mexico City.

However, while still in the skies over the Pacific Northwest, the eventual fugitive pulled off one of the most brazen getaways in American history - parachuting off the plane soon after takeoff with the money strapped to his waist into the night, never to be found again.

In the years since, no trace of the criminal has been found - creating an air of mystery and even romanticism surrounding the stunt.

Among those captivated by the case is Ulis, who told CNN he believes the parachute Cooper used that night is still out there, and is planning another dig there next month.

'I firmly believe that D.B. Coopers parachute is lying in that area somewhere. Its stashed away somewhere under some blackberry bushes or a thicket of trees or something of that nature,' he says. 'Its been sitting there for 52 years.'

That extensive search for the hijacker ended in 2016, when the FBI closed the case unsolved. FBI agents are seen scouring the sand of a beach of the Columbia River, searching for additional money or clues on February 13, 1980

A former pro poker player who calls himself 'one of the world's leading DB Cooper experts,' Ulis also believes the parachute Cooper used that night is still out there, and said he is planning another dig there next month

An ex-professional blackjack player, he told the station his unique skillset allows him to focus on facts surrounding the case, which today has garnered a sort of folk status, while avoiding the growing mess of conspiracy theories.

'Thats the world I came from. And it actually played a big part of shaping how I think,' the Arizona man told the station while waiting on developments with his recently filed a lawsuit.

'Because thats a world where youre really just focused strictly on the math. You try to remove emotion as much as possible.'

He aims to identify Cooper was within the next few years - and claims with access to the tie, that is a distinct possibility.

'Its a great story. And the story remains untold. And so everybody wants to know what the final chapter is,' he told CNN of the case.

'Weve all read the book to the final chapter, and its blank. And thats what drives people nuts. Drives me nuts. I want to know what the final chapter is, just like everybody else.'
It came just days after he accused India of murdering a Sikh leader in Canada

Comments made by Deepak Vohra have been strenuously denied by Trudeau

Justin Trudeau has angrily denied claims he traveled to India on a plane 'full of cocaine' and that he didn't leave his hotel room for two days.

The Canadian PM's Office has dismissed comments from former Indian diplomat Deepak Vohra over accusations he made on Monday on Indian television.

Vohra, a former Indian ambassador to Sudan, told Zee News: 'When Justin Trudeau came to India for the G20 this month, his plane was full of cocaine. He did not come out of his room for two days.'

In a statement to the Toronto Sun, Trudeau's office said: 'This (is) absolutely false and a troubling example of how disinformation can make its way into media reporting.'

It comes after Trudeau had to publicly apologize after the Canadian Parliament recognized a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologizes for the events surrounding Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy's visit at a media availability in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023

A retired Indian Diplomat on

Indian TV says - there are credible rumor that Trudeaus plane had cocaine when he landed in India & he was overdosed for 2 days thus he couldnt attend all G20 programs. Such is the level if discourse on Indian media #Sikhhttps://t.co/Pby3hxsejN  Crime Reports India (@AsianDigest) September 25, 2023

Vohra, pictured here on the far right, made the comments on Zee News on Monday

According to the Toronto Sun, Vohra also said: 'My wife saw him at the Delhi airport and said that Trudeau looked depressed and stressed.

'We don't know the reason. I don't know the reality, but social media and some 'credible rumours' suggest that his plane was full of cocaine.

'He has become lonely. He is now trying to show that he is a Canadian Rambo and nothing can go wrong in his presence. India has done the right thing by suspending visa services in Canada.'

The remarks had been made by the former diplomat after Trudeau alleged that Indian officials had a Sikh activist in British Columbia assassinated.

Trudeau's accusations over the June 18 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh separatist, have sparked a widening rift between Canada and India and tit-for-tat of diplomatic expulsions.

The PM's allegations of Indian government involvement in the gun murder, first made public on Monday, were based in part on intercepted communications between Indian officials and the country's diplomats in Canada, an official told the Associated Press.

Some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to Canada, the person said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not say which ally provided intelligence, or give details of what was contained in the communications or how they were obtained.

Trudeau's accusations over the June 18 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar (seen above), a 45-year-old Sikh separatist, have sparked a widening rift between Canada and India

Mourners carry the casket of Sikh community leader and temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar during Antim Darshan, the first part of a day-long funeral service for him, in Surrey, BC

The revelation came as India stopped issuing visas to Canadian citizens and told Canada to reduce its diplomatic staff as the rift widened between the two countries.

Ties between the two countries have plunged to their lowest point in years after Trudeau told Parliament Monday there were 'credible allegations' of Indian involvement in the assassination on Canadian soil.

The bombshell claim set off an international tit-for-tat, with each country expelling a diplomat. India called the allegations 'absurd.'

Nijjar, a plumber who was born in India and became a Canadian citizen in 2007, had been wanted by India for years before he was gunned down in June outside the temple he led in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver.

At the time of his killing, Nijjar was working to organize an unofficial Sikh diaspora referendum on independence from India.

Trudeau had frosty encounters with Modi (right) at the G20 earlier this month, where he told the Indian leader directly about his suspicions of government involvement in the murder

A banner with the image of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple, site of his June 2023 killing, in Surrey, British Columbia

New Delhis anxieties about Sikh separatist groups in Canada have long been a strain on the relationship .

In March, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government summoned the Canadian high commissioner in New Delhi, its top diplomat in the country, to complain about Sikh independence protests in Canada.

Signs of a broader diplomatic rift emerged at the summit of the Group of 20 leading world economies hosted by India earlier this month.

Trudeau had frosty encounters with Modi, and a few days later Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall. A trade deal between the two is now on pause.

On Wednesday, Trudeau had to apologize for the Canadian Parliament's recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II.

Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was invited to Parliament and praised as a Ukrainian and Canadian hero by Trudeau and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Yaroslav Hunka waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa Friday. Right: Hunka in his SS unit in the war

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured far right) apologized Wednesday for Parliaments recognition of a man who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II

It later emerged that Hunka had been involved in the Nazi division during World War II, prompting Speaker Anthony Rota to resign and Trudeau to apologize.

In a televised address, the Prime Minister said: 'This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada.

'It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and it was deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people.'

Just after Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Rota drew attention to him.

Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
A 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death by a knife-wielding schoolboy after a row with his ex-girlfriend spilled out of a bus onto the streets of Croydon, horrified witnesses have said.

Last night tributes poured in for the heroic pupil, named locally as Eliyanna, who was knifed to death while on her way to Old Palace of John Whitgift School yesterday.

Locals told of how they saw a group schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre before a row broke out on a street filled with pedestrians.

A youth worker said he understood the boy tried to give a bouquet of flowers to his former girlfriend on the bus but tensions flared when they stepped off the red double-decker, which was packed with commuters and other school children.

The friend is said to have rejected the flowers and had also tried to return a bag of possessions following the break-up.

When the fight broke out, the victim was said to intervene, leading the boy to reportedly pull out a foot-long, serrated zombie knife before stabbing the teenager, said to be from a West African Christian family, in the 'neck and chest'.

The suspect, whose weapon was described as being 'as big as a sword', then reportedly fled the scene, being chased by brave passengers who had also been on the bus.

The bus driver and passengers desperately tried to save the young girl, as another schoolgirl reportedly screamed 'that's my best friend', as she tried to push through to see Eliyanna.

Her family, who had been called to the scene, rushed down to the bus stop but she sadly died at 9.21am - before they could say goodbye.

Just 75 minutes after the attack, officers arrested a 17-year-old boy five miles away on a tram in nearby New Addington at 9.45am. Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Forensic scientists at the scene yesterday were seen collecting blood stained red roses and a love note which read: 'I love you so so much and I [have] never met someone with a better smile and better eyes than what you have. Your [sic] special girl... princess.'

Forensic scientists at the scene were seen collecting blood stained red roses

The young girl died at the scene after being stabbed on her way to school

The victim, who as a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, has tonight been named locally as Eliyanna

Floral tributes and card laid at the scene in Croydon, south London

The father of a friend of the girl from Old Palace of John Whitgift School said the teenager was stabbed after intervening in a heated argument between her friend and the friend's former 'boyfriend'.

He said: 'My daughter is friends with the girls. She's devastated about what happened. It's horrible.'

Chevanice Thomas, whose friend witnessed the stabbing, after the boys flowers were rejected moments before he attacked the victim with a blade 'as big as a sword'.

'She [the victim] tried to get in between the pair as they were fighting over a bag. The friend was apparently trying to return stuff to him as they'd broken up the day before,' the man said.

A mother of two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: 'I saw them resuscitating her. The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here.'

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victim's friends, were trying to get through the police cordon but were held back.

Michael Fyffe, who witnessed the attack, told Sky News: 'There were loads of people who had just come off the bus and then I think two of the girl's friends came out and they were trying to rush over towards the body.

'So myself and a few of the other people tried to hold her back and just say, "Look, let them try and help your friend", and she was just screaming, "Is my friend dead? She's my best friend".'

Security worker Victor Asare described the knife as 'black, thin and about a foot long'. He said: 'A lot of people came, everyone came off the bus. [The suspect] ran away. Everybody was crying and screaming. The girl was on the floor.

Witnesses said the boy had tried to give the girl flowers but she replied that she 'didn't want to go out with him anymore'

Yesterday, forensics officers were seen removing a handwritten love note from the scene

Last night tributes began to pour in for the teenager

'We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. It's somebody's daughter.'

'The boy wore a black blazer, the girl wore green. It looked like the girl didn't want the boy to come closer,' the 50-year-old added.

'I finished work but couldn't sleep, so came back, I wanted to see if the girl was OK.'

Anthony King, chairman of the My Ends project said: 'They were heading to school on the bus this morning. All of them were scheduled to be at school by quarter to nine.

'Their school is ten minutes away from here and sadly the young lady didn't make it.'

Staff at the Leonardo Hotel on Wellesley Road, were among those at the scene. Beldine Kutima, who works there, told The Telegraph: 'One of our duty managers went to get the bus, but she came back in screaming and grabbing towels from the back room.

'She ran out there with bin bags and towels. She was crying and in shock.'

One card wrote 'why?' before wishing condolences to the teenager's family

Another read: 'Little princess. So sad your life was taken away at your prime. You have touched my soul'

Forensic officers walk past the scene, which features several privacy screens

A forensic investigator puts flowers into a container at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon

A man delivers two bunches of flowers to the scene where the girl was killed yesterday

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley at the scene in Croydon yesterday afternoon

James Watkins, of Mainz World, a local group that works with troubled youths, said: 'It's disgusting, when we look at these children being killed that are from the borough it hurts you in the heart. These could be our kids, it's devastating.'

Last night, grieving families and school friends left heartbreaking messages at the scene last night.

One note, from Edith, read: 'Rest in peace, little princess. So sad your life is taken away at your prime; you have touched my soul.' Another read: 'Sorry we live in this crazy world  this makes no sense.'

Tributes have poured in for the 'jovial' and 'much loved' teen who had a 'bright future ahead of her' - expected to pass all her GCSES later this school year.

Mr King added: 'The [victim's] family and extended family are devastated. I can't articulate the sound of the tears and genuine heartbreak that took place this morning.

'[The girl] was going to pass her GCSEs, she had a bright future ahead of her. An absolutely incredible young lady, very articulate. One of the young people said she was jovial and very funny.'

Speaking to journalists at the scene, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain said officers were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

'This is every parent's worst nightmare, and I know the officers who responded this morning, along with our emergency service colleagues, are devastated at the victim's death,' he said.

Speaking to journalists yesterday afternoon, Chief Superintendent Brittain said officers arrived within two minutes of being called and gave the suspect's age as 17

Privacy screens have been set up around the scene of the stabbing in Croydon, south London

'This is an emotion I share and I know people across Croydon will be feeling the same.

'The victim's family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at what must be an incredibly difficult time.

'We carried out urgent inquiries to find the suspect and within 75 minutes of the incident happening a 17-year-old boy was arrested in New Addington. He remains in custody and will be questioned by detectives.

'We remain in the early stages of our investigation, however based on what we know so far we believe that we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this offence.

'From our initial inquiries, we believe the suspect may have known the victim. However, we're not in a position to release the victim's identity at this time.'

The number 60 bus remains behind the police cordon, where forensics officers are carrying out inquiries

The Met said officers were on the scene of the stabbing within two minutes

A spokesman for the Old Palace of John Whitgift School said: 'We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

'It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

'Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girl's family at this unimaginably distressing time.

Yesterday afternoon a white tent could be seen within a police cordon next to the double-decker bus.

The location of the stabbing is shown in the map above. The 60 route bus was heading towards Streatham station

A forensic investigator onboard the bus where the argument is believed to have started

Privacy screens and a tent outside the Whitgift centre in Croydon while a bus sits beside the pavement nearby

Locals say they saw a group of schoolchildren getting off the No 60 bus outside the Whitgift Centre

They said a row between the girl and boy - who were both in school uniform - 'spilled out' on to a street busy with pedestrians

A forensic officer picks up the bunch of flowers from the scene of the fatal stabbing on Wellesley Road

Croydon MP Sarah Jones attended the police press conference alongside Croydon mayor Jason Perry.

Ms Jones said: 'I'm heartbroken that a child in my town has been killed on her way to school and I cannot imagine the grief that her family will be going through at this time.

'I want to thank the police and the ambulance services for trying so hard to save her life. They run into danger and I know they will be suffering today, too.

'I want to repeat the request from the police that if anybody has any information please do get in touch.

'We all hold our children close and our community will take time to grieve, but for today we are just thinking of this young girl and her family. I'm so sorry.'

Mr Perry added: 'We all personally feel devastated by the events that have happened here in Croydon this morning and the tragic loss of such a young life.

'The community are feeling that hurt right now and we will do everything we can to support the community through such a very difficult time.'

Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said tonight: 'The senseless murder of a 15-year-old girl on her way to school is impossible to comprehend.

'It was moving and humbling to meet many members of the exceptional Croydon community who have come together in support of a family now dealing with the most unimaginable grief.

A photo of police cars rushing to the scene of the stabbing in south London

Police cars surrounded the parked bus in Croydon shortly after the attack

'The commitment of so many from the local community is inspiring. A powerful partnership between charitable groups, faith and community leaders, the local authority, the wider public and our officers has delivered so much work across the borough. They have collectively saved many lives from knife crime.

'Many are shocked and hurting. They care deeply and it's this passion which has made Croydon a safer place and will continue to in the future.

'I spoke to officers who, with members of the public, were among the first on scene with colleagues trying to save this young girl's life and have since supported her family and friends. Through diligent work by them all an early arrest was made and our major crime team now continue to investigate the events leading up to this awful attack.'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Greatest Hits Radio London: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved family of the 15-year-old child who has been stabbed in Croydon.

'I've been in touch with the commissioner [Sir Mark Rowley] and we are in touch with the police.

'It's heartbreaking. An arrest has been made of another teenager in relation to this matter.

'There were other people present and I'd encourage them to contact the police. If they are worried about the anonymity they can ring Crimestoppers.

'It's really important people come forward and support the police to make sure justice occurs for this poor girl's family.'

Scotland Yard has confirmed that a 17-year-old boy has been arrested
One in five GP appointments are taken by people who are lonely or seeking advice on debts, relationships or housing, a health service boss has revealed.

James Sanderson, NHS England's director of community health, said around 200,000 consultations a day are spent dealing with these non-medical issues rather than treating sick patients.

His comments came after the NHS Confederation's Health Beyond the Hospital conference in London heard public satisfaction with GPs is at an all-time low.

Mr Sanderson told the audience of health leaders: 'When you look at general practice at least 20 per cent of GP visits are for a non-medical need.

'People are visiting their GP because of loneliness, they are socially isolated or they have issues with debt or relationships or housing. Over a million appointments a day in general practice. That's a lot of people facing social issues.'

James Sanderson, NHS England's director of community health, said around 200,000 consultations a day are spent dealing with these non-medical issues rather than treating sick patients

Another NHS leader told how many of these patients are also frequent 999 callers and described how they are bounced to different parts of the overstretched health service.

Jonathan Hammond-Williams, complex care lead at South Western Ambulance Service, gave an example of patients calling up to 35 times a month.

He said: 'Patients are going round what I call the 'washing machine of referrals'. It's about the ambulance service, 111, primary care, community trusts and emergency departments. The person is prescribed lots of medications and it doesn't really get to what is essentially the problem, which is often something that is social and personal to them.'

Health minister Helen Whately drew on her own experience of being in hospital when she told the conference A&E wards are full of elderly patients who should not be there.

She hobbled to the podium to give her speech, having broken her ankle in a 'nasty' road accident earlier this month.

In a question and answer session afterwards she said: 'I've also got several family members with various health problems at the moment so I've been spending quite a lot of time in hospitals.

'I think one of the things that I've seen through all of that is how hard it is for emergency departments with so many in fact frail, elderly patients who it's not necessarily the right place for them to be.'
9th and 10th grade students took inappropriate snaps of 11th and 12th grade girls

Boys at Bedford High School in New Hampshire traded the lurid Pokemon cards

Boys at a New Hampshire high school have sparked outrage after secretly trading Pokemon cards that have salacious pictures of their female classmates.

Students in grade 9 and 10 at Bedford High School were accused of taking secret photos of girls in grade 11 and 12 without their consent.

They then stuck them on trading cards that featured the girls' chests, bums and names on them.

Principal Bob Jozokos warned parents about the 'upsetting' behavior and promised those involved would be heavily punished when they are identified.

Boys at a New Hampshire high school have sparked outrage after secretly trading Pokemon cards that have salacious pictures of their female classmates

They then stuck them on Pokemon trading cards that featured the girls' chests, bums and names on them

'This is absolutely inappropriate behavior and not expected of our students,' Jozokos wrote.

'Let your teen know that I take this sexual harassment very seriously and there is no place for it in our community.'

The trading cards featured the chests, backsides and names of the girls according to NBC10 Boston, with one senior boy saying he was horrified when he found out.

'This is horrible. That's just disgusting,' the high school senior told the broadcaster.

The student, who did not wish to be identified, said for at least a week boys had been printing pictures of the girls and taping them over the Pokemon cards.

'They were, like, rating them, from 0 to 10... like bad or not bad,' he added.

The senior said the girls were completely unaware of the nefarious card game and one of the girls rated was a friend of his.

'She's p***ed, she's not happy at all, she was just very embarrassed,' he said.

Senior Kristen Caldwell started an online petition calling on the district to take the allegations seriously.

'I personally felt like there were definitely girls who could have been victims of this that were too scared to speak up,' she told WCVB.

The Change.org had 4,356 of 5,000 signatures as of Wednesday and pressed administration to take a bigger stance on the boys involved once they're identified.

'The young women attending Bedford High School deserve justice,' the petition says. 'These shameful young boys are treating their fellow peers as sex objects.

'How would you feel if your daughters privacy was invaded without her knowledge?

'How would you feel if you found a trading card, containing your daughters sexual body parts, name, and a rating on her looks, and were informed it was made by a group of her peers in a place where she is supposed to feel safe and protected?'

One senior from the high school said the girls were completely unaware of the nefarious card game and one of the girls rated was a friend of his. He asked to keep his name anonymous (pictured)

Superintendent Michael Fournier acknowledged the gravity of the situation, but stressed its hard to enact a punishment without having identified the culprits

A Change.org petition had 4,356 of 5,000 signatures as of Wednesday and pressed administration to take a bigger stance on the boys involved once they're identified

The petition continues to question how an institution for education has become a dangerous place for women.

'What has school turned into for these young women? We are not a toy for your son to play with, nor a piece of paper that can be traded like a Pokemon card,' it continued.

'After finding out this information, many young women attending Bedford High School were quietly outraged.

'What was Bedford High Schools solution to this revolting issue? Suspension. A temporary absence from school was the greatest extent taken by authorities for exploiting teen girls, and distributing inappropriate images of these teen girls without their knowledge.'

Caldwell believes the boys responsible should be permanently expelled from the school and questioned why the issue had not been 'taken seriously' enough.

'These students have no place in our school, and need to be removed immediately.,' the petition reads.

'The damage they have done to our community is irreversible and cannot be compensated in any form other than justice for their disgustingly irresponsible actions.

'As a 12th grade female attending Bedford High School, I will refuse to be silent about this issue in honor of the girls that are too afraid of ridicule to speak up, and I encourage all members of the Bedford community and beyond, whether you are a parent, teacher, student, etc., to support our protest in the lack of discipline Bedford has demonstrated.'

Superintendent Michael Fournier told NBC10 Boston that he acknowledged the gravity of the situation but stressed its hard to enact a punishment without names.

'The administration has been talking to kids. No names have come forward. So if there are names, we would like those names,' Fournier said.

'This is inappropriate. We're going to deal with it. There will be consequences. Once we know, then we'll know which consequences to issue.'

Antonio Bruno told WCVB his daughter, 15, may have been one of the girls whose photo was shared unknowingly.

'She saw the picture and she thinks she's one of the girls,' he said, adding that she no longer wants to go to school.

'We're thinking about maybe we'll move my daughter somewhere else because if she's not safe in school, where's she need to be safe then?'

Bedford has about 23,000 people and is located just outside of Manchester in southern New Hampshire. About 1,500 students attend the high school

School officials said students who received the inappropriate images were not given consent by the girls depicted in the photos and their families have been told

According to WMUR school administrators interviewed 35 students on Friday over the incident, but there are still no solid leads on the boys involved.

Jozokos said one student shared two collage photos of girls wearing bathing suits, shorts or tops with school administrators.

None of the pictures depicted nudity and school officials said they were not taken in or around campus.

He confirmed at least two students received those images and numerous reports said three to five students were sharing the pictures through Snapchat.

School officials said students who received the inappropriate images were not given consent by the girls depicted in the photos and their families have been told.

Bedford has about 23,000 people and is located just outside of Manchester in southern New Hampshire. About 1,500 students attend the high school.
The animal was taken to PAWS of Coronado, but it is unclear if it is going up for adoption

One person parked on freeway and got out to rescue the animal, causing a three-car pileup

A kitten was seen dodging between lanes of traffic on the Coronado Bridge

A small orange kitten was spotted darting through traffic on the Coronado Bridge, prompting someone to get out of their car and come to the rescue - only to cause a multiple-vehicle collision.

On the morning of September 26, a motorist stopped on the bridge in Coronado, California in an attempt to rescue the ginger kitten, who was darting between cars.

However, two other motorists didnt see the stopped vehicle and ran into it.

A photo posted by the Coronado Police Department showed a black Toyota sedan with a dented rear bumper and a red car with a mangled hood. The drivers were reported to have suffered minor injuries.

Coronado firefighters and CPD's Corporal Andrew Hutchens discovered the kitten hiding in the movable 'Zipper' lane divider.

The uninjured animal was taken to PAWS of Coronado to be cared for.

An eagle-eyed motorist spotted a ginger kitten running between lanes of traffic on the Coronado Bridge in California

Photos posted by the Coronado Police Department show the aftermath of the three-car collision, caused when two other vehicles ran into the parked vehicle

Firefighters and CPD's Cpl. Hutchens found the kitten hiding in the movable lane divider

The animal was uninjured and taken to PAWS of Coronado. It is unclear how it ended up on the freeway in the first place

The Pacific Animal Welfare Society, or PAWS, was founded by Dorothy Shirey in 2003.

The passionate advocate created the Coronado-based animal rescue and established a lasting partnership between PAWS and city government.

The shelter takes in hundreds of animals each year.

'Today we continue to honor Louises legacy by providing high-quality medical care, treating the animals in our care with love and compassion, and seeking to find each animal a perfect forever home through our adoption services,' the website reads.

Comments beneath the CPD's Facebook post proposed that the daring kitten be named Zipper.

It is unclear where the animal came from in the first place, but one furious commenter had ideas, demanding, 'Who would dump a cat on the bridge?'

Two adult cats are currently available for adoption at the shelter. A message promises that 'kittens season is in full swing' and several will be up for adoption soon.
Labour has scrapped plans to abolish the charitable status of private schools but insisted it would still add VAT to fees.

The party was accused of 'flip-flopping' after rowing back on previous proposals to rip up institutions' charitable status.

But Labour said it would press ahead with plans to charge schools 20 per cent VAT and scrap the 80 per cent relief they receive on business rates.

The change in policy will make it easier for the party to pass the controversial measures through parliament.

The U-turn came as Sir Keir Starmer denied that the proposed laws would leave parents picking up the bill for the tax increases.

He told the BBCs Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: I would add that its the VAT on schools that we are taking away.

Labour has scrapped plans to abolish the charitable status of private schools but insisted it would still add VAT to fees

The school doesnt have to pass this on to the parents in fees. And each of the schools is going to have to ask themselves whether thats what they want to do.

Independent schools can register as charities in return for acts that benefit the community. But the policy could force bursars to hit families with unaffordable charges from as early as next September.

READ MORE: Labour faces a backlash over its plans to put VAT on school fees immediately if the party wins power Advertisement

Julie Robinson, head of the Independent Schools Council, said: 'If Labour takes away the tax relief associated with charitable status for independent schools, the policy would create a two-tier system within the charity sector, setting a worrying precedent that any charity seen as not reflecting the political ideology of the day could by subject to additional taxes.'

Sir Anthony Seldon, head of Epsom College called on the party to stop 'flip-flopping' on policy. He said: 'They should be trying to improve state schools and not least by having steady policy, not flip-flopping.'

A Labour spokesman said tonight: 'We will remove the unfair tax breaks that private schools benefit from, to fund desperately needed teachers and mental health counselling in every secondary school.

'This doesn't require removing charitable status, however, driving high and rising standards for every child against the backdrop of a broken economy requires political choices.'

It comes as the headmaster of Sir Keir's old school urged the Labour leader to scrap plans to impose VAT on private schools.

The policy would fail to solve funding issues in the state sector, argued Reigate Grammar's Shaun Fenton.

He urged Sir Keir to row back on the plans and 'start talking about children' instead.

Sir Keir arrived at RGS in 1974 when it was a voluntary-aided selective grammar school, and stayed when it converted to an independent and fee-paying school in 1976

'Keir flourished as a pupil at Reigate Grammar School and we hold out a hand of partnership to him,' he told The i newspaper.

'We need to move past taxation debates and start talking about children.

'The independent sector stands ready to work with a Keir Starmer government to help our country's children, to boost teacher recruitment and retention, be part of a review of curriculum and qualifications, develop more intelligent accountability and inspections.'

Sir Keir arrived at RGS in 1974 when it was a voluntary-aided selective grammar school, and stayed when it converted to an independent and fee-paying school in 1976.

Experts fear removing private schools' charitable status will flood the state sector with 40,000 pupils whose parents will be priced out by the rise in fees.
Detectives investigating the deaths of three people after eating a Beef Wellington meal that included poisonous mushrooms will be focusing on one major question, according to a leading expert.

Investigators are probing the deaths of Gail Patterson and her husband Don Patterson after eating a meal served by their daughter-in-law Erin Patterson on July 29 at Leongatha in Victoria.

Gail's sister Heather was also killed, while Heather's husband Pastor Ian Wilkinson survived only after lengthy hospital treatment.

World-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett said the investigation will be looking closely at a food dehydrator thrown away by Erin Patterson.

'That's probably the crux of this whole case, Erin Patterson said she disposed of that dehydrator in the tip shortly after the meal,' Dr Mallet told Sunrise on Thursday.

'The question is, are there spores in the dehydrator? That's an extremely important piece of information that could either confirm or refute whether deathcap mushrooms have ever been in that dehydrator.'

Erin Patterson is pictured outside her home days after serving the mushroom meal

World renowned forensic anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett (pictured) said detectives will be focusing on one question

Police found the food dehydrator at a local tip, which Ms Patterson claimed she dumped amid concern her estranged husband would connect it to the meal and blame her for his parents' death and thereby gain custody of their two children.

She told police the mushrooms used in the lunch were a mixture of button mushrooms bought from a supermarket and dried mushrooms she bought from an Asian supermarket in Melbourne months earlier.

Erin Patterson has denied any wrongdoing, and Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that she intentionally poisoned her four relatives.

On Wednesday, veteran The Age journalist John Silvester wrote in a newspaper column that forensic tests have confirmed the lunch guests ate poisonous mushrooms.

'The good news is that detailed forensic tests have come back and confirmed the cause of the three deaths is indeed mushroom poisoning,' the well-connected writer, author and podcaster said.

'The bad news is that how the mushrooms ended up on the lunch table remains a matter of conjecture.'

Victoria Police declined to comment on - or confirm - Mr Silvester's claims to Daily Mail Australia. 'The investigation remains ongoing.'

Don and Gail Patterson also sadly died after attending the lunch (pictured together)

Ian Wilkinson (pictured right with wife Heather Wilkinson) has been released from hospital after spending weeks recovering from a poisonous mushroom lunch that claimed the lives of three others including his wife

Dr Mallet said the confirmation of the toxin was an important development.

'It is certainly is an important step forward.'

'Deathcap mushrooms contain three different types of toxin, so they would have to make sure they could test the remains and any other samples that were available to them to determine specifically what the type of toxin was.

'Because at some point, charges may be laid against somebody, and the test will have to stand up to forensic scrutiny in court at that stage.

'The police will follow every line of enquiry, they have to be sure of their conclusions, and we have two courses to follow then after that.

'It will either go to colonial inquest or charges will be laid against somebody for supplying and providing those mushrooms that went into that meal - and we don't know how that happened.'
Rishi Sunak hailed the approval of a major oil and gas drilling project yesterday as he stepped up his opposition to counter-productive green pledges.

The Prime Minister said the decision was the best way to ensure Britain's energy security after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring.

Mr Sunak has already moved to delay or dilute costly green pledges such as banning new petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers.

His support for the scheme will draw a clear battle line with Labour, which has said it opposes new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

Mr Sunak tweeted: 'As we make the transition to renewables, we will still need oil and gas  it makes sense to use our own supplies such as Rosebank. This is the right long-term decision for the UK's energy security.'

Rishi Sunak hailed the approval of a major oil and gas drilling project today as he stepped up his opposition to counter-productive green pledges

Announcing the move yesterday, Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said that even by 2050, fossil fuels will still be producing a quarter of Britain's power and accused critics of 'relying on foreign regimes'.

Regulators approved the Rosebank development off the northern coast of Scotland despite condemnation from Labour, the SNP and campaigners. Ministers hailed the move as a step towards energy independence.

A BBC emergency A BBC presenter was not following corporation guidelines in referring to climate change as 'the climate emergency' yesterday. Martha Kearney used the phrase as she discussed the Rosebank decision with Ithaca Energy boss Gilad Myerson on Radio 4. It sparked speculation the BBC may have changed its house style to use the term but sources said this was not the case. It is understood there are no strict rules on the phrase. Advertisement

Ms Coutinho said: 'The choice we face is this: Do we shut down our own oil and gas leaving us reliant on foreign regimes? Do we lose 200,000 jobs across the UK? Do we import fuel with much higher carbon footprints instead? And lose billions in tax revenue?

'Keir Starmer's approach will lead to higher emissions and fewer British jobs. Labour would leave us worse off and threaten our ability to keep the lights on.'

The site  80 miles west of Shetland  contains more than 300million barrels of oil  twice the size of the controversial Cambo oil field.

The North Sea Transition Authority announced it had given its consent for the largest untapped oil reserve in UK waters to be developed.

Approval was given to owners Equinor and Ithaca Energy, following reassurances over environmental concerns, and production is expected to start in late 2026.

The site could produce 69,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak  about 8 per cent of the United Kingdom's daily output  and about 44million cubic feet of gas per day in its first ten years.

Supporters say it will reduce reliance on imports and provide jobs in the UK. Gilad Myerson, executive chairman of Ithaca Energy, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it will create more than 1,600 jobs and provide 'a significant amount of tax revenues for the Treasury'. The Government said in July that it would issue hundreds of new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

Labour has said that, while it opposed the Rosebank development, it would not revoke the licence if it won the next general election. The party has pledged to end new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Labour's business and trade spokesman Jonathan Reynolds told Sky News the priority should be on transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Campaigners take part in a Stop Rosebank emergency protest outside the UK Government building in Edinburgh on Wednesday

He added: 'Real energy security will only come from moving to nuclear, to renewables, to technologies that will insulate us from those pressures.'

'But we have said we understand this is a difficult position for investors. We will not revoke any licences but we don't think this is good value for money.'

The project also faces criticism due to its impact on climate change and Britain meeting its net zero commitments. Last month 50 MPs and peers from all major parties raised concerns Rosebank could produce 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

They wrote to then energy secretary Grant Shapps urging him to block the oil field.

Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf said developing Rosebank was 'the wrong decision'.

Last night Conservative former environment minister Lord Goldsmith told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: 'It just trashes the UK's reputation as a reliable, grown-up member of the global community; it's done us immeasurable harm.

'If this is the direction that the party is determined to take, there's no way I can vote for a party that positions itself where the Conservative Party is currently positioning itself on climate and nature.'

Lord Goldsmith resigned as a minister after accusing Mr Sunak of being 'uninterested' in the environment.
Media regulator Ofcom last night launched a probe into GB News after actor Laurence Fox made highly offensive comments about female political journalist Ava Evans on air.

The vulgar sexual remarks made by the 45-year-old activist sparked anger across the political divide yesterday, with the channel suspending Fox.

Ofcom confirmed it had received a 'number of complaints' and was 'assessing these complaints against our broadcast rules'. It added it would 'publish the outcome as quickly as possible'.

GB News, backed by hedge-fund tycoon Paul Marshall, apologised after Fox attacked Ava Evans, political correspondent for news website JOE. He sparked fury after he said 'who would want to s**g that? and asked 'what self-respecting man' would 'climb into bed' with 'that woman'. He also described her as a 'little woman'.

Ms Evans responded on social media, saying Fox's comments made her feel 'physically sick'.

Laurence Fox sparked fury after he said 'who would want to s**g that? and asked 'what self-respecting man' would 'climb into bed' with 'that woman'

Political correspondent for news website JOE, Ava Evans (pictured), said the exchange made her feel 'disgusting' and 'vile'

Later yesterday afternoon, GB News revealed that the presenter of the show, Dan Wootton, had also been suspended. Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer branded Fox's comments 'inappropriate and unacceptable' while Tory backbencher, Philip Davies, who co-presents a show on the channel, said the 'disgraceful' remarks were 'completely unacceptable, unjustifiable and indefensible'.

Labour shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire wrote on X, formerly Twitter: 'Last night's woman hating on air has hit a new low. Should we (women) have to tell a broadcaster that on-air woman-hate is not OK?'

And fellow Labour frontbencher Matthew Pennycook said: 'Ofcom must act to end this kind of odious behaviour whenever and wherever it takes place.'

Fox's outburst came during a discussion on GB News on Tuesday night, which came in response to Ms Evans' comments earlier this week that the idea of a minister for men would 'feed into the culture war'.

Appearing on BBC2's Politics Live on Monday, Ms Evans was accused of being dismissive about men's mental health issues. She subsequently admitted on social media she had been 'a little rash on my anti-minister for men comments which I do regret'.

Yet Fox, who founded the Reclaim Party in 2020, told the Dan Wootton Tonight show: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasn't an incel [involuntary celibate who hates women]?

'We need powerful strong amazing women who make great points for themselves, we don't need these sort of feminist 4.0... they're pathetic and embarrassing. Who would want to s**g that?' Wootton had seemed to laugh at Fox's comments before apologising yesterday. But Fox later revealed text messages between the pair making light of it, saying: 'Honesty is the best policy.'

Ms Evans said the exchange made her feel 'disgusting' and 'vile'. She revealed last night she had received a 'gracious' apology from GB News but had yet to decide if she would accept it.

Among the messages of support from the public were also 'threats that have come into my inbox'.

GB News apologised after Fox attacked Ava Evans (pictured)

GB News revealed that the presenter of the show, Dan Wootton, had also been suspended

Speaking to the BBC Newscast podcast, the journalist said: 'There is a following that he has that is quite fanatical. I think that's possibly the most polite way I can say it and I've already been looking at a few threats that have come into my inbox, and I'm like, over the evening, is this going to really ramp up and maybe I'm going to have to watch over my shoulder before I go to my house.

'Just before we came in here, there was a tweet that said 'watch your back'.' But Fox, whose acting credits include Morse spin-off Lewis and Gosford Park, refused to back down, saying he 'won't ever apologise to the mob' and declaring: 'I stand by every word of what I said.'

GB News, which has previously broken broadcasting rules three times, responded to the controversy not long after the programme aired, to say the remarks were 'totally unacceptable' and did not 'reflect our values'.

It added it had launched an investigation. The broadcaster put out a further statement revealing it had 'formally suspended' Fox, who presents shows for the channel, while it carried out its probe.

It is unclear at this stage if Fox will ever return to the channel. Staff are said to be calling for him to be permanently exiled.

There have been three breaches of broadcasting rules by GB News since it launched in 2021.

The first saw the channel fall foul of the rules by presenting a 'misleading interpretation' of data around the Covid vaccine 'risking harm to viewers'. Author Naomi Wolf separately claimed, unchallenged, that the vaccine was comparable to the 'actions of doctors in pre-Nazi Germany'.

Fox, who founded the Reclaim Party in 2020, said: 'We're past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman'

Laurence Fox made highly offensive comments about a female political journalist whilst on GB News

The channel has also been reprimanded for breaking impartiality rules when two Tory MPs interviewed Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. It is being investigated over a further six cases involving impartiality and politicians as presenters.

The scandal comes at a time when Mr Marshall, who reportedly owns nearly half of GB News, is said to be putting together a bid for the Telegraph Media group, which includes the Daily Telegraph.

Yesterday afternoon the channel said: 'GB News has suspended Dan Wootton following comments made on his programme by Laurence Fox last night. This follows our decision earlier today to formally suspend Mr Fox. We are conducting a full investigation.'

Today a spokesperson for dmg media said: 'Following events this week, dmg media can confirm that Dan Woottons freelance column with MailOnline - which had already been paused - has now been terminated, along with his contract.'
Donald Trump's supporters were out in force on Wednesday evening outside the site of the second Republican primary debate - despite the 77-year-old being 2,000 miles away in Detroit.

Seven presidential hopefuls have taken to the stage at the Reagan National Library in Simi Valley, California, for the event hosted by Fox Business.

But Trump has skipped the debate once again.

Instead of challenging his rivals, he ignored them, and held a rally in Detroit in support of striking auto workers where he called Joe Biden a 'wretched old vulture' and a 'rotten politician' trying to 'rape and pillage' American jobs.

Trump's visit comes just a day after Joe Biden was in Michigan, where the staunchly pro-union president joined the striking workers on the picket line.

A fan of Donald Trump is seen on Wednesday outside the Reagan National Library - despite Trump being 2,000 miles away

Trump's die-hard fans were not put off attending the California event by his absence

Flags flying and banners waving, the Trump supporters showed their faith in the Republican front runner

Donald Trump seaking to supporters in Detroit

Scene outside GOP debate at Reagan Library pic.twitter.com/Gvvi0UhdB1  Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) September 27, 2023

QUICK GUIDE FOR SECOND GOP DEBATE Where: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California When: Wednesday 27, 2023 at 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET Who qualified: Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Doug Burgum Hosts: Fox Business and Univision Moderators: Fox News anchor Dana Perino, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Univision's Ilia Calderon Where to watch: Fox Business Network, Fox News, Rumble, streaming platform Fox Nation, Univision (in Spanish), its streaming platform ViX and website UnivisionNoticias.com Where will Trump be: Detroit, Michigan area, meeting with picketing auto union workers and delivering a speech Advertisement

Michigan voters helped both Trump and Biden win the White House  Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 - and union voters played a large part in both elections.

Biden won union voters by 20 points in 2020.

Trump lost those voters overall, but by a much narrower margin, in 2016.

He went on the win the state in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes.

In Simi Valley, meanwhile, all eyes are on the seven Republicans jostling for position behind Trump - the out-and-out front-runner.

To qualify for the second debate, candidates needed at least 3 percent support in two national polls or 3 percent in one national poll as well as two polls from four of the early-voting states  Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

The White House hopefuls also needed at least 50,000 unique donors, with at least 200 of those coming from 20 states or territories.

They also had to sign an RNC pledge promising to support the party's eventual nominee, meaning that even Chris Christie, the only one fiercely critical of Trump, must agree to back him if he is the nominee.

Trump has refused to say whether he will support the eventual nominee.

Many of his Republican colleagues have also dodged the question.

A Trump supporter is seen outside the Reagan National Library on Wednesday

Pro-migration groups were also among the crowd outside the debate venue

A Trump supporter is seen with a sign promoting the Constitution, and the 45th president

One woman holds up a sign calling for the imprisonment of California's Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom

A woman in a MAGA cap shows her support for Trump outside the debate venue on Wednesday

Trump supporters salute passersby in Simi Valley, California

Trump supporters are seen clashing with pro-migrant activists

A Trump fan shows her support for the 77-year-old in California

One fan created signs proclaiming that Trump, indicted on 91 criminal counts, was 'innocent' and 'wanted for president 2024'

Some of the former president's fans banged drums and chanted as they waved their flags

A man in an embroidered Trump jacket shows his support, next to another fan of Trump's planned border wall

The 77-year-old's fans waved flags and banners, despite him not being anywhere near California

Banners proclaimed that Trump was the last hope 'for America and the world'

Latinas for Trump show off their t-shirts on Wednesday in California, outside the debate venue

Trump's supporters were in high spirits on Wednesday, with their candidate well ahead in the polls

The stage has been set for the debate, which will be held at 9pm ET on Wednesday

Seven candidates met the Republican National Committee's heightened qualifications to participate in the second primary debate. Above is how they will line up on the stage in California on Wednesday night

Christie, a former ally of Trump and governor of New Jersey, is taking on Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and current distant second to Trump in polls.

DeSantis is closely followed by both political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire, and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump's former UN ambassador.

Mike Pence, Trump's vice president, is on the stage, along with Tim Scott, senator for South Carolina.

The seventh is long-shot candidate Doug Burgum, a former software entrepreneur now in his second term as North Dakota's governor.

Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, failed to meet the debate criteria.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace predicted Wednesday that 'all eyes will be on Nikki Haley' tonight after the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor wowed at the first GOP debate last month in Milwaukee.

'The last time we had a discussion was right before the first debate and I said do not underestimate Nikki Haley. And if she has another big night I think you'll continue to see her walk away from the rest of the field,' Mace told Fox News' Neil Cavuto.

Mace, a moderate Republican who criticized former President Donald Trump and survived his attempt to primary her, told Cavuto she had yet to pick a candidate to back in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

She said she 'loved' both Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, but added, 'there's something about seeing a strong woman from South Carolina, from my district, being out there and doing her thing.'

Mace also floated that she believed Haley's ascent could be stymied if other hopefuls don't drop out of the race.
Today marks 25 years of what's now the most widely-used search engine

In September 1998, Google was created in a garage by two Stanford University students  a humble beginning to say the least.

Who would have thought a quarter of century later it would be the world's most used search engine with unprecedented access to our personal data?

To mark its 25 birthday, Google has packed its site with Easter Eggs, including a new Google Doodle  a temporary alteration of its logo  with '25' in place of where the two Os would normally be.

Meanwhile, if you enter 'Google 25th birthday' into the search bar, colourful confetti will rain down over your results.

The tech giant has also brought back its 'birthday surprise spinner', which lets you play interactive games from its archives, including Pac-man, Snake and Tic-tac-toe.

The new Google Doodle - a temporary alteration of the Google logo - has '25' in place of where the two Os would be

The Google birthday surprise spinner chooses a an interactive games for users to play from the search engine's archives

What is Google's birthday spinner? Google originally introduced its birthday spinner back in 2017 when it celebrated its 19th birthday. It lets users play interactive games from the search engine's archives, including Pac-man, Snake and Tic-tac-toe. Searching 'Google birthday surprise spinner' will bring up the multi-coloured carnival wheel at the top of the search results. It will automatically start spinning and select a game for you, although you can opt to spin again if you want to play something else. Advertisement

Searching 'Google birthday surprise spinner' will bring up the multi-coloured carnival wheel at the top of the search results.

It will automatically start spinning and select a game for you, although you can opt to spin again if you want to play something else.

Google has also published a gallery of 25 changes made to its search product since it launched, including Images in 2001, Voice Search in 2006 and Lens in 2017.

And a new video shows how the search capabilities have evolved in the past quarter century, assisted by artificial intelligence (AI).

Search 'how to cut a pineapple' on Google in 1998 and you'd perhaps be given a few sites, but do so today and you'll be inundated with a slew of images, explainer videos, recipes and more.

In a blog post today, Google has thanked the public for '25 years of curiosity' that has fueled the company's astonishing success.

'We love dreaming up new ways that technology can be helpful to you every day, and are endlessly inspired by what you've used it to achieve,' it says.

'We're also humbled by the opportunities ahead, and the potential for AI to help us continue to deliver on our mission and improve the lives of even more people around the world.

Search 'how to cut a pineapple' on Google in 1998 and you'd perhaps be given a few websites

But enter the same query so today and you'll be inundated with images, explainer videos, blog posts, recipes and more

READ MORE Hidden lists on your phone show what Google knows about you Location tracking in the Google Photos app comes down to metadata - the hidden data embedded within the pictures you take Advertisement

'From all of us at Google, thanks for an amazing 25 years. Here's to many more years of curiosity.'

Although it is now a multi-billion-dollar company and owner of the world's dominant web-based search engine, Google's origins were far more modest.

Google was officially launched in September 1998 by Stanford University Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search.

The duo used the garage of Susan Wojcicki (now known as former CEO of YouTube) in California as their first office.

Their search project had originally been called BackRub  a questionable choice  but luckily it was changed to its now world-famous name prior to launch.

'Google' is a misspelling of the word googol, which is a term for the number one followed by one hundred zeros (as die-hard fans of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' will likely know).

Despite Google celebrating its birthday on September 27, papers to incorporate the company were actually filed on September 4, 1998.

The company became incorporated three days later and the domain was registered on September 15.

A spokesperson for Google told MailOnline that September 27 is when it made the announcement that it was 'shifting away from showing how many pages it indexed'  but that this public announcement wasn't until September 27, 2005.

So who knew that the power of Google extends to it choosing its own birthday?

Google founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin (right) in their first office, Susan Wojcicki's garage, back in 1999

Google Beta: How the multi-billion-dollar company's world-famous search function looked 25 years ago

Originally Google was a single-product company with only Google Search to its name, but now its hardware and software seem to permeate every corner of our lives.

Online innovations subsequently launched include Google Maps, Google Street View and Google Earth, as well as its Chrome web browser, Gmail email service and video conferencing platform Google Meet.

Its Android operating system is one of the two dominant software for smartphones today's (along with Apple's iOS).

But unlike iOS, Android is run on phones made by multiple companies, including Samsung, Xiaomi, Nothing and Google itself.

The first official Google phone  the Google Pixel  was released in 2016, although before this it collaborated with HTC on the Nexus One.

Google even has a physical presence in our living rooms thanks to smart speaker products in its Google Nest range, powered by Google Assistant.

Meanwhile, Google Glass, released in 2013, was one of the first smart glasses on the market, bringing information right in front of people's eyeballs.
There are some things that money just can't buy, and the new iPhone 15 Pro Max is looking like it might be one of them.

Even if you are prepared to face the 1,500 price tag, you won't be able to get your hands on the new device until the end f November as wait times for the new device ramp up.

Despite a launch plagued with issues including devices overheating or breaking in users' hands, orders of the new iPhones remain strong as demand appears to outpace supply.

Estimated delivery times have quietly been extended by up to 58 days for the Pro series of phones with the more expensive 15 Pro Max seeing the longest delays.

Ordering a 15 Pro directly from Apple to the UK is estimated to take between 30-38 days, while the 15 Pro Max will not arrive for 51-58 days.

There are some things that money just can't buy, and the new iPhone 15 Pro Max is looking like it might be one of them. Even if you are prepared to face the 1,500 price tag, you won't be able to get your hands on the new device until the end f November as wait times for the new device ramp up

WAIT TIMES FOR IPHONE 15 MODELS IN THE UK Model Finish Storage Estimated Delivery iPhone 15 Any Any 13-16 days iPhone 15 Plus Any Any 13-16 days iPhone 15 Pro Natural Titanium Any 31-38 days iPhone 15 Pro Blue Titanium Any 31-38 days iPhone 15 Pro White Titanium Any 31-38 days iPhone 15 Pro Black Titanium Any 31-38 days iPhone 15 Pro Max Natural Titanium Any 51-58 days iPhone 15 Pro Max Blue Titanium Any 31-38 days iPhone 15 Pro Max White Titanium Any 51-58 days iPhone 15 Pro Max Black Titanium Any 31-38 days

MailOnline checked the Apple Store to see how long it would take to have any of the new iPhone models delivered in the UK.

As of 12:22pm BST, we found that the devices with the longest wait times were the iPhone 15 Pro Max in White Titanium or Natural Titanium, which will take up to 58 days to arrive.

The cheaper iPhone 15 and 15 Plus meanwhile are experiencing far less severe delays, only taking 13-16 days to get hold of either of the models.

Apple fans have taken to social media to express their frustrations, with many who ordered their devices on release day seeing long delays and changes to their expected delivery times.

One commenter wrote on X (formerly Twitter): 'I was online before the hour, store didn't open until almost 15 past. Had my preorder ready in the cart, and still arriving second week in October.'

Another wrote that after ordering a device with network provide O2, the original delivery date of September 22 has been repeatedly pushed back through a series of text messages reading: 'Sorry, it should be with you between Up to 3 weeks.'

After experiencing further delays of up to two weeks through an order with their network provider, another X user said they had 'no idea why I even bother with Three anymore'.

MailOnline checked the Apple Store to see how long it would take to have any of the new iPhone models delivered in the UK. As of 12:22pm BST, we found that the devices with the longest wait times were the iPhone 15 Pro Max in White Titanium or Natural Titanium, which will take up to 58 days to arrive

One user commented 'what a fail this iPhone launch is', adding that there had been 'no communication about delays in shipping'.

Meanwhile in Delhi, a viral video shows two men attacking a phone store employee as frustrations over delayed delivery turned violent.

The video shows two customers assaulting an employee of an electronics showroom after discovering they would not be able to receive their new phones on the day of release.

The delays may not necessarily be a bad sign for Apple as they could indicate higher than expected demand for the more expensive models.

Already Apple fans have taken to social media to express their frustration, with many who ordered their devices on release day seeing long delays and changes to their expected delivery times

READ MORE: iPhone 15 Pro is plagued with issues just one week after hitting shelves: Buyers complain of overheating, metal changing colour and the 1,499 device bending in the hand Would you pay over 1,000 for a phone that can break in your hands? Apple fans are now having to ask themselves that question as a review shows how fragile the new iPhone 15 Pro Max really is Advertisement

In a blog post, Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote that 'demand for the iPhone 15 Pro Max is robust, as previously expected, outpacing last year's iPhone 14 Pro Max.'

However, Mr Kuo acknowledged that wait times for the 15 Pro Max were 'significantly longer than for other models' and insisted that this was 'more than just due to high demand.'

'Current iPhone 15 Pro Max shipments are lower due to a later mass production schedule, and its current production challenges are more pronounced than other models,' he wrote.

Apple is yet to release an official statement on the reason for the delays, meaning that it cannot be confirmed whether this is due to high demand, productions challenges, or a combination of both.

Delays are far from the only thing to consider if you're still deciding whether or not to upgrade to the latest model.

Some users have found the titanium band, which is only available on the more expensive 15 Pro and Pro Max models, changes colour through handling.

Apple has had to admit that the new material can temporarily change colour if it does not have protection from fingerprints.

Social media users have shared pictures of the phone with significant discolouration, while one tweeted that it was 'kinda wild considering the price of this tech'.

Multiple users have reported that their iPhone 15 Pros getting extremely hot after only a few minutes of use, with the natural titanium finish becoming too hot to hold in some cases.

In a video posted to YouTube one Chinese tech blogger known as Geekerwan recorded the new phone hitting a staggering 48C during a test.

Another reviewer found an issue that some users might find even more worrying as YouTuber JerryRigEverything, whose real name is Zack Nelson, managed to crack the back glass with his bare hands.

Putting the new iPhone 15 Pro Max through his signature 'Durability Test' Mr Nelson was able to easy shatter the glass back plate of the most expensive model with only a slight bend.

In the video Mr Nelson said that the snap was 'abnormally quick' and that he was 'kinda stunned' by the results of his test.
NASA was forced to halt work on the asteroid samples that crashed to Earth this week after scientists spotted mysterious black dust inside the canister.

The samples were collected from Bennu's surface in 2020 as part of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission and touched down in the Utah desert on Sunday.

Scientists cracked open the canister today, which captured about eight ounces of debris, finding unidentified elements on the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on top of the avionics deck.

An image snapped by scientists shows the inside of the silver lid is smudged with black material.

NASA said that the dust will undergo a quick-look analysis to determine if it is material from the asteroid Bennu.

Scientists cracked open the canister today, finding unidentified elements on the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on top of the avionics deck

'The TAGSAM, which holds the bulk of the sample, will be carefully opened in the coming weeks,' NASA said.

The residue on the avionics deck found Tuesday was likely a result of issues during the collection, which NASA said were eventually solved, allowing the secure transfer of the sample.

But, scientists are working to confirm the theory.

OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta documented the picture of the sample canister after the successful removal of the lid as part of his duties written into the curation process.

Data collected from the OSIRIS-REx mission will also help scientists better understand asteroids that could impact Earth and inform future asteroid deflection efforts.

NASA said that the dust will undergo a quick-look analysis to determine if it is material from the asteroid Bennu

The samples were collected from Bennu's surface in 2020 as part of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission and recently touched down in the Utah desert on Sunday

In this image from a video provided by NASA, technicians in a clean room examine the sample return capsule from NASA's Osiris-Rex mission after it landed

READ MORE: Scientists sound alarm as NASA says small chance asteroid 'Bennu' could smash into earth While Bennu's chances of impact are just 1-in-2,700, more than five times a person's chance of being struck by lightning, NASA's team nevertheless has categorized it as one of the two 'most hazardous known asteroids.' Advertisement

To investigate these questions, scientists must carefully preserve, protect, and handle the asteroid samples, which will be examined and stored in a new curation facility managed by NASA's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division, or ARES, at Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Osiris-Rex, the mothership, rocketed away on the $1 billion mission in 2016.

It reached Bennu two years later and grabbed rubble from the small, roundish space rock in 2020 using a long stick vacuum.

When it returned, the spacecraft had logged four billion miles.

The capsule hit the atmosphere at 27,650 miles per hour (mph) after being released by the spacecraft at 6.42 am ET.

But it was crucial that the sample remained uncontaminated by anything from Earth, and the parachute had slowed it to a stately 11 mph after deploying at 20,000 feet.

NASA's recovery effort in Utah included helicopters and a temporary clean room at the Defense Departments Utah Test and Training Range.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft dropped off the cup-sized container of rubble from the Bennu asteroid into Earth orbit on Sunday morning before heading to its next target.

The pebbles and dust delivered Sunday represent the biggest haul from beyond the moon.

Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system, the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed, providing 'an extraordinary glimpse' of 4.5 billion years ago, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Currently orbiting the sun 50 million miles (81 million kilometers) from Earth, Bennu is about one-third of a mile (one-half of a kilometer) across, roughly the size of the Empire State Building.

The name Bennu was selected from more than eight thousand entries by students in dozens of countries around the world who entered the 'Name that Asteroid!' contest in 2012.

A helicopter delivers a space capsule carrying NASA's first asteroid samples on Sunday

Third-grade student Michael Puzio from North Carolina suggested the winning name in reference to an ancient Egyptian mythological bird.

The asteroid is shaped like a spinning top and is believed to be the broken fragment of a much larger space rock.

During its two-year survey, Osiris-Rex found Bennu to be a heap of rubble full of boulders and craters.

The surface was so loose that the spacecrafts vacuum arm sank a foot or two (0.5 meters) into the asteroid, sucking up more material than anticipated and jamming the lid.

But these close-up observations may come in handy late in the next century.

Bennu is regarded as the most dangerous rock in the Solar System because its intersecting orbit with Earth gives it the highest chance of hitting the planet of any known space object.

It is expected to come dangerously close to Earth in September 2182 - exactly 159 years to the day after Sunday's scientific triumph.

The data gleaned by Osiris-Rex will help with any asteroid-deflection effort, said lead scientist Dante Lauretta.

Osiris-Rex is already chasing after the asteroid Apophis, and will reach it in 2029.
Instrument may have been used for ceremonies or to intimidate rival tribes

Experts have created the sound of the Aztec Death Whistle using 3D printing

It's been described as the 'scariest sound in the world'  somewhere between a spooky gust of whistling wind and 'the scream of a thousand corpses'.

Now, experts have recreated the noise of the Aztec Death Whistle, by building a new version of the legendary instrument with a 3D printer.

They created their new whistles based on the design of the skull-shaped original, which was found with a skeleton in Mexico in the late 1990s.

It's thought the skull-shaped whistle may have been used by Aztecs before they were killed in ceremonies to honour the god of wind, Ehecatl.

In the Aztec creation myth, two gods gathered in a sacrificial fire and became the sun and moon, but were immobile until Ehecatl blew on them.

Who was Ehecatl? It is thought the death whistles were linked to Ehecatl - the god of wind. He is usually shown with two masks through which the wind blew and his temple was cylindrical because wind blows in all directions. In the myth, three gods gathered in a sacrificial fire and became the sun and moon. They were immobile until Ehecatl blew on them. In a later legend, he helped sacrifice all the gods apart from one, who escaped to light up the world. It is thought the ancient culture sacrificed humans to pacify Ethecatl. Death whistles were found in the hands of a sacrificed male skeleton in front of the temple of Ehecatl. Advertisement

A new video of the 3D-printed whistle was posted by the Action Lab, an educational YouTube channel dedicated to performing scientific experiments.

'This has been deemed the most terrifying sound in the world,' says presenter James J. Orgill.

'Believe it or not, this is not a human scream.

'The sound that the death whistle makes innately strikes fear into your heart.'

It was back in 1999 that the original Aztec Death Whistle was found held in the hand of a headless skeleton during the excavation of an Aztec temple in Mexico City.

'Archaeologists first thought that this must be some sort of toy and they didn't think much about it,' says Orgill in the new video.

'It wasn't until 15 years later for some reason a scientist blew into the hole in the top of it and this is the sound that came out.

'It was a startling discovery because it sounded like a screaming human.'

Although the exact purpose of the death whistle has been lost to history, there are several leading theories.

Some experts think the Aztecs likely used the noise to help people's souls travel to the afterlife when they were sacrificed.

Now, people can buy their own death whistle on Amazon made from a variety of materials such as resin, ceramic and even carbon fibre

In 1999, the original Aztec Death Whistle was found held in the hand of a skeleton during the excavation of an Aztec temple in Mexico City

Spectrogram of the sound waves from the death whistle, which makes a sound like a screeching zombie

READ MORE Aztec treasure trove found in Mexico City Templo Mayor was the main temple of the indigenous Aztec people Advertisement

Perhaps the original skeleton was buried with the device as a protection, to scare away evil spirits as they left this world.

But the whistles may also have been used by warriors to 'strike fear in the hearts of the enemies' at the beginning of battle, Orgill claims.

The shape of the whistle mimics the shape of a human larynx, according to the expert.

Once the user blows into it, the air is split into two, creating oscillating sound waves that circulate around a large chamber before escaping from a second hole.

Some of the whistles have a ball inside the chamber, often made of cork, which bounces around and further distorts the sound.

During the video, Orgill tests out modern-day versions of the Aztec Death Whistle made using a 3D printer from US firm HeyGears.

They produce different sounds depending on how big the object is and where exactly they're placed on the lips when blown into.

People can already buy their own death whistles on Amazon made from a variety of materials such as resin, ceramic and even carbon fibre.

According to one Amazon product description, they 'emit a scream that sounds like a woman being in horrible agony' and are 'perfect for Halloween'.

They also make a helpful prop for dramatic productions  for example, for scenes when characters hear a scream off-stage.

It is thought the death whistles were linked to Ehecatl - the god of wind. He is usually shown with two masks through which the wind blew and his temple was cylindrical because wind blows in all directions. Pictured is a statue in the Brooklyn Museum (New York City

'For some reason the effect of making it sound like a scream is stronger when you don't actually watch the person blowing into the whistle,' Orgill says.

'[This is] probably because your brain knows it's a whistle.'

The Aztec Death Whistle attracted the attention of archaeologists because of their skull shape, but it is only recently that their fearsome noise has been investigated.

Mexican musician Quijas Yxayotl thinks the death whistle was used for special ceremonies, including the Day of the Dead, and in warfare.

'They played over a hundred instruments; a hundred death whistles marching to cause a big psychological effect to the enemy,' he said.
His beautiful photographs of sharks are revealed in his new photography book, titled Shark: Portraits

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When Mike Coots was 18, he was attacked by a tiger shark while bodyboarding with friends in Hawaii.

He lost his right leg, at the calf, in the attack and suffered such extensive blood loss that doctors said he should have died.

But in the years that followed the ordeal, rather than exacting revenge on the species or refusing to set foot in the water again, he went down an entirely different path.

Coots, now aged 44, became deeply fascinated by sharks and devoted his life to photographing them  with mesmerising results. His work enormously benefits both sharks and humans, helping the world to better understand these oft-misunderstood apex predators.

The conservationist is showcasing his spectacular shark photography in a new book, Shark: Portraits (published by Rizzoli), in a bid to illustrate how sharks can be beautiful and are much needed as an apex predator for the health of our oceans, he tells MailOnline Travel.

Mike Coots has compiled his magnificent shark photography into a new book, Shark: Portraits. Above is one of the images from the photobook, showing a great white shark named Buckethead off the coast of Mexico's Guadalupe Island

LEFT: In this powerful shot by Coots, a female tiger shark named Emily is seen floating towards the camera at the Tiger Beach dive site in the Bahamas. RIGHT: Named after the world-renowned St. Lawrence String Quartet violinist, Geoff Nuttall is a male great white shark. In this spectacular shot by Coots, he can be seen in waters near Mexico's Guadalupe Island

Following a 1997 shark attack, Hawaiian photographer Mike Coots (above) devoted his life to shark conservation

Coots shark attack occurred in 1997 when he went out to catch some waves early one morning in his native Kauai. He recalls: I paddled for a wave, and a large tiger shark attacked me. I felt no pain, just a lot of pressure.' Reflecting on why he was attacked, he says: 'It [was] the time of year when more attacks happen, and the water was murky.' He notes that the shark 'probably mistook [him] for a turtle'.

Thankfully, Coots managed to punch the shark in the nose and it let go of him. He made it to the beach, where his friend applied a tourniquet that saved his life.

At the time, Coots thought he was going to die, but it wasnt scary, he says, adding that he went into shock on the way to the hospital. I woke up the next day post-surgery happy to be alive, he says.

He went on to study photography in college, cutting his teeth in the craft by shooting models and professional surfers. It was after his graduation that he started to develop a passion for shark conservation.

A lightning bolt moment came when he was invited on a shark-diving trip and brought a camera along with him. After that, [sharks] became my favourite subject to photograph, says Coots, adding that sharks 'are beautiful, mysterious, technically difficult as a subject and really fun to photograph'.

Over the past two decades, he has built up a network with fellow conservationists, with whom he visits shark-populated diving spots everywhere from Mexico to New Zealand.

A female great hammerhead shark named Pocahontas (also known as Patches) is shown at the Tiger Beach dive site in the Bahamas in this striking picture

LEFT: Coots photographing a tiger shark at the Tiger Beach dive site in the Bahamas. RIGHT: A great white shark nears the water's surface off the coast of Motunui, also known as Edwards Island, in New Zealand

This stunning shot shows a great white shark by Motunui, also known as Edwards Island, in New Zealand

But it's not always easy to track the creatures down. In fact, the biggest challenge Coots faces is finding sharks to photograph. He says: They are not as common as people think, and you sometimes have to go to the edge of the earth to find certain species.

In his career, Coots has documented everything from hammerhead sharks to tiger sharks. The largest creature he has ever shot is a 12ft (3.6m) mature female great white shark, he reveals.

Hes within inches of the sharks when hes photographing them, whether he's free-diving, scuba diving or in a shark cage.

Naturally, safety precautions are taken when shooting underwater. Coots says: The safest way to be underwater with sharks is to have clear visibility and lots of eye contact with sharks. They are ambush predators and if they know you know they are there, its much safer.

Coots explains that they're more likely to attack if you're in 'murky water' or 'splashing and looking like an injured animal'. He warns: Dont splash, panic, and if underwater always look at the shark and make yourself seem large... dont turn your back on a shark.

Inexperienced photographers can make mistakes when photographing the sharks too, he reveals. Coots says: They get caught up in looking through the camera viewfinder too much and are unaware of whats happening around them, especially if there are multiple sharks in the area.

Johnny Rainbow, a male great white shark, is captured in this magnificent close-up shot, taken by Mexico's Guadalupe Island. On his head, bite marks from another shark are visible

Shark: Portraits by Mike Coots, published by Rizzoli, is on sale now for 49 ($60). The cover image shows a great white shark by Guadalupe Island in Mexico

A hair-raising situation once enveloped Coots himself while underwater with a great white shark. He reflects: 'It came close to biting me, but I think it was just being territorial and wasnt hungry, otherwise, if it wanted to, it would have [bitten me]. I had so much adrenaline, and I had a hard time even talking a few hours after.

Its important to know the warning signs when sharks are preparing to attack. Coots says: They will drop their pectoral fins and arch their body and swim erratically.

But despite what some may think, sharks arent intent on hunting humans, Coots notes, explaining that the biggest misconception about these creatures is that a shark wants to bite you as soon as you enter the water. Thats the furthest from the truth, he admits.

Coots thinks that humans' misguided fear of sharks is largely a response to their representation in Hollywood - with films such as the 1974 blockbuster Jaws - and the media. Their physical traits also inspire terror, he notes, saying: 'They are also large, powerful, and have sharp teeth... its almost like a dinosaur that didnt go extinct.

The biggest positive to his work, he reveals, is getting to share compelling, authentic images to those who love sharks, and to those who are unfamiliar with them, showcase a new side [to sharks]. He hopes that this new book demonstrates how sharks are misunderstood, gorgeous as a subject and needed in our seas for a healthy planet.

Shark: Portraits by Mike Coots, published by Rizzoli, is on sale now for 49 ($60).
Amanda Holden oozed confidence as she left the Heart FM radio studios in London on Wednesday, after showing her support for David Walliams.

The BGT judge, 52, looked incredible in a black knitted figure-hugging midi dress, teamed with heeled leather boots.

She hid her eyed behind a pair of oversized sunglasses, while accessorising with gold jewellery and a black handbag.

Amanda's blonde locks were styled in a glamorous blow-dry and she appeared in high spirits as she flashed a smile for the cameras.

It comes after Amanda was pictured at David's 52nd birthday party earlier this month - alongside a whole host of showbiz royalty.

Beaming: Amanda Holden oozed confidence as she left the Heart FM radio studios in London on Wednesday, after showing her support for David Walliams

Support: It comes after Amanda was pictured at David's 52nd birthday party earlier this month - alongside a whole host of showbiz royalty

David and Simon Cowell's friendship is said to be 'on the rocks' as the comedian sues his former bosses at Britain's Got Talent.

The Little Britain creator, 52, is seeking significant damages from London-based Fremantle for a data protection breach after he quit his 1.5million a year job when audio surfaced of him making vile remarks about contestants during a break in filming.

And while David and Simon's once close friendship is said to be on the brink of collapse, the comedian has a number of stars who are still supporting him in the wake of the controversy.

While Amanda and Alesha are fiercely loyal to Simon, they also formed a close friendship with David.

The comedian took his seat alongside them as a host of Britain's Got Talent for ten years, before he stepped down from his role last year.

Former Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli took his place. When David announced he was departing the show, Amanda said on The One Show: 'We'll miss David.'

Distance is said to have grown between Simon and David as he seeks significant damages from London-based Fremantle, which produces the reality series for ITV .

Legal paperwork suggests he is accusing bosses of leaking details of his rude comments to a newspaper.

Court papers lodged at the High Court in London last Thursday, accuse the firm of data protection breach over the leaked transcript which prompted a swift end to ten year long stint as a judge on the show.

Stylish: The BGT judge, 52, looked incredible in a black knitted figure-hugging midi dress, teamed with heeled leather boots

Looking good: She hid her eyed behind a pair of oversized sunglasses, while accessorising with gold jewellery and a black handbag

Happy: Amanda's blonde locks were styled in a glamorous blow-dry and she appeared in high spirits as she flashed a smile for the cameras

Walliams, who is worth around 17million, quit the show last November, two weeks after he was caught calling an elderly contestant a 'c***' during a break in filming.

He was also heard disparaging a female contestant, calling her a 'slightly boring girl you meet in the pub that thinks you want to f*** them, but you don't'.

Comedian Clare Harrison Mccartney later claimed these comments were about her and branded Walliams a 'sad misogynist', but producers on the show denied the remarks were aimed at her.

Bruno later took over from him on the talent show, signing a big money deal .

A source told The Sun about David's decision to leave at the time: 'He hasn't taken the decision lightly, but it just feels like time to move on.'

'David has decided to bow out after a ten-year run. He wants to leave on a high after a wonderful time.

'His team have quietly been having conversations over the past few days where it has been made clear that David is readying himself to step down  and then producers will start to think about who might replace him.'

The star has hired legal company Brandsmiths, who specialise in data protection breaches.

Reports earlier this year claimed that Walliams quit BGT after the lewd and rude comments which he made during filming the show at the London Palladium in 2020 were exposed.

However, sources at the time suggested that he was actually pushed after a crisis management team was drafted in by Fremantle to manage the scandal which led to the former Little Britain comic apologising.

Legal drama: Distance is said to have grown between Simon and David as he seeks significant damages from London-based Fremantle (pictured in 2012 with Alesha and Amanda)

Pals: While Amanda and Alesha Dixon are fiercely loyal to Simon, they also formed a close friendship with David

Tasty: In one of the snaps David could be seen blowing out the candles of a yummy looking cake with a expletive-laden message

The comments, made in January 2020 during auditions at the London Palladium, were picked up on the programme's microphones.

He and his lawyers argued at the time that they were private conversations that were never intended for broadcast but two weeks later he was ousted.

In one incident, an older performer engaged in light-hearted banter with the judges in which he made a jibe about Walliams, an expose by The Guardian claimed.

After the audition, the pensioner left, after which Walliams is said to have described him as a 'c**t' three times.

In a separate incident, after a female contestant had walked off stage, Walliams remarked: 'She's like the slightly boring girl you meet in the pub that thinks you want to f*** them, but you don't.' He later added: 'I know, she's just like: 'Oh, f*** off!' I was saying, she thinks you want to f*** her, but you don't.

'It's the last thing on your mind, but she's like: 'Yep, I bet you do!'

'No I don't! I had a bit of a b***r, but now it's going, it's now shrivelled up inside my body.'

After the transcript was released a source at Britain's Got Talent told the Mail it 'could not have come at a worse time' for Walliams as his deal to return to the show had not been finalised.

They added: 'David's remarks have now become a huge part of the conversation.

'He hasn't signed any deal yet which has come as a relief because now there are options.

'It is a family show and this isn't just a negative thing to happen, it is offensive to people.'

Walliams was axed from the show after makin vile remarks about contestants, including one female competitor. Comedian Clare Harrison McCartney (pictured) claimed she was the subject of the these remarks, although this has been denied by BGT producers

Replacement: Bruno later took over from him on the talent show, signing a big money deal

Walliams, one of the UK's best-known television personalities and children's book authors, was forced to apologise for his outbursts - but insisted that they were private conversations.

In a statement given to the Guardian after the transcripts were revealed, Walliams said: 'I would like to apologise to the people I made disrespectful comments about during breaks in filming for Britain's Got Talent in 2020.

'These were private conversations and  like most conversations with friends  were never intended to be shared. Nevertheless, I am sorry.'

However, it was confirmed weeks later that he would not be returning to the show.

ITV said at the time that it did not 'condone' the language used and had spoken to producers of BGT.

Fremantle declined to comment.
You may remember him as the hunky housemate that took the Big Brother crown in 2020, but now Chad Hurst is flexing his muscles in a whole new arena.

Almost three years after emerging victorious on the Channel Seven reality show, the Aussie heartthrob has swapped diary rooms for dumbbells.

Partnering with friend Samer Trebincevic, Chad recently opened the doors to his Air Locker gym in North Sydney.

Speaking about his new venture, he told Daily Mail Australia, 'Lifting weights with my mates back in school got me hooked onto fitness. That love saw me becoming a certified trainer in 2011.'

He continued, 'A good mate introduced me to Air Locker, and after delving into the brand Sam and I were bowled over. The fierce passion behind the brand just sealed the deal.'

You may remember him as the hunky housemate that took the Big Brother crown, but now Chad Hurst is flexing his muscles in a whole new arena

Almost three years after emerging victorious on the Channel Seven reality show, the Aussie heartthrob has swapped diary rooms for dumbbells by opening his own Air Locker gym

Air Locker training is the latest exercise craze to take over the Australian fitness scene.

Its high intensity resistance training in a simulated altitude setting - 2800 to 3600 above sea level.

Oxygen is reduced to 13% (compared to 21% outside) which makes your body work harder.

Partnering with friend Samer Trebincevic (left), Chad recently opened the doors to his Air Locker gym in North Sydney

Air Locker training is the latest exercise craze to take over the Australian fitness scene and features high intensity training in a simulated altitude setting

The reported benefits include up to 30% more fat loss, great for soft tissue repair, and a huge boost in serotonin.

Hurst previously worked as a personal trainer at celebrity hotspot ACERO before deciding it was time to live out his dreams and run his own business.

Chad, who is signed to modelling agency IMG, previously expressed his gratitude for the opportunities that come from modelling in an interview with Daily Mail Australia.

'Life in the fashion world for me has always been a great ride. The opportunities and adventures it has given me, I'll always be grateful,' he said.
Gaby Roslin candidly discussed her health overhaul, including ditching booze, in a new interview on Wednesday.

The TV presenter, 59, looked incredible as she posed in a colourful ensemble on the front cover of Prima Magazine.

Gaby spoke openly about wishing she had given up alcohol sooner, as well as gushing over husband David Osman.

She told the publication: 'I wish I'd given up booze earlier and I wish I'd known how much better I'd feel for it. I gave up five years ago because of my walking  if I had a hangover, then I didn't walk.

'I'm lucky I didn't have a problem and I didn't drink very much. But the wonderful joy of not drinking is being about to leave a party. I can just say, "Okay, I'm going now, bye." I don't miss it.'

Happy and healthy: Gaby Roslin candidly discussed her health overhaul, including ditching booze, in a new interview on Wednesday

Stunning: The TV presenter, 59, looked incredible as she posed in a colourful ensemble on the front cover of Prima Magazine

Gaby is married to publisher David and they share daughter Amelie, and she shares daughter Libbi-Jack with ex-husband Colin Peel.

Gushing over her marriage, Gaby said: 'My husband, David, and I just fit together. He's my second husband and we've been together for 18 years now.

'We still really appreciate what we have. The things that makes it work is that we're not in competition with each other: we're very, very different. '

New: The November 2023 issue of Prima is now on sale

The couple tied the knot in 2013 after announcing their engagement in 2012 as Gaby appeared on Loose Women.

Gaby, who turns 60 next year, went on to discuss managing midlife. She said: 'There's a lot of ageism out there. It's no secret in my industry, but it's everywhere. You can't do this or that if you're a certain age.

'No! I'm lucky that I've carried on working, but I have friends who have experienced it. I know an actor who, at 55, was going for the part of someone older than her and was told that she was too old. They cast a 40-year-old. That's so wrong.'

Gaby is a presenter and broadcaster who first hit our screens in 1992 on Channel 4 series The Big Breakfast.

The Big Breakfast originally ran from 1992 to 2002, with Gaby presenting the show alongside Chris Evans from the show's inception until 1996.

In 1993, the programme was the highest rated breakfast show in the UK, with around two million viewers tuning in per episode.

Gaby remained on the show until 1996 when Zoe Ball took her place, other famous names to present the programme include Kelly Brook and Denise Van Outen.

She told the publication: 'I wish I'd given up booze earlier and I wish I'd known how much better I'd feel for it. I gave up five years ago because of my walking  if I had a hangover, then I didn't walk.'

Gushing over her marriage, Gaby said: 'My husband, David, and I just fit together. He's my second husband and we've been together for 18 years now.'

Speaking with The Mail On Sunday last year about the programme, Gaby said: 'Chris and I hit it off from the moment we first worked together.

'He was incredible to work with  hes thinking all the time. We never had a script, we just bounced off each other, making stuff up as we went along.'

As a girl, Gaby used to sit alongside the screen during broadcasts of Blue Peter, taking on the role of an imagined fourth presenter, getting her father -former BBC newsreader Clive Roslin- to pretend to film her.

Reflecting on finally getting to live her childhood dream she added: 'I can still remember that moment when I heard in my earpiece "Ten seconds to live" the first time. It was everything I hoped it would be. Ive loved every moment since.'

The November 2023 issue of Prima is now on sale
Elizabeth Debicki was a visino of elegance as she attended the Christian Dior womenswear spring/summer 2024 show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

The Australian actress, who is best known for her role as Princess Diana in The Crown, looked phenomenal in an all-black ensemble.

Her outfit consisted of a $5,500 jacket and matching $3,100 mid-length straight cut skirt with jacquard fabric that gave a cloque effect.

The blonde, 33, completed her look with a pair of large square-shaped sunglasses and gorgeous gold bangles.

Elizabeth showed off her leggy figure with tights and strapped heels, while her hair was effortlessly styled straight with a middle part.

Elizabeth Debicki, 33, (pictured) descended on the French capital in style on Tuesday, attending the Christian Dior Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show as part of Paris Fashion Week

She opted for a soft, natural makeup palette and a blush pink lip.

Elizabeth's appearance comes amid her blazing the promo trail for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, which premiered earlier this year.

The original installment in the Guardians of the Galaxy series was released in 2014, with the second film in the franchise subsequently released to much praise in 2017.

The Australian star, who is best known for her role as Princess Diana in The Crown , looked phenomenal in an all-black ensemble

Her outfit consisted of a $5,500 jacket and matching $3,100 mid-length straight cut skirt with jacquard fabric that gave a cloque effect

The blonde completed her look with a pair of large square-shaped sunglasses and gorgeous gold bangles

Elizabeth portrays Ayesha in the film, who is the leader of the Sovereign, a group of aliens who believe they are superior to other races. She initially took on the role in the franchise's second film, with her return confirmed late last year.

While there was much speculation that Elizabeth would reprise the role, many worried that her filming schedule for Netflix's The Crown would restrict this.

But managing to do both, it seems the star is in high demand currently as it was recently revealed that she is amongst a new batch of actors joining a star-studded sequel to the Mia Gothstarring horror films X and Pearl.

Elizabeth showed off her leggy figure with tights and strapped heels, while her hair was effortlessly styled straight with a middle part
Oti Mabuse has finally revealed the real reason she quit Strictly Come Dancing.

The dancer, 33, shocked fans in February last year when she announced she would be leaving the show as a double champion after seven years.

And though she was going from success after success, the star admitted she had plenty of 'dark days' that made her unable to eat and left her 'crying' in the shower.

Oti won the Glitterball trophy in two consecutive years with Emmerdale star Kelvin Fletcher, 37, and comedian Bill Bailey, 56, leaving many to believe that the South African could be set for a sensational hat trick.

But speaking on the All Change podcast, Oti admitted that the pressure of dealing with the celebrity contestants and stress she put on herself became too much.

Opening up: Oti Mabuse has finally revealed the real reason she quit Strictly Come Dancing

This forced her to turn to her husband, fellow dancer Marius Lepure, who she hailed as an 'amazing' person.

She explained: 'Luckily my husband again has been an amazing person who has seen the dark days, the days where I'm in the shower crying with my clothes on because it's so hard and it's so overwhelming.

'He's seen me not eat, he's seen me overeat, he's seen me struggle with not being able to get the best out of someone.

'He's seen me having to deal with 'interesting personalities.'

'So, he's the person that's seen the behind the scenes at the point where I'd got to where I was like: "I think I'm finished." He was like: "Yeah".'

She said she knew it came as a shock when, after being on the show for seven years and becoming one of its best known faces, she threw in the towel.

Oti added: 'I came from the biggest show on television. Every single human being on this planet, in this country, loves Strictly. People are obsessed.

'When you come from there, you are with that group, then when you decide you're going to leave it's like: "What? What do you mean?"

Sad: The dancer, 33, shocked fans in February last year when she announced she would be leaving the show as a double champion after seven years

QUIT! And though she was going from success after success, the star admitted she had plenty of 'dark days' that made her unable to eat and left her 'crying' in the shower (Pictured in 2020 with Bill Bailey as they won series 18)

Support: Oti revealed that the pressure became too much, forcing her to turn to her husband, fellow dancer Marius Lepure, who she hailed as an 'amazing' person

'I was met with a lot of: "Why would you leave? You're happy, you're at the top of your professional game, you professional game, you won the show?"'

But Oti, whose sister Motsi is still a judge on Strictly, said she wanted to go on to other projects that once again 'put the fire in my belly'.

Thankfully for her, she went on to become a judge on Dancing on Ice and hosted her own dating show, Romeo & Duet.

She added: 'I was really lucky at that point that just after winning my second title [on Strictly], ITV held their arms open and they were like "hey, come in!"

'So when I was jumping, there was somewhere to land. Even though I left, there was this whole world, a new family, that had opened doors for me and that's luck and I have to be honest about that, I have to be grateful for that.'

Oti is an eight-time South African Latin American Champion and first joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2015 when she was partnered with Olympic boxer Anthony Ogogo, 33, finishing in 14th place.

The following year she reached the final with Hollyoaks actor Danny Mac, 33, losing out to eventual winner Ore Oduba, 36.

In 2017, she was partnered with Paralympian Jonnie Peacock, 28, finishing in 8th place before performing with Graeme Swann, 42, for the show's 2018 series, where she was knocked out in Week 8.

She became only the second professional dancer to win the show twice, lifting the Glitterball with Kelvin in 2019 and Bill in 2020.

During her final series in 2021 she starred with rugby ace Ugo Monye, 38, finishing 11th in the Covid-hit season.

In April last year, Oti hinted 2021 could be her final season on Strictly.

She said: 'I love to dance and also I love bringing joy to so many people, but I think that [this year's Strictly] will be the last one.

Double champ! She left Strictly after winning the Glitterball trophy in two consecutive years with Emmerdale star Kelvin Fletcher, 37, (pictured in 2019) and comedian Bill Bailey, 56

'To be part of a show like Strictly, which is so diverse in every sense of the word, is incredible.'

It comes after Oti and husband Marius surprised both guests and viewers alike when they announced they were expecting their first child on air.

Embracing her husband, Oti began the final segment of her show as normal, before teasing that they had been 'holding in some good news'.

She said: 'Speaking of things that you didn't know at home, we have a little something for all of you, we've been holding some good news. We're having a baby!'

The couple then shared a warm embrace as the crew could be heard cheering, while Marisha and Chizzy looked completely shocked by the revelation.

After confirming the news live on air, Oti then took to Instagram to share an array of sweet snaps of herself cradling her baby bump as she posed alongside Marius.

Oti cosied up to her husband in the snaps and opened up on her pregnancy in an accompanying caption, admitting she is 'scared' but describing it as 'the best news'.

She also hinted at her due date as she told how their 'beautiful journey' is 'nearly over' and teased that 'Christmas is about to get even louder'.

Oti wrote : 'Our 'yes' year is getting better and better and so is our little family. We feel finally ready and excited to share our wonderful news.

'This is new for us scarier than swimming with sharks, jumping off cliffs or even swinging from bridges but the best news we could have ever ask for.

'We love our little bundle of joy so much already and can't wait to see what our future will now look like as family of 3 plus Leo, it's been a beautiful journey so far with close friends and family and nearly over but we have learnt a lot a long the way. Christmas is about to get even louder.'

Oti and Marius met in Germany during a dance trial and competed together in several competitions.

Marius popped the question on his birthday to the Dancing On Ice judge in 2014 and the pair married the same year.
Bindi Irwin revealed on Tuesday she has a 'second chance at life' following her endometriosis surgery in America after suffering in pain for 10 years.

The Wildlife Warrior, 24, said she 'was barely able to get out of bed' the week before her surgery because the agony was so great, reported Fox News Digital.

After suffering for a decade and being told by one doctor it was 'something women just have to deal with', Bindi was able to undergo major surgery in the US in March.

She told Fox News Digital this week: 'My life now looks completely different than it did before I had my surgery.

'Over the 10 years that I was really battling with endo without knowing it, I would get progressively worse every week and in the end, before my surgery, I was barely able to get out of bed.'

Bindi Irwin, 24, revealed on Tuesday she has a 'second chance at life' following her endometriosis surgery in America after suffering in pain for 10 years. Pictured with her mother Terri, daughter Grace, and husband Chandler Powell

The daughter of the late Steve 'the Crocodile Hunter' Irwin spoke for the first time about her decade-long struggle with the disease in a lengthy Instagram post on March 8.

The celebrity conservationist, who shares daughter Grace Warrior, one, with her husband Chandler Powell, also posted a confronting photo of herself in a hospital bed after the surgery.

The Crikey! It's the Irwins star said she had spent ten years 'torn apart [by] the pain' and knew she had to have surgery because she 'couldn't live like I was'.

The Wildlife Warrior said she 'was barely able to get out of bed' the week before her surgery because the agony was so great, reported Fox News Digital

She explained how the surgeon from the Seckin Endometriosis Center in New York City had removed a total of thirty-seven lesions and a 'chocolate cyst' - a term for a cyst filled with menstrual blood.

The practitioners at the Seckin Endometriosis Center typically perform surgeries at Lenox Hill Hospital, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Endometriosis is an often painful condition in which the tissue that lines the uterus also grows outside the uterus.

After suffering for a decade and being told by one doctor it was 'something women just have to deal with', Bindi was able to undergo major surgery in the US in March

There are a wide variety of symptoms: pain can affect areas ranging from the abdomen and lower back to the pelvis and vagina.

Other symptoms include painful sexual intercourse, abnormal menstruation, nausea, bloating, and pain with bowel movements.

Bindi at first wasn't sure if she wanted to discuss her health publicly, but decided to speak out because she hoped to help other women struggling with endometriosis.

She also wanted to draw attention to the fact doctors often do not take the condition seriously enough, noting how one physician had once told her the pain was just a normal part of being a woman.

She told Fox News Digital this week: 'My life now looks completely different than it did before I had my surgery. Chandler and Bindi are pictured on their wedding day in March 2020
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Anne Hathaway, Sigourney Weaver and Rebecca Hall all showed off some of their most elegant ensembles when they attended the Metropolitan Opera's opening night gala for its new production of the acclaimed opera Dead Man Walking on Tuesday in Manhattan.

Hathaway, 40, and Weaver, 73, both looked classy in all black outfits, with the Interstellar actress opting for a voluminous dress while Weaver went with a chic suit.

Hall, 41, brightened up the proceedings with a Gabriela Hearst ivory silk wool cady Yves top and a matching Menton skirt that highlighted her trim figure.

The leading ladies were joined by a bevy of A-listers for the arts opening, including Ben Stiller, Angela Bassett, Whoopi Golberg, Ellen Burstyn and many others.

They were celebrating the Met and its new production of Dead Man Walking, an opera based on the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean, which details her attempts to save a condemned man's soul before he is executed.

Leading ladies: Anne Hathaway, Sigourney Weaver and Rebecca Hall all showed off some of their most elegant ensembles when they attended the Metropolitan Opera's opening night gala for its new production of the acclaimed opera Dead Man Walking

The opera, which was composed by Jake Heggie and features a libretto by the late playwright Terrence McNally, has become one of the most popular contemporary works in recent decades since its 2000 premiere.

For her classy opening night look, Anne wore a plunging black sleeveless dress with thin straps and a textured, padded look to the material.

The skirt reached down to her ankles, just barely revealing her pointy-toed black heels, and she accessorized with a black handbag.

She also had on a black shawl covered in sparkling beads that was draped down around her elbows, though she removed it while on the red carpet.

Sigourney spiced up her black satin jacket with a matching blouse with thick frills that popped out over her chest and around her wrists for some extra flair.

She opted for sensible loafers with metallic floral embellishments over the toes, and she styled her brunette locks in a voluminous bob.

Rebecca contrasted the other two stars with her cream-colored ensemble.

She flashed a hint of her toned midriff thanks to her long-sleeved crop top, which was slightly baggy, and she paired it with a maxi skirt with circular cut-outs featuring custom molded gold armor plates that emphasized her hourglass figure.

The Vicky Christina Barcelona star accessorized the look with the dumpling-shaped Gabriela Hearst Demi Bag in nude leather and the Soraya Heel in dark camel leather, and she also sported a stylish short brunette bob.

Back in black: For her classy opening night look, Anne wore a plunging black sleeveless dress with thin straps and a textured, padded look to the material. The skirt reached down to her ankles, just barely revealing her pointy-toed black heels, and she accessorized with a black handbag

Modern classic: The opera, which was composed by Jake Heggie and features a libretto by the late playwright Terrence McNally, has become one of the most popular contemporary works in recent decades since its 2000 premiere

Suited up: Sigourney spiced up her black satin jacket with a matching blouse with thick frills that popped out over her chest and around her wrists for some extra flair

Taking it easy: She opted for sensible loafers with metallic floral embellishments over the toes, and she styled her brunette locks in a voluminous bob

Glamorous: Rebecca contrasted the other two stars with her ensemble featuring a Gabriela Hearst ivory silk wool cady Yves top and a matching Menton skirt. She was joined by her actor husband Morgan Spector, who rocked a stylish three-piece suit with an unusual number of buttons dotting the vest and his jacket's lapels

Rebecca was joined on the red carpet by her actor husband Morgan Spector, who rocked a stylish three-piece suit with an unusual number of buttons dotting the vest and his jacket's lapels.

Jon Hamm and his new wife Anna Osceola made a splash when they arrived on the red carpet.

The Mad Men star looked debonair in an sleek navy blue suit with a bow tie and patent leather shoes, while Anna complemented his suit with a midnight blue satin with a plunging top and spaghetti straps, which she wore without a bra.

Angela Bassett looked as good as ever with a black double-breasted suit jacket with a flower-like satin decoration on her lapel, along with a matching midi skirt and black open-toe heels.

Her husband, the actor Courtney B. Vance, stood out with a black tuxedo decorated with beads, along with a black shirt and matching bow tie. He contrasted the outfit with a tan hat.

Ben Stiller looked relaxed but classy in a blue tux with black lapels.

He was joined on the red carpet by Mark Subias, a managing partner at the production company Smuggler.

Marcia Gay Harden arrived in a glamorous black dress decorated with strands of silver spangles and rhinestones. The dress hugged her figure and had a plunging neckline to accent her cleavage.

Newlyweds: Jon Hamm and his new wife Anna Osceola made a splash when they arrived on the red carpet. He looked debonair in an navy blue suit with a bow tie and patent leather shoes, while Anna complemented him with a midnight blue satin with a plunging top and spaghetti straps, which she wore without a bra

Age-defying: Angela Bassett looked as good as ever with a black double-breasted suit jacket with a flower-like satin decoration on her lapel, along with a matching midi skirt and black open-toe heels

Stylish: Her husband, the actor Courtney B. Vance, stood out with a black tuxedo decorated with beads, along with a black shirt and matching bow tie. He contrasted the outfit with a tan hat

Pals: Ben Stiller looked relaxed but classy in a blue tux with black lapels. He was joined on the red carpet by Mark Subias, a managing partner at the production company Smuggler

Glowing: Marcia Gay Harden arrived in a glamorous black dress decorated with strands of silver spangles and rhinestones. The dress hugged her figure and had a plunging neckline to accent her cleavage

Motherdaughter act: Marcia was joined by her daughter Eulala Scheel, whom she shares with her ex-husband, the filmmaker Thaddaeus Scheel. Eulala wore a classic black off-the-shoulder dress that folded down over her chest.

Marcia was joined by her daughter Eulala Scheel, whom she shares with her ex-husband, the filmmaker Thaddaeus Scheel. Eulala wore a classic black off-the-shoulder dress that folded down over her chest.

Patrick Stewart had a Star Trek reunion on the red carpet when he caught up with his old costar Whoopi Goldberg.

The noted thespian had on a classic black tux and showed off a bit of white stubble, while Whoopi wore a long black cloak over her black pants and white top.

Patrick also brought along his wife Sunny Ozell, who was unmissable in a glamorous dress covered in gold spangles.

Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn added some color to the gala with a gray jacket with eye-catching embroidery and a lovely seafoam blouse, as well as black slacks and shiny shoes.

Gina Gershon went all out on the glamour with a sizzling black dress that hugged her curves and featured a striking cutout to showcase her cleavage. The brunette beauty's dress was covered in hundreds of sparkling beads, and she wore a black jacket with it that fell down to her elbows.

Georgina Chapman, the fashion designer and ex-wife of Harvey Weinstein, wore a glittering black sequined dress with pink floral designs and feathers dangling from her skirt hem and short sleeves.

The actress Alysia Reiner had on a lovely single-shoulder purple velvet dress with gold open-toe platform heels.

Old friends: Patrick Stewart had a Star Trek reunion on the red carpet when he caught up with his old costar Whoopi Goldberg. The noted thespian had on a classic black tux and showed off a bit of white stubble, while Whoopi wore a long black cloak over her black pants and white top

Shimmering: Patrick also brought along his wife Sunny Ozell, who was unmissable in a glamorous dress covered in gold spangles

Seeing green: Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn added some color to the gala with a gray jacket with eye-catching embroidery and a lovely seafoam blouse, as well as black slacks and shiny shoes

Stunner: Gina Gershon went all out on the glamour with a sizzling black dress that hugged her curves and featured a striking cutout to showcase her cleavage. The brunette beauty's dress was covered in hundreds of sparkling beads, and she wore a black jacket with it that fell down to her elbows

Dark styles: Georgina Chapman, the fashion designer and ex-wife of Harvey Weinstein, wore a glittering black sequined dress with pink floral designs and feathers dangling from her skirt hem and short sleeves. The actress Alysia Reiner had on a lovely single-shoulder purple velvet dress with gold open-toe platform heels

Light Sleeper actress Dana Delany set temperatures soaring with a sleek red sequined mini dress.

The model Sophie Sumner matched her in a red dress with a sheer bodice and a voluminous skirt.

The Sopranos star Edie Falco looked classy in a black double-breasted suit with a colorful blouse underneath.

Al Roker was stylish in a burgundy tuxedo jacket with black suede loafers and a burgundy knit tie, while his wife Deborah Roberts had on an intriguing black dress with cloud illustrations decorating the skirt, along with a chest-like silver handbag.

Peter Sarsgaard arrived without his wife Maggie Gyllenhaal. He had on a black tuxedo with a particularly slim black tie.

Tim Robbins towered in his black tuxedo while accompanied by his partner, the filmmaker Reed Morano. She contrasted his dark outfit with a lovely white dress that hung loosely on her slim frame.

Neil Patrick Harris looked dashing in a blue velvet tuxedo jacket while accompanying the actress Kate Jennings Grant on the red carpet. She put on a leggy display in a burgundy dress with a sky-high slit.

The actress and comedian Bridget Everett added some color to the red carpet with an eye-catching white-and-orange striped off-the-shoulder dress.

Seeing red: Light Sleeper actress Dana Delany set temperatures soaring with a sleek red sequined mini dress. The model Sophie Sumner matched her in a red dress with a sheer bodice and a voluminous skirt

Contrast: The Sopranos star Edie Falco looked classy in a black double-breasted suit with a colorful blouse underneath

Cute couple: Al Roker was stylish in a burgundy tuxedo jacket with black suede loafers and a burgundy knit tie, while his wife Deborah Roberts had on an intriguing black dress with cloud illustrations decorating the skirt, along with a chest-like silver handbag

Skinny style: Peter Sarsgaard arrived without his wife Maggie Gyllenhaal. He had on a black tuxedo with a particularly slim black tie

Height difference: Tim Robbins towered in his black tuxedo while accompanied by his partner, the filmmaker Reed Morano. She contrasted his dark outfit with a lovely white dress that hung loosely on her slim frame

Red and blue: Neil Patrick Harris looked dashing in a blue velvet tuxedo jacket while accompanying the actress Kate Jennings Grant on the red carpet. She put on a leggy display in a burgundy dress with a sky-high slit

Stripes: The actress and comedian Bridget Everett added some color to the red carpet with an eye-catching white-and-orange striped off-the-shoulder dress

Black and white: Also making a splash on the red carpet was the acclaimed playwright Jeremy O. Harris. He wore a fascination white shirt with several rips and feathers sprouting all over it, which was tucked into high-waisted black pants reaching up to his chest that were also covered in feathers

Black and blue: The fashion designer Zac Posen wore a black tuxedo with a slim charcoal-and-black tie. He was joined on the red carpet by the dancer and actor Harrison Ball, who displayed a tasteful navy blue double-breasted suit

Also making a splash on the red carpet was the acclaimed playwright Jeremy O. Harris.

He wore a fascination white shirt with several rips and feathers sprouting all over it, which was tucked into high-waisted black pants reaching up to his chest that were also covered in feathers. He also carried a cute black giraffe-shaped handbag.

The fashion designer Zac Posen wore a black tuxedo with a slim charcoal-and-black tie.

He was joined on the red carpet by the dancer and actor Harrison Ball, who displayed a tasteful navy blue double-breasted suit.
As The Block dives into Master Suite Week, the real estate agents who have taken on the daunting task of selling the Hampton East houses have been revealed.

McGrath, Buxton, Belle Property, Ray White and Jellis Craig have all put their hands up to lead the Blockheads to victory during Auction Day on Charming Street.

With each couple set to win millions should their houses sell in a few weeks time, Domain has revealed which agents will be jumping into the fire.

Kyle and Leslie's House 1 nabbed McGrath St Kilda for their big day with co-principals Josh Sterling and Michael Townsend by their side.

The real estate duo are Block champions after snapping up national recognition for their winning auction campaigns on the renovation series in 2018, 2020 and 2021.

McGrath, Buxton, Belle Property, Ray White and Jellis Craig have all put their hands up to lead the The Block's current cast to victory during Auction Day on Charming Street

House 1 will see a price guide of between $2.5million to $2.75million.

It is described as having an 'impressive street presence' and 'exquisitely designed interiors appointed to the highest of standards'.

However, Kyle and Leslie's renovation is the only one which has four bedrooms while all the other houses boast five.

Kyle (left) and Leslie's (right) House 1 nabbed McGrath St Kilda for their big day with co-principals Josh Sterling and Michael Townsend by their side

The real estate duo are Block champions after snapping up national recognition for their winning auction campaigns on the renovation series in 2018, 2020 and 2021

House 1 will see a price guide of between $2.5million to $2.75million

It is described as having an 'impressive street presence' and 'exquisitely designed interiors appointed to the highest of standards'

Leah and Ash's eclectic House 2 will see Buxton Hampton East at the helm with their agents Halli Moore and Noel Susay stepping up to the plate.

The two locals are confident they can take the win as 'the only Hampton East agency handling an auction' this year.

With their agency 'commanding between 50-60 per cent of sales' in the suburb, they may be just the edge House 2 needs for the big win.

The property is expected to fetch between $2.5 million and $2.75 million if it sells as expected.

The guide refers to it as 'glamorous' and boasting 'a curved ceiling echoing the curvaceous aesthetic of the main home'.

Leah (left) and Ash's (right) eclectic House 2 will see Buxton Hampton East at the helm with their agents Halli Moore and Noel Susay stepping up to the plate

The two locals are confident they can take the win as 'the only Hampton East agency handling an auction' this year

With their agency 'commanding between 50-60 per cent of sales' in the suburb, they may be just the edge House 2 needs for the big win

The property is expected to fetch between $2.5 million and $2.75 million if it sells as expected

House 3, being tended to by Kristy and Brett, will be auctioned off by Julian Cannata and Sam Inan from Belle Property Brighton.

Julian and Sam are returning after their appearance at The Block auction in 2018, and they are singing praise for Kristy and Brett.

'Their youth and vibrancy is allowing them to create something that is very special out of their untouched 1950s home and it isnt something you will see in every magazine,' they said on their website.

'They are doing a great job on what is the only corner block in this years series, which is a unique selling point within itself.'

House 3 has a healthy price guide of $2.5 million to $2.75 million. It 'encompasses the largest footprint on The Block' and is the 'embodiment of designer living'.

House 3, being tended to by Kristy (left) and Brett (right), will be auctioned off by Julian Cannata and Sam Inan from Belle Property Brighton

Julian and Sam are returning after their appearance at The Block auction in 2018, and they are singing praise for Kristy and Brett

'Their youth and vibrancy is allowing them to create something that is very special out of their untouched 1950s home and it isnt something you will see in every magazine,' they said on their website

House 3 has a healthy price guide of $2.5 million to $2.75 million. It 'encompasses the largest footprint on The Block' and is the 'embodiment of designer living'

Steph and Gian's House 4 will have three agents backing them on auction day - Ray White Sunbury's Aaron Hill, Marin Durkovic and Chelsea Kleeven.

Aaron and Marin led Omar and Oz into a record-breaking win last season when they pocketed $1.7million in profits after selling their home for $5.586million.

The shocking win led to a slew of controversy with Adrian 'Mr Lambo' Portelli at the centre of it after he was accused of being a dummy bidder.

House 4 boasts a price guide of between $2.2 million to $2.4 million - the lowest of all the houses.

It is referred to as 'an architecturally designed and curated home with melding serene Japanese and Scandinavian harmonious features'.

Steph (left) and Gian's (right) House 4 will have three agents backing them on auction day - Ray White Sunbury's Aaron Hill, Marin Durkovic and Chelsea Kleeven

Aaron and Marin led Omar and Oz into a record-breaking win last season when they pocketed $1.7million in profits after selling their home for $5.586million

The shocking win led to a slew of controversy with Adrian 'Mr Lambo' Portelli at the centre of it after he was accused of being a dummy bidder

House 4 boasts a price guide of between $2.2 million to $2.4 million - the lowest of all the houses

It is referred to as 'an architecturally designed and curated home with melding serene Japanese and Scandinavian harmonious features'

Meanwhile House 5, being renovated by Eliza and Liberty, will work alongside Nick Renna and Connor Harvey from Jellis Craig Brighton to sell their property at auction.

'I'm very excited for Team Renna to be representing Eliza and Liberty from House 5 on this year's season of The Block,' Nick wrote on Facebook earlier this month.

'It's been great to work through the process with the girls so far and I can't wait to see what they create.'

House 5 is set to fetch $2.7 million to $2.85 million - the highest of this year's properties.

'Absolutely breathtaking with its volume of scale, sumptuous finishes and 7-star energy efficiency, this incredible 5 bedroom 4.5 bathroom mid-century transformation will host the most memorable family occasions,' the guide reads.

Meanwhile House 5, being renovated by Eliza and Liberty (both pictured), will work alongside Nick Renna and Connor Harvey from Jellis Craig Brighton to sell their property at auction

'I'm very excited for Team Renna to be representing Eliza and Liberty from House 5 on this year's season of The Block,' Nick wrote on Facebook earlier this month

He added: 'It's been great to work through the process with the girls so far and I can't wait to see what they create'
Joan Collins has gushed about her marriage to fifth 'handsome' husband Percy Gibson, saying he just gets 'better and better' as time goes on - as she called him her 'best friend and accomplice'.

The actress, 90, married her partner in 2002 after they met while Joan was starring in a play Percy, 58, was producing two years prior.

Speaking to The Mirror, Joan said: 'It is fifth time lucky. 'I've been feeling that for years. He's a wonderful, kind, truly good man.

'He's my  what's the thing he always says?  my accomplice, yes, and my best friend. Plus he's extremely handsome  and he just gets better and better. Everyone says how lucky I am and how good he's looking right now!'

The pair hit it off right away and when a last minute change of plans saved Percy from being near the World Trade Center on 9/11, they decided to marry.

Loved-up: Joan Collins has discussed her marriage to fifth husband Percy Gibson, saying he just gets 'better and better' as time goes on

Couple: The actress, 90, married her partner in 2002 after they met while Joan was starring in a play Percy, 58, was producing two years prior

Joan told how Percy brings her a cup of coffee in bed every morning before he goes for a run and also leaves her notes under the kettle.

The former Dynasty star, who calls Percy 'the best lover I ever had' in her new book Behind The Shoulder Pads, told how their relationship was platonic at first.

She said: 'Percy and I became really good friends first. So we had this connection. We really knew each other. And separate bathrooms is key! Although we are very lucky. I know that's not something everyone can have.'

The couple also have separate office spaces with Percy being the manager of their three properties in London, St. Tropez and Los Angeles.

Joan, who celebrated her milestone 90th birthday in May, also said in the interview that the secret to successful ageing is that she doesn't ever talk about her age.

She joked: 'Oh! We don't mention that. I'm 60... plus however many years! There's far too much fuss about ageing.'

She went on to say that there is no need for her to stop doing all the things she loves now she is in her nineties and still does stretching exercises each morning and has a trainer on Zoom three times a week.

Percy is directing her upcoming UK tour which she says she is looking forward to as the pair rarely fight or have disagreements.

Joan said: 'It is fifth time lucky. 'I've been feeling that for years. He's a wonderful, kind, truly good man'

Relationship: The former Dynasty star, who called Percy 'the best lover I ever had' in her new book Behind The Shoulder Pads, told how their relationship was platonic at first

It comes after Joan opened up about her experiences of predators in the film industry and the advice Marilyn Monroe during an appearance on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday.

She spoke about how young actresses had to deal with predatory behaviour from actors and producers constantly, so much so that it became the norm.

Joan revealed that she was given advice by famed actress Marilyn back in 1955, after Joan had been cast as Evelyn Nesbitt in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.

She recalled: 'I was at Gene Kelly's house, which was full of intellectual people there, talking about things that went way above my head as I was just 21.

Marilyn was sitting at the bar, no make-up, drinking a martini. She said, 'I hear you're playing the role I was supposed to play, but I was too old.'

Joan went on: 'She then said, 'Beware of the wolves of Hollywood.' I said, 'Oh I'll handle the wolves, we had those in the English film industry.'

'Marilyn said, 'Not the Hollywood kind darling. If they don't like you, they'll cancel your contract, it's happened to lots of young girls.'

Icon: Joan, who celebrated her milestone 90th birthday in May, said the secret to successful ageing is that she doesn't ever talk about her age

Time together: Percy is directing her upcoming UK tour which she says she is looking forward to as the pair rarely fight or have disagreements

'I said I'll just avoid them. I was good at avoiding them because my father was an agent and he told me, 'One of the best things to do to avoid a predatory man, laugh at him!''

Hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley commented that there were still instances of this behaviour in the current film industry.

Joan replied: 'Not to the same extent. Not in the business, it was just taken as an act as divine right to sleep with his leading lady.

'George Peppard, Richard Burton, Richard Todd. They just took it as that's meat there for me. And if it wasn't them it was the producers. So I don't think it's nearly as bad.'
Ryan Moloney has spoken out about the moment he learned that Neighbours was returning.

The 43-year-old, who plays Toadie Rebecchi, told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, it was 'such a big shock' to find out the soap was returning to television just months after its final episode aired in July last year.

'It was such a big shock. We all said goodbye to Neighbours and some of us had sold houses, moved away and our kids had changed school, so it was an absolutely unexpected pleasant shock,' he said.

'It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. When else would something as big as this ever happen. So you have got to say yes and go along for the ride - and it's been quite a ride so far.'

Ryan revealed filming for the series started in April and he is 'glad he can finally talk about it' after the first episode aired last week.

Neighbours star Ryan Moloney recalled the 'shock' moment he was told the soap is returning and revealed what it's like working with new cast members on the show

'I'm just so glad finally we've gone to air. We started shooting in April so we've been at work for quite a while so I'm glad we can talk about it,' he added.

The actor also said it's been really 'nice and enjoyable' working with several new cast members on the show.

'Everyone is actually really really nice. It's been nice, pleasant and enjoyable,' Ryan continued.

He revealed a lot of drama will happened on the show in the first 15 episodes.

The 43-year-old, who plays Toadie Rebecchi, told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, it was 'such a big shock' to find out the soap was returning just months after its final episode aired in July last year

Meanwhile, Ryan has also collaborated with Ring and created different Neighbours-themed quick replies.

The pre-recorded responses can be enabled through the app to play when someone rings your Ring Video Doorbell.

'Not only can fans hear some of my one-of-a-kind phrases again on screen, they can also hear me through their Ring Video Doorbell with my latest Quick Replies.'

'I'm very excited to be bringing my voice to more than just Ramsay Street but streets across Australia and New Zealand,' Ryan added.

'With only a few taps on the Ring app, you can hear the one and only Toadfish Rebecchi say, 'G-Day Mate!' with a simple ring of your doorbell.'
The Great British Bake Off's judges and hosts kicked off the fourteenth series with their very own The Godfather scene on Tuesday evening.

The hit Channel 4 show returned with host Noel Fielding joined in the iconic baking tent by newcomer Alison Hammond, who was confirmed as Matt Lucas's replacement earlier this year.

The two hosts were joined by judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith in the short film inspired intro based on the 1975 blockbuster.

The dramatic clip opened with credits reading, 'Bake Off Pictures Presents The Breadfather'.

Paul Hollywood soon appeared looked dapper in a black tuxedo as 'Don Pauleone'.

Hilarious: The Great British Bake Off 's judges and hosts kicked off the fourteenth series with their very own The Godfather scene on Tuesday evening

Wow: The Channel 4 show returned with host Noel Fielding, newcomer Alison Hammond and judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith staring in the short film inspired intro based on the 1975 blockbuster

While Noel was then introduced as Noel Focaccia, before Prue made her grand entrance as 'Pane di Leith'.

Newcomer Alison is the final star to join the group in the skit, going by the alias 'Alison Cannoli-mond'.

A voice over can be heard saying: 'Welcome to the family' as the This Morning presenter leaned down to kiss a load of bread.

The skit came to an end with Alison, Prue and Noel staring into the camera while resting a hand on Paul, who is seated behind a desk as he cradles the thick loaf.

Later in the episode fans declared their love and are ready to die for new contestant Saku after just the first show.

Kicking off the series, the latest bakers were tasked to create a vertical cake infused with buttercream.

The Intelligence analyst, 50, admitted she was 'not nervous' but as time went on her nerves started to show.

This resulted in Saku having a Bake Off first... a Paul Hollywood hug.

Skit: The dramatic clip opened with credits reading, 'Bake Off Pictures Presents The Breadfather'. Paul Hollywood soon appeared looked dapper in a black tuxedo as 'Don Pauleone'

Godfather: While Noel was then introduced as Noel Focaccia, before Prue made her grand entrance as 'Pane di Leith'

Amazing: A voice over can be heard saying: 'Welcome to the family' as the This Morning presenter leaned down to kiss a load of bread

Unfortunately unlike the Hollywood Handshake this did mean nothing but prompted fans to rush to X, formerly known as Twitter, to gush over the Sri Lankan-born baker.

One wrote: 'I want it on record that I would die for Saku'

Another penned: 'Figured out the baker Im going to hyper-fixate over this series. love you Saku #GBBO'

A third said: 'I already love Saku #GBBO'

It comes as Alison Hammond takes over hosting duties and confessed her nerves ahead of her debut episode.
The late Len Goodman was honored on Dancing with the Stars' season 32 debut on Tuesday, as the show declared that its Mirrorball Trophy would be named The Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy.

Goodman, a regular on the ABC series between 2005 until 2022, died in April at 78 after battling bone cancer.

The hosts of the show, Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough, opened the program speaking about the late ballroom expert.

'Len was on this panel for nearly all of our 31 seasons and though he is certainly irreplaceable, we wanted to keep his spirit alive,' said Hough, 35. 'Len will always be going forward with us.'

Ribeiro, 52, said of the trophy, 'As a tribute to him, we redesigned and renamed our ultimate prize.'

Details: The late Len Goodman was honored on Dancing with the Stars' season 32 debut Tuesday. Goodman died in April at 78 after battling bone cancer

The hosts of the show, Alfonso Ribeiro, 52, and Julianne Hough, 35, opened the program speaking about the late ballroom expert

The show would featured an extended dance tribute to Goodman in a few weeks, according to Hough and Ribeiro.

Goodman, who died at a Kent, England hospice with family surrounding him, was 'a much loved husband, father and grandfather who will be sorely missed by family, friends and all who knew him,' his manager Jackie Gill said in a statement the BBC reported at the time of his passing.

Goodman also was the head judge on the U.K. incarnation of the series, Strictly Come Dancing, in between 2004-2016.

The show's executive producer Conrad Green revealed to USA Today last week that producers 'wanted to make Len a permanent part of this show, to always remind people the importance he's had to Dancing with the Stars and how much he meant to all of us.'

He said, 'Len loves this show and will always be there, looking down on us.'

Riberio said that Goodman's influence would be evident in the first season since his passing, and that 'there won't be a dry eye in the house' when the dance tributes are performed.

'I can guarantee you that every one of those pros will be making sure that the routines are still designed for Len,' Riberio told People.

He added: 'I know I've talked to a few of them and they will be putting in specific steps that Len used to love, just to make sure that the content is still there for Len ... I mean, he was the best.'

Hough said that 'Len will always be going forward with us'

The show declared that its Mirrorball Trophy would be named The Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy

Riberio said that Goodman's influence would be evident in the first season since his passing, and that 'there won't be a dry eye in the house' when the dance tributes are performed

Goodman also was the head judge on the U.K. incarnation of the series, Strictly Come Dancing, in between 2004-2016

Goodman, who was renowned for his excellent communication skills, retired from the series in November of 2022, saying, 'It has been a huge pleasure to be a part of such a wonderful show.

'But I've decided I'd like to spend more time with my grandchildren and family back in Britain. I could not thank you enough, my Dancing with the Stars family, it's been such a wonderful experience for me.'

The competitors on the new season of the series consist of Ariana Madix, Jamie Lynn Spears, Mauricio Umansky, Matt Walsh, Jason Mraz, Alyson Hannigan, Mira Sorvino, Adrian Peterson, Barry Williams, Tyson Beckford, Xochitl Gomez, Harry Jowsey, Lele Pons and Charity Lawson.

Dancing with the Stars can be seen every Tuesday at 8/7c on ABC, and streams on Disney+ and Hulu.
Dhakota Williams flaunted her toned derriere in a racy picture on Tuesday as she demanded that men pay her before messaging her.

The Gangland heiress, 22, was trying on some clothes in a public changing room when she decided to snap a saucy photo of her bottom in a white G-string.

Sticking out her behind, the OnlyFans model pulled down her pants and hiked up her shirt before taking the mirror selfie and posting it to Instagram.

It seems the brunette beauty was inundated with messages about it, as she uploaded a video hours later calling out the men in her DMs.

'If you're a man, please don't respond to my story. Hit the link, click subscribe, and then message me,' she said as she lounged in her bed.

Dhakota Williams, 22, has said that she won't talk to men online unless they pay her on OnlyFans

The Gangland heiress was trying on some clothes in a public changing room when she decided to snap a saucy photo of her bottom in a white G-string

She added: 'I'm only talking to you men if I'm getting paid for it. I do not do this s**t for free.'

Dhakota is making a mint off OnlyFans and she proved she likes to splash the cash last month as she posed in her bedroom in a Versace robe which retails for $750.

She wore the designer sleepwear as she took a selfie in her bedroom with a female friend, captioning the post: 'Me, but twice.'

Dhakota also recently treated herself to a $100,000 brand new BMW after turning 21.

Dhakota has become a major star on OnlyFans since joining the raunchy website

Her proud mother Roberta, who also has an OnlyFans profile, took to Instagram with a photo of Dhakota posing next to her first major purchase.

'I am so proud of you,' she wrote over the photo, adding: 'As a mum I couldn't be more prouder of the beautiful lady you have become.'

'You work hard to have the finer things in life my little princess. The mould was definitely broken.'

She's making a mint off OnlyFans and she proved she likes to splash the cash last month as she posed in her bedroom with a friend while wearing a Versace robe which retails for $750

Her mother Roberta (right) also makes a living on OnlyFans

Roberta also paid tribute to her late husband, slain underworld king and drug lord Carl Williams, by writing: 'Your dad will be shining down on you today as he does every day. So proud of your achievements.'

Dhakota joined OnlyFans in August last year and her mother soon followed.

The pair recently discussed their foray into the sex industry with The Daily Telegraph, revealing they had 'no choice' due to their infamous history.
Colin Fassnidge got heated with a contestant on Tuesday night's My Kitchen Rules.

Chris, known for his provocative behaviour, openly criticised the celebrity judges for their generous scoring of Nick and Christian in the Instant Restaurant round.

The drama began after the teams collectively assigned a low score of 27 points to the Melbourne hospitality workers on the previous night's episode.

In stark contrast, judges Colin and Manu Feildel awarded them some of the highest points of the competition.

Amid a tension-filled exchange involving all the teams, numerous contestants raised doubts regarding the quality of Nick and Christian's dishes and the fairness of the judges' scores.

Colin Fassnidge (pictured right) got heated with a contestant on Tuesday night's My Kitchen Rules

'I think that everyone at the table found their meals underwhelming and disappointing and just not top-of-the-leaderboard quality food,' Patricija said in her confessional.

'But they are there. I mean the judges loved it.'

Provocateur Chris stood alone in confronting Colin and Manu directly, expressing his bewilderment at the exceptionally high scores they had awarded.

'I was a little bit confused by some of the scores,' Chris said, looking towards the judges.

'Our scores that we gave them?' Colin replied.

'I was a little bit confused by some of the scores,' Chris said, looking towards the judges. 'Our scores that we gave them?' Colin replied

'Yeah, yeah,' said Chris.

'Alright, talk it up. Let's go,' Colin snapped back.

Chris rose to the challenge of the judge, demanding an explanation from Manu and Colin.

'The biggest thing for me was the main - because I just didn't enjoy the main and you guys loved it. So, you know, it just left me sort of scratching my head,' Chris said.

'Alright, talk it up. Let's go,' Colin snapped back. Chris then demanded an explanation from the judges: 'The biggest thing for me was the main - because I just didn't enjoy the main and you guys loved it. So, you know, it just left me sort of scratching my head,' Chris said

Nevertheless, Colin was certain that Nick and Christian's dish was worthy of a such a high score.

'For me, it was one of the messiest dishes I've seen,' he said.

'But when I left, I was like ... I was happy about that dish! And it wasn't about a competition for me, it was like "I'd eat that again."'

It comes after last week's accusations that Chris was a saboteur.

Contestant Christian from Melbourne got tongues wagging when he accused Chris and Aaron's team of sabotage.

Chris and Aaron (pictured left) criticised the first two dishes made by Claudean and Anthony that were well-received during their Instant Restaurant round, prompting speculation that the pair were 'sabotaging' the other team

Christian believed they were intentionally giving harsh criticisms to mess up the other teams and improve their own chances of winning the competition.

The trouble began when Chris and Aaron criticised the first two dishes made by Claudean and Anthony during their Instant Restaurant round.

Claudean and Anthony, a couple from Brisbane who almost got eliminated in the previous round, impressed both the table of guests and the judges, Colin Fassnidge and Manu Feildel, with their first two courses.

Colin (left) and Manu (right) gave Claudean and Anthony a score of nine each for their zucchini flower appetizer

Colin and Manu gave Claudean and Anthony a score of nine each for their zucchini flower appetizer, while their rabbit main course received a nine from Manu and an eight from Colin.

But Aaron and Chris were not as enthusiastic as the judges or the other teams.

Aaron and Chris were not as enthusiastic as the judges or the other teams: 'I don't necessarily think it was a threatening start,' said Chris

'I don't necessarily think it was a threatening start,' said Chris. 'We want to be impressed, and if someone doesn't impress us with a dish, well they're going to hear about it.'

Chris went on to slam the rabbit main dish too, saying he was underwhelmed by the ratio of mash and the flavour too.

Aaron echoed these critiques, claiming the rabbit was 'chalky' and lacking in taste.

Christian (pictured right) accused them of having hidden motives for their criticism

Because Chris and Aaron were the only ones at the table who didn't like the main dish, Christian accused them of having hidden motives for their criticism.

'I think Aaron and Chris are very, very critical of what was a very, very good dish. Is this a tactic? Are they trying to throw everyone off?' he said.

When it was time to give overall scores for the meals, all the MKR teams gave Claudean and Anthony scores of six or seven, but Aaron and Chris only gave them a four.

This made Claudean think that the other contestants were 'playing games.'

'I think the guest teams' score of 29 was low,' she said. 'I think that we have been scored harshly.'
Deborra-Lee Furness visited her estranged husband Hugh Jackman on the set of Deadpool in England just weeks before their split, previously unseen pictures reveal.

The couple, who had been together more than 30 years, shocked their fans when they announced they were divorcing earlier this month.

Hugh and Deborra-Lee, 67, seemed to be on good terms just weeks before the announcement, as they are pictured together on set in mid July.

The Australian actor, 54, was dressed in his yellow superhero suit while masking his face with a large black umbrella while talking to his wife.

They were joined by the film's star, Ryan Reynolds, as they took a break in between filming scenes.

Good terms? Deborra-Lee Furness visited her estranged husband Hugh Jackman on the set of Deadpool in England just weeks before their split, previously unseen pictures reveal (Hugh pictured in the yellow suit)

It's over: Hugh and Deborra had been married for 27 years before their split

Moving on: The couple, who had been together more than 30 years, shocked their fans when they announced they were divorcing earlier this month (pictured with Ryan)

Chatting: Ryan was pictured hugging a member of the crew while dressed as his character Deadpool

Deborra-Lee was dressed in a black T-shirt and gym leggings, while also wearing a bright orange jumper tied around her waist.

She shielded her eyes from the sun with a pair of sunglasses, while also wearing a pair of regular glasses atop her blonde hair.

The images come just a day after Deborra-Lee spoke out for the first time since her split from Hugh after answering a cold call from Australian radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson.

The radio duo accidentally called the actress live on air on Tuesday and were left shocked when she answered the phone.

'We have actually called you by mistake, it's ridiculous. Seriously, this isn't a stitch up,' Kyle told Deborra-Lee.

'We didn't mean to actually call you. But now you're here, we won't go into it. We love you, we hope you're well.'

'Thank you guys, I really appreciate it. You're really sweet,' she responded.

Kyle continued: 'I just feel it's too soon. I don't want to get involved in anything. But we love you, and you ring us when you want to chat.'

Taking a break! They were joined by the film's star, Ryan Reynolds, as they took a break in between filming scenes (pictured)

Friends: Hugh and Deborra-Lee, 67, seemed to be on good terms just weeks before the announcement, as they are pictured together on set in mid July

On set: The Australian actor, 54, was dressed in his yellow superhero suit while masking his face with a large black umbrella while talking to his wife

'Thank you, guys. I really, really appreciate it,' Deborra-Lee said before hanging up.

Deborra-Lee and Hugh, 54, recently shocked their fans when they announced they were divorcing after 27 years of marriage.

'We have been blessed to share almost three decades together in a wonderful, loving marriage. Our journey now is shifting and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth,' the couple said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE earlier this month.

'Our family has been and always will be our highest priority. We undertake this next chapter with gratitude, love, and kindness. We greatly appreciate your understanding in respecting our privacy as our family navigates this transition.'

The former couple signed the statement as 'Deb and Hugh Jackman,' adding: 'This is the sole statement either of us will make.'

The Australian couple share two children together; Oscar, 23, and Ava, 18.

Low key: Deborra-Lee was dressed in a black T-shirt and gym leggings, while also wearing a bright orange jumper tied around her waist

Hanging out: The cast and crew gathered together in between takes

Sunny day: She shielded her eyes from the sun with a pair of sunglasses, while also wearing a pair of regular glasses atop her blonde hair

Last April, the pair celebrated their anniversary and Jackman had posted a gushing tribute to his wife on Instagram.

'I love you Deb. Today is our 27th wedding anniversary. 27 years! I love you so much,' the actor wrote in his caption.

'Together we have created a beautiful family. And life. Your laughter, your spirit, generosity, humour, cheekiness, courage, and loyalty is an incredible gift to me. I love you with all my heart,' he shared in the heartfelt post.

While he is undoubtedly more well known than his wife, Deborra-Lee had already shot 20 movies by the time she and Jackman met while co-starring as a prison psychologist and a brain-damaged convict in ABC TV's 10-episode series Correlli in 1995.

Deborra-Lee most recently played Jill Bailey alongside Eric Bana in Robert Connolly's sequel Force of Nature: The Dry 2, which was released in Australian and New Zealand theaters on August 24.

In February, Hugh told Smooth Radio: 'I think honesty and intimacy and making time [are the secret to a long and happy marriage]. You can't just assume that things will just tick along okay. You have to make time.'
Natalia Dyer looked sophisticated in a burgundy blouse as she attended the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

The Stranger Things star, 28, cut a stylish figure in a pinstripe midi skirt and wore a halterneck blouse that draped behind her.

The extravagant top detailed a huge bow on the front and flashed her torso through the sheer material.

She teamed her ensemble with a staple pair of black court heels and added a gold buckled belt to tie in her waist.

The American actress flashed her toned legs and posed up a storm inside the celebrity-filled runway show.

Gorgeous: Natalia Dyer, 28, looked sophisticated in a burgundy blouse as she attended the star-studded Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday

Statement: The Stranger Things star cut a stylish display in a pinstripe midi skirt and wore a halter neck blouse that draped behind her

Elsewhere at the event saw Hailey Bieber, Kate Moss and Demi Moore steal the show in their glamorous ensembles as they took front row at the show.

In March, Natalia suffered an unknown injury as she was seen with the leg supports as well as bruises on her forehead.

Although Natalia is best known for her work on Stranger Things, she has also made strides into the film industry over the years.

The performer also stars in the horror feature All Fun and Games, which was released at the beginning of September.

It was revealed that the actress was attached to the project in January of last year, when it was also announced that she would star alongside Asa Butterfield.

The movie is centered on a pair of siblings who take part in a game in which they interact with demonic figures.

The actress opened up about working on film projects as opposed to series during an interview with Cosmopolitan UK.

She expressed that, while 'it's amazing to get to be on huge sets, I also really love the intimacy of small films.'

Stunning: The American actress flashed her toned legs and posed up a storm inside the celebrity-filled runway show

Chic: The extravagant top detailed a huge bow on the front and flashed her torso through the mesh material

Wow: She teamed her ensemble with a staple pair of black court heels and added a gold buckled belt to tie in her waist

Incredible! Models stormed the catwalk as the celebs watched on from the FROW

The performer went on to speak about working on the set of Velvet Buzzsaw and being inspired by how cast members Jake Gyllenhaal and John Malkovich interacted with the project's creative team.

'It was amazing to work with people to see how they carry themselves, how they communicate with the director and what they ask for,' she said.

Natalia has been dating boyfriend Charlie Heaton for six years but rumours of a split were rife last year, when they hadn't been spotted together for several months.

In April, Charlie, 29, and Natalia showed they were stronger than ever at the 2023 Brooklyn Artists Ball in New York, as they stood with their arms affectionately around one another.
Emma Mackey looked worlds away from her Sex Education character Maeve Wiley at the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

The actress, 27, cut a daring display as she went braless in a mesh black top at the star-studded womenswear runway show.

Known for her grunge look and pink hair on the show, Emma looked strikingly different as she cut an elegant display in the outfit.

The Sex Education icon, whose character sported a brunette fringe for the latest series, looked effortlessly stylish in a chic black ensemble for the occasion.

She wore a long midi skirt, tied with a leather belt and teamed her look with an oversized double-breasted black coat.

Chic: Emma Mackey, 27, looked worlds away from her Sex Education character at the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday

Transformation! The actress cut a daring display as she went braless in a mesh black top at the star-studded womenswear runway show

The French-native, who opted out of wearing any accessories, slipped into a ruched pair of leather heeled boots.

The event also attracted huge names including Hailey Bieber, Kate Moss, Stranger Things star Natalia Dyer and Demi Moore.

Last week, Emma looked effortlessly stylish in a glitzy gown as she attended the Opera National De Paris.

She showcased her incredibly slender physique in a bejewelled silver and black gown.

Emma also recently attended King Charles III and Queen Camilla's state banquet at the Palace of Versailles.

She was lucky enough to join legendary guests such as Mick Jagger and Hugh Grant in France for the black tie soiree.

The star looked exceptionally elegant in a black midi dress as she walked the red carpet holding the bottom of her dress.

It comes after Emma, who appeared alongside lead star Margot Robbie in the blockbuster movie as one of the Barbie's, described working on the film with Greta Gerwig as 'life-changing'.

Wow: The Sex Education icon looked effortlessly stylish in a chic black ensemble which flaunted her ample cleavage

Gorgeous: She wore a long midi skirt, tied with a leather belt and teamed her look with an oversized double-breasted black coat

Incredible: Emma stole the show at Saint Laurent's runway show as she dressed to impress in a chic black ensemble

Stunning: The French-native, who opted out of wearing accessories, slipped into a ruched pair of leather heeled boots

What a show! Saint Laurent put on a show-stopping runway show which sat right night to the Eiffel tower

Incredible! Models on the catwalk as the celeb's watched on

Posing for a cover shoot with ELLE UK, she told the publication: 'Greta Gerwig has always been someone I really wanted to work with. I just get how her brain works.

'Shes incredible, a joy. I really wanted to be a part of it [Barbie], even in the smallest way. All of us felt like that.

'I learnt so much. It was life-changing. Greta was very clear from the beginning that she wanted us all to feel really beautiful, whatever that meant to us.

'So in terms of the outfits and the make-up, we were all part of the conversation, which is quite rare, or has been rare in my limited experience. All of us felt heard.'

On working with Margot Robbie, who produced and starred in Barbie, she added: 'Margot handled both roles with grace and humour  plus, shes really down-to-earth, which is a great quality to have.'
Leigh Francis brushed off recent drama as he attended the UK premiere of The Creator in London on Tuesday.

The outing comes amid claims the comedian, 50  best known as his alter ego Keith Lemon  humiliated Melanie Sykes in front of a live audience while they filmed ITV's Through The Keyhole.

Melanie, 53, said Leigh made explicit sexual gags about her for three hours, including: 'I bet your a*****e smells of flowers.'

Attending the premiere this week, at the Science Museum, Leigh wore an oversized denim blazer with matching flared trousers.

He layered a black T-shirt underneath and topped off his quirky look with a pair of metallic trainers as he posed for photos on the red carpet.

Stepping out: Leigh Francis, 50, brushed off recent drama as he attended the UK premiere of The Creator in London on Tuesday

The premiere took place at the Science Museum to be in keeping with the film plot about a futuristic war between the human race and artificial intelligence.

The film is set to be released to UK cinemas on Thursday 28 September and stars John David Washington, Gemma Chan and Ken Watanabe.

The plot follows ex-special forces agent Joshua, played by John David Washington, as he tried to hunt down and kill the Creator who is to blame for the advanced AI.

Earlier this week, Melanie claimed TV producers failed to act after she complained that comic Leigh made humiliating jokes about her to a live audience while they filmed ITV's Through The Keyhole.

The radio and television presenter said the TV production company Talkback, founded by the comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, ignored her when she complained.

Speaking on fashion PR Lynne Franks's podcast, Frankly Speaking she said: 'I went into the studio and I didn't think Keith was going to be like he was on the other show he does [Celebrity Juice] where it's all sex and blowjobs and talking about people's a*******s.'

But she added: 'I sat there for a three-hour record and he did all that stuff to me verbally to entertain the live audience  because it was never going to make the edit of the show  so he used me to entertain the audience.'

Comedian Katherine Ryan, who has accused Russell Brand of being a sex predator, labelled Francis an 'obvious creep' at the 2019 TV Choice Awards.

Allegations: The outing comes amid claims the comic  best known as his alter ego Keith Lemon  humiliated Melanie Sykes while they filmed ITV 's Through The Keyhole (pictured in 2021)

Awful: Melanie, 53, said Leigh made explicit sexual gags about her for three hours, including: 'I bet your a*****e smells of flowers'

She told the audience that Lemon was 'proof for perverts everywhere that an obvious creep is cute. It's way less threatening than a stealth one'.

Francis hosted Celebrity Juice for 25 seasons before it was axed last year. It drew complaints and was the subject of an investigation by Ofcom, which ruled that a trailer for the show breached guidelines in 2013 by featuring what the watchdog said was a sex toy.

Talkback said looking after its TV guests was 'a top priority'. Francis did not respond to requests to comment last night.
She recently sparked rumours she's engaged to her new boyfriend David Bracken by flashing a ring on her left hand - just weeks after confirming their relationship.

And EastEnders star Shona McGarty couldn't keep her hands off her rumoured fiance as they stepped out together for a meal in north London on Tuesday night - where she sported the jewellery yet again.

It is the second time the Whitney Dean actress, 31, has been seen in public with musician David as they kissed and hugged after eating at a Greek restaurant with her mother.

Guitarist David is one half of Irish guitar duo Blessed, who regularly gig across their homeland and boast over 18,000 Instagram followers.

During the outing the ring was seen on her left hand again, after first flashing it earlier this week in photos obtained by The Sun when she attended her sister's wedding.

In love: EastEnders' Shona McGarty couldn't keep her hands of her beau David Bracken as she continued to flash a ring on her left hand amid engagement rumours on Tuesday night

Together: They stepped out together for a meal in north London on Tuesday night - where she sported the jewellery yet again

While out and about Shona wore a long grey coat and brown suede boots and had sunglasses on the top of her head.

Beside her David cut a casual figure in a black jumper, matching jogging bottoms and white trainers.

It comes weeks after she 'soft launched' her relationship with the tattooed Irish musician.

Shona shared a black-and-white photograph of their hands intertwined, with David's displaying his distinctive tattoo.

The actress wrote: 'I promise,' along with a romantic John Lennon quote in the caption, which read: 'Love is a promise, Love is a souvenir, once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear.'

Two days earlier, David had shared the same shot and penned: 'A promise is a promise. Never to be broken. #happy #happyplace.'

Back in October 2022, Shona and her ex-boyfriend Max Bowden reportedly split following a six-month romance, after he welcomed a baby boy with his ex Roisin Buckle.

Roisin discovered she was pregnant at the beginning of 2022 but the couple decided to separate in March, while agreeing to co-parent once their son was born.

Happy: It is the second time the Whitney Dean actress, 31, has been seen in public with musician David as they kissed and hugged after eating at a Greek restaurant with her mother

Fame: Guitarist David is one half of Irish guitar duo Blessed, who regularly gig across their homeland and boast over 18,000 Instagram followers

Engaged? During the outing the ring was seen on her left hand again, after first flashing it earlier this week in photos obtained by The Sun when she attended her sister's wedding

Style: While out and about Shona wore a long grey coat and brown suede boots and had sunglasses on the top of her head

Chilled: Beside her David cut a casual figure in a black jumper, matching jogging bottoms and white trainers

Max - who plays Ben Mitchell on EastEnders - and Shona's former romance then came to light in May 2022 after sources claimed the pair were 'inseparable.'

They made their relationship Instagram official in August 2022, but six months later a source told The Sun: 'There has been a lot going on in Max's life and things were just getting too complicated with Shona being involved.

'Max will always have a lot of love and respect for Shona but it's just not the right time.'

A friend close to the couple also added: 'Max and Shona have never spoken on it publicly but as their close circle would know, they were never in an official relationship and remain close friends who decided not to pursue anything romantic a number of months ago.'

Shona opened up about her split from ex Max while at The British Soap Awards in June.

She told The Mirror: 'Its lovely to be here tonight because Maxs mums here and I havent seen her for ages, I adore her.

'So its lovely to catch up with her. Were actually better than ever. Its a friendship, were in such a good place.

'You take a risk, and you do something and it doesnt work out, but thats life, youve got to take that risk.'

Going public: It comes weeks after she 'soft launched' her relationship with the tattooed Irish musician

Soft launch: Shona shared a black-and-white photograph of their hands intertwined, with David's displaying his distinctive tattoo

Cute: The actress wrote: 'I promise,' along with a romantic John Lennon quote in the caption, which read: 'Love is a promise, Love is a souvenir, once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear'

Holding hands: The new couple packed on the PDA as they stepped out for dinner together in north London

Accessories: She wore dark shades on her face and toted a beige Marc Jacobs handbag on her arm

Stepping out together: The pair haven't been seen together in public many times since soft launching the relationship

Home time: After their Greek meal in north London they headed out and strolled off down the street

Smoking: She puffed on a cigarette as she strolled down the pavement with her partner and mother

Announcement: It comes weeks after she introduced him on social media with a snap of them holding hands
Eternal star Vernie Bennett has finally broken her silence on the Louise Redknapp pulling out of their reunion tour over an increasingly bitter trans rights row.

It first emerged that Louise, 48, had pulled out of the tour because Vernie and her sister Easther had refused to play any of the LBGTQ+ gigs they had scheduled, over claims the community is being 'hijacked' by the trans community.

However, Vernie has now seemingly refuted the claims made by Louise's team as she released a statement about how she has been 'blessed to connect with so many diverse and wonderful people from all walks of life during my career.'

It comes as Louise has been accused of trying to get her former bandmates cancelled, by 'misrepresenting' her bandmates' views.

Eternal's original manager Denis Ingoldsby furiously defended Easther and Vernie, who remain his clients, insisted they are 'devastated' and accusing Louise's team of misrepresenting details of a private email.

Speaking out: Eternal star Vernie Bennett has finally broken her silence on the Louise Redknapp pulling out of their reunion tour over an increasingly bitter trans rights row

Row: It first emerged that Louise, 48, had pulled out of the tour because Vernie and her sister Easther had refused to play any of the LBGTQ+ gigs they had scheduled, over claims the community is being 'hijacked' by the trans community

Vernie has now spoken out herself, releasing a statement, which read: 'I am "Eternally" grateful for the family, friends, and amazing fans who have and continue to support our incredible journey and artistry.

'I've been blessed to connect with so many diverse and wonderful people from all walks of life during my career. You all have a piece of my heart.

'Though it is impossible and counterproductive to respond to the overwhelming number of statements and allegations made online recently, I place this moment in God's hands.

'I truly appreciate all who continue to express love and support for my family and Eternal.'

It comes after Eternal's original manager slammed Louise's management for claiming Easther and Vernie were against performing for the LGBTQ+ community.

Louise was accused of 'misrepresenting' her bandmates' views in a bid to get them cancelled in a row over trans issues.

Louise's team have since refuted Ingoldsby's claims, saying they stand by their decision to go public on the dispute.

He told Sky News: 'Louise and her team have thrown them under the bus and everyone is totally appalled at their bullying behaviour by totally misrepresenting the situation to suit their own agenda.

Claims: It comes after Eternal's original manager slammed Louise's management for claiming Easther and Vernie were against performing for the LGBTQ+ community

Shocking: Eternal's original manager Denis Ingoldsby has furiously defended sisters Easther and Vernie, accusing Louise's team of misrepresenting details of a private email (L-R Louise Redknapp, Kelle Bryan, Easther Bennett, Vernie Bennett)

'The girls sent an email to Louise's camp saying they loved playing Pride, and they loved the ethos of the event.

'For her camp to go on the record suggesting they are homophobic is utterly outrageous. This is nothing about gay rights.'

Speaking to The Mirror, Denis has also claimed there were no confirmed, or contracted dates, in place for the reunion. Louise's team have denied this to the publication.

He claimed that the sisters sent an email to Louise's camp saying they 'loved' playing Pride and the 'ethos of the event.'

Denis added that the dispute is 'nothing about gay rights,' and that the sisters have played 'numerous LGBTQ+ gigs.'

He added: 'Vernie said she had some concerns about the Pride movement being hijacked - and she is not alone - but this has now been weaponized against her, with Louise's team trying to get her cancelled.'

Louise's publicist Simon Jones has stated that they stand by their previous comments, telling the publication: 'Denis Ingoldsby was not involved in the discussions about the Eternal reunion including all four members over the last two years. Easther and Vernie can try and dress this up however they wish.

'The fact remains that the duo said they would only do the Eternal reunion if no Pride or LGBTQ+ festivals were included.

'Louise would obviously not agree to excluding the LGBTQ+ community from their touring plans. We as a team absolutely do not agree with dividing the LGBTQ+ community or excluding trans people.'

He added: 'Absolutely nothing has been misrepresented.

'We have simply explained the reason why the Eternal reunion is not going ahead with Louise and Kelle.

'It is a fact that an email was sent saying that Vernie and Easther would only do the Eternal reunion if no Pride or LGBTQ+ festivals were included in the plan.

'Louise would obviously not agree to excluding the LGBTQ+ community from the band's touring plans, and as such notified the duo that she would not be taking part.'

Hitting back: Louise's team have since refuted Ingoldsby's claims, saying they stand by their decision to go public on the dispute

Always and forever: On Monday, Louise addressed her decision to step down from the tour by sharing the Progress Pride Flag on her Instagram Stories, writing: 'Always and forever'

Claims: Eternal, who shot to stardom in the nineties, were planning a huge reunion tour next year, with the highlights including performances at Pride and Mighty Hoopla (pictured 1994)

On Monday, Louise addressed her decision to step down from the tour by sharing the Progress Pride Flag on her Instagram Stories, writing: 'Always and forever'.

The flag was created in 2018 by nonbinary artist Daniel Quasar, and is largely based on the iconic 1978 rainbow flag.

The stripes of black and brown represent marginalized LGBTIQ+ people of colour and the triad of blue, pink, and white are from the trans flag.

Eternal, who shot to stardom in the nineties, were planning a huge reunion tour next year, with the highlights including performances at Pride and Mighty Hoopla.

Both festivals celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, however the tour dates apparently did not go down well with band members Easther and Vernie Bennett.

It was revealed that Louise and her team received a message from Vernie and Easther, stating they would not be involved in any Pride shows or LGBTQ+ festivals.

Louise's publicist, Simon Jones, said: 'A message was sent to the team putting together the Eternal reunion stating that if it was to go ahead, neither Vernie nor Easther would perform at Pride shows or LGBTQ+ festivals.

'This was because the duo felt that the gay community was being hijacked by the trans community and they do not support this.

'Louise is a huge supporter and ally of the LGBTQ+ community and both herself and Kelle told the duo they would not work with anyone who held these views, and as such the reunion as a four would not be going ahead.

'The team behind the proposed Eternal reunion are gay including management, PR and tour promoter, and neither myself nor any of the team would work with artists who held such views about the trans community.'

Easther and Vernie have been contact by MailOnline for comment.

I'm out! Louise, who recently confirmed she is dating new boyfriend Drew Michael, has performed as a solo artist at many Pride events over the years (Lousie performing at Brighton Pride in August)

READ MORE: Will Eternal EVER get back together? How band are split down the middle over trans row as PR experts fear it could be the end of any reunion plans after Louise Redknapp pulled out of tour when Christian Bennett sisters refused to play LGBTQ gigs Advertisement

Louise, who recently confirmed she is dating new boyfriend Drew Michael, has performed as a solo artist at many Pride events over the years.

Earlier this summer she took to the stage alone at Brighton Pride in August.

The Eternal tour was set to be the first time the original line-up had performed together since Louise quit in 1995 to pursue a solo career.

They soared to stardom in the early nineties with hits such as Stay and I Wanna Be The Only One.

Louise's other former bandmate and Loose Women star Kelle Bryan has also reportedly pulled out of the reunion tour for the same reasons.

The band stayed together for another five years after Louise quit, before splitting and reuniting in 2014 on ITV's The Big Reunion without her.

Earlier this week, Louise paid tribute to her time with the band, taking to Instagram to honour their 30th anniversary.

She wrote: 'Where it all began 30 years ago today Stay was released. I remember it like yesterday Happy 30th Anniversary to my Eternal girls.

'I remember it like if was yesterday the first radio play sat round my mums kitchen table missing the que to hit record when it played, to going to America to shoot the video and so many more incredible memories.

'Stay is such a timeless song Easther absolutely KILLING that opening note as she does and I'm so proud this was where it all started for us! I'm so lucky I got to record this song myself for my Greatest Hits this year and girls I hope I did you proud.

'Happy 30th Anniversary to my Eternal girls Kelle, Easther and Vernie and most importantly THANK YOU to each and every one of you that has been there with us from day 1 buying every record, coming to every show and being so supportive over the last 30 years.'
Kanye West is said to be marking out his musical comeback, just weeks after his indecent exposure scandal in Italy.

The rapper, 46, who faced backlash when he exposed his bare bottom on a boat ride in Venice, is seemingly moving on from the drama as he is reportedly in the studio and creating content for his next release.

Sources have told TMZ, the Stronger hitmaker is in a 'great headspace' and has completed nearly 10 songs in the past week.

Ty Dolla $ign, Ye's collaborator, is also said to have joined him in the recording studio with talk they may release a joint album or solo endeavours.

The reported musical comeback would mark a poignant moment for Ye, who has faced a string of controversies in recent months.

Kanye West is said to be marking out his musical comeback, just weeks after his indecent exposure scandal in Italy

Backlash: Last month, West and his 'wife' Bianca Censori, 28, sparked major controversy in the city of Venice after they werecaught putting on a graphic display in the back of a river taxi

MailOnline has contacted Kanye's representatives for comment.

Last month, West and his 'wife' Bianca Censori, 28, sparked major controversy in the city of Venice after they were caught putting on a graphic display in the back of a river taxi.

Police investigated the couple over the 'disrespectful' incident that included West exposing his bare buttocks in public as Bianca curiously knelt before him with her head in his lap.

A spokesman for Venezia Turismo Motascafi - the firm that owned the boat the couple were on, said it was 'completely unaware' of the incident.

They added the pair would have been kicked off the boat if the driver had noticed their public exposure.

It went on: 'The driver had to keep a lookout for traffic and did not see these obscenities.

'If this had happened, he would have immediately disembarked and reported the transgressors to those in authority.'

The Italian rental company noted that 'third person on board the taxi' who was riding with Ye and Ms Censori had 'obstructed the captain's view' to the back of the boat.

Controversy: Since Kayne's release of Donda in 2021, he lost millions of fans due to his anti-Semitic rants which saw Adidas terminate their $220m annual partnership with the rapper

Music: Kanye has sold 160 million records, won 24 Grammy Awards and had 75 nominations

All eyes on them: Kanye and Bianca became the center of attention as they went shopping in the bustling Via Calzaioli in Florence last week

The company has since banned the couple from using their boats in the future.

This ban is not the first in recent times, as Bianca has recently sparked controversy in Italy due to her wardrobe choices.

Last month, Italian locals complained to the police that the 28-year-old was walking around in public 'virtually naked'.

She managed to avoid a fine for that but if convicted of public indecency they could face a fine from 5,000 to 10,000.

The fashion designer - who is widely believed to be behind all of Censori's recent and controversial looks - and his new muse were first romantically linked in January 2023.

It was just months after his divorce from Kim Kardashian was finalised.

Since Kayne's release of Donda in 2021, he lost millions of fans after he went on a string of shocking anti-Semitic rants.

The rapper made headlines last autumn for suggesting on Instagram that Sean 'Diddy' Combs was being 'controlled' by Jews and later tweeting he would go 'death con 3 on Jewish people.'

It saw Adidas terminate their $220million annual partnership with the rapper after putting it's deal with Ye under review.

They claimed they made repeated efforts 'to privately resolve the situation.'

GAP have also condemned West's comments, saying that they are taking 'immediate steps' to remove Yeezy GAP products from their stores and shut down their website.

Universal Music's Def Jam has also condemned West's comments, after splitting with the rapper last year.

They said: 'Def Jam's relationship with Ye as a recording artists, its partnership with the GOOD Music label venture and Ye's merchandise agreement with Bravado all ended in 2021.

'There is no place for antisemitism in our society. We are deeply committed to combating antisemitism and every other form of prejudice.'

It came days after Kanye claimed on a podcast that the sneaker giant 'cant drop him', despite saying 'anti-Semitic things'.

West has had several high-flying partnerships dropped in the aftermath of making a series of anti-Semitic outbursts.

His deal with Balenciaga and Gap also fell through, and the rapper was dropped by talent agency CAA.
Victoria Beckham looked pretty pleased with herself when she arrived at a wine bar in Notting Hill to promote her new fragrance on Wednesday.

The fashion designer, 49, cut a stylish figure in a black power suit which featured an oversized blazer jacket, arriving with her hair clips still in to keep her brunette locks in place.

The star has been busy filming for her new beauty fragrance collection which is set to be released on September 29.

The campaign images she has released so far has had her husband David swooning over her due to their very sexy nature.

She's looking pleased with herself: Victoria Beckham, 49, looked stylish in black power suit and wore her hair in clips as she arrived at a Notting Hill wine bar to promote her new fragrance on Wednesday

Work in progress: The 49-year-old looked incredible in her ensemble worn with killer heels as she headed inside the wine bar

The collection is called Portofino '97 and is inspired by her first romantic getaway to Portofino in 1997 with David.

Earlier this week Victoria set pulses racing as she posted her new campaign image in a black lacy bra.

The snaps prompted David to head to Instagram where he gushed over his wife with the caption 'I mean' and a white love heart.

The fashion designer showed off her toned figure in the racy lingerie as she smouldered for the camera.

Looking less sultry for filming on Wednesday, the star completed the outfit with a pair of transparent heels with a black toe and heel.

As she walked to the venue the star carried her essentials in a black leather handbag while she clutched her phone in her hand.

Once she arrived, Victoria was seen surrounded by her camera team mid shoot as she discussed her first ever fragrance collection.

The star held up the perfume bottles from the collection which retails at 245 for an 100ml bottle.

He's a fan! David Beckham swooned over his wife Victoria on Instagram on Tuesday after she showed off her toned physique in a black lace bra while announcing her fragrance launch

Prepping: Victoria stepped out the car not quite ready for filming as she donned her hair clips

Anything you can do... David looked pretty sexy himself when he released his own fragrance back in August

Working woman: She looked great as she arrived at the venue without David in tow

Sophisticated: Victoria looked incredibly smart in her suit as she left the venue

Fancy: The event took place at the Dorian Restaurant in Notting Hill

Side profile: Victoria displayed her ageless beauty in a side on shot

Legs eleven: She accentuated her slender pins in the black tailored trousers

Mid shot: Victoria held up the perfume bottles as she discussed her new collection

Lights, camera, action: The star looked deep in conversation

Upcoming release: The collection is called Portofino '97 and is inspired by her first romantic getaway to Portofino in 1997 with David

The Former Spice Girl launched her self-titled fashion label in 2008 and began selling make-up products in 2019 with Victoria Beckham Beauty.

The three new perfumes included in the range are all intended to offer a glimpse into some of Victoria's most personal memories with David, 48, with the brand revealing to DailyMail.com that each scent 'captures her own recollections of experiences and atmospheres'.

To accompany each fragrance, Victoria posed for three individual images, each of which is meant to bring to life the memories captured in the scent itself.

The three perfumes are all named for different places that have played an integral role in her life with David; the first is Portofino '97, named for the location of the very first vacation she took with her husband.

Portofino '97 is inspired by her whirlwind romance with David, specifically the first-ever trip they took together shortly after their first meeting back in 1997, two years before they tied the knot.

Victoria recently showed off her sultry side while promoting the collection.

The advertisement campaign showed her flaunting off her toned physique while striking quite the provocative pose in a vintage black convertible.

While sitting in the drivers seat, Victoria has one leg propped up on the seat beside her, flashing a glimpse at her enviably toned thighs, while one arm rests across the door.

Victoria was wearing a glamorous black dress, while accessorising with a pair of stylish shades and throwing her head back on the chair.

In another sizzling snap, Victoria donned a stunning sheer gown while posing by the beach.

Luxury: The star held up the perfume bottles from the collection which retails at 245 for an 100ml bottle

Career endeavours: The Former Spice Girl launched her self-titled fashion label in 2008 and began selling make-up products in 2019 with Victoria Beckham Beauty

Poker face: Victoria looked serious as she readied herself for the camera
She's gearing up to launch her debut boohoo collection.

And Kourtney Kardashian, 44, proved to be her own best advert as she modelled another striking look from the collaboration.

Ahead of the fast fashion line dropping on Thursday, the pregnant reality star wowed in a new snap that saw her don a skintight black dress.

The semi-sheer gown flashed a glimpse of her baby bump and was layered beneath a bomber jacket.

She added to the look with a white paisley print bandanna over her raven locks and chunky silver necklaces.

Stunning: She's gearing up to launch her debut boohoo collection. And Kourtney Kardashian , 44, proved to be her own best advert as she modelled another striking look from the collab

Kourtney also bared her naked baby bump in a snap for the brand.

In the image Kourtney, who is expected her first child with her husband Travis Barker, showcased her bump in a revealing white crop top and a long trench coat.

The star showed off her pregnancy curves in the daring ensemble, which was finished with sexy ripped tights and chunky suede boots.

Kourtney was first unveiled as Boohoo's newest brand ambassador last year, forming a partnership focused on sustainable, conscious practices which will see the launch of two 46 limited edition piece collections.

She said in a statement: 'When boohoo first approached me with this idea that was all about sustainability and style, I was concerned about the effects of the fast fashion industry on our planet.

'It's been an enlightening experience speaking directly with industry experts.'

Her two collections include 46 limited-edition pieces using recycled fibers, traceable cotton, recycled sequins and recycled polyester, and was offically debuted at New York Fashion Week in 2022.

It comes after Kourtney underwent emergency fetal surgery to save her unborn child earlier this month.

Travis was forced to abruptly put a halt to his rock band Blink-182's tour to return home to be with his family amid the undisclosed medical complication.

Wow! Kourtney also bared her naked baby bump in a snap for the brand as she donned a revealing white crop top and a long trench coat

Coming soon: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star is set to launch her latest range as a Brand Ambassador on September 28

The Kardashians star shared a black and white photo of her holding Barker's hand while in a hospital bed and revealed to her 224 million Instagram followers what she had been through.

She captioned the post: 'I will be forever grateful to my incredible doctors for saving our babys life. I am eternally grateful to my husband who rushed to my side from tour to be with me in the hospital and take care of me afterwards, my rock. And to my mom, thank you for holding my hand through this.

Kourtney admitted that she hadn't been 'prepared' for 'the fear of rushing into urgent fetal surgery' after experiencing smooth pregnancies in the past.

'I dont think anyone who hasnt been through a similar situation can begin to understand that feeling of fear.

'I have a whole new understanding and respect for the mamas who have had to fight for their babies while pregnant,' she explained.

'Praise be to God. Walking out of the hospital with my baby boy in my tummy and safe was the truest blessing,' she concluded the post and added a praying hands emoji and heart emoji.

Earlier this year in June, Kourtney announced that she and her husband Travis were expecting their first child together.

They had tied the knot with a lavish wedding in Italy in May 2022.

The couple are already parents to three children each from previous relationships.
Bruce Willis' daughter Scout was thrilled to see that her father's hit 80's show Moonlighting will be back on screens again.

The family have put on a united display this week, with the actor's eldest daughters throwing their support behind his wife, Emma Heming, after she gave a heartbreaking update on his dementia.

Hollywood icon Bruce, 68, has Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) - an uncommon form of dementia which causes a deterioration in behavior, personality and language.

Scout, 32, took to her Instagram stories on Tuesday to say it was 'insanely good news' Moonlighting will be coming to Hulu.

The American comedy drama television series aired from 1985 - 1989, with Bruce playing a private detective alongside Cybill Shepherd and Allyce Beasley and will be released next month.

'Insanely good news': Bruce Willis' daughter Scout was thrilled to see her father's hit 80's show Moonlighting will be back on screens again after the family spoke out about his dementia

Her role model: Scout, 32, took to her Instagram stories on Tuesday to say it was 'insanely good news' Moonlighting will be coming to Hulu

The show was considered to be one of the first successful and influential examples of comedy drama.

Scout also said she was 'obsessed' with her mother Demi Moore, 60, as she shared a text exchange between them as she prepared to board a plane.

She told her: 'I'm boarding my first flight', to which the Hollywood actress said: 'Be present, be safe, have fun'.

Scout proved to be Demi's biggest supporter as she reshared a video of the actress at Saint Lauren's Paris Fashion Week show.

The actress wrote: 'I cannot with this woman!!! My god. The slay.'

It comes after Scout told Bruce's wife Emma, 45, she was so 'brave' for sharing an insight into Bruce's health.

In the interview, Emma fought back tears while discussing coping with the 'grief and the sadness' of watching her husband's health decline.

Taking to Instagram to reshare a behind-the-scenes clip of Emma's interview, Scout wrote: 'I truly could not be more proud of @emmahemingwillis for being willing to step out into the public eye, (even though it's terrifying!!!) to share our family's story in service of spreading awareness about FTD.

Exclusive: In honor of World Frontotemporal Dementia Awareness week, Bruce Willis wife Emma Heming Willis speaks to @hodakotb about the condition in her first interview since his diagnosis.



It was the blessing and the curse, Emma said of receiving Bruces diagnosis. pic.twitter.com/VY5yhVjZIf  TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 25, 2023

Inspirational: Bruce daughters' Scout and Tallulah showed their support of their father's wife Emma Heming Willis after she gave a heartbreaking interview on the actor's health

'Obsessed': Scout also said she was 'obsessed' with her mother Demi Moore, 60, as she shared a text exchange between them as she prepared to board a plane

Age-defying beauty: Scout proved to be Demi's biggest supporter as she reshared a video of the actress at Saint Lauren's Paris Fashion Week show

'Emma you are such a champion for this cause and you inspire me EVERY SINGLE F*****G DAY with your bravery and deep loving. Your courage is moving mountains #ftd #ftdawareness.'

The youngest of Bruce and Demi's children Tallulah, 29, posted on her Instagram stories her older sister's words with the caption: 'So proud of my family @emmahemingwillis'.

Bruce married Emma in 2009 and they have two children Mabel Ray Willis, 11, and Evelyn Penn Willis, 9.

The actor has remained good friends with his ex-wife Demi, to whom he was married from 1987 to 2000.

They have three daughters, Scout, Tallulah and Rumer, 35.

In the interview on Monday, Emma said it was a 'beautiful thing amongst the sadness' to watch their two young daughters caring for their father.

'What I'm learning is that dementia is hard,' she told the Today show. 'It's hard on the person diagnosed. It's also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce or myself or our girls.

'And when they say that this is a family disease, it really is.'

When asked how she went about explaining his illness to their children, she said: 'I think it's always been... we're a very honest and open household.

Proud: Taking to Instagram to reshare a behind-the-scenes clip of Emma's interview earlier this week, Scout,wrote: 'I truly could not be more proud of @emmahemingwillis'

Strong: The youngest of Bruce and Demi's children Tallulah, 29, posted on her Instagram stories her older sister's words with the caption: 'So proud of my family'

The whole family: (L-R) Rumer Willis, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Scout Willis, Emma Heming Willis and Tallulah Willis in 2019

'And, the most important thing was to be able for us to say what the disease was, explain what it is because when you know what the disease is from a medical standpoint it sort of all makes sense.

'So it was important that we let them know what it is because, you know, I don't want there to be any stigma or shame attached to their dad's diagnosis, or for any form of dementia.'

When asked by host Hoda Kotb if he is aware of what is happening to him, Emma paused and revealed: 'Hard to know.'

But despite the difficulty of caring for her husband, she said receiving a diagnosis has made life 'easier'.

'I think it was the blessing and the curse. You know, to sort of finally understand what was happening so that I can be into the acceptance of what is.

'It doesn't make it any less painful, but just being in the acceptance and just being in the know of what is happening to Bruce just makes it a little bit easier.

Doting dad: Bruce pictured with three of his daughters, including the two he shares with Emma

Family man: Bruce pictured with all of his family, including his ex-wife Demi Moore and their daughters Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah

'There is so many beautiful things happening in our lives. It is just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so that I can see what is happening around us,' Emma added.

In a particularly touching moment, Hoda asked Emma what she thinks Bruce is teaching their girls as they all come to terms with his illness as a family.

'Honestly, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Love, patience, resilience, so much...' Emma said.

'And he's teaching me and our whole... I mean, you know, for me to be out here doing this, this is not my comfort zone, but this is the power of Bruce.'

Hoda continued: 'I have heard from people that have an ailing family member, and I remember this from a friend of mine... she said, "my husband's diagnosis made my kids better people". Is that what you're noticing?'

'That is what I'm noticing,' Emma replied. 'Listen, I think my kids would be great no matter what! And this is not what I would want for them. But really, like I said, it is teaching them so much and how to care and love and it's a beautiful thing amongst the sadness.'

She confirmed that she refers to herself as Bruce's 'care partner' as opposed to his 'caretaker', and also noted the importance of taking care of herself as well.

'It's so important to ask for help and support. And you can look to organizations like the AFTD, like Hilarity For Charity... it is sort of a great starting point.

'And it's important for care partners to look after themselves so that they can be the best care, partner for the person that they're caring for,' she added.

Emma was joined by Emma Dickinson, the CEO of The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD), who explained: 'What we know is, obviously, the disease can start in the frontal or the temporal lobes like the name signifies.

WHAT IS FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA? Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) affects the lobes of the brain behind the forehead, which deal with behaviour, problem-solving, planning and emotions. The left temporal lobe is involved in the meaning of words and the names of objects. The right recognises faces and familiar objects. FTD occurs when nerve cells in these lobes die and the pathways that connect them change. Symptoms are different from just the memory loss that is associated with Alzheimer's disease. These may include: Personality changes, such as becoming tactless, uninterested in others and unsympathetic

Repeated and compulsive movements, such as continued use of certain phrases, hoarding and obsession over timekeeping

Craving unhealthy food and forgetting table manners

Speaking difficulties, including slow speech, grammatical errors and asking the meaning of familiar words like 'bread' FTD is rare, making up less than five per cent of all dementia cases. However, it is one of the most common forms of the disease in people under 65. Sufferers are usually aged between 45 and 65 at diagnosis. The rate at which FTD progresses varies greatly, with life expectancies ranging from two years to more than 10 after diagnosis. As it progresses and more of the brain becomes damaged, symptoms often become similar to those in the late stage of Alzheimer's. These may include memory loss and patients relying on others to care for them. Around 10-to-20 per cent of FTD patients also have a motor disorder that affects their movement. This can lead to twitching, stiffness, slowed movement and loss of balance or co-ordination. In later stages, such patients may have difficulty swallowing. Around one-third of FTD patients have a family history of dementia. And the condition is often caused by an inherited faulty gene from one of a patient's parents. Treatment focuses on helping a person live well by easing their symptoms. This may include counselling or a speech and language therapist. Source: Alzheimer's Society Advertisement

'One of the things that the frontal lobe controls is self-insight. We don't know. Some people, that's the first thing they lose, any understanding that they themselves have changed and other people retain that for a long time.'

Bruce withdrew from acting in 2022 as he began his fight with the illness that caused his language abilities to deteriorate - and in February 2023, his family confirmed in a joint statement that his condition had 'progressed'.

The statement read: 'Our family wanted to start by expressing our deepest gratitude for the incredible outpouring of love, support and wonderful stories we have all received since sharing Bruces original diagnosis.

'In the spirit of that, we wanted to give you an update about our beloved husband, father and friend since we now have a deeper understanding of what he is experiencing.

'Since we announced Bruces diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruces condition has progressed and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD).

'Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.

'FTD is a cruel disease that many of us have never heard of and can strike anyone. For people under 60, FTD is the most common form of dementia, and because getting the diagnosis can take years, FTD is likely much more prevalent than we know.'

The Hollywood star, famed for roles in Die Hard, Armageddon and The Fifth Element, had reportedly been struggling with cognitive issues on the sets of his films years before his diagnosis - and even needed an earpiece to feed him lines.
Kaia Gerber cut an effortlessly chic figure as she joined Kendall Jenner at The Row catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday.

The model, 22, opted for an oversized grey blazer which she teamed with matching smart trousers and a black shirt.

She completed her look with dark shades and wore dangly gold earrings as she headed inside.

The brunette beauty boosted her height with simple black heels and wore her dark tresses in a poker-straight style.

Meanwhile, Kendall looked sophisticated in a double breasted sage green trench coat that was tucked into a black pencil skirt.

Stylish: Kaia Gerber (L) cut an effortlessly chic figure as she joined Kendall Jenner (R) at The Row catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday

Fashionista: The model, 22, opted for an oversized grey blazer which she teamed with matching smart trousers and a black shirt

The Row is a fashion company set up by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen.

Kaia - who is dating Elvis actor Austin Butler - appeared to arrive at the show by herself.

Butler and Gerber were first spotted together shortly after Gerber broke things off with her previous boyfriend, Euphoria star Jacob Elordi in 2021.

They made their first red carpet appearance at a W Magazine party in Los Angeles in March 2022, just months before attending the Met Gala together.

Austin was also seen cutting a suave figure in a black glittering pinstripe suit and long coat as he attended the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

It's unclear if Kaia was able to wrap her role as popular social media star Chloe Benson in Max Minghella's psychological sci-fi thriller Shell before the SAG-AFTRA strike commenced on July 14.

Two-time Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss and Oscar nominee Kate Hudson co-star with Gerber in the movie 'set in a near future when humanity's cultural obsession with youth and beauty has been taken to new extremes.'

Butler's next film, Dune: Part Two, will be pushed from its October release date to March 2024.

Autumn ready: Meanwhile, Kendall looked sophisticated in a double breasted sage green trench coat that was tucked into a black pencil skirt

Stunning: The brunette beauty boosted her height with simple black heels and wore her dark tresses in a poker-straight style

Chic: She completed her look with dark shades and wore dangly gold earrings as she headed inside

Radiant: Kaia opted for a very subtle make up look

Love life: Kaia - who is dating Elvis actor Austin Butler - appeared to arrive at the show by herself (seen with Austin in April 2023)

Classy: Pamela Anderson looked elegant in a black longline blazer and flared trousers

Incredible: She layered a white shirt underneath

Glowing: Pamela flashed a big smile as she arrived at the show

There were reports in July that indicated Warner Bros. might push the highly-anticipated sequel into the new year.

While Butler wasn't seen in the first Dune, he stars as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in the second part of director Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic novel.

He will next be seen in the Apple TV Plus mini-series Masters of the Air, based on the true story of the 100th Bombardment Group of the United States Air Force during WWII.

He'll also be seen in director Jeff Nichols' crime drama The Bikeriders alongside Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer and Michael Shannon, in theaters December 1.

Butler has also signed on to star as Danny Ryan in City on Fire, a movie adaptation of the first book in a crime drama trilogy by author Don Winslow.
James Argent has recalled suffering with psychosis which left him convinced that the walls in his house were caving in as he discussed his cocaine addiction.

The ex-TOWIE star, 35, has been open about his struggles with cocaine addiction in the past, and has now candidly detailed hitting 'rock bottom' before getting clean.

Speaking on the Cabin Recovery Podcast, James told how his drug use went from being 'recreational' at the height of his TOWIE fame to something much darker.

He candidly detailed suffering with paranoia and psychosis in the midst of his cocaine addiction, telling how he would lock himself in his room for days on end.

James recalled one incident where he 'barricaded' himself in his room and became convinced the walls of his house were 'caving in' while suffering with psychosis on a four-day cocaine bender.

Struggles: James Argent has recalled suffering with psychosis which left him convinced that the walls in his house were caving in as he discussed his cocaine addiction

Speaking to host and recovering drug addict Hunter Michael Shepard, he said: 'Over two years ago, it got that bad when I was literally having, I was picking up and I was continually picking up and using, and I didn't have a wink of sleep for four days straight.

'In my house, doors locked, barricading myself in my room, ultimate paranoia and psychosis. I used to think that the walls in my house were caving in.

'I'll be honest with you, I've never really told anyone this, but for days I'd be holding my head like this in my room, crying and screaming, thinking the ceilings were going to cave in on me.'

James said he would take cocaine alone in his home at the height of his habit as he bravely reflected on his struggles with psychosis and the dark moments of his addiction.

He said: 'I would sit there for hours on my phone on selfie mode, taking videos and pictures for hours because I was adamant in my head that my nose was going to cave in.'

He heartbreakingly told how he was left not wanting to live, adding: 'I never ever contemplated suicide, I never planned on taking my own life, I remember sitting there sometimes, almost praying to God saying take me now.'

Recalling another dark moment amid his addiction, James told how he once woke up at the bottom of his staircase covered in blood, but was too weak to stand up after not eating in days.

Honest: Speaking on the Cabin Recovery Podcast, James (pictured in 2016) told how his drug use went from being 'recreational' at the height of his TOWIE fame to something much darker

Dark time: On the podcast (pictured), he detailed suffering with paranoia and psychosis in the midst of his cocaine addiction, telling how he would lock himself in his room for days on end

'I remember waking up at the bottom of my staircase, with blood pouring down my face, like where am I? What am I doing? Screaming for help, but there was nobody around,' he said.

'I was in such a bad physical condition that I couldn't really stand up. I hadn't eaten for days on end.'

The TV personality admitted he hit 'rock bottom' when he woke up in hospital on Christmas Day 'fighting for his life' after an overdose, with no family or friends around him, and realised he had 'lost everything'.

James said he knew in that dark moment that he needed to get sober, admitting he now thinks he needed to hit 'rock bottom' for him to accept that he was in need of help.

The star, who has had multiple stints in rehab, candidly reflected on his struggles with an eating disorder and told how his relationship with food played into his drug addiction.

He said: 'My eating disorder is my core addiction, that is my number one problem. The first time I went to rehab, which was The Cabin in Thailand, I remember I went there for drink and drugs, but within a day, I was put in the eating disorder unit.

'I can almost laugh at it now, I've gone there for drink and drugs and was put in an eating disorder unit, like come on what else could possibly go wrong for me in my life? I tick every box, I'm an addict through and through.'

James, who weighed 27 stone at his heaviest but has since lost 13-stone, detailed how he wouldn't eat for hours while taking cocaine, before 'bingeing' the next day.

He explained: 'It's crazy because in most people's minds, if you're a cocaine addict, you'd associate cocaine with people who are really slim or skinny, or weight loss, or you'd hear stories about models taking cocaine because they'd stop eating.

Health: The star (pictured in 2019), who weighed 27 stone before losing 13-stone, reflected on his struggles with an eating disorder and told how food played into his drug addiction

'But for me, it was the opposite. Even to this day, people are like 'how can a cocaine addict be morbidly obese, it doesn't make sense'.

'What I would do, I'd pick up at 8 o'clock at night, I'd be using drugs until the early hours of the morning, and I could never eat once I was doing, so I would not eat anything from 9pm until the early hours of the morning, then I'd be tossing and turning for a few hours, trying to get some sleep.

'Then, maybe if I did get a few hours, I'd be absolutely starving because I hadn't eaten for so many hours, and then I would binge on everything. I would binge on takeaways, fast foods, chewy sweets, crisps, sugary drinks, chocolate, ice cream, burgers, Indians.'

James explained that his binge-eating was the 'route' of his later cocaine addiction and said he had an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise from a young age.

'I always had, even from a young age, I had quite an unhealthy exercise with food and exercise, I was yo-yoing,' he said.

'I wasn't overweight for many years, I was very much up and down. One year I could be really slim, but not in a healthy place, pretty much starving myself and exercising all the time - and the other year, I could get morbidly obese, I would do no exercise at all and be binge eating.'

Positively looking towards the future, James told how he now has a more balanced relationship with food, admitting that although he still has his insecurities, he is now more confident and happy within himself.

The TV star also stressed the importance of keeping up to date with his meetings to stay clean and sober as he candidly spoke about his recovery.

Addiction: James (pictured in July 2022) said his binge-eating was the 'route' of his later cocaine addiction and said he had an unhealthy relationship with food from a young age

Positive: James said his weight loss has helped him with his sobriety and shared his hopes that he can reassure others they can get clean and that not all addiction stories end in 'tragedy'

He said his weight loss journey and getting healthy has helped him with his sobriety and shared his hopes that he can reassure others they can get clean and that not all addiction stories end in 'tragedy'.

'Unfortunately and especially in the cases of celebrities and musicians, you do hear a lot of stories that end in tragedies and death,' he said.

'There's so many people I went to rehab and meetings with that died, because they never got well.

'I think it's quite inspiring that we've all got a story to tell and we've been through a lot, but it doesn't necessarily have to end in tragedy and can turn their lives around.'

The Cabin's Addiction Recovery Podcast with Hunter and recovering addict James Argent can be viewed on YouTube.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123 or visit: www.samaritans.org.
Matthew Fox has a legion of fans thanks to his days on Party Of Five and Lost.

And the star looked every inch the distinguished actor when he made his return to the red carpet on Wednesday.

Matthew, 57, was in Sydney to promote the new Stan Original series C*A*U*G*H*T which he stars in.

The beloved actor gave awaiting photographers a smile as he stood at the media wall at Sydney Opera House.

Matthew opted for a black blazer which he paired with a grey button-down shirt and suit pants for the star-studded event.

The Stan Original series, C*A*U*G*H*T premieres September 28 only on Stan.

Matthew Fox has a legion of fans thanks to his days on Party Of Five and Lost. And the star looked every inch the distinguished actor when he made his return to the red carpet on Wednesday. Pictured

Matthew, 57, was in Sydney to promote the new Stan Original series C*A*U*G*H*T which he stars in. The beloved actor gave awaiting photographers a smile as he stood at the media wall at Sydney Opera House. Pictured alongside Kick Curry

The six-episode series, directed by actor and filmmaker Kick Gurry, follows four Australian soldiers sent on a secret mission to a war-torn country.

They are captured by freedom fighters after being mistaken for Americans and produce a hostage video that goes viral.

When the soldiers reach celebrity status, they realise that being caught might just be the best thing that could've happened to them.

Matthew only just returned to television last year with Last Light, more than a decade after Lost ended.

Matthew opted for a black blazer which he paired with a grey button-down shirt and suit pants for the star-studded event

Matthew previously starred on the sci-fi drama, Lost, from 2004 to 2010. Pictured

'I kind of had a bucket list in my mind of things that I wanted to accomplish in the business, and after I did Bone Tomahawk in 2014 that had kind of completed the bucket list,' he told Variety.

'I wanted to do a Western. It's a very odd Western, but it's a Western. And so that sort of completed the bucket list.'

'At that time in my life, our kids were at an age where I felt like I needed to really reengage,' he continued.

'I had been focused on work for some time, and Margherita [Ronchi] had been running the family so beautifully, but I felt like it was time to be home, and I really felt like I was retiring from the business, and working on other creative elements that are really personal to me  some music and writing.'
Britain's Got Talent bosses are to go to war with former judge David Walliams, insisting that he knew the lewd and sexist comments he made about the show's contestants could have been put on air.

The Mail can reveal that chiefs at Fremantle, the production company that makes the ITV talent contest, will hit back at the star - with the row potentially ending up in court - after he insisted that his off-mic remarks were part of a 'private conversation.'

Walliams, 52, lodged papers in the High Court in London last week after he was ousted from the show following the X-rated rant, accusing bosses of 'a data breach.'

However, in April 2018 BGT bosses announced that all off-air comments made by the judges could be aired for the first time. They added in a press release, seen by Walliams and his co-stars, that all of their gossipy conversations made off mic could be made public at Fremantle's discretion.

It is also believed that a disgruntled worker on the programme leaked the comments made in 2020 during auditions at the London Palladium to The Guardian newspaper.

David Walliams, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon. The Mail can reveal that chiefs at Fremantle, the production company that makes the ITV talent contest, will hit back at the star - with the row potentially ending up in court - after he insisted that his off-mic remarks were part of a 'private conversation'

A source said: 'There has been much back and forth between David and Fremantle for the last ten months, since he was sacked from BGT.

'He is saying that Fremantle breached his data rights but he was made well aware two years before he made the comments that they could be put out into the public domain. It was a change to the show which was widely publicised to viewers, the press and the judges.

'There is very little doubt amongst many working on the show that it was one of the freelance workers who leaked the transcript, perhaps someone who didn't like David very much.'

Walliams' decision to instruct a Manchester-based law firm, Brandsmiths, has also raised eyebrows amongst BGT bosses. Despite it claiming to be a legal company that specialises in data breaches, the star lives between his home in Primrose Hill, North London, and Brighton.

The row threatens to taint BGT which throughout its 19-year run has escaped much controversy - unlike other ITV reality programmes such as Love Island and the X Factor.

Meanwhile, sources say that Walliams and Simon Cowell's one-time close friendship has cooled. He was not at Walliams' 52nd birthday party at exclusive London restaurant River Cafe earlier this month while his former co-stars Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon were.

It was revealed on Tuesday that Walliams is suing BGT, accusing Fremantle of a data protection breach over the show transcript. His resignation ended a ten-year stint as a judge on the contest.

Sources say that Walliams and Simon Cowell's one-time close friendship has cooled. He was not at Walliams' 52nd birthday party at exclusive London restaurant River Cafe earlier this month while his former co-stars Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon were

Walliams and his lawyers argued at the time that the remarks were private conversations that were never intended for broadcast but two weeks later he was ousted.

The transcript shows that an older male performer engaged in light-hearted banter with the judges and made a jibe about Walliams. After the audition, when the pensioner had left, Walliams is said to have described him as a 'c***' three times.

In a separate incident, after a female contestant had walked off stage, Walliams remarked: 'She's like the slightly boring girl you meet in the pub that thinks you want to f*** them, but you don't.' He later added: 'I know, she's just like ''Oh, f*** off!'' I was saying, she thinks you want to f*** her, but you don't.'

In a statement issued before he quit, Walliams said: 'I would like to apologise to the people I made disrespectful comments about during breaks in filming for Britain's Got Talent in 2020.

'These were private conversations and - like most conversations with friends - were never intended to be shared. Nevertheless, I am sorry.'
Chloe Sims and her sisters Demi and Frankie are set to return to screens next year with a second series of House Of Sims.

The former TOWIE stars signed a deal last year worth 1million to become the new Kardashians on OnlyFans' growing new TV venture.

And after great success, Chloe, 41, Demi, 27, and Frankie, 28, have started filming the ins and outs of their lives for season two.

The reality series, which premiered in May on OnlyFans TV, shows the Essex family in a Kardashian-esque light.

The star of the family Chloe has hinted at wanting the show being 'bigger and better' in the upcoming season with promises to give an even closer look at the stars since they've been rubbing shoulders with LA A-listers.

Back: Chloe Sims, 41, and her sisters Frankie, 28, and Demi, 27, set to return to screens next year with a second series of House Of Sims

Second stint: The former TOWIE stars signed a deal last year worth 1million to become the new Kardashians on OnlyFans' growing new TV venture (pictured Frankie, left and Demi, right)

Speaking about filming for the second season, Chloe said: 'You have been on our journey from Essex to LA, you have seen us rise and support each other as a family, but this season will expose who is cut from the same cloth!

'Stay tuned, as we unravel a huge season 2 as the Sims familys biggest challenge isnt to keep the Hollywood dream alive, but to keep the family together!'

As well as the TOWIE sisters, the show sees their brother Charlie Sims, who co-creates and produces, alongside his fiancee Georgia Shults.

Charlie said: 'We had no idea how successful and well-received House of Sims would be, but it was amazing to bring our fans on the journey with us from Essex to our new lives in LA through the show.

'I think we all thought it would be an easy transition, but weve all worked really hard and grown so much in the process.

'I cant wait for everyone to see what weve been up to during filming for season two, its going to be bigger and better than any of us ever expected.'

Filming for the shows highly-anticipated second season, the girls have been spotted followed by a crew capturing scenes for the show.

And as the stars have been seen on nights out with celebrity icons Paris Hilton, Hailey Bieber, and Megan Fox, Chloe has high hopes for the next season.

They're back and better than ever: The reality series, which premiered on Wednesday May 3 on Only Fans TV, shows the Essex family in a Kardashian-esque light

More to come: After great success in season one the Sims family have started filming the ins and outs of their lives for season two

New life: Chloe has hinted at the show being 'bigger and better' in the upcoming season with promises to give an even closer look at the stars lives

Out and about: Filming for the shows highly-anticipated second season, the girls have been spotted followed by a crew capturing scenes for the show

Ditched the Essex life: The series can be watched on the free OFTV app, which unlike the parent site features no nudity and can be watched on a smart TV (Frankie pictured)

LA fame: As part of the deal the family have opened OnlyFans accounts, but feature Instagram-style pictures, with no explicit content (Demi pictured)

Family: As well as the TOWIE sisters the show sees their brother Charlie Sims (right), who co-creates and produces, alongside his fiancee Georgia Shults (left)

As part of the deal the family have opened OnlyFans accounts, but feature Instagram-style pictures, with no explicit content.

The series can be watched on the free OFTV app, which unlike the parent site features no nudity and can be watched on a smart TV.

In season one, Chloe admitted she's 'never felt settled' in the UK and feels her family belong in LA.

She told sister Frankie: 'I've been in the UK living for 40 years but I don't feel settled here, I just don't think we belong here.'

'I've never felt at home in any of my houses, I don't feel 100 per cent this is my life. I'm just so excited we are doing this together.'

Chloe also touched on her decision to leave TOWIE: 'I decided to leave the longest running reality show in the UK.

'TOWIE changed everything for me so it was uncertain to leave such a comfortable position but I thought it was best to leave on a high.

The reality star then told her siblings: 'I hope everyone stays humble in this family because we have come from a humble place and I don't like it when people act spoiled. Here's to us and to killing it in LA!' said Chloe, adding: 'In the UK we don't really need to sell ourselves. Here we're completely unknown.'
Broadcasting legend Jeremy Kyle is joining TV presenter & columnist Nicola Thorp on a brand new breakfast show on TalkTV.

Launching early next month on October 2, Talk Today will be a dynamic mix of news and views, broadcast daily from 6am to 9.30am from state-of-the-art TV studios in The News Building at London Bridge.

And the on screen chemistry between the two hosts is already in full swing as Nicola poked fun at the age gap between the 58-year-old and herself, 34.

In a trailer for the show Nicola joked, 'I'm a millennium, you're a Victorian' as she points at the 58-year-old.

The title sequence then shows the pair making their way to the studio as they flick through the morning papers on route before arriving in the studio.

New hosts! Nicola Thorp, 34, poked fun at Jeremy Kyle's age, 58, as the two prepare to launch their new breakfast show on Talk TV on Monday Oct 2

Joking around: In a trailer for the show the on screen chemistry between the pair seemed to in full swing as Nicola joked, 'I'm a millennium, you're a Victorian'

Jeremy and Nicola will anchor the Monday to Thursday shows with hosts for Friday and the weekend to be announced shortly.

Discussing his new career endeavour, Jeremy said: 'I began my career on breakfast shows, so Talk Today feels like coming home. There's something very special about being in the slot that sets the news agenda for the day.

'I'm hugely excited to be working with Nicola. We have become great pals off camera, so it'll be fantastic to bring that friendship to the show.

'We'll talk with the audience about the issues that affect the whole country rather than only the few. And, of course, we'll have some fun.'

The former actress is a regular contributor on This Morning and The Talk where she delves into the day's headlines, and now the broadcaster will be co-host of her own news show.

Nicola cuts a sophisticated figure in the trailer as she dons a canary yellow power suit and sits next to Jeremy ready to start the show.

Talking about the new role Nicola said: 'It's a dream come true to be co-hosting the brand-new breakfast show Talk Today.

'I've been part of the TalkTV family for the past 18 months, during which time I've connected with people who have challenged my opinions and taught me how to find common ground across the political divide.

'I'm looking forward to hearing from our viewers all over the UK about what matters most to them and holding politicians to account. It's important to both me and Jeremy that everyone gets a voice.'

Getting along: The on screen chemistry between the pair seemed to in full swing in clips from the trailer

News: Launching early next month on October 2, Talk Today will be a dynamic mix of news and views, broadcast daily from 6am to 9.30am

Talk TV stars: Jeremy and Nicola will anchor the Monday to Thursday shows with hosts for Friday and the weekend to be announced shortly

Meanwhile it sees the beginning of a busy chapter for Jeremy as he revealed earlier this week he's set to become a father for the sixth time as his wife Victoria is pregnant with their second child, a girl.

Speaking to The Sun, Jeremy said he and Victoria, who he married in 2021, are 'over the moon' to be welcoming another child early next year, adding his family will be 'complete.'

He said: 'Vic says I need to set up a side business by bottling it because I'm 58 and I've only got one testicle, but everyone knows that anyway.

'The other kids are really happy, although my eldest Harriet thinks I need sectioning.

'I personally think it's my late parents having a laugh from up above, to be honest.'

Watch weekdays from 6am to 9.30am on TalkTV. Available on Sky 522, Sky Glass 508, Virgin Media 606, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217 as well as on DAB, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung TV Plus, YouTube, the Talk.TV website and TalkTV iOS and Android apps.
Donna Air headed out with her daughter Freya Aspinall - who is a dead ringer for her father Damian, in Chelsea on Tuesday.

The model, 44, looked chic in a pink long-sleeved T-shirt with a pair of black glitzy trousers as she enjoyed her daughter's company for the day.

Freya, who recently celebrated turning 20 at her lookalike father's zoo, cut a casual display in a black sweatshirt and white shorts.

The conservationist, who has followed in the footsteps of her father, 63, and is the only woman in the world to go in with Silverback Gorillas, flashed her slender legs in her summery outfit.

Donna and Freya appeared in great spirits during their outing.

Lookalikes: Donna Air, 44, headed out with her leggy daughter Freya Aspinall, 20, - who is a dead ringer for her father Damian in Chelsea on Tuesday

Following in the footsteps: Freya's lookalike father Damian (pictured) hosted a slumber party for Freya's 20th birthday with a lion cub at his wildlife park in Kent

Mother-daughter: The model looked chic in a pink long-sleeved T-shirt with a pair of black glitzy trousers as she enjoyed her daughter's company for the day

Last week, Freya enjoyed a slumber party with one of the lion cubs at her father's wildlife park in Kent.

The wildlife conservationist took to Instagram to share a series of snaps from her festivities with her feline friends.

While the model refers to herself as a 'Lion mama', she says her cubs are not pets as they will be 'rewilded' back to Africa.

'If you are wondering why there are lions in the house, don't get the wrong impression  they are not pets at all,' she wrote.

I have to hand raise them after their mother died and at night they sleep with me as they would with their mother as I am their primary carer when they are old enough they will be rewilded back to Africa.

'There is NO humanising or domesticating at all!!! If anything they lionise me! Anyone that meets the lions can testify this. This needs to be explained as their are a lot of people on social media that use animals and domesticate them as pets this is not the case at all!

'If I was not doing this and hand raising them they would be dead. We will rewild them where they belong.

'I wanted to post this photo to change the narrative for people to stop just seeing animals as pets instead look at this image and see the beauty behind it with the story of rewilding and sending animals back to the wild'.

Gorgeous: For their sweet outing, Freya cut a casual display in a black sweatshirt and white shorts and wore a pair of Gucci sandals

Quality time: Donna and Freya appeared to be in great spirits during their outing

Birthday girl! Freya shared snaps cuddling a lion cub as she celebrated her big day

Sweet: She was showered in gifts and wore a birthday tiara as she marked her special day with her family

Meow: She took to Instagram to share snaps of herself cuddling the little cubs, who she is the primary carer for before they get 'rewilded' back to Africa

Freya is the only daughter of Damian and Donna.

Donna was just 21 when she met and fell in love with the multimillionaire, who was 40 at the time.

They were introduced at a dinner party in 2000 by their mutual friend, former It Girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, and went on to have a seven year relationship.

The couple famously hit the headlines when Freya was a baby, announcing they were planning to place their daughter in a gorilla enclosure at Damian's animal park and allow her to be carried off by the female of the group.

It was a ritual Damian had carried out with his first two daughters, Tansy, 33, and Clary, 30, from his 15-year marriage to Louise Sebag-Montefiore.

Damian has carried on the legacy of his late father John Aspinall who encouraged close contact between animals and keepers at Kent park Howletts and its sister site Port Lympne.

Damian's dad John bought Howletts with his gambling winnings in 1956 and moved his family there from central London.

Following his father's death, Damian has has managed the parks through the John Aspinall Foundation, a charity named for his father.

Now Freya has entered the family business, with Damian and Donna backing their daughter's decision to drop out of school and follow him into conservation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger opened up about his relationship with his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, in an interview with People that was released on Wednesday.

During his sit-down with the media outlet, the 76-year-old actor revealed that he still held his former spouse, to whom he was married to 1986 until 2021, in high regard, despite their split.

The star of the Terminator franchise, who was recently spotted with his current girlfriend, Heather Milligan, stated that his 'chapter with Maria will continue on forever' and that there was 'no reason for me to feel anything other than love for her.'

Schwarzenegger began by admitting that his past actions led to the end of his relationship with the 67-year-old journalist, with whom he shares sons Patrick, 30, and Christopher, 26, as well as daughters Katherine, 33, and Christina, 31.

He stated: 'We never left the [first] chapter, because remember, it's not like we had a feud. We didn't have a fight. It's just my f*** up, right?'

Being honest: Arnold Schwarzenegger opened up about his relationship with his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, during an interview with People that was released on Wednesday; he is seen in May

The former pair separated in 2011 after it was revealed that the Predator star had fathered a son named Joseph, 25, with his family's former housekeeper, Mildred Baena.

The actor also recalled that he, as well as his former wife, decided to focus on the well-being of their children following their separation.

'She said, "Okay, this is what it is," and then she decided to make a split, so it was her decision. But the fact is, we always made it very clear that the kids should not suffer because of that,' he recalled.

Schwarzenegger went on to speak about his current relationship with Shriver and stated: 'Everything is kind of just as if we're together but we have separate lives.'

He added that his former wife 'has her things, her relationship, I have mine, but we always communicate about the kids, about the holidays.'

The former Governor of California has since moved on with Milligan, whom he initially met in 2012.

The pair was introduced after Schwarzenegger underwent shoulder surgery and was referred to his girlfriend, who works as a physical therapist, by his surgeon.

The performer recalled: 'After my therapy was finished, after I was finished with the movie, I called her back and took her out for lunch to say thank you. And then one thing led to the next.'

Speaking his mind: The star of the Terminator franchise, who was recently spotted with his current girlfriend , Heather Milligan, stated that his 'chapter with Maria will continue on forever and that there was 'no reason for me to feel anything other than love for her'; they are seen in 1986

Separation: The former pair separated in 2011 after it was revealed that the Predator star had fathered a son named Joseph, 25, with his family's former housekeeper, Mildred Baena; they are seen in 2003

Staying in touch: He added that his former wife 'has her things, her relationship, I have mine, but we always communicate about the kids, about the holidays'; she is seen with her son Patrick, daughter Katherine and son-in-law Chris Pratt in March

Working it out: Schwarzenegger went on to speak about his current relationship with Shriver and stated that 'everything is kind of just as if we're together but we have separate lives'

The happy couple initially began seeing each other in 2013, although they did not make their red carpet debut for two more years.

Schwarzenegger made no secret of his affection for his girlfriend, with whom he recently attended Oktoberfest in Munich.

'We have so many things in common. Our relationship is fantastic. I think the world of her,' he stated.

The actor added: 'I love that she's into working. She's clearly independent. She just is driven as hell.'
Kirstie Allsopp has been forced to pull out filming the new series of Location, Location, Location after falling down a flight of stairs in a London pub.

The presenter, 52, was left 'battered and bruised' following the accident, after which emergency services were called and she was rushed to hospital.

Confirming her hospitalisation on Instagram, she told followers: 'Today is Wednesday, and it's a working day. I should be out filming Location, Location, Location.

'Except yesterday, when we were in a pub in Stoke Newington, filming a chat with our lovely house hunters Beth and Rory, I went off to the loo.

'And unfortunately I got something wrong and I ended up falling down an entire flight of stairs.'

On the mend: Kirstie Allsopp has been forced to pull out filming the new series of Location, Location, Location after falling down a flight of stairs in a London pub

Accident: The presenter, 52, was left 'battered and bruised' following the accident, after which emergency services were called and she was rushed to hospital (pictured with co-host Phil Spencer)

Kirsty wrote: 'I am battered & bruised and putting my pants on is a struggle but Ill be back on track soon'

Kirsty added that she feels incredibly lucky not to have broken any bones but was left in extreme pain after the fall.

She said: 'It was, I think without a doubt, the scariest thing and most painful thing I have ever done in my life and I feel immensely blessed to be lying here in bed and not having broken anything. I'm bruised and battered.

'I went and had an x-ray and a CT scan. And I've been looked over by a lovely doctor.'

Kirsty thanked the paramedics who came and lifted her off the floor and apologised to the crew members who heard her screams in their earpieces during the fall.

The star added that her co-star Phil Spencer will be stepping in for her on the show, saying: 'Hopefully if I am feeling up to it I will Facetime them to give my advice from bed.'

Kirsty has been advised by doctors to get plenty of bed rest and her bruises mean that 'sitting or going in the car is out of the question'.

She said: 'Sadly that spa weekend I was taking my sister on is no longer happening, but I am really grateful, to be honest it was quite comic...

'When I was lying with my dress around my waist on the pub floor, I thought, 'Oh my god there is a comic element to it.'

'There were so many people that were so kind and helpful, Bernie from Enfield, Hayley from New York, and you know, you rely on the kindness of strangers when you are in that situation so I am very grateful.'

Sharing the update on Instagram, Kirsty captioned the clip: 'News from bedstupidly I went head first down a pub staircase yesterday morning while filming @c4locationsofficial.

'I am battered & bruised and putting my pants on is a struggle but Ill be back on track soon.

'@PhilSpencerTV is stepping into the breach and is taking over with my house hunters. On L,L,L what comes first is the lovely people who give up their time to house hunt with us and we must never forget that.'

It comes after Phil returned to work on Location, Location, Location earlier this month after losing both his parents in a car accident.

The presenter, 53, announced last month that his parents David, 89, and Anne, 82, had died in a crash on their family farm in Littlebourne, near Canterbury, Kent, as they were making their way to the pub for some lunch.

Back at it: It comes after Phil returned to work on Location, Location, Location earlier this month after losing both his parents in a car accident

Heartbreaking: Phil's parents, David, 89, and Anne, 82, both died last month after their car careened over a bridge and landed upside down in a river

Phil was seen for the first time since their passing in a video shared by Kirstie as she revealed the pair were back on set of their much-loved property show.

Kirstie began the video by explaining: 'So we're back at work filming on Location, Location, Location and I didn't quite know what my next post on Instagram should be.

'My last post was about Phil's mum and dad and you all sent such lovely lovely messages and Phil was so grateful...' prompting Phil to interrupt and confirm: 'Very grateful, and I haven't put anything on Instagram either, but I do appreciate peoples' lovely comments.'

Kirsty added: 'You see, he's English and he's a man, he's just done really really well so round of applause to Phil for doing that and thank you, you've all been so kind.'

She captioned the clip: 'Hes back at work, and was very, very touched by all your messages, I even managed to get him to say it on Insta. Bless him.'
Emily Ratajkowski was pictured while taking her dog, Colombo, for a walk in New York City on Wednesday morning.

The 32-year-old fashion industry personality cut a fashionable figure in a nearly all-leather outfit as she strolled along the Big Apple's streets.

The model - who recently dedicated a TikTok to 'all my NYC exes' - was later pictured while picking up a cup of coffee after she dropped her four-legged friend off at home.

Ratajkowski wore a dark brown trench coat that draped over her toned frame and was worn on top of a white t-shirt.

The social media powerhouse paired her outerwear with jet-black leather pants and a pair of gray New Balance sneakers.

Stepping out: Emily Ratajkowski was pictured while taking her dog, Colombo, for a walk in New York City on Wednesday morning

The entrepreneur accessorized with a sizable pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer Reverse sunglasses and gold hoop earrings.

Her beautiful brunette locks remained tied back into a loose ponytail for much of her outing, although they eventually fell onto her shoulders.

Ratajkowski recently opened up about the insecurity she experiences with paparazzi during Tuesday's episode of her High Low With EmRata podcast.

During the episode, the model admitted to utilizing her modeling skills on public outings while speaking to influencer Remi Bader.

She stated: 'If I like, have 10 photographers around me and I'm walking the dog, yeah like, I'll kind of make sure that my body's in a certain position to like, look good.'

Ratajkowski went on to express that she was growing tired of being judged for her looks during public appearances.

'It's like, either you're trying too hard or you're being thirsty and a loser for trying to look pretty for these pictures,' she said.

The model added: 'I'd like to see anybody get photographed as much as I'm photographed and see if you look perfect in every f***ing picture.'

Layering up: Ratajkowski wore a dark brown trench coat that draped over her toned frame and was worn on top of a white t-shirt

Standing out: The social media powerhouse paired her outerwear with jet-black leather pants and a pair of gray New Balance sneakers. The entrepreneur accessorized with a sizable pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer Reverse sunglasses and gold hoop earrings

Gorgeous: Her beautiful brunette locks remained tied back into a loose ponytail for much of her outing, although they eventually fell onto her shoulders

The fashion industry personality initially launched High Low With EmRata in October of last year.

However, Bloomberg reported that the program had been canceled by Sony Group earlier this month.

Insiders who spoke to the media outlet stated that the program was encountering difficulties with advertising to United States-based listeners.

Ratajkowski was also said to have been looking for another company to produce her podcast.
Kourtney Kardashian proved to be her own best advert as she modelled her debut boohoo collection on Wednesday.

The pregnant reality star, 44, who is gearing up to launch her fast fashion line on Thursday, looked sensational in a Blink-182 white cropped T-shirt.

Putting her baby bump on full display, Kourtney teamed the number with an unbuttoned beige mini skirt and black fishnet tights.

The TV personality accessorised by layering two chain necklaces and styled her dark locks in a chic half up-do.

Completing her outfit, Kourtney added a trendy open beige trench coat as she stared into the camera and cradled her bump.

Amazing: Kourtney Kardashian proved to be her own best advert as she modelled her debut boohoo collection on Wednesday

Looking good! The pregnant reality star, 44, who is gearing up to launch her fast fashion line on Thursday, looked sensational in a Blink-182 white cropped T-shirt and a beige mini skirt

It comes after the Disney star wowed in another snap that saw her don a skintight black dress.

The semi-sheer gown flashed a glimpse of her baby bump and was layered beneath a bomber jacket.

She added to the look with a white paisley print bandanna over her raven locks and chunky silver necklaces.

Kourtney also bared her naked baby bump in a snap for the brand.

In the image Kourtney, who is expected her first child with her husband Travis Barker, showcased her bump in a revealing white crop top and a long trench coat.

The star showed off her pregnancy curves in the daring ensemble, which was finished with sexy ripped tights and chunky suede boots.

Kourtney was first unveiled as Boohoo's newest brand ambassador last year, forming a partnership focused on sustainable, conscious practices which will see the launch of two 46 limited edition piece collections.

She said in a statement: 'When boohoo first approached me with this idea that was all about sustainability and style, I was concerned about the effects of the fast fashion industry on our planet.

Stunning: It comes after the Disney star wowed in another snap that saw her don a skintight semi-sheer black dress as she cradled her baby bump

Coming soon: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star is set to launch her latest range as a Brand Ambassador on September 28

'It's been an enlightening experience speaking directly with industry experts.'

Her two collections include 46 limited-edition pieces using recycled fibers, traceable cotton, recycled sequins and recycled polyester, and was offically debuted at New York Fashion Week in 2022.

It comes after Kourtney underwent emergency fetal surgery to save her unborn child earlier this month.

Travis was forced to abruptly put a halt to his rock band Blink-182's tour to return home to be with his family amid the undisclosed medical complication.

The Kardashians star shared a black and white photo of her holding Barker's hand while in a hospital bed and revealed to her 224 million Instagram followers what she had been through.

She captioned the post: 'I will be forever grateful to my incredible doctors for saving our babys life. I am eternally grateful to my husband who rushed to my side from tour to be with me in the hospital and take care of me afterwards, my rock. And to my mom, thank you for holding my hand through this.

Kourtney admitted that she hadn't been 'prepared' for 'the fear of rushing into urgent fetal surgery' after experiencing smooth pregnancies in the past.

'I dont think anyone who hasnt been through a similar situation can begin to understand that feeling of fear.

'I have a whole new understanding and respect for the mamas who have had to fight for their babies while pregnant,' she explained.

'Praise be to God. Walking out of the hospital with my baby boy in my tummy and safe was the truest blessing,' she concluded the post and added a praying hands emoji and heart emoji.

Earlier this year in June, Kourtney announced that she and her husband Travis were expecting their first child together.

They had tied the knot with a lavish wedding in Italy in May 2022.

The couple are already parents to three children each from previous relationships.
After the madness of Tuesday's opening night, Wednesday was a comparative walk on the runway as Balmain presented its latest collection in front if a reduced crowd at Paris Fashion Week.

A selection of stars from the world of film, fashion and music converged for the show, a first official look at the French brand's Womenswear range for Spring-Summer 2024, on day two of the bi-annual extravaganza.

Making an early arrival at the runway show, Poppy Delevingne, Lucy Hjd ale and Romee Strijd commanded attention as they greeted photographers on the purpose laid blue carpet.

Opting for a white woollen mindress, Poppy - the older sister of model and actress Cara Delevingne - inevitably drew attention to her sender physique.

The 37-year old added to the look with a pair of matching white stiletto heels, while a tasteful leather handbag continued the neutral colour scheme.

Here she comes: Poppy Delevingne attended the Balmain catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday evening

In attendance: Lucy Hale (left) and Romee Strijd (right) also joined the party as the event go underway in the French capital

Looking good: Opting for a white woolen mindress, Poppy - the older sister of model and actress Cara Delevingne - inevitably drew attention to her sender physique

Joining the British model, American actress Lucy, 34, claimed her own share of the spotlight in a gloved tuxedo top with a dramatic plunging detail.

The Pretty Little Liars star offset the look with a pair of tasteful cropped trousers, while matching black heels gave it a conventional flourish.

Meanwhile Dutch model Romee, 28, looked stunning in an intricate black leather shirt dress with pleated detailing - a look she teamed with shimmering silver heels and statement earrings.

Other guests on the night included 77--year old pop legend Cher, who arrived on the arm of notably younger boyfriend Alexander Edwards, 37.

The veteran star was venturing out having her own son kidnapped from a hotel room just as he was trying to reconcile with his wife on their wedding anniversary, court papers exclusively unearthed by DailyMail.com allege.

Elsewhere Mia Regan, the girlfriend of David and Victoria Beckham's son Romeo, made an appearance at the event.

The British model, 20, looked typically stylish in a fitted top and low-slung gingham check trousers, teamed with a pair of monochrome patterned heels.

Echos of the 70s are resonating on the Parisian catwalks this season, intertwined with modern fashion cues. While elongated silhouettes and intentional mismatched styles at Dries Van Noten highlighted a retro influence, the futuristic, space-age designs of Courreges offered a counterbalance, making the past meet the future.

Striking: American actress Lucy claimed her own share of the spotlight in a gloved tuxedo top with a dramatic plunging detail

Side by side: Lucy (left) turned plenty of heads in her show stopping out, but Dutch model Romee (right) wasn't too far behind in her black leather shirt dress

In good company: Music legend Cher was accompanied by her boyfriend Alexander Edwards

Fashion first: Former Victoria's Secret Angel Taylor Hill (left) and young British model Mia Regan (right) were also present during Wednesday evening's catwalk show

Sultry: Taylor revealed flawless features as she posed for photographers ahead of the event

Here she is: Sex And The City star Kim Cattrall was a late arrival at the catwalk show on Wednesday evening

Strike a pose: Dove Cameron (left) and Clara Berry (right) were among guests at the event

Smart: Mia looked typically stylish in a fitted top and low-slung gingham check trousers

Getting involved: Didi Stone (left) and Kim Hongjoong (right) made their presence felt at the event on Wednesday evening

Make wa: Kylie Jenner's rapper ex-boyfriend Tyga was spotted making his way out of the event

But Balmain lost dozens of pieces after a lorry carrying the clothing was hijacked, its creative director Olivier Rousteing revealed in September.

Rousteing said in an Instagram post that thieves seized the vehicle carrying some 50 items from Balmain's new collection between a Paris airport and the label's headquarters in the French capital.

The lorry driver was safe, he said.

'We are redoing everything but this is so disrespectful,' he said in his message.

A spokesperson for Balmain confirmed at the time that Wednesday evening's Paris show would go ahead, declining to comment about the robbery pending an investigation.

Balmain is controlled by Mayhoola, an investment vehicle backed by Qatar's royal family.
Demi Moore suffered an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction at the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

The actress, 60, looked glamorous in a sheer black gown with matching underwear underneath.

Demi was posing for snaps when she lifted her arm up and accidentally flashed her boob.

The star didn't seem bothered by the racy display as she continued to smiling and posing for the cameras.

She boosted her height in chic stilettos and hid her eyes behind a pair of oversized sunglasses.

Awkward! Demi Moore, 60, suffered an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction at the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday

Revealing: The beauty was posing for snaps when she lifted her arm up and accidentally flashed her boob

Demi's shiny raven tresses were styled poker straight and she sported a bronzed makeup palette which accentuated her natural features.

The star flashed her dazzling white smile as she arrived at the star-studded event with supermodel Kate Moss.

Paris Fashion Week is a series of designer presentations held semiannually in Paris, France , with spring/summer and autumn/winter events held each year.

Dates are determined by the French Fashion Federation and shows are held at venues throughout the city.

It comes hours after her ex-husband Bruce Willis made a rare public outing amid his battle with dementia.

Demi and her former partner, 68, remain close friends and share three daughters  Rumer, 35, Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 29.

The family have rallied around the Die Hard actor after he was diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) - an uncommon form of dementia that causes a deterioration in behaviour, personality and language.

They publicly revealed his condition in February of this year and his wife Emma Heming recently gave a heartbreaking update on his ongoing battle with dementia.

The Hollywood icon was seen in the passenger seat of a car in Los Angeles , on Monday - the same day that Emma, 45, revealed it's 'hard to know' if he is even aware of what is happening to him health-wise.

The sighting came just hours before Demi stepped out in Paris during Fashion Week, as she was seen arriving at her hotel with a puppy scooped in her jacket.

Stunning: The actress looked glamorous in a sheer black gown while wearing matching underwear underneath

Beaming: The star didn't seem bothered by the racy display as she continued to smiling and posing for the cameras

Gorgeous: Demi's shiny raven tresses were styled poker straight and she sported a bronzed makeup palette which accentuated her natural features

The A-lister made a low-key arrival and looked downcast she she stepped out in the French capital on Tuesday. She was cuddling her pet Chihuahua Pilaf.

She was bundled up in an oversized black blazer, which she was wearing with jeans and a pair of boots.

During his outing in LA, Bruce was sporting a quilted navy jacket and a matching navy hat, the actor was seen sitting with the passenger window down as he was driven around his home town in what has become an increasingly rare public outing amid his ongoing health struggles.

Emma fought back tears while she opened up about how she and her two daughters with the actor are coping with the 'grief and the sadness' of watching the actor's health decline in an interview on the Today show.

'What I'm learning is that dementia is hard,' she said, during an appearance at the show's New York studio. 'It's hard on the person diagnosed. It's also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce or myself or our girls.

'And when they say that this is a family disease, it really is.'

When asked how she went about explaining his illness to their children, she said: 'I think it's always been... we're a very honest and open household.

'And, the most important thing was to be able for us to say what the disease was, explain what it is because when you know what the disease is from a medical standpoint it sort of all makes sense.

'So it was important that we let them know what it is because, you know, I don't want there to be any stigma or shame attached to their dad's diagnosis, or for any form of dementia.'

Beauty: She boosted her height in chic stilettos and hid her eyes behind a pair of oversized sunglasses

Pals: The star flashed her dazzling white smile as she arrived at the star-studded event with supermodel Kate Moss

Stylish: She carried a black patent clutch handbag

Ex: It comes hours after her ex-husband Bruce Willis made a rare public outing amid his battle with dementia

Rare sighting: The Hollywood icon was seen in the passenger seat of a car in Los Angeles , on Monday - the same day that Emma, 45, revealed it's 'hard to know' if he is even aware of what is happening to him health-wise

When asked by host Hoda Kotb if he is aware of what is happening to him, Emma paused and revealed: 'Hard to know'.

But despite the difficulty of caring for her husband, she said receiving a diagnosis has made life 'easier'.

'I think it was the blessing and the curse. You know, to sort of finally understand what was happening so that I can be into the acceptance of what is.

'It doesn't make it any less painful, but just being in the acceptance and just being in the know of what is happening to Bruce just makes it a little bit easier.

'There is so many beautiful things happening in our lives. It is just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so that I can see what is happening around us,' Emma added.

In a particularly touching moment, Hoda asked Emma what she thinks Bruce is teaching their girls as they all come to terms with his illness as a family.

'Honestly, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Love, patience, resilience, so much...' Emma said.

'And he's teaching me and our whole... I mean, you know, for me to be out here doing this, this is not my comfort zone, but this is the power of Bruce.'

The family: Bruce's daughters Scout and Tallulah showed their support to Emma after the interview (L-R) Rumer Willis, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Scout, Emma and Tallulah in 2019

Hoda continued: 'I have heard from people that have an ailing family member, and I remember this from a friend of mine... she said, "my husband's diagnosis made my kids better people". Is that what you're noticing?'

'That is what I'm noticing,' Emma replied. 'Listen, I think my kids would be great no matter what! And this is not what I would want for them. But really, like I said, it is teaching them so much and how to care and love and it's a beautiful thing amongst the sadness.'

She confirmed that she refers to herself as Bruce's 'care partner' as opposed to his 'caretaker', and also noted the importance of taking care of herself as well.

'It's so important to ask for help and support. And you can look to organizations like the AFTD, like Hilarity For Charity... it is sort of a great starting point.

'And it's important for care partners to look after themselves so that they can be the best care, partner for the person that they're caring for,' she added.
Leigh Francis has broken his silence on Russell Brand following sexual assault allegations being made against him.

British comedian Russell, 48, is currently facing allegations of sexual assaults and abusive and predatory behaviour between 2006 and 2013, when he was at the height of his fame. Allegations which he denies.

Leigh spoke to the MailOnline at the Radiant Resilience exhibition by Zara Muse at Quantus Gallery, in London and said he feels the situation is 'sad' for Russell and the women involved.

He explained: 'I promised myself I wouldnt comment on it  its just sad, isnt it? Its a saddening thing for everyone. Its sad for the ladies, its sad for his family and its sad for him.'

Leigh, 50, best known as his alter ego Keith Lemon, went on to discuss being cancelled in the industry and claimed it's unlikely anyone would ever accuse him of anything because he has been in a long-term relationship with wife Jill Carter since he was aged 19. They married when he was 30.

EXCLUSIVE: Leigh Francis has broken his silence on Russell Brand following sexual assault allegations being made against him, while discussing cancel culture (pictured with his wife Jill Carter in July)

Allegations: British comedian Russell, 48, is currently facing allegations of sexual assaults and abusive and predatory behaviour between 2006 and 2013, when he was at the height of his fame. Allegations which he denies, (pictured in 2008)

But when asked if he fears he could get cancelled for saying the wrong thing, he said: 'Yes, it's easy to offend loads of people.'

His words come amid claims Leigh humiliated Melanie Sykes in front of a live audience while they filmed ITV's Through The Keyhole.

Melanie, 53, said Leigh made explicit sexual gags about her for three hours, including: 'I bet your a*****e smells of flowers.'

And when asked if he feared facing similar allegations to Russell, Leigh told MailOnline: 'Ive been married to the same lady since I was a little boy.

'I met my wife when I was 19, and I got married when I was 30 to the same lady, so theres no worry about me getting cancelled for that.'

Leigh and Jill dated since they were teens before eventually tying the knot in 2002 at Allerton Castle, North Yorkshire.

Earlier this week, Leigh found himself making headlines when Melanie claimed TV producers failed to act after she complained that comic Leigh made humiliating jokes about her to a live audience while they filmed ITV 's Through The Keyhole.

The radio and television presenter said the TV production company Talkback, founded by the comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, ignored her when she complained.

Speaking on fashion PR Lynne Franks's podcast, Frankly Speaking she said: 'I went into the studio and I didn't think Keith was going to be like he was on the other show he does [ Celebrity Juice ] where it's all sex and blowjobs and talking about people's a*******s.'

But she added: 'I sat there for a three-hour record and he did all that stuff to me verbally to entertain the live audience  because it was never going to make the edit of the show  so he used me to entertain the audience.'

Opinion: Speaking exclusively to MailOnline at the Radiant Resilience private exhibition in Quantus Gallery, London, Leigh said he feels the situation is 'sad' for Russel and the women involved

Cancelled? Leigh, 50, best known as his alter ego Keith Lemon , went on to discuss being cancelled in the industry and claimed he never will be due to his long relationship with wife Jill Carter

Comedian Katherine Ryan, who has accused Russell Brand of being a sex predator, labelled Francis an 'obvious creep' at the 2019 TV Choice Awards.

She told the audience that Lemon was 'proof for perverts everywhere that an obvious creep is cute. It's way less threatening than a stealth one'.

Francis hosted Celebrity Juice for 25 seasons before it was axed last year. It drew complaints and was the subject of an investigation by Ofcom, which ruled that a trailer for the show breached guidelines in 2013 by featuring what the watchdog said was a sex toy.

Talkback said looking after its TV guests was 'a top priority'. Francis did not respond to requests to comment last night.

Craig David also slammed his former show Bo' Selecta! as 'bullying' and called out the impressions performed by Francis, as 'racist'.

Bo Selecta! was first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2002 and ran for three series until 2009, spanning several spin offs.

The sketch show saw comedian Leigh perform as Avid Merrion, a stalker who is obsessed with celebrities and featured the comedian doing impressions of various stars using latex facemasks.

Now, the 41-year-old singer has blasted Leigh for the depictions, saying they had a hugely negative impact on him.

Speaking to The Times, Craig said: 'It felt like a vendetta and when it got a following, it became something that affected me.'

'People would shout at me on the street and I felt the same feeling I had when I was bullied at school. Leigh Francis had normalised bullying by making it comedy.'

Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by multiple women, including one who says she was 16 at the time.

One woman has alleged Brand raped her in his Los Angeles home, while another accused him of grooming her as they were involved in an allegedly 'emotionally abusive and controlling relationship' for three months when she was just 16 and still at school, and he was 31.

A third accuser claimed the comic sexually assaulted her while she worked with him in Los Angeles, and that he threatened to take legal action if she told anyone else about her allegation, and a fourth detailed the alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse she was subjected to.

Allegations: The outing comes amid claims the comic  best known as his alter ego Keith Lemon  humiliated Melanie Sykes while they filmed ITV 's Through The Keyhole (pictured in 2021)

Awful: Melanie, 53, said Leigh made explicit sexual gags about her for three hours, including: 'I bet your a*****e smells of flowers'

Brand posted a video on YouTube and Twitter refuting the allegations and insisted relationships at the time of his promiscuity' were 'consensual'.

Russell's behaviour is alleged to have been common knowledge among female performers on the comedy circuit, who are said to have warned each other about him and his attitude towards women is alleged to have been an open secret in radio and TV production, according to sources who briefed The Sunday Times .

Bosses at the BBC and Channel 4 are accused of turning a blind eye towards the entertainer's behaviour while he worked for them as a presenter between 2006 and 2013.

The broadcasters have insisted they took all necessary steps over him, but executives could still be called before a Government select committee where MPs will grill them over what they knew.
Sharon Osbourne showcased her drastic weight loss while out shopping in Mayfair, London on Wednesday.

The mother-of-three, 70, revealed in June that she'd lost over two stone after using controversial weight loss jabs and recently revealed that she goes 'at least three days a week' without eating.

She looked effortlessly chic in a black blazer with gold detail, teamed with matching trousers and heels.

Sharon hid her eyes behind dark sunglasses, while accessorising with a stylish handbag and scarf.

The TV personality was joined by daughter Aimee, who looked typically stylish in a black pinstriped blazer and a neon green scarf.

Weight loss: Sharon Osbourne showcased her drastic weight loss while out shopping in Mayfair, London on Wednesday

Glam: The mother-of-three, 70, looked effortlessly chic in a black blazer with gold detail, teamed with matching trousers and heels

It comes after Sharon shocked viewers as she showcased her drastic weight loss in a recent interview on Wednesday.

The star looked completely different as she appeared on Talk TV's Piers Morgan Uncensored alongside her husband Ozzy, 74, and her children Kelly, 38, and Jack, 37.

The 70-year-old's face highlighted her visible weight loss as she admitted: 'I didn't want to go this thin.'

Back in June Sharon revealed she'd lost over two stone after using controversial weight loss jabs.

The star explained she had used the weight-loss drug Ozempic in order to achieve her new figure.

Sharon lost the weight over a course of fourth months after using the jabs, however admitted she felt nauseous everyday and insisted it was not a 'quick fix'.

Speaking to E! News, she said: 'In my life, the heaviest I was 230 pounds and I'm now under a hundred. And I want to maintain at about 105 because I'm too skinny. But I'm trying to have a healthy balance.'

Sharon has since stopped using the drug, and she told Piers: 'It's just time to stop, I didn't actually want to go this thin but it just happened.

'I'll probably put it all on again soon!'

Weight: The TV personality revealed in June that she'd lost over two stone after using controversial weight loss jabs

Changing appearance: Sharon has been open about her fondness for getting plastic surgery over the years, but hasn't denied having regrets (pictured in 2003)

Chic: Sharon hid her eyes behind dark sunglasses, while accessorising with a stylish handbag and scarf

Stunning: The TV personality was joined by daughter Aimee, who looked typically stylish in a black pinstriped blazer and a neon green scarf

Gorgeous: Aimee styled her brunette tresses straight, while sporting a bronzed makeup palette which accentuated her natural features

Concentrating: The pair appeared to be focused on their mobile phones during the outing

Outing: She was pictured browsing in a shop with Aimee

Opening up: Sharon admitted that she was left looking like 'Quasimodo' after undergoing a facelift

Surgery: She previously opened up about the disastrous facelift, which took place in October 2021 and took five and a half hours

The Daily Star quotes Sharon as saying: 'Theres not one part of my body that I haven't had twisted, lifted, elongated, whatever'

During a discussion on the controversial injections on The Talk in June, Sharon shared her first-hand experience of the drugs, after it was announced that WeGovy's launch in the UK had been put on pause.

'It is a mental problem. It really is, apart from, you know, when children grow up in a household where they live off chips and pies,' she said.

'But I took (the injection). I took it for four months and I lost 30 pounds, but like everything, theres always no quick recipe.

'I was very sick for a couple of months. The first couple of months, I just felt nauseous. Every day I felt nauseous, my stomach was upset, whatever.

'But listen, I took it for four months, I lost 30 pounds. Ive just shoved two chips in my mouth, while we had the break, and I eat normally now, and I havent put on a pound. Nothing.'

In the interview Sharon also weighed in on Russell Brand's sexual assault scandal.

Weight: It comes after Sharon's daughter Kelly admitted she 'went a little too far' losing her baby weight

'I didn't want to go this thin': Sharon shocked fans as she showcased her drastic two stone weight loss in recent interview with Piers Morgan on Wednesday

Following a Channel 4 investigation on Saturday, Russell was subject to claims from a number of women accusing him of abusive and predatory behaviour, including rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse, which he has vehemently denied.

Sharon weighed in on recent resurfacing of Russell's historic spars with Rod Stewart and Bob Geldof over his relationships with their daughters - with Sharon's comments about Rod coming in light of her friendship with his daughter Kimberly.

She said: ''The only thing I can say about Russell Brand, is the two things I dont like, was when he spoke about one of them is a very good friend of ours, Kimberly Stewart, about what he had done to Kimberley Stewart in front of [Rod]...

'And then he did the same with Sir Bob Geldof You just don't do that to people's families, when that father is in the room. He's done it twice now and that's the thing that sticks with me.'
Retailers lost almost $80 billion to shoplifters last year, an increase of nearly $13 billion, amid a frightening rise in violent thefts in Democrat-run cities.

The National Retail Federation said the sector is under an 'unprecedented' threat from crime and violence, with store owners fearing for their livelihoods as well as their safety.

The annual trade survey collected data from 177 brands across the country, accounting for more than $1.6 trillion of annual sales.

It found that shrink, the total losses incurred by retailers, rose by $20 billion in a year to an eye-watering $112.2 billion in 2022.

And with up to 70 per cent of shrink accounted for by theft, it means retailers lost approximately $78.4 billion to shoplifters.

The NRF's survey found that thefts, such as this one pictured taking place at a Nordstrom Rack store in Riverside, CA, is costing the sector billions of dollars every year

The shocking figure has also jumped by almost a fifth from 2021, when it was around $65.7 billion.

The rise has been attributed to the soaring number of violent thefts. Overall, 88 per cent of retailers said shoplifters became more aggressive in 2022.

'Retail crime, violence and theft continue to impact the retail industry at unprecedented levels,' the report stated.

'The effects of these criminal acts are not isolated to large national brands or large metropolitan cities. Daily media reports show that no business is immune, and these issues touch retailers of all segments, sizes and locations across the United States.'

Violent shoplifting events have spiked by more than a third since 2021, according to respondents who track such incidents.

Just yesterday 20 people were arrested during mass looting in Democratic-led Philadelphia including one woman who livestreamed the stealing.

Footage showed the raiders brawling with police after storming Footlocker, Apple and Lululemon.

The NRF's warning comes just a day after around 20 people were arrested in Philadelphia after a night of widespread looting

The worrying rise in incidents has led to some retailers taking drastic action. Last week, Target announced it was closing nine stores across major cities amid soaring theft.

Target branches due to close include locations in Democrat areas such as San Francisco, CA, Harlem NY and Portland, OR which have also been the center of shocking shoplifting incidents caught on film in recent months.

The move came months after CEO Brian Cornell revealed shoplifters were costing the company up to $500 million a year.

Meanwhile CVS will close 900 stores by the end of next year. The retailer is axing 10 per cent of its stores as it pivots to online strategy amid the rampant increase in thefts.

According to the NRF, the top five locations worst affected by organized retail crime in 2022 were all Democrat areas.

Los Angeles, CA was the worst affected, followed by San Francisco and Oakland at number two, Houston, TX, New York City and Seattle, WA.

The report added: 'While theft has an undeniable impact on retailer margins and profitability, retailers are highly concerned about the heightened levels of violence and threat of violence associated with theft and crime.'

In addition to shoplifting, the NRF said retailers have also seen an uptick in e-commerce fraud and phone scams to elicit cash or gift cards.

It also said 'sizeable minorities' reported increases in 'delivery fraud; stolen goods being sold on third-party sites; return fraud; and loyalty fraud and abuse'.

The survey also found that 72 per cent of retailers reported an increase in the value of thefts in areas where the felony threshold has increased.
As retail giants throughout the US are shuttering stores and incurring critical losses due to shoplifting, one appears to have emerged relatively unscathed.

During Costco's quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, chief financial officer Richard Galanti made assurances that inventory losses were under control. 'Thankfully, it's not a big issue for us,' he told investors.

Hours earlier, Target said it was closing nine retail stores across the US because theft and crime were contributing to 'unsustainable business performance'.

And CVS said it would close 900 stores by the end of 2024.

According to a recent survey by the National Retail Federation, inventory shrink, or unaccounted losses of stock, cost American retailers an estimated $112 billion in 2022, or around 1.6 percent of their total sales.

And with up to 70 percent of shrink accounted for by theft, it means retailers lost approximately $78.4 billion to shoplifters last year.

Costco's 'inventory shrink' is around 10 times lower than the average for the US retail industry. Pictured is a Costco warehouse

Costco CFO, Richard Galanti, attributed its low theft to a membership-only business model and a store layout that places the entrance and exit beside each other

The National Retail Federation said the sector is under an 'unprecedented' threat from crime and violence, with store owners fearing for their livelihoods as well as their safety.

Galanti told DailyMail.com after the call that Costco's latest inventory shrinkage rate was 'in the low double digits [of basis points]' and between '0.1 and 0.2 percent' - around ten times lower than the industry average.

'Our shrinkage has historically been low,' he said. 'And we've gotten better with time.'

He attributes that success to various things, but emphasized that only fee-paying members can enter Costco's retail warehouses.

'You have to show your picture ID when you come into our warehouse so the fact that it's member-only is a positive,' he said.

The uniform layout of most Costco warehouses also imposes physical barriers between thieves and precious inventory.

'We've always had one way in and one way out and people checking receipts at the door,' he added.

Most retailers that operate in malls instead have multiple entrances and exits.

In a report summarizing its 2022 financial year, Costco noted that 'by strictly controlling the entrances and exits and using a membership format' it was able to maintain inventory losses 'well below those of typical retail operations.'

The uniform layout of most Costco warehouses also imposes physical barriers between thieves and inventory. Staff members attend the entrance and exit, ensuring only members can come in and no items that are unpaid for come out. Pictured is the schematic for a typical warehouse

Pictured is a Costco employee reviewing a customer's receipt and checking off individual items as she leaves the store. According to Galanti, this practice has helped to mitigate theft and losses

Costco also sells items in bulk, making it hard for smaller items to be snuck past the staff members who are checking customers' receipts as they leave.

'Many items are larger-sized items and when you have smaller, larger value items they're in packaging that is much bigger,' said Galanti. That includes items like Gillette razor blades, which come in oversized flat packaging.

Costco members have to pay membership fees of between $60 and $120 a year. Those fees have remained unchanged since 2017 and account for the bulk of its earnings - $4.6 billion of its $6.3 billion net income in the 2023 fiscal year.

That allows Costco to sell products for very competitive prices and with relatively low markups, keeping customer satisfaction high.

Although Costco's shrinkage rate has always been low, 30 or so years ago it was more than twice what it is today.

Galanti suggested that higher rates in the past could at least partially be attributed to inefficiencies, many of which have now been ironed out by technology, and pointed out that inventory losses are not just incurred through theft but also administrative errors, vendor fraud and damage.

He said: '99 percent of purchasing and ordering is automated now. We'd have baskets full of paperwork 40 years ago.'

During Tuesday's earnings call, he told investors that inventory shrink spiked by around 0.02 percent when self-checkout machines were introduced in some warehouses during the pandemic.

Costco membership fees cost between $60 and $120 a year and made up $4.6 billion of its $6.3 billion net income in the 2023 fiscal year

But he told DailyMail.com he was not especially worried about that uptick or afraid to continue deploying them in future.

'Mistakes are made,' he said. 'Even on the exit door, we find mistakes both ways.'

As Costco continues to operate in relative comfort, other retailers claim theft from their stores poses an existential threat.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said last year that if the problem persists more of its stores will close and prices will go up.

In addition to harming the bottom line, McMillon noted that in stores where crime was an issue the safety of employees was also a concern.

In April, the chain shuttered half of its stores in Chicago as it was losing millions each year to theft.

When Target announced its closures on Tuesday, it also cited threats to 'the safety of our team and guests'. Some retailers now advise their employees to stand down in the event they witness attempted robbery.

When asked about such practices at Costco, Galanti said he could not comment on its specific protocol but noted employee safety is always a priority.
An estimated $850 million Powerball jackpot will be up for grabs on Wednesday night - the world's ninth-largest lottery prize of all time.

Although no set of numbers are any more likely to result in winning than any others, over the last eight years some numbers have been drawn more frequently.

The numbers 61, 32 and 21 were drawn most often on the five white balls, whereas the most common numbers on the red balls were 18, 24 and 4, according to lottery statistics website LottoNumbers.com.

Rong Chen, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, explained that although some numbers are drawn more often, that does not mean they are more likely to be drawn.

'In theory and in practice, all combinations have equal probability of winning,' wrote Chen.

An estimated $850 million Powerball jackpot will be up for grabs on Wednesday night - the world's ninth-largest lottery prize of all time

Since 2015 the numbers 61, 32 and 21 were drawn most often on the five white balls, whereas the most common numbers on the red balls were 18, 24 and 4

But that does not mean there can be no strategy to maximize their expected winnings.

Since the jackpot is shared by all people who chose the winning numbers, it would be wise to select numbers that are less likely to be selected by other players.

That way the jackpot is less likely to be split among

That means avoiding common patterns, or choosing numbers larger than 31 since many people choose to use their birth date, according to Chen.

That was echoed by Mark Glickman, a senior statistics lecturer at Harvard, who told CBS News: 'Even though you cannot on a single drawing improve your chances, what you can do is invoke a strategy that actually increases your chance of not sharing your prize fund.'

'Rather than picking common numbers or patterns on tickets, what you should actually be doing is you should be taking random numbers,' he said.

MOST COMMON WHITE BALLS (2015 - 2023) 61 - 90 times 32 - 89 times 21 - 86 times 63 - 85 times 36 - 84 times 23 - 82 times 69 - 81 times 62 - 78 times 37 - 78 times 39 - 77 times Advertisement

MOST COMMON RED BALLS (2015 - 2023) 18 - 49 times. 24 - 48 times 4 - 47 times 14 - 41 times 26 - 40 times 25 - 39 times 3 - 39 times 21 - 38 times 5 - 38 times 13 - 38 times Advertisement

'You should just completely have pattern-less random numbers, no birthdays that have special meaning to you, because other people are likely to make those same picks,' he added.

Wednesday's jackpot has grown so large because there have been 29 consecutive drawings without a big winner, dating back to July 19.

Powerball's odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes becoming ever larger as they repeatedly roll over when no one wins.

The largest jackpot was a $2.04 billion Powerball prize hit by a player in California in November 2022.

In most states, a Powerball ticket costs $2 and players can select their own numbers or leave that task to a computer.

The $850 million jackpot is for a sole winner who opts for payment through an annuity doled out over 30 years.

Otherwise players can take an upfront cash option, which is lower. Winners almost always take the cash option, which for Wednesday night's drawing would be an estimated $397.4 million.

Those winnings would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
The double standards of Canadian morality are evident as it is the same country that celebrated the neutralising of the likes of Ayman al-Zawahiri

All countries, including moral democracies, have spy agencies and their infrastructure embedded in officialdom. These are vital towards ensuring the safety, security and mitigation of increasingly asymmetric threats. India has some like the Research Analysis Wing (RAW), and Canada, its Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and there is nothing abnormal or extraordinary about the same. Their mandate entails the collection, analysis, and timely warning with data to support the larger national security outlook, and therefore the means to achieve the same could be both, overt and covert. Part of the mandate also includes counterintelligence (defence against spy agencies from other countries, including friendly countries), counterterrorism and conducting operations, across seas. It is par for the course and there are certain unsaid and inviolable redlines and tolerances afforded on the same, especially amongst friendly countries.

Beyond the one-upmanship and naivety postured by Ottawa, it is the unprecedented compromise of the established (though unsaid) norms of reciprocal secrecy between friendly nations, that is simply unwarranted. Under this accepted and respected norm between two friendly nations, certain officials of various security backgrounds knowingly operate in the official Embassies/Consulates, as part of the overall diplomatic mission. While there could be topical issues of bilateral disagreement, but never is the lid on such specialist security personnel, never blown. It is the nature of the domain that mutual confidentiality is always maintained as one inadvertent leak on the identity of the personnel is professional invalidation, forever. While this reciprocal accommodation may not be tolerated between traditionally enemy countries e.g., Pakistan and India, it is certainly to be expected between Canada and India, whose strategic interests ought to (and did) converge, naturally. In one stroke of misplaced bravado, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau undid the sacred equation and named Pavan Kumar Rai, as the local station chief of the Research Analysis Wing (RAW). This practically ends the said officials possible career in missions abroad, effectively. The desperation to pander to domestic politics got the better of a struggling (in opinion polls) Trudeau as he partook in pretended outrage, without proof. A miffed Delhi was livid and a reciprocal action of expelling Olivier Sylvestre, the Canadian intelligence agencys station chief in Delhi, followed. All gloves are off, and Delhi was forced into a tit-for-tat with Delhi insisting, The decision reflects Government of Indias growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities". That Delhi did not think that the said diplomat was interfering in our internal matters till the time the Canadians unthinkingly escalated the war of words, suggests the breakdown of a traditional arrangement between the two countries.

It is particularly peculiar that Trudeau felt compelled to take the recklessly revelatory step of naming the official, given the relatively seamless Indo-Canadian relationship, and more importantly, the wounded history of the bombing of Air India Flight 182, in June 1985. A public inquiry conducted by the retired judge of the Canadian Supreme Court, John Major, had held Ottawas security infrastructure lacking the requisite urgency about a threat perception, that it did not purportedly understand. Canadas security apparatus had bungled the case of the principal terror accused, Talwinder Singh Parmar.

Even now, the fringe elements in Canada had not only upped the ante of civil protests but had gone as far as releasing photos of Indian Embassy staffers, in a wanted style optic that had compromised on safety of the Indian Embassy staffers. This should have been reason enough for Trudeau to understand the Indian concern, as opposed to indulging in grandstanding, as he chose. The pressures and backdrop of a faltering election re-bid was playing on Trudeaus mind when he took the hastily bizarre step.

Irrespective of the truth behind Trudeaus accusations of India in the killing of a Canadian citizen  the double standards of Canadian morality when it came to celebrating the neutralising of the likes of Osama Bin Laden or even Ayman al-Zawahiri, is brazen. Trudeau had tweeted following the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul by a US drone, The death of Ayman al-Zawahiri is a step toward a safer world. Canada will keep working with our global partners to counter terrorist threats, promote peace and security, and keep people here at home and around the world safe. Trudeau had not fully comprehended the concept of respecting sovereignty, as what was seemingly good for the goose was not good for the gander.

The inconsistency of stand and moralising is glaring, especially since Trudeau had the necessary heft to make direct calls with the powers-that-be in Delhi to manage the situation, instead of divulging the unnecessary, that too, without proof. While Delhis diplomacy has been increasingly driven by its own electoral and partisan agenda for some time, it too got a taste of the same from the Canadian side. It is now beyond the vanilla issue of involvement, as it now entails violating and derailing the hitherto norms of normalcy. This time, Trudeau started the unnecessary and avoidable theatrics.

(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)
Women in Bundelkhand are being liberated; they are not only becoming self-reliant but also getting freedom from the drudgery of fetching water

The land of Bundelkhand district, especially south-eastern Bundelkhand, is full of hills, plateaus, slopes, high and low, rocky, rocky, rocky and dry forests. Rain water does not stagnate on the land of this region, due to which there was always a shortage of water in Bundelkhand. In Bundelkhand, which has a population of around 1.25 crores, getting drinking water is a daily struggle for many people, especially women. Dhanwantari, a resident of Mahoba district of the district, gets emotional while saying this and says that the hand pump installed near the house did not work, even though water came after a lot of hard work, it was dirty. Therefore, she used to go about one and a half kilometres away from home to fetch water.

Whereas in ancient times, the Chandelas, Bundelas, Gond kings and Marathas along with the British had constructed more than 4,000 ponds in total in this water-scarce Bundelkhand region. Most of the ponds have dried up. However, the remaining water sources are proving to be a boon for this area today. The Jal Jeevan Mission Scheme of the Uttar Pradesh Government, whose objective is to provide clean drinking water by tap to every rural family is changing lives.

The Har Ghar Jal Yojana of the Government of India was implemented on priority by the Yogi government in those districts of the state where the problem of water was a cause of concern for many years. Under Har Ghar Jal Yojana, 55 litres of water is to be supplied to every villager per day. Bundelkhand women have gotten a big relief due to pure drinking water reaching their homes. Especially in Bundelkhand and Vindhya, women had to fetch water from miles away, but since the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme, they are now devoting time to their children's education along with household chores. They are becoming self-reliant by setting up their employment. There was a time when there were thousands of such villages in Mahoba, Lalitpur, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Chitrakoot, Banda, and Jhansi of Bundelkhand where people did not marry their daughters due to the water crisis. Anurag Srivastava, Principal Secretary, Uttar Pradesh Government, believes that the Jal Jeevan Mission is not only ensuring the supply of clean drinking water from taps in rural areas but is also providing employment to promising and needy people. In such a situation, 13 youths are being given training for this in a gram panchayat. For their skill development, 1,16,366 youth are being given training in plumbing, 1,16,366 electricians, 1,16,366 motor mechanics, 1,16,366 fitters, 1,74,549 masons, 1,16,366 pump operators across UP. In the direction of making rural women self-reliant, along with making rural women self-reliant in UP, 5 women from every village are being given training in water testing (water test kit) for clean drinking water. In such a situation, women are testing water in the village with field test kits. And making the local administration aware.

In such a situation, till now more than 4,87,955 women have been given training in water testing. And in every village, women are doing 11 types of tests for the purity of water. Due to this, the quality of water from taps, wells, hand pumps and tube wells is also being tested.

Jal Jeevan Mission has changed the picture of Bundelkhand and Vindhya region which has been suffering from every drop of water for years. Namami Gange and Rural Water Supply Department's Har Ghar Nal Se Jal Yojana has become a new story of Bundelkhand and Vindhya region. Jal Jeevan Mission's Har Ghar Jal Yojana has saved large areas of the state from the major drinking water crisis. The supply of drinking water from the tap to every home in thousands of villages is living proof of this.

(The writer is a senior journalist; views are personal)
Without sustainable economic growth, local employment generation, and self-reliance, Punjab's well-being will continue to be a challenge

It's worrisome that Punjab only receives 45 paise for every rupee it contributes to the Centre's tax kitty. This is especially concerning when comparing it to states like UP and Bihar, which receive Rs 1.80 and Rs 1.20, respectively. This revenue-sharing disparity is a significant contributor to the socio-economic distress experienced by Punjab. As a landlocked border state, it's even more crucial for Punjab to overcome this fiscal distress since Indias and Pakistan's bilateral trade also halted through the Wagah-Attari route majorly affected Punjabs economy only. The said cost-effective cross-border route can directly short-connect to Europe, a big potential to catalyse the Punjab economy as strong as the economy of Southern-Western States, because of near to seaports.

Being far away from the seaports is one of the major disadvantages that Punjab is struggling with, and has a crippling impact on industrial growth. Secondly, adjoining the sensitive Pakistan border not only halted the trade but Pakistan led to illegal arms supply and drug terror scuffed the social fabric and law and order of Punjab. Keeping these two major geographical disadvantages centre stage till any central government has not compensated Punjab as it faces odd challenges in comparison to other states. Not even a fair share of tax kitty given, the Rural Development Fund(RDF) and Mandi Fee of Rs 5337 crore have not been released for long. Thus, how long does a fiscally distressed state government alone take forward the most development and welfare-oriented expenditure?

When a state's economy weakens, its people and progress suffer together. This is evident in the current crisis in India-Canada relations, as Punjab's economic distress has led to a migration of its human resources to Canada. Unfortunately, this migration has created a breeding ground for radicals and anti-Indian khalistan extremist activities on Canadian soil, a globalised challenge that has gone unaddressed. The Canadian connection to khalistani is longstanding. Since the mid-80s, there has been a significant exodus of Punjabi youth to Canada, where they often do odd jobs to sustain themselves. Unfortunately, some of these young people become prey to anti-India extremists.

It is not good to allow a lopsided economic development of a sensitive state like Punjab. It has its serious repercussions. If we fail to ensure holistic development, then we will be accused of inefficiencies in handling human resources. Unemployment is a multi-faceted problem exacerbating the distressed places associated with poorer mental health, crime and drug abuse. There is enough evidence of drug abuse and distress in the law-and-order situation, that an issue of brimming, can be ascribed directly to unemployment.

Punjab, which used to be a prosperous and progressive state even during its toughest time, is currently facing a significant problem of uncontrolled unemployment due to distressed farming and an imbalanced industrial base. This has resulted in Punjab's GDP growth rate dropping to 6%, which is lower than the national growth rate of 7.24% in 2022-23. Punjab is currently ranked at the 19th position, whereas it ranked first in GDP among the states in 1981 and fourth in 2001. Interestingly, UP and Bihar, which were once part of the economically sick states known as 'BIMARU' (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh), are now fast-growing economies. UP achieved an impressive growth rate of 16.8%, with a GDP of Rs 20.48 lakh crore in 2022-23, while Bihar's growth rate was 10.98% with a GDP of Rs 7,45,310 crore.

It is crucial to acknowledge that Punjab has immense potential that should not be overlooked when compared to the Southern and Western states. Presently, Punjab's contribution to the country's tax kitty stands at approximately 3%, and it only receives 1.8% of the divisible pool of taxes allocated by the Fifteenth Finance Commission. In contrast, the Western and Southern states contribute 67% to the central exchequer but only receive a meagre 3-4%. While their argument may appear valid, it is essential to consider that the Southern and Western states account for 53% of India's total factories and have the advantage of being closer to seaports, which can drive economic growth and result in more contributions to the central exchequer. Punjab's sluggish growth may dampen overall economic sentiments, but it still holds enormous potential for growth and contribution to the country's economy.

Undoubtedly, Punjab has the potential to contribute 10-15% as it possesses a strong capable and committed entrepreneurial spirit to overcome this economic distress. This spirit has been evident in the past when it overcame the challenges of the partition of India in 1947 and 13 years of militancy in the mid-80s to mid-90s. Within a few years of these events, Punjab was able to rehabilitate its economy and become the richest state in India in the 80s. Today, Punjab seeks a fair interface without any political interference to compete on a level playing field and strengthen its economy, ultimately reducing unemployment.

It is important to consider Punjab's significant contribution to national food security. However, the large areas and population figures of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar provide them with additional leverage from the central tax pool. It is concerning that Punjab only received 1.8% of the Rs 8,16,649 crore distributed by the centre to the states during 2022-23. In contrast, Uttar Pradesh received the highest share at 18% (Rs 1,46,525 crore) and Bihar received the second-highest share at 10%. This highlights why Punjab and other states argue that they are not receiving a fair share of funds, despite contributing more to the exchequer.

During the fiscal year 2022-23, Punjab contributed a sum of Rs 32,800 crore to the central taxes fund, which included CGST, income tax, corporation tax, wealth tax, union excise duty, customs, and service tax. However, in return, the state only received Rs 14,756 crore. This has led to Punjab raising the issue with the Fifteen Finance Commission, as it believes it deserves a fair share of central tax. Despite its efforts, Punjab has been unable to secure an amendment to the Finance Act.

Constitutionally, the purpose of the finance commission is to create some kind of 'equalization' among advantaged and disadvantaged states. From the point of view of equalization, the adoption of population figures as one of the criteria of devolution needs to be justified. Therefore, the constitution provides for a fair share of union revenue to be devolved to the states to address this issue.

The Way Forward:

In a federal structure, the central government needs to prioritise the improvement of economic conditions and livelihood prospects for the people of Punjab, which are facing unique challenges in comparison to other states.

It is crucial to take a comprehensive approach that ensures employment opportunities and social respect regardless of demographic and political differences. Without sustainable economic growth, local employment generation, and self-reliance, Punjab's well-being will continue to be a challenge, which is indispensable for the overall well-being of our nation.

(The author is vice-chairman of Sonalika group, vice-chairman of the Punjab Economic Policy and Planning Board, and chairman of ASSOCHAM Northern Region Development Council. Views expressed are personal)
A difference of opinion has surfaced in the Opposition INDIA bloc over the venue for its fourth meeting. The Congress is insistent that the meeting should take place in a city within the poll-bound States of Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh.

However, INDIA bloc parties like the Samajwadi Party, the JD(U), the NCP, and others are advocating for the meeting to be held in Delhi, sources said.

According to sources, the Samajwadi Party has cited their reasons for the choice of venue, arguing that it should not create an impression that the Congress, as the grand old party, is attempting to assume an elder brother role in the Opposition alliance.

The Congress sources have refuted this argument, emphasising that any victory by a member of the coalition will undoubtedly bolster and contribute to the success of the INDIA bloc.

The Opposition bloc has so far conducted three meetings with the first at Patna, coordinated by senior JD(U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, followed by Bengaluru where the Congress wrested power from the BJP this year, and then at Mumbai under arrangements by the MVA alliance partners  the Congress, the NCP and the Shiv Sena.

During the alliances meeting in Mumbai, there was a general consensus that the forthcoming gathering of the INDIA bloc should take place in Bhopal, coinciding with the inaugural joint public rally featuring leaders from various Opposition parties.

In the first coordination meeting of the INDIA bloc, the discussion revolved around organising the third meeting in the national Capital, with coordination led by AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

However, soon after the coordination committee meeting at NCP leader Sharad Pawars residence in Delhi where it was announced that a joint rally will be held at Bhopal, it stood cancelled at the backdrop of massive controversy over the Sanatan Dharma row fuelled by its alliance partner DMK leaders.

The modalities and date of the meeting are yet to be finalised, however, it is likely that it can be held sometime in the first fortnight of October. Delhi was also considered among the venues in the last meeting but Bhopal remains the preferred one for many leaders, said a top Congress source.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress emerged victorious in the previous Assembly elections and held the Government for a year and a half.

However, it faced a setback when a faction of its party MLAs defected to the BJP, resulting in the formation of a new Government. The State is set to hold elections later this year, alongside neighbouring Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, both of which currently have Congress-led Governments.

Just as the Samajwadi Party and the JD(U) expressed their dissatisfaction with the media boycott call by the INDIA bloc, these same parties are now opposing the Congress initiative to host the fourth meeting in the Lake City of Madhya Pradesh. The alliance members believe that the grand old party has a stronger electoral advantage in the Assembly polls there.

The Congress attitude is still the elder brother type. They did in the media boycott call and we had to rally behind it, a JD(U) leader told The Pioneer over phone from Patna.

Already Nitish seems to be increasingly out of sync with the RJD on its backward versus forward politics.
During Justin Trudeaus tenure, Canada has taken a diplomatic disagreement with India to an unprecedented level. The Canadian Government has provided peculiar explanations to its citizens, urging them to exercise caution when visiting India.

The reasons  strange and exaggerated  include extreme weather conditions, frequent train accidents, forced marriages, incidents of rape and sexual assaults in yoga centres and ashrams, as well as the overall poor road conditions across the country.

This travel demarche has been issued at a time when India and Canada find themselves entangled in a diplomatic dispute over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Forced marriage affecting foreigners occurs, sometimes without the affected persons prior knowledge or consent and some Canadians have been forced into marital arrangements and have been detained against their will, reads the advisory.

They have been subjected to threats, intimidation and violence by family members, claimed the advisory uploaded on Canadas official website travel.gc.ca.

Highlighting womens safety issue, it warned that reports of rape and assault against foreign women have increased. You should be particularly vigilant in Delhi, Goa, and at yoga centres, ashrams and other places of spiritual retreats. If you are travelling to India to meet someone you have otherwise only met online, you may be the victim of a scam, it warned.

Be alert to attempts at fraud by persons who profess friendship or romantic interest over the internet, it said.

Crimes committed against women frequently occur in India. Foreign women are often the target of unwanted attention. Staring, verbal abuse, groping, and other forms of sexual harassment can occur anywhere, including in tourist sites and areas. Attackers sometimes act in a group, it said, adding, credit card and ATM frauds also occur.

According to the advisory. India is prone to extreme weather events such as avalanches, cyclones, dust storms, earthquakes, floods, landslides and extreme temperatures that can occur in both spring and summer.

Advising people to limit their activities outdoors, the advisory said smoke haze and other types of air pollution can be extremely hazardous in urban areas and cities like Delhi.

It is typically at its worst in winter. In rural areas, air quality can be affected by agricultural burning. Dust storms also occur across northern India, it said.

The advisory further said demonstrations/mass gatherings, general strikes, bandh or hartal, take place frequently.

Even peaceful demonstrations can turn violent at any time. They can also lead to disruptions to traffic and public transportation. Stampedes have occurred during mass gatherings, including religious ceremonies, and resulted in deaths and injuries. Local authorities may impose curfews and other restrictions at short notice. Avoid areas where demonstrations and large gatherings are taking place, it advised.

The advisory also cautioned that road conditions and road safety are poor throughout the country. Most roads, including major highways, are poorly maintained.

There is severe traffic congestion. Driving conditions may be hazardous during the rainy season, and some roads can become impassable. India has an extensive passenger train system. Rail accidents are common, mostly due to poor maintenance. Thefts are frequent on certain train lines, it said.

The advisory warns people against travelling to States like Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modis home State, Punjab and Rajasthan, which share borders with Pakistan, due to presence of landmines.

The advisory said petty crime, such as pick-pocketing and purse snatching, is common.

Criminals may target foreigners, especially in major cities and tourist areas. Petty crime frequently occurs on public transportation and overnight trains, it said. However, serious crime against foreigners is less frequent, but incidents do occur, it cautioned.

The Canada Government advisory also warned that tourist areas and airports are of particular concern where scammers particularly target foreigners.

Scams involving the exportation of jewels, gemstones, carpets, and other items have occurred. Taxi drivers may approach you, offering money to export such items, it said.

Amid the diplomatic row over the killing of Nijjar, Canada has further updated its travel advisory for its citizens in India to remain vigilant and exercise caution.

Tensions flared between the two countries after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus explosive allegations of a potential involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Nijjar, 45, on his countrys soil on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

In a riposte, India dubbed the allegations as absurd and motivated and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawas expulsion of an Indian official over the case.

New Delhi also announced temporarily suspending issuance of visas to Canadian citizens in view of security threats faced by its High Commission and consulates in Canada.
Incarnating the Indian Govt's Vision 2030 towards developing remote areas, the Indian Navy has embarked on a multi-dimensional outreach program dedicated to strengthen the connect with the north eastern states of the country. This program is aimed to enhance greater participation of youth from Sikkim in the defence forces, strengthen nation building and promote defence consciousness in the region.

Towards this pursuit, INS Shivaji, a premiere training establishment of the Indian Navy started off a motor rally expedition named "Khamree Mo Sikkim" (Hello Sikkim). From Lonavala to Sikkim and back, it will traverse over 6500km through nine Indian states with an aim to show case the commitment of the defence forces towards national security and to generate awareness by encouraging the future generation to serve the nation by joining the defence forces. The key highlights of the activities enroute include defence exhibitions, career guidance, cultural exchange and digital enfacement.

The motor rally expedition was flagged off from INS Shivaji, Lonawala on Sep 24 and reached Mhow on the same night. The participants of the expedition visited Infantry Museum and carried out outreach activities at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Mhow on the next day. They interacted with the students and informed them about the role of defence forces in nation building, the quality of life and ways to join the defence forces. The students and faculty of the school were delighted to acknowledge the facts and the interaction left them motivated and inspired.

The expedition was flagged off from Infantry School, Mhow by Lt Gen PN Ananthanarayanan, AVSM, SM, Commandant Infantry School for its next destination - Jhansi at 6.30 am on Sep 26, 2023.
In a heart rending incident in Ujjain, a 12-year-old girl, visibly injured and partially unclothed due to an alleged sexual assault, was seeking help, but the locals refused. Shockingly, bystanders stared but callously turned her away, with one man callously shooing her as she desperately sought help after being allegedly raped. This heart-wrenching scene was captured by a CCTV camera on Badnagar road, situated approximately 15 km from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.

Due to the severity of her injuries, the girl was swiftly transferred to Indore. The police personnel stepped forward to donate blood when needed, stabilizing her condition. The victim was so much in disress that the young victim struggled hard to provide details the incident and the accused.

The police promptly filed a case of assault against unidentified culprits and invoked the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Sachin Sharma, the police chief of Ujjain, announced the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to expedite the identification and apprehension of the perpetrators. He urged the public to inform the authorities if they possess any relevant information. When questioned about the exact crime location, the officer mentioned an ongoing investigation, promising to provide more details soon. Furthermore, he added, "The girl was unable to pinpoint her exact location, but her accent hints at her origins being Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh."

This distressing incident has once again brought to spotlight the alarming frequency of violence against women in Madhya Pradesh. Former MP CM and state Congress chief Kamal Nath has strongly condemned the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government after the video went viral on social media. Nath also demanded Rs 1 crore compensation for the victim, along with proper medical treatment.










Ranchi and Gumla police have achieved great success and arrested three car and bike thieves on Wednesday. Two have been arrested from Gumla and one from Ranchi. On the information of the three, the police have recovered 12 stolen bikes and one car. There is a BJP flag on the seized Swift car.



The two arrested by Gumla police are said to be a couple and masterminds of the theft case. Ranchi Police has also arrested a mastermind. The police are thoroughly interrogating all three. On the trail of the three, police are conducting raids in different areas of Ranchi and Gumla. Police are confident that many more stolen vehicles may be recovered. The police have also received important information about many thieves and based on the input received, the police are busy taking further action.



Meanwhile, a cyber-criminal who cheated Rs 87.29 lakh has been arrested. Cyber cell of CID has taken the action. CID has arrested 29 year old Luv Kush Sharma, resident of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Two mobile phones, bank account and documents used in the fraud have been recovered from him. It is noteworthy that a case was registered in Cyber Cell police station on January 20, 2023 by Bindeshwari Singh, resident of Hatia in Jagannathpur police station area.



It was said in the complaint filed that cyber criminals had fraudulently withdrawn Rs 87.29 from HDFC's Bank of India account from May 2022 to January 2023 in lieu of returning the policy money after the completion period of the policy and transfer was done to different bank accounts. During the investigation of the case, the CID team arrested Luv Kush Sharma.
Setting a new milestone, 32 students of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory (SBAFP) School, run by the Delhi Government, have cleared the National Defence Academy (NDA) written examination this year.

Of them, nine are girls. A total of 76 students of the SBAFP School have appeared for the NDA entrance test this year. The school was inaugurated by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in August, 2022. The chief minister has applauded students of SBAFP School for clearing the National Defence Academy (NDA) entrance exam.

Taking to social media platform X, Kejriwal on Wednesday wrote, Delighted to share that 32 students from Delhis Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School have cleared the NDA exam, one of the highest number from any school across the country.

In just one year Delhis Armed Force Preparatory school has shown excellent results. I am sure that more and more students from Delhi will now clear the NDA exam and make our country proud as future officers. Delhi will always be ready to serve the nation, he added. The result of the NDA entrance exam is available on the official website of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), upsc.gov.in.

According to Education Minister Atishi, additionally, this school of the Kejriwal government now stands second after the Uttarakhand-based Sainik School, Ghorakhal (established in 1966), in terms of the number of students who have passed the NDA exam.

This school is spread over 14 acres and is equipped with all state-of-the-art facilities. It is part of the Delhi governments School of Specialized Excellence and is recognized by the Delhi Board of School Education.

Appreciating the efforts of students, Education Minister Atishi said the he vision of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal behind starting AFPS seems to be getting fulfilled within a year. He started the school to provide opportunities to children from underprivileged backgrounds to become military officers and serve the nation.

Its a tremendous achievement that out of our 76 students who took the exam, of which 32 students cleared the written exam. Encouraging the students, she told them to put in double the effort to turn their dream of being army officers into reality.

Currently, there are a total of 237 students enrolled in classes 9th, 10th, and 12th in this school. In class 12th, there are a total of 76 students, all of whom have taken the NDA examination, and out of these, 32 students have passed the written exam, she said.
Five labourers were injured in a fire that broke out at a chemical factory in Kurali area of Punjabs Mohali on Wednesday.



Mohali Deputy Commissioner Aashika Jain ordered a magisterial probe into the incident and said an additional deputy commissioner-rank officer will be entrusted with the task of the inquiry.



Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann called the fire incident tragic and wrote on X that many workers were evacuated.



As the fire broke out at the factory, plumes of smoke covered the sky. It took several hours for the firefighters to douse the blaze. Some small explosions could also be heard from the factory premises as inflammable liquids caught fire. Several fire tenders were called in from Mohali, Zirakpur, Dera Bassi, Kharar and Chamkaur Sahib to douse the flames, officials said. The exact cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, they said.



Punjab cabinet minister Anmol Gagan Mann along with senior officials from Mohali visited the site. DC Jain, while appreciating the efforts of the firefighters, said due to chemical composition it was taking more time to control the fire but now the situation is under control. Two of the five injured labourers, who got burn injuries, have been given advanced treatment by keeping them under observation, she added. We will get a detailed report on irregularities later on and the guilty will be booked for endangering the lives of the poor labourers, she said in a statement.



The DC also enquired about the health of the injured labourers.
Escalating the war of nerves with the Congress, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday launched the election campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav, in a terse message to the Congress, has already stated that the Samajwadi Party is not seeking but giving Lok Sabha seats to the partners of INDIA bloc.

Both the Congress and Samajwadi party are members of the opposition alliance INDIA and presently engaged in negotiating seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

On a two-day visit to MP, Akhilesh Yadav addressed a meeting in Sirmour assembly constituency in Rewa district, 127 kms from Prayagraj. Yadav, who is the leader of opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, will hold several meetings with the party leadership in MP.

The SP has fielded former BJP MLA Laxman Tewari as its candidate. He will also hold meetings with party workers in Khajuraho before returning to Lucknow on Thursday.

SP sources said that the party is preparing to fight all seats in the state where the contest is expected to be between the BJP and the Congress. Despite the SP and Congress being part of the INDIA bloc, these two parties seem to be heading for a fight in MP, Chhattisgarh, and other states where polling is scheduled later this year.

In Chhattisgarh, the SP is mulling over contesting as many as 40 seats out of a total of 90 assembly segments.

A senior SP leader said that the reason behind the SP contesting assembly elections in MP and Chattisgarh later this year is the objective to make a hard bargain in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections.

The Samajwadi Party has so far announced candidates for six seats in MP, including Dhauhani (ST) and Chitrangi (ST) in Siddi district in the states Vindhya region; and Mehgaon, Bhander (SC), Niwari, and Rajnagar in Bundelkhand and Gwalior-Chambal belts, all located near the UP border.

Of these six seats, the Congress won three and finished second on two in the 2018 assembly elections. SP sources said that the alliance between their party and the Congress is for Lok Sabha and not for state assembly elections.

Electoral battle in Madhya Pradesh is bipolar where the BJP and Congress are the main contenders. Besides the Samajwadi party, the Bahujan Samaj Party has also contested all the assembly polls in the last over two decades. However, the BSP is yet to announce candidates for the MP assembly elections.

Among the issues the party is likely to raise in the MP polls are a monthly allowance of over Rs 3,000 each for the unemployed youth, government guarantee for business loans for the youth, and loan waiver for farmers. The SP will also raise the issue of caste-based census in the state. Though no party won a clear majority in the state in 2018 state assembly elections, the Congress emerged as the single-largest party with 114 seats in the 230-member House, followed by the BJP with 109 seats.
Former Kalahandi BJD MP Arka Keshari Deo on Wednesday returned to the BJP after staying away from the saffron camp for about 10 years.

The young leader joined the BJP along with his wife Malvika Devi in Bhubaneswar in the presence of senior leaders of the party, including BJP State president Manmohan Samal and Kalahandi MP Basant Kumar Panda.

Arka Keshari had joined the BJD in 2013 after the demise of his father Bikram Keshari Deo, who was a former BJP MP. Subsequently, he resigned from the ruling party in 2019. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from Kalahandi on a BJD ticket.

The ruling party had fielded former Minister Pushpendra Singhdeo in 2019 General Elections. However, BJP candidate and former state president of the party Basant Panda won the seat.
Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday thanked the government of Assam and Uttrakhand for donating Rs 10 crore and Rs 5 crore each towards the Aapada Rahat Kosh-2023, or the state disaster relief fund.



He said that the funds will go a long way in supplementing relief measures being undertaken by Himachal Pradesh for the victims of rain, floods and landslides. Sukhu expressed his gratitude to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami for providing assistance at a time when Himachal was recovering from climatic devastation.



Earlier, Haryana, Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh had also provided help of over Rs 65 crore to the state to help it in its relief and rehabilitation work. Temple trusts, NGOs and several individuals have also come forward to help.



Heavy rain in the months of July and August caused huge damage to the road infrastructure, water supply schemes, buildings and other private and public property in Himachal Pradesh. To date, 293 persons have died in rain-related incidents since the onset of the monsoon season on June 24. The CM had earlier claimed that the state suffered losses to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore. Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha had on September 20 adopted a resolution by voice vote, urging the Union government to declare the calamity in the state a national disaster and declare a special relief package of Rs 12,000 crore for the state.
In a strategic move to mobilise support among the Other Backward Classes (OBC) voters in Western Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Union Minister and National President of the Republican Party of India, Ramdas Athawale, is set to conduct Jan Adhikar rally. in Meerut on October 1.

The rally, poised to have a significant impact on the political landscape in the region, will be attended by Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and other prominent leaders, including the BJPs national vice-president Laxmikant Vajpayee.

After Meerut, Athawale will hold another rally in Lucknow, both of which will focus on discussions about the rights, justice, and entitlements of backward communities.

The Jan Adhikar rally holds particular importance for the BJP as it aims to secure the support of the 37.53% OBC voters in Western UP, a demographic that significantly contributed to the party's success in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. With an eye on repeating that success in 2024, BJP seeks to connect with this crucial voter base through this rally.

The political significance of Western UP can not be understated, and BJP traditionally initiates its campaign strategies in this region. The rally in Meerut, often considered the political capital of Western UP, is a strategic choice for launching this initiative. The presence of MP Rajendra Aggarwal and other prominent BJP leaders on the platform highlights the partys commitment to mobilising support from the entire Western UP region.

Furthermore, this Jan Adhikar Rally addresses the pressing demands of the Jat community for reservation at the national level. The rally aims to raise awareness about the rights and entitlements of backward classes, with Union Minister Ramdas Athawale playing a pivotal role in delivering this message.

Ramdas Athawales Jan Adhikar Rally is a well-thought-out political maneuver by the BJP to consolidate support from the OBC voters in Western UP and address the concerns of various backward communities, setting the stage for a potentially game-changing impact in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, a senior BJP leader said.
2.5 Kilograms of Heroin, 23 Kilograms of Charas, seized in 9 months in Hry



Chandigarh: In the first nine months of this year, Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau (HSNCB) registered 315 FIRs against drug smugglers and succeeded in putting 454 drug smugglers behind bars. HSNCB chief additional Director General of Police OP Singh said that the bureau has intensified its operations against drug traffickers, resulting in significant seizures and the apprehension of drug smugglers. Ambala district leads with 39 FIRs and 59 smuggler arrests, while Gurugram district has registered 33 FIRs and detained 35 accused. Kurukshetra has filed 27 FIRs, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Hisar, Karnal have filed 26 each, and Rohtak has filed 24 FIRs. Ambala unit has succeeded in arresting 59 accused, Kurukshetra 51, Hisar 48, Karnal 47, Gurugram 35, and Fatehabad and Faridabad 34-34 accused. During the raids, about 2.5 kg heroin, 23 kg charas, 1370 kg ganja, 41 kg opium, and 1228 kg opium poppy straw have been seized. Till the month of September this year, all the units have seized 4 grams of cocaine, 20 thousand pills, 3964 capsules, 3365 bottles, and 119 drug injections. Specifically for the month of September, Ambala has registered 9 FIRs, Hisar 9, Rohtak and Sirsa 5 each for NDPS cases involving commercial quantities. During the same period, Hisar has arrested 24 individuals, Ambala 13, Faridabad 12, Karnal 10, and Rohtak 8 in cases of commercial drug quantity, he added.



Jauramajra pays tributes to martyr Pardeep Singh



Chandigarh: Punjab Defence Services Welfare Minister Chetan Singh Jauramajra on Wednesday paid tributes to the martyr Sepoy Pardeep Singh, who sacrificed his life during the terrorist attack in Anantnag of Jammu and Kashmir. During the bhog ceremony of the martyr in his ancestral village Ballamgarh under Samana constituency, Jauramajra, while paying homage on behalf of Chief Minister, said that the entire nation will always be indebted to the unparalleled sacrifice of the martyr. He said that the Punjab Government will spend Rs 99 lakh on various works in the village in the martyrs memory. The martyr's widow Seema Rani will be appointed as assistant professor at the public college and this appointment has been made, he said, adding that the Chief Minister also handed over Rs one crore cheque to the family as a tribute to the unparalleled sacrifice made by the martyr.



35 cadets of AFPI clear NDA exam, achieving a 76.08% pass percentage



Chandigarh: Adding yet another feather in the cap of Maharaja Ranjit Singh-Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI), SAS Nagar (Mohali), as many as 35 cadets of the Institute have cleared the National Defence Academy (NDA)-2 written examination conducted by the UPSC. Notably, 46 cadets of the 12th Course of the institute appeared in the exam, of which, 35 (76.08 per cent) passed the entrance examination for the NDA  the highest percentage achieved by the Institute since its inception. Notably, 19 cadets out of 26 of the previous 11th Course also cleared the examination. These cadets would now be trained for the Services Selection Board (SSB) Interview in the Institute.



Punjab School Edu Dept conducts teachers training on Business Blasters Prog



Chandigarh: Punjab School Education Department conducted a comprehensive two-day teachers' training program on Business Blasters Program, wherein approximately 7,000 teachers from 2,000 schools across 23 districts of the state participated. The training program covered various aspects, including problem-solving, teamwork, negotiation, innovation, and other entrepreneurial skills. Additionally, special sessions focused on motivation, teamwork, and real-world situations. The training segments included orientation, curriculum exposure, role-play, and clarifying roles and responsibilities. Spokesperson said that the Business Blasters is a flagship program under Punjab Young Entrepreneurs Program Scheme, aimed at instilling entrepreneurial mindsets among 11th-grade students in 2,000 Government Senior Secondary Schools across Punjab.



PSPCL, PSTCL provide 4151 jobs since April 2022



Chandigarh: Punjab Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO on Wednesday said that 4,151 new recruitments have been made by Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) since April 2022. PSPCL and PSTCL have issued appointment letters to a total of 4,087 eligible candidates from April 2022 to September 2023 with an aim to provide better services to their valued consumers, said the Minister, adding that in continuation of this, the Chief Minister handed over appointment letters to 51 electrical cadre and 13 civil cadre assistant engineers during a function held on September 23. The Minister said that all the recruitments were done through a transparent and fair process.



US-based firm Escalon Services invites NGO to unveil office



Chandigarh: Escalon, a US-based Financial Services KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) organization with operations and personnel in the US, India, Norway, and Israel, has expanded its operations in the tricity by opening an expansive office in Mohalis Sector 67. With this, Mohali - the regions fast-emerging industrial and IT hub  has got a further boost. It is notable that Escalon was founded by an alumnus of Punjab Engineering College (PEC).



CM betrayed Punjabis by not releasing compensation to flood-hit farmers till now: Sukhbir



Ferozepur: SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday said that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had betrayed Punjabis by not releasing compensation to flood-hit farmers till now. He also maintained that the sharp increase in the drug menace in Punjab was due to the shelter being provided to the drug mafia by AAP legislators. Sukhbir, addressing a party dharna on the twin issues of the failure of the AAP government to provide compensation to flood hit farmers and the increase in the drug menace, said: AAP Government is directly responsible for turning large parts of this constituency into a lake in July and is now running away from its responsibility to compensate farmers for the destruction caused to their paddy crop.



Himachal Governor visits Batseri village and Mastrang Post of ITBP



Shimla: Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla along with Lady Governor Janaki Shukla visited Batseri, the green village of Kalpa sub-division on the last day of his three-day visit to Kinnaur district on Wednesday.

The Governor paid obeisance at the Vishnu Narayan temple in the village and also visited the exhibition organized by Mahila Mandals and other voluntary organizations. "I am happy that the local residents were deeply connected with their culture and customs and have preserved it for ages. ''I have been informed that those living outside the district, on getting retired, make sure to come back to their original roots, to contribute to the development of their region,'' said Shukla. The Governor said that he visited the 'first villages' under the vibrant village programme during his three days sojourn to the district. Similarly, various Union Ministers have also been directed by the Prime Minister to visit these villages and monitor the development being undertaken. It is the responsibility of every Union Minister to ensure that the benefits of the vibrant village programme reach the people.



Himachal govt likely to eliminate condition of minimum enrollment in recruitment of drawing and PE teachers: CM



Shimla: Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday said that the State Government was contemplating eliminating the longstanding condition of having a minimum of 100 students in government middle schools of the State for the recruitment of drawing teachers and physical education teachers. The previous BJP Government imposed the condition of enrollment of a minimum of 100 students for appointment of these teachers in the Government Middle Schools on 19th November 2018, a statement said. Sukhu said that at present, Government middle schools are required to maintain a minimum enrollment of 100 students to appoint drawing teachers and physical education teachers. However, the present government is now dedicated to prioritizing the youth's interests and ensuring that every student receives a comprehensive education. The CM said that the Education Department has been directed to swiftly begin the process of eliminating the same. This proposed change is aimed at expanding educational opportunities and strengthening the teaching workforce throughout the state, he added.
The Chhattisgarh government on Wednesday withdrew its plea from the Supreme Court challenging the ground of jurisdiction of the Enforcement Directorate's action against state government officials in a money laundering case.

The lodged in 2022 stems from an FIR registered on a complaint by the Income Tax Department over allegations of illegal collection of levy on coal as well as attempts to influence public servants through corrupt means in Chhattisgarh.

The ED claimed a massive scam took place between 2019 and 2021 in coal transportation in Chhattisgarh as part of which a cartel of politicians, officers and others allegedly ran a parallel system of extorting illegal levy.

In its plea, the Chhattisgarh government claimed the ED, on the basis of the FIR lodged in Bengaluru, registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in Raipur on September 29, 2022 and started an investigation against state government officials.

Chhattisgarhs standing counsel Sumeer Sodhi told justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti on Wednesday that he has instructions to withdraw the plea.

The Bench allowed the state government to withdraw the petition and recorded Sodhi's submission.

The petition prayed the court to declare the ED's action illegal, without jurisdiction and unconstitutional.

The Chhattisgarh government, apart from seeking quashing of the ECIR, also urged the apex court to declare all subsequent actions by the ED with regard to the probe arbitrary and unconstitutional as they interfered with the functions of the state police.

The Chhattisgarh government alleged that the investigation by the ED resulted in indiscriminate surveys and raids at various departments and offices of the state government and arrest of state officials.

The state government earlier this year filed a suit challenging the constitutional validity of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), alleging that central agencies were being misused to "intimidate, harass and disturb" the normal functioning of the non-BJP state governments.
Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat has said that the caste census is necessary for economic and social parity in the country. Interacting with the media at the Congress Bhawan here on Wednesday Rawat said that in the recent meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) resolutions on the women's reservation in the Lok Sabha and assemblies and the caste census was passed. He said the party will keep the issues of economic and social justice in focus in the parliamentary elections of 2024. Rawat said that the issues of women empowerment, farmers and downtrodden will figure prominently in the scheme of things of Congress party.Rawat said that caste census is essential for the social justice in the country. He said that the Congress party is committed to providing 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The former CM said that the BJP government at the centre is on a spree of selling the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) to the private players. He said that the Congress government will find ways to roll back the process of sale of the PSUs. The focus of the Congress party will be on increasing the income of the poor and middle income groups and the emphasis will be on the employment generation.

He said that the Congress government will remove the limit of 50 per cent on reservation and will add new social groups in the ambit of reservations.

The former CM said that the State government has proved to be a failure on all fronts. He said that the administration has failed to deal with the menace of dengue in the State.
The demand for granting separate religious columns to tribalsSarna religious code has once again gained momentum with Chief Minister Hemant Soren writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking recognition of the Sarna code for tribals in order to safeguard their religious existence and constitutional rights.

Soren in his letter has mentioned that the population of tribals is shrinking; a separate religious code will protect the rights and interest of tribals. Soren claimed that the population of tribals in the state has declined to 26 per cent from 38 per cent in the last eight decades.

There is a continuous decline in the percentage of their population, as a result of which it is natural to have an adverse effect on the policies of tribal development under the Fifth and Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, he said.

Sources said that the timing for demand for separate religious code for tribals gains importance as the central probe agency in the past few months has tightened its screw with the Enforcement Directorate issuing summons to CM for fifth times. In its latest summons, the ED has asked the CM to appear before the central agency office on October 4. While, at the same time CM has knocked Jharkhand High Court door against the summons issued by ED.

Meanwhile, CM in its letter has raised the concern of protecting the traditional religious existence of tribals... is certainly a serious question. Today, the demand for Tribal/Sarna Religious Code is being raised so that this nature-worshipping tribal community can be confident about its identity.

At present, when the demand for Uniform Civil Code is being raised by some organisations, positive initiative on this demand of Tribal/Sarna community is absolutely necessary for their protection, he said.

Soren highlighted that the tribal population in the state has decreased from 38 percent to 26 percent over the past eight decades.

"We, the tribals, are followers of ancient practices and are worshippers of trees and hills. We consider protecting the forest our religion. There are around 12 crore tribals as per the Census 2011. There are more than 1 crore tribals in Jharkhand that I represent, which is a tribal-majority state. A large number of people follow the Sarna religion. Our rivers, land, and forests are the living scriptures of our ancient Sarna religion. The traditions, worship rituals, and beliefs of the Sarna religions are distinct from all other religions," he said in the letter.

"At present, when the demand for Uniform Civil Code is being raised by some organisations, positive initiative on this demand of Tribal/Sarna community is absolutely necessary for their protection," he further added.

It is noteworthy here that there was a provision of a separate code for them in the census column of the year 1951, but due to certain reasons, this arrangement was abolished in the subsequent decades. Therefore, Tribal/Sarna Code is very necessary for the proper development of the tribal community and in view of this, a proposal in this regard has also been passed in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, which is currently pending for decision at the Central Government level, Soren has said. The Jharkhand Assembly in November 2020 unanimously passed a resolution seeking the inclusion of Sarna as a separate religion in Census 2021.

State Chief Minister Hemant Soren had even urged President Droupadi Murmu to assist the state in getting Centre nod for its proposal to include the Sarna Code as a separate religious category.
President Draupadi Murmu has stressed the need for charting out development roadmap after assessing the future needs of cities and it's citizens.

Expressing her concern over climate change, she described the tasks being executed in Smart Cities as a positive initiative. She laid stress on continuing good initiataives for sustainable development. She said that investments in urban development have been doubled over the past decades. Smart City Mission has immensely contributed to this.

Murmu congratulated the award winners at the India Smart City Conclave-2023 held at Indore on Wednesday. She congratulated Madhya Pradesh on getting the award of the Best State of the country. She distributed awards to the winning cities and states at the IC Awards Ceremony.

The Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were present.

Murmu said that Indore has maintained its lead as the Cleanest City of India. Indore also tops the Smart Cities of the country. She appreciated the cooperation of residents of Indore, public representatives, administration officials, concerned departments of the Central Government and stakeholders.

The President congratulated citizens of the state, the Governor, the Chief Minister and his entire team on Madhya Pradesh achieving the distinction of Best State in the India Smart CitiesAward Contest 2022. She also praised those engaged in discharging various responsibilities with the work being done in the Smart Cities of the state.

She contratulated Chandigarh for having received the Best Union Territory Award and Tamil Nadu for getting the second position based on the performance of the States and also congratulated Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh for jointly securing third position.

The President also congratulated 66 award winning Smart Cities and States in different categories. She said that by the year 2047, Indias urban population will increase from about 46 crore to more than 87 crore. More than 50 percent of countrymen will concentrate in urban areas. Indias cities today contribute about two-thirds of the countrys GDP. It is estimated that the total contribution of cities to GDP will exceed 80 percent by the year 2047. These figures force administrative machinery to build a roadmap for the future keeping in mind the growing aspirations and requirements the cities and its people.

The President said that sustainable development and climate change are the widely debated issues. In this context, the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework, which was launched for 100 Smart Cities of India is an example of this. How climate change related issues can be addressed in cities at the national level.

The President said that emphasis is laid on green buildings and use of renewable energy for energy efficiency in cities. A lot of work needs to be done on a massive scale, she added. The goal of SDGs 11 is - Make Cities and Human Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable  This goal underlines the importance of holistic and inclusive development of cities, she added.

The President expressed happiness that the countrys overall investment in urban development during the last decade has increased 10 times more than it was earlier. The contribution of Smart Cities Mission in implementing best practices and developing sustainable business models is commendable. Referring to recently held successful G-20 summit, she said that Urban-20 was a sub group of G-20. The Urban-20 seeks to establish a sustainable practice of connectivity between cities.
A 26-year-old man died after he was allegedly tied to a pole and thrashed by some people who suspected him of being a thief in northeast Delhis Sunder Nagri.

According to police, the incident took place on Tuesday morning at G4 block of the locality. The victim was identified as Israr Ahmed, 26, who was tied to a pole and beaten with sticks in the Sunder Nagri area. The video of the incident, which is in wide circulation on social media now, shows Israr tied to a pole as the men take turns to hit him with sticks.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast) Joy Tirkey said, fruit vendor Abdul Wajid (60), a resident of Sunder Nagri, lodged a complaint claiming that his son Isar died after being assaulted by some people on suspicion of theft.

We got a call around 10:45 pm on Tuesday from a man that his son was killed. We reached the spot and saw that the body of the 26-year-old Isar was kept outside their home. We got to know that he was beaten up by a few people in the morning because they thought Isar was a thief. Maybe he was tied up and beaten. It is also being said that Isar was mentally challenged but it is not confirmed yet. He succumbed to his injuries in the evening. We have registered a case of murder, Tirkey said.

According to Wajid, when he reached his house on Tuesday evening, he saw his son lying outside, writhing in pain. There were injury marks all over his body, the DCP said.

Isar told his father that around 5 am, some youngsters caught him near G4 block and accused him of stealing. They then tied him to a pole and thrashed him with sticks. He said the assailants lived near the G4 block, Tirkey said.

Their neighbour Aamir brought Isar home in a rickshaw and at around 7 pm, he succumbed to injuries, the officer said.

Wajid informed the police and the body was shifted to GTB Hospital where an autopsy will be conducted, the DCP said.

According to the preliminary investigation, the victim was mentally challenged, police said. He was tied to an electric pole and assaulted by the perpetrators as he could not give satisfactory answers to their questions, they said.
Late doctor R P Singh was the person who established orthopaedics as a speciality in then South Bihar, which is called Jharkhand now. He was a very good teacher, efficient clinician and a very successful Orthopaedic surgeon.

Dr R P Singh was born on 26th September 1924, in village Chasi, under Naubatpur Block of Patna district. He had a brilliant academic career. Graduated in 1949 from Patna Medical College he did his MS in Surgery and went to England to do FRCS. He did his fellowship from Edinburgh and came back to India, did his MS in orthopaedic surgery and became lecturer in orthopaedic surgery Department at PMCH Patna and later he joined at RMCH (now RIMSm Ranchi). Dr Singh was the founder of the department of orthopaedics at RMCH Ranchi and was working as professor and head of the department from 1972 till 1983, his year of retirement.

He organised the state conference of arthritis and has been its president and in 1974 he organised the national conference of orthopaedic surgeons of India. He served as president of Bihar State orthopaedic surgeons Association for many years. Also, he was founder secretary of Bihar State orthopaedic surgeons Association.

Dr Singh died of a massive heart attack on 3rd October in 2001, at Apollo Hospital Ranchi.

He established the first private nursing Home in Ranchi at Bariatu in 1964,which was upgraded to RPS Hospital by his family members in 2015. The hospital is now a super speciality Hospital and giving flawless service to the ailing masses by a dedicated team of doctors, besides his two sons, both daughters in law and grandchildren.
People of the Jain community staged a protest demanding arrest of the miscreants involved in stealing idols from the Jain temple at Vardhaman Nagar located in Data Colony near Airport Road.

On the night on Sunday two miscreants had stolen a silver crown, a throne and three idols made of Ashta metal from the Jain temple in Vardhaman Nagar located in Data Colony of Airport Road. The value of the stolen goods was said to be around Rs 8 lakh.

Police claim that 6 teams are investigating. Till now CCTV cameras of 25 places have been scanned. A road map for the escape of the accused is being prepared.

Meanwhile, angry over the non-arrest of the accused, the Jain community staged a protest along with women and children in the temple premises on Wednesday.

President of Temple committee Subhash Jain Kala said that on Wednesday, the Jain community staged a protest in the temple premises demanding immediate arrest of the accused and recovery of stolen valuables. The value of the items stolen from the temple is around Rs 8 lakh. The miscreants targeted the temple at the time of tight security arrangements in the city regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bhopal. There is anger among the people of the society after the theft incident.

Temple President Subhash Jain Kala said, the society has decided that a continuous flame will continue to be lit in the temple premises until the thieves are caught. This sequence has been continuing for three consecutive days. A reward of Rs 51,000 has also been announced by the police on the arrest of the accused.

Kohefiza police station in-charge Brijendra Marskole said that the Crime Branch, Cyber Crime, FSL team along with a team of ACP and a team of the police station are engaged in search of the accused.

At present no concrete information has been received regarding the accused.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), on Wednesday, attacked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for efforts to tarnish the State Governments image by using false data and figures. JMM asked that if the facts and figures are correct, then what is BJP doing in its State office and it should have filed a PIL in the court.



Addressing a press meet, JMM General Secretary cum Spokesperson termed the entire BJP as Mir Jafar and said that BJP is playing the role of Mir Jafar in Jharkhand. He attacked BJP National Spokesperson, Jafar Islam and said that BJP is trying to destabilize the State Government which is doing a large number of works of development in the State. BJPs leaders through the press meet misleading people through wrong facts and figures. The biggest question is that from where Zafar Islam got the figure that he has accused the present Government of a scam of Rs 77,000 crore. These things should be made public, he added.



It is very strange that all the scams and officers whose names have been mentioned by the spokesperson are from the tenure of former CM Arjun Munda and former CM Raghubar Das who talked about zero tolerance. The officers who were during his tenure are also during our tenure. JMM challenged BJP and said that if it has the courage then it should come out of the State office and go to the villages and fields among the tribals and local people to express its views. They could not have even imagined the opposition they will face. In Adanis friendship, BJP has started talking not of lakhs, not of one-two crores but of thousands of crores, Bhattacharya.

The Party Spokesperson said that actually the whole matter is about BJP's uneasiness with the functioning of the Hemant Government. Hemant Government has started recruitment, doing something different for every category, women are becoming self-reliant, our girls are taking advantage of the Savitri Phule Bai Scheme, putting pressure on the Central Government by passing the proposal of Sarna religious code. BJP is not able to digest all this from Ranchi to Delhi. Therefore, now it is talking nonsense and directly attacking the Soren family without any issue, he added.



Bhattacharya said that ED, CBI and Income Tax are working in the direction of BJP. Earlier, the opposition parties of the Country used to allege that the Central Government and the Centrals investigation agencies were trying to destabilize the non-BJP Government but now evidence has also started emerging. The example of Maharashtra is in front of everyone. If BJP is thinking that by doing all this we will bow down, then it is mistaken. If the image of a CM is tarnished then why would they go to the ED office, he has gone to the court. We have full confidence in the court, he added.
Soon, the people will be able to avail first-class medical care for patients with liver and biliary diseases, including the liver transplant facility, at Punjab Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (PILBS) at Mohali  expected to be fully functional by this November.

Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Balbir Singh, chairing the first meeting of the Institutes Governing Board on Wednesday, gave a go-ahead to establish state-of-the-art diagnostic and management facility at PILBS.

Punjab Government has already sanctioned a grant of Rs 25 crores, as the first installment, to purchase the latest equipment for the Institute, he said.

With Outpatient Department (OPD) services are already being provided in this prestigious Institute, Dr Balbir said that the Institute is expected to be fully functional by this November as the process to purchase ultra-modern equipment has also been initiated and the recruitment process of super-specialist doctors and other para-medical staff is also being initiated.

Soon, patients with various types of liver diseases, including acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer, alcoholic liver disease, ascites, venous and typical disorders of the liver like gallbladder and biliary diseases, and other rare liver and biliary disorders of children and adults can avail the treatment, he added.

He added that soon, people will also be able to avail of the liver transplant procedure at this Institute, which is being established at par to The Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), New Delhi. This would be the second government super-specialty institute to offer first-class medical care for patients with liver and biliary diseases in the country, he added.
A 45-year-old man died after his bike was hit by a speeding car near Karbala on VIP Road, man was on his way home after selling crop.

The farmer riding the bike died on the spot in the accident. The man was going from Padiyala village in Sehore to his home in Shahpura after selling Soybean crops.

Koh-e-Fiza police have registered a case and started an investigation. The body was handed over to the family after the post mortem on Wednesday morning.

Pritam Singh Ahirwar lived with his family near Shahpura Mosque . He belonged to Padiyala village of Sehore district. For the last several years, he has been living near Shahpura Mosque located in Shahpura area of Bhopal. Pritam apart from farming, also used to work as a mechanic.

Edler son Karan said that father Pritam had gone to the village on Tuesday morning on his bike and while returning from the village at around 6 in the evening his bike was hit by an unknown car near Karbala on VIP Road. He died on the spot in the accident.

He was carrying money in his pocket from selling crops. Which has been returned safely by the police.

During the investigation police have not yet been able to identify the accused car driver. The accused car driver would be identified through CCTV camera footages.
BJP State President and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi today addressed the 43rd public meeting of his Sankalp Yatra in Jharia assembly constituency. Marandi, targeting the JMM/ Congress alliance government, said that the Chief Minister is deeply immersed in corruption, is trembling with fear of ED and is knocking the door of the Supreme Court and the High Court.

He said that it is painful to see the condition of the state today. BJP wants to rescue the people of the state from this suffering.

Marandi said that today there is bribery everywhere in the state. People have to pay for death certificates, income certificates and mutation. One has to pay money even for adding a name to the ration card. Officials and employees openly ask for money.

He said that today the Chief Minister is filling his coffers by looting the grains of the poor. The state's minerals like coal, iron, stone and sand have been looted. River sand is going to Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Mumbai and people of Jharkhand are caught by police and booked for picking up sand.

He said that today criminals are rampant. Incidents of murder, robbery, kidnapping and dacoity are happening every day. The honour of sisters and daughters is not safe. In the last six months, 23 businessmen have been murdered, 9 of whom had appealed for protection in writing.

He said that the Chief Minister should constitute an SIT and get it investigated and take action against the culprits, otherwise the BJP government will definitely get it investigated in 2024.

He said that today there are no teachers in the schools of the state, no doctors in the hospitals, no nurses and no medicines. Lakhs of posts are vacant. But the intentions of the Hemant government are not clear. They deliberately delay appointments in the court. 5 lakh appointments per year, otherwise allowance, all this is just a mere statement. He said that once the BJP government is formed, the appointments will be filled within 6 months. He said that the BJP government is concerned about development and respects public sentiments.

Marandi said that Jharkhand's separate state is the gift of the BJP government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave a separate state. Roads were provided to every village through the Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojana. Bridges and culverts were constructed under the Chief Minister Gram Setu Yojana.

The BJP chief said that today the Modi government is increasing the respect of the country with rapid development in the country. The Modi government is committed to the welfare of all sections of the society including villages, poor farmers, labourers, women and youth.
Three police personnel, including a high-ranking Superintendent of Police (SP) and a Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) officer, have been apprehended in Muktsar on Wednesday in connection with a controversial case involving allegations of severe misconduct, including physical assault, torture, and forced sexual acts against a lawyer in police custody.

The state government has also formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), under the chairmanship of Ludhiana Police Commissioner Mandeep Singh Sidhu, to investigate the torture allegation. The four-member SIT will be supervised by the Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Jaskaran Singh and will have three other policemen as members.

As per the orders issued by the Punjab Bureau of Investigation, the SIT will investigate the allegations of custodial torture levelled by the lawyer and submit its report to the Director Bureau of Investigation, Punjab.

The move came following a meeting of a delegation of the Bar Association of the Punjab and Haryana High Court with the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

Notably, six policemen, including Muktsar SP (Investigation) Ramandeep Singh Bhullar, were booked on Monday for subjecting a lawyer in their custody to torture that included forcing him into sex with a co-accused in Muktsar. Other than Bhullar, the case was also registered against Inspector Raman Kumar Kamboj, constables  Harbans Singh, Bhupinder Singh, and Gurpreet Singh, and home guard Dara Singh.

Of them, the police has arrested SP Bhullar, Inspector Raman Kumar Kamboj, and Constable Harbans Singh.

The case was registered under various sections including 377 (unnatural sex), 342 (wrongful confinement), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The incident that sparked the controversy took place when a lawyer in Muktsar was allegedly subjected to brutal physical assault and sexual abuse while representing a client in a legal matter.

Going into background of the matter, on September 14, advocate and another were taken into custody following a complaint lodged by CIA in-charge Raman Kumar Kamboj who alleged that the lawyers had physically assaulted a police team and caused damage to some officers uniforms during the confrontation.

Over a week after, on September 22, the Muktsar Chief Judicial Magistrate directed the law enforcement authorities to formally register a case against the implicated policemen. The court of CJM had observed, The statement of the victim (advocate) is treated as a formal complaint in accordance with Section 2 (D) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The court has prima facie identified cognizable offenses, including abetment of unnatural sex and causing injuries during wrongful confinement, along with causing threats to his life and liberty.

The details of the lawyer's harrowing experience came to light after the Muktsar Bar Association raised serious concerns about the incident and initiated legal proceedings. What added to the outrage was the initial reluctance of the Muktsar police to register a First Information Report (FIR) in response to the lawyer's complaint, despite court orders to do so.

The lawyer's ordeal and the perceived lack of action by the authorities prompted lawyers in Muktsar to take to the streets in protest. These protests soon snowballed, leading to a suspension of legal proceedings not only in Punjab but also in neighboring Haryana. The Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association joined forces with the local lawyers, underscoring the gravity of the situation and the legal community's demand for justice.

Under the mounting pressure of public outrage and the legal community's relentless advocacy, the Muktsar police eventually registered an FIR. Subsequently, a comprehensive investigation was launched into the allegations of misconduct. It was during the course of these investigations that the top police brass decided to take the Superintendent of Police (D), the officer in-charge of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA), and several other police personnel into custody.

Following the arrest of the police officers and the initiation of a thorough investigation, the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana has decided to withdraw its strike, however the Bar Association of the Punjab and Haryana High Court will decide on the future course of action in its meeting on Friday (September 29).

Notably, the lawyers associated with the Bar Association of Punjab and Haryana High Court have embarked on a work boycott since Tuesday in solidarity with their colleagues, while demanding an immediate dismissal and arrest of police personnel implicated in allegations of torture.

With the registration of case and arrests in the matter, the legal proceedings are expected to resume, bringing relief to countless individuals who have been affected by the suspension of legal services in the region.

BOX

 Four-member SIT formed under Ludhiana Police Commissioner Mandeep Singh Sidhu

 Three accused cops  SP Bhullar, Inspector Kamboj, Constable Harbans Singh  arrested

 Total six cops booked on the allegations of unnatural sex, wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation

 Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana announced to withdraw strike

 Bar Association of Punjab and Haryana High Court to decide on strike on Friday
In a significant development, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is gearing up to play a pivotal role in the lead-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. During his recent four-day visit to Lucknow, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat emphasised on the organisations strategies for the upcoming elections, signaling a shift towards greater inclusivity and gender diversity within the Sangh.

A notable departure from tradition, the RSS has embarked on a mission to involve a more diverse representation, including women, in key positions within the organisation. This marks a significant step forward for the RSS as it works to engage with nearly half of the population, which has been previously underrepresented.

The RSSs proactive stance in Uttar Pradesh regarding the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is evident, with the organisation collaborating closely with the government to formulate a special election plan. Central to this strategy is the increased participation of women, an aspect considered crucial by both the Sangh and its affiliated organisations.

Bhagwat conveyed a message of inclusivity during his visit, asserting that Muslims are not outsiders to the Sangh, but rather fellow citizens who worship differently. He emphasised the unity and shared ownership of the nation, stating that those who oppose the RSS are also a part of the broader community.

Bhagwat expressed the need to establish contact with opponents to prevent any potential disruptions during the election process.

The RSSs evolving approach, as articulated by Mohan Bhagwat, underscores its commitment to a strategy that encompasses the support and development of all segments of society. As the organisation adapts to the changing political landscape, it appears poised to play a significant role in shaping the dynamics of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with a focus on inclusivity and outreach to diverse groups, Shalabh Chitransh, a political analyst said.
In anticipation of more than eight lakh farmers who are expected to bring their produce to mandis across Punjab during the fast-approaching Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2023-24, beginning on October 1, the Punjab Government has gone to great lengths to ensure foolproof arrangements.

A total of 1806 mandis have been established throughout the State, each connected to rice mills via a computerized GPS system.

The states Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak, presiding over a meeting to review the preparations for KMS 2023-24, emphasized the importance of ensuring a hassle-free procurement process, smooth product lifting, and timely payments to farmers.

To enhance transparency, Kataruchak announced that biometric authentication of farmers would be implemented at every mandi, and a Nodal Officer would oversee all arrangements. Rice mills will not serve as purchase centers, and cartage contractors and millers will be required to use vehicle tracking systems. Additionally, an online gate pass mechanism will be introduced.

To meet the demand, an ample supply of gunny bags has been secured, and 480 new rice mills have been approved for the allotment stage. The Minister sternly warned against any malpractices, asserting that they would not be tolerated.

The procurement target for this season has been set at 182 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT), and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has authorized a Cash Credit Limit (CCL) of Rs 37,625.68 crore for paddy procurement.

To prevent paddy from other states being sold at Punjab's mandis, checkpoints or nakas will be set up at key locations.

The Minister also informed the Deputy Directors of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (DFSCs) that top-performing DFSCs during KMS 2023-24 would be recognized and rewarded, following the model of RMS 2023-24.

Regarding ration cards, Kataruchak stressed the importance of transparency by insisting that contact numbers and essential information of Vigilance Committee members be uploaded online for verification. Vigilance Committees play a critical role in scrutinizing forms submitted as part of the survey process for procuring ration cards.










Smart City Ranchi has once again won the India Smart City Contest Award. Smart City Ranchi, which has established itself as the best performer in the implementation of the Smart City Mission under the efficient leadership of the State Government and the guidance of Chief Minister, Hemant Soren, has been awarded the Best Performer City Award among the Smart Cities of the Eastern Zone.



This award was given by President of India, Draupadi Murmu at the India Smart City Conclave 2023 organized at the Brilliant Convention Center in Indore, Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday. On behalf of the State Government, Secretary, Urban Development and Housing Department, Vinay Kumar Choubey and Chairman cum Managing Director of Ranchi Smart City Corporation, Amit Kumar, CEO of Ranchi Smart City Corporation and Director of State Urban Development Agency and General Manager of Smart City Ranchi. Rakesh Kumar Nandkeolyar received this honour by the hands of the President. Housing and Urban Affairs Minister of the Government of India, Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Kaushal Kishore and Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary, Manoj Joshi, present on the stage, congratulated the Jharkhand Government and Ranchi Smart City for this honour. On this occasion, many dignitaries including Governor, Madhya Pradesh, Mangubhai Patel and Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan were present on the stage.



This award is prepared on the basis of India Smart City Contest Award 2022. Before the decision of this award, proposals are sent from all the 100 cities of the Country through power point presentations and videos about the special efforts being made in different fields in their cities. After that, the team of the Ministry goes to every city. She also goes and verifies it. This time, Ranchi had sent a proposal on the subjects like city security, traffic management, urban mobility, social aspect and land monetization and others.



Meanwhile, Chief Minister, Hemant Soren has congratulated the employees of Urban Development and Housing Department and Ranchi Smart City Corporation on the success of Ranchi Smart City and expressed hope that in the coming times, Ranchi's performance will leave an indelible mark at the National level. Choubey congratulated the entire team of Ranchi Smart City and expressed gratitude to the Chief Minister.



Amit Kumar expressed his gratitude to the Departmental Secretary and said that under his efficient guidance and the guidelines of the Chief Minister, we will try to do better further. He congratulated Team Ranchi Smart City for their better performance and best efforts
Launching a scathing attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led Punjab Government, senior Congress leader and former Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu Sidhu on Wednesday accused the Government of misusing public funds for luxury sorties, and excessive spending on air travel for AAP campaigns in various states.

In a dramatic move, Sidhu stormed the office of Punjab Civil Aviation Department at Chandigarh to personally seek details of the public expenditure incurred on the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's chopper rides and air travel, alleging extravagant spending of public funds.

His visit to the Departments office came after Sidhu was denied information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Notably, Sidhu has written to the Punjab Civil Aviation Departments secretary, invoking the Right to Information Act, demanding detailed information on the expenses incurred through the use of a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft by the Bhagwant Mann government. Sidhu alleged that over the past one-and-a-half years, the AAP government had deployed these aircraft for election campaigns in states such as Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

In his letter, Sidhu sought specific information on the occasions when private jets were hired by the State Government, the destinations, purposes of these trips, and the total expenses involved, encompassing aircraft rent and airport charges. He also called for transparency regarding the per-hour hiring cost of fixed-wing aircraft. Additionally, he raised concerns about the use of the state's official chopper for campaign purposes in various states.

Sidhu, addressing the media outside the Civil Aviation office, questioned the need for luxury sorties, funded by public money, and expressed concerns about the alleged misuse of state resources. He asserted that these aircraft had been employed for AAP campaigns in multiple states, including Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

He claimed that officers, present at the department, had declined to share details of the CM's air travel expenses with him. Emphasizing the significance of transparency in such matters, he said: If a four-time MP is denied such information, what would happen to the general public?

Accusing the Chief Minister of hypocrisy, Sidhu said: Mann claimed to be living a humble life but the Chief Minister is frequently using helicopters and planes to campaign for his party, splurging public money in the process.

Furthermore, Sidhu attacked the AAP government on the issue of Punjab's state debt, highlighting the disparity between their promises and actions. He voiced concerns about the continued influence of various mafias in the state, despite the government's commitment to eradicating them.

Sidhu argued that Punjab's future is at risk due to certain policy decisions, particularly the provision of free electricity and the mortgaging of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited. He highlighted that Powercom already carries a massive debt burden of over Rs 40,000 crore, and such measures have the potential to compromise the state's financial stability and sustainability.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Dehradun police has arrested Ashwani Mittal, the father of builder Deepak Mittal who is the main accused of fraudulently extorting money from people in lieu of selling flats in Dehradun. The SIT has also frozen a total of 41 different bank accounts associated with all accused in the case in which transactions worth about Rs 205 crore have been allegedly done since 2016. The police have registered cases against the Mittal family including Deepak Mittal, Rakhi Mittal and Ashwini Mittal along with Rajpal Walia who have been absconding in the Pushpanjali Developers flat case after allegedly embezzling crores of rupees from investors, said the Dehradun senior superintendent of police Ajai Singh. He said that a total of eight cases are registered against the Mittal family in Dalanwala and Rajpur police stations under various relevant acts including section 2/3 of the Gangster Act on charges of extorting money from people. The police have also filed a chargesheet in six cases so far. He said that an FIR was also registered against all accused in Dalanwala police station. An SIT was formed to dispose of these cases and taking strict action in the matter, the accused Ashwani Mittal was arrested from Haridwar. The police are also preparing to confiscate the illegal property acquired by him under the Gangster Act. The Mittal family has reportedly scammed people in about three different projects named Orchid Park near Deepak Mittal's Sahastradhara helipad, Eminent Heights in the Dalanwala area and Upscale Living. Singh claimed that the police have frozen bank accounts associated with all accused in which transactions worth about Rs 205 crore have been done from 2016 to 2023. He said that names of many white collar builders and prominent people have come to light during the investigation of the frozen accounts and they are on the polices radar. Besides this, the police are also investigating three NRI accounts of Deepak and Rakhi Mittal in Dubai, added SSP.
Farmers producing soybeans in Madhya Pradesh are facing a serious agricultural crisis, at present the situation is that the soybean crop planted in 53 lakh hectare area in Madhya Pradesh is on the verge of complete destruction, alleged State Congress Media Advisor Piyush Babele, while talking to media persons at Press Conference.

Troubled by this, the farmers are continuously demanding from the government that a survey of crop damage should be done and compensation and relief amount should be distributed immediately. But far from giving compensation, the Shivraj government has not even conducted a survey of the damage caused to the crop, due to which the farmers are forced to protest.

Farmers mainly cultivate soybean in Vidisha, Sehore, Khargone, Khandwa, Narmadapuram, Indore, Dhar, Ratlam, Ujjain, Harda, Betul and Mandsaur districts of Madhya Pradesh. More than 40 lakh farmers of all these districts are troubled by the destruction of soybean.

Piyush Babile said Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the self-proclaimed Sultan of Madhya Pradesh, has made such policies during his 18 years in office due to which soybean farmers are getting hit from all sides.

Madhya Pradesh is not only lagging behind Maharashtra in the per hectare production of soybean, but now Madhya Pradesh has also lagged behind Maharashtra in terms of area under cultivation of soybean crop. While the area under soybean in Madhya Pradesh was 53.68 percent till the year 2017-18, the area decreased to 39.83 percent in 2021-22.

Babele said that it has become the nature of Shivraj government to scam the farmers at every level in Madhya Pradesh. In the month of March this year, a case came to light in Chief Minister's home district Sehore where a scam was committed in distributing compensation to farmers. In this case, it was revealed that many Patwaris and other officials, instead of giving compensation to the victim farmers, had transferred the compensation amount to the bank accounts of their family members. The then Collector had given instructions to prosecute the concerned officers and employees in the case of scam of Rs 12 crore.

Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee President and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath repeatedly drew the Chief Minister's attention towards the crisis facing the farmers, but instead of listening to Kamal Nath ji's warning, Shivraj remained busy in his skilful acting.




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In a major accomplishment for the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government, the state has been ranked 3rd in the country in terms of Smart Cities, with Agra emerging as the third smartest city.

Overall, Uttar Pradesh has received 10 awards spanning various categories.

The announcement was made during the two-day India Smart City Conclave 2023, organised by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs at the Brilliant Convention Centre in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The event concluded with an award ceremony on Wednesday, which was attended by President Droupadi Murmu.

President Droupadi Murmu presented the Third Best State Award to UP. On behalf of the state government, Principal Secretary Urban Development Amrit Abhijat and Smart City Mission director, Dharmendra Pratap Singh received the award.

Notably, a contest was organised by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in various categories among 100 smart cities of the country last year, in which Agra managed to secure a place in the top three.

Under the Smart City Mission, Uttar Pradesh is developing 10 cities, including Agra, Aligarh, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Moradabad, Prayagraj, Saharanpur and Varanasi as smart cities.

A total of 670 projects are proposed in these cities including smart roads, smart parking, parks, water bodies and better civic amenities such as sanitation, water supply, street lighting and sewerage.

The estimated cost of these projects are Rs 9313.45 crore. So far, 456 projects valued at Rs 5889.14 crore have been successfully completed, while 214 projects with a total expenditure of Rs 3424.31 crore are currently in progress. Notably, Agra, Kanpur, Varanasi, and Jhansi have received their full funding allocation, while Lucknow, Bareilly, Prayagraj and Aligarh are yet to receive their final installments.

In the ranking, Agra and Varanasi, consistently remain among the top 10 cities while Agra, Varanasi and Kanpur, are managing to feature in top 20 cities.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Wednesday said he was confident of again forming the government in the state.

Baghel said this to reporters here on the BJP's claim that the Congress will suffer in this election due to overconfidence.

Refuting the charge, Baghel said it was self-confidence which was driving him, not overconfidence.

People in the state be they be farmers, workers, youths, women or businessmen, all were awaiting a Congress win in Chhattisgarh, he said.

"I am not overconfident but the perception of the people makes me confident that we are again going to form the government here."

The Congress claims it will sweep 75 seats in the 90-member assembly.
Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE:AEM) pays an annual dividend of $1.60 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 3.36%. The company does not yet have a strong track record of dividend growth. The dividend payout ratio is 30.02%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%. Based on earnings estimates, AEM will have a dividend payout ratio of 67.23% next year. This indicates that the company will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

Read our dividend analysis for AEM.
Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease, and critical care and surgical monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of heart valves; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases. The company also provides the PASCAL and Cardioband transcatheter valve repair systems for minimally-invasive therapy. In addition, it offers surgical structural heart solutions, such as aortic surgical valve under the INSPIRIS name; KONECT RESILIA, a pre-assembled aortic tissue valved conduit for patients who require replacement of the valve, root, and ascending aorta; and HARPOON Beating Heart Mitral Valve Repair System for patients with degenerative mitral regurgitation. Further, the company provides critical care solutions, including advanced hemodynamic monitoring systems to measure a patient's heart function and fluid status in surgical and intensive care settings; and Acumen Hypotension Prediction Index software that alerts clinicians in advance of a patient developing dangerously low blood pressure. The company distributes its products through a direct sales force and independent distributors. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.
The following companies are subsidiares of Whirlpool: 1900 Holdings Corporation, ADC, B. Blend Maquinas e Bebidas S.A., BUD Comercio de Eletrodomesticos Ltda., Bauknecht AG, Bauknecht Hausgerate GmbH, Bill Page Orchestra Inc., Brasmotor Ltda, Brunson Place Properties LLC, Centro de Desarrollo Tecnologico e Innovacion WHM S. de R.L de C.V., Chieri Italia S.r.l., Comercial Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Consumer Appliances Service Limited, Elera Delaware Inc., Elera Holdings Corporation, Elica PB India Private Limited, Everest Campus LLC., General Domestic Appliances Holdings Ltd, Haceb Whirlpool Industrias S.A.S., Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Electric, Hoover Comercial Limitada, IRE Beteiligungs GmbH, Indesit Argentina S.A., Indesit Company, Indesit Company International Business S.A., Indesit Company Luxembourg S.A., Indesit Company UK Holdings Ltd., Industrias Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Joint-Stock Company Indesit International, KitchenAid Australia Pty Ltd, KitchenAid Delaware Inc., KitchenAid Europa Inc., KitchenAid Global Inc., KitchenAid Inc., KitchenAid Korea Limited, KitchenAid Promotions LLC, KitchenAid Trading Co. Ltd., LAWSA S.A., MLOG Armazem Geral Ltda., Maytag Corporation, Maytag Limited, Maytag Properties LLC, Maytag Sales Inc., Maytag Worldwide N.V., Merloni Domestic Appliances Ltd., Nineteen Hundred Corporation, Polar S.A., South American Sales Partnership, THC Assets Corporation, Vitromatic S.A. de C.V., WCGP Nova Scotia Co., WHirlpool EMEA Finanace S.a r.l., Whirlpool (Australia) Pty. Limited, Whirlpool (B.V.I.) Limited, Whirlpool (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (Hefei) Trading Co. Ltd, Whirlpool (Hong Kong) Limited, Whirlpool (Thailand) Limited, Whirlpool ASEAN Co., Whirlpool America Holdings Corp., Whirlpool Argentina S.r.l., Whirlpool Asia B.V., Whirlpool Asia Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Asia Inc., Whirlpool Asia LLP, Whirlpool Belux N.V./S.A., Whirlpool Bermuda Euro Ltd., Whirlpool Bulgaria Ltd., Whirlpool CR spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool CSA Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada Co., Whirlpool Canada Holding Co., Whirlpool Canada Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada LP, Whirlpool Canada Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Chile Limitada, Whirlpool Colombia S.A.S., Whirlpool Comercial Ltda., Whirlpool Company Polska Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Company Ukraine LLC, Whirlpool Costa Rica SRL, Whirlpool Croatia Ltd., Whirlpool EMEA Holdings S.C.S., Whirlpool EMEA S.p.A., Whirlpool Ecuador S.A., Whirlpool Eesti OU, Whirlpool El Salvador S.A. de C.V., Whirlpool Electrodomesticos S.A., Whirlpool Eletrodomesticos AM S.A., Whirlpool Enterprises LLC, Whirlpool Europe B.V., Whirlpool Europe Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Finance Center Corp., Whirlpool Finance Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Finance Overseas Ltd., Whirlpool Financial Corporation, Whirlpool Financial Corporation International, Whirlpool Floor Care Corp., Whirlpool France Holdings SAS, Whirlpool France SAS, Whirlpool Germany GmbH, Whirlpool Global B.V., Whirlpool Global Holdings, Whirlpool Global Investments B.V., Whirlpool Greater China Inc., Whirlpool Guatemala S.A., Whirlpool Hellas S.A., Whirlpool Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool Home Appliances B.V., Whirlpool India Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Insurance Company Ltd., Whirlpool Internacional S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool International GmbH, Whirlpool International Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool International Manufacturing S.a r.l., Whirlpool Ireland Appliances Limited, Whirlpool Italia S.r.l., Whirlpool Japan Inc., Whirlpool Kazakhstan LLP, Whirlpool Latin America Corporation, Whirlpool Latin America Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool Latvia S.I.A., Whirlpool Lietuva UAB, Whirlpool Ltd Belgrade, Whirlpool Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Ventures S.a r.l., Whirlpool MEEA DMCC, Whirlpool Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Whirlpool Management EMEA S.r.l., Whirlpool Management Services S.a.g.l., Whirlpool Maroc S. a r.l., Whirlpool Mauritius Limited, Whirlpool Mexico Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool Mexico Ventures LLC, Whirlpool Microwave Products Development Limited, Whirlpool NAAG Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool NAR Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Nederland B.V., Whirlpool Nordic A/S, Whirlpool Nordic AB, Whirlpool Nordic AS, Whirlpool Nordic OY, Whirlpool Oceania Inc., Whirlpool Overseas Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Overseas Hong Kong Limited, Whirlpool Overseas Manufacturing S.ar.l., Whirlpool Peru S.R.L., Whirlpool Polska Appliances Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Portugal S.A., Whirlpool Product Development (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Whirlpool Properties Inc., Whirlpool Puntana S.A., Whirlpool R&D S.r.l., Whirlpool RUS LLC, Whirlpool Realty Corporation, Whirlpool Romania S.r.l., Whirlpool S.A., Whirlpool SSC Limited, Whirlpool Slovakia Home Appliances spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool Slovakia spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Whirlpool Southeast Asia Pte, Whirlpool Sweden Aktiebolag, Whirlpool Taiwan Co. Ltd., Whirlpool Technologies LLC, Whirlpool UK Appliances Limited, Whirlpool Uruguay S.R.L., Whirlpool WW Holdings B.V., Whirlpool Worldwide Enterprises S.ar.l., Whirlpool do Brasil Investements B.V., Whirlpool do Brasil Ltda., Whirlpool of India Limited, Whirlpool Osterreich GmbH, Yummly, Yummly Canada Ltd., and Yummly Inc..

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KBR, Inc. provides scientific, technology, and engineering solutions to governments and commercial customers worldwide. The company operates through Government Solutions and Sustainable Technology Solutions segments. The Government Solutions segment offers life-cycle support solutions to defense, intelligence, space, aviation, and other programs and missions for military and other government agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Its services cover research and development, advanced prototyping, acquisition support, systems engineering, cyber analytics, space domain awareness, test and evaluation, systems integration and program management, global supply chain management, and operations readiness and support, as well as command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance services. This segment also provides various professional advisory services to deliver high-end systems engineering, systems assurance, and technology to customers across the defense, energy, and critical infrastructure sectors. The Sustainable Technology Solutions segment holds a portfolio of approximately 70 proprietary process technologies for ammonia/syngas/fertilizers, chemical/petrochemicals, clean refining, and circular process/circular economy solutions. This segment also provides synergistic services, including advisory and consulting focused on broad-based energy transition and net-zero carbon emission solutions; high-end engineering, design and program management centered around decarbonization, energy efficiency, environmental impact and asset optimization; and digitally-enabled operating and monitoring solutions. KBR, Inc. was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..

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The Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the CRSP US Small Cap index. The fund tracks the CRSP US Small Cap Index. The market-cap-weighted index includes the bottom 2-15% of the investable universe. VB was launched on Jan 26, 2004 and is managed by Vanguard.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October, 26th. The company reported $3.85 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.42. The company had revenue of $4.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.08 billion. Royal Caribbean Cruises had a net margin of 6.98% and a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 34.59%. The firm's revenue was up 39.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.26 earnings per share.

Read the conference call transcript.


Dalhousie has ranked among the top 350 universities globally out of the 1,904 institutions (105 more than last year) that were included in this years Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE WUR).

Among Canadian universities, Dalhousie ranks 14th out of 31 and continues to be the top-ranked university in Atlantic Canada.

This year, Dalhousies overall score in the ranking is 51.1-53  an improvement over last years score of 47-48.7.

International Outlook continues to be Dalhousies highest ranked performance area, and this years results showed significant improvements in the pillars of Teaching, Research Quality, and Industry. The university performed above the worldwide median in all the measurement pillars.

New methodology



This year introduces THEs updated methodology for the World University Rankings, which includes three new metrics that look at citations and one that examines patents.

The renamed measurement area of Research Quality now includes citation impact, research strength (75th percentile of field-weighted citation impact), research excellence (amount of research in the top 10% worldwide), and research influence (when research is recognized in turn by the most influential research in the world). Dalhousies score in Research Quality improved by 6.2 per cent.

Dalhousies Teaching score, which includes metrics on doctorate-bachelor ratio, doctorate-staff ratio, teaching reputation, student-staff ratio, and Institutional income, increased by 9.6 per cent over last year.

Most significant was the change in score for Industry, which includes industry income and the new metric for patents. The universitys score jumped 59.3 per cent, thanks to a score of 93.8 in Patents, which measures how often a universitys research is cited in patents.

THE World University Rankings are the last major world university ranking of the year. Dalhousie also actively participates in the QS World University Rankings and ShanghaiRankings Academic Ranking of World Universities.

See also:
Rama Rao addressed a public meeting in Sircilla after inaugurating 369 2BHK houses in four villages of Gambhiraopet mandal. (DC Image)

HYDERABAD: BRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao on Wednesday dismissed the Congresss claims about what it will do for the state if elected to power calling it a party "without a warranty trying to give guarantees".

Addressing a public meeting in Sircilla after inaugurating 369 2BHK houses in four villages of Gambhiraopet mandal, Rama Rao said, "Forget the Congresss six guarantees. In its 65-year rule, that party did not provide drinking water, electricity, pensions, nor did it help the poor. If Congress comes to power, the six things that will happen are farmers will have to suffer with power supply problems, people will start fighting for drinking water, farmers will have to stand in queues for fertilisers, the state will see a new CM every year, Gram Panchayats will become hamlets, and people will not have access to quality education and healthcare system."

He said, "The Congress could not give Rs 4,000 pensions in Rajasthan, Karnataka, or Chhattisgarh, but they promised it in Telangana. The Congresss promises are only for votes. And if the BJP and Congress leaders come and give money, take it from them but vote only for the BRS."
BGUS took part in a coordination meeting with the police and other government departments at the Exhibition Ground. (DC Image)

HYDERABAD: The Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi (BGUS) said on Tuesday that it had not received any court order with regard to the ban on the immersion of plaster of Paris idols in the Hussainsagar, and would go ahead with the immersion of Ganesha idols as usual. It said the right to worship was a fundamental right accorded by the Constitution.

The Telangana High Court on Monday reiterated that the blanket ban ordered earlier was still in place against the immersion of PoP (PoP) idols in the Hussainsagar or other natural water bodies.

BGUS general secretary Dr Bhagawant Rao said: "Worship is our fundamental right. We have installed the Ganesha idols and as usual, the immersion will take place. We, the devotees, and the mandap organizers, are the consumers of the idols. We dont know what material goes into idol making."

The BGUS took part in a coordination meeting with the police and other government departments at the Exhibition Ground. It questioned the absence of the GHMC commissioner and reminded that there were riots in 2010 due to alleged GHMC negligence.

BGUS leaders said that improper lighting, lack of toilets, and discussion of key routes were to be discussed with the GHMC commissioner.

Police commissioner C.V. Anand imposed a ban on paper horns and paper guns during immersion.

Speaking in a Hyderabadi dialect at the meeting, Anand asked that non-vegetarian food not be sold on the immersion routes, DJs not to be deployed, and alcohol not to be consumed.

"When playing music, try to play devotional songs only," he said. He said that 9,000 additional police personnel from other areas have been called in for the immersion day.
Dr S. Jaishankar. (File Image: PTI)

New Delhi: In his first public comments regarding the allegations from Canada, India's external affairs minister, Dr S. Jaishankar, clarified India's position.

He said, "This is not the government of India's policy to assassinate people on foreign soil. If Canada has specific and relevant information, we are open to looking at it." These remarks came in response to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that individuals associated with the Indian government were involved in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada on June 18.

Dr Jaishankar also emphasised the importance of understanding the context surrounding these allegations. He mentioned that Canada has been dealing with organised crime, violence, and extremism related to secessionist forces in recent years, and these issues are interconnected.

Regarding cooperation with Canada, Dr Jaishankar stated, "If someone provides us with specific or relevant information, we will certainly examine it, not just limited to Canada."

When asked about potential evidence provided by Canadians, Dr Jaishankar replied, "If we receive specific information, we will certainly consider it." However, he did not confirm having received any intercepted communications from Canada.

Dr Jaishankar expressed India's concern about the environment in Canada, where several terror groups and separatists have found refuge and operate without hindrance. India has shared information about organised crime leadership based in Canada and has numerous extradition requests pending.

He also noted that the permissiveness of this environment has led to threats against Indian diplomats, attacks on consulates, and accusations of interference in Canadian politics.

In response to questions about intelligence sharing and the FBI's warnings to Sikh leaders in the US, Dr Jaishankar clarified that he is not part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance or the FBI.

During his address at the UN General Assembly, Dr Jaishankar emphasised that responses to terrorism, extremism, and violence should not be based on political convenience. He emphasised the importance of respecting territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs, without selectively applying these principles.
Students shout slogans during a protest against the killing of two missing students by unknown miscreants and the restoration of peace in Imphal, Manipur (Photo by AFP)

Guwahati: Thousands of students on Tuesday took to the streets in Imphal after a photograph of two Meitei students went viral on social media, prompting the state government to declare that "swift and decisive" action will be taken against the perpetrators.

It is significant that the two Meitei students had gone missing from Imphal about three months ago, but after their photograph surfaced on the social media they were presumed killed on Tuesday.

The first photograph shows the two men -- 20-year-old Phijam Hemjit and 17-year-old Hijam Linthoingambi --sitting next to each other in a green outdoor area while two men carrying arms can be seen standing behind them in the background. The second photo shows them slumped on the ground next to each other, with Hemjits head missing.

Soon after the photographs surfaced on social media, the Manipur CMs secretariat issued a statement saying that the case had already been handed over to the CBI.

"State police, in collaboration with the Central security agencies, are actively investigating the case to determine the circumstances surrounding their disappearance and to identify the perpetrators who murdered the two students. The security forces have also started the search operation to nab the perpetrators," it said.

It further stated that "swift and decisive" action will be taken against those involved in the killing. "The government is committed to ensuring justice prevails and will impose severe punishment on any perpetrators found responsible for this heinous crime. The government encourages the public to exercise restraint and to let the authorities handle the investigation," it said.

Security sources said the authorities have taken all necessary steps to keep the situation under control. Admitting that the viral video and the photographs had provoked the students to protest, the security sources claimed they have succeeded in pacifying the angry students by assuring them of stern action against the perpetrators.
Police personnel outside a residential premises during a raid by National Investigation Agency (NIA), in Dehradun district, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. (PTI Photo)

New Delhi: In a major operation targeting a network of terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted simultaneous raids across multiple states.

They detained several suspects associated with the "listed terrorist" Arsh Dalla, who is based in Canada, along with other notorious gangsters.

A total of 53 locations were raided across Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Chandigarh. During these operations, pistols, ammunition, digital devices, and incriminating materials were seized.

Apart from Arsh Dalla, the NIA also focused on individuals like Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri, and Deepak Tinu, who were involved in these activities.

The NIA officials stated that these raids aimed to disrupt the connection between terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers, as well as to target weapon suppliers, financiers, and logistics providers linked to various criminal groups. These groups have been collaborating with drug smugglers and terrorists from countries like Pakistan, UAE, Canada, Portugal, and more.

The locations of the raids included various districts in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi-NCR, and Chandigarh.

This operation marked the seventh in a series of crackdowns initiated by the NIA since August 2022, following the registration of five cases. These cases involve conspiracies related to targeted killings, terror funding for pro-Khalistan outfits, extortion, and the involvement of gangsters operating from foreign countries.

The NIA's investigations have revealed that these conspiracies were planned within jails across different states and executed by an organised network of operatives based abroad. Notable incidents include the high-profile killings of individuals such as Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh, and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab.

Many of these criminals and gangsters who once led criminal organisations in India have fled abroad in recent years and continue to engage in criminal activities related to terror and violence from overseas.

These groups are involved in serious crimes like contract killings, revenge killings, fundraising for attacks, drug and weapon smuggling, hawala transactions, and extortions. The focus on these criminal networks has intensified following reports of prisons becoming hubs for criminal activities and gang wars.

The NIA has previously conducted raids at over 370 locations, resulting in the seizure of arms, ammunition, bank accounts, properties, digital devices, documents, and vehicles. Additionally, absconders have been declared as designated individual terrorists, and accused individuals have been declared as "Proclaimed Offenders" with Red Corner Notices issued against others.

The NIA continues its efforts to dismantle these networks involved in terror, violence, and extortion, along with their funding and support infrastructure.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Enforcement Directorate not to issue summons to BRS MLA K. Kavitha for appearance in the Delhi liquor scam, till November 20.(Image Source: Twitter)

HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Enforcement Directorate not to issue summons to BRS MLA K. Kavitha for appearance in the Delhi liquor scam, till November 20.

A division bench of the apex court comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia passed the order on a petition that Kavitha had filed in March 2023, challenging the summons issued by the ED asking women to report at its office.

On Tuesday, senior advocate Vikram Chaudhary, appearing for Kavitha, requested the court to direct the ED to not take any coercive steps against her till the court delivers its decision on her petition. He said a similar protection had been given to Nalini Chidambaram in another case that the ED was probing.

Counsel mentioned the statutory relaxation given to the women in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The Bench observed, "You cannot say that a woman cannot be called for questioning at all, as a witness or in whatever capacity. Yes, there has to be some safeguards."

It said appropriate preliminary steps should be taken when women were involved. The issue would be decided later and scheduled the hearing on November 20. "Don't call her in the meantime," the bench directed the ED.

Justice Kaul informed the lawyers that Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has constituted a special bench comprising him and Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Bela M. Trivedi to hear review petitions challenging a July 27, 2022, verdict that had upheld the constitutional validity of the PMLA and the ED's power of arrest under the law.

He said the special bench will sit on October 18 and issue procedural directions with regard to the pleading.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the gathering during the foundation stone laying ceremony of various projects, in Chhotaudepur. (PTI Photo)

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence in India's future as an economic powerhouse and highlighted his vision of making India the world's growth engine during a programme marking the 20th anniversary of the 'Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit' in Ahmedabad.

Modi stated, "When we started Vibrant Gujarat, our intention was that this state should become the growth engine of the country's progress. The country has seen this vision become reality." He emphasised that India's goal of becoming the world's growth engine is gaining recognition among international agencies and experts, and India is now the fastest-growing economy globally.

He urged industrialists to focus on sectors that will create new opportunities for India and encouraged discussions on boosting the startup ecosystem, agri-tech, food processing, and agriculture.

Modi noted that 'Vibrant Gujarat' began at a time when the previous central government was indifferent to the state's industrial progress. He highlighted how 'Vibrant Gujarat' events have become an institution and have inspired other states to organise their investment summits.

The Prime Minister emphasised that the next 20 years are crucial for India's development and self-reliance. He urged the country to create a roadmap to become a developed nation by 2047, coinciding with India's centenary of independence.

During his visit, Modi inaugurated an exhibition at Science City to mark the 20th anniversary of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. He also visited various attractions at Science City, including an aquarium, a robotic gallery, and a nature park.

Additionally, Modi launched various development projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore in Bodeli, a tribal-dominated town in Chhotaudepur district, Gujarat. He highlighted the government's efforts to provide housing for the poor and emphasised that these initiatives aim to provide dignity to the poor.

During another event in Vadodara, organised by the ruling BJP to thank him for the passage of the women's reservation bill in Parliament, Modi accused Opposition parties of obstructing the bill for three decades and attempting to divide women along caste and religious lines now that it has been passed.
Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated engages in reinsurance business. The company offers individual and group life and health insurance products, such as term life, credit life, universal life, whole life, group life and health, joint and last survivor insurance, critical illness, disability, and longevity products; asset-intensive and financial reinsurance products; and other capital motivated solutions. It also provides reinsurance for mortality, morbidity, lapse, and investment-related risk associated with products; and reinsurance for investment-related risks. In addition, the company develops and markets technology solutions; and provides consulting and outsourcing solutions for the insurance and reinsurance industries. It serves life insurance companies in the United States, Latin America, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and the Asia Pacific. Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri.
A Ballykelly woman who subjected three teenage girls to sectarian abuse has been told by a judge that her behaviour was 'disgraceful'.

Kelli Moore, of Churchill Road, appeared before Limavady Magistrates Court, sitting in Coleraine Courthouse, this morning for sentencing having previously been convicted of seven offences.

The 30 year-old was charged with three counts of harassment and three counts of common assault.

The victims in the case were three girls, aged between 13 years-old and 14 years-old.

Moore was further charged with disorderly behaviour.

All offences were committed on dates between October 26 and November 7 2022.

The court heard that some of the offences first came to light on October 26 last year after police received a report from a staff member at St Mary's High School in Limavady who stated that three young pupils at the school had been victims of sectarian abuse from a female adult.

Police spoke to the three children and one of them stated that she had been sitting at the bus stop at Clooney Road, Ballykelly earlier that morning when Moore walked past with a young boy and spat on her shoe. The young girl said Moore got on a bus and make a 'w***er sign' out the window towards her.

The young girls also stated that they were sitting at the bus stop on a different date when Moore walked by staring at them.

The girls said Moore shouted at one of them: Do you have a staring problem, you fenian b*****d?

The court heard that Moore continued to be abusive towards the girls and left them crying.

After being identified via a VIPER procedure, Moore was interviewed. She admitted being at the bus stop on the dates in question however she denied the offences.

The court heard following this, the girls saw Moore on a third date, during which she gave the fingers to them.

District Judge Peter King said the fact that Moore has an 11 year-old son made her behaviour towards the young girls 'even more inexplicable'.

Defence barrister Stephen Chapman said Moore's behaviour was 'not acceptable' and asked the judge to consider not imposing an immediate custodial sentence.

Addressing Moore, District Judge Peter King told her the behaviour complained of was 'disgraceful'.

He said the language she used 'indicated a sectarian animus' adding 'the fact that it was directed at children who are 13 and 14 beggars belief'.

Judge King went on to say that the three children 'were completely and utterly blameless and were victimised' by an adult who is also a mother herself.

He told Moore that the impact of her behaviour on the children was evident by the victim impact reports which were before him.

In order to 'protect' the three children, Judge King told Moore that he was imposing restraining orders which prohibit her from contacting the victims for the next three years.

In addition, Judge King imposed an enhanced combination order of two years' probation and 180 hours community service.

The judge warned Moore if she breached any of the orders imposed by the court, she would face a prison sentence.
Business leaders from across the Northwest came together yesterday (Tuesday) with Loganair, City of Derry Airport, London Heathrow Airport, and Etihad, at the Everglades Hastings Hotel in Derry, to discuss the global connectivity now available for the Northwest corporate market to 119 destinations across 56 countries from City of Derry Airport via London Heathrow, and what this will yield for the local economy and tourism sectors.

Keynote speaker, Jonathan Hinkles, Chief Executive of Loganair, stated: Its a pleasure to be here celebrating the connectivity that our partnerships offer our customers on the north coast of Ireland. As the UKs largest regional airline, enhancing connectivity is one of our top priorities and its so important for the communities that we serve. Not only does the Heathrow route offer customers faster access to the heart of London and our vast range of partnerships with worldwide airlines at Heathrow, but it also creates new tourism opportunities to City of Derry and the wider region.

To help celebrate the event, Loganair launched a 59.99 sale on routes between City of Derry and London Heathrow. The sale runs from September 26 to October 1 for travel from November 1 onwards, subject to availability. No discount code is needed to access the rate.

Steve Frazer, Managing Director at City of Derry Airport, noted: It was fantastic to bring the local business community together today to discuss the benefits the take-off of the new City of Derry  London Heathrow service will bring to us all. This is a significant milestone not only for the Airport, but the entire Northwest region. Gaining international hub access is a substantial step in the economic and strategic growth of the region and our vision for the future of the Airport.

In terms of outbound travel, London Heathrow truly opens a Gateway to the World, as corporate travellers can now book through ticket connections to and from City of Derry Airport via London Heathrow to 119 destinations across 56 countries. Destinations across Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia are available with Loganairs international airline partners, all from the convenience of your local Airport.

We look forward to welcoming the world to the Northwest and connecting both business and leisure travellers across the globe.

Selina Horshi, President of Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, added: City of Derry Airport is such an important component in our economic engine in the North West and provides a crucial link for businesses operating here, to the rest of the world. One of the most important assessments a company will make when it is establishing its presence in any region, is that of connectivity. Similarly, any business that needs to grow must be able to demonstrate that is well connected to both domestic and global markets.

The new City of Derry - London Heathrow service immediately enhances our attractiveness as a region and means that businesses already operating here have much better access to their customers and new markets. It also means that more visitors can come direct to the North West and enjoy all of the wonderful things we have in terms of our tourism and hospitality offering. Our members are not short on energy and ambition and the international hub access we now enjoy via City of Derry Airport will greatly help our members fulfil those ambitions and deliver economic growth to our region.

For more information on Loganairs global connectivity from City of Derry via London Heathrow, as well as the new sale launched on the direct City of Derry - London Heathrow service, click here
The Lynch family who run three EUROSPAR supermarkets in Derry have brought home a host of prestigious awards from a national ceremony.

The Retail Industry Awards took place in London recently, and Lynchs continued their legacy of success at the gala awards by winning Independent Tobacco Retailer of the Year for their Skeoge EUROSPAR, and Independent Chilled Retailer of the Year for their Greysteel EUROSPAR.

The team also scooped the highly commended accolades for Independent Retailer of the Year (Skeoge) and Hannah McDowell from the Greysteel store was highly commended in the Rising Star Award.

Speaking of their winning accolades, judges said; Amazing year-on-year increase while price-matching the multiples. Chilled certainly stands out here. Local sourcing, good hygiene controls, outstanding meal solutions and an amazing ready-to-cook section. Great promotions, fab store.

With another commenting; Lynchs EUROSPAR Skeoge has its finger on the pulse of the tobacco category thanks to its personal approach. Its encouraging to hear how theyve learnt through both trial and error, and by building a strong working relationship with tobacco suppliers which has a mutual benefit.

The team from Lynchs EUROSPAR Skeoge are pictured with Independent Retail News editor, David Shrimpton (left) and Awards host Paul Sinah (right) to collect the award for Independent Tobacco Retailer of the Year at the Retail Industry Awards 2023.

Paddy Doody, Sales and Marketing Director at Henderson Group added; Once again, our independent retailers have shown how much our region excels.

"In the past year, we have worked with our independent stores to adapt even more to their shoppers needs, celebrated countless long-term partnerships and invested alongside them to create community hubs which service their communities and bring value on their doorsteps when they need it most.

Lynchs have proven time and again they are one of the top players in the UK, bringing home two major accolades against tough national competition. Hannah McDowell has also shown she is one to watch with her highly commended nod for the Rising Star Award, which she so very narrowly missed out on. Congratulations to all the teams at Lynchs Skeoge and Greysteel EUROSPAR stores.

The Lynchs teams were part of a cohort of SPAR and EUROSPAR retailers from Northern Ireland who brought home a total of 11 awards from the ceremony, plus a further eight highly commended accolades.

The Retail Industry Award winners were selected by a panel of esteemed and experienced names in the industry. The Awards, now in their 27th year are a celebration of all that is great about the UK grocery retail sector. The 2023 winners were revealed at a gala ball ceremony at the Brewery in London on 19 September 2023. A full list of winners can be found here.
The man accused of affray on the night 19-year-old Jordan McConomy died in Derry told police 'I am not a fighter, I don't fight.'

Dane McKeever (24) of Fahan Street in Derry faces one charge of causing an affray on September 24, 2017.

The defendant was giving evidence on his own behalf and told the court that he had been out drinking with friends during the day.

McKeever told the jury that in the evening he had gone to a local night club and had taken one ecstasy tablet.

He said that his recollection after that became hazy and a friend of his had said he took more ecstasy.

The jury was told that McKeever had no memory as to how he found himself in William Street where the incident occurred.

In response to Eoghan Devlin defence counsel McKeever said all he could recollect was 'someone roaring in my face'.

He then said he could recall 'throwing someone over my left shoulder.'

Again in response to Mr Devlin the defendant said 'I don't remember hitting anyone or anyone hitting me.'

Referring to CCTV that had been shown to the court Mr Devlin asked had the deceased man Jordan McConomy thrown 'a haymaker' towards McKeever followed by a kick and was told it appeared so.

Following the incident when Jordan McConomy goes to the ground McKeever agreed that it appeared that a female struck him in the face and then another man struck him.

The defendant was asked if it was the case that the first punches he threw were after he had been assaulted and he replied he did not remember.

McKeever said he had little recollection of what happened afterwards except he knew he had smoked a joint in his mother's shed.

Under cross-examination by a prosecution barrister McKeever agreed that he had the opportunity to walk away.

He was asked why did he not just run away the defendant answered that he was 18 and when someone hit you you hit back.

The defence case was then closed and it is expected the jury will retire to consider their verdict tomorrow.
No material about the disappearance and death of Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe which could prejudice potential jurors in inquest proceedings should appear in the public domain, coroner Joe McCrisken has said.

Mr McCrisken also warned the sharing of any material disclosed as part of the coronial process outside of the inquest proceedings may be regarded as a contempt of court.

Noah, 14, was found dead in a storm drain in the city in June 2020 six days after he went missing as he cycled to meet up with friends.

His mother Fiona Donohoe is hoping to secure answers to some of the questions surrounding the death of her son through the inquest process.

The inquest was originally scheduled to take place last year but was then delayed after a ruling from coroner Mr McCrisken that it should proceed with a jury, following an application from Ms Donohoe.

During a pre-inquest review at Laganside Courthouse, the coroner said he had been in contact with the Attorney Generals office about the case.

Counsel for the coroner, Peter Coll KC, raised the issue of ensuring that material evidence and documentation disclosed in the proceedings are contained within the confines of the inquest at this stage.

He said: It is an opportunity at this stage, as we come towards a point where there may be consideration given to listing of this substantive inquest, of the need to ensure that there is a fade factor in the public domain in terms of any potential jurors and to protect the integrity of the evidential process.

It is really an opportunity for everyone to reflect on the need to ensure that the integrity of the inquest process is given its place.

Mr McCrisken said: I would hope there wouldnt be any disagreement that the undertaking that all of the interested persons have given at this inquest, and indeed in every inquest, is abided by.

That is that no material disclosed for the purposes of this inquest is disclosed outwith the interested persons or the coroners service.

I take that situation extremely seriously. It is possible that disclosing material outside of the inquest process is a contempt of court.

Of course, the courts take that very seriously indeed.

The coroner added: It is appropriate at this stage also once again to remind the public, media outlets and all interested persons to this inquest that the strict liability rule set out by the Contempt of Court Act 1981 applies to these proceedings.

These are active proceedings and have been since January 2021.

For any publication  that is on social media, mainstream media, a television programme, speech or writing  which seriously impedes or prejudices or creates a substantial risk that the course of justice will be seriously impeded or prejudiced, will be potentially in breach of the strict liability rule and therefore a contempt of court.

This is an inquest which is to be held with a jury and it is therefore all the more important that nothing is publicised which might prejudice any potential jurors.

I have been involved in communicating with the Attorney Generals office over the last number of months about this issue and the Attorney Generals office is aware of issues around this inquest and any adverse impact on the rule of law and the administration of justice.

The hearing was also updated on the disclosure process and the timetabling for the full inquest.

A barrister for Ms Donohoe told the court that the family preferred a date in September 2024.

The next review hearing will take place on November 30.
HIGHLIGHTS Search engine giant Google has turned 25 years old.

Google is celebrating this milestone with a special Doodle.

The new Doodle comes with a GIF which transforms Google into G25gle, to mark the 25 years.

Search engine giant Google today turned 25 years old, and is celebrating this milestone with a special Doodle. Taking a walk down memory lane, the company showcased different doodles over the years. The latest one comes with a GIF which transforms Google into G25gle, to mark the 25 years.

Todays Doodle celebrates Googles 25th year. And while here at Google were oriented towards the future, birthdays can also be a time to reflect. Lets take a walk down memory lane to learn how we were born 25 years ago, the company wrote on the Google Doodles page.

Also read: Sundar Pichai: Five quotes on 25 years of Google, future of search and AI

Google Doodle

The company further mentioned that much has changed since 1998, including its logo. However, its mission has remained the same: to organise the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. Billions of people from all over the globe use Google to search, connect, work, play, and SO much more! it added.

Also read: Google CEO Sundar Pichai: 4 hopeful things on Indias tech future

Google

In addition to the new Doodle, users will also see a little surprise when they search for (or hum) birthday-related queries, according to Google.

How Google was born

Doctoral students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, met while studying computer science at Stanford University in the late 90s. They both had a similar vision: to make the World Wide Web a more accessible place.

They worked hard from their dorm rooms to create a better search engine. As their project progressed, they moved their work to Googles first office, which was just a rented garage. Finally, on September 27, 1998, Google Inc. was officially founded.
HIGHLIGHTS According to a leak, Samsung is planning to speed up this process and release the Samsung Galaxy S24 in January.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup will include three smartphones.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 and the S24+ could sport flat edges

Samsung Galaxy S23 launched this year in February. And now we wait for the next smartphone in the lineup which is the Samsung Galaxy S24. And if rumours are to be believed then the next flagship Samsung will be here much before the ETA.

Samsung usually releases the Galaxy S series during its Galaxy Unpacked event which is mostly held in February. Now according to a leak, Samsung is planning to speed up this process and release the Samsung Galaxy S24 in January 2024 itself.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy S24 to feature Titanium Alloy and a bigger 50MP Telephoto sensor: More details tipped

Tipster Ice Universe took to Weibo to share that Samsung might have plans to launch the Samsung Galaxy S24 on 18 January 2024. If theres any truth to this tip then the Samsung Galaxy S will be out well before its usual February timeline.

But we should keep in mind that this is not the first time Samsung is pushing its timeline. Last year, the Samsung Galaxy S23 was unveiled on 1 February 2023. But the other Galaxy S smartphones before that were released towards the end of February. So that means that well have the Samsung Galaxy S24 sooner than before but take it with a pinch of salt because its still a rumour.

What can we expect from the S24 lineup?

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup will include three smartphones. These are the Galaxy S24, the S24+, and the S24 Ultra. As for the specs, the Samsung Galaxy S24 and the S24+ could sport flat edges and could even support LTPO display technology. Meanwhile, the S24 Ultra could have rounded edges and titanium frames. And as per rumours, it will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that will be announced in October this year.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra may lack 10x zoom camera

On the camera front, it is rumoured that there are going to be many camera and performance upgrades for the S24 lineup. We might get a 200-megapixel primary sensor and a 12-megapixel periscope lens and Samsung could give us 12x optical zoom too.

We cannot be certain about anything just yet as these are just rumours and there hasnt been any official communication from Samsung yet.
HIGHLIGHTS The Xiaomi 13T Pro features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with 12-bit colours, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and up to 144Hz refresh rate.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9200 processor.

For photography, the Xiaomi 13T Pro uses a 50-megapixel OIS main camera.

Xiaomi has launched the 13T series globally that includes two models; the Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13T Pro. The predecessors of the Xiaomi 13T series were launched earlier this year. The Xiaomi 13T series also boasts Leica cameras like its predecessors, which performed very well in terms of photography. The Chinese brand has made a lot of changes this year in the T series. Here are the Xiaomi 13T Pro and Xiaomi 12T Pro, lets see what changes have been made this year.

Also read: Xiaomi 13T Pro new launch date, processor, display details revealed: Everything you need to know

Xiaomi 13T Pro VS Xiaomi 12T Pro

Xiaomi has upgraded the display in the Xiaomi 13T Pro series. The Xiaomi 13T Pro features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with 12-bit colours, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and up to 144Hz refresh rate. This display has 2600nits of peak brightness. The Xiaomi 12T Pro features a 120Hz refresh rate display that has 900nits of peak brightness.

The Xiaomi 13T Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9200 processor paired with up to 16GB RAM and up to 1TB storage. It runs on MIUI 14 skin based on Android 13 operating system. It packs a 5000mAh battery with 120-watt fast charging support. In comparison, the Xiaomi 12T Pro rolled out with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 paired with up to 12GB RAM and up to 256GB storage.

For photography, the Xiaomi 13T Pro uses a 50-megapixel OIS main camera, a 50-megapixel Telephoto sensor with up to 2x optical zoom, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens. This year the brand has removed the 200-megapixel main camera and the 2-megapixel macro lens. On the front, theres still a 20-megapixel selfie shooter.

Also read: Xiaomi 13 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: Top 5 features compared

Talking about the prices, the Xiaomi 13T Pro has launched globally at a starting price of 799. However, the predecessor, Xiaomi 12T Pro was rolled out globally at a starting price of 749. Xiaomi did launch the 13T Pro with some upgrades, but the price has also been hiked.
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South Korean semiconductor firms advised to change China market strategy in face of US guardrail final rules

With the Biden administration finalizing the national security guardrails of the CHIPS and Science Act's (CHIPS Act) funding allocations and restrictions, South Korean semiconductor companies may have to transform their operations in China and leverage their mature-node capacities there to target products for domestic demand, according to Korean news media.

There are diverse opinions regarding the final rules' impacts on Samsung and SK Hynix. But one thing is certain: the companies that wish to be subsidized by CHIPS Act funding for their capacity expansion in the US will have to accept the conditions set by the Biden administration and refrain from material capacity expansions in China for the next 10 years.

The Department of Commerce press release showed that the subsidy recipients' advanced processing node expansion in "countries of concern" will be limited to under 5% while capacity expansion of mature nodes such as 28nm and above is limited to under 10%. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of South Korea has expressed that it will continue to cooperate with the US to ensure Korean semiconductor companies' normal business operations in China.

South Korean semiconductor manufacturers realized that the final rule of CHIPS Act guardrails announced by the Biden administration maintains the restrictions on capacity expansions for companies receiving subsidies from CHIPS Act funds, according to Korean media, which said the Korean semiconductor companies have advised the Biden administration to allow advanced node capacity expansion up to 10%, instead of 5%. The advice was not heeded. According to Korean media reports, expansion of no more than 5% means they can only maintain the current production level, and thus will have an impact on their business competitiveness in China. No further investment in advanced-node semiconductor product manufacturing is allowed in China.

Since the Guardrail final rules were expected to have no surprises, the whole industry feels relieved, according to Asia Economy, a Korean media outlet. For example, although SK Hynix produces DRAM and NAND in China and has advanced DRAM manufacturing processes, it does not need to increase production in China immediately, and NAND has not produced more than 200 layers of advanced products in China, so it is less affected by the US restrictions.

However, since currently 85% of the output of the Korean semiconductor company's mature-node capacity in China is sold to be used in end products assembled in China, they will receive less negative impact on this part of their business.

A South Korean microelectronics and packaging expert pointed out that South Korean semiconductors should reconsider their strategies and focus more on the domestic-oriented market demands in China. For example, China's EV market is expanding and has a huge demand for power management devices, which are mainly produced with mature-node technologies. The expert suggests that South Korean companies can change the product portfolios in their China fabs to meet the local market demand.
The ASUS VivoWatch: Modern platform for health management

The ASUS VivoWatch, with a comprehensive set of smart functions for measuring precise blood oxygen levels, blood pressure, and heart rhythm, became a superior assistant for health management thanks to its accurate physiological measurement features at the launch of the first-generation product. Chief Operating Officer and Global Senior Vice President of ASUS Min-Chieh, (Joe) Hsieh points out that the main thing that sets the VivoWatch apart from ordinary smart watches on the market is, from the user's perspective, that ASUS positioned the device as a modern personal health management platform right from the beginning, providing value-added health services to companies and end users in various fields. In recent years, ASUS has expanded the scope of the VivoWatch and launched cross-domain cooperation with medical care institutions, the insurance industry, and the construction industry to further strengthen its product positioning.

Hsieh says that in recent years health awareness in the Taiwanese public has increased, and devices such as blood pressure monitors, blood glucose meters, and blood oxygen level monitors, which can only detect certain current vital signs, are no longer able to meet the health needs of modern consumers. That is where the ASUS VivoWatch comes init has a battery life of up to 14 days, can closely monitor health data over long periods of time, and adds in personal life information to provide more value-added care. That is why it has become a major choice for most companies in the field building smart systems.

ASUS VivoWatch has variously demonstrated its business value in different fields, pharmaceuticals and insurance being two of the most representative. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, must closely monitor the vital signs of subjects during the development stages of new drugs. The VivoWatch can collect physiological data over long periods of time, helping pharmaceutical companies obtain and comprehend relevant data and evaluate the overall effects of new drugs. In another example, insurance spillover policy services were launched for Taiwanese insurance companies, and these policies require policyholders to have better control over their own health management and achieve standard health values through exercise and physical examinations. Their success earns them discounts, such as premium rebates and increased insured amount. The VivoWatch can obtain policyholders' physiological data, in real time, continuously, and compliantly, helping insurance companies to accurately design premium structures and establish a digital health ecosystem focused on the individual.

And it is not just being used in pharmaceuticals and insuranceASUS VivoWatch has also begun to be used in occupational safety. Recently, legislation from the governments of Singapore and Hong Kong require that manufacturing, construction, and other industries introduce health monitoring technology. Manufacturers have been adopting the VivoWatch to monitor the physical conditions of workers in factories and construction sites in real-time to prevent accidents.

The ASUS VivoWatch has many successful applications in the medical field. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Taoyuan General Hospital had COVID patients in the isolation room wearing VivoWatches, which transmitted vital signs, such as heartbeat and blood oxygen, to the back end system. This reduced the workload of medical staff and cut down the rate of contact with COVID-19 patients. This very same model, using technology to improve the quality of medical services and solve the current shortage of medical manpower, can also be applied to emergency rooms or other isolation wards.

In addition, the ASUS VivoWatch also has various value-added benefits in the medical care field. Recently, Show Chwan Memorial Hospital (SCMH), as well as other medical institutions have used it for long-term healthcare patients and customers. VivoWatch's continuous and stable data collection can help these institutions provide long-term health management services for patients. They only need to wear the device at home, and hospitals can remotely monitor their vital signs. SCMH uses the VivoWatch and the ASUS HealthConnect APP in the hospital's EVIP advanced health exam service. The VivoWatch continually detects the customer's vital signs between two physical examinations and uploads the data to the cloud. That way, the hospital's dedicated personal manager can continually observe the customer's health status.

The examples mentioned above show how mobile wearable devices have been applied in various fields in the industry as an important tool that can raise operational efficiency and create new business models. However, Hsieh also pointed out that these applications must first comply with medical regulations and must be very effective. The ASUS VivoWatch goes beyond the logic of most smart watches by putting the focus on medical institutions and users; it puts the power of ASUS software and hardware into the logic of modern personal health management platforms, and helps operators in various fields to develop value-added models and create all-around beneficial situations combining personal health care and industrial application development.

COO and Global Senior Vice President of ASUS Min-Chieh (Joe), Hsieh

VivoWatch differs from typical smartwatches on the market as it is positioned as a modern personal health management platform.
Church leaders from the island of Ireland will attend a seminar in Rome to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

In a shared statement they said the visit is taking place at a time of great concern for the state of our fragile peace.

The Church Leaders Group, which includes leaders from the Church of Ireland, the Methodist and Presbyterian churches in Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish Council of Churches, will share their personal reflections on the anniversary during a visit to Rome.

The seminar will take place in the Pontifical Irish College and will also explore the role that churches and faith-based leaders play in peace-making and reconciliation.

The two-day visit begins with a joint church service on Thursday at the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese, the Waldensian Evangelical Church in Romes Piazza Cavour.

The Good Friday Agreement established a new political system in Northern Ireland and largely ended conflict and violence in the region.

The 25th anniversary of the signing has been celebrated in a range of events so far this year, including the Agreement 25 conference at Queens University.

In a joint statement the church leaders said their visit to Rome was an opportunity to reflect on the past 25 years, but also to look to the future of peace in Northern Ireland.

They said the Good Friday Agreement was not the end of the peace journey in the region.

We welcome the opportunity this special seminar affords us to share our collective thoughts and personal reflections at such an influential gathering, as it comes at a time when we have great concern for the state of our fragile peace, they said.

As we remark in the foreword to this mornings Order of Service, We must remember that the signing of the Agreement was not the end of the journey to peace in Northern Ireland. It simply marked the first faltering steps down a very long road to a new, brighter, and shared future shaped by tolerance and respect for our differences, and a recognition of the need for greater understanding and reconciliation.

The church leaders added that the Good Friday Agreement had saved lives in Northern Ireland.

They said: We are thankful to God that the Agreement that was negotiated a quarter of a century ago, while not perfect, transformed the conflict in Northern Ireland, resulting in countless lives being saved.

It is our prayer that todays seminar, and our participation along with others, will contribute to a wider understanding of where we have come from and the hope that we have for the future, when communities agree to come together.

The church leaders further stated that their visit was a commitment to the future of peace and reconciliation.

As individual Christians, and as leaders in our respective Christian traditions, we are committed to working towards a vision of an island of restored relationships, where all can flourish and fully participate in our common life, they said.

This is our shared commitment to reconciliation and peacebuilding on the island of Ireland. While we continue to recognise the obvious challenges that there are, we want to acknowledge once more that the important and vital work of peace is still an unfinished work, a work that we are all committed to actively pursuing for the common good, for all the people of Ireland, north and south.

Speaking ahead of the visit, the British ambassador to the Holy See Chris Trott and the Irish ambassador to the Holy See Frances Collins said they were delighted to welcome the church leaders in Ireland to Rome.

For decades, the churches have played an important role in supporting peace and reconciliation, including in preparing the ground for the successful negotiation of the agreement, facilitating inter-community dialogue and in their ecumenical work, which promoted a deeper understanding of the root causes of the conflict, they said.

Their invaluable work continues today, as they support and guide communities across Northern Ireland navigating the very serious challenges of living in a post-conflict society.

Speakers at the seminar will include the Rt Rev Andrew Forster, president of the Irish Council of Churches, the Most Rev Eamon Martin, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, and the Most Rev John McDowell, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.

Before returning on Friday the church leaders will have a number of additional meetings with Christian organisations and lunch with the British and Irish ambassadors to the Holy See.
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A 22-year-old man who allowed his bank account to be used by a third party for the transfer of money, has been given the benefit of the Probation Act at Dundalk district court, after making a 1,000 charitable donation.

Adam Mostyn with an address at Dundoogan, Heynestown, Dundalk had pleaded guilty to two money laundering charges in amounts of 11,309 and 1,000 at Bank of Ireland, Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk, on August 17th 2021.

An earlier sitting of the court had heard that the defendant, who had no previous convictions, had responded to an advertisement on Snapchat and was offered 10% of the proceeds.

A probation report assessed him as being at low risk of reoffending, and the Defence solicitor said on an adjourned date this client worked as a steel fabricator, having lost a job in a pharmaceutical company because of the case.

He stressed that his client never met these people and fortunately, no one was at a loss as Bank of Ireland had stepped in.

The solicitor argued that the defendant had displayed a level of naivety and was never going to gain from this, however Judge

Eirinn McKiernan pointed out he was promised 10%.

The judge put back the case for payment of 1,000 for the Turas Counselling Service, otherwise a two month suspended sentence would be imposed.

However, last Wednesday after the solicitor confirmed the payment had been made, Judge McKiernan applied the Probation Act.
Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) says it is thrilled to congratulate one of its lecturers, Maryellen Kelledy, Department of Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, who has just been named as one of the winners of this years Women in Supply Chain Awards.

Maryellen has received this award from the US Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine, the only publication covering the entire global supply chain.

It honours female supply chain leaders and executives whose accomplishments, mentorship and examples set a foundation for women in all levels of a companys supply chain network. Maryellen will be honoured at this years Women in Supply Chain Forum, which takes place in Atlanta in November.

From Dundalk, Maryellen Kelledy, along with working as an assistant lecture in the School of Engineering in DkIT has also been involved with Irish-founded company Overhaul since its early inception in 2020.

Overhaul is a software-based, supply-chain visibility, risk, compliance and insurance solution for some of the worlds leading brands with headquarters in the US and an Irish base in DkITs Regional Development Centre (RDC).

Maryellen has over 20 years experience in industry and has held an instrumental role within Overhauls leadership team, she has been a driving force behind the successful orchestration of multifunctional projects, all aimed at propelling the company to new heights.

Barry Conlon, CEO and Founder of Overhaul, said: Maryellen is more than a leader; she exemplifies what every woman in the supply chain industry can aspire to be. She is a testament to the potential for women in this industry, echoing the belief that diversity, unity, and resilience lead to success.

"Her leadership transcends traditional boundaries, leaving an indelible mark on Overhauls growth trajectory and solidifying her place in the annals of the industrys distinguished leaders.

Maryellen has also recently been short-listed for the Irish Women Mean Business Awards 2023 and was named as one of the finalists in their Businesswoman of the Year Category. The winners of these awards will be announced this October in Dublin.
Carlingford features in a new mini series Stand Up Road Trip which sees comedians Sean Burke and Suzi Ruffell travel together across Ireland  beginning in Ireland's Ancient East, then onto Irelands Hidden Heartlands and finally to the Wild Atlantic Way.

In the first episode, viewers follow Sean and Suzi as they visit Newgrange and the Carlingford Oyster Company, in search of new material for their stand-up gig in Limerick. Episode one is available. Episode two will go live on 5 October and episode three on 19 October.

Their challenge is to drive from one coast to the other, meet lots of locals and experience our culture, all in an attempt to gather enough comedy material for a last-minute stand-up show at the end of their trip.

They have prepared no jokes for the show and need to soak up as many adventure-filled stories and hilarious anecdotes as possible during their Irish road trip.

The digital-first mini-series includes three episodes, which will be available to view on Channel 4s YouTube channel. The episodes will also be promoted on the Channel 4 streaming platform, as well as on Channel 4s Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The promotion is expected to have 6.4 million views.

Julie Wakley, Tourism Irelands Head of Great Britain, said:

We are delighted to partner with Channel 4 to create the Stand Up Road Trip mini-series. Its a great way for comedians Sean Burke and Suzi Ruffell to bring viewers on a fun road trip across Ireland  highlighting our fantastic scenery, culture, attractions and, most importantly, our local characters.

As Sean and Suzi travel from Ireland's Ancient East to Irelands Hidden Heartlands and then to the Wild Atlantic Way, viewers will get a sense of the humour and wit of the people in Ireland. The partnership is expected to have 6.4 million views, so its a wonderful opportunity to showcase Ireland to a large audience in Great Britain and encourage them to book their own trip to Ireland.
Magical Maldives: Tips & Tricks for Your Holiday

Well-known to be a tropical holiday destination in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives offers gorgeous islands with bright blue waters for an experience of relaxation and tranquillity to those who visit. The island has a reputation for providing tourists with top-quality accommodation and service, as well as delicious food and a wide range of fun activities to ensure in. According to Forbes, upwards of 1.7 million visitors come to the Maldives every year with the best months to visit being from November to April. Visitors from all over the world are welcomed to the Maldives with a no-cost 30-day visa on arrival.

How to get to the Maldives?

Before getting ahead of yourself and booking your luxury trip to the Maldives, it's useful to know how you are going to get there. There is only one entrance point for the Maldives, this is via Velana International Airport, located on Hulhule Island. Luckily, this airport welcomes direct flights from Europe and Asian destinations.

What is there to do in the Maldives?

The Maldives are home to a variety of marine life which is best explored through scuba diving and snorkelling. On your trip get on your wet suit and swim in the beautiful Indian Ocean to discover the colourful corals and reefs. As well as the beauty of the ocean, the Maldives has a fun and unique nightlife. In your evenings you should take a stroll along the beach and youll find activities to indulge yourself in.

Be cautious of cultural differences

Most locals who live in the Maldives are Muslim. Therefore, the Maldives has strict rules around the drinking of alcohol. Tourists are not allowed to bring alcohol into the country or drink it on inhabited islands. Despite this, many resorts, hotels and boats are still licensed to serve alcohol, so you will be able to enjoy a drink or two on your holiday.

Staying in an overwater villa isnt always necessary

Whilst staying at an overwater villa is often an item on a travellers bucket list, they are often overrated. These villas can be hard to access from beaches and are usually compact together with a few other villas, meaning you dont get as much privacy as you may have hoped for. Consider staying in an all-inclusive hotel instead. This will be more accessible, affordable and offer you the privacy you wish for.

Courtesy of Silversea Cruises 2023 youll sink into a realm of tranquillity and serenity, spending six nights at the paradisal Joy Island Maldives, before moving to Singapore and embarking on the Silver Muse cruise. There is no better way to indulge in the magic of the Maldives than enjoying an all-inclusive beachfront stay designed to let your cares melt away as you soak up the sun and beauties of the Maldives in peace.

Be wary that whilst tipping may not be compulsory at some all-inclusive resorts, many staff members appreciate the gesture, and you may receive even better service in return. Always check with them first that they are okay with taking tips, as this might differ from resort to resort.
VISITORS to Douglas Library will enjoy a very special exhibition over the coming weeks, following its official opening last Friday evening, as part of Culture Night.

Reflections on the care experience in Cork is a thought-provoking display of poems and quotes written by young people who have been fostered and their carers.

Whilst the poems are written by young people who have been cared for, the reflections come from the carers.

Some of the reflections really stopped us in our tracks, says organiser and Tusla social worker Una O Farrell.

One such reflection reads: A child born to another woman calls me mom  the magnitude of that tragedy and depth of that privilege are never lost on me.

Una says: There is so much in that short reflection. This exhibition is all about honouring the truly amazing, transformative work that foster carers do in this country.

Its to celebrate them and also to raise awareness of the role.

One Good Adult

The social worker mentions the well-established idea that it takes one good adult to give a child a positive start in life. This exhibition is all about these good adults, showcasing, the inspiring work they do.

Its about celebrating those ordinary moments really. One carer mentions how wonderful it is to see a child go from gobbling up their food, for fear of not getting another meal, to relaxing, slowing down, and realising that they are going to be looked after. Its about that moment when they grasp that they are worthy of care.

(right) Una O'Farrell, a Social Worker with Tusla, pictured with colleagues Susan Brosnan, Liberty Street House, Charlie O'Sullivan, Devina Seward, Sarah O'Sullivan, Sharon Horan, and Marcella Buckley at the opening of a new exhibition at Douglas library, called Tusla Fostering/aftercare presents: Reflections on the care experience in Cork . Picture: Larry Cummins

The phenomenal work these carers do reaches far beyond the anecdotal. At the age of 16, fostered children can begin working with the Aftercare Team. At this age they volunteer for continued support and 99% of young people do so. Impressively, 78 % of Aftercare clients in Cork are in full time education or registered apprenticeship.

There are 380 young people in Cork in our Aftercare programme from the ages of 16-23. This makes us the biggest aftercare service in the country and our young people are doing so well with the help of their carers; 46% continue to remain with their foster carers post 18 years old  while an additional 20% will stay connected with their carer.

Relationships are at the heart of the fostering experience, says the social worker.

One of the framed quotes on show at Douglas library during September and October.

So over 65% are still linked in with that one good adult that they can call on, in times of celebration or crisis.

This is because solid, dependable connections have been made.

Carer Shortage

Organisers are also keen to highlight the urgent need for more foster carers in the system.

Society has changed so much in recent years and that has had a significant impact. There isnt always someone at home looking after the children these days.

People are asking grandparents to get involved, they are under so much pressure for childcare. This means there are fewer people able to foster as well, but they are so, so desperately needed.

Una O Farrell says they are struggling to place children now and that, without a home, they inevitably end up in emergency accommodation which is far less than ideal.

It used to be that we would have absolutely no problem finding a home for a baby but could have some difficulty placing an older child who might display more challenging, trauma-related behaviours.

Nowadays, we struggle to place even the babies. We cant meet the demand and thats the situation across the country.

Choosing to Foster

Some of the reflections are written by relative fosters, as the aim is always to keep a child within their own family or community.

We always ask family first if, for whatever reason, a child cant stay with their biological parents. We assess family first to see if its appropriate and there are a lot of relative fosters out there.

The feelings, thoughts and emotions shared by those with care experience and Foster Carers allow an insight into an often silent sector of society.

Fostering is not the same as parenting, she says, though fosters play a parenting role.

We are very careful to remind people that this is not a replacement for having their own biological child. The aim is that the child some day returns to their own family. This doesnt always happen of course and it is often the case that fostered children stay with their foster parents long after they technically have to. Their foster placement becomes their home.

Una is also clear that it is not something to enter into for financial gain.

Foster carers get an allowance but that is to cover the cost of having a child in the house; it includes everything from getting them clothes to paying for school expenses. We hope the allowance will go up in the next budget but it certainly shouldnt be the driving force behind becoming a carer. Thats not the essence of it.

Understandably, prospective foster carers may have concerns about taking in children who have suffered trauma, but there is great support out there for those involved.

Every foster carer gets an allocated social worker to oversee and monitor the placement. The main role of the social worker is to support the carer. The fostered child may go through different stages.

Something might happen that triggers them in some way and the social worker is there to guide the foster carers through that.

There is also a great amount of training and community support available.

We have support groups in various locations once a month with the option of a morning or evening session to suit everyone. Carers sit together and discuss whats happening for them. They are all sharing a similar experience so they are best placed to support one another. Often, they will make their own arrangements to meet up for coffee or whatever. Theres a great network there, willing to offer help and guidance.

Susan Brosnan, of Libertry Street House, Una O'Farrell, TUSLA social worker and student Sarah O'Sullivan at the opening of a new exhibition at Douglas library.

Tusla is excited to host a foster carer appreciation lunch in October in The Rochestown Park Hotel, where carers will be invited to sit down and enjoy a three course meal to celebrate one another, and most importantly, to connect.

Training sessions are also given before and during the fostering experience, she explains.

We would never place a child in general foster care of someone who hasnt completed the preparation to foster course. At the start of every year we send out our schedule of training courses, from infant mental health to ensuring online safety for teenagers. Every stage is covered. For anyone interested in fostering, there is a national information night tonight (September 27) at 7pm and another local session on October 18 at 7pm.

Please visit fostering.ie for more information or contact 1800 226 771.

Tusla Fostering and Aftercare would like to express their deepest gratitude to the young people and foster carers who have made this exhibition possible, and for highlighting the reality of the care experience in Cork.

Another framed quote on show as part of the exhibition.

An Inspiring Role

The overall aim of the exhibition is to break the stigma for those with care experience and allow an insight into the complexity of the care community in Cork, says Una.

The feelings, thoughts and emotions shared by those with care experience and their carers offers a window into an often silent sector of society. The exhibition allows for members of the public to become informed about what the care experience can entail, and perhaps inspire them to begin their own fostering journey.

OFarrell is herself awed by the work of these foster carers.

They are truly amazing. We finish work and we go home. These people never stop. Their work is all day, every day, down to the smallest things that really matter, that really make a difference to the lives of these children.
A 24-hour charity boat run from Irelands most southerly point to its most northerly outpost has raised 110,000 for the Mercy University Hospital Foundation.

Last month, West Cork man John Fleming set out with his crew, starting from Irelands most southerly point, Mizen Head, for a 24-hour charity boat run to Irelands most northerly point, Malin Head.

Completing their journey ahead of schedule, the crew raised 110,000, which will go towards the advancement of cancer treatments at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH).

John, from Seven Heads, and his crew of Sean, Patrick, and Anthony, set off from Mizen Head at 10.30am on Tuesday 15 August, and arrived at Bunowen Pier in Connemara at 7pm that evening, to be greeted by Christy, Ronan, Pat, Tadhg, who refuelled the boat and hungry crew.

Following a slight crew change, Anthony, Ronan, Pat, and John set off for Malin Head at 8pm.

It was a challenging journey, but the crew was well able, as John Fleming explained.

It was an extremely dark night at sea, but our younger crew members were excellent in navigating the north Mayo and Donegal coast, he said.

The crew arrived at Malin Head at 9am on Wednesday 16 August, completing the voyage ahead of schedule, in 22.5 hours.

Mr Fleming said the Mercy University Hospital Foundation was chosen as the beneficiary of the funds raised because of the work the hospital does.

The Mercy is a hospital that so many people from all over Cork, and beyond, hold close to their hearts, we all know someone who has been treated there; and the care patients receive is second to none, he said.

Cancer in particular is something no family wants to go through, but thanks to the Mercys oncology team, peoples cancer journeys will be made a little easier.

"The more that can be done through research and advancements to enhance the treatment of this illness the better for all of us.

Thanking John Fleming and his team, Thomas Murphy, a consultant general surgeon with a special interest in oesophageal cancer who is based at the MUH, explained how funds like this will benefit patients undergoing cancer treatment at the MUH.

For those people in Munster diagnosed with cancer, the Mercy will be at the forefront of diagnosis, research, treatment and care, thanks to generous donations and funds raised through events like the Mizen to Malin Boat Run, Mr Murphy said.

We place the highest importance on patient dignity and care at the Mercy, so that cancer patients feel comfortable and reassured throughout their treatment and their families feel welcomed.

"We are committed to deliver services and facilities that will continue to improve their experiences, he said.

For more information on Mercy University Hospital Foundations work visit https://www.mercyhospitalfoundation.ie.
CORK politicians have expressed different views regarding the news that a new paediatric department combining both Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and Cork University Hospital (CUH) departments is to be located at CUH from next year.

The migration of services is to take place in April 2024.

A spokesperson for South/South West Hospital Group (SSWHG) told The Echo that the group is working with MUH and CUH to plan the transfer and consolidation of paediatric services from MUH to CUH.

It is intended that the migration of services will take place in April 2024, said the spokesperson. Until the date of transfer, paediatric services will continue at MUH.

This new development will deliver high-quality care for children.

"The new development will provide much-needed paediatric care consistent with clinical care pathways and the model of care.

The new paediatric department development located at CUH, combining both MUH and CUH paediatric departments, will cater for a centralised paediatric service within one location in Cork. In preparation for this transition, an extended paediatric clinical governance structure is now led by a clinical director for the combined city services.

Independent councillor Ken OFlynn said: I urge the HSE and the Government to reconsider this decision and listen to the voices of our community.

Mr OFlynn claimed the relocation will ensure families on the northside will face challenges in accessing care.

"Our childrens lives and wellbeing must be prioritised.

With all services being relocated to CUH, families from the northside of the city will face significant challenges in accessing the care their children urgently require. The distance and potential delays in reaching CUH place an unnecessary burden on families.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central Colm Burke, however, said it preferable to have all areas of expertise in the one location.

Surgeries are getting more and more complex; therefore it is good to have the expertise located in one location, he said.

That has been proven in relation to cancer care, where we have eight units around the country specifically dealing with cancer care. The focus of having it in one facility is welcome, but I also think that the expertise that would have been built up in the Mercy will obviously be available now in CUH.

It is important that we have appropriate paediatric services outside of Dublin.

"We have planning for a new paediatric unit in CUH. We need to deliver on it at the earliest possible stage.

We also have the major childrens hospital being built now. The number of people that will end up in the National Childrens Hospital as an overall percentage of children will be small in real terms. It is important that we have appropriate paediatric services outside of Dublin.
LATEST

Motorists in Cork are continuing to experience difficult driving conditions across the city and county with reports of heavy surface water and debris in some areas.

Cork City Fire Brigade is reporting this evening that the Carrigrohane Road is closed as crews deal with fallen trees and cables on the road.

Carrigrohane Road is currently blocked due to trees and cables on the road   Cork City Fire Brigade (@CorkCityFire) September 27, 2023

It said the Ballyvolane crew in attendance at a tree down in the Fairhill area.

EARLIER

There are also reports of a tree down on Church Road in Blackrock.

There are reports that a roof has blown off a building at Youghal Strand.

Cork County Council confirmed that Youghal Fire Brigade are currently attending the incident.

A roof has just come off a building at Youghal Strand. Avoid the area if possible! #StormAgnes pic.twitter.com/0MoIUSnbN3  Shadab Javed (@JShadab1) September 27, 2023

The local road is temporarily closed and members of the public are being advised that they should avoid the area at this time.

Cork County Councils @CorkCountyFire Service & Road Crews are responding to an incident at Front Strand #Youghal involving a property which has been impacted by #StormAgnes



The local road is temporarily closed and members of the public should avoid the area at this time pic.twitter.com/MCxHidW6uU  Cork County Council (@Corkcoco) September 27, 2023

Bus Eireann suspended services for a time through Glanmire for a time after a tree came down near Vienne Woods hotel. Normal services have since resumed.

In West Cork, the Route 236 services will operate with delays, it said, due to fallen trees on the Glengariff to Bantry Road.

Cork City Council is advising that the R579 in Blarney is currently closed as the river has burst its banks.

"Cork City Council asks motorists to drive with caution today as conditions are hazardous. Our crews are working to clear debris and address surface flooding," the local authority said on social media.

The R579 in Blarney is currently closed as the river has burst its banks.

Cork City Council asks motorists to drive with caution today as conditions are hazardous. Our crews are working to clear debris and address surface flooding. pic.twitter.com/XvwYEQv6Jm  Cork City Council (@corkcitycouncil) September 27, 2023

Heavy rain has been falling since the early hours of this morning with a Status Orange rain warning in place until 3pm today and a Status Orange wind warning lasting until 5pm.

In an update this afternoon, Cork City Council said that its Severe Weather Assessment and Flood Assessment Teams continue to monitor data from Met Eireann with regard to the ongoing Status Orange wind and rainfall warning for Cork City.

A cyclist braving the elements in Cork during Storm Agnes. Picture: Denis Minihane.

A spokesperson said that Storm Agnes has moved faster than anticipated across the region, therefore the predicted tidal surge no longer coincides with high tide in Cork City, reducing the anticipated risk of localised flooding in low-lying quay areas of the city.

The road closures and lane restrictions announced yesterday are no longer required and Cork City Council is not predicting any tidal flooding at 5pm this evening.

"However, rainfall and strong winds are expected to continue, so Cork City Council urges road users to drive with care, as driving conditions may be poor, with strong winds blowing debris around, heavy rain affecting visibility and risk of spot flooding on roads. Please slow down and drive with extra care and attention," the spokesperson said.

This morning a number of trees fell across the city due to the strong winds and there were a number of minor localised flooding issues.

"Cork City Council Roads, Drainage and Parks crews have been onsite all morning addressing these issues, clearing debris, fallen trees and branches from roads and to address surface flooding issues," the spokesperson said.

"Cork City Council would like to remind communities and businesses that the two Orange Weather Warnings remain in place until later this afternoon and that they need to continue to take due care and attention of this significant weather event.

"Householders are asked to secure loose items such as wheelie bins, garden furniture, trampolines, etc."

Cork City Councils Customer Service Unit is available at 021 492 4000 until 5 p.m. For emergencies requiring the emergency services, the public should contact the emergency services at 112 or 999.

FROM EARLIER:

Aircraft are beginning to have some trouble in Cork now due to high winds, with several flights delayed as they have to take several tries at landing.

One flight from Lourdes has diverted to Dublin after a go-around in Cork, and two flights, from London Heathrow and Amsterdam, have been cancelled this afternoon.

Passengers intending to travel today are advised to exercise due caution when travelling to and from @CorkAirport.



Please allow sufficient time for your journey.#StormAgnes https://t.co/HavZsUjgE2  Cork Airport (@CorkAirport) September 27, 2023

Departures has also seen an impact, with three flights to London Heathrow, Amsterdam and Palma cancelled. Airlines are encouraging people to check their flight app or the airport website before travelling to Cork Airport.

EARLIER:

MOTORISTS are experienced difficult driving conditions this morning as Storm Agnes arrives in Cork.

Heavy rain has been falling since the early hours of this morning with a Status Orange rain warning in place until 3pm today and a Status Orange wind warning lasting until 5pm.

Queues on the N40 westbound this morning are stretching back through the Jack Lynch Tunnel and to the Dunkettle Interchange. Motorists are advised to drive with extreme caution.

Traffic at the N40 Bloomfield West this morning.

A tidal surge leading to quayside flooding in Cork city as well as intense downpours of heavy rain and very strong gusty wind are expected this morning.

Yesterday, following a meeting of its Severe Weather Assessment and Flood Assessment teams, Cork City Council issued a warning to the public in relation to an expected tidal surge during Storm Agnes tomorrow.

General Update: #Corktraffic Queues on the N40 westbound are stretching back through the Tunnel and to the Dunkettle Interchange. Motorists are advise to drive with extreme caution in the current weather @tiitraffic @corksafetyalert @corkbeo  Dunkettle Interchange (@dunkettleint) September 27, 2023

The local authority said that the tidal surge could cause localised flooding in some lying quay areas of the city, including Morrisons Island, South Terrace, Union Quay, Lavitts Quay and Wandesford Quay at high tide. Tidal flooding is expected to be limited to the road carriageways with limited, if any, other flooding.

HIGH TIDE

High tide in Cork city is due at 4.55pm today.

"Commuters are advised that Wandesford Quay will most likely be closed to traffic from 4.30 pm until 5.30 pm on Wednesday 27th September and lane restrictions will be in place on South Terrace and Lavitts Quay at this time also, so please plan your journey accordingly.

"The parking areas on Father Mathew, Morrisons and Union Quays will also be affected and local traffic movements may be affected," City Council said in a statement.

#StormAgnes will track north-eastwards over Ireland today with disruption likely in places



It will be wet & very windy with strong to gale force southeast winds 



Latest warnings https://t.co/Xg3aMJlyuS



Latest weather forecast https://t.co/9gKN6SVok4 pic.twitter.com/ZvcMoChEF1  Met Eireann (@MetEireann) September 27, 2023

"Driving conditions will be poor throughout the day with strong winds blowing debris around, heavy rain affecting visibility and there being a risk of flooding and debris on roads. Please slow down and drive with extra care and attention," it added.
A nine-month suspended jail term was imposed on a 37-year-old man who was caught stealing clothes at Blarney Woollen Mills.

Richard OMeara of 31 Dunard, Lotamore, Cork, pleaded guilty to the shoplifting offence at Cork District Court.

He was charged by Detective Garda Maurice Leahy with carrying out the offence on October 22, 2021.

Sergeant John Kelleher said that Mr OMeara stole three items of clothing valued 109.

Judge Olann Kelleher was told that the defendant went into treatment since this occurred almost two years ago.

He had 13 previous theft convictions out of his total of 69 counts.
Customs officers have seized 2,253 kilogrammes of suspected cocaine, worth in the region of 157 million, from the MV Matthew cargo vessel following a major operation.

The Panamanian-registered vessel had been boarded by gardai and members of the Army Ranger Wing off the Cork and Waterford coast yesterday following a co-ordinated operation carried out at sea by a joint taskforce comprising members of the Revenue Customs Service, the Naval Service, and An Garda Siochana.

Military personnel onboard a cargo vessel named MV Matthew whilst it's escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish Navy after a "significant quantity" of suspected drugs were found onboard. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences. PA Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Speaking at a briefing in Dublin today, a spokesman for An Garda Siochana described the seizure as "the largest drug seizure in the history of the State.

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly described the action as hugely significant.

Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners. He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this. Investigators believe not all the drugs were destined for Ireland.

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter onto the ship on Tuesday, which became the focus point of a multi-agency operation which began on Friday.

The co-ordinated response from the Irish Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing also involved customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit.

The agencies said the seized MV Matthew is a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America.

It was intercepted by the Army Ranger Wing and detained in the early hours of Tuesday.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction.

Two helicopters and two planes were also involved in the operation.

The Irish Air Corps and Naval Service had been tracking the container ship over a number of days.

Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly said, that while the value of the seized drugs was assessed as 157 million upon seizure, the value could have increased depending on what would have happened had it entered other European markets.

Revenue Commissioner and the director general of customs Gerry Harrahill said the value could be trebled based on what the organised crime gang had intended to cut it down at a later date.

Mr Harrahill said it was too early to give a figure for the purity of the cocaine.

Mr Kelly said Irish assets have never been found short when there is an operation to be mounted in Irish waters.

Asked about the scale of the operation, Irish Naval Service Commander Tony Geraghty said: Yesterday was certainly unique insofar as its the first time that the Army Ranger Wing have been employed from that particular context.

And that was literally just a function of the environmentals, if the weather had been in our favour, we would have been in a position to embark our onboarding team.
Chief Executive of Cork County Council Tim Lucey has advised the elected members of Cork County Council that the council will continue to support the Ironman Ireland Cork event planned for 2024.

In a statement issued this afternoon by the local authority, it said that the decision was made having considered accounts presented by both Ironman and Triathlon Ireland on the Ironman Ireland Cork event held in Youghal last August.

"Cork County Council, as host sponsor, has supported the Ironman Ireland Cork Triathlon events in Youghal, East Cork in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

"The Ironman Ireland Cork event is of significant tourism and economic importance to the region, having already generated an economic impact of almost 20m, a continuation of which Cork County Council would wish to see," the statement reads.

"As part of this arrangement, Ironman is the owner of the event. Ironman has sole responsibility for the management and coordination of the event. This responsibility includes running the event with due care, skill and attention.

"The matter of the sanctioning of a permit by Triathlon Ireland, such that triathlon is run under federation technical rules, is a separate matter between Ironman and Triathlon Ireland. This is a matter which will be determined between both parties, independently of Cork County Council."

Two participants in this year's event in Youghal - Brendan Wall and Ivan Chittenden - died while participating in the event.

Mr Wall was originally from Co Meath but was working in the UK as a sales director for Top Tubes Ltd In Solihull.

A Canadian, Mr Chittenden was an accomplished athlete, who started training 12 years ago following the sudden death of his first wife.
A REALISTIC imitation handgun was pointed by a 48-year-old man during a late-night incident at the Crane Lane premises in Cork city as he declared that he was a garda and he would have 50 officers on the scene if he was not allowed to finish his pint.

Eugene ONeill, of 25 Avenue de Rennes, Mahon, was first charged with possession of an imitation handgun in relation to the incident. Garda Ross Broekhuizen later charged Mr ONeill with producing the imitation weapon in order to intimidate others.

The accused man indicated through his solicitor, Frank Buttimer, that he was pleading guilty to the charges against him, which relate to October 19, 2022, at the Crane Lane on Phoenix St.

Sergeant Gearoid Davis said: The defendant produced an imitation firearm on Phoenix St, Cork, in a threatening manner and pointed it directly at security staff at Crane Lane, having been ejected from the premises for abusing customers.

Gardai went to Crane Lane and spoke with the manager. Mr ONeill was being abusive to customers and staff. Security staff told him he would have to leave.

He stood up. He took a black steel handgun from the back waistband of his pants.

He said he was a guard and he would have 50 guards there if they did not leave him finish his pint.

He was arrested on the South Mall moments later and was found in possession of an imitation firearm. Members of the armed support unit apprehended him and an imitation firearm was located in his left jacket pocket.

Sgt Davis said there is a possibility that a victim-impact statement would have to be prepared in advance of sentencing.

Judge Olann Kelleher remanded the accused on bail until October 17 for that purpose.

The first charge is one of possession of a realistic imitation firearm contrary to the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.

The second count refers to pointing a realistic imitation firearm at staff to intimidate them and have them believe it to be real.
Thousands of homes and businesses across the city and county were left without power today as Storm Agnes swept across Cork.

Major outages were reported in a number of areas with thousands of customers without power in the Ringaskiddy, Macroom and Kanturk areas at points during the day.

Smaller outages, some of which included hundreds of properties, were also reported in areas such as Ballincollig, Bantry, Mallow, Youghal, Fermoy and Bandon.

A spokesperson for ESB Networks said this evening that its crews had been mobilised and had responded to outages across the city and county in an effort to restore power to those affected.

Firefighter David O'Leary of Macroom Fire Brigade helping to clear a drain after a flash flood following heavy rain at Killumney, Co. Cork, during Storm Agnes. Picture Denis Minihane.

The spokesperson described the scale of disruption as relatively modest and in line with past experiences of similar Met Eireann Status Orange wind warnings.

"We apologise to all customers impacted for the obvious inconvenience caused," the spokesperson added.

Most faults have now been restored, with power expected to return to others later tonight.

The spokesperson reminded people to report any fallen wires or damaged electricity infrastructure by calling 1800 372 999.

Strong winds and heavy rain led to difficult driving conditions for many today with council crews and emergency services responding to incidents the length and breadth of the county including dealing with fallen trees in Fairhill, Blackrock and Carrigrohane.

Crews from Anglesea Street and Ballyvolane are currently dealing with a number of calls around the city including a large tree blocking the road on Monastery Road, Rochestown.



Road is currently closed, avoid the area. #stormagnes pic.twitter.com/iPNSGyZRg9  Cork City Fire Brigade (@CorkCityFire) September 27, 2023

Some bus services were re-routed while others operated with delays because of the road conditions.

Bus Eireann suspended services for a time through Glanmire for a time after a tree came down near Vienna Woods hotel.

A number of flights into Cork Airport were also impacted by the conditions.

Cork City Council staff and members of Cork City Fire Brigade removing a tree which had to be cut down after a branch came down at Ballyphehane, Cork, during Storm Agnes. Picture Denis Minihane.

Emergency services were called to Youghal after a roof was blown off a building in the Front Strand area. The road was closed for a period as crews dealt with the incident.

The roof of UCCs Beaufort Building in Ringaskiddy was damaged due to the impact of Storm Agnes.

A number of panels at the eaves of the roof became loose due to the high winds.

A spokesperson for UCC said the university is monitoring the situation.

UCC is monitoring the situation and will have contractors on site as soon as safe to do so. Safety measures for staff are in place."

Spot flooding was reported in some areas and the R579 in Blarney was closed after the river burst its banks.

While Bantry is an area that has previously experienced significant flooding during adverse weather events, local representative, Cllr Danny Collins today said that no major damage had been reported in the area.

#CorkTraffic Reports of a tree down on Sun Valley Drive. Take care on approach. #StormAgnes pic.twitter.com/je0U6c4Y3X  Cork Safety Alerts (@CorkSafetyAlert) September 27, 2023

He said that while there was some surface water in the town, he had not received any calls from businesses about flooding.

He did however receive a call from one woman who had a very lucky escape.

A cyclist braving the elements in Cork during Storm Agnes. Picture Denis Minihane.

One lady did ring me and said she just escaped (a falling tree), it could have been a different story if it happened 15 or 20 seconds later, he said.

Elsewhere, a number of other counties witnessed travel disruption today as the storm crossed the country.

A number of flights were diverted to Dublin from Kerry. Kerry County Council said it has crews dealing with fallen trees and branches at a number of locations.

In a statement, Irish Ferries said disruption to schedules may be experienced due to adverse weather conditions over the coming days, with passengers advised to check schedules.

RNLI

Meanwhile, Baltimore RNLI were called out during Storm Agnes this afternoon to assist a yacht which was dragging its anchor in the Ilen River in West Cork.

The volunteer lifeboat crew launched their all weather lifeboat at 3.48pm, following a request from the Irish Coast Guard.

The Baltimore lifeboat crew arrived at the yacht at 3.59pm, by which time the yacht with one person on board had gone aground. Coxswain Pat Collins assessed the situation and decided that a tow was necessary. Volunteer crew members Micheal Cottrell and David Ryan were put aboard the casualty vessel at 4.06pm to rig a tow and buoy off and cut clear the anchor so the yacht could be towed free.

At 4.12pm the all weather lifeboat with the casualty vessel under tow then proceeded to Baltimore Harbour, which was the nearest safe and suitable port.

Due to the storm force conditions with winds gusting to force 12 (65 knots) at times Coxswain Pat Collins requested that Baltimores inshore lifeboat was launched to assist the all weather lifeboat in berthing the casualty vessel to a secure mooring within Baltimore Harbour, close to Baltimore Lifeboat Station.

Baltimore RNLI lifeboats assist yacht during Storm Agnes. Pic: Gerald O'Brien.

Baltimore inshore lifeboat launched at 4.23pm and attached a line to the mooring to assist the lifeboat crew that were on the casualty vessel to attach to the mooring more easily. Baltimore all weather lifeboat arrived at the mooring with the casualty vessel in tow and the volunteer lifeboat crew on the inshore lifeboat passed a line to the two volunteer lifeboat crew on the yacht and they then secured the casualty vessel to the mooring.

Due to the poor weather conditions within the harbour, Coxswain Pat Collins and Helm of Baltimores inshore lifeboat Kieran Collins made the decision that it would be safer for the inshore lifeboat to collect the two all weather crew from the yacht. Once the casualty vessel was secured and the skipper of the yacht was happy, Baltimores all weather lifeboat made the short journey back to the lifeboat house, arriving at 5.08pm whilst the inshore lifeboat came alongside the casualty vessel to collect the two remaining volunteer lifeboat crew. The inshore lifeboat then returned to the lifeboat station, arriving at 5.20pm.

There were seven volunteer crew onboard the all weather lifeboat, Coxswain Pat Collins, mechanic Cathal Cottrell and crew members Jerry Smith, Micheal Cottrell, Don ODonovan, Colin Whooley and David Ryan. There were four volunteer crew onboard the inshore lifeboat, Helm Kieran Collins and crew members Kieran ODriscoll, Rob OLeary and James Kitt.

Assisting at the lifeboat station were Rianne Smith, Marion MacFeely, Seamus ODriscoll, Brian McSweeney and Sean McCarthy. Conditions during the call out were testing with strong gale force winds of force 8 to 9, gusting up to storm force 11-12 and a large sea swell.

Speaking following the call out, Kate Callanan, Baltimore RNLI Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer said:

"Both of our lifeboats were requested to launch in the height of Storm Agnes and conditions were very testing with strong wind, rough seas and poor visibility. There was excellent teamwork shown by both crews throughout the call out and it is a testimony to the high quality of training that the RNLI lifeboat crews receive.

"As always we are very grateful to our volunteer lifeboat crew and shorecrews who turn up regardless of the conditions to help people at sea. Due to the high winds and heavy rain still expected to continue into early Thursday morning we urge people to exercise extreme caution, particularly along exposed cliffs, seafronts and piers. If you see someone else in danger in the water call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coast Guard.
Tom Tuite

A woman accused of spraying an unknown chemical substance to "temporarily blind" a Dublin garda has been further remanded in custody pending possible extra charges.

Frances Harrison (31), with an address at College Hill, Terenure, Dublin, was charged with assaulting the officer at Basin Street flats in the south inner city during the incident on the night of September 21st.

She is also accused of a connected offence of being a passenger in a stolen rental GoCar car on the same date.

She was held in custody following her unsuccessful bail application at Dublin District Court on Saturday.

The accused faced her second court appearance on Wednesday when Judge Treasa Kelly noted that potential further charges were pending.

Ms Harrison's solicitor, Eddie O'Connor, said her client consented to a four-week adjournment. Judge Kelly remanded her in continuing custody to appear again on October 25th for directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

GoCar

Earlier, Garda Sergeant Hugh O'Carroll alleged the incident happened at 9.45pm after GoCar notified gardai that a tracking device had been removed from one of their cars.

Two gardai observed it at Basin Street flats "driven at speed with no lights" and the tracking device was on the side of the road.

The sergeant alleged the accused was identified at the scene by the officers and from mobile phone footage circulated on social media.

The sergeant said there was also CCTV footage from the area. He alleged she had been a passenger in the car before it stopped.

The sergeant said the two officers were trying to arrest the driver when the accused allegedly "sprayed an unknown chemical substance".

The court heard both gardai were injured, one "temporarily blind" after the chemical was sprayed into his eyes.

He must go to a follow-up appointment with an eye specialist.

The contested bail hearing was told, "a number of locals came out to intimidate gardai", and the driver escaped. More gardai arrived after an urgent call for assistance.

The sergeant accepted that she had not rented the vehicle and did not drive the car.

The defence said Ms Harrison, who has been allowed free legal aid, maintains her innocence and "says she had obviously nothing to do with it, that there were other people there, and it was not her involved in this incident".

Gardai are to recommend to the DPP that the case should be dealt with on indictment at a higher level with greater sentencing powers.
Ryan Dunne

Stardust manager Eamon Butterly has told an inquest that the locking and unlocking of exit doors at the nightclub was his joint policy with door staff.

Mr Butterly said the policy was the head doorman's initiative and could not say how much of the policy he was willing to own".

He accepted that the evidence he has now given to the Dublin District Coroners Court is contradictory to evidence he gave to an original tribunal into the fatal fire that killed 48 people.

Mr Butterly was being cross-examined by Michael OHiggins SC, at the inquest into the blaze that swept through the Stardust in the early hours of February 14th 1981.

The jury has already heard that Mr Butterly told gardai that the practice of draping padlocked chains over the panic bars of exit doors in the nightclub originated from the doormen and was not something he ordered them to do.

Statement

Mr OHiggins, representing a number of the families of the victims, said there was a conflict between what Mr Butterly originally told the gardai and what he had told the jury in this inquest.

He said that Mr Butterly had told gardai that most doormen had no responsibility for checking if the doors were unlocked, and this responsibility was placed on the head doorman.

Mr OHiggins said that Mr Butterly told gardai that the policy of unlocking certain doors at approximately 11.30pm on disco nights was forced on me by the fact that a large number of people were getting in for free due to the actions of their friends who were opening exit doors from the inside.

Mr OHiggins said that Mr Butterly had told gardai that the policy of not opening exit doors five, six and one until approximately 11.30pm was decided on.

Policy

The policy of doormen circulating the premises after they had finished their duties on the main door was another result of discussions between (head doorman) Tom Kennan, the other doormen and myself, counsel said Mr Butterly had said.

Does that say in very bald terms this was your policy? asked Mr OHiggins.It was saying that I agreed with what they said, replied Mr Butterly.

Was it your policy? asked Mr OHiggins.It was the policy of the security staff and me, replied Mr Butterly.

Is that a shift from what you told the jury last Thursday, when you said this was all Mr Kennans initiative? asked Mr OHiggins.

It was Mr Kennans initiative, replied Mr Butterly.How much of this policy are you willing to own? I cant say, replied Mr Butterly.

Again referring to the original statements, Mr OHiggins said that Mr Butterly had been asked who made the decision to keep the doors locked as people were getting in for free, to which Mr Butterly had said: I made the decision myself.

Youre owning it 100 per cent there, arent you? asked Mr OHiggins. I am, yeah, replied Mr Butterly.

Mr OHiggins said that at the original tribunal in 1981, Mr Butterly had owned the decision 100 per cent, and he asked why the witness was now telling the inquest jury the exact opposite.

I made the decision with Mr Kennan and (deputy head doorman) Mr Doyle, said Mr Butterly.

Mr OHiggins asked him if he believed that the evidence he had given the tribunal and evidence he had given at the inquest was the same, to which Mr Butterly replied: Ive given the evidence to the best of my ability.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said that the evidence which was heard last week and evidence heard from 1981 was different, and she asked Mr Butterly which evidence he now stood over.

The ones I made here, replied Mr Butterly.

In 1981, the decision was made between the three of us, so I went along with Mr Kennan. Thats what I believed last Thursday, he said, adding: It is contradictory all right, yeah.

Mr Butterly gave evidence that the practice of locking certain exit doors at the nightclub for a portion of the evening was only introduced about three weeks before the fire, but the practice of mock locking doors by draping chains over panic bars to give the impression the doors were locked had been going on a long time.

Mr OHiggins said that in his original evidence in 1981, Mr Butterly was asked about this practice and in response, Mr Butterly had said: This practice originated with the doormen.

It was only in operation two to three weeks prior to February 13th. Mr OHiggins said that all this was in reference to mock locked doors.

I thought you were talking about locked doors, replied Mr Butterly. I suggest that when hard questions are asked, on occasion you try to muddy the waters, said Mr OHiggins.

No, I dont, I do my best, replied Mr Butterly.

Original tribunal

Mr OHiggins said that at the original tribunal in 1981, Mr Butterly had given evidence that he had never tried to operate a door when the padlock and chain were draped around the panic bar.

Mr OHiggins said that every doorman who had given evidence had said they had not checked whether the door would open.

Thats not good, is it? asked Mr OHiggins.No, replied Mr Butterly.

Mr OHiggins put it to Mr Butterly that he had described Mr Kennan as a very honourable person, to which Mr Butterly agreed.

Mr OHiggins referred to a statement made by Mr Kennan about a system in place to delay an inspector coming in to have a look at the Stardust, so that doors could be unlocked while the inspector was delayed at the front of the premises.

Mr OHiggins said that Mr Kennan told the tribunal in 1981: On one occasion there was an agreement that if the doors were not opened earlier, there was an arrangement to talk to (the inspector) while they were opened.

Mr OHiggins said that Mr Kennan was asked whether this meant stalling the inspector, to which Mr Kennan replied: Yes.

He said Mr Kennan told the tribunal that this took place maybe four or five weeks before the fire.

If this policy was only in place for two or three weeks, why was there this necessity to stall inspectors five weeks before the fire? asked Mr OHiggins.

I dont know why he said that, replied Mr Butterly.

Mr OHiggins said that Mr Kennan had given evidence that no one had actually come to the premises and this arrangement was hypothetical.

What would you think of your head of security behaving in that way? asked Mr OHiggins.I wouldnt agree with it, but I wouldnt believe that he would, replied Mr Butterly.

This honourable, trustworthy man was engaging in all this activity on your watch, and you knew nothing about it? said Mr OHiggins.

I didnt know anything about that, but he was still, as far as Im concerned, an honourable and trustworthy man, but I didnt know about that. I never concealed anything from the authorities, said Mr Butterly.
Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions.

The new hottest crop in Italy? Mangoes. Amid warming temperatures caused by climate change, some farmers in Italy are cutting back on growing traditional crops of the country, instead focusing on producing fruits that are commonly grown in tropical areas.

Mango farming in particular has seen a boost, rising from 10 hectares in 2004 to 500 hectares in 2019. As of this year, mango farming spanned 1,200 hectares across Italy, according to data from Coldiretti, an agricultural free trade association.

The association reported that amid heat, extreme rainfall, catastrophic flooding and other impacts of climate change, there has been a 10% decline in wheat production, 60% decline in cherry production, 63% for pears, 70% for honey, and 12% for tomatoes and grapes.

But there has been growth in the production of tropical fruits, including mangoes, limes, avocado, passion fruit and bananas.

Production of Italian-grown tropical fruit, driven by climate change, will profoundly modify consumer behavior and the investment choices of agricultural firms in coming years, Coldiretti said, as reported by Reuters.

Although tropical fruits have been grown on Sicily for many years, these farms can now be found around the southern part of the country, including in Puglia and Calabria.

Citruses are our tradition, but once they were also an innovation, Francesco Bilardi, who runs a farm with his two brothers in Reggio Calabria, told Reuters. Their farm has been producing mango, avocado, passion fruit and annona since 2020. For us, it is normal to maintain our traditions while adding some innovation.

Mushrooms are also having a moment in Italy. The heat and excess rain led to a increase of 20% for porcini mushrooms this year compared to 2022, Coldiretti reported.

Meanwhile, some of the countrys staple crops are becoming more and more challenging to grow, including wine grapes, which are struggling across Europe because of climate change. Further, the same conditions allowing for an explosion in porcini mushrooms has also allowed the fungus Plasmopara viticola to damage grapevines in Italy.

Experts are warning farmers that tropical fruits are not exempt from the impacts of climate change. These crops will also be at risk from the droughts, flooding and other extreme weather events happening in Italy.

Tropical products are not the magic wand that allows farmers to produce risk-free, Lorenzo Bazzana, economic coordinator for Coldiretti, told Reuters.
The new owner of SLS Hotel & Casino Las Vegas is reportedly looking to rebrand the property as Grand Sahara Resortas part of a planned $100-million renovation and upgrade, Eater Vegasreports.

Privately-owned gaming company The Meruelo Group acquired the struggling Strip property from its previous owners earlier this year for an undisclosed price. The companys Principal, businessman Alex Meruelo, has said that they plan to invest more than $100 millionover the next several years to renovate and upgrade the resort and hopefully turn it into a successful operation.

According to previous information from The Meruelo Group, the renovation would involve room enhancements, new gaming machines at the propertys casino floor, and redesign of the pool area, among other things. The company has pointed out that they believe the property could become profitable once again with the necessary adjustments made. The renovation of the SLS is being carried out amid booming development and redevelopment activity both on the Strip and in Downtown Vegas.

Mr. Meruelo has previously said that they planned to rebrand the hotel and casino complex, but has not revealed what its new name would be.

Eater Vegasreported earlier this week that the Grand Sahara name was used in interior remodeling paperworkthe propertys new owners have filed with the city earlier this month. The Meruelo Group currently owns the similarly branded Grand Sierra Resort & Casino in Reno, which it purchased back in 2006.

Reference to the Past

The reported new name of the casino property refers back to the days when it was quite popular with visitors of the Strip. The SLS originally opened doors in 1952 as Sahara Hotel and was the sixth resort on the emblematic Las Vegas Strip. It operated under that name until 2011 when it was shuttered by its then-owner Sam Nazarian for not being economically viable.

The property was relaunched as the SLS in 2014 and operated as a boutique resort, but never managed to regain its lure to customers. The complex currently features more than 1,600 hotel rooms across three towers, a casino spreading over 60,000 square feet with more than 600 gaming machines and 50 table games, multiple dining options, and meeting space, among other facilities.

Eater Vegasreported that some of the dining facilities could be changed or even replaced as part of the propertys overhaul.

Once its remodeling is complete and it resumes operations, the SLS or Grand Sahara, as it would probably be named, will look to attract new groups of customers, Mr. Meruelo has himself revealed earlier this year. The businessman, who is of Hispanic origin, has said that they would look to serve that particular marketas, according to him, it has been underserved in both Las Vegas and Reno.
Russian businesmen showcase beer and other products at the 5th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai on November 9, 2022. Photo: Zhao Juecheng/GT

At the ongoing 5th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, more Chinese and Russia companies are engaging in two-way trade and investment, reflecting growing bilateral economic and trade cooperation between China and Russia.In 2023, there could be a "major uptake" in China-Russia trade and economic cooperation, one senior trade representative said on the sidelines of the CIIE, the world's biggest import fair.A total of 29 Russian companies offering goods from cosmetics to jewelry have attended the 5th CIIE, according to a report from Russian news outlet Sputnik. Russian companies at the CIIE have so far signed contracts with Chinese buyers for $7.5 million worth of goods, doubling last year's sum even before the end of the trade fair, the report said, citing Russian trade promotion body RS Trade.An official with the Russian Embassy said at a CIIE forum discussing the potential of agricultural trade between China and Russia as well as China and Belarus that Russia's farm exports have great potential and the country has the capacity to export 2-7.5 million tons of grain a year.For bilateral trade, Russia is willing to lift the level of exports of products that have already gained access in China such as corn, wheat and barley. In 2021, agricultural trade between China and Russia exceeded $5 billion, according to the official.A representative with Russian beverage brand Baltika Breweries told the Global Times on Wednesday at the CIIE that the company highly values the fast-growing Chinese market."We expanded our product line here to offer some 50 categories of goods," said Alexander Presnyakov,head of representative office in China of Baltika Breweries. "The Chinese market offers great potential but is also a highly competitive market. In Russia, consumers' taste is more uniform, whereas in China we face a very diversified market. The great level of China-Russia ties is also making Chinese consumers more willing to buy Russian goods."According to the latest customs data, released on Monday, China-Russia bilateral trade surpassed $150 billion for the first time during the first 10 months of 2022. In yuan terms, trade surpassed 1 trillion yuan for the first time. The year-on-year growth rate, at 35 percent, topped all major trading partners of China.As Western companies pulling out of Russia and US-led Western sanctions against Russia continuing to deepen, traders say major changes in the trade structure are taking place.Lin Qian, chief representative at the Russia-China Business Center (Russia) Shanghai Liaison Office, told the Global Times that her organization has been matching companies from the two countries to see where cooperation could have the best effect. It successfully promoted one large Chinese construction material company and another making electric tools to sell their products in Russia.Those two companies alone could increase bilateral trade by more than $1 billion, contributing to the stated goal of making China-Russia trade surpass $200 billion by 2024.Energy and raw materials still account for the majority of China-Russia trade at the moment, but things are changing, according to Lin.A major Russian company in aquaculture is also considering expansion in the Chinese market after pulling out of the US and Japan, Lin said. Two logistics companies in Dalian and Shanghai are also interested."Chinese consumers could also offer good prices for these Russian products, which are of the finest quality from waters near the Arctic," Lin said.China has stated that normal trade and exchanges with Russia won't be subject to any foreign interference, despite Western sanctions against Russia.Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shu Jueting said in August that China will continue to promote normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia, jointly work to secure industrial and supply chain stability, and work on the digital economy, green economy and biopharmaceuticals as the new growth points in bilateral trade, improving the scale and quality of China-Russia trade.
What Is a Unitholder?utgard loki

A unitholder is an investor who owns one or more units in an investment trust or master limited partnership (MLP). A unit is equivalent to a share, or piece of interest. Unitholders are afforded specific rights that are outlined in the trust declaration, which governs the trust's actions.

The most common type of unit trust is an investment vehicle that pools funds from investors to purchase a portfolio of assets. These unit trusts invest in many asset classes of stocks (large-cap, small-cap, domestic, international, etc.), bonds (investment grade, high-yield, emerging market, tax-free, etc.), real estate, and other securities.

Key Takeaways

A unitholder is an investor who owns units in an investment trust or master limited partnership (MLP).

The most common type of unit trust is an investment vehicle that pools funds from investors to purchase a portfolio of assets.

Unitholders may also have an interest in a master limited partnership (MLP), a tax-advantaged investment vehicle.

Income that unitholders receive is taxed as pass-through income.

Understanding Unitholders

There is a whole spectrum of risk/reward choices for investors in these unit trusts. The unitholder gains exposure to a pool of securities and is free to trade units at any time, though a unit trust tends to be less liquid than, say, an exchange-traded fund (ETF), and the price of the traded unit may not be equivalent to net asset value (NAV) of the unit trust per share.

Unitholders may also have an interest in a master limited partnership (MLP), an investment vehicle that offers significant tax advantages to both general and limited partners. Most MLPs are in the energy sector. For example, pipeline companies prefer the MLP structure to offer preferential tax treatment of cash flows to partners and unitholders. What primarily attracts unitholders is the potential for high-income yields of MLPs.

One difference between unitholders and shareholders is that while unitholders may have some voting rights, those rights are often quite a bit more limited than those of corporate shareholders.

Unitholder Taxation

For unit trusts, unitholders pay income taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains distributed to them if the units are held in a taxable account. The unit trusts send all unitholders IRS Form 1099, typically 1099-INT or 1099-DIV.

In the case of master limited partnerships (MLPs), each unitholder's proportion of income, gains, deductions, losses, and credits is reported on a Schedule K-1. If the net amount is positive the unitholder pays tax on a pass-through basis whether or not a cash distribution was actually received; if there is a net loss, the amount can be carried forward and used against future income, but only from the same MLP.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in 2017, introduced a new tax deduction for pass-through businesses, including unit investment trusts. The qualified business income deduction, or 199A deduction, allows non-corporate taxpayers to deduct up to 20% of the qualified business income from each pass-through business they own.

Example of a Unitholder

Let's say an investor is interested in being a unitholder in a real estate investment trust (REIT). The investor does their due diligence and decides to purchase shares in Prologis, Inc. (PLD), the largest real estate company in the world because they like the assets in the portfolio and its potential for growth in the current market environment. All income that the unitholder receives will be taxed as pass-through income.
What Is a Global Depositary Receipt (GDR)?1 dollar deposit casino free spins

A global depositary receipt (GDR) is a negotiable financial instrument issued by a depositary bank. It represents shares in a foreign company and trades on the local stock exchanges in investors' countries. GDRs make it possible for a company (the issuer) to access investors in capital markets beyond the borders of its own country.

GDRs are commonly used by issuers to raise capital from international investors through private placement or public stock offerings.

A global depositary receipt is very similar to an American depositary receipt (ADR) except that an ADR only lists shares of a foreign company in U.S. markets.

Key Takeaways

A global depositary receipt is a tradable financial security.

It is a certificate that represents shares in a foreign company and trades on two or more global stock exchanges.

GDRs typically trade on American stock exchanges as well as Eurozone or Asian exchanges.

GDRs and their dividends are priced in the local currency of the exchanges where the GDRs are traded.

GDRs represent an easy way for U.S. and international investors to own foreign stocks.

Understanding Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs)

A global depositary receipt is a type of bank certificate that represents shares of stock in an international company. The shares underlying the GDR remain on deposit with a depositary bank or custodial institution.

While shares of an international company trade as domestic shares in the country where the company is located, global investors located elsewhere can invest in those shares through GDRs.

Using GDRs, companies can raise capital from investors in countries around the world. For those investors, the GDRs will be denominated in their home country currencies. Since GDRs are negotiable certificates, they trade in multiple markets and can provide arbitrage opportunities to investors.

GDRs are generally referred to as European Depositary Receipts, or EDRs, when European investors wish to trade locally the shares of companies located outside of Europe.

GDR transactions tend to have lower costs than some other mechanisms that investors use to trade in foreign securities.

Example of a Global Depositary Receipt

A U.S.-based company that wants its stock to be listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges can accomplish this via a GDR. The U.S.-based company enters into a depositary receipt agreement with the respective foreign depositary banks. In turn, these banks package and issue shares to their respective stock exchanges. These activities follow the regulatory compliance regulations for both of the countries.

A depositary is an independent, third-party entity such as a bank that may act as a safekeeping facility and fiduciary. For instance, a depositary bank can provide stock related services for a depositary receipt program.

Characteristics of Global Depositary Receipts

A GDR distributed by a depositary bank represents a particular number of underlying sharesanywhere from a fraction to multiple sharesin a specific international company. The particular share makeup for a GDR depends on how attractive an investment it will make to local investors.

For instance, in the U.S., a depositary bank would want to create GDRs with the number of shares, or fractions thereof, and associated U.S. dollar value that U.S. investors might be most comfortable with.

The depositary bank first buys the shares of the international company (or, receives them from an investor who already owns them). It then bundles a certain number of them. This bundle is represented by a GDR. The GDR is then issued by the depositary bank on a local stock exchange. The underlying shares remain on deposit with the depositary bank (or custodian bank in the international country).

The trading process involving GDRs is regulated by the exchange on which they trade. For example, in the U.S., global depositary receipts are quoted and trade in U.S. dollars. They also pay dividends with U.S. dollars. They're subject to the trading and settlement process and regulations of the exchange where their transactions take place.

Typically, GDRs are offered to institutional investors via a private offer, due to the fact that they can take advantage of exemptions from registration under the Securities Act of 1933. This makes GDRs an efficient and cost-effective way to access cross-border capital.

In fact, because of their flexibility and efficiencies, issuers from regions such as the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America as well as Europe have increased their use of GDR programs to help them achieve the objectives they have for raising capital.



Trading Global Depositary Receipts

International companies issue GDRs to attract capital from foreign investors. GDRs trade on the investors' local exchanges while offering exposure to an international marketplace. A custodian/depositary bank has possession of the GDRs underlying shares while trades take place, ensuring a level of protection and facilitating participation for all involved.

Brokers who represent buyers manage the purchase and sale of GDRs. Generally, the brokers are from the home country and operate within the foreign market. The actual purchase of the assets is multi-staged, involving a broker in the investor's country, a broker located within the market of the international company, a depositary bank representing the buyer, and a custodian bank.

Brokers can also sell GDRs on an investor's behalf. An investor can sell them as-is on the proper exchanges, or the investor can convert them into regular stock for the company. Additionally, they can be canceled and returned to the issuing company.

Traders dealing in GDRs often compare the, for example, U.S. dollar price of the GDR with the U.S. dollar equivalent price of the shares trading on the international company's domestic exchange. They'll typically buy the less expensive security and sell the other. Eventually, this arbitrage trading activity causes the underlying shares and the GDRs to reach parity.

Due to the trading activity called arbitrage, a GDR's price closely tracks that of the international company's stock on its home exchange.

Advantages and Disadvantages of GDRs

Advantages

GDRs help international companies reach a broader, more diverse audience of potential investors.

They can potentially increase share liquidity.

Companies can conduct an efficient and cost-effective private offering.

Shares listed on major global exchanges can increase the status or legitimacy of an otherwise unknown foreign company.

For investors, GDRs provide the opportunity to diversify portfolios internationally.

GDRs are more convenient and less expensive than opening foreign brokerage accounts and purchasing stocks in foreign markets.

Investors don't have to pay cross-border custody or safekeeping charges.

GDRs trade, clear, and settle according to the investor's domestic process and procedures.

U.S. holders of GDRs realize any dividends and capital gains in U.S. dollars.

Disadvantages

GDRs may have significant administrative fees.

Dividend payments are net of currency conversion expenses and foreign taxes.

The depositary bank automatically withholds the amount necessary to cover expenses and foreign taxes.

U.S. investors may need to seek a credit from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or a refund from the foreign government's taxing authority to avoid double taxation on capital gains realized.

GDRs have the potential to have low liquidity, making them difficult to sell.

In addition to liquidity risk, they can have currency risk and political risk.

This means that the value of GDR could fluctuate according to actual events in the foreign county, such as recession, financial collapse, or political upheaval.

Easy to track and trade

Denominated in local currency

Regulated by local exchanges

Offers international portfolio diversification

More complex taxation

Limited selection of companies offering GDRs

Investors exposed indirectly to currency and geopolitical risk

Potential lack of liquidity

GDRs vs. ADRs

Global Depositary Receipts

ProsCons

Global depositary receipts allow a company to list its shares in more than one country outside of its home country. For example, a Chinese company could create a GDR program that issues its shares through a depositary bank intermediary into the London market and the United States market. Each issuance must comply with all relevant laws in both the home country and foreign markets individually.

American Depositary Receipts

On the other hand, an American depositary receipt, which also represents shares of an international company, lists only on U.S. stock exchanges. To offer ADRs, a U.S. bank will purchase shares on a foreign exchange. The depositary bank will hold the underlying shares and issue an ADR for domestic trading.

Sponsored ADRs

A bank issues a sponsored ADR on behalf of a foreign company. The bank and the business enter into a legal arrangement. Usually, the foreign company pays the costs of issuing an ADR and retains control over it, while the bank handles the transactions with investors.

Sponsored ADRs are categorized by the degree the foreign company complies with SEC regulations and American accounting procedures.

Unsponsored ADRs

A bank may also issue an unsponsored ADR. This certificate represents no direct involvement, participation, or even permission from the foreign company.

Theoretically, there could be several unsponsored ADRs for the same foreign company, issued by different U.S. banks. These different ADRs could also offer varying dividends. With sponsored programs, there is only one ADR, issued by the depositary bank working with the foreign company.

What Is the Meaning of Global Depositary Receipt?

A global depositary receipt is a negotiable certificate issued by a bank. The certificate represents shares in a foreign company traded on a local stock exchange. GDRs give companies access to greater capital and investors the opportunity to invest in the equity of foreign companies.

What Are Some Features of GDRs?

GDRs can be listed on multiple global stock exchanges, They also provide investors with the benefits and rights of the underlying shares, which could include voting rights and dividends. GDRs trade like shares and can be bought and sold throughout the day via a standard brokerage account.

What Is the Difference Between an ADR and a GDR?

An American depositary receipt represents shares in a foreign company and is listed only on American exchanges. A GDR represents shares in a foreign company and is listed on various foreign stock exchanges.

What Is an Example of a GDR?

One example of a GDR is the American oil and gas company, Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX). In addition to trading domestically, it has depositary receipts listed on exchanges in Brazil (P1SX34), France (R66), Vienna (PSXC), and London (0KHZ.L), among others.

The Bottom Line

For U.S. investors, global depositary receipts offer a way to own equity in foreign companies while trading its representative shares on a local stock exchange. Certainly, GDRs have their risks, including home country economic and political risk, currency risk, and liquidity risk.

However, GDRs also offer noteworthy benefits that include the potential for a globally diversified portfolio, the ability to trade, clear, and settle transactions according to local regulations, no cross-border custody/safekeeping charges, and dividend payments in U.S. dollars.
When playing at a casino - online or offline - youre likely to notice that the games which get most of the attention are the slot machines. Thetop 10 casinos nz bingo online gamere are several reasons for this, one of which is their versatility. You can only play roulette or baccarat in so many ways, while the slots in an online casino can run the gamut from TV show tie-ins and epic adventure concepts to brightly-colored cartoonish ideas. Theres always a lot to keep the mind occupied, and even if you thought the final season of Game of Thrones dragged a bit, you can be confident that the tie-in slot wont go mad and destroy Kings Landing.

With that said, our choice of a slot to play should take in more information than simply whether or not we like the look of it. Theres a lot more to consider, and if youve got hold of a no deposit bonus at a Michigan online casino, you dont want to waste it by simply picking a slot that looks good. Instead, youre going to want to get the most out of whichever slot you pick, and the tips below will hopefully help you make that decision.

Check the type of slot

Not to put too fine a point on it, picking the best online slot really means picking out the one that might pay the most out to you. In practice, that is going to involve picking a slot with as many paylines as possible. Conventional slots have traditionally had three reels spinning vertically with a single line across the middle. More modern slots may have as many as six reels, although five is more common. The lines that cross those reels can number more than twenty, which offers more ways to win - and you can win in many of those ways simultaneously, which compounds your return.

Find out the RTP%

Most casinos will display the RTP% of a slot right there on the site, so you shouldnt have to look too far to find it out. In the rare instances that they dont, a brief online search will certainly offer that information. What youre on the lookout for is a slot with more than 96% RTP, and as far above that as possible. It doesnt guarantee a win, and if you spin 100 times youre likely to lose 4% of what you bet - but real wins are more likely the higher the RTP gets, so youd be unwise not to play the percentages.

Does it have a progressive jackpot?

Again, under the principle that youre looking to maximize what you can win on an online slot, the machines that you should be looking for are the ones with progressive jackpots. These amounts could end up in the millions of dollars, so it makes sense to be one of the people playing the progressive jackpot slots when the random number generator decides to pay out. A secondary question to this is What are the bullet points of the progressive jackpot?. Sometimes, they will be set to pay out on a specific day and even at a specific time, so time your playing sessions for these times.

What is your own experience?

All of the above taken into account, sometimes a certain slot at a certain casino just seems to smile on you. Theres no way to explain why, and in the long run maybe it doesnt matter. But sometimes, youll just want to play the slot that has been kindest to you. There is a science to playing slots, but there is a science to anything, and one thing that science knows is that it doesnt know everything. Sometimes, things go against the grain for reasons we cant fathom. So if theres a slot you seem to have better luck with, why not give it your time?

Category: Casino Blog
File photo

A representative for Chinese investors of Motor Sich,a Ukrainian aircraft engine manufacturer majority-owned by Chinese companies, on Wednesday vowed to take "all legal means" to firmly protect their full interests, in responding to reports of Ukraine nationalizing Motor Sich, a move that could cause serious financial losses for Chinese investors.In a statement posted on Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment Co's WeChat account, Wang Jing, the representative, said that since 2014, Chinese investors have legally invested in and held a majority stake in Motor Sich through normal business channels and are entitled to legal rights and protection of the law."Chinese investors will continue to maintain active communication with all parties in various ways, never give up the fight to protect their rights with legal weapons, and at the same time will adopt all legal means to continuously, resolutely, and unreservedly protect all of our own legitimate rights," Wang said in the statement.Ukraine said on Monday that it had invoked wartime laws to take control of stakes in Motor Sich and four other strategic companies, placing the privately held stakes under the control of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Reuters reported on Monday.In the report, Reuters noted that it was the first time the Ukrainian government had used martial law for such a move since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and also the most dramatic intervention of the war into big business.However, the Ukrainian government has not given any explanations as to how it will handle Chinese firms' investment into Motor Sich.Between 2017 and 2019, Chinese investors and the Ukrainian government signed a series of cooperation agreements after lengthy negotiations. The forced nationalization of Motor Sich would cause a major financial loss for Chinese investors, accordion to the statement.Prior to the reported move this week, the Ukrainian government had repeatedly talked about nationalizing Motor Sich. In March 2021, Ukrainian authorities announced they plan to nationalize Motor Sich.Commenting on the move on March 12, 2021, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing that "we urge the Ukrainian side to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and investors in accordance with law and properly handle relevant issues."In November 2021, Chinese investors filed a lawsuit at the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, seeking billions of dollars in compensation over the Ukrainian government's plan to nationalize Motor Sich.
What Is Universal Banking?u washington bookstore online

Universal banking is a system in which banks provide a wide variety of comprehensive financial services, including those tailored to retail, commercial, and investment services. Universal banking is common in some European countries, including Switzerland.

Universal banking became more common in the United States starting in 1999 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) repealed the restrictions preventing commercial banks from offering investment banking services. Proponents of universal banking argue that it helps banks better diversify risk. Detractors think dividing up banking operations is a less risky strategy.

Key Takeaways

Universal banking is a term for banks that offer a variety of comprehensive financial services, including both commercial banking and investment banking services.

Commercial banks typically offer consumer and business services, such as checking and savings accounts, business and personal loans (including mortgages and auto loans), and certificates of deposits (CDs).

Investment banks provide merger and acquisition services for corporations, underwriting services, and brokerage services for institutional and private clients.

Banks in a universal system may still choose to specialize in a subset of commercial or investment banking services, even though they technically can offer much more to their client base.

How Universal Banking Works

Universal banks may offer credit, loans, deposits, asset management, investment advisory, payment processing, securities transactions, underwriting, and financial analysis. While a universal banking system allows banks to offer a multitude of services, it does not require them to do so. Banks in a universal system may still choose to specialize in a subset of banking services.

Universal banking combines the services of a commercial bank and an investment bank, providing all services from within one entity. The services can include deposit accounts, a variety of investment services, and may even provide insurance services. Deposit accounts within a universal bank may include savings and checking.

Under this system, banks can choose to participate in any or all of the permitted activities. They are expected to comply with all guidelines that govern or direct proper management of assets and transactions. Since not all institutions participate in the same activities, the regulations in play may vary from one institution to another. However, it is important not to confuse the term "universal bank" with any financial institutions with similar names.

Some of the more notable universal banks include Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and ING Bank; within the United States, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase qualify as universal banks.

The History of Universal Banking in the U.S.

Due to strict regulation, the universal banking system was slow to grow in the United States. During the Great Depression, Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act as part of the Banking Act of 1933. In a measure to prevent further bank failures, the act prohibited universal banking. Commercial banks were not allowed to provide investment banking services, such as securities trading and brokerage services. Additionally, the act established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), an independent federal agency that insures U.S. bank deposits against bank failure.

In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) partially repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, thus making it legal for commercial banks to offer investment banking services. The goal of the GLBA was to modernize the financial services industry by allowing financial institutions to expand the products and services they could offer their customers.

Financial Crisis and Changing Regulations

Laws impacting universal banking in the U.S. have continued to evolve and change, especially during times of economic upheaval. For example, the 2008 financial crisis caused a number of failures within the investment banking system in the United States. This led to the acquisition or bankruptcy of a variety of institutions. Some notable examples include Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

In response, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, which restricted the ways in which banks could invest by limiting speculative trading and prohibiting involvement with hedge funds and private equity firms. Opponents of Dodd-Frank criticized the act for going overboard in reducing the market-making activities of banks. In 2018, Congress enacted the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (also known as the Crapo Bill), which rolled back some of the Dodd-Frank restrictions.

Despite the evolving rules regarding universal banking, many financial service providers in the U.S. today offer a range of services from banking, loans, mortgages, insurance, and investments either under one roof or through an affiliate network with partner firms. While developments have removed a number of the barriers to the creation of universal banks in the U.S., they are still not as prevalent as they are across many European countries. The United States has banks that focus purely on investments, which is uncommon in the rest of the world.
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verb (used with or without object), deacidified, deacidifying.Chemistry.to remove acid from (a substance).to reduce the acidity of (a substance).

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QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!Question deacidifyde- + acidifydeacidification, nounde, DEA, deaccelerate, deaccession, deacetylate, deacidify, deacon, deaconess, deaconry, deacon seat, de-acquisitionDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,  Random House, Inc. 2022
As you read English, you will notice that some words can be spelled multiple ways. Catalogue, for instance, is sometimes spelled without the -ue, forming catalog instead.

This -ue ending derives from Greek suffixing conventions. Since English borrows many words from Greek and other languages, its not surprising that this suffix made its way into modern English, as well.

But as English evolves, so do spelling conventions, and in some parts of the world it is common to end such words at the G. You should read this article to find out exactly which parts those are.

What is the Difference Between Catalog and Catalogue?

In this article, I will compare catalog vs. catalogue.I will provide example sentences for each spelling to illustrate when its appropriate to use one over the other.

I will also discuss a useful memory tool to help you decide whether to use catalog or catalogue when you write.

When to Choose Catalog

What does catalog mean? Catalog is sometimes a noun, and sometimes a verb.

When catalog is a noun, it refers to a complete list of items, like the mail-order advertising pamphlets sent to millions of American homes on a regular basis.

When catalog is a verb, it means to list items in systematic fashion.

Here are some examples,

Pa used to the pages of the Sears catalog as toilet paper in the outhouse. (Noun)

The clerk read out the list of charges like a catalog of cardinal sins. (Noun)

Beauregard told his assistance to catalog of the documents in the storage closet. (Verb)

These brightly painted sculptures cataloging styles of Southern houses are accompanied by short texts, or legends, as the artist called them, that document their histories and the lives of their inhabitants. The New York Times (Verb)

As you can see from the chart below, catalog became the standard spelling of this word in American English only relatively recentlyaround 1970.

Since this chart only examines data from books written in English since 1800, it is not scientific, or terribly precise. Still, it is a clear indicator of a long-term usage trend.

When to Choose Catalogue

What does catalogue mean? Catalogue is the standard spelling of the same word in British English. It is also a noun and a verb, and can be used in all of the same contexts as catalog.

For example,

The new boss of Argos, John Rogers, is planning a remarkable nationwide tour in an attempt to boost staff morale and improve customer service at the catalogue retailer after it was bought by Sainsburys. Rogers will visit eight shops a day for five days in the run-up to Christmas. The Guardian

Catalogue has enjoyed clear preference in British English since at least 1800. That being said, the same limitations that applied to the first chart apply to this one, as well.

Trick to Remember the Difference

Both of these words can appear as nouns or verbs. Thus, you will have to consider your intended audience when deciding between catalogue and catalog.

Catalog is standard in American English, where catalogue is standard in British English. To avoid confusion, you should choose catalog for American audiences and catalogue for predominantly British audiences.

If you are having trouble remembering this, here is a helpful trick to remember cataloguevs. catalog.

Since catalogue shares a Uwith United Kingdom, you should have no trouble remembering that it is the British variant.

Summary

Is it catalog or catalogue?Catalog and catalogue are two spelling variants of the same word, which as a noun means a list of items, and as a verb means to make such a list.

Catalog is preferred in American English.

Catalogue is the British spelling.

Since catalogue and United Kingdom are each spelled with a U, you can use that letter as a mnemonic device to help you remember which version is which.

There will always be confusing words in English, and no writer can hope to memorize all of them. When you need help with writing, be sure to check this site for practical explanations that are easy to understand.
the poker house movieshows grade level based on the word's complexity. damned [ damd ]/ dmd / New Word List Save This Word!See synonyms for: damned / damndest on Thesaurus.comThis shows grade level based on the word's complexity. Thisshows grade level based on the word's complexity.[ damd ]/ dmd /Save This Word!See synonyms for: damned / damndest on Thesaurus.comThis shows grade level based on the word's complexity.

adjective, superlative damnedest, damndest.condemned or doomed, especially to eternal punishment: the wailing of damned souls.detestable; loathsome: Get that damned dog out of here!complete; absolute; utter: a damned nuisance; a damned fool.Informal. extraordinary; amazing: It was the damnedest thing I'd ever seen.

nounthe damned, those condemned to suffer eternal punishment.

adverbextremely; very; absolutely: a damned good singer; too damned lazy.

Words nearby damned

Words related to damned damned/ (dmd) / condemned to hell (as noun)the damned adjective adverb, adjective slang(intensifier)a damned good try; a damned liar; I should damned well think so!used to indicate amazement, disavowal, or refusal (in such phrases as I'll be damned and damned if I care) Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!Question damnedFirst recorded in 13501400, damned is from the Middle English word dam(p)ned.See damn, -eddamn, damnable, damnably, damnation, damnatory, damned, damnedest, damned if I do, damned if I don't, damnify, damning, damn straightDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,  Random House, Inc. 2022
Photo:VCG

TheGerman authorities on Wednesday took a sudden U-turn by stopping a Chinese chip firm's acquisition bid in Germany. Experts said the move reflected internal political discord in the German government, and they urged the German side to increase its understanding of China and the Chinese market so as to elevate Germany's global competitiveness.Chinese chip company Sai MicroElectronics said on Thursday that its Sweden-based wholly-owned subsidiary Silex Microsystems AB had received an official document from German authorities that prohibited its acquisition of Elmos Semiconductor SE's auto chip line in Dortmund, Germany."Due to the prohibition, the deal that had been drawing to a close cannot be completed. The companies involved in the deal will carefully analyze the decision received, and have decided to take further action," the company said in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.Sai MicroElectronics deeply regrets the decision of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action, but it is "still optimistic" about the prospects of the auto chip industry and will continue to attach importance to the industrial layout, it said.The result came as a shock to the companies involved, as the ministry had indicated an approval subject to conditions and submitted a draft version of the approval after about a 10-month review process, according to a separate statement by Elmos.In December 2021, Silex and Elmos signed an agreement to transfer the Elmos wafer fabrication at the Dortmund location to Silex at a net purchase price of 85 million euros ($85 million)."The unwise decision reflects the concerns of some German politicians due to their lack of understanding of China and Chinese companies," Fu Liang, an independent tech analyst, told the Global Times on Thursday.As Chinese companies give increasing attention to the global market, they will continuously increase investment in Germany for sustainable development in its car market rather than to transfer technologies or production to China, experts said.Fu said Germany's move will undoubtedly affect the global competitiveness of Germany's semiconductor and automobile sectors. "The promising automobile electronics sector should have been an opportunity for both China and Germany. Politicizing economic cooperation may lead to a supply crunch, as seen at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak," he said.The transfer of new micromechanics technologies from Sweden and significant investments in the Dortmund location would have strengthened semiconductor production in Germany, according to Elmos.China always encourages its businesses to conduct mutually beneficial investment cooperation overseas in accordance with market principles and international rules as well as local laws and regulations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a regular press conference on Wednesday."We hope that Germany and other countries will provide a fair, open and non-discriminatory market environment for Chinese companies doing business there, and refrain from politicizing normal economic and trade cooperation, still less using national security as a pretext to practice protectionism," he stressed.The ban reflects the ascendency of the coalition government faction that takes a hard-line stance toward China, as there have been disputes within the government about German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's recent trip to China, Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday."Germany aims to maintain a certain balance in cooperation with China," Cui said. Advanced technology related to national security and high value-added industries will be subject to scrutiny, while cooperation that helps German companies profit from the large Chinese market will be encouraged, Cui added.Chinese firms don't need to retreat amid these challenges, as Germany's policies toward China may change from time to time, given internal disputes within the German government, Cui noted.
You just travel light with carry-on luggage, go to cities that you love, and get to hang out with all your friends.

Three on-the-record stories from a family: a mother and her daughters who came from Phoenix.

Shortly after dawn, there was another outbreak of deadly force.

Just the hard-on before you shoot unarmed members of the public.

It was a brick wall that we turned into the on-ramp of a highway. Coffee Talk with Fred Armisen: On Portlandia, Meeting Obama, and Taylor Swifts Greatness|Marlow Stern|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Things looked anxious for a bit, but by this morning's dawn all are dug in, cool, confident. Gallipoli Diary, Volume I|Ian Hamilton

Will it ever dawn on Mrs. Dodd's mind, that parsons, even married parsons, are but men? The Pit Town Coronet, Volume I (of 3)|Charles James Wills

A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,the light which, showing the way, forbids it. The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin

From dawn to breakfast time all hands busy slinging shellsmodern war sinewspiles of themaboard. Gallipoli Diary, Volume I|Ian Hamilton
Idioms are a great way to add color to your writing. They can make dry topics seem more relatable, and they help you navigate the daunting world of professional correspondence by signaling familiarity and approachability to coworkers or subordinates.

If you are going to use idioms, though, you had better be sure to get them right. Botching a common expression is a surefire way to lose credibility in the eyes of your readers. One phrase, in particular, is often misused: case in point. Or is it case and point? Read on to learn the truth.

What is the Difference Between Case in Point and Case and Point?

In this post, I will compare case in point vs. case and point. I will outline which of these is the correct expression and use it in its proper context with example sentences.

I will also show you a mnemonic device that can help you choose the correct phrase any time you use it in your own writing.

When to Use Case in Point

What does case in point mean? Case in point is an idiom that means an example that supports ones argument. Merriam-Webster first recorded its use 1647, and it has been a popular expression ever since. Here are few examples of case in point in sentences:

The way you dress communicates a lot about your personality, case in point, Todds sloppy outfit today, said Todds boss.

Its not hard to find a job if you are willing to work. Case in point, my office is hiring right now.

The harder you work, the more successful you will be; Frederick Douglass is a case in point.

A case in point involved the FBI, which last year paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a solution to crack an iPhone that had been used by a terrorist in the San Bernardino, Calif., mass shootings in 2015. The Washington Post

For a more full discussion on the origin of case in point, see here.

When to Use Case and Point

What does case and point mean? Case and point is a misspelling of the expression case in point. It is considered a spelling error.

Below, you can see a graph of that charts the usage of case and point vs. case in point:

As you can see, almost no one uses case and point. Its use barely registers a blip over the last 200 years on English writing.

Trick to Remember the Difference

Now, lets go over a trick you can use when youre stuck choosing case and point or case in point.

You should always choose case in point. It is the correct version of this idiom and has been since roughly 1647.

To remember to use case in point, imagine a skilled rhetorician putting the sharp point of his expository blade inside a case after he is done excoriating someone. The point is in the case.

Another way to look at it is that you poking a hole insomeones argument. This mental image will help you remember that case in point is the correct form of this phrase.

Summary

Is it case in point or case and point? Case in point and case and point are different spellings of the same phrase, which means an example that supports ones argument.

Case in point is correct.

Case and point is a spelling error.

If you have any other questions, be sure to check this site for help with other writing topics.
The history of Christmas traditions kept evolving throughout the 19th century, when most of the familiar components of the modern Christmas including St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees, became popular. The changes in how Christmas was celebrated were so profound that it's safe to say someone alive in 1800 would not even recognize the Christmas celebrations held in 1900.

Christmas Traditions: Key Takeaways

Our most common Christmas traditions developed during the 1800s:

The character of Santa Claus was largely a creation of author Washington Irving and cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Christmas trees were popularized by Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert.

Author Charles Dickens helped establish a tradition of generosity at Christmas.

Washington Irving and St. Nicholas

Early Dutch settlers of New York considered St. Nicholas to be their patron saint and practiced a yearly ritual of hanging stockings to receive presents on St. Nicholas Eve, in early December. Washington Irving, in his fanciful History of New York, mentioned that St. Nicholas had a wagon he could ride over the tops of trees when he brought his yearly presents to children.

The Dutch word Sinterklaas for St. Nicholas evolved into the English Santa Claus, thanks in part to a New York City printer, William Gilley, who published an anonymous poem referring to Santeclaus in a childrens book in 1821. The poem was also the first mention of a character based on St. Nicholas having a sleigh, in this case, pulled by a single reindeer.

Clement Clarke Moore and The Night Before Christmas

Perhaps the best-known poem in the English language is A Visit from St. Nicholas, or as its often called, The Night Before Christmas. Its author, Clement Clarke Moore, a professor who owned an estate on the west side of Manhattan, would have been quite familiar with the St. Nicholas traditions followed in early 19th century New York. The poem was first published, anonymously, in a newspaper in Troy, New York, on December 23, 1823.

Reading the poem today, one might assume that Moore simply portrayed the common traditions. Yet he actually did something quite radical by changing some of the traditions while also describing features that were entirely new.

For instance, the St. Nicholas gift giving would have taken place on December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day. Moore moved the events he describes to Christmas Eve. He also came up with the concept of St. Nick having eight reindeer, each of them with a distinctive name.

Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol

The other great work of Christmas literature from the 19th century is A Christmas Carolby Charles Dickens. In writing the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Dickens wanted to comment on greed in Victorian Britain. He also made Christmas a more prominent holiday and permanently associated himself with Christmas celebrations.

Dickens was inspired to write his classic story after speaking to working people in the industrial city of Manchester, England, in early October 1843. He wrote A Christmas Carolquickly, and when it appeared in bookstores the week before Christmas 1843 it began to sell very well.

The book crossed the Atlantic and began to sell in America in time for Christmas 1844, and became extremely popular. When Dickens made his second trip to America in 1867 crowds clamored to hear him read from A Christmas Carol. His tale of Scrooge and the true meaning of Christmas had become an American favorite. The story has never been out of print, and Scrooge is one of the best-known characters in literature.

Santa Claus Drawn by Thomas Nast

The famed American cartoonist Thomas Nast is generally credited as having invented the modern depiction of Santa Claus. Nast, who had worked as a magazine illustrator and created campaign posters for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, was hired by Harpers Weekly in 1862. For the Christmas season, he was assigned to draw the magazines cover, and legend has it that Lincoln himself requested a depiction of Santa Claus visiting Union troops.

The resulting cover, from Harpers Weekly dated January 3, 1863, was a hit. It shows Santa Claus on his sleigh, which has arrived at a U.S. Army camp festooned with a Welcome Santa Claus sign.

Santas suit features the stars and stripes of the American flag, and hes distributing Christmas packages to the soldiers. One soldier is holding up a new pair of socks, which might be a boring present today, but would have been a highly prized item in the Army of the Potomac.

Beneath Nast's illustration was the caption, Santa Claus In Camp. Appearing not long after the carnage at Antietam and Fredericksburg, the magazine cover is an apparent attempt to boost morale in a dark time.

The Santa Claus illustrations proved so popular that Thomas Nast kept drawing them every year for decades. He is also credited with creating the notion that Santa lived at the North Pole and kept a workshop manned by elves. The figure of Santa Claus endured, with the version drawn by Nast becoming the accepted standard version of the character. By the early 20th century the Nast-inspired version of Santa became a very common figure in advertising.

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria Made Christmas Trees Fashionable

The tradition of the Christmas tree came from Germany, and there are accounts of early 19th century Christmas trees in America, but the custom wasnt widespread outside German communities.

The Christmas tree first gained popularity in British and American society thanks to the husband of Queen Victoria, the German-born Prince Albert. He installed a decorated Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1841, and woodcut illustrations of the Royal Familys tree appeared in London magazines in 1848. Those illustrations, published in America a year later, created the fashionable impression of the Christmas tree in upper-class homes.

By the late 1850s reports of Christmas trees were appearing in American newspapers. And in the years following the Civil War ordinary American households celebrated the season by decorating a Christmas tree.

The first electric Christmas tree lights appeared in the 1880s, thanks to an associate of Thomas Edison, but were too costly for most households. Most people in the 1800s lit their Christmas trees with small candles.

The First White House Christmas Tree

The first Christmas tree in the White House was displayed in 1889, during the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. The Harrison family, including his young grandchildren, decorated the tree with toy soldiers and glass ornaments for their small family gathering.

There are some reports of president Franklin Pierce displaying a Christmas tree in the early 1850s. But the stories of a Pierce tree are vague and there doesn't seem to be contemporaneous mentions in newspapers of the time.

Christmas Tree and Family, 1848.

Benjamin Harrison's Christmas cheer was closely documented in newspaper accounts. An article on the front page of the New York Times on Christmas Day 1889 detailed the lavish presents he was going to give his grandchildren. And though Harrison was generally regarded as a fairly serious person, he vigorously embraced the Christmas spirit.

Not all subsequent presidents continued the tradition of having a Christmas tree in the White House. By the middle of the 20th century, White House Christmas trees became established. And over the years it has evolved into an elaborate and very public production.

The first National Christmas Tree was placed on The Ellipse, an area just south of the White House, in 1923, and the lighting of it was presided over by President Calvin Coolidge. The lighting of the National Christmas Tree has become quite a large annual event, typically presided over by the current president and members of the First Family.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

In 1897 an eight-year-old girl in New York City wrote to a newspaper, the New York Sun, asking if her friends, who doubted the existence of Santa Claus, were right. An editor at the newspaper, Francis Pharcellus Church, responded by publishing, on September 21, 1897, an unsigned editorial. The response to the little girl has become the most famous newspaper editorial ever printed.

The second paragraph is often quoted:

"Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS."

Churchs eloquent editorial asserting the existence of Santa Claus seemed a fitting conclusion to a century that began with modest observances of St. Nicholas and ended with the foundations of the modern Christmas season firmly intact.

By the end of the 19th century, the essential components of a modern Christmas, from Santa to the story of Scrooge to strings of electric lights were firmly established in America.
Davis ravens chiefs best betsStrait New Word List Save This Word! Save This Word!

nouna strait between Canada and Greenland, connecting Baffin Bay and the Atlantic. 200500 miles (320800 km) wide.

Words nearby Davis Strait

How to use Davis Strait named after John Davis (??15501605), English navigator

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!QuestionDavis, Davis Cup, Davis, Jefferson, Davisson, Davisson-Germer experiment, Davis Strait, davit, Davos, Davout, Davy, Davy JonesDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,  Random House, Inc. 2022Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Chongqing mayor Bo Xilai at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference.

Bo Xilai at CPPCCadded by chinatimesonline on

View all posts by chinatimesonline 
What Is Uninsurable Risk?yebo no deposit bonus codes

Uninsurable risk is a condition that poses an unknowable or unacceptable risk of loss or a situation in which the insurance would be against the law. Insurance companies limit their losses by not taking on certain risks that are very likely to result in a loss. Many states offer insurance for otherwise uninsurable risks through their "high-risk pools." However, lifetime benefits may be capped, and premiums may be expensive.

Key Takeaways

Uninsurable risk is a condition that poses an unknowable or unacceptable risk of loss for an insurance company to cover.

An uninsurable risk could include a situation in which insurance is against the law, such as coverage for criminal penalties.

An uninsurable risk can be an event that's too likely to occur, such as a hurricane or flood, in an area where those disasters are frequent.

High-risk coverage is available from some insurance companies, but the coverage could be limited and expensive.

Understanding Uninsurable Risk

Many people buy insurance even though there's a low probability that the insured will need the policy. Young adults, for example, might buy life insurance or health insurance through their employers despite the unlikelihood of needing the coverage for many years. Others who are at higher risk also buy the insurance, and both groups pay their monthly premiums to the insurance company.

Insurance companies practice a policy called risk pooling, which is the collection of the premiums from those who are less likely to need the insurance (called low-risk) and those who are more likely to need the insurance (called high-risk). By grouping a large number of people together in a pool, the low-risk individuals essentially pay (through their premiums) for the cost of the high-risk individuals. If an insurance company covered uninsurable risks, there would likely be an increase in payouts for insurance claims reducing the funds in the insurance pool. As a result, uninsurable risks are not included in standard insurance coverage packages. For insurance to work, most of the group has to go without a loss. Otherwise, the insurance company runs out of money.

A risk is insurable when the risk is considered calculable and can be measured and tracked by actuaries who study data and probabilities for insurance companies. If a river floods 800 times in a century, the flood is an insurable risk. However, the insurer can't insure against a marriage failing. With so many factors, there's no way an actuary could reasonably calculate a definitive probability of success or failure. That's the essence of uninsurable risk.

High-risk coverage is available from some insurance companies, and people with uninsurable risks might be able to get some level of coverage this way, but coverage will likely be limited and premiums more expensive. Some governments offer insurance coverage when regular commercial insurance markets can't accept the risk. Government flood insurance, for instance, is available in high-risk areas because regular insurance companies won't write the policies.

Special Considerations

Calling a risk uninsurable is not a simple conclusion to make. Some risks are clearly uninsurable because of the law, such as coverage for criminal fines and penalties since the law forbids such coverage. However, there isn't really a conclusive comprehensive list of all the uninsurable risks out there. Part of the job of corporate risk managers is to identify their organizational exposures as best they can and then work to manage or eliminate those risks. Sometimes, commercial insurance can be used to remove the bulk of that risk, but it's not always possible.

Examples of Uninsurable Risks

Although each insurance company may have its own policies regarding what they consider insurable and uninsurable, below are examples of risks that might be considered uninsurable by many companies.

Too Likely to Occur

If an insurance company considers an event, such as a natural disaster or a catastrophe, to be too likely to occur, the event will likely be uninsurable.

If a home, for example, is situated on the coast where there are frequent hurricanes and damage to properties, insurance companies might consider the risk of damage too likely to occur. As a result, the risk would be uninsurable, meaning insurance companies wouldn't provide any coverage caused by that particular uninsurable event.

Homes that are located in flood zones or in areas where there are frequent landslides might also be considered uninsurable risks to insurance companies. Individuals and homeowners would likely need to seek help from the government or an insurance company that provides high-risk coverage.

Risk to Reputation

A company can experience damage to its reputation. For example, a recall of a company's products due to safety hazards could damage the company's name and reputation. An insurance company would face a difficult challenge in determining a monetary value of a company's reputation in order to insure that amount. There are too many factors and variables involved for an insurer to value the reputation of one company versus another, and too many things could go wrong.

Regulatory Risk

Regulations are laws issued by government agencies designed to protect its citizens from wrongful actions by corporations or other parties. Regulations can change frequently, and many businesses struggle to keep up with the dynamic regulatory landscape. Examples of regulations include new laws to protect the environment or changes in food safety laws on how food should be processed. Insurance companies would have a difficult task in predicting the probability of regulatory changes and assigning a monetary value to the damage caused to a company as a result of that change.

Trade Secret Risk

Trade secret risk can involve national security when a government employee takes information from a computer. The risk can also occur in companies when an employee might take a client list home and offer it to the competition in exchange for a job. Companies would have difficulty finding an insurer that would cover the damage if its trade secrets were stolen or given out.

Political Risk

Multinational corporations face challenges when they open up operations overseas. Companies that are located developing nations may experience political risk, such as political upheaval if the government is overthrown or collapses. Developing nations often do not have the financial stability of developed countries, and as a result, can default or not pay its financial obligations. A nationwide default might include the inability to pay for public services or a country being unable to pay its national debt. Insurance companies would not be able to forecast the likelihood of a political event occurring and the cost of insuring that event would likely be prohibitive.

Pandemic Risk

A pandemic is an outbreak of a disease that spreads over an entire country or over the whole world. The risk of a pandemic are nearly impossible for insurance companies to predict and estimate the damages that could be caused to individuals and corporations. Businesses might be able to use other insurance policies to recoup some of the costs of a pandemic. For example, a company might have insurance that covers stoppages in their supply chain, such as being unable to buy raw materials or inventory.

As with the other uninsurable risks, there are some insurance companies willing to cover the risks associated with a pandemic. However, there could be limits to the coverage within those policies and hefty premiums.
dabba / (db) / New Word List Save This cryptocom redditWord! / (db) /Save ThisWord!

noun(in Indian cookery) a round metal box used to transport hot food, either from home or from a restaurant, to a person's place of work

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How to use in a sentence Nevertheless, this modern Stone Age family makes watching the next commercial a Yabba Dabba Do! Coca Cola, M&Ms, & More Classic Holiday Commercials (VIDEO)|Brittany Jones-Cooper|December 22, 2011|DAILY BEAST

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!Question dabbaC20: from Hindi: lunchboxCzerny, Czestochowa, 'd, da, dab, dabba, dabber, dabbing, dabble, dabbling duck, dabchickCollins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Every once in a while there is a set of words that are just close enough to each other, whether in spelling, meaning, or pronunciation that we forget which is which.

Such is the case with acumen vs. acuity vs. acuteness. And what makes it worse, is that these are three words that we dont use every day, so when they do come up in our writing, they seem ever more foreign.

What are the Differences Between Acumen, Acuity, and Acuteness?

In todays post, I want to discuss the differences between these three words, their uses in a sentence, and give you a few ways that you can keep track of them from now on. After reading this post, you shouldnt ever confuse these words with each other again.

When to Use Acumen

Acumen is a noun meaning quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight. For example,

His business acumen produced profitable year after profitable year.

The campaign managers political acumen won the election.

It is important to note that acumen is centered on being able to make good judgments and quick decisions, particularly in a given field (business, politics, agriculture, etc.).

When to Use Acuity

Acuity is also a noun and means sharpness or keenness of thought, vision, or hearing. For example,

Due to his age, his visual acuity is deteriorating.

Your intellectual acuity must be at the highest level to compete here.

People that I know who like to read poetry with acuity and intelligence.

Acuity is used primarily to refer to hearing, understanding, vision, wit, and certain diseases.

When to Use Acuteness

Acuteness is the noun derivation of the adjectiveacute, which is defined as having or showing perceptive understanding or insight: shrewd and a keen, highly developed physical sense. For example,

His acuteness of engines led him to correctly diagnose the problem.

He could not see, so the acuteness of his other senses is heightened.

Save the exceptions above, (hearing, understanding, vision, etc.), acuteness is more broadly used today than acuity when signifying general sharpness or perception.

Remember the Difference

As you can see, these three words have similar meanings, but there are differences.

While acuity and acuteness can refer to mental faculties like thought or perception, they can also apply to physical faculties like vision and hearing. Acumen, on the other hand, refers strictly to mental sharpness.

Also, as I said above, acumen is centered on the idea of making good judgments and quick decisions. Acuity and acuteness dont necessarily imply those things.

Summary

While these words all have similar meanings, it is important to use them precisely in your writing and not to mix them up.

Acumen refers to a keenness and insight in a particular field like business.

Acuity refers to keenness of thought, vision, or hearing. Acuity has an earlier first recorded use than acuteness, but in practice its use has retreated somewhat.

Acuteness refers to keenness of understanding and a highly developed physical sense. Between acuity and acuteness, acuteness is used more frequently.
Another way, suggested by Georgetown law professor David Super, would be to use reconciliation to pass something by simple majority tying the debt limit to whatever is needed to cover the national debt at any given moment, effectively nullifying it.

Since then, there have been pretty regular fights over the debt limit that often take the Treasury Department to the very end of its means.

If it doesnt raise the debt limit, the government wont be able to pay its bills come October.

Congress is in full-on chaos mode right now, with the future of infrastructure, government funding, the debt limit and voting rights all uncertain.

So they are asking the GOP to please join them in raising the debt limit to give them more time. The Republicans want no part of a debt ceiling hike. Good for them.|Hugh Hewitt|September 22, 2021|Washington Post

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What Is a Government Bond?888 casino online bonus

A government bond is a debt security issued by a government to support government spending and obligations. Government bonds can pay periodic interest payments called coupon payments. Government bonds issued by national governments are often considered low-risk investments since the issuing government backs them.

Government bonds issued by a federal government may also be known as sovereign debt.

Key Takeaways

A government bond represents debt that is issued by a government and sold to investors to support government spending.

Some government bonds may pay periodic interest payments. Other government bonds do not pay coupons and are sold at a discount instead.

Government bonds are considered low-risk investments since the government backs them.

The various types of bonds that are offered by the U.S. Treasury are considered to be among the safest in the world.

Because of their relatively low risk, government bonds typically pay low interest rates.

Government Bond

Government Bonds Explained

1:26

Government bonds are issued by governments to raise money to finance projects or day-to-day operations. The U.S. Treasury Department sells the issued bonds during auctions at regular intervals throughout the year. Only certain registered participants, often large banks, can buy U.S. government bonds directly at auction. When the government holds a bond auction, each buyer submits its purchase bid, and the auction continues until all the bonds are duly distributed.

Some Treasury bonds trade in the secondary market. Individual investors, working with a financial institution or broker, can buy and sell previously issued bonds through this marketplace. Treasuries are widely available for purchase through the U.S. Treasury, brokers, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which contain a basket of securities.

Fixed-rate government bonds can have interest rate risk, which occurs when interest rates are rising and investors are holding lower paying fixed-rate bonds as compared to the market. Also, only select bonds keep up with inflation, which is a measure of price increases throughout the economy. If a fixed-rate government bond pays 2% per year, for example, and prices in the economy rise by 1.5%, the investor is earning only 0.5% in real terms.

Municipal Government Bonds

Local governments may also issue bonds to fund projects such as infrastructure, libraries, or parks. These are known as municipal bonds, or "munis," and often carry certain tax advantages and exemptions for investors.

Munis can be thought of as loans that investors make to local governments, and they are used to fund public works such as parks, libraries, bridges and roads, and other infrastructure. They may be funded via local tax dollars or by revenue generated from the project (e.g. a toll road).

Although municipal bonds may have lower interest rates than riskier investments like corporate bonds or stocks, they offer some stability and low default rates.

Bond Terms to Know

If you are interested in government bonds, you may want to acquaint yourself with the following terms:

Face or Par Value : the amount of debt you are loaning the government and the amount you will get back when the bond matures

: the amount of debt you are loaning the government and the amount you will get back when the bond matures Coupon : the regular interest payments credited to bondholders

: the regular interest payments credited to bondholders Yield : the interest rate on the bond after accounting for its market price

: the interest rate on the bond after accounting for its market price Market Price: the price of the bond in the secondary market, which may differ from the face value

the price of the bond in the secondary market, which may differ from the face value Treasuries : U.S. federal government bonds

: U.S. federal government bonds T-Bill : short-term Treasuries, maturing in 1 year or less

: short-term Treasuries, maturing in 1 year or less T-Note : medium-term Treasuries, maturing in 2 to 10 years

: medium-term Treasuries, maturing in 2 to 10 years T-Bond : long-term Treasuries maturing in 10 to 30 years or longer

: long-term Treasuries maturing in 10 to 30 years or longer TIPS: Treasuries that are indexed to inflation

The U.S. vs. Foreign Government Bonds

U.S. Treasuries are nearly as close to risk-free as an investment can get. This low risk profile is because the issuing government backs the bonds. Government bonds from the U.S. Treasury are some of the most secure worldwide, while those floated by other countries may carry a greater degree of risk.

Due to this nearly risk-free nature, market participants and analysts use Treasuries as a benchmark in comparing the risk associated with securities. The 10-year Treasury bond is also used as a benchmark and guide for interest rates on lending products. Due to their low risk, U.S. Treasuries tend to offer lower rates of return relative to equities and corporate bonds.

However, government-backed bonds, particularly those in emerging markets, can carry risks that include country risk, political risk, and central-bank risk, including whether the banking system is solvent. Investors saw a bleak reminder of how risky some government bonds can be during the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998. During this crisis, several Asian nations were forced to devalue their currency, which sent reverberations around the globe. The crisis even caused Russia to default on its debt.

The Uses of Government Bonds

Government bonds assist in funding deficits in the federal budget and are used to raise capital for various projects such as infrastructure spending. However, government bonds are also used by the Federal Reserve Bank to control the nation's money supply.

When the Federal Reserve repurchases U.S. government bonds, the money supply increases throughout the economy as sellers receive funds to spend or invest in the market. Any funds deposited into banks are, in turn, used by those financial institutions to loan to companies and individuals, further boosting economic activity.

Pros and Cons of Government Bonds

As with all investments, government bonds provide both benefits and disadvantages to the bondholder. On the upside, these debt securities tend to return a steady stream of interest income. However, this return is usually lower than other products on the market due to the reduced level of risk involved in their investments.

The market for U.S. government bonds is very liquid, allowing the holder to resell them on the secondary bond market easily. There are even ETFs and mutual funds that focus their investment on Treasury bonds.

Fixed rate bonds may fall behind during periods of increasing inflation or rising market interest rates. Also, foreign bonds are exposed to sovereign or governmental risk, changes in currency rates, and have a higher risk of default.

Some U.S. Treasury bonds are free of state and federal taxes. However, the investor of foreign bonds may face taxes on income from these foreign investments.

Pay a steady interest income return

Low risk of default for U.S. bonds

Exempt from state and local taxes

A liquid market for reselling

Assessable through mutual funds and ETFs

Offer low rates of return

Fixed income falls behind with rising inflation

Carry risk when market interest rates increase

Default and other risks on foreign bonds

Examples of U.S. Government Bonds

ProsCons

There are various types of bonds offered by the U.S. Treasury that have various maturities. In addition, some bonds return regular interest payments, while some do not. In the U.S., the national debt refers largely to the notional value of outstanding government bonds. The largest portion of the national debt, approximately $24.2 trillion, is held by the public. Intragovernmental holdings make up approximately $6.6 trillion, for a total debt of approximately $30.9 trillion as of Q3 2022.

Savings Bonds

The U.S. Treasury offers series EE bonds and series I savings bonds. Bonds sell at face value and have a fixed rate of interest. Bonds held for 20 years will reach their face value and effectively double. Series I bonds receive a semi-annually calculated secondary rate tied to an inflation rate.

Treasury Notes

Treasury notes (T-notes) are intermediate-term bonds maturing in two, three, five, or 10 years that provide fixed coupon returns. T-Notes typically have a $1,000 face value. However, two- or three-year maturities have a $5,000 face value.

Treasury Bonds

Treasury bonds (T-Bonds) are long-term bonds having a maturity between 10 to 30 years. T-Bonds give interest or coupon payments semi-annually and have $1,000 face values. The bonds help to offset shortfalls in the federal budget. Also, they help to regulate the nation's money supply and execute U.S. monetary policy.

Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)

Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) are a Treasury security indexed to inflation. They protect investors from the adverse effects of rising prices. The par valueprincipalincreases with inflation and decreases with deflation, following the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

TIPS pay a fixed rate of interest determined on the bond's auction on a six months basis. However, interest payment amounts vary since the rate applies to the adjusted principal value of the bond. TIPS have maturities of five, 10, and 30 years. On Nov. 19, 2020, the 10-year TIPS bond was auctioned with an interest rate of -0.867%.

Buying vs. Trading Bonds

If you buy government bonds and hold them until maturity, you will enjoy regular coupon (interest) payments and a return of your initial investment when they mature. During that time, however, the price of a government bond will fluctuate in the market. Bond prices have an inverse relationship with interest ratesso when interest rates go up, government bond prices go down in the secondary market. Because of this, shorter-term investors who do not buy and hold bonds until maturity can experience gains or losses in the market. Bond traders can also look to profit from the relative differences in the yields of certain bonds, known as the spreadfor instance, the spread between U.S. Treasuries and highly rated corporate bonds. Another bond trading strategy is to bet on changes in the spread between different maturities, known as the yield curve.

Government bonds can provide a combination of considerable safety and relatively high returns. However, investors need to be aware that governments sometimes lack the ability or willingness to pay back their debts.

How Do You Buy Government Bonds?

U.S. Treasury securities are available to investors through their broker or bank, or directly through the TreasuryDirect website. Investors can also look to ETFs or mutual funds that invest in Treasuries. Municipal bonds are available via your broker.

How Do Government Bonds Work?

When governments need to raise funds for operations (e.g. paying government employees or servicing interest charges on existing debt) or to invest in projects (e.g., building federal highways), they can sell bonds to investors. In the U.S. case, bonds are sold through the Treasury and represent debt owned by bondholders. These bondholders are credited with interest and a return of their principal when the bond matures. This makes bondholders of Treasuries essentially creditors (lenders) to the federal government.

Why Are Interest Rates on Government Bonds Usually Lower than Other Bonds?

Bonds issued by the federal government are considered to be essentially riskless. In the U.S., the federal government has never defaulted on its debt, and the government could theoretically create more money or raise taxes in order to pay for the interest on existing debts to avoid default. Therefore, Treasuries carry what is known as the risk-free rate of return. Corporate and other bonds must carry higher yields to compensate investors for the additional credit risk that are inherent to them.

What Are U.S. Government Bond Types?

The U.S. government has a variety of different Treasury securities available for purchase depending on what the investor is looking for. The different offerings of the securities are Treasury Bills, Treasury Notes, Treasury Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), Series I Savings Bonds, and Series EE Savings Bonds.

What Are Example of Non-U.S. Government Bonds?

Foreign governments around the world issue debt in the form of bonds. Some of these commonly include:

The U.K.: Gilts

Germany: Bunds

France: OATs

Japan: JGBs

Italy: BTPs

Canada: Canada Bonds

The Bottom Line

Government bonds issued by federal governments are among the safest investments around, often carrying the risk-free rate of return. However, because of their lower risk, they also carry relatively lower yields. In the U.S., federal bonds are known as Treasuries, which consist of short-term T-Bills, medium-term T-Notes, and long-term T-bonds. Foreign governments also regularly issue bonds. State and local governments may also issue bonds in the form of municipal bonds (munis). These are attractive to some investors since they can offer certain tax exemptions.
Sometimes, the materials used to make a product have similar names to the end product itself. This is the case with cloth and clothes.

Clothes are made of cloth, but do either of these words have additional meanings? Continue reading to find out.

What is the Difference Between Cloth and Clothes?

In this article, I will compare cloth vs. clothes. I will use each word in an example sentence, so that you can see it in its proper context. Then, I will show you a mnemonic device that you can use to help you remember whether you should use cloth or clothes.

When to Use Cloth

What does cloth mean? Cloth, a noun, is a length of fabricused to make garments, blankets, and other items. It can be made of natural fibers, like cotton and wool, or synthetic fibers, like polyester or rayon.

Here are some examples,

Kimmy asked Arianna to buy her 32 yards of cloth for her next project.

Some cars have cloth-covered seats, while other cars have leather-covered seats.

Cloth diapers are less wasteful than disposable diapers, but are also more difficult to clean and probably less sanitary.

Warm water and a microfiber cloth (the kind that comes with eyeglasses) are remarkably effective, even for the most diabolical marks. The Wall Street Journal

Cloth is also an expression that refers to clergy, like in this sentence,

Father Timmy was a man of the cloth, and abstained from partaking in champagne on New Years Eve.

When to Use Clothes

What does clothes mean? The word clothes is also a noun, but it can also be a present tense verb.

As a noun, clothes are garments worn to cover the body.

For example,

My daughter Dana needs new clothes for school every fall because she grows so quickly.

The old beggars clothes were ragged, and had worn thin in places.

The clothes a person wears say much about how that persons self-perception.

One group that has long preserved the distinction, the Vienna Philharmonic, announced on Thursday that it was getting its first change of clothes in decadessuits that can be worn by day or night with small variations. The New York Times

As a verb, clothes is the third person present tense form of the verb to clothe, which means to provide someone with garments or to dress someone.

For example,

The wealthy single mom who lives next door clothes her children with only the most fashionable of name brands.

Trick to Remember the Difference

Here is a helpful trick to remember clothesvs. cloth.

If the word you are using is a verb, you should choose clothe in the first and second person, and clothes in the third person. Cloth is never a verb.

As a noun, clothes refers to finished garments, while cloth refers to fabric, either by itself, unfinished, or as a component of a finished garment.

You can remember that clothes refers to garments since most people wear more than one garment at a time in most societies, and clothes and garments are both plural.

Summary

Is it cloth or clothes? Clothes and cloth are both nouns, but only clothes is a verb.

Clothes are garments worn to cover the body.

Cloth is the fabric used to make garments and other items.

As a verb, clothes is the third person present tense of the verb clothe.

You can remember that clothes refers to garments since both clothes and garments are plural.

If you still need help, you can always refer back to this article for a quick refresher.
John Richard Hicks was a British neo-Keynesian economist. Hicks was born in the United Kingdom in 1904 and studied at Oxford University where he also lectured. During his free online buffalo slotcareer, Hicks became well known for his contributions to labor economics, utility and price theory, macroeconomics, and welfare economics. He received the 1972 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, sharing it with Kenneth Arrow for their advancement of general equilibrium theory and welfare theory.

Key Takeaway

John R. Hicks was a neo-Keynesian economist.

He was noted for his wide-ranging contributions to microeconomic and macroeconomic theory.

His major contributions to economic theory include the advances in microeconomic price and utility theory, the Hicks compensation test in welfare economics, and the IS-LM model in macroeconomics.

Hicks was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972 for his work in general equilibrium and welfare economics.



Hicks was born in 1904 and died at the age of 85 in 1989.

Investopedia / Alison Czinkota

Early Life and Education

John R. Hicks was born in the United Kingdom in Warwick on April 8, 1904. He studied at Clifton College and Oxford University between 1917 and 1926 where he focused on economics, math, philosophy, and politics.

After graduating, he lectured at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1926 to 1935. He also taught at Cambridge University and the University of Manchester before returning to Oxford in 1946.

Hicks married fellow economist Ursula Webb in 1935. The couple had no children. He was knighted in 1964 for his work in economics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972. Hicks died on May 20, 1989.

Hicks' wife, Ursula Webb, was one of the founders of the Review of Economic Studies. The academic journal was established in 1933 for young economists.

Notable Accomplishments

Hicks made several important contributions to economic theory during his career. These contributions ranged from fundamental neoclassical price theory to macroeconomic modeling.

Honors and Awards

Hicks was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972. He shared the honor with Kenneth J. Arrow, another neoclassical economist. Their work on general equilibrium analysis and welfare economics earned them the award. Before he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Hicks was knighted in 1964. He also received a number of honorary doctorate degrees from several universities in the U.K.

Published Works

Hicks first book, Theory of Wages, developed the microeconomics of wage determination in competitive and regulated labor markets. In this work, he introduced the concept of elasticity of substitution between capital and labor, which became his basis to dispute Karl Marx's theory by arguing that labor-saving technological progress does not necessarily reduce labors share of income. This book became a standard textbook on labor economics for decades.

In his early papers and his second book, Value and Capital, he advanced the utility and price theory with his introduction of the Hicksian compensated demand curve. He also explored the concept of composite goods to simplify demand modeling along with the exploration of the income effect and substitution effect.

Hicks also advanced the microeconomic analysis of interactions in Value and Capital between markets by formalizing a model of comparative statics and introduced Walrasian general equilibrium theory to the English-speaking world. These models show how changes in markets impact conditions in other markets and how all the individual markets in an economy interact to yield an overall equilibrium for all markets.

Legacy

Hicks is well known for making four major contributions to the field of economics. His first is the elasticity of substitution. It was used to demonstrate how labor-saving processes don't have a direct impact on the reduction of the share of national income.

Hicks IS-LM model formalized Keynesian macroeconomic theory to show how an economy can be in equilibrium with less-than-full employment. The IS-LM model depicts macroeconomic equilibrium as a product of the interaction of financial markets and real goods markets. This model is a common classroom tool in macroeconomics and is sometimes used to assess macroeconomic stabilization policies, as well as economic fluctuations.



His book Value and Capital, which was published in 1939, is generally considered his third major accomplishment in economics. The Hicksian price and utility models he introduced in the book mathematically demonstrate how consumer preferences, price changes, and income interact to shape demand for goods and are still used as foundational elements of price theory in microeconomics.

In welfare economics, Hicks is well known for his Hicks compensation principle, also known as Hicks efficiency. This concept can be used as a criterion to judge the costs and benefits of changes to the economy and economic policy by comparing the losses for the losers with the gains for the winners.



What Is John R. Hicks Known for?

John R. Hicks is best known for significant work in the field of economics and is considered one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. His major accomplishments include his contributions to labor economics, utility and price theory, and macroeconomics. He also made great strides in his theories about welfare economics. Hicks was awarded the Nobel Prize with Kenneth Arrow for their work on general equilibrium theory and welfare theory.

Why Did John R. Hicks Win the Nobel Prize?

John Hicks won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1972 with Kenneth J. Arrow. The two economists were awarded the prize for their work on general equilibrium analysis and welfare economics.

What Was John R. Hicks' IS-LM Model?

Hicks' IS-LM Model is designed to show the relationship between the market for economic goods and loanable funds, which is also known as the money market. The former is called IS (or investment savings) while the latter is known as LM. The model is depicted on a graph where the IS and LM intersect at the point where between the short-run equilibrium and the interest rates and output. It is often used to highlight how market preference changes affect the balance of interest rates and GDP.



The Bottom Line

John R. Hicks is often considered one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. He is credited with making significant contributions to several areas of the field, including labor economics and welfare economics. But it was his work with Kenneth Arrow involving general equilibrium theory and welfare theory that won the two men the Nobel Prize in 1972.
What Is a Home Office Expense?ios public beta 2

Home office expenses are expenses incurred from the operation of a business or the performance of employment-related activities within a primary residence.

Key Takeaways

Expenses you incur in the operation of a business you conduct in your home are deductible on your federal taxes within certain limits.

To calculate your expenses and deductions, you can either tally up all your costs and calculate the percent of your home dedicated to your business or use simplified method to do the same calculation.

The rules for deductions changed with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, so make sure to get information on deductions published in 2018 or later.

Understanding Home Office Expenses

Home office expenses allow individuals to deduct some housing expenses such as utilities, interest paid towards the propertys mortgage and property taxes on their annual tax return.

The IRS provides the details for the rules on home office deductions in Publication 587.

Home Office Deductions

Expenses incurred by a business you conduct in your home are the basis for home office deductions that can lower your tax bill if you are self-employed.

Any services or utilities that are used exclusively for the business purposes can be fully deducted. This includes offices supplies, phone lines and computer equipment. The amount of deductions permitted will depend on several factors, including how a homeowner files their return and their earnings, but most will be able to claim several items as expenses as long as they are incurred during the normal course of business.

A home office will only qualify for home office deductions if it meets the following criteria:

It is used exclusively and regularly as your principal place of business.

It is used exclusively and regularly as a place where you meet or deal with patients, clients, or customers in the normal course of your trade or business.

It is a separate structure that is not attached to your home that is used in connection with your trade or business.

It is used on a regular basis for certain storage use.

It is used as a rental for your business.

You use your home as a daycare facility.

The rule of thumb is "exclusive and regular": the place you designate as your home office has to be used exclusively and regularly as a home office. In the words of the IRS, "The space does not need to be marked off by a permanent partition. You do not meet the requirements of the exclusive use test if you use the area in question both for business and for personal purposes."

If you have a corner of your house with a desk that you only use to transact business, that qualifies as a home office space, but if you conduct your business on a laptop while sitting on your couch next to a family member who is watching TV, you cannot claim the couch as a home office.

How to Calculate Home Office Expenses

There are two ways the IRS says you can calculate how much of your home constitutes a home office and how much of your incurred expenses are deductible. The first way (the "regular" method) is to calculate your actual expenses. The second way is called the "simplified" method, which is faster but may not yield as many deductions.

The Regular Method

The method that uses an accounting of your actual expenses begins with calculating the following:

Which of your business expenses are direct, indirect or unrelated.

The percentage of your home used for business purposes.

Direct expenses are things like painting or repairs only in the area used for business. Indirect expenses are expenses for the entire home like Insurance, utilities, and general repairs that also benefit your home office.

To figure out the allowable business percentage of your home area, the IRS gives two methods:

Divide the area (length multiplied by the width) used for business by the total area of your home. If the rooms in your home are all about the same size, you can divide the number of rooms used for business by the total number of rooms in your home.

The regular method requires to keep accurate records, but the IRS has a helpful worksheet to set taxpayers on the right path.

Home Expenses Deductions Limited

If your expenses are less than your gross income from the business conducted in your house, all your expenses are deductible, but if your expenses exceed your gross income only a portion of them can be deducted.

The Simplified Method

The simplified method was introduced in 2013 to simplify the calculation of allowable deductions for your home office. To calculate your deductions with the simplified method you need to know:

The allowable area of your home used in conducting the business. If you did not conduct the business for the entire year in the home or the area changed during the year, you will need to know the allowable area you used and the number of days you conducted the business for each month.

The gross income from the business use of your home.

The amount of your business expenses that are not related to the use of your home.

If the qualified business use is for a daycare facility that uses space in your home on a regular (but not exclusive) basis, you also will need to know the percentage of time that part of your home is used for daycare.

Once you have this information you can calculate your deduction with these steps:

Multiply the allowable area by $5 (or less than $5 if the qualified business use is for a daycare that uses space in your home on a regular, but not exclusive, basis). Subtract the expenses from the business that are not related to the use of the home from the gross income related to the business use of the home. If these expenses are greater than the gross income from the business use of the home, then you cannot take a deduction for this business use of the home. Take the smaller of the amounts from (1) and (2). This is the amount you can deduct for this qualified business use of your home using the simplified method.

Other rules apply that limit the filer's ability to use the simplified method. For example, if you share the space with another person you can't both deduct the same space. Other restrictions are listed in Publication 587.

Real World Examples of Home Office Expenses

As an example, consider a freelance writer who operates their own business out of their home. They have a dedicated office space which is approximately 200 square feet, a cell phone that is only used for work-related calls and a subscription to a magazine that provides editorial leads to writers. All these items are tax-deductible as home office expenses, including the 200 square feet of the writers house, since that room is used for business purposes.

Additionally, the writer can deduct the ink that they use to print contracts out, the full cost of the all-in-one printer that they had to purchase to be able to send those signed contracts in and any industry-related training they complete.

Real Estate Deductions Are Capped

Because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act limited the amount of property tax filers can deduct, you cannot use the home office deduction to deduct the full amount of your property tax if it exceeds $10,000.

There are a variety of expenses that can be deducted when a person works out of their home, whether it be as a remote employee or because they are self-employed. A certified tax specialist can review available deductions and make sure that all items that are being claimed are valid.

For instance, if this freelance writer didnt have a dedicated office space and instead worked out of the coffee shop around the corner from their house every day, they wouldnt be able to claim the utility and mortgage associated costs as part of their home office deduction. There may be additional deductions available to them, like the coffee and donut they purchase each day while working out of the shop.
What Is Leptokurtic?latest mobile casino

Leptokurtic distributions are statistical distributions with kurtosis greater than three. It can be described as having a wider or flatter shape with fatter tails resulting in a greater chance of extreme positive or negative events.

It is one of three major categories found in kurtosis analysis. Its other two counterparts are mesokurtic, which has no kurtosis and is associated with the normal distribution, and platykurtic, which has thinner tails and less kurtosis.

Key Takeaways

Leptokurtotic distributions are those with excess positive kurtosis.

These have a greater likelihood of extreme events as compared to a normal distribution.

Risk-seeking investors can focus on investments whose returns follow a leptokurtic distribution, to maximize the chances of rare eventsboth positive and negative.

Understanding Leptokurtic

Leptokurtic distributions are distributions with positive kurtosis larger than that of a normal distribution. A normal distribution has a kurtosis of exactly three. Therefore, a distribution with kurtosis greater than three would be labeled a leptokurtic distribution.

In general, leptokurtic distributions have heavier tails or a higher probability of extreme outlier values when compared to mesokurtic or platykurtic distributions.

When analyzing historical returns, kurtosis can help an investor gauge an asset's level of risk. A leptokurtic distribution means that the investor can experience broader fluctuations (e.g., three or more standard deviations from the mean) resulting in greater potential for extremely low or high returns.

Kurtosis. Investopedia

Leptokurtosis and Estimated Value at Risk

Leptokurtic distributions can be involved when analyzing value at risk (VaR) probabilities. A normal distribution of VaR can provide stronger result expectations because it includes up to three kurtoses. In general, the fewer the kurtosis and the greater the confidence within each, the more reliable and safer a value at risk distribution is.

Leptokurtic distributions are known for going beyond three kurtoses. This typically decreases the confidence levels within the excess kurtosis, creating less reliability. Leptokurtic distributions can also show a higher value at risk in the left tail due to the larger amount of value under the curve in the worst-case scenarios. Overall, a greater probability for negative returns farther from the mean on the left side of the distribution leads to a higher value at risk.

Leptokurtosis, Mesokurtosis, and Platykurtosis

While leptokurtosis refers to greater outlier potential, mesokurtosis and platykurtosis describe lesser outlier potential. Mesokurtic distributions have kurtosis near 3.0, meaning that their outlier character is similar to that of the normal distribution. Platykurtic distributions have kurtosis less than 3.0, thus exhibiting less kurtosis than a normal distribution.

Investors will consider which statistical distributions are associated with different types of investments when deciding where to invest. More risk-averse investors might prefer assets and markets with platykurtic distributions because those assets are less likely to produce extreme results, while risk-seekers may seek leptokurtosis.

Example of Leptokurtosis

Let's use a hypothetical example of excess positive kurtosis. If you track the closing value of stock ABC every day for a year, you will have a record of how often the stock closed at a given value. If you build a graph with the closing values along the X-axis and the number of instances of that closing value that occurred along the Y-axis of a graph, you will create a bell-shaped curve showing the distribution of the stock's closing values. If there are a high number of occurrences for just a few closing prices, the graph will have a very slender and steep bell-shaped curve. If the closing values vary widely, the bell will have a wider shape with less steep sides. The tails of this bell will show you how often heavily deviated closing prices occurred, as graphs with lots of outliers will have thicker tails coming off each side of the bell.
What Is an Unrecaptured Section 1250 Gain?1v1 games online reddit for crypto

Unrecaptured section 1250 gain is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax provision where previously recognized depreciation is recaptured into income when a gain is realized on the sale of depreciable real estate property. Unrecaptured section 1250 gains are taxed at a maximum 25% tax rate, or less in some cases, as of 2019. Unrecaptured section 1250 gains are calculated on a worksheet within Schedule D instructions, and they are reported on the Schedule D and carried through to the taxpayer's 1040.

Key Takeaways

An unrecaptured section 1250 gain is an income tax provision designed to recapture the portion of a gain related to previously used depreciation allowances.

It is only applicable to the sale of depreciable real estate.

Unrecaptured section 1250 gains are usually taxed at a 25% maximum rate.

Section 1250 gains can be offset by 1231 capital losses.

How Unrecaptured Section 1250 Gains Work

Section 1231 assets include all depreciable capital assets held by a taxpayer for longer than one year. Section 1231 is the umbrella for assets belonging to section 1245 and section 1250, and the latter is what determines the tax rate of depreciation recapture. Section 1250 relates only to real property, such as buildings and land. Personal property, such as machinery and equipment, is subject to depreciation recapture as ordinary income under section 1245.

Unrecaptured section 1250 gains are only realized when there is a net Section 1231 gain. In essence, capital losses on all depreciable assets offset unrecaptured section 1250 gains on real estate. Therefore, a net capital loss overall reduces the unrecaptured section 1250 gain to zero.

Unrecaptured section 1250 gains can be offset by capital losses

A section 1250 gain is recaptured upon the sale of depreciated real estate, just as with any other asset; the only difference is the rate at which it is taxed. The justification for the gain is to offset the benefit of previously used depreciation allowances. While the gains attributed to accumulated depreciation are taxed at the section 1250 recapture tax rate, any remaining gains are only subject to the long-term capital gains rate of 15%.

Example of Unrecaptured Section 1250 Gains

If a property was initially purchased for $150,000, and the owner claims depreciation of $30,000, the adjusted cost basis for the property is considered to be $120,000. If the property is subsequently sold for $185,000, the owner has recognized an overall gain of $65,000 over the adjusted cost basis. Since the property has sold for more than the basis that had been adjusted for depreciation, the unrecaptured section 1250 gains are based on the difference between the adjusted cost basis and the original purchase price.

This makes the first $30,000 of the profit subject to the unrecaptured section 1250 gain, while the remaining $35,000 is taxed at the regular long-term capital gains. With that result, $30,000 would be subject to the higher capital gains tax rate of up to 25%. The remaining $35,000 would be taxed at the long-term capital gains rate of 15%.

Special Considerations

Since the unrecaptured section 1250 gains are considered a form of capital gains, they can be offset by capital losses. To do so, the capital losses must be reported through Form 8949 and Schedule D, and the value of the loss may vary depending on if it is determined to be short-term or long-term in nature. For a capital loss to offset a capital gain, they must both be determined to be short-term or long-term. A short-term loss cannot offset a long-term gain and vice versa.
US media conglomerate NBCUniversal has signed a multi-year partnership with PointsBet that will see the Australian bookmaker become the official sports betting partner of NBC Sports.

As part of the agreement, PointsBet will be provided with access to year-round, multi-platform media and marketing opportunities as it looks to grow its presence in the fast-growing US sports betting market.

Originally founded in Australia in 2015, PointsBet is now primarily focused on growing its US footprint. The sports betting operator first entered the US in early 2019. It currently operates in New Jersey, Indiana, and Iowaand has recently received a temporary operating permit in Illinois.

Under its newly penned agreement with NBC Sports, which took effect on August 27, PointsBet will be incorporated in partnership-exclusive multi-platform gameday integrationsacross NBC Sports eight Regional Networks. These deliver more than 2,200 live sports events and are the exclusive regional homes to NHL, MLB, and NBA franchises.

In addition, PointsBet has become the official partner of the NBC Sports Predictorapp which is currently home to a host of free-to-play games for football, golf, Premier League soccer, and NASCAR. The partnership will allow for the integration of PointsBets content onto the app.

Exclusive PointsBet odds integrations will be incorporated into NBC Sports fantasy and sports betting platform Rotoworld, which provides fantasy and wagering tools as well as daily insights and analyses on NFL, college football, MLB, NBA, NHL, gold, Premier League soccer, and NASCAR.

PointsBet Gets Access to Massive Audience

PointsBets partnership with NBC Sports will also allow for exclusive multi-platform integrations with the sports networks consumer golf brands Golfnowand Golfpass.

In addition, since the sports betting operator features full Spanish-language functionality, it will be able to reach Hispanic sports fans via NBC Sports Telemundo Deportesand Telemundobroadcast stations.

The Australian bookmaker will also be the exclusive provider of odds, props, and trendsfor NBCSN and Golf Channel, their digital properties, Peacock, NBCUniversals newly launched streaming service, and NBC Sports Podcasts.

Thanks to its collaboration with NBC Sports, PointsBet will gain access to a massive audience that includes 184 million viewersacross NBC Sports linear assets and more than 60 million monthly active usersof NBC Sports digital assets.

PointsBet Managing Director and Group CEO Sam Swanell said that these assets will act as the cornerstone of our marketing strategyand that combined with their in-house technology and gambling products as well as the bookmakers talented and experienced team, they will deliver outstanding client acquisition and retention efficiencyas PointsBet looks to grow rapidly over the coming five years.

NBC Sports partnership with PointsBet is the latest big collaboration between a US media giant and a sports betting operator looking to grow its presence in the local market and reach a wider customer base.

Earlier this year, William Hill announced a media partnership with CBS Sportsthat made the British bookmaker the exclusive sportsbook and wagering data provider of CBS Sports Digital.

Late last year, casino operator MGM Resorts International announced a sports betting collaboration with Yahoo Sports. The casino giant operates the BetMGM betting and gaming app in a joint venture with GVC Holdings.

In May 2019, the former Stars Group, which recently merged with Flutter Entertainment, signed a long-term commercial agreement with FOX Sportsthat paved the way for the launch of the FOX Bet sports betting app.

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Oscar should be in his cleopatra free slots 22bet sportselement, piling pom-poms, pipe cleaners, and beads into our shopping cart like Ive given him permission to do. Instead, my 5-year-old son moves around the creative reuse center seemingly disinterested. The saleslady senses his unease and gravitates toward my daughter. Two-year-old Molly gives the woman a warm smile, excitedly shows off the stickers shes picked out, and just like that, the two are fast friends. Molly and the saleslady peruse the sequins while my son grows increasingly dysregulated.

Moments later, Oscar throws a bottle of acrylic paint (capped, thankfully) and makes a beeline for the door. I scoop him up and try to calm him down before he gets hurt or someone else intervenes. With Oscar, Ive learned to expect the unexpectedand I love him for it!but this is not one of my finer moments. Hed been looking forward to this shopping trip all morning, and I wish, for his sake, he felt at ease enough to enjoy himself. Other shoppers look annoyed, so in spite of myself, I feel embarrassed and frustrated.

Whats wrong with him? I think.

For the last year or so, my husband and I have tried, and failed, to answer that question. Months of stressful evaluations yielded an alphabet soup of diagnosesoppositional defiance disorder (ODD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), sensory processing disorder (SPD), pragmatic speech disorder (PSD), pathological demand avoidance (PDA), to name just a fewbut none of these labels adequately describe our Oscar. Whatever you call it, his behavior can be so difficult to deal with at times that he requires a one-on-one aide at a school especially geared toward kids with learning challenges, developmental delays, and social and sensory sensitivities. It is costly, exhausting, and emotional to care for him, and he is very different from our daughter, who makes my job easy, who charms strangers like the woman at the refuse center all the time.

And yet I find it heartbreaking to witness how differently he is treated by the world. Oscar has many wonderful qualities, too, and it is not impossible to connect with him. But too many people, Ive observed, dont even try.

Read More:The Family Time the Pandemic Stole

Every professional weve dealt with starts by soliciting a theory of where things went awry. Oscar spent his first two nights in the NICU due to meconium aspiration syndrome, but aside from that, my pregnancy was normal and my delivery was typical. He came home from the hospital when I did and hit all his developmental milestones. Then, around 2 years old, Oscar was recommended for early intervention due to a speech delay. We missed the opportunity because Molly was born that same month. Then the pandemic happened.

When the world reopened, we sent our high-spirited 3-year-old to our local public preschool, but Oscar never fell into line, and traditional methods to control his behavior exacerbated the issues. At our first meeting with the committee on special education, his dad and I got the message that we were overly permissive. Our child needed to hear firmer no. By then, his teachers had implemented multiple behavior charts, as if Oscar were simply unmotivated, but his maladaptive and regressive behaviors only increased. Even after his diagnoses, teachers and administrators seemed to imply that Oscar could control himself if only he tried harder.

But just because Oscar sometimes engages doesnt mean hes choosing not to when he doesnt. His asynchronicity is confounding. Say hello or ask what he did at school and its as if he doesnt hear you; bring up a topic that interests him and he comes alive. Oscar can animatedly recount the plot of the chapter book were reading at bedtime or offer a detailed explanation of how red lights work (and why ambulances are allowed to pass through them), but he cant necessarily ask for a glass of water when hes thirsty.

One-on-one and when he is relaxed, Oscar is clever, funny, creative, curious, and kind, but a typical classroom with 20-something kids overwhelms him. At his public school, hed move around the room, nonverbal, ignoring adults redirection, pulling things down from the walls and pushing into other kids. By November, after other parents complained, Oscars hours had been reduced from full-time to just two per day.

Read More:Why I Stopped Posting Photos of My Kid on Social Media

Days after we got this news, we hosted Thanksgiving. Molly delighted our guests while Oscar circled the room, hid under the table, threw things at people, and chewed on his clothes. My husband and I ran interference when a family member tried to insist Oscar shut a kitchen cabinet door behind him. Another relative sternly lectured Oscar about keeping his hands to himself. My husbands defense of his special-needs son led to an argument so heated that the relative packed his bags and flew home.

By January, Oscar had been removed from his school entirely because it couldnt provide the right support services. Yet none of the public therapeutic programs that the district referred him to had space. For months, we hunkered down as a family, feeling misunderstood, isolated, and alone. I tried to homeschool my hyperactive then-4-year-old, but forcing his butt into a chair to learn was grueling, so eventually I stopped. That first snowfall, we tossed our workbooks aside and went out into the backyard. Oscar marveled at the sight of a snowflake up close under a magnifying glass, an activity that transitioned effortlessly into an enthralling conversation about climate science.

Today, Oscar is at a Waldorf school for children with special needs, a low-demand environment for children who need social-emotional learning. Its a place that drops rewards and sanctions and prioritizes co-regulation. A place where my child can be himself and access appropriate accommodations for his nervous system. A place where I know my child is safe and where I neednt be hypervigilant of other peoples judgments of my parenting.

Read More:How I Lost Myself to Motherhood

Even on a 200-acre paradise of biodynamic gardens, forests, and streams where he and just six classmates bake bread, gather eggs, climb trees, and sing songs, Oscar still struggles to manage his feelings, follow instructions, and stay with the group. One minute, hes working cooperatively, benevolently involving the younger children and patiently waiting his turn. The next, hes melting down because a fellow kindergartener cant hold a conversation about evolution or refuses to agree with the statement that one day were all going to die. Whatever the behavior, his teachers are unruffled. I try to take their empathetic lead.

Of course, even if I am understanding and his school is understanding, were continually encountering people who seem to wish he would just be normal. Strangers are often intolerant. Family and friends act confused and feel hurt that he cant obediently listen to their stories or respond graciously when given a gift. People who genuinely love him stumble awkwardly over their words when speaking of his special school. Ive been asked when, if ever, hell be cured. Even professionals who ought to know better continue to suggest he just needs discipline. We hear weve never met a kid like this again and againas if that were a bad thing.

I knew ableism was everywhere. Now I see it every day, often in the form of unhelpful and uncalled for microaggressions, like the admissions officer at the museum eying Oscar warily and suggesting we skip the indoor exhibits or the Facebook friend making a joke about tasering a sensory-seeking kid.

The hardest part, though, is not taking in what others say and do but knowing what theyre missing. Underneath his challenging behavior, my kid is awesome. The fact that he requires accommodations to get along is neither his fault nor mine. And actually, its not a fault at all. Just as snowflakes form in a wide variety of intricate shapes, no two kids are alike. Ive got two very different snowflakes, and I love them both.
MADINA WANDIFA,super reel spin it hot slot Senegal  Although still sweaty and tired after his long journey, the long-distance truck driver was upbeat as he watched workers unload hundreds of boxes of butter from his truck onto the pavement of a busy city street in southern Senegal.

The driver, Cheikh Oumar Tamba, had only one more stop to make, just two days after loading his truck with slabs of butter in the capital, Dakar. That, though, wasnt the only reason for his good mood.

This drive used to take much longer. But with the construction of a towering bridge across the Gambia River, one of the regions biggest traffic bottlenecks is now gone  a tangible example of the positive impact that much-needed infrastructure projects are having on peoples lives in West Africa.

MAURITANIA Atlantic Ocean SENEGAL Dakar Kaolack Senegambia Bridge GAMBIA Madina Wandifa GUINEA- BISSAU GUINEA 100 miles

Before the Senegambia Bridge was inaugurated three years ago, hundreds of truck drivers moving goods south from Dakar would need to line up for a ferry, sometimes waiting days to cross. Fruit would rot. Milk delivered by Mr. Tamba would go rancid. Ambulances would remain stuck in the mile-long line.

We used to have to bribe the ferry folks to cross faster, said Mr. Tamba, 45, who has been cruising West African roads for a dozen years. That bridge has made our lives much easier.

Image El Hadj Yaya Baba, a Senegalese truck driver who delivers milk, on his way back to Dakar from Madina Wandifa in the Casamance region of Senegal.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

Also, ferries would operate during daylight only, cutting the north from the south when darkness fell.

It didnt matter what kind of emergency you had at night, it was impossible to cross, said Ousman Gajigo, an economist at the Africa Development Bank who grew up in Gambia.

The ferries could be dangerous, whether crossing the Gambia or instead going by the ocean on routes that connected coastal ports in the south with Dakar. In 2002, one ferry, the Joola, capsized in the Atlantic, killing more than 1,800 people.

The lack of bridges straddling the Gambia River had also exacerbated a sense of regional divide, with residents of the southern Casamance region, Senegals food basket, blaming the government in Dakar for keeping them disconnected from the rest of the country. Earlier this year, separatist rebels in the south signed a peace deal with the government, bringing hope that a 40-year, slow-burning conflict  one of the longest in Africa  could finally end.

Image A partly finished section of road in the Casamance region, near the Gambian border.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

The ferry crossing itself is not in Senegal but in Gambia, a thin strip of a country, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to nearly 200 miles inland, that splits Senegal into northern and southern parts.

Gambias former strongman president, Yahya Jammeh, had long refused to build a bridge during his 22-year rule, using his countrys geographical position as a source of leverage against its bigger neighbor. Only after decades of political negotiations did the long-delayed construction project kick off in 2015, two years before Mr. Jammeh was forced into exile but when he was already facing intensifying pressure for change. In 2019, the presidents of Gambia and Senegal traveled across the bridge in the same car.

For a toll of about $7.50, a trip once measured in days now takes minutes.

In the southern Senegalese city of Madina Wandifa, not far from the Gambian border, Abdoul Aziz Faye was resting on the side of the road while his boss ran some errands. They had delivered medicines from Dakar to Guinea-Bissau, and were about to drive back north over the bridge.

Image Unloading the butter delivered by Cheikh Oumar Tamba to a store in Madina Wandifa, in southern Senegal.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

Home tonight, hopefully, the 25-year-old driver said about Dakar, an E.T.A. that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Its not just the truckers who have benefited.

I can leave this morning, drop passengers on the other side of Senegal, and be back by 2 p.m. to have lunch with my wife, said Samba Diop, waiting for his minibus to fill at a bus station in Kaolack, the last Senegalese hub before the northern Gambian border.

Many people in Gambia and the surrounding regions of Senegal live off the production of groundnuts, rice and vegetables, but the lack of reliable transport infrastructure that could link farms to markets had kept most of them in poverty, according to the African Development Bank, which financed the construction of the $67 million bridge.

In October last year, the Gambian authorities inaugurated a second, smaller bridge in the eastern part of the country, financed by China.

For all the progress the Senegambia Bridge has brought, the journey south is not without its bumps, both literal and metaphorical, with the peaceful river flowing through mangrove swamps and salt flats just one of the many obstacles on the road.

In Gambia, where many wait for the authorities to prosecute those accused of committing wide-ranging atrocities under Mr. Jammehs rule, there were at least five checkpoints on a 15-mile trip from border to border.

Image A minibus at the bus station in Kaolack, in northern Senegal, waiting to depart for the Casamance region.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

And after Gambia? Thats another story, said Mr. Diop, the minibus driver.

Although President Macky Sall of Senegal has conducted major infrastructure projects in the north, critics say the south has been neglected, with its terrible roads a prime example.

As soon as those traveling south cross back into Senegal from Gambia, thousands of potholes littering the road await, as if armies of moles had turned Casamance into their personal playground. The 90-mile journey from the border to Ziguinchor, the main city in the Casamance region, is an ordeal that can take half a day.

Better roads must be on Senegals agenda now, Mr. Diop said.

Despite the benefits the bridge has brought, its building has also devastated the livelihoods of those who once lived off the hundreds of idling vehicles, and their hungry, thirsty and bored passengers.

Image A road in Sedhiou, in the Casamance region.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

On a recent afternoon at the rivers edge below the bridge, Lamarana Diallo was waiting for his first client of the day. No one had yet stopped to sip on his ataya, Senegalese mint tea. A father of four, Mr. Diallo used to make around $30 on a typical day, but now he said he was lucky if he earned $1.50.

Where once there were hundreds of fellow vendors selling clothes, sweets and meals, there are now only two left.

By the rivers pier, the few shops and ticket offices have been abandoned. A dozen Gambian military personnel were stationed there, chain smoking, eating thieboudienne, Senegals national dish of fish and rice, and chatting about soccer.

The Senegambia Bridge is open 24/7, but the job protecting it is chill, said Sgt. Lamin Badjie, the structure soaring over the barracks. In the sometimes complicated relationship between Senegal and Gambia, it was a welcome new connection between the two countries, Sergeant Badjie said.

Image One of the two shops still open at the old ferry pier. The hundreds of vendors once selling clothes, sweets and meals at the ferry crossing are now gone.Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

Citing the ethnic groups he and comrades belonged to  Serer, Soninke, Mandinka, groups that also populate Senegal  Sergeant Badjie said about the bridge, It makes us more united. Were the same people.

Omar Ndaw, a 36-year-old undercover Gambian police officer, said the bridge helped him navigate more smoothly in the areas he patrols. A surge in trafficking of counterfeit diazepam, a drug used to treat anxiety and alcohol withdrawal, has kept him busy this year.

Lets just say the bridge helps everyone  me, and the community, Mr. Ndaw said before starting off in his used red Nissan.

A minute later, his car was out of sight on the bridge. He had crossed the river.

Image Not all the roads in southern Senegal are in rough shape. This stretch of a national road in the Casamance region is in prime condition. Credit...Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

Mady Camara contributed reporting.

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A French green bean salad with warm goat cheese reminds Ina Garten of having lunch in Paris.

Bake the goat cheese packages for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown.

Before serving, bake the cheese packages, combine the salad and vinaigrette, and serve.

Mixing meat and dairy is a kosher rule-breaker, so they switched the cheese for potatoes.

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MGA Games of Barcelona has expanded its portfolio of slot games that star successful music DJs in Spanish-speaking markets. The company localizes content on the global stage with region-specific games and themes for markets in Spain, Portugal, France, the Latin American region, and even Canada.

New titles in their series of Famous DJ-themed games are being simultaneously releasedtoday in different international markets.

The DJ-themed slot games such as Diego Miranda, DJ In Session, and B Jones In Sessionare bursting with rhythm and energy. The games feature themed symbols like DJ microphones, headphones, samplers, and a properly mixed crowd presence to deliver an immersive electronic music partythrough gameplay.

The right combination of bonus symbols on the screen takes players to a mini-game selector where they can choose any of the four bonus rounds offered after unlocking each of the screens. Players become the main protagonists getting to tour the worlds stagesand collecting in-game prizes.

The five-reel slots have 243 virtual paylinesleftmost to right and feature free spins with pay multipliers as well.

Diego Miranda Spins in Portugal

Among the more than 100 online casinos that carry the firms product, those with a focus on Portugal will pick up the Portuguese Celebrities game, Diego Miranda. All content including text and audio in the game has been translated for that market.

For those that are outside of the region, Diego Miranda is one of the most influential DJs in Portugal and has logged performances at some of the most important electronic music festivals around the globe.

DJ In Session Festival for Colombia

In keeping with the MGA Games strategy of fine-tuning their games for individual markets where they are released, players in Colombia will see the debut of DJ In Session, a part of the Colombian Collection series of games. Backed up with authentic electronic music at its core, audio and other phrases intrinsic to the game are delivered with Colombian idiosyncrasies for a spot-on local flavor.

B Jones In Session for the Rest of the World

Players in the rest of the world will be treated to a new release dubbed, B Jones In Session. DJ, B Jones is an international favorite at music festivals and clubs around the world and she is currently enjoying a long-running position of being in high demand. EDM fans in Canada, Dubai, Nepal, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States have already fallen under her thrall, and now online slot players almost everywhere else can surrender to her passion and talent as well.

MGA Games is one of the largest providers of online games in Spain and will release Pocholo at the Pco Disco on December 13 as part of their Spanish Celebrities series. The company, with an ever-expanding presence in Europe and Latin America, offers over 100 titles designed specifically for the iGaming market.

Source: MGA Games fills online casinos around the world with electronic music, editors in-box, November 28, 2021
What Is Customer Service?best cryptocurrency wallet in india

Customer service is the direct one-on-one interaction between a consumer making a purchase and a representative of the company that is selling it. Most retailers see this direct interaction as a critical factor in ensuring buyer satisfaction and encouraging repeat business.

Even today, when much of customer care is handled by automated self-service systems, the option to speak to a human being is seen as necessary to most businesses. It is a key aspect of servant-leadership.

Key Takeaways

Customer service is the interaction between the buyer of a product and the company that sells it.

Good customer service is critical to business success, ensuring brand loyalty one customer at a time.

Recent innovations have focused on automating customer service systems but the human element is, in some cases, indispensable.

Customer Service

Understanding Customer Service

1:13

Behind the scenes at most companies are people who never meet or greet the people who buy their products. The customer service representatives are the ones who have direct contact with the buyers. The buyers' perceptions of the company and the product are shaped in part by their experience in dealing with that person.

For this reason, many companies work hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.

The Cost of Customer Satisfaction

For decades, businesses in many industries have sought to reduce personnel costs by automating their processes to the greatest extent possible.

In customer service, that has led many companies to implement systems online and by phone that answer as many questions or resolve as many problems as they can without a human presence.

But in the end, there are customer service issues for which human interaction is indispensable, creating a competitive advantage.

Amazon is an example of a company that is doing all it can to automate a vast and complex operation. It has to, given that it delivered 4.2 billion packages to customers' doors in 2020.

Nevertheless, Amazon still offers 24-hour customer service by phone, in addition to email and live chat services.

Most successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.

Customer service should be a one-stop process for the consumer whenever possible.

Key Components of Good Customer Service

Successful small business owners understand the need for good customer service instinctively. Larger businesses study the subject in-depth, and they have some basic conclusions about the key components:

Timely attention to issues raised by customers is critical. Requiring a customer to wait in line or sit on hold sours an interaction before it begins.

Customer service should be a single-step process for the consumer. If a customer calls a helpline, the representative should whenever possible follow the problem through to its resolution.

If a customer must be transferred to another department, the original representative should follow up with the customer to ensure that the problem was solved.

$36,920

The average annual salary for a customer service representative in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Customer Services Job Requirements

Much is expected of customer service representatives. Yet the pay for the job is low. The average salary in 2021 was about $36,920, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some of the job expectations:

Customer service representatives must be accessible, knowledgeable, and courteous. They require excellent listening skills and a willingness to talk through a resolution. Training in conflict resolution can be beneficial.

Strong speaking skills are important. For phone staff, this means speaking clearly and slowly while maintaining a calm demeanor even if the customer doesn't.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected customer service representative job growth to show little or no change from 2020 to 2030.

Customer Services Employer Responsibilities

Poor management can doom any customer service operation. A couple of important tips for managers:

Make sure your customer service representatives are fully informed and have the latest information and the company's products and policies.

Periodically assess the customer service experience you are providing to ensure that it's an asset to the company.

Consider conducting regular surveys to give customers the chance to provide feedback about the service they receive and suggest areas for improvement.

Using Mobile Services Effectively

In recent years, studies of customer service have centered on creating the perfect online experience.

The first and most difficult factor is the multiplicity of channels. Today's customers expect to get service through whatever app or device they happen to be using at the moment. That may be a mobile device or a laptop, a social media site, text app, or live chat.

Once again, the focus has been on packaging how-to content and related resources that are designed for self-service. Increasingly sophisticated data analytics also are being used to identify dissatisfied or low-engagement customers.

But, as always, the most effective customer service apps need to incorporate human contact, if only as a last resort.
What Is Backwardation?planet 7 no deposit dr slot bonus

Backwardation is when the current price, or spot price, of an underlying asset is higher than prices trading in the futures market.

Key Takeaways

Backwardation is when the current price of an underlying asset is higher than prices trading in the futures market.

Backwardation can occur as a result of a higher demand for an asset currently than the contracts maturing in the coming months through the futures market.

Traders use backwardation to make a profit by selling short at the current price and buying at the lower futures price.

Backwardation

Understanding Backwardation

1:24

The slope of the curve for futures prices is important because the curve is used as a sentiment indicator. The expected price of the underlying asset is always changing, in addition to the price of the future's contract, based on fundamentals, trading positioning, and supply and demand.

The spot price is a term that describes the current market price for an asset or investment, such as a security, commodity, or a currency. The spot price is the price at which the asset can be bought or sold currently and will change throughout a day or over time due to supply and demand forces.

Should a futures contract strike price be lower than today's spot price, it means there is the expectation that the current price is too high and the expected spot price will eventually fall in the future. This situation is called backwardation.

For example, when futures contracts have lower prices than the spot price, traders will sell short the asset at its spot price and buy the futures contracts for a profit. This drives the expected spot price lower over time until it eventually converges with the futures price.

For traders and investors, lower futures prices or backwardation is a signal that the current price is too high. As a result, they expect the spot price will eventually fall as the expiration dates of the futures contracts approaches.

Backwardation is sometimes confused with an inverted futures curve. In essence, a futures market expects higher prices at longer maturities and lower prices as you move closer to the present day when you converge at the present spot price. The opposite of backwardation is contango, where the futures contract price is higher than the expected price at some future expiration.

Backwardation can occur as a result of a higher demand for an asset currently than the contracts maturing in the future through the futures market. The primary cause of backwardation in the commodities' futures market is a shortage of the commodity in the spot market. Manipulation of supply is common in the crude oil market. For example, some countries attempt to keep oil prices at high levels to boost their revenues. Traders that find themselves on the losing end of this manipulation and can incur significant losses.

Since the futures contract price is below the current spot price, investors who are net long on the commodity benefit from the increase in futures prices over time, as the futures price and spot price converge. Additionally, a futures market experiencing backwardation is beneficial to speculators and short-term traders who wish to gain from arbitrage.

However, investors can lose money from backwardation if futures prices continue to fall, and the expected spot price does not change due to market events or a recession. Also, investors trading backwardation due to a commodity shortage can see their positions change rapidly if new suppliers come online and ramp up production.

Futures Basics

Futures contracts are financial contracts that obligate a buyer to purchase an underlying asset and a seller to sell an asset at a preset date in the future. A futures price is the price of an asset's futures contract that matures and settles in the future.

For example, a December futures contract matures in December. Futures allow investors to lock in a price, by either buying or selling the underlying security or commodity. Futures have expiration dates and preset prices. These contracts allow investors to take delivery of the underlying asset at maturity, or offset the contract with a trade. The net difference between the purchase and sale prices would be cash settled.

Backwardation can be beneficial to speculators and short-term traders wishing to gain from arbitrage.

Backwardation can be used as a leading indicator signaling that spot prices will fall in the future.

Investors can lose money from backwardation if futures prices continue to move lower.

Trading backwardation due to a commodity shortage can lead to losses if new suppliers come online to boost production.

Backwardation vs. Contango

ProsCons

If prices are higher with each successive maturity date in the futures market, it's described as an upward sloping forward curve. This upward slopeknown as contangois the opposite of backwardation. Another name for this upward sloping forward curve is forwardation.

In contango, the price of the November futures contract is higher than October's, which is higher than July's and so on. Under normal market conditions, it makes sense that prices of futures contracts increase the farther the maturity date since they include investment costs such as carrying costs or storage costs for a commodity.

When futures prices are higher than current prices, there's the expectation that the spot price will rise to converge with the futures price. For example, traders will sell or short futures contracts that have higher prices in the future and purchase at the lower spot prices. The result is more demand for the commodity driving the spot price higher. Over time, the spot price and the futures price converge.

A futures market can shift between contango and backwardation and remain in either state for a short or extended period.

Backwardation Example

For example, let's say the there was a crisis in the production of West Texas Intermediate crude oil due to poor weather. As a result, the current supply of oil falls dramatically. Traders and businesses rush in and buy the oil, which pushes the spot price to $150 per barrel.

However, traders expect the weather issues to be temporary. As a result, the prices of futures contracts for the end of the year remain relatively unchanged, at $90 per barrel. The oil markets would be in backwardation.

Over the course of the next few months, the weather issues are resolved, and crude oil production and supplies get back to normal levels. Over time, the increased production pushes down spot prices to converge with the end-of-year futures contracts.
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noun, plural Dalits, (especially collectively) Dalit.Sometimes Offensive.a member of the Scheduled Castes in India, sometimes also considered to include a member of the Scheduled Tribes. a member of any of Indias oppressed peoples.

usage note for Dalit

Words nearby Dalit

How to use Dalit from Hindi, from Sanskrit dalita, literally: oppressed

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!Question DalitFirst recorded in 194550; from Hindi dalit, from Neo-Sanskrit dalita, specific use of Sanskrit dalita broken, from root dal- to break, burst, splitThe term Dalit, which has replaced untouchable, can have negative connotations: its literal meaning is oppressed; broken. The Indian courts and government instead use the terms Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. But Dalit is used in the media and has been adopted by politically active group members as a positive term of self-reference. It generally represents a sense of solidarity and identity and holds political significance for members of this community.Dali, Dalian, Daliesque, Dalila, Dali, Salvador, Dalit, Dalkon Shield, Dallapiccola, Dallas, dalles, dallianceDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,  Random House, Inc. 2022Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
What Is a Golden Cross?rainbow riches mobile slots

A golden cross is a chart pattern in which a relatively short-term moving average crosses above a long-term moving average. The golden cross is a bullish breakout pattern formed from a crossover involving a security's short-term moving average (such as the 15-day moving average) breaking above its long-term moving average (such as the 50-day moving average) or resistance level. As long-term indicators carry more weight, the golden cross indicates a bull market on the horizon and is reinforced by high trading volumes.

Key Takeaways

A golden cross is a technical chart pattern indicating the potential for a major rally.

The golden cross appears on a chart when a stocks short-term moving average crosses above its long-term moving average.

The golden cross can be contrasted with a death cross indicating a bearish price movement.

TradingView.

What's a Golden Cross?

What Does a Golden Cross Tell You?

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There are three stages to a golden cross. The first stage requires that a downtrend eventually bottoms out as selling is depleted. In the second stage, the shorter moving average forms a crossover up through the larger moving average to trigger a breakout and confirmation of trend reversal. The last stage is the continuing uptrend for the follow through to higher prices. The moving averages act as support levels on pullbacks until they crossover back down at which point a death cross may form. The death cross is the opposite of the golden cross as the shorter moving average forms a crossover down through the longer moving average.

The most commonly used moving averages are the 50-period and the 200-period moving average. The period represents a specific time increment. Generally, larger time periods tend to form stronger lasting breakouts. For example, the daily 50-day moving average crossover up through the 200-day moving average on an index like the S&P 500 is one of the most popular bullish market signals. With a bellwether index, the motto "A rising tide lifts all boats" applies when a golden cross forms as the buying resonates throughout the index components and sectors.

Day traders commonly use smaller time periods like the 5-period and 15-period moving averages to trade intra-day golden cross breakouts. The time interval of the charts can also be adjusted from 1 minute to weeks or months. Just as larger periods make for stronger signals, the same applies to chart time periods as well. The larger the chart time frame, the stronger and lasting the golden cross breakout tends to be.

Example of a Golden Cross

As a hypothetical example, a monthly 50-period and 200-period moving average golden cross are significantly stronger and longer-lasting than the same 50, 200-period moving average crossover on a 15-minute chart. Golden cross breakout signals can be utilized with various momentum oscillators like stochastic, moving average convergence divergence (MACD), and relative strength index (RSI) to track when the uptrend is overbought and oversold. This helps to spot ideal entries and exits.

The Difference Between a Golden Cross and a Death Cross

A golden cross and a death cross are exact opposites. A golden cross indicates a long-term bull market going forward, while a death cross signals a long-term bear market. Both refer to the solid confirmation of a long-term trend by the occurrence of a short-term moving average crossing over a major long-term moving average.

The golden cross occurs when a short-term moving average crosses over a major long-term moving average to the upside and is interpreted by analysts and traders as signaling a definitive upward turn in a market. Conversely, a similar downside moving average crossover constitutes the death cross and is understood to signal a decisive downturn in a market. Either crossover is considered more significant when accompanied by high trading volume.

Once the crossover occurs, the long-term moving average is considered a major support level (in the case of the golden cross) or resistance level (in the instance of the death cross) for the market from that point forward. Either cross may occur as a signal of a trend change, but they more frequently occur as a strong confirmation of a change in trend that has already taken place.

Limitations of Using the Golden Cross

All indicators are lagging, and no indicator can truly predict the future. Many times, an observed golden cross produces a false signal. Despite its apparent predictive power in forecasting prior large bull markets, golden crosses also do regularly fail to manifest. Therefore, a golden cross should always be confirmed with other signals and indicators before putting on a trade.

The key to using the golden cross correctlywith additional filters and indicatorsis to always use proper risk parameters and ratios. Remembering to always keep to a favorable risk-to-reward ratio and to time your trade properly can lead to better results than just following the cross blindly.

How Do I Identify a Golden Cross on a Chart?

The golden cross occurs when a short-term moving average crosses over a major long-term moving average to the upside and is interpreted by analysts and traders as signaling a definitive upward turn in a market. Some analysts define it as a crossover of the 100-day moving average by the 50-day moving average; others define it as the crossover of the 200-day average by the 50-day average. Basically, the short-term average trends up faster than the long-term average, until they cross.

What Does a Golden Cross Indicate?

A golden cross suggests a long-term bull market going forward. It is the opposite of a death cross, which is a bearing indicator when a long-term moving average crosses under a short-term MA.

Are Golden Crosses Reliable Indicators?

As a lagging indicator, a golden cross is identified only after the market has risen, which makes it seem reliable. However, as a result of the lag, it is also difficult to know when the signal is a false one until after the fact. Traders often use a golden cross as confirmation of a trend or signal in combination with other indicators.
Literally is a word that is thrown around quite loosely these days. You will often hear it dropped into casual conversation to describe circumstances or events that cannot by any means be meant literally. So in order to keep our writing precise and accurate, today I want to go over the differences between literally and figuratively.

After reading todays post, you should have all of the information you need to make sure people are using these two words correctly in their writing and in their speech.

When to Use Literally

Literally is an adjective that means actually, without exaggeration. In best usage, it should only be used when you are speaking about something in an exact sense. For example,

I made a literal translation of this essay.

I told him to go jump off a cliff; I hope he didnt take me literally.

Despite meaning exact, without exaggeration, metaphor, or allegory, literally has been used to varying degrees of inexactness since the early 19th century.

Today, many people use it as an intensifier, although its intensive use often has nothing to do with what is literal. For example,

They were literally thrown to the wolves.

Unless the people in this sentence were actually being thrown to a pack of wolves, the sentence should be rewritten. Here are a few more common examples,

If someone were on a hot streak on the basketball court, he might say,

I was literally on fire.

Or if someone tells a funny joke at the office, he might say,

I was laughing so hard that I literally almost died.

This is a phenomenon that is quite common in peoples speech, but in formal writingsuch as school papers, news articles, and professional journalsit is not accepted.

When to Use Figuratively

Figuratively is also an adjective, but its meaning is quite different from literally. Figuratively is defined as based on or making use of figures of speech; metaphorical. So while literallymeans free from any metaphor or allegory, figurative deals specifically with these kinds of figures of speech. For example,

She broke the figurative ceiling that was holding her back.

I could figuratively eat an entire cow right now.

As you can see, figuratively means in an analogous sense, not an exact one. In fact, some dictionaries even define figuratively as departing from a literal use of words, so these two words could not be any more different in their meanings.

Remember the Difference

A good way to remember the difference between these two words is to look at the word figuratively. It has the word figure in it and using figurative language is using language with figures of speech, like metaphors and analogies.

Summary

If youre going to maintain precision in your writing, it is absolutely essential that you keep these two words separated and make sure to use them only when appropriate.

Literally means word for word and means in an exact sense. It should not be used loosely as an intensifier.

Figuratively has the exact opposite meaning of literally and means in an analogous, but not exact, sense.
Davy [ dey-vee ]/ de vi / New Word List Save This ojo bingoWord! [ dey-vee ]/ de vi /Save ThisWord!

nounSir Humphry, 17781829, English chemist.

Words nearby Davy

How to use Davy Davy/ (dev) / nounSir Humphry. 17781829, English chemist who isolated sodium, magnesium, chlorine, and other elements and suggested the electrical nature of chemical combination. He invented the Davy lampSee Davy lamp Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Scientific definitions for Davy Davy[ dave ]Sir Humphry 1778-1829 British chemist who was a pioneer of electrochemistry. By means of electrolysis Davy isolated several elements, including sodium and potassium (1807), and barium, boron, calcium, and magnesium (1808). He also proved that diamonds are a form of carbon. The American Heritage Science Dictionary Copyright  2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!QuestionDavisson-Germer experiment, Davis Strait, davit, Davos, Davout, Davy, Davy Jones, Davy Jones's locker, Davy lamp, Davys, dawDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,  Random House, Inc. 2022
daygirl / (del) / New Word List Save This play pokies for funWord! / (del) /Save ThisWord!

nounBritish a girl who attends a boarding school daily, but returns home each evening

Words nearby daygirl

QUIZWILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!Questionday coach, day cruiser, daydream, dayflower, dayfly, daygirl, Day-Glo, dayglow, dayhop, day hospital, day in courtCollins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986  HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Academic institutions can grant all three of these awards, but each award refers to a slightly different thing.

Is it best to say diploma or degree? What about diploma or certificate? Well, that depends.

In this post, I want to discuss the differences between these three awards and how to use them in your writing. After reading this post, you shouldnt mix up the words certificate vs. diploma vs. degree again.

When to Use Certificate

A certificate generally refers to two types of documents. The first has an academic sense; the second has a governmental/legal sense.

In the first sense, a certificateis a document issued to a person completing a course of study notleading to a diploma. In this sense, you may be getting a certificate for completing an individual course or receiving a certificate of completion for a certification program.

Certification programs are typically specialized in a single skill set or industry area. For example, plumbers, welders, electricians, HVAC specialists, etc., usually go through certification programs. These programs are very specialized to a particular field and have very little if any academic coursework.

Instead, they focus on practical training and troubleshooting. Many certification programs require an apprenticeship program for completion.

The second senseof certificateis a legal document that states that you can officially practice in certain professions. For example, a certification in cosmetology will allow you to officially work as a hairdresser.

When to Use Diploma

A diploma is similar to a certification but is usually more in depth. Many schools offer diploma programs in nursing, for instance, which is generally a two-year program of course work and on the job training.

Diploma programs, which are usually offered by community colleges and technical schools, offer people efficient ways to change careers, as the programs are more focused than a degree program but more in depth than a certification.

High School Diploma or High School Degree?

Secondary schools, i.e., high schools, award diplomas, not degrees. It is a somewhat common hyperbole to overstate the achievement of a high school diploma and conflate it with a college degree. For example,

Arroyo has a chance for a happy ending, if not the high-school degree he fell three credits short of earning.  USA Today

 should read 

Arroyo has a chance for a happy ending, if not the high-school diploma he fell three credits short of earning.

When to Use Degree

Colleges and universities award degrees to successful candidates. There are four primary degrees awarded by institutions of higher learning.

Associates Degrees

An associates degree is two-year degree most commonly granted by a community college or technical school. They can, however, also be granted by four-year colleges and universities.

Bachelors Degree

A bachelors degree is a four-year degree that is granted by a college or university. Most schools that grant bachelors degrees require a specific course load and a minimum number of credits to graduate.

Masters Degree

A masters degree is what is called a post-graduate degreebecause you go on to get one only after you have graduated with your bachelors.

Masters degree programs are typically an additional two years on top of your bachelors and usually require some level of student teaching, conducting research, and a thesis paper to be written.

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

A Ph.D. is another example or a post-graduate degree, and is several more years of study and intensive research. Ph.D. programs vary in length, but they are generally four or more years.

High School Degree or High School Diploma?

What is the difference between degree vs. diploma in a high school setting?

As I mentioned above, the proper term for the award granted after the graduation of high school is diploma.

A degreeis earned upon the graduation of college. A diplomais earned after the graduation of high school.

Summary

All three of these awards, certificates, diplomas, and degrees all show a level of achievement, oftentimes academic achievement. They do, however, have different meanings.

Here are the main differences between degree vs. diploma vs. certificate summarized,

Certificationsare specialized and industry specific.

Diplomasare specialized but more in depth than certifications. Diplomas are also what you receive upon graduating high school.

Degreesare awarded by colleges and universities.
What Is a Morning Star?week 9 odds online 21 real money

A morning star is a visual pattern consisting of three candlesticks that are interpreted as bullish signs by technical analysts. A morning star forms following a downward trend and it indicates the start of an upward climb. It is a sign of a reversal in the previous price trend. Traders watch for the formation of a morning star and then seek confirmation that a reversal is indeed occurring using additional indicators.

Key Takeaways

A morning star is a visual pattern made up of a tall black candlestick, a smaller black or white candlestick with a short body and long wicks, and a third tall white candlestick.

The middle candle of the morning star captures a moment of market indecision where the bears begin to give way to bulls. The third candle confirms the reversal and can mark a new uptrend.

The opposite pattern to a morning star is the evening star, which signals a reversal of an uptrend into a downtrend.

Bullish Candlestick Patterns Examples

What Does a Morning Star Tell You?

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A morning star is a visual pattern, so there are no particular calculations to perform. A morning star is a three-candle pattern with the low point on the second candle. However, the low point is only apparent after the close of the third candle.

A morning star is a three-candle pattern with the low point on the second candle. However, the low point is only apparent after the close of the third candle.

Other technical indicators can help predict if a morning star is forming, such as whether the price action is nearing a support zone or whether or not the relative strength indicator (RSI) is showing that the stock or commodity is oversold.

Here is what a morning star pattern looks like:

Image by Sabrina Jiang  Investopedia 2020

The chart above has been rendered in black and white, but red and green have become more common visualizations for candlesticks. The important thing to note about the morning star is that the middle candle can be black or white (or red or green) as the buyers and sellers start to balance out over the session.

An Example of How to Trade a Morning Star

Morning star patterns can be used as a visual sign for the start of a trend reversal from bearish to bullish, but they become more important when other technical indicators back them up as previously mentioned. Another important factor is the volume that is contributing to the pattern formation.

Generally, a trader wants to see volume increasing throughout the three sessions making up the pattern, with the third day seeing the most volume. High volume on the third day is often seen as a confirmation of the pattern (and a subsequent uptrend) regardless of other indicators. A trader will take up a bullish position in the stock/commodity/pair/etc. as the morning star forms in the third session and rides the uptrend until there are indications of another reversal.

The Difference Between a Morning Star and a Doji Morning Star

The morning star pattern comes in a minor variation. When the price action is essentially flat in the middle candlestick, it forms a doji. This is a small candlestick with no significant wicksnot unlike a + sign. The doji morning star shows the market indecision more clearly than a morning star with a thicker middle candle.

The appearance of a doji following a black candle will generally see a more aggressive volume spike and a correspondingly longer white candle due to more traders being able to clearly identify a morning star-forming.

The Difference Between a Morning Star and an Evening Star

The opposite of a morning star is, of course, an evening star. The evening star is a long white candle followed by a short black or white one and then a long black one that goes down at least half the length of the white candle in the first session. The evening star signals a reversal of an uptrend with the bulls giving way to the bears.

Limitations of Using the Morning Star Pattern

Trading purely on visual patterns can be a risky proposition. A morning star is best when it is backed up by volume and some other indicator like a support level. Otherwise, it is very easy to see morning stars forming whenever a small candle pops up in a downtrend.
John Kerry VCG

US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry recently urged China to restart climate change talks with the US,saying that Beijing's cooperation is needed. After China announced the halt of negotiations with Washington on climate issues as a response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's provocative visit to the island of Taiwan, Kerry has repeatedly shown the intention to resume climate talks with China at international occasions. Compared with his previous statements, the US climate envoy softened his tone a lot this time. He affirmed China's achievements in the reduction of carbon emissions and energy transition, while stating his desire to cooperate with China. These parts of Kerry's statement are relatively objective.All of his statements, including the latest one, have called for China's return to climate change talks. However, they have intentionally or unintentionally skirted around the fundamental question of why China suspended those negotiations. Beijing has always actively participated in global governance on climate change, including, of course, cooperation with Washington. It is the US side that has ruined the atmosphere for cooperation between the two countries. Even so, China is only "suspending," not "canceling" the talks, and the key to resuming them is in the hands of the Americans. Any cooperation between China and the US cannot be separated from the general environment of their bilateral relations. Washington should seriously reflect on and correct its wrong behaviors. This is the basic condition for restarting cooperation and the minimum respect for the law of cause and effect.In other words, it seems selfish and hypocritical when the US continues to launch initiatives to suppress and contain China, to undermine and provoke China's interests, while asking for cooperation in some areas. And it is impossible for us not to raise our alarm and doubts about the true intentions of Washington's "cooperation." Some analysts have pointed out that the US is eager to resume climate change talks with China due to the upcoming midterm elections. The problem is that Beijing is not obliged to cooperate with Washington, or to revolve around US domestic issues.The US now loves to make an issue of China in all areas. But it's unqualified to do so. When it comes to dealing with climate change, Washington should first ask itself: Which of its own promises have been fulfilled regarding issues like emission reduction, financial support and technical assistance?On the same day that Kerry made his remarks, it was reported by US media that according to a poll, nearly two-thirds of the respondents believed that the federal government is not doing enough to fight climate change, and nearly half believed that the Inflation Reduction Act, which the US government is proud of, won't make much of a difference on climate change. The results of this survey are consistent with the outside world's impression of the US.To restart China-US climate change talks, the US needs to show its sincerity, and the foundation of sincerity is credibility. People still remember when Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of the US at the UN headquarters in 2016 with his granddaughter by his side. Later, everyone saw that such a promise could be easily overturned after the change of government. This is the current reality of US politics. Who can guarantee that the US will not sway on the climate change issue in the future, or politicize and weaponize it? To dispel these doubts and rebuild credibility, the US needs to do much more. Any commitments delivered via megaphone internationally can only be formalistic empty words if there is no action taken internally.Unlike the US, China has always been genuine in words and resolute in deeds. Over the past 10 years, China has been one of the countries with the most outstanding achievements in addressing global environmental issues. Its contribution to energy conservation, energy efficiency improvement, renewable energy development, transportation, construction and other fields has basically accounted for 30 percent to 50 percent of the global total. The time China promised to bring carbon emissions to a peak and achieve carbon neutrality is also much shorter than that of developed countries. All of this is not the result of US' "pressing," but rather China's active pursuit and action. One of the characteristics of Chinese modernization is "the harmonious coexistence of man and nature." And one of the goals of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is to build a "clean and beautiful world."In fact, China has always taken a constructive and open-minded attitude toward China-US dialogue and cooperation. It is the US side that is constantly creating obstacles and sabotaging relevant cooperation. Kerry may be sincere in his desire to resume China-US cooperation in the field of climate change, but he should probably first persuade US government to remove the roadblocks, for instance, lifting sanctions on Xinjiang's photovoltaic industry and ceasing the unreasonable crackdown on China in the field of chips. The US hasn't benefited from relevant measures, but they have hindered the global development of clean energy. In addition, it's also time for Washington to honor its pledge to fund the Green Climate Fund.Compared with the Trump administration's rudeness and recklessness on climate change, Kerry's attitude is good. But actions speak louder than words. The world is waiting for the US, the country with the largest cumulative CO2 emissions in the world, to take more action to benefit international cooperation in a responsible manner and fully honor its commitments.
These two words cause quite a bit of headache in the heads of writers because they are so often unsure when to use which one. Is there a difference in their use? Or can they be used interchangeably? Not many writers or communications professionals can give you a straight answer.

In todays post, however, I want to answer these questions about between vs. among to make sure that you never confuse these two words again. I will cover their definitions, their functions in a sentence, and provide you with a number of examples using each. Then, at the end, you can test yourself to see if you fully understand.

Lets get started.

The Traditional Rule

The traditional rule regarding these two words states that betweenintroduces two items while amongintroduces more than two items.

The race is now between Jenny and Jill.

The funds were divided among Steve, Carter, and Smitty.

This rule likely stems from each words respective etymology. The tween in betweencomes from same Indo-European roots that gave us two, twain, and duo. Similarly, mong comes from an Old English word that means crowd or throng.

As such, the rule covers most of the questions surrounding these words, but it doesnt give the complete picture, and the difference between these words isnt always quite so clear-cut.

When to Use Between

The Chicago Manual of Styledescribes betweenas indicating one-to-one relationships. In other words, we use betweenwhen talking about a relationship of a person or thing with regard to other people or things separately and distinctly.

Can we keep this between you and me?

You can use betweenfor more than two objects if this same one-to-one relationship between distinct units is understood from the context. For example,

There is now more interstate trade between Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

A new trade agreement was reached between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

I cant decide between the pink, blue, or red shirt.

Between can also be used to refer to more than two things when items are considered one pair at a time.

Discussions are under way between the corporate board and the Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas economic planning committees.

In this example, the board is considered one entity, and each state committee is interacting with the board individually. So, although four groups are being discussed, they are really three distinct pairs interacting with each other. If we reorganize the sentence, you can see this more clearly.

Discussions are under way between the corporate board and Texas, between the corporate board and Oklahoma, and between the corporate board and Kansas.

The bottom line is you can use betweenwhen talking about distinct, individual items that have a one-to-one relationshipeven if there are more than two.

When to Use Among

Among is used to refer to undefined or collective relationshipsthings that are not distinct or individual.

Keeping peace among neighboring regions is an imperative.

There was a consensus among union members not to raise dues.

Tech giants are at war among themselves for market share.

There were many good athletes among those still left in the fifth round.

As you can see, amongis used for undefined or unspecified relationships, oftentimes between groups. These are neither discrete nor specified individuals.

Differences in Location

Betweenand amongalso have different meanings when it comes to indicating direction. Consider the following examples,

Your keys fell among the books.

Your keys fell between the books.

These two sentences communicate very different ideas.

The first expresses the idea that your keys fell among a pile of books and somewhere in the midst of them you will find your keys.

The second seems to indicate that your keys fell in between two books and that in the middle of them you will find you keys.

Between and Among as Prepositions

Being that both betweenand amongare prepositions, you must ensure that any pronouns that follow either of them be in the objective case.

Between her and him (Correct)

Between she and he (Wrong)

Between you and me (Correct)

Between you and I (Wrong)

Remember the Difference

As I said above, the traditional rule will get you by in most cases and its easy enough to remember.

Between is for two items. You can remember this because between and two both have tw in them. Also B is the second (2) letter of the alphabet.

Among is for a lot of items and both start with an A.

A slightly more nuanced, and perhaps updated, view is that betweenis for any one-to-one relationship between discrete and separate things. Among is for undefined, collective uses, oftentimes with groups.

Summary

The debate over among vs. between is a little more complicated than the traditional rule leads you to believe.

Betweenis used for one-to-one relationships between discrete things.

Amongis used for undefined or collective relationships between things.
Manx Care urges people to consider Storm Agnes when making plans for today

Manx Care is advising the public to consider the forecasted weather when making plans for today (September 27).

This is due to the yellow weather warning in place, with the possibility of escalation to Amber; which indicates an increased likelihood of disruptions, including travel delays, road closures, power cuts, and potential damage to property.

It said: We would like to inform you that, at present, Manx Care services are intended to operate as usual. However, given the forecast, we urge everyone to exercise the utmost caution and take great care.

Please consider whether attending the Emergency Department is necessary at this time, or whether waiting until conditions are safer to get the support you need is feasible. However, anyone who requires urgent or emergency treatment at the Emergency Department will receive it, and you should continue to seek treatment there as required.
Council congratulates Cathedral

Douglas City Council has offered official congratulations to St Marys of the Isle Catholic Church in the capital after it was granted Cathedral status.

The honour, bestowed by Pope Francis, follows Douglas being named a City as part of last years Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

The head of the Catholic Church in the Island, Monsignor John Devine, who is also the current Mayors Chaplain, said the accolade would honour and acknowledge the unique history of the Manx church as a "significant part of our Archdiocese".

The Worshipful the Mayor, Councillor Mrs Byron-Teare JP, said: "The news that St Marys Church has been granted the status of a Cathedral is wonderful news and a real honour, not just for the Church community but also Douglas and the wider Island.

"We were delighted to hold our annual Civic Service at St Marys on Sunday. It is most fitting that the city of Douglas will now have a Cathedral and we understand an official occasion will mark this milestone in due course."

Built in 1859 and located in Hill Street in Douglas, the Church will soon become "co-cathedral" to Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, making the churches the first in the British Isles to share the same Archbishop.

The status comes about when both dioceses are merged or when a single diocese spans two distinct civil jurisdictions.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has voted to officially end its strike, almost five months since it stopped work and demanded a better contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Writers can officially go back to work after 12:01 AM PT on September 27, even though the organization has yet to hold the final ratification vote. WGA's decision comes shortly after it held a series of negotiation sessions with producers and reached a tentative agreement, with one of the key sticking points being the use of generative AI.

Now, the WGA has released a summary of the terms of its new contract, and it prominently features protections against the use of generative AI in the writing process. For starters, generative AI can't be used to write or rewrite literary material, and anything it produces cannot be considered source material. Writers can choose to use AI if the company or studio consents to it, but studios can't force writers to use AI software like ChatGPT. If a studio already has materials to hand over to a writer, they have to disclose if those materials include anything generated by AI. Finally, the "exploitation of writers' material to train AI" is prohibited under the new agreement.

In addition to AI-related protections, writers are also getting higher pay, increased pension and health contributions, as well as higher payment and residuals for streaming projects. Foreign streaming residuals will be based on the number of subscribers for services available globally, while some domestic projects' residuals will be based on hours streamed by subscribers in the US. The new contract will be valid for three years until May 1, 2026.

While the WGA strike has now ended, SAG-AFTRA's is still ongoing. The group even voted in favor of a strike authorization for performers working in video games recently to give it added leverage in its negotiations with video game producers.
The first of thousands of residents who lost their homes in the wildfire that destroyed the Hawaii town of Lahaina returned to their devastated properties Monday, with some stopping for a moment of reflection and others searching for mementos among the ruins.
A timeline of events focusing on federal authorities pursuit of alleged Biden family corruption. This resource will be updated as warranted.

Summary

(Click links just below to jump to desired section.)

Nov. 2018-June 2020 : Hunter Biden Probe Begins; President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information; Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins

: Hunter Biden Probe Begins; President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information; Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins June 2020-Dec. 2021 : Evidence of Influence-Peddling With Nexus to Joe Biden Grows; Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies

: Evidence of Influence-Peddling With Nexus to Joe Biden Grows; Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies Jan. 2022-Jan. 2023 : Prosecution Sought and Denied; IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by What They Characterize as U.S. Attorney David Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority

: Prosecution Sought and Denied; IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by What They Characterize as U.S. Attorney David Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority Feb. 2023-May 2023 : Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head; IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill; Plea Deal Develops

: Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head; IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill; Plea Deal Develops June 2023 : FBI Stonewalls Congress Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes; Trump Indictments Grow; Plea Deal Emerges; Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With Attorney General Merrick Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority

: FBI Stonewalls Congress Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes; Trump Indictments Grow; Plea Deal Emerges; Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With Attorney General Merrick Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority July 2023 : Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released; Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly; Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court

: Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released; Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly; Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court Aug. 2023-Present: Another Trump Indictment; Weiss Gets Special Counsel Authority He Wasnt Supposed To Need; Biden Impeachment Inquiry Opens; Hunter Hit With Gun Indictment

Timeline in Detail

Nov. 2018-June 2020:

Hunter Biden Probe Begins;

President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information;

Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins

Nov. 2018: The Internal Revenue Services Washington D.C. office opens investigation into Hunter Biden, code name Sportsman, as an offshoot of a probe into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.

According to IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, the case agent who will later turn whistleblower, evidence will emerge Biden paid prostitutes to cross state lines  potential Mann Act violations. It is not clear whether the Justice Department pursues.

Jan. 2019: According to Special Agent Ziegler, the Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office and FBI open a separate Hunter Biden investigation.

March/April 2019: Ziegler develops criminal charging material approved by IRS superiors and sent to Justice Departments tax division for review. The two entities will work jointly on the case, as is customary. The Washington, D.C. and Delaware investigations will be merged.

April 25, 2019: Joe Biden announces his candidacy for president.

Aug. 15, 2019: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) commences what will become a multi-year investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Bidens brother James and their financial connections to foreign governments and questionable foreign nationals.

Sept. 24, 2019: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) opens impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump alleging Trump withheld Ukrainian aid to pressure officials to investigate the activities of Hunter and Joe Biden vis-a-vis the firing of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. In 2016, Biden leveraged $1 billion in U.S. aid to force Shokins firing. Shokin had been investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden had sat. Prosecutors will scrutinize Hunter over alleged tax crimes stemming from the hundreds of thousands of dollars Burisma paid him annually.

Oct. 2019: FBI learns that a Delaware computer repair shop obtained Hunter Bidens abandoned laptop, and the following month verifies its authenticity.

Dec. 2019: FBI takes possession of the laptop and notifies IRS it likely contained evidence of tax crimes, according to IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley. Shapley, Zieglers colleague, will lead his investigatory team and also turn whistleblower.

Dec. 8, 2019: In an interview, Joe Biden says I dont know what he was doing regarding Hunter Bidens Burisma work.

Dec. 18, 2019: House votes to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Jan. 27, 2020: Email evidence indicates that Hunter Biden has meeting with impeachment lawyers in Trump-Ukraine proceedings.

Feb. 5, 2020: Senate acquits Trump on a party-line vote, concluding first impeachment.

March 6-April 1, 2020: Shapleys team prepares physical search warrants in Hunter Biden case. Having established probable cause for the warrants, IRS plans to conduct about 15 contemporaneous interviews. Shapley claims career DOJ officials halt IRS actions.

April 8, 2020: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) drops out of Democrat presidential primary, making Joe Biden the presumptive nominee.

June 16, 2020: Shapley tells IRS superiors DOJ Tax has made a concerted effort to drag their feet concerning conducting search warrants and interviewing key witnesses in an effort to push those actions to a timeframe where they can invoke the Department of Justice rule of thumb concerning [ceasing activities] affecting elections. Shapley alleges superiors took no action.

June 2020-Dec. 2021:

Evidence of Influence-Peddling with Nexus to Joe Biden Grows;

Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies

June 30, 2020: FBI informant tells handler that Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky told him he had been coerced into paying Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million apiece in exchange for help getting Shokin fired. This is memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 form. Shapleys team will not see the document until years later, after being thrown off the case.

Aug.-Sept. 2020: IRS agents obtain WhatsApp messages between an executive from Chinese energy company CEFC and Hunter Biden from summer 2017, in which Biden says, I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled, regarding a deal with the company. Biden threatens that should the deal not be resolved with the Chinese government-connected companys executives  I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows  you will regret not following my direction.

Investigators believe Biden was staying at the familys Delaware beach guest house at this time. They seek location data for messages to corroborate in part whether Joe was with Hunter.

Sept. 3, 2020: Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf shoots down plan to nail down the Bidens location during the China call. According to Shapley, Wolf says while a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house  there is no way we will get that approved. Wolf cites optics as a driving factor in the decision.

Shapley also recalls prosecutors did not want investigators reviewing CEFC communications, irrespective of any potential national security implications.

Wolf also indicates that a search warrant for emails from Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-tied firm that lobbied for Burisma, in Shapleys words, would likely not get approved. The agent adds, This was a significant blow to the Foreign Agents Registration Act piece of the investigation  that is, whether Hunter Biden lobbied for foreign individuals and entities as an unregistered foreign agent, a felony.

Sept. 4, 2020: Justice Department issues cease and desist of investigative activities in Hunter Biden case in run-up to the presidential election.

Sept. 23, 2020: Sen. Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) release report revealing millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden and his associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of Moscow and individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Oct. 14, 2020: New York Post breaks the story of the abandoned Hunter Biden laptop. Among the papers revelations: Hunter introduced then-Vice President Biden to a top Burisma executive in April 2015, months before the vice president would help get Shokin fired. This is at odds with the Democrat presidential nominees claim he had never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. Twitter and Facebook suppress the story.

Oct. 19, 2020: Politico publishes letter signed by 51 prominent intelligence community officials indicating the New York Posts story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.

Oct. 20, 2020: Investigators seek to do a walk by to confirm the location of and security around Hunter Bidens California residence in preparation for an interview. DOJ Tax objects.

Oct. 22, 2020: Shapley raises concern to prosecutors that his team has not been granted access to Hunter Bidens laptop. Assistant U.S. Attorney Wolf confirms prosecutors kept it from investigators, which Shapley calls unprecedented.

Wolf also indicates prosecutors would not permit a physical search warrant on Hunter Biden.

During the final presidential debate that evening, Biden rebuts claims about his familys business dealings, citing the intelligence community letter. Biden also says, My son has not made money, in terms of this thing about  China  The only guy that made money from China is this guy [Trump]  nobody else has made money from China. Biden also states unequivocally, I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.

Oct. 23, 2020: Justice Department and FBI Special Agents from the Pittsburgh field office brief Wolf, among others, on contents of FD-1023 alleged Burisma-Biden bribes. Its later learned that the Pittsburgh office believed that the allegations seemed credible, was partially corroborated, and merited investigation.

Nov. 3-Nov. 7, 2020: The 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden wins and elected as the 46th U.S. president.

Nov. 9, 2020: Sen. Grassley sends letter to then-Attorney General William Barr calling on Justice Department to review evidence that Hunter Biden and James Biden may have violated the Foreign Agent Registrations Act based on their dealings with CEFC.

Nov. 18, 2020: Sens. Grassley and Johnson release a supplement to their report on potential conflicts of interest stemming from the Biden familys foreign business, including additional CEFC findings.

Dec. 3, 2020: Investigators prepare for a Dec. 8 day of action, to consist of document requests and some 12 interviews, including of Hunter Biden. As investigators meet with prosecution team at Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office, Lesley Wolf allegedly indicates she does not want them asking questions of subjects pertaining to Joe Biden.

Dec. 7, 2020: Investigators plan to notify Hunter Biden and his Secret Service protection on the morning of Dec. 8 that he will be approached that day for an interview as part of an official investigation.

Deviating from the plan, FBI headquarters notifies Secret Service headquarters and President-elect Bidens transition team of coming interview, in Shapleys words essentially tipp[ing] off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden, and giving this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses.

Dec. 8, 2020: Hunter Bidens attorneys call Shapley and his FBI counterpart, indicating Hunter will not participate in an interview. Investigators secure only one substantive interview on day of action, from Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker. During that interview, skirting Wolfs instructions, investigators briefly pursue a line of questioning wherein Walker discusses Joes involvement in Hunters business.

Dec. 9, 2020: News of Hunter probe becomes public, with reporting suggesting investigation extends beyond Hunters taxes to potential money laundering and financial ties to foreign figures and businesses. Hunter releases a statement: I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.

Dec. 10-14, 2020: From the day of action, investigators find that documents concerning one of Hunters business entities, Owasco, were archived in a northern Virginia storage unit. Investigators prepare to search it. Wolf, according to Shapley, tips off Hunters defense counsel to the planned search, possibly thwarting a potential investigative coup.

Feb. 5, 2021: President Biden-appointed assistant attorneys general call for and receive a briefing from the Delaware U.S. Attorney's on the Hunter Biden criminal investigation.

March 2, 2021: In a Shapley-convened briefing, investigators mention possibility of blowing whistle on the Justice Departments handling of the case.

May 3, 2021: In memo to superiors, Shapley indicates probe has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling. Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations ... Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation.

Aug. 18, 2021-Oct. 21, 2021: Wolf suggests DOJ Tax will not approve another set of desired interviews. According to Shapley, Wolf indicates that the investigative team would get into hot water specifically if it pursued planned interviews of the presidents grandchildren over charges made with Hunter Bidens credit card possibly by his kids.

Sept. 7, 2021: Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), then ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, begins probe into sales of Hunter Bidens paintings after he turns to art as a career. The sales raise ethical and national security concerns, in the view of House Republicans, given the lack of clarity about who the buyers are. The parties pursued will largely ignore requests while Republicans are in minority. The White House waves off ethics concerns.

Oct. 13, 2021: Hunter Bidens friend Kevin Morris loans him $1.4 million to settle outstanding taxes. Subsequent reporting suggests that all told, Morris will pay off well over $2 million in delinquent taxes on behalf of the presidents son.

Jan. 2022-Jan. 2023:

Prosecution Sought and Denied;

IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority

Jan. 27, 2022: IRS recommends charging Hunter Biden for felony tax evasion and filing of false tax returns in 2014, 2018, and 2019, and misdemeanor failure to file or pay taxes for 2015-2019. Such charges each have a six-year statute of limitations.

Feb. 25, 2022: IRS sends report outlining charges to Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office. Wolf and, according to Shapley, her DOJ Tax counterpart support the IRS recommendations. DOJ Tax prepares memo recommending prosecution, the IRS whistleblowers learn. They will not see the memo.

March 2022: DOJ Tax presents prosecution memo to U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia laying out alleged offenses chargeable in that venue. Prosecutors aim to charge Hunter Biden criminally over foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon, Devon Archer, as well as potential FARA issues. Shapley learns the Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, reviews the memo but refuses to partner with his Delaware counterpart. We in the IRS didnt realize at the time that meant there was no ability to charge there  that is, that without Graves buy-in, Weiss as Delaware U.S. Attorney could not bring his case in Washington, D.C.  Shapley testifies.

During this period, DOJ requests of IRS and FBI all management-level emails and documents on this case. Whistleblowers indicate that typically such materials are collected at sub-management level in advance of discovery in connection with an impending case. Shapley provides sensitive case reports and memorandums documenting DOJs continued unethical conduct, which he had been providing superiors for several years.

Facing impending charges, and with statutes of limitation set to lapse on 2014 and 2015 tax offenses, Hunters defense counsel reportedly calls for prosecutors not to charge, indicating willingness to sign statute of limitation extensions. Prosecutors and Bidens counsel will agree to multiple extensions.

March 14, 2022: Prosecutors have first taxpayer conference with defense counsel, allowing target to dispute charges.

March 28-29, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson release financial records corroborating prior reports on Hunter and James Bidens business with Chinese nationals connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

April 26, 2022: Attorney General Merrick Garland defends Hunter Biden investigation before Senate Appropriations Committee, indicating There will not be interference of any political or improper kind in the probe, that it will be free of any influence from the White House, and that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the Trump appointee overseeing the case is in charge.

The same day, according to Special Agent Zieglers deposition, prosecutors have second taxpayer conference with Hunter Bidens defense counsel. During that conference, Politico later reports, Bidens lawyers present a 100-page presentation to dissuade DOJ from charging him. Lawyers focus on casting the prosecution as political  driven from start by Trump  and suggest that to carry it out would damage DOJs reputation.

May 9, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson send letter to Weiss asking whether he possesses financial records to the Bidens China dealings, including those the senators had publicized. Weiss does not answer, with the Justice Department interceding.

July 25, 2022: Sen. Grassley writes to AG Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray alleging whistleblowers disclosed to his office that in fall 2020, the FBI obtained information about Hunter Bidens alleged criminal financial and related activity, only to bury and halt investigation of it by claiming it was disinformation.

Aug. 12, 2022: IRS whistleblowers learn that Chris Clark, Hunter Bidens counsel, warns prosecutors that if they charge Hunter, they will be committing career suicide.

Late Aug.-Early Sept. 2022: In meeting with investigators, Weiss indicates he agrees with IRS team regarding charging 2014-15 tax years, but says DOJ Tax has doubts about case. When asked when Weiss will charge, he says, according to Special Agent Ziegler, hopefully end of September. It was kind of up in the air.

Mid-Sept. 2022: E. Martin Estrada is appointed U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, the proper venue for charging tax offenses from 2016-19 based on Hunters residence there. Prosecutors present charges to Estradas office the week he is confirmed.

Sept. 22, 2022: Wolf tells investigators that prosecutors will not take action until after midterm elections, despite DOJs Public Integrity Section never issuing such an order.

Oct. 6, 2022: The Washington Post publishes article indicating there is sufficient evidence to charge Hunter with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase. Chris Clark accuses investigators of leaking information and calls on Justice Department to pursue leakers.

Oct. 7, 2022: In a meeting, Weiss tells colleagues at IRS and FBI that, according to a direct quote recounted by Shapley, Im not the deciding official on whether charges are filed. Weiss also states that D.C. U.S. Attorney Graves will not allow him to bring charges there. The FBI special agent in charge of the FBIs Baltimore office, overseeing the investigation and present at the meeting, will later reportedly challenge these claims. Weiss also indicates he had asked for special counsel authority from DOJ after Graves declined the charges and was denied. Weiss says he will not be bringing charges against Hunter for the 2014-15 tax years, the statute of limitations for which are to expire in Nov. 2022. Everyone in that meeting seemed shellshocked  I felt misled regarding Weiss apparent lack of authority, Shapley testified.

Oct. 12, 2022: IRS criminal investigation team conducts final interview.

Oct. 13, 2022: Sen. Grassley delivers letter to AG Garland, FBI Director Wray, and Weiss indicating that based on protected whistleblower disclosures to his office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden. Letter calls into question whether authorities have pursued the leads whistleblowers detailed to Grassley concerning an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving CEFC and potential criminal conduct involving Hunters business with and its owner Zlochevsky.

Oct. 17, 2022: Last meeting in which prosecutors include Shapleys IRS criminal investigations team.

Oct. 24, 2022: Prosecutors ask IRS for Shapleys records, in which he had documented alleged prosecutorial misconduct during pendency of case. Shapley and Ziegler will both testify that requesting management communications is highly unusual. The agents indicate that subsequently, the IRS team will be phased out of case.

Oct. 26, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson send letter to Weiss stating that in light of DOJs failure to respond to oversight requests concerning their congressional investigation, they are delivering more than 200 pages of records relating to the Biden familys connections to the Chinese regime and persons connected to its military and intelligence elements.

Oct. 31, 2022: In a letter to Weiss, Clark threatens to put President Biden on the stand should the DOJ charge Hunter criminally.

Nov. 2022: After previously agreeing to multiple statute of limitation extensions regarding the 2014 and 2015 tax offenses with Hunters counsel concerning Burisma, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation expire  despite willingness of Biden team to continue extending, according to Shapley.

Nov. 2, 2022: President Biden's lawyers find classified documents from his time as vice president at the Washington, D.C.-based Penn Biden Center just prior to the midterm elections.

Nov. 15, 2022: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president.

Late 2022: The New York Times reports that by this time, Weiss had found some evidence but determined that he did not have sufficient grounds to indict [Hunter] Biden for major felonies. It adds that one source indicated Weiss preferred not to bring any charges, even misdemeanors, though another denied it.

Dec. 20, 2022: President Biden's lawyers find a second set of classified documents from his time as vice president at his Delaware residence.

Jan. 2023: Shapley learns U.S. Attorney Estrada declines to bring charges in the Central District of California.

During this month, Clark will reportedly travel to Delaware and plead his case to Weiss to end the investigation into Hunter, indicating that how he handles the decision could have reputational consequences.

Jan. 9, 2023: It is first revealed publicly that President Biden's lawyers had found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center.

Jan. 12, 2023: AG Garland appoints Robert K. Hur special counsel to investigate President Biden's potential unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center and his Delaware home.

Feb. 2023-May 2023:

Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head;

IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill;

Plea Deal Develops

Feb. 1, 2023: Clark contacts multiple officials at Main Justice seeking contacts to whom he can appeal should Weiss charge Hunter.

March 1, 2023: Under questioning from Sen. Grassley during a Judiciary Committee hearing, the attorney general testifies that Weiss has full authority to make  referrals  or to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that. He has been advised that he should get anything he needs. I have not heard anything from that office that suggests they are not able to do anything that the U.S. Attorney wants them to do. Garland adds, I promised to leave the matter of Hunter Biden in the hands of [Weiss and]  I have pledged not to interfere with that investigation  I have carried through on my pledge.

March 16, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases records showing $1.3 million in payments from 2015-2017 flowing from Biden family associate Rob Walker to Hunter and James Biden, Joes late son Beaus widow Hallie, and a fourth Biden. The bulk of the funds appear to come from Chinese energy company State Energy HK Limited.

March 18, 2023: Donald Trump says he will be indicted in New York.

April 4, 2023: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicts Trump on falsified business record charges pertaining to a $130,000 nondisclosure payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels.

April 19, 2023: Attorney on behalf of Shapley sends letter to relevant congressional committees indicating Shapleys desire to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress. Letter leaks to Wall Street Journal.

April 24-25, 2023: Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer contacts Shapleys counsel asking him for a call in light of Wall Street Journal reporting, and the two parties speak. The Daily Mail will later report that Shapleys counsel felt Weinsheimer seemed concerned and keen to investigate, and promised he would get Shapleys team legal permission to share all the details of his allegations.

April 26, 2023: Chris Clark finally lands sought-after meeting with Main DOJ, sitting down with Weinsheimer, alongside Weiss.

April 27, 2023: Under questioning in a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel testifies that there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or called into a whistleblower hotline.

May 3, 2023: Ranking Senate Budget Committee Member Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), submit letter to Garland and Wray indicating whistleblowers have disclosed the FBI possesses an FD-1023 alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national. The congressmen indicate that it is unclear what steps, if any, were taken to investigate the matter, and that therefore they will be reviewing the matter. Comer issues subpoena calling on FBI to produce FD-1023 forms aimed at capturing the alleged Burisma-Biden bribe document.

May 10, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases bank records memo revealing Biden family business deals in Romania and China.

May 11, 2023: Weinsheimer thanks Clark for meeting, indicates Hunter Biden investigation is reaching end, and prosecutors are prepared to make a deal.

May 15, 2023: Shapley learns his team has been removed from the Hunter Biden case at DOJs request, which his counsel reports to relevant House committees.

That same day, Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Wolf calls Clark, proposing a deal whereby Hunter will not have to plead guilty through use of a deferred prosecution agreement  satisfying Clarks reported core demand of prosecutors. Clark indicates defense will draft a proposed agreement accordingly.

May 16, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) requests briefing from IRS Commissioner regarding perceived retaliation against IRS whistleblower.

That same day, Weinsheimer speaks with Shapleys counsel. In an apparent change in tone, Weinsheimer indicates that DOJ headquarters will not be involved in the whistleblowers case. All issues are to run through Weiss. Shapley lawyer Mark Lytle will later say that Weinsheimer, after making earlier promises and assurances  seemed no longer interested. His co-counsel, Tristan Leavitt, says he believes that Weinsheimer wanted intel from Gary [Shapley] before his Hill testimony, which would come weeks later.

May 18, 2023: IRS Ziegler sends letter to IRS leadership recounting criticism over its lack of action in connection with concerns he and colleagues raised during Hunter Biden case, and expressing disappointment over Ziegler and his team having been removed from it.

That day, Hunter Bidens lawyers send two Delaware prosecutors, including Wolf, the first draft of a proposed deal under which Hunter will not have to plead guilty. The deal would give Biden immunity from other potential offenses authorities had investigated  which would include Foreign Agent Registration Act charges  should he pay taxes owed, among other conditions. Delaware U.S. Attorneys office, sympathetic to proposal, shares its own suggested terms that do not require Biden to plead guilty.

May 19, 2023: Two superiors respond to Special Agent Zieglers email with a reminder that you need to follow your chain of command. They insinuate he may have made unauthorized disclosures by including potential grand jury material, and including recipients unable to receive such material.

That same day, Hunter Bidens lawyers prepare a draft pretrial diversion agreement covering tax and gun issues, guaranteeing immunity from prosecution of offenses previously investigated, and stating that DOJ will dismiss charges if Biden upholds his end of deal  no guilty plea necessary.

May 22, 2023: Shapleys counsel sends another letter to relevant House committees indicating the IRS is taking additional retaliatory measures aimed at intimidating whistleblowers into silence.

May 23, 2023: In a major reversal, Wolf tells Hunter Bidens counsel that Weiss now wants Biden to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes.

May 24, 2023: In a CBS News interview, Shapley goes public with allegations DOJ slow-walked Hunter Biden probe.

May 25, 2023: IRS sends mass email to personnel instructing them as to proper protocol for reporting wrongdoing like that alleged in the Biden case. The email omits that such employees may bring their concerns to Congress.

Also that day, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sends oversight letter to AG Garland requesting documents in connection with IRS whistleblowers removal from the Hunter Biden case.

May 26, 2023: Shapley testifies behind closed doors before House Ways and Means Committee to make protected whistleblower disclosures.

June 2023:

FBI Stonewalls Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes;

Trump Indictments Grow;

Plea Deal Emerges;

Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With AG Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority

June 1, 2023: Ziegler testifies behind closed doors before the House Ways and Means Committee to make protected whistleblower disclosures.

June 2, 2023: After DOJ reportedly communicates to Hunter Bidens counsel that he would need to plead guilty to tax charges, and counsel agrees he will do so for two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to pay taxes  but not gun charge  Bidens counsel expresses in email to Wolf that immunity is critical. Parties move forward on two-part deal consisting of plea agreement for tax charges and pretrial diversion agreement covering gun charge.

June 6, 2023: Sen. Grassley delivers speech linking July 25, 2022, allegation FBI had sat on and buried evidence of Hunter Bidens alleged criminal financial activity in 2020 on grounds it was disinformation, to FD-1023 alleging Burisma-Biden bribes. He asks whether allegation was dismissed by being falsely labeled disinformation.

June 7, 2023: Following a series of correspondences and meetings in which the FBI refuses to turn over the FD-1023, or even acknowledge its existence, FBI relents in permitting Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in camera reviews of redacted version of document. Reviewers can neither retain nor take notes on document. With FBI resisting calls to produce document to full committee, Chairman Comer releases resolution and report recommending FBI Director Wray be held in contempt of Congress.

The same day, Wolf proposes plea deal to Hunter Bidens counsel including global immunity provision. The deal also includes a protective measure whereby Justice Department can only prosecute Hunter Biden for gun charge if he breaks deal  as determined by presiding judge, not DOJ, providing protection from a future Republican administration.

Also that day, Weiss responds on behalf of DOJ to Chairman Jordans May 25 letter to AG Garland. In response, Weiss says I want to make clear that, as the Attorney General has stated, I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter [the Hunter Biden case], including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution.

June 8, 2023: Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The same day, prosecutors send Hunter Biden plea agreement to presiding Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika.

June 9, 2023: Former Attorney General Bill Barr says FD-1023 alleging Burisma-Biden bribes was provided to the ongoing investigation in Delaware to follow up on and to check out via the Pittsburgh U.S. Attorneys Office, which served as a clearinghouse for evidence to be received and vetted in connection with the case.

June 12, 2023: Shapley submits affidavit to Congress indicating neither he, his team, nor the FBI agents working with it were ever provided the information contained in the FD-1023. In a June 19 letter, Ziegler will indicate the same.

June 13, 2023: Donald Trump is arraigned in the classified documents case, pleading not guilty.

Unbeknownst to the public, prosecutors had planned to file the Hunter Biden plea deal documents in Delaware federal court that day. They postpone.

June 20, 2023: Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office announces it has reached plea deal with Hunter Biden charging him with two misdemeanor tax offenses covering tax years 2017 and 2018, and entered into a pre-trial diversion agreement regarding a firearm charge. Absent from the charges are those stemming from Hunters Burisma work, or any charges relating to FARA.

Republicans pan the pact as a sweetheart plea deal illustrative of a two-tier justice system, with some indicating it violates DOJ standards. Hunter Bidens attorney declares, It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved. Weiss office claims the investigation remains ongoing, according to the New York Times, at the time taking Mr. Biden and officials at Justice Department headquarters by surprise.

Around this time, the Times reports, Wolfs role shrinks. Leo Wise, a senior prosecutor from the Baltimore U.S. attorneys office, is detailed to Delaware. He will ultimately sign off on and defend the plea agreement in court.

June 22, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee releases transcripts of Shapley and Ziegler interviews.

Chairman Jordan sends oversight letter to Weiss reiterating prior request for material regarding DOJs alleged retaliation against Shapley, and inquiring about the unusual nature of Weiss June 7 response on behalf of AG Garland to Jordans May 25 oversight request.

June 28, 2023: Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-N.C.) sends letter to Weiss asking for information regarding, among other allegations, that he had requested and was denied special counsel authority.

June 29, 2023: Three House Committee chairmen send letter to Garland requesting that he make 11 Justice Department officials pivotal to the Hunter Biden case, including Weiss, Wolf, U.S. Attorney Graves, and U.S. Attorney Estrada, available for transcribed interviews.

June 30, 2023: Weiss responds to Jordans June 22 letter indicating DOJ did not retaliate against the IRS team, and that he stands by his June 7 letter indicating he has been granted total authority of the Hunter Biden case, including where, when and whether to file charges. Weiss adds, however, that my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district [Delaware], and that if another U.S. Attorneys Office with venue for a case declines to partner on a case, he may request Special Attorney Status from the Attorney General. Weiss claims he has been assured that, if necessary  he would be granted such authority.

July 2023:

Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released;

Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly;

Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court

July 5, 2023: A bicameral group of Republican chairmen and ranking members send letter to Special Counsel Henry Kerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel, calling for an investigation into alleged retaliation against the IRS whistleblowers. The Office of Special Counsel is responsible in particular for protecting federal employees from reprisal for whistleblowing.

July 9, 2023: Sen. Grassley sends letter to Weiss inquiring as to whether Wolf and others had investigated FD-1023 alleging Biden bribes.

July 10, 2023: Weiss responds to letter from Sen. Lindsey Graham indicating he had not requested special counsel authority with DOJ officials, but rather had discussions with Departmental officials regarding  potential special attorney authorities, which would have permitted him to charge in venues other than Delaware. I was assured that I would be granted this authority if it proved necessary prior to the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting, Weiss writes.

July 19, 2023: Shapley and Ziegler testify publicly before House Oversight Committee, recounting key claims expressed during their closed-door depositions regarding allegations of slow-walking, obfuscation, and obstruction in the Hunter Biden case.

The same day, Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office emails final deal to Judge Noreika.

July 20, 2023: Sen. Grassley releases FD-1023 alleging $5 million bribes from Zlochevsky to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for firing of Shokin, indicating Zlochevsky has text messages and recordings suggesting he was coerced into making such payments.

July 24, 2023: The Federalist reports that the Pittsburgh FBI office that had originally received the FD-1023 had corroborated multiple facts included in the document, and briefed the Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office accordingly, per a source.

The same day, DOJ offers to make Weiss available for a public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as Sept. 27.

July 24, 2023: Buyers of Hunter Bidens art, totaling $1.4 million in sales, are revealed to include Hunter financial backer Kevin Morris and California Democrat donor Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali. In July 2022, eight months after Hunters first art opening, President Biden announced Naftali was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of Americas Heritage Abroad. It is not clear whether the sale occurred before or after the appointment. Reports also indicate Naftali visited the White House at least 13 times after December 2021.

July 26, 2023: Hunter Bidens plea deal collapses under questioning from federal Judge Noreika, with prosecutors and Hunter Bidens lawyers sparring over scope of immunity provision in pretrial diversion agreement. When asked if government could bring charges under FARA with plea agreement in place, prosecutors say Yes. Bidens counsel disagrees. This ultimately leads Biden to withdraw his guilty plea. DOJ acknowledges aspects of the deal are unprecedented in terms of structure and substance.

Shortly after hearing, prosecutors and defense counsel will confer, with Bidens lawyers suggesting changes to the deal.

July 27, 2023: Special Counsel Smith issues superseding indictment in Trump Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

July 29, 2023: Chairman Comer issues oversight request letters to Naftali and the White House counsel in furtherance of probe of Hunters art sales. There is no indication federal investigators pursued the sales.

July 31, 2023: Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer testifies before House Oversight Committee for transcribed interview. He alleges Hunter Bidens business was selling the Biden brand, headlined by his father, and that he had witnessed Joe joining Hunter Biden and his business associates in person or by phone upwards of 20 times.

The same day, prosecutors reject Hunter Biden counsels proposed deal revisions and suggest their own.

Also that day, relevant House committee chairmen send letter to Garland inquiring about the unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements offered Hunter Biden, in light of whistleblower allegations the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden.

Aug. 2023-Present:

Another Trump Indictment; Weiss Gets Special Counsel Authority He Wasnt Supposed to Need; Biden Impeachment Inquiry Opens; Hunter Hit With Gun Indictment

Aug. 1, 2023: Special Counsel Smith indicts Donald Trump on charges pertaining to his contesting of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Aug. 7, 2023: Hunter Bidens defense counsel rejects prosecutors proposed changes to the plea bargain, which according to an email Chris Clark sent to prosecutors, without explanation, completely delet[ed] the immunity provision.

Aug. 8, 2023: Weiss requests special counsel authority.

Aug. 9, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases bank records memo detailing millions in payments from foreign sources to Bidens and their associates from Russian, Ukrainian, and Kazakhstani individuals during Joe Bidens vice presidency  individuals who Vice President Biden met.

Aug. 11, 2023: Garland names Weiss special counsel, asserting he will continue to have the authority and responsibility that he has exercised previously to oversee the investigation and decide where, when, and whether to file charges. Weiss retains his position as U.S. Attorney for Delaware despite rules calling for special counselors to come from outside the United States government, and for any special counsel to be independent. The New York Times later reports that Weiss was motivated by a [special counsel] requirement to produce a report that would allow him to answer critics, according to people with knowledge of the situation  an accounting that could become public before the 2024 election.

The same day, the Justice Department files motions to dismiss the Hunter Biden tax case so charges can be brought in proper venue  either the Central District of California, or Washington, D.C.  an authority Weiss will have as special counsel. Biden had waived any venue challenge enabling the original deal to be cut in Delaware, despite venue for the offenses lying elsewhere.

Aug. 14, 2023: Chairman Comer releases transcript of interview with FBI official corroborating Shapleys testimony that FBI headquarters had tipped off Secret Service headquarters and President Bidens transition team about investigators planned Dec. 8, 2020, Hunter Biden interview.

The same day, Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis indicts Donald Trump and 18 others in RICO case regarding Trumps contesting of the 2020 election.

Aug. 17, 2023: Hunter Biden tax case dismissed in Delaware.

Aug. 19, 2023: Politico and the New York Times publish detailed accounts on collapse of Biden plea agreement based in part on leaked correspondence between Weiss office and Hunter Bidens lawyers.

Aug. 21, 2023: House committees subpoena IRS and FBI officials present at Oct. 7, 2022, meeting in which Weiss allegedly claimed he did not have final charging authority in Hunter Biden case.

Aug. 28, 2023: House Committee chairmen send oversight request letter to AG Garland regarding his decision to appoint Weiss special counsel.

The same day, The Federalist reports on emails obtained via FOIA indicating DOJ intervened on behalf of Weiss office on multiple occasions to respond to congressional inquiries  seen as further evidence of Weiss and DOJ officials in Washington seeking to align their stories on who had what authority in Hunter Biden case.

Sept. 6, 2023: Weiss office indicates intent to indict Hunter Biden on gun charges in Delaware before Sept. 29 in court filing.

That same day, House Committee chairmen send letter to Hunter Bidens counsel calling for it to produce documents and communications previously leaked to Politico and the New York Times regarding negotiations surrounding the failed Hunter Biden plea agreement.

Sept. 12, 2023: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announces House will open impeachment inquiry into President Biden concerning allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption. The American people deserve to know that public offices are not for sale and that the federal government is not being used to cover up the actions of a politically-connected family, he writes.

House committees open joint inquiry into alleged attempts by Hunter Biden legal team to encourage DOJ to retaliate against IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler.

Also that day, Washington Post publishes report based on leaked transcript from House Judiciary Committee interview with Baltimore FBI special agent in charge Thomas Sobocinski challenging IRS whistleblowers claims about what Weiss said about his authority during Oct. 7, 2022, meeting.

Sept. 13, 2023: Shapleys lawyers respond with the IRS agents contemporaneous handwritten notes to rebut Sobocinskis claims.

Sept. 14, 2023: Weiss indicts Hunter Biden on felony gun charges in Delaware federal court.

Sept. 18, 2023: Hunter Biden sues the IRS over Shapley and Zieglers whistleblower disclosures.

Sept. 20, 2023: AG Garland testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. Under questioning from Chairman Jordan, he defends prior comments about Weiss' authority, stating "no one had the authority to turn him [Weiss] down" in terms of bringing charges, but that "they could refuse to partner with him." Garland says the two are "not the same under well-known Justice Department practices." He will also testifies that a U.S. Attorney in one district "does not have the authority to deny another U.S. attorney the ability to go forward" with a case.

Sept. 26, 2023: On the same day. Hunter sues Rudy Giuliani and attorney Robert Costello over sharing of Hunters laptop data in alleged violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Also that day, House Oversight Committee reveals that Hunter Biden received two wire payments totaling over $250,000 during 2019 from Chinese sources, at least one of which was linked to the Chinese investment concern BHR Partners, including its CEO. Hunters attorney George Mesires would state that same year that the presidents son had served as a board member at the company in an unpaid position. While Hunter Biden was listed as the beneficiary for the funds, the Delaware home of Joe Biden was listed as the beneficiary address.

Sept. 27, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee releases trove of documents on eve of first impeachment inquiry hearing that it argues demonstrates links between Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden's business dealings, and that the Biden administration  including top Justice Department officials  covered up the Biden family's dealings to protect the president and his family.

Sept. 28, 2023: House Oversight Committee to hold first impeachment inquiry hearing.

Also that day, the New York Times reports that Special Counsel Hur has interviewed numerous top aides in connection with the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents after his vice presidency.

Oct. 3, 2023: Hunter Biden is arraigned in Delaware federal court in gun charge case. He pleads not guilty to all charges.

That same day, President Biden announces his intent to nominate Hampton Dellinger to replace the term-limited Office of Special Counsel head Henry Kerner, who Republican congressmen had directed to investigate the IRS whistleblowers' claims they were retaliated against. Dellinger had previously worked at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner on its Crisis Management and Government Response team. His time at the firm overlapped with Hunter Biden. In 2014, Biden referred Burisma to Dellinger's team, and worked closely with the team's lawyers. It is unclear if Dellinger did any work in connection with the Ukrainian energy company, but he and Hunter met for lunch and attended a firm party that year.

Also that day, The Federalist reports that per emails obtained via FOIA, then-U.S. Attorney Weiss' June 7 response to Chairman Jordan's letter  which had been addressed not to Weiss but AG Garland  appeared to violate an explicit Justice Department policy that only its Office of Legislative Affairs was to respond to inquiries from the legislative branch.

Oct. 18, 2023: Special Counsel Weiss to testify before House Judiciary Committee.
India said Tuesday it was willing to examine evidence presented by Canada alleging New Delhi's involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver but repeated its criticism of Ottawa.

Relations between the two countries plunged last week as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly linked Indian intelligence to the killing in June of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who advocated a separate Sikh state carved out of India, and expelled an Indian diplomat.

India's top diplomat, asked during a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly whether India would review any evidence from Canada, said New Delhi would review information from any country.

"If there's any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific as a government, I would of course look into it," External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Canada has called for India to cooperate in the investigation but New Delhi has rejected the allegations and taken countermeasures, such as shutting down visa services for Canadians.

"We have actually been badgering the Canadians. We've given them loads of information about organized crime leadership which operates out of Canada," Jaishankar said, referring to Sikh separatists.

"Our concern is that it's really been very permissive because of political reasons," he said.

"We have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made (that are) interference in our politics," he said.

Canada is home to some 770,000 Sikhs, or about two percent of the country's population, with a vocal group voicing support for creating a separate state of Khalistan.

The Sikh separatist movement is largely finished within India where security forces used deadly force to put down an insurgency in the 1980s.

sct/mlm
By Barney Riley via SWNS

A police officer rushed to rescue several residents after he spotted a house on fire.

Bodycam footage shows the moment the officer who was responding to another call ran towards the blaze and evacuated four people.

The blaze, in the Hilltop area in Columbus, Ohio, started after the porch of the building caught fire on the 60 block of South Richardson Avenue around 4:15 a.m.

One woman was taken to hospital in a critical condition and treated for burns and smoke inhalation - but police confirmed her condition has since improved.

The Columbus Police Division said on Facebook: "While responding to another call in the Hilltop overnight, Columbus Police officers noticed a house on fire.

"Without hesitation, they rushed to help rescue multiple people inside the burning residence.

"Their bravery and quick thinking saved lives today, reminding us all of the selflessness and dedication our officers show day in and day out."
There were 12 deaths on farms across the UK between April to June 2023, the latest figures show, with the sector having the highest rate of workplace fatalities.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has published a new report showing that the agriculture sector saw more deaths than any other sector between April to June.

So far this year, there has been 21 fatalities in the sector, according to the workplace safety watchdog. For Q2 2023, the sector saw twelve deaths.

Tom McNeill, partner at law firm BCL Solicitors, said the latest statistics would be a cause for concern for employees as well as farm business owners.

He warned farmers that a fatal accident could mean an increased risk of prosecution for manslaughter.

For individuals, a manslaughter conviction would likely mean a significant prison sentence.

And for organisations, he explained that corporate manslaughter would mean higher fines than even draconian health and safety penalties.

"Today's workplace fatality figures show that April to June this year was a particularly severe quarter for UK agriculture, with 12 fatalities," Mr McNeill said.

"This, sadly, reflects an ongoing trend in the sector for having the highest fatal accident rate compared to other industries.

He added: "Farms like other businesses must meet onerous health and safety duties. Unlimited fines, and imprisonment for individuals, may follow for those who do not.

"What sets agriculture apart from many other industries is that over half of farms are sole traders and often business owners and managers are involved in day-to-day operations."

HSEs chief executive Sarah Albon said: Any loss of life in the workplace is a tragedy.

While these figures show Great Britain is one of the safest countries in the world to work, safety must continue to be at the top of everyones agenda.

Our mission is to protect people and places and we remain committed to maintaining safe workplaces and holding employers to account for their actions.
An educational bursary with the opportunity to work with Kaleb Cooper of Clarkson's Farm fame has now opened for people to apply.

Kaleb Cooper has helped launch the Royal Agricultural University's (RAU) bursary for people hoping to get on the farming ladder.

The annual bursary will provide 3,000 to support a student in exploring different paths into agriculture.

Kaleb, who stars in Clarkson's Farm as Jeremy Clarkson's companion, said encouraging the younger generation into agriculture had "always been so important to me".

The farming contractor said: "Launching this bursary means so much, as it can support students who want to pursue an agricultural career or who might be struggling to get into farming.

The bursary will also give the applicant the opportunity for a work placement with Kaleb himself, or one of his industry partners, either during their course or as a gap year placement.

Open to RAU undergraduate students who are living in the UK, the bursary opened for applications this week, with the first student receiving their award in early 2024.

RAU vice-chancellor Professor Peter McCaffery said: We are delighted that Kaleb has chosen to support RAU students through this bursary.

"His passion for farming comes through loud and clear in his appearances on Clarksons Farm and he has definitely helped bring farming and agriculture even more into the public eye.

This bursary will help to give the successful applicant the chance to follow their dreams and pursue a career in agriculture as Kaleb himself did. We are very excited to be working with him.

Applicants who are not from a farming or agricultural background are particularly encouraged to apply for the bursary.

Kaleb added: Having come from a non-farming background myself, I believe agriculture can be for anybody.

"I know theres so much potential for young people to have brilliant careers in agriculture. It should be open to all and if you have financial difficulties or youre completely new to farming, please do apply.
A Northern Irish farm leader has slammed suggested proposals to cut stock valuations for TB reactor cattle, blasting it as 'nothing short of theft'.

Government proposals seek to slash the value of livestock removed from farms impacted by bovine TB in order to stabilise public finances.

Figures show that incidence levels of bovine TB in Northern Ireland are at a record high, with the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) recently calling it 'out of control'.

Now the union has warned the Department of Agriculture (DAERA) that farmers would "not tolerate" any payment reduction.

A new strategy to eradicate TB was launched in 2022 by then-DAERA Minister Edwin Poots, who stated that a review of the compensation arrangements would only be considered after the strategy's implementation.

However, UFU deputy president John McLenaghan said farmers "have never received any compensation for loss of production, and that they are solely paid for the market value of their animals".

"The value of every single reactor is agreed on by DAERA staff," he said, "For that reason, our members already carry a significant financial burden when the disease comes to their herd and the UFU remain firmly opposed to these barbaric proposals.

Since 2022, he said the UFU had been 'fully engaged' in getting the revised TB strategy delivered in full, but DAERA had 'U-turned' on some of the measures that were meant to be put in place.

Mr McLenaghan said: "To consider devaluing cattles worth after the animals have fallen victim to a disease that has become rampant in our region because of our department, is nothing short of theft.

"Instead of hitting farmers when they are already down, suffering mentally and financially, it would be much more effective for DAERA to prioritise tackling the disease itself, which in turn would reduce the cost.

"In the long run, this would be much more beneficial for public monies."
Over half (59%) of UK adults think the next government should increase the amount of money given to nature-friendly farming, according to new polling.

In addition, 55% of people surveyed said the government needs to take action to change how farming is done because of climate change.

And 58% said that tackling river pollution caused by agriculture should be a priority for the next government.

To coincide with the political party conference season, the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) and Sustain commissioned the research.

It explored the public's views on how the government should be supporting and funding farming.

Martin Lines, CEO of the NFFN, said the results demonstrate "a clear public appetite" for a greener farming transition.

"Crucially it demonstrates that people view funding for nature friendly farming as an important investment, even during a cost of living crisis.

"Now we need to see a clear vision and the political will to make a widespread transition to nature-friendly farming and food production a reality."

The polling was carried out by Savanta on behalf of the NFFN and Sustain, an alliance of organisation working for a more sustainable food system.

The questions were put to a representative sample of 2,185 UK adults.

Vicki Hird, head of sustainable farming at Sustain, said: We can see the damage our food system is doing to our rivers and land.

Farmers need a fair deal from the markets and more support from government so they can farm in a nature friendly way.

"This poll shows that that is what the public want.
Four out of five UK adults think children should have access to free or subsidised milk in schools and nurseries, according to new polling.

The School and Nursery Milk Alliance (SNMA) said there were still too many children who are missing out on free or subsidised milk when at school or nursery.

Following the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, many education settings are still yet to re-start their milk schemes, meaning that many children are missing out.

The SNMA commissioned YouGov to poll over 2,000 adults across the UK to understand opinion on the importance of school milk provision.

Four out of five UK adults (79%) think children should have access to free or subsidised milk in schools and nurseries, while nine out of ten (88%) of 2019 Labour voters backs it.

Support for milk in schools and nurseries is nationwide, but the Welsh public in particular believe that the government should continue to provide free or subsidised milk (89%).

The Welsh publics enthusiasm is perhaps not surprising, as Wales is unique amongst UK nations in providing free milk for all children in Key Stage One, rather than just subsidising it.

Further research from the SNMA finds that England leads the way when it comes to school milk provision this year, providing an average of 116 servings of milk per pupil. Wales came second with 73 servings of milk per pupil this year.

The research comes as part of World School Milk Day 2023 (27 September), which celebrates the benefits of school milk.

School food standards require lower fat milk or lactose reduced milk to be available to drink at least once a day during school hours.

But the SNMA said too many schools and nurseries were unaware of the different available programmes that could be giving their pupils free healthy milk.

To assist with the cost of providing milk, schools can take part in Nursery Milk Scheme, led by DHSC, providing free milk to children under the age of 5.

The School Milk Subsidy Scheme, managed and topped up by Defra, provides subsidised milk for all pupils children between five and 11 years old attending Ofsted-registered schools.

The SNMA's spokesperson, Dr Hilary Jones said: Drinking milk on a regular basis improves health outcomes for children and yet millions are missing out through a simple lack of awareness of the available government schemes.

"There are numerous programmes available for children in schools and nurseries to access free healthy milk, but the take up is too low.

World School Milk Day is the perfect opportunity for the government to ensure that schools and nurseries across the UK are aware of the different schemes that exist.

"The government must encourage them to sign up to ensure that millions of children across the country can drink free healthy milk when at school."

Jon Thornes MBE, chair of SNMA, added: "Unsurprisingly, an enormous majority of the British public also want the government to continue to provide free or subsidised milk for children in schools and nurseries.

We urge the government to do all it can to ensure that as many education settings are signed up to the available milk schemes so that as many children as possible are able to drink healthy milk at school or nursery.

"And all UK nations need to follow Waless positive example and do more to ensure that as many children as possible are able to drink healthy milk at school or nursery."
The vast majority of the British public believe that farmers should be paid fairly for their work, according to a new survey.

Nationwide polling by Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) confirms that the public want change in the UK's food and farming system.

The charity said the results highlight that the public are "surprised that farmers take such a small share of what customers pay at the till".

Over two-thirds (68%) of Britons say it is important that the food system helps to resolve inequalities within society, while 82% say it is important that food is produced without harming the planet.

The vast majority (87%) say its important that everyone in society has enough healthy food, and 88% think it is important for farmers to be paid fairly for their work.

And in other significant majorities, people back more support for farmers to help them transition to more sustainable farming practices (68%).

The research also found that people are willing to spend more for their shopping if the food is healthier and more sustainable.

Sue Pritchard, chief executive of the FFCC said: Citizens clearly have a sophisticated appreciation of all the issues around food  how its grown, processed, advertised, eaten, and wasted.

"Citizens want food to be fairer, healthier, greener - and they want governments and businesses, who have the power and resources, to level the playing field for everyone.

The results are based on public dialogue sessions in Birmingham and Cambridge held over the summer, as well as a national poll of 2,000 people.

Despite politicians often suggesting the public dont want a nanny state, the FFCC's research shows that people want the government to act.

The poll found that 75% of the public think that the government is not doing enough to ensure that everyone can afford healthy food.

There is also little support for lowering standards to lower costs: more than three quarters of people say that the government should aspire to high standards (77%).

It comes as farm leaders and celebrities continue to urge the nation's biggest retailers to provide a fairer deal to the UK's struggling farmers, as many are 'on their knees'.

An open letter addressed to the CEOs of the nations 'big six' supermarkets has been signed by over 100 leading figures and industry bodies.

It calls on retailers to 'pay what you agreed to pay', 'buy what you committed to buy', 'agree on fair specifications' and 'pay on time'.

Part of a new #GetFairAboutFarming campaign launched by organic farming firm Riverford, the letter asks for better business practices to safeguard the future of the industry.
Visa fees for the United Kingdom are being raised from the beginning of October 2023, but we think it will be worth it





London has always been one of our favourite world cities. While the bustling metropolis is by no means inexpensive, theres no price that can be put on the buzz of being in the capital of the United Kingdom.







Which is a good thing considering that the price of a visa to the UK will be higher come October 4, 2023. Under the new fee structure announced by the Government of Britain, a visit visa will now cost Rs 11,845 approximately ( 115 as opposed to the earlier  100) for a stay of less than six months, while student visas will cost significantly more too. There will also be changes to the charges for migrants and an Immigration Health Surcharge. The fee hike will also apply to health and care visas, and applications to register and naturalise as a British citizen.



These increased fees are expected to raise over  1 billion, which the Home Office has stated will help run a sustainable immigration and nationality system.





Which is why it is a good thing that the United Kingdom is a wonderful place to visit. Theres plenty you can do to get under the skin of London, including marvel at its historic buildings and attractions, enjoy its many museums, stroll and lounge around in its parks, and taste the food of the world in this gastronomic melting pot. The great news is that there is also a lot that can be enjoyed for very little money or even free  if you plan in advance, there are top-notch galleries, museums, parks and markets at which you will get great bang for your buck. And, of course, London is only the first step of your explorations; there is so much more to be explored in the United Kingdom including big cities such Manchester, Glasgow, Nottingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Belfast, ancient attractions such as Stonehenge (above), and all the vast expanses of nature in between.



Images: Shutterstock



Also Read: Bookmark These Budget-Friendly European Destinations
Sentiment within the German export industry has deteriorated significantly, according to the latest ifo export expectations, which dropped to minus 11.3 points in September 2023 from minus 6.5 points in August.

Currently, the manufacturing of leather goods is a rare bright spot, expecting a rise in exports with a score of 11.2 points. Conversely, the manufacture of wearing apparel and textile industries have experienced steep declines in expectations, falling to minus 20.5 and minus 26.8 points respectively. The majority of other sectors are also anticipating a decrease in international business.

Germanys export economy is going through a weak phase, said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of surveys at ifo. Exports to all key regions are currently in decline. Its likely that export demand wont pick up again significantly until next year.

German export sentiment has worsened, with ifo export expectations falling to minus 11.3 points in September 2023 from minus 6.5 in August 2023. Leather goods manufacturing expects a rise in exports with a score of 11.2 points, while the textile and apparel sectors are facing steep declines, falling to minus 20.5 and minus 26.8 points respectively.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)
A few days ago, news surfaced that Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone will be heading to Italy for the filming of two songs for their upcoming movie Fighter. The film, directed by Sidharth Anand, is being promoted as India's first aerial action film. The director is known for incorporating grand songs in his movies such as Bang Bang, War, and Pathaan.The two songs in question will showcase Deepika and Hrithik in a dance sequence and a romantic melody.As per a report by ETimes, Hrithik will be showcasing his sculpted physique in a grand dance number, accompanied by numerous talented dancers from both India and Italy.Bosco Martis, who previously choreographed Jhoome Jo Pathaan, will be choreographing both songs which are set to a very high scale.Fans are eagerly anticipating the second song, which is a romantic track that will showcase Deepika and Hrithik looking stunning.Hrithik and Deepika have plans to travel to Italy for a 15-day shoot of their upcoming movie Fighter, starting from September 27. They will be filming a dance sequence similar to Ghunghroo from the movie War, which has been composed by Vishal Sheykhar.Recently, Hrithik and Deepika filmed a dance sequence in Mumbai which featured the complete cast of the movie - Anil Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover, and Akshay Oberoi. This song highlights their friendship and unity in the film.Fighter is slated to hit the cinemas on January 25, 2024.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zeenat Aman (@thezeenataman)

On Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of his birth, Dev Anand, the iconic star and filmmaker who spanned seven decades, was commemorated and revered for his distinctive characteristics. These included his carefree, relaxed gait, boundless vitality, musical talents, distinctive mannerisms, and, naturally, his unique style.As fans embarked on a journey down memory lane, reminiscing about his movies from CID to Heera Panna, those within the industry paid homage to the man. Dev Anand's enduring passion for filmmaking led him to continue creating movies even in his later years, even when they didn't achieve significant success.The sophisticated and charming actor, who passed away in 2011 at the age of 88, was frequently likened to Hollywood legend Gregory Peck and is still remembered as the perennially youthful hero.His brothers also achieved significant success. Chetan Anand was the creative force behind the critically acclaimed Neecha Nagar, while Vijay Anand directed him in memorable films like Guide, Johny Mera Naam and Jewel Thief.As a director and producer under his family banner, Navketan Films, Dev Anand is celebrated for his diverse selection of projects throughout his career, his unique and unmatched style, and his boundless enthusiasm for life.Waheeda Rehman, his co-star in timeless classics like CID and Guide, fondly recalled her introduction to Dev Anand on the set of CID, the 1956 film that marked her debut in Hindi cinema.In a report by a leading news portal, at the opening of Dev Anand@100 - Forever Young film festival, Waheeda Rehman said, "I feel very lucky that I did my first film 'CID' with Dev sahab. When we were introduced, I called him 'Dev sahab', he said 'Waheeda, you won't call me Dev sahab'. I said 'I'm not that ill-mannered, you are elder to me and such a big star. This is my first film. How can I not call you Dev sahab?' He said, 'I don't feel comfortable when someone calls me 'sahab', I feel like a school teacher. So, just call me Dev'."Zeenat Aman who became an overnight star after starring in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, paid tribute to the late actor, and director in an Instagram post she wrote, "Celebrating 100 years of Dev saab. Stylish, suave and prolific, he was a dynamo beyond compare. And what generosity of talent! He sparked careers (mine included), brought together creative heads, and made films that resonated across generations."It gladdens my heart to see his legacy honoured an entire century since his birth. In recent days, I've been overwhelmed with requests for comments about him but there is little to add to what I've already said."Jackie Shroff had an uncredited small appearance in the 1982 film Swami Dada which was both directed and acted by Dev Anand.In an interview with a leading news portal, Jackie said, "My first meeting with him was magical... I feel blessed... Everyone calls him Dev sahab. For me, he is Dev. He is like my God. He is the man who got me into the industry. He gave me a role in his film... I loved his energy. He was a very energetic person. He would often say, 'Look forward, whatever has happened has happened'. He never looked back in life. His style was iconic, there was no one like him."Rati Agnihotri, who collaborated with Dev Anand in Swami Dada, fondly recalled the "positivity" that the late actor-director radiated on film sets. She mentioned that Dev Anand's presence was so inspiring that both she and her co-star Mithun Chakraborty would always be on their toes while working with him.She recalled, "Whenever he would explain the film or my role in it, there was so much energy in the way he narrated it or explained a particular scene to us. It was a fabulous, one-time experience to work with a legend like Dev sahab. Working with him in 'Swami Dada' was an absolute honour, I think I was blessed."
Siddharth Anand, who is currently generating tremendous excitement with his upcoming project, 'Fighter.' The anticipation surrounding this aerial combat film has reached new heights with each reveal.

Siddharth Anand is inItaly and this week, the team, along with Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone will be shooting for not one but two songs for Fighter at some exotic locations in Italy. With a vast ensemble of dancers and exotic settings, these sequences will be nothing short of a visual spectacle for the audience.

Siddharth has earned a reputation for delivering hit films with memorable music. His past projects, including chart-toppers like "Jhoome Jo Pathaan," "Besharam Rang" "Ghungroo," "Jai Jai Shivshankar," "Bang Bang," and "Bachna Ae Haseeno," have set high expectations for the music of 'Fighter.' It's almost certain that 'Fighter' will feature a foot-tapping track that will become a party anthem.

Bollywood enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting the release of 'Fighter,' not only for its thrilling storyline but also for the musical treat that Siddharth Anand is known to serve. As the excitement continues to build, fans can't wait to experience the magic Siddharth and his team are sure to create with this film.

Siddharth Anand and Hrithik Roshan have collaborated in the past on projects like "War" and "Bang Bang!" Furthermore, Siddharth has a successful history with Deepika Padukone, having directed her in "Bachna Ae Haseeno" and "Pathaan," both of which were well-received by fans. As a result, there is considerable anticipation among fans about their upcoming project together.

Fighter stars Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, and Anil Kapoor in the lead & is set to release on the 25th of January 2024. Directed by Siddharth Anand this film also debuts him as producer for his banner Marflix Pictures.
Yash Chopra, a legendary filmmaker who is known for his unparallel contribution to the Indian cinema. Born on Septemer 27, 1932 in Lahore, (now Pakistan), Yash Chopra is remebered as a cinematic genius whose journey in the world of filmmaking is nothing short of exceptional.

He started his career as an assistant director to I.S. Johar in the 1950s before making his directorial debut with the film Dhool Ka Phool in 1959. His illustrious career spanned over five decades.Now that the iconic filmmaker is no longer with us, his timeless love stories continue to evoke his presence in the hearts of moviegoers.

From classics like Kabhi Kabhie and Silsila to Chandni, Yash Chopra's films have left an indelible mark on the world of cinema.

Yash Chopra who was an engineering student was irresistibly drawn to the world of movies. Switzerland holds a special place in the heart of Yash Chopra's filmography. His frequent use of Swiss locales in his movies was so impactful that a lake in the country now bears his name. Furthermore, a railway station was named in his honor.

YASH CHOPRA'S ACCOMPALISHMENTS & AWARDS

Yash Chopra's accomplishments extended beyond India's borders. He received Lifetime Membership from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). He was also awarded the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2001. Yash Chopra was honored with the Padma Bhushan, one of India's highest civilian awards in 2005. His impressive collection of awards includes 6 National Awards and 11 Filmfare.

Yash Chopra breathed his last on October 21, 2012. He left behind a legacy that continues to captivate cinephiles worldwide.
Gaurav Chopraa is someone who's always had the ability and potential to win hearts effortlessly. The last few years have been simply phenomenal for Gaurav in every possible way and no wonder, anything and everything that he has attempted professionally has worked wonders for him. While talent and potential was never a matter of doubt for Gaurav, over the years, his ability to pick the right roles has helped him immensely and how.

Well, if we talk about versatility, he became the talk of the country in 2006 itself when he worked in Blood Diamond alongside Hollywood superstar Leonardo Di Caprio. Gaurav got an opportunity to be a part of this project at a time when even the legendary late Irrfan Khan and Priyanka Chopra weren't a part of Hollywood and that's true commendable. While everyone knows about his performance in Blood Diamond, not many perhaps know the story behind how he bagged the project. Gaurav says,

"It was around 2005-2006 when I had just become a star in Indian TV. After 3 successful shows, I decided to be in Broadway in South Africa. I remember a lot of people told me that I have become a star here now and why am I doing this. Many thought it was a bonkers decision. However, I wanted to experiment and take gamble in order to realize my true potential. What happened next was beautiful and I am thankful to God. I got Blood Diamond only because I chose to go to South Africa for Broadway theatre. Now imagine, if I wouldn't have gone fearing the risk, I don't think I would have got the opportunity to shoot 17 days with Leonardo Di Caprio for a blockbuster project like this. So, in a way, I have never shied away from taking risks and because the risks have paid me rich dividends and success, the confidence to take risks and gambles only increased for me as my career progressed. After I returned to India, many people

criticized my decision to be back in Indian TV. Many felt it was a horrible decision to be back on Indian TV after shooting with Leonardo DiCaprio for an International project. But again, I decided to listen to my gut feeling and that's when I decided to do Nach Baliye. So, like I said, I have only listened to my gut feeling and have never shied away from experimentation."

If one takes a close look at his career trajectory post the Covid-19 pandemic, his versatility is genuinely inspiring in the true sense of the term. It can genuinely be referred to as a second innings for his career. It all started with Bachchhan Paandey where he played a small-town street thug from Rajasthan. Next, in Rana Naidu, his versatility touched many hearts and his character of Prince even fetched him two special awards. And, just when many thought Gaurav wouldn't surprise them anymore, he was back with a bang in Gadar 2 where he played the role of an army officer from 1971.

Regarding the versatile roles and performances as a performing artiste over the years, Gaurav comments,

"The biggest challenge as an actor is to constantly evolve yourself in order to play different characters. I don't think you are really acting if you get repetitive about the same kind of roles. As an actor, you want thrill and excitement and only playing different characters can give us that thrill. Like I said earlier, I have never been scared to experiment. A lot of people call me versatile for pulling off diverse roles. However, what not many realize is the gamble and risk that's involved in the process. Once you get accepted for something and get loud cheers for the same, it takes a lot of guts and courage to quit your comfort zone to start something totally fresh. It might be better or it might be worse. None the less, there's always a risk which is hard to take. Let's take a look at Rana Naidu for example. There were many 'uncomfortable' scenes which many actors refused to do. However, I was up for the challenge. Be it the sexual scenes or abuses, I knew it is going to be a big risk for me given the kind of image I have had onscreen over the years. However, it was a gamble worth taking again and guess what? It fetched me 2 special awards. I truly believe from my real-life experiences that 'Darr ke aage jeet hai'. I call the phase post Covid-19 pandemic as the second innings of my career. I was very clear about the fact that I wanted to do different kinds of roles that would challenge me. All my characters in the recent past have involved a tremendous amount of research and preparation which has eventually helped me do justice to the characters on-screen. For me, I have set no limits for myself and I want to go all guns blazing when it comes to doing more versatile roles going forward. I am motivated like never before. I want to do more quality films and I want to play impactful characters. I also want to be a part of more International films going forward and expand my audience and horizon as an actor. Thanks to my fans and the audience for keeping their faith in me. I truly feel blessed."

Well, right from Blood Diamond till Gadar 2, the variation that Gaurav has shown onscreen is phenomenal and truly inspiring for young gen-z actors who are sometimes scared to experiment. Yes, there's risk but if you work hard and take smart decisions, the risks are indeed rewarding, just as they have been in Gaurav's case. Speaking of risks, it will be interesting to see what will be Gaurav's next move as an actor and how he plans to surprise his audience and fans yet again in a new way. Till the time comes, all we can do is play the waiting game. Stay tuned for more updates.
In a humble yet joyous pilgrimage, the talented actor Lakshya Kochhar, known for his impactful role as 'Ajju Kadri' in the recently acclaimed web series 'Bambai Meri Jaan,' paid a visit to the revered Lalbaugcha Raja temple in Mumbai. This spiritual sojourn comes on the heels of the web series' massive success.

Lalbaugcha Raja, one of Mumbai's most iconic and revered Ganesh temples, is a symbol of hope, faith, and divine intervention for countless devotees. For Lakshya Kochhar, this visit was not just a personal endeavor but also a heartfelt expression of gratitude to the fans and supporters who played a pivotal role in the series' success.

Lakshya shared, "I am truly humbled by the love and appreciation that 'Bambai Meri Jaan' has received. I am grateful to the viewers who have embraced our work wholeheartedly. Visiting Lalbaugcha Raja is my way of saying 'thank you' to the universe for these blessings. Ganpati Bappa Morya! May Bappa continue to guide us."

With all the love and positivity around, Lakshya shall begin shooting for his next with The Viral Fever (TVF). He shall also be seen in a film starring Taapsee Pannu apart from the second season of 'Bambai Meri Jaan' and a few untitled projects.
Bigg Boss Tamil Returns - Speculations Heat Up: Bigg Boss Tamil is gearing up for its long-awaited comeback to the small screen. Meanwhile, the rumour mill is abuzz with speculations regarding potential contestants for the upcoming season.

Thalapathy Vijay's Leo Audio Launch: Unexpected Cancellation, Fans Speculate Reasons

The highly anticipated seventh season of Bigg Boss Tamil is all set to premiere on October 1st. Meanwhile, the grapevine is rife with rumours, suggesting that discussions are underway with actor Sathya, known for their role in 'Kana Kaanum Kaalangal,' and beloved actress Dharsha Gupta, regarding their participation in the upcoming season.

Dharsha Gupta initiated her acting career in the Tamil television series 'Mullum Malarum' and subsequently portrayed a prominent character in the series 'Senthoora Poove,' where she shared the screen with actor Ranjith. Her breakthrough came in 2020, when she achieved immense recognition and success by participating in the cooking reality show 'Cooku with Comali' (Season 2). Expanding her horizons beyond television, this versatile actress has made her mark in Tamil cinema with notable roles in films such as 'Rudra Thandavam,' 'Oh My Ghost,' and 'Medical Miracle.'

In keeping with its tradition, Bigg Boss Tamil frequently features well-known television actresses as participants. Consequently, there is a strong likelihood that Dharsha Gupta will be a part of the Bigg Boss house this season.

Simultaneously, there is significant excitement and conjecture about the actor Sathya's potential involvement in the seventh season of Bigg Boss Tamil. Numerous online enthusiasts are theorising that Sathya is likely to become a part of the show.

Is Bala Saravanan Joining Kamal Haasan's Show?

In the meantime, there's another rumour circulating on social media suggesting that actor Bala Saravanan is being considered as a potential contestant for Bigg Boss Tamil Season 7. Bala began his acting career with Vijay TV's school drama series "Kallikattu Pallikoodam" and gained recognition through the college drama series "Kana Kaanum Kaalangal Kalloriyin Kadhai" on the same channel. He later transitioned into comedy roles in films, with his debut in "Ego" and notable performances as Pappu in "Kuttipuli," earning him acclaim for his comic acts in "Thirudan Police" and "Darling."

Answer is Bala Saravanan  pic.twitter.com/Jah15caDVq  Vakugu (@vakugu) September 27, 2023

Countdown To The Grand Premiere

Staying true to its tradition from previous seasons, the show, hosted by Kamal Haasan, will once again feature commoner contestants in the upcoming season. The growing anticipation has prompted many, including the viewers, to engage in speculation and compile their personal lists of expected participants for Bigg Boss Tamil Season 7. Nevertheless, it's essential to remember that the official roster of contestants will be unveiled exclusively by host Kamal Haasan during the grand launch event.

2018 Malayalam Movie India's Official Entry For Oscars 2024: Film Federation Of India

In the meantime, extensive preparations for the grand premiere of Bigg Boss Tamil 7 are underway, and there are just six days remaining until the spectacular kickoff. Don't let the excitement of Bigg Boss Tamil 7 pass you by!
Skanda pre-release business Photo Credit: Gallery

Actor Ram Pothineni's upcoming mass action drama titled Skanda: The Attacker, is gearing up for a grand theatrical release on September 28. The movie marks the first collaboration of the actor and director Boyapati Srinu.

Skanda features the sensational Sreeleela as the female lead opposite Ram Pothineni. The movie is Ram's first pan-India release. His collaboration with mass specialist Boyapati Sreenu excited the actor's fans. The movie is touted to be an emotional family drama narrated in a unique but typical Boyapati style with an overload of mass action sequences.

The film's theatrical trailers and the huge pre-release Jathara have set the tone for its grand release, sending the fans into a frenzy. However, the team refrained from promotional interviews and other activities on purpose. Reportedly, they are confident in the film and want it to do the talking after hitting the screens.

Skanda Pre-Release Business Details

The movie, which is carrying sky-high expectations

had closed a decent pre-release buzz. Check out the full details of Skanda's pre-release business below.

Nizam: Rs 13 Crore

Ceeded: Rs 8.50 Crore

Andhra: Rs 19.50 Crore

Andhra Pradesh & Telangana: Rs 41 Crore

Karnataka + Rest Of India: Rs 3 Crore

Overseas: Rs 2.20 Crore

Total Worldwide Business: Rs 46.20 Crore

Break-Even Target: Rs 47 Crore +

Skanda Cast

The movie stars Ram Pothineni, Sreeleela, Saiee Manjrekar, Prince Cecil, Sharath Lohithaswa, Prabhakar, Ajay Purkar, Daggubati Raja, Srikanth, Babloo Prithviraj, Indraja, Gauthami, among others. Urvashi Rautela sizzled in a special song called 'Cult Mode.'

Skanda Crew

The full-action entertainer is written and directed by Boyapati Srinu. M Rathnam penned dialogues for the film. Tammiraju and Santosh Detake handled the film's editing and cinematography. S Thaman composed the background score and music. Srinivasaa Chitturi bankrolled the movie under the Srinivasaa Silver Screen banner on a budget of about Rs 50 Crore. Zee Studios is distributing the movie.
Announcing The RedwoodJS Conference for Builders: A Convergence of World-renowned Product Developers, Founders, and Tech Leaders Exploring Open Source Innovation in the Modern JavaScript Ecosystem.

GRANTS PASS, ORE. / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2023 / This replaces and corrects a press release that posted earlier today to remove the group photo.

Preston Werner Ventures, in partnership with ZEAL, a developer agency out of Grants Pass, Oregon, has launched "The RedwoodJS Conference for Builders" taking place September 26-29.

The RedwoodJS Conference for Builders will bring together some of the world's best tech companies, speakers, leaders, and technologists. The conference will feature keynote speakers, lightning talks, a cash prize Build Competition, livestream content sessions, workshop immersives, afterparties, connecting events, and more.

Several Advanced Workshops are scheduled, covering topics on AI as well as advanced Apollo and Prisma integrations. The sold-out Founders Workshop will offer startup founders a direct opportunity to "workshop" their products with industry experts like Tom Preston-Werner and David S. Price, both co-founders of RedwoodJS and investors.

Tom Preston-Werner shared, "RedwoodJS will soon be one of the only frameworks to support React Server Components, and we intend to be on the cutting edge of what is possible with React in this new era. We have intentionally kept this conference small, to create a real community event where we can get to know each other and share ideas more deeply than you can ever achieve with a mega-conference."

Featured Speakers include: Matt Carroll of the React team at Meta; Diana Mounter, Head of Design at GitHub; Nikita Shamgunov, Founder and CEO at Neon, Tom Preston-Werner, Co-Founder of GitHub; Bryce Roberts of Indie VC; Elston Baretto from Tiiny.host; Orta Therox of Microsoft; Evan You, Creator of Vue.js and Vite and so many more.

Trever Yarrish, CEO of Zeal, stated, "Innovation is not just about new ideas but how these ideas are shared and learned. We built this conference with this in mind. I genuinely believe that anyone passionate about the future of technology would regret missing this conference and I'm honored to help bring this opportunity to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and, specifically, my hometown, Grants Pass."

The RedwoodJS framework is critical infrastructure for startups that have raised nearly $70MM in funding. This boutique conference is designed with connection in mind for a wide range of tech professionals from product developers to founders and tech leaders.

Featured Sponsors: Preston-Werner Ventures, Novu, Neon, Stackblitz, GitPod, Fractal, Stripe, Fixie, The Guild, Prisma, Leftlane, Apollo, Courier, Escape, and Tailwind CSS.

Learn more about the conference and schedule at: https://www.redwoodjsconf.com/ and the app built with RedwoodJS for the conference.

About RedwoodJS: RedwoodJS is the full-stack web framework designed to help developers grow their side projects to startups. Founders using RedwoodJS for their startups have raised nearly $70MM in funding. Learn more more about RedwoodJS at https://redwoodjs.com/.

About ZEAL: ZEAL is an award-winning software agency that specializes in Ruby-on-Rails web and mobile application design and development. Learn more at codingzeal.com.

Preston-Werner Ventures: Preston-Werner Ventures, LLC supports several philanthropic efforts, including the RedwoodJS open-source project and 128 Collective, which endeavors to build a safe climate for everyone. Learn more at: https://128collective.org/.

Contact Information

Jennifer Tacheff

Founder & CEO

jennifer@manifestadvisor.com

510-809-6906

SOURCE: ZEAL

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787663/correction-zeal-preston-werner-ventures-host-first-redwoodjs-conference-in-the-redwoods
TOKYO, Sept 27, 2023 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), one of the world's foremost industrial groups leading the way in clean energy, and ZutaCore, Inc., a trailblazer in the field of direct-on-chip, waterless liquid cooling solutions, today announced a strategic partnership to bring zero-emissions to the data industry. MHI's investment in ZutaCore will expedite the growth and development of sustainable liquid cooling solutions crucial for energy efficiency in an increasingly data-reliant world. Through the white-label sales agreement, MHI will combine ZutaCore's HyperCool dielectric direct-liquid-cooling technology with its extensive product line and technological expertise, at global scale. The comprehensive solution provides unprecedented benefits to high-performance computing workloads, server densification, and data center sustainability.ZutaCore's trailblazing HyperCool technology transforms the data center landscape by allowing operators to significantly upgrade their existing infrastructure with little to no modifications to current real estate, power, or cooling systems, while leveraging unprecedent heat reuse capabilities. Merging this breakthrough with MHI Group's fully integrated management system, low-carbon power generation facilities, and server immersion cooling systems, will dramatically address the pressing challenges faced by data centers today, including the enhancement of heat exhaust efficiency, promotion of energy conservation, and decabornization.Erez Freibach, co-founder and CEO of ZutaCore, commented on the new partnership: "Our alliance with MHI marks a pivotal moment in the trajectory of sustainable data centers. Leveraging MHI's extensive technological expertise and global reach alongside our groundbreaking HyperCool technology, we are poised to redefine data center efficiency. This partnership is a testament to our shared commitment to fostering a zero-emission data industry, and we are excited to pave the way for unprecedented energy conservation and decarbonization levels in this space."The worldwide surge in digital transformation (DX) has sparked an exponential rise in information processing, amplifying both the role and demand for data centers. Alongside this, the emergence of generative AI(Note1) necessitates using high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) (Note2), leading to an uptick in power consumption by data centers that manage these high-performance servers. This is where ZutaCore's innovative cooling solutions become an essential player. By implementing ZutaCore's state-of-the-art technology, data centers can effectively manage the increased heat output and power consumption, promoting efficient operations and sustainability in the era of digital expansion."MHI is keen to support the ongoing transition of Data Centers towards smarter and more efficient through one stop solutions integrating power generation and cooling solution. Our new partner ZutaCore has already supplied its innovative HyperCool solution to the world's IT infrastructure and server companies, contributing to the realization of sustainable data centers through effective heat exhaust for servers. The partnership with ZutaCore will accelerate contributing to further progress in Data Center infrastructure.", said Shin Gomi, General Manager in Business Development, Growth Strategy Office of MHI.Drawing on its extensive expertise in various heat-related fields, MHI is committed to delivering comprehensive "One Stop Solutions" that encompass reliable and efficient low-carbon power generation facilities, integrated management systems, and high-efficiency cooling systems. These solutions are specifically tailored for data centers that utilize high-performance servers, a rapidly expanding market. By enabling decarbonized and efficient data centers, MHI and ZutaCore are at the forefront of driving the IT industry's green transformation (GX).1Generative AI: Artificial intelligence (AI) that can autonomously create new content, such as images and text, by learning a large amount of data.2GPU: A semiconductor chip (processor) that performs computation processing related to image depiction. Up to now, GPU models specialized in graphics have been common, but as the AI field has progressed, more of the latest models incorporate functions for AI.About ZutaCoreFounded in 2016 ZutaCore is revolutionizing the data industry with HyperCool - a waterless, direct-on-chip liquid cooling solution. This technology increases compute density, reduces energy consumption, optimizes space utilization, and delivers 100% heat reuse in the data center. With its field operations centered in San Jose, California, an R&D center in Israel and offices in Europe and Taiwan, ZutaCore is part of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance. Learn more at zutacore.com.About MHI GroupMitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group is one of the world's leading industrial groups, spanning energy, smart infrastructure, industrial machinery, aerospace and defense. MHI Group combines cutting-edge technology with deep experience to deliver innovative, integrated solutions that help to realize a carbon neutral world, improve the quality of life and ensure a safer world. For more information, please visit www.mhi.com or follow our insights and stories on spectra.mhi.com.Source: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Copyright 2023 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
TOKYO, Sept 27, 2023 - (JCN Newswire) - JTOWER Inc. ("JTOWER") and NTT DOCOMO, INC. ("DOCOMO") announced today that they have decided to conclude a new master transaction agreement aimed at facilitating the sharing of DOCOMO's current telecommunication tower infrastructure. This agreement will enable the ownership of an additional 1,552 DOCOMO towers to be transferred to JTOWER for the sum of 17 billion yen, with DOCOMO subsequently leasing the towers from JTOWER.In March 2022, JTOWER and DOCOMO entered into the master transaction agreement allowing the transfer of 6,002 of DOCOMO's telecommunications towers to JTOWER. The addition of this new agreement will enable the two companies to strengthen their network building, it will also enable the towers to be used for a wider range of applications, facilitating the further sharing of infrastructure.Aims of both companiesThe purchase of telecommunications towers and the enhancement of infrastructure-sharing by attracting new tenants is one of JTOWER's key growth strategies. This transaction will greatly strengthen its business foundation as a tower sharing operator.DOCOMO is actively working to build a viable 5G network by promoting infrastructure sharing and this transaction will enable further streamlining of its network operations.Future initiativesThe transfer of 6,002 telecommunications towers stipulated in the master transaction agreement entered into in March 2022 is proceeding smoothly. By the end of June 2023, the transfer of approximately 2,400 towers had been completed and other mobile network operators are now being actively encouraged to make use of these.Going forward, JTOWER and DOCOMO will continue transitioning the ownership of towers that meet the necessary criteria in order to accelerate infrastructure sharing.Through these efforts, both companies aim to realize more efficient capital investments and lower operating expenses for tower tenants; they also plan to promote the early deployment of 5G networks. Both companies will also continue contributing to the achievement of a sustainable society, reducing the environmental impact of their infrastructure through its effective use.About JTOWERJTOWER was founded in 2012 as the first Infra-Sharing company in Japan. In addition to the indoor Infra-Sharing solutions that consolidate the mobile network in the buildings, JTOWER is also expanding the outdoor tower sharing solutions, such as tower sharing in suburbs and rural areas, and multi-functional poles centered on metropolitan areas. Under the corporate vision of "Infra-Sharing Services from Japan Lead the World," JTOWER is developing a wide range of services for the future.About NTT DOCOMONTT DOCOMO, Japan's leading mobile operator with over 86 million subscriptions, is one of the world's foremost contributors to 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network technologies. Beyond core communications services, DOCOMO is challenging new frontiers in collaboration with a growing number of entities ("+d" partners), creating exciting and convenient value-added services that change the way people live and work. Under a medium-term plan toward 2020 and beyond, DOCOMO is pioneering a leading-edge 5G network to facilitate innovative services that will amaze and inspire customers beyond their expectations.https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/Source: NTT DOCOMOCopyright 2023 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2023) - WesCan Energy Corp. (TSXV: WCE) ("WesCan" or the "Company") is announcing that it received a letter of resignation from its Chief Executive Officer, Greg T. Busby. Mr. Busby's resignation as Chief Executive Officer of the Company will take effect on November 24, 2023 or such earlier date that the Board of Directors may determine. Mr. Busby has advised the Board of Directors of his willingness to support WesCan during this period of transition to ensure an orderly leadership transition to his successor. The Board of Directors of the Company thanks Mr. Busby for his dedication and service over the period of his employment and wishes him the best in his future endeavours. The Board of Directors of the Company will commence a search for a new Chief Executive Officer immediately following the Company's annual general and special meeting to be held on Thursday, September 28, 2023.

All updates and press releases will be available on the Company's website at www.wescanenergycorp.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Greg T. Busby, President & CEO

WESCAN ENERGY CORP.

Tel: (403) 265-9464

John H. Cassels, CFO

WESCAN ENERGY CORP.

Tel: (403) 265-9464

TSX Venture: WCE

www.wescanenergycorp.com

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" occur. Forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding expectations of the Board of Directors of WesCan regarding the timing of Mr. Busby's resignation and the Board of Director's expectations regarding the commencement of a search for his replacement. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements including, without limitation, the risks that a suitable successor to Mr. Busby is not identified or engaged in a timely fashion. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as otherwise required by law.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182021
TAIPEI, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ZoobeTek, an innovative software startup specializing in cybersecurity, is bringing the fight to mobile hacking risks and quantum threats with its cutting-edge solution, Coral Remote Access (CRA). This military-grade solution is tailored for organizations that implement Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) or remote work policies.

Securing the mobile future

As digitalization continues at a fast pace globally, there are growing concerns for data breaches and loss of data. Hackers are able to utilize a variety of attacks to pilfer sensitive corporate and personal data, making it vital for everyone to protect themselves. To protect data transmission and storage for smartphones, Mobile Device Management (MDM) and VPN have been adopted by enterprises and organizations. Yet these are far away from an ideal solution to the challenges for mobile security nowadays. ZoobeTek's CRA is designed to improve mobile security by centralizing corporate data and applications on controlled remote servers instead of storing them directly on mobile devices. Leveraging Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) technology, CRA establishes a unified remote environment where all corporate mobile applications operate seamlessly. These applications are streamed in real-time with 4G to end users' smartphones, enabling them to work with sensitive information without the need to download corporate files to their smartphones or tablets.

Utilizing revolutionary cloud-based technology to create a Digital Twin of each device, CRA can further identify cybersecurity and behavioral risks on individual mobile device and block access to corporate resources, all while maintaining user privacy. With built-in admin features, app updates and corporate security policies can be easily implemented within minutes for thousands of devices. CRA solution has been adopted by a telecom group and a government agency in Taiwan for over one year with more than 10,000 online users per day.

"Of course our first priority is to ensure that no confidential information and customer data can be stored at mobile devices of any employee. It is also of great importance to us that employees know the privacy of BYOD devices remains secured and intact. We have found no better products than CRA that meets all our requirements", said one customer.

ZoobeTek is also actively developing cloud services and planning to launch a cloud-based CRA solution with post-quantum end-to-end encryption in 2024.

ZoobeTek's founder & CEO PingHsien Chi added "With our CRA, remote and hybrid work arrangements will become more secure to industries despite the quantum threats while productivity can be ensured without any compromise for security."

Interested parties can learn more about ZoobeTek by visiting the company's website at https://www.zoobetek.com/

About ZoobeTek

Established in 2023 as a spin-off of Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan, ZoobeTek Co., Ltd. is a software company that provides innovative solutions for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) security, zero-trust network access and trade secret protection. The mission of the company is to support customers across various industries in their journey towards remote or hybrid work, making their digital experiences simpler and more secure.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2219641/IT_administrators_monitor_analyze_virtual_replica_user_device_access_personal.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/zoobetek-leading-the-charge-against-mobile-hacking-risks-and-quantum-threats-301937383.html
New research shows UK doctors the least satisfied with their career choice compared to France, Germany, Italy, and Spain

8 in 10 say working in the NHS has become harder in the past year

The vast majority of doctors are unhappy with their pay

Just 1 in 4 would recommend a medical career to their children

A Medscape study of 4,347 doctors across Europe's biggest economies has found that only half of UK doctors (54%) would choose the profession for themselves if they had their time over. The UK result was the lowest of the European G5 where in Germany 72%, Spain 68%, France 62%, and Italy 60% of doctors would choose medicine if they were faced with the decision today.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926943064/en/

Do UK doctors feel they are paid enough? (Graphic: Business Wire)

The research, which included results from 569 doctors practising full-time in the UK, found the number was even lower for younger doctors, with just 49% of medical professionals under age 45 reporting they would choose the profession again. The study also found the vast majority of doctors (86%) felt that working in the NHS has become harder in the past year. NHS staffing levels are by far the most challenging aspect of work, with half of doctors (53%) citing this reason above all else.

"Our research shows the UK leads the top five economies in Europe on doctors' regret, in that around half would not choose a medical profession again if they had their time over. This is particularly stark for younger doctors, where less than half would do it all again, a sobering temperature check of morale in the wake of recent and historic strike action by junior doctors and consultants," said Dr John Whyte, Chief Medical Officer at Medscape-WebMD.

The study found 80% of doctors do not feel they are fairly rewarded for the job that they do, and only 1 in 4 (24%) would recommend their children join the medical profession, down 44% when compared to the same research conducted in 2019.1

"We have seen a significant downward shift in the familial association within the medical profession when we compare these results to the same research conducted in the year before the outbreak of the pandemic. Just one in four doctors would recommend medicine to their children, down by 44% in four years. Traditionally children of doctors in the UK are 24 times more likely than their peers to enter the medical profession,2 which signifies how important this pathway is for future recruitment," said Dr Whyte.

The findings shine a new light on staff vacancies within NHS England, which when published in June stood at 112,000 and are mainly being filled through international recruitment.3 In 2020 the General Medical Council reported a third of doctors who graduate in the UK moved abroad to countries like Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Canada.4

The top challenges reported by UK doctors are:

NHS staffing levels and workload (53%)

Burdensome NHS rules and regulations (17%)

Dealing with difficult patients 8%

Long working hours (7%)

Concern about being sued (5%)

In their words

"It's a job with a horrible work-life balance, most of the time not rewarding, not very respected by society. Few people outside of medicine realise how many sacrifices doctors make and that we pay with our own physical and mental health to provide good care." verbatim

"I would leave if I could find another job where I could use my skills acquired over the last 16 years and earn sufficient to support my family. I feel trapped and on a daily basis hopeless." verbatim

"Too much stress not enough pay. If I could go back in time and train in something else, I would definitely do that." verbatim

"I would actively discourage my children from following this pathway unless there is a very significant change for the better within the NHS, and with the UK government's general attitude towards doctors." verbatim

The Medscape UK Doctors Compensation Report 2023 is available here: medscape.com/uk-doctors-compensation-report-2023

About Medscape UK Doctor Compensation Report 2023

Medscape surveyed 770 practising UK doctors between February and May 2023. Results are based on the 569 doctors employed full-time. The demographics of the respondents were:

Female: 28%

Male: 69%

Prefer not to self-describe: 3%

Responses were also analysed from full-time doctors in France (n=879) and Germany (n=866) surveyed between December 2022 and May 2023; in Italy (n=1,169) and Spain (n=864) surveyed between January and May 2023.

About Medscape

Medscape, a subsidiary of WebMD Health Corp., is the leading source of clinical news, health information, and point-of-care tools for healthcare professionals. Medscape offers specialists, primary care doctors, and other health professionals the most robust and integrated medical information and educational tools. Medscape Education (medscape.org) is the leading destination for continuous professional development, consisting of more than 30 specialty-focused destinations offering thousands of free C.M.E. and C.E. courses and other educational programmes for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. Medscape is a subsidiary of WebMD Health Corp.

About WebMD Health Corp.

WebMD, an Internet Brands company, is at the heart of the digital health revolution that is transforming the healthcare experience for consumers, patients, health care professionals, employers, health plans, and health systems. Through public and private online portals, mobile platforms, and health-focused publications, WebMD delivers leading-edge content and digital services that enable and improve decision-making, support and motivate health actions, streamline and simplify the health care journey, and improve patient care. The WebMD Health Network includes WebMD Health, WebMD Ignite, Medscape, Jobson Healthcare Information, MediQuality, Frontline, Vitals Consumer Services, Aptus Health, PulsePoint, SanovaWorks, MedicineNet, eMedicineHealth, RxList, OnHealth, Medscape Education, and other owned WebMD sites. WebMD, Medscape, CME Circle, Medpulse, eMedicine, MedicineNet, theheart.org and RxList are among the trademarks of WebMD Health Corp. or its subsidiaries.

1 Medscape. UK Doctors' Salary and Satisfaction Report 2019. Available at: https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-uk-doctors-salary-report-6011623?0=0=reg=1&1=reg=1. Accessed September 2023

2 Friedman S, Laurison D, The Class Ceiling: Why is Pays to be Privileged. Policy Press. 2019.

3 NHS Digital. Latest NHS workforce and vacancy statistics. Available at: https://www.nhsemployers.org/news/latest-nhs-workforce-and-vacancy-statistics. Accessed September 2023

4 General Medical Council. Completing the Picture Survey. Available at: https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/completing-the-picture-survey_pdf-87815271.pdf. Accessed September 2023

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926943064/en/

Contacts:

Jaberta Bennett

WebMD

jbennett@webmd.net

Phone: +1 404 660-7002



Ciaran Friel

Health Unlimited

ciaran.friel@unlimitedgroup.com

Phone: +44 20 7751 5316
Independent global leaders in medical research on women's health, Professor Amanda Black and Professor Wulf Utian, to deliver two presentations each on E4

E4 is a key active pharmaceutical ingredient in Estelle  and Donesta  products

and Donesta products Differentiated efficacy and safety in contraception and postmenopausal symptoms from positive Phase 3 trials

Liege, Belgium,27 September2023- 7:00 CEST - Mithra (Euronext Brussels: MITRA), a company dedicated to Women's Health, today announces there will be four presentations on Estetrol (E4) native estrogen at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) 2023 Annual Meeting, being held September 27-30 in Philadelphia, USA. E4 is a key active pharmaceutical ingredient in both Mithra's marketed contraceptive Estelle and its next generation hormone therapy product candidate for postmenopausal symptoms, Donesta.

Amanda Black MD, MPH, FRCSC, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The University of Ottawa, will hold an independent oral presentation on the use of E4 for contraception and menopause. Dr. Black will be discussing the science and safety behind the use of E4 in the menopause at the opening symposium and will present some of the data on the effects of E4 on breast tissue.

Dr. Wulf Utian1, MD, PhD, DSc, Executive Director Emeritus and Honorary Founding President of NAMS, who is considered to be one of the world's authorities on menopause and women's health, will hold an oral presentation on the Phase 3 results of E4 in postmenopausal symptoms. The data, from two multi-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with 2,550 postmenopausal women aged 40-65, show beneficial effects from 12-week treatment with E4. These include a significant increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) - or "good" - cholesterol and a significant decrease in the ratio total of HDL cholesterol to low-density lipoprotein (LDL) "bad" cholesterol and lipoprotein. There was also a significant decrease in fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c average blood glucose (glycemia) level. Also observed were trends for decreases in insulin and Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR).

Dr. Black and Dr. Utian will each also hold poster presentations on E4 at NAMS 2023.

Graham Dixon, Chief Scientific Officer of Mithra, commented: "The data will demonstrate that E4 treatment has a favorable safety profile, including a low impact on normal and malignant breast tissue, thanks to its unique mode of action which means it has tissue selective activity, unlike all other estrogens. It has also been shown to be effective at decreasing vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women. The evidence clearly shows the potential of E4 to offer women differentiated options to support their independence during child-bearing years and maintain their health during menopause."

Mithra has previously reported positive results from Phase 3 trials, showing strong efficacy and a favorable safety profile for contraception, for Estelle, and separately, a statistically significant reduction in vasomotor symptoms, or hot flushes and night sweats, in postmenopausal women, with Donesta.

Dr. David Horn Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of Mithra, commented: "We are proud that Dr. Black and Dr. Utian, two globally recognized experts on women's health, are presenting this clinical research on our exciting E4 developments. Our scientific founder, Professor Jean-Michel Foidart, was amongst the first to characterize and recognize the potential of this native and selective estrogen, which is produced by the human fetus during pregnancy, passing into maternal blood at relatively high levels and offering unique benefits. His research and development efforts allowed Mithra to develop and test E4 as the key innovative active pharmaceutical ingredient in Mithra's oral contraceptive Estelle and its Donesta next generation hormone therapy drug candidate.

Our marketing partners are currently accelerating the ongoing commercial launches of Estelle, globally; we are finalizing our application for U.S. marketing authorization of Donesta, for submission later this year. These data presented at NAMS 2023 illustrate the significant goals we are pursuing to provide women with a new era in oral contraception and the next generation hormone therapy for menopause. Our mission is for these and other innovative products to improve women's health and independence from young adulthood through mid-life and beyond."

Details of the presentations at NAMS 2023 are as follows:

Estetrol (E4): A Promising New Treatment for the Spectrum of Menopausal Symptoms

Presenter: Amanda Black - Poster





The Effect of Estetrol (E4) on Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Postmenopausal Women - Results From a Phase 3 Trial

Presenter: Wulf Utian - Poster





Estetrol (E4), a Promising New Treatment for Menopausal Vasomotor Symptoms (VMS): Beneficial Lipid and Carbohydrate Metabolism in a Phase 3 Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial

Presenter: Wulf Utian - Oral

Time: 4:30-4:45pm EST, Thursday 28 September

Location: Concurrent Session 2-Oral Abstract Presentations; Grand Ballroom (A-D)-Fifth Floor





Estetrol (E4) for contraception and Menopause: Where is the Science?

Presenter: Amanda Black - Invited Oral (Independent)

Time: 10:10-10:30am EST, Wednesday 27 September

Location: Opening Symposium-Precision Oncology for Midlife Women; Grand Ballroom (E-L)-Fifth Floor





For more information, please contact:

Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA

Alex Sokolowski, PhD

Head of Investor Relations

investorrelations@mithra.com

+32 (0)4 349 28 22

Frederique Depraetere

Communications Director

info@mithra.com (mailto:info@mithra.com)

+32 (0)4 349 28 22







Chris Maggos

Cohesion Bureau

chris.maggos@cohesionbureau.com

+41 79 367 6254

About Mithra

Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA (Euronext: MITRA) is a Belgian biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming Women's Health by offering new choices through innovation, with a particular focus on contraception and menopause. Mithra's goal is to develop products offering better efficacy, safety and convenience, meeting women's needs throughout their life span. Mithra explores the potential of the unique native estrogen estetrol in a wide range of applications in women health and beyond. After having successfully launched the first estetrol-based product in 2021, the contraceptive pill Estelle, Mithra is now focusing on its second product Donesta, the next-generation hormone therapy. Mithra also offers partners a complete spectrum of solutions from early drug development, clinical batches and commercial manufacturing of complex polymeric products (vaginal ring, implants) and complex liquid injectables and biologicals (vials, pre-filled syringes or cartridges) at its technological platform Mithra CDMO. Active in more than 100 countries around the world, is headquartered in Liege, Belgium.www.mithra.com

ESTELLE and DONESTA are registered trademarks of Mithra Pharmaceuticals or one of its affiliates.

Important information

The contents of this announcement include statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words "believes", "estimates," "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "may", "will", "plans", "continue", "ongoing", "potential", "predict", "project", "target", "seek" or "should", and include statements the Company makes concerning the intended results of its strategy. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. The Company's actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.





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1 Dr. Utian is a member of the Mithra Advisory Board.

Attachments
2023 H1 results

Continued commercial ramp-up of the Bouin production unit, with revenues for the 1 st half of 2023 of 0.4m, representing an increase of +40% vs H1 2022

Expected acceleration of sales in H2 2023, following the signing of new green H2 sale contracts

Expected strong increase in capacity production for the end of 2023, with up to 4 tons of green and renewable hydrogen produced per day (vs. 300 kg at end of 2022)

Acceleration of the projects in "Construction" phase: 34 MW (vs. 9 MW at the end of 2022)

2024 and 2026 guidance confirmed - Production capacity targeted to reach up to 22 tons of green hydrogen per day by end 2024 and up to 80 tons per day by end 2026

Ambition: become a major player in mobility use (bulk) in France and Germany by 2025

2023 H1 results: continuing the industrial scale-up with Lhyfe accelerating its investments in future production sites

Consolidation of teams and expertise, structuring of the company, with headcount of 192 employees as of end of June 2023 (vs. 149 at end of 2022)

Half-year EBITDA at (15.3)m reflecting the accelerated development and the investments in projects, together with the international structuring of the company

Strong cash position at 127.7m as of 30 June 2023

Nantes (France) - 27 September 2023 - 7 :00 am - At its meeting held on 26 September 2023, the Board of Directors of Lhyfe (Euronext Paris - FR0014009YQ1 - LHYFE), independent producer of green hydrogen to decarbonise industry and mobility, approved its consolidated financial statements for H1 2023 (from January 1st to June 30, 2023). These financial statements were the subject of a limited review by the Statutory Auditors. The half-year financial report to end-June 2023 is available on Lhyfe 's website, in the Investors section.

Matthieu Guesne, Founder and Chairman-CEO of Lhyfe:

 Our 1st half of 2023 is in line with 2022, with a ramp-up of our production site in Bouin which will be operating at full capacity by the end of the year to address the growing demand from our clients. We also continued the deployment of our sites under construction, the first of which will be commissioned at the end of 2023, accelerated our investments, strengthened our teams across all our geographies, and concluded new partnerships and strategic agreements, particularly in offshore.

Our projects currently under construction represent a total installed capacity of 34 MW, enabling us to confirm the increase in our production capacity to 4 tonnes of green and renewable hydrogen per day by the end of the year. By the end of 2024, we aim to increase this figure to 22 tonnes, and to 80 tonnes by 2026. 

H1 2023 highlights

Acceleration of projects in "Construction" or "Awarded" stages at mid 2023

During the 1st half of 2023, Lhyfe kept a strong pace in project development and construction of its production units, with 54 MW of installed capacity at "Construction[1]" or "Awarded1" phase as of mid 2023, through 12 sites (versus 50 MW at year end 2022).

Among the projects in "Construction" phase, the following developments should be highlighted:

Lhyfe Bretagne (Buleon, France): In Buleon, Bretagne (France), a unit, which will be able to produce up to 2 t/day of green hydrogen (5 MW installed capacity), is currently under construction since the beginning of 2023, with commissioning expected at end-2023. This unit is part of the VhyGo project (Vallee Hydrogene Grand Ouest) which aims to build the first supra-regional infrastructure for the distribution of green hydrogen in France and is supported by the ADEME.

Lhyfe Occitanie (Bessieres, France): In Occitanie (France), Lhyfe continues the construction of a production unit in Bessieres, which will be able to produce up to 2 t/day of green hydrogen (5 MW installed capacity), with commissioning expected at end-2023.

Lhyfe Bade-Wurtemberg (Schwabisch Gmund, Germany): In Schwabisch Gmund, Germany, Lhyfe launched during the 1st half of 2023 the construction of a green hydrogen production unit with a maximum capacity of around 4 t/day (10 MW installed capacity) as well as a hydrogen distribution station for the general public and a pipeline to supply the future "H2-Aspen" technology park with green hydrogen. The plant is expected to be operational in the 2nd half of 2024. This project is part of the HyFIVE (Hydrogen For Innovative Vehicles) project, which has received a 33m funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Tubingen (Germany): As part of the Deutsche Bahn and Siemens Mobility H2goesRail project, Lhyfe will launch in the 2nd half of 2023 the installation of a production site in Tubingen Germany, with a maximum capacity of 400 kg/day of green hydrogen (1 MW installed capacity), aimed at supplying hydrogen-powered trains on the Pforzheim-Horb-Tubingen line from 2024.

Brake (Germany): Lhyfe will launch the construction of a production unit in Brake, with a maximum capacity of 4 t/day of green hydrogen (10 MW installed capacity). The construction permit has been filed during the 1st half of 2023. This site will supply local mobility and industrial uses, with a commissioning date scheduled for the 2nd half of 2024.

Botnia Hydrogen (Sweden): Within the Botnia Hydrogen consortium, Lhyfe carries a project to develop hydrogen production and supply units in the north of Sweden, with a total maximum production capacity of 600 kg/day of hydrogen (1.5 MW installed capacity), which will address mainly HGVs and buses. The land and connections have been secured. Construction has started in the 1st half of 2023.

Lhyfe Pays de la Loire (Bouin, France): The commercial ramp-up in the Bouin unit continues with an expansion of its customer portfolio and the signing of new sale contracts. In order to anticipate the saturation of the Bouin unit next year, an increase in production capacity is planned for 2024. Current installed capacity of 1 MW, i.e., a total production capacity up to 300 kg of green hydrogen a day, is set to rise to 2.5 MW (i.e., around 1 t/day) to meet the growing demand in the region.

Based on these achievements and on the coming commissioning of the first 5 MW modular sites in France (Lhyfe Bretagne et Lhyfe Occitanie), Lhyfe confirms the strong expansion of its installed production capacity in 2023 by 14 times compared to end 2022, raising it to up to 4 tonnes of green and renewable hydrogen per day.

Projects at an advanced stage of development[2] as of end of June 2023 representing more than 600 MW of installed capacity by 2030

Projects at an advanced stage of development2, corresponding to the most mature project stages of the pipeline, now represent an installed capacity of over 619 MW (against 749 MW at the end of 2022).

Within these projects, projects in "Construction" phase represent an installed capacity of 34 MW at end June 2023, versus 9 MW as at end 2022, due to the conversion within the period of several projects which were in "Awarded" stage.

During the first half 2023 Lhyfe's total commercial pipeline strengthened and represents as of 30 June 2023 an installed capacity of 10.3 GW (versus 9.8 GW at the end of 2022). Lhyfe benefits from a market environment supported by the European energy independence plan RepowerEU, which targets the production of 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen in the European Union by 2030, and by major national plans to support the deployment of the green hydrogen sector.

As of 30 June 2023, the allocation of Lhyfe's commercial pipeline between the different project stages was as follows:

June 2023 End 2022 Units in operation 2 MW 1 MW Projects at "Construction"1 phase 34 MW 9 MW Projects at "Awarded"1 phase 30 MW 40 MW Projects at "Tender ready"1 phase 555 MW 710 MW Projects at an advanced stage of development2 619 MW 759 MW Projects at "Advanced development"1 phase 4.4 GW 4.1 GW Projects at "Early stage"1 phase 5.3 GW 5.0 GW Total commercial pipeline 10.3 GW 9.8 GW

As a result, Lhyfe has a substantial pipeline of over 10 GW, compared with its target of 3 GW of installed capacity by 2030, for which Lhyfe is exploring a number of financing options.

67m of secured grants to date

As of the date hereof, secured grants[3] intended to finance research activities as well as production sites currently being deployed represents 67.4m. This amount includes notably the following new grants, secured since the beginning of the year:

a 9.8m "Clean Hydrogen Partnership" grant awarded to Lhyfe by the European Commission and related to the HOPE project, supplemented in July by a grant awarded by the Belgian government for an amount of 13m;

a 4.4m grant awarded by the European Commission and related to the TH2Icino project in Italy; and

a 1.6m grant awarded by the ADEME and related to the Hy'Touraine project.

New projects and developments during first half 2023

In March 2023, Lhyfe acquired a 49% stake in the Finnish company Flexens, a developer of green hydrogen projects and "Power-to-X" (transformation of electricity into another energy carrier) projects based on renewable energy sources. Flexens already has a commercial pipeline with a total planned capacity of over 1.5 GW in Finland and abroad. The two companies will combine their expertise, market knowledge and commercial pipelines to accelerate current projects and identify new opportunities in Northern Europe, especially related to large offshore projects.

In France, Lhyfe announced on 30 June 2023 its involvement in the Hy'Touraine project, which is to be the first complete, local public-private ecosystem in France for green hydrogen. Under this project founded by four local public authorities from the Tours area and STMicroelectronics Tours, Lhyfe will build a green hydrogen production site with a capacity of up to 2 tonnes per day depending on needs (installed capacity of 5 MW), powered by renewable energy to be supplied locally while Terega Solutions will operate the distribution infrastructure.

In Germany, Lhyfe and duisport, the owner and management company of the Port of Duisburg - the largest inland port in the world, are investigating the feasibility of building the first major electrolysis plant in the port of Duisburg. Lhyfe will first conduct the feasibility study. The hydrogen production plant with an installed capacity of 20 MW could go into operation by 2025.

Progress on our offshore projects

During the 1st half of 2023, the Group continued to progress on its various offshore projects launched since 2021, and signed partnership agreements with wind farm developers and energy companies specialising in offshore.

Commissioning of the Sealhyfe pilot plant at sea

Sealhyfe, the world's first offshore green hydrogen production pilot, after its commissioning at quay in September 2022, has been towed 20 kilometres out into the Atlantic and successfully connected to the floating turbine of SEM-REV offshore testing site. Lhyfe and its partners designed, built and assembled all of the technology necessary for producing hydrogen offshore, including the 1 MW electrolyser, in just 16 months, in a less than 200 sq. metre area platform. On the basis of a production capacity of up to 400 kilograms of green hydrogen a day, this plant is fully operational since 20 June 2023.

The Group invested more than 1.3m on this project during the 1st half of 2023. In 2022 this project received government approval for a contribution from France 2030. This financing provided by the French government and operated by the ADEME amounts to 1m.

HOPE project selected by the European Commission and awarded with a 20m grant

The HOPE (Hydrogen Offshore Production for Europe) project, which Lhyfe coordinates within a consortium of 9 partners, has been selected by the European Commission as part of the European Clean Hydrogen Partnership. As from 2026, this unprecedentedly large-scale project (10 MW of installed capacity) will be able to produce up to 4 t/day of green hydrogen in the North Sea off the port of Ostend (Belgium), which will be exported to shore by composite pipeline, compressed and delivered to customers.

Through these two pioneering projects in offshore hydrogen production, Lhyfe aims to validate the industrial solutions it will present in future calls for projects from various governments, to help achieve the target set by the European Commission under the REPowerEU plan of 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen produced in the European Union by 2030.

In this context, Lhyfe signed partnership agreements with wind farm developers and energy companies specialising in offshore such as Centrica and Capital Energy.

In March 2023, Lhyfe and Centrica have agreed to jointly develop offshore renewable green hydrogen in the UK in a first for the country. Under the agreement, Lhyfe and Centrica will explore combining their expertise to collaborate on a pilot green hydrogen production site in the Southern North Sea.

In June 2023, Lhyfe and Capital Energy, Spanish energy producer and distributor, have signed a collaboration agreement for the joint development of offshore renewable hydrogen projects in Spain and Portugal. Under the agreement, the two companies will work together to create hydrogen production sites at some of the offshore wind farm sites currently being developed by Capital Energy.

2023 half-year results

First-half income statement

In thousands of Euros - IFRS 30/06/2023

(6 months) 30/06/2022

(6 months) 31/12/2022

(12 months) Revenue 0.4 0.3 0.6 EBITDA[4] (15.3) (6.3) (17.0) Current operating profit (loss) (16.2) (6.7) (18.2) Operating profit (loss) (16.2) (7.8) (19.2) Financial result 0.6 (6.2) (6.6) Consolidated net profit (loss) (15.9) (13.9) (25.8)

H1 revenues of 0.4m mainly consist of sales of green hydrogen produced at the Bouin site (sole production site to date).

EBITDA was (15.3)m in H1 2023, compared with (6.3)m a year earlier, reflecting the continued acceleration of the Group's investments in its projects and production sites as well as expansion of the company, notably abroad.

+5.7m increase in employee expenses versus H1 2022, reflecting the Group's expansion, the growth in headcount over the period as well as hire of new employees during the 2nd half of 2022 with impacts in the 1st half of 2023. Headcount, which grew during H1 2023 tough at a lower rate than for H2 2022, was 192 employees as of June 30, 2023 compared to 149 employees at end of 2022 and 81 employees as of June 30, 2022. The headcount is expected to number around 200 at end of 2023.

External expenses increased by 3m due to the international expansion and to the Group's structuring (notably premises, travel expenses)

Group's current operating profit amounted to (16.2)m, compared with (6.7)m as of 30 June 2022, in connection with the 0.9m effect from depreciation charges for the period.

Net profit for the period at (15.9)m versus (13.9) in H1 2022 was favorably impacted by H1 2023 financial income of 0.6m which was mainly related to interest income from short term investments. As a reminder, financial loss of (6.2)m for the 1st half of 2022 was mainly related to the accounting discount on bonds converted at the time of the Company's IPO.

Consolidated balance sheet

Cash consumption over the period for 16.8m, broken down as follows:

Net cash flow used in operating activities for the period amounted to 12.3m , mainly due to a higher headcount, continued structuring of the company as well as the impact of a change in WCR of +2.1m;

, mainly due to a higher headcount, continued structuring of the company as well as the impact of a change in WCR of +2.1m; Net cash flow used in investing activities amounted to 7.8m , related mainly to equipment orders and development costs for future production sites;

, related mainly to equipment orders and development costs for future production sites; Net cash flow from financing activities amounted to 3.4m mainly related to received grants for 3.8m, including the first instalment of the HOPE grant.

As of 30 June 2023, Lhyfe's consolidated shareholders' equity was 118.6m. The company's available cash amounted to 127.7m while net cash[5] stood at 109.4m, thus giving the company good visibility to continue increasing its production capacity and developing its commercial pipeline.

In thousands of Euros - IFRS 30/06/2023 31/12/2022 Shareholders' equity 118.6 133.6 Net cash5 109.4 125.9

Recent developments (Post closing)

Lhyfe selected by Epinal Urban Community to create of a renewable green energy production unit

Lhyfe has been selected by Epinal Urban Community (France) for the creation of a green hydrogen fuel chain due in late 2027. Lhyfe aims to build a large-scale site producing green and renewable hydrogen (dozens of MW of installed capacity) for local uses in the Epinal area, as well as for transregional and cross-border uses (Germany, Belgium, Netherlands), to meet growing decarbonisation needs of industrials and mobility sector players.

This renewable green energy site, whose implementation, which is subject to certain pre-conditions, including the granting of necessary operating authorizations and construction permits as well as the final investment decision, is expected from 2027, will enable the creation of a cutting-edge industrial cluster in the Vosges area and, on a larger scale, within the Grand Est region.

Development of a green hydrogen infrastructure for industrial uses in Perl

On July 2023, Lhyfe announced the development of a 70 MW green hydrogen plant in Perl, Saarland, Germany. The plant is planned to deliver up to 30 tonnes of green hydrogen per day into the pipeline of the mosaHYc hydrogen island network, with industrials consumers, that may benefit from the advantages of green hydrogen, located along the pipeline.

Construction, which is subject to the granting of operating authorizations and construction permits, as well as to financial investment decision, is planned for 2027.

Lhyfe and TSE to build a green energy hub on the site of the former Poitou Foundries

During summer 2023, the consortium comprising Lhyfe and TSE, an independent French solar energy produce, has been selected by the commercial court of Paris to take-over the land and real estate assets of Poitou Foundries site (43 hectares and 40,000 sq. metres of building in the Ingrandes Foundry site and 35 hectares for the Oyre Technical Landfill Centre).

Partners, which benefit from the support of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, intends to build a veritable industrial park centred around green energy and the circular economy, on the site of the former Poitou Foundries, including the installation of a solar park and a green and renewable hydrogen production unit. The photovoltaic power facilities (45 GWh) that TSE plans to install, would allow Lhyfe to produce green and renewable hydrogen.

The project consists, in the first place, in the dismantling of existing infrastructures and cleaning up of the site to make it compatible with the industrialisation process, thanks to the Green Fund, and hen building the bases of a truly ecological industrial park where companies will work in synergy. Several companies have already expressed their interest in joining the future site, in synergy with Lhyfe and TSE, such as an industrial logistics company, as well as e-fuel producing companies (e-methanol and rDME).

Signature of a first long-term contract for the supply of renewable electricity with VSB energies nouvelles

Lhyfe and VSB energies nouvelles, an independent producer of electricity from renewable energy, announced the signing of a long-term renewable electricity supply contract (Corporate PPA). VSB energies nouvelles has been commissioned in 2021 and operates the Buleon wind farm (Morbihan, France) with a total capacity of 13.2 MW.

Under this 16-year electricity supply contract, green electricity produced by the VSB Energies Nouvelles wind farm in Buleon could be used by Lhyfe Bretagne site, whose commissioning is planned for the 1st half of 2024, and which will produce up to 2 t/day of green hydrogen to supply the local area with green hydrogen for uses related to mobility and industrial processes.

Though this new Corporate PPA, Lhyfe secures a local and long-term supply of green electricity and strengthens its network of green energy supply partners.

Postponement of final investment decision on GreenHyScale project (Skive, Denmark)

The GreenHyScale project is led by a European consortium of which Lhyfe is a member and aims to develop a 100 MW green hydrogen production site incorporating a new-generation of 6 MW electrolyzer modules. Given uncertainties related to this large industrial project and notably the development milestones to be reached within the calendar agreed with the EU, the consortium has decided to suspend temporarily the reimbursement of the future development costs through the EU grant scheme currently in place, and to work on a revised plan and calendar. As a result, Lhyfe has decided to delay its investment decision linked to the GreenHyScale onsite project. This decision reflects Lhyfe's agile projects portfolio management and allocation of resources, notably through the regular assessment of the risk/return balance for any of its projects.

Guidance confirmed

Building on its strong commercial portfolio, and on the basis of the hypothesis detailed in Section 10.2 of the Universal Registration Document approved by the AMF on 25 June 2023 and available on Lhyfe's website, Lhyfe aims at becoming one of the leaders in the production of green hydrogen in Europe, by rapidly deploying green hydrogen sites developed on the basis of a modular industrial design aimed at derisking the industry and boosting efficiency.

By 2025, Lhyfe's ambition is to be a major player for mobility use (bulk), in France and Germany, where national ambitions for the deployment of infrastructures and uses are becoming clearer and accelerate.

This ambition can be quantified as follows:

In 2023, on the basis of the planned commercial ramp-up in the Bouin, Lhyfe targets revenues around 1m, underpinned by the signing of several commercial contracts with new clients, thus enabling the site to operate at full capacity by the end of the year. Increase in the production capacity in the Bouin site is expected for 2024.

By the end of 2024, Lhyfe aims to have a total installed capacity of 55 MW, i.e., a green hydrogen production capacity of up to 22 t/day.

In 2026: Lhyfe aims to have a total installed capacity of 200 MW, i.e., a green hydrogen production capacity of up to 80 t/day; around 200m in consolidated revenues; and Group EBITDA[6] at breakeven.

By 2030, the Company plans to have over 3 GW in total installed capacity.

In the long-term, Lhyfe is targeting a Group EBITDA Margin[7] above 30%.

Financial Agenda

Date Disclosure 28 March 2024 2023 Annual Results (audited)

The press release will be published before Euronext Paris market opens.

About Lhyfe

Lhyfe is a European group dedicated to the energy transition, and a producer and supplier of green and renewable hydrogen. Its production sites and portfolio of projects aim to provide access to green and renewable hydrogen in industrial quantities, and to enter into a virtuous energy model allowing the decarbonization of entire sectors of industry and mobility.

In 2021, Lhyfe inaugurated the world's first industrial green hydrogen production site in direct connection with a wind farm. In 2022, Lhyfe inaugurated the world's first pilot platform for green hydrogen production at sea.

Lhyfe is present in 11 European countries and has 149 employees at the end of 2022. The company is listed on the Euronext market in Paris (ISIN: FR0014009YQ1 - mnemonic: LHYFE).

For more information go to Lhyfe.com

Contacts

Investor relations

LHYFE

Yoann Nguyen

investors@lhyfe.com Financial press relations

ACTUS

Manon Clairet

+33 (0)1 53 67 36 73

mclairet@actus.fr Business press relations

Nouvelles Graines

Clemence Rebours

+33 (0)6 60 57 76 43

c.rebours@nouvelles-graines.com

[1] See Section 10.1 of the registration document approved by AMF on 25 April 2023 and available on the Lhyfe website for definitions of these terms.

[2] Tender ready", "Awarded" and "Construction" projects. See section 10.1 of the universal registration document approved by AMF on 25 April 2023 and available on the Lhyfe website for definitions of these terms.

[3] Including signed grants and grants currently under contractualization process

[4] EBITDA: consolidated operating profit from ordinary activities before depreciation, amortisation and provisions

[5] Net cash = available cash - current and non-current financial debts (excluding IFRS 16 lease debt)

[6] "Group EBITDA": current consolidated operating profit before depreciations, amortizations and provisions.

[7] "Group EBITDA Margin": ratio "EBITDA/revenues".

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In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Wednesday. The Australian dollar fell to more than a 2-week low of 0.6377 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 0.6396. Against the yen and the euro, the aussie dropped to a 5-day low of 95.05 and a 2-day low of 1.6561 from yesterday's closing quotes of 95.33 and 1.6523, respectively. The aussie edged down to 0.8623 against the Canadian dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 0.8644. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.61 against the greenback, 91.00 against the yen, 1.68 against the euro and 0.84 against the loonie. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Press Release

27 September 2023 - N 18

SCOR appoints Claudia Dill and Redmond Murphy to the Executive Committee

Claudia Dill joins SCOR as Group Chief Operating Officer and member of the Executive Committee in charge of Technology, Transformation, Global Real Estate and Regional Services Platforms. Claudia Dill will be responsible for defining and implementing the Group's strategy in terms of operational efficiency, automation and digitization as well as effectiveness and resilience, in line with the targets set out in SCOR's new three-year strategic plan, Forward 2026.

Based in Zurich, Claudia Dill will report to SCOR CEO Thierry Leger. Her appointment will take effect on 1 November 2023.

Redmond Murphy, previously Deputy Group Chief Financial Officer and Group Head of Business Performance, is appointed Deputy CEO of SCOR Life & Health and member of the Executive Committee. His new role will include oversight of the Life & Health business in North America, key markets for the Group making a strong contribution to SCOR's new three-year strategic plan, Forward 2026.



Based in Dublin, Redmond Murphy will report to Frieder Knupling, CEO of SCOR Life & Health. He will take up his position on 1 November 2023.

Thierry Leger, Chief Executive Officer of SCOR, comments: "I am very pleased to welcome Claudia and Redmond to theExecutive Committee. Claudia brings with her more than 25 years of executive and board experience inbanking and insurance,working in finance, operations and technology as well asbusiness roles.She has all the qualities needed to progressthe Group's transformation to a data and tech enabled company. Redmondknows our Life & Health business inside out, having spent seven years successfully managing numerousL&H projects before joining the Group Finance department where he has been instrumental in implementing the new IFRS 17accounting framework. In his new role, Redmond will continue to strengthen our L&H leadership role in North America. I wish both of them every success in their new roles and all the members of the Executive Committee look forward to working alongside them."

Biographies

Claudia Dill, a Swiss citizen, studied economics at the University of St. Gallen, holds an MBA from the University of Rochester/Bern, and completed the Advanced Management Program of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1999 to 2020, she worked for the Zurich Insurance Group in a range of managerial positions in Zurich, New York and Sao Paulo, including as CFO for internal reinsurance and the reinsurance run-off unit, CFO for the European business and COO for the propertyand casualty business globally. Most recently,she was the Chief Executive Officer for the Latin American business,also acting as a member of the Group Executive Committee. Before working for Zurich, Claudia Dill held a variety of specialist and management functions at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, and Coopers and Lybrand.In the last few years Claudia focused on non-executive mandates in publicly listed and private companies in banking and insurance.

Redmond Murphy, an Irish citizen, is a qualified actuary and CFA charter holder. Redmond has a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics from University College Cork, Ireland, and an MSc in Applied Statistics from the University of Oxford.He joined SCOR in 2014 as the CFO of SCOR Global Life Reinsurance Ireland.Redmond has held a number of senior roles within SCOR for Life &Health and Finance. In hismost recent role as Deputy Group CFO and Group Head of Business Performance,he was responsible for the Group's financial planning and analysis, for capital, liquidity and performance management, and for the management of SCOR's activities in Ireland. Prior to this, Redmond was an integral part of the Life &Health Leadership Team, in charge of Business Performance, including Business Acceptance, Finance and Actuarial and oversight of SCOR's Irish operations.

*

* *

Contact details

Media Relations

Alexandre Garcia

media@scor.com

Investor Relations

Yves Cormier

ycormier@scor.com

www.scor.com

LinkedIn: SCOR| Twitter: @SCOR_SE

SCOR, a leading global reinsurer

As a leading global reinsurer, SCOR offers its clients a diversified and innovative range of reinsurance and insurance solutions and services to control and manage risk. Applying "The Art & Science of Risk", SCOR uses its industry-recognized expertise and cutting-edge financial solutions to serve its clients and contribute to the welfare and resilience of society.

The Group generated premiums of EUR 19.7 billion in 2022 and serves clients in more than 160 countries from its 35 offices worldwide.

For more information, visit: www.scor.com

Attachment
New alliance continues FloQast's momentum in the DACH region while expanding PwC Germany's digital transformation capabilities

BERLIN, Sept. 27, 2023, a provider of accounting workflow automation software created by accountants for accountants, announced today a strategic consulting partnership with PwC Germany, a global leader in assurance, advisory, and tax services. This collaboration aims to transform financial close processes for businesses across German-speaking countries by combining FloQast's cutting-edge technology with PwC's extensive expertise and industry insights.



The partnership comes as businesses increasingly seek innovative solutions to optimize and streamline their accounting operations. FloQast offers accounting teams software solutions to improve communication and transparency, automate time-consuming tasks, and assure financial accuracy, empowering them to work collaboratively, reduce errors, and accelerate the record-to-report cycle. PwC Germany's deep understanding of financial and sustainability reporting, regulatory environment, and industry-specific challenges will enrich the partnership by providing tailored consulting services to clients seeking to achieve greater efficiency and accuracy.

"We are thrilled to establish an alliance with PwC Germany to bring transformative accounting solutions to businesses throughout the region," said Adam Zoucha, Managing Director, FloQast EMEA. "This partnership leverages FloQast's domain expertise and PwC's consultancy excellence, creating a synergy that will undoubtedly drive value for our clients and redefine how financial close processes are managed."

PwC Germany's commitment to delivering exceptional client service, combined with FloQast's dedication to innovation, forms a strong foundation for this strategic collaboration.

"We are excited to embark on this journey with FloQast to help businesses in the DACH region to accelerate financial transformations and deliver accounting operational excellence," said Bjorn Seidel, Partner Capital Markets & Accounting Advisory Services, PwC Germany. "By blending our consulting expertise with FloQast's advanced workflow automation, we aim to deliver comprehensive solutions that address the unique challenges faced by finance teams today."

About FloQast

FloQast, a provider of accounting workflow automation software created by accountants for accountants, delivers an Accounting Operations Platform that enables organizations to operationalize accounting excellence. Trusted by more than 2,300 accounting teams - including Twilio, Los Angeles Lakers, Zoom, and Snowflake - FloQast was built by accountants, for accountants to enhance the way accounting teams work. FloQast enables customers to streamline and manage the Financial Close, Finance and Accounting Operations, and Compliance Programs. With FloQast, teams can manage every aspect of the month-end Close, reduce their compliance burden, stay audit-ready, and improve accuracy, visibility, and collaboration throughout the financial function. FloQast is consistently rated #1 across all user review sites. Learn more at FloQast.com.

About PwC

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We're a network of firms in 152 countries with over 327,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services.

The term PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of the legally independent network companies. Further details at www.pwc.com/structure .
CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prospera Energy Inc. ("Prospera" or the "Company")

(TSX.V: PEI, OTC: GXRFF, FRA: OF6B, OF6B.SG, OF6B.F, OF6B.BE).

Prospera has successfully drilled five horizontal wells of the multi-well infill horizontal development program. Two horizontal wells have commenced production and the remaining three horizontal wells will commence production in the subsequent weeks. Currently, PEI gross production levels are 800boepd with 400boepd behind pipe to accommodate development. Over the next month, Prospera is expected to attain gross production level of 1,500boepd from behind the pipe production resumption and the additional production from the new horizontal wells. The new horizontal wells will be brought on strategically in a gentle way to accommodate the heavier viscous oil to achieve steady flow peak rates over the next few months.

The horizontal infill drilling program will resume in the next few weeks to allow for lease preparations and access. Due to the efficient collaboration of services and results encountered, Prospera has elected to continue beyond the current ten well program. Prospera will continue the horizontal infill drilling transformation from vertical wells through the winter to next year break up. The quick turn-around to bring this specific horizontal production online allows Prospera to capitalize on the current high Western Canadian Select price of $90 plus per barrel. Therefore, low dilutive capital raise is proposed to continue the drilling that will add significant incremental production to capture substantial recoverable reserves. Furthermore, medium oil development will also commence concurrently.

Capital Raise

PEI hereby announces that it is undertaking a non-brokered private placement of debt financing. A total of up to $3,000,000 will be raised offering holders' interest of 14% per annum, with interest payments to be made quarterly for a term of 2 years. In addition to interest, holders will receive one common share for each dollar of principal advanced, at the time of investment. The Company has already received multiple-lead orders of $1,000,000 plus towards this offering.

Debt Term Sheet

Issuer: Prospera Energy Inc. ("Prospera" or the "Company"). Issue: Low-dilutive offering (the "Offering") of debt financing with equity bonus. Target Close Date: October 31st, 2023. Offering Amount: $3,000,000 CAD. Equity Bonus:

Principal amount loaned will be granted an equity bonus. 1 share for every $1 of debt provided for a total of 3,000,000 shares. Interest: 14% interest, calculated and paid quarterly in cash starting after the 3rd quarter (interest in the first quarter is compounded). Term: 2 years. Repayment: Principle repaid at the end of the term. Underlying Equity Bonus: Common shares of the Company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol PEI (the "Common Shares"). Use of Proceeds: Prospera intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for development capital (covering default partner portion) - Drilling, Completion & Tie-in, well abandonment & reclamation costs, and ongoing ESG initiatives. Finders Fees: The Corporation may pay qualified finders a fee of 7% cash and 7% warrants. Offering Basis: Private placement debt offering with equity bonus.

Prospera's strategic evaluation suggests equity values are not appropriately accounting for the future potential of its asset value. Thus, the Company is focused on minimal dilution financing options and if fully subscribed, this debt financing would contribute to less than 1% equity dilution to the Company.

Parties interested in participating in this debt offering should contact the Company immediately. Insiders may participate in this offering. Prospera is relying upon exemptions contained in MI61-101 from the requirements for an independent evaluation and minority shareholder approval. This offering is subject to approval from the TSX Venture exchange.

About Prospera

Prospera Energy Inc. (TSX.V: PEI, OTC: GXRFF, FRA: OF6B) is a publicly traded energy company based in Western Canada, specializing in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas. Prospera Energy Inc. has announced a mid-August spud of PEI's phase 2 restructured development program intended to increase production. The phase 2 development entails the drilling of 10 horizontal wells in heavy oil and 8 slanted wells in medium-light oil to accelerate growth and capture the significant remaining reserves (400 million bbls). These horizontal laterals and slanted wells will allow PEI to increase production by approximately 1,000bpd with recovery of approximately 100Mstb per well. PEI will reduce its environmental and surface footprint by eliminating the numerous vertical well leases along the lateral path. Phase III of Prospera's corporate redevelopment strategy will focus on continuing the company's horizontal modular development to appreciate production and optimize recovery of remaining reserves.

Prospera intends to implement full-scale EOR applications based on the results of its Phase II pilot program, which is forecasted to optimize recovery by greater than 10%. Prospera also intends to continue its acquisition strategy to diversify its product mix. Its goal is to attain 50% light oil, 40% heavy oil and 10% gas.

PEI continues to apply efforts to minimize its environmental footprint. Also, efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions, alongside pursuing innovative ESG methods to enhance API quality, thereby achieving higher margins and eliminating the need for diluents.

For Further Information:

Shawn Mehler, PR

Email: shawn@prosperaenergy.com

Website: www.prosperaenergy.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of the Corporation and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will," "may," "should," "anticipate," "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding future plans and objectives of the Corporation, are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Although Prospera believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because Prospera can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to, risks associated with the oil and gas industry in general (e.g., operational risks in development, exploration and production; delays or changes in plans with respect to exploration or development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of reserve estimates; the uncertainty of estimates and projections relating to production, costs and expenses, and health, safety and environmental risks), commodity price and exchange rate fluctuations and uncertainties resulting from potential delays or changes in plans with respect to exploration or development projects or capital expenditures.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Prospera. As a result, Prospera cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize, and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward- looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and Prospera does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Landmark Event to Unite Leading Regulators and Regulated Firms from Around the World to Address "The Balancing Act of Reg and Tech"

Regnology, a leading software provider with a focus on regulatory reporting solutions, is proud to announce the 30th annual RegTech Convention, taking place 21-22 November 2023. This year's 2-day convention will combine in-person community events in cities throughout Europe and be virtually streamed allowing for participation around the world.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927858541/en/

The RegTech Convention is set to be one of the largest ever held with over 2,000 participants from more than 105 countries expected to connect. To mark the occasion of the 30th anniversary, the RegTech Convention experience will be extended through six in-person community events in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Spain, gathering 600+ industry experts to further explore the convention topics through a local lens.

This year's convention theme is "The Balancing Act of Reg and Tech," exploring how regulation and technology can work together to create a more secure and stable world. Topics in focus include the impact of specific regulations such as ESG, Basel IV and IReF, the acceleration of cloud adoption, and the emerging role and potential ramifications of AI. Participating in the RegTech Convention for the first time is Google Cloud, one of the lead partners of the event.

This year's opening keynote will be presented by former Swedish Minister of Finance Anders Borg who will open the Convention by addressing the broad themes of regulation and technology while sharing insights gained during his time overseeing broad economic reforms in Sweden and broader Europe from 2006-14. FDIC Deputy to the Vice Chairman Brandon Milhorn will lead an important discussion focusing on the critical importance of digital transformation for effective supervision. Milhorn's front-line experience during the pandemic and recent turmoil in US banking sets his panel keynote as one of the most thought-provoking sessions of the conference.

The virtual conference will host over 40 sessions and feature an impressive lineup of more than 70 speakers including top-notch experts from Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Bitpanda, Commerzbank, DZ Bank, European Banking Authority (EBA), European Central Bank (ECB), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Google Cloud, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Moody's, Austrian National Bank (OeNB), Rabobank and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

The first day of the Convention will feature keynote speeches and panel discussions. Regulators, international organizations, and representatives from leading financial institutions will discuss the latest regulatory challenges and trends, exploring how digital transformation can help balance ongoing pressure on cost and efficiency. Day two will focus on Regnology's vision and strategy to drive the future of regulatory reporting, and offer dedicated streams for banking regulations, transaction reporting, supervisory technology (SupTech), tax and insurance reporting.

"The RegTech Convention is a unique opportunity for global leaders in finance and regulation to examine how we can effectively combine regulatory frameworks with technological advancements," said Rob Mackay, CEO of Regnology. "We firmly believe that by fostering collaboration between financial regulators and regulated firms we can create a more efficient and transparent regulatory environment to help ensure the stability and security of the global financial and corporate ecosystem."

The full convention will be livestreamed and available on demand following the event.

To view the full agenda and register for the event please visit www.regtech-convention.com.

About Regnology

Regnology is a leading technology firm on a mission to bring safety and stability to the financial markets. With an exclusive focus on regulatory reporting and more than 35,000 financial institutions, 60 regulators, international organizations, and tax authorities relying on our solutions to process their regulatory reporting data, we're uniquely positioned to bring greater data quality, efficiency, and cost savings to all market participants. With over 900 employees in 21 offices and a unified data ingestion model powering our work, our clients can quickly implement and derive value from our solutions and easily keep pace with ongoing regulatory changes. Regnology was formed in 2021 when BearingPoint RegTech, a former business unit of BearingPoint Group, joined forces with Vizor Software, a global leader in regulatory and supervisory technology. The company is on a continued organic and external growth path, building up as one of the world's most recognized regulatory reporting powerhouses.

For more information about Regnology, connect with us on LinkedIn and X.

Visit our website: www.regnology.net.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927858541/en/

Contacts:

Mireille Adebiyi

mireille.adebiyi@regnology.net


DXC artificial intelligence solutions reinforce Cosentino's digital transformation strategy

Automation of business processes will lower costs, reduce errors, and improve productivity

ALMERIA, Spain, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cosentino, a leading global manufacturer based in Spain, has transformed its operations through business process automation and robotization services with DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC), a leading Fortune 500 global technology services provider.

A family-owned producer of innovative and sustainable surfaces for architecture and design, Cosentino distributes its products and brands in more than 120 countries. DXC has reinforced Cosentino's digital transformation journey, a major component of the group's strategic growth plan, by helping it realize value from investments in automation.

DXC's consulting and digital engineering teams deployed automation technology that has optimized key business processes for Cosentino's global operations and distribution facilities. This will deliver a long-term reduction in time and costs, eliminate errors, and enhance business productivity, competitiveness, and profitability.

With a physical presence in more than 40 countries, modernized analytics dashboards will improve Cosentino's business management capabilities by providing real-time performance data and timely insights to make faster, better decisions and improve relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers.

"For five years, we have maintained sustained double-digit growth, and we want this growth to be scalable and sustainable over time. This required digitizing, redefining, and automating many of the operational processes we have in our organization," said Jose Manuel Rodriguez, CIO at Cosentino Group.

DXC has implemented artificial intelligence (AI), using an optical character recognition tool, to automate and speed up business processes that require reading and interpreting documents such as contracts, orders, payroll, delivery notes, and signatures. It has also introduced process mining technology to uncover new opportunities for efficiency, and robotic process automation to increase productivity with more efficient and agile operations.

More than 170 bots have been deployed so far, automating 231,000 operations and processes. This has allowed Cosentino to free up more than 42,000 hours of work. Using a "Robotics-as-a-Service" pay-per-use model, Cosentino can scale and manage its need for DXC's solutions based on the actual processing hours consumed.

"We are working closely with Cosentino to implement AI, automation and robotics throughout its key business processes," said Marc Roman, Head of DXC's Hyperautomation Practice at DXC Technology Spain. "The next step is to extend the program throughout the organization which will allow Cosentino to continue growing sustainably."

"Hyperautomation is enabling us to accelerate our digital transformation journey as well as improve business results and build better business cases," added Rui Novais, Director of Technology and Applications at Cosentino Group.

All statements in this press release that do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts constitute "forward-looking statements." These statements represent current expectations and beliefs, and no assurance can be given that the results described in such statements will be achieved. Such statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements, many of which are outside of our control. For a written description of these factors, see the section titled "Risk Factors" in DXC's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, and any updating information in subsequent SEC filings. No assurance can be given that any goal or plan set forth in any forward-looking statement can or will be achieved, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements which speak only as of the date they are made. We do not undertake any obligation to update or release any revisions to any forward-looking statement or to report any events or circumstances after the date of this report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events except as required by law.

DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) helps global companies run their mission-critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private and hybrid clouds. The world's largest companies and public sector organizations trust DXC to deploy services to drive new levels of performance, competitiveness, and customer experience across their IT estates. Learn more about how we deliver excellence for our customers and colleagues at DXC.com.

Cosentino Group is a global, Spanish and family-owned company that produces and distributes innovative and sustainable surfaces of high value for the world of architecture and design. As a leading company, it imagines and anticipates together with its customers and partners, solutions that provide design, value and inspire people's lives. This goal is possible thanks to pioneering and leading brands in their respective segments such as Silestone, Dekton or Sensa by Cosentino, surfaces that allow creating unique environments and designs for the home and public spaces.

The group bases its development on international expansion, an innovative research and development program, respect for the environment and sustainability, and its permanent corporate commitment to society and the local communities where it is present, training, equality, occupational health and safety.

Cosentino Group distributes its products and brands in more than 120 countries from its headquarters in Almeria (Spain). Currently, the multinational has a presence in 40 countries, and has subsidiaries or its own commercial assets in 31 of them. The multinational has 9 production factories (8 in Almeria (Spain) and 1 in Brazil), 1 Smart Logistics Center in Spain, and more than 140 commercial and distribution facilities spread around the world. More than 90% of Cosentino Group's turnover is generated in international markets.

www.cosentino.com/es

For more Information: Isabel Granda, DXC Iberia Communications, isabel.granda@dxc.com; John Sweeney, Investor Relations, +1-980-315-3665, john.sweeney@dxc.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222169/DXC_Technology_Company_Spanish_Manufacturer_Cosentino_Taps_DXC_T.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/spanish-manufacturer-cosentino-taps-dxc-technology-to-transform-operations-with-automation-and-robotics-301939842.html
VIENNA, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- This World Coffee Day, Viennese coffee roaster Julius Meinl is launching an initiative as part of its The Originals line to help empower coffee farmers in Uganda.

The initiative which builds on the success of its Generations Program, aims to help coffee farmers enrich productivity, invest in growing greater quality beans, and spot opportunities to diversify their incomes.

Since 2018, it has been fundamental to Julius Meinl achieving its ambition of providing training that is designed to enact on-the-ground change and improve the lives of the farmers it works with in Colombia. Now the premium coffee roaster is supporting 100 more farmers, this time in Uganda's Lwengo District. This is in addition to the 200 Colombian farmers who are already in line for support between now and 2025 - focusing on regenerative agriculture and low carbon production.

To ensure the farmers' individual training needs are met, Julius Meinl has partnered with Ugandan non-profit organisation, Sawa World. The programme will entail a needs assessment to identify which skills will add the most value, followed by a series of workshops focusing on sensitization, marketing, business management and how to secure start-up capital.

With the initiative seeking to "make a difference, one cup at a time," Julius Meinl is donating 10 extra hours of training on behalf of every partner serving Generations Program blends.

Carina Needham, Julius Meinl's Director of Sustainability, said: "Our goal is not only to create delicious, memorable coffee moments, but to do our bit to protect the planet and act responsibly for future generations.

"With Sawa World, we can create transformative community-level projects and make a difference to the livelihoods of coffee farmers. Supporting coffee-growing communities is essential, especially given the social, economic and environmental challenges they may face, from unpredictable incomes to climate crisis."

Sheila Ampumuza, Country Director at Sawa World, added: "We are delighted to be working with Julius Meinl in supporting their efforts to cultivate sustainable growth. The Generations Program is a fantastic initiative which is already making an impact on the livelihoods of coffee farmers elsewhere."

With World Coffee Day being celebrated on 1stOctober 2023, the initiative will run throughout September and until 31st October, where Julius Meinl will be offering a sting of promotions for partners who choose The Originals blends.

www.juliusmeinl.com/sustainability

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SIXT invests significant million euro sum in Blacklane, turning the company into one of its important shareholders

SIXT and Blacklane will jointly drive international growth by initially focusing on North America

Partnership includes integration of Blacklane services into SIXT app and gives Blacklane's chauffeurs partners access to SIXT's vehicles and connected services

SIXT investment marks second closing of series F round after previous investments by Mercedes-Benz Mobility and Gargash Enterprises

BERLIN , Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, global chauffeur service Blacklane (https://www.blacklane.com/en/?utm_source=press-release&utm_campaign=new-cto) announced a partnership under which leading international provider of high-quality mobility services SIXT will become one of Blacklane's important shareholders. In future, Blacklane and SIXT will jointly work on expanding their footprint in international markets, initially with a special focus on North America, for both companies the most important growth market.

Blacklane's chauffeur services will be available via the SIXT app in the US and other international markets in 2024, offering Blacklane as additional premium mobility option on the platform. The partnership will also benefit both companies through for example leveraging SIXT's fleet capabilities and connected services. This will offer guests and chauffeur partners an even broader choice of vehicles and services.

"We at SIXT are committed to providing premium mobility solutions in car rental, carsharing, subscription, and ride-hailing services. We welcome Blacklane on board as an additional valued partner in our mobility ecosystem and are looking forward to jointly create synergies for our business with this partnership", said Nico Gabriel, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at SIXT.

"We are thrilled to win SIXT as our partner and investor in this funding round", said Dr. Jens Wohltorf, CEO and Co-Founder of Blacklane. "Their extensive experience in the ground transportation and travel industry, combined with our expertise in premium chauffeur services, create a powerful bond that will drive both company's global growth and innovation and solidify Blacklane's position as industry leader."

The investment marks the second closing of Blacklane's series F funding, providing Blacklane with a significant million euro investment at a valuation roughly 50% higher than the previous one from 2020. The first round of this F series (https://www.blacklane.com/en/press/releases/3GixYR6G4lzC3Mtx7fh9Fq/)was backed by prominent investors Mercedes-Benz Mobility and Gargash Enterprises, driving Blacklane's growth in the Middle East.

With the completion of this Series F round, Blacklane is poised to strengthen its position as global leader in premium ground transportation. Coming out of a highly successful period where Blacklane quadrupled revenues in 2022 year-over-year, the company now plans to accelerate its growth by investing in new services such as its City to City-program (https://www.blacklane.com/en/press/releases/5HSvQsPMbZATGvnC7y6QhG/), connecting metropolitan areas via 127 routes in 11 countries. The funding round will also contribute to the expansion of Blacklane's German and global employee base of 300, driving the company's growth and further strengthening its presence in its domestic market as well as abroad.

Additionally, the funding will support Blacklane's sustainability efforts by implementing innovative mobility solutions. The company is committed to deliver 15% of its rides with electric vehicles by year-end 2023, and 50% by 2025. Blacklane is also offsetting all rides back to its founding in 2011.

SIXT joins notable investors such as Mercedes Benz Mobility, Al Fahim Group, Gargash Enterprises, b2venture and Alstin Capital, all of which demonstrate confidence in Blacklane's business model and growth expectations.

Click here (https://www.blacklane.com/en/press/presskit/) (https://www.blacklane.com/en/press/presskit/ (https://www.blacklane.com/en/press/presskit/)) to download the press kit.

ABOUT BLACKLANE

We are Blacklane, providers of premium global chauffeur services. Our mission is to create true peace of mind for discerning guests by delivering perfect experiences around the world to inspire for a better future. Blacklane offers airport transfers, City to City commutes, In City mobility options and chauffeur services by the hour in over 50 countries globally, either pre-booked or On Demand. Whether it's for business or pleasure, Blacklane and its 300 employees and thousands of chauffeur partners have the right premium transportation service for you. By changing how people move, we opened up new opportunities for our chauffeur providers and set industry standards for climate protection in the travel industry. Book on www.blacklane.com (http://www.blacklane.com) or download our app (https://app.adjust.com/x0bj467).

For Blacklane global media inquiries, please contact:

Blacklane GmbH

Radmila Palova

press@blacklane.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1b6b304c-915d-4057-897f-f6ed288fd8ba (https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1b6b304c-915d-4057-897f-f6ed288fd8ba)


STOCKHOLM (dpa-AFX) - Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB or H&M Group (HNNMY.PK, HMRZF.PK, HEN.L) reported Wednesday a surge in third-quarter profit amid absence of last year's hefty charge, increase in net sales and weak expenses. Further, the board of directors has decided to buy back the company's own B shares for 3 billion kronor starting from September 27.



For the third quarter, result after tax increased to 3.32 billion Swedish kronor from last year's 531 million kronor. Earnings per share were 2.04 kronor, up from 0.32 krona a year ago.



Operating profit surged to 4.74 billion kronor from last year's 902 million kronor. This corresponds to an operting margin of 7.8 percent, up from 1.6 percent a year ago.



The last year's results were hurt by one-time costs of 2.10 billion kronor for winding down the Russian operations. Adjusted for these one-time costs, the increase compared with the previous year was 58 percent.



Net sales increased 6 percent to 60.90 billion kronor from 57.45 billion kronor a year ago. In local currencies, net sales were flat.



Sales for Portfolio Brands in the third quarter increased 16 percent in SEK and by 10 percent in local currencies. Sales growth mainly reflected pent-up demand for summer garments following a cold May in most of its major markets.



Selling and administrative expenses decreased 4 percent. In local currencies, these expenses decreased by 10 percent.



Looking ahead, the company said sales during September 2023 are expected to decrease by 10 percent in local currencies. The discontinued operations in Russia account for 4 percentage points of the decrease.



H&M is developing well in Latin America and plans to open its first store as well as online in Brazil in 2025. H&M plans to gradually reopen most of its stores in Ukraine from November 2023 onwards.



For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com.



Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Press Release

Copenhagen, 27 September 2023

ISS reaches major sustainability milestone reducing global food waste by 30%

ISS has made significant progress against its global food service sustainability targets with a collective 30% food waste reduction from its 2019 baseline. This achievement puts ISS well on track to reach its target of 50% food waste reduction by 2027. Furthermore, ISS has taken yet another step towards fulfilling its commitment to the World Resource Institute's Cool Food Pledge byreducingnearly 5% of the greenhouse gas emissions per 1,000 kcal associated with the food it serves globally.

Optimised food procurement, strategically planned menus, and an increased focus on changing consumer behaviour patterns are just a few examples of initiatives that have accelerated ISS's global food waste reductions towards its 50% reduction target by 2027.

Progress driven by data and insights

Hamish Cook, Head of Group Food Services, explains that the activities and progress are a result of ISS's global food sustainability programme which the company rolled out across countries at the beginning of 2022:

"A key element of the programme was to enhance our focus on innovation and leverage data and insights across our global operations. Our partnership with technology company Winnow has been a key lever in this endeavour. By integrating Winnow's Artificial Intelligence solutions into restaurants and kitchens, our chefs are empowered with knowledge about plate waste and consumer patterns, which helps them to optimise food production and portion sizes - thereby reducing food and plastic waste."

Through Winnow, ISS is now achieving a collective annualised saving rate of 985,000 tonnes of food waste for its customers.

This is equivalent to saving 2,463,000 meals and reducing Co2 emissions by 4,200 tonnes.

Sustainable food options that benefit climate and health

Last year, ISS committed to the World Resource Institute's Cool Food Pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030. With a 4.8% reduction per 1,000 kcal from a 2019 baseline, the company is moving in the right direction. ISS will accelerate this by expanding its plant-based menu offerings even further. Hamish Cook says:

"Our key priority is to encourage our customers to make more sustainable choices, benefiting both the climate and personal health. This means that we are enhancing innovative recipes development, menu concepts, and comprehensive culinary training".

As part of this effort, in collaboration with Unilever, ISS is incorporating WWF's and Unilever's collaborative suggestions for 'Future 50 foods' - 50 nutritious foods with a minimal environmental footprint - into recipes across the world.

Love food and behave sustainably

In addition to enhancing its culinary training of ISS chefs, both in waste and Co2 reduction efforts, ISS is initiating awareness campaigns across customer sites and its own locations. Hamish Cook says:

"In the end, we must drive the climate agenda together. This requires constant awareness and attention. This week, we are supporting the UN-led International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste through our own Love Food and Stop Waste campaign. Restaurants across the world will share recipes and tips for great food with minimum food waste. Most importantly, we encourage everyone to make every day a Love Food and Stop Waste Day. Always optimise the usage of food and materials, minimise waste, and encourage those around you to do the same."

About ISS's global net zero commitment:

As a global company serving millions of customers annually, ISS acknowledge its responsibility to the planet, its people, and the communities it serves. To this end, ISS has committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions within scope 1 and 2 by 2030 and attaining full-scope net zero emissions by 2040, including its entire supply chain.





For media enquiries

Charlotte Holm, Senior Global Media Relations Manager, +45 4176 1989





About ISS

ISS is a leading workplace experience and facility management company. In partnership with customers, ISS drives the engagement and well-being of people, minimises the impact on the environment, and protects and maintains property. ISS brings all of this to life through a unique combination of data, insight and service excellence at offices, factories, airports, hospitals and other locations across the globe. ISS has more than 350,000 employees around the globe, who we call "placemakers". In 2022, ISS Group's global revenue amounted to DKK 76.5billion. For more information on the ISS Group, visit www.issworld.com

Attachments
Visited Map App Names Top 6 Beach Destinations for Travellers Around the Globe

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023by Arriving In High Heels Corporation has named the top beaches to visit in Spain based on over 1.8 million international travellers. Visited allows users to scroll through photos of top getaway destinations, check off places by different travel lists, and plan trips using the app. The travel map apphighlights bucket list destinations and offers travellers their personal stats of where they've been and where they plan to go. Visited is available on iOS or Android , in over 30 languages including Spanish and Catalan.



Spain is the second most visited country in the world. Not surprising Barcelona is the most popular cruise port in the world. However, apart from Barcelona, most visitors to come for the gorgeous beaches.

The top 6 most visited most popular beach destinations in Spaininclude:

Majorca Tenerife Gran Canaria Nerja Cala Mitjana Playa de Nogales

To see the complete list of the most visited beaches in Spain, the most popular beaches in the world, and over 150 lists of the most popular travel destinations, users can download Visited on iOSor Android .

About Visited App

Visited is a travel app, that lets users track their past travels by checking off destinations, cities and countries visited on lists and map. As a travel planner app, users can find inspiration by swiping pictures, finding new destinations by experiences and category lists. In order to help make the decision of where to next, Visited ranks countries based on the number of activities and places of interest users wish to visit.

To learn more about the Visited app, visit https://visitedapp.com .

About Arriving In High Heels Corporation

Arriving In High Heels Corporationis a mobile app company with apps including Pay Off Debt, X-Walk, and Visited , their most popular app.
HONG KONG, Sept 27, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - On September 26, Legend Capital's portfolio company, TUHU Car (9690.HK), was successfully listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.Founded in 2011, TUHU Car is a leading integrated online and offline platform for automotive service in China. By providing a digitalized and on-demand service experience underpinned by the customer-centric model and streamlined supply chain, TUHU Car directly addresses car owners' diverse product and service needs, creating an automotive service platform consisting of car owners, suppliers, automotive service stores and other participants. TUHU Car's platform serves most of the passenger vehicle models sold in China, fulfilling a wide spectrum of automotive service demands ranging from tires and chassis parts replacement to auto maintenance, repair, detailing, and more. By providing sporadic automotive service demands onto one platform, customer engagement is significantly increased as compared to the traditional offline automotive service model that is highly dependent on localized service demands.According to the CIC Report, as of the first half of 2023, TUHU Car had more than 100 million registered users on their flagship "TuHu Automotive Service" app and online interfaces. The company had over 18 million transacting users in the last twelve months ended June 30 2023. With the growing service network, TUHU Car has 5,129 TUHU Workshops and over 20,000 partner stores across China, covering a majority of prefecture-level cities and making the company's platform the largest car owner community amassed by automotive service providers in China. According to the CIC Report, China's automotive service market reached RMB1.2 trillion in 2022 and is expected to reach RMB1.9 trillion in 2027. As a necessity for daily life and travel, automobile services have the characteristics of recession-resilient and steadily growing.Legend Capital has long supported TUHU Car's development as one of the company's early investors. Legend Capital exclusively invested in TUHU Car's Series A financing in 2014 and subsequently made additional investments in the company in its multiple rounds of financing from 2014 to 2020.China's automotive service market was still in an extremely early stage when Legend Capital initially invested in TUHU Car. At the beginning of the investment cooperation, TUHU Car only had 27 employees, with its office set up in a warehouse and 50 offline partner stores, and the model of "online order + offline installation" pioneered by TUHU Car had just started in Shanghai. After the investment, Legend Capital assisted the company in completing subsequent multiple rounds of financing and provided support and assistance in strategic planning, management operations, team incentives, and business resources, accompanying the company to grow into a leading integrated online and offline platform for automotive service in China.As a valuable partner of TUHU Car, Legend Capital would like to congratulate the company sincerely: "Congratulations to TUHU Car and its team on the successful listing. Legend Capital has long been focusing on the empowerment of technology and Internet technology in traditional industries. China's automotive service market has huge room for development, and TUHU Car has demonstrated a high growth rate in its business after years of development and accumulation. Over the nine years of investment cooperation between Legend Capital and TUHU Car, a deep friendship has been established between us. We are inspired by the company's management team for the relentless efforts in leading TUHU Car towards success and continuously creating value, and we also greatly admire the TUHU Car team for seizing the opportunity to cut into the automotive service market from Internet applications in the early stages of industry development and achieving rapid growth of the company. The listing is believed to enhance TUHU Car's brand and supply chain advantages further, continuously solidifying the company's leading position in the industry."About Legend CapitalFounded in 2001, Legend Capital is a leading VC&PE investor focusing on the early-stage and growth-stage opportunities in China, with offices across Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Seoul, Korea.It currently manages USD and RMB funds of over US$10 billion in commitments, and has invested in around 600 companies, covering technology, healthcare, consumer, enterprise service and intelligent manufacturing sectors. Rooted in China, Legend Capital participated in the rise of many world-leading companies by solid investment coverage and systematic post-investment value-add. Over the years, Legend Capital has also become a widely recognized name in bridging key resources in China and overseas through cross-border activities, and a valuable partner to Chinese and overseas investors.Legend Capital values long-term sustainable investment and incorporates ESG into its long-term development strategy. As a UNPRI signatory since November 2019, Legend Capital is among the first group of top VC/PE firms in China to join the initiative.For more information, please visit www.legendcapital.com.cn/index_en.aspx and follow us on LinkedIn @Legend Capital( https://www.linkedin.com/company/legend-capital ).The article is distributed by Ever Bloom (HK) Communications Consultants Group Limited on behalf of Legend Capital.For further information, please contact:Ms. Orianna Ou / Ms. Arina HeTel: +852 3468 8171Email: legendcapital.list@everbloom.com.cnSource: Legend CapitalCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
MUMBAI, India and DUBLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cosmo Pharmaceuticals N.V. (SIX: COPN), (XETRA: C43) ("Cosmo") and Glenmark Specialty S.A., a subsidiary of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. ("Glenmark"), today announced the signing of distribution and license agreements for Winlevi (clascoterone cream 1%) in Europe and South Africa.

Under the terms of the agreements, Glenmark will receive from Cassiopea, a subsidiary of Cosmo, the exclusive right to commercialize Winlevi in 15 EU countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden) as well as in South Africa and the UK. Cassiopea shall be responsible for the Centralized Marketing Authorization at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and Glenmark will be responsible for the registration of the product in South Africa and in the UK. Cosmo will be the exclusive supplier of the product. Cassiopea will receive an upfront payment of USD 5 million, further double-digit regulatory and sales milestones and agreed double-digit royalties on net sales.

Alessandro Della Cha, CEO of Cosmo, said, "We are very pleased to partner with Glenmark. Their strong expertise in the commercialization of pharmaceutical compounds gives us great confidence in their ability to successfully market Winlevi. We look forward to eventually making Winlevi available to more patients around the globe."

"We are delighted to have undertaken this exclusive licensing agreement with Cosmo Pharmaceuticals. Winlevi is the perfect addition to our European dermatology portfolio and we look forward to leveraging our half-century long experience in dermatology to make this novel option available to patients and fill the current unmet medical need in treating acne," remarked Glenn Saldanha, Chairman & Managing Director Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Professor Alison Layton (Associate Medical Director for Research, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust) concludes: "The ability to reduce sebum in acne with a topical agent has up until now been a significant unmet need. Sebum is integral in the pathophysiology of all acne severities. Whereas there are effective systemic therapies including oral isotretinoin for severe acne and hormonal treatments for females, these are not advocated or tolerated by all people with acne. Clascoterone offers a novel topical approach for acne. In vitro testing suggests it is the first topical agent to reduce androgen-regulated lipid and inflammatory cytokine production in human primary sebocytes. It could be prescribed as monotherapy or as part of an acne regime including fixed topical combinations and / or systemic antibiotics. All patient populations with acne could potentially receive and benefit from clascoterone."

Winlevi has been approved by the United States Food & Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) as a novel drug with a unique mechanism of action for the topical treatment of acne in patients aged 12 years and older. It is a first-in-class topical androgen receptor inhibitor that tackles the androgen hormone component of acne and is the first new mechanism of action in acne approved by the U.S. FDA since 1982. Winlevi has become the most prescribed branded topical acne drug in the U.S.; with over 15,000 U.S. health care providers, representing 88% of total health care providers in dermatology, having prescribed Winlevi to date (per IQVIA MAT June 2023). According to the prescriptions generated as measured by IQVIA data, Winlevi has been one of the most successful U.S. launches in the topical acne space in the last 15 years.

The EU acne market is projected to grow from USD 928.7 million in 2021 to USD 1,297.0 million in 2028. Across Europe, over 90% of people aged 11 to 30 years are affected by acne; with a rising prevalence among teenagers, which is driving the market's growth.

European guidelines discourage the use of topical antibiotics for comedonal acne due to the risk of antibiotic resistance, and despite the many treatments currently available there is still a clear unmet need. With its non-antibiotic approach and by targeting the androgen receptors directly in the skin, Winlevi addresses aspects of underlying acne causing disease pathways by decreasing sebum production and inflammation. It has the potential to be the first product with an innovative mechanism of action to be available to patients in Europe in over 40 years.

Disclaimer

Some of the statements in this press release may be forward-looking statements or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. Such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors such as the development of general economic conditions, future market conditions, unusual catastrophic loss events, changes in the capital markets and other circumstances may cause the actual events or results to be materially different from those anticipated by such statements. Cosmo does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or updated status of such statements. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will Cosmo and its affiliate companies be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release or for any related damages.

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Commerzbank AG (London Branch) - Pre-Stabilisation Notice

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, September 27

Pre-Stabilisation Notice

September 27, 2023

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

Wienerberger AG

EUR 350mil(exp) Fixed Rate Notes due 04 October 2028

Standalone documentation

Commerzbank AG (contact: Ian Turner; telephone: +44-207-7475-1817) hereby announces, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilising Managers named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014).

The security to be stabilised: Issuer: Wienerberger AG Guarantor (if any): none Aggregate nominal amount: EUR 350mil(exp) Description: EUR 350mil(exp) Fixed Rate Notes due 04 October 2028 Offer price: tbc Other offer terms: Standalone documentation, denoms 1k/1k, listing Austrian Stock Exchange Stabilisation: Stabilisation Coordinator: Stabilising Managers: Commerzbank AG Danske Bank A/S Erste Group Bank AG UniCredit Bank AG Stabilisation period expected to start on: September 27, 2023 Stabilisation period expected to end on: no later than 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility. The Stabilising Managers may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: Vienna Stock Exchange

In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilising Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities during the stabilisation period at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules.

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

END
NINGBO, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On the evening of September 23, local time in the United States, the Chinese heroine Hua Mulan made a stunning appearance in the lyrical melody at the Wang Theater at the Boch Center in Boston, the United States. The "dance drama" has produced not only a classic legend, bus also a new environment of cultural exchanges. It was applauded once every 10 minutes on average! This was the premiere of the Chinese dance drama "MULAN" in the United States, where many overseas audiences were enchanted. More than 50 actors and actresses conveyed the unique oriental charm to the audience with their majestic and magnificent dancing performance. When the ensemble answering the curtain call, applause and cheers lasted for a full 15 minutes, which was enough to express the enthusiasm and love of more than 1,600 spectators for Chinese art.

Huang Ping, Chinese Consul General in New York, Shang Jiyuan, Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Consulate General in New York, Michael Thomas, President of the New England Commission of Higher Education in the United States, Tweed Roosevelt, Chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Institute of Long Island University, and other guests came to see the performance and gave high praise.

Huang Ping said, "This is not only a performance, but also a bridge that communicates the hearts and minds of the people of China and the United States and promotes bilateral exchanges." Tweed Roosevelt from the Roosevelt family praised highly: "This is a great show!"

Mulan is an international acclaimed IP of Chinese culture. The American audience is already familiar with the character of Mulan. Back in 1998, Disney has filmed the animated film Mulan. In 2020, the Disney has released its real-life version of the film Mulan worldwide.

Behind the dance drama "MULAN" was China's leading creative team. It was jointly produced by the Ningbo Performance & Arts Group Co., Ltd., the China National Opera House and the Huangpi District Government in Wuhan and has won China's most prestigious award of the Chinese dance art China Dance Lotus Award. The drama premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in 2017, and has been staged in nearly 100 performances across China since then. It will be staged in Boston and Washington for six consecutive performances this time. "Although factors such as jet lag need to be overcome, the artists are excited. The enthusiasm of the American audience is quite out of my expectation." Hao Ruoqi, the actress of Mulan, commented.

Rick and his wife from Boston came to the show and praised with admiration, "The dancers are very professional! Their costumes and stage design also have Chinese characteristics." Another spectator, Steve, commented: "The part of the performance that Mulan embarking on a heroic journey to the battlefield was very exciting and worthy of recommendation. The dance drama has expressed the yearning for peace, which is the common pursuit of mankind."

It is worth mentioning that the "circular turntable" with a diameter of 15 meters and a weight of 7 tons on the stage has demolished the limitations of time and space and created more scenes for a single stage. "I have been to China. Chinese history and culture are profound. Mulan in my impression is very traditional. I didn't expect the stage of this dance drama to be so modern like this!" Michael Thomas told reporters.

Lin Hong, chairwoman of Ningbo Performance & Arts Group Co., Ltd., said: "Ningbo is located next to Shanghai and is an important port city in China. It has been delivering excellent performances in the recent years. I hope that this performance will play a positive role in the exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations between China and the United States."

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Manuscript contact: Li Xiaohang

Contact: 0086-13857875695

Contact email: 406555375@qq.com

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A Rising Wave: Aligning with Climate Week NYC and World Cleanup Day to Revitalize New York's Marine Environments

New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - In the heart of the city's celebrated Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, spirited volunteers from Eureka and American Littoral Society, donned gloves and bags, giving the coastline an essential spruce-up this past weekend. This beautification crusade wasn't just another beach cleanup. As a pivotal segment of the National Cleanup Day, this event saw community members unify to clear litter from one of NYC's ecological crown jewels.

This Cleanup event, titled as EurekaWavesOfFuture, emerged as a result of a new collaboration between Eureka, the famed cleaning appliance giant, and environmental champions, the American Littoral Society. With over seven decades safeguarding waterways, the American Littoral Society found a kindred spirit in Eureka, a stalwart in the cleaning industry, echoing a united clarion call against marine pollution.

Jamaica Bay is the jewel in the crown of New York City's ecological resources with more than 13,000 acres of water, salt marsh, meadowland, beaches, dunes, and upland buffer woodlands. The tidal salt marshes of Jamaica Bay are disappearing at an alarming rate-some estimates put it at as many as 40 acres per year. Until science isolates the cause or causes, the Littoral Society along with state and federal agencies and other environmental groups strongly advocate stricter regulations and have created focused restoration and debris removal programs. The salt marshes of Jamaica Bay are vital-providing not only invaluable wildlife habitat, but also shoreline erosion control and a protective flood barrier to the communities surrounding the bay. In addition to doing the hard work of removing debris, volunteers deepened their understanding of the local ecology, a valuable component of long-term preservation efforts.

Dipping their toes beyond home cleanup, Eureka showcased their dedication to a pristine planet. They're not just stopping at beach cleanups. Recently at IFA, Eureka unveiled its avant-garde E10S - an industry-first robotic vacuum cleaner integrating a bagless multi-cyclonic station. This innovative fusion grants homeowners not only the luxury of a floor sweeper but combines that with the power of a proper vacuum cleaner. Eureka's E10S offers an eco-friendly and pocket-friendly cleaning experience.

The underlying pulse of the EurekaWavesOfFuture campaign resonates across digital platforms, raising environmental awareness. It's not just about cleanliness. It's a game of numbers too. The initiative prioritizes meticulous data documentation, chronicling the debris types and their abundance. This invaluable dataset is earmarked for the Ocean Conservancy, shedding light on marine pollution intricacies and shaping potent future combat strategies.

Jamaica Bay's waters, salt marshes, and uplands provide valuable migratory and breeding habitat for more than 330 species of birds and at least 107 species of fin fish, as well as a variety of mammals, reptiles and amphibians. The campaign leaders stressed how enriching comprehension of ocean pollution will allow them to create even more effective strategies to combat it in the future, by learning the mechanism of how it affects these habitats and creatures, and how to best address these.

This year's National Cleanup Day danced to the theme of "Good, Clean, Fun." Beyond the hard work of litter pickup, participants were all buzzed with camaraderie, creating new friendships under the banner of green stewardship. Michael Paone, an environmental advocate participating in the cleanup event, shared, "In these tempestuous times, marked by environmental anomalies, it's crucial to find a silver lining. Today's congregation was an embodiment of collective action - a beacon of hope amidst the current challenges we face."

Looking forward Eureka hints that the EurekaWavesOfFuture initiative is the inaugural chapter in a long commitment toward global sustainability. After the resounding success at Jamaica Bay, both Eureka and the American Littoral Society are poised with eager anticipation, charting out their next ecological intervention.

Jasmine Lewis is the Co-Chair of Worldview Global Impact (WGI), a New York-registered non-profit that is committed to promoting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and new visions of sustainability and positive social impact via forums, conferences, impact investing, training, education, art exhibitions, and other innovative initiatives.

Jasmine Lewis actively seeks organizations, institutions, and individuals around the world that are dedicated to promoting sustainability while raising young people's awareness of the SDGs, forging local youth communities and networks for the SDGs, incubating localized actions and solutions in support of the SDGs, promoting the global scale-up of best practices, and cultivating future leaders in sustainable development. Eureka has been recognized by Lewis as a major contributor to social advancement for years.

For more details about this news and more ESG stories, please reach out to Jasmine Lewis at jasmine@worldviewglobal.com.

Resources

Eureka: https://www.eureka.com/us

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182027
Dubai, United Arab Emirates--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Enclave FX, a renowned name in the world of forex brokerage and trading platforms, has been honored with the prestigious title of "Global Forex Broker of the Year" at the highly anticipated 6th Edition Forex Expo Dubai 2023. This remarkable achievement reflects Enclave FX's unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and client-centric services in the forex industry.

Figure 1: Enclave FX Awarded as Global Forex Broker of the Year at 6th Edition Forex Expo Dubai 2023

As the forex market continues to evolve and expand, Enclave FX has consistently demonstrated its ability to stay at the forefront of this dynamic landscape. The recognition as the "Global Forex Broker of the Year" at the Forex Expo Dubai 2023 is a testament to the company's dedication to providing traders and investors with exceptional tools, resources, and support to thrive in the world of forex trading.





Figure 2: Enclave FX Awarded as Global Forex Broker of the Year at 6th Edition Forex Expo Dubai 2023

One of the key features that sets Enclave FX apart is its user-friendly and feature-rich trading platform, accessible at https://enclavefx.com/. Here are some of the standout features that have contributed to Enclave FX's recognition as the best in the industry:

1. Cutting-Edge Technology: Enclave FX's trading platform leverages cutting-edge technology to provide traders with a seamless and efficient trading experience. The platform is designed to execute trades swiftly and accurately, allowing traders to capitalize on market opportunities in real-time.

2. Robust Educational Resources: Enclave FX understands the importance of education in forex trading. The platform offers a wealth of educational resources, including webinars, tutorials, and market analysis, to empower traders with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions.

3. Superior Customer Support: Enclave FX places a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction. Traders can expect unparalleled customer support services, with a team of experts available to assist with any queries or concerns around the clock.

4. Wide Range of Instruments: The Enclave FX platform offers access to a diverse range of trading instruments, including major and minor currency pairs, commodities, indices, and cryptocurrencies. This extensive selection ensures that traders have a variety of options to diversify their portfolios.

5. Competitive Spreads: Enclave FX is dedicated to providing competitive spreads to its clients, helping traders optimize their trading strategies and maximize profitability.

6. Security and Transparency: Enclave FX prioritizes the security of its clients' funds and personal information. The platform employs advanced encryption technology to ensure the safety and confidentiality of all transactions.

7. Mobile Trading: Enclave FX's mobile trading app allows traders to stay connected and trade on-the-go. The mobile app is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, providing convenience and flexibility to traders.

8. Regulated and Licensed: Enclave FX operates with the highest level of professionalism and integrity. The platform is fully regulated and licensed AISC, adhering to stringent regulatory standards to protect the interests of its clients.

The recognition as the "Global Forex Broker of the Year" at the Forex Expo Dubai 2023 is a testament to Enclave FX's continuous efforts to provide traders with the best possible trading environment. By offering a user-friendly platform, comprehensive educational resources, and exceptional customer support, Enclave FX has positioned itself as a trusted partner for traders seeking success in the forex market.

Enclave FX's commitment to innovation, transparency, and client satisfaction remains unwavering as the company looks forward to a future filled with new opportunities to empower traders and investors.

Media Contacts:

EnclaveFX Ltd

Official Website: https://enclavefx.com/

PR or media enquiries: contact@forexprwire.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181963
Adidas ordered independent report to evaluate new technology

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DyeCoo's waterless dyeing technology, operated by CleanDye's factory in Vietnam, generated 58 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional textile dyeing vendors, an independent lifecycle assessment (LCA) commissioned by Adidas shows.

The LCA was commissioned as part of a program with Adidas to identify and certify low carbon textile coloration technologies.

As brands like Adidas reshape the apparel industry to address climate concerns, technologies such as DyeCoo's supercritical CO2 dyeing that reduce both carbon emissions and water pollution are essential for sustainable fashion. Based on these results, Adidas will be incorporating CO2 dyeing into its supply chain.

The LCA was conducted by Sphera, a third-party consultant with a proven track record of producing reliable sustainability reports across several industries. Sphera compared CleanDye and DyeCoo's waterless dyeing process to three of Adidas' conventional fabric vendors and found that CleanDye and DyeCoo generated a 58 percent smaller carbon footprint versus conventional fabric dyeing technology.

This report coincides with increasing interest in DyeCoo's technology from firms all over the world, including manufacturers in Turkey, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and Central America and large international brands and retailers that seek to reduce their carbon footprint over the coming years. DyeCoo received enthusiastic feedback at ITMA - the world's largest international textile and garment technology exhibition, which was held in Italy in June. During the exhibition, DyeCoo introduced a range of new CO2 dyeing solutions, including a smaller fully electric CO2 dyeing machine suitable for sampling and small-scale production, as well as an advanced lab system for R&D purposes.

"We are thrilled about this report - and that CO2 dyeing is gaining momentum in textile manufacturing," said Kasper Nossent, commercial director at DyeCoo. "We look forward to expanding our technology beyond our current customers to other factories around the world in collaboration with our brand partners."

Besides the significant sustainable impact, DyeCoo's CO2 dyeing technology also provides a full color gamut and a very high batch-to-batch consistency in bulk production, without compromising on quality and cost.

Simon Weston, CleanDye's chief executive officer, said, "The LCA is also a testament to our Vietnam facility, where we use DyeCoo technology to deliver high-quality, sustainably manufactured fabric at competitive prices."

CleanDye has already produced fabrics for brands such as Decathlon, Tom Tailor, s.Oliver, Marco Polo, and Bonprix, and many other global apparel and footwear brands are in discussions to incorporate DyeCoo and CleanDye into their supply chains.

"After analyzing the LCA, CleanDye has made further improvements to our process, and we are confident that our carbon emissions are even lower than the already impressive LCA figures," added Weston.

"We already knew that CO2 dyeing technology dramatically reduces water pollution from textile manufacturing," said Kenneth Katz, managing director & head of Asia at TAU Investment Management, a New York- and Hong Kong-based private equity firm that holds a controlling interest in CleanDye and a significant interest in DyeCoo. "Innovation like this is critical. Twenty percent of industrial water waste comes from textile dyeing. But this report is especially exciting since it demonstrates that DyeCoo's patented technology and CleanDye's purpose-built dyeing facility in Vietnam also dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

"We look forward to expanding the impact of DyeCoo and CleanDye's innovation in the sustainable transformation of the fashion industry," Katz said.

About DyeCoo

DyeCoo Textile Systems B.V. is a Dutch company that successfully developed and commercialized supercritical CO2 fabric and yarn dyeing and offers CO2 dyeing solutions from lab scale to bulk production. DyeCoo's supercritical CO2 dyeing technology completely eliminates the use of water and chemicals in the polyester dyeing process and significantly reduces its carbon and water footprint. DyeCoo technology operates in the textile supply chains of global apparel and footwear brands and retailers, and the automotive supply chain.

About CleanDye

In 2019, CleanDye opened the first factory in the world dedicated to using 100% water- and chemical-free textile dyeing technology. CleanDye's factory in Vietnam exclusively uses supercritical CO2 technology to dye fabrics and yarns for global customers, making its factory is safer, cleaner and more energy efficient than traditional dyehouses. CleanDye is staffed by a team of global industry veterans with offices in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands.

About TAU Investment Management

TAU is a New York- and Hong Kong-based investment and advisory firm that enables leaders to make critical decisions at every connection point in the global apparel supply chain. TAU originates, executes and manages proprietary private equity investments through funds, single deal vehicles, co-investments, and offers separately managed accounts. TAU advisory services provides actionable advice in areas including organic growth strategy, M&A, responsible manufacturing technology, sustainability strategy, market entry, and worker safety allowing businesses to seize opportunities in a rapidly changing environment.

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NEW YORK, NY and TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. (OTC PINK:SUIC) today announced that SUIC's IHart received big orders across its businesses to supply a government agency, a brand name hotel chains, the third largest convenience store network, global listed companies, raw material suppliers, and an O2O platform as more substantial orders on the way.

IHart's buyers include Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co. Ltd., a reputed government agency in charge of agricultural products marketing company in Taiwan, known as the "Refrigerator of Northern Taiwan". It has the most complete and advanced fruit and vegetable auction system in the country, providing the highest quality and professional services to producers, suppliers, financiers and consumers with 70% market share. Website at http://www.tapmc.com.taipei/

My Humble House Group, is a publicly listed company that operates 5 brand name hotels in Taiwan including Sheraton Taipei Hotel, Le Meridien Taipei, Hanmu Hotel Jiaoxi, Elle Hotel Humble House, and Hanju Hotel, and also offers hospitality consulting services. Website: https://www.mhh-group.com

Hi-Life is a well-known convenience store chains in Taiwan with 1,500 stores, ranked third largest after 7-11 and Family Mart. https://www.hilife.com.tw/

JustKitchen, a publicly listed company in Germany & Canada, is Taiwan's first cloud kitchen company that integrates central kitchens, multiple virtual restaurant brands and delivery services. It successfully delivers the meals to consumers all over Taiwan and overseas. It currently manages 30 brands in their brand portfolio and has 20 locations in Taiwan. It is publicly listed around the world including in Canada, Germany and the USA. Website: https://www.justkitchen.com/

BestMart 360, a publicly listed company in Hong Kong is the largest chain store in Hong Kong and Macau. It operates more than one hundred stores in both places. Website: https://www.bestmart360.com/

Others include the JC Organic - Haijin Enterprise Co., Ltd., is an organic food raw material supplier that passed the ISO22000 and HACCP dual international certifications from Taiwan Inspection Technology Co., Ltd. (SGS). It serves well-known food distributors and organic specialty stores, such as Yuanyuandi, Meifu Food Market, Laf'e Taiwan Lefei, Yueke Shop and more. Website: http://www.jinchuan.com.tw/ House Creation develops systems specializing in self-service equipment, fully integrates the design of self-service equipment into a O2O platform business model through a one-stop service approach It operates i-TRY smart vending machines, i-TRY 's self-operated brands, i-TRY community app, i-TRY online shopping platform, and i-TRY lifestyle media marketing channels. Website: https://hctong.com.tw/

"SUIC is confident that IHart's diversified business will solidify its position in international food markets through various joint ventures that will boost sales and marketing capabilities and expand its footprint in the global arena, leveraging the strong presence of SUIC's IHart in the food industry. These partnerships will significantly ramp up the number of franchisees and suppliers with standard operating procedures for more expected orders in the FY 2023-24. SUIC's IHart expects a positive impact on EBITDA margins in the medium term," said Hank Wang, CEO of SUIC.

About SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd., USA

SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. provides research and development, venture financing for and investing in private enterprises and the public sector that develop products and services adopting core capabilities of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile payment, Big Data, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, to enhance and streamline existing processes, and establish new and exciting business models that will create revolutionary products and services. Shareholders of SUIC will be exposed to the diverse application of advanced services in various parts of the economy. Additionally, existing and potential customers can benefit from this company's diversified portfolio of technologies. As one of the pioneering publicly traded technology companies, SUIC will help build tech-enabled businesses of the future. To learn more, please visit www.sinounitedco.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results are achieved. This press release is considered considering all Company filings contained in the Edgar Archives of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov.

Contact

SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.

New Release Department

929-391-2550

SOURCE: SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/786876/suics-ihart-secured-large-orders-from-government-agency-brand-name-hotel-chain-3rd-largest-convenience-store-network-global-listed-companies-raw-material-suppliers-o2o-platform-with-more-substantial-orders-on-the-way
Santa Helena's resource delineation and exploration drill program to be doubled

LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Meridian Mining UK S (TSX:MNO)(OTCQX:MRRDF)(Frankfurt/Tradegate:2MM) ("Meridian" or the "Company") is pleased to report further strong near-surface results at the Santa Helena copper, gold, silver and zinc mine ("Santa Helena"), with CD-321 returning a high-grade gold zone grading 3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn from 10.0m within a broader interval of 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag and 0.4% Zn from 6.1m, ("Figure 1"). Assay grades are again characteristic of gold enrichment superimposed on the Cabacal VMS Belt. The Company is also reporting that Santa Helena's southeast trending exploration corridor's footprint has been extended by 500m to at least 1.6km ("Figure 2"), projecting to a strong gold-copper anomaly. Based on these strong results, Meridian has committed to doubling the current program to test the considerable potential.

Meridian is also reporting that a zone of strong gold mineralization has been defined at surface at the Cabacal Mine's Northwest Extension ("CNWE"). Recent trenching returned a result of 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq, ("Figure 3") highlighting the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to the first-year open pit development schedule1. Further results are pending.

Highlights Reported Today

Shallow high-grade gold confirmed at the Santa Helena Cu-Au-Ag & Zn mine;

Santa Helena returns near surface high-grade gold and base metal mineralization; CD-321: 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag & 0.4% Zn ) from 6.1m; Including 3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn ) from 10.0m ;

Santa Helena's prospective southeast trending exploration corridor, extended by 500m to 1.6km with survey ongoing;

Meridian to extend Santa Helena drill program targeting poorly tested upside;

Cabacal program continues to deliver strong ongoing Cu-Au-Ag results: CA_TR_034: 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq (3.9g/t Au, 0.1% Cu & 1.6g/t Ag); Result emphasises the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to surface open pit development; and Cabacal's PEA and resource upgrades progressing well.



True width is considered to be 80 to 90% of intersection width.

Mr. Gilbert Clark, CEO, comments: "The Company is very pleased to confirm with this latest intersection that Santa Helena displays all of the hallmarks of a gold-enriched VMS system, creating a great opportunity to repeat the success in resource growth that we saw in the Cabacal deposit. Santa Helena's near mine exploration upside has also been extended out to at least 1.6km beyond the historical resource limits, with the geophysical anomaly now shown to coincide with an eastern copper-gold anomaly, enhancing the potential for further discovery. The Cabacal VMS belt hosts numerous copper-gold and gold-only prospects, with the gold overprint interpreted to be sourced from the underlying tonalite intrusion. This largely untested exploration upside in the belt is underpinned by the robust economics of the Cabacal Mine's PEA. We see this combination as the logical fit of our dual track development and exploration strategy with Meridian emerging as Brazil's near-term copper-gold mine developer."

Santa Helena Drill Program

Santa Helena is a Cu-Au-Ag & Zn deposit located ~9km to the southeast of the Cabacal Mine area. It has over 10,000m of historical drilling and is one of a series of exploration targets along the Mine Corridor. The Company commenced initial drilling in August 2023 as part of a verification program, to validate the historical data in line with 43-101 requirements, and to initiate scout drilling for resource extensions defined by geophysics. The Company's compilation of historical drill data indicated that many historical holes were not completely sampled, that reconciliation of surveyed drilled positions and past mine workings suggested that the high-grade massive sulphide mineralization was only partially mined, and that extensions of near-surface mineralization to the east were also not integrated into the historical resource calculations2. The Company has concluded that this historical resource area is considered open.

Figure 1: Cross section through the CD-321 drill site, twinning JUCHD-101, showing wider mineralization envelop than previously interpreted.

The Company has completed 12 holes to date, with the first two reported confirming strong near-surface mineralization: CD-325: 14.9m @ 3.1% CuEq from 26.3m; CD-311: 19.1m @ 1.3% CuEq from 8.0m3.

The latest result ("Table 1") is from a site where historical trenching and drilling was undertaken by BP Minerals, but individual drill assays have been lost. The Company twinned an historical hole, JUCHD-101, which records indicated had returned 18.9m @ 1.3g/t Au from 6.3m (base metal results not analysed). The twin hole, CD-321, returned a broader envelop of gold and base metal mineralization: 23.1m @ 1.0% CuEq (0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn) from 6.1m, Including 3.6m @ 3.3% CuEq (1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag, 0.5% Zn) from 10.0m. The hole is below a BP trench (T5) which returned multiple broad gold intersections: 18.0m @ 1.1g/t Au, 8.0m @ 0.9g/t Au, 4.0m @ 0.8g/t Au ("Figure 1"). The position is in a structural domain where the VMS horizon is interpreted to be folded into an anticline, cut by steeper subvertical structures. The Company considers that like the Cabacal mine area, the gold content of the Santa Helena VMS system has been upgraded by an overprinting event. A belt-scale tonalitic intrusion most likely contributed as a heat engine for this mineralization.

With the new results from CD-321, the Company continues to add data that can be integrated into a resource update, expanding the footprint of near-surface high-grade mineralization.

Following the positive results to the first phase of work, the Company will expand the Santa Helena Program with at least an additional 1000m.

Santa Helena's Expanding near-mine Exploration Corridor

The Company has continued its Gradient Array Induced Polarization survey ("IP survey") over the southeastern extensions to Santa Helena, into the Alamo property. This newly defined chargeability corridor has been extended a further 500m southeastwards, now totaling 1.6km from the limit of Santa Helena's historical resource. The eastern flank of the anomaly aligns with gold and base metal soil anomalies defined in BP surveys, adding valuable context to this target as an extensional corridor for Santa Helena style mineralization.

Figure 2 - Santa Helena plan view and growing 1.6km eastern exploration extension.

The Company considers that the wide spaced historical scout drilling conducted to date along the corridor has not effectively tested the position, in an environment where the VMS horizon is known to be folded, faulted, and subjected to a later-stage high-grade gold-overprint event. The Company is continuing the geophysical and surface mapping programs. Results from further drilling in the vicinity are pending.

Cabacal Project Development and Resource Definition Program

The Company is also reporting results from CA_TR_034, an infill trench in the Cabacal Northwest extension and infill drill results ("Table 1"). The trench returned 7.0m @ 0.4g/t AuEq (0.4g/t Au, 0.1% Cu, 0.2g/t Ag) and 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq (3.9g/t Au, 0.1% Cu, 1.6g/t Ag). The result better explains the source of a widespread gold dispersion anomaly and may mark the up-plunge projection of one of the shallow SE plunging high grade lodes intercepted by CD-0494 that returned 26.7m @ 21.5g/t Au ~170m to the southeast. These new strong gold grades at surface would be encompassed by the starter pit scheduled as outlined in the Cabacal 2023 PEA and show that additional potential zones of shallow mineralization remain to be defined within the open pit resource area.

Figure 3: Location of Cabacal results reported today.

One of the Company's drill contractors, Sonda Service, is also adapting its equipment to be able to drill low-angle holes (down to 20 dip), and a number of additional holes will be test drilled at Cabacal in areas where topography places constraints for conventional drill rigs.

Results from further drilling in the vicinity are pending.

About Meridian

Meridian Mining UK S is focused on:

The development and exploration of the advanced stage Cabacal VMS gold-copper project;

Regional scale exploration of the Cabacal VMS belt;

Exploration in the Jauru & Araputanga Greenstone belts (the above all located in the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil); and

Exploring the Espigao polymetallic project in the State of Rondonia, Brazil.

Cabacal is a gold-copper-silver rich VMS deposit with the potential to be a standalone mine within the 50km VMS belt. Cabacal's base and precious metal-rich mineralization is hosted by volcanogenic type, massive, semi-massive, stringer, and disseminated sulphides within deformed metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks. A later-stage gold overprint event has emplaced high-grade gold mineralization.

The Cabacal Mineral Resource estimate consists of Indicated resources of 52.9 million tonnes at 0.6g/t gold, 0.3% copper and 1.4g/t silver and Inferred resources of 10.3 million tonnes at 0.7g/t gold, 0.2% copper & 1.1g/t silver (at a 0.3 g/t gold equivalent cut-off grade), including a higher-grade near-surface zone supporting a starter pit.

The Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report (the "PEA Technical Report") dated March 30, 2023, entitled: "Cabacal Gold-Copper Project NI 43-101 Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment, Mato Grosso, Brazil" outlines a base case after-tax NPV5 of USD 573 million and 58.4% IRR from a pre-production capital cost of USD 180 million, leading to capital repayment in 10.6 months (assuming metals price scenario of USD 1,650 per ounces of gold, USD 3.59 per pound of copper, and USD 21.35 per ounce of silver). Cabacal has a low All-in-Sustaining-Cost of USD 671 per ounce gold equivalent for the first five years, driven by high metallurgical recovery, a low life-of-mine strip ratio of 2.1:1, and the low operating cost environment of Brazil (see press release dated March 6, 2023).

Readers are encouraged to read the PEA Technical Report in its entirety. The PEA Technical Report may be found on the Company's website at www.meridianminig.co and under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at https://www.sedarplus.ca.

The qualified persons for the PEA Technical Report are: Robert Raponi (P. Eng), Principal Metallurgist with Ausenco Engineering), Scott Elfen (P. E.), Global Lead Geotechnical and Civil Services with Ausenco Engineering), Simon Tear (PGeo, EurGeol), Principal Geological Consultant of H&SC, Marcelo Batelochi, (MAusIMM, CP Geo), Geological Consultant of MB Geologia Ltda, Joseph Keane (Mineral Processing Engineer; P.E), of SGS, and Guilherme Gomides Ferreira (Mine Engineer MAIG) of GE21 Consultoria Mineral.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Meridian Mining UK S

Mr. Gilbert Clark

CEO and Director

Meridian Mining UK S

Email: info@meridianmining.net.br

Ph: +1 (778) 715-6410 (PST)

Stay up to date by subscribing for news alerts here: https://meridianmining.co/contact/

Follow Meridian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeridianMining

Further information can be found at: www.meridianmining.co

Technical Notes

Samples have been analysed at SGS laboratory in Belo Horizonte. Samples are dried, crushed with 75% passing <3 mm, split to give a mass of 250-300g, pulverized with 95% passing 150#. Gold analyses are conducted by FAA505 (fire assay of a 50g charge), and base metal analysis by methods ICP40B and ICP40B_S (four acid digest with ICP-OES finish). Visible gold intervals are sampled by metallic screen fire assay method MET150-FAASCR. Samples are held in the Company's secure facilities until dispatched and delivered by staff and commercial couriers to the laboratory. Pulps and coarse rejects are retained and returned to the Company for storage. The Company submits a range of quality control samples, including blanks and gold and polymetallic standards supplied by Rocklabs, ITAK and OREAS, supplementing laboratory quality control procedures. Approximately 5% of archived samples are sent for umpire laboratory analysis, including any lots exhibiting QAQC outliers after discussion with the laboratory. In BP Minerals sampling, gold was analysed historically by fire assay and base metals by three acid digest and ICP finish at the Nomos laboratory in Rio de Janeiro. Silver was analysed by aqua regia digest with an atomic absorption finish. True width is considered to be 80-90% of intersection width. Assay figures and intervals are rounded to 1 decimal place. Gold equivalents for Cabacal are calculated as: AuEq(g/t) = (Au(g/t) * %Recovery) + (1.492*(Cu% * %Recovery)) + (0.013*(Ag(g/t) * %Recovery)), where:

Au_recovery_ppm = 5.4368ln(Au_Grade_ppm)+88.856

Cu_recovery_pct = 2.0006ln(Cu_Grade_pct)+94.686

Ag_recovery_ppm = 13.342ln(Ag_Grade_ppm)+71.037

Recoveries based on 2022 metallurgical testwork on core submitted to SGS Lakefield

Copper equivalents for Santa Helena are based on metallurgical recoveries from the historical resource calculation, updated with pricing forecasts aligned with the Cabacal PEA. The metal equivalent formula s presented as a copper equivalent rather than a zinc equivalent, based on the Companies current assessment of the metal balance after the past zinc-focussed extraction. CuEq% = (Cu% * 89%Recovery) + (0.67Au(g/t) * 65%Recovery) + (0.318Zn% * 89%Recovery)) + (0.009Ag(g/t) * 61%Recovery)).

The Gradient Array IP survey is being conducted using the Company's in-house team, utilizing its GDD GRx8-16c receiver and 5000W-2400-15A transmitter. Data is processed by the Company's independent consultancy Core Geophysics. Geophysical and geochemical exploration targets are preliminary in nature and not conclusive evidence of the likelihood of a mineral deposit.

Qualified Person

Mr. Erich Marques, B.Sc., MAIG, Chief Geologist of Meridian Mining and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed, and verified the technical information in this news release.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information or forward-looking statements for the purposes of applicable securities laws. These statements address future events and conditions and so involve inherent risks and uncertainties, as disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in under the heading "Risk Factors" in Meridian's most recent Annual Information Form filed on https://www.sedarplus.ca/ While these factors and assumptions are considered reasonable by Meridian, in light of management's experience and perception of current conditions and expected developments, Meridian can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Meridian disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or results or otherwise.

Table 1: Results Reported

Santa Helena

Hole-id Dip Azi EOH (m) Zone Int (m) CuEq (g/t) AuEq (%) Cu (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Zn (%) Pb (%) From (m) CD-321 -60 219 31.0 SHM 23.1 1.0 1.5 0.5 0.9 13.9 0.4 0.3 6.1 Including 3.6 3.3 4.9 1.3 4.2 35.3 0.5 1.1 10.0

Cabacal

Hole-id Dip Azi EOH

(m) Zone Int

(m) AuEq

(g/t) CuEq

(%) Au

(g/t) Cu

(%) Ag

(g/t) From

(m) CD-316 50 061 85.3 CWNE 3.3 0.6 0.4 0.1 0.3 2.2 56.6 CD-314 50 057 71.3 CWNE 21.1 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.4 35.3 CD-313 49 059 100.2 CWNE 3.7 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.5 20.0 2.0 1.3 0.8 0.4 0.6 2.3 38.0 1.4 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.3 1.4 48.2 CD-310 51 057 66.3 CWNE 4.5 0.8 0.5 0.6 0.2 0.0 23.5 17.0 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2 1.0 33.4 CA_TR_035 0 042 43.0 CWNE NSI CA_TR_034 0 056 52.0 CWNE 7.0 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.1 0.2 26.0 7.0 4.0 2.7 3.9 0.1 1.6 45.0 Including 1.0 24.0 16.1 23.8 0.1 6.5 48.0

1 Meridian Mining News Release of March 6, 2023. 2 Meridian Mining News Release of March 29, 2022. 3 Meridian Mining News Release of September 12, 2022. 4 See Meridian News Release September 7th, 2021 SOURCE: Meridian Mining UK S

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787645/meridian-confirms-high-grade-gold-at-santa-helena


STAVANGER (dpa-AFX) - Norwegian petroleum refining firm Equinor ASA (EQNR) and British oil and gas company Ithaca Energy Plc (IAE.L) announced Wednesday that they have taken the final investment decision to progress Phase 1 of the Rosebank development on the UK Continental Shelf. The companies together will invest $3.8 billion in the development. The decision was taken after the North Sea Transition Authority or NSTA granted consent for the development of the field.



Ithaca Energy shares were gaining around 8 percent in London trading.



Separately, Equinor said it has signed a new long-term gas sales agreement with Austria's major energy company OMV. The deal is for 5 years starting October 1 this year.



Regarding Rosebank Field, Equinor and Ithaca Energy said the development is expected to reduce carbon emissions, in line with the North Sea Transition Deal.



The Rosebank field is an oil and gas field located about 130km west of the Shetland Islands on the UK continental shelf, owned 80 percent and operated by Equinor. Ithaca Energy owns a 20 percent working interest in Rosebank, in which recoverable resources are estimated at around 300 million barrels of oil from phase 1 and 2, with Phase 1 targeting an estimated 245 million barrels of oil.



The field will be developed with subsea wells tied back to a redeployed Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel or FPSO. The first production is expected in 2026-2027. The Rosebank field will produce more than 21 MMSCF of natural gas every day.



The companies noted that the Rosebank development is estimated to lead to 8.1 billion pounds of total direct investment, of which 78 percent is likely to be invested in UK-based businesses. The development is expected to support around 1,600 jobs during the height of the construction phase of the project. It will continue to support around 450 UK-based jobs during the lifetime of the field.



Relating to the development of the field, the companies awarded an integrated engineering, procurement, construction and installation or iEPCI contract to TechnipFMC with an estimated value of $500 million.



Odjfell Drilling has been awarded a rig contract, with an estimated value of $328 million including options, integrated services and other modifications.



Further, Altera has been awarded a bareboat charter and an operations and maintenance contract related to the Petrojarl Knarr FPSO.



Geir Tungesvik, executive vice president Projects, Drilling and Procurement at Equinor, said, 'Developing the Rosebank field will allow us to grow our position as a broad energy partner to the UK, while optimising our oil and gas portfolio, and increasing energy supply in Europe. Rosebank provides an opportunity to develop a field within the UK Continental Shelf which will bring significant benefits to Scotland and the wider UK.'



In Norway, Equinor shares were trading at NOK 351.35, up 1.36 percent. In London, Ithaca Energy shares were trading at 175.60 pence, up 7.60 percent.



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EQS-News: Bybit / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Bybit and DMCC Crypto Centre Announce a Million-Dollar Hackathon to Drive Web3 Innovation in Dubai



27.09.2023 / 13:00 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Media OutReach - 27 September 2023 - Global crypto exchange Bybit and the Dubai Multi Commodity Centre (DMCC) announced the "Web3 Unleashed: Crypto Innovation Challenge" hackathon, boasting a $100,000 prize pool. The hackathon comes hot on the heels of a partnership that has already seen Bybit contribute AED 500,000 to 15 crypto startups in the DMCC crypto ecosystem.







Bybit's own thought leaders Bryan Aaron and Daniel Basharimov will help adjudicate the competition, which is scheduled for Nov. 22, 2023 and focused on artificial intelligence, gaming, and blockchain security. The hackathon is set to become the largest-of-its-kind in MENA, in terms of prize pools and participation.



Bybit and DMCC partnership joined forces in June 2023, creating a strategic bond destined to accelerate the mass adoption of crypto in the heart of Dubai. Bybit is pushing the adoption of crypto worldwide, bringing its 16 million users on a journey to financial freedom and it has vowed to invest in its growth within the emirate.



Their collaboration was symbolized as Bybit became an official Ecosystem Partner for the DMCC Crypto Centre, a place where crypto and Web3 businesses thrive, creating a charged atmosphere for innovation. Going beyond financial support, Bybit is also DMCC's crypto listing partner, assisting startups to bootstrap growth and offering mentorship.



Registration for the hackathon is from Sept. 26, 2023 - Oct. 26, 2023 and the event is scheduled for Nov. 22. All projects are welcome - Blockchain Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence (AI), DeFi, NFTs, Metaverse, Crypto Gaming, Sustainable Blockchain Solutions, and more



"In Dubai's ever-evolving crypto landscape, Bybit stands out as the 'Crypto Ark,' ready to assist DMCC Crypto Centre members' companies in bringing their dreams to life," said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. "This hackathon is just one of many projects we are collaborating with DMCC, and is so important as it provides a supportive atmosphere for young talent to emerge and grow."



Bybit

Bybit is a top-five cryptocurrency exchange established in 2018 that offers a professional platform where crypto investors and traders can find an ultra-fast matching engine, 24/7 customer service, and multilingual community support. Bybit is a proud partner of Formula One's reigning Constructors' and Drivers' champions: the Oracle Red Bull Racing team.



For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com

For more information please visit: https://www.bybit.com

For updates, please follow: Bybit's Communities and Social Media

27.09.2023 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Currie Rose Resources Inc. (TSXV: CUI) ("Currie Rose" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the "infill" large diameter (100 mm) core drilling program at the Cambridge Vanadium Deposit1 has been completed successfully and also advises that the Company has engaged specialist environmental consultancy, Epic Environmental Pty Ltd ("Epic Environmental"), to commence environmental baseline assessments at the Company's 100%-owned North Queensland Vanadium Project ("NQVP") located about 450 km west of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, in the Julia Creek-Richmond critical mineral zone.

Highlights:

Ten (10) large diameter (100 mm) 4C core drill holes completed

Downhole Gamma and Density geophysics completed on all drill holes

All core dispatched to Mitra PTS Laboratory for processing

Desktop ecological study underway

Flora and water studies initiated

Simon Coyle, Currie Rose's President and CEO, commented:

"Completion of our first drill program at the Cambridge Deposit is another milestone for the Company. This work will provide the platform for several workstreams over the wet season, but most importantly, we have a good quantity of sample for metallurgical test covering the bulk of the Cambridge deposit."

"We are also pleased to have started our first environmental studies at the NQVP. Investing in the environmental baseline data in the early planning stages of the Project will facilitate timely and science-based approvals necessary for the subsequent development stages. Starting the work now ensures we are on track for production success in the near term."

NQVP covers over 300 km2 of the outcropping Toolebuc Formation (vanadium host rock) within approximately 1,250 km2 of granted 100%-owned tenure in northwest Queensland. The centrally located Cambridge Vanadium Deposit hosts NI 43-101 compliant Indicated Mineral Resource2 of 61.33 Mt @ 0.34% V2O5 and Inferred Mineral Resource of 144.87 Mt @ 0.33% V2O5.



Figure 1 - North Queensland Vanadium Project Location

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2005/182002_a0377e17b421d979_001full.jpg

Drilling Program

A total of ten (10) drill large diameter 4C core (100 mm) drill holes, totaling 333 metres, have been completed from within the Cambridge Deposit (Table 1). Downhole Gamma and Density geophysics was also completed on all drill holes for stratigraphic analysis and to assist with planned metallurgical studies.

Two holes (NQVP23-004 and NQVP23-007) have been conditioned for water monitoring purposes and part of the ground water studies conducted by Epic Environmental.

Core has been dispatched to Mitra PTS in Gladstone, Queensland for processing, and all data collected from the program is now being collated. The Company will provide further updates on the drill program data as they come to hand.

Photo 1 - NQVP23_005 - Typical Oxide Zone - Cambridge Deposit

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2005/182002_a0377e17b421d979_002full.jpg

Environmental Studies

Epic Environmental Pty Ltd is a highly experienced environmental group with extensive experience in the Richmond-Julia Creek region of Queensland. Their engagement at this stage in the Project is to ensure that there are no delays to the development of the Project due to baseline data collection for potential development of the project.

The scope of work includes an initial desktop ecological assessment, collating all the public data for the area, and first pass "on-ground" flora and fauna observations. In addition, studies have also included surface water, groundwater, and air quality monitoring. These studies are long term, and the Company will provide further updates as available.

Hole ID Core Type Easting_X Northing_Y Depth (m) NQV23_001 4C Core 692239 7734776 30 NQV23_002 4C Core 692122 7733776 31 NQV23_003 4C Core 693171 7734158 37 NQV23_004 4C Core 693047 7733163 36 NQV23_005 4C Core 694351 7735523 37 NQV23_006 4C Core 694201 7734286 25 NQV23_007 4C Core 695095 7733418 36 NQV23_008 4C Core 695221 7734412 26 NQV23_009 4C Core 692334 7735515 20 NQV23_010 4C Core 693297 7735149 55 Total 333 EPSG:7854 - GDA2020 / MGA zone 54

Table 1 - 4C Core Holes Location

About Currie Rose Resources Inc.

Currie Rose is a publicly traded battery metals exploration and development company identifying high-value assets in resource and research-friendly jurisdictions. The Company's immediate focus is the advanced NQV Project in Queensland, Australia. The NQV Project hosts the Cambridge Deposit with an Indicated Mineral Resource of 61.33 Mt @ 0.34% V2O5 and 234.6 ppm MoO3 along with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 144.87 Mt @ 0.33% V2O5 and 241.9 ppm MoO3 (Dufresne et al., 2022). The Company additionally owns Kotai Energy and the option to acquire 100% of the intellectual property rights associated with the Solid-State Hydrogen Storage Project from Curtin University in Western Australia. Please visit our website at www.currierose.com.

For additional information, please contact:

Iryna Zheliasko, Investor Relations - Canada

Office: (+1) 647-249-9298

Email: communications@currierose.com

Andrew Rowell, Investor Relations - Australia

M: +61 400 466 226

Email: andrew@whitenoisecomms.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and reviewed and approved on behalf of Currie Rose Resources by Michael Griffiths, FAusIMM, VP Exploration and Director for Currie Rose Resources, a Qualified Person.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, timing, assumptions or expectations of future performance, including without limitation, statements regarding the Company's plans regarding the NQV Project. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on certain material assumptions and analysis made by the Company and the opinions and estimates of management as of the date of this press release, including that the Company will receive the required corporate and regulatory approvals, including TSXV's final approval, that that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner and assumptions regarding political and regulatory stability in financial and capital markets.

These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary, include, without limitation, that the Company will not be able to proceed with the NQV Project as intended, or that the Company does not receive the required regulatory approvals, including the TSXV's final approval, recent market volatility and potentially negative capital raising conditions, the conflict in Eastern Europe, the Company's ability to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies and other risks and factors that the Company is unaware of at this time. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended.

There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

1 Refer to TSXV Announcement dated 22 August 2023 - Currie Rose Commences Core Drilling at the North Queensland Vanadium Project in Australia

2 Refer to TSXV Announcement dated 1 November 2022 - Currie Rose Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate at its North Queensland Vanadium Project

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182002
MUSCAT, Oman, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah accompanied by Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, visited on Tuesday evening the Royal Opera House Muscat, as part of his visit to the sisterly Sultanate of Oman.

Upon his arrival, His Highness was welcomed by His Excellency Nasr bin Hamoud Al Kindi, Secretary-General of the Royal Court Affairs, and a number of senior officials from the Opera House.

His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah toured the corridors of the Royal Opera House of Oman, reviewing its unique blend of the Omani, Islamic and international architectural cultural heritage.

His Highness listened to a detailed explanation about the House's facilities, which include a concert theatre with a capacity of 1,100 seats; a music library with a variety of musical and creative books; as well as a collection of musical instruments that belonged to Sultan Qaboos ?bin Said, may his soul rest in peace, in addition to all of the performances that took place on the opera stage.

The Royal Opera House Muscat hosts more than 50 annual Arabic and international music events, including a variety of facilities with the best and latest technologies, making it one of the finest opera houses, with high capabilities that enhance the musical performances' presentation in the best ways and styles, creating a unique harmonious atmosphere.

Then, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah moved to the House of Musical Arts, affiliated with the Royal Opera House Muscat, where His Highness learned about the House's most prominent works, its artistic contents, and its efforts in the fields of arts.

Then His Highness watched on the stage of the House of Musical Arts a group of popular artistic performances presented by the First Royal Band for Music and Folklore, welcoming His Highness' visit to the Sultanate of Oman.

His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah received a souvenir from the Royal Opera House Muscat and the House of Musical Arts in appreciation of His Highness's visit.

Concluding the visit, His Highness left an entry in the VIP Guestbook, during which he praised this great cultural edifice that reflects the Omani heritage, wishing everyone success.

During the visit, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah and Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi were accompanied by His Excellency Dr. Abdullah bin Nasser Al Harrasi, Omani Minister of Information; His Excellency Mohammed bin Nakhira Al Dhaheri, the UAE Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman; His Excellency Abdullah Al Owais, Head of the Department of Culture, and His Excellency Mohammed Obaid Al Zaabi, Chairman of Protocol Department.

Media contacts: Hussain Almulla - Hussain.almulla@sgmb.ae - 00971563980067

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222993/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222994/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222995/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222996/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222997/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223028/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.mp4

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sharjah-ruler-visits-royal-opera-house-muscat-301940229.html
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Eclipse Air Charter is reimagining private jet travel by allowing clients to share the air with other private flyers. The company's new private membership program, Eclipse Air Share, is an elevated rideshare in the sky that lets smaller parties select their destination city and dates, and reduce travel costs by splitting the chartered aircraft with another membership party that has been hand-selected from a similar demographic pool.

The membership program will first launch in the Canadian market, offering flights to the most popular destinations: Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Miami, Scottsdale, The Bahamas and Puerto Vallarta.

"We're solving the problem of how to make private air travel more affordable while also connecting like-minded individuals or groups for shared travel," says Yasmin Alam, Founder and Managing Director at Eclipse Air Charter. "A lot of the time, our clients are ready to pull the trigger, but they can't justify the costs for just two or three people. Eclipse Air Share will help alleviate that cost, making it more economical for everyone involved, without compromising the comforts and convenience of a private charter."

The concept of shared private air travel itself isn't new. Nearly a decade ago celebrity-backed BlackJet launched in the market, lasting just three years. Similar to rideshare apps like UberPool in that it connected passengers going in the same direction in order to reduce cost, BlackJet struggled to gain traction and ultimately failed due in part to a disconnect in its passenger selection process that left groups flying with others who weren't necessarily a good fit.

Unlike this system that may have paired a bachelor party heading to a resort with a business professional on their way to a summit, the Eclipse Air Share program employs a stringent membership application process that requires individuals to share information about themselves, including travel preferences and even pets that may join them onboard. Members will also have the opportunity to select multiple dates and locations. Eclipse Air Share then processes this information and uses human matchmaking to thoughtfully connect members with other like-minded flyers bound for the same destination. Parings might include a retired couple heading to a vacation home in Miami and an executive en route for business.

Prior to departure, members receive detailed information about who they'll be travelling with, including a short bio, where their travel companions are from, and their purpose for travel, be it business or leisure. A maximum of two parties will share one chartered flight, and should one group cancel, the original flight will still take off with the other group onboard.

"Eclipse Air Share offers an alternative way to fly," says Alam. "You still have the ability to do a full private charter or to travel commercially, but our membership program is the new middle ground."

Interested parties are encouraged to visit Eclipse Air Share's website at www.eclipseairshare.com and fill out a form to express interest in the program's launch.

About Eclipse Air Charter

Eclipse Air Charter is an on-demand private aircraft charter company with offices in Toronto, New York and London. With no long-term commitment, membership fees, acquisition costs or management charges, Eclipse Air Charter works with corporate and individual clients worldwide. Click. Book. Fly.

RELATED LINKS

www.eclipseairshare.com

www.eclipseaircharter.com

CONTACT: Yasmin Alam, Founder & Managing Director, Eclipse Air Charter, +1 416-646-7323, yalam@eclipseaircharter.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222006/Eclipse_Air_Charter_Eclipse_Air_Charter_launches_first_ever_Air.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/eclipse-air-charter-launches-first-ever-air-share-membership-program-to-matchmake-private-flyers-301939589.html
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Forward Water Technologies Corp. (TSXV:FWTC) (the "Company" or "FWTC") is pleased to announce that it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement of up to 10,000,000 units ("Unit") of the Company at a price of $0.05 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $500,000 (the "Private Placement"). Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company and one warrant (a "Warrant") each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to acquire an additional common share (the "Warrant Share") of the Company at an exercise price of $0.075 per Warrant Share for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance.

Insiders may participate in the Private Placement and will be considered a related party transaction subject to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company intends to rely on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements provided under subsections 5.5(a) and 5.7(a) of MI 61-101 on the basis that participation in the Private Placement by insiders will not exceed 25% of the fair market value of the Company's market capitalization.

The Private Placement is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities issued in connection with the Private Placement will be subject to a four month and one day hold period, in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The Company intends to use the proceeds from the Private Placement for commercialization activities, client development and general corporate purposes.

About Forward Water Technologies Corp.

Forward Water Technologies Corp. is a publicly traded Canadian company dedicated to saving the earth's water supply using its patented Forward Osmosis technology. The Company was founded by GreenCentre Canada, a leading technology innovation centre supported by the government of Canada. The Company's technology allows for the reduction of challenging waste streams simultaneously returning fresh water for re-use or surface release. The Company's mandate is to focus on the large-scale implementation of its technology in multiple sectors, including industrial wastewater, oil and gas, mining, agriculture and ultimately municipal water supply and re-use market sectors. In addition, the Company has initiated early stage R&D for the treatment of food and beverage process streams.

For more information, please visit www.forwardwater.com.

Contact Information

For more information or interview requests, please contact:

C. Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer

howie.honeyman@forwardwater.com

519-333-5888

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws including statements regarding the closing of the proposed financing and the use of proceeds thereof and the ability for the Company to achieve its growth strategy and business plan. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions, including, the ability to scale the technology and the adoption of the technology by potential customers.

Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the inability to complete the closing of the financing, general economic conditions in Canada, the United States and globally; unanticipated operating events; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; stock market volatility as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to the Company as set forth in the Company's continuous disclosure filings filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, other than as required by applicable law.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

SOURCE: Forward Water Technologies Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787625/forward-water-technologies-corp-announces-non-brokered-private-placement-of-units
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Alternative IQ today announced the Top Contenders for the 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards, the highest honour in Canada's hedge fund industry. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, October 17th at the Gala Awards Dinner at One King West Hotel in Toronto.

The annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards help investors identify the best performing hedge funds by recognizing winners in 5 performance measures across 6 categories as well as the Overall Best 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund. The awards are based solely on quantitative performance data to June 30th, which is collected and tabulated by Fundata Canada to determine the winners.

A total of 264 Canadian Hedge Funds - the highest number ever - were considered for a 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Award. For the full Directory of Canadian Hedge Funds, check here: http://alternativeiq.com/hf-directory/ where you will also see a chart as at June 30, 2023 of Average Performance by Hedge Fund Category.

In alphabetical order, the Top Contenders for 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards are:

Overall Best 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund:

(based on 10 year best combined annualized return and Sharpe ratio).

Arrow Performance Fund

Broadview Dark Horse LP (Ewing Morris & Co.)

Forge First Long Short LP

Forge First Multi Strategy LP

GFI Good Opportunities Fund

HGC Fund LP (The)

Highstreet Global Equity Fund

Kensington Alternative Strategies Fund

Pathfinder Partners' Fund

Waratah Performance

2023 CHFAwards - Equity Focused:

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Agilith North American Diversified Fund

GFI Good Opportunities Fund

Highstreet Global Equity Fund

King & Victoria Fund LP

Kipling Global Enhanced Growth Fund

Palos-Mitchell Alpha Fund

QW Enhanced Global Equity Growth

ROMC Fund

Tralucent Global Equity Fund

Wealhouse Lions Bay Fund Agilith North American Diversified Fund

Broadview Dark Horse LP (Ewing Morris & Co.)

Canoe Energy Alpha Fund LP

King & Victoria Fund LP

MMCap Canadian Fund

ROMC Fund

SMI Defensive LP

Viking Global Value Fund

Wealhouse Lions Bay Fund

XIB Fund Broadview Dark Horse LP (Ewing Morris & Co.)

Canoe Energy Alpha Fund LP

King & Victoria Fund LP

Kipling Global Enhanced Growth Fund

Lynwood Opportunities Fund

MMCap Canadian Fund

Pathfinder Partners' Fund

Pathfinder Resource Fund

SMI Defensive LP

Timelo Strategic Opportunities Fund

Best 3 Year Sharpe Ratio Best 5 Year Sharpe Ratio

Agilith North American Diversified Fund

Broadview Dark Horse LP (Ewing Morris & Co.)

Canoe Energy Alpha Fund LP

JC Clark Opportunity Fund

Picton Mahoney Long Short Equity Fund

SMI Defensive LP

Timelo Strategic Opportunities Fund

Tralucent Global Equity Fund

Viking Global Value Fund

Wealhouse Lions Bay Fund Broadview Dark Horse LP (Ewing Morris & Co.)

Canoe Energy Alpha Fund LP

Forge First Long Short LP

Kipling Global Enhanced Dividend Fund

Kipling Global Enhanced Growth Fund

Lynwood Opportunities Fund

Picton Mahoney Long Short Equity Fund

SMI Defensive LP

Timelo Strategic Opportunities Fund

Waratah Performance

2023 CHFAwards - Credit Focused:

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Algonquin Debt Strategies Fund LP

Dynamic Credit Absolute Return Fund

East Coast Investment Grade Fund II (Arrow)

East Coast Strategic Credit Trust

Ewing Morris Flexible Fixed Income Fund LP

NorthStream Credit Strategies Fund LP

RP Debt Opportunities Fund

RP Select Opportunities Fund

Wealhouse Amplus Credit Income Fund

YTM Capital Credit Opportunities Fund East Coast Investment Grade Fund II (Arrow)

East Coast Strategic Credit Trust

Focus Asset Management Credit Opportunities Fund

Fulcra Credit Opportunities Fund

Goodwood Milford Fund

NorthStream Credit Strategies Fund LP

Picton Mahoney Special Situations Fund

RP Debt Opportunities Fund

RP Select Opportunities Fund

Wealhouse Amplus Credit Income Fund East Coast Investment Grade Fund II (Arrow)

East Coast Strategic Credit Trust

Fulcra Credit Opportunities Fund

Goodwood Milford Fund

Kipling Strategic Income Fund

Marret Investment Grade Hedged Strategies Fund

NorthStream Credit Strategies Fund LP

Picton Mahoney Special Situations Fund

Purpose Credit Opportunities Fund

RP Select Opportunities Fund

2023 CHFAwards - Credit Focused (Cont'd):



Best 3 Year Sharpe Ratio Best 5 Year Sharpe Ratio

Dynamic Credit Absolute Return Fund

East Coast Investment Grade Fund II (Arrow)

East Coast Strategic Credit Trust

Focus Asset Management Credit Opportunities Fund

Fulcra Credit Opportunities Fund

Kipling Strategic Income Fund

NorthStream Credit Strategies Fund LP

RP Debt Opportunities Fund

RP Select Opportunities Fund

Wealhouse Amplus Credit Income Fund Dynamic Credit Absolute Return Fund

East Coast Investment Grade Fund II (Arrow)

East Coast Strategic Credit Trust

Fulcra Credit Opportunities Fund

Kipling Strategic Income Fund

Marret Investment Grade Hedged Strategies Fund

Ninepoint Credit Income Opportunities Fund

NorthStream Credit Strategies Fund LP

Picton Mahoney Special Situations Fund

RP Select Opportunities Fund

2023 CHFAwards - Market Neutral:

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Altema Diversified Equity Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Diversified Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Global Market Neutral

CC&L Market Neutral Fund

HGC Fund LP (The)

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Fund

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Plus Fund

Picton Mahoney Market Neutral Equity Fund

RBC QUBE Market Neutral Canadian Equity

RBC QUBE Market Neutral World Equity Altema Diversified Equity Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Global Market Neutral

HGC Fund LP (The)

PCJ Absolute Return

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Fund

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Plus Fund

Picton Mahoney Market Neutral Equity Fund

RBC QUBE Market Neutral World Equity

Traynor Ridge TR1 Fund

Waratah One X Amethyst Arbitrage Fund (Canada)

CC&L Diversified Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Global Market Neutral

HGC Fund LP (The)

PCJ Absolute Return

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Fund

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Plus Fund

Picton Mahoney Market Neutral Equity Fund

Waratah One

Waratah One X

Best 3 Year Sharpe Ratio Best 5 Year Sharpe Ratio

Altema Diversified Equity Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Global Market Neutral

HGC Fund LP (The)

PCJ Absolute Return

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Fund

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Plus Fund

Picton Mahoney Market Neutral Equity Fund

RBC QUBE Market Neutral World Equity

Traynor Ridge TR1 Fund

Waratah One X Amethyst Arbitrage Fund (Canada)

CC&L Diversified Market Neutral Fund

CC&L Global Market Neutral

HGC Fund LP (The)

PCJ Absolute Return

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Fund

Picton Mahoney Arbitrage Plus Fund

Picton Mahoney Market Neutral Equity Fund

Waratah One

Waratah One X

2023 CHFAwards - Global Macro/Managed Futures/Multi-Strategy:

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Compass Alternative Asset Fund

Fieldhouse Enhanced Pension Plus

Invesco Global Targeted Returns Pool

Level 3 Total Return Opportunities Fund

Meckelborg MFG Diversified Strategy Fund

Northfront Alternative Asset Fund

Palos Income Fund, LP

Picton Mahoney Absolute Alpha Fund

Viewpoint Global Multi-Asset Trust

Viewpoint Global Risk Parity L.P. Compass Alternative Asset Fund

Dynamic Income Opportunities Fund

Fieldhouse Enhanced Pension Plus

Forge First Multi Strategy LP

Level 3 Total Return Opportunities Fund

Northfront Alternative Asset Fund

Palos Income Fund, LP

PH&N Absolute Return Fund

SMI Opportunities LP

Viewpoint Global Risk Parity L.P. AIP Convertible Private Debt Fund LP

CC&L Absolute Return Fund

Forge First Multi Strategy LP

K2 Principal Fund LP (The)

K2 Principal Trust (The)

Kensington Alternative Strategies Fund

Level 3 Total Return Opportunities Fund

MacNicol & Associates Alternative Asset Trust

Palos Income Fund, LP

SMI Opportunities LP

Best 3 Year Sharpe Ratio Best 5 Year Sharpe Ratio

Capstone Non-Traditional Equity Pool Fund

Compass Alternative Asset Fund

Fieldhouse Enhanced Pension Plus

Forge First Multi Strategy LP

Kensington Alternative Strategies Fund

Level 3 Total Return Opportunities Fund

Northfront Alternative Asset Fund

Palos Income Fund, LP

RBC Multi-Strategy Alpha Fund

SMI Opportunities LP AIP Convertible Private Debt Fund LP

Capstone Non-Traditional Equity Pool Fund

CC&L Absolute Return Fund

Forge First Multi Strategy LP

K2 Principal Fund LP (The)

Kensington Alternative Strategies Fund

Level 3 Total Return Opportunities Fund

MacNicol & Associates Alternative Asset Trust

SMI Opportunities LP

TURN8 Alternative Fund

2023 CHFAwards - Private Debt:

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Capstone Private High Income Pool

Celernus Pivot Private Credit Fund

Cortland Credit Strategies LP

Invico Diversified Income Fund

KIWI Business Credit Fund LP

NWM Private Debt Fund

Portland Private Income Fund

Qwest Productivity Media Income Trust

Westbridge Capital Partners Income Trust

Westmount Alternative Income Fund Capstone Private High Income Pool

Celernus Pivot Private Credit Fund

Invico Diversified Income Fund

Next Edge Private Debt Fund

Ninepoint TEC Private Credit Fund

NWM Private Debt Fund

Portland Private Income Fund

Purpose Specialty Lending Trust

Qwest Productivity Media Income Trust

Westbridge Capital Partners Income Trust Cortland Credit Strategies LP

Invico Diversified Income Fund

Next Edge Private Debt Fund

Ninepoint Alternative Income Fund

Ninepoint Canadian Senior Debt Fund

Ninepoint TEC Private Credit Fund

NWM Private Debt Fund

Portland Private Income Fund

Qwest Productivity Media Income Trust

Westbridge Capital Partners Income Trust

2023 CHFAwards - Private Equity

Best 1 Year Return Best 3 Year Return Best 5 Year Return Bridgeport Private Equity Opportunities Fund

Caldwell Growth Opportunities Fund

Canoe Global Private Equity Fund

Fiera Global Private Equity Fund

Hamilton Lane Global Private Assets

Kensington Private Equity Fund

MacNicol & Associates Emergence Fund

Portland Global Sustainable Evergreen LP

Quintessence Wealth Enhanced Private Debt/Equity Fund

Yorkville Pre-IPO Equity LP Caldwell Growth Opportunities Fund

Fiera Global Private Equity Fund

Kensington Private Equity Fund

MacNicol & Associates Emergence Fund

Portland Global Sustainable Evergreen LP

Quintessence Wealth Enhanced Private Debt/Equity Fund Caldwell Growth Opportunities Fund

Kensington Private Equity Fund

MacNicol & Associates Emergence Fund

Portland Global Sustainable Evergreen LP

The 16th Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards Gala Dinner will be held on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 in the Grand Banking Hall at One King West Hotel, Toronto

The 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards will be announced, and trophies presented to the Winners, at the Gala Awards Dinner. A networking Cocktail Reception begins at 5:00pm. The dinner will commence at 6:30pm with a Keynote Address by Thomas Kennedy, Chairman, Kensington Capital Partners, recipient of the 2022 Best Overall Canadian Hedge Fund Award. Interested fund managers, investors, and industry experts can find out more information and purchase tickets here: www.alternativeiq.com.

Fundata Canada is the Principal Sponsor of the 2023 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards program. This year's CHFA Program and its Gala Awards Dinner would simply not be possible without their generous support and that of all the sponsors and event partners including GFI Investment Counsel, HGC Investment Management, Interactive Brokers Canada, MNP, National Bank, Newsfile, RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank, SGGG Fund Services, Sigma Sandbox and TD Bank.

For more information about the CHFA program and to register for the event, go to: www.alternativeiq.com or contact:

Julie Makepeace

Managing Director, Alternative IQ

jmakepeace@alliancesalesandmarketing.com

416-906-3782

About Alternative IQ: Alternative IQ is dedicated to celebrating, supporting and expanding Canada's Hedge Fund Industry. AIQ produces the annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards program and its presentation event (performance as at June 30th), along with THE Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Conference. Alternative IQ also produces the annual CHFA Winners Showcase Investor Conferences, at which the Managers of award-winning hedge funds present to investors, and produces various other programs and publications serving the hedge fund industry in Canada. Alternative IQ is a division of Alliance Sales and Marketing, Inc.

About the Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards: The Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards were first held in 2008 and have a two-fold objective: first, to recognize and celebrate the talent in Canada's hedge fund industry and, second, to raise awareness of that expertise throughout the wider investment community. The Canadian Hedge Fund Awards are based solely on quantitative performance data to June 30th, with Fundata Canada managing the collection and tabulation of the data to determine the winners.

- 30 -

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181935
In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A New York judge has ruled that former President Donald Trump and his adult sons are liable for fraud by repeatedly misrepresenting his wealth by millions. Days before the beginning of the trial in the New York state court in a civil case against Trump, his two adult sons and the Trump Organization, New York Attorney General Letitia James submitted a motion for summary ruling. Granting the motion, Judge Arthur Engoron said the Trumps are 'liable as a matter of law for persistent violations' of New York state law. He said the former president and his business partners defrauded banks and insurers by providing false financial statements and records for nearly a decade. He found that the defendants inflated the property value and approached banks to get higher loans. The judge cancelled Trump Organization's business certification, which will ban some of its businesses operations in New York. It includes the Seven Springs estate and the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. A receiver will be appointed to 'manage the dissolution' of the corporate entities. The judge denied the Trump legal team's request to quash the case, and fined the attorneys. Trump's son Eric Trump said on X that he lost all faith in the New York legal system. The trial in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General against Trump in September 2022 is set to begin on October 2. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (7211, MMTOF.PK) is in talks with its Chinese joint venture partner Guangzhou Automobile Group or GAC as part of its decision to withdraw its business from China, Japanese financial daily, The Nikkei, reported. The company's decision follows low demand for its vehicles particularly because electric vehicles are becoming popular and new automobile companies are emerging in China. GAC Mitsubishi Motors plant, Mitsubishi's only factory with minority stake at Hunan province in China, has ended production in March. GAC has a 50 percent stake in GAC Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi Motors owns 30 percent, and trading house Mitsubishi Corp. owns remaining 20 percent. Once Mitsubishi Motors and GAC reach a deal, the Chinese automaker is expected to use the Hunan plant for EV production, according to reports According to its wholesale volume figures, for the full year 2022, Mitsubishi Motors sold 33,000 units in China, compared with 50, 000 units of 2021. For full year 2022, Mitsubishi Motors' Chinese plant had produced 27, 000 units, lesser than 59, 000 units in 2021. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The Brand is Indulging Consumer Preferences to Maintain Their Daily Coffee Rituals Over Nearly Everything Else Including Giving Up Social Media With The Latest Innovation

De'Longhi, a global leader in the espresso and specialty coffee category and recent disruptor in drip coffee, has expanded its offerings with the launch of its first-to-market, Cold Extraction Technology ahead of National Coffee Day. De'Longhi is now broadening its expertise to include cold brew to fulfill ongoing consumer demand for iced beverages.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927918614/en/

De'Longhi's NEW La Specialista Arte Evo with Cold Brew is a specialty pump manual espresso machine with a built-in conical burr grinder, commercial-style wand and cold extract technology that can crafts cold brew in under five minutes. (Photo: Business Wire)

This announcement comes on the heels of a recent survey* conducted by the brand which shows how much consumers value their daily coffee routine and what they would go without to keep it. Results reveal that Americans consider coffee as one of the most important parts of their day preferred over having breakfast, checking social media or reading the news.

To maintain their coffee routines, of all U.S. adult coffee drinkers:

32% would give up scrolling social media for up to a year.

nearly a third (31%) would give up quality sleep for up to a week.

31% of single people would give up dating for up to a year and 11% of people in a relationship would give up seeing their partner for up to a year.

Nearly half (49%) would give up drinking alcoholic beverages for up to a year.

And of daily cold brew drinkers, 41% would give up social media and 30% would give up dating or being with their partner for up to a week to keep their beloved, cold coffee beverage a part of their daily ritual!

The traditional preparation method for cold brew requires ground coffee to be steeped in water for an extended period of up to 24 hours. Now, through De'Longhi's proprietary Cold Extraction Technology, the Eletta Explore with Cold Brew can deliver a cup of cold brew in under three minutes and La Specialista Arte Evo with Cold Brew can do so in under five minutes, bringing the next iteration of cold brew available on demand and ready in mere minutes, in addition to the wide variety of hot beverage recipes also available on these espresso machines.

"We strive to simplify the espresso and coffee making process while maintaining the quality of our products," said Mike Prager, North America CEO, De'Longhi Group and Capital Brands. "Considering the rise in popularity of cold brew and other iced beverages, we wanted to incorporate even more features into our machines to address consumer demand while keeping true to our core competency in espresso."

De'Longhi is the first brand to offer cold brew in both fully automatic (Eletta Explore with Cold Brew) and specialty pump (La Specialista Arte Evo) espresso machines. The proprietary technology is engineered to extract the flavors of the coffee beans at low pressure with room-temperature water and was developed in collaboration with the Specialty Coffee Association.

As part of the launch, De'Longhi debuted a cinematic film directed by Bennett Miller that features global brand ambassador, Brad Pitt. The film is a continuation of De'Longhi's Perfetto campaign and revolves around the integral role that coffee plays in our day-to-day lives, and the powerful role that coffee has to connect people.

"Each collaboration with Brad Pitt in our Perfetto campaign exemplifies what our recent survey results shared with us that our coffee routines are a cherished part of our day," said Maria Colon, Vice President of Marketing Consumer Experience for De'Longhi North America. "As the leaders in espresso globally, we're encouraging consumers to take time for themselves to enjoy their deeply personal, daily coffee rituals which now, can include cold brew at home in addition to our existing, fantastic hot espresso options."

The campaign and new product launch will be supported through out of home and national TV placements, a full digital marketing plan, retail-specific initiatives, social media and PR Events in Q4 in both U.S. and Canada.

The Eletta Explore with Cold Brew's features include:

50+ hot and cold recipes including espresso, cappuccino, latte, iced cappuccino, iced latte, cold brew and more.

The LatteCrema Hot and Cold Foam Technology that delivers either velvety cold foam or a textured microfoam for classic espresso-based beverages, served iced or hot.

A built-in 13 setting grinder that delivers a consistent dose of freshly ground coffee for each drink made.

The La Specialista Arte Evo's features include:

A built-in conical burr grinder with eight settings that expertly grinds coffee beans in a single and double dose, and now cold brew.

A commercial-style wand for crafting consistent and smooth microfoam for latte art.

A professional barista toolkit that includes a dosing and tamping guide along with a tamping mat that ensures you will pull a perfect shot, every time.

Eletta Explore with Cold Extraction retails for $1,999.95 and La Specialista Arte Evo retails for $749.95 and both are available at DeLonghi.com, Williams Sonoma, Amazon and other retail partners in US and Canada.

To learn more about De'Longhi's latest campaign, including the latest releases and other premium specialty coffee machines, visit DeLonghi.com. View the campaign video on De'Longhi's YouTube.

De'Longhi Group

The De'Longhi Group is based in Treviso, Italy and is on the forefront of the small domestic appliance category with a range of premium products under four internationally renowned brands; De'Longhi, Kenwood, Braun and nutribullet. The De'Longhi Group is committed to continuing their mission to create exceptional products that improve the lives of the consumer through innovative technologies and unparalleled design.

The De'Longhi brand is based in Treviso Italy and the global leader in espresso and comfort products. Highest quality, high Italian design and meaningful product innovations are the core values of the De'Longhi brand. De'Longhi is present in over 123 countries and creates products in three main categories: espresso, specialty cooking and home comfort. After more than a century of perfecting its products, De'Longhi remains committed to creating innovations that bring convenience and style into every customer's home; making the everyday better. For more information visit www.delonghi.com.

*All figures are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,506 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between September 5 7, 2023. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all U.S. adults (aged 18+).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927918614/en/

Contacts:

Josephine Mallari

Current Global

312.929.0519

jmallari@currentglobal.com
Thanks to artificial intelligence, impak Analytics launches its European Taxonomy solution offering the most reliable data on the market

Covering the entire portfolios of companies subject to reporting obligations, the solution makes it easier for investors to comply with regulations

Thanks to data collection in less than 24 hours, the solution provides consistently up-to-date, high-quality data

impak Analytics offers auditable data, with a traceability functionality that allows access to the source with a single click

MONTREAL, PARIS and LONDON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, impak Analytics, a fintech combining artificial intelligence and human expertise, launches an innovative solution dedicated to investors needing to comply with European taxonomy reporting requirements.

Designed for efficiency

impak, recognized as a provider of rigorous impact data, offers a high-performance solution that is more affordable than the alternatives on today's market. Another differentiator is the speed of data collection and instant updating regarding EU taxonomy data reported by any company, an important competitive advantage for investors. This means that the data will also be updated when the reporting linked to the 4 new taxonomy objectives (Taxo4) is released.

"We're proud to be able to offer investors the best possible data to meet their European taxonomy regulatory compliance needs. The quality of our complementary impact data also gives them a head start, as it anticipates the growing demands of the market," explains Paul Allard, President and Co-Founder of impak Analytics.

impak, a key player in European corporate taxonomy

Thanks to artificial intelligence, impak Analytics is positioned as a leader in European taxonomy data, covering the entire portfolios of companies subject to reporting obligations.

This combination of artificial and human intelligence has also enabled the construction of BIEEUTI on Bloomberg, a pioneering index built in partnership with Bita, which tracks the stock market performance of companies aligned to the European taxonomy from June 2023.

About impak Analytics

impak is a fintech that develops impact rating and ranking evaluation solutions with the help of AI, which it also uses to perfect its data and impact intelligence platform.

It has also created a family of impact indices, based on the impak Score and the impak database, both of which are used notably in the development of index funds and ETFs.

Press material

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Media contact:

Robin Placet

robin.placet@impakanalytics.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/artificial-intelligence-for-european-taxonomy-301940258.html
The New Absorv XSE Features Expanded Sizes, Improved Uniformity, and Customizable Properties

ORANGEBURG, S.C., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Zeus, a global leader in advanced polymer solutions, announced today that it has developed Absorv XSE oriented tubing, the newest member of the company's family of bioabsorbable products. Available in a variety of resins and expanded size ranges, Absorv XSE provides a highly customizable platform for design and offers an alternative to metallic products implanted permanently in the human body.

"Our new Absorv XSE oriented tubing gives medical device manufacturers another tool in their design toolkit," noted Carl Liebert, Director of Product Management at Zeus. "As our customers set out to develop next-generation devices, this latest Zeus tubing platform helps them expand the types of applications they address and produce better overall designs."

The versatility of Absorv XSE enables medical device manufacturers to explore bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BRS) applications beyond the treatment of coronary artery disease. Expanded applications within the cardiovascular system, peripheral vascular system, Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT), and related fields are now within reach.

By leveraging significant advancements in polymer processing, Zeus offers the new, highly customizable Absorv XSE platform in multiple polymer options and expanded size ranges. Through customization, device engineers can configure product properties to meet specific design requirements related to mechanical properties and absorption profiles.

"The development of Absorv XSE required an in-depth approach," said James Lindsey III, Senior Research Engineer at Zeus. "By focusing intently on structure-property relationships and application-specific morphology development, we were able to develop a truly novel manufacturing process with new game-changing capabilities."

Medical device manufacturers can also rely on the dimensional uniformity of Absorv XSE. Test results from MeKo MedTech, a business unit of MeKo Manufacturing e.K. and global leader in precision laser cutting, showed that longer lengths and improved wall thickness uniformity throughout the length of Absorv XSE tubing resulted in approximately 25% more usable scaffolds after laser cutting than the previous generation of Absorv oriented tubing. These findings translate to improved consistency, greater laser-cutting efficiency, and more predictable outcomes for design engineers.

"We developed Absorv XSE oriented tubing to address shortcomings with first-generation bioresorbable vascular scaffolds. This next evolution in bioresorbable device design gives device engineers more efficient and predictable options," said Jason Fant, Product Manager at Zeus. "With a combination of unmatched sizing, uniform wall thickness, and tailored absorption profiles, Absorv XSE oriented tubing will allow designers to replace metallic stents in a wider variety of procedures."

QUICK FACTS

Zeus has developed Absorv XSE oriented tubing, the newest member of the company's family of bioabsorbable products.

The new Absorv XSE platform offers a high degree of customization with multiple polymer options, a new expansive size range, and the ability to tailor the mechanical and absorption properties for specific BRS applications.

Designed for conversion into medical devices like bioresorbable vascular scaffolds, Absorv XSE tubing offers an alternative to metallic products implanted permanently in the human body.

Enhanced wall thickness uniformity delivers improved consistency and a more predictable platform for designing bioresorbable vascular scaffolds.

RESOURCES

Click here to request a prototype run.

Zeus: Learn more about the company and its products on the Zeus website or call toll-free at 1-800-526-3842 or +1-803-268-9500 outside the U.S.

ABOUT ZEUS

Zeus, headquartered in Orangeburg, South Carolina, is the world's leading polymer extrusion and catheter design manufacturer. More than 50 years of experience in medical, aerospace, energy, automotive, fiber optics, and more allows Zeus to achieve its mission to provide solutions, enable innovation, and enhance lives. The company employs over 2,200 people worldwide with facilities in Aiken, Columbia, Gaston, Orangeburg, St. Matthews, South Carolina; Branchburg, New Jersey; Chattanooga, Tennessee; San Jose, California; Arden Hills, Minnesota; Guangzhou, China; and Letterkenny, Ireland. For more information, visit www.zeusinc.com .

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/zeus-launches-next-generation-tubing-for-bioresorbable-vascular-scaffolds-301939762.html
LYON, France and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amolyt Pharma, a global company specialized in developing therapeutic peptides for rare endocrine and related diseases, today announced that it will present data on eneboparatide, the company's investigational lead product candidate for the treatment of hypoparathyroidism, at the 39th Congress of the French Society of Endocrinology, being held October 4-7, 2023, in Marseille, France.



Jean-Philippe Bertocchio, M.D., Ph.D., Clinical Nephrologist at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, Paris, and Michel Ovize, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Medical Director of Amolyt, will discuss the effects of eneboparatide on the kidneys of patients with hypoparathyroidism. The presentation will also include data on eneboparatide's effect on the bone and the results of the company's Phase 2a clinical trial in more detail. An interactive Q&A with doctors Bertocchio and Ovize, moderated by Thomas Cuny, M.D., Ph.D., will conclude the session.

Presentation details:

Title: The kidney of the patient with hypoparathyroidism: Effect of eneboparatide, a new agonist of the PTH receptor 1

Date: Thursday, October 5, 2023

Time: 7:45 - 8:30 a.m. CET

Presenters: Jean-Philippe Bertocchio, M.D., Ph.D., Michel Ovize, M.D., Ph.D.

A replay of the presentation will be available to all registrants following conclusion of the event. Additional details can be found on the French Society of Endocrinologywebsite.

About Hypoparathyroidism

Hypoparathyroidism is a rare condition defined by a deficiency of parathyroid hormone (PTH) that results in decreased calcium and elevated phosphorus levels in the blood. Approximately 80% of the estimated 80,000 people in the U.S. and 110,000 in the European Union with hypoparathyroidism are women. Despite available treatments, patients experience persistent, life-altering symptoms and often develop complications and comorbidities that diminish quality of life and create segments of the patient population with specific clinical needs. Clinical manifestations of hypoparathyroidism impact many tissues and organ systems, in particular, the kidneys and bone.

More than half of all patients are post-menopausal women who are at an increased risk for developing osteoporosis. In a 515 hypoparathyroidism patient chart review, 17% were diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, and in the eneboparatide Phase 2a trial, 43% of patients had osteopenia. Approximately 26% of patients with hypoparathyroidism have chronic kidney disease or failure, highlighting the importance of reducing urinary calcium excretion as a key treatment goal.

About Eneboparatide

Eneboparatide is an investigational therapeutic peptide designed to target a specific conformation of the parathyroid hormone (PTH) receptor to produce sustained and stable levels of calcium in the blood and thereby manage the symptoms of hypoparathyroidism, and to limit urine calcium excretion by restoring calcium reabsorption by the kidney, with the goal of consequently preventing progressive decline in kidney function and the development of chronic kidney disease. In addition to its unique receptor profile, eneboparatide is also designed to have a short half-life to potentially preserve bone integrity, an important potential benefit, since the majority of patients are peri- and postmenopausal women with an increased risk of developing osteoporosis.

About Amolyt Pharma

Amolyt Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company, is building on its team's established expertise to deliver life-changing treatments to patients suffering from rare endocrine and related diseases. Its development portfolio includes eneboparatideand LinkedIn.

Media Inquiries:

Jordyn Temperato

LifeSci Communications

jtemperato@lifescicomms.com

Investors Inquiries:

Ashley Robinson

LifeSci Advisors, LLC

arr@lifesciadvisors.com

+1.617.430.7577
WHITE VILLAGE, the first dopo-salone event in partnership with MTV, was a great success with the public.

MILLAN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the most intense and dynamic editions of WHITE has just concluded, brimming with novelties that filled the schedule from September 22 to 25. Organized with the patronage of the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Milan, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), ICE - Agency for the Promotion of Italian Companies Abroad, and in partnership with Confartigianato Imprese.

From Friday, September 22 to Monday, September 25, the spaces in the Tortona Fashion District were populated by industry professionals and the city's public, all seeking the latest trends for the Spring- Summer 2024 season. It is one of the most relevant and dynamic events during Milan Fashion Week and has managed to attract numerous buyers, press, and industry professionals from around the world since its inception. WHITE reaffirms its position as the leading international reference platform for women's fashion companies and a showcase for new trends. Over 360 brands were presented, with a perfect balance between Italian and foreign companies (50% Italian and 50% foreign).

There was a significant increase in buyers from France, the US, and the Middle East, and a strong presence from China, Japan, and Korea. Among the buyers, we can mention 24s.com (FR), Samaritaine (FR), Lost&Found (US), Neiman Marcus (US), Holt Renfrew (CANADA), Harvey Nichols Doha (Qatar), Galeries Lafayette Dubai (UAE), Level Shoes (UAE), Chaloub Group (UAE), and from Saudi Arabia Westerly, Rubaiyat, Chapter4, and Pattern.

"We experienced an exceptional fashion week with Milan crowded with industry insiders. This demonstrates how important fashion is for the city, with attendees from all over the world. WHITE contributes significantly with its numbers to achieving this result. Among the attendees of this edition, as was the case in February, a distinct increase in foreign participants is evident, showcasing that WHITE's long-standing strategy is yielding results" said Massimiliano Bizzi, Founder of WHITE.

The Secret Rooms project renewed its successful format, featuring five special spaces where international emerging talents unveiled their latest collections.

A selection of ten Spanish designers also participated to the show, thanks to the collaboration with ICEX Espan~a Exportacion e Inversiones, which began in September 2017 and continues to this day.

WHITE's vision aims for expansion and breaking down barriers, promoting fluid communication between the market and creative realities from around the world through EXPO WHITE. Designers and brands from countries that belong outside the conventional fashion areas, gathered up at the show to present their fashion visions.

At the Visconti Pavilion, EXPO WHITE hosted the Saudi 100 Brands project, the Fashion Commission's program that promotes fashion designers from Saudi Arabia. On the evening of September 20, at Palazzo Serbelloni, the collections of the designers were featured in a fashion show accompanied by the performance of the dancers from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. From September 19 to 28, a selection of Saudi brands were featured at the pop-up shop at the famous luxury concept store 10 Corso Como.

Directly from the first edition of the Yerevan Fashion Week held earlier in the summer, a group of Armenian brands showcased their collections at WHITE.

Fashion Firm SA introduced ten South African designers, promoting their entry into new markets.

The Lounge space was dedicated to the collaboration between WHITE and Scale7, the first fashion and design business incubator founded by the Qatar Development Bank (QDB) in collaboration with M7. In the Basement, avant-garde brands that diverge from mainstream styles and have well-defined brand identities were presented, while in the lofts, well- established names renewed their presence.

From September 22 to 24 in the evening, the Tortona Fashion District was animated by the first edition of WHITE VILLAGE, the first dopo-salone event organized during Milan Fashion Week.

There was also a significant turnout at the MUDEC auditorium for the program "The couture code: The impact of AI on the fashion industry," which saw the participation of numerous partners, including Albini Group, an important Italian textile company, and Mesmerise, a leading artificial intelligence company founded in 2016.

WHITE once again reaffirmed its association with excellence, research, innovation, both established and emerging fashion trends, and sustainability, capable of attracting a diverse industry audience while also ensuring well-deserved visibility for the brands participating and all of its partners.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223078/WHITE.jpg

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LONDON, ENGLAND / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Kimberly-Clark, the owner of household brands Andrex, Kleenex, Huggies, WypAll and Scott, is celebrating a major milestone in its ambitious drive toward green energy with the official opening of a new onshore wind farm by Mairi McAllan, Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Clydesdale constituency and Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition, that will supply around 80% of its UK electrical power needs.

The 75 million wind farm, which was built in just 18 months in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, is the largest wind asset owned by Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT), a company managed by Octopus Energy Generation. Kimberly-Clark has a Power Purchase Agreement for the energy generated.

As the global personal care giant's first wind farm project outside of North America, the 50 MW 12-turbine Cumberhead facility will supply the company with approximately 160,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy every year. This will result in a total emissions reduction of 55,625 MTCO2e per year - the equivalent of taking 38,628 passenger vehicles off the road every year.

Dan Howell, Vice President and Managing Director at Kimberly-Clark UK & Ireland said: "Energy transformation is a key priority for us if we are going to deliver on our ambition to be using 100% renewable energy by 2030 in the UK and Ireland. When people ask what 'fully decarbonising our operations' looks like in practice, showing them a brand new 12-turbine wind farm is a pretty powerful answer."

Craig Bowman, General Manager, Kimberly-Clark Professional UK & Ireland said, "It is through responsible and innovative business partnerships and investments in new technology like this agreement with ORIT that enables us to make significant changes in this decisive decade and reach our decarbonisation goals."

David Bird, Investment Director for Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) said: "Officially inaugurating this wind farm is an absolutely fantastic milestone. Onshore wind farms like these are generating much-needed clean green power for the UK. It's brilliant to be supplying this renewable power from this wind farm to Kimberly-Clark to help decarbonise their business. The more businesses that follow their lead, the quicker we can accelerate the push to net zero."

The green power will be used by Kimberly-Clark's manufacturing facilities across the UK, making up almost 80% of the electricity needs for its Barrow, Flint and Northfleet manufacturing facilities. Between them, these sites produce nearly 1 billion Andrex toilet rolls, over 150,000,000 boxes of Kleenex tissues, and almost 136 million packs of Huggies baby wipes per year, alongside other personal care products for the UK market and B2B products such as WypAll and Scott.

Oriol Margo, Sustainability Leader, Kimberly-Clark EMEA said: "We are feeling an immense amount of pride cutting the ribbon on this project today with Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust. Together, as we close in on our ambitious goal to move solely to renewable energy, we continue to invest in the future of the planet, our business and the FMCG industry as a whole, and hope to encourage other organisations, big and small, to do the same along the way."

This project is part of Kimberly-Clark UK & Ireland's wider sustainability strategy and its ambition to move to 100% renewable energy by 2030. To deliver this, the company is also working with Octopus on developing on-site solar power as well as green hydrogen. The company's green hydrogen projects are being developed in partnership with HYRO, RES and Octopus Energy Generation's green hydrogen adventure, and another with Carlton Power. The projects have been placed on the UK Government's Hydrogen Business Model Strategy shortlist, and would reduce the company's natural gas consumption once operational at the end of 2026.

By 2026, Kimberly-Clark's UK and Ireland (scope 1 and 2) operational emissions are expected to be reduced by up to 85% from the 2015 baseline, ensuring the company is on track to meet its sustainability targets by 2030.

About Kimberly Clark's ongoing sustainability projects

This partnership is just one of Kimberly-Clark's ongoing sustainability projects to facilitate the roll out of renewable electricity across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and the continued exploration and development of decarbonisation solutions.

Kimberly-Clark's global 2030 sustainability strategy aims to address the key social and environmental challenges of the next decade, improving the lives and wellbeing of one billion people in underserved communities around the world. The transition to renewable energy will form a vital part of the company's global effort to halve its total environmental footprint by 2030.

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its trusted brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and an understanding of people's most essential needs, we create products that help individuals experience more of what's important to them. Our portfolio of brands, including Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Neve, Plenitud, Sweety, Softex, Viva and WypAll, hold No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in approximately 80 countries. We use sustainable practices that support a healthy planet, build strong communities, and ensure our business thrives for decades to come. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the company's nearly 150-year history of innovation, visit kimberly-clark.com.

About Kimberly-Clark Professional

Kimberly-Clark Professional partners with businesses to create Exceptional Workplaces, helping to make them healthier, safer, and more productive. Key brands in this segment include Kleenex, Scott, WypAll, KleenGuard, and Kimtech. To see how Kimberly-Clark Professional is helping people around the world to work better, please visit www.kcprofessional.co.uk.

View original content here.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Kimberly-Clark Corporation on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/kimberly-clark-corporation

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: Kimberly-Clark Corporation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787750/kimberly-clark-launches-wind-farm-with-octopus-renewables-infrastructure-trust-to-supply-80-of-its-uk-electrical-power-needs
Las Vegas, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - GENERAL EUROPEAN STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS INC. (OTC Pink: GESI) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that after ten years of administrative efforts, Rozmin s.r.o, a materially key and related Slovak mining company of the GESI-EuroGas Group, has successfully emerged from the Bratislava bankruptcy court in Slovakia with effective date September 9th, 2023. This development will simplify the various legal proceedings the Company is anticipating in its efforts to redress the alleged illegal expropriation of EuroGas Inc.'s previously owned mining rights over the world-renowned Gemerska Poloma talc-soapstone deposit, located in central Slovakia, one of the largest and purest talc ore bodies in the world.

Wolfgang Rauball, GESI's CEO, stated, "We have been patiently waiting for this important moment for a long time and are looking forward to updating our shareholders and affiliated stakeholders in the weeks ahead. We are more confident now than ever that international justice will soon prevail and that our tireless efforts will be financially rewarded."

Forward Looking Statements:

This release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements include any that may predict, forecast, indicate, or imply future results, performance or achievements, and may contain the words "estimate", "project", "intend", "forecast", "anticipate", "plan", "planning", "expect", "believe", "likely", "should", "could", "would", "may" or similar words or expressions. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results and financial position to differ materially from those in such statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the Company's ability to grow. Actual results may differ materially from those predicted and any reported should not be considered an indication of future performance. Potential risks and uncertainties include the Company's operating history and resources, together with all usual and common economic, competitive, and equity market conditions / risks.

Contact:

Robert Seguin, V.P., Investor Relations

General European Strategic Investments Inc.

Robert.Seguin@gesi-usa.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182041
EQS Post-admission Duties announcement: Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd. / Third country release according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 of the WpHG [the German Securities Trading Act]

Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd.: Announcement on the Progress of A-Share Repurchase through Centralized Bidding Transactions



27.09.2023 / 14:26 CET/CEST

Dissemination of a Post-admission Duties announcement according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 WpHG transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Third country release according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 of the WpHG

Announcement on the Progress of A-Share Repurchase through Centralized Bidding Transactions



Qingdao / Shanghai / Frankfurt / Hongkong, 27 September 2023 - Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. (the "Company" or "Haier Smart Home", D-share 690D.DE, A-share 600690.SH, H-share 06690.HK) today published an announcement in accordance with applicable trading rules of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and applicable PRC laws in relation to the Progress of A-Share Repurchase through Centralized Bidding Transactions.

The announcement is fully available at:

https://smart-home.haier.com/en/dggg/P020230927699312734503.pdf

IR Contact:

Haier Smart Home Hong Kong

T: +852 2169 0000

Email: ir@haier.hk



Press Contact:

CROSS ALLIANCE communication GmbH

Sara Pinto

Sven Pauly

pi@crossalliance.de

T: +49 (0) 89 1250903 35



About Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd.:

Haier is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household appliances with a focus on smart home solutions and customized production. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. develops, produces and distributes a wide range of household appliances. These include refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, kitchen appliances as well as small household appliances and an extensive range of intelligent household appliances. The Company distributes its products through leading household brands such as Haier, Casarte, Leader, Candy, GE Appliances, AQUA and Fisher & Paykel. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. has launched Smart Home Experiential Cloud, which connects homes, users, enterprises and ecosystem partners, and facilitates the integration of Haier's online, offline and micro-store businesses and supports user interaction to further optimize the user experience.

27.09.2023 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


EQS-News: PlusPlus Capital Financial S.a.r.l. / Key word(s): Bond

PlusPlus EUR 2022/2026 bondholders vote against termination of bonds and enforcement of guarantees



27.09.2023 / 14:35 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





PlusPlus EUR 2022/2026 bondholders vote against termination of bonds and enforcement of guarantees



Tallinn, Estonia, 27 September 2023. PlusPlus Capital ("PPC"), a leading Pan-Baltic and Finnish technology-driven receivables management group, yesterday received backing from bondholders of its EUR 2022/2026 bonds to resolve liquidity difficulties. The bondholders in the adjourned meeting voted with a 84.19 % majority against termination of the bond as well as the enforcement of guarantees following the Company's initial non-payment of the upcoming interest payments and missing the necessary quorum in a first meeting. In connection with the waiver of the termination of the bonds as well as the call on the guarantees.

PlusPlus Capital will provide information on the next steps in due course.



Contact:

PlusPlus Capital AS

Kaarel Raik, Member of the Management Board

Email: kaarel.raik@plusplus.ee

Phone: +372 56 606 148



About PlusPlus Capital:

PlusPlus is a pan-Baltic and Finnish technology-driven receivables management company with offices in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, and Helsinki. The Company acquires overdue loans and other non-performing exposures from financial institutions and non-financial sector merchants. With its core competence in handling claims against private individuals, PlusPlus prefers diversified portfolios balanced by geography, portfolio type, and other metrics.

Since its inception in 2010, PlusPlus has bought over 120 thousand claims with nominal value of approximately EUR 300 million. The Company offers its clients affordable recovery solutions and aims to avoid litigious scenarios. In doing so, PlusPlus pursues win-win solutions that allow sellers to focus on their core business, provide affordable solutions for borrowers, and ensure adequate returns for investors.

PlusPlus is a transparent and socially responsible company set to assist people in resolving problems connected with their insufficient solvency. The ambition of PlusPlus is to increase its market share and further strengthen its position as a leading player in its regional market.

pluspluscapital.eu

27.09.2023 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


StemSation International is providing updates on corporate planning and direction for potential new acquisitions in the green energy space

PLANTATION, FL / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / StemSation International (OTC PINK:STSN), a South-Florida based company that has licensed technology for the production and distribution of flavored, canned oxygen products is announcing strategic acquisition planning for the upcoming months.

"We announced last month that we had streamlined our current business and would be seeking further licensing opportunities and asset acquisitions," stated Benjamin Silber, CEO of StemSation International. "Working closely with advisors, we are concentrating on business segments with proven growth. We have now focused on green energy companies as acquisition targets," he continued. "We have started negotiations to acquire a company that is already in the solar energy space. We will keep everyone informed as we move these projects forward. We are excited to move this business forward as we seek other licensing opportunities and asset acquisitions," he concluded.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), there are now more than 155 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed nationwide; enough to power 27 million homes. The market grew over 40% last year alone with expected growth increases over the next 20 years.

StemSation expects to have additional updates shortly as they fulfill on their current business plan.

About StemSation International

StemSation International, Inc. (OTC PINK:STSN) is researching the developing, marketing and distribution of flavored, canned oxygen products. These products will be distributed in a lifestyle model to the beverage industry as well as colleges, restaurants and bars. StemSation is headquartered in Plantation, Florida.

Contact:

StemSation International

Benjamin Silber

BSilber@stsninc.com

SEC Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward-looking statements." Actual results could differ materially from those projected in StemSation international's ("the Company") business plan. The announcement of acquisition plans should not be construed as an indication in any way whatsoever of the future value of the Company's common stock or its financial value. The Company's filings may be accessed at the OTC Market's disclosures at www.otcmarkets.com. Statements made herein are as of the date of this press release and should not be relied upon as of any subsequent date. The Company cautions readers not to place reliance on such statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, we do not undertake, and we specifically disclaim any obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect occurrences, developments, unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statement.

SOURCE: StemSation International, Inc.

via PRISM Mediawire, LLC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787626/stemsation-international-announces-acquisition-plans
Assay Results Confirm Uranium Enrichment in Multiple Drillholes

Falcon Airborne Gravity Survey Completed; Final Results Pending

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSXV: CVV) (OTCQX: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) ("CanAlaska or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received assay results from the 2023 exploration program on the Geikie project (the "Project") located near the Athabasca Basin margin (Figure 1). Assay results confirm uranium mineralization and enrichment associated with hydrothermal alteration and structure. The program is highlighted by 0.5 metres @ 0.27% U3O8 from 185.0 metres in drillhole GKI002. The program focused on a 15-kilometre-long northeast trending conductor system with high-priority structural targets. The Geikie project is approximately 10 kilometres east of the Athabasca Basin margin and 10 kilometres west of Highway 905. The 2023 drill program consisted of 2,217 metres in eight drill holes, representing CanAlaska's first drill holes on its 40%-owned Geikie project.

Figure 1 - Geikie Project Location



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2864/181983_9da46cd7e443ba25_002full.jpg

2023 Drill Program Geochemical Assay Results

Assay results from the 2023 drill program on the Geikie project confirm uranium mineralization in the Aero Lake target area, which is located at the southern end of the 15-kilometre-long conductor trend. GKI 002 intersected 0.27% U3O8 over 0.5 metres from 185.0 metres to 185.5 metres. In addition, GKI002 intersected hydrothermal alteration associated with large-scale reactivated fault zones.

Figure 2 - Geikie Project Target Corridor Locations



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2864/181983_9da46cd7e443ba25_004full.jpg

Assay results also confirm uranium enrichment in drillholes completed in the Preston Creek target area, located at the northeastern end of the 15-kilometre-long conductor trend. GKI005 intersected three intervals of uranium enrichment, most notably 0.06% U3O8 from 255.3 metres to 255.6 metres, associated with a sheared graphitic pelite (Table 1). GKI008 intersected two intervals of uranium enrichment, including 2.5 metres at 0.02 %U3O8 from 27.8 metres to 30.3 metres (Table 1). Drillholes in the Preston Creek target area were drilled in a zone of structural disruption, where a north to north-northwest trending fault transects the conductor trend. Each drill hole in this target area intersected reactivated basement faults of up to 30 metres in width, consisting of clay gouge and breccias within variably graphitic pelitic host rocks. Hydrothermal alteration enveloping the major fault zones consisted of hematite, chlorite, clay, and structurally-enhanced graphitic clays. Within the fault zones, the alteration intensifies and locally overprints the original host.

The 2023 drilling program successfully intersected graphitic host rocks with large reactivated and brecciated fault zones, associated with hydrothermal alteration, uranium mineralization, and uranium enrichment. The drill program confirmed the presence of hydrothermal alteration systems within a complex structural framework at Geikie, features which are commonly associated with basement-hosted high-grade uranium deposits elsewhere in the Athabasca Basin. Results of this first drill program will allow for refinement of the exploration model on the Geikie project to advance the most prospective portions of the multiple target corridors. Early results from the Preston Creek target area indicate the 15-kilometre-long structural corridor represents a high-priority area for further drill testing.

Falcon Airborne Gravity Gradiometer Survey Completed

The Company is pleased to report that the detailed fixed-wing Falcon Airborne Gravity Gradiometer (AGG) survey on the Geikie project has been completed. The survey consisted of approximately 1,800 line-kilometres of airborne surveying at 200 m spacing across the majority of the Geikie project. The purpose of the AGG survey, a demonstrated successful technique in identifying uranium alteration systems in the Athabasca Basin, is to identify potential target areas of enhanced basement alteration associated with previously interpreted and drill defined structural corridors. The exploration potential of the current targets and the broader Geikie project is highlighted through the styles and significance of alteration observed in drilling at the Preston Creek and Aero Lake Prospects.

Once processing has been finalized, the AGG survey results will be combined with existing high-resolution airborne geophysical data sets previously collected, including electromagnetics, radiometrics, magnetics, and the recent drill hole information, to validate existing targets and generate additional targets for future drill programs. The Company is actively planning a drill program for 2024 on the Geikie project. The Geikie project is currently being sole-funded by Basin Energy Limited (ASX: BSN) under an option earn-in agreement with the Company.

CanAlaska CEO, Cory Belyk, comments, "Confirmation of the presence of uranium mineralization and enrichment in at least two target areas on the Geikie project is a fantastic outcome from this first drilling program by CanAlaska and Basin Energy. The team looks forward to final processing of the gravity data that will undoubtedly provide added target inventory for this very large and prospective project area for the next phase of drilling scheduled for 2024. These are exceptional results at this early stage of project evaluation and is a testament to the project generating prowess of the CanAlaska technical team."

Table 1 - 2023 Geikie Exploration Drilling Results

DDH From

(m) To

(m) Length

(m)6 Average Grade

(% U3O8) Maximum Grade

(% U3O8) GKI0021,3 185.0 185.5 0.5 0.27 0.27

GKI0052,4 199.7 200.0 0.3 0.02 0.02 GKI0052,4 231.6 232.1 0.5 0.01 0.01 GKI0052,4 255.3 255.6 0.3 0.06 0.06

GKI0082,5 27.8 30.3 2.5 0.02 0.03 GKI0082,5 76.4 76.7 0.3 0.07 0.07 Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% U3O8 with a maximum of 1.0 m of internal dilution. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.01% U3O8 with a maximum of 1.0 m of internal dilution. GKI002 was drilled at an azimuth of 128 with an inclination of -50, collared at 545,821 mE / 6,366,173 mN, 446 m A.S.L. (UTM NAD83 Z13N). GKI005 was drilled at an azimuth of 122 with an inclination of -45, collared at 551,424 mE / 6,373,287 mN, 436.7 m A.S.L. (UTM NAD83 Z13N). GKI008 was drilled at an azimuth of 100 with an inclination of -45, collared at 551,245 mE / 6,372,646 mN, 433.6 m A.S.L. (UTM NAD83 Z13N). All reported depths and intervals are drill hole depths and intervals, unless otherwise noted, and do not represent true thicknesses, which have yet to be determined.

Geochemical Sampling Procedures

All drill core samples from the 2023 program were shipped to the Saskatchewan Research Council Geoanalytical Laboratories (SRC) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in secure containment for preparation, processing, and multi-element analysis by ICP-MS and ICP-OES using total (HF:NHO3:HClO4) and partial digestion (HNO3:HCl), boron by fusion, and U3O8 wt% assay by ICP-OES using higher grade standards. Assay samples are chosen based on downhole probing radiometric equivalent uranium grades and scintillometer (SPP2 or CT007-M) peaks. Assay sample intervals comprise 0.3 - 0.5 metre continuous half-core split samples over the mineralized interval. One half of the split sample is retained and the other sent to the SRC for analysis. The SRC is an ISO/IEC 17025/2005 and Standards Council of Canada certified analytical laboratory. Blanks, standard reference materials, and repeats are inserted into the sample stream at regular intervals by CanAlaska and the SRC in accordance with CanAlaska's quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures. For results from the Geikie project, a qualified person employed by CanAlaska has performed detailed QAQC and data verification, were possible, of all datasets prior to disclosure.

All reported depths and intervals are drill hole depths and intervals, unless otherwise noted, and do not represent true thicknesses, which have yet to be determined.

Other News

The Company is currently drilling at its West McArthur and Moon Lake South uranium projects in the eastern Athabasca Basin, advancing two new high-grade uranium discoveries.

About CanAlaska Uranium

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSXV: CVV) (OTCQX: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) holds interests in approximately 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres), in Canada's Athabasca Basin - the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium." CanAlaska's strategic holdings have attracted major international mining companies. CanAlaska is currently working with Cameco and Denison at two of the Company's properties in the Eastern Athabasca Basin. CanAlaska is a project generator positioned for discovery success in the world's richest uranium district. The Company also holds properties prospective for nickel, copper, gold and diamonds. For further information visit www.canalaska.com.

The Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects for this news release is Nathan Bridge, MSc., P. Geo., Vice-President Exploration for CanAlaska Uranium Ltd., who has reviewed and approved its contents.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"Cory Belyk"

Cory Belyk, P.Geo., FGC

CEO, President and Director

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.

Contacts:

Cory Belyk, CEO and President

Tel: +1.604.688.3211 x 138

Email: cbelyk@canalaska.com



General Enquiry

Tel: +1.604.688.3211

Email: info@canalaska.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking information

All statements included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions made by the Company based on its experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. In addition, these statements involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will prove inaccurate, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to revise or update these forward-looking statements after the date hereof or revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181983
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Wedgemount Resources Corp. (CSE: WDGY) (OTCQB: WDGRF) ("Wedgemount" or the "Company"), announces that a total of 12,616,000 common share purchase warrants (the "Warrants") with an exercise price of C$0.10 were exercised prior to expiry on September 21, 2023. The exercises resulted in gross proceeds of C$1,261,600. Wedgemount's current cash balance has increased to approximately C$1.2 million.

Post the exercise of the Warrants, the company has a total of 52,187,935 common shares issued and outstanding.

Wedgemount's excess working capital combined with cash flows from operations is intended to be utilized to further grow its production base. In particular, management plans to invest capital to optimize Wedgemount's current producing wells and to purchase additional assets in the Company's core central Texas operating area.

About Wedgemount Resources Corp.

Wedgemount Resources is a junior natural resources company focused on maximizing shareholder value through the acquisition, development and exploitation of oil and gas leases in Texas, USA.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

WEDGEMOUNT RESOURCES CORP.

Mark Vanry, President and CEO

For more information, please contact the Company at:

Telephone: (604) 343-4743

info@wedgemountresources.com

www.wedgemountresources.com

Reader Advisory

This news release may contain statements which constitute "forward-looking information", including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers with respect to the future business activities of the Company and the Transaction. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Project, the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements made in this news release include the Company's plans for a next phase of field work at the projects and anticipated results therefrom. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future business activities and involve risks and uncertainties, and that the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, availability of funds, personnel and other resources necessary to conduct exploration programs, successes of the Company's exploration programs, availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such information will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required under the applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181998
PARIS, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DentalMonitoring, the leading AI-powered remote monitoring and clinical data solution in orthodontics, is proud to announce recent partnerships with forward-thinking companies to advance smarter orthodontics. DentalMonitoring is a solution for the entire patient journey, helping practitioners deliver results in pre-treatment observation, treatment and ongoing retention. New partnerships between the company with OrthoBridge and Retainers4life deliver on DentalMonitoring's commitment to providing brand-agnostic, open solutions for orthodontists to benefit the most patients.

DentalMonitoring has developed an API integration allowing the patient management system (PMS) to connect with the remote monitoring system. OrthoBridge is the latest PMS to integrate with DentalMonitoring, allowing their customers to simplify the process of patient creation and eliminate unnecessary duplicated tasks. This integration gives an advantage to staff by providing easier access to patient data while retaining digital security. By creating a single digital workplace for clinicians, the integrated OrthoBridge system improves patient monitoring and increases control over treatment progress.

UK-based Retainers4life is partnering with DentalMonitoring to provide a unique RetentionMonitoring system for private practice and NHS orthodontists. Retainers4life will use the DentalMonitoring software and ScanBoxpro to monitor patient retention to help patients keep their perfect smile, long after treatment completion.

DentalMonitoring CEO Philippe Salah says, "DentalMonitoring is proud to collaborate with new partners as we work together to elevate the patient experience and help doctors create sustainable, scalable efficiency in their practices. These partnerships express our dedication to smarter orthodontics, especially for NHS practices."

Practices interested in learning more should visit https://dentalmonitoring.com/boc-in-london/ or stop by the DentalMonitoring booth at stand 26 during the upcoming BOC in London, September 28-30.

About DentalMonitoring - www.dental-monitoring.com

DentalMonitoring's AI-powered platform and patented technology automatically detects and analyzes 130+ intraoral conditions which trigger automated messages to the patient and practice, so doctors know exactly when a patient needs an in-person appointment. DentalMonitoring is suited for all treatment types and orthodontic appliance brands. It drives compliance by checking treatment progress and detecting issues early through closer supervision of treatment between in-office appointments and automated next steps. It optimizes chair time, so appointments are scheduled at the right time and clinicians and their team never walk into an appointment without knowing the most important information.

Press contact:

DentalMonitoring: Anne-Claire Sanz, Global Head of Marketing

a.sanz@dental-monitoring.com

+33 (0)1 86 95 01 01

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Deputy CEO of BTN Oni Febrianto Rahardjo (right) receives the award from the representative of Asia Money

SINGAPORE, Sept 27, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - An Indonesian mortgage leading bank, PT Bank Tabungan Negara (Persero) Tbk. (hereinafter called BTN), has once again been honored with the international award "Best Bank for CSR in Indonesia" by Asia Money. This recognition applauds Bank BTN's efforts in fulfilling housing needs for families, specifically Low-Income Communities (LIC), for a better quality of life.Oni Febriarto Rahardjo, Deputy CEO of Bank BTN, stated that the company continues to transform to ensure sustainable growth. One of these transformations, as Oni explained, involves a successful integration between business and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, focusing on supporting families in Indonesia to have decent housing and living conditions."This award serves as both appreciation and validation that we have been effectively implementing our CSR programs, aligning with Bank BTN's mission of addressing housing needs in Indonesia," said Oni after receiving the award in Singapore on Tuesday, September 26.According to data from the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency (CSA), the backlog of housing needs in Indonesia is mainly divided into two groups. The first group, consisting of approximately 2.2 million families, represents those with the lowest income, below Rp3 million/month (approx. US$ 193) The second group includes 7.3 million families, with low and informal incomes ranging from Rp3 million to Rp8.5 million.Oni added that sustainably integrating the CSR program into the bank's business extends to these families by offering the BTN Micro Home Ownership Credit (KPR) program for the lowest-income groups. Bank BTN is also the sole bank offering Rent to Own KPR for low-income and informal workers. Bank BTN provides assistance to mothers and families with the lowest income to prevent stunting, from Pekanbaru, Riau Province, to East Nusa Tenggara. This assistance also involves Integrated Services Post (Posyandu) cadres for stunting prevention.BTN also offers scholarships to high-achieving children from underprivileged families. The company's CSR program involves tree planting and the creation of green open spaces in subsidized housing areas. As a publicly traded company with the stock code BBTN, BTN is the only bank that organizes the Mini MBA in Property, a property literacy program developed in collaboration with various renowned universities in Indonesia. This program is designed to encourage entrepreneurship in the housing sector."We continuously strive to be a company that grows sustainably and has a positive impact on society and the environment," said Oni.As of the end of 2022, approximately 53.5% of Bank BTN's total loans were allocated to sustainable business activities. The company also reported that by the end of 2022, the total sustainable financing it had provided amounted to Rp147 trillion.Contact: investor_relation@btn.co.id? ?Web: https://www.btn.co.idSource: Bank Tabungan NegaraCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Austria's manufacturing activity deteriorated at an accelerated pace in September as new orders declined the most in more than two years, data produced by S&P Global showed on Wednesday.



The UniCredit Bank Austria Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index dropped to 39.6 in August from 40.6 in the previous month. Any score below 50 indicates contraction in the sector.



Output fell for the sixteenth successive month in September, and the rate of contraction was quicker than the average over the current sequence of decline.



Lower production was mainly attributed to a sustained downturn in demand, with new orders falling at the sharpest rate since May 2020. The latest fall in new business was linked to customer hesitancy, declining construction activity and a general economic slowdown.



Foreign demand also witnessed a sharp drop in September, especially weaker new work from Germany.



In September, backlogs of work in Austria's manufacturing industry decreased to their lowest level in nearly three and a half years.



There was a sharp decrease in factory employment as workloads fell and businesses became more pessimistic about the future. The pace of job shedding was the quickest since May 2020.



Goods producers also reduced their purchasing activity, a similar kind of decline last seen in the initial COVID wave in early 2020.



On the price front, input costs decreased further as firms reported negotiating improved terms with suppliers. Competition for new work also led to a further drop in average factory gate charges.



Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Die Top 3 Dividendenaktien 2024 In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen! Hier klicken
The TMC Netherlands BioBridge marks the fifth strategic international partnership forged by TMC since 2016

Texas Medical Center (TMC) and Health~Holland, Top Sector Life Sciences Health (LSH) launched a groundbreaking BioBridge, a strategic alliance advancing and connecting global innovation. The TMC BioBridge program provides a gateway for entrepreneurs, researchers, clinicians, and industry partners to access the US market and the TMC experts, while providing a bridge to the host country for exchanges.

"The TMC Netherlands BioBridge represents an unparalleled opportunity for collaboration and growth," said Ashley McPhail, Chief External Affairs Administration Officer at Texas Medical Center. "The Netherlands has solidified its position as a global leader in the field of life sciences and health, with a thriving ecosystem of research institutions, innovative companies, and highly skilled professionals. This strategic partnership will bring positive benefits to patients, clinicians, and industry partners on a global scale."

TMC's BioBridge program provides a focused and strategic pathway for international healthcare companies preparing for US market expansion. This Global Innovators Launch Pad begins through an application process where startup founders apply for an initial 10-week residency at TMC Innovation Factory. Here, entrepreneurs will participate in programming that will include key areas critical to US growth, such as foundational infrastructure, clinical evidence, and funding.

"Since Texas is an important hub for innovation in the MedTech and Digital Health sectors, the collaboration with Texas Medical Center creates opportunities for Dutch companies looking to expand their international reach. Vice versa, it gives companies in Texas access to the vibrant Dutch Life Sciences Health sector," said Carmen van Vilsteren, Chair of Top Sector LSH.

The TMC Netherlands BioBridge Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on September 27, 2023, in Rotterdam, Netherlands by TMC President and CEO, William F. McKeon, and Carmen van Vilsteren, Chair Top Sector Life Sciences Health. This further outlines the goals between the partners. Members from TMC are also participating in the Health~Holland Visitors Programme (HVP) 'Shaping the Healthcare of the Future.' The HVP is a yearly recurring event in the Netherlands, aimed at broadening knowledge of Dutch and international Life Sciences and Health stakeholders, including multiple high-level representatives from the private sector, NGOs, knowledge institutions, healthcare providers and different tiers of government.

The TMC Netherlands BioBridge is the fifth international strategic alliance, including those with Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Ireland. Since 2016, TMC's BioBridges have welcomed 88startup companies specializing in digital health and medical devices across various critical areas such as neurology, oncology, patient engagement, surgery, orthopedics, cardiovascular health, transplantation, intensive care, and ophthalmology. With the introduction of the TMC Netherlands BioBridge, the collaboration and knowledge exchange will further allow for more comprehensive and impactful efforts to address global healthcare challenges.

About Texas Medical Center (TMC): TMC is the world's most comprehensive life science ecosystem at the forefront of advancing life sciences. TMC is on a mission to further accelerate the pace of healing by harnessing our collective expertise in innovation, research, development, production, and patient care within a single, centralized medical ecosystem. With over 70+ million square feet and 120,000+ employees, TMC is leveraging the collective power by pioneering a revolutionary life sciences initiative to house the entire treatment of life cycle from discovery to delivery, within a single, world-class medical complex, on a scale never before seen.

About Texas Medical Center Innovation (TMCi): Texas Medical Center Innovation forms, fosters, recruits, and funds healthcare companies worldwide that are writing the future of healthcare. TMCi performs diligence on the companies seeking to progress toward clinical and business milestones in collaboration with Texas Medical Center member institutions and our global network of advisors and embedded corporate partners. We align these resources through our globally recognized programs: Biodesign, Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics, and Health Tech.

About the Top Sector Life Sciences Health

Top Sector Life Sciences Health (Health~Holland) works together with public and private parties to promote the economic opportunities of the societal theme Health Care of the Dutch cabinet's Mission-driven Top Sectors and Innovation Policy. The coalition does this on the basis of the five Health Care missions, formulated by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. The central mission is as follows: By 2040, all Dutch citizens will live at least five years longer in good health, while the health inequalities between the lowest and highest socioeconomic groups will have decreased by 30%. There are four underlying missions that contribute to this central mission through changes to lifestyle and living environment, offering more care in the right place and better perspectives for people with chronic diseases, lifelong disabilities and dementia. With this approach, the Netherlands seeks to effectively tackle major societal challenges. Industry can optimally respond to the economic opportunities that these challenges bring.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927704611/en/

Contacts:

Media

Marcela Dwork

mdwork@denterlein.com

P: 8573507934
Represents Kazakhstan's ambition to become leading regional autism support center

Partnership will help children with autism across Kazakhstan, using JASPER methodology

Announcement made at Foundation's 5th Autism Conference, bringing together experts

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bulat Utemuratov Foundation announces that it has signed a three-year Memorandum of Intent for Cooperation and Interaction with world-renowned autism spectrum disorder expert Dr. Connie Kasari. This is aimed at implementing joint projects to support children with ASD, including early diagnostics, training specialists and organising seminars. It will pave the way for Kazakhstan to become a leading regional center for autism research, training and treatment.

The partnership was announced at the Bulat Utemuratov Foundation's 5th International "Asyl Miras. Autism. One World for All" conference in Astana, Kazakhstan. This year's theme is "Diagnosis and Early Intervention in ASD", one of the areas that the work with Dr. Kasari will cover. The conference was attended by world renowned experts in ASD who discussed the latest developments in the early diagnosis of autism, with practical seminars for teachers, students and parents on children with ASD.

Recognition of the importance of early diagnosis and intervention for ASD is growing, demonstrating clear benefits of the effectiveness of treatment and improving quality of life for children and their families. The Foundation will work with Dr. Kasari to provide training for the Foundation's specialists and Trainer of Trainers ("TOT"), to train the next generation of experts.

Beyond this, the Foundation and Connie Kasari will jointly develop a training plan for specialists from across Kazakhstan, including creating different certification levels and mechanisms for assessing and supporting training. The training program will be based on the Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation ("JASPER") treatment approach, which was pioneered by Dr. Kasari.

JASPER methodology is already used in the Foundation's 12 Asyl Miras autism centers across Kazakhstan. More than 15,000 children have received treatment at the centers since in 2015, and the Foundation has invested US$12.5 million in this project.

In addition, the partnership will conduct joint research projects and develop tools to promote the JASPER methodology in Kazakhstan.

Almaz Sharman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Bulat Utemuratov Foundation, said: "As the leading international autism expert, we are thrilled to be working with Dr. Kasari on advancing the mentorship program associated with JASPER, which is a ground-breaking methodology she developed to enhance the early social communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorders. The partnership will help improve the lives of children and their families across Kazakhstan, providing the support and care they need. It is also an important moment for autism support in Central Asia, building on the Foundation's work to date and paving the way for Kazakhstan to become a leading regional center for research, training and treatment."

Connie Kasari, Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Psychiatry and Founding Member of Center for Autism Research & Treatment, UCLA, said: "There is growing awareness of autism in Kazakhstan, and this important initiative will play a key role in further developing the systems and structures to support children with autism spectrum disorders. It is encouraging to see that specialists in Kazakhstan use the JASPER method in their work, and I believe that our cooperation with the Foundation will allow us to strengthen the professional community of behavioral specialists and develop successful support strategies for more families with autistic children."

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Latest Enhancements to Industry-Leading Configure, Price, Quote Solution Enables Manufacturers to Achieve High-Performance Configuration and Visualization with Ease

CHICAGO and STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sept. 27, 2023, the leading Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) SaaS partner to manufacturers for simplifying sales in complex configuration, today announced two new features designed to redefine industry standards: System Configuration and Layout Planning. These enhancements to Tacton CPQ empower manufacturers to streamline complex configurations and visualize solutions effortlessly.



Configure Anything with Tacton CPQ System Configuration

Tacton's System Configuration enables manufacturers of large, complex solutions such as HVAC systems, production lines, plant layouts, electrical infrastructure, windmill and solar panel parks, and more, to overcome complex configuration challenges.

Configuring large-scale systems within a single product model can lead to potential performance issues. With System Configuration, this problem is a thing of the past. The system splits configuration challenges into smaller, interconnected nodes, allowing sales representatives to reorder and rearrange them while maintaining a valid overall system configuration. This breakthrough not only enables efficient Configure-to-Order processes but also ensures a high-performance configuration engine, regardless of complexity.

"As we unveil our advanced System Configuration capabilities, Tacton is empowering manufacturers with the ultimate solution to tackle the most complex configuration challenges, all while delivering peak performance," said Andreas Edlund, Global Product Manager for System Configuration at Tacton. "With this innovation, we enable manufacturers to configure with precision, efficiency and speed like never before. It's a game-changer for optimizing CPQ processes."

Quote faster and win deals using visual layout plans with Tacton CPQ Layout Planning

In addition to System Configuration, which has been available since August 2023, Tacton will introduce Layout Planning starting October 2023. Tacton's Layout Planning allows sales representatives to create a visual layout of equipment and systems while adjusting configurations without additional CAD software or engineering involvement. Users of Layout Planning are expected to significantly speed up the quotation process by reducing manual handovers and providing visual layout feedback to customers, leading to higher win rates.

For customers in need of interconnected machines or systems on a factory floor or industrial area, adjusting configurations to existing spatial constraints is a mandatory part of the proposal process. Layout Planning extends Tacton's existing visual configuration capabilities, empowering CPQ users to position and orient components of the configuration visually through simple drag-and-drop actions.

Users can adjust configurations to specific spatial needs and requirements, whether unconstrained, in pre-defined positions, or based on uploaded 2D floor plans of existing buildings and environments. Moreover, components can be visually connected to derive length information for corresponding connectivity products like cables or tubes.

"Adding to our Visual Configuration portfolio, Tacton's latest capability sets a new standard in how customers can showcase their equipment on customer factories or floor layout during the purchase process," said Marco Lang, Global Product Manager for Visualization Solutions at Tacton. "Our Layout Planning feature is a strategic leap forward, providing manufacturers with seamless synchronization between configuration and layout planning. This synergy is poised to revolutionize how manufacturers visualize and optimize layout plans, giving them the edge in a highly competitive market."

For more information on Tacton and its market-leading configuration technology:

Book a demo (https://www.tacton.com/request-demo/) and see how Tacton can help your company increase efficiencies, sales volume and net profit.

(https://www.tacton.com/request-demo/) and see how Tacton can help your company increase efficiencies, sales volume and net profit. Follow thought leaders shaping the future of sales in manufacturing at the Tacton Blog (https://www.tacton.com/cpq-blog/).

(https://www.tacton.com/cpq-blog/). Download the ultimate guide to staying up to date with the latest customer experience trends in manufacturing (https://www.tacton.com/research-reports/keeping-up-with-the-new-manufacturing-buyer/).

(https://www.tacton.com/research-reports/keeping-up-with-the-new-manufacturing-buyer/). Gain unmatched insights on how CPQ can help reduce environmental impact and reach your sustainability goals . (https://www.tacton.com/products/tacton-cpq/environmental-footprint-configuration/)

About Tacton

Tacton is a leading SaaS company trusted by global manufacturers. Tacton Trusted Configuration simplifies sales for manufacturers of complex products. Tacton's Configure, Price, Quote software is named a Leader by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for CPQ Application Suites and is recognized for its advanced product configuration and visualization capabilities. Tacton's founders pioneered computer-based product configuration which today powers Tacton CPQ and CAD Design Automation. Since 1998, Tacton has been trusted by global customers such as ABB, Daimler, MAN, Scania, Siemens, Xylem, and Yaskawa. It is co-headquartered in Chicago and Stockholm, with regional offices in Karlsruhe, Warsaw, and Tokyo. Follow Tacton on LinkedIn and X.
Release Highlights:

Drilling at Drudrusavu has discovered a new epithermal vein system two kilometers east of the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits clearly associated with a prominent CSAMT high resistivity anomaly.

Drudrusavu mineralization is associated with at least two stages of epithermal mineralization, characterized by the presence of quartz sulfide veinlets and hydrothermal alteration, that have been documented over three intervals totaling 87.1 meters in KGD-2023-08 and 65.0 meters in KDG-2023-09.

Drilling at Mouta Prospect intersected two styles of mineralization primarily consisting of a broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite with some caldera margin related shear-style mineralization.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / KALO GOLD CORP. ("Kalo", "Kalo Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the exploration program at Vatu Aurum Gold Project ("Vatu Aurum" or the "Project"), Republic of Fiji. Kalo has completed four diamond drill holes in the 2023 exploration program: two at Drudrusavu ("Drudrusavu") located within the Qiriyaga Hill Prospect ("Qiriyaga") and two at Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") for a total of 432.0 meters ("m").

Mr. Terry L Tucker, P.Geo, President and CEO of Kalo Gold, commented "The two drill holes at Drudrusavu successfully confirmed the Controlled-Source Audio-frequency Magnetotellurics ("CSAMT") geophysical survey has identified zones of hydrothermal alteration and silicification. Both holes drilled had between 65 and 87 m of silicification and hydrothermal alteration and that included one interval that returned 4 meters averaging 1.23 g/t Au and 1 metre averaging 4.17 g/t Au . Given the shallow level of erosion that has been interpreted this indicates there is excellent potential for mineralization at depth at Drudrusavu. The positive correlation between the CSAMT and the drilling at Drudrusavu will give us the confidence to expand exploration at Qiriyaga. Previous drill results at Qiriyaga intersected thick, near-surface, high-grade gold mineralization, particularly drill hole KCD-17 that returned 8.75 metres at 36.02 g/t Au (61.25 to 70 m) and 10 m at 27.18 g/t Au (76-86 m) including 120 g/t Au between 81 to 82 m."

Drudrusavu

Two holes, KGD-2023-08 (232.50m) and KGD-2023-09 (169.50m) were drilled at Drudrusavu which is located 2 km east of Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits. The drainage through Drudrusavu contained a "very strong gold anomaly" with gold in the stream sediment samples returning up to 580 parts per billion ("ppb") gold. Drudrusavu was originally defined by a 750 m long multi element soil and rock geochemical anomaly that was subsequently drilled in 1986 by Placer Dome. Drill holes KGD-2023-08 and KGD-2023-09 successfully tested the down dip extent of mineralized outcrop on Drudrusavu Creek, the soil geochemical anomaly, historical drilling and a prominent resistivity anomaly defined by a recently completed CSAMT survey (Target 5 in the previous release). The resistivity anomaly is believed to correspond to a ring fault around the edge of a caldera, a potential fertile corridor for precious metals mineralization (Figures 1 and 2).

KGD-2023-08 intersected three mineralized zones from 50.4 to 85.5m, 115.5 to 157.5m and 206.1 to 216.1m composed of millimetre wide quartz veinlets with anhedral and open-space (comb) textures hosted in silica-chlorite altered polymictic breccia and dacite. Gold mineralization was intersected over a 4m zone averaging 1.23 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold, including a meter sample grading 4.17 g/t gold (see Table 1 and Photos 1 to 4).

KGD-2023-09 was drilled 100m to the southeast of KGD-2023-09 along the same CSAMT resistivity anomaly. It intersected three mineralized zones from 41.2 to 59.8m, 72.2 to 105.0m and 114.9 to 128.4m consisting of mm-wide quartz veinlets with comb texture associated with fine pyrite and chalcopyrite hosted in the same rock and alteration suite as KGD-2023-09.

Table 1: Drudrusavu Drill Results

The gold mineralization at Drudrusavu as shown in these two drill holes is associated with at least two stages of quartz veinlets.

Early-stage quartz veinlets and breccia filling with anhedral texture and a homogeneous appearance and an absence of banding, open-space, or similar features. This type of quartz generally infills the space between clasts of brecciated dacite. No other sulfides except pyrite have been documented with it.

A later-stage event with quartz veinlets-pyrite-chalcopyrite (centerline), was observed to cut the early quartz and is characterized by a cockscomb, open-space texture.

The relatively shallow oxidation level (~10m) at Drudrusavu suggests that the mineralization in the area will generally be primary. The results of the Drudrusavu drilling in addition to confirming gold mineralization in that area has extended the extent of the Qiriyaga Prospect a total of 2 km. The mineralization remains open along strike to the northeast and southeast and importantly at depth and correlates well with the CSAMT resistivity anomaly 5 as illustrated in Figure 3.

Mouta Prospect

Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") is located approximately 9 km northwest of Qiriyaga Hill Prospect on the outer edge of the Mouta Caldera. Two holes, KMD-2023-01 (151.5m) and KMD-2023-02 (280.5m) were drilled at Mouta to test a 330m long NE-trending soil anomaly characterized by coincident Au-Ag-As-Sb-Hg-Cu-Pb-Zn and a strong Induced Polarization ("IP") signature (see Figure 4).

Two styles of mineralization were intersected, the first is the shear-style mineralized zone and the second is the broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite. The mineralization is interpreted to be related to shallowly eroded phreatomagmatic eruption setting like the other Prospects on the Property.

KMD-2023-01 intersected the shear style mineralization from 31.0 to 51.0m hosted in a dark gray dacite breccia. It is gougy and strongly silicified in some sections with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and zinc sulfides (marmatite and sphalerite) up to 10% volume occurring as veinlets and disseminations. This zone is the downdip expression of the mineralized outcrop observed at the surface.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 51.0 to 69.0m in an intensely clay altered, felsic dacite breccia. The frequency of these veinlets is generally 5 to 10 per m and total sulfides are estimated between 5% to 7% volume. This zone was disrupted by an 8.40m, barren dark grey colored andesite dike from 68.2 to 76.6m but continued again until 94.0m. Mineralization tapered off from 94.0m downwards until a barren dacite flow (country rock) was hit at 117.80m.

KMD-2023-02 intersected the shear style mineralization from 30.55 to 45.30m within a highly oxidized zone that extends down to a depth of 59.40m. It intersected several 2m copper-bearing zones grading between 0.27% - 0.39% Cu with up to 3.56% Zn.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 129.5 to 178.0m. This zone is hosted within a silica - clay - chlorite altered dacite breccia from 129.50 m to 151.0m, and intense clay alteration from 151.0 to 178.0m. The sulfides identified within this zone are pyrite, zinc sulfides, and chalcopyrite and estimated to be up to 10%. KMD-2023-02 is mineralized from 178.0 m down to the end of hole at 280.5 m, but only pyrite was identified occurring both as fracture filling and disseminations in an intensely clay-altered dacite breccia. It returned 4 m averaging 0.59% from 167-171m.

Table 2: Mouta Drill Results

Mouta Prospect - Surface Channel Sample Results

Surface mapping has identified zones of silica, silica-clay, and clay alteration and the host rock of gold mineralization is a clay altered pumiceous dacite breccia. Argillic alteration can be intense locally and the main minerals are pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and barite. The presence of gold-silver-copper mineralization at Mouta Prospect, including: 6.2g/t Au, 645g/t Ag and 3.12% Cu from rock chip outcrop sampling and 3.06g/t Au, 819g/t Ag and 1.63% Cu from a stockpile grab sample have been received in addition to recently completed surface channel sampling of the mineralized outcrop. The table below summarizes the gold results from the channel sampling:

Table 3: Mouta Surface Channel Sample Results

The results of the work so far done in Mouta, including the two recently completed drill holes, has demonstrated that Mouta offers an opportunity for a gold or a gold-copper-zinc discovery. The Company will continue to evaluate the results for an effective follow up exploration program.

Sampling, Analysis and QAQC

The drill core was sampled at 1m intervals and cut into half with an electric core saw at the at the Company's exploration camp. The core samples were submitted to ALS Minerals laboratory in Brisbane, Australia ("ALS") for sample preparation and analysis. The gold was analyzed using Au-AA24 method (50g split). Multi-element analysis was also carried out using ME-ICP61m method. Kalo's Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QAQC) protocol for drill core samples includes: 1) field measurement of half core sample weights, 2) insertion of certified reference materials at 1 in 20 frequencies, 3) insertion of blank sample at 1 in 40 frequencies, and 3) insertion of duplicate core samples. ALS has internal QAQC protocols that include analysis and results monitoring for certified reference materials, blank samples, and duplicate core samples.

ABOUT KALO GOLD CORP.

Kalo Gold Corp, a gold exploration company, is focused on exploration for low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of the Vatu Aurum Gold Project on the island of Vanua Levu (North Island) in the Republic of Fiji. Kalo holds a 100% interest in two Special Prospecting Licenses, covering 367 km2 that hosts a minimum of seven volcanic arc related calderas ranging between 1 to 10km in diameter in a geological setting that could be analogous to the alkaline related low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of both the neighbouring Vatukoula Gold Mine and the Lion One Metals' Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project. Historical exploration work concentrated on the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits and resulted in the identification of over fourteen priority epithermal gold exploration targets.

Both Viti Levu, (South Island), and Vanua Levu are on the prolific Pacific "Ring of Fire", a trend that has produced numerous large deposits, including Porgera, Lihir and Grasberg and on Viti Levu, the exceptional Vatukoula Gold Mine. The Vatukoula Gold Mine has produced more than 7 million ounces of gold since 1937. The island of Viti Levu also hosts the fully permitted Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, where Lion One Metals is fast tracking a high-grade underground gold mining operation.

Qualified Person

The technical disclosure in this news release has been approved by Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Kalo Gold Corp.

Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo

President and Chief Executive Officer

and

Kevin Ma, CPA, CA

Executive Vice President, Capital Markets and Director

For more information, please write to info@kalogoldcorp.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Forward Looking Statements Disclaimer

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which are statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements relating to the Company's proposed drilling timeline and the proposed expansion of the exploration program, and the Company's plans for future exploration on the Vatu Aurum Gold Project. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements included in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to raise the necessary capital to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's filing statement dated February 9, 2021 and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking statements herein may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect, and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Figure 1: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta and Qiriyaga Hill Prospects.

Figure 2: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Qiriyaga Hill Prospect.

Figure 3: Qiriyiga Hill Prospect - CSAMT 1D Inversion at 200 meters with six key target zones identified.

Figure 4: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta Prospect.

Photo 1: KGD-2023-08: Intense quartz - pyrite infill from 53.0 to 54.0m. Assays returned 4m at 1.23 g/t Au from 53 to 57m with 1m at 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m.

Photo 2: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the interval which returned 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m. Note the abundant quartz veining with open-space texture.

Photo 3: KGD-2023-08: Banded, 5cm quartz-py-cpy veinlet; note the hydrothermal brecciation of the host rock. Assays returned 1m at 1.58% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

Photo 4: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the banded, 5cm qz-py-cpy veinlet at 74.45. Assays returned 1m at 1.54% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

SOURCE: Kalo Gold Corp.

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COSTA MESA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions has unveiled its most recent innovations, Bespoke Packaging & Gifting and Counter Displays Retail Solutions, in the USA in a bold effort to change the retail sector. These ground-breaking products mark a tremendous advancement in addressing the evolving needs of American businesses across the country.

By reiterating its dedication to offering innovative solutions that enable businesses, Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions raises the bar in its industry. These innovative improvements highlight the company's commitment to enhancing the retail experience while assisting businesses to thrive in a fiercely competitive sector.

Building Brand Identities with Custom Packaging Boxes in the U.S. Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions provides Bespoke packaging boxes USA, a customized packaging option that goes above and beyond industry norms. In recognition of the growing significance of first impressions in contemporary culture, these personalized boxes are painstakingly created to reflect each brand's distinctive personality and beliefs. Additionally, Coast 2 Coast can adapt product branding to seamlessly align with the packaging.

These well-designed packaging boxes protect the contents while also acting as an effective marketing tool. Whether it's a luxury item or a daily necessity, Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions makes sure every product has the ideal packaging match.

One of Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions' representatives, Leah Covey, notes that "today's discriminating consumers desire authenticity in their purchases. Our Bespoke Packaging Boxes USA make it clear that we are dedicated to assisting businesses in developing stronger relationships with their clients. Packaging tells a story as well as serving a functional purpose."

These shipment boxes are available in a range of materials, coatings, and printing choices. Businesses can now create packaging that harmonizes perfectly with the aesthetics of their brand, leaving customers with a strong and unforgettable impression.

Counter Displays Retail Solution

For companies looking to maximize their in-store presence, Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions provides Counter Displays Retail Solutions. These displays are purposefully made to draw interest and increase sales at the point of purchase.

It cannot be easy to get the attention of the consumer in the cluttered retail environment of today. Counter Displays from Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions provide a practical and appealing solution to this problem. These adaptable displays may be customized to highlight a variety of products, resulting in an inviting in-store setting.

Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions' Leah Covey adds, "Our Counter Displays Retail Solutions are designed to be eye-catching, entertaining, and useful. They give companies the ability to educate and enthral clients by showcasing their products. Our objective is to create a shopping environment that inspires exploration and purchasing.

These displays, which come in a variety of sizes and layouts, are appropriate for different retail locations. They are a useful tool for any retail setting because they can be quickly altered to meet a company's particular branding and advertising needs.

Initiatives for Sustainability are Advanced

The growing concern for environmental sustainability is something that Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions is well aware of. In response, Bespoke Packaging Boxes USA and Counter Displays Retail both use eco-friendly manufacturing processes and materials to create their products.

Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions is dedicated to offering goods that not only meet but also surpass environmental requirements since it recognizes the growing demand for eco-friendly packaging and display options to assist corporate social responsibility programs.

Retail Packaging and Display in the Future

Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions cemented its status as a pioneer in retail packaging and display with these ground-breaking innovations. With more than simply products, Counter Displays Retail Solutions and Bespoke Packaging Boxes USA are prepared to transform how companies interact with their clients.

Businesses throughout the nation are invited to investigate the countless opportunities provided by these game-changing solutions by Coast 2 Coast Packaging Solutions. These innovations aim to produce memorable and compelling brand experiences that satisfy consumers' rising expectations as the retail environment changes.

Media Contact

Organization: Coast 2 Coast Packaging

Contact Person: Leah Covey

Website: https://www.c2cpackaging.com/

Email: Info@C2CPackaging.com

City: Costa Mesa

State: California

Country: United States

SOURCE: Coast 2 Coast Packaging

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In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - American banking major JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) announced on Tuesday that it has been selected to provide account validation services for federal government agencies by the United States Treasury Department under a financial agency agreement. The program is awarded for a minimum of five years. In this role, the bank will verify critical payment information for the federal government before payments are issued using its extensive network of secure customer information as well as industry data that the bank regularly accesses for payment processing. In fiscal 2022, Fiscal Service disbursed nearly 1.4 billion payments for federal agencies totaling $5.27 trillion, including Social Security and Medicare payments, unemployment insurance, and tax refunds. The federal government reported an estimated $247 billion in improper payments during the 2022 fiscal year. This is the latest assignment for the bank from the treasury department. JP Morgan has played different roles in recent years advising the treasury as it digitizes its payment systems and modernizes its operations to pay and receive money from citizens and businesses. In pre-market activity, shares of JP Morgan are trading at $145.54 up 0.42% on the New York Stock Exchange. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

VIENNA, AUSTRIA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Ready to take a journey back to a prehistoric era? Join My Dinosaurs Culture and Arts Co. at the IAAPA EXPO, the Global Attractions Industry's premier event, held from September 25-28 in Vienna and November 14-17 in Orlando! Explore our state-of-the-art animatronic dinosaurs, designed with the highest accuracy from paleontological data and tailored to the needs of exhibitions and parks. This is not just educational, but also an amazing source of fun for kids and families. Step into a world of wonder and excitement and be transported to a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CHEYENNE, WY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Mighty Fire Breaker's "Get Proactive Tour" lands this week in the San Bernardino Mountain Range, which is at High Risk of Wildfire. While this populated region has been dodging catastrophic wildfires in recent years, the current risk has heightened dramatically and is now being significantly impacted by the current Fire Insurance Crisis in California.

On Sept. 28 th , MFB will begin at the Big Bear Fire Department Headquarters and conduct live fire demonstrations. MFB representatives will show how MFB-31-CitroTech can be sprayed in trees and high-risk, dry vegetation to reduce a fire's ability to advance. Later in the day, these MFB representatives will drive across the mountain range to the town of Rim Forest. There, at the Rim Forest Elks Club, they will meet many of the Contractors in the mountain range to discuss the MFB technology and teach them how to install their Wildfire Defense Sprinkler Systems. At these events, MFB's representatives expect to meet with local insurance agents and realtors that are interested in MFB's Wildfire Risk Reduction Program.

MFB was assisted in creating and promoting these two tour events by one of its Independent Advisors, retired Fire Marshal Peter Brierty, who knows a great many people in that mountain community. Chief Brierty has taken his years of experience with fires and loss in this region, to now promoting MFB's proactive wildfire defense. He is doing so because of MFB-31-Citrotech's accreditations, formulation and performance, and he has stated that, "I think it is the safest and best fire-retardant chemistry that I have ever seen."

MFB recently held a "Get Proactive Tour" event in San Diego with the San Diego Rescue Foundation and the San Diego Fire Department. After the event, the San Diego Deputy Chief/Fire Marshal, Tony Tosca commented. "I wanted just to say thank you for participating in the Wildfire Preparedness Fair in San Diego at the Hilton Mission Valley. It was a very successful event! Your demonstrations were a highlight and topic of discussion for the firefighters, fire marshals, insurance underwriters and other agency attendees."

MFB -31- CitroTech is the only fire retardant to have received the EPA Safer Choice designation, and Mighty Fire Breaker is out to raise the bar on all fire retardants which make claims about being safe and environmentally friendly. There have been many news stories about toxic substances causing cancer and killing fish. In addition, it was recently reported that they do not meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act (CWA). MFB has spent significant time and resources to support all of its claims, so that Insurance Underwriters can feel comfortable about recommending the use of MFB Products around homes, children and pets in proactive wildfire risk reduction.

For more information, please visit www.mightyfirebreaker.com

For technical product information: Info@mightyfirebreaker.com

Contact Information

Twitter@GEVIOfficial

Website: ?https://generalenterpriseventures.com/

Forward Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words 'believe,' 'may,' 'estimate,' 'continue,' 'anticipate,' 'intend,' 'should,' 'plan,' 'could,' 'target,' 'potential,' 'is likely,' 'will,' 'expect' and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The Company has based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Some or all of the results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not be achieved. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

SOURCE: GENERAL ENTERPRISE VENTURES, INC. ("GEVI")

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VENICE, Italy, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Infinix hosted a spectacular event, the "Story On !-i" ZERO 30 5G Launch, in the enchanting backdrop of Venice, Italy. During this event, they unveiled the highly anticipated Mobile Vlog Awards (MVA), an international competition spotlighting the cutting-edge imaging capabilities of the ZERO 30 5G smartphone.

This prestigious competition garnered the attention of a distinguished panel of judges, consisting of luminaries from the film and marketing industries. The panel included Mark Gill, an acclaimed writer and director with Oscar and BAFTA nominations; Lake Hu, Vice General Manager and Chief Marketing Officer at Infinix Mobility; Alvaro Colom, a prominent artist, film director, and videographer; and David A. Ross, a renowned art museum professional who serves as Chair at the MFA: Art Practice at the SVA.

"The MVA competition is not just an ordinary challenge but a symbol of Infinix's deep commitment to the Vlog domain. It signifies Infinix's dedication to not only enhancing product capabilities but also building a creative platform. Through this global event, Infinix aims to inspire young creators to focus on themselves through front-camera Vlogs and share the exciting moments of their personal stories, making selfie videos a new social trend. Additionally, with the ultra-clear front-camera VLOG smartphone, the Infinix ZERO 30, Infinix seeks to empower the younger generation (Generation Z) to express themselves more effectively." Lake Hu, CMO of Infinix Mobility.

Founded in 2013, Infinix is on a mission to craft smart devices that elevate user experiences. In a momentous celebration of this vision, Infinix unveiled its latest groundbreaking offerings on September 1st in Venice: the Infinix ZERO 30 5G smartphone and the Infinix ZERO BOOK laptop. This unveiling coincided with the launch of the Mobile Vlog Awards, an initiative that received resounding endorsement and recommendations from leading Vloggers.

At the heart of this event, twenty-five renowned influencers and media personalities utilized the ZERO 30 5G to 'Capture Their Own Story.' This collective endeavor drew inspiration from Raphael's timeless masterpiece, 'The School of Athens,' blending the artistry of the Renaissance with modern technology. It formed a community of perceptive and bold creators, echoing Infinix's vision to empower individuals with the means to embrace and chronicle the richness of life.

The 'Story On !-i' event stands as a significant milestone for Infinix, reaffirming its role as a pioneering force in the realm of mobile technology. The Infinix ZERO 30 5G and ZERO BOOK have set new benchmarks in performance, design, and user empowerment. This reiterates Infinix's unwavering commitment to providing young creators with the essential tools to share their stories through the medium of technology.

The Infinix ZERO 30 5G, tailored for budding content creators, boasts a remarkable 50 MP front camera capable of shooting in stunning 4K at 60fps. This impressive feature empowers users to capture life's moments in exquisite Ultra HD quality. In doing so, Infinix firmly establishes itself as a pioneering force in the mid-range smartphone category, bringing top-tier vlogging capabilities to the forefront for the next generation of creative individuals.

Moving to the ZERO BOOK, this device is equipped with cutting-edge 12th Gen Intel Core i7 and i5 H-series processors. These processors consistently deliver outstanding performance, particularly in critical areas. The ZERO BOOK Series introduces an innovative OVERBOOST mode, unlocking the full potential of its 14-core, 20-thread CPU, resulting in a remarkable 54W high-output performance. This performance hybrid design enhances computational efficiency and provides intelligent workload optimization. Additionally, it supports 16 GB LPDDR5 board memory and offers up to 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, firmly positioning it as an industry leader in memory capacity. The inclusion of up to 96EU Iris Xe Graphics further solidifies these processors as an all-encompassing solution for unparalleled computing experiences.

At the global launch event for the ZERO 30 5G in Venice, Infinix introduced its groundbreaking Explorer Satellite Communication Technology. This cutting-edge technology, demonstrated through the flagship ZERO 30 5G prototype, is built upon the LoRaWAN long-range satellite system. It enables rapid message processing and two-way messaging capabilities across extensive distances, eliminating the dependence on conventional networks. This innovation effectively addresses a range of emergency rescue requirements for users.

Infinix's strategic plan involves validating and implementing this feature in the latter half of this year, with a gradual expansion to multiple product series in 2024, ensuring users' safety during critical situations. The ultimate goal, set for 2025, is to provide nearly global coverage 24/7, further enhancing user safety and communication capabilities.

The Mobile Vlog Awards, themed "Capture Your Own Story," serves as a global platform that urges young content creators worldwide to leverage the impressive video capabilities of Infinix smartphones for distinctive storytelling. Infinix extends a warm invitation to vloggers from diverse backgrounds and genres to be part of the mobile imaging evolution, fostering an environment where youthful creativity and inspiration flourish.

For additional information regarding this exciting opportunity, please visit: https://activity.infinixmobility.com/mvawards

About INFINIX

In?nix Mobility is a rapidly emerging technology brand that designs, manufactures and markets an expanding portfolio of smart devices worldwide under the In?nix brand, which was founded in 2013. Targeting today's youth with ?rst in class technology, In?nix creates trendy, powerful and attainably priced smart devices that bring the latest technology on the market to users around the world at a time when they need it at a price that they want.

For more information, please visit: http://www.infinixmobility.com/

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DOHA, Qatar, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Lynk & Co, the global automotive brand redefining the concept of "new premium," has announced its plan for the Geneva International Motor Show Qatar. The brand will exhibit its innovative lineup of vehicles from October 5th to October 14th at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center (DECC). It will be the first time Lynk & Co participates in the Geneva International Motor Show and the brand aims to bring the visitors an immersive experience, and demonstrate its determination to further improve its globalization plan.

Jointly owned by Geely Holding Group and Volvo Cars, Lynk & Co is synonymous with cutting-edge design, advanced technology, and dynamic new energy. Lynk & Co has established a robust global system - including four design centers situated in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and Sweden, as well as a research and development center in Gothenburg, Sweden, known as China Euro Vehicle Technology AB (CEVT). The company efficiently integrates high-quality global supply chain resources and follows rigorous standards for supplier management and component manufacturing.

Lynk & Co will bring its CO: STORE, which showcases Lynk & Co 01, Lynk & Co 03+, Lynk & Co 05 and Lynk & Co 09 in four themed areas along with unique interactive installations and lifestyle initiatives.

Lynk & Co's participation at the Geneva International Motor Show Qatar will mark a step in Lynk & Co's global journey. The brand continues to uphold its commitment to the global customers. To date, Lynk & Co operates in 6 European countries, along with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, achieving cumulative sales of nearly 950,000 units worldwide. So far, there are 375 Lynk & Co Centers, 31 Lynk & Co Spaces, 12 Lynk & Co Clubs worldwide and 5 showrooms in the Middle East to provide customers with a holistic shopping experience, which combines lifestyle products, coffee, and a range of services tailored to meet local customer preferences.

Lynk & Co is also planning for steady global expansion, working towards its comprehensive entry into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries by the end of this year, and will venture into other Arab countries in 2024. In Southeast Asia, Lynk & Co is strategically establishing distribution networks in Vietnam and the Philippines, with expanded sales set to commence in 2024 after the completion of market layout work in 2023.

About Lynk & Co

Launched in 2016, Lynk & Co is created for the new generation of open urbanites. Lynk & Co is not just a new car brand but a new brand in the car industry. Born global, open, and connected, the brand aims to build an open platform connecting people, cars, and the world.

For more information on Lynk & Co, visit www.lynkco.com

Contact:

LynkCo.me@lynkco.com

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Capital raise to accelerate product and technology development and support expansion efforts to reshape communications to HCPs (healthcare professionals) across the globe

PARSIPPANY, N.J., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Doceree, the leading global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic messaging, today announced a USD 35 million Series B round led by Creaegis, the leading digital and technology investment firm. Existing investors, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital, also participated in the round.

Driven solely by the mission to transform healthcare professional (HCP) marketing globally, the funds will enable Doceree to accelerate product development, augment technologies, scale global expansion, and expand team.

Founded in 2019, Doceree empowers pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies and healthcare media agencies with solutions that seamlessly reach HCPs on their networks and within their digital workflows, to achieve better patient health outcomes. The company, with its largest global network of HCP-only digital platforms, has made rapid strides in HCP communications through its programmatic messaging capabilities, to help clients across the globe maximize performance of their physician engagement initiatives.

"We are pioneering HCP messaging solutions that are first to market. It is incredible to watch our innovative products disrupt the space and drive adoption of programmatic technology in the life-sciences industry, not just in evolved markets like the US, but also elsewhere in the same vein. We have been able to simplify HCP engagement globally with our unique AI-enabled proprietary technology and offer quality end-to-end HCP-targeting solutions that have helped our clients succeed with profitable growth. The pharma messaging space is evolving at a fast pace and our solutions are aligned to meet the immediate requirements of the life sciences industry. The investment speaks volumes about the value we are creating in the space," said Harshit Jain MD, Founder & Global CEO, Doceree. Jain further added, "We are growing massively and have competitive edge. We are thrilled about the future as we continue to expand and touch new horizons in the space."

Doceree has grown more than 100% in the last one year with monthly revenue rising five folds between the Series A funding in April 2022 and now. The company has introduced category-first innovations on the demand and supply sides, including Doceree Enterprise, an HCP-focussed global Demand Side Platform (DSP), and Doceree Provider that empowers HCPs to improve health outcomes of their patients. Its HCP marketing ecosystem consists of custom-built solutions that equip life science marketers to engage with physicians at opportune moments with contextual messaging and evaluate campaign performances to improve script lift.

Prakash Parthasarathy, Managing Partner & CIO and Nitish Bandi, Partner, Creaegis, said, "We are excited to partner with Harshit and the Doceree team to support the company in its next phase of growth led by an industry leading digital platform driven by deep learning-based data models. Our past experience of investing in pioneering global SaaS companies and in the healthcare ecosystem will enable us to support the company's mission to create superior outcomes for pharma brands, providers and patients."

On the back of the huge response to its solutions in the US, India and the European markets, Doceree expanded its footprints to Africa, Southeast Asia (SEA), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), curating and iterating solutions that serve the specific needs of marketers in these regions.

"Doceree's technology platform allows biopharmaceutical companies to connect with physicians like never before. The company's impressive growth trajectory is an outcome of its unique, data-driven approach to enable communication with precision and relevance. It has been exciting to partner with Harshit and the team since their Series A round, and we are thrilled to continue supporting their pioneering work," Ashish Venkataramani, Partner, Eight Roads Ventures.

A line-up of smart and connected solutions from Doceree's product portfolio are awaiting launch in the months to come that will bring massive transformational change to the entire ecosystem globally. The products will facilitate HCP targeting like never before, enriching communications at multiple HCP touchpoints in the professional and clinical journeys of physicians.

Investec advised Doceree on the Series B transaction.

About Doceree

Doceree is a global platform building unique solutions for healthcare professional (HCP) programmatic messaging with proprietary data tools. It facilitates messaging between life sciences brands and HCPs through an extensive global network of digital endemic and point-of-care platforms to programmatically deliver personalized communications to HCPs at scale. To learn more, visit doceree.com

About Creaegis

Creaegis is a growth investment firm focused on digital and technology businesses with a team history of investing in some of the digital pioneers in India and the US. The firm recently invested in companies such as Kale Logistics (Enterprise SaaS), Zopper (InsurTech) and Medikabazaar (HealthTech). http://creaegis.in/

About Eight Roads Ventures

Eight Roads Ventures is a global venture capital firm backed by Fidelity, with offices in India, China, Japan, and UK. Our 50-year history of investing includes partnerships with over 300 healthcare and technology companies. Eight Roads Ventures' India healthcare portfolio includes Ashish Life Science, Bicara Therapeutics, Caplin Steriles, Carestack, Cipla Health, Core Diagnostics, Doceree, eKincare, Eywa Pharma, Elucidata, Enzene Biosciences, Enko, Everheal, Immuneel Therapeutics, Laurus Labs, Medwell Ventures, NOCD, Plasmagen Biosciences, Proximie, OZiva, PharmEasy, Richcore Lifesciences, Specsmakers, Spry, Toothsi, Trivitron Healthcare and Ujjala Cygnus. www.eightroads.com

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RS2, a global payment processing and technology leader behind leading fintechs, acquirers and banks, has announced a landmark agreement with CCV Group B.V., a leading international provider of payment solutions with 65 years of experience in the payment industry and catering to over 150,000 businesses across Europe. This transformative partnership will result in CCV adopting RS2's payment platform to usher in a new era of state-of-the-art payment solutions at CCV.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927965580/en/

Under this far-reaching contract spanning a minimum of five years, RS2 will empower CCV with the capability to introduce innovative products swiftly and cost-effectively to its valued customers. This strategic collaboration underscores RS2's dedication to enabling global payment advancements, setting a benchmark for the industry.

"We are very happy to embark on this strategic alliance with RS2. Through our synergy with RS2 and the incorporation of RS2's pioneering platform, CCV reaffirms its strong commitment to delivering professional global payment innovations to our customers," says Jan Hartjes, Director Acquiring Processing of CCV Group B.V.

With CCV controlling the frontend journey of its clients and RS2 controlling the backend, CCV will be able to provide tailor-made services to its customers enabling them to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Gideon Fourie, Chief Commercial Officer of the RS2 Group, expressed enthusiasm about the partnership, saying, "We are thrilled to join forces with CCV. RS2's global presence will empower CCV to seamlessly introduce its payment innovations on an international stage, perfectly aligning with our customers' expanding aspirations."

This strategic partnership between RS2 and CCV leverages RS2's scale, innovation, agility, and market leadership to propel CCV's offerings to cater to the evolving demands of their customers.

About RS2

RS2 is one of the world's leading providers of omni/multichannel payment software and end-to-end payment solutions for both issuers and acquirers on a single payment platform for banks, large financial institutions, Integrated Software Vendors (ISVs), Payment Facilitators (PayFacs), Independent Sales Organisations (ISOs) and merchants throughout Europe, North America, Latin America (LATAM), Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Middle East. www.rs2.com

About CCV

CCV is an international payment service provider which makes cashless payments easy and accessible for both large and small businesses. The offer ranges from convenient online payments to high-performance solutions for stationery and unattended trade. As a pioneer in digital payments and with over 65 years of experience, CCV develops individual, tailor-made payment solutions for its more than 150,000 customers worldwide. Our success is based on innovation combined with long-standing cooperation with our partners and customers. www.ccv.eu

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Contacts:

RS2

Funda Taha

Head of Marketing

funda.taha@rs2.com
MUMBAI, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) awarded 9 years contract to ACES India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Communications and Electronics Systems Company (ACES) Saudi Arabia for providing Mobile Infrastructure Services including 4G and 5G services.



ACES will equip India's longest underground metro line with State of Art mobile telecom infrastructure with 4G and 5G technologies and will cover the entire stretch of 33.5 Kilometers line, which includes 27 stations, platforms, concours, and tunnels. Thus, providing Metro's 1.6 million passengers per day with seamless coverage and enhance mobile data speeds.

Dr. Akram Aburas, CEO of ACES expressed his pride association with this prestigious project and explained ACES future vision as International Neutral Digital Infrastructure Company. He also confirmed that the contract aims to create a modern and intelligent environment for Metro's passengers, travelers and its employees a seamless highspeed mobile service experience.

MMRC Management expressed happiness in partnering with ACES, which aims to equip its longest underground Metro Line-3 with a state of art 4G and 5G Mobile Infrastructure for an exclusive period of 9 years and will neutrally cater 600 million Passengers annually.

The award process was led by Ms. Ashwini Bhide - Managing Director, Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR), Mr. Swetal D. Kanwalu - Deputy General Manager (Town Planning) and Ms. Farha Irani - Assistant General Manager (Town Planning) and others from MMRC.

Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR) expressed happiness for the annual premium offered by ACES being the highest in the country. This endeavor will strongly support Metro Line-3 operations and enhance user experience.

The LoA was received on 26-September-2023 by Dr. Akram Aburas - CEO of ACES, Mr. Mohammed N. Mazher - Managing Director of ACES India Pvt. Ltd., along with other management team members from ACES.

ACES India Private Limited based in India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Company ACES. ACES is one of the leading International Digital Infrastructure company in Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. Several important projects have already been implemented, most notably the expansion of the Holy-Mosque in Makkah, Riyadh Metro, Jeddah Airport, Riyadh Airport, MASAR and international projects like Bangalore Airport, Surat Diamond Bourse, Taj Hotel and others. https://www.aces-co.com/

Mumbai Metro Line - 3 (MML - 3) is one of such key projects to improve the transportation scenario in the financial capital of India i.e. Mumbai. MML-3 project - a 33.5 km. long corridor running along Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ, envisages to decongest the traffic situation in Greater Mumbai. Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) is the nodal agency responsible for the implementation of Mumbai Metro Line-3 (MML-3) project. It has been constituted as a JV of the Govt. of India (GoI) and the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) on 50:50 sharing basis. https://mmrcl.com/

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223194/Director_and_CEO_of_ACES.jpg

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/aces-wins-mumbais-first-and-longest-underground-metro-line-serving-over-600-million-annual-passengers-301940527.html
JINAN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Dazhong Daily report:

On September 25th, the 2023 World Cities Forum and Regional Leaders' Summit was convened in Jinan, Shandong. Guests from over 30 countries and regions were gathered in the province to renew friendship and seek cooperation, writing a new chapter in the development of sister city cooperation.

Lin Wu, Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Zhou Naixiang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and Governor of Shandong Province, Ge Huijun, Chairperson of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Yang Dongqi, Vice Chairman and Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People's Congress, also attended the event.

Paulette Bethel, Ambassador of the Bahamas to China, Yan Dong, Vice President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape of South Africa, Li Jie, Vice President of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kang Byungsam, Mayor of Jeju, the Republic of Korea, and Chen Yuming, Vice President of China Public Diplomacy Association, delivered remarks.

Governor Zhou Naixiang and Premier Alan Winde jointly signed a memorandum of understanding between Shandong and the Western Cape on further strengthening friendly cooperative relations.

At the opening ceremony, 8 outcomes were released, including Initiative on International Science and Innovation Alliance for Green and Low-Carbon Development of Renewable Energy, Initiative for Building a Small Satellite Program for Greenhouse Gas Detection, Initiative on Green and Low-Carbon Urban-Rural Development, Jinan Initiative on Cooperation and Development of Green Transportation, Jinan Initiative on Child-Friendliness, Initiative on Green Development Action, Beacon Action Plan for Green Building, and Hand in Hand for a Shared Future - 20 Years of Shandong Province and the RLS.

The event was sponsored by the People's Government of Shandong Province and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries with the theme of Green Development and Low Carbon Life. It included more than 20 activities, such as the opening ceremony, plenary meeting of Regional Leaders' Summit, world cities forum round-table dialogue, bilateral and multilateral talks, educational and economic events, a tour to Jinan, an exhibition on intangible cultural heritage, and art performance.

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/shandong-kicks-off-the-2023-world-cities-forum-and-regional-leaders-summit-301940589.html
Two posters selected for non-clinical data presentation at leading immuno-oncology conference for the Company's new drug candidate generation, MaaT03X, in combination with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs), for the first time.

Regulatory News:

MaaT Pharma (EURONEXT: MAAT the "Company"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company and a leader in the development of Microbiome Ecosystem TherapiesTM (MET) dedicated to enhancing survival for patients with cancer, announced today that two abstracts have been accepted for poster presentations at the 38th Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting, the world-leading event in immunotherapy, scheduled to be held from November 1-5, 2023, in San Diego, California, U.S.A. This is the first time that the Company will present non-clinical data in immuno-oncology which include its Artificial Intelligence (AI) screening approach and in vitro results for the first member of the new generation MaaT03X range of products dedicated to improving responses in immunotherapy for patients with solid tumors.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapies have become the standard of care for treating solid tumors. However, only around 25% to 35% of patients respond to the treatment. Simultaneously, numerous studies have indicated that immune homeostasis and the diversity and richness of gut microbiota could improve the response to ICI treatment1. This research opens promising new possibilities for enhancing cancer treatment. The Company has chosen to pursue this avenue, focusing on the potential of the gut microbiome's diversity, richness, and its key functional networks, which could be a game-changer in the field of immuno-oncology in the coming years. In this context, the company has developed an AI-driven program to select the most effective tailor-made microbiome for specific indications in multiple areas, with a first focus on ICI.

SITC Poster Presentations details:

Title: Evaluation of a new co-cultured microbiome ecosystem therapy candidate (MaaT03X) for clinical testing as adjuvant/neoadjuvant to immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid tumors

Abstract Number: 1321

Title: Robust Machine Learning (ML) approach for Screening Microbiome Ecosystem Therapies (MET) Drug Candidates in combination with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Abstract Number: 1304

In line with the embargo policy of the congress, additional details on data scheduled to be presented at the 2023 edition of SITC will be released on October 31st, 2023.

About MaaT Pharma

MaaT Pharma, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has established a complete approach to restoring patient-microbiome symbiosis in oncology. Committed to treating cancer and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), a serious complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation, MaaT Pharma has launched, in March 2022, an open-label, single-arm Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with acute GvHD, following the achievement of its proof of concept in a Phase 2 trial. Its powerful discovery and analysis platform, gutPrint, enables the identification of novel disease targets, evaluation of drug candidates, and identification of biomarkers for microbiome-related conditions. The company's Microbiome Ecosystem Therapies are produced through a standardized cGMP manufacturing and quality control process to safely deliver the full diversity of the microbiome in liquid and oral formulations. MaaT Pharma benefits from the commitment of world-leading scientists and established relationships with regulators to support the integration of the use of microbiome therapies in clinical practice. MaaT Pharma is listed on Euronext Paris (ticker: MAAT).

Forward-looking Statements

All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release about future events are subject to (i) change without notice and (ii) factors beyond the Company's control. These statements may include, without limitation, any statements preceded by, followed by or including words such as "target," "believe," "expect," "aim," "intend," "may," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "project," "will," "can have," "likely," "should," "would," "could" and other words and terms of similar meaning or the negative thereof. Forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control that could cause the Company's actual results or performance to be materially different from the expected results or performance expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

1 Routy B. et al, Science 2018, Matson et al, Science 2018, Gopalakrishnan V. et al, Science, 2018

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927694964/en/

Contacts:

MaaT Pharma Investor Relations

Guilhaume DEBROAS, Ph.D.

Head of Investor Relations

+33 6 16 48 92 50

invest@maat-pharma.com



MaaT Pharma Media Relations

Pauline RICHAUD

Senior PR Corporate Communications Manager

+33 6 14 06 45 92

media@maat-pharma.com



Trophic Communications Corporate Communications

Charlotte SPITZ or

Stephanie MAY

+49 171 351 2733

maat@trophic.eu
RIMOUSKI, Quebec, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Puma Exploration Inc. (TSXV: PUMA, OTCQB: PUMXF) (the "Company" or "Puma") is pleased to outline the ongoing progress of its 2023 exploration program at its 100%-owned Williams Brook Gold Project in Northern New Brunswick, Atlantic Canada. The program has successfully shown that gold mineralization extends to 150 m vertical depth at the Lynx Gold Zone ("LGZ") following Phase 1 drilling (see August 23, 2023, News Release). With assay results pending, the Company is now focused on demonstrating the continuity of gold mineralization along the 4 km extension of the Lynx Gold Trend ("LGT") to increase the total gold inventory of the 44,000-ha land package.



2023 Program Highlights to Date

An expanded Phase 1 2023 drilling program was completed with 3,475 metres (24 drill holes);

A new gold showing, the Tiger Gold Zone, was discovered 350 m from the LGZ along the Lynx Gold Trend ("LGT");

24 new trenches were dug on the Williams Brook property;

An inaugural surface exploration program was launched at the Jonpol property;

Terrane Geosciences flew a detailed aerial drone survey (1.4km x 0.6km);

The metallurgical study launched last Fall is progressing.

Tree cutting was initiated along the LGT to facilitate trenching and stripping along its 4 km extension in preparation for the upcoming phase 2 drilling program.



Puma's president and CEO, Marcel Robillard, commented, "Our 2023 exploration program has surpassed all expectations. As we await results from our Phase 1 drilling at Lynx, we are excited to test the extension of the Lynx Gold Trend along the 4 km extension we identified last year. In preparation for our drilling program, we completed additional trenching and sampling to better target drilling and maximize returns. We are encouraged by the robustness of our discovery model and feel that our methodology will again produce results."

The 2023 Exploration Program

Puma is focused on building a gold camp in Northern New Brunswick. Since 2021, the Company made four (4) significant gold discoveries at the Williams Brook Gold Project - the Lynx ("LGZ"), Jaguar ("JGZ"), Cougar ("CGZ") and Panthera ("PGZ") Gold Zones. The Company's current focus, the LGZ, has major expansion potential, as evidenced by the recent drilling campaign and the numerous gold occurrences identified along its 4 km strike extension.

Surface exploration work this summer, along the Lynx Gold Trend, expanded a gold showing identified last year: the newly named Tiger Gold Zone ("TGZ"), located 350 m away from the LGZ, has now been traced over 100 m (Figure 1). Like the LGZ, the gold mineralization at the TGZ occurs in quartz veins, showing limonite alteration at the contact between the rhyolite and sediment. The Tiger Gold Zone is undergoing surface exploration work in preparation for an inaugural drilling program later this year (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Location of the Tiger Gold Zone along the Lynx Gold Trend





Figure 2. Drilling target for potential lateral extension





Initial surface sampling results at the Jaguar, Cougar and Panthera Gold Zones reported last year were impressive (see Oct.20, 2022, Nov. 2, 2022, and Jan.19, 2023, News Releases). Following Puma's proven discovery method, the Company launched its next development phase to include an expanded stripping and trenching program on the gold occurrences discovered in 2022. This program is identifying drilling targets for the zones' upcoming inaugural drilling program. Puma believes that the CGZ, JGZ and PGZ could substantially increase the gold inventory at Williams Brook (Figure 3).

With its objective to build a gold camp at the Williams Brook Gold Project, Puma also used Windfall Geotek's (TSX.V: WIN) with their AI System (Artificial intelligence "AI" technology) to identify and prioritize targets on other areas of the Williams Brook property and the other properties of the project package. CARDS identified several areas of interest close to the Lynx and Jaguar Gold zones that will be mapped, prospected and soil sampled to identify prospective areas for future development (see white area outlined on Figure 3).

Figure 3. Focus areas to increase gold inventory at Williams Brook Gold





Table 1. Highlights of recent sampling at Williams Brook (WB) *

Sample # Property Work Type East X North Y Rock Name Au grade (g/t) G237029 WB Trench 660343 5259477 Quartz vein 288.00 G237027 WB Trench 660341 5259474 Quartz vein 35.20 G239616 WB Trench 660424 5259545 Quartz vein 26.00 G236936 WB Trench 660238 5259246 Quartz vein 13.20 G236937 WB Trench 660237 5259247 Quartz vein 12.45 G238377 WB Trench 660872 5259928 Quartz vein 4.58 G236939 WB Trench 660235 5259245 Quartz vein 3.98 G236941 WB Trench 660239 5259246 Quartz vein 3.58 G236962 WB Trench 660426 5259553 Quartz vein 3.46 G239606 WB Trench 660426 5259549 Quartz vein 3.13 G237030 WB Trench 660343 5259478 Quartz vein 2.78 G239605 WB Trench 660426 5259551 Quartz vein 2.64 G236990 WB Trench 660393 5259406 Quartz vein 2.53 G239629 WB Trench 660388 5259401 Quartz vein 1.94 G236959 WB Trench 660428 5259552 Quartz vein 1.72 G239787 WB Trench 660465 5259531 Quartz vein 1.72 G236909 WB Trench 660252 5259166 Quartz vein 1.59 G239609 WB Trench 660425 5259548 Quartz vein 1.49 G236935 WB Trench 660237 5259251 Rhyolite 1.37 G236931 WB Trench 660243 5259248 Rhyolite 1.15 G236940 WB Trench 660239 5259245 Quartz vein 1.08

*The reader is cautioned that grab samples are selective by nature and may not represent the true metal content of the mineralized zone.

Termination of Option Agreement

Puma entered a property agreement to acquire the Brunswick Au-Ag Property (454 claims for 10,554 ha) near the historic Brunswick 12 mine last winter (see February 16, 2023, News Release). After completing its due diligence, including data compilation and an initial surface exploration work, the Company has elected not to pursue further work on the property and terminate the option agreement.

Upcoming Gold Investor Events

Puma invites shareholders and interested parties to schedule a meeting at the upcoming conferences to discuss the Company's recent news and proposed developments. Click on the links to register.

121 Mining Investment New York

October 23-24, 2023

Explor 2023, Montreal, QC

Oct 30 - Nov. 2, 2023

Marcel Robillard will present on Nov. 1 at 3:40 p.m. Click here for details.

EMP New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB

Oct. 29 -31, 2023

Marcel Robillard will present on Oct. 30 at 3:30 p.m.

121 Mining Investment London, UK

November 20-21, 2023

About the Williams Brook Gold Project

Puma's flagship Williams Brook Gold Project comprises six (6) claims blocks covering more than 44,650 ha in Northern New Brunswick, an established and mining-friendly jurisdiction near paved roads and with excellent infrastructure nearby. The land package is located near the Rocky Brook Millstream Fault ("RBMF"), a major regional structure formed during the Appalachian Orogeny and a significant control for gold deposition in the region.

Since 2021, and with less than $10M of exploration investment, Puma has made multiple gold discoveries at the Williams Brook property and believes that the property hosts a large orogenic/epithermal gold. Puma's ongoing exploration programs are focused on building a gold camp in Northern New Brunswick.

Figure 4. Main gold showings and occurrences at the Williams Brook Gold Project





Qualified Person

The technical information of this release was reviewed and approved by Dominique Gagne, PGeo, a consultant of Puma and a qualified person as defined by the National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

On-Site Quality Assurance/Quality Control ("QA/QC") Measures

Drill core and surface samples are bagged, sealed and sent to the facility of ALS CHEMEX in Moncton, New Brunswick, where each sample is crushed and pulped before being fire-assayed (Au-ICP21). The remaining coarse reject portions of the samples remain in storage for further work or verification as needed. As part of its QA/QC program, the Company inserts external gold standards (low to high grade) and blanks every 20 samples in addition to standards, blanks, and duplicates. All samples over 10 g/t gold or with abundant visible gold are analyzed with a gravity finish (Au-GRA22). Check assays are routinely performed for samples with visible gold to ascertain the gold content of the mineralization zone.

About Puma Exploration

Puma Exploration is a Canadian-based mineral exploration company with precious metals projects in New Brunswick, near Canada's Famous Bathurst Mining Camp ("BMC"). Puma has a long history in Northern New Brunswick, having worked on regional projects for over 15 years. As a first mover, the Company quickly and strategically accumulated an impressive 44,650 ha of prospective gold landholdings in the area. Puma's successful exploration methodology combines old prospecting methods with detailed trenching and up-to-date technology, such as Artificial Intelligence ("AI"), to facilitate an understanding of the geology and associated mineralized systems. Armed with geophysical surveys, geochemical data and consultants' expertise, Puma has developed a perfect low-cost exploration tool to discover gold at shallow depths and maximize drilling results.

The Company is also committed to deploying its DEAR strategy (Development, Exploration, Acquisition, and Royalties) to generate maximum value for shareholders with low share dilution.

Connect with us on Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn.

Visit www.explorationpuma.com for more information or contact:

Marcel Robillard, President and CEO, (418) 750-8510;

president@explorationpuma.com

Mia Boiridy, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development, (250) 575-3305; mboiridy@explorationpuma.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve several known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Puma to be materially different from actual future results and achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made, except as required by law. Puma undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The quarterly and annual reports and the documents submitted to the securities administration describe these risks and uncertainties.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/667cc779-859d-4bc5-85c6-390dbaefd3bc

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9ef3a60c-8eba-419c-a0bc-2d1625648183

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2556a698-3bea-4137-8ad7-a99d9e33ab14

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9d313935-44e0-4419-a64f-89e74199aa06
Cancer is still one of the leading causes of death in children under 14*

Style Against Cancer is taking place from 2nd October 2023 with Friday the 6th October being the key online event day

Help raise money for Children with Cancer UK by donating to your chosen hairdresser's Just Giving page

LONDON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time in its history, Children with Cancer UK is teaming up with hair salons across the country to raise essential funds for families facing a childhood cancer diagnosis.

Style Against Cancer is supported by Claudia Winkleman and celebrity hair stylist, George Northwood, and is taking place from 2ndOctober 2023 with Friday the 6th October being the key StyleAgainstCancer online event day. You can play your part in helping hair salons to raise money for the cause by using a QR code from the comfort of the salon chair to donate to your chosen hairdresser's Just Giving page. This money will go towards funding research into the causes of childhood cancers and develop kinder, better treatments.

Data from Children with Cancer UK indicates that sadly, cancer is still the leading cause of death in children under 14*. Around 240 children in the UK (aged 0 - 14 years) lose their lives to cancer each year* and 10 families a day receive a cancer diagnosis for their child, teenager, or young person*. Two in three childhood cancer survivors will experience long term side effects because of their cancer, or cancer treatment, including heart failure, reduced mobility, and fertility problems*.

George Northwood, celebrity hairstylist said: "I'm thrilled to support this new initiative from Children with Cancer UK as we all know the devastating impact this disease has on everyone. Stylists and their clients can enjoy a day of fun whilst raising crucial awareness."

Jo Elvin, CEO at Children with Cancer UK, said: "Hairdressers of Britain are with us through it all. From those big life moments to the polite summer holiday chat, the conversations that happen in their chairs reaches every community. This is why we are asking salons and barbershops to support Style Against Cancer and help our mission of a world where every child survives cancer."

The new campaign is announced as funding and research have helped lead to increased survival rates for children. According to research from Children with Cancer, fifty years ago, 75% of children diagnosed with cancer did not survive; today 85.2% children diagnosed with cancer in Great Britain survive their disease for five years or more*.

For more information and to find out how you can help raise funds, please visit: https://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/how-you-can-help/cancer-charity-events/style-against-cancer/

*All statistics are attributable to research from Children with Cancer UK

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Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, September 27

For immediate release

27 September 2023

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC

(the "Company")

MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES

The Company announces that it has today purchased 98,000 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 846.64 pence per Ordinary Share. Such shares will be held in treasury by the Company.

The transaction was made pursuant to the authority granted at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 17 January 2023.

Following this transaction, the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury is 20,221,869; the total number of Ordinary Shares that the Company has in issue, less the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury following such purchase, and therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 204,769,434.

The figure of 204,769,434 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for calculations of interests in the Company's voting rights in accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

For and on behalf of

Frostrow Capital LLP

Company Secretary

For further information, please contact:

Victoria Hale

Frostrow Capital LLP

Tel: 020 3 170 8732
EQS-News: Bank of America Securities Europe SA / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Bank of America Securities Europe SA: Pre-stabilisation Period Announcement



27.09.2023 / 18:29 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





27 September 2023 Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful. SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA Pre-stabilisation Period Announcement BofA Securities Europe SA (contact: Victor Dumas Vorzet; telephone: +33187701048) hereby gives notice, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilisation Manager named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation EU/960/2016 under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU/596/2014). The securities: Issuer: SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA ("SCHOTT Pharma") Description: -Offering of existing ordinary bearer shares with no par value of SCHOTT Pharma

-ISIN: DE000A3ENQ51

-WKN: A3ENQ5

-Ticker: 1SXP Offer size: 30,122,924 shares (excluding the over-allotment option) Stabilisation: Stabilisation Manager: BofA Securities Europe SA, 51 rue la Boetie, 75008 Paris Stabilisation period expected to start on: 28 September 2023 Stabilisation period expected to end no later than: 27 October 2023 Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility: Up to 4,518,438 shares

The Stabilisation Manager may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: Trading venues where stabilisation may be undertaken: Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Xetra, BATS Europe, Berlin Stock Exchange, Bremen Stock Exchange, Chi-X Exchange, Dusseldorf Stock Exchange, Equiduct MTF, Hamburg Stock Exchange, Hanover Stock Exchange, Munich Stock Exchange, Stuttgart Stock Exchange, Turquoise MTF, Aquis BV, Athex Group, CBOE BV, Liquidnet EU, Cboe BIDS, Turquoise Dark BV, VirtuPosit and Tradeweb BV



In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilisation Manager may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities during the stabilisation period at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time. Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules. This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction. This announcement and the offer of the securities to which it relates are only addressed to and directed at persons outside the United Kingdom and persons in the United Kingdom who have professional experience in matters related to investments or who are high net worth persons within Article 12(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 and must not be acted on or relied on by other persons in the United Kingdom. If and to the extent that this announcement is communicated in, or the offer of the securities to which it relates is made in, any EEA Member State before the publication of a prospectus in relation to the securities which has been approved by the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 (the "Prospectus Regulation") (or which has been approved by a competent authority in another Member State and notified to the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with the Prospectus Regulation), this announcement and the offer are only addressed to and directed at persons in that Member State who are qualified investors within the meaning of the Prospectus Regulation (or who are other persons to whom the offer may lawfully be addressed) and must not be acted on or relied on by other persons in that Member State. If and to the extent that this announcement is communicated in, or the offer of the securities to which it relates is made in, the UK before the publication of a prospectus in relation to the securities which has been approved by the competent authority in the UK in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 as it forms part of domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (the "UK Prospectus Regulation"), this announcement and the offer are only addressed to and directed at persons in the UK who are qualified investors within the meaning of the UK Prospectus Regulation (or who are other persons to whom the offer may lawfully be addressed) and must not be acted on or relied on by other persons in the UK. This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale into the United States. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration. There will be no public offer of securities in the United States.



27.09.2023 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


Poland Prime Minister Joins Westinghouse, Bechtel and PEJ at Signing Ceremony

Westinghouse Electric Company, Bechtel and Polish utility Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe today signed the Engineering Services Contract for Poland's first nuclear power plant at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in Pomerania. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Anna Lukaszewska-Trzeciakowska and U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski attended the signing ceremony in Warsaw.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927495743/en/

Following the signing ceremony. From left: John Howanitz, President of Bechtel's Nuclear, Security Environmental global business unit; Westinghouse President and CEO Patrick Fragman; Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Anna Lukaszewska-Trzeciakowska; Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki; U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski; Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs Andrew Light; President of Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe Mateusz Berger. (Photo: Business Wire)

The contract scope includes finalizing a site-specific design for three Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear islands based on the most advanced Generation III+ nuclear reactor available today; Turbine Island and Balance of Plant design work; and support for PEJ to prepare license application materials, training programs, and operations and maintenance procedures. The work outlined in the 18-month contract will begin immediately.

"One week ago, Westinghouse and Bechtel, leaders of the American civil nuclear power sector, formed a consortium to design and build the first nuclear power plant under the Polish Nuclear Power Program. Two days later, Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe received a decision on environmental conditions for this project in Pomerania. Today we witness signing a contract for the plant design and engineering. Consistent and timely implementation of the schedules assumed, but also the scope of the contract being executed today, confirm our determination to build the first nuclear power plant within the target timeframe, in line with the budget, and with the optimum utilization of the Polish industry. Westinghouse and Bechtel are completing a sister project known as Plant Vogtle in the American state of Georgia. Their combined experience, lessons learned from the Vogtle project, optimizations implemented on this basis, and the world's most advanced technological and engineering know-how of Westinghouse and Bechtel are now being employed to fundamentally rebuild the Polish energy mix, provide a strong impulse to strengthen the Polish economy and train Polish technicians and engineers. The establishment of a nuclear culture in Poland means new opportunities for the whole country, we want to introduce the best models," said Anna Lukaszewska-Trzeciakowska, Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure.

"This is one of the most significant steps forward to date in U.S.-Polish civil nuclear cooperation. I commend the Polish government and the companies involved in the project for their focus in seeing this effort through to this critical point," said Mark Brzezinski, U.S. Ambassador to Poland. "This is not just a commercial venture. Our hope is to support Poland as it becomes a hub for civil nuclear technology deployment. Energy security is national security, and America's security is interdependent with Poland's security."

"The U.S. Department of Energy has long looked forward to this day, achieving our biggest milestone yet for U.S.-Poland civil nuclear cooperation, years in the making. This collaboration will stretch out for multiple decades, and prove to be a cornerstone of our enduring strategic and commercial partnership," said Andrew Light, Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs at the Department of Energy. "Poland will deploy the most advanced and proven nuclear technology available today, that will provide clean, safe and reliable power, and create tens of thousands secure and sustainable energy jobs over multiple generations. This visionary project will further cement Poland as a premier center for advanced net zero energy solutions which will protect our citizens from climate change while ensuring energy independence."

"We are entering a watershed moment not only for our investment project, but also for the entire energy transition process in Poland. Today's event concludes the planning stage of the nuclear power plant and commences the execution phase with relevant engineering work. In about 1.5 years, the signed contract will result in the design/engineering documentation of the first nuclear power plant to be built in Pomerania," said Mateusz Berger, President of the Management Board of Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe. "This moment is the culmination of very intensive work by many people from the Polish and U.S. government administrations, as well as employees of PEJ, Westinghouse and Bechtel, for which I would like to thank everyone."

"This is a transformational moment for Poland, for our partners, and for Westinghouse," said Patrick Fragman, Westinghouse President and CEO. "The breadth of the work we are performing here, as we create the foundations of a nuclear energy program where none existed before, will be a model for other countries that seek decarbonization and energy security through safe, reliable nuclear energy. Poland is to be commended for showing the way forward."

"Poland's first nuclear power plant is a historic project, vital to the country's energy security and energy transition goals," said Craig Albert, President and Chief Operating Officer at Bechtel. "We're excited to bring Bechtel's seven decades of global nuclear power expertise to this effort, and we're proud to partner with PEJ, Westinghouse, and the thousands of local Polish construction workers and suppliers who will join together to make this project a success."

Poland's first AP1000 nuclear reactor is anticipated to achieve commercial operation in 2033.

The AP1000 is the only operating Generation III+ reactor with fully passive safety systems, modular construction design and the smallest footprint per MWe on the market. In the U.S., at the Vogtle site in Georgia, one AP1000 unit is producing power for the grid while a second unit recently completed its initial fuel load with commercial operations likely later this year or early-2024. Four AP1000 reactors are currently setting operational performance and availability records in China with six additional reactors under construction there. Earlier this year, Bulgaria selected the AP1000 technology for its new reactor program and the technology is under consideration at multiple other sites in Central and Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, and in North America.

Westinghouse Electric Company is shaping the future of carbon-free energy by providing safe, innovative nuclear and other clean power technologies and services globally. Westinghouse supplied the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 and the company's technology is the basis for nearly one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants. Over 135 years of innovation makes Westinghouse the preferred partner for advanced technologies covering the complete nuclear energy life cycle. For more information, visit www.westinghousenuclear.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Bechtel is a trusted engineering, construction and project management partner to industry and government. Differentiated by the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes, we align our capabilities to our customers' objectives to create a lasting positive impact. Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world's infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.

Bechtel serves the Infrastructure; Nuclear, Security Environmental; Energy; and Mining Metals markets. Our services span from initial planning and investment, through start-up and operations.

www.Bechtel.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927495743/en/

Contacts:

media@westinghouse.com

ammeixel@bechtel.com
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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Joe Biden has said that the members of the United Auto Workers union who are on strike against three auto giants deserve the 40 percent pay hike that they are demanding. He made this remark while joining the picket line in Wayne County, Michigan, on Tuesday. Replying to a question after brief remarks to the workers who are on strike for a second week, Biden said, 'Yes, I think they should be able to bargain for that.' Earlier, addressing the picketing workers, the pro-working class president said, 'You saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble'. 'You deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits,' he added. Thousands of UAW members at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis walked out on September 15, marking the beginning of a Stand Up Strike. Their main demands include pay increases and cost of living adjustments, the end of a two-tiered wage structure, defined benefit pension plans for all, and a four-day workweek and more time off. The UAW, which represents about 146,000 workers at the three major automobile manufacturing companies, proposed 40 percent hourly pay increases over the next four years. The President's visit to the striking workers at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne is seen as part of an attempt to ensure the support of the labor union in Michigan, seen as a key presidential election battleground state. It comes a day before former President Donald Trump's announced visit to Detroit to address union members, including from the UAW. Biden's visit is described as 'historic' as he is the first U.S. president to join strikers on a picket line. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Landmark Ruling Is A Major Win For VN Capital and Other Minority Shareholders

GREENSBORO, NC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / A Mexican Federal Court has provisionally suspended Industrias Bachoco's takeover bid after VN Capital Management LLC, on behalf of other minority investors, requested an injunction to seek a better price for their shares. The landmark ruling is the first of its kind issued in Mexico and halts the open public offering process that was scheduled to conclude on September 29th.

VN Capital Management LLC, is an investment advisor to a fund holding 5,247,060 common shares of Industrias Bachoco that represents 0.85% ownership in the company. VN Capital has opposed Industrias Bachoco's delisting and subsequent takeover by the Robinson Bours family since it was first proposed in October 2022 as the offer price dramatically undervalues Bachoco's shares.

"This historic ruling is a massive win not only for Bachoco's minority shareholders, but for all investors in the Mexican Stock Exchange by protecting them from abusive controlling shareholders who are not restrained by supposedly independent boards of directors because those roles are often filled by the main shareholder's friends and business cronies. It's the first of what we hope will be many steps that will provide investors a level playing field in the Mexican capital markets," said James Vanasek, Principal at VN Capital.

"Now that it is halted, we are confident that we can show the court that the true value of the company's shares is substantially higher than what the Robinson Bours family has offered, and we believe it is much closer to 130 Pesos per share rather than the 81.66 Pesos per share in the original November 2022 voluntary tender offer or the 88.26 Pesos in the current one added Don Noone, also Principal at VN Capital.

Given this view, VN Capital will continue to pursue all of its legal remedies, in opposition to the Robinson Bours family gaining 100% control over Industrias Bachoco at a cut-rate price, and VN Capital encourages other minority shareholders to support them in this effort.

About VN Capital Management

VN Capital Management, LLC is a registered investment advisory firm located in Greensboro, North Carolina that was founded in 2002 by P. Donnell Noone and James T. Vanasek. The firm manages a hedge fund that holds a concentrated portfolio of small-cap equities.

About Industrias Bachoco

Industrias Bachoco is the leader in the Mexican poultry industry, and one of the largest global poultry producers. Bachoco owns and manages more than a thousand facilities, organized in nine production complexes and 80 distribution centers in Mexico and a production complex in the United States.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

VN Capital Management, LLC

Don Noone

+1 (336) 897-1615

pdn@vncapital.net

James Vanasek

+61 407 528 900

jtv@vncapital.net

SOURCE: VN Capital Management, LLC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/788016/mexican-federal-judge-suspends-tender-offer
LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Advanced Radiotherapy Technologies ("ART Health"), a Kingsbarn company, has started construction of a state-of-the-art radiation treatment center in Henderson. The center is expected to open for patient care during the first half of 2024 and will have the capacity to treat thousands of cancer patients annually.

Northwest corner of construction site

Northwest corner of construction site

The new facility will include leading-edge cancer therapies not yet offered in the area, such as Biology-guided Radiation Therapy (BgRT) using RefleXion Medical's SCINTIX treatment system. SCINTIX therapy is the only radiotherapy treatment delivery modality to leverage radiotracers for live tumor targeting. This new use of radiotracers turns tumors into biological beacons that actively control treatment delivery in real time via a continuous stream of data. SCINTIX is unique in that it can treat multiple tumors at a time. The center will also include Varian Medical's Edge Radiosurgical system, Siemen's PET/CT, nuclear medicine, and brachytherapy. This will be the most advanced radiation treatment center in Nevada, providing the residents of metropolitan Las Vegas and Southern Nevada access to the most contemporary cancer therapies.

For those diagnosed with cancer, accessing the latest technology and the most effective therapies to ensure the best treatment outcomes is often a challenge. Many times, the equipment to provide those treatments is cost-prohibitive at the local level, requiring the patient to travel to major hospitals or university medical centers. ART Health's goal is to provide leading-edge cancer treatment at the community level so that patients receive the best possible outcomes close to their homes and family support systems.

Including the center in Las Vegas, ART Health has begun the development of three radiation treatment centers with world-class clinical partners, including a prominent local radiation oncology practice, a large regional healthcare system and a major medical academic institution. ART Health will continue to identify clinical partners and new center locations as it continues its expansion nationwide.

"We are very pleased to bring this state-of-the-art radiation treatment center to Las Vegas Valley," stated Jeff Pori, CEO of Kingsbarn, when discussing ART Health's new Henderson clinic. "There are very few major cancer centers that offer these next-generation modalities for cancer management, and we are proud to bring these cutting-edge technologies to our own hometown. We are confident that the combination of these new radiation technologies and world-class physicians will significantly elevate and advance the way we treat cancer patients in southern Nevada."

Contact Information

Emma Williams

Sr. Account Executive

emma@theferrarogroup.com

+17023677771

Holly Silvestri

Partner

holly@theferrarogroup.com

702-367-7771

SOURCE: Kingsbarn Realty Capital

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/788028/art-health-announces-construction-of-a-state-of-the-art-radiation-oncology-treatment-center-serving-greater-las-vegas-nevada
BEVERLY HILLS, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2023 / In a world where the intersection of aesthetics and empowerment takes center stage, Hadeed Plastic Surgery renowned plastic surgery practice, is revolutionizing the industry. With an unyielding commitment to individualized care and exceptional results, the practice is poised to transform the way patients perceive and experience plastic surgery.

Nine Years of Excellence

For nine years, Hadeed Plastic Surgery has been dedicated to enhancing the lives of its clients through cosmetic transformations. With a stellar 5.0-star Google review rating and led by a double-board-certified surgeon, this practice has solidified its reputation as a trusted authority in the world of plastic surgery.

Unparalleled Expertise

At the heart of Hadeed Plastic Surgery lies the exceptional expertise of its lead surgeon. Double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, this accomplished surgeon brings a wealth of knowledge, precision, and innovation to each procedure. The practice takes pride in consistently exceeding industry standards, ensuring the highest level of safety and patient well-being. The surgeon's commitment to staying at the forefront of advancements in the field sets Hadeed Plastic Surgery apart from the rest.

Personalized Care, Every Step of the Way

What truly sets Hadeed Plastic Surgery apart is its unwavering dedication to personalized service. This is not a one-size-fits-all practice; rather, each patient is treated as a unique individual with distinct needs and desires. The team is not just responsive; they are empathetic, compassionate, and deeply committed to ensuring every patient's journey is tailored to their specific goals and comfort. This boutique-style approach fosters a supportive environment where individuals feel valued and heard, rather than just another case.

Empowering Your Best Self

"We pride ourselves on being able to give our patients the results they are looking for," says this revolutionary practice's founder, Dr. Josef Hadeed. "Our mission is to empower people to look and feel their best while providing industry-leading care."

Dr. Josef Hadeed, the visionary behind the innovative practice, is committed to empowering individuals to look and feel their absolute best. With nearly a decade of excellence in plastic surgery, Dr. Hadeed combines the latest surgical and non-surgical cosmetic advancements with a compassionate approach that goes beyond physical changes.

Every consultation at Hadeed Plastic Surgery is an opportunity to explore personal thoughts and concerns. Dr. Hadeed and his team listen, understand, and empathize with each patient's unique journey, ensuring the right procedure is chosen and patients feel supported throughout their transformation.

For those considering their own journey to self-enhancement, Dr. Hadeed invites them to a private consultation where they can experience the warmth of the office, interact with the knowledgeable staff, and establish trust with Dr. Hadeed himself.

Customized Services For Personalized Transformations

Hadeed Plastic Surgery offers a comprehensive range of services designed to meet diverse needs and preferences, ensuring each client's unique journey towards their personal transformation. Their specialized procedures include:

Liposuction - Unlocking Your Ideal Contours

Ideal for individuals aged 20 to 55, liposuction sculpts the body for a more contoured appearance. This transformative treatment targets stubborn fat deposits, delivering precision results tailored to each patient's body and aesthetic goals.

Breast Augmentation - Enhancing Beauty and Spirit

Tailored for women in their 20s to 40s, breast augmentation enhances natural beauty and self-confidence. This personalized service allows women to achieve their desired breast size and shape while maintaining harmony with their overall physique.

Gynecomastia - Restoring Confidence

Designed for men in their 20s and 40s, gynecomastia addresses excess breast tissue concerns. This transformative procedure boosts self-esteem by sculpting a masculine chest contour that aligns with each patient's unique physique, restoring both appearance and self-assuredness.

At Hadeed Plastic Surgery the focus is on individuals, understanding their goals, concerns, and expectations, and crafting personalized treatment plans that ensure a safe, effective, and empowering transformation.

A Practice for All

Hadeed Plastic Surgery welcomes both males and females between the ages of 25 and 60. Their focus extends to individuals interested in plastic and cosmetic surgery, as well as those who appreciate fashion, beauty, and luxury brands. Marital status is not a limiting factor; the practice is inclusive and accommodating to all, including those who have completed their child-bearing journey and are seeking a "mommy makeover" or a "daddy do-over."

Quality, Safety, and Personalization

This practice serves a diverse clientele, from young professionals to seasoned individuals, and it's not just about age or marital status- it's about enhancing your best self. With incomes at or above the local/national median, their clients value quality, safety, and a personalized approach to cosmetic surgery.

For More Information

For more information on Hadeed Plastic Surgery and their personalized services, please visit their website at https://www.josefhadeedmd.com/ .

About Hadeed Plastic Surgery

He is a leading plastic surgery practice in Beverly Hills, California with a satellite office in Miami, FL. With a focus on personalized care, safety, and exceptional results, the practice has gained recognition for its commitment to empowering individuals through aesthetic transformations. Led by a double board-certified surgeon, Hadeed Plastic Surgery offers a range of procedures, including liposuction, breast augmentation, and gynecomastia, tailored to meet the unique needs and desires of each patient.

Business Name: Hadeed Plastic Surgery

Website: https://www.josefhadeedmd.com/

Phone Number: 3109702940

Email: info@josefhadeedmd.com

SOURCE: Hadeed Plastic Surgery

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/788081/where-aesthetics-meet-empowerment-and-safety-hadeed-plastic-surgery-redefines-personalized-care
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - IAMGOLD Corporation (TSX: IMG) (NYSE: IAG) ("IAMGOLD" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Mr. Bruno Lemelin has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Officer effective immediately.

"On behalf of the Board and the entire executive management team, I would like to express our excitement for the promotion of Bruno to the role of Chief Operating Officer," said Renaud Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Bruno's extensive experience in managing complex mining operations throughout his career, coupled with his strong leadership skills, make him the ideal candidate to lead our operational efforts. With Cote Gold on track for production early next year, this is a company that is well positioned to differentiate itself amongst its industry peers and become a leading, high-margin gold producer."

A well-respected executive leader with over 20 years of operational expertise, Mr. Lemelin joined IAMGOLD in 2014 as Mine Manager at Essakane, whereafter he served as General Manager at Essakane from 2016 to 2018 and as Regional Vice President - Americas in 2019. Mr. Lemelin was subsequently named Senior Vice President - Operations and Projects in March 2020. Before joining IAMGOLD, Mr. Lemelin developed his mining expertise with different international mining companies, including SNC-Lavalin as Vice-President, Sustainable Mining, from 2011 to 2014, and for Xstrata (now Glencore) in Sudbury, Ontario, from 2001 to 2003 and at the Raglan Mine, Nunavik, Quebec, from 2003 to 2011, as head of Mining Engineering and as Manager, Strategy, Risks and Communications.

Mr. Lemelin studied at Universite Laval and holds a master's and Doctorate in Mineral Economics, as well as bachelor degrees in Mining Engineering and Business Administration. Mr. Lemelin is a member of the Ordre des ingenieurs du Quebec and the Professional Engineers of Ontario.

About IAMGOLD

IAMGOLD is an intermediate gold producer and developer based in Canada with operating mines in North America and West Africa. The Company is building the large-scale, long life Cote Gold project in Canada in partnership with Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Ltd., which is expected to commence production in early 2024. In addition, the Company has an established portfolio of early stage and advanced exploration projects within high potential mining districts in the Americas. IAMGOLD employs approximately 3,300 people and is committed to maintaining its culture of accountable mining through high standards of Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") practices, including its commitment to Zero Harm, in every aspect of its business. IAMGOLD is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: IAG) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: IMG) and is one of the companies on the Jantzi Social Index ("JSI"), a socially screened market capitalization-weighted consisting of companies which pass a set of broadly based environmental, social and governance rating criteria.

IAMGOLD Contact Information

Graeme Jennings, Vice President, Investor Relations

Tel: 416 360 4743 | Mobile: 416 388 6883

Toll-free: 1 888 464 9999

info@iamgold.com

All material information on IAMGOLD can be found at www.sedar.com or at www.sec.gov.

Si vous desirez obtenir la version francaise de ce communique, veuillez consulter le www.iamgold.com/French/accueil/default.aspx.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182103
EXPANDS ZINC COPPER SILVER FOOTPRINT IN BMC

CORE INTERVALS TO 14.51% ZINC, 5.86% LEAD, 0.67% COPPER AND 139.9 G/T SILVER

MIRAMICHI, NB / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / SLAM Exploration Ltd. (TSXV:SXL) ("SLAM" or the "Company") announces that further to the news release dated September 6, 2023, it has closed the property option agreement dated September 1, 2023 (the "Option Agreement") with Ian Ross (the "Optionor") to acquire a 100% interest in and to the Mine Road project, which is located adjacent to the former producing Heath Steele mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp ("BMC") of northern New Brunswick.

Mine Road Project: The 7,500 hectare Mine Road project comprises 347 units in 2 mineral claims adjacent to the former producing Heath Steele mine property. From 1957 and 1996, the operator mined 21 million tonnes at Heath Steele with an average grade of 4.98% zinc, 0.36% lead, 0.54% copper and 69.66 g/t silver. A total of 2,330 million pounds of zinc, 833 million pounds of lead, 446 million pounds of copper and 45 million ounces of silver were processed. (For reference, these numbers are derived from: McCutcheon, S.R. (compiler) 1997; Geology and massive sulphides of the Bathurst Camp, New Brunswick; Geological Association of Canada - Mineralogical Association of Canada, Joint Annual Meeting, Ottawa '97, Field Trip B7, Guidebook, 85 p.)

Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide Occurrences: The Mine Road project contains 7 volcanogenic massive sulphide occurrences including the Railroad Zone described above. The Company expects to generate additional targets once the Mine Road project database is integrated with SLAM's extensive Bathurst Joint Venture database. A total of $1,448,000 in exploration expenditures have been applied to the Mine Road project during the past 10 years and assessment work credits of $428,776 are available for future claim renewals.

Infrastructure: The Mine Road project is located on the Mine Road (Route 430) which connects the former Heath Steele mine to the city of Miramichi which is 60 kilometres to the southeast. The claims are accessed from this paved road and a series of logging roads. Electric power is available from lines that connect Heath Steele to the New Brunswick power grid.

The Agreement: The Company has made the first share issuance due pursuant to the Option Agreement and it has issued 100,000 common shares to the Optionor at a deemed price of $0.05 per share. The securities have a four month and one day hold period which will be expire on January 28, 2024, pursuant to Canadian securities laws.

The Company can earn a 100% interest in and to the Mine Road project by making the following cash payments and common share issuances over a period of 4 years:

Due Date Cash Payments Common Share Issuances Within 5 days receipt of approval from the TSX-V - 100,000 (issued) On or before the 1st anniversary of the option agreement $10,000 100,000 On or before the 2nd anniversary of the option agreement $10,000 100,000 On or before the 3rd anniversary of the option agreement $10,000 100,000 On or before the 4th anniversary of the option agreement $20,000 100,000 Total $50,000.00 500,000

The Mine Road project is subject to a 2% NSR royalty. SLAM retains the right to buy back half the royalty equal to 1.0% NSR for $1,000,000 and the further right to buy back the remaining royalty equal to 1.0% NSR for $1,000,000 at any time. No finders' fees were paid on this arm's length Option Agreement.

The Company also announces that its board of directors has approved the grant of incentive stock options (the "Options") to directors, officers, employees and consultants to acquire a total of 2,400,000 common shares in the capital of the Company at an exercise price of $0.055. All Options were granted pursuant to the Company's 10% rolling stock option plan (the "Plan") and are subject to the terms of the Plan, the applicable grant agreements and the requirements of the TSX-Venture Exchange. The Options are exercisable for a five-year term expiring September 27, 2028.

About SLAM Exploration Ltd.



The Mine Road project is a significant addition to SLAM's portfolio of wholly-owned BMC projects that include the A'Hearn, Strachens and Portage volcanogenic massive sulphide projects. The Company has extensive experience in the BMC and owns a huge database covering the entire mining camp dating back to its participation in the Bathurst Joint Venture. The Company holds NSR royalties and expects additional cash and share payments on the Wedge, Goodwin, Ramsay and Ferguson projects in this mineral rich area.

Elsewhere in the mineral-rich province of New Brunswick, exploration for gold along regional fault structures has resulted in significant gold discoveries. These include the Maisie gold vein system at SLAMs wholly owned Menneval project. With gold and copper trends up to 20 km long, SLAM has identified an area with high potential for additional gold discoveries and acquired the Shadow Lake, Jake Lee, Rogers Lake and Highway projects. These projects are associated with the Fundy fault zone and located in southwestern New Brunswick where Galway Metals recently announced a 2.3-million-ounce gold deposit at Clarence stream. Targeting critical elements as well as gold, the Company aggressively pursues new exploration opportunities such as the recent Highway and Mine Road acquisitions.

To view SLAM's corporate presentation, click SXL-Presentation. Additional information is available on SLAMs website SLAM and SEDAR+ filings at www.sedarplus.ca. Follow us on twitter @SLAMGold.

QA-QC Procedures: The drilling results described above are from assessment reports by well established mining firms with assays from commercial laboratories. The assessment reports included a summary of QA-QC procedures and the Company deems these results to be reliable.

Qualifying Statements: Mike Taylor P.Geo, President and CEO of SLAM Exploration Ltd., is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and has approved the contents of this news release.

Certain information in this press release may constitute forward-looking information, including statements regarding mineral resources and the Company's plans with respect to the exploration and development of its properties. This information is based on current expectations that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward looking-statements unless and until required by securities laws applicable to the Company. There are a number of risk factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those described herein. Information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedarplus.ca. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Mike Taylor, President & CEO

Contact:

506-623-8960

mike@slamexploration.com

Eugene Beukman, CFO

Contact:

604-687-2038

ebeukman@pendergroup.ca

SEDAR+: 00012459

SOURCE: SLAM Exploration Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/788055/slam-closes-acquisition-of-mine-road-project
In diesem Report stellen wir Ihnen 3 Top-Aktien aus dem Energie-Sektor vor, die Sie unbedingt auf Ihre Watchlist setzen mussen. Lassen Sie sich diese kostenlose Analyse nicht entgehen!

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - TechnipFMC plc (FTI) announced on Wednesday that Equinor has awarded it a large integrated Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Installation (iEPCI) contract for its Rosebank project, located west of the Shetland Isles in the United Kingdom. The contract includes the manufacture and installation of subsea production systems, flexible and rigid pipes, and umbilicals, as well as connection to the host facility. TechnipFMC will use pre-qualified equipment and most of the subsea production systems will be designed, engineered, and manufactured in-country using their facilities and trusted local suppliers. Jonathan Landes, President, of Subsea at TechnipFMC, commented: 'We have collaborated with Equinor on Rosebank since the concept stage in 2019. Using a single interface, we tied together all the work scopes, leveraging our iEPCIT model to reduce project complexity.' Moreover, the company announced that TechnipFMC was chosen for this award due to the expectation of significant value and job creation across the United Kingdom resulting from this project. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Vali Cyber, a Washington, DC-based provider of Linux cybersecurity solutions, raised $15M in Seed funding.

The round was led by Grotech Ventures and the 412 Venture Fund (412VF) with participation from Riverfront Ventures, Florida Funders, and additional investors.

The company intends to use the funds to address the specific security requirements of devices using the Linux operating system.

Led by CEO Anthony Gadient, Vali Cyber provides specific security needs of Linux. Based on DARPA-funded research from MIT and CMU, it has created ZeroLock, a security platform that provides comprehensive lockdown capability and threat detection efficacy while consuming a mere fraction of the resources required by legacy Linux security tools. Its approach is built to put its clients in controlby automating the time-consuming (and error-prone) tasks of securing systems against attack, using behavioral and AI/ML techniques to detect and stop threats, and automating recoveryincluding automatic file rollbackfrom attacks.

FinSMEs

27/09/2023
Multi-starrer survival drama 2018-Everyone is a Hero, is Indias official entry to the Academy Awards 2024, the Film Federation of India announced here on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference, Girish Kasaravalli, noted film maker and chairman of the selection committee announced that the Malayalam movie has been picked for its very relevant theme on climate change and the travails of people vis-a-vis what has been understood as development in the society.

Ravi Kottarakara, FFI President said a 16-member selection committee led by Kasaravalli screened films. As many as 22 films including The Kerala Story (Hindi), Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway (Hindi), Balagam (Telugu),Vaalvi (Marathi), Baaplyok (Marathi) and August 16, 1947 (Tamil) were considered before picking the Malayalam flick, directed by Jude Anthany Joseph.

The director shared a post on Instagram for the announcement, have a look:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jude Anthany Joseph (@judeanthanyjoseph)

The Tovino Thomas, Kunchako Boban starrer film revolves around the 2018 floods that wreaked havoc in Kerala. Its cast include Tanvi Ram and Aparna Balamurali.

In its review of the film, Firstpost wrote- 2018 is less Aashiq and more Hollywood in its approach to a real-life drama. Revise that: it is an all-out embrace of a well-worn Hollywood template for disaster flicks, abjuring New Age Malayalam cinemas famed penchant for understated, slice-of-life storytelling and immersive characterisation. And so, it begins with news of the background leading up to the deluge, introduces us to a bunch of charming people whose fates can be guessed with about 98 per cent accuracy not long into the running time, establishes a person with villainous intent and finds a handsome heroic figure in the midst of several good souls.

With added inputs from agencies
Vishal Bharadwaj has directed a web series with the ensemble murder mystery, Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of the Solang Valley. Taking on the enriched storytelling legacy of Agatha Christie, Bharadwaj follows up on multiple retellings that British TV channels like the BBC and ITV have made household viewing for decades. Not a small challenge, he has given his story Indian context and spin with characters that could fit into any local neighbourhood. Reinterpreting Christies The Sittaford Mystery, this time, murder most foul takes place in snow-covered locales of Manali and the Solang Valley.

Amusingly featuring the entire Naseeruddin Shah- Ratna Pathak Shah family (kids Vivaan, Imaad and Heba), and a sizable list of actors, Bharadwajs detective is Charlie Chopra, a sharp-tongued Punjabi woman. Also an organic farmer and with high stakes personally invested with this murder, she tackles crime by talking to the camera, sometimes making the narrative bumpy. The series has turns and surprises packed in, but the story feels uneven in parts. Still it is a solid attempt at bringing a homegrown murder mystery that goes beyond skin deep investigation.

Bharadwaj has reinterpreted the written word for the screen since the beginning of his career. His love for Shakespeare is evident with his debut film, Maqbool (2004), his rawest and most heartfelt film yet. Taking on Macbeth in the context of Mumbais criminal underworld, with Irrfan Khan delivering a dazzling performance as a vulnerable and guilt ridden protagonist alongside his lover (Tabu), this film inhabited Mumbai with its uncomfortable weather and unglamorous visual side. It doesnt beautify the mess that is Indias maximum city. When he interpreted Othello with Omkara (2006), he worked with the culture, language and landscape of arid, near-deserted farmlands and highways of Uttar Pradesh. The film featured an outstanding performance by Saif Ali Khan, and Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ajay Devgan, Vivek Oberoi and Konkona Sen Sharma in stand out roles. The dialect and local culture enriched the story of Omkara and enhanced its authentic feel. Bharadwajs most indulgent and visually stunning adaptation of Shakespeare is Haider (2014). With remarkable performances by Shahid Kapoor and Tabu, the militancy of Kashmir made for the backdrop, with its stark, snow clad beauty becoming an element of enrichment in the storys violence.

His love for books and literature seems to extend to his fondness for the Himalayan hills. In his web series, he works with DoP Tassaduq Hussain (Omkara and Kaminey) to create a fairy tale like texture to homes and hilly resorts. Cottages with wooden awnings laden with snow and pine trees hidden by thick snowfall as cable cars commute through this landscape reminds one of Sixties Hindi film classics. It also makes murder and mysteries credible, shrouding the goings on with diminished light and some secrecy. This touch- of the weather or a landscape becoming key to a story- also emerged in his film Saat Khoon Maaf (2011). Based on Ruskin Bonds novella Susannas Seven Husbands, this film alternates between Coorgs dense green valleys and the snow-covered imagery of Kashmir for a bit. Rain and winding hillside roads play an important part in moving the story forward. Priyanka Chopras performance stands out in the film as does its ability to capture the isolation of those that live in remote plantations.

A lesser-known film of his, but equally immersive in its local culture, is The Blue Umbrella (2005). A National Film Award winner for Best Childrens Film, this one is set in Garhwal. Adapted from another Ruskin Bond story by the same name, the film is convincing because it is about the tiny squabbles that occur in a tiny, less connected village in the Himalayan hills.

Adapting stories from books to films and web series has caught up in India today. Bharadwajs knack of turning books, plays and short stories into good content for the screen precedes this trend. His characters carry a touch of the bookish, a subtle balance that he manages to pull off with the odd quirk and stand out behavioural tick in them. Sometimes, this doesnt work. For instance, with Rangoon (2017), his impressions of North East India before Independence lacked authenticity or a rooted approach. Some of it seemed imposed from a different world entirely. Similarly, with Pataakha (2018), there is almost a hasty need to pack in a lot of local flavour to fill in for a thin story.

But these misfires are infrequent. Most of the time, when Vishal Bharadwaj sets a film or a story in a certain location and local culture, he makes it identifiable for posterity. We dont have many auteurs in our cinema, despite churning out volumes of films. Bharadwaj remains one, who can build an immersive world within Indian spaces that make a story richer and that much more entertaining.

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Many Indian students in Canada are facing the full force of the countrys housing crisis. Amid sky-high rents and a shortage of houses, coupled with difficulty in finding jobs, international students are bearing the brunt.

The situation is more dire for Indians who have become the largest source of foreign students in Canada.

Lets take a closer look at how Indian students are feeling the pinch of Canadas housing crisis.

Canadas housing crisis

As per BBC, the average rate of a house in Canada was about C$750,000 (over Rs 4 crore) as of August. In big cities like Toronto and Vancouver, houses now cost an eye-watering C$1 million (over Rs 6 crore).

Rent in major cities of the North American nation has also seen an uptick in recent years. In 2017, the average monthly rent for a house in Canada was $1,172, which climbed to $2,289 in 2023, according to India Today.

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto is C$2,500 (about Rs 1.5 lakh), reported BBC.

One of the reasons for the situation is Canadas population growth  mostly spurred by immigration  which is higher than the number of homes being built, noted BBC.

According to Canadas federal housing agency, CMHC, the country needs to construct 5.8 million new homes, including two million rental places, by 2030 to reduce inflated housing prices.

Rise in no. of international students

Last year, Canada accepted 800,000 international students, a whopping 75 per cent surge from five years back.

Ontario, the countrys most populous province, admits the most number of international students, as per India Today. In the 2021-22 academic year, the enrolment of foreign students surpassed domestic ones in about seven out of 24 publicly funded colleges in Ontario, as per an Indian Express report.

Lambton College in Sarnia saw around 92 per cent international enrolment, while 82 per cent of foreign students secured admissions at Canadore College in North Bay. The international enrolment stood around 90 per cent at Northern College in Timmins and over 50 per cent at Sault College in Sault Ste. Marie, the newspaper reported.

ALSO READ: How Indian students contribute crores every year to Canadas economy

How Indian students are suffering

Of the overall international enrollment last year, 320,000 students were from India. In 2022, Canada granted 12 per cent of study permits to students from China, followed by 7 per cent from the Philippines, and other countries.

In the first week of September, about 30 students, mainly from India, protested outside the Canadore College in North Bay to highlight their woes about a lack of housing facilities.

As per a report in India Today, Indian students who recently came to Ontario are forced to go door-to-door to look for rented accommodation from complete strangers.

Amid the high cost of living, many students are sharing a single room in basements of houses and doing whatever part-time jobs they can find.

They (foreign students) end up sharing a store room in some basement of some house and pay $600-650 as rent. The entire $650 given as part of the GIC [guaranteed return by the Canadian government for $10,000 compulsory investment] goes into paying rent. How will the students pay for grocery and phone bills, Gaurav Bhatt, a journalist with The Canadian Press, told India Today.

According to Bhatt, part-time jobs have also become scarce.

Speaking to Indian Express, Gaurav Sharma, a Global Business Management student in Canadas Mississauga, said that the rent of a private room that cost $300 per month a year ago has now jumped to $2,000.

The prices of grocery items, including essentials, have also doubled. Meanwhile, international students, if they can find a job, earn only $50 and $80 per day.

Rent prices have surged drastically, with multiple students sharing a single room and each paying over $500. This stands in stark contrast to the previous year when a private room could be rented for just $300. Students resort to jobs like Uber Eats delivery, but the daily earnings of $50-$80 are inadequate to cover their living expenses, Sharma was quoted as saying by Indian Express.

The higher costs of living and fewer job opportunities are also affecting the mental health of international students, experts say.

Manan Gupta, a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC-IRB), told India Today, The rise in international students in Canada hasnt matched with the provision of basic resources, including housing, mental wellness, basic health care among others.

Is a cap on international students the answer?

With some blaming the rise in the influx of international students for exacerbating Canadas housing woes, the issue has garnered political limelight.

In August, Canadian housing minister Sean Fraser proposed a cap on international students to tackle the skyrocketing housing costs. The idea was turned down by universities, and also the province of Quebec, reported BBC.

On Tuesday (26 September), Canadian MP Jagmeet Singh hit out at the Justin Trudeau government saying international students should not be blamed for the countrys housing crisis.

Justin Trudeaus housing crisis has left students struggling to find a home. Instead of blaming students, we must implement immediate solutions, Singh, the head of the New Democratic Party (NDP), wrote on X.

NDP has a tie-up with Trudeaus Liberal Party.

He also called the proposal to cap the number of international students ridiculous.

To resolve the issue, Singh said that educational institutions should have a plan to house their students, and study permits should be issued to universities or other schools that can show a plan to house their students, reported India Today.

Justin Trudeaus housing crisis has left students struggling to find a home. Instead of blaming students  we must implement immediate solutions. Like, partnering with provinces and post-secondary institutions to construct affordable housing. pic.twitter.com/Qjrxi6HlQN  Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) September 25, 2023

Manan Gupta, the RCIC-IRB from Skylake Immigration based in Ontarios Brampton, told India Today that a cap on international students would not solve Canadas housing woes.  this step alone is not sufficient to solve the housing crisis in Canada. The need of the hour is to mandate educational institutions to build more student housing to match growth in student recruitment numbers, he added.

With inputs from agencies
Chinas influence on Sri Lanka has given India reasons to worry. Even the United States is wary. The recent concern is over a Chinese research vessel, Shi Yan 6, which is expected to dock in Colombo. If Sri Lankan foreign minister Ali Sabry is to be believed, the island nation has not permitted the Chinese vessel to stay after security concerns were raised by New Delhi. But now the ship has reportedly entered the Indian Ocean.

Whats going on? What games are Colombo and Beijing playing? We take a look.

What do we know about the Chinese vessel?

The Shi Yan 6 ships current location is mid-ocean 90 East Ridge in the Indian Ocean and it is heading towards Sri Lanka, according to a report in The Hindustan Times.

The vessel is likely to conduct joint military scientific research in the Sri Lankan exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the area of the ocean in which a coastal nation has rights regarding the exploration, in October and November. Researchers affiliated with Sri Lankas National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) are expected to start a scientific expedition aboard Shi Yan 6. Their primary aim is to conduct an extensive survey encompassing the EEZ and the region of the southern Indian Ocean, a Live Mint report points out.

Organised by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the vessel is scheduled to operate at sea for 80 days with 28 scientific research projects from 13 research teams onboard, covering a range of more than 12,000 nautical miles (roughly 22,200 km), Chinas state-run news channel CGTN reported earlier this month.

For over a month, India has been keeping a close eye on the ship. It entered the Indian Ocean via the Malacca Straits on 23 September. It was spotted in Singapore on 14 September after leaving its homeport Guangzhou on 10 September.

Shi Yan 6 was part of a key project of Chinas 13th five-year plan for science and education infrastructure construction. It has a substantial weight of 3,999 tonnes with an overall length of 90.6 metres and a width of 17 metres. It is a scientific research vessel with a 60-member crew, which carries out oceanography, marine geology and marine ecology tests, reports AFP.

The project leader of the voyage was quoted in the Chinese media as saying, The Indian Ocean is one of the oceans we know least about so far. One of the fundamental reasons is the lack of sufficient on-site observations.

What are Indias concerns?

India has raised concerns with Sri Lanka over the issue of maritime security several times. The proximity of the island nation to southern India and the presence of Chinese vessels, which are notorious for spying, has been a growing worry for New Delhi.

Chinese research ships are said to usually have dual purposes, says The Tribune in a report. While the primary aim is scientific exploration, what concerns other nations is the geopolitical purposes for which they are also deployed.

The Hindu reports that Indian officials expressed concerns over Shi Yan 6 with Colombo.

What has the United States said?

The US has also expressed concerns to Sri Lanka about the vessel. During a recent meeting, US undersecretary for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, discussed the upcoming visit of Shi Yan 6 with Sri Lankas foreign minister Ali Sabray.

Sabray reportedly told Nuland that Sri Lanka would comply with a standard operating procedure, which the government has recently finalised on all foreign vessels visiting Sri Lankan waters and aircraft carrying out any activity in its territory. As part of their even-handed approach, they could not exclude China.

Has Sri Lankan given permission to the ship?

The possible nod to Shi Yan 6 to stay in Lankan waters until November comes after Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe visited India in July. The discussion of China came up during a private lunch he held with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Lankan leader assured the PM that Colombo would be sensitive to Indias strategic and security concerns.

However, it seems like Lanka has backtracked on its promises. But the signals sent by Colombo are mixed.

Sabry on Monday said that Colombo has not permitted the Chinese vessel to dock, adding that Indian security concerns are important for Sri Lanka. Asked about reports regarding Shi Yan 6, he said that they have a standard operating procedure (SOP) and they have consulted many friends, including India.

Thats a conversation going on for some period of time. India has expressed its concerns over a long time, but we have come out with the SOP (standard operating procedure). When we were making that, we consulted many of our friends, including India. So, as long as it complies with the SOP, we have no problem. But if it doesnt comply with the SOP, we have a problem, Ali Sabry told ANI.

However, the ship is now heading towards Colombo raising the hackles of New Delhi.

A month ago, President Wickremesinghe told an American think tank that there are no Chinese spy ships in Sri Lanka and there were no problems in docking permission if the vessel followed SOPs laid down by Sri Lanka.

How many Chinese ships are in Sri Lanka?

The case of Shi Yan 6 is not an isolated one. Several Chinese vessels continue to dock in Lankan ports despite security concerns.

In August last year, another Chinese research ship Yuan Wang 5 was allowed to dock in Sri Lankas Hambantota port despite New Delhis concern. The permission was given with the condition that it would not research while in Sri Lankan waters. The island nation had earlier asked China to postpone to arrival of the hi-tech vessel but later took a U-turn.

India was worried that the vessel would spy on its activities. Yuan Wang 5 is used to track satellite, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile launches. India feared that its significant aerial reach  reportedly around 750 km meant that several ports in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh would be snooped upon along with vital installations in south India.

Since 2019 as many as 48 Chinese scientific research vessels have been deployed in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with the general area of deployment being the Bay of Bengal and south as well as the Arabian Sea towards the Persian Gulf, reports Hindustan Times.

What is Sri Lankas relationship with China?

Sri Lanka is a victim of Chinas debt trap diplomacy. Beijing is the biggest bilateral creditor to the island nation. Sri Lanka owed Chinas EXIM $4.1 billion, or 11 per cent of the countrys foreign currency debt, at the end of 2022, according to government data.

Over the last 15 years, China has built extensive infrastructure projects in the south of the island. The development of the Hambantota port, which sits on the route connecting Southeast Asia with Africa and West Asia, was funded largely by China.

Sri Lankas economic crisis was triggered by high-interest loans and infrastructure projects under Chinas Road and Belt Initiative, which were funded by EXIM during the reign of the Rajapaksas. During this time Wickremesinghe served as Cabinet minister and prime minister. He gave the Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease after Sri Lanka could not repay the loans.

Now Lanka continues to be indebted to China and is finding it hard to play the balancing act with New Delhi and Beijing.

With inputs from agencies
A 98-year-old World War II hero who fought for Ukraines independence seemed to be receiving a heartfelt and righteous tribute from Canadian politicians.

However, it soon came to light that the man had actually served in an infamous Nazi unit, which sparked outrage over the standing ovation he had received in front of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Lets take a closer look.

Also read: How India-Canada ties turned rocky under Justins father, Pierre Trudeau

The standing ovation

On 22 September, during Ukrainian president Zelenskyys speech in Canadas Parliament, Yaroslav Hunka was honoured by the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada.

The speaker of parliament Anthony Rota hailed Hunka as a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and a Canadian hero.

Then, the parliamentarians in attendance, together with Zelenskyy and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau gave the nonagenarian a standing ovation.

Hunka participated in World War Two as a member of the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, a voluntary Nazi-commanded organisation made up primarily of ethnic Ukrainians. Despite the division not having been found guilty of any war crimes by a court, its members are accused of murdering Polish and Jewish citizens, according to NBC News.

Before surrendering to the Western Allies in 1945, the group was given the new name First Ukrainian Division.

According to Dominique Arel, head of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa, the division attracted hundreds of Ukrainian volunteers, many of whom joined in the hopes of achieving Ukrainian independence.

The Jewish advocacy group called the incident shocking and incredibly disturbing.

This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament, the organisation said, adding it had handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine.

Also read: Will India-Canada ties continue? What Canadas defence minister said

Deepest apologies

Rota, who was first elected in 2004 and became speaker in 2019, apologised on Sunday, saying that he had subsequently become aware of more information which caused him to regret his remarks about Hunka.

No one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered the. This initiative was entirely my own I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world, he said.

On Monday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Rotas remarks shameful. This is something that is deeply embarrassing to the parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians, he said.

The main opposition Conservatives slammed the Trudeau administration for failing to properly vet Hunka, despite claims it had no advance notice hed been invited to the event.

Responding to Rotas statement, the Canadian Jewish group The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said it appreciated the apology, adding that proper vetting is imperative to ensure such an unacceptable incident does not occur again.

Rota apologised again on Monday, speaking in person to colleagues on the floor of the House.

Criticism

One of those expressing displeasure was Polands ambassador to Canada, who demanded an apology for the way the legislature whitewashed such villains.

According to a statement by Polish minister Przemyslaw Czarnek, Poland is looking into legal and diplomatic measures to request the extradition of Hunka.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Czarnek wrote, In view of the scandalous events in the Canadian Parliament, which involved honouring, in the presence of President Zelenskyy, a member of the criminal Nazi SS Galizien formation, I have taken steps towards the possible extradition of this man to Poland.

Russia has accused the government in Kyiv of espousing Nazi ideals, despite Zelenskyy being Jewish and losing family members in the Holocaust, and the controversy was likely to add fodder to that narrative.

The Russian embassy in Canada posted on social media that it was an insult to the memory of Canadas sons and daughters who fought Nazism in WWII.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the incident in the House outrageous on Monday.

Many Western countries, including Canada, have raised a young generation that does not know who fought whom or what happened during the Second World War. And they know nothing about the threat of fascism, he said.

Russias ambassador to Canada, Oleg Stepanov, said that inviting the former Nazi into Parliament was no accident, calling the Canadian government essentially the personification of neoliberal fascism, according to Russian news agency RIA.

And Russias permanent representative in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, called it a shameful day for Canada, the news agency reported.

According to Russian state-owned news agency TASS, Stepanov the Russian Embassy in Ottawa will send a note to Canadian Foreign Ministry and PM Trudeaus Office seeking a clarification on the issue.

Also read: Who is Irmgard Furchner, 97-year-old ex-secretary of Nazi commander, convicted of complicity in 10,500 murders?

The speakers resignation

On Tuesday, Rota tendered his resignation days after publicly celebrating the veteran in the Parliament.

No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker, Rota said in Parliament. I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.

That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions, he added.

Rota has faced growing pressure to resign from opposition politicians, including New Democrat MP Peter Julian, who called the incident an unforgivable error.

Unfortunately I believe a sacred trust has been broken, he said in the House.

Trudeau on Monday did not call on Rota, who is a member of the prime ministers Liberal Party, to step down. His office has said the decision to invite Hunka had been made by the Speakers office alone.

It also denied allegations that a private meeting took place between Hunka and the prime minister.

Zelenskyys visit to Canada

Zelenskys visit to Canada was the third leg in a tour aimed at bolstering international support, after addressing the United Nations and visiting US President Joe Biden in Washington.

During the visit, Trudeau pledged additional aid to Zelenskys war-torn country.

Canada is home to the worlds second-largest Ukrainian diaspora and Zelensky, in his speech to parliament, expressed thanks for the backing given to Kyiv since Russian troops poured over the Ukrainian borders in February 2022.

With inputs from agencies
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is facing criticism over a recent job posting for a tutor. Many people, including current scholars at the varsity, have pointed out the paltry amount being offered for the listing.

What is the row about? What has been the reaction? Lets take a closer look.

JNUs job posting raises eyebrows

A notice issued by JNUs Centre of Arabic and African Studies under the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies seeking remedial tutors for teaching varsity students has come into the limelight.

As per The Telegraph, the varsity will pay Rs 500 per 90-minute class to these tutors, however, conditions apply.

An honorarium of Rs 500 per class of 90 minutes will be paid subject to availability of funds, the notice reads.

Candidates who have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) are eligible to apply, the notice dated 18 September 2023 says.

Those who pass NET after completing a masters degree can teach in colleges or universities.

Mainly research scholars take up remedial tutoring to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds, reported The Telegraph.

Speaking to NDTV, a former JNUSU office bearer explained that students can take remedial classes for certain difficult subjects. As regular professors have limited time in classes, the departments rope in PhD students as remedial tutors to teach these students.

Whats the controversy?

JNU is facing flak over the notice. Social media users and faculty members have highlighted how the meagre payment would discourage candidates from applying for such teaching jobs.

Abhay Kumar, a history PhD student at JNU, wrote on social media, JNU professors get salary in lakhs and a guest teacher for taking remedial classes for as long as 90 minutes is to be paid just Rs 500. Nothing can be so shameful and exploitative than this.

JNU professors get a salary in lakhs and a guest teacher for taking remedial classes for as long as 90 minutes is to be paid just Rs 500. Nothing can be so shameful and exploitative than this. #JNU #JNUStudents #JNUCampus #highereducation #exploitation #discrimination pic.twitter.com/NOKDOSKaDs  Dr. Abhay Kumar (@abhaykumarjnu) September 25, 2023

It is a shameful state of JNU today. Offering jobs at Rs 500 per 1.5 hours of teaching (subject to availability of the fund). Yes, they can decide to not pay at all. Central university levels of pay at the very least must be maintained for such work, commented Saib Bilawal, another scholar at JNU, as per The New Indian Express (TNIE).

According to The Telegraph, the honorarium is well below the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines which have set a remuneration of Rs 1,500 per lecture (one hour of direct teaching) subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000 per month for a guest faculty.

Abha Dev Habib, a faculty member at Miranda House College, and Rajesh Jha, who teaches at Rajdhani College told The Telegraph that although remedial tutors are not guest faculty, the pay being offered is exploitative. This is exploitation of candidates. Even though tutoring may not be teaching, the person will spend 90 minutes on the assignment, Habib said.

Speaking to TNIE, Shraddha Pal, an assistant professor at Delhi Universitys SFUS, said that in 2014 a remedial tutor was paid only Rs 250 for a 90-minute lecture in JNU.

I believe people who want to add the job experience to their CVs dont look at the money. Also, as part of PhD studies, students are generally asked to remain engaged in remedial tutoring. However, even a painter gets Rs 700 for his days work. The teachers worth should be valued, Pal added.

ALSO READ: How Canadas housing crisis is making life difficult for Indian students

JNUs department responds

Mujeebur Rahman, chairperson of the Centre of Arabic and African Studies, told TNIE that it is the varsity that decides the remuneration. These rates are decided by the university. We have nothing to do with this. Our office had this proforma with them and they issued this notice on that basis. Our department has a total of nine teachers with 250 students. As of now, the notice was issued to hire three remedial tutors.

According to Rahman, all centres under the School of Language and Culture Studies in JNU offer the same pay.

Meanwhile, JNU has said it is making appointments in mission mode. The largest recruitment spree since the founding of JNU in last 19 months. Till now 331 faculty positions have been advertised and about 186 Selection Committees have been conducted, including 128 reserved positions, the university wrote on X.

The largest recruitment spree since the founding of JNU in last 19 months. Till now 331 faculty positions have been advertised and about 186 Selection Committees have been conducted, including 128 reserved positions.

First time JNU has appointed Professors in ST category. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/1yzVP0daHF  Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) (@JNU_official_50) September 26, 2023

JNU has also appointed professors from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category for the first time ever.

With inputs from agencies
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has initiated a preliminary inquiry into allegations of irregularities regarding the construction of a bungalow for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the national capital.

Officials said the CBI has registered a preliminary inquiry against unidentified public servants of the Delhi government.

The preliminary inquiry is the first step to ascertain if there is enough evidence prima facie to file a regular FIR.

The ruling AAP, rejecting any allegations of wrongdoing by Kejriwal, accused the BJP of trying to finish off the party.

But what do we know about this row? And what happens next?

Lets take a closer look:

What happened?

As per Hindustan Times, Kejriwal has been staying at the official residence at 6 Flagstaff Road since becoming chief minister in 2015.

Officials said the CBIs anti-corruption branch has demanded the Public Works Department release records related to the building.

These include the approval and recommendation of its officials relating to alteration, tender documents, bids submitted by contractors, approval of plans and any requests for superior work including modular kitchen, marble flooring and other ornamental work.

As per News18, the agency has asked the PWD to produce papers showing how the project was sanctioned.

The CBI had given the PWD until 10 am on 26 September to produce the papers.

The BJP has claimed it has documents showing Kejriwals bungalow has marble from Vietnam as well as pre-fabricated wooden walls and curtains costing lakhs of Rupees.

A single curtain alone cost Rs 8 lakh, the BJP claimed, as per NDTV.

The BJP in April claimed that around Rs 45 crore was spent on the beautification of Kejriwals official residence in the Civil Lines area of the city and demanded his resignation on moral grounds.

Documents provided by sources showed that a total of  44.78 crore against a sanctioned amount of  43.70 crore was spent on addition/alternation of Kejriwals government accommodation on 6, Flagstaff Road in Civil Lines.

The money was spent in six tranches between September 9, 2020, to June, 2022, the documents showed.

According to the documents, the total expenditure included Rs11.30 crore on interior decoration, Rs 6.02 crore on stone and marble flooring, Rs one crore on interior consultancy, Rs 2.58 crore on electrical fittings and appliances, Rs 2.85 crore on fire fighting system, Rs 1.41 crore on wardrobe and accessories fitting, and Rs 1.1 crore on kitchen appliances.

A separate amount of Rs 8.11 crore of the sanctioned amount of Rs 9.99 crore was spent on the camp office of the chief minister at his official residence, it showed.

It was not renovation and a new structure has come up in the place of the old structure. His camp office is also there. The expenditure is around Rs 44 crore but what is to be noted that the old structures have been replaced with new ones, a senior PWD official said in April.

BJP claims victory

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, speaking to PTI, said, From the first day we have maintained that the way this bungalow was constructed by violating all rules and regulations, massive corruption has taken place.

After this CBI investigation, Arvind Kejriwal would have to answer who gave the order for all these constructions (at CMs residence), he added.

Sachdeva in June claimed Kejriwal was not eligible for a bungalow.

Sachdeva said the national capital Delhi being a Union Territory, its chief minister is eligible only for Type VII accommodation.

However, Kejriwals bungalow is much bigger than what he is eligible for, according to the guidelines of the ministry of housing and urban affairs, Sachdeva alleged.

Citing a show cause notice issued by the Directorate of Vigilance to the Public Works Department engineers, he said, We want to know who asked the PWD to carry out renovations and expansion of the CM bungalow without any proper tender and budgetary provisions.

The PWD had initially issued a proposal only for the renovation and beautification of the bungalow, but they constructed an entirely new bungalow, he alleged.

Sachdeva claimed the PWD increased the cost of renovation work at Kejriwals official residence from Rs 7.62 crore to Rs 33.20 crore without any sanction.

The notice said PWD officials recorded on files of the department that changes made in the drawings of the interiors as per the requirement of the chief minister resulted in deviation in total work done and sanctioned amount.

The PWD demolished the old structure without a survey report and constructed the new building without getting a new building plan sanctioned, it said.

Sachdeva said in a statement that Rs 45 crore was spent on the beautification of Kejriwals bungalow at a time when Delhi was battling COVID-19.

Kejriwal should answer the people of Delhi about his moral authority with which he spent around Rs 45 crore on the beautification of his bungalow when most of the public development works were stalled during the Covid phase, Sachdeva said.

It has been established that Kejriwal does not live in a house but a Sheesh Mahal (in opulence), said the Delhi BJP president and asked the chief Minister to resign on moral grounds.

He said the 16-month period from September, 2020 to December, 2021 was the peak Covid phase when industrial activities were halted and Delhi government revenue had come down by to less than half, and it had stopped development projects citing a lack of funds, he said.

In that critical phase Kejriwals splashing about Rs 45 crore on his house is a big proof of his insensitivity, Mr Sachdeva alleged.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri alleged that the simplicity and honesty of Mr Kejriwal has been exposed and he should immediately resign.

AAP cries foul

The AAP on Wednesday claimed that the BJP was attempting to stop the party from working for the people.

This is the reason why the countrys best health and education ministers Satyendar Jain and Manish Sisodia were put behind bars, the AAP alleged.

The BJP is using all its power to finish the AAP, the party alleged.

There is only one party which is AAP that seeks votes on the basis of doing good work in the fields of health and education but, the BJP does not want the poor people should have good education and excellent health facilities, it added.

Until now, more than 50 cases have been filed against Kejriwal and investigated. Nothing was found then and nothing will be found now. BJP may conduct as many investigations, Kejriwal will always fight for the betterment of the common persons, the party said.

Senior AAP leader Raghav Chadha in June had hit back saying the chief ministers residence was constructed 75-80 years ago in 1942.

The Delhi governments Public Works department (PWD), after an audit, had recommended its renovation, he claimed.

Chadha, a Rajya Sabha MP of the AAP, added, It is a government accommodation, it is not Arvind Kejriwals property.

Unless you compare the expenditure on the Delhi CMs residence with that of the PMs residence and those of chief ministers in other states, how would you find whether its less or more? Chadha asked.

He also cited expenditures on the prime minister and chief ministers in BJP-governed states to defend the amount incurred on Mr Kejriwals official residence in Delhi.

With inputs from agencies
He began the struggle in 2016. Seven years later, his legal battle has ended with a victory. The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Indian Air Force to pay a veteran a sum of Rs 1.54 crores on account of medical negligence.

The ruling is significant as it reaffirms the principles of upholding the dignity, rights, and well-being of armed forces personnel.

We take a closer look at the case.

The case

On Tuesday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar held the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Army liable for medical negligence and order the IAF to pay the veteran Rs 1.54 crore.

The apex court in its order said: The appellant is entitled to compensation calculated at Rs 1,54,73,000 on account of medical negligence of the respondents who are held liable for injuries suffered by him. Since individual liability cannot be assigned, the respondent organisations IAF, and the Indian Army are held vicariously liable jointly and severally. The amount shall be paid by the IAF(his employer) within six weeks. It is open to the IAF to seek reimbursement to the extent of half the amount from the Army. All arrears related to disability pension shall be disbursed within six weeks.

According to the submissions, the veteran had approached the court after he contracted HIV during blood transfusion at the 171 Military Hospital, Samba, in July 2002. He had fallen ill during Operation Parakram, which is described by many as the war that didnt take place between India and Pakistan, and was admitted to the hospital in Samba where he was administered one unit of blood. The veteran was diagnosed with HIV in 2014 and enquiries revealed that the infection was due to the blood transfusion.

Subsequently, he wasnt granted an extension of his service and was discharged in 2016. He then sought help from the National Commission Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), seeking compensation of Rs 95 crore.

However, the NCDRC while hearing the matter ruled that owing to the absence of an expert opinion, it could not hold the military hospital or the armed forces guilty for medical negligence.

Against this decision, the air veteran (appellant) approached the Supreme Court.

One of the other complaints that the veteran held against the armed forces was also that they denied him a disability certificate on the ground that there was no provision for the same.

Supreme Court speaks

In its judgment, the Supreme Court stated that people sign up to join the services with considerable enthusiasm and a sense of patriotic duty. This entails a conscious decision to put their lives on the line and be prepared for the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, it said.

Correspondingly, a duty is cast on all state functionaries including echelons of power within the armed forces to ensure that the highest standards of safety which is physical, and mental well-being as well as wellness is maintained. This is the minimum required of the military airforce employer for not only ensuring the morale of forces but also showing a sense of how much such personnel matter and that their lives count which reinforces their commitment and confidence.

The apex court also pulled up the two services for the lack of empathy they displayed towards the veteran. The fundamental principles of dignity, honour, and compassion were glaringly absent in the respondents behaviour.

The court opined that the forces must ensure the morale of the personnel and also show them how much they matter and their lives count.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court said: Although this court has attempted to give tangible elief at the end of the day, it realises that no amount of compensation and monetary terms can undo the harm caused by such behaviour which has shaken the foundation of the appellants dignity, robbed him of honour and rendered him not only desperate but cynical.

Medical negligence in India

The issue of medical negligence in India is an old one. However, in March it was reported that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has taken up for consideration the healthcare sectors long-standing demand to frame guidelines for determining medical negligence cases.

Though there is no guideline at present, the matter is under consideration, the ministry had then said in response to an application filed under the RTI Act on behalf of PTI.

According to the National Crimes Records Bureau, India recorded 201 such deaths in 2019, 133 in 2020 and 142 in 2021.

Experts say that those who do file a complaint, have years of struggle ahead of them. Less than 10 per cent of doctors charged with the offence are proven guilty.

Records show that in the history of medical negligence cases, the highest compensation of Rs 5.96 crore was awarded to Dr Kunal Saha in 2013 by the Supreme Court of India, for which he had to fight for close to 15 years. The US-based Indian-origin doctor had lost his wife to medical negligence by doctors at a Kolkata hospital during their visit to India in 1998.

With inputs from agencies
The United States has filed a historic anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon.

The lawsuit against the $1.3 trillion dollar company  which rose from humble beginnings in a garage in 1994 to a tech titan  from the US Federal Trade Commission was a long time in the making.

US FTC chair Lina Khan tweeted:



The 172-page complaint, which adds to a slew of legal challenges exposing the retail giant to billions of dollars in potential damages, also comes in the backdrop of Big Tech facing a backlash from lawmakers and scepticism from the general public.

But why has the FTC filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon? And what happens next?

Lets take a closer look:

Why is the FTC suing Amazon?

The FTC has accused the company of overcharging its sellers, inflating online prices and stifling competition.

In essence, it claims that Amazon is a monopoly and that it misuses its powers.

As per Bloomberg, the FTC suit charges the company with compelling Amazon sellers to use its in-house services  including vans and warehouses  in exchange for plum listings on its website.

The agency quotes one seller as saying in its suit:

We have nowhere else to go and Amazon knows it.

As per Forbes, the FTC accused Amazon of charging sellers almost half their total revenue.

It says the practice not only sellers, but also shoppers.

Together, this self-reinforcing course of conduct blocks every important avenue of competition, the complaint states. With its monopoly power cemented, Amazon is now extracting monopoly profits without denting  and instead while growing its monopoly power.

Molson Hart, who sells a building toy set on the website, told Bloomberg that Americans pay higher prices for goods as a result of the companys tactics.

The fees and advertising costs to sell on Amazon are higher than other marketplaces, Hart said.

Because Amazon is by far the largest sales channel for all sellers, sellers must keep their prices high off Amazon to ensure they can continue to sell on Amazon.

The FTC also accuses the company of penalising those that using offering better prices on the website of its competitors.

The FTC said the company did this by making it difficult for consumers to find the seller on Amazons platform. Amazon is also accused of pushing its own products over that of its competitors.

Amazon is a monopolist and it is exploiting its monopolies in ways that leave shoppers and sellers paying more for worse service, Khan was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. The stakes here are high. There is immediate harm that is ongoing. Sellers are paying $1 of every $2 to Amazon.

The lawsuit comes after years of accusations that Amazon and other tech giants have abused their dominance of search, social media and online retailing to become gatekeepers on the most profitable aspects of the internet.

The need to take action against Big Tech has been one of the few ideas that Democrats and Republicans have agreed on, and the FTC chief has been particularly concerned about Amazons power.

The lawsuit, which was joined by 17 state attorneys general, follows a four-year investigation and federal lawsuits filed against Alphabets (GOOGL.O) Google and Meta Platforms (META.O) Facebook.

The FTC said that it was asking the court to issue a permanent injunction ordering Amazon to stop its unlawful conduct. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Seattle, where Amazon is based.

Left unchecked, Amazon will continue its illegal course of conduct to maintain its monopoly power, the FTC said in its complaint which asked the court to put an end to Amazons illegal course of conduct, pry loose Amazons monopolistic control, deny Amazon the fruits of its unlawful practices, and restore the lost promise of competition.

The FTC complaint asked for the court to consider any preliminary or permanent equitable relief, including but not limited to structural relief, necessary to restore fair competition.

Structural relief in antitrust jargon generally means a company sells an asset, such as a part of its business.

Khan, asked about the idea of breaking up Amazon at a press briefing, declined to discuss it.

At this stage, the focus is really on liability, she said.

Khan also added that Amazon had used illegal tactics to fend off companies that would have risen to challenge its monopoly.

Amazon is now exploiting that monopoly power to harm its customers, both the tens of millions of families that shop on Amazons platform and the hundreds of thousands of sellers that use Amazon to reach them, she said.

Interestingly, Khan, while a law student, wrote about Amazons dominance in online retailing for The Yale Law Journal.

She was also on the staff of the House committee that wrote a report issued in 2020 that advocated reining in four tech giants: Amazon, Apple (AAPL.O), Google and Facebook.

In other antitrust trials, the court first establishes that the company broke the law and then, if needed, discusses how to remedy that.

Amazon said that the FTC lawsuit was wrongheaded and would hurt consumers by leading to higher prices and slower deliveries.

The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazons store, said David Zapolsky, Amazons general counsel.

In a blog post, the company noted that it had 500,000 independent sellers on the platform.

Amazon shares, which were down 3.2 per cent before the lawsuit was announced, traded down four per cent in late afternoon trade.

What do experts say?

Some say this could result in a sea-change in online shopping.

A piece in Investing.com noting the substantial governmental effort, said the lawsuit would be followed closely by Amazons competitors as it could provide a glimpse of things to come.

Others see upside from the lawsuit.

Either way, the shareholders win. If FTC loses its status quo, if the company breaks up, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole as the AWS (cloud) business will command a very high multiple. Analysts will figure this out soon, but for now its shoot first, ask questions later,' said Thomas Hayes, chair at Great Hill Capital.

The case, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, was assigned to John Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench in 1981 by Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Amazons critics welcomed the lawsuit.

The Guardian quoted Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the non-profit Tech Oversight Project, as saying, For far too long, Amazon has manipulated the online marketplace to position itself as the worlds largest digital retailer, and in the process, they jacked up prices, stole competitors products, and gate-kept consumers from better products.

No corporation has ever centralized this much power across so many crucial sectors. Left unchecked, Amazons power to dictate and control threatens the rule of law and our ability to maintain open, democratically governed markets, said Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which has pushed for the government to act against Amazon.

The federal complaint follows other actions the FTC has taken against Amazon in the past few months.

In June, the agency sued the company, alleging it was using deceptive practices to enrol consumers into Amazon Prime and making it challenging for them to cancel their subscriptions.

Amazon disputes the allegations.

In late May, the company agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to settle allegations that it violated a child privacy law and misled parents about data deletion practices on its popular voice assistant Alexa.

During the Trump administration, which ended in 2021, the Justice Department and FTC opened probes into Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon.

The Justice Department has sued Google twice  once under Republican Donald Trump regarding its search business and a second time on advertising technology since Democratic President Joe Biden took office. The FTC sued Facebook during the Trump administration and Bidens FTC has pressed forward with the lawsuit.

With inputs from agencies
Venices history, art and architecture attract an estimated 20 million visitors every year. The city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is often crammed with tourists in search of special memories.

But for the people who actually live there, this level of tourism has become unsustainable. So from 2024, day-trippers will be charged a 5 (Rs 439) fee as part of an attempt to better manage the flow of visitors.

The citys mayor has described the charge  which will be implemented on 30 particularly busy days in the spring and summer  as an attempt to protect the city from mass tourism. It comes after cruise ships were banned from entering the fragile Venice lagoon in 2021.

Both policies are designed to respond to the particular problem facing Venice, which is that around 80 per cent of its tourists come just for the day. Research has shown that such a high proportion of day-trippers  who tend to spend little  pushes a tourist destination towards decline.

So, from next year, all travellers to Venice will have to register their visit in advance and obtain a QR code online. Day trippers will then have to pay the fee; visitors staying overnight will not.

Other exemptions include children under 14, as well as people who travel to the city for work and study, or to visit family members. To enforce the policy, the municipal police and authorised inspectors will carry out random checks. Anyone without the proper QR code will face a fine of up to 300 (Rs 26,379).

But some have expressed doubts about whether the 5 fee  the price of a coffee or an ice cream  will be enough to dissuade tourists from travelling to this iconic ancient city. One city politician commented that the charge means Venice has become a theme park, a Disneyland, where you get in by paying an entrance fee.

Certainly the charge is a lot less than Bhutans (recently reduced) sustainable development fee of $100 (Rs 8,320) per night, which applies to all tourists, and was introduced to encourage high value, low impact tourism. Research also indicates that strategies aiming at persuading tourists to come at less crowded times do not reduce numbers at peak periods, but actually end up increasing overall demand.

Veniceland

But Venice has to try something. For researchers, Venice is the embodiment of overtourism, and residents clearly suffer from the consequences  living with the congestion, environmental damage and effects on their lifestyle and culture that 20 million visitors can cause.

This can then lead to a negative response, known as tourismphobia. Another term, Venice Syndrome has been used to describe the decline of the citys permanent population, as citizens feel forced to leave.

Venices population is around 50,000 and has been consistently falling, from a peak of 175,000. If the population falls below 40,000, there is concern that Venice will cease to be a viable living city.

Those who remain have often expressed their discontent. Well-publicised protests have included the Funeral of Venice in 2009, a mock funeral to mourn the sharp drop in population, and Welcome to Veniceland in 2010, which claimed that Venice was becoming more of a theme park.

And while tourist taxes remain popular strategies to address overtourism, their effectiveness remains debatable. Instead, research suggests that a combination of specific economic measures (like fees and variable pricing) and non-economic policies (such as educating visitors) is the best option.

Also Read: Venice avoids UNESCO world heritage downgrade: Why some arent happy

That combination needs to be specially designed for each destination. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution. A report by the World Tourism Organisation on overtourism identifies 11 different strategies and 68 measures to manage visitors growth in urban destinations.

Barcelona, often seen as a city which has done well in handling mass tourism, has successfully used a well-targeted approach. This has included harnessing new technology to develop a data-driven management system to control visitor flows and overcrowding. It also deliberately engaged with the public when deciding on policies, and came up with specific strategies like limiting the number of new souvenir shops.

But it did not resort to charging an entrance fee. Venice will be the first city in the world to do so  and other locations struggling with mass tourism will be keeping a close eye on whether such a bold move turns out to be a success.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The weather these days is extremely unpredictable. Summer is hotter than hot, and rain falls as it pleases. Climate change is disrupting global travel, both in terms of destinations and timing.

Travellers have encountered many weather surprises this summer, from wildfires in Europe to knee-deep mud at Burning Man. Indeed, it was the hottest summer on record around the globe, according to the European Unions Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a prepared statement published 6 September. Our planet has just endured a season of simmering  the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun.

Shifting weather patterns are raising questions about where, when, how and whether tourists will travel.

For example, does it still make sense to visit Italy in July, despite high temperatures, large crowds and minimal air conditioning? Or should peak travel season move to the more hospitable autumn or spring months?

Tourism destinations are starting to take note  and get worried  about the toll climate change could take on this enormous industry.

Hot destinations

Escaping to the Spanish coast for the summer used to sound like a dream. This year it turned into more of a nightmare for Mediterranean travellers. The coastal city of Valencia, Spain, saw temperatures reach 116 degrees Fahrenheit in August, a record high. That came amid Spains limits on air conditioning use in public spaces, leaving tourists to sweat it out.

These trends are only likely to get worse, driving travellers away from hot beachside destinations in Europe, according to a July report from the European Commissions Joint Research Centre. Southern coastal regions such as Greece, Italy and Spain are expected to see a drop in tourism if temperatures continue to increase.

On the other hand, colder destinations in Northern Europe could actually see more vacationers. Denmark, France and the United Kingdom could receive more tourists because of higher temperatures, according to the report. Greenland, which is mostly covered with ice, is expecting to see far more tourists in the coming decades, with a new airport set to open in 2024.

Closer to home, many popular destinations have already been affected by rising temperatures. The namesake glaciers of Glacier National Park have lost an average of 40 per cent of their size between 1966 and 2015, according to the National Park Service. Floridas coral reefs were bleaching and dying under the stress of record ocean temperatures this summer.

Peak travel seasons

Summers are for vacations  thats a truth so universally acknowledged as to be almost self-evident. Families travel while kids are out of school, and office workers flee to vacation in ideal weather.

Yet, as summers continue to warm, these vacations could give way to shoulder season alternatives in spring and autumn months. In other words, tourists could change when (rather than where) they visit.

Indeed, this change may already be taking place. Short-term rental analytics platform AirDNA reported that occupancy rates at mountain and lake destinations in October 2022 were nearly as high as 2019s peak occupancy (in July), bucking the typical sharp downward trend after the summer.

Cherry blossoms in Japan are flowering 11 days earlier than they used to, according to a 2022 report in the journal Environmental Research Letters. This has shifted the tourist-attracting cherry blossom festival from April into March.

Changes in flexible working conditions, as well as pent-up demand from the pandemic, could also be contributing to the rise of shoulder season travel. Yet as more travellers take stock of changing weather patterns, they will likely adjust their schedules to avoid stifling summer heat. The European Commissions Joint Research Centre estimates that southern coastal regions could lose as much as 10 per cent of tourists during peak summer months.

A climate catch-22

A changing climate will affect how and when tourists travel. Yet this causation runs the other way, as well: Tourism is itself affecting the climate.

Tourism accounts for about eight per cent of global emissions, according to some estimates. A single trans-Atlantic flight would require an acre of forest to absorb its carbon emissions. Although the airline industry is racing to reduce emissions, it lags far behind other major emitters, such as passenger vehicles, in making meaningful change.

Also Read: 2023 is heading to be the hottest year on record: Whats behind the intense heat?

What does that mean for airline passengers? Either they must begin reducing the number of miles they fly, or governments may begin imposing restrictions in order to reduce emissions.

For example, France has already banned short-haul domestic flights for routes already serviced by rail. That is, if travellers can get there in less than two and a half hours on a train, they can no longer fly. Similar bans could appear throughout Europe as countries get more aggressive on combating climate change.

Some advocates have even proposed a frequent flyer tax that scales with the number of flights a traveller takes  an effort to curb these large carbon footprints.

Whether these or similar measures take off in coming years or not, this much is clear: The days of unfettered jet-setting could be coming to an end.

With inputs from AP
Eight workers suffered burn injuries after a blast inside a load carrier in Anantnags Larkipora area on Wednesday, police said.

An explosion occurred in the cement mix settling vibration machine, adjacent to portable generator and tin can of oil being carried with labourers in a load carrier at Larkipora in Anantnag. Eight labourers were injured with burn injuries and are being treated at a hospital. Their condition is stable, said J&K Police in a statement.

The police, however, ruled out any terror angle in the incident.

Police said the further investigation into the incident has started.

More details awaited
In order to look into the murder of two students by alleged armed persons, CBI Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar will travel to Manipur on a special flight on Wednesday with other authorities, according to official sources.

As a result of the savage murder of two students by armed men on Monday, there has been a new round of protests across Manipur.

CBI Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar will reach Manipur on Wednesday in a special flight along with other officials. Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay will also accompany the team in Manipur, sources mentioned.

The CBI Director will visit Manipur on Wednesday, according to a confirmation made earlier by Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday.

CM Biren posted on X and said, In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday (Monday) regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators.

To further expedite this crucial investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director, along with a specialized team, will be arriving in Imphal tomorrow morning on a special flight. Their presence underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter. I have been constantly in touch with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice, he added.

Following a protest by students on Monday, the administration again suspended internet access for five days and said that all schools in the state would be shuttered through Friday.

(With agency inputs)
Internet major Google will roll out an earthquake alert service in India that works using sensors in Android smartphones to detect and estimate the intensity of earthquakes, the company said on Wednesday.

Google has introduced Android Earthquake Alerts System in India in consultation with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the National Seismology Centre (NSC).

Today, in consultation with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the National Seismology Centre (NSC), were introducing the Android Earthquake Alerts System in India. Through this launch, we strive to provide Android users automatic early warning alerts when there is an earthquake in their area, Google said in a blog.

The alert service will be available in Android 5 and later versions of the operating system.

The Android Earthquake Alerts System is rolling out to all Android 5+ users in India during the coming week, the blog said.

The system takes the help of tiny accelerometers present in Android smartphones that can act as mini seismometers.

When a phone is plugged in and charging, it can detect the very beginnings of earthquake shaking. If many phones detect earthquake-like shaking around the same time, our server can use this information to estimate that an earthquake may be happening, as well as characteristics of the event  like its epicentre and magnitude. Then, our server can send alerts to nearby phones, the bog said.

Google said that internet signals travel at the speed of light, much faster than the propagation of earthquake shaking through the ground, so the alerts often reach phones several seconds before severe shaking does.

In India, we have been working closely with the NDMA to provide users with helpful safety information about natural disasters such as floods and cyclones on Google Search and Maps. Were proud to further our association with the NDMA, along with the NSC, to bring the Android Earthquake Alerts system to India, the blog said.

This is already deployed in many countries around the world to provide people with an early warning when earthquake shaking begins, it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday alleged that opposition parties stalled the womens reservation Bill for three decades, and are now trying to divide women on the lines of caste and religion when the bill has been passed.

PM Modi was addressing the Nari Shakti Vandan-Abhinandan Karyakram in Gujarats Vadodara.

VIDEO | PM Modi speaks at Nari Shakti Vandan  Abhinandan event in Vadodara, Gujarat. pic.twitter.com/q0iVrHYqGh  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 27, 2023

He said, If they (opposition) were really concerned about womens development, they would have not kept them deprived for decades These are the same people who mocked me when I talked about toilets for women and when I talked about Jan Dhan accounts for women. They mocked the Ujjwala Yojana When we were talking about liberating Muslim women from triple talaq, they were concerned about their political equations They were not worried about the rights of Muslim women, they were only concerned about their vote bank When the law against Triple Talaq was brought, why did they not stand for the rights of Muslim Women?

#WATCH | Vadodara, Gujarat: PM Narendra Modi says, If they (opposition) were really concerned about womens development, they would have not kept them deprived for decades These are the same people who mocked me when I talked about toilets for women and when I talked about pic.twitter.com/bN6ceQM2tS  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

As the opposition parties reluctantly extended support to the bill, I urge women to be wary of them, PM Modi added.

With inputs from agencies
Income tax officials visited on Wednesday a factory of Chinese Personal Computer maker Lenovo and one of its offices in Bengaluru city as part of an inquiry, two sources told Reuters.

The officials inspected laptops of Lenovo employees during the visit, one of the sources said. They also tried to contact Lenovos senior management during and after the visit as part of the inquiry, the person added.

Lenovo, which confirmed the visit, said it was cooperating with the authorities and will provide all possible support required.

We adhere strictly to all applicable laws, regulations, and reporting requirements in every jurisdiction in which we do business, it said.

The reason for the visit was not immediately clear.

Earlier in the day, tax officers also visited the facilities of contract manufacturer Flex Ltd in Tamil Nadu.
India-Russia relations have held very, very steady and we take great care to make sure that the relationship is working, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said.

During a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations here on Tuesday, Jaishankar said that Russias relationship with Europe and the West has been so severely disrupted in the wake of the February 2022 Ukraine war that Moscow is actually turning to Asia and other parts of the world.

The India-Russia relationship has actually held very, very steady, he said, adding that there has been the Soviet period and post-Soviet period.

Part of it is that I think there is an understanding in both countries that as big powers in the Asian continent, there is a kind of structural basis for having to get along, wanting to get along. And so we take great care to make sure the relationship is working, Jaishankar said hours after addressing the 78th UN General Assembly session.

Jaishankar said that Russia has historically seen itself as a European power, even though its spread across both Europe and Asia.

My expectation would be that because its relationship with Europe and with the West has been so severely disrupted since 2022, he said, apparently referring to the US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine.

Russia is actually turning to Asia and to other parts of the world, but primarily to Asia because thats where a lot of economic activity is and it is also an Asian power even though it has not always seen itself primarily as that, Jaishankar said.

I would actually predict that Russia would make very strenuous efforts to build alternative relationships, a lot of which would be in Asia. And this would reflect itself in economics and trade, possibly in other domains, as well.

He added: I know that Russia-China would have a particular profile, a particular salience in this, but I would also say that our own relationship with Russia has been extremely steady since the mid-50s. And its interesting if you look at the last 70 years of world politics, US-Russia, Russia-China, Europe-Russia, almost every one of these relationships has had very big ups and downs. Thereve been very bad periods in that relationship and good periods but the India-Russia relationship has actually held very, very steady.
The Gujarat High Court has ordered the state government to pay an amount of Rs 1 lakh to a man who had to spend an additional three years in jail despite being granted bail, according to a Bar and Bench report.

The jail authorities told the high court that they were unable to open the attachment in the bail order that was emailed to them by the registry in 2020, and hence, the man could not be released.

It is not the case that such email was not received by the jail authorities. It is the case of the jail authorities that necessary action could not be taken in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and though they have received the email, they were unable to open the attachment, the court said.

The man  now aged 27  was serving life sentence in a murder case when the court suspended his sentence and granted him bail. Chandanji Takor, however, despite securing bail remained in jail for three years because the prison authorities failed to take the necessary action.

The applicant, though was released and could have enjoyed his freedom, was forced to remain in jail only because no attention was paid by the jail authorities to contact the Registry or Sessions Court with regard to the order passed by this Court, said the court.

The present case is an eye-opener, the bench said.

Blaming the jail authorities for the negligence, the high court ordered the Gujarat government to pay him Rs 1 lakh within 14 days.

The man is aged about 27 years and he has already undergone, as per the jail remarks, more than 5 years. Hence, in the interest of justice and in order to see that the applicant is appropriately compensated for the negligence of the jail authorities, due to which he was constrained to remain in jail, the order said.
The Manipur government has extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) across the entire state for another six months, starting from 1 October, 2023.

However, 19 police stations in the hill state has been excluded, the notification read.

The Governor of Manipur is of the opinion that the violent activities of various extremist/insurgent groups warrant the use of Armed Forces in aid of Civil administration in the entire State of Manipur, a notification by the Home Department of Government of Manipur read.

The Governor of Manipur hereby accords approval to declare the entire State of Manipur excluding the areas falling under the jurisdiction of the 19 (nineteen) Police Stations as Disturbed Area for period of 6 (six) months with effect from 1 October, 2023, the notification read.

The Manipur government is of the opinion after analysing the prevailing law and order situation in the State that it is not expedient to have detailed assessment on the ground as the Sister Security Agencies are preoccupied in maintenance of law and order. Further, it will be premature to arrive at any conclusion or decision on such sensitive matter without detailed assessment; thereby not appropriate to review the Disturbed Area status to the State at the moment, the notification stated.

What is AFSPA?

The AFSPA gives special powers to the armed forces and the Central armed police forces deployed in disturbed areas to search, arrest and to open fire, if deemed necessary, for the maintenance of public order.

Since 3 May, Manipur has been witnessing ethnic clashes between the Meitei and the Kukis communities. Over 150 people have died since the clashes broke out in the state.

The disturbed area declaration under AFSPA in Manipur (except Imphal Municipality area) is in operation since 2004.

In April 2022, AFSPA was removed from 15 police station areas in six districts and from 1 April, the Disturbed Area notification was withdrawn from four other police stations.

19 police station where AFSPA has not been extended

1  Imphal

2  Lamphel

3  City

4  Singjamei

5  Sekmai

6  Lamsang

7  Patsoi

8  Wangoi

9  Porompat

10- Heingagng

11- Lamlai

12- Iribung

13- Leimakhong

14- Thoubal

15- Bishnupur

16- Nambol

17- Moirang

18- Kakchin

19- Jirbam

AFSPA extended in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) extended for six months the disturbed area status in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland under the AFSPA, 1958.

The AFSPA has been in force in a few districts and police station areas in both Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland for many years now and it is extended periodically.

With inputs from agencies
As part of an extensive multistate operation against a network of terrorists, gang members, and drug smugglers, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained a number of suspects on Wednesday.

An NIA spokesperson told the media that the raids had to do with cases involving numerous feared gangsters and the associates of terrorist Arsh Dalla.

The respective state police force provided necessary support to the daylong raids carried out at 53 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh.

NIA officials said that pistols, ammunition, a large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raids aimed at dismantling the terrorist-gangster-smuggler nexus.

The focus of the operation, according to reports, was on the suppliers of weapons, financiers, and logistical support for numerous hard-core gangs who collaborated with terrorist organisations and drug smugglers operating in Pakistan, the UAE, Canada, Portugal, and other nations.

The following districts in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand were among those where raids were carried out: Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozepur, SAS Naga, and Jalandhar. Additionally, raids were conducted in Chandigarh and the southeast district of Delhi-NCR.

Along with Dalla, other notorious gangsters targeted by the NIA during these raids included Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri, and Deepak Tinu.

Following the filing of five cases since August 2022, including the two new charges against organised criminal gangs in July of this year, the NIA began a string of raids, the seventh in a succession.

The cases concern plans for targeted killings, sponsorship of anti-Khalistan terrorist organisations, and extortion by gangsters, many of whom are incarcerated or conducting business from various other nations.

Investigations have shown that an organised network of foreign-based operators carried out these schemes, which were conceived in jails across several states. These plots included the shocking killings of international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia, mining merchant Mehal Singh, and Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani in Punjab last year.

Many of the crooks and gangsters who were formerly in charge of gangs in India, according to an NIA officer, have migrated to other countries in recent years and are now engaging in violent and terrorist operations overseas.

These criminals have been engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions, the NIA spokesperson said.

The official claimed that with news of various prisons turning into hotbeds of gang warfare and deadly nexi, which recently led to violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail, attention on these gangs became more intense. Similar raids by the NIA had previously taken place at over 370 locations, yielding the confiscation of 38 firearms, including four fatal ones, as well as 1,129 rounds of ammunition.

The agency has so far seized 331 electronic devices, 418 documents, two vehicles, and 87 bank accounts in addition to attaching 13 properties and freezing 87 bank accounts. As a result of the NIAs efforts to demolish and deconstruct the lethal nexus between terrorists, two fugitives have also been deemed designated individual terrorists, 15 have been charged as Proclaimed Offenders, and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) have been issued against nine others.

(With agency inputs)
As a part of its ongoing raids in 6 states, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has picked up Yunis alias Jora, an aide of gangster and Khalistan sympathiser Arsh Dala from Punjabs Ferozepur on Wednesday.

Yunis is a labourer earning 12 thousand a month. His family members were handed over a document which mentioned that he would be questioned in Chandigarh.

It appears that you are acquainted with the facts of this case. Therefore, you are hereby required to appear at the NIA office at 1600 hrs. for the purpose of investigation and to answer certain queries pertaining to the said case, read the document by NIA.

The NIA is conducting major raids across 6 states in 3 cases at 51 locations belonging to associates of Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla Gangs. In the early hours of Wednesday, NIA conducted a swift raid on the house of a liquor contractor in the village Takhtupura of Moga district in Punjab.

Gangster Arsh Dala had demanded ransom from this contractor and this contractor had given some part of the ransom to Arsh Dala. In this regard, NIA is conducting an inquiry, sources said.

The NIA also raided a gun house in the Bajpur police station area of?? Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. NIA has raided another house in the Clementown police station area of ?? Dehradun district of Uttarakhand.

According to the information received from Dehradun Police, the NIA team is conducting raids since this morning.

According to the information received from the state police, the NIA team is checking the weapons in the gun house. Earlier on September 21, the agency had conducted raids at more than 1,000 locations in Punjab and Haryana associated with fugitive gangster Goldy Brar. Punjab police officers along with the NIA had carried out the operation.

Goldy Brar is among the most wanted gangsters named by the NIA. He is also suspected to be behind the recent killing of another gangster Sukha Dunike who was shot dead in the Canadian city of Winnipeg.
National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday began its raids on Hawala operators and logistic coordinators of gangsters linked to Khalistan Group across 51 locations in six states.

According to NIA, among those being raided include associates of gangsters Lawrence Bambiha and Arsh Dalla.

Sources said that the raids are on in 30 locations in Punjab, 13 in Rajasthan, 4 in Haryana, two in Uttarakhand and and each in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

#WATCH | NIA raids underway in Punjabs Moga National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conducting raids across 6 states in 3 cases in 51 locations belonging to associates of Lawrence Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs: NIA pic.twitter.com/LFuiqdiufR  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

The development comes amid diplomatic tensions between India and Canada after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged potential involvement of Indian agents in the killing of a Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on his countrys soil on 18 June in British Columbia, a charge rejected by New Delhi as absurd and motivated.

The NIA had earlier published a list of 19 wanted Khalistani terrorists who were believed to be living in the UK, US, Canada, Dubai, Pakistan, and other countries.

According to reports, citing sources, these terrorists properties are likely to be seized.

The NIA has already confiscated the properties of designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a member of the banned pro-Khalistani group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).

According to reports, the action against these 19 fugitives will be taken under the anti-terror law UAPA. They have been accused of running anti-India propaganda from abroad.

With inputs from agencies
A massive fire broke out at a chemical factory in Punjabs Mohali. Five labourers have been reported seriously injured so far in the incident.

Several others have sustained burn injuries.

The fire broke out at a chemical factory in Industrial Focal Point at Chanalon in Mohali.

Around two dozen fire tenders were rushed to the spot.

Visuals from the spot show thick plumes of smoke around the area where the fire broke out.

VIDEO | Several sustained burn injuries after a massive fire broke out at a chemical factory in Punjab's Mohali earlier today. Around two dozen fire tenders were rushed to the spot. More details are awaited. pic.twitter.com/37WXp1M9U4  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 27, 2023

Further details are awaited.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said it is very reasonable for India to actually prepare for a far greater Chinese presence than seen before in the Indian Ocean Region, asserting that the concerns in the strategically important area will be better addressed if the Quad countries work together.

Pearls look benign unless you ask the oysters. They may have a slightly different perspective, Jaishankar said at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was asked about growing Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean region, described as the string of pearls, and what the Quad grouping of India, the US, Australia and Japan should do to ensure that the balance of power does not shift in a way that would be adverse to India or the United States.

Jaishankar said if one were to look at the last 20-25 years, theres been a steady increase in the Chinese naval presence and activity in the Indian Ocean.

But theres been a very sharp increase in the size of the Chinese navy. So when you have a very much bigger navy, that navy is going to be obviously visible in terms of its deployment somewhere, he said, citing the examples of Chinese port-building in Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka.

Now in many cases, I would say, looking back, maybe the governments of the day, the policymakers of the day, perhaps underestimated the importance of this and how these ports could work in future, Jaishankar said.

Each one is a little unique in a way. And certainly, we obviously do watch many of them very carefully for any security implications that they have for us. So, from an Indian point of view, I would say its very reasonable for usto not try and prepare but actually prepare for a far greater Chinese presence than we have seen before, he said.

Jaishankar pointed out that maritime concerns are not necessarily today between two nations and there are maritime issues for countries to deal with.

There are maritime threats of piracy, smuggling, terrorism and if there is no authority, no monitoring, no force out there to actually enforce the rule of the law, its a problem, he said. The minister said if one looks at what historically used to be the American presence in the Indian Ocean, it is much less so today.

So what it has done is, it has left gaps and it has left gaps at a time when threats have actually increased because the problem forces in a way, the problem people actually are much more technologically adept than they were before, he said.

Jaishankar pointed out that there are global commons in the Indian Ocean region to be safeguarded and there are concerns out there which are better addressed if the Quad countries work together.

Times have changed, force levels have changed, capabilities have changed, and certainly in those that have gone up, China is one of them. But there are countries with which we work and there are countries with which we dont or we work less, he said.
Supreme Court judge SVN Bhatti on Wednesday recused himself from hearing former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidus petition for quashing the FIR in the alleged scam in the states Skill Development Corporation.

As soon as the matter came before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti for hearing, the former said, My brother has little difficulty in hearing this matter. We are directing it to be listed before another bench next week.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Naidu, asked that he be permitted to mention the plea before a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud for urgent hearing.

You may do so. Should we pass over this matter to be taken up later?

Senior advocate Harish Salve, also representing Naidu, said if the bench is not hearing the matter, then passing it over may not help, and the court may direct listing it next week.

Justice Khanna said the bench cannot directly list it on a specific date but may order listing next week.

Naidu had moved the top court on September 23 challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court order dismissing his petition for quashing the FIR against him in connection with an alleged scam in the Skill Development Corporation.

The Andhra Pradesh high court had rejected his plea last Friday.
A heart wrenching incident has come to fore from Madhya Pradeshs Ujjain where a 12-year-old girl, semi-naked and soaked in blood after being allegedly raped was refused help by people even when she went door to door seeking assistance.

CCTV footage from Badnagar road, about 15 kms from Ujjain, shows people staring at the girl in pain after the alleged heinous crime, but no one coming forward to help her. A person was also caught in video shooing the minor away as she approached him for assistance.

The girl, who also appeared to be injured, kept asking for help in the colonies of Sanvarakhedi Simhastha Bypass until she fainted near Dandi Ashram.

A priest of the ashram suspected sexual violence. She was then covered with a towel, while the passerby dialed 100 to call the police.

The cops reached the ashram and rushed the girl to the district hospital. The doctors confirmed rape and her private parts were damaged.

A report by Dainik Bhaskar said the girl walked for over two-and-a-half hours. She even said her mother was assaulted by miscreants.

Reports mentioned that doctors in Ujjain, who were treating the girl, said her condition was critical due to excessive blood loss and referred her to Indore. They even revealed that the rape victim was suffering from diabetes.

#BreakingNews: Schoker from Ujjain stuns India; Minor seeks help after rape; Victim seen walking naked on the streets of Ujjain Activist @BrindaAdige shares her views, listen in@nikhil_lakhwani brings in more details | @poonam_burde pic.twitter.com/iERgAbHIzn  News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2023

The Dainik Bhaskar report said the minor had to undergo operation in Indore after which her condition is said to be stable.

After her condition improved, the police tried to question the girl about the alleged crime and know her name and address, she could not answer coherently.

"The girl was not able to tell us exactly where she is from. But her accent suggests she is from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh," Ujjain police chief Sachin Sharma said, adding that a special team has been formed to identify and catch the culprits at the earliest.

"The medical examination has confirmed rape. We have formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and closely following this. We appeal to the people to inform police if they get any information," Sharma said.

When asked about the location where the crime took place, the officer said, "This is being investigated. We would come up with the information soon."

The initial investigation suggested that the said she is probably from Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj.

Police have registered a case of rape against unidentified accused. The stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has also been invoked.

With inputs from agencies
Dr Mansukh L Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Chemicals and Fertilizers, on Wednesday launched the Sanjeevani-United Against Cancer initiative of the News18 Network and Federal Bank Hormis Memorial Foundation together, with Tata Trusts as a knowledge partner, adding that the outcome of the discussions be conveyed to the ministry.

The Sanjeevani initiative will lead to discussions and deliberations. Send a note on it to us, so we can track the suggestions coming from people. The Modi government believes in stakeholder consultation. Public partnership is integral to Indias health model. Share your ideas with us, so we can fight the diseases in the nation, said Mandaviya.

Sanjeevani aims to raise awareness and encourage conversations around the silent cancer epidemic, and to alleviate fears that often accompany this disease. The collaborative effort seeks to drive positive sentiments towards early and consistent health tests, tumour management, and symptom recognition, all crucial aspects in the battle against cancer.

The Sanjeevani initiative focuses on empowering and supporting individuals to confront fears and actively fight cancer. The number of cancer cases in the country is projected to go up from 14.6 lakh in 2022 to 15.7 lakh in 2025, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Cancer Registry Programme (ICMR-NCRP). Moreover, on a global scale, 30% of cancer patients lose their lives due to late-stage detection, while 70% achieve a reprieve due to early detection facilitated by awareness. Unfortunately, this ratio is reversed in India. It has become all the more urgent therefore to fight the social stigma surrounding it and counter the hesitancy around tests for early detection.

With time, the pattern of diseases changes. Health sector is also dynamic. It is important to have a holistic approach towards the sector. Health can never be a political subject. We merged health with development from 2014. Not as a token, but a total gesture. Instead of just opening dispensaries, we focused on making health services accessible to all, he said.

When PM Modi addressed the country on August 15, 2022, he said we should be a developed country. In the Panch Pran, he said we have to get rid of colonial mindset, but preserve our past. The country needs to move ahead together with one mindset and goal. Every citizen should fulfill his duty towards the nation, the PM said. Taking the inspiration, we need to get inspired by our heritage. For the world, health model is about commerce, but for India, it is a seva. When you inspire people, they will participate in it, Mandaviya said.

During the Covid lockdown, developed nations used to say that doctors and nurses were not reporting to duty. I used to tell them our doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and Corona warriors report to work. Many even lost their lives. He cited a social media video of a nurse who left her three-month-old child with the father to attend to our patients. Modiji inspired and encouraged our Corona warriors. He congratulated them with taali and thali Last January, when I met Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum, he congratulated India for Covid management and drive. During the Covid crisis, the world was seeing a shortage of medicines. India supplied medicines to 150 countries. As a result, India has become a priority country in the world. When the world was stockpiling vaccines, through Vaccine Maitri, we provided vaccines to our neighbouring friendly countries. We could have hiked its price, but we sold it at minimal rates, Mandaviya said.

We have made four pillars for the Ayushman Bharat Yojana. First is the Ayushman Bharat health and wellness centres. We set up 1.6 lakh centres, which offer 13 types of screenings. The theme for your event is cancer. We have trained 10 lakh Asha workers to screen for basic diseases. Asha workers are key to the health workforce. One Asha worker is allotted for 1,000 citizens. They even look out for symptoms of cancer and send them for further screening and treatment under the Ayushman Bharat scheme. Of the 90 medicines for cancer, India gives out 42 at the cheapest rates. We are increasing cancer hospitals and tertiary care facilities. Our approach towards health sector is holistic. We have increased MBBS and PG medical seats and colleges. We have created medical educational resources. Ayushman Bharat health infrastructure mission is working towards it. We launched pharma policy yesterday. We are the pharmacy of the world in generic medicines, he said.

PM Modi had a meeting with scientists during the Covid crisis. They suggested vaccine. He had said that failure will be mine, and success will be yours. Within a month of the world getting its first dose, we administered indigenous vaccine dose in India. We have the potential, we need to apply mind to research and innovation and create the ecosystem. The world is expecting that India will lead. The global south is looking at India to lead. Non-communicable diseases are a challengeWe can work towards wellness, with small changes to our lifestyle At a time when India is heading towards becoming a developed nation, we have made a 25-year roadmap for the health sector, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit is not just a branding event but its an event of bonding.

#WATCH | Ahmedabad, Gujarat: PM Modi addresses an event marking 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, Vibrant Gujarat is not just a programme of branding but more than that it is a programme of bonding pic.twitter.com/8md2Y3XuqT  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

Addresses an event to mark 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Science City, Ahmedabad, PM Modi said, Vibrant Gujarat is not just a branding event, but its an event of bonding. For the world, this successful summit may be a brand, but for me, it is a sign of strong bond. This is the bond between me and 7 crore people of Gujarat.

Recalling his days as the chief minister of Gujarat, PM Modi said that he didnt have much experience as the CM then but all that he had was the unbreakable trust of the people of the state.

I didnt have much experience as a CM, but I had unbreakable trust of the people of Gujarat. However, those who carry agenda, they were busy doing their own analysis of the incidents, said PM Modi referring to his detractors.

He said Vibrant Gujarat Summit was made a primary medium not just for the redevelopment of Gujarat but also its future.

#WATCH | Ahmedabad, Gujarat: PM Modi says We not only did redevelopment of Gujarat but also thought about its future, we made Vibrant Gujarat a key channel for this. Vibrant Gujarat was made a channel to increase the self-confidence of Gujarat and a channel to speak to the pic.twitter.com/IR0S3Whedk  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

Not just the redevelopment of Gujarat, we were also thinking about its future, and Vibrant Gujarat Summit was made a primary medium for that. It became a medium to boost the self-confidence of Gujarat and make eye-to-eye contact with the world, said the Prime Minister.

Attacking the previous central governments, he said those in power used to threaten foreign investors and tried to stop them from coming to Gujarat.

#WATCH | Ahmedabad, Gujarat: PM Modi says, Those who ran central govt earlier used to link Gujarats development with politics. Minister of then central govt used to refuse to come to Vibrant Gujaratthey used to threaten foreign investors and tried to stop them(foreign pic.twitter.com/1kp0iIxNF0  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

Those who ran central govt earlier used to link Gujarats development with politics. Ministers of the then central government used to refuse to come to Vibrant Gujaratthey used to threaten foreign investors and tried to stop them from coming to Gujarateven after so much of threatening, foreign investors came to Gujarat, said PM Modi.

Modi initiated the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit during his tenure as the chief minister of the state in 2003 with the aim of making Gujarat a leader on the global map of industry and trade.

The Gujarat government is now gearing up for the 10th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, which will be held in Gandhinagar between 10 and 12 January next year on the theme of Gateway to the Future.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi visited the robot exhibition at Science City and also inaugurated the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

He was accompanied by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat and Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit will witness the participation of industry associations, prominent personalities from the sphere of trade & commerce, young entrepreneurs, and students of higher and technical education colleges, among others.

PM Modi is also scheduled to inaugurate development projects to the tune of Rs 5,206 crore at Chhota Udepur in Gujarat including village Wi-Fi facilities in 22 districts later in the day.

In a statement released on Monday, the Gujarat government had said that PM Modi will visit Gujarat on Wednesday and inaugurate projects worth Rs 4,505 crore under the Mission Schools of Excellence.

During his visit, he will inaugurate and dedicate various development projects worth Rs 5,206 crore in Chhota Udepur district. Under the Mission Schools of Excellence project, development works worth Rs 4,505 crore will be inaugurated and dedicated by the Prime Minister, the statement read.

A new Navodaya Vidyalaya built at a cost of Rs 23 crore in Dahod and an FM Radio Studio built at a cost of Rs 10 crore will also be inaugurated. PM Modi will also inaugurate village Wi-Fi facilities that will benefit 20 lakh beneficiaries in 7,500 villages across 22 districts.

Development projects worth Rs 277 crore under the Roads and Buildings Department, Rs 251 crore under the Urban Development Department, and Rs 80 crore under the Water Supply Department will also be inaugurated and dedicated, the statement added.

With inputs from agencies
A fresh clash occurred at a disputed village along the Assam-Meghalaya interstate boundary as locals from both sides used bows and arrows and catapults to attack each other, officials said on Wednesday.

However, no injuries were reported in the incident that took place in Lapangap village along the boundary between Meghalayas West Jaintia Hills district and Assams West Karbi Anglong district on Tuesday.

The situation was brought under control after police teams from both states visited the spot and placated the locals.

The situation remained calm but tense on Wednesday morning as police forces from both states prevented villagers from congregating at the spot where the clash occurred.

We are coordinating with our counterparts in Assams West Karbi Anglong district to keep the situation under control, a senior official of the West Jaintia Hills district told PTI.

Lapangap village elder (Waheh Shnong) Deimonmi Lyngdoh claimed that farmers from the village tending to their paddy fields were attacked with catapults, bows and arrows by people from Assam who were hiding near the fields.

Learning about the attack, around 250-a300 people from our village went to the spot and retaliated with bows and arrows and catapults, with the tension lasting the entire day yesterday, he said.

He urged the district administration to provide protection to them.

At least six people, including five Meghalaya residents and a forest guard from Assam, were killed in a firing incident in Mukroh along a disputed section of the Assam-Meghalaya interstate boundary on November 22.

Official talks to reorganise the interstate border between the two neighbouring states are at an advanced stage, with the chief ministers of the two states set to hold a meeting early next month for another round of talks.

Last year, Assam and Meghalaya signed a border pact to resolve the dispute in six areas of difference.

The talks for the remaining six areas of difference are at an advanced stage, sources said.
Over the past few years, Kathmandu has been witnessing a surge in the arrest of foreign nationals in the country. Most of these arrests have been due to their indulgence in criminal activities on the Nepalese soil. The Himalayan nation has a total of 35 border crossings with India, while it shares two border points with China. Immigration in Nepal is governed by the Immigration Act (1992), Immigration Rules (1994) and Immigration Procedures (2008) covering the scope, privileges and obligations associated with immigration.

The National Employment Policy of 2015 introduced a special measure in order to protect the rights of immigrant workers in Nepal whereby Kathmandu committed to ratifying international conventions that ensured the rights of immigrant workers. The Labour Act of 2017 stipulates that international hiring cannot be done without obtaining official permits. To protect its own nationals, foreign nationals can only be retained in skilled labour positions in the absence of qualified individuals from the national talent pool. Besides, the Labour Rules of 2018 and the Foreign Citizen Labour Permission Directive of 2018 define the procedure and scope of foreign nationals obtaining work permits in Nepal.

As per Nepals Immigration Rules of 1994 clauses 28 (e), (f) and (g), foreign nationals can face visa cancellation and deportation if their presence causes an adverse impact on Nepals peace and security or mutual harmony among people; if their conduct is found to be suspicious or if any undesirable activity is carried out, or if their presence is deemed to cause an adverse impact on the countrys social and cultural environment. Any foreign national found guilty of committing any criminal act is dealt with according to Nepali law. Thus, one of the functions of Nepals Department of Immigration is to monitor, manage and control the presence of foreigners in Nepal and investigate and prosecute immigration offences, in accordance with the law.

Nepals tourism is a major attraction to foreign nationals. The first five months this year witnessed the arrival of 4,400,257 foreign tourists in the country, following a significant slowdown in the past couple of years due to the pandemic and strict border sealing and control by China. The government data indicates that since last year, foreign tourists arrival has shown a remarkable recovery for Nepal tourism, a surge of about 83 per cent, according to the Nepal Tourism Board. Besides tourism, Nepal is also heavily dependent on foreign nationals who are hired for technical and human resources to implement its large infrastructural projects. Since Chinese-funded projects constitute the highest number in the country, it naturally paved the way for the increasing presence of Chinese nationals in Nepal.

500 Chinese citizens have obtained labour permit in Nepal since 2017. They constitute the largest chunk of foreign nationals working in Nepal. However, Kathmandus over-dependence on foreign nationals has also become a major cause of concern as more cases of criminal and other illegal activities by foreign nationals have been reported. The range of criminal activities committed by them involves border encroachments, violation of trade practices, fraud and smuggling and human trafficking, according to Nepals Department of Immigration.

It is important to note that the presence of Chinese nationals in Nepal surged rapidly since 2014-15 and their activities in the country, too, widened. That included interference in Nepals politics. Increasing Chinese engagement also exposed the aggressive approach of the Chinese towards Nepalese citizens and institutions. This approach has been the hallmark of Beijing.

China has exploited the huge gaps in Nepalese monitoring of its northern border due to its treacherous terrain and sparse population. These gaps have been exploited by China to their advantage, resulting in increasing Chinese encroachment and border violations.

Besides border encroachments, an increasing number of Chinese nationals in Nepal are accused of a range of violations such as unfair trade practices, wildlife smuggling, human trafficking, gold smuggling, ATM hacking, forgery and cybercrimes that include online frauds. This has made Nepalese citizens and enforcement authorities quite apprehensive about the Chinese presence in Nepal.

However, Chinese authorities have been working overtime to ensure that the details of such crimes and the involvement of Chinese nationals dont reverberate in the public domain.

The arrest of 122 Chinese nationals in 2019 on the charge of their illegal stay in Nepal and involvement in financial fraud and cybercrime gathered much attention. Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS) reportedly took over its investigation as Nepalese authorities were in the process of carrying out the prosecution. According to Nepals Prison Management Department, a total of 1,281 foreign nationals are reported to be in prisons across the country. Interestingly, recent data from Nepalese Police Headquarters revealed that over the past year, Chinese nationals topped the list of foreign nationals arrested in Nepal. Out of 131 arrests of foreign nationals for illegal activities in Nepal, 42 were Chinese.

With open-border arrangements, the massive increase in cross-border illegal activities has linked the immigration issue in Kathmandu with its national security as reflected in the countrys immigration reforms. Serious efforts have been made by Nepalese authorities to revitalise immigrants documentation process and collection of information related to them. In this regard, the launch of interface-friendly software named Nepali Port is an important milestone. It has been designed to replace the traditional IMMI (immigration system) that was poorly designed and it provided access and control of sensitive data to a private player. The renovated data centre Nepali Port features all the basic biometric databases required for immigration, interconnected with broader control authorities and other agencies for information sharing. Thereby, it is a much stronger, smarter and broader security mechanism.

However, one thing is clear the increasing of foreign nationals in Nepal, especially the Chinese nationals is proving to be a major challenge for the Nepalese authorities and common people. There is a huge trust deficit on this front and the increasing involvement of Chinese nationals in criminal activities would add to the deficit further.

The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.

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The surprise of surprises for many unused to the wily ways of the geopolitics of the world is that Pakistan, a die-hard supporter and partner of China (remember the higher than the skies and deeper than the oceans relationship) has materially assisted the NATO partner, Ukraine in its war effort against the Russians in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. China has fully sided with Russia in the war and that is one of the reasons why Russia has sustained its war effort thus far. However, China is not known to have made any warlike equipment available to bolster the Russian effort but has extended its hand only in the diplomatic and the economic domain, buying lots of Russian energy and lending it support at multilateral bodies. So why has Pakistan gone against its ally and strategic partner. It is well known that on 24 February 2022, when the War in Ukraine broke out former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was in Moscow and awkwardly expressed his excitement about the war. It was an inappropriate moment to be there when war was expected and Imrans lack of condemnation of the Russian action put him on the wrong side of the US and NATO but well up with the Sino-Russian combine.

Some months later Imran Khan faced with defeat in a no-confidence vote in the assembly, alleged a US-led plot to remove him as punishment for his Russia trip in 2022 and supposed neutral foreign policy. Everything had anyway lined up against him because of his alleged mis-governance and with the army refusing to further back him he lost power. The Pakistan Army has usually enjoyed the confidence of the US and often acts at its behest. Imran Khan is currently in jail with uncertainty about his continuation in active politics, or that of even his party, Tehreek e Insaaf. The army, earlier his supporter in 2018 is now ranged completely against him. Was it actually the US pressure which transformed Imran Khans fortunes? That is food for thought.

In the beginning of 2023 rumour was rife that Ukraine had fired so much ammunition in the ongoing war, especially tank munitions, artillery shells and rockets that even NATOs stocks were insufficient to sustain the rate of expenditure. With ratcheting up of manufacturing by the NATO nations the Ukrainians seem to have developed even greater hunger to consume and fire. Finally, a consignment of ammunition probably from Pakistans War Wastage Reserve stocks was airlifted to Ukraine. The pipeline of supply apparently continued for some time. Not many paid attention to this, although it was well known that a $450 million deal for refurbishment and overhaul of Pakistans 75 odd F-16 aircraft was an outcome of Pakistans promised supply of ammunition to Ukraine.

The Pakistan governments support to Ukraine at the behest of the US appears to have gone on for some time. Obviously, Pakistans dire economic state was a major factor in its decision making to go along with the US. The economic capital and political goodwill from the arms sales played a key role in helping secure the promised bailout from the IMF and even the FATF. The US State Department probably took the IMF into confidence to enable the nearly $3 billion to be released from the promised loan. Imran Khan had been resisting the conditions that the IMF had laid down in terms of cutting down populist measures. Most of these were eventually adopted by the government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement but some reprieve was probably extracted in turn for the crucial ammunition supply to Ukraine.

So how do the geopolitical equations work here. China is Pakistans perennial friend and cannot afford to shun it completely on the basis of the frequent choices that the latter makes on cooperation with the US. It is only through Pakistan that China gets access to the west Indian Ocean, a crucial area for its energy security. With the proposed India-Middle East-Europe trade corridor energising BRI through CPEC is equally crucial. Through Pakistan, China also gets to open a full conventional war front against India, or at least the threat of it, and a half front through support for Pakistans proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir. China does not easily loosen its purse strings and is therefore unconcerned about a US supported bailout. In fact, it achieves two aspects for its own comfort level: one, it does not have to dole out too much to Pakistan for survival and two, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) remains intact. The effect that Pakistan supplied ammunition has had on the battlefield in Ukraine is not of major concern to China; it is pragmatic enough to realise that this war is un-winnable and a logistics leg up to one side or the other will only lengthen the war, not terminate it in anyones favour.

Of course, Pakistan would like us all to believe that it maintains a strict impartiality in the Ukraine war and has remained in denial about the supposed $900 million that it received for the ammunition sale. Public information on this or an official admission of the sale would also be an embarrassment for China. However, Chinas need for Pakistans support is also strong. Besides all other reasons mentioned, it is believed that Pakistan manages Chinas perception and outreach to the Islamic world especially to the OIC.

The Russians on the other hand will surely have an axe to grind with Pakistan. It obviously perceives the war situation as something winnable and any support to Ukraine would almost amount to an act of war against Russia. The Russia-Pakistan relationship has never been beyond the transactional; Pakistan has always been a part of the US camp. As such nothing much is lost except in one sphere, Afghanistan. Russia was one of the countries which retained its embassy in Kabul after the US withdrawal. Its relationship with the Taliban 2.0 is better than almost all others. The Taliban 2.0 has been pressuring Pakistan on the Durand Line and extending full support to the renegade Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan in the western districts of Pakistan. Helping Taliban 2.0 to wreak revenge on Pakistan may not be the most prudent policy but by doing that Russia can buy temporary peace for Central Asia. With its huge military commitment towards Ukraine, Russia is definitely vulnerable in its south, in the Central Asian Region where a population of 72 million Muslims resides. Russia would definitely value the Taliban 2.0 on its side and that is possible if both are ranged against Pakistan.

For India, the fact that Pakistan could at any stage risk being low on reserves of ammunition is not a happy phenomenon. It can only lead to one surmise that Pakistan continues to remain at frontline status for the US which will extend its facilities and wherewithal whenever Pakistan needs it. In this case it appears obvious that Pakistan received some assurance from the US about ensuring no Indian proactive stance on the border while its ammunition holdings were low.

The above combined with the US stance on Canadas recent/current allegations against India does not make for an enduring Indo-US Strategic Partnership either, something to which both nations seem reasonably committed.

The age-old adage no permanent friends and no permanent enemies continues to hold good for all spheres of geopolitical activities. Alignments and realignments will always examine fresh advantages and effectiveness for either side. While it is being fought the Ukraine war is constantly producing sets of protagonists and antagonists. Hypothetically if it gets over in the next one year, a whole new set of stakeholders will probably emerge. That is true geopolitics.

The writer is a former GOC of the Armys 15 Corps. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.

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Justin Trudeau should know better by now. At 51 years old, he is a stolidly middle-aged prime minister, and as he wraps up his eighth year in office, he has some real experience on the job. Nonetheless, this September has been a bad month even by Trudeaus standards.

And those standards are shockingly low. Indians are of course aware of his Khalistani fraternisation, his accusations of Indian state terrorism and his applause for Ukrainian Nazis. But there is more.

In the United States, Trudeau is more famous for his youthful indiscretions than for his official mistakes. From a biographical perspective, Trudeaus poor judgment with regard to India is just a continuation of his poor judgment about everything.

In 2001, as a 29-year-old high school teacher, Trudeau dressed up as an Arabian prince for a black-tie dinner. That might have been dismissed as mere bad tasteexcept that Trudeau apparently believed that Arabs are from Africa and accordingly blacked up his face for the event.

In the United States, the use of blackface is an absolute taboo. Historically, African Americans were excluded from roles on stage and in film and white actors dressed in blackface to mock blacks and act out racist tropes. The news of Trudeaus appearance in blackface was thus more controversial in the US than in Canada itself.

One youthful indiscretion might be explained away or overlooked. But once the damn broke, it emerged that Trudeau had a long history of appearing in blackface. It was apparently his personal party trick. Trudeau actually admitted to the press that he couldnt remember how many times he had appeared in blackface.

That kind of history would be embarrassing enough for a banker or executive. But Trudeau was a high school teacher. Most teachers understand that they are expected to serve as role models for young people and are keenly aware of intense community scrutiny of their public behaviour.

But thats not all. Trudeau is also the son of a prime minister. His father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister of Canada from the time Justin was born until his early teens. Justin Trudeau has lived his entire life in or on the margins of top-level national politics. He is, in Indian terms, a dynast.

We dont have all the details of Trudeaus many lapses of judgment, but we do know some things. Trudeau has admitted to marijuana usewhile serving as a member of parliament. More seriously, Trudeau was repeatedly implicated in cash-for-access schemes, trading on his famous name (and later on his own leadership positions) for personal gain.

And then theres Khalistan. Indians are keenly aware of the many controversies surrounding Justin Trudeaus embrace of Khalistani separatists. This may seem strange to outsiders, but its par for the course in Anglosphere politics.

In Canada, Khalistan supporters form a single-issue lobbying group that raises money for and campaigns for Trudeaus Liberal Party. Unlike other members of the Liberal Partys broad coalition, they dont particularly care about welfare policy, income taxation, environmental regulation, or gay rights. They care about only one thing: Khalistan.

In Trudeaus much smaller coalition partner, the New Democratic Party, the Khalistani influence is even stronger. In both cases, it works the same way: Sikh supporters of Khalistan get symbolic actions that cost the governing coalition nothing (in economic terms) in exchange for tangible financial and organizational contributions at election time.

Like another political son south of the Canadian border, Trudeau has a long history of engaging in questionable behaviour while not seeming to be of the ethical boundaries that politically prominent people are ordinarily expected to observe. This is not to say that Trudeau is any less moral than other politicians. It is to suggest that Trudeau seems not to be aware that politicians are expected to at least pretend to be moral.

Thus in 2018 when Trudeau hosted the Khalistani terrorist Jaspal Atwal at a dinner party in Delhi, he seems to have accepted that the tangible benefits to his re-election campaign outweighed the international controversy it would spark. India, after all, accounts for less than 1 per cent of Canadas exports. Maintaining good relations with India simply isnt as politically important to Trudeau as maintaining good relations with Canadian Khalistan.

The same phenomenon is at work in Trudeaus bizarre use of parliamentary privilege to accuse India of official involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Trudeau didnt announce legal charges, or share intelligence, or bring the matter to an international forum. He simply made an informal accusation on the floor of parliament, presumably at the behest of his partys Khalistani supporters. Any damage to Canadas international relationships was purely incidental.

The key to understanding Justin Trudeau is to realise that he is a not-very-bright, not-very-responsible son of privilege who has made a career of trading on his good looks and family connections. He is perhaps not so different from another son of privilege south of the border, except that Trudeaus father was more successfuland more principled. Even if direct evidence of serious wrongdoing is hard to come by Justin Trudeau seems to have the transactional morality of a Hunter Biden. The only thing missing is the laptop.

The author is an associate professor at the University of Sydney and the executive director of the Indian Century Roundtable. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.

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The more one ponders over Justin Trudeaus hitjob against India, the more it becomes obvious that he may not be the only player in the sinister game to corner New Delhi. He, in fact, may not be the main player either. This is despite the fact that Trudeau was upset at being ignored at the recently held G20 Summit hosted by India. He was also snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Ottawas dubious Khalistani connections. Of course, he finds himself trailing in Canadian politics and wants to catch up with his opponents by raising an emotive issue. And yes, he has an unsavoury Chinese connection for which the ruling Liberal Party is facing a probe.

Still, Trudeau resurrecting an India ghost in the assassination of a Canadian national, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a known Khalistani terrorist, has all the ingredients of Western deep state connections. More so as it comes soon after India upscaled its global stature post-G20 presidency. The suspicion gathered steam when a New York Times report on Sunday, 24 September, stated that US spy agencies reportedly provided information to Canada on Nijjars killing, which took place this June. According to the report, American agencies offered their Canadian counterparts context that helped Ottawa conclude that New Delhi was involved in the killing. Interestingly, following Trudeaus outburst, the United States has urged India to cooperate with Canada in its investigations.

One wonders if Trudeau was hoodwinked by American agencies which, as per NYT, provided Canada with some information on Nijjars killing. Maybe that was the reason why Trudeau, mistakenly and foolishly assuming it to be the US support for Canada, could go as far as he went this time, accusing India of extra-territorial killing. But then, the Americans apparently didnt share any specific details; it was, as the NYT report says, just the context, which Trudeau badly misinterpreted to push the Indo-Canadian ties to a new low.

One may wonder why the US would try to corner India soon after the Modi-Biden bonhomie at the G20 Summit in Delhi. The answer may lie in what Gautam Sen wrote in one of his articles for Firstpost, Why West is so uncomfortable with rising India and happy to sponsor its enemies (18 July, 2022): The Americans and their European allies have uses for India but no real camaraderie or commitment towards it. One can sense the Western unease with the rising, new India from the kind of bad press the latter gets on a daily basis in the Euro-American media.

However, before falling into anti-American trappings, one needs to understand that a countrys foreign policy is largely governed by its national interest. The West, especially the US, while acknowledging Indias utility, especially against growing Chinese threats, believes that a strong Delhi would ultimately propel out of its orbit of influence. While the West is within its right to forward its agenda, India too should wisely mix its geostrategic advantages and economic leverages to push its national interest.

However, whats disconcerting is the American (Western) tendency to compromise long-term interest for flippant, short-term gains. The ongoing Ukraine war is a case in study where the US sacrificed its long-term objective of creating a larger, stronger coalition against growing Chinese hegemony by obsessively focusing on the immediate  of fixing Vladimir Putin, who, if the Americans had handled him with the maturity of a sole superpower, could have been a valued ally against Xi Jinpings pernicious designs.

Coming back to the core issue, this fear of India becoming too big to control often turns the West into a frenemy. It would hug India one moment and in the next, it would look for reasons to corner it with issues, real or imagined. It both admires and abhors India, often simultaneously. This is a Western way of having the cake (Indias support vis-a-vis China) and eating it too (constantly finding issues to corner Delhi).

Khalistanis, for that matter, are a mere tool for the West to keep New Delhi engaged, just the same way they have been used by Pakistanis to push their balkanisation plan. A glance at the official map of Khalistan, published by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), led by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, one of the top Khalistani leaders who practices law in New York, would show how the entire endeavour has been less about Sikh identity and aspiration and more about hitting out at India. The official Khalistani map, for instance, incorporates not just the Indian state of Punjab, but also the whole of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi; Khalistanis also claim a large part of Rajasthan.

The map is ludicrous on two counts. One, Khalistanis are seeking overwhelmingly non-Punjabi states for the creation of a Punjabi nation. Except Punjab, all other Indian states claimed by Khalistanis have minuscule Sikh presence. Haryana has 87 per cent Hindus; Delhi has 81 per cent Hindus; Himachal Pradesh has 95 per cent Hindus, while in Rajasthan there are 88 per cent Hindus.

Even more ludicrous is the Khalistani generosity not to seek any territory from Pakistan, despite the presence of a number of historical and religious sites of Sikhs on the other side of the border. The Khalistani reverence for the Radcliffe Line is so absolute that nothing is sought from Pakistani Punjab  not even Lahore, which was the erstwhile capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Even the holy Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, is voluntarily excluded from the Khalistan map. The very fact that the Khalistanis want Delhi and not Lahore exposes the real, pernicious agenda of the movement for the so-called nation of the Sikhs.

One finds the West-Pakistan nexus from the very beginning of the Khalistani misadventure. The founder of the Khalistan movement, Jagjit Singh Chauhan, was in Pakistan soon before setting up this terror group. During his stay there, he was warmly received by Gen Yahya Khan, the countrys military dictator then. After this, he went to New York and on 12 October, 1971, came out an advertisement in The New York Times proclaiming the birth of Khalistan. We are going to wait no more, the ad said. Today we are launching the final crusade We are a nation in our own right. The Pakistan Embassy was believed to have paid for that ad on American soil!

After the humiliation in the 1971 war, which saw the birth of a new country called Bangladesh, the Pakistani aspiration to balkanise India got a new, revenge angle too. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who took over from Gen Yahya Khan, inherited the Khalistan project too and added to it the Pakistani rage for revenge. As a young journalist in 1973, Tarek Fatah, the late Pakistan-born, Canadian journalist, heard Bhutto pledge at an off-the-record briefing to carve out a piece from India  Khalistan  to avenge 1971. Pakistan will also have a Bangladesh, carved out of India, Fatah quoted Bhutto as saying, except it will be on Pakistans border. It also made geostrategic sense: For, once Khalistan was accomplished, then Kashmir, geographically cut off from the rest of India, would be there for the taking!

Be that as it may, the fact is India and the West, especially the US, need each other for their own interests, and also for the sustenance of the liberal world order, currently under threat from Xi Jinpings China. Agreed, the two have a few commonalities and some differences, which may explain why India and the US may not be allies in the way the Americans and Europeans are, but they have to be friends for the liberal world order to remain liberal and ordered. And for that, the US-led West has to draw a line on patronising anti-India elements in the West.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.

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The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is facing a severe drought that may affect around 500,000 people by the end of the year, authorities said Tuesday.

Many are already struggling to access essential supplies such as food and water, because the principal means of transportation in the region is waterways, and river levels are historically low. Droughts also impact fishing, a means of subsistence for many riverside communities.

Amazonas state declared an environmental emergency two weeks ago in response to the prolonged drought and launched a response plan valued at $20 million. Authorities will also distribute food and water supplies as well as personal hygiene kits, the states civil defence agency said in a statement.

Gov. Wilson Lima was in Brazils capital, Brasilia, on Tuesday to meet with federal government representatives. Lima spoke with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the drought.

The different levels of government will coordinate measures in support of the people living in the affected municipalities, Lima said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.

The civil defence authority said that fifteen municipalities were in a state of emergency on Tuesday, while 40 others were on a state of alert.

According to the port of Manaus, which monitors water levels, the river stood at 16.7 meters (55 feet) on Tuesday, around six meters (20 feet) below the same day last year. The lowest level of water was recorded on Oct. 24, 2010, when the river dropped to 13.6 meters (about 45 feet).

The drought is forecast to last longer and be more intense because of the El Nino climate phenomenon, which inhibits the formation of rain clouds, the civil defence authority said.

Climate change exacerbates droughts by making them more frequent, longer and more severe. Warmer temperatures enhance evaporation, which reduces surface water and dries out soils and vegetation.

With inputs from AP.
The speaker of Canadas parliament resigned on Tuesday, days after publicly celebrating a Ukrainian veteran who fought for the Nazis during World War II.

During a visit to parliament by Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, Anthony Rota hailed an elderly Ukrainian immigrant from his district as a hero, prompting a standing ovation.

But Rota has faced growing pressure to resign after it was revealed that the veteran had served in a Nazi-linked military unit.

It is with a heavy heart that I rise to inform members of my resignation as Speaker of the House of Commons, Rota told lawmakers from the parliamentary floor.

He expressed his profound regret for my error and the pain he caused to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world.

Russia has accused the government in Kyiv of espousing Nazi ideals, despite Zelensky being Jewish and losing family members in the Holocaust, and the controversy was likely to add fodder to that narrative.

On Friday, Rota paid homage to Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who was visiting parliament and who is from Rotas electoral district.

He hailed Hunka as a Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero.

But Hunka actually served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a Nazi military unit whose crimes against humanity during the Holocaust are well-documented, according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Jewish advocacy group called the incident shocking and incredibly disturbing.

This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament, the organization said, adding it had handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine.

Deepest apologies

Several political parties in Canada had urged Rota, a Liberal lawmaker, to step down.

Rota, who was first elected in 2004 and became speaker in 2019, apologised on Sunday, saying that he had subsequently become aware of more information which caused him to regret his remarks about Hunka.

This initiative was entirely my own I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world, he said.

On Monday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Rotas remarks shameful.

The main opposition Conservatives slammed the Trudeau administration for failing to properly vet Hunka, despite claims it had no advance notice hed been invited to the event.

Zelenskys visit to Canada was the third leg in a tour aimed at bolstering international support, after addressing the United Nations and visiting US President Joe Biden in Washington.

During the visit, Trudeau pledged additional aid to Zelenskys war-torn country.

Canada is home to the worlds second-largest Ukrainian diaspora and Zelensky, in his speech to parliament, expressed thanks for the backing given to Kyiv since Russian troops poured over the Ukrainian borders in February 2022.

Russia has accused Ukrainian leaders of being neo-Nazis and has sought to justify the war with the need to denazify its neighbor.

Commenting on the issue of the Ukrainian veteran, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such sloppiness of memory is outrageous, Russian media reported.

In Poland, Education Minister Przemysaw Czarnek raised the possibility of seeking Hunkas extradition.

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Czarnek said he had tasked the national historical research institute to see if Hunka is wanted for crimes against Poles or Polish Jews.

I have taken steps towards a possible extradition of this man to Poland, Czarnek wrote.
China on Wednesday said that its recent drills near Taiwan are intended to counter the perceived arrogance of separatist elements. This announcement comes in response to Taipeis reports of increased military activity in the region in recent weeks, including exercises conducted on land facing the island.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has said this month that it had detected numerous fighters, drones, bombers, and other aircraft, along with warships and the presence of the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong operating in close proximity.

The increased frequency of Chinas military activities has raised the risk of events getting out of hand and sparking an accidental clash, the islands defence minister said on Saturday.

Asked at a regular news briefing in Beijing about the rise in Chinese drills, and Taiwans concerns about increased risk, Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian said the Peoples Liberation Army had carried out a series of drills.

The purpose is to resolutely combat the arrogance of Taiwan independence separatist forces and their actions to seek independence, Zhu said.

The provocation of Taiwan independence continues all day long, and the actions of the Peoples Liberation Army to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity are always ongoing, she added.

I hope that the majority of Taiwanese compatriots will clearly distinguish between right and wrong, resolutely oppose Taiwan independence, and work with us to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Chinas armed forces have not explicitly mentioned or commented on the drills, which have been taking place as Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has gone missing from public view. Sources have told Reuters he is being investigated for corruption.

Taiwans democratically elected government says only the islands people can decide their future and has repeatedly offered talks with China, which Beijing has rejected.

Taiwans defence ministry on Wednesday reported further Chinese military movements, saying that in the previous 24 hours, it had detected and responded to 16 Chinese aircraft entering the islands air defence identification zone.

Of those, 12 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which had served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides until China began regularly crossing it in August of last year.

On Thursday, Taiwan is due to launch the first of eight domestically made submarines as part of its plans to bolster defences against China.

Zhu, asked about the submarines, said efforts by Taiwans ruling Democratic Progressive Party to seek independence with force would only exacerbate tensions and push the Taiwanese people into a dangerous situation.Taiwans defence ministry last week also took the unusual step of announcing it was monitoring Chinese drills in Fujian province, opposite Taiwan.

Taiwan normally only gives details on drills in the skies and waters around the island. A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters the information was released to show Taiwans surveillance and intelligence capacity.

We can see the details and we are prepared, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Chinas military has also not commented on the Fujian exercises.

With inputs from Reuters.
A 26-year-old ex-soldier, Serj Forster, has been sentenced to four years in prison after being found with disturbing items at his home in Norwich. In May last year, police arrested Forster and discovered a trove of concerning possessions, including documents related to terrorism, Nazi memorabilia, and indecent images of children.

Forster was convicted of amassing materials related to terrorism, which included publications such as the Advanced Anarchist Arsenal and the US Army Improvised Munitions Handbook. Additionally, a substantial number of indecent images were uncovered during the investigation.

Forster admitted to a third charge of possessing a manual containing instructions for crafting a sheet-metal gun at home but was acquitted of a fourth charge. During his trial, which concluded in February, it was revealed that Forster, residing on Cardiff Road, held a deep fascination with extreme right-wing ideologies.

Upon delivering the sentence at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Judge Richard Marks referenced an incident where Forster was seen making a Nazi salute in London, with a Black Lives Matter slogan in the background. However, the judge acknowledged that Forster had not participated in marches, demonstrations, political meetings, or joined any political organizations.

Forster had a separate trial where he faced three charges related to producing indecent images of children. The trial uncovered a significant number of both still and moving images, including 262 classified as Category A, the most severe category. Despite claims from Forsters defense counsel, John Lyons, that his phone had been hacked, he was found guilty. Judge Marks noted that the images featured children as young as three years old and displayed clear signs of distress.

Among the other items discovered at Forsters residence were Nazi memorabilia, National Front stickers, knives, and imitation firearms. The court learned that during his school days, Forster was referred to the governments Prevent program due to his neo-Nazi views, but he failed to engage with the scheme, designed to divert individuals away from extremist ideologies.

At the age of 13, Forster became associated with the now-banned terrorist organization National Action, leading to his expulsion from college in May 2013 due to his extremist beliefs. He commenced basic Army training in 2017 but was discharged after his far-right comments on Twitter, known as X, came to light. Prosecutor Ben Lloyd stated that Forster had previously described himself as obsessed with right-wing culture and admitted to his involvement with the far right dating back to his early teenage years.
A prisoner on death row in Alabama is opposing plans to execute him using a new method involving nitrogen gas. This method, called nitrogen hypoxia, brings about death by making the prisoner breathe in only nitrogen, which keeps them from getting any oxygen.

Authorities in Alabama are aiming to execute Kenneth Smith using this method, but his legal representatives argue that he shouldnt be used as a guinea pig for this untested procedure. Smiths lawyers claim that the state hasnt provided sufficient details about how nitrogen executions would be carried out.

Nitrogen hypoxia has been given the green light for use in three US states, but it has yet to be used in an actual execution. Nitrogen is a gas that makes up 78% of the air we breathe, and its harmless when breathed in alongside the right amount of oxygen. During the execution, a mask would be placed over the inmates face, and their supply of air would be replaced with nitrogen until their heart stops.

Supporters of this new method argue that it would be painless, but opponents liken it to conducting experiments on humans. Trip Pittman, a former senator from Alabama who introduced this new execution method, disputes the criticism that its an experiment. He points out that although no state has used nitrogen for executions, there have been instances where people have died from breathing nitrogen in industrial accidents and suicide attempts, so its effects are known.

Smiths legal team revealed that he had already experienced one failed execution attempt in November when the state attempted lethal injection. This attempt had to be halted because the execution team couldnt establish the two necessary IV lines.

They argue that Smith is currently pursuing ongoing appeals and accuse the state of attempting to expedite his execution ahead of other inmates in order to bypass his lawsuit challenging lethal injection procedures.

Smith was found guilty in 1988 of being involved in a murder-for-hire plot to kill Elizabeth Sennett. Prosecutors claim that Smith, along with another man, was paid $1,000 each to carry out the murder on behalf of Mrs. Sennetts husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on her insurance policy.
Pakistan has received the first shipment of liquefied petroleum gas from Russia, marking the cash-strapped nations second major Russian energy purchase.

The shipment of 100,000 metric tonnes of LPG was delivered by Russia to Pakistan through Irans Sarakhs Special Economic Zone, the Russian embassy in Islamabad said on Tuesday.

However, it did not provide details on Irans involvement, and it was not immediately clear how much the LPG cost or if it was discounted.

The Russian embassy said consultations are on for the next shipment.

Tuesdays shipment comes after Pakistan received its first-ever delivery of Russian crude oil in June under a deal struck between the two countries earlier this year.

Pakistan has said it had paid for the Russian crude in Chinese currency but the value of the deal was never disclosed.

According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, energy imports make up the majority of Pakistans external payments and discounted imports from Russia offer a respite as Islamabad faces an economic crisis with an acute balance of payments problem, risking a default on its external debt.

Pakistan needs both gas and petroleum and has for the first time tried to diversify its purchases by looking beyond the Gulf region which traditionally provided the supplies.

Quoting sources, The Express Tribune newspaper had reported that independent Russian oil refiner Forteinvest clinched a deal that will see Russian gasoline sent to Pakistan by land for the first time, as Russian refiners seek alternative markets for motor fuels days before an EU import ban.

Forteinvest has sold to a trader an initial 1,000-tonne lot of gasoline from its Orsk plant for delivery to Pakistan and has more requests to supply gasoline, diesel and LPG to the country, the sources said.

The refined products will be shipped from the Orsk refinery in Russias Orenburg region near the Kazakhstan border to Afghanistan by rail and reloaded into tank trucks for delivery to Pakistan, as Russia and Pakistan dont have direct rail connections, the report said, quoting the people aware of the development.
Pakistan caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has admitted that the countrys military will continue its hold in politics unless civic delivery institutions are strengthened in the coup-prone country.

In a recent interview with the news channel TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster, Kakar spoke about the Pakistani militarys major role in politics and underscored the inevitable role of the army in the countrys politics.

The powerful army, which has ruled coup-prone Pakistan for more than half of its 75-plus years of existence, has hitherto wielded considerable power in matters of security and foreign policy.

Pragmatically, realistically and honestly  affirmative, yes, was his answer when the interviewer asked if the disciplined military would continue to stay for a foreseeable future in Pakistans polity.

Kakar was replying to a question about the undue influence, whether suspected or real, of the military establishment of Pakistan and its role.

He was asked: Can Pakistan work as a democracy when most Pakistanis believe their leadership is beholden to the almost nefarious relationship with the military?

As far as the civil-military relationship and its imbalance is concerned, I personally view it as a pure government structure. Pakistani politicians, all the political leadership, have had a marital alliance with this military institution for their own specific interests, the caretaker prime minister said.

And once they are out of power, it is one of their favourite mantras to criticise and shift the onus of their own failures in terms of governance and pinpoint the reason behind that failure as an imbalance between the civil and military relationship, he pointed out.

Unfortunately, in our case, the civilian institutions who (sic) are responsible for the service delivery at the behest of the government or state, are performing quite poorly in last three-to-four decades . be it in our health services, be it in our education services, be it our disaster management, be it our tax revenue collection, he said, adding, So, when there is poor governance challenge, the only institution which has the organizational capability left with us is military.

So anyone who is leading the government has to rely on the day-to-day basis on the challenges of government and engage them to do that delivery part, the leader from the Balochistan region said.

He also offered a remedial measure: If somebody is genuinely interested that the military should not meddle in the affairs of the state structure, then we need to enhance the capability of these civilian institutions.

The question about the militarys influence had earlier stemmed from another question about the alleged US involvement in former prime minister Imran Khans ouster.

Kakar promptly dismissed it as a conspiracy theory that is common in all kinds of political cultures. Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after losing a no-confidence vote, which he had then alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China, and Afghanistan.

Khan is also facing more than 140 cases across the country and faces charges like terrorism, violence, blasphemy, corruption, and murder.

Observing that they (Khans party) themselves had retreated and they retrieved that allegation themselves in a couple of months, Kakar said, How would I, or anyone else, believe in such a conspiracy when people who brought it to public domain backtracked from it (sic).

Kakar said his government, even if a caretaker dispensation, has ensured that no one, whether it is the USA or any other power, meddles in our domestic affairs.

We are a sovereign country, we are a sovereign nation. We do things according to our own interests. Whether that was a good decision or a bad decision to oust Imran Khans government, all we know is for the last many, many, many years, that was the only way and time that he was ousted constitutionally. There was no military coup. That was all constitutional and lawful, Kakar asserted.

With inputs from PTI.
On Wednesday, the Philippine coastguard urged the nations fishermen to continue working at the contested Scarborough Shoal and other locations in the South China Sea, promising to increase patrols there despite a sizable Chinese presence.

In a daring move in a region Beijing has dominated with coastguard ships and a fleet of huge fishing vessels for more than ten years, the Philippine coastguard on Monday destroyed a 300 m (980 ft) floating barrier put up by China that barred access to the Scarborough Shoal.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, a spokesman for the coast guard, stated that although Philippine warships were unable to maintain a continual presence, they were committed to defending the rights of fishermen within the EEZ of their nation.

Were going to increase patrols in Bajo de Masinloc and other areas where Filipino fishermen are, he told DZRH radio, referring to the shoal, one of Asias most contested maritime features, by its Philippine name.

According to the Philippines, Chinas response at the shoal, which Beijing refers to as Huangyan Island, has been temperate thus far.

The Philippines had previously received advice from Chinas foreign ministry to avoid provocations and not provoke trouble, but on Wednesday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the ministry, expressed a more critical viewpoint.

I would also like to reiterate once again. Huangyan Island is Chinas inherent territory, he told a regular briefing.

The so-called operation of the Philippine side is a purely self-indulgent farce.

Gilbert Teodoro, the secretary of defence for the Philippines, claimed that the countrys decision to cut the cordon was not provocative.

We are reacting to their action, he said during a senate hearing on Wednesday.

The rocky protrusion in the middle of the sea has seen a lot of diplomatic disputes. The shoal, a popular fishing location about 200 kilometres (124 miles) off the coast of the Philippines and 850 kilometres (530 miles) from mainland China and its southern island of Hainan, is claimed by both nations.

Control of the shoal is strategically important to Beijing, which asserts sovereignty over most of the South China Sea because it is close to maritime lanes that carry an estimated $3.4 trillion worth of goods annually.

These allegations hamper neighbouring Southeast Asian nations offshore oil and gas and fishery operations.

The closest point to the atoll since China took the Scarborough Shoal was 300 metres (980 feet) away from a vessel that the Philippine Fisheries Bureau successfully docked there, according to a Coastguard official.

It was unclear whether Chinas construction of a barrier signalled a change from the situation that had prevailed since 2017, when the coastguard in Beijing had let Filipinos to operate there, albeit on a far smaller scale than Chinese vessels.

It happens in the midst of strained relations, with the Philippines acting more assertively about Chinas coastguards behaviour in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and strengthening its military connections with ally the United States by boosting access to its bases.

The Scarborough Shoal is closer to the Philippines, said fisherman Pepito Fabros who had come ashore in the province of Zambales between trips to sea.

Why are they stopping us from entering?

(With agency inputs)
The front-runner to become Taiwans next president claimed on Wednesday that China was attempting to annex the island. China claimed that its last round of manoeuvres near Taiwan were intended to counter the arrogance of separatist forces.

This month, Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, reported seeing dozens of aircraft operating nearby, including battleships, bombers, drones, and fighters. Taiwan also reported seeing the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong.

The danger of things getting out of hand and igniting an unintentional conflict has increased as Chinas military actions have become more frequent, the islands defence minister has warned.

Zhu Fenglian, the spokeswoman for Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office, acknowledged the Peoples Liberation Armys drills when asked about the increase in exercises and Taiwans worries about increasing risk.

The purpose is to resolutely combat the arrogance of Taiwan independence separatist forces and their actions to seek independence, Zhu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

The provocation of Taiwan independence continues all day long, and the actions of the Peoples Liberation Army to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity are always ongoing, she added.

She asked Taiwanese citizens to recognise right and wrong, firmly reject the islands independence, and cooperate with China to uphold peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

William Lai, who is expected to win the islands presidential election in January, has a particularly bad reputation in China because of earlier remarks he made in favour of independence.

He has, though, promised to hold discussions with Beijing and claims he does not wish to alter the current situation.

According to Lai, who is currently the vice-president of the island, the situation on the other side of the Taiwan Strait had not improved with time.

Chinas attempts to annex Taiwan have not changed, he said at an event in Taipei on Wednesday for the 37th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

While Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu has vanished from the public eye, the Chinese armed forces have not specifically stated or commented on the drills.

The democratically elected Taiwanese administration has frequently proposed discussions with China, which Beijing has rejected, and claims that only the islands citizens can decide their future.

In a statement on Wednesday, Taiwans defence ministry said it had discovered and countered 16 Chinese aircraft that had flown into the islands air defence identification zone in the previous 24 hours.

Twelve of them crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, which up until China started routinely crossing it in August of last year had acted as an unofficial border between the two sides.

In order to strengthen its defences against China, Taiwan is planning to launch the first of eight domestically produced submarines on Thursday.

When asked about the submarines in Beijing, Zhu said that Taiwans DPPs attempts to seek independence with force would only heighten tensions and put the Taiwanese people in danger.

Last week, Taiwans defence ministry made an uncommon admission: it was keeping an eye on Chinas training exercises in the southern province of Fujian, which is directly across from Taiwan. Taiwan typically only divulges information about drills conducted in the air and on nearby waterways.

The Chinese military has not offered any commentary on the Fujian drills.

(With agency inputs)
Russias most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, lost his appeal against a new 19-year prison term that extends his total sentence to more than 30 years.

After a hearing that was closed to the media, despite protests from Navalny and his lawyers, he stood in his black prison uniform and listened to judge Viktor Rogov rattle through the list of his convictions before telling him that his sentence was unchanged.

Navalny, 47, now faces a transfer to a special regime prison colony, the harshest grade in Russias penal system, with the prospect of staying there until he is in his mid-70s.

He rejects all the charges against him, which have ranged over the years from fraud and contempt of court to an array of extremist activities, as attempts to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

Daniel Kholodny, a TV technician who worked for Navalny, was sentenced to eight years in jail in August as part of the same trial. His appeal too was rejected on Tuesday.

Alexei, see you! Kholodny shouted after the judge finished speaking. Navalny waved his hand in response.

For all of us  their colleagues and friends  this is constant pain, Navalny aide Leonid Volkov posted on X, formerly Twitter. And a constant challenge: every day to do everything we can to destroy the maniac in the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has tried to portray Navalny as politically irrelevant, and Putin makes a point of never speaking his name. Moscow has cast him as an extremist and, without providing evidence, as a puppet of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Navalny is by far the best known figure in Russias splintered opposition, with supporters casting him as a Nelson Mandela-style figure who will one day be freed from jail to lead the country.

His political movement has been outlawed and its key figures have been jailed or fled abroad as part of a crackdown on dissent that has intensified since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine last year.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, another outspoken Kremlin critic who was jailed for 25 years in April on charges of treason and lying about the war, was last week moved to a maximum-security penal colony in Siberia, according to his lawyer.

Putin never speaks his name

Navalnys latest 19-year sentence was imposed on August 4 after he was convicted on six charges related to alleged extremist activity, all of which he denied.

That came on top of 11-1/2 years he was already serving at the IK-6 penal colony at Melekhovo, about 235 km (145 miles) east of Moscow, on fraud and other charges which he also rejected as politically motivated.

Navalny earned admiration around the world for voluntarily returning to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he underwent treatment for what Western laboratory tests showed was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia.

He was immediately arrested on arrival. The Kremlin denied it had tried to have him killed, with Putin commenting: If someone had wanted to poison him, they would have finished him off.

The latest charges and sentence relate to his role in his now-defunct movement inside Russia, which the authorities accused of trying to destabilise society.

The U.S. State Department called the August verdict an unjust conclusion to an unjust trial, while the European Union condemned what it called another politically motivated ruling and called for Navalnys immediate release.

Navalny said after the verdict last month that the aim was to crush Russians will to stand up to Putin, and urged people not to give up.You are being forced to surrender your Russia without a fight to the gang of traitors, thieves and scoundrels who have seized power, he said.

Putin must not achieve his goal. Do not lose the will to resist.
Sitting on a creaky bridge linking stilt houses, Indonesian fisherman Sadam Husen fears for his people and their traditions, knowing they may be uprooted from their ancestral land to make way for a China-funded megaproject worth billions.

The Indonesian government recently told Rempang islands 7,500 residents to pack their bags and leave by the end of September.

Residents say their families have been present on the South China Sea island for more than a century, mostly earning a living as fishermen, catching fresh snapper, shrimp, and sea cucumbers.

But under government plans the villagers, who include members of the Malay and Orang Darat tribes, are to be relocated away from their homes and replaced by a huge quartz sand processing plant.

Experts say the move will leave them jobless and potentially erase their way of life from the island forever.

Its getting more tense. We have no interest in going out to sea, said 32-year-old islander Husen, who has peacefully protested the eviction plan.

The most important thing is to save our village, said Husen.

I have not been able to sleep for a month thinking about my village.

Jakarta says one of the worlds biggest glass and solar panel makers, Hong Kong-listed Xinyi Glass, will invest $11.6 billion in the plant after a July deal struck between President Joko Widodo and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Residents say authorities turned up at their villages to survey the land in preparation for the projects construction  sparking protests attended by thousands.

On Batam island, which neighbours Rempang, demonstrations outside government offices turned into clashes with police.

Protesters used Molotovs, stones and glass bottles, according to officials and police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon.

Dozens of locals were arrested and hundreds of riot police were deployed.

Another protest was held outside the Chinese embassy in Jakarta.

Their existence is threatened

The Indonesian government has said construction work on the plant will begin next year, and that it will transform the island into an eco-city attracting thousands of jobs and billions in investment by 2080.

Xinyi Glass did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

Beijing has poured billions into natural resources in Indonesia in recent years, particularly nickel on Sulawesi island.

For now, the protests appear to be paying off, if only temporarily.

The government has suggested moving residents to other locations on Rempang, rather than off the island entirely, and postponed the September 28 eviction date.

While no new date has been announced, the locals say it is only a matter of time before they are evicted.

Their existence is undoubtedly threatened by this project. The fishing community will be severely threatened on land and at sea, said Parid Ridwanuddin, coastal and marine campaign manager at Indonesian NGO Walhi.

The fishermen on Rempang island will vanish.

I will not sign

A villager who declined to be named said she would not bow to government pressure or compensation offers.

If God wants this to happen there is nothing I can do. I will stay put and not sign, she told AFP.

The 17,000-hectare (42,000-acre) island near the Malacca Strait, one of the worlds busiest shipping routes, is rich in the quartz sand needed to make solar panels  and the government aims to develop an industrial zone there.

On Rempang, authorities have identified around 700 affected families.

Each has been promised 500 square metres (5,400 square feet) of land and a 45-square-metre house worth around 120 million rupiah ($7,800) in compensation.

Islanders have been told they will first be housed in apartments on neighbouring Batam, each receiving 1.2 million rupiah monthly for half a year while the replacement houses are built.

We all agree that Indonesia needs money to pour in, and one of the ways is through investment, Batam city mayor Muhammad Rudi told AFP.

If they (China) get scared and leave, what will become of Rempang?

But residents say they have received no guarantees the compensation pledges will be honoured  particularly as the government disputes their claim to have official deeds that prove their land or home ownership.

So far it is just talk, said Timo, a 67-year-old village community leader, who like many Indonesians has one name.

While the authorities are demanding deeds, NGOs say Indonesias agrarian laws recognise the communitys ancestral relationship with land and sea resources.

The government must affirm and serve the communitys right to the land by granting land rights, said Walhis Ridwanuddin.

Climate of fear

On the one-hour drive from Batam island to Rempang, banners and stickers urging people to relocate plaster the roadside.

There is a heavy police and military presence on the streets near Sembulang, one of the villages under orders to evacuate.

The unnamed villager said police officers and government officials have been knocking door to door, urging people to move.

I am afraid they will enter my house in the middle of the night and force me out, she said.

Mayor Rudi denied his staff had intimidated residents.

Amnesty International Indonesia told AFP the police deployment had created a climate of fear.

The government claims the project will take up 2,300 hectares, while leaving 10,000 hectares of conservation land untouched.

But it could damage Rempangs marine life, pollute the area and over-exploit its vast sand resources, according to Walhi.

Residents are also wary that potential jobs will be occupied by more skilled Chinese workers.

Even if our local workers are employed, they might be hired as blue-collar workers, said Timo, the community leader.

Like many other villagers, Timo said he feared for his relatives graves and their possible desecration because of the projects construction.

We will never want to be relocated, he said.

Our hearts feel heavy. For us this is the final price.
Several hundred members of Russias Wagner private mercenary group have returned to eastern Ukraine to fight but are not having a significant impact on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Wagner fighters played an important role in Russias capture of the eastern city of Bakhmut in May after one of the longest and fiercest battles of Moscows 19-month war in Ukraine.

They left Bakhmut after the battle and some went to Belarus under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by Wagner in June, during which it took control of a Russian military headquarters and marched on Moscow.

Since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed on August 23 when a private jet in which he was travelling crashed in unexplained circumstances, the Kremlin has sought to bring the group under tighter state control. Russian military bloggers have reported that some Wagner fighters have been returning to Ukraine.

We have recorded the presence of a maximum of several hundred fighters of the former Wagner PMC (private military company), Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command, said.

He added that Wagner fighters were scattered in different places, were not part of a single unit, and had had no significant impact.

They do not constitute any integral, systematic, organized force, Cherevatyi said. As they say  game over. These are pathetic remnants, nothing good awaits them here.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Wagner no longer existed.

Today, there are only former militants of the terrorist group who have scattered in all directions, he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said some had gone to Africa, some were dispersed through Russia, and some had contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry and were fighting in the Bakhmut sector.

Reports of their return were intended to drown out news of Ukraines recapture of two villages near Bakhmut, he said.
North Korea has announced its intention to send back a US soldier who crossed into its territory from South Korea earlier this year.

Private Travis King, a 23-year-old American serviceman, ventured into North Korea while visiting the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates the secretive state from South Korea in July. This was in contrast to his original plan of returning to the United States a week prior.

Before this, Private King had faced a run-in with local police, resulting in his detention by South Korean authorities for a month and a half. A South Korean government official reported that he was slated to face disciplinary measures in connection with this incident.

However, instead of boarding a plane at Incheon, near Seoul, bound for Texas, Private King seems to have slipped away and joined a private tour group at the DMZ. Subsequently, he crossed the border without obtaining the necessary permissions.

The official North Korean news agency, known as the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), disclosed on Wednesday that North Korean authorities have concluded their inquiry into Kings actions. According to KCNA, King confessed to unlawfully entering North Korea, citing negative sentiments due to mistreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army. He also expressed disillusionment with the unequal aspects of American society, KCNA added.

The agency did not specify the timeline for Kings deportation from North Korea.

It is noteworthy that King is the first American to be detained in North Korea in nearly five years. While there have been instances of US soldiers stationed in South Korea attempting to desert or defect to North Korea, Kings expulsion has occurred relatively swiftly compared to others who spent years in captivity before being released from the reclusive state.

In July, Kings sister, Jaqueda Gates, expressed her disbelief, saying, My brother, hes not the sort to get entangled in such situations. It all appears rather fabricated. She had been in contact with him just 48 hours prior to the DMZ incident.
A prominent Chinese television presenter, known to have been in a relationship with the former Chinese foreign minister who was recently removed from his position, reportedly had a child through a surrogate mother in the United States last year.

Fu Xiaotian, aged 40, was in a relationship with Qin Gang, as confirmed by six individuals closely connected to both Fu and Chinas foreign policy circles, according to a Financial Times report.

Its worth noting that surrogacy is prohibited in China.

Although the nature of Qin and Fus relationship remains unclear, Chinese authorities are reportedly examining it. Qins sudden disappearance in June and subsequent removal as foreign minister a month later has raised questions about the reasons behind these actions.

The official Chinese foreign ministry website previously described Qin as married with a son.

The Chinese government has provided no official explanation for Qins dismissal. Following a brief notice of his replacement on July 25, the foreign ministry deleted all references to Qin, including his meetings and speeches, from its website.

However, these postings were later restored, adding to the mystery surrounding Qins status. He still holds the position of state councillor, which could potentially pave the way for a return to a prominent role in Chinese politics.

Fu ceased her social media activity in April and stopped responding to messages in June, coinciding with Qins last public appearances as foreign minister, according to the Financial Times report.

Efforts to contact Fu have proven unsuccessful, as her phone number has been disconnected, and she is no longer reachable through messaging apps.

Fu reportedly met Qin in London around 2010, while she was working for Phoenix TV, a Chinese media group, after completing her studies at Cambridge University. Qin was posted as Chinas charge daffaires in the UK at the time. Their relationship reportedly grew closer nearly a decade later in Beijing.

Around the time of Qins appointment as foreign minister, he began limiting contact with Fu, which prompted her to drop hints about their relationship on social media.

In March, she shared on Weibo that the childs father was not American. After Qins appointment as state councillor, she posted a photo of their child, captioned with A victorious conclusion.

With inputs from agencies
A confidential document sent by the Ukrainian government to Western allies has exposed that Iranian kamikaze drones used in recent attacks on Ukrainian cities contain components sourced from Europe.

The report, obtained by The Guardian, discloses that over 600 drone attacks on cities occurred in the previous three months, all equipped with Western technology. Notably, the Shahed-131 drone carried 52 electrical components from Western companies, while the Shahed-136 model, with a flight range of 2,000km and cruising speed of 180kmh, contained 57 such components.

The 47-page document, sent to the G7 nations in August, calls for support in obtaining long-range missiles to target production facilities in Russia, Iran, and Syria.

The comprehensive report, titled Barrage Deaths: Report on Shahed-136/131 UAVs, was collaboratively drafted with input from Ukraines central research institute of armaments and military equipment, as well as its intelligence services.

The document provides the most recent analysis of Russias evolving drone tactics and production plans, starting from the first use of Shahed drones in the Kharkiv region on September 13, 2022, in the city of Kupiansk.

The report revealed that a break in attacks from November 17 to December 7, 2022, was likely due to adjustments required for the drones to function effectively in Ukraines winter conditions, indicating potential cooperation between Russia and Iran in drone production.

Also, Shahed-136/131 UAVs are transported from Iran to Russia across the Caspian Sea, passing through Iranian and Russian ports.

The report notes that electronic component markings on drones used in Ukraine were deliberately destroyed, potentially using lasers. Russian forces have started referring to the drones as Geranium-1 and Geranium-2, possibly as part of an agreement to conceal Irans involvement.

Russia and Iran are collaborating on developing a new engine for the Shahed-136 to enhance its speed and range.

The report also reveals the presence of various components produced by Western companies in the downed drones, which were identified by the G7 nations, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, and the European Union.

Components identified include a fuel pump manufactured in Poland by the German company Ti Automotive Gmbh, a subsidiary of the British multinational TI Fluid Systems. Additionally, a microcontroller with built-in flash memory and a low-voltage drop regulator with inhibitor from Swiss firm STMicroelectronics were found in a Shahed-136 model.

Another Western component was an integrated circuit of a buffer network driver and a transistor made by International Rectifier, a subsidiary of the German firm Infineon Technologies AG.

In response to these findings, TI Fluid Systems did not comment, but the company has previously stated that it does not sell its equipment to Iran. STMicroelectronics emphasized their adherence to global trade compliance regulations and export controls.

Infineon Technologies AG denied selling components to Iran and stated their commitment to compliance with sanctions against Russia, even liquidating their operation in Russia in March of the previous year.

The Ukrainian experts identified various components from Dutch company NXP Semiconductor, including a 14-channel integrated power management circuit and a microprocessor in the Shahed-131 model. Additionally, a power transistor and integrated circuit from International Rectifier were found.

A Shahed-131 also contained components from STMicroelectronics and a GPS tracker chip from the Swiss firm U-blox. U-blox expressed strong condemnation for Russias invasion of Ukraine, ceased sales to Russia, Belarus, and occupied Ukrainian territories, and implemented policies against the use of their products in weapons.

NXP Semiconductor affirmed its commitment to preventing the misuse of its technology and compliance with export control and sanctions laws.

According to the report, Iran has extended its production capabilities by utilizing a Syrian factory located in the port of Novorossiysk. Nevertheless, drone production is gradually moving to Russia, specifically the Alabuga region in central Tatarstan, while Iran continues to provide the necessary components.

The report highlights Irans efforts to distance itself from directly supplying Russia with weapons, citing its inability to meet Russian demand and the intensity of drone usage in Ukraine.

One of the documents suggestions for action, which may not find favor with Ukraines Western allies, includes missile strikes on UAV production plants in Iran, Syria, and potentially Russia. These strikes could be carried out by Ukrainian defense forces if supported by the necessary means of destruction.

Report does not imply any wrongdoing on the part of the Western companies whose components were identified. The report attributes Irans easy access to these components to the poorly controlled supply of commercial parts.
A 26-year-old tech boss from the United States was mysteriously found dead in her apartment on Monday.

As per reports, Pava LaPere, the co-founder of the data management company EcoMap Technologies, was found lifeless in a flat located in the Mount Vernon area by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). Authorities have identified 32-year-old individual named Jason Dean Billingsley as a suspect in murder.

Reports say police received a call for assistance at an apartment complex at approximately 11:30 am on Monday. Upon their arrival, they encountered LaPere with serious head injuries. No further details regarding her passing have been made public by the police. The medical examiners office has taken custody of the body, and an examination is pending, according to law enforcement.

Officials have disclosed that the suspect, Jason Dean Billingsley, is wanted on charges of first-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and additional offenses. Police have cautioned that he should be considered armed and dangerous. During a press briefing, Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley issued a warning, stating, This individual is capable of causing harm, including murder and sexual assault.

Billingsley reportedly has a significant criminal history dating back to 2009, according to court records.

One of the most startling revelations is that Billingsley was sentenced to 30 years in prison on February 4, 2015, after being convicted of a 1st-degree forcible sex offense. He had been in custody since July 11, 2013, on that charge. Although he received 16 years of suspended time and five years of parole, he was released from prison in October 2022 under the previous administration of States Attorney Marilyn Mosby.

The circumstances surrounding Billingsleys release remain unclear, and officials provided no detailed explanations on Tuesday. Mayor Brandon Scott expressed his dismay, stating, Theres no way in hell he should have been out on the street.

Billingsleys criminal record doesnt end there. In 2009, he was also convicted of first-degree assault and violation of probation, both of which carried sentences of five and three years, respectively.

LaPere was recognised on Forbes 30 Under 30 list for social impact this year due to her start-ups accomplishments. In August, the firm disclosed that it had secured nearly $8 million in financing.

On Tuesday, LaPeres technology company released a statement announcing her tragic demise, describing it as an unimaginable tragedy and expressing deep distress about the circumstances surrounding her passing. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), EcoMap Technologies stated that Ms. LaPere was not only the driving force behind EcoMap but also a profoundly compassionate and dedicated leader.

EcoMap mentioned that her unwavering commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to promoting the crucial work of ecosystems across the nation, and to fostering an all-inclusive organizational culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a benchmark for leadership, and her legacy will persist through the work we continue to undertake, said the company.
Following a six-day journey to Rome while carrying a big wooden cross, a group of abuse survivors from the Catholic Church and those who support them called on Pope Francis on Wednesday to implement zero tolerance against clerical sex abuse.

Prior to a significant Vatican meeting on the future of the Church that will begin next week, the 10 men and women travelled 130 kilometres (81 miles) over the final section of the Via Francigena, a mediaeval trail that connects Canterbury, England, with Rome.

The pilgrimage shows the determination of survivors to come to deliver their message to Pope Francis  that there must be a universal law of the church of zero tolerance, said U.S. attorney Timothy Law, co-founder of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA).

Anything less than that is not adequate, he added.

The Catholic Churchs reputation has been ruined by sexual abuse and cover-up scandals, which has presented a significant challenge to the pope. The pope has passed a number of measures intended to make the Church leadership more accountable, with varying degrees of success.

Law stated that ECA wants Francis to order the prompt dismissal from ministry of priests accused of abusing children, the dismissal of bishops found to have covered up abuse, and the requirement that abuse cases be reported to civil authorities rather than religious ones.

While opponents claim Francis reforms and directives have not gone far enough and have been unevenly accepted by national Catholic Churches, he has pledged zero tolerance in regards to church abuse.

Prior to the synod, a Vatican gathering of world bishops that took place from October 429, ECA activists travelled to Rome. It is scheduled to cover a variety of topics, including how to treat LGBT people and how to give women in the Church a bigger role.

I dont know how you can move into a future if you have not solved the criminal problem of (predator) priests and cover-up by the hierarchy in the Catholic Church, Peter Isely, another U.S.-based member of ECA, said about the synod.

(With agency inputs)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday promised the Canadian side that action would be taken if they provided specific information regarding the murder of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Nijjar, saying that we are open to looking at it.

We told the Canadians that this is not the government of Indias policy. Secondly, we said if you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at itThe picture is not complete without the context in a way, said Jaishankar while speaking at the Discussion at Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

#WATCH | New York: On India-Canada row, EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, We told the Canadians that this is not the Government of Indias policyIf you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at itThe picture is not pic.twitter.com/VcVGzDelJt  ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2023

Notably, Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

In the last few years, he said Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism and the Indian government has given a lot of information to Canada regarding this.

In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism. Theyre all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information. We have given them a lot of information about organised crime and leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders, who have been identified, he said.

The EAM raised concern over these incidents of threats to Indian diplomats and attacks on Indian consulates, stating that these are very permissive because of political reasons.

Our concern is that its really been very permissive, because of political reasons. So we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attackedA lot of this is often justified, as saying thats how democracies work. If somebody gives me something specific, it doesnt have to be restricted to Canada. But if theres any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it, Jaishankar further said.

Early last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an explosive statement accusing the Indian government of being involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar  a claim that India has outrightly rejected, calling it absurd and motivated.

India has suspended its visa services in Canada, following Canadian Prime Minister Trudeaus allegations of Indian involvement in the killing.

Amid strained ties, India issued an advisory for its citizens and those who are travelling to Canada to exercise utmost caution in view of growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes and criminal violence in the country.

With inputs from agencies
Microsoft has begun delivering the Copilot AI Companion and other AI features in the September Windows update, as announced last week. This update brings personalized AI experiences and new features focused on accessibility, security, and productivity.

Heres whats included in the September 2023 update for Windows 11:

Copilot in Windows: Copilot is designed to make your tasks easier and save you time. It can provide personalized answers and help with various tasks like summarizing web pages, composing emails, changing settings, generating images, and more.

AI-enhanced tools in Paint: Microsoft is updating apps like Paint with AI capabilities for digital creation. It includes features like layers, background removal, and Paint Cocreator for creative image generation.

Microsoft Clipchamp: Clipchamp now has enhanced AI tools like Auto Compose for video editing. It helps you with recommendations based on your input and creative assets. You can easily save your work and share it on various social platforms.

Snipping Tool gets an AI upgrade: Snipping Tool now supports screen recording with audio and mic support. It also offers text extraction and redaction features to streamline your workflow.

Find and edit photos easily: The Photos app now has background blur and improved search capabilities. You can quickly find specific photos by typing keywords or objects. Background blur enhances image resolution, and theres a new slideshow feature for sharing memories.

Windows Backup: Windows Backup allows you to select backup options for files, apps, settings, and credentials.

You can easily restore content when moving to a new Windows 11 PC, making the transition seamless. Syncing your data in Microsoft Edge is also simplified with your Microsoft account.

Accessibility Updates

Voice Access Expansion: Voice access now works in more places, even during log-in. You can easily start using voice commands from the beginning. You can also dictate complex words, and corrections will fix any recognition errors.

Natural Languages in Narrator: Microsoft is adding support for more languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English (U.K., India).

Security Updates

Replace Passwords with Passkeys: Passkeys, integrated with Windows Hello, enhance security by eliminating the need for passwords. These unique credentials let you sign in using your face, fingerprint, or device PIN, and they work with various browsers.

Reduce Energy Use: A new feature called Adaptive Dimming conserves energy by gradually dimming your screen when your PC senses youre not paying attention. It also helps you refocus.

Windows Hello for Business: This feature eliminates the need for passwords on company resources. IT managers can set policies for password removal, promoting the use of secure authentication methods like Windows Hello for Business and FIDO2 security keys.

Empowering IT Professionals with Config Refresh: Config Refresh allows settings to be reset on Windows 11 devices, providing flexibility for troubleshooting and maintenance.

Securing Applications with Intune: Intune with App Control for Business helps defend against malicious apps by requiring apps to earn trust before running, ensuring a more secure environment for employees using Microsoft Intune to manage their PCs.

Productivity Updates

Windows 365 Boot: This feature allows employees to log directly into their Windows 365 Cloud PC and make it their primary Windows experience. It saves time and enhances security.

Seamless PC Switching: With Windows 365 Switch, employees can easily switch between their Cloud PC and local desktop. It offers flexibility and secure access.

Mobile Application Management (MAM) for Windows: This feature empowers employees to access company information on personal PCs while maintaining security controls.

AI-Powered Recommendations: File Explorer and the Start menu now offer AI-powered recommendations to help users find relevant files quickly.

Instant Games: Users can instantly play casual games from the Microsoft Store on Windows without downloading them. Users will also have better game installation options and easier access to Game Pass subscriptions.

Other Notable Updates

New Outlook: The new Outlook is now available for free on all Windows devices.

Settings Home Tab: A new tab allows users to manage Microsoft account services, storage, and recommended settings in one place.

Auto Color Management: This feature improves color accuracy and gradients.

Volume Mixer Improvements: Customize audio on a per-app basis in Quick Settings.

Dynamic Lighting: Dynamic Lighting is now generally available.

Developer Tools: Developers can access tools like Dev home, WinGet configuration, and Windows Subsystem for Linux, announced at Build 23.

How to Get Windows 11 Updates

If youre using Windows 11 version 22H2 and want the latest features, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Windows Update.

2. Turn on Get the latest updates as soon as theyre available.

3. Select Check for updates.

You can expect most new features to be available for all devices by the November 2023 security update. Additionally, these features will be enabled by default in the October 2023 non-security preview release for all editions of Windows 11 version 22H2, which includes Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch capabilities.

Announcing the updates, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, said:
felicilin at 27-09-2023 08:19 AM (1 month ago) (f)

A group, the Rescue Nigeria Global Network (RNGN), has urged the Federal Government to release Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to end sit-at-home and boost socio-economic development of the South-East.

A group, the Rescue Nigeria Global Network (RNGN), has urged the Federal Government to release Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to end sit-at-home and boost socio-economic development of the South-East.

Global Coordinator of RNGN, Dr Michael Chukwujekwu said the Federal Government should consider releasing Kanu to stop criminal groups from using his continued detention as an excuse to perpetuate crime and insecurity in the zone.



Chukwujekwu said in a statement from the United Kingdom that it had become pertinent for the Federal Government to urgently intervene to benefit the nations economy.



He expressed displeasure over the inability of government to release the IPOB leader, saying that many lives and property have been lost due to his continued detention.



Global Coordinator of RNGN, Dr Michael Chukwujekwu said the Federal Government should consider releasing Kanu to stop criminal groups from using his continued detention as an excuse to perpetuate crime and insecurity in the zone.Chukwujekwu said in a statement from the United Kingdom that it had become pertinent for the Federal Government to urgently intervene to benefit the nations economy.He expressed displeasure over the inability of government to release the IPOB leader, saying that many lives and property have been lost due to his continued detention. Quote Pathetically, Muhammadu Buharis administration has ended, yet Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not released notwithstanding the courts ruling.



If the executive made her claims and passed the responsibility of releasing Nnamdi Kanu to the Judiciary and the judiciary had played their role by granting judgement for his release, should the Legislators at the NASS also need to play their own role too?



Nigeria is at the point where rule of law should not be ignored; the country needs to proactively release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.



Inaction could seem enabling the sit-at-home, obviously, a sabotage to the business, education, industry, economy and development of the South-East and Nigeria.



Could the way forward for Nigeria, South-East (Ndigbo) be to tackle this main issue about sit-at-home that leads to destruction of life and properties, as well as business, and end it?



In doing the needful, could we be avoiding the chance for another person rising even if Simon Ekpa is silenced, Chukwujekwu said.



He stressed that allowing insecurity to fester anywhere in the country would not augur well for the countrys economy.



Chukwujekwu added that the clamour for the arrest and extradition of Simon Ekpa, for instigating the sit-at-home may not end the trouble the country and people in South-East found themselves in.



The question is, if Simon Ekpo is arrested or extradited will it solve the problem?



Will the killings and destruction of properties in the South-East due to sit-at-home stop or will another person assume such leadership of Simon Ekpa?



What actually is the main prayer of the perpetrators of the sit-at-home that is leading to the destruction of lives and properties in the South-East of Nigeria?



There is an urgent need for Nigeria and Ndigbo to look into the cause of the sit-at-home critically and deal with it, he asked. Chukwujekwu said.He stressed that allowing insecurity to fester anywhere in the country would not augur well for the countrys economy.Chukwujekwu added that the clamour for the arrest and extradition of Simon Ekpa, for instigating the sit-at-home may not end the trouble the country and people in South-East found themselves in.he asked.

Post Reply Posted: at 27-09-2023 08:19 AM (1 month ago) | Addicted Hero
Five Bulgarians Charged With Spying For Russia Remanded In Custody By London Court

By RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service September 26, 2023

Five Bulgarian nationals charged in the U.K. with spying for Russia appeared in a London court on September 26 and were remanded in custody until their next hearing in mid-October.

Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 31, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, appeared at the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London by video from four different prisons where they are being held.

They spoke only to confirm their names and dates of birth, and did not enter pleas of apply for bail. All five were remanded in custody until their next appearance at the Central Criminal Court on October 13.

The three men and two women are accused of conspiring "to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state" between August 2020 and February 2023.

Prosecutor Kathryn Selby told the Westminster Magistrates Court the suspects are thought to have been part of an organized network that carried out surveillance and hostile action on behalf of Russia against specific targets. Their surveillance activities are alleged to have been for the purpose of assisting Russia to conduct hostile action against the targets, including potential abductions.

Much of the activity took place abroad, but coordination took place in the Unite Kingdom, the prosecution said.

Selby said the "operating hub in this country [the U.K.] for the offense of espionage" was the residence of Roussev. His home address was a now-closed seaside guesthouse in Great Yarmouth.

Roussev is alleged to have organized and managed the cell's spying operations from the United Kingdom.

The prosecution said Roussev received tasking from abroad by Jan Marsalek.

Marsalek, an Austrian national who is not charged in connection with the case, was the former chief operating officer of German payment systems provider Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 in a fraud scandal. Marsalek, who is considered a key figure in that scandal, has been on the run since the summer of 2020. His whereabouts remain unclear.

The suspects are accused of conspiring to collect information with Marsalek and "others unknown."

The five Bulgarian nationals, who lived in London and Norfolk, were arrested in February by the Metropolitan Police's counterterrorism officers under the Official Secrets Act.

Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova were charged in February with having false identity documents, but news about them did not emerge until August. The three are accused of possessing 34 ID documents, some of which were suspected to be false, from the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

Bulgarian prosecutors said in August that they were investigating the case, without adding further details.

The United Kingdom has been seeking to take tougher action on external security threats and potential spies, and in July passed a national security law aiming at overhauling its means of deterring espionage and foreign interference with new tools and criminal provisions.

At the time, the government labeled Russia as "the most acute threat" to its security.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgarians-charged-spying- russia-london/32610058.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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Orient Shield 23 exercise enhances U.S.-Japan readiness, deterrence

By Sean Kimmons, U.S. Army Garrison Japan Public AffairsSeptember 25, 2023

CAMP ZAMA, Japan -- About 3,500 U.S. Soldiers and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members recently participated in the Orient Shield 23 exercise to forge stronger bonds and increase interoperability.

The 10-day exercise, which ended Saturday and held by U.S. Army Pacific and the JGSDF, included bilateral field and command post training in Hokkaido, Okinawa and other locations across Japan.

"Our adversaries are watching," said Maj. Gen. Dave Womack, commander of U.S. Army Japan. "They're watching our alliance. They are watching what we are doing to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and it matters."

Known as the largest annual field training exercise between the U.S. Army and JGSDF, this year's Orient Shield allowed participants to further refine their respective multi-domain and cross-domain operations.

The pair of strategies place an emphasis on preparing for a new battlefield that could include information, space, cyber and electronic warfare.

Overall, the training scenario aimed to improve bilateral targeting processes ahead of a more complex scenario during Yama Sakura, a large-scale exercise slated for December.

The recent exercise, which is part of USARPAC's Operation Pathways, also tested the reception, staging, onward-movement, and integration of U.S. forces deploying to Japan.

About 1,200 U.S. personnel stationed in the Indo-Pacific region as well as from Tennessee and Washington participated in this year's iteration.

Units included the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division; 38th Air Defense Artillery Bde.; 35th ADA Bde.; 35th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion; 5th Bn., 20th Inf. Regiment, 7th Inf. Div.; 1st Bn., 181st Field Artillery Rgt., Tennessee National Guard; and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force; along with personnel from the Joint Force and the JGSDF Northern Army.

Participants conducted various drills using the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, anti-tank missiles, mortars, and aviation and infantry capabilities, in addition to medical response training, logistical transport, and other sustainment operations.

U.S. Soldiers also had the opportunity to exchange ideas, tactics, techniques, and cultural information with their Japanese counterparts.

Each year, Orient Shield, which has been held since 1982, rotates among the five JGSDF regional armies. JGSDF Western Army conducted last year's exercise that featured the implementation of the multi-domain and cross-domain operations by a bilateral force.

"The alliance between Japan and the United States has never been stronger," said Gen. Charles A. Flynn, commander of USARPAC. "I am personally very thankful for the increased cooperation and the long-lasting friendship amongst the JGSDF and U.S. Army of the Pacific."

Gen. Yasunori Morishita, chief of staff for the JGSDF, said that Japan must drastically strengthen its defense posture and its alliance with the U.S. Army.

"I would like to develop Japan and U.S. land forces' interoperability further," he said, "and work shoulder to shoulder on joint exercises and senior-level exchanges."

Morishita, who watched some of the exercise in Hokkaido with Flynn, said he admired the robustness of both forces training together in the field.

"It is a great way to develop a relationship of trust between the Japan and U.S. land forces leadership ...," he said of the training, "and to obtain the idea for future defense cooperation."

Flynn said he was excited about the potential of exploring new opportunities as their units continue to build on this training.

"We're collectively focusing more on strengthening deterrence and improving our response capabilities," Flynn said.

"I am very proud of both the Japanese and American soldiers who've been working together hand in hand in this training," he added. "They deserve all the credit for fostering a greater level of trust and interoperability that underpin our very special relationship."

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First offset agreement for APACHE attack helicopters signed

Republic of Poland

25.09.2023

- I have signed an offset agreement with Lockheed Martin, which manufactures certain components of the Apache helicopter. Apache are attack helicopters, which we are ordering for the Polish Armed Forces in the number of 96 units. We are at the Boeing factory. Certain elements of these helicopters are produced by other American companies. I have just signed an offset agreement, which gives the Polish defense industry the ability to service and repair the radars and missile guidance system that are on board the Apache helicopters," said Mariusz Blaszczak, Minister of National Defense, during his visit to the United States.First offset agreement for APACHE attack helicopters signed

On Monday, September 25, the head of the Ministry of Defense approved one of the offset contracts for Apache helicopters at Boeing's headquarters in Mesa, USA.

The State Department, previously approved the sale of 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Poland.

The State Department, 6/09 this year, approved the sale of 96 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Poland. As agreed by the head of the Ministry of Defense with Secretary of Defense L. Austin, until the procedures are completed and the purchased helicopters are delivered to Poland, the US Army will provide us with Apache helicopters from its own resources. The acquisition of 96 APACHE attack helicopters will effectively increase the capability to deter a potential aggressor.

- Military Aviation Plant No. 1 in odz will service the radars that are on board Apache helicopters and the system that is used to guide missiles. This is the first of a series of offset agreements. We start with offset agreements because that is what Polish law requires. We are in the process of negotiating the specific terms for the acquisition of 96 Apache attack helicopters. We estimate that later this year we will sign the executive contract. We want the delivery dates to be as soon as possible, but I would also like to assure you that I have an agreement with the US administration, with Secretary of Defense L. Austin, that as early as next year, Apache helicopters from US Army resources will be delivered to the Polish Armed Forces in the form of leases

- Minister M. Blaszczak said after the agreement was approved.

- Polish pilots, here in the United States, are already training as to precisely how to use these helicopters. The task of these helicopters will be to close the "Brest Gate", so they will work together with Abrams tanks. They will be at the disposal of the Polish ground forces, especially the 18th Mechanized Division, which is already being equipped with Abrams tanks. Its task will be to defend the Brest direction. This is a direction that has been used many times in the history by Russian forces both in the period of Tsarist and Red Russia. Now anticipating attacks, we intend to make the Polish Armed Forces so strong that Russia will not dare to invade our territory. Apache attack helicopters together with Abrams tanks will ensure our security on the Brest direction

- the head of the Ministry of Defense noted.

The helicopters will go to the eastern flank of NATO, to the 18th Mechanized Division. These are the world's best attack helicopters. This is a very modern and combat-proven platform - at the same time it is a new quality for the Polish Military, which is bidding farewell to outdated post-Soviet designs. The Apaches will be designed to work with Abrams tanks - a combat-proven, long-developed and highly effective American model.

- The order of 96 helicopters is well thought out. This is exactly the number we need to realistically and effectively deter an aggressor. Apache helicopters are among the best in the world. They work great together with tanks in particular. Our division, the 18th Mechanized Division, is built on the model of American units. Thank you for the close cooperation. Especially with the V Corps of the US Army, the advanced element of which is permanently, and I emphasize this very strongly, stationed in Poland. Regular training sessions are held, where Polish soldiers together with American soldiers improve their skills. We adopt the best models. This is because American ground troops are the strongest in the world, so we learn from the best. Our goal is to prevent Russian incursion. We are all well aware of the attempts to rebuild the Russian empire. The best answer to these attempts is to create strong Polish Armed Forces. This process is currently taking place. Today the Polish Military has 180,000 soldiers under arms

- Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in the United States.

***

The subject of the offset agreement is, among other things, the acquisition of support, repair and maintenance capabilities for key helicopter components used in combat and reconnaissance, including guidance and target indication systems. Thanks to this agreement, capabilities will also be established in the Polish defense industry for the diagnosis and verification of possible malfunctions and partial servicing of LONGBOW fire control radars.

The above capabilities should ensure that APACHE helicopters maintain a high level of operational availability during their service with the Polish Armed Forces.

The offset agreement covers a total of two commitments worth a total of about 300 million PLN, which will be fulfilled within 5 years. This is the first of several agreements that the Treasury intends to conclude as part of the acquisition of AH-64E attack helicopters.

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Press release on Russia's efforts to stabilise the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh

25 September 2023 20:53

1878-25-09-2023

Russia continues to act consistently as it takes steps to stabilise the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian peacekeepers are monitoring compliance with the ceasefire which was declared on September 20 through their active mediation. The indisputable priority of our efforts is to prevent a new armed conflict and more civilian casualties.

Russian peacekeepers are providing massive humanitarian aid to Armenians. In the previous two days alone, Russian peacekeepers brought 125 tonnes of humanitarian goods and 65 tonnes of fuel into the region. There are plans to ensure the regular delivery of food and essential goods along the Lachin and Agdam routes. According to recent information, up to 700 refugees, including over 400 children, are currently in the Russian peacekeepers' base camp.

Two rounds of talks between representatives of Baku and Stepanakert took place with the direct involvement of the Russian peacekeepers command. The priority issues on the agenda of these meetings included demilitarisation, and efforts to restore peaceful life and ensure the rights and security of the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

We hope that positive results from this process will help an early resumption of the work to carry out the package of agreements reached by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020-2022, including unblocking transport routes, delimiting the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, coordinating a peace treaty, and promoting humanitarian contacts.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Dinner for the Second U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Benjamin Franklin Room

Washington, D.C.

September 25, 2023

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the State Department and to the Benjamin Franklin Room. Esteemed guests and friends from across the Pacific, it is my honor to welcome you tonight to our dinner program and to introduce our co-hosts, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield. My name is Dan Kritenbrink; I'm the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs here at the State Department, and this is the best day of the year for me. Truly honored and delighted to have so many friends across the Pacific here with us this evening.

It was an equal pleasure to be with so many of you last week in New York, where there were a number of truly momentous Pacific Island events, including a Partners in the Blue Pacific ministerial last Friday. And it's an even greater pleasure to have you all back here in Washington for this historic second U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit.

To start our dinner program this evening, I would like to welcome to the podium our Secretary of State, the Honorable Antony Blinken. Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good evening, everyone.

AUDIENCE: Good evening.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: It is wonderful to have you here at the State Department and here in the Benjamin Franklin Room. I believe that this might be the first event, first gathering we've had since this room was refurbished over the last six months or so. So if you - if there's a faint smell of paint, that might explain it. (Laughter.)

But you can see Mr. Franklin looking down upon us this evening, as he always does in this room. And as I was just sharing with some of our friends at this table, he, of course, was America's first diplomat. He signed our first treaty. Our ambassador to France. He charted the Gulf Stream. He helped pioneer electricity. He gave us our ethos of self-government. And of course, none of this did he do while sober. (Laughter.) So there may be some instruction there for the evening. I leave that to you to decide. (Laughter.)

But to all of you, thank you so much for joining us this evening. And Prime Minister Brown, Secretary General Puna, Pacific Island leaders: Thank you for coming to Washington for the second U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit.

A little over 50 years ago, leaders from the seven Pacific Island nations met in Wellington to chart the course for a safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous region.

Over the past half century, the Pacific Islands Forum has worked to live up to that responsibility for the people of its diverse nations: helping preserve their vital natural resources; expanding their economic opportunities; safeguarding their health, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This forum did something else that was crucial: It recognized the global resonance of these aspirations - and it drove collective action to address them. Supporting territories in their right to self-determination. Playing an outsized role in negotiating the Paris Climate Accords. Shaping the Sustainable Development Goals, especially their focus on conserving the world's oceans, seas, and marine ecosystems. Making the United Nations more inclusive, and better at giving a voice to all of its member-states. These are goals that the United States shares and is fully committed to supporting, as President Biden made clear at the United Nations just last week.

Because of the leadership of the Pacific Islands, big countries and small states alike are better positioned to choose their own path, enjoy greater access to clean air and water, and protect more of the planet for their children and their grandchildren.

Now, part of building a better future is attending to the consequences of the past. On that note, I just want to reiterate what President Biden said earlier today. We are committed to addressing the legacy of World War II and the Cold War across the Pacific, and specifically to advancing compacts of free association negotiations in a way that addresses the Marshall Islands' ongoing environmental, public health, and other welfare concerns.

Prime Minister Brown, you said recently, and I quote: "In the year 2050, those of us seated around the table certainly would have moved on from where we are today. But our [young people], our future Leaders, [they] will look back at this period as a key moment in the history of the Forum." That is very much a sentiment that President Biden shares - not only for this region, but for the world. He likes to talk about it as an inflection point where the work that we're doing now will shape not just the years ahead but the decades ahead.

Ensuring that we're seizing on the possibilities of this moment to build a more secure, a more resilient, a more inclusive, a more prosperous region - that's the spirit behind this summit. And that's the spirit behind our shared work: to strengthen climate resilience; to protect the region's natural resources; to increase digital connectivity; to create greater opportunity for all of our people.

As fellow Pacific nations, the fundamental fact is this: Our fates are tied together. And we've never been more committed to our shared vision for the future.

So to each and every one of you, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you not just for today, but for all the days that will follow.

And with that, it is a great pleasure and honor to turn the microphone over to Prime Minister Brown. Mr. Prime Minister. (Applause.)

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Well, good evening, everybody.

AUDIENCE: Good evening.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Okay. I suggest you have a glass of wine and then we'll start again. (Laughter.) Wonderful to have you all here. I have not got anything prepared for this other than to say and to repeat again, to get all the Pacific leaders into a room here not just once but twice, the second time that we've come to the White House, really is a remarkable achievement by both the administration of President Biden and your officials - and there are numerous that I know because my officials have been talking on a virtually daily basis with your State Department officials, and some of them are very, very effective - no names mentioned, Dr. Campbell - (laughter) - at getting things done.

But it is a remarkable achievement to have our leaders here, and it shows and demonstrates the commitment of the President Biden's administration to the Pacific, and in particular the challenges and issues that we as Pacific leaders have highlighted over many years, the issues that we feel are priorities and the issues that we feel our development partners should be focusing their efforts on.

So this opportunity not just today but also tomorrow that we're going to have is a terrific opportunity for all of us within the region to make sure that our voices are heard and that they are clearly articulated. Because the theme for our leaders meeting in November, where I look forward to welcome you all to Rarotonga, is "Our Voices, Our Choices, Our Pacific Way: to Promote, to Partner, to Prosper." And that is really the theme of what we're about.

We met with President Biden and he generously gave a significant amount of his time today to meet, despite pressing domestic concerns. And we know they were pressing domestic concerns because when the media came in, they asked him about the car strike, the picket line, and a few other things. (Laughter.) I don't think they saw the lineup of Pacific Island countries because there was no questions about the Pacific Islands. (Laughter.) So all I can say is, as far as the American media, there are no pressing concerns with the Pacific Islands. (Laughter.) So keep what you're doing - doing what you're doing, Secretary Blinken. It's okay in the eyes of the American media.

But in saying that, I certainly do look forward to welcoming you, those who will be coming to Rarotonga in November. It is an opportunity for us to send a clear message as a bloc, as a region, when we do attend the COP meeting. And again, these are important, important venues, important occasions for us to stand up and be heard.

John Kerry asked a question at our engagement this afternoon. He said: What do you want out of COP? And really, the messaging that came back is there are two things as Pacific countries that we want out of COP. One of them is what other countries will need to do, and the other one is what we Pacific countries will need to do.

And what we want other countries to do - and we have no control over what they can do - is to reduce their carbon emissions, because it is the carbon emissions that's causing the impacts of climate change that hit our Pacific region so very, very hard, so damaging. So in light of the fact that the IPCC report provides grim reading for climate impacts going into the future, all we can do is try and protect ourselves.

Which is why the second part of the equation - what we want - is to be able to build resilience in our countries. Resilience against the impacts of climate change, infrastructure, food safety, water security - all of these are key issues, in some of our countries more than others. The fact that we have to now put a declaration through the United Nations to recognize the maritime boundaries of our countries in the face of sea level rise really is a confronting issue that we face. A new declaration coming forward is a recognition of the statehood of people from Pacific countries. To have to put that to a declaration when we know these countries are at threat of going underwater - I can't think of any more confronting declaration than that.

So if countries are serious about helping Pacific members in their fight against climate impacts, to build resilience, our Pacific Resilience Facility is what we are taking to the COP for them to put their money where their mouth is and help countries like ours survive a little bit more as the rest of the world tries to reduce their carbon emissions and reduce the impacts of climate change. It's a real challenge, but that's what before us.

So tonight I urge you all to enjoy the dinner and enjoy the wine on behalf of Secretary Blinken. Thank you very much for putting us into a good mood. We look forward to tomorrow's engagements. Thank you. (In foreign language.) (Applause.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Thank you very much, Prime Minister Brown, for those remarks.

I now have the honor of introducing our other co-host this evening, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Madam Ambassador. (Applause.) Great to have you here.

AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you very much. Let me thank Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink for introducing us and being part of our event tonight. And thank you, Secretary Blinken, for co-hosting this dinner with me.

It really is an honor for me to be here tonight with such a distinguished group of leaders from across the Pacific Islands. And I want to express my deep appreciation to President Whipps and the Palau delegation for hosting the Pacific Island reception last week in New York. I apologized for arriving very, very late, but the party was still going strong. (Laughter.) And I heard it went till midnight, and I learned about "island time." So I really wasn't late, I was just on island time. (Laughter.) But it was an extraordinary event. It was a wonderful celebration of culture and food and people-to-people interactions that make the Pacific Islands so rich and so diverse.

As the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, I have the opportunity to work closely with leaders from the Pacific Islands as we strive to maintain international peace and security and take on today's global challenges. There's perhaps no more pressing global challenge than the climate crisis, which, as you all know too well, is already having a devastating impact on large ocean countries. The global challenge requires a global response. And President Biden is committed to helping galvanize sustained international cooperation.

In his - in this work, we're looking to your countries for leadership. We're looking to you for guidance. You understand better than anyone the challenges and opportunities facing your region. It's our job to listen and to support the needs of your people through bold action, adaptation and resilience efforts, and sustainable development. Last week at the UN General Assembly, the United States joined with leaders from around the world to reaffirm our commitments to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was a testament to our collective resolve, and a testament to the UN's ability to facilitate development dialogue and diplomacy.

But right now, colleagues, the UN and our very international system is being tested. When Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine, it struck at the heart of the UN Charter, and it threatened the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence that we all hold so dear. I'm immensely grateful that Pacific Island countries have stood with us to condemn Russia's brutal war of aggression, to make clear that might does not make right, and that the sanctity of the international system is worth defending and all countries have a role to play in its defense. (Applause.)

Tonight I'm proud to share that I have the honor of having been designated to lead the U.S. delegation to the Pacific Islands Forum Summit, which will - (applause) - this will be yet another opportunity to deepen and broaden our partnerships. And I'm looking forward to seeing all of you in the Cook Islands in November.

Thank you again for joining us tonight as we celebrate the deep history our nations share and the future that we will write together. Now please join me in inviting Prime Minister Natano to say a few words. (Applause.)

PRIME MINISTER NATANO: Thank you, Madam Ambassador. Secretary of State Blinken, esteemed leaders, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to join my esteemed colleagues, leaders, in expressing my deepest appreciation to Secretary Blinken for graciously hosting us for dinner tonight. This wonderful gathering provided us with a valuable opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions on critical matters pertaining to our partnership. We are privileged to have had this chance to exchange ideas and perspectives, enabling us to further strengthen the bond between the U.S. and Pacific countries.

As we gather here, it is evident that the current multilateral architecture no longer serves our pressing needs. This sentiment has been echoed by my fellow leaders, and most emphasized during our meeting today at the White House with President Biden. We find ourselves in an urgent global crisis, a climate war, where our planet is on the verge of defeat. It is clear that our existing multilateral system has fallen short in addressing this critical issue.

United Nations secretary-general and small island developing states have been vocal in their calls for reform. However, these pleas have remained unanswered as the system continues to be controlled by powerful developed nations who prioritize maintaining their status quo.

In light of this, we turn to the United States with hope, urging support in advocating for necessary reforms. We encourage the U.S. to actively work towards amplifying the Pacific voices within decision-making platforms, and strive to place specific leaders in positions of influence. Furthermore, we implore the U.S. to lead the charge in reforming the United Nations Security Council, ensuring it becomes more inclusive and representative.

Specifically, we call upon the U.S. to stand by us in adopting the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index at the upcoming fourth International Conference for Small Island Developing States. We urge all nations to recognize the significance of developing vulnerability measures further and to incorporate such metrics into relevant international processes. It is crucial to acknowledge vulnerability when allocating development assistance, as it allows for a more equitable distribution of resources.

Moreover, we believe it is imperative that all multilateral institutions, including large climate funds, integrate the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index into their finance assessment processes. By doing so, we can ensure a more comprehensive and just evaluation of funding allocations.

Together, let us seize this opportunity for reform and (inaudible) in a new era of multilateralism that serves the needs of our changing world. As vulnerable nations on the front lines of the climate crisis, we rely on your support and collective action to secure a sustainable future for all. I thank you. (Applause.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Well, thank you very much, Prime Minister Natano, for those truly eloquent and moving remarks. It is we who are privileged to have heard your remarks just now.

That concludes our open press portion of tonight's program, so I would now ask our friends from the media to please depart. Thank you very much.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Signing Ceremony with Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Alice Albright and iKiribati President Taneti Maamau

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Alice Albright

iKiribati President Taneti Maamau

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

September 25, 2023

MS ALBRIGHT: Hello. Thank you all so much for joining us, and I thank with deep appreciation the Government of Kiribati for partnering with the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Specifically, I want to recognize all of our friends, officials from the Government of Kiribati, who have joined us here today, including His Excellency Taneti Maamau, the president of Kiribati - lovely to see you; Taabeta Teakai, the minister for employment and human resource; Alexander Teabo, the minister for education; Teburoro Tito, although I'm not sure I see Ambassador Tito here - he's with us in spirit - (laughter) - the ambassador from Kiribati to the United States, we were with him in New York last week; Secretary Rores Irate (sp), the minister of education; and Director Taabeta Teakai, the minister of employment and human resource.

For nearly two decades, MCC has partnered with more than 45 countries, deploying nearly $17 billion in grant capital to reduce poverty through growth. We anchor our work in country ownership and partnership, working with partners - such as Kiribati - who are committed to our shared democratic and economic values.

So today we are so proud to sign this $29.1 million program, which is the largest grant that has been deployed by - in Kiribati by the United States to date. This program aims to bolster the capabilities of the Government of Kiribati to promote safe, accessible, decent, and inclusive employment opportunities for Kiribati workers and to strengthen workers' rights and resilience. The program will also empower youth with key skills for future employment opportunities.

This program is a crucial part of President Biden's overall commitment to the Pacific Region and specifically to the Pacific Islands. And MCC has recently advanced this commitment. Last year, MCC and the Government of the Solomon Islands signed a $20 million threshold program, which aims to increase tourism investment and to provide communities with revenues from sustainable forestry as an alternative to logging. Indeed, MCC is hard at work in the Solomons implementing this program with our resident country director, Charles Jakosa, establishing a full-time presence. And now MCC is so excited to deepen its partnerships in this vital part of the world by investing in Kiribati.

Further, we are together addressing the existential challenge that we all face of climate change. Kiribati's geography faces this threat, jeopardizing jobs and constraining economic growth. So we are working together to tackle this problem head on. To help Kiribati adapt to climate challenges, we have worked hand in hand with our colleagues in Kiribati to develop a country-based approach, investing in international labor mobility - investing in international labor mobility. People are the country's most important asset, so this program will protect and invest in Kiribati's workers, providing decent employment opportunities both in Kiribati and throughout the Pacific region. Together we will empower the people of Kiribati with capabilities and opportunities to thrive in the economy of the future. As partners, we are committed to our shared values, and I so look forward to achieving a brighter future for the people of Kiribati.

Finally, I'd like to offer my deep gratitude to the MCC team members led by Grace Morgan - where's Grace? Grace - and Emily Schultz. Where's Emily? Emily's over there - whose hard work has made this program possible starting in the middle of COVID. So there was a lot done over Zoom.

And now it is my great honor and privilege to introduce my dear friend and the 71st Secretary - U.S. Secretary of State, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to share his remarks. Thank you so much. (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, thank you and good evening, everybody. Mr. President, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for marking this important occasion with us. Alice, to you, for your extraordinary leadership of the MCC, to your team for the incredibly hard work during COVID, after COVID to bring us to this day. But especially to our friends from Kiribati - we're so delighted to welcome you here to the State Department.

Mr. President, last week at the United Nations you shared your vision, and I quote, "of a wealthier, healthier, peaceful nation." That's a goal that President Biden shares as well for Kiribati and for countries across the Pacific. As a Pacific nation ourselves, the United States is committed to partnering with Pacific Islands to build a secure, resilient, inclusive, and prosperous future.

And that's very much the spirit behind the agreement that we'll sign today. We're investing in the President's vision for the country, specifically by supporting Kiribati's greatest asset, its people. This agreement, as you've heard, invests $29.1 million to promote safe, accessible, decent, and inclusive employment opportunities for iKiribati workers, both in Kiribati and across the region. And it does this in a number of critical ways, and I really want to emphasize some of the things that Alice said because it's so important. It gets to the heart not only of what we're doing together but how we're doing it.

First, it helps strengthen Kiribati's Ministry of Employment and Human Resource, which we know plays a vital role in connecting workers with domestic and regional employers. This agreement makes it possible for the agency to better market job opportunities to iKiribati workers and to make more - and to more easily help underrepresented groups, like women and ethnic minorities, actually find jobs.

Second, the agreement helps protect iKiribati as they take jobs abroad. One way it will do this is by supporting the creation of a resource center for overseas workers so that they know their rights in new countries.

And third, the agreement creates English language camps for iKiribati youth in Fiji and the United States and provides students with year-long scholarships to study in American high schools. Students will have the opportunity to improve their oral and written communication and make themselves more competitive for jobs. And these connections will strengthen the ties that bind our people, and with it, our shared future.

Like all MCC projects, we developed this initiative, as you heard from Alice, hand in hand with our in-country partners. That's the great strength of what the MCC does. It is focused on developing projects jointly, listening, learning, hearing our partners and what they need, and working together to identify priorities and generate practical, positive solutions. This agreement recognizes the fast-changing nature of employment challenges, and it gives us the flexibility that we need to adapt to new circumstances and to ensure that, together, we're delivering results.

So to everyone who made this possible, who brought us to today, thank you. We're greatly looking forward to seeing all of the good things, the positive things, the practical things this project brings to Kiribati and to the broader Pacific region. Thank you so much. (Applause.)

Madam Minister, the microphone is yours.

MINISTER TEAKAI: Thank you very much.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you so much.

MINISTER TEAKAI: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and your team, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings - warm Kiribati greetings to you all in the name of God Almighty. (In foreign language.)

I have the honor to represent the government and the people of Kiribati this evening to witness and celebrate the signing of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC, Kiribati threshold grant agreement. First, allow me to reflect on our past engagement with the MCC leading to this partnership.

Kiribati first engaged with the MCC in 2021 during the COVID pandemic through virtual meetings after being selected for the threshold program. This is where the extensive and comprehensive consultations began in which the Government of Kiribati selected the international labor mobility as a priority focus to be considered under the collaboration with the MCC.

Following the border reopening, the MCC delegation made its first in-country visit of - to Kiribati in October 2022, where they had the opportunity to meet in person with all relevant stakeholders and held extensive consultations informing the project design.

In June '23, the negotiation on the threshold grant agreement was held here in Washington, D.C. The international labor mobility program - named (inaudible), meaning (in foreign language) project, or in English, "Decent Work for Everyone's Development," consists of three activities. These include capacity strengthening to support labor mobility activities, workers' right, and well-being implemented by the Ministry of Employment and Human Resources, and senior secondary scholarships and summer camps implemented by the Ministry of Education.

These are very much central to and resonating with Kiribati's development aspirations. Capitalizing on our human resources through strengthened international labor mobility is a cornerstone to Kiribati's long-term development aspirations, enshrined in the Kiribati Vision, the KV20. The signing of this MCC grant agreement marks an important milestone between Kiribati and the United States through the Ministry of Employment and the Ministry of Education with the MCC team. Kiribati is looking forward to the implementation stage and to a long-term partnership.

On behalf of the people of and the Government of Kiribati, I wish to convey our sincere gratitude to the U.S. Government for this new initiative. I would also like to acknowledge with gratitude the support and commitment of the MCC team and the implementing partners, International Labor Organization and the American Councils, who will be working with our ministries. The signing of the MCC grant agreement is just the beginning of this significant partnership, but I have no doubt it will bring tangible, mutual benefits to our two countries.

In closing, I would like to wish you all the best this evening and to bestow upon all of us our Kiribati traditional blessings of te mauri, te raoi, and te tabomoa, meaning "good health, peace, and prosperity." Thank you all. (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN: So I think now we're going to proceed to the signing.

(The agreement was signed.)

(Applause.)

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Joint Statement Signing Ceremony with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

September 25, 2023

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good evening, everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here with Prime Minister Brown, and a particular pleasure because of the reason we're here. When we had the initial summit with our Pacific Island partners back in 2022, President Biden announced his intent to recognize the Cook Islands. And today, with the exchange of letters signed by the President and signed by the prime minister, we have done just that and established diplomatic relations between the United States and the Cook Islands. So this is truly, genuinely, a historic occasion.

It opens a new and I think very exciting chapter in our relationship. It in a sense reinforces what's already there because the relationship, even in the absence of this recognition, has been long and enduring. But I think this is a way to deepen even more the bonds that join us together. We're celebrating a shared history. We're celebrating shared values. We're celebrating ever deeper people-to-people ties. And I think in this recognition, we also recognize in each other a shared commitment to democracy, a shared commitment to dealing with the existential challenge of our time, which is combating climate change, and a shared commitment to supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific.

When we were with President Biden earlier today, he made a point of relaying a conversation he'd had with a leader of another country, in which he said resolutely that the United States is a Pacific nation and we have millions of our fellow citizens who have Pacific heritage. And of course so much of our focus, looking to the future, is the Indo-Pacific region.

But we're also inspired by the history that we share, and we have a long history with the Cook Islands - a long history for security, for prosperity in the region, and of course this goes back to World War II and some of the history that the President recounted today. We're working very closely together on dealing with other huge challenges of our time, including combating illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing. We know the impact that that's having on the livelihoods of so many people.

And of course one of the things we're very gratified by, and was another point of emphasis today, is the participation of Cook Islanders in so many of our exchange programs - in the IVLP program, in the Young Pacific Leaders program, in the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs program. And of course we have American citizens who very much enjoy the hospitality of the Cook Islands, who live there, who work there, who are contributing to the deep connections between our peoples. So our countries are already intrinsically linked. But diplomatic relations, formal diplomatic relations, will make us even closer.

Finally, just to say a few words more broadly about today, we had the second historic summit between the United States and our Pacific Island partners. I think this is testament to the fact that we are strong partners and we have relationships that are built on mutual respect and shared interests. Prime Minister, we deeply appreciate your leadership of the Pacific Island Forum as chair, and one of the elements of our policy, of our approach, is elevating the partnership with the PIF. We have, of course, our first U.S. envoy, Ambassador Frankie Reed.

So we will work closely with you. We'll work closely with the PIF, with the Pacific Community, to bolster Pacific regionalism. I think one of the great strengths of the Pacific Island Forum is the strength that comes from countries joining forces, working together, dealing in a common way with common challenges. We're working, meanwhile, to try to align the Pacific strategy that we have with the PIF 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific, and I think we already see in those strategies tremendous alignment and we'll continue to refine that as we move forward.

We're very much looking forward to the 52nd PIF Leaders Summit to support Pacific voices, Pacific choices, the Pacific way. And we're committed to partnering on all of the critical issues that we're joined together with the Cook Islands in dealing with as we speak. I'm very gratified that we've had today and in the previous summit pretty much a whole-of-government engagement with our Pacific Island partners, all of the different agencies that are working together to strengthen the work that we're doing, to make us as effective as possible in responding to the needs of Pacific Islanders.

But in that, we are very, very gratified for this relationship and gratified by the fact that this is a day for the history books.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: It is.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: And we're so grateful, Prime Minister, to have you here, and it's now my pleasure to turn the microphone over to you.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Thank you. (Applause.) Well, Secretary Blinken, to my delegation that's here, it's a privilege and an honor to be standing here today to celebrate the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two nations. This momentous occasion represents a culmination of years of hard work, dedication, and the unwavering commitment of our people to forge our own sovereign path on the global stage.

Our journey to statehood - a journey characterized by resilience and determination - has brought us to this pivotal moment. From the moment we first asserted our self-governance, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to manage our affairs with wisdom and grace. For the Cook Islands, this day has been a long time coming. And as we celebrate this milestone, we do so with a deep sense of pride in our national identity.

Today the U.S. becomes the Cook Islands' 61st diplomatic partner, and this will undoubtedly pave the way for others to follow suit. My country has been steadily expanding our international and multilateral presence in pursuit of a more resilient nation. This will open doors to exciting opportunities and foster greater cooperation and partnerships on a global scale. This is not just a symbolic gesture. For the Cook Islands today, it is a critical step towards our development aspirations.

Looking ahead, we envision a future of robust cooperation and friendship with the United States. We will work together to address regional and global challenges, promote sustainable development, and create opportunities for our people. We will work together in areas of mutual interest, including climate action, ocean stewardship, critical minerals, tourism, education, and human rights. We have already cooperated with the U.S. in many of these areas over the years, but now we do so as equal and sovereign partners.

In conclusion, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all those who have worked tirelessly to make this day a reality. To you and your team, Secretary Blinken, (inaudible). To my team, well done. This achievement brings to every Cook Islander, past and present, who has contributed to our nation's progress. So today we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, adding to their foundation, so that those still to come can build an even brighter future for our nation.

May this historic moment mark the beginning of a bright and prosperous chapter in the Cook Islands-U.S. relationship. (In foreign language.) Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Yes, sir.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: All right. The joint statement that is being signed by the Secretary and the prime minister reads as follows: "On this occasion, we celebrate the shared history, common values, and people-to-people ties between our two nations. We affirm our joint commitment to deepen our cooperation as equal and sovereign partners, guided by respect, genuine engagement, and partnership. Going forward, we intend to cooperate with each other on matters of shared priority, including climate change, ocean stewardship, marine resources, critical minerals, renewable energy, education, sustainable development, democracy, human rights, and good governance. We acknowledge the importance of Pacific regional institutions, including the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Community, and we look forward to working together with the Cook Islands to further bolster connections within the Pacific region.

"The establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Cook Islands marks an historic achievement that will further reinforce our friendship and deepen our bonds for many years to come. Through this joint statement, we acknowledge this achievement. We are connected by our history, our Pacific Ocean, and our people, and we look forward to our continued and strengthened partnership.

Signed,

Secretary Antony J. Blinken, the United States of America

Prime Minister Mark Brown, Cook Islands"

(Applause.)

(The joint statement was signed.)

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: All right. Thanks, folks.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you so much.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Joint Statement Signing Ceremony with Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi

US Department of State

Remarks

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

September 25, 2023

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. This is not only a happy occasion but a genuinely historic one. Premier, it's wonderful to stand with you today. Last year, President Biden announced his intent to recognize Niue. And he filled that promise today by announcing U.S. recognition of Niue as a sovereign and independent state.

The important work of exchanging letters has happened, and we have established diplomatic relations between our countries.

This partnership begins a new chapter, as well as reinforcing existing friendships, and I think it has the prospect of only deepening the bonds that already exist between our countries.

We're celebrating shared history, shared values, and ever stronger people-to-people ties. I think what we have is an affirmation fundamentally of a shared commitment to democracy, to combating the truly existential challenge of our time - climate change - to supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific region that benefits all people in the Pacific.

President Biden today with all of our colleagues from the Pacific Island nations emphasized this fundamental fact: The United States is a Pacific nation, with millions of citizens of Pacific heritage. We have a long history of working with Niue to maintain a secure and prosperous region. And we deeply appreciate Niue's invaluable contributions to that effort on negotiations of the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, combating illegal fishing, supporting the long-term economic resilience of island nations.

We very much applaud Niue's sustainable development commitments and very progressive approach to marine protection and to ocean conservation. Niueans participate in our IVLP, our international exchange program, the Youth Pacific Leadership - Leaders Program, the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs. And one of the things that I think we also heard today was the value, the profound value, of those programs, and we are committed to strengthening them and to deepening them.

And of course, we have many Americans who have experienced and continue to experience Niuean hospitality who live and work there.

The United States and the Pacific Islands have a strong partnership that is rooted in mutual respect and shared interest. And Niue is playing a very important role in the regional institutions, which we deeply value and seek to help strengthen. We'll work together and with others to boost Pacific regionalism.

We also are working hard to align our own Pacific Strategy with the Pacific Islands Forum 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. We look forward to participating in the upcoming PIF Leaders Summit to support Pacific voices, Pacific choices, the Pacific way. We're committed to partnering on the critical issues of our time - as already mentioned, climate change, but also economic and infrastructure investment, cultural and educational opportunities, people-to-people engagement.

Today's recognition, today's establishment of diplomatic relations, is a historic step in this process. We could not be more grateful for our newest partner, and Premier, it is my pleasure to now give the podium to you. (Applause.)

PREMIER TAGELAGI: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Firstly, (in Niuean), and good afternoon, everyone.

As we all do in the Pacific, we always give thanks to our heavenly father for his blessings and his guidance that brought us all together here this afternoon.

Secretary Blinken, and your staff, thank you, and thank you again for welcoming me and my little tiny, weeny delegation - (laughter) - (inaudible) to this beautiful city of Washington, D.C.

Today is a historic day for us, especially for myself and my leadership, and for our small nation, the commemoration of diplomatic relations between Niue and the United States of America. Today we are - celebrate shared history, common values, and people-to-people's ties between our two nations.

We have been looking forward for this day since the announcement was made by the U.S. last year that it would recognize Niue as a sovereign state. We have a small community of U.S. citizens living in Niue, and I believe we also have a community of Niueans who have chosen to make your country their home. May our friendly relations extend to the respect and care of our peoples.

Although we make things official today, we have a long history of friendly relations with the U.S. Since the conception in 2013, we have had a number of young adults participated in the Young Pacific Leaders Conference organized by the U.S. Department of State. In 2021, Niue took part in the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs program, which is supported by the U.S. National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which has provided the women in our community with the skills and basic models required to pursue their own businesses. We have had over 40 government officials receive training from the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, who became alumni in 2018. And these graduates have now advanced their careers in the service.

The Peace Corps volunteers began serving in Niue in 1994 until 2002, and we look forward to its revival. I don't know why they left. In 1997, Niue ratified the Maritime Boundaries Treaty with the U.S., defining our maritime boundaries with American Samoa. Niue is a party to the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, and most recently we signed a memorandum of understanding for the 2023 fishing arrangements. We are grateful. We are grateful for the support and training opportunities provided by the United States to date, and we look forward to deepening our ties through more engagement.

We pray that the relationship between our two countries will be of a harmonization, unity, and prosperity. And I thank you very much. [In Niuean.] May God bless us all. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN: It's now my pleasure to invite you forward to sign.

STAFF: So the joint statement that will be signed by the Secretary and the Premier reads as follows:

"On this occasion, we celebrate the shared history, common values, and people-to-people ties between our nations. We affirm our joint commitment to deepen our cooperation as equal and sovereign partners guided by respect, genuine engagement, and partnership. Going forward, we intend to cooperate with each other on matters of shared priority, including climate change, ocean stewardship, renewable energy, education, culture, sustainable development, democracy, human rights, and good governance. We acknowledge the importance of Pacific regional institutions, including the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Community, and we look forward to working together with Niue to further bolster connections within the Pacific region.

"The establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Niue marks an historical achievement that will further reinforce our friendship and deepen our bonds for many years to come. Through this joint statement, we acknowledge this achievement. We are connected by our history, our Pacific Ocean, and our people, and we look forward to our continued and strengthened partnership."

Signed Secretary Antony J. Blinken, United States of America; Premier Dalton Tagelagi, Niue.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you.

(The joint statement was signed.)

STAFF: It's official. (Applause.)

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September 26, 2023

Release

DoD Releases Report on Defense Spending by State in Fiscal Year 2022

Today, the Department of Defense Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation released its Fiscal Year 2022 Defense Spending by State report to help states and communities better understand how Defense procurement, personnel spending and grants impact their economies. Fiscal Year 2022 is the first year to incorporate DoD grant awards, which were reported to USAspending.gov.

The report's graphs, maps, and tables present a range of findings, such as total spending figures, categories of contracted goods and services, major defense vendors, numbers, and types of defense personnel, and, for the first time, grants awarded by DoD. This snapshot provides public and private leaders with a starting place to assess how defense investments across installations, communities, and the private sector can be optimized by supporting regional innovation, industrial capability and capacity, supply chain resilience, and cultivating a skilled workforce.

"Our industrial base is one of our greatest competitive advantages, and this report enables our state, local, and industry partners to visualize the full scope of our investments as we focus on fostering a resilient and robust defense ecosystem," said Dr. Radha Plumb, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. "As we work to deliver the technologies and services our warfighters need at speed and scale, the report highlights how the Department is expanding our relationships with industries not traditionally associated with defense and serves as a tool for state and local partners to identify new partnership opportunities."

Defense spending fell in Fiscal Year 2022 as the federal government ramped down its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. DoD contract obligations and payroll spending in the 50 states and the District of Columbia decreased by $10.1 billion over the prior year. This is the result of a 2.3 percent decrease in DoD contract obligations and a 0.06 percent decrease in payroll spending.

DoD contract obligations, payroll spending, and grant awards in the 50 states and the District of Columbia totaled $558.7 billion, which is 2.2 percent of the country's gross domestic product. If the total spending were divided across every U.S. resident, it would amount to $1,679 per U.S. citizen. Of those funds, $389.5 billion (70 percent) were spent on contracts for products and services, $159.4 billion (28 percent) paid the salaries of DoD personnel, and $9.7 billion (2 percent) were awarded as grants.

Virginia, Texas, and California topped the list of recipients for overall defense spending. However, Virginia, Hawaii, and Connecticut ranked highest when considering defense spending relative to their respective state GDPs.

The top ten states for total Defense spending in Fiscal Year 2022 were:

Rank State Defense Spending (billions) 1 Virginia $62.7 2 Texas $58.0 3 California $56.2 4 Florida $30.2 5 New York $28.1 6 Maryland $26.4 7 Connecticut $22.3 8 Pennsylvania $17.9 9 Massachusetts $15.2 10 Arizona $15.0

Texas, Connecticut, and North Carolina had the largest overall increases in DoD spending from Fiscal Year 2021 to 2022. This was driven by a large contract to Lockheed Martin in Texas, increases in contracts to General Dynamics and Raytheon in Connecticut, and a large contract with GlaxoSmithKline in North Carolina. Two large contracts - Pfizer, Inc. in New York ($16.7 billion) and Moderna, Inc. in Massachusetts ($1.8 billion) - also remain through COVID-19 vaccine and treatment purchases by DoD, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Arizona replaced Washington in the top ten states with an increase of $0.3 billion in Fiscal Year 2022.

The top ten recipients of Defense contracts in Fiscal Year 2022 were:

Rank Company Defense Spending (billions) 1 Lockheed Martin $44.5 2 Raytheon Technologies $25.4 3 General Dynamics $21.5 4 Pfizer, Inc. $16.7 5 Boeing $14.2 6 Northrop Grumman $12.8 7 Humana $7.7 8 L3Harris Technologies $6.2 9 Huntington Ingalls $6.1 10 BAE Systems $4.9

Nine of the ten companies were on this list in Fiscal Year 2021. BAE Systems replaced Moderna, Inc., which was an anomaly in 2021 due to the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Patrick O'Brien, the OLDCC Director, "We know state and local leaders are eager to support the resiliency of military installations and the modernization of the defense industrial base. The contract, grant, and personnel data in this report presents governors, local officials, and other leaders with topline information to help them target their efforts."

This analysis primarily entailed an examination of DoD funded prime- and sub-award contract data, grant awards, and defense personnel and payroll figures drawn from an array of sources, including DoD's Defense Manpower Data Center and USAspending.gov, which is managed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Fiscal Year 2022 is the first year to incorporate DoD grant awards, which were reported to USAspending.gov. This spending includes support for the National Guard as well as Research and Development activities.

The Fiscal Year 2022 report, as well as previous years' reports, can be found on the OLDCC website at: https://oldcc.gov/dsbs-fy2022

A supplemental analysis report of DoD contract, personnel, and grant spending in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States is forthcoming.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3538311/

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September 26, 2023

Transcript

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Holds On-The-Record, Off-Camera With Traveling Press in Djibouti

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III

General Ryder:

Secretary will have brief opening remarks. And then we'll go ahead and take your questions. I'll facilitate that. Without further ado, turn it over to the secretary.

SD:

Yeah. So my first question is, does anybody know what day or time it is? Probably not. We just know it's dark and light.

But thanks for being here, as you heard me say before is, this is my first trip to Africa. I met with Djibouti and Somali leaders today, and I look forward to meeting with Kenyan and Angolan leaders later this trip.

They are key partners in the African region with whom we continue to grow relationships and security cooperation. And so we're here as part of a US government wide effort of defense, diplomacy, and development.

It is about the strength of the military. That's true. But it's also about economic development, and the resiliency of our democracy, democratic institutions, because we believe that stable institutions and good governance are a cornerstone to strengthen security.

Had a good meeting today with senior Djiboutian officials to discuss ongoing military cooperation, regional security challenges and opportunities for further collaboration. Also met with the Somali President today, where we discussed the progress made in the effort against Al Shabaab, and also the work that remains ahead.

In Kenya, I'll be engaging defense officials on shared security interest and counterterrorism efforts. And on my visit to Angola, I'll focus on building stronger defense relationships and exploring avenues for increased mil-to-mil cooperation. As you may know, I met with the president of Angola during the African leader Summit. And he expressed an interest in me visiting so this is really a follow up to see how we might work closer together.

Our national security goals in Africa are to continue to build partner capacity and counter violent extremist organizations. And we want to be a partner of choice for these countries. So we're working with partners to strengthen their capacity and capabilities, and to help them manage their own security challenges. And so with that, I'll stop and take your questions.

Carla Babb (VOA):

Thanks, Mr. Secretary for doing this. I was just hoping you could give us a few more details about your conversation with the Somali President today. Do you support his request for a delay in the AU withdrawal of its forces from Somalia?

SD:

As you may know, Carla, I've met with him several times before, and he is absolutely focused on increasing the stability and security in this country, but also in the region writ large. He's in a tough struggle with Al Shabaab. But I think his forces have made impressive progress. I think they made more progress in the last year than was made in the previous five years.

And then, of course, he wants to do everything that he can to maintain momentum. And of course, he's seeking support for that. And he's engaging a number of countries in the region. And I think that's you know, that's the right thing to do. But clearly, as you know, we have a small element there that that's been supporting the training and enabling of his forces. And he's very, very grateful for what the United States of America does.

Carla Babb (VOA):

And then just to follow, is the US willing to do more work to help the Somalis because I know the Somali President has asked for the delay of the African Union withdrawal. He said there were some setbacks, pointing to some of the attacks. Is the US willing to step up and do more to prevent some of these further setbacks?

SD:

But you know, again, we are doing a lot. In terms of what happens in the future, I won't speculate on what the United States will do, in addition to all the great things that we're already doing. But, you know, we're committed to countering al Shabaab. It is one of the extremist organizations that has the ability to export tariff from ungoverned spaces to the places that are of interest to us. So, I think it's important to remain focused on this threat.

Natasha Bertrand (CNN):

I do have one question that is not related to Africa and then another question on Africa.

SD:

And then 10 more that are related to Africa (laughter)

Natasha (CNN):

So, I was wondering if you could, now that we're on the record, give us some kind of update on the long range missile questionthe ATACMS question to Ukraine. There was a lot of confusion last week, I think there was some back and forth and some conflicting reporting. And so I'm just wondering if you could tell us where they things stand whether the US is prepared to send ATACMS.

SD:

I don't have any announcements to make on ATACMs, Natasha, so that my answer to that question is the same as it's been the last 10 times, you guys have asked me that. But if there is a change and the President wants to make an announcement, he will make the announcement. I don't have any announcements.

Natasha (CNN):

Do you think they would be useful to the Ukrainians?

SD:

I am focused on providing everything that we can provide to ensure that Ukrainians

are successful in protecting their sovereign territory. And you know, that I spent a great deal of my time engaging allies and partners in generating additional security assistance for Ukraine. We most recently have been focused on air defense and artillery munitions and artillery platforms. And as I engage the minister of defense and President Zelensky, himself, these are things we're at the top of his list, that don't need to sustain a reference going into into the fall into the winter.

Natasha (CNN):

And then in my follow up is, speaking of Ukraine but also related to Africa. President Zelenskyy met with Sudan's top military official today, and we have reporting that Ukraine has launched some limited operations against Wagner targets inside of Sudan. And so I'm wondering whether you've had any discussions with Ukrainians about Wagner presence in Sudan, if you could talk a little bit about that presence. And if the Ukrainians are asking the US to do more to bring them in there given, you know, their presence.

SD:

I don't have any insights on the meeting that President Zelenskyy would have conducted in Sudan. In terms of whether or not they're operating against Wagner elements in Sudan, I don't have any anything on that either. Again, it's a very complex and dynamic situation in Sudan. Right now, as you know, we have been focused on this and watching this since we evacuated our diplomats weeks ago. Hard to predict how this is going to go and where this where this is going to wind up. In terms of Wagner's presence and their impact on Sudan or other places in the region, we've seen that wherever Wagner has operated, it's been problematic. They don't necessarily abide by any rules and don't respect the law very much. And so because of that, the effects that they have in the region have not been lasting effects. I think some of the countries that have operated with them, probably will not seek to do so going forward there. But we'll see what happens. Wagner still has a substantial presence on the continent, as you know and where that goes from here is left to be seen. Their leadership has been taken out. I think what you'll see in the future here is probably some competition within the ranks on who's going to be the next leader. I think you'll also see potentially Russian government moving to either replace Wagner with some other kind of element or using Russian forces to support efforts on the continent. So, it's hard to predict. I do know that Wagner can probably sustain itself in the near term. But going forward in the midterm or longer term, it will be tough for them to sustain themselves without the support of Russia.

Mosh (NBC):

You speak about the Wagner group presence. We also have the coup in Niger and the coup in Gabon, and then you have al Shabaab and their influence how it ebbs and flows on the continent. How have all of this impacted the U.S.'s counter-terror mission and is there any concern there?

SD:

As you look at our efforts against VEOs, globally, as we have been successful in pressing up against these organizations in the Middle East and other places. They have migrated to other ungoverned spaces. We know that organizations like this will seek to operate in ungoverned spaces. They'll also seek to go places that have some access to resources. So, you know, I think you'll continue to see, you know, as you're successful in one area, a migration to another part of the globe, but again, strong governments, effective governments, effective institutions, and governments having the ability to protect their sovereign spaces, really inhibit their ability to move from place to place.

Now, our efforts on the continent have been to enable and train indigenous forces so that countries have the ability to protect their own spaces. But this is not just a military effort.

Our approach has been to employ elements of defense, development, and diplomacy throughout, because we believe that you have to really go after the underlying causes of instability, as you press against violent extremist organizations. And the more effective we are in doing that, then the less space that these organizations have to operate.

Mosh (NBC):

Sticking with counterterrorism for a second, specifically in Niger, wondering has the US resumed counter terror efforts with Nigerian forces?

SD:

We have not. First of all, our force posture in these year hasn't changed. We moved forces from airbase 101 over to air base 201. But we still have essentially the same footprint in Niger. And again, we're flying ISR, but that ISR is focused on our force protection. And we've not resumed any operations within the Nigerian forces. And, and so, again, we're hopeful that this will be resolved with diplomacy. But we'll see.

Fadi (Al Jazeera):

Thank you for doing this again. I want to start with Djibouti. There's some concerns about the Chinese presence in this country, and its proximity to US presence, especially when it comes to operations and security. Did you get the chance to raise this issue with the leaders of Djibouti? And did you sense they're willing to take some steps to alleviate some of those concerns?

SD:

Well, thanks. No, we didn't talk about the Chinese presence here. We talked about those things that are important to us: to Djibouti and to the United States of America. And, that really consumed our all of our time. There are Chinese, there's a Chinese element operating here. But there are also other countries operating here as well, as you know, French and others still have interest here, and they're still operating here.

So Djibouti has relationships with a number of countries. We don't ask countries to choose between us and other countries. I think that given a choice, most countries, all countries, as they work with us see the value of being a partner of the United States of America. And they treasure that. And so I think, you know, we talked a lot today about...First of all, I thank the President for supporting and being great hosts to our troops that we've had here for quite a while. And we talked about the things that that we could, you know, work on together to affect some of the things in the region and so, again, no time spent focused on the Chinese.

Fadi (Al Jazeera):

And on Sudan, a senior defense official told us that as long as external powers provide

weapons and military support to the fighting inside of Sudan, there's not going to be any incentive to sit down and talk in a political way to resolve the issue. Some of those powers are close partners to the U.S. Have you been able to kind of use the U.S. leverage to try to convince these external powers and create the right conditions for political solution?

SD:

What we have done in the past and continue to do is to encourage our allies and partners to encourage both parties to move to diplomacy and we'll continue to do that.

This is a very complex situation. And as long as they're not talking at the table, as long as they're not coming to the table, there's no hope to resolve this. So we'll continue to encourage people to influence others to be willing to negotiate.

Jack (FP):

You're traveling to Manda Bay in Kenya tomorrow at the site of deadly attack on US service members three years ago. Just curious in the wake of what's happened on the continent in the past couple of years. How do you assess the safety of US service members? Are they more hardened against attacks from groups like Al Shabaab, al Qaeda, and ISIS franchises?

SD:

Thanks, Jack. Well, first of all, you know, my thoughts and prayers remain with the families of our troops there that that we lost. As you would imagine, we have gone to great lengths to make sure that, you know, we put the right measures in place to ensure that our troops are protected.

One of the very first things that General Langley, the AFRICOM commander did as he came into his job was to come to Manda Bay and talk with the leadership and survey the ground himself.

And this is the thing that he remains focused on. So I'm confident that our troops are in good shape, and they were vigilant, and they don't take anything for granted.

Jack (FP):

Your last stop on the trip will be Angola. I'm just curious. 10 years on into the Belt and Road, what do you see as the prospects for dislodging Chinese influence on the continent? And obviously, there's the Lobito corridor project, their major rail project to get the US in critical minerals game. So I'm curious, is the US sort of on time to this or a little bit too late, just given the Chinese edge on the continent?

SD:

When I met with the President, he expressed a desire to meet to develop a stronger relationship with the United States and we welcome that. And so I look forward to going there.

As I said earlier, we're not going to ask people to choose between one country or another, we will just demonstrate the value of partnering with the United States of America.

And, you know, without us doing that he recognizes that up front. And so I look forward to working with him and I think it's going to be a really good visit to Angola.

Jack (FP):

Is there a military angle to it? I mean, obviously, there's Blinken, Yellen, many of your fellow Cabinet members have been there. Is there a specific angle for the DOD?

SD:

I won't say that there's any angle. But it's always goodness associated with people or countries moving closer to the United States of America. And certainly our relationship there provides opportunity for things throughout the region. There's no angle here that we're trying to pursue. I'll stop there.

Staff: All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3538418/

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September 26, 2023

Release

Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Meeting on Red Hill Defueling, Closure and Health Response Plan

On September 22, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III convened senior Department leaders for an update on the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility (RHBFSF).

Vice Admiral Wade, Joint Task Force Red Hill (JTF-RH) commander, briefed Secretary Austin on JTF-RH efforts to safely and expeditiously defuel the Red Hill Facility. JTF-RH successfully removed approximately 480,000 gallons of fuel from the Surge Tanks in July and completed repacking fuel lines in September in preparation for defueling operations that will begin in October. The Joint Task Force continues to leverage logistics expertise from the Defense Logistics Agency-Energy (DLA Energy) and coordinate closely with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Hawaii Department of Health throughout this process.

Last month, Dr. Radha Plumb, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, confirmed to Congress that defueling will not adversely affect the Department's military operations. The Department's confirmation allows the Department to begin gravity-based defueling once it has received regulatory approval.

Secretary Austin noted that work remains to ensure the safe defueling and closure of the facility and reiterated his long-term commitment to protecting human health and environmental stewardship in Hawaii.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3537355/

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Statement by Spokesperson for President of the European Council Charles Michel on Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation - 26 September 2023

European Council / Council of the European Union

European Council

Statements and remarks

26 September 2023



26 September 2023

Under the auspices of President Michel, his Diplomatic Advisers Simon Mordue and Magdalena Grono hosted a meeting between Secretary of Armenia's Security Council Armen Grigoryan and Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev, with the participation of Diplomatic Advisers to FR President Macron and DE Chancellor Scholz, Emmanuel Bonne and Jens Ploetner, as well as EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar.

President Michel joined the participants for a brief exchange.

The EU invited participants to exchange views on the current situation on the ground and various efforts aimed at addressing the urgent needs of the local population.

The European Union closely follows all these developments and has been engaged at the highest level to help alleviate the impact of hostilities on civilians. The EU reiterated in this context its position on Azerbaijan's military operation last week.

Hikmet Hajiyev outlined Azerbaijan's plans to provide humanitarian assistance and security to the local population. The EU stressed the need for transparency and access for international humanitarian and human rights actors and for more detail on Baku's vision for Karabakh Armenians' future in Azerbaijan. The EU is providing assistance to Karabakh Armenians.

The meeting also allowed for intense exchanges between participants on the relevance of a possible meeting of the leaders in the framework of the Third EPC Summit scheduled for 5 October 2023 in Granada.

The participants took note of the shared interest of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make use of the possible meeting in Granada to continue their normalisation efforts.

In this regard, Armen Grigoryan and Hikmet Hajiyev engaged in talks on possible concrete steps to advance the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process in the upcoming possible meeting, such as those with regard to border delimitation, security, connectivity, humanitarian issues, and the broader peace treaty.

Concrete action and decisive compromise solutions are needed on all tracks of the normalisation process.

The EU believes that the possible meeting in Granada should be used by both Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty in line with agreements reached previously in Prague and Brussels.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: EU provides 5 million in humanitarian aid

European Commission

Press release

26 September 2023

Brussels

The EU is boosting its humanitarian funding with 5 million in response to the increasing needs resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis. The conflict escalation and subsequent ceasefire is expected to trigger a mass exodus of people from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, with approximately 13 500 refugees having crossed the border already. At the same time, there is a major food shortage and lack of access to electricity and water within the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

The 5 million humanitarian funding includes 500 000 of emergency support of emergency support announced last week and 4.5 million new funding, which will:

assist people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. This aid will be delivered by various EU humanitarian partners operating in Armenia to reach around 25 000 people. The priority is to provide cash assistance, shelter, food security and livelihoods assistance.

This aid will be delivered by various EU humanitarian partners operating in Armenia to reach around 25 000 people. The priority is to provide cash assistance, shelter, food security and livelihoods assistance. assist vulnerable people inside Nagorno-Karabakh. This aid will be channelled through the International Committee of Red Cross and aims to support around 60 000 people with food, healthcare, shelter and logistics.

The EU is also deploying a humanitarian expert to the region who will work hand in hand with humanitarian partners on the ground to ensure a rapid response to the crisis.

Background

Including the new funding announced today, the European Commission has provided more than 25.8 million in humanitarian aid since the conflict escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. At the outbreak of the 2020 conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Commission promptly responded with 6.9 million in humanitarian support to address the needs of the most vulnerable among the civilians directly affected by the hostilities.

EU humanitarian funding is provided in line with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. The European Commission also plays a key role in facilitating humanitarian coordination and information sharing among various organisations, including donors, authorities and humanitarian partners.

Quote(s)

We must be prepared to support the thousands who have fled Nagorno Karabakh, especially as the upcoming winter is likely to expose the refugees to additional challenges. The EU is drastically stepping up its humanitarian aid in the region to provide emergency relief to people in need, both within the Nagorno Karabakh enclave, and to people now displaced in Armenia. The EU is committed to coordinate humanitarian efforts on the ground to assist the people affected by this conflict. Janez Lenarcic, Commissioner for Crisis Management - 25/09/2023

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There is "no urgency" to ratify Sweden's NATO accession: Hungarian PM

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:13, September 26, 2023

BUDAPEST, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday there is "no urgency" to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO, and called for "respect" from the Nordic country.

Speaking in parliament to open the autumn session, the Hungarian leader said: "There is no urgency from the government to push for support regarding Sweden's NATO accession, and Sweden's security is not under threat."

The issue of Swedish NATO accession has been under discussion for more than a year. Within the military alliance, only the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments are yet to approve Sweden's membership.

Divergences between Hungary and Sweden have escalated in recent weeks as a past film resurfaced, shown in Swedish schools, presenting Hungary as a bad example of democracy in the European Union.

On Thursday, Mate Kocsis, group leader of Orban's Fidesz party, said the chances that the Hungarian Parliament would vote on Sweden in the current autumn session were "low."

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Sudanese army, paramilitary forces exchange violent artillery shelling around army's general command

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:22, September 26, 2023

KHARTOUM, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Monday exchanged violent artillery bombardment in the vicinity of the army's General Command, according to eyewitnesses.

The RSF launched a violent artillery attack on the army's General Command from its bases in south of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the eyewitnesses said.

Video clips published by local media show smoke columns rising from around the army's General Command in central Khartoum as a result of the clash.

Over the past 10 days, the RSF has been launching missile attacks towards the army's General Command from its bases in eastern and southern Khartoum.

"The clashes have intensified between the two sides for the tenth day around the army's General Command with sounds of strong explosions heard amid rising columns of smoke from the area," the independent Sudan Tribune news portal reported on Monday.

The SAF, in turn, responded with fierce artillery strikes on a number of neighborhoods in the eastern Nile area in Bahri city, where the RSF fighters are heavily deployed, according to the eyewitnesses.

"The SAF has launched drone attacks on RSF positions south of Khartoum," an eyewitness who requires anonymity told Xinhua.

In the meantime, the emergency room of Al-Jarif Sharq district, a northern Khartoum suburb, said in a statement that the area had come under violent bombardment, calling on the residents to remain inside their homes and stay away from doors and windows.

The RSF, for its part, said in a statement on Monday that it had shot down a MIG warplane of the army, accusing the SAF of "exercising a scorched earth policy" by deliberately bombing residential neighborhoods, markets, and vital facilities in the capital and cities of Darfur and Kordofan states, causing deaths and injuries among thousands of innocent civilians.

Sudan has been witnessing deadly clashes between the SAF and the RSF in Khartoum and other areas since April 15, resulting in at least 3,000 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries, according to figures released by the Sudanese Health Ministry.

According to the latest report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 5.3 million people have been displaced inside and outside Sudan.

Over one million people have crossed into neighboring countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan, OCHA said.

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Erdogan says Turkey will back Sweden's NATO bid if US fulfills promise of selling F-16 jets

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 7:00 PM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey will accept Sweden's NATO accession if the United States keeps its promise of selling F-16 fighter jets.

Turkey, a member of NATO since 1952, has blamed Sweden for providing sanctuary to elements linked to the so-called Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) armed group, as well as the Gulen movement, which Ankara accuses of involvement in a 2016 coup attempt.

Both PKK and Gulen movement have been designated as terrorist groups by Ankara.

Back in July, Erdogan even said that Brussels should facilitate his country's accession to the European Union (EU) before Ankara moves to approve Sweden's bid to join NATO.

Last week, the Turkish leader announced that the Turkish parliament was not prepared to ratify Sweden's NATO bid as Stockholm had not gone far enough to secure its place in the US-led military alliance.

Sweden needs Ankara's consent to join NATO.

The Nordic nation, which has already dropped a longtime policy of military non-alignment following Russia's war in Ukraine, now desperately needs consent from Turkey to join NATO, to which its neighbor, Finland, was finally added in April.

On Tuesday, Erdogan said that the Turkish parliament would ratify Sweden's NATO membership if Washington permitted the sale of its F-16 fighter jets to Ankara.

"If they (the US) keep their promises, our parliament will keep its own promise as well. Turkish parliament will have the final say on Sweden's NATO membership," the Turkish president was quoted by the semi-official Anadolu Agency as saying.

Erdogan stressed that the US administration is linking F-16 fighter jet sales to Turkey with Ankara's ratification of Sweden's bid.

Washington kicked out Ankara of the F-35 stealth fighter jet program after it purchased Russia's S-400 air defense systems despite facing opposition from the US and NATO.

Now, Turkey is striving to boost its air force with more US-made F-16 warplanes, but its request has been pending for months with the White House and US Congress.

Back in May, Sweden passed an anti-terrorism law that criminalizes membership in terrorist organizations in the country. Two months later, Turkey, Sweden, and NATO struck a joint statement that said Stockholm had changed its anti-terrorist laws, expanded counter-terrorism cooperation against Kurdish opposition groups, and restarted arms exports to Turkey.



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Palestinian president receives first Saudi ambassador in Israel-occupied West Bank

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 5:22 PM

Saudi Arabia's newly appointed envoy to Palestine has presented his credentials to President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Nayef al-Sudairi, the first Saudi ambassador to Palestine, and his accompanying delegation arrived in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday through the Karama crossing from Jordan on a two-day official visit that will end on Wednesday.

Al-Sudairi met with President Abbas in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority, as well as other senior Palestinian officials.

He is scheduled to meet Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki as well as Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier welcomed the visit of the Saudi ambassador, describing it as "a historic milestone for developing fraternal relations between the two sister countries."

Al-Sudairi told senior Palestinian officials on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia supported the creation of a Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.

Last month, al-Sudairi, who is also the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, was recently appointed as the kingdom's non-resident ambassador to Palestine and consul general in al-Quds.

A copy of his credentials was presented on August 12 to Majdi al-Khalidi, diplomatic adviser to the Palestinian president, at a ceremony at the Embassy of Palestine in Amman, Jordan.

Israel back then rejected the idea of a diplomatic base in al-Quds for Saudi Arabia's envoy. At the time, Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen said al-Sudairi could meet PA representatives in al-Quds but would have no fixed presence.

The Israeli regime claims al-Quds as its own capital, a status recognized by the United States under then-president Donald Trump in 2017 but not by other world countries. Israeli authorities bar Palestinian diplomatic activity in the city.

The Saudi ambassador's appointment came amid reports that the Persian Gulf kingdom is considering the prospect of establishing formal diplomatic relations with Israel under US pressure.

President Joe Biden has said a deal may be on the way after a series of talks his national security adviser had with Saudi officials in Jeddah aimed at fixing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

US officials have sought for months to broker what would be anc agreement between the two apparent adversaries - through behind-the-scenes allies - but the Saudis have remained resistant so far.

Saudi Arabia seems to be reluctant toward normalization with Israel and is taking a cautious approach to any public steps that could be seen as a normalization act.

US efforts have been complicated as the Israeli regime has played down any prospect of giving significant ground to the Palestinians as part of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia had a consulate general in al-Quds, but it was closed with Israel's occupation of the city in 1967.





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Niger demands 'negotiated framework' for France withdrawal

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 11:04 AM

Niger's military government has demanded a "negotiated framework" for the French troop planned pull-out from the West African country.

In a statement released overnight, the government said the timeframe for the pull-out "must be set out in a negotiated framework and by mutual agreement."

The statement came after French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday the withdrawal of France's ambassador from Niger, and an end to its military presence in the country after he had initially taken a defiant stance.

Around 1,500 French troops in Niger will leave in "the months and weeks to come" with a full pull-out "by the end of the year", the president said.

The government in Niger welcomed the announcement but stressed that they were waiting for it to be followed up by official action by French authorities.

Relations between Paris and Niamey have been deteriorating since the Nigerien military ousted pro-Western former president, Mohamed Bazoum, in a coup on July 26.

Paris has refused to recognize Niger's new rulers and is still demanding the restoration of the ousted president.

The coup against Bazoum was the third of its kind in the West Africa region in as many years, following similar military actions in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022, which also forced the pullouts of French troops, amid a wave of anti-French sentiment across parts of the continent.

The American magazine Newsweek said on Monday that Macron's latest announcement "could serve as a warning to the United States on its posture in a restive region where Washington is looking to enhance its influence."

"In terms of the message France's failure in the Sahel sends, especially to the US, I think, is that making the success of your security policy dependent on venal, corrupt, and illegitimate regimes carries huge risks," Nathaniel Powell, an analyst at the Oxford Analytica firm, said.

"When and if those regimes are overthrown, their foreign backers are often seen as complicit and can lose their influence," Nathaniel added.

That comes as the US military resolves to keep almost 1,100 troops in place in Niger and strengthen its presence in Africa.

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Russia: Armenian PM Pashinyan 'succumbed to Western influence'

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 10:41 AM

The Russian foreign ministry says Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's latest remarks on distancing his country from its alliance with Moscow are aimed at shifting blame for his failures onto Moscow while submitting to Western pressure was behind the "severe" defeat in Karabakh.

In a statement on Monday, the ministry said Pashinyan was trying to absolve himself "of responsibility for failures in domestic and foreign policy by shifting the blame to Moscow."

The statement came a day after Pashinyan said the current foreign security systems of his country, which is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), are "ineffective" after Azerbaijan's victory in the decades-old conflict over the disputed region.

Pashinyan also said Russia had failed Armenia by not providing more assistance to avert the crisis over the region.

The Russian foreign ministry slammed Pashinyan's statements as "unacceptable", noting that the defeat came as Pashinyan "succumbed to Western influence."

Pashinyan had "shied away from working in rhythm with Russia and Azerbaijan and instead had run to the West" to resolve the Karabakh crisis, the ministry said.

Baku took full control of the breakaway region last week following a 24-hour military operation against pro-Armenian forces. Azerbaijan cited "systematic" shelling, "reconnaissance activities," fortification of defensive positions, and "high-level of combat readiness" by Armenian-backed troops for its operation.

"Had Nikol Pashinyan agreed to a ceasefire a few weeks earlier, the defeat would have been less severe," the Russian ministry said.

Moscow also said that Pashinyan's remarks about transforming security alliances indicate that the premier is preparing to pivot away from Armenia's alliance with Moscow towards the West.

"We are convinced that the Yerevan leadership is making a massive mistake by deliberately trying to destroy Armenia's multi-faceted and centuries-old ties with Russia while making the country hostage to the geopolitical games of the West," the Russian foreign ministry's statement said.

The statement also refuted claims that Moscow was behind the anti-government protests in Yerevan, stressing that "the reckless approach by Nikol Pashinyan's team" was to blame for the discontent among Armenians.

"The head of the Armenian government should be well aware that Moscow does not get involved in such things - unlike the West which is pretty adept at organizing 'color revolutions'," Russia cautioned Pashinyan, in reference to the revolutions in several post-Soviet republics, including Ukraine.

Armenia has been hit by protests demanding the resignation of Pashinyan after separatist groups in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to disarm under a Russian-mediated ceasefire deal.

Karabakh, acknowledged as a part of Azerbaijan by the international community but populated by Armenians since 1992 when a separatist war broke out, has been at the center of a dispute between Baku and Yerevan for more than three decades.

Since gaining independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, the two neighboring countries have fought two wars, in 1994 and 2020, over the mountainous territory.

In 2020, a new conflict erupted in Karabakh resulting in the loss of over 6,500 lives from both sides within a six-week period. The 44-day war concluded with a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, which led to Yerevan relinquishing control over significant portions of Azerbaijani territory that it had held for many years.

Azerbaijan's operation on September 19 to seize control of the territory following two mine which killed six people forced the separatists to lay down their arms under the terms of a ceasefire agreed the following day.

The separatists have said 200 people were killed in last week's fighting.

First day of exodus

On Tuesday, at least 13,550 of ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh arrived in Armenia on the first day of the exodus, news agencies said.

In the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, fuel stations were overwhelmed by panic buying.

Authorities there said at least 20 people were killed and 290 injured in a massive blaze when a fuel storage facility blew up on Monday.

Armenia's health ministry said it had sent a team of doctors to the rebel stronghold by helicopter. The Azerbaijani presidency said Baku had also sent medicine to help the wounded.

Azerbaijan turned on the electricity of Khankendi on Sunday, switching it to its own power grid as part of a "reintegration" drive.

Envoys from Baku and Yerevan were in Brussels on Tuesday to pave the way for the first meeting between their leaders since last week's offensive on October 5.

Tuesday's talks between national security advisers of the two countries and European heavyweights Germany and France would be chaired by the chief diplomatic adviser to European Council president Charles Michel.

Armenia has lately sought closer ties with the West and blames Russia, which had peacekeepers in Karabakh. Moscow denies blame and has told Pashinyan that he is making a big mistake by flirting with the United States.

Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, told Washington to stop stoking anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia.

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Ansarullah: Saudi-led coalition continues to violate Yemen truce

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 10:09 AM

Yemen's Ansarullah resistance movement says Saudi Arabia and its allies continue to violate the terms of a UN-brokered truce, stressing that 12 Yemeni soldiers got killed in one month along border areas.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the spokesman of Ansarullah and head of Yemen's national negotiating delegation, told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that the violations of the truce were "regrettable".

"We stress the importance of entering into a phase of serious peace by all parties, so that the requirements of comprehensive and just peace are achieved," he added.

'Saudi-led coalition must build trust with Yemen'

Meanwhile, Mahdi al-Mashat, the head of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, said the Saudi-led coalition must abandon its hostile practices against Yemen and move toward promoting peace and dialogue.

He made the remarks in a Monday televised speech on the anniversary of Yemen's September 26 Revolution Day, which set the stage for the creation of the modern Republic of Yemen by overthrowing the Saudi-backed rulers of northern Yemen in 1962.

"Initiatives developed to end the ongoing conflict in Yemen must ensure the full and unconditional restoration of our rights and result in the elimination of all forms of hostilities among all walks of the society," Mashat said.

He also called for the immediate removal of the cruel siege against Yemen and quick adoption of confidence-building measures as regards humanitarian and economic issues.

Saudi Arabia launched the war of aggression against Yemen in March 2015, enlisting the assistance of some of its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates, as well as massive shipments of advanced weaponry from the US and Western Europe.

The Western governments further extended their political and logistical support to Riyadh in their failed bid to restore power in Yemen to the former Saudi-installed government.

The former Yemeni government's president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, resigned in late 2014 and later fled to Riyadh amid a political conflict with Ansarullah. The movement has been running Yemen's affairs in the absence of a functioning administration.

The war further led to the killing of tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire nation into the scene of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

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Armenian prime minister urges active communication with Iran during 'difficult period for region'

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 12:18 AM

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has stressed the need for "active communication" between his country and Iran under the existing difficult regional conditions.

He made the remark while speaking in a meeting with Iran's new ambassador to Yerevan, Mehdi Sobhani, on Monday.

Referring to his "reliable dialogue" with Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, Pashinyan said it paves the way for the consistent deepening of cooperation between the two countries, his office said in a press release.

He also congratulated Sobhani on his appointment to the new post, expressing hope that relations between the two countries would continue to develop and strengthen during the ambassador's term of office.

Sobhani, for his part, once again reaffirmed Iran's unequivocal support for Armenia's territorial integrity.

He expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, saying that the security and rights of Armenians living in that region must be guaranteed.

The Iranian diplomat added that the Islamic Republic is keen to develop relations with Armenia in all fields.

The two sides also discussed a host of common issues, including the implementation of joint plans in such areas as economy, trade, development of infrastructure, healthcare, education, science and culture.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the Caucasus, which lies within Azerbaijan's borders and is internationally recognized as part of its territory, but is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians.

Armenian authorities, who have been running the region's affairs without international recognition since the early 1990s, declared on Wednesday that local "self-defense forces" had laid down their arms and disbanded under a Russia-mediated ceasefire following the latest armed clashes with Azeri forces. The truce halted Azerbaijan's 24-hour offensive against pro-Armenia forces to retake the territory.

Representatives from Azerbaijan and separatists from Karabakh held their first direct peace talks in the city of Yevlakh on Thursday as Baku claimed full control of the region.

Iran has consistently called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to settle their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region through peaceful ways.

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Returning Tibetans see a changing homeland

Recent visitors fear young students educated in Mandarin are losing a sense of identity.

By RFA Tibetan and Jim Snyder for RFA Investigative 2023.09.26 -- On his first visit back to the Tibetan Plateau in nearly a decade, Sengmo was surprised to hear his youngest nieces and nephews converse in Chinese rather than their native tongue.

As a member of the Tibetan diaspora, Sengmo knew about the Chinese government's campaign to assimilate ethnic minorities in the broader culture, including through the curriculum at boarding schools where students stay for weeks at a time.

But it was only after witnessing firsthand how his elementary school-age relatives interacted with one another that he thought: "They will not be like us."

For the government, that is doubtless the point. Under leader Xi Jinping, China has applied harsh tactics to promote party ideology over local traditions, cultures and religious practices. In the Tibet Autonomous Region and the southwestern Chinese provinces where many Tibetans live, that has meant prohibiting photographs of the Dalai Lama, pressuring monks to denounce the spiritual leader, and restricting communications with people outside of the area.

Though movement in and out of Tibetan areas remains as limited as ever, China's long-awaited loosening of COVID-related travel controls impelled Sengmo to make a rare trip home. Sengmo is a pseudonym to protect his family in Tibet from any retaliation from Chinese authorities.

Members of the diaspora granted travel visas told RFA that they were able for the first time in years to see how their homeland is changing. Given the importance of language to a culture, a linguistic move away from Tibetan among young students attending residential schools is among the most significant shifts returnees witnessed.

Sengmo said the courses at the boarding school his nieces and nephews attend are taught in Mandarin, with Tibetan instruction limited to one hour a week. The rest of his family still speaks their native language, but the children are away for two-week stretches, and he fears his relatives won't have enough time to counteract the Chinese-heavy education provided by the school. Other sources said the Tibetan instruction was more frequent but still insufficient.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, defended the boarding school system as a way to improve the educational opportunities for Tibet's scattered population.

Students aren't forced to attend, and parents can visit whenever they want, he said in an emailed statement.

"Courses of traditional culture, such as Tibetan language and literature and folk dance, are widely available, traditional food unique to the Tibet Plateau is provided, and students are allowed to wear traditional dresses at these schools," he said.

But a panel of experts advising the United Nations has said the instruction is heavily weighted toward the dominant Han culture. Roughly one million students attend the schools and risk an "erosion of their identity," the group warned.

An ugly legacy

Critics draw comparisons to past efforts to assimilate Indigenous cultures in the U.S. and Canada by forcing young children to learn English in remote schools that kept them from their families.

Conditions there were often especially brutal, and former students have reported a variety of mental health issues, including problems with anxiety, depression and addiction. The boarding school policies in the United States lasted more than a century, finally ending in the 1970s.

Now the U.S. has emerged as one of the loudest opponents of China's educational efforts. Last month, the State Department announced visa restrictions on unnamed Chinese officials involved with the "forced assimilation" boarding school program.

Gyal Lo, an educational sociologist and activist who has studied boarding schools in Tibetan areas of China, said the policy began to be applied to preschool-aged children in 2016. Now, three out of every four children in that age group attend a residential school, he said.

Among them are his young relatives back in Tibet. In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Gyal Lo wrote about how his brother had called him seven years ago to express his concern that his granddaughters - ages 4 and 5 at the time - were already beginning to reject Tibetan traditions.

Gyal Lo said his brother's family felt they had no choice. Not sending the young children to the school would shut them off from any educational opportunities and the family from government benefits.

"The distance is already breaking out between the older generation and the younger generation," Gyal Lo told RFA when asked for an update on his brother's family. "They will no longer be able to share a common identity and values. We're seeing the breaking of the home nest."

He called the inclusion of preschool-aged children in boarding schools a threat to "Tibetan civilization."

The language loss isn't necessarily limited to residential schools. Lhamo said children aged 3 to 6 she met on a recent trip back spoke Chinese even though they returned home from school every day. When she addressed them in Tibetan they "looked confused and puzzled," she said. Lhamo also asked to be identified by a pseudonym to avoid adding any scrutiny to her family back in Tibet.

The curriculum had changed too, she said. History textbooks her relatives read for school featured unflattering depictions of the U.S. as a global bully since the end of the Cold War, Lhamo said.

Cameras everywhere

On his trip home, Sengmo said he noticed other changes too, apart from the classroom.

Walking into his local monastery he had to be scanned by a facial recognition camera before he went in, a level of security he wasn't used to. Inside he said he noticed fewer worshippers and less interaction between laypeople and monks, even though monasteries operate as the spiritual and cultural heart of many Tibetan communities.

The sense of being watched was pervasive. "There were cameras everywhere," he said.

Sengmo blamed the increased surveillance for what he said was a greater level of circumspection among the friends and relatives he met with. Even behind closed doors, the Tibetans he met with appeared to be careful of what they said.

"It used to be that you could talk about anything at home," Sengmo said. In the future, it may not even be certain that everyone there will speak the same language.

Edited by Abby Seiff

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Clean energy growth is keeping the climate goals alive, IEA says

However, trillions of dollars in investments are needed to reach the goal.

By Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA 2023.09.26 -- Significant growth in clean energy technologies, like solar panels and electric vehicles, has helped keep viable the target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency said in a new report on Tuesday. However, it warned that China and advanced economies must intensify their climate commitments to reach the goal on time.

According to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world must limit global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of this century to tackle the urgent threats posed by climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and disruptions to ecosystems.

Global investment needs to escalate to US$4.5 trillion annually from the next decade, a leap from the anticipated $1.8 trillion in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its updated report on the "Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario."

For the world to adhere to the Paris climate goal, wealthy nations are urged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, five years ahead of previous targets.

China, the world's top carbon emitter, is called on to expedite its timeline by a decade to 2050.

The report comes as temperatures reached unprecedented highs this year, with last month declared the warmest August globally and warmer than all other months except July 2023, when the record was broken with the global average temperature at 16.95 C (62.51 F), according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Fossil fuel is peaking, but needs to decrease more

The Paris-based IEA said the past two years have witnessed a 40% surge in clean energy investments, with solar energy and electric vehicles projected to contribute to a third of emissions cuts by 2030.

"Our analysis showed that even if no new climate policies are put in place by the governments ... three fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, may well peak before 2030 within this decade," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told a virtual press conference on Tuesday.

He added that this is a significant development due to a robust and spectacular increase in clean energy technologies and the changes in the economic structure of key consuming countries.

"Solar [has] become the king of electricity markets. The old king - coal - is over; now solar is the new king. Not only for climate reasons, but because it is cheap, the cost is coming down."

He also said that one in 25 cars sold worldwide two years ago was electric, whereas this year it has increased to one in five and is growing in key markets.

"So the growth coming from solar, electric cars, other renewable technologies are very, very impressive, and they will play an extremely important role in bringing down the need for fossil fuels in the next years," he said.

Birol also said that to reach the 1.5 degrees target, the use of fossil fuels must decline close to 25% between now and 2030.

China's coal expansion and 1.5 can't go hand in hand

The report said China's 2030 carbon emissions projection is expected to be more than a third of the 2015 scenario due to the substantial solar and wind power growth.

Less than 10% of China's electricity production comes from renewable sources, but Beijing has floated a plan to increase it to 25% by 2030.

According to the IEA report, the Chinese government in 2016 had aimed for EVs to be 12% of total vehicle sales in 2020. The target has been revised to 20% for 2025, bolstered by significant subsidies and tax breaks.

However, all these new developments and climate change impacts, including heat waves and drought, have put tremendous pressure on China's electricity.

From 2015 to 2022, power production surged over 6% annually, according to the IEA. Despite the vast growth of renewables, the demand was unmet, leading to a spike in coal-powered electricity generation.

Consequently, China's global contribution to coal-based electricity grew by 10 percentage points during this timeframe.

Answering a question by Radio Free Asia on China, Birol said that according to the IEA's analysis, China is "number one" in solar, wind, electric cars, additional new nuclear capacity, and hydropower, "in all clean energy sources," as well as a leader in clean energy investments.

"But at the same time, coal - the fuel with the most carbon content - is still having a dominant position in the Chinese energy mix," Birol said.

"When we look at the global picture, we see that there is no room for unabated new coal plants if we want to stick to our 1.5 degrees target."

Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Who Was Behind The Deadly Attack At The Orthodox Monastery In Kosovo?

By Bekim Bislimi, Dragan Stavljanin, RFE/RL's Balkan Service September 26, 2023

PRISTINA -- Kosovar officials continued on September 26 to pull back the curtain on an alleged plot to destabilize the country, sharing video evidence purporting to show a fugitive Serb politician among dozens of gunmen in a deadly siege at a monastery in northern Kosovo two days earlier.

The deadly gun and grenade battle around the 14th-century Orthodox monastery, situated in the village of Banjska in the Zvecan municipality, has shattered months of uneasy calm since violent ethnic Serb protests against the forcible seating of ethnic Albanian mayors in late May highlighted the untenability of the status quo between Serbia and its former province.

Outside diplomatic pressure has continued to mount on Pristina and Belgrade to find a way to put their shared history of violence behind them and normalize bilateral relations in a hot spot of ethno-nationalist resentment and intransigence. Serbia refuses to recognize its former province's 2008 declaration of independence and Belgrade has continued to unilaterally support ethnic Serbs through parallel institutions and ethnic-based political parties, which Pristina regards as illegal meddling.

But the path to normalization appears even shakier as clues emerge as to the identity of the group that, during the fighting, killed a sergeant from the Kosovo Police.

Video And Other Evidence

Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla on September 26 posted a video on social networks that he said clearly showed Milan Radoicic, a fugitive vice president of the Serb List party who was thought to be hiding in Serbia, organizing and participating in the monastery attack. Serb List is the main party representing the Serb minority in Kosovo.

Radoicic is already wanted by Kosovar authorities for alleged witness intimidation. He was also named in a December 2019 indictment as the alleged leader of a criminal group that planned the 2018 assassination in North Mitrovica of moderate Kosovar Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic, although the warrant for his arrest was withdrawn without explanation in March 2021. The United States imposed sanctions on Radoicic in 2021 for alleged involvement in transnational organized crime.

At a press conference a day earlier where weapons, vehicles, and other items confiscated after the siege were exhibited, Svecla said maps and plans had been found and that the September 24 attack was months in the making. He said the plotters hoped to involve "hundreds of people to destabilize our country."

Hours after the shooting had ended, Svecla said the attackers included "members of Civil Protection," a nebulous formation with its historical roots in former civil defense structures that were dissolved or reluctantly integrated into Kosovar institutions during EU efforts to bring lasting peace to the region. Later, Kosovar officials said members of a shadowy group called the Northern Brigade were also involved. Less is known about Northern Brigade, which appears to have become publicly active with a guerrilla graffiti campaign only about a year ago.

Civil Protection operated as a response unit against natural disasters in northern Kosovo independently from Pristina's authority from 2006 until 2015-16, when its ranks were either disbanded or folded into Kosovar institutions under pressure from the European Union. At the time, it was said to entail about 800 individuals, slightly over half of whom were slated for integration into Kosovar institutions.

The Kosovar Center for Security Studies, an independent think tank, noted that Civil Protection is seen as particularly dangerous because so many of its members have undergone military-style training.

Many Serbs, however, including the leadership of the Serb List party, resented Civil Protection's disbandment. Some former Civil Protection members morphed into a loose affiliation of Serbs who opposed Kosovar authority and independence, possibly continuing to enjoy support from Belgrade among the "parallel institutions" that serve Serbs in Kosovo and that Pristina regards as illegal.

In mid-June, Svecla announced the arrest of Civil Protection's purported leader, Serb Milun "Lune" Milenkovic, for allegedly organizing the violent unrest in northern Kosovo in late May, when ethnic Serbs protested the forcible seating of ethnic Albanian mayors, clashing with Kosovo police and troops from the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR.

Weeks later, Pristina designated Civil Defense and Northern Brigade as terrorist organizations. Prime Minister Albin Kurti said Kosovar security intelligence assessed the presence of both groups as "a serious and direct threat to the constitutional order and security of Kosovo."

At the time, a Serb member of Kosovo's government, Community and Returns Minister Nenad Rasic, called the decision on the "terrorist" designation "premature" and said it further reduced the number of potential "interlocutors" in majority-Serb areas.

The United States was a critic of the designation, too. The State Department took the unusual step of saying the decision "should have been coordinated with Kosovo's closest international partners, including those who have a primary responsibility for ensuring Kosovo's stability," which was seen as another sign of increasing U.S. frustration at the Kurti government's actions with respect to Serbs and normalization with Serbia.

Analysts and experts agree that the group responsible was likely organized and trained. Avni Islami, a professor of security science at AAB University in Pristina, said the attackers appeared to be part of a "structured group." He likened the attackers to the Russian mercenaries that have fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine and waged war in Africa, saying it looked like "an imitation of the Wagner Group."

Mentor Vrajolli, from the Kosovar Center for Security Studies, said the group appeared to have been "trained, prepared, and have received quite expensive resources to be able to operate." He said it was virtually "impossible" for the Serbian authorities to have been unaware of their activities.

"So now the question arises: Was the Serbian state directly involved in this structure or were radical elements mixed in? This is difficult to confirm," Vrajolli said. "But since there are people arrested, then the information about who encouraged their organization will be found."

Serbia Link?

From nearly the outset, top Kosovar officials have alleged Serbian state involvement. In his first statement about the shoot-out at the monastery, Kurti described "at least 30 heavily armed people, professionals, military, and police," who were wearing "uniforms."

Kurti said the group responsible was linked to "organized crime with political, financial, and logistical support from official Belgrade" and "criminals orchestrated by Serbia." From the United States, where she was attending the UN General Assembly, Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani blamed "Serbia's criminal groups" and "Serbia's destabilizing attempts." Interior Minister Svecla said the attack was supported by the "state of Serbia" and pointed a finger at Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Kosovar officials also suggested, once the shooting was over but with many of the alleged gunmen still on the loose, that some of the assailants had fled across the border into Serbia.

Kosovar Police General Director Gazmend Hoxha described fugitive Radoicic -- who according to Kosovar authorities was among the gunmen -- as "close to" Vucic. Hoxha also alleged that "the provision of weapons and logistical means to this terrorist group, including the entry into Kosovo of more than 26 motor vehicles, [are] suspected to have been actively aided and supported by the government of Serbia."

Serbia has hit back at the accusations. When he broke his silence late on September 24, Vucic rejected any suggestion that the attackers' "uniforms" resembled those of the Serbian police or military. After stressing his condemnation of the killing of the "Albanian police officer," Vucic sought to draw a link between the incident and the Kurti government's treatment of ethnic Serbs, who are thought to compose 1-2 percent of Kosovo's population of around 2 million people.

The Serbian leader said two of the three individuals killed so far by Kosovar police (another body was found the following day) were from North Mitrovica, the ethnically riven city on the Ibar River that essentially divides four majority-Serb municipalities from the rest of Kosovo.

"The Serbs who rebelled," Vucic said, "are not people from central Serbia, as the media in Pristina claimed, but from Kosovo, people who are refusing to endure Kurti's terror." He went on to argue that Kurti is the "sole culprit" and "is to blame for all of this."

Serbia declared September 27 a day of mourning over the "tragic events" in Kosovo and the Serb List party has called for three days of mourning for "the death of our fellow citizens in a tragic event in Banjska."

At the very least, the incident complicates efforts to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Observers warn that a reappearance of organized violence to exploit bitterness between ethnic Serbs and majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo could deal a severe blow to Western-mediated talks to allow Pristina and Belgrade to more fully participate in international institutions.

"[T]his seems to be a reasonably well-organized development, and that does make it more dangerous because it suggests that there are groups on the ground that see it in their interests to provoke violence and that are prepared to organize and to seek weapons that would enable them to produce an escalation in violence," Charles Kupchan, a Georgetown professor and former National Security Council expert in the Clinton and Obama administrations, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service.

Written by Andy Heil based on reporting by RFE/RL Balkan Service correspondents Bekim Bislimi and Dragan Stavljanin and RFE/RL's Balkan Service

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/who-was-behind-deadly-attack- kosovo-monastery/32610373.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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Video Released By Kosovo Allegedly Shows Ethnic Serb Politician Participating In Monastery Attack

By RFE/RL's Balkan Service September 26, 2023

Kosovar authorities have released a video they said implicates a top ethnic Serb businessman in an attack on an Orthodox monastery that left four people dead, including a police officer.

In a statement accompanying the video published on Facebook, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said that among the heavily armed men shown in the video was Milan Radoicic, a construction tycoon who is also a top official of the main ethnic Serb political party in Kosovo, Serbian List, funded mainly by Belgrade.

It wasn't immediately possible to verify Radoicic's identity in the video, which Svecla said was shot on September 24, apparently by drone.

Radoicic was hit with sanctions by the United States and Britain in 2021 for allegedly being part of an organized crime group in the Balkans.

In the September 24 attack, around 30 people dressed in military-like uniforms stormed the Serbian Orthodox complex in Banjska, sparking a gunbattle with Kosovar police.

Three attackers were killed, along with a Kosovar police officer. Kosovo's prime minister, Albin Kurti, declared a day of mourning for the slain officer.

The attack, and the murkiness of its circumstances -- no group has come forward to claim responsibility -- comes as tensions continue to mount in the ethnic-Serb-dominated district of Kosovo.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, and squabbling and conflicts erupt frequently over things like license plate registrations and municipal elections.

Some observers speculated the attack might have been a false-flag operation, aimed at generating outrage in Serbia.

Veton Elshani, a top regional police official, told RFE/RL that access to Banjska will continue to be blocked until at least 9:00 a.m. local time on September 27. Elshani said searches conducted on September 26 resulted in the arrest of eight people.

Among those arrested, four had radio communications equipment, police said, and a "significant amount" of weapons, ammunition, and other equipment was also found.

Serbian List, the main political party representing Serbs in Kosovo, on September 27 declared a three-day mourning period to mark the "killing of our fellow citizens in the tragic events in the Banjska village."

At least six of the suspected attackers who escaped are now in Serbia receiving treatment at a hospital there, Svecla told reporters, and he demanded Serbia hand them over to Kosovar authorities.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has denied that Belgrade was involved in the incident.

He also repeated that Serbia would "never" recognize Kosovo's independence, "neither formally nor informally."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on both Kosovo and Serbia to avoid worsening tensions.

"We call on the governments of Kosovo and Serbia to refrain from any actions or rhetoric which could further inflame tensions and to immediately work in coordination with international partners to de-escalate the situation," Blinken said in a statement.

Western officials are mediating talks between Serbia and Kosovo as part of a decade-long diplomatic push toward formalized relations and repairing some of the wounds from internecine wars in the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In May and June, Kurti ignored outside warnings and tried to forcibly install four mayors in mostly Serbian northern municipalities following boycotted by-elections to fill posts vacated by protesting Serbs.

The resulting tensions erupted in violence that injured dozens of NATO-led peacekeepers and some ethnic Serb protesters.

With reporting by AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-monastery-attack-homes- searched-serbs/32609706.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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Armenia Says 28,000 Arrive From Nagorno-Karabakh, Reports 125 Deaths In Explosion

By RFE/RL September 26, 2023

More than 28,000 people have arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, the government in Yerevan said on September 26 amid a massive exodus that followed an Azerbaijani offensive that gave Baku complete control of the mountainous region.

The Armenian government said that as of 8 p.m. local time the number of people who had entered was 28,120, and registration had already been completed for 20,800 of them. The government is providing housing for all who do not have a place to go.

The Armenian Health Ministry, meanwhile, said the number of deaths from an explosion that occurred on September 25 at a gas station near the enclave's capital, Stapanakert, had risen to 125.

Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said earlier on September 26 that at least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 others injured in the explosion, which occurred as people seeking to flee to Armenia lined up to fuel their cars in order to leave the region.

The cause of the blast has not been determined.

Azerbaijan opened the only road leading from the region to Armenia on September 24, four days after a cease-fire agreement that ended a lightning military operation.

Baku has pledged equal treatment for mainly ethnic Armenian residents who are fleeing, but the Armenian government has warned of possible "ethnic cleansing."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that he must protect civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Blinken spoke by phone with Aliyev to underscore "the urgency of no further hostilities" and to state that there be "unconditional protections and freedom of movement for civilians," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

Blinken also told Aliyev that there must be unhindered humanitarian access to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Samantha Power, the top official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Baku's use of force was unacceptable, and she called on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to protect ethnic Armenians' rights.

She said it was "absolutely critical" that independent monitors and aid organizations be given access to people in Nagorno-Karabakh, and she later announced a $11.5-million package of humanitarian aid for Armenia.

In Brussels, envoys from Baku and Yerevan met with European Council diplomats in the first such encounter since Azerbaijan's recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh following a nine-month blockade of the region that Armenian officials said had deprived the enclave's residents of food, medicine, and other essentials.

The EU stressed in a statement the need for transparency and access for international humanitarian and human rights groups and for more detail on Baku's vision for Karabakh Armenians' future in Azerbaijan.

During the meeting Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy adviser to Aliyev, outlined Azerbaijan's plans to provide humanitarian assistance and security to the local population.

The meeting also discussed a possible meeting of Nagorno-Karabakh stakeholders on October 5 in Granada.

"The participants took note of the shared interest of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make use of the possible meeting in Granada to continue their normalization efforts," the statement said.

Armenian representative Armen Grigorian and Hajiyev "engaged in talks on possible concrete steps to advance the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process in the upcoming possible meeting, such as those with regard to border delimitation, security, connectivity, humanitarian issues, and the broader peace treaty," the statement said.

The statement added that the EU believes that the meeting should be used by both Yerevan and Baku to reiterate publicly their commitment to each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty in line with previous agreements.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the last three decades over the region, which had been a majority ethnic Armenian enclave within the internationally recognized border of Azerbaijan since the Soviet collapse.

The region initially came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. During a war in 2020, however, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.

That fighting ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers. Those peacekeepers did little, however, to prevent the advances by Azerbaijani forces.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian and Azerbaijani services, AP, AFP, The New York Times, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/karabakh-ethnic- armenians-fleeing-13-000-azerbaijan/32609606.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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Swiss Parliament OKs Decommissioning 25 Leopard 2 Tanks to Sell Them to Germany - Reports

Sputnik News

20230926

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Both houses of the Swiss parliament have approved the decommissioning of 25 Leopard 2 tanks to later sell them to Germany, the Swiss broadcaster reported on Tuesday.

The decision on the actual resale and its timing now up to the Federal Council, the broadcaster added.

The Council of States of the Swiss parliament passed the decision earlier in the day with 25 votes in favor, 15 votes against and three abstentions. The National Council voted to decommission the tanks in June.

Earlier, the Parliamentary Security Commission of the Council of States (CPS-E) supported the government's proposal to sell 25 Leopard 2 tanks to Germany on the condition that they would not be delivered to Ukraine in the future.

 Sputnik

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The UK is unwavering in our commitment to provide aid to the people of Afghanistan: UK statement at the UN Security Council

Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the Security Council meeting on Afghanistan.

26 September 2023



Thank you President.

I join others in thanking SRSG Otunbayeva, Executive Director Sima Bahous and Karima Bennoune for your briefings.

Twenty-two years on since Kofi Annan's Nobel speech, which the SRSG referenced, and over two years since the Taliban's seizure of power, our dominant concern remains the Taliban's systematic assault on the rights of women and girls continues.

There have been over 50 decrees curtailing women's ability to participate in public, political, economic and social life and barring girls from secondary schools and higher education.

These decrees have also impacted the UN's ability to get aid to those who need it most. This at a time of dire need - two thirds of the population of Afghanistan require humanitarian assistance.

Forty per cent are facing acute food insecurity - a number that would be far higher without families and communities in Afghanistan supporting each other in whatever ways they can.

Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and climate vulnerable countries in the world. Its prospects further dimmed by a significant 'brain drain' as a result of migration, persecution and uncertainty.

We note the progress the Taliban has taken in tackling ISKP and we underscore the importance of continued action against terrorist groups within Afghanistan and their affiliates.

The people of Afghanistan remain our priority - so what can we do?

First and foremost we need to take urgent action to avert a humanitarian catastrophe as winter approaches. The UK has contributed over half a billion dollars to address the humanitarian crisis since April 2021 and we call on fellow Member States to step up support where they can. But as we heard from SRSG Otunbayeva, the UN's revised Humanitarian Appeal for Afghanistan for 2023 is only 28% funded.

The UK is unwavering in our commitment to provide aid to the people of Afghanistan and to support UN efforts. We are clear, however, that male only delivery chains do not and cannot achieve that and we support calls for closer monitoring of aid delivery.

Second, the international community should remain united in our message to the Taliban. We have set out our expectations in consecutive Council resolutions on humanitarian access, cutting ties with terrorists, respect for human rights and inclusive governance.

The Taliban should be clear on the costs of their policies: international recognition should not be on the table; sanctions relief should not come. And Afghanistan cannot be self-reliant when fifty per cent of its people are excluded from society. Without inclusive governance and society, peace and stability will remain elusive.

Finally, we look forward to Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu's independent assessment, which will provide a valuable basis for a more coherent, strategic international approach as we look to build on the Secretary-General's conference with special envoys in Doha and other regional initiatives, in which the UK will continue to play its part.

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OSCE Reinforced Permanent Council, September 2023: Foreign Secretary's statement

Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the Security Council meeting on Afghanistan.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly says that the OSCE is crucial to Euro-Atlantic security and condemns Russia's deliberate obstruction of the organisation.

26 September 2023

Thank you for convening this reinforced Permanent Council and for the strength of your leadership in these difficult circumstances. I welcome this discussion. The Euro-Atlantic region faces its greatest security challenge since 1945. The importance of the OSCE therefore cannot be overstated - not least as a forum to hold Russia to account and help Ukraine prevail. But it currently faces its greatest ever threat.

Like any organisation, the OSCE needs strong leadership and adequate resources to function. You and your team along with Secretary General Helga Schmid and the institution heads have provided leadership. And our flexible approach has so far provided the resources. But Russia's insistence on blocking progress on institutional matters puts all of those things at risk. If Russia feels isolated, it is because it has isolated itself through its illegal war and through its blatant disregard for civilized norms of behaviour.

There is of course a way to fix this - Russia can change its approach, and we call on Russia to do so. Not to do so will imperil the existence of an organisation that has helped ensure peace and security for five decades. The organisation needs a budget, it needs effective leadership, and it needs a Chair.

The UK is grateful for Estonia's offer to Chair in 2024. Estonia should know that it has our full support, as well as the support of most other members. We are also grateful to the Chair and the staff for providing options for managing the budget. But our ultimate aim is a properly functioning OSCE, no matter by which means. If Estonia's candidacy does not secure consensus, we will support another state willing to Chair in line with the Helsinki principles. These are not normal times so we are willing to consider unorthodox options. If no alternative exists, the UK will support North Macedonia's serving again or continuing as Chair. We applaud the exemplary leadership shown by the current four leaders in the OSCE under extremely difficult circumstances. The chances of us finding a consensus on replacements at this moment frankly are minimal. Let them then continue their work into 2024.

We should be here preparing for a Ministerial Council and discussing the important work the OSCE does for all our citizens. Instead, sadly, we are forced to focus on these procedural matters. So I ask those who would block progress, if you oppose Estonia's candidacy, if you would block colleagues from remaining in post, if you would prevent agreement of an adequate budget - what then do you propose in its place? History will not judge those kindly those who undermine the important work of this organisation and its just causes.

Thank you.

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Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General

Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York

26 September 2023

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

** Briefing

All right, good afternoon. As a quick reminder, our Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, will be down here at about 1:30 or so to brief you following the conclusion for the high-level debate of the seventy-eighth General Assembly of these United Nations.

** Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

This morning, the Secretary-General addressed the annual event to mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

He said that on this day, we remind ourselves of a fundamental truth  that the only way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them.

The Secretary-General called on nuclear weapon States to meet their disarmament obligations, and to also to commit to never use nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

He reiterated his appeal to reinforce and re-commit to the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and to use dialogue to end the nuclear threat.

** Afghanistan

This morning, the Security Council held a meeting on the situation in Afghanistan. Briefing Council members was the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, and she said that it is well known that the UN engagement strategy has been significantly undermined by the more than 50 decrees the Taliban have issued, aimed at eliminating women from public life and education.

The question, she said, is whether to continue to engage with the de facto authorities despite these policies, or to cease engaging because of them. She said that UN Mission's view is that we must continue to engage and maintain a dialogue, adding that dialogue is not recognition and engagement is not acceptance of their policies.

On the contrary, she added, dialogue and engagement are how we are attempting to change these policies, noting that the lack of trust on all sides is a serious impediment to building confidence but the doors to dialogue are still open.

Also briefing the Council was Sima Bahous, UN Women's Executive Director, who pointed out that women in Afghanistan will lead the change they need and our job is to hear and support them, including by finding spaces for them to meet with the de facto authorities, using all of the tools in our toolbox to bring them out of the dark. Those remarks were shared with you.

** Yemen

Turning to Yemen, and I was asked about the clashes that took place yesterday. I can tell you that we condemn the attack that claimed the lives of two Bahraini soldiers and injured several others in the Southern region of Saudi Arabia. We offer condolences to the Kingdom of Bahrain and wish for the speedy recovery to those injured.

We are concerned over continued military tensions at the Yemeni border with Saudi Arabia and on several frontlines in Yemen over the past months that have reportedly led to casualties, including civilian lives.

Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, is in contact with all the parties and has urged them to exercise maximum restraint and to resolve their differences through dialogue.

We encourage the parties to engage constructively with the Special Envoy and reiterate his message to the parties on the need for decisive steps towards a sustainable nationwide ceasefire and the resumption of an inclusive political process to end the conflict in Yemen.

** Ukraine

An update from Ukraine, from the Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), where the UN and its partners have reached more than 8.3 million people as of the end of August. [Twenty] per cent of those assisted were children and 60 per cent women and girls.

We and our partners have also launched a Winter Response Plan to help more than 1.3 million people through March 2024. This appeal will require $268 million in funding.

Distributions of essential items are already underway, including heaters, blankets, winter clothes and shelter repair kits. Our colleagues tell us that there are 470 humanitarian organizations  more than half of them national NGOs (non-governmental organizations)  active in the response in Ukraine, as of late August. That's up from 415 in July.

** South Sudan

Moving to South Sudan, our peacekeeping colleagues are reporting that civilians continue to endure ongoing violence, with 395 civilians killed between April and June this year alone. According to a Human Rights Brief released today by the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), 222 incidents of violence against civilians were documented, including 128 children, 166 abductees, and 29 victims of conflict-related sexual violence. Most of the violent incidents were attributed to community-based militias, with Warrap State being the most impacted state in South Sudan.

With elections less than 15 months away, the UN Mission urges the Government and stakeholders to prioritize justice, community protection, and the expansion of civic and political space.

** Rohingya Refugees

And another note that exemplifies the difficult choices that humanitarian agencies have to make when dealing with funding shortages, something we've spoken about quite a bit here  the World Food Programme (WFP) is telling us that seven years since their exodus from Myanmar, Rohingya refugees continue to face crisis on top of crisis. Repeated climate shocks and now diminishing donor funding are deepening their vulnerabilities.

Cuts in donor funding have forced WFP to reduce its life-saving assistance for the entire Rohingya population in Cox's Bazar  from the full ration of $12 to $10 in March, and then to $8 per person per month in June. With the current cash allowance, the Rohingya have less than 9 cents for each meal (considering if you take three meals a day) and are being pushed over the edge.

WFP is urging donors to step up now to support them in restoring full rations and keeping critical humanitarian operations intact until the Rohingya repatriation.

WFP needs another $175 million to provide the Rohingya with a full ration through December 2024.

And also to add that the SRSG (Special Representative of the Secretary-General) for Afghanistan will be at the stakeout, we will do our best to ensure that you can attend both the SRSG and the DSG briefings.

** Questions and Answers

Spokesman : Ibtisam, then James.

Question : I have a few questions. First, as you probably noticed, on Friday, when the Israeli Prime Minister spoke to the General Assembly and showed a map, the map included the Occupied Palestinian Territory as part of Israel  or didn't separate between the Israeli territory and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Do you have any comments on that?

Spokesman : Well, any speaker of the GA is obviously free to show whatever map they wish. It is not a map that reflects the United Nations' views.

Question : Also on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as you know, there are more than six Palestinians or seven civilian Palestinians who were killed last week by the Israeli forces. Do you have any comments on that? And also any comments on the fact that since last year, more than 1,000 Palestinians were displaced within the Occupied Palestinian Territory because of settler violence?

Spokesman : A couple of things. On your first question, I would refer you to Tor Wennesland's statements on those incidents, which he was very clear. And on your second one, I would refer you to a fact sheet put out last Thursday by Lynn Hastings, the Humanitarian Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which illustrates the situation, especially of herder communities, which have been forced to evacuate their lands due to settler violence and the prevention of them to be able to access grazing land by Israeli settlers. And it's about, I think, more than 1,100 people from about 28 different herding communities.

Question : Okay. Regarding Mr. Wennesland's statement, what would it take Mr. Wennesland to condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians? Because in his statements, he again expressed his deep concern. And on the other issue regarding the settlers' violence, we don't see Mr. Wennesland visiting any of these communities who are affected by the settler violence. Why not?

Spokesman : Listen, I can't speak to Mr. Wennesland's travels or activities, where he goes, where he doesn't go. I think his reporting to the Security Council on a monthly basis is very clear. Sorry?

Question : And on the condemning of the killing of Palestinians?

Spokesman : Again, I think he uses the language he uses. James?

Question : The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. We have a large movement of people. Apparently, the Armenian Government is saying 19,000 people have crossed into their country from the enclave. We had a fuel depot explosion - 20 people killed, hundreds more injured. What's the UN doing about any of this?

Spokesman : Well, I would say, first, the Secretary-General is very concerned about the displacement of people we are seeing to Armenia as a result of the recent events in the region. First of all, it's essential that the rights of the displaced populations be protected and that they receive the humanitarian support that they are owed, as well as the protection under refugee law. We are at this point not involved in the humanitarian situation. [The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Armenia has teams on the ground in southern Armenia and is closely monitoring the situation. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is not present in southern Armenia.] As to the source of where they're coming from, I know there is a presence of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross). We are also providing humanitarian assistance in Armenia, including bedding items, and have pre-positioned a number of supplies. UNHCR is in the lead in kind of providing the support.

Question : Do you know how many staff you've got in southern Armenia? And is the UN trying to get resources and people, UN people, to Nagorno Karabakh itself?

Spokesman : We have, if my memory serves me well, which sometimes it does, we have about 400 staff in each country. And in terms of visiting the various areas, our Resident Coordinators in both Armenia and Azerbaijan are in touch with the governments in order to try to get access.

Question : Okay. One other completely different question if I can: The UK's Home Secretary, so their Home Affairs Minister, Suella Braverman, has been giving a speech here in the US today. And she says that the 1951 Refugee Convention is not fit for the modern age. Does the Secretary-General share those views?

Spokesman : Well, for the Secretary-General, the Refugee Convention is the cornerstone of international refugee protection, remains a lifesaving instrument that ensures millions of people that are fleeing conflict and persecution each year can safely access safety and protection at borders.

Question : So, the Secretary-General believes this is a settled matter, it's not something that could be renegotiated? The UK and others then are fully obliged, if they are signatories, to abide by its terms? [Cross talk]

Spokesman : I think Member States who sign up to conventions should abide by those conventions. That's clear. And UNHCR, I think today said clearly that there's a lot of complex issues right now involving the mass movements of refugees, the mass movements of migrants who are all moving for different reasons. But for us, the Refugee Convention remains as relevant today as an instrument of protection as it was when it was first adopted. Pamela, and then we'll go to the back.

Question : Thanks, Steph. The Secretary-General is meeting with Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad. Can you talk about what's on the agenda?

Spokesman : I think it's at their request. So as soon as the meeting will happen, we'll give you a bit of a readout. Mr. Bulkaty?

Question : Thank you, Stephane. Today, it marks one year since the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up. And there are still no results of national investigations held by three countries. As you know, the Security Council failed to adopt the resolution that would ask the SG to establish the independent investigation. My question is whether do you believe that the time has come to get involved to this process?

Spokesman : Well, as a matter of principle, the establishment of an International Investigative Commission needs to be done through a mandate through a relevant body of the UN. I would refer you to what Rosemary DiCarlo said in February of this year, which said we're not in a position to confirm or verify the different claims relating to the incident. And that we urge all concerned to show restraint and avoid speculation. Toshi, and then Deshi.

Question : Thank you, Steph. Chinese media reported that the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) started accepting the foreigners. And have you heard... as the UN, have you heard anything from the DPRK mission regarding this matter?

Spokesman : It's a good... in terms of letting international staff back in, UN staff? It's a good question. I'll check.

Question : Thanks.

Spokesman : Dezhi?

Question : On Afghanistan, today during the Security Council meeting the Chinese delegation, I mean, the representative talked about again the frozen assets of the United States, that's $7 billion, and he mentioned that half of them actually had already generated $128 million interest, which they are discussing using to pay off the operational fee for the fund.

Spokesman : Sorry. Sorry. Say again.

Question : Yeah. Sorry. Okay. The Chinese representative today in the meeting of the Security Council about Afghanistan, talking about the frozen assets that are held by the United States, half of them, they have been transferred to establish a fund, which is called Afghanistan Fund. And after two years, not one nickel went back to Afghanistan yet, there's the interests that generated $128 million interest. And the board of the fund was discussing how to pay off the operational fee by those interests. Do you consider this a robbery, as the Chinese Permanent Representative said? First, does this money belong to Afghan people?

Spokesman : I think we've had discussions in the past with the US. on these funds and how to best use them for the benefit of the Afghan people. But beyond that, I don't have enough knowledge on the intricacy of the operating... But I will check with you before I make any pronouncement.

Question : But do you think that this $7 billion or the $3.5 billion, they belong to Afghanistan people?

Spokesman : I refer to the first answer to your first question. Madam?

Question : Thank you, Steph. My question is also about Afghanistan. And it's basically just a question of the status or the latest developments regarding UN staff working in Afghanistan, particularly the issue of the Taliban banning Afghan women and are both  is everyone not working? Or are some working?

Spokesman : My understanding is some may be working from home, others coming into to the office. Our concern is obviously to ensure that they continue to have jobs, but also that they are safe. But it sounds like a perfect question to ask the SRSG when she comes out. Yes, sir?

Question : Thank you, Stephane. Pro-regime fighters resume attacks against SDF (Syrian Defence Forces) in Deir ez-Zor. As you know, like, it happened yesterday. Is there any comments or any update on that?

Spokesman : We're very concerned about the continued violence we are seeing in that part of Syria, which really makes lives for civilians, who've undergone so many years of violence and difficult humanitarian conditions, that much more complicated.

Okay. That's it for now. We will keep you posted as to what your next event is  whether it's the DSG or the SRSG.

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UNHCR ready to provide further humanitarian assistance for those fleeing to Armenia

UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

26 September 2023

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is deeply concerned about the increasing number of refugees fleeing into Armenia in recent days.

UNHCR is calling for the protection of civilians and full respect of international humanitarian and refugee law.

As of this afternoon, the Government of the Republic of Armenia reported that some 19,000 people had fled to Armenia since 23 September. The number has more than tripled since yesterday, with long queues reported at the borders.

The majority of those arriving are vulnerable, including mainly older people, women and children. People arriving at the borders are exhausted and require urgent emergency assistance, as well as psychosocial support. With freezing temperatures at night and limited accommodation, emergency shelter support is urgently needed.

"This decades-long conflict, which has flared up again, has displaced many thousands of people," said Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Our teams are on the ground, trying to provide immediate assistance. We need to make sure civilians are protected and humanitarian assistance can reach those in need."

The Government of Armenia is setting up coordination structures, with the support of UNHCR and UN partners. UNHCR is also co-leading the inter-agency contingency and response plan with the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator to support the Government response.

UNHCR has provided non-food items such as foldable beds and mattresses for new arrivals, while further items are being prepared and pre-positioned as the needs continue to increase.

The Government has established several registration points for new arrivals in the south-eastern provinces of Syunik and Gegharkunik, from where protection and assistance needs are also being assessed. UNHCR is providing technical support.

UNHCR reiterates its call to refrain from actions that would cause further displacement of civilians, and to ensure their safety, security and human rights. Nobody should be forced to flee their home.

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UNHCR increasingly concerned for refugees fleeing Karabakh region

26 September 2023 - The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) raised concerns on Tuesday over the movement of a large number of civilians to Armenia as a result of the recent hostilities in the region.

Some 19,000 refugees have reportedly left the Karabakh Economic Region of the Republic of Azerbaijan, including many elderly people, women and children.

UNHCR Spokesperson Shabia Mantoo called on all sides to protect civilians and to fully respect international humanitarian refugee law allowing them safe passage.

All parties must "refrain from actions that would cause displacement of civilians and ensure their safety, security and human rights and nobody should be forced to flee their homes", said Ms. Mantoo, speaking during a scheduled UN agency briefing in Geneva.

Guterres 'very concerned' over displacement

In the regular noon briefing for reporters in New York, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, said the UN chief Antonio Guterres was "very concerned" about the displacement.

"It's essential that the rights of the displaced populations be protected and that they receive the humanitarian support they are owed," said the Spokesperson.

He underlined that at this point, the UN was "not involved in the humanitarian situation" within the region, but the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) is on the ground in Armenia.

Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region has persisted for more than three decades, but a ceasefire and subsequent Trilateral Statement was agreed almost three years ago following six weeks of fighting, by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, leading to the deployment of several thousand Russian peacekeepers.

Amid last week's flare-up in fighting and the arrival of the first refugees in Armenia, the UN chief called for fully-fledged access for aid workers to people in need.

De-escalation call

Mr. Guterres also called for de-escalation "in the strongest terms" and "stricter" observance of the 2020 ceasefire, and principles of international humanitarian law.

Echoing that appeal, UNHCR's Ms. Mantoo explained on Tuesday that amid the "complex and multicultural" situation, access to asylum must be maintained for people in need of international protection "to ensure that people are treated humanely, that their rights are protected and respected, and that they can access the protection and safety that they need".

Support is also needed for countries at the front lines that are receiving people in need of protection, Ms. Mantoo said.

The UNHCR official also called for "alternatives for a legal stay", and an "expansion of regular and safe pathways so people don't have to risk their lives and that we don't see these types of backlogs and pressures".

International solidarity call

She reiterated that the regional response requires international solidarity and a concerted effort by all States and stakeholders.

Regarding UNHCR's teams on the ground in Armenia, Ms. Mantoo explained that they were monitoring the situation closely.

People were "suffering the effects of trauma and exhaustion and need urgent psychosocial support" Ms. Mantoo said, adding that the government of Armenia was leading the response and was expected to appeal to the international community for further support.

For its part, the UN agency has also provided assistance, including non-food items, portable beds, mattresses and bedding. "There is also a need for shelter, warm clothing and other essential non-food items. And we're mobilizing further assistance and coordinating with local government and partners to respond to the increasing needs," she added.

In a statement released late on Tuesday, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk added his concern over the evolving situation.

"Any reported violations of human rights or international humanitarian law require follow-up, including prompt, independent and transparent investigations to ensure accountability and redress for the victims", he said.

He reminded that all countries must not deny ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities "the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language."

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SECNAV Delivers Remarks at Harvard Kennedy School

US Navy

Boston

Speech by Carlos Del Toro

Presented on 26 September 2023

Date Published 26 September 2023



Good afternoon, everyone! Thank you, Professor Walt, for that kind introduction, and for your scholarship and stewardship at this premier institution.

And thank you to the renowned U.S.-China scholar, Dr. Overholt, I'm grateful for all you've done to make my presence here today possible, and more importantly, for your decades of work examining the U.S.-China relationship.

It truly is an honor to be here at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

To the active-duty officers on scholarships and fellowships, as well as our Veterans, thank you for your commitment to defending our Nation. Education is extraordinarily important to me, and was a key driver of my own professional success. It is my hope that your experience here at the Kennedy School will also serve you well as leaders in our Navy, our Marine Corps, and our nation.

Finally, to the NROTC Midshipmen from Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts  thank you for answering the call to serve our country. The Navy and Marine Corps team you are about to join is the greatest in the world, and we are working every day to ensure it remains so. We know you will hit the deckplates running.

This afternoon, I stand before you to call for a "new maritime statecraft" to prevail in this era of intense strategic competition.

Maritime statecraft, in a broad sense, encompasses not only naval diplomacy but a national, whole-of-government effort to build comprehensive U.S. and allied maritime power, both commercial and naval.

Our new maritime statecraft should be bold, founded on a strong Navy and Marine Corps to fulfill our national security interests.

It should also be equally strong on engagement in areas of economic development, trade, and climate diplomacy to enable us to compete more successfully on a global scale. It should leverage the tremendous advantages we uniquely enjoy in innovation and technology, particularly in the maritime domain.

It must be forward-looking to anticipate how to address future challenges.

Challenges that include competition over industrialization of the oceans and how to re-define territorial waters and economic exclusive zones as sea levels rise.

And in this era of intensifying inter-state competition, a successful maritime statecraft would also advance cooperation on shared challenges.

The Biden Administration is committed to finding comprehensive solutions through pragmatic diplomacy.

And I am delivering this message to you  the students, faculty, and staff of the John F. Kennedy School of Government  because of your expertise in the study of defense and international security, and because of this institution's unmatched legacy in training our most promising government and military leaders.

This university  without question  produced four of the greatest "naval-focused" Presidents in our nation's history. All four were skilled Statesmen, whose use of maritime statecraft at critical moments changed the course of American history.

President John Adams, Harvard Class of 1755, created the cabinet post of Secretary of the Navy and the Department that I now lead. He created the post to take emergency action against predatory naval powers attacking American-flagged merchant vessels, in-turn threatening our new nation's trade and prosperity.

Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880, brought the Navy onto the international stage as a global power and his cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt, Class of 1903, led the greatest industrial buildup of naval and commercial maritime power the world has ever seen.

And this institution's namesake and Harvard Class of 1940, President John F. Kennedy, made the Navy an indispensable instrument of stability in a new, uncertain nuclear age.

This school is a fitting tribute to President Kennedy, for many of the greatest strategic thinkers that shaped our ultimate success in the nuclear age originated from Harvard, with several involved in the founding of the Kennedy School.

Dr. Graham Allison's Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis became the founding work of this school, revolutionizing the study of government-decision making and the field of international relations.

As you all know, the Cuban Missile Crisis is widely recognized as one of the greatest foreign policy crises in our nation's history, for the decisions were extraordinarily difficult, the options limited, and the stakes existential.

And during this crisis, President Kennedy determined that the Navy was the right instrument of national power to keep the Cold War from going "hot" less than 90 miles from our shores.

As he prepared to go on national television to announce the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and his decision to enforce a naval quarantine of the island, President Kennedy turned to our then-Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral George Anderson and said, "This is up to the Navy".

The CNO replied: "Mr. President, the Navy won't let you down."

Over the course of those next five days, our Navy's flexible, agile, and persistent forward presence bought our Commander-in-Chief time and decision space that provided him with leverage to compel a superpower to reconsider, de-escalate and accept a diplomatic resolution instead of a potential nuclear conflict.

JFK also benefited in those tense days from another brilliant Harvard advisor and future founding father of this school, the renowned game theorist and nuclear strategist Thomas Schelling.

Eight months before the Cuban Missile crisis, the Kennedy Administration announced the policy of Flexible Nuclear Response, centered on the assured retaliation, or second strike, provided by ballistic missile submarines to deter the preemptive use of nuclear weapons by our adversaries.

The Navy's stealthy, survivable and devastatingly lethal leg of the nuclear triad has underwritten America's strategic deterrence ever since.

Dr. Schelling and Harvard's first cadre of pioneering nuclear strategists would have certainly welcomed our decision to make America's next generation of Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines our highest acquisition priority.

The triumphs and tragedies of President Kennedy's tenure in office are especially poignant for me. My parents made the decision to flee communist Cuba that autumn of 1962, as the Cuban Missile Crisis was playing out, to give our family a better life in America.

Like President Kennedy, my time as a naval officer and now as Secretary of the Navy has been defined by a deep appreciation for and personal commitment to the "power of naval diplomacy" to make the world a more free, democratic, and prosperous place for all to benefit.

And that is why I stand before you today, to call for a new vision of maritime statecraft to address the challenges our nation faces in the 21st century.

Your Nation calls you once againour best and brightest strategic thinkers at the intersection of academia and policy makingto help us build our maritime statecraft of the future.

Allow me now to explain why such an endeavor is necessary, and to share what we are doing about it moving forward.

As you are already aware, The People's Republic of China is building up its naval fleet at a rapid pace. In the 20 years since I left active duty, the PLA Navy has tripled in size, and is on pace to have over 400 naval warships by 2030.

I must also underscore to you  because it is far less widely understood, that the growth of the PRC's commercial maritime power is a development more concerning than even its naval expansion.

Our nation's most prominent naval strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, argued that naval power begets maritime commercial power, and control of maritime commerce begets greater naval power.

Today's PRC leadership has read and studied Mahan's theory, and their actions show it.

The PRC is today the world's largest builder of commercial, ocean going ships, with over forty percent of the global market being built in Chinese shipyards.

More concerning still, Beijing leverages its dominant commercial shipbuilding capacity and modern commercial shipyards and infrastructure to more efficiently produce its naval combatants.

Chinese shipping firms have come to dominate the worldwide commercial shipping industry. They have established an ownership stake in 95 ports across 53 countries worldwide, including in many of our own ports and those of our allies.

They have a virtual monopoly over the global shipping container and ship-to-shore crane market.

The PRC, through their fleet of cable ships, is also seeking to increase its competition with U.S. tech companies for control over the seabed cables that carry 95 percent of global communications.

Seabed power cables that increasingly connect the electric grid to overseas or offshore renewable energy sources are also vulnerable.

The PRC possesses the world's largest global fishing fleet and the third largest merchant marine fleet, with more than 7,000 ships, compared to the United States (ranked 70th), with 178.

Today, less than one-half of one percent of U.S. international exports and imports sail on U.S.-flagged merchant ships, almost all of which are foreign-built.

As you can see, the PRC controls much of the global commercial maritime supply chain.

This creates real operational and economic risk for the American economy in the event of crisis or conflict.

Over the past thirty years, while China's comprehensive maritime power has grown exponentially, ours has declined precipitously.

History proves that, in the long run, there has never been a great naval power that wasn't also a maritime power  a commercial shipbuilding and global shipping power.

That said, being an eternal optimist, there are steps we are taking and can take in the future as a nation to revitalize our maritime industry.

Such efforts align with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's strategy to more deeply integrate domestic and foreign policy by reshoring critical strategic industries.

The maritime industry is a strategic sector critical to our economic and national security. It is vital to achieving resilient global supply chains, and is ripe with opportunity to partner with a greater number of shipbuilders here in the U.S. and with our closest allies overseas, including Japan and South Korea. It also requires urgent U.S. public investment and international statecraft to attract the necessary private capital.

And we in the Biden Administration are leading efforts to grow our nation's strategic advantage at sea.

The generational AUKUS security agreement between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom is indeed changing the geo-strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific. This agreement is more than just an acquisition arrangement for nuclear-powered, conventionally-armed submarines for Australia  it is also a model for how we are expanding naval diplomacy to the procurement and technology development spheres at a scale never before seen, driving significant investments across our three nations' defense industrial bases.

Equally important is our Administration's continued commitment to improving our own naval shipbuilding and repair industry  both public and commercial  with historically high investments through the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan and in the industrial base.

We must work with our allies to attract the most advanced shipbuilders in the world to open U.S.-owned subsidiaries and invest in commercial shipyards here in the U.S., modernizing and expanding our shipbuilding industrial capacity and creating a healthier, more competitive shipbuilding workforce.

We as a Navy and Marine Corps are a catalyst and key stakeholder in a first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government effort that reflects the Biden Administration's commitment to meeting this challenge.

Of course our maritime statecraft demands even more engagement with our allies and our partners. Mutually respectful cooperation with them in every domain is at the forefront of our nation's approach to naval diplomacy, and at the heart of our National Defense

Strategy.

In contrast, China seeks to exploit its growing economic and military power to coerce its neighbors and threaten their interests while undermining our alliances and security partnerships.

Yet, China's Navy is just one piece of the maritime force Beijing employs to advance its aggressive foreign policy, challenging the rules-based international order.

China's Navy, working alongside China's Coast Guard and Maritime Militia, is increasingly conducting operations designed to force nations to submit to Beijing's excessive territorial claims  some of which have been challenged and ruled illegal by the International Court of Arbitration at the Hague.

Using these "gray zone" operations, the PRC is staking illegal maritime claims to offshore resources that threaten the peace, prosperity, and ecological stability of the world's oceans.

For years, it has threatened Southeast Asian countries for daring to pursue energy development in their own internationally-recognized EEZs.

In 2020, when China embarked on a concerted effort to intimidate Malaysia out of its rightful offshore resources, the U.S. Seventh Fleet's Task Force 76 began a remarkable prototype operation, pioneering a new approach to support our partners' civilian vessels in standing up to China's coercive maritime insurgency in the South China Sea.

U.S. Navy and Marine Corps units from several ship classes took partincluding a littoral combat ship, a destroyer, a cruiser, and the large-deck amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) with its full complement of Marines.

Joining forces with a frigate from the Royal Australian Navy, Task Force 76 established and maintained a persistent presence in determined support of a partner's sovereign, internationally-recognized rights. China backed down.

As Task Force 76's commander, Rear Admiral Fred Kacher  who I will note is a graduate of the Kennedy School and my nominee to be the next Seventh Fleet commander  observed at the time, this combination of U.S. and allied ships "highlights the flexibility and agility of our naval forces in this vital region.... demonstrating the wide range of naval capability we have available in the Indo-Pacific."

I assure you that we continue to seize the strategic opportunity to deepen our cooperation with allies and partners in the South China Sea.

This past summer, the U.S. and Philippine Navies conducted a series of exercises and combined operations north of Palawan, as well as a trilateral exercise with Japana first for our three navies.

Our Marine Corps also continues to partner with the Philippines, working to build the interoperability between our naval forces, in-turn strengthening our collective ability to address shared security concerns.

However, the PRC's actions aren't confined to the Indo-Pacific. Through its distant waters fishing fleet, they engage in Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing around the world, negatively impacting fragile maritime ecosystems and the economic wellbeing of those nations and people it exploits.

And as the need to source their global battery and solar panel industry transitions to rare seabed minerals and deep sea mining in the years to come, the PRC will undoubtedly ramp up its illegal exploitation of natural resources belonging to maritime nations throughout the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Equally worrisome, there are other adversaries beyond China with designs to disrupt the free flow of commerce in the maritime domain, a domain where 90% of our international trade transits.

Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative is negatively impacting food security around the world as Moscow refuses to guarantee the safety of commercial ships sailing in and out of Ukrainian ports.

Iran continues to interfere with merchant shipping in the Strait of Hormuz through a campaign of harassment and seizures with its para-naval forces.

These nefarious actions challenge one of the foundational principles of our nation  the Freedom of the Seas.

And because of our values and commitment to ensuring that the maritime commons are free and open for the benefit of all, we, the United States Navy, are the partner-of-choice for many fellow maritime nations, and we are seeking out new strategic partnerships as part of our maritime statecraft.

Just this past week, I met with over 90 heads of navies at the International Seapower Symposium, where we committed to working together.

As but one example, we have made deepening our relationship with India a top priority, and we are advancing our cooperation on undersea domain awareness as well as other initiatives to strengthen our naval ties.

This emerging relationship with India was fostered by the late Secretary of Defense Ash Carter  a brilliant and beloved colleague, a mentor, and a friend to so many during his years here at Harvard.

While we all miss him dearly, we will forever appreciate his understanding of the critical role of naval diplomacy in our changing security landscape.

We build these relationships with many nations through traditional engagements  such as exercises and port calls  but also through new, innovative ways such as technology bridges, research sharing agreements, and climate assistance.

We commit to seeking out new partners and attending new, non-traditional forums to address emerging maritime challenges.

As the first Secretary of the Navy to serve on the U.S. delegation to "Our Oceans Conference," my engagement in that high-level, global forum and relationships we built there, reinforced my conviction that a comprehensive maritime statecraft would open opportunities for our nation to create more inclusive coalitions.

And as we engage with nations around the world, we focus on communicating three things  that we value their partnership, we will support them in addressing their challenges, and that we will be a trusted, dependable, and durable partner.

This type of soft power is truly our competitive advantage.

Last year during my trip to geo-strategically significant Pacific Islands  a trip that took place shortly after the Chinese Foreign Minster's charm offensive to entice Pacific Island partners out of our security orbit and into Theirs  we reached out to twelve nations across the "Blue Pacific" to engage them on their existential climate threats.

And while our competitor is building illegal artificial islands and militarizing them, our SEABEES are in the same region assisting with vital infrastructure across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. We assured our partners we can and we will do more.

Alongside Secretary John Kerry, I delivered the first of a series of Office of Naval Research climate resilience decision tools planned for island leaders. I presented the first to President Whipps of Palau.

This ONR capability was highlighted at the UN General Assembly last week as a leading High Impact Innovation for sustainable development.

Today, President Biden is meeting with those same nations we have been engaging with at the Pacific Islands Forum Summit in Washington, D.C., to discuss how we can further increase our cooperation with them to address the climate crisis and other common challenges.

We are also building new maritime coalitions through the use of unmanned technologies. In the Middle East, our Task Force 59 is creating unique partnerships between nations that haven't worked together before, demonstrating how unmanned platforms can provide persistent maritime domain awareness in contested waters.

Our Navy is expanding that successful model to the Caribbean, with our Fourth Fleet incorporating unmanned systems to help our allies and partners in addressing a range of their most pressing maritime issues, from narcotics and human trafficking to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

Through the incorporation of unmanned platforms into their fleet, they will be empowered to shine a light on illicit exploitation of their sovereign waters to direct enforcement actions.

And as our partners and allies leverage these unmanned platforms to cue their manned assets, our Coast Guard is also actively engaging them.

Over the past year, our USCG has been given authorization by Pacific Island governments in Palau, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea to enforce maritime law in their EEZs to counter PRC incursions.

It is important to recognize that these nations have expansive EEZs, and our Coast Guard is limited in the persistent support they can provide.

Through interoperability of our platforms and integrated training of our personnel, our Navy is a critical force multiplier for the Coast Guard. I expect that the demand for this potent Navy-Coast Guard combination will only increase as more countries in the Indo-Pacific come to understand their effectiveness.

In concert with our Navy and our Coast Guard, our Marine Corps is also supporting our partners and allies in this region.

Force Design 2030  the Marine Corps' transformational effort designed to change how they operate and modernize their force  brings them back to their core maritime mission.

Through bilateral and multinational exercises, they are joining with our partners to project power from the shore, affecting events at sea by supporting the freedom of maritime maneuver and keeping sea lines of communication open for commerce to freely flow.

Our nation's tri-service strategy, titled "Advantage at Sea," is a foundational document for maritime statecraft, guiding the integration of our Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard's collective capabilities to better support not just our own national objectives, but those of our partners and our allies as well.

It is now time to update this strategy to make it more comprehensive with the inclusion of MARAD and NOAA.

As our Department charts a new course on how we can best advocate for and integrate ourselves into a more comprehensive national approach to maritime statecraft, we are conducting a deliberate review of how we approach training our strategists throughout our Navy and Marine Corps, and how we utilize them after they graduate from schools like this one.

I always say that I expect my Admirals and Generals to be skilled warfighters. But more so, I demand that they be strategic thinkers  that they strive first to deter our adversaries and, if called upon, be victorious during times of conflict.

We also require more rising civilian policymakers to be educated in maritime strategy so that they can better understand how naval power can be effectively employed to achieve our nation's political objectives in both peace and conflict.

It is my steadfast belief that we will only be successful in developing a new, national approach to maritime statecraft with the support of military and civilian leaders who are well-versed in our nation's maritime history, for the challenges we face today are eerily similar to the ones we have faced in the past.

When I came to this country, the United States stood alone as the world's sole naval power and its preeminent maritime power.

With no competitor to challenge the U.S. Navy after WWII, Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington laid out a new rationale for the U.S. Navy in his seminal 1954 Proceedings article "National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy."

With command of the seas then-no longer in doubt and the rise of a great land power  the Soviet Union  our Navy adopted Huntington's recommendations to focus on projecting power ashore.

Times have changed. The emergence of the first, formidable naval and maritime competitor in over a hundred years requires new scholarship, policy and action on integrating comprehensive maritime power into American grand strategy.

Last year's National Defense Authorization Act finally codified, for the first time in law, a critical mission John Adams created for the Department of the Navy  organize, train, and equip forces "for the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States."

This act was passed in recognition that we are once again in an intense peacetime competition with a global maritime power and the interests and prosperity of our Nation are at stake every day.

And so, we must renew our commitment as a nation to recapitalizing national maritime power.

I ask that you join us in our pursuit of a new vision for maritime statecraft in the 21st century. One that addresses a range of emerging challenges such as: new shipping routes and resources emerging in the Arctic, the race for deep sea mining, control over sea floor communications cables, the vulnerability to U.S. trade carried on foreign flags in times of conflict, and so many more challenges and opportunities.

Mankind's reliance on the maritime domain is going to accelerate more in the decades to come, and there is still so much we have yet to learn about the oceans we will increasingly depend upon.

In the words of President John F. Kennedy, "We stand today on the edge of a new frontier, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils."

Your Department of the Navy is at flank speed on this journey, and I ask you to join us.

Thank you.



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Philippines Removes China's Floating Barrier at South China Sea Lagoon

By VOA News September 26, 2023

The Philippine coast guard said it removed a Chinese floating barrier that blocked access to a disputed South China Sea lagoon.

A coast guard statement said it conducted a "special operation" to remove the barrier, which China put in place last week.

The Philippine coast guard also released a video showing a diver using a knife to cut a rope attached to buoys.

The action followed a statement by Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano, who said China's barrier violated traditional Filipino fishing rights.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday advised the Philippines not to provoke or seek trouble.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday the disputed waters are Chinese territory.

China seized control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 and claims sovereignty over most of the resource-rich South China Sea.

Competing claims include those from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters

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Hanoi Faces Balancing Act With China as Vietnam-US Ties Tighten

By Le Nguyen, Khanh An September 26, 2023

The elevation of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership shows an increasing level of shared interests between the two countries. But the enhanced ties do not mean Hanoi is drifting away from Beijing, its traditional partner, analysts say.

The two countries upgraded their bilateral ties when U.S. President Joe Biden met with Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi in early September. Between July 25, 2013, and September 10, 2023, the countries had characterized their relationship as a comprehensive partnership, a lower level of diplomatic engagement.

"The two leaders underscored the need to continue deepening political and diplomatic relations, and will promote regular exchanges of delegations and engagements at all levels to strengthen mutual understanding and build and enhance political trust," the White House said in a statement about Biden and Trong's meeting September 10 in Hanoi.

The diplomatic upgrade reflects a shared perception by Washington and Hanoi that both will benefit from enhanced cooperation as Beijing becomes increasingly aggressive in the region, according to analysts and independent news outlets.

The New York Times described China as an "important subtext" for the upgrade, as Biden "works to establish a network of partnerships in the region to counter aggressive action" by China.

Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told The Guardian newspaper: "The influence of China cannot be overlooked. Vietnam is among the few nations in Asia prepared to challenge China's regional ambitions, all while maintaining open lines of communication with Beijing."

The comprehensive strategic partnership is Hanoi's highest level of diplomatic engagement with foreign countries.

The upgrade places Washington on par with Beijing in its diplomatic ties with Hanoi, which established a comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2008. Vietnam, a communist country, also has comprehensive strategic partnerships with Russia, India and South Korea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called on the United States to "abandon hegemony and Cold War thinking" in her response to the Vietnam-U.S. upgrade, as reported by Reuters.

"We demand that the United States, when dealing with relations with Asian countries, must respect the common aspiration of regional countries for stability, cooperation, and development, abide by the basic norms of international relations," Mao said on September 11.

Balancing act

Analysts say the new partnership is a remarkable improvement in U.S.-Vietnam ties, but it should not be seen as Hanoi's attempt to distance itself from Beijing to align with Washington.

Nguyen Hong Hai, a senior lecturer of politics, social change and international relations at Hanoi's Vin University, said the elevation of ties means Hanoi will engage in a balancing act between Washington and Beijing.

"No matter how close Vietnam leans toward the U.S., the relations between Vietnam and China will not fundamentally change unless China changes it themselves," Hai said in an email to VOA Vietnamese on September 17.

He added that Hanoi will do its best to balance ties with Washington and Beijing to avoid being injured by their strategic rivalry, drawing from its painful experience of siding with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

"The best way for Vietnam to navigate this strategic rivalry is not becoming dependent on any powers, both politically and economically," he said.

Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert and professor at the National War College in Washington where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues, agreed.

He said the elevation of U.S.-Vietnam ties does not reflect a fundamental change in relations or orientation in Hanoi's foreign and security policies.

The two countries have drawn closer mainly on the economic front, Abuza said.

VOA Vietnamese reached out to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask what the highest-level ties with the U.S. means for its security but did not receive a response.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S. Nguyen Quoc Dung told Tuoi Tre daily newspaper that Vietnam wants to build good ties with all powers rather than picking sides.

The elevation of ties with the U.S. serves Vietnam's highest strategic interest of peace, stability and development, Dung was quoted as saying by Tuoi Tre.

Washington rejected the notion that Beijing was a key factor in upgrading ties with Hanoi.

"There's intrinsic value in the U.S. relationship with Vietnam," Marc Knapper, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, told VOA Vietnamese.

Speaking last week during Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit to the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly, the ambassador told VOA Vietnamese the two countries are aligned on goals such as net zero emissions for Vietnam.

Biden and Trong did not cite China directly during their meeting, nor did their joint statement name China.

Growing concern

The leaders' statement, however, expressed "unwavering support for the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international law," in what appeared to be a reference to China's aggressive behavior in the resource-rich South China Sea.

Knapper said the U.S. wants to ensure that no country can change the status quo in the South China Sea unilaterally, and that no country is being pressured or bullied into making unwanted decisions.

"We want to ensure Vietnam's Coast Guard has the means to defend its interests at sea," he said.

Analysts say the new partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam is unlikely to change Beijing's behavior in the South China Sea.

"China has the military and economic strength to do what it wants, and it knows that Vietnam will not ally with the U.S. against it," said Bill Hayton, associate fellow with the Asia-Pacific program at Chatham House in London.

In August, China published a new national map reasserting sovereignty over nearly the entire waters, drawing strong protests from its neighbors, including Vietnam.

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Bangladeshi Police Accused of Filing False Cases as Election Nears

By Shaikh Azizur Rahman September 26, 2023

As Bangladesh moves toward the next national elections  likely to be held in January  opposition political parties are accusing the country's security forces of an escalation in repression.

Hundreds of thousands of leaders, activists and supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country's largest opposition party, have faced "fictitious" charges of violence, party leaders allege.

"Every prospective BNP general election candidate has at least dozens of cases filed against him by the police or members of the ruling party," AKM Wahiduzzaman, the BNP's information and technology affairs secretary, told VOA.

The Awami League is the ruling party in Bangladesh.

"These ghost cases are mostly intended to keep the BNP leaders and workers away from election-related activities," Wahiduzzaman said. "The cases are also aimed at getting the prospective BNP election candidates convicted by the court and disqualified for election. The government is resorting to all means to keep BNP away from election."

The 2014 elections were boycotted by the BNP, and the 2018 elections were marred by widespread allegations of massive vote stuffing  a charge that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly denied. BNP leaders and other critics say they fear the Awami League will rig the next election.

For months, the BNP and other opposition parties have organized political rallies and demanded Hasina's resignation to make way for a nonpartisan caretaker government ahead of the next election. Hasina's government has not accepted the demand.

BNP leaders allege their political rallies are being attacked by the police and armed Awami League activists, and that their leaders and supporters are being set up on spurious charges of violence and sabotage.

According to the office of the BNP, between 2009 and July 2023, more than 138,000 cases were filed against more than 4 million leaders and activists of the BNP and its member organizations.

Disqualified from the election

BNP joint Secretary General Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel, accused in more than 450 cases, told VOA on Monday that he was in court daily.

"For the past three months, I have been in court from morning to evening, attending hearings of four to six cases every day. Many of my senior party colleagues are facing identical situations in court," said Sohel, who was arrested in a violence-related case and barred from contesting the 2018 general elections.

Trials of about a dozen cases against him have been fast-tracked, and he said he fears being convicted and disqualified as an election candidate.

At least 44 senior BNP leaders have been sent to jail, Wahiduzzaman said.

"In politically influenced courts, over 200 cases against senior BNP leaders have been fast-tracked. All these trials are aimed to get the accused BNP leaders convicted in coming weeks and disqualify them from the next election," he said.

Bangladeshi pro-democracy activist Pinaki Bhattacharya, who is in exile in France, said Hasina has long used judicial cases based "on trumped-up charges" to keep her opponents away from general elections.

"The Bangladesh police filed many cases accusing opposition political activists of bombing different places. Later inquiries by media, private fact-finders and pro-democracy activists revealed that no bombing had taken place there at all. They even filed cases against dead people, accusing them of committing violence on the street," Bhattacharya, a popular YouTuber, told VOA.

"The police filed cases on trumped-up charges targeting senior opposition leaders before the 2018 general elections. They are repeating the same mischievous strategy this time so that the opposition parties cannot take part in the next elections freely."

Mohammad Faruk Hossain, spokesperson for the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told VOA that the police "never" lodge what is being called a "ghost case."

"The police file a case against one only when it is found that the person has been involved in criminal activities. They [the opposition activists] are indulging in vandalism and arson in the name of political activities. They are also assaulting the police," Hossain said.

"The cases are being filed against them according to law because they are resorting to violence. Our force always works within the legal frame," he said.

Free and fair elections

Since 2022, the United States and other countries have been urging the Hasina government to hold the next general election in a free and fair manner.

Last week, Washington announced it was "taking steps to impose visa restrictions" on Bangladeshi individuals who are found complicit in "undermining the democratic electoral process" in Bangladesh.

These individuals include "current and former Bangladeshi officials, members of the opposition and ruling political parties, and members of law enforcement, the judiciary, and security services" and "members of their immediate family," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in an announcement on September 22.

Hasina, in the United States for the United Nations General Assembly, said in a New York press conference in New York that if "any foreign country conspired to sabotage" the election in Bangladesh, people in her country would "impose sanctions" on that nation.

"It was the people of Bangladesh who voted our party to power. We indeed want the elections in Bangladesh to be free and fair," Hasina said.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said Hasina's government and party have already prepared a blueprint laying out how they will use the ruling party cadres and civil and police administration to conduct the election.

"Some days ago, the district commissioner of Jamalpur urged people openly to vote for the ruling party. In a leaked telephone conversation, the officer in charge of a police station in Rajshahi was overheard saying he had been recently posted there by a minister to ensure that the ruling party candidate won the next election," Alamgir told VOA.

"This is clear that the government is preparing to massively rig the next election again. If we take part in such an election, it would be like supporting a big crime," Alamgir said.

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Russo-Ukraine War - 26 September 2023 - Day 580

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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 the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) has suffered a series of major attacks in recent weeks, culminating in strikes on its headquarters on 20 and 22 September 2023. These attacks have been more damaging and more coordinated than thus far in the war.

The physical damage to the BSF is almost certainly severe but localised. The fleet almost certainly remains capable of fulfilling its core wartime missions of cruise missile strikes and local security patrols. It is, however, likely that its ability to continue wider regional security patrols and enforce its de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports will be diminished. It also likely has a degraded ability to defend its assets in port and to conduct routine maintenance.

A dynamic, deep strike battle is underway in the Black Sea. This is likely forcing Russia into a reactive posture whilst demonstrating that Ukraine's military can undermine the Kremlin's symbolic and strategic power projection from its warm water port in occupied Sevastopol

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that during the day of September 26, there were 20x combat engagements. Also, Russia launched yet another strike at Ukraine using 38x Iranian Shahed-136/131 combat UAVs. The port infrastructure of Odesa oblast was damaged. Ukrainian air defense forces and means intercepted 26x Russian Shaheds. Russian forces launched a total of 7x missile and 73x air strikes, 37x MLRS attacks at the positions of Ukrainian troops and various settlements. Unfortunately, the Russian attacks have killed and wounded civilians. Residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.

The operational situation in east and south of Ukraine remains difficult.

Volyn and Polissya axes: no significant changes. No signs of formation of an offensive group. Certain units of the armed forces of Belarus continue their missions in the areas bordering Ukraine.

Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna axes: Russia maintains its military presence in the areas of russia bordering Ukraine. Russia continues to shell Ukrainian settlements from the territory of Russia and increases the density of minefields along the state border of Ukraine. Russian forces launched air strikes in the vicinities of settlements of Hrabovs'ke, Popivka (Sumy oblast), Starytsya, and Hatyshche (Kharkiv oblast). More than 25x settlements came under artillery and mortar fire, including Klyusy, Bleshnya, Hrem'yachka, Leonivka, Kostobobriv (Chernihiv oblast), Stara Huta, Porokhon', Volfyne, Myropillya, Pozhnya (Sumy oblast), Udy, Vovchans'k, Budarky, Vil'khuvatka, and Bolohivka (Kharkiv oblast).

Kup'yans'k axis: Russian forces launched air strikes near Syn'kivka and Kup'yans'k (Kharkiv oblast). Vicinities of settlements of Syn'kivka, Tabaivka, and Berestove (Kharkiv oblast) came under artillery and mortar fire of the Russian adversary.

Lyman axis: Nadiya, Novojehorivka (Luhansk oblast), Tors'ke, Sivers'k, and Spirne (Donetsk oblast) were the targets of Russian air strikes. Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at more than 15x settlements, including Makiivka, Nevs'ke, Bilohorivka (Luhansk oblast), Zarichne, Dibrova, Spirne, Rozdolivka, and Fedorivka (Donetsk oblast).

Bakhmut axis: the Ukrainian defenders continue to hold the line and defend Ukrainian land from the Russian occupants. Russian forces launched an air strike near Klishchiivka, Kostyantynivka, and Pivnichne (Donetsk oblast). More than 25x settlements came under artillery and mortar fire, including Vasyukivka, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka, Ivanivske, Andriivka, and Druzhba (Donetsk oblast). Russia is increasing the density of minefields.

Avdiivka axis: the Ukrainian defenders successfully repelled Russian attacks in the area southeast of Sjeverne (Donetsk oblast). The Russian adversary launched an air strike near Avdiivka. The Russian invaders fired artillery and mortars at more than 10x settlements, including Novokalynove, Stepove, Tonen'ke, Sjeverne, Pervomais'ke, and Nevel's'ke (Donetsk oblast).

Mar'inka axis: during the day of September 26, Ukrainian defenders successfully repelled 9x Russian attacks in the immediate vicinity of Mar'inka (Donetsk oblast). The Russian adversary launched an air strike near Novomykhailivka (Donetsk oblast). The occupants fired at more than 10x settlements, including Krasnohorivka, Heorhiivka, Pobjeda, Novomykhailivka, Katerynivka, and Yelyzavetivka (Donetsk oblast).

Shakhtars'ke axis: Russian forces launched air strikes in the vicinities of Urozhaine, Blahodatne, and Staromaiors'ke (Donetsk oblast). Around 10x settlements, including Vodyane, Vuhledar, Prechystivka, Zolota Nyva, Blahodatne, and Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast), came under artillery and mortar fire.

Zaporizhzhia axis: Russian forces launched an air strike in the vicinity of Mala Tokmachka (Zaporizhzhia oblast). About 20x settlements came under artillery and mortar fire, including Levadne, Hulyaipole, Orikhiv, Shcherbaky, Stepove, and P'yatykhatky (Zaporizhzhia oblast).

Kherson axis: the Russian adversary launched air strikes in the vicinities of settlements of Beryslav, Mykolaivka, and Ol'hivka (Kherson oblast). About 10x settlements came under Russian artillery and mortar fire, including Osokorivka, Respublikanets', Beryslav, Antonivka, Kizomys (Kherson oblast), and the city of Kherson.

At the same time, the Ukrainian defense forces continue their offensive operation on Melitopol' axis and offensive (assault) operations on Bakhmut axis, inflicting losses in manpower and equipment on the occupation forces, exhausting the Russian forces all along the front line.

During the day of September 26, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 12x air strikes on the concentrations of troops, weapons, and military equipment of the Russian adversary.

The Ukrainian missile troops hit 4x artillery systems, 3x concentrations of troops, and military equipment, 1x command post, and 2x ammunition depots of the Russian adversary.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that in Donetsk direction, units of the Yug Group of Forces, in cooperation with aviation and artillery, repelled four attacks by Ukrainian Armed Forces near Krasnogorovka, Pervomayskoye, and Khimik (Donetsk People's Republic). During the day, over 310 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed or injured, as well as five tanks, five infantry fighting vehicles, and eight motor vehicles. In counter-battery warfare, the Russian troops hit one U.S.-made M777 artillery system, and one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system.

In Zaporozhye direction, two attacks of AFU 71st Jaeger and 36th Airmobile brigades near Verbovoye (Zaporozhye region) were repelled by actions of the Russian Group of Forces units, air strikes and artillery fire. Up to 70 Ukrainian troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, and three motor vehicles have been neutralised. Also, one U.S.-made M109 Paladin self-propelled artillery system and one D-30 howitzer were hit during counter-battery warfare.

In Kupyansk direction, the Zapad Group of Forces units supported by aviation and artillery inflicted fire damage on the enemy near Berestovoye (Kharkov region) and Novosyolovskoye (Lugansk People's Republic). Up to 50 Ukrainian troops and two motor vehicles have been neutralised. One Gvozdika self-propelled artillery guns was eliminated. Moreover, two AFU field command posts were annihilated close to Seredina-Buda (Sumy region) and Kislovka (Kherson region).

In Krasny Liman direction, three attacks launched by assault detachments of the 67th Mechanised Brigade and the 12th Special Forces Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces close to Chervonaya Dibrova and Kuzmino (Lugansk People's Republic) were repelled by professional efforts of the Tsentr Group of Forces, helicopter strikes, and artillery fire. In addition, strikes were delivered at clusters of enemy manpower and hardware near Grigorovka (Donetsk People's Republic) and Serebryansky forestry.

During the day, the enemy has lost more than 90 Ukrainian personnel killed and injured, as well as two armoured fighting vehicles, and two pick-up trucks. Also, one Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system and one D-20 howitzer were hit during counter-battery warfare.

In South Donetsk direction, the Vostok Group of Forces, supported by helicopters and artillery inflicted fire damage on AFU units near Rovnopol and repelled one enemy attack close to Staromayorskoye (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy's losses over the past 24 hours have amounted to up to 120 Ukrainian personnel killed or injured, two armoured fighting vehicles, three motor vehicles, and one D-20 howitzer.

In Kherson direction, over 15 Ukrainian servicemen and ten motor vehicles have been neutralised.

Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged AFU manpower and hardware in 117 areas during the day. In addition, a Ukrainian Anklav anti-UAV electronic warfare station was uncovered and destroyed near Dnepropetrovsk (Dnepropetrovsk region). An ammunition depot of the 124th Territorial Defence Brigade has been wiped out close to Kiselyovka (Kherson region).

Russian Aerospace Forces have eliminated one MiG-29 airplane of Ukrainian Air Force at the Kulbakino airfield near Kulbakino, Nikolayev region.

Air defence systems have shot down five HIMARS MLRS shells, one JDAM guided bombs, and one U.S.-made HARM anti-radiation missile during the day. In addition, 57 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been destroyed near Artyomovsk, Spartak, Nevelskoye, Novopetrikovka (Donetsk People's Republic), Lisichansk (Lugansk People's Republic), Krynki, Kazachyi Lageri (Kherson region), Veliky Vyselok (Kharkov region), Tokmak and Pologi (Zaporozhye region).

In total, 479 airplanes and 250 helicopters, 7,172 unmanned aerial vehicles, 438 air defence missile systems, 12,151 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,155 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 6,542 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 13,477 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.

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Taiwan rolls out new Moderna vaccine amid warnings of new COVID outbreak

ROC Central News Agency

09/26/2023 07:12 PM

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) started to roll out Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine against the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 Tuesday, urging people to get the shots as it warned of another outbreak in the near future.

The vaccine, which the government granted emergency use authorization (EUA) on Sept. 13, was first offered to people aged 65 years or older, to be followed by medical staff from Oct. 2, then members of the public from Oct. 9, according to CDC Director General Chuang Jen-hsiang (eZSac) at a press conference.

In addition, people aged 65 and older will receive 10 COVID-19 rapid test kits and gifts valued at NT$500 (US$15.6) when they get the vaccine shot, he said.

The government said earlier that the updated vaccine is based on similar technology to Moderna's previous shots, and offers strong protection against the Omicron XBB.1.5 sublineage, which is currently the dominant strain in Taiwan.

It is particularly important for senior citizens to get vaccinated as more frequent travel during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and Double Ten Day holiday weekends could increase the chances of the spread of COVID-19, Chuang said.

Over the past five months, people aged 65 or older have accounted for 78 percent of COVID-19 cases with complications, while many of those patients had a history of chronic illnesses or had not received all three vaccine doses, he said.

Since there are also signs showing that the disease is on the rise in western countries, another local outbreak is likely in the following months, Chuang said, adding that a peak in infections is expected in December, when there could be 100 new cases per day.

Currently, COVID-19 cases and deaths are low in Taiwan, with an average of 33 local infections and 5 deaths from the disease reported per day between Sept. 19-25, according to CDC data.

(By Tseng Yi-ning and Lee Hsin-Yin)

Enditem/AW



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Third U.S.-Colombia Counternarcotics Working Group (CNWG) Joint Statement

US Department of State

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

September 26, 2023

The text of the following statement was released by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Colombia, on the occasion of the Third Meeting of the U.S.-Colombia Counternarcotics Working Group.

Begin Text

Delegations from the Government of Colombia and the Government of the United States of America met on September 25-26, 2023, for the Third Meeting of the U.S.-Colombia Counternarcotics Working Group. The delegation of the Colombian Government was chaired by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Coy, Vice Minister of Justice Camilo UmaAa, and Vice Minister of Defense and Security Policy Alberto Lara, while the U.S. Government delegation was led by Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Mr. Adam W. Cohen, and Ambassador Todd D. Robinson, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

Both delegations met in the spirit of continuing the work stemming from the tenth High-Level Dialogue (HLD) that took place March 27-28, 2023, in Washington, D.C. After a productive dialogue, joint commitments were made to outline the path towards a more dynamic U.S.aColombia counternarcotics relationship to address drug-related challenges, and in the case of Colombia, implement the bilateral holistic strategy and new national drug policy for 2022-2033.

The delegations agreed the strong ties that have united the Republic of Colombia and the United States of America throughout their more than 200 years of diplomatic relations are the basis for common efforts to address the development of this group's work, taking into account the strengthening of democracy, the fight against corruption, the protection of human rights, peace efforts, climate action, public health, and a comprehensive approach to address the global drug problem. All of these will promote significant advances in the well-being of our peoples, the prosperity of our societies, and the stability of the region.

The governments of Colombia and the United States reiterated their commitment to continue intergovernmental cooperation in the fight against drug-related problems to promote and consolidate an approach based on public health and human security, with a long-term vision focused on saving lives and building a better future.

In particular, both parties agreed to the following:

Increase interdiction efforts in both countries, significantly increase joint training, capacity building activities, and intelligence sharing to strengthen Colombia's ability to combat transnational organized crime and multi-crime groups and enhance human security.

Expand efforts to combat money laundering and crimes against natural resources and the environment.

Reaffirm the will of both governments to continue cooperation to confront the global drug problem, including issues related to criminal activities associated with cocaine and synthetic drugs.

With regard to rural security, strengthen and increase judicial and police presence in rural areas.

Strengthen the implementation of strategies aimed at promoting the transition to licit economies in rural areas and Areas of Special Environmental Importance, such as the 3T model (Titling, Transition, Transformation) in municipalities to be prioritized for the implementation of a holistic approach to territorial transformation.

Provide licit economic development opportunities as alternatives to illicit crops, in conjunction with continued strategic eradication efforts.

Implement strategies to reduce the consumption of psychoactive substances and their associated impacts.

Strengthen metrics measuring the underlying causes of drug production and the dismantling of transnational narco-trafficking criminal networks.

Continue to work with the Colombian Ministry of Justice and Law and Ministry of Foreign Affairs towards identifying a coordination mechanism for the bilateral holistic strategy within the Colombian government.

This Working Group is part of the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Dialogue, the main mechanism for bilateral discussions at the highest political level, to institutionalize and diversify the agenda of the two countries. The High-Level Dialogue facilitates coordination on wide-ranging issues such as economic development, security, the global drug problem, educational exchanges, environmental protection, human rights and health, among other areas of shared interest.

End Text.

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Signallers dial it up on the run

By Captain Adrienne Goode

26 September 2023

144th Signal Squadron was bolstered with support from 8th Signal Regiment to provide the full scope of communications and information technology capabilities to 9th Brigade on Exercise Rhino Run at Cultana Training Area, SA.

Exercise Rhino Run was the culminating force generation event for 9th Brigade, involving part-time and full-time members from 1st Armoured Regiment; 7th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment; 10th/27th Battalion, the Royal South Australia Regiment; 9th Combat Service Support Battalion; and Headquarters 9th Brigade, as well as external support from 3rd Health Battalion.

Officer Commanding 144th Signal Squadron Major Erica Abend said the exercise was an invaluable opportunity for members from both signal units.

"Four members of 8th Signal Regiment were invited to join the squadron, increasing numbers to provide capability and achieve valuable training outcomes," Major Abend said.

"Having these members supporting us enables a fantastic opportunity for collaboration, relationship-building, knowledge-sharing, and exposure to all call signs deployed on the exercise.

"Together we're providing critical support to the brigade's headquarters and direct command units, and having the additional support from 8th Signal Regiment means we can have an optimised shift cycle and a reinforced team delivering capability during the exercise."

Corporal Nathaniel Sutton, of 144th Signal Squadron, said the extra bandwidth enabled the team to maximise new opportunities.

"A highlight of this exercise for me has been supporting the 1st Armoured Regiment, providing them with their crypto and mission plans, and getting up close with the tanks," Corporal Sutton said.

"Having that extra support has allowed us to conduct more tasks down range and allocate more personnel to different areas of the exercise.

"Members on the team have varied levels of experience, and it's been great to see how we've been able to integrate, develop and be exposed to things we otherwise wouldn't."

Lieutenant Andy Pang travelled from Randwick Barracks, NSW, to support the exercise.

"This is the first brigade-level exercise I've deployed on since commissioning as an officer in 2022," Lieutenant Pang said.

"I've really enjoyed operating out in the field, being exposed to the brigade-level operations while on exercise, and understanding how signals can contribute to capability and interoperability.

"Being involved in Exercise Rhino Run has enabled me to put doctrine into practice, consolidate my skills and further develop my knowledge."

144th Signal Squadron also conducted activities aimed at improving communications within the range at Cultana to enhance signals capability for future exercises.

In October 2022, 144th Signal Squadron transitioned from 8th Signal Regiment to 9th Brigade as part of the combat brigade restructure. Since then, the squadron has maintained a close relationship with its former command.

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DHS Announces Three Additional PRC-Based Companies as a Result of Forced Labor Enforcement

Release Date: September 26, 2023

Biden-Harris Administration Also Releases Xinjiang Business Advisory Addendum, Demonstrating Continued Commitment to Ending Forced Labor from U.S. Supply Chains

The FLETF Has Now Designated 27 PRC-Based Companies

WASHINGTON - Today, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new enforcement actions to eliminate the use of forced labor practices in the U.S. supply chain and promote accountability for the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The interagency Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), chaired by DHS, voted to add three People's Republic of China (PRC)-based companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List. Today's announcement brings the total number of entities designated on the UFLPA Entity List to 27 companies.

"We do not tolerate companies that use forced labor, that abuse the human rights of individuals in order to make a profit," said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. "The Department of Homeland Security and its partners across the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to prosecute these companies, fight for the rights of the abused, and work towards the elimination of Uyghur forced labor in the People's Republic of China."

The Department of Homeland Security is also a co-sponsor of the Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory Addendum released today by the U.S. Department of State, along with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and Labor. The addendum contains information about the ongoing, widespread, and pervasive risks in supply chains posed by PRC-sponsored forced labor and other human rights abuses in Xinjiang, as well as implementation and enforcement of the UFLPA that would be of particular interest to the business and importing communities. Since the last Xinjiang Business Advisory was published in July 2021, there have been additional reports on the continuing human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Effective September 27, 2023, goods produced by Xinjiang Zhongtai Group Co. Ltd., Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile Co. Ltd., and Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation Textile Co. will be restricted from entering the United States as a result of the companies' participation in business practices that target members of persecuted groups, including Uyghur minorities in the PRC.

Xinjiang Zhongtai Group Co. Ltd., is headquartered in Xinjiang and produces and sells polyvinyl chloride (PVC), iconic membrane caustic soda, industrial salt, calcium carbide, viscose fiber, viscose yarn, and other textile, chemical, and building materials. Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile Co. Ltd. is headquartered in Xinjiang and sells and manufactures cashmere and wool garments, as well as velvet and other textile products. Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation Textile Co. is headquartered in Xinjiang and produces yarn and textile products. DHS will publish the revised UFLPA Entity List as an appendix to a Federal Register notice.

The UFLPA, signed into law by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in December 2021, prohibits goods from being imported into the United States that are either produced in Xinjiang, or by entities identified on the UFLPA Entity List, unless the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) determines, by clear and convincing evidence, that the goods were not produced with forced labor. CBP began enforcing the UFLPA in June 2022. Since then, CBP has reviewed more than 5,000 shipments valued at more than $1.74 billion under the UFLPA. The FLETF - which also includes the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Departments of Labor, State, the Treasury, Justice and Commerce - will continue to consider designations to the UFLPA Entity List.

"The United States does not, and will not, tolerate products made with forced labor coming into our country," said the Chair of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans Robert Silvers. "Through the enforcement actions taken today, the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force is again making clear our country's resolve to keep the global supply chain fair, just, and secure for all."

In August, DHS also released the 2023 Updates to the Strategy to Prevent the Importation of Goods Mined, Produced, or Manufactured with Forced Labor in the People's Republic of China. DHS and its components are continuing to lead the federal government's efforts to change importer behavior and hold perpetrators accountable for egregious forced labor abuses as outlined in the strategy.

You can read more about the FLETF by visiting: www.dhs.gov/uflpa.

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China releases a white paper on its proposals, actions on building 'a global community of shared future'

Global Times

By Yang Sheng and Li Xuanmin Published: Sep 26, 2023 09:00 PM

The Chinese government released a white paper on Tuesday to introduce the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future, as by presenting China's vision of the course of human development, it counters the hegemonic thinking of certain countries that seek supremacy.

Ten years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the idea of building a global community of shared future. "His proposal lights the path forward as the world fumbles for solutions, and represents China's contribution to global efforts to protect the shared home and create a better future of prosperity for all," according to the white paper, titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions."

The timing of releasing such a document is crucial, as apart from marking the 10th anniversary of the proposal of a significant idea, the world is in severe turbulence and experiencing profound changes which have not been seen in the past century, so the international community has been calling for solutions, and China, as a responsible major power which is much more powerful than it was 10 years ago, has responsibility to contribute its wisdoms and actions to meet the demand of this era, said Chinese analysts.

Chinese experts said that the white paper, without mentioning the US, has clearly expressed firm oppositions against many ideas and behaviors of Washington, such as "democracy versus authoritarianism," "alliance-based confrontation," and "small yard, high fence," and this shows that China is now openly disagreeing with the US-proposed "rule-based order," which in fact is a way to preserve the old order dominated by US hegemony.

Many ideas and behaviors of US-led West have already caused endless and ongoing conflicts and tensions worldwide, and will lead the world into a new cold war. China and majority of countries in the world share similar concerns, and they're responsible for finding a path to effectively reform the world order and build a global community of shared future, experts said.

Oppose and propose

The zero-sum game is doomed to fail, the white paper said. "But certain countries still cling to this mindset, blindly pursuing absolute security and monopolistic advantages, which will do nothing for their development in the long run but create a major threat to the world."

It is increasingly obvious that the obsession with superior strength, and the zero-sum mentality are in conflict with the needs of our times, the white paper said, pointing out that the new era calls for new ideas.

Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that many ways of thinking as well as actions of the US are against China's interest, and also against the interest of the vast majority of countries worldwide.

"As a responsible major country, we, China, should make our position clear, and to clearly tell the world about what we are upholding, and if we want other countries to support us, we should tell them where we are going," Wu said.

The white paper and China-proposed initiatives are not aimed at challenging the US and the West or serve the ambition of struggle for power, but actually to proceed from the common interests of mankind, because "the US approaches will definitely lead the world to a new cold war," Wu noted.

China's proposals and actions are not for China's own benefit or self-interest, but for the common good of humanity, the expert said.

The white paper said "To build a global community of shared future is to pursue openness, inclusiveness, mutual benefit, equity and justice." The goal is not to replace one system or civilization with another. Instead, it is about countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories, shared rights, and shared responsibilities in global affairs, the document read.

Maya Majueran, director of Belt and Road Initiative Sri Lanka (BRISL), a Sri Lanka-based organization that specializes in BRI cooperation, told the Global Times that "The US and its Western allies have long been attempting to influence other countries and the world order with their own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights and continue to pressure countries whose positions differ from them."

"They even bully emerging markets and developing countries to pick sides, so many countries are looking at China's proposal as an engine to boost their own economic recovery by aligning with it," Majueran said.

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that China's proposals and initiatives have been welcomed worldwide, but a few Western countries led by the US always try to boycott, stigmatize or downplay China's proposals, and this is because of their arrogance and ignorance, and they don't want the unequal international system that unfairly benefits them to be reformed.

Wisdom and actions

The concept of a global community of shared future has deep roots in China's profound cultural heritage and its unique experience of modernization. It carries forward the diplomatic traditions of China and draws on the outstanding achievements of all other civilizations, the white paper said. It also manifests China's time-honored historical traditions, distinct characteristics of the times, and a wealth of humanistic values.

The white paper also pointed out the direction and plan to build a global community of shared future including pressing ahead with a new type of economic globalization in which countries need to pursue a policy of openness and explicitly oppose protectionism, the erection of fences and barriers, unilateral sanctions, and maximum-pressure tactics, so as to connect economies and jointly build an open world economy.

The concept China advocates is not built upon sacrificing neighboring countries' interests, which is in stark contrast to the capital accumulation stage of Western countries, Wirun Phichaiwongphakdee, director of the Thailand-China Research Center of the Belt and Road Initiative, told the Global Times.

The Thai expert exemplified by a number of BRI projects in Southeast Asia including the China-Thailand Railway being built, which he said demonstrates how China and the ASEAN are working together to build a community of shared future.

Convincing contributions

China is not just providing proposals, but also actively implements its own ideas by actions, and has provided the world with extensive achievements. Over the past decade, China has contributed its strength to building a global community of shared future with firm conviction and solid actions.

For instance, by July 2023, more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations had signed agreements on Belt and Road cooperation with China. The BRI originated in China but the opportunities and achievements it creates belong to the whole world. It's an initiative for economic cooperation, not for geopolitical or military alliances, and it's an open and inclusive process that neither targets nor excludes any party, the white paper said.

Among several BRI projects, for example, the China-Laos Railway began operation on December 3, 2021, with 167 tunnels and 301 bridges built in 11 years along its total length of 1,035 kilometers. The railway construction created more than 110,000 local jobs, and helped build about 2,000 kilometers of roads and canals for villages along the railway, benefiting local people.

Also, through the mediation of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran achieved historic reconciliation earlier this year, setting a fine example for countries in the region to resolve disputes and differences and achieve good neighborly relations through dialogue and consultation, and catalyzing a wave of reconciliation in the Middle East.

China has also proposed a range of regional and bilateral initiatives on building communities of shared future and working with stakeholders to build consensus and expand cooperation, thereby playing a constructive role in promoting regional peace and development. It also boosts international cooperation in fields including fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing disorder in cyberspace governance and dealing with the global climate challenge.

Over the past decade, the vision of a global community of shared future has gained broader support. More countries and people have come to the understanding that this vision serves the common interests of humanity, represents popular calls for peace, justice and progress, and can create the greatest synergy among all nations for building a better world, the white paper said.

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China, Japan, S.Korea cooperation serves common interests of all: FM

Global Times

Seoul urged to show sincerity in mending ties, promoting leaders' meeting

By Deng Xiaoci Published: Sep 26, 2023 08:32 PM

High-level officials from China, Japan and South Korea have carried out in-depth discussions on working for the steady resumption of trilateral cooperation and agreed to hold a foreign ministers' meeting in the coming months, as well as maintain communication on holding a leaders' meeting at the earliest opportunity convenient to all three countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin briefed on Tuesday.

According to the spokesperson, the meeting, held in Seoul on Tuesday, was attended by Nong Rong, China's assistant minister of foreign affairs, Takehiro Funakoshi, Japan's senior deputy foreign minister, and Chung Byung-won, South Korean deputy foreign minister.

It was agreed that trilateral cooperation serves the common interests of the three parties and it's necessary to work together to step up practical cooperation in such fields as culture and people-to-people exchanges, economy and trade, scientific and technological innovation, sustainable development and public health to make new progress in trilateral cooperation and make new contribution to regional peace, stability and prosperity, Wang said.

As the chair of the trilateral cooperation mechanism, South Korea proposed a trilateral summit in late December, Japanese broadcaster TBS reported.

Chinese analysts said that it is still too early to commit to an actual meeting of the leaders in the near future, and that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his government need to make practical efforts to mend ties with China that have bottomed out due to Seoul's extreme pro-US foreign policy.

If conditions for a leaders' meeting are achieved, and it could take place within this year, before South Korea's legislative elections in April 2024 - a pivotal moment of reckoning for Yoon and a litmus test of the sitting president's performance - it would be good news for Yoon, who faces slumping approval ratings, Wang Junsheng, a research fellow of East Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Yoon took an extremely pro-US foreign policy path immediately after he took the reins of the presidency in 2022, which has harmed ties with its largest trading partner China, weighing on the country's domestic economy with mounting unemployment rates, especially among young professionals.

As polls consistently highlight the economy as the predominant concern of South Korean voters, Wang Junsheng said it is Yoon and his government that have the most urgent need now to revive the leaders' meeting to repair ties with China, as such a remarkable event could save them from low approval ratings at home.

South Korean media reported that Yoon's domestic appeal remains lukewarm at best. A recent Gallup poll pegs Yoon's approval rating at a modest 34 percent.

Chinese Foreign Ministry has blasted the so-called historic US-Japan-South Korea summit at the US presidential retreat Camp David in August as a "deliberate attempt to sow discord" between the world's second-largest economy and two of its Asian neighbors. Chinese analysts also said it could be a step toward creating a US-led "mini NATO" in the region that could force other regional countries to take more assertive actions.

Dong Xiangrong, a senior fellow at the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argued that it is only wishful thinking on the South Korean side to think the closer Seoul gets to Washington, the more bargaining chips it could leverage in talks with Beijing, as China would in fact handle ties with South Korea mainly within the China-South Korea bilateral setting or within that of the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation mechanism.

It is too early to promise an actual meeting of the leaders in the near future, as there should be ministerial-level talks to set tangible timetables and topics for discussion, and that would not be an easy process, Dong noted.

LA Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula issues at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, also warned that Yoon's government must make practical redemption over its China policy, including correcting its "totally unacceptable" remarks over the Taiwan question, stop echoing the US to provoke China in the South China Sea, and withdrawing from the anti-China chip alliance, otherwise China would not agree to any further arrangements for a three-way meeting of leaders.

Featuring weapons ranging from ballistic missiles to tanks rolling through Seoul, South Korea put on the first large-scale military parade in a decade on Tuesday to mark its Armed Forces Day, usually a muted occasion in South Korea. More than 300 combat troops from the US Eighth Army, under US Forces Korea, took part in the parade as the South Korea and the US marked the 70th anniversary of their alliance, media reported.

Such a high-profile show of force on Tuesday would be a provocation and is likely to invite a tough response from North Korea, bringing new threats to the peace and stability of the peninsula, LA said.

"Is it not self-contradictory that such a provocative move would cancel Seoul's recent efforts to bring back a cooperative atmosphere in its neighborhood?" LA said.

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China willing to play a constructive role in ensuring success of APEC meeting: Chinese Foreign Minister

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing Published: Sep 26, 2023 01:00 PM

When asked whether the Chinese leader would attend the upcoming APEC meeting in the US later this year, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told at a press conference on Tuesday that as the world's largest developing country and an important member of APEC, China is willing to meet the expectations of the international community and play a constructive role in ensuring the success of this year's meeting.

China is a responsible country, and never absent from important multilateral forums in which China participates, Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, told the press conference as the Chinese government released a white paper, titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions."

"Regarding the matter of attending the APEC event that you mentioned, we are in communication with relevant parties and will release formal information in due course," he said.

Whether the Chinese leader will attend this year's APEC meeting has been under the close attention of the Western media, because if the trip can be made, it would also be an occasion for the face-to-face meeting between the Chinese and the US top leaders amid intensifying tensions between the world's two largest economies.

APEC is the most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, both in terms of its high level and broad scope, Wang said. The 13th informal leaders' meeting, scheduled for later this year, should serve as a grand stage for promoting cooperation, instead of an arena for provoking confrontation.

"We hope that the US, as the host, will recognize its responsibilities and demonstrate openness, fairness and inclusiveness, creating better conditions for the smooth convening of the meeting," China's top diplomat said.

When John Lee, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), met with the press before attending the Executive Council meeting on Tuesday morning, he was asked about receiving an invitation to the APEC summit.

Lee said he was still awaiting an invitation. The organizer, referring to the US, should extend invitations to the leaders of the respective economies. The HKSAR government would attend in accordance with standard rules and procedures, he said.

In response to media reports about the US, due to sanctions on a number of Chinese officials, will not invite CE of the HKSAR to APEC, toward which, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had expressed firm opposition and made serious dAmarches to the US.

Multilateral diplomacy serves as a crucial basis for China's participation in global governance and the promotion of a global community of shared future, and is, of course, an important platform for conducting head-of-state diplomacy, Wang noted.

"President Xi Jinping places great importance on multilateral diplomacy and China's role in global governance is increasingly prominent, and to sum up our stance on global governance, we advocate and practice genuine multilateralism," he said.

We believe that in order to build a global community of shared future, we must oppose all forms of unilateralism, confrontations between blocs, and power politics. It's crucial to staunchly uphold the authority and status of the United Nations and to adhere to a global governance perspective that emphasizes consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, Wang expounded. "Global affairs should be addressed collectively, and the achievements should be shared by all."

The white paper released on Tuesday is composed of five chapters including "Humanity at a crossroads," "An answer to the call of the times and a blueprint for the future," "Deep roots in history and cultural traditions," "Direction and path" and "China's action and contribution."

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Solomon Islands to undoubtedly become a 'magnet' for investments from China: first Chinese Ambassador to the Solomon Islands

Global Times

By Shan Jie Published: Sep 26, 2023 04:19 PM

Over the last four years, China-Solomon Islands cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has achieved fruitful results, bringing profound benefits to both nations. In a recent interview with the Global Times, the first Chinese Ambassador to the Solomon Islands expressed confidence in the future cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands.

"The Solomon Islands will undoubtedly become a magnet for Chinese business investments," Li Ming, who served as the Chinese Ambassador to the Solomon Islands from September 2020 to September 2023, told the Global Times.

According to Li, the development of China-Solomon Islands relations has been multifaceted. At the highest level of engagement, Prime Minister Sogavare has made two official visits to China, establishing a comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual respect and common development for a new era. Head-of-state diplomacy has charted a grand blueprint for high-quality joint construction of the BRI and provided strategic guidance for bilateral relations.

In terms of infrastructure connectivity, China has become the Solomon Islands' largest infrastructure cooperation partner. China-aided facilities like the Pacific Games' main stadium and the Solomon Islands National University dormitories have become local landmarks, providing essential support for the hosting of major sporting events, promoting economic and social development.

Regarding trade facilitation, China has been the Solomon Islands' largest trading partner for several consecutive years. China provides 98 percent tariff-free treatment to products from Solomon Islands in nearly all categories, and both countries are steadily advancing cooperation in inspection and quarantine, creating favorable conditions for the expansion of exports of agricultural and fishery products from the Solomon Islands to China, leading to an increase in incomes for its people.

In terms of financial connectivity, an increasing number of Chinese companies are turning their attention to the Solomon Islands. During Prime Minister Sogavare's visit to China in July, a "China-Solomon Islands High-Level Enterprise Exchange Meeting" was held in Beijing, at which Chinese enterprises in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, energy and mineral resources, infrastructure, telecommunications, and tourism engaged in in-depth communication with representatives from the Solomon Islands. It is believed that in the next phase, the Solomon Islands will become a magnet for Chinese business investments.

In terms of people-to-people exchanges, China has established friendly relations with multiple provinces and cities in the Solomon Islands. More than 100 young students from the Solomon Islands have come to China to further their studies under government scholarships. China also continues to be committed to improving the Solomon Islands' medical and healthcare conditions by donating a large quantity of medical and epidemic prevention supplies, and Chinese medical teams have alleviated the suffering of many patients in the country. When the Chinese navy's Ark Peace hospital ship visited the Solomon Islands, it treated tens of thousands of patients in just one week.

In September 2019, the Solomon Islands established diplomatic relations with China, becoming one of China's newest diplomatic partners. Less than a month after establishing diplomatic ties, Prime Minister Sogavare visited China and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on jointly building the BRI, media sources reported.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the friendly cooperation between the two countries has steadily advanced and has been at the forefront of China's relations with Pacific island countries, becoming a model of solidarity, cooperation, and joint development among large and small countries and developing countries.

In a previous interview with the Global Times in May, former ambassador Li said, "As the first Chinese Ambassador to the Solomon Islands, my most prominent impression after arriving in the Solomon Islands was the enthusiasm and expectations of the Solomon Islands' government and people for China-Solomon Islands relations."

He told the Global Times that since the establishment of diplomatic relations, both governments and peoples have been committed to promoting friendship, expanding cooperation, and have achieved fruitful results, proving with practical actions that the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Solomon Islands is on the right side of history.

"Various sectors of the country's society have shown significantly increased enthusiasm for cooperation with China, with a more resolute attitude toward upholding China-Solomon Islands relations, and support for the One-China principle has become a common consensus among various sectors," he said.

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Nepalese PM's visit to China set to further enhance relations

Global Times

By Xie Wenting Published: Sep 26, 2023 12:46 AM

Nepal adheres to the one-China policy and will never allow any activities that are detrimental to China's interests, said Nepalese Foreign Minister Narayan Prasad Saud in Beijing on Sunday.

Saud noted that Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda's visit to China will further strengthen the Nepal-China relationship.

"Nepal is firmly committed to China's interests, and we appreciate China's continued support for Nepal's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national freedom," he said.

Saud made the remarks during a speech at a welcome ceremony for Prime Minister Prachanda at the Embassy of Nepal in Beijing on Sunday.

At the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Prachanda is paying an official visit to China from September 23 to 30. Prachanda has visited China many times and made important contributions to promoting the development of China-Nepal relations.

Prachanda attended the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on Saturday. During his visit, he will meet with Chinese leaders and discuss many important issues.

Saud said that Nepal and China have a long history of friendship and cultural exchanges dating back centuries. "We are committed to further strengthening and consolidating our relationship based on mutual respect, trust and understanding."

He also commended the remarkable progress that China's economy has made, while noting that there are great opportunities for cooperation between the two countries in various fields, such as trade, investment, hydropower, tourism, mining, poverty alleviation and connectivity.

China is Nepal's second-largest trading partner and an important source of foreign investment and tourism.

"Connectivity is crucial for the economic partnership between China and Nepal. The Nepalese government is committed to maintaining the normal operation of all border ports between China and Nepal, constructing border infrastructure, establishing well-equipped testing and certification laboratories at the China-Nepal border, accelerating the construction of border customs facilities, and considering it a top priority," Saud said.

"We see numerous opportunities to further strengthen economic cooperation and promote the entry of Nepalese products into the Chinese market."

According to Saud, the Nepalese government is fully committed to providing all possible support for foreign companies investing in Nepal.

Nepalese Ambassador to China Bishnu Pukar Shrestha said at Sunday's ceremony that Nepal-China relations hold more significance as the country is aiming to move out of the category of Least Developed Countries in 2026.

"The incredible leap that China has made on the economic front and its eradication of absolute poverty will serve as a best practice example for the development endeavours of Nepal," said Shrestha.

Broadening the horizons of cooperation in the fields of infrastructure development, trade, digital economy, green energy, agriculture, tourism, investment, education and culture will benefit the people of the two countries, which will pave the way forward for bilateral relations, he said.

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China, EU conduct 'productive talks' during high-level dialogue, agree to set up financial working group

Global Times

By Global Times Published: Sep 26, 2023 11:01 AM

China and EU have concluded productive talks during the 10th High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue through candid and pragmatic discussions addressing investment, trade, industrial and supply chain issues as well as financial cooperation, with the two sides reaching consensus on them, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

The dialogue, which came amid a profoundly changing world and a sluggishly global economy, has "special meanings," the ministry said, noting it will inject more confidence into the development of the world economy, while make preparations for the 24th China-EU Leaders' Meeting soon.

The dialogue, which held both bilateral and global significance, has generated more consensus than difference, which has brought silver lining to global uncertainties rising from geopolitical tensions, experts said.

Both sides are committed to maintaining two-way openness and providing a fair and non-discriminatory business environment for each other's companies.

China is willing make full use of dialogue mechanisms such as the China-EU Trade and Investment Policy Dialogue and the China-EU Economic and Trade Working Group to strengthen exchanges between the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Trade.

The importance of transparent and predictable supply chains was discussed, in particular for critical raw materials. Both sides agreed to continue discussions on reaching China-EU transparency mechanism of supply chains for raw materials.

The two sides agreed to establish a dialogue mechanism in the field of export control and conduct communication on export control policies and practices.

Concerning EU's recently launched probes including review on foreign subsidy, carbon border adjustment mechanism and other trade policies, China expressed the hope that EU will use trade remedy measures prudently while encouraging deeper cooperation in the new energy industry represented by electric vehicles (EVs).

Earlier this month, the EU announced the launch of an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese-made EVs in order to protect Europe's own nascent EV industry.

The two sides also addressed some specific issues, such as easing approvals for EU makers of cosmetics. And the Chinese authorities are committed to clearing the backlog of applications for licenses of infant formula.

In the financial sector, China and EU took a pragmatic step forward by setting up a new China-EU Working Group on Financial Regulation to work on key areas including mutually opening up investment opportunities in financial markets for financial institutions, ensuring continued cooperation in sustainable finance and fin-tech, and improving rules on ICT infrastructure for the financial sector. It will look at regulation for foreign financial institutions, including on the possibility to share financial data cross border.

China is willing to seriously study and consider including more EU banks with legal entities in China within the scope of carbon emission reduction support tools, the ministry said.

Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "the dialogue has both bilateral and global significance, and there are more areas of consensus than difference."

"The two parties have fully communicated, based on their respective positions and reached consensus on issues that they will face together in the future, laying an open and positive foundation for future cooperation, which is significant amid growing uncertainties caused by global geopolitical tensions," Li said.

China's attitude toward European financial cooperation is positive and open, Li said, noting the cooperation communication mechanism is clear, which shows China's sincerity in exploring more cooperation possibilities for European companies in Chinese market.

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Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's Regular Press Conference on September 26, 2023

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China

Global Times: Yesterday was the first day of Thailand's temporary visa-free entry program for Chinese tourists. Could you share more details with us?

Wang Wenbin: The Thai Government announced a five-month visa-free entry program for Chinese tourists starting on September 25. Yesterday, the first group of Chinese tourists under the new visa-free policy arrived in Thailand. Thai Prime Minister Srettha and other government officials greeted them at the airport.

China welcomes Thailand's short-term visa exemption policy for Chinese tourists and appreciates the welcome extended by Prime Minister Srettha to our fellow Chinese. China and Thailand are close friends and neighbors and a community of shared future. To have more people-to-people exchange is absolutely essential for strengthening the traditional familial bond between our two countries and an important part of building a China-Thailand community with a shared future in the new era. We stand ready to work with Thailand to expand cooperation in tourism, education, culture and other areas to further enhance the close ties between our peoples.

Since early this year, there has been a surge in outbound trips by Chinese tourists. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has come up with better visa and related policies, launched a series of facilitation measures in collaboration with other government agencies and given guidance to our diplomatic and consular missions overseas to do everything possible to keep channels open and smooth for foreigners' travel to China. We welcome more friends from around the world to come and experience China.

CCTV: Could you update us on the preparations for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation? How many countries have confirmed their attendance?

Wang Wenbin: Preparations for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation are making steady progress. As of today, representatives from more than 130 countries as well as many international organizations have confirmed that they will attend the Forum. China will stay in communication with Belt and Road cooperation partners on the preparations for the Forum.a

AFP: Some media reported yesterday that North Korea has reopened its borders to foreign visitors. Does the Chinese foreign ministry have any more information on this situation?

Wang Wenbin: China has not been notified through diplomatic channels by the DPRK on the reopening of its borders.

Prensa Latina: We would like to know your opinion about the terrorist attack against the Cuban embassy in the United States.

Wang Wenbin: China condemns all forms of violence targeting diplomatic missions. In accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the host country has obligations to take necessary measures to protect diplomatic personnel and premises. We call on the US to find out what happened, solve the case speedily and take effective measures to protect the security of diplomatic missions and personnel.

Dragon TV: According to reports, on September 26, a plenary meeting of the Central American Parliament approved a special agreement on the accession of the National People's Congress of China as a permanent observer. What's your comment?

Wang Wenbin: On September 26, a plenary meeting of the Central American Parliament approved with strong support a special agreement on the accession of the National People's Congress of China as a permanent observer. The plenary meeting also approved with strong support the August plenary meeting minutes, which contains the resolution to revoke the "permanent observer status" of the so-called "Legislative Yuan" of the Taiwan region and accept the National People's Congress of China as a permanent observer. We applaud that decision. It reflects the Central American Parliament's firm resolve to develop relations with China and again shows that the one-China principle represents the prevailing consensus of the international community and the unstoppable trend of the times. China stands ready to further develop and consolidate friendly cooperative relations with the Central American Parliament and Central American countries on the basis of the one-China principle.

Reuters: The US Space Force has had internal discussions about setting up a hotline with China to prevent crises in space. Reuters has reported this. The US chief of space operations said a direct line of communication between the US Space Force and its Chinese counterpart would be valuable in de-escalating tensions, but as of today the US has not engaged with China to set this up. Does the ministry have any comment on this? And would China be open to this hotline?

Wang Wenbin: On that question, I'd like to refer you to the competent authorities. The US is clear about what caused the difficulty in having China-US mil-to-mil dialogue.a

Bloomberg: My question is about the negotiations with Sri Lanka on the debt issue. Is China close to agree on terms on the bilateral debt restructuring with Sri Lanka? And if so, do you have any details on how this might work or any idea about when this might be announced?

Wang Wenbin: Let me say again that we support Chinese financial institutions in actively working out the debt treatment with Sri Lanka. We are ready to work with relevant countries and international financial institutions to jointly play a positive role in helping Sri Lanka navigate the situation, ease its debt burden and achieve sustainable development.a

CCTV: The State Council Information Office released a white paper titled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions" this morning. Could you share China's consideration behind this?

Wang Wenbin: This year marks the tenth anniversary of President Xi Jinping's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind. This morning, the State Council Information Office released the white paper "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions". Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the press conference. He gave opening remarks and took questions from the press. He pointed out in his remarks that the white paper is an important document that systemically outlines the core components of the thinking behind the vision and how it has been practiced. The document is also an important action on implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy. We hope that the white paper will help people in all sectors and the world to gain a fuller understanding of the far-reaching significance of the vision and get to know the ideals underpinning China's major-country diplomacy.a

I also wish to stress that first, the vision of building such a global community is consistent with the prevailing trend of history. It responds to the call of the times and reflects the call of people in the world for peace, justice and progress. The vision represents the sum of what matters for building a beautiful world as recognized by all. As such, it has become a great banner that leads the trend of the times and the direction of human progress. It means a great deal to efforts to promote solidarity and cooperation among all countries and create a better future for all.

Second, personally advocated by President Xi Jinping, the vision has been translated into action, gained immense support and produced notable results. The vision has brought prosperity and stability and created tangible benefits for people's wellbeing across the world.

Third, China is both an advocate and a doer in delivering that vision. We have worked actively to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, proposed and delivered on the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative. We are working with more and more countries and regions to jointly build such a global community, so that we can contribute ideas and strength to response to global challenges and better global governance, and make greater contribution to world peace and development.

A bright future will not come by itself. It calls for the joint efforts of all. The vision will not be accomplished overnight, and the course of doing that will be no plain sailing. It calls for unity among all countries and common action for common good in order to make our planet a beautiful home for all. China stands ready to enhance solidarity and cooperation with countries in the world, work together to play a bigger role in advancing human progress and the modernization process, and jointly build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity.

AFP: The Philippine Coast Guard said yesterday that it had removed a floating barrier at a disputed reef in the South China Sea. This barrier was apparently placed to prevent Filipino boats from accessing a traditional fishing zone. Does the foreign ministry of China have any comments on this?

Wang Wenbin: That's what the Philippines tells itself. China's resolve in safeguarding its sovereignty and maritime rights and interests over Huangyan Dao is unwavering. We call on the Philippines not to make provocation or stir up trouble.

Reuters: The heads of Russian energy firms Gazprom and Rosneft will join President Vladimir Putin's retinue during his visit to China next month, according to a Reuters report. It was understood that senior energy officials would also be in the delegation. Could we confirm that the Gazprom and Rosneft chiefs will be visiting China together with President Putin? And if so, when will the visit be, and will all of them be attending the BRI Forum?

Wang Wenbin: The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held in October this year. China and BRI partners are in close communication on this. We welcome countries engaged in Belt and Road cooperation to come to Beijing, explore more possibilities for cooperation and achieve development together.

AFP: China, South Korea and Japan are reportedly holding a diplomatic meeting today to discuss a possible three-way summit between the countries' leaders. Do you have any information on today's meeting or on the progress of the plans for a three-way leaders' summit?

Wang Wenbin: Today, a meeting of senior officials from China, Japan and the ROK was held in Seoul. Assistant Foreign Minister Nong Rong, ROK Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won, Japanese Senior Deputy Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi and Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS) Secretary-General Lee Hee-sup attended the meeting.

During the meeting, the three parties held in-depth discussions on working for the steady resumption of trilateral cooperation. They agreed that trilateral cooperation serves the common interests of the three parties and it's necessary to work together to step up practical cooperation in such fields as culture and people-to-people exchanges, economy and trade, scientific and technological innovation, sustainable development and public health to make new progress in trilateral cooperation and make new contribution to regional peace, stability and prosperity. The three parties agreed to hold a foreign ministers' meeting in the coming months and maintain communication on holding a leaders' meeting at the earliest opportunity convenient to all three countries.

Before the meeting, ROK Foreign Minister Park Jin had a group meeting with the representatives of the three countries attending the meeting.

Bloomberg: On your last question, you said that the three nations agreed to hold a foreign ministers' meeting first and then the leaders' summit will hopefully come after that. Is that correct?

Wang Wenbin: As I shared with you just now, our three countries agreed at the senior officials' meeting to hold a foreign ministers' meeting in the coming months and maintain communication on holding a leaders' meeting at the earliest opportunity convenient to all three countries.

AFP: The International Energy Agency said today that it has revised its assessments for reducing carbon emissions in order to achieve Paris climate goals. They said that wealthy countries must now reach carbon neutrality by 2045, which is five years earlier than they said previously; while China must reach carbon neutrality by 2050, which is 10 years earlier than they said previously. Meanwhile, China's own target for achieving carbon neutrality remains 2060. Did the Chinese foreign ministry notice this report? And does it have any comments on when China aims to achieve carbon neutrality?

Wang Wenbin: China is a doer in ecological conservation and climate governance. China has always taken the initiative to assume international responsibilities commensurate with our national conditions and steadily scaled up our climate actions. Having over-shot the climate action targets of 2020 ahead of schedule, China has announced the targets for carbon peakingaand carbon neutrality since September 2020, raised the goals of Nationally Determined Contributions, and published a series of policies and measures involving domestic coal consumption, coal-fired power plants and not undertaking new overseas coal-fired power projects. To deliver on them, China will go through broad-ranging and deep-going economic and social reforms which require painstaking efforts. China's determined and results-oriented climate response is widely recognized by the international community.

Reuters: You mentioned that the BRI Forum preparations are underway. Could we know which dates will the BRI Forum be held next month?

Wang Wenbin: We will release information in due course.

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China vows to oppose 'wanton expansion' of military alliances

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 7:33 AM

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has vowed that his country will stand against the "wanton expansion" of military alliances, amid reports on the US-led NATO's plan to open a liaison office in the Asia-Pacific.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Yi said his country would "oppose the wanton expansion of military alliances and the squeezing of the security space of other countries."

He added that China would seek to "resolve differences and disputes among countries through dialogue and consultation", without naming the nations in question in either case.

His remarks come as Nikkei newspaper said in June that NATO plans to set up a liaison office in Japan's Tokyo by 2024.

The proposal was supposed to be adopted during NATO's July summit in Lithuania, but the daily later reported that the bloc will work to finalize the decision by the year-end, amid France's opposition to the idea.

China has warned that any attempts to establish a NATO-like military alliance in the Asia-Pacific would plunge the region into "a whirlpool of conflicts."

Observers have also been warning that the US-led alliance was no longer confined to its traditional military missions, and was aggressively expanding its footprints in the Asia-Pacific region as a means of besieging China.

The plan comes while NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders was partly blamed for the war in Ukraine.

Wang made the remarks as he unveiled a broad program laying out China's foreign policy goals for the coming years.

"Building a global community of shared future is the way forward for all the world's peoples," the policy paper, published by China's Xinhua news agency, read.

"However, it is not a goal to be accomplished overnight, and there will be no plain sailing," it said, adding "We need to make unremitting efforts and forge ahead with perseverance."

The paper, which "draws a new blueprint for a better world", also referred to the war in Ukraine, and reiterated a multi-point position paper released by China earlier this year that calls for a "political settlement" to the conflict.

"Conflicts and wars produce no winner," the new paper reads while adding that "there is no simple solution to a complex issue".

Western allies of Kiev have warned the Chinese proposal could enable Russia to retain much of the territory it has captured in Ukraine.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Wang declined to confirm whether China's President Xi Jinping would travel to the United States for a meeting with his US counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of an APEC summit in November.

"Regarding your question about the arrangements for attending APEC, we are in communication with all parties and will make an official announcement in due course," he told reporters.

Earlier this month, Xi shunned a meeting with Biden when he didn't attend the G20 summit in India.

The last time the two presidents met was on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia in November.

Beijing's relationship with Washington stands at its lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two governments due to persisting differences ranging from trade and technology to regional security and territorial disputes.

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US blacklists three more firms for Uyghur slave labor

State Department also releases an addendum to its business advisory for China's far-west Xinjiang region.

By Alex Willemyns for RFA 2023.09.26 -- The United States on Tuesday blacklisted three more companies located in China's Xinjiang region due to their use of forced Uyghur labor, banning American companies from importing their goods.

A total of 27 companies are now explicitly blacklisted under the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which also includes a general ban on the import of any goods made even in part by the forced labor of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority subjected to internment in China.

Goods made by Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile and Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation Textile will be banned from imports due to their "participation in business practices that target members of persecuted groups, including Uyghur minorities," said a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security.

The statement quoted Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, as saying the U.S. government was committed to policies to "eliminate Uyghur forced labor in the People's Republic of China."

"We do not tolerate companies that use forced labor, that abuse the human rights of individuals in order to make a profit," Mayorkas said.

The three companies all produce textiles, according to the statement, including cashmere, velvet and yarn, as well as industrial salt.

Business advisory

The listing came as the State Department updated its Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory, which has since 2021 advised Americans that if they "do not exit supply chains, ventures, and/or investments connected to Xinjiang [they] could run a high risk of violating U.S. law."

The update notes that the U.S. government determined that in 2022 "genocide and crimes against humanity continued to occur" in China's Xinjiang region, and provides details for businesses both about how goods made using slave labor can end up in global supply chains and about how import controls are enacted by U.S. customs officials.

Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, all goods produced in the Xinjiang region are legally assumed to have involved Uyghur forced labor unless a business can prove otherwise to customs officials.

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Rights experts warn against forced separation of Uyghur children in China

26 September 2023 - Forced separations and language policies for Uyghur and other minority Muslim children at State-run boarding schools in China's Xinjiang region carry the risk of forced assimilation, three UN independent human rights experts said on Tuesday.

Classroom teaching at these institutions is almost exclusively in Mandarin, with little or no use of the Uyghur language, they said in a statement.

They warned that separating the children from their families "could lead to their forced assimilation into the majority Mandarin language and the adoption of Han cultural practices."

'Orphans' with families

The experts said they have received information about large-scale removal of youngsters from their families, including very young children whose parents are in exile or "interned"/detained.

The children are treated as "orphans" by State authorities and placed in full-time boarding schools, pre-schools, or orphanages where Mandarin is almost exclusively used.

"Uyghur and other minority children in highly regulated and controlled boarding institutions may have little interaction with their parents, extended family or communities for much of their youth," the experts said.

"This will inevitably lead to a loss of connection with their families and communities and undermine their ties to their cultural, religious and linguistic identities," they added.

Local schools closed

They said the children reportedly have little or no access to education in their own Uyghur language and are under increasing pressure to speak and learn only Mandarin, compared to education aimed at bilingualism.

Teachers can also be sanctioned for using the Uyghur language outside specific language classes.

The UN experts said they were also informed of an exponential increase in the number of boarding schools for other Muslim and minority children in Xinjiang in recent years.

Conversely, many local schools providing education in Uyghur and other minority languages have been closed.

"The massive scale of the allegations raises extremely serious concerns of violations of basic human rights," they said.

About UN experts

The statement was issued by Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education.

The experts receive their mandates from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and are independent from any government or organization.

They are not UN staff and are not paid for their work.

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Korean Peninsula on 'brink of nuclear war,' North Korean envoy warns

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 7:22 PM

North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, has warned that there is an "imminent danger of nuclear war breakout" on the Korean Peninsula.

"The year 2023 has been recorded as an extremely dangerous year," Ambassador Kim Song said on Tuesday, speaking on the last day of the annual UN gathering of world leaders. "The Korean Peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout."

He said the United States and South Korea were pushing the Korean peninsula closer to a nuclear clash.

He told the UN General Assembly that due to the ongoing threat, the North Korean nation had no choice but to further accelerate a build-up of its missile and nuclear self-defense capabilities.

"Given the prevailing circumstances, the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of North Korea) is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably," he said.

The envoy said in this regard North Korea had tested dozens of ballistic missiles in the past 18 months.

"The DPRK remains steadfast and unchanged in its determination to firmly defend the national sovereignty, security interests and well-being of the people against the hostile threats from outside," Kim said.

Pyongyang has been under UN Security Council sanctions for its missile and nuclear programs since 2006. The measures have been steadily strengthened over the years.

However, for the past several years the 15-member Security Council has been divided over how to deal with Pyongyang. Russia and China, veto powers, have said more sanctions will not help and want such measures to be eased.

China and Russia say joint military drills by the United States and South Korea provoke Pyongyang, while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday that this ongoing "madness" must be stopped as it is plunging the world into a new arms race that could eventually lead to the "annihilation" of mankind.

With nuclear-armed nations expanding and modernizing their arsenals, the UN chief called for a revitalized push to reduce and discard nuclear weapons.

"A worrisome new arms race is brewing. The number of nuclear weapons could rise for the first time in decades," Guterres told the General Assembly on the final day of its yearly session. "Any use of a nuclear weapon -- anytime, anywhere and in any context -- would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions."

"This is madness. We must reverse course," he insisted.

In June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that the number of nuclear weapons in the world had increased.

According to SIPRI director Dan Smith after decades of decreasing numbers of nuclear weapons, now it was on the rise.

However, the bulk of the nuclear weapons, almost 90 percent, are in the hands of Russia and the US. These two are followed from a great distance by China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea, lastly.

Guterres warned the current nuclear situation alongside the escalated tensions across the globe is a "matter of urgency" for the world.

He called for the reinvigoration and strengthening of the Treaties on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Guterres urged the implementation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996 but still not in force because several key countries have not joined.

"The world has spent too long under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Let's step back from the edge of disaster," he stated.

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Indian opposition lawmaker lashes out at Canada, calls it CIA puppet

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 16:44, September 26, 2023

NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Indian lawmaker belonging to the main opposition party the Indian National Congress (INC), Ravneet Singh Bittu, has lashed out at Canada amid the ongoing diplomatic row between the two countries, calling it a "puppet" of the U.S. intelligence agency CIA.

Bittu said that Canada had been giving a safe haven to anti-India terrorists and separatists.

Speaking during a debate in the Indian parliament's lower house Lok Sabha last week, Bittu also criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for accusing India of being behind the assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, an ardent supporter of the Khalistan independence movement, was killed by unknown assailants in Canada's British Columbia in June this year.

Calling Canada a CIA puppet, Bittu said, "Trudeau's recent statement will harm Canada's image. Canada is just a puppet of the CIA."

Following Trudeau's statement in Canadian parliament accusing Indian government agents of Nijjar's murder, a diplomatic row broke out between the two countries. Subsequently, both sides expelled one diplomat from each other's embassy.

The Indian government had also put out an advisory for Indians against traveling to areas which are prone to anti-India activities. Besides, New Delhi also demanded a reduction in Canadian diplomatic staff in its embassy here.

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Telephone conversation with President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi

Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ebrahim Raisi at the Iranian side's initiative.

September 26, 2023

14:20

Ebrahim Raisi thanked Vladimir Putin for supporting Iran's application to join BRICS. The sides discussed steps to ensure Iran's gradual involvement in BRICS activities, taking into account Russia's chairmanship in 2024.

They had a thorough exchange of views on the Nagorno-Karabakh situation and on normalising relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Vladimir Putin informed the President of Iran about the activities of Russian peacekeeping forces, including the provision of humanitarian aid to civilians, and ensuring the rights and security of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The leaders emphasised the importance of resolving all issues exclusively through peaceful, political and diplomatic means. They expressed a mutual interest in stepping up the work of the 3+3 consultative regional platform (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia plus Russia, Iran and Turkey).

While discussing issues on the bilateral agenda, the presidents expressed satisfaction with the constructive and mutually beneficial nature of Russian-Iranian cooperation. They reaffirmed their intention to further strengthen trade and economic ties, promote major joint projects in the energy and transport sectors, expand contacts between business communities and tourist exchanges.

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Iran a 'trailblazer' in drone technology whose power extends beyond region: IRGC general

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 7:18 PM

A top commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has praised Iran's military capabilities and cutting-edge defense technology, saying the country has become a "trailblazer" in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Division, said in a Tuesday ceremony on the anniversary of Iraq's imposed war on Iran in the 1980s that the Islamic Republic has become more than a regional power.

"Iran is at a world level in the field of drones and has become a trailblazer in the field of techniques and tactics," Hajizadeh said, stressing that many world countries use Iran's expertise as a model in manufacturing drones.

"Today, we use drones not only for reconnaissance, surveillance, combat and defense missions, but we can use them for dozens of missions," the IRGC commander added.

Hajizadeh also pointed to Iraq's foreign-backed war against Iran in the 1980s and hailed the resistance of the Iranian nation.

"About 30 countries stood up to us to destroy this [Islamic] establishment and disintegrate Iran, but thanks to God's grace and the nation's resistance, we not only overcame their war machine, but we did not lose a single square meter of our homeland and imposed our will on them," he asserted.

Iraq waged the war against Iran more than one and a half years after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the US-backed Pahlavi regime. The eight-year Iranian defense set up the foundation for the emergence of Islamic resistance in West Asia.

Iranian military experts and engineers have in recent years made remarkable breakthroughs in manufacturing a broad range of indigenous equipment, making the armed forces self-sufficient.

Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the country will not hesitate to strengthen its military capabilities, including its missile power, which are entirely meant for defense, and that Iran's defense capabilities will be never subject to negotiations.



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Raeisi, Putin discuss Iran-Russia relations, censure foreign meddling in regional affairs

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 2:47 PM

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have discussed the expansion of Tehran-Moscow ties and the latest developments in the region, stressing the necessity of preventing foreign interference in regional issues.

Responding to Putin's telephone call on Tuesday, Raeisi commended the progress in the bilateral relations as "favorable" and called for accelerating the implementation of joint agreements and projects in the fields of transit, transportation, energy exchange and the completion of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

The 162-kilometer corridor along the Caspian Sea coast connects India, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan and other countries via railways and sea and can rival the Suez Canal as a major global trade route.

Appreciating Russia's support for Iran's membership in the BRICS group of emerging economies, Raeisi said, "BRICS is one of the effective and nascent organizations in shaping a multipolar world, and providing suitable grounds for the expansion of bilateral, regional and international relations between Iran, Russia and other member states."

The group was formed by and initially consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which collectively represent around 40% of the global population and a quarter of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).

Experts see BRICS as a viable counterweight to the G-7, a US-led political forum that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK.

Putin, for his part, told his Iranian counterpart during the phone call on Tuesday that the volume of trade between the two countries hit a record last year.

Describing Iran as a "strategic partner" of Russia, Putin expressed hope for the swift implementation of the Rasht-Astara railway, which is part of the INSTC and connecting the railway lines of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia to each other.

The Russian leader pointed to the significant impact that the railway project could have on trade exchanges between the three countries.

The two president also exchanged views on regional developments, underlining the need to resolve the conflict in the South Caucasus region over Nagorno-Karabakh through dialogue and avoiding foreign interference in the issues related to the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the Caucasus Mountains, which lies within Azerbaijan's borders.

Karabakh has always been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan though it is mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, who have resisted Azerbaijan's sovereignty over the territory since a separatist movement waged a war against Azerbaijan in 1994 and captured it.





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Excessive demands by US, European parties stalled JCPOA revival talks: Iran FM

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 6:57 AM

Iran's foreign minister says "excessive demands" by the United States and the three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement have stalled multilateral negotiations to revive the US-abandoned deal.

In an interview with Japan's Kyodo news agency on Sunday, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held the US, France, Britain and Germany responsible for the pause in the negotiations aimed at restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

He further attributed the suspension of the talks to the aforesaid countries' "interference" in Iran's domestic issues such as last year's foreign-backed riots.

Iran proved the peaceful nature of its nuclear program to the world by signing the JCPOA with six world powers. However, Washington's unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and its subsequent re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran left the future of the deal in limbo.

Negotiations kicked off in the Austrian capital city of Vienna in April 2021 to terminate the unilateral US sanctions and bring Washington back into full compliance with the deal.

The talks, however, stalled in August 2022 as Washington insisted on not terminating all the sanctions and failing to provide Iran with guarantees that it will not exit the agreement again.

Also in his remarks, Amir-Abdollahian said the Japanese government has proposed an initiative to bring the JCPOA back to life, without elaborating on its details.

The top Iranian diplomat added that he had received the proposal during his visit to Tokyo last month.

Any initiative from Japan that aligns with "Iran's interests" would be viewed positively by Tehran, he said. "We support the constructive role of Japan in reviving the nuclear deal."

During the trip, Amir-Abdollahian met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who said Tokyo supports the JCPOA revival talks and is ready to help the sides in this regard.

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Will A Nazarbaev Relative Stand Trial Over Kazakhstan's 'Bloody January'?

By Chris Rickleton September 26, 2023

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- In the aftermath of the worst unrest in Kazakhstan's 30 years of independence, it became clear that bloodshed on the streets was accompanied by a power struggle at the very highest levels of government.

And even as officials tried to frame the violence that left at least 238 people dead as an intricate plot involving bandits and thousands of foreign-trained terrorists, another theory was emerging -- one seemingly supported by the hirings and firings that followed.

That was the notion that close relatives of the former president -- still viewed as the country's ultimate power-wielder prior to the events -- had attempted to unseat the man whom he chose to succeed him as head of state.

Nearly two years after the January 2022 events, prosecutors might be warming to that idea.

Then again, with all the most important trials connected to the violence taking place behind closed doors, "there is a risk that this tragedy will remain a black spot in the history of Kazakhstan where we will never know what really happened," said Bakytzhan Toregozhina, a veteran rights activist who told RFE/RL that Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev is failing on a promise to provide the public with "answers to all their questions" about the bloodshed.

From 'Person Of Interest' To Suspect?

At the beginning of last year, Toqaev was a president in name, but hardly a commander in chief. His octogenarian predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev, had retired upward, giving himself the post of chairman of the powerful Security Council -- a body that Toqaev had a seat on.

Another Security Council seat-holder was Nazarbaev lieutenant Karim Masimov, the chairman of the Committee for National Security (KNB), an independence-era version of the Soviet Union's KGB.

In the days following devastating clashes and looting in Almaty and several other cities on January 5-6, Masimov was arrested along with three of his deputies.

By that time, Toqaev had already informed Kazakhs in an emergency address that he had taken control of the Security Council.

He did not mention Nazarbaev. But the former president wasn't the only question mark in this dizzying game of musical chairs.

Toqaev's office had on January 5 announced a replacement for Samat Abish, the KNB's first deputy chief and Nazarbaev's nephew, without actually mentioning Abish by name.

On January 14, the KNB released a statement clarifying that Abish had not been dismissed at all but was merely on vacation.

It wasn't until January 17, the day before Nazarbaev appeared in a video to address Kazakhs about the crisis -- expressing his support for Toqaev's rule and denying rumors of a rift -- that Abish's dismissal was announced.

After that, Abish was at various times referred to by investigators as being "in the orbit of the investigation" into the 2022 unrest and "a person of interest" in those events. But last week, one of Abish's former subordinates, Ruslan Iskakov, implicated the powerbroker in a preliminary hearing for one of the most important "Bloody January" trials to date.

"They are trying to stop me from saying that I carried out Abish's orders," Iskakov told the court on September 18, as he prepared to face charges that include abuse of office, illegal deprivation of liberty, and the formation and leadership of a criminal group.

The next day, the Prosecutor-General's Office announced that a criminal case involving "the study of a significant amount of secret documentation" had been opened into Abish's potential abuse of power during the 2022 crisis.

But on September 21, the trial in which Iskakov is a defendant was suddenly moved behind closed doors, meaning that any further testimony from the ex-KNB officer will be unavailable to the public.

'Differing Versions'

The court's decision continues the pattern involving all hearings that might shed light on what top decision-makers said or did during the unrest.

Masimov, the former KNB boss, was in April of this year sentenced to 18 years in jail for high treason, with three of his deputies -- Abish being the exception -- receiving long sentences as well.

But even officials don't appear to agree on what he did on January 4-5, as peaceful protests that began over an increase in the cost of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) segued into more violent and coordinated mobilizations.

Prosecutor-General Berik Asylov charged back in January that Masimov had ordered officers to leave their posts at KNB buildings during the violence, causing the government to lose control of Almaty and another southern city, Taldyqorgon, to "armed bandits."

But in May, the KNB's current deputy chairman, Marat Kolkobaev, said Masimov was not punished because of any order he gave, but because he "didn't make the decisions that he should have made."

"This criminal case is classified as 'top secret.' If today I divulge all the nuances of this criminal case I will find myself sitting with those whose cases are being investigated," Kolkobaev told journalists.

Masimov's public relations team has contended -- without offering proof -- that Masimov's real offense was refusing to submit to Toqaev's "shoot to kill" order during the disturbances, which saw the president call in Russian-led peacekeepers to help restore calm in Almaty.

Nazarbaev has made very few public appearances since the events and is not believed to reside in Kazakhstan. But he used one appearance in the capital, Astana, last year to wash his hands of Masimov -- even comparing him to Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

Nazarbaev also said he would not move to protect his relatives from punishment if they had committed crimes, providing their guilt was proven in a fair trial. Kazakhs who had witnessed both a broken justice system and boundless nepotism under Nazarbaev's three-decade rule found plenty to mock in both of those assertions.

But fairly or not, the former president has already seen one of his blood relatives in the dock. Abish's brother, Qairat Satybaldy, in September became the first member of the once-untouchable former ruling family to be sentenced to jail time, receiving six years in prison.

That sentence was for corruption rather than treason, and authorities pressed with questions from journalists eventually denied that Satybaldy -- a career security officer-turned businessman -- was linked to the unrest.

Any attempt to try Abish over the January unrest would therefore be uncharted territory and perhaps worrying for Nazarbaev, whose own role in the crisis is one of the biggest questions of all.

That has led some observers to argue that Iskakov's comments in court were prompted by an administration eager to ensure that there can be no return to politics for the disgraced Nazarbaev clan.

But Toregozhina, the rights activist, who has done as much as anyone to try and document the events known as "Bloody January," is not one of them. Instead, she argues that a closed court benefits both Abish and Toqaev's administration, who, whatever their differences, share an interest in keeping the murky events out of public view.

"We see that the prosecutor-general comes out with differing versions [of the events] and that the defendants in court have information that contradicts [those versions]. Mr. Iskakov is one of the main witnesses of the January events and holds a huge amount of information about what actually happened. As such, his testimony is important and his life may be in danger," Toregozhina told RFE/RL.

And what of the idea that Abish is in Kazakhstan and therefore available to face trial pending the conclusion of the investigation? Again, the activist is skeptical.

"As far as we know he is in the United Arab Emirates, not in Kazakhstan. If that is the case, then [the prosecutor-general] will look ridiculous," Toregozhina said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-nazarbaev- trials-january-2002/32609855.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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Myanmar reshuffle of generals suggests 'instability,' experts say

Removal of the two officers is part of a crackdown on trade and finance officials.

By RFA Burmese 2023.09.26 -- Myanmar's junta has officially sacked two high-ranking generals for alleged bribery and corruption as part of a reshuffle experts said indicates growing instability and disunity within military ranks.

Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun and Lt. Gen. Soe Htut, dismissed on Monday, were the seventh- and eighth-highest leaders in the State Administration Council, the governing junta.

Earlier this month, authorities arrested Moe Myint Tun, said to have accepted millions of dollars in bribes from businesspeople during the past two years, but it wasn't clear if he would be tried.

He is under house arrest and being interrogated in the capital Naypyitaw, according to businesspeople who declined to be named for safety reasons.

Soe Htut was removed as interior minister last month and given a less influential post after serving in the position since 2020.

The junta has ordered four reshuffles since seizing power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d'etat, but observers say that stripping the two of their positions and expelling them from the military council was the most severe action yet taken against the regime's generals since the takeover.

Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, told RFA Burmese that the move suggests the junta is "unstable" and beginning to "disintegrate."

"Corruption within the military council will not cease, even if these generals are removed and replaced," he said. "A serious conflict of interest has emerged among the leading generals of the military council. I think this instability shows that the military council is spiraling out of control."

Crackdown on business dealings

On Tuesday, the official Global New Light of Myanmar announced that Gen. Maung Maung Aye, chief of general staff for the armed forces, and Lt. Gen. Nyo Saw, an adviser to junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, had been appointed as new members of the military council.

Moe Myint Tun and Soe Htut were both absent from the new list of council members and the report mentioned nothing about their removal or where they had been reassigned.

The removal of the two officers is part of a crackdown on trade and finance officials, businesspeople and exporters amid economic turmoil and sanctions as the junta struggles to accumulate foreign revenue and rein in soaring commodity prices, sources say.

Attempts by RFA to contact Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta's deputy information minister, for comment on the shakeup went unanswered Tuesday.

Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, told RFA that the changes were "necessary" as it was "time for a change."

"We have to view [the dismissals] in the context of what the next step [of the military] will be," he said.

Thein Tun Oo said that the real reason for the dismissals will remain a matter of speculation until the junta makes an official statement.

"For now, I have only one simple comment: I must say that these changes were made because they were necessary," he added.

Exploiting exchange rate

The junta arrested another high-ranking military official a Gen. Yan Naung Soe, joint secretary of the Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods a this month amid the crackdown and an investigation of Commerce Ministry officials, the online news outlet Myanmar Now reported.

The committee is responsible for procuring U.S. dollars for trade licensing purposes and other commercial transactions.

The generals have allegedly made millions of dollars from their dealings with traders and by benefiting from the disparity between Myanmar's official exchange rate of 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar and the market rate amid a steep decline in the kyat's value, Myanmar now reported last week.

'They know that they won't last'

Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, Prime Minister's Office told RFA that corruption and military generals in Myanmar "are inseparable."

He said that this junta's generals may even be more corrupt than those of past juntas "because they know that they won't last [in power] long."

"Those who understand that there is not much time left for them think that they will self-serve as much as they can in the remaining time," he said. "This can be seen not just among high-ranking generals, but middle-ranking and low level service members as well."

Nay Phone Latt suggested that the dismissals may not only have been punishment for corruption, but also the result of "political issues," although he did not elaborate.

There were only two or three changes in the positions of top military leaders under the State Law and Order Restoration Council (1988-97) or the State Peace and Development Council (1997-2011), two previous military juntas that ruled Myanmar, according to the Thayninga Institute's Thein Tun Oo.

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Myanmar junta extends sentences of 63 protesting prisoners

They demonstrated against torture and the death penalty.

By RFA Burmese 2023.09.26 -- Myanmar's junta authorities extended the prison sentences of 63 political prisoners for taking part in a protest in Ayeyarwady's Pathein Prison, a prisoner rights group said Tuesday.

The Political Prisoner Network Myanmar said the prisoners protested against plans to hang a teacher in the prison and the beating of another inmate who was discovered with a mobile phone.

In August, 26 of the protesters had their sentences extended by three years for damaging public property while 37 were sentenced to an additional three years for causing pain to a prison employee.

The following month some of those inmates received an extra three years for inflicting serious pain on a public servant.

Officials of the Political Prisoner Network said they didn't know the names of all the inmates who had been sentenced but were trying to find out the details.

A family member of one political prisoner in Pathein Prison, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia that some of the punished inmates already faced sentences of up to 20 years.

When RFA contacted an official from Pathein Prison, he refused to answer questions about the additional punishments. Calls to the prison department in Yangon by RFA seeking comment went unanswered.

A family member of another inmate said he was worried about the wellbeing of the prisoners who were given longer sentences.

"I felt bad when the sentences were increased," they said.

"They will be mentally and physically worse off."

Nearly 25,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the Feb. 2021 coup according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

More than 19,000 are still being held in various prisons.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Human Rights Council Hears that States Must Prioritise the Participation of Youth in Climate and Environmental Processes, and that the People of Myanmar Are Enduring Flagrant Human Rights Violations

UNOHCHR

MORNING 26 September 2023

The Human Rights Council this morning held the biennial panel discussion on youth and human rights, under the theme of young people's engagement with climate change and global environmental decision-making processes, followed by an interactive dialogue on the report of the High Commissioner on the overall situation of human rights in Myanmar.

Volker TArk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said each day, the people of Myanmar were enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes. Since the last report in July the overall human rights situation in Myanmar had deteriorated even further. The report before the Council today unveiled how the military had further expanded its assault against the civilian population. Its findings described a range of incidents, many of a particular brutality, emblematic of a systematic negation of human rights, human life and human dignity. This was a system of ruthless repression designed to coerce and subjugate its people and to erode a society so that the narrow interests of a kleptocratic elite were preserved.

Mr. TArk said senseless military attacks were exacerbating the human rights crisis with interconnected humanitarian, political, and economic impacts, imposing an unbearable toll on the people in Myanmar. People in Rakhine state, including members of the Rohingya community, continued to be deprived of food, medicines, and the necessary materials to rebuild their homes and their lives. Credible sources had verified as of yesterday a minimum of 4,108 deaths at the hands of the military and its affiliates. Three specific military tactics had been systematically directed against the civilian population: airstrikes, mass killings, and burning of villages. Given the continuing gravity of the situation and impunity on the ground, the High Commissioner reiterated the call for the Security Council to refer this situation to the International Criminal Court.

In the discussion, a number of speakers expressed concern at the reported continuous escalation of brutal attacks by the Myanmar military against the civilian population, including attacks against ethnic and religious minorities. Many speakers also noted that the human rights situation of the Rohingya community remained of utmost concern. The Myanmar armed forces were called upon to ensure the safe and dignified return of Rohingya to their homeland. Speakers stressed the need for accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, and emphasised their commitment to taking an active part in funding the humanitarian effort in Myanmar. Some speakers regretted that Myanmar as the concerned country was not in a position to take part in the dialogue. Not listening to the concerned country made it impossible to have genuine dialogue and cooperation.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Council held the biennial panel discussion on youth and human rights, under the theme of young people's engagement with climate change and global environmental decision-making processes.

High Commissioner Volker TArk, in an opening statement to the panel discussion, said while the impacts of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution were already being dramatically felt today, it was young people, and future generations, who would bear the brunt. It was vital to learn from young people about their experiences of participating in climate and environmental decision-making processes, and to put their views and recommendations into action. Today, the world was home to the largest generation of young people in history, 1.8 billion. Yet young environmental human rights defenders faced physical and online threats, shrinking civic space, and criminalisation of their legitimate activities.

This year, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mr. TArk urged every State to respond to the voices of young people and prioritise their participation in climate and environmental processes, as knowledge-holders, change-makers and partners in designing solutions.

Adriana Mira, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, also in an opening statement to the panel discussion, said since June 2019, El Salvador had undergone a national transformation process, focused on the well-being of each and on more and better opportunities for development, taking into account the effects of climate change, and the challenges thrown up by this. Every day, El Salvador was seeing the global challenge posed by climate change, which did not recognise geographical barriers. El Salvador, being aware of this undeniable reality, was deeply involved in implementing strategies and policies to address climate change, with technological monitoring and follow-up systems, ensuring constant assessment of progress.

Evelyn Adzovi Addor, Climate Negotiator for Ghana, Communications Officer for EcoCare Ghana and Member of Climate Youth Negotiators Programme, panellist, said ensuring the sustainable and socio-cultural development of societies required that the rights of young people be protected and made central to every decision-making process. Africa had the youngest population, which also was the most susceptible to the effects of climate change. Despite the adverse impacts of climate change on the youth, very little space was created for them to take part in decision-making processes on environmental governance. Ms. Addor requested sustained dialogue between the Office of the High Commissioner and young people on specific areas of concern on climate change to find sustainable solutions.

Vishal Prasad, Campaign Director for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, panellist, said in 2019, 27 University of the South Pacific students got together to consider the question on how international law could be used as a vehicle to address the climate. Fast forward, after four years of campaign, and with the support of 132 co-sponsoring countries, and with a consensus adoption at the United Nations General Assembly, the resolution to request an advisory opinion passed through in March this year. For a youth-led campaign, this was a huge achievement. The world was now at a crossroads. Either it could change course to give young people truly an opportunity in shaping the world, or continue the path of minimal, meaningless, and disconnected youth involvement and empowerment.

Xiomara Acevedo Navarro, Representative of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, panellist, said the potential of young people to shape global decision making in relation to climate action was untapped. Although progress had been made in recognising the importance of youth engagement, more needed to be done, including the provision of funding, visas, access to the internet and language obstacles. The Network recommended that the United Nations and States prioritise supporting the full, effective, equitable and inclusive participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, women and girls, children and youth, and persons with disabilities; bridge the finance gap for youth-led initiatives; guarantee the protection of environmental defenders; and encourage meaningful youth participation between young people and decision makers.

Xiomara Acevedo Navarro, Representative of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, panellist, , panellist, said a lack of uniformity between civil society engagement mechanisms of different multilateral environmental governance processes led to a fragmented engagement landscape. To address this challenge, a unified civil society engagement framework must be adopted across all multilateral environmental governance processes. The international community must invest in comprehensive and accessible environmental and human rights education that equipped young people with the knowledge, skills, and tools they needed to engage meaningfully in multilateral environmental governance processes. Together, the international community could create a world where young people's voices were heard, their rights protected, and their actions led toward a brighter, more sustainable future.

Many speakers welcomed the timely discussion which recognised the importance of meaningful and effective participation and leadership of all young persons in addressing one of the major global threats to human rights: the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. As the climate crisis persisted, the vulnerability of children and youth to compounding effects of climate change was exceptionally high. Young people were powerful agents of change and the main stakeholders of future-oriented development. They were an essential partner in climate action. Speakers emphasised the importance of recognising the role of young people, whose expertise was underutilised. Severe restrictions persisted on the full and effective participation of young people, such as discrimination, violence and negligence that prevented the full realisation of their human rights, especially those in situations of vulnerability.

Speaking in the panel discussion were Bahamas, Maldives on behalf of a group of small island developing States, El Salvador on behalf of a group of countries, Oman on behalf of Gulf Cooperation Council, Libya on behalf of the Arab Group, Timor-Leste on behalf of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, European Union, Bahamas on behalf of the Caribbean Community Caricom, United Nations Development Programme, Lithuania, Portugal, Germany, Qatar, Finland, Bolivia, Samoa, Iraq, Bahrain, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Croatia, Ireland, Malawi and Belgium.

Also speaking were Conseil National des droits de l'homme du Maroc, World Jewish Congress, Stichting CHOICE for Youth and Sexuality, World Vision International, Save the Children International, and Istituto Internazionale Maria Ausiliatrice delle Salesiane di Don Bosco.

Speaking in the discussion on Myanmar were European Union, Australia on behalf of a group of countries, Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Italy, Czech Republic, Libya, Kuwait, Luxembourg, United States, TArkiye, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Bangladesh, Maldives, United Kingdom, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Venezuela, Spain, Gambia and India.

Also speaking were Edmund Rice International Limited, Human Rights Now, Federatie van Nederlandse Verenigingen tot Integratie Van Homoseksualiteit - COC Nederland, Jubilee Campaign, Centre for Civil and Political Rights, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Article 19 - International Centre Against Censorship, International Bar Association, and Meezaan Centre for Human Rights.

The webcast of the Human Rights Council meetings can be found here. All meeting summaries can be found here. Documents and reports related to the Human Rights Council's fifty-fourth regular session can be found here.

The Council will reconvene at 3 p.m. to hold a general debate on agenda item four on human rights situations that require the Council's attention.

Biennial Panel Discussion on Youth and Human Rights on the Theme of Young People's Engagement with Climate Change and Global Environmental Decision-Making Processes

Opening Statements

VOLKER TARK, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it was fitting that the focus today was on youth engagement in climate change and global environmental decision-making processes. Last month, on a visit to southern Iraq, he had experienced the intensity of 50 degrees Celsius heat in a once fertile neighbourhood. While the impacts of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution were already being dramatically felt today, it was young people, and future generations, who would bear the brunt. It was also young people who had stepped forward, with commitment and creativity, to demand action from governments and business in the face of this unprecedented crisis. It was vital to learn from young people about their experiences of participating in climate and environmental decision-making processes, and to put their views and recommendations into action.

Decades of youth activism had provided the momentum for many advances made so far in protecting the planet, including the World's Youth 4 Climate Justice Campaign. Recently, Mr. TArk was struck by the wave of climate-related court cases led by children and young people with their roots in human rights principles. Today, the world was home to the largest generation of young people in history, 1.8 billion. Yet they faced multiple barriers when seeking to engage in global climate change and environmental decision-making processes. Barriers included financial constraints, a lack of digital connectivity, limited education and safety.

Young environmental human rights defenders faced physical and online threats, shrinking civic space, and criminalisation of their legitimate activities. These barriers were multiplied for young people facing intersecting forms of discrimination, including youth with disabilities, indigenous youth and girls. The Office had issued guidelines on the effective implementation of the right to participation, shared widely across youth networks and a practical resource for States. Youth engagement was placed at the heart of the Human Rights at 75 Initiative. The Youth Advisory Group provided invaluable insights for this initiative and was developing a Youth Declaration, drawing on the views and recommendations that emerged from the global youth consultation.

This year, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mr. TArk urged every State to respond to the voices of young people and prioritise their participation in climate and environmental processes. Young people needed to be actively engaged as knowledge-holders, change-makers and partners in designing solutions.

ADRIANA MIRA, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, said since June 2019, El Salvador had undergone a national transformation process, focused on the well-being of each and on more and better opportunities for development, taking into account the effects of climate change, and the challenges thrown up by this. According to United Nations data, there were now more young people in the world than ever before. The President had set as a priority of his administration childhood and youth. In El Salvador, they had aspirations well beyond material well-being: they were concerned about the standard of life, and looking after the environment for future generations. Climate change was a concern for the world as a whole: all should share commitments and differentiated responsibilities. Children needed to be completely involved in education and the social awareness that was put in place at an early age.

Climate change was one of the most vital challenges facing the world today, and future generations must be prepared to deal with it. El Salvador was working to this end, promoting resilience and transition to a de-carbonised economy. Every day, El Salvador was seeing the global challenge posed by climate change, which did not recognise geographical barriers. El Salvador, being aware of this undeniable reality, was deeply involved in implementing strategies and policies to address climate change, with technological monitoring and follow-up systems, ensuring constant assessment of progress. These efforts were directly linked up with youth. The Government had given young people the opportunity to serve in high-level posts, and involved them in decision-making.

The Government was implementing educational and environmental training programmes across the country, had a national zero-waste programme, and was working to raise awareness and educate students in higher education institutions. Internationally, El Salvador was able to take part in the Youth Summit on the Climate: the first time ever the United Nations had convened a summit that was entirely devoted to young people and their work on climate action. A path could be forged together allowing to address the situation. El Salvador was committed to implementing all efforts to combat climate change, creating a more stable future for future generations, with a more positive legacy.

Statements by the Panellists

EVELYN ADZOVI ADDOR, Climate Negotiator for Ghana, Communications Officer for EcoCare Ghana and Member of Climate Youth Negotiators Programme, said ensuring the sustainable and socio-cultural development of societies required that the rights of young people be protected and made central to every decision-making process. According to the United Nations, there were 1.2 billion people between the ages of 15 to 24 years, expected to grow to about 1.3 billion globally by 2030. In Africa alone, young people between 15 and 24 years old were expected to grow to 830 million by 2050, a clear indication that young people were important stakeholders in shaping the world. Scientific evidence confirmed that the ever-growing unsustainable human demand for resources had resulted in a global climate crisis that threatened the future of all humans, especially young people, impacting fundamental human rights.

Africa had the youngest population, which also was the most susceptible to the effects of climate change. The youth faced increased risks to their health, including respiratory problems, malnutrition, infectious diseases, and death. Despite the adverse impacts of climate change on the youth, very little space was created for them to take part in decision-making processes on environmental governance. Despite the progress made, several barriers still prevented meaningful youth participation, including climate education and access to finance. Most communities were already incurring invaluable loss and damage due to climate change; Keta, a beautiful coastal town in Ghana, was almost wiped out. Ms. Addor requested a sustained dialogue between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and young people on specific areas of concern on climate change to find sustainable solutions.

VISHAL PRASAD, Campaign Director for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, said as a young Pacific Islander and as a witness to the climate crisis, he had seen the devastation first hand that cyclones, floods, droughts, and sea level rise had brought, but amidst this, he had also seen the power of young people who had also stood with immense resilience, fighting to protect their homelands, cultures, and their identity. In 2019, 27 University of the South Pacific students got together to consider the question on how international law could be used as a vehicle to address the climate crisis, with the idea of seeking an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the obligations of States on climate change. Fast forward, after four years of campaign, with the support of 132 co-sponsoring countries, and with a consensus adoption at the United Nations General Assembly, the resolution to request an advisory opinion passed through in March this year. For a youth-led campaign, this was a huge achievement.

Nevertheless, there was growing disillusionment among young people about existing systems not working or working against them or simply working for the few. Accountability, transparency and honesty would go a long way in returning the lost faith in current systems and structures. The Campaign was calling on countries to seize the moment to have the voices of their young people heard by the International Court of Justice during the ongoing submissions process. The world was now at a crossroads. Either it could change course to give young people truly an opportunity in shaping the world, or continue the path of minimal, meaningless, and disconnected youth involvement and empowerment. Hope remained, that the future would be brighter than the past.

XIOMARA ACEVEDO NAVARRO, Representative of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, said the Global Youth Biodiversity Network had dedicated the past 12 years to training, supporting and mobilising young people in the global effort to stop biodiversity loss. The crises of biodiversity and climate change were not isolated; they were deeply interconnected and rooted in systemic injustice and inequality. The potential of young people to shape global decision-making in relation to climate action was untapped. Despite the multiple initiatives and youth-led organizations, the potential of young people's voices was absent in the issues they cared about. These challenges underscored the need to bridge the gap between young individuals' aspirations and meaningful inclusion in global climate and environmental decision-making processes. That inclusion required adopting intersectionality to address already existing vulnerabilities.

Although progress had been made in recognising the importance of youth engagement, more needed to be done, including the provision of funding, visas, access to the internet and language obstacles. Economic barriers also presented significant challenges for young people seeking to connect and participate in conservation efforts. The Network recommended that the United Nations and States prioritise supporting the full, effective, equitable and inclusive participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, women and girls, children and youth, and persons with disabilities; bridge the finance gap for youth-led initiatives; guarantee the protection of environmental defenders; and encourage meaningful youth participation between young people and decision makers. Incorporating young people into the process of shaping environmental policies was critical in combatting the decline of ecosystems.

ZUHAIR AHMED KOWSHIK, Global Focal Point for the Children and Youth Major Group to the United Nations Environment Programme, said today the Council came together to address significant obstacles preventing youth from contributing to the multilateral environmental governance processes. Firstly, a lack of uniformity between civil society engagement mechanisms of different multilateral environmental governance processes led to a fragmented engagement landscape. The patchwork of mechanisms across various environmental governance bodies often left young people feeling like outliers rather than integral players in the decision-making process. To address this challenge, a unified civil society engagement framework must be adopted across all multilateral environmental governance processes. Another barrier was the lack of capacity building support and the low environmental and human rights education standards.

The international community must invest in comprehensive and accessible environmental and human rights education that equipped young people with the knowledge, skills and tools they needed to engage meaningfully in multilateral environmental governance processes. Capacity building programmes tailored to the unique challenges faced by youth should be a central focus of efforts. The international community must commit to providing youth with the resources, education and capacity building support they needed, promoting the inclusion of youth in political, scientific and financial decision making. Together, the international community could create a world where young people's voices were heard, their rights protected, and their actions led toward a brighter, more sustainable future. The time for change was now, and the opportunity must be seized.

Discussion

A number of speakers welcomed the timely discussion which recognised the importance of meaningful and effective participation and leadership of all young persons in addressing one of the major global threats to human rights: the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Climate change required action on all parts, including from future generations.

As the climate crisis persisted, the vulnerability of children and youth to compounding effects of climate change was exceptionally high, some speakers said. The world was home to the largest generation of young persons in history and including their voice was critical for decision-making processes that impacted their futures and that of the planet, including in environmental and climate change fora. Youth had proven to be the population most aware of climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity, and the most committed to taking action in favour of climate justice and the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Young people were powerful agents of change and the main stakeholders of future-oriented development. They were an essential partner in climate action.

Some speakers emphasised the importance of recognising the role of young people, whose expertise was underutilised. Through different initiatives at the national, regional and global levels, youth had generated a movement that urged governments to take decisive action in favour of the environment. Their efforts and coordinated actions for the promotion of innovative solutions and more sustainable social models were invaluable. Speakers also recognised the multiple initiatives and platforms open both nationally and internationally for young people to engage meaningfully in decision-making processes.

A number of speakers said severe restrictions persisted on the full and effective participation of young people, such as discrimination, violence and negligence that prevented the full realisation of their human rights, especially those in situations of vulnerability. All of this needed to be addressed urgently, and respect for the rights of youth had to be realised in all areas. A lot remained to be done to ensure that no young person was left behind. The lack of environmental and climate change knowledge was a challenge. This needed to be included in school programmes, and practical training needed to be provided to build on young people's capacities to ensure they more effectively contributed to decision making.

The international community shared a responsibility to emphasise the critical role of youth engagement and explore innovative solutions, some speakers said. It was a priority to strengthen the full and effective participation of youth in decision-making processes to address the effects of climate change. This would allow these emerging leaders to contribute to the construction of comprehensive, fair, ethical and resilient policies to environmental issues. Speakers called for more dedicated actions to ensure effective, active and meaningful youth participation in environmental forums and decision-making processes.

Some speakers provided examples of national efforts taken to ensure the meaningful and effective participation of all young people as agents of change and development partners. These included the adoption of youth action plans; the inclusion of youth delegates; the appointment of youth climate change ambassadors; convening youth climate change conferences; programmes launched to develop the knowledge of school students in regards to climate change; fostering entrepreneurial and cultural activities; and regularly consulting youth groups in decision making, among others.

Concluding Remarks

EVELYN ADZOVI ADDOR, Climate Negotiator for Ghana, Communications Officer for EcoCare Ghana and Member of Climate Youth Negotiators Programme, said she could attest to the enthusiasm and sense of urgency that young people brought to the negotiating room: it was therefore crucial to bring them to more negotiations, and allow them to collaborate at the international level to make the world realise that there was one common interest: to thrive and survive together. Young people in Africa were rising and demanding action from their governments and international corporations that were polluting the beautiful environment. Her recommendation was that the Human Rights Council identify young people who were interested in promoting human rights issues and support them to mainstream the issue of human rights at the negotiation level.

VISHAL PRASAD, Campaign Director for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, said there was a clear need to rethink and re-envision the environment and climate crisis. Youth were vital to the process, and implementation must be the next step. Young people were creative and passionate and connected; they must be given a space at the highest levels. Young people in pursuit of climate justice must be brought to the International Court of Justice, and all should participate in the advisory opinion process, with a progressive and strong submission to recognise that human rights and climate change obligations were under threat. He implored all to put young people's voices in their submissions. In the age of multiple crises, it was time for all hands-on deck: all young people, and all of society, all collaboratively working together.

XIOMARA ACEVEDO NAVARRO, Representative of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, said young people were crucial in mobilising solutions and bringing new approaches. Leaders needed to challenge business as usual approaches. The global goals would not be met without young people's work and actions. States needed to capitalise on intergenerational knowledge and leadership to foster a shared understanding on current and future challenges.

ZUHAIR AHMED KOWSHIK, Global Focal Point for the Children and Youth Major Group to the United Nations Environment Programme, said it was crucial to recognise the importance of youth engagement. In the Global South countries, it was very difficult for youth to engage with policies and participate in decision making. There were a lot of global instruments on climate and momentum and biodiversity which were translated into national actions. However, when they were translated into national plans, young people were not consulted. There needed to be engagement at all levels, including national, local, and regional levels. What happened at the Human Rights Council should not just stay at the Council; it should be accelerated to all policy development processes. Young people were not just leaders of tomorrow, they were also leaders of today. Everyone needed to have faith in the power of youth.

Interactive Dialogue on the Report of the High Commissioner on the Overall Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar

Report

The Council has before it the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Myanmar (A/HRC/54/59).

Presentation of Report

VOLKER TARK, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said each day, the people of Myanmar were enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes. Since the last report in July the overall human rights situation in Myanmar had deteriorated even further. The report before the Council today unveiled how the military had further expanded its assault against the civilian population. Its findings described a range of incidents, many of a particular brutality, emblematic of a systematic negation of human rights, human life and human dignity. This was a system of ruthless repression designed to coerce and subjugate its people and to erode a society so that the narrow interests of a kleptocratic elite were preserved.

Senseless military attacks were exacerbating the human rights crisis with interconnected humanitarian, political, and economic impacts, imposing an unbearable toll on the people in Myanmar. People in Rakhine state, including members of the Rohingya community, continued to be deprived of food, medicines, and the necessary materials to rebuild their homes and their lives. Credible sources had verified as of yesterday a minimum of 4,108 deaths at the hands of the military and its affiliates. Three specific military tactics had been systematically directed against the civilian population: airstrikes, mass killings, and burning of villages. Violence by anti-military armed groups, including targeted killings and bombings of public places, also persisted.

Civilian rule of law in Myanmar had vanished, with the military deliberately eroding the foundations of governance and justice in the country. The denial of humanitarian access throughout the whole country was having dramatic consequences on the right to food. This denial of access had been acutely felt in Rakhine state, where the human rights situation of the Rohingya community continued to be of the utmost concern, particularly for women, children and young people. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Five Point Consensus had been ignored by the military, despite their having agreed to its terms.

The High Commissioner reiterated his call to all States and other actors with influence to support efforts to de-escalate this crisis and ensure that all vulnerable people in Myanmar could exercise their fundamental rights and receive all necessary assistance. He urged all actors to ensure that allegations of human rights abuses against the civilian population were promptly and transparently investigated and that perpetrators were held to account, and for the international community to redouble international accountability initiatives. Given the continuing gravity of the situation and impunity on the ground, he reiterated the call for

the Security Council to refer this situation to the International Criminal Court.

Discussion

In the discussion, some speakers thanked the High Commissioner for his sobering report, saying they also supported the work of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar which remained crucial for ensuring accountability. They expressed concern at the reported continuous escalation of brutal attacks by the Myanmar military against the civilian population, including attacks against ethnic and religious minorities. The Myanmar military increasingly relied on air and artillery strikes on villages and other populated areas, burning of villages and infrastructure, executions and killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, forced displacement, and persecution, some of which acts may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Some speakers said that access to medical care for the wounded was systematically blocked in Myanmar, and humanitarian operations were usurped. The civilian population feared being bombed in homes, schools, hospitals, places of worship and public gatherings. Fear of being deported and tortured was common, and hunger raged throughout the country. Speakers condemned the actions of the Myanmar military, including the instrumentalisation of relief operations and the unacceptable restrictions imposed on humanitarian actors, including after cyclone Mocha.

Many speakers also noted that the human rights situation of the Rohingya community remained of utmost concern. The ongoing violence, killings, burnings, and shelling highlighted that the resolution of the Rohingya crisis should not be considered secondary to finding a solution to the political crisis in Myanmar. Some speakers welcomed dialogue between Bangladesh and Myanmar over the commencement of repatriation through a pilot project. The Myanmar armed forces were called upon to ensure the safe and dignified return of Rohingya to their homeland.

The Government of Myanmar should implement the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Rakhine state, including a clear path to citizenship for the Rohingya, humanitarian access, and ensuring the return of displaced Rohingya from Bangladesh and other host countries. The international community was called on to continue to make adequate financial contributions for the Rohingyas.

Some speakers stressed the need for accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, and emphasised their commitment to taking an active part in funding the humanitarian effort in Myanmar. A number of speakers said that comprehensive, concrete, and meaningful international sanctions were necessary to curtail the military's capacity for continuing its campaign of violence and repression, including a global arms embargo. They outlined their commitment to targeting the regime's access to finance and arms, including through targeted sanctions. Restricting the flow of arms and jet fuel would help to protect the Myanmar people from the military.

Some speakers regretted that Myanmar as the concerned country was not in a position to take part in the dialogue. Only by upholding norms of sovereign equality and non-interference in internal affairs could problems be solved. Not listening to the concerned country made it impossible to have genuine dialogue and cooperation. Discussions in the Council should focus on peace and avoid intensifying conflicts.

Speakers asked the High Commissioner about actions that the international community and the United Nations could take to meaningfully restrict the Myanmar military's ability to harm civilians. Was there any indication that engagement had led to any increased access on the ground or any moderation in the military's violations? How could the Office of the High Commissioner enhance its collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management in strengthening capacity to deliver assistance to those in need and ensure the respect of their rights to food, shelter and health? What more could the international community do to ensure evidence of human rights abuses was being gathered and used for future accountability?

Concluding Remarks

VOLKER TARK, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the United Nations country team, after the Cyclone, had very quickly sought means to deliver humanitarian needs and protection, but it was rapidly hit with the denial of humanitarian access and the official denial of there being a need for it. The engagement had so far not changed the approach by the military, which continued its limitations on humanitarian access, its restrictions and excessive bureaucratic stifling of civil society, and a politicisation of aid which was not in accordance with humanitarian principles. There was a very serious humanitarian situation as a result. On what more could be done to support the role of civil society, it was incredibly important to ensure flexible funding for humanitarian organizations on the ground and for those working with them. The Office must support local and regional non-governmental organizations to make sure that those who were human rights defenders had all the required support.

On the regional implications, there were a number of statements on what these were, and they had been the same for some time. The most affected country was Bangladesh, with over one million refugees in Cox's Bazaar; Bangladesh had been hosting refugees for many years. There were many other economic impacts on the region as a result of the situation: it had an impact on the overall security and stability of the region, with, for example, a rise in human trafficking, narcotics, and illicit economies. The regional dimension needed to be addressed, and the broader picture was what must be borne in mind.

On accountability, the continued attention of the Council to the situation was critical, but also by the General Assembly and the Security Council. This was one of the worst human rights crises the world faced, and the international community needed to live up to that responsibility. The violations that had been depicted by the Office in the report and many others in the past were the result of decades of impunity: there was a glaring vacuum in Myanmar of the rule of law, with no functioning independent court structure. It was clear that the situation must be referred to the Security Council as an accountability measure. There were ongoing deliberations before the International Court of Justice and the work of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. The strongest measure was a referral by the Security Council to the International Court of Justice.

Host countries needed active and continuous support, directly, but also through third country resettlement. It was important that any enhanced engagement be linked to the military fulfilling the Five-Point Consensus developed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and to which the junta had agreed. Life-saving aid must be provided: politicisation by the military in this context was very dangerous and must be taken into account. There needed to be respect for the Security Council resolution that was adopted in December 2022 and for all the decisions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The international community must maintain its attention to the issue, and insist upon the release of all political prisoners.

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UN: Myanmar Military Ups Airstrikes, Mass Killings to Subjugate Population

By Lisa Schlein September 26, 2023

Volker TArk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, is calling for international action to bring an end to the increasingly brutal, repressive regime of Myanmar's military, which toppled the country's democratically elected government February 1, 2021.

In a report submitted Tuesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. rights chief warned that Myanmar's military junta has "further expanded its assault" against the civilian population. The report covers the period from April 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023.

"We are faced here with a system of ruthless repression designed to coerce and subjugate its people and to erode a society so that the narrow interests of a kleptocratic elite are preserved," said TArk.

"Each day, the people of Myanmar are enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes."

Since he submitted his last report, the high commissioner said conditions in the country have further deteriorated with senseless military attacks "exacerbating the human rights crisis" and imposing an unbearable toll on the people of Myanmar.

Credible sources, he said, have verified a minimum of 4,108 deaths at the hands of the military and its affiliates.

"Three specific military tactics have been systematically directed against the civilian population: airstrikes, mass killings, and burning of villages," he said.

During the reporting period, he said the military undertook 687 airstrikes, "more than double the number carried out in the 14 months following the coup."

The report documents 22 mass killings, with witnesses describing methods used by the military to kill and inflict pain on their victims, "including burning them alive, dismembering, raping, beheading" and using abducted villagers to shield themselves against attacks and landmines.

"This is inhumanity in its vilest form," said TArk.

While anti-military armed groups also resorted to targeted killings and bombings of public places, he said the scale of these violations was not comparable to those perpetrated by the military.

The report says civilian rule of law in Myanmar has vanished, noting that nearly 25,000 people have been arrested, more than 19,000 still are detained and 150 have been sentenced to death by military-controlled courts.

Myanmar has not responded to the report. It was not able to participate in the Council debate as a concerned country because the United Nations does not recognize the government of the military junta as legitimate.

The U.N. report condemns the military's denial of humanitarian access and of life-saving medical care, shelter materials, food and clean water to the population following the devastating impact of Cyclone Mocha in May. It notes people in Myanmar's Rakhine State, including members of the Muslim Rohingya community "continue to be deprived of food, medicines, and the necessary materials to rebuild their homes and their lives."

Despite this abuse of the Rohingya, the military has been calling for the return of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Rakhine State by the end of the year, "despite the clear absence of conditions for safe, dignified, and sustainable returns," said TArk.

The high commissioner said there were no indications that Myanmar's junta will "radically change and break the cycle of impunity that has characterized its operations for decades."

He said his office has data confirming that foreign sources have been providing Myanmar with the heavy weaponry and other material used to kill its people. He said this deadly trade must stop.

He said perpetrators of the many crimes against the people of Myanmar must be held to account, given the gravity of the situation and impunity on the ground.

"I reiterate my call for the U.N. Security Council to refer this situation to the International Criminal Court," he said.

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Pakistan Claims Capture of 4 Islamic State Operatives

By Ayaz Gul September 26, 2023

Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Tuesday that a counterterrorism operation resulted in the arrest of four regional Islamic State-affiliated operatives.

The area's counterterrorism department said the operation was carried out in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

It identified the detainees as Afghan nationals associated with Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K. The statement said that the men plotted attacks in the city, targeting members of religious minorities and security forces.

IS-K took credit for a suicide bombing of a minority Shiite mosque in Peshawar in January of this year, killing nearly 100 worshipers.

Tuesday's arrests came hours after the military said its forces had raided a suspected "terrorist" hideout near the Afghan border and killed three militants in the ensuing clashes.

A key militant commander was said to be among those killed in the pre-dawn raid in the Khyber border district, a former stronghold of the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

The group, known as the Pakistani Taliban, routinely carries out attacks against security forces, mainly in districts lining the border with Afghanistan and elsewhere in Pakistan.

Stepped up attacks by the TTP and other insurgent groups in Pakistan this year have killed hundreds of people, mostly members of the security forces. The military has confirmed the deaths of at least 220 soldiers.

Pakistan says the TTP operates out of bases in Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the neighboring country two years ago has emboldened the militants to intensify cross-border terrorism, allegations de facto Afghan authorities reject.

"We have a concern because groups like TTP do reside on Afghan soil. There are training camps on their soil, which is a concern for us," Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Kakar said in an interview aired on Monday.

"But whether it is all intentional, does it enjoy the patronage of that government, that remains to be seen," he told the Turkish TRT channel.

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Seoul warns of N Korean regime termination, if nuclear weapons used

Obsession with nuke development worsens North Koreans' sufferings as it violates people's human rights, says Yoon.

By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA 2023.09.25 -- South Korea warned that it would seek to terminate the Kim Jong Un regime should nuclear weapons be used in practice, calling Pyongyang's nuclear intimidation a "grave challenge" to the international community.

"Despite repeated warnings from the international community over the past several decades, North Korea has been upgrading its nuclear and missile capabilities. Moreover, it has been blatantly threatening to use nuclear weapons," South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday, in a speech to celebrate the South's Oct. 1, Armed Forces Day.

"If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an end by an overwhelming response from the ROK-U.S. alliance," Yoon said, referring to South Korea's formal name. He called the North's nuclear gamble an "existential threat" to South Korea, and poses a "grave challenge" to global peace.

"Our people will never be deceived by the fake peace tricks of North Korea's communist regime, its followers and anti-state forces," the President stressed, adding that South Korea will further strengthen trilateral security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo.

Yoon's comments are the latest in a recent spate of warnings amid rising tensions and the North's accelerated provocations. North Korea announced a new law regarding its use of nuclear weapons in September last year. In the new legislation, Pyongyang delineated the circumstances under which nuclear weapons could be used, giving it the option to deploy nuclear weapons not merely as a retaliatory measure, but also as a pre-emptive strike mechanism to bolster its deterrence capabilities.

The legislation grants the nation the authority to use nuclear weapons preemptively in scenarios where: a weapon of mass destruction launch or approach is assessed, a nuclear or non-nuclear assault on the state leadership and the command structure of the state's nuclear forces is initiated or deemed imminent, or a lethal military attack on significant strategic assets of the state is initiated or deemed imminent.

"The North Korean regime must clearly realize that nuclear weapons will never be able to guarantee its security," Yoon said, vowing that he would expand the scope of the U.S.-South Korea alliance into the space and cyber domains to further strengthen the allies' capabilities.

Yoon also pinpointed the North Korean regime's vulnerable point. "The North Korean regime's obsession with the development of nuclear weapons aggravates the North Korean people's suffering. It continues to exploit and oppress its people and violate their human rights," he said.

South Korea has indicated that it would continue to raise the North's human rights issue. It appointed a North Korean defector as its top policy aide earlier this month, underscoring the Yoon administration's renewed stance towards a more hardline policy on Pyongyang.

Yoon's warning came a day after North Korea labeled him a "political immature", "diplomatic idiot" and "trash-like head."

The verbal tit-for-tat between the Koreas this week followed Yoon's harsh message to North Korea and Russia at the U.N. General Assembly last week, vowing that Seoul and its allies "would not just stand idly by," should the two authoritarian states pursue military cooperation.

In a bilateral summit earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered to aid Kim in perfecting his "satellite" technology.

Yoon, who is a conservative, has been seeking to align Seoul's foreign policy stance with the U.S. to counter global challenges including North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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S Korean court rules anti-Pyongyang leaflets ban 'unconstitutional'

The controversial law restricted the nation's constitutional value of free speech, the court said.

By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA 2023.09.26 -- South Korea's Constitutional Court has overturned the law barring the dissemination of anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea, a decision that is likely to irk North Korea, which perceives such leaflets as a significant threat to the Kim Jong Un regime.

The South Korean court declared the law unconstitutional Tuesday, with seven out of its nine judges finding that the law restricted the nation's constitutional value of free speech. This verdict led to the law's immediate annulment.

"The law's goal of ensuring the safety of people's lives and bodies constitutes an important public interest," the court said. "But the restriction of freedom of expression inflicted on those involved is disproportionally severe."

The current law is making "individuals dispersing leaflets accountable for any provocations that arise from North Korea," the court added, explaining its verdict to make the law unconstitutional.

South Korea criminalized the sending of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border in March 2021, with it penalizing offenders with up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of 30 million won (US$22,000).

The controversial law passed South Korean parliament during the former progressive Moon Jae-in administration, which argued that sending leaflets towards the North could incite hostility from the North, jeopardizing the safety of border town residents in the South.

The Inter-Korean Relations Development Act, orchestrated by Moon's progressive bloc, mandated that "no person shall inflict harm or pose serious danger to the life or body of individuals by engaging in any of the following actions," and explicitly listed "leafleting".

During the Panmunjom summit between South Korean President Moon and his North Korean counterpart in April 2018, the two leaders agreed to "completely cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain". South Korean progressives saw sending leaflets could be defined as hostile activities against the North.

However, the criminalisation sparked backlash from both international and domestic human rights organizations and media outlets. South Korean conservatives and international media opined that sending leaflets was a matter of free speech and a law restricting such an activity was unconstitutional. Dozens of human rights organizations filed a constitutional complaint concerning the prohibition, and sought an injunction against the newly enacted law.

With North Korea returning to its brinkmanship diplomacy after the collapse of its high-stake summit with the United States in Hanoi in February 2019, South Korean conservatives have been arguing for the South to scrap its inter-Korean agreement that mandated the cessation of what Pyongyang defined as hostilities.

South Korea's Unification Ministry under the conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, had expressed the ministry's opinion to the Constitutional Court last year, stating that the law violates the nation's constitutional value of free speech.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.

Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Russian Court Rejects Navalny's Appeal Against His 19-Year Prison Term

By RFE/RL September 26, 2023

A Russian court has rejected Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny's appeal against a decision to imprison him on extremism charges for almost two decades.

On August 4, judges of the Moscow City Court convicted Navalny on extremism charges and sentenced him to 19 years in prison, ruling that his previously handed prison sentences will be served concurrently in Russia's harshest prison regime. Navalny, his allies, rights groups, and Western governments say all charges are politically motivated.

The first appeals court in Moscow upheld the sentence on September 26 at a hearing held behind closed doors. Only the reading of the verdict was public. Navalny, who has accused the Kremlin of seeking to keep him behind bars for life and to keep Russians from voicing dissent, participated in the proceedings via video link.

Navalny's team reacted to the court's decision on X, formerly known as Twitter, criticizing the secrecy of the trial and saying the decision would not silence Navalny or his team.

"After a shameful verdict for completely legal political activity, they closed the hearing on appeal. Arguing why a shameful sentence is not at all shameful is also much more comfortable behind closed doors," Navalny's team said.

Navalny's team also they would continue their work despite the decision to uphold the verdict against Navalny and co-defendant Daniel Kholodny, former technical director of Navalny Live.

"We continue to fight the regime that has turned the judiciary into this. We continue to work on Aleksei Navalny's projects and continue to tell the whole world about him."

The charges against Navalny are widely seen as retribution for his efforts to expose what he describes as the pervasive lawlessness, corruption, and repression by Putin and his political system.

Navalny was Russia's loudest opposition voice over the last decade and galvanized huge anti-government rallies before he was jailed.

The 47-year-old threatened the Kremlin by establishing a network of political offices across the country and a corruption watchdog that brought credible graft allegations against political elites.

He was jailed in 2021 after arriving in Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack he blamed on the Kremlin.

The ruling last month came a year and a half into Russia's invasion in Ukraine, which brought with it an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices.

Navalny has repeatedly spoken out against the military campaign.

Navalny, who has complained of a series of health complications -- and undertook a weekslong hunger strike -- is being held in the IK-6 penal colony, 250 kilometers east of Moscow.

Allies say his health has deteriorated in recent months, during which he has been in and out of solitary confinement. Ahead of the appeal, prison authorities placed Navalny in an detention cell for the 20th time, his team said.

In August the court also ruled to send Navalny to a "special regime" colony, a maximum-security facility reserved for dangerous criminals that will cut him off from the outside world.

The "special regime" prison is a system in which inmates stay in cells either alone, in pairs, or in fours. The cells have additional metal bars on windows and doors, nonstop lighting, and video surveillance. Inmates can request one or two hours of walking outside in specially fenced cubes where there is no direct sunlight.

Special regime inmates are not allowed to communicate with friends or relatives and can have no visits in the first 10 years of their sentences.

With reporting by AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-court-rejects- navalny-appeal-jail-term/32610273.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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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions at a joint news conference with Minister for Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad of the Republic of Tunisia Nabil Ammar following talks, Moscow, September 26, 2023

26 September 2023 15:39

1885-26-09-2023

I would like to welcome once again my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad of the Republic of Tunisia. Mr Nabil Ammar is the son of a former Tunisian ambassador to the Soviet Union. He lived and went to school here. He visited his old school during this visit. We are pleased to see him in Moscow.

Our talks were held in a friendly and open atmosphere. They were very substantive and useful. Our countries are linked by long-standing bonds of friendship and cooperation. Today, we have stated our common intention to build up mutual cooperation across the board both bilaterally and with regard to regional and international issues. We have confirmed that we want to continue our political dialogue and pay special attention to cooperation in practical and material areas, including in high technology, peaceful nuclear energy, space exploration, and tourism.

Tunisia is one of the leading trade and economic partners for Russia in Africa. During the first six months in 2023, trade exceeded $1.2 billion. This is a good indicator, particularly considering the conditions under which this figure has been reached. We have agreed that Russia will continue stepping up its purchases of Tunisian products, primarily food and textiles, which enjoy stable consumer demand in Russia. We have decided that now is not the time to ease up and we will prepare proposals on new areas of cooperation for the next, eighth, meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation scheduled to take place in Moscow by the end of 2023. We have agreed to speed up the work on the two-year programme of trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.

There are also good prospects for cooperation in space exploration. In 2021, a Russian carrier rocket launched into orbit the first Tunisian communications satellite. Currently, both countries' companies have reached an agreement and commenced joint work on creating another five Tunisian spacecraft. This is also a promising sphere of cooperation.

I mentioned tourism. We hope that fairly soon we will be able to create conditions for returning to the pre-pandemic levels of tourist traffic that averaged about 600,000 Russian tourists per year.

We separately discussed prospects for organising the purchase of Russian grain. The first batch has been delivered to Tunisia. The ministerial delegation includes the head of a Tunisian grain company, who is currently conducting negotiations with the Ministry of Agriculture regarding the terms of future deliveries and expanding the deliveries.

We were grateful to have our Tunisian friends update us about the transformations taking place in that country under President Kais Saied. We support the Tunisian leadership's efforts to strengthen their economy and statehood.

We discussed current international issues focusing, in particular, on the Middle East and North Africa, where the conflict potential runs high. Russia and Tunisia advocate overcoming existing crises through diplomatic efforts and achieving political resolutions. Such approaches are crucial if we want to resolve the deep-seated challenges that persist in Libya. As a result of Western - NATO aggression in 2011, Libya was in fact annihilated as a state. For many years now, the international community, neighbouring countries, the Arab League, and the United Nations have been trying to find a basis for all Libyan political forces to engage in a truly inclusive national political dialogue and to agree on how to run their country, starting with elections, of course. Many attempts towards this end have been made in recent years, but they have been unsuccessful, which cannot but cause our concern.

We briefed our Tunisian guests about the work that Russia, Iran and TArkiye are conducting within the Astana format to facilitate the Syrian settlement. We discussed political priorities based, among other things, on Syria's return to the Arab League. We noted serious ongoing economic issues in Syria that are caused by the illegitimate all-out Western sanctions. The United States is effectively creating a quasi-Kurdish state on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and engaging in smuggling Syrian oil and grain out of that country.

We took a close look at the Palestinian issue. Without resolving it (this is our shared position) on an established international legal basis, it is difficult to achieve long-term improvements in the broader Middle East region. We will continue to push for resuming direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations which are the only way to implement the existing UN resolutions.

I would like to thank my esteemed counterpart, Nabil Ammar, for a productive meeting which, I am confident, will allow us to outline concrete steps towards expanding our partnership.

Question (retranslated from French): The Finnish Foreign Minister openly acknowledged that sanctions against Russia hurt ordinary Russians and that the West had no other choice, adding that the Russians who do not live in a "normal" democracy (apparently, "normal" is defined by the minister's criteria) must understand that they need to pay a price for the special military operation. What's your take on these remarks?

Sergey Lavrov: I am no longer surprised by anything our Western colleagues have to say. By the same token, I am not surprised by the speed with which Finland has shed its neutral status and reputation and merged with the US anti-Russia project and how much they enjoy doing the "work" that was assigned to them.

Speaking of the impact of sanctions, it is a fairly candid confession. Until recently, the West kept claiming that sanctions were aimed at changing the policies of the targeted state and that humanitarian aspects were always taken into account to avoid causing serious harm to civilians.

Now, the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen - clearly still an inexperienced diplomat - minced no words describing the purpose of the sanctions which is to hurt ordinary people. As she said, the Russian people must pay a price for waging this war meaning that she wants the Russian people rise against their government. This is an absolutely rude statement to make.

Finland is taking giant strides as it moves toward the forefront of the West's anti-Russian, Russophobic, and racist campaign. Perhaps, Ms Valtonen would benefit from discussing the price that people under sanctions in Syria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan, who were robbed of their money, have to pay. We, too, had $300 billion stolen by all these Western colleagues, including Finland. Apparently, it was also done to make the Russian people feel responsible.

Speaking about the price of a particular war, we should think not only about sanctions but also about the price the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan paid when they were bombed, and civilian facilities in their respective countries were deliberately destroyed to instil fear and spread terror. The price of that war for ordinary citizens should also be factored in as Ms Valtonen continues to learn the basics of the trade as Finnish Foreign Minister.

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It is not a good use of time for the Security Council to prejudge the outcome of Nord Stream investigations: UK statement at the Security Council

Statement by UK Political Coordinator Fergus Eckersley at the UN Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security.

26 September 2023

Thank you Madam President and thank you to the briefers for their perspectives.

Madam President, the international community remains rightfully concerned about the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. We've repeatedly condemned this attack and we all want clear answers.

That's why we support the national investigations of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden to determine who is responsible.

In July, Germany, Denmark and Sweden offered a detailed update on the progress of their investigations. That update highlighted the unprecedented nature of the sabotage, and the subsequent complexity of the investigative processes.

We understand these investigations will take time and we have full confidence in their impartiality and integrity.

As we have said before, we do not believe it is a good use of our time for the Security Council to start to prejudge the outcome of these investigations, dictate how they are conducted, or otherwise undermine them.

We, and fellow Council members, should continue to offer our full support to these investigations so that we can establish who was responsible.

President, before I finish, let us pause for a moment on the fact that it wasRussia who called this meeting.

Russia is claiming it is concerned about the destruction of civilian infrastructure - so much so that it seeks to commemorate the anniversary of this attack.

Yet we all know that almost every single day of the year is an anniversary of a deliberate Russian attack on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

We have seen the systematic bombing of Ukrainian energy and port infrastructure, we have seen over 480 Russian attacks on schools and hospitals and 120 attacks on religious sites.

And beyond infrastructure - what of the lives of civilians themselves? At least 9,614 civilians have been killed and seventeen and a half thousand more injured in Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.

So as we listen to Russia today, let us not forget what they are doing, deliberately and as a matter of policy.

Let us also not forget the callous disregard Russia showed for civilians and civilian infrastructure in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus when they vetoed nine Council resolutions aimed at ending the Assad regime's indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and schools.

And let us not forget that while Russia repeatedly brings briefers to the Council from the West who are free to attack Western governments they systematically lock up anyone who dares to criticise the Russian government position at home.

Madam President, Russia's hypocrisy today is nothing new but it bears repeating, if they are seriously concerned about civilian infrastructure they must cease their relentless attacks and ensure accountability for the appalling destruction and suffering they have caused.

Thank you.

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UN Obligated to Hold US Accountable for Stealing Syria's Oil - Syrian Foreign Ministry

Sputnik News

20230926

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - The United Nations have an obligation to hold the United States accountable for plundering Syria's oil resources which amount to losses of $115 billion for Damascus, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbah stressed on Tuesday.

"Our latest statistics show that the total value of direct and indirect losses to the oil sector in Syria have exceeded 115 billion US dollars. We believe that the United Nations is obligated to hold the United States accountable and ask it to return this looted money to the Syrians," Bassam stated as he addressed the UN General Assembly.

Bassam's remarks came when addressing US and Turkish illegal military presence on Syrian soil in violation of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is also used to support an array of separatist militias and terrorist groups.

The Syrian official also condemned the "infiltration" by several western political and military officials among others, to occupied areas of the country, in disregard to Syria's sovereignty. - "This is considered a flagrant interference in its internal affairs," Bassam said.

In addition, Syria called for an independent United Nations investigation into the attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the offcial emphasized.

When asked whether there should be an independent United Nations investigation on the pipelines sabotage, al-Sabbagh said, "Of course."

"It goes without saying. There has to be [one]... Usually, when countries request such an investigation, the United Nations should respond to it," Bassam highlighted.

The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions in September 2022. The pipelines' operator, Nord Stream AG, said that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the timeframe for repairing them.

Denmark, Germany, and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attacks, prompting Moscow to launch its own investigation. Russian officials have characterized the attacks as international terrorism.

No official results of the investigations have yet been announced, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023 saying the explosions were organized by the US government with the support of the authorities in Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the attack.

In mid-July, media reported that Dutch military intelligence had informed the CIA of Ukraine's plans to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines - months before the attacks happened.

A Sputnik

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Charity Urges Court to Force Australia to Repatriate Detainees in Syrian Refugee Camp

By Phil Mercer September 26, 2023

Australia's decision not to repatriate more than 30 women and children from a detention camp in northeast Syria is facing a legal challenge. The women are the wives and widows of Islamic State fighters and have been held in custody for the past four years.

The charity Save the Children is taking legal action Tuesday in Federal Court against Australia's Home Affairs Department, demanding the return of the Australian citizens and their children. Campaigners have insisted the group's detention is unlawful.

Many of the women have insisted they were coerced or forced into traveling to Syria. Most of their husbands are dead or in prison.

Campaigners have argued the children living in the detention camp in Syria are in 'grave danger.'

Mat Tinkler, the head of Save the Children Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the youngsters need to be brought home immediately.

"I know first-hand from having been there this is one of the worst places in the world to be a child," Tinkler said. "These people are living in the Syrian desert. The temperatures are extraordinary; the heat of the summer, the freezing cold of the winter. (There is) very limited access to healthcare for the children. Many of them are suffering from significant medical conditions that have not been treated adequately. So, there is no good reason why they remain there in our view."

The detainees have been living in the camp in northeastern Syria since the Islamic State militant group was defeated in 2019.

Earlier this year, several western countries, including France, Canada and the United States, repatriated citizens from Syria.

Last year, the Canberra government brought home 17 Australian citizens from the camp but it is refusing to bring any more home.

Those who have been repatriated are reported to be settling in to life in Australia. Officials have said previously that "extensive support services" would help them reintegrate into Australia.

The Australian government has argued it does not have control over the women and children and that the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria holds "complete and unfettered discretion" on repatriations.

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Taiwan military to get its first female Political Warfare Bureau chief

ROC Central News Agency

09/26/2023 12:29 PM

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Taiwan's military will soon welcome the first female chief of its Political Warfare Bureau following the promotion of Lt. Gen. Chen Yu-lin () to head the agency, a military source told CNA on Monday.

Chen, currently the director-general of the Army Command Headquarters' Political Warfare Department, will officially take up the post as head of the Ministry of National Defense's Political Warfare Bureau on Oct. 1, according to the unnamed source.

She will fill the vacancy left by Lt. Gen. Yang An (), who will officially retire on Oct. 1, the source said.

The decision will make Chen the first woman to head the Political Warfare Bureau, which is responsible for psychological warfare to counter the Chinese Communist Party's decades-long efforts to gain influence over elites and organizations inside and outside China, including in Taiwan.

Chen, who graduated from the military's Political Warfare College in 1988 and later became the country's first two-star female general, has been the first female to hold a number of important positions in Taiwan's armed forces.

She was the first female political warfare department chief on an outlying island (Matsu) and the first female to serve as a political warfare department head at an Army Corps (the 6th Army Corps).

She was also the first female dean at the Political Warfare College and first deputy director-general of the Political Warfare Bureau.

Meanwhile, Chen's current post will be assumed by former military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shih Shun-wen (), who currently heads the 6th Army Corps' Political Warfare Department.

Because the position of chief of the Army Command Headquarters' Political Warfare Department is reserved for a two-star general, Shih will soon be promoted to two-star general, the source said.

(By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh)

Enditem/ls

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Norway to provide NOK 350 million to support work of International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in Ukraine

Government of Norway

Press release | Date: 26/09/2023

Almost half of the population of Ukraine is in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Today, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr StAre announced that Norway will provide NOK 350 million to support the work of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in Ukraine. Prime Minister StAre made the announcement at a meeting with Director General of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society Maksym Dotsenko, and the Norwegian Red Cross.

'The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is providing invaluable support to Ukraine. The scale of humanitarian need as a result of Russia's military aggression is enormous. The Red Cross staff and volunteers are demonstrating tremendous courage in their efforts to save lives and alleviate suffering every single day,' said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr StAre.

Seeking to help the people of Ukraine

The funding from Norway will be used to help provide services such as health care, shelter, psychosocial support, food, water and fill other essential needs for the population. The funding will also be used to help protect civilians, particularly the most vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and people with disabilities. The Ukrainian Red Cross Society is the largest humanitarian organisation in the country and plays a key role in meeting Ukraine's vast humanitarian needs. Altogether, the organisation comprises some 10 000 employees and volunteers.

Funds to support International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

The funding will be used to support the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Ukrainian Red Cross Society and will be channelled through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has a unique network in Ukraine and has access to the capacity, tools and expertise needed to assist and protect civilians who are affected by the war.

The ICRC is an impartial, neutral and independent organisation that works to protect civilians and uphold humanitarian law through ongoing dialogue with parties to a conflict.

Norway co-hosting Third Humanitarian Senior Officials Meeting on Ukraine

This week the Third Humanitarian Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) on Ukraine is being held in Oslo. The meeting is co-hosted by Norway and the EU, and brings together approximately 80 delegations from a wide range of donor countries and humanitarian organisations, including UN organisations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and civil society. The Director General of the Ukraine Red Cross Society, Maksym Dotsenko, will also take part in the meeting.

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Ukraine receives U.S. Abrams battle tanks

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 13:26, September 26, 2023

KIEV, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Monday that his country has received U.S. Abrams battle tanks.

"Abrams are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our brigades. I am grateful to the allies for fulfilling the agreements," Zelensky said in a post on Telegram, without specifying the modifications made to the tanks or the exact quantity that has been delivered to Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden in January announced that the United States would send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

Operated by a four-person crew, Abrams is a U.S.-designed third-generation battle tank with a range of up to 420 km.

Biden on Thursday announced a new military aid package worth 325 million U.S. dollars for Ukraine, including more air defense weapons. This announcement was made during Zelensky's visit to Washington.

Aid to Ukraine has been one of the core issues in the U.S. Congress deadlock over the next financial year's budget, which may lead to a U.S. federal government shutdown after Sept. 30.

Since February 2022, U.S. military aid to Ukraine has totaled 43.9 billion dollars, according to U.S. government figures.

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Russian commander shown at meeting after Ukraine claimed it killed him

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 26 September 2023 3:45 PM

Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov has appeared at a meeting in footage released by the country's defense ministry, a day after Ukraine claimed to have killed him in a missile strike.

The Russian defense ministry released the video and photos on Tuesday, showing Sokolov -- one of Moscow's most senior naval officers -- taking part in a meeting of military leaders that was led by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

In the video, Sokolov appears on screen several times, without speaking.

Kiev claimed on Monday that its special forces had killed 34 officers including Sokolov in an unprecedented strike on the fleet's naval headquarters in the Crimean peninsula last week.

After the video was released, Kiev said it was "clarifying the information."

"Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish an answer with an apparently alive Sokolov, our units are clarifying the information. This is happening within the procedure for collecting data on the results of the operation," the special operations forces said in a post on Telegram.

It said, "As is known, 34 officers were killed as a result of a missile attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. Available sources claim that the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was among the dead."

Ukraine's counteroffensive produced no results: Peskov

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also appears in the defense ministry video, saying that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had so far produced no results.

"The Ukrainian armed forces are suffering serious losses along the entire front line."

Peskov said the United States and its Western allies "continue to arm the armed forces of Ukraine, and the Kiev regime throws untrained soldiers to their slaughter in senseless assaults."

The administration of US President Joe Biden has supplied more than $43 billion worth of arms to Ukraine since Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February last year.

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in early June, asking for even more weapons to push south toward the Crimean Peninsula by the end of the year.

The US intelligence agencies warned last month that the counteroffensive would stall before reaching the key southeastern city of Melitopol

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Zelenskiy Vows More Ukrainian Action Against Russia After Strike On Black Sea Fleet

By RFE/RL September 26, 2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed new Ukrainian action against Russia following a missile strike last week against Russia's Black Sea Fleet headquarters that Kyiv said killed nearly three dozen officers, including its top commander.

"We clearly see which directions of pressure on Russia need to be strengthened to prevent [its] terrorist capabilities from growing," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on September 26.

He also said that an analysis of Russia's military industry shows that pressure on Moscow should be increased.

"We can clearly see which areas of pressure on Russia should be strengthened so that terrorist possibilities do not increase," he said. "Sanctions are not enough."

The Ukrainian military said earlier that 20 combat clashes took place on September 26 along the front line amid air strikes in the Donetsk region and fighting in the area around Bakhmut.

An air strike hit near the key village of Klishchiyivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, during the day, the General Staff said in its evening report.

Ukrainian forces appeared earlier this month to have recaptured Klishchiyivka as part of their drive to liberate the symbolic eastern town of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian military said on September 26 that its forces were "firmly on the defensive" in the area around the embattled city.

In addition, Ukrainian troops "successfully repelled" Russian attacks to the southeast of the settlement of Severny and enemy attacks in the Maryinka area, both in the Donetsk region, the General Staff said.

The Prosecutor-General's Office reported Russian military shelling in the Kharkiv region, saying that according to preliminary information, a 64-year-old civilian was injured and hospitalized. In addition, residential buildings, commercial buildings, and a car were damaged, the Prosecutor-General's Office said.

Ukraine's military claimed earlier on September 26 that nearly three dozen officers with Russia's Black Sea Fleet, including its top commander, were killed in a missile attack on the fleet headquarters last week.

Ukraine's claim about its strike against the Russian Black Sea Fleet could not be immediately confirmed, and Russia released markedly lower casualty figures from the September 22 attack on the Crimea port of Sevastopol.

But the strike itself on the naval headquarters was the latest in a series of increasingly audacious attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russian ships and Black Sea facilities -- attacks that Western experts say may have drastically curtailed Russia's naval operations in the region.

In a statement issued on September 25, Ukraine's special operations forces cited "new information about the losses of the enemy as a result of the special operation," claiming that 34 officers, including the fleet commander, were killed when cruise missiles -- believed to be either British or French -- hit the Sevastopol building. At least 105 others were wounded, it said.

The Ukrainian statement did not name the naval commander in its statement. The current top officer in the Black Sea Fleet is Admiral Viktor Sokolov.

Asked by reporters on September 26 about the Ukrainian claim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no comment. And a video released later by state news agency RIA Novosti showed a meeting of top Russian military officials, and RIA said Sokolov was in attendance.

The September 22 attack, which was caught on bystanders' video and satellite imagery, came on the heels of a missile strike nine days earlier that hit Sevastopol's main naval shipyard. Two ships -- a landing vessel and a diesel submarine -- that were undergoing repairs in a dry dock facility were believed to be severely damaged, if not destroyed. The dry dock facility may have also been damaged, which would limit Russia's ability to maintain and repair its naval ships.

Russia has stepped up its aerial bombardments of Ukrainian sites, targeting in particular Ukraine's grain-exporting infrastructure in the southern Odesa and Mykolayiv regions. Ukraine has resumed exporting grain despite Russia's pulling out of a United Nations-brokered deal allowing safe grain shipments in July.

An overnight air strike on another port facility in Izmayil injured two people and damaged infrastructure, the region's governor said in a post to Telegram on September 26. Ukraine's military reported shooting down 26 of 38 Iranian-made attack drones it said were launched by Russia.

Russian air defenses shot down a drone on September 26 as it approached the city of Belgorod, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. There were no casualties or damage, according to preliminary information, he said on Telegram.

With reporting by Current Time, AFP, TASS, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-sevastopol- commander-killed-missile-strike/32609485.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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Foreign Ministry statement on Canadian Parliament honouring a Galician Division member

26 September 2023 12:38

1883-26-09-2023

The public honouring of 98-year-old Bandera supporter Yaroslav Hunka, a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), at the Canadian Parliament during Vladimir Zelensky's visit, is the best possible way to characterise the regime of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has embraced unbridled Russophobia. It was the most cynical abuse of the memory of Nazism victims. The Ukrainian collaborators who served Nazis evaded accountability for the genocide on the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Europe, to be given shelter in Canada after the Great Patriotic War.

As much as certain members of the Canadian Parliament try to apologise retrospectively after receiving a storm of indignation from the Jewish community and even from Ottawa's ally, Poland, the fact remains that the ultra-liberal ideology propagated in Canada and permeated with hatred for Russia, its culture, religious and traditional values, essentially has the same roots as Nazism. It is no coincidence that there are monuments to the leaders of Ukrainian nationalism in the country and the overwhelming majority of the Nazis who received asylum like Yaroslav Hunka are living out their days in safety, honoured and cared for (in particular, by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland) as "fighters against Russian Communism."

The hostile actions of the Canadian government, which has been trying to surpass the United States in its anti-Russia sanction rage by constantly extending the Russian stop list with more names of politicians, cultural figures and their family members, as well as entire education institutions, will certainly not be left without a response. We will not tolerate the fact that Canadian liberals are playing with Nazism and will take the necessary steps in the context of the Russia-Canada relations that are going through a crisis on an epochal scale through the official Ottawa's fault.

We expect that healthy forces in Canadian society will speak out against the Nazification of history and daily life encouraged by the country's officials, along with aggressive Russophobia.

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Abrams' Achilles Heel: How Russia Will Deal With American Tanks in Ukraine

Sputnik News

20230926

Ilya Tsukanov

Ukrainian officials announced on Monday that the first batch of the 31 promised M1 Abrams main battle tanks had arrived in the country. What tools does Russia have at its disposal to dispatch with the American-made armor? Sputnik did some digging to find out.

Ukraine has received some of its long-promised Abrams tanks, with the rest scheduled to be delivered later this fall. The long wait began in January, when US President Joe Biden announced that a battalions' worth of America's best tanks would be sent to "improve" Ukraine's "ability to maneuver in open terrain."

The Abrams are the last of three NATO heavy tank platforms to be delivered to Ukraine to date, with Washington using promises about their deployment to get the alliance's European members, particularly Germany, to approve the sending of their Leopard series MBTs (hundreds of Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks have been sent to Kiev since then). The UK also joined in, sending 14 of its fearsome Challenger 2s - boasting the status of one of the only major MBTs in NATO armies' service never to have been destroyed by the enemy in battle.

Russian forces taking on Ukraine's NATO-equipped army during the summer counteroffensive soon changed all that, with dozens of Leopard 1 and Leopard 2s knocked out, and at least two of Britain's "unbeatable" tanks taken out in fierce fighting in Zaporozhye after finally appearing on the battlefield earlier this month.

The Pentagon outlined its expectations for its Abrams tanks in Ukraine, saying in a statement on Monday that "by having these tanks in their arsenal, the Ukrainian Army can more effectively discourage aggressive actions."

That's a far cry from NATO leaders' lofty expectations just a few months ago, as Ukraine was only starting its counteroffensive. In June, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg assured US President Joe Biden that Western weapons were "making a difference on the battlefield as we speak," and that Ukrainian forces were "gaining ground." "It's still early days, but what we do know is that the more land that Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table," he added.

Three-and-a-half months on, the counteroffensive appears to have ground to a halt, with Ukraine's military taking horrendous losses, and burning through tens of billions of dollars in NATO arms and ammunition with very little to show for it in terms of territorial gains.

What Tools Does Russia Have at Its Disposal to Target Abrams?

Ukraine's counteroffensive has given Russian forces plenty of experience to learn what works and what doesn't when it comes to targeting NATO heavy tanks like the Abrams.

First , as far as strategy goes, the counteroffensive has shown that simply luring tanks into heavily mined territory can often be sufficient, with many Ukrainian armored thrusts foiled after running into minefields and dragon's teeth defenses, and Kiev even reportedly pulling tanks like the Leopard 2 from the front and resorting to using infantry to advance on foot to avoid losing the armor.

, as far as strategy goes, the counteroffensive has shown that simply luring tanks into heavily mined territory can often be sufficient, with many Ukrainian armored thrusts foiled after running into minefields and dragon's teeth defenses, and Kiev even reportedly pulling tanks like the Leopard 2 from the front and resorting to using infantry to advance on foot to avoid losing the armor. Second , there's the factor of Russia's qualitative and quantitative superiority in artillery and airpower, with the latter enabling Russian forces to use Kamov Ka-52 and Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters to hunt for Ukrainian tanks with laser-guided missiles, and doing so at standoff ranges, often making it impossible for Ukraine's air defenses to respond.

, there's the factor of Russia's qualitative and quantitative superiority in artillery and airpower, with the latter enabling Russian forces to use Kamov Ka-52 and Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters to hunt for Ukrainian tanks with laser-guided missiles, and doing so at standoff ranges, often making it impossible for Ukraine's air defenses to respond. The third factor is Russia's own armor, with upgraded T-72B, T-72B3M, T-80, and T-90M series tanks proving more than a match for Ukraine's comparable Soviet-era armor and NATO MBTs, and Russia enjoying superiority in numbers, GPS jamming capabilities which frustrate enemy precision-guided munitions and combat drones, and superior range characteristics of its main guns on some models.

factor is Russia's own armor, with upgraded T-72B, T-72B3M, T-80, and T-90M series tanks proving more than a match for Ukraine's comparable Soviet-era armor and NATO MBTs, and Russia enjoying superiority in numbers, GPS jamming capabilities which frustrate enemy precision-guided munitions and combat drones, and superior range characteristics of its main guns on some models. Fourth, there are the anti-armor capabilities of Russian infantry armed with man-portable anti-tank missile systems like the Kornet, designed specifically to target the latest generation of NATO's main battle tanks, including the Abrams. Long before Ukraine's counteroffensive began, Sputnik warned about the Kornets' deadly effectiveness against Turkish Army Leopard 2A4s in Syria, US Army Abrams and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in Iraq, and Israeli Merkava tanks in Lebanon. Western MBTs already deployed in Ukraine have now suffered a similar fate at the hands of Russian man-portable anti-tank systems, and Abrams will too, if they're deployed close enough.

What Are the Abrams' Weak Spots?

The Abrams tanks that Ukraine is getting aren't up to the same standard as those used by the US military. While its tanks are receiving the same controversial depleted uranium munitions which the US and NATO have already successfully used to poison vast swathes of the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, they are not equipped with the same layer of ultra-thick DU armor plates for enhanced protection of the tank and its crew that US Army Abrams have.

Ukraine's Abrams are made from refurbished hulls and turrets from California's Sierra Army Depot, with their DU armor plating removed for secrecy reasons. With the tanks proving vulnerable to enemy anti-tank systems even with the DU armor installed, Russian forces should have no problem using any or all of the above-mentioned weapons systems to target them.

The infographic below highlights some of the weak spots of the Abrams outlined by Russian military experts.

From the front, the 70-ton American armored behemoths' 480 mm armor can be penetrated using armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabots (also known as kinetic penetrator dart ammunition) which are fired from the smoothbore 125 mm main guns of Russian T-72s, T-72B3Ms, T-80BVMs, and T-90Ms.

The Abrams' side skirts, as well as the sides and rear of the turret and engine compartment/engine air intake to the tank's rear are vulnerable to man-portable anti-tank systems, including the aforementioned Kornet, plus similar systems like the Konkurs, the Shturm-S, and the Khrizantema, which feature tandem-charge rounds.

Finally, the Abrams turret's front armor and turret top are vulnerable to Ka-52 and Mil Mi-28 helicopters equipped with Shturm, Ataka, and Vikhr anti-tank missiles.

"On most Western models of armored vehicles and equipment, the sides and rear areas tend to be vulnerable," Sergey Suvorov, a retired Russian Army colonel and candidate of military sciences specializing in armor, told Sputnik. "There were cases in Iraq in which Abrams were knocked by fire from 25 mm Bradley autocannons and the BMP 2's 30 mm autocannons. There was even a case of an Abrams in Iraq knocked out using a DShK heavy machine gun," the observer explained.

These losses were not typically treated as such, but chocked up to losses from "secondary causes." Nevertheless, the tanks were destroyed, with a bullet in the case of the DShK attack ending up hitting an auxiliary power unit located at the rear of the turret, with burning oil flowing into the main power plant, the engine catching fire, and the tank burning up, Suvorov recalled.

The Abrams' front armor gives the tank good protection, according to Suvorov, although the large angle of the hull's inclination means that if a projectile ricochets off of it into the space between the turret and the hull, the tower may be penetrated. The same goes for the turret's top, and the engine and transmission compartments, whose armor, the observer said, tends to be weaker than that of comparable Russian tanks.

"If we compare the Abrams to the latest Leopards, the gun on the Abrams is a German Rheinmetall gun, produced under license in the US, but one of its earliest variants, that is, the same as that on Leopard 2 A4s, with a 44-caliber barrel length. The latest Leopards have a 55-caliber gun with a strong charging chamber, which allows for the use of new ammunition creating greater gas pressure in the charging channel and, accordingly, have a greater initial velocity, meaning better armor penetration," Suvorov said.

This new generation of shells cannot be used on the Abrams, according to the expert, since the force generated by the round would simply wreck the main cannon.

"On top of that, the Abrams' gun has a short barrel. Furthermore, the gas turbine engine really doesn't seem to like dust. The air purification system has not been improved. Operational experience in desert environments, particularly in Iraq, has shown that air purifiers and filters would last as little as 15 minutes in conditions of war in a dust storm. It was necessary to remove these filters or replace or clean them, because the filter system there is like that of a car...If this is not done, the tank will stop working altogether," Suvorov said.

Along with the abovementioned weapons systems, Suvorov believes that "any" modern anti-tank weapon in service with the Russian military, starting with RPG-7 hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, will pose a threat to Ukraine's Abrams tanks, judging by their performance in US wars in the past. The same goes for any Russian tank guns equipped with armor-piercing shells, and any modern anti-tank missiles, with cases recorded in Iraq of even the 100 mm gun of ancient T-55 tanks defeating an Abrams. "It's also highly likely that drones will be able to defeat these tanks," he added.

Finally, there are the conditions under which the tanks will be operating in in Ukraine to consider, according to the observer. "The tank is quite heavy, weighing about 70 tons. Now the rains and mud will begin, they will get stuck and stand there, serving as targets" for Russian forces, Suvorov summed up.

A Sputnik

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Polish Investigators Confirm Ukraine Fired Missile Found in Poland Last Fall - Reports

Sputnik News

20230926

WARSAW (Sputnik) - Polish investigators have confirmed the missile which fell on the territory of Poland last fall and killed two people was fired by Ukraine, a Polish newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

The investigators ruled out that the missile was launched from Russia, the newspaper said, adding that the conclusion on the ownership of the missile was made despite lack of cooperation with Ukraine that had given no materials on the incident to Poland.

The investigation identified that a S-300 5v55 air defense missile was fired from Ukraine and later fell in Przewodow, the report stated. However, it added that the prosecution is not officially disclosing any information on the case yet.

"Indeed, we have obtained the conclusion [of the investigation], but due to its confidential nature, we are not disclosing its content," the prosecutor office's spokesman, Lukasz Lapczynski, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The spokesman added that investigation activities on the territory of Poland had been terminated and Ukraine had been requested to provide legal assistance.

Last November, a missile fell on Polish territory near the border with Ukraine, killing two people. Warsaw said that the missiles were Russian-made but later clarified that there was a high probability that they were shot by Ukrainian air defense forces working to intercept incoming Russian missiles.

A Sputnik

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Russian Forces Destroyed Over 17,000 Ukrainian Military in September - Shoigu

Sputnik News

20230926

The Ukrainian counteroffensive began on June 4. Kiev has thrown into battle brigades trained by NATO instructors and armed with Western equipment, including Leopard and Challenger tanks. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed.

The Russian armed forces destroyed over 17,000 Ukrainian military, over 2,700 units of weapons and equipment in September, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.

"Over the current month, over 17,000 people, more than 2,700 pieces of weapons and military equipment have been destroyed, including seven US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 77 American M777 artillery systems, 51 self-propelled artillery units from Germany, France, Poland and the United States, and also two German Leopard tanks and one UK Challenger tank," Shoigu told a board meeting.

The Ukrainian armed forces are suffering serious losses along the entire line of the combat contact as a result of effective fire damage, the minister added.

Despite the absence of any meaningful results of the "counter-offensive", Kiev's Western handlers are not retreating from their inhuman principle: "Arms as a way to peace", such cynical actions of the West only push Ukraine to self-destruction, Sergei Shoigu said.

Russia Increasing Operational, Combat Drills Amid US, Allies Steps in Asia-Pacific

Troops of Russia's Eastern Military District are increasing combat training activities to protect Russia's national interests against the backdrop of Washington's course towards the development of military blocs in the Asia-Pacific region, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.

"The United States and its allies are taking ever new steps to contain Russia and China in the international arena. To strengthen its influence in the Asia-Pacific region, Washington has headed for the development of military blocs such as AUKUS and Quad. To ensure constant readiness to protect national interests, troops of the Eastern Military District are increasing operational and combat training activities," Shoigu said at a board meeting.

The combat potential of the Russian Airborne Forces will increase by 1.3 times by the end of this year, and fire capabilities will increase by 20%, the minister added.

A Sputnik

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Ukrainian Drone Drops Explosives on Power Substation in Russia's Kursk Region - Governor

Sputnik News

20230926

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A Ukrainian drone has dropped explosives on a power substation in Russia's Kursk Region, leaving seven settlements without power, Kursk Region Governor Roman Starovoit said on Tuesday, adding that no one was injured.

"In the morning, in the village of Snagost in the Korenevsky District, a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on a power substation, cutting off power to seven settlements. None of the residents were injured. Emergency crews will begin restoring power supply as soon as the situation allows," Starovoit wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine has been sending drones into the Russian territory almost daily since it launched a counteroffensive in early June. The United Nations said in August, following a botched drone strike on Moscow, that it did not want to see any targeting of civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces in early June after several postponements. Citing the counteroffensive's needs, Kiev pushed its Western donors to step up military and financial aid. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering an estimated 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials have also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful so far.

A Sputnik

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US Reconnaissance Flights Near Crimea Tripled Since Start of Year

Sputnik News

20230926

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that a missile strike on Sevastopol damaged the historic building of the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The United States and its NATO allies have tripled the number of reconnaissance flights near Crimea since the beginning of the year - from 7 to 21 per week, according to data from the portal Flightradar24.

During the week of 18 to 24 September, US reconnaissance aircraft and strategic drones, as well as the "scouts" of their NATO allies, flew 21 flights near Crimea, the portal's track archive shows.

Most visible were the American P-8A Poseidon and EP-3E Aries II, British RC-135W Rivet Joint and Luxembourg-based E-3A Sentry over the eastern coast of Romania. US RQ-4B Global Hawk strategic reconnaissance aircraft flew over the central and eastern Black Sea. Most of the sorties - 16 out of 21 - were flown by US aircraft.

By contrast, earlier in the year and in the spring, US and NATO aviation conducted an average of one flight per day in the Black Sea region. For example, during the week of 16 to 22 January, NATO aviation (also predominantly US aircraft and UAVs) conducted only seven sorties in the area, and during the week of 15 to 21 May , only five.

One day before the 22 September cruise missile attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reconnaissance activity by US and its allies' aviation increased to six flights a day which would suggest a connection between the intensity of the Western reconnaissance flights and the intensity of the Ukrainian armed forces' attacks on the Crimea.

A Sputnik

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Germany's Baerbock Admits Berlin Providing Ukraine With Outdated Military Equipment

Sputnik News

20230926

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock admitted on Monday that Germany had on several occasions supplied Kiev with outdated or almost non-functional military equipment.

"It does not only help to promise, and then you cannot deliver, or deliver things which do not work ... Some of our systems were really old-fashioned," Baerbock said in an interview with US media.

"So, because we know and we said that in the beginning, some are not really functioning, when we deliver, it does have to work in the field."

Weapons must be supplied to Ukraine together with ammunition, and the delays in shipments can be explained by the need for additional approvals, the top German diplomat told US media. Some of the equipment sent by Berlin also might have been non-functional because it was not accompanied by appropriate ammunition, she added.

Baerbock also said she could not give any information at present about whether Germany would supply Kiev with its Taurus cruise missiles, since it was necessary to be clear on every detail, including who could actually operate them, which "takes some time."

In late August, the leader of Germany's conservative Christian Democrats, Friedrich Merz, said he was in favor of giving Taurus missiles to Ukraine. However, he stated the strike range of the missiles should be limited to make them a purely defensive weapon.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in August he was not rushing to approve cruise missile deliveries to Ukraine for fear of dragging NATO into a military conflict with Russia.

A Sputnik

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There will be more Ukrainian actions against the terrorist state a address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

President of Ukraine

26 September 2023 - 20:23

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A report on the day. I held a meeting of the Staff. Several key points. The first is the actual situation at the front, our offensive and defensive operations. Important reports on the east and south. On the destruction of logistics and headquarters of the occupiers. There are good details. Loud details. I thank all the Ukrainian warriors who distinguished themselves!

The second issue is the supply of shells. This is a topic we are dealing with on a daily basis. Supplies from partners. Searching for new opportunities in the world a we know exactly how to secure supplies. And we are gradually increasing the volume of Ukrainian production. This is one of our top priorities.

Today, by the way, in addition to the reports at the meeting of the Staff, there was a separate meeting with the Ministry of Strategic Industries.

There was also a separate informative intelligence report on the situation in the Russian military-industrial complex.

We clearly see the areas where pressure on Russia needs to be increased so that terrorist capabilities do not grow.

Sanctions are not enough. There will be more. There will be more of our own, Ukrainian actions against the terrorist state. As long as Russia's aggression continues, Russia's losses must be tangible.

And, of course, our work with partners to end the war on Ukrainian terms, based on our Peace Formula. A totally fair one.

Today I met with the President of the National Council of Austria, who was on a visit to Ukraine.

We discussed in detail our efforts to get the world majority to join the implementation of the Peace Formula. And I appreciate Austria's willingness to join in.

Of course, we also discussed our European course. I spoke about Ukraine's implementation of seven recommendations of the European Commission. And we rely on Austria's continued support for Ukraine's European integration.

One more thing.

Every day, Russian terrorists hit our cities and villages with missiles and "Shaheds". Almost every night, dozens of drones and various types of missiles are destroyed in the Ukrainian sky. Unfortunately, there are hits. There is also falling debris... And our rescuers, our police, doctors, volunteers, utilities a all emergency services a are always working 24/7 to help people and save our infrastructure.

Today I want to thank these people who have distinguished themselves over the past weeks. In Odesa region, Poltava region, Cherkasy region.

Employees of the State Emergency Service of Odesa region: Chief Master Sergeant Oleksiy Zhaboriuk, Sergeant Serhiy Chobu, Sergeant Oleksandr Vieliev.

Odesa police officers: Colonel Vyacheslav Barba and Major Mykola Perekrestov.

Firefighters of the Odesa branch of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority: senior firefighter Hennadiy Maystrenko and firefighter Andriy Kohut.

Thank you all, guys, for your work!

State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Poltava region: Sergeants Yevhen Bilokobylskyi and Volodymyr Smyk, Captain Serhiy Kyrychenko a thank you!

Police of Poltava region: Senior Lieutenant Anton Tryholov and Captain Oleh Nikisha.

Kseniya Kushko, a doctor at the Poltava Regional Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine. Feldsher Ihor Hevelia.

Poltava volunteers: Tetiana Shakhovtseva and Ihor Shtefan. Thank you for your courage!

Cherkasy. Morning of September 20, a strike on the city, on the Cherkasy Hotel.

Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Cherkasy region: Lieutenant Colonel Dmytro Mokiyenko, Chief Master Sergeant Mykola Oliynyk, Sergeant Andriy Kutsevol. Cherkasy police: Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Brelakha, Senior Lieutenant Vadym Ruban. Thank you, guys!

Cherkasy regional organization of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, head of the organization Yuliya Kholodna a thank you for your help!

Paramedic Oleksandra Ekzarkho a thank you!

Cherkasy utility workers: Mykhailo Vasyliev and Dmytro Zadorozhnyi a thank you!

I thank everyone who works tirelessly for people. Those who do their job, which helps the entire state to do its job.

Glory to everyone who adds to Ukraine's power! Glory to all who fight!

Glory to Ukraine!

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of the National Council of Austria

President of Ukraine

26 September 2023 - 17:15

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of the National Council of Austria Wolfgang Sobotka, who is on a visit to Ukraine.

The Head of State thanked Austria for supporting Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for its significant assistance in overcoming the consequences of the Russian war against our country.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the readiness of the Austrian side to join the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula. He informed about the next steps in the practical implementation of the Peace Formula, including the preparation of the Global Peace Summit.

The parties exchanged views on Ukraine's European integration and cooperation with Austria in this context. The Head of State informed on the implementation of the European Commission's recommendations on the EU candidate status and emphasized the importance of adopting a positive decision on the opening of negotiations on Ukraine's EU membership.

"Support for Ukraine's European aspirations is very important. It is one of the factors that motivate Ukrainians who defend the state and civilized future," the President said.

The Head of State emphasized Ukraine's interest in expanding the presence of Austrian business and implementing joint projects that will create new jobs in our country.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Wolfgang Sobotka also exchanged views on current issues of cooperation in Eastern Europe.

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NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until October 2, 2023 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against RTX Corporation f/k/a Raytheon Technologies Corporation (NYSE: RTX), if they purchased the Companys securities between February 8, 2021 and July 25, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.



Get Help

RTX investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-rtx/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options.

About the Lawsuit

RTX and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

The alleged false and misleading statements and omissions include, but are not limited to, that: (i) the Companys Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine that powers hundreds of aircraft across many airlines had been affected by a quality control issue from at least 2015-2020; (ii) the quality control issue would require the Company to recall and reinspect many of its GTF airplanes, affecting customers and harming its business; and (iii) as a result, RTXs statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

The case is Peneycad v. RTX Corporation f/k/a Raytheon Technologies Corporation, et al., No. 23-cv-01035.

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ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations.

To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.
Washington, D.C./Toronto, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Boyden, a premier global leadership and talent advisory firm, reports on its annual global executive talent research with regional analysis on North America. Findings show senior executives in the region are the least confident worldwide in their organizations growth potential and in having the right board talent to align with strategy.

The global study, Exploring Adaptivity through Strategy and Talent, reveals perspectives on risk among CEOs, boards and other senior leaders, alongside executive talent trends, priorities and investment.

Just 30 percent of respondents in North America are very confident in their organizations growth potential to 2025, compared with 57 percent in Asia-Pacific, 50 percent in Latin America and 36 percent in Europe. Only 23 percent of respondents in North America are very confident in having the right board talent to align with strategy, compared with 35 percent in Asia-Pacific, 43 percent in Latin America and 26 percent in Europe.

In todays complex environment, leadership teams are seeking greater input from the board; Boydens research shows skills in (i) innovation/business transformation, (ii) sustainability and (iii) operations are top priority at board level.

With HSB, we certainly see a change in relationship with the board, says Barbara Bellissimo, Board Director, HSB and commentator on the research. The organization wants more than fiduciary fulfilment; outside directors have expertise and the executive wants to engage with it. Boards can alert the executive, have deeper questioning, dialogue and discussion.

As organizations increasingly look to the board for greater input, those in North America risk falling behind global peers; only 32 per cent are extremely likely or likely to invest in a board assessment by Q3 2024, compared with 67 percent in Asia-Pacific.

Karen Kosiba Edwards, Managing Partner, United States, comments, Boards, much like the companies they oversee, require engaged, current and diverse talent to stay competitive. Without a strategy to assess and rejuvenate the board's composition, this valuable source of innovation, inquisitiveness and wisdom may underperform. Having top talent in the boardroom raises everyones game.



Additional findings reveal:

(i) Human capital, (ii) customer expectations and (iii) innovation are the top three growth drivers to 2025

52 percent of respondents expect to invest in leadership development for high potentials; 47 percent expect to hire new leadership talent by early 2024

The top priority for strengthening skills at executive level is sustainability; 27 percent of respondents have no designated sustainability lead

51 percent of respondents think their organization is investing sufficiently in sustainability

52 percent of respondents expect recruitment challenges, specifically: a shrinking talent pool, difficulty with cultural fit or fluency and competing with bigger brands

35 percent of respondents identify competing for the right talent as the top driver of structural change

Read the full report: North America Regional Analysis 2023: Exploring adaptivity through strategy and talent

About the research

This research was conducted in Q2 2023 among senior executives worldwide. More than 240 responses were captured in North America where respondents are 22 percent board/president/CEOs; 15 percent SVP, division or country heads; and 63 percent functional leaders.

About Boyden

Boyden is a premier leadership and talent advisory firm with more than 70 offices in over 45 countries. Our global reach enables us to serve client needs anywhere they conduct business. We connect great companies with great leaders through executive search, interim management and leadership consulting solutions. Boyden is ranked amongst the top companies on Forbes Americas Best Executive Recruiting Firms for 2023. For further information, visit www.boyden.com.

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Chicago, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global brewery equipment market is a dynamic and growing industry that caters to the needs of breweries, both large and small, around the world. Brewery equipment encompasses a wide range of machinery and tools required to produce beer, from the initial stages of brewing to packaging and distribution. This market has witnessed significant expansion in recent years due to the increasing popularity of craft beer and the globalization of the beer industry. Breweries are increasingly adopting automated brewing systems and equipment to enhance production efficiency, reduce labor costs, and maintain consistent quality. This trend has boosted the demand for state-of-the-art brewery equipment.

Brewery equipment market in terms of revenue was valued at $19.2 billion in 2022 and is poised to reach $25.6 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.9% from 2022-2027 according to a latest report published by MarketsandMarkets. Craft brewing, particularly microbreweries, is gaining popularity for premium flavored beer. The growing trend of artisanal brews, locally made and fresh local ingredients is fueling the growth of craft beer.

Download an Illustrative overview: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=129804657

Brewery Equipment Market Scope:

Report Metric Details Market Revenue in 2022 USD 19.2 billion Estimated Value by 2027 USD 25.6 billion Growth Rate 5.9% CAGR On Demand Data Available 2030 Market Segmentation Equipment type, brewery type, region, and mode of application Regions Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and RoW Market Drivers Mushrooming Craft Breweries drive Brewery Equipment Demand

Rise in consumption of beer, predominantly in developing countries

Filling equipment gains demand by increased preference for canned beer Market Opportunities High Demand for Energy-efficient Technology

Beer manufacturers demand for after-sales service to enhance operational efficiencies

Process Automation: Key to Modern Brewing

Some of the Brewery Equipment Industry players covered in the report, such as:

Alfa Laval (Sweden)

GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft (Germany)

Krones AG (Germany)

Paul Mueller Company (US)

Praj Industries (India)

Meura (Belgium)

Della Toffola SpA (Italy)

Criveller Group (US)

LEHUI (China)

Brewery Equipment Market Report (278 Pages, 289 Tables, and 62 Figures): https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Purchase/purchase_reportNew.asp?id=129804657

The research report categorizes the market into the following segments:

Brewery Equipment Market by Equipment Type

Macrobrewery Equipment

Craft Brewery Equipment

Mashing Equipment

Storage Equipment

Compressors

Cooling Equipment

Other Craft Brewery Equipment

Brewery Equipment Market by Mode of Operation

Manual

Automatic

Semi-Automatic

Brewery Equipment Market by Source

Macrobreweries

Craft Breweries

Microbreweries

Brewpubs

Other Craft Breweries

Brewery Equipment Market by Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific (APAC)

Rest of the World (RoW)

Request for Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=129804657

The key stakeholders in the Brewery Equipment Market include:

Breweries: Breweries are the primary customers and end-users of brewery equipment. They range from small craft breweries and microbreweries to large commercial brewing facilities. Breweries invest in various equipment, such as fermentation tanks, kettles, and bottling lines, to produce beer efficiently and maintain product quality.

Equipment Manufacturers: Brewery equipment manufacturers design, produce, and distribute the machinery and tools needed for brewing operations. They include companies specializing in brewing vessels, kegging systems, and packaging equipment. These manufacturers cater to the diverse needs of breweries worldwide, providing a range of equipment options.

Suppliers of Raw Materials: Suppliers of raw materials like stainless steel, glass, and plastic play a critical role in the brewery equipment market. Brewery equipment is often made from stainless steel, so suppliers of this material are essential. Additionally, glass and plastic suppliers provide packaging materials such as bottles and kegs.

Distributors and Dealers: Distributors and dealers act as intermediaries between equipment manufacturers and breweries. They help market, sell, and distribute brewery equipment to potential buyers. These entities often provide valuable support, technical expertise, and after-sales services to breweries.

Craft Beer Associations: Craft beer associations and organizations represent the interests of small and independent breweries. They often collaborate with equipment manufacturers to provide resources, information, and advocacy for craft brewers. These associations help shape industry standards and promote the growth of the craft beer sector.

Regulatory Authorities: Government agencies and regulatory bodies establish and enforce standards, safety regulations, and licensing requirements for the brewing industry. Compliance with these regulations is essential for breweries and equipment manufacturers to operate legally and maintain product quality.

Investors and Financial Institutions: Breweries seeking to expand or upgrade their equipment often require financing. Investors, banks, and financial institutions may provide capital or loans to breweries for equipment acquisition and business growth.

Research and Development Institutions: Research and development organizations and universities contribute to the brewery equipment market by conducting research on brewing technologies, equipment innovations, and sustainable brewing practices. Their findings often influence equipment design and industry best practices.

Consumers: While not directly involved in the manufacturing or distribution of brewery equipment, consumers have a significant impact on the market. Their preferences for craft beer and unique brews drive the demand for brewery equipment, as breweries strive to meet consumer expectations and expand their offerings.

Maintenance and Service Providers: Companies specializing in equipment maintenance and repair services are essential stakeholders. They help breweries ensure that their equipment operates efficiently, reducing downtime and extending the lifespan of brewing machinery.

Brewery Equipment Market - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Q1. What is the projected market value of the global brewery equipment market?

Q2. What is the estimated growth rate (CAGR) of the global brewery equipment market for the next five years?

Q3. What are the major revenue pockets in the brewery equipment market currently?

Q4. What equipment is used in a brewery?

Q5. What are the market segments for brewery?

Q6. Is the brewery industry growing?

Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=129804657

This report provides insights on the following pointers:

Craft Beer Boom: One of the most significant drivers of the brewery equipment market is the continued rise of craft beer. Consumers' increasing preference for unique and artisanal beer styles has led to the proliferation of craft breweries. These smaller-scale breweries require specialized equipment to produce high-quality and innovative brews, driving demand for brewery equipment.

Global Expansion: The craft beer movement has gone global, with craft breweries emerging in various countries and regions. This globalization has spurred international demand for brewery equipment that meets quality and regulatory standards across borders.

Technological Advancements: Continuous technological innovations in brewing equipment are shaping the market. Breweries are adopting advanced automation and control systems to improve efficiency, consistency, and quality in their production processes. Smart brewing equipment that allows remote monitoring and control is gaining traction.

Sustainability: Sustainability is a growing concern in the brewery equipment market. Breweries are increasingly seeking eco-friendly equipment and practices to reduce water and energy consumption, minimize waste, and lower their environmental impact.

Quality Control: Maintaining product consistency and quality is paramount for breweries. This has led to investments in quality control equipment, such as laboratory instruments and sensors, to ensure that the beer meets high standards throughout the brewing process.

Used Equipment Market: As the brewery industry expands, there is a robust market for used brewery equipment. Many new breweries, especially smaller ones, opt for cost-effective solutions by purchasing used equipment to start or expand their operations.

Regulatory Compliance: The brewery equipment market is influenced by stringent regulatory requirements related to food safety and beverage production. Breweries must invest in equipment that meets these standards, and manufacturers must keep up with evolving regulations.

Customization: Breweries have diverse needs based on their size, production capacity, and beer styles. This has led to a trend of customized brewery equipment to meet specific requirements and production goals.

Distribution and Packaging: Packaging equipment, such as bottling lines and kegging systems, plays a crucial role in getting beer to consumers. The choice of packaging equipment can impact on a brewery's ability to meet market demands.

Market Consolidation: While the craft beer segment continues to grow, there is also some consolidation in the industry, with larger brewing companies acquiring smaller craft breweries. This consolidation can influence equipment purchasing decisions and strategies.

Related Reports:

Beer Processing Market

Beverage Processing Equipment Market

Fermenters Market

Bottled Water Processing Market

Bottled Water Testing Equipment Market

With the given market data, MarketsandMarkets offers customizations as per the companys specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

Company Information

Detailed analyses and profiling of additional market players (up to five)

Geographic Analysis

Further breakdown of the South America brewery equipment market, by key country

Further breakdown of the Rest of Europe brewery equipment market, by key country
DUBLIN, Ireland, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- conXhub, a leading provider of cloud-based communication and collaboration platforms, has entered into a strategic partnership with DIDWW, a global telecom operator offering premium quality VoIP communications, two-way SIP trunking and SMS services for businesses and telecom carriers. Through the alliance with DIDWW, conXhub aims to extend its global reach, ensuring high quality voice services for unparalleled customer experience.



At the core of conXhub's approach is its robust integration with the mobile cellular network, creating an agile, scalable system that transforms the landscape of modern connectivity. Harnessing the strengths of VoIP, Unified Communications, and Mobile connectivity, conXhub seamlessly combines these technologies, setting a new standard in the communications industry. Serving a diverse range of sectors, conXhubs adaptive solutions are finely tuned to meet different needs, simplifying complex tools and making them accessible to businesses, regardless of their size.

By collaborating with DIDWW, conXhub aims to offer its customers top-notch voice solutions, enriched with cutting-edge functionalities. A standout feature of this partnership is the introduction of true multi-numbering on mobiles, allowing users to enjoy additional phone numbers on a single device, tapping into a plethora of opportunities. DIDWW broad experience in telecommunications and its extensive virtual phone number coverage spanning over 80 countries uniquely position conXhub to cater to an expanding customer base across various regions.

Saule Kasciukaitiene, Head of Sales at DIDWW, said, We're pleased to join forces with conXhub. This partnership not only expands conXhub's access to global markets, but also ensures the provision of top-tier voice services in a variety of industries across the globe.

Mark Trowbridge, Founder of conXhub, added, Having been in the communications industry for over 30 years and with a desire for quality-first solutions, we have always partnered with only the best providers. We have watched DIDWW in recent years and we're truly excited about our new partnership with them. Their global reach and commitment to top-tier communication services perfectly align with conXhub's mission. Together, we're confident that we'll empower more businesses across diverse industries, to connect seamlessly and efficiently, no matter where they are in the world. We look forward to a successful collaboration and the growth it will bring to both our companies.

About conXhub

conXhub is a cloud-based communication and collaboration platform that offers a range of products and services to help businesses of any size improve customer engagement, enhance company efficiency and save money. conXhub is Mobile First technology, which enables users to make and receive calls from multiple phone numbers on a single smartphone using mobile cellular connectivity. This is one of the unique features of conXhub, as it allows businesses to use their mobile devices as a virtual PBX system without relying on internet-based technology.

To learn more about conXhub, please visit https://conxhub.com/.

About DIDWW

DIDWW is a platform for telecommunication professionals with full self-service access and real-time provisioning, APIs and all the necessary building blocks for achieving the ultimate control over Voice and SMS services.

The company offers the largest fully compliant international coverage of local, national, mobile, toll-free voice and SMS-enabled virtual phone numbers, two-way local and global SIP trunks, access to local emergency services, flexible capacity options, free global number portability, a number selection tool, and more.

To learn more about DIDWW, please visit https://www.didww.com/ .
Dublin, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Stoves Market (2023-2028) by Types, Materials, Applications, Distribution Channels, and Geography, Competitive Analysis, Impact of Covid-19, Ansoff Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Stoves Market is set to witness substantial growth, with an estimated value of USD 23.1 billion in 2023, projected to reach USD 28.24 billion by 2028, showcasing a robust CAGR of 4.10%. The market report, published by [Publisher Name], offers an in-depth analysis of this thriving industry, exploring various market segments and emerging trends.

A stove, an indispensable kitchen appliance designed for cooking, comes in different forms, including wood stoves, gas stoves, and electric stoves. Among these, electric stoves are gaining significant traction due to their energy efficiency and precise temperature control, ultimately fueling demand for the Global Stoves Market.

Electric stoves, renowned for their cooking efficiency, outperform gas cooktops, as they minimize heat energy wastage during cooking. Furthermore, they are designed to consume minimal energy while offering convenient temperature adjustments. This efficiency factor is a driving force behind the growth of the Global Stoves Market.

Nevertheless, the availability of alternative cooking methods like microwaves poses a challenge to the market's expansion. Microwaves, powered by electromagnetic waves, offer rapid and energy-efficient heating for small food portions, attracting consumers seeking convenience and energy savings.

In response to evolving consumer preferences, stove manufacturers are incorporating advanced features such as automatic temperature regulation, automatic shutdown, and touchscreen controls. For instance, the GE JP328SKSS stainless steel electric cooktop boasts removable drip bowls for easy cleaning, user-friendly graphics, and a red light indicator signaling its active state. Technological advancements like these present a promising opportunity for the Global Stoves Market.

However, the incompatibility of electric cooktops with certain cooking vessels, like aluminum and copper due to their magnetic and electrical properties, poses a challenge for the industry. These materials require higher frequencies to generate the necessary heat for cooking.

Market Segmentations:

The Global Stoves Market is segmented based on Types, Materials, Applications, Distribution Channels, and Geography.

By Types, the market is categorized into Gas Stoves, Electric Stoves, and Wood Stoves. Gas stoves, renowned for their precise temperature control and instant heat, continue to dominate the market due to their versatility and widespread usage.

By Materials, the market includes Metal Stoves, Stone Stoves, Ceramic Stoves, and Others. Metal stoves, especially those made from stainless steel or cast iron, are preferred for their durability, heat retention, and ease of maintenance.

By Applications, the market serves Residential, Commercial, and Industrial sectors. The commercial sector, comprising hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments, remains a significant driver of industry growth.

By Distribution Channel, the market is divided into Online and Offline. Offline distribution, offering physical product verification and engagement, leads the market with its wide accessibility.

By Geography, the market spans the Americas, Europe, Middle-East & Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Asia-Pacific holds the largest market share due to the rising demand for portable cooking equipment, driven by increasing road trips among consumers.

Company Profiles:

The report provides comprehensive company profiles, including financial performance analysis, for prominent players in the market. Notable companies featured include Electrolux AB, Esse, Galanz, Haier Group, Johnson Outdoors Inc., and more.

Countries Studied:

The study covers various countries across the Americas, Europe, Middle-East & Africa, and Asia-Pacific, including [List of Countries].

Competitive Quadrant:

The Competitive Quadrant, a proprietary analysis tool, assesses companies based on their Industry Position score and Market Performance score. It considers factors like financial performance, growth strategies, innovation, market share, and more.

Why Buy This Report:

This comprehensive report offers:

In-depth qualitative analysis and verifiable data

Market size analysis in volume and value terms

Insights based on Porter's 5 forces model, PESTLE Analysis, and the Ansoff Matrix

Impact analysis of COVID-19 on the market

Regulatory scenario in the industry

Customized research options

Excel data sheet for market size

Detailed market dynamics and trends

Competitive analysis with recommendations for market growth

Companies Mentioned

BioLite Inc.

Blue Star Ltd.

Cascade Designs, Inc.

Coleman Company, Inc.

Deermaple

EdilKamin SpA

Electrolux AB

ESSE

Galanz

Haier Group

Johnson Outdoors Inc.

Katadyn Products Inc.

Koninklijke Philips N.V

Line Stoves

Panasonic Corp.

Robert Bosch GmbH

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Travis Industries Inc

Vesta Stoves

Whirlpool Corp.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/4yrhrk

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
Dublin, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Feed Acid Market, By Product Type, By Animal Type, By Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa) - Size, Share, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2023-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.







The global animal feed industry has faced significant challenges due to the emergence of COVID-19 and changes in consumer demand, particularly in the poultry, pork, and dairy sectors. The pandemic has led to shifts in consumer behavior and disrupted supply chains, forcing manufacturers in the animal feed industry to reassess their strategies and policies.

Despite these challenges, the animal feed industry has demonstrated resilience and maintained strong growth. This resilience is attributed to several factors, including the essential nature of animal feed for livestock production, which is critical for the food supply chain.

Market Dynamics:

Registration Facilities for Feed Additives: The availability of registration facilities for feed additives is expected to drive the growth of the global feed acid market. For example, in September 2021, Ukraine's Ministry of Economy approved a registration dossier outlining the procedure for the state registration of feed additives in Ukraine. This regulatory support can facilitate market growth. Ban on GMO Residues: The global feed acid market has witnessed bans on feed additives containing genetically modified organism (GMO) residues. Regulatory authorities in various countries have barred the import of feed additives from certain regions due to concerns about GMO residues. For instance, Russia's veterinary watchdog banned feed additives import from countries like Germany, the U.K., and Canada after GMO residues were detected in supplied products. Such bans can impact the sourcing and distribution of feed additives in the market.

Key Features of the Study:

This market study provides a comprehensive analysis of the global feed acid market, including:

Market size and compound annual growth rate (CAGR%) for the forecast period 2023-2030, with 2022 as the base year.

Insights into potential revenue opportunities across different market segments.

Analysis of market drivers, restraints, opportunities, market trends, and regional outlook.

Profiles of key players in the global feed acid market, including company highlights, product portfolios, financial performance, and strategies.

Key Companies in the Feed Acid Market:

The report profiles key companies operating in the global feed acid market. These companies include:

ADDCON GmbH

BASF SE

Biomin GmbH

Perstorp AB

Kemin Industries Inc.

Impextraco

Jefo Nutrition Inc.

Novus International

Corbion Purac

Trouw Nutrition International B.V.

Segmentation:

The global feed acid market is segmented based on product type, animal type, and region:

Product Type:

Amino Acids

Antibiotics

Vitamins

Feed Enzymes

Antioxidants

Animal Type:

Ruminants

Poultry

Region:

North America

Latin America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

This market report serves as a valuable resource for stakeholders in the animal feed industry, including investors, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and financial analysts. It offers insights to support informed decision-making regarding product launches, market expansion, and marketing strategies in this dynamic industry.







Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 110 Forecast Period 2022 - 2030 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2022 $1909.4 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2030 $3206.9 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 6.7% Regions Covered Global

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/4hrygb

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
SCOTTSDALE, AZ, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire - CBMJ Inc. Conservative Broadcast Media & Journalism (CBMJ) today announced that it has completed the purchase of American Media Periscope for $2.2M, solidifying the combination of two powerhouse New Media companies in the patriot media world.



CBMJ will issue a $2.0M non-interest bearing note payable over 4 years and issue 2.0M shares of Restricted Common stock. Conservative Broadcast Media & Journalism is publicly traded under the symbol CBMJ.

The mission of AMP NEWS is devoted to serving our audience with the most conscientious, straightforward information available. We regard every genre as significant. Political, financial, education, and medical is dissected and delivered to our viewers to help them think limitlessly, and to arrive at their own conclusions. No longer telling people what to think but giving them the evidence they need to make up their own minds.

Kris Edelkamp, CEO of AMPNews, Inc. who will continue to run daily operations over the network, commented: Im proud to be a part of such a phenomenal organization of experts, who state facts boldly and with integrity. The mind is arguably the most powerful tool the human body has. Freeing people of programming and offering a real source for data changes our very existence.

In two short years, American Media Periscope has been in a constant state of transformation. The hosts, producers, directors, designers, technical pros, and executive team collaborate as a single unit, providing the quality broadcasting that has become the backbone of the new media. The revolution will continue, and the network will continue to be on the front lines. Our goal for the company is to continue moving forward and become a 24-hour news network that every person can have as a one-stop-shop for their daily digest of information.

Mark Schaftlein, CEO of both Conservative Broadcast Media & Journalism and Capital Consulting Inc., says, "We are delighted that we have closed the transaction and we welcome the opportunity to build a Patriot based media company. By combining the companies, we are well positioned to leverage each others strengths while streamlining our processes."

Floyd Brown, a Director of CBMJ and founder of Western Journal, a digital news publication upholding Christian values and Citizens United, stated: As tech suppression grows, the challenges grow, and the opportunity grows. This is the start of something huge."

About CBMJ: (CBMJ) Conservative Broadcast Media and Journalism is a media and web based Patriot Company.

Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters disclosed at www.otcmarkets.com . These risks and uncertainties could cause the company's actual results to differ materially.



Mark Schaftlein

877-704-6773
VANCOUVER, Wash., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Its time to celebrate National Pizza Month! Starting Sunday, October 1 Papa Murphys Take n Bake Pizza is giving pizza fans 30% off any online order of regular menu priced items using code PZMON23. This limited time, online only offer is valid through Friday, October 6 at all Papa Murphys locations.



Papa Murphys take n bake pizza is an easy meal solution for any day, and even more so during National Pizza Month. The whole family can enjoy fresh, delicious pizza, hot out of your own home oven. We invite you to take advantage of this offer to try our tasty signature recipe pizzas or customize with a variety of crust options and fresh toppings to make the perfect meal for everyone at your dinner table tonight, said Tracey Ayres, VP of Brand and Innovation for Papa Murphys.

You can make pizza night even tastier by adding one of our delicious new side items  Garlic or Cinnamon Monkey Bread, Calzones, or Meatballs & Marinara  to your order. Visit PapaMurphys.com to place your online order for pickup or delivery today!

About Papa Murphys

Papa Murphy's International LLC ("Papa Murphy's") is a franchisor and operator of the largest Take 'n' Bake pizza brand in the United States, with over 1,133 franchised and corporate-owned locations across the U.Splus locations in Canada and the UAE.

Its no surprise that their story is a little unconventional. After all, Papa Murphys brought an entirely new approach to the pizza industry. But their unique idea is a simple one: enrich life and community through craveable food. They focus on using quality ingredients, prepared fresh daily, to offer guests everyday meals to take n bake at home with ease. In addition to take n bake pizzas, Papa Murphy's offers a selection of salads, sides, desserts, and kids options. Learn more and order online at papamurphys.com.

Media Contact:

Lisa McNairy

262-497-7166

communications@papamurphys.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8f4ff7d9-b48b-4819-bdd0-76b04673cd79
ATHENS, Greece, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX), (the Company), a global shipping company specializing in the ownership and bareboat charter-in of dry bulk vessels, today announced that it has signed a letter of intent to order through Marubeni Corporation or its guaranteed nominee, an unaffiliated third party, two 81,200 dwt methanol dual fuel new-building Kamsarmax dry bulk vessels, for a purchase price of US$46 million each, built at Tsuneishi Group (Zhoushan) Shipbuilding Inc., China. The vessels are expected to be delivered to the Company by the second half of 2027 and the first half of 2028, respectively. The transaction remains subject to the execution of definitive documentation and satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Mrs. Semiramis Paliou, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, stated: Diana Shipping Inc. takes pride in its role as an industry leader, continually striving to enhance our fleet and operations for the benefit of our stakeholders and the environment. This investment underscores our dedication to sustainable shipping and positions us to meet the evolving demands of our industry while reducing our carbon footprint.

Excluding the aforementioned vessels, Diana Shipping Inc.s fleet currently consists of 41 dry bulk vessels: 4 Newcastlemax, 10 Capesize, 5 Post-Panamax, 6 Kamsarmax, 7 Panamax and 9 Ultramax. As of today, the combined carrying capacity of the Companys fleet, excluding the two vessels not yet delivered, is approximately 4.7 million dwt with a weighted average age of 10.48 years. A table describing the current Diana Shipping Inc. fleet can be found on the Companys website, www.dianashippinginc.com . Information contained on the Companys website does not constitute a part of this press release.

About the Company

Diana Shipping Inc. is a global provider of shipping transportation services through its ownership and bareboat charter-in of dry bulk vessels. The Companys vessels are employed primarily on short to medium-term time charters and transport a range of dry bulk cargoes, including such commodities as iron ore, coal, grain and other materials along worldwide shipping routes.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts.

The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words believe, anticipate, intends, estimate, forecast, project, plan, potential, may, should, expect, pending and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, Company managements examination of historical operating trends, data contained in the Companys records and other data available from third parties. Although the Company believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies that are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the Companys control, the Company cannot assure you that it will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections.

In addition to these important factors, other important factors that, in the Companys view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand for dry bulk shipping capacity, changes in the Companys operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for the Companys vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, including risks associated with the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and related sanctions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, vessel breakdowns and instances of off-hires and other factors. Please see the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a more complete discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/34829172-5983-436c-b232-0ecff910d6a9
Memphis, TN, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rev. Wheeler Parker, Jr., the first cousin of Emmett Till and last surviving witness to his abduction, will be featured at the National Civil Rights Museum to discuss his book, A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till. The hybrid event is part of the museums Book & Author Series on Wednesday, October 4, at 6:00 pm Central. Parker joins co-author Christopher Benson in the poignant recollection of a story that continues to intrigue civil rights justice seekers and criminal cold case enthusiasts.

In 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago was lynched in Neshoba County, Mississippi while visiting family. The case ignited a flame within the Civil Rights Movement that has yet to be extinguished. The details surrounding the event remain distorted by time and questions remain about what justice would look like now for a case nearly 70 years old, especially now that Tills assault accuser, Carolyn Bryant, is recently deceased.

In A Few Days Full of Trouble, the co-authors offer a new perspective on the story of Emmett Till. As his cousin and best friend, the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr. is a lone survivor of the night of terror when young Emmett was taken from his family's rural Mississippi Delta home in the dead of night.

Rev. Parker offers an emotional and suspenseful page-turner set against a backdrop of reporting errors and manipulations, racial reckoning, and political pushback. His account is accompanied by never-before-seen findings in the investigation, the resurrection of memory, and the battle-tested courage of faith. A Few Days Full of Trouble is a powerful work of truth-telling, a gift to readers looking to reconcile the weight of the past with a hope for the future.

Parker is pastor and district superintendent of the Argo Temple Church of God in Christ in Summit, Illinois, the church built by Alma Carthan, grandmother of Emmett Till. He lectures and teaches on the history of the struggle for equal justice in America.

Christopher Benson, an Emmy Award-winning lawyer, journalist, and associate professor at Northwestern University, co-authored with the late Mamie Till-Mobley, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated, award-winning book Death of Innocence. Formerly the Washington editor of Ebony, he has contributed to Chicago magazine, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and The New York Times.

Autographed copies of A Few Days Full of Trouble will be available in the Museums store and online. The hybrid Book & Author Series event begins at 6:00 pm Central and is free and open for registration. For more information, visit civilrightsmuseum.org.

The book talk precedes the opening of the museum exhibition, Emmett Till & Mamie Till: Let the World See, in which Parker and his family are consultants helping to bring a fuller story for young museum-goers about Emmett Till and his family who valiantly sought justice for the teen. Event attendees will have a special opportunity to see the exhibit days before it opens to the public. 

About the National Civil Rights Museum

The NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM, located at the historic Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, gives a comprehensive overview of the American Civil Rights Movement from slavery to the present. Since the Museum opened in 1991, millions of visitors worldwide have come, including more than 90,000 students annually. Serving as the new public square, the Museum is steadfast in its mission to honor and preserve the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s assassination. It chronicles the American civil rights movement and tells the story of the ongoing struggle for human rights, serving as a catalyst to inspire action to create positive social change. A Smithsonian Affiliate and an internationally acclaimed cultural institution, the Museum is recognized as a 2019 National Medal Award recipient by the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS), the top national honor for museums and libraries. It is a TripAdvisor Travelers Choice Top 5% U.S. Museum, USA Today's Top 10 Best American Iconic Attractions; Top 10 Best Historical Spots in the U.S. by TLC's Family Travel; Must See by the Age of 15 by Budget Travel and Kids; Top 10, American Treasures by USA Today; and Best Memphis Attraction by The Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Business Journal.

 civilrightsmuseum.org 

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Lugano, Switzerland, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The article "The Mysteries of Quantum Physics" by Stanislav Kondrashov, which is anticipated to contribute to important discussions in the scientific community and beyond, offers a deep dive into the realm of quantum physics, elucidating its core principles and examining its implications for the future of science and technology.

The publication introduces readers to the enigmatic world of quantum physics. It begins by discussing the dual nature of particles, which behave as particles and waves depending on the observer's perspective. The piece then moves on to explore the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, wherein two particles become so closely linked that the state of one immediately affects the other, regardless of distance.

Stanislav also explores Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, explaining that it's impossible to precisely measure a particle's position and momentum simultaneously. This is followed by an examination of the concept of quantum superposition, most famously illustrated by Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, which suggests a particle exists in multiple states until observed.

The article further describes the peculiar ability of particles to tunnel through barriers as if by magic, a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling. It then moves on to outline the nature of particles as vibrations on quantum fields, likened to waves in an ocean.

Kondrashov concludes by touching on the potential of quantum computing to solve, heretofore impossible problems and discussing the ongoing search for a unified theory that reconciles quantum mechanics with general relativity. The article also takes a moment to reflect on the inherent beauty and complexity of the quantum world, inviting readers to ponder the unimaginable possibilities it holds for our understanding of existence.

The piece serves as an insightful resource for a diverse audience, ranging from students and educators to professionals in scientific research and technology. It is now available for reading and sharing across various academic journals and online platforms.

Interested readers are invited to read the full article and watch the accompanying video. All are invited to take a look at Stanislavs social media channels and other blogs for more thought-provoking pieces. Links to Kondrashovs Social Media channels are readily available for further engagements and insights below.

For more insights and content from Stanislav Kondrashov, visit www.stanislavkondrashov.com

About Stanislav Kondrashov:

Stanislav is a dedicated writer, consistently exploring subjects with depth and nuance. Stanislavs approach to sharing his experiences is a testament to his commitment to unveiling the stories and philosophies shaping our world. Furthermore, Kondrashov is a world traveler who appreciates every location's natural wonders. In his travels, Stanislav refined his interests and learned about his passions: architecture, art, history, and local cuisines. Stanislav values connection- both familial and civic.

For more on Stanislav Kondrashov and to access additional writings, follow the links provided.

Website:

Stanislav Kondrashov Official Website

Social Media and other related links:

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Instagram

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Crunchbase

Wiki

Media Contact

Contact Person: Stanislav Kondrashov

Email: press@stanislavkondrashov.com

Website: https://stanislavkondrashov.com/

Disclaimer: There is no offer to sell, no solicitation of an offer to buy, and no recommendation of any security or any other product or service in this article. Moreover, nothing contained in this PR should be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment or security, or to engage in any investment strategy or transaction. It is your responsibility to determine whether any investment, investment strategy, security, or related transaction is appropriate for you based on your investment objectives, financial circumstances, and risk tolerance. Consult your business advisor, attorney, or tax advisor regarding your specific business, legal, or tax situation. For more info, please contact brandnewsproject@gmail.com.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GovDeals, the leading online marketplace for government agencies and educational institutions to sell surplus assets, is pleased to announce the sale of several high-value real estate auctions in September. These auctions present an opportunity for prospective buyers to acquire properties in Virginia, North Carolina, and New Jersey.



As government agencies and investors alike continue to search for alternative ways to sell and purchase property, many are turning to alternative methods to complete those transactions, says Mark Moritz, the east senior manager of client relationships for GovDeals. Our platform offers a reliable solution, enabling our sellers to maximize the value of their real estate assets to fund essential government services while reaching a broad audience of motivated buyers.

Available properties include:

North Carolina forested land - This 1.4-acre parcel, located in the Connestee Falls community, is being offered by the Transylvania County, North Carolina Real Estate Division. No deposit is required for participation. To view all auctions offered by this seller visit GovDeals. All auctions close on September 30, 2023.

Residential Land in Norfolk, VA - This 5,037 sq. ft parcel is located within the Brambleton neighborhood, roughly 2.2 miles from Downtown Norfolk. The city of Norfolks Real Estate Division is requiring all potential buyers to submit a refundable bid deposit of $1,500 before participating. To view all auctions offered by this seller visit GovDeals . All auctions close on October 12, 2023.

. All auctions close on October 12, 2023. Former New Jersey Emergency Medical Squad Building & Property -This one-acre property features a one-story concrete structure that previously housed the township's emergency medical group. Tabernacle Township requires all potential buyers to submit a refundable bid deposit of $1,025 before participating in the auction. To view all auctions offered by this seller visit GovDeals. All auctions close on October 12, 2023.



For a full list of available real estate auctions, please visit GovDeals.com. In order to bid on GovDeals, all potential buyers must first create a free account at GovDeals.com/Register.

About GovDeals
South Glastonbury, Connecticut , Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nayaug Dental, one of the oldest dental clinics in Glastonbury, CT, is pleased to share that it has new dentistry content to explain various dental procedures to its patients in Glastonbury. The dentists website is updated with all its dentistry specializations and services. With the help of its new website, it wishes to make dental appointments easy and convenient. Dental patients can now book an appointment online, make a payment, write and read real patient reviews, get details about dental insurance and payment plans, and much more.



Nayaug Family Dental

Info on the dental practice: this dentist in Glastonburys dental office has offered dental services for more than 40 years, making it one of the oldest dental care providers in the community. Nayaug Dentals patients belong to all age groups. Its oldest patients are about 90 years old, and the youngest are about one year old. It has some of the most loyal patients, who have been consulting them and smiling for decades. Here at Nayaug Dental, customers can be assured of getting quality care from a trusted dentist in Glastonbury, Sidra Yaseen, DDS.

Dr. Yaseen attended the University of Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco and completed a general practice residency at the Staten Island University Hospital. The experienced DDS helps patients with emergency dental care and the necessary follow-up dental treatments. From teeth fillings to root canals, tooth extractions to other types of dentistry, this friendly dentist in Glastonbury and the staff will take great care of patients throughout the process. As part of its preventive Glastonbury dentistry services, the clinic offers dental cleanings and digital X-rays.

Nayaug Dental is experienced with dental patients of all ages. The Nayaug Dental staff ensures that children are comfortable during dental practice visits. Every child is different, and so is their dentistry need or dental condition. The dentists services are tailored according to the childs needs. The practice uses child-sized x-ray equipment designed for children to make diagnoses easy. As part of its general Glastonbury dentistry services, the clinic offers dental fillings, crowns and bridges, root canals, tooth extractions, dental implants, and full and partial dentures. The clinic also offers an in-office membership plan to help people stay up-to-date with their preventive care and not miss their regular visits due to finances. Patients can also avail of payment plans in easy monthly installments. The clinic also accepts major insurance plans and most Medicare Advantage plans.

To learn more about the dental office, https://www.nayaugdental.com/.

About Nayaug Family Dental

Nayaug Family Dental has been offering quality dental care for residents of South Glastonbury and surrounding communities for more than four decades. Started in 1980 by Dr. Brain Chiffer, this clinic is now being steered by Dr. Sidra Yaseen, DDS. Patients have come here for generations as they believe Nayaug Dental has never failed to offer top-of-the-class dental care tailored to their needs and conditions.

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Media Contact

Sidra Yaseen, DDS  Nayaug Family Dental

Address: 875 Main Street, South Glastonbury, Connecticut 06073

Phone: 860-633-6167

Website: https://www.nayaugdental.com/

Sidra Yaseen, DDS  Nayaug Family Dental





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SAN DIEGO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Friends of Humane Services Tijuana (FHSTJ), a dedicated non-profit organization experienced in supporting animal rescue & rehabilitation, spay /neuter and animal adoptions , is thrilled to announce the launch of their brand-new, redesigned website. The unveiling of the redesigned site will occur at their upcoming fundraiser / pet adoption event on October 4th, being held in partnership with Harland Brewing , located in Del Mars One Paseo . The revamped online platform aims to provide visitors with a user-friendly and informative experience while reaffirming FHSTJ's unwavering commitment to ensuring that donations go directly into their lifesaving animal rescue and support efforts.



Founded in 2008, FHSTJ has a long-standing and proven track record of making a real difference in the lives of animals in need. To protect donations and insure that they are used responsibly, FHSTJ does not send funds to Mexico. Instead, they directly sponsor specific events by providing funds, essential tools, resources, and a network of dedicated volunteers who touch the lives of over 3,000 dogs and cats each year through rescue, spay/neuter/veterinary care and general support, especially for animals of rescuers and people with limited resources. The organization takes pride in its hands-on approach, ensuring that every contribution has a tangible impact on the animals they serve and which is reported to donors in a biannual newsletter report.

FHSTJ's redesigned website reflects their commitment to transparency, showcasing their mission, values, and success stories. Donors and supporters can now easily navigate the website to learn more about the organization's work, the animals they've helped, and how they can contribute to this noble cause. Their YouTube channel also showcases videos of their tireless heroic efforts throughout the years.

FHSTJ remains steadfast in its promise that donations go directly to animal rescue efforts. Every dollar donated is used efficiently to provide food, spay & neuter , veterinary care, and an overall chance for a better life for animals in need. This commitment to financial responsibility has been a cornerstone of FHSTJ's work since its inception.

"We are excited to launch our redesigned website, which not only reflects our dedication to animal welfare but also provides a platform for donors to see the impact of their support firsthand," said Richard Massa, President of FHSTJ. "We want to emphasize that the generosity of our donors directly contributes to saving animals from a life of starvation, disease, pain and fear."

However, FHSTJ cannot continue this crucial work without the support of compassionate individuals and organizations. In light of this, FHSTJ earnestly appeals to the public for help. Every donation, no matter how big or small, plays a pivotal role in rescuing and rehabilitating animals in need. By becoming a donor, you become a part of FHSTJ's extended family, joining their mission to create a better world for dogs and cats in need. To learn more about Friends of Humane Services Tijuana and to make a donation to support their animal rescue efforts, please visit their newly redesigned website at www.friendsofhstj.org . Your contribution will help ensure a brighter future for countless animals in need.

About FHSTJ:

Friends of Humane Services Tijuana (FHSTJ) is a non-profit organization headquartered in San Diego, CA. dedicated to supporting animals in need in the greater San Diego-Tijuana area. Founded in 2008, FHSTJ has a proven track record of saving thousands of animals and making a lasting impact on animal welfare. With a commitment to transparency, FHSTJ ensures that donations go directly to animal rescue efforts, providing food, spay & neuter, and veterinary care to animals in need.

Media Contact :

Steven A. Esparza

Public Relations Manager

Friends of Humane Services Tijuana

Email: info@camppublicrelations.com

Phone: (619) 363-1368

A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b7b8ed15-2b0a-465e-98f0-66d5bd20895f
Belleville, Illinois, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- September marks Suicide Prevention Month, a critical time to spotlight the ongoing global crisis of suicide, which claims more than 700,000 lives annually according to the World Health Organization. Allsup, a nationwide provider of Social Security disability, veterans disability appeal, return to work, and healthcare benefits services, joins organizations nationwide in raising awareness and celebrating the first anniversary of the 988 national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline.

The combined struggle of financial hardship and severe disability, including mental health conditions, can deeply alter someones life, said T.J. Geist, Allsup Principal Advocate. Our services at Allsup are designed to assist individuals in securing the necessary support, potentially serving as a financial lifeline during their most vulnerable moments. So were especially grateful for the specialized assistance available through 988 to our customers, at times when this vital mental health support can make the most difference.

This month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the integration of nationwide American Sign Language (ASL) services into the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. To access ASL assistance, individuals can initiate a conversation using ASL by selecting the ASL Now option on 988lifeline.org and following instructions.

These added services are vital to increasing access to mental health assistance across the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 48,000 suicide deaths in 2021, making it one of the top nine leading causes of death for people ages 10-64. Recent research published in the National Library of Medicine indicates that individuals with disabilities can be at a higher risk of experiencing mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts.

Allsup is dedicated to providing support and assistance to individuals with disabilities, often during the difficult experience of lost employment, and specialized experts help them secure the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and veterans disability benefits they need for a more stable livelihood. Allsup disability experts also have the knowledge and experience of helping individuals with mental health conditions navigate the complexities of applying for Social Security disability benefits, Geist explained.

Nationwide resources are available to those experiencing debilitating feelings of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts by dialing or texting 988, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Support is free and confidential.

Help is also available in Spanish. Marque o mande mensaje de texto a 988 para acceder a la linea de Prevencion del Suicidio y Crisis, disponible 24/7. El apoyo es gratuito y confidencial. Todos podemos ayudar a prevenir el suicidio.

As the nation commemorates Suicide Prevention Month, Allsup encourages everyone to educate themselves and others about suicide awareness and prevention, and the resources available for help. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for support.

For more information about applying for SSDI benefits, filing your appeal if you were denied, or to check your eligibility, visit FileSSDI.Allsup.com or call 1-800-678-3276.

Note to editors and reporters: B-roll video (MP4 | 314 MB) is available for download and use in reporting, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ABOUT ALLSUP

Allsup and its subsidiaries provide nationwide Social Security disability, veterans disability appeal, return to work, and healthcare benefits services for individuals, their employers and insurance carriers. Allsup professionals deliver specialized services supporting people with disabilities and seniors so they may lead lives that are as financially secure and as healthy as possible. Founded in 1984, the company is based in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis. Learn more at Allsup.com and @Allsup or download a free PDF of Applying for Social Security Disability Insurance: Getting It Right The First Time.

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Irvine, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UnitedAg, a leading organization representing over 1,000 agriculture-affiliated member companies, is pleased to announce the opening of its highly-anticipated scholarship programs for 2023, along with the introduction of an exciting new Internship and Job Placement Program through its 501c3 subsidiary, the Agribusiness Education Foundation (AEF).

"AEF is committed to supporting the next generation of agricultural leaders," said Loretta Brown, AEF Education Committee, Chair. "Through our expanded scholarship offerings and the launch of the Internship and Job Placement Program, we aim to empower students with the knowledge and experience they need to thrive in the field of agriculture."

The two scholarship programs, the Educational Scholarship Program and the Vocational Scholarship Program, officially opened for applications on September 15, 2023. Students interested in pursuing higher education in the field of agriculture are encouraged to apply before the deadline of December 31st, 2023. This year, UnitedAg and AEF will award a grand total of $86,000 in scholarships, an increase of $11,000 from previous years. Detailed information and application forms for both programs can be found at http://www.unitedag.org/aef.

In addition to these scholarship opportunities, UnitedAg is excited to introduce the new Internship and Job Placement Program. This program aims to provide students from AEF with invaluable hands-on experience and career opportunities within the agricultural industry. The program will consist of:

Internships: Designed for students seeking a better understanding of California and Arizona agriculture, these internships will offer practical experience in various aspects of the industry.

Job Placement: Geared towards graduates who are eager to kickstart their professional careers in agriculture, this program will connect them with job opportunities in the field.

The Internship and Job Placement Program is a unique chance for students to gain real-world experience and jumpstart their careers in agriculture. Stay tuned for more information on this exciting opportunity!

About UnitedAg:

UnitedAg is the largest association health plan for agriculture in California and Arizona representing more than 1,000 agriculture-affiliated member companies. Their mission is to assist members in meeting their employee health and benefits needs, advocate for their interests with lawmakers, and ensure compliance with health legislation and regulations. Headquartered in Irvine, California, UnitedAg has offices in Irvine and Salinas, as well as wellness centers throughout the Central Valley and Northern California. UnitedAg provides benefits to over 55,000 agricultural workers in California and Arizona. For more information about AEF and its programs, please visit www.unitedag.org/education-and-youth.

For more information about UnitedAg's scholarship programs and the Internship and Job Placement Program, please contact Maribel Ochoa at mochoa@unitedag.org.

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PITTSBURGH, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nuance Communications recently announced that it became aware of a data breach on May 31, 2023, that impacted the personal information of approximately 1.2 million individuals. The information potentially impacted in the data breach includes individuals names, dates of birth, and demographic information, as well as health information, such as medical record numbers, health insurance numbers, medication information, diagnoses, and dates of service.



Lynch Carpenter, LLP is investigating claims against Nuance Communications related to this data breach. If you received a data breach notification from Nuance Communications, you may be entitled to compensation.

If you have received a notification from Nuance Communications that your information was impacted, please call Patrick Donathen at (412) 322-9243, email him at patrick@lcllp.com, or fill out our contact form at www.lynchcarpenter.com/contact.

About Lynch Carpenter

Lynch Carpenter is a national class action law firm with offices in Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois. Our firm has represented millions of clients in data privacy matters for more than a decade and has earned national acclaim for complex litigation for plaintiffs across the country. To learn more, please visit www.lynchcarpenter.com.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- International LifeLine, the paramount critical event and travel risk management company, reiterates its dedication to enhancing safety and security for all travelers worldwide, including the LGBTQ community. Emerging from the confluence of two leading global security firms, The Guidry Group, and Orbis Travel Safety, International LifeLine heralds a legacy of unparalleled security, medical evacuation, and crisis response services, revolutionizing the travel experience for all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

A stride toward inclusivity, International LifeLine is proud to be part of the International LGBTQ+ Travel Associations (IGLTA) 2023 Global Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico from Oct. 4-7. Celebrating 40 years of advancing LGBTQ+ tourism globally, this convergence will drive forth the ethos of inclusive and safe travel for everyone.

International LifeLine will be sponsoring the event and contributing 5% of the net profits garnered from this conference to the IGLTA Foundation, fortifying its pledge towards an equitable travel sphere for LGBTQ travelers.

International LifeLine not only fortifies the safety net for LGBTQ travelers but also imbues a sense of confidence and security among tour operators and businesses, rendering a seamless continuation of tour itineraries even in the face of emergencies.

"Travel should bring memories of exploration and joy, not fears of the unknown. At International LifeLine, we're here to shoulder the unforeseen so every traveler, irrespective of their identity, can bask in the richness and diversity the world has to offer with peace of mind," remarked Sean Fortune Hornbeck, Executive Vice President of International LifeLine.

International LifeLine invites everyone to delve deeper into the extensive protective services offered by visiting their website at internationallifeline.com. The mission to foster a safer, inclusive, and more welcoming travel landscape continues, with International LifeLine leading the charge.

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International LifeLine

International LifeLine is a critical event and travel risk management company emerging from decades of experience and expertise in protecting lives. With offices across the world in Chicago, Detroit, Houston, London, Nashville, New York, and Perth, the Company provides on-demand incident management and emergency response services worldwide. These include emergency medical and security evacuation, crisis response, political evacuation, escalation services, and kidnap and extortion response. Formed by the fusion of The Guidry Group and Orbis Travel Safety, both leading global security companies, International LifeLine continues the legacy of providing exceptional security services to global travelers, businesses, and governments.






Portland, Oregon, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Black Rock Coffee Bar is excited to introduce its latest boutique coffee bar in Gilbert, Arizona, adding to the growing list of 35 locations across the state and marking the 31st store in the greater Phoenix metro area. The new store, located at 1694 E. East Riggs Street at the intersection of Val Vista in Gilbert, is set to welcome coffee enthusiasts and embrace the vibrant local culture, when it opens on Friday, October 6, 2023.

This expansion perfectly resonates with the heart of our brands three principles  coffee, community and connection, said Mark Davis, CEO Black Rock Coffee Bar. With its strong sense of community and appreciation for quality coffee, Gilbert is the perfect location to share our passion for exceptional coffee while making meaningful connections with every cup we serve.

Known for its premium roasted coffees, teas, smoothies and flavorful Fuel energy drinks, the new Black Rock Coffee Bar store will celebrate its grand opening by offering all customers $2.00 medium drinks all day at this location as well as other specials throughout the week.

The new 2000-square-foot Black Rock Coffee Bar store showcases the boutique coffee chains signature industrial modern design. This design approach ensures that visitors can not only enjoy their favorite beverages but also linger, work, or socialize in a relaxed and inviting environment.

With more than 115 stores across the U.S., the popular coffee chain is set to become the go-to destination for all coffee enthusiasts seeking fast and friendly service. The skilled team of baristas at Black Rock are committed to enhancing the overall customer experience making it their mission to brighten their customers' day.

Black Rock Coffee Bars mission is to be a positive force in the communities it serves.

Founded in 2008 in Portland, Oregon, an area of the Pacific Northwest known for its coffee excellence, Black Rock Coffee Bar continues its rapid expansion in the West and into the Sunbelt with locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The boutique coffee chain recently was named the Fastest Growing Private Company in Oregon and SW Washington in 2021 by the Portland Business Journal. In 2023, Black Rock Coffee Bar ranked 1179th among Americas Fastest-Growing Private Companies by Inc. Magazines 5000 Annual List.

The Black Rock culture prides itself on providing opportunities for young people to learn how to lead, run a business, and develop people skills.

About Black Rock Coffee Bar

Black Rock Coffee Bar is a national boutique coffee shop that is known for its premium roasted coffees, teas, smoothies and flavorful Fuel energy drinks. Founded as a family owned and operated business in Oregon in 2008, Black Rock Coffee Bar has grown to more than 100 retail locations in seven states.

The Black Rock culture prides itself on not only being a positive force for the communities it serves, but also the team members that fuel their locations day in and day out. An important aspect of their team mission is to recognize those that go above and beyond by displaying the 4Gs of Black Rock - grit, growth, gratitude, and grace.

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Park Ridge, IL, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) is anchored to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 garment workers in New York City more than 100 years ago. ASSP President Jim Thornton will join Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and other dignitaries in honoring those workers on Oct. 11 when a memorial is dedicated at the original building in Manhattan. The event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.

The Triangle fire revealed great negligence in worker safety when the tragedy occurred on March 25, 1911. A few months later came the creation of the United Association of Casualty Inspectors, now known as ASSP, the worlds oldest professional safety organization.

The memorial will stand as a symbol to forever remember our nations legacy of reform while paying tribute to the workers who died, said Thornton, CSP, CIH, FASSP, FAIHA. Its a significant achievement by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, whose members worked tirelessly over the past decade to bring the project to fruition.

The main body of the stainless-steel memorial is on a corner of the Brown Building at Washington Place and Greene Street, resembling a ribbon that descends from the 9th floor where most deaths occurred. It evokes the appearance of mourning ribbons that were draped on buildings in times of public grief.

Twelve feet above the sidewalk, the memorial splits horizontally to flank the buildings facades, where the names and ages of the victims are stenciled into the ribbon and appear in a reflective panel at street level.

ASSP contributed $32,519.11 to the memorials construction, connecting the seven digits of the fires date (3/25/1911) to emphasize the significant moment in U.S. history. The ASSP Foundation donated an additional $25,000 to the project. Both names will be listed on a donor plaque affixed to the building near the memorial.

The Triangle fire inspired our country to address workplace safety in an organized way that didnt previously exist, Thornton said. The horrific incident led to a series of laws and regulations that better protected workers. And ASSP continues to advance worker safety and health to this day.

During the Triangle disaster, fire exit doors were locked and other doors only opened inward, making it impossible for the onrush of workers to get out. The fire escape was poorly constructed and didnt meet weight requirements. Fire department ladders couldnt reach the upper floors of the 10-story building. Many workers died by jumping out of windows and into an elevator shaft as they tried to escape the flames.

From its inception on Oct. 14, 1911, ASSP has grown into a global membership organization of more than 35,000 occupational safety and health professionals whose efforts reduce workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities. But the work of safety organizations, employers and federal agencies is never complete. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 5,000 people were fatally injured on the job in 2021.

We have always championed the need to protect workers because safety, health and well-being are inherent rights of every worker, Thornton said. History must continue to motivate us to do better. It takes all of us working together to make sure that tragedies like the Triangle fire never happen again.

Find more information about the Triangle Fire Memorial and the upcoming dedication ceremony on the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalitions website at rememberthetrianglefire.org.

About ASSP  Working together for a safer, stronger future

Since 1911, the American Society of Safety Professionals has helped occupational safety and health professionals protect people, property and the environment. The nonprofit society is based in Chicagos suburbs. Its global membership of over 35,000 professionals develops safety and health management systems that prevent injuries, illnesses and fatalities. ASSP advances its members and the safety profession by providing member communities, serving as a trusted advisor, and elevating safety through workforce development. Its flagship journal, Professional Safety, is a longtime leader in the field. Visit www.assp.org and find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Denver, Colorado, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- YES Communities team members from across the country gathered in Dallas, Texas earlier this month to lead a community-wide supply drive to provide essential items to local families in need as a part of a team-building event.

Over 450 attendees gathered to collect food and personal supplies to be distributed to Dallas suburban residents through Sharing Life, an organization striving to end hunger and poverty through food, clothing, financial resources, and educational programs.

"This event gives us an opportunity to give back and help make a positive impact on the lives of our fellow community residents, said Ben Leffke, Regional Vice President at YES. Its always great to get our team together and work towards making a real difference in the community.

Ben said I first learned about Sharing Life while participating in a holiday toy drive through the YES We Care program. It is truly amazing to see so many members of our team from across the country back here chipping in to help.

Steven Schaub, CEO of YES said, "We believe that a community thrives when its members come together to support one another. The success of this supply drive is a testament to the heart and generosity of the people on our team.

Each year, all YES Communities team members are given eight hours of paid time to be used for volunteer work through the YES We Care program. In total, YES Communities donates almost 10,000 hours of paid volunteer time back to the surrounding communities and local charitable organizations.

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Washington, D.C., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On September 20, 2023, the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) made its third affordable housing investment of the month with the issuance of $30.5 million in tax exempt bonds and underwrote $20.1 million in federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity for the construction of Ontario Place (2400 Ontario Road NW) in Adams Morgan. The work that Jubilee does is amazing. They transform what was once uninhabitable into fertile ground. stated Christopher E. Donald, Executive Director/CEO, DCHFA at the groundbreaking of Ontario Place on September 13, 2023. Additional financing for Ontario Place is being provided by the DC Department of Housing and Community Development in the form of $23.8 million loan from the Housing Production Trust Fund.

Ontario Place is a $61.4 development that will offer 52 units, with 26 of them reserved for returning citizens. The returning citizens will be former residents of Jubilees KEB (adjacent sister property) and participants of Jubilees existing Supportive Housing programs, or graduates of similar non-profit led reentry programs. Additionally, the 26 set aside units will provide long-term housing options for returning citizens, as well as reunited families. The new four-story building will consist of efficiency, one-, two-, and three-bedroom affordable housing units leased to tenants earning up to 50 percent of area median income. Ontario Place will include the first residential aquaponics system in the District. The produce from the aquaponics system will be offered to residents and used in the preparation of free daily meals for KEB residents. Ontario Place is being developed in accordance with Jubilees Justice Housing model, which focuses on providing affordable housing in high opportunity neighborhoods with nearby services. Jubilees Justice Housing model focuses

on four goals: Housing Stability, High Sense of Community, Financial Security (including Education as a pathway), and Improved Health Outcomes.

Through its Multifamily Lending and Neighborhood Investment and Capital Markets divisions, DCHFA issues tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds to lower the developers costs of acquiring, constructing and rehabilitating rental housing. The Agency offers private for-profit and non-profit developers low-cost predevelopment, construction and permanent financing that supports the new construction, acquisition, and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing in the District.

The District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency is an S&P AA- rated issuer, serving Washington, D.C.s residents for more than 40 years. The Agencys mission is to advance the District of Columbias housing priorities; the Agency invests in affordable housing and neighborhood development, which provides pathways for D.C. residents to transform their lives. We accomplish our mission by delivering the most efficient and effective sources of capital available in the market to finance rental housing and to create homeownership opportunities. The Agency operates from a core set of values: Leadership*Excellence*Community Focus*Integrity*Collaboration *Innovation

Attachment
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V., (NYSE:PAC; BMV: GAP) (the Company or GAP) informs that today it made a drawdown of USD$40.0 million from a credit facility with Banco Nacional de Mexico, S.A., (Citibanamex), at a 12-month term. Interest will be payable monthly at a SOFR variable rate plus 25 basis points, and principal payment is due upon maturity, without fees.



Proceeds from this loan will be used for the acquisition of 100% of the shares of a real estate company within the Tijuana airport for USD$35.4 million, which will allow the control, operation, and exploitation of 26 hectares in the airport polygon.

The main activity of this company consists of subleasing cargo operation areas, hangars, and operational areas to aeronautical industry clients, such as air cargo companies, aviation, couriers, customs services, and ancillary services.

We consider that the acquisition of this company becomes a strategic asset for the expansion of the Tijuana airport and for the growth of the Company's non-aeronautical revenues.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (GAP) operates 12 airports throughout Mexicos Pacific region, including the major cities of Guadalajara and Tijuana, the four tourist destinations of Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, La Paz, and Manzanillo, and six other mid-sized cities: Hermosillo, Guanajuato, Morelia, Aguascalientes, Mexicali and Los Mochis. In February 2006, GAPs shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PAC and on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GAP. In April 2015, GAP acquired 100% of Desarrollo de Concessioner Aeroportuarias, S.L., which owns a majority stake in MBJ Airports Limited, a company operating Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In October 2018, GAP entered into a concession agreement for the Norman Manley International Airport operation in Kingston, Jamaica, and took control of the operation in October 2019.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are statements that are not historical facts and are based on managements current view and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance, and financial results. The words anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, plans and similar expressions, as they relate to the company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding the declaration or payment of dividends, the implementation of principal operating and financing strategies and capital expenditure plans, the direction of future operations, and the factors or trends affecting financial condition, liquidity, or results of operations are examples of forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. There is no guarantee that the expected events, trends, or results will actually occur. The statements are based on many assumptions and factors, including general economic and market conditions, industry conditions, and operating factors. Any changes in such assumptions or factors could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

In accordance with Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Article 42 of the Ley del Mercado de Valores, GAP has implemented a whistleblower program, which allows complainants to anonymously and confidentially report suspected activities that involve criminal conduct or violations. The telephone number in Mexico, facilitated by a third party responsible for collecting these complaints, is 01 800 563 00 47. The website is www.lineadedenuncia.com/gap. GAPs Audit Committee will be notified of all complaints for immediate investigation.


Calgary, September 26, 2023 - West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. (TSXV: WHY) ("West High Yield" or the "Company") announces that it has repriced the non-brokered private placement of units (each, a "Unit") for gross proceeds of up to CAD$900,000 (the "Offering"), previously announced on September 13, 2023. The price per Unit has been repriced from CAD$0.30 per Unit to $0.23 per Unit.

Each Unit will continue to consist of one (1) common share of the Company (each, a "Share") and one (1) Common Share purchase warrant (each, a " Warrant"). Each Warrant, together with CAD$0.35, will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one (1) additional Common Share for a period of twenty-four (24) months from each Warrant's date of issuance. The Warrants will not be listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"). The Corporation may still pay a finder's fee in connection with the Offering to eligible finders in accordance with the policies of the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities laws consisting of: (i) a cash commission of up to 6% of the gross proceeds of the Offering; and (ii) a number of common share purchase warrants (the "Finder's Warrants") of up to 6% of the number of Units sold pursuant to the Offering. The Finder's Warrant will have identical terms to the Warrants.

The Offering will be completed pursuant to certain exemptions from the prospectus requirements under applicable Canadian securities laws. All securities issued under the Offering are subject to a statutory hold period from their date of issue in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. None of the Units will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and none may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements.

The proceeds from the Offering will be used for supporting the Company's pilot testing project, concluding its permitting process, covering essential operations and general working capital purposes and expenses. The Offering is subject to certain closing conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including the acceptance and approval of the TSXV.

About West High Yield

West High Yield is a publicly traded junior mining exploration and development company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral resource properties in Canada with a primary objective to develop its Record Ridge magnesium, silica, and nickel deposit using green processing techniques to minimize waste and CO 2 emissions.

The Company's Record Ridge magnesium deposit located 10 kilometers southwest of Rossland, British Columbia has approximately 10.6 million tonnes of contained magnesium based on an independently produced National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report prepared by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. in accordance with NI 43-101.

Contact Information:

West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd.

Frank Marasco Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: (403) 660-3488

Email: frank@whyresources.com

Barry Baim, Corporate Secretary

Telephone: (403) 829-2246

Email: barry@whyresources.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada and globally; industry conditions, including governmental regulation; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; and other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date hereof, and to not use such forward-looking information for anything other than its intended purpose. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States. The securities of the Company will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons except in certain transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181984
VANCOUVER, Sept. 26, 2023 - Northwest Copper Corp. (TSXV:NWST) (OTCQX: NWCCF) ("NorthWest" or the "Company") wishes to announce the results of its Annual Meeting held earlier today.



A total of 155,185,868 common shares were voted in person or by proxy at the meeting representing 81.60% of the votes attached to all outstanding shares. The following table sets out the votes received by the directors elected at the Annual Meeting:

Director Votes For Percentage of Voted Shares Maryantonett Flumian 84,901,601 54.71% Braam Jonker 84,901,601 54.71% Adam Manna 84,901,601 54.71% David Moore 151,855,002 97.85% Grant Sawiak 84,901,601 54.71% Jim Steel 84,901,601 54.71% John Theobald 84,901,601 54.71%



At the Annual Meeting, shareholders also approved: (i) the setting of the number of directors at seven; (ii) the appointment of the auditor and authorization of the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration; and (iii) to approve the Company's equity compensation plan.

Following the meeting, David Moore tendered his resignation from the Board but will continue as Interim President and CEO. The Company would like to thank the outgoing directors for their service.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of Northwest Copper Corp.

"Lauren McDougall"

CFO

For further information, please contact:

Peter Lekich, Director Investor Relations

Tel: 778-389-2446

Email: plekich@northwestcopper.ca

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussion with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often, but not always using phrases such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to statements with respect to the plans and intentions of the Company.

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, constitutes forward-looking information. Although NorthWest believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information since NorthWest can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information, including the risks, uncertainties and other factors identified in NorthWest's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking information are subject to business and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results of operations to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NorthWest's expectations include risks associated with the business of NorthWest; risks related to reliance on technical information provided by NorthWest; risks related to exploration and potential development of the Company's mineral properties; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; fluctuations in commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; the need for cooperation of government agencies and First Nation groups in the exploration and development of properties and the issuance of required permits; the need to obtain additional financing to develop properties and uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing; the possibility of delay in exploration or development programs and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time and additional risks identified in NorthWest's filings with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR+ in Canada (available at www.sedarplus.com ).

Forward-looking information is based on estimates and opinions of management at the date the information are made. NorthWest does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking information except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.
Release Highlights:

Drilling at Drudrusavu has discovered a new epithermal vein system two kilometers east of the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits clearly associated with a prominent CSAMT high resistivity anomaly.

Drudrusavu mineralization is associated with at least two stages of epithermal mineralization, characterized by the presence of quartz sulfide veinlets and hydrothermal alteration, that have been documented over three intervals totaling 87.1 meters in KGD-2023-08 and 65.0 meters in KDG-2023-09.

Drilling at Mouta Prospect intersected two styles of mineralization primarily consisting of a broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite with some caldera margin related shear-style mineralization.

VANCOUVER, September 27, 2023 - Kalo Gold Corp. ("Kalo", "Kalo Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the exploration program at Vatu Aurum Gold Project ("Vatu Aurum" or the "Project"), Republic of Fiji. Kalo has completed four diamond drill holes in the 2023 exploration program: two at Drudrusavu ("Drudrusavu") located within the Qiriyaga Hill Prospect ("Qiriyaga") and two at Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") for a total of 432.0 meters ("m").

Mr. Terry L Tucker, P.Geo, President and CEO of Kalo Gold, commented "The two drill holes at Drudrusavu successfully confirmed the Controlled-Source Audio-frequency Magnetotellurics ("CSAMT") geophysical survey has identified zones of hydrothermal alteration and silicification. Both holes drilled had between 65 and 87 m of silicification and hydrothermal alteration and that included one interval that returned 4 meters averaging 1.23 g/t Au and 1 metre averaging 4.17 g/t Au. Given the shallow level of erosion that has been interpreted this indicates there is excellent potential for mineralization at depth at Drudrusavu. The positive correlation between the CSAMT and the drilling at Drudrusavu will give us the confidence to expand exploration at Qiriyaga. Previous drill results at Qiriyaga intersected thick, near-surface, high-grade gold mineralization, particularly drill hole KCD-17 that returned 8.75 metres at 36.02 g/t Au (61.25 to 70 m) and 10 m at 27.18 g/t Au (76-86 m) including 120 g/t Au between 81 to 82 m."

Drudrusavu

Two holes, KGD-2023-08 (232.50m) and KGD-2023-09 (169.50m) were drilled at Drudrusavu which is located 2 km east of Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits. The drainage through Drudrusavu contained a "very strong gold anomaly" with gold in the stream sediment samples returning up to 580 parts per billion ("ppb") gold. Drudrusavu was originally defined by a 750 m long multi element soil and rock geochemical anomaly that was subsequently drilled in 1986 by Placer Dome. Drill holes KGD-2023-08 and KGD-2023-09 successfully tested the down dip extent of mineralized outcrop on Drudrusavu Creek, the soil geochemical anomaly, historical drilling and a prominent resistivity anomaly defined by a recently completed CSAMT survey (Target 5 in the previous release). The resistivity anomaly is believed to correspond to a ring fault around the edge of a caldera, a potential fertile corridor for precious metals mineralization (Figures 1 and 2).

KGD-2023-08 intersected three mineralized zones from 50.4 to 85.5m, 115.5 to 157.5m and 206.1 to 216.1m composed of millimetre wide quartz veinlets with anhedral and open-space (comb) textures hosted in silica-chlorite altered polymictic breccia and dacite. Gold mineralization was intersected over a 4m zone averaging 1.23 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold, including a meter sample grading 4.17 g/t gold (see Table 1 and Photos 1 to 4).

KGD-2023-09 was drilled 100m to the southeast of KGD-2023-09 along the same CSAMT resistivity anomaly. It intersected three mineralized zones from 41.2 to 59.8m, 72.2 to 105.0m and 114.9 to 128.4m consisting of mm-wide quartz veinlets with comb texture associated with fine pyrite and chalcopyrite hosted in the same rock and alteration suite as KGD-2023-09.

Table 1: Drudrusavu Drill Results

The gold mineralization at Drudrusavu as shown in these two drill holes is associated with at least two stages of quartz veinlets.

Early-stage quartz veinlets and breccia filling with anhedral texture and a homogeneous appearance and an absence of banding, open-space, or similar features. This type of quartz generally infills the space between clasts of brecciated dacite. No other sulfides except pyrite have been documented with it.

A later-stage event with quartz veinlets-pyrite-chalcopyrite (centerline), was observed to cut the early quartz and is characterized by a cockscomb, open-space texture.

The relatively shallow oxidation level (~10m) at Drudrusavu suggests that the mineralization in the area will generally be primary. The results of the Drudrusavu drilling in addition to confirming gold mineralization in that area has extended the extent of the Qiriyaga Prospect a total of 2 km. The mineralization remains open along strike to the northeast and southeast and importantly at depth and correlates well with the CSAMT resistivity anomaly 5 as illustrated in Figure 3.

Mouta Prospect

Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") is located approximately 9 km northwest of Qiriyaga Hill Prospect on the outer edge of the Mouta Caldera. Two holes, KMD-2023-01 (151.5m) and KMD-2023-02 (280.5m) were drilled at Mouta to test a 330m long NE-trending soil anomaly characterized by coincident Au-Ag-As-Sb-Hg-Cu-Pb-Zn and a strong Induced Polarization ("IP") signature (see Figure 4).

Two styles of mineralization were intersected, the first is the shear-style mineralized zone and the second is the broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite. The mineralization is interpreted to be related to shallowly eroded phreatomagmatic eruption setting like the other Prospects on the Property.

KMD-2023-01 intersected the shear style mineralization from 31.0 to 51.0m hosted in a dark gray dacite breccia. It is gougy and strongly silicified in some sections with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and zinc sulfides (marmatite and sphalerite) up to 10% volume occurring as veinlets and disseminations. This zone is the downdip expression of the mineralized outcrop observed at the surface.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 51.0 to 69.0m in an intensely clay altered, felsic dacite breccia. The frequency of these veinlets is generally 5 to 10 per m and total sulfides are estimated between 5% to 7% volume. This zone was disrupted by an 8.40m, barren dark grey colored andesite dike from 68.2 to 76.6m but continued again until 94.0m. Mineralization tapered off from 94.0m downwards until a barren dacite flow (country rock) was hit at 117.80m.

KMD-2023-02 intersected the shear style mineralization from 30.55 to 45.30m within a highly oxidized zone that extends down to a depth of 59.40m. It intersected several 2m copper-bearing zones grading between 0.27% - 0.39% Cu with up to 3.56% Zn.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 129.5 to 178.0m. This zone is hosted within a silica - clay - chlorite altered dacite breccia from 129.50 m to 151.0m, and intense clay alteration from 151.0 to 178.0m. The sulfides identified within this zone are pyrite, zinc sulfides, and chalcopyrite and estimated to be up to 10%. KMD-2023-02 is mineralized from 178.0 m down to the end of hole at 280.5 m, but only pyrite was identified occurring both as fracture filling and disseminations in an intensely clay-altered dacite breccia. It returned 4 m averaging 0.59% from 167-171m.

Table 2: Mouta Drill Results

Mouta Prospect - Surface Channel Sample Results

Surface mapping has identified zones of silica, silica-clay, and clay alteration and the host rock of gold mineralization is a clay altered pumiceous dacite breccia. Argillic alteration can be intense locally and the main minerals are pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and barite. The presence of gold-silver-copper mineralization at Mouta Prospect, including: 6.2g/t Au, 645g/t Ag and 3.12% Cu from rock chip outcrop sampling and 3.06g/t Au, 819g/t Ag and 1.63% Cu from a stockpile grab sample have been received in addition to recently completed surface channel sampling of the mineralized outcrop. The table below summarizes the gold results from the channel sampling:

Table 3: Mouta Surface Channel Sample Results

The results of the work so far done in Mouta, including the two recently completed drill holes, has demonstrated that Mouta offers an opportunity for a gold or a gold-copper-zinc discovery. The Company will continue to evaluate the results for an effective follow up exploration program.

Sampling, Analysis and QAQC

The drill core was sampled at 1m intervals and cut into half with an electric core saw at the at the Company's exploration camp. The core samples were submitted to ALS Minerals laboratory in Brisbane, Australia ("ALS") for sample preparation and analysis. The gold was analyzed using Au-AA24 method (50g split). Multi-element analysis was also carried out using ME-ICP61m method. Kalo's Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QAQC) protocol for drill core samples includes: 1) field measurement of half core sample weights, 2) insertion of certified reference materials at 1 in 20 frequencies, 3) insertion of blank sample at 1 in 40 frequencies, and 3) insertion of duplicate core samples. ALS has internal QAQC protocols that include analysis and results monitoring for certified reference materials, blank samples, and duplicate core samples.

ABOUT KALO GOLD CORP.

Kalo Gold Corp., a gold exploration company, is focused on exploration for low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of the Vatu Aurum Gold Project on the island of Vanua Levu (North Island) in the Republic of Fiji. Kalo holds a 100% interest in two Special Prospecting Licenses, covering 367 km2 that hosts a minimum of seven volcanic arc related calderas ranging between 1 to 10km in diameter in a geological setting that could be analogous to the alkaline related low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of both the neighbouring Vatukoula Gold Mine and the Lion One Metals' Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project. Historical exploration work concentrated on the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits and resulted in the identification of over fourteen priority epithermal gold exploration targets.

Both Viti Levu, (South Island), and Vanua Levu are on the prolific Pacific "Ring of Fire", a trend that has produced numerous large deposits, including Porgera, Lihir and Grasberg and on Viti Levu, the exceptional Vatukoula Gold Mine. The Vatukoula Gold Mine has produced more than 7 million ounces of gold since 1937. The island of Viti Levu also hosts the fully permitted Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, where Lion One Metals is fast tracking a high-grade underground gold mining operation.

Qualified Person

The technical disclosure in this news release has been approved by Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Kalo Gold Corp.

Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo

President and Chief Executive Officer

and

Kevin Ma, CPA, CA

Executive Vice President, Capital Markets and Director

For more information, please write to info@kalogoldcorp.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Forward Looking Statements Disclaimer

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which are statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements relating to the Company's proposed drilling timeline and the proposed expansion of the exploration program, and the Company's plans for future exploration on the Vatu Aurum Gold Project. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements included in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to raise the necessary capital to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's filing statement dated February 9, 2021 and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking statements herein may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect, and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Figure 1: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta and Qiriyaga Hill Prospects.

Figure 2: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Qiriyaga Hill Prospect.

Figure 3: Qiriyiga Hill Prospect - CSAMT 1D Inversion at 200 meters with six key target zones identified.

Figure 4: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta Prospect.

Photo 1: KGD-2023-08: Intense quartz - pyrite infill from 53.0 to 54.0m. Assays returned 4m at 1.23 g/t Au from 53 to 57m with 1m at 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m.

Photo 2: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the interval which returned 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m. Note the abundant quartz veining with open-space texture.

Photo 3: KGD-2023-08: Banded, 5cm quartz-py-cpy veinlet; note the hydrothermal brecciation of the host rock. Assays returned 1m at 1.58% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

Photo 4: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the banded, 5cm qz-py-cpy veinlet at 74.45. Assays returned 1m at 1.54% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

SOURCE: Kalo Gold Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/787596/kalo-discovers-new-epithermal-gold-and-copper-mineralization-at-vatu-aurum-gold-project-fiji
Bayport Savings and Loans supports 2 schools

Business Desk Report Business News Sep - 27 - 2023 , 10:21

The Bayport Savings and Loans, a publicly listed payroll lender, has donated 200 dual desks to two schools: the Bolgatanga Model Preparatory Primary School in the Upper East Region and the Nsein Methodist Primary School in Nsein, Western Region.

The donation formed part of the companys 20th-anniversary celebrations and reflects its commitment to providing a safe and conducive learning environment for students in the beneficiary schools.

During the handover ceremony, the Chief Commercial Officer at Bayport, Allen Jubin said the gesture underscored the company's dedication to investing in education as a core aspect of its corporate social responsibility.

He explained that education was a top priority in Bayport's corporate social responsibility efforts, stating that for years, we have been awarding scholarships to the children of our customers.

In this special anniversary year, we decided to go a step further by providing furniture to selected schools in remote communities where students have been sitting on the floor to learn, he stated.

He said the goal of the company was to create a more conducive learning environment for these beneficiary schools and this commitment would remain a cornerstone of its future initiatives.'

The headteacher of the Nsein Methodist Primary School, Emmanuel Kwame Appiah, commended Bayport's management and staff for their timely assistance.

He highlighted how the donation would positively impact teaching and learning, as well as boost the students confidence and self-esteem.

Thanks to this donation, students will now have comfortable places to sit and study. It will also reduce distractions and create a more engaging and conducive learning environment.

The headteacher of the Bolgatanga Model Preparatory Primary School, Catherine Assibi Nyaaba, for her part, expressed her gratitude for Bayport's generous support.

She said the school had not received furniture donations for the past three decades, which had negatively affected the quality of education.

This donation is invaluable and will ensure that students are nurtured into well-rounded individuals who can contribute to our community. Bayport's thoughtfulness will forever be remembered in our school's history and we are incredibly thankful for their support. she stated.

She assured that the donated furniture would be used for its intended purpose and maintained to benefit many more students in the future.
Meet Solar Taxi, an assembler of electric vehicles in Ghana

Graphic Online Business News Sep - 27 - 2023 , 19:40

Solar Taxi, has been assembling electric vehicles in Ghana and is the third largest electric vehicle assembler in Africa.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Wednesday (Sept 27] paid a visit to the start-up, SolarTaxi. They assemble motorcycles, cars, and buses. "It was a pleasure to take a ride in one of their buses which can travel from Accra to Kumasi without need for a recharge of the batteries. They are also able to convert existing internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles," Vice President Bawumia said when he visited the plant on Wednesday.

Dr Bawumia made the point that electric vehicles are the future and the government was working on a policy framework of using electric vehicles for public transport in Ghana.

"This will drastically reduce the cost of transportation as the major components of the cost is fuel and spare parts. It will also reduce carbon emissions," the Vice President added.

Solar Taxi, through its bankers are also providing financing for its motorcycles, cars and buses without collateral.

All they require is your GhanaCard ID and they will give you a vehicle which you can pay for over time.

The average age of people working for Solar Taxi is 26 and 90 percent of their engineers are female.
Only 20% of new businesses survive after 5yrs

Maclean Kwofi Business News Sep - 27 - 2023 , 10:37

Ghana is one of the countries known to have a volatile business environment with many firms often shutting down after only a few years of operation.

To understand the reason behind the trend, the Global President of the Billionaire Conclave, Dr Olumide Emmanuel, stated that only 20 per cent of businesses survive beyond five to 10 years of operations.

He said some of the major reasons behind the periodic failure was the mindset with which the businesses were started and the way they were operated in the long run.

"Over 80 per cent of businesses fail within the first five years and within the next five years another 80 per cent fail.

So, if you see any company that is 10 years old and above, that company is unique. And many of you can testify that you have either started businesses that have failed or put your hands in so many things that did not work, Dr Emmanual said ahead of the Building Transgenerational Wealth and Organisation programme in Accra.

Wealth creation

He said Africa needs a new breed of wealthy individuals to help accelerate the development of the continent.

That, he said, would help address Africas dependence on the west for financial support to fund developmental projects in the region.

He said Africa needed rich people who were not greedy and would not cheat and steal the resources of the state to enrich themselves.

The continent needs impact and legacy millionaires and billionaires who will spend on things that matter and not only think of themselves, he said.

The programme

Building transgenerational wealth and organization is a two-day programme expected to be held between February 8 and 9, 2024.

An initiative of Billionaires Conclave, the programme is to attract chief executive officers, businessmen and women, entrepreneurs and individuals who want to build transgenerational businesses.

Dr Emmanuel stated that impact and legacy millionaires and billionaires were people who did not think only of wealth accumulation, but cater for the needs of the poor and vulnerable in society and as well as help address societal challenges.

He said the conference was to help build transgenerational businesses and organisations that were sustainable and went beyond their founders.

The CEO of the Billionaires Conclave indicated that the programme was not meant to make participants millionaires and billionaires, but equip participants with the skills to become millionaires and billionaires and also help those who were already millionaires and billionaires to sustain their wealth and transfer to the next generation.

He said the participants would be taken through a masterclass on topics such as developing a transgenerational mindset, 20 secrets to building and enduring organisation, 20 reasons why businesses fail, developing a wealthy mentality, understanding true wealth and components of true wealth.

The Country Representative of the Billionaires Conclave, Obaahemaa Demay, said China and India used the millionaires approach to develop their economies and Ghana and Africa could pursue the same to build their economies.
Prioritisation of national interest: Timely call

Daily Graphic Editorials Sep - 27 - 2023 , 07:20

The nation is considered a beacon of hope for democracy and stability in Africa after 66 years of independence.

Granted that it is by no means a remarkable achievement, there are many political pundits who argue that what the nation's forebears fought for had not been fully achieved, leaving some gaps to be filled.

Notable among them is the need to break that cycle of politicians seeking their parochial interests to the neglect of the national interest.

Some argue that the vision of those who sacrificed for the nation to gain independence has not yielded the desired results, particularly with regard to patriotism, nationalism and other values.

Indeed, the sacrifices made by the forebears started 126 years ago when the Aborigines Rights Protection Society was formed in Cape Coast to resist the Crown Lands Bill of 1897.

It was a courageous act! It prevented the expropriation of Ghanaian lands for the benefit of the British Crown, safeguarding the people's ownership of their lands during the colonial period.

Last Thursday, the nation commemorated the birthday of its first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and one of the country's statesmen granted the Daily Graphic an interview where he shared his thoughts on how to leverage the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah and build on what the forebears bequeathed to the nation (see page 13, Friday, December 22, 2023 of Daily Graphic).

The Public Holidays Amendment Bill, 2018, led to the setting aside of September 21 as a memorial day for Ghana's first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in recognition of his significant role in the fight for Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957.

Dr Abu Sakara Foster, who is also a development agronomist, in his submission to mark the day, stressed the need for politicians to prioritise the national interest rather than parochial interests at all levels.

He said meritocracy, equity, inclusion, integrity of service and empowerment of people, among others, were key ingredients the nation's forebears fought for, which should be restored and practised in full.

The paper supports this call which is relevant today due to recent developments on the political scene.

Meritocracy as a social system in which people get status or rewards because of what they achieve rather than their wealth, social status or political affiliation is no longer working to some extent.

It is a common phenomenon for some party apparatchiks to get political appointments not based on merit but on other considerations, resulting in the putting of square pegs in round holes".

Similarly, equity and inclusiveness are now a challenge in governance as members of a community that should feel included and empowered to improve or maintain their well- being are being sidelined because they are not party card-bearing members.

Integrity of service which means living up to a commitment made either through explicit statements or implicitly through behaviour is also not being followed rigidly by some duty-bearers.

This has resulted in a situation where some basic social amenities such as potable water, electricity, roads and hospitals are not being provided for the citizenry as required if social justice and equity are anything to go by.

The paper would like to point out that when the citizenry are empowered, they are able to demand political accountability which is required in democratic governance.

The Daily Graphic believes that accountability is a central piece of good governance.

It enables the sharing of power (concept of checks and balances) and the public control over the use of public resources.

It contributes to reducing the risk of power abuse and corrupt practices, which in turn is essential to ensure the fulfilment of peoples basic human rights.

A well-functioning accountable system contributes to building trust in state institutions and the processes of managing public affairs.

The paper thinks that as the nation continues to celebrate the birthday of Dr Nkrumah and extol the values of the nation's forebears, it is imperative to restore all those values necessary for nation-building.

Those values must be expressions of human dignity, trust, value, respect, selflessness, among others.

Such values, the paper believes, will go a long way to prevent the winner-takes-all politics, corruption, tribal politics and monetocracy driven by material wealth which the nation is grappling with and which, if not eliminated, will eventually erode the democratic gains so far made.

The Daily Graphic therefore reminds Ghanaians to recommit themselves to seeking the national good.

That means the goals, values and objectives that a nation seeks to advance must be paramount.
Blame citizens for floods not government, says MzVee

Edith Mensah Showbiz News Sep - 26 - 2023 , 17:27

Renowned Ghanaian musician, MzVee, has come to the defense of government and accusing citizens for the curse of perennial flooding that the country is plunged into.

According to the Come and See My Moda artiste, irresponsible waste disposal particularly that of plastic waste and bottles by citizens, has been the major cause of recurrent flooding, rather than governments inaction to the situation.

Speaking in a recent interview on Property FM in Cape Coast, MzVee born Vera Hamenoo-Kpeda, expressed concerns about flooding and its threats on the lives of citizens.

She acknowledged that although government bore some responsibility due to the lack of proper drainage system, the citizens couldnt be absolved of the problems since their disregard for safety and indiscriminate way of living were major cause of flooding.

Our drainage system is really horrible and the government has to look at that. We cant blame everything on the government although the government is to be blamed a lot but I feel the citizens must also take the blame.

If you see the amount of plastic bottles, I dont think the government came to put them there, so I think were all to blame for these things, she said.

She went on to highlight the role of citizens in curbing the problem by their improper disposal of waste, particularly plastic bottles and urged for a sense of responsibility on the part of citizens to fight the issue of floods in the country.
27th Annual GJA Media Awards Committee formed

Graphic.com.gh Sep - 27 - 2023 , 13:47

The National Executive of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has constituted the 27th Annual GJA Media Awards Committee.

The nine-member committee chaired by a former Director of Television at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Betty Appau-Opong, will vet entries submitted by members and select winners in 34 categories for honours at this years media awards.

A statement signed by the General Secretary of GJA, Kofi Yeboah, said the awards up for grabs included the prestigious P. A. V. Ansah Journalist of the Year, Best Female Journalist of the Year, Most Promising Journalist of the Year and Best Student Journalist of the Year.

Other members of the awards committee are the Executive Editor of Daily Guide Network, Fortune Alimi; the Chief Editor of Ghana News Agency, George-Ramsey Benamba; the Regional Director of Obonu FM / TV, Loretta Vanderpuye, and a Deputy News Editor of the Daily Graphic, Michael Quaye.

The rest are the News Editor of United Television (UTV), Joana Afua Mensah; Head of News, 3FM and Co-host of Sunrise Morning Show on TV3, William A. Asiedu; International Photojournalist, Nana Kofi Acquah, and the News Director of Atinka Media Village, Isaac Nuamah Yeboah.

The 27th GJA Media Awards is scheduled to take place at the Accra International Conference Centre on October 29, this year.
Alan's resignation premeditated  NPP

Daniel Kenu & Joshua Bediako Koomson Sep - 27 - 2023 , 02:00

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the sudden resignation of former Trades and Industry Minister, Alan Kyerematen, as premeditated especially after failing to notify the party leadership of his intention prior to his declaration.

It said choosing to resign from the party through a press conference instead of engaging the party executive ahead of his announcement spoke volumes of Mr Kyerematens plot.

The General Secretary of the NPP, Justin Kodua Frimpong, in a press conference at the partys headquarters in Accra yesterday; recounted that after the August 26 Special Electoral College, the National Chairman visited Mr Kyerematen on behalf of the party in an attempt to bring all the 10 presidential aspirants together.

During the visit, he said, Mr Kyerematen did not portray any sign of resigning from the party or going independent.

While respecting his decision to contest the 2024 presidential election as an Independent candidate, the General Secretary said since 1992, key party people had expressed interest in leading the party and the country but those who failed to succeed never abandoned the party.

Since 1992, several party faithful have had the vision to lead the party and, subsequently, lead the country, but sadly, as nature has its own course, only a few have had the opportunity to achieve that vision.

Party faithful who never had the opportunity to lead never resigned from the party but continued to serve, some until they were called to eternity, he stated.

Response to allegations

The former NPP presidential hopeful, Mr Kyerematen, in a press conference at the Movenpick Hotel in Accra last Monday announced his decision to resign from the party and contest as an Independent candidate in the 2024 general election, provoking mixed reactions from Ghanaians.

Central to the reasons given for his resignation were allegations of unconstitutional and unmeritorious decisions of the National Council of the NPP regarding a petition by some presidential aspirants which demanded that the Super Delegates Conference should be held at a single venue and also allow each delegate to nominate five persons instead of one.

Mr Kyerematen asserted that the Super Delegates Conference was strategically and tactically skewed to favour one particular aspirant.

In response to that, Mr Kodua said: Article 13(1) (1), of the partys constitution states that the date and venue for the presidential primaries shall be decided by the National Council, provided, however, that the National Council may, on appropriate occasion, vary the date.

He said without doubt, the National Council did not violate the constitution by voting against the proposal for the use of a single venue for the election.

To buttress that point, he recalled a precedent in 2014 when a Special Electoral College election was held at several venues but none of the aspirants at the time, including Mr Kyerematen, filed a petition regarding the venue.

Mr Kodua explained further that the partys constitution further states in Article 13(2) (2) that, where there is more than one contestant, each delegate will cast his or her vote by secret ballot for one of the contestants.

He, therefore, said that the demand by the petitioners for delegates to vote for five persons instead of one was unconstitutional.

As democratic and transparent as the leadership of the party had been, the NPP General Secretary said it recommended for the consideration of the National Council a determination on the petition of the aspirants upon receipt of same.

He said even more important was the fact that the petitioners, although most of them were not members of the National Council, were granted a rare opportunity to appear before the council and make their case on why such a proposal should be adopted.

In a true democratic process, 73 members of the National Council voted against both proposals relative to nine others who voted in support, underscoring the overwhelming rejection of both proposals, he noted.

Disagreement

Mr Kodua also disagreed with assertions made by Mr Kyerematen that the party had been hijacked by a selected group of party leaders and elders, as well as government appointees.

Historically, he said, the selection of flag bearers for political parties in Ghana had been the preserve of a privileged few until the NPP took the bold decision to decentralise the process by expanding its electoral college to enfranchise some 106,590 delegates in 2010.

He said currently, about 200,000 delegates would be voting to select the partys next flag bearer relative to the estimated 1,998 who did same in 1992.

Clearly, the quantum leap to 200,000 delegates in 2023 underscores the decentralisation of power to all party stakeholders and defeats the assertion that the party has been hijacked by a privileged few, he stressed.

Addressing the allegation of intimidation against Mr Kyerematens supporters, Mr Kodua stated that certain government appointees, including cabinet ministers who openly declared their support for him, were still at post and had never been intimidated.

He pointed out that under the Fourth Republic, both the NPP and the NDC had had some leading members breaking ranks to either form their own party or join other political parties, yet the mother party remained resilient.

Going into the 2024 general election, the party has a message, and we use this opportunity to commend Mr Kyerematen for admitting the good work the government has done under his then ministry, he said.

Remain committed

He further urged the party faithful who were hitherto supporting Mr Kyerematen by virtue of his membership in the party, to continue supporting the NPP in its quest to break the eight.

Together, we shall overcome challenges, and together, we shall achieve success.

We urge all party faithful to remain committed, dedicated and resolute in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.

Together, we shall persevere, and together, we shall succeed, Mr Kodua affirmed.
GHA starts diversions at Tema Motorway intersection from Monday

Diana Mensah Sep - 27 - 2023 , 05:22

The Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) will start road diversions to ease traffic flow and make way for the construction of the second phase of the Tema Motorway grade separated intersection, otherwise known as the Tema Motorway roundabout project.

Construction works on the project is scheduled to start on Monday, October 2, this year.

A statement issued by the GHA said temporary traffic management and control measures, including road diversions, would be implemented to speed up the ongoing construction.

It therefore, cautioned motorists and the public to take note of the various road diversions while approaching the Tema Motorway grade separated intersection.

Road diversions

For motorists travelling from Accra towards Afienya and Akosombo, the authority advised them to keep to the outer lane and exit onto the Harbour Road, then move to the left lane and execute the U-Turn after passing the pedestrian bridge to merge with traffic coming from Tema, thereby, following the staying in the left lane to guide them straight through the intersection.

Motorists travelling from Tema to Accra are also to keep to the left lane and go across the flyover then execute the U-Turn on the Akosombo Afienya Road after going past the pedestrian bridge to merge with the oncoming traffic.

After merging, motorists are to move into the right lane then use the ramp to get onto the Tema motorway.

It recommended that motorists going from Aflao and Dawenya to Tema should stay in the right lane towards Akosombo Afienya Road, then execute the U-Turn on the Akosombo Afienya Road after going past the pedestrian bridge to merge with the on-coming traffic.

After merging, motorists are to stay in the left lane to head straight through the intersection.

It indicated that motorists going from Akosombo and Afienya to Dawenya and Aflao must keep left towards Tema Harbour and move straight through the intersection, then execute the U-Turn on the Harbour Road after the pedestrian bridge to merge with the oncoming traffic.

After merging, motorists are to keep right, then use the ramp to get onto the Aflao Road.

It further mentioned that motorists travelling from Accra to Aflao and Aflao to Accra are to stay in the left lane using the underpass.

After apologising to the public for any inconvenience the changes might cause them, the authority said All motorists are advised to adhere strictly to these new measures for the duration of the works.

The construction of the second phase of Tema Motorway Grade Separation Project is under a $25 million grant facility signed between Ghana and Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Ghana-China trade sees further growth - Ambassador LU Kun

GNA Sep - 27 - 2023 , 14:04

Bilateral trade volume between Ghana and China reached an unprecedented high at US$10.2 billion last year, with Ghana's exports to China surging by 60 per cent.

Mr Lu Kun, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, who stated this, added that his country remained Ghana's largest partner and major foreign investment source for years, thus offering significant opportunities for their peoples.

The Ambassador was speaking at a reception to mark the 74th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Hosted by Mr Lu at his official residence, in Accra, and attended by high profile dignitaries, including the Second Lady, Mrs Samira Bawumia, the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr Francis Asenso-Boakye, members of the Diplomatic Corps, the Chinese business community and residents in Ghana, the grand reception was charaterised by rich Chinese cultural displays.

In 2021, the bilateral trade volume was US$9.57 billion.

China mainly imports mineral fuels, oils and distillation products, ore slags and ash, wood and articles of wood, cocoa and cocoa preparations, copper and aluminum from Ghana.

Ghana's main imports from China include machinery, iron and steel, electrical and electronic materials.

This year marks the 63rd anniversary of the diplomatic ties between China and Ghana, a friendship nurtured by Chairman MAO Zedong, Premier ZHOU Enlai and President Kwame Nkrumah.

Ambassador Lu said: "Over the past 63 years, China and Ghana have always supported each other and worked in solidarity, safeguarding the shared interests of the two countries and the Global South."

China, last year, invested in a number of companies, including Sunon Asogli Power (Ghana) Limited Company, African World Airlines, steel, ceramic and cement factories.

These, he said, had helped to create jobs and boosted industrialisation for Ghana.

Last month, he noted, the Sentuo Oil Refinery Limited, investment an of a Chinese private company, began operation as the single largest investment in Ghana over the last decade.

"People to people exchange is among the priorities of China-Ghana cooperation. In April 2022, vocational institutions upgrade project was completed. Last June, a Luban Agriculture Workshop was commissioned, providing vocational skills training for local farmers," said Ambassador Lu.

"There have been three Confucius Institute in Ghana, in the University of Ghana, the University of Cape Coast, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology respectively," he said.

Additionally, he said, more than 6,500 Ghanaian students studied in China, ranking it the second among all African countries for many consecutive years.

"Since this year, China-Ghana cooperation has yielded fruitful results, delivering tangible benefits to the Ghanaian people,"the Ambassador emphasised.

He recounted: "In March, the China-aided Annex Building of the Foreign Ministry began construction. In May, China joined the Official Creditor Committee of Ghana as the Co-Chair and helped Ghana secure the IMF 3 billion US dollars deal in record time. In June, China-aided military building began construction. In July, the 43rd fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy visited Ghana."

Additionally, the Ambassador said the Embassy donated relief items to flood victims in Volta Region, while a Chinese medical team was in Ghana to provide free clinical service.

"In August, the China Visa Application Center in Accra officially opened and Hon. Botchwey, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration came to visit."

On developments in his country, the Ambassador said since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the country embraced the centenary of the CPC.

It ushered in a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and eradicated absolute poverty by lifting 100 million rural residents above poverty line, thus meeting the targets of the United Nations SDG 10 years ahead of schedule.

"In the past 11 years, China has made great efforts to promote high-quality development, contributing more than 30 per cent to global growth on average with per capita GDP exceeding 12,000 US dollars."

Those strides, Mr Lu said were achieved because China adhered to the philosophy of people-centered development, creating 13 million new urban jobs on average each year and a middle-income group of over 400 million people.

He, therefore, urged Ghana to maintain it's relations with China to surmount the regional and international challenges.

"As long as China and Ghana stay together, we will surely bring prosperity for the two peoples. China-Ghana relation will become stronger and closer."

For his part, Mr Asenso-Boakye, who represented the President, lauded China for being a dependable partner in Ghana's socio-economic development efforts over the years.

Ghana was appreciative of support received in various sectors of the economy notably - education, health, road infrastructure, defence, agriculture, communication, and fisheries.

He noted that although trade between the two countries remained stellar, there was still the need for balanced trade and investment.

It was, therefore, imperative to find new avenues for economic cooperation to enable the commercial partnership to grow further.

"We, in Ghana, believe that by fostering a win-win cooperation with the People's Republic of China, Ghana, will have a greater chance of realising its developmental objectives," the Minister added.

GNA
GOIL plant to reduce bitumen import

Della Russel Ocloo Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:13

Ghana is on course to reduce the $11.8 billion average annual bitumen import bill with commercial production of polymer modified bitumen (PMB) in the country.

Petroleum downstream and midstream player,GOIL, set up the bitumen production plant in Tema as a strategic move to venture into new areas and to help the country reduce the foreign exchange it spends to import the product from neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire and Brazil in South America.

With Ghanas estimated 192,000 tonnes a year demand for bitumen, GOIL believes its 240 tonnes per day bitumen capacity

or more than 87,000 tonnes per year, will help to bridge the gap significantly.

The Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GOIL, Kwame Osei Prempeh has told Graphic Online's Della Russel Ocloo that the production of PMB was a major intervention to significantly lower the cost of road construction in Ghana.

Ghana further hopes to export the product to other markets across West Africa to generate foreign exchange.

The new venture is a major investment expected to positively impact the Ghanaian economy and reduce the country's reliance on imported bitumen, generate foreign exchange and create jobs.

PMB is a type of bitumen combined with one or more polymer materials and used on road pavements, particularly those that are intended to withstand heavy-duty traffic and extreme weather conditions.

The $45 million facility has so far produced and marketed a combined 7,000 tonnes of bitumen emulsions and PMB since June this year.

Facility

The plant also has a 7,500 tonne storage facility built in partnership with Societe Multinationale de Bitumes (SMB) of Cote d'Ivoire.

It has a three-kilometre pipeline connecting the plant to the oil jetty at the Tema Port to receive the base bitumen from supply vessels.

The fully automated plant also has internal pipelines installed above the ground, as opposed to the normal feature of petroleum and other pipelines connecting the oil jetty being laid on the ground.

The facility has two storage tanks with a capacity of 2,000 metric tons for AC 10 bitumen and 4,000 metric tons for AC20 which are the base raw materials for processing into the emulsion and the PMB.

Benefits

Mr Osei-Prempeh said the companys association with SMB was key in accessing the base raw material, which would have been difficult to get from outside West Africa.

"Our expectations are that our activities will cut down, with a long-term view of stopping the importation of the essential component used for asphalting," he said.

"The product would also be exported in the long term to generate foreign exchange for the country," he added.

The project, Mr Osei-Prempeh pointed out, aligned with the company's overall strategy of diversifying its business from an oil marketing company to the mines, ocean bunkering and other areas.

Import

Ghana imported an average of $11.8 billion of bitumen from Cote d'Ivoire and Brazil for road projects in 2021.

It is estimated that bitumen demand on an annual basis stands at 192,000 tonnes.

Whereas the sale of the products since the commencement of operations have been low, Mr Osei-Prempeh said that was due to the cash-and-carry system the company had in place to ensure the sustainability of the business.

He emphasised that while sustainability was key to GOIL, the company hoped to ensure that the product quality was maintained.

"Although low patronage has been a key challenge facing the company, we will continue to network within the infrastructure industry to ensure a future viability of the sector expanding further into creating opportunities for people," he said.

That notwithstanding, Mr Osei-Prempeh said GOIL also intended to use the facility to build technical capacity among players as a way of ensuring the growth of the industry in the foreseeable future.

He expressed the hope that local contractors would turn to patronise the products instead of engaging in importation which could put stress on the local currency and take jobs away from the population.

Maintenance

The Director of Technical Services of GOIL, Alphonso Okai Jr, said the company had a stringent quality control measure aimed at ensuring that the products met the required quality and standards.

He also highlighted the preventive maintenance plan that had been put in place to ensure that the plant was maintained properly.

The plant, Mr Okai said, used the latest technology, including transducers that measured products being loaded at the facility.

Safety is a top priority for GOIL, and the company has plans in place to ensure that no fatal injuries occur, Mr Okai said.

For this reason, we have instituted a safety regime where overall operations are reviewed daily and near incidents evaluated to improve safety processes," he added.
Issues of climate change must be simplified for better outcomes

Mary Anane-Amponsah & Kezia Asantewaa Osei Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:58

Issues of climate change must be simplified for citizens to understand and contribute towards addressing the challenges, a Director of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Amoah Antwi-Bosiako, has said.

He said although a lot was happening to address the climate menace, such efforts remained in the dark because the message was not trickling down to the people.

The director who was speaking at the maiden edition of Africa Climate Communication Conference and Exhibition (ACCCE) 2023, in Accra, therefore, said there was the need to bridge the communication gap to make people play their respective roles effectively to reduce the impact of climate change in the country and the continent at large.

Dr Antwi-Bosiako, who is the Director, Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation of the EPA, and representative of the Minister of Environment Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Dr Kwaku Afriyie, added that without effective communication the efforts would not yield the expected results.

He expressed hope that the Climate Communication and Local Governance  Africa (CCLG-Africa) initiative would groom climate change communicators to bridge the gap and bring the needed change to make climate change issues simple to all.

The conference, which was under the auspices of CCGL-Africa, was on the theme: From vulnerability to resilience towards effective climate change communication strategies for Africa.

Principles

The Chief Executive Officer of CCGL-Africa, Kofi Don-Agor, said for climate communication to be effective, it must be rooted in three principles - accuracy and science-based information, engagement and empathy and action-oriented messages.

The strategies involves identifying at least one focal person from a selected district, regional, national and international level who had shown exemplary innovation and progress towards developing and implementing climate change communication and engagement initiatives with multiple audience.

At the conference

Others include cultivating a frontline of focal staff, related organisations and long-term volunteers who would serve as "climate change communicators" to effectively engage and inspire local communities and school systems.

The organisation would also continuously link climate change communication and engagement activities to relevant stakeholders to sustain future efforts.

"The vision of this communication plan through shared understanding and engagement with related organisations and other key stakeholders is to produce and disseminate appropriate and well-packaged information about climate change to our people," Mr Don-Agor added.

CCLG-Africa, he further said, was liaising with focal persons in selected districts to design climate-related communication on social media, print, information vans and community radio, among others.

The Vice-Chancellor of University of Media Arts and Communication (UniMAC), Prof. Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo, said climate change conversation should not be left with only scientists to handle.

communicators

He said there was the need to engage communicators who can explain the concept to the people in their local languages, adding that the university would introduce courses on environment and climate change communication.

For his part, the Director, Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies, University of Ghana, Prof. Kwadwo Owusu, said: "Climate change is manifesting through extreme weather events, rising sea levels, desertification and loss of biodiversity, among others."
Journalists urged to report on issues of underprivileged

Mohammed Fugu Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:01

Speakers at a conflict resolution and minority rights conference in Dakar, Senegal, have called on journalists in Africa to develop an interest in reporting on issues concerning minority groups or communities and the less privileged in society to help protect their rights.

Given the growing interconnections between minority groups issues, community tensions and conflicts in Africa in recent times, they said that journalists needed to move beyond event driven reportage and dig out issues affecting the rights of the less privileged.

That, they said, would help build, consolidate peace and protect the rights of the less privileged in society.

Thematic reporting

Speaking at the conference, the National Coordinator of the Media Reforms Coordinating Group (MRCG) in Sierra Leone, Dr Francis Sowa, asked journalists to identify thematic issues relating to minority communities and investigate them instead of waiting for events to report on.

There is nothing wrong with reporting on events but the problem with that is that, it leaves more of a kind of drama that is inconclusive, what makes thematic reporting an appropriate style of reporting. It helps to shed light on issues which are not normally in the mainstream media he said.

In reporting on issues of the less privileged, he admonished journalists to allow them to tell their own stories instead of speaking for them, saying that if you are reporting on minority issues, the public expects to hear from the victims themselves, give them the opportunity to put out their concerns.

Unity

For his part, the President of Fahamus, a pan-African organisation which supports the movement of social justice, Mahamadou Tidiane Kesie, said in order for all African countries to remain united and peaceful, all members must be at equal levels in every facet of life.

He said journalists were a fulcrum around which unity, sustainable peace and development thrived, hence, the need to for them to always discharge their duties responsibly.

The Executive Director of the Media Platform for Environment and Climate Change (MPEC), Ghana, Ama Kudom-Agyemang, lamented that the Africa media were not given prominence to issues that were affecting the less privileged such as climate change, conflict and injustice.

She, therefore, charged them to redirect their focus on the vulnerable in society to change the status quo in Africa.

Conference

Organised by Fahamu Africa, a pan-African organisation which supports the movement of social justice in partnership with Minority Rights Group International (MRGI) and the European Union, the two-day conference brought together selected journalists and activists from Ghana, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

It seeks to create a platform for the participants to network and share ideas on social justice, community conflicts and migration-related issues that affect the lives of minority groups in Africa.

The Europe Media Officer of the MRGI, Anna Alboth, indicated that at the end of the conference, a network of journalists and activists would be formed to help champion issues of conflict resolution, migration and raise awareness of the rights of the less privileged in society.

Writers email:mohammed.fugu@

graphic.com.gh
Nation hosts climate vulnerable forum permanent secretariat

Timothy Ngnenbe Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:28

Members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) championed by the Vulnerable Group of 20 (V20) have given approvement for the establishment of an independent secretariat for the CVF and the V20 Finance Ministers.

They also approved for Ghana to host the Global Secretariat of both organisations, positioning the country to become the centre of global climate advocacy.

The V20 Group approved the treaty at its meeting held on the sidelines of the just-ended UN General Assembly in New York, USA.

The meeting was on the theme: Advancing climate prosperity: Building a resilient global financial architecture for the climate vulnerable.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo chaired the forum, and was joined by leaders including the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, and a British Nigerian diplomat and Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Amina J. Mohammed.

In attendance were Finance Ministers and representatives of the 68 member states of the CVF/V20.

Objects

One of the critical objectives of the forum is to facilitate climate resilient growth for its members.

This involves developing programmes that build adaptive capacity, identifying and facilitating access to climate financing from multiple sources, assisting member states to develop climate prosperity plans, carbon markets and exchanges to enable countries access more climate financing while supporting developed partners to meet their net zero targets.

Ultimately, the group seeks sustainable economic growth for its peoples while members ensure that they do their part to keep the world within the recommended 1.5 degree temperature threshold.

The group is also pushing for the advanced rich countries, the most culpable polluters, to deliver on their $500 billion climate finance promise to enable the climate vulnerable economies to adapt mitigating measures.

Ghanaians can benefit significantly from the nations membership of the CVF/V20 Group of Finance Ministers because the platforms primarily aim to mitigate the impact of climate change and foster economic resilience and sustainability.

The CVF/V20 is made up of 68 climate vulnerable economies that together represent 1.74 billion people around the world, with a combined GDP of $3.8 trillion.

Unity

President Akufo-Addo, who is also the President of CVF, urged the members of the forum to remain united and work towards a common goal of addressing their peculiar vulnerabilities to the global climate crisis.

As we struggle to overcome the combined pain of climate change and debt, it is important to remind ourselves that what binds us is more than our collective vulnerabilities.

It is our capabilities that define us.

It is our readiness to confront together, existential threats that set us apart, he added.

He said the willingness of group members not only to learn from one another but to offer solutions that were homegrown and leverage experiences was very essential.

Collaboration

For his part, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, said the combined voice of the 68 member states which represented more than 1.7 billion people was a powerful force that could be leveraged to achieve the desired goals.

Mr Ofori-Atta, who is the chairman of the Vulnerable 20 (V20) Finance Ministers, said the establishment of an independent secretariat for the CVF and the V20 finance ministers was a key milestone worth celebrating.

The minister said the mandate to host the secretariat was an amazing affirmation of our country's manifest destiny of relevance.

Mr Ofori-Atta added that the CVF and V20 which would also champion issues of fair transition, debt restructuring, carbon financing, stranded assets, energy and net-zero targets would do so from Accra.

On the economy, he said with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission in the country this week, the government was on track for a successful first review of the programme and also accessing the World Banks $900 million Development Policy Operation by the end of the year.

Mr Ofori-Atta said the government also expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Paris Club by the middle of next month and begin Eurobond negotiations by end of the year.
NGO presents business start-up kits to farmers

Daily Graphic Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:12

Rainforest Alliance - Ghana, an NGO, has presented business start-up kits worth over GH 700,000 to 100 farmers and farmer groups at Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region.

The donation was a follow up to a capacity building training facilitated by the organisation to the farmers as part of its Resilient Ecosystems and Sustainable Transformation of Rural Economies (RESTORE) project.

The RESTORE project, which was launched in partnership with United States Agency for International Development (USAID), seeks to demonstrate a model for community-led governance, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and resilience that aligns with regional and government priorities in cocoa production landscapes in Ghana and Cote dIvoire.

It is also to help boost the capacity of smallholder farmers in entrepreneurial skills and support them with establishing income diversification enterprises with expanded opportunities for women and youth in the landscape.

Objectives

The Country Director of Rainforest Alliance Ghana, Kwame Osei, explained that the project formed part of efforts to help farmers to expand cocoa harvesting a notch higher.

We launched RESTORE in 2022 to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to increase tree cover and help reduce national and corporate greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

Through these efforts, he said the NGOs aim was to make an impact on an estimated 15,000 farmers managing 50,000 hectares of farmland to ultimately enhance productivity and incomes, restore forest cover and promote gender equality by 2027.

We aim to achieve this through a holistic approach that includes farmer training and support, market connections, active participation in restoring degraded forest lands, all in pursuit of our mission to create a more sustainable and equitable cocoa supply chain, he stated.

Challenges

The Environmental Policy Specialist for USAID West Africa, Victor Mombu, lamented the challenges of low yields and unsustainable farming practices farmers faced in the cocoa industry leading to shrinking of precious forests, all in the pursuit of higher incomes at the expense of deforestation.

This RESTORE project, he said was more than just a vision adding, Its a strategy to build resilient economies and uplift the very communities that sustain our cocoa landscapes.

We are equipping smallholder farmers with the skills they need to become entrepreneurs, and we are helping them diversify their income streams, he stressed.

Receiving the items on behalf of the beneficiaries, the Chief of Anhiwaa and the Paramount Chief of the Sefwi Wiawso Divisional Area, Nana Kofi Nkuah II, expressed gratitude to the project implementers for their continuous support to the chiefs and people of the area over the years.
Premier business, finance excellence awards slated for Friday

Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:45

This years 16th Ghana Premier Business and Finance Excellence and the sixth Ghana Business Leaders Excellence awards will take place simultaneously at the Coconut Groove Regency Hotel on Friday, September 29, 2023.

The joint awards dinner to honour both businesses and entrepreneurs has the theme: Business and Finance - Responding to the Challenges of Internal and External Pressures.

The President of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr Clement Osei Amoako, will be the guest speaker at the ceremony to be chaired by Raidh Ayittey of the Association of Ghana Industries.

The Ghana Premier Business and Finance Excellence Awards and the Ghana Business Leaders Excellence Awards schemes, both implemented by Top Brass Ghana, have their origins in activities to celebrate Ghanas 50th and 60th independence anniversaries, respectively.

The Director of Top Brass Ghana, Isaac Dakwa, said his outfit was mandated by the Ghana @ 50 Anniversary National Planning Committee to organise the Golden Jubilee Business and Financial Services Excellence Awards in 2007 as part of activities to commemorate 50 years of Ghana's independence.

Similarly, within the context of Ghanas Diamond Jubilee of Independence in 2017, Top Brass Ghana was again authorised by the National Planning Committee to organise the Diamond Jubilee Business Leaders Excellence Awards Scheme.

Public support

Significantly, after each of the two awards, many of the award winners expressed their strong conviction regarding the relevance and desirability in instituting the schemes as annual events.

Accordingly, the designation of the Golden Jubilee Business and Financial Services Excellence Awards Scheme was changed to Ghana Business and Financial Services Excellence Awards the following year, 2008, while the Diamond Jubilee Business Leaders Excellence Awards Scheme was re-named the Ghana Business Leaders Excellence Awards Scheme in 2018 to be organised annually by Top Brass Ghana.

The Ghana Business and Financial Services Excellence Awards Scheme was re-branded as the Ghana Premier Business and Finance Excellence Awards in the year 2020.

The common rationale for both awards schemes, Mr Dakwa pointed out, was to honour corporate entities, as well as business moguls who have distinguished themselves across the spectrum of economic activity and made remarkable contributions to the country's development, with a view to motivating them to strive for entrepreneurial excellence and to maximise their quota towards national economic growth.

Some winners

Among the Diamond Jubilee Award recipients are Tony Oteng-Gyasi of the Tropical Cable & Conductor Limited; Kofi Nsiah-Poku, Kinapharma Limited; Dr Kwame Achampong-Kyei, Glico Group; John Sackah Addo, Prudential Bank / former Governor; Dr Felix Kwaku Anyah, Holy Trinity Medical Centre & Spa and Said Assad Fakhry, Interplast Limited.

Others are Mohammed Kanaan Kalmoni of Japan Motors Group; Pharm. Dr Theresa Oppong-Beeko, Manet Limited; Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, Ghana Dot Com Limited; Apostle Kwadwo Safo, Kristo Asafo Group; Yussif A. Yakubu, Ussaya (Gh) Limited and the late Torgbor Mensah of the DDP Group.
Probe into collapsed building at Ofankor in limbo as caretakers clear site

Kweku Zurek Sep - 27 - 2023 , 15:01

A probe into the collapse of a three-storey building in Ofankor, Ghana, has been hampered after the owners and caretakers of the building cleared and disposed of the entire debris from the site.

The Engineering Council, which is leading the investigation, had instructed the caretaker to keep the site locked and undisturbed until a technical team could visit on Monday. However, by the time the team arrived, the site had been cleared.

The council said in a statement that the clearance of the debris would make it more difficult to conduct a detailed forensic investigation into the collapse. However, it said that it would do its best to investigate the matter as thoroughly as possible.

The council also reminded the general public that tampering with a crime scene is a crime and can hamper investigations.

The collapse of the building in Ofankor is the latest in a series of building collapses in Ghana in recent months. In April and May of this year, five buildings collapsed, killing at least 22 people.

Read also: This 3-storey building collapsed at Ofankor in Accra Saturday morning [VIDEO]

The Engineering Council is urging the general public to remain calm and to use qualified engineering practitioners and architects when designing and constructing buildings.

Read the entire statement below;

ENGINEERING COUNCIL

PRESS RELEASE

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT ON THE COLLAPSE OF A THREE-STOREY BUILDING IN GA NORTH MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY, BEHIND OFANKOR MARKET, ACCRA

The attention of the Engineering Council has been drawn to the sudden collapse of a three-storey building under construction behind the Ofankor Market within the Ga North Municipality of Accra.

The Engineering Council through two of its collaborative agencies - National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and the Ghana Police Service were first to visit the site to undertake an initial assessment.

Since the building was in a walled compound, strict instructions were issued to the caretaker of the project to keep the place locked and nothing interfered with on the site until Monday when a technical team from the Engineering Council was to visit.

Unfortunately, by the time the team got to the site on Monday, the owners and caretakers had cleared and disposed of the entire debris away from the site.

It must be stated that with the current situation, detailed forensic investigations on the collapse will be more challenging. Together with its partners (Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Police Service, National Disaster Management Organization, Local Government Service, Architects Registration Council as well as the various professional institutions within the built environment), the Engineering Council will nonetheless do its utmost to ensure that it undertake as much investigation as available debris, access to site and information from the necessary collaborative State entities will enable.

On this note, the Council wishes to remind the general public that anytime there is a disaster such as building collapse, the location becomes a crime scene and any attempt(s) to tamper with anything on site is also a crime and hampers effective investigations into the disaster.

The critical outcomes of this investigation will be shared with the relevant State authorities as well as general public together with recommendations to guide all affected parties.

The Engineering Council also wishes to assure the general public that investigations into the five building collapses that occurred between April and May this year are at various stages of completion.

The Engineering Council will publish critical aspects of these reports of those investigations very soon for the attention of the general public.

While awaiting these outcomes, the Engineering Council wishes to urge all to remain calm. We also want to remind the general public that the Engineering Council Act, 2011 (Act 819) and the Engineering Regulations 2020 (LI 2410) enjoins all who are involved in the engineering space to constantly engage licensed engineering practitioners, firms and entities in the design, construction and supervision of all structures and services of engineering nature. Similarly, the Architects Act, Act 1969, NLCD 357 enjoins all developers to use qualified Architects and in good standing to design their buildings in Ghana.

The general public is hereby requested to take note and be guided accordingly.

CHAIRMAN, ENGINEERING COUNCIL

Accra

26th September, 2023
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang urges African leaders to emulate Nkrumah, Mandela

Daily Graphic Sep - 27 - 2023 , 07:07

The 2020 NDC running mate to former President John Dramani Mahama, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has lauded two statemen, the first President of Ghana and former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa for their effort at emancipating the continent.

She said the two personalities had deeper understanding of their roles as leaders, who did not lose their focus but kept their eyes on the vision to liberate their countries and Africa from political and economic stranglehold of colonialists.

Their focus was not self serving, nepotistic, and lacking in direction.

They were highly interested and demonstrated a passion for their country and continent.

She made historical references for example, to the concern of Dr Nkrumah artificial borders carved and imposed by colonialism and underscored the need for the current generation to  constantly interrogate them as an important way to reunite the continent.

Conference

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, former Minister of Education and first female Vice- Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast stated this at a conference organised by the Kwame Nkrumah Centre for Ideology, Governance and Leadership held at the University of Ghana, Legon as part of activities to mark the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day last Thursday.

It was on the theme: Osagyefo and the Madiba : Global Africa in Search of Transformational Leadership in the 21st Century.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang was at the event to represent former President Mahama, who could not honour the invitation due to unforeseen circumstances beyond his control.

She called for a dispassionate analysis and dialogue on how Africa had been ran and changed the discourse of we have the potential to realising that potential in practical outcomes.

She said the use of violence, brute force, intimidation, disenfranchisement meted out to the youth, including those who went on a simple protest march earlier and on the other deep, incredible levels of corruption, insensitivity and disrespect for the rule of law, anarchy and eventual collapsed of the country.

She expressed appreciation to the Kwame Nkrumah Centre for Ideology, Governance and Leadership, organisers of the conference for bringing the two icons of Africa to the forecourt of continental attention and recognition, providing the opportunity to remember their legacies.
Teacher unions want SHS calendar reset

Emmanuel Bonney Sep - 27 - 2023 , 14:20

Teacher unions are in discussion with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to realign the senior high school (SHS) calendar with that of the basic school.

This follows the reversal of the basic school academic calendar to the pre-COVID-19 era, starting from the 2023/24 academic year.

Per the revised calendar, the new academic year for basic schools will begin on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, and end on July 25, 2024.

However, SHSs are still running the transitional calendar which spans January to December every year.

Meeting

To address the issue, the General Secretary of Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), Mark Denkyira Korankye, told the Daily Graphic that the unions were working with the GES on how to re-align the first and second cycle school calendars.

He said, for instance, the meeting with the GES  called about two weeks ago  was for the stakeholders to see how they can fit the senior high school system into this one so that there would be a reconciled programme.

Mr Korankye explained that the unions had always been pushing for the reversal to the pre-COVID-19 programme so that the academic calendar could begin from September or October in order that schools would have their long vacation from July the following year.

The teacher unions have always been pushing that we revert to the pre-COVID era schedule so we know that from September or October, the academic year is beginning and then end in June, and then we know there is a long vacation for children to have a rest.

This time, what we are experiencing is that you break for two weeks, and then you are called to come back.

Meanwhile, parents are also suffering because they cant plan as they have to go and pay school fees again for yet another term.

We have sat through with management and have discussed it, and we think that we should restructure it so that we go back to that old system, where the academic year begins from September-October and ends in June-July, the TEWU General Secretary said.

He said the revised calendar for basic schools was welcome.

He said the new academic calendar was beneficial as it allowed for effective planning by the various stakeholders in education.

That (current calendar) did not allow the teachers and administrators to prepare adequately for some of these things, so if we have a structured system that helps in planning and preparation, it would be good, Mr Korankye said.

Background

The GES reverted to the pre-COVID-19 academic calendar for basic schools following the completion of the 2022 academic year.

It means that the first term of the 2023/2024 academic year will begin on October 3, 2023, according to the reset calendar.

Management of the Ghana Education Service wishes to inform you that the reopening date for basic schools (kindergarten, primary and junior high schools) across the country for the first term of the 2023/2024 academic year is October 3, 2023, a memo signed and issued by the Deputy Director-General of the GES in charge of Quality and Access, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, said.

The memo, addressed to all regional directors of education, stated that this brings back the academic calendar to pre-COVID-19.

COVID-19

On March 16, 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo directed the closure of all schools after the country recorded its initial cases of COVID-19.

The announcement brought all academic activities to a halt, throwing the academic calendar out of gear.

Since then, the beginning of the academic year shifted from September/October to January.

This continued until 2022 when the GES developed a transitional timetable in an attempt to revert the academic calendar to the pre-COVID-19 era.

TWO civil society organisations (CSOs) in education have already hailed the return of the basic school academic calendar to the pre-COVID-19 times.

The CSOs, Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) and Challenging Heights, in separate interviews, said although the reversal was long overdue, the decision was welcome as it would enable parents, guardians and education authorities to plan effectively unlike the post-COVID era where it was difficult to do so in view of the frequent changes.
VisionSpring, Allianz Life provide eye screening for students

Graphic Online Sep - 27 - 2023 , 19:12

About 7,000 students in 26 technical and vocational educational institutions (TVET) have received free eye screening as part of a project to provide eyeglasses to students across the country.

The 30,000 project dubbed See to Learn and See to Earn was initiated by VisionSpring, a social enterprise focused on improving access to eye health care, in partnership with Allianz Life Insurance Ghana, is expected to cover four regions, Greater Accra, Volta, Ashanti, and Eastern Region.

Many students who required eyeglasses received free eyeglasses after the screening.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Allianz Life Insurance Ghana, Gideon Attaraire, said the initiative was meant to bring eye care closer to students and young adults who were the future and backbone of the country.



The power a simple pair of eyeglasses has, and the role in fixing blurry vision plays in building healthy and prosperous communities cannot be underestimated, he said

He noted that many people in need of eyeglasses in the country were unable to afford, with only one in four of such persons getting access to them.

Women critical

The Global Vice President of Programmes at VisionSpring, Anne Coolen, said research had shown that 12 per cent of women were more likely to have vision loss as compared to men, while women and girls have higher incidence of eye conditions such as myopia

In view of that she said there was the need for all stakeholders to address the critical healthcare issue relating to young women.

The programme, she said, aimed to screen over 60 per cent women and girls across the four catchment regions in the country.

Eyeglasses are one of the most underutilised, low-cost, high-impact tools available to boost economic and social outcomes for individuals vulnerable to poverty, she added.

Appreciation

The Deputy Director General of the TVET Service, David Prah, lauded VisionSpring and Allianz Life for embarking on the project, which he said, would go a long way to improve the wellbeing of the studnets and ultimately boost national development.

TVET is the pivot of every countrys development and we are grateful that you are providing eyeglasses for reading so our TVET practitioners can focus clearly on their studies he said.
Volta, Oti Regional Peace Councils honour peace ambassador

Daily Graphic Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:51

The Volta and Oti Regional Peace Councils have jointly honoured the National Peace Ambassador of Ghana, Clemence Gyato, for his contribution to promoting and sustaining peace in the two regions.

The Champion of Peace honour was conferred on him at the 2023 Volta and Oti International Day of Peace Summit held in Hohoe.

It was on the theme: "Actions for Peace: Celebrating Champions of Peace".

The summit was part of this years celebrations of the International Day of Peace, which falls on September 21 every year.

Celebration

The summit also celebrated chiefs, government officials, peace ambassadors and journalists who were honoured as Champions of Peace for aiding the Volta and Oti Regional Peace Councils intervention in promoting peace in the regions, especially the Alavanyo-Nkonya conflict resolution process.

Mr Gyato, who was one of the recipients of the Champion of Peace honour, was lauded by the Volta Regional Peace Council for his efforts in promoting national cohesion and conflict resolution.

A citation in recognition of Mr Gyatos peace service in the Volta and Oti regions said: Thank you for your remarkable efforts in promoting peace in the Volta and Oti regions.

Your generous financial support and personal involvement in the Regional Peace Councils intervention in the Alavanyo-Nkonya conflict improved inter-communal relationships.

Sincere thanks from the Volta Regional Peace Council.

Receiving the award, Mr Gyato expressed gratitude for the honour conferred on him and was elated about the improving relationships between the people of Alavanyo-Nkonya and added that he would continue to work relentlessly to sustain peace among the two communities.



Programmes

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Lesta, who was also honoured at the summit, said such programmes had been carefully orchestrated by the National Peace Council to recognise individuals who had contributed to sustainable peace in the Volta and Oti regions.

"As we reflect upon the journey of seeking a peaceful society, I am reminded of the significant strides we have taken in improving inter-communal relationships, particularly during our intervention in the Alavanyo-Nkonya conflict.

"Undoubtedly, it was a challenging time marked by violence and division along the way; however, through our joint efforts, support and facilitation, we have witnessed positive changes," he said.

Decrease

Dr Yao Lesta noted the decrease in violence in Alavanyo-Nkonya communities, which was a testament to the power of collaboration and the spirit of peace among its people.

Among the dignitaries present at the International Day of Peace Summit were Rev. Dr Lawrence Tetteh, who was the Special Guest of Honour; the Paramount Chief of Alavanyo Traditional Area, Togbega Attakora VII; the Paramount Chief of Nkyonya Wurupong, Nana Kwadwo Asiakwa II, and the Vice- President of the Oti Regional House of Chiefs, Okoforobour Baffour Kwame Asante II.

The others were the Paramount Queen of Alavanyo, Mama Amettor Hoebuadzu II, the Paramount Queen of Nkonya-Aheankro, Nana Otubea II, among other royalties from neighbouring communities and representatives of the National Chief Imam.
Well make KETASCO Grade A school  Past Students Association

Dickson Worlanyo Dotse Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:06

The Past Students Association of the Keta Senior High School (KETASCO) has reiterated its commitment to restoring the institution to a grade A second-cycle school from its current grade B category.

The newly elected President of the association, Dr Stanislaus Adiaba, who said this on Saturday, September 23, 2023, on behalf of its National Executive Council (NEC), added that although it would not be an easy task, the association was committed to making it happen.

The factors that will lead to that are many, and some are far beyond our control but we will want to promise through engagements and collaboration with all stakeholders, we can achieve that, he said.

Dr Adiaba was speaking at the associations fourth national congress held in Accra on the theme: Building on the Unity and Commitment Towards the KETASCO that we want.

The congress is held every three years to elect executive members to steer the affairs of the association.

Other elected executives were Freeman Gobah as the Vice-President; Makafui Etse Dotse as the General Secretary; Sylvester Nana Yaw Obeng-Nyame as the Deputy General Secretary, and Wisdom Asco Butsormekpor as the Financial Secretary.

The rest were Fortress Agbottah as the Treasurer; Angelo Mawuli Amenuvor as the Organiser; Rebecca Aku Gadagoe as the Deputy Organiser; Michael Fafa Korley as the Public Relations Officer (PRO) and Hope Belord Nkuevegey as the Deputy PRO.

The congress also doubled as a platform for delegates of the association to deliberate on matters affecting the group and their alma mater.

Therefore, the financial statement and a report on the activities of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) were delivered.

Vision

Dr Adiaba, who is also the President of the 1990 Year Group, said he would provide strategic leadership through effective collaboration and efficient communication with all stakeholders towards a vibrant association

That, he said, he would do by sustaining the unity and progressively leading in improving existing initiatives, projects, activities and champion novelty in resource mobilisation for developmental projects, activities and welfare of both the association and the school.

Dr Adiaba also pledged to champion the development of a model National Welfare Policy for adaptation by year groups, chapters and branches, as well as a complementary welfare policy for workers of KETASCO.

I will recognise and acknowledge diverse contributions by members and ensure effective communication, mobilisation, utilisation and accountability for all resources received from and on behalf of the association, he added.

A lecturer at the Regional Maritime University, Captain Daniel Deynu, who chaired the event, said the theme was appropriate because it was only through unity and commitment that a group could achieve its goals.

Unity

For us to achieve great things for the betterment of our alma mater, there is the need for us to be united and committed to the goals that our leaders will set for us, he stressed.

He charged the incoming NEC to work towards repaying a debt of more than GH 70,000.00 to the initial contractor for the schools Jubilee Assembly Hall project.

There were solidarity messages from the schools ParentTeacher Association and National Science and Maths Quiz boards.
Well partner Saudi Arabia towards world peace  Ambrose Dery

Mary Mensah & Augustina Tawiah Sep - 27 - 2023 , 05:56

The Minister for the Interior, Ambrose Dery, has given an assurance that the government will continue to partner Saudi Arabia and all peace-loving countries to work towards the maintenance of world peace and security.

While expressing gratitude for the unwavering support of the Kingdom at international forums, he said a threat to peace anywhere was a threat to peace everywhere.

Mr Dery said this at the 93rd National Day celebration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Accra last Monday.

The celebration, which saw members of the diplomatic corps, Saudi nationals and investors in the country and traditional rulers in attendance, was on the theme, We dreamed and we achieve.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia celebrates its national day, known locally as Al-Yaom-ul-Watany, on September 23, each year to commemorate the unification of the Kingdom and its foundation at the hands of His Majesty King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud.

Bilateral relations

Touching on the bilateral relations that had existed between the two countries for the past 63 years, he said in pursuit of further cooperation and development, it was imperative for Ghana to deepen private sector development with the Kingdom.

To that end, he encouraged Saudi investors to take advantage of the conducive business environment in the country, which was characterised by an abundance of natural resources, stable political environment, peace and security.

The opportunities presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat in Accra make Ghana stand out as the best destination for investment in the sub-region, he added.

While congratulating the government and people of Saudi Arabia on the national day celebration, he also expressed the countrys appreciation to them for the support rendered over the years in the areas of energy, education, health, humanitarian assistance, agriculture and infrastructure.

For his part, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Ghana, Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Dakhel, described Ghana as its oldest bilateral partner in the Gulf Region, adding that its relations with Ghana had paved the way for the expansion of bilateral relations with the rest of the countries in the region.

He touched on the assistance the Kingdom had offered the country in various ways, including, educational scholarship, which he said the Kingdom had recently increased to 159 annually.

This offers applicants the opportunity to study in various fields across all levels of the academic ladder - from Bachelors Degree to Masters and PhDs in pharmacy, engineering and science to enable them to contribute meaningfully to the development of Ghana, he said.
Yeji: Fetish priest, 62, murders wife, 25, on suspicion of adultery, commits suicide

GNA Sep - 27 - 2023 , 08:43

A fetish priest, Mr. Solomon Mbalegon, aged 62 has allegedly murdered his 25-year-old junior wife, Madam Nakoli Mbalegon and thereafter committed suicide for alleged suspicion of infidelity.

Mr. Mbalegon, also known as Okomfo Solomon allegedly killed Mad. Mbalegon on Thursday night at their home at Parambo, a suburb of Yeji, Pru East District of Bono East Region.

Mr. Yussif Sulemana, the Assemblyman for the area who confirmed the incident to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said Mr. Mbalegon suspected that the wife had been having extramarital affairs with other men in the area.

According to him, there was a misunderstanding between them, saying the man therefore stabbed the woman to death and later committed suicide by stabbing himself too.

Mr Sulemana explained the incident had created shock and dismay in the community as residents did not expect that Mr. Mbalegon could commit such a heinous act.

He therefore advised the residents to exercise restraint in approaching and dealing with marital issues of such nature to avert the loss of lives.

Mr. Sulemana added the Yeji Police had since arrested a suspect in connection with the crime to assist in investigations while the bodies had since been deposited at the St. Mathias Catholic Hospital at Yeji for preservation.

A source at the Yeji Police Station who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the incident to the GNA, saying that it was under investigation.
Address concerns of demonstrators - Dormaahene to govt

Biiya Mukusah Ali Politics Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:34

The omanhene of the Dormaa Traditional Area, Osagyefo Oseadeeyo Agyemang Badu II, has urged the government to pay critical attention to concerns raised by the Arise Ghana Movement demonstrators in Accra.

I will like to appeal to the government to listen to the concerns of the demonstrators who are mainly youth and find solutions to their demands.

I will also want to use this platform to appeal to the police administration and the authorities to exercise restraint when dealing with demonstrators.

It is true there is economic hardship in the country. Recently, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo also admitted that there was economic hardship in the country, he added.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu also said that the youth were not the only group of people complaining about the economic hardship and some unhealthy issues happening in the country.

I dont think anybody is behind the demonstration, even if that was the case, just listen to their challenges and tackle them to avoid future demonstrations, he said.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu, who is also the President of the Bono Regional House of Chiefs, was speaking during the elevation and swearing of oath of allegiance by three sub chiefs at the Abanpredease Palace at Dormaa Ahenkro in the Bono Region last Monday.

Curbing galamsey

On the illegal mining menace, Osagyefo Agyemang Badu said he visited some mining sites under his jurisdiction and caused the arrest of some galamseyers who were busy prospecting for gold and destroying the environment in the process.

He said the suspects have since been handed over to the police for further action.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu said he was going to sign an anti-galamsey agreement with all the sub chiefs in the area on Friday, September 29, 2023.

He explained the contents of the agreement to include the element that any chief who allows or fails to halt galamsey activities in his jurisdiction would be destooled irrespective of his title or personality.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu also vowed not to accept any plea on behalf of recalcitrant chiefs and illegal miners because he would not want to entertain galamsey activities in the area.

He said the new chiefs were being installed at a time the countrys environment was being ravaged by activities of illegal miners.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu, therefore, charged them to use their positions and expertise to support and win the fight against galamsey operations in their respective communities.

On sanitation, he said it was an area dear to his heart and had, therefore, instituted a regular clean-up exercises to ensure that the Dormaa area was always clean.

Osagyefo Agyemang Badu advised the people to respect, obey and support the newly installed chiefs to succeed, while urging the chiefs to work hard for the development of their communities.

New chiefs

The new chiefs are Gyasoahene Baffour Oppong Yeboah and Nsuasehene Baffour Dei Kusi Adjei.

Nana Kwame Adinkra Kosopre, the Yaakromhene, was also elevated to the Akwanserahene of the Traditional Area.

The ceremony was well attended by chiefs from far and near, including representatives of various institutions and organisations, among others.
Bawumia warns against registration of minors on voter register

Graphic.com.gh Politics Sep - 27 - 2023 , 06:10

Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has warned against the registration of minors on the voter register.

Dr. Bawumia stressed that this practice is undemocratic and should not be encouraged.

Speaking to journalists after touring some voter registration centres in Accra, the Vice President underscored that allowing minors to register is not only criminal but also dangerous for their future.

Its not only criminal to do so but you are endangering the future of these minors when you register them at this stage. They will enter into our record books. At a particular age, when they come to retirement, they will be retired at a very early age, and you will have destroyed their future for them. I think that parents should be cognizant of this problem, he stated.

Dr. Bawumia suspended his campaign on Saturday, September 23, 2023.

A statement issued by Gideon Boako, the Spokesperson for Dr. Bawumia, said the Vice President will use the campaign break to visit selected registration centres in the country.

He will also use the visit to encourage all party faithful to focus on mobilizing eligible persons to register for their voters ID cards and entreat all party members to be circumspect and work hard to achieve each constituencys registration target.
Catherine Afeku also ditches Alan Kyerematen, says shes a loyal patriot

Graphic.com.gh Politics Sep - 27 - 2023 , 05:16

Former Tourism Minister, Catharine Afeku has distanced herself from the camp of Alan Kyerematen after he announced his resignation from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and his intentions to contest the 2024 elections as an Independent Candidate.

Catharine Afeku who played an active role in the Alan for President Campaign in the NPPs Presidential primaries says she remains a member of the NPP and will not join any other political party.

Speaking to journalists in Accra, Madam Afeku said she would continue to serve as a member of the NPP.

I am a loyal patriot, and I am in the party [NPP]. The party is supreme. We are the NPP, she stated.

A Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei-Asare, also distanced herself from Alans decision on Monday.

Mrs Osei-Asare, one of the supporters of Mr Kyerematen acknowledged the personal and professional relationship she has with him but emphasized that her dedication to the New Patriotic Party is deep-seated, and rooted in their shared values.

In a press statement, the Deputy Finance Minister said, First and foremost, while I enjoy both a personal and professional relationship with Hon. Alan Kyerematen, characterized by mutual respect and a shared commitment to our nations progress, I must respectfully distance myself from his recent choice.

My dedication to the New Patriotic Party is deep-seated, rooted in our shared values and vision for a prosperous Ghana. The NPPs strength has always been its unity and our ability to work together for the common good of our country.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Mpraeso, Davis Opoku Ansah, has indicated that the over 20 New Patriotic Party MPs who supported Alan Kyerematen in the Special Delegates Conference will not support his movement.

Speaking in an interview on Eyewitness News, he said, I would not say that political parties do not or will not have differences. There may be differences, I mean factions here and there, people taking sides, forming into a faction and all of that, but the ability to come together in an internal political context shows how strong your party is. And for me, that commitment is there.

And I know that over 20 MPs who supported Alan Kyerematen have all resolved that we solemnly believe in the NPP, and we are going to follow the NPP and we are going to represent power again. And we are going to work tirelessly to ensure that the NPP wins power again in 2024. None of the MPs that support Alan Kyerematen will follow him in his movement but we wish him well.

credit: Citinewsroom
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to ensure a higher degree of competition by preventing large companies from abusing their market power. One of the targeted companies is Apple, and according to Reuters, Commissioner of Internal Market Thierry Breton told Tim Cook he needs to open the ecosystem to competitors.

Apple HQ in Europe, based in Cork, Republic of Ireland

Breton revealed he met the Apple CEO in Brussels and told him Apple should allow iPhone users to benefit from competitive services, be it electronic wallets, browsers or app stores. One of the counter-arguments Cook used was that it might compromise security and privacy, but the EU chief added DMA fosters innovation without jeopardizing either of these.

So far, six companies have been designated as gatekeepers that need their digital products and services adapted to the Act  Alphabet (owner of Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), and Microsoft.

Gatekeepers, according to the European Commission

According to the European Commission's website, the DMA wants gatekeepers to allow third parties to inter-operate within the companies' own services, allow business users to access data generated by them, and allow businesses to conclude contracts and deals outside the platform.

Source
Xiaomi is already clearing the legal hurdles before launching its 14 series, and the Pro member of the lineup just got certified by 3C. The smartphone with model number 23116PN5BC will support 120W wired charging, just like two of its predecessors.

The appearance on 3C (Chinese Compulsory Certification) means the phone passed mandatory testing and moved another step towards market availability.

We already learned the Xiaomi 14 is coming with 90W charging, which is an upgrade over the 13 series, but apparently, the manufacturer is okay with sticking with 120W for the Pro variant.

The Xiaomi 14 series is expected to arrive in November, days after Qualcomm announces its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is set to happen on October 24. China has a huge shopping holiday on November 11, called Singles' Day and Xiaomi will be looking to have its flagships ready in time for that.

Xiaomi is likely to jump on the bandwagon and introduce its flagship right in time when local consumers are in spending mode, although an international launch might take some time. The previous series needed over 2 months to go from local to global, and we expect the same development with the 14 lineup.

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Guams major soup kitchen in Hagatna, run by the Catholic Church, will be relocating in one to three months, because the property is among those that is being sold to help compensate survivors of clergy sexual assaults.

Its been a source of freshly cooked meals and non-perishable food, free of charge, to the homeless and others, at 5 p.m. every single day.

Father Mike Crisostomo, delegate for the apostolic administrator and director of the Ministry to the Homeless of the Archdiocese of Agana, on Wednesday made the announcement of the soup kitchens relocation.

Its location in centralized Hagatna makes it ideal and easily accessible for our homeless population. However, the suffering of those who have been severely hurt by past clergy abuse is a great concern of the Church and making reparation to them for our sins is also very important, Crisostomo said.

The archdiocese is still searching for an alternate site for its soup kitchen.

The Ministry to the Homeless soup kitchen at 306 Father Duenas Avenue in Hagatna is located across the Julale Shopping Center and according to Crisostomo, is one of the strongest ways our Catholic Church helps those who are impoverished, hungry and homeless.

The archdiocese expects to relocate the soup kitchen in the next one to three months, he said.

The land on which the facility stands is among the archdiocese properties that the Church agreed to transfer to an abuse survivors trust as part of the court-approved bankruptcy settlement agreement to compensate clergy abuse survivors.

Through the trust fund, some 280 clergy sex abuse claimants started receiving compensation, mostly from cash contributions from the archdiocese and its insurers.

The next batch of payments will be from other liable parties and proceeds of the sale of more than 80 properties that the archdiocese transferred to the survivors trust, including the property where the soup kitchen is.

Earlier estimates placed the value of these former archdiocese properties from $16.3 million to $23 million, including those adjacent to or near Catholic schools and parishes.

We will miss the current soup kitchen building in Hagatna which has been a memorable part of our archdioceses decades-long legacy of feeding the impoverished on Guam, Crisostomo said.

The archdiocese soup kitchen has a small but very dedicated staff of one full-time program manager and one part-time employee, Crisostomo said. They are helped by many selfless volunteers and contributors from parishes, schools, Catholic organizations, community groups and businesses, he added.

In 2022, the archdiocese soup kitchen provided 14,256 meals to the poor. Thus far in 2023, it has fed 10,781 meals to the needy, Crisostomo said.

While the soup kitchen is moving, the Ministry to the Homeless Thrift Store at 231 Hester Place in Hagatna will remain at that site since its housed in a separate building not owned by the archdiocese.
The slow progress in highway improvement projects can be attributed to a decreasing value of federal funds from the Territorial Highway Program, Department of Public Works Director Vincent Arriola said during a Monday night public hearing on DPWs four-year road project plan.

At the meeting, officials said federal highway projects worth millions of dollars planned for the next four years may not all come to fruition because of funding issues.

Guam has been receiving the same federal highway fund allotment of $16 to $17 million a year for over 23 years, Arriola said.

It just wont work today. Today, that will hardly get us a re-paving of any of our major highways, given the requirements to re-pave the roads, Arriola said.

DPW, he said, is working with American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which also get allotments, to help advocate for additional funding.

Well look at the numbers and see what the numbers were 24 years ago and what the value is today, and thats the number we want, he said.

This would lead to a congressional request of an additional $12 million because $16 million in 2000 would be worth over $28 million in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

In the meantime, DPW is working on getting additional grants to satisfy up to 12 projects that are currently not funded by their federal allotments, but the process can impose delays, Arriola said.

Its a matter of grit and determination on what grants we are going to go after,, he said. There are a lot of issues involved: public health, safety, utility, necessity and the amount of traffic.

Arriola also noted whats deemed to be Guams biggest road project, which is a Defense Access Road Project. But Arriola said the military will still need to identify the funding for the project, estimated to cost nearly $281 million.

The project will start from Route 1 at the Naval Station all the way to Camp Blaz. It will harden both outer lanes, northbound and southbound, he said. That will reconstruct five bridges. We understand...(its) going to go through Marine Drive with trailers, supplies and materials that are well over the capabilities of our bridges upwards of 200,000 pounds.

Jeff Miller, a construction contract administrator with Parsons Guam office, said DoD is still in need of additional funds to allocate towards the big project.

Theyre only funded for $40 million and $60 million respectively, so they have to get more money, Miller said. Its a difficult process. They have to go back to Congress and ask for the funds.

Miller said the grants are still not guaranteed, so the $689 million total of projects may not all come to fruition.

The problem with grants is that we never know what were going to get, added Miller. Each year, we might get one, or we might get five. The thing is, once you get it, you have such a short timeframe to spend the money.

Consistent federal funding and increased safety for drivers and pedestrians were just a couple of the many goals that DPW discussed on Monday night.

Lynden Kobayashi, a planning and design manager with WSPs Guam office, said the showcased projects were prioritized based on the islands different needs.

We look at traffic needs, road conditions, accessibility and road drainages, said Kobayashi, a senior supervisory engineer over Guam, Hawaii and the CNMI Many of these tasks are going to have various stakeholders, so were hoping for future partnerships and constant communications with them as well, such as the Guam International Airport Authority and the Department of Defense.

Other key projects include islandwide emergency repairs of traffic signal systems, signage repairs and pavement markings.
Residents on CHamoru Land Trust property who had their homes ravaged by Typhoon Mawar are now facing an uphill battle to getting federal relief.

Jose Quinata said he and his family have been living under a canopy after Mawar destroyed their residence on Land Trust land.

You guys remember that nonstop rain. I would not be here if my place is still standing. Im going to repeat again, Im living under a canopy, with children. And when it gets flooded, I cry again, he told members of the CHamoru Land Trust Commission during a Tuesday meeting.

He said that he and other residents are being put to the side.

Quinata is one of 20 people living on Land Trust land, still waiting to get aid from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

While SBA offers low-interest disaster relief loans of up to $200,000 to help homeowners get their residences back into pre-typhoon condition, Land Trust residents dont own the property they live on, even though they may reside there for an entire lifetime. Instead, Land Trust land is leased for up to 99 years.

Some 19 residents are now held up in their application for a disaster loan from the U.S. SBA, which is asking the commission to guarantee that theyll pay the loans, if Land Trust residents are unable to.

Commissioners spent more than an hour debating whether CLTC could afford to back the loans on Tuesday, a conversation that continued from last week.

Guam law does allow the Land Trust to guarantee loans, but they have to have a reasonable amount of cash on hand to cover payments if need be, according to CLTC acting administrator Joey Cruz Tuesday.

The commission has already backed about $10.4 million worth of loans for Land Trust residents, but the agency only has around $379,000 available to spend until the end of the fiscal year.

The 20 applicants seeking assistance are applying for $4.3 million worth of relief, about $3.3 million of which is for real estate repairs and the remainder will go towards other expenses.

CLTC Administrator Alice Taijeron, who was not present at Tuesdays meeting, has written Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, requesting about $4 million to Land Trust from the $50 million shes authorized to transfer towards typhoon relief.

About 20% of all SBA loans that are doled out end up in default, according to Taijerons letter.

Commissioner Earl Garrido told his colleagues that he had run into the governor over the weekend, and she had assured him she would provide money to address the $10.4 million CLTC already guaranteed, but we need to go before the Legislature for additional funding.

But with no official word on assistance, commissioners were largely at odds over how to proceed with helping Land Trust residents like Quinata.

Commissioner David Herrera insisted that commissioners ask lawmakers to remove the requirement that Land Trust have cash on hand to back up loan guarantees, a suggestion that was met with pushback.

Commissioner Arlene Bordallo disagreed, asserting that CLTC would not be able to cover the costs.

She did believe that SBA shouldnt be requiring the commission to back loans to residents who were struggling, saying, If youre sincere about helping people, SBA shouldnt ask for us to guarantee the loan.

Garrido ultimately suggested that CLTC ask for an exemption from SBA for people who were struggling in the wake of Mawar. Commissioners agreed on the move, and asked Cruz to speak with any SBA officials who were on island about the issue.

Cruz said CLTC has paid out one loan that it backed in its history, after the Land Trust resident who applied for it defaulted. The amount paid was about $67,000.
Sen. William A. Parkinson has introduced a resolution to designate coral reefs as essential infrastructure, similar to what Puerto Rico did, in order to avail of federal funds for hazard mitigation.

Parkinsons Resolution 207-37 mirrors similar legislation from Puerto Rico, which recently designated their coral reefs as essential infrastructure and was awarded $3 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agencys Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

This was the first in a total $38.6 million in allotments to Puerto Rico to protect some 800 reef structures near Escambron, Condado, Ocean Park and Puntas Las Marias, Parkinson said.

By designating coral reefs as essential infrastructure, vital in protecting our coastlines from storm surges and floods, we can avail of federal funds for resilient infrastructure like Puerto Rico already has for reef protection, restoration and rehabilitation, the senator said in a statement Wednesday.

The grant program recognizes that coral reefs play a role in natural resilience to natural disasters. Studies from the University of California-Santa Cruz show that the depletion of coral reefs are expected to exacerbate flooding and threat to coastal communities like Guam, he said.

Coral reefs, especially barrier reefs and fringing reefs, act as breakwaters, reducing wave energy by up to 97%. By absorbing this energy, reefs significantly decrease wave heights. As a result, the waves erosive power is reduced, limiting potential damage to coastal regions.

Regions with healthy reefs often witness significantly reduced damage costs during major storms.

Beyond infrastructure, reefs protect fisheries, an essential source of food security.

In the face of natures mightiest challenges, from surging floods to fierce typhoons, its not just our man-made barriers, but the coral reefs that stand as a testament to natures own resilience. As they protect us, so must we champion their preservation, for in safeguarding them, we secure a more resilient future for generations to come, Parkinson said.
Final rounds of public schools sanitary health inspections are not expected to be completed until April 2024, Guam Department of Educations Erika Cruz told the Guam Education Board Tuesday night.

Cruz, the deputy education superintendent of assessment and accountability, said the department has taken the position that schools cannot be open after a failed inspection.

If they fail inspections, they need to be re-inspected and pass their inspections to re-open, Cruz said. The schools are doing their self-inspections, then we do have a team at facilities and maintenance to see if they are ready for inspection so that we avoid any failures because it causes a lot of disruption.

Education Board member Angel Sablan, whos also executive director of the Mayors Council of Guam, said there still needs to be a backup plan for each school.

Schools that were closed because of failed inspections, such as Tamuning Elementary or Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary, switched to virtual instruction while they await passing an inspection and a valid sanitary permit.

If a school is inspected and fails in February or March of next year after all these months, theyre going to close so near to graduation? Sablan asked. It doesnt do any good for anybody. We need to have something better.

Sablan said there needs to be a schedule of inspection for each schools so parents can prepare.

Were going to have to start telling our parents to prepare for the worst, added Sablan. Theyre going to have look for a daycare or a babysitter or look at their employer to ask for leave. We need to have better communication.

Education Board Chair Mary Okada, whos also president of Guam Community College, echoed Sablans sentiment, to maintain the amount of instruction for the students.

We dont want to end up in a deficit for all of these students that are not going to get the 180 days of instruction, said Okada. Time is not on our side. We need to have something to roll out immediately.

Maria Gutierrez, education board vice-chair, said the switch to virtual learning has imposed additional issues onto families regarding the pick up of devices.

When V.S.A. Benavente Middle School went into online instruction, parents were told to come and pick up laptops. They came, and there were laptops but no chargers, Gutierrez said. What happened to the chargers? Did the rats eat it? Thats an insult to the parents that had to leave their work early so they can pick up devices for their kids with no chargers.

Education Superintendent K. Erik Swanson did not provide a response at the meeting.
The latest proposal to cancel primary elections on Guam wouldnt necessarily reduce costs for the Guam Election Commission or cut the number of races that voters have to participate in, according to GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan.

A public hearing was hosted Wednesday on Sen. Roy Quinatas Bill 95-37, which would eliminate the primary election on Guam in its entirety.

Quinata said the measure is aimed at cutting costs for the government, and hopefully drive voter turnout by giving residents just one election to cast a ballot in.

Less people came out to vote in the 2022 primary election than in almost every single gubernatorial election since 1974, the PDN reported last year. Only 2014 was lower during that time period.

Getting rid of primary elections on Guam has been proposed several times over the years, with the most recent proposal coming from Sen. Joe San Agustin back in the 34th Legislature.

But GECs Pangelinan said the bill wouldnt necessarily reduce costs for GEC, or the number of elections voters have to participate in. The issue is with how many votes a gubernatorial team or candidate for Congress needs to get in order to win: a majority of 50%-plus-one of the votes cast in the race.

Any time there are more than two gubernatorial teams, or more than two candidates for the delegate seat, the chances of an even costlier run-off election to decide the winner would be high, Pangelinan said. She said shes only providing information on the measure, not taking a position on the bill.

Quinatas bill would also remove the whole section of the law dealing with how GEC determines who qualifies to get on the general election ballot. Only the rules outlined in the Organic Act would be left: be at least 25-years-old and a resident of Guam.

So conceivably, the entire village of Dededo, that is a citizen and over 25 could get on the ballot to run for senator or (Public Utilities Commission) or anything, correct? Sen. Tom Fisher asked.

Yes, senator, Pangelinan said.

Resident Sedfrey Linsangan, who has run for the Legislature several times in the past, said he opposed the measure because the Constitution guaranteed citizens the right to vote in any primary or other election.

But he also opposed cancelling primaries because he believed it gave new candidates a better chance of getting their name out and getting elected, and gave those that made it onto the general election ballot a chance to campaign hard.

Sitting senators would easily benefit from only having one election, he said.

Linsangan was the only other person who showed up to testify, but senators took the opportunity to discuss possible changes to Guams electoral process.

It may be feasible to cancel primaries in the mayoral and legislative races, Pangelinan said, responding to questions from Speaker Therese Terlaje. Those two races dont require a majority of votes in order to win, Pangelinan said, and mayoral races are generally harder to organize due to the large number of candidates running for 19 different seats.

Eliminating a primary may also relieve some of the uncertainty around parties possibly closing their primaries to non-party members. Though local courts allowed parties to hold a closed primary, theres no word about how the primary is conducted, Pangelinan said, responding to San Agustin.

The Democratic Party of Guam moved last year to close its primaries ahead of the 2022 race, but backpedaled due to a time crunch. The party has renewed its intentions to close the primary in letters written to GEC, but its unclear so far how a closed primarywhich is funded by the governmentwould be handled.

Sen. Joanne Brown, meanwhile, said that rather than prolonging the election process with runoffs, she would rather see a reduction in the amount of time residents spend on voting. She said she was not in favor of the permanent, 30-day in-office voting option that became permanent during the last legislative term, which she said opened up the door to election tampering.

The one thing I like about elections is when theyre over, regardless of who wins or loses, she said. Everybody kind of breathes a sigh of relief.
The Master of Accountancy program at the University of Guams School of Business and Public Administration is open for its second batch of applicants.

The program provides recent accounting graduates and working accounting professionals from across the Micronesia region and beyond the opportunity to advance their careers toward becoming a Certified Public Accountant.

In this fully online degree program, students will be part of a one-year cohort, taking two courses at a time over five eight-week terms.

The application period is ongoing and continues through Oct. 31, 2023.

The first batch of students in the MAcc Program has shown that going to graduate school while keeping a full-time job is achievable.

All students in this cohort are working full time, said Martha Suez-Sales, Program Chair.

Theres a good range of students experience, from seasoned professionals with 20-plus years of experience, to recent graduates working in public accounting, private, and government sectors, she said. These diverse backgrounds create an enriching learning environment both inside and outside the classroom.

The programs fully online feature makes it open to accounting students from beyond Guam. In the first cohort, one student is from Saipan.

Suez-Sales said the diverse professional backgrounds of the students in the program create an enriching learning environment.

Students benefit from each others varied experiences, leading to a more comprehensive learning practice, she said. Students full-time employment compliments their learning process. By being able to apply what they learn directly in their workplaces, they can enhance their understanding and gain practical experience.

To learn more about the MAcc program, visit https://landing.uog.edu/master-of-accountancy.
Expect a higher water bill soon, with the Guam Waterworks Authority on Tuesday night getting the approval to raise water rates across the board by 16.7% next fiscal year.

Rates were already scheduled to go up 5.5% for non-lifeline water in fiscal 2024 as part of GWAs five-year rate plan, but the utility was asking for an even greater, across-the-board increase during a regular rate review by the Public Utilities Commission. Fiscal 2024 begins Oct. 1.

PUC stopped short of granting GWA the full 27% rate increase it wanted, but commission chair Jeffrey Johnson said they may entertain another adjustment to water rates next fiscal year, if needed.

Customers who use 3,000 gallons of water a month would see their bills go from $63 to $73.99 under the 16.1% increase recommended by PUC staff. The final increase will be slightly higher, as commissioners agreed to tack on an extra 0.6% increase to help GWA pay for additional staff costs in fiscal 2024.

Were really not that far apart philosophically  we want to help GWA, said Johnson.

If the utility came up short of what it needed to operate in fiscal 2024, especially on power costs, where the sky is the limit, the rate could be revisited, he said.

GWA general manager Miguel Bordallo told PUC that the rate increase was needed to help the utility keep up with a number of additional capital improvement projects that are getting off the ground next year, debt service payments, and to help replenish its Rate Stabilization Fund.

The utility has been surviving on federal American Rescue Plan money provided by the governor, as well its cash reserves.

Bordallo said expenses in fiscal 2022 were $10 million more than what GWA expected, with $6 million of that expense just from power costs.

But the large 27% increase was also caused by PUC declining to give GWA the higher rate increases it wanted over the previous four years. Deferral of rate increases would result in higher increases down the line, Bordallo said.

Additionally, with GWA soon to enter into a deal with the Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deal with clean water issues, costs may be going up again.

We see it coming. Its going to cost, you know. We have an idea what its going to cost and its not going to be pretty. And so by continuing to defer, were going to make what we asked for in the next five year rate plan worse, Bordallo said.

Had the full rate increase gone through, residential customers who use 3,000 gallons per month would have seen their bill would have seen their bill go up to $81.

Those in the 6,000 gallons-per-month range would have seen their bills go from $82 to about $105 with the proposed rate hike.

That increase would have netted GWA $28 million, according to PUC Chief Administrative Law Judge Fred Horecky, who recommended against the 27% increase.

About $7.5 million of that extra cash would have gone into the Rate Stabilization Fund, which is cash thats held in order to prevent GWA from having to suddenly hike rates.

But Horecky said the increase itself constituted rate shock.

While the operating needs of the utility needed to be considered, Horecky said theres a balance of interests, we have to take into account the ratepayers and whether a particular increase is something that the ratepayers can or should be required to bear.

PUC consultant Georgetown Consulting Group likewise recommended against the 27% increase.

Fiscal 2024 is the last year covered by GWAs current five-year rate plan. The PUC will entertain a new five-year rate plan from GWA early next year.




Haiti - FLASH : The Mirebalais university hospital, target of an attack





During the night of Monday September 25 to Tuesday September 26, heavily armed individuals from Canaan and Titanyen invaded the perimeter of the Mirebalais university hospital which they targeted, sowing panic among the staff population. hospital and patients...



At daybreak, numerous traces of bullet impacts were visible on several hospital buildings.



Fortunately, no deaths or injuries have been reported, however, Dr. Regiald Ternier mentions trauma and material damage. "[...] Patients, residents and staff members all experienced the attack in the middle of the night. They are in shock," he lamented, deeming the attack incomprehensible.



Following this attack, those responsible for the Zanmi Lasante organization and the Mirebalais University Hospital in a press release emphasize that this attack has left a deep scar on hospital staff and patients. "Among more than 350 patients present during the attack, many were in intensive care, in critical condition. The hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, housing fragile and defenseless newborns resting in incubators, was targeted by gunfire. Several incubators were damaged by the shooting, endangering these already vulnerable babies."



They inform that the hospital center is no longer receiving new patients while some of those currently hospitalized will be transferred to other hospitals in the Zanmi Lasante network.



The Haitian Medical Association and the Union of Haitian Doctors condemn the armed attack against the premises of the Mirebalais University Hospital.



TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Security : Kenyan police take French lessons





A number of Kenyan police officers have started taking French lessons as logistical arrangements for the multinational security support mission in Haiti take shape...



Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua said the move was part of preparatory efforts for Kenyan security personnel who will complement the efforts of the Haitian National Police currently fighting criminal gangs.



Let's remember that the two official languages spoken in Kenya are Swahili and English while in Haiti they are French and Creole. This learning of French will allow Kenyan forces to better communicate with their Haitian counterparts and the general public.



However, Mutua reiterated that the Kenyan contingent would only deploy after the green light from the United Nations Security Council, adding that Kenya was actively pursuing discussions to obtain the necessary support for the proposed mission. "After that we will deploy to Haiti, latest by early January," Mutua said, adding that they have started planning the logistics, equipment and personnel for the deployment.



While explaining Kenya's decision to accept the proposed police mission in Haiti, Mutua said the move was driven by the request of the Caribbean State's leaders.



Mutua said more than ten other countries have indicated their willingness to contribute to the multinational security support mission.



S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Canal crisis : The OAS calls for dialogue





The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) informs that it has initiated consultations with the authorities of Haiti and the Dominican Republic regarding the border dispute relating to the construction of an irrigation canal in Haiti with a water intake on the Massacre River, also known as the Dajabon River in the Dominican Republic.



"[...] water resources are vital for both, given the needs of its inhabitants, especially in the current context of drought. This use must be ensured in accordance with international law and the treaties in force between both countries.



We are confident that both parties have the capabilities to assure the other of good faith to resolve these issues.

In this sense, the OAS General Secretariat offers its support, either directly or through any associated State or subregional organization, to collaborate with all the necessary aspects to resolve the dispute.



This controversy must be resolved based on the principle of good neighborliness and friendship between both countries and their leaders. In this context, dialogue and mutual understanding are imperative, avoiding any tension and working to overcome disagreement.



The current situation does not benefit either party. It is essential that the Dominican and Haitian authorities meet as soon as possible to carry out a frank dialogue, for which the General Secretariat of the OAS and its Secretary General are in the best position to collaborate in the search for a beneficial solution for both countries."



Also read about the Irrigation Canal affair in Haiti :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-40575-icihaiti-agriculturela-coche-supports-the-construction-work-of-the-irrigation-canal.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40533-haiti-water-war-the-human-rights-expert-in-haiti-urges-the-dr-to-reconsider-their-decision.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40530-haiti-flash-dominican-republic-does-not-seek-confrontation-with-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40526-haiti-flash-massive-voluntary-departure-of-haitians-from-the-dominican-republic.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40521-haiti-flash-haitians-in-the-dr-narrowly-escape-discriminatory-and-racist-reprisals.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40518-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40516-haiti-un-antonio-guterres-asks-the-rep-dominican-humanitarian-exemption.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40514-haiti-dom-rep-the-town-of-dajabon-militarized.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40512-haiti-flashthe-dominican-ambassador-to-haiti-summoned-to-the-haitian-chancellery.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40507-haiti-flash-9-other-haitians-prohibited-from-entering-dominican-territory-list.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-40504-icihaiti-conflict-dr-former-pm-evans-paul-in-solidarity-with-the-peasants-of-the-north-east-statement.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40503-haiti-flash-dr-closes-its-land-sea-and-air-borders-with-haiti-goods-and-passengers.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40497-haiti-flash-conflict-canal-a-haitian-delegation-discusses-with-the-dominicans.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40492-haiti-canal-conflict-a-haitian-delegation-in-the-dominican-republic-today.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40478-haiti-flashthe-dominican-government-announces-measures-and-issues-an-ultimatum-to-haiti-canal-river-massacre.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-40476-icihaiti-diversion-canal-tension-rises-in-the-dominican-republic.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40463-haiti-flash-4th-day-of-border-closure-in-dajabon-the-standoff-continues.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40450-haiti-flash-diversion-channel-the-dominican-republic-sends-armored-vehicles-to-the-northern-border-with-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40406-haiti-politic-the-dr-asks-haiti-to-stop-the-resumption-of-work-on-the-diversion-channel-of-the-massacre-river.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-36174-haiti-politic-claude-joseph-deplores-the-stoppage-of-the-construction-of-the-irrigation-canal-of-the-massacre-river.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-34875-icihaiti-rd-resumption-of-works-of-the-massacre-river-irrigation-canal.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-34389-icihaiti-dr-stop-in-haiti-of-the-construction-of-the-canal-to-collect-water-from-the-massacre-river.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33974-haiti-dr-the-construction-of-the-haitian-canal-on-the-massacre-river-on-the-way-to-becoming-an-international-affair.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33953-haiti-flash-dominican-geologist-osiris-de-leon-denies-haiti-s-assertions.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33945-haiti-flash-canal-on-the-massacre-river-in-haiti-dominican-president-abinader-raises-the-tone.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33854-haiti-flash-president-abinader-announces-the-construction-of-a-dam-on-the-artibonite-river-in-dominican-soil.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33823-haiti-agriculture-diversion-of-the-massacre-river-in-search-of-a-solution-with-the-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33596-haiti-flash-conflict-with-the-dr-over-a-canal-diverting-the-massacre-river-to-haiti.html



IH/ iciHaiti






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Intervention in Haiti USA contribution : $200 million

Acting Assistant Secretary of State and Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland after the side event (behind closed doors) on the urgent security situation in Haiti at the United Nations General Assembly https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40571-haiti-news-zapping.html said in a press conference "We expect to be working with Congress to provide another $100 million in support for the MSS itself. And we expect the Pentagon will be providing another 100 million in in-kind support  intelligence, airlift, communications, and medical. So on top of those numbers I gave you earlier, about 200 million more with  assuming Congress supports  for this mission and well also be passing the hat internationally, and we expect a lot of our partners to be willing to step up."



Suriname promises to send men

Tuesday, September 26, the government of Suriname promised to send men to contribute to the multilateral mission led by Kenya in Haiti. Albert Ramdin, Surinamese Foreign Minister, said, however, that his country had not yet decided what security contingent it would send, whether police, soldiers or a combination of the two.



Petit-Goave : More than 100 cases of cholera

More than a hundred cases of cholera have been recorded in the 5th municipal section of Petit-Goave. Several deaths were recorded. The local population is appealing to the Ministry of Health to avoid the worst.



A Haitian woman raped at Las Americas international airport

The Dominican Minister of Women, Mayra Jimenez, confirmed that Stephy Graph of Haitian origin was raped in front of her son, by a man at Las Americas international airport. The alleged rapist was arrested, said the Minister, specifying that the victim, accompanied by her 4-year-old son, is in a shelter where she is receiving legal and psychological help. Note that some media published that the rapist was a police officer, a false information denied by the Dominican police.



Soon a new list of Haitians to be sanctioned

Maria Isabel Salvador, the Head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) in an interview in the Creole section of "The Voice of America" announced the publication, that an expanded list of Haitian personalities to be sanctioned, will be sent to the UN Security Council by the end of November.



Women : Training in Farmer Field Schools

17 associations of rural women from the South participated in training in Farmer Field Schools organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as part of the project "Strengthening Socio-economic Empowerment & Leadership of women living in rural areas".



HL/ HaitiLibre


















The Department of Commerce on Monday announced export restrictions on a total of 28 companies, accusing some of them of attempts to supply drone components to GRU, the foreign intelligence arm of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

THREE FINNISH COMPANIES are set to be added to the entities list of the US Department of Commerce, reports Reuters.

While the majority of the companies are Russian or Chinese, the new entries also include companies registered in Germany and Finland. Two of the Finnish companies, Luminor and Siberica, were added to what is also known as a trade blacklist about a fortnight ago, but the latest update also includes a company called Evolog, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

The list consists of entities that have been determined to be acting or pose a risk of acting contrary to the national or foreign security interests of the US.

The [export administration regulations] impose additional license requirements on, and limit the availability of, most licence exceptions for exports, re-exports and transfers (in-country) when a listed entity is a party to the transaction, reads the draft document about the additions from the Department of Commerce.

Helsingin Sanomat in mid-September reported that the same French national is behind both Luminor and Siberica, which operate in logistics and warehousing. The District Court of Eastern Uusimaa at the time detained the chief executive of the companies for probable cause of aggravated regulation offence and defence materiel export offence.

Evolog, meanwhile, describes itself as an international freight-forwarding company.

The Finnish companies are the first to have been added to the blacklist since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to STT. Before the additions, the blacklist contained 10 companies registered in Finland.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT
Over the years, Forum Virium Helsinki, the innovation agency of the City of Helsinki, has accelerated various business ideas through its rapid innovation experiments.

Autonomous electric water transport could be the answer to improving accessibility, achieving carbon neutrality, and addressing a shortage of skippers in the Helsinki archipelago. However, current legislation is a barrier to the operation of remotely controlled boats.

Successful innovations in smart mobility include autonomous transportation solutions like robot buses, drones delivering first aid supplies, and sweeping robot machines.

Autonomous transportation on water is also technically feasible, as demonstrated by the Callboats company's water taxi experiments. Callboats' electric water taxis can be ordered via a mobile app, similar to how Uber and Bolt provide car rides.

Callboats is the world's first commercial operator to offer an autonomous water taxi service. However, due to current regulations, they are not yet permitted to operate autonomously and must have at least one crew member on board.

Remote Work for Skippers  Affordable and Carbon-Neutral Island Transport for Passengers

The Callboats app allows passengers to request rides, such as trips to a friend's island cabin party or nature excursions with children from Helsinki's city center to remote islands with no other transportation options.

Last summer, the City of Helsinki selected Callboats to operate its first regular service to Eastern Helsinki's Kotiluoto, Northern Villaluoto, and Malkasaari islands. However, the price of a trip with a captain could exceed 50 euros. There is also a significant shortage of captains.

"Up to 6070% of the costs of archipelago transportation come from paying captains. With autonomy, one captain could operate five water taxis, resulting in more profitable margins during short seasons and lower prices for consumers," said Peter Ostberg, CEO of Callboats.

Helsinki aims to improve accessibility to its archipelago and promote emissions-free maritime transport as part of the city's maritime strategy.

Forum Virium Helsinki, the City of Helsinki's innovation agency, has been involved in practical piloting of autonomous water taxis since 2020. According to Pekka Koponen, Senior Specialist at Forum Virium Helsinki, an autonomous water taxi system is an important innovation that could significantly improve access to the archipelago.

"Autonomous water taxis would be more agile, environmentally friendly, and much more cost-effective for travel to small islands compared to ferry services," Koponen said.

"In order to achieve Helsinki's carbon neutrality goals in public water transport, the propulsion of the fleet needs to change. Transitioning to autonomous boats would reduce costs and enable investments in new vessels. Helsinki's water buses are currently 5060 years old, so fleet replacement is expected in the near future."

Autonomous Water Transport: Potentially Safer Than Human-Operated

Studies have shown that up to 8090% of maritime accidents can result from human error. Autonomous water taxis are equipped with various safety systems, including sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence, which together provide a more comprehensive view than the human eye.

Callboats' autonomous water taxi's aluminum gangway attaches to the pier more securely, reducing the risk of accidents compared to traditional rope mooring.

"It is often forgotten that elevators used to have operators until it was learned that autonomous rides were just as safe. Remote captains have better visibility than those on-site. The Callboats water taxi has a large camera on its roof and the captain has a large screen," Ostberg explained.

Could Finland Become a Pioneer in Autonomous Boating?

Norway is often hailed as a pioneer in autonomous maritime transport. The country has tested self-driving ferries in its fjords, and in 2021, Norway launched the world's first autonomous cargo ship.

Finland conducted its first test of autonomy in public water transport in 2018 when the state-owned company, Finferries, successfully operated the world's first autonomous ferry voyage from Parainen to Nauvo. The University of Turku's non-commercial autonomous robot boat's self-navigation is scheduled to be tested in the summer of 2024.

"Autonomous water taxis could also enhance the appeal of Helsinki's archipelago for tourists," added Peter Ostberg.

HT
Pori Club house , a crucial support center for individuals dealing with mental health challenges, faces the possibility of closing its doors as early as October due to the lack of a partnership agreement with the Satakunta well-being region. Additionally, the well-being regions of Central Uusimaa and Kainuu are considering cuts to the funding of Club houses.

They facilitate recovery and promote job and educational readiness through peer support and personalized guidance.

Before the restructuring of social and healthcare services, Club houses collaborated with municipalities. However, they are now primarily partnered with well-being regions in most areas.

"We have put in significant effort to bring people back to Club house and support their recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, all our efforts seem to be in vain because the Satakunta well-being region has not allocated the promised funding for this year to Club house, and there is no funding in sight for next year either," said Annika Haggqvist, Director of Porin Club house.

Around 200 individuals dealing with mental health issues participate in Porin Club house's activities. "They are now left without support because there is no alternative service available. Our operation is non-profit and complementary to other social and healthcare services; it does not compete with them. Our services have been proven effective in improving well-being and employability," Haggqvist explained.

According to her, the Satakunta well-being region acknowledges the significance of Club houses' activities. Simultaneously, it recognizes that well-being services will face increased demand if Club house closes.

"Although we have been promised funding, no decisions have been made, and there is no information available about next year. Reasons cited include resource shortages and communication issues," Haggqvist stated.

In Central Uusimaa, Club houses face potential cuts of 20 percent for the coming year. Kainuu's well-being region (formerly Kainuu Sote) has significantly reduced grants for four consecutive years.

Paijat-Hame's well-being region is also contemplating cuts to Lahden Club house for the next year.

If implemented, these cuts will have a significant impact on the functioning of these support centers and may further undermine the position of individuals seeking mental health support.

"At Club houses, members, i.e., individuals in recovery, play a central role. Members and staff collaborate in planning and executing activities. Individuals in recovery have the right to a meaningful life and participation in building it. This is a fundamental human rights issue," said Petra Nummelin, Chair of the Mental Health Pool.

Club houses and other mental health organizations are also threatened by cuts to grants outlined in the government program.

"It is clear that Club houses and other organizations not only contribute to well-being but also provide economic benefits. Mental health disorders already cost Finland 11 billion euros annually. This amount will not decrease if the operating conditions of these organizations are undermined," Nummelin emphasized.

HT
Planning Board again swats down effort to ease floodplain construction rules

Mills River Fire Chief Rick Livingston issued an invitation to anyone who doubted the severity of floods in Henderson County: The next flooding event that we have, go to your nearest fire department and run some calls with us.

A landowner who wants Henderson County to relax regulations that prevent development in floodplains failed to win endorsement of the idea from the Henderson County Planning Board, which voted 5-2 last week to recommend denial of a zoning text amendment.

Why are we sitting here discussing the possibility of exacerbating what is already a very serious problem in Henderson County? asked board member Rick Livingston, who is chief of Mills River Fire & Rescue. If we approve this tonight, I want this board to just be aware that what were doing is opening the floodgates for further fill in our floodplain and our floodways.

The vote opposing the rules relaxation came after a hydrology engineer and a representative of the landowner appealed to the board to support for the change.

Andrew Bick, principal engineer of Asheville-based Headwaters Engineering, told the board that Henderson Countys floodplain regulations were more restrictive than other counties in Western North Carolina and more restrictive than towns that adhere to a state model ordinance, including Laurel Park, Flat Rock and Fletcher.

Currently, the county land development code bars construction of any kind in a floodway. The state model ordinance allows for fill if the landowner obtains an engineers certification that the encroachment would not result in any increase in the flood levels during a base flood discharge.

The proposed zoning text amendment would adopt the same wording and also subject the fill application to Planning Board review and a vote to approve or deny by the Board of Commissioners.

All this would come back to you for special fill permit, Susan Frady, who was speaking on behalf of an unidentified landowner seeking the change. You would know what type of property were looking at. You could turn it down or add conditions. You would get to know that its not farmland. You would get to know everything about the project.

Jim Miller, a grading contractor, expressed misgivings about the change but was one of two members to cast a vote in favor of a positive recommendation to the Board of Commissioners.

It was at least the second time a proposed amendment has come up before the Planning Board to ease the restrictions on floodplain construction, and Livingston said hes puzzled as to why.

We talk about it a couple of times a year, he said after the meeting. I dont understand it.

Were talking about human lives

As fire chief of a district that includes miles of the French Broad and Mills rivers, Livingston noted that he has plenty of experience with floods. As a swift water rescue technician, I have to drag you out of the floodwaters if you get stranded so I know a little bit about it, he said. Dont take what Im telling you for the gospel. The next flooding event that we have, go to your nearest fire department or to the Henderson County Rescue Squad and run some calls with us and you will see that what Im telling you is very, very true.

He said regulations based on 100-year and 500-year floods, which represent 1 percent and .2 percent (1 in 500) chances of flooding, have been shown to be outdated.

Reference is made to the 100-year flood and the 500-year flood, he said. Thats absolutely B.S. Instead of 100 were talking 20, and instead of 500 were talking more like 50, and Im telling you that from experience.

Then he brought up a typical flood scenario, and posed a question to Bick, the hydrological engineer.

When you take water thats spread out over a quarter of a mile area wide  such as would be very common along the French Broad River  when you take all that water and you compress it into a narrower floodway, sir, would you agree that the velocity of that water is much greater when we push that water into a narrow channel?

In some cases, yeah, Bick responded.

From an emergency services standpoint, the chief added, were talking about human lives.

It was unclear whether the proposed text amendment would be sent across Main Street to the county commissioners with an unfavorable recommendation or whether  as happened the last time the Planning Board batted the idea down  the proposal is quietly dropped.

Besides the emergency management factor, Livingston also raised the issue of loss of farmland.

In the comprehensive plan, we listened to hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of many months, he said. One of the biggest things that we heard is (comments in support of) preserving and conserving farmland, agricultural production land. If you know anything about Henderson County, you know that aside from orchards and small fruits, the largest majority of our farmland is in the floodplain areas along our rivers and streams. So when you go in and you fill these floodplain or floodway areas, its no longer ag. Its taken out of farming, its taken out of agricultural production forever. So from a comp plan standpoint, lets not talk out of both sides of our mouth.
??? Ejecutivo implementara Ventanilla Unica Digital para optimizar procesos de certificacion ambiental en proyectos mineros priorizados



Desde #PERUMIN36, el premier Otarola informo que se mejorara el reglamento ambiental de exploracion minera. https://t.co/PypDwzLCb4
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), recently awarded $232.2 million in grants for suicide prevention and behavioral health care for at-risk communities, including more than $200 million in new funding for states, territories, and Tribal nations and organizations to build local capacity for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and related crisis services. Addressing the nations ongoing mental health crisis is a top priority of the Biden-Harris Administration and a key pillar in President Bidens Unity Agenda for the nation.

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. During this month, we are reminded that suicide is preventable, and no one should go through a suicide-related crisis alone, said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. The Biden-Harris Administration is deeply committed to tackling the mental health challenges facing America, and particularly focused on addressing the alarming rates of suicide.

"Our country is facing an unprecedented behavioral health crisis impacting people of all ages," said Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm. "The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting those who are struggling, their families, and everyone impacted by suicide. We have invested in 988, community- and school-based care, expanding our health workforce, and other critical supports. We will continue as long as needed."

SAMHSAs 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that 4.8% of adults ages 18 or older  about 12.3 million people  had serious thoughts of suicide, and among adolescents ages 12 to 17, 12.7%  about 3.3 million  had serious thoughts of suicide.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and the second-leading cause of death for people ages 1014 and 2534 years, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. CDC provisional data reports that in 2022, 49,449 people died by suicide, an increase of approximately 2.6% from 2021.

We want everyone to know that there is hope, and there is help. Many people who have attempted suicide or experienced suicidal ideation are thriving in recovery and leading fulfilling lives because they got help, said Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the leader of SAMHSA. SAMHSA suicide prevention and behavioral health programs are saving lives and helping people thrive.

This week HHS awarded $200.7 million in new funding for states, territories, and Tribal nations and organizations to build local capacity for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline:

$177.4 million for Cooperative Agreements for State and Territories to Build Local 988 Capacity to improve local response; enhance recruiting, hiring, and training of 988 crisis counselors; implement additional technology and security measures to support infrastructure and effectively coordinate across the crisis continuum; improve support and service for high-risk and underserved populations, including quality assurance and review of critical incidents; and develop and implement comprehensive communication plans;

$18.3 million for 988 Lifeline Tribal Response Cooperative Agreements to improve response to 988 contacts made by American Indians/Alaska Natives, ensure access to culturally competent 988 crisis center support and to improve integration and support of 988 crisis centers, Tribal nations, and Tribal organizations. The cooperative agreements are also to ensure follow-up care, and facilitate collaboration with Tribal, state and territory health providers, Urban Indian Organizations, law enforcement, and other first responders in a manner that respects Tribal sovereignty; and

$5 million for 988 Lifeline Crisis Center Follow-Up to allow crisis centers to follow-up with individuals who reach out to the 988 Lifeline and enhanced coordination of crisis stabilization, including with 911 and emergency service providers for reduction of unnecessary police engagement and improved connections for high-risk populations.

Additional grants for suicide prevention and behavioral health care for at-risk communities awarded in recent weeks included:

$11.8 million for Cooperative Agreements to Implement Zero Suicide in Health Systems to implement the Zero Suicide intervention and prevention model for adults throughout a health system or systems. The Zero Suicide model is a comprehensive, multi-setting approach to suicide prevention in health systems. With this program, SAMHSA aims to reduce suicide ideation, suicide attempts, and deaths due to suicide;

$1.2 million for Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) Campus Suicide Prevention, to assist colleges and universities enhance mental health services for all college students, including those at risk for suicide, depression, serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders that can lead to academic challenges. The GLS Campus program assists colleges and universities to identify students who are at risk for suicide and suicide attempts, increase protective factors that promote mental health, reduce risk factors for suicide, and ultimately reduce suicide attempts and suicide;

$2 million for National Strategy for Suicide Prevention grant programs for suicide prevention and intervention with an emphasis on older adults, adults in rural areas, and American Indian and Alaska Native adults, in response to the 2021 Surgeon Generals Call to Action to Implement the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention; and

$15 million for Tribal Behavioral Health grants to prevent and reduce suicidal behavior and substance misuse, reduce the impact of trauma, and promote mental health among American Indian/Alaska Native youth, up to and including age 24, by building a healthy network of systems, services and partnerships that impact youth.

In late August, HHS awarded $1.5 million to the University of Arizona to establish an American Indian and Alaska Native Behavioral Health Center of Excellence to advance the behavioral health equity of American Indians and Alaska Natives. The Center of Excellence is expected to develop and disseminate culturally-informed, evidence-based behavioral health information. It also will provide technical assistance and training on issues related to addressing behavioral health disparities in these communities, which have consistently experienced disparities in access to health care services, funding, and resources; quality and quantity of services; treatment outcomes; and health education and prevention services.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. To learn how to get support for mental health, drug or alcohol issues, visit FindSupport.gov. If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov or call 800-662-HELP (4357).

Reporters with questions should send inquiries to media@samhsa.hhs.gov.
New funding, federal task force, and national public education campaign advance President Bidens Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis, and his Unity Agenda.

Today, as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Maternal Health Day of Action, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra announced several new actions to address the nations longstanding maternal health crisis. Secretary Becerra hosted a roundtable with the Health Resources and Services Administrator Carole Johnson as well as providers, advocacy organizations, and state and local leaders in Baltimore, Maryland. Secretary Becerra announced that HHS is awarding more than $103 million to support and expand access to maternal health, forming a new task force to address maternal mental health conditions and co-occurring substance use disorders, and launching a national public education campaign, Talking Postpartum Depression, to provide information about and combat stigmatization associated with this significant public health issue.

The actions are the latest steps by HHS and the Biden-Harris Administration to fulfill the Presidents Unity Agenda, and continue implementation of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis, a whole-of-government strategy to combat maternal mortality and improve maternal and infant health, particularly in underserved communities.

Our nation is facing a maternal mortality crisis. Women in our nation are dying from pregnancy-related causes before, during, and after childbirth at a higher rate than any other developed nation, said Vice President Kamala Harris. I directed our government agencies to come up with deliberate and tangible plans to address the maternal health crisis in this country. Todays announcement of additional strategic investments to address the maternal health crisis demonstrates our unwavering commitment to the health and well-being of all women and their families.

HHS is taking action to improve maternal care, help new moms, and ensure their children have the healthiest start in life, said Secretary Becerra. The actions we announced today further demonstrate the Biden-Harris Administrations commitment to strengthen both maternal health and maternal mental health.

In recent decades, the United States maternal mortality rate has been among the highest of any developed nation. Disparities in mortality are stark  Black and Indigenous women are more than three and two times as likely, respectively, as White women to die from pregnancy-related causes. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to reversing these trends and making the U.S. the best country in the world to have a baby.

HHS is awarding nearly $90 million through various HRSA programs to expand access to maternal health care, including in areas with fewer providers; to support parents in communities with the highest rates; to grow and support the maternal health workforce; and to expand screening and treatment for maternal depression and other mental health and substance use disorders.

Expand and Diversify the Perinatal Workforce: HRSA is investing $12.5 million to expand the maternal health workforce. This includes $8 million to train and deploy more nurse midwives by supporting nurse midwifery programs at 10 universities and $4.5 million to establish the Institute for Home Visiting Workforce Development and Jackie Walorski Center for Evidence-Based Case Management to support state Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting programs as they recruit and train the workforce.

HRSA is investing to expand the maternal health workforce. This includes to train and deploy more nurse midwives by supporting nurse midwifery programs at 10 universities and to establish the Institute for Home Visiting Workforce Development and Jackie Walorski Center for Evidence-Based Case Management to support state Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting programs as they recruit and train the workforce. Increasing Access to Maternal Health Services: HRSA is investing over $34 million to increase access to maternity care in underserved and rural communities. This includes more than $24 million to establish maternal health task forces to implement strategies to improve maternal health service delivery; nearly $2 million to support rural communities; and more than $8 million to improve pregnancy and postpartum care by expanding access to health and social services.

HRSA is investing to increase access to maternity care in underserved and rural communities. This includes to establish maternal health task forces to implement strategies to improve maternal health service delivery; to support rural communities; and to improve pregnancy and postpartum care by expanding access to health and social services. Supporting Parents and Families: HRSA is investing nearly $32 million to provide support to patients and families. This includes nearly $9 million to support 12 states in training OB/GYNs, midwives and other maternal health providers in treating behavioral health; $11 million to fund new programs through Healthy Start Initiative to provide direct services to pregnant and postpartum mothers; nearly $6 million to ensure that new mothers and their families are supported during the Medicaid redetermination process associated with the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and more than $5.5 million to support 28 states and jurisdictions to implement patient safety bundles in birthing facilities through the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) program.

HRSA is investing to provide support to patients and families. This includes to support 12 states in training OB/GYNs, midwives and other maternal health providers in treating behavioral health; to fund new programs through Healthy Start Initiative to provide direct services to pregnant and postpartum mothers; to ensure that new mothers and their families are supported during the Medicaid redetermination process associated with the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and to support 28 states and jurisdictions to implement patient safety bundles in birthing facilities through the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) program. Investing in maternal health research: HRSA is investing nearly $10 million to establish a new research network that will support minority serving institutions of higher learning to study the disparities in maternal health outcomes and identify effective methods and strategies for addressing them.

At the Health Resources and Services Administration, we are laser-focused on reversing this crisis by expanding access to maternal care, growing the maternal care workforce, supporting moms experiencing maternal depression, and addressing the important social supports that are vital to safe pregnancies said HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson. We know it will take a sustained approach to reduce and eliminate maternal health disparities and we are committed to this work.

The HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) is also awarding more than $13 million in grants to 11 organizations for its Healthy Families Community-Based Perinatal Health Initiative (COPHI) to develop innovative models for integrating community-based maternal support services into perinatal systems of care. Community-based maternal support services address social determinants of health, such as health literacy; pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting education; cultural and linguistic diversity; exposure to trauma; housing; food; and transportation.

Addressing maternal mental health is the focus of two new HHS initiatives also being announced today:

The Task Force on Maternal Mental Health, co-chaired by HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine, M.D. and Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., will identify, evaluate, and make recommendations to coordinate and improve federal activities related to improving data and health equity as well as identify and create a strategy to implement best practices around prevention, screening, and diagnosis; evidence-based intervention and treatment; evidence-based community practices; and communications and community engagement. Ensuring mental health equity and promoting trauma-informed practices will remain a focus.

The Biden-Harris administration has prioritized transforming behavioral health. We are committed to providing the full spectrum of integrated, equitable, evidence-based, culturally appropriate, and person-centered behavioral healthcare, said HHS Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm. The launch of the Maternal Mental Health Task Force is an important step towards achieving this goal.

The task force is made up of both federal and nonfederal members, including those with lived experience. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association (SAMHSA) and the Office of the Assistance Secretary for Health and the Office on Womens Health are collaborating to use the existing SAMHSA Advisory Committee for Womens Services (ACWS) to support the task force.

The Office on Women's Health (OWH) has also launched a national campaign to educate women about postpartum depression (PPD) and encourage them to seek help for PPD. Talking Postpartum Depression features personal stories of women from diverse backgrounds who have experienced and sought support for PPD. The campaign aims to increase awareness of PPD symptoms, visibility of reliable resources, and understanding of the many ways to access care. Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious mental health condition that significantly impacts a womans physical and psychological health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 13.4% of U.S. women report PPD symptoms in the 12 months after childbirth. Research shows 1 in 8 women who have given birth in the last year experience symptoms of postpartum depression.

HHS launched the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline on Mothers Day in 2022.

For more information about the HRSA awards, visit the FY 2023 Maternal Health Awards page.

For more information about the OMH awards, visit: FY 2023 OMH Perinatal Grant Awards.

For more information on the task force, visit the Task Force on Maternal Mental Health.

For more information about the Talking Postpartum Depression campaign, visit www.womenshealth.gov/talkingPPD.

HHS launched the AI/AN Hear Her Campaign in November 2022.
New Delhi, 27th September 2023- Trading Game Strong, a leading financial educational institute, is proud to announce the launch of its groundbreaking course, Mentorship 2.0 - Master of Trade. This comprehensive program aims to equip aspiring traders with the knowledge and skills required to excel in the dynamic world of stock trading.

Mentorship 2.0 - Master of Trade is designed to cater to a diverse audience and covers a wide range of topics, including market operations, demand-supply zones, Forex, candlestick patterns, option strategies, and risk management. It also delves into advanced concepts such as options pricing models, smart money analysis, and live market strategy adjustments. At present, it offers three distinct modes of learning:

Offline Program: This advanced option trading course, combined with advanced option strategies and Forex Global Stock Market insights, spans four months, with two months of theory and two months of practical training. Priced at  99,999, it provides in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience.

99,999, it provides in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience. One-on-One Personal Mentorship Program: Tailored to individual needs, this online and offline program includes the same comprehensive curriculum. The online training option is priced at  1.9 lakh, while the offline training option costs  2.4 lakh, ensuring a personalized learning experience.

1.9 lakh, while the offline training option costs 2.4 lakh, ensuring a personalized learning experience. Online Program: Priced at  40,000, this online course covers the same material in a convenient, four-month format, making it accessible to a broader audience.

Some of the key features of the course include:

Start with trading basics and combine price action with futures and options.

In-depth coverage of option trading from basics to advanced.

Live doubt-clearing sessions and psychological aspects of trading.

Hands-on practice on live markets.

Lifelong guidance and access to recorded videos.

Insights into the forex and commodity markets and the smart money concept.

Speaking about the course, Salman Sherwani, Co-Founder, Trading Game Strong" said- Our Mentorship 2.0 course represents a significant leap forward in trading education. It equips students with the tools and knowledge needed to thrive in the financial markets. We are committed to empowering our students with the skills to achieve financial independence."

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In our educational approach, we immerse students in the live market alongside a community of traders and dedicated mentors. We not only nurture their trading setups but also evaluate the strength of each setup they create. Additionally, when a trade is based on a flawed setup, we provide detailed explanations to every individual, helping them understand precisely why their setup may not be yielding the desired results. This personalized guidance ensures that our students not only learn from their successes but also from their mistakes, fostering a deeper understanding of the intricacies of trading. A community that learns together, grows together.

About Trading Game Strong

Trading Game Strong, headquartered in New Delhi, is a leading educational institution that opens up global opportunities in the financial markets. With over five years of experience, TGS offers ISO-certified courses that provide comprehensive insights into the technical aspects of financial markets. The institution is known for its client-centric approach and exceptional post-sale service. TGS's student-driven culture focuses on empowering individuals to achieve profitable returns and financial independence.

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.

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BJP leaders held a protest against the Karnataka government over Cauvery water release to Tamil Nadu, in Bengaluru on Wednesday. Protesters raised slogans against CM Siddaramaiah and deputy CM DK Shivakumar and called them agents of Tamil Nadu and DMK. Former CM BS Yediyurappa, MP Tejasvi Surya and others staged a sit-in against the Karnataka government over the Cauvery water-sharing issue near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru today.(ANI)

Former CM BS Yediyurappa staged a sit-in against the Karnataka government over the Cauvery water-sharing issue near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru today.

BJP leader BS Yediyurappa said, "Our CM Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, they must know, that they should not behave like Tamil Nadu agents. They must realise the actual facts. In almost all our reservoirs there is no water at all and it is not sufficient for even drinking purposes... PM can't interfere in this, the case is in SC. It's not possible for him to interfere..."

READ | BS Yediyurappa to stage protest against Cauvery water release, Kumaraswamy to participate: HD Deve Gowda

BS Yediyurappa further said that CM Siddaramaiah and Irrigation Minister DK Shivakumar were behaving like Tamil Nadu agents so Karnataka was facing the crisis.

BJP Member of Parliament from Bangalore South Tejasvi Surya said that Karnataka must stop water that is being released to Tamil Nadu.

"Karnataka government has completely failed in putting forth proper details to the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) committee. Showing fingers towards to central govt is not going to work. Central official work has been done. Now it is in the hands of authorities and the Supreme Court" he said.

BJP MLA BY Vijayendra Yediyurappa said, "The present Congress govt has not taken the Cauvery issue seriously. Farmers are literally on the streets and day by day the water is flowing to Tamil Nadu. The state government has completely failed in fulfilling its responsibility. The question of PM intervening in this issue does not rise because it is your (present Congress government) failure..."

Responding to the protests by the BJP State Home Minister G Parameshwara said that the state government was capable of dealing with the issue.

READ | Cauvery crisis: Kumaraswamy slams Karnataka govt over detentions during stir

"As a government we have some responsibilities, let them do their politics in Cauvery issue. Government will take care of our farmers" said Parameshwara.

Meanwhile Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that the state will challenge the order of the Cauvery Water Management Authority in the Supreme Court.

"Cauvery Regulatory Committee (CWRC) has ordered to release 3000 cusecs of water, I have already spoken to our advocates. They have suggested us to challenge this order in the Supreme Court. We will challenge it in the Supreme Court. We don't have water to release to Tamil Nadu" the Karnataka Chief Minister said.

The CWRC had ordered Karnataka to ensure the release of 3000 cusecs of Cauvery water at Biligundlu starting from September 28 till October 15, 2023. The amount of water to be released was earlier 5000 cusecs.

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After the AIADMK ended its alliance with BJP and NDA, Karnataka Minister and Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao on Tuesday predicted that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will finish off Janata Dal-Secular (JDS). Karnataka Health and family welfare minister Dinesh Gundu Rao. (HT Photo)

"For them it has become a liability and that action I think AIADMK has taken. Also here JDS joining the BJP will finish off JDS. JDS as a party will collapse now. They do not know the danger but BJP will finish off JDS, that's what my prediction is," Dinesh Gundu Rao said.

Earlier on Monday, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) passed a unanimous resolution breaking all ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

READ | Bengaluru Bandh: Not going to curtail protests, says Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah

"The state leadership of the BJP has been continuously making unnecessary remarks about our former leaders, our general secretary EPS (K Palaniswami) and our cadres for the past year. In today's meeting, this resolution was passed unanimously that AIADMK will break all ties with BJP and NDA alliance," AIADMK leader KP Munuswamy said.

Munuswamy alleged that the state BJP has been intentionally attacking former Chief Minister Jayalalitha and Annadurai.

"The state leadership of BJP in the NDA alliance has been purposely attacking the AIADMK Party, former CM and leaders Annadurai and Jayalalitha. BJP State leadership also criticised the AIADMK conference which was held at Madurai on August 20. This hurts cadres of AIADMK," Munuswamy said.

AIADMK Party Secretaries, District Secretaries, Parliament Members and Assembly Members held a meeting at the party headquarters in Chennai on Monday.

READ | Cauvery issue: Deve Gowda urges PM Modi to intervene and set up an agency

The relationship between the AIADMK and the BJP has hit a low in the last few months.

On September 18, AIADMK announced that the BJP is no longer their ally alleging that BJP State President Annamalai was crossing the "alliance dharma" lines. AIADMK leaders also heavily criticised Annamalai for his remarks on Annadurai and Periyar.

Both the AIADMK and the BJP frequently engaged in a war of words with one another on social media. Leaders from both parties refused to comment on the alliance in public.

On September 22, AIADMK top leaders C V Shanmugam, Thambidurai, SP Velumani, Thangamani, KP Munusamy, and Natham Viswanathan met BJP leaders in Delhi.

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#PeruRumboALaOCDE | ? Ahora el premier Alberto Otarola, junto con ministros de Estado, se reune con el secretario general de la OCDE, @MathiasCormann, para la presentacion del estudio economico del pais. pic.twitter.com/VSogq1IvaM
The Karnataka Department of School Education and Literacy has issued orders to constitute five committees to revise textbooks of the state curriculum for the year 2023-24. These committees have to review the first, second and third language textbooks for Kannada, along with the social science textbooks. (File)

These committees have to review the first, second and third language textbooks for Kannada, along with the social science textbooks, as per the guidelines of the National Curriculum Framework-2005.

ALSO READ | Confusion over NEP: Colleges raise red flag, LU VC claims no complaint so far

The government also appointed Dr Manjunath G Hegde, retired principal from Kumta in Uttara Kannada district, as the chief convenor.

The 10-member committee led by Dr Anjanappa from Tirthahalli in Shivamogga will look into the Kannada first-language textbooks from class one to 10, while another committee of 10 members, chaired by Dr H S Satyanarayan, will review the Kannada second-language textbooks from class one to 10.

ALSO READ | Autonomous colleges in state face challenges in implementing Indian Knowledge System

The third committee of four members headed by Dr Manjanna will be in charge of revising Kannada third-language textbooks for class nine and 10. The seven-member committee led by Dr Kiran M has been assigned to revise social science textbooks for class six and seven.

The fifth committee headed by Dr Ashwathanarayana will revise social science textbooks of class eight, nine and 10.

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The State Investigation Agency (SIA) on Wednesday conducted raids at seven places in south Kashmirs three districts in connection with the murder of Kashmiri pandit Sanjay Sharma who was killed by militants in February outside his house on Pulwama. A security personnel stands guard during Jammu and Kashmir SIA's raids as part of its investigations in a terror case, in Anantnag district on Wednesday. (PTI)

Sharma was working as an ATM guard in J&K Bank and had never migrated from his native place. Today, the SIA, Kashmir, conducted fresh searches in Case FIR No 14/2023 of Police Station Litter Pulwama. The case pertains to the cold-blooded murder of bank ATM guard Sanjay Sharma, a police spokesman said, adding that todays pre-dawn operation marks the fourth round of searches conducted by SIA ever since it took over the investigation of the case from Pulwama Police.

The searches were conducted by seven special teams in compliance to the warrant issued by the special designated court. Some vital evidence in the shape of mobile devices and incriminating documents have been seized, he said.

The police spokesman said that todays operation extended to the districts of Anantnag (three locations), Shopian (three locations) and Pulwama (one location).

The State Investigation Agency has reiterated that the case will be submitted for judicial determination soon. The SIA has also reiterated its commitment to uphold the rule of law and effecting harshest punishment to all those involved in the gruesome murder of Sanjay Sharma, the spokesman said.

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The ministry of law and justice on Wednesday notified the elevation of 11 additional judges as permanent judges in the Punjab and Haryana high court. The ministry of law and justice on Wednesday notified the elevation of 11 additional judges as permanent judges in the Punjab and Haryana high court. (Representational photo)

The notification issued in this regard said: In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, the President of India, after consultation with Chief Justice of India, is pleased to appoint 11 additional judges as permanent judges in the Punjab and Haryana high court.

Minister of law and justice Arjun Ram Meghwal conveyed his best wishes to them on X.

Recently, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended their names for appointment as permanent judges.

The collegium, comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna, recommended the appointment of 11 additional judges of the high court, for appointment as permanent judges.

It recommended the appointment of justices Nidhi Gupta, Sanjay Vashisth, Tribhuvan Dahiya, Namit Kumar, Harkesh Manuja, Aman Chaudhary, Naresh Singh, Harsh Bunger, Jagmohan Bansal, Deepak Manchanda and Alok Jain of the high court as permanent judges.

The Supreme Court, in its resolution said that on May 20, 2023, the collegium of the Punjab and Haryana high court unanimously recommended the names of additional judges for permanent judges.

The chief ministers and governors of the states of Punjab and Haryana have concurred with the above recommendation. In terms of the memorandum of procedure, the judges of the Supreme Court conversant with the affairs of the high court of Punjab and Haryana were consulted with a view to ascertain the suitability of the above judges for being appointed as permanent judges, the Supreme Court said.

With a view to assess the merit and suitability of the above additional judges for appointment as permanent judges, we have scrutinised the material placed on record including the opinion of the consultee-judges and the report of the judgment evaluation committee, it added.

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Alliance Air will fly direct from Amritsar to Kullu and back thrice a week from October 1. The airlines will connect Shimla and Amritsar directly from November 1, and that too, three times a week. Alliance Air will fly direct from Amritsar to Kullu and back thrice a week from October 1. The airlines will connect Shimla and Amritsar directly from November 1, and that too, three times a week. (HT file photo)

The flight to and from Kullu will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Alliance Air has begun bookings. The flight will depart from Kullu at 8.25am and reach Amritsar at 9.30am, while the return flight from Amritsar will take off at 10am and arrive in Kullu at 11.05am.

50% of seats on this route will be subsidised. The flight from Kullu to Amritsar will cost 2,637 and from Amritsar to Kullu 3,284.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said direct connectivity to the airport at Amritsar, a hub connecting domestic and international destinations, would boost tourism in the hill state by facilitating access to Kullu-Manali and Lahaul and Spiti. The government is committed to enhancing air connectivity and setting up heliports to boost tourism and economic development, Sukhu said.

Apart from the three airports at Jubbarhatti (Shimla), Bhuntar (Kullu), and Gaggal (Kangra), efforts are on to expand the Kangra airport to enhance the states air connectivity. The state has developed heliports in Shimla, Baddi, Rampur, and Kangnidhar (Mandi), with plans for another heliport in Manali.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained an aide of Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh, alias Arsh Dala, during a raid in Punjabs border district of Ferozepur on Wednesday. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) detained an aide of Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh, alias Arsh Dala, during a raid in Ferozepur district on Wednesday. (Representational photo)

The raids are a part of the crackdown on the terror-gangster network operating in India and Canada, officials said. The NIA is conducting raids at 51 locations across six states in three cases related to associates of Lawrence Bishnoi, Davinder Bambiha and Arsh Dala gangs, an NIA official said. While Lawrence Bishnoi is in jail, Dala is in Canada and Bambiha was killed in an encounter with Punjab Police in 2016.

Also read: NIA raids in multiple states in Khalistani-gangsters nexus probe

The NIA team caught the aide, identified as Yunas, alias Zora, of Macchi Mandi in Ferozepur, early on Wednesday. The NIA team got chat details of Yunas with Dala, hence he was taken into custody for interrogation, an official said. Yunas was reportedly receiving calls from Dala, the source said.

The NIA has been cracking down on individual terror outfits and terrorists conspiring to smuggle arms, ammunition and explosives and raising funds to carry out attacks in India. The NIA has found that gangsters having nexus with listed terrorist Dala had entered into a criminal conspiracy to raise funds for the banned Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF). They were engaged in smuggling of arms, ammunition and explosives for the KTF from across the border.

Dala, who has been operating from Canada for the last four years, has been guiding and commissioning terrorist acts and also promoting terror, violence and large-scale extortion in India on behalf of the KTF.

So far 16 people have been arrested in the terror-gangster conspiracy case. The NIA is trying to destroy the nexus between terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers, and wants to dismantle their infrastructure, including funding channels. (With agency inputs)

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a preliminary enquiry to look into alleged "irregularities and misconduct" by unidentified public servants of the Delhi Government in connection with the construction of a new official residence for chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, officials said on Wednesday. The preliminary enquiry is the first step to ascertain if the allegations have prima facie material to proceed with a regular FIR. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.(PTI)

The registration of the preliminary enquiry renewed the political slugfest between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Virendra Sachdeva, the chief of BJP's Delhi unit, said that Kejriwal would have to answer who gave the order for all these constructions at the chief minister's residence.

From the first day we have maintained that the way this bungalow was constructed by violating all rules and regulations, massive corruption has taken place, Sachdeva told PTI.

After this CBI investigation, Arvind Kejriwal would have to answer who gave the order for all these constructions (at CMs residence), he added.

The Aam Admi Party rejected the allegation of any wrongdoing and accused the BJP of "making a concerted effort to destroy AAP".

The AAP alleged that the development was part of the BJP's efforts to stop the Arvind Kejriwal-led party from working for the people.

"This is the reason why the country's best health and education ministers Satyendar Jain and Manish Sisodia were put behind bars," it alleged,

Until now, more than 50 cases have been filed against Kejriwal and investigated. Nothing was found then and nothing will be found now. BJP may conduct as many investigations, Kejriwal will always fight for the betterment of the common person, the party said.

There is "only one party which is AAP that seeks votes on the basis of doing good work in the fields of health and education but the BJP does not want that the poor people should have good education and excellent health facilities," it said.

Kejriwal has been occupying the official residence- at 6 Flagstaff Road in the Civil Lines area after becoming chief minister in 2015.

A senior PWD official had said, It was not renovation and a new structure has come up in place of the old structure. His camp office is also there. The expenditure is around 44 crore but what is to be noted is that the old structures have been replaced with new ones.

According to documents, the total expenditure included 11.30 crore on interior decoration, 6.02 crore on stone and marble flooring, one crore on interior consultancy and 2.58 crore on electrical fittings and appliances.

An amount of 2.85 crore was spent on fire fighting system, 1.41 crore on wardrobe and accessories fitting and 1.1 crore on kitchen appliances.

A separate amount of 8.11 crore of the sanctioned amount of 9.99 crore was spent on the camp office of the chief minister at his official residence, it showed.

(With PTI inputs)

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The Delhi Police on Tuesday said they busted a gang involved in an elaborate investment fraud, involving total transactions of about 125 crore, and arrested five people. The masterminds of the crime, however, are based in the Philippines and Dubai, they added. The cyber branch of the Delhi Police (central) began investigating the case in June when a Delhi-based businessman submitted a complaint and said he ended up losing the  30 lakh he invested. (HT Photo)

Police identified the arrested men as Vivek Kumar Singh, 33, Manish Kumar, 23, Suhel Akaram, 32, Gaurav Sharma, 23, and Balram Pandit, 27.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (central) Sachin Sharma said that the gang lured people into investing money through channels on the messaging app Telegram. The victims would receive substantial returns on their initial investments, prompting them to invest bigger amounts.

The cyber branch of the Delhi Police (central) began investigating the case in June when a Delhi-based businessman submitted a complaint and said he ended up losing the 30 lakh he invested, while his initial investment was a meagre 1,000.

During the probe, police found that the money was transferred to 25 separate bank accounts. These current bank accounts were opened using the details of dozens of shell companies  11 such fake companies were found registered to a single address in west Delhis Nangal Raya, police said.

According to the police, the gang targeted people by nominating them as directors of these shell companies and paid them a small sum of money for their approval. They used fake documents to open the shell companies, Verma added. The bank accounts recorded a daily transaction of over 1 crore, the officer said.

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Gurugrams Sadar Bazar is a hodgepodge of distractions. One must make a regular pilgrimage to the market for its culinary destinations. Here are three of the very many eateries, using the most popular ingredients. (The photo shows the lunch menu of a popular eatery in the market). Delhiwale

Something with dahi

Heres the sweet chutney and heres the sour chutney, and heres the super-soft deep-fried bhalla soaked in dahi, and everything is topped with shards of crispy papri. This dahi bhalla tastes extremely homey  vendor Mahesh Chandra Sharma makes it fresh every morning. The mobile setup consists of a large pan and bags arranged in various places of his bicycle. The metal pan, holding bhallas and dahi, lies on the back-carrier, while the rest of the stuff is crammed into bags hanging from the handle bar. The best thing: theres a basket for disposing trash.

Something with chhole

This cart-establishment treats its kulchas with piping hot butter just before serving. Its also more sophisticated than many other street stalls of such nature in the fact that it serves four different kinds of kulchasplain, masala, long (because its long), and paneer. The chhole is allowed to retain their lightness by the owner-cook Rajesh Gupta, who always asks the customer if they want the dish to be very spicy, middle spicy or no spice? Sliced carrots, mango pickles and green chillies serves as his final touch.

Something for digestion

The Dilip Sweets, Supari and Churan street trolley lies decked with spicy, pungent digestives. The various shelves are filled with a great number of tiny bottles and sachets. The carts banner boast of selling sweet, supari, churan, but it also stocks flavoured candies, mouth-freshening suparis and a wide range of sauf. It pays the biggest attention to its collection of churansimli laddu, fruit goli, chalu candy, namkeen souf, heeng goli, mixed sauf, barik sauf, zeera goli, khatta goli, pudina goli, amla candy, harad goli. The bullet-sized digestives are arranged thoughtfully. The more colourful orange and black (cola flavoured) goliyan are distributed evenly around the cart, contained within plastic pouches so that their tempting colours are visible to passersby. They are the bestsellers.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mayank Austen Soofi Mayank Austen Soofi is a writer-snapper trying to capture Delhi by heart. ...view detail
Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal will send over five million letters drafted by people from across the state alleging for having been denied benefits under various central schemes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The Centre had stopped sending funds to West Bengal under the MGNREGA since November 2021. (Representative file image)

The party has also planned a protest in Delhi on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, over the alleged denial of funds under the MGNREGA and PM Awas Yojana.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is, however, likely to miss the protest on doctors advice asking to rest for ten days.

People of Bengal are raising their voice against injustice! @BJP4India has ruthlessly withheld 15,000 crore due to Bengal under the MGNREGA and Awas Yojana. Those adversely impacted have written letters to the PM @narendramodi seeking their rightful dues. BENGAL WILL FIGHT TILL JUSTICE IS RESTORED, the TMC wrote on its official X handle (formerly Twitter).

Also Read: Battle for Bengals MGNREGA wages: TMC MP seeks permission for protests in Delhi

On April 29, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had floated the idea of an indefinite sit-in demonstration to protest against the Centre in Delhi.

Later, he announced on July 21, from the TMCs Martyr Day rally, that the party will hold a rally on October 2 in Delhi.

West Bengal stands united against central govts injustice, determined to claim whats rightfully ours. Peoples power reigns supreme in democracy. #Justice, Abhishek posted on his official X handle on Tuesday.

The Centre had stopped sending funds to West Bengal under the MGNREGA since November 2021 citing misuse of funds.

The state is yet to receive more than 1.5 lakh crore to the state under various schemes and its GST share. It was a scheduled program to send a few million letters. The program has started, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, told media persons.

Reacting to the developments, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Suvendu Adhikari alleged that these were fake letters prepared by TMC workers sitting in Kolkata.

These are all fake letters. They have been prepared in an office in Camac Street. Most of the letters do not have signatures on them. We regularly visit the villages. People tell us to catch thieves, Adhikari told reporters.

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In a bid to facilitate peaceful celebrations and the efficient management of religious processions, the Maharashtra government has announced a public holiday on September 29. This decision comes in the wake of both Anant Chaturdashi and Eid-e-Milad falling on the same day, which is tomorrow, September 28. People of the Dawoodi Bohra Community take part in a procession on the occasion of Eid Milad-Un-Nabi, in Bhopal on Sunday. (ANI Photo)

The announcement was made after the All India Khilafat Committee, a prominent religious and social organization, reached out to chief minister Eknath Shinde, urging him to consider a public holiday to manage the coinciding religious events effectively.

The State Govt has declared public holiday on Friday 29th Sept on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, the chief minister's office said in a social media post on X (formerly Twitter).

This decision has been taken in the wake of Anant Chaturdashi and Eid e Milad falling on the same day i.e. tomorrow on 28th. All India Khilafat Committee has requested CM @mieknathshinde regarding this, it added.

Anant Chaturdashi is an important Hindu festival celebrated with grand processions and immersion ceremonies of Lord Ganesha's idols. Eid-e-Milad, which marks the birth of Prophet Muhammad and is celebrated with prayers, feasts, and gatherings, coincides with Anant Chaturdashi this year.

Wishing you all a very Happy Eid-e-Milad. Maharashtra State Government has declared public holiday on Friday 29 September 2023 on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, Shinde said in separate social media post in Marathi.

This year, Eid-e-Milad will be celebrated on September 27 in Saudi Arabia and on September 28 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other parts of the subcontinent region.

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The inefficacy of the state in meeting the vociferous demand for reservation by various castes across India calls for some urgent political and legal imperatives to ensure social harmony and peace. Poverty or inequality is an organic derivative of the skewed developmental policies and the problem can be addressed only through State intervention. PREMIUM Thane, India - September , 04, 2023: Activists of the Maratha community in Thane staged a protest outside the Thane Collector office on Monday to protest against the police lathicharge (beating ) on the protestors protesting for Maratha reservation in Jalna Maharashtra ,in Thane, in Mumbai, India, on,Monday, September, 04, 2023. ( Praful Gangurde / HT Photo )

Since the Indian State has always been non-committal to the eradication of poverty, a large chunk of the Indian populace has been increasingly facing acute or extreme poverty. However, this destitution is now increasingly referred to as economic backwardness, which, many hope, can be reversed by providing reservation on economic grounds.

Official debates on backwardness in India have undergone a major overhaul as the Indian state is keen on legitimising economic backwardness as a new political category. Economically backward is now a peculiar class which is financially weak, though it was not historically subjected to social discrimination.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government showed sharp political astuteness by establishing new categories such as Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Group (SEGD) in 2020. Given that economic backwardness is widespread and deepened, promising reservation to the economically backward helps in pampering and winning over a large vote bank, though such reservation is not entirely unjustifiable.

However, many groups in India use caste as a channel to negotiate with the state, making the political scenario more complex to tackle. Increasing pauperisation of the peasantry, validated by the ever-decreasing contribution of agriculture to the Indian economy, is the main reason compelling the Marathas in Maharashtra, Patidars in Gujarat, Gujjars in Rajasthan and Jats in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to demand for reservation on the basis of caste.

Indeed, around the country, a similar demand is also being made to lift the 50% ceiling, imposed by the apex court in 1992. However, the central question is does it make sense to lift the ceiling on reservation in the absence of real on-ground knowledge of the size and multiplicity of beneficiaries seeking quota?

In Maharashtra  as in fact, around the country  we are seeing the growing pauperisation of the peasantry. Thus, removing the 50 per cent cap on reservations is an attractive solution. However, a caste census must precede such a move, or else what we will see is a simultaneous erosion of the constitutionally protected federal system.

The relevance of a caste census

In the absence of up-to-date caste data, the Supreme Court and several state governments have expressed their inability to implement welfare policies. Even existing reservation policies have been put on hold in states for years on end due to the absence of reliable empirical data sought by the Supreme Court  we saw that happen as recently as two years ago when the political reservation guaranteed to candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in local bodies in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh was put on hold in some seats by the Supreme Court, which sought fresh caste data from the government.

Several backward class commissions including the historic Backward Classes Commission of 1953 established a need for reliable caste statistics. Neither the advocates nor the opponents of reservation policy in India have any recent statistical data on caste to rely upon.

The last caste census was conducted in 1931 when the population of India was just 270 million. The Mandal Commission relied on the 1931 census and approximated the OBC population as 52 per cent. Other claims and counter-claims about the OBC population vary from 36 to 65 per cent. Maratha and other similar castes were excluded from the list as the current reservation is based on the 1931 census.

Amid such chaos, caste census becomes vital to ascertain the extent of deprivation of various castes. Such a census would measure the economic and social well-being of all castes and provide a wealth of demographic, educational and policy-relevant information on the socio-economic conditions of all castes. This can go a long way in developing and fine-tuning evidence-based social policies and curbing undemocratic incivility.

The complex nature of backwardness, whether due to caste or economic reasons, can be scientifically and comprehensively gauged only through an exercise of enumeration. Data on caste in India today is scanty. It has been observed that the unavailability of caste statistics obstructs the implementation of various welfare policies.

For example, when it came to implementing welfare schemes for nomadic tribes, the Ministry of Finance informed the National Commission for Denotified Nomadic, Semi-Nomadic, and Nomadic Tribes (NCDNT) in January 2018: Unless Census is carried out and used for the preparation of state-wise and community-wise lists, any further action will not focus on the intended beneficiaries. Moreover, since the peasantry is a sharply stratified entity, only the caste census can present a more sanguine view.

A political knot

Though many middle castes have made streets the battleground for reservation, they cannot neglect the mediation of the SC in this matter.

The SC set the limit on reservation to 50 per cent in the MR Balaji v State of Mysore case. Thereafter, its rationale was questioned in various other SC cases until 1993, whereas in the Indra Sawhney case, the nine-member SC bench held that reservation should not exceed 50 per cent.

The Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (2017) recommended reservations for the Marathas in educational institutions and public services. Based on this, the state passed the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act, 2018, which granted 16 per cent reservation to the Marathas. The Bombay high court upheld the constitutionality of this act in 2018, but the SC subsequently overruled it in the Dr Jayshree Patil vs State of Maharashtra (2020) judgement, stating that it violated the 50 per cent cap set by the constitutional bench in 1992. The court also questioned the methodology followed by the commission and the conclusion drawn. Neither the first and second Backward Class Commissions nor the state commissions in Maharashtra had considered the Maratha community backwards.

Against this backdrop, the court questioned the reasoning of the 2018 Gaikwad Commission in recommending reservation to the Marathas. In the Indra Sawhney case, the SC had categorically said that 50 per cent is the rule and only in certain exceptional situations can the said rule be relaxed. The Maharashtra government had failed to prove this in the case of the Maratha reservation.

Yet, in 2019, the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, the constitutionality of which was upheld by the SC in Janhit Abhiyan v Union of India (2021), granted 10 per cent reservation to the upper castes who are economically backward, despite the existing reservation for the SC, ST and OBCs. The government relied on data that measured poverty based on a multidimensional poverty index. Hence, one could conclude that the 50 per cent ceiling is not so sacrosanct.

Dilip Chavan teaches at the SRTM University, Nanded and Nitish Nawsagaray teaches at the ILS Law College, Pune
LUCKNOW The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday told the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court that surgeries were being conducted at the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Amethi despite the facility lacking the necessary licence for such procedures. In Amethi, Congress leader Deepak Singh and hospital employees held separate protests against the suspension of the hospitals licence. (HT Photo)

The hospitals administration has contested the state governments decision to seal the facility, leading to a hearing before the division bench comprising Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Manish Kumar on Wednesday.

The hospitals license was suspended on September 17, and the facility was sealed after a woman who had been admitted for a minor operation died on September 14. Her husband alleges that her death resulted from an anaesthesia overdose.

The hospital was under the management of a trust led by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. During Wednesdays court session, the judges asked for more information about the investigation into the patients death.

Rahul Shukla, the additional chief standing counsel representing the state government, informed the court that surgeries were being performed at the hospital despite the facility lacking the necessary licence.

The court instructed the governments counsel to obtain information from the state regarding the timeline for completing the patients death investigation. The case has been scheduled for the next hearing on October 3.

Meanwhile, in Amethi, Congress leader Deepak Singh and hospital employees held separate protests against the suspension of the hospitals licence.

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Fashion designer Manish Malhotra has revealed that actor Parineeti Chopra wanted the keychain belonging to her maternal grandmother on her wedding outfit. He shared that several other elements which were significant to Parineeti and her husband-politician Raghav Chadha were also added to her lehenga. These included elements symbolising 'London, music, Khanda Sahib and more'. (Also Read | Raghav Chadha and Parineeti Chopras wedding had no-gift policy; only 11 milni was allowed: Report) Parineeti Chopra and Manish Malhotra laugh in a candid photo on her wedding day.

Manish shares pics from Parineti's wedding day

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Manish shared several pictures featuring Parineeti and also her wedding outfit. The first candid picture featured Manish Malhotra and Parineeti as they laughed looking at each other. The other pictures gave a closer glimpse of the elements added to her lehenga. They included a miniature London double-decker bus, a miniature London Eye, the letters 'P' and 'R', a gramophone, red, a telephone booth and religious symbols among others.

Manish talks about Parineeti's special lehenga

Sharing the photos he wrote, "Some details make all the difference. I distinctly remember discussing the lehenga design with @parineetichopra (two hearts emoji), who mentioned adding her Nani (grandmother)'s challa (traditional keychain) to it! She wanted to pay a heartfelt tribute to her nani, who used to wear the same challa in her saree with the keys, a symbol of being the lady of the house."

He also wrote, "For Parineeti, the sound of the challa when her nani walked around the house, was a melody of strength and grace. And that's when I knew we had to add that piece of legacy to her lehenga. Of course, we added more elements that were significant to both Raghav and Parineeti like London, music, Khanda Sahib and more. It was not just an accessory... but a piece of her that Parineeti would have on her special day. #parineetichopra #love." Reacting to the post, Parineeti wrote, "I love you M. There is no one like you (two heart emoji)."

About Parineeti and Raghav's wedding, outfits

Parineeti on Sunday tied the knot with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Raghav Chadha in Udaipur. On Monday, they posted first photographs as newlyweds on Instagram. The caption read, "From the very first chat at the breakfast table, our hearts knew. Been waiting for this day for a long time .. So blessed to finally be Mr and Mrs! Couldn't have lived without each other .. Our forever begins now."

For her wedding, the bride opted for an embellished ivory lehenga paired with a customised veil. It had her husband's first name 'Raghav', embroidered in Hindi in golden colour. She completed her look with precious stone jewellery and minimal make-up and mehendi. Dressed in an ivory sherwani and saafa, Raghav coordinated his look with Parineeti. The couple got engaged in May this year in Delhi in a private ceremony.

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Twinkle, Akshay pose with Rishi Sunak

Twinkle, who recently completed her Masters in Fiction Writing at the prestigious Goldsmiths, University of London, took to Instagram Reels on Wednesday to share a video montage of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performing at the event. It also included a photo of Twinkle and Akshay posing with Rishi Sunak. They were all dressed in formal and semi-formal outfits.

In her caption, Twinkle joked about wearing high heels for the event. She wrote, As much as I dislike wearing heels and dressing up, this evening was worth all the damaged toes. @sudha_murthy_official remains my hero, but it was pretty cool meeting her son-in-law, the prime minister :) @rishisunakmp Also put the sound on and hear @andreabocelliofficial. Congratulations @anusuya12 and @theowo.london (red heart emoji).

Twinkle Khanna's connection to Sudha Murty

In 2021, to mark the second anniversary of her digital platform Tweak India, Twinkle had interviewed Sudha Murty, and the two had discussed their lives and choices. During their talk, Twinkle had said that sometimes, children who come from well-off homes have a certain amount of guilt. She asked Sudha how she ensured that her children remain grounded.

Sudha had also opened up about realising that she cant rely on anybody else except herself. "You are the best friend to yourself and youre the worst enemy of yourself too," she had said.

About Twinkle Khanna

Twinkle made her acting debut with Barsaat in 1995. She quit her acting career after the 2001 film Love Ke Liya Kuch Bhi Karega. In 2015, Twinkle made her debut as a writer with Mrs Funnybones. In 2017, she came out with an anthology of stories titled The Legend Of Lakshmi Prasad. Her fiction novel Pyjamas Are Forgiving came out the following year.

Twinkle often shares glimpses inside her life on Instagram, and has become known for her witty and funny posts poking fun at not only herself but also other famous people, including Prince Harry.

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Pierce Brosnan made a lovely wish for his wife Keely Shaye Brosnan on her 60th birthday on Monday. While sharing the birthday wish, he became nostalgic and remembered the time when he met her in the city of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Pierce Brosnan(Reuters)

The former James Bond actor took to Instagram on Monday and shared a picture offering a bouquet of 60 red roses to Keely. He captioned the picture as, "Sixty roses for my brown eyed girl on her 60th birthday. Forever happy and blessed was I to be sitting there when you walked around the corner early one morning in Cabo San Lucas".

The pair have been happily married for 22 years. They got married in Ireland in 2001. The couple have two sons namely Dylan and Paris.

ALSO READ| Martin Scorsese urges filmmakers to fight back against comic book movie culture: Weve got to save cinema'

Earlier, in May, Pierce had celebrated his 70th birthday. Wishing him then, Keely had shared a photo of him standing in a field of wildflowers.

"Happy Birthday my darling @piercebrosnanofficial. Wishing you a blessed, bountiful and adventurous new trip around the sun. Its not how old you are  its how bold you are in life. I love you with all my heart," Keely's post read.

Pierce is well-known for reprising the role of James Bond in several films of the franchise. He has acted in Bond films like GoldenEye, Die Another Day, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough. He has also acted in Hollywood movies like Laws of Attraction, The Tailor of Panama, The Ghost Writer, The Love Punch and numerous other films.
Actor Jennifer Lawrence attended the Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2024 womenswear collection on Tuesday in Paris. Several pictures of the actor were shared on social media platforms. A section of the people have reacted amid claims that she opted for Botox or plastic surgery. (Also Read | Jennifer Lawrence ditches heels with red gown, opts for flip-flops at Cannes) New pictures of Jennifer Lawrence at the Paris fashion show have raised questions about her.

What Jennifer Lawrence wore to fashion event

For the event, Jennifer opted for a white shirt and black trousers. She also accessorised her outfit with a belt and gold hoop earrings. However, it was her face that got the internet chattering.

What internet said about her

Reacting to a picture of Jennifer at the event, a person wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), We need to start citizen arresting these plastic surgeons. A tweet read, "Something looks off. And Im not that thrilled about it. Because she didnt need any plastic surgery or sorts." Another person commented, "Please Jennifer don't ruin yourself with Botox."

Fans come to her defense

Jennifer Lawrence poses before Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2024 womenswear collection presented Tuesday in Paris.(AP)

A few others said that it was the makeup or her face was simply swollen and that she didn't undergo any surgery. A fan said, "Her face just looks swollen. I dont think this is a surgical or injectable procedure." A comment read, "Who said she had plastic surgery? Didnt she recently have a baby? Its possible shes just carrying baby weight in her face in these photos."

Jenna Ortega, Rosalia, and Jennifer Lawrence pose for pictures.(Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

An X user wrote, "Got bit by a wasp coupled with seasonal allergies." A person asked, "Is this AI?" "Her makeup artist and hair stylist need to be fired," said a person. "Is it surgery? I keep thinking that she is using a different makeup style instead," read another comment.

Who all were at the show

Apart from Jennifer, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Jenna Ortega, Joseph Quinn, and Rosalia among others also attended the event. For the occasion, Charlize opted for a white shirt and glittery gold skirt. Jenna was seen in a navy blue blazer and long pleated skirt. Alexa wore a floral black bralet and sheer skirt and jacket. BLACKPINK member Jisoo wore a black mini-dress. Anya was seen in black shorts, vinyl jacket and heels.

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The audio launch of Lokesh Kanagaraj's upcoming film Leo has been cancelled due to "overflowing pass requests and safety constraints", the film's producers have announced. The cancellation comes just weeks after overcrowding and a stampede-like situation was created at a recent AR Rahmans concert Paniyur. The film features Vijay, fondly known as Thalapathy Vijay, in the lead role. (Also read: Organiser of AR Rahman's Sept 10 Chennai concert booked for mismanagement) Leo stars Vijay in the lead and is one of the biggest Tamil releases of the year.

Security concerns

In their social media post, Seven Studio wrote late Tuesday, "Considering overflowing passes' requests & safety constraints, we have decided not to conduct the Leo Audio Launch. In respect of the fans' wishes, we will keep you engaged with frequent updates. P.S. As many would imagine, this is not due to political pressure or any other reasons."

'Brave move'

CEO of the multiplex chain AGS Cinemas Archana Kalapathi praised the move and responded to the cancellation with a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). She wrote, "It takes a lot of courage for @7screenstudio and @Jagadishbliss to take this call The safety of his fans will always come first for our #Thalapathy Let us celebrate every update from today Mark my words #Leo will have the biggest opening ever #WeStandWithLEO."

Fans wonder if it is political pressure

In their post, the producers added a disclaimer insisting the cancellation was not due to any political pressure. The fans of lead actor Vijay, nonetheless, have been claiming otherwise. One of them wrote, "Political pressure (heartbreak emoji)."

Soon after the first song from the film, Naa Reddy, was launched, it was attacked for allegedly promoting smoking and rowdy behaviour. The producers did not issue any statements, but later added disclaimers to the song, as per an India Glitz report.

Fans want to hear Thalapathy Vijay

Some fans also demanded that they must get to hear Vijay, even if it is on YouTube video. "At least, Thalapathy's Interview in SunTV / YouTube?? We need to hear our Man's Positive Words @Jagadishbliss #Lalit @7screenstudio," one of them wrote.

More about Leo

Starring Sanjay Dutt, Trisha, and Arjun in leading roles, Leo is set for a theatrical release on October 19. Snajay plays the antagonist in the film that marks his Tamil debut.

In Leo, Trisha has been paired opposite Vijay after many years. The film also stars Keerthy Suresh, Misha Ghoshal, Mansoor Ali Khan, Sanjay, and Priya Anand. Shot in various locations including Kashmir and Chennai, apart from the US, Leo has music composed by Anirudh Ravichander. Manoj Paramahamsa is the cinematographer while the film is edited by Philomin Raj.

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Nithya Menen has addressed rumours about her allegedly saying in an interview that she faced problems in Tamil film industry and was was harassed by a Tamil hero. In an interview with Cinema Express, the actor slammed the false reports and said that nobody had ever behaved badly with her. Now, she has taken to Instagram to call out news portals for spreading fake news about her. Also read: Nithya Menens pregnancy post was just a hoax Nithya Menen denies allegations of facing harassment in Tamil film industry, calls out news portals for spreading fake news.

Nithya Menen denies allegations of facing harassment

On Tuesday, Nithya, who works predominantly in Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films, shared a screenshot of a tweet by a media portal, which read, A Tamil hero harassed me during shooting. I have faced a lot of problems in Tamil film industry  Nithya Menen in her recent interview.

Reacting to it, the actor had said, "False news! Completely untrue! I have never given an interview. If anyone knows  please point me in the direction of who started this rumours. Need to hold people accountable for simply making up this type of false news just to get clicks."

Sharing the post on Instagram, the actor wrote in her caption, It's very sad that certain sections of journalism have come down to this. I urge you - Be Better than this ! Stop fake news.

Nithya calls out portals spreading fake news

Her next post was another screenshot of a tweet by a separate media portal, which had shared the actor's photo and written along with it, "'I've never faced any problems in Telugu industry, but I faced a lot of problems in Tamil industry. A Tamil hero harassed me while shooting a film'. Nithya Menen fans are wondering who that hero is!" Along with the screenshot, the actor wrote, Culprit found! Thank you all for pointing me in the right direction. BuzZ Basket, shame on you.

She wrote in her caption, "We are all here for such a short period of time. It always surprises me how much wrong we do to each other :) I point this out today because only accountability stops bad behaviour. Be better humans The BuzZ Basket, LetsCinema and all the others who have followed this bandwagon."

Nithya's clarification

Nithya Menen has been trending on social media amid claims of her saying that she was harassed by an unnamed Tamil hero and faced problems in Tamil industry. She recently refuted the alleged statements and told Cinema Express, "Rumours are completely untrue. I have never given an interview or said anything of this sort."

Expressing her disappointment over such statements spreading like wildfire in today's time and age, Nithya further said, Nobody has ever behaved badly with me. I have always worked with good people who have been so gracious with me.

Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha and other featured with Nithya Menen in Mission Mangal.

About Nithya Menen

She started her acting career at a young age by appearing in a supporting role in the Kannada film 7 O' Clock, which was released in 2006. She has played leading roles in Malayalam in Aakasha Gopuram (2008), in Telugu in Ala Modalaindi (2011), in Tamil with Nootrenbadhu (2011), among many others. Her Hindi debut was in Akshay Kumar-starrer Mission Mangal (2019) in a supporting role.

Last year, Nithya was seen in the Telugu-language romantic anthology series Modern Love Hyderabad and the Tamil film Thiruchitrambalam with Dhanush. Nithya is all set to appear in the upcoming Telugu comedy-drama series titled Kumari Srimathi, which is scheduled to start streaming on Prime Video from September 28.

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Disclaimer: Spoiler Warning! Once a rebel always a rebel(LucasFilm)

Star Wars Ahsoka is nearing its end, but the story still has a lot to offer.

In the seventh episode, titled Dreams and Madness, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) comes back to the main plot, along with her loyal droid friend Huyang (David Tennant). They travel to a new galaxy with the help of the Purrgils, where they face new dangers and mysteries.

In the first couple of minutes, we saw Ahsoka trains with the holograms of her former master Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), who left her twenty lessons before he turned to the Dark Side. Ahsoka seems to have trouble letting go of the past.

Just like Master-Apprentice(LucasFilm/Disney+)

Meanwhile, Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has to deal with the aftermath of her actions. She reports to a group of senators who dont believe her stories about Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). They think she is making up a fantasy. She is saved by the legendary droid C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), who brings a message from Senator Leia Organa, who supposedly approved Heras mission.

However, Chancellor Mothma (Genevieve OReilly) knows that Leia only helped Hera out of a tight spot. Mothma is the only one who takes Thrawn seriously as a threat. The mention of Leia feels like a cheap way to appeal to the fans, but at least Dave Filoni didnt use CGI to recreate her.

ALSO READ| JJK237 - Sukuna back in his true form, fights Kashimo - Where is Megumi?

When Ahsoka and Huyang arrive in the new galaxy after jumping out from the hyperspace with the help of Star-whale, they are greeted by a huge minefield set up by the Empire to stop them.

Ahsoka shows her skills as a natural pilot just like Anakin and dodges the mines in a thrilling scene that reminds me of an old Star Wars video game. Ahsokas survival surprises Morgan, who tells Thrawn what she learned about the Jedi.

Thrawn is interested in Ahsokas connection to Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi he once worked with in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and one of the few people he knows is Darth Vader. Its strange that he didnt know this before, but maybe some viewers didnt either.

Grand Admiral Thrawn(Lucasfilm)

Thrawn knows that Ahsokas main goal is to find Sabine, and he knows where she is. Baylan (Ray Stevenson) tells Shin (Ivanna Sakhno) to kill Ezra and Sabine, as they have different paths. He says he will leave her, but gives her some advice, dont be impatient for victory, or you will lose. This advice could have been useful for the writers of Ahsoka, who have rushed the story too much.

Ahsoka's epic showdown with Shin and Thrawn in the Episode 7- 'Dreams and Madness'

Ahsoka arrives just in the nick of time, though the situation is dire. Surrounded by Night Troopers and clearly overwhelmed, Ezra proposes a diversionary tactic: engaging in conversation with Shin to distract her long enough for Ahsoka to launch a rescue mission.

Sabine finally meets Ezra(LucasFilm/Disney+)

The ensuing battle unfolds in a spectacular display of lightsabers clashing, blasters firing, and Ezra employing the Force to maneuver enemies. As the skirmish rages on, Shin begins to realize that her plans are unraveling, especially when Thrawn orders his troops to retreat, leaving her to salvage her thwarted victory. Ahsoka, before departing, extends an offer of assistance to Shin, providing an alternative path, but it's an offer Shin declines. This moment may foreshadow the character's future, although the outlook appears grim for Force users, both good and bad, in this period of the timeline.

While Morgan Elsbeth regards their defeat as a setback, Thrawn interprets it as a triumph. They may have lost Night Troopers, and Ahsoka may have reunited with Sabine and Ezra, but Ahsoka also lost valuable time. During the skirmish, Thrawn managed to make significant progress in transferring his cargo for his escape from Peridea.

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Dreams and Madness concludes with an unexpectedly heartwarming scene reminiscent of the Clone Wars and Rebels, as Ezra revels in the realization that he is finally returning home. It's a more fitting reunion than the somewhat awkward one with Sabine and Ezra from the previous week. However, this joy is overshadowed by the looming threat of Thrawn, who poses a genuine danger to the future. Or does he? Ahsoka's Season 1 finale has a substantial amount of groundwork to lay for the unfolding narrative, particularly if it intends to establish Thrawn as a true menace rather than just another power-hungry figure in a galaxy undergoing turbulent times.

Surprising reunion and action-packed chase in 'Ahsoka' Episode 7

Between Episode 6 and Episode 7, Sabine updates Ezra on recent events, excluding how she found him on Peridea. Ahsoka unexpectedly reaches out to Sabine through the Force, surprising her, as she had believed Ahsoka was dead.

The Rebels unites, 3 of them still missing though(LucasFilm/Disney+)

A chase ensues with scavengers pursuing Sabine, Ezra, and the peaceful Noti creatures. The Noti defend themselves with rocks and debris. Director Geeta Vasant Patel creates an upbeat visual scene. Ahsoka joins the fray, initially facing off against Baylan. The lightsaber battle is somewhat obscured by the overcast skies, and both combatants appear disinterested. Ahsoka creates a diversion to reunite with Sabine and Ezra before it's too late.
Six lawyers. Six petitioners, the youngest 11, the oldest 24. That's one side. 32 European countries, including the United Kingdom, Turkey and even transcontinental Russia. A team of 80 lawyers. That's the other. On September 27, a David-versus-Goliath drama will unfold at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, France. The implications of this legal battle will be of mythological proportions too --- the youth are taking the nations to task over their response to global warming and arguing that their fundamental human rights, including their right to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3) is being violated. They argue that they are afflicted by climate anxiety and a deep worry about their future and quality of life. PREMIUM European Court of Human Rights(CherryX / Wikimedia Commons)

This case was set in motion by the harrowing wildfires that ravaged Portugal in 2017 and ignited a fervour within the hearts of six Portuguese youths (Andre age 15, Catarina age 23, Claudia 24, Mariana 11, Martim 20, and Sofia 18), who witnessed their homeland's ecological devastation firsthand. Now, represented by a team from the international not-for-profit Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), they seek to hold 32 countries, all signatories of the Paris Agreement, accountable for their actions and inaction in the face of the climate crisis. This case not only symbolises hope for the future, it will also chart a course for climate justice through channels of the law.

In this exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Dr Gearoid O Cuinn, founding director of GLAN, and Gerry Liston, senior lawyer with GLAN, provided insights into the case's background, its significance, and the potential outcomes that could reverberate globally. Their legal arguments will challenge excessive carbon emissions as a violation of fundamental human rights.

"This is the largest climate change-related case to ever be heard at the European Court of Human Rights. It also makes legal history  never before have so many countries had to defend themselves in front of any court anywhere in the world," O Cuinn said. Read edited excerpts:

Q. Can you provide some background on the case initiated by the six Portuguese youths against 32 nations and the circumstances that led to it?

Dr Gearoid O Cuinn: In 2017, a series of deadly wildfires broke out in Portugal, close to where some of the youth applicants live, prompting them to take action to safeguard their futures. It was then that they connected with the GLAN and decided to take a climate case against multiple countries to the ECtHR. They decided to do so because their physical and mental health is already being harmed by the impacts of climate change and unless countries, including European countries, adopt much steeper greenhouse gas emissions reductions urgently, these impacts will worsen dramatically over the course of their lifetimes. Portugal is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in Europe and it is imperative that global warming is held to 1.5C, as an absolute upper limit, to ensure that the youth-applicants have a liveable future.

Together with GLAN, they launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2017 and set about building the case. GLAN brought together a team of lawyers and experts and spent two years developing the arguments with them. The case was then filed in September 2020.

Q. What specific impacts, both in terms of health and environment, are these young individuals facing due to climate change and global warming?

Dr Gearoid O Cuinn: The youth applicants experience significant impacts from climate change, especially due to increasing heat extremes. In particular, during recent heat waves, they have been restricted in their ability to spend time outdoors, exercise, sleep and concentrate properly. Some of them also suffer from health conditions like asthma which is worsened by extreme heat. The youth are also mentally impacted by the climate crisis and the failure of governments to act, they suffer from climate anxiety and worry for their future.

Q. How have the applicant's the right to life, right to respect of private and family life, been infringed upon?

Gerry Liston: The youth applicants argue that the respondent countries are obligated by the ECHR to rapidly reduce both emissions released within their borders and also the contributions they make to emissions released in other countries. As to emissions released within their borders, they rely on the Climate Action Tracker's fair share assessments to show that if every country in the world made the same effort as any individual Respondent country, global warming would reach a catastrophic 3C or worse by 2100.

The applicants argue that their rights are being violated by governments inaction on emissions reductions in line with the Paris Agreement. They say that their right to life (Article 2), right to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3), right to privacy and family life (Article 8), and their right to be free from discrimination on grounds of their age (Article 14) is being violated due to the catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis caused by greenhouse gases.
Whether its solo trips, biking expeditions with his boy-gang, romantic getaways with wife Soha Ali Khan or family vacations with daughter Inaaya Naumi Kemmu, actor Kunal Kemmu is a travel junkie. I love exploring new places, and if you ask me, I would love to travel more than I do right now, notes the actor talking to us on World Tourism Day. Kunal Kemmu on World Tourism Day

While the actor had the travel bug in him since childhood, he adds, The opportunities werent as many. I was born in Srinagar, so every Sunday used to be a picnic day, and we used to go to Gulmarg or some place else every week. When we moved to Bombay, the holidays were less, only when we used to go to a relatives place. But, I remember doing a road trip with my dad from Bombay to Delhi, which I really enjoyed, so the passion for travel was always there.

Kunals last trip was to California with his wife and daughter and he recalls, I wanted to take Inaaya to Disneyland. It was my first time there too, and I enjoy amusement parks a lot. It was a nostalgic moment as my daughter related to the same cartoon characters that I used to relate to as a child.

While parenthood has brought its own set of responsibilities, Kunal says he and Soha and makes sure to indulge their wanderlust as and when time permits. We both enjoy travelling a lot. We used to travel more before we became parents, but now we have to keep Inaayas school and schedule in mind before planning a trip. We try to go for at least two international family trips in a year, he shares, revealing that they had a pact that each year, they will have definitely have three fixed holidays - one for 20 days, one for 10 days and one for a week. Also, when we visit a new city, we always take the local transport. When you go by road, there are a lot of things that you come across, and would miss otherwise.

Interestingly, Kunal has been quite a traveller and in fact, he used to take solo trips, too, before he got married. And more recently, he has been going on bike trips with his fellow bikers Shahid Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter.

Biking is a recently acquired taste, especially when it comes to taking trips. First one that we did was with Shahid and Ishaan in Bombay only. We used to do Sunday rides and have chats about travelling. It so happened that we ended up doing that for the first time together. I even go alone for my biking trips sometimes. We mostly plan biking trips on the mountain because it is more fun than riding on plain terrain. Its something that I enjoy a lot and it is a different experience altogether, elaborates the 40-year-old.

While choosing between solo travel and family holidays a a tough call, Kunal says having company is always better. Both have their own fun parts, but if I have to choose, I will prioritise travelling with the family or friends. Also, a family holiday would happen after all our schedules align. On a solo trip, you can plan anytime and just pack your bags, says the actor, who has places including Turkey, Portugal, and countries in South America on his travel wish list.

Moreover, for the actor, travel is not just about visiting new places, but also indulging in the local cuisine. Sometimes, an outing is important just to break from the routine and get away from where you are. I am not much driven by art and history, but food is an important factor. I am not finicky about it; I am open to different things and exploration. Without having an experience, you cannot judge if its for you or not, he wraps up.

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KOHIMA: Seven police personnel were sacked as part of the state police crackdown on drug peddling and its abuse, Nagaland director general of police (DGP) Rupin Sharma said on Wednesday, asserting that the police did not only act against civilians during the ongoing campaign but also those in the uniform. The Nagaland police has initiated action against 43 police personnel including seven who have already been dismissed from service (X/rupin1992)

Sharma said the state police adopted the reform or perish approach and had been trying to persuade police personnel who have a problem with drugs or alcohol to come forward and avail treatment. Those who did not and were caught for violating the law are being penalised.

Of the 43 police personnel who faced action, seven have been dismissed, two personnel have been demoted and compulsorily retired and 14 more issued penalties such as stopping of increment. In 20 other cases, the disciplinary proceedings are yet to be completed.

We cannot have a few rotten apples in the service spoiling the entire Nagaland police force or the state government, Sharma, a 1992 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who was appointed as police chief in January following the Supreme Courts intervention, said at a media interaction.

Officials said the state police seized drugs worth 25 crores between June and August as part of its action.

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Bengaluru: Kannada activists protest against Karnataka Government over the issue of releasing water from Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu, in Bengaluru on Tuesday. (PTI)

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee on Tuesday ordered Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for next 18 days starting September 28, reducing the outflow benchmark from the earlier 5,000 cusecs ordered on September 18.

The decision comes at a time when various organisations are protesting across in Karnataka, demanding that no water be released, and in Tamil Nadu seeking the release of 12,000 cusecs.

Representatives of Karnataka argued that the state experienced considerable shortfall in the inflow of water into its reservoirs, deputy chief minister DK Shivakumars office said in a statement. The cumulative inflow shortfall to Karnatakas four reservoirs up to September 25 is 53.04%, it said.

Karnataka on September 13 declared 195 talukas as drought-affected, of which 47 sub-districts are located within the Cauvery basin, which needs to be recognised by the water regulator, the state argued. State representatives also said that Karnataka was not in a position to release any water from its reservoirs or contribute any flow from its reservoirs to the flows that need to be maintained at the interstate border at Biligundlu.

Representatives of Tamil Nadu argued that Karnataka must reduce its irrigation supply based on the proportion of distress. Karnataka must release the shortfall quantity immediately, and further flows as per the distress proportion, they argued.

The water regulator then recommended that Karnataka must ensure 3,000 cusecs of water at Biligundlu from September 28 to October 10, the statement said.

The order was a victory of the peoples struggle, Shivakumar, also the minister for water resources, said in response to the decision.

The Tamil Nadu government had sought 12,000 cusecs of water. The decision to not allow Tamil Nadus demand is a victory for our peoples struggle, he said. At a given point in time, around 2,000 cusecs of water flows to Tamil Nadu. We just need to add another 1,000 cusecs of water.

Since yesterday (Monday), we have also seen some increase in inflow. It is a matter of happiness that Tamil Nadus demand has been rejected by the committee, the deputy chief minister added.

Tamil Nadu has received 7,000 cusecs of water, said Duraimurugan, the states water resources minister. Initially, Karnataka provided 2,500 cusecs of water per day and the quantum was increased to 3,000 cusecs per day. We are steadily receiving water from the Cauvery and hope to realise the full quantum. The SC verdict should be binding notwithstanding the protests in Karnataka, Duraimurugan told reporters in Chennai.

On September 18, the Cauvery Water Management Authority had asked Karnataka to continue releasing 5,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for 15 days, upholding the water committees September 12 order.

Tuesdays order was an injustice to Karnataka and protests will continue, said Vatal Nagaraj, president of Kannada Chaluvali, a pro-Kannada group.

Once again, we have been ordered to release 3,000 cusecs of water for the next 18 days. It is an injustice to Karnataka, he said. The government should not release the water to Tamil Nadu. There is no water, no water to drink, no water for Bengaluru, no water for Mysore farmers, no water for Mandya farmers, and no water for Chamarajanagar farmers. Dont release the water. The Karnataka government should take a stern stand. They shouldnt succumb to any pressure.

The order clearly showed the Congress government in Karnataka was helping the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, former Karnataka chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy said on Tuesday . The Congress is a DMK ally in Tamil Nadu.

Is this the government of Kannadigas or a proxy government of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin? Who did Kannadigas vote for? Kumaraswamy asked, alleging that the Congress government has becoming the DMKs B team.

The people have given you power; you should focus on protecting their interests rather than pleasing MK Stalin, former chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Basavaraj Bommai said. They should have pursued the matter in the Supreme Court. Now the only option is a political resolution, for which Karnataka should engage with the Tamil Nadu government.

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah labelled the Oppositions statements politically motivated. We dont have any objections to protests, but one shouldnt play politics over it. The issue must not be used for political gains as it is not good for the welfare of the state, he said. The Supreme Court has deemed bandhs (strikes) as illegal, but we will not oppose it.

There will likely be widespread light to moderate rainfall from Tuesday to October 4 over isolated parts of Karnataka, the India Meteorological Department predicted. Heavy rains are expected over north interior Karnataka and the coastal districts, which would likely receive rainfall ranging from 64.5 mm to 100 mm over the next few days. , the weather bureau said.

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The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the Andhra Pradesh police on Tuesday included the name of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary Nara Lokesh, who is son of former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, as one of the accused in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the designing of the inner ring road around the capital city of Amaravati, officials familiar with the matter said. Nara Lokesh, son of former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, was named by the CID as one of the accused in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the designing of the inner ring road around the capital city of Amaravati, (PTI)

Lokesh was named as accused No. 14 in a memo filed by the CID authorities in the special court for Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) cases at Vijayawada. The court will take up the hearing of the case next week.

According to the memo, contents of which were reviewed by the HT, Heritage Foods Ltd of which Lokesh was a non-executive director between 2013 and 2017, had purchased about 10.4 acres of land at Kantheru village of Guntur district between June and September 2014.

The Heritage Foods also purchased another 4.55 acres from the companies belonging to industrialists Lingamaneni Ramesh and Lingamaneni Rajashekar. Both the land parcels were adjacent to each other.

The initial design of inner ring road of Amaravati was changed so that it would pass adjacent to the lands of Lingamaneni and Heritage Foods towards Kaza and Kantheru villages, the CID said, alleging that it was done to enhance the value of these lands.

The investigating agency alleged that Lokesh, who was one of the board members of Heritage Foods, had coordinated the purchase of lands by the company from Lingamanenis, in collusion with his father Chandrababu Naidu, who was then the chief minister. In return, Lingamaneni Ramesh had allocated his palatial bungalow to Naidu in a quid pro quo deal, the CID said.

On May 10, 2022, the CID filed a criminal case against Naidu and 12 others including former minister P Narayana, Lingamaneni Ramesh and Heritage Foods Ltd, in connection with the alleged irregularities in designing of the inner ring road around Amaravati.

The case was registered acting on a complaint lodged by YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader and Mangalagiri MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy on April 27 and submission of a preliminary inquiry report by the revenue authorities on May 9.

The CID registered a criminal case against Naidu and 12 others, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including Section 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating). Naidu was named accused no. 1 (A-1) in the case.

Reacting to the development, Lokesh told reporters in New Delhi that he had no connection whatsoever with the alignment of the Amaravati inner ring road. Yet, they included by name. I will fight it out; and when the TDP comes to power, I will give a return gift to all these people, he said.

In a related development, the state high court on Tuesday heard the arguments on a petition filed by Naidu seeking anticipatory bail in the Amaravati inner ring road case. On behalf of the TDP chief, senior Supreme Court advocate Siddharth Luthra presented his arguments.

Advocate general Sriram Subrahmanyam, who argued the case on behalf of the CID, opposed the bail petition of Naidu. The hearings will continue on Wednesday.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION CASE

Meanwhile, the ACB court deferred the hearing to Wednesday on the bail petition of Naidu in the multi-crore skill development corporation case, as the regular judge was on leave on Tuesday. It also deferred the petition of the CID seeking additional custody of Naidu for questioning in the case.

At the same time, the state high court on Tuesday completed the hearing on the bail petition filed by Naidu in a case related to violence during his public rally at Angallu village in Annamayya district on August 4, in which some YSRCP workers and a few policemen were injured.

After hearing the arguments of Naidus counsel Posani Venkateshwarlu and the CID counsel Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy, the high court reserved the judgement. Naidu was named as Accused No. 1 in the case and was charged with attempt to murder.

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The Andhra Pradesh state industries and information technology minister Gudivada Amarnath on Tuesday said the AP Fibernet project taken up by the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime headed by N Chandrababu Naidu was in gross violation of the rules and had caused a loss of 114 crore to the state exchequer. Andhra Pradesh Amarnath minister alleged that the then Chandrababu Naidu government had manipulated the tender process to award the phase-I of the Fibernet project worth  330 crore to Tera Software Limited, which was a blacklisted company (PTI)

Making a statement as part of a short discussion on AP Fibernet scam in the state in the state legislative assembly, Amarnath alleged that the then Naidu government had manipulated the tender process to award the phase-I of the project worth 330 crore to Tera Software Limited, which was a blacklisted company.

The project, aimed at providing high-speed internet, television and telephonic service from a single broadband connection at a nominal cost was awarded to Tera Software Limited, a company blacklisted by the Infrastructure Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Limited [INCAP] for non-compliance of electronic point of sale [EPOS] and was barred from participating in any APTS tenders, he said.

Amarnath pointed out that Naidu had got the blacklisting against the firm revoked for reasons known to him. An officer of the industries and infrastructure corporation who opposed the company was transferred and those who favoured his decision were posted, he alleged.

The minister pointed out that one Vemuri Harikrishna Prasad, who looked after the tender evaluation committee for the Fibernet project was also a director in Tera Cloud Media Limited, floated and promoted by Tera Software, which eventually cornered the project.

The directors of Tera Software were also directors in the firms linked to Naidus family-owned Heritage Group, the minister further alleged.

He said the deviations committed at the time of the execution of the AP Fiber Net project phase-I had caused a revenue loss of 114 crore to the government exchequer.

Meanwhile, the TDP described the ministers statement in the assembly on AP Fibernet issue was nothing but a misinformation campaign against Naidu.

TDP spokesman and MLC P Ashok Babu said providing cable TV connection, internet and telephone connection for every household at just for 149 per month was a technical revolution in the country.

He said Naidu had taken up the project by making use of the electric poles to give cable connections to every household and the entire project was completed at cost of a mere 330 crore. He said a high-power committee under the supervision of senior officer Ajay Jain had been constituted and under the directions of this panel, the project implementation was handed over to Tera Soft, he explained.

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The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader N Chandrababu Naidus plea against the high courts refusal to quash cases filed against him in connection with the alleged 3,300 crore Andhra Pradesh Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) scam when he was the chief minister. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. (ANI)

Naidu was arrested in early September months before the simultaneous state assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Both the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance and the ruling National Democratic Alliance condemned the arrest, which came amid Naidus attempt to revive TDP following its dismal performance in the 2019 polls. The TDP managed to win only 23 of the assemblys 175 seats and three of the 25 Lok Sabha seats.

Revenge Politics?

Analysts said Naidus arrest reeked of revenge with the calculation apparently being to make the TDP rudderless ahead of the polls. Days before his arrest, Naidu insisted chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddys rule was about to end, citing the India Today-C Voter survey, which said the TDP could win at least 15 Lok Sabha seats thanks to the anti-incumbency factor.

Even as Naidus lawyers argued in the high court that due procedure was not followed before his arrest, the states Crime Investigation Department (CID) filed a memo in an Anti-Corruption Bureau court adding the TDP chiefs name as accused in multi-crore Andhra Pradesh Fibernet scam. In a statement, the chief ministers office said Naidu held the energy, infrastructure, and investment portfolio in the previous government and recommended getting the Fibernet project.

The CID, which is also probing the APSSDC case, earlier opposed Naidus bail as the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) expected no immediate relief for Naidu. A YSRCP leader, requesting anonymity, this month told HT that even if he gets bail the CID was ready to fix him in another case and arrest him.

Plan B

On September 11, the CID filed a petition in the ACB court seeking an arrest warrant against Naidu for his alleged involvement in the Amaravati capital city inner ring road scam case. The case was registered in May 2022 on YSRCP lawmaker Alla Ramakrishna Reddys complaint. The CID alleged Naidu changed the alignment of the road and was given a bungalow at Undavalli free of cost in return.

Naidu also faces an attempt to murder case in connection with the alleged attacks on some YSRCP leaders, workers, and police during a road show in Annamayya district on August 4.

Political analyst Mallu Rajesh said the governments strategy appears to keep Naidu in jail in one case or the other as long as possible to demoralise the TDP leaders and cadre ahead of the assembly elections in the state that are due next year. Even if Naidu comes out after a few weeks, there would be restrictions on his movements, until the cases are disposed of.

Son Rise

Naidus son, Nara Lokesh, has stepped in to address panic within the party even as there is no immediate threat to the TDP. He has sought to lead the party from the front after calling off his foot march. Lokesh dared the CID to arrest him. He has been coordinating with the party leaders for the protests across the state against his fathers arrest. Lokesh also held an interaction with the media in New Delhi and sent a message that he is at the helm of the party in his fathers absence.

TDP leader N Vijay Kumar said Lokesh has gained acceptability among the party leaders. Lokesh chaired the TDP parliamentary party meeting on September 16 and led the protests of the partys lawmakers at the Parliament on September 18 even as he too faces potential arrest.

CID additional director N Sanjay said they were also investigating Lokeshs role in the APSSDC case. He said they were also investigating Lokeshs role in other cases including the Amaravati inner-ring road scam.

Pawan Kalyans Jana Sena Party has backed TDP and announced an alliance of the two parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The sympathy generated for the TDP after Naidus arrest and Kalyans support are seen as a big boost to the TDP.
Farmers burnt effigies, held mock funerals of chief ministers and staged an agitation with dead rats near their mouths as dramatic protests over sharing the water of the Cauvery roiled Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on Tuesday, setting off a political row. Kannada activists protest against Karnataka Government over the issue of releasing water from Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu, in Bengaluru, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023 (PTI)

Tit-for-tat protests in the two states over the 150-year-old dispute disrupted normal life but no incidents of violence or vandalism were reported. But agitators took out rallies, inthe two neighbouring states, even as their respective governments stuck to their stands and accused the Opposition of politicising the issue.

Pro-Kannada activists in Karnatakas Ramanagara conducted a mock funeral of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Tuesday morning, news agency ANI reported. In Trichy, South Indian River Linkage Union state president Aiyakannu and others garlanded a portrait of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the protest, news agency PTI reported.

In Trichy, farmers demanding water from Karnataka held dead rats near their mouth to mark their protest.

The river is crucial for farmers in the two states with paddy being the principal crop in the Cauvery delta. Karnataka has two seasonskharif (monsoon sown) and rabi (winter), while farmers in Tamil Nadu have three harvestskuruvai (June-September), thaladi (October to December), and samba (August-January).

On August 14, the Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court, seeking its intervention in compelling Karnataka to immediately release 24,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of water from its reservoirs. Tamil Nadu urged the Court to direct Karnataka to adhere to the release of 36.76 TMC of water, as stipulated for September 2023 in accordance with the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT)s final award of 2007.

After the matter reached the court, The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to interfere with orders of the Cauvery Water Management Authority and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, directing Karnataka to release 5,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu. On September 18, The Cauvery Water Management Authority asked Karnataka to continue releasing 5,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water to Tamil Nadu for 15 days, upholding The Cauvery Water Regulation Committees (CWRC) September 12 order demanding the same.

In Bengaluru, police detained more than 1,000 people, thwarting a planned protest. In the evening, transport minister Ramalinga Reddy met protesters and received a memorandum, saying he would bring it to the notice of the chief minister. The five-point memorandum includes demands that water be not released to Tamil Nadu, the formation of an election commission-like body to assess things during distress years, and the implementation of the Mekedatu balancing reservoir project.

On behalf of the chief minister, I have received the memorandum. I will take these demands to the CM. I want to assure that the government is with the farmers and with Karnataka, he said.

Shanthakumar, the farmer leading the protest, said the bandh was successful and set a three-day deadline for the government to announce its decision. We have given a memorandum to the government, and we expect to hold a meeting with the CM in the coming days. We will not allow the release of any water from Karnataka. Further decisions on the protest will be taken after the meeting, he said on Tuesday evening.

Former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday flayed the Congress government in the state for alleged detention of farmers and Kannada activists participating in the bandh here to protest the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

The protesters and farmers should be released immediately, he said, adding Cauvery water flow to Tamil Nadu should be stopped.

What a surprise it is? On the one hand, those (Congress leaders) who (earlier) marched for Mekedatu (balancing reservoir project over river Cauvery) have arrested farmers and activists who were fighting for Cauvery river in the streets today, the Janata Dal (Secular) leader said

Accusing opposition of politicising the Cauvery row, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday rejected allegations that his government has failed on the issue, and said his administration has never lagged behind in protecting the interests of the state, its people and farmers.

He reiterated the importance of the distress water sharing formula and the construction of a Mekedatu balancing reservoir across Cauvery river as the resolution for the dispute with neighbouring Tamil Nadu. It is most unfortunate that BJP and JD(S) are potlicising the Cauvery issue. They are doing it for the sake of politics and not in the interest of the state or its people, Siddaramaiah said in response to a question.

We have taken several people, including three legislators, into custody for violating the prohibitory orders. They were subsequently released. Except for those shops that closed voluntarily, there were no incidents of forcefully closing shops, said Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda.

He added that the police didnt stop any buses coming from Tamil Nadu. But, the Tamil Nadu authorities stopped the buses at the bordering districts in view of the bandh. We have communicated to them that any bus coming from Tamil Nadu will be provided adequate protection, the commissioner added.

Kannada Okkuta, an umbrella organisation for pro-Kannada organisations, tried to lay siege to the Raj Bhavan but were stopped by the police. The government should not release the water to Tamil Nadu. There is no water, no water to drink, no water for Bengaluru, no water for Mysore farmers, no water for Mandya farmers, and no water for Chamarajanagar farmers. Dont release the water, said Vatal Nagaraj, a former lawmaker who heads the group.
New Delhi: Even as Ranil Wickremesinghe government is sending mixed signals over permission to Chinese research vessel to dock at Colombo port in October, Shi Yan 6 ship has entered the Indian Ocean and its current location is mid-ocean 90 East Ridge and heading towards Sri Lanka. Since 2019 as many as 48 Chinese scientific research vessels have been deployed in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Since 2019 as many as 48 Chinese scientific research vessels have been deployed in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with the general area of deployment being Bay of Bengal and south as well as the Arabian Sea towards Persian Gulf.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry was quoted in media on Monday saying that Colombo has not given permission to the Chinese vessel Shi Yan 6 as Indian security concerns were important to the Island Nation. He, however, qualified his remarks by saying that the negotiations were going on and if the vessel complied with the standard operating procedures of Sri Lanka, then there would be no problems.

A month ago, President Wickremesinghe in an interview with an American think tank was more categorical. He said there are no Chinese spy ships in Sri Lanka and there were no problems in docking permission if the vessel followed SOPs laid down by Sri Lanka. Chinese vessel Shi Yan 6 will conduct joint military scientific research in the Sri Lankan EEZ and beyond in October-November 2023.

India on its part understands that the decision to allow Shi Yan 6 to dock at Colombo will be taken either after or during President Wickremesinghes visit to Beijing to celebrate the 10 anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on October 17 and 18. It is another matter that Sri Lankas economic crisis has been fueled by high-interest loans and white elephant infrastructure projects under the BRI with Chinese EXIM bank funding during the Rajapaksa era with Wickremesinghe serving as Cabinet Minister and even Prime Minister. It was Wickremesinghe who gave the Hambantota seaport to China on a 99-year lease after Sri Lanka could not pay back loans.

Chinese vessel Shi Yan 6 entered the Indian Ocean via Malacca Straits on September 23 and was seen in Singapore on September 14 after leaving homeport Guangzhou on September 10.

While India has clearly told Sri Lanka to address its security and strategic concerns, China has Colombo under its thumb with mounting debt and intelligence penetration inside the Island nation. Sri Lanka may delay the permission for the so-called Research Vessel to dock at Colombo and hope the November turbulence in the Indian Ocean does the rest.

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AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court has ordered the state government to pay 1 lakh in compensation to a 27-year-old man who was granted bail by the high court in 2020 but was not released for nearly three more years. Prison authorities told the Gujarat high court that they received the email but they were unable to open the attachment, the bail order

The (bail) order was issued on September 29, 2020, but it was only yesterday, on September 21, 2023, that the convict was finally released, a bench of justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey said in a 35-page order dated September 22 on a petition by Chandanji Thakor, a 27-year-old man who served a jail sentence.

Considering the plight of the applicant, who has remained in jail despite the order of Gujarat high court, due to the negligence on the part of the jail authorities we are inclined to grant compensation for his illegal incarceration in the jail for almost three years, the court said.

The bench said the high courts registry had categorically informed the jail authorities about the September 2020 bail order passed by this court releasing the applicant on regular bail. It is not the case that such e-mail was not received by the jail authorities. It is the case of the jail authorities that necessary action could not be taken in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and though they have received the e-mail, they were unable to open the attachment, the court said.

The court said the email containing the bail order was sent to the district sessions court in Mehsana but no proactive measures were taken by the court to ensure proper implementation of the order. Regrettably, there was no follow-up on this matter until yesterday.

Hence, in the interest of justice and in order to see that the applicant is appropriately compensated for the negligence of the jail authorities, due to which he was constrained to remain in jail, we are directing the state to grant him compensation of 1 lakh. The same shall be paid within a period of 14 days, said the order, noting that as per jail records, the applicant had already spent more than five years in jail.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhury on Wednesday took a swipe at West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee over her recent business trip to Spain at a time when cases of Dengue are on the rise in the state, alleging that the state government is showing cleverness in reports of death. Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of the state of West Bengal.(REUTERS)

Chowdhury, who is also the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, pointed out how medical professionals in the state are being directed not to mention Dengue as the cause of death as it might hamper the governments image'.

Notably, both TMC and Congress are members of larger coalition of Opposition parties, namely Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

CM Banerjee had recently returned from a 12-day tour of Spain and Dubai to attract businesses to Bengal in the run up to the state's next business summit. She held several meetings in two countries and promoted Bengal as an industrial destination.

Describing the visit as a luxury trip, Choudhury said the CM went abroad for a change of environment, as one district after the other in the state is getting affected by Dengue.

We know that in the months of August and September, the Dengue rises. But here, there are no proper healthcare facilities, he said.

He further pointed out that there is a shortage of industries and businesses in the state, however, there is no shortage of funds for the CM and her family members.

Countering the Congress leader's claims, Bengal minister Shashi Panja asked whether Chowdhury wants to hit out at the INDIA bloc.

"The statements which he (Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury) is making against Mamata Banerjee and TMC, I don't know if he really wants to hit out at the INDIA bloc," she said.

As many as 28 political parties have joined hands to take on the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. However, the developments have put a question mark on the unity vow of the Opposition coalition. As the member parties share the stage on national issues, rifts could be seen between them in state politics.

Similar war of words emerged earlier between AAP and Congress over the seat sharing issue in Delhi during the 2024 general elections.
Union external affairs minsiter S Jaishankar hinted that the United States is making adjustments to the new form of multipolar world in a way that would benefit the country. During a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday, the Union foreign minister said the world has become more democratic which would enable the redistrubution of power, and the US is actively seeking to shape the new poles and what would be their weight. Union foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.(AP)

The United States may not use that term, it is adjusting to a multipolar world, Jaishankar said. He also made an observation by saying that there has been a change in the dominance of the US and its relative power. Part of it is the long-term consequences of Iraq and Afghanistan. That's only one part of it, he added.

The External Affairs minister is about to travel to Washington DC on Wednesady to meet the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

He further pointed out that the world has entered a time where Washington can no longer say I basically work only with my allies', adding that the coalition of India, Japan, Australia and the US, knows as Quad, is an example of that.

Talking about the India-US partnership, Jaishankar hoped for enourmous possibilities in enhancing each other's interests.

However, he earlier took an indirect dig at the US over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegation about New Delhi's role in the killing of secessionist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June. Jaishankar called out the nations occupying the position of influence in the world for showing double standards. His remarks came after US envoy to Canada David Cohen lent credence to Trudeau's allegations, saying that the Canadian PM's claim was based on intelligence shared within the members of Five Eyes.

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NEW DELHI: The Indian Navys latest indigenisation push, which will be showcased at a mega conclave next week involves underwater swarm drones, autonomous weaponised boat swarms, blue-green lasers for underwater applications, multiple firefighting systems and small drones with ultra-high endurance for maritime missions, officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday. Navy vice chief Vice Admiral Sanjay Jasjit Singh said the Swavlamban initiative has gained critical mass and is gathering continuous momentum (HT Photo)

The navy will showcase 75 new technologies at its upcoming innovation and indigenisation seminar, Swavlamban 2023, to highlight advances made in some critical areas during the last one year, the officials said.

These technologies were identified by the navy and have been or are being developed by local start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as part of the navys goal to boost self-reliance in the defence manufacturing sector.

Swavlamban 2023, the second such seminar being organised by the navy, will be held at Bharat Mandapam on October 4-5. At its maiden edition in July 2022, the navy committed to developing 75 technologies, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav or celebrations to mark the 75th year of Indias Independence.

These technologies are world-class and are being turned into products, and the defence ministry has accorded its initial approval, or acceptance of necessity (AoN), to some of these to pave the way for their induction into the armed forces, said navy vice chief Vice Admiral Sanjay Jasjit Singh at a curtain-raiser to the seminar.

Under Indias defence procurement rules, AoN by the defence acquisition council is the first step towards buying weapons and systems needed by the armed forces, though actual induction often takes years.

Twelve products worth around 1,500 crore have got AoN and approval for military hardware worth another 1,500 crore is expected in the coming months, Singh said, while underscoring that converting technologies into products takes time.

Last year, the navy had committed to developing at least 75 technologies as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. Today, I can say with confidence that the Swavlamban initiative has gained critical mass and is gathering continuous momentum. The promises made last year have been fully met, and even surpassed in some cases, Singh said.

The products to be showcased at the conclave include firefighting suits made from carbon nano tubes and aerogel-based fabric and firefighting robots that have undergone trials on aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, said Commodore Arun Golaya, who heads the navys technology development acceleration cell.

Around 1,100 proposals were received last year from startups and MSMEs in response to the 75 technology challenges, with 118 firms declared winners. The results have been to the navys satisfaction, and many of the products that have been developed will find their way into the other two services, government and civilian sectors, and hold export potential too, Singh added.

...

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New York: New Delhi has told Canada that carrying out operations in another nation is not part of the policy of the government of India, but it will be open to looking at anything specific and relevant related to Canadas allegations that Indian agents were linked to a killing in their country. External affairs minister S Jaishankar with Ambassador Kenneth I. Juster at an event of Council for Relations in New York on Sept. 26. (PTI)

In his first comments about the allegations made last week by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, external affairs minister S Jaishankar also stressed that there was a broader context to the issue  an increase in Canada in organised crime related to secessionism, extremism and violence; threats against Indian diplomats and violence against diplomatic premises; and India badgering Canada and giving it a lot of information about its organised crime leadership as well as terrorists.

In a conversation with former US ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, when asked if he had a response to Canadas allegations, Jaishankar said, Yes, I do have a comment. I will share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians. One, we told the Canadians that this is not government of India (GOI) policy. Two, we told the Canadians, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it.

But Jaishankar added that it was important to get a complete picture. You have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to secessionist forces. Organised crime, extremism, violence, they are all very, very deeply mixed up.

Jaishankar said, at a time when there is talk about specifics and information, it is India that has actually been badgering the Canadian side. We have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified. There is an environment out there that is important to factor in if you have to understand whats going on out there, he said.

He said Indias concern has been that this environment had been very permissive due to political reasons.

We have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made interfering in our politics. And a lot of it is justified as saying thats how democracies work, Jaishankar said.

Asked whether India would cooperate if Canada provided specific pieces of evidence, Jaishankar replied: If somebody gives me something specific, and it doesnt have to be restricted to Canada but if there is an incident thats an issue, as a government, I will look at it. Of course, I will look at it.

As the floor opened up, a reporter asked the minister if Canada had given India documents, including evidence of intercepted diplomatic communication that Indian officials were aware of the attack to which Jaishankar said, I have said that if somebody gives us specific or relevant information, we are prepared to look at it.

Asked again if he had received those intercepted communications, If I had, would I not be looking at it? he replied.

Asked for his response to reports that intelligence was shared among Five Eyes nations (an intelligence network of US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) about the killing, and FBIs reported warning to US Sikh leaders about credible threats they face, the minister said, I am not part of the Five Eyes. I am certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person.

Last week, on the floor of the Canadian Parliament, Trudeau had said, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Indian authorities had designated Nijjar as a terrorist, and in its first reaction, the ministry of external affairs rubbished Canadas allegations as absurd. There is a sense among Indian policymakers that the allegations are motivated by Trudeaus domestic political calculus, dependence on extremist Sikh forces, and is a way to deflect charges of Chinas alleged foreign interference in Canadian politics.

The allegation has complicated Indias deepening partnerships with the western bloc, given that Canada is both the USs closest Nato ally and a member of G7 and the Five Eyes Alliance. American officials have said that they take the allegation seriously and would like the investigation to be completed and India to cooperate. Jaishankar heads to Washington DC later on Wednesday where the issue is expected to figure in high level conversations with his interlocutors.

Commenting on Jaishankars response, Avinash Paliwal, a scholar of Indian foreign policy at SOAS in London, said, Jaishankar is engaging in a hard diplomatic tightrope act. To the international audience and Indias partners he is conveying caution, but to domestic audiences hes signalling strength. This happens when one is caught in an awkward position of managing conservative ideologues at home and liberal allies abroad, both at increasing odds with each other.

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Additional police forces were rushed to Lapangap in Meghalayas West Jaintia Hills following a clash along the states border with Assam over crop harvest on a contested piece of land on Wednesday, a top official said and added the situation was under control. The Assam-Meghalaya border. (AP/Representative)

West Jaintia Hills deputy commissioner BS Sohliya said magistrates and a sizeable police force were at the spot to maintain peace and pacify the people from both sides. Sohliya maintained the land belongs to Lapangaps people and they have been cultivating it. All they need is to harvest their produce, he said.

The clash comes months after chief ministers of the two states in May initiated the second phase of talks to resolve disputes in the six remaining areas along the 884.9 km inter-state border. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart, Conrad K Sangma, earlier signed an agreement in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on six other areas along the border.

Five Meghalaya residents and an Assam forest guard were killed in a clash along the border in November last year. The Meghalaya government said the violence was the outcome of unprovoked firing. Assam maintained the incident took place in the states West Karbi Anglong district when forest personnel fired to save their lives from timber smugglers.

West Jaintia Hills police superintendent S Syrti said adequate force was at the spot on Wednesday and that things were being managed. Two platoons under a deputy police superintendents watch were at the scene to ensure peace and tranquillity along the border.

People aware of the matter said arrows were allegedly shot at farmers from the Assamese side of the border in the West Karbi Anglong district. A policeman had a narrow escape, they added.

Residents last week wrote to Sohliya seeking the deployment of central forces in the area to prevent any attempt from the other side to destroy plantations.

In August, stones were thrown at a Meghalaya Police team in the same area and prompted it to retreat to avoid any untoward incident. The Assam Police allegedly accompanied people from Assam who allegedly destroyed thousands of saplings in the area in July.

An Assam commission probing the circumstances that led to the cross-border firing in November last year wrapped up its hearing in Meghalaya last month even as no witnesses deposed before it. It returned to Guwahati expressing concern over the lack of response.

A Meghalaya official said they have their commission of inquiry and that the Assam panel has no locus standi as the incident happened in Meghalaya.

The Assams retired Gauhati high court judge Rumi Kumari Phukan-led panel held a sitting at Shillongs Assam House. It issued a notice about the hearing in a local English newspaper on August 4 requesting those with knowledge of the incident to depose.

The Meghalaya government was also notified and requested to produce witnesses and documents. The West Jaintia Hills deputy commissioner was directed to serve notices to witnesses to appear before the commission. But there was no response from the government and no one appeared.

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Kochi: A case was booked against authorities of a pre-matric hostel for forcing some tribal girl students to undress in front of their classmates in Palakkad district of Kerala, police said. Police said that while the hostel authorities had asked the children to undress keeping their safety in mind, the move violated their privacy. (HT Archives)

The incident took place on September 22 at the pre-matric hostel for tribal students in Sholayur in Attappady.

During our inquiry, we found that there was some kind of skin infection reported among students there in the hostel which was prone to spread. To prevent the infection from spreading, the wardens had asked the girls to desist from exchanging clothes with their classmates. On that day, while returning from prayers, around 7 girl students had reportedly worn clothes that belonged to others. So the officials asked the girls to undress and change into their own clothes on the spot which caused mental distress for the students, said a senior police officer at the Sholayar station where the case was registered on Monday.

When we heard about the incident, we immediately went to the hostel and took the statement of one of the students. Based on the statement, a case has been booked under section 75 (punishment for assault, abandon, neglect or abuse of a child) of the Juvenile Justice Act against three wardens and one counsellor all of whom are women, the officer said.

The officer said that while the hostel authorities had asked the children to disrobe keeping their safety in mind, the move violated their privacy.

The accused will be questioned as part of further investigation.

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to restrain a trial court from taking a call on Crime Investigation Department (CID)s plea for custodial interrogation of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the alleged 371 crore alleged development scam even as it agreed to list his petition to quash the case on October 3. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu leaves for Vijayawada after being arrested by the CID in connection to the alleged corruption charges, in Nandyal on September 9. (ANI)

We will not restrain the trial judge from dealing with the application, Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud told Naidus lawyer, senior counsel Sidharth Luthra, who complained that the state police was pressing for his clients custody while his petition before the Supreme Court was yet to be heard. Naidu has been in judicial custody since September 9.

Earlier in the day, Naidus petition came up before a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti, but it could not be heard since justice Bhatti recused from considering the matter. Luthra then approached the CJI, seeking an urgent hearing before a different bench.

Luthra contended that Naidu has been in illegal custody since September 8 since there was no prior approval from the competent authority that was required under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act before naming him in a first information report (FIR).

He alleged that Naidus liberty had been curtailed out of political malice because assembly elections were around the corner and said it was a fit case where Naidu could have been put under house arrest since he was a Z-plus protectee.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Andhra Pradesh government, opposed any interference by the top court at this stage, pointing out that siphoning off of public money was involved in the matter.

The CJI, who is also the top courts administrative head and assigns cases to different benches as the master of the roster, said that he will list the petition for a hearing before an appropriate bench on October 3. The top court is shut from September 28 to October 2.

Luthra pleaded for a protective order, underlining that CID has already sought Naidus custody for his custodial interrogation but the request was turned down by the CJI, who said the trial judge cannot be restrained like this.

The investigation against Naidu centres around allegations of diversion of government funds intended for a skill development project into various shell companies through fraudulent invoices, which did not correspond with the delivery of services. He was arrested and later remanded to judicial custody in the matter on September 10.

On September 23, Naidu approached the Supreme Court against the Andhra Pradesh high court order last week that refused to nix the first information report (FIR) in the case against him.

In its order on Friday, the high court said that since Naidus alleged actions were unconnected with his official duties or functions, the requirement of prior approval or sanction under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act was not applicable. The high court said there was no reason to interfere with proceedings when the probe in the case was at the fulcrum of attaining finality.

In his appeal, Naidu said that he was suddenly named in the FIR registered over 21 months ago.

The petitioner was arrested in an illegal manner and deprived of his liberty motivated only by political reasons and even though there is no material against him, the petitioner is being made to suffer through an illegally motivated investigation, in clear violation of his fundamental right to fair investigation, said the plea.

It further contended that Naidu was sent to jail custody in the FIR as an orchestrated campaign of regime revenge and to derail the largest opposition in the state because assembly elections were around the corner.

The Andhra Pradesh CID is acting at the behest of the ruling party in order to hurt the petitioners partys chances in the state election due early next year in a clear example of regime revenge. The CID is threatening the officers and others to implicate the Petitioner, his family and the Party, said the petition, filed through advocate Guntur Pramod Kumar.

The petition further emphasised that mandatory approval under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act was necessary before the initiation of the enquiry and the registration of the FIR against him since all the alleged acts in the case were relatable to the decisions taken by him in the discharge of his official duties as CM.

Naidu said the police action against him due to political vendetta was sought to be restricted by Section 17-A which seeks to protect innocent persons, adding that the initiation of investigation without such approval vitiates the entire proceedings since inception and the same is a jurisdictional error.

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External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday made a strong case for a wider global role for India, saying that the countrys rise in the international system will be different from any of the nations that preceded it and its quest to be a leading power isnt driven by self aggrandisement but motivated by a desire to take on greater responsibilities. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar addresses UNGA on Tuesday (PTI)

He also offered Indias G20 presidency, the countrys partnerships with a diverse set of international actors as a vishwa mitra (friend of the world), New Delhis support to the Global South and its immediate neighbourhood, and its own inclusive national development trajectory, as firm evidence of Indias distinct and responsible approach.

Speaking at the 78th UN General Assembly high-level week on Tuesday, where he articulated Indias national position, Jaishankar warned against the inequities in the global governance architecture, said rule makers cannot subjugate rule takers, declared that injustice across domains will be challenged, and used the inclusion of African Union into the G20 to offer a model to reform the UN Security Council and make it more representative.

Fresh from the success of the G20 Delhi Leaders Summit, and buoyed by the support of the Global South to Indias leadership, Jaishankar used the global stage to pitch India as a responsible and different power.

All nations pursue their national interests. We, in India, have never seen that as being in contradiction with global good. When we aspire to be a leading power, this is not for self-aggrandisement but to take on greater responsibility and make more contributions. The goals we have set for ourselves will make us different from all those whose rise preceded ours, Jaishankar said.

He offered four broad examples of the Indian approach.

Pointing out that the world was witnessing a period of exceptional period of turmoil after the pandemic, conflicts, and setback to developmental goals, the minister said India had taken over the G20 period with a sense of exceptional responsibility. Indias aim was to focus on the key concerns of the many, not just the narrow interests of a few, and in the words of PM Narendra Modi, bridge divides, dismantle barriers and sow seeds of collaboration that nourish a world, where unity prevails over discord and where shared destiny eclipses isolation.

Jaishankar said that at a time of deep North-South divide and East-West polarisation, the New Delhi summit showed that diplomacy and dialogue are the only effective solutions. Recognising the diversity, divergences and even differences within the international community was key, Jaishankar said, adding, The days when a few nations set the agenda and expected others to fall in line are overTo listen to others and to respect their viewpoints, this is not weakness; it is the basics of cooperation.

The foreign minister said that India had begun its presidency by convening the Voice of Global South summit which enabled Delhi to hear the perspective of 125 countries directly, place it on the G20 table, ensure that issues that merited global attention got a fair hearing, and produce outcomes with great significance.

More specifically, he pointed to the African Unions (AU) inclusion as giving voice to entire continent which had long been its due and suggested this should inspire the UN to make the SC more contemporary. Broad representation is after all, a prerequisite for both effectiveness and credibility.

Jaishankar then listed out the substantial outcomes at the summit, including an action plan for Sustainable Development Goals, High Principles of LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), the Green Development Pact, recognition of digital public infrastructure (DPI), reform of international financial institutions, resolution of debt vulnerabilities and salience to women-led development. We have placed for the worlds consideration a set of actionable propositions, constructive solutions and new directions, Jaishankar said.

The second example Jaishankar offered to showcase Indias distinct approach was New Delhis cooperation with diverse partners. From the era of non-alignment, we have now evolved to that of vishwa mitra. This is reflected in our ability and willingness to engage with a broad range of nations. And, where necessary, harmonise interests.

In this context, Jaishankar referred to the rapid growth of Quad, terming it as a really relevant mechanism in the Indo-Pacific; the expansion of Brics grouping of independent-minded nations, the emergence of the I2U2 (the grouping that includes India, Israel, UAE and the US), the launch of the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, and the forging of the Global Biofuels Alliance. This willingness to work in an open-minded manner on specific domains is now a defining characteristic of the emerging multipolar order, the minister said.

Third, Jaishankar pointed to Indias role as a friend of the global south, a first responder during natural disasters, and a supporter in its immediate neighbourhood. Offering specific examples, he pointed to the vaccine maitri (friendship) initiative during Covid-19, the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, International Year of Millets, development partnerships with 78 countries across geographies, support to the people of Turkey and Syria during emergency situations, Indias role in assisting Sri Lanka during its severe economic crisis, and engagement even in distant regions such as the Pacific Islands.

And finally, Jaishankar linked Indias external approach to its own internal developmental trajectory. The most populous nation and the fifth largest economy in the world knows that its progress makes a real difference to the world. Especially when so many nations identify with us for reasons of history, geography and culture. They follow our experiences closely and evaluate our solutions for their larger relevance.

Against this backdrop, he spoke about SDGs, the issue of resource paucity, the need to improve capacities, and Indias unique role as the largest contributor to meeting SDG targets and success in halving the global multidimensional poverty index by half in 15 years and lifting 415 million out of poverty.

That progress has now moved on to a higher level, with ambitious socio-economic initiatives covering financial inclusion, food and nutrition, health and water supply, as well as energy and housing. We are seeking to demonstrate that social welfare need not be the sole prerogative of the developed world, Jaishankar said. In particular, he noted the role of digital delivery of public goods in facilitating scaling up of programmes, enhancing efficiency, combating corruption, opening mindsets, instilling confidence, and inspiring innovations.

Based on this pitch, and a critique of the unfairness of the international order, Jaishankar said that the UNs summit of the future in 2024 should serve as a serious opportunity to drive change, champion fairness and reform multilateralism, including the expansion of the Security Council memberships.

India, Jaishankar said, was entering a period of greater progress and transformation where its talent and creativity will power it forward, as evidenced in the Chandrayaan-3 mission, its digitally enabled governance, widening the ambit of amenities and services, growing infrastructure, startup culture, and vibrant cultural expressions, and just recently, the reservation of one third of the seats for women in Indian legislatures.

I speak for a society where ancient traditions of democracy have struck deep modern roots. As a result, our thinking, approaches and actions are now more grounded and authentic. As a civilisational polity that embraces modernity, we bring both tradition and technology equally confidently to the table. It is this fusion that today defines India, that is Bharat, the minister concluded.

Commenting on the speech, Harsh Pant of the Observer Research Foundation said, Jaishankars speech connected well the aspirations of a rising India to a changing global order. When he talked about India moving away from non-alignment to this idea of being a vishwa mitra, he was articulating Indias desire to contribute to global public goods, to be a provider of solutions and to be a leader in shaping the global governance agenda.

At the same time, Pant noted, Jaishankar had expressed the dissatisfaction with the existing order where few made rules for a large part of the world who werent a part of the decision making process. As India looks to the world through the prism of a leading power, it is redefining its global role and the global governance agenda like it did during the G20 process. It is also articulating a desire of a larger constituency in global politics that feels cut off from the structures of global governance.

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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
Indias diplomacy has scaled new heights in the last 30 days and some decisions taken during the G20 Summit have the capacity to entirely change the direction the 21st century world takes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses at the inauguration of the G20 University Connect Finale at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi (PTI)

Addressing students, faculty members and heads of educational institutions at the finale of the G20 University Connect  an initiative that seeks to build an understanding of Indias G20 Presidency among the youngsters  in the national capital, the Prime Minister said he met 85 world leaders in the past 30 days.

I want to give you a report card of the last 30 days. That will give you an idea of the speed and scale of New India. You must remember August 23. Everyone was praying and then suddenly there was a smile on everyones face. The entire world heard Indias voice: India is on the Moon, he said.

August 23 has become immortal in the country as the National Space Day. Soon after the success of its lunar mission, India launched its solar mission, he added.

The Prime Minister also said that Indias diplomacy reached new heights during this period and that the G20 Summit could have been limited to a diplomatic and Delhi-centric programme but India made it a people-driven national movement.

A 100% consensus on the Delhi declaration made global headlines decisions taken during the G20 Summit have potential to change the 21st centurys direction In todays polarised international atmosphere, it is not a small thing to get so many countries together on one platform, he said.

Due to the growing international profile of India, the country is getting new opportunities, new friends and new markets, providing new opportunities to the youngsters, he added.

The entire world is looking towards India with hope as they now recognise the potential of India and its youngsters, Modi said. The progress of India and its youngsters is extremely important for the progress of the world. My strength lies in the youngsters of India, he said.

P K Mishra, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, who also addressed the event, said it was Modis vision that the G20 should be a pan-India event and that events be held in every state and Union Territory. The G20 was thus decentralised, democratised and taken to every corner of the country. Each state left its unique cultural stamp on the minds of the delegates, thereby giving the world an idea of Indias diversity, he said.

Mishra said a key priority of Indias G20 Presidency was to create a more inclusive world, where the voice of the Global South would no longer be overlooked. The greatest achievement in this regard was the acceptance of Indias proposal to welcome the African Union as a permanent member of the G20, he said.

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Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking recognition of the Sarna religious code for tribals, a long-standing demand in the tribal-dominated state. The Sarna religious code has been a long-standing demand of the tribal community in Jharkhand. (HT file photo)

In his letter, written on September 26 and released by his office on Wednesday, Soren underlined that protecting the traditional religious existence of tribals was a serious concern, and the demand for Tribal/Sarna Religious Code is being raised so that the nature-worshipping tribal community can be confident about its identity.

At present, when the demand for Uniform Civil Code is being raised by some organisations, constructive initiative on demand of the tribal community for Sarna code is absolutely necessary for their protection, he said.

Seeking Sarna code as a separate religious code in the next Census has been a long-standing demand of tribal groups. On November 11, 2021, the Jharkhand Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution for Sarna code.

Also Read: Soren government finalises much-awaited PESA rules in Jharkhand

On May 25, Soren wrote to President Droupadi Murmu to assist the state gain central approval for its proposal to include the Sarna Code as a distinct recognised religious category.

Reiterating the demand to Modi in the letter, Soren said the tribal population in the state had declined to 26 % from 38 %in the last eight decades. Soren said the declining trend of tribal population was worrying as it would also affect the development policy for the fifth and sixth schedule areas.

You are aware there are many such groups in the tribal community that are on the verge of extinction, and if they are not protected on the principle of social justice, their existence along with the language and culture will come to an end, Soren said in the letter to Modi, said Soren.

Soren said tribals had a separate religious column in the 1951 Census but it was removed from the list because of unknown reasons later. The JMM leader argued that a separate religious identity would help in ascertaining the actual tribal population and preserve the tribal culture and practices.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev on September 26 to emphasize the need for Azerbaijan to refrain from further hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and provide unhindered humanitarian access, the U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a press release.

According to the readout, Secretary Blinken called on President Aliyev to provide assurances to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh that they can live secure in their homes and that their rights will be protected. Blinken urged the Azerbaijani President to commit to broad amnesty and allow an international observer mission into Nagorno-Karabakh, and noted the Presidents public commitments to help build a future for all those in Nagorno-Karabakh based on peace, mutual understanding, and mutual respect.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller then spoke about the call during a press briefing.

The Secretary spoke again to President Aliyev today and underscored the urgency of no further hostilities, that there be unconditional protections and freedom of movement for civilians, that there be unhindered humanitarian access to Nagorno-Karabakh, Miller said.

According to Miller, the Azerbaijani President told Blinken that there will be no further military action and that he would accept an observer mission.

And I will say that we note, and the Secretary noted in that call, that the president, President Aliyev, has said there will be no further military action and we expect him to abide by that. He has also said that he would accept an observer mission, and we would expect him to abide by that, Miller said.

Miller said that the exact mechanism for international monitors in the region is something that remains in discussion with our allies and partners in the region.
The series of reports on the dossier put up by the Indian intelligence on pro-Khalistani terror activities from Canada has also exposed the extensive Pakistani link. Be it Arsh Dala, Parry Dulai, Gurjinder Singh Pannu, or Gurjeet Singh Cheema  all have either been closely associated with or, at some point in time, took help from Lakhbir Singh Rode, a Pakistan-based Khalistani separatist who currently heads the proscribed terror outfit International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), for their terror activities from Canadian soil. While Arsh Dala has been closely associated with Rode, Parry Dulai and Cheema allegedly played a role in sourcing a weapon consignment from across the border in May 2017 for ISYF module members with the help of the Pak-based terrorist. Pro-Khalistani elements protest in front of the Indian Consulate in Toronto, Canada.(File photo / AFP)

The dossier underscores the roles of key individuals, including Bhagat Singh Brar, son of Pak-based Rode, and Harpreet Singh in promoting extremist agendas and funding anti-India activities from their base in Canada.

Bhaggu Brar

Bhagat Singh Brar, alias Bhaggu Brar, a 45-year-old resident of Toronto and owner of a car rental company in Brampton, has emerged as a significant figure in the pro-Khalistani network in Canada. Brar, who holds a Canadian passport (No. BA-373465), is actively involved in promoting terrorist activities in Punjab. He frequently travels to Pakistan, where he provides funds to his father, Rode.

Bhaggu Brar has been a prominent presence at rallies and demonstrations in Toronto protesting against the Indian government.

He was a key speaker alongside Moninder Bual, Sukhminder Singh Hansra, and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) at an event where the Khalistan flag was raised in front of the Canadian Parliament on June 10, 2017. His visits to Pakistan, most recently in November 2016, have been marked by meetings with his father, with whom he collaborates on anti-India activities.

Brar has also been spearheading efforts to ban Indian officials from entering Gurdwaras in Ontario, Canada. His association with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) led to his inclusion on Canada's no-fly list, resulting in his denial of boarding at Vancouver International Airport on April 24, 2018.

Both Bhaggu Brar and Parry Dulai are accused of collaborating with Pakistan's ISI agency in planning an attack in India in May 2017.

The Canada-based Khalistani extremist has been actively involved in fundraising for terrorist attacks abroad. He is also implicated in promoting extremism, radicalizing youth, and facilitating attack planning, weapons procurement, and attacks in India.

Harpreet Singh

Harpreet Singh, originally from India and now residing in Brampton, Canada, has also been linked to pro-Khalistani activities. The intelligence dossier revealed that Singh, a truck driver by profession, moved to Canada with his family 18 years ago and had no prior criminal record in local police records.

In November 2018, Singh travelled to Pakistan as a leader of a Sikh Jatha during the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

He served as a handler for Makhan Singh, alias Amli, in arranging the smuggling of weapon consignments from across the border in October 2020. His communication with Amli increased after an interview with Akal Channel in May 2020, where Singh expressed admiration for Amli's sacrifices for the Sikh Panth.

Singh also disclosed his frequent visits to Pakistan and close contact with Ranjit Singh, alias Neeta.

On October 2, 2020, Singh instructed Amli to collect a weapon consignment from near Tanda in Punjab's Hoshiarpur on October 3, 2020, leading to the apprehension of Amli and an associate, Davinder Singh, alias Happy, by a police party.

The revelations concerning Bhaggu Brar and Harpreet Singh's involvement in pro-Khalistani activities in Canada, along with their alleged connections to Pakistan-based militant networks, have raised serious concerns about the extent of external support for the Khalistan movement.

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The Law Commission of India on Wednesday finalised a report on bringing down the minimum age of consent from 18 to 16 under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Another recommendation for legislation enabling online filing of First Information Reports (FIRs) was also finalised by the Law Commission. Ritu Raj Awasthi, Chairperson of the Law Commission of India.

Ritu Raj Awasthi, Chairperson of the Law Commission of India, said that more work is required to be done to finalise the report on holding simultaneous polls in the country.

When asked about the report on One Nation, One Election, Awasthi said, Some more work is required to be done and we are still in the process of finalising it. He also refrained from providing a tentative date for the report on simultaneous polls.

After the finalisation of the recommendations on the issues, the 22nd Law Commission will be sending its reports to the Ministry of Law and Justice.

The Wednesday meeting of the Law Commission comes days after a high-level committee led by former President Ram Nath Kovind held its preliminary meeting to discuss the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections across the country. The panel discussed several aspects, including the possibility of a common voter ID card and electoral roll and the necessary modifications required in law.

The eight-member committee was announced by the Union government on September 2 to look into how simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats can be held in the country, a plan that could save money, but one that also involves many legal and procedural complications.

The idea of holding simultaneous polls was supported by the Law Commission in 2018, citing the burden of frequent elections and the need for a workable constitutional formula. The Election Commission of India too has said it supports the idea, emphasising logistical, financial and legal feasibility based on its analysis and historical precedent.

The opposition parties, however, vehemently opposed the idea arguing that holding simultaneous polls would inevitably help the incumbent government.

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Indian vendors on Tuesday put up a display of an array of locally produced weapons and systems before 30 countries, with a variety of drones, artillery guns, unmanned ground vehicles, surveillance gear and armoured personnel carriers highlighting advances in the domestic defence manufacturing sector. An Indian army soldier briefs a visitor about a robotic mine detection equipment displayed at the 13th Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference (IPACC) in New Delhi on September 26, 2023. (AFP)

The drones showcased on the margins of the 13th Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference included loitering munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, multi- payload drones and nano UAVs.

The ALS-50 loitering munition, built by Tata Advanced Systems, has been delivered to the Indian Air Force. Each ALS-50 can carry six high explosive pre-fragmented warheads, and 100 units have been delivered, with more on order, officials aware of the matter said, seeking anonymity.

Two types of nano UAVs, Doot and Parush built by Greater Noida-based IDR Research and Development have been bought by the army for its counterterrorism units deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. The palm-sized Doot weighs 350 grams.

Kalyani Groups Bharat 150 multi-mission drones and ideaForges Switch UAVs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance were also on display.

The other military hardware showcased included Kalyani Strategic Systems MaRG 155mm/39 calibre artillery guns with shoot and scoot capability, the Bharat 155mm/52 calibre ultra light howitzers, the Garuda 105mm/37 calibre guns, long range observation systems, and wheeled and tracked unmanned ground vehicles.

The hardware displayed holds export potential and some Indo-Pacific armies may be interested, said one of the officials.

Indias defence sector is characterised by a firm export push and an unprecedented cutback on imports under a multipronged self-reliance drive.

India is currently exporting military hardware to more than 85 countries, with around 100 domestic firms involved. Its exports include missiles, artillery guns, rockets, armoured vehicles, offshore patrol vessels, personal protective gear, a variety of radars, surveillance systems and ammunition.

India has set a defence export target of 35,000 crore by 2024-25, which experts believe is within the countrys reach.

Indias military exports have risen sharply, and imports have recorded a drop on the back of policy initiatives and reforms. Exports grew 23 times between 2013-14 and 2022-23 from 686 crore to 16,000 crore, while spending on imported weapons and systems dropped from 46% of the total expenditure in 2018-19 to 36.7% in December 2022.

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The monthly honorarium of guest scholars teaching in Madhya Pradesh government colleges has been increased from 37,500 to 50,000 in the state, officials familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. A proposal to increase the honorarium was tabled during chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led state cabinet meeting, held in Bhopal (ANI)

A proposal to increase the honorarium was tabled during chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led state cabinet meeting, held in Bhopal. The state cabinet approved the said proposal, unanimously.

Talking to the reporters after the meeting, state home minister Narottam Mishra said that the cabinet also approved the pending fifth pay scale of State Police Service officers.

The cabinet decided to give 25,000 to state level players and  50,000 to national level players under Sambal Khiladi Incentive Scheme... the proposal to give salary up to 50,000 to guest faculty of colleges was also approved during the meeting, the home minister added. During the meeting, the proposal to increase the monthly honorarium of village kotwars working in the state by 500 was also approved.

The cabinet also announced the formation of four new tehsils  Ponda and Katangi in Jabalpur, Pichor in Gwalior and Mauganj in Devtalab, the minister said, adding that Porsa tehsil has been made a revenue subdivision in Morena.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP government over the ongoing tensions and violence in Manipur, saying that the northeastern state has been turned into a battlefield. Mallikarjun Kharge (ANI)

For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the stateThe horrific images of students being targeted in this violence has once again shocked the entire nation. It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponised in this strife, Kharge wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Read more: Manipur reimposes ban on mobile internet services for 5 days after fresh protests

Blaming the saffron party for the violence, the Congress President called Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh incompetent and urged PM Modi to sack him. This would be the first step to control any further turmoil, he said.

Fresh tensions gripped Manipur over the killing of two students belonging to the Meitei community who had gone missing in July. Soon after the mobile internet services were restored in the state on Tuesday, the photos of the two students went viral on social media in which they can be seen sitting at the grassy compound of what appears to be a makeshift jungle camp of an armed group.

Students and residents began protests in full force. The protesters also clashed with police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel, with 25 to 30 demonstrators sustaining injuries.

Meanwhile, a team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar will be reaching Imphal on Wednesday to investigate the alleged killing and kidnapping of the two students. Reportedly, the team will comprise officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation, and technical surveillance.

Manipur violence

Violence in Manipur first began on May 3 after clashes broke out during a 'Tribal Solidarity March' to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status. While the Meiteis account for about 53 percent of Manipur's population, tribals including Nagas and Kukis constitute 40 percent of the total population.

Since May, over 175 people have been killed and several hundreds have been injured in the ethnic clashes in the state.
The Manipur government on Wednesday declared the entire state a disturbed area under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) for a period of six months in the wake of the prevailing law and order situation. However, the status will not be implemented in areas under the jurisdiction of 19 police stations including the capital Imphal. A woman protester blocks a road during 48-hour general strike in Imphal on September 19, 2023(AFP)

The state government, in a notification, said that the violent activities of various extremist/insurgent groups warrant the use of Armed Forces in aid of civil administraton in the entire state.

Notification on the declaration of 'disturbed area' status.

The developments came after a fresh round of protests erupted following the kidnapping and brutal killing of two students belonging to the Metei community by suspected armed men. Scores of students took to streets and attempted to march towards chief minister N Biren Singh's residence after the pictures of students' bodies emerged on social media, days after the government lifted the nearly five-month ban on mobile internet services.

The notification further said that a detailed assessment of the situation on ground is convenient at the moment considering the security forces are currently occupied in maintaining the law and order in the state. Therefore, reviewing the disturbed area status is also not appropriate before arriving at a conclusion on such sensitive matter, the government said.

It has also acknowledged the possible resistance and public criticism following the declaration of the disturbed area status if proper care is not taken, and further announced the maintenance of status quo in the declared areas.

On recent killings of two students  Phijam Hemjit, 20, and Hijam Linthoingambi, 17  CM Biren Singh assured action against the perpetrators. The case has been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and a team headed by the agency's special director Ajay Bhatnagar has already reached Imphal today.

Meanwhile, the Manipur police said their initial probe revealed that the missing 20-year-old man and 17-year-old girl may have eloped on July 6, but got trapped in an area dominated by the Kuki community while fleeing, after which they were allegedly abducted and murdered.

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The Manipur government is likely to adopt a one district, one force arrangement for better coordination and operations by security forces, as part of its efforts to restore normalcy in the northeastern state that has been engulfed in ethnic violence since May 3. Manipur has been in the throes of clashes since May 3. (REUTERS)

Also Read | Manipur govt declares entire state disturbed area under AFSPA amid unrest

Under the arrangement, personnel of one paramilitary force will be responsible to maintain law and order in a district, according to a security official in Delhi, who added that the move is also aimed at ensuring accountability and reducing possibility of conflict among forces.

A unified command led by security advisor Kuldiep Singh is likely to order a rejig of the security personnel across the state for the one district, one force arrangement, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Having one force to look after a particular district will help in coordination and also fix accountability. The force will be responsible for everything that happens in the particular district. Since the CRPF has more personnel, it is likely that they may be posted in more than one district, the official said.

Also Read | 'Manipur turned into battlefieldsack incompetent CM': Kharge slams PM Modi over violence

All these paramilitary forces will work in conjunction with the state police. Though an official order is yet to be issued, this will happen soon, the official added.

Currently, more than 200 companies of various paramilitary forces are posted in the state where at least 175 people have died in various instances of violence during the ongoing ethnic tension between the Meiteis and Kukis.

The countrys five paramilitary forces  CRPF, BSF, ITBP, SSB, CISF  along with the Assam Rifles and army are working in conjunction with the state police to restore peace and normalcy in the region.

Also Read | Imphal remains tense as protests continue over death of two students

The deployment of the forces could be done on the basis of the existing offices or camps of the forces that are present in each district. The state has 16 administrative districts. Even before the violence erupted, there were some companies of the CRPF and army stationed in the state. Among the paramilitary forces, the CRPF has the maximum number of personnel posted in Manipur, the official said.

No Manipur government official commented on the matter.
The Meitei couple seemingly killed on July 6 after eloping ignored advice to return to their area before they ended up in a Kuki-controlled village in the ethnic violence-hit Manipur and were murdered. Armed Kuki militants passing by the village spotted the couple, abducted them in a vehicle, and took them to an unknown destination before executing them, according to the Manipur Police report on the killings. Students during a protest against the killing of two. (PTI)

According to photographs that emerged late on Monday after the state reinstated mobile internet, the couple seemed to have been murdered as the five-month-long civil war-like situation continued to roil Manipur. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the photographs.

The report said a group of Kuki village volunteers in Joupi village asked the couple to return to their area before they were abducted.

The Manipur Polices preliminary probe found Hemanjit Singh and the 17-year-old girl he was in a relationship with eloped on July 6. They were spotted at a stone quarry near Laika before reaching Jouzangtek. Around 8am, Singh picked up the girl from her tuition centre at Keishampat Mutum Leikhai in Imphal.

Police filed a case of abduction against Singh based on the complaint of the girls father, who said his daughter was forced into marriage against her wishes. The report said the two left on a motorbike and were taking selfies near the stone quarry.

According to CCTV footage from cameras installed outside a house in Bishnupur Awang, the two on the motorcycle passed by Old Cachar Road from the direction of the Bishnupur forest gate at 9:12 am.

Police citing sources said Singh and the girl were spotted near the quarry before they were kidnapped. In their report, police quote sources saying the two were murdered on July 8 (Singh) and July 11 (the girl)

The report, which has been submitted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that is now probing the case, said the bodies of the two were buried at a place called Lukhrabi Yumpham. Police said they were unable to go there because of the law and order situation in the state.

The report cited an agreement with the central government and said the places of abduction and areas of operation of the alleged accused were not accessible to the State Investigating Agency due to the heavy presence of the armed Kuki militants. State Investigating Agency is handicapped in carrying out the investigation of the case, the report said.

Central forces have been posted in the buffer zones or areas adjoining the foothills to ensure that armed people from both the Kukis and Meitei sides do not cross them to launch attacks. They have been directed against allowing even state police to cross the buffer zones without taking them along. The directive was issued amid allegations of bias against the state police.

The report said the investigation of such a complicated case requires a highly trained and resourceful investigating agency such as CBI which has access to all areas and can book and prosecute offenders.

The last cellphone location of the couple was traced to Lamdan of the Churachandpur district. The police found a day after the two went missing, a new SIM card was activated in the mans mobile phone at Lamdan, a Kuki-dominated area, on July 7.

Two days after the state government restored internet services, photos of the couple surfaced on social media on September 25. One showed them sitting on the ground in what appears to be a forest with two armed men in the background, and another showed them apparently lying dead on the ground. The mans head appears to be missing in the photograph and the girls face is invisible.

The two were wearing the same clothes as seen in the first photograph. Their faces are invisible in the second photograph.

On Tuesday, school students held protests in Imphal against the killing and abduction, and police resorted to firing tear gas shells. At least 25 students sustained injuries. The state government announced the closure of all schools until September 29.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hailed the transformation of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit as an institution while recalling the indifference of the previous Congress-led Union government to the biennial event. He said the central ministers in the earlier government refused to attend the event and even threatened foreign investors to discourage them from participating. Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI)

...those who ran the central government saw Gujarats development through the prism of politics. ...In-person, they would tell me that they would like to attend but would later refuse, Modi said in his address to an event marking 20 years of the summit in Ahmedabad.

Modi, who was the Gujarat chief minister when the summit was launched in September 2003, said far from cooperating, the previous government put hurdles in their way. Twenty years have passed...we cherish all the memoriesboth sweet and bitter. Today, the entire world is watching Vibrant Gujarat.

He said foreign investors chose to invest in Gujarat despite challenges due to their positive experiencesgood, transparent, policy-driven governance, fairness, and equitable growth opportunities. I have always maintained that Gujarats progress shows the progress of the entire nation.

Modi said the summit, whose next edition is scheduled to take place in January, maybe a brand for the world, but it is his bond with Gujarats 70 million people. It is a bond of limitless love.

Modi referred to Swami Vivekanandas wisdom to emphasise three stages of an ideainitial laughter, criticism, and eventual acceptance. He added it was particularly true of an idea that is ahead of its time.

Modi recalled the challenging circumstances under which he took over as the Gujarat chief minister in 2002. He referred to the 2001 earthquake, which left thousands dead. Gujarat grappled with famine. The Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank collapsed...133 more banks were severely affected. The states financial sector was in dire straits. At that time, I assumed the role of a leader for the first time.

Modi said it was a new role for him with no prior experience in running a government. Then, violence erupted in Gujarat in the wake of the heart-rending Godhra incident.

He said the challenges were beyond anyones imagination. As chief minister, I had limited experience, but my faith in Gujarat and its people remained unwavering. He referred to agenda-driven doomsayers and a conspiracy to defame Gujarat. Those who had an agenda were trying to interpret things in their own way. They said that Gujarats industrialists, and traders will go away...the state will be shattered in a way that it will become a burden for the country.

He said an attempt was made to create an atmosphere of despair. It was said that Gujarat will never be able to again stand on its feet. I took a pledge that whatever the situation, I would get Gujarat out of this. We were not only thinking of rejuvenation but also of the future.

He said the summit became an important medium against this backdrop. It allowed us to talk to the world, to show it the industrial might of the country through Gujarat, and Indias talent and rich heritage.

Modi said there were no big hotels in Gujarat when the summit started. In 2009, when Vibrant Gujarat was organised, there was a slowdown in the world. Everyone told me not to hold it as it would be a flop. I told them then it would not stop. If it flops, we will be criticised but it should not stop.

He said the number of participants has grown from 100 in 2003 to over 40,000 from 135 countries. Thirty exhibitors then and now over 2000. He credited idea, imagination, and implementation for the summits success.

Modi recalled the humble beginnings of the summit in makeshift tents. Instead of hotels, business houses, and university guest houses generously provided accommodation for guests.

He said the inception of the summit was truly an unprecedented and unheard-of idea. Its resounding success inspired other states to follow suit, reflecting the groundbreaking nature of the initiative.

Modi said the vision was to accomplish something that had not been attempted at a national level. Establishing a partnership with a developed country was a groundbreaking move. It surprised many about how a state could achieve such a feat. However grand the idea and imaginative, the vision and path to success demanded meticulous planning and relentless effort.

He said the summits evolution from a one-time event into an enduring institution is a testament to its impact. Its influence extends far beyond the event itself, with a continuous process that operates within and outside the government, both before and after the event. With each edition, Vibrant Gujarat reached new heights, relentlessly focusing on infrastructure development and economic progress.

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KOHIMA: The Nagaland government on Wednesday decided to conduct the cleanliness drive on September 30 rather than October 1, following opposition by the states church bodies against holding the events on a Sunday. The central governments publicity wing, PIB, has been putting out photographs of the cleanliness drive from different parts of Nagaland (X/PIBKohima)

Nagaland also, along with the rest of the country, will be taking part in the mega cleanliness drive, which has been decided to be carried out across the state on 30th September 2023 (Saturday) at 10am, instead of 1st October 2023, on account of the designated day falling on a Sunday, said a Nagaland government order issued by principal secretary, Home, Abhijit Sinha.

The order came after several organisations and church bodies faulted the central government for conducting the sanitation drive on a Sunday and asked the state government to intervene.

The church is aware that cleanliness is part of civic duty and therefore, we will do so joyfully except on Sunday, which is a day of worship for Christians and not for work, the Nagaland Joint Christian Forum (NJCF), a conglomeration of different denominations of Christianity, said in a letter to chief minister Neiphiu Rio. The forum suggested the state advance the cleanliness drive by a day.

The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) [NSCN-IM], which has been in talks with the Centre, said the spirit of secularism must be rightfully respected for such a nationwide drive.Naga people will stand as one Christian family to resist such a cleanliness initiative that defies the mutual respect for different faiths that reflects the secular character of India. NSCN cannot remain as a mere spectator to any policy or initiative that obstructs and undermines Christian faith, NSCN-IM said in a statement on Tuesday.

Other Christian bodies such as the Nagaland Baptist Church Council, Chakhesang and Angami Baptist Church Councils, and the influential Naga Students Federation had also rejected the idea of conducting the cleanliness drive on a Sunday.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly doesnt rule out imposing sanctions on Azerbaijan.

#BREAKING: When asked whether Canada is considering sanctions against Azerbaijan, Minister @melaniejoly said, "Everything is on the table."



We call on Canada to work with allies to immediately impose targeted sanctions on the Azerbaijani regime in response to their ongoing pic.twitter.com/l5u5sn6tnq  ANCC_CNAC (@ancc_cnac) September 26, 2023

The Canadian parliament held hearings on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and lawmakers asked Joly questions on the governments actions.

When asked whether Canada is considering sanctions against Azerbaijan, Minister Joly said, "Everything is on the table."
The womens reservation bill will ensure equal participation of women in Parliament and the legislation is a guarantee for the countrys success, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets the BJP supporters during the Nari Shakti Vandan - Abhinandan Karyakram, in Ahmedabad on Tuesday (ANI)

The Prime Minister, who was addressing an event in Ahmedabad, also said that in the last nine years, his government worked to make womens lives better and did away with various social stigmas.

Addressing the crowd at the event titled Nari Shakti Vandan - Abhinandan, Modi said: I can see the happiness on your faces. This happiness is obvious... Your brother has done one more thing to earn your trust. The womens reservation bill means equal participation of women in Parliament, this is Modis guarantee.

He added: You sent lots of rakhis on Raksha Bandhan. So, as your brother, this bill is a gift from me to you. I had prepared this gift well in advance, but kept it a secret. This bill guarantees that your rights will be protected. This bill is a guarantee for Indias success, because if women come forward, no one can stop our country.

On September 21, Parliament approved the 106th amendment to the Constitution to reserve a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures for women, a landmark endorsement of a decades-long crusade that was unsuccessful on at least six occasions over nearly three decades. The bill will now require President Droupadi Murmus signature and at least 50% of the states to approve the amendment to the Constitution.

The Prime Minister also said that those who had kept the womens reservation bill hanging for years finally voted for it due to fear of womens power. Those who kept delaying the womens reservation bill for decades have now supported the bill in Parliament out of compulsion, as they were afraid of you. Your strength compelled them to support the bill, he told the crowd.

Indias women were subjected to injustice all these years after Independence because their hands and legs were tied in the absence of reservation in legislatures, Modi said. We cannot achieve development without participation of half the population. In the past, either political excuses were made (for not bringing in such a bill) or they (past governments) used to say that not everything is achievable, he said.

Highlighting the role of his government in improving the lives of women, Modi said: We had various social stigmas from female infanticide to girls illiteracy. We started the Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao campaign. We can say proudly that there has been an improvement in the male-to-female sex ratio, he said.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday launched raids at around three dozen locations in several states including Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in connection with its larger conspiracy probe against the nexus of gangsters, smugglers and Khalistanis, people familiar with the development said. The federal agency had, last Wednesday, released his photograph among 43 Khalistani-gangsters suspects. (Representative file image)

Officials said the raids were being carried out to dismantle the network of pro-Khalistani elements (PKEs) and gangsters, who have been involved in violent activities including targeted killings, attack on government buildings, extortion, smuggling of weapons and drugs from across the border and also organising anti-India activities in countries like Canada, the UK, the US and Australia.

The federal agency had, last Wednesday, released his photograph among 43 Khalistani-gangsters suspects who are involved in various illegal activities in India and abroad.

Also Read: NIA raids eight locations in Uttar Pradesh, targets Naxal network

It has also confiscated two properties of US based Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in Chandigarh and Amritsar.

As first reported by HT on Sunday, NIA probe into the financial activities of Canada based top Khalistani leaders and gangsters has revealed that money generated in India through extortion and smuggling not only funds their violent acts, both in India and Canada, but it is invested in yachts, movies and even the Canadian Premier League.

Besides, the money generated by the gangsters was invested in the clubs and bars in Thailand as well.

Since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week alleged that Indian agents killed Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar (on June 18) in Canada, Indian agencies have ramped up their action against PKEs and gangsters.
BHUBANESWAR: A consumer court in Odishas Sambalpur district has ordered the owner of a photocopy shop to pay 25,000 in penalty for his failure to return 3 in change to a customer. The shopkeeper was told to return  3 and pay  25,000 compensation for mental agony and harassment (File)

In an ex-parte order on Tuesday, the Sambalpur District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum said the shopkeeper will be liable to pay 9% interest in case of non-payment of the fine beyond 30 days.

The shopkeeper is directed to refund 3 towards excess money received from the complainant towards xerox charges and 25,000 as compensation towards mental agony and harassment to the complainant within 30 days from the date of order, failing which the amount will carry with 9% interest per annum till realisation to the complainant, the order said.

The order was passed on a complaint by a journalist in Sambalpur Prafulla Kumar Dash who said he went to the shop on April 28 for a copy of a document. He said the shopkeeper humiliated him when he demanded that the shopkeeper return the balance amount of 3 and remarked that he was behaving like a beggar.

Das approached the district forum and a notice was issued to the shopkeeper.

When he did not appear before the forum even once, the court passed an ex-parte order.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said efforts are on in Manipur by the state and the central governments to find a way by which a sense of normalcy returns and there is adequate law-and-order enforcement. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, external affairs minister, speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 26.(Bloomberg)

"...I think one part of the problem in Manipur has been the destabilising impact of migrants who have come," he said Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations in response to a question on the situation in the northeastern state in India.

"But there are also tensions which obviously have a long history which precede that. And today, I think the effort is on the part of the state government and the Union government to find a way by which a sense of normalcy returns, that arms which were seized during that period are recovered, that there is an adequate law-and-order enforcement out there so that incidents of violence don't happen," the minister said.

Earlier this month, a group of United Nations experts said they are "appalled" by reports and images of violence in Manipur targeting women and girls, and urged the Indian government to take robust action to investigate the incidents and hold the perpetrators to account.

The experts raised an alarm on reports of serious human rights violations and abuses in Manipur, including acts of alleged sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, home destruction, forced displacement, torture and ill-treatment.

India had rejected these comments, calling them "unwarranted, presumptive and misleading, and asserted that the situation in the state was peaceful.

Jaishankar was asked about him dismissing these comments as "presumptive".

"The comment wasn't made by me personally but by the spokesperson. Was that comment correct? My answer to you would be yes," he said.

The minister was also asked about reports by Sweden's V-Dem Institute and the US government-funded NGO Freedom House that had criticised India on freedom and democracy.

Jaishankar had slammed the two organisations for their "hypocrisy" and called them "self-appointed custodians of the world who find it very difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval".

Responding to the question on this at the CFR event, he said, "I think it answers the question if you would be objective enough to understand it. I think it says very clearly that the people who are writing these reports have a strong bias, often they distort facts. Many of these reports are actually riddled with inaccuracies."
New York: A part of the troubles in Manipur is due to the migrants (from Myanmar), there is an ideological agenda, biases, factual distortions behind criticism of Indias human rights record, and India will pursue its own path of health, economic, climate, and development and security policy, external affairs minister S Jaishankar has said. Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar. (Reuters)

During a conversation at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, when a representative of Human Rights Watch asked him about Myanmar and what the government is doing, Jaishankar said, One part of the problem in Manipur has been the destabilising impact of migrants who have come. Thats one aspect of it. There are tensions which obviously have a long history that precede that. Today, the effort is on part of the state and Union government is to find a way so that normalcy returns, that arms which were seized are recovered, and that there is adequate law and order enforcement so that incidents of violence dont happen.

Asked, separately, about Indias slipping ranks on various global indices on democracy and freedom and whether he was concerned it would affect Indias rising power in the world, referring to an earlier answer by the minister, Jaishankar said those writing these reports had strong biases, they distorted facts, they were riddled with bias, and there was an ideological agenda.

But more broadly, when asked about broader Indian positions and what India can do on global issues, he pointed to the path of independent foreign policymaking.

On climate, he said, the bottom line was there was a visible paucity of resources and terms on which resources available, both access to finance and terms of access to finance. He pointed out that among the themes of the G20 summit was the Green Development Pact, but this at a time when sustainability was under threat due to the tremendous toll that Covid-19 had taken on developing countries to pursue SDG (sustainable development goals) pathways.

On green development, he said that with each passing year, tech options were growing. Lots of things are viable today. In the past, we often had a problem where we didnt have a solution. Today, we have a solution. The issue is to scale it up, make it affordable. And if it is affordable, then it is accessible. The reform of international financial institutions, green development pact, sustainable development goals wont get fixed without a solution on other, he added.

Referring to these as the larger themes of Indian G20 presidency, he said, There is a possibility that there could be some progress on some of these issues.

He added when discussing the diversity of supply chains, given how often big climate events were occurring, the globally disruptive effects of those events, and the over-centralisation of production (in China), during risk assessments, it was also key to bring climate in. He added that with regard to international financial institutions, it was important to leverage resources one had besides issues of recapitalisation.

Jaishankar was asked a question about the 25th anniversary of the Pokharan tests, linked with Indias independent choices on technology and whether India could chart its own pathway especially on tech and geopolitical power.

The minister said that the question fit into the multipolar picture that they discussed, and if he was to reflect on the last decade, particularly the last few years, there was no lack of advice but India had to think through solutions for itself. He said that it was important to take experiences and lessons from others, but a country of the scale and complexity of India had to assess its situation, dig into experiences and DNA, and come up with the right answers.

Then, offering examples of different and independent pathways, he said, he spoke of how when Covid hit India, it didnt have much health infrastructure to deal with it. But, the minister said, India pushed for manufacturing and inventing vaccines, it used a digital backbone for a mass scale vaccination campaign, and with it, India found a unique way with much higher percentage and speed of vaccination across complex geographies than others.

Also Read: Told Canada not GOI policy, says S Jaishankar on Trudeaus allegation

On the economy, Jaishankar pointed out that there was worry about what to do with the economy. Some countries went in for pump priming, there were countries who actually thought supporting businesses was one way of mitigating the situation. Probably in their situation, it made sense. We had to look at basics. How do you deal with a large segment of population where a lockdown meant a loss of livelihood, and they didnt have access to food and finances.

He then said that if he looked back, India was able to create a social welfare system, effectively giving the equivalent of food stamps to 800 million people, put money directly in the accounts of 450 million people, housing to 150 million. A lot of it is through the embrace of tech answers, he said, adding that India was even deploying its own 5G stack when the world thought it only had China and Europe to choose from.

Whether it is development or security or policy choices maybe on climate action or food security or energy, it is important for a country like India to think through for itself.

Other experiences mattered, Jaishankar said, adding that India was active and open to best practices around and one learnt something from someone every day. But we have to think through for ourselves. That is one of the differences in India today.

The minister then clarified that this idea of a self reliant India did not mean economic protectionism, for India was actively seeking foreign investment, technology, and introduced incentive schemes to collaborate in sectors such as semiconductors. What we want is for them to collaborate with us, but on our terms and on our strategic kind of pathway rather than make us a part of their strategy,. Jaishankar said.

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Indias first dedicated polarimetry mission to study dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions that could provide vital information on the nature and behaviour of celestial objects will be launched in December, the chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said on Tuesday. ISRO chairman S Somanath said that the satellite is built and kept ready (ANI/ PIB)

The satellite is built and kept ready, but we are expecting to launch it by December this year, Isro chief S Somanath said at an event organised by the Indian National Space Academy in Delhi.

HT reported last week on plans of launching the XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) later this year.

XPoSat is Indias first and the worlds second space mission to measure the polarisation of light. Polarimetry is a tool that allows astronomers to infer information about celestial objects, from passing comets to distant galaxies.

The mission is unique and crucial because it will help scientists understand and measure emissions from various astronomical sourcesblack holes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei and pulsar wind nebulae that are otherwise challenging to study, Isro scientists said.

Such emissions are mostly tracked by studying the chemical make-up (using a spectroscope) and the time it takes them to travel a distance.

Speaking at a separate event, the foundation day of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research at the Bharat Mandapam, Somanath said after the first test flight to demonstrate the abort capabilities for Gaganyaan in October, the unmanned mission for the orbital spacecraft can be expected by early 2024.

Gaganyaan work is progressing well. We will have the launch of the first test flight vehicle of the Gaganyaan crew module for demonstrating the abort capabilities in October itself, he said.

The Gaganyaan project would demonstrate human space flight capability by launching a crew of three to an orbit of 400km above earths surface for three days and bring them back safely by landing in Indian sea waters.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Soumya Pillai Soumya Pillai covers environment and traffic in Delhi. A journalist for three years, she has grown up in and with Delhi, which is often reflected in the stories she does about life in the city. She also enjoys writing on social innovations. ...view detail
New York Political conveniences cannot dictate responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, and respect for the principles of territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs cant be exercises in cherry picking, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday, warning that rule makers cannot subjugate rule takers any more. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's external affairs minister, arrives during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, US, on Tuesday. (Bloomberg)

Delivering Indias national statement at the UN General Assembly in New York , Jaishankar made it clear that a few nations still shaped the global agenda and defined norms, and this could go on neither indefinitely nor unchallenged.

The minister was speaking in the context of the need for a greater role of the Global South, Indias G20s presidency and its track record of contribution to the global good, and the demand for a fairer and more equitable global governance architecture. But his remarks on the hypocrisies and injustice embedded in the discourse of the dominant could also be read against the backdrop of Canadas recent allegations linking the government of India to the killing of a man New Delhi officially designated as a terrorist, a charge that which has not backed up by evidence yet and has been rejected by India as absurd.

In our deliberations, we often advocate the promotion of a rules-based order. From time to time, respect for the UN Charter is also invoked. But for all the talk, it is still a few nations who shape the agenda and seek to define the norms. This cannot go on indefinitely. Nor will it go unchallenged, Jaishankar said.

The minister said a fair, equitable and democratic order will surely emerge. And for a start, that means ensuring that rule makers do not subjugate rule takers. After all, rules will work only when they apply equally to all, he added.

Offering specific examples, Jaishankar said that the world must not allow an injustice such as vaccine apartheid to recur; climate action cannot witness an evasion of historical responsibilities; and the power of markets must not be used to steer food and energy from the needy to the wealthy.

Nor must we countenance that political convenience determines responses to terrorism, extremism and violence. Similarly, respect for territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs cannot be exercises in cherry picking, he said.

He added that when reality departed from rhetoric, it must be called out. Without genuine solidarity, there can never be real trust. This is very much the sentiment of the Global South.he said.

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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
Punjab aims to reduce farm fires by 50 per cent this winter season and completely eliminate stubble burning in six districts, the Commission for Air Quality Management said on Tuesday. Punjab aims to completely eliminate stubble burning in six districts.(HT_PRINT)

According to the state's action plan to curb paddy straw burning, about 31 lakh hectares of land in the state is under paddy cultivation. This is expected to generate around 16 million tonnes of paddy straw (non-basmati) which will be managed through in-situ (mixing crop residue in fields) and ex-situ (using stubble as fuel) methods.

Efforts are being made to use the paddy straw for industrial and energy generation projects. Sizable quantity of straw will also be used as cattle fodder, the CAQM said.

Punjab also plans to manage around 8,000 acres of paddy area using Pusa Bio Decomposer. This microbial solution can break down paddy straw in just 15-20 days and will be provided to farmers for free, it said.

"The State Action Plan envisages at least 50 per cent reduction in fire counts in Punjab during 2023 compared to last year. The plan attempts elimination of stubble burning cases this year in six districts namely Hoshiarpur, Malerkotla, Pathankot, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar (Mohali) and SBS Nagar," the commission said in a statement.

According to government data, five districts -- Sangrur, Bathinda, Firozpur, Muktasar and Moga -- had accounted for around 44 per cent of total fire counts in the state last year.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Union Bank to release an amount of over 15 lakh, part of the 1.25 crore refund to 15 homebuyers of the now-demolished Supertechs twin towers in Noida. Supreme Court of India. (ANI)

The amount was directed to be released within 10 days to the real estate firm facing bankruptcy proceedings.

The order became necessary after the Court on July 17 directed the interim resolution professional (IRP) of Supertech to deposit the amount with the Supreme Court Registry by August 31 to enable payments to be made to concerned homebuyers.

The IRP failed to deposit the entire amount as Union Bank refused to pay its share of 15,51,678. The bank wrote to IRP on September 1 claiming that the amount cannot be paid as the twin towers  Apex and Ceyane -- are part of Supertechs Emerald Court project which is not part of the insolvency proceedings.

Further, the bank claimed that it is not party to the proceeding in which the order was passed and told the IRP that he is duty-bound to protect the interest of not only the homebuyers but financial creditors as well.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said, We direct the Union Bank to take steps within 10 days to ensure an amount of 15,51,678 is released to Supertech for compliance with our order of July 17.

Also Read: Delhi court takes cognisance of Supertech charge sheet

Advocate Gaurav Agarwal assisting the Court as amicus curiae brought this fact to the notice of the Court in an application attaching the banks letter and a communication received from IRP on September 7 indicating this position.

The 15 homebuyers had a total outstanding amount of 7.04 crore of which a balance of 2.55 crore was due and payable. The Courts earlier order had required this amount to be paid in two tranches. The Court further directed that the initial deposit of 1.25 crore is to be made out of the 30% amount earmarked for meeting the administrative expenses of Supertech.

With Wednesdays order, the IRP will be able to make the complete payment as he had already deposited an amount of over 1.10 crore with the Court.

The Court has now posted the matter for hearing on November 3 to follow up on the remaining payout of the refund amount.

It was on August 31, 2021, the Court ordered the 32-storey towers to be demolished for alleged violations of the National Building Code. The Court further directed the affected homebuyers to receive full refund with 12% interest. In March last year, the Union Bank had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to declare Supertech bankrupt under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) over unpaid dues.

The IRP was appointed to look after the affairs of the company and all expenses of the company were to be routed through IRP with approval of the company law appellate tribunal.

Initially, out of 252 flat owners in the two towers,around 56 homebuyers were yet to get the refund. The Court was informed that for settling refund claims in full, Supertech would have to set apart almost 40 crore.

The Court has been monitoring the matter since to ensure all homebuyers get full refund of their invested amounts regardless of the insolvency proceedings pending against the company.

The Allahabad high court in 2014 held the massive structures to be illegally constructed after a petition was filed by the residents staying in the Supertechs Emerald Court housing society. This decision got the imprimatur of the Supreme Court in 2021 and the towers were razed in August last year.
`New Delhi: The first question to be determined in a petition filed by a group of women demanding the right to worship Hindu deities inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex will be its maintainability, The Supreme Court said on Tuesday after the mosque management committee argued that the suit was completely barred by the Places of Worship Act, 1991. Gyanvapi Mosque (File)

The Act locked the position or religious identity of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947, with the exception of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid, and barred any court from entertaining a matter that seeks to alter the religious nature of that place.

Also Read: Fresh suit seeks appointment of receiver for Gyanvapi cellar, nod for puja

This has, however, not prevented a spate of litigations in recent months, which include several suits regarding the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute in Mathura. While the Varanasi district judge is holding a joint trial of eight suits claiming the existence of Hindu idols inside the Gyanvapi mosque, there are 10 suits pending before a Mathura trial judge relating to Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute. Meanwhile, a batch of petitions  some seeking to scrap the 1991 Act and some others asking for tight enforcement of the same law, have remained pending before the top court since March 2021.

On Tuesday, a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud noted that although there were two petitions filed by the mosque management committee, the primary issue of determination would be whether the suit filed by Hindu plaintiffs in 2021 was maintainable or not.

The first issue would be whether their suit is barred or not. We will keep the Order VII Rule 11 matter first because thats the first and foremost matter to be decided... We will have to read their plaint to see if its barred or not, the bench, which also included justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra told senior counsel Huzefa Ahmadi, who represented the mosque management committee.

Ahmadi, who represented the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee which manages the 17th century mosque, argued that both the petitions filed by them have maintained that the suit is barred by the 1991 Act, and therefore, all orders passed by the Varanasi district court in the suit were bad in law. He pointed out that one of the petition related to the appointment of an advocate commissioner in May 2022 for a survey. Next month, a section of the mosque complex was ordered to be sealed after Hindu plainitiffs claimed that a Shivling was seen at the bottom of a tank during the survey. The committee claims its part of an ablution fountain.

Also Read | ASI to hand over evidence found during Gyanvapi survey to DM: Varanasi court

Senior advocate Madhavi Divan, appearing for some of the Hindu women plaintiffs, said that much water has flowed under the bridge since the April 2022 order of the Varanasi court, and that an extensive survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was underway to determine if the 17th century structure was built upon a pre-existing temple.

As Ahmadi sought adjournment of the matter, the bench deferred the hearing to the third week in October, directing that both the petitions filed by the committee will be listed together on the next date.

Through its petition, the mosque management committee endeavours to bar all claims over the access to the mosque or title of the Gyanvapi complex, relying on the 1991 law. Section 3 of the Act imposes a prohibition on individuals and groups of people against converting, in full or part, of a place of worship of any religious denomination into a place of worship of a different religious denomination -- or even a different segment of the same religious denomination.

It had earlier sought to get the case thrown out under Order VII Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), But last September, the Varanasi district judge dismissed the committees application. This judgment was upheld by the Allahabad high court in May, compelling the committee to approach the Supreme Court.

The other petition has challenged the May 2022 order of the Varanasi court directing a full survey of the mosque complex through an advocate commissioner. After the mosque management committee challenged this before the top court, the bench declined to stop the survey but directed that the section of the complex where the Shivling was reportedly found shall remain protected, adding Muslims will also have the right to offer namaz in other sections of the mosque without any hindrance.

On May 20, 2022, the Supreme Court transferred the suit from a civil judge to the Varanasi district judge, citing the complexities and sensitivities involved in the matter. It further asked the district judge to decide on priority the application of the mosque management committee under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC that challenged the maintainability of the suit.

Last month, the apex court refused to halt the ASI survey of the mosque, observing that it cannot find fault with the district courts order of July 21, nor would it interfere with every interlocutory direction passed in the case. The bench held that the order of the Varanasi district judge cannot be construed to be without jurisdiction since the CPC empowers a court to issue a commission for a scientific investigation, the report of which is subject to be argued and tested at the time of the trial.

At the same time, the bench noted that the high court was correct in introducing some additional safeguards to circumscribe the order of the district judge, which included the directions passed to ensure there will be no excavation at the site, nor would there be destruction of any part of the existing structure. The top court added that ASI will carry out its survey only using non-invasive methods.

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YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. A total of 237 victims who were wounded in the September 19-20 Azeri attack in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the fuel depot explosion have been evacuated to Armenia for treatment as of midday Wednesday.

Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the spokesperson of the Prime Minister, said at a press conference that 142 of the 237 patients were airlifted by helicopter, while 95 were transported by ambulances.

Authorities plan to transport another 80 patients today.
NEW DELHI Expressing anguish over delays by the Union government in appointing judges, the Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to monitor the steps taken by the Centre in processing the recommendations made by the collegium for appointing and transferring judges. While the A-G asked for a week to come back with the latest status of the recommendations made by the collegium to the government, the bench pointed out that there has been a hiatus of seven months, during which several proposals have remained pending. (File)

We will monitor this after every 10-12 days. In several cases, even the basic processing has not been done. At least your views should come before the collegium for its consideration, a bench, led by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, told attorney general R Venkataramani.

While the A-G asked for a week to come back with the latest status of the recommendations made by the collegium to the government, the bench pointed out that there has been a hiatus of seven months, during which several proposals have remained pending.

Only service names (names of judicial officers recommended for appointment as high court judges) are processed after the collegium recommends. Service names (names of lawyers) are not coming back at all, the bench, which also comprised justice Sudhanshu Dhulia added as it heard a contempt plea complaining against delays by the Centre in appointing judges.

We will now monitor it closely. Every 10-12 days, we will take up the matter... We thought of saying a lot but since the A-G is asking for one week, we are holding ourselves back. However, we may not be quiet on the next date if things dont change, cautioned the court.

The bench lamented that its recommendations since November 2022 are hanging fire, asking Venkataramani to come back with a solution on October 9  the next date of hearing. Reading out from a chart, it stated that there are at least nine names of lawyers recommended for appointment as judges in various high courts pending with the government for over seven months.

There are seven others whose names have been reiterated by the collegium, but the government is yet to say anything on them. And then there are 26 transfers (of judges from one high court to another) that are also pending. The appointment of a chief justice in a sensitive high court (Manipur) is also pending, the bench flagged.

It told Venkataramani that the unexplained delay by the government forces several lawyers to withdraw their names. We also have people from the bar declining to be recommended for judgeship. We also try to make available the best talent available in the high courts. The time frame under our judgement was approximately five months... We have endeavoured to push it. But we keep saying that this is not something we should be asked to push, it added.

At the same time, the bench clarified that there would now be regular monitoring of the governments action. By a judgment in April 2021, the court held that the government is obligated to revert to the collegium within 18 weeks if it has any reservation to a name proposed for judgeship.

During the brief hearing, senior counsel Arvind Datar and advocate Prashant Bhushan flagged the issues of some pending recommendations for appointment of high court chief justices, transfer of judges as well as a few names which the government was yet to appoint despite the collegiums reiteration.

The contempt plea in the matter has been filed by Advocate Association, Bengaluru, through advocate Amit Pai, highlighting several instances of pending appointments and unexplained holdover by the government.

As reported by HT on July 27, the appointment of a full-time chief justice in the Manipur high court has been delayed with the N Biren Singh-government sitting over the Centres correspondence sent earlier that month.

On July 5, the Supreme Court collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, made recommendations for the appointments of chief justices in the high courts of Bombay, Gujarat, Manipur and Andhra Pradesh. The collegium also included justices Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna. The procedure required the Union government to obtain the views of the state government before notifying such appointments.

By making a set of recommendations in the first week of August, the Supreme Court collegium had recommended transfers of at least 24 high court judges for better administration of justice, signifying a massive shake-up in the higher judiciary. Many of these recommendations are yet to be notified.

Similarly, there have been seven names that have been reiterated by the collegium but are yet to be cleared by the Centre. These included appointments of advocates Saurabh Kirpal, R John Sathyan and Somasekhar Sundaresan as judges in the high courts of Delhi, Madras and Bombay, respectively, which have also been in limbo for more than 10 months each despite reiterations by the collegium.

The delay in notifying the transfers of judges was viewed seriously by the Supreme Court during its proceedings in January and February, when it took up the contempt plea. At that time, the bench took strong exception to the government sitting over almost a dozen recommendations pertaining to the transfer of high court judges, making it clear that any delay in transfers may result in administrative and judicial actions which may not be palatable. It added that lack of consistency in the time taken by the Centre to notify the recommendations was creating issues of faith between the judiciary and the executive.

The top courts comments came at a time when the judiciary and the executive were locked in a tussle over judicial appointments. Then law minister Kiren Rijiju issued a series of statements criticising the manner in which the collegium functioned and questioning the division of powers between the two organs.

Between December and February, the top court, in a series of judicial proceedings, responded with reminders to the government that the collegium system is the law of the land that must be followed by the government to a T, while saying that the Centre had delayed a number of decisions without giving adequate reasons.

The hearing of the contempt plea on Tuesday were the first proceedings in the matter after Arjun Ram Meghwal took over as the Union minister of law and justice on May 18.

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Citing the current limitless uncertainty in the area of arbitration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday preferred a seven-judge bench to review its ruling in April that held an arbitration clause is not enforceable in law if the agreement is unstamped or insufficiently stamped. The April judgment of the Supreme Court is expected to create further delays in appointment of arbitrators by adding one more layer of scrutiny, besides being contrary to Indias pro-arbitration stance. (ANI)

The April judgment is expected to create further delays in appointment of arbitrators by adding one more layer of scrutiny, besides being contrary to Indias pro-arbitration stance.

Having regard to the larger ramifications and consequences of the view of the majority in the NM Global case, these proceedings should be placed before a seven-judge bench to reconsider the correctness of the view of the five-judge bench, said a constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud.

The constitution bench of five judges, which also comprised justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Bhushan R Gavai and Surya Kant, was hearing a curative petition demanding a reconsideration of the April 25 verdict.

The April verdict, by 3:2 majority, relied on the 1899 Indian Stamps Act requiring certain agreements to be compulsorily registrable or chargeable to stamp duty while holding that a court could go into the aspects of stamping and other compliances before the arbitrator is appointed. According to the majority view, a court is bound to examine the instrument at a pre-appointment stage, and if it is found to be unstamped or insufficiently stamped, the instrument is to be impounded at that stage.

Experts welcomed the courts reference to a larger bench.

The April verdict made a huge impact on arbitration, said Sushmita Gandhi, partner at IndusLaw. Given the impact it had and continues to have on arbitral proceedings prior and post the judgment, and that it was also at odds with the present arbitration regime, leading to uncertainties and delays, a reference to a larger bench was perhaps a matter of time, she added.

The April judgment was indeed one step backward for the current pro-arbitration regime in India and opened up a Pandoras Box, said Manmeet Singh, senior partner at Saraf and Partners, a law firm.

Looking into a curable defect such as stamp duty at the time of appointment of an arbitrator not just delays the commencement of proceedings but also opens the door for judicial interference in arbitration by going into the nature of the larger agreement, that too at the very threshold. Thus, by agreeing to hear the curative petition, the Honble Supreme Court has also seen merit in re-examining the issue, Singh added.

During the proceedings on Tuesday, the constitution bench called it a very important matter to be decided to bring clarity to the arbitration regime in the country.

Arbitrators across the country are confronted with situations where they are being told that the agreements are unstamped and so, reopen the case. There is currently limitless uncertainty in the area of arbitration. This uncertainty has to end, observed the bench.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for one of the parties, objected to his case getting revived. The court must let go of specific facts of his client since the issues in his case were not alive any further, Datar said.

But the bench said it would need a live case to review the April verdict. We want this case to be decided. We dont want it to be deflected. The legitimacy of arbitration regime is far more important for the country than technical objections, added the court, fixing October 11 as the next date of hearing. The bench clarified that it would conclude the arguments in the case on the next date of the hearing.

The court appointed advocates Pritha Srikumar and Debesh Panda as nodal counsels in the matter to prepare a common compilation of documents and submissions, and collaborate with lawyers to facilitate the proceedings.

The ruling on April 24 had come while deciding a bundle of judgments since 2011, taking divergent views on the enforceability of arbitration clauses contained in unstamped or insufficiently stamped agreements.

The majority judgment cited the mandate of the Stamps Act to hold that an instrument which is chargeable to stamp duty may contain an arbitration clause and which is not stamped cannot be said to be a contract enforceable in law.

It added that an arbitration agreement within the meaning of the 1996 Arbitration and Conciliation Act attracts stamp duty and if it is not stamped or insufficiently stamped, it cannot be acted upon in view of Section 35 of the Stamps Act which defines conditions for a valid instrument. Section 35 of the Stamp Act lays down that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose or shall be acted upon unless such instrument is duly stamped.

It further noted that an unstamped or insufficiently stamped instrument must be validated by payment of requisite duty before it could be adduced as evidence in an arbitration matter. According to the majority, a court is bound to examine the instrument at a pre-appointment stage and if it is found to be unstamped or insufficiently stamped, the instrument is to be impounded at this stage.

The two other judges on the bench, comprising the minority, flagged concerns that the view taken by the majority in the judgment has the propensity of frustrating the objective of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, as a scrutiny on the stamp duty at the threshold can stall the process and will lead to procedural complexity and delay in litigation before courts.

They held that the copy or certified copy of arbitration agreement, whether unstamped or insufficiently stamped, at the pre-reference stage, is an enforceable document for the appointment of arbitrator. Once the arbitrator or an arbitral tribunal is appointed, the minority view said, validity of the agreement can be gone into for a proper decision at a later stage without impeding the process.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Utkarsh Anand Utkarsh Anand is Legal Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on law, judiciary and governance. ...view detail
In a sweeping crackdown spanning multiple states, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday detained several suspects in connection with a sprawling nexus involving terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers. The operation targeted individuals linked to Arsh Dala a designated terrorist and pro-Khalistani element based in Canada  and several dreaded gangsters like Lawrence Bishnoi and Kala Jatheri, the central probe agency said in a release. The National Investigation Agency conducted major raids across six states in three cases at 51 locations belonging to associates of Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla Gangs. (For Representation)

A total of 53 locations were raided throughout the day across six states: Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The raids resulted in the seizure of pistols, ammunition, a significant number of digital devices, and incriminating materials.

As part of the raids, the NIA picked up a person named Yunis alias Jora, an aide of Arsh Dala, from Punjabs Ferozepur. Yunis is a labourer earning 12 thousand a month, reported ANI. His family members were handed over a document which mentioned that he would be questioned in Chandigarh.

The NIA also raided a gun house in the Bajpur police station area of Udham Singh Nagar and another house in the Clementown police station area of Dehradun district of Uttarakhand.

The cases pertain to conspiracies involving targeted killings, terror funding for pro-Khalistan outfits, extortion, and other criminal activities attributed to the gangsters many of whom are either lodged in various prisons or operating from foreign countries, including Pakistan and Canada.

The NIA said that the raids were aimed at dismantling the nexus between terrorists, gangsters, and drug smugglers, with a focus on identifying weapon suppliers, financiers, and logistics providers associated with hardcore criminal gangs and their operatives.

NIA investigations have revealed that the conspiracies under investigation were being hatched in Jails of different states and were being executed by an organised network of operatives based abroad, the release said.

Notable among such conspiracies were the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, Mining trader Mehal Singh and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year, it added.

According to NIA findings, many of the criminals and gangsters who previously led Indian gangs have fled abroad in recent years and continue to engage in terrorism and violence-related activities from overseas locations.

The operation saw raids conducted in various locations, including Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozpur, SAS Nagar, Amritsar, and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad, and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganga Nagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh, and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand; and the South-east district of Delhi/NCR, along with the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

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A new standoff between the Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led state government took place on Tuesday night over the constitution of a search committee to appoint the vice- chancellor of the University of Madras, people familiar with the matter said. RN Ravi (PTI)

The governor, who is also the chancellor of the University of Madras, has asked the Higher Education Secretary, D Karthikeyan, to withdraw a notification issued by the state to constitute a search panel, as a notification for the same was earlier issued by the governor.

The governor had issued a notification on September 6 notifying the constitution of a search-cum-selection committee to select a candidate to be appointed as the vice-chancellor of the university. The governors office said the notification was published on the Raj Bhavans website and a press release was issued.

By an act of impropriety, the Principal Secretary of the states Higher Education Department, has issued a further notification on September 13 of a search-cum-selection committee by excluding the nominee of the UGC chairman, the Raj Bhavan said on Tuesday. The development, the governors office said, does not adhere to the order of the Supreme Court of India and is contrary to the UGC regulations.

The said publication in the government gazette is without any such authority from the chancellor, being the head of the University and that the Principal Secretary to Government, Higher Education Department, has no role in the affairs of the University and hence the chancellor has called upon to withdraw the said notification published in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette Extraordinary, the Raj Bhavan said.

Earlier this month, higher education minister K Ponmudy had said that according to the states laws, the governor doesnt not have rights to constitute a search committee. Till now, the search panel members have been appointed as per the university acts and the same would be notified in the gazette after the government order. But, the governor has formed the search committees unilaterally and released the notification, which is against the university acts, the minister had said.

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Bins Abraham (52) owns a 12-acre rubber plantation in Erattupetta, a plantation town nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats. All he wants is an assurance of a minimum support price of 300 for every kilogramme of procured natural rubber  if the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can promise that after the 2024 general elections, his vote is theirs, he said. PREMIUM Arunthakal Church, Alaphuza (Kerala Tourism)

Keralas rubber plantations are facing a crisis: Climate change has threatened plantations and production, which is on the decline; the import of synthetic latex has cut into the demand for natural rubber; and different trade agreements made by India have affected the profit margins of plantation owners. Many affluent Christian farmers in Kerala, who cultivate lucrative crops such as rubber, ginger, pepper, coffee, cardamom, and areca nut, regard Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany of Thalassery as a leader who represents their interests. The senior Church official has openly expressed willingness to support the BJP in the next Lok Sabha election if a fair price for rubber is offered. "The BJP is heading the Union government, and only those in power can enforce policy changes to bail out farmers from the crisis. The BJP is likely to remain in power for one more term, and our farmers would starve if we are not strategically placing our farmers in their agenda," said Pamplany, adding that he has no communal interests to safeguard as rubber farmers hail from all religious backgrounds. Besides Pamplany, Catholic bishops Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly diocese and Dr Remigiose Inchananiyil of the Thamarassery diocese have also accused the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the opposition Congress of cheating rubber farmers with false promises. They say the Roman Catholic Church will support any formation or ideology that benefits the farming community. Many people are abandoning farming due to low product procurement prices, increased wages and other expenses. About 70 per cent of those engaged in farming in the past dropped this profession. The remaining farmers are living in poverty and debt. So we would support the BJP in the next election if it promises to solve the farm sector crisis, especially the issues concerning rubber farmers. The Congress and Left parties have done nothing to protect the farmers' interests so far, Inchananiyil said.

Many people are abandoning farming due to low product procurement prices, increased wages and other expenses. About 70 per cent of those engaged in farming in the past dropped this profession. The remaining farmers are living in poverty and debt. So we would support the BJP in the next election if it promises to solve the farm sector crisis, especially the issues concerning rubber farmers. Congress and left parties have done nothing to protect the farmers' interests so far,

However, Kerala's ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the opposition Indian National Congress raise a valid point, which Pamplany and his supporters choose to overlook: International trade agreements signed by the Centre such as the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) revised in 2018 have negatively affected the prices of Indias rubber and rubber-based products. India imports rubber from Sri Lanka, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia at present on a large scale which affects local production. The trade agreements facilitated the large-scale import of low-quality natural rubber for industrial purposes while the locally available quality varieties failed to find takers.

There are predominantly six sects of Christians in Kerala  Catholic, Jacobite, Orthodox, Marthoma, Church of South India and Pentecostal  and the Church plays an important role in their social lives. For the southern state, which comprises 18.38% Christians, 26.56 % Muslims and 54.73% Hindus, as per the 2011 Census, the words of high-ranking Church officials matter a great deal. Bishops enjoy considerable clout and their decisions often impact the political and social preferences of the community. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cited examples of how the Christian communities in Goa, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland have helped the BJP come to power, and, during a recent visit in April, he even met bishops of different Christian denominations and expressed a wish to have a similar relationship with the Christian community in the state. The overtures made by these Catholic bishops to the BJP, and its ideological fount, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are not new and till now, their attempts have been met with strong objections from among the laity. A few months ago, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church head Cardinal Mar George Alencherry said it was improper to say that Christians were unsafe under the BJP rule. He also said that the BJP was gaining acceptance across the state. Within days, Sathyadeepam, the mouthpiece of the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese which falls under the same Cardinal, came out with a scathing editorial accusing Alencherry of trivialising the attacks of Christians outside Kerala even as the community was fighting against it legally and by staging demonstrations. The editorial also warned that time would not forgive church heads who failed to speak about the danger against democracy and secularism for petty benefits. A number of priests and believers of the church also came out in the open against Cardinal Fr Paul Thelakkat, the editor of Sathyadeepam, who has been a longtime critic of the church's overtures to BJP-RSS. In the third week of May, Fr Ajimon Puthiyaparambil of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church resigned from the post of a parish vicar and priest to register his objection against Christian leaders in Kerala who find a common cause with the Sangh Parivar in propagating Islamophobia. He said that aligning with the hate politics of BJP-RSS contradicted the fundamentals of universal love propagated by Jesus Christ. These positions seem to be aligned with the Communist Partys stated position that the Sangh Parivar was targeting the Christian community across the country and said such crimes against minorities would not work in the state  a stand reiterated by Kerala chief minister (CM) Pinarayi Vijayan in December 2021. Abraham, the rubber plantation owner, doesnt disagree with the CMs view. But, he said, he needs to recover his losses. As per the data available from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), there are approximately 1.8 million families engaged in rubber cultivation in Kerala with a significant majority being Christians, particularly Catholics. Additionally, there are 1.45 million families in the state who depend on rubber plantations for their livelihood as workers, buyers, and sellers.

Catholics take part in the Hosanna festival at St Joseph's Cathedral, Thiruvananthapuram. (source: K B Jayachandran)

The bogey of love jihad

Last September, the Bishop of Pala Mar Joseph Kallarangatt coined the term narcotic jihad while addressing the gathering for holy mass, to accuse Muslims in Kerala of luring Christians towards Islam by using drugs. His intention was to discourage inter-religious marriages involving Christian women and Muslim men. Videos of the speech were circulated on social media giving rise to a controversy. This isnt the first time a church official has made such an unsubstantiated claim.

The same month, Pamplany issued a letter to his parish in which he urged young girls to remain cautious against extremist elements trying to ensnare them by feigning love. He also wanted initiatives within the church establishment to make teenagers aware of the dangers of "love traps" set by extremists. There has been a rise in the number of Christian girls being trapped in the guise of love. This comes against the backdrop of a section of the Church raising concerns about alleged love jihad cases targeting Christian women. We must be vigilant against attempts of Muslim extremists to lure away our girls by feigning love, he said. Though the term love jihad was coined by Right-wing Hindu groups in 2007, the Catholic Church in Kerala began to use it as an instrument to discourage inter-religious marriages. The late Idukki Bishop Dr Mathew Anikuzhikattil and retired Kanirappilly Bishop Dr Mathew Arakkal were among the first to do so. As instructed by the church, BJP leader and vice chairman of the National Minority Commission George Kurian approached Union home minister Amit Shah in September 2019, urging for a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the practice of "love jihad". He had also handed over a report by the Kerala Catholic Bishop Council that claimed that over 4,000 cases of love jihad were reported in Kerala between 2005-12. However, dissenting leaders of the church dismissed the report as a figment of imagination, lacking any truth. The Christian Association and Alliance for Social Action (CASA), formed around this time, began a hectic social media campaign against Muslims who allegedly converted Christian women and forced them to join the Islamic State. CASA is facing a number of criminal cases now in Kerala for attempting to disrupt prevailing communal harmony. In January 2020, the synod or highest administrative body of Syro-Malabar Church chaired by Cardinal George Alencherry had issued a circular equating love jihad with the Islamic State's execution of female Christian captives in Nigeria. The term, love jihad gained legitimacy in Kerala in 2009 when the Kerala high court ordered the Centre and state governments to probe love jihad in a case involving two college women who were produced in court after they eloped with their boyfriends, but later changed their stand and told the judge that they wished to return to their parents. In 2010, Justice M. Sasidharan Nambiar of the Kerala high court held that inter-religion marriages were common in Kerala and could not be seen as a crime, and closed the investigation. NC Asthana, the former Director General of Police (DGP) of Kerala, confirmed this when contacted.

After the release of The Kerala Story across the country, Kerala's Christian leadership refrained from commenting on the merits of the film or the messages it attempted to convey. But their silence is a vindication of their sentiment towards Muslims in the state and tacit support to the BJP for gains.

Yet the language of threat and danger remains ripe for the picking, as the recent example of Vivek Agnihotris film, The Kerala Story, revealed. Before its release, a trailer stated that the film told the true story of 32,000 women from Kerala who had joined the terror group Islamic State. The matter went to court and the films makers agreed to remove the particular teaser.

After the release of The Kerala Story across the country, Kerala's Christian leadership refrained from commenting on the merits of the film or the messages it attempted to convey. But their silence is a vindication of their sentiment towards Muslims in the state and tacit support to the BJP for gains. In that process, they are not even ready to condemn the anti-Christian attacks across the country, said noted academic and author J Devika. To be sure, it is not just BJP functionaries and supporters in the state who use the language of "love jihad". Kerala Congress (M) leader Jose K. Mani in March 2021, told Manorama news channel that the issue of love jihad should be addressed and the apprehensions of the society about it have to be cleared. Such an issue has come up in society and it has to be examined, he said, but later withdrew his remarks under pressure from the CM for the embarrassment it caused the government. Kerala Congress (M) is part of the Left Democratic Front. Even if BJP is creating a Hindu Rashtra, Christians would be safe in it, said Abraham, who has worked for the Kerala Congress factions. Abraham argued that radical Islam was a bigger threat to Kerala's Christians. That the Narendra Modi government has told Parliament that no such crime as 'love jihad exists in the country, and the Kerala Police too has denied the existence of love jihad, in the state makes no difference to Abraham. He said, Love jihad is a reality. I believe it exists. He hasn't watched The Kerala Story yet. Protect our interests Magi Kallarakkal (62), a homemaker from Pala near Kottayam, who holds admiration for Indira Gandhi, said that her family has a close relationship with the Kerala Congress leadership. She actively participated in efforts to support the late KM Mani, a prominent figure in the United Democratic Front (UDF), during his electoral campaigns. However, Magi's sentiments towards KM Mani's son, Jose K Mani, have changed since he joined forces with the communist parties. Magi expressed her frustration with Mani retracting his statements on "love jihad" under pressure from the Left. Like Abraham, she insists that the problem exists despite there being little to no evidence of it. The former Kerala Congress (M) activist is now a state-level functionary of BJP's minority morcha. The Congress and CPI (M) appease Muslims, she said. The attacks by the Bajrang Dal on Christian nuns and priests  such as the one in Chhattisgarh's Patan in April 2023  are isolated incidents, she said. I agree that some lumpen elements are inside Sangh Parivar, like the Bajrang Dal. They are responsible for isolated attacks on Christians, she said. I can say with authority that BJP-RSS never created discomfort for Kerala Christians." If the Hindu Right was responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Magi points out that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan changing the Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul  originally founded as a cathedral  into a mosque was as bad. For us Christians in Kerala, we must protect our distinct identity and culture. In that process, we are discovering that not Hindus but Islamists are the enemies, said Magi Kallarakkal, a former Kerala Congress (M) activist and now a state-level functionary of BJP's minority morcha. Among the Christians in Kerala, 61% are Catholics, and 15.9% are Orthodox Syrian and Jacobite. They are members of different Pentecostal churches, the Church of South India, and other minority religious groups like Marthoma. The Jacobite and Orthodox factions of the Kerala Malankara Church are on opposite sides of a feud over property worth 90 million, yet the anti-Muslim rhetoric transcends this fight. James Joseph Manimala, a 61-year-old local businessman and ambulance service provider in Kanjirapally, a Christian-dominated Assembly constituency, and his wife Ancy Manimala were regional leaders of Kerala Congress (M) until 2016. They supported the Indian National Congress for many years. Ancy, who was a block panchayat member of the Kerala Congress from 1995 to 2000, and James, who was district president of the party's youth wing from 2000 to 2008, said they and their two children aged 36 and 32, started supporting the BJP after the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) started dictating terms to the United Democratic Front, of which the Congress is part. They too echo the sentiments expressed by Magi and Abraham about love jihad in Kerala, but James Manimala added that he wanted to vote for a party with national relevance. According to J Devika, a scholar who has studied the changing political scenario in Kerala, There are not many hurdles that separate Christians from BJP. A couple of wise and tactical moves by BJP may bring them to their fold. Islamophobia is growing among upper-class Christians, like in the case of upper-caste Hindus in Kerala. The Christian leadership has a suspicion about Pinarayi Vijayan too. They treat him more as a pro-Muslim leader, she said.

PM Modi meets top Kerala bishops

Not a homogenous group

According to writer MN Karassery, a retired professor at Calicut University, there are deliberate attempts by the church leadership to denounce inter-religious marriages, as they raise the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism. Yet this is not the dominant sentiment among Christian communities spread across different class and caste affiliations. For instance, Latin Catholics are not raising allegations of love jihad, he said.

The Latin Catholics are believed to be the descendants of Scheduled Caste and fishermen communities who had converted to Christianity during the colonial period. Pentecostals, the Church of South India (CSI), and other Protestant groups such as Lutherans and Calvinists form 5.9% of the Christian population in Kerala. They, too, have rejected the love jihad theory. Some bishops may be soft towards the BJP. All of them are facing stiff resistance within the community for their swindling of funds and misappropriation of assets meant for total welfare. In Kerala, no church leader can force the voters to change their political preferences," said Riju Thannikkaran, leader of the laity association of the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese. Whats more, not all leaders believe in the "love jihad" theory. "It is unlikely that the Catholics in Kerala will shift their political preference en masse to the BJP and Sangh Parivar, which are practising the politics of hate. There is no apparent need for such a shift," Fr Paul Thelakkatt, a senior priest of the Ernakulam-Angamaly diocese said. Dr Yuhanon Mar Meletius, bishop of the powerful non-Catholic Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, shares the same view. "Christians in Kerala are not a collective entity obeying the dictates of their religious heads," he pointed out. "In general, Kerala has a solid secular democratic foundation, and the people across religions coexist without falling prey to the sinister designs of the communal forces. Why should any particular religious group have regressive agendas to disrupt the existing peace," he said.

In general, Kerala has a solid secular democratic foundation, and the people across religions coexist without falling prey to the sinister designs of the communal forces. Why should any particular religious group have regressive agendas to disrupt the existing peace

Demographics and politics

The ageing of the Catholic population in Kerala and the migration of Catholic youth to Western countries like Canada in search of better education and employment is indeed a concern for the Church. This trend has resulted in a significant demographic shift within the community, with a larger proportion of elderly individuals left behind.

Church leaders raise objections to the scholarships and schemes offered to Muslim youth, as they perceive a bias in the LDF (Left Democratic Front) and UDF (United Democratic Front) governments' efforts to retain only young Muslims within the state's boundaries. While Kerala has a larger Muslim population compared to Christians, the issue of reservations for Muslims has been a longstanding matter in the state. Since 1936, there have been reservations for Muslims in government jobs and professional educational institutions, currently at 12 percent and 8 percent, respectively. According to a senior catholic priest in Kerala who preferred anonymity, if Kerala's Christians continued with their present negative growth trends, by 2050, half their population would be aged. Echoing the Hindutva stalwarts VD Savarkar and MS Golwalkar, the priest said Christian piety should procreate more and not limit the size of the family. "Catholic leaders view with fear the increasing ability of Muslims in the state to engage in collective bargaining with both the ruling Left Democratic Front and United Democratic Front," Rajesh Kamath, an assistant professor of Sociology at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, said. The CPI(M) coming to power in Kerala through an alliance with the Kerala Congress (M)  a Christian party  is a significant political development. Many activists and leaders of the Kerala Congress (M) have ties to the rubber-growing sector, which led to a humorous description of their political flexibility aligning with the Left camp as matching the elastic nature of natural rubber. Looking ahead, the BJP aspires to bring the Kerala Congress (M) into its camp, hoping for the Church's endorsement in the long run. The breakaway faction of the Kerala Congress (Jacob) is currently part of the opposition UDF, and the BJP also holds aspirations for it. The BJP aims to garner support from influential community groups like the Nair and Ezhava communities, seeking to establish a power-sharing arrangement with Christian-backed political parties.

"In Kerala, the Christian community in general always preferred a co-existence with their Hindu neighbours. Unlike in other parts of the country, mainstream Christian churches in Kerala are not promoting religious conversion. They have an effective cross-cultural relationship with Hindus and they even take part in temple festivals and religious events. So the emerging political alignment is not anything new. It's a continuation of the symbiotic relationship between Christians and Hindutva outfits that existed for long,''

"In Kerala, the Christian community in general always preferred a co-existence with their Hindu neighbours. Unlike in other parts of the country, mainstream Christian churches in Kerala are not promoting religious conversion. They have an effective cross-cultural relationship with Hindus and they even take part in temple festivals and religious events. So the emerging political alignment is not anything new. It's a continuation of the symbiotic relationship between Christians and Hindutva outfits that existed for long,'' said former BJP state president and former Mizoram governor Kummanam Rajasekharan. The BJP veteran maintains good relationships with bishops of different denominations.

The BJP-RSS leaders in Kerala may be anxious that minority community members, including Christians, do not always align with the political preferences advocated by their religious leaders. Similarly, the political inclinations of the Nairs and Ezhavas, two prominent community groups in Kerala, are not solely determined by their religious leaders. In Kerala, the CPI(M) and the CPI, as well as the Congress, enjoy relatively stable support bases within the LDF and UDF respectively. These alliances have supporters from various religious and caste groups. Kerala is known for having a significant number of individuals who prioritise politics and electioneering beyond caste and communal considerations. Many people in the state value factors such as governance, development, and policy issues over narrow religious or caste affiliations when making their political choices. In the last two months, BJP leaders in Kerala have been anxious about the unabated ethnic violence in Manipur targeting Kukis (Christians). The developments seem to have thrown a spanner in the BJPs efforts to woo the Christian voters in Kerala. Many Christian leaders in Kerala have made open statements saying that they are pained and hurt by the continuing bloodbath in Manipur and said that Christians in Manipur have reason to believe that the state and Union governments were protecting those who fanned the violence. Most recently, unrest in Manipur flared again after a video showing the bodies of two Meiti students, suspected to have been killed by Kuki militants, surfaced. The state has once again suspended mobile internet services even as a large demonstration of students was held in Imphal.

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India has told Canada that if it had anything specific and relevant, New Delhi will be open to looking at it, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said in his first comments about Canadas allegation linking agents of the Indian government with a killing in Canada. S Jaishankar in a conversation with former US ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster. (Reuters)

India, Jaishankar said, has also told Canada that this is not government of India policy.

Jaishankar also said there was a broader context. Canada had seen an increase in organised crime related to secessionist, extremism and violence, there had been threats against Indian diplomats and violence against diplomatic premises, and India had been badgering Canada and given it a lot of information about the organised crime leadership as well as terrorists.

Also Read: China never provided tenable explanation for 2020 border actions: Jaishankar

In a conversation with former US ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster, asked if he had a response to Canadas allegations, Jaishankar said, Yes, I do have a comment. I will share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians. One, we told the Canadians that this is not government of India (GOI) policy. Two, we told the Canadians, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it.

But Jaishankar then added that it was important to understand the context to get a complete picture. You have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to secessionist forces. Organised crime, extremism, violence, they are all very very deeply mixed up.

Jaishankar said, at a time when there is talk about specifics and information, it had been India that had actually been badgering Canadians. We have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified. There is an environment out there that is important to factor in if you have to understand whats going on out there, he said.

He said Indias concern has been that this environment had been very permissive due to political reasons.

We have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made interfering in our politics. And a lot of it is justified as saying thats how democracies work, Jaishankar said.

Asked whether India would cooperate if Canada provided specific pieces of evidence, Jaishankar said, If somebody gives me something specific, and it doesnt have to be restricted to Canada but if there is an incident thats an issue, as a government, I will look at it. Of course, I will look at it.

As the floor opened up, a reporter asked the minister if Canada had given India documents, including evidence of intercepted diplomatic communication that Indian officials were aware of the attack to which Jaishankar said, I have said that if somebody gives us specific or relevant information, we are prepared to look at it.

Asked again if he had received those intercepted communications, If I had, would I not be looking at it?, he said.

Asked for his response to reports that intelligence was shared among Five Eyes nations (an intelligence network of US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) about the killing, and FBIs reported warning to US Sikh leaders about credible threats they face, the minister said, I am not part of the Five Eyes. I am certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person.

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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
New Delhi More than a year after it affirmed controversial provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Supreme Court will on October 18 examine the correctness of its July 2022 judgment to reconsider if a person being arrested can be denied a copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), and whether the law can ascribe presumption of guilt on an accused as against the presumption of innocence. Supreme Court (File)

These two issues were flagged by the court on August 25, 2022, when it had agreed to consider reviewing the previous judgment.

On that day (October 18), we will consider whether the earlier judgment has covered the points being raised in these petitions and if it has, whether that view would need a re-look by a larger bench of five judges, a bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said on Tuesday.

The three-judge bench to consider a review of the previous judgment has been notified and the special bench includes justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi, justice Kaul said.

Addressing the lawyers appearing in a clutch of cases relating to validity of two specific provisions of PMLA, the court said the three-judge bench will scrutinise if the July 2022 judgment had examined the validity of the law in its entirety. In that matter, ultimately we will finalise the nitty-gritty on whether the earlier bench of three judges have covered all provisions or something has to be addressed, it added.

Justice Kaul further said that if the court on October 18 comes to a conclusion that the July 2022 verdict needs a re-look, a larger bench of five-judges will have to be constituted, since the previous judgment was also by a three-judge bench.

To be sure, if the matter goes to a five-judge bench, the entire judgment and not just the two issues flagged in the first order of review can be reconsidered by the larger bench.

The court was hearing petitions that have challenged the constitutional validity of Section 50 and 63 of PMLA, which pertain to the Enforcement Directorates power to summon witnesses, extract confession and press for punishment for giving false information. This batch will be taken up on November 20 after the special bench takes a call on the review of the main PMLA judgment, it said.

As it adjourned the case, the court was assured by ED that it will not press for the appearance of K Kavitha, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) legislator and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Raos daughter, for questioning in the alleged scam related to now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy until her petition against the summons and the agencys proceedings is examined.

The top court on August 25 issued notice to the Union government on the review petition filed by Congress MP Karti Chidambaram against the July 27, 2022, judgment. At the time, the court observed only the two issues relating to the supply of ECIR and the reverse onus of guilt on the accused would be reconsidered for the present and that the entire judgment was not up for review. An ECIR is the equivalent of an FIR in an ordinary criminal case.

Countering the move to reopen the previous judgment, the Union government at the time of the issuance of notice submitted that PMLA was in tune with the global structure and international obligations that the country had, and that the impugned judgment found favour with the legislative mandate.

Responding, the court had said that it was not preventing the government from acting against black money or money laundering but there were prima facie issues raised in the review petition that warranted adjudication. Prima facie, we are of the view that at least two of the issues raised in the instant petition require consideration, the court order stated on that day.

The July 2022 judgment by the top court had held that an ECIR does not have to be given to the accused since it is just an internal document of ED, and that informing a person about the grounds of arrest is sufficient.

Further, holding that money laundering cannot be considered less severe than terrorism, the July ruling upheld PMLA provisions which invoke the principle of reverse burden of proof, in contrast to the cardinal common law principle of innocent until proven guilty. In all PMLA proceedings including the bail proceedings, the statute lays down that the court will presume an accused to be involved in money laundering unless proved contrary.

The PMLA judgment affirmed the sweeping powers given to ED under the 2002 Act for summoning individuals, making arrests, conducting raids, and attaching properties of the suspects, saying that law enforcement agencies must be armed with an effective mechanism to safeguard the nations wealth from criminals.

The ruling came while dismissing a batch of over 200 petitions filed by several persons facing PMLA proceedings, including Karti Chidambaram, former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and former Ranbaxy vice-chairman Shivinder Mohan Singh. The pleas alleged that the law gives unbridled and arbitrary powers to ED in the teeth of constitutional guarantees of right to liberty, property, and right against self-incrimination. But the top court, in July, held that it is imperative for the State to frame such a stringent law by grouping the PMLA offenders as a separate class from ordinary criminals.

This judgment was criticised for a disquieting erosion of the safeguards to rights to life, liberty, property and against self-incrimination, especially at a time when a spate of ED raids and other actions against opposition leaders has mired the federal financial crime agency in allegations of politicisation.

Chidambarams petition enumerated 40 grounds to argue that the reasoning of the top court was flawed and erroneous and was contrary to settled decisions by the Supreme Court. He challenged the judgment for allowing retrospective operation of the law by allowing PMLA proceedings to be initiated against a person who is charged with an offence that later gets included as a predicate offence under the schedule attached to PMLA.

Among other grounds, it also questioned how the PMLA judgment was delivered without a finding on whether amendments in the law could be introduced under the parent Act by way of a money bill. This question is pending before a five-judge Constitution bench in the Roger Mathew vs South Indian Bank case of 2020. Later, several other petitions were also filed seeking a review of the 2022 judgment.

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The Dadasaheb Phalke award is but the latest honour bestowed upon Waheeda Rehman. The actress, long beloved for her understated elegance and her oeuvre of time-honoured films, is familiar with superlatives, but she remains, artlessly modest. Waheeda Rehman (HT Archive)

I am overwhelmed by the response my films still get. If you talk about me now, its because of these films that have gone on to acquire the status of classics, Rehman had revealed during an earlier interview. She had however fobbed off any talk of there being a method to creating great art. When we worked together on five films, neither Guru Duttji nor I realised that we were making something memorable. Goldie saab (director Vijay Anand) didnt know Guide was going to become a classic. If a filmmaker starts thinking, Main teer maaroonga (I will hit the bulls eye) he will never be able to craft a classic.

To Rehmans credit, she didnt leave it all to happenstance. In her 60-year-long career, she made several bold professional choices that have shaped her histrionic legacy. Right at the time of her introduction to Hindi cinema, she was offered two films by Guru Dutt  CID in which she played a negative role and Pyaasa in which she was the leading lady. Rehman didnt make the calculations of a conventional neophyte, taking up the grey-shaded role as a challenge. Fortuitously, she made a splash with her hit Kahin pe nigahein kahin pe nishana in her debut CID (1956). Pyaasa, which followed in 1957, escalated her to stardom, but even five successful years later, she gamely played the second lead to Meena Kumari in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). In a film that was all about the winter of discontent, she was the breath of spring air.

Inarguably, Rehman reached her zenith as a performer with her brave decision to play Rosie in Guide (1965). In this adaptation of R K Narayans novel, Waheeda played a vibrant young danseuse who leaves her old and neglectful husband to live-in with a tourist guide (played by Dev Anand who also produced the film) and pursue her passion for dance. Some of Waheedas producers were aghast at her decision to play an adulteress. Was she not committing career hara-kiri, they cautioned her, but Rehman recognised the depth of histrionic opportunity her character afforded.

Rehmans performance as Rosie charts her progress from passion to disappointment to self-realisation is one of the most memorable in the annals of Hindi cinema. Her exultation in hard-won freedom is evocatively captured by director Vijay Anand in the song Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai which has Rehman blithely tossing an earthen pot from a cart, metaphorically breaking all societal constraints.

Rehmans sensitivity towards her characters could be partly be attributed to her losing her father at an early age and her mother soon after she entered films. Her ability to inhabit her roles stemmed from her early training with mentor Guru Dutt, a cinematic genius. Rehmans first film appearance was in a dance number in the Telugu film, Rojulu Maraayi. But on a nondescript day in Hyderabad circa 1955, the teenaged Waheeda Rehman, accompanied by her mother, embarked on a meeting with filmmaker, Guru Dutt, which was to transform her life. I had never heard of him earlier and at our first meeting, we hardly spoke, Rehman reveals. Five months later, his office asked us to travel to Bombay for a screen test and I was signed on for a three-year contract.

The three-year contract on a monthly salary extended to almost eight years as Waheeda Rehman became an inextricably linked to Guru Dutts film legacy. Her great strength in classics like Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960) and Kagaz Ke Phool (1959) is her understated manner of expression, both in voice and physicality. The actress says, Guru Duttji would explain the scene and then leave it to the artist. Dont copy me, I perform like a man would, he would caution but I always preferred to underplay. Guru Duttji too never believed in excess.

Their collaboration was cut short by Guru Dutts death by suicide in 1964. By now a bright star in Hindi cinema, Waheeda Rehman went on to work Satyajit Ray and also won rave notices for her roles as a danseuse who is left intrigued by the appeal of true love in Mujhe Jeene Do (1963) and Teesri Kasam (1966). Three years later, she went fathoms deep to play the role of a nurse who risks crossing boundaries while caring for a mental patient in Khamoshi (1969).

After Rehmans marriage to actor and businessman Kamaljeet in 1974 (she had been paired opposite him in Shagoon a decade earlier), Waheeda Rehman moved to Bangalore and migrated playing character roles, often cast alongside her avowed admirer Amitabh Bachchan (Kabhi Kabhie, Adalat, Trishul, Namak Halal, Coolie). Quiet dignity and an ineffable warmth characterised her later performances.

Recent years have seen the widowed actress ensconced in Mumbai surrounded by her children and close friends like actresses Asha Parekh and Helen. While the accolades keep coming the actress who dug into the very soul of her characters has kept her own soul carefully intact and rooted in reality.

(Dinesh Raheja is an author, columnist and the former editor of Movie Magazine)
Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday chaired the 31st meeting of the Northern Zonal Council in Punjabs Amritsar and discussed a broad range of issues, including sharing of inter-state river waters, strengthening of the security system along the border and speedy investigation of cases of sexual offence or rape against women and children. Amritsar, Sep 26 (ANI): Union Minister for Home Affairs and Cooperation, Amit Shah in a group photograph during the 31st Meeting of the Northern Zonal Council in Amritsar on Tuesday. (ANI Photo) (PIB)

According to a statement by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), Shah discussed over 28 issues concerning the member states and the country as a whole during the meeting which was held amid tight security in the Punjab city.

The Northern Zonal Council comprises Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh and the UTs of Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Chandigarh.

During the meeting, the Union minister requested all the member states of the Northern Zonal Council to resolve their disputes related to water sharing with an open mind and mutual discussion, the MHA statement said. Currently, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan are locked in separate water disputes. Both the Punjab and Haryana governments spoke about the construction of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal which has been a bone of contention between the two states for several decades.

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar said: The Punjab government is continuously misleading on the construction of SYL. Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann strongly opposed the construction of the SYL canal, saying it can lead to serious law and order issues. The Sutlej River has already dried up and there is no question of sharing even a single drop of water from it, he said. Rather, water from Ganga and Yamuna should be supplied to Punjab through Sutlej river, he added. Mann also sought Shahs intervention in release of the Rural Development Funds, which, the former claimed, has been pending for a long time.

Besides this, Shah reiterated the Centres commitment to strengthen the security system along the border. Soon an anti-drone system will be deployed on our countrys borders. He asked all member states and Union territories to pay special attention to collective priority issues such as cooperative movement in the country, dropout rate of schoolchildren and malnutrition.

Delhi L-G V K Saxena raised the issue of air pollution, especially due to the burning of crop residues. Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu demanded a special relief package of 12,000 crore to the disaster-affected state and said that the government was trying to recover from one of the worst calamities ever witnessed, according to a statement from his office. Shah, according to MHA, assured all possible help to the state and said the whole country is standing by it in this hour of crisis.
Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri unveiled a spring collection on Tuesday that mixed masculine and feminine styles, with full, airy skirts in black mesh and solemn tailored jackets, throwing in faded fabrics, unfinished edges and tops baring one shoulder. Chiuri said she sought to revisit stereotypes of women while updating the codes of the fashion house in a contemporary manner, allowing women to choose what suits them. "It's a reflection about image, about the narrative and how we build -- in some way -- a stereotype in our mind," Chiuri told Reuters. Models wear creations for the Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2024 womenswear fashion collection presented at Paris Fashion Week. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Models wove around a darkened set lit up with bright yellow and pink screens showing artwork by Elena Bellantoni of advertisements since the 1960s, featuring caricatures of women's roles. "I used yellow and pink - colours that are used for highlighter pens - because I wanted to highlight the discourse that has put women in a cage for 70 years, Bellantoni told reporters. (Also read: Paris Fashion Week starts after Balmain robbery; can the brand recover from the theft of 50 outfits )

Chiuri used knitwear techniques to lighten the weight of a pleated skirt, and took on pointy-toed kitten heels, turning them into gladiator shoes, with rows of straps running up the leg, fastened with pearls. Intricate ivory knit dresses, an ample jean jacket and a ruffled dress came in faded colours, as if aged, while a dress was embellished with embroidered flowers.

"I really like this idea, to think how the material can change with time," said Chiuri, who designed a couture gown worn by Queen Camilla at a banquet at the Palace of Versailles for King Charles's state visit in France last week.

The LVMH-owned fashion label's show saw onlookers angle for photos of celebrities, including Blackpink member Jisoo, Charlize Theron, Elle Macpherson and Rosalia. Paris Fashion Week, which runs until Oct. 3, features dozens of labels including Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermes and Saint Laurent.

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Xi stresses construction of higher-level pilot free trade zones

Xinhua) 08:01, September 27, 2023

Vice Premier He Lifeng, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, conveys Xi Jinping's instruction on advancing the construction of pilot free trade zones (FTZs) and delivers a speech at a meeting marking the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China's first FTZ in Beijing, capital of China on Sept. 26, 2023. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to build higher-level pilot free trade zones (FTZs), urging FTZs to take the lead in breaking new ground and tackling tough challenges.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a recent instruction on advancing the construction of pilot FTZs.

FTZ construction has been a key strategic move of the CPC Central Committee to promote reform and opening-up in the new era, he said.

Over the past decade, FTZs have served as comprehensive test platforms for reform and opening-up by ushering in a large number of fundamental and trailblazing related policies and achieving many landmark and leading institutional innovation results, Xi said.

He highlighted strategies to upgrade FTZs on the country's new journey, based on a decade of experience, saying they should take the lead in breaking new ground, tackling tough challenges and undertaking broad and deep explorations.

He said FTZs can play further exemplary roles by committing to high-level opening-up, centering on institutional innovation, coordinating development and security, aligning with global economic and trade rules, promoting institutional opening-up, and promoting the innovative development of the whole industrial chain, among others.

Xi's instruction was conveyed by Vice Premier He Lifeng at a meeting held in Beijing on Tuesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China's first FTZ.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia has said that it will take all possible measures to ensure the protection of rights of Ruben Vardanyan, and his return. In this regard, the Armenian Foreign Ministry also expects support from Russia and other international partners, the foreign ministry told Armenpress in response to a query.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry has numerously emphasized the imperative of ensuring unimpeded movement of persons from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia through Lachin Corridor.
Milan Fashion Week was not even over and the fashionistas were already back in Paris on Monday for another 100-plus shows in the hectic womenswear season. The spring-summer 2024 collections in the French capital run until October 3, with 107 brands presenting, of which 67 are giving runway shows. All eyes are on Balmain's show on Wednesday night after the dramatic theft of 50 of its outfits. Armed robbers seized the clothes on their way from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Balmain's Paris headquarters, leaving creative director Olivier Rousteing racing to pull together a replacement collection. Models present creations by designer Anthony Vaccarello as part of his Spring/Summer 2024 Women's ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Saint Laurent during Paris Fashion Week.(REUTERS/Johanna Geron)

This week also sees final shows for two big name designers. Gabriela Hearst is leaving Chloe after fewer than three years. Her sustainable focus was critically acclaimed but did not bring a major boost to sales. It will also be the last show for Sarah Burton, who took over at Alexander McQueen following the founder's suicide in 2010. Paris is the last of the big four fashion weeks in the busy September calendar that sees back-to-back events in London, New York and Milan. (Also read: Paris Fashion Week: Dior unveils edgy elegance with frayed edges and shoulder-baring designs )

The biggest story this season has been a new creative director at Gucci. The debut by Sabato de Sarno in Milan on Friday was a relatively low-key affair but gave a boost to the share price of French parent company Kering, which has been struggling lately to keep up with its major rival, LVMH. The first day of Paris Fashion Week always focuses on emerging designers and there was excitement this year about avant-garde newcomer Marie Adam-Leenaerdt from Belgium, who brought a dash of much-needed humour to the opening show.

It opened with a chorus singing "Let's go to the beach!" only to follow it with a series of decidedly un-beachy grey, formal and structured outfits before introducing some more summery Barbie pink and sky-blue dresses. "There's something very Belgian about it," the 27-year-old designer told AFP backstage. It's important for me to play with the codes and have some paradoxes. Also showing on Monday was Victor Weinsanto, a former classical dancer who trained in fashion with Jean Paul Gaultier and loves to bring cabaret to the catwalk.

There were doses of humour -- opening with an extravagant wedding gown that he said was designed for "a woman who gets married entirely in Swarovski". But he also showed a more serious side, with structured and chic pieces alongside more offbeat items like hooded suit jackets.

Far from a newcomer, but long absent from the official line-up in Paris, is Pierre Cardin, which returned to the catwalk for the first time in 25 years last season and was back with a glamorous show on Monday night. The label's founder died in 2020 and his nephew Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin is currently in charge but is embroiled in a bitter succession dispute with family members who have accused each other of fraud and other crimes.

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Eid Milad-Un-Nabi 2023: The special time of the year is here. Eid Milad-Un-Nabi or Mawlid is celebrated by the Muslim community all over the world as the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad, the religious and social leader who founded Islamic faith. On this day, Muslims aid to the poor, do charity, deck up in new clothes, decorate their homes with colourful lights and spend the day with their near and dear ones. The feast is prepared at home and the food items are relished with family and friends together. Eid Milad-Un-Nabi 2023: Traditional recipes to include in your Eid feast(Unsplash)

As we gear up to celebrate Eid Milad-Un-Nabi for this year, here are a few traditional recipes that you must include in the Eid feast.

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Seekh Kebabs: This delicious food dish is prepared by mixing carrot, green peas, chicken, ginger garlic paste, gram flour, chaat masala, lemon and salt together. Then the mix is separated and wrapped around satay sticks. In a non-stick tawa, very less oil is heated and then the kebabs are seared till they turn golden brown. Then the kebabs are served with salad and green chutney.

Shahi Korma: For making Shahi Korma, chicken is marinated with salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, ginger-garlic paste, and lemon juice in a bowl. Then in a pan, the spices are cooked and then the chicken is mixed with yoghurt, onion paste, and cashew paste. With garam masala, the chicken is cooked in all the spices which add more flavour to the dish.

Baklava: This traditional sweet dish is believed to have originated in Turkey. For making baklava, the dough is made of flour, egg yolk, salt, olive oil and water. Then it is mixed with pistachios, butter and a simple sugar syrup.

Kheer: This is a very sought-after dessert for every Indian festival and for all the right reasons. For making kheer at home, we need to soak rice and keep. Then boil milk and add the soaked rice and keep stirring and cooking till the milk becomes half and thicker. Then dry fruits, sugar and ghee are added for more flavour.

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While the special session of Parliament celebrated the shift of proceedings to the new building, the big-ticket event was the passage of the much-debated legislation mandating reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. PREMIUM Members of Parliament voting on clauses of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi on September 20, 2023. (ANI/Sansad TV)

There are many, including Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, who has talked about the new building marking a new chapter for Indian democracy. But, the new structure cannot mask the many infirmities of parliamentary democracy in India. Some of these have been around since the founding of the Republic whereas many have been accentuated since 2014. Indeed, the frailties were on display in the way the special session was called and conducted.

The government enjoys the prerogative of calling a session. However, keeping the agenda under wraps to fuel speculation and potentially generate a greater political impact was antithetical to democratic norms. While the Womens Reservation Bill is a welcome step, the last-minute announcement of the legislation and rushed passage is symptomatic of the executive capture of Parliament and the institution being reduced to a rubber stamp.

Indeed, the control of the government in drawing up Parliaments agenda is one of the persistent weaknesses of the institution. The existing rules and procedures have meant that Opposition parties have virtually no role in setting the agenda of Parliament, which is decided by the government, as well as voicing its demands.

The Business Advisory Committee, which is an Indian innovation and goes back to the first Lok Sabha, has the final say in determining the parliamentary agenda. Some scholars have argued that control of the plenary timetable is critical to the governments agenda-setting in Parliament and this is very true in India.

The government usually has a majority in the Business Advisory Committee, which comprises 15 members, including the Speaker who chairs it. Though, in principle, agenda setting and allocation of time is meant to be unanimous, in practice, the government has significant control in determining parliamentary business aided usually by a pliant Speaker.

A former parliamentarian has gone so far as to say that Parliament had practically no role in deciding when and for how long it will meet to conduct its own business. One way to bring in the Opposition is to have Opposition days, as is the practice in the United Kingdom and Canada, where about 20 days are put aside every session for the Opposition to set the agenda. In India, the allotment every Friday during normal sessions for private members Bills has had little success.

The special session was also tailored in such a way as to also maximise the mileage for PM Modi in the run-up to the general elections. It has often been pointed out that the PM is a reluctant parliamentarian who only uses special occasions to address Parliament and by default, the nation.

This session once again validated this with the PM speaking on two successive days in the old Parliament building and then again in the Lower and Upper houses of the new building. While the content of the speeches differed somewhat with an obvious focus on Indias parliamentary journey, much of it was on the governments achievements and very much in election campaign mode.

The unanimous passage of the Womens Reservation Bill  or Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam to use the cumbersome official title  in the special session was historic. The implementation timetable though is a protracted one since the 33% quota for women will only come into effect after the Census results, which have been inexplicably delayed, are published and a delimitation exercise carried out. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had committed to passing the womens reservation Bill in its 2014 and 2019 election manifestos, has also waited till the end of its second term to do so possibly with an eye on its impact on women voters in the next general election.

During the debate on the legislation, several Opposition parties pointed out these anomalies as well as the necessity for reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) within the womens quota. However, the government ignored those demands and asserted that delimitation is necessary for identifying reserved seats for women and that the quota will be implemented only after 2029. The unanimity and decorum that marked the session were marred though by the communal comments made on the floor of the House by BJP Member of Parliament (MP) Ramesh Bidhuri against a Muslim member.

The quotas for women is decidedly a step in the right direction. The low representation of women in the Indian Parliament has been one of its glaring deficits. Though womens representation has risen from 4.4% in the first Lok Sabha to a little over 14% in the current one, the share of women MPs in Parliament is still much lower than the current global average of 27% and the Asian average of 21%.

In fact, India currently ranks 141st among 185 countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Unions global rankings for womens representation in parliaments with Indias neighbours, such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, ranking higher.

The low numbers have a lot to do with both the BJP and the Congress fielding few women candidates in elections. In the 2019 general election, the proportion of women candidates fielded by the two parties was 13 and 12% respectively.

The reluctance of political parties, with the exception of the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal, to nominate women candidates is at a time when the gender gap in voting has narrowed considerably. Notably, the countries with the highest political representation of women are the ones where political parties have instituted internal quotas for women. Since this has not happened in India, the only way forward was to mandate reservation for women in the legislature.

Ronojoy Sen is with the National University of Singapore and author of House of the People: Parliament and the Making of Indian Democracy. The views expressed are personal
Apple Inc.s lucrative agreement to use Alphabet Inc.s Google as the default search engine for the iPhone includes a provision that the two tech giants will support and defend the deal against government scrutiny, a top Apple executive said at an antitrust trial. A cursor moves over Google's search engine page.(AP)

Their longtime contract was renegotiated in 2016 to include the provision, Apples Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue disclosed Tuesday in a Washington federal court, where the US government is pressing its claim that Google operates a monopoly in the search business.

Cue, the architect of the most recent version of the agreement, said the provision for a joint defense was added at Googles request. He said it was handled by company lawyers so he couldnt speak directly to why it was included. Around that time, the European Union was investigating Googles dominance in online search.

During his testimony, the executive defended Apples arrangement with its tech rival, saying it was the best choice for customers to have Google as the default search engine.

There certainly wasnt a valid alternative we would have gone to at the time, Cue said. I dont know what we would have done if the deal had collapsed, he said.

Google first became the default option in the Safari browser in 2002. That deal has been revised several times. Cue said the contract was extended in 2021, after the Justice Department filed its initial case against Googles search dominance the year before.

Google pays Apple billions of dollars for this prominent position on products like the iPhone, making the agreement of particular interest to the government. The question before the judge in the antitrust trial is whether the search giant pushed its way onto Apple devices at the expense of competitors.

In his testimony, Cue stressed that Apple sees no need to develop its own search tool because Google clearly is the best option. That differs from the companys approach in other areas: It competes with Google in mapping software and voice assistants, as well as operating systems for phones and computers.

The Justice Department displayed an email from 2016 in which Cue told Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook that Google CEO Sundar Pichai was not agreeing to Apples proposed revenue share. When the Justice Departments attorney asked Cue whether Apple would have walked away from the negotiation, Cue said he didnt seriously consider it, but Apple might have created its own search engine.

Part of Cues testimony Tuesday was closed to the public because it involved internal company information that Apple and Google want to keep secret.

Cue was expected to testify behind closed doors about Apples search arrangements with other companies, which provide the non-default options built into the Safari internet browser, according to a person familiar with the planned testimony. That includes Microsoft Corp.s Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia. Similar to its agreement with Google, Apple gets a slice of the advertising revenue generated when users select those search engines as their main option in Safari.

Last week, Apple machine learning chief John Giannandrea testified as well. The executive, who led search at Google before joining Apple in 2018, pointed to a new feature in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17  the latest software that runs iPhones and iPads  that lets users assign a different default search engine for private browsing.

That means Apple users can switch between Google and another option more easily, according to Cue. We like our products to come out of the box and work where it feels like magic, he said. However, Apple doesnt track how many customers actually make the change to a non-Google search engine, because of privacy concerns, Cue said.

The case is US v. Google, 20-cv-3010, US District Court, District of Columbia.

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Google, everyone's favourite search engine, turned 25 years old on Wednesday and is celebrating its birthday with a doodle. Taking a walk down memory lane, the company showcased different doodles on its birthday over the years. The latest one comes with a GIF which turns Google into G25gle - marking the 25 years. Once you click on the logo, you can see confetti on the page. Google doodle

Todays Doodle celebrates Googles 25th year. And while here at Google were oriented towards the future, birthdays can also be a time to reflect. Lets take a walk down memory lane to learn how we were born 25 years ago, the company wrote in its blog.

It added, Much has changed since 1998  including our logo as seen in todays Doodle  but the mission has remained the same: to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and usefulThank you for evolving with us over the past 25 years. We cant wait to see where the future takes us, together.

Google's history

Google was founded by doctoral students Sergey Brin and Larry Page who met in Stanford Universitys computer science program in the late 90s. The two soon learned that they shared a similar vision - to make the World Wide Web a more accessible place. Google was founded on September 4, 1998, and on September 27, 1998, Google Inc. was officially born.

While the company observed its birthday on September 4 for the first seven years, it decided to shift the celebrations to September 27 to coincide with the announcement of the record number of pages that this search engine was indexing.

The worldwide search engine's current CEO is Sundar Pichai, who succeeded Page on October 24, 2015. Page, meanwhile, took over the same position at Alphabet Inc. On December 3, 2019, Pichai became the CEO of Alphabet as well.

Google doodle history

The history of the doodle dates back to 1998 - a month before Google was founded. The very first doodle was on the long-running Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai's note

Last month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai penned a note as a blog post regarding the company celebrating its 25th birthday. Reflecting on the first quarter century, he shared some thoughts on the opportunities with AI to do things that matter on an even bigger scale.

This month, Google will celebrate our 25th birthday. Its a huge privilege to reach this milestone, made possible by the people who use our products and challenge us to keep innovating, the hundreds of thousands of Googlers past and present who have given their talents to building those products, and our partners who believe in our mission as much as we doIts a time for some gratitude, and a moment to reflect, Pichai wrote.

He added, An essential truth of innovation is that the moment you push the boundary of a technology, it soon goes from extraordinary to ordinary. Thats why Google has never taken our success for granted.

Pichai's note further read, Search is still at the core of our mission, and its still our biggest moonshot with so much more to doOf course, Google today is more than a search box. We have 15 Google products that each serve more than half a billion people and businesses, and six that serve more than 2 billion users each."

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Attempts to hack the iPhone of a presidential candidate in Egypt have been linked to the computer networking company Sandvine Inc., whose equipment has previously been used by Belarus and other countries to censor the internet. Ahmed Eltantawy, a prominent opposition politician, was repeatedly targeted with spyware between May and September after he announced his plans to run in Egypts 2024 presidential elections.(REUTERS)

Ahmed Eltantawy, a prominent opposition politician, was repeatedly targeted with spyware between May and September after he announced his plans to run in Egypts 2024 presidential elections, according to an analysis from the University of Torontos Citizen Lab. After conducting a forensic examination of the device, the researchers concluded with high confidence that the Egyptian government was behind the attempted hacks.

His phone blocked the hacking attempts because it was in a lockdown mode, but it turned out he had been successfully infected two years earlier with a spyware known as Predator, manufactured by North Macedonian surveillance technology firm Cytrox, the researchers found. That hack was carried out via a text message containing a link to a Predator website, according to the researchers.

In the attempted hacks, Eltantawy was lured into clicking links contained in fake security alerts that purported to be from the messaging service WhatsApp. His phone was silently redirected to a malicious website, and spyware was supposed to be injected onto his phone with the help of technology sold by Sandvine, according to Citizen Labs report.

The use of mercenary spyware to target a senior member of a countrys democratic opposition after they had announced their intention to run for president is a clear interference in free and fair elections, Citizen Lab wrote in its report.

Sandvine does not make, sell or collaborate with spyware or malware vendors, according to an emailed statement provided to Bloomberg, which also said its products were not capable of injecting malware or spyware. The statement referred instead to a technique called packet redirection, which it said was a capability sold by all major vendors in the space and used millions of times a day.

Sandvine makes products for telecom companies that enable the internet to function and to ensure that citizens have high quality access to information worldwide, according to the statement.

Representatives from Cytrox and the Egyptian government didnt respond to requests for comment.

Sandvine, originally founded in Canada, was acquired by San Francisco-based private equity firm Francisco Partners and combined with Procera Networks in 2017, in a deal worth $444 million. The company makes equipment, known as deep packet inspection technology, that can be used to manage massive flows of internet traffic passing between networks. The technology can be customized to block out spam and viruses. But conversely, it can also be deployed to blacklist millions of websites and messaging apps so that they cannot be accessed, according to the companys documents.

Two former Sandvine employees said the companys systems could also be configured by customers to target particular users with advertising, or to redirect them to malicious websites that deploy spyware such as Predator.

Bill Marczak, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, said the onus was now on Sandvine to turn off the capability that its Egyptian customers allegedly used to try to deploy spyware. The company needs to make it clear to its employees that they should not enable this, he said

Sandvine has made dozens of sales in Egypt in recent years, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The documents state that since 2019 the company has sold technology totaling more than $30 million to state-owned Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Egypt, and to government agencies including Egypts Ministry of Defense and the National Telecom Regulation Authority. One of Sandvines largest ever single sales was a deal in 2020 totaling more than $10 million to Telecom Egypt, according to the documents.

Telecom Egypt, the Ministry of Defense and the National Telecom Regulation Authority didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Several attempted spyware infections of Eltantawys iPhone occurred while he was connected to Vodafone Egypts network, according to Citizen Labs report. In addition to providing Vodafone Egypt with deep-packet inspection equipment, between 2020 and 2021 Sandvine also provided the telecom firm with on-site training in Egypt, which educated local telecom employees on how to use the technology, internal Sandvine documents show. A representative for the Vodafone Group didnt respond to requests for comment.

Bloomberg News previously reported that Egypt was one of at least a dozen countries where Sandvines equipment had been used by governments to censor content on the internet. Researchers from the Qurium Media Foundation, a digital rights organization, found in September 2020 that Sandvines technology had been used to help the Egyptian government block more than 600 websites, including 100 news and media websites. Sandvine didnt address the sales or the alleged censorship in its emailed statement.

In Belarus, Sandvine previously sold its equipment to a state-controlled internet agency, which used the technology in August 2020 to block social media platforms, messaging apps and news websites amid nationwide protests over a disputed presidential election, Bloomberg News reported. After public protests and inquiries from US senators, Sandvine announced that it would no longer work with Belarus, saying that it abhorred the use of technology to suppress the free flow of information resulting in human rights violations.

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If there is one point on which all can agree, it is that no modern household can run without a washing machine. In India, that would be the case if you do not have access to a domestic help. A washing machine is indispensable for several compelling reasons. First, it saves precious time and effort by automating the labour-intensive task of washing clothes. In today's fast-paced world, this is a convenience one can't do without. It allows families to balance work, chores and leisure. Second, a washing machine provide superior cleaning performance, effectively removing stains and dirt thanks to various features like access to hot water etc. Lastly, washing machine enhances hygiene by ensuring that clothes and linens are thoroughly sanitized, especially important during health crises like the Covid pandemic. A small washer is an ideal solution for less laundry loads.

In recent times, smaller washing machines are getting very popular, particularly in urban centres. There are many reasons that play a role here. First, space constraints in flats, apartments and homes make compact appliances a necessity. Smaller washing machines fit into tight spaces, allowing urban dwellers to maximize their living areas. Second, they are consume less energy and are water-efficient and hence more suited for eco-conscious urban lifestyles. Since a good number dwellers are bachelors/spinsters and singles' households, such washing machines are ideal as they cater to smaller laundry loads. As these compact washing machines are more suitable for smaller loads, they also promote efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

There's yet another category of people who may feel the need to opt for smaller washing machines or washers. Those of us who have to deal with baby clothes or soiled linen of the elderly. Overall, a washing machine is a cornerstone of modern living, simplifying daily routines and improving overall quality of life.

If you are convinced about the usefulness of such washers, then we have a list from Amazon curated just for you. Do take a look and if any one of them appeal to you, add them to your cart.

1. Hilton 3 kg Single-Tub Washing Machine with Spin Dryer Portable Single Tub Washer

If s your reular laundry requierement is about 2.5 Kg to 3 Kgs, then the Hilton 3 kg Single-Tub Washing Machine with Spin Dryer is an ideal choice for you. This a portable laundry powerhouse, perfect for travel and small spaces, is a this single tub washer that offers a versatile laundry solution. With its lightweight and efficient design, it provides convenient washing and spin-drying capabilities, making it an excellent choice for those on the go or with limited space. Say goodbye to laundry hassles and enjoy clean clothes wherever you are. Its compact blue design is soothing to the eye as well.

Specifications of Hilton 3 kg Single-Tub Washing Machine:

Capacity: 3 kg

Washing Time: 15 minutes

Spin Time: 5 minutes

Dimensions: 15.7 x 15.7 x 26.6 inches

Weight: 12.13 lbs

Pros Cons Portable and lightweight for travel and small spaces Limited capacity suitable for small loads only Efficient washing and spin-drying in a single tub May not offer the same cleaning power as full-sized machines

B0BVBR3RP3

2. DMR SHB-46 Shoes Washing Machine

The DMR SHB-46 Shoes Washing Machine is a versatile solution for your laundry needs. Though originally designed for washing and cleaning of shoes, it can easily be adapted for clothes as well. With a washing capacity of 4.6 kg and a spin-drying capacity of 2 kg, it offers efficient cleaning and drying in a single compact unit. This machine's unique design makes it suitable for maintaining your footwear and clothing, ensuring they stay fresh and clean. Say goodbye to hand washing, and enjoy the convenience and versatility of this compact washer in your laundry routine.

Specifications of DMR SHB-46 Shoes Washing Machine:

Washing Capacity: 4.6 kg

Spin-Drying Capacity: 2 kg

Dimensions: 46 x 42 x 56 cm

Weight: 7.5 kg

Voltage: 220-240V

Pros Cons Dual functionality for shoes and clothes Limited washing and drying capacity Compact and space-saving design May not be suitable for larger loads or heavy-duty laundry tasks.

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3. IFB 6.5 Kg 5 Star Top Load Washing Machine Aqua Conserve

The IFB 6.5 Kg 5 Star Top Load Washing Machine, model TL-REW 6.5KG AQUA is a powerful laundry option that blends performance and efficiency seamlessly. Thanks to its generous 6.5 kg capacity, it can handle the easily laundry needs of a medium-sized family effortlessly. This is a top-load washing machine, which means that elderly and children can also use it. It features Aqua Conserve technology for water-efficient washing even in areas with hard water. The pristine white finish adds elegance and beauty to your laundry area. It comes with a 4-year comprehensive warranty for peace of mind.

Specifications of IFB 6.5 Kg 5 Star Top Load Washing Machine:

Capacity: 6.5 kg

Energy Efficiency: 5-star rating

Washing Method: Top Load

Hard Water Wash: Yes

Warranty: 4 years comprehensive

Pros Cons Ample 6.5 kg capacity for medium-sized families Top-load design may not be as water-efficient as front-load models Energy-efficient with a 5-star rating and hard water wash capability Premium features may come at a higher price point.

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Also read: Best top load washing machines in India: Top 10 options to consider

4. Whirlpool 7 Kg 5 Star Royal Fully-Automatic Top Loading Washing Machine

The Whirlpool 7 Kg 5 Star Royal Fully-Automatic Top Loading Washing Machine, WHITEMAGIC ROYAL 7.0 GENX, seamlessly combines convenience with technology. This too is a top-loading washing machine and comes with a capacious 7 kg capacity. Small to medium-sized families will find a lot of utility using it. With a sleek gray finish, it adds a touch of class an sophistication to any laundry space. Equipped with Hard Water Wash technology and ZPF (Zero Pressure Fill) Technology, it ensures efficient cleaning even in areas with challenging water conditions. Enjoy a hassle-free laundry experience with this fully-automatic washing machine.

Specifications of Whirlpool 7 Kg 5 Star Royal Fully-Automatic Top Loading Washing Machine:

Capacity: 7 kg

Energy Efficiency: 5-star rating

Washing Method: Top Load

Hard Water Wash: Yes

ZPF Technology: Yes

Pros Cons Spacious 7 kg capacity suitable for families Top-loading machines may use more water compared to front-load counterparts Efficient cleaning in hard water conditions with ZPF and Hard Water Wash technology Higher initial cost compared to semi-automatic machines.

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5. MILEX Mini Foldable Washing Machine with Drain Basket || Foldable Small Washer

If you love to travel and yet want to have clean set of clothes always, then opt for MILEX Mini Foldable Washing Machine with Drain Basket. It is an ideal portable laundry solution for on-the-go cleaning. This compact washer is perfect for camping, traveling, or washing small items like underwear and baby clothes. It has a convenient foldable design, making it easy to store and carry. With a built-in spin dryer, it ensures your clothes are clean and ready in no time, even when you're away from home. Simplify your laundry routine with this portable and versatile washing machine.

Specifications of MILEX Mini Foldable Washing Machine:

Capacity: Not specified

Foldable Design: Yes

Spin Dryer: Yes

Suitable for: Underwear, baby clothes, small items

Portability: Ideal for camping and travelling

Pros Cons Compact and foldable design for portability Limited capacity for small loads only Includes a spin dryer for quick drying May not be suitable for larger or heavily soiled items.

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6. Samsung 8.5 Kg 5 Star Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine

The Samsung 8.5 Kg 5 Star Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine (model WT85B4200GD/TL) in dark gray is an ideal laundry choice for large families, thanks to its 8.5 Kg capacity. It is designed to simplify your laundry tasks effectively. This is a semi-automatic washing machine; those of us who are price conscious and yet want to easy our laundry buren will fin great utility using this washer. It combines convenience and efficiency, featuring a 5-star energy rating for cost-effective operation. Its dark gray finish adds a touch of sophistication to your laundry area, making it an excellent addition to modern homes.

Specifications of Samsung 8.5 Kg 5 Star Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine:

Capacity: 8.5 kg

Energy Efficiency: 5-star rating

Washing Method: Semi-Automatic Top Load

Colour: Dark Gray

Spin Speed: Not specified

Pros Cons Large 8.5 kg capacity ideal for big families Semi-automatic machines require manual intervention for transferring clothes 5-star energy rating for efficient operation May occupy more space compared to fully automatic models.

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7. Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine

The Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine (model MA200W80/G-IN) in dark grey is a perfect combination of style and functionality. Thanks to a generous 8 kg capacity, it easily works to address the laundry needs of medium to large families. Its full metal body construction ensures durability and longevity, while the soft-closing lid adds a touch of convenience and safety. This top-loading washing machine combines efficient performance with energy-saving features, making it an excellent choice for modern households.

Specifications of Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine:

Capacity: 8 kg

Energy Efficiency: 5-star rating

Washing Method: Top Load

Colour: Dark Grey

Soft Closing Lid: Yes

Pros Cons Ample 8 kg capacity suitable for medium to large families Top-load design may use more water compared to front-load models Full metal body construction for durability Higher initial cost compared to some other top-load washers.

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Also read: Best washing machine in India: Top 10 options of September 2023 to consider

8. Devta Mini Portable Washing Machine - Folding Washing Machine - Bucket Washer for Clothes Laundry

The Devta Mini Portable Washing Machine is an excellent choice for on-the-go laundry if you love the outdoors or have to deal with living in a small space. Its innovative small design ensures that it is portable, and hence can be an ideal companion during camping and travelling as well. This compact bucket washer is perfect for washing underwear and small garments. It's collapsible, saving valuable storage space when not in use. Experience hassle-free laundry wherever you are, without the need for a traditional washing machine. a game-changer

Specifications of Devta Mini Portable Washing Machine:

Capacity: Not specified

Portable and collapsible design

Suitable for underwear and small garments

Ideal for camping, RVs, travel, and small living spaces

Manual operation

Pros Cons Highly portable and collapsible for easy storage Limited capacity for small loads only No need for electricity, making it suitable for off-grid use Manual operation may require more effort and time.

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9. Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine

The Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine (model MA200W80/G-IN) in elegant dark grey is a great combination of style and functionality. Its capacious 8 kg capacity is perfect for medium to large families, ensuring you can complete your laundry efficiently. With a full metal body construction, it is built to last, while the soft-closing lid adds convenience and safety to your laundry routine. This top-loading washing machine is designed to deliver efficient performance while conserving energy, making it an excellent choice for modern households seeking both reliability and aesthetics.

Specifications of Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine:

Capacity: 8 kg

Energy Efficiency: 5-star rating

Washing Method: Top Load

Colour: Dark Grey

Soft Closing Lid: Yes

Pros Cons Spacious 8 kg capacity suitable for medium to large families Top-loading design may use more water compared to front-load models Full metal body construction ensures durability Initial cost may be higher compared to some other top-load washers.

B096NQHXL7

10. DMR Model No DMR 30-1208 Single Tube Top Load Portable 3 kg 4 Star Mini Washing Machine

Do you have a singles' household or are a small family of two - three persons? Then you are sure to find great utility by investing in the DMR Model No DMR 30-1208, a compact and portable washing solution designed to simplify your laundry needs. This mini washing machine with a 3 kg washing capacity and a 1.5 kg spin dryer basket is perfect for small loads, making it ideal for single individuals or small families. Its 4-star energy rating ensures efficient performance while conserving electricity. The sleek black design adds a touch of grace and beauty to your laundry area. Plus, it comes with a 1-year free spare supply warranty, providing peace of mind and reliability for your laundry needs.

Specifications of DMR Model No DMR 30-1208 Washing Machine:

Washing Capacity: 3 kg

Spin-Drying Capacity: 1.5 kg

Energy Efficiency: 4-star rating

Washing Method: Top Load

Warranty: 1-year free spare supply

Pros Cons Compact and portable, suitable for small spaces Limited capacity for small loads only Energy-efficient with a 4-star rating Manual operation may require more effort and time.

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3 best features for you

Product Name Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Hilton 3 kg Single-Tub Washing Machine Portable and compact design Single tub for washing and spin drying Ideal for travel and small loads DMR SHB-46 Shoes Washing Machine Suitable for both shoes and clothes 4.6 kg washing and 2 kg spin drying capacity Versatile and space-saving IFB 6.5 Kg 5 Star Top Load Washing Machine Aqua Conserve 6.5 kg capacity with 5-star energy rating Aqua Conserve technology for water efficiency Hard water wash and 4-year warranty Whirlpool 7 Kg 5 Star Royal Fully-Automatic Top Loading Machine 7 kg capacity with 5-star energy rating ZPF Technology for faster fill even with low water Royal design with hard water wash MILEX Mini Foldable Washing Machine Mini and foldable design Spin dryer for washing underwear and baby clothes Perfect for camping and travel Samsung 8.5 Kg 5 Star Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine 8.5 kg capacity with 5-star energy rating Semi-automatic operation with dark gray finish Suitable for large loads and dark gray color Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine 8 kg capacity with 5-star energy rating Full metal body construction Soft-closing lid for safety Devta Mini Portable Washing Machine Compact and portable design Bucket washer for clothes laundry Ideal for small spaces and travel Midea 8KG 5 Star Topload Washing Machine (Duplicate Entry) 8 kg capacity with 5-star energy rating Full metal body construction Soft-closing lid for safety DMR Model No DMR 30-1208 Single Tube Top Load Portable Washing Machine Portable 3 kg mini washing machine 1.5 kg spin dryer basket included 1-year free spare supply warranty

Best value for money

The best value for money among the mentioned products is the "IFB 6.5 Kg 5 Star Top Load Washing Machine Aqua Conserve." It combines a 6.5 kg washing capacity with a 5-star energy rating, ensuring efficient performance while saving on electricity bills. The Aqua Conserve technology maximizes water efficiency, making it ideal for areas with water scarcity. Additionally, it comes with a 4-year comprehensive warranty, providing peace of mind and excellent value.

Best overall product

The "Samsung 8.5 Kg 5 Star Semi Automatic Top Load Washing Machine" stands out as the best overall product among the options. With its substantial 8.5 kg capacity, 5-star energy rating, and semi-automatic operation, it caters to various laundry needs efficiently. Its dark gray finish adds a touch of elegance, making it suitable for modern homes. This washing machine combines performance, energy efficiency, and a sleek design for an excellent overall package.

How to buy the best clothes washer in India

To buy the best clothes washer in India, consider these factors. Firstly, determine your budget and laundry needs, including capacity and features. Research reputable brands and models, reading reviews for insights into performance and durability. Check for energy efficiency ratings, water-saving features, and washing modes suitable for Indian conditions. Assess the available space in your home and choose between top-loading and front-loading machines accordingly. Additionally, look for warranty options and after-sales service. Lastly, shop during festive sales for potential discounts. Making an informed decision ensures you find the perfect washer for your requirements.

Disclaimer: At Hindustan Times, we help you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and products. Hindustan Times has an affiliate partnership, so we may get a part of the revenue when you make a purchase. We shall not be liable for any claim under applicable laws, including but not limited to the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, with respect to the products. The products listed in this article are in no particular order of priority.

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President Joe Bidens dog, Commander, bit yet another Secret Service agent. The incident took place on September 25, and the officer was treated at the scene. President Joe Biden's dog Commander, a German shepherd, walking outside the West Wing of the White House.(AP)

USSS chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi told CNN, Yesterday around 8 pm, a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer came in contact with a First Family pet and was bitten. The officer was treated by medical personnel on the complex.

Guglielmi also told CNN that the officer is now doing better.

This isn't the first time that Commander has been involved with attacked an agent. Earlier, the German Shepherd bit at least 10 secret agents, according to internal emails shared by conservative watchdog- Judicial Watch. (Also Read: Biden's dogs sent home after 'biting incident' with White House security agent: Report)

As per the emails, Commander has had trouble adapting to his new surroundings at the White House, where he moved in 2021, and Delaware, where the Bidens have two homes.

In November of 2022, an officer was bit by Commander on the arm and thigh. He was later sent to a hospital for treatment. A week after this incident, Commander bit another agent while he was out on a walk with Jill Biden. From October 2022 to January 2023, there have been six other biting incidents involving Commander.

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A 34-year-old Indian national died in an accident at a construction site here, officials said. There have been at least 19 work-related deaths in Singapore so far in 2023.(Bloomberg/ Representative)

The incident occurred in the afternoon on Sunday in Pasir Ris Industrial Drive 1, when a steel stand that was supporting a cable drum gave way, the Ministry of Manpower said on Tuesday.

A cable drum is a round, cylindrical object used to carry wound-up wires and cables, reported The Straits Times.

The worker was taken to the Changi General Hospital, where he died of injuries, the officials said, adding that he was employed by Alliance E&C.

Hong Hock Global, a construction and roadworks company occupying the site, has been ordered to stop all cable-laying work there.

"As a general safety measure, the cable drum and its supporting structure must be stable and secured during cabling works," the ministry said, adding that it is investigating the accident.

There have been at least 19 work-related deaths in Singapore so far in 2023.

In comparison, there were a total of 30 workplace fatalities in 2020, 37 in 2021 and 46 in 2022.

Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad said the maximum fine for breaches of certain workplace safety and health laws that could result in death or serious injury will be raised from SGD20,000 to SGD50,000 to further improve deterrence.
Chanting from one to 43, relatives of students abducted nine years ago counted out the number of the missing youths as they marched through Mexico City Tuesday to demand answers to one of Mexico's most infamous human rights cases. Demonstrators hold a protest to mark the 9th anniversary of the 43 Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College's students' disappearance, in Mexico City, Mexico September 26.(REUTERS)

With President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's term ending next year, family members face not only the prospect of a ninth year of not knowing what happened to their sons but fears that the next administration will start the error-plagued investigation over from scratch yet again.

In 2014, a group of students were attacked by municipal police in the southern city of Iguala, Guerrero, who handed them over to a local drug gang that apparently killed them and burned their bodies. Since the Sept. 26 attack, only three of their remains have been identified.

After an initial coverup, last year a government truth commission concluded that local, state and federal authorities colluded with the gang to murder the students in what it called a state crime.

Ulises Gutierrez Solano joined the march in honor of his brother, Aldo, a student who survived the initial kidnapping but was left in a vegetative state since 2014 after police shot him in the head while the others students were being abducted.

This is an atrocity to humanity, to society, said Solano. How could they do so much harm to so many people?

Lopez Obrador had pledged to solve the case and recent years have seen a painstakingly slow release of documents from the abduction, as well as a slew of arrests. But activists and human rights organizations say the government has not done enough to atone for the murders, investigate exactly what happened, and punish the culprits.

Tensions rose just hours before the march, when the families and their lawyers rejected a series of documents the Mexican government offered to make public, claiming the specific military files they requested months ago were not included. The army said it didn't have those files.

Since August the families have been asking, but they just gave us part of the information said Nicholas Mendez, leading a group of students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Thats worrying because were changing government next year.

Lopez Obradors six-year term ends in September 2024 and, Mendez feared, petitioning a new president for information could mean starting from scratch.

We cant have another six years of nothing, Mendez said.

In a press conference Tuesday morning, Mexico's president insisted all of the relevant documents had been released.

We have principles; we have ideals, and we speak the truth, Lopez Obrador said, promising also to publish government social media messages about the case.

The students from a radical teachers' college had travelled to Iguala to hijack buses to get to a protest in Mexico City, but were intercepted by corrupt police linked to the Guerreros Unidos gang. Iguala officials thought the students were going to disrupt a local political event, and one of the hijacked buses may have carried a drug shipment.

Recent years have seen a run of government and army officials from the time arrested, but no more remains have been found.

Then-Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, and the head of his anti-kidnapping unit have been arrested for their initial, botched investigation following the abductions. Almost a dozen military personnel, including the commander of the area where the students were abducted, have also been arrested.

After evidence used to assemble an expert report in August was undermined, the cases chief prosecutor, Omar Gomez Trejo, resigned. Just this year a party from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission which has been investigating the incident since 2015 also withdrew from Mexico.

As families marched through the city, they passed barricades erected to protect monuments. The march was peaceful, notwithstanding isolated incidents of violence when demonstrators attacked and damaged some stores, according to local media.

At one traffic circle, activists had plastered posters in remembrance not just of the 43 students, but of all Mexicos missing.

The Ayotzinapa atrocity has taken on symbolic significance for a country with more than 110,000 missing people.

Pablo Hector Gonzalez has traveled from Guerrero every year to join the march.

After nine years, in force, we will insist until the truth appears and until all the guilty are punished, he said.
Canadian Sikhs staged protests outside India's diplomatic missions this week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there may be a link between New Delhi and the murder of a SIkh leader in British Columbia

Canada's accusations have sparked tit-for-tat retaliation, with each nation expelling diplomats and New Delhi suspending visas for Canadians.

The diplomatic dispute escalated between Ottawa and New Delhi after Trudeau said his government was investigating credible allegations of a potential link between Indian government agents and the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June.

Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader who had called for an independent Sikh state in India, was fatally shot outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia.

The Indian government has denied Trudeaus accusations as absurd and called on Canada to curb the activities of individuals it describes as terrorists, referring to Sikh separatists whom it views as a security threat.

Peaceful protests are a key democratic right, however, we encourage Sikhs to remain vigilant and alert in the days ahead. We are concerned that attempts may be made during the protests to incite violence and vandalism in order to malign the Sikh community. This is a pattern we have seen from India in the past, World Sikh Organisation president Tejinder Singh Sidhu said in a statement.

At this time, the focus must remain on finding the killers of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and exposing the full extent of Indian interference in Canada. We believe that there will be ongoing attempts by India to shift this focus however we must do all in our power to ensure that these attempts are unsuccessful, he said.

If members of the community feel unsafe or see attempts to incite violence, we encourage them to immediately contact law enforcement.

Muslim advocates in Canada have also expressed anger and concern at allegations that India may have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen.

It was widely known that there are agents of the Indian government that were operating in Canada and targeting members of the diaspora community, Stephen Brown, head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) advocacy group, told Al Jazeera.

But going to the point where somebody would be assassinated right outside of a place of worship in broad daylight, the purpose of doing that is to send a message.

Brown added that Canadian Muslims want the Trudeau government to take action to guarantee their safety. I would say theres outrage, but theres also real concern that currently theyre not safe, he said.

The Canadian government has not released evidence to back up its allegations against India, saying its investigation is ongoing.

The shocking accusation that India carried out an extrajudicial murder on Canadian soil  an allegation that has been denied by India  has prompted a re-examination of threats against Sikh separatists around the world, as well as Sikh activists claims of suspicious deaths in the UK and Pakistan in the weeks before the murder.

The FBI has warned at least three Americans active in the Sikh community that their lives were in danger in the immediate aftermath of the killing in British Columbia.

The Indian government has in recent months openly pursued and arrested Khalistani militants and sympathizers within its own borders, and Sikh groups have accused the government of taking its crackdown on dissent beyond the Indian territory, reported the Guardian.

The Khalistani movement gained traction in Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s and thousands of Punjabi Sikhs were killed in a crackdown on the separatist insurgency. Many thousands moved abroad, to places such as the UK and Canada, and the Khalistani ideology remained prevalent among the diaspora.

After Trudeaus announcement on Sept. 18, Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre called on the government of India to act with the utmost transparency as Canadian authorities investigate Nijjar death.

Said NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said during members statements: The practice of the Indian government has been one of division, violence, persecution and attacking those who are critical of [it].

To hear the Prime Minister of Canada corroborate a potential link between a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and a foreign government is something I could never have imagined.

On Sept. 19, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly confirmed that a senior Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, had been removed from the Indian High Commission in Ottawa due to Canadas most recent allegations.

Indias external affairs ministry denied Canadas allegations of its interference and expelled an unnamed senior Canadian diplomat in response to the removal of Pavan Kumar Rai.

None of Canadas most important allies  not the US, the United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand, all knitted tightly together in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance  echoed Trudeaus allegations.

They have declared their concern and urged full investigations. But none has stepped up to condemn India for its alleged involvement in the June slaying.

The Canadian government says it has amassed both human and signals intelligence in a months-long investigation into the Sikh separatist leader, CBC News reported last week, citing unidentified sources.

Canada is home to about 770,000 Sikhs, the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab, and in recent years, many demonstrations there have irked India.

The allegations have put a spotlight on Canadas Sikh community. Sikhs make up 2 percent of Indias 1.4 billion population, but they are a majority in Punjab, a state of 30 million people where their religion was born 500 years ago.  with agencies
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets and revoked his business licenses in the state, which could affect his ability to run his company. FILE -. Donald Trump's New York Business Licenses Revoked as Judge Rules He Committed Fraud by Inflating Wealth(AP Photo/Artie Walker Jr., File)(AP)

The ruling came from Justice Arthur Engoron of the Manhattan Supreme Court, who agreed with New York Attorney General Letitia James that Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, made several false statements in financial documents to get better deals from lenders.

One example was that Trump claimed his penthouse at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet, when it was actually about 11,000 square feet.

Engoron wrote that such a discrepancy, by a real estate developer who had lived in his own apartment for decades, could only be considered fraud.

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The judge also ordered that the New York business certificates of the Trump Organization and any other businesses owned by the former president or his family in the state be cancelled, and that an independent third party be appointed to manage the dissolution of the cancelled businesses. This means that Trump could lose control over some of his properties in New York, including Trump Tower.

Trump reacted angrily to the ruling on his social media platform Truth Social, calling Engoron deranged and James a completely biased and corrupt prosecutor. He also claimed that he was being persecuted by the Democrats and that the country was becoming communist.

We are rapidly becoming a communist country, and my civil rights have been taken away from me, he wrote.

This is Democrat political lawfare and a witch hunt at a level never seen before.

Trumps lawyers said they would appeal the decision, and called it a miscarriage of justice.

Todays outrageous decision is completely disconnected from the facts and governing law, Christopher Kise, one of Trumps lawyers, said in a statement.

President Trump and his family will seek all available appellate remedies to rectify this miscarriage of justice.

The judge also rejected Trumps attempt to dismiss James other claims in the lawsuit, including that the statute of limitations had expired. He also imposed sanctions on five of Trumps lawyers, ordering them to pay $7,500 each for making frivolous arguments in the case.

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A trial without a jury is scheduled to start on Oct. 2 for Engoron to hear the rest of James case, which alleges that Trump, the Trump Organization, and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. overstated the value of their assets by up to $3.6 billion a year. James is seeking millions in penalties from Trump, as well as banning him and his team from running businesses or buying commercial property in New York for several years.

James said in a statement that she was looking forward to presenting her case at trial.

Trumps spokeswoman Alina Habba said the ruling was fundamentally flawed at every level and an affront to our legal system.

She said that Trump and his family deserved their day in court, and that they would appeal the decision immediately.
US soldier Travis King who crossed into North Korea two months ago is in American custody, two US officials said as per news agency Associated Press. One unnamed official said that Travis King was transferred to US custody in China after North Korea said it would expel Travis King as the authorities have finished their questioning of the soldier. North Korea, however, did not say when officials plan to expel him or where. A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea.(AP)

Travis King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18. With this he became the first American confirmed to be detained in the North Korea in nearly five years. At that time, he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea following an assault conviction.

North Korea said that Travis King confessed to illegally entering the country because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the US Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, it was reported.

Earlier Travis Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said that her son had so many reasons to want to come home. I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about the country.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail
Social media is rife with posts supporting India as well as Canada amid diplomatic tension between both countries after allegations of New Delhi's role in the killing of secessionist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Similarly, a Canadian YouTuber also came forward to and questioned Justin Trudeau's government in opposition of the Khalistan movement. YouTuber Nancy Grewal(YouTube)

Nancy Grewal, the YouTuber, in the over 3-minute-long video lashed out at Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, one of the key leaders of the movement, and called him an agent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). She further recommended Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make efforts to form Khalistan in Canada instead of promoting separatist agenda in India.



Pannu, everybody knows your standards. You dont want to live in Punjab, nor does your family want to live in Punjab. Your aim is to break India, we all know this. Everybody knows what you are dreaming. Stop dreaming of breaking India, if you have the courage then come to India and put forward your demands, she said.

She further alleged that Pannun owns luxury villas in both the United States and Canada which he bought from the fundings he received in the name of Khalistan movement. She also asked why hasn't he invested in Punjab despite being incredibly rich.

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Republicans are meeting for their second presidential debate Wednesday as his top rivals seek to blunt the momentum of Donald Trump, who is so confident of cruising through the party's primary that he again won't share a stage with them. Republicans meet for second debate in Michigan, even as Trump has stated he will skip the event(AFP)

Seven GOP candidates will be at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for an event hosted by Fox Business Network. Trump will be in Michigan, delivering a prime-time speech attempting to capitalize on the Auto Workers Union strike and trying to appeal to rank-and-file union members in a key state for the general election.

The debate comes at a critical moment in the GOP campaign, with less than four months before the Iowa caucuses formally launch the presidential nomination process. For now, Trump is dominating the field even as he faces a range of vulnerabilities, including four criminal indictments that raise the prospect of decades in prison. His rivals are running out of time to dent his lead, which is building a sense of urgency among some to more directly take on the former president before an audience of millions.

This is not a nomination thats going to fall in your lap. You have to go and beat the other candidates and one of those happens to be Donald Trump, said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist and veteran of Mitt Romneys 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. This debate, itll be interesting to see whether or not folks realize that the sand is going through the hourglass pretty quickly right now.

The former president also skipped the first debate last month in Milwaukee, where the participants laid into one another while mostly avoiding attacks on Trump. Nearly 13 million people tuned in anyway.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, drew larger crowds and new interest after her first debate performance in which she attacked entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy on foreign policy and pointed out that she was the only woman in the field.

Her team has raised expectations even higher going into Wednesday night, telling donors in a recent pitch that they are ready to capitalize on the momentum after Nikki walks off stage.

As more voters across America tune in to watch the second debate, itll be a great opportunity to bring even more supporters into the fold, Haley's campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, wrote in her email.

Also hoping for a big night is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will be at center stage despite recent struggles to emerge as the field's top Trump alternative. His campaign announced that he also saw a jump in fundraising after the first debate, but a strong performance on Wednesday will likely be necessary to replicate that.

Its too late for just a fine performance," said Christine Matthews, a national Republican pollster. DeSantis has gone from leading alternative to Trump to just one of the pack of challengers and he will be under pressure to perform.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Ramaswamy are similarly looking for breakout moments. Ramaswamy seized the spotlight frequently in Milwaukee, but was criticized by many candidates who sought to expose his lack of political experience.

Also on stage will be North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who has built his White House bid around slamming Trump.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson failed to qualify after making the first debate. Hutchinson's campaign says hell also go to Michigan to hold a press conference criticizing Trump.

Ahead of the debate, many participants were meeting with top supporters, donors and reporters to make the case that they are best positioned going forward.

Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an organization founded by conservatives who oppose Trump, said that while he still believes the former president will ultimately be the Republican nominee in 2024, Wednesday's debate offers a chance for others to make up ground.

There are opportunities in the offing because Trump is taking this for granted, Galen said.

The site is symbolic given that Reagan has long been a Republican icon whose words and key moments still shape GOP politics today. But in addition to fighting with the Reagan library's leaders, Trump has reshaped the party and pushed away from traditional GOP policy positions  including a muscular foreign policy and opposition to Moscow.

While Reagan is remembered for going to a divided Berlin and calling on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall," Trump has often sympathized with Russian President Vladimir Putin and recently said, I was the apple of his eye.

Pence, in a recent speech, called on conservatives to reject Trump's siren song of populism. But Ramaswamy attacked Pence in the first debate by declaring it's not morning in America  a reversal of Reagan's famous 1984 campaign slogan  and saying Republicans following Reagan were out of step with a Trump-dominated party.

The sad thing is, the irony  and I dont know how many people there will get it  is that Ronald Reagan could not get the Republican nomination today, said former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who is now teaming with Democratic voices to promote the centrist Forward Party. "Hes not far enough out there.
Pakistan's caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said that the countrys military will continue its hold an importance in politics unless civic delivery institutions are strengthened. The Pakistan army has wielded considerable power in matters of security and foreign policy. Speaking to TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster, the premier said, Pragmatically, realistically and honestly ... affirmative, yes, when asked if the military would continue to influence Pakistans polity. Pakistan Elections: Pakistan's interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar(AP)

Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar was asked about the undue influence, whether suspected or real, of the military establishment of Pakistan and its role during the interview.

As far as the civil-military relationship and its imbalance is concerned, I personally view it as a pure government structure. Pakistani politicians, all the political leadership, have had a marital alliance with this military institution for their own specific interests, the caretaker prime minister said.

And once they are out of power, it is one of their favourite mantras to criticise and shift the onus of their own failures in terms of governance and pinpoint the reason behind that failure as an imbalance between the civil and military relationship, he pointed out.

Unfortunately, in our case, the civilian institutions who are responsible for the service delivery at the behest of the government or state, are performing quite poorly in last three-to-four decades .... be it in our health services, be it in our education services, be it our disaster management, be it our tax revenue collection, he said, adding, So, when there is poor governance challenge, the only institution which has the organizational capability left with us is military.

So anyone who is leading the government has to rely on the day-to-day basis on the challenges of government and engage them to do that delivery part, he added while also offering a remedial measure, If somebody is genuinely interested that the military should not meddle in the affairs of the state structure, then we need to enhance the capability of these civilian institutions.

On his government, the caretaker PM said that he has ensured that no one, whether it is the USA or any other power, meddles in our domestic affairs.

We are a sovereign country, we are a sovereign nation. We do things according to our own interests. Whether that was a good decision or a bad decision to oust Imran Khans government, but all we know is for the last many, many, many years, that was the only way and time that he was ousted constitutionally. There was no military coup. That was all constitutional and lawful, he asserted.

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Day after Tech CEO, Pava LaPere, was found murdered in her flat in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, police are still on the lookout for the suspect. Pava LaPere, CEO of Baltimore based EcoMap, was found dead in her flat on Monday morning

Investigation officers hunting for clues to nab the suspect say 26-year-old CEO's murderer will kill and he will rape.

Pava, a John Hopkins University graduate was the CEO of EcoMap and based in Baltimore. Police responded to a call at around 11.30am on September 25 where they discovered Pava with blunt-force trauma injuries.

Police suspect 32-year-old Jason Billingsley, could be behind the murder and have warned he is armed and dangerous. He is still on the run and officers have warned that he has a record involving attempted rape, with Acting Baltimore Police Department Commissioner Richard Worley saying at a press conference that Billingsley is a suspect in at least one other investigation in Baltimore.

Billingsley is wanted for first-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment and additional charges. He was previously arrested in 2013, 2011 and 2009 for multiple charges including sexual offences, second-degree assault and robbery, according to Baltimore Police.

10 months back Pava had featured in 30 Under 30 List in the Social Impact Category and had shared her excitement in an LinkedIN post, 'The entrepreneurs on this list are building amazing solutions to the world's toughest problems. It's a reminder that we have all the assets we need to create change - it's just a matter of being able to access & use that information effectively.'

"We implore residents to be aware of your surroundings at all times. This individual will kill and he will rape. He will do anything he can to cause harm," Acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley stated.

Pava launched her eco company from her dorm room at Johns Hopkins University, which aimed to make ecosystems information accessible to everyone along with "powerful technology to digitise ecosystems", according to their website. In the last 18 months, Pava's company has managed to raise $7 million in funding.

In a statement issued following their CEO's death, EcoMap said: "The circumstances surrounding Pava's death are deeply distressing, and our deepest condolences are with her family, friends, and loved ones during this incredibly devastating time.

Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader. Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a standard for leadership, and her legacy will live on through the work we continue to do.

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The Speaker of Canadas House of Commons has announced he is resigning from the post, days after he accepted blame for inviting a person who was part of a Nazi unit was invited to an event in the chamber on Friday in honour of visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Speaker Anthony Rota made the announcement in the chamber on Tuesday, as he said, The work of this House is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your Speaker. Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota.(REUTERS)

I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House, he added.

Rota had earlier apologised after outrage was expressed by Jewish groups after 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka was welcomed to the House by Rota as "a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero to applause from MPs, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

It later emerged that Hunka was part of the Nazi-led Waffen-SS Galicia Division, also know as the SS 14th Waffen Division and later First Ukrainian Division, which battled Soviet troops during World War II.

The announcement came even as Trudeau was absent from the House. While the Speaker has taken responsibility of the invitation, the opposition attacked the Government for the international embarrassment the incident had caused not only to Canada but also to Ukraine. Poland has already said it could request Hunkas extradition from Canada.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre asked where Trudeau was: Why is he hiding?

He added, Our nation's reputation is in tatters. Will he stand up and apologize for this mess he helped create?

The Jewish group, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre or FSWC said that the incident "handed a propaganda victory to Russia" and called for hearings into the lapses in the vetting process.

Trudeau had earlier described the episode as deeply embarrassing but the PMO placed the onus entirely upon Rota.

In a statement on Sunday, Rota said, On Friday, September 22, in my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so.

I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my actions, he had added.

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Canada's envoy to the United Nations, Robert Rae, during his address to world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday raised the issue of foreign interference adding that the rules of state-to-state relations, cannot be bent for "political expediency." Robert Rae, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations(Bloomberg)

Addressing the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Rae said, Like many people in your countries, I can assure you that Canadians are also worried about the cost of living, Artificial Intelligence, foreign interference, misinformation and disinformation. Canadians are also experiencing climate and environmental crisis.

The Canadian diplomat didn't directly address his country's concern over the killing of Nijjar, but obliquely underscored some key talking points.

Notably, his remarks come at a time when Canadian PM Justin Trudeau alleged India's role behind the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The statement was a way to steer clear of the diplomatic ties between the two nations.

We also have to uphold the values of free and democratic societies...we cannot bend the rules of state-to-state relations for political expediency, he said.

Rae added, Because weve seen and continue to see the extent to which democracies are under threat through various means of foreign interference".

He also spoke about unity and diversity, adding that countries can succeed only if they come together.

Before coming here, I had the opportunity to visit the Indigenous Council of Leaders in North Ontario, Canada. They had an effective slogan, which was quite simple. They talked about the power of unity and dignity of differenceSometimes people talk about the failure of the United Nations. I point out to them, that it is actually the divided nations that are failing. When we are united we succeed, when we are divided we failwe only succeed if we come together, he said.

The Canadian envoy further spoke about foreign diaspora in Canada, and said that admitting more people made the country a better place.

In Canada, we decided to admit more people into our country than ever before, because we have found that immigration has made us a better country, and has also made us a better place to live, Rae added.

Earlier, during the UN Session on Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that political convenience should not be countenanced in determining responses to terrorism and extremism in an apparent reference to Canada amid a diplomatic standoff between the two countries.

The power of markets should not be utilized to steer food and energy from the needy to the wealthy. Nor must we countenance that political convenience determines responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, he said.

On September 18, PM Trudeau said his country's national security officials had reasons to believe that "agents of the Indian government" carried out the killing of the Canadian citizen, who also served as the president of Surrey's Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara.

Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar," Trudeau said.

He stressed that the involvement of a foreign hand or government in the killing of a Canadian citizen in Canada was unacceptable.

"Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves," Trudeau added.

India on the other hand, has out-rightly denied Trudeau's allegations calling them absurd and motivated.

This has also triggered a diplomatic standoff between the two countries, with both nations expelling a senior diplomat of each other and New Delhi also suspending the visa service in Canada.

Nijjar, the chief of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) -a Sikh extremist organisation banned by India -and a designated terrorist was gunned down in Canada's Surrey on June 18.

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A case of daylight robbery and vicious assault on a man in Chicago, has gone viral on social media. According to a report by the New York Post, the incident happened on Monday in a residential alleyway in Bucktown around 2:55 p.m. Screengrab from the video of the incident(X(formerly Twitter)/@iamyesyouareno)

In the viral video, the man is seen eating pizza while walking in an alley when two men attack him viciously, throwing punches all over his body. The victim falls on the floor and the perpetrators keep attacking and kicking him even as the man shouts at them to get off him. After assaulting the man, the perpetrators leave having looted his bag.

Meanwhile, in the video, a car passing through the alley, blows its horns to distract the criminals. But nonetheless, the two perpetrators carry on their crime before calmly escaping with their loot.

Later, Chicago Police took the 33-year-old victim to a hospital in stable condition. Chicago city has been in the news for quite sometime for many similar criminal incidents including murder.

According to data from the Chicago Police Department, there has been a 29% increase in major crime including murder, sexual assault, robbery and theft in the city thus far this year, as compared to data from the same period in 2022.

ALSO READ| Two Americans have filed lawsuit against FBI, here's why

Netizens on social media platform "X" reacted to the criminal incident, condemning it.

"This is brutal and barbaric. These two are examples of blight in a society," wrote one user.

"I wouldn't walk along a side road these days," commented another person.

"I'm very cautious when walking alone. Always discreetly looking behind me for this very reason. Call me paranoid...," posted a third person.

"attacking someone from behind ... shows you who these criminals are they need to be locked up for at least 20 years," wrote a fourth user.

Many people have blamed government's policy and approach to preventing and controlling crime, as the reason behind spurt in such incidents in Chicago. On Tuesday, Republican-led House Judiciary Committee gathered in Chicago to highlight the grave situation and the policy paralysis.
A brazen robbery incident has rocked Philadelphia. In Philadelphia's Center City, groups of people robbed several stores on Tuesday evening. Besides the looting, a security guard was assaulted at the Foot Locker. Screengrab from the video of fearless robbery in Philadelphia(X(formerly Twitter))

According to a report by CBS Philadelphia, widespread looting happened in Center City, including the Foot Locker and Apple Store near 15th and Chestnut.

Several videos of the mass robbery incident went viral on "X"(formerly Twitter). In the videos, masked men and women mostly of young age are seen forcing their way into stores and looting everything that they could get their hands on. The crime scenes look like rioting with cops scrambling to control the miscreants. In the videos, police are seen trying to catch the rioters.

Philadelphia Police confirmed to CBS Philadelphia's Joe Holden that the latest looting had no connection to earlier protests over the dismissal of charges in the death of Eddie Irizarry.

Meanwhile, netizens condemned the incident on "X"(formerly Twitter).

"So sad. True breakdown of civility," wrote one user.

"By looking at the Visuals that we get from US now a days.. taliban may say.. we are better than US in LAW and ORDER," commented another person.

"The same people are going to act shocked when all the businesses decide to up and leave due to the chaos theyve had to endure," posted a third person.

Shame! Clearly theres no justification for such behavior, complained a fourth person.
Guest Commentary

By Franco Terrazzano

The House of Commons overwhelmingly passed a bill to make food cheaper and help farmers.

In fact, the House passed the bill twice.

But after two years, the bill still isnt law, and that delay has cost families and farmers almost $100 million.

Whats stalling the democratic will of our elected representatives?

The Senate.

The bill is simple. The feds gave farmers an exemption on the carbon tax for diesel and gasoline. That helps farmers keep food prices down and compete globally. But the feds forgot to exempt the propane and natural gas farmers need to dry their grain and heat their barns.

So Conservative member of Parliament Ben Lobb introduced Bill C-234 back in February 2022 to fix that and extend the exemption to farmers natural gas and propane.

Bill C-234 would reduce the financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns, explains MP John Barlow, the vice-chair of Parliaments agriculture committee.

It may seem like a small change, but the carbon tax is a big cost for farmers, even with the existing exemptions.

According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the carbon tax cost Canadian farmers an average of $14,000 in 2019. Trudeau has cranked up his carbon tax every year since. That means higher costs for farmers and higher grocery prices for Canadians.

The carbon tax on propane and natural gas will cost farmers $1 billion through 2030, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Heres the infuriating part: the problem should be fixed already.

This March, MPs passed Lobbs Bill C-234 to remove the carbon tax from these farm fuels. Conservatives, New Democrats, the Bloc Quebecois, both Green Party members and a couple of independents voted in favour of the bill. Liberals Kody Blois, Heath MacDonald and Robert Morrissey also voted in favour.

This legislation has the support of the majority in the House of Commons and MPs from every party voted for it.

The bad news is the bill has been held up in the Senate ever since.

With their $169,600 base salary, maybe senators arent too worried about the price of milk, hamburger meat or chicken. But many Canadians are. In fact, six-in-10 worry their paycheque might not be enough to feed their families.

Farmers are working 20-hour days to get the harvest in.

You would think that might spur the Senate to more briskly shuffle this duly passed bill through the unelected Upper Chamber.

But the Senate doesnt care. It took a gander at the bill during second reading on June 13. Since then, the bill has been collecting dust in the agriculture committee, which is chaired by Senator Robert Black.

The Senates fisheries committee thought it was important to meet during the summer break to examine and report on Canadas seal populations and their effect on Canadas fisheries. So why wasnt Black willing to give up a couple of summer vacation days to ensure farmers got relief during harvest?

This isnt the first time the Senate held up a bill to remove the carbon tax on farms.

Conservative MP Philip Lawrence introduced the original version of Bill C-234 back in September 2020. It made its way through the House of Commons to the Senate on June 23, 2021. The Senate failed to pass it.

Canadians have been waiting for a law to remove the carbon tax from farm fuels for three years now. The delay has already cost taxpayers almost $100 million.

Canadians dont expect much from senators. But is it too much to ask that they pass this bill?

Talk is cheap. Especially in Ottawa.

Dont believe any politician, or senator, who claims they want to improve affordability unless they are willing to do one simple thing: scrap their carbon taxes.

Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Indonesia has banned goods transactions on social media platforms in a new regulation, its trade minister said Wednesday, as Jakarta aims to rein in direct sales by major tech firms it says are harming millions of small businesses. Zulkifli Hasan, Minister of Trade of Indonesia, is seen. (AFP)

Government officials in recent weeks called for social media and e-commerce to be decoupled, targeting platforms they say engage in monopolistic practices that threaten offline sellers, with some specifically blaming Chinese-owned short video app TikTok.

"This trade regulation has been in force (since yesterday)," Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan told a press conference in the capital Jakarta.

He said social commerce platforms would have a week to comply with the new rule.

The regulation means social media firms will not be able to conduct direct transactions but only promote products on their platforms.

Laws in the archipelago nation did not cover direct transactions through social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook or Instagram before the new regulation.

The new regulation is yet another setback for TikTok, which has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations in recent months over users' data security and the company's alleged ties to Beijing.

Indonesia is one of the world's biggest markets for TikTok Shop and was the first to pilot the app's e-commerce arm.

But Southeast Asia's biggest economy is now the first country in the region to act against the platform's growing popularity in the social commerce space.

The ministerial-level regulation -- an amendment to a trade regulation issued in 2020 -- did not need approval by lawmakers.

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Iran said that it has successfully launched an imaging satellite into space amid tensions with West that fears that the country's space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran's communication minister Isa Zarepour said that the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth's surface, without informing when the launch took place. Iran Satellite Launch: An Iranian flag flutters.(Reuters)

Isa Zarepour said that the aerospace arm of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard had carried out the launch. The Revolutionary Guard operates its own space program and military infrastructure along with Irans regular armed forces. Iran launched its first satellite into space in April 2020 which the head of US Space Command later dismissed as a tumbling webcam in space that could not provide crucial intelligence. Western sanctions also bar Iran from importing advanced spying technology.

Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit. In 2013, Iran launched a monkey into space but the program has seen recent troubles as there have been five failed launches in a row.

The United States has earlier alleged that Irans satellite launches defy UN Security Council resolution which called on Tehran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles that are capable of delivering nuclear weapons as the US intelligence' 2022 threat assessment claimed that the development of satellite launch vehicles shortens the timeline for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

This comes amid tensions between the West and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program which has steadily advanced since former US president Donald Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement. Iran has expressed willingness to return to the deal, but says that the US should first ease sanctions that have been placed on Tehran.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail
US President Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday a $100 million research drive to fight deadly drug-resistant bacteria, according to a White House official. US President Joe Biden looks on.(Reuters)

More than a million people worldwide lose their lives each year due to infections resulting from bacteria resistant to antibiotics, according to the World Health Organization.

In the United States, that number is over 35,000 annually, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. The problem is believed to have grown in recent years as more people with COVID-19 were hospitalized, where they were treated with antibiotics and exposed to infection.

Global health officials have repeatedly warned about the rise of antimicrobial-resistant microbes due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages microorganisms to evolve into "superbugs."

There has long been an acute need for new antibiotics to combat these resistant bacteria, but there is little incentive among drugmakers as antibiotics are not especially profitable and overuse must be discouraged, keeping sales down.

The research will be driven by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a government research agency launched by Biden and Congress last year. The antimicrobial initiative will be their largest investment to date, the official said.

Biden plans to make the announcement during a meeting in San Francisco with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The group includes academic experts as well as officials from Advanced Micro Devices, Microsoft and Google.

During the meeting, Biden also plans to discuss an executive order being drafted on artificial intelligence, which he plans to release this autumn, according to the official who declined to be identified.

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Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) leader and pro-Khalistan MP Jagmeet Singh attacked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not being interested in bringing a change as Trudeau's corporate donors won't allow it. This comes amid India-Canada diplomatic crisis after Trudeau blamed India for the killing of Khalistani figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canada's New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh. (Reuters)

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Singh, who is a Burnaby South MP, wrote, Together, we have the power to challenge the status quo. Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre aren't interested in change  their corporate donors won't allow it.

Making a case for himself, Singh said that he wasn't backed by billionaires. I'm not backed by billionaires - I'm fighting for you.

Singh attached a video along with the post where he was seen speaking to students as he said, Young people are going to inherit the planet, they are going to inherit the country, so they matter. Your voices dont matter just for the future, they matter today, and we need to take that seriously. So I am really interested in engaging seriously with young people and also giving them hope.

Speaking about his party, Singh added that all the major changes like old age security, pension, medicare came when the New Democrats were in power. He said, The establishment parties are not interested in making big changes that we need to tackle the problems we are going up against. Thats just not in their DNA, thats not what they do. But New Democrats are different. Our goal is to make those changes possible.

Jagmeet Singh on India-Canada diplomatic row

The tensions amid India and Canada have risen since Trudeau alleged involvement of the Indian government in Nijjar's killing. Canada and the United States have said that the allegations were backed by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes  US, UK, Australia, New Zealand other than Canada. The alliance has called the accusations serious.

Trudeau has, however, received severe backlash from Canadian MPs and world leaders, including Indian diplomats, for not revealing any information or providing evidence on the matter.

Speaking on the allegations levelled by Trudeau, Singh on Tuesday said that he received an intelligence briefing regarding the claims made by Trudeau by the Canadian PM's national security adviser Jody Thomas. Singh said that after learning more information on the matter, he could confirm that clear evidence of the Indian government's involvement exists.

As per Canadian news organisation Global News, Singh said, The briefings were of the nature where I can confirm what the prime minister has shared publicly, that there is clear intelligence that Canada has that lays out the following case: that a Canadian citizen was killed on Canadian soil and a foreign government was involved. That is very serious. That intelligence is something that I think is very credible.

Singh told reporters that he was able to request a briefing after he obtained a security clearance to review the foreign interference data, which was gathered by former special rapporteur David Johnston. He also claimed that Trudeau told him and Leader of Opposition in Canada Pierre Poilievre about the allegations before sharing them publicly.

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The Kremlin said that a Ukrainian Nazi veteran who was honoured in the Canadian parliament last week should be brought to justice. Following the incident which saw Canadian lawmakers applaud the 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran Yaroslav Hunka who fought for the Nazis during World War II, the speaker of country's parliament resigned. Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the House of Commons in Ottawa.

"Canadian authorities have a duty to bring to justice -- or to extradite to those who wish to bring to justice -- this criminal," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. While Poland said that it was looking at extraditing the veteran, and investigating Yaroslav Hunk.

Russia has accused Ukraine of harbouring Nazi elements, despite Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky being Jewish and losing family members in the Holocaust.

"It is unequivocal that we are talking about a Nazi," Dmitry Peskov said.

Zelensky spoke to Canada's parliament last week expressing thanks for Ottawa's backing since Moscow launched full-scale invasion against Ukraine last year.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail
he Kremlin said on Wednesday that underwater explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea were organised by the United States and Britain. The release of gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, in the Swedish economic zone in the Baltic Sea.(AFP)

Read more: North Korea to expel US soldier Travis King who crossed into country in July

"They are involved, one way or another, in this terrorist attack," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular news briefing in response to a question about the September 2022 blasts, without providing any evidence.

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A shocking case of apparent murder-suicide has left a mother, her teenage daughter, and their dog dead in their Brooklyn apartment. The victims, Azalea Rivas, 37, and her 14-year-old daughter, Azaria(GoFundme)

The victims, Azalea Rivas, 37, and her 14-year-old daughter, Azaria, were stabbed to death and had bags over their heads.

Their dog, Biscuit, was also killed in the same manner.

The tragedy was preceded by strange behaviour from the mother, according to neighbours. Kathleen Kiki, 57, said she saw Azalea Rivas walking her dog on the morning of September 25, around 6.13 am. She was wearing AirPods and talking in an agitated way. This was unusual for her, as she was normally cheerful and friendly.

ALSO READ| 'A discrepancy of this order of magnitude can only be considered fraud, NYC judge strips off Trumps business licenses

Ms Kiki told the Daily Mail, I dont think she would have taken her life and her daughters life. I hope they get whoever did this. Her daughter, Kiera, 19, also expressed disbelief that such a horrific crime could happen in their neighbourhood, which they considered safe.

The crime scene was located on New York Avenue in the Little Haiti area of Brooklyn. Azaria had a stab wound in her back and a fatal head injury. She had a bag over her head, probably to prevent blood splatter. Her mother, Azalea Rivas, died from a punctured lung and had self-inflicted cuts on her neck and wrists.

Neighbour Steve Schor, who lived below them, said he heard disturbing noises from their apartment on the morning of the incident around 7:22 am local time. He called 911, thinking someone was being hurt. Police officers from the 67th precinct came to the building but left without checking inside the apartment after getting no answer.

The bodies were not discovered until Monday, when another neighbour reported a bad smell in the building. Police came again and found Azalea Rivass ex-boyfriend inside the apartment. He had broken in after not hearing from them since Friday. He was screaming in agony before he was taken to the hospital.

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Mr. Schor complained about the slow response time and the lack of security in the building. He said the only security camera was outside the front door. The police are still investigating whether this was a murder-suicide or a homicide.

Azalea Rivass uncle posted a message on Facebook, calling for better mental health and child protective services. He implied that these services may have failed his niece and grandniece.

NYPD is actively investigating the case, but no arrest made as of now.
The speaker of Canadas House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president. Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Onatario on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)

Also Read | Canadian Parliament honours man who fought for Nazis. Speaker regrets decision

Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker, Rota said in Parliament. I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.

"That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions," he added.

Rota stepped down after meeting with the House of Commons party leaders. All main opposition parties had called for Rota to step down, and House government leader Karina Gould said that lawmakers had lost confidence in Rota.

This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of Parliament and indeed all Canadians. The speaker did the honorable thing in resigning, Gould said.

Gould said that Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine, adding that the fact that Rota didnt inform anyone and didnt do diligence broke trust with lawmakers.

Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka on Friday unaware of the details of who he was.

Also Read | Parliament speaker should quit: Canada foreign minister on Nazi veteran row

Never in my life would I have imagined that the speaker of the House would have asked us to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis, Gould said.

This is very emotional for me. My family are Jewish holocaust survivors. I would have never in a million of years stood and applauded someone who aided the Nazis."

Gould said Rota found out about it over the weekend. "He probably should have resigned as soon as he learned about it, she said.

Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland had called the incident incredibly embarrassing."

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a statement that the incident has left a stain on our countrys venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.

This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament and has also handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine. It has also caused great pain to Canadas Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and other victims of the Nazi regime.

In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speakers office said it was Hunka's son who contacted Rota's local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyys speech.

The prime minister's office said it was unaware that Hunka was invited until after the address. The speakers office also confirmed it did not share its invite list with any other party or group. The vetting process for visitors to the gallery is for physical security threats, not reputational threats, the speakers office said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said it was outrageous that Hunka received a standing ovation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as neo-Nazis, although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Its highly unfortunate and the only winner here is the Putin regime, which is already spinning what happened on Friday to justify its ongoing military actions in Ukraine, said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal,

The opposition Conservatives in Canada have blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but Beland noted that the speaker's role in Canada is as an officer of Parliament who does not participate in partisan caucus meetings and is not a member of the Cabinet.

Canada's reputation is broken. This is by far the biggest hit Canada's diplomatic reputation has ever taken under in history and it happened under Justin Trudeau's watch, Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said.

Poilievre said everyone in the House of Commons on Friday should have been vetted with Zelenskyy in attendance.

Robert Bothwell, a historian and professor at the University of Toronto, called Rota clueless for waiting so long to step down. He said an apology from Trudeau is also justified.

He should not make it personal; there is nothing he personally did wrong, but the event embarrassed the country and as PM he takes responsibility, Bothwell said.

Trudeau doesnt have the strongest image and this will cause other leaders to see him as damaged goods.

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Canadian law enforcement has denied allegations carried in a report that officers arrived late to the scene of Khalistani figure Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing and a turf war led to a further delay in starting the investigation. The Washington Post, in a report on the murder, stated on Monday that at least six men, among them those that appeared to be Sikh, and two vehicles, were involved in the murder of Nijjar on June 18. It also noted that witnesses said that it took between 12 and 20 minutes after the gunshots that police arrived. It cited a witness as saying that an hours-long tussle between Surrey police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP over leading the investigation caused a further delay. Canada PM Justin Trudeau blamed India for Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Surrey detachment of the RCMP countered those claims, saying that the first information of the incident came at 8.27 pm and the first officers to respond reached the spot in under four minutes with more joining them soon after.

It was suggested that there was a conflict regarding which police agency would head the investigation, however as the police of jurisdiction, Surrey RCMP is responsible for all police investigations in Surrey. There is nothing to indicate this investigation was delayed in any way, either in the initial response or in subsequent investigative steps, the statement added.

As is routine with murder cases, the case was handed over to the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team or IHIT, with support from Surrey RCMP. We are confident all necessary investigational steps are being taken to hold those responsible for the homicide accountable, the statement added.

It also said this public act of violence has caused members of our community to feel unsafe and in response, it has increased patrols around gurdwaras and temples. Surrey RCMPs Diversity Unit has met with the Sikh and Hindu communities in Surrey and the unit continues to work closely with them to foster communication and engagement, it said.

The statement said IHIT cannot provide further details on any aspects of the ongoing investigation and will not be commenting further at this time.

It said that the Post sent them a list of questions, with a deadline the next day, adding, This did not provide an adequate opportunity to respond. Subsequently a story was published which contained inaccurate information on the police response to this homicide.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anirudh Bhattacharyya Anirudh Bhattacharya is a Toronto-based commentator on North American issues, and an author. He has also worked as a journalist in New Delhi and New York spanning print, television and digital media. He tweets as @anirudhb. ...view detail
North Korea decided to expel American soldier Travis King who Pyongyang said has confessed that he illegally intruded into the country, news agency Reuters reported quoting state media KCNA. Releasing the final results of an investigation into his border crossing in July, the report claimed that Travis King harboured ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the US army. A man walks past a television showing a news broadcast featuring a photo of US soldier Travis King (C), who ran across the border into North Korea while part of a tour group visiting the Demilitarized Zone on South Korea's border.(AFP)

North Korea had earlier said that in its interim findings it found that Travis King wanted refuge in North Korea or elsewhere because of that same reason.

However details of when or to where Travis King would be expelled were not shared.

Travis King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea in July while on a tour of the southern side of an inter-Korean truce village, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he joined the civilian tour and crossed the border, he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas. This was after his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail
Commentary

By Sylvain Charlebois

In an era of continuous cost of living surges, the quest for budget-friendly groceries has become a financial challenge for many Canadians. Recent investigations by intrepid reporters in Quebec and Ontario have uncovered a revelation that may surprise some: Dollar stores, most notably Dollarama, provide identical non-perishable products to regular grocery stores but at significantly lower prices, often falling within the 30 to 75 percent range.

While many shoppers were aware of this, many likely were not.

But this begs the question: How can Dollarama offer the same products, in the same size, and from the same brands, at a much lower price?

Different business models, full stop. Dollaramas ability to offer rock-bottom prices is underpinned by two critical pillars: remarkably low operational costs and robust supplier-retailer relationships. While one might assume limited variety, exemplified by having only one option for ketchup or peanut butter, the reality is that the products are indistinguishable from those found in major grocery chains. This might appear counterintuitive, but the key lies in Dollaramas dominance over supplier shelf space in its vast network of over 1,400 stores.

Suppliers recognize the advantages of collaborating with Dollarama. They no longer need to contend for limited shelf space or engage in cutthroat competition with rival brands, making it an appealing proposition. The result is beneficial deals that ultimately trickle down to the consumers advantage. Suppliers can also sidestep concerns about how grocers may prioritize their in-house labels. Dollaramas house-brand strategy is not strong.

With projections hinting at surpassing 2,000 stores by 2030, Dollarama Dollaramas influence in the market is poised for substantial growth, including the sale of more food products. For consumers, Dollaramas approach of providing only a single option for each product might initially appear limiting in a world that frequently values choice; having just one brand of ketchup or peanut butter may raise eyebrows. Nevertheless, this simplicity forms the core of Dollaramas cost-effective strategy, resulting in competitive pricing.

Dollaramas success, however, extends beyond its pricing strategy. It excels at maintaining minimal operational costs, with daily average staffing expenses capped at a mere $500. Its stores operate with efficiency and simplicity, unlike major grocery chains such as Loblaw, Metro, and Empire, which also function as real estate giants, potentially driving up overhead costs over time.

Furthermore, dollar stores like Dollarama bypass expensive advertising campaigns. These cost savings can be transferred to consumers through lower prices. When you spot Galen Weston on TV, youre essentially covering the cost of those ads when shopping at Loblaw. In contrast, Dollarama shoppers enjoy the benefits of lower prices without the need to subsidize a celebrity-studded marketing campaign.

But lets be candid: critics contend that Dollarama faces socioeconomic biases and challenges related to product quality and store ambiance. A visit to Dollarama might reveal an unpleasant odour reminiscent of a plastic manufacturing plant in Beijing. While that may be true in some stores, many consumers are willing to overlook it for the sake of their budgets. The reality is that Dollarama serves as a lifeline for numerous Canadians struggling to make ends meet.

Nevertheless, Dollarama is not without its challenges. Recent investigations have brought to light instances where Dollarama stores located near major grocery retailers are pressured to limit their product offerings. This practice is not unique to Dollarama and underscores broader issues within the retail sector. Addressing these concerns is imperative if we want to genuinely foster competitive pricing within the grocery sector, and Canadas Competition Bureau should do so without delay.

Dollaramas ascendancy is nothing short of remarkable. Its unorthodox approach challenges the traditional grocery store model, prompting a re-evaluation of what we value in our shopping experience. It serves as a reminder that different business models can yield different benefits, and sometimes, simplicity and efficiency can be the keys to success.

While the food elites may continue to dismiss the role of dollar stores, the reality is that dollar stores are making the market more competitive. The chain is opening 70 new stores this year alone. As Canadians wait for a knight in shining armour to bring more competition to the grocery sector, dollar stores are already doing so, silently and effectively, providing affordability where it is needed most.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.
After former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taunted Russian President Vladimir Putin over NATO enlargement, the Kremlin hit back by reminding her of her gaffe when she said that she wanted to "reset" relations with Russia with a button mislabelled "overload". Returning to the State Department for the unveiling of her official portrait, Hillary Clinton said of NATO enlargement, "Too bad, Vladimir. You brought it on yourself." Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks during the unveiling of her portrait, at the State Department in Washington, US.(Reuters)

Asked about her remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Hillary Clinton was known in Russia for her attempts to turn everything upside down. But she was popular for her 2009 gaffe when a symbolic button designed to mark a "reset" of US-Russia ties was instead labelled "overload" in Russian.

"It is clear that this was probably not a deliberate mistake, but very telling," Dmitry Peskov said, adding, It is probably necessary to remind Mrs Clinton of the numerous waves of NATO expansion and the approach of the alliance's military infrastructure to our borders."

At the time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told her the Russian verb that the United States had used was incorrect but said the button would be put on his desk.

Vladimir Putin has listed one of his key aims for launching the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as halting NATO's eastward enlargement and ending what the "genocide" of Russian-speaking people by "nationalists and neo-Nazis" in Ukraine. After the invasion, Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, expressed its wish to join NATO. Sweden also aims to join the alliance.

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Islamabad, Sep 27 (PTI) Pakistan on Wednesday inched closer to the holding of the much-awaited general elections as the country's chief election body published the lists of preliminary delimitation of constituencies. Security personnel stand guard on top of the parliament house building in Islamabad on August 9, 2023. Pakistan's parliament was dissolved on August 9, ushering in a technocrat-led interim government to oversee an election that will not include the country's most popular politician, Imran Khan. (Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP)

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced it would hold the election in the last week of January after finalising the setting up of electoral districts in the light of the data of the census, which was held earlier this year.

In a press release, the ECP said that the report of preliminary delimitation has been uploaded on the commission's website and can be accessed by the public, where maps of the delimitation are also available.

"The publication of the preliminary constituencies will continue for 30 days from Sept 27 to Oct 26, it said, highlighting that objections to the preliminary constituencies can be made by the voters of the concerned constituency.

The through representations would be in the form of representations addressed to the commission's secretary and be submitted to the ECP Secretariat in Islamabad by October 27.

"The ECP will take decisions on these representations from Oct 28 to Nov 26 after hearing the positions of the respective parties," the release said.

The final list of constituencies would be published on November 30, followed by issuance of the elections schedule and polling.

The completion of the delimitation brings ECP closer to holding polls by the last week of January, as planned by the body. A specific date for the elections is yet to be announced.

The ECP earlier stated 54 days were required to let the candidate file nominations, their scrutiny and final approval as well as time for election campaign. That is why it said that the elections would be held in the last week of January.

The initial listing of electoral districts is the first major step to fulfill the commitment to hold polls by the end of January.

The National Assembly was dissolved on August 9 and constitutionally, the elections should be held within 90 days but the process was delayed by the ECP due to the delimitation exercise which became mandatory in the wake of the new census held this year.

The previous government just days before the end of its term endorsed the results of the census which obligated the ECP to set up a new electoral district on the basis of the latest population.

The move led to fears that the polls meant to be held within 90 days may be delayed till next year as the delimitation process would take about four months to complete.

The National Assembly consists of 266 general seats and 60 seats reserved for women. Ten seats have also been reserved for non-Muslims.

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After becoming the first Indian to be elected as the president of the Oxford Student Union (SU), Rashmi Samant revealed that the she faced racism at the institution. In her tell-all book titled A Hindu in Oxford, Rashmi Samant detailed her experience of being allegedly targeted and singled by her professors at the university. She claimed that her professors questioned her holding the office of president citing her religious and ethnic backgrounds. A man walks in front of the buildings of Oxford University.(Reuters)

Rashmi Samant told news agency ANI that "Bharatiya students" face a lot of discrimination and hatred which is not discussed openly in public. When she stepped down from her post in February 2021, the matter would have reached the stage of conviction if they had not found somebody who looked an Indian to take over (from her), she said.

On her successor Avnee Bhutani saying that Rashmi Samant didn't face any discrimination on grounds of her nationality and ethnicity, she said, Avnee is doing a disservice to the movement (on campus) by playing down the trauma that somebody else has lived through. She has no proof to back her claim. It was an act to defame me and to play down the seriousness of racism abroad for ulterior motives. During the British era also we saw a lot of people from Bharitya origin who used to defend the British as it was something positive for the Indian people. All they are doing is lying and lapping up to the expectations of the British."

On Rishi Sunak becoming UK PM Rashmi Samant said, Our people are fighters and Sunak, too, became the Prime Minister after overcoming serious odds. However, he earned the respect and trust of fellow politicians and world leaders and is now working to take the country forward with full support of the people. Our people are treated very badly and are always discriminated against. We never take it as an excuse not to excel. We do not cry. We do not become crybabies. Instead, we fight it and give it back to their face.

Praising PM Modi, she said, Finally, we have a seat with the Western countries. America and the UK respect us, Canada fears us, and we have great relations with Europe. What we often neglect to see is how Modi ji has also brought the African Union. That is the mark of a true leader who is willing to uplift so many. We should take pride in that we took G20 to G21.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail
Republican presidential candidates are all set to meet for a high stake debate on Wednesday on the back of auto workers strike, looming government shutdown, Donald Trump's rising legal troubles and a renewed focus on abortion rights. FILE - GOP presidential candidates stand behind their podiums during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2015. (AP)

The event, scheduled to commence at 9 p.m. New York time in Simi Valley, California, is expected to refocus attention on critical issues concerning immigration and border security. It will also offer candidates an opportunity to set themselves apart from the competition and pose a significant challenge to former President Donald Trump. Notably, frontrunner, Trump, has once again chosen to forgo participation.

In Trump's absence all eyes will be on key figures such as businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who are expected to deliver passionate performances that previously bolstered their visibility and polling numbers. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott will also have a chance at redemption following their relatively lackluster showings in last month's debate in Milwaukee.

Can Ramaswamy and Haley outshine for the second time?

Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy emerged with glowing reviews following the inaugural GOP primary debate last month, according to a recent poll conducted by FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, and Ipsos. Haley emphasized her conservative credentials while positioning herself as a proven leader rather than a provocateur. On the other hand, Ramaswamy engaged in spirited exchanges with fellow candidates, aiming to bolster his outsider image.

As the second primary debate approaches, both candidates find themselves in the pivotal position of maintaining their momentum. "A strong performance is essential, and they can't afford to stumble, either literally or figuratively, during the debate. Both of them must match or exceed their previous performances," emphasized Dave Carney, a GOP strategist based in New Hampshire.

However, their strong showing in the last debate may encourage other candidates to elevate their game on Wednesday night, potentially directing their criticisms toward Haley and Ramaswamy.

For Ramaswamy, who garnered attention for his confrontational approach with fellow candidates and his calls for comprehensive federal government reforms, GOP strategist Bob Heckman noted that voters may now be looking for more substantial policy proposals.

Last chance for redemption for DeSantis

Is Florida Governor most viable alternative to Donald Trump? Amid slumping poll numbers and donor skepticism it will be a high stake debate for Ron DeSantis after he largely ceded the spotlight to rivals last month. Florida Governor is currently trailing Trump by 42.5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. DeSantis campaign has even sent a memo to donors Saturday to reassure them of the governors chances.

Trumps absence again positions DeSantis as the leading contender on stage. Last time around, he finished in the middle of the pack in terms of speaking time, and his opponents largely directed their fire elsewhere. The challenge now for DeSantis is to avoid a repeat of that dynamic, lest his campaign slip further toward mixing with the rest of the field.

GOP position on key issues: Government shutdown, UAW Strike, Immigration

The impending government shutdown, UAW strike and immigration are poised to take centre stage as the dominant policy topics during Wednesday night's GOP debate. Moderator Stuart Varney emphasized their commitment to addressing a broad spectrum of issues, stating that we will thoroughly cover all the key topics, as that's what the audience expects.

Furthermore, Republicans both within and outside of Capitol Hill are capitalizing on the surge in unauthorized border crossings to critique the Biden administration's immigration policies. Given that many of the candidates lack current federal positions and share similar stances on border security, it remains uncertain how distinct their perspectives on spending and immigration will be.

Can Tim Scott Make an Impact?

Tim Scott faces a challenge similar to that of Ron DeSantis. Although he entered the first debate with a boost in fundraising and polling numbers, he was unable to capitalize on that momentum. In fact, only North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson spoke less during the debate, and Hutchinson didn't qualify for the second debate.

Expect Tim Scott to try and distinguish himself on the topic of abortion. He has openly criticized Trump's stance, suggesting that the former president might relax the 15-week national abortion ban, a policy that Scott strongly supports. Just this Monday, Scott released an advertisement accusing fellow Republicans of showing signs of "retreating on life."

Is this final stretch for such a crowded stage?

Following the first debate, the stage has only seen a reduction of one candidate, with Hutchinson failing to meet the qualifications for Wednesday's event. However, political strategists anticipate a significant narrowing of the field by the time the third debate arrives in November.

To earn a spot in that upcoming debate, candidates must secure a minimum of 4% support in two national polls or reach 4% in one national poll and 4% in a poll from one of the early-state "carve out" states approved by the Republican National Committee, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. This marks a 1% increase in polling requirements compared to the second debate, where candidates needed 3% in three national polls or 3% in two national polls along with 3% in two early-state polls.

Furthermore, candidates are now mandated to garner a minimum of 70,000 unique donors for entry into the third debate, a significant increase from the 50,000 unique donor threshold for the second debate. They must also secure at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in a minimum of 20 states and/or territories.

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For decades, an Australian family in Sydney has been standing strong, untempted by lucrative offers from developers who want them to lure into selling their land. While the family's house has stood where it was decades ago, a suburb with hundreds of homes have been built around it. The family continues to receive offers running into millions, but are not relenting to the pressure. Zammit family house in Australia amid the green patch (X(formerly Twitter)/@TheNorskaPaul)

According to a report by Unilad, developers are offering money to the tune of $30 million to the Zammit family who have been residing on the plot of land in Sydney for ages. The family is not willing to sell even if the amount offered goes higher.

As per pictures of the property, there is vast patch of green land around the house which sits amidst a sea of other houses in the suburb.

The house is located in an area of Sydney called The Ponds. As per the report, the Zammit family's five-bedroom house covers an area of 1.99 hectares which could be used by developers to build 50 houses like those in the neighbourhood.

Hailing the Zammit family's defiance in the wake of such big amount offers, a real estate agent Taylor Bredin told 7News: The fact that most people sold out years and years ago, these guys have held on. All credit to them.

Depending on how far you push the development plan, youd be able to push anywhere from 40 to 50 properties on something like this, and when subdivided, a 300 square metre block would get a million dollars, added Bredin.

ALSO READ| $10000 Great Depression-era banknote sells for whopping $480000 in Texas

One of the members of the Zammit family, Diane Zammit has highlighted how the entire area was a farmland once. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Diane said: Every home was unique and there was so much space - but not anymore. Its just not the same.

She sent out a message to any land developers thinking of convincing them to sell the property, Diane said: Tell em theyre dreaming.

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On a Typical evening Zhengzhous manufacturing district should be teeming with workers heading back to their dormitories. For more than a decade the city of 13m in central China has been home to Foxconn employees who assemble iPhones in a local megafactorymeaning activity at hole-in-the-wall eateries and dank internet cafes provides an informal gauge of the health of the local economy. But now one of the main dormitory areas is vacant. Labourers are stripping out what remains of internet cafes and hauling off sofas that once furnished dorms. Many workers fled, never to return, in October last year, escaping a lockdown that had confined them to their dorms, sometimes ten to a room, for weeks on end. PREMIUM This aerial photograph taken on August 30, 2023 shows a residential complex built by Chinese real estate developer Vanke in Zhengzhou, in Chinas central Henan province. (Photo by AFP)(AFP)

Zhengzhou has become one of Chinas most problematic cities. gdp per person in Henan province, of which it is the capital, sits at 27% below the national average. The citys difficultiesincluding a lack of work, falling property prices and banking instabilityare acute examples of those facing China at large. They also emerged earlier than those in much of the rest of the country. As such, Zhengzhou has become a laboratory for potential remedies, some of which have since been rolled out on a national level. Chinas recent economic data, released on September 15th, indicates that the economy is at least starting to stabilise. The annual rate of growth in industrial production rose to 4.5% in August. Retail sales were up by 4.6%. Both beat analysts expectations. But the floor total area of new homes under construction fell by 7.1% in the first eight months of the year, continuing its decline. And even if the situation has begun to stabilise, Zhengzhous experience shows how hard it will be for China to truly escape from its economic malaiseand how long any recovery will take. The regions troubles began to accelerate in 2020, with the default of Yongcheng Coal, a local energy firm. The next year floods swept the city, submerging a metro line and killing almost 400 people. Local officials, including the party secretary, were sacked for hiding the true number of casualties. In 2022 bank depositors around the country discovered they could not withdraw their funds from several banks in the province, leading to weeks of protests outside the Zhengzhou branch of Chinas central bank. The city also experienced tough treatment during covid-19. Locals shudder at the memory of a four-month lockdown endured before the abandonment of zero-covid policies.

Developing problems

As one woe after another has been visited upon the city, its property market has worsened. China has been in the throes of a real-estate crisis since 2021. Developers have come up short on the cash needed to finish flats. And because most buyers pay upfront, they have found themselves taking out mortgages without receiving homes. In July last year dissidents began tracking mortgage boycottsand found Zhengzhou to be at the centre. By some counts, 600,000 local homebuyers have bought flats in troubled developments. cric, a research firm, estimates that one in every 13 households has been affected.

The situation has forced local policymakers to act. Henans plans to ease joblessness have included a 100-day, military-style campaign, which began in May and recently came to an end. It aimed for zero-dynamic clearing of youth unemployment, borrowing language from the zero-covid policy. Staff at universities were told to identify youngsters who were struggling to find jobs and to connect them with public institutions, state-owned enterprises and even employers in the countryside. Since the campaign has only just concluded, the results are not yet clearbut it seems unlikely to have discovered thousands of new employment opportunities. With a poor job market and 870,000 new university graduates this year alone, Henans public servants would have had to have been working overtime to have put even the slightest dent in the problem. Other reforms are a little more thought-through. In March Zhengzhou became the first big city to drop restrictions on buying second homes, in an attempt to prop up demand. Last month it led the way again as the first city to launch reforms that instructed banks to lower mortgage rates, exempted new graduates from deed taxes and handed out subsidies of up to 30,000 yuan ($4,100) for home purchases for families with three children. It also lifted a rule that banned people from reselling their homes within three years of purchase. By early September work appeared to have restarted on some of the citys largest stalled property developments. One of these, named Qifucheng, had been paused since 2019. The development, with more than 6,000 residential units, has been called Zhengzhous largest lanweilou, or abandoned building site. Last year the developer behind it was accused of putting a few workers on site in order to appear as if work was taking place, perhaps to avoid being sued. Now trucks are moving in and out of the site, and many workers are on the job. If work on similar projects resumes, people looking for new flats might even shake off their distrust of the sector. This will take time, however. Property prices in the city are still heading in the wrong directionthey fell by 0.5% month-on-month in Augustwhich bodes ill for a rapid recovery in other second-tier cities. Perhaps Zhengzhous most daring reform has been to relax the constraints of the hukou, a household-registration system. A year ago city officials announced that migrants with local jobs and residences would qualify for a registration necessary to buy homes or access education, abandoning a system that has created a two-tier society across China. In theory, ditching the hukou could relieve many of the citys problems. Talented young people looking to live in a big, central city might move to Zhengzhou. Some might even launch startups, attracting workers from around the country. All of this should help boost property prices. Yet since policymakers introduced the reform, other provinces have made similar moves, increasing competition for potential arrivals. In August, for instance, Jiangsu, a prosperous coastal region, said that it would relax hukou requirements for many of its cities. After months of delay, the central government has begun to show that it is taking the countrys economic stagnation seriously. Meanwhile, the central bank has loosened monetary policy. But questions remain over whether Chinas leaders will be able to solve local crises, which is necessary if the country is to raise its long-run growth. So far, the message has been that local leaders will need to solve many of their own problems. It is unfortunate, then, that Zhengzhous experience suggests that doing so will be a struggle.  2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com

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The White House thanked Beijing on Wednesday for allowing detained US soldier Travis King to leave North Korea through Chinese territory. A portrait of American soldier Travis King is displayed.(AP)

"We thank... the government of the People's Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

King had left Chinese airspace and was on his way to a US military base, a senior administration official said.
When on July 26th soldiers from Nigers presidential guard detained and overthrew the leader they were supposed to be protecting, France insisted that it would not take orders from the new junta. When the coup leaders told Frances ambassador and its 1,500 soldiers stationed in the country to get out, the former colonial power dug in its heels, citing a point of democratic principle. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, declared that Mohamed Bazoum, Nigers captive president, had been democratically elected and so France would recognise only his authority. PREMIUM French President Emmanuel Macron meets local residents in Ajaccio, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, on September 27, 2023 as he arrives for a three days visit. (Photo by Pascal POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP)(AFP)

But in an abrupt reversal on September 24th, Mr Macron announced that not only was Frances ambassador, Sylvain Itte, being recalled to Paris but all troops in Niger would leave by the end of the year. France, declared its president, would thus put an end to bilateral military co-operation with Niger.

The official explanation for this about-turn is that the new authorities no longer want to fight against terrorism, said Mr Macron. Between 2013 and 2022 France led an anti-jihadist operation in the countries of the SahelBurkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Nigerinitiated at their request. Backed by other European countries, including Britain, Estonia and Sweden, the operation at its peak counted over 5,000 French soldiers. Last year France decided to wind down Operation Barkhane and quit Mali after military leaders there staged a second military coup, and hired mercenaries from Russias Wagner group. French forces withdrew to what then seemed to be the relative stability of neighbouring Niger, where France maintains a military base, complete with fighter jets and Reaper drones.

As it happens, Mr Macron has a point about counter-terrorism. Nigers junta justified its putsch in July as a response to rising insecurity. In reality political violence has surged since the coup leaders took over. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a research group based in America, political violence increased by 42% in the first month of rule under the junta in Niger compared with the previous month. In the first six months of 2023, when Mr Bazoum held office, by contrast, it fell by 39% compared with the previous six months.

Yet the French decision to quit Niger is about much more than this. It is partly a pragmatic recognition that the junta was not going to budge, and that regional countries, despite their threats, were unlikely to try to dislodge it from power. The decision also marks a reluctant and painful realisation in Paris that its influence on the continent has taken a severe knock.

In the eyes of a generation of younger Nigeriens, and partly thanks to the efficiency of Russian disinformation campaigns, France is now regarded as the problem, not the solution. In 2013 Francois Hollande, Mr Macrons predecessor, was feted in Bamako, Malis capital, after he dispatched French troops to beat back a jihadist incursion. Today crowds wave hastily stitched Russian flags, and call for France to get out.

The uncomfortable truth is that, however much the French point to their tactical successes in the Sahel, the broader picture since 2013 is one of spreading political violence. This has rapidly spilled over into West Africas coastal states. Unlike other former colonial powers, France keeps a strong military presence on the continent, which consists of four other permanent bases, in Djibouti, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Senegal. This makes it a ready target to blame, and to accuse of neo-colonial occupation. The decision to leave Niger, declared the junta after Mr Macrons declaration, was a historic moment for the countrys sovereignty.

The weight of Frances history casts a long shadow of suspicion over its broader activities on the continent. In a landmark speech in Burkina Faso in 2017, Mr Macron laid out his plans for a Franco-African reset. France would turn the page on francafrique, the web of cosy links between Paris and French-speaking African leaders that kept them in office and business deals flowing north. To make the point, he returned works of art from French museums, and asked forgiveness for Frances role in the genocide in Rwanda. Yet this new approach, combined with its colonial past, means that France is held to standards not applied to other outside powers, including Russia, China and Turkey. America too attracts little dissent. It runs a drone base out of Agadez in Niger, and has quietly decided to stay despite the change of regime, to little outcry.

France had no good options in Niger. Had its troops and diplomats stayed in spite of the juntas demands, this could have precipitated a nasty confrontation. By leaving, as Francois Heisbourg of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, puts it, Frances bluff has been called, which we could pay a heavy price for down the line. For France, a serious rethink of its Africa policy and the sustainability of its military presence on the continent is now in order. For the people of Niger, the likely consequence of this sorry episode is that political violence will only get worse.

 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
Cara Delevingne has got a new tattoo. (WireImage)

Cara Delevingne's new tattoo has divided opinion as people have pointed out that it appears to contain a typo.

The model and actor, 31, has various inkings already and showed off her newest design in a photo on her tattoo artist's Instagram.

Tattooist Matteo Nangeroni's work included the Italian word "dormiveglia", meaning a semi-conscious state, alongside a dictionary definition - but it seemed to include a spelling blunder.

Cara Delevingne got an Italian word tattooed on her arm. (WWD via Getty Images)

People commenting on the photo said that the definition had been changed by including the word "walking" instead of "waking".

It read: "Dormiveglia: The space that stretches between sleeping and walking."

Read more: What age can you get a tattoo in the UK?

One person commented: "Nooo.you spelled it wrong its supposed to be waking not WALKING."

But Nangeroni, who was accused of deleting various other similar comments, responded: "maybe we choose like that? Compliments you can read."

Another person asked: "was "walking" instead of "waking" a choice or a typo?"

Someone else wrote: "Isnt it meant to say waking?"

However, that was not the only controversy surrounding the photo, which shows Delevingne topless despite the tattoo being on her arm.

One person asked: "Why you make people take their tops off for an arm tattoo? And did you know its waking and not walking?"

Someone else commented: "As a woman, Id never go to a male artist who posed a client needlessly topless. Do better."

The model defended her choice to go topless in the photo. (Getty Images)

Another person wrote: "If this was a famous male celebrity would you have them topless too? Seems unnecessary..."

Someone else added: "Why is she topless to show an arm tattoo WTF."

But Delevingne weighed in to defend Nangeroni, saying that she agreed with the decision to be topless in the photo.

Story continues

She commented: "Just to be clear to everyone! I chose to take my bra off, the picture didnt look good with my bra on. I am a perfectionist especially when it comes to photography and I was trying to help make something beautiful. Everyone calm down please. Thank you x"

Cara Delevingne at the 2023 Met Gala. (WWD via Getty Images)

One fan commented: "I find it more offensive that waking is spelled incorrectly."

Nangeroni also added: "Why 'Naked'? Why walking instead of waking? Maybe because everyone has her/his own vision."

Delevingne told Vogue magazine in March that she had got her first tattoo, a lion on her finger, as an act of teenage rebellion.

She said: "At that time you couldnt get tattoos because it was part of your modelling contract, and they kind of owned your body."

But she hinted that she wanted to have some of her tattoos removed as part of a "fresh start" which includes having given up alcohol.
The parents of 43 students from a small teacher college in Mexico who vanished nine years ago are fighting an uphill struggle.

The sixth and last report on the 43 missing pupils was released in July, and it contained proof. The lengthy inquiry found that municipal, state, and federal security forces in Mexico at the time "all collaborated to make them disappear," as reported by NBC News.

In contrast, only three pupils' remains had been properly identified in the previous nine years.

On September 26, 2014, Jorge Antonio, a 20-year-old student at Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College, traveled to the city of Iguala in Guerrero's southwest with a large group of his classmates.

As they had done before, the students in Iguala took over buses to travel the 120 miles to Mexico City. They had a march scheduled for the 46th anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre in memory of the hundreds of students killed on October 2, 1968, by Mexican military and police.

Local officials removed the students, and they later vanished. At the time, the Enrique Pea Nieto administration attempted to end the case.

According to testimony from numerous drug traffickers, the students were turned over to Guerreros Unidos, a cartel that murdered them and burned their bodies at the Cocula garbage dump, according to the report, which claimed that local law enforcement officers arrested the students after they left the bus station in cooperation with a drug cartel.

However, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigating agency assisted in reopening the case by disclosing how officials had subjected individuals to torture in order to obtain their testimony.

"We were given a video that showed what really happened at the Cocula garbage dump," he recalled from the previous year.

Tizapa cited fresh data submitted by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts last year, which claimed that the Mexican government at the time purposely fabricated data and withheld leads.

Drone images and video that may have shown the Mexican military setting the area where the students were allegedly slain were among the evidence.

According to the panel's final assessment, released in July, local, state, and federal security forces were aware of the students' kidnappings and participated in their disappearances.

At the July news conference, a panelist reflected on one of Mexico's most infamous human rights incidents and questioned: "How was it possible for it to happen in a little city with two battalions of approximately 600 men?"

The study found that two battalions' worth of military officers must have conspired with organized crime and narcotics trafficking. The panel added that police, state agents, and other authorities were "without a doubt" participating.

Investigation Will Continue

Despite the arrests of military personnel and others, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has stated that his administration intends to continue looking into the situation.

According to Reuters last week, the armed forces have denied knowing anything about the students' disappearances.

Investigators claimed that security personnel had monitored the pupils and labeled them as militants. According to them, the disparaging description had an impact on the inquiry that followed the disappearances.

In contrast to the claims made by the Mexican security forces, the panel highlighted at the press conference that "not a single document that we have analyzed indicates that the young people were colluding with drug trafficking." Not one.

Read also: Mexico City Metro Overpass Collapses Kills At Least 23

What the Parents Want

The current discoveries and the arrests are insufficient for parents.

Despite the advancements, Tizapa and other families claim that the government, particularly the military, still needs to provide them with answers. Gonzalez stated that in order to put pressure on the government and demand answers from the military, the families need the backing of the Mexican people.

Gonzalez stated that he thinks everyone can relate to the Ayotzinapa case because the 43 students were merely "chamaquitos," or young people, seeking a better life.

Related article: Three Mexican Nationals Face Charges After Cash, Ammo, and Drugs Connected to the Sinoloa Cartel Siezed

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As part of a renewed attempt to curb the recent uptick in border crossings, Mexico and the United States have reached an agreement to deport migrants from border communities back to their home countries and to take various other measures to discourage migrants.

Mexico-US Deal

A recent surge of illegal crossings into the US caused the temporary closure of an international bridge and the halting of Mexico's primary freight train system. This prompted Mexican authorities to meet with US Customs and Border Protection officials last week in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just over the border from El Paso, Texas.

El Paso, San Diego, and Eagle Pass, Texas, have all proclaimed states of emergency, and as part of the accord, Mexico promised to "depressurize" its northern towns that border those areas. The National Migration Institute of Mexico reports that over a dozen measures would be taken to discourage migrants from using the dangerous train route to the US border, CNN reported.

As part of the agreement, Mexican authorities committed to enacting a set of 15 measures. Some of these would need collaboration with Customs and Border Protection and Ferromex, such as the deportation of migrants through land and air.

To ensure receipt of their nationals removed from the US-Mexico border, the administration stated it would negotiate with the governments of Venezuela, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Cuba. The international bridge in Ciudad Juarez that leads to El Paso will also be open for use by US border patrol officials to evacuate migrants.

Also Read: Mexican Drug Cartels Believed To Send Migrants to US Border To Distract From Smuggling Operations

Fresh Influx of Migrants

This week, an official from the Department of Homeland Security said that the average number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border in a single day was over 8,600. This is an increase from May when the new guidelines for unlawful border crossers were triggered by the expiry of Title 42. At that time, the average daily border arrests were about 3,500. On Monday, September 25, police made more than 8,000 arrests.

The recent spike in migration is being blamed on a number of factors, including disinformation and an increase in kidnappings in Mexico, according to reports.

The US Department of Defense has been increasing its presence at the border. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security said it will be deploying at least 800 more active-duty officers to join the 2,500 National Guardsmen currently stationed there.

Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Barcena acknowledged at a news conference at the United Nations on Friday, September, that her country is experiencing its own difficulties as a result of the recent uptick. She added that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to meet with US President Joe Biden in Washington in November to address migration, as well as drug and gun trafficking.

Also Read: El Paso Officials Order Creation of New Shelter as Texas Scrambles To Address Migrant Surge

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One of the few gas stations still operating in Stepanakert exploded while fuel was being distributed to fleeing residents as ethnic Armenians are in the process of leaving Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan claimed to put the region under its control last week completely.

Artsakh authorities said Tuesday (September 26) that the explosion killed at least 20 people and injured almost 300 more. Of the dead, 13 were instantly killed at the scene, while the remaining seven were still taken to hospital but succumbed to injuries.

Some of the injured remain in a critical condition in hospital, separatist health officials added.

It was reported that 30 metric tons of gasoline and 34 metric tons of diesel fuel were being sent by Azerbaijan into the region.

Speculation of Sabotage Unlikely, Artsakh Presidential Aide Says

The cause of the explosion remains unknown, but Armenian Karabakh presidential aide David Babayan said initial information suggested that sabotage was unlikely. His Azerbaijani counterpart, Hikmet Hajiyev, stated that hospitals in his country are on standby to treat any explosion victims.

Meanwhile, Armenia's health ministry said a helicopter brought some of the casualties of the blast, with more airlifts expected. Russian peacekeepers in the area are also using its own helicopters to bring in victims to Armenia.

Read Also: Fall of Armenian Karabakh Imminent? Azerbaijan, Artsakh Officials Begin Talks on Fate of Armenian Enclave

Leaving While They Could

Meanwhile, the Armenian government in Yerevan reported Tuesday (Sept. 25) that about 12% of the Armenian population of Karabakh - over 13,500 people - have fled across the border.

According to the Associated Press, residents of Nagorno-Karabakh scrambled to flee as soon as Baku lifted its 10-month blockade on the Lachin Corridor, the region's only road to Armenia. The blockade caused severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.

While Azerbaijani officials made assurances they would respect the rights of ethnic Armenians, many residents feared reprisals and ethnic cleansing, similar to what happened in the first two wars in the region and the Armenian Genocide.

Related Article: Ethnic Armenians Leave Nagorno-Karabakh as Fall of Stepanakert Imminent

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The full moon has different names for each month of the year. This means that yearly, people can see 12 different full moons. These include three to four supermoons.

Some people may just treat a full moon as another happening they can post on Instagram and other social media platforms. But, for other individuals, full moons have great significance to their cultures.

Full Moon Names 2023 Guide: Here's What Each of Them Means

Patrick Hartigan, a professor of astronomy and physics at Rice University, explained that full moons and other astronomical events mark the passage of time. They also provide a steady rhythm to many people's lives.

"These cycles are independent of human activities and remind us that we are part of this world but that we do not control everything," he added via Business Insider.

If you love to take photos of full moons or just admire them, here's what their names mean:

Harvest Moon/Barley Moon/Corn Moon (September)

The Harvest Moon is important for farmers since it's a sign that they need to finish harvesting corn and other crops.

Hunter's Moon/Blood Moon/Dying Grass Moon/Travel Moon (October)

Unlike the Harvest Moon, the Hunter's Moon signals the time when hunters should start storing meat for the winter.

Frosty Moon/Beaver Moon (November)

When the Frosty Moon appears, it means that people should start collecting animal furs to prepare for winter. It is also the time when beavers become more active, which animal trappers take advantage of.

Cold Moon/Long Night's Moon (December)

The Cold Moon is a sign that the darkest, longest nights of the year are about to happen. This means that the moon will appear above the horizon longer than expected.

Read Also: Space Update: Moscow's Moonshot Failed, NASA's Lunar Trailblazer Prepares Lunar Trailblazer To Find Water On The Moon

Other Full Moons in Early Months

The full moons mentioned above are just for the months of September to November. The Royal Museums Greenwich provided other names from January until August.

January: Wolf Moon/Old Moon/Ice Moon

Named after the howling of wolves during midwinter.

February: Snow Moon/Storm Moon/Hunger Moon

Named after the snowy cold weather in North America.

March: Worm Moon/Crust Moon/Sap Moon/Death Moon

Named after the worm trails that usually appear when snow and ice on the ground melt.

April: Pink Moon/Fish Moon/Egg Moon/Flower Moon

Named after the abundance of flowers in spring.

June: Strawberry Moon/Rose Moon/Hot Moon

Named after the period in North America when it's time to harvest strawberries.

July: Buck Moon/Hay Moon/Thunder Moon



Named after the male deer, which shed their antlers and regrow them back during this period.

August: Sturgeon Moon/Green Corn Moon/Grain Moon/Red Moon

Named by North American fishing tribes after "sturgeon," which is the common name for 28 species of fish.

Related Article: Northern Hemisphere Auroras Expected to Intensify as Peak of Solar Cycle Imminent - How to Watch Northern Lights as Winter Approaches?

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is now trying to revive its net neutrality rules.

Will this effort benefit AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and other broadband service providers? Here are the major details you need to know.

FCC Net Neutrality Rules Revival: Will ISP Consumers Benefit From This?

The net neutrality regulations, which aim to prevent ISPs from blocking websites and prohibiting them from charging higher-quality service, were dismantled by the FCC in 2017.

This decision reflected the view of the recent Trump Administration and former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who both believe that if businesses are unregulated, they can help the economy and lead to more innovations.

Now, thanks to Democrats taking majority control of the five-member FCC, the net neutrality rules are being revived. This is the latest of FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to help American broadband consumers.

"For everyone, everywhere, to enjoy the full benefits of the internet age, internet access should be more than just accessible and affordable. The internet needs to be open," said Rosenworcel via NBC News.

This decision was announced on Monday, Sept. 25, which is the first time that Democrats took majority control of the FCC since U.S. President Joe Biden was elected.

Read Also: US Launches Investigation After Jetblue Flight Hit Sudden, Severe Turbulence Near Florida, Injuring 8 People

What It Means for AT&T, Other ISPs

Rosenworcel explained that the global COVID-19 pandemic proved that the internet is not just something nice to have. She added that broadband connections are among the necessities of Americans today.

"It is essential infrastructure for modern life. No one without it has a fair shot at 21st-century success," she explained.

According to CNET, the net neutrality rules aim to make broadband services as important as other utilities, such as water and electricity.

Because of this, the new regulations will require AT&T and other internet service providers to treat all kinds of internet traffic equally.

This means that broadband service providers can no longer prioritize websites they are affiliated with over their competitors' services.

The FCC's newly released fact sheet explained how restoring net neutrality regulations can greatly benefit internet consumers:

Nationwide Standard - Establish a uniform national standard rather than a patchwork of state-by-state approaches, benefiting consumers and Internet Service Providers.

- Establish a uniform national standard rather than a patchwork of state-by-state approaches, benefiting consumers and Internet Service Providers. Safety - Allow the FCC to enhance the resiliency of broadband networks and bolster efforts to require providers to notify the FCC and consumers of internet outages.

- Allow the FCC to enhance the resiliency of broadband networks and bolster efforts to require providers to notify the FCC and consumers of internet outages. Security - Reclassify broadband internet access to give the FCC and its national security partners the tools needed to defend our networks from potential security threats.

- Reclassify broadband internet access to give the FCC and its national security partners the tools needed to defend our networks from potential security threats. Openness - Establish basic rules for Internet Service Providers that prevent them from blocking legal content, throttling your speeds, and creating fast lanes that favor those who can pay for access.

You can click this link to learn more about the revival of FCC's net neutrality regulations.

Related Article: Salary Transparency Law: How New York Employees May Benefit From The New Legislature?

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New Russian assault units are allegedly being established by Vladimir Putin. This was claimed by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based war monitoring think-tank.

ISW shared the major details it knows about these new Russian military assault groups. Can they really overwhelm Ukraine's counteroffensives?

New Russian Units Allegedly Being Established, Claims ISW

ISW said that on Monday, Sept. 25, a Russian news outlet (Izvestia) revealed that the Kremlin is creating new assault units to break through Ukraine's layered defenses and reconnaissance troops.

Citing sources in the Russian military, such as Russian Union of Paratroopers Chairmain Col. Valery Yuryev, Izvestia claimed that soldiers in these new brigades will be trained to counter enemies' reconnaissance at "tactical depth."

For those who are not familiar with military reconnaissance, it is a military activity involving area explorations to obtain critical information about enemy troops.

The acquired military details will also help the military to become more familiar with the terrains, as well as the civil activities in the targeted areas, as reported by the Independent UK.

ISW said that the new Russian assault units will receive light armored vehicles, tanks, artilleries, as well as advanced drones to overwhelm Ukraine's military reconnaissance.

But, the American war monitoring think-tank said that it is unclear how the Russian military plans to recruit, train, and fill the positions needed to complete the new assault brigades.

Read Also: US Abrams Tanks Arrive in Ukraine; Kyiv Ckaims Russian Fleet Commander Was Slain

Ukraine's Military Defenses Also Being Enhanced

According to CBS News' latest report, Ukraine's military counteroffensives are also being enhanced, thanks to the support provided by the U.S. government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the American-made Abrams tanks, which the U.S. promised, already arrived in the country.

"Good news from Minister (of Defense Rustem) Umerov. Abrams are already in Ukraine and are being prepared to reinforce our brigades," said Zelenskyy via his official Telegram message to Ukrainians.

However, the Russian government seems to be unbothered by the military aid of the U.S. France24 reported that the Kremlin warned Ukraine that the Abrams tanks and the long-range ATACMS missiles will not benefit the country's troops.

"All this can in no way affect the essence of the special military operation, its outcome," claimed Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

He added that there's no single weapon that can help Ukraine change the balance of power on the battlefield. Peskov has a point since it was confirmed that the Abrams battle tanks provided by the U.S. are very limited.

Sources said that Ukraine only received around a few dozen of these tanks. This was also confirmed by Ukraine's correspondent Gulliver Cragg, who said that the United States promised only 31 units, "which is not a huge number."

Related Article: Russia's Intensified Militarization: Here's How Schools Turn Into Kids' Training Grounds

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A Moscow court rejected Russian dissident Alexey Navalny's appeal against the 19-year prison sentence imposed on him over extremism charges.

The development is the latest crackdown on the outspoken Kremlin critic following his sentencing in August. At the time, he was found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities, and numerous other crimes.

Alexey Navalny's Appeal Rejected

Navalny is already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility over fraud and other charges he has continued denying. The dissident appeared at the hearing on Tuesday through a video link from a penal colony in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.

Many of the locked-up dissident's supporters claim that his arrest and incarceration are a politically motivated attempt to stifle his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the other hand, Navalny's team said the hearing was moved behind closed doors after a letter from Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs described potential unspecified danger to the participants in an open trial, as per CNN.

In a statement on Tuesday, Navalny told the prosecutor that the main reason these processes are taking place behind closed doors is the restriction of my and Daniel Kholodny's rights. The former technical director of the dissident's YouTube channel was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in August in the same extremism case.

Russian authorities have imprisoned Navalny since returning to the country in January 2021 on charges of violating terms of probation related to a historical fraud case. He dismissed the case as politically targeted.

The dissident was taken from Russia to Germany in August 2020 after being poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. He then arrived in a coma at a Berlin hospital following a medical evacuation flight from the Siberian city of Omsk.

The 47-year-old is by far the most popular figure in Russia's splintered opposition, with his supporters casting him as a Nelson Mandela-style figure who will one day be freed from imprisonment to lead the nation, according to Aljazeera.

Read Also: Germany Orders Checks on Borders With Poland, Czech Republic To Address Migrant Surge

Extremism Charges

Navalny's political movement was outlawed, and key figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad as part of a Kremlin crackdown on dissent. The efforts have intensified after President Putin sent his troops into Ukraine last year.

The Russian government has also sought to portray Navalny as politically irrelevant, and the Russian strongman never speaks the dissident's name. Moscow officials also portray him as an extremist and a puppet of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but have not provided any evidence of the latter.

The latest case against Navalny threatens to transfer him to a "special regime" prison colony, the harshest grade in Russia's penal system. The length of the imprisonment he faces gives the prospect that he could stay there until he is in his mid-70s.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Navalny aide Leonid Volkov said that the situation is a constant pain for them, their colleagues, and friends. He added that it is a constant challenge because they must do everything daily to destroy the "maniac in the Kremlin," said Inquirer.

Related Article: Canadian House Speaker Announces Resignation After Praising Nazi Veteran

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China's new anti-espionage law is very concerning for foreign businesses and even the country's citizens. Concerns regarding this legislation arose after Beijing updated it in 2023.

The Chinese government's adjustments expanded the surveillance law to include any data, materials, documents, and other items related to national security and interests.

China's New Anti-Espionage Law

The Conversation reported that the Chinese anti-espionage law recently only prohibited intelligence and state secret leaks. But, as the Asian country's rivalry with the U.S. and its distrust of the Western-led international order intensified, Chinese officials decided to update the legislation.

One of the most concerning rules in this anti-espionage legislation is that it allows officials to access people's social media accounts and emails on electronic devices.

Analysts said that this enables the Chinese government to target Westerners in the country and attack Chinese nationals who they believe are working for foreign organizations and companies.

Even Chinese residents who only interact with foreigners can be targeted. Aside from this, the bounties related to the anti-espionage law also concern many people.

In August, China launched a new national campaign to reward those who can report suspicious individuals or suspected espionage activities to Beijing. This program will offer over $68,000 to people who can assist China's anti-espionage effort.

As of writing, the surveillance issue in China is worsening. For example, sources said that posters with a hotline number for reporting suspicious activities and red banners encouraging people to report suspicious individuals are becoming a thing in public.

Read Also: China Denies iPhone Ban in Government Offices, Says It Hasn't Passed Any Laws

US Alarmed by China's Anti-Espionage Law

Reuters reported that the US government raised concerns over China's anti-espionage law. Officials said they have been closely monitoring how Beijing expands its anti-spy legislation.

"We do have concerns over it, certainly encouraging citizens to spy on each other is something that's of great concern," said Matt Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesperson.

"We do have concerns over it, certainly encouraging citizens to spy on each other is something that's of great concern," he added.

China started declaring that the Western nations, especially the United States, were spying on the Asian country when Beijing was accused of cyberattacks and espionage.

Related Article: China's National Security Fears Lead to Crackdown on Drone Owners and Hackers

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A news outlet decided to use Microsoft's Bing Chat AI to write an op-ed article explaining why artificial intelligence is risky in journalism.

Based on what it wrote, Bing Chat AI is also against the use of AI tools in the news industry. Here's what it said.

AI vs. AI? Microsoft Bing Chat AI Writes an Article About AI Risks in Journalism

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Missouri-based newspaper, used Microsoft's Bing Chat AI program to write an editorial article explaining why using artificial intelligence in journalism is a bad thing.

"Write a newspaper editorial arguing that artificial intelligence should not be used in journalism," said the newspaper's Editorial Board in its prompt.

After Bing Chat AI completed the article, the editorial team said that the arguments made by the bot were clear and persuasive.

They added that it is ironic that an AI chatbot is also against the use of artificial intelligence and other similar technologies in the news industry.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that they are hoping that their new op-ed article, which is written by an AI chatbot, can generate discussions among humans when it comes to using artificial intelligence to write news articles and other content.

Read Also: Hollywood Strike Nears Conclusion After Writers Reach Tentative Deal with Studios: Reports

What Bing Chat AI Wrote

According to Fox News' latest report, Bing Chat AI argued that although artificial intelligence has numerous benefits, this technology still poses more serious risks to journalism's ethics, integrity, and quality.

"One of the main reasons why AI should not be used in journalism is that it can undermine the credibility and trustworthiness of news," explained the chatbot.

The AI program added that artificial intelligence tools can easily write fake news, spread misinformation, as well as manipulate facts.

Bing Chat AI even provided some scenarios where AIs were used to produce fake news articles. These include the 2020 incident involving the GPT-3.

The website that used OpenAI's advanced AI system clarified that it was their satire project. But, Bing Chat AI said that the articles that GPT-3 were so realistic that anyone can easily be fooled.

Aside from writing false articles, Microsoft's chatbot also warned that AIs can create deepfakes of people; altering what they did and said.

The AI chatbot added that these synthetic images and videos can be used by other people to blackmail and defame other individuals.

Of course, Bing Chat AI also talked about how AI can threaten the livelihood of real human journalists. The system explained that artificial intelligence can replace humans in many tasks.

These include writing headlines, reports, summaries, and stories. It added that AI tools can generate content faster without requiring news companies to spend lots of money.

These are just some of the warnings that Microsoft's Bing Chat AI provided. You can click here to see more.

Related Article: Google Bard AI Conversations Showing Up on Search Results Pages, Including Potentially Private Information

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Jessica Calvillo struggled to find answers for her 9-year-old daughter amid a painful ordeal

Jessica Calvillo Adalynn's bite progression

A mom learned never to ignore a situation when it comes to her child's care.



Jessica Calvillo was going through a morning like any other with daughter Adalynn McDowell, 9, when her child complained of a pinch while getting changed.

"Around 7 a.m., she was removing her nightgown and felt a little poke in her arm, near her armpit area. She said she wanted to donate the nightgowns because it had a tag in it that was poking her," she tells PEOPLE.

The two went about their morning and Jessica dropped Adalynn off at school. "She was perfectly fine, happy and healthy. And then, at about noon, her symptoms started."

Jessica learned Adalynn was experiencing "extreme pain in her arm."

"She said it felt like lightning shot in her armpit and then she had fever chills. Her skin was pale and clammy and her lips were purple and she was just shivering. She couldn't stop shaking and she was kind of hunched over," the mom recalls.

Jessica took Adalynn to the emergency room but quickly found she wasn't satisfied by their experience there.

"I explained to them all of her symptoms and what had happened and that I suspected the poke on her arm was actually a spider bite because the brown recluse spider is very common in the area we live in."

"I had explained that to the nurse practitioners who barely glanced at my daughter's arm before saying, 'Oh no, that's not a bite, it's just a pinch.' "

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Related: Mom Whose Toddler Suffered Intestinal Blockage After Ingesting a Single Water Bead Reacts to Recall (Exclusive)

The nurse then attributed the 9-year-old's fever to a virus or COVID, but the mom objected.

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"My sister came up there and my sister and I both insisted to the practitioner several times that it was not a pinch. We waited and when she came back in to discharge us, she told us that most of her swab results came back but one and there was no need for us to wait," Jessica says.

"She took one more look at my daughter's arm and said, 'It does look a little red, so to make you feel better, I'll send in antibiotics.' "

Jessica made plans to take her daughter elsewhere, still concerned about the spot on her arm

"She didn't give me any information on what to look out for or how to handle it. It made me feel like our fears, in her opinion, didn't matter. I already knew I was going to another emergency room."

Sadly, the next emergency room didn't go much better, with Jessica noting she felt "let down and disappointed" after being told, once again, her child was fine.

"It kind of broke my heart because I'm a mom who is scared for my child. I wanted somebody to help me and I felt like nobody cared enough to help me. And my daughter, my 9-year-old daughter, was realizing that as well, and it just kind of broke my heart."

After insisting on information about what signs to look out for in case it was something more serious, the mom and daughter left the hospital. In a matter of hours, Adalynn's symptoms worsened.

"It was about 5:00 a.m. the next morning, less than 12 hours later ... I knew things were severe. She got absolutely no sleep at all. I tried alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen. I even gave her melatonin to try to help her sleep. Nothing helped."

When Adalynn went to the bathroom, she discovered a "terrifying" amount of blood. "She laid in bed, trying to sleep and would roll over and tell me how much pain she was in," Jessica recalls. "She was definitely experiencing the pain fully, she knew that something was off."

Within an hour of returning to the hospital, doctors were able to confirm that Adalynn had been bitten by a brown recluse.

"They told us she needed to be transferred to a children's hospital for further observation," Jessica, a mom of four, shares. "They had to transfer her two hours away."

Jessica Calvillo Adalynn smiling in hospital

Jessica credits her village for making it possible to get through that terrifying time. "When they say that it takes a village, it really does. My daughter's father and I are not together. We're both remarried but we work really well together [as co-parents]. His wife helped so much with taking care of my other son who lives with us. It was a whole lot of family jumping in to make extra trips and to take off work to watch the other children. It really took the whole family to work together to make it where it was possible for me to be there with Adalynn every single minute while she was there."

Jessica credits doctors at the children's hospital for keeping their explanations simple, but thorough so that both she and Adalynn felt comfortable with everything going on.

"They waited until she was asleep to discuss certain things when they didn't want to scare her," she says. "It was all a reaction to the bite, a reaction that less than 1 percent of people that have a brown recluse bite experience, the majority of them being children."

Adalynn ended up being in the hospital for six days, with care from a number of different medical professionals.

"She had a general surgeon and an infectious disease doctor. She was under the care of a plastic surgeon, hematology, orthopedic surgery and nephrology, and she had to have a blood transfusion because of humanistic anemia, which caused a complete breakdown of all her red blood cells."

The road to recovery also included three days in a "Texas sling," with her arm braced over hear head about the concern for her extremities due to lack of blood circulation.

"Her hand was basically resting in a tube above her head, and she was on that for three days and that helped with the swelling and kind of moving the swelling from her hand, down the rest of her body."

"They were concerned with her kidneys shutting down and that was, I think, one of the main concerns, especially after she was released from the hospital. So, she had several doctor appointments and had to go several times to have blood drawn to check her kidney function. It was the one thing we struggled with the most, even after we were discharged."

Jessica Calvillo Adalynn at softball

Though she missed some fun times, like her softball season and her last month of school, Adalynn kept her spirits relatively high.



"She was scared but we tried our hardest to keep her from understanding how bad it was or how bad it could have been," the mom says. "I think with the type of person she is, she could realize we were all so scared that she was trying to be brave for us. Even through all her pain and drowsiness from the medication, she'd give us smiles. I knew the smiles were for me. They weren't necessarily her happy smiles but more of a reassuring, 'it's going to be okay,' thing."

Jessica Calvillo Adalynn's brown recluse bite healing

For Jessica, making it through that time was a little bit tougher.

"It was extremely difficult. Everybody says that going through anything with your child and that fear of losing your child is the worst thing a parent can experience, and it's absolutely true. There was a point where I was so scared that in my head, I literally felt like I wasn't mentally strong enough to make it through," she says.

Thankfully, her support system stepped in to help her forge ahead. "What gave me the strength to kind of get through this and be that strong person from my daughter was prayer."

Jessica decided to share their story, which in total was a 76-day ordeal for Adalynn, on TikTok in hopes of empowering another parent who might find themselves in a similar situation.

"I wanted people to know this information. It was 76 days later, when they told us, 'You're done with bandage changes. You don't need any surgery. You don't need to come back.' And once we could breathe, I felt we needed to help other people understand the extent that one of these spider bites can lead to."

She also hopes that doctors will realize, "It's not always one size fits all when it comes to medical situations, and if a parent is extremely scared and they have these fears and concerns, you can do something to make them feel better, even if it seems to you like it's not needed."

Jessica Calvillo Adalynn with her siblings

Now that it's fall, Adalynn has accepted, "This is a story, an experience, but it's not who you are anymore or what you're going through anymore.'"

"From that point, she was just like, 'I can do all these things I wanted to do still.' So it was really happy day for her," she says. "She has a pretty big scar on her arm but that's okay. She knows that it comes with an insane story and it shows that she's a fighter."

"She was selected for the softball all-star team. She's back to being a happy, healthy girl who takes care of her younger siblings and is such a blessing to all of us."



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Young Portuguese citizens (centre) arrive at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for a hearing in a climate change case involving themselves against 32 countries, in Strasbourg, eastern France (AFP via Getty Images)

Six young people from Portugal will soon be taking on 32 European nations in a landmark climate action case that will be heard at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The hearing on Wednesday will aim to hold governments across Europe responsible for not doing enough to protect people from the negative impacts of the climate crisis.

Lawyers representing the youngsters, some as young as 11, say the continued burning of fossil fuels  responsible for the majority of the pollution thats heating up the planet  violates their fundamental rights.

The case was filed in September 2020 against 27 EU member states that include the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey. It is the largest-ever climate case to be heard by the ECHR in Strasbourg.

Gearoid O Cuinn, director of the non-profit Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which has been supporting the group through crowdfunding, described the case as a David and Goliath battle of historic proportions.

It is unprecedented in its scale and its consequences, he said.

It also makes legal history. Never before have so many countries had to defend themselves in front of a court, anywhere in the world.

Of late, there has been a rise in cases aiming to hold governments and corporations responsible for planet-heating pollution, but only some climate cases have been successful at national and regional levels.

A crucial aspect of this case is the legally binding nature of the courts rulings on member countries, making them accountable for hefty fines if they fail to comply with court directives.

This judgment would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts. In legal terms, it would be a gamechanger, said Gerry Liston, one of the lawyers from GLAN.

The plaintiffs, aged between 11 and 24, also face a significant hurdle. They must convince the judges that they have been sufficiently impacted to be recognised as victims and that governments are legally obliged to ensure that global heating does not exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement.

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Various assessments showed the world is currently off course in limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with temperatures projected to rise by 2-4C by 2100 if current emission trajectories persist.

To prove this, the youngsters and their six lawyers will be taking on over 80 lawyers expected to represent the accused countries.

Mr Liston acknowledged taking on the legal teams of over 30 very well-resourced countries would not be easy.

Young Portuguese citizens hold placards as they arrive at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for a hearing in a climate change case involving themselves against 32 countries, in Strasbourg, eastern France (AFP via Getty Images)

Countries have already dismissed their claims. Portugals legal team has submitted to the court that it was committed to fight the climate crisis and the applicants had failed to provide evidence of its direct impact on them.

The UK argued for the case to be rejected because it was inadmissible for various reasons, including jurisdiction.

In a press conference before the hearing, the young activists shared how the climate crisis has affected their lives, studies and overall well-being.

They expressed concerns about the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, from intense heatwaves to storms and flooding and said they started their judicial action in the wake of a series of deadly wildfires in central Portugal in 2017, where four of them live.

The climate crisis affects our mental health because it makes us worried about our future. How could we not be scared? said one of the 15-year-old plaintiffs, Andre Oliveira.

Its 43 degrees (109 F) one day, and the next its hail, and thats dangerous because we cant predict whats going to happen, he said, adding that the heatwave that hit Portugal in May hindered his schoolwork.

I had exams and I tried to study for them, but its hard to concentrate.

Sofia Oliveira, Andres sister, highlighted the physical toll of the climate crisis, sharing that her brother suffered from asthma due to unusually hot 30C (86F) temperatures in winter.

Governments around the world have the power to stop this, and Europes governments are choosing not to stop this, said 23-year-old Catarina dos Santos Mota, another member of the group.

Since we started our action, we have felt the impact of the climate crisis getting worse and worse. In 2023, July was the hottest month on record. It is terrifying to think this is just the beginning.

A ruling in the case is expected in the first half of 2024.

But whatever comes out of it has the potential to open doors for many more litigations against greenhouse gas emissions.

Two more similar cases, one by an association of senior women against Switzerland and another by a French lawmaker against France, have already been brought before the court since.

Additional reporting by agencies
The Radisson Blu Palace Resort & Spa in Udaipur, Rajasthan, renowned for being one of Udaipur's most prestigious hotels and boasting the city's largest room inventory, has welcomed Gaurav Rege as their new General Manager. In this capacity, Gaurav aims to ensure the brand's continued prominence through astute leadership and a pursuit of operational perfection.

Gaurav, a stalwart in the hospitality sector, has accrued over 20 years of diverse experience, adept at managing upscale luxury resorts as well as bustling urban hotels.

Having honed his skills post graduating from the revered Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development (OCLD) in New Delhi, Gaurav's professional journey includes tenures with prestigious brands such as Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Ananda in the Himalayas, the erstwhile Oakwood Worldwide now Marriott Suites Pune, and The Leela Mumbai, to name a few. His commendable leadership as the General Manager at the illustrious Jehan Numa Palace in Bhopal resulted in the hotel witnessing consistent growth and establishing new standards in operational brilliance. This achievement, among others, underscored Gaurav's capability to rejuvenate and position hotels as beacons of luxury.

Throughout his career, Gaurav has been celebrated for his ability to revitalise businesses. His consistent record showcases his skills in optimizing operations, enhancing revenue streams, and nurturing invaluable relationships with both guests and staff.
The Sebastian - Vail, a luxury mountainside resort and private residence club in the heart of Vail Village, Colorado, has welcomed John D'Angelo as its new general manager. In his role, D'Angelo is responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations of the property and ensuring it continues delivering a five-star experience to both Owners and guests.

D'Angelo brings more than two decades of hospitality experience, most recently serving as general manager for Grand Hyatt Vail and Residences at Cascade Village. Prior to this role, he held various management positions at esteemed properties such as Wild Dunes Resort; Grand Hyatt Baha Mar, Nassau, The Bahamas; Grand Hyatt Nashville; and Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, among others. In addition to D'Angelo's commitment to creating exceptional guest experiences, he is also a passionate leader, bringing an enthusiastic and engaging approach towards guiding his teams towards operational excellence.

Aside from his extensive residence club and resort experience, D'Angelo spent his early years traveling as an international piano entertainer. He is fluent in Dutch and lived in the Netherlands from 1998-2002, where he met his wife, Anja. After moving to Vail in 2022, they became active members of the community, enjoying the area's arts, live music, and snow sports.
This Halloween, Donkey is swamp-sitting for his best pal, DreamWorks Animations SHREK, and hes rolling out the welcome mat to host fairytale creatures of all kinds while hes there.

Shreks mud-laden, moss-covered, murky-watered swamp is situated among the rolling hills of Scotland where guests can stay up late, swap stories, and eat like an ogre  because in the morning, Donkeys making waffles!

Onion and ogre enthusiasts can request to book this fairytale stay in Shreks Swamp beginning October 13 at 6 p.m. BST.

Once upon a time, a very chatty donkey agreed to swamp-sit for Shrek. Before he hits the road again, Donkey is inviting guests near and far, far away to sleep like an ogre in Shreks Swamp, only on Airbnb.

Located among the hills of the Scottish Highlands, Shreks Swamp is a stumpy, secluded haven fit for a solitude-seeking ogre  and for the first time ever, a handful of his biggest fans.

Shreks Swamp is lovely. Just beautiful. The perfect place to entertain guests, Donkey said. You know what I like about it? Everything. The overgrown landscaping, the modest interiors, the nice boulders, all of it. I cant wait for guests to experience this muddy slice of paradise for themselves.

With Donkey in charge, guests will have the chance to live their own versions of the layered ogre life for two special, starry nights (minus the torches, pitchforks, and intrusive Duloc Knights).

Source: Airbnb

About the stay

A former refuge for fairytale creatures, Shreks Swamp brings a whole new meaning to the term treehouse. With its clever use of forestry, charmingly rustic interiors and iconic outhouse, the swamp is certain to offer an experience unlike any other.

For 0 a night  a nod to the priceless refuge Shreks Swamp has provided fairytale creatures of all kinds  brogres will be able to request to book an exclusive two-night swamp stay* for up to three guests October 27-29.

During their stay in this spectacularly secluded swamp-scape, guests can:

Relax in the ambiance of earwax candlelight

Kick their feet up with a parfait (everybody likes a parfait!)

Swap stories around the fire until late in the night

Enjoy a stack of freshly made waffles in the morning

And of course, enjoy the ultimate privacy of Shreks trusted outhouse (you know the one)

How to book

Onion and ogre enthusiasts can request to book Shreks Swamp beginning October 13 at 6 p.m. BST at airbnb.com/shrek. Guests are responsible for their own travel to and from Scotland.

To honor good childhood memories that last a lifetime, Airbnb will make a one-time donation to the HopScotch Childrens Charity, which provides some of Scotlands most vulnerable and disadvantaged children with respite breaks through nurturing and dynamic holiday trips.

Source: Airbnb

*This two-night stay is not a contest. Please note, the bathroom is located 20 meters from the main living area in a standalone facility. The property is independently owned and operated by Ardverikie Estate.

About DreamWorks Animations SHREK

For the past two decades, children of all ages have been enchanted by the delightfully irreverent adventures of a frightfully misunderstood ogre and his ragtag group of roguish fairytale folk. Beginning with Shrek, the 2002 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature, Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Puss in Boots and their signature friends, family and tormentors have grown into an indelible part of pop culture  through a series of four films that have earned more than $2.9 billion and spawned a global live-touring show, an immersive, top-tourist destination in London, as well as popular events and attractions across Universal Studios Parks worldwide.

About Airbnb

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two Hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 4 million Hosts who have welcomed more than 1 billion guest arrivals across over 220 countries and regions. Travel on Airbnb keeps more of the financial benefits of tourism with the people and places that make it happen. Airbnb has generated billions of dollars in earnings for Hosts, most of whom are individuals listing the homes in which they live. Among Hosts who report their gender, more than half are women, and one in five employed Hosts are either teachers or healthcare workers. Travel on Airbnb also has generated more than $4 billion in tax revenue around the world. Airbnb has helped advance more than 1,000 regulatory frameworks for short-term rentals, including in 80% of our top 200 geographies. In late 2020, to support our continued expansion and diversification, we launched the City Portal to provide governments with a one-stop shop that supports data sharing and compliance with local registration rules. We continue to invest in innovations and tools to support our ongoing work with governments around the world to advance travel that best serves communities.

About Airbnb.org

Airbnb.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating temporary stays for people in times of crisis around the world. Airbnb.org operates independently and leverages Airbnb, Inc.'s technology, services, and other resources at no charge to carry out Airbnb.org's charitable purpose. The inspiration for Airbnb.org began in 2012 with a single host named Shell who opened up her home to people impacted by Hurricane Sandy. This sparked a movement and marked the beginning of a program that allows Hosts on Airbnb to provide stays for people in times of need. Since then, the program has evolved to focus on emergency response and to help provide stays to evacuees, relief workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and frontline workers fighting the spread of COVID-19. Since then, Hosts have offered to open up their homes and helped provide accommodations to 100,000 people in times of need. Airbnb.org is a separate and independent entity from Airbnb, Inc. Airbnb, Inc. does not charge service fees for Airbnb.org supported stays on its platform.

Airbnb Press

Airbnb Press Office

Airbnb
Heritage tourism experts grappled with complex issues of presenting culture and heritage to tourists at an international gathering of culture tourism experts 24-25 September in Valencia, Spain.

Dozens of delegates from 30 countries debated the latest issues, trends and opportunities affecting the sector, which accounts for 40% of all tourism activity, according to the UNWTO.

Heritage tourism is worth around US$570 billion per year, said Scott Wayne, president at SWA Development. Within the sector, 51-70 year olds generate 60% of its revenue. However, 73% of millennials were interested in visiting cultural and historical places.

The role of technology, not least artificial intelligence, was centre stage at the summit, where presenters shared the latest cultural and heritage tourism insights from Iceland, Belize, Finland, Spain, Morocco, Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, and other destinations.

Certain issues unite all destinations.

We should be more worried about artificial intelligence than climate change, said Yrjotapio Kivissari, CEO of Visit Oulu, Finland. He admitted that while many operators, including his organisation, use artificial intelligence, the technology is being abused by destinations which were happy to mix fake images with real ones in their marketing.

However he predicted that AI would very quickly remove language barriers in culture tourism settings.

Also on technology, Wanderlust magazine revealed 3D headsets which gave destinations the ability to show 360-degree immersive visual and sound experiences. To great effect, Wanderlust executives used samples from Petra, Fiji, the Norwegian fjords and the Holi festival of colours from India to show how immersive headset technology is transforming destination marketing.

Delegates learned that new technology can serve traditional local artisans and communities. For example, ResiRest has established itself as a social enterprise that helps 9,000 families in 50 countries by connecting them with tourists who want an authentic destination dining experience with a local family in their house.

Similarly, the Tuzmo website allows tourists to not just find and meet local artisans such as wood carvers, weavers and sculptors, but makes it easy for the tourist to order and ship any artefact they buy from the artist.

On attention span issues, delegates said it was imperative for museums and built attractions to convey a narrative story with emotion and empathy, preferably with multiple access points to the story. Stephen Ryan, heritage design director at Freeman Ryan Design, Australia, told the audience that the average time duration for video clips in museums was always going down.

On heritage tourism finance, delegates admitted that the fight for adequate funding was perpetual. It was imperative for governments and donors not to just think about ROI in terms of money. It should also be expressed in job creation, a sense of ownership and pride, training and employability, cultural value, environmental gain and social inclusion.

Summit attendees said that there should be a task force set up to address investment issues in culture and heritage tourism.

The events debate facilitator, Rajan Datar, told the audience that WTACH should consider supporting skills in financial proposal writing. However, a delegate from French Polynesia said that it was imperative for politicians to listen, but the only way to ensure that was to vote well.

Closing the summit, Nigel Fell, CEO of WATCH thanked Visit Valencia.

Valencia has been a wonderful host culture for the inaugural heritage tourism summit. The breadth and depth of culture in the city has to be experienced. It is no wonder that Valencia is such a vibrant tourism success story.

The CEO announced Johannesburg in South Africa as the host city for the 2nd WTACH Global Leaders Summit, which will be held in September 2024.

In a handover ceremony on stage, Miguel Angel Perez Alba, brands and marketing director of Visit Valencia wished Septi Bukula, founder of the Renzo Network of South Africa, well with the 2024 event.

Mr Chris Flynn the Chairman and founder of WTACH said: There was a wonderful engagement between varied culture and heritage tourism leaders, analysts and stakeholders at the inaugural WTACH summit in Valencia. We will build on the success and take the important work of culture and heritage in tourism to the next level in Johannesburg next year.

Mr Flynn said that WTACH looked forward to hearing from potential summit partners for 2024.

Presentations from the 2023 WTACH summit will be available on WTACH.org very soon. The 2023 event programme with full speakers list is here.

From Egypt to the Bronx, listening to community voices is vital to the success of culture and heritage tourism Photo by World Tourism Association for Culture and Heritage (WTACH)

About Visit Valencia

VISIT VALENCIA is a non-profit Foundation, in which the Valencia City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, Feria Valencia and the Valencian Business Confederation participate together alongside other local tourism companies. Its objective is the strategic management and promotion of tourism in the city of Valencia, with an approach that combines public and private interest. Since its creation in 1991, the Foundation has contributed to the evolution of tourism in the city, promoting employment, tourism development and increased economic impact, factors that have had a direct impact on the well-being of Valencian society.

About World Tourism Association for Culture and Heritage

WTACH seeks to establish clear goals, objectives and strategies for the protection of cultural heritage through responsible and sustainable tourism practices. Working in collaboration with public, private and specialist academic sector organisations, WTACH determines best practice ethical principles and standards in line with the most robust global research available. WTACH was established in 2018 by Chris Flynn, formerly Director  Pacific, at the Pacific Asia Travel Association. WTACH is based in New South Wales, Australia. Visit https://www.wtach.org. Email: [email protected]
AURORA  The English and visual arts departments of Wells College are hosting a Filmmaker-In-Residence Series. Four movies will be screened on-campus in Zabriskie Hall at 7 p.m. throughout the academic year in honor of Alison ODaniel. Each screening is free and open to the college and local communities.

Alison ODaniel, a filmmaker and visual artist, is a Disability Futures fellow and a Guggenheim fellow. Her work has been exhibited at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Centre Pompidou in Paris and many others. Her film The Tuba Thieves premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is currently on the international film festival circuit.

For Wells Colleges Filmmaker-In-Residence Series, Alison curated three films that influenced her work, and The Tuba Thieves will be shown as the fourth. Alison will be on campus for a Q&A with attendees after that screening.

Anna Ialeggio, assistant professor of studio art, said, Alison ODaniel was chosen as the filmmaker-in-residence for the '23-'24 series because her film is a totally unique cinematic experience. It blends ODaniels visual art, narrative storytelling, experimental documentary and engagement with deaf and hard of hearing communities and was widely celebrated at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. 'The Tube Thieves' explores complicated and poetic connections between people and places, and the entirely unexpected way that it explodes the relationship of sound to film is so exciting. The series builds toward a screening of Alisons own work through three very different films, each of which is an underrepresented gem. I hope that students and community members enjoy this rare gift from a working artist: the idea that inside of every singular creative vision is a constellation of images and stories by other artists. Sharing the experience of watching a films with other people, as an audience, can be a real pleasure. We cant wait to share this with the college and community.

Dan Rosenberg, associate professor and English department chair, said he and Ialeggio worked together to create the Filmmaker-In-Residence Series to offer our community access to experiences that might be harder to come by otherwise. We were particularly focused on serving not just the campus but the entire surrounding region. It turns out that the closest movie theater to Aurora is about 20 miles away, and youd have to go even farther to find a theater showing anything but the biggest blockbusters, so the idea of a film series was immediately exciting to us. Asking a filmmaker to curate a series that contextualizes their own work was just a natural result of our shared relationship to art-making.  We believe that artists are constantly in conversation, constantly inspired or challenged or even irritated by other work, so we wanted to invite a filmmaker to introduce their own work by putting it in conversation with other films. All of this is a joyful experiment, but so far, our first filmmakers introduction to our first film has already led us to believe we just might have had a good idea here.

The first movie, La Haine, will be screened on Thursday, Sept. 28. Released in the U.S. as Hate, La Haine is a 1995 French social thriller, crime and drama film by Mathieu Kassovitz. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Kounde) and Said (Said Taghmaoui)  a Jew, an African and an Arab  give human faces to Frances immigrant populations their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point, according to a synopsis from The Criterion Collection. A work of tough beauty, La Haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its countrys ongoing identity crisis.

Next, the 1987 film Where Is The Friends House? directed by Abbas Kiarostami, will be screened on Tuesday, Nov. 14. This first film in a trilogy by Kiarostami is set in northern Iran and takes a premise of fable-like simplicity  a boy searches for the home of his classmate whose school notebook he has accidentally taken  and transforms it into a miraculous, childs-eye adventure of the everyday, according to a synopsis from Janus Films. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two towns aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of Iranian society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Shot through with all the wonder, beauty, tension and mystery one day can contain, Where is the Friends House? established Kiarostamis reputation as one cinemas most sensitive and profound humanists.

On Thursday, Feb. 22, Nashville, directed by Robert Altman in 1975, will be screened. This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Altman is a panoramic view of the countrys political and cultural landscapes, set in the nations music capital, according to a synopsis from The Criterion Collection. The film weaves the stories of 24 characters  from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress  into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast wrote their own songs and performed them live on location, which lends another layer to the films quirky authenticity.

Finally, The Tuba Thieves will screen on Thursday, April 18. A spate of robberies in southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, ODaniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle, according to a synopsis from The Film Collaborative. Blending documentary and fictionalized performances and set to an L.A. landscape/soundscape never quite seen before, this film explores a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.

Some of the films curated for the series contain violence and/or dated gender depictions. Viewer discretion is advised. More details about each screening can be found at wells.edu/series/filmmakers-series-2023-24.
Hotel Indigo, part of IHGs Luxury & Lifestyle portfolio, is unearthing the hidden gems that only can be found in a neighborhood and inspiring the next generation of travelers to go out and explore. The brand's newest international marketing campaign, The Worlds Neighborhood Hotel, is rooted in the brands long-held belief that when you see the world through the neighborhood, the neighborhood changes your world.

In a global survey* from Hotel Indigo, the brand reveals 73 percent of respondents feel it is important for the hotel they stay in while traveling to be connected to the local neighborhood as it may inspire more adventurous activities, the desire to try new things, and meet new people. It also unveils the impact immersive travel has on our perspective of the world, with 1 in 2 travelers having questioned their lifes trajectory after coming home from a trip and 63 percent making major life changes due to their experiences on a trip. Hotel Indigos The Worlds Neighborhood Hotel is a testament to that  because when you stay at a Hotel Indigo, you dont just visit a place  you fully immerse yourself in it  and then you take a little bit of it home with you.

Officially rolling out this month in a phased approach globally, Hotel Indigos The Worlds Neighborhood Hotel is designed to celebrate how guests can discover, or rediscover, some of the most inspiring and culturally rich neighborhoods in and outside the hotel.

Just as no two neighborhoods are alike, no two Hotel Indigo properties are alike. From a unique selection of vinyl Shibuya-Kei records in each guestroom at Hotel Indigo Tokyo Shibuya and infused elements reminiscent of Old Hollywood at Hotel Indigo Los Angeles Downtown, to Hotel Indigo Brussels  City only using locally sourced ingredients in its restaurant, and every floor of Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown featuring local artwork, each individual property is inspired by local neighborhood cues designed to ignite curiosity to explore something new.

The neighborhood is where those who are looking to be inspired stay. Which is why Hotel Indigo sits at the heart of neighborhoods across the world. For our guests, Hotel Indigo isnt just a place to stay  its a reason to travel. Its a destination all on its own, and The Worlds Neighborhood Hotel embodies that. The campaign beautifully juxtaposes the inside and outside  and how our brand and the communities in which we exist are inseparable. Carol Hoeller, Vice President Global Brand Management for Hotel Indigo

We wanted this campaign to be a journey of discovery and wonderment. The creative captures the real culture and emotion behind the neighborhoods featured in a soul-stirring way. We wove in iconic sights and sounds as well as people living, connecting, and seeking out incredible things and hidden gems. Because we wanted it to be more than just a homage to the neighborhood, we wanted it to be an invitation to come and experience it for yourself. Chloe Banicevic, Creative Director at Anomaly

While an international media campaign, Hotel Indigos The Worlds Neighborhood Hotel evokes local feeling. The images and videos, personalized to the next-gen explorer, will appear online, in television, cinema, digital out-of-home placements, and on brand social channels such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

With survey results also uncovering that 55 percent of travelers have changed their plans because of a recommendation from a local, Hotel Indigo will also be creating custom neighborhood guides through strategic partnerships to further spark that desire to experience an authentically local stay wherever you are in the world.

Hotel Indigo is a brand that exists to illuminate the world within the neighborhood in a distinct and authentic way. Today, there are 145 Hotel Indigo properties open, with another 128 in the pipeline** and the brand is committed to doubling its portfolio globally over the next three to five years.

For more information on Hotel Indigo, visit https://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hotels/us/en/reservation. Or download the IHG One Rewards mobile app, where you can now virtually explore select Hotel Indigo properties and the neighborhoods they are in with a 360 tour.

*Survey methodology:

All the figures are from YouGov, an International Internet-based market research and data analytics firm.

Survey was conducted online between July 25 and August 3, 2023, across 6,015 travelers (defined as having traveled in the past 12 months and/or planning to in the next 12 months) aged 25-44 in the US, UK, Australia, Japan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

**Numbers as of June 30, 2023.

About IHG

IHG Hotels & Resorts [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is a global hospitality company, with a purpose to provide True Hospitality for Good.

With a family of 17 hotel brands and IHG Rewards, one of the world's largest hotel loyalty programmes, IHG has over 6,000 open hotels in more than 100 countries, and a further 1,800 in the development pipeline.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Group's holding company and is incorporated and registered in England and Wales. Approximately 350,000 people work across IHG's hotels and corporate offices globally.

Visit us online for more about our hotels and reservations and IHG Rewards. For our latest news, visit our Newsroom and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
NUMA Group is building Europes first fully digital hospitality brand, using proprietary technology to optimize hotel operating processes and creating the most user-friendly platform for guests.

The company recently reached 1.5bn in real estate AUM and has over 4,500rooms and apartments across 28 major European citiesfocusing on boutique studios for modern travelers.

Verlinvest, the global consumer growth equity investors, led the round, followed by Cape Capital, and joins existing shareholders including Headline, Cherry Ventures, DN Capital and Soravia.

The NUMA Group (www.numastays.com) announced that in a Series C funding round led by Verlinvest, they have secured 59 million USD in growth capital to further develop their advanced technology and expand their digital hospitality platform across Europe.

Founded in Berlin in 2019, the company offers a fully digitized service that combines the advantages of traditional hotels  guaranteed quality, licenses, 24-hour service, luggage storage, etc.  with the comfort and flexibility of short-term rental companies like Airbnb or Abritel  larger rooms with kitchen, city center location, and amenities just like at home, e.g., fast Wi-Fi  providing guests the greatest possible choice and a fantastic guest experience at the best value.

NUMA has fully digitized the usual hotel procedures: Book a room in a few seconds, check-in and out comfortably online with a smartphone, use guest service via WhatsApp, and book additional services and experiences on-site online. NUMA offers a comprehensive solution for guests who increasingly demand a seamless, digital, and exclusively mobile-organized travel experience.

The company sees its mission in transforming the European hotel industry worth over 100 billion Euros. A sector where traditional hotel chains struggle to adapt to new consumer behaviors and where short-term rental platforms face increasingly strict regulations from municipal authorities, especially regarding the misuse of residential properties. According to the travel news site Skift and industry experts, in 2022 alternative accommodations (e.g., short-term rentals) made up 20 percent of the travel market. This type of accommodation grew twice as fast as the rest of the market, and a steady double-digit CAGR growth rate is expected as alternative accommodations continue to move mainstream.

In addition to top-notch offers for guests, the technology developed by NUMA, pricing tools, and the use of anonymized data contribute to operational savings, e.g., through process automation, as well as to higher revenues through smart pricing and utilization maximization. This results in more sustainable growth and higher structural profitability than the industry average.

In this recent financing round, the circle of investors expanded with Verlinvest as a new investor  an international investment company backed by the Belgian corporate and brewing group AB InBev and its families, which has invested in successful consumer brands like Oatly, Vita Coco, Tony's Chocolonely, and Chewy.com. Also new is Cape Capital. Existing investors such as Headline, Cherry Ventures, DN Capital, and Soravia have also participated in the NUMA funding round again.

Our mission at NUMA is to create a new category in the hospitality industry that meets the needs of modern consumers. When it comes to digitizing and enhancing the entire travel experience, we've only scratched the surface. Our aim is to create a better connection between our guests and the cities they visit. We are very pleased to have Verlinvest as a partner on our side, whose team shares our vision of modernizing the industry, and whose expertise in scaling globally successful companies will help us achieve our goal of establishing an iconic brand for modern travelers. Thanks to the additional financial firepower, we can accelerate the development of our market-leading proprietary technology and at the same time present a strong balance sheet. We look forward to unlocking more top-notch locations across Europe together with our property and financing partners  and most importantly, with our guests. Christian Gaiser, CEO and co-founder of NUMA

In recent years, traditional hotel chains have struggled to meet the demands of an increasingly digital-savvy and restless consumer world, and at the same time, traditional hotels have been hampered by outdated backend infrastructures, large franchise networks, and a sluggish corporate culture. NUMA offers a holistic solution to these problems, thanks to a user-friendly front-end interface and the novel data-driven model, in which cutting-edge technology is paramount and optimizes business processes in the background. NUMA fits perfectly into our strategy, which aims to support ambitious, technology-driven companies whose passion is to offer their guests unique consumer experiences. We look forward to supporting Christian and his team in building Europe's first genuine digital hospitality brand. Verlinvest Managing Director Raphael Thiolon

NUMA demonstrated the resilience of its model during the pandemic. The company has seen rapid growth across Europe and is now present with 4,500 units in ten European countries or in 28 attractive European cities, including Berlin, Munich, Rome, Milan, Barcelona, and Paris. The NUMA Group was founded in 2019 by Christian Gaiser, Dimitri Chandogin, Gerhard Maringer, and Inga Laudiero, who complement each other wonderfully in their skills and visions. While Christian Gaiser grew up in a family-run hotel in the Black Forest, his other co-founders built their careers in FinTech (Gerhard Maringer), Private Equity (Dimitri Chandogin), and financial services (Inga Laudiero).

About NUMA Group

Berlin-based NUMA Group is the leading European operator of fully-digitized boutique apartments and technology developer. The company with the brand attitude "Traveling with Soul" offers innovative design hotels for modern travelers. As a reliable partner for investors, owners and developers, NUMA uses proprietary technology-based operator solutions that largely automate operational processes and increase cost efficiencies and revenues. NUMA successfully operates more than 4,500 units in European A-cities, including Berlin, Munich, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona and Vienna. numastays.com - partner.numastays.com

Joachim M. Guentert

NUMA Group Europe - Corporate Communications

+49 (0)30 25555 3846

numa group GmbH
PARIS - Movenpick Hotels & Resorts is once again delighted to announce its annual Kilo of Kindness campaign for the month of October, collecting community donations of clothes, food, toys, and school supplies in support of local organizations working to spread heartfelt care and enrich lives. Guests, visitors, friends and neighbours of 77 participating Movenpick hotels around the world are invited to bring in one or more kilos of pre-loved and soon-to-be-loved donations. With more Movenpick destinations taking part in the campaign than ever before, Movenpicks 2023 Kilo of Kindness aims to gather 25,000 kilos of donations. Achieving this years goal will bring the added excitement of surpassing an amazing milestone of 100,000 kilos donated since the campaign began in 2015.

Acts of kindness really do hold weight and Movenpick believes in the value of food as a force for good and a medium for positive change. We encourage everyone to bring a bag of donations to one of our participating hotels. Each year, Kilo of Kindness gives us the opportunity to weave the warm Movenpick spirit of generosity more deeply throughout our communities. The campaign allows us to reach beyond our hotel walls and share our food - along with clothing, toys, and school supplies  with those most in need, bringing more smiles to the faces in our communities. Kishan Chandnani, Global Vice President, Premium Brands, Accor

The power of kindness can transform moments  and lives. Last year, Movenpick Hotel & Apartments Bur Dubai and Movenpick Hotel Apartments Al Mamzar Dubai together collected more than 3,000 kilos. In Croatia, Movenpick Zagreb delivered 509 kilos to SOS Villages, giving over 150 young adults the love and nurturing they always deserved.

For those wishing to join in the virtuous circle of giving, helping to achieve 100,000 Kilos of Kindness, all contributions are welcome and gratefully received no matter how big or small. From baby food to borlotti beans, pens to pyjamas, books to bucket hats, canned tuna to chamomile tea, and rolled oats to winter coats  just drop a bag at one of the Movenpick hotels listed here, between October 1-31, 2023, and the friendly Movenpick hotel team will take it from there. Donated items will be generously shared with partnering charitable organizations in each community.

Movenpick encourages all acts of kindness by sharing stories of donations, philanthropy and community service. Throughout October, guests, fans and followers are invited to spread the word about the Kilo of Kindness initiative on social media using the hashtag #KiloOfKindness and tagging @MovenpickHotels.

About Accor, a world-leading hospitality group

Accor is a world leading hospitality group offering experiences across more than 110 countries in 5,500 properties, 10,000 food & beverage venues, wellness facilities or flexible workspaces. The Group has one of the industry's most diverse hospitality ecosystems, encompassing more than 40 hotel brands from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore. Accor is committed to taking positive action in terms of business ethics & integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community outreach, and diversity & inclusion. Founded in 1967, Accor SA is headquartered in France and publicly listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN code: FR0000120404) and on the OTC Market (Ticker: ACCYY) in the United States. For more information visit group.accor.com or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.

Raquel Delago

Group External Communications, Accor

Accor
Atlanta, GA and Dallas, TX - M3, the hospitality sectors #1 cloud-based accounting, financial, and data management platform in North America, and Trintech, a leading global provider of cloud-based financial close solutions for the Office of the CFO, have introduced a new API connection that seamlessly connects M3s trial balance with Trintechs Adra Suite. This exciting new feature improves the user experience and allows easy access to data to help streamline financial processes.

Carolyn Hollum, Executive Vice President of Professional Services, states, M3 is dedicated to improving the user experience, and this recent enhancement will assist our customers in streamlining their processes. Mekaela Davis, SVP, Partner Success & Global Advisory at Trintech, adds, Trintech strives to provide its customers with solutions that satisfy their industry requirements and coexist peacefully with other technology investments. In partnership with M3, we continue to develop joint solutions for hospitality customers that help them work more efficiently and gain improved insight.

Year to date, 306 hotel properties have already adopted this partnership offering, and more than 500 properties in total have benefited from this partnership since its inception in April of 2022.

The relationship between M3 and Trintech benefits customers through advanced features, including showcasing visibility across all tasks in the financial close process, including controlling and automating reconciliations, shortening the close cycle through efficiency gains, automating notifications of balance changes throughout the close, allowing reductions in write-offs, and more. M3 offers Trintechs Adra Suite as part of its financial solution portfolio for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

M3 and Trintech are committed to developing and creating a user-friendly framework for customers. Trintechs Adra Suite is included with any M3 Professional Services Agreement at no additional charge and is available to all other M3 customers at a discounted rate.

About M3

Built by hoteliers exclusively for hoteliersTM, M3 is a robust cloud-based financial platform and services company serving over 8,000 properties across North America's hospitality industry helping drive cost savings, revenue enhancement, and business insight. After almost 25 years in business, M3 touts a 95 percent customer retention rate. Used by over 1,000 management groups and owner-operators and hotels of all sizes, the platform works seamlessly with other key systems and tools in the hospitality industry. It offers robust accounting and financial analysis across entire portfolios with optional operations and time management features. M3's Professional Services team provides on-demand accounting and bookkeeping support for hotels and portfolios of any size by offering a full range of customized accounting solutions that can scale with a hotelier's needs. Privately held and employee-owned, M3 continues to constantly enhance products and services with regular releases and updates. "M3", "CoreSelect", "M3 Concierge", and "Accounting Core" are all trademarks owned by M3; all other marks are owned by their respective owners. For more information, visit www.m3as.com.

Haley Wolf

Marketing and Public Relations Manager

+1 770 533 0545

View source
STR's global 'bubble chart' update as of 16 September 2023 showed 86% of markets with growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) compared to 2019. With summer travel season winding down in many parts of the world, this figure was expectedly lower than the previous update (by 2%) but well above the 2022 comparable (66%).

Among all countries with a total supply of more than 50,000 rooms, Israel, France, Greece, Singapore, and Italy led in RevPAR on an actual basis. Greece sustained the top spot for the third consecutive 28-day period.

Five countries recorded an occupancy rate above 80%Ireland, Greece, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Portugal. That was two more countries than the previous update, and Irelands level of 91% was the highest of the 28-day period.

Thanks to that exceptional occupancy level, Ireland joined Greece, Italy, Brazil, and Colombia in the top spots for RevPAR growth compared to 2019. The overall pattern of growth has remained steady across all 48 countries with a total supply of more than 50,000 rooms. Among these countries, 45 saw growth in ADR, while only 10 posted occupancy levels above 2019. The discrepancy between the performance of these two metrics has become the norm for most parts of the world, where RevPAR growth is driven by ADR growth.

China reported one of the lowest RevPAR spots along with Indonesia, Bulgaria, Colombia and Vietnam. This period was the first for China among the lowest RevPAR performers since COVID restrictions ended. Chinas RevPAR had been steadily ahead of 2019 level since the easing of the lockdowns, but in this period, the country was behind the 2019 comparable.

Excluding provincial areas, country markets, and markets affected by fluctuating exchange rates, the top five RevPAR performers were New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Milan, Hong Kong, and Rome. New Delhi saw staggering growth in ADR at 132%, thanks to hosting the G20 summit in early September. Hong Kong recorded robust 71% growth in RevPAR compared to 2019, but it is worth noting that the same period in 2019 was lower than normal due to protests in the market.

Chinas country-level performance was held back by its major cities. Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen all reported performance behind 2019. Shenzhen recorded the worst RevPAR comparison at -27% from 2019.

This article originally appeared on STR.
Mandarin Oriental Savoy Zurich Hotel

Mandarin Oriental Savoy, Zurich will open its doors this winter following a full multi-million-dollar renovation, bringing the Mandarin Oriental brand to the heart of the city.

Founded by Johannes Baur in 1838, this iconic property was Zurich's first grand hotel. Located on the famous Paradeplatz, the hotel lies just steps away from high-end fashion houses, the historic old town and the charming promenade leading to Lake Zurich. Mandarin Oriental Savoy is destined to become the city's most desirable address, blending timeless elegance with modern sophistication and exceptional service.

Tasteful design and interiorsCreated by respected Paris-based interior designer Tristan Auer, the beautifully curated interiors merge historical details with modern style, using a carefully selected colour palette mirroring the hotel's surroundings. Meticulously crafted design elements and materials, such as artisan hand-painted silk wallpapers, adorn the rooms and embody a contemporary style that strikingly contrasts with the building's architecture. Many of the 44 rooms and 36 suites offer balconies, terraces or private rooftops, presenting stunning views of the city's landmarks and the Swiss Alps. Mandarin Oriental Savoy features some of the city's largest suites, including a lavish four-bedroom apartment spanning 275sqm, providing an exquisite blend of modern luxury and time-honoured charm.

Exquisite diningEnjoying the hotel's enchanting ambience, guests can embark on a culinary adventure and savour global flavours in four captivating dining venues.

Intimate and sophisticated, ORSINI is a fine-dining Italian restaurant led by Consultant Chef Antonio Guida, from the two-Michelin-starred Seta restaurant at Mandarin Oriental, Milan. It showcases authentic Italian culinary traditions with a contemporary international approach using the best, freshest ingredients sourced locally and from Italy. The glamorous, French- inspired Savoy Brasserie & Bar offers all-day dining and signature cocktails. Guests can also unwind in the refined Mandarin Lounge, or enjoy breathtaking panoramic views from the new 1838 rooftop bar with a choice of mouth-watering Asian delights.

Celebrations and eventsGiven its prime location in the city centre, Mandarin Oriental Savoy is the perfect place for special occasions such as weddings, parties, celebrations and corporate functions.

Exclusive settings provide timeless elegance-designed to make any occasion unforgettable. A grand ballroom now restored to its former glory exudes old-world charm with authentic stucco, glistening mirrors and beautiful high ceilings.
Broadening the industrys understanding of an increasingly important travel population, MMGY Travel Intelligence announced yesterday the key findings of its 2023 Portrait of Asian International Travelers research report. The inaugural study found that the Asian international traveler intends to take an average of 2.3 international trips over the next two years, with an anticipated average spend of $3,223 per trip.

The health and recovery of the Asian travel segment is paramount to the overall vitality of the global tourism marketplace, so the world is undoubtedly keeping a close eye on this audiences intent to travel, said MMGY Travel Intelligence Europe Managing Director Cees Bosselaar. As travel marketers increasingly compete for share of voice and spending, this study adds depth and cultural nuances to the how and why behind Asian traveler decisions at a very critical time.

Additional key findings from the study include:

The choice of travel destinations among Asian international travelers is deeply personal and often reflects their own personality and the needs and interests of their family (78%). Europe, the South Pacific, the United States, Canada and Southeast Asia were the top five wish-list destinations shared.

When considering plans to travel internationally for a leisure trip, the most significant factors impacting travelers across almost all segments, including age, education and nationality, were concerns about personal safety (79%), followed closely by the cost of airfare/accommodations (72%) and travel disruptions at airports such as canceled flights (71%).

As a whole, the Asian travel audience shows an overwhelming preference to invest more in distinct and new experiences during their travels (77%), indicating that experiential travel holds more allure for them than material items.

In line with what has been a historically affluent market, 7 in 10 Asian travelers (69%) said that they are willing to spend more for a luxurious experience when traveling internationally. This sentiment is especially strong among travelers from India (79%) and China (76%).

Finally, in terms of itinerary format, the survey found that there is a growing interest in multiday organized group tours among Asian international travelers. In the past three years, 42% of Asian international travelers participated in multiday organized group tours, whereas 56% expressed a likelihood to participate in such tours in the next two years.

Social media usage, interregional and seasonal travel patterns, sustainability and other topics are also examined in the Portrait of Asian International Travelers study. MMGY Global thanks its sponsors, Tripadvisor, Visit California and the State of Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, for their contributions to this study. For more insights or to purchase a copy of the in-depth findings, visit mmgyintel.com.
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Auburn City Councilor Jimmy Giannettino is disappointed with the state's response to Owasco Lake water quality concerns and hopes Gov. Kathy Hochul will visit Cayuga County to meet with local officials.

Giannettino, who is the Democratic candidate for Auburn mayor this year, announced his request during a press conference at Emerson Park in Owasco Tuesday.

Local officials have criticized state agencies, namely the Department of Health, for failing to adequately address the problems facing Owasco Lake. The lake, which is the drinking water source for the city of Auburn and surrounding towns, has been affected by harmful algal blooms. Toxins from the blooms were found in the drinking water supply in 2016.

The state, under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, delivered $2 million for the city of Auburn and town of Owasco to implement treatment systems that keep algal toxins out of the drinking water.

While Giannettino and other local leaders have praised the state for that action, they highlighted the need for long-term action.

After the toxins were found in the drinking water, a local effort began to update the Owasco Lake watershed's rules and regulations. The current rules have been in place since 1984.

The city of Auburn and town of Owasco approved the proposed rule changes in 2020 and submitted them to the state Department of Health for review. The agency did not issue a formal response until last year.

When the state Department of Health released its proposed revisions over the summer, much of what was in the local plan was excluded. One example is how the local proposal dealt with nutrient management. Nutrients, particularly phosphorus, contribute to the development of harmful algal blooms in the lake. The main source of these nutrients is farmland along the lake.

The state's revisions do not appear to include any new regulations for farms operating in the watershed. Instead, the policy would encourage farms to participate in a voluntary environmental management program.

"That's where the state of New York has failed us," Giannettino said Tuesday. "We underwent a three-year process for rules and regulations. It was a collective effort. Every stakeholder was at the table. We sent those to the state of New York for approval. It has taken three years and what they've sent back to us is basically, dismantling the regulations."

The city of Auburn and town of Owasco also approved resolutions asking the state to implement a total maximum daily load for Owasco Lake. This request followed the discovery of a letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notifying the state Department of Environmental Conservation that Owasco Lake should have a total maximum daily load due to the presence of harmful algal blooms.

With the lack of action by the state, Giannettino is hoping to have a conversation with Hochul about Owasco Lake water quality and the steps needed to address the problems plaguing the waterbody.

"She needs to be brought up to speed on what's going on," he said. "I believe her agencies have not only failed the state of New York but they are failing her as well."
LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  Lanesborough Economic Development Committee Chair and Planning Board member Barbara Davis-Hassan paid a $30,000 penalty for violating the state's conflict of interest law.

The State Ethics Commission has issued a final decision and order allowing a joint motion to dismiss and approving a disposition agreement in which Davis-Hassan admits to violating the conflict of interest law by participating as a Planning Board member in a proposal to rezone the Berkshire Mall while she privately had an exclusive marketing agreement to sell the property, by representing the mall's owner in local tax and infrastructure matters, and by participating as a Planning Board member in a proposal to rezone a second property while privately serving as its listing agent.

The commission accepted Davis-Hassan's payment of a $30,000 civil penalty and dismissed the adjudicatory proceeding against her.

Davis-Hassan, who owns and operates Barb Hassan Realty, had an exclusive marketing agreement to lease space in or sell the Berkshire Mall when she participated as a Planning Board member in a proposal to rezone the mall property to facilitate redevelopment. After Lanesborough town meeting approved the rezoning, the mall sold in July 2022 for $8 million and Davis-Hassan received a $240,000 commission on the sale.

Through these actions as a Planning Board member, Davis-Hassan violated the conflict of interest law's prohibition against public employees participating officially in matters in which they or their business have a financial interest. In addition to her actions concerning the mall property, Davis-Hassan also violated this prohibition in 2020, when she participated as a Planning Board member in discussing a proposal to rezone a Williamstown Road property for which she was the listing agent. That property later sold for $250,000, and Davis-Hassan received a $25,000 commission on the sale.

The conflict of interest law also prohibits municipal employees from acting as agent for anyone other than the municipality in connection with matters in which the municipality is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. Davis-Hassan violated this prohibition by representing Berkshire Mall owner Durga Property Holdings Inc. in Lanesborough-related matters in 2019 and 2020.

During this time, Davis-Hassan appeared on Durga's behalf before the Baker Hill Road District (BHRD), an entity that assesses and collects taxes on properties within the district for road maintenance and municipal services.

In at least one of her appearances, Davis-Hassan asked questions intended to demonstrate that the BHRD should be dissolved. She later, on behalf of Durga, sent draft proposals to the Lanesborough town manager to dissolve the BHRD, and communicated with the town manager and a member of the Legislature on behalf of Durga regarding the dissolution of the BHRD. Davis-Hassan also applied to the Lanesborough Board of Assessors for a tax abatement on Durga's behalf, appeared for Durga before the Board of Assessors regarding the tax abatement application, and, on behalf of Durga, emailed the Lanesborough Board of Selectmen regarding an application for a grant to address water and sewer concerns at the mall.
North Adams Holding Session on School Project Options

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The community will have the opportunity to provide input Thursday on the several options for a school building project.

The School Building Committee will hold a community/stakeholder engagement focus group in the welcome center at Brayton Elementary School beginning at 7 p.m. The session will also be available through Zoom at this link

There will be a presentation on the designs for the Greylock/Brayton School Building Project and the opportunity to ask questions. A faculty and staff session will be held earlier in the afternoon.

The project is at the end of the preliminary design phase. The School Committee has voted to reorganize its grade structure into early education (prekindergarten to Grade 2) and upper elementary (Grades 3 to 6). Drury will remain as Grades 7 through 12.

The more recently renovated Colegrove Park Elementary School will host one of the grade levels and either Brayton or Greylock the other. One of those schools will close based on projected enrollment declines.

The current options are a renovation of Brayton, a renovation/addition at Greylock or a new Greylock School.

The School Building Committee have been reviewing the three options with a vote on a recommendation expected on Oct. 12; the School Committee will vote on whether to submit that preferred option to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for consideration.
It is a concept that is a year in the making.

Thanks to a rule change by the state, the villages of Aurora, Cayuga and Union Springs will submit a joint application later this week to compete for a $10 million grant.

The funding is available through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative  the same competition that Auburn won in 2018. The city has used its $10 million prize to support 13 projects.

Since 2016, the state's 10 regional economic development councils each have selected a municipality to receive the downtown revitalization funding. In central New York, the council represents Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties.

Until last year, only individual municipalities could apply for the grant. Now, local governments can partner to seek the funding. The first joint DRI prize was awarded last year in the Mohawk Valley, with the village of Clinton and town of Kirkland sharing a $10 million grant.

According to Kari Terwilliger, associate planner with the Cayuga County Department of Planning and Economic Development, the idea for the joint application with Aurora, Cayuga and Union Springs was first discussed last year. But they didn't learn of the new rule until eight weeks before the application deadline, so they didn't have enough time to develop a plan.

Earlier this year, Terwilliger contacted the villages' mayors to discuss the joint application. She recalled telling them, "We're going to make this happen this year."

"They were all for it," Terwilliger said.

That began a months-long process to strengthen the joint filing. Last year, Aurora, Cayuga and Union Springs submitted separate applications in the New York Forward contest. New York Forward is similar to the DRI, but it focuses on smaller, rural communities.

The regional council provided feedback on the villages' New York Forward applications. Terwilliger said the council told them the applications were good, but didn't have enough private projects.

In preparation for the joint application, the county planning office and the villages conducted outreach and attended public events. One goal was to get more involvement from private entities. The effort succeeded: There are 28 private projects included in the Aurora-Cayuga-Union Springs DRI application.

Overall, the villages are seeking funding for 44 projects  13 in Aurora, 15 in Cayuga and 16 in Union Springs. The projects include establishing a waterfront park at the southern end of Aurora, a new retail development and "glampground" in Cayuga, and a lakefront brewpub in Union Springs.

There are four other communitywide projects, including the installation of electric vehicle chargers, broadband access, a community investment fund and a marketing campaign.

The villages' mayors  Jim Orman in Aurora, Don Wilson Jr. in Cayuga and Rob Thurston Jr. in Union Springs  told The Citizen they are excited to collaborate on the joint application.

"We've got a lot more strength and a lot more appeal to New York state by working together rather than three small villages on their own," Orman said.

Thurston thinks the DRI application has helped bring the villages together and, if successful, will drive more tourists to the area along Cayuga Lake.

"The opportunities for the communities (are) just huge," he said.

Wilson has been impressed with the feedback they received from the communities. When one village held an event, representatives from the other villages attended.

"I was blown away by the amount of support," he said. "I knew there were people who wanted to do it. When it came time this year, because we got started so early, people were overwhelmingly supportive."

Although the villages are submitting a joint DRI application, they will file individual applications for New York Forward grants. But all agree that the DRI prize is the goal.

Terwilliger said they are being realistic because it's a competition against other communities in central New York. When Auburn won the DRI, it took three tries.

The winners will be announced sometime this winter.

"We feel good," she added. "We're in a good place. We've had so much support from the public. We're going to take our shot and see what happens."
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- BYD Company Limited ("BYD") announced that its non-wholly owned subsidiary, BYD Electronic (International) Company Limited ("BYD Electronics"), signed a formal share acquisition agreement on September 26 with Jabil Circuit (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Jabil Inc.

Photo credit: BYD Electronics

Under the agreement, BYD Electronics intends to acquire from Jabil Inc. the latter's mobility business that manufactures components for consumer electronics products and is mainly located in Chengdu and Wuxi cities for approximately 15.8 billion yuan in cash. The seller has established a new legal entity, Juno Newco Target Holdco Singapore Pte. Ltd. ("Juno Newco", or "the Target Company"), in Singapore and plans to reorganize the target business into the Target Company. The acquisition will be primarily accomplished through the purchase of 100% equity interest in the Target Company and its assets in Singapore.

BYD said it believes that the acquisition will broaden BYD Electronics' client base and diversify its product portfolio, expand the business of smartphone components, significantly improve BYD Electronics' customer and product structure, further capitalize on market development opportunities, enhance the strategic layout of core component products, propel the industrial upgrading of BYD Electronics, and mark the beginning of a new cycle of rapid growth.

BYD Electronics is a platform-based high-end manufacturing enterprise with a diversified presence in markets including smartphones, tablets, new energy vehicles, smart homes, gaming hardware, drones, IoT, robots, communication equipment, medical and healthcare devices, among others.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange and headquartered in Florida, Jabil Inc. is a manufacturing solutions provider with over 250,000 employees across 100 locations in 30 countries. Its principal business includes design engineering, manufacturing and supply chain services for the EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) and consumer industries; and materials technology services (plastics, metals, automation and tooling). Notably, Jabil is a key member of the "Apple supply chain," responsible for the assembly of some Apple products, including iPhone, iPad, and AirPods.
In collaboration with the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), Digido Finance Corp. (DFC), operator of award-winning consumer finance platform Digido and in-app and in-store finance solutions provider UnaCash, proudly launched a series of initiatives promoting safety and quality life-saving projects across the organization.

Digido and UnaCash employees celebrating their participation to the first aid training with the Philippine Red Cross

The partnership kicked off earlier this month with first aid training where employees and management of DFC were taught basic principles to rapid interventions to reduce suffering, proper application of bandages for various types of injuries and a practical demonstration on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The overarching goal of this initiative is to ensure that individuals from the organizations are well-equipped to respond effectively in emergency situations.

During the week of September 18, Kimberly Rose Daitol, RMT, the Donor Recruitment Officer of PRC, led a pep talk titled Be A Hero and Save Lives, serving as assurance of the importance and safety of donating ones blood. Those medically cleared took part in the blood donation process itself.

The series of activities coincided with the global communitys commemoration of World First Aid Day in September, seen as an opportunity to highlight the importance of first aid around the world as an act of humanitarian empowerment.

For 75 years, the PRC has also served as Filipinos lifeline during times of crises and has been bolstering its services and logistics to improve its service to the most vulnerable communities.

Constantly working towards its commitment to align the companys direction towards the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN), this collaboration strengthened the organizations path towards spearheading initiatives under the Good Health and Well-Being and Quality Education and Reduced Inequalities pillars of the UN.

As a part of its ongoing commitment to creating a positive impact on the Filipino community through its services, Digido and UnaCash have identified the potential to contribute to similar initiatives beginning in the four walls of the organization.

These efforts are intended to bolster its commitment geared towards their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) plan, cementing its dedication to pursue in enhancing the well-being of the community and sustainability in their respective business practices.
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Former US president Barack Obama sent a lot of [script] notes to Sam Esmail, the director of the forthcoming disaster film Leave the World Behind.

The thriller is an adaptation of Rumaan Alams 2020 novel of the same name, which Obama had included on his 2021 summer reading list.

Starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke, it will mark the first fiction film to come from Barack and Michelle Obamas Higher Ground Productions company.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Esmail discussed the process of preparing the book for the screen.

In the original drafts of the script, I definitely pushed things a lot farther than they were in the film, and President Obama, having the experience he does have, was able to ground me a little bit on how things might unfold in reality, the Mr Robot creator explained.

I am writing what I think is fiction, for the most part, Im trying to keep it as true to life as possible, but Im exaggerating and dramatising. And to hear an ex-president say youre off by a few details I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the f*** out of me.

Leave the World Behind follows a family whose vacation on Long Island is interrupted by two strangers warning of a blackout. Both families must then come up with a plan on how best to survive as the crisis escalates to a monumental scale.

Esmail added that he was reassured when the Obamas argued that some of his potential plot points were too bleak or unlikely.

Barack Obama, Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke (Getty Images and Netflix)

He had a lot notes about the characters and the empathy we would have for them, the director recalled. I have to say he is a big movie lover, and he wasnt just giving notes about things that were from his background. He was giving notes as a fan of the book, and he wanted to see a really good film.

Higher Ground Productions is also the company behind Rustin, in which the Euphoria actor Colman Domingo stars as Martin Luther King Jrs advisor, Bayard Rustin.

Leave the World Behind will have its world premiere at Hollywoods AFI Fest in October before it becomes available to stream on Netflix on 8 December.
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The 1975 will go on an indefinite hiatus after their ongoing Still At Their Very Best tour ends, frontman Matty Healy told concertgoers on Tuesday (26 September).

The British bands world tour, which has seen them banned from Malaysia, is currently scheduled to conclude in late March 2024 in Amsterdam.

The group was performing at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California, on Tuesday night when Healy, 34, made the announcement towards the end of their set, according to NME.

Its wonderful youre all here, he tells the crowd in footage shared on X/Twitter. After this tour, we will be going on an indefinite hiatus with shows, so its wonderful to have you guys with us tonight. Thank you so much.

The crowd can be heard booing in response.

The Independent has contacted The 1975s representatives for comment.

Last month, Healys band was ordered to pay 2m in damages for allegedly breaking contract terms during their controversial show in Malaysia.

The 1975s July performance at Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur was cut short when frontman Matt Healy kissed bassist Ross MacDonald while criticising the countrys anti-LGBT+ laws, under which homosexual acts are illegal.

I dont see the f***ing point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with. Unfortunately, you dont get a set of loads of uplifting songs because Im f***ing furious, Healy told the crowd.

And thats not fair on you, because youre not representative of your government. Because youre young people, and Im sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool, he added.

The festival was then called off entirely by Malaysias government due to its unwavering stance against any parties that challenge, ridicule or contravene Malaysian laws. Malaysias government called the band extremely rude, adding that they would not be permitted to perform in the country again.

Future Sounds Asia (FSA), organisers of the festival, alleged that the band had given a pre-show written assurance that they would adhere to all local guidelines and regulations and should acknowledge their liability and compensate FSA for damages incurred.

A source close to the band told The Independent: Matty has a long-time record of advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and the band wanted to stand up for their LGBTQ+ fans and community.
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US soldier Travis King crossed over the border from South to North Korea in an alleged attempt to defect from the army after his experiences of inhumane treatment and racism while in service.

The 2nd ClassPrivate had passed through airport security as he was being sent home from South Korea for disciplinary reasons. He still somehow managed to leave the airport and join a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone near the North Korean border.

As he left the tour group behind, he reportedly let out a loud laugh as he ran away and surrendered to North Korean forces.

No one heard or saw the soldier for months. The United Nations Command reached out to the country for information, but they simply acknowledged their request.

Officials sat tight until they gained information from a North Korean TV network, KCNA, who said they had finished up investigating Mr Kings illegal crossing.

Silence fell once again on Mr Kings status, until 27 September, when it was announced that the solider was now back in US custody.

Here is everything we know about Travis King and his venture into one of the worlds most secretive authoritarian states:

Kings assault trouble in South Korea

Mr King had been serving as a reconnaissance specialist since 2021. He was in South Korea as part of his rotation.

On 24 May, he was sentenced to serve in a labour camp for more than 40 days at the Cheonan correctional facility, which was used to house members of the US military and other foreigners who had committed crimes in South Korea.

He was held on assault charges, which earned him military disciplinary actions back in the US.

When Mr King was released on 10 July, officials booked him on a flight back home to Fort Bliss in Texas to face punishment for his actions while abroad.

Yet Mr Kings time out of the US was not going to end there, as despite making his way through airport security, he absconded his flight and escaped the US military police out of Incheon Airport.

Bryce Dubee, an Army spokesperson shared the following information about Mr King: PV2 Travis T. King is a 19D (Cavalry Scout) in the Regular Army from January 2021 to present. He has no deployments. During his Korean Force Rotation he was originally assigned to 6th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division and is currently administratively attached to 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. His awards include the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Defense Service Medal and Overseas Service Ribbon.

King crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

He had joined a group taking a tour of the Joint Security Area  the border village in the DMZ separating the two Koreas, which is heavily guarded by soldiers from both sides.

The UN Command in a statement said: A US National on a JSA (Joint Security Area) orientation tour crossed, without authorisation, the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Authorities said that we are working with KPA (North Korean army) counterparts to resolve this incident.

According to the local press, a foreign national crossed the border at 1527 local time [0627 GMT].

Colonel Isaac Taylor of United States Forces Korea Public Affairs told The Independent at the time: A U.S. Service member on a JSA orientation tour willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA counterparts to resolve this incident.

This man gives out a loud ha ha ha, and just runs in between some buildings

An individual who said they witnessed what took place and was taking part in the tour along with the US soldier told CBS News that they had visited one of the buildings in the area when this man gives out a loud ha ha ha, and just runs in between some buildings.

I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didnt come back, I realised it wasnt a joke, and then everybody reacted and things got crazy, they told the outlet .

The DMZ, one of the most fortified places in the world, is filled with landmines, surrounded by electric and barbed wire fencing and surveillance cameras.

The witness told the network that no North Korean soldiers could be seen where the man ran, adding that they had been told that there hadnt been any present since the pandemic as North Korea attempted to fully close its borders.

The witness said that after the man had crossed the border, the tour group was taken to Freedom House to give statements and then to be taken to their bus.

Inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army

The rogue US soldier had gone missing into the depths of the authoritarian state. No one had heard from or seen Mr King for around a month.

The United Nations Command tried to gain information from North Korea and were acknowledged but given very little detail.

That was until his photo was broadcast on a North Korean TV network, as state news agency KCNA revealed that he was in the custody of soldiers of the Korean Peoples Army.

They said that Korean officials were leading an investigation into Mr Kings crossing into their country.

During the investigation, Travis King confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harboured ill feelings against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army, state-run news agency KCNA said last month.

US soldier crossed into North Korea without authorisation, defence secretary confirms

DPRK reveals Mr Kings attempts to refuge in their country

On 27 September, the state-run news outlet KCNA announced that they would be expelling Mr King after his illegal entry into the country.

Pyongyang claimed they had finished an investigation into why Mr King had entered their country without permission.

They said that their findings had revealed that he was trying to seek refuge in the country due to inhuman treatment in the US military, antipathy to racism and disillusionment with the unequal US society.

King turned over to US Custody

Travis King Is in American Custody After Being Detained in North Korea

Shortly after the KCNA announcement, US officials said that the deviated soldier is now back in American custody after being turned over to US authorities in China, an anonymous US official said.

He is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.

While there are very few cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to the North, more than 30,000 North Koreans are believed to have crossed the border to the South since the 1950s.

This photo taken in Seoul on August 16, 2023 showing a news broadcast featuring a photo of US soldier Travis King (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

Washington has banned American nationals from entering North Korea due to the continuing serious risk of arrest and long-term detention of US nationals.

The US government is unable to provide emergency services to US citizens in North Korea as it does not have diplomatic or consular relations with North Korea, the US travel advisory for North Korea reads.

The ban was implemented after American college student Otto Warmbier was detained by the North while on a tour of the country in 2015. He died in 2017, days after he was released from prison and returned to the US in a coma.

Family give differing opinions on what happened to King

After news that Mr King would be deported from North Korea, Johnathan Franks, a spokesperson for Mr Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said she will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

He added that the soldiers family was asking for privacy, and said Ms Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

However, before the soldier was found, other family members shared their opinions on why Mr King would have defected to North Korea.

Myron Gates, Mr Kings Uncle, said that his nephew had been experiencing racism during his time in the US military and after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he no longer sounded like himself, reports ABC.

He also revealed to The Daily Beast that Mr King was already breaking down after he learned that his six-year-old cousin, Mr Gates son, had died from a rare genetic condition, SPTLC 2.

When my son was on life support, and when my son passed away  Travis started [being] reckless [and] crazy when he knew my son was about to die, he said.

However, Jaqueda Gates, Mr Kings sister, said that his rash escape into North Korea just did not sound like something he would do.

My brother, hes not the type to get into trouble like that. It all just sounds made up, Ms Gates told NBC News after explaining she had only spoken to him on the phone two days before.
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A man in India was kept in jail for an extra three years because prison authorities failed to open a bail order sent as an email attachment.

Identified as Chandanji Thakor, the inmate was serving life imprisonment in a murder case but had his conviction suspended by the Gujarat High Court, which issued an order granting him bail.

Covid restrictions at the time of the order in September 2020, when much of India was just coming out of a months-long lockdown, meant it was sent by the court registry via email.

But it has now emerged that the jail authorities failed to notice the attached bail order either at that time or when the court again attempted to follow up on the case a few months later in December.

Calling the case an eye opener, the Gujarat High Court slammed the prison authorities for a serious lapse on their part and for not abiding by the courts order issued three years ago and awarded Thakor be paid compensation of Rs 100,000 (988) within two weeks.

The applicant, though he was [ordered] released and could have enjoyed his freedom, was forced to remain in jail only because no attention was paid by the jail authorities to contact the Registry or Sessions Court with regard to the order passed by this Court, judges said on 22 September.

Thus, there is a serious lapse on the part of the jail authorities.

The judges said the Gujarat High Court registry sent a second email in December that went to the Sessions Court of Mehsana and Ahmedabad Central Jail, informing them that Thakor had successfully provided the required bond of Rs 20,000 (200) and should be released.

However, due to Covid-19 pandemic, the said e-mail was not noticed by the jail authority and the order passed by this court was not implemented, said the court order, accessed by Indian legal news outlet Bar and Bench.

According to the Supreme Court of India, a defendant should be released within seven days from the date of bail being granted. It is the duty of the jails superintent to inform the district legal service authorities who can then arrange for necessary legal assistance to help in the release.

However in Thakors case the court found his lawyer was at no point informed that he was eligible for release.

The 27-year-old was finally freed from prison last week on 21 September, a day before the court was scheduled to hear his fresh application seeking regular bail.

In addition to ordering Thakor be paid compensation, the court also directed the district legal service authorities (DLSA) to collect data of all prisoners who may have been granted bail but not released, in case similar cases are found.

The DLSA shall collect the reasons for their not having been released either for want of surety or non-execution of the jail bonds or for any other reason, said the bench of justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey, while listing the matter to be heard again on 18 October, reported Bar and Bench.
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The Indian government has exploited the assessment reports of a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog to target legitimate human rights work of civil society, a new report by Amnesty International said.

The country has abused recommendations provided internationally by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to crackdown on terrorism financing and money laundering under the Narendra Modi administration, the international human rights group said in its latest report on Wednesday.

This has been done under the guise of combating terrorism, Amnesty Internationals India chair Aakar Patel said.

The Indian government has leveraged the Financial Action Task Forces recommendations (from 2010 and 2013) to tighten its arsenal of financial and counter-terrorism laws which are routinely misused to target and silence critics, he said in a statement.

India should be held accountable by the FATF for the persistent weaponisation of its recommendations, he added.

Indian officials have not issued an immediate response on the charges in the latest report by Amnesty International.

Human rights groups and political opponents have accused Mr Modi of stifling dissent and introducing divisive policies that discriminate against Muslims and other minorities, in addition to the conviction of his political opponent Rahul Gandhi.

Authorities in India have brought in draconian laws in a coordinated campaign to stifle the non-profit sector, the findings revealed.

A total of 37 countries are part of the FATF, including the United States, and two regional groups, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Commission. Currently, only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted.

Data by Amnesty showed that more than 20,600 NGOs have had their licences cancelled in India in the last ten years, with nearly 6,000 of these cancellations seen since the beginning of 2022.

Indian officials have also misused these laws to bring terrorism-related charges and, amongst other things, to prevent organisations and activists from accessing essential funds, Amnesty said.

In its latest findings, Amnesty International found that 11 out of 16 NGOs in India working on issues of minorities, marginalised groups and climate change confirmed arbitrary renunciation of their foreign contribution licences through suspensions, cancellations and non-renewals.

This was done on the grounds of vague reasons by the Indian authorities who accused them of bringing disrepute to public institutions, working against public or national interest or alluding to their human rights work.

Most of the NGOs in India have reduced their staff by 50 to 80 per cent. Almost all our programmes have been shut down (We are) surviving just to fight the legal cases that have been filed against us, an activist told Amnesty International.

The latest findings also stated that Indian authorities have ignored calls by United Nations special rapporteurs terming Indias own anti-terrorism law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act as they flagged its provisions to be in violation of FATFs guiding principles.

The Indian laws provisions also violated international human rights law and standards, they said.

The Indian authorities have ignored all such calls and have continued to apply these laws in a discriminatory manner against dissenting voices such as Muslim student activist Umar Khalid, Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez, journalist Irfan Mehraj and 16 others (in the Bhima Koregaon case), ten of whom continue to be detained since 2018 without trial on allegations of funding terrorism, amongst other charges, the Amnesty International said.

One such law under the Modi administration  Prevention of Money Laundering Act  has been used to target Amnesty International, forcing them to halt operations in the country in September 2020.

The FATF must not allow these laws to be used by the Indian authorities to systematically erode the rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression in the country, particularly of civil society actors and religious minorities, Mr Patel said.
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Indias conflict-ridden Manipur state is facing another flare-up after it emerged that two young students missing since July were killed.

Hijam Linthoingami, 17 and Phijam Hemjit, 20, had reportedly eloped on 6 July. On Tuesday, the worst nightmares of the students families came true after photographs of the two students emerged that confirmed their deaths, prompting locals to clash with the police.

A fresh spate of violence gripped the northeastern state, where nearly 180 people have been killed since the conflict between minority Kuki and majority Meitei communities broke out 148 days ago, on 3 May.

The state is now unofficially segregated in areas controlled by the two communities, with each maintaining their own military-style bunkers and territorial borders, while local police and authorities are still stretched thin in their attempts to maintain peace, despite their numbers getting bolstered by around 10,000 members of the federal armed forces.

Mobile internet services which were restored in the state days ago after nearly five months of suspension, were snapped yet again on Tuesday evening. A team of officers from the federal investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, were also rushed to state capital Imphal to investigate the kidnapping and killing of the two students.

A photo that emerged on Monday showed the couple sitting next to each other, with two armed men behind them. A second one purportedly showed their bodies slumped on the ground next to each other, reported The Indian Express.

Protesters shout slogans as they burn effigies of prime minister Narendra Modi, federal home minister Amit Shah and Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh during a demonstration in Imphal on 8 September 2023 (AFP via Getty Images)

Her gaze in that photo, Ive never seen that before. It pains me a lot. Such a deep look filled with love and emotion Why did they kill two children? Kulajit Hijam, Linthoingambis father, was quoted as saying by the outlet.

Hemjits mother Birodini Devi said she long gave up hope of them returning alive, even though there was no proof that they had been murdered.

The police at the time said the whereabouts of the two were not known, and their phones were switched off. Their last location was traced to Lamdan, near the Kuki-dominated Churachandpur district.

In a status report submitted to the Supreme Court last month, Manipurs police said the area where the murder allegedly took place was not accessible to them due to heavy presence of armed Kuki militants. State investigating agency is handicapped in carrying the investigation of the case, it said, reported Scroll.in.

On Monday, the government of the state ruled by prime minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urged citizens to exercise restraint, while chief minister N Biren Singh issued a statement that the authorities are working to nab the perpetrators.

The government assures the public that swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi, read the statement. The government is committed to ensuring justice and will impose severe punishment on any perpetrator found responsible for the heinous crime, it said.

However, despite the appeal, the standoff between the locals and authorities continued on Wednesday. Police resorted to baton charges and firing teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters who gathered in the capital and demanded immediate action, reported NDTV.

Earlier on Tuesday, at least 45 students were injured after they clashed with police while walking towards the chief ministers residence.

Protesters gather during rally along a street in Phougakchao Ikhai bazaar of the Bishnupur district, some 52km from Imphal on 6 September 2023 (AFP via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, several opposition leaders have lashed out at the central and the state government, both ruled by the BJP, demanding the chief minister be sacked.

For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the state, said Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the main opposition Congress party.

The horrific images of students being targeted in this violence has once again shocked the entire nation. It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponised in this strife.

The beautiful state of Manipur has been turned into a battlefield, all because of the BJP ! High time, PM Modi sacks BJPs incompetent Manipur Chief Minister. This would be the first step to control any further turmoil.

The Prime Minister is roaming around different states leaving behind his trademark trail of lies, abuses and insults, wrote Jairam Ramesh, another Congress lawmaker.

Why he cannot find a day to visit Manipur is simply beyond any understanding. Today again internet services have been suspended for five days in Manipur.

A horrific video has emerged making a complete mockery of claims of normalcy. But nothing moves or fazes the PM as far as Manipur is concerned. He has simply abandoned the people there. The PM is only concerned about latching onto power come what may and nothing else matters to him.

Mr Modi has so far publicly addressed the Manipur conflict only twice.

In July, he addressed the issue for the first time after a video of two tribal women being paraded naked and subjected to blatant acts of sexual assault by a mob of men triggered outrage in the country.

He also briefly broke his silence in parliament later in August after the countrys opposition moved a no-confidence motion against him in a bid to seek a discussion on the ongoing conflict.
With Gasgoo Daily, we will offer daily important automotive news in China. For those we have reported, the title of the piece will include a hyperlink, which will provide detailed information.

First mass-produced unit of BAO 5 rolls off line

BYD's new sub-brand, FANG CHENG BAO, announced on September 27 the official rollout of the first mass-produced unit of its inaugural model, the BAO 5. This model made its debut at the Chengdu Motor Show 2023 in August, simultaneously opening for pre-orders with a price range of 300,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan. It is expected for delivery later this year.

BAO 5; photo credit: FANG CHENG BAO

Leapmotor Automobile records increase in registered capital

According to Chinese corporate database Tianyancha, Leapmotor Automobile Co., Ltd., which is wholly-owned subsidiary of Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co., Ltd., recently underwent a business information change, with its registered capital increased from 2.908 billion yuan to 4.708 billion yuan.

Li Auto introduces App-credit-based charging discount at supercharging stations

On September 26, Li Auto announced through its official WeChat account that it had launched a new feature enabling App-credit-based discounts for vehicle charging at Li Auto's supercharging stations.

Currently, the charging prices at Li Auto' supercharging stations located within highway service areas are generally in line with those at other public charging stations. In addition to this competitive pricing, owners of the Li ONE and L-series vehicles will now enjoy the added benefit of redeeming credits to offset their charging expenses when using Li Auto's supercharging stations.

BYD Electronics inks agreement to acquire Jabil Inc.'s electronics manufacturing business

BYD Company Limited ("BYD") announced that its non-wholly owned subsidiary, BYD Electronic (International) Company Limited ("BYD Electronics"), signed a formal share acquisition agreement on September 26 with Jabil Circuit (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Jabil Inc.

Changan Qiyuan A07 starts pre-order, starting at 155,900 yuan

On September 26, Changan Qiyuan, the embodiment of Changan Auto's new energy vehicle aspirations, kicked off pre-orders for its A07 model.

Autonomous driving tech firm SENIOR sets roots in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province

SENIOR, a Chinese provider of autonomous driving solutions for commercial vehicles, signed an agreement for its headquarters project in Moganshan Hi-tech Industry Development Zone in Huzhou city, Zhejiang Province, according to the companys announcement.

CATL, CHINT to cooperate in energy, smart manufacturing fields

On September 26, Chinese power battery giant CATL and the smart energy solutions provider CHINT Group Co., Ltd. ("CHINT"), signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, marking a significant collaboration in the energy sector.

Li Auto hits milestone of delivering 500,000th vehicle

On September 27th, Li Auto completed the delivery of its 500,000th vehicle at its delivery center in Shunyi district, Beijing city. The significant vehicle is a Li L7, the company's family-oriented five-seater flagship SUV.

SGMW's Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition goes on sale, starting at 125,800 yuan

SAIC-GM-Wuling ("SGMW")'s Wuling brand has welcomed a new addition to its family with the launch of the Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition. This latest offering, which is now available on the market, introduces two distinct trim levels: the 460 Pro Lingxi Edition, priced at 125,800 yuan, and the 460 Max Lingxi Edition, available for 133,800 yuan.
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India has told Canada that it was not the governments policy to be involved in acts such as the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on foreign soil.

Ties between India and Canada plummeted after prime minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of involvement in the killing of the Canadian national.

Nijjar  a designated terrorist in India  was killed in Surrey on 18 June by two masked men, who fired an estimated 30 to 50 shots at him. He has been linked to the secessionist Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate homeland for the Sikh religious community to be carved out of India's Punjab state.

Mr Trudeau has repeatedly asked India for cooperation in the investigation, but India has rejected the allegations as "absurd" and "motivated".

When asked about the allegations at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar detailed India's response.

"We told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy," Mr Jaishankar said.

"Second, we told the Canadians that look, if you have something specific let us know we are open to looking at it."

India responded to Ottawa's allegations by suspending visa services in all categories for Canadian nationals citing security threats to its consulates. Each country expelled one senior diplomat from the other in a tit-for-tat move.

If somebody gives me something specific, it doesnt have to be restricted to Canada. But if theres any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it, the minister added.

The Indian flag is torn during a protest in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (REUTERS)

Canada also urged its citizens to remain vigilant and exercise caution due to a rise in "some negative sentiment towards Canada on social media".

Mr Jaishankar said India had been "badgering the Canadians" about its claims that organised criminals are based in the Western nation. Canada is home to 770,000 Sikhs  the highest population from the religion outside the state of Punjab in India.

"In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information," the foreign minister said.

He said India had made a large number of "extradition requests" and identified "terrorist leaders".

"Our concern is that it's really been very permissive, because of political reasons. So we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked... A lot of this is often justified, as saying that's how democracies work.

In recent months Sikh protesters pulled down the Indian flag at the countrys High Commission in London and smashed the buildings window in a show of anger against the move to arrest another Sikh leader. Protesters also smashed windows at the Indian consulate in San Francisco and clashed with embassy workers.
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When they were planning their wedding, Dimple and Manisha always agreed that they wanted their big day to include a traditional Sikh religious ceremony. A same-sex couple living in Indias Punjab state, they had no idea that their wedding day would trigger such a huge controversy and draw criticism from the highest priest in Sikhism himself.

Manisha, 21, said the priest was very encouraging when she approached a local gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship) with her fiance Dimple, 27, who goes by male pronouns.

We spoke to him in the presence of my parents and told him that it is not a male-female wedding, but [rather] with a person who has been assigned female sex at birth, she told The Independent.

India does not recognise same-sex marriage, but Manisha said that the priest, Hardev Singh, told her similar marriages had happened in the past. He took my phone number, saying that he will discuss this with the gurdwara committee and call me back.

The committee approved their union and the couple got married in front of the Sikh religious scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, on 18 September.

Since then, a controversy has erupted over their wedding, prompting the priest to issue an apology for officiating the ceremony, amid criticims from the highest cleric in Sikhism, Giani Raghbir Singh.

Describing same-sex marriage as unnatural and contrary to Sikh ethics, Mr Singh told the BBC that the marriage of two women in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib was a severe moral and religious violation.

The outlet reported that he has also ordered the suspension of the priest who oversaw the marriage rites and three others present during the ceremony.

The priest, Hardev Singh, has since claimed in an interview with the BBC that he did not know it was an LGBT+ wedding, arguing that one of the couple was wearing a turban for the ceremony. He did not respond to The Independents attempts to contact him by phone for comment.

Questioning his claim, Manisha said: We told him all the details in person. In fact we submitted the documents, including biometric identity proof, [and the] Aadhaar [government-issued ID] card where it is clear that Dimple is female [assigned female sex at birth].

Dimples parents knew all along that he feels like a man trapped inside a womans body, the 27-year-old told The Independent. I was very open from the beginning. I behaved like a boy who was attracted to women. So, I never hid anything from my family.

However, Manisha said her parents took some convincing. The reluctance came in part because same-sex marriage is not recognised in India, while gay sex was only decriminalised in 2018. The family also come from a rural background, where there are fewer conversations around gender and sexuality than in the major Indian metropolises.

Indias supreme court is currently in the process of hearing arguments in favour of recognising same-sex marriage. The government has previously opposed marriage equality, calling it an urban elitist view and defending the institution of marriage as exclusively heterogeneous.

Gender rights activists and supporters of the LGBT+ community attend a pride parade in Mumbai on 24 June 2023 (AFP via Getty)

When I told my parents that I wanted to marry Dimple, my mother refused right away, said Manisha.

But she came around later the same day. And once she was on board, she convinced my father as well. It did not take very long to persuade them about our alliance. You know what they say: Parents can do anything for their childs happiness.

Despite the opposition they have faced at different stages from family, state and society, Manisha never doubted her decision to marry Dimple. From the moment they started dating, it was a whirlwind romance.

I have known him for sometime. We work in the same factory. So, I knew almost everything about him, she said, referring to Dimples previous partners.

I was dating a woman for five years before we broke up. And another woman for a few months. I frequently turned to Manisha when seeking resolution of emotional issues, said Dimple. When they finally began dating, the foundation of their friendship meant it did not take long to consider marriage.

It was within a week of us dating that I proposed, she said.

Dimple is still contemplating whether to get his gender reassignment surgery done. I did think and went to hospital for the surgery. However, the doctors said that most people are not satisfied with the outcome. So, I am thinking of getting it done from outside of India.

But that will not be soon, he said, and he is in no rush.

I have just started spending time with my wife. If she is happy with me and accepts me as it is, then I might not get it done at all.
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At least eight brown bear cubs born this year have died in northern Japan due to shortage of salmon in a sign of the worsening climate crisis.

Officials are alarmed after brown bears in Shiretoko, a Unesco World Natural Heritage site in Hokkaido, were seen starving and scrounging for food among rocks and seaweed as they fail to find salmon at the mouths of the rivers, according to Japanese media.

Images taken from a tour boat, published by Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun last week, showed thin and starving brown bears swimming into the river in search of salmon or turning rocks on a beach to find food.

An estimated 70 to 80 per cent of the cubs born this year are dead, Katsuya Noda, who operates the cruise, told the newspaper. Its really a serious situation.

Some bears have grown really thin, and they are having a tough time. There are no fish in the rivers, just like last year.

The region, home to an estimated 500 brown bears, has pink salmon hatching in Hokkaidos rivers. The salmon typically spend the winter in the sea before returning to Shiretokos streams between August and October to spawn.

Brown bears traditionally await these salmon as they make their way upstream, but in the last few years, there has been a shortage of the river fish, with conditions significantly worsened in 2023, forcing them to venture into the sea or die of starvation.

Record sea surface temperatures have been linked to reduced population of salmon. The temperatures off Hokkaido coast have remained above 20 degrees Celsius from mid-July to early August in 2021  an astonishing 5C higher than the average for that period.

Water temperatures greater than 17C stress salmon, and temperatures above 21C can be lethal, according to US governments state of salmon report.

This is in line with the larger trend of unusually hot sea surface temperatures around the world and a sign of worsening climate change that scientists have been warning about.

This year a severe marine heatwave was also recorded off the coast of the UK and Ireland and hotter Atlantic temperatures are also fuelling strong hurricanes.

Record ocean temperatures 2023 (Climate Central)

Apart from pink salmon, brown bears also depend on acorns to feed themselves, but they are finding it difficult to come across either of their staples this year.

This year, in addition to the lack of salmon, acorns also have a poor harvest, Masami Yamanaka, a researcher at the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, told The Asahi Shimbun.

The shortage of food has increased animal-human conflict in Japan, with bears venturing out in human settlements looking for food. Over 1,056 brown bears were caught and killed in Hokkaido in just months, from January to April 2022, making it the highest number of bear killings recorded in a year.

The shortage of salmon is also worrying fishermen whose produce has halved in the last two years.

According to the Hokkaido Salmon Propagation Association, while around 482,775 pink salmon were caught in rivers in Hokkaido between 25 July and 5 September in 2020, just 23,298 were caught last year.
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Bruce Williss daughters have heaped praise on stepmum Emma Heming Willis for spreading awareness of dementia in the wake of the Hollywood stars diagnosis.

The 45-year-old wife of the Die Hard actor appeared on the Today show as part of World Frontotemporal Dementia Awareness Week to discuss its devastating impact on her family.

Williss family publicly acknowledged that he had been exhibiting a loss of cognitive functioning earlier this year, and the model told the NBC show how it can impact those around it.

Dementia is hard. Its hard on the person diagnosed, its also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say this is a family disease, it really is, she told host Hoda Kotb.

Its important for care partners to look after themselves so that they can be the best care partner for the person theyre caring for, she continued.

Heming mentioned that her two daughters  Mabel and Evelyn  have learned to practice love, patience and resilience with their father.

Its teaching them so much and how to care and love, and its really a beautiful thing amongst the sadness, she said.

While she was grateful to see a positive light come out of their otherwise disheartening situation, Hemings stepdaughters  Scout, 29, and Tallulah, 32, whom Willis shares with his former wife, Demi Moore  were thankful for her poignant words and the necessary attention shed drawn to the cause.

So proud of my family @emmahemingwillis, Tallulah posted to her Instagram story on Monday.

Scout proceeded to repost her sisters social media, adding her words on top. I truly could not be more proud of @emmahemingwillis for being willing to step out into the public eye, (even though its terrifying!!!) to share our familys story in service of spreading awareness about FTD, she wrote.

Emma you are such a champion for this cause and you inspire me every single f***ing day with your bravery and deep deep loving. Your courage is moving mountains #ftd #ftdawareness, added Scout.

AFTD encourages anyone in need of resources or with questions about diagnosis and support to contact their HelpLine or email them at 866-507-7222 and info@theaftd.org, respectively.
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The uptick of Covid transmissions this summer has raised questions about whether or not certain safety measures such as wearing masks should be brought back.

Several companies and schools nationwide decided to reinstate Covid mask mandates in light of the rising hospitalisations including Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Lionsgate headquarters in Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente across all California locations, and several hospitals in the state of New York. Workers and attendees at these locations are now required to wear masks upon entry.

It is ticking up a little bit, but its not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over, Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Seattle Times. Although many health experts like Dr Dowdy dont believe people have cause to worry, some have expressed their concerns.

While many people have forgone wearing masks, UC San Francisco infectious diseases expert, Dr Peter Chin-Hong, cautioned the Los Angeles Times that swearing off masks for good would put people at higher risk of contracting the virus, elaborating: Right now, when things are heating up all around the country with Covid, you might want to think about [masking at] public transit and airports.

Two new variants have emerged to the concern of public health officials. The World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned the public on two new variants, EG.5 and BA.2.86, that have emerged. Earlier in August, the former was classified as a variant of interest by the organization. BA.286 has spread to the US, UK, Denmark, Israel, and South Africa, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) risk summary assessment. In the same report, the CDC reported that as of 23 August the BA.2.86 variant is the more infectious of the two, and wrote that those with existing immunity from Covid - either from vaccines or prior infections - were more likely to get infected.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of Covid hospitalisations has risen an estimated 12 per cent weekly over the course of the last three weeks. But, compared to the heights of the pandemic, these reported numbers are rather low. Covid-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056 for the week ending 29 July, a number that is marginally less than past peaks such as 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, or during the omicron surge of January 2022, in which there were 150,000 admissions.

As of 19 August, hospital admissions across the US have continued to rise by at least 15,000 due to the new variants. While a far cry from the heights of the pandemic, the numbers signal that the public should exercise caution all the same.

Its highly likely that, due to a lack of ongoing data collection nationally, the numbers may not truly reflect the number of people contracting Covid. Since President Joe Biden declared that Covid is no longer a national emergency in April, the majority of federal authorities have scaled back hypervigilance and data tracking, so the CDC and many states have not been tracking the number of positive test results since May.

Many health experts stress that people should remain vigilant.

Even though the declared emergency is over, Covid is still circulating - and it probably will be for quite some time. And so if you really dont want to get sick, you can protect yourself by wearing a mask when youre indoors, Dr Sara Cody, the Santa Clara County public health director and health officer, told the LA Times. But its, at this point, an individual decision.

Dr Cody said that wearing masks even only in a high-risk environment is better than nothing at all because the more people are together, the greater the chance that one of those people is going to be infectious and spread Covid to others.

Health experts also urged people to be respectful of those who choose to wear masks, especially since you never know their reasons for doing so. In Los Angeles, the Department of Health encouraged individuals to consider risk levels of close family or friends they spend time with, and the nature of the event or location when deciding whether or not to wear a mask.

If you are up to date on your vaccinations, the likelihood of you contracting coronavirus is lower, while those who have not received a booster shot since the September 2022 omicron surge are urged to schedule an appointment for overdue booster shots. Dr Chin-Hong suggests that, for those who are either immunocompromised or older, its better to get the 2022 boosters now rather than wait for the 2023 formula.

The 2023 version of the vaccine will be designed to combat the latest dominant Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, which according to The New York Times, has reportedly seen a wave in hospitalisations on the East Coast.
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Fashion lovers will soon have the chance to own a custom Oscar de la Renta gown worn by Sarah Jessica Parker at the 2014 Met Gala - for the hefty price of $7,500.

The black and white floor-length gown is being auctioned on the luxury fashion labels resale site, Encore, until Friday 29 September. The dress, made custom for the Sex and the City star, features a black velvet bodice with a v-neckline and petal-like pattern at the bottom. The gowns ivory skirt also includes a trellis embroidery, complete with Oscar de la Rentas signature at the train.

When Sarah Jessica came to the office for our first design meeting, she had a binder full of references to share with Oscar. It was a truly special collaboration, said co-creative director Fernando Garcia in a statement. And for me, who didnt ever go to design school, it was the biggest fashion lesson I could have gotten - on the floor of Oscars office.

The commissioned piece took 224 hours to make. Nine years later, it was returned to the atelier where it was made to be restored to its original condition. Thirty per cent of proceeds from the sale of the dress will benefit the Jefferson Market at the New York Public Library.

In 2014, the And Just Like That star recounted the gowns design process in an interview with Vanity Fair. I said to Mr de la Renta, please let me use scarlet embroidery thread, and splash your name across the back. It was my idea. He would never in a million years have it done, hes far too modest, Parker said at the time.

The theme for the 2014 Met Gala was in honour of legendary designer Charles James, called Charles James: Beyond Fashion. The dress code called for White Tie and Decorations - full evening dress of white bow ties for men and evening gowns for women. Parker, along with actor Bradley Cooper and de la Renta, served as co-chairs for the annual fashion event.

Parkers black and white gown was one of the last designs de la Renta showcased on the red carpet before he passed away in October 2014, five months after the Met Gala.

(Getty Images)

The Hollywood star and fashion icon has been a mainstay on the Met Gala red carpet - which is rolled out every May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City - for many years. Parker recently looked back on some of her many memorable fashion moments, including the time she attended the charity event with late designer Alexander McQueen in 2006.

Speaking to Vogue in 2022, Parker explained that she immediately wanted to work with McQueen to design their matching tartan ensembles for the Met Galas AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion theme. However, she felt that she didnt really know him well enough to be so presumptuous to assume he would want to attend with her.

Like everybody else, I was in love with him, she told Vogue. I have every pin he dropped from his mouth in my possession still. I have everything he cut off in my possession still. I have things that seem like nothing, from every fitting I ever did with him in my possession.

(Getty Images)

The groundbreaking designer died in 2010 at the age of 40, and was later commemorated by the Met Gala in 2011 with the theme Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

For last years Met Gala, Parker paid homage to the first Black female designer in the White House - Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley - in a black and white gown designed by Christopher John Rogers.

However, the style icon has maintained that preparing for fashions biggest night of the year should be labour intensive.

All I ever think about is the theme and influence, she told Vogue in April 2022. Whenever I go to the Met, I dont understand how everyone else doesnt spend seven to ten months working on it. Like how do you not arrive exhausted by the details of getting it right?

It would be so easy to find a beautiful dress to wear that night, Parker added. Like that would be a great relief and like going on vacation. But that is not the assignment, the assignment is the theme.
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On Monday, October 9, millions of Americans will celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day.

Indigenous Peoples Day, which is celebrated on the second Monday in October, is a holiday that honours the history and contributions of Native Americans. The holiday has become a replacement for federal holiday Columbus Day, which also falls on October 9, and which many have argued should no longer be celebrated due to the fact that Christopher Columbus does not deserve credit for discovering the Americas.

Currently, there are 29 states and 198 cities across the country that have chosen to adopt Indigenous Peoples Day, according to renamecolumbusday.org. In 2021 and 2022, President Joe Biden also issued proclamations declaring the holiday Indigenous Peoples Day.

First introduced by Congress in 1885 when it was decided that federal employees should have certain days off from work, the list of US federal holidays is made up of 11 days of significance that Americans recognise - and celebrate.

To ensure that these holidays are observed, certain guidelines have been put in place, with federal holidays that fall on a Saturday observed by federal employees on the previous Friday, while holidays that fall on Sunday are observed the following Monday.

On these 11 days, all non-essential federal offices are closed, while banks, post offices and schools may also be closed. However, that doesnt mean that all Americans will receive a day off from work, as employees in the private sector may or may not get the day off, depending on their employer.

From Memorial Day to Thanksgiving, these are the dates of the 2023 federal holidays.

2023 federal holidays:

New Years Day: Sunday, January 1 (Observed Monday, January 2)

Martin Luther King Jr Day: Monday, January 16

Presidents Day: Monday, February 20

Memorial Day: Monday, May 29

Juneteenth: Friday, June 16

Independence Day: Tuesday, July 4

Labor Day: Monday, September 4

Indigenous Peoples Day (also observed as Columbus Day): Monday, October 9

Veterans Day: Saturday, November 11 (Observed Friday, November 10)

Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 23

Christmas: Monday, December 25

Other important days to note:

Valentines Day: Tuesday, February 14

St Patricks Day: Friday, March 17

Passover: Thursday, April 6

Good Friday: Friday, April 7

Easter: Sunday, April 9

Mothers Day: Sunday, May 14

Fathers Day: Sunday, June 18
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TV presenter Gaby Roslin has said she will never apologise for telling people shes happy, after she experienced moments of grief following her divorce.

The former Big Breakfast presenter and author, 59, was married to musician Colin Peel for almost a decade. They share a daughter together.

Not all my life has been joyful. My mum died young. Ive been through divorce and lost some of my dearest friends, she told Prima magazine.

You go through those things and you realise that life is precious and, without sounding trite, I will never apologise for saying Im happy.

Roslins mother died just over 20 years ago, around the time she was beginning a new job.

The TV star said that it feels like she and her husband of 18 years, David Osman, fit together. She shares another daughter with Osman.

We still really appreciate what we have, Roslin, who presents a show on BBC Radio London along with sints on BBC Radio 2s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show and BBC Ones Morning Live, said.

The things that makes it work is that were not in competition with each other: Were very, very different.

Speaking about how life is crappy for a lot of people, she added: Im someone who has always been very positive and full of laughter, but Im aware that its not something everyone can hold on to.

There are coping mechanisms that have helped me, and I know they can help others, too.

(Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Roslin revealed that some of her personal coping mechanisms have included giving up alcohol five years ago, and going for walks.

Theres a lot of ageism out there, she said. Its no secret in my industry, but its everywhere. You cant do this or that if youre a certain age. No! Im lucky that Ive carried on working, but I have friends who have experienced it.

I know an actor who, at 55, was going for the part of someone older than her and was told that she was too old. They cast a 40-year-old. Thats so wrong.

Roslin is preparing to release her new guided journal, Spread The Joy: Simple Practical Ways To Make Your Everyday Life Brighter, which focuses on stories, illustrations, anecdotes and tips and tricks.

The full interview is available now in Primas November issue in supermarkets and online at Mags Direct.

Additional reporting by Press Association.
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Kelly Osbourne called out Prince Harry on her family podcast The Osbournes, slamming him for taking the victim road with his wife Meghan Markle.

As her mother Sharon defended the monarchy, Kellys brother Jack sided with her as she doubled down on the anti-Sussex comments she made three months ago on the Ive Had It podcast.

Kelly defended herself, saying: I said he was a t**t. I just think hes such a whinger and the thing is, maybe its because I feel a certain level of disappointment in the sense where I feel like they had an opportunity to become the most liked, loved people in the entire world that could actually bring some positive change.

But then went down this, like, victim road instead, the reality TV star continued. I get wanting to leave [the Royal Family]. I get that, but then just leave. Dont leave and then just give woe is me stories about how difficult it was.

She added, Because again, I said this on the podcast I was on, life is hard for everybody. I was just on a podcast and they asked me what I thought of Harry and I just said I think hes a t**t. And thats it.

Jack chimed in, agreeing with Kelly: But the funny thing was, I dont know if you looked at any of the comments from any of the articles, but it was amazing how many of these wokey American people were vehemently defending them. And youre like, Hang on a f***ing second!

Their mother Sharon strongly disagreed, adding that she loved and respected the monarchy especially after having met Queen Elizabeth II four times. However, as much as she cares for the institution, Sharon said that the monarchy needs to be modernized.

Thats because Im old, Sharon continued. I love it! Everybodys human, were all human. They do a lot of good, but theyre human beings and they f*** up. We all f*** up. So the thing is, they do a lot of good also.

Sharon added that the monarchy needs to be scaled down and that there should be less pomp. Although she added that she doesnt think the monarchy should be stopped, she noted that it desperately needs to be updated for the 21st century.

This isnt the first time that the reality TV star has had some choice words for the Duke of Sussex. On the Ive Had It podcast three months prior, Kelly left hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan doubling over with laughter after unleashing a scathing tirade against the Sussexes, calling Prince Harry a f***ing t**t.

At the time, Kelly ranted, I think Harry is a f*****g t**t, I do! He is a whining, whinging complaining, woe is me, Im the only one whose had mental problems, my life was so hard, everybodys life was f*****g hard! The reality TV star went on to add: Everybodys f*****g life is hard, you were the Prince of a goddamn country who dressed up as a f***ing Nazi, and now youre trying to come back as the Pope. Suck it! No!
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The wealthiest 1 per cent would get an average tax cut of 1m if the inheritance tax is scrapped, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.

According to an IFS report, the cost of abolishing inheritance tax would be 7bn, with the wealthiest benefitting from an average tax cut of around 1.1m.

The findings come as Rishi Sunak is understood to be considering a cut to inheritance tax as he seeks to woo voters ahead of the general election.

The prime minister is planning to phase out the levy by reducing the 40 per cent inheritance tax rate in the budget in March, while setting out a pathway to abolish it completely in future years, the Sunday Times reported.

According to the most recent HMRC statistics, less than four per cent of estates paid inheritance tax in 202021. However, the rapid growth in wealth among older individuals means this number is set to rise to over seven per cent by 203233.

The statistics also show one in eight people will have inheritance tax due either on their death or their partners death by 203233.

The IFS projected inheritance tax revenues will grow from 7bn to 15bn in a decades time as more people pay the tax, meaning scrapping it would have financial implications.

There has been pressure within the Tory party to change or scrap IHT, with former prime minister Liz Truss among those calling for it to be axed. But Labour questioned how such a move would be paid for, and whether it would be fair.

Labours shadow Treasury chief secretary Darren Jones criticised the proposals for the tax to be axed, calling it an unfunded tax cut.

He said: A year ago Liz Truss trashed the economy with unfunded tax cuts.

Now Rishi Sunak is doing what Liz Truss wants.

Abolishing inheritance tax  which 96 per cent of people never pay  is an unfunded tax cut of 7.2bn per year.

David Sturrock, a Senior Research Economist at IFS, said: As inheritances grow in size, its increasingly important that we address problems in the current system. The government should abolish the special treatment given to business assets, certain types of shares, agricultural assets, pensions and homes passed to direct descendants.

These exemptions and reliefs open up channels to avoid inheritance tax. This is costly, unfair and distorts economic decisions. Reforming them could raise as much as 4.5bn in additional revenue.

Meanwhile, Mark Franks, Director of Welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, said cutting inheritance tax would raise the national debt.

He said: Inheritance tax is paid after death and by only a small proportion of the population, who are largely the wealthiest members of society. Like all taxes, it supports vital public services.

Abolishing it or scaling it back would mean either cutting such services, raising other taxes or increasing the national debt. Yet, the current design of inheritance tax compromises both confidence in it and its ability to generate revenue effectively. Through practical reforms, it is possible to craft a more just and efficient system.
Beijing (Gasgoo)- SENIOR, a Chinese provider of autonomous driving solutions for commercial vehicles, signed an agreement for its headquarters project in Moganshan Hi-tech Industry Development Zone in Huzhou city, Zhejiang Province, according to the companys announcement.



Photo credit: SENIOR

Founded in 2020, SENIOR is based in Beijing with R&D centers and operational entities in Shanghai, Ningbo, Tangshan, and Zhuhai cities. As an L4 autonomous driving company specializing in port applications, SENIOR leverages port operations as the core foundation and extends its strategic focus to short-haul scenarios.

The company has independently developed autonomous trucks and intelligent mobile vehicles for container transportation in port areas. Its primary goal is to apply autonomous driving technology to enhance intelligent logistics, creating a comprehensive ecosystem of high-tech solutions.

This recent agreement signifies a complete relocation of the companys headquarters, including the global headquarters, R&D center, national manufacturing base, and the intended listing entity to Moganshan Hi-tech Zone.

This project's main thrust is the R&D, production, and commercialization of autonomous driving technology for heavy-duty truck logistics, with a total investment of approximately 280 million yuan. The project's key components include the autonomous driving domain kit production line, the autonomous chassis production line, and the computing platform production line. Once all are up and running, it will have an annual production capacity of 1,000 autonomous driving domain kits, 300 autonomous chassis units, and 1,000 computing platforms.

It is anticipated that the project will achieve an annual output value exceeding 1 billion yuan, with an annual increase in tax revenue exceeding 50 million yuan and the attraction of over 300 talented individuals.
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Egypt is seeking to double the number of visitors to the country in the next five years, its top tourism official told The Associated Press.

Egypt is aiming at reaching 30 million visitors by 2028, as its once-thriving tourism sector recovers from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the grinding war in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa said Tuesday.

Were seeing unparalleled demand, unprecedented demand for travel into Egypt, Issa said in an interview.

He said Egypt had received 10 million tourists in the first eight months of 2023, and was well on track to achieve around 15 million this year, which is going to be a record year for the tourism industry.

The sector is a major source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Last year, tourism revenues surged to $10.7 billion, up from around $5 billion in 2021, according to the Egyptian central bank.

The governments plan focuses on what he calls the supply side, which includes increasing the number of hotel rooms in the country and seats on flights to Egypt by more than 30% annually, as well as encouraging more private investment in the tourism sector.

Issa said they would add 25,000 hotel rooms to Egypts current capacity of about 210,000. Such an increase, he said, would help the government achieve its target of 18 million tourist visits in 2024.

That will be the fastest growth in (hotel) rooms in Egypt over the past 20 years, he said.

Egypt has made a years-long effort to revive its battered tourism industry. The sector was badly hit during and after the popular uprising in 2011 that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and the ensuring unrest. The country received over 14 million tourists in 2010.

The coronavirus, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, dealt another blow, just as the sector was getting back on its feet.

In recent years, the government has touted its ancient history as a major selling point. It has publicized pharaonic discoveries, building and renovating museums and tourist sites across the country.

Issa spoke to the AP from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a neoclassical structure built in the late 19th century and the first purpose-built museum in the Middle East and North Africa.

The museum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cairo, drawing an average of 10,000 visitors a day, said museum director Ali Abdel-Halim. It holds tens of thousands of antiquities in its collection, some of which have never been exhibited.

In recent years, the government has embarked on renovating the museum, in cooperation with five major institutions in Europe, including the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris, Abdel-Halim said.

The four-phase project, which is partly financed by the European Union, includes a renovation of the entire building, which was designed by the famed French architect Marcel Dourgnon.

For decades, the museum in central Cairo was the main facility housing Egyptian heritage treasures. But in recent years, the the government transferred many artifacts  such as the prized royal mummies  to the newly opened National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega-project which has been under construction for well over a decade near the famed Giza Pyramids.

Issa said they were working to finish construction and complete the installation by the end of the year, and the museum would be ready for its opening ceremony very soon.

He said they are working to set a date for the ceremony when many world leaders can attend.

Its going to be a magnificent day for ... the entire humanity that is interested in history and culture and archaeology and heritage, he said.
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A botulism outbreak that allegedly originated at a restaurant in Bordeaux has sparked international concern with 10 cases and at least one death.

Sardines served at the Tchin Tchin Wine Bar are believed to have caused the illnesses, per a press release from Sante Publique France.

At least 10 people have fallen ill, eight requiring hospitalisation and one resulting in death.

The press release urged people who visited the restaurant and subsequently developed symptoms to consult a doctor urgently.

A statement from the UK Health Security Agency also warns people who visited the restaurant to monitor themselves. If you ate at the Tchin Tchin Wine Bar in Bordeaux, France between 4 and 10 September please contact your local Emergency department urgently, the statement says.

The Irish Embassy in Paris also tweeted, The Embassy is aware of a botulism outbreak linked to a wine bar in Bordeaux. The embassy recommended Irish citizens who had recently eaten at the restaurant to immediately consult a doctor if they started experiencing symptoms.

The person who died was reportedly a 32-year-old woman from Paris, as The Independent previously reported; others affected by the outbreak were from Ireland, Canada, Germany, Spain, and the US. One 33-year-old woman from Toronto became so ill that she was having difficulty breathing and was almost fully paralysed when she sought medical care, per CTV News Toronto.

What is botulism?

Botulism is a rare condition that occurs when a toxin produced by bacteria attacks the bodys nerves. Botulism is often the result of bacteria found in food; they thrive in home-canned food, especially, per the Mayo Clinic. Oftentimes, botulism results from homemade food that hasnt been stored properly. It can also occur when a wound is exposed to bacteria.

Foodborne botulism causes symptoms like dry mouth, difficulty speaking or swallowing, weakness on both sides of ones face, double vision, blurred vision, trouble breathing, drooping eyelids, vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, and paralysis; wound botulism causes somebut not allof those symptoms.

While the symptoms of wound botulism may not show up for 10 days after a wound has been exposed to bacteria, the warning signs of foodborne botulism usually begin within 12 to 36 hours after eating the food.

Its important to seek medical care if you think you have botulism, since it can be life-threatening. The condition affects ones ability to control their muscles, so it can cause complications that take a long time to heal, including shortness of breath and lasting weakness.

Usually, if a doctor suspects botulism, theyll ask what kinds of foods youve recently eaten. To confirm the diagnosis, they may check for paralysis or muscle weakness or drooping eyelids. They may also request a sample of ones blood, vomit, or stool to check for the toxin that causes the illness.

Foodborne botulism is sometimes treated through medications that cause people to vomit or empty their bowels, since clearing the digestive system may ease symptoms.

Antitoxinswhich attach to toxins and keep them from harming the nervous systemcan also be injected to treat foodborne botulism. These medications cannot reverse harm thats already been done, but nerves can sometimes repair themselves. Wound botulism is commonly treated with antibiotics.

There are a couple of ways to lower your chances of suffering from foodborne botulism, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You can refrigerate homemade foods that might lead to exposure to the toxin, such as oils infused with herbs or garlic, and keep baked potatoes wrapped in aluminium foil hot (which is defined as above 140 degrees Fahrenheit) until theyre served. Additionally, its important to refrigerate pickled or canned foods after theyve been opened, the CDC says.
 Close Jill Biden tested positive for Covid and experienced mild symptoms, per a 4 September statement from the White House.

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New Covid boosters from Pfizer and Moderna are now available at pharmacies nationwide, and the US has restarted its free Covid test program.

Tests can be ordered from COVIDTests.gov; you can order four per household.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are recommending one dose of the updated vaccine for everyone six months and older in the US; some children may be eligible for up to three doses depending on their age and previous vaccination status.

Hospitalisations and deaths rose steadily during the last weeks of summer, and global health authorities are monitoring two new variants, BA.2.86, known as Pirola, and EG.5, known as Eris.

First reported in February, Eris is now responsible for nearly 30 per cent of Covid cases in the US, per CDC estimates.

Some experts are urging Americans to wear a mask when necessary to slow the spread of the virus.

CDC Covid tracker

16,186 hospitalisations from 15 October to 21 October
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A new Covid variant dubbed Pirola is sweeping the United States and is currently being closely monitored by the World Health Organisation.

Pirola is a combination of the Greek letters Pi and Rho, has more than 30 mutations to its spike protein compared to XBB.1.5, a variant of Omicron that had been the dominant strain in the US, according to a Thursday bulletin in Yale Medicine.

Such a high number of mutations is notable, said Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist Scott Roberts, MD.

Dr Roberts said that this was similar to the number of mutations that differed between Delta, one of the early strains of the coronavirus, and Omicron.

When Omicron hit in the winter of 2021, there was a huge rise in COVID-19 cases because it was so different from the Delta variant, and it evaded immunity from both natural infection and vaccination, Dr Roberts added.

The other concern is that this strain has been picked up in at least six countries, and the cases are unrelated. This suggests some degree of transmission in the [international] community that were not detecting.

What is BA.2.86?

Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and lead for the Covid response at the WHO, said very limited information was available on the newly discovered strain. But a large number of mutations within it needed closer monitoring, she wrote on Twitter.

Surveillance, sequencing and Covid-19 reporting [are] critical to track known and detect new variants, she added.

The variant, also referred to as BA.X, was found through genetic sequencing  a process where scientists determine the building blocks of a molecules DNA.

Scientists are on alert due to the overly high number of mutations of the variant, with more than 30 in the spike protein  the part of the virus that vaccines aim to neutralise.

How many cases are there in the US?

Pirola has been found in 10 states, according to data from GISAID , a global database.

So far, it has been found in Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

The CDC noted in a statement released 23 August that the current hospitalisations in the country are not likely driven by BA.2.86, but added, this assessment may change as additional data become available.

Globally, the variant has been detected in Denmark, Sweden, South Africa, Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US, as The Independent previously reported.

Covid hospitalisations and deaths have steadily risen for the last several weeks, as the US sees the effect of a summer surge.

From 3 September to 9 September, hospitalisations from the virus rose 7.7 per cent compared to the previous week, the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.

During that same time, deaths rose 4.5 per cent.

As the summer surge has gained traction, experts have started speaking more about preventative measures. In a recent interview with CNN, Dr Anthony Fauci said he hopes Americans wear masks to protect their loved ones if case counts continue to rise.

What can you do to protect yourself?

The CDC has advised people to protect themselves from the virus as it is not yet clear how well this variant spreads, however as a precautionary measure people have been asked to do the following:

 Get your Covid-19 vaccines.

 Get tested for Covid.

 Seek treatment if you have Covid-19 and are at high risk of getting very sick

 If you choose to wear a mask, wear a high-quality one that fits well over your nose and mouth Improve ventilation.

Wash your hands.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms of the new variant include a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and a sore throat.

What are the experts saying?

Kristian G Andersen, an immunologist and infectious diseases expert, said the lineage had all the hallmarks of something that could take off, but added: Our immunity landscape is now complex, so its too early to say it will.

Dr S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist, a flagship Texan hospital, said it remained to be seen whether BA.2.86 would be able to out-compete other strains of the virus or have any advantage in escaping immune responses from prior infection or vaccination.

Researchers are currently studying how much  if any  protection against BA.2.86 might be offered from immunity from previous Covid infections, per The New York Times. However, the research on this topic is still in its infancy, so its difficult to say for sure how past infections may influence Pirola cases.
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A row over Laurence Foxs sexist abuse of a female journalist on GB News has escalated with presenter Dan Wootton now suspended by the channel.

The 40-year-old host was taken off the air after being publicly criticised for failing to halt Foxs outburst and laughing at derogatory comments about Ava Evans, a political correspondent for online news site, Joe.

Earlier, the right-wing channel, which has billed itself as the home of free speech, banned Fox from further appearances and promised a full investigation.

Fellow presenter Mark Dolan described the remarks as shameful while political correspondent Olivia Utley called them vile.

It leaves GB News, whose majority shareholder, Sir Paul Marshall, is trying to buy the Daily Telegraph, facing an existential crisis with the future of two of its most prominent stars now uncertain.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown called for both Wootton and Fox to be kept off air, and for regulator Ofcom to be given more teeth.

I think weve got to look very carefully at GB News and all these broadcast companies that are emerging, because weve got a far wider range of broadcasters and the system of regulation is not good enough to cope with it, he told Sky News.

These people have got to be kept off the air, this cannot be allowed. Im not in favour of censorship, but you cannot have this fall in standards and allow it to continue.

Wootton was suspended by MailOnline in August when allegations emerged that he used a fake identity to offer colleagues money for sexual material  allegations he has strongly denied.

GB News described the comments made by Fox as totally unacceptable, adding: GB News has suspended Dan Wootton following comments made on his programme by Laurence Fox last night. This follows our decision earlier today to formally suspend Mr Fox.

Dan Wootton during an interview with Laurence Fox (right) on an episode of Dan Wootton Tonight (PA)

The exchange took place on Dan Wootton Tonight in response to an earlier panel discussion on BBC Politics Live in which Ms Evans, a contributor, said a fellow guests suggestion of a minister for men to tackle male suicide feeds into the culture war a little bit.

Fox said: Were past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever. That little woman has been spoon-fed oppression day after day after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap.

We need strong, powerful amazing women who make great points for themselves, he continued. We dont need these feminist 4.0 (so-called fourth wave feminists). They are pathetic and embarrassing. Whod want to s*** that?

Smiling, Wootton made a belated attempt to defend Ms Evans. He said: Im just going to provide a touch of balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her comments, but she didnt apologise. Uh, yes. So there you go. And shes a very beautiful woman Laurence, very beautiful.

Ava Evans, a political correspondent for online news site Joe, was not on the programme but was subjected to derogatory comments (PA / Channel 5)

After an uproar on social media, Wootton apologised to Ms Evans on Tuesday night before a further statement on Wednesday in which he said his on-air smile was the result of shock and surprise in an off-guard moment.

I should have intervened immediately to challenge offensive and misogynistic remarks, he added.

However, Fox doubled down on his rant, claiming to stand by every word. The 45-year-old former actor and Reclaim Party founder is a frequent provocateur; in 2020, he claimed an appearance on Question Time resulted in him being cancelled from a 21-year acting career.

On the criticism over his exchange with Wootton, he tweeted: If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldnt want to s*** a hyper offended 4th wave feminist and not apologise.... Its called free speech.

Fox doubled down on his rant on Wednesday, claiming to stand by every word of what I said (PA) (PA Archive)

He later shared a screenshot of a private conversation, apparently with Wootton, showing the pair joking about his performance.

Ms Evans said she was left feeling physically sick.

This is a network problem, this is a presenter, guest, gallery, production issue that is nothing to do with me. I just so happen to be the person theyre talking about but Im not in the conversation Its not to do with me and thats what makes me feel most sick about it, she said.

Later, appearing on the BBCs Newscast podcast, Ms Evans confirmed she had received an apology for Foxs remarks.

It was an email from the editor  a very gracious email  basically telling me that what Fox said was not representative of the rest of the GB News outfit, she said.

Thats actually probably the best apology I could have gotten. Honestly, not to cast doubt on our media landscape, but I didnt actually think anything was going to happen.

I dont want to say Im pleased by it. I just think thats probably the best outcome I could have hoped for.

A spokesman said Ofcom had received a number of complaints about the episode and was assessing them against its rules.
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Using a face wash or cleanser can sometimes leave your skin feeling tight, and now a study has revealed why.

Researchers say that although perception of our skin might seem subjective, there is an explanation for the sensation that usually goes away after moisturiser is applied.

The reason for the feeling is the outermost layer of the skin  the stratum corneum  acting as a barrier to keep out unwanted chemicals and bacteria and to keep in moisture, Stanford University scientists found.

This work provides a new understanding of how products affect the physical properties of our skin, which includes not just skin health, but also skin sensorial perception Reinhold Dauskardt, Stanford University

Using a harsh cleanser can strip away some of the oils that hold in moisture, causing the skin to contract.

A good moisturiser increases the water content of the stratum corneum, causing it to swell, and provide a relief from that tightening sensation, the research suggests.

Reinhold Dauskardt, of Stanfords Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said: This work provides a new understanding of how products affect the physical properties of our skin, which includes not just skin health, but also skin sensorial perception.

Thats a significant advance.

It provides a whole new understanding of how to design those formulations.

The researchers predicted that the mechanical forces created by the shrinking or swelling reach sensory receptors below the skin, which then fire off signals to the brain that we interpret as a feeling of skin tightness.

To test this theory, they studied the effects of nine different moisturising formulas and six different cleansers on donor skin samples from three locations on the human body  cheek, forehead, and abdomen.

Information about changes to the stratum corneum was fed into a model of human skin to predict the signals that the mechanoreceptors would send.

The study found that the predictions lined up almost perfectly with what people reported in human trials for each formula.

Collaborators at LOreal Research and Innovation, which funded the study, recruited 2,000 women in France to assess the nine moisturisers and 700 women in China to assess the six cleansers.

The women ranked their perceived feelings of skin tightness after using the formula they were given.

Experts suggest the ability to understand and predict how people will feel after using a skin treatment could help cosmetics companies improve their formulations before bringing in people to test them.

Professor Dauskardt said: It provides a framework for the development of new products.

If youre doing anything to the outer layer of the skin thats causing it to change its strain state and its stress state, then we can tell you how that information is transmitted and how it will be understood and reported by consumers.

The researchers are now looking at the possibility of developing wearable devices to stimulate our senses in a way that allows us to communicate non-verbally.

In the same way that a person reading braille translates sensations on their fingertip into words, a device creating tiny mechanical changes on our skin might be able to convey information, they say.

Prof Dauskardt said: So now, can we communicate through human skin?

Can we build a device to provide information to someone non-verbally, non-visually, using our understanding of these mechanisms? Thats one of the areas were very interested in.

The findings are published in the PNAS Nexus journal.
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Ads for three cosmetic clinics in Turkey have been banned in the UK for irresponsibly trivialising the decision to go abroad for surgery.

An ad for AsproMED, seen in May, read: Are you ready to unleash your inner beauty, dear friend? Look no further than AsproMED, your trusted partner in the realm of medical tourism! Let us guide you towards the path of radiant transformation!

The ad included a photo of a slim woman holding a balloon while she pointed to her stomach, together with a smaller illustration of a gastric balloon in a stomach, while text underneath stated: 4, 5 Stars Hotel + Travel to Istanbul + Professional Team.

A further image featured the Hagia Sophia skyline with several boats in front of it.

The second ad, for ClinicHaus Health, featured the caption Rhinoplasty surgery, one of the most successful doctors in the world  Fill out the form now for the big summer campaign VIP transfer 5 star package Holiday in the most beautiful city in the world.

A third ad for Erdem Clinic stated: Dont let your nose overshadow your face. Get the look you dream of with Nose Job treatment. Choose to be the greater beauty that you can be, while additional text offered up to 30% discounts on combined operations.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated the ads, all paid for on Facebook and seen in May, for making irresponsible claims and misleadingly omitting information about the need for medical pre-consultations.

The AsproMed and Erdem clinics did not respond to the ASAs investigations.

ClinicHaus Health said it had legal certification and authorisation from the Turkish government, and as part of the medical tourism industry offered summer deals from time to time.

Meta said it did not have any comment on the ads.

An ASA spokesman said: We know that consumers are increasingly looking at going abroad for cosmetic surgery due to cost or ease of access and, while many people may be happy with the results, there are still inherent risks.

Thats why its so important that ads for these services arent misleading or irresponsible, and why this is a high priority area for the ASA.

Advertisers targeting people in the UK need to ensure that theyre following the Code, even if the service isnt based here. They mustnt trivialise the decision to get cosmetic surgery or put people under pressure to take up time limited offers. They should also make clear the need for a pre-consultation, including where it will take place.

Were continuing to monitor the situation, with more investigations underway, and were preparing further regulatory action for the near future.
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A review has been launched by the Home Secretary after a police marksman was charged with the murder of a 24-year-old Black man last year.

The death of Chris Kaba and the subsequent decision to charge the officer by the Crown Prosecution Service has led to questions being asked over protection for firearms officers.

The firearms officer charged with the 34-year-olds murder appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Here we explain, within legal restrictions, who Mr Kaba is, how he died and what will happen next.

Who is Chris Kaba and how did he die?

Mr Kaba was a 24-year-old Black man who was driving an Audi car in a residential street in Streatham Hill, in south east London, when he was shot in the head on September 5 last year, at around 10pm.

Mr Kaba was a construction work who also performed as a rapper under the alias Madix or Mad Itch.

His death resulted in protests in the Black community. Mr Kabas family led a rally with hundreds gathering outside the headquarters of the Met Police as they called for an investigation launched by The Independent Office for Police Conduct to be dealt with swiftly.

And in March this year, Mr Kabas mother Helen Lumuanganu again called for answers on who was responsible for the shooting as they pushed for a decision on criminal charges in the case.

Chris Kabas mother Helen Lumuanganu called for a swift conclusion to the investigation into her sons death (PA)

Charging of the police marksman

On September 21, the Crown Prosecution said a firearms officer had been charged in connection with Mr Kabas death.

The unidentified officer, known as NX121, was charged following a review of evidence provided by the IOPC following its investigation.

Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: Following a thorough review of the evidence provided by the IOPC, the CPS has authorised a charge of murder against a Metropolitan Police officer following the death of Chris Kaba.

Mr Kaba died after he was struck by a single bullet in Streatham Hill, south London. The CPS reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against the officer are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.

Court hearing and what happens next

The firearms officer charged with Mr Kabas murder appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. The officers barrister, Patrick Hill, was asked to confirm the defendants identity in court and the officer did not speak.

They later appeared at the Old Bailey for a second brief hearing to discuss bail. He answered yes when asked by the court clerk if he is NX121, and passed a piece of paper to court staff with his date of birth on it.

Recorder of London Mark Lucraft KC told the defendant that a plea and trial preparation hearing will be listed for December 1, with a possible trial date of September 9 next year.

A hearing will take place at the same court on Friday next week to discuss a legal order that bans the identification of the officer. NX121 was released on bail on the conditions that he lives at a named address, surrenders his passport and does not apply for international travel documents.
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A former leading police officer has hit out at the Metropolitan Police chiefs refusal to accept the force is institutionally racist, after commissioner Sir Mark Rowley rejected the term at a panel to oversee reform.

Former assistant commissioner Neil Basu said it was a mistake following the first meeting of the London Policing Board  a panel led by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in the wake of Baroness Louise Caseys damning review of the Met.

In her review, Baroness Casey concluded Londons police was force was institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

At the board meeting on Tuesday, Sir Mark repeatedly refused to accept the term institutional racism, but insisted the force recognised the issues were widespread and systemic.

Mr Basu, who has been appointed to the panel to help oversee and scrutinise Met reform, told the Independent: To people like me, to communities, its an incredibly important issue.

I know Mark accepts there are systemic issues and I know he is doing good things about it because I have read his plan, whether he can deliver them is a separate issue.

Hes doing the right things, I just think he hasnt said the right thing. And I think that is a mistake that both Mark and the National Police Chiefs Council have missed.

There were opportunities straight after the George Floyd protest, when the race action plan was launched, when a new commissioner was appointed, when Baroness Casey published her report.

Four absolute milestones in which this particular nettle could have been grasped and it hasnt been. And I think thats a mistake.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley (PA)

He added that while he counts Sir Mark as a close personal friend, they disagree on this issue.

He added: I think it would have been easier for him if he had said it. I think the black community would be much more willing to cooperate with him  and the same for other protected characteristics. But hes chosen to go down this particular route.

During the board meeting, Mr Basu asked his former colleague if he would keep his decision not to use the word institutional racism under review.

Sir Mark said: I get feedback from some that it matters deeply that I do say it, and it matters deeply to some that I dont say it.

Lets focus on action rather than spend forever debating a word.

He was further challenged by other board members, who said rejecting the term risks hampering building trust and confidence among racially minoritised groups, not least black Londoners.

Sir Mark insisted: I need to use language that I think makes sense and I know that institutional carries, to some people, a wider meaning than people in this room say it does.

I am being really clear, in terms of racism, misogyny and homophobia, we are not saying this is simply about a few people.

There are systemic failings. We are not shying away from that. We are not othering, we are not saying its down to a few people  its something we are owning as an organisation.

Baroness Louise Casey (PA) (PA Wire)

Addressing the policing board, founded to ensure the Met responds to her recommendations, Baroness Casey said she thinks the force is profoundly broken, but fixable.

She said the force has a national responsibility to address failures or it risks dragging down policing.

She added: When the Metropolitan Police sneezes - everyone gets the cold.

So we have a big responsibility here in London to get it right for the entire country.

Discussing controversial stop and search tactics, she said police should stop clinging to whether its lawful and focus on deciding whether its right.

If we are going to get crime solved we have got to address consent, she added.

It is the day-to-day experience of Londoners that will change these metrics.

The London Policing Board will oversee and scrutinise reform of the Met Police (PA) (PA Wire)

She also described the Mets Turnaround Plan as a work in progress, adding that she was not sure that on paper it matches a consent strategy to turnaround policing.

She added she was hopeful the calibre, quality and class of people appointed to the board would help them to oversee meaningful change.

Its members include Stuart Lawrence - the brother of Stephen Lawrence who was killed in a racially motivated attack in 1993, and Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) Coalition.

Alongside them are Sir John Aston, Tijs Broeke, Nick Campsie, Carolyn Downs, Sayce Holmes-Lewis, Susan Lea, Paula McDonald, Nicola Rollock and Leslie Thomas KC.
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The conviction of a rapist spared jail due to his age will be reviewed after prosecutors admitted mistakes were made during his trial.

Sean Hogg, 22, was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl on various occasions in 2018, when he was aged 17.

He was spared jail by Judge Lord Lake at the High Court in Glasgow and was instead given 270 hours of unpaid work, although he said if Hogg was over 25, he would have been sentenced to four or five years behind bars.

Hogg claimed he was wrongfully convicted of the attacks in Dalkeith Park, Midlothian, and appealed.

The Crown Office had planned to challenge the unduly lenient sentence  however Scotlands most senior judges will now review whether the conviction will be quashed, due to legal errors.

Both the advocate depute and the trial judge were identified as having failed to push for more detail or issue adequate directions to the jury, the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh was told.

A decision will be revealed in due course, and solicitor Aamer Anwar, who represented the complainant, said his client had told the truth.

Solicitor General Ruth Charteris KC said: The Crowns position is clear, mistakes were made at the trial.

The trial judge referred to distress in (one of the incidents), that was wrong.

She said there was no evidence of penetration (in that incident), and there were issues with corroboration, a factual error on behalf of the judge, and that the Crown sought to amend the verdict.

Ms Charteris said there were three main issues, the decision to direct the jury on distress, an error made in directions, and also the verdict returned by the jury.

Judge Lord Matthews described some of the evidence as worthless and said: There was a strong public interest in the trial being fair.

Donald Findlay KC, representing Hogg, said: There has been a miscarriage of justice. What happened was wrong and ended up with a verdict being allowed to stand, which should not have been allowed to stand.

He added: The Crown is trying to salvage something, thats what this is an exercise in.

Mr Anwar said in a statement that his client was devastated and had told the truth.

He said: My client in April of this year was left devastated. As far as she is concerned, she came forward. She told the truth. She spoke up. She believes the police and the jury did its duty.

There is much more she wishes to say, but it would be inappropriate to comment further until the appeal court issues its judgment.
Beijing (Gasgoo)- On September 26, FAW-Volkswagen and Alibaba Cloud sealed a strategic partnership to facilitate deep integration of their abundant resources in the field of automotive intelligence.

Signing ceremony; photo credit: FAW-Volkswagen

In the coming future, FAW-Volkswagen and Alibaba Cloud will collaborate extensively across various domains, encompassing smart manufacturing, logistics, marketing, cloud platforms, talent development, artificial intelligence, and mobility services.

A particular focus will be on the establishment of smart factories and intelligent logistics. Centered around FAW-Volkswagen's advanced automotive manufacturing core processes, the partnership will create a cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing architecture that spans FAW-Volkswagen's five major production bases in Changchun, Chengdu, Foshan, Qingdao, and Tianjin. This initiative will drive the comprehensive digitization of these factories. Alibaba Cloud will further provide FAW-Volkswagen with comprehensive in-factory intelligent logistics solutions.

Moreover, this collaboration aims to harness Alibaba's expansive ecosystem, combining Alibaba Cloud's digital marketing and office capabilities with FAW-Volkswagen's wealth of automotive data. They plan to explore innovative models in marketing and office environments, thus bringing about digital transformation in these sectors.

Inauguration ceremony; photo credit: FAW-Volkswagen

During the signing ceremony, FAW-Volkswagen and Alibaba Cloud unveiled the first jointly developed lab - the Go Digital Creation Center. This facility will break down technological barriers and establish standards and intellectual property rights in industrial model algorithm development. The center incorporates core modules such as digital testing benches and industrial algorithm engines, with over 100 basic operator components to meet production manufacturing-side business analysis requirements. It introduces an innovative industrial algorithm model canvas that uses drag-and-drop techniques for the process-based creation of analytical and predictive models, covering complete industrial intelligent application scenarios. The Go Digital Creation Center platform has been successfully developed and is now in its operational phase.
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The UKs first drug consumption room for users to take illegal drugs under medical supervision has been approved.

The 2.3 million facility is planned for Glasgows east end and will allow users to take their own illegal drugs in a hygienic environment with medical staff on hand.

First proposed in 2016 following an HIV outbreak in the city, the development of drug consumption rooms has been embroiled in years of political wrangling between the Scottish and UK governments.

But earlier this month, Scotlands most senior law officer, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC, announced it would not be in the public interest to prosecute people using such a facility and the Home Office said it does not plan to interfere in the pilot.

The pilot project planned for Hunter Street, in the same building as a current drug treatment facility, was approved by the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board meeting on Wednesday morning.

I'm sure we all wish our city didn't need this facility, but the reality is that we do Rona Sweeney, Glasgow City Integration Joint Board

The board involves NHS and council officials and recommended approval of the scheme in a report.

As she moved approval of the drug consumption pilot, board chairwoman Rona Sweeney told the meeting: Im sure we all wish our city didnt need this facility, but the reality is that we do.

The report states: There is overwhelming international evidence which demonstrates that safer drug consumption facilities can improve the health, wellbeing and recovery of people who use the facility and reduce the negative impact that public injecting has on local communities and businesses.

It highlights that following the HIV outbreak, an assessment found there are approximately 400 to 500 people injecting drugs in public places in Glasgow city centre on a regular basis.

It adds: Injecting in public spaces increases the risk of infection and other drug related harms, and also causes a risk to the public from discarded injecting equipment and needles.

SNP councillor Norman Macleod told the meeting he wants to see heroin provided to addicts, saying: Were still in a position where individuals who are addicted are obtaining their drugs from criminals and that, in my view, is profoundly to be regretted.

I would look forward as soon as possible to initiatives such as those used in Switzerland where heroin-addicted individuals not only had safe consumption areas but the heroin was provided. That took the criminals right out of it.

Fellow SNP councillor Allan Casey told the meeting: This has to be done right. This is the first consumption room in the UK and all eyes are going to be on Glasgow and we need to make sure we get it right for those using it and make sure were saving lives.

Concerns were raised over how those travelling to the facility would be treated by police by SNP councillor Chris Cunningham, who said: In order to possess drugs within the confines of the facility, they have to bring them in. It seems to me someone coming to the facility could be regarded as committing a crime.

We dont want a situation where someone can be charged for possession of illegal drugs 50 yards outside the facility. That isnt going to work.

The Scottish Government backs the plans for a consumption room, but some MSPs have raised concerns about the impact on the local area, including on businesses.

Appearing before the Conveners Group at Holyrood, First Minister Humza Yousaf said he very much welcomes the decision, adding: I also welcome the Lord Advocates latest statement in relation to prosecution policy in this regard as well.

So Im very grateful to Glasgow for moving at pace and let me say unequivocally the Scottish Government is ready to stand alongside Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and colleagues within local government to advance this proposition as quickly as we possibly can, obviously within the confines of the pilot that was proposed.

That extends to, for example, how we can provide funding support for that safer drug consumption facility too.

The First Minister added that, based on discussions with the council, it is keen to take the community with them on the facility, and he paid tribute to campaigners like Peter Krykant, who set up a mobile consumption room in a converted ambulance despite the possibility of prosecution.

Mr Yousaf went on to talk about a recent visit to New York City, where he spoke to officials about their experiences with consumption facilities, claiming they are one tool as part of a wider effort to reduce drug deaths in the American city.

Scotlands drug and alcohol policy minister Elena Whitham welcomed the boards decision and said the Government has committed to making up 2,347,000 yearly for it from April 2024/25.

She said: We know this is not a silver bullet. But we know from evidence from more than 100 facilities worldwide that safer drug consumption facilities work.

It is time to see this approach piloted in Scotland and while the service would still be limited to some extent, due to the Misuse of Drugs Act reserved to Westminster, we are confident it would save lives.

Its vital this pilot has the full confidence of the general public as well as those who use the facility, and the leadership of Glasgow and Police Scotland will help ensure it is introduced as quickly as possible.

Westminsters Home Affairs Committee recommended pilots of safe consumption facilities in areas across the UK where local government and others deem there is a need, in a report published last month.

Home Office minister Chris Philp said previously the UK Government does not support such facilities in England and Wales, over concern they condone or even encourage drug use.

But Mr Philp told MPs that his department is not going to stand in the way of the pilot in Scotland provided the power is exercised lawfully.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: Drug deaths in Scotland remain the highest in Europe and this crisis has spiralled out of control on the SNPs watch.

The Scottish Conservatives are happy for a variety of potential solutions to be looked at  including this pilot scheme  but we still have serious reservations about how effective drug consumption rooms will be in reality.

He called for the Scottish Government to back his partys plans for a Right to Recovery Bill to enshrine in law the right for people who require drug treatment to access it.
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The British Museum is asking the public to go to its new webpage so they can help recover missing items from the institutions collection.

An estimated 2,000 artefacts  including gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass  were found to have been taken from the London-based institution over a significant period of time.

However, when the British Museum disclosed on 16 August that items from its collection were found to be missing, stolen or damaged, it did not share images of the items.

On Tuesday, it shared pictures of gems and jewellery that could lead to the absent items, some of which are from the Department of Greece and Rome, being found by people who have them in their possession.

The British Museum also confirmed in a statement that 60 items have now been returned, with a further 300 identified and due to be returned imminently.

The pictures released of classical Greek and Roman items by the museum range from a Roman sard gem engraved with representations of Graeco-Egyptian god Sarapis and Egyptian goddess Isis, a piece of blue glass showing a helmeted figure with a double-axe killing a four-headed serpent and a Hellenistic oval stone engraved with a young warrior on a rock.

Among the images of gold rings, earrings and other pieces of jewellery, which date from the Late Bronze Age, Hellenistic and Roman periods, are a Cypriot necklace with horned lions heads and a Cypriot gold earring in a twisted shape.

In the wake of the items going missing, museum director Hartwig Fischer resigned and his deputy, Jonathan Williams, stepped back from his position at the same time on August 25.

German art historian Mr Fischer was replaced by former Victoria And Albert (V&A) Museum director Sir Mark Jones.

Former chancellor George Osborne, who is now chairman of the museums trustees, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme last month that an estimated 2,000 items were missing and some had been recovered.

However, he said the museum did not have a complete catalogue of everything in its collection amassed over several hundred years.

Someone with knowledge of whats not registered has a big advantage in removing some of those items, he said.

It is understood by the PA news agency that the artefacts were taken before 2023 and over a significant period of time.

An unnamed member of staff has been sacked and the British Museum is taking legal action.

A Metropolitan Police investigation is underway and a man was interviewed under caution on August 23.

An independent review into why the items went missing and what can be done in the future is being led by former trustee Sir Nigel Boardman, and Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, Lucy DOrsi.

Ms DOrsi said she and Sir Nigel are very grateful for the support we have received from outside experts.

She added: We have seen an encouraging start to the recovery programme and have been particularly impressed by the hard work and dedication of the British Museum staff working with us.

The museum said it is using an international panel of experts, whose members include: James Ratcliffe from the Art Loss Register; Lynda Albertson from the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art; and other specialists in the field of ancient gems and jewellery, to recover the objects.

The missing artefacts are also on the private database of lost, stolen and looted art and antiquities, the Art Loss Register.

James Ratcliffe, director of recoveries at the Art Loss Register, said: The British Museums approach has carefully balanced the need to provide information to the public to assist the recovery efforts with the fact that providing too much detail risks playing into the hands of those who might act in bad faith.

Thanks to our position as the principal due diligence resource for the art market, and experience in the recovery of stolen art and cultural property, the Art Loss Register has an unrivalled ability to assist with the museums recovery programme.

We are delighted to provide our assistance on a pro bono basis to the excellent team at the museum to support their efforts.

The images of missing items can be found at https://www.britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/recovery-missing-items.
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GB News presenter Dan Wootton has apologised after laughing and smirking during an offensive and misogynistic rant by Laurence Fox about a female journalist during a live broadcast.

Wootton claims he nodded his head and chuckled out of shock and surprise as Fox made a series of explosive remarks about Ava Evans, the political correspondent for online news site Joe during an episode of Dan Wootton Tonight on Tuesday.

It comes during a difficult period for the 40-year-old presenter who has been accused of using fake online identities to trick men into sending him sexually explicit images - allegations he strongly denies and puts down to a witch hunt.

Foxs outburst on Tuesdays show was in response to Ms Evans saying a dedicated minister for men would feed into the culture war during a discussion on male suicide BBCs Politics Live.

Dan Wootton smiled and laughed during Laurence Foxs comments on his show on Tuesday (GB News)

Fox told a smiling Wootton: Were past the watershed so I can say this: show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever, who wasnt an Incel?

That little woman has been spoon fed oppression day after day after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap. And she is sat there, and Im going like if I met you in a bar and that was, like, sentence three, (the) chances of me just walking away are just huge.

We need strong, powerful amazing women who make great points for themselves. We dont need these feminist 4.0 (so called fourth wave feminists). They are pathetic and embarrassing. Whod want to [expletive bleeped out] that?

After failing to intervene, Wootton made a belated attempt to defend Ms Evans. He said: Im just going to provide a touch of balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her comments, but she didnt apologise. Uh, yes. So there you go. And shes a very beautiful woman Laurence, very beautiful.

Following the interview, GB News announced on X, formerly Twitter, it was launching an investigation, describing Foxs comments as totally unacceptable and apologising to Ms Evans, who said on social media that the footage had made her feel physically sick.

Then, on Wednesday morning, Wootton, having made an initial apology to Ms Evans on X, posted a 172-word statement the social media platform in which he expressed his regret while also appearing to defend his reaction, describing it as shock and surprise in an off-guard moment.

He said: I want to reiterate my regret over last nights exchange with Laurence on GB News. Having looked at the footage, I can see how inappropriate my reaction to his totally unacceptable remarks appears to be and want to be clear that I was in no way amused by the comments.

I reacted as I did out of shock and surprise in an off-guard moment while working out how to respond as he continued to speak by searching for tweets @AvaSantina had sent earlier in the day while having them read out in my ear at the same time. However, I should have intervened immediately to challenge offensive and misogynistic remarks.

I apologise unreservedly for what was a very unfortunate lapse in judgment on my part under the intense pressure of a bizarre exchange. I know I should have done better. Im devastated that I let down the team and our supportive GBN family.

We seek to tackle the issue and not the person, which I intend to stress again on air tonight.

Wootton turned off replies on his post, but that did not stop many on X continuing to criticise the presenter, Fox and the channel. Carole Vorderman urged people to log a complaint media regulator Ofcom, and said: There is seemingly no bar too low for the so called news channel GB News.

On Wednesday morning, Ofcom said it had received a number of complaints over the comments made by Fox, who has also now been suspended by GB News. A regulator spokesperson said: We can confirm weve received a number of complaints about comments made by Laurence Fox on GB News last night. We are assessing these complaints against our broadcast rules and will publish the outcome as quickly as possible.

Fox, meanwhile, refused to apologise for the comments, adding that he stood by every word of what I said in a lengthy post on social media. On Wednesday morning, he also shared a screengrab from a private social media conversation which appeared to imply it was with Wootton.

The sender in the chat had written Making you giggle is my weekly joy, with the responder replying with three laughing emojis and saying You can imagine them freaking out in the gallery!!!!!. However, it is unclear who the conversation is really between.

The actor, who has been repeatedly involved in controversies over his public comments and political stance, wrote in his own post: I stand by every word of what I said. If a woman wants to go on television and belittle male suicide, she is totally within her rights to do so and not apologise, just as I am totally within my rights to say that I wouldnt want to shag a hyper offended 4th wave feminist.

But a member of the on-screen team at GB News told The Independent: We had an otherwise excellent day of exclusives on Tuesday, but the only conversation about GB News now is what Laurence Fox said last night. His targeted misogynistic ramblings are tarnishing our hard work. Its inexcusable and repulsive.

It has been a turbulent few months for Wootton who has faced accusations of potential criminal behaviour by allegedly using a pseudonym and offering newspaper colleagues money for sexual material. The presenter has strongly denied the allegations.

Former employer The Sun has said it has launched an investigation into the allegatons, while DMG Media, which publish MailOnline as well as the Daily Mail, has paused his column while it carries out its own probe.

GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said last week that the channel was monitoring the allegations - but had not launched an investigation.

The Met Police told The Independent last month that it was assessing the information to establish whether any criminal offence has taken place, but there was no current police investigation being carried out. The Independent has contacted Scotland Yard for an update.

Actor Laurence Fox has stood by the comments he made during the live broadcast with Dan Wootton (PA Archive)

Wootton took a break to see family in New Zealand in July, before returning on air, telling viewers that he had been made the target of a smear campaign. Claiming he was was the victim of a witch hunt, he said: I, like all fallible human beings, have made errors of judgment in the past but the criminal allegations being made against me are simply untrue.

I would like nothing more than to address those spurious claims, I could actually spend the next two hours doing so, but on the advice of my lawyers I cannot comment further.

Wootton was formerly a showbiz journalist at the now defunct News Of The World before moving The Sun newspaper. In 2021 he joined GB News.

The Independent has contacted GB News and representatives for Evans, Fox and Wootton for further comment.
 Close Laurence Fox says he expects to be fired issuing half-apology for GB News sexist rant

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GB News presenter Calvin Robinson has said the broadcaster has suspended him after he shared his support for Dan Wootton over Laurence Foxs comments on his show.

Robinson, who hosts a religious current affairs programme on the channel, said in a social media post on Friday that he would not appear on Dan Wootton Tonight without the suspended presenter, claiming if he falls, we all fall.

Wootton and Fox, an actor-turned-politician, was suspended from the channel after Fox made a series of remarks about political correspondent Ava Evans, which included asking who would want to shag that? during Woottons show on Tuesday.

On Friday, Fox said he had completed a disciplinary hearing ahead of his rumoured sacking from GB News.

Meanwhile, Ms Evans spoke out about the comments, describing them as unforgiveable.
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Princess Beatrice was among a host of royals and celebrities who gathered for the re-opening of Londons historic Old War Office (OWO) on Tuesday, welcoming its new era as a super-luxe hotel.

Princess Anne, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli were also among those attending the Whitehall landmarks glamorous curtain raiser, which first opened in 1906 and was later used by Winston Churchill during the Second World War.

Beatrice and Mapelli were all smiles as they attended the event last night - posing for photographs and mingling with stars of TV and stage.

Their evening out came after the couple celebrated their daughter Siennas second birthday.

Princess Beatrice of York and husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi attend the inauguration of The OWO hotel (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Raf)

Princess Anne shakes hands with Gopichand P Hinduja, Chairperson of the Hinduja Group, at the inauguration (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Raf)

Indian billionaires, the Hinduja brothers, purchased the 580,000 sq ft Whitehall Palace in March 2016 for in excess of 350 million.

Princess Anne met with the development group behind the monumental six year renovation before unveiling a plaque and officially inaugurating its new life as a super-luxe hotel and residency.

Built on the historic royal site of Whitehall Palace, Britains seven-storey Old War Office was bombed eight times in the Blitz, has 1,000 rooms, and two-and-a-half miles of sprawling corridors.

The Edwardian monument offers 89 guest rooms with even the shortest stay starting at over 1,000 per night, while longers breaks in one of the 21 suites could quickly exceed tens of thousands of pounds.

While a renowned Argentinian chef will oversee a three Michelin star menu which VIPs will be able to enjoy around the clock, before working off their meal in the state-of-the-art gym and spa.

The OWOs remarkable history

With construction beginning in 1899, by the time the building was completed seven years later, it had used 26,000 tonnes of Portland stone, 3,000 tonnes of York stone and 25 million bricks. The full cost, revealed in parliament in 1910, put the cost of the new War Office at 1,229,128.

During the buildings early years, Mr Asquith, Lord Kitchener and Winston Churchill occupied its offices as Secretaries of State for War, with the War Office remaining at the centre of the British Armys administrative work until the unified Ministry of Defence formed in 1964. As such, much of the department was transferred.

Notably, Ian Fleming, the mastermind behind the James Bond franchise, was a regular visitor to the building during its heyday and multiple scenes from the films have been filmed at the Old War Office.

While Whitehall Palace was later described by T. E. Lawrence , who in 1914 was employed in the Geographical Section of the War Office, as being of such opulence that it was only for the use of Field Marshals and chairwomen.

The building has never been open to the public, but the multi-million-dollar investment has seen it transformed into the UKs first Raffles hotel.

The reimagined rooms start at approximately 1,100 per night, featuring 120 rooms and suites, a 600-person ballroom and Londons first Guerlain-branded spa.

The renovation took eight years, with the buildings historic elements, including its original oak panelling and hand-placed mosaic flooring, restored by hundreds of experts.

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lady Madeleine Lloyd Webber at the hotels opening on Tuesday (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Raf)

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performs on the evening of the hotels opening (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Raf)

We needed the right spot, Philippe Leboeuf, managing director of the hotel, told CNN Travel. And we felt that this was the building for it.

When we came to Whitehall, the team were blown away by the size and beauty of this majestic building, Sanjay Hinduja, who has overseen the project, told The Hindu Business Line.

No expense has been spared in bringing it back to its former glory and paying homage to its heritage, whilst breathing new life into it. Along with Raffles London at The OWO, we hope to create a legacy that is both timeless and unsurpassed.
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Nearly a third of officers at high-security prisons have fewer than three years of experience, official figures show, fuelling concerns about safety and grooming of staff by the most dangerous criminals in the country.

As of June 2023, a total of 2,993 (31 per cent) prison officers had not been in their jobs longer than 36 months  up from just 236 (6 per cent) in June 2015, according to Ministry of Justice data.

Experts warned that newer recruits who require more support, training and mentoring were at very real risk of being groomed by experienced inmates, presenting new dangers in already overstretched prisons.

A union representing prison officers said the figures were reflective of the staffing crisis across the sector, with His Majestys Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) losing staff hand over fist.

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Labour said the government needed to urgently address the challenges facing prison staff.

The figures come following suspected terrorist Daniel Khalfes escape from Wandsworth prison.

Mr Khalife, a 21-year-old former soldier, pleaded not guilty to escaping from the category B jail in south London. He appeared in court last Thursday via video link from the category A Belmarsh prison, also in London.

It sparked a national debate about security across the UK prison estate as well as staffing and morale issues more broadly among the officers working in them. Overcrowding and drug abuse are also significant problems.

Daniel Khalife pleaded not guilty to escaping from HMP Wandsworth (Metropolitan Police/AP)

Category A prisons have the highest level of security, and house male prisoners who pose the greatest threat to the public, the police, or national security  such as terrorists, murderers and rapists. Category D prisons have the lowest security and house criminals who are not deemed a risk to society.

At HMP Belmarsh, where Mr Khalife is held, 116 prison officers (27 per cent) had fewer than three years of experience as of June 2023  up from 19 (5 per cent) in 2015.

Of all the category A jails in England, HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes and HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire had the highest percentage of these officers  38 per cent. HMP Lartin in Worcestershire had the lowest on 24 per cent, according to the figures, published by prisons minister Damian Hinds, in response to a parliamentary question tabled by the Labour Party.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said that some recruits go on to do an outstanding job but that those new to the service needed more support and mentoring from experienced staff.

Whereas in the past recruits to the Prison Service were often older and more experienced, we now have officers starting who are only just out of school, he told The Independent.

Mr Taylor said that when mentoring was lacking it can actually be the prisoners who end up imparting key knowledge to new recruits and I have heard many tales of this taking place.

He added: Positive relationships between staff and prisoners are, of course, to be encouraged. But there is a very real risk that inexperienced new recruits can be groomed by experienced prisoners, introducing new areas of risk to an already stretched service.

Earlier this month The Independent revealed that across the prison estate, only 30 per cent of officers had more than 10 years of experience  down from 60 per cent in 2017. More than 1,000 of those staff left in the past year.

The sharp rise in the proportion of inexperienced staff in prisons reflects the staffing crisis in the Prison Service, with one in seven uniformed officers leaving their job during 2021-22, Mick Pimblett, assistant general secretary of the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers, said.

I am sure that HMPPS will make the same old statements regarding staffing retention toolkits, the intention to recruit extra staff and so on, but the simple fact is that HMPPS are losing staff hand over fist.

He added: The recent pay announcement, which stated that experienced staff on old terms and conditions would not receive a pay award this year or in the future, along with unsafe or unachievable regimes, and increased violence will only lead to further staff leaving the service.

These prisons in the high secure estate hold some of the most dangerous people in society, including terrorists and murderers. Recent His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prison reports regarding prisons such as HMP Woodhill, HMP Whitemoor and HMP Long Lartin make for very grim reading. New members of staff are being mentored by other new members of staff, and it is a recipe for disaster which is of HMPPSs own making.

Sir Bob Neil, chair of the Commons justice committee and the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, said of the high-security prison figures: This is a stark and worrying statistic. Retaining experienced and knowledgeable prison staff is vital to safety on the estate and rehabilitation work with prisoners.

The government risks failing in its duty of care to prison staff and prisoners alike by allowing this situation to perpetuate.

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, said: Our prisons are in crisis after 13 years of Conservative chaos, but these figures paint a stark picture of the reality of a mass exodus of staff.

The high staff turnover means a lack of experience on prison wings and new recruits struggle to find people to learn from. The Prison Officers Association estimates that almost 100,000 years of cumulative experience have been lost since 2010.

The government needs to urgently address the challenges that prison staff are facing to ensure we see an improvement in engagement and retention. Labour will get a grip of the prison system and ensure public safety.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: We are doing more than ever to attract and retain the best staff, including starting salaries for officers which have risen from 22,000 to 30,000 since 2019.

Our hardworking officers are also being equipped with the tools they need such as Pava [incapacitant] spray and body-worn cameras, and X-ray body scanners prevent the smuggling of illicit contraband that fuels disorder.

These measures are working and in addition to increasing the number of officers by 4,000 since 2017, retention rates for prison staff are now improving.
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The UNs refugee agency has rejected Suella Bravermans comments saying that the current asylum system is no longer fit for purpose.

The home secretary has been met with a furious backlash over the nasty remarks in a speech on Tuesday in Washington DC in which she claimed fears of discrimination for being gay or a woman are not enough to claim asylum.

Ms Braverman said simply being gay, or a woman should by itself not be enough to gain protection under international refugee laws and said the outdated system used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should be modernised.

The UNHCR, however, rejected her calls for the rules to be tightened and said the 1951 Refugee Convention remains a life-saving instrument.

The need is not for reform or more restrictive interpretation but for stronger and more consistent application of the convention and its underlying principle of responsibility-sharing, UNHCR said in a statement.

Where individuals are at risk of persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is crucial that they are able to seek safety and protection, it said.

An appropriate response to the increase in arrivals and to the UKs current asylum backlog would include strengthening and expediting decision-making procedures.

This would accelerate the integration of those found to be refugees and facilitate the swift return of those who have no legal basis to stay.

UNHCR has presented the UK government with concrete and actionable proposals in this regard and continues to support constructive, ongoing efforts to clear the current asylum backlog.

LGBT+ and human-rights campaigners dubbed Ms Braverman a dangerous fool, while Conservative moderates and opposition parties have accused her of pushing dog whistle politics to boost her leadership credentials with the Tory right.

Ms Braverman called on world leaders to make major changes to the UN Refugee Convention, arguing it had become far too generous to migrants, in an address for right-wing think-tank American Enterprise Institute.

Her comments were also criticised by other UK charities. ActionAid UK said her comments were a direct affront to gender equality and human rights.

The Refugee Convention is a cornerstone of the international legal system and we need to call out this assault on the convention for what it is: a display of cynicism and xenophobia, said Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty International UK.

The UNHCR said the 1951 Refugee Convention remains as relevant today as when it was adopted in providing an indispensable framework for addressing those challenges, based on international co-operation.
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A record number of trials have been adjourned at the last-minute because of failures to bring defendants from prison to court, The Independent can reveal.

These failures  linked to severe overcrowding in prisons  can delay proceedings for months at untold costs to the taxpayer, while keeping juries waiting and increasing the anxiety of all concerned, warned the Criminal Bar Association.

Their analysis of Ministry of Justice figures dating back to 2010 showed 58 trials were postponed because of no-shows or late deliveries of prisoners in the crown courts alone during the first three months of this year  23 of which involved alleged violent and sexual offences, including rape.

This is the highest quarterly figure in records stretching back to 2010, having quadrupled since the same period in 2022. Further analysis by The Independent shows it is three times higher than the average in the decade to 2021, excluding 2020 when the pandemic halted in-person trials.

There were also 202 last-minute adjournments in magistrates courts, making it the worst quarter for five years. Both sets of figures do not include the number of additional failures to deliver defendants to pre-trial hearings, which are not publicly available.

Despite record court backlogs, victims will bravely try to hold on for the two to three years it can take to get to court and live their lives in the permanent shadow of reliving what happened to them, said former victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird.

Then the chaos that this government had made of the criminal justice system deals them a final blow by getting them to court only for the prison system [to be unable to produce] the defendant.

Warning that victims of sexual assault or serious violence lose sleep for weeks before they are due to testify and are quite likely to feel unable to go through such stress again, potentially waiting months for the case to be re-listed, Dame Vera added: How is a victim to believe that the criminal justice system cares twopence for their wellbeing with this mess?

The adjournments are a complete indictment of everything that is wrong in the criminal justice system, the Prison Officers Association warned (Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

The damning delays are symptomatic of chronic overcrowding and staffing problems within prisons, and demonstrate a criminal justice system in crisis, prison guards warned.

With the remand population soaring to an effective record high in the first quarter of 2023, with a fifth of the 10,000 people awaiting trial in prison trapped there for over a year, as reported last week by The Independent, defendants are being moved from bursting jails to others situated hours away from court.

A national shortage of prison escort staff and van drivers is also being exacerbated by the fact that police custody is being used as an emergency alternative to overcrowded jails, adding to the number of journeys required each day, warned Charlie Taylor, HM chief inspector of prisons.

This challenge with getting prisoners to court on time is causing significant delays in courts across the country, and was our single biggest concern in a report on court custody facilities in Surrey, Sussex and Kent published earlier this month, Mr Taylor said.

To add to this, we are hearing of men refusing to go to court at all because they do not want to end up in a different prison at the end of the day because the original prison is now full up  they would rather face the wrath of the judge than the strain of settling into a new jail.

The rise in delays comes as the number of completed trials fell by nearly a third in 2022, when 15,000 trials were successfully heard  compared with 21,546 the previous year, as the crown court backlog continues to hit new record highs of nearly 65,000 cases.

As a result, further delays due to the non-delivery of defendants are the last thing victims, defendants and witnesses need, warned Law Society president Lubna Shuja.

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Thirty-six of the 58 adjourned trials from January to March were in London  a failing the capitals victims commissioner Claire Waxman lambasted as simply unacceptable.

Ms Waxman called for swift action to address the delays, by ensuring clear listing, good communication between courts and prisons, and better use of technology such as videolinks from prison, whilst keeping victims of crime at the heart of these decisions.

The official data does not show whether the private firms responsible for these custody escort services reported that the defendant had refused to attend, or whether they had simply failed to deliver them  which decides whether the firms are paid, or instead fined up to 500 for every 15 minutes of delay.

The Law Society calculated in 2018 that an average day in court cost the state just shy of 2,700 for staff, judges and building-related costs.

But the Criminal Bar Association warned this was a tiny fraction of the actual hidden cost to the entire justice system, with untold costs including the cost of police time attending court, further time spent in remand, and costly lawyer fees  with barristers not paid until trials conclude.

Failures to bring defendants to court have impacted cases involving murder and rape (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Justice is becoming a victim of worsening prison escort services at a time when the criminal justice system is being held together by dedicated and highly trained criminal barristers and judges, said the groups chair Tana Adkin KC. We are working hard to ensure that all the cases affecting witnesses, victims, defendants and their families reach a just conclusion as quickly as possible.

Defendants not produced from custody or produced late from custody result in huge delays to court proceedings, keeping juries waiting and increasing the anxiety of all concerned in the process.

The delays are wholly inappropriate and a complete indictment of everything that is wrong in the criminal justice system, said Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association.

There isnt any single reason for this occurring and could actually be a number of things including prisoners refusing to go to court [and] overcrowding of prisons, with prisoners being displaced from courts in their area.

Shortage of staff from private escorts and prisons also could be a contributory factor but it isnt acceptable at all and government should be held accountable.

Chronic staffing shortages are impacting justice, warned the Magistrates Association (Danny Lawson/PA Wire)

Tom Franklin, chief executive of the Magistrates Association, warned of a concerning surge in adjournments in magistrates courts, with late deliveries among several challenges Justices of the Peace are continually experiencing at present.

The chronic staffing shortage across the system  from lack of probation officers, which can delay the delivery of pre-sentence reports, to legal adviser shortages without which a court cannot sit at all  impact the efficiency and quality of justice, said Mr Franklin.

Griff Ferris of charity Fair Trials warned that the broken criminal legal system is denying justice to both victims and defendants, with huge waits for trials involving those trapped on remand in overcrowded prisons fuelling a mental health crisis, with record levels of self-harm and suicide.

People are being made to suffer these conditions because of the governments shredding of court infrastructure and legal aid over the last decade, and its insistence on putting more and more people in prison, he said.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: Over 99 per cent of the approximately 250,000 prisoners brought to court each year arrive on time and contractors face tough penalties if a defendant arrives late.

At the same time, were creating an additional 20,000 new prison places and pushing forward with measures to recruit up to 5,000 extra prison officers so that we can continue to lock up dangerous criminals and keep the public safe.
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One of Britains oldest shops - which opened in 1453 - is up for sale.

The Tulip Tree is believed to be the oldest working shop in the UK and first opened during the reign of Henry VI 570 years ago, according to its website.

Constantinople fell the year it opened and by the end of 1453, the French had defeated the English in the Hundred Years War.

In the 16th Century, the building was owned by Thomas Boleyn, father of the Queen of England Anne Boleyn, executed by Henry VIII.

Today the historic Grade I listed shop is a village tea room and up for sale for 230,000.

Customers can buy gifts, furniture, greeting cards, and sweets at the store.

Its heritage status means the site must be kept as a shop and post office, once current owner Nicoletta Fahie-Wilson finds a buyer.

She took on the property in Chiddingstone, Kent, 10 years ago. Ms Fahie-Wilson said: I trained as a nurse, going into occupational health as my career progressed.

The Tulip Tree shop that is believed to be the oldest working shop in the UK and first opened under the reign of Henry VI in 1453 (Nicoletta Fahie-Wilson / SWNS)

In 2008 I visited the village of Chiddingstone with my family and completely fell in love.

Five years later, the shop and tea room went on the market so I left my job in Canary Wharf to pursue my dream with the support of my husband and three children.

She later told the BBC the new owner has got to be someone who really wants to take on a lifestyle choice, as its not just a shop, its a community.

The property featured in the film A Room With a View, the star-studded adaptation of E.M Forsters novel, featuring Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, and Julian Sands, who died earlier this year.
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A prolific bike thief was caught after a victims mum tracked him down and picketed outside his house with a placard saying Wheres My Bike Dave?.

David Seagar, 49, stole eight bicycles in a summer-long spree last year - which sparked Fiona Batemans sit-in protest.

Fiona was left fuming after she saw Seagar pinch her sons mountain bike from their carport on a neighbours CCTV.

Seagar, of Witney, Oxfordshire, was repeatedly identified by social media users but Mrs Bateman said although she reported it to the police not much was happening.

She then set out to track him down, found where he lived and sat outside Seagars house for three days with a placard reading Wheres my bike Dave?.

She was cheered on by social media users wowed by the courageous mums daring crimefighting mission.

The Spotted Witney Facebook team even dropped off a hot chocolate and a bunch of flowers.

At Oxford Crown Court on Friday (September 15) Seagar avoided jail.

Instead, he was given two years imprisonment - suspended for two years - with requirements to complete a drug rehabilitation scheme and the thinking skills programme.

Following the sentencing Fiona said: We had a bike stolen by him. Does that mean I should feel entitled to steal someone elses?

Its just frustrating that he got a slap on the wrist.

Where are the bikes? How about buying my son a new bike? We cant afford the four, five, six hundred pounds to replace it.

He stole so my son has to now walk. But thats OK, just as long as Dave doesnt feel aggrieved.

Seagar was interviewed by the police a number of times.

Fiona Bateman outside David Seagars house with placard reading Wheres My Bike Dave?' (Bob Bateman / SWNS)

In court, he was shown footage of one theft that was captured on CCTV but Seager denied it was him.

He was said to have used bolt cutters to slice his way through locks in order to get away with bicycles ranging in value from a few hundred pounds to an e-bike worth more than 2,000.

One victim was said to have returned from an appointment to find that his bicycle, left locked up outside a GP surgery in Witney, had vanished.

Another bicycle was taken from outside Witney leisure centre, the court was told.

The defendant was said to have come across as uninterested when he was interviewed by a probation officer for a pre-sentence report.

David Seager leaves Oxford Crown Court (Newsquest / SWNS)

Seagers barrister, Peter du Feu, characterised his attitude as I had my bike stolen, Ive got mobility problems so really Im fairly callous about taking other peoples bikes.

Passages of the report were read out by the judge, with the probation officer describing Seager as showing a sense of entitlement, stealing bikes deliberately and brazenly simply to get him from A to B.

However, Mr du Feu said his client was quite upset by the report.

He was embarrassed both by the probation officers words and the fact he had stolen others property.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- SAIC-GM-Wuling ("SGMW")'s Wuling brand has welcomed a new addition to its family with the launch of the Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition. This latest offering, which is now available on the market, introduces two distinct trim levels: the 460 Pro Lingxi Edition, priced at 125,800 yuan, and the 460 Max Lingxi Edition, available for 133,800 yuan.

Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition; photo credit: SGMW

In terms of its exterior, the Baojun Yunduo boasts an entirely fresh design ethos, aptly named "Sky Aesthetics" by its creators. The front fascia is characterized by its smooth and rounded appearance, with LED headlights as standard across all models. The side profile reveals a concealed D-pillar, complemented by hidden door handles and sleek five-spoke low-drag wheels. The vehicle measures 4,295mm in length, 1,850mm in width, 1,652mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,700mm.

Inside the cabin, the new car adopts two color schemes: Emerald and Black Pearl. It features an 8.8-inch narrow-strip LCD instrument panel and a 15.6-inch floating central control screen. Moreover, this vehicle proudly claims the title of the world's first model to be equipped with LingOS 2.0 system, which supports emotional voice interaction, seamless in-car navigation, and remote vehicle control via a smartphone app.

Photo credit: SGMW

The Baojun Yun Duo Lingxi Edition is equipped with the "Lingxi Intelligent Driving 2.0" system, which operates independently of high-precision maps. As a collaborative effort between Baojun and DJI Automotive, the system follows the "strong binocular camera, strong perception, weak dependency on high-definition map" technology route, aiming to reduce usage barriers.

In terms of intelligent driving technology, the Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition features an 8-megapixel inertial-navigation binocular-camera, in combination with four surround-view cameras and one rear monocular-camera, forming the core sensing hardware for precise perception. This technology replaces traditional LiDAR, achieving enhanced object recognition, precise road tracking, and vehicle understanding. It employs the BEV (Bird's Eye View) perception scheme for real-time road topology perception in various scenarios, including high-speed driving, urban areas, and parking. It also incorporates OSP (Open Space Planning) decision-making and planning technology to make intelligent driving more human-like.

Intelligent parking scenarios enabled by Lingxi Intelligent Driving 2.0; photo credit: SGMW

Regarding intelligent driving functions, the new vehicle boasts a range of advanced features, including the industry's first "map-free" nationwide intelligent navigation assistance, cross-layer memory parking, and trace-back reverse parking functions. Additionally, the Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition adds a 540 panoramic image system (the existing 360 panoramic image along with a 180 transparent chassis image).

App-controlled operations; photo credit: SGMW

Through smartphone app control, it introduces intelligent parking and intelligent garage exit operations.

When it comes to power, the Baojun Yunduo Lingxi Edition offers two range options: 360km and 460 kilometers, corresponding to battery capacities of 37.9 kWh and 50.6 kWh, respectively. Its battery pack utilizes module-free battery technology and a liquid cooling and heating management system. Using fast charging mode, the battery can be replenished from 30% to 80% of its capacity within 30 minutes. The vehicle employs a front-mounted single-motor drive, with a maximum power output of 100 kW and peak torque of 200 Nm.
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A total of 2,253 kilogrammes of suspected cocaine with a street value of 157 million euro has been seized from a cargo vessel off the south-east coast of Ireland.

It came as an elite Irish army unit stormed the Panamanian cargo ship in a major operation on Tuesday.

Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior member of the Irish police service said this is the largest drug seizure in the history of the State.

Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana Justin Kelly described the action as hugely significant.

This is a huge hit for the people involved in this Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly

Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

Investigators believe not all the drugs were destined for Ireland.

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter onto the ship on Tuesday, which became the focus point of a multi-agency operation which began on Friday.

The co-ordinated response from the Irish Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing also involved customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit.

The agencies said the seized MV Matthew is a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America.

It was intercepted by the Army Ranger Wing and detained in the early hours of Tuesday.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction.

Two helicopters and two planes were also involved in the operation.

The Irish Air Corps and Naval Service had been tracking the container ship over a number of days.
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An extremely rare silvery gibbon has been born in a very significant moment for a wildlife park on the Isle of Man.

The first pictures of the newest arrival to Curraghs Wildlife Park show one of the endangered primates, named for their silvery-grey fur, nestled in its mothers lap as she feeds on fruit and tends to her new baby.

The yet-to-be-named young gibbon was welcomed to the park on September 11, joining its brother and sister, Ffinlo and Aalin, who were born in 2017 and 2020 respectively.

It marks the third silvery gibbon arrival at the zoo since the babys parents, Slamet and Nakula, were brought over to the island in 2016 as part of a global breeding programme.

Native to the Indonesian island of Java, silvery gibbons are classed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with as few as 2,000 adults left in the wild.

The new arrival at Curraghs Wildlife Park was born as part of the European Association of Zoos and Aquarias (EAZA) ex-situ programme, which aims to protect endangered species.

Kathleen Graham, general manager at Curraghs Wildlife Park, said it was great to see the family expand.

There are just 52 silvery gibbons in the care of nine European zoos so the birth is very significant, she said.

We know how vital EAZA programmes are for conservation efforts and we are very proud to play our part.
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Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has praised former prime minister Boris Johnsons great leadership during the Covid pandemic after receiving a knighthood at Windsor Castle.

The former cabinet member was given the honour by the Princess Royal on Wednesday before former home secretary Dame Priti Patel collected her damehood.

Both were honoured for their political and public service.

The politicians were on Mr Johnsons resignation honours list, which was branded a catalogue of cronies by his critics.

Speaking to the PA news agency at Windsor Castle, Sir Jacob said: What Boris Johnson did was fundamentally important because he ensured that the 2016 referendum was delivered on and that was his major challenge.

If you looked back to the 2017-19 parliament, it was completely dysfunctional. Absolutely nothing was happening.

He cleared the logjam, got Brexit done and then managed to govern the country through the incredibly difficult circumstances of the pandemic when no-one really knew what the right answers were. I think he showed great leadership during that period.

It was very kind of Boris to give (a knighthood) to me and very kind of the King, His Majesty, to approve it. Im very grateful to have received it.

Sir Jacob said he was absolutely delighted to come to Windsor to receive the honour.

He added: I was particularly delighted to be dubbed by Princess Royal, who I am a most enormous admirer.

I think shes just such a model of public service and duty, which she carries on doing. You see every year she is the hardest working royal. It is just amazing the service she does to the country.

Dame Priti said it was an absolute honour and privilege to collect her damehood from the Princess Royal.

She told PA: I will never forget my time as home secretary, working alongside people who, day in day out, also gave so much to our country and particularly those on the front lines.

Today is very much about that recognition of public service and from my perspective, also recognising many, many others on the front line who Ive had the privilege of working with as home secretary and also supported and during my time as home secretary.
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British filmmaker Ken Loach has voiced strong criticism of Sir Keir Starmer and Labours handling of disputes, especially those related to allegations of antisemitism.

A staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, Loach rejoined the Labour Party in 2017 but faced expulsion in 2021 during the partys antisemitism crackdown.

He has consistently challenged such allegations, hinting at political motivations aimed at destabilising the leadership of the former Labour leader.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4s World At One programme to discuss his new film The Old Oak, Loach expressed his profound lack of confidence in Sir Keir, suggesting he often backtracks on his statements.

He also claimed Jewish members of the Labour Party are four times more likely to be expelled than non-Jewish members.

Asked about Labours position on migration, given his new film is a story of two traumatised communities thrown together when a group of Syrian refugees is housed in a neglected former mining village in the north east of England, he said: I have no confidence in Sir Keir Starmer whatsoever.

Everything he says he rejects a few months later. I dont believe a word the man says. And I dont think people should either.

They moved so that they are one millimetre closer to the centre than the Tories. I have no trust in Starmer personally or the clique he represents.

On whether his criticism of Sir Keir stems from the fact that in your own words, you said you were kicked out of the party, the director and screenwriter, 87, replied: It was like an abusive relationship, to be honest.

I mean, the Labour Party is  its whole processes of dealing with disagreements is very flawed. I mean, its something I think BBC News should examine more closely.

The fact that now, I think, Jewish members of the Labour Party are four times more likely to be expelled than non-Jewish members.

The interview with BBC presenter Sarah Montague then took a particularly heated turn when she told him the Campaign Against Antisemitism complained to the BBC about their involvement in one of his other films because of his appalling views on antisemitism.

In response, Loach accused the public broadcaster of diverting serious conversations into fraudulent campaigns aimed at discrediting interviewees.

He said: Have you got any evidence for that?

Because otherwise, if you have no evidence, I think you should withdraw it. Youre now purveying another misleading, insulting misrepresentation.

He went on: I think the way you and the BBC constantly divert serious conversations into this fraudulent campaign in order to discredit people that you choose to interview on another premise, I think thats disgraceful.

Ms Montague told listeners the exchange on whether the BBC should have asked him about allegations of antisemitism was much, much longer, but as it involved a lot of heat, but not much light, we edited it down.

She added: We also asked Labour if Mr Loach was right when he says that Jewish Labour members are four times more likely to be expelled from the party than non-Jewish members.

A spokesperson came back from Labour saying the implication of deliberate targeting made by Mr Loach is completely false and not based in reality. Indeed, it isnt even clear from this quote on what statistically reliable basis Mr Loach is attempting to justify such a claim.

The Labour Party has been approached for comment.
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Significant work will be needed to ensure drug users are not prosecuted for transporting illegal drugs into the UKs first safe consumption room, the head of Glasgows health and social care partnership has said.

The facility was approved by the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board (IJB), which is made up of NHS and council officials, on Wednesday.

The green light came after Scotlands Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC announced it would not be in the public interest to prosecute users of such a facility.

A 2.3 million consumption room is now planned for Hunter Street in the east end of the city, however Susanne Millar, chief officer of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, said there are still operational challenges to overcome.

She told journalists legal advice has been sought on the issue of people being arrested on their way to the facility, with Police Scotland and Crown Office colleagues playing a key role in those discussions.

The work that we now need to do is the ongoing work with our colleagues in Police Scotland, and theyre really key partners for us, she said.

We know this is not a silver bullet. But we know from evidence from more than 100 facilities worldwide that safer drug consumption facilities work Elena Whitham, Scotlands drug policy minister

We will be working with them to address these very kinds of operational challenges  we will have a number of operational challenges and that will be one of our considerations.

We will open the service with a full understanding of what the set of circumstances are.

Dr Saket Priyadarshi, associate medical director at Glasgows Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services, however said there are ways around the issue, as exceptions currently exist to allow people to safely use injecting equipment services.

He said: The number one issue for people using these facilities is they would be bringing illegal drugs into the facility, so theyd be concerned about the risk of prosecution.

Were working with our colleagues in Police Scotland and the Crown Office around how best the policing response to this service would work.

Weve still got a bit of the way to go around that but if you think of it at the moment, people use injecting equipment provision services and a whole range of other services in the city.

I think we would be asking that this service in the way thats commensurate with other drug services as well.

He said approval of the facility is a really important moment for tackling drug misuse in the city, as it will give medical experts the ability to tailor rehab and housing support services to users needs.

Consumption rooms were first proposed in the city in 2016 following an HIV outbreak, however it has long been embroiled in years of political wrangling.

A report put to the IJB estimated 400 to 500 people inject drugs in public places in the city centre regularly.

During the meeting, concerns were raised over how those travelling to the facility would be treated by police, with SNP councillor Chris Cunningham arguing: We dont want a situation where someone can be charged for possession of illegal drugs 50 yards outside the facility.

Appearing before the Conveners Group at Holyrood, First Minister Humza Yousaf said he very much welcomes the decision to approve the facility.

He added: Im very grateful to Glasgow for moving at pace, and let me say unequivocally the Scottish Government is ready to stand alongside Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and colleagues within local government to advance this proposition as quickly as we possibly can, obviously within the confines of the pilot that was proposed.

Scotlands drug and alcohol policy minister Elena Whitham also welcomed the boards decision and said the Government has committed to making up to 2,347,000 available yearly for it from April 2024/25.

She said: We know this is not a silver bullet. But we know from evidence from more than 100 facilities worldwide that safer drug consumption facilities work.

It is time to see this approach piloted in Scotland and while the service would still be limited to some extent, due to the Misuse of Drugs Act reserved to Westminster, we are confident it would save lives.

Its vital this pilot has the full confidence of the general public as well as those who use the facility, and the leadership of Glasgow and Police Scotland will help ensure it is introduced as quickly as possible.

Westminsters Home Affairs Committee recommended pilots of safe consumption facilities in areas across the UK where local government and others deem there is a need, in a report published last month.

Home Office minister Chris Philp said previously the UK Government does not support such facilities in England and Wales, over concern they condone or even encourage drug use, but added his department is not going to stand in the way of the pilot in Scotland provided the power is exercised lawfully.

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman criticised the first drug consumption room being opened in Glasgow.

Ms Braverman told ITV: My view is its the wrong policy and I dont support the policy of drug consumption rooms.

I dont believe they deal with the root cause of addiction and drug dependency so I would not support that policy.
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The boss of the firm building HS2s new London station has delivered an excoriating attack on Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt amid concerns the project could be abandoned.

Mark Reynolds, chief executive of the Mace Group, said that the governments plan to end the line at Old Oak Common  in west London  means it would take commuters longer to travel the roughly five further miles to central London than the previous 114 miles from Birmingham.

It will take longer to get from Old Oak Common to get into London than it would to come from Birmingham, Mr Reynolds said, emphasising the suggestions of stopping short of Euston, was a big mistake and came out of nowhere.

The government has ordered work on the site to be paused, with the firm already demobilising 1,200 workers and construction hoardings left unattended.

Now ministers are threatening to ditch the Euston rebuild altogether and end HS2 at Old Oak Common.

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Passengers would have to switch to other existing services for the final five miles to central London. The government is also considering dropping plans to take the line to Manchester.

Mr Reynolds, whose firm was tasked with redeveloping Euston and other new stations for HS2, said the Governments decision to scrap large chunks of the project came from nowhere.

He also warned that his firm would now be more cautious about taking on major projects in the UK as a result of the indecision.

One minute the prime minister and chancellor were standing up telling everyone the rail link is going to Euston, and three weeks later they said it is being paused for two years, he told BBC Radio 4.

The hoardings at Euston will remain as a scar on that part of London, said Mr Reynolds.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is said to be alarmed over the escalating costs of HS2 (Hollie Adams/PA)

It was vital to persuade ministers to go ahead with its original plan for HS2 because it would benefit the whole country, he said.

Mr Reynolds said it was very rare that you work on a major scheme that gets stopped, adding it doesnt normally happen in the UK, quite frankly at this scale.

The government is yet to make an official announcement on the future of HS2. An update on the project was expected this week, but ministers are now thought to be reconsidering their cuts following a huge backlash.

But it is understood changes or delays to HS2 could still be announced in the autumn statement or spring budget.
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Sir Elton John has accused Suella Braverman of comments which risklegitimising hate and violence as he and Sir Ian McKellen led a fierce backlash against her controversial remarks about gay asylum seekers.

Senior Tories also warned the home secretarys incendiary claims would cost the party votes at the next general election, as the outcry intensified.

Ms Braverman sparked outrage with a speech on Tuesday in which she said simply being gay should not be enough to gain protection under international law.

Despite the barrage of criticism she doubled down, claiming there were many instances of asylum seekers pretending to be gay in order to game the system.

But she was challenged to provide evidence after Home Office statistics showed sexual orientation formed part of the basis of just 1 per cent of all asylum claims in 2021.

Opposition politicians and campaigners also accused her of trying to distract from her governments failings on migration.

Her claim came after Sir Elton and his long-term partner David Furnish released a statement saying they were very concerned by her comments and calling for more compassion, support and acceptance for those seeking a safer future. Ms Braverman risked further legitimising hate and violence, they warned.

Elton John and husband David Furnish have condemned the home secretary (Getty)

They were joined by acting legend Sir Ian, who told Channel 4 News Ms Bravermans remarks were laced with a good dollop of prejudice and part of a tilt at a Tory leadership bid.

Ms Braverman was accused of picking on gay people and throwing [them] under the bus  with senior Tories warning that she had alienated the LGBT+ voters and revived the nasty party reputation.

Suella Braverman called for reform of the UN Refugee Convention (PA)

One former Tory cabinet minister, who claimed the Conservatives had won the support of almost all gay voters after making same-sex marriages legal in 2013, told The Independent that Ms Braverman had torpedoed the partys LGBT+ credentials.

In one speech this has cut off the gay vote to the Conservative Party, they said. It is a constituency which has been in one swoop alienated.

The senior Tory added: The damage to the party is one thing; but the international trashing of Britain as a fair and humane place for those who are persecuted has taken a horrendous backward step.

Former justice secretary David Gauke described her claims as incendiary and not supported by the evidence and said they would harm the party at the election. The Conservative Party should be better than this, he said. This is the type of rhetoric that will only further damage its reputation with large parts of the electorate.

Another senior Tory, a former minister, told The Independent: Gays are being thrown under a bus. Its a sizeable vote to dismiss.

Ms Braverman has called on world leaders to make major changes to the UN Refugee Convention, arguing it had become too generous. We will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection.

Responding to criticism on Wednesday, while still in the US, Ms Braverman said it was flippant to suggest that her speech was aimed at boosting her leadership credentials. I am here working as home secretary, she told the Press Association.

The cabinet minister, grilled on Sir Eltons criticism about her comments on gay refugees, rejected claims she was lacking in compassion. I dont think that is true.

Doubling down, Ms Braverman later told ITVs Peston: People do game the system  they purport to be homosexual in the effort to game our system, in the effort to get special treatment. Thats not fair. Its not right. Im afraid we do see many instances when people purport to be gay when theyre not actually gay.

Andrew Boff  a leading Tory London Assembly member who is patron of the LGBT+ Conservatives group  told The Independent that Ms Braverman was indulging in dog whistle politics to appeal to the right.

Mr Boff warned that Ms Braverman could revive the ghost of the nasty party on LGBT+ issues. We had not too a good record in years gone by, but we have a more proud one in recent years  we introduced equal marriage, we are heading towards zero new HIV infections. So the home secretarys comments are not helpful or accurate, he said.

Braverman has suffered huge backlash to her cruel speech (AP)

Jayne Ozanne, the Tory governments former LGBT+ adviser, told The Independent that the Tories could lose millions of votes over its rhetoric and policy.

Im appalled that Braverman picking on a small minority of claims from LGBT refugees  she is scapegoating a community. What concerns me is the silence from so many LGBT Tory MPs  thats deeply distressing.

She added: The Tories will pay a price for this. The government has shown it no longer cares about the pink vote. Theyve undermined all trust from the LGBT community  and their friends and allies. Its no longer a small minority group. Millions of voters care about these issues.

The leading campaigner, who quit her role and the Tory party in 2021 over the failure to implement a ban on conversion therapy, added: It looks like they have no intention of bringing in the ban. They have shown cowardice and moral failure.

Culture secretary Lucy Frazer has declined to commit to keeping the UK in the UN Refugee Convention. Pressed repeatedly, she told Sky News: What [Braverman] was talking about is whether those sorts of conventions should be reformed.

Downing Street confirmed that Rishi Sunak signed off on Ms Bravermans controversial speech. No 10 said the address went through the normal process.

But Tory peer Lord Hayward said it was up to Ms Braverman, rather the PM, to justify her remarks. She has to show that avenue of the system is being abused  the burden rests on her, not other people in the party.

The polling expert played down the prospect that Ms Braverman would lose the Tories lots of votes. The partys reputation on LGBT+ issues has turned around. One set of comments doesnt change that. I would be more concerned about the [delayed] policy on conversion therapy. It could have more impact.

Recommended UN refugee agency and charities reject Braverman asylum comments

In an unusual move, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) rebuked Ms Bravermans speech after she claimed global leaders had failed to reform asylum rules because they fear being called racist. The international body said the 1951 Refugee Convention remains a life-saving instrument.

The UNHCR also rejected Ms Bravermans claim that asylum seekers should face more than just discrimination for being gay if they are to qualify as a refugee. Where individuals are at risk of persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is crucial that they are able to seek safety and protection, it said.
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Rishi Sunaks Conservatives do not deserve to win next years general election, a leading Tory donor and peer has warned.

Philip Harris, founder of Carpetright, said the partys behaviour over the past three years meant he could not back them to win another term in government.

Lord Harris stopped short of endorsing Keir Starmers Labour party  but revealed that he had given 5,000 to shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves last month.

The whole situation in politics at the moment is very damaging to the UK, he told The Telegraph.

Does a party like the Conservatives, with what they have done in the last three years, deserve to get back [in power]? I dont think so.

He added: You cant think of many good things that the Conservatives have done and stuck to. At the last election, they said they were going to open 40 new hospitals in the next five years. Where are they?

Lord Harris said his donation to Ms Reeves was many down to the fact she was a graduate of one of his Harris Academies. I am 95% Conservative, but there are some good Labour people.

But the Tory peer insisted that he was not going to vote Labour at the 2024 election. If I were a Labour voter, which I am not, it wouldnt be hard to beat the Conservatives after whats happened in the last three years, he said. The only thing is, will Labour do any better?

It comes after series of top Tory donors denounced the party and pulled financial support, with some major backers even defecting to Labour as Sir Keir tries to woo big business.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been wooing big business (PA Wire)

John Caudwell, the Phones4U founder, said he will not back Mr Sunak after the madness of his U-turn on net zero pledges  and said he was thinking of giving to Labour instead.

Mr Sunak also appears to been have been damaged by plans to radically scale back HS2s northern leg, first revealed by The Independent.

One unnamed donor threatened to stop supporting the party if the Birmingham to Manchester route does not go ahead. Ive spoken to other donors, and several of them feel  possibly for the first time ever  recent events seriously call into question the ability to continue to support people who dont do what they say theyd do, they told The Guardian.

Mohamed Amersi, who with his partner has donated 750,000 to the Tories, told The Independent earlier this month that he would give money to Labour politicians.

And Sir Rocco Forte  who gave 100,000 to the party to help fund the last general election  accused the party of reaping what it had sowed, claiming that the governments incompetence had driven donors away.

Gareth Quarry, a former Conservative donor who defected to Labour, previously told The Independent that dozens of leading business figures  including Tory backers  had approached him asking how they could help to put Sir Keir Starmer in No 10.

Analysis by The Independent also revealed that the PM is being forced to rely on a dwindling pool of donors. An astonishing four-fifths of all individual donations made since Mr Sunak came to power have come from just 10 wealthy people.

The 10 super-rich backers have given a combined sum of 10.6m to the Tories since Mr Sunak became PM  accounting for 83 per cent of the 12.7m received from individuals since he took charge.
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The Policing Board in Northern Ireland has started a process to appoint an interim chief constable to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The board said the move came after Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris indicated that he would fast-track the legislation needed to make the temporary appointment.

Board chair Deirdre Toner last week told MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that members did not currently have the power to appoint an interim police chief following the resignation of Simon Byrne.

Mr Byrne resigned earlier this month following a string of controversies within policing in Northern Ireland.

These included a significant data breach in which the personal details of all officers and staff were mistakenly published online and a critical High Court ruling which said that two junior officers had been unlawfully disciplined.

Current PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton is currently leading the PSNI, although MPs heard last week that he was not at his desk following a medical procedure.

The Police Federation for Northern Ireland has also passed a vote of no confidence in Mr Hamiltons leadership.

The Policing Board said the interim position would be for a minimum period of three months with the possibility of an extension and the post would carry an annual salary of 219,894.

The board welcomes the positive response received from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to fast-track the legislation needed to enable approval of an interim appointee Deirdre Toner, Policing Board chair

Ms Toner said: The Policing Board has been working over the last number of weeks with partners to explore options available to increase operational resilience for the (PSNI) service executive team prior to the appointment of a substantive chief constable.

The board welcomes the positive response received from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to fast-track the legislation needed to enable approval of an interim appointee and has today moved to advertise the post of interim chief constable with the aim of making an appointment swiftly.

The board continues to work at pace on the recruitment and appointment of a substantive chief constable with the selection process on schedule for week beginning November 6.

However, the board recognises that the preferred candidate may have a notice period to work.

The appointment of an interim chief constable will strengthen the service executive team of the PSNI pending the permanent appointee taking up post.

The advertisement for the interim role said expressions of interest are welcome from chief constables, or deputy chief constables.

It added: Consideration will be given to recently retired chief constables or deputy chief constables who otherwise demonstrate they can meet the criteria.

The board announced earlier this week that the application process for the permanent chief constable role has also opened.

The closing date for applications is October 16 at noon.
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A police officer unilaterally released a car involved in a fatal crash which killed a couple without the approval of their families or the prosecution service, an inquiry has heard.

A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) is currently taking place at Falkirk Sheriff Court into the deaths of John Yuill, 28, and Lamara Bell, 25, after their car came off the M9 motorway near Stirling on July 5, 2015.

They lay in the car for three days  with Ms Bell still alive  before they were found after a police officer failed to log a call by a member of the public to 101.

Inspector Andrew Thomson, 49, gave evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday concerning the disposal of the crashed Renault Clio.

The qualified road death investigator took over as senior investigating officer of the crash on July 14, 2015.

The Yuill familys lawyer, Brian McConnachie KC, told the inquiry Mr Thomson visited the family in August  around 41 days after receiving the news that Mr Yuill had died in a crash and had lain undiscovered for three days.

Mr McConnachie asked Mr Thomson if it came as any surprise to him the family were, at that stage, not terribly interested in what happened to the vehicle.

Mr Thomson replied: No.

The lawyer then asked if any notes had been taken at the meeting.

Mr Thomson said there had not as it was not common practice to take notes at such meetings.

Mr McConnachie asked: Where did you get your information from?

Mr Thomson replied: My own recollection.

Mr McConnachie responded: Thats all weve got to go on? Your recollection.

He then put it to Mr Thomson that there did not seem to have been much urgency to dispose of this car on his part between August 2015 and April 2017, and Mr McConnachie suggested the only reason action had been taken was because someone had emailed asking about the vehicle.

Mr McConnachie said: On April 11, 2017 you were contacted with a view to what was to happen, if anything, to the vehicle.

Up until that time, there does not appear to have been any discussion with members of the family about the vehicle.

Mr Thomson replied: Thats correct, yes.

Documents disclosed to the inquiry showed Mr Thomson had emailed the procurator fiscal service to seek guidance on what should happen with the car and referenced the FAI that the vehicle would be the subject of in the near future.

Mr Thomson said he wanted to ensure the procurator fiscal was aware of the situation.

He claimed he did not receive any reply back on action to be taken on the car.

Asking Mr Thomson what had changed between April 2017 and when the car was destroyed, Mr McConnachie said: I presume you had the telephone number for the procurator fiscals death department?

Why didnt you follow up with any telephone calls or emails?

Unilaterally, you made the decision yourself.

You didnt think to go back to Gordon Yuill and ask if he was happy for the car to be released?

Mr Thomson said he took the decision to release the car, but not the decision to take it to be destroyed.

If it was your decision to release then why didnt you release to the family?, Mr McConnachie asked.

The inquiry heard Mr Thomson had been in contact with Ms Bells family about the car disposal, but, legally, they had no say over what was to happen as the car did not belong to them.

Later on Wednesday, the inquiry heard from former Police Scotland assistant chief constable Michael McCormick, who retired in 2015.

He was responsible for managing the transition of the ICT system from the eight legacy police forces in Scotland when they merged in April 2013.

The inquiry heard the systems were merged not just for efficiency and savings, but for business improvement too.

The intention was, Mr McCormick told the inquiry, that calls to 101 would be picked up by the next available caller to save time, rather than as close to the incident location as possible.

The FAI comes after the family of Ms Bell was awarded more than 1 million in damages from Police Scotland in a civil settlement in December 2021.

Three months previously, the force was fined 100,000 at the High Court in Edinburgh after it pleaded guilty to health and safety failings which materially contributed to Ms Bells death.

The then chief constable, Sir Iain Livingstone, apologised to the families following the court case.

The inquiry, before Sheriff James Williamson, continues.
LOS ANGELESMen.com will soon release Hard and Pumped, a new limited series starring Papi Kocic.

The three-part, gym-themed production stars a cast of European performers including Giuspel, Thomas Johnson (also known as MrDeepVoice), Babylon Prince and Sir Peter.

In the first scene, Kocic and Giuspel are pumping iron in the gym, and as they check each other out, their muscles aren't the only thing getting hard. Later, Kocic can't take it anymore and kisses Giuspel. Giuspel then gets on his knees to give Kocic a blowjob, before Kocic fucks Giuspel doggstyle.

In the second scene, Sir Peter is working out at his outdoor gym when he's joined by Johnson. The guys make eye contact and take off their shirts, giving each other a preview of their muscles. They link up in the shower, where they enjoy a steamy sexual encounter.

In the third and final scene, as Johnson lifts dumbbells in the gym, his attention is drawn to the colorful tattoos and pierced nipples of the other man in the weight room. Prince draws nearer, kissing Johnson and letting his hands roam over his muscles before they hook up.

The series was directed by Alter Sin, who has overseen many high-profile projects, including Royally Fucked and Norse Fuckers. The Spanish director recently directed Sexual Suitors, a three-part series headlined by Kocic.

Hard and Pumped will begin rolling out on Monday, Oct. 2, exclusively on Men.com.

Follow Men.com on Twitter/X @Men, Instagram @themenaccount, and TikTok @themenaccount.
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Money used to compensate the survivors of historic abuse and provide school-level funding will be re-profiled as part of the 80 million pay offer to non-teaching staff in Scotland, the Education Secretary has said.

Jenny Gilruth told the Education, Children and Young People Committee at Holyrood there will be no detriment to either scheme as money is moved around within Government budgets to cover the pay deal.

Unite the union and the GMB suspended strike action after the new deal was offered, opting to ballot members, but Unison has gone ahead with a walkout from Tuesday to Thursday this week, closing many schools across Scotland.

Unison will also ballot its members on the deal, but has recommended the offer is rejected.

To raise the funds required for the deal, the Scottish Government said it will reallocate 30 million of Pupil Equity Fund (Pef) cash next year so it aligns with the school year, as opposed to the financial year.

Ms Gilruth, who is not involved in the negotiations on the pay deal, said: 30 million of resource is going to be re-profiled from 2024-25 from the Local Government Attainment Grant  formerly Pef  that will simply align the funding with the academic year and planned spending by schools as opposed to the financial year.

The important point in all of this is that there wont be any detriment to levels of funding available at school level  Ive been very clear on that in terms of my responsibilities, so it wont impact on the availability of funding at local level, its a re-profiling that has been, as I understand it given Im not involved in the negotiations, part of the decision making around the current offer on the table.

To further bolster the deal, councils will be able to use their 7 million contribution for the Redress Scotland scheme from next year, with the Government ensuring sufficient savings to replace it.

Redress Scotland was set up in the last parliamentary term, offering payouts of up to 100,000 for victims of abuse in a care setting.

Responding to a report on the issue in the Daily Record on Wednesday, Ms Gilruth said: As I understand it though, councils will be able to profile their planned 7 million contribution to the redress scheme in 2024-25.

They will still have to maintain their agreed overall contribution of 100 million, with Scottish Government ensuring sufficient saving is available in the interim.

As such, the decision will not have a detrimental impact on the operation of the scheme.

But I very much recognise the sentiment of the members question and its importance.

The news comes as strikes in 24 council areas by Unison continue for a second day.

Members of the union are expected to descend on Holyrood on Wednesday, with speakers to include STUC general secretary Roz Foyer and Unison Scotland secretary Lilian Macer.
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Allowing the development of the Rosebank oil and gas field damages the UKs reputation internationally, Conservative Lord Zac Goldsmith has said, as he hinted at voting for an opposition party come the next election.

The North Sea Transition Authoritys decision to grant consent to Equinor and Ithaca Energy to begin developing the largest untapped reserve of oil in UK waters has ignited fury among climate-minded politicians such as Lord Goldsmith, who accused the Government of losing sight of its climate commitments.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4s PM programme, the Tory peer said: It just trashes the UKs reputation as a reliable, grown up member of the global community, its done us immeasurable harm.

He also attacked the delay to net zero policies such as a ban on new petrol and diesel cars announced last week by the Prime Minister, saying the Conservative Party seems to be in disarray and that he may not be able to vote for it.

The party that loses sight of the overall goal is not one that deserves to be given the privilege of power Lord Zac Goldsmith, Conservative peer

If this is the direction that the party is determined to take, and it seems to be, theres no way I can vote for a party that positions itself, that the Conservative Party is currently positioning itself, on climate and nature, he said.

The party that loses sight of the overall goal is not one that deserves to be given the privilege of power.

The Government said issuing new oil and gas licences and allowing those approved to be developed, such as Rosebank, would boost the UKs energy security, though when asked, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero was unable to provide a definition of what energy security means.

Ministers also argue that it would mean less oil is imported from hostile countries such as Russia.

As Rosebank will take until 2026-2027 to begin producing, it will be unable to offer immediate relief to consumer bills and because most of the fuel is likely to be exported, it would at best have only a marginal impact on bills in the future, the Climate Change Committee has said.

What we've said is no new licences to be granted when we're in power, but we won't revoke anything, any licences that are granted before we come into power Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader

Labours policy if it wins the next election is to put a stop to new oil and gas licences, though it would honour any that are in place at the time the party gains power.

Speaking to Nick Robinsons Political Thinking podcast, Sir Keir Starmer said this is a deliberate policy to ensure stability in the economy.

What weve said is no new licences to be granted when were in power, but we wont revoke anything, any licences that are granted before we come into power, he said.

Im mindful of the fact that if theres one thing that has killed growth in the last 13 years, and it has been killed, its the chopping and changing lack of strategic thinking.

And, therefore, as a matter of principle, we will accept, as it were, the baseline that we inherit from the Government if we win that election.

Environmental Secretary Therese Coffey insisted the new oilfield was part of a transition as the UK gradually divests from fossil fuels.

Ms Coffey told C4 News: Were still on a journey of transition and its important that we still have sources of oil as we make our way to net zero.

She also defended a reported multimillion-pound taxbreak being handed to the company behind Rosebank.

Its important that we continue to attract investment as part of getting towards net zero, that will be done in a variety of ways, one of those is about supporting some of these energy companies in that regard, she said.
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The daughter of a Florida woman who was killed in an alligator attack has shared how she learned of her mothers death.

Breauna Dorris has said she grew concerned when Sabrina Peckham did not show up for a visit on Friday and she then saw a report of a 13-foot alligator with a human torso in its mouth.

Ms Dorris, 23, said her mother was temporarily homeless and had been sleeping near a river where the alligator attack unfolded.

The only thing that I could think of is God, I hope thats not her, she told the Tampa Bay Times.

And then Friday evening, I get the knock at the door from the sheriffs office.

The Pinellas County Sheriffs Office said that a body was pulled from a canal in Largo on Friday after witnesses reported seeing an alligator with a corpse in its mouth.

The alligator was humanely killed and also pulled from the canal, authorities said.

The victim was later identified as 41-year-old Peckham with her cause of death still under investigation.

Ms Dorris said she last saw her mother on Thursday when she brought over presents for Peckhams granddaughters, aged one and two.

Thats the last thing that I have from her, Ms Dorris said.

She would tell me she loved me and Ill see you tomorrow. And nine times out of 10, she would come back the next day.

Sabrina Peckham and Breauna Dorris (GoFundMe)

The grieving daughter previously wrote on Facebook that her mother is believed to have been walking to or from her campsite near the creek in the dark and the alligator attacked from the water.

Nobody deserves to die like this, she wrote.

Ms Dorris visited the river site on Saturday morning while a GoFundMe appeal has so far raised more than $10,000 to pay for her mothers funeral.

Theres times that I just think about the good times that Ive had with her and the memories that Ive made with her, she said, adding her mother was not a homeless junkieas had been locally commented.

Other times, I cant stop thinking about the pain and suffering she would have gone through.

Ms Dorris added that the community has also provided toys for her children who sadly probably wont remember their grandmother due to their age.

But Im going to do my best to make sure that they know who she was, she said.
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Commander, the Biden familys 2-year-old German shepherd dog, cant stop biting people inside the White House.

The dog nipped a Secret Service agent on Monday, according to officials, in whats believed to be the 11th such incident since Commander entered the White House.

The agent has since spoken with the Secret Service director and is reportedly OK, the Secret Service said.

Yesterday around 8pm, a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer came in contact with a First Family pet and was bitten. The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex, the Secret Service told CNN.

In July, following another incident, the White House said it was working on a new set of training protocols for Commander.

Commander arrived at the White House in 2021 and has been wreaking havoc since.

The Bidens German shepherd Commander has biten 11 people since entering the White House (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In November, the German shepherd sent an officer to the hospital for injuries to the arms and thighs.

I believe its only a matter of time before an agent/officer is attacked or bit, an anonymous staffer said at the time.

In 2021, a previous group of Biden dogs, including the now-deceased Champ and Major, were sent back to Delaware, following a spate of aggressive behaviour.

[Champ and Major] are still getting acclimated and accustomed to their surroundings and new people. And on Monday, the first familys younger dog, Major, was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual, then-press secretary Jen Psaki said of an incident involving the White House security detail.

The First Lady has spoken about the difficulties of controlling dogs in the White House

Ive been getting obsessed with getting our dogs settled because we have an old dog and we have a very young dog, Jill Biden said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021. They have to take the elevator, theyre not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So thats what Ive been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm.

Champ died later that year.

In 2022, the Bidens welcomed a cat, Willow, to the White House.
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The company that operated the bus that veered off a New York motorway and rolled 50 feet down a hillside, killing two, had reportedly been deemed an unacceptable operator after repeated failed safety inspections.

The bus carrying students from Farmingdale High School on Long Island crashed on 21 September with many passengers injured - although both deaths were adults and all the high schoolers are, according to AP, set to recover.

Regency Transportation operated the bus which rolled down the hillside when travelling in Wawayanda, New York, and was one of six charter buses carrying 300 students to band camp in Pennsylvania.

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Regency had failed five out of 15 safety inspections for the New York State Department of Transportation 2022-23 year and was listed as an unacceptable operator.

CBS said on Tuesday that bus companies can still operate if they are on this list but still face more scrutiny and more rigorous inspections. It has been reported that the bus passed two inspections it faced over the summer. The company was put on the list after it failed seven state inspections over the past two years for other buses.

Its unclear what the issue was with the bus that crashed on Thursday. An investigation is set to be completed by local police.

The two adults who died were band director Gina Pellettiere, 43, of Massapequa, and Beatrice Ferrari, 77, of Farmingdale, a retired teacher who was serving as a chaperone on the trip.

Paul Defendini, superintendent of Farmingdale schools, said: I know that they appreciate all the well wishes you are sending and we cant wait to welcome them back when they are ready to return.

Regency has not responded to requests for comment.
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Disciplinary action has been taken against several students at a high school in Idaho, after a racist photo was circulated on social media.

The photo, posted to Instagram, has since been taken down, but featured several students lined up behind another student lying on the ground, while making rude hand gestures.

The students clothes also reportedly spelled out a racial slur, prompting outrage from parents from the school  with multiple complaints made to local news broadcasters.

Salmon School District Superintendent Dr Troy Easterday released two videos online to address the incident saying he was well aware of the situation pertaining to the post.

Dr Easterday told The Independent that the students involved were disciplined on Tuesday within two hours of the incident coming to light, though did not specify what action had been taken.

He added that there were further things we are looking into but that the schools administrative team was not working with the police.

We will be educating our student body on this. We are actually going to be bringing in a group from the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights Education (in Boise, Idaho) to talk to our student population, he said.

This is not typical incident.

In one of his online videos, Dr Easterday said: The Salmon School District does not condone, nor has ever condoned, what was expressed on social media today.

He told local channel KTVBthat the post had not been maliciously made and that the schools administrative team did not hesitate to act.

Nothing has ever been brought to my desk that theres ever been a situation like this, and that it hasnt been taken seriously. Not while Ive been here, Dr Easterday said.

Our team did not hesitate to act. We did all the right legal steps to make sure disciplinary action was taken.

KTVB reported that it had been contacted by several outraged parents following the incident, as did East Idaho News.

One anonymous parent told East Idaho News that the post was disgusting and a hate crime.

Another added: The reason why theres hate in this community is because no one does anything about it. Period.

These kids are old enough to know right from wrong. Parents, do better. But you cant blame the parents for this, because some of them are 18. Theyre adults. Its disturbing.
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President Joe Bidens dog Commander has now been removed from the White House following a series of biting incidents.

Elizabeth Alexander, the first ladys communications director, said on Wednesday that the German Shepherd was no longer living with Mr Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the White House.

They remain grateful for the patience and support of the U.S. Secret Service and all involved, as they continue to work through solutions, she said in an emailed statement, adding: Commander is not presently on the White House campus while next steps are evaluated.

It is not yet known where Commander has been sent, but he was last seen on Saturday on an upper balcony of the White House.

His removal comes after a series of issues with Commander  and the presidents other dogs  since they joined him in the Oval Office.

When moving into the White House, Mr Biden welcomed his first two dogs Major and Champ.

Champ Biden was one of the two German Shepherds in the family, and sadly died at the age of 13 years old.

He was the more well-behaved dog out of the three.

At the time, the president paid tribute to the familys beloved German Shepherd in a statement and said: Our hearts are heavy today as we let you all know that our beloved German Shepherd, Champ, passed away peacefully at home.

He was our constant, cherished companion during the last 13 years and was adored by the entire Biden family.

Even as Champs strength waned in his last months, when we came into a room, he would immediately pull himself up, his tail always wagging, and nuzzle us for an ear scratch or a belly rub. Wherever we were, he wanted to be, and everything was instantly better when he was next to us.

The Biden family got Champ from a breeder as a puppy in 2008, after Mr Biden was elected vice president.

So, what about Major and Commander Biden? Well, they have more of a record for bad behaviour.

Here is a timeline of incidents involving the presidents pooches:

Major and Champ Biden

In 2021, Major and Champ were sent to the Biden family home in Delaware after aggressive behaviour at the White House involving Major, sources at the time told CNN.

Major was adopted in 2018 from an animal shelter in Delaware and had what one source described as a biting incident with someone from White House security.

At the time, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Major caused an injury to an unnamed individual.

[Champ and Major] are still getting acclimated and accustomed to their surroundings and new people. And on Monday, the first familys younger dog, Major, was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual, said Ms Psaki, who added the injury was handled by the White House medical unit. The person bitten by Major was a United States Secret Service agent, according to a Secret Service official.

According to reports, Major, who was three years old at the time, was known to display aggressive behaviour on multiple occasions, including jumping and barking at staff and security.

The first lady had spoken about the difficulties of controlling dogs in the White House.

Ive been getting obsessed with getting our dogs settled because we have an old dog and we have a very young dog, Jill Biden said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021.

They have to take the elevator, theyre not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So thats what Ive been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm.

Commander Biden

Commander was last seen on Saturday on an upper balcony of the White House. (AP)

After the death of 13-year-old Champ, the Bidens announced the arrival of a pedigree German Shepherd puppy named Commander  which was gifted to them from Mr Bidens brother.

Commander has caused a stir ever since entering the White House and he has now bitten his 11th person.

Earlier this year, following another incident, the White House said it was working on a new set of training protocols for Commander.

In emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by the conservative group Judicial Watch, it emerged Commander was involved in 10 incidents, including one that required an officer being sent to a local hospital.

In November 2022, the German Shepherd also sent an officer to the hospital for injuries to the arms and thighs.

I believe its only a matter of time before an agent/officer is attacked or bit, an anonymous staffer said at the time.

Now, it has emerged that there have been several more incidents in recent weeks.

The most recent occurrence is believed to have taken place in September when a uniformed Secret Service officer was bitten and later treated on-site by medical personnel.

Commander has been removed from the White House for the safety of employees in the building.

Additional reporting from agencies
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A Texas mortuary is being sued for over $1m after two of its employees allegedly dropped the body of a man down a flight of steps while removing it from a condo.

The family of Juan Mejia said that as the employees carried his body out of the apartment several thumps were heard, and that his son went outside to find his fathers body lying exposed in the courtyard of the building.

In legal documents obtained by The Independent, the family of Mr Mejia said they suffered severe mental anguish after attending the wake to find denting and bruising on his head.

The lawsuit also states that despite one employee apologising to Mr Mejias son, Twinwood Mortuary later denied that the incident had occurred.

The incident occurred in June 2021, when the two employees of Twinwood Mortuary, who were not believed to be licensed funeral directors, arrived to remove the body.

As the employees began to transport Juan Mejias body down the steps located outside of the condo, plaintiff William Mejia closed the door and heard a thump. Plaintiff William Mejia then heard several thumps in a row, the lawsuit stated.

Plaintiff William Mejia observed Juan Mejias head, shoulder and upper half of the body uncovered and exposed lying on the ground.

(He) rushed down the stairs after seeing his deceased fathers body lying on the cement sidewalk of the public courtyard (and) frantically covered his fathers body by hugging it in an attempt to shield him from being viewed by neighbors.

Plaintiff William Mejia attempted to level the stretcher and fought to lift both Juan Mejias body and the metal stretcher off the ground but was unable to do so. Plaintiff William Mejia shouted at the employees to help him.

The documents stated that one of the employees agreed that the situation should not have happened the way it did and admitted that no one should have seen what the Plaintiff William Mejia saw.

Twinwood Mortuary later claimed that the incident had not happened the way Mr Mejias son had explained, that the employees had safely put the body down to adjust their grip, and that nothing else had occurred, the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit, filed in Harris County District Court, in Texas, alleges gross negligence and asks for damages over over $1m.

The Independent has approached Twinwood Mortuary for comment.
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Private Travis King, the US Army soldier who fled to North Korea rather than board a US-bound plane for discipline by authorities at home, is back in American custody nearly two months after he broke away from a tour group in the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea and crossed the border into the North.

US officials on Wednesday said the errant American soldier had been turned over to American authorities in China, and has now been transported to a US military installation.

In a statement, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan praised what he described as the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

A senior US official who briefed reporters on the developments said the US government had successfully facilitated his departure from North Korea following what the official described as a months-long effort involving multiple US government agencies which had been undertaken out of concern for Private Kings well-being and a desire to reunite him with his family.

The official added that the US had been reaching out to Pyongyang through multiple channels over the last two months  including through the United Nations and the United Nations Command which oversees the allied military presence in South Korea  to gain information on Pvt Kings welfare and to secure his safe return home.

Because the US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations, US officials have also been in touch with the DPRK through the government of Sweden, which represents US interests in the North.

Im pleased to share this morning that Private King appears to be in good health and good spirits as he makes his way home. We are grateful to the Swedish government for its diplomatic role in serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and to the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the safe transit of Private King, the official said.

Mr Sullivan, the presidents national security adviser, also thanked both the Swedish and Chinese governments for their respective roles.

A State Department official told reporters that Swedish officials had indicated that North Korea was interested in releasing the US soldier earlier this month. He also said Mr Kings release was the result of intense diplomacy through every available diplomatic channel, and told reporters that Mr Kings family has been in contact with the government throughout the process.

Separately, a different administration official said Swedens role in Mr Kings release had been really vital. They also said he was very happy to be on his way home and very much looking forward to being reunited with his family.

The news of Mr Kings return to American custody comes just hours after North Korea announced that it would expel Mr King, who crossed into the country while taking part in a guided tour of a border village in a demilitarised zone.

State news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday that Mr King, 23, had confessed to illegally entering the country back in July.

Pyongyang reportedly deported him after concluding its investigation into his illegal entry into the country, the report said.

North Korea claims that its investigation into Mr Kings crossing had revealed that he was seeking refuge in the country due to inhuman treatment in the US military, antipathy to racism and disillusionment with the unequal US society.

Prior to fleeing across the border, Mr King had been detained for more than 40 days in a South Korean penal facility after he was convicted on assault and destruction of private property charges.

He was sentenced on 24 May to serve in a labour camp at the Cheonan correctional facility, which is intended to house US military members and other foreigners convicted of crimes in South Korea.

On his release on 10 July, he was scheduled to return home to the US to face disciplinary action at his home base at Fort Bliss in Texas, the SCMP previously reported. But he skipped his flight and crossed into North Korea.

A Defence Department official said the militarys focus at this time is caring for Private King and his family, and stressed that upon arrival in the US, he will be evaluated by some very talented, experienced and experienced team who will guide him through a reintegration process that will address any medical and emotional concerns and ensure we get him in a good place to reunite with his family.

The official said questions of the soldiers disciplinary status and any possible court-martial would be resolved following completion of his reintegration.

Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for Pvt Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said Ms Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.

He added that the soldiers family was asking for privacy, and said Ms Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

US Army soldier Travis King (VIA REUTERS)

The Pentagon confirmed in July that US forces in Korea and Army counter-intelligence were conducting an investigation into Mr Kings disappearance over the border.

The United Nations Command asked North Korea for information, which finally released information about his crossing in August.

During the investigation, Travis King confessed that he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harboured ill feelings against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army, state-run news agency KCNA said last month.

It added that Mr King was kept under control by soldiers of the Korean Peoples Army and they were still probing the circumstances surrounding his crossing into the country.

While Mr Kings uncle Myron Gates told ABC News last month that his nephew had been experiencing racism during his military deployment, and after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he no longer sounded like himself.

The private was a reconnaissance specialist who had served in the army since January 2021 and was in South Korea as part of his rotation.

Throughout the years, other US Army soldiers have also defected to North Korea, with some cases dating back to the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.

With additional reporting by agencies
Screen grab: The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz

After the Portland Trail Blazers agreed to a deal to send Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks  and not his reported preferred destination of the Miami Heat  it was only a matter of time before The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugtoz weighed in.

After all, the Miami-based show hasnt just covered the story, but at times, has been a part of it, with Le Batard even becoming a literal mouthpiece for the Heat.

Meadowlark Medias flagship program didnt disappoint, with Le Batard and his crew  sans Stugtoz  gathering for an impromptu live stream shortly after news of the blockbuster trade was first reported. And while there was plenty of disappointment to be found in the shipping container, Le Batard also provided commentary on what Lillard not getting his way means from a big picture perspective.

More interesting to me is after, what is it, a decade or 12 years of total player empowerment? Damian Lillard is the crossroads on, No, we will not respect your power and your leverage and your relationship with our city, Le Batard said. You want to leave? OK. You dont get to choose where it is you go. You want to go to Miami? Were going to send you to something close to the opposite of Miami.'

Weve been saying for years, why do you always have to do what [James] Harden wants? He has a contract, he doesnt have a no-trade clause. Youve gotta call the players bluff. And Lillard wasnt able to get dirty in public on behalf of wanting to get here. He didnt want to ruin the fanbase loyalty that he has with Portland.

And so now he gets the power taken away from him and sent to a place he doesnt want to go. To me, thats the most interesting part of all of this is the place that it stops on player empowerment is Damian Lillard. Youre too old and you have too much money left on your contract. You cant have this power.

For what its worth, despite his reported insistence of only wanting to go to Miami, Lillard appears to approve of the trade and all indications are that he will, in fact, report to Milwaukee. Hes also not necessarily the first star player to not get traded to his preferred destination; current Heat star Jimmy Butler reportedly wanted to be traded to the Nets, Knicks or Clippers before being sent to the 76ers by the Timberwolves in 2018. And even just last year, the 76ers refused to play ball with Ben Simmons trade request until Harden became available.

To Le Batards larger point, its undeniable that Portland  and to a lesser degree, Milwaukee  called Lillards bluff after he reportedly insisted he would only play for the Heat. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if this proves to be a matter of specific circumstances resulting in an outlier, or, as Le Batard believes, a breaking point in the player empowerment era.

[The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz]
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A 157 million (136 million) haul of cocaine was seized when an elite army unit stormed a cargo ship off the Irish coast.

It is the largest drugs capture in Irelands history, police said.

A total of 2,253 kg of cocaine was found on the Panamanian-registered vessel in a major joint agency operation off the south-east coast of Ireland on Tuesday.

Members of the highly trained Army Ranger Wing descended from a helicopter onto the MV Matthew as it tried to sail out of Irish waters and evade capture.

The elite unit boarded the ship after the Irish Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction after it failed to obey orders.

The vessel had been under surveillance since Friday when a multi-agency operation responded to intelligence of a major international drug smuggling operation.

Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Wednesday, a senior member of the Irish police described the operation as hugely significant.

Justin Kelly, Assistant Commissioner with An Garda Siochana, said: I think its really important to note this is the largest drug seizure in the history of the state.

This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

He added: This is a huge hit for the people involved in this.

Murderous cartels

Given the scale of the haul, Irish authorities do not believe the cocaine was solely destined for Ireland.

They suspect the drugs were being transported from South America for distribution across Europe.

The MV Matthew was escorted to Cork harbour on Tuesday.

A fishing trawler that grounded off the coast of County Wicklow late on Sunday was also being monitored as part of the operation, amid suspicions it was en route to rendezvous with the cargo ship.

The vessel remains stuck on a sandbank out at sea with poor conditions preventing the authorities from boarding and searching it.

It will be treated as a crime scene when it is accessed, police said.

Three people, aged 60, 50 and 31, arrested during the course of the operation, remained in custody in police stations in County Wexford on Wednesday.

It has emerged that one of those arrested was medically evacuated off the MV Matthew before the military operation to seize it.

About 25 remaining crew will be interviewed in Cork and police have said further arrests may follow.

The operation involved the Defence Forces, customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit.

Mr Kelly said the cocaine on the ship originated in South America.

This product was supplied by a South American cartel, one of the murderous cartels that are behind cocaine shipments into Europe, he said.

A shipment like this into Europe is partly destined for the Irish market.

Obviously, with the size and intelligence we have, we know the organised crime group behind this comprises a number of different elements across Europe.

Asked if those on the cargo ship had tried to dispose of the cocaine by burning it or throwing it overboard, Mr Kelly said more information on this would be provided in the coming days.

He said such a large shipment would not have entered the states waters without the involvement of an Irish gang.

He said there are a number of gangs in Ireland with direct links to South America.

There is no large ship like this coming into our waters or our ports or transiting across our country, without an Irish organised criminal group involved in it.

There is an increase in the amount of cocaine available for a number of geopolitical reasons in South America. There is basically a glut of cocaine on the market, he said.

And when you combine that with the increased consumption across Europe, Europe is now the biggest market for cocaine in the world.

So when you combine those two things together, absolutely, its inevitable that were going to see organised criminal groups trying to leverage on that, make more money from it, as they always do in situations like this.

Its inevitable that well see more large shipments.

He said increased large shipments had also been seen in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Great deal of skill

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, explained why warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel before the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship, he said.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain.

Cdr Geraghty said it had been an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defence Forces headquarters.

He said the poor weather made the fast rope aerial boarding more complex.

He said there was no evidence of the crew being armed when the Army Rangers boarded and took control of the vessel.

This ship is very large, shes 190 metres long, with an exceptionally high freeboard. So very difficult to get on, he added.

He said a great deal of skill was demonstrated by the Army Ranger Wing and helicopter pilot during high winds.
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Germany banned yet another neo-Nazi group and conducted raids at the homes of dozens of its members, according to reports.

The authorities raided the houses of at least 39 members in the early hours on Wednesday after the countrys interior minister Nancy Faeser banned the group Artgemeinschaft accused of spreading Nazi ideology.

Across 12 states, at least 26 homes belonging to the members of the group were searched. The authorities said that the group has about 150 members nationwide, including children and adolescents.

This is another hard blow against right-wing extremism and against the intellectual arsonists who continue to spread Nazi ideologies to this day, Ms Faeser said.

This right-wing extremist group has tried to raise new enemies of the constitution with its disgusting indoctrination of children and young people.

This is the second neo-Nazi group to be banned in about a week. Ms Faeser banned Hammerskins Deutschland which had roots in the United States about a week ago.

The Hammerskins Germany is an offshoot of the Hammerskins Nation founded in the United States in 1988, according to the German Interior Ministry.

Local reports said that this organisation held a significant position within Europes right-wing extremist sphere. Across the globe, its members identified themselves as brothers who embrace a subcultural lifestyle.

As per the ministrys investigation, the group also regards itself as the vanguard within the right-wing extremist community.

The ban of the Hammerskins Germany is a hard blow against organised right-wing extremism, Ms Faeser said then. She added that the ban included the associations regional chapters and its sub-organisation Crew 38.

With this ban, we are putting an end to the inhumane activities of an internationally active neo-Nazi association in Germany, she added. This sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.

The ban on the Hammerskins Germany marked the 20th instance of the German Interior Ministry banning a right-wing extremist organisation.

Right-wing extremism remains the greatest extremist threat to the basic democratic order in Germany, Ms Faeser said.

Meanwhile, Artgemeinschaft reportedly maintains eight regional fellowships and circles of friends, according to local media. It was reported that their children are brought up according to supposedly pagan customs and Germanic traditions.

The organisation also bears the nickname Germanic Religious Community of Essential Life and describes itself as the largest pagan community in Germany, according to local reports. It was founded in 1951.

Additional reporting with agencies
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The Italian Mafia boss who once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery has been laid to rest in his hometown in Sicily, with only a handful of family members allowed to attend.

Matteo Messina Denaro, who was arrested in January after three decades on the run, died of cancer in a hospital in central Italy on Monday, taking to the grave the secrets of his mafioso past.

The hearse arrived in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano after dawn and entered the cemetery by a side gate, skirting residential areas to avoid any public demonstrations of affection or anger.

Relatives of late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, including his brother Salvatore, holding flowers at left, and sister Bice, right, wait for Denaro's funeral hearse to arrive (AP)

A mugshot of Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro (EPA)

Seven people walked behind the hearse, one carrying a bunch of yellow flowers. Three cars of close relatives also drove in before police closed the entrance to prevent waiting journalists from following.

There was no religious service at the funeral.

Among those present were Messina Denaros daughter, Lorenza Alagna, who he only met following his capture. The mobsters two sisters and brother were also there.

Messina Denaro was found guilty of several crimes, including helping plan the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino - killings that shocked Italy and sparked a crackdown on the Sicilian mob.

Matteo Messina Denaro being transferred into custody earlier this year (AFP/Getty)

He once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery.

The 61-year-old was also held responsible for bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 that killed 10 people, as well as helping organise the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo, 12, to dissuade his father from giving evidence against the mafia.

Police stand outside the cemetery, where late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro is burie (REUTERS)

Relatives of late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro: niece Lorenza, left, and his sister Bice (AP)

The boy was held for two years, then murdered and his body dissolved in acid.

The mayor of Castelvetrano, Enzo Alfano, has been highly critical of Messina Denaro, saying he had wrecked the reputation of the town, stunting the local economy.

It will take decades more before we can put an end to ... a sometimes rampant culture of illegality, of impunity, that he and his acolytes and others before them cultivated for too long, Mr Alfano told reporters earlier this week.
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Azerbaijan has arrested the billionaire former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh as he tried to join thousands of other Armenians fleeing across the border amid fears of ethnic cleansing.

Ruben Vardanyan, who served as the head of the regional government for several months before stepping down earlier this year, was detained as he tried to cross into Armenia from the breakaway region.

Mr Vardanyan, who owned a major investment bank in Russia, was escorted to Baku and handed over to the relevant state bodies, Azerbaijans border guards said. They posted a picture of Mr Vardanyan held by two guards next to a helicopter.

More than 42,500 Armenians are said to have left for Armenia since Bakus lightning operation last week to take control of the region, which is internationally recognised as being part of Azerbaijan.

Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in Kornidzor in Armenia (APHOTOLURE/AP)

The mass exodus marks one of the biggest movements of people in the South Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Armenians who have remained in the main city of Staperankart, which Azerbaijan calls Khankendi, said people were fleeing a growing humanitarian crisis and had fears of violent reprisals. Baku has repeatedly dismissed these accusations as untrue.

We dont want to flee our homeland, but we have to in order to save our childrens lives. We still hope that the international community can do something, said Artak Beglaryan, a former adviser to the self-declared government in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians refer to as Artsakh.

The whole area is emptying, maybe 90 per cent are leaving now. Tell the world that this is ethnic cleansing and genocide.

In the miles-long tailbacks which have brought the hairpin road to Armenia to a standstill, families have been forced to sleep in their cars and gather firewood to warm themselves by the side of the road. There, elderly Armenians said that they had nowhere to go.

I left everything behind. I dont know what is in store for me. I have nothing. I dont want anything, Vera Petrosyan, a 70-year-old retired teacher, told Reuters.

Inside Staperankart, families are living on increasingly dwindling food handouts.

One single bakery is operating in the city by Russian peacekeepers, but it is not enough, Siranush Sargsyan, a freelance Armenian journalist wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The food shortage situation is critical.

Azerbaijan has faced rising international criticism for its actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly after it imposed a blockade in December, leading to shortages of food, electricity and gas.

At the time, Azerbaijan accused the Armenian government of using the road for minerals extraction and illicit weapons shipments to separatist forces. Then last week, Baku launched its 24-hour military offensive to take back control.

On Wednesday, Azerbaijans health ministry said that nearly 200 of its troops had been killed and more than 500 wounded in the ensuing fighting. Nagorno-Karabakh officials had earlier said that at least 200 people on their side, including 100 civilians, were killed before breakaway forces laid down their weapons.

Armenia, which is backed by Russia, and Azerbaijan, which is supported by Turkey, have fought two wars over this region in 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a six-week conflict in 2020, Azerbaijan gained back about a quarter of its territory in the area.

Since the most recent conflict, Azerbaijan and separatist officials have held two rounds of talks about the reintegration of Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan, but so far no final peace agreement has been reached.

Refugees flee Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan's seizure of the disputed region

Azerbaijans president Ilham Aliyev has promised to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians but has also vowed that his iron fist had consigned the idea of an independent ethnic Armenian Karabakh to history.

Armenians told The Independent they cannot live under the subjugations of the Azerbaijanis and that they feared ethnic cleansing and violent reprisals by Bakus army, which now encircles the main city.

As thousands rushed to leave, there was a major explosion at a fuel depot in the Askeran district of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, adding to the humanitarian crisis. There were conflicting details about the toll of the blast but the ethnic Armenian authorities said at least 68 people had been killed, 105 were missing and nearly 300 were injured.
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Russia might join China in banning seafood from Japan over the Fukushima water release, a Russian regulatory authority indicated on Tuesday.

Russian food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said that it had discussed the issue of food exports with its Chinese counterparts.

Taking into account the possible risks of radiation contamination of products, Rosselkhoznadzor is considering the possibility of joining with Chinese restrictions on supplies of fish products from Japan, the watchdog said in a statement.

The final decision will be made after negotiations with the Japanese side.

Last month, Japan started the discharge of water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, a move that sparked intense condemnation from China. In response, China implemented a ban on all seafood imports from Japan.

Russia, one of the major suppliers of marine products to China, is actively pursuing opportunities to expand its market share in the region.

So far this year, Russia has imported 118 tonnes of Japanese seafood, the regulator said.

In response to the announcement by Russia, the top Japanese government spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday that Japan will carefully examine the matter.

We strongly ask Russia to act based on scientific evidence, Mr Matsuno told the media. He added that Russia was a member of the International Atomic Energy Agencys Fukushima expert team. In addition to this, we received an IAEA report made with the participation of international experts, including from Russia.

Rosselkhoznadzor has reached out to Japan, urging both nations to start negotiations and requesting information regarding Japans radiological testing procedures for exported fish products, which includes assessing tritium levels.

They have set a deadline of 16 October for this information to be provided, local media said.

Meanwhile, late last week, US ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel accused China of using economic coercion against Japan. He said: Economic coercion is the most persistent and pernicious tool in their economic toolbox.

China is engaged right now in fishing in Japans economic waters while they are simultaneously engaged in the unilateral embargo on Japans fish, Mr Emanuel said.

Earlier this month, it was reported that fishermen and residents from Fukushima, along with people from five other prefectures along Japans northeastern coast, filed a lawsuit seeking an immediate cessation of the ongoing release of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

In the lawsuit, the 151 plaintiffs, two-thirds from Fukushima and the rest from Tokyo and four other prefectures, say the discharge damages the livelihoods of the fishing community and violates residents right to live peacefully, their lawyers said.

Additional reporting with agencies
 Close Aftermath of Russian missile strike on Ukraine mail depot that killed six

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Vladimir Putins troops have been forced to regroup while suffering over 400 casualties a day in a drive to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, Donetsk, Kyiv claimed.

The enemy is trying to move forward and then we beat them back, Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for Ukraines southern groups of forces, said.

So by no means can you speak of a fixed situation of some sort. Heavy fighting is continuing, though activity has subsided somewhat. The enemy is going through some kind of regrouping.

Mr Shtupun said Russian forces had suffered over 400 casualties a day in its campaign which has relied on small assault groups of 30 to 40 men.

Meanwhile, North Korea has shipped over 1,000 containers of military equipment to Russia, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.

It said Pyongyang was set to become one of Russias most significant foreign arms suppliers alongside Iran and Belarus.

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin tested Russias ability to launch a massive retaliatory nuclear strike as he pulled the country out of an international test ban treaty.
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Ukrainian troops enjoyed success in villages near Bakhmut, a key town seized by Russian forces in May after some of the heaviest fighting in the 19-month-old war.

Ilia Yevlash, spokesperson for Ukraines forces in the east, told national television that Russia trained fire on Ukrainian soldiers 580 times on this front and used aircraft four times.

On the southern flank, we continue the offensive operation. In particular, we have had successes near Zaitseve, Klishchiivka, Odradivka and Ivanivske. There, our defenders continue to knock out the enemy. Under heavy fire, they are holding the defence and consolidating positions, he said during the 24/7 national forecast.

The Ukrainian army killed 141 Russian troops and destroyed several pieces of Russian artillery equipment, the spokesperson said.

On the southern front, Russian forces were bringing in reserves as Ukrainian troops dug in and were poised to move on the village of Verbove as part of their advance to the Sea of Azov, said Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for the troops in the south.

"I believe we will soon have good news," the spokesperson said.

The battlefields loud successes were cheered on by president Volodymyr Zelensky in his nightly address who confirmed damage to Russian logistics and headquarters.

The first is the actual situation at the front, our offensive and defensive operations. Important reports on the east and south. On the destruction of logistics and headquarters of the occupiers. There are good details. Loud details. I thank all the Ukrainian warriors who distinguished themselves! he said on Tuesday evening.

While Russian forces aimed their strikes on Ukraines grain exporting district, Kyivs forces also struck back on Monday and Tuesday with a growing number of attacks inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea.

The governor of Russias Kursk region said power had been cut off to about seven settlements in the latest reported attack.

Russias defence ministry said a drone had been destroyed over the Kursk region at around 5.30 am local time.

Ukraine fired its counteroffensive operations in early June and is gradually progressing with gains in eastern and southern Ukraine where Russian forces have managed to breach the territory.

But Ukrainian troops have targeted these regions in its bid to push back Russian soldiers off its territory.

Recommended Russia tries to rejoin UN Human Rights Council

After a grinding slow start in June, Ukraine has reported a chain of success in recapturing its settlements and villages in Bakhmut, Zaporizhzhia and southern regions as it continues to move through heavily mined and destroyed towns and cities.
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A top Russian naval officer who Ukraine claimed was killed in a missile strike has been seen in a new video released by Russia, sparking confusion among the war-hit countrys officials.

Ukraines special forces on Monday had claimed Russian admiral Viktor Sokolov and 33 other officers were killed in a missile strike carried out on the Black Sea Fleets headquarters in Sevastopol in Crimea.

The video released by Russias defence ministry on Tuesday, however, showed Black Sea Fleet commander Sokolov appearing on a video conference call with Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu. It remains unclear when the video was recorded.

Commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet Viktor Sokolov (bottom left), who was claimed to be killed in a September 22 strike, appears on screen in a meeting in Moscow (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

While it is not clear how Ukraine counted casualties in the Sevastopol operation, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraines minister of internal affairs, had earlier posted the admirals name and photo on social media.

Ukraine now says it is working to clarify earlier reports. Russia has not issued any direct rebuttal of Ukraines claims, which is consistent with its stance of maintaining silence on significant battlefield losses.

As is known, 34 officers were killed as a result of a missile attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. Available sources claim that among the dead was the commander of the Russian Army. Many still have not been identified due to the disparity of body fragments, Ukraines special forces said on their official Telegram channel.

Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish an answer with an apparently alive Sokolov, our units are clarifying the information, it said.

The video from Tuesday showed defence minister Shoigu talking about a drill he claimed Russias Pacific fleet had completed a day earlier, as several top officers appeared on a big screen in the room.

Admiral Sokolov is also seen in a video screen but in a different location, with only a flag seen in the backdrop behind him. He is also not heard speaking in the video.

While this appears to be a signal from Moscow that the admiral is still alive, Russia has not released any details to prove when the video conference took place.

In its earlier update on the Sevastopol strike, Ukraines special forces said the air force fired 12 missiles on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters as it targeted areas where personnel, military equipment and weapons were concentrated.

Two anti-aircraft missile systems and four Russian artillery units were hit, special forces said.

It was a rare direct claim of responsibility from Ukraine for an attack on either Russian soil or a target in Crimea, which Russia has occupied since its illegal annexation in 2014.

Moscow-installed authorities in Sevastopol are reported to be taking extra defensive measures in the face of Ukraines increased attacks on Crimea in recent days.

Sevastopol is a critical region providing a platform from which Russia has launched many of its air attacks on Ukraine in the 19-month-long war.
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A devastating fire which killed more than 100 people at a wedding in Iraq broke out as the bride and groom began their slow dance, injured witnesses have said.

More than 150 people including children have been injured, most with severe burns, as a result of the wedding party disaster which struck Iraqs dwindling Christian minority, close to the city of Mosul, on Tuesday night.

Nineveh health official Ahmed Dubardani said the majority of the survivors suffered extensive burn injuries, with fears that the death toll could rise beyond the latest figure of 114 cited by regional authorities.

Guests at the wedding told Rudaw from hospital that the blaze began when fireworks were set off ahead of the newlywed couples slow dance  and footage showed flaming debris falling from the ceiling as the bride and groom clung to each other on the dancefloor.

The couple were among those killed in the blaze, said Ninevehs deputy health chief Ahmed Dubardani, however, some guests maintained that the newlyweds had survived the fire by escaping through the kitchen.

They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire, one injured man said, in an account corroborated by a second wounded guest. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.

Civil defence officials told the Iraqi News Agency that the wedding halls exterior contained illegal and highly flammable, low-cost cladding materials which collapse within minutes.

The wedding hall was reduced to charred metal and rubble (Reuters)

Iraqs prime minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has ordered an investigation into the fire, backed by the countrys president Abdul Latif Rashid, and state media reported that the Ministry of Interior had issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall.

Similar panels have been blamed in several previous fires in Iraq, most recently in July 2021, when a blaze at a hospital in the city of Nasiriyah killed between 60 to 92 people.

At least 150 people have been injured, there were around 1,000 guests at the wedding (AP)

Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the blaze on Tuesday night as scores of wounded people were pulled from the charred and twisted wreckage of the packed-out hall, with survivors arriving at local hospitals in bandages and receiving oxygen.

This was not a wedding. This was hell, said Mariam Khedr, as she stood outside a morgue in Mosul alongside other bereaved relatives, waiting for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren  the youngest aged just eight months.

Another woman outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags, said: I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3-year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning.

A man called Youssef, who stood nearby with burns covering his hands and face, said he had not been able to see anything when the fire began and the power cut out. While he had grabbed his 3-year-old grandson and managed to get out, his wife  in her 50s  fell in the chaos and died.

There are conflicting reports about whether the bride and groom are among the survivors (screengrab)

Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno, said: We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didnt got stuck.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

It could be a mistake by the event organizers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error, Mr Khoury said. It was a disaster in every sense of the word.

One of the owners of the venue, Chonny Suleiman Naboo, blamed the fire on an electrical fault in the ceiling. He insisted the venue had all the officials approvals and that his brother and the halls supervisor would turn themselves into the authorities.

We were attacked by residents and our cars were damaged because of what happened, and were worried that our homes could be attacked too, Mr Naboo said.

Survivors were pulled from the hall and taken to hospital on Tuesday night (REUTERS/Khalid Al-Mousily)

The wedding was in the district of Hamdaniya, which lies on Iraqs Nineveh Plains. While under the control of Iraqs central government, it is also claimed by Iraqs semiautonomous Kurdish regional government. Kurdish prime minister Masrour Barzani has also ordered hospitals there to help.

Over the past two decades, Iraqs Christian minority has been violently targeted by extremists, first from al-Qaeda and then the Islamic State militant group. The number of Christians in Iraq is currently estimated to be 150,000, down from 1.5 million two decades ago.

Although the Nineveh Plains were wrested back from Isis six years ago, some towns are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.

Additional reporting by agencies
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At least 114 people have died after a raging fire tore through a wedding hall packed with guests in Iraq, with fears the bride and groom are among the victims.

The blaze was caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding at a hall in the Al-Hamdaniya district of the northern Nineveh province, part of Iraqs semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. It is a predominantly Christian area just outside the city of Mosul, located 335km northwest of capital Baghdad.

All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident, health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr told the state-run Iraqi News Agency.

Television footage showed flames spreading over the wedding hall as the fire took hold. In the blazes aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene of the fire, the only light coming from television cameras and the lights of onlookers mobile phones.

Survivors arrived at local hospitals, received oxygen and were bandaged. Their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organised more oxygen cylinders.

Some 150 people were killed in the fire, the Nineveh health department told the Associated Press.

Ninevehs deputy health chief Ahmed Dubardani said the couple were among those killed. However, there are conflicting reports as some guests claimed they survived by escaping through the kitchen.

They were about to do a slow dance and then they lit up this thing for the dance which caught fire, one injured woman was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Another man injured in the fire at the hospital similarly told Rudaw that the blaze started as the couple prepared for their slow dance.

They lit up fireworks, he said. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire.

Firefighters work at the site of a fatal fire, in the district of Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, 27 September2023 (AP)

He added: The entire hall was on fire in seconds.

Mr al-Badr put the number of injured at 150 via the state-run Iraqi News Agency. All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident, he said.

Apparent security footage shared on social media by local broadcaster AVA Media appears to show flaming debris falling on guests inside the hall.

Security forces gather at the site of a fatal fire in the district of Hamdaniya in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 (AP)

Prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the countrys interior and health ministry officials to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.

This image made from video shows medical staff taking an injured person inside a hospital in Hamdaniya, Nineveh province, Iraq, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 (AP)

Photos and videos from local media show the tangled wreckage of a building and firefighters making their way through the rubble.

Eyewitnesses at the site said the building caught fire at around 10.45pm local time and that hundreds of people were in attendance at the time of the incident.

We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didnt got stuck. Even those who made their way out were broken, said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.

Thousands of people visited local hospitals in the Hamdaniyah area throughout the early morning hours to donate blood after the tragedy.

There is no immediate official word yet on the cause of the blaze, but initial reports by Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested fireworks at the venue may have sparked the fire.

Officials work at the site following a fatal fire at a wedding celebration, in the district of Hamdaniya in Iraqs Nineveh province, Iraq, 27 September 2023 (REUTERS)

Civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi news agency described the wedding halls exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country.

The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when fire breaks out, an official with the local civil defence directorate said.

It wasnt immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere werent designed to meet stricter safety standards and were often put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze.

A view of the damage at the site following a fatal fire at a wedding celebration, in the district of Hamdaniya in Iraqs Nineveh province, Iraq, 27 September 2023 (Reuters)

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since the Second World War, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

The fire was the latest disaster to strike Iraqs shrinking Christian minority, which over the past two decades has been violently targeted by extremists first from the al-Qaida and then the Isis militant group.

A view shows the aftermath of a fire that broke out during a wedding celebration, in the district of Hamdaniya in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 (AP)

Although the Nineveh plains, their historic homeland, was wrested back from Isis six years ago, some towns are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the US. The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated to be at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Iraqs total population is more than 40 million.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a small fire led to guests and diplomatic personnel being evacuated from Baghdads Al-Rasheed hotel. It has been brought under control, an official at the hotel told Reuters via phone early on Wednesday.

People gather outside at the scene of a fire that broke out at a wedding hall in Hamdaniya, in Iraqs Nineveh province, north of Iraq, 27 September 2023 (EPA)

The hotel houses several envoys from Gulf states.

The small fire occurred in kitchen, and an official described the evacuation as a routine precautionary measure, saying guests had safely returned to their rooms.

The hotel is in Iraqs highly fortified Green Zone which hosts parliament, many government buildings and foreign embassies.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Officials in Iran are reportedly looking to use artificial intelligence to issue fatwas to speed up the process of Islamic law rulings.

Clerics in the city of Qom  Irans main hub of Islamic learning  are mulling over the use of AI assistants to help them with religious seminaries, the Financial Times reported.

Robots cant replace senior clerics, but they can be a trusted assistant that can help them issue a fatwa faster, Mohammad Ghotbi, who heads a state-linked tech group in Qom, told FT.

Iran is home to over 200,000 Shia clergy, of whom nearly half are based in Qom.

These officials have been the countrys leading force in protecting its religious values amid growing clashes between tradition and modernity as AI use sees growing interest across the world.

Iran particularly sees a growing need to modernise following last years nationwide uprising triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the countrys morality police after her arrest for allegedly violating the regimes mandatory Islamic dress code.

Violence launched by the regime against the protest movement also sparked condemnation from international rights groups, including the UN.

It pains me to see what is happening in the country  images of children killed, of women being beaten in the streets, Volker Turk, UN high commissioner for human rights, said last year.

The old methods and the fortress mentality of those who wield power simply dont work. In fact, they only aggravate the situation. We are now in a full-fledged human rights crisis, Mr Turk said.

Now, the regimes clerical establishment seems to view technology  especially the use of AI  as an attempt to modernise.

While still in infancy, the move to trial the use of AI to issue fatwas is underway in cities like Qom, whose first AI conference was held in 2020, according to FT.

The head of the citys seminary reportedly shared his views on how AI could advance Islamic studies of senior clergy and speed up their communication with the public.

Interest shown by the clerics also appears to be in line with the views of the countrys supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said in June that he wants the country to be at least among the top-10 countries in the world in terms of artificial intelligence.
A two-year-old square-lipped male rhinoceros born at a zoo in the Netherlands departed for his new home in Lithuania on Tuesday (26 September).

Royal Burgers Zoo, in the Dutch city of Arnhem, contributes to the European population management program of breeding the square-lipped rhinos within the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria.

On the day of his big move, the young animal was sedated by vets before making his way into a transport box specially made for the journey.

The square-lipped rhinoceros is considered critically endangered and possibly extinct in the wild.

A group of five currently live on the vast East African savannah of Burgers Safari.
Bob Menendez, the Democratic Senator of New Jersey is facing corruption-related charges for the second time in ten years.

Last week, Menendez and his wife Nadine were charged with three alleged crimes. The charges stem from an indictment that alleges they accepted bribes in exchange for using his political influence to benefit three businessmen, who were also charged.

In a search of the Menendez home, investigators found nearly half a million dollars in cash and gold bars.

Menendez also allegedly provided sensitive information that aided the government of Egypt.

Many politicians are now calling for Menendezs resignation.
Senator Robert Menendez arrived at federal court in New York on Wednesday (27 September) to answer to charges alleging he used his powerful post to secretly advance Egyptian interests and carry out favours for local businessmen in exchange for bribes of cash and gold bars.

The New Jersey Democrat made his first court appearance amid growing calls from colleagues that he resign from Congress.

A defiant Mr Menendez has said the allegations against him are baseless and that he will be exonerated. He also has no intention of leaving the Senate.

This is the second corruption case in a decade against Mr Menendez.

Jurors failed to reach a verdict in his 2017 trial.
Videos posted on social media show police cars surrounding a bus after a teenage girl was stabbed to death in Croydon on Wednesday morning (27 September).

Paramedics were called at 8.30am to reports of a 15-year-old girl stabbed on Wellesley Road, near the Whitgift shopping centre in south London, police said.

Despite the efforts of the London Ambulance Service and Londons Air Ambulance, she was pronounced dead at the scene at 9.21am.

A large police and ambulance presence was seen near a bus stop in other videos posted online.

Our immediate thoughts are with this young girls family who are facing the most tragic of news, Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain, in charge of local policing, said.
CCTV footage appears to show a Jack in the Box employee shooting a gun through a drive-thru window after a dispute over missing curly fries.

The incident occurred in March 2021 in Houston, Texas, after a man picked up his pregnant wife and 6-year-old daughter from the airport.

Upon receiving his food, Anthony Ramos asked employee Alloniea Ford for the missing food but was denied, setting up the shocking altercation.

In the footage, Ford can be seen unlocking the window and pulling out her firearm to point at Ramos after several minutes of tension.

She fired several shots as he sped away.

None of the bullets hit Ramos vehicle, and no one was injured.

A lawyer for the family - who have sued Jack in the Box for gross negligence - released footage of the incident this week.

While we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, we are aware of the 2021 incident involving an employee of one of our independent franchisees and remain focused on providing a safe environment for restaurant workers and customers, a spokesperson for Jack in the Box told The Independent.
Journalist Ava Evans has said that she was used as a vehicle for content by Laurence Fox as he ranted about her during an interview with Dan Wootton on GB News.

The political correspondent, who works for website Joe, said in a video on her employers YouTube channel: This is actually nothing to do with me. This is a network problem. This is a presenter, guest, gallery and production issues - that is nothing to do with me. I just so happen to be the person they are talking about.

She continued: Im just a commodity in this story. Im just a vehicle for content. Thats the part that makes me feel most sick.

Both Wootton and Fox have been suspended by GB News pending an investigation by the broadcaster into the interview.
Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, has refused to boycott GB News following Laurence Foxs vile and misogynistic comments about a female journalist.

Fox launched into a rant about Ava Evans, political correspondent for the online news site Joe, during Dan Woottons show last night, claiming she was a little woman and that he wouldnt want to shag her.

Ms Frazer was questioned on the comments during Good Morning Britain on Wednesday (27 September) and while she described them as unacceptable, she stopped short of suggesting MPs should not be appearing on channels that broadcast that sort of content.

Scottish National Party leader Stephen Flynn, meanwhile, urged Ofcom to step up as he slammed Wootton and Fox over the vile discussion, which GMB host Susanna Reid described as very sexualised.

In a statement on social media website X on Wednesday morning, GB News confirmed they have formally suspended Fox while they investigate his comments.
CCTV captures the moment a van crashes through a Lego store, causing extensive damage to the Michigan-based shop.

The crash happened at the Bricks and Minifigs Frand Rapids on Saturday 23 September.

The owners said the crash had caused extensive damage across the building and the store.

The van driver fled the scene and local police are investigating the incident, they said.

This security camera footage published on Monday shows the moment the van crashes through one of the stores windows, destroying display cases and hitting a column.
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Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, were indicted on federal bribery charges last Friday. Since then, numerous Democratic leaders have called for Menendezs resignation. Those urging Menendez to step down include New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, the other New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and (as of this writing) some 27 other Democratic Senatorsmore than half the caucus.

The contrast with the Republican response to Donald Trumps indictments is stark. But theres also a marked contrast with Republican responses to the indictment of Menendez himself. Usually its easy to highlight and condemn the other partys corruption. But the GOP has been strangely hesitant to call for Menendezs resignation. Thats because the GOP is increasingly defined by its belief that those in power should have blanket impunity, and by its opposition to holding elected officials accountable.

This is not the first bribery charge Mendendez has faced. In 2015, he was indicted for allegedly receiving bribes from donor Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist. The prosecution ended in a mistrial in 2017. While there was grassroots opposition to Menendez, most Democratic leaders continued to support him, and he won his reelection bid in 2018.

This time is different in large part because the bribery charges are both clearer and more spectacular. Menendez is accused of using his political influence to help several businesses in exchange for bribes. The indictment also says that Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was given bribes in return for promoting the interests of the Egyptian government. When agents searched Menendezs home, they found half a million dollars in cash and literal bars of gold.

The accusation that Menendez is taking bribes from foreign nations is extremely serious, and a potential threat to national security. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the first Senator to call for Menendezs resignation, said, its not a close call and if you were looking for the most incriminating kinds of evidence, nobody could even come up with gold bars in a mattress.

Fetterman and an increasing roll of Democrats may see it as a close call. But Republicans have been less forthright. Not a single Republican has called for Menendezs resignation, and several of them have defended him. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, for example, said that Menendez shouldnt resign because in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat. Senator Tom Cotton of Alabama defended Menendez on the grounds that the Department of Justice has a troubling record of failure and corruption in cases around public figures. Cotton singled out former President Donald Trump as someone who DOJ had unfairly prosecuted.

Cottons comparison of Menendez to Donald Trump suggests one obvious reason that the GOP is leery of calling for Menendezs resignation. Trump has, of course, now been indicted four times, and faces 91 criminal charges. Those charges are related to hush money payments to cover up an affair, to improper handling of classified documents; election interference in Georgia, to federal efforts to overthrow the 2024 election.

Republicans have responded to these indictments not by condemning Trump, but by claiming without evidence that the Department of Justice and the FBI are corrupt and are targeting Trump as a political ploy. If Republicans said Trumps DOJ indictments were meaningless, while Menendezs DOJ indictments were serious, they would look inconsistent and hypocritical.

The thing is, Republicans arent generally that worried about being inconsistent or hypocritical. GOP politicians have cheerfully taken credit for infrastructure projects they voted against, for example. Republicans have gone all in on attacking President Joe Bidens son for influence peddling, though hes never been a government official, while ignoring massive red flags around Trump son-in-law Jared Kushners dealings with the Saudis while he was a White House official.

The GOP embraces double standards when its to their partisan advantage. So why not in the case of Menendez? Instead of arguing that Menendez is persecuted like Trump, Cotton and Rubio could say something like, Look at the disgusting things Democrats do! And yet they dare impugn our glorious leader. The shame! The shame!

Instead, though, the Republicans seem determined to ignore Menendez, or to actually defend him. Corruption is an assertion of impunity and hierarchy; when you use your office to enrich yourself, youre saying that you are more important than those who voted for you, and that you are entitled to wealth and power without accountability. Thats a message the GOP finds congenial.

The Trump GOP increasingly embraces the idea that the powerful should be allowed to do whatever they want, and that questioning them is disqualifying presumption. When Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, the GOP rallied behind him, though they could easily have found and confirmed another candidate instead. Trump saw the presidency as his by right and framed all voters who cast ballots against him in 2020 as illegitimate. The GOP is increasingly pushing no-fault divorce, in an effort to trap women in marriages and restore male prerogatives.

The GOP loves traditional hierarchies and impunity for traditional hierarchs. And nothing says impunity quite like a politician chuckling as he stuffs a bunch of gold bars in a sack. The GOP doesnt want to hold Menendez accountable because their party is the party of refusing to hold the powerful accountable. When a Democrat betrays his constituents, the Republicans can barely restrain themselves from making him an honorary member of the GOP.
A piano is a lot like a human being, says Morgan Cowell, owner of Great Plains Piano Co.

Generally speaking, the first 40 years  with proper upkeep and routine service  are relatively maintenance-free.

"Around age 60 is where you've got to begin to think about things," said Cowell, a 2011 graduate of Beatrice High School. "What do I need to replace?"

Case in point: One of the pianos inside the showroom at Great Plains Piano Co., 2738 N. 48th St.  a Mason Hamlin made in 1924  still creates music, but it can be made young again.

"It still plays," he said. "But it needs a full rebuild, a top-to-bottom full restoration. That's why it's here. It still makes music but it's probably a third of the capacity that it was when it left the factory almost 100 years ago."

It'll take time and money  thousands of dollars  but in that tiny brown piano, its color faded by the years, Cowell sees a piece of history. The melodies it's played. The songs it created.

It's not so different from a master mechanic rebuilding a piece of American Muscle  every part painstakingly procured and installed  to its original state.

"It's a lot like a car restoration  like an old barn find," he said, comparing the difficulty in finding original parts that haven't been made for decades.

It's part of the fun, said Cowell, who opened the piano shop, which employs eight other technicians, just as the world was shutting down for the pandemic.

Those were tenuous times, but its bounce back is a testament to Cowell's work ethic. Being one of just a handful of piano technicians in Nebraska doesn't hurt, either.

"He's a great piano technician," said Adam Schulte-Bukowinski, who maintains about 110 pianos for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Glenn Korff School of Music as well as the Lied Center for Performing Arts. "He's very ambitious and driven. That's a unique thing because he is also so grounded."

These days, the only inconvenience Cowell might be having stems from the ongoing construction project on North 48th Street, which makes getting to his shop challenging.

But there was a time when he wondered if opening a shop just before COVID-19 wreaked havoc was the right thing to do.

"I had 150 tuning cancellations in three days," he said. "It was a scary few months. They all said they would call me when things began to open up again.

True to their word, most of them did. Lincoln Public Schools resumed its contract and so did three dozen other school districts in Nebraska.

Business is good, but it comes with plenty of travel. Cowell has put a 200-mile maximum on how far he'll go to tune a piano, be it for a school, church or someone's home.

"We're the only people willing to go out that far," Cowell said. "And really, we should say no, but if we're saying that, these schools don't have music programs. These churches, these communities don't get to have the concerts."

In hindsight, the coronavirus did wonders for the piano industry. With people shut down, isolated and working from home, that piano in the corner of the living room of so many houses became viable again.

"The orders for pianos are backed up," he said. "A lot of the good piano teachers around here have waiting lists. There's recitals happening left and right. We're selling pianos all the time. We're in a boom right now. ... I think there's more pianos sold last year than the previous 10 years combined."

So whatever heartburn the pandemic might have caused has more than been overcome by this worldwide piano boom.

"It's definitely coming back," Cowell said. "I don't know that we'll ever reach those same levels as 50 or 60 years ago, but it seems to be in an upward trajectory."

Cowell's lifelong love affair with the piano began early.

The Beatrice native took lessons as a boy and eventually became pretty good  so good he majored in the instrument at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

And then he accidentally dropped a pencil inside a piano and the relationship took a turn he never could have fathomed.

He forced his way into the front panel and saw the inner workings  the strings, hammers and hitch pins  and he wanted to know more.

He said some of the best piano mechanics are bad pianists because they are able to view the instrument as a machine.

Being inside the piano piqued his curiosity enough for him to enroll at North Bennett Street School, the Boston-based trade school that was the first in America.

The school got its start in the 1800s by training immigrants in trades that would allow them to be able to find work in their new country.

"I was very, very curious as to how all the different parts worked and why one piano cost $10 and one cost $100,000 even though they were the same size and the same shape," he said.

The same chapter of the Piano Technicians Guild that recommended the North Bennett Street School is the chapter that he currently leads as its president.

Last week, he was in Omaha at the Holland Center preparing the Steinway Model D concert grand piano that Emanuel Ax, one of the world's elite pianists, played on Saturday.

Ax followed up that performance with a performance at the Lied Center for Performing Arts on Sunday.

Top Journal Star photos for September 2023
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Before Republicans began to idolise former president Donald Trump, most prayed at the altar of Ronald Reagan, who famously bestowed an 11th Commandment to the GOP: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

Despite this, all of the Republican presidential candidates will be doing a whole bunch of sinning in the late presidents backyard as Republicans convene at the Reagan Library for the second debate. That is, of course, with the exception of Mr Trump, who is ditching the event to speak in Detroit in an attempt to appeal to striking auto workers (albeit at a non-union shop).

At this point, polling shows that Mr Trump enjoys an almost insurmountable lead not only nationally but also in the early contest states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. That may make some think this is largely an irrelevant debate, but there are still important observations to be made in tonights debate

Heres five things to watch:

Who is tonights punching bag?

During the last Republican debate, most of the candidates attacked businessman Vivek Ramaswamy as he saw his numbers surge. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called him a guy who sounds like ChatGPT. Former vice president Mike Pence said he was inexperienced and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley slammed his lack of understanding on foreign policy. Since then, the number of voters who say he is the most electable has declined.

Republican presidential candidates have been reluctant to criticise Mr Trump already lest they anger his voters. As a result the person who is in second place or the person onstage leading the polls usually has to catch all the javelins. Many times, candidates fold under pressure, as was the case in 2019 when Democratic presidential candidates, afraid to attack Joe Biden, opted to first attack Beto ORourke, then Kamala Harris and then Sen Elizabeth Warren.

In recent weeks, Ms Haley has risen in polls, especially in New Hampshire, where she now leads Florida Gov Ron DeSantis. In the past, Mr Pence attacked her for not supporting a 15-week abortion ban. Expect him and others to come after her. While it may not seem consequential, it does lead to the next thing to watch.

Do or die for Ron DeSantis

Those same polls that show Ms Haley rising have also shown Mr DeSantis cratering. For the most part, donors have decided to move elsewhere or at least look into other candidates, including Ms Haley and Sen Tim Scott (R-SC). Months of Mr Trump pummeling him as Ron DeSanctimonious coupled with Mr DeSantiss unwillingness to attack the former president has rendered him extremely vulnerable.

His campaign has seen numerous stories about how he has shed campaign staff and has yet to see the momentum change. Last go around, his opponents did not bother attacking him. He did not interact much with the rest of the candidates on the dais and only did so against his will when the moderators asked what he thought of Mr Pences actions on January 6. For all of his campaigns talk about him being a fighter who never backs down (the name of the Super PAC supporting him), he needs to begin leveling punches at the other candidates and show signs of life.

The culling of the field

In the same way that Mr DeSantis has seen his campaign lag, candidates who have little chance of winning will begin to hear calls to drop out. Donors will begin cutting off their money. With Mr Trump consolidating his share of the vote, Republican fundraisers and other party leaders will pressure candidates to avoid splitting the non-Trump field.

Already, Will Hurd, the former Texas congressman who has largely been critical of Mr Trump in his campaign despite the fact he did not vote to impeach the former president, released a statement saying his campaign would evaluate the next steps after he failed to qualify for the second debate. Similarly, other candidates like Mr Scott, who has received plaudits from donors and his fellow Republican Senators, will likely need to make crucial decisions about his next step if he fails to stand out among the frontrunners. The same goes for North Dakota Gov Doug Burgum and Mr Pence, both of whom have failed to catch fire.

Separating themselves from Trump

While Mr Trump is hoping to show himself as a friend of the working man as he speaks to union workers, many of the Republican presidential candidates have criticised the union strikes. Mr Scott, for his part, praised Mr Reagan for his firing of air traffic controllers when they went on strike. Ms Haley has hit Mr Biden for supporting organised labour. Mr Biden for his part highlighted both Mr Scott and Ms Haleys words in a recent ad.

Mr Trump shocked much of the political world when he won former Democratic strongholds like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016 and cut it close with Mr Biden again in 2020 despite losing them, largely because of his support among non-college-educated white voters thanks to him largely criticising jobs overseas. Debate moderators will likely ask the candidates whether they can appeal to those same voters Mr Trump brought into the fold.

Shutdown City

The lack of urgency of debates without Mr Trump is emphaised by the fact that it is not even the biggest story about GOP infighting this week. That dubious award goes to Republicans in the House of Representatives who have been unable to come to an agreement to prevent a government shutdown. So far, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been unable to broker an agreement that will make all sides happy.

Much of the business community that bankrolls campaigns loathes the idea of a government shutdown. But in order for Republicans to appeal to base voters, they will likely need to adopt the most extreme language possible.
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I see Laurence Fox is in the news again. "Fox News", you might say.

As one of the repertory company of dual-purpose pundits and presenters in the alt-right echo chamber that is GB News, the former moderately successful actor went off on a rant on the Dan Wooton Show about a perfectly decent journalist, Ava Evans.

Both Fox and Wootton have since been suspended by the channel, which said it would be investigating Foxs comments  which came after Evans, a correspondent with PoliticsJoe, said on TalkTV that men should be frightened to touch women in a way they are not comfortable with.

For that reasonable remark, she was rewarded with a vicious Fox rant that mocked her being spoon-fed feminism and included this highly offensive passage: Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever, who wasnt an incel. We need powerful, strong amazing women who make great points for themselves. We dont need these sort of feminist 4.0. Theyre pathetic and embarrassing. Whod want to shag that?

Host Wootton was seen giggling during Foxs rather violent, unnecessarily sexually graphic spasm and, by way of balance, offered up the view that shes a very beautiful woman (which is, of course, beside the point, as well as proving a feminist point). He also noted that Evans had withdrawn a remark about male suicide.

Evans, on Twitter (now Elon Musks X), objected to Foxs impromptu misogynistic speech and said it made her feel physically sick. Fox, as is his habit, also on X, is defiant about his petulant, intemperate remarks: You are totally entitled to find my mockery of the insane hypocrisy in this world not to your taste, but thats me, and I will continue to be me, as a wise man once said Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Free speech, as ever, is his defence.

Wootton apologised for his abject failings as a host but, it turns out, thanks to a leak by Fox, that he sent chummy text messages to his colleague after the show. When taken along with some other controversy surrounding Woottons private life, his future as a presenter doesnt seem that secure. Nor does Fox look safe right now. The problem is that theres plenty more where they came from

As a piece of television, there was a lot wrong with the segment  even by GB Newss debased standards  but it is hardly a one-off. This sort of stuff is quite routine, though Fox went further with outright sexism than these types usually do.

First, there was, as usual with GB News, no balance in the debate  no one to defend Evans, nor echo and explain her point of view. Sometimes thats not always possible in a studio, if a discussion veers off unexpectedly (as it tends to with Fox around), but at such points the job of the presenter is to butt in, restrain the speaker, add that theyre not there to defend themselves and point out the context.

This is where Wootton failed, now by his own admission, but its been exposed as disingenuous. Indeed, so grievous were the failings on his show that GB News has now suspended the pair of them, admitting Foxs comments were totally unacceptable  with promises to apologise to Evans.

None of what happened is very surprising, though, because GB News has long since descended into being a cesspit of anti-science, anti-vax, climate-denying conspiracy theories within an alt-right, Brexit-fanatic, anti-migrant, anti-woke echo chamber.

It was pretty biased before, when Andrew Neil launched it, but since his departure it has frothed into something like the worst aspects of Fox News.

A presenter named Mark Steyn was so virulently anti-vaccine that GB News eventually had to quietly ask him to indemnify them against Ofcom fines  an offer Steyn, understandably, refused and made public.

The channel is still pure propaganda for cranky rightist causes, and is unashamed at being presented by cranky rightist figures. These are not people for whom pluralist, multicultural Britain is a comfortable place to live. They and their irrational, myth-based views are dangerous.

Television remains a powerful medium, and a huge force in a democratic society. Parliament decided that, in the interests of plurality and healthy public debate, broadcasting could not be allowed to go the way of the press  heavily dominated by owners with an avowed pro-Conservative mission.

If radio and television were to be similarly biased, then democracy would be diminished, and especially at election times. Hence, the BBC charter, relevant clauses in the Representation of the People Act and other legislation, and a succession of regulators, the biggest being Ofcom.

Yet Ofcom is completely asleep at the wheel. It does have some open investigations into the worst excesses of GB News, but the problem is more profound  namely that GB Newss actual purpose is to disrupt and promote right-wing values (not always Tory ones, but invariably populist and reactionary). The channel has created a false dichotomy in which the BBC, ITV and Sky are all biased in favour of the progressive left (which they arent) and set itself up as the antidote.

GB News is thought to be helpful to the Tory cause, and so Ofcom and the government have tolerated it ever since. And it is absurd.

Fox himself, for example, is the actual leader of an atavistic political party called Reclaim, who stood in the Uxbridge by-election where he scored 714 votes and lost his deposit. He doesnt matter, but that doesnt stop GB News giving him a grotesquely disproportionate nightly platform. The preponderance of serving and former right-wing politicians on the channel should itself disqualify them from holding a broadcasting licence.

So at the moment, Richard Tice, leader of the Reform Party, is standing in for Nigel Farage, a GB News regular whose politics needs no introduction. Farage himself is still the president and owner (ie majority shareholder) of the Reform Party.

Another presenter, Martin Daubney  a spectacularly bad broadcaster (check out the video of him grappling with the breaking news of the arrest of Daniel Khalife)  is a former deputy leader of Foxs Reclaim Party. He is also an ex-Brexit Party MEP, as so many are.

The deputy leader of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson MP, has his own show on GB News, as does Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, and grim spousal duo Esther McVey MP and Phil Davies MP. If they all defected to form a GB News Party, theyd be big enough to form their own parliamentary group.

Former Eurosceptic Conservative ministers Michael Portillo and Ann Widdecombe are also regulars, while Michelle Dewberry, a prominent GBeebies personality, stood for Parliament for the Brexit Party. When they do have people on from the left, they are usually quite oddball figures  mavericks with solid Leave credentials, such as Kate Hoey.

Panels are set up with an in-built two-to-one majority for the hard right, plus a plainly biased chair. Gloria de Piero, a former Labour MP for Andersons seat, is sequestered well away from peak time, doing human-interest interviews, with the right of the Tory party more than adequately represented.

The fault in all this partly lies with the owners of the GB News  and but more with its nominal regulator Ofcom. One of the channels shareholders, Sir Paul Marshall, who is extremely rich and, inevitably, runs a hedge fund, is an evangelical Christian who used to be a Liberal Democrat supporter but has since moved to the Brexity right. Hes put 10m into GB News, and also has an interest in UnHerd, the free-thinking opinion website. Now, it is rumoured he wants to play a role in the future of the Telegraph Media Group.

If so, then Marshalls strong connection with GB News may be a problem, both editorially and from a competition point of view.

At any rate, he and the other major shareholder, the hedge fund Legatum, seem content with their channel, broadly speaking. They probably, I guess, therefore dont like some of the stuff Fox and Wootton come out with, and theres some talk of them pushing the barmier stuff web-only, but thats about it. Theyre not about to turn GB News into Newsnight or Question Time.

Fundamentally, things might be better if Ofcom was doing its job properly, but it appears totally supine in the face of GB Newss blatant abuses. Maybe it is terrified of the backlash it may receive if it actually tried to get the station to reflect mainstream political views and parties.

Our media regulator keeps tripping itself up over whether GB News, despite its name, is actually a "news" channel, and has adopted an overly legalistic view of the broadcasting code. They therefore cannot see the public interest wood for the shrubbery of their rule book.

Ofcom tolerates daily, hourly, breaches of the spirit and letter of the law that it would never tolerate from other channels. Tory MPs interview other Tory MPs about what other Tory MPs have said and done. Its nuts.

GB News is a propaganda channel for a particular political agenda  and that should not and cannot be allowed. Why is that news to Ofcom?
Ryan Keeling will be Diaceutics plc's CEO designate when founder Peter Keeling steps down in January

The founder and chief executive of Belfast-based medical technology firm Diaceutics is stepping down after nearly two decades at the helm.

Peter Keeling co-founded the company in 2005, growing it from a small consulting service provider to a listed company which employs 161 people across Europe and North America.

He will step down as chief executive in January, with chief information officer Ryan Keeling becoming chief executive-designate with immediate effect.

A spokesperson for the company said Peter will continue to serve on the board, focusing on accelerating the corporate development of Diaceutics.

Peter said: "It has been an incredible journey building Diaceutics from the ground up. I am immensely proud of what we have achieved, and I am excited for the future.

"Ryan and I have worked closely together since the inception of Diaceutics, and I have every confidence in his ability to lead the company to even greater heights."

Ryan, who is Peters nephew, joined Diaceutics in 2006 and became a member of the board of directors following the company's listing on the AIM in 2019.

The appointee said: "I am deeply honoured to take on this new role. The team of people we have at Diaceutics are very special, they are a team with a strong purpose at their core and over the years we have built a culture that any new CEO would be delighted with".

He added: "Peter and I have been on an incredible journey together, and I look forward to building on the strong foundation we have created. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to him for his relentless dedication, exceptional strategic guidance, and unwavering commitment to our purpose".

A spokesperson for the company added: "Peter Keeling will remain a key advisor to Diaceutics, ensuring a seamless transition of leadership and continued performance in advancing precision medicine and delivering on its purpose to benefit patients worldwide".
Ireland and France oppose signing agreement over farm tariff issues

EU and Irish drinks makers are urging the bloc to finalise a controversial trade deal with four South American countries that is trenchantly opposed by Irish farmers.

The call comes a day after Paraguay issued an ultimatum to the bloc, threatening to walk away from the so-called EU-Mercosur agreement if it is not concluded by December 6.

Ireland and France continue to oppose a deal, which has been more than 20 years in the making, over fears it will result in an influx of cheaper and less environmentally-friendly beef.

James Doherty, chair of the Irish Whiskey Association, said Mercosur was an opportunity for Irish exporters but that an EU deal with India would be a bigger win.

"The more we call it out and keep it on the agenda, the more we can try to create momentum, he said of the Mercosur deal. "By its nature, I think its going to be more problematic than straightforward. The more immediate opportunity for us is India. And hopefully we can push something through in a faster sort of timeline.

Exports of Irish spirits jumped 17pc last year to a record 1.5bn, but producers say they are still subject to onerous tariffs and quotas in many high-growth regions.

In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, Brazilian and EU spirits makers called for a swift conclusion of the Mercosur deal by the end of the year. The statement said the deal would help reinforce climate commitments on both sides.

The statement was published by spiritsEUROPE, which counts Guinness owner Diageo and Jameson owner Pernod Ricard as members.

Overall EU drinks exports to the four countries are worth just 79m, but have more than doubled in the last decade, spiritsEUROPE said in its 2023 trade review, published on Tuesday.

Food and drinks are the EUs third-largest category of goods imports from the Mercosur region, after energy products and animal feed. The EU mainly exports machinery, chemicals and cars to Mercosur.

Trade negotiations between the EU and Mercosur have dragged on for 23 years, despite a trade deal being signed - but not enacted  in 2019.

Talks have made some progress since the four Mercosur nations pledged to sign a side deal with the EU reaffirming their commitment to more sustainable production, including promises on deforestation and labour rights.

This summer, ahead of the EUs first summit with the region in almost a decade, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the Brazilian president she wanted to conclude a deal by the end of the year.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it would not be commenting on the ultimatum issued by recently-elected Paraguayan president Santiago Pena, who told the Financial Times this week that the Mercosur bloc could walk away from the deal and turn to Asia instead.

A Commission spokesperson said the bloc still hoped to conclude negotiations by the end of the year, and that further meetings between trade officials from both sides may be announced this week.

"Mercosur is not good for our livestock sector, and the threat posed by third-country deals that the UK is working through only adds to that, the Irish Farmers Association said. "Given how much we export on to the UK and EU markets, anything that allows higher volumes of product that dont meet our standards would be detrimental."

Climate activist group Greenpeace has called the Mercosur deal toxic for people, animals and nature, and has organised multiple protests against the talks in Brussels.
Regulators will no longer have to go through the courts over price fixing charges against companies

Irish firms can now be spied on and fined directly by the competition authorities if they engage in white collar crimes such as price fixing.

From today, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and ComReg, which regulates the telecoms sector, will exercise sweeping new powers that will save them having to pursue firms through the criminal courts.

Instead of having to wait for lengthy trials to conclude, the CCPC can now fine firms directly for amounts of up to 10m  or 10pc of turnover, whichever is higher  if it finds against them.

Until now, fines could only be imposed by the courts following a criminal prosecution.

The new regime will allow the CCPC to offer full immunity to firms that come forward and admit that they are part of a cartel, as long as they provide evidence on their co-conspirators and are the first company to come forward.

The cartel leniency programme is now open for applications, said CCPC chair Brian McHugh.

He said international evidence shows such whistleblowing programmes are the single most effective way of gathering essential evidence of collusion.

The substantial financial penalties that are now available to the CCPC will be an essential deterrent when tackling white-collar crime, including cartels, said Mr McHugh.

The changes were brought in as part of a 2019 EU directive.

The CCPCs new powers also include the ability to carry out video and audio surveillance and intercept and record emails in cartel investigations, although it will require a High Court order to do so.

The changes will also empower the CCPC to look into smaller mergers if they could have an effect on competition in goods or services markets. Large mergers already have to be notified to and reviewed by the CCPC.

From today, bid-rigging  where a group of suppliers agree not to bid against each other for a contract, often pushing up the final tender price  is expressly outlawed.

Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney said the new law, known as the Competition (Amendment) Act 2022, represents the transformation of competition law in Ireland.

It provides a strong deterrent against engaging in anti-competitive practices, he said.

In providing our competition authorities with new powers we are sending a strong signal that white collar crime will not be tolerated and will be heavily penalised.

Irish regulators such as the Central Bank and Data Protection Commission (DPC) have been increasingly using administrative fines to hold companies to account under EU and Irish law.

The largest fine ever issued by the DPC was 1.2bn against Facebook owner Meta, handed out earlier this year for data transfers to the US. Meta is appealing the order.

The Central Banks biggest ever penalty came last year, when it imposed a fine of just over 100m on Bank of Ireland for regulatory breaches affecting tracker mortgage customers.

Legal experts say the way fines have evolved at other regulators is a lesson for what firms might face from the CCPC if they get caught engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

The EU has been cementing its power through the use of antitrust fines for years. Its biggest fine was a 4bn penalty for Google.
The firm which operates the five-star Merrion Hotel in Dublin last year recorded pre-tax profits of 4.42m.

New accounts filed by Hotel Merrion Ltd show the hotel firm returned to pre-tax profit as revenues increased from 9.85m to 26.78m in the 12 months to the end of last October.

Country music superstar Garth Brooks added to the hotels revenues during the 12 months under review when he stayed at the hotels 3,500 per night penthouse suite during his string of sell-out concerts at Croke Park last September.

The directors state that the hotel had a strong year with the average rates in excess of pre-Covid levels and occupancy at 80pc of those levels.

They add that demand for future bookings into 2023 and beyond continues to be strong.

The directors state that during the 2022 financial year, the Merrion Hotel started the year with continued Covid-19 restrictions.

They point out that as global travel restrictions eased in early 2022 business levels increased significantly.

The pre-tax profits of 4.42m last year follow pre-tax losses of 572,573 in 2021.

The hotels accommodation revenues last year increased from 4.5m to 16.13m while food and beverage revenues almost doubled from 4.38m to 8.59m.

Leisure centre revenues surged from 273,468 to 717,440 while rental income more than doubled from 228,897 to 595,554. Other income increased from 442,621 to 732,966.

The business last year recorded an operating profit of 5.04m and interest payments of 622,198 resulted in the pre-tax profit of 4.42m.

A note attached to the accounts states that the company has also been able to build up a strong cash position with projections showing another strong year for 2023.

The Merrion Hotel has long been a hotel of choice for a host of Hollywood A-listers and music stars when they arrive in Dublin.

The multi-award winning hotel comprises 123 rooms and 19 suites.

Numbers employed at the business last year rebounded further, rising by 19 from 336 to 355 with staff costs increasing sharply from 3.12m to 9.38m.

The pre-tax profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of 1.63m.

The firms cash funds during the year increased from 2.23m to 2.61m.
The social network X, formerly known as Twitter, is the biggest source of fake news, a top European Union official has said, urging owner Elon Musk to comply with the bloc's laws aimed at combating disinformation.

Ahead of upcoming elections, Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Meta also have more to do to tackle disinformation, much of it coming from Russia, which is using social media to wage a war of ideas" against democracy, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said.

Moscow's disinformation operation is a multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation aimed both internally at the Russians as well as at Europeans and the rest of the world, she said at a press briefing in Brussels.

With elections scheduled in Slovakia and Poland in the coming weeks and a bloc-wide vote next year, big online platforms must address the risk of online meddling, she said.

The Kremlin and other malicious actors will try to use the design features of the platforms to manipulate, Ms Jourova said.

She was providing an update on the 27-nation EU's 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation. Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Facebook and Instagram parent Meta signed up to the voluntary code last year, but Twitter dropped out after Mr Musk bought the platform.

X is the platform with the largest ratio of mis- or disinformation posts, Ms Jourova said.

An email to the company's press team seeking comment resulted in an automatically generated reply that said, Busy now, please check back later.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, released a study of six online platforms in Poland, Slovakia and Spain that found Twitter had the highest prevalence of disinformation and biggest ratio of disinformation actors.

Twitter has the highest discoverability of disinformation, the report said.

Ms Jourova warned Mr Musk that "he is not off the hook" just because his company dropped out of the code. The code has been incorporated into a strict new set of mandatory European regulations known as the Digital Services Act, which subjects the biggest online platforms, including X, to the highest level of scrutiny.

Now, there are obligations given by the hard law, so my message for Twitter is: You have to comply with the hard law, and we will be watching what you are doing, she said.

Under the code, online platforms agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation.
Actor Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese at Cannes Film Festival 2023 during a photocall of the film 'Killers Of The Flower Moon'. Photo: Rocco Spaziani

Director Martin Scorsese has suggested he should not have agreed to direct psychological thriller 'Shutter Island'. Photo: Getty

Actor Leonardo Dicaprio, director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert de Niro at the screening of the film 'Killers of the Flower Moon' during the Cannes Film Festival in France earlier this year. Photo: Loic Venance

Martin Scorsese has revealed he regrets one of his many collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio in a thoughtful interview reflecting on his six-decade career.

The legendary filmmaker, 80, who has directed DiCaprio eight times, including in his most recent drama, Killers of the Flower Moon, admitted that in recent years he has soured on one particular release.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro attended the premiere of the film Killers of the Flower Moon at the 2023 Cannes Festival

Speaking with GQ, Scorsese looked back on the psychological thriller Shutter Island, and suggested he should not have agreed to direct it.

According to the director, he made the decision in the wake of his long-awaited Oscars success.

Riding high after winning his first Best Director trophy for the 2006 crime drama The Departed, Scorsese felt encouraged to take on Shutter Island  but, in hindsight, wishes he had attached himself to a different project instead.

He told the outlet that winning the Oscar encouraged me to make another picture with Shutter Island, but it turned out I should have gone on probably to do Silence.

Director Martin Scorsese has suggested he should not have agreed to direct psychological thriller 'Shutter Island'. Photo: Getty

Silence was Scorseses passion project, starring Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield, that he made in 2016. An adaptation of Shusaku Endos novel of the same name, the film follows two Jesuit priests as they travel to Japan on a mission to locate their mentor.

Shutter Island, based on Dennis Lehanes novel of the same name, received generally positive reviews upon its release in 2011, and was even chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top 10 films of the year.

However, in recent years, it appears to be increasingly considered a lesser work of the directors when compared with his more critically acclaimed works, including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and The Age of Innocence (1993).

Its also the only narrative feature film released in the last two decades by Scorsese to have received zero Oscar nominations.

Its unclear whether Scorseses comments were also alluding to the two films he made before 2016s Silence  Hugo (2011) and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Elsewhere in the new interview, Scorsese also addressed several of his other collaborations with DiCaprio, the first of which arrived in 2002 with Gangs of New York  a shoot the director says he struggled with due to the interventions of producer Harvey Weinstein.

In the interview, Scorsese said Weinsteins meddling, which saw him make demands over the films budget and runtime, made him realise that I couldnt work if I had to make films that way ever again.

He added: If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then Id have to stop. Because the results werent satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldnt survive it. Id be dead. And so I decided it.

Actor Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese at Cannes Film Festival 2023 during a photocall of the film 'Killers Of The Flower Moon'. Photo: Rocco Spaziani

However, Scorsese was lured back by The Aviator (2004), his second collaboration with DiCaprio, in which he was forced to work with Weinstein again. The director said the shoot went well until the final few weeks of the edit when Weinsteins company at the time, Miramax, came in and did some things that I felt were extremely mean.

Scorsese suggests in the interview that, despite struggles on both Gangs of New York and The Aviator, he is happy with the result of both films. But he did reveal that he resisted studio demands to completely change the ending of The Departed.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an adaptation of David Granns non-fiction book documenting the string of murders that plagued the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was found on their land. The case was deemed the FBIs first homicide investigation.

The film carries Scorseses tradition fixations: the rotted core of mans heart; how power breeds the impulse for destruction; the myths of cowboys and outlaws and the dirty truth to them.

Killers of the Flower Moon will be the 80-year-old filmmakers first film since The Irishman, which was released in 2019. Its set to be releaed theatrically on October 20, ahead of its premiere on Apple TV+ in November.
Courts

Brothers to stay in jail after appeal of 'cynical and calculated' rape of girl (14) they got comatose drunk fails
Latest | Three more men arrested in connection with 157m cocaine haul dubbed biggest drug seizure in history of the State

Shipment this size would not have entered Irish waters without involvement of an Irish gang, press briefing hearsGardai forensics will start pulling apart the containers holdIrish Navy fired warning shots in effort to force MV Matthew to stopFind is largest drug seizure in the history of the State

Largest seizure in country's history wouldn't have happened without Irish gang, Gardai say

Niall Donald, Ken Foy and Ralph Riegel Wed 27 Sep 2023 at 23:12







Three more men have been arrested by Gardai this evening in connection with a huge cocaine seizure off the Co Cork coast on Tuesday.
A top Dublin university has slashed its weekly car parking rates for students living on campus after a backlash.

The Irish Independent previously reported on plans by Dublin City University (DCU) to charge up to 56 a week for students to park on campus.

However, the university has now cut the weekly rate to just 14  or 10 to park for five days.

Students who are living on campus would have to pay 1.50 an hour, or 5 for a day rate  which is 8am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday  to park their cars in a car park nearby.

This would add up to 56 a week.

But the university has now moved to introduce permits for the week at cheaper rates.

The DCU Students Union had raised concerns about the steep hikes, which were a substantial increase from last years charge of 200 and 150 in previous years.

Before this academic year, students living on campus had to enter a raffle to secure one of the only 70 car park spaces available before paying the charge.

Those who were unlucky in the raffle did not have a parking space.

These permits will be available for campus residents to reserve every Sunday on a first come, first served basis and will cost 10 for a five-day ticket (60 available) or 14 for a seven-day ticket (60 available), said a spokesperson for the university.

The climbdown follows talks between the chief operations officer and director of estates with the students union to review and adjust the new overnight parking arrangements.

The spokesperson said that the students union welcomed the lower rates and that the new system would be more flexible.

For non-overnight parking, there are a range of car parking options available with free daytime parking facilities available on all campuses in addition to the 2 per day in the multi-storey car park on the Glasnevin campus, they said.

DCU student union president Thomas ODowd said it was fantastic news.

This will result in flexible parking for all students living on campus at an affordable price, the union wrote in an Instagram post.

This year, there will be 86 car park spaces available for residents who are living on campus, even though 1,100 students live on campus.

A full year of student accommodation costs 6,403 in the Hampstead apartments, 5,863 in Larkfield and 6,733 in College Park.
The tragic deaths of a mother and her baby boy could have been avoided if the concerns of medical staff about her mental health had been shared with her husband, an inquest has heard.

Darren Coleman told a sitting of Dublin District Coroners Court that he had endured a three-year wait as the only member of my family alive to speak to voice his concerns about the care his wife had received for post-natal depression and the lack of information he was given by her doctors about her condition.

Mr Colemans wife, Nicola Keane  a 34-year-old paediatric nurse from Ballina, Co Mayo  died in the early hours of October 22, 2020. Her tragic death was captured on CCTV and her body was found on a public road.

When Mr Coleman was woken a short time later by gardai who called to the couples home at Shackleton Way, Lucan, Co Dublin, he discovered their seven-month-old son, Henry, in an unresponsive state in a spare bedroom.

The baby boy was pronounced dead shortly after being brought to Childrens Health Ireland at Crumlin.

A jury of six women and one man returned a majority 6-1 verdict of medical misadventure in relation to Ms Keanes death.

The jury separately returned a unanimous narrative verdict in relation to baby Henry who they said had died from ingesting drugs which he had not been prescribed.

The jurors recommended that a post-natal depression programme should be built into ante-natal courses for both parents.

They also recommended the provision of mother and baby in-patient units in hospitals, if they were not already available.

Evidence was heard earlier that Ms Keane told doctors that she was concerned that she might do something because of her sons irritability and her fears they were not bonding, although she repeatedly denied any intention of suicide or harming her son.

On the second day of the inquest on Tuesday, Mr Coleman told the coroner, Crona Gallagher, that he had placed complete and utter trust in the professionals treating his wife.

He said it must have broken his wifes heart when doctors told the couple that he should not leave her alone with their son.

It completely hurt me to have to monitor the person I had been in a relationship with since I was 17 but I trusted the professionals, he observed.

Mr Coleman believed he should have been informed that his wifes medication had been increased twice around a month before her death as well as about any possible side-effects and that doctors had noted that she had delusional beliefs and depressive episodes.

To read about this after their deaths has hurt me so much that I will never recover from it, said Mr Coleman.

The inquest heard Ms Keane had also gone almost two months without a clinical assessment shortly before her death.

Mr Coleman told the inquest that there were 12 days when his wife received no communication from her care team.

He believed he should have been informed that she had not answered her phone on three occasions during this period.

If I had been told even one piece of the information being withheld from me, I believe Henry and Nicola would not have died, he added.

Mr Coleman said he would have immediately taken leave from his teaching job and as hard as it would have been would have taken any necessary steps to have his wife admitted to hospital.

Henry was my focus and his safety was my priority. Nicola had a mental illness and should have been in a psychiatric hospital, he remarked.

Mr Coleman also observed: They allowed me to go to work every day knowing that she has been left alone with my child.

He pointed out that his wife was never asked during six meetings with medical carers before he returned to work if she had any suicidal thoughts or intention of harming their son.

However, Mr Coleman said she was asked that question during seven out of eight contacts after he had gone back teaching and he questioned why there was such an alarming shift.

Mr Coleman said he discovered the meaning of his life on the day his son was born.

It was just so special. I loved it and I loved him more than a person can describe, he told the inquest.

Mr Coleman said he was an extremely private person who had waited for the inquest to have his opinion heard and listened to.

Today is for me. Today is for Henry. Today is for Nicola, said Mr Coleman.

He said he cried for the first time on July 7, 2020 when he feared his son might be taken from them after Ms Keane told a psychiatrist about a lack of a bond with her baby.

He recalled that she also stated that she would be happy if she didnt wake up.

However, he said they were reassured by the psychiatrist, Elena Perez, that 1 in 4 women suffered from post-natal depression.

Mr Coleman said he was really annoyed at the meeting when it was suggested to him that he must start doing more.

He described how he was told during a home visit by a mental health nurse three days later that he should not leave his wife alone with the baby.

As a result, Mr Coleman said he would stand outside the bathroom when she would be giving their son a bath.

He recalled stressing to doctors at another appointment in August 2020 that he was returning to his teaching job in two weeks but that they never mentioned any worries about this.

He also expressed surprise that his wifes medication was being increased at a time when an improvement had been noticed in her condition.

Mr Coleman said the only time his wife was upset and annoyed was when she was given an information sheet on helpful thinking styles in September 2020 as she could not understand how that was the way of helping her.

He recalled how the weeks before the death of his wife and son were all about the future with plans for Henrys christening and booking a short family holiday and looking forward to Christmas.

A paediatric psychologist at CHI Crumlin, Aoife Twohig, told the inquest that she had arranged an urgent psychiatric review of Ms Keane in July 2020 because of her concerns about Ms Keanes mental health.

In other evidence, Dr Perez said she assessed the risk with Ms Keane on the last occasion she saw her about a fortnight before her death as extremely low as she was improving.

Asked by counsel for Mr Coleman, Sara Antoniotti SC, why Ms Keane was not referred to perinatal mental health services, Dr Perez said the deceased had been responding to treatment.

We felt we were on the right pathway and doing what we needed to do, she replied.

The psychiatrist, who broke down after leaving the witness box, confirmed that Ms Keane had never asked her not to pass information to her husband.

She could not recall if she had ever considered contacting Mr Coleman herself about him returning to work.

Asked by Dr Gallagher if it was possible that increasing Ms Keanes dosage of an anti-depressant with serious side-effects had increased the risk of suicide or harming her son, Dr Perez replied: I dont think so.

Assistant State Pathologist, Margot Bolster, said a postmortem showed that Ms Keane suffered multiple fractures which were injuries consistent with a fall from a height, while death would have been instantaneous.

Dr Bolster said alcohol and drugs had played no role in her death.

The pathologist said the lack of drugs in Ms Keanes body meant she had not taken her prescribed medication for up to 20 hours before her death.

Dr Bolster said an autopsy on the baby revealed he had a lethal level for adults of an anti-psychotic drug (that had been prescribed for Ms Keane) which in combination with a sedative had caused his death.

She said it was impossible to say if the baby had been given an intentional overdose.

The inquest heard CCTV footage captured Ms Keane driving her Ford Fiesta across the M50 toll bridge as far as the Red Cow junction and returning back over the bridge and doubling back again.

Detective Inspector Brian Hanley said a text message was sent by Ms Keane to her husband around the first time she drove over the bridge at 3.12am.

The coroner said the message contained Ms Keanes worry that she had harmed her son even before he was born and that he deserved a better life but it was too late as there was nothing to be done.

Dr Gallagher said it was clear that the deceased had a very hopeless state of mind.

Det Insp Hanley said most of the message had been composed over five weeks earlier.

He said gardai believed there had been a deliberate act to give drugs to the baby but he could not say what Ms Keane intended in doing so.

In a closing submission, Ms Antoniotti said Ms Keanes son would not have died if she had received treatment in a hospital, while his death was also linked to the failure of doctors to discuss the risk to the baby with her husband.

Ms Antoniotti said Ms Keane was clearly mentally unwell with fixed false beliefs.

At the conclusion of the inquest solicitor for the HSE and CHI Crumlin, Simon Mills SC, said a number of verdicts were possible but not medical misadventure as suggested by Ms Antoniotti.

At the conclusion, solicitor for the HSE and CHI Crumlin, David Hickey, expressed sincere and heartfelt condolences to the Coleman and Keane families.

If you are affected by any issue in this article, please contact Pieta House on 1800-247247 or the Samaritans can be contacted 24/7 on freephone 116 123 or e-mail jo@samaritans.ie
Trinity College Dublin has climbed to 134th place in the latest global university league table, but low staffing levels in higher education generally continue to hold Ireland back.

While Irish universities score well in some measures, the countrys relatively high student:staff ratios puts a dampener on their ambitions for better overall ratings.

This is a consequence of a shortfall in funding and Government-imposed restrictions on employment levels, dating back to banking crisis, which are only starting to be reversed.

International rankings are valued for their influence in attracting both research funding from industry and business and international students and academics.

Trinity moved up 27 positions this year in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024. and is the only Irish university in the top 200 .

University College Dublin (UCD) comes second for Ireland, in the 201-250 bracket, unchanged from last year.

Meanwhile, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences slipped down into the group ranked between 251-300, while University of Galway and University College Cork are unchanged, between 301-350.

Dublin City University, Maynooth University and University of Limerick (UL) are in the 401-500 group, representing significant progress for UL, up from the 601-800 bracket last year.

UL made the biggest move year-on year-among Irish universities and is in the top 500 for the first time in the 20-year history of the rankings.

Technological University Dublin also features, unchanged from the 1,001-1,200 bracket.

The rankings cover almost 2,000 of the best universities (out of a global total of about 21,000 accredited institutions ) in 108 countries and regions, with competition growing all the time.

Universities were measured across 18 different performance indicators covering their core missions of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation, up from 13 metrics last year.

The UKs University of Oxford is ranked the best in the world, with two US institutions, Stanford University, California, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in second and third place, respectively.

Ireland performs well in international indicators, especially the international staff, and has a research quality similar to the Top500 in the world, but performs poorly in staff-student ratio, according to THE.

This week, UCD president Orla Feely noted how student:staff ratios in Ireland were worse than the recession-ridden 1980s. At more than 20:1, they are second worst in almost 40 OECD countries.

UL is celebrating its elevation to the top 500, with president Prof Kirsten Mey describing the mid-west universitys showing as a milestone achievement.

She said the rankings are not just numbers or symbols of prestige, they reflect a universitys global standing and its impact on society.

The universitys progress is partly a reflection of a strong research performance, while it has also put a concerted effort into ensuring that its achievements are recorded with rankings organisations, such as THE.

Last year, UL set up an internal rankings working group, drawn from across the university and led by the Office of the Vice President Research, which focusses exclusively on rankings submissions.

UL vice president global and community engagement Prof Nigel Healey said universities operated in a very crowded global environment and for a research-led university seeking to attract and inspire the worlds brightest minds, being ranked in the Top 500 was important.

THEs chief global affairs officer Phil Baty said several updates to methodology this year included unprecedented levels of breadth, depth, detail and assessment of data making it the most rigorous and robust ranking of its kind in the world.

Simply being included in the ranking is something to celebrate, as we focus on a few thousand research-active, globally-focussing universities among tens of thousands of higher education institutions worldwide, he said.

Four of the five new metrics include three that look at research quality and one examining patents in the industry pillar.

On research performance, 16.5 million research papers were analysed, one million more than last year. Additionally, 134 million citations were examined, compared with last years 121 million.
Frontline gardai will withdraw services in November and refuse to work overtime on key dates including Budget Day and Halloween as part of the worsening roster row.

The drastic measures mean the approximate 11,000 members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) will effectively refuse to acknowledge working hours that are set to be introduced on November 6.

The Blue Flu action, dubbed "Drew Flu" by rank-and-file gardai over the association's continuing row with Commissioner Drew Harris, was passed by delegates at a special conference in Kilkenny this afternoon.

The motion passed means that gardai will not work voluntary overtime on October 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31, which includes Budget Day and Halloween.

Both of these days require significant garda resources, largely reliant on overtime, to ensure there are sufficient numbers to police Dublin.

It's understood that several public order units from the Eastern Region are to be drafted into the city on Budget Day on overtime, which now looks in doubt.

Gardai have also voted to withdraw services on November 10 if the situation isnt resolved. This is the fifth day of the new roster, which under current working hours would be a rest day.

However, under the new roster gardai would work six consecutive days of 10 hours followed by four days off.

It means gardai will effectively refuse to acknowledge the pre-pandemic roster that Commissioner Harris intends to revert to.

GRA General Secretary Ronan Slevin said: We the Officer Board are not surprised by the decision of our Delegates today. Two weeks ago 99pc of over 9,000 of our members voted no confidence in the Garda Commissioner. What the delegates decided today was to just reaffirm that position.

Over the past two weeks we had hoped that the Commissioner would take stock of the feelings on the ground with frontline gardai struggling with stress and low morale caused by uncertain working conditions and a poor working environment.

We have tried to get the attention of the Commissioner and impress on him the many concerns affecting his own work force. However, what we have been met with is blind inaction and a dogged single-minded approach to the rosters situation which has strengthened our resolve and reiterates our lack of confidence in the Commissioners leadership.

This follows a meeting with Garda Commissioner Drew Harris this week which the GRA described as a "complete waste of time" and leading to "irreparable" relations.

The GRA have been at loggerheads with Mr Harris over his plans to revert to a pre-pandemic roster.

The association has said it cannot enter into negotiations offered by the Commissioner unless the deadline is deferred, which he has refused to do.

Mr Slevin this week described a meeting on roster negotiations with Commissioner Drew Harris was "a complete waste of time".

He also said that Mr Harris has "invited conflict" and that relations between the Garda chief and the association were "irreparable".

The four garda associations, representing rank-and-file members. supervisors and management, have held various meetings with Mr Harris in recent days over the roster dispute.

After the meeting the GRA's General Secretary Ronan Slevin said that it was a "complete waste of time" and that their relationship with Mr Harris is "in many ways irreparable".

A Garda spokesperson confirmed that Garda management and the four Garda Associations will meet tomorrow.

This is the second time that the Garda Commissioner will have met the Garda associations this week. The Commissioner also met the Garda associations twice last week.

At the meeting on Tuesday of this week, the Commissioner asked all four associations to consider possible next steps to enable talks on a collective agreement on a new roster to be advanced and to make submissions on this at Thursdays meeting for consideration.

No final decision has been made on this matter in advance of Thursdays meeting. Throughout the three years of talks between Garda management and the Garda associations on a new roster involving over 60 meetings, the Commissioner has repeatedly stated that he is willing to compromise to reach agreement on a new roster, the spokesperson said.
Investigators believe the girl may have inhaled aerosol after seeing a 'challenge' on TikTok. Photo: Reuters

The 14-year-old took ill at a property in the south-west of the country over the weekend and was rushed to a Dublin hospital.

She was pronounced dead on Monday morning. Gardai have notified the coroner of the death and an investigative file is being prepared.

At this stage, investigators believe the teenager became seriously ill after inhaling aerosol after seeing a challenge on TikTok. The trend is commonly known as chroming.

One source described what happened as an extremely tragic incident but said it could take some time to establish the exact circumstances surrounding the schoolgirls death.

Emergency services were called to the teenagers aid on Friday. She was transported to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin before being moved to Childrens Health Ireland, Crumlin.

A garda spokesperson said: An Garda Siochana have notified the coroner of the death of a girl (14) which occurred at Crumlin Childrens Hospital. An Garda Siochanas focus is the preparation of an investigation file for the coroner.

The teen  who is from a very respected family  was a second-year student.

The principal of her school told the Irish Independent it has triggered its critical incident response plan and is receiving support from the Department of Education.

This is a tragedy for the family, for the community and for our school, the principal said. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this most difficult time.

We have put in place supports for her friends and classmates, and anyone else in the school who is impacted by this terrible tragedy.

A spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement: Our deepest sympathies are with the family experiencing this tragic loss. Content of this nature is prohibited on our platform and would be removed if found. We will continue to prioritise protecting and supporting our community, working with expert partners and providing safety resources to those who need them.
The Peter McVerry Trust is one of the most high profile housing and homeless charities in the country Photo: PA

THE State regulator for approved housing bodies has appointed inspectors to the Peter McVerry Trust (PMVT) to investigate allegations of financial irregularities at the housing and homelessness charity.

The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority (AHBRA) confirmed on Tuesday that it had appointed inspectors to the PMVT, one of the most high-profile homelessness charities in the country, in response to queries.

In a public notice posted to its website the AHBRA said it had determined that a statutory investigation is required "having identified concerns in relation to the organisation".

It said it was first notified "a number of financial and governance issues by PMVT through the notifiable events process in July" of this year.

Government sources signalled the development was significant and concerned allegations of financial irregularities.

One senior figure said the possibility of the charity needing an immediate bailout has already been mentioned.

PMVT received more than 38m in state funding in 2021, which accounted for most of its 53m in income that year.

The charity confirmed last month that it was experiencing cash flow pressures that are more acute than would traditionally be the case.

AHBRA said in a statement on Tuesday it has appointed inspectors pursuant to Section 46 of the Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019, to conduct a statutory investigation of the Peter McVerry Trust (PMVT).

It added: It is important to note that the commencement of a statutory investigation is not in itself a finding of any wrongdoing. The appointed inspectors have been asked to prepare and submit to AHBRA a report on their investigation and findings. AHBRA will not be making any further comment while the investigation is ongoing.

In a statement PMVT said it had been engaging with AHBRA since it notified it of "significant cashflow issues" in July and was notified of the appointment of inspectors to the charity on Tuesday afternoon.

"This is an important part of transparency and accountability for our organisation, and we will work with the inspectors and AHBRA in the best interest of the over 2,000 service users and tenants as well as the staff that support them," the statement said.

A Department of Housing spokesperson said "statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of homeless services rests with individual housing authorities".

They added: "In July the Peter McVerry Trust informed the DRHE [Dublin Regional Homeless Executive] and the Department of potential financial issues in the Trust. PMVT has advised the Department that the Charities Regulator and ABHRA have been informed.

"The DRHE have initiated an independent review into financial and governance matters and while this process is ongoing the Department will not comment any further.

The Currency reported last week that the accountancy firm PWC had identified serious financial issues at PMVT that could require exceptional funding urgently amid concerns it does not have sufficient funds to cover its cost as soon as the end of the month.

The charity, which says it has worked with over 12,000 people and was active in 28 local authorities across Ireland last year, was founded by Fr Peter McVerry, a Jesuit priest and homelessness campaigner, in 1983.

The Department of Housing does not fund any homeless service directly but instead provides funding to local authorities which provides this funding towards the operational costs of homeless accommodation and related services.

News of the financial issues at PMVT was first reported by The Business Post in mid-August.
Nobody wakes up one morning with an epiphany as to what they want to do for the rest of their life. Most of us arrive at the point of choosing a college course, career or next step through a process of research and reflection. This will have begun many years ago as young people become aware of their talents, interests and the world of work. However, now is the time to deeply engage in research as we try to reach decisions about what our next step should be.

College open days are an essential tool for those who are considering their options. There is nothing like visiting a campus, taking tours and speaking to staff to gain a clearer understanding of the content of a course and whether or not it may be a good match. October and November are the busiest months of the year for open days.

Most sixth years have not completed the depth of research required to gain an accurate perspective on course content, and attending any campus for the first time can be extremely overwhelming. It is essential to engage in some pre-event planning in order to make the best use of this day.

Create a list of events that you would like to attend. An excellent events calendar can be found on careersportal.ie. This website will allow you to create your own personal file, which will allow you to keep track of research that needs to be prioritised.

CAO institutions offer a huge number of courses. Their offerings can be overwhelming and it can be difficult to know where to begin. So begin at home.

Take out the prospectus or head to the website. Explore the courses on offer and read the descriptions. Dont presume to know what a course is from the title and, at least, skim all courses even if the title suggests it may not be for you. Remember, the goal is to find as many maybe courses as possible to fill up the 20 slots on the CAO form. It will be possible to narrow them down later. Make a list of questions you would like answered as you go and be sure to bring them with you on the day.

Then, log into the college website and use their open day tools to plan the day. Look particularly for a map of the campus as well as lists, times and locations of talks and events. Check out their social media accounts as you will often find more information there and plan your day.

Dont overschedule yourself. Leave some time to soak up the atmosphere and get a feel for the place. Collecting as many nuggets of information as you can will help you be confident in your decisions in the future.

Aoife Walsh is guidance counsellor at Malahide Community School, Co Dublin
The maximum age for enlistment in the Permanent Defence Forces will be increased from 29 to 35, according to a new measures for improving recruitment and retention in the military.

The measure is included in the strategic framework for the transformation of the defence forces.

As of the end of August 2023, the strength of the Permanent Defence Forces stood at 7,671, with 6,221 Army, 755 Navy and 695 Air Corps.

The current establishment of the Permanent Defence Forces is almost 9,600, with the ambition to move to 11,500 (including civilian staff) by 2028.

The immediate focus is on stabilising the numbers of personnel in the Defence Forces before then increasing the strength to meet the level of ambition arising from the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces.

Defence Forces engineers check manholes and drains ahead of a visit from US President Joe Biden (Niall Carson/PA)

As part of a range of measures to be completed within the next 15 months, the framework says the maximum enlistment age will be increased from 29 to 35.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said: As Minister for Defence I am committed to the radical reform of our Defence Forces.

While much progress has been made to date, there is undoubtedly more work to do.

Amongst my priorities is cultural change within the Defence Forces  ensuring that it is an equal opportunities employer where all members are treated with dignity, in an organisation that continuously evolves to deliver positive change.

I want progress to be seen internally within the Defence Forces, and to be reported externally.

Clear and irrefutable evidence of change on the ground is the only thing that will rebuild the trust and confidence of serving members.
Splitting VAT rates for hotels and restaurants could be considered in the medium to long term, Tourism Minister Catherine Martin has said.

The Minister told the Hospitality and Tourism Forum this morning that splitting the two VAT rates could be looked at.

It is understood that direct talks on the issue are not taking place with Finance Minister Michael McGrath in the lead up to Budget 2024.

One source said the Minister said the new VAT rate would be for "down the line" and not Budget 2024.

It would require a lot of work and this would not be completed by Budget 2024, said a government source.

Minister Martin said she asked the Department of Finance to look into the possibility of a split VAT rate when speaking to Finance Minister Michael McGrath earlier this week.

The split rate is something that the sector is seeking and I asked him if it was something the Department would look at in the future and I was quite clear that it wasnt in the context of the Budget, she said.

I said I would ask Minister McGrath to give consideration in the future to the possibility of a split rate but it wasnt in the context of Budget negotiations."

Minister Martin said she had her Budget bilateral with Minister McGrath on Tuesday.

She said the Minister was keeping his cards close to his chest when asked if he had given her any indications on what measures would be taken on board.

The restaurant industry has often lobbied the Government for the VAT rates for hospitality to be split and apply separately to restaurants and hotels.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) has lobbied the Government for a lower VAT pandemic rate of 9pc to be kept after it went back to 13.5pc in recent weeks.

However, Cabinet ministers, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, have already said the 9pc rate will not be returning in Budget 2024.

TDs have said privately that spiralling hotel room prices in recent months did not help the hospitality industrys case in pushing for the lower rate to be kept.

However, splitting the VAT rate may mean that a lower rate may apply for restaurants and pubs but not hotels.

Separately, the Media Minister said she will be receiving the New Era report this afternoon, which scrutinises the bailout requested by RTE to the tune of 50m.

This report will not be published due to commercial sensitivities.

She was speaking in the National Gallery of Ireland as she announced her intention to set up committee which will advise on the representation of women in National Cultural Institutions.

This may include a womens museum, a re-imagining of the National Collection or other initiatives that the committee decides on.
A huge increase in spinal surgeries has not led to any fall in the waiting period, the Minister for Health has told the Dail.

Mr Donnellys remarks had TDs speculating about children undergoing many repeat surgeries before others can get their first op.

Because of significant extra investment, the level of activity and the number of spinal surgeries has gone way up, which is very important, Mr Donnelly said.

However, in spite of the amount of activity significantly increasing -- not just in the Covid years, but in pre-Covid years -- the waiting list has not fallen.

I have not yet had an answer from Childrens Health Ireland (CHI) that I am satisfied with as to why, if the number of spinal surgeries has significantly increased, as it has, the other part of this has not happened.

He said CHI had signed up to waiting lists falling in return for the investment leading to more theatre time.

I want an external independent view as to why that has not happened -- because I believe we are all absolutely at one in this House on agreeing that the four-month waiting list target, unless clinically indicated, must be met for every boy, every girl, every young man, and every young woman, Mr Donnelly said.

I've specifically directed that the review incorporates a service level examination of paediatric spinal services across the Children's Health Ireland hospitals, he said.

A sum of 90m was allocated specifically for paediatric spinal and orthopaedic services last year, he said.

Important things are happening as a result of that money, including this week a new theatre opening at Temple Street. Shortly there'll be a new MRI machine opening in Crumlin.

But at the same time he noted that nobody at all had sought the opinion of the Health Products Regulatory Authority on the proposed use of non-CE springs.

Sinn Fein spokesman David Cullinane and Social Democrats TD Roisin Shortall both said they believed the affair could not be confined to one individual.

A spring in a child with spinal curvature has broken and may have corroded because it is not made of titanium, People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy told the Dail.

Mr Murphy said the unlicensed implant remains in the child, while two others have caused broken ribs and have been removed after multiple operations.

Neither relates to the case of Dollceanna Carter, the 10-year-old girl who passed away last year after spinal surgery.

Mr Donnelly has announced a comprehensive new probe, to be led by Selvadurai Nayagam, a consultant in orthopaedics at two childrens hospitals in Liverpool.

The review will go as deep and as wide as is necessary, Mr Donnelly said, adding that its task is three-fold.

Firstly, the internal CHI clinical review and the (external) review looked at the clinical outcomes of a specific group of patients with Spina Bifida. This was because concerns were raised by the Spina Bifida team in Temple Street, and there was particular concern around a specific surgical procedure, kyphectomy. Both found that the rates of complications were higher than internationally expected. There is more to learn about why that was the case and if there is a wider group of patients that may have been impacted by these factors, Mr Donnelly said.

Secondly, these reviews did not examine wider aspects relevant to surgical practice at Temple Street. They also raised further questions about aspects of culture and governance that require a deeper examination. And thirdly, the issue of the non-CE springs was not part of these reviews, as this emerged later.

The terms of reference for Mr Nayagams review as drafted are intended to be further defined by him as he properly gets into his work, including via his interactions with patients and families affected.
Members of Crosshaven Fire Brigade help pensioner Donal Sullivan from his home which was blocked by a fallen tree in Blacrock, Cork (Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision)

Pensioner Donal Sullivan is helped from his home by members of Crosshaven Fire Brigade (Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision)

A pensioner had to be rescued by the fire brigade from his Cork home after he was trapped inside by a fallen tree at the height of Storm Agnes.

Donal Sullivan stayed calm and collected when he heard a loud rumbling noise outside his Blackrock home - and discovered to his shock that a large tree had fallen and had blocked the exit from his home.

Over a dozen trees were brought down around Cork as the county suffered the brunt of the first major storm of the autumn.

Thousands of householders were also left without power as the power grid was hit by fallen trees and storm debris across the south-west.

Winds gusted close to 120kmh in Cork as the county is also expected to receive more than 40mm of rainfall in torrential downpours.

Having realised he couldn't get out of his home because of the fallen tree, Donal was able to raise the alarm.

A unit of Cork Fire Brigade, based at Crosshaven, was assigned to his rescue.

Neighbours also attended to offer any help they could to Donal.

Brigade personnel were able to use cutting equipment to remove some of the heaviest limbs from the fallen tree and were then able to carefully lift the pensioner outside.

Storm Agnes: Flooding and power outages and roof ripped off building as Ireland braces for gusts of up to 130kmh

Donal was uninjured in the incident - and locals joked that he now has enough firewood to last him for five years.

No major damage was caused to the structure of Donal's home but an assessment of the damage caused by the fallen tree will be carried out once the powerful winds subside.

A number of roads around Cork have been blocked by fallen trees while flooding has also hit roads in areas such as Kilumney and Glanmire.

Flights into Cork Airport have also been disrupted.

ESB Networks repair crews are on standby to deal with any damage to the power network but warned that such work will only be undertaken when it is safe to do so.

Cork City Council have also issued a tidal flood alert with a significant storm surge expected to hit the city on Wednesday evening.

While some low-lying roads are expected to be impacted by high tide, the council said it does not anticipate any property damage.

However, motorists have been warned not to park their vehicles along low-lying roads or quays which are traditionally subject to flooding.
Committee hears the benefits of assisted dying as well as concerns from a doctor who has seen the accepted categories widen over the years

Silvan Luley, of Dignitas, described assisted suicide as an option for an "emergency exit door which provides emotional relief and can prevent people from using rough methods". Stock image. Photo: Getty

Twelve people from Ireland have availed of assisted dying with the Swiss clinic Dignitas since 2003, an Oireachtas committee was told today.

It also heard from another expert that in the Netherlands there is government regulation allowing parents to request euthanasia for a child who is extremely ill.

Children in the Netherlands need to have the permission of their parents if they are seeking euthanasia but from the age of 16 they just need to inform their parents.

Silvan Luley, of Dignitas, described assisted suicide as an option for an "emergency exit door which provides emotional relief and can prevent people from using rough methods".

He said voluntary assisted dying should be legalised as a choice for the Irish alongside other options to soothe suffering and improving quality of life, be it palliative care, hospice work, suicide prevention, good care in old age and other supports.

Dignitas has members from around 100 countries and assists in about 200 to 250 suicides annually, mainly in people from neighbouring countries, he told the Joint Committee on Assisted Dying, which is chaired by deputy Michael Healy-Rae.

More women than men seek the service and less than 50pc are terminally ill at the time.

"The number of assisted deaths rising has very much to do with a change in the culture of how we live today," he said.

There are two large non-profit right-to-die organisations in Switzerland that have more than 170,000 members, but the number of people making use of assisted suicide is 1,400 per year.

"Many more people sign up than finally make use of it. People sign up, like insurance, such as health insurance, and may never need it in their lives.

"Once they request assisted suicide and sign documents, they can say they do not want to continue all through the process. They can pause it and at another point hand in the documents."

They may get a provisional green light from a physician who has to issue a prescription but 50pc of these people do not proceed.

People can change their mind at the last minute and may change to palliative care instead, he added.

Theo Boer, a professor of healthcare ethics at the Protestant Theological University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said: "I switched from being moderately supportive of the Dutch euthanasia law to being increasingly critical.

"After years of relative stability and increasing transparency in the early 2000s, the numbers are now rising significantly year after year.

I am convinced that it is only a matter of time before we take the next hurdle  allowing children of dementia patients to request euthanasia for their demented parents

"In the past 20 years, the numbers have quadrupled. In some neighbourhoods, assisted deaths account for 15pc to 20pc of all deaths.

"The reason why the average is still at a relatively low 5.2pc nationally is that in some predominantly rural areas the percentage is well under 2pc, but here too we see catching up.

Secondly, we see an expansion of the pathologies underlying a request to die from patients who dread to spend their last days or weeks in pain and agony  the category of patients that once was the most important reason for assisted dying advocacy. We see a shift to patients who fear years or decades of loneliness, limitations, and care dependency.

We now have a governmental regulation that allows parents to request euthanasia for their young children. I am convinced that it is only a matter of time before we take the next hurdle  allowing children of dementia patients to request euthanasia for their demented parents."

Assisted suicide should not be illegal when it can be proved the patient knew what they were doing and was not under pressure, he added.

"The doctor should be allowed to kill sometimes but they have done that through ages," he said.

He said in the Netherlands children aged 12 to 15 need the permission of their parents for euthanasia, but over 16 they just need to inform them.

Out of 4,000 assisted suicides he examined, just four were under 18, including three who were 17 and one 12-year-old.

Allowing parents to request it for their very young children broke the consensus that it was only for competent patients, he added.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is to meet with some of the affected families today. Photo: Getty

The use of unlicensed springs in spinal surgery on three children with spina bifida at Temple Street Hospital was not referred to an ethics body for approval and assessment of safety, it has emerged.

To ensure the protection of patients, the National Research Ethics Committees should be notified of the use of medical devices that do not have a CE safety mark.

This notification to the body would only apply if the use of the devices fell under research studies in the area of medical devices. It is still unclear if the use qualified as research study .

The office is not responsible for approval or assessment of safety for the clinical use of devices.

It conducts an assessment before deciding whether approval should be given for research to ensure the safety, dignity and wellbeing of patients before it proceeds.

The three children were among 19 spina bifida patients operated on at the hospital who suffered serious post-surgery complications.

Emily Vereker, who heads the office of the National Research Ethics Committees, said it has not received an application for ethics assessment of a clinical investigation in relation to the medical devices  recently described in the media as compression springs  and referred to in relation to spinal surgery at Temple Street.

It comes as Childrens Health Ireland (CHI) confirmed yesterday a clinical review of complex spinal surgeries carried out at Crumlin Hospital was carried out and the executive team who had seen the report were assured by the results.

The report came to light only in recent days after parents met doctors.

A spokeswoman for CHI said: As part of CHIs internal quality assurance processes, CHI at Crumlin undertook a clinical review of complex spinal surgery outcomes for patients with spina bifida.

It was approved by the site-based directorate team in September, and is currently going through the required governance process. It will be published in full as soon as these internal processes are completed, by Thursday morning.

Members of the CHI executive team have seen the report and are assured by the results. In addition, and important to note, no clinical concerns about spinal surgery outcomes have been raised in CHI at Crumlin to date.

Parents groups had called for its immediate publication after learning of its existence in recent days. An internal review does not need the permission of patients to examine the childrens files.

The parents are now anxious to find out the names of the children whose cases were part of the Crumlin review.

The internal review had not been raised with the parents during quarterly meetings they have with Crumlin staff.

It also emerged yesterday that a special clinic was held for the children at the centre of the review on Saturday and a plan for their care and treatment was discussed. Meanwhile, following an appeal by parents, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has agreed to meet them.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly will begin a series of meetings with the groups today. His spokesman said the ministers office invited all advocacy groups to meetings and as of yesterday, two had accepted. He said one group asked for a virtual meeting and the other requested it be in person.

Neither of these meetings had been limited to 30 minutes, he added.

An external review into the Temple Street cases is to be headed by consultant Selvadurai Nayagam. He is being given broad terms of reference and can decide how far the review will extend.

He is due in Dublin on Monday to meet with the minister and HSE chief Bernard Gloster. The minister said he would seek the views of parents, who are insisting the areas looked at must extend across all hospitals and cover wide-ranging areas of concern.
A 48-foot cruiser is the latest unusual accommodation to launch in Ireland

The 48-foot cruiser in its berth

"People were always asking about staying on a boat for the night and trying it out, says Ray Byrne, owner of Wineport Lodge on the shores of Lough Ree, Co Westmeath.

Well, now they can.

This autumn, the Blue Book bolthole is offering guests the option of a new aquatic accommodation aboard a luxury Dutch Steel Cruiser moored outside.

The MV Full Circle is a 48-foot, six-berth boat featuring two double cabins with their own bathrooms, and a small cabin with bunks.

The 48-foot cruiser in its berth

"It is really warm and toasty at night and only 10 paces from the Wineport Lodge, Byrne says. It will give people a little taster of sleeping on the water and the calmness that comes with it.

And the price?

The cruiser is yours from 500 per night, sleeping up to six. The rate includes full breakfast for all in the Wineport Lodge.

The master bedroom in MV Full Circle

Byrne is involved in several hotels in Ireland, including the Club at Goffs - where Derry and Sallyanne Clarke returned to the restaurant business  The Eccles in Glengarriff, Co Cork, and the REZz collection of budget hotels.

MV Full Circle, with its cherrywood panelling, fluffy towels, slippers, bathrobes and organic shower products adds "a classy yacht club vibe to the exclusive boating break, he says.

And the catch?

The cruiser stays securely moored at all times  guests cannot take it out for sailings on Lough Ree.

An aerial view of Wineport Lodge

The new arrival comes as accommodations and visitor experiences around the island continue to grow in imaginative ways.

This summer, a double-decker bus dubbed Dervla Dekker opened in Co Waterford, while a 33-foot Hot Tub Boat is offering tours of Lough Ree with a specially-fitted hot tub on board.

MV Full Circle will be available at Wineport Lodge for as long as people would like to stay on it, Byrne says.
Children sit on a curb as residents gather in central Stepanakert to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inhabited by ethnic Armenians, on Monday. Photo: Reuters

An entire community may be on the verge of abandoning its ancestral homeland. After a months-long blockade by Azerbaijan, thousands of ethnic Armenians motored out of their highland enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh towards sanctuary in Armenia.

They were leaving behind towns and villages that have sat for years within Azerbaijans internationally recognised territory, but which had maintained de facto autonomy in the form of the unrecognised republic of Artsakh, a medieval Armenian name for the contested region.
Killiney Castle Hotel, where a hotel room costs anywhere between 209 and 364 for a nights stay

RTE paid for Fair City producers and scriptwriters to stay at a 200-a-night four-star hotel just 20 minutes drive from its Montrose campus.

While RTE claim they are strapped for cash, the memo may not have made its way to the streets of Carrigstown, as staff from the shows team spent 2 days at Killiney Castle for a residential story conference earlier this month.

The Dails public spending watchdog is seeking legal advice on whether it can compel RTE documents and individuals.

The powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is expecting to receive legal advice this week from the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (OPLA) in the Oireachtas.

Meanwhile is Patrick Kieltys acclaimed start in the late last show hotseat already running out of steam as the viewership takes a big dip for the second episode.

Fionnan Sheahan is joined on the Indo Daily podcast by Hugh OConnell, Deputy Political Editor at the Irish Independent, and Dee Molumby, Features Journalist at the Irish Independent, to look at the latest plot twists in the RTE soap opera.
The Irish Navy fired warning shots at the MV Matthews to force the ship to stop leaving Irish waters. What was discovered next could be the biggest drugs seizure ever in Irish history estimated at over 156 million. The Indo Daily explains the dramatic scenes which have unfolded in our seas this week and ask what it reveals about the Irish drugs trade.

The MV Matthew was escorted into Cobh, Co Cork, by the Navy

How a stranded trawler led the navy to its Mothership  the MV Matthew - and a multi-million drugs bust.

On Sunday Night around 11.30pm, the coast guard receive a distress call from a fishing trawler that hit a sandbank off Wexford. It seemed like a normal call-out until the rescue team were met with radio silence.

By Tuesday, elite army ranger officers were storming a much larger vessel off the coast of Cork in scenes like something from a movie.

Today on the Indo Daily podcast, Kevin Doyle is joined by Padraig Byrne, journalist at the Wexford People, and by Paul Williams, special correspondent at the Irish Independent, to explain the dramatic scenes which have unfolded in our seas this week and what it reveals about the Irish drugs trade.
Mind-blowing experiments and dazzling displays will be the order of the day at the free popular STEM showcase event

Thousands of people are expected to flock to the 11th annual Munster Maths and Science Fair at the GAA Complex in Mallow on Sunday, October 15.

The annual Munster Maths and Science Fair will return to its spiritual home at the Mallow GAA Complex on Sunday, October 15 for what organisers have said promises to be a fund day out for all the family.

Thousands of people are expected to flock to the venue for the Fair, which will run from 11am-4pm, to enjoy the spectacular sights and sounds of the popular free event, now in its 11th year.

Once again flaming fireballs, exciting experiments and mind-bending physics will take centre stage at the Fair, which explores the fun side of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects.

An extension of the Mallow Development Partnerships (MDP) innovative Maths & Science Primary Schools Project the Fair was originally established to showcase STEM related projects to children.

While local schools have continued to form a core component of the fair, with primary and secondary schools from the greater Mallow area showcasing their projects, over the years it has expanded into something far bigger with leaders from industry, research and third-level institutes coming on board holding a wide array of engaging and interactive experiments, demonstrations and displays throughout the day.

Returning old favourites will mix with exciting new exhibitors giving visitors the opportunity to experience mind-blowing experiments, amazing demonstrations and displays and cutting-edge presentations.

The key aim of this entertaining and spectacular event remains the same as it has always been, to create an awareness the STEM subjects and how they impact on our everyday living, work and recreation activities, said an organising committee spokesperson.

They said the wide range of interactive displays will include robotics, 3-D visuals and simulations, gaming platforms communications technology, microscopic exploration and a planetarium offering people an opportunity to experience visiting the stars.

A team of fun enthusiasts will also be on site to take visitors through messy experiments and interesting demonstrations of science shown through simple but amusing games such as tug-of-war, giant windbags, musical straws, windmills and many more enjoyable techniques, said the spokesperson.

The Fair will also offer secondary school student a welcome opportunity to meet with professionals from a wide variety of sectors who will be on hand to offer them advice about future careers, they added.

The Munster Maths and Science Family Fair is organised by the Mallow Development Partnership through its network of volunteers, is sponsored Cork County Councils Economic Development Fund and generously supported by the Boston-based Irish American Partnership.
Northwest Hindu Cultural Society in Sligo celebrated the Ganesh Chaturthi (a Hindu festival) on Saturday at Rathcormac National School with a special session held to explain the relevance of different Hindu rituals and traditions with science

Dr Hanumantha Rao Marepalli, a Software professional who is also serving as Vice Chancellor at e-Yogi Gurukuls Spirituality and Science of Hinduism (SSH) University based in Dublin explained how the Hindu scriptures from thousands of years ago contain valuable knowledge that the modern science is discovering only now.

He said, The Hindu scriptures like the Vedas and the Purans that were once handwritten on palm leaves or other materials by the Hindu saints contain such information that our modern scientists are discovering now.

These scriptures contain information from mathematics to astronomy and to medical sciences as well.

But we are slowly becoming distant from our culture because we dont understand those significances behind the traditions that have been followed for centuries.

The families that are moving out of India and the kids who have been born and raised in other countries need to be taught about the importance of Spirituality and Hinduism in our day-to-day life.

I was myself unaware of these until I felt that my kids needed to know about their roots and their culture. Thats when I started to read and research all this.

The more I read, the more it grew on me and now I am trying to share the knowledge that I gained with everyone else.

The occasion was just right to talk about knowledge and education as Lord Ganesha himself is revered as the god of Wisdom and prosperity. Ganesh Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chaturthi is a 10-day festival celebrated to mark the birth of the elephant-headed deity Ganesha.

Although the celebration has been there for thousands of years, it took the nature of public celebration when Marath Ruler Shivaji used it to encourage nationalist sentiments among his people while fighting against the Mughals between 1630-80.

The festival was revived again in 1893 by the Indian nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak, when the Britishers banned political assemblies in the country.

Today, the festival is celebrated by Hindu communities worldwide and is especially popular in Maharashtra and western parts of India.

Sligo/Leitrim TD Frank Feighan also joined the celebrations and said, Its always fun to join in the Indian celebrations. They are fun filled and the atmosphere is so energetic that it fills you with loads of energy. I always looking forward to these events.
Pictured at the launch of the NWRAs 2023 pre-Budget submission are: L to R: NWRA Director Denis Kelly; John Daly, Economist with the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and Councillor John Naughten, Cathaoirleach of the NWRA. Picture: James Connolly.

The Government is being urged to provide the West and North West with a stimulus package worth at least 570 million to kickstart development across the ailing area.

The call has been made by the Northern and Western Regional Assembly (NWRA) in a submission to the Department of Finance ahead of Budget 2024 next month.

The NWRA, which represents the counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Cavan, and Monaghan, is one of three Regional Assemblies tasked with helping strengthen the development of Irelands regions in a strategic manner. It says a multi-million-euro stimulus package is necessary to stem growing regional inequality and to deliver balanced regional development in Ireland.

To address these challenges in the long-term, the NWRA is also calling on the Government to adopt a policy of positive discrimination for the Northern and Western Region in its rollout of infrastructure projects in the National Development Plan (NDP).

According to the NWRA, a policy of positive discrimination would result in rebalancing legacy underinvestment of new infrastructure projects for the region, increased capital expenditure to bring more infrastructure projects of scale to the Northern and Western Region, and reforms to the public spending code to ensure population size and rural structure of the Northern and Western Region are accounted for in the planning of regional development projects.

Furthermore, the NWRA is calling for a Citizens Assembly to be set up to examine how greater levels of regional autonomy can be delivered in Ireland, with Irelands centralised government system credited for high levels of regional inequality and disengagement in rural regions.

The NWRA is calling for the delivery of these priorities due to the fact the Northern and Western Region of Ireland is officially classified as a Transition Region, which is given to regions in which the GDP per capita is between 75% and 100% of the EU27 average, the only region in Ireland to hold such a status.

Likewise, the European Parliaments Committee on Regional Development also categorised the Northern and Western Region as a Lagging Region, which is defined as a region that faces specific development challenges, such as low productivity and educational attainment, a weaker skills base and business environment.

The NWRA has outlined the stark economic challenges facing the region in its pre-budget submission to Government. These include:

Regional inequality is growing with disposable income per head of population in the Northern and Western Region now 84% of the State average, and 76% of the EU27 average.

Notably, the gap in disposable income per head of population between the Northern and Western Region and the Eastern and Midlands Region of Ireland  as a percentage of the State average  was 25 percentage points in 2021, which was much wider than the corresponding gap in 2010  which was 10 percentage points.

The Northern and Western Region is the 114th most competitive regional economy of the EU27s 234 regions. In contrast, the neighbouring Eastern and Midland Region is 24th.

The Northern and Western Region is trailing Irish and European counterparts in infrastructure investment. The region ranks 218th out of 234 regions in the EU27 in terms of infrastructure.

Third-level institutions in the Northern and Western Region receive general capital funding of just 238 per undergraduate student. The national figure is 331 per undergraduate student.

John Daly, Economist with the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, believes the adoption of a positive discrimination policy for the region by Government is necessary to alleviate infrastructure deficits and avoid exacerbating Irelands eastern-focused regional imbalance.

A legacy of underinvestment continues to inhibit the growth ambitions of the Northern and Western Region of Ireland. Without access to modern road, public transport, health and port services, our region will never be able to provide a meaningful counterbalance to the rapid expansion of the Greater Dublin Area and avoid the overconcentration of population in the east of Ireland. Thats why we are calling on the Government to provide the Northern and Western Region with a 570m stimulus package to kickstart high valued development and save the region from its economic stagnation.

Our proposal for a multi-million-euro stimulus package would support projects and initiatives designed to stimulate high-value economic activity in the Northern and Western Region of Ireland, helping to ensure our region becomes smarter in how we educate and train people, more specialised in the types of enterprise we attract and more urban in how we grow our housing stock.

NWRA Director Denis Kelly commented: Its important that the Government recognise the specific economic challenges we face in the Northern and Western region as well as the opportunity that such a stimulus package would present in terms of rebalancing development for the benefit of the country as a whole. Failure to do so, will see population and employment to be overly concentrated in the Greater Dublin Area, to the detriment of the rest of the country.

Councillor John Naughten, Cathaoirleach of the NWRA, said: Irelands Northern and Western region has for decades suffered from underinvestment in critical enabling infrastructure. This time we cannot afford to have history repeat itself. An economic stimulus would give the region a once in a lifetime opportunity to reverse economic malaise and give our young people hope for a better future, in this region.
Winter wheat is the fourth most grown crop in Gage, Jefferson, and Saline counties after corn, soybean, and alfalfa. There was approximately 12,000 acres of wheat grown in 2022 with 4,271 acres in Gage, 5,620 acres in Jefferson, and 2,560 acres in Saline. I discussed winter wheat variety recommendations in my August 30th article that can be read at croptechcafe.org/winter-wheat-variety-selection-fall-2023

There are various reasons you might consider planting winter wheat after corn, soybean, or alfalfa. If you want to rotate out of alfalfa for one year prior to planting alfalfa again, winter wheat is a great option following an August or September terminated alfalfa stand so that alfalfa could be planted again next August. Soybeans as the most common previous crop in southeast Nebraska. There is less risk of Fusarium head blight or head scab planting after soybeans compared to corn. However, yields can be higher growing wheat after corn assuming good no-till drill residue management and if Fusarium head blight is managed between variety selection and a well-timed foliar fungicide during flowering. Local data collected from farmers in southeast Nebraska from 1994-2007 by Paul Hay showed that no-till wheat yields averaged 7 bu/acre higher after corn (48 fields) compared to soybeans (128 fields). Corn and soybean herbicides used should be evaluated for crop rotation interval restrictions to mitigate carryover risk especially in years with a summer drought.

Planting cleaned or certified seed is critical along with using a fungicide seed treatment to control seed-transmitted and soilborne diseases. The average yield response to seed treatments was 1.5 to 3.0 bu/acre based on Kansas and Nebraska data shared at the Southeast Nebraska Alfalfa & Wheat Expo on August 24, 2023 by local experts. View at croptechcafe.org/alfalfawheatexpo

For our area, seeding rates for the target planting window of September 28 to October 10 are 1.2 to 1.35 million seeds per acre. The seeding rate should be increased if planting is delayed into mid to late October to compensate for the likelihood of reduced tillering. You can download my Excel-based wheat seeding rate calculator that compensates for seed size, germination percentage, purity, and planting date at croptechcafe.org/winterwheat or contact me directly for assistance for a recommended seeding rate.

Your drill should be set to hit a target planting depth of 1.5 inches. Seeding shallow (1 inch or less) often leads to winterkill, desiccation, and reduced plant populations. Sharp disc openers, extra dead weight on the drill, and refilling with seed more frequently can help maintain planting depth throughout the field. In some cases, it may be better to wait and plant after a rain versus planting early into dry and hard ground where a consistent planting depth cannot be maintained. Most winter wheat varieties have a coleoptile length that will accommodate planting up to 2.0 inches deep without concern. If you drill is setup for starter fertilizer, use it. Co-mixing seed and dry fertilizer is problematic for drill calibration and the mix can separate during the drilling process. Soil phosphorus management along with broadcast fertilization at planting can help compensate for lack of starter fertilizer.

Learn more about winter wheat management considerations at croptechcafe.org/winterwheat including reading my Winter Wheat Growers Quick Guide. For inquiries about these and other agronomy-related information from Nebraska Extension, contact me at nathan.mueller@unl.edu or 402-821-1722. Know your crop, know your tech, know your bottom line at croptechcafe.org.
Sligo parishioners prepare to celebrate Rathbarron Churchs 250 year old history

With a number of special events taking place this week to celebrate the 250 years of the Coolaney church, a number of parishioners recall their earliest cherished memories of the church and the close-knit local parish

David Wallace, Donald Clarke, Sylvia Golden, Dawn Brett, Josephine Barber, Rose Carroll, Gordon Lyttle and Rev. Andrew Pierce.

Neha Kumari Sligo Champion Wed 27 Sep 2023 at 07:00

The Church of Ireland Parish of Rathbarron, in Sligo, is set to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the opening of its new church this week.
Businesses in the centre of Enniscorthy lost up to 50 per cent of their trade during the lengthy road closure on Island Road over the past five weeks. The works, which were delayed due to an archaeological discovery, heavily impacted local traders throughout August and September, a time when many tourists visit the town.

Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Enniscorthy Municipal District (EMD), Councillor Barbara-Anne Murphy said that in future the elected members would not allow the towns main roads to be closed for such a lengthy period of time.

In future we will not accept a full road closure like this, businesses suffered hugely, she said. Im told by one business owner that they lost their morning and lunchtime business completely, and their evening business was down 50 per cent. That this is happening during a time when businesses should be making hay in the middle of the summer, and we have the roads closed, is absolutely ridiculous.

"Could I ask when it comes tor resurfacing that road were very careful about when we close it, and make sure it doesnt interfere with Christmas trade? Weve already messed up the summer."

Cllr Kathleen Codd-Nolan was similarly irate.

When the main artery into a town is closed its very inconvenient for everybody and when it goes on for a couple of weeks it becomes very, very difficult for traders, she said. I understand from speaking to the traders that they lost over 30 per cent of their income over the last weeks, is there any possibility any future works could be done at night time? Its not just inconvenient for those trying to get to work, but also for those trying to make a living.

It was clear the councillors had been fielding calls from those affected by the closures as Cllr Aidan Browne was the third to report an unhappy business owner.

One business owner in particular, shes been through hell in her own personal life, and now shes been told she cant put a car outside her house for another two weeks, he said. Theres another business which has been affected for ten weeks, were going to have to start doing something to help those affected by these works.

The man tasked with providing answers was district engineer Neil Dempsey, and he explained that, due to the nature of the works, crews couldnt work overnight to complete the job in a shorter time.

It was an Irish Water project; the issue with night-time works within a town, when youre using a rock-breaker, is that residents would not be happy, they would not be able to sleep. Also, the depth of the dig, it was a four-metre dig, if you put work men down a four-metre trench and drive a HGV (heavy goods vehicle) over it; I wouldnt like to be down in it.

"Under health and safety that was why the road was closed. It wasnt an easy project, and then there was the archaeological discovery. I know it caused a lot of destruction, crews worked from 7-11, so they did put in some night hours, they put in some long shifts.

Contending that some of the works could have been carried out overnight, Cllr Jackser Owens said he had seen evidence of said discovery.

They found a part of the bridge built in Enniscorthy in 1775, the first bridge built in the town. This is the main road to Wexford, businesses suffered and it was the wrong time of the year to do it, tourist time, could have been done in February, it shouldnt have happened, we have to learn from this now.

Mercifully, the works to resurface the roads would not cause the kind of disruption seen over the past five weeks.

There will be another road closure for resurfacing in a couple of weeks, confirmed Mr Dempsey. That will be a joint project between us and Irish Water, there will be further traffic disruptions, well work on the times. Itll be a one-day closure for the road resurfacing. Thats why the school works havent started, and the works for the pedestrian crossing at the graveyard, well do these works in tandem, were not going to divert traffic up towards other road works.
Pauline Shortle and Breda Garvey Molloy attended the North Wexford Historical Society exhibition in association with Wexford County Council in the Market House on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

Faye, Emily, Tighe and Tim Muffitt enjoying the Gorey Ukes performing outside Partridges Artisan Cafe & Fine Food Shop on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

Michael Reddy, Pat and Peader O'Leary enjoyed the North Wexford Historical Society exhibition in association with Wexford County Council in the Market House on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

Gillian and Paul Lang pictured at the North Wexford Historical Society exhibition in association with Wexford County Council in the Market House on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

Pictured at Ceol Mo Chroi Culture Club's traditional night in The Book Cafe as part of The Culture night in Gorey on Friday were Breda Phelan, Maureen McGarvey and Pat Kelly. Pic: Jim Campbell

Gary and Emer Doyle in fine voice with the Gorey Ukes performing outside Partridges Artisan Cafe & Fine Food Shop on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

Caroline Bergin pictured with young artists Lucia and Joni Melvin at the Caroline Bergin Art workshop in Esmonde Street as part of the Gorey Culture Night on Friday. Pic: Jim Campbell

Siofra Dunbar, Sofia Doherty, Amelia Doherty and Ciara Doherty performed at the Ceol Mo Chroi Culture Club's traditional night in The Book Cafe as part of The Culture night in Gorey on Friday. Pic: Jim Campbell

Irish dancer Nessa Dooley performed during the Ceol Mo Chroi Culture Club's traditional night in The Book Cafe as part of The Culture night in Gorey on Friday pictured with mum Ciara Dooley. Pic: Jim Campbell

Marie Brady with the Gorey Ukes performing outside Partridges Artisan Cafe & Fine Food Shop on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

At Ceol Mo Chroi Culture Club's traditional night in The Book Cafe as part of The Culture night in Gorey on Friday were Tony and Vivien McDonald. Pic: Jim Campbell

Louise Cullen, exhibitor Niamh Darcy and Einin Rossiter (Partridges Artisan Cafe & Fine Food Shop) pictured at the art exhibition 'Sunrise by Niamh Darcy' at Partridges Artisan Cafe & Fine Food Shop on Friday evening as part of the Culture Night in Gorey. Pic: Jim Campbell

A real buzz about the town seems to be the words on everyones lips when describing Culture Night in Gorey on Friday, September 22.

There was plenty to do, from exhibits and talks to music and dancing.

Local artist Niamh Darcy, showcased her art exhibit Sunrise at Partridges Artisan Cafe and Fine Food Shop. Taken during Covid times, this exhibit captured the Wexford coastline at Morriscastle beach and is meant to remind us of a slower pace of life and to appreciate the beauty of nature. Niamh sold a lot of her paintings on the night and received a lot of positive feedback. Champagne and chocolates were served to guests at the door which made the experience even sweeter.

Einin Rossiter, advisor at Partridges said that there was a great turnout, a lot of guests she didnt recognise arrived from outside the local area because they had heard about the event through Instagram. The Gorey Ukes performed outside Partridges Bistro on the main street and Einin said this created a really warm environment and a good flow of people.

Around 300 people arrived at the Gorey Market House for the North Wexford Historical Societys photographic exhibition. The event was such a huge success that they opened the doors again the following day and another 200 people came.

The National Library and Fund Collection provided the North Wexford Historical Society with most of the photos on display. Gerard Fleming from the North Wexford Historical Society said that it was lovely to see grandfathers coming along with their grandchildren and reminiscing on Gorey of the past. They had to turn some guests away from the lecture downstairs as there were only 40 seats available, Gerard said that the North Wexford Historical Society hopes to host the lecture again in the local library where its possible for more people to attend.

Rachel Ui Fhaolain and John O Faolain created and performed Ceol Mo Chroi Culture Club in the Book Cafe. This was an intergenerational performance filled with music, dance, poetry, film screenings and stories that supported the Irish language which audience members could participate in.

On behalf of the North Wexford Historical Society, Gerard would like to thank the council and the arts department for their support and for allowing them the use of the Market House for the exhibit and show what it can be used for in the future.
While Bottlenose Dolphins are intelligent and make a wide range of sounds, no dolphin language has been discovered yet.

The waters around Ireland, offshore, and in the Atlantic Ocean are the subject of the latest OSPAR report on the state of our environment.

In the past, our waters were in good order. That state of affairs was not due to any great virtue on the part of our ancestors. It was due to a combination of low population, diverse settlement pattern, relative poverty, and living closer to nature.

Today, a growing population, increased affluence, easy access to a host of ways to damage our surroundings, less contact with the natural world, low environmental awareness, and global factors that we have little or no control over, all contribute to the making of a significant challenge to keep our seas clean and healthy.

The report has a very large number of conclusions. The key findings are: climate change and ocean acidification are drivers of major change and biodiversity loss, despite improvements in some fish populations, many are not in good status, marine birds are still in trouble, many marine mammals remain at risk, marine litter levels remain high despite signs of improvement, hazardous substances are cause for concern, noise pollution remains a threat, the state of marine food webs is of great concern, plankton, the base of the marine food web, is being negatively impacted, sea bed habitats continue to be damaged, and pollution persists.

The good news is that negative impacts from oil and gas activities continue to decrease, pollution by radioactive substances has been prevented, and introductions of new non-indigenous species appear to have decreased.

Ocean acidification is an increasing problem. From burning fossil fuels in homes, industry, and cars we release gases into the atmosphere. These gases dissolve in rainwater to make acid. The acid rain eventually ends up in the sea reducing the ability of marine life to form shells and skeletons, changing food chains and food webs, and threatening marine biodiversity.

OSPARs Quality Status Report for 2023 can be read at https://www.ospar.org/. It is user-friendly in that it is laid out in a way that allows it to be dipped into easily depending on the readers particular area of interest.

It behoves all of us to do what we can to keep our seas and ocean as clean and healthy as possible.
If you are free at 2pm on Saturday September 30, there is a really unique and special 1798 commemorative event taking place between Ballyhack in Co. Wexford and Passage in Co. Waterford.

This will be one of the last ground-up 1798 Commemorative events for 2023 where will see pikemen and women from all over Wexford travel from Ballyhack to Passage East and then march up to the grave of The Croppy Grave at Crook Graveyard.

The event is being organised by Tim Corrigan and Michael Fortune and back in June, Michael recorded Tim and a few of his friends at the grave in Crook Graveyard in Waterford. The site was badly overgrown and forgotten about locally so Tim, Margaret ONeill Wall and Seamus Corrigan cleaned it up and got a new stone cut.

Michael travelled down one evening in June and made a little film about this and also recorded Tim singing The Croppy Boy. Such was the response to the film, with over 1,000 likes and 50,000 views within a few days, that this event has been organised and with great support and encouragement from grass-roots groups and individuals in Wexford and also in Waterford.

Folklore tells us that this was a spot where a Croppy Boy was buried in 1798, however Michael says that we have no definitive evidence to say a poor Croppy was buried here but the story exists in local folk memory and there is no denying that thousands of United Irishmen were held prisoner in the nearby Geneva Barracks. So in some ways we are remembering the spirit of the Croppy Boy and all of those men, young and old, in this commemoration, said Michael.

The organisers would love to see a big crowd attend from Wexford and everyone is welcome to come on board and join in the march from local groups, clubs, schools etc.

People are asked to arrive at 2pm at Ballyhack Ferry where at 2.30pm they cross on the ferry to Passage. Please note there is a free bus available in Passage to drive anyone that cant walk up to the graveyard. The distance in 1.7km and everyone is welcome to follow the march from Passage to Crook Graveyard. There will be short speeches, songs and wreath laying at the graveside and then back to the local GAA complex for refreshments. For more info please call Tim on 085-7351403 or Michael on 087 6470247
The creator of an initiative which offers solace and support for those who have experienced sexual or physical abuse says she wants to foster a sense of unity among all those who have suffered at the hands of others. Wexford woman Aoife Rose OBrien, who herself has survived both physical and sexual assaults, has created Letters to Warriors, a website containing letters of support specifically written for those who have endured abuse.

I have created this website as a safe space; a platform to empower, comfort, support and educate any woman or man who has faced trauma or suffering by the hands of others or by the their own minds, said Aoife Rose at the official launch of the site at Clayton Whites Hotel. There is unbelievable strength in unity. I dont believe that we are created to live in isolation. I want to create a sense of unity throughout this website and all its creation.

Read more Wexford Wellness event promotes positivity and supports local charities

To help with that goal, Aoife Rose has linked in with local and national services, among them Wexford counselling service Its Good 2 Talk and The Lighthouse Club, an organisation which provides financial and emotional support to the construction community and their families.

"Ireland is suffering right now, our people are struggling and I for one do not want to continue to lose lives, Aoife Rose continued. So, instead of donating towards me, I ask you to donate towards one of these services. Please, if you can afford anything- small or big, log onto LTW and donate to the service of your choice, and help save a life.

While the Letters to Warriors site offers visitors the opportunity to support mental health charities, it also allows people to submit their own letters of support to those who may be suffering. And Aoife Rose provided some guidelines to those who may wish to submit a letter of their own.

Think of the word depression, the word victim, the word isolation, the word suffering, she said Write a letter based off of the feelings that occur. You may have someone in mind to write to or not, thats okay. I encourage you to keep your letter anonymous, but please feel free to add a heart sticker if you too, are a warrior, to show that unity for your readers. Lets bring some love to those desperately in need of some.
Fashion boutique forced to close as side of its building brought down by the collapse

The collapse of a building on Arklows Main Street on Friday has wreaked havoc in the seaside town, with a neighbouring fashion boutique forced to shut its doors and an extended road closure causing lengthy detours for commuters.

After the gable wall of a previously disused former fruit and vegetable shop (known locally as Liam Powers) fell outwards onto the footpath, part of the popular local fashion outlet, Fayebella, was brought with it, resulting in significant damage.

The collapsed wall at Lower Main Street, Arklow. Photo: Michael Kelly

Thankfully, no one was injured in the collapse, with unconfirmed reports suggesting that a young lady was in close proximity when the old wall came tumbling down onto the street.

In the aftermath of the collapse, Wicklow County Council crews worked around the clock to clean up the debris and are believed to have since made the structure safe, with the threat to pedestrians removed.

Debris being removed folloing the collapse of a wall at Lower Main Street, Arklow. Photo: Michael Kelly

Although the reinforcement and safety works are thought to be mostly completed, the local authority has maintained the road closure, causing untold inconvenience to commuters, who are forced to take a detour through the town to access businesses and residences on Lower Main Street, or to park at Castlepark car park, the Riverwalk or St Marys car park.

Read more Wicklow boutique forced to close after collapse of neighbouring building

A statement released by Wicklow County Council on Sunday read: Please be advised that the L-2901 Lower Main Street Arklow is closed at the junction with Bridge Street until further notice. Traffic from Bridge Street shall turn right only and follow the R772. Access to Lower Main Street is via Yellow Lane and Abbey Street.

A collapsed wall at Lower Main Street, Arklow

Reacting to the incident and the road closure, Cllr Pat Fitzgerald said: The Street has been blocked and will be for a while. Its certainly not ideal, as you cant drive down there, you cant turn left at all, and have to go up Main Street and park at the car park and walk back down - which will cost you Euro!

The main thing is, no one was hurt, and we were very lucky that didnt happen. I know the business next door had to close, and other business owners are suffering with the road closed, but this could have been so much worse.

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Lower Main Street in Arklow which was closed to traffic over the weekend. Photo: Michael Kelly

Turning to social media, the Arklow community has been reacting to the incident, praising the fact that there were no injuries and the repair crews swift action but criticising the local authoritys traffic management plan and the dangers it poses to pedestrians.

Great that theyre working at it, but going to cause a crash, a resident commented. The number of cars turning down left at Asian harvest. There was a poor old man wheeling his trolley today when this one came flying down.

Another noted that the collapse of the building was inevitable, saying: No wonder that happened. When they tore down the other building, they left the red brick exposed, never sealed it over. In turn, every time it rained, it was going down into the walls.

Meanwhile, a local business owner stated: Im doing fine, but Id imagine the other businesses further down Lower Main Street are not too happy. I cant understand why its still closed today, because the health and safety is finished.

This happened at 1.40 p.m. on Friday, and the crew were taking the wall down until five oclock because it was too dangerous. So, they had the wall down, and the danger was over by then, and then the council came along and closed the road!

I saw three council people there this morning and asked them what the story was, and they just said: The wall fell down, and Im after putting it back now.

I asked one of the councillors why it was still closed, and they told me it was for health and safety and that they had to do studies, but I told them that the lads had left two hours ago!

The shops are not too happy that its still closed. Even the builders told me that it was madness leaving it closed this long.
Wicklow County Council has entered into a lease agreement with Loreto Institute Property Trust for the former Loreto Convent, Bray, to provide accommodation for displaced Ukrainians for a period of two years.

The confirmation that the former convent building  which shares grounds with Loreto Girls School but is not connected, has its own entrance and is not run by the schools Board of Management  is being provided to house Ukrainian families comes amid days of protests held outside the school gates by a group of residents who said they wished to raise awareness to there [sic] parents and chat with the girls to know there [sic] safe, according to a post on the Facebook page run by the group, who call themselves Concerned Bray Residents.

The group added that their fears the building is housing only men from countries such as Georgia were validated after they claimed a security guard said the centre was full of migrants . . . (with) 1 woman and child and 47 men.

However, Wicklow County Council has confirmed that following substantial works, the property was handed over to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration & Youth (DCEDIY) on July 27, 2023.

Aramark, a facility management company, was subsequently tasked with managing the building. Aramark carried out their own introductions with the residents surrounding the convent.

It was the responsibility of DCEDIY to house the residents and on September 1, 2023 the first of the Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOTPs), who were all Ukrainians, arrived to take up residence in Loreto Convent.

Currently there are 47 BOTP residents in the building, consisting of families, couples, elderly men and women. The building is only to be utilised for Ukrainians, the Council said.

Oleksandra Sydorenko, who works with Bray Area Partnership as the Community Liaison Worker for Ukrainian Refugees in Bray, has confirmed that the centre is only being used to house Ukrainians and that the successive protests have left the children residing there very scared.

She added that stones were thrown at the windows by protesters on one occasion and that the protests were not just confined to the school gates on Vevay Road.

There have been a few protests, she said, but on Saturday (September 23) people came to the place where they live.

Ms Sydorenko said she had personally met the families in the former convent building because they have liaised with the Ukrainian Community Centre in Bray for assistance.

I have been there a few times, she added, because usually we help these people to register, to fill out forms and so I know all these people there are Ukrainians, with little children as well.

The rallies have prompted one local councillor, Dermot Daisy OBrien, to ask the protesters to consider the emotional distress on young students and the staff as they attend school.

If you are thinking about standing outside a school to protest as children come and go PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider that you might become a threat to someones safety, he said on his Facebook page.

Citing his expertise as a trauma trainer, Cllr OBrien explained how protesters outside a school might instil fear and intimidation among students, teachers, and staff members. The presence of unknown people, aggressive behaviour, loud chants, or offensive signs can create a sense of vulnerability and unease, he said.

He added that even if protesters are peaceful, the presence of a group of strangers can be perceived as a potential threat and this can impact the mental well-being of students, triggering a sense of insecurity, especially for those who may already be vulnerable in terms of anxiety about attending school.

The attention drawn by protests outside a school can lead to exposure to distressing or triggering content, which might include offensive language, provocative signs, or heated arguments, which can cause emotional distress and anxiety among students, particularly those who have experienced trauma or have marginalised identities.

No matter how sound you think you are, how safe you think you are, or how right you think you are, children going to and from school will be impacted if they come across a group of unfamiliar people who are gathered at the entrance to protest. This is not my opinion, this is not a theory, this is based on research, science and evidence, he concluded.

Ian McGahon from Bray for Love, the group that promotes a positive welcoming town and community for Bray, also pointed out that there are adults with disabilities attending the Open Door Day Centre, who too might experience similar levels of distress and trauma passing by.

In a statement, the group also said: "In Bray we pride ourselves on being welcoming and caring. We make friends quickly with newcomers and know that our community is strong and unified.

We are pleased that Bray is providing a home for people seeking safety and protection in our community. Bray has a proud history of diversity, inclusion and welcoming people from Ireland and the rest of the world.

"Newcomers to our town add to the business, social and cultural life. We trust that the people of Bray will continue to extend a warm welcome to newcomers. We encourage all Bray residents to be cautious about false rumours designed to cause conflict and division."

In a statement sent to the Bray People, The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said it received an offer of accommodation for BOTPs at the former Loreto Convent, Bray.

"The accommodation centre opened in August 2023 further to refurbishment works, a spokesperson said. There is accommodation for approximately 70 persons at the property. The residency will be entirely made up of BOTPs fleeing the war in Ukraine. It is a mixed accommodation centre and residents will include adults with children and single people.

The Department is operating in the context of a severe accommodation shortage. As a result, it is necessary for the Government to place people in accommodation as and when it becomes available. This helps ensure accommodation is available for all those who seek it.

"In such circumstances the Government will work to ensure that local capacity; resources and knowledge are brought to bear on the overall humanitarian response and will work closely with Local Authorities to ensure a well-co-ordinated and seamless approach.

"Government is developing a more systematic approach to communicate with local communities. The Department is informing local elected representatives where emergency accommodation is to be located. However, in the current circumstances, the Department does not always have the opportunity to do as much advance work and engagement with local elected representatives and the community as it would ideally like, the spokesperson concluded.

The Concerned Bray Residents group were contacted for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.
Local politicians have moved to address ongoing complaints over the 184 bus route, which operates between Bray and Greystones and also serves the wider communities of Kilpedder, Newtownmountkennedy, Kilcoole and Newcastle.

The service has come in for some heavy criticism from commuters recently, particularly since the reopening of schools this month and there are concerns that the delays and no-shows  ghost buses  which have been widely reported in many areas, will only be exacerbated once third-level colleges reopen next month.

Taking to social media, many users referred to the constant cancellation of buses, leaving passengers, including schoolchildren, stranded, while others mentioned persistent delays, such as the 7.50 from Kilpedder to Greystones arriving at 8.25.

One user reported: I had to leave my car to garage this morning and timed drop off so could get bus back. I have stood at bus stop for nearly an hour and no show. Had to call a taxi to get home costing 15.

"I waited over 45 minutes yesterday to come back to Greystones from Bray. Ridiculous, another posted, while a parent highlighted the plight of her daughter waiting hour-and-a-half for a bus out of Bray.

The constant stream of complaints caught the attention of Greystones Councillor Stephen Stokes, who raised the issue of the service directly with Andrew Edwards, Managing Director of Go Ahead. Following a meeting at Go Ahead Headquarters, Cllr Stokes said: "It was a productive meeting. There is a lot happening behind the scenes at Go Ahead. It was important to discuss several key issues, including concerns and upcoming developments."

Cllr Stokes said he also raised specific reports of the 184 occasionally skipping Charlesland and was given assurances that this should never happen, even in situations where a bus was running late.

Additionally, he said, there was a detailed discussion about buses that do not turn up at all.

"I stressed the importance of ensuring that all buses need to run to schedule. The 184 is not like other routes that may have a bus every 10 minutes. If a 184 does not turn up, it can be a very long wait for the next one. This is particularly hard on passengers waiting outside in wintertime. This was a major issue in 2022. I was even caught out myself by ghost buses.

"In fairness to Go Ahead, this has improved, but it is not always perfect. They are apologetic about the service last year, and any other occasional no-shows. Of course, it will take time to regain the full trust of the community. However, I was advised that Go Ahead is now 98-99 per cent operational. This is encouraging. If there are concerns about individual buses, I will raise them directly with Go-Ahead Senior Management."

In terms of what measures the transport provider is planning to put in place to improve the service for users, Cllr Stokes was told recruitment has and will be a key area of development but this is being hampered by issues at the Road Safety Authority, which awards driving licences.

"Like many companies securing drivers is vital, Cllr Stokes continued. Go Ahead seems to be doing well with recruitment. However, there are delays getting the bus driver licences from the RSA. It affects all bus companies. The Government needs to urgently address this with decisive RSA staffing and resources. A similar issue is the time it takes regular folks to get a driving test for car licences. It's not rocket science, investment is needed."

Cllr Stokes further discussed logistics with Go Ahead and noted the firm is particularly concerned about traffic through Bray.

"Traffic is a legitimate concern for route effectiveness, he said. We need to take a close look at how we can reduce traffic through towns. A precise plan is required. Furthermore, people will only reduce car journeys if the public transport is effective and reliable. I am concerned that the Government lacks imagination to make this a reality."

In terms of the longer term future and the requirement to roll out electric buses, he said: "We all want less or zero emission buses. However, Go Ahead does not have the electrical capacity to go 100 per cent electric yet. They need an electricity sub-station, which according to Go Ahead will take at least 10 years to bring forward. I am calling on the Government and the ESB to help provide this infrastructure as a priority. The buses will also need top-up charging points dotted around Wicklow and Dublin."

The other issue affecting drivers is the time it takes to travel between the depot  which is headquartered in Ballymount, County Dublin  and the 184 route starting points.

"The time it takes to drive a 184 bus to Bray, or Newtownmountkennedy, is significant. This eats i to precious driving time, as the drivers are limited to just over five hours of driving. As such, they are looking at options to have parking facilities further south, perhaps in North Wicklow. That could greatly assist the efficiency of route implementation, and make it more appealing for staff recruitment."

Following a full tour of the Go Ahead facilities, Cllr Stokes added: "Go Ahead is continuing to invest and expand. This is necessary because a number of new routes have been introduced in recent months, and they need more room for buses. I wish Go Ahead well with this expansion. I am thankful to Andrew Edwards, Adam Harvey (Marketing Manager) and all of the Go Ahead Team for the visit. When the 184 runs correctly, it is a good service. I will continue to liaise with Go Ahead about any future issues or positive developments."

Meanwhile, Wicklow Green Party TD Steven Matthews has made a commitment to the parents, students and all users that he will ensure the 184 service is improved.

I met with a group of parents recently whose student children have been left unserved regularly by the 184 bus. The 07:26 from Bray Railway Station to Newcastle failed to show on three occasions in one week and left parents scrambling for alternative solutions to get the stranded students to school on time.

Its simply not good enough, parents had to return from their own work commute, cancel meetings and one parent had to organise a taxi for the group of students while on site in his work.

Following the meeting I contacted senior management in the NTA and they have brought in Go Ahead, the company that provides the 184 service. The parents and students supplied me with the cancellation and delay dates and I have provided that information for the NTA to discuss with Go Ahead.

I understand that bus drivers are in short supply and that driver recruitment and retention is an ongoing difficulty across the country but I am insisting that important school routes in the peak AM hours should not be cancelled. It is not acceptable to leave young students and others stranded when they have school and work commitments. I have made it clear that Go Ahead need to up their game if they are to meet their NTA contractual service requirements.

I am collating reports on route service provision and punctuality and will submit this to the NTA for consideration when companies seek to tender for renewal of contracts.

I am regularly contacted by bus and rail users when services are cancelled or delayed. I work constantly with the NTA, Department of Transport, Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Local Link, Bus Eireann and Go Ahead to ensure we have reliable and frequent services across Wicklow but there are times when these services fail the people of Wicklow.

The 184 service run by Go Ahead is an example of poor service and I am committed to fixing the problem with this route.
Wicklow TD Steven Matthews has called on Bray residents to view and make submissions on plans for the N11/M11 Bus Priority Interim Scheme (BPIS) ahead of the deadline, on Friday, October 13.

It comes as more concerns have been raised by Bray residents over proposals to close a vital exit on the N11 which is heavily used by commuters to make way for the provision of bus priority measures (in both directions) on the N11/M11 national road.

Wicklow County Council, in partnership with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the National Transport Authority (NTA) are progressing the scheme, which will cover the section of the N11/M11 route from Loughlinstown roundabout in Shankill to the north, to Junction 9 (Glenview) in the south and, among other sections of the route, will impact the Herbert Road exit from Bray onto the N11.

It is being proposed that traffic will exit onto the N11/M11 at the roundabout at Hills garage, with works at the roundabout, including signal controlled crossing, proposed to try and facilitate the flow.

Commenting on the proposals to close this junction, Deputy Matthews said: I am yet to be convinced that the Herbert Road junction proposal is the correct course of action.

I know this junction is important to people in Bray and in the past I have had some safety assessments and works carried out to improve its safety use, including the bollards that are currently installed.

The proposal by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the National Transport Authority, Wicklow County Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council for improvements to road safety and public transport on the N11 between Junction 4 & Junction 9 is currently out for non-statutory consultation.

"This means that they havent finalised in detail all aspects of the proposal. They are seeking the views of residents, motorists, public transport users, cyclists and other road users on the proposal to put priority bus lanes on the N11 to improve the reliability of bus journey times.

I encourage people to make a submission outlining their concerns. They will take all the submissions into account before proceeding to a final detailed design. This is your opportunity to tell them how you feel about all aspects of the plan, including how important Herbert Road Junction is to you.

When they have taken into account all the submissions, then the final detailed design will be completed and a planning application will be made to An Bord Pleanala in order to get planning permission. This will provide a statutory public consultation period and another opportunity to make a submission on the final plan.

Its very important that people make their views known at this early stage, he concluded.

Submissions will be accepted via the online feedback form available on the project website n11m11bpis.ie or by email to n11m11@arup.com or by post addressed to N11/M11 Bus Priority Interim Scheme, Transportation Department, Wicklow County Council, County Buildings, Whitegates, Wicklow town, A67 FW96.
America is headed towards financial ruin, and Leadership in the House and Senate decided to send us home.



The American people deserve better, which is why a handful of my colleagues and I stayed in Washington to work on developing the appropriations bills so we can begin pic.twitter.com/pRTGCiyGmU  Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) September 24, 2023

After weeks of shutdown rhetoric from Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale, the states other two congressional Republicans are pushing back.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and the Rep. Ryan Zinke are cautioning against a government shutdown, saying it's pointless to deny pay to people serving in the armed forces, patrolling the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as other federal employees.

Zinke, on Tuesday, said that its a handful of the Republican lawmakers, Rosendale included, that have burned weeks off the Congressional calendar quarreling with their own majority rather than advancing Republican bills.

The Western Montana representatives assessment was starkly different than the one offered by Rosendale on blogs, radio and right-wing cable programs over the past two weeks, in which Rosendale characterized lawmakers agreeing to keep the government operating after Sept. 30 as the DC Cartel or uniparty  a dog-whistle phrase describing a party-less deep state unaccountable to hard-right voters. In the case of the looming government shutdown, the lawmakers in support of keeping the government open are strawmen, Eastern Montana's representative says.

Time has all but run out to pass the 12 appropriations bills that comprise the federal budget. The federal fiscal year ends Saturday night. No appropriations bills have passed out of the House. A handful of Republicans, Rosendale included, opposed to stop-gap funding to keep the government running when the current budget expires, have also successfully blocked, by siding with Democrats, attempts to bring the biggest appropriations bill  defense  to the floor.

How did we get here? Zinke said. Well, we wasted about a month on 16 rounds of votes for a speaker. Then we wasted another month over the debt ceiling, Zinke said. Then, we got 10 of the 12 bills out of Appropriations Committee. By far the preponderance of spending is out of committee. And the hold-up? When you cant pass Defense and you cant pass Homeland Security, then Houston, weve got a problem.

Wednesday, Zinke sparred on social media with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz over hard-right lawmaker's claim that the insurgents were responsible for a return to budget making through the appropriations process.

"Funny, I recall you guys skipping the conference meetings on December where Republicans decided to restore regular order," Zinke told Gaetz.

Funny, I recall you guys skipping the conference meetings in December where Republicans decided to restore regular order. https://t.co/fX3YWAs1vU  Rep Ryan Zinke (@RepRyanZinke) September 27, 2023

"Riiiiiight, Ryan. We are totally doing regular order in September (moments away from a shutdown) at 2am because you guys decided in December 22 that it was gonna be this way," Gaetz replied. "It wasnt that we forced this on Kevin by depriving him his preferred CR."

Asked a day earlier if Rosendale was participating in Republican conference meetings on key issues, Zinke replied, "I can tell you I didn't see him there."

But Zinke is also uncomfortable with a stop-gap bill to keep the government running beyond Sept. 30. He said he would support a bill that kept things running for a few weeks so Congress can pass an actual budget based on the appropriations bills that have all received hearings, 10 of which should be ready for consideration by the House as a whole.

Brian Kilmeade openly fought with Rep. Matt Rosendale (R- MT) over a looming government shutdown. Some Republicans are too radical for even Fox News. pic.twitter.com/L2zEG7xUi3  Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) September 26, 2023

What Zinke opposes is dragging the big budget decisions into December when typically, an omnibus spending bill, brokered outside of the normal appropriations process, is passed in take-it-or-leave-it fashion without hearings, or amendments by rank-and-file members of Congress.

Congress has passed one or more continuing resolutions to keep the government running in all but three of the last 47 years, the Congressional Research Service reported in May.

Daines started the ninth day before the looming shutdown with a live appearance from Bozeman on Fox & Friends, in which he had characterized a shutdown as only hurting constituents and costing taxpayers money.

Here's the problem with a government shutdown. It costs the taxpayers billions of dollars through disruptions. There's no reason we should have to disrupt the services, cost the taxpayers more, Daines said. Congress needs to get its act together. Were $33 trillion in debt, facing $2 trillion deficits. It's time to cut spending, and get budgets passed. But this government shutdown nonsense, frankly, is going to hurt the American people.

Daines has been on the other side of government shutdowns in the past. In 2013 as a U.S. Representative, he joined most Republican representatives in refusing to pass a budget unless the Affordable Care Act was defunded or delayed. A 16-day government shutdown ensued, after which Daines and other House Republicans changed their votes.

Montana Democrats nicknamed Daines shutdown Steve and hammered him with the label for weeks. The drama played out as Daines launched a campaign for U.S. Senate, a race he easily won in 2014.

The current budget drama plays out as Rosendales name is floated as an insurgent candidate in the 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, a race in which Daines, Zinke and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte have already endorsed another candidate, political newcomer Tim Sheehy. The role Daines plays as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee brings considerable influence on the Republican primary to find a challenger to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Whether Rosendale has the finances to launch a competitive campaign against Sheehy will probably be revealed Oct. 15 in quarterly campaign finance reports. Neither Republican has put their money on the table yet. Those reports will also provide a glimpse at the representatives fundraising successes in the weeks leading up to the shutdown.

The similarities between Daines 2013 and Rosendale 2023 only go so far. Daines in 2013 was voting with the House Republican majority, not against it as Rosendale is. Last week, members of the House Republican Majority began leveling attacks at their detractors, accusing them of voting with former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rather than current Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The accusation rings true, Rosendale lined up with Democrats opposing Republican efforts last week bring the Department of Defense appropriations bill to a vote.

Nine months ago, Daines joined a bipartisan group of senators cosponsoring a bill to avoid shutdowns at the September end of the federal fiscal year. The bill requires that funding continue into the new fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and that lawmakers be denied pay and travel, forcing them to remain in Washington, D.C., until a budget is completed.

Tuesday evening, Daines voted against advancing a bill to keep the government running, saying it didn't address "the crises facing Montana families like our open southern border and the nations drug epidemic." The continuing resolution will get a floor vote later this week because a majority of Republicans voted with Democrats, including Montana Democrat Jon Tester, to tee it up.

On a farm, you dont get to play games and expect someone else to get the work done. Montanans are tired of their elected leaders playing politics and hurting our economy, and Congress needs to work in a bipartisan way to fund the government," Tester said of the vote. "Lets be very clear: a shutdown would undermine our national security, hurt our veterans, and only benefit our foreign adversaries like the Chinese government who want to take Americas place as the worlds leading military and economic superpower. Its time for Congress to step up and lead.

On Monday's "Wake Up America," Rob Finnerty grills Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale about the looming government shutdown. pic.twitter.com/Dwf6KEYiJ4  NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) September 25, 2023

Rosendale has ignored questions from Lee Montana Newspapers about his positions on appropriations bills essential to funding the government through regular order, or the normal legislative process, which hard-right Republicans have insisted be used to fund the government. House Republican leadership is trying to get its 12 appropriations bills to the floor for a vote, while also eyeing a stop-gap measure to avoid a shutdown.

The Defense appropriations bill which Rosendale, aligned with Democrats, twice voted against bringing to a floor vote last week, has been weighted down with amendments, several of which are nonstarters with Republicans in the Senate. Among the amendments, is Rosendales to prohibit funds made available by this legislation from going to Ukraine Security Assistance until the border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is completed and operational control of the border is achieved. A 40-heart like getter on Twitter, the amendment wasnt likely to receive the required congressional votes to become law.

Another Rosendale amendment, this one to the Energy and Water appropriations bill, would reduce the amount funding available to $1.55 billion, which is more than the Biden administration requested for the entire U.S. Bureau of Reclamation budget, the agency through which Eastern Montanas clean water projects are funded as well as repairs for the Milk River Irrigation Project. The 339-mile irrigation artery that reroutes water from the St. Marys River near Browning into the Milk feeds four major Hi-Line towns and two Indian Reservations in Rosendales congressional district and needs $200 million in repairs.

A Rosendale amendment to cut $717 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture budget, failed 71-362.

Tuesday night, as the House wrapped up business, a Rosendale ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, promised to bring a motion ousting Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, of California, a full circle return to the beginning of the year when Gaetz, Rosendale and a handful of other Republican reps delayed the start of the congressional year by opposing McCarthy, who 90% of House Republicans supported. Similar to January, hard-right Republicans havent suggested a replacement speaker, just a debate.

Asked in a C-Span interview last week who might replace McCarthy, Rosendale couldnt name anyone.

I don't know who is going to vote where, okay? I'm responsible for one vote. I think that there are many, many highly qualified leaders in this body. And that's what we need right now. Leaders, Rosendale said. We do not need someone who's waiting for a consensus to be formed. And then to run around in front of that group and try and lead the parade.

With five days remaining before shutdown, House Republicans passed a rule to allow a vote on four of the 11 appropriations bills necessary to produce a budget. Rosendale joined his caucus in supporting the rule.
Bray comedians Therese Cahill and Chris Murphy are organising the towns first ever LGBTQ+ comedy night, in the Tin Roof, Quinnsborough Road, on Friday, September 29, with Therese herself appearing at the top of the bill.

Therese, who is Irelands first female limp-up comic is an award-winning comic who suffered a life-changing injury to her hip which means she now needs to use a cane (named Citizen) to get around  thus the term limp-up comedian.

The promoters ran a similar event to mark International Pride Day in June, and Chris said: The night was filled with love and laughter and also well attended by those who wished to support the LGBTQ+ community in Bray.

The Tin Roof Manager Sinead Rowe was so supportive at the time that the promoters were offered the use of the venue again. Next month, the promoters will be running a comedy night in aid of Purple House, with plans to host an LGBTQ+ show every month thereafter. Entrance is free and doors open at 8.00pm.
Sheep Sales  September 19: Heavy Lambs 135 to 141 or 86 to 95 over /kg; Factory Lambs 120 to 135 or 78 to 88 over /kg; Store Lambs over 40kg 108 to 118 or 68 to 80 over /kg; Store Lambs 35-40kg 90 to 112 or 55 to 76 over /kg; Heavy Ewes 136 to 178 per head; Lighter Ewes 66 to 122 per head; Suffolk Cross Hogget Ewes 150 to 250 per head; Suffolk Cross 3/4 Year Old Ewes 125 to 170 per head; Cheviot Hogget Ewes 150 to 240 per head; Cheviot 3/4 Year Old Ewes 125 to 178 per head; Suffolk Cross Ewe Lambs 126 to 166 or 80 to 132 over /kg,

Cattle Sales  September 21: A good sale with a very strong trade for all classes, and a lot of customers for the stronger cattle.

Beef Bullocks 1,160 to 1,425 over /kg; Continental Store Bullocks 520 to 1,250 over /kg; HF/AA Store Bullocks 400 to 860 over /kg; Fr Store Bullocks 320 to 560 over /kg; Beef Heifers 1,000 to 1,260 over /kg; Cont. Store Heifers 540 to 1,100 over /kg; HE/AA Store Heifers 380 to 760 over /kg; Beef Cows 680 to 1,280 over /kg; Feeding Cows 200 to 540 over /kg.

CARNEW

Weanling Report - On Wednesday September 13, Carnew Mart held its annual Belgian Blue Show and Sale sponsored by the Irish Belgian Blue Cattle Society.

Also on the evening we held a clearance sale of the renowned BlueStar commercial Suckler Herd.

The evening surpassed all expectations with the quality of stock on offer a credit to the Farmers who brought stock to the sale. Customers from all over the country were in attendance to buy top quality heifers and Bulls Weanling on offer.

Prices on the evening were on fire with Sucklers topping at 5,000 while the heifers topped at 3,200 for 396 kg for a BB or 8/kg.

Weanling Bulls on the night met with an electric trade with exporters, farmers and specialist Feeder very active with all bulls surpassing expectations, top prices 534kg making 2,240 or 4.19/kg, 538kg making 2,240 4.16/kg and 500kg selling for 2,000 or 4/kg.

Suckler sale had 40 spring calving cows all of top quality breeding. The cows had Springborn calves at foot and scanned back in calf to the LM Stock Bull. Cows sold from 2,500 to 5,000 with most cows selling between 3,000 and 3,500.

Top prices on the evening BB Heifer 396 kg at 3,200 or 8.08/kg, BB Heifer 442 kg at 2,460 5.57/kg, BB Bull 486kg making 1,780 or 3.66 kg, Also an offer three heifers 422 kg for 2,416 5.73/kg. On the evening certain farmers sold lorry loads of weanlings for up to 4.50 per kilo on average are 1870 per head another farmer with 40 Weanlings on offer average 3.50/kg.
The only outdoor ATM in Blessington at the AIB branch is intermittently out of service

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore and Deirdre McCormack of the Social Democrats attended a recent meeting with the AIB branch in Blessington to discuss banking issues impacting on both members of the public and voluntary groups.

In July of 2022, AIB announced the removal of cash services from a further 70 branches across the country. Following a public outcry, the decision was reversed and cash services remained in those branches. However, the bank didnt reverse its decision for the 22 banks originally affected, which included the Blessington branch, which had cash services removed in December of 2021.

Following the closure of the Blessingon Ulster Bank branch in April, AIB remains the only bank in the town and provides the only outdoor ATM in Blessington. However, customers have been encountering numerous issues, with the ATM out of service at times for most of the weekend if a large event is taking place.

When cashless services were initially removed, customers were informed they could use An Post for banking services. However, sone local residents have been unable to lodge cheques and have to instead travel 12.7km to Naas.

Deirdre McCormack, Social Democrats Local Area Representative for west Wicklow, feels the whole situation is causing undue stress for members of the community.

People are very upset, especially since Ulster Bank closed in April. People are very angry about it. Some customers are unable to cash cheques at An Post and so have to travel to Naas instead.

The public transport isnt great for anyone who mightnt have car and there are only four bases a day to Naas. Its not in anyway convenient for older people are those with young children.

Voluntary and community groups have also been encountering problems. For instance, two signatories are required to get a bank balance. Its a big inconvenience to expect two volunteers from a voluntary group to find the time to travel to Naas.

The branch ATM is intermittently out of service, especially for there are any big events taking place, such as Punchestown. Tourists have experienced difficulties in trying to obtain cash as well. Some of the business in Blessington are cashless. I was talking to one person recently who ordered a Chinese takeaway but the ATM was out of money when they went to pick up their meal and they had to cancel it.

Following the discussions between Deputy White and Deirdre, the Blessington AIB branch said they would contact local community groups and engage with Blessington Tourist Office whenever any large events are due to take place.

There have been instances where the ATM has run out of money and AIB said they would monitor the situation and will engage with Blessington Tourist Office so they are aware of any upcoming major events, like the recent International Sheepdog Trials or Kaleidoscope, to ensure the ATM doesnt run out of cash.

AIB are also about to appoint someone as their overall Head of Retail, which is something myself and Deputy Whitmore will be pursuing, and could help the situation in Blessington, added Deirdre.

Deputy Whitmore is calling on the Minister for Finance to direct AIB to end the practice of operating cashless branches in parts of the country. Her comments were made after it emerged that all public bodies are to be instructed to continue to accept cash when people are paying for services.

She said The recent attempt by NCT operator Applus to move to a cashless payment system was understandably met with widespread opposition and has thankfully resulted in a U-turn.

I welcome reports today that Minister Michael McGrath now intends to ensure that all public bodies will continue to accept cash. However, this is completely at odds with the Governments hands-off approach when it comes to confronting AIB on its decision to make several of its branches around the country cashless. Local communities were dealt a double blow in 2021 when 15 banks were closed by AIB and more than 20 branches went cashless.

While a proposal by AIB to make a further 70 branches cashless last year was stopped in its tracks after a public backlash, the bank did not reverse its decision for the 22 branches originally affected.

This is an issue that has greatly impacted vulnerable bank customers in parts of the country, including Blessington in my own Wicklow constituency. Along with the closure of Ulster Bank in the town earlier this year, financial services for residents and businesses in the area have been seriously eroded, with customers having to rely on An Post for their daily banking needs.

I recently met with AIB to outline my concerns but they did not indicate a willingness to change their policy for existing cashless branches Given that the State has a 47 per cent stake in AIB, I am calling on the Minister to instruct the bank to put plans in place to restore cash services to affected branches.
The Boathouse CCE who took part in Culture Night at the Library in Wicklow Town. Photo: Michael Kelly

Culture Night highlighted and celebrated the rich and diverse culture of County Wicklow featuring a dynamic range of events and experiences.

Wicklow Library was the main location for Culture Night in Wicklow town. Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann started proceedings with a performance, followed by the launch of the Threading Place exhibition, which is a collaboration between photographer and filmmaker Finn Richards and architectural practice Cineal, and brings together the mediums of photography, field recording and spatial design. Through the mediums of photography and field recording, the exhibition traces the different social threads that link individuals in the Wicklow community to each other.

The exhibition was staged outdoors across three public spaces - Black Castle, Barrow Green and at the beginning of the Murrough River Walk. A panel discussion also took place in Wicklow Library on Culture Night and the exhibition runs until Wednesday, October 11.

Ukrainian culture was also celebrated on the night with a performance from the Voice of Ukraine Choir, established by a number of Ukrainian women currently living in Wicklow. Sean Olohan, who formed the choir, introduced the members on the night as they went on to sing a selection of Irish songs which included Molly Malone and a very appropriate arrangement of Wicklow My Home mixed with songs from their native country.

Olena Mudryk-Ivanets thanked the audience and explained how the choir was formed and the joy the members get from performing together. She also thanked everyone involved who helped to bring a little normality into their difficult lives away from family and friends at home.

The night ended with set dancing from The Boathouse CCE Wicklow Town Comhaltas, with members of the audience joining in and taking to the floor.

The Arklow Culture Crawl returned as attendees were led through the streets of Arklow, stopping off a cultural and historic sites along the way, finishing with a massive open session upstairs in the Old House.

The West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival presented a live music performance by sisters Fiona and Jean Kelly held at Russborough House.

A main stage was set up in Baltinglass square and included live performances by Amy Barrett, Taylor Hayes, Flowers of Ukraine, James Nelson, Leslie Dowdall, Mark Caplice and Jerry Fish, while Baltinglass Library hosted performances by Noel Boland and Cormac Doyle and presentations by members of the Dunlavin Writers Group and Rathdangan Writers Group.
Legendary broadcaster Charlie Bird with his wife Claire and dog Tiger at Wicklow Hospice as they joined Irelands biggest coffee morning today.

Wicklows Charlie Bird and his wife Claire brewed up a storm today, leading Irelands biggest coffee morning in a 2million fundraising drive for hospice services nationwide.

The couple, along with beloved dog Tiger, were at Wicklow Hospice just weeks after the former RTE broadcaster revealed he is receiving care at home in his ongoing battle with motor neurone disease.

More than 2,500 people registered from homes, schools and businesses across Ireland to host a Bewleys Big Coffee Morning Social for Hospice this year.

I never thought I would need Hospice care, but since they have come into our lives, I have realised the massively important nature of their work in helping people at end-of-life and those with life-limiting conditions, said Charlie, 74.

Lets have one last push to help us reach this 2 million target. There is still time for individuals and businesses to host an event or simply donate to their local hospice.

Other coffee mornings also took place at different locations throughout Co Wicklow and the rest of the country.

If you can not host or attend one, a donation can be made to your local Hospice at hospicecoffeemorning.ie/donate.
Elton John and his filmmaker husband have said Suella Braverman risks legitimising hate and violence against gay people following a dog whistle speech on migration.

The British home secretary sparked outcry in the gay community over her address in Washington DC on Tuesday, in which she said simply being gay, or a woman should not by itself be enough to gain protection under international refugee laws.

Leading calls denouncing the remarks, Elton and his longterm parter David Furnish, released a statement via their AIDS Foundation calling for more compassion, support and acceptance for those seeking a safer future.

The powerful intervention, likely to ignite a tsumani of protests among other high profile celebrities, said: We are very concerned about the UK home secetarys comments stating how discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be reason enough to qualify for protection under international refugee laws.

Nearly a third of all nations class LGBTQ+ people as criminals and homosexuality is still punishable by death in 11 countries. Dismissing the very real danger LGBTQ+ communities face risks further legitimising hate and violence against them.

But the growing backlash appears to have turned the debate into a wider issue about the UKs human rights with critics furious it has stigmatized gay people  particularly those fleeing countries with poor humanitarian records.

One former Tory cabinet minister, who claimed the Conservatives had won the support of almost all gay voters after making same-sex marriages legal in 2013, told The Independent that Ms Braverman had torpedoed the partys LGBT+ credentials.

In one speech this has cut off the gay vote to the Conservative Party, they said. It is a constituency which has been in one swoop alienated.

The damage to the party is one thing; but the international trashing of Britain as a fair and humane place for those who are persecuted has taken an horrendous backward step.

Following Ms Bravermans appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, a centre-right think tank in Washington DC, LGBT+ and human rights campaigners dubbed the home secretary a dangerous fool.

Conservative moderates and opposition parties accused her of pushing dog whistle politics to boost her leadership credentials with the Tory right.

Ms Braverman called on world leaders to make major changes to the UN Refugee Convention, arguing it had become far too generous to migrants, adding: Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman. Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary.

But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection.

The cabinet minister also said multiculturalism had failed, claimed uncontrolled immingration was an exsitential challenge for the West and argued that fears of being branded racist was preventing leaders from reforming global asylum policy.

Andrew Boff  a leading Tory London Assembly member who is patron of the LGBT+ Conservatives group  told The Independent that Ms Braverman was indulging in dog whistle politics to appeal to the right.

Mr Boff said: All this chitter chatter is not government policy  its just dog whistling to a section of people who feel that we are being flooded with gays. Its just ridiculous.

What Suella should be doing is sorting out the heap of crap at the Home Office. Its not good trying to distract from failure at the Home Office by trying to indicate that this is a problem with the victims of persecution.
Public warned of possible flooding, difficult travel conditions, power outages and fallen trees as storm due to make landfall by late morning

Storm Agnes: Flooding and power outages and roof ripped off building as Ireland braces for gusts of up to 130kmh

Storm Agnes caused traffic chaos around Ireland this morning with fallen trees, flooded roads and reduced visibility due to torrential rainfall and high winds.

In Youghal, Co Cork video showed the roof being ripped off a building by the wind.

As expected, the south has so far experienced the worst of the first major autumn storm with Storm Agnes set to peak between 10am and 3pm.

Because the Atlantic storm is travelling over Ireland during daytime, its dangers are increased because of heavy road usage.

Parts of Cork, Kerry and Waterford are expected to receive almost 40mm of rainfall in less than 24 hours with flooding likely, particularly in coastal areas.

Status Orange wind warnings are in place for counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford from 9am to 7pm today, while there are Orange rain warnings for Cork, Kerry and Waterford from 9am to 3pm.

There are also less severe Status Yellow wind warnings for Munster, Leinster and Co Galway from 7am until midnight, while Yellow rain warnings are in place for Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Waterford.

What the south-east of the country can expect on Wednesday as Storm Agnes hits

Thousands of customers are now without electricity as fallen trees and flying debris have damaged power lines.

The most powerful gusts recorded so far were 110kmh at Sherkin Island in west Cork with gusts of over 100kmh around Cork city.

Power supplies have been worst hit in Cork with interruptions in Kanturk, Ballincollig/Ovens, Ballyvourney, Macroom, Blarney and Dunmanway-Clonakilty.

In Youghal, video showed the roof being torn off a building by high winds.

ESB Networks warned that while repair crews were on standby for Storm Agnes, reconnections will only begin when it is safe to commence repair work.

They apologised to all customers impacted for the inconvenience caused.

Cork Airport issued an appeal for any passengers intending to travel to the airport to exercise caution.

A number of flights have been delayed at Cork Airport due to the storm.

Travellers have been warned that ports and airports could experience delays because of the impact of Storm Agnes.

A spokesperson for Dublin Airport said it is open and operating as normal today.

Storm Agnes makes landfall at Ballycotton, Co. Cork

"Passengers intending to travel today are advised to check the status of specific flights directly with their airline and to allow sufficient time for their journey to the airport," they said.

A number of major outdoor attractions have closed given the Status Orange alerts.

Fota Wildlife Park said it decided to close for the entirety of September 27 as a precautionary measure.

"We are currently contacting bookings for this date, if you booked to visit the park for this date please stand by for a direct contact update on your booking, they said.

"We apologise for the inconvenience caused. This decision is for the safety of our visitors as well as our animals and staff. We thank you for your patience and understanding."

Mallow Castle and its playground are closed due to the storm.

In Cobh, the ferry was seen braving the conditions.

Met Eireann forecaster Brandon Creagh said Status Yellow counties can expect some potentially dangerous impacts as well.

Difficult travelling conditions and some localised flooding are possible in plenty of places, some downed trees are possible with the severe winds but its Cork, Kerry and Waterford  especially along the coasts  which are going to get the strongest impacts, he said.

I would certainly take care with any downed trees that could be about, possible flooding and downed power lines are certainly possible as well, with Status Orange level winds.

Mr Creagh said the three counties under Orange warnings can expect gusts of up to 130kmh and warned that counties under lower warnings and even those not under a warning can expect strong winds, with gale warnings in place along coastal areas across the country.

Spells of heavy and occasionally intense rain are expected in the counties under Orange warnings, along with very strong and gusty southerly winds.

Rain is seen here battering a residential property in West Cork.

The heavy rain will result in difficult travel conditions, localised flooding and poor visibility, while strong winds and some severe, damaging gusts could lead to coastal flooding, power outages and fallen trees.

Agnes is expected to track northwards over Ireland and cause disruption in affected areas before clearing towards Scotland on tonight.

There is a Status Yellow wind warning in place for Northern Ireland from midday, lasting overnight, while there is also an Orange storm warning in place until 7pm for the south-east with a Yellow gale warning for the rest of Irish coastal waters.

Cork County Council was among those to issue advice to members of the public ahead of the storms arrival.

A multi-vehicle collision in Cork city has been blamed on weather and road conditions.

A number of trees have already fallen in Cork due to high winds.

Met Eireannn warned that fallen trees pose a particular risk given that many are already in full leaf and have reduced ability to cope with such high winds.

Fallen trees have already been reported around Cork at Fivemile, Bantry, Clonakilty and Fermoy.

Kerry has also experienced a number of fallen trees and flooded roads.

Flooding has already been reported in Cork on the Banduff Road, Rochestown Road, Ballyhooly Road and North Ring as well as in Ballincollig.

Some floods are sufficiently serious that roads have been rendered impassable.

The council is asking members of the public to exercise extreme caution as driving conditions may be hazardous, with surface and flash flooding possible, a spokesperson said.

Motorists are advised to avoid driving through flowing or standing water and to exercise caution during heavy rain. Motorists are also asked to be conscious of vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.

Members of the public are advised to stay high, stay dry and stay away from the coast, rivers and lakes.

With strong gusts and high waves predicted, people are urged to refrain from visiting coastal areas.

Cork County Councils Severe Weather Assessment Team met ahead of Storm Agnes arrival.

"Met Eireann has advised that rainfall will continue in Cork after the Status Orange warning period has expired, with up to 35mm of rain expected in a 24 hour period, a spokesperson said.

"A tidal surge is expected, which may cause localised road flooding in some low-lying quay areas of the city, including Morrisons Island, South Terrace, Union Quay, Lavitts Quay and Wandesford Quay at high tide.

"Tidal flooding is expected to be restricted to the road carriageways only with limited, if any, other flooding."

Sandbags and pumping arrangements have been put in place in problem areas, and inlets and gullies were cleared ahead of the storm.

Council crews are also on standby in Co Kerry, where Kerry County Council has advised members of the public to prepare for severe weather and ensure that items vulnerable to high winds are stored away safely.
The three men and two women are accused of conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state. Stock image

Five Bulgarian nationals accused of being part of a Russian spying network in Britain, tasked with carrying out surveillance and obtaining information about targets, appeared by video link in a London court yesterday.

The three men and two women are accused of conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state between August 30, 2020, and February 8, 2023.
Even at 90, he never grew old  tributes to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and NCIS actor David McCallum

Scholar and gentleman was also a musician whose work was once sampled by Dr Dre

David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin in popular 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Photo: Getty

Frances Vinall Washington Post Wed 27 Sep 2023 at 03:30







David McCallum  the Scottish actor best known for his roles on the 1960s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and then, four decades later, the CBS crime procedural NCIS  has died aged 90.
A Billings man already facing local charges alleging sexual abuse has been charged in Washington State with multiple child sex abuse felonies.

Aaron Joseph Drake was booked into Yellowstone County Detention Facility on Sunday following his arrest on a $500,000 warrant. Drake and his brother, Brian Matthew Drake, have been charged in Whatcom County Superior Court with child rape along with several other child sex abuse crimes, according to reporting from the Bellingham Herald.

At the time the Washington State charges were filed, Aaron Drake was awaiting trial in a case that began in Yellowstone County last year. In July 2022, according to court records, Drake pleaded not guilty in Yellowstone County to sexual intercourse without consent. Drake allegedly molested a child, with the allegations following an investigation into accusations of Drake threatening to shoot another child at his home in Billings.

During subsequent interviews with a Billings Police Department detective, court documents said, Drake denied threatening or sexually assaulting any children. As an alternative to the one count of sexual intercourse without consent, Yellowstone County prosecutors charged Drake with one count of sexual assault and two counts of assault with a weapon. Prosecutors are alleging Drake pointed firearms at children in his home during an argument.

After entering his not guilty plea, Drake was released from custody on a $50,000 bond. Among the conditions of his release, he had to be monitored by GPS.

In late September 2023, the Bellingham Herald reported, Whatcom County prosecutors charged Aaron Drake and Brian Drake with 37 crimes between the two of them. The brothers sexually abused two girls in Whatcom County, prosecutors alleged, repeatedly over the course of several years in the 2000s. Whatcom County is located in Northwestern Washington along the Canadian border.

Brian Drake was arrested Sept. 19, per the Bellingham Herald, at his home in Washington. Aaron Drake was still in YCDF on a $500,000 warrant as of Tuesday, according to court records. Officials in Whatcom County could not be reached to comment on when Aaron Drake will appear in court for the Washington charges.

Aaron Drake is currently scheduled to go to trial for the Yellowstone County charges in late November. If convicted of sexual intercourse without consent in Montana, Drake could be sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility for parole for the first 25 years.

Earlier this month, a 60-year-old Indiana man was sentenced to 70 years in prison for sexually assaulting a Laurel girl several times. Robert Lee Morrissey Jr. was convicted in Yellowstone County District Court of three counts of sexual assault after the girl who survived his assault reported the abuse.
Photo courtesy: PIB

Mumbai/UNI: Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal informed the public on Tuesday night that a meeting will be held in Delhi with a delegation of state cabinet ministers on September 29 to resolve the ongoing onion issue in the state of Maharashtra.

In this regard, a special meeting was organised in presence of Goyal and state Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar at Sahyadri Government Guest House in Mumbai in the background of a bandh called by onion traders in Nashik district.

Union Minister of State for Health Bharti Pawar, Deputy Speaker Narhari Jirwal, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Chhagan Bhujbal, Minister for Agriculture Dhananjay Munde, Minister for Public Works (Public Enterprises), Guardian Minister of Nashik Dadaji Bhuse, Minister for Marketing Abdul Sattar, MLA Hiraman Khoskar, MLA Rahul Aher, MLA Nitin Pawar, and top brass officials were present.

In order to provide relief to the onion producer farmers in the state, in the meeting, the representatives of the people demanded that NAFED and 'NCCF' purchase onions directly from the farmers in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee's (APMC) premises.

The state government is trying its best to protect the interests of onion producers, traders, and consumers as well.

Therefore, Union Minister Goyal and Deputy Chief Minister Pawar appealed to the traders in Nashik district to withdraw the auction ban decision and start buying onions immediately to avoid inconvenience to onion producers and consumers.

The central government's decision to purchase 2 lakh metric tonnes of onion at the rate of Rs 2,410 per quintal through NAFED and 'NCCF' proved to be beneficial for both onion producers and consumers.

But since onions purchased through NAFED and 'NCCF' are available to private traders in other states at a lower price, the traders in the state also had to sell their onions at a lower price than the purchase price.

Due to this, traders started losing money; they had stopped the onion auction in the APMC of Nashik district, resulting in onion farmers being affected by it.

Against this backdrop, Pawar tried to sort out the issue by holding two consecutive meetings at the Mantralaya and Sahyadri guest houses, in which he promised that the state government was committed to protecting the interests of onion producers, traders, and consumers in the state.
Photo courtesy: Twitter/@BJP4Gujarat

Gandhinagar/IBNS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday assured that India will become a "global economic powerhouse" addressing the 20th year of 'Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit'.

Highlighting India's growth in the economy, Modi said, "Today India is the fastest growing economy in the world. Now we are standing at a turning point where India is going to become a Global Economic Powerhouse.

"In a few years, India will be one of the top 3 economies of the world, this is Modi's guarantee."

The 'Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit' was started in 2003 by Modi, who was the state's Chief Minister back then.

Taking a dig at the then central government run by Congress, Modi said, "Today the world is seeing the success of Vibrant Gujarat. But Vibrant Gujarat was organized in such an environment when the then central government showed indifference towards the development of Gujarat.

"Foreign investors were threatened not to go to Gujarat, even after so many threats, foreign investors came to Gujarat. This summit was also organized during the global recession in 2009."

Modi, who served as the Gujarat Chief Minister for three terms until became Prime Minister in 2014, called the summit "the bond which is linked" to him.

"20 years ago I had said that Vibrant Gujarat is not just an event of branding but of bonding. For the world this successful summit may be a brand, but for me it is a symbol of a strong bond," the Prime Minister said and added, "This is the bond which is linked to me and the 7 crore citizens of Gujarat and their capabilities."

Since 2003, the Vibrant Gujarat Business Summit slowly emerged as one of the leading business events in the country.
Photo courtesy: UNI

New Delhi/UNI: National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued notices to the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Bihar over alleged assault and stripping of a dalit woman on failing to pay interest on a loan.

The Commission has asked for a detailed report in the matter within four weeks. The report should also include the status of the FIR, physical as well as mental health status of the victim woman and compensation, if any, granted to her, NHRC said in a statement.

The NHRC has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report that a 30-year-old woman belonging to Scheduled Caste, was allegedly assaulted, stripped and urinated upon in Mosimpur village of Patna on September 23.

Reportedly, she was subjected to torture and inhuman treatment after purportedly failing to repay additional interest on a loan, amounting to Rs 1,500 which she had borrowed from a local strongman, it said.

The victim, reported to belong to the Scheduled Caste community is also eligible for the compensation as per provision of Rules framed under the SC/ST (PoA) Act. The authorities are expected to explain in the report about the status of the installment of the compensation given to the victim.

The victim has passed through a trauma and hence, it is also expected from the State government to intimate whether any counselling has been provided to her, the statement said.

According to the media report, carried on September 25 the accused had approached the victim four days before the incident, coercing her to repay an additional amount as interest and the victim had reported the matter to the police.

The accused, reportedly, belong to a dominant caste, while there are only a few Scheduled Caste families residing in the village, who have stated that they are in fear and are thinking of leaving the place for some days, it said.
Image Credit: Pixabay

Ujjain: A horrifying video of a 12-year-old girl, raped and bleeding from injuries, helplessly wandering in a semi-naked state, seeking help door-to-door, has taken the nation by shock. The incident occurred in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, the state with a dismal record of violence against women and girls.

People stared at her, apathy clearly visible as they refused to help despite her pitiable condition. One of them even shooed her away as she begged him for help, NDTV reported.

Peoples indifference to the traumatized minor girl, who begged for their help and protection, was caught on CCTV camera at Badnagar road, about 15 km from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.

The girl eventually reached an ashram where a priest suspected sexual violence, said the report.

He covered her with a towel and rushed her to the district hospital. The medical examination confirmed rape, it said.

She was rushed to Indore for advanced treatment as her injuries were serious and she needed blood.

Police personnel came forward to help her with blood, the report said.

Her condition is now stable, said the report.

She could not respond clearly to queries about her name and her address, said police, it added.

A case of rape against unidentified accused has been registered under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Ujjain police chief Sachin Sharma said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed to identify and catch the culprits at the earliest.

He said the location of the crime will be soon found as the investigation has just started.

He added the girls accent indicates that she could be from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh

The blood-curdling incident has once again put Madhya Pradesh under the scanner for being a hub of crime against women.

In 2021, Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rapes in the country in 2021- 6,462 - as per the National Crime Records Bureau data.

Minor girls were victims in over 50 percent of the crimes, which is equivalent to 18 rapes per day.

Madhya Pradesh along with Maharashtra also reported the topped the cases of disappearance of women and girls between 2019 and 2021.
Image Credit: khalsavox.com

New Delhi/Ottawa: Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), planned the assassination of terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada with the aim of creating tension between India and Canada, India Today reported citing sources, Ind.

The sources also disclosed that the ISI had enlisted criminals to carry out the killing and had been exerting pressure on Nijjar to provide full support to gangsters who had recently arrived in Canada. Despite this, Nijjar was inclined towards the former Khalistani leaders, the report said.

A diplomatic dispute arose when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested potential involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil in June.

India promptly rejected the claim, deeming it baseless and motivated. In response, India temporarily halted visa issuance to Canadian citizens and requested Ottawa to scale down its diplomatic presence.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar urged member states not to let political convenience dictate responses to terrorism and violence.

He emphasised the importance of respecting territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs, underscoring that select nations no longer dictate the global agenda.
Kolkata: Tata Power EV Charging Solutions Limited (TPEVCSL), a Tata Power group company is partnering with the Kolkata Airport Authorities to establish EV charging points at the airport.

The formal inauguration of four EV chargers (DC-CCS2 and single-gun GB/T chargers) took place on Tuesday in the presence of Airport Director, Kolkata, C Pattabhi, and Virendra Goyal, Head of Business Development for EV Charging at Tata Power, along with Ramkrishna Singh, Head of Business Operations, EV Charging, Tata Power.

On the occasion, a formal agreement was inked between the Airport Authorities of India and Tata Power. These chargers are suitable to charge all electric cars available in the country.

In the inauguration ceremony, Virendra Goyal, Head of Business Development (EV Charging) at Tata Power stated, "Our collaboration with Kolkata Airport places us at the forefront of building a robust EV charging network in the city and the nearby areas.

C Pattabhi, Airport Director, Kolkata, commended Tata Power's initiatives as a significant stride towards advancing sustainable mobility. The installation of EV charging infrastructure in public parking areas not only enhances convenience for electric vehicle users but also signifies a steadfast commitment to environmental conservation.

The site selection for these charging stations underwent meticulous planning, prioritizing convenience and accessibility for EV users who commute to the airport or nearby vicinity.

Given the airport's prominent position as one of the city's bustling hubs, these chargers are strategically positioned to offer unparalleled convenience to the public, effectively addressing concerns related to EV range anxiety.

Tata Power has already made substantial strides, with a total of 50+ public and semi-public charging points installed across Kolkata. It solidifies its position as the largest EV charging point operator in India, boasting nearly 60% market share.

Tata Power's extensive nationwide network comprises over 58,000 home chargers, 4,800 public and semi-public charging points, and 430 bus charging stations, spanning 420+ cities and continually expanding its reach.
Photo courtesy: UNI

New Delhi/IBNS/UNI: A Supreme Court judge Justice S V N Bhatti Wednesday recused himself from hearing former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's petition seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him in the alleged skill development scam case.

Telugu Desam Party Chief Naidu is under arrest in connection with the alleged scam.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Naidu, told the apex court bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna that he would request the CJI for an urgent hearing on the matter during the day.

However, with Justice Bhatti recusing himself, the matter would be sent back to the CJI, who will assign a bench for the hearing.

Naidu moved the Supreme Court on Saturday challenging his arrest and the FIR registered against him in the alleged Rs 371 crore scam case.

Naidu approached the top judiciary a day after the Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed his petition saying that it couldn't interfere in the case, since the investigation is on fulcrum of attaining finality.

Justice Sreenivasa Reddy of the AP HC, while dismissing Naidu's petition, said the investigating agency examined more than 140 witnesses and collected about 4,000 documents under the registration of the crime in 2021. Therefore, the court was not inclined to interfere with the proceedings.
Photo courtesy: UNI

New Delhi/IBNS: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Wednesday detained several people after multi-state raids to break the nexus between criminal syndicates in India and Khalistani separatists and terrorists based in countries like Pakistan and Canada.

The NIA raids focussed on people with links to Canada-based syndicates and criminals who use these networks for terror-related activities.

This crackdown took place amid India's major diplomatic row with Canada after the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed "agents of Delhi" were involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, who was a Canadian citizen.

India has rejected the allegation as 'absurd' and said that Canadian authorities have yet to share evidence.

Speaking at the UN, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar Tuesday flagged a spike in "organised crime relating to secessionist forces and extremism" in that country without taking the name.

The raids commenced early morning over 50 locations connected to gangs run by Lawrence Bishnoi and Canada-based Arshdeep Dalla, whom police this week discovered links to Pak-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and other crime bosses, said reports.

According to the NIA, fugitives like Dalla and Gaurav Patial are based abroad but stay in touch with Khalistani terrorists to secure funding, smuggle weapons and order murders, acts of extortion and take part in other anti-national activities.

The raids were in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the national capital region; in Punjab alone, the NIA raided 30 locations.

These are part of efforts to build a watertight case against the syndicates, most of which are now operated from Dubai and are linked to cases the NIA filed last year under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Two Yellowstone County residents have been indicted in separate federal court cases with accusations of threatening state and national leaders.

Anthony James Cross and Richard Lee Rogers both face charges in U.S. District Court of threatening to kill members the United States Congress. Cross, 29, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to threatening the lives of Sen. Jon Tester and President Joe Biden. Rogers meanwhile is accused of threatening to kill Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy and making harassing telephone calls.

In early February, according to court documents, Rogers threatened to fatally assault Rep. McCarthy in retaliation for his actions as house speaker. That same day, Rogers, a Shepherd resident, made several harassing phone calls. Court documents do not specify to whom the alleged calls were made.

In April, court documents said, Cross made his threats to Tester and Biden. He allegedly threatened to murder Tester and, according to court documents, stated, I will personally kill Joe Biden.

Cross fell under federal scrutiny in April when he allegedly threatened a woman at a Billings trailer park with a pellet gun. The woman was walking her dog when Cross brandished a pellet gun designed to look like a Glock handgun, court documents said.

After Crosss arrest by Yellowstone County deputies, the FBI allegedly told investigators with the Yellowstone County Sheriffs Office that the bureau had uncovered videos posted online in which Cross threatened politicians and transgender people. Also among the videos was a recording Cross made in which he threatened to kill a man sleeping in a car parked near his home, court documents said.

Yellowstone County District Court prosecutors have charged Cross with one count of assault with a weapon in connection to the allegation of him pointing a pellet gun at the woman walking her dog. Cross is slated to go to trial for the Yellowstone County charges in October.

Cross pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the federal charges, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office. If convicted of threatening to kill a U.S. Senator, he could be sentenced up to 10 years in prison.

Rogers is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court next month.

On Tuesday, a Montana man was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Isaac Steve Sturgeon, a 34-year-old man from Dillon, was previously convicted in U.S. Court of seven crimes, including obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder.

Sturgeon was a part of the mob that stormed restricted areas of the Capitol building. He also assisted in taking apart a bike rack and forcing it against law enforcement, court documents said, injuring at least one officer.
Image tweeted by Jagdeep Dhankar from the event

Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan)/IBNS/UNI: Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar Wednesday said the inclusion of the African Union in the G20 and the formation of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor will prove to be a game changer for the countrys progress.

Interacting with the staff, faculty, and students of BITS Pilani, Dhankar said the Chairman of the World Bank said at the G20 conference that the economic progress India has made in the last five years was not possible even in 47 years.

He said the countrys digital transactions are four times that of developed countries like the USA, UK, and Germany, among others.

India's data consumption is more than that of China and the USA, and the number of startups and unicorns in the country has left behind China, he said.

Dhankhar said there are no more power brokers in government work, and money is directly transferred to the accounts of beneficiaries of government schemes. "There are no more impediments like brokers, middlemen, commissions and cut money".

He said the world is amazed to see this change.

The Vice President said: "We are in that period of history where the idea of making everything possible is working"

Dhankhar, however, said he doesnt understand why some people get upset after seeing the development of the country.

"To express our views, and to create space, we travel around the world. Now somewhere someone will be found to listen but the answer to this has to be given to the people of the country," he said.

During his address, the Vice President also made three announcements from the stage, including the signing of an MoU, the draft of which will be finalised later, between the Indian Council of World Affairs, of which the Vice President was himself the chairman and BITS.

Fifty to hundred students of BITS will visit Bharat Mandapam Yashobhoomi, New Parliament House, Prime Minister Museum, and War Memorial among others as guests of the Vice President.
Photo courtesy: Facebook/Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi/IBNS: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) began a preliminary investigation on Wednesday into alleged improprieties in the construction and renovation of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's new residence, reports said.

The CBI has requested documents related to the renovation of the Delhi CM's official bungalow; the sources said.

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Delhi unit has welcomed the central probe agency's move to probe the alleged irregularities.

BJP Delhi unit president Virendra Sachdeva claimed that Delhiites want to know from the CBI inquiry how Kejriwal got constructed a "Rajmahal" bungalow much bigger and above his entitlement.

"The inquiry will also bring out on whose instructions the PWD officials floated small tenders for the construction which was done without getting any sanction plan approved from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and above all the rejection of the plan submitted to the Delhi Urban Art Commission," Sachdeva said.

Earlier, BJP had alleged that the Delhi CM spent Rs 45 crore on the decoration of his bungalow.

The BJP declared that Kejriwal had betrayed the "simple living" promise he made on entering politics.

Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party has accused the BJP of "using all its strength to destroy..." it.

"So far BJP has filed over 50 cases against Kejriwalji... nothing came out in them and nothing will come out of this. No matter how much investigation the BJP does, Arvind Kejriwal will continue to fight for the interests of the common man. Kejriwal has sworn he will make India No 1 in the world and he is ready to pay any price for this," a defiant AAP said in its statement.

[With UNI inputs]
Image: UNICEF/Tiecoura NDaou

In Mali, one million children under five are at risk of malnutrition amid polio and measles outbreaks, increased armed violence and displacement, the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

UNICEF Representative in Mali, Pierre Ngom, told reporters in Geneva that dozens of children have been killed this month alone by non-State armed groups in the north and centre of the country.

An attack on a boat on the Gao-Timbuktu axis on 7 September claimed the lives of at least 24 youngsters.

Mr. Ngom called for urgent action to protect and support children in Mali: Investments in peace and security must go hand in hand with getting all children in school and learning, fully vaccinated, protected from grave violations, and free from malnutrition.

Peacekeeping withdrawl

He said that heightened insecurity has been further amplified by the ongoing departure of UN peacekeepers.

The UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) pull-out is scheduled for the end of the year. Mr. Ngom underscored that MINUSMA was helping ensure the safety of UNICEF teams implementing vaccination campaigns in insecure zones.

According to UNICEF, with just a few weeks until the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, more than 1,500 out of 9,000 schools are not functional.

In the southeastern Menaka region, half of all schools are closed. In all, half a million children are affected, but UNICEF is working with the Government to provide classes through radio programming, and recruit community volunteers to fill in for teachers.

Brazil: UN rights office hails encouraging ruling on Indigenous Peoples land claims

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) welcomed on Tuesday a recent Brazilian Supreme Court ruling in favour of a land rights case brought by Indigenous Peoples.

OHCHR said that the landmark decision rejected time restrictions on Indigenous Peoples claims to their ancestral land and called it very encouraging.

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An opposing legal argument would have blocked Indigenous Peoples who were not living on their ancestral land 35 years ago from laying claim to it today; 1988 was the year when Brazils constitution was adopted.

OHCHR said that such limits would have perpetuated and aggravated historic injustices suffered by Brazils Indigenous Peoples.

The UN rights office said that it remained concerned that a draft bill currently being discussed in Congress was seeking to impose the 1988 deadline which has now been rejected by the Supreme Court.

Failure to ensure judicial independence impeding justice in Montenegro: UN expert

Failure to elect a seventh member of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme State Prosecutor and new lay members of Montenegros judicial council, has put plans for judicial reform at risk there, an independent UN rights expert said on Tuesday.

Margaret Satterthwaite, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers said in a statement at the end of an official visit there that this would hinder access to justice for all its citizens.

She added that Montenegros Parliament had failed, on multiple occasions, to elect the new members needed to staff these important institutions.

As a result, strategic leadership in these institutions is lacking, and planning and action for reform of the system is not possible, she said.

'Country above politics'

Members of Parliament must put the interests of their country above politics, and ensure these appointments take place without any further delay.

Ms. Satterthwaite said she had met with judges and prosecutors who reported working in conditions that were manifestly underfunded.

Buildings were old, too small, and in a poor state of repair. There was insufficient office space, creating security risks for judges and prosecutors. Up to date information technology and digitalisation was severely lacking, she said.

During my visits to courts, I was shocked to see and hear about inadequate facilities for storage of archives and evidence, including firearms and drugs, the independent expert added.

Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, are not staff and do not receive a salary for their investigative work.
Image: UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferre

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) raised concerns on Tuesday over the movement of a large number of civilians to Armenia as a result of the recent hostilities in the region.

Some 19,000 refugees have reportedly left the Karabakh Economic Region of the Republic of Azerbaijan, including many elderly people, women and children.

UNHCR Spokesperson Shabia Mantoo called on all sides to protect civilians and to fully respect international humanitarian refugee law allowing them safe passage.

All parties must refrain from actions that would cause displacement of civilians and ensure their safety, security and human rights and nobody should be forced to flee their homes, said Ms. Mantoo, speaking during a scheduled UN agency briefing in Geneva.

Guterres 'very concerned' over displacement

In the regular noon briefing for reporters in New York, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, said the UN chief Antonio Guterres was "very concerned" about the displacement.

"Its essential that the rights of the displaced populations be protected and that they receive the humanitarian support they are owed, said the Spokesperson.

He underlined that at this point, the UN was "not involved in the humanitarian situation" within the region, but the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) is on the ground in Armenia.

Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region has persisted for more than three decades, but a ceasefire and subsequent Trilateral Statement was agreed almost three years ago following six weeks of fighting, by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, leading to the deployment of several thousand Russian peacekeepers.

Amid last weeks flare-up in fighting and the arrival of the first refugees in Armenia, the UN chief called for fully-fledged access for aid workers to people in need.

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De-escalation call

Mr. Guterres also called for de-escalation in the strongest terms and stricter observance of the 2020 ceasefire, and principles of international humanitarian law.

Echoing that appeal, UNHCRs Ms. Mantoo explained on Tuesday that amid the complex and multicultural situation, access to asylum must be maintained for people in need of international protection to ensure that people are treated humanely, that their rights are protected and respected, and that they can access the protection and safety that they need.

Support is also needed for countries at the front lines that are receiving people in need of protection, Ms. Mantoo said.

The UNHCR official also called for alternatives for a legal stay, and an expansion of regular and safe pathways so people don't have to risk their lives and that we don't see these types of backlogs and pressures.

International solidarity call

She reiterated that the regional response requires international solidarity and a concerted effort by all States and stakeholders.

Regarding UNHCRs teams on the ground in Armenia, Ms. Mantoo explained that they were monitoring the situation closely.

People were suffering the effects of trauma and exhaustion and need urgent psychosocial support Ms. Mantoo said, adding that the government of Armenia was leading the response and was expected to appeal to the international community for further support.

For its part, the UN agency has also provided assistance, including non-food items, portable beds, mattresses and bedding. There is also a need for shelter, warm clothing and other essential non-food items. And we're mobilizing further assistance and coordinating with local government and partners to respond to the increasing needs, she added.

In a statement released late on Tuesday, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk added his concern over the evolving situation.

"Any reported violations of human rights or international humanitarian law require follow-up, including prompt, independent and transparent investigations to ensure accountability and redress for the victims", he said.

He reminded that all countries must not deny ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities "the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language."
Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Sindhi political activists recently gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in New York and slammed Pakistan for targeting minorities like Hindus and exploiting the natural resources of the Sindh province.

They held a demonstration during the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. It was joined by Baloch, Pashtuns and Kashmiri activists, reports ANI.

The protesters were seen holding banners that read Pakistan Stop Ethnic Cleansing of Sindhi Hindus, Cutting Karoonjhar is a crime against nature, Sindh and Humanity and Millions of Sindhi flood victims remain abandoned.

The protesters were seen putting up pictures of Sindhi political activists who were abducted, tortured and killed by Pakistani secret agencies.

Pictures of Sindhi Hindu girls were also showcased who were forcibly abducted and converted to Islam, reported ANI.

Lakhu Luhana, the Secretary General of the World Sindhi Congress told ANI that the state is collapsing and the human rights situation is worsening in the region.

Luhana said, There are 1000 issues. What is happening in Sindh, as the state is collapsing? There is literally no other institution, other than intelligence. They are becoming more aggressive, more ruthless, more cruel. So the human rights situation is every front is worsening. The forced abductions, enforced disappearance, forced conversions of Sindhi Hindu girls.

Luhana further added that the Pakistan government is grabbing the lands of poor people and the locals have been completely abandoned amid situations of malnutrition and poverty.

He also called upon the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to stop its atrocities in the region.
Image: Karima Baloch Instagram page

To the Canadian government and particularly to the Prime Minister of Canada, we Baloch are looking to your organization and we are asking you please do reinvestigate the case of Karima Baloch and whatever facts your organizations, your authorities, your police has. Please publish that and give us under what circumstances she was killed and who was behind that killing, Mengal told ANI.

BVA President shared that a document was given to the Canadian government to seek response from them about the update in the case but he said they didnt get any follow-up from the Canadian authorities.

He added, We submitted a document to the Canadian embassy and they said that we will contact our government and we will reply you as soon as possible. Unfortunately, approximately three years passed. Till now, we have not received any information from the Canadian authorities when Karima was eliminated. And after that, we saw a statement by the police authorities that theres no wrongdoing in the case of her death.

He even alleged that ISI was behind the killing of the Baloch-based Human rights activists.

Activist Karima Baloch, who was vocal about Pakistan Army and government atrocities in Balochistan, was found dead in Canada's Toronto city in 2020.

She was a refugee in Canada.
Photo Courtesy: Pixabay

Underscoring the challenges that both sides are facing in deepening the economic ties, China has not agreed to further expand cooperation in areas of energy, water management, and climate change under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Moreover, Islamabad gave up its opposition to setting up a new imported coal-fired power plant in Gwadar and also agreed to a number of Chinese demands to address Beijings concerns, the signed minutes of the 11th Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of the CPEC showed, reported The Express Tribune.

Although, the JCC meeting was held in Oct 2022, its minutes were signed on July 31, highlighting the difference of opinions on both sides that led to almost a years delay in reaching a consensus.

The details showed China could not agree to host measures which Pakistan had proposed in the areas of energy, water management, climate change and tourism in Giglit-Baltistan (G-B), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and the coastal areas.

The final draft shared with Beijing by Pakistan and the final minutes signed by both the sides were different in many ways. The CPEC minutes had been signed on July 31 during the visit of the Chinese vice premier, Ahsan Iqbal, former planning minister in the PDM government, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The JCC is a strategic decision-making body of CPEC and its 11th meeting was held virtually on Oct 27, 2022 on the insistence of the PML-N led government that wanted to showcase some progress.

China excluded cooperation in the areas of cross-border tourism in G-B, K-P and AJK and cooperation for promotion of coastal tourism from the final minutes of the 11th JCC, the details showed, the newspaper reported.
Photo Caption: Unsplash/Grey Zhang

Forced separations and language policies for Uyghur and other minority Muslim children at State-run boarding schools in Chinas Xinjiang region carry the risk of forced assimilation, three UN independent human rights experts said on Tuesday.

Classroom teaching at these institutions is almost exclusively in Mandarin, with little or no use of the Uyghur language, they said in a statement.

They warned that separating the children from their families could lead to their forced assimilation into the majority Mandarin language and the adoption of Han cultural practices.

Orphans with families

The experts said they have received information about large-scale removal of youngsters from their families, including very young children whose parents are in exile or interned/detained.

The children are treated as orphans by State authorities and placed in full-time boarding schools, pre-schools, or orphanages where Mandarin is almost exclusively used.

Uyghur and other minority children in highly regulated and controlled boarding institutions may have little interaction with their parents, extended family or communities for much of their youth, the experts said.

This will inevitably lead to a loss of connection with their families and communities and undermine their ties to their cultural, religious and linguistic identities, they added.

Local schools closed

They said the children reportedly have little or no access to education in their own Uyghur language and are under increasing pressure to speak and learn only Mandarin, compared to education aimed at bilingualism.

Teachers can also be sanctioned for using the Uyghur language outside specific language classes.

The UN experts said they were also informed of an exponential increase in the number of boarding schools for other Muslim and minority children in Xinjiang in recent years.

Conversely, many local schools providing education in Uyghur and other minority languages have been closed.

The massive scale of the allegations raises extremely serious concerns of violations of basic human rights, they said.

About UN experts

The statement was issued by Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education.

The experts receive their mandates from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and are independent from any government or organization.

They are not UN staff and are not paid for their work.
Photo Courtesy:Unsplash/Micha Brandli

North Korea has decided to expel US soldier Travis King who was detained after "illegally intruding" into the country by running across the inter-Korean border in July, media reports said.

"The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, under the law of the Republic," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing the final findings of an investigation into King, was quoted as saying by Yonhap.

However, when and how the American will be expelled is still not clear.

The KCNA said King was "disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society" and crossed the border due to "inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army," reiterating the North's interim results of its investigation into King last month, Yonhap reported.

King crossed the military demarcation line from South Korea into North Korea in July during a tour of the Joint Security Area inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ). King, a junior enlisted soldier assigned to US Forces Korea, had faced assault charges in South Korea and was due to return to Fort Bliss, Texas, and be removed from the military just one day before he crossed into North Korea, CNN previously reported.
U.S. Attorneys Office, Northern District of Oklahoma

TULSA, Okla.  The last of multiple defendants involved in the abduction and death of an Osage Nation citizen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to murder in the second degree in federal court, announced U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson.

Tre Robert Allen Ac...
Editor's note: The Gazettes Stories of Honor series is supported by MasterLube and AARP.

When Michelene Big Man adorns herself in the traditional jingle dress she made by hand, she dances alongside other female veterans of Native American decent in an act of healing. Together theyre healing from war trauma, from military sexual assault, from racial discrimination and the sexism women face throughout their military service.

After two tours to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and 22 years in the U.S. Army, Big Man, 58, received the Combat Action Badge and the Global War on Terror Service Medal.

She is the founder of Native American Woman Warriors (NAWW), the first ever all Native American Women Color Guard, which works to recognize all female veterans, particularly those of Native American descent, and helps connect them to services following their tenure with the military.

Her work with the NAWW has given her a platform to raise awareness around social issues in military life that have lagged behind the civilian world such as sexism, sexual assault and racism, all of which marked her military service as much as her combat training.

She retired as a Sgt. 1st Class in 2009. But the rank means less to her than her Native American heritage.

To me, warrior means a lot more than rank, Big Man said.

The military insignia sown onto the sleeves of her jingle dress merges her many identities into one  a combat veteran, an esteemed member of the U.S. color guard, a Native American and a member of the Crow Nation.

Big Man has a warm and inviting nature that permeates even through the phone. She ends most of her conversations with be safe, whether shes talking to a close friend or a complete stranger. But then, tucked into her demeanor are biting jokes that slip out in the same motherly undertones, reminding the listener that shes tough. As the only woman in her battalion, she had to be.

A lot of times I had to educate others. Id say youll want to rethink that before I stab you with my screwdriver, Big Man said, who worked as diesel mechanic in the former years of her military service.

When she joined the Army in 1987, Big Man saw the military contract as a path toward safety, removing her from the reach of a dangerous boyfriend.

Throughout her service, she developed a reputation for taking on assignments that no one else wanted, never passing the chance to prove herself. All the while, she faced many unspoken battles.

Early on in her military career, she was sexually assaulted by a fellow soldier. For months, she slipped into bathrooms to cry, trying to manage the complicated trauma by herself.

It was tough, I had to find somewhere to cry. There was no one for me to turn to, Big Man said.

Sexual assault in the military remains pervasive with 8,942 reports made in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Department of Defense. Big Man sees it too, saying that reporting is still low due to retaliation from the perpetrator and, at times, leadership.

A feeling of never belonging followed her into her time as a service member, both as a woman in a male dominated environment, but as a Native American too.

Often mistaken as Hispanic, one soldier she spoke to was shocked to find that Native American people still existed.

I told him yes we do, and that he was about to earn dentures, Big Man said.

Though Big Man hails from the Crow Reservation, she grew up in Billings and attended Senior High School. She traveled back to the reservation regularly to see her extended family, and her cousins taught her valuable lessons that would eventually serve her while on deployment.

During her first deployment to Iraq, Big Man remembers one moonless night when she and her compatriots got lost while traversing the Middle Eastern landscape. The convoy mission was in its 20th hour or so when Big Man faced uncontrollable exhaustion and her eyes slammed shut when they stopped.

She woke to someone pounding on the window of the vehicle. The convoy commander had left her high level unit behind, and it was up to Big Man to get them to their destination safely.

At first I was like, why me, cause Im Native American? Big Man laughed, before explaining that she did know how to navigate using position of the moon and stars. It was a skill her cousin had taught her long before her military service.

But that night, it was pitch black with no guiding lights in the sky. Instead, Big Man got out and began looking for fresh tracks left by the convoy commander ahead of them.

She would jump out, kicking around in the dirt until she could discern which tire tracks had been there for days and which ones were new.

In the early days of the War on Terror, improvised explosive devices and landmines were common and injured hundreds of American soldiers. Her actions were risky, but she had been trained extensively of avoiding triggering an explosion.

We lived day by day. I did a lot of praying during that time, Big Man said.

She managed to get the convoy safely to their destination. But there was no acknowledgement of her efforts.

At the time, Big Man had two children waiting for her at home. Her husband is also a service member and was deployed at the same time.

They try not to send both parents at the same time, but they just needed as many people as they could find (during Operation Iraqi Freedom), Big Man said.

Big Man still works for the U.S. government, and lives in Florida with her husband and five adopted children, all from the Crow Reservation in Montana.

Big Man speaks openly about military sexual trauma now, raising awareness as she dances the healing jingle dance for audiences around the world.

Due to her dedication to helping others, Big Man has been given the Society of American Indian Government Employees (SAIGE) Meritorious Service Award and by the White House "Champions of Change" initiative for her work with NAWW. She has served as Trustee for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

She was also featured in "Her War, Too," a book by Von M. Griggs that examined female experiences in the U.S. military.

The story includes a poem that Big Man wrote herself. The prose captures both the well-known hardships soldiers face when returning home from war as well as the deeply personal wounds from racism and trauma the she is still nursing.

The last two lines in particular hold profound meaning for Big Man:

No matter how hard I work or try/No one sees this Warriors cry.
MISSOURI  Nearly 3,300 Native American remains once unearthed in Missouri are still awaiting repatriation to their respective tribes, even though a law from decades ago dictates their return. These remains are spread across thirty-eight establi...
In what activists hailed a historic victory for the countrys indigenous inhabitants, Brazils top court rejected moves to drastically curtail Indigenous land rights.

The time limit trick, an agribusiness-backed attempt to prevent Indige...
When you have a query, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? If you've embraced the internet, your answer is most likely to be "let me Google it." 25 years ago today, Google was born. The staple search engine, Google, was started by Sergey Brin (who was a PhD student at Stanford University at that time) and Larry Page (who wanted to study at Stanford).

Google Search's index has expanded to include hundreds of billions of webpages, exceeding the size of more than 100,000,000 gigabytes. Once Google Search was in place, the company grew into the tech behemoth it has become today - with additional services like Gmail, the entire Android ecosystem, and Chrome browser now in the picture.

Google turns 25 this month 

CEO @SundarPichai looks back on the big questions that led us to where we are today, and what the next 25 years could look like  https://t.co/gftKdUAE9x  Google (@Google) September 5, 2023

Here are a few thing you didn't know about Google.

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A typo that changed the internet

Initially, Google was named Backrub. Yikes! Imagine saying "Let me backrub this information really quick!" Not much later, the name was changed to Google... which was also accidental. The word Google is actually a typo of the word googol that refers to a mathematical concept "one with a hundred zeros" - part of the company's initial strategy to make information accessible to everyone.

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Also read: Google Is Officially Killing Gmail HTML View Next Year

Feeding humanity's thirst for questions

Everyday, around 8.5 billion searches are performed on Google's search engine, according to Internet Live Stats, 2022. In 2022, about 99,000 search queries were made each second. Bizarre, right? This is testimony to how much Google has become embedded into our lives. About 15% of all Google search queries are unique.

Also read: Google's Latest Video Takes A Dig At Apple's iMessage For Not Adopting RCS



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It all began in a garage

The fist Google office was situated in a garage in Menlo Park, California. This garage belonged to Google's 16th employee and the eventual CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki.

Google becomes a verb

In 2006, the word Google became a verb, as recognised by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The dictionary included the word "Google" with the meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (someone or something) on the World Wide Web."

Happy 25th birthday, Google! What do you think about Google's journey so far? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.
Surprises are typical in the world of beauty pageants. But the Miss Universe Zimbabwe 2023 contest raised the bar in terms of surprising victors. The crowd was shocked when a participant who was somewhat out of the ordinary won the event, which usually honours brains, composure, and attractiveness.

Who Won The Miss Universe Zimbabwe 2023?

Zimbabwe returned to the Miss Universe contest in 2023 after a 22-year absence. But rather than rejoicing, some people are giving the nation and this year's 2023 Miss Universe Zimbabwe winner a serious side-eye.

Miss Universe Zimbabwe 2023, Brooke Bruk-Jackson, was crowned on September 16.

Credit: Instagram

Jackson is white despite being a native of the nation, as you can see from images on her official Instagram. Many people were shocked to learn that she would be representing the African nation as the news of her new victory spread across social media over the weekend, especially given that the majority of the population is black and that non-black people make up just 2% of the country's nearly 16 million people.

Jackson, who will represent Zimbabwe at the Miss Universe pageant in 2023, has emphasised her delight and commitment to "being an example of grace, understanding, and inspiration to the youth of Zimbabwe."

She Posted Her Winning On Instagram

Bruk-Jackson gushed on Instagram about her passion for Zimbabwe and her responsibility to "serve our people" after she won.

In addition, she said, "I have won this crown for our lovely nation, to love and serve our people, to represent Zimbabwe abroad, and to show the world the uniqueness of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans."

Credit: Instagram

"I want to instill the spirit of 'ubuntu' and know that together we are strong and anything in life is possible. I want to be an example of grace, understanding, and inspiration to the youth of Zimbabwe," she added.



There Are Haters Too

A discussion on diversity, inclusiveness, colonialism, and the significance of skin colour has continued as a result of the many others who also came to Bruk-Jackson's support.

Others have noted that Aishah Akorede, a black woman, won the title of Miss Universe Ireland 2023 on Friday to much applause.

Last week, Bruk-Jackson attempted to address the criticism in a different Instagram post, writing: "The colour of our skin should not define a person or who each individual chooses to associate with..."

Credit: Instagram

This means that regardless of skin colour or hair colour, we are all born the same way. We all arrived on Earth via the same route.

Earlier This Year Miss Netherlands Was A Transgender

Rikkie Kolle, the first openly transgender contestant to win Miss Netherlands earlier this year, will represent the nation at Miss Universe in November as a result of her accomplishment.

Kolle would be the first transgender person to wear the Miss Universe tiara if she were to win. Since 2012, trans people have been able to participate in the pageant. In 2018, the first openly transgender competitor, Angela Ponce of Spain, entered the competition, but she was unable to move on to the finals.

What do you think about it? Do let us know in the comments.

For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram.
On Monday, a 26-year-old tech CEO in the United States, Pava LaPere, was found dead in her apartment with head injuries. She co-founded EcoMap Technologies.

The Baltimore Police Department is investigating her murder and searching for a 32-year-old suspect named Jason Dean Billingsley.

Police received a call around 11:30 a.m. on Monday and found Pava LaPere with severe head injuries at her apartment complex. The police haven't disclosed more details about her death.

The medical examiner's office has examined her body, and the investigation is ongoing.

Officials seek Jason Dean Billingsley on first-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and more.

Police warn that he should be considered armed and dangerous.

"This individual will kill, and he will rape. He will do anything to cause harm," Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley warned during a press conference.

EcoMap Technologies, the tech company co-founded by Ms. LaPere, confirmed her death in a statement.

They described it as an "unimaginable tragedy" and expressed deep distress over the circumstances surrounding her passing.

Agencies

"Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a standard for leadership, and her legacy will live on through the work we continue to do," EcoMap said.



CNN reported that Ms. LaPere earned a spot on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list for social impact in the current year because of her startup company's achievements. In August, her company announced it had secured nearly $8 million in financing.

For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram.


An employee had a terrible day when he got stuck in the company elevator for three hours. To make matters worse, he was told he'd be marked absent after his rescue, and his pay would be deducted.

The employee explained that he was trapped during a power outage.

The elevator had problems for a few weeks, and the company knew it. It would frequently stop unexpectedly, and its doors sometimes wouldn't open, causing inconvenience for many employees.

During a power outage last week, the Redditor got stuck in the elevator while trying to reach his seventh-floor office. He was left stranded inside without contacting his office or the maintenance team.

The man, who appears to be from Delhi, informed the HR department about his situation while stuck in the elevator. He was rescued after 3 hours.

However, his troubles didn't end there. When he arrived at the office, HR informed him that he would be marked absent for the day and his salary would be deducted.

The frustrated employee proposed taking the day off and going home, but the company wouldn't allow that either.

Instead, he was instructed to stay in the office and work despite being marked absent for the day.

I told them it's not my fault. If you allow me to punch in and correct the in time, I will work, otherwise, I am taking a day off, the man wrote on Reddit. They started threatening me about appraisal and my work ethic, and how I was making excuses and did not put effort and lacked motivation, he said.

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The man concluded his post by mentioning that he was considering filing a complaint with senior management.

So I recorded the elevator accident and documented the conversation between HR, AM, and my word to word. [I am] thinking I should send grievance report to a higher level, he wrote.

His post on Reddit has garnered much support, with many people advising him not to tolerate such mistreatment.

If the company rules specify that you have to be marked as on leave - they cannot compel you to work while on leave. If they do, they will need to compensate you with another day off, one person wrote.

The audacity, they should be paying you extra for being stuck in a faulty elevator that is company property, another outraged.

The Reddit user didn't reveal the name of his company.

For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram.


The Montana Attorney General's Office has declined to issue state guidance on how the state uses its school equalization mills, writing to counties this week that the matter appears to be on the brink of a legal fight, anyway.

In a letter dated Monday to Beaverhead County Attorney Jed Fitch, who asked the Attorney General to issue a decision on the state tax funding mechanism last month, Deputy Solicitor General Brent Mead cited statements from both sides of the issue indicating impending litigation if the AG's decision did not fall their way.

"As such, (the issue at hand) is more appropriately determined through an adversarial judicial proceeding, not through an Attorney General Opinion," Mead wrote. Previous AG opinions have been deferred to the courts when litigation is likely, the letter notes.

Fitch said Tuesday the county commission has not yet determined how to proceed.

The process referred to broadly as "the 95 mills" is an arrangement in which the state collects a pot of taxes and redistributes it across school districts so that richer and poorer districts are on similar footing. The commotion on this mechanism comes as state property assessments leaped by a median value of about 45% in the most recent state reappraisal cycle, sending counties and state officials into a finger-pointing frenzy about who is to blame for the incoming increase in property taxes.

In this case, the state Legislature set up the school equalization mechanism, but Beaverhead County officials backed by the Montana Association of Counties last month contended the state has not adjusted those 95 mills as other rates have fluctuated. In their Aug. 18 letter seeking guidance from the office of Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, the Beaverhead County Commission said "it has become glaringly apparent that the state school 95 mills have been incorrectly levied for many years."

AG opinions carry the weight of law unless overturned by a state district court or the Montana Supreme Court.

In the decision to punt the decision, Mead's letter noted reported statements from Beaverhead County Commissioner Mike McGinley that the counties would consider litigation if the AG's office failed to adopt their position. Mead likewise raised a Sept. 18 testimony from Montana School Board Association Executive Director Lance Melton before an interim legislative committee that if the AG's decision fell in favor of the counties, his organization would likely pursue a lawsuit.

"This letter declining to answer the question presented should not be construed as taking a position on the merits  either in favor or opposition  of any arguments raised," Mead wrote.

School organizations have opposed any changes to the equalization measure because, they say, changes could leave poorer schools underfunded.

"We're pleased to see there was not a ruling that would undermine this process," Melton said in a phone interview Tuesday.

In the event the AG's response paves the way for litigation over the matter, Melton said the Montana School Board Association would respond in defense to the equalization mechanism, although it's ultimately a decision for the association's board.

The AG's response comes less than 24 hours after Sen. Brad Molnar, R-Laurel, announced he would file a lawsuit this week challenging the state's arrangement of carrying forward the school equalization mills  taking the same position as the county commissioners. Represented by Bozeman attorney and former GOP lawmaker Matthew Monforton, Molnar told reporters in an emailed statement he intends to file the case Wednesday in Yellowstone County District Court.
Managed Apache Kafka service provider Confluent has launched a new initiative, dubbed Data Streaming for AI, in order to help enterprises develop applications based on real-time data, including generative AI use cases.

The premise of the initiative is based on Confluents real-time streaming data engine that will allow enterprises to make real-time contextual inferences on curated, governed, trustworthy data. These inferences can be later streamed to vector databases, AI-powered applications, and any other AI-based systems.

In order to enable enterprise users to connect to various vector databases with contextual data, Confluent has partnered with MongoDB, Pinecone, Rockset, Weaviate, and Zilliz.

Vector databases are especially important as they can store, index, and augment large data sets in formats that AI technologies like LLMs require, the company said in a news announcement, adding that these integrations can be used via Confluent Clouds fully managed data streams.

The company is expected to add more such partners in the coming months via its Connect with Confluent program.

The company is also partnering with cloud service providers, such as Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, in order to develop integrations, proof of concepts and go-to-market strategies around AI.

Confluent plans to leverage Google Clouds generative AI capabilities to improve business insights and operational efficiencies for retail and financial services customers, it said. In addition, the company is planning to create a Microsoft Copilot template to enable AI assistants to perform business transactions and provide real-time updates.

Confluent AI Assistant to provide suggestions, generate code

In order to provide suggestions and generate code, the company is offering a Confluent AI Assistant, which can be accessed via the Confluent Cloud Console.

The AI-based assistant can help teams get contextual answers they need to speed up engineering innovations on Confluent, the company said, adding that the assistant can also be used to generate code.

The assistant provides responses by combining publicly available information, such as Confluent documentation, with contextual customer information to provide specific, timely responses, the company said.

The Confluent AI assistant is expected to be made available in 2024 at no additional cost, a company spokesperson said.

Further, the company said that it will add a series of updates to its newly released Flink service for Confluent Cloud that brings AI capabilities to Flink SQL.
Cesar Viveros, the lead visual artist for the short film La Guagua 47, adds flowers to a SEPTA bus for the film. Viveros and other community leaders created Street Knowledge, a program offering free and low-cost classes taught by community members, for community members. Read more

For lawyer Alba Martinez, its never too late to learn.

There is a great need in the community for more learning experiences, Martinez said. But when the average cost of higher education in Pennsylvania is $14,532 per year, its like we are telling people hope you get a lot done by 12th grade because the next rung in the ladder is higher education  if you are not able to climb you are going to get stuck.

Martinez and other Latino community leaders created Street Knowledge, a program offering free and low-cost classes taught by community members, for community members.

The goal is to make knowledge accessible to all Philadelphians by focusing on four main pillars: arts and media, wealth-building, wellness, and practical skills, including crafts, cooking, and DIY projects. After receiving a grant from the city, a six-month pilot is set to begin in January 2024.

The project was born after Latino community members put their artistic skills together, teaching and learning from each other, to produce the award-winning film La Guagua 47, which tells Martinezs story of finding the citys Latino community through a ride on SEPTAs bus route #47.

The initiative will offer 15 free classes. Details of the schedule are still being finalized, but a financial education boot camp for small businesses, courses on podcasting, history of the Puerto Rican community, and Money Stories (which integrates storytelling with financial education) are among the first on the roster. Sign-ups open in October.

Pulitzer Award winner Suave Gonzales is set to be the podcasting instructor.

For Gonzales  who describes himself as just a guy who recorded a podcast on a phone  Street Knowledge is a way to give back to the community.

Something like this would have changed the way my life turned out, Gonzales said. He was one of 300 Philadelphia juveniles sentenced to life in prison until the Supreme Court deemed automatic life-without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. Since then, he has become an activist, artist, and podcast producer.

We are bringing the resources to the community, [and] now it is up to the people to own their own narrative, Gonzales said. While all pilot classes will be free, the organizers plan on eventually adding low-cost courses to continue paying the teachers after the end of the grant. But, Martinez assures that a scholarship fund will be created for people who cant cover tuition.

Street Knowledge officially kicks off Sept. 27, from 5 to 8 p.m., at Taller Puertorriqueno, with a celebratory launch party. All community members are welcome for an information session with Latin food and music. To sign up or to check for updates on when applications go live, call 234-567-890 or email info@streetknowledge.us.

Sept. 27, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., 2600 N 5th St, Philadelphia, streetknowledge.us
There will be a book release celebration at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton on Saturday, with release this week of "Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics." This coincides with the release of a new film, "Rustin," out in theaters and on Netflix in November. Rustin was a West Chester-born civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Read more

For too many years, Bayard Rustins contributions as chief architect of the 1963 March on Washington were mostly tossed aside by history.

No one would forget the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech that day, but few would remember Rustin: the tall, lanky civil rights activist, labor organizer, socialist, and gay pacifist from West Chester, who was responsible for the success of the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

In August 2013, for the marchs 50th anniversary, President Barack Obama posthumously honored Rustin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rustin died in 1987 at age 75.

For decades, this great leader, often at Dr. Kings side, was denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay, Obama said at the time.

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Now, 10 years after that White House ceremony, as the 60th anniversary of the march was just celebrated, there is a new, wider spotlight being cast on Rustins life and legacy.

Celebration and Conversation

A new book of essays, Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics, was released earlier this week. Rustin, a new movie starring Colman Domingo, is set to be released in theaters on Nov. 3, and on Netflix on Nov. 17.

The film was directed by George C. Wolfe, (Ma Raineys Black Bottom) and was produced by Barack and Michelle Obamas company, Higher Ground Productions.

On Saturday, the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton will host a book release, Celebration and Conversation, with Michael G. Long, the books editor, and four of the other contributing authors.

Tickets, which cost $15, are available at bayardbook.eventbrite.com.

Long is also coauthor of the book for young readers, More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was nominated for a National Book Award this year.

The other authors of Legacy of Protest and Politics expected Saturday are:

Jonathan Eig, whose new book, King: A Life, was nominated for a National Book Award; Walter Naegle, Rustins longtime partner and board member emeritus of the BRCSJ; Terrance Wiley, professor of religion & coordinator of African & Africana Studies, Haverford College; and Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber, chief activist at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice.

Im over the moon to be a part of this book, Seda-Schreiber said. Bayard has always been a hero of mine.

Preserving life and legacy

Born in 1969 to parents who were active in civil rights protests, Seda-Schreiber was named Robt Martin after Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and King, who were both assassinated in 1968.

A former middle school teacher who taught in East Windsor for 23 years, Seda-Schreiber founded the center five years ago.

We are a dedicated queer safe space, a community activism hub, and an education bridge for LGBTQIA youth, intersectional families, and marginalized folks across the spectrum of identities of all ages, he said.

The center is also dedicated to preserving the life and legacy of Rustin as a Black queer pioneer.

To that end, it has also embarked on a new project to build the worlds first dedicated archive of papers and ephemera from Rustins life. The projects announcement just happened to coincide with new interest in Rustin, as shown with the separate book and film projects. The project is being funded in part by a $15,000 grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Seda-Schreiber said Rustin was known prior to the 1963 march for speaking truth to power in earlier struggles during the 1940s and 50s as a labor organizer and pacifist, and was imprisoned for two years for refusing to be drafted during World War II. Some of his pacifist ideas came from his grandmother, who was a Quaker. He also attended the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church, where his grandfather was a member, in West Chester.

A clip from the new Rustin film shows Domingo, as Rustin, making a fiery speech, saying: They either believe in freedom and justice for all, or they do not.

He was excised from the stories told because he was queer and wouldnt disavow his identity. Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber

Rustin was living intersectionality long before law professor Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term, Seda-Schreiber said. Thats because Rustin was connecting the issue of civil rights with labor rights and economic justice.

After all, he said, the official name of the 1963 march  that drew some 250,000 people  was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

As he read about that history, Seda-Schreiber found that Rustin had been definitely relegated to a background role. Its almost hard to find him in any of the pictures form the march itself.

When discussing historical figures, Seda-Schreiber said, its important that we absolutely recognize the wholeness of their identity and the universality of [their causes] and how they really benefited all of us, not just a certain group.

He said its especially important for young people who are seeking a safe space to understand queer identity to know that queer people like Rustin contributed much to society.

He was lost to history, and he was excised from the stories told because he was queer and wouldnt disavow his identity, he said.

We want to make sure he gets the respect and recognition he deserved.
Happy Joyce Abbott Day to those who celebrate.

The longtime Philadelphia School District teacher and namesake of the wildly popular ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary was feted in grand style Tuesday, with public officials singing her praises and a city street  the 1900 block of 59th  renamed Joyce Abbott Way in her honor.

Abbott, who spent 27 years as a teacher after serving as a soldier in the Persian Gulf War, retired from Philadelphia schools in 2022 as climate manager at Andrew Hamilton Elementary in West Philadelphia.

But the bulk of Abbotts career was in a sixth-grade classroom at Hamilton, where she taught a little girl named Quinta Brunson  a shy, hardworking student, a perfectionist who carried the lessons imparted by her favorite teacher and honored Abbott as namesake when she created Abbott Elementary, the show that centers on a fictional Philadelphia public school.

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 READ MORE: Meet the Philly teacher whos namesake for Quinta Brunsons Abbott Elementary

The splashy Tuesday celebration, held at Abbotts alma mater, Overbrook High, was engineered by the school district, and featured cheerleaders, a band, myriad public officials who all wanted a selfie with Abbott, and a gym full of supporters shouting their love and praise for her.

Councilmember Curtis Jones noted that in an under-resourced district such as Philadelphias, our children carry two bookbags  one with the lessons of the day, and the other from the troubles from home.

Abbott Elementary has been hailed by critics as hilarious, but the realities the show illustrates arent always funny, Jones said. But the episodes make people think, and they inspire us to do more, because of you.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, the union that represents principals and climate managers, noted that Philadelphias educators do much more than instruct their students in academic subjects. They often feed children, provide them with haircuts and clean clothes and love.

Joyce Abbott was that teacher, Cooper said. She showed up, she demanded excellence, she didnt let you down. She was there for you because she understood that in some cases, for some children, she was all they had.

Abbott was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, from the street-naming to the special chair set aside for her, draped in Overbrook orange, and the gym speakers pumping out Aretha Franklins Respect, her favorite song.

When it was Abbotts turn with the microphone, she wiped away her tears and stood soldier straight.

I had 36 students in my first year, very limited textbooks, several behavior problems in addition to several students who were academically challenged, Abbott said. I was aware and I understood the many challenges and obstacles within the community. So it was not only in my blood, but I had a true passion.

Abbott said she was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, and she gave a shout-out to all the educators still in the trenches, making miracles every day.

Briyana Freeman hadnt seen her sixth-grade teacher since 2008, but she came to the Overbrook gym Tuesday to honor her. And when Abbott caught sight of her former student in the crowd, she threw her arms around her.

Thats classic Ms. Abbott, said Freeman, who ate lunch in Abbotts room every day because she wanted to spend every moment possible with her teacher, who felt like a family member.

She was militant, but you knew that she loved you, said Freeman. She expected a lot of us. She made us leaders.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., who said he doesnt miss an episode of Abbott Elementary, thanked Abbott for giving millions of people a view into the joys and the struggles of Philadelphia schools.

I absolutely revere Mrs. Abbott, Watlington said.

Sheila Hess, the city representative, said she brought Mayor Jim Kenneys best wishes, and her own abiding admiration for the lifes work of Abbott and so many teachers like her, the people that show up for our children with that grit and our own Philly determination, in only the way that we can.

Because of Abbott, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said, Philadelphia and its students have a true narrative to counter the negative stereotypes that some people conjure when they think of public education, urban schools, what city children can accomplish.

Jordan looked at Abbott, smiling in the Overbrook gym.

Youre changing the conversation, he told her.
School bus driver Stacey Kendall waits in her bus as officials prepare for a news conference at Triton Regional High School in Runnemede, N.J. Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023 to announce Camden County is providing naloxone kits to school bus drivers as part of an ongoing initiative to make the overdose reversal medication, also known as Narcan, more accessible. Read more

After equipping its schools with Narcan kits nearly a year ago, Camden County is now giving the life-saving treatment to school bus drivers to use in case of a students suspected fentanyl overdose.

Naloxone is a critical tool in our battle against the opioid and overdose epidemic, county Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said in a statement. We need to keep this medicine on hand in every corner of our community because you never know when you are going to need it. Unfortunately, we know that it is possible to lose a child to overdose in a school setting.

The county launched the pilot program for bus drivers last spring in the Black Horse Pike Regional School District, and on Tuesday announced the kits would be distributed to school bus drivers across the county. Participation is voluntary and the county hopes every school bus will have a kit.

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So far, Black Horse Pike and four other districts - Winslow, Pennsauken, Eastern Regional and Camden County Technical  are participating in the program, according to Dan Keashen, a county spokesman. Already, the county said it has trained 104 bus drivers on how to administer the opioid overdose-reversing drug.

 READ MORE: Narcan will soon be available over-the-counter. Heres what it is, where to get it in Philadelphia and how to use it

The kits are assigned to drivers who are responsible for bringing them on the bus daily as they transport students. Each kit contains naloxone spray, the generic name for Narcan, gloves and directions.

Black Horse Pike bus driver Stacey Kendall embraced the program.

As a bus driver, we do not have the authority to stop and scream for help, she said at a news conference.

In January 2022, a 12-year-old boy was found unresponsive on a school bus at nearby Gloucester Township Elementary School. A school nurse performed CPR until emergency responders arrived with Narcan.

The boy later died from what was ruled drug intoxication from fentanyl. His uncle was charged in his death for directing the boy to clean drug paraphernalia that contained fentanyl.

 READ MORE: How to get naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing drug, in the Philadelphia region

Camden County began installing the Narcan kits in public, private, and parochial schools a year ago, and is believed to be the only county in New Jersey doing that. The bright red, metal Narcan kits were strategically placed in locations where they can be reached quickly in case of an emergency. A cheap synthetic opioid, fentanyl is 50 times as lethal as heroin.

We hope to never have to use it on our students or staff, but if there is an overdose, we know we have a lifesaving antidote that can be accessed for the opportunity to render aid and save a life, said Black Horse Pike Regional Superintendent Brian Repici. The realities of the world dictate to us the need for Narcan in schools, and we never want to be put in a dire situation where we are not prepared to act or, for that matter, dont have the proper tools to effectively act to save a students life.

Keashen said the county has spent about $4,000 to distribute the kits to bus drivers. The program is expected to cost about $21,500 to give the kits to all drivers in the county, he said.

The county has added the boxes to churches, boarding houses, apartment complexes, shelters, food pantries, courtrooms, and social service facilities. As Narcan has become more widely available, some experts say everyone should consider including it in their first aid kit.
Toni! Tony!, Tone!: Raphael Saadiq (from left), Timothy Riley, and D'Wayne Wiggins. The legendary R&B group performs Sept. 28 at The Met Philadelphia. Read more

Fans were skeptical when Raphael Saadiq announced that Toni! Tony! Tone! was reuniting for a tour.

It had been more than two decades since Saadiq, his brother DWayne Wiggins, and cousin Timothy Christian Riley performed their litany of solid gold hits (Feels Good, Anniversary, and Lets Get Down) together on stage. Over the years, there were several New Jack Swing reunion concerts that promised fans a performance by the original Three Ts, but mostly, it was one T flanked by stand-ins.

Has Toni! Tony! Phony! done it again?

Even Roots drummer Questlove shared Saadiqs March Instagram announcement with caution: Man  they better stop playin and make this happen dag nab it.

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Well, the Tonies aint playing this time: The band is in the midst of a 25-city tour. Raphael Saadiq Revisits Toni! Tony! Tone!, The Just Me & You Tour will make its fifth stop at The Met Philadelphia on Thursday, Sept. 28. This show is for the fans who have been waiting for us to get back together, Saadiq said to The Inquirer, in his trademark Oakland, Calif., twang.

The Just Me and You Tour takes its name from Toni! Tony! Tone!s Grammy-nominated ballad from the 1991 Boyz n the Hood soundtrack. The tour promises to be a nod to that era. Dont expect any new music, Saadiq said, although Toni! Tony! Tone! is working on a new album. Fans dont want to hear that, Saadiq said. Thats for festivals.

The classics  Little Walter, It Never Rains in Southern California, and Whatever You Want  will sound nearly identical, Saadiq said, to the way they did on our ultra worn-out cassettes and CDs. But audiences, Wiggins said, should expect a few tweaks.

We have so many songs, we cant play them all, Wiggins said. But, we are going to give you a full-course meal. How about that?

Toni! Tony! Tone! broke up in 1996, yet members kept their hands in the industry. Wiggins helped discover Destinys Child and wrote many of their early songs. Hes also written songs for Keyshia Cole, Alicia Keys, and India Arie. Riley has written for Tevin Campbell and Karyn White.

After leaving Toni! Tony! Tone!, Saadiq formed the supergroup Lucy Pearl with A Tribe Called Quests Ali Shaheed Muhammad and En Vogues Dawn Robinson. He released his first solo album, Instant Vintage, in 2002 and three more followed. Saadiq wrote the score for Netflixs Black superhero saga, Luke Cage and HBOs Jim Crow horror, Lovecraft Country. He wrote Phillys Jill Scotts 2005 Grammy Award-winning single, Cross My Mind, and Beyonces 2023 Grammy winner, Cuff It, a song he originally wrote for Toni! Tony! Tone!

But even with all the hits weve had as individual artists, Wiggins said, the real magic is when we all perform together on stage.

I talked to Saadiq, Wiggins, and Riley last Thursday before they kicked off their reunion tour in Birmingham, Ala. Saadiq was insightful. Wiggins was ready to party. And Riley was reserved, but he did pipe in with fond memories of running the Rocky steps with his core 9-to-5 Philly fans.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why was Toni! Tony! Tone! gone so long?

RS: There are only 24 hours in a day and its kind of hard. When we first started we couldnt imagine what would happen with our careers, as far as getting record deals, making records, having hit songs, being on tour, getting new friends, parents getting older. Our lives took different courses. I was doing different things. The group was doing different things. But music was always going to get us back together. The industry pulls people apart, but we couldnt let it beat us.

Why is now the time?

RS: It was time we come back and show our fans who we truly are now. We always stayed close. We never had any love loss, we just did different things. Now we were all in a position to come back so we decided to pull the trigger.

DW: I can still remember how we started in a room jamming. The three of us in a room, hanging out. I wanted to get back to that truth. I just didnt want someone to steal our legacy. That happens to a lot of groups. They walk away from their music and people are taking credit for the work they did. I didnt want that to happen to us.

What are your favorite Philly memories?

DW: Hanging out with Charlie Mack at different shows.

RS: My favorite memory of Philadelphia is hanging out at Gamble and Huffs studio. I wrote a song once that lifted a sample from [The Intruders] Ill Always Love My Mama and I had to go to the studio. To walk in that building and know all of the great music that has happened there  That was the most memorable thing in Philly Id ever experienced.

You have so many hits, what are you most looking forward to performing on tour?

RS: I Couldnt Keep It to Myself.

DW: Gangsta Groove

RS: There were a lot of songs on Sons of Soul and House of Music that we never really got to perform together, so this concert is a first for the fans. It will be a first for us and a first for everyone else, too.

TR: This is a homecoming for us and we are looking forward to being home together, performing on stage, together.

Tickets are $30 to $300 and available at www.livenation.com.
Filmmaker Tigre Hill with Michael White, on the set of a new Paramount+ docuseries, "72 Seconds in Rittenhouse Square." Read more

The fatal encounter between a wealthy developer and a young food delivery man stoked the citys racial tensions. But the real story isnt all black and white, an Inquirer report from Oct. 2018 reads.

On July 12, 2018, real estate developer Sean Schellenger got into an altercation with Michael White that eventually resulted in Schellengers death from stabbing. White surrendered the next day and, on Oct. 17, 2019, was found not guilty of voluntary manslaughter but was sentenced to two years of probation for evidence tampering.

Five years after that night, the new true-crime documentary series 72 Seconds in Rittenhouse Square debuted Tuesday on Paramount+. The Inquirer spoke to filmmaker Tigre Hill on the eve of the series release.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What made you want to revisit the something that took place in 2018?

I kept focusing on what happened. [Michael White] turned himself in the next day. And the look on his eyes was saying a lot. I wanted to see how it all plays out.

First I asked [Whites lawyer] Keir Bradford-Grey if we could meet and talk. Somebody then got me in touch with Linda Schellenger. So we had a two-meeting setup. [Linda and I] sat down for two hours, and she gave me this riveting story about what happened. It was a lot of things I didnt know. And at the end of the meeting, I felt one way.

Then the next day I met with Keir Bradford-Grey at the same place, for two hours. Had a riveting conversation. I learned a lot I didnt know and then at the end of that, I said Wow!, she had me thinking in another way. So that was the beginning of me knowing that I wanted to really make this film and thats the way I wanted to portray [things] in the film. I wanted to capture those two meanings, the two separate and distinct recollections and perceptions. And thats what I did.

Do you think youve been successful in not letting your own biases bleed into the narrative?

Like I said, I wanted to recreate those two meetings, where you have one particular side here, and the other particular side there. The audience is the jury. The Schellengers are wonderful people and they had a tragic loss. Michael White is a very nice young man. Knowing his background, what he went through ... he was trying to get it together, then this happens. You have empathy for everyone in the story, so its not so easy to take a side. Michael is going through a lot, as are Seans parents. I just wanted to show that.

So what does the incident mean to you, today in 2023?

Its a snapshot of where we are in the country today. People can question progressive prosecution  it has its pluses and its minuses. People can question this case. Ask Did it actually happen, as people said it did? Its a snapshot of where we are today, the polarization.

Things are polarized in the country and as journalists, as filmmakers, we always run the danger of saying something that is weaponized to further polarize things. Are you scared of that happening?

I have experienced that with another film I made. And I dont think scared is the word. Of course, Im concerned about that happening. But we have to face what it is that we confront. And without doing that, we just continue to move away from the reality.

More specifically, do you think this film will be seen as anti-Larry Krasner propaganda?

People are going to use it the way they want to. I tried to talk to Larry quite a few times. I wanted his side of the story. He was doing his job.

He couldnt find the time?

He refused to talk. [A spokesperson from Krasners office confirmed that he declined to participate.] I could find all the time. The access to materials makes the film what it is. You see the video of the incident, Michaels meeting with district attorney, things that give you a well-rounded birds eye view of everything that happened and some of the inside things that happened. A lot of this stuff I had to get through sources. I wouldnt be here talking to you about the film if I went through his office. Id still be waiting.

There is a lot more of Linda Schellenger in the series than Michael Whites mother, Juanita. Was that intentional?

Thats an interesting observation. Michaels mother is a sweetheart but was not [as involved]. The Schellengers were very involved in press, getting the story out. Michaels mother was very concerned about Michael; she was there but was more focused on him and his well-being. So she wasnt out in front of the cameras, like the Schellengers were. And they wanted to make sure their side of the story was told.

What are you working on next?

Actually, Im working on one more Philly story. A secret service story. Its actually a [narrative] movie; weve been shooting forever. Its about the early career of Cecil B. Moore. Once I read all his stuff, I said, this is a Hollywood story. It just happens to take place in Philadelphia.
The Keep Easy, a cocktail bar specializing in mead, in Jenkintown. The patio has room for 30. Read more

When Melissa Hager and Mike ODonnell went to name their new bar in Jenkintown, they decided against celebrating mead, the honeyed spirit theyre making.

From a marketing perspective, it was just silly to make that the core focus, ODonnell said of the idea of calling the bar a meadery. The first thing people [say is], Oh, youre a butcher? Youre a meatery? What kind of meats do you have?

Thats how Yorkway Place, Jenkintowns most-charming pedestrian alley, came to be home to the Keep Easy, a cozy bar serving up dry, house-made mead plus Pennsylvania wine and cocktails. The former reading rooms interior maxes out at 20 people, but theres seating for 30 on its front patio, set back from Route 611 traffic in a pre-war shopping arcade. It opened in July.

ODonnell and Hager have lived in Jenkintown for more than eight years. The couple had a tea lounge called the Herb Shop at 747 Yorkway Place since March 2020 but decided to pivot to something more lucrative in the last year. They landed on making mead.

Mead is ancient and simple  made from honey and water  but outside the Renaissance Faire circuit, its almost stubbornly obscure. In an age thats embraced fermentation of all kinds, more people are familiar with kombucha than mead.

And thats partly why Hager and ODonnell chose it. They considered making beer or spirits, but the brewery market felt oversaturated and the overhead on a distillery seemed out of reach. Mead, by contrast, requires relatively little equipment. Plus, not a lot of people know about this, ODonnell said.

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Its basically the same fermentation process as wine, but instead of fruit, were using honey, he explained.

He and Hager buy 20-gallon batches of honey from a Lancaster farm, haul that home, and dilute it with water, and add yeast. It can take six months to a year for the yeast to fully consume the sugars in the mixture; from there, the meadmaker can age the spirit further to let the flavors mellow and meld. ODonnell declined to say how long they age their mead but said they ferment out all the sugar they can.

That means, despite some first-time customers expectations, the Keep Easys mead is not sweet. Its actually very dry, ODonnell said. Depending on the yeast I use, its somewhere between a wine and a Champagne. For customers whod like a sweeter beverage, he offers to mix in a little agave.

The couple began making mead together in 2022 and got a Pennsylvania winery license (allowing them to serve any Pennsylvania-made booze) earlier this spring. The menu features their own mead served neat, hot, over ice, or by the flight (other flavors include turmeric, hibiscus, and yerba mate  inspired by their tea-shop past). They also mix up a number of carefully calibrated mead cocktails, including a surprisingly dry meadtini, a frothy mead sour, and a muddled mead old-fashioned.

The Keep Easy also has an extensive traditional cocktail list, from a gin fizz to the dark & stormy, all made from scratch. Theyre sourcing from several Pennsylvania distilleries  Bluecoat, New Liberty, Resurgent, Thistle Finch, Dads Hat, Manatawny Still Works, Bluebird, Jacquins, and more  giving them a deep arsenal to shake or stir up whatever drink you might want. The bees knees and a pineapple mint julep are the best-sellers so far.

Food offerings are limited by the small spaces kitchen, but theres tinned fish and snack boards, cheese and crackers, chips and salsa, and cake.

Hours are noon to 11 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, noon to midnight on Friday and Saturday.

The Keep Easy joins a growing number of more modern spots in Jenkintown, including Human Robot, Newbolds, Pizza Wheel, and Via 417 as well as standbys like Buckets and the Drake Tavern, where Hager and ODonnell met 10 years ago. (Hes from Exton, shes from the Northeast.)

Jenkintowns just awesome, ODonnell said. It could be a Doylestown, it could be a New Hope once more businesses come in ... We wanted to be a part of that, too.
Melrose Diner was bulldozed last week. Korshak Bagels posted its final sold out sign. Marco Polo is buttoned up.

Every day, food businesses open. Every day, they close  some after decades, and others after months.

Whats left for the customers are the memories  first (and last) dates, proposals, birthdays, anniversaries, funeral lunches, the buttercream cake that your mother had to order despite her blood sugar. At the Melrose in South Philadelphia, the memories date back decades  the middle-of-the-night meals, the odd celebrity encounters, or just your usual order of two eggs over easy with pork roll and well-done hash browns.

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Social media has become a popular forum for grieving customers. In August, when South Jersey farm stand Sweet Amalia was ordered to close its indoor dining room, its Instagram post generated 181 comments, from cordial messages of support to anguish.

For employees, workplace memories are accompanied by immediate life issues: securing back pay, unemployment compensation, and new work. Theres the initial shock of lm unemployed, said Alexis Ortega, who showed up to his bar managers shift at Sbraga in 2017 to learn that the restaurant had closed. Youre sad, anxious, nervous, confused but have to focus on what [youll] do next.

Bagel shop workers at Korshak, in South Philadelphia, received a months notice of its closing last weekend, while the employees of Marco Polo, a once-popular Italian restaurant in Elkins Park that never reopened after a fire on June 18, still have not learned officially that it will not come back. (The restaurant is being offered for lease.)

Compare this with Tequilas, a popular Mexican restaurant near Rittenhouse Square, whose 50 workers were idled last February by a fire. Other restaurateurs hired some of them, even while knowing that they will return to Tequilas when it reopens in 2024. Meanwhile, benefits were organized to help them financially.

Owners face their own unique emotions at the prospect of closing, aside from the financial considerations and the jolt to their ego. In January, pastry chef Marqessa Gesualdi, 35, who has owned Aux Petits Delices bakery in Wayne since 2017, learned officially from her landlord that the building had been sold and that she would have to close. Its last day will be Christmas Eve.

Initially, I was devastated, she said. I couldnt stop crying every time I told someone. She said she still has a $100,000 business loan and no place to go, as opening a new shop would cost $250,000.

She said she has been dealing with stress-induced eczema, but Im trying to live my best life and have a positive attitude and think about the silver lining because things could be so much worse. Im still lucky to be able to have the business until the end of the year. She said she is thinking of leaving pastry altogether and studying accounting.

When chef Valerie Erwin decided to close her Mount Airy restaurant, Geechee Girl Rice Cafe, nearly a decade ago, in some ways, it was a little bit of a relief, she said last week. After 12 years, business was off. The logistics of closing it left her emotionless  kind of like when you have a funeral for somebody and you have so many things to do, you cant think about the fact that the person is gone, she said.

But after Geechee Girl closed in January 2015, and after all the paperwork was done, I realized that I didnt have some place to go every day, Erwin said. It was very depressing.

Time has healed Erwin, 70, who now manages St. Christophers Foundation for Childrens produce-access program and caters the occasional event. She said she still hears from customers who miss Geechee Girls Low Country cooking and welcoming atmosphere. I had more than one customer cry, she said.

Grieving a restaurants closing is entirely normal, said Mark Adams, an Austin-based psychologist who has extensively studied mental-health issues surrounding the food and beverage industry.

As someone interested in Buddhist psychology, I felt like theres no better place than the restaurant industry to learn about impermanence  everything rises and falls, Adams said.

Being a restaurant regular is almost like a relationship, Adams said. Youre almost taking a risk that its going to close and all those years of experience will be gone.
A 'spoke' of the federal ARPA-H agency for health-care research will be in Philadelphia's University City area. Read more

ARPA-H, a new federal agency for health-care research, named two regional hub offices on Tuesday, including a big northeastern city with a proud colonial heritage and a thriving biotech sector.

Um  sorry, Philly. They went with the other city that meets that description: Boston. (Technically, the ARPA-H office will be in nearby Cambridge, Mass., but really, isnt it all Patriots country?)

The other new regional hub will be in Dallas, ARPA-H officials said. A third will be in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, as the agency has announced previously.

Still, Philadelphia will have a supporting role in shaping the direction of ARPA-H, which stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

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University City Science Center, the nonprofit research incubator complex in West Philadelphia, will serve as a spoke for the Dallas hub, which is focused on reducing health disparities.

In that supporting role, the science center will help to identify Philly-area researchers and businesses to develop solutions for various types of health inequities, such as the lack of diversity in clinical trials, said Heath Naquin, the centers vice president of government and capital engagement.

This should truly be a regional initiative, he said. We will be working with health systems, companies, academic research institutions  all of the above.

Another Philadelphia connection for the new federal agency was announced last month, when Thomas Jefferson University physician Bon Ku was named an agency program manager for ARPA-H. That means he will identify problems for researchers to solve, though details so far are limited.

Ku, an emergency medicine physician, is a veteran in health-care innovation. At Jefferson, he was director of the universitys health design lab, overseeing research on such topics as reducing the number of alarms in hospital rooms and improving traffic flow in the emergency room.

ARPA-H is modeled after DARPA, the research arm of the Pentagon. It is designed to be agile, delivering solutions for cancer, Alzheimers, and other diseases much faster than the National Institutes of Health, which funds research that can span decades.
Three people have died since Sept. 11 in separate fatal crashes across Wyoming, the highway patrol announced.

A 41-year-old Idaho man died after his pickup truck rolled down an embankment, the Wyoming Highway Patrol reported.

On Sept. 20, highway patrol was notified of a single-vehicle crash on U.S. Route 14, the statement said. The crash happened at midnight near Hulett in Crook County.

David Thibault was driving north in a Nissan Frontier pickup truck, the statement said. He attempted to make a sharp right-hand turn near milepost 118.

Thibault went off the road to the right, so he attempted to steer back, the statement said.

"The vehicle began to slide sideways in a counterclockwise turn and departed the roadway to the left," the statement said.

His vehicle tripped and rolled several times down an embankment.

Thibault was wearing a seatbelt at the time, the statement said. Speed and driver fatigue are being considered as possible causes of the crash.

The weather was clear, and the roads were dry in the area, the statement said.

A 42-year-old Nebraska man died Sept. 18 on Interstate 80 near Rock Springs, the Wyoming Highway Patrol reported.

Highway patrol was notified of a two-vehicle crash involving a commercial truck at 9:05 a.m., the statement said. Troopers arrived on scene near milepost 130 in Sweetwater County.

A Peterbilt combination unit was entering the freeway at the Point of Rocks interchange, the statement said. At the top of the entrance ramp, the truck merged into the right "slow lane."

Chad Bell was also driving in the right lane in a Dodge Grand Caravan, the statement said.

Bell's "Dodge struck the rear of the flatbed semi-trailer," the statement said.

He was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. Highway patrol listed "other" as a possible cause.

The weather was clear in the area, and the roads were dry, the statement said.

Over in Campbell County, a 12-year-old Wyomingite was killed in a single-car crash on Sept. 11, the highway patrol announced. The crash happened at 11 p.m. on Adon Road near Gillette.

He or she was not identified because they are a child.

A Toyota Sienna was driving north when it drifted onto the east shoulder of the road, the statement said.

The driver overcorrected to the left, and the car traveled across both lanes and exited the road.

It "tripped and rolled where it came to rest in the borrow ditch," the statement said.

The child was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, the statement said. Driver inattention is being considered as a possible cause, and the Campbell County Sheriff's Office was in charge of investigating the incident.

The roads were dry, and the weather was clear in the area.

Thibault, Bell and the unidentified 12-year-old were the 103rd, 104th and 105th people to die on Wyoming's road this year.

At the same time last year, there were 96 deaths in 2022, 86 in 2021 and 100 in 2020.

Your news on your smartphone Your story lives in Wyoming, and our new mobile app is designed to make sure you dont miss breaking news, the latest scores, the weather forecast and more. From easy navigation with the swipe of a finger to personalized content based on your preferences to customized text sizes, the Star-Tribune app is built for you and your life. Dont have the app? Download it today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Hazel Hoepler is photographed on Monday September 25, 2023, with her tall succulent plant at her home in Feasterville, Pa. Hazel, purchased Jerry Blavats succulent on Instagram for $350 from Thunderbird Salvage. Read more

While Hazel Hoelper and her family rocked out to Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top in concert in Camden on Sept. 17, a post on Instagram caught their attention. An East Kensington thrift store was selling a seven-foot euphorbia succulent that once belonged to Jerry Blavat, and Hoelper immediately sent a DM to claim the plant.

Blavat, the beloved Philadelphia DJ, died in January at age 82. Hoelper, 22, had been a fan of the Geator since she first heard him on the radio when she was a child. [My family] always likes to joke, Were the whole Ben Vaughn family, and youre the single Jerry Blavat fan,  Hoelper said. My family and I are huge plant people, and I was like, I have to have it  its a massive cactus; its beautiful and it was owned by Jerry Blavat. 

George Mathes of Thunderbird Salvage saved the prickly African milk tree plant during a recent furniture removal job at Blavats Society Hill Towers residence. The store listed the plant for $500 on Instagram, hoping to find anyone who loves Cacti and appreciates the wonderful human being that Jerry Blavat was. (Commenters on the post quickly pointed out that technically, the plant was a succulent, and not a cactus.)

A few days after her offer of $350 was accepted, Hoelper drove to Thunderbird, carefully wrapped the plant in bubble wrap and a cheetah-print blanket, placed it in the bed of a pickup truck, and brought it home to Feasterville.

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But the plant, which Hoelper named Jerry, needed a bit of work before could it settle into the familys home.

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Repotting was the first task  Jerry sat in an overwatered pot not best suited for drainage.

Euphorbia succulents are drought-tolerant, explained Hoelper, who recently graduated with a bachelors in environmental science from Delaware Valley University. They are low-maintenance plants that require minimal water, indirect or direct light, an environment with temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees, and well-drained soil in a pot with good drainage

Hoelper repotted the plant in a blue-green, terra-cotta pot using succulent mix soil with sandpaper and some volcanic glass for easy draining. She plans to be judicious with hydration. They really dont need any water  probably every four to six months depending on the temperature.

She also noticed scale insects  plant parasites  on Jerry. The family got to work on treating the infestation, using rubbing alcohol to wipe away the scales. There was a bit of corking too  a natural process that occurs as cactus plants age or when these plants are overwatered and not drained properly creating mushy bits that dry out. While Hoelper will keep an eye on the corking, shes not too worried..

[My mom and I] are the plant nerds, so everyday well take a quick glance at it and then probably once or twice a week Ill pull it out and turn around to see if there are any other major issues that you just dont see unless youre really looking for it, Hoelper said.

The succulent sits in the back of the house in a room made of wood and glass with 16-foot ceilings. In the back left corner, Jerry gets all the sunlight.

From the picture of it in the [Blavat] apartment, it seems massive but then once its in this room with 16-foot ceilings it doesnt seem too big, she said. Unless youre next to it  you still have to look up at it.

While the Jerry the plant gets comfortable in its new surroundings, a piece of the plant also lives with an employee of Thunderbird Salvage, Matt Melnick, at his South Philly home

When the plant was being moved from Blavats apartment, a piece broke off, which the thrift store folks stuck back in the pot. Melnick later asked Hoelper if he could keep it. I was like, Go ahead, take a big piece,  Hoelper recalled. I gave him a 10-minute rundown [on how to care for it], and he was like, Oh, wow, you actually know what youre doing. 

While its hard to guarantee that the piece will grow into another Blavat plant, Hoelper hopes for him that it does.
Damage from vandalism litters the sidewalk at S. 52nd and Walnut Street on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. The unrest stretched across the city, including Center City, the Northeast, and West Philadelphia, with business corridors along Aramingo Avenue and Walnut Street targeted through the night. Read more

Large groups of young people broke into numerous stores across Philadelphia Tuesday night, stealing merchandise and vandalizing property, Acting Police Commissioner John Stanford said.

The unrest stretched across the city, including Center City, the Northeast, and West Philadelphia, with business corridors along Aramingo Avenue and Walnut Street targeted through the night.

Wednesday afternoon, police said 52 people, including three juveniles, had been arrested and most would be charged with burglary and theft. One person has been charged with illegal gun possession, according to the District Attorneys Office. Fine Wine & Good Spirits said all of its stores would close until further notice after 18 locations were burglarized overnight.

Initial reports of break-ins near Rittenhouse Square began just after 8 p.m., shortly after protesters had dispersed from a peaceful gathering at City Hall, where marchers called for justice for Eddie Irizarry, who was shot and killed by a Philadelphia Police officer last month. Earlier Tuesday, a judge dismissed all charges against the officer who killed him, setting off a wave of outrage in the community.

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Stanford was quick to make clear that Irizarrys supporters had nothing to do with Tuesday nights unrest. He called the young people who looted criminal opportunists who were not affiliated with the earlier gathering.

This had nothing to do with the protests, Stanford said. What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and try to destroy our city.

Its disgusting, he said. Our city cant afford this nonsense.

Irizarrys family echoed calls for peace Wednesday morning. Irizarrys aunt, Zoraida Garcia, said vandalism and looting is not going to bring justice to my family or bring my nephew back. Her family, she said, does not condone this type of behavior.

Garcia asked those who were angry with Judge Wendy Pews decision to dismiss the charges against the officer who shot and killed her nephew to come to the court instead of tearing down our city. Bring posters and stand in front of the courthouse, she said, and lets do this the right way. Fight together for justice.

The young people involved, Stanford said, appeared to have organized their efforts on social media, and once one group started, others followed suit. He said police believe there was a caravan of cars moving between locations across the city and breaking into stores and pharmacies. Some of the people involved in that group were arrested, he said.

No injuries were reported, Stanford said.

Much of the night was chronicled on social media.

Around 8:15 p.m., videos showed groups of young people gather around the Apple Store near 16th and Walnut Streets and pry the front doors from the security guards hands. Shortly after, as the group ran down Walnut Street, the devices were locked and disabled by security technology and a loud alarm started sounding. Some people smashed the devices on the ground and police recovered a pile of iPads abandoned nearby.

The groups also broke into Foot Locker and Lululemon, and videos showed numerous teens fleeing the store with clothing. Officers attempted to apprehend some of them, and tackled a few to the ground.

Police had cleared and secured the Rittenhouse area by 9:10 p.m., and locked down a four-block stretch.

Police later reported stores being vandalized along Aramingo Avenue in Port Richmond and other locations in North Philadelphia.

One woman livestreamed dozens of people breaking into a Fine Wine & Good Spirits store. Her video stream ended when, as she drove away, police appeared to pull her car over.

Just before midnight Tuesday, Stanford said the unrest had been contained for the most part.

Officers, he said, were still responding to some emergency calls, and have been instructed to arrest all those involved at the scenes.

We will continue to make arrests until we have all the individuals ... that have been responsible for what we see tonight in custody.

Tumar Alexander, the citys managing director, called the unrest disrespectful to the Irizarry family, who have repeatedly called for peace amid their cries for justice.

The business corridors affected Tuesday night were similar to those targeted in the summer of 2020, after tensions between police and communities rose after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Philadelphia was one of dozens of cities across the country to experience mass unrest; some stores through Center City were burned down, and parts of West and North Philadelphia were heavily looted and vandalized.

Community outrage rose anew just a few months later, in October 2020, when Philadelphia police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr., who was wielding a knife while experiencing what his family said was a mental health crisis. Protests again broke out across West Philadelphia, and some businesses were vandalized.

Staff writers Rodrigo Torrejon, Chris Palmer, and Erin McCarthy contributed to this reporting.
Eddie Irizarry's cousins rally along with supporters in the wake of a judge dismissing all charges against Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial, who shot and killed Eddie Irizarry last month. Read more

Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Finally, we should be getting a break from the rain. Expect partly sunny skies with a high of 65.

Late Tuesday morning, news broke that a Philadelphia judge dismissed all charges against former Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial in the fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry.

And by that same evening, about 100 supporters of Irizarry gathered outside City Hall to protest the decision.

Our lead story recaps the decision and the rally against it.

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 Taylor Allen (@TayImanAllen, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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As drizzle fell, protestors chanted no good cops in a racist system, Tuesday evening.

Roughly 100 supporters of Eddie Irizarry came to protest a Philadelphia judges decision to dismiss all charges  including first-degree murder  against former officer Mark Dial who shot and killed Irizarry last month during a traffic stop in Kensington. Irizarrys father and namesake, Eddie Irizarry, his aunt Zoraida Garcia, and other family members joined the march.

Earlier that day, Municipal Court Judge Wendy L. Pew agreed with former officer Dials attorneys that the officer was justified when he shot Irizarry and that Dial and his partner were reacting in a situation in which they believed Irizarry presented a potential threat to their safety.

Reminder: On Aug. 14, Dial shot Irizarry as he sat in his car during a traffic stop in Kensington. Police initially said Irizarry lunged at Dial with a knife, leading the officer to shoot him. But video disproved that, and showed that Irizarry was in his car, with the windows rolled up and a knife in his hand, when Dial opened fire within five seconds of getting out of his cruiser.

Pay attention: The District Attorneys Office quickly appealed the decision in order to refile all charges against Dial. A hearing is scheduled next month before a Common Pleas Court judge.

Continue reading to see what Irizarrys family had to say, and more images and video of the protest.

What you should know today

Hilco Redevelopment Partners will start construction on what it calls the Bellwether District at South Phillys former refinery site this fall.

Building will start with two warehouses near 26th and West Passyunk Avenue, but the final project could easily include a dozen more. Over the next 20 years, Hilco expects it to be similar to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where 15,000 people work for private companies. The project promises to create thousands of jobs for residents from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron points out that it isnt clear how everyone will get there.

In her own words: Transit service is almost nonexistent. Although there was once a pedestrian bridge over I-76 at Morris Street, next to Universal Audenried Charter School in Grays Ferry, the stairs were removed long ago. Forget about biking, Saffron wrote. This should be the moment when the city, Hilco, SEPTA and PennDOT come up with a comprehensive transportation plan to manage truck traffic and insure that workers are able to access the site without driving. Instead, the Bellwether District is already shaping up to be a repeat of the auto-dependent Navy Yard, where transit and greener forms of transportation have been an afterthought.

Keep reading to learn Saffrons other concerns about the projects sustainability and accessibility.

 Trivia time 

Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the longest running live action comedy series ever.

What year did the first episode premiere?

A) 2000

B) 2003

C) 2005

D) 2010

Think you know? Check your answer.

What were...

Watching: An increasing number of politicians are visiting picket lines.

 Perusing: Photos of our house of the week, a four-bedroom mountaintop home in the Poconos.

 Unscramble the anagram 

Hint: Halloween in Glen Mills

ALE TEETH TOMBS

Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Sidney Katz, who correctly guessed Tuesdays answer: Andy Kim.

Photo of the day

Thank you for starting your day with The Inquirer. Im starting mine with black tea . Ill be back with the latest news tomorrow.
Benjamin Franklin was many things: an inventor, a statesman, a writer, a diplomat, a publisher. And as those of us who learned the only partly apocryphal story of his discovery of electricity with a kite in a lightning storm know, Franklin was also a scientist.

But not just any kind of scientist. Franklin was arguably Americas first climate scientist. Among other subjects, he engaged in the study of weather patterns and researched the behavior of the Gulf Stream, centuries before it became fashionable.

As a climate scientist teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, an institution founded by Franklin nearly three centuries ago, I find great meaning in his legacy. The best way to honor Franklins legacy is to demand greater government action on climate, as Franklin almost certainly would have done.

Franklins climate activism speaks for itself. In 1739, he petitioned the Pennsylvania General Assembly to outlaw tanneries from continuing to dump harmful chemicals into Dock Creek and the Delaware River, polluting the public water supply. He cited the primacy of the rights of the public over those of polluters.

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This work has resonance today, when politicians  primarily Republicans, but also a few Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin  have done the bidding of powerful polluters by blocking environmental regulations. Given the plume of harmful chemicals from a latex and plastics factory that leaked into the tributaries of the Delaware River earlier this year, endangering Philadelphias water supply, Franklins actions seem eerily prophetic.

Franklin touted energy efficiency. He invented the eponymous Franklin stove  a portable, metal-lined fireplace that improved heating and fuel efficiency  and a new, four-sided type of streetlamp that burned fuel more efficiently.

He also advocated for clean air and clean water. Franklin promoted improved chimneys to reduce the accumulation of smoke in houses, and devices like his streetlamp reduced the emission of smoke into the air. He led a commission in Philadelphia to improve waste collection and reduce water pollution, and he was instrumental in the construction of a pipeline to bring clean water to Philadelphia, as well as the creation of the Philadelphia Water Commission.

To be sure, Franklin was not the only climate scientist and activist of his era. Franklin shared these interests with fellow Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who established the University of Virginia.

When I taught there two decades ago, my students and I studied Jeffersons diaries and writings on the topic of weather and climate. Among other things, we came across a piece of his writing from 1824 in which he discussed the effect of clearing and culture towards changes of climate.

You read that last line right: Jefferson wrote about changes of climate in the early 19th century.

Franklin passed away in 1790, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. I imagine he would be both shocked and dismayed by the profligate path we have followed when it comes to water, air, and carbon pollution. Since Franklins time, we have burned fossil fuels on an exponential trajectory, which has led to a roughly 50% increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This has already warmed our planet by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

I suspect Franklin would be horrified by the consequences of a warming climate that we are now seeing in his cherished city of Philadelphia. Ironically, the environmental concerns of the 18th century are not all that different from the problems we are coping with now.

Our city registered its worst air quality ever this summer when it was shrouded in Canadian wildfire smoke, thanks to the extreme drought that stretched across the northern half of our continent. Unprecedented flooding in 2021 during Hurricane Ida  a storm supercharged with moisture and rainfall due to the unusually warm Gulf waters in which it formed  threatened our drinking water.

History provides important context for assessing the environmental threats we face today. But the lessons go much further back than the American Revolution. While conducting research for my latest book project, Our Fragile Moment, I set out to see what we can learn about the climate crisis from Earths longer-term climate history  which stretches back more than four billion years  into whats known as the paleoclimate.

In this case, were not looking at early writings or documents, but natural archives  such as tree rings, corals, ice cores, and even giant clams, like those contained within the immense collection of fossils at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University here in Philadelphia.

An array of such paleoclimate data indicates that this summer, we may well have experienced the warmest days of the last 125,000 years. This is hardly some fluke roll of the weather dice.

The climate crisis is here, and the question is: How bad are we willing to let it get?

That same paleoclimate record tells us that we will, in a matter of decades, exceed levels of warmth not seen in millions of years if we continue with business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels. Floods, wildfires, oppressive heat, and superstorms will become more frequent, more damaging, and more deadly.

A window of opportunity still remains for avoiding a catastrophic 3 degrees Fahrenheit warming of the planet, where well see far worse consequences than what weve already witnessed  massive supply-chain disruptions, climate-driven migration, and conflict over food, water, and land.

But that window is closing, and were not yet making enough progress in moving away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy. Here in Pennsylvania, we have an opportunity to move more rapidly in that direction. We have an opportunity to help cement Benjamin Franklins legacy of environmental stewardship.

In one of Franklins most famous quotes, he said the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had given citizens a republic, if you can keep it. This is his message to us now: To protect our republic from the dangers of climate change, we must embrace civic engagement and vote.

The 2024 election will determine the path we take in the years ahead, and the choice couldnt be more stark.

Michael E. Mann is a presidential distinguished professor and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of the new book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earths Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis.
Eddie Irizarry's cousins rally along with supporters in the wake of a judge dismissing all charges against Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Dial, who shot and killed Eddie Irizarry last month. Read more
Rep. Ryan Bizzarro (left), House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler stand during a press conference after touring at South Philadelphia High School in Philadelphia in July. Read more

State Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, of Erie, announced his run for state treasurer Tuesday, becoming the first Democrat to enter the race in an effort to flip control of the office.

Pennsylvanias treasurer is one of three row offices up for election in 2024. Two of three row offices  the state treasurer and auditor general  flipped control in 2020, marking down-ballot wins for Republicans. Stacy Garrity, a former businesswoman and retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, won the treasurers race in an upset over incumbent Democrat Joe Torsella.

In a three-minute ad announcing his candidacy, Bizzarro called Garrity the highest-ranking extremist office-holder in the state because of her anti-abortion views as well as her statements that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. He promised to protect taxpayer assets, protect pensions, and protect you from Stacy Garrity.

Bizzarro cast himself as an antithesis to Garrity and said hes a fighter who grew up in Erie in a family of boxers and survived childhood leukemia. He pledged to continue that fight if elected state treasurer.

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In a response, a Garrity campaign consultant listed a number of her successes as treasurer, including the return of hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed property and support for her predecessors appointment to the state teachers pension board.

I am curious to which part of this Representative Bizzarro considers extreme, said Dennis Roddy, a Republican strategist and adviser to Garritys campaign. I get the sense that he has little understanding of what the treasurer actually does.

Bizzarro, 37, is the Democratic policy chair for House Democrats tasked with shaping the partys top legislative priorities. He said hes been preparing his campaign and clearing the field of other potential candidates for the last five months. It was not clear as of Tuesday whether any other Democrats plan to enter the race.

He told The Inquirer that as treasurer, hed work with Gov. Josh Shapiros administration to encourage development in the state. On his campaign website, he said he wants to create savings accounts for first-time homebuyers and invest in the states energy and technology sectors.

The treasurer, elected statewide every four years, is responsible for managing the states more than $150 billion in funds. The state Treasury Department receives deposits of taxes and other revenue and disburses funds to pay the states bills. It also manages short- and long-term investments, and oversees a number of investment programs for residents and local governments.

Its important, irrespective of their political party, to not use this office as a stepping stone for higher aspirations, Bizzarro said. This is supposed to be a non-political office that works with the legislature and the governor, irrespective of his or her party. Your job is to pay the bills, to protect assets and to ensure that youre protecting this money.

Garrity was rumored to be considering a run for U.S. Senate. David McCormick, who announced his Senate run last week, attended a fundraiser for Garritys reelection campaign for treasurer earlier this month.

Other row offices already have crowded fields for 2024. Four Democrats and one Republican has announced their campaigns for state attorney general, and approximately a handful of others are still considering it. One Democrat has announced his candidacy for auditor general to challenge incumbent Tim DeFoor, and at least one other Democrat is considering it.
Former Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym and current Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier and Kendra Brooks walk with protesters following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Brooks is a member of the Working Families Party, and all three of the officials have been supported by the progressive third party. Read more

The progressive Working Families Party is holding its first national convention next week in Philadelphia, a sign of the partys growing aspirations  and of Pennsylvanias critical role in its expansion.

More than 400 people are expected to attend the convention that begins Oct. 6 in Center City, including dozens of Democratic elected officials and several national labor leaders. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D., Allegheny) and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both progressive Democrats, are scheduled to deliver keynote addresses.

The event comes as the Working Families Party is locked in a contentious battle with Republicans for two City Council seats, and could serve to draw attention to its candidates ahead of the Nov. 7 general election. Its also coming as the party reaches 25 years since its founding in New York, and organizers say theyre bringing together supporters at a critical point in its history.

Nelini Stamp, the partys director of strategy and partnerships, said the Working Families Party sees the moment as ripe for growth given the attention on next years presidential election and the revitalized labor movement.

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We want to be a household name, she said. We want our stamp of approval to mean something to multiracial, working-class voters across this country.

What is the Working Families Party?

The Working Families Party, which has chapters in 19 states, is something of a hybrid progressive group and political party. It is aligned with prominent labor unions and raises money for and supports Democrats, including President Joe Biden, whom the party backed in 2020.

 READ MORE: Critics are questioning the Working Families Partys independence as it gains traction in Philly

It often boosts progressives in Democratic primaries with the goal of moving Democrats left, and at times backs candidates running as members of the Working Families Party itself. One of the most prominent is Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, who in 2019 became the first third-party candidate to win a seat on Council in 70 years.

Brooks is up for reelection this year and running alongside the Rev. Nicolas ORourke with the hopes of taking a pair of seats on Council that are effectively reserved for non-Democrats.

Stamp said Philadelphia made sense as a host for the partys first national convention for several reasons, including Brooks electoral success. She also said the party played a visible role in the city in 2020, when it hosted a two-day protest-slash-dance-party as election workers counted ballots at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Were used to making history in Philadelphia, Stamp said, so why should we stop now?

What will happen at the convention?

The first Working Families Party convention may feel in some ways like a smaller version of the Democratic or Republican national conventions, in that delegates from across the country will vote on internal governance matters like establishing or adjusting rules, organizing committees, and approving state chapters.

But there will be obvious differences, the biggest being that the party is not nominating a national candidate like a presidential contender  typically the most publicized aspect of a political convention.

It also does not have national infrastructure like the Democratic and Republican parties, and there are few registered members compared to the two major parties and more established third parties. The party does not focus on registering members, largely because it doesnt have its own primaries, and there are just a few dozen registered members of the Working Families Party in Pennsylvania.

Still, the party has close relationships with elected Democrats. Lee said in a statement that the Working Families Party has elected leaders who are accountable to working people and ready to co-govern with the labor movement and social movements.

The convention will run for three days and take place at the Sonesta Hotel in Center City.
City Councilmember Kendra Brooks stands in the chamber as Philadelphia City Council meets Sept. 14, 2023. She and her running mate Nicolas O'Rourke each outraised their Republican opponents, according to campaign finance reports filed this week. Read more

Two progressive members of the Working Families Party running for Philadelphia City Council outraised their Republican opponents and appear to have set a fundraising record for third-party candidates in the city.

Still, the Republican candidates held their own in the money battle, and both GOP contenders raised more money than any of the five members of their party who ran for the same seats four years ago.

And both sides are backed by deep-pocketed groups that have already poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the closelywatched race.

Thats according to campaign-finance reports filed this week by the four candidates who are seeking two Council seats effectively reserved for non-Democrats. Republicans and the Working Families Party are locked in a tight battle for the seats ahead of the Nov. 7 election, and the race is considered the most competitive in the city this fall.

With more than a million dollars raised by the four candidates combined and hundreds of thousands more flowing from outside groups, the final six weeks are likely to be a shootout as the candidates jockey for attention in what is often a sleepy election cycle in Philadelphia.

Voters can select up to five candidates running for seven at-large seats on Council. Democrats nominated five candidates, who are all but certain to win seats given the partys large voter registration advantage in the city.

GOP support comes from self-funding and building trades

Incumbent Councilmember Kendra Brooks and her running mate, the Rev. Nicolas ORourke, have each outraised Republicans Jim Hasher, a small business owner, and Drew Murray, a civic association leader, since the primary election.

Brooks reported raising $193,000 in cash donations over the last three months and ORourke brought in $146,000, dwarfing the record-setting amount the two raised in 2019. Over the same period, Hasher raised about $117,000 and Murray reported raising $77,000  $40,000 of which was self-funded.

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The Working Families Party candidates also have more money in the bank and have raised more over the length of the election cycle. The two progressive candidates have more than $440,000 combined, while the pair of Republicans have about $236,000 put together.

Still, Republicans have plenty of money to compete. While the GOP nominated five candidates, three dropped out as part of the partys strategy to consolidate its efforts behind Hasher and Murray.

Hashers fundraising was particularly notable because more than half of it  upwards of $60,000  came from a dozen building trades unions that are supporting his bid.

Some of those labor groups, including the politically potent electricians unions, have traditionally aligned with Democrats. And many of the same unions that donated to Hasher are backing Democrat Cherelle Parker for mayor.

Ryan Boyer, head of the Philadelphia Building Trades & Construction Council, said the coalition of labor unions has endorsed Hasher alongside four Democrats: Nina Ahmad and incumbents Isaiah Thomas, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, and Jim Harrity.

He said the trades are not Republican or Democrat, but were J for jobs.

Anybody that supports smart development with workers that are skilled and highly trained, they have support from the Philadelphia building trades, he said.

Eleven other labor unions outside the building trades, including those that represent teachers and service workers, have endorsed the Working Families Party candidates.

WFP will likely need to spend more

The Working Families Party may need to spend more money than its Republican rivals in order to reach enough voters to put them over the top. Their campaigns will likely need to convince many Democrats to forgo casting votes for one or two members of their party and pick Working Families candidates instead  and such a voter education effort isnt cheap.

They do have one major advantage in the form of the national Working Families Party, which is based in New York and has already spent $400,000 boosting Brooks and ORourke, according to the groups filing this week. Most of that money funded literature and a door-knocking program.

The Working Families Party independent expenditure group, also known as a super PAC, is not legally allowed to coordinate with the campaigns or candidates.

It wasnt immediately clear who gave to the Working Families Partys national group, though it has reportedly raised much of its cash from national labor unions.

The campaigns, on the other hand, raised most of their money from local donors.
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats and Republicans announced a short-term funding deal Tuesday night that would fund the government for six weeks, while including additional funding for Ukraine and domestic disaster relief.

The deal, reached days before the government would shut down on Saturday, would still need to overcome several procedural hurdles before full Senate approval. It would then move to the House, where its future is uncertain.

The short-term deal, called a continuing resolution, allocates $4.49 billion for the Defense Department's effort in Ukraine, alongside $1.65 billion in additional funding for the war-torn country, which will remain available until Sept. 30, 2025. Combined, the more-than $6 billion in funds adds up to far less than the White House's request for $20.6 billion in Ukraine funding. But if the plan becomes law, Congress would almost certainly pursue additional funding for Ukraine later this fall.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate's short-term bill "will continue to fund the government at present levels, while maintaining our commit to Ukraine's security and humanitarian needs while also ensuring those impacted by natural disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need."

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The future of U.S. funding for Ukraine's defense against Russia has splintered Republicans on the Hill and set up a collision between the House and Senate as they look to avert a government shutdown.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said funding for Ukraine should be dealt in a supplemental request and not tacked onto a stopgap bill.

"I don't quite understand, when you have all these people across the country talking about the challenges happening in America today, that people would go and say, 'Oh, we need to do Ukraine and ignore what's happening along our border,' " he said. McCarthy and House Republican leaders have spent the past several days raising issues about border security in the context of what should be included in any short-term funding deal.

House Republicans have all but punted on a short-term solution that would keep the government open beyond Sept. 30, choosing instead to focus on long-term appropriations bills. McCarthy has been unable to unite his conference behind a short-term plan that would both appease his hard-right flank and ensure he keeps his leadership position.

GOP leadership focused its energies Tuesday on long-term appropriations bills, setting up an evening vote to advance four measures that would fund defense, agriculture, the State Department and homeland security for a full fiscal year. GOP leaders hope that moving forward on 2024 fiscal year bills, a key demand of hard-liners opposed to a short-term solution, will eventually shake enough support lose for a stopgap deal with the Senate.

If the Senate successfully advances the stopgap measure, the bill will go through the Senate amendment process. Sen. Paul Rand (R-Ky.), who opposes further funding for Ukraine, said he would try to slow down the process to get the bill on the Senate floor for a final vote, which could stretch beyond the midnight Saturday deadline to keep the government open.

However, McCarthy is unlikely to bring the Senate proposal up for a vote, since it would require Democratic support to pass, according to multiple Republican aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics. Members on the hard right, including many within the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus, have said that relying on Democrats to move the stopgap bill would probably result in a Republican lawmaker filing a motion to remove McCarthy from his speakership.

Ahead of Tuesday's House votes, a defiant McCarthy appeared confident that he had the votes to advance the four appropriations bills. For the last week, McCarthy and his allies have criticized to GOP holdouts by arguing that they are the ones working with Democrats, since they're voting alongside the party to block appropriations bills.

Itd be concerning to me that there would be people in the Republican Party that will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want, McCarthy said Tuesday. I dont understand how, at the end of the day, theyd would stay in that lane.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney speaks during an event at LOVE Park in March. He vetoed a bill this week that seeks to prohibit supervised drug consumption sites in most of the city. Read more

Mayor Jim Kenney plans to veto legislation that prohibits supervised drug consumption sites across most of Philadelphia, writing in a letter to City Council that the bill is troublingly anti-science and misleading.

Kenneys move will send the bill back to Council, which passed the legislation earlier this month, 13-1. Overriding a mayoral veto requires a two-thirds vote, so Council is poised to make the legislation law during its scheduled meeting Thursday.

Despite Kenneys veto, the passage of the bill greatly imperils the future of supervised drug consumption sites, which the city calls overdose prevention centers, in Philadelphia.

The facilities are places where people can use drugs under medical supervision and be revived if they overdose. Kenney announced in 2018 that his administration would permit, but not fund, the opening of one in Philadelphia, but some residents from neighborhoods hit hardest by public drug use and overdoses have protested against it, saying they fear that the sites will bring more people to their communities to use drugs.

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But Kenney wrote in his letter to Council, obtained by The Inquirer, that extensive scientific evidence from sites in other countries shows that supervised consumption sites prevent fatal overdoses and reduce public drug use.

 READ MORE: What legislation to limit supervised drug consumption sites in Philadelphia does

The bill, he added, is validating misplaced fears and fallacies about a lifesaving medical model that would benefit all members of the communities impacted by drug use.

Kenney said that, in 2022, Philadelphias fatal overdose deaths rose to 1,413, the highest death toll the city has ever seen and more than twice the number of homicides the city saw in the same year. Overdose deaths are also disproportionately affecting the citys Black community, he said, with overdose deaths among Black residents increasing by 20% from 2021 to 2022.

The legislation, championed by Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, changes the citys zoning code to designate supervised drug consumption sites as a prohibited use in nine of the citys 10 Council districts. West Philadelphias 3rd District, represented by Democrat Jamie Gauthier, was the only district not included.

Council adheres to a tradition called councilmanic prerogative, meaning that each Council member could opt to include his or her district in the bill. Gauthier has said residents should decide for themselves whether they want life-saving overdose prevention centers in their neighborhoods.

 READ MORE: What to know about how councilmanic prerogative works in Philadelphia

Lozada, whose district includes Kensington and one of the largest open-air drug markets on the East Coast, has argued that the legislation is not a ban because operators could seek special permission from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. They would have to present plans to neighborhood organizations first, then the groups would vote on the proposal. The zoning board would consider such a vote alongside the position of the Council person when making its ruling.

But Kenney said in his letter that would amount to handing the approval of any [supervised drug consumption site] at all to the loudest voices in the room.

History has shown time and again that making the right policy choice  school desegregation, for example  cannot always be outsourced to public opinion if we hope to make progress as a society, Kenney wrote. We are the policymakers, and we have a responsibility to make the tough decisions.

Lozada said in response that those voices belong to children, families, and small businesses that call the neighborhoods impacted most by this epidemic home. She said that by vetoing the legislation, Kenney is once again suppressing the communitys voice.

Mayor Kenney has had eight years to drive solutions and be a proactive force in combatting this epidemic, Lozada said in a statement. Instead, he has been reactive to our efforts and caused the city to spin its gears without driving forward.

Kenney also encouraged all members of City Council to visit a facility to fully understand this critical tools potential role in our effort to save lives and benefit communities.

Councilmember Mark Squilla visited a Toronto site in 2019 and said he came away unimpressed. Councilmember Kendra Brooks, the only Council member to vote against the bill, has visited New Yorks sites three times. On Instagram, she called the site a national model that saves lives, and added that she wanted to employ similar strategies in Philadelphia.

In her most recent visit, Brooks was accompanied by Councilmembers Isaiah Thomas, Jamie Gauthier, and Anthony Phillips.

The veto comes as Safehouse, the nonprofit leading plans to open a site in Philadelphia, remains embroiled in federal litigation over whether the sites are legal. There are two supervised consumption sites currently operating in the United States, both in New York.

Staff in New York say that, since their opening in November 2021, they have intervened to treat more than 1,000 overdoses.

This administration cannot help but wonder how many irreplaceable people are lost with each passing year that Philadelphia does not welcome the same opportunity, Kenney wrote.
While mule deer populations seem to struggle across many areas of Montana, Havre has become one of the latest communities initiating a program to kill muley does within city limits.

The Hi-Line town's expanding deer population has prompted the community to initiate an urban deer management plan, which includes an archery hunting opportunity for antlerless mule deer within and adjacent to the city limits.

The management plan will address deer that threaten human safety or property and reduce the potential for human-deer interactions and conflicts by lowering deer density within the city, according to a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks press release.

One portion of the plan is to implement a public archery hunt in areas identified by the city. Details of this opportunity include:

 Hunt dates are Sept. 20 to Feb. 15.

 Hunting will only be allowed in areas identified and approved by the city.

 Hunting areas are open space that have been identified as safe and have a higher likelihood of a successful harvest.

 Only archery equipment, as defined in the current FWP hunting regulations, may be used. This includes both compound and traditional bows, arrows at least 20 inches long, and broadheads with at least two cutting edges and at least 7/8 inches wide.

 Crossbows are not allowed.

 A bow stamp is not required for this hunt.

 Licenses are valid only for antlerless mule deer. Hunters may use: Any unused 2023 600-01 and 690-00 antlerless mule deer license; Havre Urban Deer License  100 licenses will be available over-the-counter to Montana residents at license vendors, online, or at an FWP office.

 Maximum of two Havre urban deer licenses per person.

 Licenses will be available for sale starting Sept. 19.

 Hunters need to check in with the Havre Police Department at 520 4th St. in Havre before hunting and acquire a map with locations and rules.

 Written daily permission is required, and can be obtained at the Havre Police Dept.

 Additional permission is required from individual landowners for private land approved for participation in the hunt.

 Harvested deer must be field dressed outside the city limits. All carcass parts (bones, spine, ribcage, heads, etc.) need to be disposed of in a class II landfill to limit the spread of CWD.

 Hunters interested in getting their harvest sampled for CWD need to contact the Havre FWP office at 406-265-6177.

For any questions about this management plan or hunt, contact the Havre Police Department at 406-265-4361, or stop by the office.
Business construction along Route 541 (Burlington-Mt. Holly Road) in Burlington, N.J. A developer plans to build on 30 acres of the mall site on Route 541, with some stores expected to open by the end of this year, including Raising Canes Chicken Fingers. Read more

The shutdown of a forlorn Sears store in 2018 was Burlington Centers last gasp. And some of those who watched the once-popular shopping destination withering for years breathed a sigh of relief.

At one time the mall had been our downtown, and watching it die was more painful than losing it altogether, said Burlington Township Mayor E.L. Pete Green.

Now called The Crossings, the 240-acre mall site on a commercial stretch of Route 541 has been cleared. The first two of what will be four warehouses have been leased, and construction of the first phase of the projects 30-acre retail component called The Shops at the Crossings is underway.

The mall property had been desolate for several years, said Burlington County economic development director Rob Wells, who called the Shops at the Crossings a huge win for the township and the county.

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People wont be driving by a blighted empty space on this major artery through the township any more, he said. The success of this corridor is paramount. The development will bring in new retail and services, and attract more.

A challenging time for malls

The last and the smallest of the four regional malls built in South Jersey after the Cherry Hill Mall debuted in 1961, Burlington Center opened in 1982, when traditional department stores and brick-and-mortar shopping centers still defined and dominated American retailing.

Twenty-five years later, department store closings, online retailing, and the Great Recession fueled the decline of weaker malls across the country and gave rise to dead mall fan sites online. South Jerseys Echelon and Moorestown Malls struggled, but the Burlington Center went into a death spiral as anchor stores closed and marquee tenants departed.

 READ MORE: A new Moorestown Mall is taking shape as medical and residential projects get underway, developers say

Burlington is the only one of the five South Jersey malls to be completely demolished. About half of the Echelon Mall has been razed and redeveloped as the Voorhees Town Center, and new apartments and medical facilities are being added to Moorestown and several other malls in the state.

In Burlington Township, 1.9 million square feet of warehouse space is being developed by MRP Industrial, based in Baltimore, and Clarion Partners, in New York. The Ferber Co., of Ponte Vedra, Fla., is building the Shops at the Crossings on 30 acres along Route 541 (also known as Burlington-Mount Holly Road) at Bromley Boulevard.

The first phase of the retail development includes a mattress shop, a tire store, and several fast-food or fast-casual restaurants such as Raising Canes, Freddys Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, and Panera Bread. Later phases may include a grocery store and a hotel, said Cory Gosik, a leasing and business development associate with Ferber.

Two of our tenants will be open by the end of the year, he said. Were looking to bring in a day care, a medical center, and a big-box retailer. This will help fix up the entire Route 541 corridor.

Mayor Green said he hoped a sit-down restaurant with a liquor license, as well as a wholesale buyers club, would be among the retail tenants. He also questioned the need for a tire store in a part of the county already well served by such businesses. Nevertheless, he said, this project will enhance our township.

Elliot Byers, Clarions senior vice president of acquisitions, said the company was attracted by the areas good demographics, as well as the large site that allowed for a campus-like setting. The location between N.J. Turnpike Exit 5 to the east and an I-295 interchange to the west, offers excellent access to key highways, he said.

Developers look to South Jersey

With land suitable for warehouses increasingly scarce or expensive in Central New Jersey, developers are looking at South Jersey, said Tim Evans, research director at NJ Future, a nonprofit that advocates for sustainable growth. He authored a 2021 report about the challenge of warehouse development statewide.

Demand for a new generation of warehouses is driven by the volume of international trade coming through the ports of Newark, Bayonne, and Elizabeth, he said. South Jersey may be emerging as a freight corridor, so its no surprise warehouse developers would be attracted to the Burlington Township site.

Former mall or shopping center properties may make sense for warehouses because these retail sites generally are not in neighborhoods, but in places that were built to accommodate car and truck traffic, Evans said.

Green, who worked at the Burlington Center as a young man, said a lot of thought and input has gone into the redevelopment process.

It is not being developed haphazardly, said the mayor. There were shortcomings with the traffic patterns when the mall was open, and now there will be major improvements.

Theres also a proposal for 500-apartment development, including 100 affordable units, near the movie theater on Bromley Boulevard, said Green.

The mayor also said he is well pleased with the progress on redeveloping the mall site.
Aerial photo shows damage to ash trees by the emerald ash borer at Tyler Arboretum in Delaware County, Pa. as of 2023. Read more

Visitors to the 650-acre Tyler Arboretum in Delaware County will soon witness the leaves turn on dogwoods, ginkgo, and maples. Theyll sniff wafts of fall fragrances from katsura, meadow grasses, and asters.

What they wont be able to do? Hike along 17 miles of trails because of a path of destruction caused by the emerald ash borer  a beetle so metallic green and shimmery that it resembles a bauble on a Mummer costume.

The trails outside the arboretums deer fence are now closed to the public for an undetermined period so a contractor can continue removal of 900 ash trees sickened or killed by the invasive pest, a scourge since it began a widespread sweep of Pennsylvanias private and public forests starting in Butler County in 2007. The arboretum, however, is open with events and programming, as are trails inside the fence.

The pest arrived in the Philadelphia area in about 2012 and is just about done munching its path of destruction through the state. Delaware County is one of the last counties to face an infestation. Some of the trees that emerald ash borers have killed at Tyler Arboretum were more than 100 years old.

What is the emerald ash borer?

The emerald ash borer begins ravaging trees while still a larvae that feeds underneath bark, disrupting the transportation of water and nutrients. It can kill a tree in three to four years. Signs of an attack include a dying upper crown, splitting or flaking bark, tissue damage, D-shaped exit holes, and S-shaped larval feeding galleries just below the bark.

Adult beetles grow to one-half inch long and one-eighth inch wide. They fly from early May until September. Larvae live beneath the bark until emerging as adults through D-shaped holes.

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The best way to stop an infestation is to remove trees. But thats expensive. Chemicals have been shown to be moderately or highly effective depending on which insecticide is used.

The emerald ash borer, or Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, has killed millions of trees in the U.S. and Canada since it was first discovered in the United States in Michigan in 2002. Though the beetle can spread on its own, it has been transported across the Northeast in firewood, timber, and nursery plants. Pennsylvania alone had an estimated 308 million ash trees in its forests.

The emerald ash borer is just one of several pests threatening private and public forests across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where it was first detected in 2014. Other pests of concern include the woolly adelgid that attacks hemlocks, and a nematode suspected of causing leaf die-off in beech trees.

 READ MORE: Worse than the spotted lanternfly? A new disease is killing beech trees in Pa. and N.J.

Damage at Tyler Arboretum

Arboretum officials decided last spring to see how much damage the pest had inflicted on the property in Middletown Township. Their initial estimate was way under.

We did an updated GIS survey of the property and sort of mapped out where these trees were and we thought we would have a lot less, said executive director Mike Skuja. But it turns out we had close to 900 hazard ash trees. Theyre not all trees just in the middle of the forest. These are trees near trails that create a risk of falling when they are either dead or almost dead and are a safety risk to the public.

Some of the larger trees were more than 120 years old. The smaller ones ranged from 30 to 50 years old.

The arboretum has created an ecological working group to come up with a plan. The first phase of the job, Skuja said, calls for contractor Cox & Co. to cut down about 584 trees that would lead to the reopening of 9.5 miles of trails. But the going is slow, he said, because of the location of the trees. Tyler officials say the removal of the ash trees will change the look of the forest and is expensive. The arboretum is seeking donations to help pay for the removal.

We expect our first phase to cost over $500,000, Skuja said. We dont know for certain how much remaining phases will cost because the work and cost will depend on many factors from the location and condition of trees and weather and how both of these affect the equipment and technique needed for their removal.

He said the arboretum plans to create new habitat, such as native meadow and forest, in areas impacted by the emerald ash borer.

We face a huge challenge and additional expense, Skuja said. Our goal is to raise another $1 million-$2 million to support restoration across the landscape in its entirety. This is an opportunity to face our ongoing loss of the ash trees and come out stronger on the other side with a long-term plan for regeneration.

Erin Mooney, executive director of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, said the emerald ash borer has also been a problem within the centers 365-acre property, though not to the extent of Tylers infestation.

Tyler is not alone, Mooney said. Were incredibly sympathetic to their plight. We have seen the problem at the Schuylkill Center for the past five years.

What is Pennsylvania doing about it?

Pennsylvanias Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) first launched a plan in 2014 to tackle the problem. At the time, the beetle had already reduced the number of ashes in the states forest by 12%.

Houping Liu an entomologist with the DCNR, said the worst of the 18-year infestation is over, given that theres really nowhere else for the emerald ash borer to go. In other words, it has killed most of the untreated ash trees, which once made up about 4% of Pennsylvania forests.

The pest began making its way through Delaware County about six years ago, the last of the remaining counties to see an infestation. And thats why Tyler Arboretum is seeing so many dead ash now, Liu said.

Widespread treatment isnt really an option, he said, because its so time consuming and expensive. Aerial spraying is not an option. A main treatment includes injecting emamectin benzoate into each individual tree trunk while larvae are still present. The state has treated about 1,700 trees.

Right now, if you see any surviving trees in a state forest or park, theyve likely been chemically treated, Liu said.

The only hope, Liu said, lies in a small percentage of trees that managed to survive the onslaught. Those lingering ash, as they are known, might prove genetically resistant. If so, they could be bred and planted if. But more research is needed.

As of now, Liu said, we dont recommend planting ash trees.
Sharp to showcase future technologies at Tokyo Expo

Electronics giant Sharp Corporation is celebrating 111 years with its first independent large-scale technology exhibition in Tokyo.

Taking place November 10-12, at Tokyo Big Sight, under the banner Be a Game Changer - Game-changing technologies transforming our future, the event commemorates the founding of the company on September 15 1912.

The Sharp Tech Day exhibition will comprise four zones, including Smart Living, Smart Industry, Smart Cities, and Sustainability, each set up in collaboration with technology partner companies.

Visitors will be able experience products and services that have ushered in global innovations, with talk sessions hosted by various leaders across leading edge industries.

The public-facing event will also platform opportunities for startup companies and job-seeking students.



Sharp is best known for CE in the UK and Europe, but continues to explore innovation across a variety of fields, including how people live and work. The corporation says it aims to establish its image as a future-gazing company that supports people and society while continuing to deliver new advancements to the world.

The brand is planning to introduce innovative technologies at the event 'that will be the driving force of its mid to long-term sustainability growth plan. To support the event, Sharp has launched a dedicated website, Sharp Tech-Day.



Sharp Tech-Day takes place November 10-12, at Tokyo Big Sight, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
We brought them all together for a two day, get to know each other and introduction to the business and induction program, said Wicht. One of the key elements of the training program is one-on-one extensive training covering all of the elements of the loss adjusting role in the claims process, which is very much on the job training.
"We thank our members for this recognition and are proud to be able to provide exemplary care and experience with our health cover," said Brad Joyce, CEO of Teachers Health Group. "Our members are at the heart of everything we do, and we're pleased this has been reflected in our receipt of such a prestigious award.
Previously, the LICOP was owned by the Financial Services Council (FSC). On its website, Zurich offered assurances that the transition will have no impact in its service as it will continue to be under the codes provisions and standards.
With its strong reputation as a neighborhood broker, Aloia McKinnon is an ideal fit for the Gallagher Agency Alliances small business strategic focus, Tadin said. By joining Gallagher Agency Alliance, Dean, Tom and their team can continue to focus on what they do best while benefiting from Gallaghers market reach and niche expertise. We look forward to working with their team to further expand their capabilities and provide insurance solutions to the local community.
My advice to others is to show your real personality and not be afraid to do things that are traditionally feminine, and, honestly, use them as a strength, Loupee said. She sees younger women who are afraid to show themselves, leaving their personality at the office door in the hopes that only their business side will be seen and measured. Theyre so afraid to show it. You can be funny, you can make a joke. You can just be yourself. You can talk about the things that you love outside of work and it just enriches your connections with other people.
FARGO  A Grand Forks man tied to a former North Dakota state senator is slated to plead guilty to charges that alleged he traded child porn.

Nicholas Morgan-Derosier, 35, signed a plea agreement that was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in North Dakota. He has agreed to plead guilty to one count of receipt and distribution of child porn and six counts of possessing child porn.

Charges that alleged he brought two children from the Twin Cities area with plans to sexually abuse them in 2020, as well as a transporting child charge, will be dismissed.

Prosecutors alleged that Morgan-Derosier had more than 6,500 images, files and videos of suspected child porn on several devices, including a computer that was reported stolen from his deceased business partners home in 2019. Morgan-Derosier owned Team Lawn and Landscaping with Robert Coons before, according to police reports, Morgan-Derosier accidentally ran over Coons with a skid-steer loader just days before the computer was stolen from Coons home.

Police searched Morgan-Derosiers home in 2020 on allegations that he committed construction and check fraud, according to court documents. Morgan-Derosier was at the center of complaints that alleged he took money for work that he never did.

Police also alleged Morgan-Derosier disobeyed a North Dakota Attorney Generals Office order that banned him from conducting business as Team Lawn.

While searching for evidence of the alleged fraud, police found child porn on one of Morgan-Derosiers devices, according to court documents.

He exchanged child porn with others between July 2018 and September 2020, court documents alleged.

Prosecutors also alleged Morgan-Derosier took two children he knew, who were at the time less than 10 years old, from their home to his Grand Forks home for several days without their mother's permission in March 2020. He returned the children, the complaint said. Investigators also found messages where Morgan-Derosier described sexual acts with the two boys.

Morgan-Derosier is slated to appear Friday morning in federal court. He faces up to 20 years in prison, with a minimum of five years behind bars.

He remains in custody at the Cass County Jail in Fargo.

Through reviewing court records, police reports, text messaging jail logs and other documents, The Forum discovered multiple connections between Morgan-Derosier and former Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks. The Forum first reported in April 2022 that Holmberg and Morgan-Derosier shared 72 text messages on Aug. 23 and 24, 2021, when Morgan-Derosier was in jail.

At the time, Morgan-Derosier was facing child porn charges in Northeast Central District Court in Grand Forks. That case was dismissed so the U.S. Attorneys Office in North Dakota could take over prosecution.

Holmberg, who was 77 years old at the time the text messages were exchanged, told The Forum they were about patio work Morgan-Derosier did for him, among other things. He said he no longer had the messages.

Federal transcripts from a January 2022 detention hearing for Morgan-Derosier revealed a 77-year-old man from Grand Forks asked Morgan-Derosier in one of the text messages to bring (Morgan-Derosiers 19- or 20-year-old boyfriend) over to his house to give him a massage.

Federal agents seized several items from Holmbergs home in November 2021 while serving a search warrant, according to a police report. They also took several state-issued devices, the North Dakota Legislative Council confirmed.

This month, The Forum also reported that Holmberg gave Morgan-Derosier a ride from Grand Forks to Bismarck in October 2020. The ride was so Morgan-Derosier could meet with the state Attorney Generals Office about an investigation into construction fraud allegations, according to transcripts of that meeting.

Morgan-Derosier also reported a theft on Holmbergs behalf in late 2020, alleging Morgan-Derosiers employees stole $8,800 from the then-senator. Holmberg declined to press charges in the case.

Holmberg, first elected in 1976, was one of the most powerful legislators in North Dakota. He chaired the Legislative Management Committee, which assigns members to legislative committees and decides which interim studies to take up between legislative sessions.

He also chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Rules Committee.

Holmberg, who was at the time known as the longest-serving state senator in the country, planned to retire in late 2022 when his term ended. He announced shortly after The Forums story about the text messages published that he would step down on June 1, 2022.
Notably, Trump's counterargument hinged on a disclaimer present in the financial statements he provided banks and insurers. He argued that this disclaimer absolved him from the reliability of the information within. Judge Engoron gave this argument short shrift, noting that such blanket disclaimers shouldn't be allowed to shield inaccurate statements, especially when they have real-world ramifications, such as in the insurance industry.
Insights from the commission

It has been an honor to serve on the commission and work with a diverse group of members to develop consensus recommendations for congressional action to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the US. Property-casualty insurers have long been engaged in ongoing efforts to prevent and reduce devastation from natural catastrophes, including wildfires. I appreciated the opportunity to bring to the Commission the expertise of the property casualty insurance industry, and following extensive outreach to other stakeholders, broader perspectives from across the property development industry, Sampson said.
Insurance has a critical role to play in enabling the shipping of Ukrainian grain, and we are proud to have been able to play a role in providing an industry-wide solution, commented Miller direct marine head Nick Summers. Working closely with Clearwater Dynamics, we have been able to show the huge real-world impact that insurance can have by combining technology with deep sector expertise.
The defendants in the corruption case involving U.S. Senator Robert Menendez include a former New Jersey insurance broker who was convicted of premium fraud in 2011 and lost his insurance license.

Jose Uribe allegedly got involved with Menendez in his attempts to clear an agency employee and business associate who were suspected of involvement in his insurance fraud scheme.

Senator Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are charged with accepting bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, furnishings and a luxury car in exchange for the senators alleged favors that included sharing sensitive information and taking other actions to benefit the government of Egypt and pressuring government officials to aid three New Jersey businessmen including Uribe.

Menendez is accused of disrupting a criminal insurance fraud investigation related to Uribe undertaken by the New Jersey attorney general. In the other cases, the charges are for allegedly improperly pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a certification monopoly for food experts to Egypt held by businessman Wael Hana and recommending for nomination for U.S. attorney a person Menendez believed he could influence concerning a federal criminal prosecution by the U.S. attorney against the founder of a New Jersey bank, Fred Daibes.

Met in 2018

Hana, a friend of Nadine Menendez, introduced Uribe to Senator Menendez in 2018. According to the indictment, the defendant Uribe now works in the trucking industry after previously owning his own insurance agency, Inter America Insurance Agency, LLC.

Uribe allegedly got caught up with the Menendezes while trying to limit the damage from his insurance fraud case.

In December 2011, Uribe pleaded guilty to third-degree theft by deception and was sentenced to three years of probation by a New Jersey judge. According to the New Jersey attorney general, the former insurance producer for the now defunct Inter America Insurance Agency, LLC, admitted that between May 30, 2003 and Feb. 22, 2010, he obtained $76,819 in insurance premiums from seven clients by creating the false impression that he was remitting the monies to insurance carriers to secure commercial automobile insurance. In reality, he did not remit the premium payments to the insurance carriers.

The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance revoked the insurance producer licenses of Uribe and his company and ordered him to pay $92,500 in fines.

Mercedes-Benz

In the Menendez affair, Uribe is accused of providing Nadine Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Senator Menendez intervening with the state attorney generals office on behalf of a business associate and an employee. The Uribe associate had been charged with insurance fraud relating to a trucking company the insurance for which was brokered by the Uribes agency. The insurance broker employee, whom Uribe referred to as a relative, was being investigated for allegedly submitting the insurance applications at issue in the criminal case.

According to the indictment, Uribe wrote to Hana in April 2018 that he wanted a deal to kill and stop all investigation.

According to prosecutors, Senator Menendez agreed to attempt to intervene in the cases in exchange for the Mercedes. Uribe provided the $15,000 down payment for the car and arranged for the monthly payments of the $60,000 balance to be paid.

Prosecutors allege Menendez contacted a senior prosecutor in the New Jersey attorney generals office in an attempt, through advice and pressure, to resolve these matters favorably.

According to the indictment, the official in the attorney generals office tried to avoid any potential inappropriate influence in the case by not sharing with the prosecution team that Menendez had contacted him about the matter, and he did not intervene in the matter.

Plea Agreement

Uribes associate was able to resolve his criminal prosecution with a plea agreement with no jail time. This resolution was more favorable than the prosecutors initial plea offer earlier in the case, according to the indictment.

About six months later, Senator Menendez attempted to intervene in the investigation of the employee who was Uribes relative. In late October, the Menendezes, Uribe and the relative met for a celebratory dinner, prosecutors claim, citing a photo they obtained apparently showing the three toasting with glasses of champagne.

In June 2022, federal agents executed search warrants on the New Jersey home and the safe deposit boxes of the Menendezes. Agents found certain of the fruits of the alleged corrupt bribery agreements with Hana, Uribe and Daibes. These fruits found in the home included $480,000 in cash much of it in envelopes, clothing, closets, and a safe plus $100,000 worth of gold bars, a $75,000 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, and home furnishings, according to prosecutors, who also said they found more than $70,000 in Nadine Menendezs safe deposit box.

Menendez Reaction

Senator Menendez has denied wrongdoing and said he believes that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator. He said the money found in his home was from his personal savings, not from bribes.

He has rejected calls by fellow Democrats and others to resign his seat. He has stepped down as required as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, assistant director in the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced the indictment on September 22.

Photo: U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., speaks at a a public hearing on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014, in Brick Township, N.J. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

Topics Fraud Agencies New Jersey
A Vermont driver pleaded not guilty to a charge in the June crash that killed actor Treat Williams.

Ryan Koss, 35, could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if he`s convicted of gross negligent operation with death resulting.

An investigation of the June 12 crash in Dorset concluded a vehicle pulled in front of Williams, who was riding a motorcycle and was unable to avoid a collision, Vermont State Police said.

Koss was turning left into a parking lot in an Honda SUV when he collided with Williams oncoming motorcycle, police said. Williams, 71, of Manchester Center, was pronounced dead at Albany Medical Center in New York.

Richard Treat Williams` nearly 50-year career included starring roles in the TV series Everwood and the movie Hair. He appeared in more than 120 TV and film roles, including the movies The Eagle Has Landed, Prince of the City and Once Upon a Time in America.

Koss, the managing creative director of the Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont, said he knew Williams for years as a member of the tight-knit community, as well as a fellow theater member and considered him a friend. He issued a statement in August saying he was devastated by Williams death and offered his sincerest condolences to Williams` family, but he denied wrongdoing and said charges weren`t warranted.

Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Personal Auto Vermont
Donald Trump was found liable for fraud for exaggerating his net worth by billions of dollars a year on financial records submitted to banks and insurers, a major blow to the former president in the biggest civil case against him that is scheduled to go to trial next week.

The ruling Tuesday by Justice Arthur Engoron in Manhattan resolves the states biggest claim against the former president and narrows a trial set to start as soon as Oct. 2. The non-jury trial will now focus on the states remaining claims including falsifying business records and issuing false financial statements. The suit seeks $250 million in restitution and other penalties.

Engoron held that New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the suit in September 2022, had demonstrated liability by Trump as well as his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, along with the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. He also ordered Trumps lawyers, including Christopher Kise, to pay sanctions of $7,500 each for repeatedly advancing failed legal theories in the case.

The judge concluded his ruling by saying James is now entitled to a court order dissolving any certificates issued to Trumps LLCs under New Yorks executive law, putting at risk his ability to continue operating his sprawling Manhattan-based company.

Though the case has been overshadowed in recent months by the four criminal cases filed against Trump, Jamess case could have far-reaching consequences. Along with monetary penalties, the attorney general is seeking to bar Trump from serving as an officer or director in any company in the state where he was born and where he first rose to fame.

In a statement posted to his Truth Social social media platform, Trump reiterated many of his claims in the case, including some that were rejected by the judge, whom he called a Trump hater. The former president said he was worth more than his financial statements, that the banks suffered no harm from his statements and that a disclaimer on the statements made clear that they should not be relied upon.

It is very unfair, and I call for help from the highest courts in New York state, or the federal system, to intercede, Trump said.

Read More: What Trumps Many Legal Perils Mean for His 2024 Bid: QuickTake

The suit accuses Trump of inflating the value of the former presidents biggest assets from 2011 to 2021 to get better terms from banks and insurers. The judge sided with James on her allegation that Trump repeatedly engaged in fraud by claiming exaggerated values for some of his best properties on his annual statements of financial condition.

The judge cited in his ruling several examples, including that the former president frequently claimed that his Trump Tower penthouse was three times as big as it actually was, even after he was alerted to the error.

A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud, the judge wrote.

In sanctioning Trumps lawyers, Engoron said they had repeatedly raised frivolous arguments that had already been rejected, including that James lacked standing to sue their clients. Infants, legally declared incompetents, and persons under certain legal disabilities are not allowed to sue, the judge said. The New York attorney general is none of the above.

Worthless Clause

Engoron went on to describe Trumps defense team as inhabiting a fantasy world in which rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated, restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land, restrictions can evaporate into thin air, a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other partys lies.

The judge was referring to Trumps habit of valuing properties without taking into account restrictions on their use and his assertion that disclaimers about his valuations signaled to banks and accountants that they should do their own. According to court filings, Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, at more than $700 million based on the false premise that the property could be fully developed for residential use even though he himself agreed to restrictions limiting it to use as a social club.

I never felt that these statements would be taken very seriously, Trump said during his April deposition in the case, because you open it up and right at the beginning of the statement, you read a page and a half of stuff saying, go get your own accounting, go get your own this, go get your own that.'

Trump had called the disclaimers worthless clauses because they meant the statements should have very little impact on the banks decisions. But the judge said those clauses werent enforceable and couldnt insulate Trump from liability for fraud.

Defendants reliance on these worthless disclaimers is worthless, Engoron said.

Read More: Trump Assets Are Mona Lisas, He Testifies in NY Fraud Probe

Engoron also said in his ruling that Trump had flouted an earlier court order intended to rein in alleged violations of New York business law during the litigation.

Even with a preliminary injunction in place, and with an independent monitor overseeing their compliance, defendants have continued to disseminate false and misleading information while conducting business, Engoron said.

Trump, who claims Jamess lawsuit is politically motivated, is likely to appeal the ruling. Hes also making a last-ditch effort to delay the trial by arguing to a New York appeals court that Engoron failed to narrow the case after an appellate panel ruled some the states claims might be too old.

James argued a trial on her fraud claim wasnt necessary because the evidence that Trump violated New Yorks Executive Law was overwhelming. The attorney general said in court filings that her team gathered proof that Trump inflated his net worth annually by as much as $3.6 billion by exaggerating the market value of properties including his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump argued against the states motion for so-called summary judgment, saying the annual statements of financial condition that he gave to banks and insurers had powerful disclaimers saying they should do their own valuations. He has also argued that James didnt have a right to sue because the banks and insurers didnt suffer any financial losses.

The case is New York v. Trump, 452564/2022, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).

Photo: Donald Trump Photographer: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Copyright 2023 Bloomberg.

Topics Fraud New York
A new marine insurance facility for Ukrainian grain exports using the countrys sea corridor has been set up in conjunction with Ukraines authorities, insurance broker Miller said on Tuesday.

Russia quit a U.N.-backed deal in July to enable exports from Ukraine to sail from three approved ports.

Since then, Kyiv has launched what it calls a new temporary humanitarian corridor in an effort to break Russias de facto blockade. Two ships have sailed in the recent days from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk using the channel.

Securing insurance cover has been vital.

London-headquartered Miller said it had teamed up with British maritime technology company Clearwater Dynamics (CWD) to develop a war risks insurance facility for grains shipments via three ports including Chornomorsk as well as Odesa and Pivdennyi.

Miller declined to name the underwriters involved in the facility, which offered both cargo and hull insurance for a ship.

This is a commercial facility and the underwriters involved will settle all losses, a Miller spokesperson said.

The three main grain export ports are the areas to be covered. But onwards voyage outside the Black Sea can also be built into coverage, the spokesperson said, adding that the policy was waiting for formal enquiries.

The facility will use CWDs technology to enable ship tracking and real time monitoring of a vessel in transit, in port and until it exits the high-risk area, Miller said.

Ukraines farm ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Farm minister Mykola Solsky told Ukrainian TV on Tuesday that the first ships to leave were very expensive, although the cost of freight had fallen.

An insurance market for the greater Odesa area has already emerged. There is a trend, Solsky said.

Russia hit Ukrainian port infrastructure and grain storage facilities in an overnight drone strike on the grain exporting district of Izmail, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in London and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; editing by Mark Potter)

Photograph: Bulk carrier M/V Razoni, carrying a cargo of 26,000 tonnes of corn, leaves Ukraines port of Odesa, en route to Tripoli in Lebanon, on Aug. 1, 2022. Photo credit: Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP/Getty Images

Topics Agencies Ukraine
Private equity firm Cinven has agreed to buy back 160 million euros ($170 million) of debt sold by its insurer Eurovita and is open to supporting other measures to avoid a messy liquidation of the Italian company, a person with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

Cinven this month signed an accord with GIC, Singapores sovereign fund, and another two investors to purchase from them 140 million euros of Tier2 Eurovita bonds, the source added.

GIC and Eurovita had no immediate comment.

Cinven, which acquired Eurovita in 2017, also launched a tender offer to buy back another 20 million euros of bonds from investors including Italian financial institutions, so that only around 9 million remain outstanding, the source said.

Italian insurance authorities placed Eurovita under special administration this year, the first time they have taken such a step, after rising rates blew a hole in the life insurers cash reserves.

At one point, Eurovitas capital needs were at least four times higher than what Cinven had put in to try and plug the shortfall, another person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters at the time.

To protect savers, a group of five insurers has agreed to take over the life policies of Eurovita clients, while the rest of the company will be liquidated, in a rescue orchestrated by Italian authorities. The five insurers will become shareholders in a new company dubbed Cronos Vita.

Italian prosecutors have been probing false accounting charges in relation to the blow-up.

Cinvens efforts to stave an insolvent liquidation, in which a company is forced to sell its assets to repay creditors, would improve its position in relation to the criminal inquiry, another person close to the matter said.

The British investment firm had offered to pump 100 million euros into the new Cronos Vita company, the two sources said, matching a cash injection into Eurovita it conducted in February following pressure from regulators.

Instead, Cinven was asked to carry out the debt buyback and cancel the bonds to support a solvent liquidation, one of the people added. Like other life insurers, especially those relying on banks to sell products, Eurovita was hit by early redemptions once rates started rising and savers sought better returns.

News of the firms troubles and Cinvens reluctance to promptly run to the rescue accelerated redemptions, eventually forcing regulators to halt them.

The freezing is in place until Oct. 31 when the new company is expected to be established.

Assicurazioni Generali, PosteVita, Intesa Sanpaolo Vita, UnipolSAI, as well as Germanys Allianz, in June agreed to take over Eurovita policies.

Contrary to the initial scheme, Allianz is taking 10% and not 20%, with the other four filling the gap, two people close to the matter said. The insurers involved declined to comment.

($1 = 0.9437 euros)

(Reporting by Valentina Za and Emilio Parodi; editing by Josie Kao)

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Carriers
Loadsure, the London-based insurtech and managing general agent, has partnered with WeatherOptics, a leading weather intelligence platform, with the aim of bringing weather intelligence into its risk calculations.

Loadsure directly addresses the global freight underinsurance crisis with data powered, AI-priced, cargo protection. By utilizing WeatherOptics technology, Loadsure will enhance the resolution of their rating algorithm, providing further improvements in speed of service and efficacy of coverage.

Loadsure always strives to be at the cutting edge of freight insurance technology, and partnering with WeatherOptics enables us to expand into a new field of protection and coverage, helping businesses to better understand and insure weather-related disruptions like delays of critical shipments, temperature breaches for sensitive freight, and warehouse disruptions, commented Johnny McCord, Loadsure CEO and founder.

Pay-As-You-Go Cargo MGA Closing Insurance Protection Gap for Shippers

Our integration with WeatherOptics will further enhance our capacity for business-saving protection for SMEs  we look forward to collaborating, he added.

WeatherOptics translates weather data into actionable insights for logistics companies, providing predictive intelligence as a risk score or delay time that allow businesses to easily understand how upcoming weather will affect their operations. These insights help predict and mitigate uncertainties like trucking delays, warehouse disruptions, and driver risk due to weather.

WeatherOptics insights are designed to predict potential risks to supply chain and logistics operations by combining weather modeling with industry-specific data points like geospatial variables, telematics data, and power outage reports. This allows us to deliver granular insights on exactly how actual business operations will be affected by upcoming storms. Were excited to partner with Loadsure to bring these insights to more shippers, carriers, and brokers, said Scott Pecoriello, co-founder and CEO of New York City-based WeatherOptics.

About Loadsure

An international insurtech MGA and Lloyds coverholder, Loadsure leverages high resolution data and AI to analyze risk and provide fully digital insurance, insight and freight protection products. Loadsure can integrate seamlessly into insurance intermediary workflows and embeds into freight industry transportation management systems (TMS) and load boards, and can be accessed directly via a web portal. Insurance certificates can be secured in under 60 seconds, with claims resolved in minutes.

About WeatherOptics

WeatherOptics is a leader in the weather intelligence space, providing companies with insights and forecasts that eliminate guesswork and improve visibility of key business operations.

Source: Loadsure

Topics InsurTech Tech Insurance Wholesale Trucking
Hiscox Ltd., the Bermuda-headquartered specialist insurer, announced it has entered into an agreement to sell DirectAsia, its motor insurance business in Singapore and Thailand, to Ignite Thailand Holdings Ltd., the parent of the Roojai group of companies.

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to complete by the end of 2023. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Hiscoxs decision to divest follows the Groups previously announced strategic review of the Business as part of its continued active portfolio management and disciplined focus on key markets where it sees the greatest opportunities to maximise value for shareholders.

Source: Hiscox
Bismarck Public Schools is presenting a free showing of the film The Truth About Reading on Thursday, along with seminar discussions.

The movie highlights the repercussions that illiteracy can have on adults who did not learn to read in elementary school. BPS said it hopes to raise awareness of the long-term impact that illiteracy has on children, and also highlight work that is happening across the state.

The showing is from 4:30-8 p.m. in the North Dakota Heritage Center auditorium, at 612 E. Boulevard Ave. in Bismarck. For more information go to https://bit.ly/46p2GwI. Questions can be directed to Tina Pletan at tina_pletan@bismarckschools.org or 701-323-4118.

The film showing is in partnership with the Central Regional Education Association, one of seven regional groups supporting students, educators and schools in North Dakota.
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Sompo International and Allianz Commercial.

A summary of these new hires follows here.

Sompo Intl Taps Chubbs Gosse for Cyber Insurance, Continental Europe

Sompo International, the global provider of commercial and consumer property and casualty re/insurance, announced the appointment of Jerome Gosse as head of Cyber Insurance, Continental Europe. He will report to Mathieu Borneuf, head of Professional Lines, Insurance, Continental Europe.

Gosse joins Sompo International from Chubb European Group, where he was head of Cyber for Continental Europe and the MENA region. Before this, he worked for Zurich in Paris and Marsh in Toronto and Paris.

With 15 years experience in the cyber insurance market, Jerome brings extensive industry knowledge to a line of insurance that has experienced significant growth, Borneuf commneted. Working alongside our global team of cyber insurance specialists, he is well-positioned to deliver cyber solutions that meet the needs of our broker partners and clients across Continental Europe and beyond.

***

Allianz Commercial Names Vogler Chief Regions & Markets Officer, Succeeding Haagen

Allianz Commercial has announced changes to the Board of Management of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (the legal entity of Allianz with board responsibility for Allianz Commercial), which reflect its strategy of integrating the Allianz Mid Corporate (MidCorp) business alongside its Large Corporate (LargeCorp) and Specialty portfolios to create one face to market across its 11 trading regions.

Dirk Vogler, currently Chief MidCorp Transformation Officer, will take over as Chief Regions & Markets Officer as of Oct. 1, assuming responsibility for the Allianz Commercial markets of Germany & Switzerland, Central & Eastern Europe, Benelux & Nordics, Southern Europe, Iberia, and Asia.

In this role, Vogler succeeds Henning Haagen, who, after 15 years at Allianz including as a board member of AGCS since early 2020, has decided to step down as CRMO to take his next career steps outside Allianz. Consequently, the AGCS SE Board of Management reduces from nine to eight members.

In addition to the regional management oversight, Vogler will continue to take responsibility for the integration of MidCorp and LargeCorp / Specialty business under the integrated commercial strategy of Allianz Group. He will also oversee the multinational business of Allianz Commercial, led by Guy Money.

The Allianz Commercial Distribution team, under Global Head of Distribution Jeremy Sharpe, will now report to Allianz Commercial CEO Joachim Mueller.

Joachim Mueller, CEO Allianz Commercial, commented: This change reflects the evolution of our business and the equal importance of the MidCorp business alongside LargeCorp and Specialty in Allianz Commercial. Dirk brings an unusual combination of experience to this position, including extensive MidCorp expertise. I want to thank Henning for the leading role he has played over many years at Allianz, and especially since joining the Board of Management in 2020 at the start of the NEW AGCS program. He has been a strong contributor to AGCSs successful turnaround, and we all wish him well in his next professional steps.

Allianz Commercial has two chief region & market officers (CRMO) who are responsible at AGCS for market-facing activities across the 11 regional units. In North America, Tracy Ryan is CRMO with responsibility for North America (United States and Canada) and Latin America, while Vogler now takes over from Henning Haagen for all other Allianz Commercial regions with the exception of France, UK and Australia which are directly overseen by CEO Mueller.

Topics Cyber Commercial Lines Europe Chubb Allianz
Target Corp. is closing nine stores in four states to stem losses from rising retail theft.

One Manhattan location will be shuttered, along with two in Seattle, three in Northern California and three in Portland, Oregon, Target said in a statement Tuesday. The stores will close Oct. 21.

We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance, the retailer said. We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.

Target has been fuming on its earnings calls for more than a year about losses from theft, which are adding pressure on the companys slender profit margins. According to the Minneapolis-based company, organized retail crime is spurring an increase in shrink, which is an industry term for inventory losses from external and internal theft, plus goods lost to damage and administrative error. In May, Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke said the annual blow from shrink this year would be $500 million worse than the previous year.

The shares fell 1.7% at 3:15 p.m. in New York. In addition to crime, Target has also been struggling with weakening demand for discretionary goods such as apparel, toys and home furnishings. The companys stock price has fallen more than 25% this year after a 36% drop in 2022.

Separately, the National Retail Federation said earlier Tuesday that US retailers are closing stores, cutting hours and changing product selections because of an increase in crime. Total losses from shrink edged up to 1.6% of sales last year, the NRF said, versus 1.4% in 2021. However, last years rate was in line with the numbers from 2019 and 2020.

Crime is hitting some areas more than others. Target said it made significant investments in the nine locations to deter theft, including beefed-up security staffing and other measures. But this wasnt enough to control fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully.

The company said it would work with employees at the shuttered stores to offer transfers to other locations. Target will still have more than 150 locations in the four affected markets. The retailer has a nationwide footprint of almost 2,000 stores.

The stores Target plans to close are the following:

New York

517 E. 117th St.

Seattle

4535 University Way NE

1448 NW Market St.

Bay Area

San Francisco: 1690 Folsom St.

Oakland: 2650 Broadway

Pittsburg: 4301 Century Blvd.

Portland

939 SW Morrison St.

3031 SE Powell Blvd.

4030 NE Halsey St.

Photo: Photographer: Rebecca Smeyne/Bloomberg

Copyright 2023 Bloomberg.

Topics Trends Fraud Profit Loss
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 after ranting about Hispanics taking over the government and economy has agreed to pay more than $5 million to victims of the racist attack, according to an order signed by a judge Monday.

Patrick Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences in July after pleading guilty to federal hate crime charges following one of the nation`s worst mass killings. Court records show his attorneys and the Justice Department reached an agreement over the restitution amount, which was then approved by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama.

There is no indication Crusius, 25, has significant assets. He was 21 years old and had dropped out of community college when police say he drove more than 700 miles from his home near Dallas to target Hispanics with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store. Moments before the attack began, Crusius posted a racist screed online that warned of a Hispanic invasion of Texas.

He once worked at a movie theater, a job that his attorneys have said Crusius was forced to leave because he was having violent thoughts.

Crusius pleaded guilty in February after federal prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. But Texas prosecutors have said they will try to put Crusius on death row when he stands trial in state court. That trial date has not yet been set.

Under the agreement between the gunman and the government, Crusius will pay $5, 557,005.55, according to court filings.

Dean Reckard, whose mother Margie Reckard was killed in the shooting, said he chose not to be included in the restitution and expressed doubt that someone sentenced to prison for life could actually pay millions of dollars.

Nobody can ever bring back the people who were lost, including my mother, Reckard said. You cant put a price on somebodys life. Were going to be without the people in our lives forever and he is just sitting behind bars right now, and he still gets to live so there is no winning anything here.

Joe Spencer, an attorney for Crusius, and a spokesperson for the Justice Department did not return messages Monday.

In January, the Justice Department proposed changes to how it runs federal prisoners deposit accounts in an effort to ensure victims are paid restitution, including from some high-profile inmates with large balances. The move came as the Justice Department faced increased scrutiny after revelations that several high-profile inmates kept large sums of money in their prison accounts but only made minimal payments to their victims.

The 2019 attack was the deadliest of a dozen mass shootings in the U.S. linked to hate crimes since 2006, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

Before the shooting, Crusius had appeared consumed by the nations immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and other social media posts that praised then- President Donald Trumps hardline border policies. Crusius went further in his rant posted before the attack, sounding warnings that Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy.

Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Texas
Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. will have to go back to court to show how an insureds roof expert was in error when he used questionable data and failed to inspect the claimed damage before a south Florida home was reroofed.

The case is another skirmish in what Florida insurers have called a years-long war against public adjusters and roof companies, but a war in which the tide may have turned after recent legislative changes. The court decision also could potentially encourage state courts to allow more challenges of experts witnesses credibility, attorneys said.

In Universal Property & Casualty vs. Navlen, Floridas 4th District Court of Appeal upheld part of a Palm Beach Circuit Courts decision  to allow a suit brought by the insureds to proceed, despite the homeowners failure to timely submit a sworn proof of loss. But the appeals court reversed and remanded for a new trial the lower courts decision to allow the roof experts thinly supported testimony.

More is required than an expert stating a test is reliable because they use it, Appeals Court Judge Jeffrey Kuntz wrote in the Sept. 20 opinion.

The litigation stemmed from a 2021 claim. Edward and Saunee Navlen, of Boca Raton, hired Horizon Public Adjusters, which filed a claim for damage from a wind incident five months earlier. The adjuster provided a preliminary estimate and some photographs, the court explained.

After an inspection, Fort Lauderdale-based Universal, one of Floridas largest property insurers, denied the claim. The carrier argued that the damage was worsened by the homeowners failure to mitigate the loss with a roof tarp or other means, as was required by the HO policy, and that damage was below the hurricane deductible. Universal also contended that the five-month delay in reporting the damage deprived the insurer of a fair opportunity to investigate and obtain a sworn statement, and that should have barred the claim.

The Navlens paid for a new roof themselves and sued the insurer for breach of contract.

Universal moved to exclude the public adjusters expert testimony, arguing that he had not inspected the roof before it was replaced; based his conclusions only on his observations of neighboring, adjoining roofs and on photographs; used wind measurements of 60 mph to 70 mph that were recorded 17 miles away from the property; and said, without proof, that more than 25% of the roof was damaged. (The testimony on percentage of roof damage would not be so crucial in more recent roof claims disputes: The Florida Legislature in 2022 tweaked the statute that, in many cases, had required full roof replacement if more than 25% of the roof was damaged. Insurers may now elect to repair, not replace, in most instances.)

Despite Universals vigorous challenge of the roof experts methods and reasoning, the trial court allowed the experts testimony.

The appeals court said the lower court erred on that decision. Judge Kuntz noted that the experts wind-speed data had not been tested and did not include potential error rates. The expert also failed to make any real calculations of the extent of the damage but used only a guestimate.

He may not have been required to calculate a specific percentage, but a courts gatekeeping function requires more than simply taking the experts word for it,' the appellate judge wrote, citing 2021 and 2018 decisions by Florida appeals courts.

That could give insurers new hope of challenging experts credibility under the Daubert standard that courts rely on. State courts have often given experts greater leeway, while federal courts have not, lawyers have said.

Lawyers for the Navlens could not be reached Tuesday. One of Universals appellate attorneys in the case, Paulo Lima, declined to comment.

Topics Florida
Californias minimum wage will increase to $16 per hour for all employers on Jan. 1, 2024.

In 2023, the minimum wage was $15.50 for all employees regardless of employer size. Some cities and counties in California have a local minimum wage that is higher than the state rate.

State law requires that most California workers be paid the minimum wage.

The change in the minimum wage also affects the minimum salary an employee must earn to meet one part of the overtime exemption test. Exempt employees are not subject to the payment of overtime for hours worked. An employee must earn no less than two times the states minimum wage for full-time work to meet the initial requirement of the exemption test. As of Jan. 1, 2024, employees in California must earn an annual salary of no less than $66,560 to meet this threshold.

State law requires an annual review of the wage rate using the U.S. Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. The Department of Finance calculated that the U.S. CPI-W increased by 6.16% for the period from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, compared with the prior 12-month period.

On July 31, 2023, Gov. Newsom certified the minimum wage increase for all employers for 2024.

Employers must post the Minimum Wage Order and the Wage Order applicable to their workplace at a worksite area accessible to employees. Employers must ensure that the wage rate is displayed on the employees pay stub, and that employees are paid at least the minimum wage even when employees are paid at piece rate.

Topics California Trends
Source: Streetwise Reports

September 27, 2023 (Investorideas.com Newswire) This explorer's project contains lithium metal of 86,000 tonnes equating to 457, 520 tonnes of in-situ lithium carbonate equivalent. Find out why this stock is a "smart money play."

Spey Resources Corp. (SPEY:CSE; SPEYF:OTC; 2JS:FRA) announced its National Instrument 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for its Candela II project in South America's Lithium Triangle has been completed.

It contained lithium metal of 86,000 tonnes, equating to 457,520 tonnes of in-situ lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) and a lithium yield of 48,000 tonnes LCE from 9,000 tonnes of lithium metal.

"The Board considers the project to continue to be viable, and using the current estimates, building a 5,000-tonne Ekosolve plant at the (recent) lithium carbonate price of US$30,000 per tonne would provide the basis for a scoping study analysis given the plant would have a 9.5-year mine life, assuming the resource isn't expanded through subsequent work," the company said in a release.

Lithium, important for the new green economy, including the construction of electric vehicles (EVs) and just about every electronic device you have, was worth US$26,457 per tonne on Wednesday, which would make 457,520 tonnes worth more than US$11.2 billion.

That price per tonne rose as high as US$75,000 in 2022, and Institutional Investor predicted that those prices would rise again.

"We expect prices will average around $36,000 per metric ton from 2023-30," the website said. "In years when the supply deficit widens, we see prices rising, while we see prices falling when the deficit shrinks."

The company said average specific yield values were applied to the total metal tonnages to obtain the yield from the available brine. The LCE is calculated from the ratio of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) to Li (lithium) (5.32:1).

"Based on the results of exploration work conducted to date, additional exploration activities are justified to better characterize the sub-surface brine within the concession," wrote WSP Australia Pty Ltd., which completed the estimate. "To date, the upper part of the aquifer has been drilled and tested. Additional drilling and testing will allow for expansion of the resource laterally, throughout the concession area, and deeper to basement."

The Lithium Triangle is also home to some other major lithium miners, including Albemarle Corp. (ALB:NYSE) and SQM (SQM:NYSE), which both have market caps over US$15 billion. The Incahausi Salar is home to Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co. Ltd. (GNENF:OTCMKTS; 002460:CH), Allkem Ltd. (OROCF;OTCMKTS), Power Minerals Ltd. (PNN:ASX; PEIMF:OTCPK), and Patagonia Lithium Ltd. (PL3:ASX)

Because of this, Golden Opportunities Newsletter has called Spey "a smart money play."

The Catalyst: A Path to Production

WSP recommended an additional three diamond-cored exploration wells and two pumpable wells at an expected cost of about US$2.4 million.

"Pumping tests should be conducted in the two pumpable wells to demonstrate bore yields and aquifer hydraulic parameters (hydraulic conductivity and storativity), which are critical parameters for the development of a future numerical groundwater model and also play a vital role in determining the number of production bores required," WSP noted.

If the results are favorable for a lithium extraction project, the company should conduct further studies on the site's hydrogeological model, supporting a pre-feasibility study (PFS) and supporting the estimation and reporting of an Initial Mineral Reserve for Candela II.

Spey is also finalizing its shareholder agreement with AIS Resources SA for the development of the Candela II concession, with Spey holding an 80% interest and AIS holding a 20% interest.

The next milestone will be a production well and two exploration wells to conduct a brine release test and specific yield test, the company noted.

The company sees a path to production at the project in the next 18 to 24 months.

Growing Market Powers Electric Revolution

Lithium is a major component of EV batteries, where it is used as a cathode and electrolyte. The soft, silvery metal with highly reactive and flammable properties is also used to strengthen alloys, as a high-temperature lubricant, and as a drug to treat bipolar disorder.

The lithium market is expected to grow globally from US$37.8 billion in 2022 to US$89.9 billion in 2030, according to a report by Fortune Business Insights.

"The growing adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs), high-drain portable electronics, and energy storage systems has had a huge impact on the growth of the overall market," the report said.

Analysts from Eight Capital also predicted that lithium market deficits will widen this decade, and the shortfalls will be driven by demand in North America.

The United States' EV penetration of 6% lags China's 26% and Europe's 20%, analysts Anoop Prihar and Alex Riazanov of Eight Capital wrote in a recent research note. But President Joe Biden's administration has committed to a target of 50% of new vehicle sales being EVs by 2030.

"We estimate North American lithium nameplate production capacity will be 262,900 LCE (million tonnes lithium carbonate) in 2026 based on projects that currently have completed a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS)," Prihar and Riazanov wrote. "Although this is a significant increase from the current North American production capacity of 6,000 tonnes LCE, it's still more than 128,000 tonnes short of what we anticipate will be required by the battery plants. As such, we anticipate the fundamentals underlying lithium demand to remain robust."

Chinese lithium prices have remained mostly on the downtrend in 2023, Fastmarkets reported, following the country's halt to an EV subsidy.

China is expected to only post limited monthly growth from August, said Fastmarkets' senior analyst for battery raw materials, Vicky Zhao.

"The annual growth rate of EV sales is forecast to be lower compared with last year, and lithium prices are falling, both of which contributed to a wait-and-see attitude prevalent in the battery supply chain," Zhao said.

Ownership and Share Structure

Spey trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol SPEY and on the U.S. OTC market as SPEYF. Over the last year, it has traded in the range of CA$0.40 to CA$0.03, with a current market cap of CA$4.44 million. Approximately 116 million shares are outstanding, with about 114 million free-floating.

The company is covered by newsletter writer Clive Maund and Brien Lundin of Gold Newsletter.

About 4.7% of the company is owned by insiders, including Director Lawrence Hay, who owns 2.11 million shares, and Chief Executive Officer and lithium brine geologist Phillip Thomas, who owns more than 2 million shares. The rest is retail.

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Source: Streetwise Reports

September 27, 2023 (Investorideas.com Newswire) MAG Silver Corp. publishes its second annual sustainability report as the silver producer continues to ramp up output at its new processing plant in Mexico. Find out why analysts are recommending this stock.

MAG Silver Corp. (MAG:TSX; MAG:NYSE American) has published its second annual sustainability report as the silver producer continues to ramp up output at its new Juanicipio processing plant in Mexico and has picked up new analyst coverage.

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the company's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, practices, and performance for the past year.

The company said it had zero fatalities and no significant environmental incidents at its projects in Mexico, Utah, and Canada, and its total reportable injury frequency rate at Juanicipio shrunk to 17.4 per 1 million person-hours worked in 2022 from 26.37 in 2020, the report said.

"Safety performance has improved over the last year at Juanicipio, and both Deer Trail and Larder (the company's other projects) have embraced a 'step back and assess' culture to understand and appropriately address any risks," said Jim Mallory, MAG's chief sustainability officer.

The company also started receiving coverage from analysts Kieron Hodgson and Edward Gooden at Panmure Gordon and reinstated coverage with BMO Capital Markets and analyst Kevin O'Halloran.

Hodgson and Gooden said Panmure Gordon has a "very positive view" on Juanicipio and put a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of CA$22.10.

"Underground operations are already delivering ore to the newly commissioned processing facility," they wrote in a research note. "Juanicipio is operational and being ramped up, allowing MAG and its partner, Fresnillo (Plc), to deliver the newest globally significant silver mine."

They said "exceptional exploration upside exists" at the project as "95% of the (license) area remains unexplored."

Success in exploration there could lead to future expansion of the plant, which would improve revenues and cashflows at the mine, they wrote.

"For investors, there are few companies offering silver production exposure, a metal we are confident will be well-supported over the coming years," the analysts noted. "Supply concerns emanating from secondary sources of the metal, predominantly in Latin America, are providing an opportunity for investors to refocus efforts on primary sources of the metal, of which Juanicipio will be a key beneficiary."

Report Highlights

More highlights from the sustainability report included a lost time injury frequency rate of 1.92 employees and mine contractors (per 200,000 hours, excluding construction contractors) at Juanicipio, over 62,000 hours dedicated to safety training across all of MAG's projects, more than 13 community engagement initiatives held at Juanicipio, and a 38% rate of female representation on its Board of Directors, surpassing the 30% target set by the company.

"The ongoing implementation of the 'I Care, We Care' approach to enhancing a safety culture together with assessing the risks and establishing the controls at Juanicipio have contributed to overall improvements in safety performance," the report noted.

The Catalyst: Production Numbers Surpassing Expectations

The new processing plant is moving toward capacity, and its production numbers are surpassing expectations.

The most conductive element in nature, silver is used to coat electrical contacts in computers, phones, cars, and appliances. It's also an important element in solar technology.

After the completion of the plant's startup phase, about 4.4 million ounces of silver (Moz Ag) were produced at the plant between March 2023 and the end of June. Production is expected to increase steadily through the third quarter until the plant reaches its design capacity of 4,000 tonnes per day (tpd).

"The ramp-up so far at Juanicipio has gone very well, and we expect strong positive FCF (free cash flow) generation now that the mine is in commercial production, with development capex winding down," wrote Cormark Securities analyst Nicolas Dion in an updated research note.

"Despite this, MAG is trading at the low end of its range," wrote Dion, who rated the stock a Buy with a US$24 per share target price. "We see having Fresnillo as the operator as a key advantage, and the transition to full-scale production in H2/23 could be a catalyst to drive the multiple higher. MAG is our pick for a quality silver name."

Analyst: We Expect Shares to Re-Rate

MAG is mining the Bonanza zone of the Valdecanas vein system in the Zacatecas state of Mexico. A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2017 estimated a 19-year mine life.

The company's focus is turning from construction to optimization at the plant, analyst Craig Hutchison of TD Securities wrote.

"With all major construction work now complete, the operation team is looking to improve and optimize the mine to achieve and potentially exceed design capacities," wrote Hutchison, who has rated MAG a Speculative Buy with a CA$24 per share target price.

O'Halloran with BMO Capital Markets said he viewed the project "as a premium silver asset" and rated the stock Outperform with a target price of CA$23.50. [OWNERSHIP_CHART-536]

"We expect MAG shares to re-rate to higher multiples as the mine's ramp-up is completed and as investors get visibility on cash distributions to MAG," he wrote. "Once cashflow distributions from Juanicipio begin, which we model in 2024, we expect MAG's treasury to grow. We see potential for MAG to return capital to shareholders in the medium term once the company has established a reliable track record of payments coming out of the Juanicipio JV."

Ownership and Share Structure

Institutions own 70% of MAG, and 30% is retail, according to the company.

Top institutional shareholders include Juanicipio project operator Fresnillo Plc. with 9.1%, Blackrock Investment Management at 10.1%, Van Eck Associates at 9.1%, First Eagle Investment Management at 5.6%, ETF Managers Group LLC at 5.3%, mining financier Eric Sprott at 4.4%, and Sprott Asset Management at 3.2%, the company said.

MAG Silver has a market cap of CA$ 1.45 billion. It has 102.9 million shares outstanding, according to TSX Infosuite. It trades in a 52-week range of US$22.96 and US$13.93.

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The competition watchdog has gained more powers to issue fines for breaches and anti-competitive behaviour as an EU directive comes into operation today.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) can now issue civil fines of up to 10m, or 10% of a companys annual worldwide turnover, for breaches of Irish and EU competition law under the Competition (Amendment) Act 2022.

Ireland was one of a few European countries where fines for breaches of competition law could only be imposed by a court following a criminal prosecution prior to the act taking effect.

The substantial financial penalties that are now available to the CCPC will be an essential deterrent when tackling white-collar crime, including cartels, said CCPC chairman Brian McHugh.

In addition to the introduction of administrative fines, the Competition (Amendment) Act 2022 also introduces increased fines for breaches of competition law, new leniency provisions, a provision against bid-rigging, and additional powers in the areas of mergers and surveillance powers. Trade Minister Simon Coveney said:

In providing our competition authorities with new powers, we are sending a strong signal that white-collar crime will not be tolerated and will be heavily penalised.

The CCPC said the leniency programme are for those who disclose their participation in cartels and resale price maintenance and provide evidence on other parties.

Mr McHugh said that the international evidence shows [this] is the single most effective way of gathering essential evidence of collusion.

The watchdog said that it is incentivising companies to come forward by granting full immunity from administrative financial sanctions to the first successful applicant to the leniency programme.

CCPC chairman Brian McHugh: 'The substantial financial penalties that are now available to the CCPC will be an essential deterrent when tackling white-collar crime, including cartels.' File picture

Subsequent successful applicants may receive possible reductions of any administrative financial sanctions that might otherwise be imposed, the CCPC said.

Under the act, The CCPC has also been granted a power to unwind a merger or acquisition implemented without its clearance.

The act will also apply to the communications regulator Comreg.

The act aligns competition policy across the EU, enabling more streamlined and efficient co-operation between competition authorities, and allows for the challenging of illegal practices across borders.

Anti-competitive behaviours drive up costs, hinders innovation, freezes out start-ups and smaller businesses, and leads to bad quality products and poor services, said Dara Calleary, the minister of State with responsibility for company regulation.

This new legislation is a powerful asset in competition law enforcement that will ensure violators are faced with strong penalties.
Riverdance creator Michael Flatley hopes a new documentary chronicling his life will inspire young people to never give up on their dreams.

The Billion Dollar Dancer will document the rollercoaster ride of pinnacles and pitfalls of the life of Irish dancer and choreographer Flatley, including his exit from the Riverdance show ahead of its world tour in 1995 and the creation of Lord Of The Dance.

The film will use archive footage and interviews with Flatley as he oversees a 25-year anniversary tour of Lord Of The Dance, production company Lorton Entertainment and Fine Point Films confirmed on Wednesday.

It is also billed as chronicling a tumultuous journey for Flatley, from bullying to boxing and fast cars to cancer  having announced in January that he was on the mend after surgery for an aggressive form of the disease.

The film is billed as documenting Michael Flatleys life from bullying to boxing, from fast cars to cancer (Fine Point Films/PA)

Speaking about the documentary, directed by Grammy-winner Ryan Suffern, 65-year-old Flatley said: Im proud to be able to share my story with the world.

Its a peek under the hood at what it took to be where I am today.

There were so many times growing up when I thought I had reached the end of the road, but the challenges made me who I am.

He added: More than anything, I want to inspire young people in all walks of life to never give up on their dreams.

Flatley, who was born into a blue-collar Irish-American family in Chicago, was catapulted to fame when his Riverdance troupe performed in the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Ireland.

Michael Flatley (Fine Point Films/PA)

Director Suffern said: As two Chicago boys with Southside ties, I could not be more thrilled to be making this documentary on Michael Flatleys remarkable life.

His story is truly an inspired one, and Im grateful to be a part of bringing it to the screen.

After the success of Riverdance at Eurovision, it was extended into a full-length show before Flatley left ahead of its world tour and followed it up with his own stage show, Lord Of The Dance.

He has also created, produced and directed other popular productions including Feet Of Flames and Celtic Tiger.

Julian Bird, chief executive of production company Lorton Entertainment, said: We are thrilled to be working with Michael Flatley on his fascinating and inspiring story.

At Lorton we have been privileged to work on amazing stories with global icons and we are looking forward showing the world the real Michael Flatley.

During his esteemed career, Flatley also expanded into film  directing and starring in the 2018 spy thriller, Blackbird.

In the movie, which also stars Eric Roberts and Patrick Bergin, Flatley plays former MI6 operative Victor Blackley, who is drawn back into the world of espionage he had left behind.

Last year, Flatley launched a Lord Of The Dance tour to raise money for the humanitarian effort in Ukraine, while in June a new, six-part, biopic series titled DanceLord, chronicling Flatleys childhood years, was announced.
In Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited, Rob Young writes that the records released by the Stars of Heaven on the famed record label, displayed crafted songwriting in a gentle, Celtic country mode that echoed the pastoral side of The Byrds.

As Youngs description suggests, the Stars of Heaven sounded nothing like other Irish bands in the mid-1980s. They shared a love of Big Star, Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. They had listened to Almost Blue, Elvis Costellos covers album of country music songs, and wanted to emulate it.

The Stars of Heaven were Stephen Ryan on vocals and guitar, Stan Erraught on guitar, Peter OSullivan on bass guitar and Bernard Walsh on drums. Stephen and Stan both wrote songs and Stephen sang them. Sacred Heart Hotel, the bands first album, was released by Rough Trade in September 1986, it reached No. 11 in the UK Indie Albums Chart. Its seven songs are just 21 minutes in duration  probably the shortest album in this series.

The band were formed in Dublin in 1983. Our first gig was in Carlow which was pretty terrible and I think the next time we played was in what was then The Ivy Rooms, now Fibber McGees, recalls Erraught.

It was put together by someone from NCAD. It was a long bill of artists including My Bloody Valentine, that was when they were still very gothy. They released their debut 7 single on Hotwire Records in 1985. John Peel, the famed BBC DJ, started playing the single on his show and one night as Clothes of Pride, the singles A-Side, faded out Peel asked, If any of the Stars of Heaven are listening I should like to know more about you. Word reached the band and they were offered a BBC session for Peels programme.

We did the Peel Session in January of 1986, says Erraught. Once the session went out we started getting some serious phone calls from people in record companies. One of the people who got in touch was Geoff Travis who said that he loved the session and that he just wanted to put it out as it was because he didnt think we could do any better.

Rough Trades Geoff Travis remembers the band: I never thought of The Stars of Heaven as a commercial proposition, just a marvellous band. The radio exposure led to gig offers for the Stars of Heaven. We spent quite a lot of 1986 touring Britain, up and down the country, says Erraught.

We were always a bit ropey live but some of our best gigs were actually on those tours. We were always good in Bristol and we were always good in Manchester, or Im just forgetting the bad ones. We never played a decent gig in London. We always managed to be at about half throttle when we had to do the serious work of impressing record companies.

Travis remembers some of those London gigs. Live I thought they let themselves down by not being able to project their singing voices in a convincing way above the music, he says.

Perhaps they were just cursed by not being at their best when I came to see them. But they were wonderful songwriters and I found their blissful melancholia really moving.

Travis wanted to release the four songs from the Peel Session but the band had other ideas. I think the idea originally was that we would do an EP on Rough Trade, wed get a record out and that would give us time to negotiate something different, something better, explains Erraught.

Geoff Travis of Rough Trade.

We were writing a lot at this point, it was the one time when Stephen and I were both reasonably prolific and we had new songs and we asked if we could do a few more songs. We did those upstairs in Litton Lane with Chris OBrien - who later went on to be the man who masterminded Irish pop.

OBrien would go on to produce records for Aslan, The Stunning, A House, Something Happens and countless others. I hadnt met the guys before the recording session, but I was aware of the Peel Session and the Clothes of Pride single on Hotwire, says OBrien.

The Flying Burrito Brothers and Don Dixon and Mitch Easters work with REM was in my head at the time and I remember the session being mainly recorded live in the small bedroom sized recording room. I loved the relaxed vibe and especially the guitar sounds and vocal melodies. The band had a very clear picture of what they wanted and also what they didnt want - definitely not the crashing 80s drum sound of the time.

OBrien also saw The Stars of Heaven play in the Dame Street venue that hosted nearly every late-80s Dublin band. I saw them live in the Underground once, he remembers. They were ploughing a different furrow than the bombastic and shiny nature of the rest of the posse.

The Catalogue, the music trade magazine, alluded to that different furrow writing that The Stars of Heaven, have been riding a crest of a wave around Dublin and London, infecting audiences with their highly charged blend of pop and country crackers. Positive reviews flowed in. Music Week declared the album, a stormer, from the first delicate chimes of the title track to the more full-blooded exercises on the second side its a winner, with its brevity only serving to tantalise for further playings.

Sacred Heart Hotel, by the Stars of Heaven.

Sacred Heart Hotel was followed in March 1987 by the Holyhead EP, which reached No. 5 in the UK Indie Singles Chart, before the band started work on their second album, Speak Slowly. Those sessions were completed by Stephen Street, then best known for his work with Rough Trades biggest band - The Smiths.

Rough Trade were straight to deal with, they told you the truth, says Erraught. Geoff was honest that he wanted to get rid of us, to move us on to another label. But he did undertake that if that didnt work hed put out another record, which he did. We spent too long on that record, we could have made it for half the price. I still have mixed feelings about that record.

In late 1989 Chris OBrien was back engineering a session for the band that was produced by REM producer Mitch Easter for a proposed third album on Mother Records. The release never happened and by early 1990 The Stars of Heaven broke up.

For many Sacred Heart Hotel is the purest representation of the band. The album shows them in their rawest form with very little influence from outside producers, says OBrien. Its a true snapshot of the band at that time. Erraught agrees.I know Sacred Heart Hotel is only seven songs but I think it was a piece of work that sort of summed up the band.

For Travis, its even simpler, I really love the Stars of Heaven and still listen to them every now and again.

Paul McDermotts podcast To Here Knows When  Great Irish Albums Revisited is available on all listening platforms. https://www.paulmcdermott.ie/podcast

What Happened Next:

Stephen Ryan formed The Revenants and released two highly acclaimed albums: Horse of a Different Colour (1993) and Septober Nowonder (1999). In 2016 he released Look Away Down Collins Avenue with his latest band, The Drays.

Stan Erraught joined The Sewing Room who also released two highly regarded albums: And Nico (1995) and Sympathy For the Dishevelled (1997). He is now a lecturer at the University of Leeds.
In the first of a two-part series, join CSO Australia, along with James Turner - Founder, CISO Lens; Varun Acharya - CISO, Healthscope; and Shanna Daly - Principal Consultant, Cosive and Raj Samani - Chief Scientist, Rapid7 as they discuss the challenging and evolving threat landscape in the Asia Pacific region.

The panel shares their views as to how Asia Pacific fares up against other global regions in cyber awareness, the varying levels of threats and the heightened discussions in government policy to combat threat actors. They also consider learnings from the pandemic and how that should inform approaches to cyber security in the future.
There were a number of firsts in Tuesdays dramatic drug operation in Irish waters.

It was the first time that the Army Ranger Wing (ARW)  the elite special forces unit of the Defence Forces  was used to storm a suspected drug supply vessel.

It was also the first time soldiers were temporarily made customs officers in order for them to legally gain entry to a vessel and take control of it.

In normal weather conditions and, moreover, where ship operators were willing to be boarded, this would not be necessary.

But this was a hostile situation in which the vessel  a 190m tanker  was trying to escape and the Naval Service ship LE William Butler Yeats had to fire warning shots across its bow in a bid to bring it to a stop.

Not only that, soldiers were having to force their way onto the deck of a moving ship.

There were other firsts. It was the first time over two tonnes of cocaine have been seized in Ireland or in its waters.

The 2.253 tonne haul is by some distance a record  the previous records, around the 1.5 tonne mark, were made some 15 years ago.

The haul has an initial value of 157m but, with a conservative estimate that it would have been diluted three times once onshore, it would suggest a final street value of around 470m.

It is also the first time a cartel-owned cargo ship was detained and brought into port by Irish authorities.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer for the Naval Service, conveyed the range of moving parts he and fellow officers had to handle.

Its an extremely complex joint operation, when youre trying to coordinate surface assets, youre trying to coordinate multiple types of aircraft, and when youre trying to coordinate the Army Ranger Wing, he said.

Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer for the Naval Service, conveyed the range of moving parts he and fellow officers had to handle. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins

He pointed out that weather conditions made the operations extremely difficult.

He said a great deal of skill had to be shown by the pilots of the helicopter carrying the ARW insertion team, and that these soldiers also had to display equal skill in fast roping down onto a moving ship.

I dont know the exact height that the helicopter was off deck but youve all seen the images of the ship and youve seen how high the various structures were on that, the commander said.

Youre trying to keep an aircraft, a rotor wing aircraft, in a certain position over a ship thats moving," he said.

"So, youve got a ship moving, you have an aircraft moving and then youre deploying your own assets on top of that.

"The conditions were very challenging as well so it made it extremely challenging.

Commander Geraghty also said that before deploying the ARW they were trying to predict the reactions of the criminals on board the ship and how that might impact the ARW or the helicopter.

Sources have told the Irish Examiner that this was an unknown, but potentially serious, risk.

This is a cartel ship, to carry drugs, there was no legit cargo, so we did not know could they open fire on us with some weapon or if crew members might confront the ARW, said one source.

As it turned out some crew members were busy trying to set the cocaine consignment on fire and dump bales into life rafts.

But the quick actions of the ARW put out any fires and secured the load.

It is understood that none of the cocaine was destroyed and that only outer packaging was melted.

The commander praised those involved and said such an intense operation was extremely difficult mentally and physically on those involved.

Gerry Harrahill, director general of Customs, confirmed the size of the haul and said the possibility of diluting the very high purity of the cocaine depends on what the organised crime gangs intend to do with the product.

Gerry Harrahill, director general of Customs, said the possibility of diluting the very high purity of the cocaine depends on what the organised crime gangs intend to do with the product. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins

Sources said that gangs immediately taking charge of cocaine being imported from South America would generally dilute it three-fold and that local gangs being supplied with the product may further dilute  though cocaine purity on the street has increased in recent years.

Assistant Commissioner for organised and serious crime Justin Kelly said there could be a wide variety of increased values.

Based on the consignment being diluted three times, it would suggest around 6.7 tonnes hitting the street, worth an estimated 470m.

Asst Comm Kelly suggested that a portion of the 2.25 tonnes would have been destined for Ireland with the rest destined for other European countries.

He did not accept South American cartels see Ireland and Irish-controlled waters as a relatively easy way to access the European market.

Organised crime groups will always look for any weakness anywhere they can, he said.

Where they can import drugs into countries they will, but as to whether Ireland is perceived as a weaker entry point, I wouldnt accept that.

Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly suggested that a portion of the 2.25 tonnes of cocaine would have been destined for Ireland with the rest destined for other European countries. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins

He pointed out that huge seizures are being made across Europe, referring to record hauls in recent months in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Spain.

He said there were a number of groups within Ireland, not just the Kinahan cartel, who have direct links to South America and have the capability of importing large quantities of cocaine.

Asst Comm Kelly said the seizure highlights the increase in the amount of cocaine available.

He cited geopolitical reasons in South America and said there is now a glut of cocaine on the market and that the biggest market is Europe.

Its inevitable that were going to see organised crime groups trying to leverage on that to make more money," he said.

"I think, absolutely, its inevitable well see more large shipments.
The jury in the inquests of a mother and child who died tragically have returned verdicts of medical misadventure and a narrative verdict.

The case involved paediatric nurse Nicola Keane, aged 34, whose body was discovered at Lower Rd Strawberry Beds in west Dublin on October 22, 2020, at 3.45am.

When gardai called to her home in Lucan, Co Dublin, to inform her husband of her death, Darren Coleman, who had been asleep, found his son dead in the back bedroom.

Separate verdicts

Although the hearings were held together, the jury returned separate verdicts.

The jury found the cause of Ms Keanes death was polytrauma due to a fall from a height and returned a majority verdict of medical misadventure.

The cause of death for seven-month-old baby Henry was olanzapine toxicity associated with ingestion of lorazepam.

The jury found the baby was not prescribed this medication and reached a unanimous narrative verdict.

Post-natal depression

Over the two-day hearing, several clinicians told Dublin District Coroners Court that Ms Keane had been receiving treatment for severe post-natal depression.

She was described as having fixed false delusions and her husband said he was told by medics, dont leave Henry alone with Nicola.

Ms Keane expressed fears to doctors in Crumlin Childrens Hospital and was worried she might do something because her baby was persistently crying.

She was referred to psychiatric services in Ballyfermot in west Dublin and Dr Elena Perez said she had shown some signs of improvement before her death.

Nicola: No alcohol or drugs

In her evidence on Tuesday, Margot Bolster, the assistant State pathologist, said Ms Keane died from polytrauma due to a fall from a height and that her death was instantaneous.

She said toxicology tests showed no trace of alcohol or drugs in her system and that she hadnt taken her medication for a period of time.

Dr Bolster also carried out an autopsy on baby Henry on October 22, 2020, at Crumlin Childrens Hospital. She said the child had no injuries and that no cause of death could be determined during the autopsy.

'Lethal' drugs in baby's system

However, a toxicology report the following September showed a mixture of two separate medications in the babys system.

Dr Bolster said olanzapine, an anti-psychotic medication, in a lethal range was found and lorazepam which is used to treat anxiety. When asked if this was a lethal dose for a child she replied: No, lethal for an adult.

Inspector Brian Hanley from Lucan Garda station said an investigation was launched following the deaths and 46 statements were taken.

In his evidence, he said Ms Keanes grey Ford Fiesta was captured on CCTV at 2.44am leaving their home and driving on the M50. Her body was later recovered by emergency services.

Mr Coleman discovered a text sent from his wife from her phone at 3.12am on the night she died.

Late-night text message

Insp Hanley said the investigation later found that most of the text was created in the notes section on Ms Keanes phone on September 10, 2020, at 1.08pm.

Coroner Crona Gallagher read some of the text which said Ms Keane was of the view her son was beyond being fixed.

She said, Ms Keane wrote: "He deserves better but its too late its not fair to keep him like this there is no future for him there is none for me I cant see him suffer anymore".

Mr Coleman attended several psychiatric appointments with his wife and said, "at no stage was I ever asked for my opinion".

Ms Keane struggled with the baby following his birth in February 2020 and said she had no bond with him.

Nicola 'not asked about suicide'

Dr Elena Perez told the court "each patient differs" and "she wasnt back to herself, but she was responding to it [the medication]".

In his second day of evidence, Mr Coleman said: "For the six contact sessions with Nicola before I went back to work, three home visits and three phone calls, Nicola was never asked about having suicidal thoughts or asked about harming Henry".

He continued "If I was informed, I would have taken immediate leave and taken the necessary but difficult steps in committing my wife to help her and safeguard my baby Henry".

Mr Coleman believed he should have been informed that his wifes medication had been increased twice around a month before her death as well as about any possible side-effects.

If I had been told even one piece of the information been withheld from me, I believe Henry and Nicola would not have died on October 22.

There were two recommendations made by the jury, including the building of a postnatal depression programme into the prenatal course for both parents, and if not already available, planned mother and baby inpatient units should be created.

The jury also expressed their sympathy with the family saying, "it is not the natural order to be burying your child".

Solicitors for Childrens Health Ireland and the HSE expressed their sincere condolences, while the coroner said the case has "has deeply affected everybody involved in this tragedy" and offered her deepest condolences.

 If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.
After almost 60 years as an all-girls school, Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphehane, is to become co-educational from next September.

The Catholic all-girls voluntary secondary school announced the move on Tuesday after receiving approval from the Department of Education.

The announcement followed a consultative process with the board of management, staff, parents council and the student council as well as parent bodies and schools in the community.

The transition comes after a 57-year history as an all-girls school, whose past pupils include Gemma OConnor and Linda OConnell, both All-Ireland camogie winners.

Pres Ballyphehane has deep roots locally, said principal Barry OShea.

As a result, we are closely connected to the social needs of the community we serve.

This is a big change for us but we are backed by the positive insights and feedback from our consultative process and are excited by the opportunities that lie ahead for everyone, when we open our doors to all.

Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphehane, is currently under the patronage of CEIST (Catholic Education, an Irish Schools Trust).

As a Deis school, it has established close links and access to University College Cork and Munster Technological University (MTU).

In 2023, more than 80% of its Leaving Cert students progressed to further education colleges.

Open evening

The schools enrolment campaign for 2024/25 has just commenced and an open evening will be held in the school on Wednesday, October 4, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.

"The open evening on October 4 is our earliest opportunity to present the school as a co-ed learning environment to parents and to our prospective September 2024 first year students," Mr O'Shea added.

"We understand that choosing a secondary school is one of the most important decisions a parent can make.

"We look forward to showcasing our excellent on-site facilities and resources together with outlining our wide-ranging and varied curriculum designed to support the individual learning style and needs of each student.

A number of previously single-sex schools around the country reopened their doors as co-ed schools this September: Rathdown School in Dublin marked its 50th anniversary by welcoming boys, while St Jarlath's College in Tuam welcomed girls for the first time.

From September 2024, St Patricks College on Gardiners Hill, Cork, also plans to become co-educational, as it accepts male students into first year.

North Presentation Secondary School in Cork city this September welcomed both girls and boys for the first time. The school is also under the patronage of CEIST.

Last year, the proposed merger of St Vincent's Secondary School and North Presentation Secondary School was called off following opposition from parents at St Vincent's.
Some schools are still segregating children into Traveller-only classrooms, a study examining barriers to education for Traveller children found.

The research, published yesterday, is based on the experience of Traveller children and their families living in the North Cork region.

The Travellers of North Cork report, undertaken by Patricia McGrath at Adult Continuing Education at University College Cork (UCC), found that discrimination can lead to parents masking their childrens Traveller identity in some cases.

One parent told the study that her son was one of a group of Traveller boys of different ages, segregated from their own classes and placed together separately from the mainstream class".

Another participant told the study:

I just learned... that they [the primary school] have a unit, a special classroom where they have segregated all Travellers.

Theyve taken them out of the mainstream, and they put them into a classroom of their own, the person said, adding that this creates problems with transitioning to secondary school.

The report notes that the practice perpetuates the discrimination and stigma experienced by Travellers in school and in wider society as they are othered if they do not have the opportunity to mix with their settled peers.

One parent told the Travellers of North Cork study that her son was one of a group of Traveller boys of 'different ages, segregated from their own classes and placed together separately from the mainstream class'. Stock picture: PA

This is a very surprising and shocking finding, as one would expect that segregation of Traveller children in schools was a thing of the past, the report stated.

It is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed by schools and policymakers, along with reduced hours and inclusion.

Reacting to the findings, Senator Eileen Flynn called on Education Minister Norma Foley to act on this "blatant discrimination".

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, she said the findings were absolutely appalling.

It's not one bit surprising, unfortunately, in some schools," Senator Flynn said. "And our education system is still back in the '60s where they segregated members of the Travelling community."

Its not just an issue in this school, it is more widespread across the country.

She said: This cant happen, especially in 2023 and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

The school is singling out children, putting Travellers into one classroom  that didnt come from a good place." Senator Flynn added:

I want to know who is going to be held accountable. Id like to know what the children were doing during those hours. I could promise you they were probably colouring in.

Participants in the study pointed out that, no matter how good some teachers are, others are openly discriminating against and stereotyping Travellers as they are actively encouraging children to leave school once they reach the legal age of 16.

Historically, Irish Traveller children have encountered significant disadvantages within the Irish education system, according to Patricia McGrath.

Despite the Governments commitment to reducing this disadvantage and improving progression rates to further and higher education, this research finds that barriers to education persist for Traveller children in primary and secondary schools," she said.

"It is essential to address these challenges throughout a childs life journey, ensuring schools have adequate resources to support Traveller children.

With the necessary supports in place, Traveller children ought to transition successfully from primary to secondary schools, levelling the playing field to give them the opportunity to progress to further and higher education.

The report makes 20 recommendations on how to improve the educational experience and rates of progression for Traveller children, including that all schools should have Traveller cultural awareness training.
Smugglers on board a container ship at the centre of a major drug operation off the Cork coast were burning bales of cocaine as elite soldiers were being fast roped onto the vessel from an Air Corps helicopter, the Irish Examiner understands.

It is understood that the Defence Forces recorded the storming of the MV Matthew by members of the Army Ranger Wing.

The action was taken after shots were fired by the Irish Naval Service ship LE William Butler Yeats across the bow of the bulk-container ship when it refused to answer calls to come to a halt.

While the cocaine haul on board the container ship has yet to be assessed and weighed, sources indicate it may be the largest-ever cocaine seizure in the State.

The consignment is thought to be at least around 1.5 tonnes and, according to a number of sources, up to 2 tonnes, although the quantity is yet to be officially confirmed.

The previous largest seizures were of 1.575 tonnes of cocaine at Dunlough Bay in west Cork in July 2007 followed by 1.5 tonnes of cocaine inside the Dances with Waves yacht, stormed by navy officers off the Mizen coast in November 2008.

The Army Ranger Wing moved to stop the burning of the cocaine, secure the remaining consignment and bring the ship under control.

The vessel was captained by an Iranian national and had a crew of over 20 people.

It is not known how much cocaine was burned, but an expert analysis will be conducted.

The MV Matthew in Passage West, Cork as it makes its way to berth at the former IFI plant at Marino Point in the Port of Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Three men were being questioned in garda stations in Co Wexford last night, as the MV Matthew, which travelled from the Caribbean island of Curacao over the past six weeks was escorted into Cork harbour.

In Wexford, law enforcement agents were continuing their efforts to establish whether there are drugs on board the Castlemore, which ran aground off Blackwater, 12km north of Rosslare Harbour, before midnight on Sunday night.

It was considered too dangerous in yesterday's weather conditions and with shifting sandbanks to bring another vessel alongside the trawler at Money Weights sandbank, 8km out to sea from Blackwater village.

A helicopter arrived at the stranded trawler yesterday afternoon to conduct an oversight of the scene but it was not boarded.

The 22-year-old MV Matthew left Willemstad in Curacao on August 9. The vessel had previously docked in Aruba on August 7, spending 30 hours in port there.

It is believed to have travelled to the Caribbean from south America and sails under a Panamanian flag.

It is thought to have sailed along the south and southeast coast of Ireland in recent days, before being boarded early on Tuesday by Irish law enforcement officers.

Two of the men being questioned last night were arrested after they were winched off the fishing trawler on Monday. The third was arrested during the impounding of the MV Matthew.

The men in custody are aged 60, 50 and 31 years old. All three are being questioned about organised crime offences.

The fishing vessel, the Castlemore, was sold last week by a Castletownbere-based fisherman and left the West Cork fishing port at around lunchtime on Friday.

Gardai at the old IFI plant at Marino Point, Cork getting ready for the arrival of the Matthew cargo ship which was boarded by Army Rangers, Gardai and the Naval Service. Picture: Dan Linehan

Local sources said it should have reached Wexford in around 20 hours. However, it did not arrive off Wexford until at least 60 hours later.

It is believed the delay was due to the trawler travelling out to sea to meet up with the mother ship, the MV Matthew.

A Garda "deep rummage" of the vessel searching for additional drugs, weapons, communications devices and further evidence such as documentation will begin today and is expected to take a number of days.

Any further finds will help investigators piece together who is behind the trans-national trafficking operation.

Irish agencies were tracking the operation before the Castlemore ran aground at around 11.30pm on Sunday night.

One source told the Irish Examiner that a naval team left Haulbowline at lunchtime on Friday on its mission to target the operation involving the MV Matthew  including its rendezvous with the Castlemore.

It is likely that the larger vessel also met other smaller boats on its voyage, to offload further drugs which were then to be distributed throughout Europe.

It was thought that the Castlemore may have been destined for Devon in England, possibly carrying a shipment of drugs.

The interagency operation involving gardai, the navy, the air corps and Revenue was in a race against time because of poor weather last weekend and the predicted arrival of Storm Agnes on Wednesday.

The cargo ship Matthew in Passage West, Cork as it makes its way to berth at the old IFI plant at Marino Point. Picture: Dan Linehan

One source told the Irish Examiner that the cargo vessel is believed to have been under the surveillance of Irish enforcement officers as part of an international operation that has been tracking it for several weeks.

The source said the original plan by Irish agencies was to target the two vessels when they met at sea off the south or south east coast during the weekend. However, weather conditions are understood to have mitigated against that.

Gardai released a statement as the cargo vessel was being brought into Marino Point in Cork harbour.

A garda spokeswoman said: After Army Ranger Wing personnel secured the vessel, members of the Irish Navy, the Garda National Drugs & Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) and Revenues Customs Service were transferred to the cargo vessel, which is currently under escort by Naval Ship to an Irish port.

The cargo vessel will now be the subject of a detailed examination by Revenue Customs and An Garda Siochana.

She added, in a statement: This intelligence led operation was conducted in collaboration with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC (N)) based in Lisbon, and partners from the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) and French customs service DNRED.

MAOC-N is a cooperative body made up of France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and the UK with the aim of tackling air and sea smuggling.
"Welcome to the club," echoed the voice of Denis Naughten though a Leinster House stairwell.

Naughten, who left Fine Gael back in 2018 and has decided not to stand in the next election, was bounding down the steps alongside Charlie Flanagan and Richard Bruton, the two latest members of Leo Varadkar's team to announce that they will be bowing out of politics at the end of this Dail.

"It's like a political funeral procession," Naughten joked.

After serving 36 years in Leinster House, the Laois-Offaly TD this week told a meeting of local constituency members that "its time to pass the baton to a younger generation".

Paying tribute to Flanagan who he said has made an "outstanding contribution" to his constituency, his party and his country, the Taoiseach said he has been "a passionate advocate for the Midlands" throughout his career.

However, some within Fine Gael have quietly said that Flanagan's decision not to stand for reelection won't be mourned for long, especially by those at a senior level.

Viewed as a stable pair of hands when he held ministerial positions, it has been noted that an increasingly cantankerous Flanagan never forgave Varadkar for a reshuffle which saw him removed from the Department of Foreign Affairs to make way for Simon Coveney.

Richard Bruton is bowing out of politics.

"I would think that the leadership would be content enough to see him go because he was uncontrollable, Charlie was always going to speak his own mind."

In June he hit out at the "discord between ministers and backbenchers" at weekly party meeting, with one TD dismissing it after as "Charlie just bring cranky".

As well criticising at the direction in which Fine Gael is going, Flanagan in recent times has been raising what are considered contentious issues, including transgender rights and proposed hate speech legislation.

"The last number of years he has been like an old grumpy man, he seems totally out of sync with how politics is going," said one more liberal member of the party.

Another Fine Gael member yesterday was critical of what they described as the the "revisionist attitude" Flanagan has taken up in relation to the passing of the Gender Recognifition Act.

At a private Fine Gael meeting in March, he suggested that issues around transgender people were not fully discussed in advance of the legislation.

Flanagan who was a minister when the law passed, claimed that other countries are rapidly rowing back on what was legislated for in Ireland in 2015.

"Maybe when you get older, you get a little bit more conservative," noted one party member.

Denis Naughten left Fine Gael back in 2018 and has decided not to stand in the next election. Picture:Gareth Chaney/Collins

However, others say given his standing in the party Flanagan has been able to express some of the views that others may hold but don't feel willing to articulate.

Defiant right until the end, Flanagan strongly rejected mounting rumours around his future until he eventually made his intentions known on Monday night.

In January when the Irish Examiner included Flanagan on a list of nine party members that were expected to step down, he made his disgust clear to Fine Gael colleagues, dismissing the report.

When again asked by the Irish Examiner earlier this month, Flanagan in no uncertain terms said he would be continuing on and made it clear that he didn't appreciate the speculation being put to him.

He stressed that he was in good health, energetic, and active and that he was still working on the international stage, citing a recent visit to Kyiv in Ukraine as chair of the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee.

Flanagan's exit might mean one fewer dissenting voice to deal with, but his departure signals the loss of yet another experienced Fine Gael politician.
The Disabilities Minister is moving to withdraw funding from the HSE over a failure to recruit therapists to special schools.

Anne Rabbitte now wants to take the responsibility away from the HSE for hiring specialists to support children and instead allocate the funding and authority for this to the Department of Education.

Funding has been allocated for around 215 posts that would provide assistant speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, phycologists, and other specialists required to support pupils in schools.

Ms Rabbitte recently stormed out of a meeting with senior HSE officials after relations broke down over a lack of delivery of therapists to special schools.

While some progress has been made in hiring 14 specialists which had been promised by mid-September, officials do not believe the HSE will meet targets to have 50 therapists in school by December.

Ms Rabbitte now is looking at taking the drastic step of reallocating the funding to recruit these specialists to the National Council For Special Education and plans to discuss this with Education Minister Norma Foley.

It is expected that the issue will be raised with Tanaiste Micheal Martin at a private meeting of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party tonight by a number of TDs.

Cork North-Central TD Padraig O'Sullivan said: "An awful lot of us at this stage would think that particularly when it comes to therapists in special schools, that those posts should be taken on the Department of Education because.

"Ultimately they are [therapists working with] students, they're in schools and should fall under the Department of Education's remit to see if they can resource those teams adequately," said Mr O'Sullivan who has been campaigning on the issue for some time.

Mr O'Sullivan plans to raise the suggestion with the Tanaiste tonight and said: "It's well documented that for whatever reason, people just don't want to work for the HSE be it the workload, the caseload that people have.

"They are obviously finding it very difficult to recruit, but there's other charity organisations that can and have found staff, have advertised successfully, and I would think that schools might be in a better situation than the actual HSE to do it."
If you knew for certain that something unimaginably terrible was going to happen, yet the only possible way it could be prevented is by breaking the law, would you do it?

And, if by taking this action, you were likely to face public vilification, prosecution, and possible imprisonment, would you still do it? This is the dilemma facing many people in todays environmental and climate movement.

As British climate activist and broadcaster Chris Packham put it last week: We are sleepwalking to an apocalypse. Just hours before his documentary, titled Is it Time to Break the Law? was aired on Channel 4, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak did a pre-election U-turn by abandoning a series of key environmental pledges.

It was perhaps the perfect curtain-raiser to the programme, helping to dispel any lingering notion that todays political classes have the slightest interest in taking the kinds of courageous (and unpopular) decisions necessary to avert disaster.

We are, Packham noted wryly, starting here from a point that if we dont do something, we are doomed. While groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have engaged in a series of mildly disruptive actions, none have come even close to crossing the line into violence.

SUSTAINABILITY & CLIMATE Check out our Sustainability and Climate Change Hub where you will find the latest news, features, opinions and analysis on this topic from across the various Irish Examiner topic desks and their team of specialist writers and columnists.

Most of the great social and political struggles, from the suffragette movement to abolishing slavery and the 20th-century civil rights, anti-colonial, and anti-Apartheid movements, have all entailed violent direct action.

British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested seven times, enduring beatings and solitary confinement. As she said during her trial in October 1908: We are here not because we are law-breakers. We are here in our efforts to become law-makers.

Other suffragettes also engaged in arson and vandalism, with Emily Davison killed after throwing herself under the Kings horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913. Who now still argues that these extreme actions, in the face of intractable discrimination, were not justified?

Today, climate activists are "depicted as dangerous radicals, yet the truly dangerous radicals are the countries and firms continuing to burn fossil fuels, in the words of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.

There have been multiple reports of climate protesters engaged in peaceful actions, such as sit-ins on roads, being assaulted by members of the public, as well as being arrested and imprisoned.

The UK governments new Public Order Bill, not dissimilar to repressive legislation in Russia, has effectively criminalised peaceful protests as innocuous as holding up a poster.

Other groups in society, from farmers to trade unionists, occasionally engage in disruptive street protests, but it is almost unheard of for them to be physically assaulted in the process.

Anger against climate protesters in the UK has been fuelled by right-wing media", Packham observed. The public has been conditioned to hate them.

Media coverage frequently employs loaded language like zealots and fanatics to stoke public antipathy against peaceful protestors who are acting not for their own gain but to draw attention to a dire ecological emergency that is becoming more apparent with every passing month.

British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested seven times, enduring beatings and solitary confinement. File picture: PA

For those involved in climate activism, these are dark, dark days. Ive been part of a generation of conservationists whove completely failed to protect the thing theyre meant to love, Packham said.

Having been involved for years in peaceful campaigning, signing petitions, and going on marches, he is left with the stark reality that none of it has worked; perhaps I have to take another route. Is it time for me to break the law?

Packhams experience mirrors my own, and doubtless, that of many other campaigners. We are losing badly, and every day of inaction takes us a day closer to irreversible climate breakdown and an unspeakable global tragedy.

We all do whatever we can. As a journalist, I have written hundreds of articles explaining the crisis and pleading for urgent action, attended numerous meetings and protests, and taken part in countless talks and interviews.

Yet, like Packham, I remain haunted by the sense that our best efforts are hopelessly inadequate.

British climate activist and broadcaster Chris Packham: 'We are sleepwalking to an apocalypse.' Picture: BBC Studios/BBC

Other than a couple of youthful indiscretions, I have remained on the right side of the law, and am grateful to live in a democratic country with a police force and judiciary that is broadly trusted. My climate activism likewise has been within the law, yet it is manifestly failing to make a difference.

In an era of climate breakdown, with our planetary life support systems unravelling before our eyes, the only truly radical action is to do nothing and meekly accept our fate.

Ive reached a point where I consider [breaking the law] the ethically responsible thing to do," Packham concluded. Or, as civil rights activist Martin Luther King memorably put it: One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

If the law seems more concerned with shielding polluters and coddling lobbyists, then yes, maybe we have to fight back. Frankly, what other choices do we now have?
The United States has suspended most non-humanitarian aid to Gabon after Augusts military takeover in the country.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the pause in certain foreign assistance programs, pending a review into the outing of the countrys former president Ali Bongo Ondimba.

Mr Blinken said the suspension would not affect US government operations in the oil-rich west African nation and his statement on Tuesday did not elaborate on which US funding would be affected or how much money would be placed on hold.

The US also suspended some aid to Niger when the military overthrew the government earlier this year, but has yet to formally determine if what happened was a coup.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (AP)

Mr Blinken said: This interim measure is consistent with steps taken by the Economic Community of Central African States, the African Union, and other international partners, and will continue while we review the facts on the ground in Gabon.

We are continuing US government operational activities in Gabon, including diplomatic and consular operations supporting US citizens.

Gabons new military leader was sworn in as head of state less than a week after ousting the president whose family had ruled the nation for more than five decades.

General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema took the oath in the presidential palace in Libreville. He is a cousin of the ousted president, served as a bodyguard to his late father and is head of the Republican guard, an elite military unit.

The ousted president had served two terms since coming to power in 2009 after the death of his father, who ruled the country for 41 years. Another group of mutinous soldiers attempted a coup in 2019 but was quickly overpowered.

According to the World Bank, the former French colony is a member of OPEC, but its oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and nearly 40% of Gabonese aged 15 to 24 were out of work in 2020.
Giant panda Fan Xing has begun a long journey home  to a country she has never visited.

Onlookers applauded as the three-year-old was given a ceremonial send-off from Ouwehands Zoo in the Netherlands, where she was born, for the first leg of her journey to China, where she will join a breeding programme that is helping preserve the vulnerable species.

Wouter Jurgens, director of Asia and Oceania at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he hoped the panda would be an ambassador for relations between the Netherlands and China.

A special ceremony was held at the Ouwehands Zoo (Peter Dejong/AP)

Those links have been strained in recent months by the Dutch decision to limit sales of advanced semiconductor processor chips.

The government called the move country neutral but it was seen as part of a US policy aiming at restricting Chinas access to materials used to make such chips, which can be used in military technology.

Mr Jurgens said Fan Xing represented a sign of the special relationship between the Netherlands and China in the field of nature conservation, but of course also much broader.

So today I would also like to express the hope that this Dutch-born panda, Fan Xing, will contribute not only to the protection of nature, the protection of a species and of biodiversity, but also continue to contribute to the relationship between the Netherlands and China.

Fan Xing was born on May 1 2020, the first cub born in the Netherlands as part of what was once known as Chinas panda diplomacy programme.

Zookeepers walk ahead of the van carrying Fan Xing (Peter Dejong/AP)

At the time, a quick check determined that the cub was male but a test late last year that was part of meticulous preparations for her trip to China established that Fan Xing is female.

For decades, China gifted friendly nations with its national mascot. The country more recently has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms.

Fan Xings parents, Xing Ya and Wu Wen, were sent to the Netherlands from Sichuan province in 2017. Under the terms of the deal that brought them to a small town in the central Netherlands, any cubs they produce must be sent to China before they reach the age of four.
On October 7, the Pittsburgh International Airport will host its annual auction of crap that people left behind and was never claimed. The items include fancy cameras, designer handbags, countless water bottles, stacks of books, and apparently almost a dozen abandoned cars. Prior auctions have featured an alligator head and toilet seat.

From Pittsburgh Magazine:

Among the more unusual items available at this year's auction is a pair of python-skin cowboy boots, originally valued at a few hundred dollars. The shoes were discovered during this year's "Big Sort," a two-day event at which employees with the Allegheny County Airport Authority, which operates the airport, and volunteers go through boxes and boxes of lost items. While some of the items will be available at the auction, others such as most of the clothing and prescription eyeglasses were donated to local nonprofit organizations[]

Proceeds from the auction go toward the Allegheny County Airport Authority Charitable Foundation. The money the foundation raises will help improve travelers' experiences in the airport by enhancing terminals and beautifying spaces with artwork.
The US soldier who illegally crossed the heavily armed border into North Korea is in American custody, US officials said.

One official said that Travis King was transferred to US custody in China.

Earlier, North Korea had said it would deport the soldier who crossed from South Korea in July.

American soldier Travis King has been expelled by North Korea (Ahn Young-joon/AP)

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency said that authorities had finished their questioning of Mr King.

It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

Verifying the authenticity of the comments attributed to Mr King is impossible.

Mr King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he joined the civilian tour and crossed the border, he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained Mr King and was questioning the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Mr Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

The 23-year-old was among about 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea.

US officials had expressed concern about his well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

They also said that King has been declared Awol, which can be punished by time in detention, forfeiture of pay or dishonourable discharge, with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

Unauthorised crossings of the Koreas heavily fortified border are extremely rare.

The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most secret societies.
Five Palestinians have been arrested in a plot allegedly hatched in Iran to target and spy on senior Israeli politicians, including the far-right national security minister, Israels internal security agency has said.

An Iranian security official living in neighbouring Jordan recruited three Palestinian men in the Israel-occupied West Bank and another two Palestinian citizens of Israel to gather intelligence about several high-profile Israeli politicians, the Shin Bet security service alleges.

Targets included national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir  a firebrand Israeli settler leader who oversees the countrys police force in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus ultranationalist government  as well as Yehuda Glick, an American-born far-right Israeli activist and former member of parliament.

I will continue to act fearlessly and even more vigorously for a fundamental change in the conditions of the terrorists imprisonment

The plan was foiled by Israeli intelligence officials, the Shin Bet said without offering evidence.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Mr Ben-Gvir, who draws inspiration from a racist rabbi, has provoked outrage across the wider Middle East for his particularly hard-line policies against the Palestinians, anti-Arab rhetoric and stunts and frequent public visits to the holiest and most contested site in the Holy Land.

The hilltop compound in Jerusalem, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is at the emotional centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Glick is a leader in a campaign pushing for increased Jewish access and prayer rights at the sacred Jerusalem compound, the holiest site in Judaism home to ancient biblical Temples.

Today, the compound houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

5 Palestinians arrested

Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.

Mr Glick survived a 2014 Palestinian assassination attempt.

The Shin Bet did not elaborate on the identity of the Iranian official in Jordan who allegedly orchestrated the plot.

He is not in custody and apparently remains at large.

But the Shin Bet accused three Palestinian men in the West Bank  identified as 47-year old Murad Kamamaja, 34-year-old Hassan Mujarimah and 45-year-old Ziad Shanti  of gathering intelligence and smuggling weapons into Israel.

The security service said it has also charged two Palestinian citizens of Israel over their involvement in the plot.

It did not specify how the men planned to target Mr Ben-Gvir and the other politicians.

Mr Ben-Gvir said the Palestinian suspects conspired to assassinate a minister in Israel without clarifying whether he meant himself or another minister.

He thanked Israeli security forces for uncovering and capturing what he called the terrorist squad.

Mr Ben-Gvir, who has pushed for harsher treatment of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, also vowed to double down on his hard-line policies in response to the revelations.

I will continue to act fearlessly and even more vigorously for a fundamental change in the conditions of the terrorists imprisonment, he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israel has considered Iran to be its greatest enemy since it became a Shiite theocracy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran is a main patron of Lebanons Hezbollah militant group, which Israel considers the most potent military threat on its borders, and also backs Palestinian Islamist militant groups in the Gaza Strip.
US senator Bob Menendez has pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of accepting bribes of cash and gold bars in exchange for using his political influence to secretly advance Egyptian interests and do favours for local businessmen.

The New Jersey politician made his initial court appearance in Manhattans federal court on Wednesday, days after prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging vast corruption by the Democrat, who was forced to step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted.

A lawyer entered the plea on his behalf.

A defiant Menendez said allegations he abused his power to line his pockets are baseless.

He said he is confident he will be exonerated and has no intention of leaving the Senate.

Menendez and his wife Nadine arrive at the federal courthouse in New York on Wednesday (Seth Wenig/AP)

But calls for Menendez to resign continued to mount on Wednesday, with Illinois senator Dick Durbin saying he should step down.

More than half of Senate Democrats have now said Menendez should resign, including fellow New Jersey senator Cory Booker, who said the indictment includes shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing.

It is the second corruption case in a decade against Menendez, whose last trial involving different allegations ended with jurors failing to reach a verdict in 2017.

Authorities say they found nearly 500,000 dollars (412,057.50) in cash, much of it hidden in clothing and closets, as well as more than 100,000 dollars (82,411.50) in gold bars in a search of the New Jersey home Menendez, 69, shares with his wife.

Charged alongside Menendez is his wife, Nadine, who prosecutors say played a key role in collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen seeking help from the veteran politician.

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez entered a not guilty plea for her on Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege repeated actions by Menendez to benefit the authoritarian government of Egypt.

Wael Hana, centre, leaves court (Seth Wenig/AP)

They say he also tried to interfere in criminal investigations involving associates, in one case pushing to install in New Jersey a federal prosecutor who he believed he could influence to derail a case.

Two of the businessmen, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, were also arraigned and pleaded not guilty.

The third, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery.

Hana was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges, and he was ordered freed pending trial.

Menendez, in his first public remarks after last weeks indictment, said on Monday the cash found in his home was drawn from his personal savings accounts over the years and kept on hand for emergencies.

One of the envelopes full of cash found at his home, however, bore Daibes DNA and was marked with the property developers return address, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Hana promised to put Menendezs wife on his companys payroll in a low or no-show job in exchange for Menendez using his influential post to facilitate foreign military sales and financing to Egypt.

Fred Daibes arrives at court (Jeenah Moon/AP)

Prosecutors allege Hana also paid 23,000 dollars (18,954.64) toward her home mortgage, wrote 30,000 dollar (24,723.45) checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars found in the couples home.

The indictment alleges repeated actions by Menendez to benefit Egypt, despite US government misgivings over the countrys human rights record which in recent years have prompted Congress to attach restrictions on aid.

Prosecutors, who detailed meetings and dinners between Menendez and Egyptian officials, say Menendez gave sensitive US government information to Egyptian officials and ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on 300 million dollars (24.7 million) in aid to Egypt, one of the top recipients of US military support.

Prosecutors have accused Menendez of pressuring a US agricultural official to stop opposing a lucrative deal that gave Hanas company a monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards.
The juntas new energy minister, former Maj-General Ko Ko Lwin, and Russia-Myanmar Association for Friendship and Cooperation president Anatoly Bulochnikov discussed potential cooperation in the oil and gas sector during their meeting in Naypyitaw on Tuesday.

The two discussed technical cooperation for inland and offshore petroleum and gas exploration, building oil and gas pipelines, and opportunities for Russian companies to cooperate in petroleum refining and supplying fuel in Myanmar, according to junta media.

Ko Ko Lwinwho was part of 71st intake of Defense Services Academypreviously served as deputy chief of the Directorate of Defense Industries before he replaced Myo Myint Oo as energy minister last month.

He has no experience in the energy sector but is close to junta boss Min Aung Hlaing, critics say.

Tuesdays meeting was the first between Ko Ko Lwin and Anatoly Bulochnikov since the former was appointed energy minister. Bulochnikov also met junta electricity minister Nyan Tun, and discussed the potential for Russian companies to invest in electricity production in Myanmar.

When junta boss Min Aung Hlaing met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time last year, he invited Russia to invest in the countrys energy sector.

The invitation was followed by frequent visits to Russia by former junta energy minister Myo Myint Oo. Russian business delegations also visited Myanmar to discuss cooperation in the energy sector. Russia has since shown interest in exploring for oil in Myanmar, and investing in petroleum refining and manufacturing, as well as distributing petroleum products.

Junta foreign minister Than Swe also discussed the potential for cooperation with Russia in the energy sector during his meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on September 14.

Energy is the key industry in Myanmar, receiving the largest share of foreign investment. Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise provides the regime with its main source of revenue by selling oil and gas abroad.

Russia has been transporting its petroleum to China through pipelines in Myanmar since February, according to Britain-based Energy Intelligence.
Southeast Asian countries and China have agreed to work with the UN crime-fighting agency to combat the rising regional threat from casino-related crime, money laundering and cybercrime.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced the plan of action with officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China in Bangkok on Tuesday.

The plan will strengthen prevention measures and improve capacity to investigate international organized crime and human trafficking across the whole region.

Casino and scam operations run by transnational organized crime groups are a growing menace in Southeast Asia.

Major organized crime groups linked to Chinese criminals have established extensive criminal operations in Myanmar border regions, as well as in Cambodia, Laos, and other countries.

UNODC said crime groups have taken advantage of casino and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) infrastructure and unemployment to set up sophisticated online scams that defraud people around the world, while utilizing trafficked victims to perform various criminal acts.

People-trafficking connected to casinos and scams run by organized crime has mushroomed across Southeast Asia, particularly in the Mekong region, said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative to Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

There is an urgent need for regional cooperation to address these increasingly integrated and interlinked crimes in the region, as well as the ecosystem they exist in, Douglas said.

Human trafficking to recruit victims into criminal activity is just one aspect of transnational organised crime, according to a policy report issued by UNODC.

It is often connected to the operations of border casinos, large-scale money laundering, cybercrimes, and a range of other criminal offenses. There have also been multiple credible reports of torture and extortion in these operations over the past year, the report notes.

Thousands of people from across Asia and around the globe are being trafficked to work in Southeast Asian casinos and other scam compounds, lured by the prospect of lucrative employment opportunities, it adds.

Myanmars border areas with Thailand and China have seen a rise in cyber-scam operations and related criminal activities since the coup in 2021. Chinese criminal gangs operate casinos under the protection of some ethnic armed groups on the Thai border.

Chinas government this year pressured Myanmars junta to take action against cyber scams, which the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs says have seriously harmed Chinese interests.

In response, the regime handed over 24 people arrested for involvement in online scams to Chinese authorities in August.

However, the syndicates along the Thai border remain intact as they are protected by regime-friendly ethnic Border Guard Force groups.
The junta is increasingly unleashing air strikes against civilians, with the number more than doubling during the second year after the February 2021 coup, a report released yesterday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOCHR) said.

The air strikes have repeatedly been combined with measures that systemically deny the ability of those injured to access medical care, UNOCHRs annual report on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said.

The juntas military launched 988 air strikes nationwide between February 2021 and July 2023, the report said.

The juntas use of air strikes surged between April 2022 and July 2023 July, the report added, noting that 687 air strikes had occurred during this period. That figure is more than double the 301 air strikes the junta unleashed between February 2021 and March 2022.

A minimum of 281 people have been killed in the air strikes, UNOCHA said.

The air strikes are instilling terror in the civilian population and they now reasonably fear they could be bombed in their homes, at schools, hospitals, and religious buildings and at public gatherings, the report said.

In May, Myanmar research non-profit Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica reported a far higher number of air strikes by the military junta. The junta hit resistance strongholds with at least 1,427 air strikes between 2021 and April 2023, killing at least 634 civilians in six states and four regions, it said. Nearly 90 percent of air strikes occurred in Sagaing Region and Karen, Kayah, Kachin, Chin and Shan states, the research non-profit reported.

The UNOCHR report noted a shift in areas targeted by air strikes. Between February 2021 and March 2022 most of the air strikes targeted Kachin, Kayah and Karen states. Between April 2022 and July 2023, air strikes increased in central regions: 331 of the 687 air strikes hit central Myanmar during this period.

The report said the number of air strikes in central regions rise 324 percentfrom 78 to 331in its two reporting periods.

Sagaing Region alone accounted for 258 of the 331 air strikes, equivalent to 39 percent of the total nationwide during the period.

The report said the Pa Zi Gyi airstrike had the highest death toll in one incident since the coup. It occurred on April 11, 2023 when the junta launched an airstrike on a public gathering in the village of Sagaing Regions Kanbalu Township, killing 150 people.

An airstrike on Nyaung Kone Village, in Sagaing Regions Pale Township on June 27, 2023 killed 10 civilians, while an airstrike on A Nang Pa Village in Kachin States Hpakant Township on 2022 October 22, 2022 resulted in a minimum of 42 casualties, including 14 civilians.

The report has detailed the junta militarys mass killings during ground operations, arson attacks and other war crimes.

Citing its previous reports and a UN Security Council resolution, UNOCHR called for an end to all violence and for unhindered humanitarian access to every part of Myanmar.

It also called on all parties to respect and ensure respect for international human rights law and where applicable, fully comply with international humanitarian law, particularly norms relevant to the protection of civilians and people incapable of combat.

The UNOCHRs report counted air strikes until July of this year, but they have become an almost daily experience in different states and regions since then.

On Monday, a junta jet dropped two 500 pound bombs on an outpost of the Taang National Liberation Army in northern Shan States Muse Township.

On Tuesday, a junta combat helicopter targeted three villages in Sagaing Regions Chaung U Township, killing at least six civilians.
A total of 253 people have been prosecuted by military courts over the past seven months in Sagaing Region.

Ten were given death sentences, over 100 were handed life imprisonment and eight were given infinite jail sentences, The Irrawaddy has learned.

The regime imposed martial law in 14 Sagaing townships in February, including Indaw, Banmauk, Kawlin, Pinlebu, Salingyi, Yinmabin, Khin-U, Taze, Ye-U, Shwebo, Wetlet and Ayadaw, under the direct control of military commanders and the Monywa-based Northwestern Command chief.

The detainees were prosecuted under counterterrorism, sedition and narcotics laws.

The parents of a resistance fighter were given four years in prison with labor under the Counterterrorism Law for allegedly failing to report that their son had joined Monywa Peoples Defense Force and for allegedly donating to resistance groups.

Ko Thaik Tun Oo from the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network said: Political detainees are usually charged under the Counterterrorism Law, though they are also prosecuted with other criminal charges, like murder. Detainees charged under the Narcotics Law were given infinite prison sentences.

The military tribunal in Indaw Township handed death sentences to three men and a woman under the Counterterrorism Law on August 18.

Eight people were given infinite jail sentences under the 1993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law for illegal possession and use of drugs.

Offenses include spreading false news, possession of weapons and ties to unlawful associations.

Pro-junta Telegram channels said those who were given death sentences bought, sold or transported weapons for terrorists or committed violence.

Under Article 19 of the military-drafted 2008 Constitution, the accused have the right to a defense and appeal but this is denied by the regime, said lawyers.

A lawyer acting for political detainees in Mandalay said: Detainees are normally charged under the Counterterrorism Law. No crimes are investigated and everyone is prosecuted under charges which carry a minimum of 10 years in prison. The regime has guidelines about the degree of punishment in specific areas and if there is any evidence, detainees are given life imprisonment or a death sentence.

Defendants are denied legal representation and the right to call witnesses in military courts, said lawyers for political prisoners.

Sagaing prisoners have been charged under the Counterterrorism Law for cooperating and supplying resistance groups, failing to report resistance movements, treating wounded fighters and providing accommodation.

Breaching curfew has led to a minimum of three months in prison with labor.

Teachers working with the civilian National Unity Government, trainee resistance fighters and social media users trying to persuade civil servants to join the civil disobedience movement have been jailed for life or given death sentences.
The regime has sentenced 63 political prisoners to an additional three to six years in prison for allegedly rioting in Ayeyarwady Regions in Pathein Prison in January.

All 63 had been tortured after protesting the beating of political prisoners by guards, according to the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network.

The protest started on January 5 when prison authorities took one prisoner, Ko Win Min Htet (also known as Ko Mae Gyi), from a cell.

Inmates he shared the cell with started protesting for him to be returned, fearing he was being tortured.

Prison authorities and police used gunfire to end the protest. Sixty-four inmates were injured, 13 critically. OneKo Wai Yan Phyodied after being beaten and tortured by prison guards on January 6.

Prison authorities subsequently prosecuted the 63 political prisoners who had been tortured for protesting. Twenty-six inmates were sentenced to an additional three years in jail by the prison court for damaging public property. The court cited Section-61 of the Penal Code for its decision, according to the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network.

The remaining 37 inmates were sentenced to an additional three years in prison for obstructing the prison staff under Section-332 of the Penal Code, according to the network. Sixteen of them were charged with additional charges related to Section-332 and sentenced to a total of six additional years in prison

The sentences were imposed in August and September, said U Thaik Tun Oo, a representative of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network.

All the inmates were being beaten and tortured by prison authorities. It shouldnt happen that the victims of injustice are prosecuted and imprisoned, U Thaik Tun Oo told The Irrawaddy.

The political prisoners had been serving three to 40-year sentences, and some were facing trial on additional charges, he added.

The prisoners who protested beatings were held in solitary confinement for three months and denied visits.

Political prisoners who attempt to assert their rights often receive additional sentences under junta rule, prison-monitoring groups say.

As of Tuesday, 4,120 people had been killed by junta forces while 24,844 people, including elected government leaders, have been arrested or detained since the Myanmar militarys 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Of them, 19,272 remain behind bars.
The Peoples Defense Force (PDF) under the National Unity Government (NUG) attacked and seized a junta military outpost in Mogoke Township, Mandalay Region early on Tuesday as part of an ongoing resistance operation targeting regime forces in the area, according to two PDF battalions in Mogoke.

A combined force of fighters from PDF battalions 1221 and 1223 based in Mandalay Region launched the attack on the outpost in Yay Htwat Village in the west of Mogoke at around 5:15 a.m. and seized it after a clash lasting over one-and-a-half hours without sustaining any casualties, according to a statement issued by the battalions in Mogoke.

The PDF battalions stated that the attack was conducted as part of Operation Moe Lone Hmine (Burmese for Operation Overcast Sky), which started on Sept. 10 in Mogoke.

We seized a light gun and a pistol, and some ammunition. We are still verifying the number of casualties on the military juntas side, a PDF fighter said.

Additional clashes between the PDF and junta forces broke out near Kyat Pyin Village in Mogoke Township on Tuesday morning, in which the junta military fired artillery shells, said a Mogoke resident.

Though the clashes are occurring far from the town, no one dares to leave their homes, and the roads and streets in town have been empty for the whole day. The residents are very fearful as they have not experienced this before, said a resident of Mogoke, which is known globally for its ruby markets.

To begin the operation on Sept. 10, combined forces of the PDF and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the armed wing of the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF), launched an attack on a junta outpost on Palaung Kone San hill in which the junta military suffered at least seven casualties.

The juntas military suffered at least seven casualties in that days fighting. Though we could not seize the outpost, we were effective in reducing the number of junta troops on that hill, as some retreated, a PDF member said.

Operation Moe Lone Hmine continued the following day with a series of clashes launched by the PDF battalions in Mogoke in cooperation with the TNLA.

On Sept. 15, intense clashes broke out in the east and west of Mogoke between the juntas military and combined PDF/TNLA forces. After suffering heavy losses, the junta military dropped bombs on forests in the area at least three times on that day alone.

The resistance forces launched another attack on a temporary outpost between the Palaung Kone San hill outpost and Nyaung Kone Village on Sept. 19, driving out all the junta troops and seizing the outpost after a three-hour fight.

A conflict analyst who lives in Shan State remarked that Mogoke is located at a strategic point connecting Mandalay Region and northern Shan State, adding this was likely why Operation Moe Lone Hmine kicked off there.

If the PDF can take control of that area, it would be very helpful for the revolution, as it is adjoined by areas controlled by the TNLA on the other side. But the junta will fight hard to keep it under its control, he said.
Apparently, frogs are well-known for trying to mate with all kinds of inappropriate partners, from turtles to fish to inanimate objects. Some of the freakier ones even get into necrophilia. Frogs have been doing this for hundreds of millions of years and never seem to learn. Why?

According to New Scientist, mating in most species "involves a process called amplexus, in which males grip onto a female tightly for hours or days at a time until the eggs are fertilised. But there are plenty of records of male frogs grappling an unpromising target such as a frog from a different species or a dead individual. One explanation is that such mistakes are more likely to happen in species that breed in large numbers with a low ratio of females to males, and where multiple species occupy the same breeding pond.

More from IFLScience:

"[They use] a 'clasp first, ask questions later' strategy to ensure they find a mate," explained [Universidade de Sao Paulo herpetologist Filipe] Serrano. "This leads to individuals amplexing the first thing they see that may remotely resemble a female because the cost of not doing so, and potentially missing a female due to 'choosiness', is likely missing the opportunity to breed and generate offspring." Arguably, there's choosiness and then there's mating with a shoe, but it's possible climate could influence the behavior. In more stable environmental conditions, more species could have year-round opportunities to mate rather than being restricted to an explosive breeding window. The paper represents the first step in understanding trends surrounding misdirected amplexus in anuran species, and the authors are already starting on the next in investigating whether humans' influence (such as habitat degradation, the introduction of invasive species, or even climate change) is increasing the number of events.

(via Weird Universe)
Hundreds of villagers were trapped by Myanmar junta air raid and ground forces in Chaung-U Township, Sagaing Region, on Tuesday, killing at least five resistance members and a teacher.

A junta Mi-17 helicopter airlifted around 70 troops in three flights to Ma Gyi Gwa village while a Mi-35 combat helicopter fired on the village on Tuesday.

Three resistance members and a female teacher died of gunshot wounds during the air raid and an attack by ground troops, Chaung-U Peoples Defense Force (PDF) said.

We can confirm at least four deaths. We cannot enter the village as junta infantry havent left yet, a PDF representative said.

The three resistance members were killed by junta troops while they evacuated villagers, he added.

A skirmish also broke out with junta troops while Chaung-U PDF tried to evacuate villagers, sources said.

Ma Gyi Gwa, Min Tei and Min Khaung villages are near the Chaung-U to Pakokku road.

Sources said the death toll was expected to rise as many people remain trapped in the village.

More than 100 people could be trapped in the villages, a Chaung-U resistance member said.

Pro-junta Telegram channels claimed junta troops seized a resistance base near Ma Gyi Gwa village, killing at least four fighters on Tuesday.

The Irrawaddy was unable to verify the number of casualties.

On Tuesday morning, shooting broke out elsewhere in the township when junta troops in three vehicles opened fire at a resistance group which was checking vehicles on the Monywa-Mandalay road.

At least two resistance members were killed and four injured during the shooting, Chaung-U PDF said.

Another aerial attack was reported in Depayin Township, Sagaing Region, on Tuesday.

However, the number of casualties is unknown, Depayin resistance forces said.

The current junta had conducted nearly 1,000 airstrikes, killing at least 281 people across Myanmar, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in July.
BANGKOK Myanmars military escalated its use of mass killings, air and artillery strikes in the past year as it struggles to crush resistance to its coup, the UNs rights office said on Tuesday while reiterating its previous recommendation that the Security Council refer the full scope of the current situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The militarys ousting of Daw Aung San Suu Kyis government in 2021 sparked a huge backlash and the regime is now battling opponents across swaths of the country.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) found a seemingly endless spiral of military violence between April 2022 and July 2023, it said in its latest report on Myanmar.

Through interviews and open source data it had found a sharp rise in serious human rights violations including the increase of incidents in which 10 or more individuals were killed.

Investigators had now documented 22 instances of mass killings of 10 or more people, according to rights chief Volker Turk.

The OHCHR cited an air strike on a gathering in a village in an opposition stronghold last April it said killed about 150 people, and the bombing last October of a rebel-held concert in northern Kachin state that killed dozens.

Soldiers had repeatedly carried out rapes and extrajudicial killings of men, women and children in villages suspected of harboring or supporting anti-coup fighters, according to the OHCHR.

Some troops had displayed beheaded or otherwise defiled corpses in order to terrorize local residents, the OHCHR said, echoing reporting by local media and a conflict monitoring group.

Junta troops had also torched nearly 24,000 houses and buildings since the beginning of 2023 as part of a four cuts strategy to deny its opponents access to food, funds, intelligence and recruits, it said.

The junta has previously denied media reports and eyewitness accounts that its troops have torched villages, blaming anti-coup terrorists for the blazes.

More than 24,000 people have been arrested during the militarys sweeping crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

The OHCHR said it had regularly received reports of torture, sexual violence, and deaths in prisons or during prison transfers.

Turk said the senseless military attacks were exacerbating the human rights crisis with interconnected humanitarian, political and economic impacts, imposing an unbearable toll on the people of Myanmar.

He said the regime has been using three specific military tactics, namely air strikes, mass killings, and burning of villages, against the civilian population.

Given the continuing gravity of the situation and impunity on the ground, the High Commissioner reiterated the call for the Security Council to refer this situation to the International Criminal Court, he said.

Anti-coup fighters had also committed rights violations through targeted killings of civilians linked to the junta, the OHCHR said.

But it said their scale and intensity cannot be compared to the violations committed by the military.

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict led by the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc have stalled, with the military refusing to engage with its opponents.
A Myanmar urban resistance group claims to have killed five regime personnel during an attack in Ye Township, Mon State on Tuesday.

Resistance group Ye Belu (Ye Ogre Force) said it ambushed regime forces guarding the junta-owned Myawaddy Bank in Ye town center.

In a video statement, the groups leader said that three regime soldiers were killed in their bunkers outside the bank. Another two soldiers were gunned down on a higher floor inside the building, he added.

We carefully planned the mission to attack at a time when no civilians were around, to avoid harming people, the resistance leader said.

The group said it was unable to seize weapons from the dead soldiers, however.

CCTV footage shows two gunmen firing automatic rifles in front of the building.

Pro-junta media posted photos of two victims and claimed that the attack killed one regime soldier and left one civilian seriously injured.

The Irrawaddy was unable to independently verify the reports.

On Sept. 18, the same urban guerrilla group shot dead a senior police Special Branch officer, Captain Myint Lwin, as he was driving through Ye town.

The group said it conducted the assassination after receiving reports from civilians that the officer was extorting money from locals.

Widely circulated video clips of its daring and successful attacks on junta troops and officials have made Ye Belu a well-known and popular resistance group among Myanmar citizens.

People both at home and abroad are donating money to Ye Belu and other resistance groups to fund more anti-regime operations.
At least 40 Myanmar junta forces as well as a resistance fighter were reportedly killed in the last four days as Peoples Defense Force groups (PDFs) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) continued to attack regime targets across the country.

Incidents were reported in Mandalay, Magwe, Sagaing and Bago regions and Mon and Shan states.

The Irrawaddy has collected the following reports of significant attacks from PDFs and EAOs.

Some military casualties could not be independently verified.

Regime forces shot dead guarding military-owned bank in Mon

The resistance group Ye Belu said it conducted a surprise attack on regime forces guarding a branch of the regime-owned Myawaddy Bank in the center of Ye Town, Mon State on Tuesday, killing five regime forces.

CCTV footage shows two gunmen firing automatic rifles in front of the building.

Resistance groups attack sentries in Mon State

A military section leader was killed and two other regime forces were injured in Ye Township, Mon State on Sunday when PDF fighters and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), jointly attacked regime sentries at the entrance of the militarys Light Infantry Battalion 587, said the Joint Operations Command office of the National Unity Government (NUG)s Military Region 3.

Regime forces raided in Bago

At least one junta soldier was killed and two pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia members were injured in Waw Township, Bago Region on Tuesday morning when resistance groups raided regime forces on a ferry in Lat Pan Village, said Bago Region PDF.

The resistance forces seized a military weapon and ammunition during the raid.

Regime forces killed in Bago clash

Thayawady PDF Battalion 3802 claimed to have killed 16 regime forces when it ambushed a military unit of 100 troops in the Bago Yoma Forest in Minhla Township, Bago Region on Saturday.

In the shootout, regime forces responded with many heavy explosives. A PDF sniper who gunned down five regime troops in the ambush was also killed.

In reprisal for the heavy losses, regime forces burned down three farm huts belonging to local residents.

On Monday, Phoenix Defense Force, a squadron of Thayawady PDF Battalion 3801, triggered a land mine to ambush a military vehicle in Nattalin Township, Bago Region. Regime forces in the vehicle responded by opening fire indiscriminately. Military casualties in the ambush were unknown.

Regime forces bombed while raiding Magwe village

Resistance drones drop bombs on a military unit raiding Taung Khin Yan Village in Gangaw Township on Saturday. / Hyper UAV Force

Hyper UAV Force on Monday said it and another drone team from Gangaw District Peoples Defense Force Battalion 1 used drones to drop bombs on a military unit including pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia members that was raiding and looting houses in Taung Khin Yan Village in Gangaw Township, Magwe Region on Saturday, killing two regime forces.

After the strikes, the junta forces burned down eight civilian houses and retreated to their base in Myauk Khin Yan Village, the drone groups said.

Resistance groups attempt to seize police outpost in Magwe

Peoples Revolution Alliance (Magwe) said it and four other resistance groups attempted to occupy the police station in Lat Pan Takarr Village in Minhla Township, Magwe Region early on Tuesday morning.

They had to abandon the operation, however, in the face of the regime forces sustained heavy weapons fire.

Military checkpoints raided in Sagaing

At least five regime forces were killed in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Region on Tuesday when Ye-U PDF, which forms Shwebo District PDF Battalion 14, raided two military checkpoints at the entrances of Ye-U town at 1 a.m.

The military checkpoints are known for extorting money from civilians and vehicles. After the raid, all resistance members retreated without casualties.

Military convoy bombed in Sagaing

Brave Heart Army said it and another resistance group used a cluster of four land mines to ambush a military convoy of seven vehicles in Monywa Township, Sagaing Region on Tuesday morning.

The first vehicle of the convoy was bombed while returning to Monywa after transporting regime forces to a village.

A resistance video shows blasts occurring near a moving military vehicle. Details of damage and casualties were unknown.

Military gunboats attacked in Sagaing

 Joint resistance forces engage in an intense clash with military gunboats in Kani Township, Sagaing Region on Monday. / KLG PDF

Kyauk Lone Gyi PDF said it and other resistance groups ambushed two military gunboats traveling between Kani and Monywa townships along the Chindwin River in Sagaing Region on Monday morning. Two junta machine gunners were gunned down by resistance snipers in the ambush.

On that afternoon, several resistance groups based in Monywa continued to ambush the military gunboats in Monywa, gunning down three more junta troops, said Budalin PDF, which joined the ambush.

Military unit bombed in Sagaing

At least five regime forces were killed or injured in Myaung Township, Sagaing Region on Monday when local resistance groups used land mines to ambush a military unit from Kyauk Yit Police Station that secretly raided and looted houses in Kinn Village early that morning, said Myaung Union Army, which joined the ambush.

The regime forces were bombed while leaving Kinn Village. The resistance group said it witnessed five regime forces lying on the ground with injuries after being hit by the mine blasts.

Military camp raided in Mandalays ruby hub

Two PDF battalions and a Police Force under the command of the civilian NUG coordinated with the ethnic revolutionary group the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) to attack regime forces stationed in Yay Htaut Gyi Village in Mogoke Township, upper Mandalay Region on Tuesday, according to the resistance groups.

Two military firearms and ammunition were seized along with some military equipment. Regime casualties were unknown.

Junta fighter jets bomb TNLA bases in northern Shan State

The TNLA said junta fighter jets conducted air strikes using machine guns and 500-lb bombs targeting areas near Ngawt Ngar Village in the territory of TNLA Brigade 5 in Kutkai Township, northern Shan State on Tuesday afternoon.

A military unit based at nearby Nam Hpat Kar Village also used 34 heavy explosives to shell areas near two villages including Ngawt Ngar in the township.

The TNLA said the junta conducted the bombardments despite the fact that there were no ongoing clashes in the area.

Two junta fighter jets also bombed TNLA bases near two villages in Muse Township, northern Shan State at around 10:20 p.m. on Monday night.

Some minutes later, another fighter jet dropped two 500-lb bombs on a base of TNLA Brigade 1 on a hill in Muse, destroying some buildings. There were no resistance casualties, the TNLA said.
In a new study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, lead author Diyang Quwho works at the Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China and the Institute for Healthy China, Tsinghua University, Beijing, Chinaand colleagues warn of a "an emerging hazardous addiction problem of milk tea among youths." Here's the abstract:

Background: Milk tea has experienced tremendous growth in popularity in China, especially among youths. The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether milk tea addiction may have a detrimental impact on youths' mental health, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Additionally, we aim to explore its potential role in influencing various mental health outcomes.

Methods: A large-scale, cross-sectional study was conducted from 5281 college students in Beijing, China. Participants self-reported depressive, anxiety symptoms, suicidal ideation, and milk tea addiction symptoms including milk tea consumption, dependence, guilty feelings, withdrawal, tolerance, unable to stop, craving, and intention to stop.

Results: Nearly 77 % of participants consumed milk tea at least 611 cups in the last year. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the one-factor structure of the milk tea addiction scale, developed according to DSM-5 substance use guidelines. Moreover, we found that a higher level of milk tea addiction was significantly associated with a higher risk of depression (b = 0.24, p < 0.001), anxiety (b = 0.21, p < 0.001), and suicidal ideation (b = 0.06, p < 0.001), respectively, after controlling confounding variables, among youths consuming milk tea. The possible mediating role of milk tea addiction between loneliness feelings and mental health outcomes was further addressed.

Conclusions and implications: Our findings highlighted that milk tea consumption might lead to addiction, and it is associated with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Current findings can assist policymakers in developing regulations such as restricting advertising, providing psycho-education, establishing food hygiene standards for such a prosperous youth-dominant consumption industry while protecting their mental health.
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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.
Shortly after NY judge Arthur Engoron found Donald J. Trump, along with sons Don Jr. and Eric, liable for fraudulently over-inflating the value of their real estate holdings, Eric and Donald more than doubled down. Eric quickly took to the internet to claim a $1 Billion price tag for the site of at least one FBI raid. While social media was busy lambasting Eric, Donald raged out and hit us with a 2 Billion dollar number for the same Florida theme-resort.

Daddy Trump:

"I have a Deranged, Trump Hating Judge, who RAILROADED this FAKE CASE through a NYS Court at a speed never seen before, refusing to let it go to the Commercial Division, where it belongs, denying me everything, No Trial, No Jury," the former president complained. "He made up this crazy "KILL TRUMP" decision, assigning insanely low values to properties, despite overwhelming evidence." Trump went on to suggest that it was wrong for the judge to conclude that he overvalued his own properties  and then proceeded to claim without evidence that his Mar-a-Lago resort could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion.

Son Eric:

Responding to the judge saying Trump jacked up the price of properties, his son Eric Trump complained that Mar-a-Lago is worth over $1 billion. The judge valued it at more like $18 million. To prove his point, the younger Trump posted real estate listings of Palm Beach homes that total under $40 million. "These homes are about 1/30 the size of Mar-a-Lago, not on the beach, (let alone the beach and intercostal), don't span from once (sic) side of the Palm Beach Island to the other  it is a travesty of justice and an embarrassment to the court."

Zillow currently estimates Mar A Lago as being worth around $24 million. The judge's estimate is within a few million of Zillow, while the Trump Family is working with 40x as a starting point. These Trumps may be addicted to lying. Don Jr has not chimed in.
Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter, the co-founders of Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary in Campbellville, Ontario, Canada shared some sad news today. Cornelius the Turkeybeloved long-time sanctuary resident and best friend of Esther the Wonder Pig, passed away, after a long battle with arthritis and heart disease. Thankfully, he's out of pain now. The Sanctuary shared the news on their Facebook page:

Today Cornelius was set free of his pain. CT results confirmed what we suspected, that his arthritis had progressed to a point where the pain could not be relieved and he had developed heart disease. Before heading over the rainbow bridge, Cornelius ate a blueberry pie under the sun surrounded by love. We are honoured to have known and cared for Cornelius. His personality (and bite scars ) will stay with us forever. The people closest to Cornelius, including our founders, were given the sad news yesterday morning. They each had the opportunity to see Cornelius and say goodbye.

In 2012, Steve and Derek adopted Esther, a piglet they were told was a "micro pig," but who turned out to be anything but. In fact, Esther was a full-sized commercial pig who grew to 600 pounds in just a few years. Steve and Derek were already committed to keeping Estherwho had become familyso they bought a farm and founded Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary in 2014. On the Sanctuary website, they describe their mission:

Our mission is to rescue abused, neglected, and abandoned farmed animals; provide a safe, life-long home for all of our sanctuary residents; educate the public about the true nature of farmed animals; and promote the health and well-being of farmed animals everywhere.

Esther's Facebook page also posted this touching tribute to Cornelius:

Today I said goodbye to one of my very best friends. Sleep well, my handsome feathered friend. I love you. A few words from my dad: Within weeks of Cornelius's arrival at the farm, it became very clear that he had a mind of his own, and an attitude to go with it. He would follow our piggy princess all over the farm, leading the way on our walks and waiting at the sliding door in the backyard when we got home. He came from a place where he was best friends with the man who raised him, and later found out that Corno would escort his human around their property wherever he went, just like he did when he moved to the farm. He was a people turkey, but not all people. For a while, sanctuary caregivers would come collect him from the back deck while he pecked and picked fights with whoever was tasked with escorting him back to the barn. Needless to say, it was only a matter of time before I caved and he was invited inside. From that point forward, Cornelius was a house turkey, a member of the family, and self-appointed security guard for Esther. Cornelius completely changed my perception of birds, much the way Esther did for pigs. It wasn't that he was special (he was special, but that's beside the point) it was because he was allowed to be himself and to show us who he really was. That's the amazing thing about animals. We can learn so much from them if we pay attention. He was affectionate, loyal, and hilarious. He hated everyone except his chosen flock, and that was just one of the many reasons I fell so madly in love with him. He was like a grumpy old man in a bird's body who lived his life in his terms. He made me smile every single day. He was one of my best friends. He was family. I would have killed for one last Corno hug, and although I didn't get one, he did hold my hand while he drifted off to dreamland. Thank you for letting me love you, sweet man. I miss you already, and I always will.

Rest in Peace, sweet, funny, sassy Corneliusyour family and your fans (including me!) will certainly miss you. Thank you for all of the joy you brought into our lives!
This morning, New York MAGA Representative, Elise Stefanik, issued a tweet expressing her displeasure at the U.S. Border Patrol's seizure of a massive shipment of fentanyl.

You would think the Trump loving congresswoman would be pleased with the CBP's new operations, which have proven successful in disrupting fentanyl supply chains. Dubbed Operations Artemis and Rolling Wave, these operations "build on the success of Operations Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen, which seized nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl in a two-month period," reports CBP.

But no. Stefanik, who by all accounts used to be a relatively normal person before becoming a victim of the MAGA cult, thinks that CBP's effectiveness at interdicting deadly drug shipments before they reach the border is a sign of failure. She also forgot to mention that 89% of the fentanyl seized this fiscal year at the southern border was discovered on vehicles at ports of entry.

Stefanik has been spouting the same bizarro logic for some time now. In 2021, she tweeted, "Over 800 pounds of fentanyl were seized at our Southern Border in October. This is Biden's Border Crisis." A sane person would think that it would be a crisis if it wasn't seized.
An N.C. House Select Committee is recommending that the General Assembly change a state law forcing districts to start school the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and end no later than the Friday clo
Weather Alert

...FREEZE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 9 AM EDT THURSDAY... * WHAT...Sub-freezing temperatures as low as the upper teens to mid 20s. * WHERE...The Virginia and North Carolina foothills and piedmont, as well as the Roanoke Valley. * WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM EDT Thursday. * IMPACTS...Frost and freeze conditions will kill crops, other sensitive vegetation and possibly damage unprotected outdoor plumbing. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Tonight's freeze is expected to be a hard, killing freeze, which will end the growing season for 2023. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold. To prevent freezing and possible bursting of outdoor water pipes they should be wrapped, drained, or allowed to drip slowly. Those that have in-ground sprinkler systems should drain them and cover above- ground pipes to protect them from freezing. &&
Lauren Boebert, the family-values Christian who married a sex criminal and enjoys distracting theatergoers with public sex play, wants to punish trans Department of Defense official Shawn Skelly by reducing her salary to $1.

Speaking on the House floor, mean girl Boebert proposed an amendment to reduce the salary of U.S. Department of Defense official Shawn Skelly to $1.

From MSN:

"Like many of [President Joe] Biden's bureaucrats, Mr. Kelly is failing at his job and the basic responsibilities," Boebert said, misgendering the deputy undersecretary for personnel and readiness. "On his watch the Army missed their recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers last year, and all other branches were forced to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants to meet their recruitment goals. On top of that, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all expected to fall short of their recruitment goals this year." "As DOD's highest-ranking trans official, this delusional man thinking he is a woman embodies and espouses the woke-ism that causes  that's causing significant harm to our military readiness and troops' morale," Boebert said. "The military shouldn't be focused on this woke agenda and combating climate change. With him at the helm of readiness, these misguided policy pursuits will continue to be at the forefront of DOD's priorities. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense, to defend our nation."

When Boebert promised her constituents, after being caught lying about vaping and engaging in heavy petting in front of children, "I will make you proud," it apparently meant, "I will be even more hateful than I was."
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By Tamar Sarai | 

( Tomdispatch.com )  Not long after moving to Topeka, Kansas, in the early 1980s, community organizer Curtis Pitts learned about a hidden slice of that citys history that would come to shape his lifes work over the next four decades. He was introduced to the Kansas Technical Institute, or KTI, a Black vocational college that had prospered throughout the early twentieth century, only to close in the mid-1950s.

Founded in 1895, KTI enjoyed the distinction of being the second Black college established west of the Mississippi. Built in part by its own students, the school became a self-sustaining campus, training them in agriculture, nursing, printing, tailoring, and theology, among other subjects. The story of KTI almost immediately captured Pittss attention, both because of its grandeur at the time and the ways its absence had impacted the city.

Thinking that this was the Brown v. the Board of Education city, this should be just like Atlanta with the Black community prospering, Pitts told me, recalling his early observations of Topeka. Once I found out that the school closed, you can see a direct correlation to the demise of Black businesses and families and communities because it was a hub and many of the business owners had learned their trade from the school.

The benefits  both tangible and intangible  of any school, particularly one designed with Black students in mind, compelled Pitts not just to educate himself in the history of KTI but also, in the end, to try to reopen it, ushering in a new twenty-first-century version of the school. If its closure was sobering, its later transformation should have been confounding.

The shock of that change was captured in the moment, more than 40 years ago, when a friend first told Pitts about the school. At that time, we were standing in his front yard and he kept looking across the street and he started talking about the college and why he came [to Topeka], said Pitts. Im trying to figure out which college he was talking about because all I could see was a prison.

Retaliation for Brown v. Board of Education?

KTIs role in contributing to the rise of local business owners speaks to the importance of vocational training for young Black students nationwide at the time. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such training was the underpinning of many Black secondary schools and colleges. Most of them focused on specific trades with the goal not just of preparing their students for decent, steady work but also indoctrinating them with values like industriousness, efficiency, and self-reliance.

Perhaps the best-known and most influential leader of that pedagogical approach was Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He crafted its curriculum in a way that married vocational trades to academic study and famously instructed Blacks to cast down their bucket where they are and acquire the skills needed to take care of themselves.

Though a controversial stance at the time, Washingtons invitation encapsulated the mission of Tuskegee and came to serve as a model for other Black vocational schools, including KTI. In fact, the schools founders, Lizzie Riddick and Edward Stephens, would successfully enlist the support of Washington when establishing KTI and former Tuskegee professors and directors would go on to hold prominent positions there. As only the second historically Black college established west of the Mississippi River, the Topeka-based school would come to be known locally as the Tuskegee of the West.

KTIs closure in 1955, while unexpected for its students and alumni, would prove part of a wave of similar shutdowns in the wake of the Supreme Courts Brown v. Board of Education decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional. But while closings like that of the Manual Training and Industrial School in New Jersey were explicitly tied to that ruling, the cause of KTIs remains murkier. Formally, state legislators shuttered the institution because Kansas already had another technical institute providing similar training, but Pitts wonders whether it wasnt actually a form of local white retaliation for the Brown ruling.

Whats clear is that, by 1961, the state had transferred control of the former campus to the Department of Corrections and, by 2001, the space would, grimly enough, become home to Kansass first and only womens prison.

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

KTIs last class graduated more than half a century ago. Still, Pitts finds that some Black Topekans he speaks to about it have distant, often unexpected, ties to it.

At this stage, youre dealing with a lot more of my dad or grandpa went there, said Pitts. But most people I have to tell what it was. Theyre going Wow, I didnt know that was there or I was in prison there and I never knew that.

Barely five years after KTIs closure, the Kansas legislature authorized the director of penal institutions to oversee the conversion of the campus into a center performing evaluations on individuals sentenced to the Kansas state penitentiary. Work crews of men incarcerated at the local penitentiary were hired to help renovate the school campus. In 1990, that center, combined with three other correctional institutions, would become the Topeka Correctional Facility and, in 2001, would transition from co-ed to all-female.

Still, even if a new generation of Topekans largely grew up without knowledge of the schools existence, remnants of it are still there in plain sight, scattered across the prison grounds. Pitts, for instance, recalls giving a presentation at the facility while it was still a co-ed prison and stumbling across a school bench dedicated to a KTI sorority.

In its devolution, alumni and admirers like Pitts have pointed out how the sites transformation brings to mind the school-to-prison pipeline. Consider that an effective metaphor, tying the story of the Kansas Technical Institutes devolution to a concept the public is familiar with, while also expanding its potential meaning. Education, racial justice, and criminal legal reform advocates have used the term as a shorthand way to describe how young people  often Black students  are criminalized in school in ways that directly funnel them into the carceral system.

Instead of serving as spaces of opportunity, intellectual growth, and belonging, some schools have become all too literal conduits into the prison system and increasingly are even designed to look ever more like carceral facilities. But the reshaping of KTIs campus into an actual prison offers both a metaphor for and a perspective on that pipeline and what it means when, over time, whole populations are functionally criminalized and state investment shifts from educational training to incarceration.

While, as an image, the school-to-prison pipeline typically focuses attention on the fate of individual students as they are punished with zero-tolerance disciplinary policies and the like, the story of KTI focuses on a larger picture: the movement of funds, priorities, and investment from a successful school to the incarceration of Kansans of color and, most recently, Kansan women of color.

Over the past three decades, the incarceration of women has exploded nationwide, growing at twice the pace of male imprisonment, even if all too little attention has been paid to the phenomenon. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the United States is among the top female incarcerators in the world with 172,700 women and girls living in some form of correctional confinement. While 72,000 of them are indeed detained in state prisons like the Topeka Correctional Facility, women are disproportionately incarcerated in local jails, which creates a unique set of harmful consequences that those held in state or federal prisons are less likely to contend with.

As a start, local jails provide even worse healthcare and fewer kinds of programming that might connect the imprisoned to academic or job training which might, in turn, reduce their risk of recidivism. In addition, communication with the outside world  friends, family, and loved ones  is often more difficult in jails where a phone call may be at least three times as expensive as calls from prison and where receiving mail, even postcards, is sometimes prohibited. Given that 80% of women in jails are mothers and often the primary caretakers for their families, the ripple effect beyond the walls is profound.

And yet even state prisons like Topeka Correctional offer their own versions of such devastation. For one thing, the sexual violence that pervades incarcerated womens lives in prisons (as well as jails nationwide) is all too obvious at Topeka Correctional. In 2009, the Topeka Capital-Journal exposed a complex black market of contraband and bribes as well as a sex trade that women incarcerated at the facility were coerced into participating in.

Still, the states incarcerated womens population continues to balloon. From 2000 to 2018 it rose by 60%  a dramatic increase, especially compared to the 14% increase in the mens population in those years. No wonder, then, that, as the states sole womens prison, Topeka Correctional has faced challenges with overcrowding in recent years that have only led to a further deterioration in living conditions and less access to crucial programming.

In 2019, 77% of the women who entered prison in Kansas did so as a result of a probation or parole violation, compared to 65% of men. The Kansas Sentencing Commission argued that this rise in recidivism among women can be attributed in large part to a 2013 law that reformed probation across the state. In actuality, it stripped judges of the possibility of using personal discretion when sanctioning individuals who violated probation or parole. Instead, it required that they stick to a prescribed flowchart of punishments that ranged from a couple of days in jail to the full length of their original sentences. Judges could no longer make exceptions or take into account any unique factors in prisoners lives that might have caused them to breach probation or parole requirements in the first place.

In a 2020 article, George Ebo Browne, a senior research analyst at the Kansas Sentencing Commission, noted that the law changed practice for everyone. But how it was applied on the bench greatly impacted women.

A Sense of Healing

Questions about the Kansas Technical Institute have plagued Curtis Pitts since the moment he first learned about it. Who really owned the land the school had been built on? Why did it actually close? Who ceded control of it to the Department of Corrections? One day, while sifting through the Shawnee County Office of the Register of Deeds, he finally located the deed to KTI and made a discovery that would startle local historians and provide new fuel for his mission to reopen the school.

A corporation warranty deed for it dated November 1910 stated that the said property lands and appropriation should be perpetually used exclusively and solely for the industrial and educational training and development of Negro youth. In essence, whether the school existed or not, the state was  or at least should have been  bound to continue using the land for the teaching and training of Black youth.

Whoever wrote that document, Pitts told me, they knew, at the time, that Black people had no recourse and no ability to fight, but they knew that there would come a time when their children (and people who were concerned for their children of all races) would be able to stand up and fight and find this document. So, when I found that document it shocked me.

Pitts took it to lawyers who affirmed its validity, helping advance his plans to launch the East Topeka Learning Center, a new post-secondary education facility, as KTIs legacy. In 2018, Kansas lawmakers finally incorporated his proposal into the development of Washburn Tech East, a training facility for adults specializing in healthcare, construction, and commercial truck driving.

Despite that success, Pitts still feels that KTI itself should be reopened, describing the school as an heirloom that has yet to be returned to its rightful owner: the citys Black community of the past, present, and future.

Pitts says that, while hes received little pushback from legislators on his efforts, there has been a great deal of silence. Still, he insists, its essential not to be deterred or controlled by the whims of lawmakers and that establishing such a school independently through community efforts would be a demonstration in self-sufficiency.

This is my philosophy, he said, with which Im pressing everybody: you dont wait for them to define the success or failure of your community. We must go through the process through the regents and educational-approving and ability-granting entities to open those schools ourselves. Thats what our children are waiting to see. They want to see us make a commitment to their future.

Pitts notes that while theres a clear connection between KTIs success, the way it went down, and its conversion into a prison, the movement to reopen the school still seems strangely siloed from those focused more squarely on criminal justice reform and decarceration. If KTI were to reopen, it should be with a full reckoning of its history, lest the past be repeated yet again.

That beautiful institution that our ancestors built with their own hands is sitting out there as a prison, Pitts told me. I understand why the state made that $300 million investment because its the only womens prison in the state of Kansas, but there are other things that we could do that would allow us to create a sense of healing and curing on this issue.

Every space and piece of infrastructure in our world, no matter how we engage with it  a converted building, an abandoned plot of land, a defunct railway, a closed school  has its own past. And sometimes the way its evolved, or devolved, illuminates something so much larger than what just the physical borders of that space can hold. In Pittss case, the history of the Kansas Technical Institute is just the beginning of a tale that led to Topeka Correctional, the school-to-prison pipeline, a communitys loss, and a distinctly unnerving world.

Copyright 2023 Tamar Sarai

Via Tomdispatch.com
Vancouver, BC - TheNewswire - September 27, 2023 - EGR Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V:EGR) (EGR or the Company) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ashley Kirwan to the Board of Directors with immediate effect. The Company is also announcing the resignation of Sven Gollan, who will transition to an advisory role at EGR.

Board of Director Changes

The Board of Directors have unanimously approved the appointment of Ashley Kirwan as a director of EGR Exploration, and she will join the Audit Committee. This decision was made following the resignation of Sven Gollan. Mr. Gollan will remain involved with EGR in the capacity of an advisor. The Board wishes to sincerely thank Mr. Gollan for his valuable contributions to the company during his time as a director.

Ashley Kirwan is a co-founder and President & CEO of Orix Geoscience Inc., an award-winning geological consulting firm recognized for their technical excellence, industry partnerships, and workplace culture. Ashley is a professional geologist (PGO), with over 15 years of experience in the mining industry. She has worked throughout North and South America; as an Exploration Geologist with Bridgeport Ventures Inc. in Nevada, and on both exploration and underground projects with Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. (now KGHM International) in Sudbury, Ontario. In 2020, Ashley was recognized with the Young Mining Professionals Eira Thomas Award as one of the top mining industry leaders under the age of 40. Ms. Kirwan received a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Geology and a Master of Science in Mineral Exploration from Laurentian University, and completed the ICD Rotman Directors Education Program.

CEO Comments

Daniel Rodriguez CEO & Director, comments, Ashley is a welcomed addition to the Board of Directors. She brings a wealth of knowledge from a geological technical perspective and as an entrepreneur and business leader. I look forward to working with Ashley as we continue our process of making a discovery on the Detour West property.

I want to thank Sven for giving me this opportunity and for helping create EGR to what it is today. His support has been tremendous. I look forward to following his work at Teako and using him as an advisor to EGR.

Options Grant

Board of Directors have approved a grant of stock options under the Companys stock option plan to its directors, officers and consultants to purchase up to an aggregate of 1,310,000 treasury shares at $0.06. The options are exercisable at a price of $0.06 per share for a period of 5 years vesting immediately, and are subject to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and the Company's stock option plan.

About EGR Exploration Ltd.

EGR Exploration Ltd. is exploring for gold in the Detour-Fenelon Gold Trend, approximately 300 kilometres north of Timmins, Ontario. EGRs 40,255 hectare Detour West gold project is contiguous to Agnico Eagles property which contains the Detour Lake Gold Mine and is approximately 20 kilometres from the mine, which is also hosted in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt.

For further information contact:

Daniel Rodriguez

CEO & Director

Phone: (604) 353-4080

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ForwardLooking Statement (Safe Harbor Statement)

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "expect", "estimate", "objective", "may", "will", "project", "should", "predict", "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking statements concerning the Company's exploration plans. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company cannot give any assurance that they will prove correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, they involve inherent assumptions, risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of assumptions, factors and risks. These assumptions and risks include, but are not limited to, assumptions and risks associated with conditions in the equity financing markets, and assumptions and risks regarding receipt of regulatory and shareholder approvals. Management has provided the above summary of risks and assumptions related to forward-looking statements in this press release in order to provide readers with a more comprehensive perspective on the Company's future operations. The Company's actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits the Company will derive from them. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Latin Metals Inc. (Latin Metals or the Company)  (TSXV: LMS) OTCQB: LMSQF) announces positive results from surface sampling at the Blanco and Tinto zones, Auquis project, Peru (the Project). Soil and rock sampling expand and further define significant porphyry and skarn zones. Regionally, this important area appears to host a cluster of potential deposits within the Auquis property and in contiguous properties held by other companies.

Highlights of the Results:

Robust Geochemical Signatures: The soil sampling results have unveiled robust anomalous geochemical signatures associated with both porphyry and skarn-style mineralization. These promising signatures define key targets for further exploration efforts ( Figure 1 ).

The soil sampling results have unveiled robust anomalous geochemical signatures associated with both porphyry and skarn-style mineralization. These promising signatures define key targets for further exploration efforts ( ). Porphyry Mineralization at Rose Zone: On the eastern side of the property, the Rose Zone has demonstrated substantial copper soil anomalies extending over an area of approximately 2.5km x 1.5km. This anomaly corresponds with a characteristic zinc low; a common feature in porphyry systems.

On the eastern side of the property, the Rose Zone has demonstrated substantial copper soil anomalies extending over an area of approximately 2.5km x 1.5km. This anomaly corresponds with a characteristic zinc low; a common feature in porphyry systems. Skarn Mineralization at Blanco Zone: The western part of the property, particularly the Blanco Zone, has yielded outcropping skarn mineralization with a prominent multi-element base metal signature. A zinc anomaly spanning 3km in length has been identified, further underscoring the zone's potential.

Porphyry and Skarn Geochemical Signatures

Soil sampling results highlight robust anomalous geochemical signatures associated with mapped porphyry- and skarn-style mineralization (Figure 1). On the east side of the property, porphyry-style mineralization at the Rose Zone returns a copper soil anomaly with dimensions of approximately 2.5km x 1.5km, which coincides with a zinc low, as is typically seen in porphyry systems. On the west side of the property, the Blanco Zone, outcropping skarn mineralization provides a strong, multi-element base metal signature, represented by a 3km-long zinc anomaly shown on Figure 1.

Blanco Skarn Rock Sampling

A total of 50 rock samples were collected (Figure 2) in the area surrounding the Blanco skarn discovery. Grades average 0.9% zinc, 0.44% lead, 0.33% copper, and 13 g/t silver. Grades vary from below detection to 9.31% zinc, 6.04% lead, 2.94% copper, and 176 g/t silver.

Figure 1. Gridded soil / talus sample results from the Auquis project highlighting copper anomalies surrounding the Rose porphyry zone and zinc anomalies surrounding the Blanco skarn zone. The gridded image combines new samples and samples previously collected, all of which have been analyzed using portable XRF to generate a single gridded image.

Figure 2. Rock sampling results in the vicinity of the Blanco skarn zone. Anomalous elements are typical of skarn mineralized zones, including zinc, lead, copper and silver shown. Samples greater than 1% zinc, 1% lead, 0.5% copper, and 50 g/t silver are individually labelled.

Next Step

Building upon the success of the soil sampling campaign, Latin Metals plans to undertake additional soil grids to expand the coverage and define the extent of these anomalies. This strategic step aims to enhance the understanding of the mineralized zones and expedite focused exploration efforts.

Closing of Recently Announced Loans

The Company also announces that it has closed the previously announced loans (the Loans) made available to the Company in the aggregate amount of $600,000 (see news release dated August 24, 2023). The Loans have a one-year term and bear interest at the rate of 10% per annum compounded annually, payable on the maturity date. In connection with the closing of the Loans, the Company issued an aggregate of 6,000,000 non-transferable bonus common share purchase warrants to the lenders, each of which warrants will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company for a period of one year at an exercise price of $0.10 per share.

The funds available to the Company under the Loans will be used by the Company to pay outstanding liabilities and for general corporate and working capital purposes. All securities issued pursuant to the Loans are subject to a hold period in Canada ending on January 28, 2024, and the Loans are subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The lenders that provided the Loans included two current directors and an executive officer of the Company (together, the directors and executive officer are the Related Parties). The Loans from the Related Parties constituted a related party transaction pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61 101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101). The Company relied on Sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 for an exemption from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements, respectively, of MI 61-101, as, at the time the Loans were made available to the Company by the Related Parties, neither the fair market value of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for the Loans by the Related Parties exceeded 25% of the Companys market capitalization.

Coastal Copper Belt

The Coastal Copper Belt in Peru is a Cretaceous belt hosting a variety of deposit types including Porphyry, Epithermal, VMS and IOCG. Latin Metals has a total of six 100%-owned copper exploration properties in the Coastal Belt. The Companys Lacsha copper-molybdenum project is drill ready and fully permitted for drilling. The Auquis copper-molybdenum-gold project is advanced and expected to be drill ready in 2023. Exploration at Tillo and Para properties is ongoing in Q3.

QA/QC

The work program at Auquis was designed and supervised by Eduardo Leon, the Company's Exploration Manager, who is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control/quality assurance program.

On-site personnel at the project rigorously collect and track samples which are then security sealed and shipped. Soil samples at the project are analyzed by one of two methods (i) analysis at the ALS laboratory in Lima where they are prepared and analyzed by multi-element analysis using an inductively coupled mass spectrometer in compliance with industry standards, or (ii) analysis at Latin Metals office, where readings are taken with a portable XRF Vanta C, following standard operational procedures to assure the quality of the results including use of standard and blank material. Rock samples are shipped to Bureau Veritas offices in Lima for multi-element analysis using an inductively coupled mass spectrometer in compliance with industry standards.

The gridded image presented in Figure 1 combines new samples and samples previously collected, all of which have been analyzed using portable XRF to generate a single gridded image. Samples from the western portion of the property were collected in the field and analyzed by portable XRF. Samples from the eastern portion of the property were previously sampled and analyzed at ALS. The pulps were analyzed by portable XRF to generate comparable data prior to gridding the combined dataset.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this release has been approved for disclosure by Keith J. Henderson P.Geo, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and the Companys CEO. Mr. Henderson is not independent of the Company, as he is an employee of the Company and holds securities of the Company.

About Latin Metals

Latin Metals is a mineral exploration company acquiring a diversified portfolio of assets in South America. The Company operates with a Prospect Generator model focusing on the acquisition of prospective exploration properties at minimum cost, completing initial evaluation through cost-effective exploration to establish drill targets, and ultimately securing joint venture partners to fund drilling and advanced exploration. Shareholders gain exposure to the upside of a significant discovery without the dilution associated with funding the highest-risk drill-based exploration.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

LATIN METALS INC.

Keith Henderson

President & CEO

For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Company's web site (www.latin-metals.com) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

For further information, please contact:

Keith Henderson

Suite 890

999 West Hastings Street

Vancouver, BC, V6C 2W2

Phone: 604-638-3456

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Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement and timing of exploration programs in respect of the Project, anticipated exploration program results from exploration activities, and the Company's expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements to acquire interests in additional mineral properties, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves on the Properties, the expected use of the gross proceeds from the Loans, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Often, but not always, forward looking information can be identified by words such as "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof, and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future development of the Companys projects in a timely manner, the availability of financing on suitable terms for the development, construction and continued operation of the Companys projects, and the Companys ability to comply with environmental, health and safety laws.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, operating and technical difficulties in connection with mineral exploration and development and mine development activities at the Companys projects, including the geological mapping, prospecting and sampling programs being proposed for the Companys projects (the "Programs"), actual results of exploration activities, including the Programs, estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of new deposits, the availability of a sufficient supply of water and other materials, requirements for additional capital, future prices of precious metals and copper, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, possible failures of plants, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays or the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including of the TSX Venture Exchange, any current or future property acquisitions, financing or other planned activities, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, hedging practices, currency fluctuations, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage and the timing and possible outcome of pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, risks related to joint venture operations, and risks related to the integration of acquisitions, as well as those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest Management Discussion and Analysis and other filings of the Company with the Canadian Securities Authorities, copies of which can be found under the Company's profile on the SEDAR+ website at www.sedarplus.ca.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking information in this news release or incorporated by reference herein.
Santa Helena's resource delineation and exploration drill program to be doubled

LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Meridian Mining UK S (TSX:MNO) (OTCQX:MRRDF) (Frankfurt/Tradegate:2MM) ("Meridian" or the "Company") is pleased to report further strong near-surface results at the Santa Helena copper, gold, silver and zinc mine ("Santa Helena"), with CD-321 returning a high-grade gold zone grading 3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn from 10.0m within a broader interval of 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag and 0.4% Zn from 6.1m, ("Figure 1"). Assay grades are again characteristic of gold enrichment superimposed on the Cabacal VMS Belt. The Company is also reporting that Santa Helena's southeast trending exploration corridor's footprint has been extended by 500m to at least 1.6km ("Figure 2"), projecting to a strong gold-copper anomaly. Based on these strong results, Meridian has committed to doubling the current program to test the considerable potential.

Meridian is also reporting that a zone of strong gold mineralization has been defined at surface at the Cabacal Mine's Northwest Extension ("CNWE"). Recent trenching returned a result of 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq, ("Figure 3") highlighting the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to the first-year open pit development schedule1. Further results are pending.

Highlights Reported Today

Shallow high-grade gold confirmed at the Santa Helena Cu-Au-Ag & Zn mine;

Santa Helena returns near surface high-grade gold and base metal mineralization; CD-321: 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag & 0.4% Zn ) from 6.1m; Including 3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn ) from 10.0m ;

Santa Helena's prospective southeast trending exploration corridor, extended by 500m to 1.6km with survey ongoing;

Meridian to extend Santa Helena drill program targeting poorly tested upside;

Cabacal program continues to deliver strong ongoing Cu-Au-Ag results: CA_TR_034: 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq (3.9g/t Au, 0.1% Cu & 1.6g/t Ag); Result emphasises the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to surface open pit development; and Cabacal's PEA and resource upgrades progressing well.



True width is considered to be 80 to 90% of intersection width.

Mr. Gilbert Clark, CEO, comments: "The Company is very pleased to confirm with this latest intersection that Santa Helena displays all of the hallmarks of a gold-enriched VMS system, creating a great opportunity to repeat the success in resource growth that we saw in the Cabacal deposit. Santa Helena's near mine exploration upside has also been extended out to at least 1.6km beyond the historical resource limits, with the geophysical anomaly now shown to coincide with an eastern copper-gold anomaly, enhancing the potential for further discovery. The Cabacal VMS belt hosts numerous copper-gold and gold-only prospects, with the gold overprint interpreted to be sourced from the underlying tonalite intrusion. This largely untested exploration upside in the belt is underpinned by the robust economics of the Cabacal Mine's PEA. We see this combination as the logical fit of our dual track development and exploration strategy with Meridian emerging as Brazil's near-term copper-gold mine developer."

Santa Helena Drill Program

Santa Helena is a Cu-Au-Ag & Zn deposit located ~9km to the southeast of the Cabacal Mine area. It has over 10,000m of historical drilling and is one of a series of exploration targets along the Mine Corridor. The Company commenced initial drilling in August 2023 as part of a verification program, to validate the historical data in line with 43-101 requirements, and to initiate scout drilling for resource extensions defined by geophysics. The Company's compilation of historical drill data indicated that many historical holes were not completely sampled, that reconciliation of surveyed drilled positions and past mine workings suggested that the high-grade massive sulphide mineralization was only partially mined, and that extensions of near-surface mineralization to the east were also not integrated into the historical resource calculations2. The Company has concluded that this historical resource area is considered open.

Figure 1: Cross section through the CD-321 drill site, twinning JUCHD-101, showing wider mineralization envelop than previously interpreted.

The Company has completed 12 holes to date, with the first two reported confirming strong near-surface mineralization: CD-325: 14.9m @ 3.1% CuEq from 26.3m; CD-311: 19.1m @ 1.3% CuEq from 8.0m3.

The latest result ("Table 1") is from a site where historical trenching and drilling was undertaken by BP Minerals, but individual drill assays have been lost. The Company twinned an historical hole, JUCHD-101, which records indicated had returned 18.9m @ 1.3g/t Au from 6.3m (base metal results not analysed). The twin hole, CD-321, returned a broader envelop of gold and base metal mineralization: 23.1m @ 1.0% CuEq (0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn) from 6.1m, Including 3.6m @ 3.3% CuEq (1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag, 0.5% Zn) from 10.0m. The hole is below a BP trench (T5) which returned multiple broad gold intersections: 18.0m @ 1.1g/t Au, 8.0m @ 0.9g/t Au, 4.0m @ 0.8g/t Au ("Figure 1"). The position is in a structural domain where the VMS horizon is interpreted to be folded into an anticline, cut by steeper subvertical structures. The Company considers that like the Cabacal mine area, the gold content of the Santa Helena VMS system has been upgraded by an overprinting event. A belt-scale tonalitic intrusion most likely contributed as a heat engine for this mineralization.

With the new results from CD-321, the Company continues to add data that can be integrated into a resource update, expanding the footprint of near-surface high-grade mineralization.

Following the positive results to the first phase of work, the Company will expand the Santa Helena Program with at least an additional 1000m.

Santa Helena's Expanding near-mine Exploration Corridor

The Company has continued its Gradient Array Induced Polarization survey ("IP survey") over the southeastern extensions to Santa Helena, into the Alamo property. This newly defined chargeability corridor has been extended a further 500m southeastwards, now totaling 1.6km from the limit of Santa Helena's historical resource. The eastern flank of the anomaly aligns with gold and base metal soil anomalies defined in BP surveys, adding valuable context to this target as an extensional corridor for Santa Helena style mineralization.

Figure 2 - Santa Helena plan view and growing 1.6km eastern exploration extension.

The Company considers that the wide spaced historical scout drilling conducted to date along the corridor has not effectively tested the position, in an environment where the VMS horizon is known to be folded, faulted, and subjected to a later-stage high-grade gold-overprint event. The Company is continuing the geophysical and surface mapping programs. Results from further drilling in the vicinity are pending.

Cabacal Project Development and Resource Definition Program

The Company is also reporting results from CA_TR_034, an infill trench in the Cabacal Northwest extension and infill drill results ("Table 1"). The trench returned 7.0m @ 0.4g/t AuEq (0.4g/t Au, 0.1% Cu, 0.2g/t Ag) and 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq (3.9g/t Au, 0.1% Cu, 1.6g/t Ag). The result better explains the source of a widespread gold dispersion anomaly and may mark the up-plunge projection of one of the shallow SE plunging high grade lodes intercepted by CD-0494 that returned 26.7m @ 21.5g/t Au ~170m to the southeast. These new strong gold grades at surface would be encompassed by the starter pit scheduled as outlined in the Cabacal 2023 PEA and show that additional potential zones of shallow mineralization remain to be defined within the open pit resource area.

Figure 3: Location of Cabacal results reported today.

One of the Company's drill contractors, Sonda Service, is also adapting its equipment to be able to drill low-angle holes (down to 20 dip), and a number of additional holes will be test drilled at Cabacal in areas where topography places constraints for conventional drill rigs.

Results from further drilling in the vicinity are pending.

About Meridian

Meridian Mining UK S is focused on:

The development and exploration of the advanced stage Cabacal VMS goldcopper project;

Regional scale exploration of the Cabacal VMS belt;

Exploration in the Jauru & Araputanga Greenstone belts (the above all located in the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil); and

Exploring the Espigao polymetallic project in the State of Rondonia, Brazil.

Cabacal is a gold-copper-silver rich VMS deposit with the potential to be a standalone mine within the 50km VMS belt. Cabacal's base and precious metal-rich mineralization is hosted by volcanogenic type, massive, semi-massive, stringer, and disseminated sulphides within deformed metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks. A later-stage gold overprint event has emplaced high-grade gold mineralization.

The Cabacal Mineral Resource estimate consists of Indicated resources of 52.9 million tonnes at 0.6g/t gold, 0.3% copper and 1.4g/t silver and Inferred resources of 10.3 million tonnes at 0.7g/t gold, 0.2% copper & 1.1g/t silver (at a 0.3 g/t gold equivalent cut-off grade), including a higher-grade near-surface zone supporting a starter pit.

The Preliminary Economic Assessment technical report (the "PEA Technical Report") dated March 30, 2023, entitled: "Cabacal Gold-Copper Project NI 43-101 Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment, Mato Grosso, Brazil" outlines a base case after-tax NPV5 of USD 573 million and 58.4% IRR from a pre-production capital cost of USD 180 million, leading to capital repayment in 10.6 months (assuming metals price scenario of USD 1,650 per ounces of gold, USD 3.59 per pound of copper, and USD 21.35 per ounce of silver). Cabacal has a low All-in-Sustaining-Cost of USD 671 per ounce gold equivalent for the first five years, driven by high metallurgical recovery, a low life-of-mine strip ratio of 2.1:1, and the low operating cost environment of Brazil (see press release dated March 6, 2023).

Readers are encouraged to read the PEA Technical Report in its entirety. The PEA Technical Report may be found on the Company's website at www.meridianminig.co and under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at https://www.sedarplus.ca.

The qualified persons for the PEA Technical Report are: Robert Raponi (P. Eng), Principal Metallurgist with Ausenco Engineering), Scott Elfen (P. E.), Global Lead Geotechnical and Civil Services with Ausenco Engineering), Simon Tear (PGeo, EurGeol), Principal Geological Consultant of H&SC, Marcelo Batelochi, (MAusIMM, CP Geo), Geological Consultant of MB Geologia Ltda, Joseph Keane (Mineral Processing Engineer; P.E), of SGS, and Guilherme Gomides Ferreira (Mine Engineer MAIG) of GE21 Consultoria Mineral.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Meridian Mining UK S

Mr. Gilbert Clark

CEO and Director

Meridian Mining UK S

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ph: +1 (778) 715-6410 (PST)

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Further information can be found at: www.meridianmining.co

Technical Notes

Samples have been analysed at SGS laboratory in Belo Horizonte. Samples are dried, crushed with 75% passing <3 mm, split to give a mass of 250-300g, pulverized with 95% passing 150#. Gold analyses are conducted by FAA505 (fire assay of a 50g charge), and base metal analysis by methods ICP40B and ICP40B_S (four acid digest with ICP-OES finish). Visible gold intervals are sampled by metallic screen fire assay method MET150-FAASCR. Samples are held in the Company's secure facilities until dispatched and delivered by staff and commercial couriers to the laboratory. Pulps and coarse rejects are retained and returned to the Company for storage. The Company submits a range of quality control samples, including blanks and gold and polymetallic standards supplied by Rocklabs, ITAK and OREAS, supplementing laboratory quality control procedures. Approximately 5% of archived samples are sent for umpire laboratory analysis, including any lots exhibiting QAQC outliers after discussion with the laboratory. In BP Minerals sampling, gold was analysed historically by fire assay and base metals by three acid digest and ICP finish at the Nomos laboratory in Rio de Janeiro. Silver was analysed by aqua regia digest with an atomic absorption finish. True width is considered to be 80-90% of intersection width. Assay figures and intervals are rounded to 1 decimal place. Gold equivalents for Cabacal are calculated as: AuEq(g/t) = (Au(g/t) * %Recovery) + (1.492*(Cu% * %Recovery)) + (0.013*(Ag(g/t) * %Recovery)), where:

Au_recovery_ppm = 5.4368ln(Au_Grade_ppm)+88.856

Cu_recovery_pct = 2.0006ln(Cu_Grade_pct)+94.686

Ag_recovery_ppm = 13.342ln(Ag_Grade_ppm)+71.037

Recoveries based on 2022 metallurgical testwork on core submitted to SGS Lakefield

Copper equivalents for Santa Helena are based on metallurgical recoveries from the historical resource calculation, updated with pricing forecasts aligned with the Cabacal PEA. The metal equivalent formula s presented as a copper equivalent rather than a zinc equivalent, based on the Companies current assessment of the metal balance after the past zinc-focussed extraction. CuEq% = (Cu% * 89%Recovery) + (0.67Au(g/t) * 65%Recovery) + (0.318Zn% * 89%Recovery)) + (0.009Ag(g/t) * 61%Recovery)).

The Gradient Array IP survey is being conducted using the Company's in-house team, utilizing its GDD GRx816c receiver and 5000W240015A transmitter. Data is processed by the Company's independent consultancy Core Geophysics. Geophysical and geochemical exploration targets are preliminary in nature and not conclusive evidence of the likelihood of a mineral deposit.

Qualified Person

Mr. Erich Marques, B.Sc., MAIG, Chief Geologist of Meridian Mining and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed, and verified the technical information in this news release.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information or forward-looking statements for the purposes of applicable securities laws. These statements address future events and conditions and so involve inherent risks and uncertainties, as disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in under the heading "Risk Factors" in Meridian's most recent Annual Information Form filed on https://www.sedarplus.ca/ While these factors and assumptions are considered reasonable by Meridian, in light of management's experience and perception of current conditions and expected developments, Meridian can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Meridian disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or results or otherwise.

Table 1: Results Reported Santa Helena

Hole-id Dip Azi EOH (m) Zone Int (m) CuEq (g/t) AuEq (%) Cu (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Zn (%) Pb (%) From (m) CD-321 -60 219 31.0 SHM 23.1 1.0 1.5 0.5 0.9 13.9 0.4 0.3 6.1 Including 3.6 3.3 4.9 1.3 4.2 35.3 0.5 1.1 10.0

Cabacal

Hole-id Dip Azi EOH

(m) Zone Int

(m) AuEq

(g/t) CuEq

(%) Au

(g/t) Cu

(%) Ag

(g/t) From

(m) CD-316 50 061 85.3 CWNE 3.3 0.6 0.4 0.1 0.3 2.2 56.6 CD-314 50 057 71.3 CWNE 21.1 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.4 35.3 CD-313 49 059 100.2 CWNE 3.7 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.5 20.0 2.0 1.3 0.8 0.4 0.6 2.3 38.0 1.4 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.3 1.4 48.2 CD-310 51 057 66.3 CWNE 4.5 0.8 0.5 0.6 0.2 0.0 23.5 17.0 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2 1.0 33.4 CA_TR_035 0 042 43.0 CWNE NSI CA_TR_034 0 056 52.0 CWNE 7.0 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.1 0.2 26.0 7.0 4.0 2.7 3.9 0.1 1.6 45.0 Including 1.0 24.0 16.1 23.8 0.1 6.5 48.0
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Revival Gold Inc. (TSXV: RVG, OTCQX: RVLGF) (Revival Gold or the Company), is pleased to report on the Companys 2023 exploration campaign at the Beartrack-Arnett Gold Project (Beartrack-Arnett or the Project) located in Lemhi County, Idaho, USA.

Highlights

Revival Gold has completed 15 holes and 3,100 meters of this seasons drill program . Assay results have been received for the first two drill holes (AC23-103D and AC23-104D) located in the Romans Trench target area. AC23-104D intersected 0.66 g/t gold over 7.0 meters drilled width and 3.1 g/t gold over 0.7 meters drilled width. AC23-103D encountered quartz-iron oxide veinlets, but no significant gold mineralization.

. Assay results have been received for the first two drill holes (AC23-103D and AC23-104D) located in the Romans Trench target area. In addition to drilling at Romans Trench, Revival Gold collected thirteen surface rock samples from a road cut on the same target . Values ranged from below detection limit to 11.7 g/t gold with three samples over 3 g/t gold. A follow-up channel sampling program has been initiated.

. Values A follow-up channel sampling program has been initiated. Planned drilling has been increased from 3,000 meters to 3,400 meters to add two holes in the untested Midlands target area.

to add two holes in the untested Midlands target area. The total program incorporates two core holes at Romans Trench (completed), two core holes at Ridge, two core holes at Midlands, and 12 core holes up-dip and down dip of the Haidee deposit (see Figure 1 below). Remaining drill results are expected over the course of the next six to eight weeks.

(see Figure 1 below). Remaining drill results are expected over the course of the next six to eight weeks. Revival has collected 125 soil samples on six geochemical survey lines over the Coiner Fault on a covered target area located south of Joss. Results are pending.

on a covered target area located south of Joss. Results are pending. Dr. Brett Davis, a specialist in orogenic gold systems, completed a site evaluation and assessment of geologic structure at Beartrack-Arnett. Davis concluded that the Coiner Fault System, which includes the well-endowed Panther Creek Shear Zone, consists of multiple, anastomosing structures and that each of these structures represents prospective exploration targets. Davis work supports Revival Golds orogenic model for gold mineralization at Beartrack-Arnett and resulted in the identification of several new targets for potential high-grade mineralization on the Companys land position.

Revival Golds first drill holes on the Romans Trench target encountered favorable host rocks and ore grade mineralization, said Hugh Agro, President & CEO. This years surface sample results from a road cut at Romans Trench are equally tantalizing and confirm that further work is warranted on this new exploration target for the Company. Exploration continues on an expanded program with one rig currently drilling. Drill results from additional new areas at Ridge and Midlands as well as up and down dip of the Haidee deposit are expected over the next 6-8 weeks, said Agro.

Detailed results for the two drill holes released today are presented in the table below:

Hole

Number Area Azimuth

(deg.)



Dip

(deg.)



From

(m)



To

(m)



Drilled

Width1

(m)



Fire Assay

Gold Grade

(g/t)



AC23-103D Romans Trench 279 -55 No Significant Results AC23-104D Romans Trench 47 -54 77.7 84.7 7.0 0.66 183.4 184.1 0.7 3.06

1 True width is estimated to be 50% to 70% of drilled width. Numbers may not add up due to rounding.

Figure 1: 2023 Beartrack-Arnett Drill Program

Qualified Persons

Steven T. Priesmeyer, C.P.G., Vice President Exploration, Revival Gold Inc., is the Companys designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and has reviewed and approved its scientific and technical content.

About Revival Gold Inc.

Revival Gold is a growth-focused gold exploration and development company. The Company is advancing the Beartrack-Arnett Gold Project located in Idaho, USA.

Beartrack-Arnett is the largest past-producing gold mine in Idaho. The Project benefits from extensive existing infrastructure and is the subject of a recent Preliminary Feasibility Study for the potential restart of open pit heap leach gold production operations.

Since reassembling the Beartrack-Arnett land position in 2017, Revival Gold has made one of the largest new discoveries of gold in the United States in the past decade. The mineralized trend at Beartrack extends for over five kilometers and is open on strike and at depth. Mineralization at Arnett is open in all directions.

Additional disclosure including the Companys financial statements, technical reports, news releases and other information can be obtained at www.revival-gold.com or on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

For further information, please contact: Hugh Agro, President & CEO or Melisa Armand, Manager, Investor Relations, telephone: (416) 366-4100 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Cautionary Statement

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. securities legislation (collectively forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Companys future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as believes, anticipates, expects, estimates, may, could, would, will, or plan. Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet managements expectations. Risks, uncertainties, and other factors involved with forward-looking statements could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, the Companys objectives, goals and future plans, and statements of intent, the implications of exploration results, mineral resource/reserve estimates and the economic analysis thereof, exploration and mine development plans, timing of the commencement of operations, estimates of market conditions, and statements regarding the results of the pre-feasibility study, including the anticipated capital and operating costs, sustaining costs, net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, process capacity, average annual metal production, average process recoveries, concession renewal, permitting of the project, anticipated mining and processing methods, proposed pre-feasibility study production schedule and metal production profile, anticipated construction period, anticipated mine life, expected recoveries and grades, anticipated production rates, infrastructure, social and environmental impact studies, availability of labour, tax rates and commodity prices that would support development of the Project. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to failure to identify mineral resources, failure to convert estimated mineral resources to reserves, the inability to maintain the modelling and assumptions upon which the interpretation of results are based after further testing, the inability to complete a feasibility study which recommends a production decision, the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, changes in regulatory requirements, political and social risks, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, uncertainties or challenges related to mineral title in the Companys projects, changes in equity markets, inflation, changes in exchange rates, fluctuations in commodity and in particular gold prices, delays in the development of projects, capital, operating and reclamation costs varying significantly from estimates, the continued availability of capital, accidents and labour disputes, and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, an inability to raise additional funding, the manner the Company uses its cash or the proceeds of an offering of the Companys securities, an inability to predict and counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the business of the Company, including but not limited to the effects of COVID-19 on the price of commodities, capital market conditions, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains, future climatic conditions, the discovery of new, large, low-cost mineral deposits, the general level of global economic activity, disasters or environmental or climatic events which affect the infrastructure on which the project is dependent, and those risks set out in the Companys public documents filed on SEDAR+. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Ionic Corp. (TSXV: LTH; OTCQB: LTHCF; FSE: H3N) (Lithium Ionic or the Company) reports drill results from Bandeira, one of the four targets presently being drilled within the Companys 14,182-hectare land package in northern Minas Gerais State, Brazil. This region, recently coined Lithium Valley by state officials and geologically located within the Eastern Brazil Pegmatite Province, is emerging as a prolific hard rock lithium-producing region. These results form part of a large 50,000-metre drill program underway for H2 2023, with 13 drills currently operating.

Bandeira Drill Intercept Highlights (See Figure 1):

1.94% Li2O over 15.0m (hole ITDD-23-158; see Figure 2)

(hole ITDD-23-158; see Figure 2) 1.91% Li2O over 9.8m (hole ITDD-23-151; see Figure 2)

(hole ITDD-23-151; see Figure 2) 1.68% Li2O over 9.1m (hole ITDD-23-148)

(hole ITDD-23-148) 1.45% Li2O over 8.6m (hole ITDD-23-150)

(hole ITDD-23-150) 1.67% Li2O over 6.2m, incl. 2.21% Li2O over 4.0m (hole ITDD-23-156)

(hole ITDD-23-156) 1.75% Li2O over 5.3m (hole ITDD-23-149)

Blake Hylands, P.Geo., Chief Executive Officer of Lithium Ionic, commented, Our infill and expansion drilling program at Bandeira continues to yield positive results. We are particularly impressed with the high-grade results from holes ITDD-23-158 and ITDD-23-151 of 1.94% Li2O over 15.0m and 1.91% Li2O over 9.8m which confirmed a 250m down-dip extension of a large and widening pegmatite that extends over 800 metres from surface, reaching a depth of 450 metres.

The Bandeira lithium deposit is located in the same district where Companhia Brasileira de Litio (CBL)s Cachoeira mine has been producing lithium for +30 years, and recent producer Sigma Lithium operates the Grota do Cirillo project, which hosts the largest hard rock lithium deposit in the Americas (See Figure 1). In late June 2023, Lithium Ionic published an initial NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate (MRE) at the Bandeira and Outro Lado deposits of 7.57 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.40% lithium oxide (Li2O) of Measured and Indicated (M&I) and 11.86Mt grading 1.44% Li2O of Inferred resources (see press release dated June 27, 2023). Drilling at Bandeira is focused on upgrading the mineral resource classifications in support of economic and engineering studies, as well as testing mineralized extensions to expand the resources.

The Company is rapidly advancing the Bandeira deposit towards a production decision, while it continues to explore and define regional targets. Project engineering is underway by independent Brazilian consultant, GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda., with a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA") expected in the coming weeks. Concurrently, NEO Agroambiental Ltda is completing the RCA (Environmental Control Report) and PCA (Environmental Control Plan) to support the application of a Concomitant Environmental and Installation License (LAC, or Licenca Ambiental Concomitante) for the underground portion of the Bandeira deposit. The LAC is an accelerated permitting scenario available to projects whose mine infrastructure covers a small footprint where deforestation is not required. The LAC replaces the first two steps of the environmental licensing process: the Preliminary License (LP - Licenca Previa) and the Installation License (LI  Licenca de Instalacao); which precede the final Operating License (LO - Licenca de Operacao). In addition, WSP (formerly Golder) is working to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment covering all the Bandeira mineral rights by year-end, which is required for the portions of the project that are not eligible for the LAC.





Table 1. Bandeira Drill Results

Hole ID Az Dip From To Metres Li2O (%) ITDD-23-136 150 -50 21.20 21.68 0.5 1.89 and 85.97 89.97 4.0 1.73 and 92.75 94.84 2.1 1.01 ITDD-23-143 150 -66 48.05 52.40 4.4 1.68 and 164.12 167.19 3.1 1.34 and 187.65 188.03 0.4 2.99 and 342.37 344.37 2.0 1.83 and 366.77 367.20 0.4 1.58 and 383.35 388.72 5.4 1.72 and 398.90 400.75 1.9 2.40 ITDD-23-148 150 -65 74.13 77.87 3.7 1.23 and 257.50 266.60 9.1 1.68 and 317.40 320.17 2.8 2.11 and 326.16 328.99 2.8 1.44 ITDD-23-149 150 -66 23.38 24.73 1.4 1.59 and 46.51 48.45 1.9 1.52 and 84.12 87.36 3.2 0.80 and 434.80 440.10 5.3 1.75 and 445.49 447.17 1.7 0.78 ITDD-23-150 0 -90 123.60 129.60 6.0 1.74 and 142.44 145.44 3.0 2.67 and 293.11 301.75 8.6 1.45 ITDD-23-151 150 -77 348.98 351.05 2.1 1.17 and 411.87 421.66 9.8 1.91 ITDD-23-156 0 -90 63.03 67.36 4.3 1.30 and 211.64 217.86 6.2 1.67 incl. 213.86 217.86 4.0 2.21 and 313.78 317.61 3.8 1.78 ITDD-23-158 0 -90 393.02 396.02 3.0 1.09 and 453.97 468.92 15.0 1.94

*Assays pending for ITDD-23-152, ITDD-23-153, ITDD-23-154 and ITDD-23-157.

About Lithium Ionic Corp.

Lithium Ionic is a Canadian mining company exploring and developing its lithium properties in Brazil. Its flagship Itinga and Salinas projects cover 14,182 hectares in the northeastern part of Minas Gerais state, a mining-friendly jurisdiction that is quickly emerging as a world-class hard-rock lithium district. The Itinga Project is situated in the same region as CBLs Cachoeira lithium mine, which has produced lithium for +30 years, as well as Sigma Lithium Corp.s Grota do Cirilo project, which hosts the largest hard-rock lithium deposit in the Americas.

Quality Assurance and Control

During the drill program, assay samples were taken from NQ core and sawed in half. One-half was sent for assaying at SGS Laboratory, a certified independent commercial laboratory, and the other half was retained for results, cross checks, and future reference. A strict QA/QC program was applied to all samples. Every sample was processed with Drying, crushing from 75% to 3 mm, homogenization, quartering in Jones, spraying 250 to 300 g of sample in steel mill 95% to 150. SGS laboratory carried out multi-element analysis for ICP90A analysis.

Qualified Persons

The technical information in this news release has been prepared by Carlos Costa, Vice President Exploration of Lithium Ionic and Blake Hylands, CEO and director of Lithium Ionic, and both are qualified persons as defined in NI 43-101.

Investor and Media Inquiries:

+1 647.316.2500

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that constitute forward-statements. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes, in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release include information relating to the prospectivity of the Companys mineral properties, the economic viability of the Itinga Project, the mineralization and development of the Companys mineral properties, the Companys exploration program and other mining projects and prospects thereof, the Companys ability to complete a PEA, the Companys ability to complete an environmental impact assessment and obtain the requisite permitting and approvals and the Companys future plans. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company. Risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that managements beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Information and links in this press release relating to other mineral resource companies are from their sources believed to be reliable, but that have not been independently verified by the Company.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - NiCAN Limited ("NiCAN" or the "Company") (TSXV: NICN) is pleased to provide details on its upcoming Phase III drill program on the Wine Property, located in the Snow Lake area of Manitoba, Canada (Figure 3). Permits are in place, a drill contractor has been selected, and preparation work is underway. Initially, Phase III drilling will consist of a 1,500 to 2,000-meter diamond drilling program, which is scheduled to commence in October 2023. The Phase III program will focus on expanding the recently identified nickel-bearing zones to the east of the Wine Occurrence and test newly defined geophysical targets along strike of the Wine Occurrence over distances of up to 4.8 km.

Highlights:

Phase III drill program to commence at the high-grade Wine Nickel Property in October 2023.

New geophysical targets have been identified and are being modelled for subsequent drill testing, expanding the overall target area to over 6 km along strike.

Anomalous soil geochemical results have substantiated the geophysical conductors.

New multi-anomaly target areas are ready for drilling.

NiCAN is incorporating results from the recently completed soil geochemical, as well as downhole and surface geophysical surveys, to further refine the Phase III targets. Recent re-processing of geophysical data in conjunction with geological and geochemical results has defined 16 targets for possible drill testing.

Brad Humphrey, President, and CEO of NiCAN, stated, "We are eager to commence our third phase of drilling on the Wine Property. This phase follows two very successful drilling programs that confirmed high-grade nickel and copper over meaningful widths and discovered new mineralized zones for further follow up drilling. Phase III is expected to commence in the first half of October and should be completed before year-end."

"The new geophysical and geochemical data has been very positive and supportive of our prevailing geological model and has defined additional targets along strike over 6 km. All work to date continues to suggest the Wine Gabbro hosts multiple mineralized pods or lenses similar to those found in the Lynn Lake area. NiCAN remains in a strong position with the funds to complete its current drilling plans at the Wine Project and holds two highly prospective nickel sulfide projects in Manitoba, a highly respected mining jurisdiction."

Phase III Wine Drill Program

The Phase III Wine drill program has two primary objectives. Initially, NiCAN anticipates expanding previously defined nickel-bearing zones located to the east of the Wine Occurrence (Figure 1). Downhole and surface time-domain electromagnetic ("TDEM") surveys have defined multiple conductors along a distinct stratigraphic horizon within the Wine Gabbro. Humic soil geochemical results have shown anomalous Ni-Cu values associated with these electromagnetic ("EM") responses supporting additional drill testing.

The second objective of NiCAN's Phase III drill program is to identify additional nickel bearing mineralized zones associated with newly defined geophysical targets interpreted to be along strike from the Wine Occurrence by distances of up to 4.8 km. These are new targets that have not been drill tested in the past.

The targets drilled to date have intersected varying quantities of disseminated to massive pyrrhotite mineralization with noticeable amounts of chalcopyrite. Most noteworthy has come from the area around diamond drill holes Wine 23-7 and Wine 23-8, where varying degrees of mineralization have been intersected in two relatively shallow zones. Assay results returned elevated copper and nickel values over core lengths of more than 10 m (see press releases dated May 24, 2023, and June 21, 2023).

Wine Phase II Drilling Program

At the Wine Project, in early 2023, NiCAN drilled 2,845 m to test multiple conductive targets identified by the Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic ("VTEM") airborne geophysical survey completed in 2022 (see press release dated November 14, 2022). The VTEM survey was designed to define the location and depth of conductive sources that have a similar signature to the nickel hosted mineralization intersected at the Wine Occurrence, which returned high grade nickel and copper results in drilling completed in 2022 and early 2023. A significant number of the VTEM anomalies were defined within the Wine Gabbro region. These were geophysically modelled and drill holes designed to effectively intersect the suspected sulphide bodies defined by these models.

The Phase III Wine drilling program will follow up on the significant results returned from previous diamond drilling, including;

Diamond drill hole Wine 22-5 intersected 27.3 metres of 2.01% Ni, 1.81% Cu (2.28% NiEq)

Diamond drill hole Wine 22-6 intersected 9.8 metres of 1.23% Ni, 2.09% Cu (1.71% NiEq)

Diamond drill hole Wine 22-3 intersected 8.6 metres of 1.89% Ni, 1.01% Cu (1.92% NiEq)

Diamond drill hole Wine 23-16 intersected four zones of mineralization including 12.6 metres of 1.52% Ni, 2.01% Cu (1.93% NiEq)

Diamond drill hole Wine 23-17 intersected two zones of mineralization including 23.5 meters of 1.59% Ni, 1.76% Cu, (1.91% NiEq)

Note: nickel equivalent grades include only nickel and copper mineralization. Nickel equivalent grades include nickel and copper values only and assume recoveries of 85% for nickel and 85% for copper based on comparable deposits. Nickel price: US$10.00/lb; copper price US$3.75/lb.

Analogies to Historical Lynn Lake Nickel Deposits

NiCAN believes that the nickel mineralization hosted by the Wine Gabbro may have analogies to the nickel-copper deposits in the Lynn Lake area where approximately 22.2 million tonnes averaging 1.0% nickel and 0.5% copper was historically mined. The Farley Mine consisted of multiple lenses of mineralization contained within a 4.2 km2 gabbro body. The Wine Gabbro contains numerous similarities and has seen very little exploration for nickel-copper deposits.

Qualified Person

Mr. Bill Nielsen, P.Geo, a consultant to NiCAN, who is a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure of Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.

About NiCAN

NiCAN Limited is a mineral exploration company, trading under the symbol "NICN" on the TSX-V. The Company is actively exploring two nickel projects, both located in well-established mining jurisdictions in Manitoba, Canada.

To receive news releases by e-mail, please register using the NiCAN website at www.nicanltd.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The information contained herein contains certain "forward-looking information" under applicable securities laws concerning the proposed financing, business, operations and financial performance and condition of NiCAN Limited. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, the size and timing of the drill program, results of the drill program, interpretations of the various surveys, NiCAN's ability to identify mineralization similar to that found in prior drill holes, the benefits and the potential of the properties of the Company; future commodity prices (including in relation to NiEq calculations); drilling and other exploration potential; costs; and permitting. Forward-looking information may be characterized by words such as "plan," "expect," "project," "intend," "believe," "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of the Company and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from results anticipated by such forward-looking information includes changes in market conditions, fluctuating metal prices and currency exchange rates, the possibility of project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses and permitting disputes and/or delays. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Lancaster Resources Inc. (CSE: LCR) (OTC Pink: LANRF) (FSE: 6UF0) ("Lancaster"), has submitted applications to the State of New Mexico Energy, Mines, and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drill up to three wells targeting both shallow and deep conductive layers on its Alkali Flat Lithium Brine Project near Lordsburg, New Mexico.

The targets were identified by Lancaster's geological team following the success of Lancaster's recent MT (Magneto-Telluric) Geophysics program, which highlighted multiple highly conductive subsurface aquifers and zones of interest.

The application to the EMNRD includes the maiden drilling program and a parallel, but separate, application to the BLM covers both drilling access and a subsequent MT geophysics program over the entire claim.

"We are very excited about moving forward with drilling both the shallow and deep targets after our MT Survey showed very clear subsurface zones of interest with high conductivity. The identified targets show clear opportunities for large aquifers containing concentrated lithium brine," says Andrew Watson, Lancaster Resources' VP, Operations and Engineering. "We are expecting our first drill hole to allow us to collect brine samples, along with rock cuttings or core, from targeted intervals, allowing us to determine the concentration of lithium and other minerals."

During the drilling program, rock cuttings, core, and brine samples will be collected from selected intervals, with assay results expected to be available shortly after drilling completion. Previous drilling applications on the playa, although not culminated in drilling, have set a procedural precedent that should aid in regulatory approval.

The MT program targeted highly conductive stratigraphic units (layers) to further delineate drill targets in a highly prospective area on the NE part of the 5,200 acre (2,100 Ha) property.

The MT results along with Lancaster's recent exploratory and geochemical results have highlighted multiple high-priority drill locations believed to host lithium-rich aquifers. Results indicate a near-surface low resistivity highly conductive layer ~150m (490 ft) deep along with a deeper low resistivity highly conductive layer at ~760m (~2500 ft) subsurface. Results also confirm the N-S trending basin continues from adjacent claims to the north, through Lancaster's property.

The planned drilling and exploration program is being designed with a focus on minimizing environmental impact. Measures have been put in place to mitigate effects on the playa environment, water courses, and any historical and cultural artifacts. In particular, precautions have been established to protect freshwater sources that might be encountered during drilling.

Andrew Watson, PEng, a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

About Lancaster Resources Inc.

Lancaster Resources is engaged in exploring energy transition metals to take advantage of the global shift towards decarbonization and electrification. It holds the rights to acquire 100% of the Alkali Flat Lithium Project, in Lordsburg, New Mexico, USA, which involves the exploration of a below-surface lithium brine target. Lancaster's goal is to produce Climate-Positive Lithium using direct lithium extraction technology and solar power. Lancaster recently acquired the rights to a 100% interest in the Trans-Taiga Lithium Property located within the James Bay lithium district of Quebec, and lying on the same fault as significant lithium discoveries, including Patriot Metals' Corvette Property. Lancaster plans to conduct exploration activities with a holistic view of stakeholder interests. Guiding Lancaster Resources' journey is a skilled management and technical team, with collective involvement in over 15 commercial mineral discoveries, and endowed with extensive experience in the creation of lithium brine targets and the exploration and development of Lithium projects across Canada, the American West, Mexico, and South America.

Penny White, President & Chief Executive Officer, Lancaster Resources Inc.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel: 604 923 6100

www.lancaster-resources.com

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither reviewed, approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or Lancaster's future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on Lancaster's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, the ability of Lancaster to execute its exploration plans, obtain exploration and drilling permits retain key personnel, identify, acquire, explore, and develop high-quality mineral-rich properties, and integrate sustainable energy sources and innovative technologies for climate-positive resource production constitute forward-looking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by forward-looking information.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The statements made in this press release are made as of the date hereof. Lancaster disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be expressly required by applicable securities laws.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Anfield Energy Inc. (TSX.V: AEC; OTCQB: ANLDF; FRANKFURT: 0AD) (Anfield or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a credit agreement (the Credit Agreement) with existing shareholder Extract Advisors LLC, as Agent, on behalf of Extract Capital Master Fund Ltd. (each as Lender and collectively, Extract) for a credit facility of $4.3 million (the Credit Facility). The Credit Facility, in addition to the companys recent equity financing, will support the Companys asset transaction strategy, including the Marquez-Juan Tafoya transaction, and ongoing work programs in pursuit of the Shootaring Canyon mill reactivation.

Corey Dias, Anfields CEO commented: We are pleased to have executed this dual-pronged financing plan, facilitated with Extract, a shareholder of the Company. The facility offers us repayment flexibility and moderated against what would have been larger share dilution on the recent equity financing. The funds not only help to advance the Shootaring Canyon Mill  which represents only one of three licensed, permitted and constructed conventional uranium mills in the United States - but will also provide Anfield with additional financial flexibility as we continue to advance and grow our strategic US-based uranium and vanadium portfolio.

The Credit Facility

Under the terms of the Credit Agreement, Extract shall provide Anfield with a single-draw, secured loan for $4.3 million. The Credit Facility will have a maturity date which is five years from the closing date (the Maturity Date), which is anticipated to be completed on or before September 30, 2023.

The Credit Facility will bear a coupon of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) plus 5.0% per annum, payable semi-annually. Anfield, with written notice, may elect to capitalize the interest payable on the Facility semi-annually, in arrears, at a rate of SOFR plus 7.0%. The Credit Facility will have an original issue discount of 7%.

In connection with the Credit Facility, Anfield will issue 42,105,263 warrants to Extract, with each warrant entitling the holder to acquire one common share of the company at an exercise price of $0.095 per warrant for a period ending on the Maturity Date (the Facility Warrants). For so long as the Credit Facility remains outstanding, all proceeds from the exercise of the Facility Warrants by the Lender shall be used to repay the principal amount of the Credit Facility.

The Credit Facility will contain a voluntary prepayment option, allowing Anfield to prepay the Credit Facility at any time after the twelve-month anniversary of the closing date by paying a prepayment fee equal to 3% of the outstanding amount of the Credit Facility. The Credit Facility is secured by a corporate guarantee and share pledge from each of the subsidiaries of Anfield and contains certain other customary provisions, including certain covenants and default conditions in favour of Extract.

Closing of the Credit Facility and the issuance of the Facility Warrants remain subject to the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Extract

Extract Advisors LLC is a natural resources fund manager with a concentration in the junior mining sector. Extract was founded in 2012 and is based in Los Angeles and Toronto.

About Anfield

Anfield is a uranium and vanadium development and near-term production company that is committed to becoming a top-tier energy-related fuels supplier by creating value through sustainable, efficient growth in its assets. Anfield is a publicly traded corporation listed on the TSX-Venture Exchange (AEC-V), the OTCQB Marketplace (ANLDF) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (0AD). Anfield is focused on its conventional asset centre, as summarized below:

Arizona/Utah/Colorado  Shootaring Canyon Mill

A key asset in Anfields portfolio is the Shootaring Canyon Mill in Garfield County, Utah. The Shootaring Canyon Mill is strategically located within one of the historically most prolific uranium production areas in the United States, and is one of only three licensed uranium mills in the United States.

Anfields conventional uranium assets consist of mining claims and state leases in southeastern Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, targeting areas where past uranium mining or prospecting occurred. Anfields conventional uranium assets include the Velvet-Wood Project, the Slick Rock Project, the West Slope Project, the Frank M Uranium Project, as well as the Findlay Tank breccia pipe. A combined NI 43-101 PEA has been completed for the Velvet-Wood and Slick Rock Projects. The PEA is preliminary in nature, and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and, resultantly, there is no certainty that the included preliminary economic assessment would be realized. All conventional uranium assets are situated within a 200-mile radius of the Shootaring Mill.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

ANFIELD ENERGY INC.

Corey Dias, Chief Executive Officer

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contact:

Anfield Energy Inc.

Clive Mostert

Corporate Communications

780-920-5044

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.anfieldenergy.com

Safe Harbor Statement

THIS NEWS RELEASE CONTAINS FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. STATEMENTS IN THIS NEWS RELEASE THAT ARE NOT PURELY HISTORICAL ARE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INCLUDE ANY STATEMENTS REGARDING BELIEFS, PLANS, EXPECTATIONS OR INTENTIONS REGARDING THE FUTURE.

EXCEPT FOR ANY HISTORICAL INFORMATION PRESENTED HEREIN, MATTERS DISCUSSED IN THIS NEWS RELEASE CONTAIN FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS THAT ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES THAT COULD CAUSE ACTUAL RESULTS TO DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM ANY FUTURE RESULTS, PERFORMANCE OR ACHIEVEMENTS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED BY SUCH STATEMENTS. STATEMENTS THAT ARE NOT HISTORICAL FACTS, INCLUDING STATEMENTS THAT ARE PRECEDED BY, FOLLOWED BY, OR THAT INCLUDE SUCH WORDS AS ESTIMATE, ANTICIPATE, BELIEVE, PLAN OR EXPECT OR SIMILAR STATEMENTS ARE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES FOR THE COMPANY INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, STATEMENTS OR INFORMATION RELATED TO THE USE OF PROCEEDS FROM THE OFFERING, THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MINERAL EXPLORATION AND FUNDING AS WELL AS THE RISKS SHOWN IN THE COMPANYS MOST RECENT ANNUAL AND QUARTERLY REPORTS AND FROM TIME-TO-TIME IN OTHER PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION REGARDING THE COMPANY. OTHER RISKS INCLUDE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE REGULATORY APPROVAL PROCESS, COMPETITIVE COMPANIES, FUTURE CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS AND THE COMPANYS ABILITY AND LEVEL OF SUPPORT FOR ITS EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES. THERE CAN BE NO ASSURANCE THAT THE COMPANYS EXPLORATION EFFORTS WILL SUCCEED OR THE COMPANY WILL ULTIMATELY ACHIEVE COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE MADE AS OF THE DATE OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, AND THE COMPANY ASSUMES NO OBLIGATION TO UPDATE THE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, OR TO UPDATE THE REASONS WHY ACTUAL RESULTS COULD DIFFER FROM THOSE PROJECTED IN THE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. ALTHOUGH THE COMPANY BELIEVES THAT THE BELIEFS, PLANS, EXPECTATIONS AND INTENTIONS CONTAINED IN THIS NEWS RELEASE ARE REASONABLE, THERE CAN BE NO ASSURANCE THOSE BELIEFS, PLANS, EXPECTATIONS OR INTENTIONS WILL PROVE TO BE ACCURATE. INVESTORS SHOULD CONSIDER ALL OF THE INFORMATION SET FORTH HEREIN AND SHOULD ALSO REFER TO THE RISK FACTORS DISCLOSED IN THE COMPANYS PERIODIC REPORTS FILED FROM TIME-TO-TIME.

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Michael David Fox of New Mexico doesn't seem like a very nice person. Look at this transcript of a voicemail he left for a Texas congresswoman, identified as V1 in the criminal complaint.

"Hey [V1], you're a man. It's official. You're literally a tranny and a pedophile, and I'm going to put a bullet in your fucking face. You mother fucking satanic cocksucking son of a whore. You understand me, you fucker?"

Mr. Fox, a faithful member of the QAnon cult, admitted to the FBI that he'd made the call.

From the criminal complaint:

Fox claimed to be a member of the Q2 Truth Movement, the Q Movement. Fox explained these movements believe all over the world there were transgender individuals running governments, kingdoms, and corporations. Fox explained that there is a plan called "Q the Plan to Save the World" which he learned about from an online video. Fox claimed that he believed Q was going to engage in the "eradication" of the people who were causing all the world's misery. Fox believed that part of the eradication had already happened. Fox explained that he had run V1's skull features through forensic analysis and determined that VI was born male and is now transgender. Fox discussed his military service with the United States Air Force, Q the Plan to Save the World, and how God communicates using numbers. Fox continued to reiterate several different types of conspiracy theories indicating extreme far -ight ideologies as his explanation for why he conducted the phone call to threaten V1. Fox rescinded his threat against V1 and apologized, Fox claimed he was not intoxicated or under the influence of drugs when he made the call. Fox stated he understood how VI would feel threatened by his phone call. Fox acknowledged that anyone he knew or cared about would also be concerned with such a threat.

Fox was charged with interstate transmission of threatening communications and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Selling the NT farmers market

Chris DelPrince knows a thing or two about retail and marketing.

The Lafayette High School dropout began his entrepreneurial career as a teenager, helping support his family by selling pots and pans out of the trunk of his car. He sold perfume and watches door to door, started a disposable diaper delivery service, and opened a store on Grant Street selling closeout items from New York City.

His big break came in the '90s, when he opened Lifestyle Street Gear on Buffalo's West Side, selling first-run urban streetwear fashions such as FUBU and Sean Jean. Eventually, he built the Grant Street shop into a multimillion-dollar chain of urban fashion stores, which he cashed out of in 2006.

Then last year, he set his sights on North Tonawanda's iconic farmers market

More than 100 years old and running three days per week year round, the North Tonawanda City Market had seen better days.

Now a business consultant, he asked Austin Tylec, whose mayoral campaign he worked on, to appoint him NT City Market manager.

The gig pays a whopping $200 per week.

"It's actually community work for me," DelPrince said. "I've shopped there for 30 years and live in the neighborhood and I wanted to do something for it."

Appointed in January 2022, he went to work fixing up the market  securing tens of thousands of dollars of monetary and in-kind donations from the retail contacts he had made in Western New York over the years.

That included free landscaping from J.F. Krantz Topsoil and nursery, 50 gallons of paint from Sherwin Williams, and a deeply discounted mural from local artist Nicole Cherry. He put up a "veterans wall" on one side of the building that anchors the market, featuring photos of North Tonawanda military veterans.

"Once we fixed it up, I had something I could market," he said. "Can you believe, all these years, it never had a logo or a website, nothing?"

He went on to bring in more vendors, diversifying from the previous strict "local produce only" model and bringing in more fresh meat vendors, food trucks and things like pierogi and empanadas. In the first year, sales at the market increased by 15%, he said.

Then he started campaigning for the distinction of "People's Choice" winner in the American Farmers Market Celebration organized by the American Farmland Trust-Farmers Market Coalition.

Win or lose, he launched the voting campaign for the exposure it could provide in Western New York. He was hoping to build buzz among people who haven't been to the market in a while.

"And it just kept snowballing," he said. "Everybody picked it up."

He went hard, sending out news releases, printing up business cards with QR codes that led to the voting site, and giving away NT City Market-themed grocery bags at an online voting station at the market  all on a shoestring budget with an investment of about $500.

With the farmers and community pulling together, the market clinched the top spot.

Winning has brought in more consumer goodwill and free press than DelPrince could have imagined, and put the market in the national spotlight. Sales for the year have increased by another 25%, he said.

"Their sales are blowing away the best days they've ever had," DelPrince said.

Customers have come from as far away as Batavia and Rochester.

"The advertising and the hype of the contest brought more people," said Jenn Hanna of Piece of My Heart, a houseplant retailer at the market. "I think winning in general will bring more people out to check out our market that might not have come out in the past."

Most importantly, the bragging rights give the market a seal of approval that is far more valuable than the $5,000 first-place prize.

Going forward, DelPrince will roll that first place win into all future advertising efforts.

Saturday, the market will stage a customer appreciation day with a live band, free Duke's Donuts, apples cider and, of course, free stickers that say, "I shop at the no. 1 farmers market in America."

"Everything we do, every piece of marketing will have 'America's No. 1 farmers market' in it," DelPrince said. "All of our social media, whatever else we do. We'll have a big sign up there on the pavilion, stating that we're No.1 in America."

 Samantha Christmann

Want to know more? Three stories to catch you up:

Welcome to Buffalo Next. This newsletter from The Buffalo News will bring you the latest coverage on the changing Buffalo Niagara economy  from real estate to health care to startups. Read more at BuffaloNext.com.

THE LATEST

More apartments are coming to a Jefferson Avenue medical project.

A local fintech startup is getting funding from Launch NY.

Taylor Swift's love life opens a New Era for sales.

Facing tough competition, officials take a regional approach to landing a federal tech hub.

Improving credit scores hailed as a path to progress in Buffalo.

Buffalo-area UAW workers are ready to strike if called.

Amazon is opening a center in Buffalo to recruit workers for its local warehouses.

A local startup is getting a $500,000 investment.

The region's unemployment rate jumped after August's steep job losses.

Grand Island is considering an even stiffer limit on the size of new buildings.

The 43North finalists have been announced.

A new affordable and senior citizen housing project is underway in Buffalo.

A zombie hotel in Amherst has come back to life.

Catching up with labor activist and author Bill Fletcher Jr.

Check out the changes in food and drink service at Highmark Stadium.

A Buffalo manufacturer plans to nearly double its workforce.

Town of Niagara officials balk at a low-income apartment project.

A new retail and residential project is in the works for Niagara Street.

A Buffalo affordable housing project is getting a more contemporary look.

Moog Inc.'s new CEO isn't a U.S. citizen  and that's causing problems.

New Era Cap Co. reportedly is considering going public.

ICYMI

Five reads from Buffalo Next:

1. Students fueled the region's job growth when they returned for the summer. When they went back to class, it blew a big hole in the Buffalo Niagara job market.

2. UB grad students seek solutions that make a social impact.

3. Choosing Buffalo: Odoo decides WNY is right place for substantial North American growth.

5. A new Buffalo venture thinks it can help plants grow better indoors by using artificial intelligence.

The Buffalo Next team gives you the big picture on the regions economic revitalization. Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com or reach Buffalo Next Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435.

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There is a lot going on in the world of cannabis.

A lawsuit has put the opening of new dispensaries on hold.

The state has adopted regulations that will give medical operators a major leg up on smaller pot farmers and retailers.

And the Office of Cannabis Management, which has so far only granted conditional licenses to justice-involved businesspeople, is about to open cannabis license applications to everyone.

Meanwhile, the state has seen more than $70 million in cannabis sales through late August. Licensed pot sellers and growers have also teamed up to sell their crops through the Cannabis Growers Showcase and are on pace for $12.5 million in Showcase sales by the end of the year, the state said.

In comparison, Maine  a state with just 7% of the population of New York  generated $140 million in cannabis sales through August through its recreational pot market that launched three years ago.

With questions swirling, here are five things we know.

Is the OCM setting itself up for trouble  again?

At its Cannabis Control Board meeting on Sept. 12, the Office of Cannabis Management announced it will open general licensing applications for growers, retailers, distributors, microbusinesses and processors to the general public on Oct. 4.

But by law, the state is required to give a 30-day notice period.

Doing my math, that is fewer than 30 days, said Patrick Hines, a partner at law firm Hodgson Russ and co-leader of its hemp and medical cannabis practice.

That would mean, technically, general licensing applications should open Oct. 12. If they open earlier, the OCM risks another lawsuit.

Theres plenty of people waiting in the wings to file lawsuits who havent been shy in the past, Hines said. Is this going to cause further delay?

The fear is that anybody who has any incentive to slow the program down could file a lawsuit, leading to another injunction that would put licensing on hold, Hines said.

People are concerned about that, he said.

Will stores start popping up everywhere next month?

No. It will take several months. Once licensing opens to the general public in October, the application window will be open for 60 days. The state will begin reviewing applications after 30 days, Hines said.

But the race for real estate has been difficult, as landlords have been reluctant to lease space to dispensaries. The state has indicated it will give preference to applicants who already have real estate.

If youre a retailer and you already have control over a location that youre planning to operate, then theres a suggestion that youll get fast-tracked, Hines said.

Of the 23 licensed adult-use shops in the state, the average time to get the doors open has been about four months from the time a retailer has received its license, the Office of Cannabis Management said.

Will all those illicit shops go legit?

While there are just about two dozen licensed recreational dispensaries open in the state, there are thousands of other unlicensed (or legacy) shops operating, many of them in Western New York.

Selling unregulated, untested, untaxed cannabis  usually at lower prices  unlicensed stores pose a major threat to the success of licensed shops, state officials have said.

If youre legacy, youre not probably paying taxes the correct way, said Aleece Burgio, an attorney at Colligan Law in Buffalo. Theyre buying product in the illicit market. Theyre buying product across state lines, which isnt allowed. So they can lower their prices and get bigger returns than people in the general.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has given state regulators more tools to fine and shut down unlicensed shops.

We are continuing to work closely with our local partners across the state to further expand our enforcement efforts while ensuring consumers have increased access to safer, tested products and that our cultivators and retailers can thrive in a fair, regulated and legal market, said Jason Gough, a spokesperson for the governors office.

The state has seized thousands of pounds of unlicensed pot worth tens of millions of dollars from more than 125 unlicensed businesses across the state, but it has been a drop in the bucket.

You hope the illicits decide to move into the general market. I think that would be ideal, said Burgio. Obviously, youre hoping to get legacy to come over.

But its not likely.

In order for it to be attractive, there has to be that threat of being shut down, Burgio said. I dont think its really enough of a threat right now for them to be motivated to go into the general.

Will the CAURD injunction go away now?

The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, signed into law in 2021, established licensing priority for social and economic equity applicants, which it defined as individuals from communities disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of past prohibition, minority- and women-owned businesses, distressed farmers, and service-disabled veterans.

But when the state opened up licensing applications, it created the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary license (or CAURD)  open to those affected by cannabis law enforcement only, and leaving out other social and economic equity applicants.

The law was clear that you were supposed to open up retail to everybody all at once. Not a specific group, Hines said.

So four military-veteran dispensary license applicants have filed a lawsuit, which has put the opening of any new CAURD cannabis dispensaries in New York State on hold.

There are 440 justice-involved individuals who have been granted CAURD licenses, but are now legally prevented from opening.

So basically all of that is in limbo, but with the application period opening up on Oct. 4, that would seem to be moot because the entire lawsuit is premised on the idea that you cant open it up to only some people first.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who has spearheaded social equity in the states cannabis rollout, suggested that Registered Organizations  companies that cultivate and dispense medical cannabis  influenced the plaintiffs decision to file the lawsuit as a way to knock out competition from social equity applicants.

If it was up to them, we would have legalized it, passed it on to them and they would have been on their merry way, she said. But it wasnt up to them.

Why are conditional growers so upset?

To say that the states conditional growers are not happy with the handling of the states rollout of legal pot sales is an understatement.

These growers have invested heavily to become pot farmers, only to harvest their crops and find that the licensed stores where they were promised they could sell their pot didnt exist yet, and then were opening painfully slowly. Growers are now sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in unsold pot  some reports say billions  with little opportunity to recoup their investment.

Last week, the Office of Cannabis Management logged its cannabis regulations. Now, as part of those regulations, established medical dispensaries will be able to grow and sell their own pot to the recreational market, under more favorable conditions than those granted to the conditional growers.

Conditional growers were originally told they would have three years head start before multistate operators would be allowed to enter the market. They got one year, and a dysfunctional one at that.

The well-heeled competition comes as conditional growers are struggling to survive. One Steuben County farmer said she had to sell her tractor just to feed her family.

This ruined my life, said Jeanette Miller, a cannabis grower in Newfane.
Older adults have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Canadians aged 60 years and older make up only 20 percent of the population, they account for 69.5 percent of all COVID-19 hospitalizations, and most  91.7 percent  of all COVID-19 deaths.

One aspect of health care during the pandemic that has received considerably less attention is the failure of effective delirium care.

Delirium is a sudden and distressing state of confusion that occurs in up to half of hospitalized older people. It is usually triggered by a change in health, such as an infection or surgery, and is often short-lived but can sometimes cause long-term cognitive impairment leading to an increased risk of dementia.

Fortunately, delirium can be prevented or minimized using simple strategies. Within our own health practices, we have seen the effectiveness of promoting family caregiver presence, encouraging mobility and minimizing disruptions to eating, drinking and sleeping.

In May 2020, an opinion piece written by geriatrician Dr. Sharon Inouye in the New York Times warned of an epidemic within the pandemic that was leaving many hospitalized older patients more vulnerable to delirium by abandoning many simple care approaches. Unfortunately, she was right.

Our study recently published in JAMA Network Open showed that the fear of a delirium epidemic was realized. We found that during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, older adults admitted to Ontario hospitals experienced more delirium and were discharged home with more sedating medications compared to before the pandemic.

Disruptions to delirium prevention care caused by the pandemic are in part to blame. A shortage of staff and volunteers, visitor restrictions, and infection control rules created the perfect storm of less interaction with patients and fewer opportunities to use non-drug approaches for preventing and managing delirium.

Our study results are particularly alarming because we have made so much progress in delirium care over the last 30 years. Initiatives such as Senior Friendly hospitals, acute care of the elderly units, and hospital elder life programs have flourished across Canada. In the three years preceding the pandemic, our study shows a clear trend of declining prescriptions of harmful and addictive sleep medicines given to older people after they left the hospital.

COVID-19 disrupted this hard-fought progress. Even two years after the onset of the pandemic, the number of new sedative prescriptions being prescribed out in hospitals has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

So how do we reverse these dangerous trends?

It is likely that the fall and winter will bring a seasonal wave of viral illness such as influenza, RSV  and COVID-19, among others. Hospital and health care systems will soon be faced with decisions about visitor and volunteer policies in the face of viral outbreaks.

We can minimize rates of delirium by:

1. Implementing policies centered on delivering dignified care, especially to older persons with cognitive impairment who cannot always advocate for themselves.

2. Renewing nationwide hospital efforts to mandate flexible hospital visitation and implement the simple and evidence-based care strategies needed to prevent and manage delirium.

3. Addressing national staffing shortages plaguing health care facilities across the country and redoubling our efforts to build and sustain senior-friendly health care environments.

Never again should sick patients with delirium be isolated from their family caregivers.

We must return to providing the standard of care for older people that reduces delirium and minimizes sedating drugs. We owe it to our aging population to provide the kind of humanistic care that helps older adults leave hospitals with their independence and cognition intact.

Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher, Nathan Stall, and Paula Rochon are geriatricians.
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Imagine you are in a bad car accident. You are in and out of consciousness. There are lights and sirens and the smell of gasoline. Everything hurts more than you can bear. Hands pull you from the car and place you on a hard backboard with a rigid cervical collar around your neck. You bump down the road in the back of an ambulance as you start feeling like you cant breathe.

You arrive at a local trauma center where they are short 50 percent of their ED nurses. There is only one experienced trauma nurse on duty, and she is actively resuscitating another new trauma patient. You lay on your back in the hallway on the EMS gurney for 20 minutes waiting for a room. You wait another 10 minutes in the room for a nurse. The nurse is inexperienced and still in training; it takes her 20 minutes to finish your triage documentation and a quick assessment. She has no experience with trauma patients. Her precepting nurse has 1 year of experience and has been pulled to help with the trauma resuscitation in the trauma bay. You beg, Please, please, I need something for pain. I cant stand it. I feel like I cant breathe. She seems kind, covering you with blankets and explaining that she cant give you any pain medications until the doctor sees you. Sorry, its really busy today, she says before she leaves. You lay there strapped to the backboard feeling like your chest will explode. Why is there so much pressure? Why cant you breathe? This headache is so awful, why isnt anyone helping me?

The doctor sees you 30 minutes later, and suddenly, everyone is rushing into your room. There are so many people. Pain meds, finally! Thank God. Unfortunately, the pain meds are followed by a chest tube to decompress your collapsed lung, and you are later transferred to the ICU for a subdural hematoma and hemopneumothorax.

This scenario is reflective of our nurse staffing at almost every emergency department in America. Except sometimes the outcome isnt as sunny; sometimes, the ending is that you die because the staff fails to rescue you from imminent demise. I write from a position of experience.

I have worked in trauma rooms and emergency departments across Phoenix, AZ, for 12 years. The southwestern U.S. is among the worst in the U.S., with as little as 6 nurses to every 1,000 residents. Projections of the nursing shortage anticipate that western states will be hit hardest by continued nurse retirements and the loss of bedside nurses. The mortality rate increases by 6 percent in hospital units that are short of nurses. It has also been well established that surgical site infections, pressure ulcers, urinary tract infections, hospital readmission rates, and failure to rescue incidents are higher when there arent enough nurses. Experienced nurses are an especially endangered breed: Buerhaus wrote that from 2020 to 2030, the U.S. nursing workforce will lose 2 million years of nursing experience each year due to the retirement of baby boomer nurses.

You didnt read this correctly if you arent sitting at your computer wide-eyed and open-mouthed by this point. People are dying. Your loved ones could be in the body count. YOU could be in the body count. These patients are reported as mortality digits on a spreadsheet; they are people who are irreplaceable, loved, and who matter. And they are dying because we arent fighting hard enough to keep experienced nurses at the bedside.

As an experienced nurse, I can do a quick Google search to find a job near me with a $15,000 sign-on bonus! More money? Sign me up! My career field is incentivizing me to move from job to job. When a nurse does this, they lack the ability to invest in that particular institution  joining nurse-led committees, nurse career ladder programs, and rooting themselves in improving the quality of patient care at that hospital. They are one person noticing problems that they wont stay long enough to fix. Patient safety issues, quality of care issues, and other organizational hazards to the hospitals patients well-being are often addressed by bedside nurses who choose to step up and create change in their unit. With successful change, this often ripples to other units and then other hospitals. But nurses who arent planning to stay will not participate in any of that. Youre the nurse just passing through town.

Experienced nurses should be wooed and cared for by the units they serve. When I put in my 2-week notice at my last job, my director immediately told me not to return. I was in the process of training a new nurse. She was dropped into a pool of floating trainee nurses on the unit and suffered greatly without a consistent, experienced preceptor. My director treated me like trash, like my work on the unit and skills held no value to her at all. Why are we allowing this kind of treatment of our most valuable assets? Its no wonder that 87 percent of nurses are burned out, 33 percent of new nurses will leave the profession in their first two years, and 50 percent of our workforce is working regular overtime during the most stressful time in nursing history (nurse.org, registerednursing.org). How do we keep the experienced nurses? How do we help establish new nurses on a path to success? How do we save our patients?

I have an answer. We need to demand that funds used as sign-on bonuses for new nurses be allocated to experienced staff on the unit. Those funds should be bi-annual retention bonuses. Every experienced nurse on your unit should receive $15,000 every 2 years to sign a contract committing themselves to your unit. Committing themselves to participating in ongoing quality and patient care improvement. Committing themselves to training incoming staff. New staff joining the unit should not be receiving the greatest financial incentives.

We must demand that experienced nurses remain at the bedside, committed singularly to their institution and unit and the training of new nurses. We cannot stay silent and let our patients die while the new nurses carry the guilt of a preventable patient death because they simply didnt know what they didnt know.

Rachel Basham is a nurse.
Authorities at the Ministry of Finance are investigating the source of public funds spent by 71 government officials who last week travelled in two parallel groups to New York for the 78th United Nations General Assembly.

The two groups from the office of Vice President Jesica Alupo and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja are said to have spent more than Shs2 billion.

The news that was broken by Daily Monitor attracted outrage among citizens as many believed that the billions splashed on allowances and travel expenses for the New York trip should have been injected into critical, but financially starved sectors.

In an interview with KFM, Patrick Ocailap, the deputy secretary to the Treasury said the Ministry is waiting for the return of the various officials to provide information on the source of funding.

We are waiting for the return of various accounting officers to see how much they spent on this summit which is internationally observed every year. We want expenditures from those sectors we shall look at how much they spent on this, Ocailap said.
By George Muron

The government has revealed plans to set up a nuclear training and research center at Soroti University after 40 acres of land was yesterday offered to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development for the establishment of the entity.

The ministry officials led by the Minister of State for Energy Okaasai Opolot finalized discussions and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University on strategic usage of the land.

Okaasai said that they had requested for 22 acres of land but the university favorably found it necessary to donate 40 acres instead.

He said they shall now establish a nuclear training and research centre on the 22 acres and the remaining portion of 18 acres will accommodate hostels for the nuclear students and a hotel for the nuclear experts and guest lecturers who may fly into the country.

Okaasai said although they are already done with the feasibility studies, real construction works for the nuclear training and research station are expected to begin in 2025.

Other students will be trained in Argentina, Russia, Korea, and China among others whose lecturers are members of countries under the international atomic energy,  he explained.

Professor John Robert Ikoja, the vice chancellor of Soroti University said that they donated the land to the government strategically with intent to attract more development and employment opportunities to the region.

He said the nuclear training and research centre will attract good roads, an extension of electricity and may also prompt the government to expedite the process of establishing an international airport in Soroti City.
OLAF FUB SEZ: According to Founding Father Samuel Adams, born on this date in 1722, We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them.

. . .

HEALING HEARTS  Griefshare, a support group for people who have lost a loved one, begins 11 weeks of meetings at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Colonial Heights Free Methodist Church, 1310 Saunders Settlement Road, Niagara Falls. Fee is $20. Register in person or at griefshare.org/findagroup.

. . .

PRODIGAL SON  Batavia Town Historian Bernida Scions discusses the life and times of bestselling author and Batavia native John Gardner at the Java with Joe E. series at 9 a.m. Thursday in the Holland Land Office Museum, 131 W. Main St., Batavia. Admission, coffee and doughnuts are free. To attend, call 585-343-4727 or email hollandlandoffice@gmail.com.

. . .

BEST IN SHOW  More than 70 artists, antique vendors and cultural groups are part of the annual Fall Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on the Roycroft Campus, 31 S. Grove St., East Aurora. Admission is free.

On view today through Oct. 21 in the Castiglia Gallery in the Roycroft Campus Print Shop is the first exhibit by more than 30 members of the Roycroft Arts and Craftsmen Guild. An opening reception with many of the artists will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. next Wednesday.

. . .

DEEPER LOOK  Investigative Post editor Jim Heaney and senior reporter Geoff Kelly discuss trends in national media and how they affect the Buffalo market at 7 p.m. Thursday in Fitz Books, 433 Ellicott St. Free, but space is limited. Reserve a seat at investigativepost.org/events.

. . .

ANIMAL ATTRACTIONS  The 4-H Goat Club, with a pen of goats on display, will be among more than a dozen clubs taking part in the Genesee County 4-H Program open house from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday in the Kennedy Building at the Genesee County Fairgrounds, 5056 E. Main Street Road, Batavia. For more info, call 585-343-3040, Ext. 101, or visit genesee.cce.cornell.edu.

Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises invites dog lovers to bring their dogs on a special cruise at 3 p.m. Saturday. For reservations, call 716-433-6155 or visit lockportlocks.com. Dogs ride free.

. . .

ROAD READY  Take points off your drivers license and reduce insurance premiums for three years by attending a defensive driving class from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 14 at Metro Roberts Real Estate, 860 Abbott Road. To reserve a seat, call Donna Jeffers at 716-868-8266.

. . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY  Pam Clough, Dr. Steve Lakomy, Dr. Peter Ostrow, Thecly Ortolani, Donald Ogilvie, Nick Guy, Helen Tederous, Linda Reynhout, Rosemary Standart Dumont, Karen Regensdorfer, Peggy Mallaber, Jackson McCarthy, Betty Virostko, Charles Basil, Paige Samaniego, Robert Hartmann, Rhonda Derion, Zachary Taylor Bouquard, Diane Lanza and Ron Gawel.

AND THURSDAY  Shelley Dumpert, Jim Lorentz, Grace Halt, Charlotte Steck, Karen K.J. Jackson Molenda, Phyllis Panek, Suzanne Tiranno, Emersyn Schlegel, Lydia Herren, Sally Schutt, Lori Vogt, Lucas Tutterman, Kelly Montante, Clara Gugino, Jeff Faltyn, Morgan Farry and Father Louis Lougen.

To submit birthdays and other items of interest to Reporters Notebook, please email olaffub@buffnews.com or send a letter to Reporters Notebook, Buffalo News, Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240.
Barristers who practice in criminal law whether prosecuting or defending legally aided persons are paid fees below 2002 levels as a result of cuts to rates of pay of between 28.5% and 60% imposed by government between 2008 and 2011.

These cuts were in line with similar cuts, commonly referred to as FEMPI measures, applied by the government across all sectors following the economic collapse in 2008 and everybody in the criminal justice sector from Judges to gardai saw their pay reduced.

As our economy recovered from the crash, the government gradually restored the pay of every actor in the criminal justice system to pre FEMPI levels except for barristers and defence solicitors. Judges, prison officers, gardai, state solicitors and courts service staff have experienced pay restoration however the government refuses to restore the pay of barristers.

Following calls by the Bar of Ireland to reverse the cuts, a review process was established led by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in conjunction with the Department of Justice. That process concluded in July 2018 noting that reforms made by barristers including work flexibility, electronic briefing, and additional work burdens justified the reversing of cuts imposed during the financial emergency. The Director of Public Prosecutions, an independent statutory body responsible for prosecuting crime in the State on behalf of the people of Ireland, has called on government to restore pay rates for barristers in line with every other sector working in the criminal justice sector. Furthermore, the Minister for Justice recently stated that she saw no good reason why those in the legal profession are left waiting for crisis-era reductions to be restored, while public and civil servants have had their pay restored.

The Minister is correct. There is no good reason. Not only are criminal barristers being paid at rates 40% lower in real terms than what they were paid in 2002, the complexity of criminal work has increased significantly in the past two decades. The ubiquitous presence of smart phones and the widespread use of social media often results in their being hundreds of thousands of pages of disclosure in a case which must be carefully reviewed. Pre-Trial procedures including preliminary hearings are changing how criminal cases are run, and continuous government legislative reform and innovation in the area of criminal law makes this area of practice challenging and demanding.

There is clear evidence that the cuts have significantly impacted the criminal bar and practising in criminal law is often simply not economically justifiable for many barristers. Research conducted by the Bar of Ireland found that two thirds of criminal barristers leave after just six years of practice. I know from my own experience that pay disparity between barristers practicing in civil law and criminal law is a significant factor in the increasing numbers of barristers refusing to practice in criminal law. This disparity is now starting to be felt in the criminal justice system.

By way of example, it can be difficult to secure senior counsel in legally aided circuit court criminal trials outside Dublin due to the lower rates of pay vis-a-vis other areas of practice and because the numbers practising in criminal law arent providing sufficient throughput to the inner criminal bar. Last year the Director of Public Prosecutions was forced to run a number of cases, where Senior Counsel would ordinarily act without the services of senior counsel because there were none available. When this happens, victims are being let down. In as much as accused persons have the right to the best representation possible, victims of crime and society in general have a right to see that allegations of wrongdoing are prosecuted with care and diligence by experienced and suitably qualified counsel.

I fear that if the government doesnt take action to treat barristers fairly and in line with other workers in the criminal justice system, attrition rates will continue to remain high, standards will inevitably fall and everybody will suffer. Comic caricatures of rich barristers are easily painted however it is my experience that most of my colleagues at the criminal bar are motivated by quiet but deeply held conviction that what they do is fundamental to the administration of justice and the rule of law within this State.

It is for these reasons that I will be withdrawing my services on October 3 to call on the government to implement a meaningful, independent and time limited mechanism to determine the fees payable to barristers by the Director of Public Prosecutions and under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Scheme.
An elite Irish army unit has stormed a Panamanian cargo ship suspected of carrying significant amounts of drugs in a major operation off the south-east coast of Ireland.

Members of the highly-trained Army Ranger Wing descended by fast-rope from a helicopter on to the ship, which became the focus point of a multi-agency operation which began on Sunday.

The co-ordinated response from the Irish Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing also involved customs officers and the Irish polices national drugs and organised crime unit

The agencies said the seized MV Matthew is a Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America.

It was intercepted by the Army Ranger Wing and detained in the early hours of Tuesday.

The agencies said a significant quantity of suspected drugs were found on board the cargo ship.

The Army Ranger Wing boarded the ship after the Naval Services patrol vessel, the LE William Butler Yeats, fired warning shots in its direction.

Two helicopters and two planes were also involved in the operation.

The Irish Air Corps and Naval Service had been tracking the container ship over a number of days.

In a statement, the Defence Forces said: A specialist team from the Army Ranger Wing (ARW) then deployed by helicopter on to the MV Matthew via fast rope insertion in challenging conditions.

After the ship was made safe, the Garda units (Irish police) and customs officers boarded the vessel alongside the naval service.

The naval service escorted the ship to an Irish port where it will be detained for a detailed search and investigation.

Crowds of people lined the walls of Cobh harbour as the cargo ship was transported to a naval base on Haulbowline in Co Cork.

Armed members of the Ranger Wing were seen on board alongside the ships crew members and other Defence Forces personnel.

Three men, aged 60, 50 and 31, have been arrested on suspicion of organised crime offences and are detained at garda stations in Wexford.

In a joint statement, Revenue and An Garda Siochana said: The cargo vessel will now be the subject of a detailed examination by Revenue Customs and An Garda Siochana.

The operation was conducted in collaboration with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre  Narcotics (MAOC N) based in Lisbon, Portugal, and partners from the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) and French customs service DNRED.

The Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces commended the efforts of all personnel involved in the operation.

Lieutenant General Sean Clancy said: I would like to personally commend the courage, discipline and professionalism of all personnel involved in this successful operation.

He said the multi-agency operation demonstrates the interoperability of the Defence Forces, underlining the unique capability that we bring to the defence of the State.

He added: The significant intelligence-led planning by the joint task force enabled the co-ordination and execution of this complex multiagency operation.

This operation demonstrated the importance of all services of the Defence Forces and their ability to operate in the most challenging of conditions.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee congratulated the State and international bodies involved in the operation.

She said the drugs on board would have no doubt been destined for Irish and European markets.

In a statement she said: It will represent a blow to the organised-crime gangs involved in drug distribution internationally.

She said it shows the success of An Garda Siochana in building coalitions to tackle transnational crime.

Congratulations to @gardainfo @defenceforces @RevenueIE and partners on the brave and significant seizure today. The operation, which Commissioner Harris and A/C Kelly briefed me on yesterday, again shows the importance of international co-operation in tackling drugs gangs. pic.twitter.com/UOjvYU6c1B  Helen McEntee TD (@HMcEntee) September 26, 2023

Illegal drug distribution and misuse does untold damage to our communities. Criminals may seek to overcome the barrier of borders, but as shown today borders are not barriers to effective criminal co-operation.

Tackling organised crime is a key priority for Government and is central to building safer, stronger communities. We will always provide An Garda Siochana with the support and resources they need.

The major multi-agency operation followed an alert after a separate boat ran aground off the east coast.

The Irish Coast Guard said it received a distress call from a vessel in difficulty off the coast of Co Wexford at about 10.10pm on Sunday.

Waterford-based coast guard helicopter R117, and Rosslare RNLI were sent to the scene where a fishing vessel was aground on a sandbank off the coast of Blackwater, Co Wexford.

After attempts to tow the vessel were unsuccessful, the people aboard were successfully winched from the vessel.

Both R117 and the Rosslare RNLI were subsequently stood down.
A former member of the Proud Boys was sentenced Wednesday to the time he already served in jail for illegally possessing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in Genesee County.

U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer also sentenced Michael Alan Jones of North Carolina to two years on supervised release and ordered him to forfeit the rifle and ammunition.

Jones, a white supremacist, was ticketed for a curfew violation by Washington, D.C., police on Jan. 6, 2020  the day of the Capitol insurrection by followers of former President Donald Trump, but was not charged with crimes related to the rioting.

After Jones was arrested in Genesee County in March 2022, he changed his thinking and actually worked as a paid FBI informant who infiltrated the Charlotte chapter of the Proud Boys and gave agents valuable information about the organization, according to his defense attorney, Steven Slawinski.

Jones was confined in jail for six months and seven days while the charges were pending. He was released from custody in December, after he was in and out of prison for a serious leg wound that repeatedly became infected.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Moynihan had asked the judge to sentence him to 24 to 30 months in prison.

Jones was evasive when Genesee County Sheriffs Office deputies pulled over his car for a traffic infraction in the Town of LeRoy and asked him if he had any firearms.

He could not legally own a gun because he had been convicted of two felonies in North Carolina for having sexual contact with a minor.

Deputies found in his car the AR-15, bolt cutters, a box of ammunition, pepper spray, knives, pry bars, a piece of paper featuring the Russian alphabet, compound archery bows, hand-held radios, ready-to-eat meals and the Army Tactical Combat Casualty Care handbook.
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(Kitco News) - Peter Marrone, chairman and CEO of Allied Gold, says the current setup for the company is similar to Yamana Gold, which he built and sold earlier this year to Pan American Silver and Agnico Eagle Mines.

Marrone spoke to Kitco mid-September at the Gold Forum Americas 2023 held in Colorado Springs, CO.

"Not dissimilar to 2003 with Yamana, they were assets that had been known but forgotten about that had development plans that were far better than people anticipated and the same is true here," he said. "The difference in this case is that the production platform is substantially greater."

Allied Gold has two producing mines, Sadiola in Mali and the Cote d'Ivoire Complex, at about 350,000 ounces annual output, but Marrone says there is potential for significantly higher production.

"Based on proven and probable reserves alone, we get to over 700,000 ounces by 2029 with a step up in 2026, but that number is likely going to be a lot higher than that because what we saw as part of our due diligence is that there's gold everywhere, so we expect that the proven and probable will increase. That gets us closer to 800,000 ounces production, that's not a big leap to go from 800,000 ounces all the way through to a million."

He noted that Yamana's production went from 84,000 oz in 2003 to 1Moz in 2023.

Marrone said gold equities are trading "as if the gold price is not $1,900. I think that we're in this perfect storm of precious metal prices going higher but the equities following suit and frankly probably doing better than precious metals."

Kitco Mining's coverage of the Gold Forum Americas 2023 was sponsored by Metalla Royalty & Streaming Ltd.
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(Kitco News) - Shares of lithium explorer and developer Argentina Lithium & Energy (TSX-V: LIT) (OTC: PNXLF) soared today after the company announced a US$90 million investment by automaker Stellantis.

According to the company, pursuant to the transaction, Peugeot Citroen Argentina S.A., a subsidiary of Stellantis N.V., has agreed to invest the ARS$ equivalent of US$90 million in Argentina to acquire shares of Argentina Litio y Energia S.A. (ALE).

Further, the company said it has granted Stellantis the exchange right to exchange all of the ALE shares for up to 19.9% of the outstanding common shares of Argentina Lithium (on an undiluted basis) in the future, subject to certain conditions.

As a result of the transaction, Stellantis will own 19.9% of the issued and outstanding ALE shares and Argentina Lithium will own 80.1%.

Argentina Lithium said that the proceeds of the transaction will be used to advance development of the companys lithium projects held through its wholly owned subsidiary in Argentina, and for general corporate purposes.

Importantly, according to the press release, Argentina Lithium and Stellantis will also enter into a lithium offtake agreement, pursuant to which ALE has agreed to sell to Stellantis up to 15,000 tonnes per annum of lithium produced by ALE over a seven-year period.

The company said that after the initial seven-year term, the offtake agreement may be extended by mutual agreement for an additional number of years, adding that the price of lithium products sold by ALE under the offtake agreement will be based on an agreed market-based price formula at the time of each shipment.

Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp is focused on acquiring high quality lithium projects in Argentina and advancing them toward production in order to meet the growing global demand from the battery sector.

Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA) is one of the world's leading automakers and a mobility provider.
Sept 27 (Reuters) - Chinese regional lender Shengjing Bank (2066.HK) said on Wednesday it has agreed to sell a portfolio of assets, including certain loans and investments, among others, for 176 billion yuan ($24.07 billion) to Liaoning Asset Management.

Liaoning Asset will fund the purchase of assets by issuing special-purpose notes to the bank, the lender said.

The bank, based in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, expects an unaudited provision for impairment of about 7.7 billion yuan, it said, adding that the deal will improve its asset quality and lower non-performing loan ratio.

Over 70% of the assets to be disposed are loans and the remainer include asset management plans, corporate bonds and deposits with banks, Shengjing bank said.

Liaoning Asset, which focuses on transactions of non-performing assets of financial institutions, is a unit of Liaoning Financial Holding owned by the finance authority in the Chinese province of Liaoning, where Shengjing Bank is based.

Last month, Shengjing Bank reported a 21.8% drop in its net profit attributable for half-year to 737.9 million yuan. Its net interest income for six months slipped 1.3% to 15.32 billion yuan.

The non-performing loan ratio was 3.17% as of end June.

The bank's net interest margin - a key gauge of profitability - stood at 1.22% in the Jan-June period, versus 1.30% a year ago, according to its half-yearly report.

($1 = 7.3105 Chinese yuan renminbi)
WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday rejected a stopgap funding bill advancing in the Senate, bringing Washington closer to its fourth partial shutdown of the U.S. government in a decade with just four days to go.

That would lead to the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the suspension of a wide range of government services, from economic data releases to nutrition benefits, until Congress manages to pass a funding bill that President Joe Biden, a Democrat, would sign into law.

The Senate plan, which advanced on a wide bipartisan margin on Tuesday, would fund the government through Nov. 17, giving lawmakers more time to agree on funding levels for the full fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

McCarthy's House of Representatives was focusing its efforts on trying to agree on more of the 12 separate full-year funding bills, of which they have so far passed one.

"I don't see the support in the House" for the Senate plan, McCarthy said, though the bill has the support of Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

"The president should step in and do something about it; otherwise the government will shut down," McCarthy told reporters.

The House was expected to vote late into the night on amendments to specific funding bills, though even if all four of those bills were to be signed into law by Saturday, on their own they would not be enough to prevent a partial government shutdown.

Weeks ago, Biden urged Congress to pass a short-term extension of fiscal 2023 spending, along with emergency aid to help state and local governments cope with natural disasters and help Ukraine in its war against Russia. He also sought new border security funding.

The standoff has begun to attract the attention of ratings agencies, with both Moody's and Fitch warning it could damage the federal government's credit-worthiness.

House Republicans want much tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico and deeper spending cuts than were enacted in June.

CALL FOR BIPARTISANSHIP

Executive branch agencies were already making preparations for determining which federal workers would remain on the job -- without pay until the government is funded -- and which ones will be furloughed. Similar exercises were occurring in Congress as well, where thousands of legislative aides and other support workers are employed.

"Speaker McCarthy, the only way - the only way out of a shutdown is bipartisanship," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech to the Senate.

The Senate its bill also would appropriate about $6 billion for domestic disaster responses and another $6 billion in new aid to Ukraine.

McCarthy is facing threats from hardline members of his own party who rejected a deal he negotiated with Biden in May for $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024 and approved in June, demanding instead another $120 billion in cuts.

A handful of the hardliners have also threatened to oust McCarthy from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

McCarthy said House Republicans would probably bring their own stopgap measure to the floor on Friday.

It was unclear whether there will be the votes in the House to win passage of it, however.

The standoff comes four months after Washington flirted with defaulting on the nation's more than $31 trillion in debt, a move that would have rocked financial markets worldwide.

Another downgrade of the U.S. credit rating could push borrowing costs - and the nation's debt - even higher.

Hardline Republicans, including Donald Trump, frontrunner for the party's 2024 presidential nomination, have dismissed the risks of a shutdown and in some cases actively pushed for one.

"My advice is buckle up -- there's turbulence ahead," Representative Andy Ogles told reporters after attending a closed-door meeting of fellow Republicans.
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(Kitco News) - It looks as though the first spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) wont launch until 2024 at the earliest as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced a delay in its ruling on the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF application until January.

According to a notice filed by the regulator on Tuesday, as outlined in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Commission is required to issue an order approving or disapproving a proposed rule change no later than 180 days after the state of filing.

They have the option to extend the period for issuing an order approving or disapproving the rule change by not more than 60 days if the Commission determines that a longer period is appropriate and publishes reasons for such a determination.

Since the latest proposed rule change on the ARK 21Shares application was done on May 15, the SEC had until November 11 to rule on the application. The Commission is extending the time period for approving or disapproving the proposed rule change for an additional 60 days, the filing said.

The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised therein, the SEC said. Accordingly, the Commission, pursuant to Section 19(b)(2) of the Act, designates January 10, 2024, as the date by which the Commission shall either approve or disapprove the proposed rule change.

The SEC also delayed its decision on the Global X Bitcoin Trust application.

One positive takeaway from this development is that Jan. 10 is 240 days after the initial ARK 21Shares application was filed, which means that the SEC will not be able to delay its decision beyond that date. The fact that they announced the delay well in advance of the November 11 deadline was an indication to crypto proponents that a spot Bitcoin ETF wont be approved in 2023.

Global X was one of the more recent applications as it was only filed in August, becoming the ninth spot-Bitcoin ETF application to be filed this year. The SEC has until November 21 to make a ruling on Global X or extend its deadline further. If approved, the fund would grant investors "exposure to Bitcoin with important protections that are not always available to investors that invest directly in Bitcoin," the filing said.

The delay comes as the federal government prepares for a potential shutdown brought about by a budget impasse in Congress.

Prior to the announcement of the delays, a group of four U.S. Representatives sent a letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler calling for him to immediately approve a spot Bitcoin ETF, citing the recent decision in the Grayscale case.

We write to ensure the SEC does not continue to discriminate against spot Bitcoin ETPs, the letter said. The SEC is responsible for making certain that products that comply with investor protection standards are made available to investors. This position was affirmed 3-0 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last month in Grayscale Invs., LLC v. SEC. The Circuit Court upheld Grayscales position that the SEC violated the Administrative Procedures Act when it denied Grayscales application to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to a spot Bitcoin ETP.

Based on that decision, which held that Grayscales proposed Bitcoin ETP is materially similar, across relevant regulatory factors, to the approved Bitcoin futures ETPs, the Representatives said, A spot Bitcoin ETP is indistinguishable from a Bitcoin futures ETP. Thus, the SECs current posture is untenable moving forward.

They noted that Gensler has consistently stated that digital asset firms should come in and register with the SEC during his time at the agency, and said market participants have followed up on these statements by filing applications for a regulated spot Bitcoin ETP.

Following the Court of Appeals decision, there is no reason to deny such applications under inconsistent and discriminatory standards, they said. A regulated spot Bitcoin ETP would provide increased protection for investors by making access to Bitcoin safer and more transparent. Congress has a duty to ensure the SEC approves investment products that meet the requirements set out by Congress. To that end, we urge you to approve the listing of spot Bitcoin ETPs immediately.

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart responded to Tuesdays decision to delay with surprise, saying The SEC just came out SUPER early and delayed the ARK Invest / 21Shares Bitcoin ETF filing. This thing wasn't due for a decision until Nov 11. Also delaying the [Global X] application which was due Oct 7.

This may put the hammer down for any hopes of an ETF approval this year, Seyffart added. If they went on Ark/21 shares already, we may see delays on all the other filings too. My base case is that we will get the delays on the other filings sometime this week and the SEC is simply getting ahead of a likely federal government shutdown. I have no idea what this means for the Grayscale/GBTC situation. SEC has to petition for an en banc hearing by 10/13.

In response to a question about his previous predictions that a spot BTC ETF had a 75% chance of approval in 2023, Seyffart said, Likely going down on the back of this. BUT the main catalyst for 2023 has *always* been what happens next with the GBTC court case though. If that can be put off till 2024 the odds go way lower. If not  our odds aren't impacted drastically by this.
An Erie County judge has rejected a request from the family of a slain SUNY Buffalo State student to release grand jury minutes containing the names of the people involved in the incident.

Judge James F. Bargnesi ruled last week that the attorney for the family of Tyler X. Lewis failed to show that sources other than the grand jury minutes would be inadequate to provide the information they wanted.

The familys request also failed to demonstrate they made other unsuccessful efforts to obtain the information, aside from sending a subpoena to the Erie County District Attorneys Office.

The request failed to set forth the compelling and particularized need necessary to overcome the presumption of confidentiality, Bargnesi said in his written ruling issued Thursday.

Lewis, 19, of Long Island, was fatally stabbed at the University at Buffalos North Campus. He was a sophomore at Buffalo State.

District Attorney John Flynn announced in March that no charges would be brought in the case. He said the man who stabbed Lewis was defending himself because he was being assaulted by a group that included Lewis.

Earlier this month, members of Tyler Lewis family and more than 20 demonstrators held a protest outside the Erie County courthouse and then inside the waiting area of the District Attorneys Office.

Later that day, the District Attorneys Office announced it had reached an agreement with the family that it would not oppose the familys request for the purpose of revealing the names.

The agreement with the family had been made months before the announcement, a spokeswoman for the district attorneys office said.

Roquishia and Terence Lewis, Tylers parents, filed a civil lawsuit against Buffalo State and UB in which they accused the schools of failing to provide a safe learning environment.

In its response to the suit, the State Attorney Generals Office offered several defenses, including that Lewis own conduct contributed to his death.
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(Kitco News) - Uranium developer Denison Mines (TSX: DML) (NYSE: DNN) today announced the signing of a landmark" shared prosperity agreement (SPA) with English River First Nation (ERFN) supporting the development and operation of Denison's Wheeler River project in northern Saskatchewan.

The company said in a press release that the SPA received support from a substantial majority of ERFN Members who participated in a ratification vote on its key terms.

The signing of the SPA follows years of active engagement, including a four-month-long ERFN-led community consultation process ahead of the ratification vote, and represents a significant milestone in the history of both Denison's relationship with ERFN and the project," it added.

Importantly, Denison noted that the SPA acknowledges that the project is located within ERFN's Ancestral Lands and provides the company with ERFN's consent to advance the project.

Additionally, the SPA outlines a shared recognition that ERFN is the Knowledge Keeper of the culture, ways, customs, and values of ERFN in relation to the environment and its Members and reflects ERFN's desire to prioritize sustainability.

Amongst other key commitments, the SPA provides ERFN and its Members with an important role in environmental monitoring and management, and benefits from community investment, business opportunities, employment and training opportunities, and financial compensation.

Overall, the SPA describes a mutual commitment to maintain an open, respectful, and cooperative relationship between Denison and ERFN to ensure mutual prosperity as the development and operation of the project progresses," Denison said.

Acting Chief Jenny Wolverine stated, "On behalf of ERFN I would like to express my gratitude for the patience, diligence, and perseverance shown by all participants throughout the negotiation process. This agreement stands as a testament to meaningful collaboration and mutual respect. We worked hard to secure the best team to support ERFN through these negotiations. This included strong legal counsel to negotiate the agreement, scientists to help us understand the environmental impacts, and consultants to review the impacts and benefits of the Wheeler River project. Together we built a strong deal for the Nation.

We are confident that based on the size of the project and current best practices we have one of the best agreements in the entire country. As a Nation, we are now turning our attention to building our capacity for employment and training, so we are ready for the Wheeler River project and the full implementation of this important partnership," she added.

Denison is a uranium exploration and development company with interests focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Wheeler River is the largest undeveloped uranium project in the infrastructure-rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan. The project is host to the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits, discovered by Denison in 2008 and 2014, respectively.

The company said that permitting efforts for the planned Phoenix ISR operation commenced in 2019 and have advanced significantly, with licensing in progress and a draft Environmental Impact Statement submitted for regulatory and public review in October 2022.
A Buffalo man who bit a detective sergeants hand as he was being arrested on a bench warrant has pleaded guilty to a felony charge, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announced.

Christopher Andino, 26, entered his plea to second-degree attempted assault before Erie County Court Judge Suzanne Maxwell Barnes. He faces a maximum of four years in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 30. He was ordered held without bail.

The biting incident occurred on the afternoon of April 11 in the 100 block of Herkimer Street as officers struggled to take Andino into custody after he refused to comply with several commands.

The bench warrant had been issued after Andino stopped attending a judicial diversion court program that he had been ordered to take after he pleaded guilty to a Nov. 26, 2021, break-in at a business on Grant Street.

Had he completed the diversion program, his burglary charge would have been reduced to a misdemeanor, Flynn noted. Following his arrest, the District Attorneys Office requested that he should be sentenced on his original plea. He is scheduled to return to court Oct. 23 for further proceedings in that case.

- Dale Anderson
Yesterday's Curia Poll on Auckland Central had Mahesh Muralidhar just behind Chloe Swarbrick 24% to 26%  with 29% of the vote undecided. (NB: Felix Poole is no relation).

A win for Muralidhar can only be a good thing for the families of Auckland Central (that includes Waiheke Island).

The educational need in the area is massive  both for families living in the area and for parents who commute in and have virtually no central options for their children. Many have to leave very early for drop-offs elsewhere and much more need for after-school care back near their homes.

Swarbrick states that she is neuro-diverse. Throughout her first few years at school Swarbrick says she was relatively decent, but she says the wheels fell off in her later years.

i was stunned to see her begin to debate David Seymour on a recent AM show about education provision. The greens have  for a very long time  been, at best, disinterested in education (although they have a love for indoctrination). I was stunned with Swarbrick because within the last six years I have been involved in an application for a Designated Character School near an Auckland city transport hub for 480  ten to fifteen year old  students and with a model that suits those who can be classified as neuro diverse. This would be a partial solution to both problems state above. Seeing how the media paints Swarbrick as big hearted I reached out to her on behalf of these young people  thinking that she would only be able to see good and would advocate to government/the Ministry of Education on their behalf.

She choose not to actively advocate because (in an email to me):



I know you have other political allies who are also fighting this fight for you. You know that you have multiple times issued press releases and public commentary attacking me and the Greens.

I most certainly had spoken against the 2020 Cannabis referendum. To have used that as a reason not to advocate for a high quality new school for young people is/was inexcusable. She also clearly did not understand that the Designated Character School would be free for those attending. She wrote: In the middle of all of that are children and young people, who deserve a high quality, free education. That is where our focus lies.

I am well aware that she will get in on the list anyway (unless the Green vote collapses)  but  to those 29% undecided in Auckland Central, please vote for Mahesh Muralidhar as your electorate MP.

Alwyn Poole

Innovative Education Consultant

Cambridge Festival of Sport

www.innovativeeducation.co.nz

www.cambridgefestivalofsport.co.nz

www. alwynpoole.substack.com

www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

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Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Some passing clouds. Low around 25F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some passing clouds. Low around 25F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
When FeedMore WNY announced plans to build a new home in Hamburg this summer, fundraising for the nearly $100 million project was already well underway.

Thanks to state, federal, corporate and foundation donors, FeedMores capital campaign has raised $63.3 million, almost two-thirds of the cost to construct a 198,000-square-foot facility that will solve a serious space crunch with room to grow on a 74-acre campus, organizers announced Wednesday.

Now FeedMore is asking the public to help raise the remaining $33.7 million needed to break ground on the project next spring.

Campaign co-chair Lou Jacobs, CEO of Delaware North, announced his company will match individual donations up to a total of $250,000 on top of the $1 million Delaware North has already contributed.

The food service company is also toasting the cause by creating a signature cocktail, the 716 Spritz, to be sold during October at its venues including the KeyBank Center, Highmark Stadium and Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. The adult beverage includes a Buffalo favorite flavor, loganberry, and $1 per drink will go to the FeedMore capital campaign, Jacobs said.

FeedMores centralized hub on 74 acres in Hamburg will solve several space problems that are hampering its ability to meet the needs of food-challenged families and homebound individuals in Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties, said FeedMore president and CEO Tara Ellis.

FeedMore was formed in 2019 as a merger of two major emergency food providers, the former Food Bank of WNY and Meals on Wheels, and has outgrown its two separate facilities located 2.5 miles apart in East Buffalo.

Ellis said FeedMore had to turn away more than a million pounds of food last year and is currently renting or borrowing 30,000 square feet of refrigerator and freezer space from other organizations and companies.

At its main headquarters at 100 James E. Casey Blvd., FeedMore has 22,000 square feet of commissary space where dozens of workers staff hot lines and cold rooms to prepare, package and send out 6,000 hot lunches and cold dinners a day to be distributed by 400 partner community organizations in its four counties.

Its warehouse at 91 Holt St. has about 40,000 square feet of storage space for donated food, which it distributes to food pantries, soup kitchens and community centers throughout the region. FeedMores website lists 63 food pantries in the Buffalo area alone.

The warehouse also is home to FeedMores free 10-week job-training program for economically disadvantaged adults, the Readying Individuals for Success and Employment program, which offers warehouse logistics and skills training, financial literacy training and employment counseling as well as transportation, childcare services and post-graduation support.

In addition to more space for programs and staff, the new facility will have much more dock space to allow food to be moved in and out safely.

We need to be able get the food in and then unpack to into freezers and coolers, Ellis said. It also gives us those freezers and coolers that we must have. If we do not have that space, we would have to turn donations away, and thats not something we want to continue to do. And it will give us clean rooms so if we get a call from one of our amazing food manufacturing partners  we can take those products and repack them in a clean facility to go out to families.

This year, Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislators approved $24 million in the state budget for the project, and federal legislators helped secure $2 million in federal funding, Ellis said. Other seven-figure donors of more than $1 million included the Anne Alford and Manson Fiske Surdam Charitable Foundation, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, the David and Joan Rogers Family Foundation and Delaware North.

The Western New York community also helped FeedMore achieve its biggest Food Raiser ever, with more than 140,000 pounds of food donated at the Erie County Fair. FeedMore also could not operate without help from some 5,000 volunteers who put in 105,000 hours last year, which would amount to more than $3.5 million in paid help, Ellis said.

Ann McCarthy is one of those volunteers. She signed on to assist her local food bank 35 years ago and now is co-chairing the capital campaign with Jacobs.

One of the first pieces of advice she received was, You simply cannot solve peoples other problems when they are hungry, she said.

She has since seen FeedMore tackle root causes of hunger through its RISE and nutrition educations programs, and add services like BackPacks for Nourishment, which sends children home from school with easy-to-prepare food for weekends and vacations.

At Wednesdays kickoff, McCarthy related a conversation she had with Mark Laurrie, superintendent of the Niagara Falls School District, which has implemented the BackPack program.

He mentioned the obvious, that FeedMore BackPack program means the children wont go hungry through a weekend, she said. But he also cited data of improved school performance that he attributed in part to the FeedMore partnership.

Besides aiding more food-challenged households every year, FeedMore distributed 250 tons of food on Buffalos East Side in the months after last years racially motivated mass shooting at Tops closed the communitys main market for two months.

FeedMore of Western New York has always risen to the challenges of feeding those who need us every time weve been called to do so, McCarthy said.

We have the right team. We have the energy. We have the commitment to mission, and we have the passion to serve this community as it deserves to be served well into the future, she said. The one thing we dont have is simply the space.
As the planning process heads toward approval next year, there is far from a public consensus on the value of the project to re-create a portion of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Humboldt Parkway, with green space and trees, atop almost a mile of tunnel covering the Kensington Expressway.

Differences of opinion were apparent in the first of two public meetings hosted Wednesday by the state Department of Transportation to share updates on the project contained in a report earlier this month.

A few dozen members of the public in attendance at the Buffalo Museum of Science were about equal to the number of state transportation officials and consultants, many standing alongside large informational placards to answer questions about the project.

Officials led a presentation in the museum auditorium afterward.

I think its a great idea, something thats been needed for a long time, said Malcolm Lott of Buffalo. Its time for something new, something fresh.

I totally agree with whats going on, said Dorene Forbes, who lives on Riley Street, less than a block from the expressway, also known as Route 33. I was here when they dug it up and I hope Ill still be here when they restore it. Its joining our community back together.

The work seeks to reconnect neighborhoods severed by the highway that created an east-west divide when built in the 1950s and 1960s, a period when Black residents moved into the area in large numbers as white residents left.

Critics of the project were also present.

Fix what you have now, said Edward Hughes, who moved to Humboldt Parkway in the 1960s. Its a nice idea, but Im against it because they could use the money to fix the things they havent even bothered in years to take care of. The lampposts are falling, the bridges are terrible, the sidewalks are in disarray.

There are so many needs on the East Side that money needs to be spent on, said Humboldt property owner Enid Wright. She said she questions the project, which carries an estimated $921.8 million price tag.

Eleven acres of green space would cover the new expressway tunnel, extending from Dodge Street, near Martin Luther King Jr. Park from the south, to Sidney Street to the north, a distance of four-fifths of a mile. The project limits extend further, from Best Street to the south to approximately Northland Avenue to the north.

Construction is expected to start in 2024, officials reiterated Wednesday, and take three to four years.

DOT Chief Engineer Nick Choubah and consultants addressed some of the changes to the project updated since the last public meeting in June.

Among them:

The tunnel: The width of the tunnel has been reduced from 150 feet to 114 feet, with each side of the realigned street gaining an additional 18 feet of buffer space.

Trees: There will be four rows of trees across a 90-foot-wide landscaped center median, similar to the historic parkway design. Similarly, tree plantings will also be along the outside of the parkway, between the parking lane and sidewalk. A minimum of 3 feet of soil depth will allow mature trees to grow up to 50 feet high. Tree types will be determined with community input from a list of options.

Air quality: An analysis determined the air quality will be substantially improved. The expectation of increased use of electric vehicles, not factored into the study, will make those results even better. Potential measures to minimize air quality effects include jet fans in three locations, a wall surface to absorb pollutants inside the tunnel, a maintenance schedule to ensure the walls are washed often to remove what is captured, and a longitudinal ventilation system.

Noise: Testing showed the tunnel will reduce noise along the transportation corridor.

The project doesnt call for the displacement of any residences, businesses or community facilities. Traffic on the Kensington would also be unaffected by the proposed changes.

Local street improvements adjacent to the highway and parkway are part of the project to improve vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle mobility. A 9-mile radius of 25 streets, previously announced, would be redone, bordered by High and Genesee streets to the south, Northland Avenue to the north, Wohlers Avenue and Johnson Street to the west and Fillmore Avenue to the east.

City resident James Coughlin said the plan does a good job of reconnecting this part of Buffalo and providing a semblance of environmental justice, especially with the planting of trees and the reintroduction of green space, but it doesnt do anything to mitigate the transportation inequities of folks other than renovating the sidewalks and in the adjacent area.

Pastor Angela Stewart and a few parishioners of Metropolitan United Methodist Church came out to raise their concerns about one of two roundabouts proposed for Best Street, which Stewart feared would constitute a traffic hazard for the nearby church.

Overall, on the surface, it looks good and will have a positive effect, Buffalo resident Andrew Malcolm said. But will the construction get local contractors to participate, and once its all done, will the current residents still be here?

Raymond Jacobson, a University at Buffalo graduate student in architecture, said hed like to see the concrete canyon filled in and the whole parkway restored.

They can reuse the radial system  the roads that are already existing, he said, claiming it could be done cheaper and healthier than whats planned.

Al Carrier, who lives on East North Street, lamented the tunnel wont extend further south, as it once did.

Only a portion of the residents, he said, are getting the experience back.
A photo shows a general view on the opening day of the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva, on June 13, 2022.
US Army Private Travis King ran across the military demarcation line into North Korea on July 18. King has been returned to American custody, two US officials said September 27, weeks after he crossed into North Korea.
BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust plc (LON:BRIG  Get Free Report) was up 0.6% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as GBX 183 ($2.23) and last traded at GBX 182.50 ($2.23). Approximately 124 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 97% from the average daily volume of 4,812 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 181.50 ($2.22).

BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust Trading Up 0.6 %

The businesss 50 day simple moving average is GBX 183.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is GBX 186.56. The stock has a market cap of 37.74 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 1,216.67 and a beta of 0.66. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 0.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.87.

About BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust

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BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust plc is a closed-ended equity mutual fund launched by BlackRock Fund Managers Limited. It is managed by BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited. The fund invests in the public equity markets of the United Kingdom. It seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors.

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Shares of Grown Rogue International Inc. (OTCMKTS:GRUSF  Get Free Report) fell 3.8% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $0.23 and last traded at $0.25. 40,656 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 57% from the average session volume of 94,611 shares. The stock had previously closed at $0.26.

Grown Rogue International Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $42.71 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.03 and a beta of 0.76. The stocks fifty day moving average is $0.20 and its two-hundred day moving average is $0.16. The company has a quick ratio of 0.90, a current ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

About Grown Rogue International

(Get Free Report)

Grown Rogue International Inc, a craft cannabis company, focuses on premium flower and flower-derived products. It produces a range of cultivars for consumers, which are classified as indicas, sativas, and hybrids. The company sells its products through dispensaries. Grown Rogue International Inc was incorporated in 1978 and is headquartered in Medford, Oregon.

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By Ko Dong-hwan

The recent diplomatic summit between energy ministers from Korea and Qatar has established the basis for a bilateral energy alliance that can develop further through trading natural energy resources and transport tankers.

The Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Bang Moon-kyu on Wednesday met Qatar Minister of Energy Saad Sherida al-Kaabi in central Seoul. The two discussed how to expand further the scope of bilateral exchanges that have been hinged on energy.

The ministers, meeting at Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, sought potential future trade opportunites in the fields of use of renewable energies and production and application of hydrogen and amonia. They also agreed to make further investments in each other and exchange manpower and technology in the aforementioned fields.

Bang, begining his new ministerial job last week, acknowledged in front of his counterpart how the bilateral relationship has continued based on liquified natural gas (LNG) trade. He proposed the two countries further develop energy trade to include hydrogen and renewable energies and make the relations "more sustainable."

Bang also requested al-Kaabi to support Korea's bid to host World Expo 2030 in Busan.

The annual trade value between the two countries last year stood at almost $17.1 billion, a record-high. Qatar is Korea's No. 2 LNG supplier, accounting for around 20 percent of the country's total LNG imports. Korea, meanwhile, signed with Qatar in 2022 deals to build 54 LNG carriers. The Korean energy ministry said it is expected to sign an additional deal with the Middle Eastern country later this year for more carriers.

Korea imports from Qatar natural gas, petroleum and related products, aluminium and fine chemical ingredients, according to Korea International Trade Association (KITA). This year, Korea has total imports worth $9.3 billion from Qatar up until July and total exports worth $459 million to Qatar during the same period.
CLEBURNE, Texas  Inside a bright greenhouse about an hour outside Dallas, workers in hairnets and gloves place plugs of lettuce and other greens into small plastic containers  hundreds of thousands of them  that stack up to the ceiling. A few weeks later, once the vegetables grow to full size, theyll be picked, packaged and shipped out to local shelves within 48 hours.

This is Eden Green Technology, one of the latest crop of indoor farming companies seeking their fortunes with green factories meant to pump out harvests of fresh produce all year long. The company operates two greenhouses and has broken ground on two more at its Cleburne campus, where the indoor facilities are meant to shelter their portion of the food supply from climate change while using less water and land.

But that's if the concept works. And players in the industry are betting big even as rivals wobble and fail. California-based Plenty Unlimited this summer broke ground on a $300 million facility, while Kroger announced that it will be expanding its availability of vertically farmed produce. Meanwhile, two indoor farming companies that attracted strong startup money  New Jersey's AeroFarms and Kentucky's AppHarvest  filed for bankruptcy reorganization. And a 5-year-old company in Detroit, Planted Detroit, shut its doors this summer, with the CEO citing financial problems just months after touting plans to open a second farm.

The industry churn doesn't bother Jacob Portillo, a grower with Eden Green who directs a plant health team and monitors irrigation, nutrients and other factors related to crop needs.

The fact that other people are failing and other people are succeeding, thats going to happen in any industry you go to, but specifically for us, I think that especially as sustainable as were trying to be, the sustainable competitors I think are going to start winning, he said.

Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call controlled environment agriculture. There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. Other growers are trying industrial-scale greenhouses, indoor beds of soil in massive warehouses and special robots to mechanize parts of the farming process.

Advocates say growing indoors uses less water and land and allows food to be grown closer to consumers, saving on transport. It's also a way to protect crops from increasingly extreme weather caused by climate change. The companies frequently tout their products as free of pesticides, though theyre not typically marketed as organic.

But skeptics question the sustainability of operations that can require energy-intensive artificial light. And they say paying for that light can make profitability impossible.

Tom Kimmerer, a plant physiologist who taught at the University of Kentucky, has tracked indoor farming alongside his research into the growth of plants both outdoors and inside. He said his first thought on vertical farm startups  especially those heavily reliant on artificial light  was, Boy, this is a dumb idea"  mainly due to high energy costs.

The industry has acknowledged those high costs. Some companies are seeking to push those down by relying on solar, which they say also supports sustainability. Even the ones most heavily reliant on artificial light that doesn't come from renewables maintain they can be profitable by eventually producing a high volume of produce year-round.

But Kimmerer thinks there are better ways to provide food locally and extend the growing season  outdoors. He pointed to the organic farmstand-oriented Elmwood Stock Farm outside Lexington, Kentucky, which can grow tomatoes and greens the whole year using tools like high tunnels, also known as hoop houses  greenhouse-like arches that shelter crops while still being partially open to the outdoors.

He thinks investment flowing toward new versions of indoor farming would be better spent on practical solutions for outdoor farmers like weed-zapping robots, or even climate solutions like subsidizing farmers to adopt regenerative practices.

Moving farming indoors can solve some pest problems, but create new ones. Without their natural outdoor predators, tinier creatures like aphids, thrips and spider mites can become very difficult to control if not managed aggressively, said Hannah Burrack, an ecologist who specializes in pest management at Michigan State University.

If youre creating the perfect environment for plants, in many cases, youre also creating a perfect growing environment for their pests, Burrack said.

Indoor farming companies counter this by emphasizing high hygiene; for example, Eden Green touts laboratory conditions on its website and says workers closely monitor their greenhouses to immediately catch any pests. They also say vertical farms actually need fewer pesticides than outdoor farms do, reducing environmental impacts.

Evan Lucas, an associate professor of construction management at Northern Michigan University who teaches students about proper infrastructure design for indoor farms, said he's not concerned about the shakeout underway. He said some companies may be struggling to scale up, with problems that come from launching in spaces that aren't necessarily built specifically for indoor farming.

My guess, based on whats happening, is everyone saw the opportunity and started to try to do a lot really quickly," Lucas said.

Participation is down 40% in this agricultural program that protects wildlife, water, and soil Participation is down 40% in this agricultural program that protects wildlife, water, and soil There is less land in the Conservation Reserve Program than there used to be Most counties have seen declines in participation over the past 10 years Grassland establishment and habitat expansion are among the most common programs New changes from the USDA seek to improve participation
New Yorkers dont agree often. Yankees or Mets? Upstate or the city? But two years ago, they made a statewide decision. When asked if they wanted to amend their states constitution to allow for no-excuse absentee voting, they responded with a resounding No. They decided to keep the New York Constitution as is, which explicitly reserves absentee voting for voters who are actually away from their homes or physically unable to participate at the polling place.

But partisan lawmakers, lawyers, bureaucrats and activists do not let the will of the people stop them from imposing their preferred policies. Instead of respecting New Yorkers decision, they enacted the so-called Early Mail Voter Act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law on Sept. 20. This new legislation grants every New Yorker the right to vote by mail, no excuse required. Thats right. Clever lawyers are telling us that absentee voting (by mail) is somehow different than early voting (by mail). This is nothing more than Orwellian language manipulation. When the Albany ruling class wants to evade the prohibition on no-excuse absentee voting, they reinterpret it to allow voting by mail without excuse.

Such abuse cannot be tolerated in a self-governing country that professes to care about the rule of law. That is why Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) is supporting a lawsuit alongside members of the New York Congressional delegation, state and local officials, elections commissioners, voters, and state and local political parties, to fight back against this attack on the Empire States elections.

This is a highly consequential fight. This isnt about whether mail-in voting is good or bad, secure or insecure, or a boon to Democrats. The real issue is whether New Yorkers are still a self-governing people.New Yorkers have clearly expressed a preference for in-person voting. Today, legislators have run roughshod over that preference to impose voting by mail. Tomorrow, maybe it will be voting by text.

New Yorkers have a clearly expressed preference for limiting the franchise to those 18 and older. Willful legislators and motivated lawyers may soon argue that the prohibition on underage voting does not apply to those with the competency of adults. Or what about New Yorks clear prohibition on non-citizen voting? Tomorrow, it could be reinterpreted only to exempt those non-citizens who live as if they are citizens.

Once constitutional language loses its meaning, all bets are off. Equity-based voting where some votes count more than others becomes possible. As does voting by non-human entities like corporations, an idea currently being explored by some jurisdictions in Delaware.The only way to prevent this mockery of the New York Constitution is for judges to hold the line and firmly declare that the constitutional text is the voice of the people, who are citizens of New York and not the subjects of New Yorks ruling elite. Protecting democracy does not mean endlessly expanding the means by which people access the ballot box. It means saying no to the cynical, semantic games of an overreaching political class looking to score a partisan edge by any means necessary.

Derek Lyons is the president and CEO of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections.
ATK

New Delhi [India], September 27: After the critical and commercial hit 'RX 100', super-talented filmmaker Ajay Bhupathi is returning to the big screen with 'Mangalavaar', a rustic thriller. Produced by Swathi Reddy Gunupati and Suresh Varma under the banner of Mudra Media Works, the film has actress Payal Rajput in the lead role. The creators of the thriller drama have announced that the film will be released on November 17th in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.

Also Read | Hardeep Singh Nijjar Killing: Canadian Police Denies Report Claiming Delay in Khalistani Terrorist's Murder Probe.

Director Ajay Bhupathi described 'Mangalavaar' as a rustic action thriller set in a rural setting. "Every character in the movie is quite refreshing. Who is good? Who is evil? The narrative has been crafted in such a way that easy answers can't be found. This is a character-based movie wherein Payal Rajput's character will shock you. The audience viewing 'Mangalavaar' in theatres will experience a different level of surprise. We have decided to release the movie in theaters on November 17th," he added.

Producers Swathi Reddy Gunupati and Suresh Varma said, "Ajay Bhupathi carved a new trend with 'RX100'. And now, 'Mangalavaar' will spawn a whole new trend. This is a film with a difference. The director has attempted something that we have never seen before on the Indian screen. We are sure that, on November 17th, the audience are going to echo our sentiments. We shot the film for 99 days, 51 of which were night shoots. This is a film with top-class technical values. Ajaneesh B Loknath, who is popular as the composer of 'Kantara', has provided extraordinary music. MR Raja Krishnan, who has worked on films like 'Vikram Vedha', 'Kantara', 'Vikrant Rona', and 'Salaar' and won a National Award for 'Rangasthalam', is providing sound design for our film. The entire filming has been finished. We are currently in post-production." The producers added that the movie's trailer release date will be made official soon.

Also Read | Maneka Gandhi Remarks on ISKON: Major Row Erupts Over BJP Leaders' ISKCON Is the 'Biggest Cheat in Country' Comments, Temple Body Denies Charge (Watch Video).

Ajay Bhupathi is the production partner at A Creative Works for 'Mangalavaar'.

Cast:

Payal Rajput, Sritej, Chaitanya Krishna, Ajay Ghosh, Laxman and others.

Crew:

Digital Marketing: Talk Scoop

Executive Producer: Saikumar Yadavilli

Editor: Gullapalli Madhav Kumar

Marketing : Trendy Tolly PR

Dialogue writers: Tajuddin Syed, Raghav

Art Director: Mohan Talluri

Production Designer: Raghu Kulkarni

Fight Masters: Real Satish, Prithvi

Sound Designer & Audiography: National Award winner Raja Krishnan

Cinematographer: Dasaradhi Sivendra

Choreographer: Bhanu

Costume Designer: Mudasar Mohammad

Music Director: B Ajaneesh Loknath

Story, Screenplay, Direction: Ajay Bhupathi.

(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by ATK. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Indore, September 27: Indore bagged the top spot in the National Smart Cities category while Madhya Pradesh was declared 'Best State' at Indian Smart Cities Conclave 2023 being held in the city of Indore on Wednesday. President Droupadi Murmu felicitated the winners of the fourth edition of the India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC) 2022. The ISAC has been organized under the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs since 2018.

While addressing the event, the President expressed her happiness over the increase in the countrys overall investment in urban development. Applauding the move, she said that our country's overall investment in urban development has, over the last decade, been more than 10 times what it was earlier. India Smart Cities Conclave 2023: President Droupadi Murmu Attends Conclave in Madhya Pradeshs Indore.

The contribution of Smart Cities Mission in implementing best practices and developing viable business models is very important, she said. President Murmu also talked about the focus of G20 on areas pertaining to Urban Development. She said that Urban 20, which is a sub-group of the G20, attempted to establish a sustainable practice of connectivity between cities.

Through this, a collective message was also given that the management of cities has an important role in pursuing the priority of sustainable development. Therefore, we should learn from the best practices and business models of the worlds best-managed cities and also share our successful efforts with other countries. Collaboration at local and global levels is essential for overall and sustainable development, she added.

Noting the significance of Integrated Command and Control Centers (ICCCs) in smart cities, the President said that all the 100 smart cities have ICCCs which are taking decisions using data. CCTV surveillance cameras are helping to strengthen law and order today. PM Narendra Modi Is at His Best Now, Says Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma at 'The Conclave 2023' in Delhi (Watch Video).

But there is a need to take more strong steps specially to ensure the safety of women. I am confident that the efforts being made in these 100 smart cities will prove very useful for our more than 4800 towns and cities, President Murmu said. Addressing the gathering, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri shared Prime Minister Narendra Modis transformational vision for planned urbanisation. He highlighted that the Smart Cities Mission embodies the PMs vision for a New Urban India and it is a key component of Indias objective of becoming a developed country by 2047.

Complimenting the city of Indore for its excellence in urban governance, Hardeep S Puri said that Indore is synonymous with winning awards and accolades. It has also pioneered innovations in waste management, carbon credits, digital technology, and public open spaces. Indore has been a model of urban governance and civic participation for cities not just in India, but across the world. He said that the City has set a new benchmark for consistency.

A total of 7,934 projects worth Rs 171,044 crores have been sanctioned and 6,069 projects worth Rs 110,794 crores completed under the Smart City Mission. Another 1,865 projects worth Rs 60,250 crores on track for completion by June 2024.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
PRNewswire

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], September 27: In a pivotal move to elevate occupational health, safety, and environmental standards, Oizom has successfully deployed its real-time air quality monitor - Dustroid - at the world's deepest gold undermine South Africa. Oizom is a leading global company in environmental monitoring solutions with over 2000 devices installed to cater to various industries.

Also Read | Google Pixel 8, Google Pixel 8 Pro Launching On October 4: Heres Everything We Know So Far.

The gold mine, distinguished by its Guinness World Record for staggering depth, has daily operations that see over 4000 miners excavating more than 5400 metric tonnes of rock. Such an expansive operation inevitably leads to massive dust generation.

When combined with the mine's notably high temperatures, this dust can severely compromise the air quality, posing respiratory hazards to the miners. This could impact their long-term health, diminishing their quality of life.

Also Read | Karnataka Road Accident: Four Killed After Speeding Car Hit KSRTC Bus From Behind in Mandya District.

Ensuring the air miners breathe is of the best quality isn't just good practiceit's essential.

Remember when miners used Canary birds to know the air quality on mining sites? Thankfully, those days are behind us.

With Oizom's Dustroid, we are not just talking about an upgrade; it's a game-changer. Imagine a device that doesn't falter, even with particulate matter concentrations of up to 30,000 ug/m3 or when temperatures rise above 40C. Dustroid offers more than just readings, it gives us a clear picture by breaking down the various gases detected within the dust. With automated dust suppression systems, you can automate sprinklers or other techniques to take quick actions and avoid potential hazards.

With the accurate data insights offered by our dust monitoring system, the mine has been able to implement preventive measures, reducing potential health risks for the miners. Reflecting on this landmark collaboration, Jainam Mehta, CBO of Oizom, commented, "We are immensely proud to see Dustroid making such a profound impact in one of the world's most challenging mining environments. Our mission has always been to create safer, more sustainable workspaces, and this partnership reiterates the capabilities and commitment of Oizom's solutions."

In an industry where atmospheric conditions directly impact operational efficiency and safety, Oizom stands out as the beacon of transformative change by providing accurate real-time air quality monitoring in mines.

For media inquiries and further information, please contact:Jainam Mehta - CBO at Oizomhello@oizom.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2220384/Oizom_Instruments_Pvt_Ltd_1.jpg

(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Power couple Twinkle Khanna and Akshay Kumar met UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during their London visit. Twinkle took to Instagram on Wednesday to post a video of their visit to London. She captioned the post, As much as I dislike wearing heels and dressing up, this evening was worth all the damaged toes. @sudha_murthy_official remains my hero, but it was pretty cool meeting her son-in-law, the prime minister :) @rishisunakmp Also put the sound on and hear @andreabocelliofficial Congratulations @anusuya12 and @theowo.london. Twinkle Khanna Earns Her Master's Degree, Akshay Kumar Shares Post and Congratulates Wife Saying So Proud Of You Tina.

Check Out The Video Here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Twinkle Khanna (@twinklerkhanna)

The video starts with a performance of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli at an event. At the end of the video Twinkle and Akshay can be seen posing with UK PM Rishi Sunak. Akshay and UK PM Sunak chose a formal suit while, Twinkle wore a white dress with a leopard design jacket. Earlier this month, Rishi Sunak along with his wife Akshata Murty arrived in New Delhi to attend the G20 Summit hosted by India under its Presidency. He along with his wife also offered prayers at Akshardham Temple in New Delhi during the visit.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Akshay will be seen in the drama film Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue. Apart from this, Akshay will also be seen in the Hindi remake of the Tamil drama Soorarai Pottru which is all set to hit the theatres on February 16, 2024. He also has an action thriller film Bade Miyan Chote Miyan alongside Tiger Shroff and a comedy film Housefull 5 in his kitty.
Ahmedabad, Sep 27 (PTI) Amul does not anticipate any price hike as the situation is "pretty" good this year after timely monsoon rains in Gujarat and flush milk procurement season is starting, GCMMF Managing Director Jayen S Mehta said on Wednesday.

The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) sells its dairy products under the popular Amul brand.

Also Read | Karnataka Road Accident: Four Techies Working With Accenture, Infosys Killed As Speeding Car Hits KSRTC Bus in Mandya.

The situation is pretty good this year because of timely monsoon in Gujarat at least which means the pressure on producers for the feed and fodder cost is not high, and we are entering the flush season of milk procurement, so we are not anticipating any hike, Mehta told PTI.

He said this while replying to a question about whether there would be any kind of price rise in the coming months.

Also Read | Punjab: Doctors Remove Earphones, Screws, Lockets and Other Items From Man's Stomach After Three-Hour Long Operation in Moga (Watch Video).

On the investment plans, he said that they are investing close to Rs 3,000 crore every year and that is going to be there for the next several years.

"with increase in milk procurement and processing facilities also need expansion, we will be announcing a new dairy plant at Rajkotwith a capacity of more than 20 lakh litres per day, and a new packaging and processing units also there, Mehta said.

He added that they would invest at least Rs 2,000 crore in the Rajkot project while several other projects are also underway.

When asked about certain trading partners like the European Union (EU) demanding import duty concessions in the sector under free trade agreements (FTAs), Mehta said that milk is a source of livelihood for more than 10 crore families in the country and most of the producers are small and marginal farmers.

"If the developed countries want to dump their surpluses into our country, it becomes a problem for our farmers and that's what Amul has represented several times to the government," he said adding the government also understood this the core issue and that is why the dairy sector has been kept out in all FTAs.

"India allows import of dairy goods like European cheese at a marginal 30 per cent dutyThose countries do not reciprocate this. It is difficult to export dairy products to EU  The US has duties from 60-100 per centIndia is an open market but here we don't want their surpluses to come at a cheaper rate and harm the livelihood of our small farmers," he said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Good for the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System for joining the fight against those forces that would keep books off bookshelves and reading lists.

It is 2023, not 1923. But it may just as well be an earlier time for the nonsense going on when it comes to book bans across the country. Groups like Moms for Liberty would sooner deprive children of certain books and then have them learn anything about the world other than what they approve of. Its right-wing politics run amok.

Unfortunately, they are not alone.

Imagine: More than 1,200 attempts to ban books from libraries took place last year, according to the American Library Association. The number represents the highest since the association started keeping track of such bans more than 20 years ago.

John Spears, director of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System, cited laws in some states that make it illegal for school libraries to have books on certain subjects on their shelves. The terror he expressed, as a librarian, at such a notion should be felt by any thoughtful person. Spears said many people are challenging books by or about a person of color or LGBTQ individuals.

This is some sort of new reality wrapped up in the political rhetoric that makes anti-wokeness an actual thing, while missing the point altogether. Somehow parts of American society  read: Florida  have slipped into that dark place that bans books and attempts, for example, to make the history of slavery seem like a learning opportunity for the enslaved.

Could any of this be real, or perhaps something one might find in Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451? Looking around in some parts of the country, the worst seems plausible.

The Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System has acted by joining United Against Book Bans, a national campaign to protect the rights to access information. It is also taking part in the American Library Associations Banned Books Week, starting Sunday.

As Spears said, people should see their lives and viewpoints contained in a library collection. Book bans, by definition, shut out whole parts of our society.
New Delhi, September 27: A CBI team led by Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar reached Imphal Wednesday afternoon to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two students days after they went missing, sources said. Photos of the bodies of the two students -- Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) -- who were missing since July 6, were shared widely on social media on Monday, sparking fresh rounds of protests in the state.

The focus of the agency will be identifying the scene of crime, retrieve the bodies besides and nail the perpetrators, the sources said. The team will meet senior police and government officials and go through local intelligence about the tragic incident, they said. Manipur Students Killing: Priyanka Gandhi Hits Out at Centre, Says It Should Be Ashamed of Its Inaction After Photo of Dead Bodies of Missing Kids Surface.

The state government in consultation with the home ministry referred the matter to the CBI which immediately dispatched a team of officials led by agency's second in command Bhatanagar to probe the crime. Another senior officer, Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is camping in Imphal, also joined the team on arrival, the sources said.

The team comprises officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation and technical surveillance. It will also have experts from the CBI's elite Central Forensic Science Laboratory, the sources said. One of the two photos purportedly showed the students with two armed men and the other was of two bodies.

Police had previously said the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off. The last location of their mobile phones was traced to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district, police had said. Manipur Students Murder: CBI Team Led by Director to Probe Into Killing of Missing Youths, Says CM N Biren Singh.

In a post on X, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh had said on Tuesday: "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the state that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." He said the presence of the CBI officers in the state "underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter".

"I have been constantly in touch with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri @AmitShah ji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice," Singh said. Security personnel have been put on alert and additional measures taken to prevent any incident following the photos of the deceased students going viral, a senior officer said. The government has assured people that "swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi".

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi [India], September 27 (ANI): The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the Central Government against the reduction of the qualifying percentile for postgraduate courses in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) to 'zero'.

The petition has been moved by three doctor candidates protesting against the Union Government's decision.

Also Read | Punjab Road Accident: Policeman Killed, One Injured As Car Collides With Roadside Tree in Kapurthala.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav on Tuesday issued notice to Union Ministry of Health and family welfare, National Board of Examination (NBE) and Medical counselling committee (MCC) on petition and directed to file reply.

Advocate Tanvi Dubey appeared for the petitioner doctors.

Also Read | Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2023: Poll Aspirant Chhatarpur Deputy Collector Nisha Bangre Protests To Get Her Resignation Accepted As She Wants To Contest To Become Politician.

She argued that Petitioners are aggrieved by the order of 20.09.2023 passed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, through this order Order, the candidates were conveyed about the reduction of qualifying percentile for PG Courses for NEET-PG 2023.

The Candidates were shocked to note that the qualifying percentile has been reduced to zero percentile, i.e. minus 40 marks across all categories, the plea said.

It is stated that Petitioners appeared in NEET-PG 2023 examination conducted on 05.03.2023 by the NBE and counselling for NEET-PG 2023.

It is also contended that by reducing the eligibility criteria to zero percentile, i.e., minus 40 marks-the very purpose of conducting of the NEET PG exam stands defeated. It also fades away the entire purpose of a National Eligibility cum Entrance test if the quotient of eligibility itself is diluted.

"The Impugned Order is prejudicial to the candidates who had opted out of the second round of the counselling process as it seeks to operate in retrospect, Candidates had opted out of Second Round hoping for a better seat in the Mop Up round that used to be held each year, however, the conversion of seats in the proposed Third round is different and substantially less than the erstwhile Mop Up Round, as such, the Impugned Order has vitiated the calculated approach of candidates in hindsight," the plea said.

It is also contended that the Impugned Order will set a dangerous precedent for any other competitive examination where the entire purpose of having an examination for the purpose of entrance will fade away. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], September 27 (ANI): Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said on Wednesday that dengue cases are under control in the state.

"Dengue cases is under control in Tamil Nadu this year. Till now it's just 4000 cases in Tamil Nadu. Death rates are also decreasing. We do awarness campaign. From October 1, dengue and other fever camps will be conducted across 100 places," the Health Minister said while attending a baby shower function.

Also Read | Centre Notifies Appointment of 11 Permanent Judges in Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The Tamil Nadu government conducted baby shower function in Chennai Saidapet where 200 preganant women participated.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian showered preganant women with flower petals and applied sandle in their cheeks. The women mothers were provided essential items and lunch.

Also Read | Cauvery Dispute: BJP MP Tejaswi Surya Slams Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah Over Cauvery Water Row, Says 'Failed To Handle Issue'.

A total of 200 mothers participated in the ceremony. They were given five types of food including dates for blood development, honeydew with vitamin C, peanut candy for protein as well as flower, turmeric and sugar pongal, mint rice, tomato rice, curd rice and tamarind rice.

"Community baby shover function is been conducted by state government with a message that the governemnt is with them," Subramanian said.

"Last year Tamil Nadu government conducted baby shover functions in which 81100 preganant women got benifited in which 2 crore 65 lack was spent. This year 43400 preganant have got the benifit and one crore eight lack rupees have been spent till now," he added.

Speaking about the benefits announced for the welfare of women, he said "Recently our CM inagurated morning tiffin scheme. In the recently announced free women bus scheme, 2500 crore have been spent for their bus travell. Earlier 40 per cent women used to travel by bus before the free bus scheme. Now after implementing the free bus scheme, 68 per cent women travel in buses."

"A new scheme called Pudumai Pen scheme has been introduced where girl students studying from 6th to 12th standard can get monthly thousand rupees through the scheme. Till now, two lakh 21 thousand got benifited through this scheme," the Minister said.

The Tamil Nadu Minister also stated that on October 5, the Chief Minister will inaugurate the Women Auto driver scheme under which 150 women will be driving autos. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], September 27 (ANI): While the world is now watching the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, when the event began 20 years ago the then Central government did not extend any cooperation and attempts were made to degrade the states image, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday.

"...Those who ran central government earlier used to link Gujarat's development with politics. Ministers of then Central government used to refuse to come to Vibrant Gujarat...they used to threaten foreign investors and tried to stop them (foreign investors) from coming to Gujarat...even after so much of threatening, foreign investors came to Gujarat, " PM Modi said.

Also Read | Odisha Shocker: 15-Year-Old Student Beaten to Death by Friends During Dispute Over Earpods in Rourkela, Two Arrested.

Addressing a programme marking 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, in Science City, Ahmedabad, the Prime Minister termed the 20 years of the summit as a key milestone in advancing the states growth.

"When Vibrant Gujarat was started, there were no big hotels in Gujarat where foreign guests could stay. Even govt guesthouses used to get full and we used even University guesthouses..." PM Modi said.

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"We not only redeveloped Gujarat but also thought about its future, we made 'Vibrant Gujarat' a key channel for this. 'Vibrant Gujarat' was made a channel to increase the self-confidence of Gujarat and a channel to speak to the world eye to eye, the PM said.

Stating that the world is watching the success of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit he said "Vibrant Gujarat is not just a programme of branding but more than that it is a programme of bonding."

He pointed out that after the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, many states have started their own investment summits.

The event was attended by industry associations, prominent personalities from the sphere of trade and commerce, young entrepreneurs, and students of higher and technical education colleges, among others. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Jaipur, Sep 27 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should guarantee that the Congress government's schemes will not discontinued if the BJP comes to power in the state.

Only then he will have the right to campaign here and ask for votes, Gehlot said while addressing a gathering at the start of his nine-day public outreach programme.

Also Read | Odisha Road Accident: Teacher Dies, Students Injured After School Bus Overturns in Nabarangpur District.

Hitting out at central ministers touring the poll-bound state, the chief minister alleged that they do not have any job in Delhi as the prime minister has started a "new system where RSS functionary sits in departments" to get the work done.

Gehlot also targeted Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, questioning his "frequent" visits to Rajasthan.

Also Read | Karnataka Road Accident: Four Techies Working With Accenture, Infosys Killed As Speeding Car Hits KSRTC Bus in Mandya.

The chief minister said that the Modi government should first implement the public welfare schemes implemented by the state at the central level and then ask for votes.

"I would like to request Prime Minister Modi ji that whenever you come next time, these days you are giving guarantee, so you give a guarantee that the schemes that we have started will not be stopped if (BJP) government is formed," Gehlot said.

He said that Modi should say that the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), laws enacted by the Congress government and the Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme will remain.

"PM Modi ji should say this here then he has the right to campaign here and ask for votes," Gehlot said at the interaction held at Birla Auditorium here.

Taking a jibe at the prime minister, Gehlot dubbed him as an "ustad" of marketing.

"Marketing professionals are called gurus. Whether they are a guru or not, PM Modi is definitely a guru. He is a marketing guru in the entire country. You know his language, his style and speaking manner," Gehlot said,

Highlighting the achievements of his government at a rally on Monday in Jaipur, PM Modi had said, I do what I say. Therefore, my guarantee has substance. This is the track record of the last nine years.

Assembly elections in the state are due by the year-end.

Gehlot said, "The steps we have taken, first implement them in the Centre. Then you come here. We will welcome you. And say it that all the decisions taken by the Rajasthan for public welfare have been implemented in the Centre and then ask for votes."

Gehlot said that Vice President Dhankhar has come 5-7 times in one month to Rajasthan and "people understand it well and they will give a reply to it".

"The vice president is moving up and down the. Today, he will visit five places. Four helicopters and five visits. Now that you are coming frequently, doing tours. There is no logic. What is the logic?" he said.

He said that it has been said that the governor, a minister or officials should come as a protocol to welcome the vice president as Rajasthan is his home.

Gehlot said one after the other Union ministers were coming to the state.

"Anyways, ministers do not have any work in Delhi. For work, an RSS functionary has been made to sit in the department. Now, it is up to him and the secretary (to work). Modi ji has created a new system after independence," Gehlot said in a swipe at the prime minister.

He said Assam Chief Minister Hemant Biswa Sarma, who recently visited to campaign in the state and had said that all schemes run by the state government will be stopped if the BJP government is formed, should explain his party's stand on the Cheeranjivi Health Insurance Scheme, OPS, Rs 500 cylinder, Annapurna food kits and free electricity to domestic consumers and farmers.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Anantnag (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], September 27 (ANI): At least four people sustained injuries after an explosion inside a vehicle in the Larkipora area in Anantnag district on Wednesday.

According to officials, the blast took place occurred this morning near a local market, causing panic among locals.

Also Read | Karnataka Road Accident: Four Killed After Speeding Car Hit KSRTC Bus From Behind in Mandya District.

Jammu and Kashmir Police said there is no terror angle in the incident.

Those injured in the incident were rushed to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.

Also Read | Manipur Violence: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge Questions PM Narendra Modi's No Visit to Manipur, Says Violence Against Women, Kids Weaponised.

Further details are awaited. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Chandigarh, September 27: A superintendent of police and two other policemen from Muktsar district were arrested on Wednesday in connection with the alleged torturing of an advocate and another man in custody, a senior officer said. The officer said that under the chairmanship of Ludhiana Police Commissioner Mandeep Singh Sidhu a four-member Special Investigation Team has been formed to investigate the torture allegation.

The SIT will be supervised by Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Jaskaran Singh and will have three other policemen as members. The action came following a meeting of a delegation of the bar association of the Punjab and Haryana High Court with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here. On Monday, six policemen including an SP rank officer were booked for subjecting a lawyer in their custody to torture that included forcing him into sex with a co-accused in Muktsar. Police Brutality: Six Punjab Police Personnel, Including SP, Accused of Assaulting Lawyer in Custody

The case was registered against Muktsar SP (Investigation) Ramandeep Singh Bhullar, Inspector Raman Kumar Kamboj, constables Harbans Singh, Bhupinder Singh, and Gurpreet Singh, and home guard Dara Singh, according to the FIR. SP Bhullar, Inspector Raman Kumar Kamboj, and Constable Harbans Singh have been arrested. The SIT will investigate the allegations of custodial torture levelled by the lawyer and submit its report to the Director Bureau of Investigation, Punjab.

Since Tuesday, when the torture allegations were first reported, lawyers affiliated with the Bar Association of Punjab and Haryana High Court have been boycotting work in solidarity with their colleagues, demanding the policemen's dismissal and arrest. The advocate was arrested on September 14 along with another man following a complaint by the Crime Investigation Agency in-charge Raman Kumar Kamboj in which he alleged that the lawyers had assaulted a police team and tore some officers' uniforms. Punjab Shocker: Lawyer Accuses Police Personnel of Committing Unnatural Sex, Torture in Custody; Probe Ordered

The Muktsar Chief Judicial Magistrate in an order on September 22 had directed police to register a case against the policemen on the basis of the advocate's statement. "The statement of the victim is treated as complaint as per Section 2 (D) of the Criminal Procedure Code, in which prima facie cognizable offences of abetment of unnatural sex and causing injuries in wrongful confinement, causing threat to his life and liberty, shown," the court said in its order. The policemen were booked under several sections including 377 (unnatural sex), 342 (wrongful confinement), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

(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, September 27: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued a notice to the Bihar Government after a Dalit woman was beaten up and stripped naked in Patna. "The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, India has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report that a 30-year-old woman belonging to Scheduled Caste, was brutally assaulted, stripped and urinated upon in Mosimpur village of Patna on 23rd September, 2023," an official statement said.

"Reportedly, she was subjected to torture and inhuman treatment after purportedly failing to repay additional interest on a loan, amounting to Rs. 1,500/- which she had borrowed from a local strongman," it added. NHRC said that it has issued notices to the Bihar Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Bihar. "The reported incident is indicative of the free will with which perpetrators acted without a fear of law, which is a matter of concern. Accordingly, it has issued notices to the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Bihar calling for a detailed report on the matter within four weeks," an official statement said. Bihar Horror: Mahadalit Woman Stripped, Assaulted and Urinated Upon in Patnas Outskirts; Accused Absconding

"The report should also include the status of the FIR, physical as well as mental health status of the victim woman and compensation if any, granted to her. The victim, reported to belong to the Scheduled Caste community is also eligible for the compensation as per provision of Rules framed under the SC/ST (PoA) Act," it added. NHRC further mentioned that state government authorities are expected to explain in the report about the status of the installment of the compensation given to the victim. Bihar Horror: Dalit Woman Assaulted, Stripped and Forced To Drink Urine in Patna; Police Launch Manhunt To Nab Accused

"The victim has passed through a trauma hence, it is also expected from the State Government to intimate whether any counselling has been provided to her," the statement said. According to the police, the woman and her husband had borrowed Rs 1500 from a money lender. After repaying the whole amount, the lender demanded for interest on the loan. Upon, refusing to pay the same, the money lender and his son assaulted the woman and stripped her naked, the victim alleged in her complaint. "It was alleged by the women also that the son of the money lender had urinated on her too. The woman sustained serious injuries and is getting treatment in the hospital," police added. The incident occurred on September 23.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) [India], September 27 (ANI): President Droupadi Murmu laid the foundation stone for the new building of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh in Jabalpur on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, the President urged every person associated with the judiciary to make efforts to provide simple, accessible and speedy justice to the general public.

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She also highlighted challenges faced by judiciary such as large number of pending cases, huge number of under-trial prisoners, need of improvement of infrastructure in courts. About 4.5 crore cases are pending in lower courts across the country and many of these cases are pending for 20 to 30 years.

She was happy to note that the Madhya Pradesh High Court launched a special campaign named 25 DEBT to dispose of cases pending for decades in the district courts under which judges of the district judiciary have been told to dispose of the 25 oldest cases in their courts on a regular basis.

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The President said, This is the country of Panch-Parmeshwar and the concept of justice was present in our rural system from the beginning. On the one hand, it would make the resolution of disputes cheaper and easier and on the other reduce the burden on the judiciary. By using the provisions of the Mediation Act, 2023, mediation would get widespread and institutional acceptance and the burden of litigation would be reduced.

Technology is playing an important role in every field today. The use of technology in the judiciary has also increased very rapidly. While the ease of justice administration has increased with the help of e-court, video conferencing, e-proceeding and e-filing, conservation of natural resources has also become possible due to reduction in the use of paper, she said.

The Government has recently approved the third phase of the e-Court project. The successful implementation of this phase would make the justice system more accessible, affordable, credible and transparent for all stakeholders, President said.

The President urged organisations and groups of lawyers to come forward to provide pro bono legal help to the deprived class.

She said, We have to keep in mind that justice does not become so expensive that it goes out of reach of the common man. There is a need to strengthen institutional efforts in this regard.

Empowerment of women is essential for an inclusive India. Appropriate participation of women in the judiciary is important. Women have a natural sense of justice and it is said that a mother does not discriminate between her children, she added.

The President further said, The process of justice delivery is not based on any single mathematical formula and in the administration of justice, along with bookish knowledge, the use of practical wisdom is also required. Other dimensions like emotions, circumstances and sensitivity are also important in this process. Therefore, greater participation of women in the judicial system would also be in the interest of the judiciary.

When the perspective of self-correction by the judiciary comes to the fore, the name of Jabalpur automatically comes to mind. The decision given by Jabalpur High Court in favour of protection of life and personal liberty in ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla case was overruled by the Supreme Court in the year 1976. After 42 years, in the year 2017, the Supreme Court changed its decision and the basic principles of the then decision given by the Jabalpur High Court in favour of fundamental rights have been re-established by the Supreme Court. Thus, in the history of the Indian judiciary, the name of Jabalpur has become a symbol of the progressive journey of the justice system, she said.

The President noted that the new building of Madhya Pradesh High Court would be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities. She was happy to note that a separate Bar Room was proposed for women advocates. She said that this arrangement would be convenient not only for women advocates but also for women litigants. She expressed confidence that the new building, when completed, would give a new energy to the judges, lawyers and administrative staff to discharge their duties with greater dedication, commitment and efficiency. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], September 27 (ANI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday arrived in Jaipur to hold a meeting with BJP leaders ahead of the state assembly polls.

Shah recieved a warm welcome from former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP's National General Secretary Arun Singh, State BJP President CP Joshi, LoP Rajendra Rathore and Deputy LoP Satish Punia among others.

Also Read | Centre Notifies Appointment of 11 Permanent Judges in Punjab and Haryana High Court.

"Union Home Minister will hold an organisational meeting with the party leaders ahead of the upcoming Rajasthan assembly polls," BJP's National General Secretary Arun Singh said.

As the Rajasthan assembly polls are scheduled to be held later this year, the parties are leaving no stone unturned in wooing voters.

Also Read | Cauvery Dispute: BJP MP Tejaswi Surya Slams Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah Over Cauvery Water Row, Says 'Failed To Handle Issue'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also in Jaipur on Tuesday.

Addressing the BJP's 'Parivartan Sankalp Mahasabha', PM Modi said, "The Congress deserves to score a big zero for the way they ran government here. The people of Rajasthan have made up their minds to remove the Gehlot government and bring the BJP back."

He added that the Congress government, under Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, wasted five important years of Rajasthan's youth.

Earlier last week, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi along with party president Mallikarjun Kharge also addressed a public meeting in Jaipur and took potshots at the central government ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 27 (ANI): Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday hit out at Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde over the rainfall situation in the state that has triggered waterlogging and floods at several parts of Maharashtra.

Raut alleged that the chief minister was ignoring the troubles of the people caused due to floods in the state. He also attacked Shinde for his participation in the Ganesh Chaturthi event.

Also Read | 'Senior Bureaucrats Not Listening': Delhi Government Urges Supreme Court To Urgently Hear Plea Challenging Services Act.

"The whole of Nagpur is flooded; parts of Maharashtra are facing drought; why did the CM not visit those areas? Despite visiting flood-affected areas he is busy celebrating the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi with Bollywood and Tollywood celebrities?," Raut asserted while speaking at a media conference.

Further slamming Shinde for going on a foreign trip, Raut said, "What investment are you going to bring to the state? First, bring back the investment that has gone from Maharashtra to Gujarat."

Also Read | Odisha Shocker: 15-Year-Old Student Beaten to Death by Friends During Dispute Over EarPods in Rourkela, Two Arrested.

On being asked about the reason behind the postponement of Eknath Shinde's Europe trip, Raut said the CM was afraid of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Aditya Thackeray and the people of Maharashtra.

"There is no need for the CM to visit foreign countries when Maharashtra is in trouble. While the people of Maharashtra are in pain and agony, Eknath Shinde is busy in celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi with huge fervour', he said in a statement.

The Shiv Sena leader (UBT) also called out the delay in resolution to the onion farmers issue in Maharashtra and said that when the problem is in Maharashtra why is Piyush Goyal calling the farmers in delhi, "what has he done for the farmers of Maharashtra?", he asked.

The Shiv Sena (UBT) MP also debunked the rumours of Sunita Pawar contesting from Baramati. Speaking to ANI, he said "Stop these rumours, it won't happen, we clearly understand the politics of Pawar family and Baramati." (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Jaipur, Sep 27 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda on Wednesday held discussions with the party's Rajasthan leadership here on the upcoming state Assembly election, amid a buzz that two central ministers might be asked to contest.

The speculation comes on the heels of the party naming three Union ministers and four other MPs in its second list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh polls, also due by the year end.

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Shah and Nadda arrived in Jaipur on a special plane on Wednesday evening and headed to a hotel near the airport where the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) core committee meeting started.

Party sources said Shah and Nadda first held a meeting with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje that lasted around 15 minutes.

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After this, the two proceeded to meet senior leaders and discussed constituencies and election strategy. Feedback on four parivartan yatras that concluded recently were also taken.

Union minister and party's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, party's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh, state president CP Joshi, Union ministers Gajendra Singh, Arjun Meghwal, Kailash Chaudhary, leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore, and deputy leader of opposition and former state president Satish Poonia were among those present the meeting, the sources said.

The meeting lasted around three hours.

Nadda and Shah held next round of meeting with party's national general secretary (org) BL Santosh, Pralhad Joshi, Nitin Patel, and Arun Singh, with Kuldeep Vishnoi and Vijaya Rahatkar also present, party sources said.

"The leaders brainstormed on how to win maximum number of seats in Mewar, Vagad, Shekhawati, Hadauti, Marwar regions and eastern Rajasthan in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections," sources said.

"It was closely assessed in which constituencies the party is weak and what strategy is required to ensure win there. Detailed discussions on categories of seats, where the party has been winning, or losing, for the last three elections and where it is alternatively winning, were held," sources said.

"A clear message was given in the meeting that the party organisation is supreme and all workers must work together to ensure the victory of the party," they said.

According to sources, Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal may be fielded in the Assembly poll, along with some other MPs.

Party leaders said ticket distribution and other poll-related issues was discussed in the meeting.

"They also discussed the feedback received from the four 'parivartan yatras' held in the state by the BJP," they said.

On Thursday morning, Nadda and Shah will meet local RSS leaders, party sources said.

Earlier when they arrived, Shah and Nadda were welcomed by CP Joshi and Vasundhara Raje at the Jaipur airport.

The visit by the two top leaders follows a rally held on Monday near Jaipur, addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to mark the completion of the 'yatras' that touched all 200 assembly constituencies in the state.

Hours before Shah's visit, a group of people from Ajmer South constituency staged a protest at the party office against local MLA Anita Bhadel.

"There is resentment among party workers against the MLA and she should not be given the ticket for the coming assembly elections," Shravan Kumar, a protester, told reporters.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi [India], September 27 (ANI): The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted searches at 51 locations in three separate cases linked to the terrorist-gangster-smuggler nexus.

The raids were conducted simultaneously at the premises and suspected locations of the associates of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and individual listed terrorist Arshdeep Singh Dala gangs.

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As per NIA, the raids are still underway in three cases (RC 37/2022/NIA/DLI, RC 39/2022/NIA/DLI and RC 22/2023/NIA/DLI).

As per agency sources, the raids are being carried out at nearly 30 locations in Punjab as well as the remaining locations in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

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Separate NIA teams started raids early Wednesday morning in close coordination with state police forces.

The NIA had registered a suo moto case (RC-37/2022/NIA/DLI) on August 20, 2022, under various sections of the IPC and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 in connection with the terror activities of banned terrorist organisations in India. The agency has been cracking down on individual terrorist outfits and terrorists conspiring to smuggle terrorist hardware, such as arms, ammunition and explosives and raising funds for carrying out terrorist acts in India.

The NIA investigations in the case had revealed that several gangsters having nexus with individual listed terrorist Arshdeep Singh Dala had entered into a criminal conspiracy to raise funds for Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), a banned terrorist organisation. They were also engaged in smuggling of arms, ammunition and explosives for the KTF from across the border.

Dala who has been operating from Canada for the last 3-4 years and has had many terrorist killings in Punjab over the last few years. He has been guiding and commissioning terrorist acts and also promoting terror, violence and large-scale extortion in India on behalf of the KTF.

Other two cases (RC 39/2022/NIA/DLI and RC 22/2023/NIA/DLI) are also linked to gangster-terror nexus naming gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, Goly Brar, Vikram Brar and others in which the accused are charged for assisting and facilitating different gang in targetted killings and extortions in Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab. NIA has so far arrested 16 persons in the terror gangster conspiracy case.

Further investigations into the conspiracy are continuing as part of NIAs efforts to destroy the growing nexus between terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers, and to dismantle their infrastructure, including funding channels. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) India's vision to have ubiquitous coverage under 6G technology has been accepted by UN body ITU's Study Group in its meeting held at Geneva-- a move that is expected to reduce the cost of deployment of the next generation technology.

ITU is responsible for developing international mobile telecommunication standards.

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"In the current meeting, despite resistance and attempts to reverse our progress by few member states, the Department of Telecommunications was able to successfully include 'Ubiquitous Connectivity' and ratify the framework document," an official statement said on Wednesday.

The proposal was accepted by ITU Study group (SG-5) meeting in Geneva held on September 25-26, 2023.

Also Read | Priyanka Gandhi Slams Central Government Over Killing of Two Students in Manipur, Says 'Centre Should Be Ashamed of Its Inaction in Violence-Hit State'.

IMT 2030, also known as 6G, is being developed by Working Party 5D of ITU-R Study Group 5.

India in its 6G vision document, released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has proposed 6G technology implementation should be affordable, sustainable and ubiquitous.

In the previous meeting of Study group Indian delegation succeeded in the inclusion of 6G ubiquitous connectivity into the IMT2030 framework as a usage scenario, enabling high-speed broadband internet for all, including both urban and rural populations for mitigating the digital divide and creating equal opportunities for all through mobile technologies.

ITU, Expert Group on NGN, member, Satya N Gupta said with this acceptance India's 6G vision has got global play.

"The finalised proposals decide on the way technology will evolve. The acceptance of India's 6G proposal has brought the country's vision to a global level and it gives opportunity to the country to participate in forming 6G standards," Gupta said.

This is the first time India has had such a significant impact on influencing the ITU.

"This positions India exceptionally well to drive the definition of 6G standards. It is essential for us to develop a robust 6G strategy that guarantees the incorporation of 10 per cent of India's intellectual property rights (IPR) into the 6G framework," the states said.

India has already secured more than 200 patents on 6G technology through Industry and academia collaboration with support of the Department of Telecom.

"India taking a pole position in these discussions is not just beneficial for India, but also gives the Global South a voice in setting agenda and standards for this new technology which has potential to disrupt the digital ecosystem," the statement said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Phagwara, Sep 27 (PTI) Farmers' body Bharti Kisan Union (Doaba) on Wednesday locked the gates of a sugar mill here in protest against the delay in the payment of Rs 43 crore of dues to sugarcane growers.

The members of the farmers' outfit also started an indefinite dharna in front of the gate of the mill.

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They have been demanding the clearance of Rs 43 crore, which remains pending for the last three years.

BKU (D) President Manjit Singh Rai said they will not open the doors of the mill until the farmers are paid their dues.

Also Read | Priyanka Gandhi Slams Central Government Over Killing of Two Students in Manipur, Says 'Centre Should Be Ashamed of Its Inaction in Violence-Hit State'.

The outfit's general secretary Satnam Singh Sahni accused the district administration of dilly-dallying on the issue of auctioning the properties of the mill owners.

The protesting farmers demanded the registration of a cheating case against the mill owner.

Kapurthala Deputy Commissioner Karnail Singh said Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian has called some sugarcane farmers for a meeting on Thursday regarding this matter.

In August, farmers held a protest to press the state government for the pending payment to the cane growers.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
London, Sep 27 (The Conversation) Venice's history, art and architecture attract an estimated 20 million visitors every year. The city, a Unesco World Heritage site, is often crammed with tourists in search of special memories.

But for the people who actually live there, this level of tourism has become unsustainable. So from 2024, day-trippers will be charged a 5 euro (4.31 pound) fee as part of an attempt to better manage the flow of visitors.

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The city's mayor has described the charge  which will be implemented on 30 particularly busy days in the spring and summer  as an attempt to protect the city from mass tourism.

It comes after cruise ships were banned from entering the fragile Venice lagoon in 2021.

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Both policies are designed to respond to the particular problem facing Venice, which is that around 80 per cent of its tourists come just for the day. Research has shown that such a high proportion of day-trippers  who tend to spend little  pushes a tourist destination towards decline.

So from next year, all travellers to Venice will have to register their visit in advance and obtain a QR code online. Day trippers will then have to pay the fee; visitors staying overnight will not.

Other exemptions include children under 14, as well as people who travel to the city for work and study, or to visit family members. To enforce the policy, the municipal police and authorised inspectors will carry out random checks. Anyone without the proper QR code will face a fine of up to 300 euros (261 pounds).

But some have expressed doubts about whether the 5 euro fee  the price of a coffee or an ice cream  will be enough to dissuade tourists from travelling to this iconic ancient city.

One city politician commented that the charge means Venice has become a theme park, a Disneyland, where you get in by paying an entrance fee.

Certainly the charge is a lot less than Bhutan's (recently reduced) sustainable development fee of USD 100 (82 pounds) per night, which applies to all tourists, and was introduced to encourage high value, low impact tourism.

Research also indicates that strategies aiming at persuading tourists to come at less crowded times do not reduce numbers at peak periods, but actually end up increasing overall demand.

Veniceland'

But Venice has to try something. For researchers, Venice is the embodiment of overtourism, and residents clearly suffer from the consequences  living with the congestion, environmental damage and affects on their lifestyle and culture that 20 million visitors can cause.

This can then lead to a negative response, known as tourismphobia. Another term, Venice Syndrome has been used to describe the decline of the city's permanent population, as citizens feel forced to leave.

Venice's population is around 50,000 and has been consistently falling, from a peak of 175,000. If the population falls below 40,000, there is concern that Venice will cease to be a viable living city.

Those who remain have often expressed their discontent. Well publicised protests have included the Funeral of Venice in 2009, a mock funeral to mourn the sharp drop in population, and Welcome to Veniceland in 2010, which claimed that Venice was becoming more of a theme park.

And while tourist taxes remain popular strategies to address overtourism, their effectiveness remains debatable. Instead, research suggests that a combination of specific economic measures (like fees and variable pricing) and non-economic policies (such as educating visitors) is the best option.

That combination needs to be specially designed for each destination. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution. A report by the World Tourism Organisation on overtourism identifies 11 different strategies and 68 measures to manage visitors' growth in urban destinations.

Barcelona, often seen as a city which has done well in handling mass tourism, has successfully used a well targeted approach. This has included harnessing new technology to develop a data driven management system to control visitor flows and overcrowding. It also deliberately engaged with the public when deciding on policies, and came up with specific strategies like limiting the number of new souvenir shops.

But it did not resort to charging an entrance fee. Venice will be the first city in the world to do so  and other locations struggling with mass tourism will be keeping a close eye on whether such a bold move turns out to be a success. (The Conversation)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Washington, Sep 27 (PTI) The United States has said there ought to be a full and fair investigation into Canada's allegations that the Indian government was involved in the killing of a separatist Sikh leader in British Columbia earlier this year.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said this at a news conference here on Tuesday.

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"They are such concerning allegations that we think there ought to be a full and fair investigation," Miller said, adding, "Canada has said it is committed to doing that, and we believe the Indian government should cooperate with it."

The official was responding to a question on a row between Canada and India after the conclusion of the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

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Canada has accused India of being involved in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. India has termed the allegations "baseless" and said Canada has become a safe haven for terrorists.

"We are obviously quite concerned about the situation in Canada. We have cooperated closely with our Canadian counterparts, and we have urged India to cooperate in that investigation and we'll continue to do so," Miller said.

India remains an important partner of the United States, the official added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, September 27: In a major crackdown, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday was conducting search operations at more than 51 locations belonging to the associates of Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs across the nation in Khalistan-gangster nexus case. The searches were carried out at 13 locations in Rajasthan, 30 locations in Punjab, 10 in Haryana and two in Delhi, and in UP also. Crackdown on Khalistanis: Punjab Police Raid Associates of Khalistani Extremist Lakhbir Singh Sandhu Alias Landa in Ferozpur (Watch Video)

The locations are linked to gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla and their associates. Of these three, Bishnoi is in a jail in Rajasthan and Arsh Dalla is living abroad reportedly in Canada. "The raids are at locations in six states in connection with the three cases related to gangsters-terrorist connection," said an NIA official who didn't wish to be named. Punjab Police Launches Statewide Special Operation To Nab Criminals Linked With Gangster Goldy Brar

"The search operation is underway at locations belonging to suspects associated with Khalistani terrorists, supporters, and related banned organisations," a source said. The raids started early Wednesday morning and are currently going on. As of now the NIA has not officially commented on the matter. Further details are awaited.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 27, 2023 09:48 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
The American soldier who crossed into North Korea two months ago is in American custody, two US officials said Wednesday.
The largest workers union in the banking sector, the All India Bank Employees Association, has called for a series of strikes across the nation between December 4 and January 20, 2024 demanding staff recruitment.
New Delhi, September 27: Homegrown quick-grocery delivery provider Dunzo, set to raise $35 million in funding from existing backers like Reliance Industries and Google as well as new investors, is reportedly laying off at least 150-200 more employees amid severe cash crunch. According to multiple reports, Dunzo is likely to trim its workforce further by around 30-40 per cent.

The company has reportedly informed impacted employees that they would receive their full and final settlements in January. The employees were officially informed of the latest layoffs in a short meeting. The startup has already sacked nearly 400 employees so far this year in two job cut rounds. Snap Layoff: Snapchat-Parent To Lay Off 150 Employees From Augmented Reality Department As Part of Its Reorganisation Exercise.

Earlier this month, Dunzo further delayed the salaries of its employees for the months of June and July, this time to November, amid an ongoing fund crunch. The startup may also vacate its office in Bengaluru to cut costs, according to its co-founder and CEO, Kabeer Biswas. Biswas reportedly told employees that their pending payouts for June and July will now be cleared in November. Happy Birthday Google! Netizens Celebrate Google's 25th Birthday Posting Fun Tweets With Wishes, Images and Messages.

Dunzo earlier delayed salaries to the first week of October after being unable to raise funds. It had also promised employees to pay an interest of 12 per cent per annum on the salary component that it held back from June. The company has raised nearly $500 million to date, with approximately $300 million coming in since early 2022.
On 26 September Argentinas economy minister,, the presidential candidate for the ruling Union por la Patria (UP) coalition, announced the government would give informal workers two pay-outs of Ar$47,000 (US$134), one in October and the other in November.

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On 26 September thousands took to the streets in Mexico City (CDMX) on the ninth anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa rural teacher training college amid further setbacks in the case.

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On 26 September the joint committee of inquiry (CPMI) in Brazils congress investigating anti-democratic acts questioned, the former head of the presidential security bureau (GSI) under the right-wing former president(2019-2023).

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On 26 September hundreds of demonstrators marched in Caracas in support of Venezuelas claim to the disputed Essequibo region in Guyana, against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the two countries.

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On 26 September Costa Ricas Presidentannounced he would declare a national state of emergency in response to a wave of migration.

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Former President Donald Trump may have enjoyed watching his supporters chant "Hang Mike Pence!" as they stormed the Capitol during January 6, as revealed in former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's new book, "Enough."

Hutchinson, who served as an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, grabbed national attention last year, thanks to her testimony before the House January 6 Committee. With her new book, she revealed several more bombshells from that fateful day, including being groped by then-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

However, she also wrote about the president's actions as the pro-Trump mob was invading the Capitol, and an excerpt about one of those incidents was just released.

"I take a few steps back as Mark takes my place in the doorway and strain to listen to both conversations," she wrote in her book. "The TV in the Oval dining room is blaring, and the president is yelling. What's he saying? I can't make it out. I hear him say 'hang' repeatedly. Hang? What's that about? Mark hands his phone back to me, the cue for me to return to my desk."

In her January 6 Committee testimony, Hutchinson claimed that she overheard then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows talking about Trump's reaction to people calling to hang his own vice president. She claimed that Trump thought that Pence "deserves" to be hanged after rejecting the then-POTUS's plan to overturn the election.

According to ABC News, Hutchinson also had other claims in her book regarding the last few days of the Trump presidency. This includes her then-boss, Mark Meadows, regularly burning documents in the fireplace of his office. She claimed that his wife often complained about the dry-cleaning cost of his suits as they tried to get rid of the "bonfire" smell.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Case: Judge Rules Ex-POTUS Committed Major Fraud

Donald Trump Falsely Claimed That Windmills Were Killing Whales

As for Trump, the president was recently in South Carolina for a rally. There, he suggested without giving any evidence that windmills are generating electricity that drives whales "crazy" and forces them to die and wash ashore "on a weekly basis."

According to the BBC, Trump's claims came after several whales died near offshore wind farms off the US East Coast, This sparked hundreds of posts on social media linking windmills to whale deaths. However, those claims do not have any scientific backing as there is no evidence that actually links the deaths to the windmills.

An investigation by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that most of the deaths were more linked to human interaction, such as becoming entangled in fishing nets or being struck by vessels traveling through their feeding grounds.

2024 Voters Concerned About Donald Trump's Charges

As Trump continues on the campaign trail, however, voters are expressing more concerns regarding his criminal charges.

A new NBC News poll showed that while many of his die-hard supporters are unfazed by the charges, even if presented with strong evidence, many outside his base are actually showing concerns. Around 62% of the respondents have shown either major or moderate concerns about Trump's indictments, while only 37% say they do not care or only had minor concerns.

READ MORE:Donald Trump Co-Defendant Jenna Ellis Turns On Ex-POTUS, Calls Him a 'Malignant Narcissist'

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Cassidy Hutchinson on fallout from her Trump testimony - CBS Sunday Morning
Downtown Oakland, California, saw an unusual scene on Tuesday morning as store and restaurant owners organized a strike in response to the surging crime in the area, according to ABC7.

The strike aims to send a powerful message to City Hall, advocating for improved protection and support, enabling businesses to operate safely and sustain their livelihoods.

Many participating business owners gathered in front of Le Cheval to hold a news conference, where they voiced their concerns.

Regrettably, Le Cheval has decided to close at the end of the month due to the impact of crime and sluggish sales post-pandemic.

Participating merchants, echoing the sentiment of Le Cheval, are witnessing a decline in customers and foot traffic, largely attributed to car break-ins, carjackings, robberies, and assaults.

It has reached a critical juncture where insurance companies are reportedly refusing to renew policies for Oakland businesses, deeming the city as "high-risk."

Nigel Jones, the owner of Kingston 11 and Calabash restaurant, expressed the community's stance, saying, "Oakland has been known as a city that is okay with violence and crime, we're not.

Look at all of these people here; we're not okay with this. We want to be safe functional, and return to a vibrant city square."

READ NEXT: California: Family of Bullying Victim Gets $27 Million Settlement

Over 200 Businesses Participated in the Oakland Strike

More than 200 businesses have joined the strike in Oakland, California, to protest the rampant violent crime that is driving customers away from their establishments, Fox Business noted.

Carl Chan, president of the California's Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and an organizer of the strike, emphasized the importance of the action: "If not, there will be more businesses that will close. So we may sacrifice maybe one day, people may close the entire day, or maybe two hours, but that is a time when we have to say enough is enough."

Chan, who himself survived a violent attack last year, pointed to the assailant's subsequent brutal assault on an 88-year-old Asian woman in San Francisco as a harrowing reminder of the consequences of unchecked crime.

Business owners participating in the strike revealed that they have endured repeated break-ins and robberies, with both patrons and employees growing increasingly concerned for their safety.

Call for Financial Resources Amid Strike

In addition to addressing the immediate crisis, the striking businesses are calling for financial support from the city, county, and state to mitigate their losses.

While state funds were recently allocated to local law enforcement agencies through a grant to combat organized retail crime, Oakland, California missed the funding deadline, KRON4 said.

The forfeiture of this financial resource served as a tipping point for many business owners, prompting their participation in Tuesday's strike.

Ryan Dixon, owner of the restaurant Calavera, underscored that the strike was not their first choice but was undertaken in solidarity with the broader business community.

Meanwhile, Chan emphasized the significance of small businesses, stating, "Small businesses are the biggest employers in the city. We're creating jobs, paying business tax, sales tax, property tax, and income tax. We're all contributing, and there should be resources to support the business community."

READ MORE: Bob Menendez Bribery Scandal

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Written by: Bert Hoover

WATCH: Oakland businesses strike over city's public safety - From KRON 4
Laurel, MS (39440)

Today

Mainly clear. Widespread frost likely. Low 31F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Widespread frost likely. Low 31F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.
News / National

by Tarisai Mudahondo

Harare Residents Trust director Precious Shumba urged journalists to approach climate change issues to ensure the flow of effective communication to various societal classes and beliefs.Speaking at a workshop held in Harare today by the Combined Harare Residents Association an the Network for Environmental and Climate Justice he emphasized the criticality of climate change reporting."Journalists has a duty to approach climate change from all angles that addresses different classes at national, regional and community levels henceforth media personnels should understand there is a shared meaning in what they disseminate.Media channels should appreciate the choice of word in reporting climate change to achieve effective communication".He also urged journalists to research and collect data with the help of the Metrological services to yield detailed stories.Speaking at the same workshop Hardlife Mudzingwa from Community Water Alliance urged reportage on reviewing governance around water and civic participation.He also said reservation of wetlands in Harare is key to curb water shortcomings.
Stressing no decision has been reached on a final location, or locations, Bethlehem this week unveiled a way to pinpoint where a new homeless shelter might best be situated.

Mayor J. William Reynolds administration on Tuesday night presented to city council members an update on a comprehensive housing strategy that is continuing to evolve. Its called Opening Doors and is focused on addressing homelessness and an increasing lack of affordable housing.

These are regional needs not unique to Bethlehem, Reynolds and other officials said, as rent and homeownership costs price many people out of finding somewhere to live and many are one emergency away from having no place to go.

The bottom line is people want to live in the Lehigh Valley, they want to live in Bethlehem and as a region, as with most regions of the country, the housing supply has not kept up, Reynolds said. So we are left with a couple of questions about what we are able to do, and our Opening Doors vision explores how to help the most people possible.

Tuesday nights councils community development committee focused on locations for a new year-round shelter that would best meet the needs of Bethlehem individuals and families who find themselves homeless.

City officials first presented the idea of a long-term, permanent homeless shelter last October, projected with 50 to 70 single rooms, four family units, and 10 congregant-setting emergency beds, in addition to on-site services to help people transition into more stable housing. The city is looking to open the shelter but not operate it, with annual operational costs projected in the range of roughly $500,000 to $700,000 that could be supported by grants, private support and additional funding.

A mapping tool unveiled Tuesday night by the city looks at where in Bethlehem homeless people can find the things they need  amenities like grocery and convenience stores, libraries, pharmacies and laundromats; services like transportation, day programs, medical care and recovery centers; and meal centers and food pantries. It looks at so-called walksheds, or the ability to meet these needs within a five-minute walk  an important consideration with Bethlehems hilly topography and for a population that may be traveling with everything they own.

Areas in shades of blue show concentrations in Bethlehem of amenities and services that homeless people need and can easily walk to, as displayed during a meeting of the Bethlehem City Council Community Development Committee on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, in Town Hall.Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com

A weighted analysis of these considerations pinpoints areas along Stefko Boulevard in the citys Northeast, close to Broad Street in Center City and along Third Street on South Side as prime candidates.

(The analysis also exposed decades of city development and zoning decisions that kept some of these services out of some neighborhoods  what Reynolds called the definition of a lack of equity.)

The mapping helps prepare the city to act should a property or opportunity arise to make the shelter a reality, said Sara Satullo, Bethlehems deputy director of community development.

Within the overlap of amenities and services is the existing Bethlehem Emergency Shelter that is open during the colder months at 75 E. Market St., officials noted.

That site poses some problems for the citys vision, however, starting with its congregant setting in which housing and bathroom services are shared. In addition to $2 million in federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds the council budgeted for getting a sustainable shelter started, the city has another $1.4 million from the federal HOME Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan Program. That money, however, is earmarked by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development specifically for non-congregant housing in which homeless people have their own room, sink, toilet and even shower, said Laura Collins, Bethlehems director of community and economic development.

Under those constraints, the city could end up looking at multiple sites for the shelter, officials said Tuesday.

The council committees chairwoman, Dr. Paige Van Wirt, was among several council members to press Reynolds and Collins department on specifics Tuesday night, including a timeline for getting the shelter started. Following the ongoing feasibility analysis, engineering, design and construction would be about a two-year process, Satullo said.

The Bethlehem City Council Community Development Committee is scheduled to continue its public review of the Opening Doors housing strategy at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 10, in Town Hall, 10 E. Church St.

Click here to view the citys presentation from Tuesday night, including the mapping tool that looks at where the homeless shelter might best work. Watch Tuesday nights meeting on YouTube.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
Sen. Bob Menendez came under heavy pressure to resign Tuesday as a surging number of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, including fellow New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, urged him to step aside over the federal bribery allegations against him.

More than 20 Senate Democrats have now said that Menendez should resign, including several Democrats running for reelection next year. Calls for his resignation came in quick succession after Bookers statement, including from the head of the Senate Democrats campaign arm, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters. Menendez has refused to leave office but has not yet said whether he will run for reelection next year.

Menendez, the longtime chairman and top Democrat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his wife Nadine are accused in an indictment released Friday of using his position to aid the authoritarian government of Egypt and to pressure federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend, among other allegations of corruption. The three-count indictment says they were paid bribes  gold bars, a luxury car and cash  by three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the corrupt acts.

In his statement, Booker said that while Menendez deserves the presumption of innocence, senators should adhere to a higher standard, and the details of the allegations against Menendez have shaken to the core the faith and trust of his constituents. He said the indictment of Menendez includes shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing.

As senators, we operate in the public trust, Booker said. That trust is essential to our ability to do our work and perform our duties for our constituents.

Menendez has denied any wrongdoing, saying he merely performed as any senator would and that the nearly half million dollars in cash found in his home  including some stuffed in pockets of clothing  was from personal savings and kept at hand for emergencies. Authorities recovered about 10 cash-filled envelopes that had the fingerprints of one of the other defendants in the case on them, according to the indictment.

Menendez, along with his wife and two of the businessmen co-defendants, are to be arraigned Wednesday.

Another defendant, Wael Hana, was arrested at New Yorks Kennedy airport Tuesday after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges. According to the indictment, Hana served as a conduit to Menendez for Egyptian military and intelligence officials, passing messages to and from the senator and arranging meetings.

Menendezs defiance in recent days is similar to his insistence that he was innocent after he first faced federal bribery charges eight years ago  a case that ended with a deadlocked jury in 2017. As he did then, he is stepping down from his leadership position on the Foreign Relations panel, as per Senate Democratic caucus rules. But he has otherwise made clear that hes not going anywhere.

I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet, but as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator, Menendez said on Monday at Hudson County Community Colleges campus in Union City, where he grew up.

The calls for his resignation are in sharp contrast, though, to his first case. And Bookers call is especially significant in the clubby Senate, where home state colleagues tend to stay away from public criticism of each other. Booker and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, testified as character witnesses in Menendezs last trial.

The increasing Democratic calls for Menendez to resign put increased pressure on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders who have so far stopped short of recommending that Menendez step down. Schumer has not commented on the indictment since saying in a statement on Friday that Menendez would step down from the Foreign Relations panel.

The White House also declined to weigh in. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that the senator did the right thing by standing down from his chairmanship. She did not say whether President Joe Biden believed he should resign from his seat, nor would she comment on how his presence would affect public faith in the Senate.

That is for Senate leadership to speak to, thats for Sen. Menendez to speak to, she said.

Democratic senators calling for Menendez to step down on Monday and Tuesday included Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Jon Tester of Montana, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Peter Welch of Vermont and Sherrod Brown of Ohio all called for his resignation over the weekend. The number of calls from the Senate Democratic caucus was expected to grow.

If Menendez does run for reelection, he will face at least one challenger in a primary: Democratic Rep. Andy Kim announced over the weekend that he will run for the Senate because of the charges against the states senior senator.

And Menendez would likely be running without the support of his party. Peters, who urged his resignation Tuesday, is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which provides campaign support to incumbent Democratic senators and challengers.

Peters said in a statement Monday evening that Menendez is not able to serve effectively. As elected officials, the public entrusts us to serve in their best interests and in the best interests of our country, Peters said.

In court on Tuesday, a judge ordered Hana freed pending trial on $300,000 cash bail and a $5 million bond.

Hanas lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said after the hearing that his client is innocent and has a long friendship with Nadine Menendez that predated her marriage to the senator by years. He has pleaded not guilty because he is not guilty, Lustberg said.

Prosecutors say Hana gave the senators wife, Nadine Menendez, a low-show or no-show job, paid $23,000 toward her home mortgage, wrote $30,000 checks to her consulting company, promised her envelopes of cash, sent her exercise equipment and bought some of the gold bars that were found in the couples home.

Hana also sought the senators help in fending off criticism from U.S. agricultural officials after Egyptian officials gave his company a lucrative monopoly over certifying that imported meat met religious standards, the indictment said.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and JAKE OFFENHARTZ

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Lance Wheeler, a resident of Eastons West Ward, will sell low-cost pumpkins and fall items to his neighborhood out of a vacant warehouse.

Wheeler will sell affordable pumpkins, mums, corn, hay and anything for Halloween at the former Circle System warehouse at 653 Bushkill St. His inventory includes pumpkins of varying shapes and colors.

Its all affordable, he said.

The fall items are available for sale 6 to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Halloween.

Wheeler runs the nonprofit anti-crime organization West Ward WISE. He plans to donate some pumpkins to the Easton Area School District and to share some of the proceeds with the Boys and Girls Club of Easton and the Easton Area Community Center.

Wheeler is also organizing bus rides from the West Ward to Bushkill Park in Forks Township for the parks weekend Halloween Haunts.

A bus owned by the Easton Area Community Center will leave from the center at 901 Washington St. starting at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, Wheeler said.

It will stop in front of Paxinosa Elementary School at 1221 Northampton St. in Easton, then head to the park. The bus will leave every 45 minutes from the community center, head to the school, then to the park and then make the reverse trip.

The last ride from the community center is at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The last ride home is at 10:15 p.m.

The bus costs $5 to ride. Everyone gets a pumpkin courtesy of West Ward WISE, Wheeler said. The $5 price does not include admission to the park at 2100 Bushkill Park Drive. Information about the park is available on the website. The park includes a funhouse, kiddie rides and a skating rink.

Wheeler will set up a pumpkin carving station, candy apples and other activities at the park.

Fran McBride purchased a carousel for Bushkill Park in Forks Township. The carousel opened to the public July 2, 2023.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com

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Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com.
The clock has started ticking on the deadline for a Slate Belt township to vote on a proposed 1.5 million-square-foot building.

Upper Mount Bethel Township supervisors have 45 days from Monday to give written notice for a decision whether to grant conditional use approval to a building proposed by River Pointe Logistics Center.

The township supervisors concluded a conditional use hearing Monday for the project and will likely vote at the Oct. 9 supervisors meeting whether to grant the approval with or without certain conditions.

River Pointe has proposed building the 1.5 million-square-foot facility by consolidating three lots on its 800-acre property bordered by River Road, Potomac Street and North Delaware Drive, also known as Route 611.

The developer already has approved plans to build three buildings on the same three lots that would total 1.6 million square feet.

A River Pointe lawyer said the development company will keep both plans alive as it would like the flexibility to market either three smaller buildings or one larger building to potential businesses.

Conditional use hearings are required by township ordinance for buildings proposed to be larger than 800,000 square feet.

There are multiple uses permitted in the townships industrial zone. Supervisor John Bermingham said he does not want to grant approval to such a large building without knowing what type of business will be operating out of it.

How can we approve a conditional use when we dont know the use? Bermingham asked.

Township solicitor Ron Karasek said it is not unusual for a developer to proceed with land development plans on spec meaning the building will be built on the speculation that it can be sold to an end user without knowing exactly who that may be.

Supervisor Robert Teel said the developer will need to stay within the bounds of what is allowed in the zoning ordinance.

It must be a permitted use by our laws, Teel said.

A major concern expressed by many township residents about the development is the potential for future truck traffic.

Supervisors Chairman Martin Pinter said he does not want to see a large distribution center, like one that may be used by a company like Amazon, go into the building.

However, one of the permitted uses in the industrial zone is warehousing and distribution, so it will be up to the township to construct wording in the conditional use approval that legally limits that use.

Supervisor David Friedman said several of River Pointes escrow accounts have been depleted of money. A developer puts money into escrow accounts to pay for various land development costs like reviews by township engineers.

Friedman said the supervisors should not grant approval while the accounts are in arrears.

Pinter asked River Pointes lawyer to correct the escrow account situation before the Oct. 9 meeting.

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The story of colonisation of Laois is set to be told in new outdoor signs being erected by Laois County Council around Portlaoise.

Laois County Council is rolling out a project this Autumn that commenced in early 2022 to erect directional totems, lane interpretation panels, banners, character panels and Map Boards to the specifications. The signs have or are in the process of being erected. To read more about the project read below. To see more pictures of what is happening tap NEXT or ARROW.



Others try to tell the story of the colonisation of Laois which was directed from the Fort Protector in Portlaoise.

The text on one sign dates to 1530 when colonisation commenced.

"Our ancestors have been living in Laois for centuries. I celebrate the rich stories of our community by playing music and reciting poetry. We speak Irish and have our own laws and customs. The English are threatening our way of life and are

imposing their own language and rules. But our land is protected by the OMore family who fight fiercely against this foreign control," it says.

Another quote from 1599 tells the of the impact and the role played by the Fort Protectorate in Portlaoise in oppressing the indigenous Irish.

My family were massacred and driven from their homes by English troops. I am determined to fight them. This Fort is protected well by soldiers, but we have besieged it a couple of times already.

"Further south, our men, under our leader Owny McRory OMore, have defeated the Earl of Essex at the Pass of the Plumes. There is hope we can stop the English in Laois, but they are setting up colonies like this all over Ireland and even the New World," it says.

The colonisation of Laois and Offaly was part of the famous beyond the pale strategy to occupy lands outside Dublin that were in control of Irish chieftains. The process was notoriously bloody but also saw the two counties named Queens County and Kings County.

Apart from the history signs other information poles are being erected on Peppers Lane, Lyster Square and other locations.
Health services provided at the Abbeyleix Community Nursing Unit could expand further.

That's what Laois/Offaly Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley says he has been told by the head of the HSE who visited the Centre recently.

Dep Stanley said he welcomed the visit by HSE CEO Bernard Gloster which he added also honoured a commitment he gave explore further opportunities to develop the facility.

I spoke with him a number of times early in the summer and conveyed to him my belief that Abbeyleix Hospital site was the perfect location for an integrated Community Care and Health Hub," said the TD.

Dep Stanley said the has communicated with him since the visit on Thursday, September 21 when staff took him on a tour of the Day Care Centre.

"In the past week since his visit, I have discussed with him his observations. He was impressed with the space available on the site, location and the commitment of staff both in the Transitional Care Unit, which is the step-down facility for patients being discharged from Portlaoise and the Community Nursing Unit for respite and the elderly.

He informs me that he sees an opportunity to further expand services on the Abbeyleix site and has requested senior HSE officials to advance a number of areas for expansion and improvement. He has identified the urgent need to have the Day Care Centre relocated in a new modular building and has instructed officials to progress this. This in turn would free up space in the main building for an additional 5-6 beds for Respite or Transitional Care. A new building on the site may also have the possibility of accommodation for more bed space," said the TD.

Dep Stanley said Mr Gloster also visited Primary Care and GP services in the town.

Regarding the GP and Primary Care, he has committed to improving the facilities at the hospital for the local GP & Public Health Nurse. He expressed a strong belief that all onsite services and disciplines therapies etc need to be available for the step-down patients from Portlaoise and Respite patients in the Community Nursing Unit and for those attending Primary Care," he said.

Dep Stanley expressed the belief that Abbeyleix is in a much better space now than it was 12 years ago when it was earmarked for closure but saved after legal and public pressure stopped the HSE.

"I will continue to press the case with the HSE and with its Chief Executive Mr. Gloster, that Abbeyleix is established as a significant facility for integrated health services and community care for County Laois," said the TD.

The unit is jointly governed by Midlands Louth Meath CHO Community Services and the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group. Staff from Portlaoise hospital accompanied Mr Gloster on his visit.
Laois County Council will send a letter to the Transport Minister over NCT delays and procedures.

Independent Cllr Aisling Moran described the waiting time for the National Car Test(NCT) as crazy and said people in some cases are waiting up to nine months for a test.

She pointed out that new cars have warranties of around five years. She also queried the practice of backdating test results meaning car owners who wait nine months only get a certificate for one year and three months, or if their car is over ten years old, three months on passing the test.

Sinn Fein Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley seconded a motion by Cllr Moran. She pointed out that people paying online had the money taken out straight away yet might have to wait seven or eight months for a test.

Cllr Dwane Stanley revealed she had recently waited three months for a test. She said you can phone up and make a booking and pay in cash or card on the day.

There is a huge waiting list for some people, said Cllr Dwane Stanley.

The morning I was down there the place was packed. They really are badly resourced, she said.

Cllr Dwane Stanley said Portlaoise was one of the busiest test centres in the country. Her test was backdated and she said this was very unfair considering the delay was the fault of the NCT.

Cllr Moran said she would like to see newer cars getting more time before they are required to be tested. She also questioned whether the testing staff were qualified mechanics or whether they simply operate off a checklist.

Cllr Morans motion at the monthly meeting of Laois County Council.

She asked: "That this Council call on the Minister for Transport, Mr. Eamon Ryan, T.D, and the Minister of State for Transport, Mr. Jack Chambers, T.D., to review the current procedure regarding NCT testing. The capacity for testing is not sufficient to meet the needs of road users. Can we look at extending the need for a cars first NCT test to be pushed out, so that the capacity is there to test the cars that really need it, also the NCT disc should be two years from the date of the test and not two years from the date the test should have been."

The council agreed to send a letter to the Ministers in relation to the matter.
The government's new defence strategy rings hollow amid a lack of action: that's according to a Kildare-based Senator.

The Labour Party's defence spokesperson, Mark Wall, has called on the government 'to take serious action and provide the Defence Forces with adequate resourcing', as opposed to commissioning yet another report into the Forces.

Senator Wall said: "The government needs to get serious about addressing the recruitment and retention crisis in the Defence Forces.

"It is essential that we have a properly resourced and well-trained Defence Forces."

The Athy politician continued: "The Defence Forces need action, not another report; there is a retention and recruitment crisis and the government is failing to take action.

"It is deeply concerning, but unfortunately not at all surprising, to learn that the number of personnel leaving the Defence Forces last year was more than double the number who joined.

Labour Party Senator Mark Wall.

"The Defence Forces are already struggling to recruit and retain personnel, and the situation is only going to get worse if the government does not take action to improve pay and conditions.

"The government must also recognise the realities of the modern workplace, and recognise the needs of women, carers, and young men who want flexible and remote working opportunities.

"Its time for action and change within the Forces, not reports from outside again.

In addition, Senator Wall claimed that the housing crisis has also had a huge impact on retention: "Many Defence Forces personnel are struggling to find affordable housing, which is making it difficult for them to remain in the service.

"The single biggest threat to the viability of our Defence Forces into the future is this governments failure to adequately address pay and conditions for members.

"This is borne out by the fact that more are leaving than joining the Forces."

"The Defence Forces provide a vital service to the State, and it is important that they have the resources they need to do their job properly," Senator Wall concluded.
Progress surrounding securing school places for children and the provision of school buses in Newbridge is not good enough.

Thats according to councillors present at the latest Kildare-Newbridge Municipal District (MD) meeting, which was held on Wednesday, September 20.

Sinn Fein Cllr Noel Connolly put forward the following motion at the meeting: "That the members of the MD write to the Minister for Education, seeking a meeting to discuss school place and school bus provision within the municipal district."

His motion was seconded by Fine Gael Cllr Peggy ODwyer.

Cllr Connolly told Kildare County Council (KCC): "Many families have been in contact with me regarding school places, and progress is far too slow."

He said that the new school in Monasterevin 'is already at capacity', and added: "The system needs reform."

Social Democrats Cllr Chris Pender also supported the motion, saying: "I know of three parents who have had to quit their jobs in order to bring their children to school."

He further said that he knew of four students who, up until recently, had no option but to study the school curriculum at home.

Fianna Fail Cllrs Rob Power and Anne Connolly pointed out that data gathered by the Department of Education suggests that the population of Newbridge will be met by the existing supply of primary and secondary schools.

In the case of Kildare town, it was suggested that minor expansion of school facilities could help alleviate the present issues regarding primary school places, while it is anticipated that the level of potential increase in post-primary requirements will be met by the current post-primary school and the planned post-primary school.

However, Cllr Power also called for a more streamlined process of exchanging information between schools, in order to alleviate the present issues.

Cllr Noel Connollys motion was ultimately put to a vote, and it was decided that the MD would write a letter to the Minister of Education regarding the issues raised.

Cllr Suzanne Doyle also requested the item to be discussed between the MD and the Department at its next scheduled meeting with KCC.
A Joint Task Force (JTF) comprising members of the Naval Service, Air Corps, Army Ranger Wing, Revenue Customs Service and An Garda Siochana have implemented a co-ordinated operation at sea, which resulted in the detention of a Panamanian registered bulk cargo vessel originating in South America, MV MATTHEW, in the early hours of the 26th September 2023.

A significant quantity of suspected controlled drugs were located onboard.

As part of this intelligence led operation the JTF requested assistance from the Defence Forces and this was provided by the deployment of the LE WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, two AW139 helicopters, one CASA fixed wing aircraft and one PC12 fixed wing aircraft. A team from the Army Ranger Wing also assisted in the operation.

The container ship was tracked by both Air Corps and the Naval Service assets over a number of days and was detained following the firing of warning shots in its direction by the LE WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. A specialist team from the Army Ranger Wing then deployed by helicopter onto the MV MATTHEW via fast rope insertion in challenging conditions. The ARW made the vessel safe and enabled it's boarding by officials and personnel from the Naval Service, the Garda National Drugs Unit, Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB) and Revenues Customs Service.

The vessel was escorted by the Naval Service to an Irish Port where it will be detained to allow for a detailed search and investigation by the relevant State agencies.

The Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sean Clancy commends the efforts of all personnel involved in the operation;

"I would like to personally commended the courage, discipline and professionalism of all personnel involved in this successful operation. This Joint and multiagency operation demonstrates the interoperability of Oglaigh na hEireann, underlining the unique capability that we bring to the defence of the State. The significant intelligence led planning by the Joint Task Force enabled the coordination and execution of this complex multiagency operation. This operation demonstrated the importance of all services of the Defence Forces and their ability to operate in the most challenging of conditions."
In Business of Homes series Shop Talk, we chat with owners of home furnishings stores across the country to hear about their hard-won lessons and challenges, big and small. This week, we spoke with Abby Hetherington of the Bozeman, Montana, store the Architects Wife.

Born in Bozeman, Hetherington has watched as the town grew steadily in the past decade, then exploded during the pandemic as remote workers fled coastal cities. The Zoom town boom, as Bloomberg Business Week called it, caused both rent and home prices to surge more than 50 percent. Of course, that was good news for the Architects Wife, which regularly received designers and customers who needed to outfit entire homes they hadnt even seen in person yet. Ahead, Hetherington describes her business before, during and after the explosion, and discusses welcoming the competition and the wisdom of stocking recognizably luxe brands.

What was your career like before the shop?

I had been working for another design firm for about 15 years, and then I went on my own in 2012. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, and Montana was just starting to blow up a little bit. Our clientele was pretty savvy, in the sense that we would have to travel to source or see anything. Thats what led to us opening up a shop in 2016: We had high-end design clients we had to travel all over for, and none of those sources locally.

The location was a motor shop before it was converted into retail space. It still features the steel braces, wood rafters, brick walls, and concrete floors from its previous life Green Door Photography

Tell me a little bit about the vibe and overall aesthetic.

Its very eclectic, a mixed bag. I love the hunt for antiques, so its a mix of vintage and new. Then we also carry a bunch of more refined Italian lines, like Saba and Gamma.

What is your customer base?

We have been really supported locally. A lot of people love the store, love the items, but it might be out of their price point. So weve really tried to cater to that: We have cash-and-carry and grab-and-go that anybody can havebooks and things. Our upholstery and furniture pieces are higher-end, but we dabble in some mid-grade and lower-end. I think any good designer knows how to mix and match different levels. We try to make sure that everybody can come in and have something. We have a lot of male clients, which is super interesting. Families will come in and sit and stay a long time, touch and feel, and I think thats the biggest compliment.

Whats the neighborhood like?

We wanted to be in downtown Bozeman because thats where the people are. I always dreamed of being in a big industrial building, and this had been a motor supply shop for decades. It still has exposed steel braces, wood rafters, brick walls, concrete floors. When I opened up, the whole town was starting to change. People were moving and things were getting updated. I was really fortunate to get in before the big buzz of Bozeman. Were a block off Main Street, so we dont get the walk-through, but when people come to town and ask, What should we see in Bozeman? at a hotel or restaurant, its cool that people are like, Oh, go check out the Architects Wife.

Hetherington stocks a heavy mix of cash-and-carry goods like candles and accessories so that she can court customers at all price points Green Door Photography

What is your biggest category of merchandise?

Some months we are heavy on cash-and-carry, and some months its upholstery and case goods. Were in a tourist town, so I get a different clientele in the summer than in the winter, and we change the vibe of the shop. Right now, it is more ranch, cabin, Yellowstone National Park, more playful. In winter, we switch to a more sophisticated, modern ski home.

When did you realize you should respond to that switchover?

It was just who was coming in. Its unreal: I see designers in the shop that Ive been following for years. Were getting huge names! [There was] Michael Smith, and Im like, Can I just meet him?

Bozeman had a huge boom during Covid. We had people literally get off planes with a carry-on roller bag, and theyd need to come buy bedding to sleep in their new house. Theyd never been there. We had people buying a whole house of furniture. Thats one thing Ive always tried to be: open to the demographic, the people coming in, and the science of whats happening to the shop.

Regarding the changing demographics, when did it really happen? Was it strictly the pandemic?

During the pandemic, [the Bozeman population] went up 250 percent, which is crazy. We are still 40 percent above where we were in 2019. People moved to Montana, bought ranches, lived in their ski homes. They hired designers, and their designers came in like, How do we fill these houses? We had to shift our product: We couldnt get anything, so we really hit up the antiques market. Luckily, thats always been my thing. I brought in awesome pieces that were way more expensive than I would have [paid] in 2019, but my consumer was spending more anyway.

What is your sourcing usually like?

We go to all the markets: High Point, NY Now, Salone in Milan. I go to flea markets and farmers markets in cool towns I want to visit. We go to Round Top. I do that initial work to find [vendors], and then we talk and I do my ordering directly. Im on the hunt for lines nobodys ever seen. We do a lot of local shopping; we even go through Etsy.

But I learned this the wrong wayI wanted to have these lines that nobody had ever heard of, but name recognition is huge. After the first couple of years, I realized I needed some true-blue lines, [since] people [are often] like, I have a Verellen sofa [in my primary home], so I would love to have another one. Thats the balance you need to have.

While Hetherington likes carrying unique brands, she says some customers are more likely to buy furniture from brands theyre already familiar with Green Door Photography

Will you tell me about a vendor that you love?

We work with a women-run company, Saba, out of Italy. They do a lot of amazing pieces and everythings slipcover, but really tight and formfitting. Its the functionality, given what we do with second homesthat they can take it off and wash it. Sabas really popular in Italy, but they dont spend the money for advertising in the U.S. Theyve been a great partnership.

Another one is [the Belgian linen shop] Libeco. Our number-one category is normally pillows. Libeco has a line thats transitional, with fabric, pillows, bedding, cloth napkins. Thats been something that we look for in a line when we decide to invest with themhow versatile it is.

Its like your clients want you to curate the products but also make them feel cool for having heard of the brands.

Exactly. When I first opened, the Bozeman community didnt really get what we did. As the community has grown, weve had an influx of people from cities because theyre like, You sell Gamma! I have a Gamma sofa, Im so stoked. Or, How do you get Diptyque candles in Bozeman? Those names get people into the shop.

How robust is your e-commerce program?

Weve never really hit that out of the park, Ill be totally honest. Thats a whole nother job. When Covid happened, it took everything just to help the people who were coming through the door. With e-commerce, its like you build it and hope they come. I know theres a lot of strategy behind that, but we have a pretty small staff.

What are your personal favorite items or categories in the store?

My staff would be annoyed [to hear me say this, but] I love the one-of-a-kind items. My antiques shopping drives everybody nuts because it raises our inventory. But I cant stop. Its like, Cmon you guys. If I cant do this, theres no reason for me to even have a shop.

As more people pour into Bozeman, is there more retail competition? Is that a concern?

I think competition is good. It makes you find your voice, makes you focus on what people are coming to you for. There are some really good designers in this town, with great shops, and it was uncomfortable in the beginning. Now we can all support each other and send people to each others shops. If you have high-end things and I have high-end things, then my prices dont look as crazy. It also [comes with] maturity: The fear can make it feel uncomfortable, but Im grateful were almost in our 10th year and were still here.

Pillows are a perennial bestseller for the ski town shop Green Door Photography

Are there challenges to operating in the city, aside from the recently changing demographics?

We are in the middle of nowhere, so if something comes in damaged, there are only two people who can fix it. I dont have five guys to give me a quote. Labor is really expensive. When you have McDonalds [jobs] starting at $25 an hour and Im paying people $50 an hour to take a stain stick to something, it makes that piece of furniture go up. Living in a small resort town, thats the one thing that gets us.

Are there certain dreams or goals you have for the shop?

I want it to be a staple. I want people to count on it when they come back to Bozeman. I want them to come back to us when they buy that sofa, and its seven years later and theyre ready to buy another sofa.

What is your favorite day as a shop owner?

There are two that I love. When you get a returning client and they feel like the shop is theirsOh, my gosh, are these new chairs? The other is when I find these one-of-a-kind pieces that I dont want to sell, but then a favorite client comes in and they see a piece Im obsessed with, and I just know its going to a cool house. Nothing better.

Homepage image: The interior of the Architects Wife in Bozeman, Montana | Green Door Photography
A campaign which can be measured in decades rather than years has ramped up a few gears in recent weeks with a national campaign to highlight the alarming need for a new Scoil Mhuire primary school in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The school has been deemed by the Department of Education itself as being not fit for purpose and now a concerted effort by parents and staff in the school has seen the issue thrust into the national limelight through various interviews in the Irish Times, the Irish Independent and on Virgin Media TV.

These interviews conducted with members of the parents association have been carried out in tandem with an aggressive social media campaign across the platforms Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter).

All national politicians in the Sligo Leitrim constituency are aware of the current difficulties being experienced by staff, parents and pupils in the school which exists in two cramped and overcrowded buildings on different campuses in the town.

Local TDs have supported the campaign and raised the matter on numerous occasions over the years and no doubt with a general election coming up in 2024 the vexed subject of a new school for the county town will be a live election issue.

The parents association has now created a petition with a uniform message which will be delivered directly to Minister for Education, Norma Foley TD.

The petition is available at http://bit.ly/NewSchoolForCarrick

It states:

I wish to fully endorse and support the campaign for a new primary school on one site for Scoil Mhuire, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.

We are very proud of the school which boasts over 500 students, 34 different nationalities and an exceptional teaching staff. I am writing to demand that the Department of Education finally give the go ahead to a new school for Scoil Mhuire to accommodate the growing, multi-cultural population.

The school has been operating on two separate campuses (built in 1958 and 1963) and since its amalgamation in 2013, it has more than doubled its student numbers.

The school is no longer fit for purpose as was highlighted by your department in a technical report conducted in August 2021.

The reasons for this are:

- Overcrowded classrooms

- Damp and cold rooms with mould issues

- Lack of playground space

- Lack of space for a library, a kitchen, an adequately sized assembly hall for PE and creative activities, etc.

- Insufficient resources and space to adequately accommodate inclusion of children with additional needs

- No set down space for parent drop-offs which impacts on congestion for the entire town

- Health & safety issues for children walking between campuses

The children of our town deserve a primary education in a single modern building that offers them a learning environment that is safe and warm and this has been highlighted across national and local media in recent times.

We love the vibrant, harmonious and truly inclusive educational environment that Scoil Mhuire is despite the challenging conditions outlined.

We have waited long enough, we now demand a new school for Scoil Mhuire, Carrick-on-Shannon, as a matter of urgency.
Film-loving teenager Daniel Fee enjoys interviewing filmmakers, actors, comic book creators, and creators of all kinds, engaging audiences with his YouTube channel content, created in 2017.

Daniel has over 158,000 views and 2,000 followers and dreams of becoming a filmmaker soon.

'Wow, I've been doing this longer than I really imagined. I feel like an old miner now", he jokes while remembering the early stages of his YouTube channel.

Daniel told the Leitrim Observer that his passion for film started while growing up close to the deaf community in North Dublin as he is a CODA (Children of Deaf Adults).

He says that film is about connection and feels that the deaf community should be able to explore it more freely.

"Both of my parents are deaf. So, my dad used to take the train from Ballinamore to Dublin, where the only deaf school in Ireland was incorporated. So, that's why he moved from Leitrim. But we try to go up there all the time, at least once a month. I spent a month there during the summertime. Leitrim, it's absolutely beautiful", he says.

With strong connections with Leitrim, he feels the county is his second home - the young content creator always takes advantage of every opportunity to be around his grandmother from Ballinamore.

The 16-year-old film fanatic dreams of shooting his first short film with Leitrim's landscapes as background.

"I am still working on it. I think I have to make a film because I've interviewed so many filmmakers and there is nothing really stopping me. So, I think about this film every day in my head.

"I want to explore deafness in the film, working on the visual side. This is so fascinating because so much of a film is made by sound and images. I want the film to be about a Deaf farmer", he says.

His passion for filmmaking led him to start interviewing film directors from across the world. While remembering how many people he has interviewed over the years, he said: "I used to count before, but now saying off the top of my head, I think I've done 150 interviews. But maybe 200".

Daniel shared with RTE last Friday, September 22, his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when 'Avengers' director Joe Russo invited him to a trip to a Hollywood film set during an interview at Daniel's channel.

Daniel Fee interviewing Joe Russo in his YouTube channel

"This is the biggest interview I've had. I've been a big fan of Joe Russo; he is a great filmmaker, and I got the chance to interview him. I was so nervous. It was mad. My palms were sweaty, but he was the nicest guy ever. We talked for 40 minutes", the teenage film fanatic said.

Daniel said he could not believe it when Joe invited him to Los Angeles. "It took me a while to figure out that he was serious. I was tearing up at the end. It was terrific", he says.

He has attended film premieres, such as the Irish Film and Television Award, where he interviewed about twenty people on the red carpet. "At the end of the night, I was like 'call me Brandon Gleason'", jokes.

Recently, Daniel interviewed Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Martin McDonoghan.

"All my interviews are special to me for different reasons. I love talking with them and sharing that experience. The questions I ask differ from what many journalists might ask.

"I love having these chats because I can get somewhere very interesting. And I try to make it as fun for the person as possible. Every time I look back at them, I feel so honoured. It is so cool", says Daniel.

The teenage film fanatic started creating content with his friend's help, Luke Downey, with the editing process, but all the setups he does himself.

Daniel says he wants to keep creating content for YouTube for as long as possible. "I want to use it as a gateway to get into filmmaking because that's how I build connections. I feel like this is my film school".

Daniel says that his dreams for the future are to keep doing interviews for his YouTube channel and explore more filmmaking opportunities.

"Something that motivated me a lot recently is the messages I have gotten from the deaf community, which has been very rewarding.

"I just do my channel for fun, but I've heard people saying how cool it is for them to get to see me do this.

"Now I am just embracing the journey, and wherever that journey takes me, I am happy to go", Daniel said.
Cydcor Celebrates 11-Time Win as Best Places to Work in Los Angeles





Cydcor consistently ranks as top employer according to survey.

AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cydcor, the global leader in outsourced sales customer acquisition services, announced its 11-time recognition as one of the Best Places to Work by the Los Angeles Business Journal. This prestigious accolade underscores Cydcor's unwavering commitment to its team members and continuous efforts to enhance its workplace environment.

Prestigious accolade underscores Cydcor's commitment to its team members and ongoing enhancement of its work environment

The Los Angeles Business Journal's rigorous evaluation process involved hundreds of companies from across Los Angeles County. It is comprised of two parts: a review of workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems, and demographics, weighted at 25% of the assessment, and an employee experience survey, carrying 75% of the total evaluation weight. The combined scores determined the top companies and their final rankings.

"We hold this recognition in high esteem because it comes directly as a result of evaluations and feedback from our team members," said Cydcor CEO Vera Quinn. "I'm equally thrilled that we have been acknowledged in the thriving and competitive area of Los Angeles," Quinn added.

Proving its commitment to ensuring it is the best company it can be, Cydcor leveraged feedback from the previous year to take deliberate actions to further solidify areas where it is strong as well as make changes in areas that hold significance to its team members.

Cydcor earned high marks from its team members in several crucial areas, including:

Belief in company leadership

Commitment to employee well-being

Company Culture

Diversity and inclusion

Team Member relationships with their managers

Technology, and professional development

Reflecting on Cydcor's remarkable achievement, CEO and President Vera Quinn remarked, "Our business thrives because of our exceptional people and the culture we've fostered at Cydcor is the cornerstone of why we are recognized as a great place to work. I am immensely proud of what we've accomplished."

Cydcor's culture and its journey to becoming one of the Best Places to Work was also recently featured in an insightful article from USA Today found here.

For individuals seeking to join Cydcor, opportunities can be found here. Learn more about Cydcor on LinkedIn and Instagram.

About Cydcor

Cydcor provides customer acquisition solutions to Fortune 500 and emerging companies across a wide range of industries. Through a unique blend of in-person sales, call center support, and digital marketing services, Cydcor excels in building lasting relationships with consumers while harnessing technology to acquire, grow, and retain customers for its clients. Established in 1994, this privately held company is headquartered in Agoura Hills, California. For more information about Cydcor, please visit www.cydcor.com.

Media Contact: Gail Michalak Phone: 805-277-5525 Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Cydcor

26 september 2023 at 18:30

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Driving a Clean Energy Future: PG&E Celebrates National Drive Electric Week





PG&E Advancing EV Technology to Unlock California's Clean Energy Future; Helping to Make EV Ownership More Affordable for All Customers

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In recognition of National Drive Electric Week (Sept. 22 - Oct. 1, 2023), Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is sharing its progress to advance technology that will enable electric vehicles (EV) to serve as virtual power sources to help offset load growth and deliver a clean energy future. PG&E is also highlighting the resources, programs and incentives the company offers to help make EV ownership more affordable for all customers.

Currently, one in seven electric vehicles in the nation plug into PG&E's grid, representing approximately 518,000 EVs with a combined battery storage capacity (6 GW) almost three times more than the Diablo Canyon Power Plant's generation capacity. That battery storage capacity will increase significantly as EV adoption grows in the decades ahead. PG&E is preparing the grid to quickly and safely power at least 3 million EVs by 2030, and is collaborating to pioneer technology that can harness clean energy from solar and wind generation to help power the electric grid and offset a portion of the 70% load growth projected over the next 20 years.

"California is still in the early stages of an exciting energy transformation, and EVs are front and center as we reimagine the energy system for the future. Bi-directional charging technology is available today that gives EV owners the ability to power their homes in the event of an outage or to offset energy use. We are collaborating with automakers and some of the world's top innovators to test applications that will enable us to harness the power of EV batteries as a grid resource to support peak electricity demand periods and decarbonize the economy at the lowest societal cost. The technology will also enable EVs to play a big role in offsetting some of the load growth associated with California's path forward to electrification," said Jason Glickman, PG&E Executive Vice President, Engineering, Planning & Strategy.

PG&E is collaborating with BMW of North America, Ford Motor Company and General Motors to test cutting-edge vehicle-grid-integration (VGI) applications, and is executing the nation's first large-scale bidirectional charging pilots which are testing multiple value streams to enable a wide range of services and study the cost-effectiveness of VGI. The bidirectional charging pilots offer upfront and ongoing performance-based incentives and provide higher upfront incentives to help reduce the affordability barrier for underserved communities.

"The technology we are building today will play an important role in increasing the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG)-free resources powering the grid by storing clean energy generated during the day to supplement the availability of clean energy during the peak evening demand period and overnight. At some point in the near future, we will have millions of EVs providing power back to the grid to help utilities like ours meet peak electricity demand without the need for non-renewable energy resources," said Glickman.

Other Ways PG&E is Supporting California's EV Future

In addition to its VGI work creating a path for EVs to power customer homes and hometowns, PG&E is accelerating equitable EV adoption by:

Continued prioritization of grid readiness and building grid capacity to accommodate new EV demand through a multiyear grid investment plan.

and building grid capacity to accommodate new EV demand through a multiyear grid investment plan. Rapidly accelerating EV-enabling technology by partnering to explore and scale low-cost grid and infrastructure solutions, second-life battery programs, and other technologies.

by partnering to explore and scale low-cost grid and infrastructure solutions, second-life battery programs, and other technologies. Partnering with innovators across the entire EV value chain to build the large-scale electric infrastructure needed to incorporate EV charging systems into the grid.

PG&E is also deploying cost-efficient, targeted customer programs to accelerate equitable EV adoption with the aim to:

Increase access to EV infrastructure, by deploying chargers to support PG&E's customers and setting aside budgets in programs for underserved communities.

by deploying chargers to support PG&E's customers and setting aside budgets in programs for underserved communities. Reduce the total cost of EV ownership for customers through innovative rate structures, like PG&E's Electric Home Rate Plan for residential customers.

for customers through innovative rate structures, like PG&E's Electric Home Rate Plan for residential customers. Increase EV customer awareness by partnering with community organizations to understand local education needs and tailoring tools and materials to drive EV adoption.

by partnering with community organizations to understand local education needs and tailoring tools and materials to drive EV adoption. Seamlessly integrate EVs with the grid, enabling VGI, EV market participation, and grid support.

EV Customer Programs and Incentives

PG&E offers a variety of tools and resources to help educate customers regarding EV ownership. Customers are invited to check out PG&E's EV Savings Calculator, an online resource to browse vehicles, discover incentives, compare rate plans and locate charging stations. PG&E also offers an EV Checklist to help customers get started on the path to EV ownership.

PG&E encourages customers to check out the current programs offered to help ease the transition to EVs, including:

The Pre-Owned EV Rebate Program provides qualified residential customers up to $4,000 when purchasing or leasing a pre-owned all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle.

provides qualified residential customers up to when purchasing or leasing a pre-owned all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle. The Empower EV and Multifamily Housing and Small Business EV Charger pilot programs provide no-cost EV charging infrastructure and resources to help address the costs of installing chargers at single-family homes, multifamily housing units, nonprofit organizations and small businesses throughout low- and moderate-income communities in PG&E's service area.

and pilot programs provide no-cost EV charging infrastructure and resources to help address the costs of installing chargers at single-family homes, multifamily housing units, nonprofit organizations and small businesses throughout low- and moderate-income communities in PG&E's service area. PG&E's EV Fleet Program helps customers with medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in their fleets to install cost-effective charging infrastructure to save money, reduce tailpipe emissions and simplify maintenance.

helps customers with medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in their fleets to install cost-effective charging infrastructure to save money, reduce tailpipe emissions and simplify maintenance. Through its EV Fast Charge Program , PG&E is funding and installing infrastructure at qualifying customer sites to support the expansion of publicly available fast charging stations for light-duty vehicles.

PG&E is funding and installing infrastructure at qualifying customer sites to support the expansion of publicly available fast charging stations for light-duty vehicles. PG&E's EV Charge Schools Pilot is installing level 2 charging stations at school facilities and educational institutions for staff, parents and students to charge their EVs. PG&E helps fund the costs of purchasing and installing the EV charging equipment and networking fees at participating schools, as well as ongoing maintenance and operations.

PG&E's Progress to Electrify Its Fleet

PG&E has committed to electrify its vehicle fleet in compliance with California's Advanced Clean Fleets regulation with the goal to electrify 3,800 vehicles in its fleet by 2030. Currently, approximately 11% of PG&E's fleet of roughly 9,200 on-road vehicles are powered by alternative fuels including electricity.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/ and http://www.pge.com/about/newsroom/.

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company

26 september 2023 at 19:23

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Regnology Announces 30th Annual RegTech Convention on 21-22 November





Regnology, a leading software provider with a focus on regulatory reporting solutions, is proud to announce the 30th annual RegTech Convention, taking place 21-22 November 2023. This year's 2-day convention will combine in-person community events in cities throughout Europe and be virtually streamed allowing for participation around the world.

The RegTech Convention is set to be one of the largest ever held with over 2,000 participants from more than 105 countries expected to connect. To mark the occasion of the 30th anniversary, the RegTech Convention experience will be extended through six in-person community events in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Spain, gathering 600+ industry experts to further explore the convention topics through a local lens.

This year's convention theme is "The Balancing Act of Reg and Tech," exploring how regulation and technology can work together to create a more secure and stable world. Topics in focus include the impact of specific regulations such as ESG, Basel IV and IReF, the acceleration of cloud adoption, and the emerging role and potential ramifications of AI. Participating in the RegTech Convention for the first time is Google Cloud, one of the lead partners of the event.

This year's opening keynote will be presented by former Swedish Minister of Finance Anders Borg who will open the Convention by addressing the broad themes of regulation and technology while sharing insights gained during his time overseeing broad economic reforms in Sweden and broader Europe from 2006-14. FDIC Deputy to the Vice Chairman Brandon Milhorn will lead an important discussion focusing on the critical importance of digital transformation for effective supervision. Milhorn's front-line experience during the pandemic and recent turmoil in US banking sets his panel keynote as one of the most thought-provoking sessions of the conference.

The virtual conference will host over 40 sessions and feature an impressive lineup of more than 70 speakers including top-notch experts from Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Bitpanda, Commerzbank, DZ Bank, European Banking Authority (EBA), European Central Bank (ECB), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Google Cloud, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Moody's, Austrian National Bank (OeNB), Rabobank and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

The first day of the Convention will feature keynote speeches and panel discussions. Regulators, international organizations, and representatives from leading financial institutions will discuss the latest regulatory challenges and trends, exploring how digital transformation can help balance ongoing pressure on cost and efficiency. Day two will focus on Regnology's vision and strategy to drive the future of regulatory reporting, and offer dedicated streams for banking regulations, transaction reporting, supervisory technology (SupTech), tax and insurance reporting.

"The RegTech Convention is a unique opportunity for global leaders in finance and regulation to examine how we can effectively combine regulatory frameworks with technological advancements," said Rob Mackay, CEO of Regnology. "We firmly believe that by fostering collaboration between financial regulators and regulated firms we can create a more efficient and transparent regulatory environment to help ensure the stability and security of the global financial and corporate ecosystem."

The full convention will be livestreamed and available on demand following the event.

To view the full agenda and register for the event please visit www.regtech-convention.com.

About Regnology

Regnology is a leading technology firm on a mission to bring safety and stability to the financial markets. With an exclusive focus on regulatory reporting and more than 35,000 financial institutions, 60 regulators, international organizations, and tax authorities relying on our solutions to process their regulatory reporting data, we're uniquely positioned to bring greater data quality, efficiency, and cost savings to all market participants. With over 900 employees in 21 offices and a unified data ingestion model powering our work, our clients can quickly implement and derive value from our solutions and easily keep pace with ongoing regulatory changes. Regnology was formed in 2021 when BearingPoint RegTech, a former business unit of BearingPoint Group, joined forces with Vizor Software, a global leader in regulatory and supervisory technology. The company is on a continued organic and external growth path, building up as one of the world's most recognized regulatory reporting powerhouses.

For more information about Regnology, connect with us on LinkedIn and X.

Visit our website: www.regnology.net.

27 september 2023 at 03:05

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Horizon Expands Partnership with Connectbase, Leveraging Right-of-Way NearNet Analysis





Long-term customer of The Connected World platform expands use cases to benefit wholesale capabilities

BOSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Connectbase , The Industry Cloud for Connectivity, announces an expanded partnership with Horizon, a long-time customer of The Connected World platform. Horizon , a facilities-based fiber-optic broadband service provider operating in several states in the Midwest region, began working with Connectbase in 2019. After experiencing strong results year over year through Connectbase's The Connected World platform, Horizon is now leveraging Connectbase's right-of-way (ROW) NearNet analysis.

"We are thrilled to provide so much value to Horizon through our Connected World platform and right-of-way NearNet analysis," said Ben Edmond, CEO and Founder of Connectbase. "The tools and processes that Horizon has integrated into their business model enable better automation and efficiency as well as accuracy in their operations. The right-of-way NearNet analysis is a perfect fit for providers like Horizon, giving them insights into their potential network paths."

Powered by location data, ROW nearnet analysis enables users like Horizon to strategically identify opportunities for expanding their on-net footprint, empowering them to make informed decisions and build their networks for the best possible returns. ROW nearnet analysis outperforms the traditional line-of-sight (LOS) approach by offering a more comprehensive understanding of network build paths, avoiding overestimations of reach, and recognizing potential obstacles that increase costs and hinder progress. Connectbase's focus on following the path of connectivity ensures that their analysis aligns with the reality of building networks.

"We moved from line-of-sight nearnet to right-of-way nearnet analysis to be more proactive with the data available. With line-of-sight we ran into challenges to building out the network with physical obstacles like rivers," said Craig Drinkhall, Director of Products and Sales Engineering at Horizon. "When we switched to right-of-way, the location count right sized and we now have a more confident view of our serviceable areas. We've only just begun using this tool and I'm excited for us to take advantage of it more moving forward."

When Horizon first partnered with Connectbase, the team's goal was to create the most accurate possible building lists in real time, and then automate the distribution of those lists with carriers through the platform as well as through a customized serviceability portal. The fiber provider has been steadily expanding use cases with Connectbase over the past four years. Today, the company uses several functionalities of The Connected World to build partnerships and expand networks, to prospect and prioritize opportunities, while automating practices and making network selling more efficient.

About Connectbase

Connectbase is The Industry Cloud for Connectivity. Connectbase is a partner to the industry, enabling next generation buying and selling of connectivity, including automated quoting, and providing deep, trusted insights. Connectbase's industry-leading platform, The Connected World, serves almost 300 providers globally, managing 2.6 billion locations across more than 150 countries. The Connectbase team has built a connected ecosystem transforming network buying and selling processes. Visit Connectbase at connectbase.com and follow us on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/connectbase-us/ .

About Horizon

Horizon is a facilities-based fiber-optic broadband service provider based in Ohio, West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and Indiana with expanding services across the Midwest. Operating 6,000+ route miles of fiber, Horizon provides high-quality and flexible connectivity solutions to residential, small to large enterprise and wholesale carrier customers. The company's extensive network offers high-speed Ethernet, Dedicated Internet Access, Hosted Voice and UCaaS, dark fiber, wavelength, and data center connectivity services. Horizon's long-standing commitment to remarkable customer care underscores its dedication to connecting its customers to their worlds with cutting-edge technology. For more information about Horizon's brand promise, visit horizonconnects.com .

SOURCE Connectbase

27 september 2023 at 09:05

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Brooklyn Brewery and Yolele Collaborate to Release 'Fonio Rising' Beer Worldwide, Celebrating Culinary Heritage and Illuminating the Super-Grain's High Potential in both Sustainability and Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Africa





Today, global craft beer innovator Brooklyn Brewery announces the launch of Fonio Rising a distinctive and delicious craft beer made with the climate-resistant, ancient West African grain fonio, meticulously brewed in collaboration with purpose-driven food business Yolele, whose mission is to bring underutilized African ingredients like fonio to global tables. Led by the visionary and James Beard Award-winning Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery has been working with fonio - which has long been a source of income for the most rural of African communities - since 2019, paving the way for this remarkable creation. Fonio Rising Double Pilsner (6.4% ABV) is an invigorating golden lager that exudes a robust and crisp profile, featuring vibrant tropical fruit notes. The beer will be available at Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S. starting early October, and in Brooklyn Brewery's Williamsburg-based Tasting Room.

Known as the "seed of the universe," fonio - a grain in the millet family, which has thrived in West Africa for over 5,000 years - has gained significant attention recently for its exceptional nutritional profile and culinary versatility, and even recognized as part of the UN's declaration that 2023 is "the year of the millet." In 2019, Garrett Oliver reached out to the esteemed Senegalese Chef Pierre Thiam, whose pioneering food company Yolele has played a pivotal role in introducing fonio to the Western world. Inspired by Chef Thiam's insightful TED talk, Oliver swiftly recognized the immense potential of this ancient grain, embarking on a mission to craft a beer that pays homage to its extraordinary heritage while supporting the smallholder farms in West Africa.

Since then, Garrett Oliver has emerged as the foremost authority on utilizing fonio in the brewing process. Prior to the creation of Fonio Rising, fonio has been featured in a number of limited releases. Last year, Brooklyn Brewery and Yolele's first partnership, Brooklyn Brewery x Yolele Fonio White Beer, was released regionally in the U.S., as was the Brewery's collaboration with Run The Jewels, a beer dubbed 36" Chain. Additionally, in 2021, fonio was used in Seed, Stalk And Root, a dark lager brewed in partnership with U.S. based Cajun Fire Brewing Co. And most recently, in the UK, Brooklyn Brewery teamed up for a fonio session IPA release with renowned impact beer brand Brewgooder.

Garrett Oliver explains: "No fertilizers, no irrigation, no pesticides, no insecticides, no fungicides - nothing. Whether you look at it from an environmental perspective, a social benefit perspective for the farming communities, or from a brewing perspective, fonio is so good that it seems like someone must have just made it up. But fonio is real, and Africa grows 700,000 tons of it every year. Fonio is easy to brew with and gives beautiful flavors to beer. This is very exciting stuff, and I can easily envision a future where fonio is widely used as an everyday brewing ingredient, bringing vast benefits to brewers, beer drinkers, farmers and the planet."

What sets fonio apart is its ability to flourish in areas where other crops struggle. In arid regions near the Sahel Desert, this highly nutritious and gluten-free grain thrives in nutrient-poor soil without the need for fertilizers or pesticides. Remarkably drought-resistant, fonio helps regenerate the soil within a short two-month growing period, resulting in bountiful harvests and providing a vital source of income for rural communities in fonio-farming countries. Fonio can play a key role in our efforts to forge a sustainable, biodiverse food system that addresses the effects of climate change.

Fonio Rising epitomizes Brooklyn Brewery's unwavering commitment to bringing new ideas and flavors to its communities at home and across the globe. Working in conjunction with Yolele, Brooklyn Brewery has created an exceptional beer that harmoniously blends innovation and tradition, drawing inspiration from Africa's rich, thousands year-old beer heritage. Simultaneously, it pays homage to and financially rewards the relentless efforts of predominantly female-led smallholder farms in West Africa, who persevere in cultivating fonio to safeguard its legacy for future generations. Fonio Rising stands as a testament to Brooklyn Brewery's dedication to excellence, diversity, and celebrating the vibrant cultural tapestry that unites beer enthusiasts worldwide.

DISTRIBUTION: Fonio Rising will be sold in a 4PK of 16oz cans, available at Whole Foods Markets across the United States starting in October.

For updates and more information on Fonio Rising, please click here.

ABOUT BROOKLYN BREWERY:

Brooklyn Brewery is a leading global independent craft brewer and a pioneer of the American craft beer revolution. From our home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we draw inspiration from our local community of innovators and those always in the making to spread the culture and creativity of craft beer to over 30 states and more than 30 countries on 5 continents. Learn more at brooklynbrewery.com.

27 september 2023 at 11:10

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Canada and Nova Scotia announce the creation of public housing units across Nova Scotia





HALIFAX, NS, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ -The Government of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia today announced the creation of 222 new public housing units, serving 522 families, individuals, and low income- seniors in rural and urban communities across Nova Scotia.

On behalf of the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Andy Fillmore, Member of Parliament for Halifax and the Honourable John Lohr, Nova Scotia Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced a combined $83 million housing investment for Nova Scotians.

An investment of $24.4 million from the federal government, provided through the National Housing Strategy's Canada-Nova Scotia Bilateral Agreement on Housing, will fund 80 fully barrier-free units.

The Province of Nova Scotia will provide an investment of $58.8 million for the remainder of the project.

The buildings will be energy efficient with rents geared to income (RGI) and operated by the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency (NSPHA). The housing will be built on provincially owned land adjacent to existing public housing developments in five regions, including:

Bridgewater

Kentville

Truro

Cape Breton (multiple locations)

(multiple locations) Halifax Regional Municipality (multiple locations).

Quotes:

"Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. By partnering with the Government of Nova Scotia, we are helping Nova Scotians find an affordable place to call home." ? The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities



"These 222 new public housing units will serve both the people of Halifax and Nova Scotians, province-wide. Access to affordable housing is so important and this partnership brings us closer to that goal. I am pleased to see that together with the province, we're making progress to find each Canadian a safe and affordable place to call home." ? Andy Fillmore, Member of Parliament for Halifax

"We know many Nova Scotians are struggling to find safe and affordable housing. Increasing the supply of all types of housing is an important part of the solution. Our government is investing, innovating, and working to increase supply so more Nova Scotians can have a safe place to call home. With today's announcement, hundreds more Nova Scotians will be given that opportunity."? The Honourable John Lohr, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing

"The growing need for deeply affordable and safe housing in Nova Scotia requires partners across sectors ? non-profit, private and all orders of government ? to collaborate and keep community need at its core. This historic investment by the Province in public housing is a welcome and critical step in the right direction." - Sara Napier, President and CEO, United Way Halifax



Quick facts:

Canada's National Housing Strategy (NHS) is a 10-year, $82 -plus billion plan that will give more Canadians a place to call home. NHS is built on strong partnerships between the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and continuous engagement with others, including municipalities, Indigenous governments and organizations, and the social and private housing sectors. This includes consultations with Canadians from all walks of life, and people with lived experience of housing need. All NHS investments delivered by the federal, provincial, and territorial governments will respect the key principles of NHS that support partnerships, people, and communities. For more information on Government of Canada housing initiatives: Housing Canada

is a 10-year, -plus billion plan that will give more Canadians a place to call home.

Related links:

As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. CMHC's aim is that by 2030, everyone in Canada has a home they can afford, and that meets their needs. For more information, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube

authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers unbiased housing research and advice to all levels of Canadian government, consumers and the housing industry. CMHC's aim is that by 2030, everyone in has a home they can afford, and that meets their needs. For more information, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube Check out the National Housing Strategy Housing Funding Initiatives Map to see the affordable housing projects that have been developed across Canada .

. For more information on Government of Canada housing initiatives: Housing Canada

SOURCE Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

27 september 2023 at 12:30

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K92 Mining 2023 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call Details





VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- K92 Mining Inc. ("K92" or the "Company") (TSX: KNT; OTCQX: KNTNF) announces that it will release its 2023 third quarter financial results before the North American trading markets open on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.



Conference Call and Webcast to Present Results

K92 will host a conference call and webcast to present the 2023 third quarter financial results at 8:30 am (EST) on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.

Listeners may access the conference call by dialing toll-free to 1-800-319-4610 within North America or +1-604-638-5340 from international locations.



The conference call will also be broadcast live (webcast) and may be accessed via the following link: https://services.choruscall.ca/links/k92mining2023q3.html

About K92

K92 Mining Inc. is engaged in the production of gold, copper and silver at the Kainantu Gold Mine in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea, as well as exploration and development of mineral deposits in the immediate vicinity of the mine. The Company declared commercial production from Kainantu in February 2018, is in a strong financial position. A maiden resource estimate on the Blue Lake porphyry project was completed in August 2022. K92 is operated by a team of mining company professionals with extensive international mine-building and operational experience.

On Behalf of the Company,

John Lewins, Chief Executive Officer and Director

For further information, please contact David Medilek, P.Eng., CFA, President at +1-604-416-4445

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation ("forward-looking statements"), including, but not limited to, the impact of global supply chain and financial market disruptions; projections of future financial and operational performance; statements with respect to future events or future performance; production estimates; anticipated operating and production costs and revenue; estimates of capital expenditures; future demand for and prices of commodities and currencies; estimated mine life of our mine; estimated closure and reclamation costs and statements regarding anticipated exploration, development, construction, production, permitting and other activities on the Company's properties, including: expected gold, silver and copper production and the Stage 3 Expansion and Stage 4 Expansion. Estimates of mineral reserves and mineral resources are also forward-looking statements because they constitute projections, based on certain estimates and assumptions, regarding the amount of minerals that may be encountered in the future and/or the anticipated economics of production. All statements in this Annual Information Form that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "project", "target", "potential", "schedule", "forecast", "budget", "estimate", "intend" or "believe" and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could", "should" or "might" occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our ability to control, that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, without limitation, Public Health Crises, including the COVID-19 Pandemic; changes in the price of gold, silver, copper and other metals in the world markets; fluctuations in the price and availability of infrastructure and energy and other commodities; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; volatility in price of our common shares; inherent risks associated with the mining industry, including problems related to weather and climate in remote areas in which certain of the Company's operations are located; failure to achieve production, cost and other estimates; risks and uncertainties associated with exploration and development; uncertainties relating to estimates of mineral resources including uncertainty that mineral resources may never be converted into mineral reserves; the Company's ability to carry on current and future operations, including development and exploration activities; the timing, extent, duration and economic viability of such operations, including any mineral resources or reserves identified thereby; the accuracy and reliability of estimates, projections, forecasts, studies and assessments; the Company's ability to meet or achieve estimates, projections and forecasts; the availability and cost of inputs; the availability and costs of achieving the Stage 3 Expansion or the Stage 4 Expansion; the ability of the Company to achieve the inputs the price and market for outputs, including gold, silver and copper; inability of the Company to identify appropriate acquisition targets or complete desirable acquisitions; failures of information systems or information security threats; political, economic and other risks associated with the Company's foreign operations; geopolitical events and other uncertainties, such as the conflict in Ukraine; compliance with various laws and regulatory requirements to which the Company is subject to, including taxation; the ability to obtain timely financing on reasonable terms when required; the current and future social, economic and political conditions, including relationship with the communities in Papua New Guinea and other jurisdictions it operates; other assumptions and factors generally associated with the mining industry; and the risks, uncertainties and other factors referred to in the Company's Annual Information Form under the heading "Risk Factors".

Estimates of mineral resources are also forward-looking statements because they constitute projections, based on certain estimates and assumptions, regarding the amount of minerals that may be encountered in the future and/or the anticipated economics of production. The estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation, Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results and future events could materially differ from those anticipated in such statements. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actual results to differ materially from those that are anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

27 september 2023 at 16:15

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As the story goes, Frank Lloyd Wright was preparing to set sail for Japan to oversee construction of the Imperial Hotel when prominent businessman and alderman Frederick C. Bogk asked him to create a house for him on the east side of Milwaukee. One of numerous structures the legendary architect designed in his native state of Wisconsinincluding Taliesin, his landmark home, studio, school and country estatethe stunning residence was reportedly built at a total cost of around $15,000.

Last sold to Barbara Eisner and her late husband Robert for about $37,000 in the mid-1950sand currently occupied by Barbaras daughter, Margaret Howland, who like her mother before her is involved in several Wright organizations and preservation effortsthe notable property has again surfaced on the market, this time asking $1.5 million. The sale was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

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The homes main level is highlighted by an open-concept living room.

Completed in the early 1900s, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, the aptly named Frederick C. Bogk House features an eye-catching exterior composed of tan tapestry brick and precast concrete trim, a green-tiled hip roof, wide overhanging eaves, an elaborate frieze and leaded glass windows embellished with gold-hued squares of glass. Theres also a front patio, with the main entrance tucked off to the side.

Inside, five bedrooms and four baths are spread across a little more than 6,700 square feet of two-level living space. Meticulously restored and updated through the years in keeping with Wrights original design, there are period tile floors, brick walls, leaded windows, recessed lighting, walnut and ebony cabinetry, and custom built-ins and furnishings throughout.

Story continues

Nestled on a nearly quarter-acre parcel of landin the exclusive North Point enclave of Milwaukee, which is sited amid a bluff overlooking Lake Michiganthe boxy dwelling is highlighted by a spacious living room sporting a central fireplace, along with a step-up dining room, and an updated kitchen outfitted with the original sink, marble countertops and pantry.

This massive wood-burning fireplace serves as a focal point of the living area.

Elsewhere are an upstairs sitting room and primary bedroom with its own bath, plus an attic laundry room and attached one-car garage. As an added bonus, the buyer has the option to purchase some of the original Wright-designed furnishings from the home for an additional price of about $900,000 via Christies auction house through mid-October, with the pieces sold separately afterward to the highest bidder.

The listing is held by Melissa LeGrand of @properties elleven Christies International Real Estate.

Click here for more photos of 2420 North Terrace Avenue.

Frank Lloyd Wright House Milwaukee

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Graft Versus Host Disease Market to Witness Upsurge in Growth During the Forecast Period (2023-2032), Assesses DelveInsight | Key Companies - Glia, Incyte, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, BMS, Roche, AstraZeneca, Sanofi





The graft versus host disease (GvHD) market is expected to grow significantly owing to the market penetration of approved therapies and also the anticipated label expansion and readily adoption of emerging therapies. In addition, growing awareness of cellular therapies and regulatory assistance for research along with innovation is also expected to contribute to the growth of the GvHD market.

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DelveInsight's Graft Versus Host Disease Market Insights report includes a comprehensive understanding of current treatment practices, graft versus host disease emerging drugs, market share of individual therapies, and current and forecasted market size from 2019 to 2032, segmented into 7MM [the United States, the EU-4 (Italy, Spain, France, and Germany), the United Kingdom, and Japan].

Key Takeaways from the Graft Versus Host Disease Market Report

According to DelveInsight analysis, the graft versus host disease market is anticipated to increase at a significant CAGR during the forecast period due to the expected launch of emerging therapies.

According to DelveInsight's estimates, the total cases of GvHD in the 7MM were ~51.5K in 2022. The United States had the highest number of total cases of GvHD, with ~23K cases in 2022, and these numbers are expected to increase during the study period (2019?2032).

in 2022. had the highest number of total cases of GvHD, with cases in 2022, and these numbers are expected to increase during the study period (2019?2032). Leading graft versus host disease companies such as Glia, LLC, CellSight Technologies, Inc., Incyte Corporation, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Plexxikon, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Prometheus Laboratories, Roche, Pharmacyclics LLC., Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Genentech, Inc., Equillium, CSL Behring, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, VectivBio AG, Seres Therapeutics, Inc., and others are developing novel graft versus host disease drugs that can be available in the graft versus host disease market in the coming years.

and others are developing novel graft versus host disease drugs that can be available in the graft versus host disease market in the coming years. Some key therapies for graft versus host disease treatment include Pro-oculartm Topical Gel 1%, [18F]F-Ara-G, Ruxolitinib, Lifitegrast 5% Ophthalmic Solution, PLX51107, Itacitinib, Belimumab, Glasdegib, Abatacept, Interleukin-2, Obinutuzumab, Ibrutinib, GDC-8264, EQ001, Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT), Axatilimab, Acalabrutinib, SNDX-6352, Belumosudil (KD025), BPX-501 and Rimiducid, Apraglutide, SER-155, and others.

Discover which therapies are expected to grab the major graft versus host disease market share @ Graft Versus Host Disease Market Report

Graft Versus Host Disease Overview

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a complex and potentially life-threatening condition that can occur after a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. This ailment arises when donor immune cells, often contained within the transplanted tissue, recognize the recipient's body as foreign and launch an immune response against it. GvHD can manifest in acute or chronic forms, each with distinct characteristics. GvHD primarily occurs as a result of the mismatch between the donor's immune system and the recipient's.

GvHD symptoms can range from mild to severe and may affect various organs, including the skin, liver, and gastrointestinal tract. Acute GvHD usually emerges within the first 100 days after transplantation and may cause skin rashes, diarrhea, abdominal pain, jaundice, and even liver dysfunction. Chronic GvHD develops more gradually, often months after the transplant, and can result in persistent skin changes, mouth sores, joint pain, and complications in multiple organs, resembling autoimmune diseases.

Diagnosing GvHD involves a combination of clinical assessment, medical history review, and laboratory tests. Physicians closely monitor patients post-transplant for signs of GvHD, such as skin rashes or gastrointestinal issues. Biopsies of affected tissues, like the skin or gastrointestinal tract, can confirm the diagnosis and help determine the severity. Blood tests are also conducted to evaluate the levels of specific biomarkers associated with GvHD. Additionally, medical imaging, such as liver ultrasound or CT scans, may be used to assess organ involvement.

Graft Versus Host Disease Epidemiology Segmentation

The graft versus host disease epidemiology section provides insights into the historical and current graft versus host disease patient pool and forecasted trends for individual seven major countries. It helps to recognize the causes of current and forecasted trends by exploring numerous studies and views of key opinion leaders.

The graft versus host disease market report proffers epidemiological analysis for the study period 2019?2032 in the 7MM segmented into:

Total Hematopoietic Stem-cell Transplant Cases

Total Allogeneic Transplant Cases

Total GvHD Cases by Types

Total Incident Cases of aGvHD by Grading and Organ Involvement

Total Five-Year Prevalent Cases of cGvHD by Grading and Organ Involvement

Total Treated Patients of GvHD

Mortality Adjusted GvHD Treated Patients

Graft Versus Host Disease Treatment Market

Corticosteroids (steroids) have long been the mainstay of first-line GvHD treatment, either alone or in combination with other medicines. Corticosteroid immunosuppression (medicines such as prednisone, methylprednisolone, dexamethasone, beclomethasone, and budesonide) is beneficial in many people with aGvHD. Patients with mild skin-only aGvHD would typically continue to take their current medications, such as cyclosporine or tacrolimus, and add a topical steroid cream to their therapy regimen. Patients with systemic or "whole-system" symptoms and/or more severe aGvHD are typically treated by maintaining immunosuppressive medication and adding a corticosteroid to their regimen, such as methylprednisolone or prednisone.

The US FDA approved IMBRUVICA [ibrutinib], developed by Pharmacyclics (bought by Abbvie), in 2017 for the treatment of adult patients with cGvHD who have failed one or more lines of systemic therapy. It was the first licensed treatment for this specific patient population. Incyte's JAKAFI (ruxolitinib) was authorized by the FDA in May 2019 for the treatment of steroid-refractory aGvHD in adults and pediatric patients aged 12 and above. The single-arm, multicenter phase II REACH1 experiment was done to support ruxolitinib's approval. Prior to the REACH1 trial, a succession of anecdotal reports demonstrating the efficacy of ruxolitinib treatment spurred physicians' motivation to enroll patients and campaign for the experiment. The US FDA recently approved ruxolitinib for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) following failure of one or two lines of systemic therapy in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older in September 2021.

REZUROCK (belumosudil), developed by Kadmon Pharmaceuticals (a subsidiary of Sanofi), was also approved by the US FDA in July 2021 for adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older with chronic graft-versus-host disease (chronic GVHD) following failure of at least two prior lines of systemic therapy. Sanofi recently acquired Kadmon Pharmaceuticals for USD 1.9 billion; the transaction offers Sanofi access to Rezurock. The US FDA also approved Bristol Mayers Squibb's ORENCIA (abatacept) in combination with a calcineurin inhibitor and methotrexate in December 2021 for the prevention of acute graft versus host disease (aGvHD) in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant from a Matched or 1 allele-mismatched unrelated donor.

To know more about graft versus host disease treatment, visit @ GvHD Treatment Drugs

Key Graft Versus Host Disease Therapies and Companies

Pro-oculartm Topical Gel 1%: Glia, LLC

[18F]F-Ara-G: CellSight Technologies, Inc.

Ruxolitinib: Incyte Corporation

Lifitegrast 5% Ophthalmic Solution: Novartis Pharmaceuticals

PLX51107: Plexxikon

Itacitinib: Incyte Corporation

Belimumab: GlaxoSmithKline

Glasdegib: Pfizer

Abatacept: Bristol-Myers Squibb

Interleukin-2: Prometheus Laboratories

Obinutuzumab: Roche-Genentech

Ibrutinib: Pharmacyclics LLC./Janssen Research & Development, LLC

GDC-8264: Genentech, Inc.

EQ001: Equillium

Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT): CSL Behring

Axatilimab: Syndax Pharmaceuticals

Acalabrutinib: AstraZeneca

SNDX-6352: Syndax Pharmaceuticals

Belumosudil (KD025): Sanofi

BPX-501 and Rimiducid: Bellicum Pharmaceuticals

Apraglutide: VectivBio AG

SER-155: Seres Therapeutics, Inc.

Learn more about the FDA-approved drugs for graft versus host disease @ Drugs for GvHD Treatment

Graft Versus Host Disease Market Dynamics

The dynamics of the graft versus host disease market are anticipated to change in the coming years owing to the improvement in the rise in number of healthcare spending across the world. In addition, GvHD's pipeline is quite solid, and several late-stage assets are likely to join the GvHD market very soon. The GvHD pipeline includes small molecules, monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, stem cell therapy, recombinant fusion protein, and other treatments that will give patients and physicians more alternatives in the future. Moreover, several prospective medications have gained Orphan designations, which allow them to receive fast clearance, 7 years of GvHD market exclusivity in the United States, clinical trial subsidies, and reduced regulatory fees, among other benefits. The company can also opt for premium pricing.

However, several factors may impede the growth of the GvHD market in the coming years. Several patients have a more harder time finding a matched donor (HLA), although GvHD can still arise even if the donor is a perfect match. Moreover, currently, the GvHD market is dominated by pharmaceuticals that are relatively inexpensive, and the companies that are currently operating in this field will face significant price pressure. Drugs with poor efficacy and high prices may face regulatory and GvHD market access challenges. In addition, the undiagnosed, unreported cases and the unawareness about the disease remain the primary aspects that strive for the GvHD market growth.

Report Metrics Details Study Period 2019?2032 Coverage 7MM [The United States, the EU-4 (Germany, France, Italy, and Spain), the United Kingdom, and Japan] Key Graft Versus Host Disease Companies Glia, LLC, CellSight Technologies, Inc., Incyte Corporation, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Plexxikon, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Prometheus Laboratories, Roche, Pharmacyclics LLC., Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Genentech, Inc., Equillium, CSL Behring, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, VectivBio AG, Seres Therapeutics, Inc., and others Key Graft Versus Host Disease Therapies Pro-oculartm Topical Gel 1%, [18F]F-Ara-G, Ruxolitinib, Lifitegrast 5% Ophthalmic Solution, PLX51107, Itacitinib, Belimumab, Glasdegib, Abatacept, Interleukin-2, Obinutuzumab, Ibrutinib, GDC-8264, EQ001, Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT), Axatilimab, Acalabrutinib, SNDX-6352, Belumosudil (KD025), BPX-501 and Rimiducid, Apraglutide, SER-155, and others

Scope of the Graft Versus Host Disease Market Report

Therapeutic Assessment: Graft Versus Host Disease current marketed and emerging therapies

Graft Versus Host Disease current marketed and emerging therapies Graft Versus Host Disease Market Dynamics: Conjoint Analysis of Emerging Graft Versus Host Disease Drugs

Conjoint Analysis of Emerging Graft Versus Host Disease Drugs Competitive Intelligence Analysis: SWOT analysis and Market entry strategies

SWOT analysis and Market entry strategies Unmet Needs, KOL's views, Analyst's views, Graft Versus Host Disease Market Access and Reimbursement

Discover more about graft versus host disease drugs in development @ GvHD Clinical Trials

Table of Contents

1. Graft Versus Host Disease Market Key Insights 2. Graft Versus Host Disease Market Report Introduction 3. Graft Versus Host Disease Market Overview at a Glance 4. Graft Versus Host Disease Market Executive Summary 5. Disease Background and Overview 6. Graft Versus Host Disease Treatment and Management 7. Graft Versus Host Disease Epidemiology and Patient Population 8. Patient Journey 9. Graft Versus Host Disease Marketed Drugs 10. Graft Versus Host Disease Emerging Drugs 11. Seven Major Graft Versus Host Disease Market Analysis 12. Graft Versus Host Disease Market Outlook 13. Potential of Current and Emerging Therapies 14. KOL Views 15. Unmet Needs 16. SWOT Analysis 17. Appendix 18. DelveInsight Capabilities 19. Disclaimer 20. About DelveInsight

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Graft Versus Host Disease Pipeline Insight ? 2023 report provides comprehensive insights about the pipeline landscape, pipeline drug profiles, including clinical and non-clinical stage products, and the key Graft Versus Host Disease companies, including Biocon, medac GmbH, MaaT Pharma, ElsaLys Biotech, Glia, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, ASC Therapeutics, SCM Lifescience, REGiMMUNE, Roche, VectivBio, Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group, Amgen, Pfizer, Medsenic, Xenothera, Xenikos, AltruBio Inc., Biogen, OncoImmune, Inc., Cellect Biotechnology, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dystrogen Therapeutics, CTI BioPharma, Ossium Health, Inc., Orca Biosystems, Inc., Synthetic Biologics Inc., Cellenkos, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, ImStem Biotechnology, Rheos Medicines, Equillium, Cellestia Biotech, Genentech, Humanigen, CSL Behring, ADIENNE, among others.

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Graft vs. Host Disease Epidemiology Forecast ? 2032 report delivers an in-depth understanding of the disease, historical and forecasted graft vs. host disease epidemiology in the 7MM, i.e., the United States, EU5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom), and Japan.

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About DelveInsight

DelveInsight is a leading Business Consultant and Market Research firm focused exclusively on life sciences. It supports pharma companies by providing comprehensive end-to-end solutions to improve their performance. Get hassle-free access to all the healthcare and pharma market research reports through our subscription-based platform PharmDelve.

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SOURCE DelveInsight Business Research, LLP

27 september 2023 at 17:01

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French soldiers from the 2nd foreign parachute regiment and Nigerien soldiers at the French air base in Niamey, May 14, 2023. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

After two months of confrontation with the Niger junta, French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement on September 24 that some 1,500 French soldiers would be withdrawn from Niger is one of the hardest blows felt by the French army in the last 10 years. Despite warnings over the stability of Mohamed Bazoum's regime, Niger's president who was overthrown in a coup in July, few within the military establishment had foreseen that this rejection of France would be so swift, following the withdrawal from Mali in 2022 and Burkina Faso at the beginning of the year.

"This marks the turning of a page in history," said one former general, now working in the private sector, a few days ahead of the announcement of the French military's withdrawal. "I saw the end of the old world," said another dejected officer in late July, shortly after the Niger coup d'etat, in reference to a book by former journalist and international affairs specialist Alexandre Adler, who had died a few days earlier. It was a rare moment of disarray within military circles. Seeing France's presence in Africa disappear was something they had previously hoped could be avoided.

The military establishment has long defended its attachment to Africa, with the government's backing, all in the name of security issues: the fight against terrorism, corruption, migrant smuggling and, generally speaking, against the creation of large lawless areas. With the end of Operation Barkhane in 2022, and with no chance of overcoming the threat of jihadism, these security objectives have turned into a concern to keep hold of an region of French influence, at a time when Russian ambitions are growing. But this stance, which was supposed to also see a shift from military to cultural and economic diplomacy, has upheld a kind of status quo with the continent.

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes France forced into redefining military presence in Africa

In light of the widespread disaffection with French policy in Africa and its share of humiliations, voices within the defense community are starting to speak out behind the scenes against what was once taboo within the armed forces: the difficulty of abandoning the African continent for reasons that are less operational than organizational. In other words, the difficulty of giving up a rough but not overly exposed, French-speaking training ground that allows troops, bonuses and command posts to rotate, while also helping move soldiers up the career ladder.

Confronting troops in combat

The stakes have become higher in recent years, with fewer people signing up to join the armed forces, particularly the army  700 positions were left vacant in 2021. Paradoxically, the pressure to maintain troops in Africa has also increased since the start of the war in Ukraine. The possible transfer of French forces to Europe is currently complicated by the fact that many countries on the eastern flank are already engaged in cooperation with other powers: Estonia with the UK, Lithuania with Germany, Poland and Romania with the USA.

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From the Niamey perspective, the hasty and forced departure of the French troops stationed in Niger, and the equally premature return to Paris of the French ambassador posted to the Sahelian country, undoubtedly seemed like a victory. After a two-month face-off, the junta forced France  Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum's main ally  to fold. On Sunday, September 24, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated that Bazoum, who was dismissed on July 26 and has been under house arrest ever since, is "the only legitimate authority." But the announcement of the French withdrawal confirms that power has in fact changed hands in Niamey.

The military junta led by Abdourahamane Tchiani immediately welcomed "this historic moment [marking] a new step towards Niger's sovereignty." On the morning of Monday, September 25, Aujourd'hui au Faso, a daily newspaper from Burkina Faso (a neighboring country also run by its military), summed up a widely shared opinion. According to the media outlet, France's prior refusal to recall its ambassador and the 1,500-odd soldiers deployed there, and keeping them in Niger "against the will of the authorities, even if they are putschists and not recognized by France [...] was untenable and inoperative."

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Macron ultimately orders military exit from Niger

Since the putsch, Niger's pressure had been increasing as Brigade General Tchiani's power strengthened, with the support of all the commanders-in-chief of the army corps. This unity has removed President Bazoum's prospects of a rapid restoration to power, technically the commander-in-chief of an army that no longer responds to him. Such was the intangible objective set by France, but one that was not shared by everyone in Niger, particularly in Niamey.

The capital has predominantly been opposed to former president Mahamadou Issoufou (2011-2021) and his successor Bazoum. It had therefore not been very difficult to mobilize a few battalions of activists to denounce French "neo-colonialism" and their interference in Nigerien affairs. Just four days after the putsch, demonstrators were already gathering in front of the French embassy to demand the departure of its soldiers stationed in Niger. In recent weeks, groups of Nigeriens have occasionally gathered there again. This was once again the case when the 48-hour ultimatum Niger's military leaders gave the French ambassador to leave the country, on August 25, expired.

Hardline France has found itself isolated

Popular pressure, whose degree of spontaneity is difficult to gauge, was also exerted at the gates of the French base at Niamey's international airport. At the same time, Nigerien security forces imposed a blockade on these two symbolic sites of French presence, restricting human movements and supplies. The latest decision taken by Niamey, just a few hours before Macron's speech, was to close Niger's airspace to "French aircraft or aircraft chartered by France, including those in the Air France fleet."

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Polling stations in Lysoka, near Buea, Cameroon, on October 7, 2018. MARCO LONGARI / AFP

Jenny* interrupted her story, writhing in pain, her right hand resting on her stomach, the other buried in a pillow. Diving into her memories was torture. Like dozens of women from one of Cameroon's two English-speaking areas, this farm worker was raped. By soldiers, she said, who had been deployed in the vicinity of her hometown since a civil war between separatists and the army broke out in 2017.

That was in September 2021, in a village on the outskirts of Bamenda, the capital of the NorthWest region. Jenny, a 46-year-old mother of six, was working on her bean, yam, and maize plantation with one of her daughters. Concentrating on their task, the two women ignored the approaching soldiers. "Usually, when we hear them coming or the noise of their cars, we run away. We run, and we hide in the bush. We were surprised," Jenny said, crying.

"If you go in Bamenda now, people will tell you it is a common thing," she said. Since then, she has taken refuge in Douala, the country's economic capital, where she shares a room with her boys. Her daughter, who was also raped, stays with an uncle in Yaounde, Cameroon's administrative capital. Her mother is in Ebolowa, in the south of the country. She is separated from her daughter "for lack of money, but also because we dont want to talk about it again, and we are trying to forget," Jenny said.

Between 2019 and 2023, Le Monde met 30 victims who, like her, confessed to having been sexually abused. Some by the military, others by separatists. Since the outbreak of the conflict, which has already claimed more than 6,000 lives and driven more than 700,000 people from their homes, according to the non-governmental organization International Crisis Group, cases of gender-based violence are soaring, said Akem Kelvin Nkwain, human rights officer at the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), an organization that documents the conflict in the west of the country.

Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes In Cameroon, logging concessions dispossess villagers of their land

Denial prevails

"Rape is constantly used as a weapon of war, leaving many women and girls mentally and psychologically tortured. Some have ended up in the grave while others have attempted suicide," said Rosaline Obah, a national coordinator at the Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN).

Military officials interviewed by Le Monde reject all accusations. "The Cameroonian army has only one duty: To protect the territory and the people to the point of dying. And that's what the soldiers do, and some of them lose their lives for the whole nation," said a colonel stationed in the English-speaking part of the country. "No soldier will rape the person he is supposed to protect. Our men are trained."

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A COUNTY Limerick farmer is lucky to be alive after he was struck by lightning, tossed into the air like a rag doll and couldnt move his arms or legs.

His doctor in University Hospital Limerick had never seen a lightning strike on a person before, or the tracing down my arm.

The east Limerick dairy farmer, aged in his 60s, told the Limerick Leader he had a lucky escape.

I was opening a gap to let the cows out after milking, and bang. It hit me on the right arm. I just felt the bolt going through my whole body. There was no rain at the time, there was no thunder or lightning.

The thunder came within five seconds of me getting the bang - the loudest clap of thunder I ever heard. We had a thunder and lightning storm for an hour after that and the rain that fell was unreal.

Initially, I wasn't sure what was after happening to me. When the thunder came I knew straight away it had to be lightning.

"The electric fence wasnt even on at the side I was opening the gap, said the farmer, who wished to remain anonymous as he is a private person.

He found himself on the ground about two metres away from where he had initially been standing.

It blew me back. I was lying on my back. I had no movement in my hands or my legs - no power at all. I tried to move and tried to get up but I couldnt. I had my phone in my pocket and I couldn't get my hand to my phone to ring for help, he said.

Thankfully, the feeling in his body came back some time later and he was able to get up.

I felt fine but I went to the Regional (University Hospital Limerick) just to be on the safe side and to make sure there was no damage done. I was kept in for the night.

I got excellent treatment, I got fully checked out - brain scan, X-rays, machine on my heart, everything. It was top-class.

The doctor had never come across a lightning strike. I had a tracing down my arm and they had never seen that before, said the dairy farmer.

The odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are 1 in 15,300 but, thankfully for this man, it is one in 9,000,000 for lightning to strike the same person twice.

Little did I think that evening when I went out to open the gap I was going to get a bang. You never think its going to happen to you. It is nice to be able to tell the tale, he said.

Cllr Martin Ryan said he is glad the man has recovered.

It was freak weather, said Cllr Ryan.
Elon Musk has cautioned that if the United Auto Workers (UAW) union's demands for higher wages are met, traditional automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis could drive GM, Ford and Chrysler bankrupt in the fast lane".

The warning from the Tesla CEO comes amid a UAW strike against Detroit's Big Three automakersGM, Ford, and Stellantis NV, the producers of Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge vehicles. Patrick Kaser, a portfolio manager for Brandywine Global, also expressed similar concerns last week, suggesting that these companies could suffer significant competitive setbacks.

US President Joe Biden, however, showed solidarity with the UAW by supporting their call for wage increases during a visit to a GM plant. The UAW initially sought a 40% pay hike but has now moderated their expectations to a 36% increase.

Meanwhile, pure electric vehicle companies like Tesla, Lucid Group and Rivian Automotive are not unionised, and they rely heavily on employee stock purchase plans and restricted stock units for compensation, Bloomberg reported.

The UAW is concerned that electric vehicles (EVs), which require fewer components and workers, will lead to job losses and decreased wages. Such fears have triggered attempts to unionise Tesla's workforce.

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Though an attempt to organise Tesla's Fremont plant failed to gain sufficient traction, legal scholars like Catherine Fisk, a professor at UC Berkeley, believe that increased gains for UAW workers and high public support for unions might renew unionisation efforts at Tesla.

Tesla has been in legal wrangles for allegedly violating labour laws. In 2021, a bipartisan group of US labor board members ruled that the company broke the law by questioning union supporters and firing one due to his activism at their Fremont plant. Tesla is currently appealing that decision.

Additionally, the company faced accusations from the Workers United union for dismissing employees in response to a union campaign at their Buffalo, New York facility.

(With Bloomberg inputs)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sounak Mukhopadhyay Sounak Mukhopadhyay, who also goes by the name Sounak Mukherjee, has been producing digital news since 2012. He's worked for the International Business Times, The Inquisitr, and Moneycontrol in the past. He's also contributed to Free Press Journal and TheRichest with feature articles. He covers news for a wide range of subjects including business, finance, economy, politics and sports. Before working with digital news publications, he worked as a freelance content writer. Read more from this author
Leeds Festival 2023 - Day 3 - Credit: Matthew Baker/Getty Images

The 1975 are going on indefinite hiatus. Frontman Matthew Healy informed the Sacramento, California audience on Tuesday that theyd better enjoy the evening and register the experience in their memory palaces. We love coming to this place and playing for you guys whenever we have the chance, and its wonderful youre all here, Healy said, according to Pitchfork. After this tour we will be going on an indefinite hiatus of shows so its wonderful to have you guys with us tonight. The tour dates run through a Seattle gig on Dec. 2.

It is unclear if the band is planning on taking a break from touring or pausing all operations. A rep for the band did not return Rolling Stones request for further comment in time for publication.

More from Rolling Stone

The band, and Healy in particular, has spent much of the past year since the October 2022 release of Being Funny in a Foreign Language making headlines for things that arent music-related. Last December, Healy stopped performing mid-gig to get a tattoo across his chest that read, Im a man. Healy also captivated fans for much of last year with rumors that he was dating Taylor Swift; she came onstage at the 1975s London gig in January to perform Anti-Hero for the first time. And then in April, he apologized to Ice Spice, who was collaborating with Swift, for making offensive jokes at her expense. The 1975s labelmate, Rina Sawayama, dedicated a song called STFU! to Healy at Glastonbury in response to his comments about Ice Spice and other subjects.

Conversely, in July, authorities in Kuala Lumpur shut down a 1975 concert after Healy criticized Malaysias anti-LGBTQ+ stance onstage. The band canceled the rest of an Asian tour afterwards, and the festivals organizers have formally asked the band to pay them 2 million since the government ended up shutting down the whole festival afterwards.

Story continues

This article was updated to reflect that Sawayama dedicated her 2019 single STFU! to Healy during her Glastonbury performance.

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Who is the best dentist in Istanbul ? The services offered by dentists play a crucial role in preserving, treating, and enhancing the oral and dental health of individuals, in line with their goals. Having a healthy oral structure and strong teeth is not only among the fundamental pillars of general health but also significantly affects the quality of life. Therefore, the various services provided by dentists have an indispensable importance.

Dentists take on the responsibility of examining patients' oral health and creating treatment plans based on their needs. By diagnosing and treating various oral health problems such as tooth decay, gum diseases, and jaw issues at an early stage, they prevent serious health complications that may arise in advanced stages.

Regular dental cleanings and maintenance procedures help prevent plaque buildup and tartar formation. Professional cleaning procedures performed by dentists effectively remove harmful bacteria from the oral cavity. However, if there are triggering factors for the formation of dental calculus, it is healthier to address the underlying issues causing tartar formation. This way, not only is the formation of tooth decay prevented, but also the buildup of dental plaque and tartar is kept in check. This ensures that both teeth and gums remain in a healthy condition.

If you are experiencing dental problems, it is recommended to be informed about the best dental hospitals and doctors in Turkey.

Dentists Practicing in Turkey

One of the most curious topics for individuals experiencing dental health issues is Turkey's most famous dentists. When faced with dental problems, it is important to find expert dentists who can provide effective solutions. While there are many reputable and successful dentists in Turkey, some of the names include:

Prof. Dr. Birkan Taha Ozkan

Prof. Dr. Bulent Uludag

Prof. Dr. Sina Uckan

Prof. Dr. Yucel Ylmaz

Prof. Dr. Bilge Hakan Sen

Prof. Dr. Bulent Kesim

Prof. Dr. Gulperi Kocer

Prof. Dr. Bora Ozturk

Dr. Galip Gursel

Dr. Erdil Koksoken

Dr. Yusuf Ilhan

This list includes only selected names. Turkey's leading dentists are not limited to these individuals. There are many other reputable and quality dental practitioners throughout the country. The names listed below are just a few of the top dentists in Turkey for those seeking the best dental care.

Which Services Do Dentists Provide in Turkey?

Dentists, offering a wide range of services aimed at preserving, treating, and enhancing oral health, not only contribute to patients' oral and dental health but also address aesthetic and functional issues. Among the fundamental services provided by dentists are the following:

Dental Restoration

Root Canal Treatment

Dental Implants

Aesthetic Porcelain Veneers

Teeth Whitening

Tooth Extraction

Orthodontic Treatment

Dental Restorations and Rehabilitation

Dental Protection

These services are applied within the framework of customized treatment plans tailored to the individual needs of patients. You can find detailed explanations of each treatment below.

Dental Restoration

Dental fillings are used in the treatment of tooth decay or fractures. Experienced dentists perform aesthetic fillings that blend seamlessly with your natural tooth anatomy and color, not only providing a healthy appearance but also restoring the expected functionality of the tooth. By ensuring that dental fillings possess the qualities mentioned above, dentists prevent food particle retention, gum disease, and bad breath.

Root Canal Treatment

Root canal treatment is preferred for teeth that have suffered extensive decay or damage due to trauma. This procedure aims to save the tooth by cleaning out the infected pulp tissue and then sealing the canal with a filling material, followed by a tooth restoration using a filling or a crown. The goal here is to preserve the tooth's enamel layer and salvage the tooth rather than lose it.

Dental Implants

Dental implants are a modern and effective solution for replacing missing teeth. Expert dentists ensure the proper placement of implants, delivering satisfying results both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. This provides a permanent and durable solution to replace missing teeth.

Aesthetic Porcelain Veneers

Porcelain veneers are often preferred to address aesthetic concerns or issues with the shape, color, and size of teeth. Custom-designed veneers are meticulously applied to the tooth surface in a way that harmonizes with the gum line, resulting in an aesthetic smile makeover. This enhances an individual's self-confidence.

Teeth Whitening

To whiten teeth and remove stains, teeth whitening procedures are performed. Dentists in Turkey use safe and effective whitening methods to help you achieve the desired whitening results. This makes your smile appear brighter and more attractive.

Tooth Extraction

In cases where severely damaged or decayed teeth need to be extracted, expert dentists in Turkey perform tooth extractions comfortably and, if necessary, provide alternative solutions such as implants or prosthetics. This is an important step in restoring dental health.

Orthodontic Treatment

Orthodontic treatment is employed to correct teeth alignment and improve jaw structure. Various methods, including braces or clear aligners, are used to ensure that teeth are brought into the correct position. This encompasses both aesthetic and functional improvements.

Dental Restorations and Rehabilitation

While tooth restoration is accomplished through procedures like fillings and root canals, tooth-saving operations aim to rescue a tooth from extraction. These operations can encompass a wide range of procedures, including the removal of periapical cysts, the transplantation of a healthy tooth following the extraction of a problematic one, and the repositioning of a tooth after removing an infected cyst. These tooth-saving treatments or tooth-saving operations are crucial for the preservation and improvement of oral health.

Dental Protection

The careful preservation of tooth enamel is essential. During dental tartar removal, it is crucial to protect and polish teeth without causing any damage, which is essential for dental protection. Additionally, among the strategies for dental protection, preserving the enamel layer while treating tooth decay contributes to increased durability. During root canal treatment, a focus on preserving the enamel layer is also a dental protection strategy. Treating deep tooth decay with dental fillings instead of placing crowns on top of them is another dental protection procedure. Furthermore, preventive and protective measures such as Fissure Sealant Treatment and Fluoride Application to strengthen tooth structure are also part of dental protection procedures. These practices support long-term dental health and prevent future issues.

Prof. Dr. Birkan Taha Ozkan

Prof. Dr. Birkan Taha Ozkan, a distinguished expert in the field of dentistry and a professor in Oral, Dental, and Maxillofacial Surgery, is renowned for his outstanding achievements in his field. He laid a solid foundation for his career during his student years and embarked on a journey filled with significant milestones.

He was granted a scholarship at the University of Texas-Houston and completed his master's education in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Oulu in Finland. Among Turkey's most famous dentists, he is also known for successful surgeries performed in Iran.

Following the attainment of his specialization degree, Prof. Dr. Ozkan served as the Head of the Department of Oral, Dental, and Maxillofacial Surgery at Yuzuncuyl University Faculty of Dentistry and subsequently obtained the title of Assistant Professor. The services he offers at his own clinic are backed by his extensive knowledge and practice in these fields.

Prof. Dr. Bulent Uludag

Prof. Dr. Bulent Uludag took his first steps in his career after graduating from Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry in 1983. He pursued his academic ambitions by participating in the doctoral program in the Prosthodontics department of the same faculty. Among Turkey's most famous dentists, he earned his doctorate in 1988 and subsequently rapidly advanced in his academic career.

Throughout his academic journey, Prof. Dr. Uludag specialized in and contributed to the field of prosthodontics. He focused on several areas of expertise, including:

Precision attachment prostheses

Implant-supported overdenture applications

Clinical applications in implant-supported prostheses

Overdenture applications

Photoelastic stress analysis

Color studies in porcelain applications

His knowledge and experience in these fields have been documented through numerous publications both domestically and internationally. Additionally, he has teaching experience, further highlighting his expertise in prosthodontics.

Prof. Dr. Sina Uckan

Prof. Dr. Sina Uckan, embarking on his journey in dentistry after graduating from Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry in 1982, holds a distinguished place among Turkey's most famous dentists. He continued his education in the same university's Department of Oral, Dental, and Maxillofacial Diseases and Surgery, earning his specialist title in 1986. This period marked a crucial phase in laying the foundations for his specialization journey.

After completing his education, Prof. Dr. Uckan took on roles in various healthcare institutions, gaining extensive experience. He has shared his wealth of knowledge in his field through numerous publications both nationally and internationally, making valuable contributions to his area of expertise.

Prof. Dr. Yucel Ylmaz

Yucel Ylmaz is another name that individuals seeking recommendations for the best dentists should be aware of. He began his dentistry journey in 1989 at Erzurum Ataturk University Faculty of Dentistry, laying a solid foundation for his career. He successfully completed his education and graduated in 1994, thus embarking on his professional journey.

Among Turkey's most famous dentists, Dr. Ylmaz temporarily paused his academic career in 2014. However, after 25 years, he returned to Bursa and opened his private practice in March 2015.

Prof. Dr. Bilge Hakan Sen

Before visiting a dentist, many patients conduct research on recommendations for the best dentist. In this context, there are many doctors, and Bilge Hakan Sen is one of them.

Sen graduated from Ege University Faculty of Dentistry in 1986, earning the title of "Dentist." Prof. Dr. Bilge Hakan Sen made a strong start to his career and began his master's degree in the Department of Oral Diseases and Treatment at the same faculty. In 1994, he obtained the title of "Dr. Med. Dent," taking significant steps toward his academic goals.

In 1998, he was appointed as an "Associate Professor," and in 2004, he earned the title of "Professor." Prof. Dr. Sen not only provides patient-centered services in his private practice but also organizes modular endodontics training and courses for dentists. In this regard, he offers comprehensive services among Turkey's most famous dentists.

Prof. Dr. Bilge Hakan Sen contributes significantly to the healthcare sector by providing healthcare services in the applied field and sharing knowledge in the academic field. With his expertise and teaching experience, he brings valuable insights to both his patients and the field of dentistry.

Prof. Dr. Bulent Kesim

Prof. Dr. Bulent Kesim, who began his professional journey with his undergraduate education at Hacettepe University Faculty of Dentistry, is another recommended name for those seeking the best dentist recommendations. He has achieved outstanding success in his academic career and earned the title of "Professor" in 2006. His profound knowledge and experience in prosthetic dental treatment, in particular, have earned him recognition.

The title of the professorship in the field of dentistry serves as evidence of Prof. Dr. Bulent Kesim's competence in both scientific and practical aspects.

He possesses in-depth knowledge and experience in the field he serves. He is known among the best dentists in Turkey and is committed to providing patient-centered and high-quality services.

Prof. Dr. Gulperi Kocer

Prof. Dr. Gulperi Kocer is one of the healthcare professionals whose names are often inquired about by individuals looking for the best dental hospitals and dentists in Turkey. She graduated successfully from Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry in 1996 and has built her career in a strong specialization field. Her wide range of activities includes:

Oral surgery

Orthognathic surgery

Implant surgery

TME disorders

Oral diseases

Trauma

With her profound knowledge and experience in these specialized fields, she has become a recognized name and a leader in her field.

Prof. Dr. Kocer stands out with her expertise and knowledge, particularly in sensitive and technically demanding areas such as oral surgery, orthognathic surgery, and implant surgery. Her high-level competence in these fields forms the foundation of the trust and high-quality service she provides to her patients. She offers her services at the Private Antalya Motto Oral and Dental Health Polyclinic, where she is equipped with experience and expertise.

Prof. Dr. Gulperi Kocer continues to stay updated with developments in her field, both in the scientific and practical aspects, to provide the best possible service in her specialized area of expertise.

Prof. Dr. Bora Ozturk

Prof. Dr. Bora Ozturk serves in the field of Oral Diseases and Treatment at the esteemed healthcare institution, Selcuk University Faculty of Dentistry Hospital, located in Konya, Turkey. He is among Turkey's most renowned dentists with a wide range of expertise, including:

General dentistry

Dental implants

Teeth whitening

Metal-ceramic crowns

Orthodontics

Prosthodontics

Bite correction

Oral surgery

Aesthetic dentistry

Endodontics

Prof. Dr. Bora Ozturk stands out not only for his extensive range of expertise but also for his mission to provide high-quality and reliable healthcare services to his patients. He possesses in-depth specialization in these diverse and rich areas of dentistry.

Dr. Galip Gursel

Galip Gursel, who has received international education, is recognized as one of Turkey's most famous dentists, often chosen by many prominent figures. Known for his successful solutions to dental disorders and prosthetic applications, Dr. Galip Gursel is also recognized for his contributions to the field of aesthetic dentistry.

Dr. Galip Gursel's smile design concept aims not only for aesthetics but also for a functional smile. By creating the most suitable dental design for each individual's facial structure, he makes a significant contribution to addressing dental problems, with success rates of up to 90%. This approach combines aesthetic concerns with health requirements, providing patients with a healthy and beautiful smile.

Dr. Erdil Koksoken

Dr. Erdil is another name frequently sought after by patients when searching for the best dentist in government hospitals and different institutions. He has gained recognition with his publications in national and international journals. For many years, he has been successfully serving at the American Hospital Department of Oral and Dental Health. Additionally, as an active member of the Turkish Dental Association, Dr. Erdil continues to maintain his professional effectiveness and contribute to professional development in the field.

Dr. Yusuf Ilhan

Dr. Yusuf Ilhan is another name among the most renowned dentists in Turkey. With extensive experience spanning 22 years in the dental field, he is known for his scientific contributions and commitment to providing high-quality service to his patients.

Dr. Yusuf Ilhan obtained his dental degree from Marmara University in 2000 and continued his education in the field of prosthetic dentistry at the same university. He also achieved a doctoral degree in this specialized area.

In 2008, Dr. Yusuf Ilhan co-founded the Maltepe Dental Clinic, enhancing his impact in the healthcare sector. The clinic's use of modern dental equipment and its emphasis on hygiene highlight the combination of health and comfort provided to patients. Dr. Ilhan is dedicated to offering services to his patients using the latest technologies.

Furthermore, if you are seeking recommendations for the best dentist, it's important to note that there are other doctors to consider. This list has been prepared to provide some insights and options.

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.

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Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is mulling to buy additional stake in Mukesh Ambani's retail empire. According to a report by the Economic Times, ADIA is seeking to invest $600 million in Reliance Retail.

ADIA has already invested in the Reliance Retail Ventures, by purchasing a 1.2% stake for 5,512.50 crore in October 2020.

Earlier this week, RIL's retail arm received the full subscription amount of 2,069.50 crore from the global investment firm KKR and has allotted 1.71 crore equity shares.

Also read: Reliance Retail in talks with Gulf, Singapore funds on $1.5 billion investment: Report

Following the share allotment, KKR's shareholding in RRVL has increased to 1.42% from 1.17%.

Earlier this month, RIL received 8,278 crore from Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for around 1% stake in RRVL at a valuation of 8.278 lakh crore (USD 100 billion).

Also read: KKR to invest 2,069 cr in Reliance Retail, raise stake to 1.42%

In 2020, RRVL raised 47,265 crore (around $6.4 billion) from global private equity funds for a 10.09% stake, valuing the company at more than 4.2 lakh crore.

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This was the largest fundraising exercise in the sector at that time.

The company had raised funds from Silver Lake, KKR, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, GIC, TPG, General Atlantic, and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund at a valuation of around $57 billion at that time.

Also read: Reliance Retail acquires majority stake in Alia Bhatts Ed-a-Mamma brand

RRVL is aggressively expanding its business by acquiring companies and getting the franchise rights of leading international brands for India.

Besides, it is investing in scaling up infrastructure and also acquired the India business of German retail major Metro Cash and Carry.

In its latest annual report, RIL said Reliance Retail had achieved a significant milestone of crossing a billion transactions and its registered user base has grown to 249 million.

It operates a network of over 18,500 stores and digital commerce platforms across grocery, consumer electronics, fashion & lifestyle, and pharma consumption baskets.

In FY23, Reliance Retail's digital commerce and new commerce businesses contributed 18% of its revenue, which stood at 2.60 lakh crore.

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Byjus will opt out of campus placements this year amid extensive cost-cutting measures at the edtech firm that resulted in more than 13,000 layoffs in the past year.

Engineering colleges, including some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), were in discussions with Byjus about campus recruitments but have not received confirmation on the hiring schedule on the back of more retrenchments.

Byjus is unlikely to hire from any campus this year, and it will take about 6-7 months for the restructuring in the company to get completed. Until then, cost optimization plans wont allow any hiring," said a senior executive aware of the development.

The company has been rationalizing costs for the last 12 months, and this is the fourth round of layoffs it has announced since last October. More than 13,000 people seem to have been hit by the retrenchment drive.

Another executive aware of the companys plans said it is unlikely to hire people currently across levels. The new management and advisers have set in motion a cost rationalization plan that will take Byjus close to profitability and reduce the burn. Key non-core areas have been identified, and over the next six months, the plan will be executed," he said and added that any hiring, if at all, will happen only next year.

Byjus had skipped hiring from some of the top IITs last year as well, but some junior level recruitments did happen. Placement teams in the younger IITs were in touch with the company for their recruitments but have not received any confirmation yet. Even if they had confirmed, it is unlikely that students would be keen to sit for their placements," said a placement team member in one of the youngest IITs.

According to a placement official in one of the older IITs, there are more than a thousand students to place, and while companies are not barred from coming in, their report cards are explained to the students. There is full disclosure, and students have to make the choice. Often, the campus hiring strategies are different from the overall manpower policies of a company," said the placement official.

Byjus did not respond to Mints queries sent on Wednesday.

The B-school placements typically start from February onwards.

Companies such as Byjus mainly hire tech and other product roles from key engineering colleges in the country. Facing issues on multiple fronts, such as alleged corporate governance lapses leading to resignations of its non-promoter board members and statutory auditor, slower growth, liquidity crunch and legal tussle with its lenders of Term Loan B, Byjus has decided to draw up a plan to restructure its businesses. To repay its lenders, Byjus is exploring the sale of its Epic and Great Learning units.

The appointment of Arjun Mohan, a former chief business officer at Byjus and the India chief executive of UpGrad, as the new CEO is part of the companys revival plan. In his internal communications to senior executives, Mohan said the company was looking at cutting around 4,500-5,000 jobs across multiple functions such as sales, marketing, and other areas where significant overlap exists.

We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise to simplify operating structures, reduce the cost base and better cash flow management. BYJUS new India CEO, Arjun Mohan, will be completing this process in the next few weeks and will steer a revamped and sustainable operation ahead," a Byjus spokesperson said on Wednesday.

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New Delhi: David Rennie, deputy executive vice-president and head of Nestle Coffee Brands, oversees its global coffee business, including Nescafe, Nespresso and Starbucks. In an interview, Rennie said Indias coffee market is expanding with the company making market share gains on account of launches such as ready-to-drink cold coffee and frappe mixes.

Coffee cafe culture in India is transforming with more consumers now turning to speciality coffee and demanding exotic brews from companies. Edited excerpts.

Can you please elaborate on the reach of Nestles coffee business?

Coffee for Nestle is really important; its a strategic drive category. Last year, we sold 23 billion Swiss Francs worth of coffee, which is roughly a quarter of Nestles global turnover. We have operations in all Nestles markets, roughly one in seven cups of coffee drunk globally, is going to be a Nescafe. One in every four cups of coffee drunk in India, is a Nescafe. In 1963, we started selling in India. Our factory in Nanjangud was opened in 1989 and we have been producing coffee in India directly since then.The vast majority of the production is made in India, with Indian coffee, for Indian consumers. Weve announced last year, a further investment in that factory of 110 million Swiss Francs to increase the capacity of that factory by 2025. By 2025, we will have that capacity. The majority is going to be for Nescafe and Nescafe Sunrise.

While 25% of your global revenues come from coffee, its your smallest segment in India. Is India under-developed for the coffee business?

One way to think about how developed a category is, is to look at average cup consumption per consumer. In India today it is around 30 cups per annum.

To give you a sense of where that fits, the average for the globe is 200 cups. So, its a strong business for us, and it is growing incredibly quickly at double-digit.

But in terms of potential weve really only just begun. It is clear Indian consumers are getting a taste for coffee, they enjoy it, its a category generating great interest.

Where is the Indian coffee business stand vis-vis other global markets?

India is very clearly within our top 20 (coffee) markets in the globe and its growing very fast, moving up in the rankings every single year. Weve been growing double-digit for many years. Were growing in absolute size. Were also growing market share, and have taken really strong market leadership. So its a combination of having the preferred brand in the market and that preferred brand driving the category.

Will coffee emerge as a larger business in India any projections?

We absolutely do see a huge growth potential. Thats why we are investing to double the size of the factory. I dont want speculate where well be in five or 10 years, but we know were going to need more capacity. Driven by a young population, in both rural and urban as they are really getting into understanding what coffee is about. Its the taste of a young generation, and not just hot coffee, its also cold coffee. It is partially driven by coffee shops, theres lots of cold coffee and exotic coffees. With experimentation the youth are getting into the category and its definitely going to grow. I think the coffee shop culture itself helps create an interest. The other thing is as a coffee-producing country, India has the ability to create more jobs and infrastructure around coffee growing. It is exciting.

Will the Starbucks association extend to India, as the cafe business is with Tata Consumer Products Ltd?

Today, Tatas have a license for the cafes and a license for some of the products. For us, it is only a matter of time and we will definitely be building our business out in time. The main focus is not so much Starbucks but Nescafe. We believe Nescafe has strong potential. This is where our main focus is.

So, the Starbucks-Nestle association could be independent of Tata in India?

Yeah. In time, everything is possible.

Will core brands continue to drive household penetration for Nestles coffee business in India?

The Nescafe brand that weve gotwe have Nescafe Classic and Nescafe Sunrise are two really strong brands. There is huge potential for both of those brands to continue to drive their household penetration. Every single year, we are increasing the number of households that have those brands. I dont think theres any limit to what we can do with the core and actually we are seeing a bit of an acceleration in terms of penetration of those brands over the last two or three years. Within that though, I think innovation is super important, and we are seeing lots of innovation in different formats. One of the one innovations is ready-to-drink coffee, so coffee in cans and thats a market again with young people, particularly on-the-go, is growing incredibly quickly. Youll see innovation into these new territories but predominantly on the core brands. For the next five years, Nescafe will continue to grow in terms of soluble, no doubt. Were investing a lot to continue to grow it. But ready-to-drink is another platform that has huge potential in India.

India is a tea drinking nation. Do you see a bigger focus on the cold beverages?

I think theyre both are big potential. I think hot coffee consumption, especially in the winter months and cold coffee consumption particularly with no exclusivity in the summer months is a really big potential. Theyre not a number of markets, that are traditional tea drinking markets, they get to know and get to love coffee over time. And I think thats exactly the journey that India is on. Youll find people over time develop habit for tea and coffee. Certainly what weve seen in many placesnot like you suddenly stop drinking tea and 100% drink coffee. Theres plenty of opportunity for us to take more of the cup occasions in hot beverage by just introducing more coffee into the mix. You think of markets like Russia which was historically a very big tea drinking market, now a very big coffee drinking market; Japan, a very big tea drinking market, now, very big coffee drinking market. The UK, which was a very big tea drinking market, and just this year coffee overtook tea as the number one beverage in the UK. Its just a certain natural evolution. Thats why I sound really optimistic about the potential of India to continue to adopt to coffee.

So what fuels such changes in consumption habits? Is it linked to economic prosperity?

Its not really economic, its taste and opportunity to try. It takes a long time to change and establish taste. Our Nescafe offerings are very affordable, we make them very affordable so theres no barrier in terms of cost for people to try the product, but it just takes time to adopt the habit.

India is still not a large coffee export market for Nestle. What are your views on coffee sourcing from India, especially as climate change promises to threaten coffee production?

The way I think about India is the potential is huge. There are clearly issues everywhere, with regard to climate. We know that if we dont tackle climate change, half of the coffee producing regions of the world could end up not producing any coffee by 2050. In India though, because of the way coffee is produced, coffee here is a long established crop. We farm in India with small-hold farmers, between two and six hectares. The notion of intercropping which is a key part of our Nescafe Plan of diversifying farmer incomes and getting different crops alongside coffee, its already a part of the Indian tradition, as they grow pepper and banana etc. Thats not true in the rest of the world. India starts from actually a very solid base in terms of regenerative agriculture and also in terms of resilience. But our commitment via the Nescafe Plan is that by 2025100% of all of our coffee sourced in India for India will be responsibly sourced. Were working with over 5,000 farmers directly today in over 250 villages across India giving on ground support through our agronomy program.

What is your outlook on global coffee demand and coffee prices for the next one year?

Commodity price is just something you can never speculate on. By its very nature, when you look at a 10 year cycleyou have highs and you have lows, so Im not going to speculate on the future. In terms of demand for coffeewe see a consistent growth in terms of volume in the category of about 1% or 2%. In terms of value, which is to your premiumization point, we see that the value growth for the category globally is about 5%. So there is an increasing trend to premiumization across the world as people get into new habits, new brands, new ways of drinking coffee etc. Its very consistent mid-single digit value growth and low-single digit volume growth, year-on-year.

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State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Tuesday inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NTPC Green Energy Limited (NGEL) to develop renewable energy projects.

A statement from ONGC said that the MoU will primarily explore the feasibility and setting up of renewable energy projects in various domains.

It envisages collaboration of the two mega entities in renewable power projects in India and overseas through offshore wind projects and exploring opportunities in the storage, e-mobility, carbon credits and green credits, nuclear, green hydrogen business and its derivatives including green ammonia and green methanol.

In another development, ONGC on Tuesday also announced that it has inked the crude oil sales agreement (COSA) with Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) which is the largest single-location PSU refinery in the country.

The agreement has been signed by the two entities for the sale and purchase of crude oil. The current agreement between ONGC and MRPL will be applicable till March 31, 2024.

Over the years ONGC, apart from its core exploration and production business, has diversified its business in petrochemicals, power, and SEZ development through joint venture routes. Going forward into diversification, ONGC has taken initiatives for renewable energy power generation and installed around 189 MW capacity including wind and solar PV plants spread across various locations, said the company statement.

The oil and gas major intends to achieve 10 GW renewable energy capacity by 2030 and has set a net zero target including both scope 1 and scope 2 by 2038.

The state-run company plans to invest about 2 trillion in energy transition till 2038, said its CMD Arun Kumar Singh last month. The company had earlier announced to invest 1 trillion in energy transition initiatives by 2030.

There are also plans to set up 25 compressed biogas (CBG) plants by FY26.

The CMD had said that it makes strong economic sense to invest in green initiatives with a carbon market in the making. ONGC has already signed a deal to set up 5 GW of solar power capacity in Rajasthan and is scouting to add another 5 GW of renewable energy capacity.

Shares of ONGC on the BSE closed at 187.25, lower by 0.27% from its previous close.

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Mumbai: Sometime in 2008, a team from financier Bajaj Finserv was at a consumer durables store when a family of four walked in. They wanted to buy a 32-inch television on loan but were told it would take at least three days. The Bajaj team wondered why the loan could not be processed the same day so that the family could take the TV home by evening. Thats when the (then) new kid on the block decided to disrupt the appliance and consumer electronics market.

Soon, Bajaj Finserv, which was born out of the 2007 demerger of Bajaj Auto, began reaching out to manufacturers such as LG, Samsung and others to explain its new proposition. It tried to get these companies, which spent millions on advertising, to spend some money on a finance scheme so that consumers could buy products at zero interest. Eventually, they agreed. Our team managed to crack Samsung first, and once that happened, everybody else came on board within a year," recalls Sanjiv Bajaj, chairman and managing director, Bajaj Finserv.

The availability of customer credit scores from credit information companies and the proliferation of large-format stores in metros aided Bajajs push for quicker loans. The company soon realized that 40% of its customers were upgrading to higher value products rather than what they had initially planned to purchase, giving it more headroom for growth.

View Full Image Graphic: Mint

Stellar growth

Bajaj Finserv is the financial services arm of the $107.6 billion Bajaj group. It acts as the holding company for consumer durables financier Bajaj Finance, two insurance ventures, a digital marketplace, a healthcare solutions provider, a mutual fund, and an alternate investment venture.

In 2007-08, Bajaj Finance, which accounts for a majority of Bajaj Finservs consolidated profit, started off with a loan book of 2,478 crore and 800,000 customers. By the end of 2022-23, the company had a loan book of 2.5 trillion and 69 million customersat a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36% and 35%, respectively.

Sanjiv Bajaj attributes this growth to factors such as the companys ability to adopt technologies such as cloud computing way back in 2007-2008 when most were still on the fence.

Bajaj Finserv and Bajaj Finance are now building a digital strategy, which some see as arriving late to the party, since most banks are recording about 95% of their transactions either on the web or on their apps.

The company wants to sync user experiences on Bajajs web and app platforms and began the exercise two years back. The Bajaj Finserv app has a net user base of 40.2 million.

What technology allowed you to do on a phone was different versus on a computer screen, but that changed over a period of time and we realized that the smarter companies were creating a common look and feel, whether you were on the app or the web,"says Bajaj.

Bajaj is especially pushing two of its digital platforms to stay relevant. Bajaj Finserv Health is a health management platform that allows users to look at hospitalization, diagnostics and doctor consultation, while Bajaj Finserv Direct is a financial services marketplace. Bajaj Finserv wholly owns Finserv Health and 80.13% of Finserv Direct.

Industry watchers appear to be quite excited about the digital strides the group is taking. After Bajaj Finances June quarter results, analysts at Motilal Oswal said that customer acquisitions and the new loan trajectory have been strong and the momentum will only get stronger, with the digital ecosystemapp, web platform and full-stack payment offeringsin place. To be sure, Bajaj Finserv deserves credit for the steady manner in which it has expanded its interests and grown over the last decade and a half. However, it will struggle to sustain that growth in the coming years in the face of intense competition from banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and fintechs, not to mention the impending entry of Jio Financial Services.

The driving force

While Bajaj himself is credited with the vision to grow the business, building on his experience of streamlining businesses at the unsplit auto company, Bajaj Finance managing director Rajeev Jain has been the driving force behind its execution.

An early riser, Jain starts his day by sifting through the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, sending news clippings to his deputies. He walks to his office, reaching by 7.30am, and keeps himself busy in review meetings before walking out after 6.30pm.

We only have a market share of 170 basis points (bps) in overall credit and the ambition is to get to 3-4% in the medium term," says Jain, seated in a scenic rooftop breakout area of the Bajaj Finserv office. The other part is that we want to reach 100 million customers and have a share of 4-5% of Indias retail credit market."

Jain pointed out how strategies have changed over time. In 2014, Bajaj Finance realized that it needed to build a more granular book of liabilities to support its assets. It followed the example of HDFC Ltd, which until its July merger with its banking arm HDFC Bank, used to be a deposit-taking NBFC. Bajaj Finance started sourcing customer funds as deposits to build a granular liability book. As on 30 June, deposits stood at 49,994 crore, accounting for 21% of its total liabilities. The share of deposits has risen from 4% in 2014-15 and the lender wants to take it to 25% over time. This allowed the company to access smaller sums of money from customers instead of relying solely on banks and the money market for funds.

Challengers abound

Although the going so far has been good, Bajaj Finance, the biggest contributor to Finservs bottomline, today faces competition in certain segments of the market. Armed with digital capabilities, more financiers, some of them nimble fintechs, have crowded the space. Add resource-heavy private banks to the mix and consumers are spoilt for choice.

If thats not enough, Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Industries Ltd is waiting in the wings and eyeing a slice of the consumer loan pie. Through Jio Financial Services, the conglomerate will target the consumer finance, asset management and insurance markets. Although little is known on the kind of products it will offer, it will be in direct competition with Bajaj Finserv in these three segments. Ambani said last month that Jio Financial would use predictive data analytics to co-create contextual products with partners" and that Reliance has capitalized it with a net worth of 1.2 trillion. There is, however, no clarity on when Jio Financial will launch operations and it could be a while before it gets all the requisite permissions to do so.

Brokerages are divided over whether Jios entry will shake things up for Bajaj. For instance, BofA Securities said in a note in August that Jio Financial Services could pose a risk to Bajaj, BQ Prime reported on 23 August. However, BoB Capital Markets believes the scope to supercharge growth at Jio will be constrained by tough competition and high collection costs and does not see the entity eroding Bajajs customer base.

Bajaj, however, is unfazed and believes there is enough room for everyone. His confidence also stems from having built the business over many years, and putting people on the ground at outlets.

But analysts also point out that banks are now trying to get a foothold in the consumer durables market, threatening to eat into Bajaj Finservs turf. While private banks always had a presence in the personal loan market, their PSU peers are now warming up to the idea. Indeed, banks such as State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda are quite bullish on the personal loan segment.

Increasing competition from banks, lower market share in online consumer product sale financing could be key risks in the longer term," Jefferies said in a note on 26 July.

Moreover, as more people move online to buy consumer durables using their credit cards, Bajaj might find it difficult to keep growing at the current pace. To be sure, some e-commerce portals allow Bajajs EMI card holders to stagger repayment over a few months at zero interest, replicating its brick-and-mortar store model. However, the competition is making deep inroads.

The Tata Groups home appliance company, Voltas, recently said it has seen Bajaj Finance lose market share in channel financingworking capital loans provided to distributors and dealers. The management told analysts on 12 August that while Bajaj is losing ground, it still has a larger share than other contenders.

Competition could come from within the larger Bajaj group too. Bajaj Auto recently received approval from the eserve Bank of India (RBI) to start an NBFC, two years after it had announced setting up a captive finance unit.

Credit card focus

On its part, Bajaj Finance has been quick to grab new opportunities. Last year, moving away from its policy of not allowing NBFCs to issue credit cards without a bank as a partner, RBI allowed non-bank financiers to go solo in the credit card business, after approval. Soon after, Bajaj Finance decided to apply for clearance and is awaiting a response from the regulator. The company currently has two tie-ups: with RBL Bank and DBS India. Bajaj Finance has no plans of abandoning these partnerships even if it gets approval for a standalone credit card licence and plans to continue the partnerships for three to five years, while building its own proprietary credit card book.

If I run my own book, I would run it a bit differently than I run the partners book. Partnerships mean that we have to take care of their interest as we have a fiduciary responsibility," says Jain.

In 2022-23, Bajaj Finance sold 1.9 million co-branded credit cards, 41% more than in the previous fiscal year. It also has a special card that offers equated monthly instalments to customers and has an active base of 41.6 million. The lender could use these captive users to push its solo as well as co-branded credit cards.

The exuberant growth in retail loans in India in the past few years has aided Bajajs growth trajectory. Given its position as one of the largest consumption financiers, any stress on repayment capacity puts Bajaj at risk. The RBI has been contemplating bringing in tighter capital requirements for banks to safeguard against growth of unsecured loans. With the regulator moving to harmonize regulations of banks and non-banks, large NBFCs such as Bajaj could also get impacted.

To be sure, Bajaj has started taking steps to ensure it comes out unscathed in case there is any impact on repaying capacity. It has shrunk fresh loan volumes to some rural customers after seeing initial signs of stress.

Any seasoned person who has watched cyclical businesses would say that seeds of problems are sown in the best of the times. So, I think financial services businesses lend themselves to being worriers," says Jain when asked if anything keeps him awake at night.

Bajaj Finances net bad loans as a percentage of total loans stood at 0.34% in 2022-23, down from 0.68% in 2021-22 and 0.75% in 2020-21.

There is, however, a darker side to those bad-loan numbers, with allegations of harsh recovery practices strewn all over social media. In fact, it even faced the scrutiny of the RBI, which in January 2021 fined it 2.5 crore. The penalty was on account of Bajaj Finances failure to ensure recovery agents did not resort to harassment or intimidation of customers during debt collection efforts.

There were also persistent/repeat(ed) complaints about recovery and collection methods adopted by the company," said a press release on the RBI website.

The group, meanwhile, has been conducting an exercise to familiarize its employees with all aspects of financial services. About five years ago, it created common grade bands for employees, irrespective of which company they worked for, allowing them to move within the group easily. It has also created a job posting platform to push mobility of cadre within the group, and is grooming the next generation of leaders, preparing those in junior and middle management to take over senior management roles in a decade.

At some point, the 53-year-old Bajaj himself will have to pass the baton on to future leaders. Asked about succession planning, Bajaj says, If you are referring to my own children, firstly as you know, Im a part of the Bajaj group and my role is to run these companies as part of the group. But the group is larger than just me and my family; my daughter works in Bajaj Finance right now and is applying for her MBA; my son is studying in England. And both have a long way to go."
The ranks of foreign businesspeople in Shanghai are much depleted these days. Those who remain closely monitor the comings and goings of multinational executives. So all eyes were on the Bund Summit, a globally minded economic and financial forum held in the city from September 22nd to 24th. In previous years the forum brought in A-list chief executives from around the world. The latest edition, the first since China lifted its draconian covid-19 restrictions and declared itself open for business, was expected to draw high-powered crowds once again.

Not so. Nearly ten months in, President Xi Jinpings grand reopening from his zero-covid fiasco has been a big disappointment. Foreign investors believed that 2022, when quarantines threw China into a deep freeze, would be the bottom for sour sentiment. Instead the Chinese economy is creaking and cross-border investment flows have weakened. Foreign businesses have been raided by the authorities. On September 25th the Financial Times reported that Charles Wang Zhonghe, the China chairman of investment banking at Nomura International, a Japanese bank, had been banned from leaving China. Many foreign investors are skipping trips and putting off investment plans.

Those that are showing up in Beijing and Shanghai this year say the damage wrought by zero-covid is palpable. Some of this, like the deteriorating English-language skills of hotel workers, is superficial. Other problems cut to the bone. Local staff have been deprived of foreign travel for years, and so from mingling with a previously steady stream of colleagues, engineers and scientists. Chinas legions of well-trained white-collared workers appear less prepared to engage with the rest of the world than they did a few years ago, the visitors lament.

Communication between the government and foreign investors is even more stilted. Local officials are less willing to have open discussions with visiting investors. Most queries from foreigners receive boilerplate responses. That is particularly unhelpful at a time when dizzyingly complex new compliance rules for things like data transfers pose big legal risks for companies.

Perhaps as a consequence, few foreigners bother coming. Inbound travel is still shockingly depressed. The number of passengers entering the country on international flights in the first half of the year was down by more than three-quarters compared with the same period in 2019. As late as July the figure was still only just over 50%. Western tourists have been almost entirely missing from China this year, depriving the country of useful interpersonal connections. Group travel from America was down by about 99% in the second quarter of the year, compared with 2019.

View Full Image (Graphic: The Economist)

Business travel, which ground to an almost complete halt in 2022 as China issued few visas and required up to three weeks of quarantine, is far below Chinese expectations and increasing only at a snails pace. Harrington Zhang and colleagues at Nomura warn in a recent report (published before their colleagues predicament came to light) that the lack of business contacts and civilian exchanges between China and the outside world may have more profound implications for Chinas economic growth potential in the years ahead". Already foreign direct investment collapsed to $4.9bn in the second quarter, down by 94% from the same period in 2021. Just $4.4bn in foreign venture capital flowed into China in the first half of the year, down from about $55bn for all of 2021, according to PitchBook, a data provider (see chart).

Those who stuck it out during the punitive zero-covid years are re-evaluting their commitment to China. According to a survey of American companies in the country by the American Chamber of Commerce, released on September 19th, just 68% were profitable last year. Only 52% think this year will be better. Roughly as many were optimistic about the next five years, a record low. Some 40% of companies say they are moving investments elsewhere or planning to do so.

The chamber noted that 2023 was supposed to be the year investor confidence and optimism bounced back". But, it added grimly, that rebound has simply not materialised". Instead, business sentiment has continued to deteriorate". Merely flinging the door to the world open has not worked. Meanwhile, the window to meaningfully re-engage with the West is closing.

 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
JSW Infra IPO last date: JSW Infrastructure IPO subscription will end today (Wednesday, September 27). JSW Infrastructure IPO has been oversubscribed on the final day. JSW Infrastructure IPO has been subscribed 37.37 times on day 3, so far.

JSW Infra IPO opened for subscription on Monday, September 25. JSW Infrastructure IPO was subscribed 2.14 times on day 2. JSW Infra IPO's retail investors portion was subscribed 4.55 times, NII portion was subscribed 3.70 times, and Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) portion was subscribed 55%.

Also Read: JSW Infrastructure IPO: Issue fully booked on day 2; retail portion subscribed over 4 times

JSW Infrastructure IPO was subscribed 43% on day 1. JSW Infra IPO price band has been set in the range between 113 to 119 per equity share of face value of 2 each. JSW Infra IPO lot size is 126 equity shares and in multiples of 126 equity shares thereafter.

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JSW Infrastructure Limited IPO has reserved not less than 75% of the shares in the public issue for Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB), not more than 15% for Non Institutional Investors (NII), and not more than 10% of the offer is reserved for Retail Investors.

JSW Infrastructure IPO subscription status details

JSW Infra IPO has been subscribed 37.37 times on day 3. JSW Infra IPO received overwhelming response from retail investors, whose portion was subscribed 10.32 times, NII portion was subscribed 15.99 times, and Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) portion was subscribed 57.09 times.

JSW Infrastructure IPO has received bids for 5,09,35,27,446 shares against 13,62,83,186 shares on offer, according to data from the BSE.

JSW Infra IPO retail investors' portion received bids for 25,56,58,536 shares against 2,47,78,761 shares on offer for this segment.

JSW Infrastructure IPO's non-institutional investors' portion received bids for 59,41,72,278 shares against 3,71,68,141 on offer for this segment.

JSW Infra IPO's Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) portion received bids for 4,24,36,96,632 shares against 7,43,36,284 on offer for this segment.

JSW Infra IPO Review

JSW Infrastructure Ltd is the port-related infrastructure company with the fastest growth rate, according to brokerage Nirmal Bang. By utilising locational advantage and maximising assets, it has a broad customer base that includes third-party customers from various geographic locations.

Hence it is able to generate higher EBITDA margins and ROCE compared to Adani Ports. It intends to leverage its presence in the non-major ports to provide fully integrated logistics solutions to its customers. JSW Infrastructure Ltd is being offered at reasonable valuations at 17.2x FY23 EBITDA and thus we recommend subscribing to the issue," said the brokerage.

JSW Infrastructure IPO details

JSW Infra IPO comprises a fresh issuance of 2,800 crore worth of shares, there's no offer for sale (OFS) component.

According to Red Herring Prospectus (RHP), the company plans to invest the net proceeds from the offering into its fully owned subsidiaries, JSW Dharamtar Port Private Limited and JSW Jaigarh Port Ltd, in order to prepay or repay all or a portion of certain outstanding borrowings.

The company also intends to finance capital expenditure requirements through investment in its wholly owned subsidiary, JSW Jaigarh Port Ltd, for proposed expansion/upgradation works at Jaigarh Port, including the expansion of the LPG terminal, the establishment of an electric sub-station, and the purchase and installation of a dredger.

JM Financial Ltd, Axis Capital Ltd, Credit Suisse Securities (India) Private Ltd, DAM Capital Advisors Ltd, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Private Ltd, ICICI Securities Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Ltd, and SBI Capital Market Ltd are the book running lead managers to the Offer. KFin Technologies Ltd is the offer's registrar.

Also Read: JSW Infra IPO opens today: GMP, review, other key details to know. Should you subscribe?

JSW Infra IPO GMP today

JSW Infrastructure IPO GMP today or or grey market premium is +19 similar to the previous trading session. This indicates JSW Infra share price were trading at a premium of 19 in the grey market on Wednesday, according to topsharebrokers.com

Considering the upper end of the JSW Infrastructure Limited IPO price band and the current premium in the grey market, the estimated listing price of JSW Infra share price is 138 apiece, which is 15.97% higher than the IPO price of 119.

'Grey market premium' indicates investors' readiness to pay more than the issue price.

Also Read: JSW Infrastructure IPO: Latest GMP, subscription status, buy or not?

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Valiant Laboratories IPO date: Valiant Laboratories IPO is opening for subscription today (Wednesday, September 27) and it will close on Tuesday, October 3.

Valiant Laboratories specialises in manufacturing Paracetamol as an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) or bulk drug. A manufacturing facility owned by Valiant Laboratories is located in Palghar, Maharashtra, India.

There is an internal research and development (R&D) infrastructure within the company's production facilities in Maharashtra. The company's R&D facility is furnished with an analytical laboratory and infrastructure for product development activities.

Valiant Laboratories is promoted by Shantilal Shivji Vora, Santosh Shantilal Vora and Dhanvallabh Ventures LLP.

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Valiant Laboratories IPO details

Valiant Laboratories IPO is worth 152.46 crores, and is completely a fresh issue of 10,890,000 equity shares; there is no offer for sale (OFS) component.

The company has fixed the price band at 133 to 140 per equity share for the proposed initial public offer. Bids can be made for a minimum of 105 equity shares and in multiples of 105 equity shares thereafter.

Valiant Laboratories IPO has reserved not more than 50 per cent of the shares in the public issue for qualified institutional buyers (QIB), not less than 15 per cent for non-institutional investors (NII), and not less than 35 per cent of the offer is reserved for retail investors.

According to the red herring prospectus (RHP), listed peers of Valiant Laboratories are Granules India Ltd (with a P/E of 15.06), Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals Ltd (with a P/E of 41.54), Alkyl Amines Chemicals Ltd (with a P/E of 55.59), Laxmi Organic Industries Ltd (with 66.07).

The company plans to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund its objectives as follows: an investment in Valiant Advanced Sciences Private Limited (VASPL), a wholly owned subsidiary, to partially fund its capital expenditure needs in connection with the establishment of a manufacturing facility for speciality chemicals at Saykha Industrial Area, Bharuch, Bharuch, Gujarat (Proposed Facility); an investment in VASPL to fund its working capital requirements; and to meet general corporate purposes.

Unistone Capital Private Ltd is the book-running lead manager for the Valiant IPO. Link Intime India Private Ltd is the registrar of Valiant Laboratories IPO.

The allocation to anchor investors for Valiant IPO is scheduled to take place today (Tuesday, September 26).

Read more: Valiant Laboratories IPO opens tomorrow: GMP, issue details, 10 key things to know

Valiant Laboratories IPO GMP today: According to market experts, Valiant IPO GMP (grey market premium) is zero today around 8:30 am. This means Valiant Laboratories shares were trading at their issue price of 140 with no premium or discount in the grey market.

'Grey market premium' indicates investors' readiness to pay more than the issue price.

Should you subscribe?

Experts do not appear upbeat about this IPO.

Dilip Davda, the contributing editor at Chittorgarh.com pointed out that the company is in the business of manufacturing APIs and bulk drugs with a prime focus on widely used paracetamol. However, the company has posted declining trends for its PAT and RoCE margins for the reported periods.

Based on FY23 earnings, the issue appears fully priced. Investors may park funds for medium to long-term rewards," Davda said.

Read all IPO-related news here

Disclaimer: The views and recommendations above are those of individual analysts, experts and broking companies, not of Mint. We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions.

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Indian equities had a tumultuous ride last week after the US Federal Reserve indicated that it could keep interest rates elevated for longer than expected before. The Fed projections pushed the US Treasury yields to a 16-year peak and lifted the dollar index. In response, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have turned sellers in Indian equities in September so far, after months of investing heavily. The ongoing India-Canada tiff, rising crude oil prices, and erratic rainfall have also dampened investors sentiments. Market analysts believe that uncertain global cues and the sharp surge in US bond yields will keep sentiments on the edge in the near term.

Flight of safety

Until August, FPIs had remained net buyers of Indian equities for six months. But this month so far, they have offloaded shares worth over 10,000 crore as US bonds, with their rising yields, have become a more lucrative option. significantly pumped money in segments such as financial services, capital goods and auto. But with the sudden withdrawal, metals and mining, power, and services quickly fell out of favour.

Peers under pressure

But FPIs have been selling across emerging markets (EMs), and analysts expect this to continue for some more time. Whats going well for India is that despite the risk-off selling spree, flows into the country have remained healthy for the year so far, cumulatively, relative to peer markets. Domestic institutional investors are standing tall with sustained buying, as domestic mutual fund inflows have stayed robust.

Destination India

Notwithstanding the recent pangs, over 100 new foreign investors entered the Indian stock markets since March. Over 400 new FPIs had joined the capital markets last fiscal yearwith the highest number coming from the UScompared to 633 in 2021-22. In terms of the equity assets under custody, Canada was at the ninth spot as of August, with a 2.8% share. The ongoing tensions between India and Canada are unlikely to impact these flows. Nearly 84% of the overseas investors equity assets under custody are from 10 countries, with the US having a 42% share.

Lost holdings?

Meanwhile, FPI ownership in the top 500 listed firms had risen to a seven-quarter high in the April-June period in value terms. With the reversal of flows, shareholding of foreign investors in these companies would most likely have seen some decline in the current quarter. Data for this will get updated only by the end of next month.

What lies ahead?

India is better placed compared to its other emerging market peers, said Mukesh Kochar, national head - wealth, AUM Capital. Other EMs like China, Taiwan etc. are suffering from their own issues and that might be a gain for India," he said. By and large, we believe that FPIs cannot ignore India in their allocations. There may be temporary outflow due to temporary issues but India will continue to attract FPI money on a long-term basis."
STEM

Abilene Christian University Opens Science and Research Center to House Nuclear Research Reactor

The research bay and an illustrated rendering of the molten salt research reactor in ACU's Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center (Photo courtesy of Abilene Christian University)

Abilene Christian University (ACU) celebrated the grand opening on Sept. 1, 2023, of its Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC), which will house a research molten salt nuclear reactor, currently being designed. The facility will allow graduate and undergraduate students to contribute to "world-class research and groundbreaking technology," the university said.

The 28,000-square-foot facility will cost $23 million, and includes a 6,000-square-foot research bay, a 25-foot-deep by 80-foot-long shielded trench, and a 40-ton crane, said the university. It will also house a training control room, conference room, office spaces, machine shop, and a series of specialized labs for radiochemistry, molten salt systems, and instrumentation. The foyer will provide information on the research to public visitors.

The facility is made possible by ACU alumna Gayle Dillard and her husband, Max, who founded drilling company D.I. Industries.

The molten salt reactor is being designed jointly by ACU's Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing (NEXT) Lab and Abilene-based company Natura Resources. Financial support of $30.5 million comes from the Natura Resources Research Alliance, which includes Georgia Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, and The University of Texas at Austin. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing the construction permit application.

The university, whose NEXT LaB currently employs 45 undergraduate students, is excited to offer students a part in molten salt reactor research, it said.

"The Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center is a building unlike any other at ACU or on the campus of most universities across the nation," said Phil Schubert, ACU president at the facility's opening. "This 28,000-square-foot facility will allow students, especially undergraduates, to contribute to world-class research and groundbreaking technology in ways not available at most other universities. It also will bring scientists from other organizations and universities to Abilene to collaborate with our scientists and students in this unique space."

David Holcomb, molten salt reactor technology leader at Idaho National Laboratory, also praised the university for "pushing what has been a paper reactor class for more than 50 years back into reality."

"ACU has picked up the gauntlet in the creation of this science and engineering research center. Members of the Natura Resources Research Alliance have the responsibility and privilege of training the next generation of leaders, who I am confident will bring the great potential of this reactor class to fruition," he said.

Visit the Natura Resources About page to learn more about molten salt reactors.

A video about the SERC is available on YouTube.
It is one of those days that most Gen X investors still remember vividly. A tryst with history on 16 May 1992. A long, serpentine queue had formed in the heart of Indias capital New Delhi early that morning. The restless queue, which was waiting for Unit Trust of India (UTI) to open its office, soon went berserk and the police had to be called in. And all this happened because UTI, the countrys largest fund house then, had launched a close-ended fund, Mastergain 92, and every investor wanted to lay their hands on it, says Dhirendra Kumar, CEO of Value Research.

The frenzy must have been witnessed in other parts of the country as well, says Kumar. According to a news report later, Master Gain 92 debuted with 6.5 million investors, a record for any equity fund. Kumar says he has never seen such euphoria around mutual funds since. And other industry veterans concur. The mutual fund (MF) industry has since grown in size and now has assets under management of 46 trillion.

Addressing a conference of chartered financial analysts some time ago, Kumar said the high demand for Master Gain 92 fund was due to the logistical difficulty faced by small investors in buying and selling shares through stock brokers. For them, the easiest way to participate in the markets was by owning mutual fund units, thereby giving them an indirect exposure to equities. At that time, the Harshad Mehta bull run was on in full swing and even ordinary people wanted to participate in the stock markets at any cost.

View Full Image Graphic: Mint

All that changed soon. Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) introduced various measures to streamline and make mutual funds more accessible. The advent of technology speeded up the process.

Mint spoke to some industry veterans to understand how the MF ecosystem has evolved since the 90s. MF distributors were then called Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) and could earn heavy commissions in the form of annual charges, entry load, exit load and initial issue expenses. The last was levied during the launch of a new fund an initial public offering as it was known then. Now, it is a new fund offering. Asset management companies (AMCs) could charge an initial issue expense of up to 6%. This would take care of their expenses and the commissions as well. The entry and exit load commissions could both be as high as 7% and distributors got a part of this as well. To be sure, an entry load is charged when an investor buys a fund and an exit load is charged when an investor sells it.

Gradually, Sebi started working towards dismantling this commission structure. The initial issue expense was removed in 2008. Subsequently, the entry load was abolished in 2009 and it could no longer be used for paying distributor commissions. The exit load had to be ploughed back to the funds NAV, or net asset value.

In 2012, the market regulator introduced a beyond-15 (B15) incentive to increase MF penetration. The scheme paid a higher commission for selling MFs to investors beyond the top 15 cities. Around the same time, it levied a fee for MF transactions: 150 for new investors and 100 for existing investors, for every transaction beyond a certain threshold.

Then in 2013, Sebi introduced direct plans whereby investors could buy MF units directly from AMCs, eliminating the role of middlemen and commissions. The same year, it permitted registered investment advisory (RIA). The RIAs are regulated by Sebi and they are allowed to charge a fee but barred from earning commissions on selling regular mutual fund plans.

MF distributors

They have been around since the time MFs were introduced in India. The distributors are individuals or corporations registered with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) and can earn a commission on sale of MFs. As of June 2023, there were 1.4 lakh registered distributorsof these, 6,600 are registered as corporate distributors and the remaining are individuals.

A report titled Why Worlds Largest AMCs are not present in India in August said about 22,000 mutual fund distributors, or MFDs, who individually have assets of more than 5 crore, collectively control 83% of the industry AUM (regular plan). Additionally, 110,000 smaller MFDs (with less than 5 crore corpus) earn a very low annual trial commission, ranging from 1 lakh to 5 lakh. This shows that the distribution business is heavily concentrated in the hands of the top players.

Choosing MF distribution as their sole profession could be very challenging for new MFDs till their income reaches a decent size. This creates a problem in attracting young MFDs and increasing foot soldiers to improve the MF penetration," said the above report.

Distributors are broadly categorized into three buckets: national distributors (NDs), MFDs (or independent financial advisers), and banks. According to a report by Kotak Institutional Equities, in fiscal 2022, individual MFDs had a share of 17% of the total AUM, whereas national distributors and banks had 49% and 34%, respectively.

Kumar of Value Research said many MFDs operate as wealth managers since Indians are not used to paying fixed fees for advisory services.

Another challenge for investors is the risk of banks hard-selling their own mutual funds and not acting in good faith in recommending the right fund. A previous Mint article pointed out that many AMCs, including HSBC, IDBI and SBI pay out more than 50% of the commission to their sister concern banks (for FY22)

Investment advisers

MFDs, warn market experts, would want to churn your portfolio at regular intervals or cross-sell certain funds to earn more commission. If investors dislike this, they can opt for fixed-fee advisory provided by RIAs, who advise clients on their personal investments.

A fixed fee reduces the incentive to sell high commission products. RIAs consider various factors like risk appetite and needs of the individual and family when building an investment portfolio. But, a high regulatory burden and strict compliance norms have dissuaded many from applying for this license from Sebi. There are only about 1,300 RIAs in the country. This means that the services of an RIA are not accessible for a majority of the population unless they have a huge corpus. Also, of the 1,300 RIAs, 75% are registered in the top 5 cities, with 10 states not having even a single RIA.

Notably, a Boston consulting report in 2018 showed that 45% income of wealth managers globally is fee-based. That number, though, was only 14% for India. According to the report, Indian wealth managers relied heavily on commissions, which made up for 58% of their total income. The report shows that India has a lot of room to grow towards a fee-based model.

Amit Trivedi, co-founder of Osat Knowledge, said RIAs are broadly of two kinds: financial planners and outright derivatives/stock tippers. He said that while the former aligns with Sebis objective of providing advice, the rise in the number of derivative tippers in the form of RIAs led to Sebi introducing cumbersome regulations for the RIA community as a whole.

Fintech apps

The launch of direct plans in 2013 sowed the beginnings of new-age fintech apps. These apps could integrate their backend system with registrar and transfer agents such as CAMS or Karvy. Alternatively, they could integrate with exchange-run platforms like BSE Star MF or NSE MF to offer mutual funds free of any commission in 15 minutes, provided investors have the required documents.

Investors can go directly to an AMCs website or transact from RTA-run platforms. Yet, it was the sleek and user-friendly system of fintech apps attracted a lot of investors. The only problem here was that fintech Apps earn nothing from offering direct plans. So, they aim to get customers hooked to their platforms and then pitch other financial products that bring in revenue. Many experts caution that MF apps could sell products that may not necessarily be suitable for retail investors.

Suresh Sadagopan, RIA and founder of Ladder7 Financial advisor, said it is important for MFDs, fee-based RIAs, and direct plan apps to grow further to cater to the diverse needs of a huge country like India. He also expressed his disappointment that excessive compliance burden has made the RIAs business unviable.
The Karnataka government will approach the Supreme Court to challenge the direction of Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) to release water to Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on September 27.

The Committee has directed the Karnataka government to release water at a rate of 3,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) to the neighbouring state between September 28 and October 15.

Karnataka is already in midst of protests, called by pro-Kannada groups and backed by farmer outfits, triggered after a September 21 order of the Supreme Court directed the state to release 5,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu per day. The protesters had called a state-wide bandh on September 26.

Siddaramaiah, while speaking to reporters in Chamrajnagar, said the state's legal team has recommended that the government should move to the apex court to challenge the Cauvery regulation panel's latest directive.

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"We are challenging the order of the Regulation Committee before the Supreme Court. We don't have water to give," news agency PTI quoted the chief minister as saying.

Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar had on September 26 expressed satisfaction over the CWRC rejecting the request of Tamil Nadu, which wanted Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs. The committee, instead, recommended Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water.

Karnataka submitted before CWRC at its meeting in New Delhi that the shortfall in cumulative inflows to its four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin up to September 25, which hold just 53.04 percent of their capacity.

According to Karnataka officials, due to the failure of the south-west monsoon (from June to September) this year, there is no sufficient storage in the four reservoirs and the state is facing such a grave situation that it is finding it extremely difficult even to cater to the drinking water requirements, let alone supplying for irrigation.

The rainfall received in Karnataka this year in August and September is the lowest in the last 123 years, they said.

(With PTI inputs)

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Google Doodle commemorates its 25th birthday today with a special Doodle. Google is perpetually focused on the future but birthdays provide an opportunity for reflection.

Origin of Google 25 years ago

Doctoral students Sergey Brin and Larry Page met while pursuing Stanford University's computer science program in the late 1990s. They discovered that both of them had a shared vision and that was to enhance the accessibility of the World Wide Web. Both of them worked tirelessly from their dorm rooms and crafted a prototype for a better search engine. As progress on the project mounted, they relocated their operation to Google's first office which was a rented garage. Google Inc. was officially founded on September 27, 1998.

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Since that day in 1998, much has evolved including Google's logo, as evident in today's Doodle. However, the mission has steadfastly remained the same that is to organise the world's information and ensure its universal accessibility and utility. Today, billions of people across the globe rely on Google to search, connect, work, play and for many more things. This doodle will be visible across the globe except for a few regions including Russia.

In the last doodle released on September 25, South African jazz pianist, composer, and journalist Todd Matshikiza was celebrated. Illustrated by South Africa-based guest artist Keith Vlahakis, the Doodle commemorated his commissioned cantata "Uxolo" (peace), which was played by the orchestra at the 70th Johannesburg Festival on September 25, 1956.

As a composer, Matshikiza is renowned for his song "Quickly in Love," featured in the 2013 film "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom." He also composed the score for two theatrical productions, "King Kong" and "Mkhumbane." "King Kong," an all-Black jazz musical that premiered in 1958, became a sensation, and even made its way to London. "Mkhumbane" (1960), featuring compositions by Matshikiza and Alan Paton was equally famous.

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Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has initiated a protest near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru against the Karnataka government, specifically concerning the Cauvery water-sharing matter, HD Deve Gowda said.

Joining this demonstration is HD Kumaraswamy, who is set to participate in the BJP's protest, confirmed Deve Gowda, another former PM.

I held a discussion with Home Minister Amit Shah for the first time in the last 10 years. I have not met PM Modi. I also explained the political situation in Karnataka to HM. Before joining BJP, I took the views of our 19 MLAs and 8 MLCs who said that JD(S) should consider entering into an understanding with BJP," ANI quoted Deve Gowda as saying.

BJP leader C T Ravi earlier said, "Our State Party Chief and BS Yediyurappa declared support. We will support it and with it, we will also protest in front of the Gandhi statue."

On September 25, a letter penned by HD Deve Gowda, a Member of Parliament representing the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS), was dispatched to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Within this correspondence, Deve Gowda earnestly beseeched for the assembly of a panel of proficient specialists tasked with assessing the prevailing conditions of water resources and crop standing in the state of Karnataka.

I have made an appeal to the PM about the prevailing situation. In my letter to the PM, I wrote that the Jal Shakti department should file a review petition and a committee of experts should be sent to Karnataka to study the water and standing crop situation. I requested the same to the Vice President of the country," ANI quoted the ex-PM as saying in a joint press briefing with JD(S) leader and former CM HD Kumaraswamy.

(With ANI inputs)

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Muslims belonging to the Sufi or the Barelvi school of thought celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad, as Eid Milad-un-Nabi, also known as Eid-e-Milad, also called Nabid and Mawlid in colloquial Arabic. The celebration occurs during Rabi al-awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar.

The sighting of the crescent moon in October -- sighted on October 18 this year --typically marks the beginning of Rabi al-awwal in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the subcontinent region. As per the gregorian calendar, October 19th was the first date of Rabi ul Awwal

Bidaah:

Several sections of the Muslim community believe that in Islamic culture there is no place for birthday celebrations of Prophet Mohammad. They say that according to Holy Quran and Sunnah, celebrating any event other than Eid al-Fitr and Eid-e-Adha is a kind of biddah or innovation in Islamic culture.

Muslims from Salafi and Wahhabi schools of thought do not mark the tradition of festivities. They believe that celebration Eid-e-Milad or Mawlid is an innovation or act of biddat as there is no evidence of Eid-e-Milad celebrations during the era of Prophet Mohammad himself and his appointed successors.

Date:

In Islamic lunar calendar, based of the crescent moon sighting, the Sunni community celebrate Eid-e-Milad on the 12th day of Rabi al-awwal, while the Shia community observes it on the 17th of Rabi al-awwal. This year Eid-e-Milad will be celebrated on September 27 in Saudi Arabia and on September 28 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other parts of the subcontinent.

History and significance:

The history of celebrating the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad dates back to the early four Rashidun Caliphs and the idea of marking this day was initiated by the Fatimids. Some Muslims believe that the Prophet was born in Mecca on the twelfth day of Rabi al-awwal in 570 CE.

Though the word Mawlid" means birth" in colloquial Arabic. Some also considers Eid-e-Milad as a day mourning as it is also believed to be the death anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad. Eid-e-Milad was first officially celebrated in Egypt, and gained popularity the 11th century.

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Initially, the ruling Shia tribe in Egypt start celebrating this festival, but it gradually spread to Syria, Morocco, Turkey, and Spain in the 12th century. Sunni Muslim sects also started celebrating it later on.

Eid-e-Milad holds great significance for Sufi and Barelvi sects, but it is not universally accepted within the Muslim community.

Celebrations:

Eid-e-Milad celebrations have evolved over time. In Egypt, early celebrations involved prayers, speeches, Quranic verses, and a large public feast. People of the ruling clan were honoured as they were believed to be Caliphs, which were considered to be representatives of Prophet Muhammad.

Later, as the practices got modified under heavy Sufi influence, the celebrations were marked with animal sacrifices, public discourses, night time torchlight processions and a public banquet.

Eid-e-Milad is celebrated by Muslims wearing new clothes, offering prayers and exchanging greetings. They get together at a mosque or at a dargah and start their day with a morning prayer followed by a procession carried out from the mosques to the town, and narrate stories of the Prophet's life and teachings as mentioned in the Holy Quran. Community meals are organised, donations are made towards the needy and poor people, and night-long prayers are also part of the celebrations.

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Shiv Sena (UBT) Priyanka Chaturvedi has asked the Ministry of External Affairs to immediately initiate an inquiry against US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who condemned the death of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In a tweet on the X platform (formerly Twitter), Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, serving as the US representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district appealed to the federal government to support Canada's probe into Nijjar's death. "The allegations that Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Niijar was assassinated by the Indian government are deeply concerning. The US must fully support the Canadian investigation," Omar said. Also read: Nijjar killing row: Canada has seen a lot of organized crime, says Jaishankar She added, "We are also requesting a briefing on whether there are similar operations in the United States". Following Omar's remark MP Chaturvedi urged India's foreign ministry to start an enquiry into how an elected representative in the USA is interfering in the peace of Jammu & Kashmir via a Pakistan-funded PoK visit.

Omar reportedly visited to Pakistan-occupied part of the disputed region of Kashmir or PoK in 2022. And, an annual House financial disclosure report revealed that her trip was funded by the Pakistani government.

Also read: Nijjar killing row: Not part of Five Eyes, Jaishankar refuses to comment on reports of intelligence shared

The disclosure showed that Islamabad had sponsored Omars visit from the 18th to the 24th of April, 2022which included lodging as well as food.

Omar, a prominent Democrat known for her anti-India stance on various issues. She also boycotted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the joint session of the US Congress in June this year wherein Omar said, Modi government has repressed religious minorities.

Also read: India-Canada feud threatens to hurt trade and investment. Here's what's at stake

Omar, a Somali American who belongs to President Joe Bidens Democratic Party, is the first naturalised citizen of African birth to sit in the US Congress.

Meanwhile, India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar repeated his criticism of Canada. He said that India is willing to examine the evidence presented by Canada alleging New Delhi's involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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"If there's any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific as a government, I would of course look into it," Jaishankar said.

Also read: Canada News: Nearly 50 bullets fired in coordinated attack on Hardeep Singh Nijjar, video report reveals

Canada has called for India to cooperate in the investigation but New Delhi has rejected the allegations and taken countermeasures, such as shutting down visa services for Canadians.

"We have actually been badgering the Canadians. We've given them loads of information about organized crime leadership which operates out of Canada," Jaishankar said, referring to Sikh separatists.

"Our concern is that it's really been very permissive because of political reasons," he said.

"We have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made (that are) interference in our politics," he said.

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NEW DELHI : India is working with Russia to sort out lingering problems with the rupee trade mechanism, including challenges with the exchange rate mechanism and fund repatriation, two government officials said.

Though issues with the special Rupee Vostro account system havent yet been resolved, both sides are working on the teething issues," one of the officials said.

A Vostro account is a bank account, generally in a foreign currency, which is held by one bank on behalf of another. By utilizing the respondent banks local banking infrastructure, it enables the bank to offer services to its clients in overseas markets.

In July 2022, amid western sanctions on Russia, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced this mechanism to allow local traders to settle imports and exports in rupees.

Mint reported on 9 August that Russian funds worth about $10-12 billion are estimated to have been invested in Indian government treasury bills in the year ended 31 March 2023, after a surge in trade deficit led to higher surpluses in the vostro accounts.

Indias had a $43 billion trade deficit with Russia, which left Russian exporters with huge surpluses in their vostro accounts in India.

RBI allows excess balance from such accounts to be invested in payments for projects and investments, treasury bills and government securities.

Despite the challenges, Russia remains committed to the rupee-trade mechanism and is unlikely to unilaterally pull out of it, another senior government official said.

The Russians will not unilaterally pull out from this arrangement," said the second official cited above.

Any pull-out, if it ever happens, will take place after agreements between both sides," the person added without mentioning the quantum of transactions under this mechanism.

Both officials spoke under the condition of anonymity.

A finance ministry spokesperson didnt respond to emailed queries.

As things stand, the US dollar remains the preferred currency for trade.

However, promoting trade denominated in rupees allows Indian traders to cut currency conversion costs.

India has allowed banks in 22 partner-countries, including Bangladesh, Germany, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and the UK, to open vostro accounts in the country, Reuters reported in August.

Indias import of oil from Russia has increased substantially over the last year.

India imported crude worth $31 billion from Russia in FY23, as against $2.5 billion in the previous year and $900 million in FY21, according to government data.

This has led to the widening of the trade deficit with Russia to $43 billion in FY23, as against $6.6 billion and $2.8 billion in FY22 and FY21, respectively.

A Bloomberg report in June said the trade gap with India is forcing Russia to accumulate up to $1 billion each month in rupee assets that remain stranded outside the country.
An angry mob Wednesday burnt down the mandal office of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at Thoubal district in Manipur. The BJP office was targeted by a large group of protesters who vented their fury over the alleged kidnapping and killing of two students in the state, the India Today reported.

The report said the agitated protesters also destroyed the office gate, shattered the windows, and damaged the windshield of a vehicle parked within the premises.

Violent protests continued to rock Imphal for the second consecutive day on Wednesday as Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured Chief Minister N Biren Singh of quick action in dealing with the culprits responsible for kidnapping and killing the two youths.

Meanwhile, government extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA by another six months in Manipur barring 19 police stations falling under the Imphal valley and an area that shares its boundary with neighbouring Assam.

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Curfew was also re-imposed in two districts of East and West Imphal as the state government combatted violent protests which saw 65 demonstrators being injured over past two days.

Maximum punishment" for culprits

Manipur's Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday strongly denounced the alleged "kidnapping and killing" of two students, and vowed maximum punishment" for culprits.

"Since 1-1.5 months there has been no exchange of fire from either side, and peace is being restored. A sad incident took place, where a Meity girl and a boy were missing from July 3. We tried to trace them and finally handed over the case to CBI on August 28. A viral video surfaced yesterday where the bodies of the two missing youths were found," ANI reported Singh as saying.

"This is a sad incident, and it is highly condemnable that what the Kuki militants have done is the highest level of crime. Union Minister Amit Shah called me yesterday and ensured that he is sending a CBI team along with the Special Director. They have arrived here in the afternoon today. I want to promise to the people of Manipur that we will ensure the culprit is given maximum punishment," the chief minister added

A CBI team, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, reached Imphal today afternoon in a special flight to investigate the alleged "kidnapping and killing" of the two students, reported ANI. Upon their arrival at Imphal airport, the CBI team parried questions about the incident.

The two youths had reportedly gone missing in Manipur on July 6.

More than 180 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic violence broke out in Manipur on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

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After photos of the deceased bodies of two missing Meitei teenagers appeared on social media platforms, Manipur CM N Biren Singh assured people here that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Biren Singh said, In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." To further expedite this crucial investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director, along with a specialized team, will be arriving in Imphal in a special flight. Their presence underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter. I have been constantly in touch with Honble Union Home Minister Shri@AmitShahji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice," he added.

A large number of students gathered and staged a demonstration in Imphal seeking justice for the two Meitei students, who went missing on 6 July  during the peak of ethnic violence in the state.

Soon after the internet services were restored in the North-Eastern state, the images of the two missing Manipur students went viral on social media. In the images, one shows the two students dead bodies, while the other one shows them sitting in fear with two armed men in the background.

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The Manipur government, meanwhile, has reportedly confirmed that the bodies belong to the two missing Meitei students. As per the details, the two deceased students have been identified as a female student  Hijam Linthoingambi (17), and a male student  Phijam Hemjit (20).

Looking at the timeline of the images, Luwangbi went out with Hijam on his KTM bike for a ride on 6 July and hasn't returned since then.

Over 175 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on 3 May, ever since a Tribal Solidarity March was organized in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei communitys demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

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Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the ongoing violence situation in Manipur . He demanded that BJP's incompetent chief minister should be sacked.

Kharge also alleged that the violence against women and children has been weaponized and accused the BJP of turning Manipur into a battlefield.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Congress leader said, For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the state. The horrific images of students being targeted in this violence have once again shocked the entire nation."

"It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponized in this strife. The beautiful state of Manipur has been turned into a battlefield, all because of the BJP," he said.

"High time, PM Modi sacks BJP's incompetent Manipur Chief Minister. This would be the first step to control any further turmoil," Kharge added.

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The Congress has been targeting the BJP-led central government on the issue of Manipur violence and has been questioning why the prime minister has not visited the violence-hit state.

Photos of two students, previously reported missing since July 2023, emerged on social media platforms. The deceased teens, identified as Hijam Linthoingambi, 17, and Phijam Hemjit, 20. The pictures displayed the duo in what appears to be a makeshift jungle camp.

The state government has promised swift and decisive" action against the perpetrators behind the abduction and murder of these two students. The authorities also called for public restraint, urging citizens to let the professionals conduct the investigation. The police are collaborating with central security agencies to uncover the full details of this tragic incident.

Since May, the state has been gripped by widespread violence following a high court directive. The court order advised the state government to contemplate including the non-tribal Meitei community in the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST), sparking ethnic clashes. Over 170 people have lost their lives in the unrest, with many more sustaining injuries.

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday refused to comment on the reports sharing of intelligence between Five Eyes countries on Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar s killing. I am not part of The Five Eyes", the minister said during the Discussion at Council on Foreign Relations' in New York.

He was asked about the reports citing the role of the Five Eyes group regarding the intelligence behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and reports of the FBI warning US Sikh leaders about credible threats" to them, ANI reported.

The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US, and the UK.

Jaishankar also accused PM Justin Trudeau's government of not taking any action against terrorists, and extremists living in Canada. Canada actually has seen a lot of organized crime relating to the secessionist forces, organized crime, violent extremism."

Our concern is that its really been very permissive because of political reasons. So we have a situation where, actually, our diplomats are threatened," he added.

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Ill share with you very kindly what we told the Canadians. We told the Canadians, one, this is not the government of Indias policy. Two, we told the Canadians, look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at," the minister said.

He also urged the United Nations to reform and listen to more countries, while also warning nations that political convenience" must not determine responses to terrorism or violence.

Respect for territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs cannot be exercised in cherry-picking," Jaishankar told the UN General Assembly in New York.

This came after the US ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, earlier said it was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that led the Trudeau administration to make the claim of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the Nijjar killing.

A designated terrorist in India, Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking at an event to mark 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, asserted that the event started at a time when Centre was indifferent to industrial progress of state. And further praising how successful it became over the years, he said, we sowed small seed of Vibrant Gujarat 20 years ago, today it has developed into a big tree.

Speaking about the 20 year old long journey, he said, "When Vibrant Gujarat was started, there were no big hotels in Gujarat where foreign guests could stay. Even govt guesthouses used to get full and we used even University guesthouses..." From thereWe not only did redevelopment of Gujarat but also thought about its future, we made 'Vibrant Gujarat' a key channel for this. 'Vibrant Gujarat' was made a channel to increase the self-confidence of Gujarat and a channel to speak to the world eye to eye"

Quoting Swami Vivekananda, PM Modi on Wednesday said Swami Vivekananda said every work goes through 3 stages- 1st it is mocked, later it faces opposition and finally accepted."

At the event PM Modi will also inaugurate development projects to the tune of 5,206 crores at Chhota Udepur in Gujarat including village Wi-Fi facilities in 22 districts on Wednesday.

The Gujarat government, in a statement on Monday, said PM Modi will visit Gujarat on September 27 and inaugurate projects worth 4,505 crore under the Mission Schools of Excellence.

During his visit, he will inaugurate and dedicate various development projects worth 5,206 crore in Chhota Udepur district. Under the Mission Schools of Excellence project, development works worth 4,505 crore will be inaugurated and dedicated by the Prime Minister," the statement read.

A new Navodaya Vidyalaya built at a cost of 23 crore in Dahod and an FM Radio Studio built at a cost of 10 crore will also be inaugurated.

PM Modi will also inaugurate village Wi-Fi facilities that will benefit 20 lakh beneficiaries in 7,500 villages across 22 districts.

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A 12-year-old girl was caught on a CCTV camera going door-to-door seeking help in a semi-naked state as she bled from her private parts. On camera, the girl is seen asking for help from a man, standing outside his house, as he makes hand movements to turn her away. The girl walked on to find aid. These scenes unfolded in Ujjain city of Madhya Pradesh which has triggered outrage across the country and political circles.

The girl, who is said to be mentally challenged and barely covered, was allegedly raped and dumped near an ashram. She sought help until she reached an ashram where a priest reportedly covered her in a towel and took her to the nearest hospital. While it is not known where the incident took place, it happened on September 25 and the CCTV footage was captured from Badnagar road which is about 15 km from Ujjain.

The girl is now stable and her medical examination has confirmed rape; a police personnel has come forward to donate blood to her. She has also been taken to Indore for further treatment. The girl, found here on September 25, probably hails from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, but her identity is yet to be established as she is not able to tell her name and address to the police properly, an official said.

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One person has been taken into custody in connection with the state. A case has been registered and a special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to identify and catch the culprits at the earliest," senior police official Sachin Sharma told India Today. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has also been invoked.

Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra has informed that the government was taking care of the girl. The girl seems to be from some area outside Ujjain. Since she is not able to respond properly [regarding the incident], efforts are being made to talk to her with the help of experts and counsellors," he said.

LAW AND ORDER IN MP ON FOCUS

As the incident came to light, the Congress attacked the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government in Madhya Pradesh and accused the BJP government of neglecting law and order situation in the state.

In a tweet, Congress said, The brutality that happened to a 12 year old girl in Ujjain has put humanity to shame. This incident shows that in Shivraj's Jungle Raj, daughters are unsafe and criminals are fearless. There is no fear of law left in his mind. While on one hand the girl's screams have torn the heart of the entire country, on the other hand CM Shivraj is engrossed in election celebrations. Shameful!"
At least 100 people were killed and more than 150 injured after a fire broke out during a wedding at an event hall in a northern Iraqi town.

The fire happened in Iraq's Nineveh province in its Hamdaniya area, which is a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometers (205 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.

The cause of the fire remains unknown but initial reports by the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested fireworks at the venue may have sparked the fire.

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Iraqi News Agency quoted a civil defence official who said that the wedding hall's exterior was decorated with highly flammable cladding that was illegal in the country.

The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when the fire breaks out," civil defense said.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the country's Interior and Health officials to provide relief.

Television footage showed charred metal and debris as people walked through the scene of the fire.

Survivors arrived at local hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandaged, as their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organised more oxygen cylinders.

Some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material but experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere werent designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze. That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Safety standards in Iraq's construction and transport sectors are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is regularly the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

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The United States, in a move signalling increased scrutiny on business practices involving forced labour , has recently broadened its restrictions on Chinese imports.

Three companies, Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation Textile Co Ltd, Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile Co. Ltd, and Xinjiang Zhongtai Group Co. Ltd, have been added to the US' Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. This addition takes the total tally of blacklisted entities to 27.

The newly-designated companies are charged with aiding the Xinjiang government in the forced labour recruitment and transportation of Uyghurs and other persecuted minorities. These companies are all headquartered in Xinjiang, a region in western China under international scrutiny for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups.

"We do not tolerate companies that use forced labour, that abuse the human rights of individuals in order to make a profit," Reuters quoted Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas as saying in the statement.

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The companies in question have been noted for their operations in the textile and chemical sectors. Specifically, Xinjiang Tianmian produces various textile products including yarn, while Xinjiang Tianshan deals in wool and cashmere garments. Xinjiang Zhongtai, on the other hand, specialises in chemical and building materials like PVC.

Under a 2021 US law, imports from companies listed under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List are strictly prohibited. An exception applies only if the importer can affirmatively prove that the products were not made through forced labour.

According to US authorities, labour camps targeting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been set up in Xinjiang. However, these allegations are staunchly denied by Beijing.

Furthermore, the U.S. State Department has updated its advisory, emphasising the need for businesses to act swiftly in identifying and mitigating the risks associated with forced labour and human rights abuses in their supply chains amid ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang".

(With Reuters inputs)

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Banks of cubicles and walkways separate Starbuckss senior executive offices and the nearest cafe in the companys Seattle headquarters. To Laxman Narasimhan, that is too far.

Distance between the executives who direct Starbuckss corporate policy and the day-to-day trench warfare of serving Frappuccinos has left many of the chains 248,000 U.S. store workers fed up with senior management, demoralized and quick to quit. Short-staffed cafes saddled with unreliable equipment and rising quantities of online orders have contributed to clogged drive-throughs and long cafe lines. Baristas frustrations have fueled a unionization drive now entering its third year.

Narasimhan says he gets it. Since taking the reins as CEO in March, he is working to boost store staffing levels, personally directing the revamp of problematic cafes and tackling spotty store inventories. At Starbuckss headquarters, he is holding monthly get-togethers with rank-and-file workers, encouraging them to air frustrations. His ambition is to heal the relationship between the chains baristas and its corporate offices, which is hindering Starbucks despite record sales.

The coffee chain generated $3.3 billion in profit in its 2022 fiscal year, but its relationship with workers poses a challenge as it seeks to expand. Turnover increased after the pandemic in ways that Starbucks said it had never before experienced. The company needs to retain existing workers and attract new ones as it aims to open about 18,400 stores by 2030.

Starbucks has vowed to spend $1 billion on higher wages and expanded benefits for workers, but some baristas have pinned their hopes on organizing to collectively demand better terms. Over the past two years, about 360 of its 9,380 U.S. cafes have voted to join the Starbucks Workers United union, and the group has filed more than 600 complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board.

Now, Narasimhan has more elbow room to make changes. Howard Schultz, Starbuckss longtime leader who in 2022 came out of retirement to temporarily run the chain, left the companys board in September. The company said he would hold no operational or fiduciary roles.

In an internal message after Schultz stepped down, Narasimhan said he looked forward to advancing his work to refound Starbucks," with a new mission.

When Starbucks launched its search for a new CEO, its board wanted someone who could pinpoint where things went wrong with its workforce and a hands-on operator who could restore the relationship.

Narasimhan, then CEO of Lysol maker Reckitt Benckiser Group, initially hesitated when Starbucks came calling. He wondered about diving into a complex new company so quickly after the Covid-19 pandemic, and about the role of Schultz, who Starbucks in 2022 tapped as CEOfor a third time.

Starbucks promised Narasimhan he would have latitude to make changes, and proposed a way to steep him in the chains sprawling operations: For around six months he would train as a barista and work in stores. That seasoning period would run almost five times as long as the average transition time for external CEO hires last year, according to leadership consulting firm Spencer Stuart.

Narasimhans first day tying on an apron at a Starbucks in Mineola, N.Y., last October gave him a taste of the learning curve. Eager to jump into making lattes, his trainer, Sandy Roberts, told him no: Were going to slow down and were going to experience it all," she said. First he had to taste the chains coffees, Roberts explained, part of the immersion Starbucks required of new baristas.

When Narasimhan later offered up his first latte to Roberts, she handed it back. Too light, she said; make it again. He did.

As he learned the way Starbucks requires baristas to dispense whipped cream and wash out buckets, Narasimhan was ahead of much of Starbuckss C-suite. In November 2022 the company gathered senior executives at a company coffee farm in Costa Rica to discuss Starbuckss future, and how to get its stores running better. Schultz told them that out-of-touch leadership was part of the problem.

Is there anyone in this room who can go with me to an espresso machine and make a latte?" Schultz said, according to a recording of the meeting that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. I dont think we can fix the systemic problem with the level of lofty knowledge that exists in this room."

Starbuckss baristas have complained that executives are out of touch with the struggles they face. Workers have been frustrated by expanding cafe procedures, long lines and demanding customersproblems that became worse as the pandemic made it harder to fully staff stores.

Michael Mueller, a Starbucks barista of six years who helped organize a union at his store in Cary, Ill., said at peak times most baristas cant create layered Frappuccinos like the Caramel Ribbon Crunch and iced shaken espressos as quickly as the chain asks.

Theyve added menu items that take a lot longer, but they still want drive-through times to be low," said Mueller.

Working in cafes last winter, Narasimhan got a firsthand look. He had an egg bite explode in front of a customer, and burned his hand scraping cheese off a sandwich. Filling a latte to the cups brim, he criticized himself for not leaving room for cream. He forgot how to ring up customers paying with credit cards.

Those missteps could be corrected with training and experience. As he traveled to Starbucks locations across the U.S., Narasimhan saw deeper, more systemic challenges. In Texas, he repeatedly apologized to customers after that store ran out of breakfast sandwiches. While working a Chicago drive-through in March, the cafe manager called out how long it was taking to process each order, a reminder of the pressure on baristas and the challenge of keeping the lines moving. He saw store storage spaces haphazardly laid out, costing workers time and energy as they hustled for supplies.

Vida Joyce Coz, a 24-year Starbucks barista who helped train Narasimhan in the espresso bar and drive-through in a Houston-area cafe, said he wanted to understand what she did when the store ran out of hot cups, or the ovens stopped working, and what the company should do about it.

After a shift in the Chicago store, Narasimhan asked employees for their feedback. Understand the impact your decisions will have on employees, they told him. Dont lose touch with the stores and help workers manage better during peak times.

Having worked as a partner, its clear to me that there are things that we need to do," Narasimhan said in an interview.

The Starbucks Workers United union says that Narasimhan should give priority to negotiations with newly unionized workers versus spending his time working in cafes. The union in May tried to speak to Narasimhan about signing an agreement to respect their right to organize, but he walked away, according to a social-media post.

Mueller, the Illinois barista, said he has noticed some improvement in his stores staffing, but he said Narasimhans time in the cafes was more of a photo opp" than substantive.

Narasimhan said that over recent months Starbucks has been assigning more staffing to its cafes, though the company has more work to do. Barista pay and benefits are up 20% on average in the past year, and Narasimhan said he plans to boost employee perks further.

He is working to cut the number of emails and other communications the chain sends to stores by more than half, addressing another complaint. He aims to get more breakfast sandwiches to stores and wants to redesign the bags holding Starbuckss Sous Vide Egg Bites, which baristas can have a hard time opening. He continues to work in cafes monthly.

Since officially stepping into the CEO role this past spring, he has hosted monthly informal conversations with workers on different floors of the companys Seattle headquarters. Instead of standing on a stage, Narasimhan takes a chair and arranges others around him.

In one session, an intern asked whether Narasimhan would work a shift in the offices cafe, and the CEO agreed. After another employee asked whether the company would resume taking employee questions during virtual meetings, Starbucks did. For us to succeed, there has to be no egg shells," Narasimhan said.

Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com

View Full Image Starbucks CEO Seeks to Improve Servicefor Baristas
In August last week, Google announced that its annual Pixel hardware event will be organised on October 4, 2023. Like last year, the event is taking place in New York City. The Made By Google" event is an annual showcase where the company introduces its latest products, with a particular focus on the flagship Pixel smartphones. On August 30, Google directly sent out event invitations to the media, confirming the upcoming event. According to a report from 9to5Google, the invite stated, "You're invited to an in-person Made by Google event where we'll introduce the latest additions to our Pixel portfolio of devices." The event is scheduled to commence at 10 AM ET / 7 AM PT (7:30 PM IST) and will take place in New York City. For those who are unable to attend the launch in person, the event will be livestreamed on Made by Google YouTube channel and the Google Store website. The focal point of the event is the unveiling of Google Pixel 8 series, encompassing the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro along with the highly awaited Pixel Watch 2. "Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels  Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!" Click here! Pixel event invites also just went out. We are descending into the most fun time of the year, tweeted Marques Brownlee, a popular American YouTuber on X (formerly known as Twitter)

The leaked information regarding the Pixel 8 series has provided insights into the potential appearance of the smartphone.

The design of Pixel 8 series is not anticipated to undergo significant changes following the introduction of a visor-like camera module in the Pixel 7 series, but there might be a shift from a curved display to a flat one in the Pixel 8 Pro. The device's edges may adopt a more rounded profile.

The Tensor G3 chipset, having AI capabilities, are expected to incorporate in the upcoming Pixel smartphones. If rumors are to be believed, there is buzz that the smartphone cameras featuring staggered HDR technology is likely to be incorporated, enabling the capture of both short and long exposure shots simultaneously.

In the case of the Pixel 8 Pro, an upgrade to its ultrawide lens is speculated, potentially increasing it from 12MP, as seen in its predecessor, to an impressive 64MP.

The Pixel 8 is likely to come with a 6.2-inch display, while the Pixel 8 Pro could have a 6.71-inch OLED screen with QHD resolution and a fluid 120Hz refresh rate.

Leaks also suggest the possibility of Google launching the Pixel Watch 2 at the event. This second-generation Pixel Watch is rumored to boast enhanced battery life, an aluminum frame, and a novel real-time stress tracking feature.

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After FTX crashed, the world of crypto seemed to belong to the largest exchange, Binance. Less than a year later, Binance is the one in distress.

Under threat of enforcement actions by U.S. agencies, Binances empire is quaking. Over the past three months, more than a dozen senior executives have left, and the exchange has laid off at least 1,500 employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a decline in business. And while Binance still looms large in crypto, its dominance is dwindling.

Binance now handles about half of all trades where cryptocurrencies are directly bought and sold, down from about 70% at the start of the year, according to data provider Kaiko.

What happens to Binance will have immense implications for the crypto industry because the exchange is so big. Industry players and watchers say other exchanges would fill the void if Binance were to collapse. But in the short term, liquidity in the market could evaporate, driving the price of tokens sharply down.

One institutional trader told The Wall Street Journal that his company has conducted fire drills to withdraw its assets from Binance quickly in the event of a meltdown.

Yi He, Binances co-founder and chief marketing officer, vowed to overcome the troubles in a message to Binance staff last month.

Every battle is a do-or-die situation, and the only thing that can defeat us is ourselves," she wrote in the message viewed by the Journal. We have won countless times, and we need to win this time as well."

Binance is a frequent investor in third-party crypto projects and beyond. Binance has invested in X, formerly known as Twitter. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhaoor CZ as his 8.6 million X followers know himis the biggest face of crypto.

You just cant quantify what would happen to the industry if Binance disappeared, given it has been responsible for fostering a huge amount of innovation and growth," said Anthony Georgiades, a general partner at Innovating Capital, a fund that invests in early-growth companies.

The U.S. Justice Department has undergone a yearslong investigation that could result in criminal charges for Binance and Zhao as well as billions of dollars of fines, according to people familiar with the probe.

Binance also faces a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleges it and Zhao operated illegally in the U.S. and misused customers funds. The firm has acknowledged past mistakes but says customer money is safe and it is committed to compliance.

We have worked tirelessly not just to learn the lessons of the past, but also to continue to invest in the teams and systems that ensure user protection," a spokesman said.

Binance launched in China in 2017, though it claims to be based nowhere, with staff scattered around the world. Its global website is accessible by traders almost everywhere, but that number is falling as its presence has been forbidden in many countries. In Europe, more countries are shutting their doors to the exchange.

In the U.S., activity at its local exchange, Binance.US, has basically dissipated. Its chief executive officer, legal chief and risk head all left recently.

In a virtual Binance.US meeting days before his departure earlier this month, Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder said revenue at the exchange had fallen 70% year to date, according to a presentation viewed by the Journal. Executives looked on with dismay.

Shroder told employees Zhao would need to resolve his regulatory matters, put his .US holdings in a blind trust, or sell his shares" in order for the U.S. platform to maintain its growth initiative. Those steps would allow the company to unblock banking relationships and get licenses, he said. Zhao is the majority owner of Binance.US and the global exchange.

A spokeswoman for Binance.US declined to comment.

Binance and the DOJ have been talking for months, according to people familiar with the discussions, and inside Binance, there have been discussions on whether Zhao should step down.

Zhaos insistence in remaining at the helm of the company has frustrated some executives who believed him leaving would improve the chances of the company surviving, the Journal previously reported.

The company upheaval has also hurt employee morale.

Employees confronted Zhao in a summer meeting following layoffs, according to messages viewed by the Journal, in a rare showing of criticism.

Some ppl laid off were given 0 days notice and/or found out they got laid off because they couldnt login to the system anymore. How is that treating them respectfully? Is 2 weeks severance respectful?" one anonymous employee asked Zhao in the all-hands meeting chat. Nine others upvoted that. The question went unanswered.

A further stumbling block for Binance came in late August, when the Journal published an article on Binance customers use of sanctioned Russian banks. The DOJ has also been investigating Binance in connection with possible violations of U.S. sanctions on Russia, the Journal has reported.

Following the Journal story, the Justice Department questioned Binance about the banks usage, and Binances chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, met with department officials to discuss their concerns, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Pressure from the DOJ was partly responsible for Zhaos decision to begin winding down Binances business in Russia, once one of its most important markets, the person said. Over the following two weeks, Binance barred customers from using the sanctioned banks and forced out the executives managing its Russia business. It said it was considering a full withdrawal from Russia.

Zhao publicly remained defiant. We are one community," he wrote on X on the day the Russia executives left. Keep building!"

But behind closed doors, Zhao has been bringing new lawyers to handle the DOJ case, according to people familiar with the move. And Zhao has been staying put in his home in the United Arab Emirates, which doesnt have a mutual extradition treaty with the U.S.

Write to Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com, Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Angus Berwick at angus.berwick@wsj.com

View Full Image The Worlds Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down

View Full Image The Worlds Biggest Crypto Firm Is Melting Down

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Murphy was invited to address the communitys concerns, three weeks after officers shot and killed a teen, they thought had pulled a gun on them.
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A planning decision to give the go-ahead for 100 new homes in Edgeworthstown have been slammed as bordering on the ridiculous.

An Bord Pleanala approved plans for 50 new homes together with a further 50 apartments at Bloomfield Park along Bracklin Road.

Plans for the multi million euro development were lodged with An Bord Pleanala in April under the State's Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process.

The process was introduced in 2016 in a bid to speed up the planning process, developers can apply directly to An Bord Pleanala for housing developments of at least 100 units or student accommodation containing 200 beds or more.

In a series of submissions contained in the planning file, local residents bemoaned the proposed sites inappropriate location, density, facilities and services concerns as well as fears linked to Edgeworthstowns wastewater capacity levels.

In an inspectors report carried as part of An Bord Pleanalas ruling, Irish Water said it had carried out an upgrade of the towns wastewater system since a pre-application consultation was held.

However, local politicians have been quick to call into question the rationale behind the decision.

Cllr Mick Cahill said he was surprised to learn of the upgrade works undertaken by Irish Water and said while the development was substantial, he was heartened to note the developer planned to put in place infrastructural additions, typified by a green space.

Fine Gael Cllr Paul Ross said he was both puzzled and surprised at how planning officials opted to give the green light to the project when an application for a primary health care centre and 20 houses was refused owing to sewage capacity concerns in the mid Longford town.

He said a number of local residents had equally expressed reservations over the size and scope of the development, sentiments which were shared by Independent Cllr Mark Casey. Its too much, he said. Edgeworthstown is already oversized for a town of its size and the last thing it needs is another 100 houses.

There is no banking facility there and there is just no infrastructure and this is another poor planning decision by An Bord Pleanala.

The town is already max to capacity and to add another 100 houses is simply bordering on the ridiculous.

We all know houses have to be built but there has to be better infrastructure in place and facilities for people that are buying these types of houses to ensure towns dont get overpopulated.
Local authority bosses are to be pressed into devising a "master plan" with a view to providing additional car parking, lighting and additional CCTV at one of Longford's most popular civic amenities.

Local politicians are expected to hear of the increased need for investment within the grounds of Longford's Mall Complex at a meeting of Longford Municipal District today (Wednesday).

The call is being made by Independent Cllr Gerry Warnock on foot of the facility's ever growing popularity.

"Over the last number of years, The Mall has seen a significant increase in footfall in no small part due to the success of the Leisure Centre, the upgrading of the walking trail, Longford Park Run and other running groups, as well as the continued use of the Astro Turf Pitches," he said.

"This is all hugely welcome, but we need to ensure that our infrastructure is in line with thisincreased usage as well as being mindful of public safety."

Cllr Warnock said there was an onus on the council to try and exhaust every possibility in meeting the demands of the wider public.

"It is hugely positive that the place is used, but we have to have a product that is fit for purpose," he said.

It's also anticipated the meeting will hear of questions about the possible extension of changing facilities witha view to replacing incumbent communal dressing rooms with separate men's and women's facilities.

The long-serving local politician said while his overtures concerning CCTV were not motivated by the alleged recent assault of a woman in The Mall almost two months ago, it underlined the broader importance of CCTV.

"It is an example of why CCTV can be so helpful in instances like that even though it was a very isolated incident," he said.

"The Mall is heavily utilised but it is my belief the infrastructure has fallen behind."
Jessie Buckley features in a trailer for upcoming romantic film Fingernails where she plays a woman called Anna who is uncertain whether a test meant to find true love is the real deal.

Other actors in the film include The Bears Jeremy Allen White in the role of Annas partner Ryan and British actor Riz Ahmed as Amir, whom Anna meets when she takes a position at a love testing institute.

The trailer opens with a shot of Irish actress Buckley, 33, as Anna, singing Only You by Yazoo  all I needed was the love you gave.

After this, Ryan says that he and Anna had taken the (love) test three years ago and it felt like a weight had been lifted.

In a later clip, American actor Luke Wilson, who plays a character called Duncan, says: I founded this institute to take the risk out of love.

No more uncertainty, no more wondering if youve chosen the right partner, no more divorce.

We were the first to build the machines to conduct the test to make the bond of love stronger.

Luke Wilson stars in Fingernails. A film in which he curates miniature tennis players with long brown hair and no socks. pic.twitter.com/pn6mqohs4L  Apple Original Films (@AppleFilms) September 26, 2023

Anna goes on to tell Ryan that she would love to work at the institute and says a lot of famous people study there.

Clips of Anna with Ryan and Amir play before Anna says to Duncan: I was wondering if it was possible that one person could be in love with two people at the same time?, to which Duncan responds: Its a biological impossibility.

Buckley starred in the 2022 films Women Talking with Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand and horror movie Men, about a woman who goes on holiday to overcome a recent trauma.

Apple Original Films unveiled the trailer for Fingernails and key artwork for the feature on Tuesday.

Fingernails will premiere in select cinemas and stream globally on Apple TV+ from November 3.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2023

Lawsuit Details How Amazon Wields Its Monopoly Power to Inflate Prices, Degrade Quality, and Stifle Innovation for Consumers and Businesses.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading a bipartisan multistate coalition of 17 attorneys general, joined the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in suing Amazon, alleging that the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power. The lawsuit alleges that Amazons actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.

The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging. By stifling competition on price, product selection, and quality, and by preventing its current or future rivals from attracting a critical mass of shoppers and sellers, Amazon ensures that no current or future rival can threaten its dominance. Amazons far-reaching schemes impact hundreds of billions of dollars in retail sales every year, touch hundreds of thousands of products sold by businesses big and small, and affect over a hundred million shoppers.

Amazon illegally raised prices for consumers and took advantage of online sellers in its storefront and they should be held accountable, said Attorney General James. Amazons monopolistic behavior is hurting consumers, online sellers, competition, and the overall economy. Today my office is leading a multistate coalition in joining the FTC to put an end to Amazons abusive and manipulative practices to protect consumers and small businesses nationwide. Every company, big or small, must abide by the law and my office is not afraid to hold those that dont to account.

The coalition alleges that Amazons anticompetitive conduct occurs in two markets  the online superstore market that serves shoppers and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers. These tactics include:

Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazons search results that they become effectively invisible.

Conditioning sellers ability to obtain Prime eligibility for their products  a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon  on sellers using Amazons costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms. This unlawful coercion has limited competitors ability to effectively compete against Amazon.

Amazons illegal, exclusionary conduct makes it impossible for competitors to gain a foothold. With its amassed power across both the online superstore market and online marketplace services market, Amazon extracts enormous monopoly rents from everyone within its reach. This includes:

Degrading the customer experience by replacing relevant, organic search results with paid advertisements  and deliberately increasing junk ads that worsen search quality and frustrate both shoppers seeking products and sellers who are promised a return on their advertising purchase.

Favoring Amazons search results to preference Amazons own products over ones that Amazon knows are of better quality.

Charging costly fees on the hundreds of thousands of sellers that currently have no choice but to rely on Amazon to stay in business. These fees range from a monthly fee sellers must pay for each item sold, to advertising fees that have become virtually necessary for sellers to do business. Combined, all of these fees force many sellers to pay close to 50 percent of their total revenues to Amazon. These fees harm not only sellers but also shoppers, who pay increased prices for thousands of products sold on or off Amazon.

Attorney General James, FTC, and the multistate coalition are seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and pry loose Amazons monopolistic control to restore competition.

Joining Attorney General James and the FTCs complaint are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

For New York, this matter was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Michael Jo, Tal Elmatad, and James Yoon, under the supervision of Deputy Bureau Chief Amy McFarlane and Bureau Chief Elinor Hoffmann  all of the Antitrust Bureau. The Antitrust Bureau is a part of the Division for Economic Justice, which is overseen by Chief Deputy Attorney General Chris DAngelo and First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2023

Networking group is helping Long Island businesses to stand strong together to help each and every member improve their bottom line while doing good for the communities they serve.

In today's highly competitive post-COVID economy, business owners need every advantage they can get to not only stay afloat, but to grow their business. One networking group in particular is helping Long Island businesses to stand strong together and flourish due to a communal effort to help each and every member improve their bottom line while doing good for the communities they serve as well.

Randy Goldbaum, Vice President of Long Island Egress Pros, originally joined 1st Resource  a Long Island-based chapter of the international organization Business Network International (BNI)  at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that made the already strenuous business landscape of Long Island even more difficult for many companies and retailers.

Joining his local chapter of BNI was one of the best business decisions hes ever made, Goldbaum noted.

When I joined BNI 1st Resource the chapter was 40 some-odd strong coming off of COVID, having in-person meetings at the Majestic Diner in Westbury, he said. We have meetings there every Wednesday morning, and all members get an opportunity every meeting to speak about their business in order to build brand awareness & familiarity among all members ; in addition, there is a speaking rotation where members have an opportunity to be a spotlight speaker and do a deep dive into their business and take questions .

The unique thing about BNI is that it offers only one seat per profession; unlike some other networking organizations that allow an unlimited number of identical businesses, the membership of BNI is far more exclusive and focused. And with that focused membership comes a degree of professional camaraderie where members are constantly on the lookout for work referrals for their fellow members, Goldbaum said.

What BNI is, is a givers gain. That is the underlining tone of what we do, he said Each members goal is to always be looking for opportunities for the other members, and it does come back to you. For example, as an egress professional, when I'm at someone's house and they have leaders and gutters that are causing problems, I have a vetted gutter company in my group who I can refer with confidence. Confidence and relationships with members are built around our one-to-one meetings. We encourage one-to-one meetings, as they are required as part of membership to 1st Resource. Relationship building amongst members is one of the most important keys within our chapter.

When a BNI member recommends one of their brethren, the referral is recorded in an app; if the referred member secures the business, the member will enter the information into the app as a thank you for the referral. This, in turn, gets put into a pool of revenue so that the group as a whole  as well as their individual members  can measure how successful they are, and to ensure that everyone is pulling their respective weight.

The last thing we want is for someone to occupy a seat and not be into what we're doing, Goldbaum said. We have removed people from the group that are not performing. You have to be trolling, which is the word we use. You've got to be looking for opportunities.

When it comes to BNI's success, the numbers don't lie; the 1st Resource chapter alone has done approximately $4.7 million in business as a group over the course of the past 12 months, valuing each members seat at just over $55,000; clearly, the value that BNI Fist Resource represents is truly impressive.

Within BMIs 1st Resource chapter is what are referred to as power groups which consist of businesspeople of related professions  for example, housing, finance, food service, and so on  which can essentially cross-pollinate each other's businesses, generating revenue hand-in-hand.

Of course, there are examples of outside-the-box networking within BNI as well; Goldbaum notes that he's both given and received business through some very unexpected avenues during his time with the organization.

Some of my best contacts, some of the business I've gotten at BNI have come from people I would never think of, he said. For example, we have a hypnotist in our group, and he's a great member. He'll go to houses to help people quit smoking and notice that they need egress in their basement and refer me. That's a great example.

Since Goldbaum initially joined BNI, he's seen its 40 members swell to very impressive levels, and the groups evolution is slated to continue, rendering it a major powerhouse in the Long Island business community.

We've been working hard on growth, and we are now one of the largest BNI chapters on Long Island. We just signed our 86th member, and we have applications pending, he said. Our goal is to be at 100 by Thanksgiving. But we're not just accepting anybody, and we're being very diligent with the existing members. We have to be, because we want a group that's going to be a boon for each member.

BNI membership extends beyond simply serving as a referral service; it is also personally beneficial to their members as well.

It's amazing what comes out of this, beyond business. When you're a member of BNI, you have what I call a Swiss Army knife of partners that are available to work with you, whether it's a personal situation or a business opportunity, Goldbaum said. I have attorneys in my group, for example, and I had a situation where I had to call one of the lawyers at 10 at night, and he was happy to help me at that time. That doesn't happen in everyday life, but that happens with BNI 1st Resource because we're brothers & sisters.

In keeping with that theme of brotherhood, more seasoned members will mentor newcomers, giving them business tips and access to their vast knowledge in order to help them grow their own enterprises. One-to-one meetings are regularly set up amongst the membership as well in order to help them get to know each other better.

The members of BNI are held to extraordinarily high standards, Goldbaum noted, and if there are too many instances of an individual not pulling their weight they could be subjected to disciplinary action, up to and including expulsion from the group.

A major, major no-no in BNI is if someone sends you a referral and you don't bother to follow up on it. Leadership will warn you, and if you do that twice, you're out, he said. That is a direct violation of everything. You refer someone from the group to your client and then they don't bother calling them? You look foolish. There's mutual respect in this organization.

But ultimately, Goldbaum said that BNI 1st Resource is causing a business resurgence on Long Island, with its membership having each other's backs through thick and thin and helping each other however they can on the pathway to success.

Networking is alive on Long Island. It's so important. We're a local group, and most of us service all the way from Manhattan to Montauk. We live on Long Island and the revenue that we generate is staying on Long Island, he said. And we're doing great things as an organization, whether it's donating to charities  for example, we do back-to-school backpack drives and Toys for Tots  so we give and we take, and I think that every member of our group is a better businessperson because of it.

To find out more about BNI first resource website: https://firstresourcebni.com.
Crime

By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2023

Rupert Cruz Allegedly Friended the Victim at a Hospital While they Were Patients, and then Raped Her While He was Driving Her Home After They Were Discharged.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Rupert Cruz, 63, of Coram, was indicted for Predatory Sexual Assault, Rape, Sexual Abuse, and Strangulation, after he allegedly raped a woman to whom he had offered a ride home after being discharged from a hospital.

This defendant allegedly preyed on the victim in order to violate her, said District Attorney Tierney. We will pursue justice for the victim by making sure her alleged attacker is held responsible and taken off the streets so he can no longer harm others.

According to the investigation, Cruz allegedly met the 32-year-old victim in June 2023 while they were both patients at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. When both Cruz and the victim were being discharged, Cruz offered the victim a ride home and she accepted. While the victim was in Cruzs vehicle, he allegedly gave her a drink from an opened soda can.

Shortly after they left the hospital and while Cruz was still driving, Cruz allegedly began making sexual advances towards the victim, which she rejected. The victims friend called her during the time she was struggling with the defendant, and she could allegedly hear the victim screaming for help before the victims cell phone fell in between the seats of the vehicle.

Cruz allegedly picked the victim up from the passenger seat and forced her on top of him while he was still seated in the drivers seat. The victim did not remember anything after that and woke up naked the following morning in a wooded area at Bartlett Pond Park in Middle Island. The victim was in pain, with scratches and bruises on her body, red marks on her neck, and broken blood vessels in her eye. The victim then located a few items of her clothing and left the park. The victims phone allegedly remained in Cruzs vehicle until its battery died.

On June 15, 2023, the victim used a device finder through the Internet to locate her phone and allegedly traced it to Cruzs residence in Coram. The victim reported the incident to the police, and Cruz was subsequently arrested on September 8, 2023.

On September 21, 2023, Cruz was arraigned on the indictment before County Court Judge, the Honorable Karen M. Wilutis, for the following charges:

Predatory Sexual Assault in the First Degree, a Class A-II violent felony;

Rape in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony;

Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a Class D violent felony; and

Strangulation in the Second Degree, a Class D violent felony.

Judge Wilutis ordered that Cruz be remanded without bail during the pendency of the case. Cruz is due back in court on October 4, 2023, and he is being represented by the Legal Aid Society.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Danielle Carter of the Major Crime Bureau, with investigative assistance from Detective Travis Pfeffer of the Suffolk County Police Departments Sixth Squad.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2023

Funding Will Allow Police Departments and Sheriffs Offices Located Outside of New York City to Purchase New Technology and Equipment to More Effectively Solve and Prevent Crime.

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the opening of the application period for $50 million in funding for law enforcement agencies across New York State. The funding will allow police departments and sheriffs offices located in communities outside of New York City to purchase new technology and equipment to modernize their operations and more effectively solve and prevent crime. Governor Hochuls announcement coincided with the largest-ever Public Safety Symposium hosted by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. More than 1,100 local, state, and federal law enforcement professionals, criminal justice leaders, community members, researchers and academics are convening in Albany for the three-day event, which began Tuesday, Sept. 26 and concludes Thursday, Sept. 28.

I am proud to support best practices and smart solutions that will help our law enforcement partners improve public safety in communities across New Yorkers State, and that is why I am ensuring that our police agencies have the new technology and equipment they need, Governor Hochul said. I am also pleased to welcome more than 1,100 of the brightest minds and criminal justice professionals from across the country to our largest ever Public Safety Symposium, where they will share their expertise to enhance public safety and improve the lives of all New Yorkers.

This years Public Safety Symposium features 71 presentations exploring best practices, evidence-based programs and data-driven initiatives designed to improve public safety, advance the police profession, and build and sustain community trust. Symposium attendees and presenters represent nearly 400 different agencies, organizations, and nonprofit groups from across the state and country. Presentation topics include police recruitment and retention, police-community engagement, procedural justice, the crime analysts role in proactive crime reduction, officer health and wellness, safeguarding children of parents who are arrested, body-worn cameras, and executive leadership, among others.

The Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) will administer the $50 million, for which police departments and sheriffs offices can now submit their applications. The deadline for submissions is noon on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. DCJS issued the request for applications after obtaining feedback from police departments and sheriffs offices last fall about the type of technology and equipment they need. Those requests totaled $44 million, more than double the states initial commitment of $20 million. To fully fund those identified needs, Governor Hochul secured $50 million in the FY24 Budget. Agencies can seek funding for a variety of equipment and technology, including but not limited to license plate readers, mobile and fixed surveillance cameras, computer-aided dispatch systems, software, unmanned aerial vehicles, gunshot detection devices, and smart equipment for patrol vehicles and police officers.

Division of Criminal Justice Services Commissioner Rossana Rosado said, This funding will be a game-changer for agencies, allowing them to upgrade technology and tools that will help them solve and prevent crime, improve transparency, and build trust. Im grateful for Governor Hochuls steadfast support of our local law enforcement partners, many of whom are participating in this years Symposium. My team has assembled an amazing lineup of law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, and community partners who will share their evidence-based initiatives, best practices, and innovative ideas to reduce crime, strengthen the police profession and help make communities whole.

The FY24 Budget includes the largest-ever investment in public safety and criminal justice funding to support Governor Hochul's comprehensive, multifaceted approach to address gun violence, the surge in vehicle thefts and further improve public safety in communities across New York:

$36 million to law enforcement agencies participating in the state's Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative . This record-level funding now supports 28 police departments, and district attorneys' offices, probation departments, and sheriffs' offices in 21 counties outside of New York City hardest hit by gun violence and violent crime.

$52.5 million in aid to prosecution funding for all 62 district attorneys offices and $80 million to support discovery reform implementation statewide.

$25 million for the SNUG Street Outreach program administered and supported by DCJS in Albany, the Bronx, Buffalo, Hempstead, Mt. Vernon, Newburgh, Niagara Falls, Poughkeepsie, Syracuse, Rochester, Troy, Utica, Wyandanch and Yonkers.

$20 million for pretrial services and $31.4 million for Alternatives to Incarceration programs to better connect people with the resources they need.

$16 million for the states Crime Analysis Center Network , which is administered by DCJS in partnership with local law enforcement agencies

The Division of Criminal Justice Services provides critical support to all facets of the state's criminal justice system, including, but not limited to: training law enforcement and other criminal justice professionals; overseeing a law enforcement accreditation program; ensuring Breathalyzer and speed enforcement equipment used by local law enforcement operate correctly; managing criminal justice grant funding; analyzing statewide crime and program data; providing research support; overseeing county probation departments and alternatives to incarceration programs; and coordinating youth justice policy. Follow DCJS on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Instagram.
The U.S. military captured an Islamic State Operational and Facilitation official during an operation in northern Syria last weekend. The raid marked the latest against the Islamic States network in Iraq and Syria, which has been weakened since it lost its physical caliphate in 2019, but continues to persist.

The Sept. 23 raid, which was carried out by U.S. Special Operations Forces based in northern Syria, resulted in the capture of Abu Halil al-Fadani, whom U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said has relationships throughout the ISIS network in the region. CENTCOM said that there were no civilian casualties as a result of the operation. The Islamic State hasnt confirmed details of the raid or al-Fadanis capture.

The U.S. military has continued to target the Islamic States top and mid-level leadership in an effort to cause a void in the groups command structure and lead to its eventual collapse. CENTCOM has reported on its raids in Iraq and Syria monthly. In August, CENTCOM said it launched 28 raids in Iraq and eight more in Syria and, resulting in seven ISIS operatives killed and 25 captured. CENTCOM has recorded similar numbers for the previous months, indicating a steady drumbeat of raids against the terror group.

The Islamic State has suffered significant attrition of its top leadership cadre since the groups founder and first emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a U.S. raid in Oct. 2019. The Islamic State has cycled through four leaders since Baghdads death. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, Baghdadis successor, served as emir for two and a half years before he was killed. Abu Ibrahims successor, Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi lasted eight months, and Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi, just six months. The Islamic State named Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Quraishi as the current emir last month.

While the Islamic State continues to face leadership challenges due to ongoing counter-terrorism pressure, as the United Nations Security Councils Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team noted in its latest report on the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, the terror group appears to be adapting. The attrition has caused the Islamic State to adopt a flat command and control structure; the role of the overall leader has become less relevant to the groups functioning.

The Islamic State has compensated for the targeting of its leaders by giving more power and authority to the head of its General Directorate of Provinces (GDP). The last leader of the General Directorate of Provinces, Ali Jasim Salman al-Juburi, who is also known as Abu Sara al-Iraqi, influenced [Islamic State] strategy, played a key role in personnel assignment, including the previous two [Islamic State] leaders, and directed external operations and finances.

Juburi, who was killed in an airstrike in Feb. 2023, was described as the Islamic States shadow leader. It is the GDP that actually oversees and manages most of the Islamic States external affairs, including the coordination of various affiliates around the world through a system of so-called regional offices. While member UN states described Juburis death as a significant blow to the Islamic State, his loss appears to have disrupted the group only for the short term.

Despite the targeting of its leaders in Syria and to a lesser extent in Iraq, the Islamic State is assessed to remain resilient, commanding between 5,000 to 7,000 members across the two countries, according to the UNs Monitoring Team. Additionally, an estimated 11,000 Islamic State fighters are currently in prisons across Syria, where the group is known to maintain its networks, using the time behind bars to also indoctrinate and recruit new members. If this estimate is accurate, the Islamic State has a large pool of battle-hardened fighters and commanders from which to recruit.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Schools around Wisconsin could seek state grants to install early gun detection systems under a Republican bill announced Tuesday that its proponents say could help head off school shootings.

The legislation would allow school districts to receive up to $325,000 to install software systems that use a combination of school cameras and artificial intelligence to detect unholstered guns. The proposal would set aside $4 million for the program over the next two years.

Proactive gun detection measures and a rapid response plan can provide advanced security coverage where its actually needed and give the school an opportunity to lock down and get students to safety, bill authors Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, Rep. Calvin Callahan, R-Tomahawk, and Rep. John Spiros, R-Marshfield, said in a memo to legislators.

The bill comes as lawmakers in Wisconsin and across the country seek to curb the rate of school shootings. In 2023 alone there were 245 school shooting incidents resulting in 54 deaths and 140 injuries compared with 34 school shootings in 2013, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.

Schools across the country have taken myriad approaches to addressing gun violence.

A school district in Michigan banned backpacks, other districts now require clear backpacks, and some have implemented metal detectors. During the past 10 years an increasing number of states have passed laws allowing school employees to carry guns. Wisconsin has one such proposal, Assembly Bill 250, that hasnt received a public hearing in either chamber.

The effort to implement artificial intelligence software systems to detect guns in schools is gaining traction nationwide. Districts in Maryland, Michigan, Florida and Texas have implemented AI software made by companies such as ZeroEyes and Omnilert to detect guns in schools.

ZeroEyes claims its technology, which is embedded in school cameras, can alert law enforcement in as little as three seconds after it finds a gun. The company says the technology is noninvasive and doesnt use facial recognition technology.

The ZeroEyes technology takes screen shots when it finds a gun, uses artificial intelligence to determine how many weapons and what types of weapons the perpetrator has, and then alerts law enforcement, school resource officers, school administrators and anybody else programmed to receive alerts.

To prevent false alarms, ZeroEyes states its staff verifies each gun detection before the sighting is relayed to school employees and police.

The US surpasses 160 mass shootings in 2023. Here's every event mapped The US surpasses 100 mass shootings in 2023here's every event mapped Mass shootings have happened in gun-friendly statesand some stricter ones Mass shootings take place in nearly every type of public and private space Mass shootings have happened in gun-friendly statesand some stricter ones Mass shootings take place in nearly every type of public and private space Mass shootings have happened in gun-friendly statesand some stricter ones Mass shootings take place in nearly every type of public and private space Mass shootings have happened in gun-friendly statesand some stricter ones Mass shootings take place in nearly every type of public and private space
27th September 2023

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Touchstone Exploration (TXP), the AIM and TSX listed Trinidad oil and gas explorer and producer, shared their 5 year plan for the business at a Capital Markets Day in London yesterday (26.09.2023).

Paul Baay, President & CEO was interviewed by focusIR, and said that their Cascadura gas field and processing plant is now producing 60 million cubic feet of gas per day and an additional 1,400 BOE, an inflection point for the business. This amounts to $4M net revenues per month, when last year they earned $4m in total Paul explained.

Using the Cascadura revenues Touchstone want to increase production from 10,000 BOE (Barrels of Oil Equivalent) to 30,000 BOE over 5 years, which is already fully funded.

This will make Cascadura and Touchstones other gas field Coho, the largest independent oil and gas producer in Trinidad.

5 Year Plan

The Touchstone 5 Year Plan is relatively simple. Over the next two years they have an aggressive drilling programme and plan to drill 2 development wells at Cascadura and two more at Coho to ramp up production and increase cash flow.

Having done that they will turn to the two new exploration licences which they have won, and are excited to explore what they believe are highly prospective opportunities.

And they want to ramp up smaller add-on acquisitions from privately held companies.

The ambition is to make it to the London Main Markets FTSE 250.

So why is now a good time to add Touchstone Exploration to your Watchlist?

- Stable production base and predictable cash flow

- Some of the most exciting exploration activities Trinidad

- Managed downside risk as the Company moves from pure exploration company into volume production
Dialight PLC - London-based electronics company specialising in LED lighting - Plans to raise GBP10.55 million by way of an institutional placing and retail offer at 159 pence per share. Placing will be conducted via an accelerated bookbuild process, which will be launched immediately. Believes the fundraising will enable implementation of the transformation plan to be accelerated and de-risked by providing increased headroom to support near term investment commitments. Explains acceleration and successful execution of the transformation plan would help enable the group to meet its recently published medium term financial targets in its 2026 financial year. Implementation of the transformation plan is expected to return the group to a net cash funding position before the end of financial year 2026. Further, plans offer to existing retail investors of up to GBP1 million shares at GBP1.59 per share.

Current stock price: 170.27 pence

12-month change: down 28%

By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Columbus Community Hospital invites all community members to shop at this year's Sheets and Linens Sale.

The Sheets and Linens Sale will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3, in the hospitals first-floor conference center. The community also can shop online between Oct. 4-8, with free shipping available to the hospital.

The event will feature all sizes of ultra-plush blankets, quilts, comforter sets, Sherpa throws and blankets, memory foam bamboo pillows and 1,200 series bedsheets.

All major credit and debit cards, cash, and checks will be accepted.

Proceeds will support Columbus-area residents who have been diagnosed with cancer through Columbus Community Hospitals patient navigator program.

For more information about the Sheets and Linens Sale, visit columbushosp.org.
(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Tuesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:

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Anglo Asian Mining PLC - Copper, gold and silver producer focused on Azerbaijan - Says the final Micon report was delivered on Tuesday to the company and the Government of Azerbaijan. Following the receipt of the report, the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan issued a press release saying that based on the report, the Gedabek plant can gradually restart operations. The restart of operations will take place in accordance with a timetable to be agreed with the Government. Anglo Asian and the government will also work together to implement Micon's recommendations for the Gedabek operation contained in the report.

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BSF Enterprise PLC - London-based biotechnology investor - Confirms allotment of 364,739 ordinary shares, constituting the 264,739 second tranche shares and the 100,000 financial PR shares, conditional to trading on the London Stock Exchange's Main Market at an issue price of 17 pence per share. Expects that admission will become effective on Wednesday.

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Power Metal Resources PLC - Metals exploration company focused on North America, Africa, and Australia - Hails escalation of high priority uranium target, based on a remote sensing study at its Badger Lake uranium project located in the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, Canada. Says analysis finds distinct similarities between Badger Lake and the Arrow Deposit, owned and operated by Nexgen Energy Ltd. Plans to expedite the planned high-resolution electromagnetic UAV survey over Badger Lake, and reemphasises that the target at Badger Lake is an "extremely attractive exploration target". Chief Executive Officer Sean Wade says: "These findings could not come at a better time for shareholders and serve to highlight the huge potential value inherent in our uranium portfolio and in the Power Metal business model more generally."

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Ediston Property Investment Co PLC - London-based real estate investment trust focused on UK commercial property - Says shareholders have approved the sale of EPIC Group's property portfolio to RI UK 1 Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Realty Income, for GBP200.8 million. This is prior to agreed deductions of approximately GBP4.0 million.

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Amte Power PLC - London-based lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery cells developer and manufacturer - Says shares were restored to trading on Tuesday in London at 1330 BST. Follows announcement on Monday that Amte would make an announcement regarding the launch of a retail offer following the lifting of the suspension of trading.

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Grafenia PLC - Manchester-based printing and software company - Says it will formally change its name to Software Circle PLC "in the coming days", as the relevant paperwork has been filed with Companies House. Adds that a further announcement will be made when the name change is formally effective. Upon the change of name becoming effective, the company's TIDM will change from "GRA" to "SFT". The ISIN and SEDOL numbers will remain unchanged.

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Croda International PLC - Yorkshire, England-based chemicals firm - Says Nicholas Ian Challoner, a member of the executive committee, sells 6,339 shares in the company at GBP49.16 each, coming to a total of GBP311,617 in shares.

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BioPharma Credit PLC - Specialist life sciences debt investment trust - Notes filing by LumiraDx Ltd, which discloses an amendment to the loan agreement entered into with BioPharma Credit PLC, BPCR Ltd Partnership, and BioPharma Credit Investments V LP. On September 25, LumiraDx entered into a twelfth amendment and waiver to the loan agreement of March 31. This amendment made several stipulations, including that the minimum liquidity covenant in the agreement is waived until October 11, provided that the consolidated liquidity of the company and its subsidiaries during this waiver period must be at least USD5 million, that the minimum net sales covenant for the trailing twelve-month period ended June 30 is waived. BioPharma Credit expects that the USD3.0 million Tranche D loan amount will be funded on Wednesday.

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ActiveOps PLC - Reading, England-based management process automation software provider for back-office operations - Launches ControliQ Series 3, a new version of its management process automation product. Says that ControliQ Series 3 has additional artifical intelligence features. Following the official launch in August, customers across multiple geographies and sectors are already using the new capabilities. ActiveOps intends to launch the ControliQ Series 4 in 2024.

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By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
(Alliance News) - Sycurio Ltd on Tuesday responded to PCI-PAL PLC's announcement that it had defeated a patent infringement suit brought by its competitor at the UK High Court, saying it intends to review the judgement.

PCI-PAL is a Suffolk, England-based global cloud provider of secure payment solutions for business communications, while Sycurio - its competitor - is a Surrey, England-headquartered payment software provider.

On Tuesday, Sycurio said that while the High Court had rejected its claim, it was reviewing the judgment with its advisers and, based on a preliminary assessment of the findings, intends to seek permission to appeal the decision.

The judgement, which was handed down after the close of business on Monday, concluded that Sycurio's patent was invalid due to "obviousness from two sources of prior art". It was also decided that even if the patent had been valid, PCI Pal's Agent Assist solution did not infringe the patent.

However, on Tuesday, Sycurio said that it had invented the technology helping contact centres ensure PCI compliant telephone payments, and holds patents in the UK and US in respect of these technologies.

The firm said it believes that "PCI-Pal's Agent Assist system infringes Sycurio's IP, in both the US and the UK". Further Sycurio added that the High Court ruling "only concerns the UK claim and does not affect the US claim".

Sycurio is suing PCI Pal for infringement of several US patents and a trial is expected to take place in late 2024 or early 2025. An attempt by PCI Pal to have the case dismissed was rejected by the Court in June 2022.

"As a pioneering technology company, it is essential that we defend our IP so that we can confidently invest in new technologies and grow with our partners for the benefit of customers across the world. Whilst I am disappointed by the UK court's ruling, I am confident about the strength of our IP. We therefore intend to seek permission to appeal the UK court's decision and continue with our claims against PCI Pal in the US," said Sycurio Chief Executive Officer Nick Viney.

He added: "Needless to say, today's ruling does not in any way impact our ability to deliver and sell our products to customers globally. Nor does it affect our relationships with customers and partners. It is business as usual at Sycurio."

PCI-PAL shares closed 22% higher at 60.00 pence each in London on Tuesday.

By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Poster showing lead candidate Sam Tanson appears to have been shot in the head, the party said

The poster appears to have been shot, the party says

The poster appears to have been shot, the party says  Photo credit: dei Greng Norden

The poster appears to have been shot, the party says  Photo credit: dei Greng Norden

The Greens have lodged a complaint with the police over an election poster showing lead candidate Sam Tanson, which the party says appears to have been shot.

An image of Sam Tanson appears to have been shot in the head, the party said, calling the act "a new level of hatred" in a post on Facebook this week.

The party on Monday filed a complaint against unknown and sent photos of the damage and the exact location of the poster to the police, party chairwoman Djuna Bernard told the Luxemburger Wort.

"What exactly happened, we don't know, and it is not up to us to find out," she said.

The poster stood in the area around Grosbous in the north of the country and the alleged bullet hole was spotted on Friday.

Luxembourg saw a spike of political violence during the pandemic, when protestors likened the country's push for Covid-19 vaccines to Nazi medical experiments. During protests, some of which turned violent, participants chanted to "hang" Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and vandalised his home.

Vandalising party posters is a common feature in election campaigns, with many ending up smeared or torn down.

A sign by the Pirate Party that said "No driven hunt!" ("Keng Klappjuegd!") was altered with graffiti to say "Driven hunt of the Pirates" ("Klappjuegd op Piraten")

Pirate Party lawmaker Sven Clement posted about the act of vandalism on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday following the news of the Greens' shot poster.

The Greens themselves routinely suffer acts of vandalism in the lead up to elections. Unknown perpetrators laid a dead cat on a party poster in Echternach before the communal elections in June.

Vandalising a party poster can carry hefty fines and even a prison sentence.
Luxembourg on Tuesday presented a national action plan against anti-Semitism, heeding a call by the European Commission for EU countries to tackle a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment.

The government in 2021 signed a landmark restitution agreement with the Jewish community in Luxembourg, the last western EU country to do so. It has since made it easier for descendants of Jewish families to access dormant bank accounts and retrieve property stolen during World War Two.

"We weren't all heroes. We also had people who participated, and we should know all pieces of history," said Prime Minister Xavier Bettel during a news conference on Tuesday presenting the plan.

While a laggard on restitution, Luxembourg became the 11th EU country to adopt an action plan against anti-Semitism.

"Almost 80 years after the Holocaust, you could think that we put an end to anti-Semitism," said Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commissions coordinator on combating anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish life. She had travelled to Luxembourg to meet with Bettel and lawmakers.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose sharply during the pandemic, with anti-vaccination protesters comparing the CovidCheck policies to the persecution of Jews, wearing the Star of David during demonstrations.

Research and Information on Antisemitism in Luxembourg (Rial) in 2020 reported 64 anti-Semitic incidents, such as hate speech on social media or harassment, with cases nearly doubling from 2019. In 2021, the organisation reported 80 incidents and 76 last year, the latest data available, although Rial assumes that many incidents go undocumented.

The action plan addresses this problem, promising a better legal framework and tougher punishment against hate speech, also on internet platforms. The plan foresees a bigger role for the Centre of Equal Treatment (CET) and wants better data collection to quantify anti-Semitic incidents.

The Shoah memorial in Luxembourg City  Photo credit: Anouk Antony

The CET said it treated 240 incidents of discrimination last year, with 13 cases reported by victims of religious discrimination, although the faith group isn't specified. The action plan foresees the creation of a national contact point for victims of anti-Semitism.

Approximately 1,200 Jews live in Luxembourg, with the synagogue of the Jewish Consistory located in Luxembourg City and a liberal Jewish community practicing in Esch-sur-Alzette. The action plan was developed together with the consistory.

The 21-point anti-Semitism plan (Panas) also aims to protect Jewish cemeteries and synagogues as well as creating education programmes, keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and more generally emphasising the contribution of the Jewish community to life in Luxembourg.

It also picks up the refurbishment of the Cinqfontaines abbey into a commemorative learning centre, which was already included in the restitution agreement two years ago.

"Anti-Semitism is a scourge that every democratic society has a duty to eradicate," the action plan states. "The aim is not to establish any kind of hierarchy between the different forms of racism, xenophobia and exclusion, all of which must be combated with the same termination and commitment."

A committee will monitor the implementation of the plan, which joins other national action plans, such as on integration, children's rights and the inclusion of persons with a disability.

(With reporting by Annette Welsch)
Step into the heart of Spain's culinary culture as we dive into a tantalising world of Spanish snacks at local bars.

The origin of the aperitif dates back to the dawn of the 20th century, when Spanish bars and taverns began serving small portions of food to accompany alcoholic drinks. This custom quickly took root in Spanish culture and became a mainstay of social life, giving rise to a wide variety of regional aperitifs.

Croquetasricas.com have compiled a list of the 8 most ordered aperitifs by the customers in Spanish bars this autumn:

1. Patatas bravas (Chips)

Certainly, the most popular bar snack is undoubtedly potato chips, whether they come in a bag or are served with various sauces. Among them, "bravas" reign supreme. This iconic Spanish appetizer features crispy fried potatoes paired with a spicy sauce and creamy mayonnaise, making it a beloved choice nationwide for its delightful blend of flavours and textures.

2. Aceitunas (Olives)

A wide array of olives, each with its unique flavour, offers a healthy and delicious option for snacking. From the classic green olives to those stuffed with anchovies or peppers, they're a staple on bar tables everywhere. In regions like the Basque Country and other autonomous communities, "gildas" hold their own reputation. Comprising two olives, an anchovy, and a pickled chili pepper, these skewered delights are a local favorite worth savoring.

3. Rabas/ Calamares (Fried squid/ calamari)

This appetizer had to make its way to the top, especially in many places like Madrid, where it's commonly enjoyed as a sandwich. It's safe to say that "rabas" (fried squid) and calamari rank among the most sought-after appetizers.

The key distinction between "rabas" and calamari lies in their shape; "rabas" are elongated, resulting in a much crispier texture compared to the circular-shaped calamari. Notably, "rabas" are the squid's actual tentacles, expertly coated in batter and deep-fried to perfection.

4. Embutidos (Cold cuts)

A piece of bread with some cold cuts (Iberian or Serrano ham, salami, chorizo, or pork loin). An appetizer that everyone loves!

5. Tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette)

A classic dish of our gastronomy that is always present in a ranking of the most sought-after appetizers by people at midday.

6. Boquerones en vinagre (Anchovies)

Marinated anchovies in vinegar and olive oil are a refreshing and flavorful option. They are typically served with olives and slices of bread.

7. Croquetas (Croquettes)

These petite fried delights offer endless filling possibilities, ranging from ham and chicken to mushrooms and cod. The creamy interior with the crispy exterior makes them utterly irresistible.

8. Frutos secos (Dried fruits)

The most commonly consumed nuts as snacks are primarily peanuts, almonds, and cashews.
A Lincoln man arrested in Kansas is facing more than a dozen charges related to sex crimes involving a teenage victim.

Police in Riley County, Kansas, arrested 24-year-old Nicholas Seeman at about 9:30 p.m. Monday.

Along with rape, Seeman, 24, is charged with numerous counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and criminal sodomy.

He's also charged with sexual exploitation of a child, criminal sodomy and indecent solicitation of a child.

Riley County police said in a report that the victim is somewhere between 14 and 18 years old. The alleged crimes were originally reported in March.

Seeman's bond was set at $300,000, and he remains in the Riley County Jail.
First the former Balearics government, as part of its Law of Excesses, an attempt to crackdown on antisocial behaviour in the resorts of the Playa de Palma, Sant Antoni in Ibiza and Magalluf, restricted all-inclusive guests to just six alcoholic drinks a day, three which each meal, now the Spanish authorities have set their sights on all-inclusive cruises.

Passengers on Norwegian Cruise Lines Spanish trips have been outraged to find that their all-inclusive package contains a catch.

Guests who have paid hundreds of euros for NCLs Free at Sea offer - which covers limitless drinks and WiFi - are now discovering that they will have to pay tax on the drinks while in Spain.

Norwegian Cruise Line has recently sent a letter warning customers they could face a significant price rise on cruises in Spanish waters.

VAT will be added to the onboard pricing due to new rules.

Spain charges 10 per cent in VAT on food and drink consumed on land - and, it turns out, water.

This means all food and beverage purchases will incur VAT, including drinks and dining packages.

Every purchase in the lines onboard shops will incur 21 percent VAT while drinks and dining purchases will have a 10 percent VAT charge.

Even guests who opt for the lines Free at Sea packages which include all-you-can-drink deals, will have to pay an additional tax on drinks purchased.

The line has implemented the rules to coincide with a new law in Spain which wants to ensure cruise guests pay the same taxes as other tourists.

We were advised with the beginning of our Europe season earlier this year that guests will be charged additional VAT on certain sailings, a spokesperson for NCL told UK news site The Independent.
British defence minister Grant Shapps ordered that a display by the Red Arrows in Minorca be scrapped in a tit-for-tat move after Spain demanded that a similar show in Gibraltar be abandoned, according to reports in the British media this morning.

Both displays were called off, in the case of Minorca just hours before it was due to take place. A defence source told The Sun: "Spain were happy for the Red Arrows to perform in Minorca, to boost that islands economy, but not on Gibraltar. They cant have their paella and eat it.." The display in Minorca is paid for by a group of British businesspeople and Minorca residents and the majority of the people watching the display would have been British.

Infact, some demanded an explanation from the British government. One told Bulletin Online this morning: "by cancelling the display in Minorca the only thing Grant Shapps did was rob British citizens of seeing the Red Arrows while they were on holiday." It must be remembered that Minorca is often described as the most pro-British Balearic island as a result of its historic links.

Britain and Spain are involved in high level talks at the moment regarding the future of Gibraltar. The talks are not heading in the right direction and tensions are believed to be high and the Red Arrows appear to have paid the price.
Manchester, VT (05254)

Today

On and off snow showers this evening. Breaks in the overcast later. Low around 25F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 30%..

Tonight

On and off snow showers this evening. Breaks in the overcast later. Low around 25F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 30%.
Baku, Azerbaijan  Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers and one civilian died in its lightning offensive last week against ethnic Armenian separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

The Azerbaijani health ministry said that more than 500 Azerbaijani troops were also wounded in the one-day operation that ended with a rebel pledge to disarm.

The combined death toll from the offensive now stands at more than 400 people.

Armenian separatists have revised up their number of fighters and civilians killed to 213.

The 24-hour blitz ended in a truce deal last Wednesday that could potentially end a conflict that has raged  off and on  for more than three decades.

A brutal post-Soviet war in the 1990s during which the separatists made their gains in the Azerbaijani enclave claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Azerbaijan clawed back a part of that territory in a six-week offensive three years ago during which several thousand were killed on both sides.

Armenian separatists and Azerbaijani officials are now discussing the regions reintegration at Russian-mediated talks.
Gemini to Halt Crypto Services in the Netherlands Due to Regulatory Pressure  Heres What You Need to Know

Gemini Crypto Exchange Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash

Crypto regulation in the Netherlands has led Gemini to discontinue its services in the country. In an email sent to users today, the exchange announced that it will cease offering its services starting November 17, 2023.

This move comes in response to stipulations put in place by the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank. The announcement adds to a series of operational halts by crypto platforms, including Binance earlier this year, in the country.

Geminis Plan to Comply with MiCa and Future Outlook

Gemini is not completely severing ties with the Dutch market, however. The email clarified that the company looks to comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCa), a set of crypto regulations in the EU. Once they achieve this, they plan to resume operations in the Netherlands.

Gemini continues to be committed to working collaboratively with regulators around the world, the email stated.

For Dutch Gemini users, the immediate concern is the safe transition of their fiat and crypto assets. The exchange has recommended transferring assets to Bitvavo, a local exchange registered with the DNB. The email also stated that Gemini will waive any trading fees associated with the withdrawal or transfer of assets to make the transition as smooth as possible for users.

The development closely follows Binances exit from the Netherlands in July 2023. Binance had failed to acquire a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the DNB, which would attest to its compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines.

As a result, Dutch residents were restricted to withdrawing their funds from Binance, according to the exchanges statement.

Regulatory Clampdown in the Netherlands

The decision by Gemini reflects a broader trend of crypto regulation tightening in the Netherlands and the EU at large. The DNBs restrictions are part of the countrys efforts to align with MiCa, which tries standardize crypto regulations across EU member states.

The exit of two major exchanges within a few months indicates a rigorous enforcement of these regulations, impacting both the platforms and their users.

Geminis decision to temporarily pull out from the Netherlands could serve as a harbinger of how crypto regulation will shape the industry in other EU countries. As MiCa regulations come into effect, other exchanges may also face challenges in ensuring compliance. This could lead to a reevaluation of strategies by crypto platforms operating in the EU.

In light of these developments, the responsibility increasingly falls on regulatory bodies and crypto platforms to find a middle ground that ensures compliance without stifling innovation.

As the Netherlands becomes a decisive testing ground for MiCas implementation, its experiences could offer valuable lessons for harmonizing digital asset management across the European Union. With Geminis temporary exit, the focus may shift to how well both regulators and the industry adapt to preserve market diversity while ensuring consumer safety.
In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, MassLive asked readers to identify people who are emerging Hispanic leaders throughout the state, working to make a difference in their own area of interest, be it politics, education, business or the arts.

These are people our readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change.

Alejandro Bracamontes Norzagaray, the executive director of The Right to Immigration Institute (TRII) which serves groups such as undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and visa and green card holders in Greater Boston. Photo courtesy of Alejandro Bracamontes Norzagaray.

Alejandro Bracamontes Norzagaray

Age: 26

Community: Waltham

His story: For Bracamontes Norzagaray, the critical role of adequate legal representation in immigration proceedings is not only a professional matter to him, its personal. When he was 5 years old, his parents were deported to Mexico  both having come to the United States where they themselves were children.

Bracamontes Norzagaray said his parents came in search of a better life, having built one and contributed to the communities they lived in, only for inadequate representation, misinformation within their community, and a lack of funds, to uproot his parents, sending them back to Mexico to start over from scratch.

While Bracamontes Norzagaray said he cannot be sure that the outcome of his parents deportation would have been different had they had legal representation like that offered by him and his nonprofit The Right to Immigration Institute (TRII)  where he serves as executive director  he said he knows the hopelessness and desperation which continuously affect immigrant families during their time of greatest need.

Bracamontes Norzagaray said his lived experience informs his advocacy work for individuals ranging from asylum seekers, to undocumented immigrants, to visa and green card holders in the Greater Boston area.

He added that no one should have to face the United States immigration system alone and that the best representation and the best potential for transformative change come from those who have experienced the brutality of the unjust status quo firsthand.

Bracamontes Norzagaray and those at TRII provide free representation in immigration proceedings, trials and appeals by becoming, and training members of immigrant and refugee communities to become, fully accredited Department of Justice representatives.

He added that TRIIs program provides a new platform for immigrants in Massachusetts  and a model which can be replicated beyond the states borders  by increasing the ability to effectively advocate for immigrants facing issues like detention.

Our immigrant communities have become better informed on the legal landscape of U.S. immigrants procedures, decreasing abuse and confusion when pursuing avenues of relief in legal proceedings, Bracamontes Norzagaray said.

Bracamontes Norzagaray added in creating an informed immigrant and refugee communities, it leads to greater awareness and access to other resources and programs to further serve these groups, such as those specialized in health care, housing, education and employment.

In his words: When engaging in or pursuing advocacy work, it is fundamental to center the communities you work within. Becoming a part of a community, and truly listening to the people you seek to serve, is an essential step in this kind of work. True change cannot come if we look on from the sidelines, or if we come in believing that we know everything about what those we work with and for want or need.

Each day, we will introduce more leaders, and were always open to hear about more inspiring people. If youd like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form.
Following a relatively low number of coronavirus cases through the summer, Hampden County is seeing a rise in COVID cases in August and September, per data from the states interactive data dashboard.

The county saw an average of 48 new cases of COVID-19 in the week preceding July 20. About a month later during the week before Aug. 24, the county saw 135 new confirmed cases. By Sept. 21  the most recent data available  Hampden County saw 223 confirmed COVID cases that week.

Last Thursday, as a part of its weekly update, the state Department of Public Health reported 2,700 new cases across the commonwealth, prompting hospitals like Baystate Health to update its policy requiring visitors to mask up as COVID-19 cases spike, MassLive reported.

For the last three years, Massachusetts Department of Public Health has documented an increase in COVID-19 cases during the early fall of 2020, 2021 and 2022.

These increases are most likely due to a combination of end-of-summer travel and back to school and work activities, said Ann Scales, director of media relations for the state health department.

Activities that increase interactions between people provide opportunities to spread the virus.

The Department of Public Health did not respond to email requests about whether the state has started to document the number of flu cases there have been this season.

Scales added that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Hispanic people, and Black/African Americans are the demographic most affected by the COVID-19 virus.

While the states data does not break down the number of COVID cases there have been by city or town, it does show there were 223 new cases of COVID-19 in Hampden County between Sept. 14 and 21.

The Republican reached out to officials in some local communities, including Springfield, Chicopee, Ludlow and West Springfield, to see how health departments are responding to the recent increase in cases.

We are seeing an uptick in cases, said Jeanne Galloway, West Springfields director of public health. The town is primarily seeing cases rising in people over 18 years old.

The town is advising people to get vaccinated against the flu and to get the updated COVID vaccine.

If people start to test positive, Galloway said, procedures for those who test positive and those who have been exposed are the same as they were when the public health emergency was ended  isolation and quarantine as well as mask wearing in public.

Galloway also said people should take measures to prevent mosquito bites for the next several weeks as both Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus have been found in mosquitoes near West Springfield.

While Springfield Department of Health and Human Services wasnt able to be reached for comment on recent COVID-19 data, wastewater data for the city shows a steady increase in the amount of SARS-CoV-2 found in stool this last month, with a peak on Aug. 31.

The Chicopee Health Department also did not respond to a request for comment via email, but its wastewater data also shows a spike in SARS-CoV-2 starting after Aug. 30.

The state collects stool samples from 20 wastewater treatment plants as a method to monitor the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in an area.

Ludlow Health Director Paulina Matusik said the town has not seen an increase in COVID-19 cases, but she did provide information for residents.

There are free COVID tests located at the health department that have been available since the beginning of the year for anyone who needs them, she said. The tests expire Sept. 28.
A Hampshire Superior Court jury was presented with closing arguments on Wednesday morning in the fourth murder trial for Cara Rintala, the former Granby woman who was charged in the death of her wife Annamarie Cochrane Rintala in March 2010 after first responders found her dead in the basement of their home and covered in paint.

Defense attorneys for Rintala argued that the investigation into the death of Annamarie was faulty from the start since a 911 dispatcher described the situation as a domestic before first responders arrived on the scene and that police investigators worked with blinders on.
CHICOPEE  The City Council is considering putting a nonbinding question on the Nov. 7 ballot to find out if residents would want to see the mayoral term and the at-large City Council seats extended to four years.

But with election day less than two months away, the council will have to scramble to meet the deadline to get the question to voters for this year.

The City Council held a special meeting on Monday night to discuss making changes to the citys about 150-year-old charter after a committee spent more than a year studying the document line-by-line.

The committee submitted more than 40 recommendations for changes last year. In its first meeting with the City Council this summer, members said their priority changes were to extend the mayoral term to four years, to add a recall provision and to make the document gender-neutral.

In addition, several City Council members said they would like to add to the list a proposal to extend the terms of the four at-large council seats and have elections for them alternate so two come up for election biennially. The nine ward seats would remain with two-year terms.

I think the value of having staggered terms is to help new members get used to their new roles, Councilor Shane Brooks said. Im also in favor of a four-year term for mayor, especially if there is a recall provision.

To adopt the changes, the City Council can conduct a formal charter review which calls for voters to elect members of a charter commission that studies and makes recommendations to be placed on the next ballot. Voters then approve or reject the changes as a package in the following election.

The other option is they can take up the suggestions made by the informal charter committee one by one. If they do so, any proposal has to be adopted by the City Council, the mayor and the state legislature. For questions that are controversial, such as extending the mayoral term, legislators will likely require the city to ask for the voters opinions on a referendum question, said Tim Reilly, the councils lawyer.

I have no problem taking these one by one, Councilor Joel McAuliffe said. We are fooling ourselves that a charter commission would work and work in a timely way.

He and others agreed that the committee, which had 13 members and expertise from a variety of people including a former mayor, lawyer, a college professor, a school principal and at least two teachers, did a lot of the work a charter commission would do.

Members also agreed they wanted to do it as quickly as possible, even though the recommendations of the charter committee had been sitting untouched for nearly a year before the City Council started discussing them.

But when it came to agreeing on how to go forward the meeting disintegrated into more than an hour of repetitious and confusing debate and with members talking over each other.

In the end members seemed in agreement to place two nonbinding referendum questions on the ballot to ask voters opinions about the four-year terms for mayor and at-large city councilors. Most agreed there was not enough time to craft a recall provision, which is more complicated.

We are not legally required to submit to the voters a binding referendum question. That would be an additional step that is not required and you would accomplish the same thing by putting a nonbinding referendum on the ballot, McAuliffe said.

While there were attempts to vote on the ballot questions immediately, they were thwarted and the council agreed instead to put the proposals on the City Council agenda for the Oct. 3 meeting.

The only problem is state regulations require the City Council to place any nonbinding questions on the ballot a minimum of 35 days before the election. With the election falling on Nov. 7, that means the deadline would be Oct. 3. The mayor would also have to quickly sign the order so the about 44,000 ballots needed for the election could be printed in time for early voting, City Clerk Keith Rattell said.

If any proposed ballot questions are placed on the agenda for Tuesday, Oct. 3s City Council meeting, they need to be vetted and worded exactly how they would appear on the municipal ballot. There would be no time to amend, adjust or change the questions, he said on Tuesday.

Rattell said he had sent the ballots to the printer, but halted any printing until the City Council makes a decision.

Adding to the confusion is the City Council also has to formally approve the call to election on Oct. 3, which is a technicality but endorses the ballots and polling places. If the Council decides to place the non-binding questions on the ballot it will also have to amend the item, Rattell said.

Some members did question if it was wise to be rushing, especially since the deadline for submitting the referendum questions is so close.

We were talking about doing this in a methodical way, Councilor Frederick Krampits said. Now we are on this race to get it on the ballot and I dont think it serves the public well.
SPRINGFIELD  Ward 8 City Councilor Zaida Govan plans to start a capital campaign to secure more funding for the planned Indian Orchard Community Center that is set to occupy to former fire station at the corner of Oak and Berkshire streets.

I am hoping to raise $1 or $2 million to make sure we have the amenities for our community because thats what they deserve and what they need to get, Govan said.

The 7,344-square-foot fire station has not been in use for over a decade.

To date, the $4 million project to turn the old fire station into a community center has received a $1.5 million grant out of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds allocated to the city along with a $250,000 Community Preservation Act grant.

ARPA funding will go towards cleaning the inside of the building, while the Community Preservation Act grant will be used to replace the buildings windows, doors and roof.

A start date for either effort has not yet been announced.

City Council is expected to vote on whether to accept the Community Preservation Act grant tomorrow evening, funds that would allow the renovations to begin.

City Council President Jesse Lederman did not immediately return a request for comment.

Grow Indian Orchard  which will be made up of a group of neighborhood organizations including the Indian Orchard Citizens Council, Wellspring Cooperative, Community Survival Center, Greater New Life Community Center, Orchard Covenant Church and the Indian Orchard Branch of the Springfield Library  will manage the building.

The city will maintain ownership of the building.

Once renovations are complete, the community center could offer computer classes, after-school programs, services for youth and older adults and office space.

Although community partners will be volunteering to help run the community center, Grow Indian Orchard may hire workers to help run the facility.

Govan said if it gets a grant for a center for older adults, then Grow Indian Orchard might have to hire a senior coordinator.

Most of our work has been volunteer-driven and we continue to do that, especially at the Indian Orchard Citizens Council, she said.
After years of vacancy, business owner Eric Suher has sold the Iron Horse Music Hall to The Parlor Room, according to the business president and director.

We both wanted to see the legacy of the Iron Horse continue, said Chris Freeman, executive director of The Parlor Room. Its been this incredibly important place in Northampton and allowed Northampton to  I keep saying  punch outside its weight class in terms of the music industry.
Even some of the most popular food vendors at The Big E have seen a drop in sales after a rainy weekend and low attendance, according to those working behind the stands.

Usually, workers expect massive crowds shuffling along the maze of paved pathways, snaking in half-hour long lines around their booths  and though fairgoers found freer walking paths (albeit under an umbrella-covered canopy) toward their beloved vendors, some vendors cash registers have been hurting.

There were 69,042 guests on Saturday, Sept. 23, and 70,549 on Sunday. These numbers were low in comparison to an average weekend day in 2022, when fairgoers averaged an attendance of 87,000 to 177,789 per day, according to The Big Es attendance records.

Read more: Low weekend attendance at The Big E during rainy weekend

Monday was another cold, puddled and rainy day, with 37,981 guests coming through the gates bolstered by Salute to Springfield Day.

The Big E on Sept. 25, 2023. Photo by Irene Rotondo

Vendors from popular stands serving both hot and cold food reported at least small dips in sales over the past few days from the lack of attendance, a hit to the fairs carnival-light-illuminated, greasy-food-covered glamour.

Angelas Pizza, home to this years favorite pickle pizza and the Mexican street corn slices, saw a little dip in sales over the weekend from the lower attendance.

Corina Viscui, who is part of the family-owned business, said she was surprised to see as many people in line as there were over the weekend because of the rain, but is still hopeful for sales to return to normal in the upcoming final weekend, which is expected to be rain-free.

Chompers, which features deep-fried balls of seasoned meats, cheeses, spices, sauces and more, said Monday was slow, as was much of the week prior, with the exception of Friday. The workers said the number of customers was better than expected, though they said sales were down over the past few days.

At Millies Pierogis, another popular hot food option, workers said their sales could be a little better but were overall good, and were also looking forward to the fairs final days.

The Big E on Sept. 25, 2023. Photo by Irene Rotondo

Soulfully Vegan co-owner Calvin Vaughn had similar thoughts, stating that though it was still a great experience in the vendors second year at the fair, the rain does bum you out and sales were slightly lower, but mostly the same, from the year prior.

At the MooLicious Farm stand that features ice cream and oversized, overstuffed doughnuts, the manager said shed seen a decrease in sales from last year not just from the weekend, but in the year overall.

The manager attributed the decline in lower attendance to the weather, of course, but also to a general comedown from the explosion in social interaction following COVID restriction lifts.
SPRINGFIELD  In early 2020, Miguel Rodriguez was fighting to keep his inner demons at bay, defense attorney Lawrence Madden told a judge Wednesday during closing arguments after a weeklong trial in Hampden Superior Court.

He was fixated on getting a real girlfriend. He believed a relationship would purge the devil from inside him, Madden said.
In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, MassLive asked readers to identify people who are emerging Hispanic leaders throughout the state, working to make a difference in their own area of interest, be it politics, education, business or the arts.

These are people our readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change.

Jade Rivera-McFarlin is Vice President of Fund Development, Community Relations and Race Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) for the Gandara Center, providing culturally sensitive bilingual care in Springfield. (Kamila O'Neill photo)

Jade Rivera-McFarlin

Age: 40

Community: Springfield

Her story: A woman who grew up attending citizens council board meetings, participating in neighborhood elections and advocating for her community, Jade Rivera-McFarlin was immersed in her familys passion for the commonwealth at a young age.

Rivera-McFarlin graduated from Springfield Central High School in 2000 and has a bachelors in communications/broadcast journalism with a minor in Spanish, a masters in public relations and her Diversity Equity and Inclusion certificate from Cornell University.

Rivera-McFarlin worked as a journalist and a public relations specialist for numerous organizations, including WWLP22, Baystate Health, Friendlys and Johnny Rockets restaurants. She also volunteered for the Springfield Puerto Rican Pride Parade and was spokesperson for almost a decade, and has been owner of Exercise in Disguise Fitness for 15 years helping people in their fitness journeys.

Now, as Vice President of Fund Development, Community Relations and Race Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) at the Gandara Center, Rivera-McFarlin advocates for multiple Massachusetts communities through her fundraising, public relations, and marketing in the Communications and Fund Development. She promotes culturally-competent mental health and substance use services, along with large-scale bilingual marketing campaigns, to communities in need.

Additionally, Rivera-McFarlin worked to help Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Fiona with a relief fund and the 2020 earthquakes with items collected by the Center. With Exercise in Disguise Fitness and her own weight loss battle, her goal was to provide affordable, unique fitness options for underserved communities, earning several certifications and licenses over the years to teach at all fitness levels while teaching locally. Her brick and mortar location has Aerial, Bungee and Trampoline Fitness and more.

Read more: Zaida Govan aids Springfield residents with substance use and mental health obstacles

In her words: Get as much experience as you can possibly get in the field you are interested in. Make it a point to never stop learning, as there is always something new you can learn. Seek out a mentor and surround yourself with other like-minded people.

Each day, we will introduce more leaders, and were always open to hear about more inspiring people. If youd like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form.
S Korean Crypto Exchange Exec Jailed for Coin Price Manipulation

Source: deagreez

A South Korean court has jailed a former senior executive of the crypto trading platform Coinone for taking bribes in exchange for listing altcoins.

The Seoul Southern District Court sentenced an individual surnamed Jeon (age 41) to four years in prison, Newsis reported.

Jeon was the former general director of coin listings at Coinone, one of South Koreas so-called big four crypto exchange platforms.

Another individual, surnamed Kim (31), was given a three-year jail term.

Kim served as the manager of Coinones listing team.

Trading volumes on the Coinone crypto exchange over the past 12 months. (Source: CoinGecko)

The court also sentenced two crypto brokers for their involvement in the case.

One was given a 2 years and 6 months jail term and the other was imprisoned for 1 year and 6 months.

The quartet was charged with breach of trust-related offenses.

Jeon was also handed a $1.4 million fine, with Kim ordered to pay $600,000.

The unnamed altcoins were listed in a bid to drive up prices, the court heard.

Kim testified that he had no intention of conspiring with Jeon, and was unaware that his actions would cause price manipulation.

But the judge claimed that it was reasonable to assume that Kim was fully aware that listing the coins would lead to market manipulation and mass coin trading.

The judge commented:

Employees who deal with coin listings are expected to show high levels of compliance and integrity.

South Korea Cracking Down on Crypto Price Manipulation

Prosecutors also presented evidence showing that Kim had attempted to destroy evidence several times after investigations began.

And prosecutors presented evidence showing that Jeon had accepted cryptoasset and cash payments from brokers in the period 2020-2022.

They showed similar evidence that demonstrated Kim also received similar payments in a similar timeframe.

In sentencing, the judge claimed that regulators needed to begin a thorough process of monitoring and management for crypto exchanges listing processes.

Executives from the Coinone rival Bithumb have also been accused of attempting to manipulate coin prices as part of a separate investigation.

Earlier this month, South Koreas second city, Busan, announced plans to launch a digital assets trading platform before the year is out.

While the Busan platforms masterminds may have originally hoped to list cryptoassets, plans have apparently been scaled back, with the platform now set to trade digitized commodities and tokenized IP rights instead.
After he was arrested in Puerto Rico and brought back to Massachusetts for trial, an 18-year-old pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with a February 2022 killing of a 17-year-old Weymouth student, officials said.

Keniel Diaz-Romero, formerly of Quincy, was ordered held without bail following his arraignment in Norfolk Superior Court on Tuesday, Sept. 26, the Norfolk County District Attorneys Office said.

The 18-year-old was arrested by Quincy and Massachusetts State Police in Puerto Rico last week. He was wanted in connection with the shooting death of Nathan Paul, a Weymouth High School senior who died near the Germantown Housing Development in Quincy on Feb. 15, 2022.

Read More: Last suspect wanted in shooting death of Nathan Paul arrested in Puerto Rico

Police responded to a report of shots fired on Taffrail Road around 6:30 that evening and spotted a vehicle leaving the scene. Following it to the intersection of two nearby roads, police found Paul in the car with life-threatening gunshot injuries, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey said.

Paul was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he died from his injuries. Diaz-Romero and Jaivon Harris, who was arrested in late February, were later indicted on murder charges in connection with Pauls death.

According to the Boston Globe, investigators believe Diaz-Romero fired the fatal shot during a botched robbery.

Two other teenagers, who remain unnamed because they are minors, were charged with stealing from Paul ahead of his death and using counterfeit money during the theft, according to officials. One was also charged with accessory after the fact of murder.

Diaz-Romero pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, larceny from a person, possession of a counterfeit bill, uttering a counterfeit bill, conspiracy to commit larceny and unlawfully carrying a firearm. He will be held at Norfolk County jail in Dedham, the district attorneys office said.
Kirstin Smith from Brockton was sent to state prison after a jury found Smith guilty of the stabbing death of her boyfriend in 2017, according to a statement from Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruzs office.

On June 26, a jury found Smith, 59, of Brockton, guilty of one count of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Scott Benoit, 52, the release said. The Commonwealth requested Smith serve 13-14 years in state prison, but on Sept. 27, Judge William Sullivan sentenced Smith to serve 5-6 years.

At around 1:04 p.m. on June 22, 2017, Brockton Police received a 911 call for 65 Maguire Road, where police and emergency responders found Benoit unresponsive inside of the residence. Benoit was pronounced dead on scene, the district attorneys office said.

Read more: Kirstin Smith of Brockton found guilty of fatally stabbing boyfriend in 2017

Brockton Police contacted Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorneys Office to investigate. During the investigation, a 7-inch knife covered in blood was recovered, along with other evidence from the scene, the DAs office said.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death of Benoit was a stab wound to the chest and the manner was ruled a homicide, according to the district attorneys office.

After police obtained an arrest warrant for Smith, she was taken into custody.

During the trial, jurors heard evidence that Smith stabbed Benoit in the heart, the DAs office said.

Smiths defense attorney, Brian Kelley, said she was being strangled, according to The Enterprise. But prosecutors said police did not find any red marks around her neck that would have indicated she was strangled, the news outlet reported.
A 35-year-old man accused of attacking several police officers, including one who was stabbed in the face and back of the head, was ordered held without bail after appearing in court Wednesday, the Bristol County District Attorneys Office said.

Douglas Hagerty appeared in Taunton District Court on Wednesday, Sept. 27, on multiple charges, including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon and armed assault with intent to murder. He was hospitalized the night before after an incident that occurred in Taunton Tuesday evening.

The incident started when an officer pulled a vehicle over for a moving violation near 716 County St. around 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, Taunton police said in a statement.

During the traffic stop, another driver in a 2010 gray Honda Accord, later identified as Hagerty, pulled up and started shouting at police, according to the police. Hagerty, who was not affiliated with the stopped driver, sped away, police said. Police, who said Hagerty was known to officials, did not pursue him.

Shortly after, however, another officer saw the Honda driving recklessly, according to a police report. When the officer pulled the car over, Hagerty fled from police and almost hit an officer who was walking toward the vehicle, the report said.

This time, police did chase after Hagerty, police said. His car crashed into the front of a multi-family home on West Britannia Street, which was also Hagertys home, according to police.

As officers chased him inside the house, Hagerty pulled out a knife and started waving it at police. Chief Edward James Walsh, who lives nearby, responded and was slashed in the chest, police said. He was later treated and released from Morton Hospital.

Another officer was seriously cut, including injuries to his face and back of his head. He was flown to a Boston hospital for treatment, police said.

Another officer was taken to a local hospital for treatment for knife wounds. Two more officers were treated Tuesday evening at Morton Hospital for injuries, according to police.

Police used a Taser device on Hagerty and he was taken into custody at about 7 p.m., according to police.

Hagerty was charged with the following:

Assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (3 counts)

Assault with a dangerous weapon (2 counts)

Malicious damage to a motor vehicle (2 counts)

Assault and Battery with a dangerous weapon-causing serious bodily injury

Armed Aassault with intent to murder

Resisting arrest

Reckless operation of a motor vehicle

Failure to stop for police

Hagerty is due back in court for a dangerousness hearing on Oct. 17, the district attorneys office said.
A 35-year-old man from Taunton is facing multiple charges in connection with an incident where a police officer, who was stabbed in the face and back of the head, was among five officers hurt, officials said.

Douglas Hagerty will appear in Taunton District Court Wednesday morning, Sept. 27, on charges including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon and armed assault with intent to murder, the Bristol County District Attorneys Office said.

The charges stem from an incident that started when an officer pulled a vehicle over for a moving violation near 716 County St. around 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, the department said in a statement.

During the traffic stop another driver in a 2010 gray Honda Accord, later identified as Hagerty, pulled up and started shouting at police, according to the police. Hagerty, who was not affiliated with the stopped driver, then sped away, police said. Police, who said he was known to officials, did not pursue him.

Shortly after, another officer saw the Honda driving recklessly, according to the police report. When the officer pulled the car over, the Hagerty fled from police and almost hit an officer who was walking toward the vehicle, the report said.

This time police did pursue the vehicle. It crashed into the front of a multi-family home on West Britannia Street, which was also Hagertys home, according to police.

As officers chased him inside the house, Hagerty pulled out a knife and started waving it at police. Chief Edward James Walsh, who lives nearby, responded and was slashed in the chest, police said. He was later treated and released at Morton Hospital.

Another officer sustained serious slash wounds, including injuries to the face and back of his head. He was airlifted to a Boston hospital for treatment, police said.

Read More: Woman rushed to hospital after car plunges into ocean off Yarmouth beach

Another officer was taken to a local hospital for treatment for knife wounds. Two more officers were treated Tuesday evening at Morton Hospital for injuries, according to police.

Police used a Taser device on Hagerty and he was taken into custody around 7 p.m., according to police.

The rest of Hagertys charges are malicious damage to a motor vehicle, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon-causing serious bodily injury, resisting arrest, reckless operation of a motor vehicle and failure to stop for police, the district attorneys office said.

The investigation is ongoing.
UPDATE: Taunton man faces charges in incident where officer was stabbed in face, back of head

A Taunton police officer who was stabbed in the face and back of the head was among five officers hurt during an incident in the city Tuesday evening involving a knife-wielding suspect, Taunton police said.

The incident started when an officer pulled a vehicle over for a moving violation near 716 County St. around 6:45 p.m. on Sept. 26, the department said in a statement.

During the traffic stop another driver in a 2010 gray Honda Accord, identified only as an adult male who was not affiliated with the stopped driver, pulled up and started shouting at police. The man then sped away. Police, who said he was known to officials, did not pursue him.

Shortly after, another officer saw the Honda driving recklessly. When the officer pulled the car over, the driver fled from police and almost hit an officer who was walking toward the vehicle.

This time police did pursue the vehicle. It crashed into the front of a multi-family home on West Britannia Street, which was the suspects home, according to police.

Read More: Springfield police arrest 3 suspects in 2 unrelated homicides

As officers chased the man inside the house, he pulled out a knife and started waving it at police. Chief Edward James Walsh, who lives nearby, responded and was slashed in the chest, police said. He was later treated and released at Morton Hospital.

Another officer sustained serious slash wounds, including injuries to the face and back of his head. He was airlifted to a Boston hospital for treatment, police said.

Read More: Woman rushed to hospital after car plunges into ocean off Yarmouth beach

Another officer was taken to a local hospital for treatment for knife wounds. Two more officers were treated Tuesday evening at Morton Hospital for injuries, according to police.

Police used a Taser device on the man and he was taken into custody around 7 p.m., according to police. The suspect, who is being treated at a local hospital, will face several felony charges, police said. His name was not released by officials. The investigation is ongoing.
Dear Annie: I consider myself to be a self-aware social media poster. However, there is a family member on Facebook who posts her childcare needs at least once a week. She posts the day and time she needs and has said the names of the children who need a sitter. She has three children.

Her circumstance is difficult as she is going through a divorce. I am not particularly close with her, but not in a bad way.

I, too, have been a single mother and know how difficult it can be to find cheap, reliable childcare. There is part of me that wants to message her to tell her how unsafe it is to continually post when her children will be alone with a sitter, but I guess this is her business. Annie, should I bring up my concerns with her?

 Worried for the Kids

Dear Worried for the Kids: She is a family member, and you are both single mothers. Yes, by all means bring up your concerns with her. Kids come first, and if you think that what she is doing is unsafe for them, then say something sooner rather than later.

Maybe even offer to help take care of her kids when she is in a pinch so that she is not so desperate to post it on social media. Perhaps you could offer her some of the ways you found a sitter without announcing it to everyone on social media.

Dear Annie: I was fortunate to have found a wonderful quiet condo in a very expensive tourist town. Although Im renting, I have done repairs and spent money on my new home, as I was planning to make this my last move. Im 70.

Everything was great, including the semi-retired neighbors and the office and maintenance staff. It felt like a community. Then the elderly next-door neighbor moved and a young working lady moved in. The problem is that she is obese. Her footsteps can be heard and felt in my unit. She wakes between 4 and 5 a.m.

Because of the floor plan, our bedrooms and bathrooms are adjoining, and I am woken up when she gets up. Ive left felt pads for her bathroom cabinets hoping that may be a hint, but it seems to have made it worse.

How do I tactfully tell her that I hear everything, including her bathroom use (even the vomiting... bulimia?) Its not like a noisy neighbor with loud music.

I dont want to move again, but Im very stressed about this.

 Hearing Too Much

Dear Hearing Too Much: It is understandable that you are stressed out about this. Hearing someone going to the bathroom, no matter how much they weigh, is disgusting. And thats not something your new neighbor can help. It sounds like it could be a building issue and that the building is not properly soundproofed. For the time being, invest in some good earplugs along with a sound machine. After that, speak with management and tell them what is going on. Heres hoping they will have a solution. If not, it might be time to pack up and move.

How Can I Forgive My Cheating Partner? is out now! Annie Lanes second anthology  featuring favorite columns on marriage, infidelity, communication and reconciliation  is available as a paperback and e-book. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
Asking students borrowers to resume their loan payments when the federal government is on the brink of a shutdown is a recipe for disaster, a Massachusetts lawmaker said Wednesday, as she called for a freeze on those payments until Washington gets its fiscal house in order.

This Republican government shutdown stands to harm families across the nation, many who were just regaining their financial footing for the first time since the COVID-19 crisis, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, said in a statement. The [Biden] administration should absolutely pause student loan payments and interest accrual in light of these stark realities.

The lights could go out on the federal government as soon as Sunday if lawmakers on Capitol Hill fail to pass the spending bills needed to pay the bills. Conservatives in the U.S. House have pressed for deep spending cuts that have little chance of passing the majority-Democrat U.S. Senate.

And while lawmakers were working Wednesday to break the logjam, the likelihood of a shutdown increased after House Republicans shot down a bipartisan Senate plan to keep the government funded, the Washington Post reported.

After a pandemic-inspired pause, interest on student loan debt kicked back in on Sept. 1. Borrowers will be required to start repaying their loans in October.

That break from payments has been a lifeline for borrowers across the nation. As we stare down an impending Republican government shutdown, it is abundantly clear that student loan payments should not resume Oct. 1, Pressley said.

Asking student borrowers to resume payments with the U.S. Department of Education likely hobbled would undo the economic progress borrowers made during the more than three-year pandemic pause on repayments, Pressley argued Wednesday.

To throw borrowers back into repayment with bad-faith loan servicers and an under-staffed Department of Education is a recipe for disaster and would deeply undermine the progress we have made to advance economic justice for student loan borrowers, the Massachusetts Democrat said.

Pressley called on the White House to take immediate steps to prevent borrowers from entering into repayment at a time when the infrastructure is not there and bad actors will seize on the lack of government capacity caused by Republican dysfunction.

In 2019-20, 56% of Massachusetts college graduates had some student debt, with an average of $33,457, according to data compiled by the Institute for College Access and Success. That was the eighth-highest tally nationwide.

About a third of those students, 31%, had non-federal debt, which often is costlier and carries fewer consumer protections than federal debt, the institute said in a statement.

The largest component was private student loans, offered by banks and private lenders. About 14% of the commonwealths students had such debt, with an average debt of $42,748, the institutes data indicated.

Last weekend, Pressley issued a renewed call to cancel student loan debt for tens of thousands of borrowers, arguing that its a racial justice imperative.

Student debt cancellation is essential and it is a racial justice imperative, Pressley said in a statement. Black folksespecially Black womenare among the most impacted by the student debt crisis, so we must be intentional in centering their voices and experiences in our policy response. Student debt cancellation is essential.
By and large, Black people on both sides of the political aisle are dissatisfied with how the media covers their community, a new report by the Pew Research Center has found.

When a White person commits a crime its an individual, it is a mental issue, an anonymous survey participant said. When a Black person commits a crime its the total community. Its the Black community, and its an indictment on all of us.

Nearly 60% of Black Democrats and 55% of Black Republicans say the news they see or hear about Black people only covers certain segments of their community, rather than the whole, the Pew report said.

The report, which surveyed nearly 4,700 Black American adults from late February to early March, shines a spotlight on one of the biggest flaws within American media: the lack of positive and wide-ranging representation of the Black community.

Part of the issue can be attributed to how journalists have historically chosen to cover Black Americans and their communities, namely in crime reporting.

A study from the Equal Justice Initiative found that in crime stories, mugshots were used in 45% of cases involving Black people accused of crimes compared to 8% for white defendants. The study further found that white victims of crimes were almost four times as likely to be presented in photos with friends and family compared to Black victims.

For example, earlier this year, MassLive reported on the racial bias in the medias coverage of two Plymouth County women who were accused of killing their children  Latarsha L. Sanders, who is Black and Lindsay Clancy, who is white. Articles written about Sanders used either her mugshot or photographs of her handcuffed while in a prison jumpsuit. However, articles about Clancy largely featured photos of her smiling with her children.

Media expert Dr. Breea Willingham, of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, called the contrast between the reporting. gross and sickening.

So in these newsrooms with editors and reporters, thats how theyre viewing Clancy. Its like, Oh, my God, this is horrible! Why did she do it? Oh, she had some mental health issues? Oh, thats a shame. We should do a story about that. We should really look into postpartum depression and how that played a factor, Willingham told MassLive in May. But, with a Black woman, theyre not going to tap into that same humanity because they are not seeing a Black woman as human. Period.

In fact, nearly 45% of Black Americans from both ends of the political spectrum agree that news coverage of their community largely stereotypes them, the Pew survey found.

Rayla Campbell, a Black Republican who ran for Massachusetts secretary of state last year, told MassLive she believes that the media tends to overemphasize incidents of criminality within Black communities while overlooking potential solutions to specific challenges.

They dont talk about having more entrepreneurship in our neighborhoods [or] in our schools, getting these children off the streets, getting the guns off the streets, she said. Its always more violence, more violence, more violence, but why is there more violence?

Gaining trust

As a result of decades of racially biased reporting, many Black Americans have grown to distrust reporters, according to Meghan Irons, a Black woman who teaches impact journalism at Boston University.

I think its sad because even when theres been an attempt to remedy that, to go into the churches, to go into mom-and-pop stores, to really delve into the lives of these communities, reporters are often met with skepticism, Irons told MassLive.

Irons knows this feeling all too well.

In 2012, Irons, then a city reporter for the Boston Globe, co-wrote a five-part series on the lived experiences of residents from Bowdoin-Geneva, a historically rich neighborhood of Boston, troubled by gun violence.

As part of her coverage, the Globe rented an apartment for Irons in the neighborhood, so she could immerse herself in the community. Having grown up around Bowdoin-Geneva, Irons thought she would have an easy time building trust with the locals.

However, her first few months on assignment proved otherwise.

Irons said that residents were averse to the idea of speaking to a reporter, and were quick to shut her and her colleague out. Instead of seeing her as someone to whom they could relate, residents looked at her as more of an authoritative figure looking for information.

The minute you said to somebody I am a reporter, there was an instant block, she said. It felt like I was a police officer. And if not a police officer I worked for the city, if not worked for the city, I worked with some governance.

For many months, the residents of Bowdoin-Geneva kept Irons at arms length. It wasnt until she started consistently appearing in community spaces such as churches and local stores that residents began to open up to her.

Years later, while she worked on another story, a local pastor, whom Irons had gotten to know over the years, recognized her as she walked down the street. Irons recalled the pastor, who was in the midst of talking to another reporter, saying to them, Oh, thats Meghan, shes family.

Im not his family, but I know what he means, Irons said. He means that you just have to show up for people and have conversations with people in which youre not looking for a story, but youre really just wanting to hear what theyre saying about something, she said.
Professional photographer Ed Cohen has taken thousands of photographs over the years, among them are many images of Springfields vibrant Latino community.

Visitors to the Springfield Museums on Saturday, Sept. 30, as part of their inaugural Latino Arts Festival can view 20 of his mounted images of the Latino community from the 1980s to present day, highlighting the groundbreaking efforts of Latino community leaders and celebrates Springfields Latino culture. There will also be an accompanying slide show of an additional 90 photographs.

We are very excited to bring the history and culture of the Latino community of Springfield to the public through Eds amazing photography, said Lydia E. Martinez-Alvarez, museum trustee and chair of the Mi Museo Committee, organizers of the photography exhibit and festival, which was formed to share Latino arts, history and culture of the wider community.

Entitled Latinos en Springfield, Presente y Pasado, the exhibit will run through March 3, 2024 in the Wood Museum of Springfield History.

I was introduced to the Latino community by Heriberto Flores when we were students at UMass Amherst where we were both involved in many student events. I later got to know many people in the Latino community through Heriberto, who hired me to take photos at his various events where I got to meet a lot of people in the Latino community. I also had many friends at UMass from the Latino communities in Holyoke and Springfield, and when I moved to Springfield, I reconnected with them, Cohen noted about the Puerto Rican veteran, businessman and nonprofit leader.

Over the years I have tried to be inclusive of the many different people in the community with photographs taken at different events, festivals, parades, pageants and in the workplace, as well as even some friends who work at Walmart......just people I have known over the years, added the Springfield-based freelance photographer, who has been photographing in the Pioneer Valley since 1975.

Among the many photographs on display, with translated captions by Manuel Frau-Ramos, editor of El Sol Latino, will be:

 The staff of Gandara Mental Health Center, founded in Springfield in 1977 to advocate and provide for equal and culturally competent services in behavioral health for the Hispanic community;

 State Rep. Carlos Gonzalez posing for a photo with staff members of the New North Citizens Council, including the late Terry Rodriguez who worked at the Substance Abuse Program, and Maria Perez, who was a social worker at the time;

 Senior citizens posing for a photo in 2008 at the opening of the Senior Center at the Pool House on Plainfield Street in Springfields North End;

 Saint John the Baptist procession led by Father Juan Garcia;

 Springfield Fire Department firefighters marching in the 2015 Puerto Rican Parade, including Yolimar Torres, the first Latina firefighter and at the time the only female firefighter in Springfield.

Cohen noted that the pride expressed through the Latino communitys music, dance, art and spoken word is clearly evident as members willingly share their culture with the entire western Massachusetts community.

In partnership with the museums Mi Museo Committee, the inaugural Latino Arts Festival, timed to coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month, is a daylong celebration of the myriad arts and rich cultures of the Puerto Rican, Cuban, Afro-Cuban, Portuguese, Mexican, Dominican, and Central and South American populations of Greater Springfield. In addition to salsa music, food trucks, and hands-on, family-friendly activities during the day, the festival will feature an after-hours party for adults with a cash bar, DJ, and band beginning at 5 p.m. The evening event is free, while the daytime programming is free with admission to the museums.

Special events throughout the morning and afternoon include Latino poet Jose Gonzalez from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., who will read from his collection of poems, while from 11 to 11:45 a.m. and again from 12:15 to 1 p.m., visitors can hear the Mexican Mariachi band Fiesta del Norte as they perform traditional folk and popular music of Mexico. Both events will take place in SIS Hall of the Wood Museum of Springfield History.

Additional ongoing activities include grabbing a brush and pot of paint and contributing to a community mural being created on the Quadrangle Green from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; making a musical instrument used in Latin American countries in the Art Discovery Center of GWV Smith Art Museum; and making a button that represents you from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Wood Museum of Springfield History. Also at 12:15 p.m., for an additional fee beyond museum admission, Big Bird, Elmo and friends will host an interactive show of discovery as part of a 45-minute planetarium show presented in Spanish at the Seymour Planetarium in the Springfield Science Museum.

Our committee is proud to partner with the Springfield Museums on an annual event that over the years will continue to truly reflect the rich Latino culture in Springfield, Martinez-Alvarez said.

Admission, which includes all five museums, is $25 for adults, $16.50 for seniors 60 and older as well as college students, $13 for youth 3-17, and free for children under 3. Springfield residents are admitted free with valid identification.
A Virginia man was arrested Tuesday on murder charges following a yearslong investigation into remains discovered in Perry County in 2014.

Pennsylvania State Police reported Wednesday that Strasburg Police in Virginia arrested James Callahan in connection with the murder of Michael Allen Holober, 47, formerly of Strasburg, whose remains were discovered by a hiker in Perry County on May 27, 2014.

Police said the investigation began in 2014 when skeletal remains were found in the area of Idle Road within State Game Lands 170 in Rye Township, Perry County. Officials at the time believed the remains could have been there between 7 to 20 months.

The case was rule a homicide due to a gunshot wound to the head.

Police said it took nine years to identify the man.

The identification started in October 2022 when Perry County District Attorney Lauren Eichelberger was awarded grant money intended to further attempts to identify the remains. Several items collected from the remains were forwarded to Othram Labs in Texas to complete a DNA analysis and genealogy study.

In February 2023, a distant family member was identified, and investigators, through interviews and DNA comparison, were able to identify Holober as the victim, according to police.

Police investigated Holober's life and learned he had been living in the Strasburg area in 2012 but had disappeared around that time. Working with Strasburg Police, State Police eventually determined Holober had been shot and killed by Callahan, an acquaintance. Police said they believe Callahan transported Holober's body to Pennsylvania.
WESTFIELD  Ward 3 City Councilor Bridget Matthews-Kane was thrilled at the turnout of military family members and veterans for Blue Star Families celebration of Military Welcome Week at Starbucks on Southampton Road in Westfield on Wednesday morning.

Matthews-Kane, whose husband is a drilling reservist with the Marines, reached out to Blue Star Families New England Chapter Executive Director Jeffrey Chin six months ago about bringing the organization and their programs to Western Massachusetts as a service to military families.
Worcester City Council will discuss Tuesday night whether it should nudge the city manager to get the ball rolling on changing the way the city hires a chief of police, according to the councils agenda.

Worcester At-Large Councilor Khrystian King added the item on the 6:30 p.m. meeting agenda. It states: In an effort to consider the expansion of the applicant pool associated with the Chief of Police position, request City Manager provide City Council with draft language that would, by Special Act, remove the civil service requirement for the citys Chief of Police position, as well as any other related parameters associated with the position.

Read more: Worcester Police Chief Steven Sargent retires

The civil service requirement is an exam taken by those who want to work in a public safety job such as the police department, fire department or as a corrections officer. When officers want to be promoted to higher positions in the department, further civil service exams are required, according to Mass.Gov.

Worcester Mayor Joe Petty is already in favor of the review process, stating in a press release: We have an opportunity here to build on the citys progress by looking at how we choose police chiefs in the future. As we look to the future, we should comprehensively review our options. We should weigh our current method of selecting a chief versus other communities method and best practices.

This decision was announced after Worcester Police Chief Steven M. Sargent announced his retirement in late August, and Paul Saucier was appointed Worcester Police Departments interim chief in September.

Petty said in the release that although we have had countless dedicated public servants in the chiefs position, including our current acting chief that should not prelude us from a review of the process.

I look forward to the City Manager reviewing current best practices and reporting to the Council, Petty said.

Petty suggested City Manager Eric Batista look into several options, including our current option and the possibility of creating the position of Public Safety Commissioner.

Why did Sargent retire?

During an appearance on Talk of the Commonwealth, Batista spoke with radio show host Hank Stolz about Sargents retirement and how investigations into Sargent brought that retirement on sooner.

Batista told Stolz he and Sargent mutually agreed upon a much-sooner date for his retirement, and the reports related to the investigations were taken under consideration when they were making that decision, along with the direction of the department.

Sargents retirement announcement came weeks after reporting from the Telegram & Gazette revealed a 2021 investigation which found Sargent had engaged in a pattern of harassing and retaliatory behavior toward an officer in the service division.

The officer, Robert Belsito, is now threatening to sue Worcester, the T&G reported, claiming that Sargent has harassed him as recently as this year.

Batista said on the radio show that his administration became aware of the reports through public records request from the newspaper and took the necessary step to inform the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, the states police oversight board.

On Sept. 13, Worcester Patch reported that Sargent faced a separate investigation in 2019 related to a road rage incident that a homeowner reported, which resulted in Sargent coming into his driveway and swearing at him. The homeowner reported that Sargent had alcohol on his breath during the altercation.

The investigator, Michael Gardner, found that Sargent engaged in conduct unbecoming of an officer and violated department rules and regulations. Gardner also found that then-Deputy Chief Paul Saucier- who was named the citys interim police chief after Sargent announced his retirement- violated policy by failing to ensure that the complaint was properly investigated.

Then-City Manager Edward Augustus expressed his displeasure regarding the incident in a memo, Patch reported, but determined the reported evidence was not conclusive and did not accept the findings.

Batista said that while there is a report into the incident, the report doesnt include everything the former city manager would have taken into consideration when making the decision, saying there were likely conversations he had with officers and others involved that didnt make it into the report.

As a city manager, you take everything into consideration and try to make your best decision, what you think is right at the moment, Batista said. And I believe that Ed did that ... I do trust that the former leadership made the right decision or took the necessary steps in terms of his decision.

Batista said he also trusts himself and the current police department leadership to make the right decisions moving forward.

Batista appointed Saucier as interim chief following Sargents departure, a decision that has drawn scrutiny given the reports findings.

The city manager questioned the reports finding that Saucier violated policy because he didnt enact an internal investigation.

Batista said an internal investigation is not the protocol for the chief of a department, but that it needs to be reported to the city leadership.

(Saucier) took action by telling the chief you need to report this to leadership, Batista said.

Sargent did relay the incident to Augustus, according to Batista, and then human resources initiated an investigation.

When selecting who would replace Sargent as interim chief, Batista told Stolz he interviewed every deputy before making his decision.

Saucier stood out the most in terms of his answers and his ability to communicate with me what his plans and ideas were to establish transparency in the department, Batista said. The new leadership has been forward thinking in that, in unison with me, and talking through what are the areas and what are the changes that need to be made, and the department is willing to do that.

The Worcester Police Department as a whole has also come under the scrutiny of the Department of Justice. The DOJ and U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts announced last November that they would launch an investigation into the possible use of excessive force or discriminatory policing based on race or sex within the department.

The DOJ has not specified what triggered the investigation in Worcester. But the police department has paid out millions of dollars in lawsuits in the last decade tied to allegations of racial profiling, discriminatory racial bias regarding promotions within the department, fabricated evidence and the use of excessive force.
Recent meetings between the Ministry of Health and Mercy Ships have furthered planning for the hospital ship Africa Mercy to return to Madagascar in early February. Initially, Mercy Ships plans to dock the 16, 572 GT Africa Mercy in the port of Toamasina.

During the field service, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the ships medical professionals, and teams will aim to provide more than 1,150 free specialized surgeries as well as targeted training for healthcare professionals.

Mercy Ships has already embarked on the beginning of a 5-year country engagement plan that further strengthens the partnership between Mercy Ships and the people of Madagascar, with the development of local partners, and completion of an initial programmatic assessment.

Dr. Lethicia Lydia Yasmine, Secretary General for the Ministry of Health, Madagascar said:

Madagascar faces a shortage of surgical support from both local and international partners, especially in the most vulnerable areas. We appreciate Mercy Ships approach in reaching underserved communities. As we open 28 district hospitals, each requiring at least two surgeons, we look forward to collaborating with Mercy Ships to strengthen our surgical capacity.

Esperant Mulumba, Country Director for Mercy Ships in Madagascar, said: We are very grateful to the government of Madagascar for welcoming us back to continue our partnership to deliver hope and healing to those who need it most.

Mercy Ships has a long and successful relationship with Madagascar, with our last field service in 2015. We are very thankful that we are able to partner with them again to transform more lives through surgery and training.

This would be the fourth time that a Mercy Ship has visited the port of Toamasina since 1996. Mercy Ships program strategy is being carefully aligned with the countrys current strategic healthcare plan.

These initiatives aim to provide equitable access to medical care, extending beyond the inhabitants of Toamasina to individuals across the entire island. The organization is also committed to covering travel expenses, ensuring that even those in remote areas can benefit from this service.

The life-changing surgeries delivered will include tumor removal, cleft lip and palate correction, cataract removal, orthopedic and reconstructive plastic surgery and dental care.

Patients with these specific concerns will be encouraged to attend screening days to receive appointments for their specific surgical needs. Patient selection teams are preparing to assess and register patients in multiple locations, in preparation for the ships arrival.

The actual surgical procedures will begin in February 2024. In addition to the surgeries, the care includes post-operative consultations and psychosocial support to facilitate patients reintegration into their communities.

According to Nantenaina Rakotonirina, mayor of the urban commune of Toamasina, the city is also preparing to accommodate patients, emphasizing the collaborative nature of this initiative to provide comprehensive care.

In collaboration with national and international partners, Mercy Ships will provide education and training across the surgical ecosystem. The emphasis of these programs will be on surgery, nursing, biomedical, sterile processing, and anesthesia. The five-year partnership in total, including follow up after the ship leaves, will focus on strengthening the surgical care system by investing in Madagascan healthcare professionals who will impact this nation for years to come.
TWO prominent properties in Ballinrobe could soon become accommodation for refugees, The Mayo News has learned.

Mayo County Council has confirmed that discussions are ongoing regarding the use of Gannons Hotel on Main Street and OConnors Bar on Glebe Street for the housing of Ukrainian refugees.

Renovation works have been ongoing for several weeks in Gannons Hotel, which has been vacant since closing its doors in 2012. The Mayo News understands that the property is owned by a relative of a local man who lives in Kilkenny.

OConnors Bar on Glebe Street was a popular establishment in Ballinrobe for many years, but it has yet to reopen since being closed due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Other properties in the South Mayo town are being used to accommodate refugees, including accommodation above Art ONeills bar on Abbey Street.

The Railway Inn is the only hotel currently operating in the town, though the Valkenburg Hotel will provide tourist accommodation when it reopens as part of the multi-million-euro town hall development in the coming years.



Social housing

SEPARATELY, it was revealed at a meeting of Mayo County Councils Housing SPC that Stage 1 approval had been granted for 14 social-housing units in Ballinrobe.

The council also intends to convert other local properties acquired by CPO into social housing. However, a source familiar with situation estimated that work may not commence on these for at least another two years.
The Saolta University Health Care Group has officially launch an in-depth look back report on the rollout of the Covid-19 Vaccination Programme across the West and Northwest.

The 80-page report details the challenges, progress and successes of the programme, from rapidly setting up vaccination centres and satellite centres, ensuring a constant vaccine supply chain and reacting to peaks and sudden troughs of demand including vaccinating a peak of 42,000 people per week at the height of the programme.

Irelands vaccination programme began on December 29, 2020, with the initial rollout focusing on healthcare workers in frontline services and the 65 and older cohort in long term residential care facilities.

In rolling out the vaccination programme in the West and Northwest, an integrated Steering Group was rapidly established, with membership from Saolta, Community Healthcare West, Community Healthcare Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Sligo, HSE Emergency Planning, HSE Estates, Public Health and the National Ambulance Service (NAS). The Steering Group would go on to meet weekly or fortnightly until the point of transfer in May 2022.

The programme, which consisted of over 650 staff at its peak, was to oversee the vaccination of people from the age of 5 upwards in the Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs), but also in their homes (where housebound), residential care facilities, prisons, acute and community settings, and third level institutions. It worked with partner health organisations, voluntary and other agencies.

Responsibility for the regional vaccination programme was transferred from Saolta to HSE Community Healthcare organisations in the West and Northwest in May 2022. At the point of transfer, the Saolta-governed programme had administered 750,000 vaccinations, of which 703,000 had been given in the CVCs. Staff worked around the clock to provide a safe and quality service that everybody involved should be proud of.

Tony Canavan, CEO of the Saolta Group welcomed the report, adding: From the very start of the Covid vaccination programme we set ourselves two aims. The first was to ensure that no vaccine was wasted. The second was to ensure that the pace at which we delivered the vaccine would only be limited by the availability of the vaccine itself. Despite all of the challenges and setbacks along the way, we consistently achieved both of these aims.

He described the report as a timely reminder of the need to stay up to date with vaccines.

It is a testament to the success of the vaccination programme that life has returned to normal, however, I urge you all not be become complacent. We can do our part to protect against any future surge in Covid or influenza by staying up to date with our vaccines. This report is a timely reminder than vaccines make a difference, he added.

Incredible efforts

Paul Hooton, Chief Director of Nursing and Midwifery and Vaccination Programme Lead for the Saolta Group also praised the report.

I was the Vaccination Lead for the Regional Vaccination Programme in the West and Northwest during 2022-2023. I witnessed incredible efforts, by both staff and members of the public, to engage with the programme and to contribute to Ireland's uptake rate of circa. 96 percent of the population receiving full primary vaccination. Covid-19 touched the lives of everyone globally. It's easy to forget the enormous impact it had on all people from all walks of life.

I continue to be incredibly proud of the work carried out by all of those involved - the HSE staff, the National Ambulance Service, Defence Forces, Local Authorities, Civil Defence, An Garda Siochana, the Fire Service, voluntary supports and many others, he added.

Dr Aine McNamara, Area Director of Public Health HSE West and North West welcomed the report and urged the public to get their winter booster vaccines for flu and Covid-19 where recommended.

Staying up-to-date with your vaccines is a safe and effective way of avoiding illness. It also ensures you help protect the most vulnerable in our communities. We know that vaccines save lives and I urge you all to shield yourself, your family and your community by getting your vaccinations, she added

Cllr Donagh Killilea, Chairman of the Regional Health Forum officially launched the report at the September meeting of the forum.

I warmly welcome the publication of this Saolta report, which goes a long way to capturing the challenges, the progress and successes of the programme. The inclusion of personal stories and anecdotes from staff and members of the public, recorded at the time, gives rich depth to the story and provides real insight as to how integrated working in the HSE can bring significant benefits to our region, providing universal access and the highest levels of service, he added.

John Fitzmaurice, Chief Officer, Community Healthcare West said: I welcome the publication of this look back report. It is important that we dont lose sight of the learnings in this report. The success of the vaccination programme allowed us to live our lives as we choose and its vital that we dont take that for granted. To do so would unfortunately ensure that the vaccination programme becomes a victim of its own success.

The full report is available to view here: https://saolta.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Saolta%20COVID-19%20Vaccination%20End%20of%20Programme%20Report.pdf
A team of Gardai have been praised as heroes after entering the sea in the middle of the night to save a young man.

Officers in Buncrana, Co Donegal received a call shortly after 3am on Sunday, September 17 from a young woman who explained her friend had entered the water at Shore Front, a cove just outside the town.

Garda Keith Conlon, Garda Deirdre Connolly and Student Garda Tara McGrory raced to the beach, where they were met by a number of young people who were "extremely frantic" as they could not see their friend in the water.

Garda Conlon and Garda Connolly reportedly entered the water "despite the nights darkness, freezing cold water and entirely unknowing the waters depths", while Student Garda McGrory held back on the shoreline to shine her torch in their direction.

Together, they managed to locate the young man quite some distance in and got him safely back to land where Garda colleagues and a unit from Donegal Fire Service had arrived on the scene to assist.



The young man was medically assessed and brought to Letterkenny University Hospital for treatment.

Gardai posted about the incident on their official X page (formerly Twitter) and confirmed the young man is recovering well.

They stated, "We look forward to him being back in full health very soon.

"Gardai nationwide know that it takes bravery and quick-thinking to save a life but more than that, it takes team-work. Garda Keith Conlon, Garda Deirdre Connolly and Student Garda Tara McGrory are the ultimate team."

Dozens of respondents praised the "selfless and heroic actions" of the Gardai who came to the young man's rescue, with one person stating, "Ireland is fortunate to have these exceptional public servants".

Another said, "What a wonderful story of bravery with a positive outcome. Sending a heartfelt thank you for your service."
PHILADELPHIA  Temple University says former president and current chancellor Richard Englert will take over temporarily as president following the death last week of then-acting president JoAnne Epps.

Englert will serve as a transitional leader to carry on the work Epps started and provide a steady hand of leadership while the search for Temples next chief executive continues," the Philadelphia university said in an announcement Tuesday.

From 2016 to 2021, Englert served as Temple president, and earlier stepped in as acting president during a nearly half-century career at the university.

The school said it hopes to announce the choice of the next president in spring 2024.

Epps died a week ago at 72 after falling ill on stage at a memorial event, after which the acting designation was removed from her title in recognition of her contributions during her tenure. The following day saw an outpouring of affection on the universitys campus where flags were flown at half-staff and dozens gathered to remember her.

Temples former law school dean and provost took over in April from Jason Wingard, Temples first Black president who had led the 33,600-student university since July 2021. His resignation in March came shortly before a no-confidence vote by the faculty union, with members citing concerns over falling enrollment, financial issues and labor disputes.

Epps had vowed to focus on enrollment as well as safety amid an uptick in crime near the north Philadelphia campus. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported enrollment was down 14% since 2019, that she believed she was selected in part for her ability to "calm waters.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, September 26, 2023

Amazon illegally monopolizes the online superstore market, to the detriment of consumers as well as outside companies who sell products on the platform, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states allege in a new lawsuit.

This case is about the illegal course of exclusionary conduct Amazon deploys to block competition, stunt rivals' growth, and cement its dominance, the FTC and state coalition claims in a 172-page complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The complaint alleges that Amazon effectively prevents marketplace sellers from discounting their products on other sites, and requires sellers to use its fulfillment system in order to participate in Amazon Prime, which offers expedited shipping.

Amazon deploys this interconnected strategy to block off every major avenue of competition -- including price, product selection, quality, and innovation -- in the relevant markets for online superstores and online marketplace services, the complaint alleges.

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The complaint characterizes online superstores as stores that offer a single destination for shoppers to browse a large and diverse selection of goods from multiple brands across a wide range of categories.

The FTC's claim that Amazon attempts to prevent retailers from offering discounts on other platforms has surfaced in other antitrust cases against the company -- including ones by attorneys general in California and Washington, D.C. A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit brought in Washington, D.C., but the attorney general is appealing that decision.

The FTC and states also contend in the new lawsuit that Amazon used to prioritize organic results in response to searches, but now litters its storefront with pay-to-play advertisements.

Most sellers must now pay for advertising to reach Amazon's massive base of online shoppers, while shoppers consequently face less relevant search results and are steered toward more expensive products, the complaint alleges.

In a competitive world, Amazon's decision to raise prices and degrade services would create an opening for rivals and potential rivals to attract business, gain momentum, and grow. But Amazon has engaged in an unlawful monopolistic strategy to close off that possibility, the FTC and states add.

Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky stated Tuesday that the practices challenged in the complaint have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazons store.

Zapolsky added: The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law, and we look forward to making that case in court.

Several advocacy groups cheered news of the lawsuit.

Amazons dominance and ubiquity mask the harms it inflicts daily on consumers, workers, small business, and a fair economy, Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, stated.

If you as a small business want to sell online, you have little choice but to sell through Amazon. But if you sell through Amazon, you do so at a disadvantage, subjected to fees and terms that benefit Amazon, diminish innovation, and force higher prices for consumers, Weissman added.

But others, including the tech industry-funded policy group Chamber of Progress, criticized the new complaint.

At a time when families need help, its really surprising that the FTC would try to break up a service that nearly half of all Americans use to make their lives easier, Chamber of Progress founder and CEO Adam Kovacevich stated. The FTC is targeting practices that Amazons competitors dont like competing against -- like two-day shipping and low prices for consumers -- but which American families love.

Earlier this year, the FTC alleged in a separate complaint that Amazon duped consumers into signing up for Prime subscriptions, and thwarted cancelation attempts. Amazon has denied those allegations and is contesting that matter in court.
by Les Luchter , September 27, 2023

There are ample indicators that social media can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents, stated a May advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General.

Also in May, the Surgeon General issued an advisory about Americas epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

Now, upstart social media app Wizz claims it can combat teenage loneliness and anxiety, in a YouTube ad campaign launching Sept. 28, in the U.S. and UK. Targeted to Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the campaign features a 30-second video running via in-stream and bumper ads, both skippable and non-skippable. Three to five more spots are planned, which will run through December.

Our ad concept revolves around the idea that even when youre alone, youre with friends, says Aymeric Roffe, chief executive officer of Wizz, in a statement. Many of todays teens spent as many as two of their most formative years away from friends and peers during COVID lockdown. This took a toll on their social skills and interpersonal experiences. Our goal is to show that theyre not alone  literally or figuratively  by putting a world of friends at their fingertips.

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The spot also taps into teens FOMO, with a voiceover that says Wizz. Chat now or miss out.

The ad opens with a despondent-looking teenager settling on to her bed, when she receives a notification from a contact on Wizz. Once she opens the app, on-screen graphics show a world of Wizz possibilities -- from meeting new friends, discovering music, trading gaming tips, and sharing bits of her life. As the video nears its end, the girl is happily eating popcorn, as her energy now matches a pink neon sign on her wall that reads Good Vibes.

The creative comes from the Biborg agency, which like Wizz is based in Paris.

Wizz, which has had 16 million downloads since mobile game maker Voodoo launched it in 2019, and now has 1.5 million daily users, says the new campaign was inspired by feedback from thousands of users who completed a one-question, in-app survey which asked them to share their best experience and/or reasons for using the app.

Users shared their feelings of isolation, social anxiety and low confidence, the brand says, adding that they also cited Wizzs role in helping them meet new friends, finding people with common interests, increasing their confidence, dealing with social anxiety or introversion, combating boredom and loneliness, and learning about people in other parts of the world.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, September 27, 2023

Gen Z approaches generative artificial intelligence (GAI) with caution in the workplace, although this group is known for their tech-savvy demeanor. The group surveyed by Adobe is split on whether they are ready to embrace the technology in the workplace or walk away, and only 48% say they feel prepared for their employer to adopt the technology.

Adobe on Wednesday released the findings of its latest study that explores the career motivations and workplace expectations of Gen Z.

The study, Adobe Future Workforce, surveyed more than 1,011 Gen Z early career starters working at medium to large-size companies in the U.S. to understand perspectives and behaviors driving the generations career decision-making and what they expect from employers. Data was fielded in early September 2023.

The findings provide an in-depth look at how young professionals are approaching their careers, including views on emerging technologies, career development, company values and corporate social responsibility.

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Only 35% of survey participants said their organizations have implemented guidelines on GAI use in the workplace, with half of the respondents admitted to having used the technology to aid their work.

Gen Z anticipates the inevitable permanence of GAI but only 23% expressed excitement about its use in the workplace. Some 59% do not see GAI as a threat are not concerned the technology will replace their jobs.

Early career starters want to be change-makers in their workplace and are not shy about using their voice. They are eager to lend their perspectives at work, with 89% saying they are comfortable with providing feedback to peers and colleagues. Some 74% feel comfortable giving upward feedback to managers or supervisors, 70% are eager to climb the corporate ladder to the C-suite, and 69% feel good about career growth opportunities at their company. Some 50%, however, see no clear path to promotion as one of the top reasons they would leave a job.

There are several reasons why Gen Z would leave a job. They prioritize an inclusive workplace, with

80% saying they have a strong support network of colleagues their age in the workplace. It allows 87% to feel comfortable being open about traditionally sensitive topics like job satisfaction, and 77% said it allows them to be open about compensation.

Corporate social responsibility also is important to early career starters with 56% reporting they want to work for a company that is outspoken about social issues.
by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, September 27, 2023

It's not every day the right-wing Thomas More Society, civil liberties organization Electronic Frontier Foundation and tech industry groups like NetChoice agree, but they're united in the belief that New York's new online hate speech law is unconstitutional.

That law requires social platforms to give users a tool to complain about hate speech, and requires companies to disclose how they will respond to such complaints.

While 'hate speech' is easy to oppose, it is nearly impossible to define, the Thomas More Society writes in a friend-of-the-court brief filed this week with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Legislation against 'hate speech' offers governmental censors a tool for silencing views disapproved of by those holding power, the group adds.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union say in a separate friend-of-the-court brief that the new law is part of a larger effort to coerce interactive websites to replace their editorial policies regarding hateful speech, with that of the state.

New York lawmakers passed the measure several months after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo.

While the statute uses the phrase hateful conduct, the bill is clearly aimed at online speech -- not offline behavior. In fact, the bill defines hateful conduct as using social media to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Video platform Rumble and UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh, who operates the Volokh Conspiracy blog, challenged the law in court, arguing it's unconstitutional.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Carter in the Southern District of New York blocked enforcement. He ruled that even though the law doesn't force companies to remove offensive material, the requirement to post a policy about hate speech in itself forces Rumble and others to publish a message with which they disagree.

He also said the law's definition of hateful conduct is vague and appears to cover constitutionally protected speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring a broad range of offensive speech, including speech that's racist, sexist or otherwise objectionable.

It is not clear what the terms like 'vilify' and 'humiliate' mean for the purposes of the law, he wrote. For example, could a post using the hashtag 'BlackLivesMatter' or 'BlueLivesMatter' be considered 'hateful conduct' under the law? Likewise, could social media posts expressing anti-American views be considered conduct that humiliates or vilifies a group based on national origin?"

New York Attorney General Letitia James recently asked the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the measure. She argues it only requires companies to make a tool for complaints available, and doesn't require the companies to act on those complaints.

But opponents say the government has no business mandating disclosure of content moderation policies, or requiring social platforms to accept users' criticisms of other people's posts.

Like a traditional newspapers editorial processes, defining, publishing, and enforcing social media 'house rules' on a wide range of subject matter is, itself, an act of expression, the tech industry funded groups NetChoice and Chamber of Progress write.

By requiring online services to create a policy and mechanism for users to report certain lawful content, the online hate speech law compels them to express the states own message (here, disdain or disapproval) for that content. But speech compulsions are as constitutionally suspect as speech restrictions, the organizations add.

Others weighing in against the law include the advocacy group Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and think tank Cato Institute.

New Yorks efforts to silence 'offensive' ideas with which it disagrees facially violate the First Amendment, Cato writes.

The Reporters Committee separately argues that even if the law doesn't directly censor speech, it still represents an indirect effort to influence content moderation.

Even if the statute stops short of expressly penalizing news organizations and other websites for hosting 'hateful' content, the laws 'inevitable effect' is to encourage editors to remove material that might meet the states definition, that group writes.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, September 27, 2023

Fortnite developer Epic Games on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a ruling dismissing the company's antitrust claims against Apple.

The move comes in a battle dating to the summer of 2020, when Epic sued Apple over app store policies that required game developers to use Apple's payment platform for in-app purchases, and charged a 30% commission. (Apple currently charges smaller developers with less than $1 million in revenue a 15% commission.)

Epic claimed Apple monopolizes the iOS app distribution market, and unlawfully forces developers to use its payment processing system.

Apple countered that its restrictive policies protect users security and privacy.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California largely sided with Apple. She ruled Epic hadn't proven its antitrust claims, but also found that Apple's anti-steering policies -- which prohibited developers from offering in-app links to outside payment platforms -- violated California's unfair competition law.

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Both companies then appealed to the 9th Circuit, which upheld Rogers' ruling.

Epic is now asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, essentially arguing that Rogers and the 9th Circuit gave too much weight to Apple's justifications for its policies, and too little weight to the impact those policies had on competition.

Apple is also expected to appeal Rogers' finding that anti-steering provisions ran afoul of California's law against unfair competition.
In a rendition of Oliver Anthonys hit song Rich Men North of Richmond, a Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates 55th District has released a campaign ad attacking leftist ideology.

Steve Harvey debuted the two-minute ad titled Vote for a Damn Change earlier this month, which features him in front of a microphone with headphones over his ears and a guitar in his hands.

While the tune is the same as the one that made Anthony a national sensation, Harveys lyrics focus on the central piece of his campaign platform: education.

I hear from parents that schools are pushing a lot of politics and ideologies and kids are coming home with strange ideas they didnt learn from their parents, Harvey told The Daily Progress. Thats not really what we have a public school system for. Theyre supposed to teach children how to think, not what to think.

Thats among the messages Harvey tries to send in his video, which is overlaid with an image of a headline about the regions bus shortage as well as graphs showing the Albemarle County Public School budget and performance scores.

Ive been trying to make a change so I can play with my kids before they make them strange, is one of the first lines of the song. People out of CVille, lord knows they just want the same kid to come home, he later sings.

Harvey uses the tune to harp on the issues that he has calculated will help him defeat Democratic candidate Amy Laufer. By citing standards of learning scores that have dropped in Albemarle schools while comparing them to an increasing budget, Harveys song argues taxpayers are doling out more money for worse classroom performance.

Id put that on pushing more political ideology in school rather than pushing academic rigor. Thats the only way you get more spending and worse performance is if youre not teaching the right things in the right way, Harvey said.

I wish that politicians would focus on standards, and not just the standard of ethnic despair, he writes in the song.

As an example of what Harvey described as political indoctrination, he recalled a recent visit to Western Albemarle High School. Walking through the halls, he was shocked to see that nearly every classroom he passed featured not an American flag but a gay pride flag.

It was not pride month. It wasnt a moment of activism in school. This is what it looks like every day of the year. I was floored by that, he said.

Would you doubt it if every classroom has a flag that is the standard bearer of leftist ideology? Thats the flag for the leftist movement and its in every single classroom, Harvey continued.

The solution, he said, is to make a change, a reference to the name of his ad.

While Harveys wife is a pianist, he calls himself an amateur musician. Most of his practice has come from singing to his children before bedtime over the last seven years.

After meeting with bus drivers in August to learn what it would take to keep them on the job, he says the lyrics just sort of popped into my head.

It was meaningful to make. I had a lot of passion going into making that, he said.

Harvey says he reached out to Oliver Anthony twice before publishing the video and tweeted it directly at him. Anthony has not responded, but Harvey notes that the video is not monetized.

I dont think hed mind, Harvey said, citing an interview Anthony did where the musician joked about the many people who have spoofed his song.

And if he asked me to take it down, Id do it in a heartbeat. I dont want to offend the guy, Harvey said.
After going through a gazillion recipes, you find the right one and decide to bake a special cake with ten layers for your house party and it receives rave reviews. At the next party, someone in the group makes an almost identical cake and goes on to earn a lot of praise.

Instead of acknowledging the original source of recipe, you decide to accuse this person of copying your cake and stealing your thunder.

Sounds absurd, right? Well, that's exactly what seems to have happened between Humans of Bombay, People of India and Humans of New York  all embroiled in a nasty social media and legal war over copyright issues.

How did the legal drama start?

 Instagram_Karishma Mehta

Humans of Bombay (HOB), a popular online storytelling platform, decided to sue People of India (POI), another storytelling platform, for copying their business model, stories and basically their entire shtick.



A single-judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh from Delhi High Court swiftly acted upon the plea and issued a notice to POI.

We are grateful to HONY & Brandon for starting this storytelling movement.



The suit is related to the IP in our posts & not about storytelling at all.



We tried to address the issue amicably before approaching the Court, as we believe in protecting our teams hard work.



PFA  Humans Of Bombay (@HumansOfBombay) September 24, 2023

According to a report by the Indian Express, Advocate Abhishek Malhotra, who represents HOB said that POI didn't just take inspiration, but knowingly and deliberately, published content that is identical or substantially similar to the popular Content comprised of Plaintiffs Works in an attempt to ride on goodwill that has been painstakingly built by the Plaintiff.

Enter Brandon Stanton: The voice of reason

 Instagram_Karishma Mehta

Now, here's where the story takes a crazy twist.



Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York (HONY), weighed in on the situation. He expressed his shock at Humans of Bombay for suing People Of India for imitation when HOB's business model itself is a replica of HONY.

Yes, you read that right. HOB is essentially the Indian cousin of HONY  something the former has never officially acknowledged in public.

I've stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think @HumansOfBombay shares important stories, even if they've monetized far past anything I'd feel comfortable doing on HONY. But you can't be suing people for what I've forgiven you for. https://t.co/0jZM05YyTt  Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) September 23, 2023

This tweet struck a chord, and for a good reason. HOB, despite its undeniable popularity, has often been compared to HONY. While HONY had remained true to its core purpose  sharing stories of ordinary people  some believed that the nature of content on HOB had gradually shifted. It was no longer just storytelling. it was more commercialised, more polished, and perhaps, some argued, less authentic.

Brandon started Humans of New York in 2010 while Karishma started Humans of Bombay in 2014. For years, many thought HOB was an official Indian chapter of HONY. However, these recent events have made it clear that its practically a rip-off of Brandons idea, only more commercial in nature. Brandon had never made any statement on Karishmas borrowing of his IP and turning it into a front-end for a business.

 Facebook_Humans of New York

In response to Brandon Stanton's critique, HOB released a statement claiming they were shocked at his "cryptic assault" without the background knowledge of the case.



It all boiled down to a single question  if POI following HOBs content is liable to a copyright lawsuit, shouldnt HOB also be pulled up for copying HONYs format and turning it into a commercially successful venture?

The public speaks up

 Facebook_Humans of New York

The internet did not take kindly to these shenanigans and criticised HOB for the hypocrisy of their lawsuit. They pointed out that HOB had often promoted commercialised stories, seemingly taking away from the essence of storytelling as an art form, all in the pursuit of profits.



The prevailing opinion is that stories shared by the public shouldn't be anyone's intellectual property except the storyteller's themselves. Its like you blaming your friend for copying your cake when, in fact, the recipe was publicly available and up for grabs. Nobody, except the original creator of that cake recipe can claim it as theirs.

There was always something distasteful about these folks.



It is not the appropriation of the original idea of HONY that put me off, but this constant urge to pass themselves as original somehow. It just left a bad taste. Not surprised they are turning out to be far worse. https://t.co/URzlw5wg8V  Ashish K. Mishra (@akm1410) September 23, 2023

Adibas telling Adidas they're "shocked" and that one shouldn't blame them for suing Abidas  https://t.co/5tPKukH6R2  June Paul (@journojuno) September 23, 2023

This is copyright infringement too? pic.twitter.com/ElJc3eKiTr  Sindhu Biswal (@sindhubiswal) September 23, 2023

In the midst of this online chatter, Karishma Mehta, founder of Humans Of Bombay, has made her Instagram account private. The main HOB page continues to post heartfelt stories about the citys residents.

Recognising privilege

HONY established in year 2010 and become a global rage for its style of storytelling and HOB started in 2014.



The founder studied economics and business in Nottingham, UK and it is hard to believe that she never heard or googled HONY pic.twitter.com/9sZnWaMsiL  Kumar Manish (@kumarmanish9) September 24, 2023

The controversy didn't just stop at copyright issues. It dug deeper into issues of privilege and representation. A few months before this legal showdown, in an interview with Raj Shamani, HOB's founder Karishma Mehta had discussed her journey as "self-made." She acknowledged her privilege, stating that she came from a family that had invested significantly in her education.

However, this admission didn't go unchallenged. Critics argued that while she may have repaid her father's loan that initially funded HOB, she had failed to acknowledge how her generational wealth and social capital profoundly influenced her education and 'self-made' journey.

Conclusion

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In a world where stories have the power to inspire, educate, and connect, this controversy serves as a stark reminder that the lines between imitation and innovation can be blurred sometimes. Whether this clash will result in a reevaluation of storytelling ethics or remain a quirky footnote in the history of digital storytelling, only time will tell.


In the digital age, where the internet is an integral part of our daily lives, Google stands tall as one of the most influential and innovative companies.



September 27th marks a special day for this tech giant as it celebrates its 25th birthday, a quarter-century of shaping the way we search, connect, and innovate.

Join us on a journey through the past, present, and future of Google, exploring the incredible feats it has achieved and the remarkable impact it has had on the world.

Ready to dive in? Lets begin!

The Birth of a Search Giant

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Google was born in a garage, a common origin story for many Silicon Valley legends. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University PhD students, founded Google in 1998. Their mission was simple yet ambitious: to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.



Their innovation wasn't just in the search algorithm, but also in their commitment to providing a clean, ad-free user experience - a rarity in the late '90s.

Google's search engine rapidly gained popularity for its unparalleled accuracy and speed. In just a few years, it became a household name, and the term "Google it" became synonymous with searching for information online.

The Evolution of Google from YouTube to Android

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Over the years, Google expanded its horizons. It ventured into new territories, acquiring companies like YouTube, Android, and Nest, diversifying its product and service offerings.



Google Maps revolutionized navigation, Gmail changed the way we communicate, and Android became the dominant mobile operating system globally.

In 2004, Google went public, raising billions in capital and solidifying its position as a tech giant. The company's innovative spirit extended to projects like Google Glass, Google Drive, and the Chrome browser, pushing the boundaries of technology.

The Rise of the Google Doodle

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One of Google's most beloved and iconic traditions is the Google Doodle. It started as a quirky way to notify users of the founders' absence at the Burning Man festival in 1998. Since then, Google Doodles have transformed into an artistic canvas that celebrates important events, people, and milestones.



From honouring great personalities like Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci to celebrating holidays from around the world, Google Doodles have become a source of joy and inspiration for millions.

Incredible Milestones

25 years ago, Google Search launched from a garage in a California suburb. Today, we have offices and data centers on six continents, in over 200 cities. In honor of our 25th birthday tomorrow, take a world tour with us #Google25  https://t.co/lRCaDCJvg0  Google (@Google) September 26, 2023

Google's journey has been marked by remarkable milestones. In 2006, it launched Google Translate, breaking down language barriers and fostering global communication. The launch of Google Earth allowed users to explore our planet in unprecedented detail.



In 2015, Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., was formed to better organize its growing list of ventures, proving its commitment to innovation.

The Present and Beyond

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Today, Google is more than just a search engine; it's an ecosystem that includes products like Google Drive, Google Photos, and Google Assistant. It has also entered the realm of artificial intelligence with Google Assistant and self-driving technology through Waymo.



Moreover, Google is investing heavily in renewable energy and sustainability, taking significant steps towards a greener future. As Google steps into its 25th year, it faces new challenges and opportunities.

The company continues to shape the future of technology with projects in quantum computing, healthcare, and more. Google's quest for innovation and making the world a better place remains as strong as ever.

The 25th Birthday Doodle

 google

No Google anniversary would be complete without a unique Google Doodle. On September 27th, 2023, users around the world were greeted with a special interactive Doodle, celebrating Google's journey from a small startup to a global tech powerhouse. The 'G25gle' doodle released on this special day serves as a symbol of Google's introspection and its unceasing drive to evolve.

Conclusion

From its humble beginnings in a garage to shaping the future of technology, Google's journey is nothing short of remarkable. As it enters its next chapter, we can only wonder what incredible feats and innovations the company has in store for the coming years. Here's to many more years of changing the world one search at a time.

Happy 25th Birthday, Google!
Globe Telecom partnered with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) and four ISPs to fight back against piracy and protect intellectual property.

Neil Gane of the Motion Pictures Association said the MoU is a first in Asia and second in the world, pointing to a similar initiative in Germany where site-blocking process centres were found by ISPs and rights holders. This German model operates without government involvement.

The primary objective of this MoU in the Philippines is to establish a voluntary site-blocking practice against the sale and distribution of pirated content over the internet and encourage other stakeholders to join the initiative.

The MoU also outlines general principles and procedures for site blocking, while emphasising collaboration between ISPs and the IPOPHL.

Site blocking is being proposed for amendment to the Philippines IP code to Congress, stated Globe, and measures against piracy websites are currently mulled by the government.

What we are doing today is such an important step in the absence of a site-blocking law. We are no longer tied up. We can do something about piracy, said Globe Group chief sustainability and communications officer Yoly Crisanto.

Just as we have taken our advocacy to such great lengths, were fully committed to stopping piracy. And hopefully, in the digital economy, the Philippines can start looking forward to a creative industry that is robust and free from all these challenges.
Adm. Daryl Caudle, who oversees most of the Navy's East Coast forces, said this week that he wants sailors to know that their mental health is important and that the service has resources available to help them deal with the stress of military service.

"I think it's important for the sailors on the waterfront to know that the folks at my level, at the fleet master chief level, care a lot about their welfare," Caudle told reporters at a press conference Monday at Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, dedicated to Suicide Prevention Month.

However, Caudle struggled to explain recent reports that seem to show sailors are struggling to actually make use of those resources -- such as the newly enacted Brandon Act -- and he conceded that the Navy still needs to address a culture that has led the service's junior members to distrust that help.

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Reporters at the press conference cited recent reporting by local TV station 13News Now that detailed the story of Marine Lance Cpl. Alex Grzesik who had mental health issues aboard the USS Carter Hall, a ship currently deployed to the Middle East, according to audio of the event obtained by Military.com.

The news station reported that Grzesik suffered for weeks and invoked the Brandon Act -- a new law that is supposed to allow sailors and Marines to confidentially seek help for any reason, at any time and in any environment -- several times but was denied help by his bosses.

It wasn't until his story became public that he was flown off the ship to receive help.

"We as a chain of command failed there," Caudle conceded.

Part of Caudle's broader message is that Navy enlisted leaders, especially chief petty officers and leading first-class petty officers, are deeply involved in their sailors' lives. "They need to know where they live, their family members, their kids' names, their financial situation," Caudle said.

To him, and many of the Navy's top leadership, this approach -- which has been pushed for several years now -- enables the people that interact with the most at-risk sailors to act quickly and immediately to offer help.

"I want [sailors] to hear from the top ... to make sure that they have the confidence they need, the families have that confidence, that we are aware of the stresses that they're under, the challenges that they're under, and make sure that they are completely aware of some of the things that are available to them to help them," Caudle said.

However, in Grzesik's case, "that was not good judgment," Caudle said.

It is far from the only instance of a sailor struggling to get mental health help, to no avail.

A Navy investigation into a suicide cluster of four at a Norfolk-based maintenance center -- a unit just minutes from Caudle's headquarters -- found that the command didn't offer even basic suicide prevention measures despite the fact that around a third of its sailors were there because they were experiencing some sort of medical issue or event.

Caudle stressed that his commanders "should be able to very clearly describe" any number of ways that they are getting the suicide prevention awareness message to their junior sailors.

"This is a full-court-press, all-hands-on-deck approach," he added.

Despite the effort, though, the Navy is continuing to face reports of harsh working conditions and unsympathetic supervisors. One reporter at the press conference mentioned that a sailor aboard the USS George Washington -- the ship that drew the national spotlight onto the service and its struggle with suicide following Military.com's reporting -- described some sailors being overworked, not having time to eat and getting only two or three hours of sleep a night.

Caudle seemed to be unaware of the conditions and said it was "something I would need to look into," but he described the possibility as "troubling."

However, the admiral struggled to offer much hope for the ship, which left the shipyards last spring after a grueling six-year maintenance period.

"The aftermath of coming out of the yards like the George Washington is also very stressful," Caudle said, citing sea trials and underway examinations that typically follow ship retrofits.

Fleet Master Chief John Perryman, the Navy's top enlisted sailor for Fleet Forces Command, told reporters that through his time in the Navy, the service added a lot of requirements onto sailors -- requirements that he suggested the Navy should reexamine and "get rid of the ones that are extraneous."

"We ask our commands to do a lot of things, and it impacts their ability to plan effectively and manage their sailors' time," which all adds friction and degrades quality of life, Perryman added.

Quality-of-life issues also include a government watchdog report released last week that revealed that about 5,000 sailors have been living in substandard barracks with problems such as lack of air conditioning, insect infestation, mold and sewage issues.

The results of stress on the fleet are also apparent. Navy-wide data shows that in 2022, the Navy had 70 active-duty sailors die by suicide -- the second-highest figure since 2006. In 2023, the service says it has confirmed 41 so far.

Caudle did offer several hopeful developments for sailors.

He noted that the investigations that were prompted by the suicide cluster aboard the George Washington have led the Navy to ask what the standard for a sailor's quality of life and work requirements looks like and a "cross-functional team" is looking into the issue.

The four-star admiral also said that the service is looking to get Wi-Fi service into some of its barracks, and it is moving forward with at least three parking deck initiatives for the Newport News, Va., shipyard area.

Hourlong commutes and a lack of parking were among the chief complaints that sailors raised in the wake of the George Washington suicides.

Caudle said those parking decks were likely to be built in three to five years.

"I recognize that we're on that journey," Caudle said, speaking about the service's push to get sailors the mental health resources they need.

"Until that gets embedded and inculcated into the fabric, into the culture of our team, then we're going to have some ... reluctance, a little bit of pushback, from our sailors to trust that," he said.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on X at @ktoropin.

Related: What the Deaths of Sailors Who Took Their Own Lives Aboard the George Washington Reveal About the Navy
In what could be a significant development for space-based 5G, operator China Telecom, technology giant ZTE and Beijing-based company SpaceIoT say they have completed the industrys first 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) deployment in a marine scenario.

It took place in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province. Zhoushan consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of Hangzhou Bay.

This achievement, the partners say, enables satellite-ground interaction and service data transmission in a number of marine scenarios, highlighting the capability to deliver real-time, multi-terminal, and multi-scenario services such as marine water quality monitoring, temperature and humidity monitoring, and emergency rescue on uninhabited islands.

The system utilises Chinas independently developed Tiantong mobile communication satellite, along with NTN 5G base stations and terminals. It adheres to the NTN international standards specified in Release 17 from standards body 3GPP.

The partners explain that, in marine water quality monitoring, 5G NTN-enabled marine buoys can collect such data as dissolved oxygen levels, water temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS), pH values, and location information. This collected data is transmitted through 5G NTN networks to a cloud platform for data resolution and processing, enabling real-time marine water quality monitoring and data backhaul.

In the Zhoushan uninhabited island monitoring scenario meanwhile, temperature and humidity data is transmitted to the service platform using 5G NTN IoT terminals for analysis and processing. In addition emergency rescue simulations for the injured on such islands can be carried out using 5G NTN satellite messenger terminals.

A 5G NTN terminal can autonomously transmit location information. Additionally, a mobile phone can connect to a 5G NTN terminal via Bluetooth for sending and receiving voice messages and rescue messages.

Although still at an early stage, the idea is that 5G NTN technology will seamlessly combine cellular and satellite communication systems, ensuring ubiquitous network coverage for sea and remote mountainous areas. 5G NTN can meet the diverse application needs of short messages, IoT and positioning, and effectively address natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and typhoons.
Three Marines have died at Parris Island since July, including two instructors at the South Carolina base, according to the Marine Corps. Two of the deaths occurred within days of each other last week.

The service said the causes of death are still under investigation -- including Staff Sgt. Courtland Bateswind, 27, who was found in his residence on July 5 -- and none of them occurred during combat or training. Sgt. Yliana Hernandez, 25, was found Friday and Cpl. Angel Acosta III, 25, was found Sept. 20, both in their residences.

Bateswind was a drill instructor at the base's recruit training regiment. Hernandez was a Marine instructor of water survival assigned to Support Battalion, and Acosta was a training clerk assigned to Headquarters and Service Battalion.

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"The loss of any Marine is tragic and felt deeply within our ranks," Maj. Philip Kulczewski, a spokesperson for Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, told Military.com on Tuesday.

"The causes of death are currently under investigation," he added. "To protect the integrity of the investigative process, no other information is available at this time."

The Island Packet was first to report the string of deaths Monday.

Military.com reached out to Acosta's family and friends through a GoFundMe set up in his name, but did not hear back by publication. The GoFundMe was originally meant to cover the cost of his funeral, but it appears that the Marine Corps is funding the arrangements, according to an updated post.

Now, the accrued funds will be used as a trust for Acosta's son and any additional expenses that his family may incur after his death.

"Throughout life you'll encounter many people who affect you in different ways. Some will cheer you up just with their smile and charisma. Some will push you to be better just by seeing the effort and passion they demonstrate on a day to day basis," the GoFundMe post read, in part.

"Angel showed us all these emotions and morals every single day," it said.

Military.com attempted to contact Hernandez's family, but was unsuccessful. Military.com contacted Bateswind's mother, but she was unavailable to speak at the time of publication.

The deaths of the Marines, two of whom were instructors, mark the latest tragedies in what was a tumultuous five months for the Corps and its Training and Education Command, which oversees recruit training depots and other Marine-making hubs.

The known Training and Education Command deaths began in April when Pfc. Noah Evans, 21, died during a physical training test at boot camp. In June, another Marine recruit died after collapsing during a training event, according to a Navy Safety report.

In August, Lance Cpl. Joseph Whaley was killed by negligent discharge roughly four weeks into a course at the Marine Corps School of Infantry-West.

Sgt. Jaen Deshun Davis, 24, who was assigned to a reserve unit in Michigan, was found deceased in his car at Quantico, Virginia, earlier this month while attending the Marine Corps University. The service did not release a cause of death.

Excluding private vehicle crashes and recreational fatalities, the Marine Corps is known to have lost at least 14 total Marines outside of combat since April, including in two aviation mishaps and when three Marines were found deceased in a car near Camp Lejeune, N.C. Half of those deaths have been categorized as happening while on duty. On-duty fatalities tripled last year after a brief lull in 2021, according to a recently published Navy safety report.

The report does not appear to include suicides.

Leadership within Training and Education Command saw significant turnover over this summer. Since June, the command has dismissed or reassigned five top Marines for various reasons, including alleged domestic violence, striking two teenage pedestrians with a vehicle during an alleged drunk driving incident and "loss of trust and confidence."

Three of those leaders held the top-most positions in the Recruit Training Regiment at Parris Island, the unit that Staff Sgt. Courtland Bateswind belonged to at the time of his death.

-- Drew F. Lawrence can be reached at drew.lawrence@military.com. Follow him on X @df_lawrence.

Related: Negligent Discharge Killed Marine Training at Camp Pendleton Last Month, Navy Report Indicates
Honolulu Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau said he had raised concerns with Wade and other leaders about how a potential shutdown might disrupt the effort.

The top officer in charge of defueling the Navy's underground Red Hill fuel storage facility says a possible federal government shutdown would not affect the operation.

The facility holds 104 million gallons of fuel and sits just 100 feet above a critical aquifer that most of Hawaii relies on for water. In September 2022 the military created the Joint Task Force Red Hill under Vice Adm. John Wade to make repairs to the aging World War II-era facility in order to "safely and expeditiously " remove the fuel.

"The secretary of defense has exempted all personnel supporting the defueling of Red Hill from furlough, and all contracts will remain in place, " Wade said in a video released late Monday night. "This means that the mission is deemed critical, and we'll continue to work even if there's a shutdown. Bottom line, we remain on plan, and we'll keep the community informed if anything changes."

The news came as a relief to Honolulu Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau, who said he had raised concerns with Wade and other leaders about how a potential shutdown might disrupt the effort. A federal shutdown could start Sunday if the House of Representatives does not a reach a budget deal.

"It's really important to actually do the defueling, " Lau said. "There's many different moving pieces to coordinate, like the tankers coming in, all the efforts of the whole team and the Joint Task Force, with the regulators, ensuring that safe defueling is achieved."

The facility has long been a concern for the Board of Water Supply and others who have contended since a 2014 leak at a Red Hill tank that it posed a threat to Oahu's water supply.

The Navy for years insisted the facility was safe and argued that it was critical to supporting the Pacific Fleet's vast regional operations. But in November 2021, fuel from the facility tainted the Navy's Oahu water system, which serves 93, 000 people, including military families and local civilians living in former military housing areas.

Subsequently, the military has acknowledged that the aging facility and the pipes connecting them to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam had fallen into deep disrepair and would require extensive repairs to safely remove the fuel without further endangering the aquifer.

When JTF Red Hill started operations, the slated completion target for making the repairs and defueling the tanks was July 2024, but Wade stressed at the time that he was looking for ways to expedite the process. Now JTF Red Hill says those repairs are complete and defueling is set to begin Oct. 15, with most of the fuel expected to be safely removed by the end of January.

Lau, who has been a fierce critic of the military's handling of the crisis, said he was impressed by what JTF Red Hill has managed to do.

"I think once they created that group and they really had a single focus in mind, a single objective to defuel the tanks and the pipes, that was positive, " said Lau. "Prior to that there was this uncertainty and who would be the single point of responsibility for this effort."

But in the video release Monday, Wade also said JTF Red Hill is waiting for approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health to move forward with the plan.

"This is an important part of the oversight process because they hold us to federal and state standards, ensuring that we execute the mission safely, " he said.

EPA spokesman Michael Brogan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the agency is reviewing the Navy's responses to a list of questions about the defueling operation.

Under the federal consent order, the Navy and JTF Red Hill must submit a "Defueling Preparedness Report " stating that they have completed all obligations as required under the order prior to defueling, and the EPA needs to approve it.

"We expect to complete that process this week, " said Brogan. "We do not have any concerns about the operations and expect to issue the approval prior to scheduled defueling."

State Department of Health officials said in a statement that they are reviewing JTF Red Hill's responses to its comments on the defueling operational plans submitted Friday and that "the DOH remains on track to approve defueling by Oct. 11, 2023, as specified in the JTF's Defueling Integrated Master Schedule (IMS ), which DOH conditionally approved on June 23, 2023."

JTF Red Hill's mission will end after it removes the 104 million gallons of fuel in the tanks, but the Navy's long-term remediation and shutdown of the facility is expected to take years.

Lau said that while he would have preferred that the fuel was removed earlier, he's cautiously optimistic JTF Red Hill will be successful.

"I think it's really important to remember this effort in our prayers, to hope that there's no mishap or other spills or releases to our aquifer, and hopefully that they will do an efficient, quick and safe job of defueling the tanks and pipelines, " said Lau.

___

(c)2023 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Visit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser at www.staradvertiser.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
SEOUL, South Korea  North Korea has expelled a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country in July.

Pvt. Travis King's case comes at a time of high tensions on the Korean Peninsula. King was released to U.S. custody on Wednesday.

Other Americans have entered North Korea over the years, including a few U.S. soldiers.

Some were motivated by evangelical zeal or simply attracted by the mystery of a severely cloistered police state. Others were detained after entering North Korea as tourists. In one tragic case, it ended in death.

Heres a look at those cases:

CHARLES JENKINS

Born in Rich Square, North Carolina, Charles Jenkins was one of the few Cold War-era U.S. soldiers who fled to North Korea while serving in the South.

Jenkins, then an Army sergeant, deserted his post in 1965 and fled across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. North Korea treated Jenkins as a propaganda asset, showcasing him in leaflets and films.

In 1980, Jenkins married 21-year-old Hitomi Soga, a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted by North Korean agents in 1978.

Soga was allowed to return to Japan in 2002. In 2004, Jenkins was allowed to leave North Korea and rejoin her. Once in Japan, he surrendered to U.S. military authorities and faced charges that he abandoned his unit and defected to North Korea.

He was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 25 days in a U.S. military jail in Japan. He died in Japan in 2017.

BRUCE BYRON LOWRANCE

Its clear that North Koreas handling of American detainees is influenced by the state of its relations with Washington.

Bruce Byron Lowrance benefited from cozy diplomacy in 2018 between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who met for a summit in June that year.

Five months later, North Korea announced it was expelling Lowrance who had entered the country illegally through China. North Koreas decision to deport Lowrance after only a month of confinement was remarkably quick by the countrys standards, apparently reflecting an eagerness to keep alive a positive atmosphere for dialogue with the United States.

During the buildup to the Trump-Kim summit in June, North Korea released three American detainees  Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song  who returned to home on a plane with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

However, the diplomacy broke down after the second Trump-Kim summit in February 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

MATTHEW MILLER

In September 2014, Matthew Miller was sentenced to six years of hard labor by North Koreas Supreme Court on charges that he illegally entered the country for spying purposes.

The court claimed that Miller, from Bakersfield, California, tore up his tourist visa upon arriving at Pyongyangs airport in April that year and admitted to a wild ambition of experiencing North Korean prison life so that he could secretly investigate the countrys human rights conditions.

North Koreas initial announcement about Millers detainment came as then-President Barack Obama was traveling in South Korea on a state visit.

Miller was freed in November along with another American, Kenneth Bae, a missionary and tour leader.

Weeks before his release, Miller talked with The Associated Press at a Pyongyang hotel where North Korean officials allowed him to call his family. Miller said he was digging in fields eight hours a day and being kept in isolation.

KENNETH BAE

Bae, a Korean-American missionary from Lynnwood, Washington, was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group in a special North Korean economic zone.

North Korea sentenced Bae to 15 years in prison for hostile acts, including smuggling in inflammatory literature and attempting to establish a base for anti-government activities at a hotel in a border town. Baes family said he suffered from chronic health issues, including back pain, diabetes, and heart and liver problems.

Bae returned to the United States in November 2014 following a secret mission by James Clapper, then-U.S. director of national intelligence, who also secured Millers release.

JEFFREY FOWLE

A month before Bae's and Millers release, North Korea also freed Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio municipal worker who was detained for six months for leaving a Bible in a nightclub in the city of Chongjin. Fowles release followed negotiations that involved retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall.

While North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion, analysts and defectors describe the country as strictly anti-religious. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean imprisonment or execution, defectors say.

In 2009, American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea with a Bible in his hand to draw attention to North Koreas human rights abuses. Park, who was deported from the North in February 2010, has said he was tortured by authorities.

OTTO WARMBIER

Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, died in June 2017, shortly after he was flown home in a coma after 17 months in North Korean captivity.

Warmbier was seized by North Korean authorities from a tour group in January 2016 and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

While not providing a clear reason for Warmbiers brain damage, North Korea denied accusations by Warmbiers family that he was tortured and insisted that it had provided him medical care with all sincerity. The North accused the United States of a smear campaign and claimed itself as the biggest victim in his death.

In 2022, a U.S. federal judge in New York ruled that Warmbiers parents  Fred and Cindy Warmbier  should receive $240,300 seized from a North Korean bank account that would be a partial payment toward the more than $501 million they were awarded in 2018 by a federal judge in Washington.
SEOUL, South Korea  The American soldier who crossed into North Korea two months ago is in American custody, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.

One official said that Pvt. Travis King was transferred to U.S. custody in China. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Kings status ahead of the US announcement.

Earlier, North Korea said it would expel King. That announcement surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities have finished their questioning of King but did not say when officials plan to expel him or where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the state news agency said that King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, the state news agency said, using the initials of North Koreas formal name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

U.S. officials have said that King has been declared AWOL, which can be punished by time in the brig, forfeiture of pay or dishonorable discharge, with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained King, 23, and was investigating the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

North Koreas decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the countrys standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the Norths growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States' expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasnt worth keeping, possibly because the costs of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Koreas Sejong Institute.

It wasnt immediately clear how King might be expelled. In some prior cases, captive Americans have been flown to Beijing. In others, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

Bill Richardson  who up until his death served many presidential administrations as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter  traveled to North Korea in 2007 to recover the remains of servicemembers killed in the Korea War.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
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The final supermoon of the year will light up our late September skies this week.

The big, bright, full Harvest Moon will reach peak illumination at 5:57 ET on Friday, September 29, according to the astronomy site EarthSky.

The best times to see this beautiful moon will be when it rises around sunset in the eastern skies on Thursday, September 28, and as it reaches its highest point in the sky, near midnight, before it dips low in the west before sunrise on the 29th.

Full supermoons can look noticably brighter, as they occur when the moon reaches peak fullness roughly at the same time it approaches its closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit. This particular full moon is the last of 2023s string of four supermoons that began on July 3 with the full Buck Moon.

According to NASA, the full moon that falls nearest to the autumnal equinox, such as this one, is traditionally called the Harvest Moon because it coincides with peak harvest season, when farmers once depended on the moons light to harvest their crops late into the night. This moon cycle for some Anishinaabeg people in the Great Lakes region is known as Wabaabagaa Giizis (Wa-bah-ba-gah Gee-zehs), the Changing Leaves Moon.

The next full moon will be the Hunters Moon, occuring on Saturday, October 28.

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DETROIT -- Nearly 3.4 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles are being recalled due an increased risk of engine compartment fires, according to the Associated Press. Owners of the impacted vehicles are being asked to park their cars outside and away from structures until a repair can be made.

The recall impacts the following makes and models:

KIA

Borrego -- 2010 to 2019

Cadenza -- 2014 to 2016

Forte, Forte Koup and Sportage -- 2010 to 2013

K900 -- 2015 to 2018

Optima -- 2011 to 2015

Optima Hybrid and Soul -- 2011 to 2013

Rio -- 2012 to 2017

Sorento -- 2011 to 2014

Rondo-- 2010 to 2011

HYUNDAI

Elantra, Genesis Coupe, and Sonata Hybrid -- 2011 to 2015

Accent, Azera, and Veloster -- 2012 to 2015

Elantra Coupe and Santa Fe -- 2013 to 2015

Equus --2014 to 2015

Veracruz -- 2010 to 2012

Tucson -- 2010 to 2013

Tucson Fuel Cell -- 2015

Santa Fe Sport -- 2013

The issue stems from a problem with the anti-lock brake control module which can leak fluid and cause an electrical short. If that happens, it can cause a fire while the vehicles are parked or being driven. So far, Hyundai reports 21 fires in the affected vehicles and another 22 thermal incidents including smoke, burning and melting of parts, according to the AP.

Kia has reported 10 fires and melting incidents. Both companies say they have not received any reports of crashes or injuries caused by the problem.

Dealerships will replace the anti-lock brake fuse at no cost to owners of impacted vehicles and those owners are expected to be notified via mail starting Nov. 14 for Kia owners and Nov. 21 for Hyundai owners.

However, Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety is skeptical of the fix after Hyundai stated an O-ring in the antilock brake motor shaft can lose sealing strength over time, which can cause leaks. While the new fuse will limit the operating current of the brake module, Brooks says it doesnt address the core issue.

Why not fix the problem? Brooks asked. What youre not doing here is fixing the O-ring and the leak thats causing the problem in the first place. Youre combatting a symptom or part of the problem without actually fixing the underlying design issue.

Brooks was also critical of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for approving the planned fix. However, under the federal motor vehicle safety act, automakers have the right to choose the remedy to fix a defect. The NHTSA will monitor the effectiveness of the repairs and if necessary, will open an investigation into the matter.

The recall is the latest in a string of problems involving Kia and Hyundai vehicles. The Center for Auto Safety claims that 9.2 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles have been recalled since 2015 for fires and engine problems, the AP reports. The companies have also been fined for not reacting fast enough to recall vehicles that were prone to engine failures.

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GM announces recall of 740K SUVs as headlights are too bright for other drivers

Hyundai, Kia recall 485K vehicles over fire risk, owners urged to park outside

Tesla recalls 54K vehicles as Full Self-Driving feature doesnt stop at stop signs

Estimated 200K Ford models recalled as brake lights can stay on

Audi, Subaru announce recalls over possible power loss issues in vehicles

Honda recalls 723K vehicles because hoods can open while driving

Volvo recalling 260K early-to-late-2000s vehicles as airbag inflators can explode

Kia-Hyundai recalls more than 550K vehicles as turn signals may flash the wrong way

GM issues 2nd recall of Bolts as battery issues can lead to fire

Ford recalls 205,000 vans over problem that causes vehicle to go into wrong gear

Kia recalls 440K vehicles over another possible fire hazard, again warns owners to park cars outside

Subaru recalling 875K cars over engine, suspension problems

Toyota announces recall of 280K SUVs due to air bag wiring issue

Estimated 750K GM vehicles being investigated over air bags possibly not inflating

GM recalling 10K Chevy, GMC vans over fire risk, suggests parking vehicle outside

Faulty fuel pumps lead to Honda recalling 628K vehicles in the U.S.

2021 Ram truck owners encouraged to park vehicle outside due to fire risk, recall announced

Nissan recalls 854K vehicles as brake lights may not turn on properly

Ford recalls over 100K trucks over windshields that may not stay in place, payload misinformation

Ford cant find deadly airbags that may have been installed, recalls more than 154K vehicles

Tesla to recall 135K vehicles over concerns of touch screens possibly going dark

Brake light issue leads to Nissan recall of 354K Pathfinder SUVs

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GM recalling 840K vehicles over possible seat belt, suspension failures

Volkswagen recalling 105K vehicles for Takata air bag issue

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GM announces recall over oil leak that can cause cars to stop, 217K vehicles involved

Over 375K Ford Explorer models recalled for suspension issues

Toyota, VW announce recalls involving faulty fuel pumps, fuel leaks respectively
HOLT, MI  A 19-year-old Michigan man is facing multiple felony charges for alleged drunken driving resulting in the deaths of two 16-year-old girls, including his younger sister, authorities said.

Elijah Klages, of Mason, is charged with two counts of operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing death, among other felony charges, WILX reports. The case has been bound over to Ingham County Circuit Court.

On the night of the crash, Klages allegedly had a blood alcohol content that was twice the legal limit, the report said. He is also accused of driving 60 to 80 mph in a 25-mph zone.

At about 3 a.m. Aug. 26, deputies from the Ingham County Sheriffs Office responded to an automated crash notification in the area of Sycamore and Schoolcraft streets in Holt, police said.

At the scene, deputies found a crashed vehicle with three occupants, police said. Police believe the driver hit a parked vehicle and lost control, hitting another parked vehicle before coming to a stop.

Klages, then-18, was taken to a local hospital with serious injuries. Both of the 16-year-old girls died at the scene, police said.
DETROIT  The remains of a Michigan soldier killed during World War II has been accounted for.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week that Army Tech Sgt. Leonard J. Dettloff, 26, of Detroit, was accounted for on May 5.

It was Nov. 10, 1944 when Dettloff, who was assigned to Company M, was killed in battle with German forces in the Hurtgen Forest. Due to the tactical situation, his remains could not be immediately recovered.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command conducted several investigations in the Hurtgen area between 1946 and 1950 but were unable to recover or identify Dettloffs remains. He was declared non-recoverable in October 1951.

While studying unresolved American losses in the Hurtgen area, a DPAA historian determined that one set of unidentified remains possibly belonged to Dettloff.

The remains, which had been buried in Lorraine American Cemetery in Saint-Avold, France in 1949, were disinterred in 2018 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for identification.

Scientists used DNR, dental and anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence to confirm the remains belonged to Detloff.

Dettloffs name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands, along with the others still missing from World War II.

A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

He will be buried in Holly on a yet-to-be-determined.

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Child marriage is no longer legal in Michigan. On Tuesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the last of several bills meant to abolish the practice.

The governor had already signed off on bills in July that raised the minimum marriage age to 18, did away with a provision in the law emancipating minors if they are married, ended the ability of parents to consent to marriage for their children.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI - A Washtenaw County township pursing legal action against the owners of a historic farmstead officials say is not large enough for livestock scored an early victory on Wednesday, Sept 27, as the case came before a judge.

The farm about 10 miles northwest of Ann Arbor is home to a group of families who say they want to live in community and farm together, united by their Catholic faith.

But Webster Township officials maintain their property doesnt meet the five-acre threshold under township ordinances to keep the cows, chickens, goats, rabbits and other livestock now on the property, issuing zoning violations and eventually a citation that kicked off the legal proceedings.

Read more: Families living at historic Washtenaw County farmstead cant have livestock, township says

The Cottonwood farm on Farrell Road, near the historic Webster Corners, dates back nearly 200 years. Morningstar Ventures, LLC, a company made up of some of the residents, has owned it since 2019 and argues the animals there are protected by Michigans Right to Farm Act.

On Wednesday, 14A-3 District Court Judge Anna Frushour was unconvinced. That issue has already been decided by the townships Zoning Board of Appeals when the property owners appealed zoning violations regarding the animals, and Morningstar failed to appeal the boards the decision to the county circuit court, she said.

Based on court filings and other written evidence, it appears the farm has met some requirements for protection under the Right to Farm Act, including receiving state certification for the care of its animals, the judge said. But it has failed to show evidence products the animals are producing are part of commercial agricultural activity, another condition required, she said.

They really failed to show any meaningful proof of commercial production. There were vague generalized statements about selling to a friend or a family member, but thats not akin to farming for commercial production. Nor does this court find that Moningstars casual sale of a product to a friend reflects the intent of the act and what it is meant to protect, Frushour said.

The judge on Wednesday granted a motion for summary disposition from Webster Township, while also advising officials to clean up confusion and ambiguity in the township rules at the heart of the case.

We definitely agree with the judges decision, said Christopher Patterson, an attorney representing the township, after the hearing.

Patterson said the case was not over and would proceed to a formal hearing in November, with the township presenting witnesses for the violation of the ordinance in question, now that the property owners Right to Farm Act defenses have been addressed.

Inshal Chenet, a resident of the Cottonwood property and member of the LLC that owns it, said in a statement Morningstar believes the judges decision was wrong because the township zoning board of appeals didnt have jurisdiction to decide the Right to Farm Act defense.

The ruling should concern farmers across the state because it obliterates the protections of the act, he added.

If a resident has a farm and the township doesnt like it, they will be facing a situation where the people prosecuting the farm would also be the jury: in other words, the fox would be guarding the henhouse, Chenet said.

During the hearing, Morningstars attorney Jason Negri said witnesses were present who were prepared to testify to show the farm is engaged in commercial activity, and the farm also has affidavits from customers. The township, not Morningstar, first raised the Right to Farm Act issue during the zoning board of appeals process and started its own investigation, he said.

In August of 2022, the board upheld a zoning violation against the property, issuing a point-by-point denial that said Morningstar had failed to prove it met the requirements of the Right to Farm Act.

Morningstar didnt appeal the decision to the court because it was induced by the township not to, with officials saying the property owners could resolve the violation by following certain steps, Negri said.

The township simply refused to accept the evidence that we offered, he added.

In issuing her decision, Frushour said the law is very clear that Morningstar had a right to appeal and missed the deadline to do so. The property owners failed to provide further proof of commercial operations, like profit and loss sheets, advertising of products or revenue information, after township requests, she said.

As the facts havent changed, the judge said there was nothing that would cause the court to revisit the zoning board of appeals decision over whether the Right of Farm Act protects the property.

This issue was litigated. A decision was made and not appealed, and this court cannot circumvent the ZBAs decision, Frushour said.

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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SALINE, MI -- Saline School Board members approved updates to their policy allowing students to opt out of certain curriculum they or their parents might take objection to.

Updates to the policy -- first adopted in 2018 -- came after several weeks of discussion and recommendations by the districts board policy committee.

Related: Controversial issues policy debated by Saline schools parents, board members

A motion to approve the revised policy passed in a 6-1 roll call, with trustee Susan Estep the only board member opposed.

In her opposition of the policy, Estep asked board members to consider how marginalized students such as those in the LGBTQ+ community could potentially be harmed by a policy.

I feel like this (policy) is harmful for those who dont necessarily have supportive families at home and may identify as LGBTQ -- that were saying here at school that were not going to provide those windows and mirrors for you, Estep said.

Changes to the policys language have been made to ensure an opt-out request can not impact the education of other students by removing instructional materials from the classroom at large.

According to the policy, a parent, guardian or student has a right to inspect instructional materials used as part of the educational curriculum for their student.

If, after careful review of these instructional materials, a parent, guardian or student, who is 18 or older, identifies that the instructional materials are personally objectionable, they may fill out an opt out form. Such requests will be considered by the districts educational team.

The name of the policy also will be changed from Controversial Issues to Instructional Materials: Opt Out. A students reasons for opting out of a given subject will remain private.

The terminology instructional materials refers to instructional content -- regardless of format -- provided to students. This can include printed or representational materials, audio-visual materials and materials available in electronic or digital formats such as materials accessible online, according to board documents.

Previous examples the district and board members have given of subject matter covered by the policy could include discussions on eating disorders or the Holocaust.

A motion put forward by treasurer Brad Gerbe added an amendment to the policy calling on the districts superintendent to perform a year-end review to record how often the policy is being used and which materials are specifically being opted out of. The motion was passed unanimously.

Opt out requests should be considered with respect to individual circumstances and should not place undue burden on teaching staff, according to policy documents. Requests may not unreasonably include large portions of the curriculum.

Trustee Lauren Gold spoke in favor of the new policy and said it is important to not overstate the impact the policy has on the districts educational system.

This one policy and the effects of having a few students opt-out of some materials should not negate the larger work the district is doing on offering a diverse and inclusive curriculum, Gold said. Not every opt-out will be motivated by hate or prejudice. Even some parents who are saying not now for their students might not mean not ever.

Golds support of the policy also focused on the fact that it pertains to specific instructional materials and individuals. The policy intends to create a partnership between schools and parents that allows narrow exceptions of school curriculum.

During the public comment segment of the meeting, community member Luis Barnet asked board members to consider that not everyone asking to be opted out is choosing to do so out of prejudice or bias. Some families are making the choice out of respect to their own beliefs, Barnet said.

I hope everybody on the board thinks about every kid, Barnet. I want every kid to be safe, I dont want any kid to feel left out or marginalized.

Student Cloud Rosenfeld spoke out against the policy, believing that allowing children to be opted out of inclusive lessons would lead to an ignorant, uninformed future for society.

No matter the beliefs of the parents, these children need to be informed of others existence, Rosenfeld said. It is no less ridiculous to opt your children out of being informed of others existence than it is to opt your children out of algebra.

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Update: This story has been updated with a statement provided by Dean Transportation about the event.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Grand Rapids students and parents will be able to voice concerns about busing issues theyve experienced this year and suggest how to improve school transportation at an upcoming town hall event.

Dean Transportation, the Lansing-based provider that runs busing for Grand Rapids Public Schools, is hosting a transportation feedback forum from 6:30-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4, at GRPS University, 1400 Fuller Ave. NE in Grand Rapids.

The event is intended to give GRPS students, parents and staff the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions directly to Dean Transportations leadership, said Larry Johnson, GRPS chief of staff and executive director of safety and security.

Kellie Dean, the companys president and CEO, said the session will include an overview of the GRPS transportation system, including information on how school bus drivers are trained and how policy, logistics, and planning are developed and implemented.

Parents will have ample opportunity to interact directly with our team, provide feedback on current service, and discuss future initiatives that will support scholars throughout GRPS, Dean said in a statement to MLive. Coming out of this engagement session, we hope to build a clear path and processes for receiving feedback directly from families about the transportation needs of their scholars.

Many parents have voiced concerns to GRPS over the last year about school buses not showing up on time or not being routed correctly. Numerous families have spoken about the issue at past Grand Rapids school board meetings, some saying they had to wait upwards of 30 minutes for their bus to arrive in the morning.

Johnson said the transportation problems can be attributed to a perfect storm of staffing challenges coming out of the pandemic, in addition to GRPS having one of the most complicated routing systems in the nation due to its size and the number of students that transfer to several buses to get to school.

Its a multitude of challenges around busing that we really need our parents to understand whats causing the delays and some of the staffing shortages, Johnson told MLive/Grand Rapids Press.

I feel like Dean is on a good pathway to rectify some of that, but theres a lot of challenges right now, and its not unique to Grand Rapids. Im hearing this literally around the country and surely around the state of Michigan as I talk to transportation providers.

In July, Kellie Dean attended a Grand Rapids Board of Education meeting and gave a presentation to the board about steps the company was taking to improve busing, including efforts to hire more staff.

Dean told the school board at the July 17 meeting that he was interested in hosting regular meetings with parents this year to improve communication and meet face-to-face with families.

The upcoming Oct. 4 meeting is the first town hall the district has announced for GRPS families this fall. Dean Transportation representatives will be on hand at the event to provide a transportation update, answer questions, and hear feedback, GRPS said.

Johnson said the event is a great opportunity for parents to work directly with Dean and suggest solutions to resolve ongoing transportation issues.

We understand the complaints and the challenges, and so how do we work together towards a workable solution? he said. This is not an opportunity just to browbeat anyone, but more or less an opportunity to really get together to come up with some solutions, and put our heads together to think alternatively, what does transportation need to look like in the future in Grand Rapids.

There will also be an opportunity to apply for open bus driver and bus aide positions. Dean currently offers starting wages up to $23.25 per hour for school bus drivers, $16.25 per hour for school bus attendants and competitive wages for service technicians based on certifications.

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A decades long push by a West Michigan Native American tribe to be recognized by the U.S. government, thereby giving members access to federal benefits, is taking a new approach.

U.S. Reps. Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids, and John Moolenaar, R-Midland, have introduced bipartisan legislation to grant federal recognition to the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians. The tribes members, which number under 500, primarily live in Kent, Muskegon and Oceana counties.

The bill comes after the tribe suffered a setback in February in its ongoing push, underway since 1994, to gain recognition through the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs. Scholten, in an interview, said a legislative solution is needed because the bureaus process has been insulting and continues not to recognize inherent tribal dignity.

Theyve been at this for 30 years, and its been pro forma notices and extensions, delays, she said.

Related: Feds look to deny West Michigan tribes bid for federal recognition

Challenges have included overly bureaucratic burdens that are not recognizing the nature and the integrity of the tribe, and requiring the tribe to produce documents that they would never have to begin with because thats not how the tribe keeps records, Scholten said.

The bureau has also refused to recognize different ways of establishing that this tribe has existed as a government since the beginning of time, she said.

Tribal Chairman Ron Yob thanked lawmakers for introducing the legislation. He said hes hopeful the bill will help the tribe achieve our long-stated goal of federal recognition after three decades of administrative delays by the broken federal acknowledgment process.

We will pursue every possible avenue to achieve our recognition and provide long-awaited justice to our members, he said in a statement.

The bill would not provide tribal lands to the Grand River Bands  just recognition, Scholten said.

Recognition would bring a host of benefits to members. Medical benefits, for example, would include covering premiums or out-of-pocket costs for Medicaid coverage, according to Scholtens office. There would also be housing and tuition benefits.

Besides federal benefits, recognition by the U.S. government is also required if the tribe ever wants to build a casino.

Last year, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cited the Grand River Bands request for federal acknowledgement when she rejected a request by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians to build an off-reservation casino in Fruitport Township.

Whitmer said if the Grand River Bands were to obtain federal recognition, the tribe may seek to open a casino of its own on tribal lands in the same area as the Little River Bands proposed project. She said she couldnt support the Little River Bands proposed casino until the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided on the Grand River Bands request for recognition.

When asked whether the tribe has any desire to build a casino, Yob on Tuesday said the topic doesnt even come up in conversations.

Its like Im not going to buy a wagon if I dont have a horse, he said.

Prior to introducing the legislation, Scholten said she made calls and reached out to the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs and advocated on behalf of the tribe. However, those attempts were unsuccessful, she said.

Moolenaar, whose sprawling northern Michigan district encompasses portions of Kent and Muskegon counties, said the Grand River Bands has made Michigan a better place and is worthy of full recognition from the federal government.

This legislation will cut through the red tape the tribe has experienced in dealing with the Department of Interior for 23 years, he said. It is long overdue, and I am proud to join the tribe in supporting its efforts for federal recognition.

In addition to Scholten and Moolenaar, co-sponsors of the bill include six members of Michigans congressional delegation: U.S. Reps. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township; Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing; Haley Stevens, D-Waterford Township; Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet; Tim Walberg, R-Tipton; and Lisa McClain, R-Bruce Township.

The Grand River Bands push for recognition has been decades in the making.

The Federal Register, which describes itself as the daily journal of the U.S. Government, shows the Bureau of Indian Affairs received a letter of intent from the tribe, then under the name Grand River Band Ottawa Council, on Nov. 16, 1994.

In February, the effort suffered a setback. The tribe was notified by the bureau that it failed to demonstrate that its members comprise a distinct community that has existed as a community through time. It was one of seven criteria needed to gain federal recognition.

In particular, officials said about one-third of the tribes current membership are already enrolled members of a different federally recognized tribe. Other people on the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians membership list were determined to be deceased.

Yob said his tribe is challenging the assertion.

Its in the process of gathering information to submit to the bureau, by February, to demonstrate its members represent a distinct community, he said.

Now that the bill has been introduced, Scholten says she will work to get the bill a hearing at the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources.

In early conversations with both Republican and Democratic leadership in that committee, theyre very eager to take this bill up, Scholten said. Obviously, weve got some other things going on in Congress this week so we dont know how soon that will happen. But they were inspired and encouraged by the overwhelmingly bipartisan nature of this bill.

The other things Scholten is referring to is a looming federal shutdown if Congress doesnt pass a temporary spending bill by midnight Sept. 30.

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SOUTH HAVEN, MI -- Its been more than a year since Anthony Diehl was visiting the shores of Lake Michigan with his family and made a selfless decision to jump in the rough waters to try to save his 7-year-old nephew.

This week, Diehl has been recognized as a hero for his actions on July 13, 2022, when he tried to prevent the drowning. Diehl, who died in the incident, will receive the Carnegie Hero Award, the award organization announced Monday, Sept. 25.

A group of adults werent planning to swim that day at the beach near South Haven, Diehls partner, Laura Steele told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. Some of the children in the group were in the water for a quick swim, she said.

Diehls nephew, Elijah T. Britt, was playing in the shallow water of Lake Michigan with a bodyboard when the waves became stronger. The current took him farther from shore than the other children in his party, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission said while announcing the award.

The water just turned very quickly, Steele said. He just reacted.

Diehl, a 33-year-old restaurant manager of Beavercreek, Ohio, swam about 65 feet from shore to the child. Diehl was seen near Elijah, but they were separated soon after and the family members lost sight of them, the award states.

The current brought Elijah to shore. But he could not be revived and was pronounced dead.

Water conditions continued to deteriorate during a search for Diehl. His body was recovered about 50 yards west of the south pier the following day, and he had drowned, police said.

For people who knew Diehl, his actions that day were not really a surprise, Steele said. He often thought of others and wanted to help people, she said.

There are so many positive things to say about Diehl, Steele said. He had ambition and wanted to help others around him be successful, she said.

It wasnt just about bettering his life, Steele said. It was about bettering everyone elses.

They had a marriage ceremony, but had not filed the paperwork to make it official, she said. They thought of each other as husband and wife, she said.

Diehl was the parent of four children, Steele said, including a child they had together a few months before Diehl died.

It has been hard for family and friends since his death, Steele said on Sept. 26. Though its easier to talk about it now in some ways.

He was just thinking about Elijah, he wasnt thinking about anything else, she said.

Elijah Britt was described in his obituary as a rambunctious, inquisitive and artistic boy who looked up to his sister. The obituary says Diehl died trying to save the boy in a selfless act.

Hero award

Diehl will receive the award this year along with 15 other honorees.

Each Carnegie Medal recipient will receive a three-inch bronze medallion with details on the back about the rescue, including the rescuers name. Each medal takes up to three months to be produced. Diehls medal will go to Steele, according to the organization.

The Carnegie Medal. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission awards the Carnegie Medal to individuals from throughout the United States and Canada who risk themselves to an extraordinary degree saving or attempting to save the lives of others. It is considered North Americas highest civilian honor for heroism, according to the organization. (Courtesy | Carnegie Hero Fund Commission)

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission awards the Carnegie Medal to people from throughout the United States and Canada who risk themselves to an extraordinary degree to save or attempt to save the lives of others. The Carnegie Medal is considered North Americas highest civilian honor for heroism, the group said.

One other posthumous award went to James G. David, who drowned July 16, 2022, trying to save his 4-year-old grandson in the Saginaw Bay near Essexville.

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SAGINAW, MI  Two years after her toddler son fatally overdosed on illegal drugs, a Saginaw mother is heading to prison, a fate shared by the boys father.

I just want to apologize to my son and apologize to my family, a weeping Amber M. Martinez told Saginaw County Circuit Judge Julie A. Gafkay as she appeared before her for sentencing on Sept. 26. I just hope you take into consideration the facts of the case. Im just so sorry about what happened.

Gafkay ended up sentencing Martinez to concurrent terms of 30 months to 15 years and 40 months to 22 years in prison, with credit for 470 days already served.

Martinezs 14-month-old son, Jesse James Martinez-Garstecki, died with fentanyl and cocaine in his system in August 2021. Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Melissa J. Hoover initially charged Martinez and the boys father, Ryan J. Garstecki, with open murder.

10 1 / 10 Ryan J. Garstecki sentencing in Saginaw

Martinez and Garstecki in August pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, with Martinez also pleading to second-degree child abuse. Prosecutors dismissed murder charges in each defendants case.

This is a very tragic situation, said defense attorney James F. Gust. Its a tragic byproduct of addiction in America. Of course, Amber now being sober, she feels she should never have left her child in the presence of the childs father.

Several months after her arrest, Martinez was released from jail into TRI-CAP, a nonprofit drug rehabilitation program. She was discharged from TRI-CAP in August 2022 and has been on a tether ever since, Gust said.

Martinez has been tested twice weekly for drugs, the results of which have all been negative, Gust said. She is also seeing a psychiatrist and taking prescribed medication, he said.

She was severely addicted at the time of the offense and shes dealt with that, Gust said. Thats really what we want her as a society to do.

While she praised Martinez for getting clean, Prosecutor Hoover said the ghastly circumstances Jesse lived and died in warrant punishment.

I applaud Miss Martinez for her recent sobriety and I hope she continues on that path as she goes through her incarceration, Hoover said. That being said, it took the death of her 14-month-old son to get to this point.

Few cases shes handled conjure as vivid memories for her, she said.

I will not forget the (police) bodycam footage I viewed from that day, she said. The home their son was living in was, for lack of better phrasing, disgusting. Their son was dirty. He had a full diaper that didnt appear it had been changed in days. He had marks on him that were unexplained. (His parents) left alone frequently so they could buy drugs. He had night terrors at 14 months, which I find disturbing.

Judge Gafkay agreed that the case was disturbing.

I know that you live with that, but there are consequences, she told Martinez.

I understand, Martinez replied.

Earlier this month, Gafkay sentenced Garstecki, to concurrent terms of 7.5 to 30 years and 7.5 to 20 years in prison, with credit for 518 days already served.

In an October 2021 preliminary examination, police testified they and paramedics responded to Martinez and Garsteckis home at 721 Stephens St. about 6:40 a.m. on Aug. 17, 2021, for an unresponsive child.

Saginaw Police Officer David Wheaton testified Martinez was very frantic, very sad, when he spoke with her at the scene. Martinez told Wheaton she and Garstecki had argued, after which she went into a vehicle at about 2 a.m.

Hours later, Martinez went back into her home and saw her son face-down in Garsteckis lap. She instantly called police, Wheaton testified.

Emergency responders pronounced the child deceased at the scene. Both parents were brought to police headquarters for questioning.

Read his Miranda rights, Garstecki told Detective Natasha McNab he and his child had been in a bed in a second-floor room, adding they typically slept together. He had fed Jesse baby formula with a bottle shortly beforehand, McNab said he told her.

At some point, he fell asleep, McNab testified Garstecki told her. He woke up to Miss Martinez in a panic. He stated that the deceased child was at the foot of the bed and no part of his body was touching the child at this time.

Garstecki and Martinez went on to tell the detective they had been using heroin prior to their sons death.

Jesses death certificate states he died from acute drug intoxication with fentanyl and cocaine metabolites in his blood.
LANSING, MI  Two individuals involved with an ongoing court battle pertaining to an alternate slate of Republican electors selected following the 2020 presidential election are arguing their specific cases should be dismissed after Attorney General Dana Nessel reportedly claimed these electors were brainwashed and possibly lacked the criminal intent necessary to be charged with a crime.

Mari-Ann Henry and Clifford Frost are among the 16 people currently facing felony charges as part of an alleged scheme to replace Michigans electoral college representatives with a slate of pro-Trump Republicans that would supplant those chosen by state leaders.

Attorneys for Henry and Frost filed separate motions to drop the cases, pointing to comments Nessel made last week while speaking with the left-leaning advocacy group Protectors of Equality in Government. There, she claimed the electors were brainwashed and genuinely believe former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

A request for comment was left with Nessels office.

Each of the crimes the People have charged against (Henry) are specific intent crimes, wrote George Brown, Henrys attorney, in his motion to dismiss. Convictions would require proof that (Henry) intended by her actions to defraud. ... (Prosecutors) now claim that (Henry) believed Donald Trump won the election. If she had that belief, (Henrys) alleged actions could not have been performed with the intent to cheat or deceive anyone.

Frosts lawyer, Kevin Kijewski, said much the same in his filing. He noted Nessels comments not only possibly ran afoul of Michigans Rules of Professional Conduct, but has irreparably harmed (Frosts) ability to receive a fair trial.

It is hard to imagine a more compelling and unprecedented example of a criminal case that should be dismissed given the actions of the AG, Kijewski wrote. The allegations put forward by the prosecution, even when viewed in a light most favorable to them, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted as a matte of law given the AGs explicit and clear admission that (Frost) and the fifteen Republican electors did not have the requisite specific criminal intent to defraud.

News of the filing was first reported by CNN, with the the initial recording of Nessel first reported by The Detroit News.

As part of her comments, Nessel indicated it was possible the electors cant even plead guilty if they wanted to, as they could not admit that what they did violated the law  because they still think theyre right.

The problem is, these are people who have been brainwashed, Nessel is recorded as saying. And when I say brainwashed  how do you flip someone who concedes that theyve done everything that theyre accused of doing, but what they say is We believe that we were in the right? We think that Donald Trump is the real winner of the election. They legit believe that.

She went on to note she was concerned the case could be in jeopardy as, there could be people who just wont care that they clearly violated the law, because they believed the ends justified the means.

Henry, Frost and the remaining 14 false electors have plead not guilty after being individually charged with eight felonies. If found guilty, each could face up to 80 years in prison.
The United Auto Workers may be adding more to the ranks as the strike rounds into its second week.

Barring any major progress at the bargaining table UAW President Shawn Fain will announce new strike targets at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29 via Facebook Live. New plants added to the strike will be instructed to walk out at noon.

Talks with Ford, Stellantis and General Motors remain active and constant, according to a source familiar. A formal meeting with General Motors is scheduled Wednesday afternoon, according to the source.

Last week, the UAW expanded the strike to 38 facilities and added approximately 5,600 workers to the picket line. The strike targets were limited to General Motors and Stellantis as a signal from the UAW that they were unhappy with the progress being made.

We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer, Fain said.

Both GM and Stellantis pushed back on this saying they have made multiple offers and accused UAW leadership of using the strike for a personal agenda or political gain.

Related: GM accuses UAW leadership of manipulating the bargaining process as strike expands

Striking Ford workers at the Michigan Assembly Plant held the line but no other sites were added as a symbol of Ford negotiations moving quicker, Fain said.

The first wave of strike targets all took aim at assembly plants. The second wave closed in on parts, services and customer care facilities.

Currently 14 UAW facilities in Michigan are striking bringing the total number of Michigan workers to almost 9,000, making up the majority of the strike force.

Click here to see a map of striking UAW facilities in Michigan.
LANSING, MI  It is legal in Michigan to argue that someones sexual orientation helped justify assaulting them.

This is called the gay/trans panic defense, meaning a criminal defendant can defend themselves by saying they had an uncontrollable and violent reaction upon learning the person was LGBTQ or that person propositioned them.

But this defense is plainly morally bankrupt, says Emme Zanotti, advocacy director at Equality Michigan, the states leading LGBTQ rights group. She testified to lawmakers Tuesday for House Bill 4718, which would ban use of the defense in Michigan.

Knowing or learning about the gender, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation of someone would not justify using force against them, under HB 4718. This also wouldnt be an allowable defense of voluntary manslaughter or a reason to plead insanity.

Related: Conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors now banned in Michigan

These protections would include situations in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance toward the defendant or in which both people were dating or had a sexual relationship.

The LGBTQ panic defense is often deployed as a component of other defenses to play on the unfortunate prejudices of some judges and juries in an effort to mitigate penalties for these crimes, said sponsoring Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia.

At its very core, she told a House committee, this defense asserts that the crimes against the community carry less weight because we are inherently less human and therefore less valuable.

Michigan is one of 32 states that do not prohibit the gay/trans panic defense, despite the American Bar Association calling for its end in 2013. California was the first to ban it in 2014, and the most recent were New Hampshire and Delaware this year.

A few years ago, W. Cartsen Andresen, a professor at St. Edwards University in Texas, found at least 104 cases of the gay/trans panic defense across 35 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. With four cases, Michigan tied for the sixth-most.

Although more than 8 in 10 of the instances Andresen found still ended with guilty verdict, charges were reduced for about one-third of the defendants who used the defense.

Related: Ann Arbor to erect statue honoring LGBTQ official who made national history

A notable case of the defense succeeding came in 2015, when musician Daniel Spencer invited another musician, James Miller, to his Texas apartment to play music together. Miller stabbed Spencer to death, and he argued in court (without physical evidence) Spencer was trying to sexually assault him.

Miller was eventually convicted of a lesser homicide offense and served only six months in jail.

Possibly the most famous use of the gay/trans panic defense was in the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. Lawyers defending one of Shepards killers argued he was partly triggered by traumatic experiences with homosexuals and an unwanted sexual advance by Shepard.

The judge in that case, however, said evidence did not support that defense. Shepards killers, in fact, posed as gay men to lure Shepard into their truck, rob him, tie him to a fence and beat him to death.

Killing or assaulting someone simply because they arent your type or its not your ideology is an incredibly dangerous precedent to set, Zanotti told Michigan lawmakers Tuesday, and one that wouldnt be entertained if it were the other way around when were talking about sexuality and gender identity.
Ghanaian rapper Amerado has expressed enthusiasm in the music industry with regards to emerging rappers.

According to the reigning Vodafone Ghana Music Award recipient of the best rapper category, the industry needs more rappers.

In an interview with MX24 TV, he said it is his duty to support and promote up-and-coming musicians.

Yes, 100 percent. There is a whole lot of responsibility on me, which is why I've been able to create opportunities for young talents. I provide them with beats, encourage them to rap, and post their performances on my TikTok. These videos often receive a minimum of around 100,000 views, and I believe that I'm also shining a light on them in my own way, Amerado stated.

The rapper elaborated on the significance of establishing a brand identity as a component of authority in the music industry.

I wish I could speak for everybody, but as an artist, you need to have a brand attribute, what you stand for, what you believe in. You need to have a vision. You need to have plans and directions. You can't tell me that because this guy used this route to attain greatness. That's where your stars will shine, he stated.
Popular Nigerian rapper Naira Marley has denied any involvement in the death of his former record label signee, Mohbad.

Marlian Record CEO said he has honoured the invitation extended to him by police to return to Nigeria to help with the ongoing investigations.

In a lengthy statement shared on his Instagram page on Tuesday, September 26, Naira Marley said he was "in shock" over Mohbad's "untimely death", maintaining that he had "no hand in his death, either directly or indirectly."

The controversial artist, whose real name is Azeez Fashola, described rumors linking him to Mohbad's passing as "lies" being spread to tarnish his reputation and reputation globally.

"I am fully cooperating with the Police team and I certainly have no reason to be a fugitive when I have no hand in his death," Naira Marley stated in a part of the statement.

The 32-year-old rapper, who has been abroad since August 31, added that he is "making arrangements to return to the country to assist the investigation and give my version of the events."

He vehemently denied accusations that his label Marlian Music was a front for drug operations, saying "I am not a drug lord, neither do I belong to any cult or fraternity."

He further claimed that disagreements with Mohbad prior to his exit from the label last year September were never serious and were being resolved through legal means.
Ghanaian musician Kelvyn Boy has expressed disappointment in the perceived inaction of Deputy Creative Arts Minister Mark Okraku Mantey since taking up the role.

In a tweet on Wednesday, September 27, Kelvyn Boy questioned where Mr Okraku Mantey has been, noting that the outspoken industry veteran has grown "awfully silent" since he was appointed to the ministerial position earlier this year.

The "Down Flat" hitmaker wrote, "Ok so now to Creative Arts. Where Mark Okraku Mantey dey? Since he became Dep. Minister for our space Hes grown awfully silent. For an outspoken, extrovert like Mark, Im a bit surprised. What really dey go on?!".

When a Twitter user responded that the Deputy Minister has limited power and must work through proper channels, Kelvyn Boy doubled down on his criticism.

He stated, "He should have turned down the offer if he knew he couldnt do anything in that position. Also why do Ghanaians hate Bawumia so much if hes the deputy and not doing anything?".

The criticisms come amid ongoing struggles faced by artists in Ghana, such as lack of social security and proper royalty collection system.
25.09.2023 LISTEN

The Executive Director of the African Coconut Group (ACG), Kwaku Boateng, has encouraged young entrepreneurs to explore opportunities in the coconut industry, citing the existence of supportive structures for new businesses.

He conveyed the message during a coconut sector stakeholder engagement meeting with officials from the Western Regional Coordinating Council ahead of the 3rd International Coconut Festival, scheduled to take place in Takoradi from the 26th to the 28th of September 2023.

Mr. Boateng lauded the government's commitment to fostering the growth of Ghanaian businesses in the coconut value chain, pointing to initiatives like the Coconut Revitalization Programme and Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD).

He stressed that harnessing the potential of the coconut sector could significantly address Ghana's unemployment issue, given the substantial demand for coconut products both locally and internationally.

"The Coconut Festival aims to promote investment in the sector, making it more appealing for Ghanaians to engage in various businesses within the coconut industry, ranging from production to manufacturing and export," he remarked.

He further highlighted the employment potential, suggesting that the coconut industry currently employs 1.8 million Ghanaians due to government interventions complemented by a well-structured Coconut Federation, comprising nursery operators, producers (farmers), vendors, processors, and exporters.

The 3rd edition of the International Coconut Festival, themed "Invest in Ghana's Coconut Sector for an Inclusive Climate and Social Resilience," is a collaborative effort between the African Coconut Group, the Western Regional Coordinating Council, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), SOLIDARIDAD, and the Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA).

Activities for this year's festival include seminars, mentorship programmes for youth entrepreneurs, farm visits, and sessions dedicated to women in the coconut industry.

In 2019, GEPA partnered with ACG to hold the first-ever International Coconut Festival in Ghana, which brought together exhibitors as well as major players to promote the coconut business.

The government of Ghana added coconut to the Tree Crop Development Authority (TCDA), established in 2019 and mandated to develop and regulate the production, processing, marketing, and export of coconut and other selected tree crops.

The non-traditional export figures for 2022 indicated the coconut sector's substantial economic contribution. Notably, earnings from both fresh and processed coconuts reached 6.3 million dollars and 6 million dollars, respectively.

Ghana's export of desiccated coconut also emerged as a standout performer. Exports in this category rose to 21.9 million dollars in 2021, a significant increment from 6.3 million dollars in 2020 and 3.8 million dollars in 2019, securing the nation a commendable 9th position in global desiccated coconut exports.
Niger's coup leaders are demanding a "negotiated framework" for former colonial ruler France to withdraw its troops, which Paris says will be completed by the end of the year.

The new military regime said in a statement read out on national TV late on Monday that the timeframe for the pullout "must be set out in a negotiated framework and by mutual agreement".

It came almost two months to the day after the overthrow of Niger's democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.

On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris would withdraw its ambassador from Niger, followed by the French military contingent in the coming months -- both demands of the post-coup regime in Niamey.

Macron, who had sought to make a special ally of Niger, said military cooperation was "over" and French troops would withdraw in "the months and weeks to come" with a full pullout "by the end of the year".

France keeps about 1,500 soldiers in its former West African colony as part of an anti-jihadist deployment in the Sahel.

The coup against Bazoum was the third such putsch in the region in as many years, following similar actions in Mali and Burkina Faso in 2021 and 2022.

They too forced the pullouts of French troops.

Macron said on Sunday that Niger's post-coup authorities "no longer wanted to fight against terrorism".

Niger's rulers, who have welcomed the announcement by France, said they were waiting for it to be followed up by official actions from the French authorities.

There has been no apparent signs of movement around France's embassy in Niamey since late Sunday indicating the departure of its ambassador Sylvain Itte.

'Will of Nigerien people'

France has not recognised the authority of the military leaders and is still demanding Bazoum's restoration.

On August 3, the coup leaders renounced several military cooperation agreements with France, before qualifying as "illegal" the presence of French troops on its soil.

There have been large protests in Niger seeking the withdrawal of French soldiers. By Boureima HAMA (AFP/File)

Later that month, they ordered France's ambassador to leave the country. Paris responded that only Bazoum's deposed government could order him out.

Niger has welcomed Macron's announcement on Sunday as "a new step towards sovereignty".

"This is a historic moment, which speaks to the determination and will of the Nigerien people," the country's military rulers said in a statement, read out on national television.

Tens of thousands of people have joined demonstrations and gatherings in the Niger capital Niamey in recent weeks calling for the withdrawal of French troops from the country.

The United States, which has some 1,100 military personnel in Niger, has said it will "evaluate" its future steps on the crisis following France's announcement.

Niger is battling two jihadist insurgencies -- a spillover in its southeast from a long-running conflict in neighbouring Nigeria, and an offensive in the west by militants crossing from Mali and Burkina Faso.

On Tuesday, Niger's armed forces said two civilians were killed after a homemade bomb exploded in Ouro Djaladio, in the Tillaberi tri-border area where Niger meets Mali and Burkina Faso.

They also said they had detained about 20 "suspects" in the area during several operations carried out between September 11 and 16.
Salam Mustapha, the National Youth Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has reacted to the concerns raised by the #OccupyJulorbiHouse demonstrators and other aggrieved Ghanaians.

According to Salam Mustapha, the current economic difficulties in the country are not the government but the global crises.

Speaking in an interview on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, Mustapha acknowledged the frustrations and hardships Ghanaians are facing.

He stressed that Ghana is not the only country facing economic challenges as similar issues are affecting nations around the world.

"It is not deliberate that we are facing serious economic challenges," Mustapha stated.

He calls on the youth to maintain confidence in President Nana Addo and his government, asserting that these economic challenges are temporary.

"I have absolute confidence and trust in how our leaders are working for us to recover," Mustapha told host of the morning show, Kwami Sefa Kayi.
When President Akufo-Addo ascended the Presidency in 2017, his inaugural speech was forward-looking and promising. The expectations of Ghanaians for Akufo-Addos regime in terms of his mouth-watering promises on infrastructural development and corruption-related fights were understandably high. However, that was laconically truncated as we are witnessing now.

President Akufo-Addo freely demonstrated under several governments to express his concerns and frustrations then but now Ghanaians are ironically scared to do so under his regime.

In the advent of President Akufo-Addos regime, there is this continued unspoken fear among Ghanaians generated under his watch, which has been gradually replaced with the loud silence of those who were quite vocal under former President Mahamas regime.

These widespread intimidations were not only targeting political opponents in the NDC but also silencing other important stakeholders like the Peace Council and Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference (GCBC) as well as Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), etc.

For instance, the court cases involving the former CEO of COCOBOD, Dr. Opuni, Minority Leader, Dr. Casiel Ato Forson, former Minister for Works and Housing, Hon. Collins Dawda, etc., and the recent #OccupyJulorbiHouse demo skirmishes caused by the Ghana Police are a few examples worthy of mention.

The frightening and worrisome Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election that took place on 31 January 2019 after the death of the incumbent MP Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko on 21 November 2018 was the beginning of the intimidation style of governance by President Akufo-Addo.

Similarly, we witnessed electoral violence leading to the loss of innocent lives in the 2020 General Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Apart from the above-mentioned examples of calculated intimidations under this regime, there has been general fear among Ghanaians to freely express their concerns and frustrations on poorly implemented policies and numerous taxes like Free SHS and e-levy, respectively.

There have also been numerous corruption scandals, economic mismanagement, and insensitivity of the government, and yet Ghanaians are afraid to speak out for fear of either being arrested or intimidated.

Media houses are not also left out in this intimidation web under this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government, as Journalists are scared to freely operate as the Fourth Arm of Government.

Under former President Mahamas era, Ghanaians heavily criticized him and his government and they were not harassed or intimidated unlike what we are witnessing now under President Akufo-Addos regime.

As a touted human rights lawyer, it is highly ironic to witness human rights violations and intimidations to generate enormous fear among Ghanaians under the regime of Akufo-Addo.

The recent withdrawal from the Presidential race and resignation of Alan Cash from the NPP Party has strongly pointed accusing fingers at the undemocratic leadership of President Akufo-Addo, whose regime is largely run by Power Brokers and government apparatchiks in favor of the preferred establishment Presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

These unfortunate new developments under the watch of Nana Akufo-Addo, a touted human rights lawyer, and now President are a backward step in Ghanas 30-year democracy. This is indeed unfortunate!

What Ghana badly needs in December 2024 is a dedicated, caring, sensitive, and visionary leader to assuage the sufferings of many Ghanaians but not this mediocre leadership exhibited by the governing NPP regime.

The NPP, as a Party, has failed Ghanaians woefully with their poor show of governance led by Nana Akufo-Addo. Looking at the crop of Presidential candidates put up by the NPP to replace him, the Party does not deserve another chance after the last term of President Akufo-Addo come 2024.
French businessman Xavier Niel, owner of the Iliad technology group, on Tuesday announced strategic investments designed to create a "European champion" of artificial intelligence (AI).

Estimated at 200 million, the investment would go towards the purchase of a supercomputer and the creation of a dedicated research laboratory, Niel told French news agency AFP on Tuesday.

The idea is to able to offer a wide range of services to companies wishing to develop their own applications in the field.

This comes as Europe plays catch up to the United States in the race for artificial intelligence, to match the billions of dollars spent by the American giants Google, Microsoft and Meta.

"For artificial intelligence to work, you need three things: researchers, computing power and companies that exploit all of that," Niel said.

"We really need that, to be sure to have things coming out of here, (...) so as not to have all of our data going elsewhere, so that the AI does not depend on algorithms not created here and which are not European," he explained.

To achieve this objective, Iliad acquired a supercomputer from Nvidia, the American processor giant, to provide Scaleway, its cloud computing service provider subsidiary, with "the greatest computing power" on the continent.

Iliad also revealed on Tuesday the creation of a research laboratory of excellence in AI in Paris, already endowed with "more than 100 million", with the mission of constructing and democratising "artificial general intelligence" .

While the company has not revealed the names of the research team, it claims to have already formed a group of researchers "internationally recognised" for their expertise in the field, and who have already worked "for around ten years within of the largest international players on the market".

Iliad will also organise its first European conference on AI, which aims to become "the benchmark annual event" on this subject in Europe.

The first edition is scheduled to take place on 17 November at Station F, the world's largest start-up incubator in Paris, founded by Niel in 2017.

(with AFP)
The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Justin Frimpong Kodua has disclosed that Alan Kyerematen's allegation claiming the party has been hijacked by party aparchicks is false.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday at party headquarters, he said the resignation of the former Minister of Trade and Industry via press conference on Monday without prior notice to the party was disappointing.

In reference to Mr. Kyerematen's concerns, which include allegations of intimidation against his supporters, Mr. Kodua stressed that "it is noteworthy that certain government appointees, including cabinet ministers, who openly declared their support for him are still at post and have never been intimidated."

Lawyer Justin Koduah opined that the current leadership of the New Patriotic Party has never imposed any candidate on delegates as claimed by Mr Alan Kyerematen.

However, he commended Mr Alan Kyerematen's service and dedication to the party and the country.

He further acknowledged him for admitting the good work the government has done under his then ministry, urging all sector Ministers and other government appointees to also start propagating the unprecedented achievements of the government in their respective sectors just as Mr. Kyerematen has done.

He called on supporters of Mr Alan Kyerematen to see the New Patriotic Party as one big family and therefore their efforts will be of great help going into election 2024 to make history by breaking the 8-year mantra in Ghanaian politics.

Mr. Stephen Ayensu Ntim, the National Chairman of the Party on his side, urged all party faithful to remain calm because the New Patriotic Party is bigger than any individual and it will continue to soar higher.

According to him, as a party member, not all that you seek will be granted to you, because at times it pays to wait.

"It took me 21 good years of sheer determination to get to where I am as a national chairman", he argued.
Scores of residents in the Shama District of the Western Region have expressed concern about the decision of Mr Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen to resign from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and contest as an independent presidential candidate in the 2024 general elections.

Mr Kyerematen announced the decision of his forfeiture as a long-standing member of NPP after he officially resigned from the party, citing the unfair treatment and assault perpetrated against his followers and his person as the reason to breakaway.

In an interview with the GNA, some of the residents noted that the decision would have dire consequences on the performance of NPP in the 2024 general election since Mr Kyerematen was a party stalwart and commanded a lot of respect and support in the Ashanti Region.

Mr Mensah, a resident of Inchaban and Madam Cecilia a resident of Shama, both appealed to the NPP party hierarchy, to as a matter of urgency, embark on reconciliation moves with Mr Kyerematen to avert any election related misfortunes.

They explained that since Mr Kyeremanten hailed from the Ashanti Region, which is a strong hold of the NPP, his resignation from the party to contest as an independent candidate would undoubtedly impact negatively on the chances of NPP to retain power come December 2024.

However, other residents were in jubilant mood after hearing Mr Kyerematen had resigned to contest as independent presidential candidate, stressing that the decision was long overdue and that it was a step in the right direction as the country needed new direction in its economy growth.

According to them, they needed someone who would offer them selfless and inclusive leadership as well as enhance economic growth in the country, noting that Mr Kyerematen has the potential to move the country to a higher level.

The residents welcomed the decision by Mr Kyerematen as it would create an opportunity for NDC, the main opposition to come back to power to save the country from economic quagmire due to mismanagement, unbridled corruption and reckless borrowing as well as extravagant lifestyle of NPP.

Mr. Kwaku Essuon, a resident of AssorkoEssaman, was happy that Mr Kyerematen's resignation would further deepen the woes and division in the NPP, which would weaken its front to prevent the party from winning the general elections due to the nepotic governance offered to Ghanaians in the past seven years.

Others, however, contended that Mr Kyerematen's breakaway from NPP would not pose any danger to its chances in the general elections since the allegiance of many supporters of the party remained unchanged.

While others expressed the view that Mr Kyerematen could not bring any needed economic changes to help wean the citizenry from the current difficulties, since he was from the NPP which had created the socioeconomic hardship that was currently confronting Ghanaians.

GNA
Washington and Nairobi have signed a defence agreement that will see Kenya receive resources and support for security deployments as it is poised to lead a multi-national peacekeeping mission to Haiti to combat gang violence.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Kenya's Defence Minister Aden Duale signed the accord at a meeting in the Kenyan capital on Monday, which is set to guide the countries' defence relations over the next five years as the war in East Africa against the al-Shabaab extremist group intensifies.

This comes as Austin thanked Kenya for volunteering to take the leadership of the Haiti multi-national force and reiterated that the US government would work with Congress to secure the $100 million in funding that it pledged on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly that wrapped-up in New York last week.

Austin said the rest of the world ought to follow Kenya's commitment to global security and step up and provide more personnel, equipment, support, training and funding.

Human rights concerns, language barriers

Kenya has pledged to send 1,000 security officers to Haiti to combat gang violence in a mission that is pending the UN Security Council's formal approval but has received support from the United Nations and United States.

Duale said his country is ready to deploy to Haiti and cited Kenya's very long history of global peacekeeping in Kosovo, neighbouring Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, human rights activists have expressed concerns over the deployment, citing a history of human rights abuses during security operations in the country.

Some security analysts have expressed concerns that there will be a language barrier between the deployment from Kenya, an English- and Swahili-speaking country, and the people of Haiti, where the official languages are French and Creole.

Security in Somalia

On the regional fight against the al-Shabaab islamist group, Austin said he had met with Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and that both agreed that the country had made significant progress in the last year against al-Shabab."

But Austin also warned that progress is not always a straight line so we may see things improve significantly on one day ... and maybe we'll see challenges on the next day.

Last week, Somalia asked the United Nations to pause the withdrawal of 3,000 troops by three months  in what is the second phase of military drawdown  to allow the country's forces to regroup.

Somalia is expected to take up its full security responsibilities by the end of 2024.

(with newswires)
NPP General Secretary, Justin Frimpong Kodua

26.09.2023 LISTEN

The General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Justin Frimpong Kodua has stressed that the manner in which Alan Kyerematen resigned from the party is disappointing.

The former Minister of Trade and Industry announced his resignation from the NPP on Monday, September 25, adding that he will contest for president in the 2024 General Election as an Independent Candidate.

At a press conference of the NPP today, Justin Frimpong Kodua said it is disappointing that Alan Kyerematen did not give the party prior notice before quitting the party.

As the Party was coming to terms with the demise of one of our illustrious sons we were hit with news about the resignation of Mr. Alan Kyerematen through a press conference he organised.

The disappointing part is the mode in which he decided to resign from the party, which was through a press conference without prior notice to the party, the NPP General Secretary said.

According to Justin Frimpong Kodua, it is the belief of the NPP that Alan Kyerematens decision to resign was premeditated and irrevocable.

He said news of the resignation of the leading figure was unexpected as when the National Chairman visited him on behalf of the Party after the August 26 Special Electoral College, in an attempt to bring all the ten aspirants together, he did not portray any sign of resigning from the party, let alone going independent.

Regardless, the NPP says it respects Alan Kyerematens decision to resign and extends its gratitude for the services rendered to the NPP and the nation.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) branch in Germany has issued a statement to mourn the death of former Bantama Member of Parliament (MP), Daniel Okyem Aboagye.

The politician and businessman was confirmed dead on Saturday, September 23, after a short illness.

In a release from NPP Germany signed by its Communications Director Nana Osei Boateng, it described the demise of Okyem Aboagye as a terrible loss to the ruling party.

NPP Germany mourns and honors a dedicated public servant whose legacy will forever shape our nation's history. His unwavering commitment to the betterment of society and tireless efforts to champion the causes he believed in, serve as an inspiration to all of us.

Hon. Daniel Okyem Aboagye was not just a Member of Parliament leader but stood for hope, advocating for equality and progress. His vision for a brighter future guided him through countless challenges and obstacles, always with a profound dedication to the welfare of his constituents.

As we bid farewell to this remarkable political figure, let us remember his legacy and carry forward his ideals, parts of the release said.

It added that in the memory of the deceased, it is important for the NPP to commit itself to the principles of unity, fairness, and the relentless pursuit of a better world for all.

Below is a copy of the NPP Germany press release:

NPP GERMANY

PRESS RELEASE

26---09---2023

Former Bantama MP Okyem Aboagye's Passing A Terrible Loss To NPP---NPP Germany Mourns

This is solemnly dedicated to another fallen elephant and a true patriot; in loving memory of the former MP For Bantama Hon. Daniel Okyem Aboagye who passed on Saturday 23rd September, 2023.

NPP Germany mourns and honors a dedicated public servant whose legacy will forever shape our nation's history. His unwavering commitment to the betterment of society and tireless efforts to champion the causes he believed in, serve as an inspiration to all of us.

Hon. Daniel Okyem Aboagye was not just a Member of Parliament leader but stood for hope, advocating for equality and progress. His vision for a brighter future guided him through countless challenges and obstacles, always with a profound dedication to the welfare of his constituents.

Okyem's legacy is one of bridging divides, forging alliances, and striving for a more inclusive and compassionate society. His impact resonates in the policies enacted, the lives he touched, and the positive change he brought about.

As we bid farewell to this remarkable political figure, let us remember his legacy and carry forward his ideals.

In His memory, let us recommit ourselves to the principles of unity, fairness, and the relentless pursuit of a better world for all. Though he may be gone, his spirit lives on in the progress we continue to make as a nation.

May His Soul Find Eternal Rest In The Bossom of the Almighty, God The Creator!!!

About Hon. Daniel Okyem Aboagye

(Credit To Ghanaweb) See: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/5-things-to-know-about-the-late-Okyem-Aboagye-MP-for-Bantama-1849619

Former Member of Parliament for Bantama Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Daniel Okyem Aboagye was not merely a political figure but a multifaceted individual whose life story is worth emulating.

The politician was reported dead on Saturday, September 23, 2023, after a short illness.

We delve into his legacy and personality as we touch on five compelling facets of his life.

1. The early life of Okyem Aboagye

Daniel Okyem Aboagye was born on December 31, 1973. He was born in Atwima Boko in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

2. His educational background

The late Okyem Aboagye had his undergraduate education at the University of Ghana where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration. From there, he proceeded to study Accounting at Troy University in Alabama, USA, and was awarded an MBA and MIS in Accounting in the year 2002, and in 2003 was

certified as a public accountant by the Certified Public Accountant of USA.

3. His professional journey as an accountant

He started his career as the branch manager of Sinapi Aba Trust in 1998. He later became the project manager of Opportunity International between 2003 and 2006. Okyem Aboagye was the financial controller of Globe Union in the USA and CEO of MGI Microfinance in 2208-2012.

4. His political career

The late Okyem Aboagye contested and won the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary primaries for the Bantama Constituency in the Ashanti Region of Ghana and secured victory for the NPP in the 2016 general elections. While serving as a parliamentarian, he was a member of the financial committee of parliament.

Unfortunately, in his second bid to represent the NPP at Bantama, he lost in the NPP primaries to Francis Asenso-Boakye.

5. His family and personal life

The late legislator was married, however, he has managed to keep the name of his spouse and children away from the public eye.

DAMIRIFA DUE HON ABOAGYE

Signed:

Nana Osei Boateng

NPP Germany Branch

Communications Director
The National Executive of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has constituted the 27th Annual GJA Media Awards Committee.

The nine-member committee will vet entries submitted by members and select winners in 34 categories for honours at this year's media awards, a statement signed by Mr Kofi Yeboah, the General Secretary of the GJA, said.

The Committee is chaired by a former Director of Television at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Betty Appau-Opong.

Other members of the awards committee are: Fortune Alimi, Executive Editor, Daily Guide Network; George-Ramsey Benamba, Chief Editor, Ghana News Agency; Loretta Vanderpuye, Regional Director, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Obonu FM / TV, and Michael Quaye, Deputy News Editor, Daily Graphic.

The rest are: Joana Afua Mensah, News Editor, United Television (UTV); William A. Asiedu, Head of News, 3FM and Co-host, Sunrise Morning Show on TV3; Nana Kofi Acquah, International Photojournalist, and Isaac Nuamah Yeboah, News Director, Atinka Media Village.

The awards up for grabs include the prestigious P. A. V. Ansah Journalist of the Year, Best Female Journalist of the Year, Most Promising Journalist of the Year and Best Student Journalist of the Year.

The 27th GJA Media Awards is scheduled to take place at the Accra International Conference Centre on October 29, 2023.

GNA
The Ministry of Roads and Highways has announced temporary traffic management control measures on the Tema Motorway grade-separated intersection which will take effect on 2nd October.

A statement signed by the Public Affairs Division of the Ghana Highway Authority on Tuesday stated that the move aims to expedite the construction of the 2nd phase of the Tema Motorway grade-separated intersection.

The Authority advised motorists travelling from Accra towards Afienya and Akosombo to keep to the outer lane and exit onto the Harbour Road, then move to the left lane and execute the U-Turn after passing the Pedestrian Bridge to merge with traffic coming from Tema.

Following the merge, motorists are urged to stay in the left lane, which will guide them straight through the intersection.

It advised motorists travelling from Tema to Accra to keep to the left lane and go across the flyover then execute the U-Turn on the Akosombo Afienya Road after going past the Pedestrian Bridge, to merge with the on-coming traffic.

Motorists going from Aflao and Dawenya to Tema are urged to stay in the right lane towards Akosombo Afienya Road, then execute the U-Turn on the Akosombo Afienya Road after going past the Pedestrian Bridge to merge with the on-coming traffic.

After merging, they are advised to stay in the left lane as this will take them straight through the intersection.

For motorists going from Akosombo and Afienya to Dawenya and Aflao, the authority advises to keep left towards Tema Harbour and straight through the intersection, then execute the U-Turn on the Harbour Road after the Pedestrian Bridge to merge with the on-coming traffic.

Motorists are to keep right, then use the ramp to get onto the Aflao Road after merging

According to the release, motorists travelling from Accra to Aflao and Aflao to Accra. Stay in the left lane, using the underpass.

The Authority entreated all motorists to adhere strictly to the new measures for the duration of the works.
Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, Chairman of the Council of Elders of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is hopeful the party will pull itself up again following the resignation of founding member Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen.

He conceded there have been damages, but said the party will easily overcome them as they aspire to break the 8-year jinx of governance in the 4th Republic.

In an interview on Accra-based JoyFMs Top Story, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman noted that the party will be willing to welcome the former Trade Minister if he intends to come back as he did after his first resignation after the 2007 flagbearership contest.

I think its too late. Whatever damage he intended to cause he has already caused. And we will live with it and we will overcome it. Its not a difficulty at all.

If he wants to come the rules are very clear. He has said openly that he has resigned, if he wants to come back he has to reapply. The rules are there in Article 3. So he would have to do that.

Hes welcome to come, we need the numbers, a party is made up of the numbers, were not pushing anybody away. All of them are coming over, Im not a priest but theres something called a prodigal son, if you go out and you want to come youre welcome, he said.

And I dont think hes going to  with his butterfly  be the one whos going to revolutionarise political thinking and political activities in this country. He must come back. If he has erred, we will look at it, consider it and bring him back, he added.

Mr. Alan Kyerematen at a press briefing held at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra on Monday, September 25, announced his resignation.

Following his resignation, he announced his decision to contest the 2024 general elections as an Independent Candidate with the formation of a new political movement, known as the Movement for Change with a butterfly logo symbolizing transformation and hope for Ghana.
Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, the 2024 independent presidential candidate hopeful has reiterated his desire to make Ghana a better place to live.

According to him, he believes the country is still the black star of Africa.

Speaking on Accra-based TV3s New Day show on Wednesday, September 27, the former Trade and Industry Minister said Ghana will reclaim its position in the African continent if he is elected as president.

I believe that Ghana is still the black star of Africa and I hope that when I become President of Ghana, we will rise again, he said.

He outlined 15 pillar plans through his Great Transformational Plans (GTPs) which he believed would transform the economy by providing jobs and cash for the people.

Mr. Alan Kyerematen at a press briefing held at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra on Monday, September 25, announced his resignation from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Following his resignation, he also announced his decision to contest the 2024 general elections with the formation of a new political movement, known as the Movement for Change with a butterfly logo symbolizing transformation and hope for Ghana.
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has denied claims that it released 114 acres of land at the Burma Camp military base to the La Traditional Council for development.

In a press statement released on Tuesday, September 26, the GAF said while discussions are ongoing by a government committee to resolve the land dispute, the military has not received any directives to release the land to the Council.

"The Military High Command wishes to acknowledge that there are ongoing discussions by a Committee set up by the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources to deliberate and recommend possible measures to resolve the land issue however, the Ghana Armed Forces have not received any directives from the Ministry of Defence which is our supervising Ministry directing that the land should be released to the La Traditional Council," the statement said in part.

The military maintained that the lands remain critical for preserving state security.

"Neither has any government agency directed the Ghana Armed Forces to release any land to any Traditional Authority. Indeed, those lands remain a critical need of the Ghana Armed Forces for the preservation of State security," the statement noted.

The GAF said it took exception to the premature announcement by the Council, noting that it has the potential to damage relations between the military and the traditional authority.

The Military High Command assured its personnel that it remains committed to protecting their interests regarding the disputed land.

It advised the public to stay away from all military lands, especially those at Burma Camp.

This comes after the La Traditional Council recently held a ceremony to mark the reclamation of 114 acres of Burma Camp land for development.
Emmanuel Macron is on a two-day visit to Corsica during which he could make announcements on the island's autonomy that could be enshrined in the French constitution.

President Macron will begin his visit on Wednesday with a "republican dinner" with local elected officials in the island's capital Ajaccio, before a much-anticipated speech to the Corsican Assembly on Thursday morning.

In addition to political events, he will pay tribute to Corsican resistance fighters on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the island's liberation in 1943.

Following the death in March 2022 of pro-independence militant Yvan Colonna  who was attacked in Arles prison where he was serving a life sentence for the assassination of Corsica's police prefect Claude Erignac in 1998  and the violent demonstrations that followed across the island, the Paris government opened dialogue with Corsicans that could "go as far as autonomy."

The president's speech will mark several months of exchanges between Corsican elected representatives and government representatives "at all levels," according to the Elysee Palace.

On 5 July, the nationalists adopted an autonomy project advocating legislative power in all areas except sovereignty, which would be entrusted to the Corsican Assembly.

Nationalists also want Corsican residency status, co-officialisation of the Corsican language and inclusion of the notion of a Corsican people in the French constitution.

Red lines

In an interview with Corse-Matin on Monday, Bruno Retailleau, president of the Les Republicains group in the French Senate, said that the nationalists' demands contained insurmountable "red lines" and that "full legislative power" would go "too far".

However, Macron would need a three-fifths majority  and therefore the Republicans' support in both the National Assembly and Senate  to reform the constitution.

He is therefore calling for a political agreement on the island, between the various nationalist groups and the right-wing opposition.

"Everything has not yet stabilised ... [but] positions are evolving in the direction of an acceptable rapprochement [between] the Corsican interlocutors," the Elysee Palace said on Tuesday, paving the way for possible presidential announcements this Thursday.

However, red lines set by the President a year ago remain unchanged: Corsica is to remain part of the Republic, and there will be no creation of two categories of citizens  notably in terms of priority for employment.

The co-officiality of the Corsican language is also not acceptable to Paris, but this "does not exclude making an effort in terms of bilingualism" according to the Elysee.

Moroccan rifleman

Meanwhile, at a ceremony in Ajaccio on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute to the memory of Fred Scamaroni, Corsica's "Jean Moulin", and Danielle Casanova, a Corsican Communist resistance fighter who was deported to Auschwitz.

He will then travel to Bastia for a ceremony in the presence of military units whose history is linked to the liberation of Corsica.

Macron will also decorate the last surviving Moroccan tirailleur, aged 104, as a number of Moroccans from the Free French Forces  renowned for their ability to fight in the mountains  were stationed in Corsica.

Corsica was the first French territory to be liberated, on 4 October 1943, thanks to a popular uprising and the help of French troops from Africa.
Former Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen has explained why he was silent on the challenges in the country during his six years in the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Speaking to TV3 in an interview on the New Day programme on Wednesday, September 27, he argued that as a senior member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the time, it would have been inappropriate for him to criticise government of the challenges in the country.

Is that what you expect a founding member of the party to do? That if there are challenges in the party I come out openly to speak about it? For whose benefit?

If Im part of a group at the very senior level I dont think its appropriate for me to come out to criticise the government when Im aware of the challenges and whatever was going on, Alan Kyerematen said.

The former Minister of Trade and Industry continued, As I said Ive been a senior member of the party. The last thing I will do is to claim no knowledge of whatever is going on. But it is not appropriate. I think there is time for everything. When you want to speak about issues you find the right time to speak.

This week, Alan Kyerematen has dominated both social and traditional media after announcing his resignation from the ruling NPP.

At a conference in Accra on Monday, September 25, he said he has decided to contest for President in the 2024 general election as an Independent Candidate to rescue Ghana from the NPP and NDC duopoly.

I wish to use this platform to announce that I am honourably resigning with immediate effect from the New Patriotic Party to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana in the 2024 General Elections, as an Independent Presidential Candidate.

To actualise this goal, I will establish and lead a new MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE in Ghana. The brand logo for the MOVEMENT is the Monarch Butterfly, which politically symbolizes change and transformation, hope, and positivity, he stated.
Mr. Boakye Agyarko, former NPP flagbearer aspirant

27.09.2023 LISTEN

Following the resignation of longtime New Patriotic Party (NPP) member Alan Kyerematen, former NPP flagbearer aspirant Boakye Agyarko has urged the party leadership to focus on healing internal wounds.

In a statement on Wednesday, September 27, Mr. Agyarko said Alan Kyerematen's departure "must serve a necessary and sufficient notice to us all and lead us to a time of deep introspection."

He called on the party to "smoothen ruffled feathers and assuage wounded sentiments across the length and breadth of our party."

"Now is the time to examine ourselves if indeed we are true and faithful to the tenets and values of the UP tradition or we have metamorphosed into an ugly shadow of what we should be. These must become the urgent task ahead of us," he added.

Mr. Agyarko warned, "There are many in our party today who have, out of dismay, resigned in their hearts and are only waiting to walk away from us at the ballot box."

As the NPP gears up for the 2024 elections, he cautioned that historical party splits have led to "negative" electoral consequences in the past.

Mr. Alan Kyerematen, a founding member of the NPP and former trade minister, resigned from the party on Monday, September 25, citing unfair treatment from some members whom he claimed have hijacked the party.

His exit has sparked concerns about deep internal divisions within the ruling party that is seeking to break the 8.
27.09.2023 LISTEN

Ghana is in the final stages of becoming the first African country to award a Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) license for its timber and wood products traded on the European market.

This makes Ghana the second country in the world to begin trading legally in certified wood and wood products with the European Union under the FLEGT framework.

The feat was accomplished during the 11th Joint Monitoring and Review Mechanism conference between Ghana and the EU, which took place in Brussels from September 20th to September 26th, 2023.

The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Samuel A. Jinapor, stated that Ghana has seen significant improvements in forest governance with the implementation and operation of the timber legality assurance system.

He said that the impending issuance of FLEGT licenses to the EU market and licenses to other international destinations would be undergirded with the same legal standards.

According to him, this would be the next logical step in consolidating the gains towards sustainable forest management and forest governance.

Ghanas commitment to the VPA, as well as halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030 remains absolute, he added.

The Director-General for International Partnerships of the European Commission, Koen Doens, stated that the Government of Ghana with the support and cooperation of European partners, have remarkably dedicated itself to sustainable forest management and the fight against illegal logging over the years.

He noted that Ghanas move to achieving FLEGT licensing highlights the potential of international cooperation in addressing crucial global challenges like deforestation and illegal logging.

He added that the EU anticipates the positive impact that FLEGT licensing would bring to Ghana's timber industry and the broader environment, illustrating how partnerships and persistent efforts can drive meaningful change.

A FLEGT license is an export license issued by a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) partner country for timber or timber-related products destined for the EU market which certifies that the timber or timber-related products exported under that license are legal.

Under the FLEGT license, timber and timber-related products covered by a valid FLEGT license automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) and prohibit the placing onto the EU market illegally harvested timber and timber-related products derived from such timber.
The butterfly symbol chosen by independent presidential candidate hopeful Alan Kyerematen for his new "Movement for Change" has come under criticism from a former member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In a lengthy Facebook post, Stephen Atubiga noted "a butterfly symbol in politics is a sign of weakness" and said it "doesn't give hope" and "doesn't bite into minds for support."

The National Liberation Congress founder argued that "butterflies' symbols go with love stories, love movies, love movements, and lesbian or gay movements" rather than politics.

He said symbols for political contests and movements "must show some mannish as in vim, courage, fearlessness, selflessness, strength, defense, support, and protection."

The former NDC member suggested more "animal symbols could tell or represent what one stands for" than a butterfly, whose lifespan is only around two weeks.

Mr. Atubiga advised Kyerematen to "rethink this weak symbol butterfly of no hope when it comes to politics," saying "political movements should have nothing to do with moral love symbols, or sentimental love symbols like a butterfly."

Kyerematen's "Movement for Change" aims to transform Ghana's economy with 15 "Great Transformational Plans."

According to him, the butterfly represents change, transformation and hope.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) branch in Germany has hit out at the National Democratic Congress (NDC) over what it has described as needless propaganda

According to the group, concerns raised by the NDC on the ongoing Voter Registration exercise of the Electoral Commission are just propaganda.

In a press release, the NPP Germany said it is befuddled by the growing high tension of propaganda being fanned and flamed by the main opposition NDC and their accompanying like-minded paid elements.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has set parameters right for first-time voters to get the opportunity to exercise their franchise at next year's 2024 General Elections.

Characteristic of the NDC, they are at their highest dimension and exhibition of propaganda to derail the ongoing smooth limited voters registration exercise as has been reported by the media so far.

According to NPP Germany, the NDC is a lead architect of the lack of trust in political institutions, polarization within society, and the erosion of democratic values.

NPP Germany is confident that regardless of the propaganda of the NDC, the NPPs Viral Positive Energy Movement "BreakingTheEight", has resonated largely with the Ghanaian voters who matter the most, as it prepares to enter the year 2024 Ghana Election Year.

Below is a copy of the release of NPP Germany:

NPP GERMANY

Press Release

22---09---2023

NPP 'Breaking The 8' Is An Accomplishable 2024 Viral Movement---NPP Germany Tells NDC

The Germany Branch of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is befuddled by the growing high tension of Propaganda being fanned and flamed by the main opposition NDC and their accompanying like-minded paid elements.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has set parameters right for first time voters to get the opportunity to exercise their franchise at next year's 2024 General Elections.

Characteristic of the NDC, they are at their highest dimension and exhibition of propaganda to derail the ongoing smooth limited voters registration exercise as has been reported by the media so far.

As a matter of fact, we are ready for their worst since this has been their stock and trade any time the NPP is in power.

NDC's political propaganda have only made several negative impacts manipulating public opinion, spreading misinformation, and creating division among people.

NDC Propaganda has often swayed to influence negatively people's beliefs and actions without providing accurate or balanced information.

NDC is a lead architect of the lack of trust in political institutions, polarization within society, and the erosion of democratic values.

It is important to point out that NDC political polarization over the years, have had several dangers and negative energies on Ghana's democracy.

NPP Germany finds a publication that appeared on Ghanaweb recently very laughable.

One of such Propaganda is the news item that had the caption:

"If something happens blame the EC, judiciary, and clergy  NDC youth organiser".

NDC Youth Organizer, George Opare Addo, is reported to have recklessly unleashed this fire from his unguarded loner-self loose cannon.

He created the impression that the EC is bent on disenfranchising the new registrants per the new arrangements.

The NPP Germany would like to assure the NDC and the likes of Mr. George Opare Addo that the NPP Viral Positive Energy Movement "BreakingTheEight", has resonated largely with the Ghanaian voters who matter the most, as we prepare to enter the year 2024 Ghana Election Year.

NDC's extreme polarization is eroding trust in democratic institutions and processes.

When people believe that the system is rigged or biased, they may become disengaged from politics or even resort to extreme measures to express their frustrations.

Ghanaians should treat NDC and the whole John Mahama team as a walking contradiction and disposal trash bags.

We will continue to urge the good people of Ghana to vote NPP and break the 8 in order to retain the NPP so that the next NPP administration in the helm of governance will continue to give off its best.

We Say KUDOS to Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government!!!

Let The Truth Confound The Wise

Long Live Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo!!

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!!!

Long Live the Elephant Party!!!!

Kukruduuuu Eeeessshiii!!!!

Signed:

Nana Osei Boateng

NPP Germany Branch

Communications Director
French police have arrested five people, including a veteran jewel thief, in connection with an armed heist in broad daylight at a high-end jewellery store in central Paris.

On 1 August 2023, the gang made off with between 10 to 15 million worth of jewellery and watches from a Paris outlet of luxury brand Piaget.

At the time, prosecutors said that three people were directly involved in the early afternoon heist that involved two men dressed in suits and a woman wearing a dress.

At least one of them was armed, but nobody was hurt during the heist.

The store is located on the Rue de la Paix in the heart of the French capital, situated near the prestigious Place Vendome and home to several high-end jewellery stores.

Police arrested five suspects on Tuesday and Wednesday, among them 66-year-old Aissa Bendjaber, sentenced earlier this month to 12 years in prison for a 2016 robbery at another famous luxury goods house, Chopard.

On conditional release at the time of the verdict, he had failed to show up in court.

Bendjaber  nicknamed the "The Borsalino man" because he often wears a hat  is suspected of having participated in several heists totalling millions of euros worth of stolen goods.

Frequently targeted

The area around Place Vendome in central Paris is frequently targeted in robberies.

Only last April, three people on motorbikes robbed the Bulgari store in the neighbourhood, making off with several million euros worth of jewellery.

Piaget, founded in Switzerland, makes high-end jewellery and luxury watches with price tags that can reach several tens of thousands of euros.

It is a subsidiary of the Richemont group, which also owns several other luxury goods companies including Cartier, Baume and Mercier, Chloe, and Van Cleef and Arpels.
27.09.2023 LISTEN

Patricia Christabel Kyerematen, wife of independent presidential candidate hopeful Alan Kyerematen, has said it is more than possible that her husband can become the next president of Ghana.

According to Mrs Kyerematen, her husband is what Ghana needs at this time, as the signal is clear that Mr Kyerematen can assume the reigns of government.

Speaking to the media following her husbands resignation from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mrs Kyerematen stated: Youll agree with me that now the signal is clear and it is more than possible that this will happen.

Describing who her husband is, Mr Kyerematen said: He is a good man, hes an honest man, hes a man with vision, hes what Ghana needs at this time."

On the assertion that the former Trade Ministers decision to go independent is a purely suicidal move, Mrs Kyerematen stressed: Theres nothing impossible if God permits it.

Mr Kyerematen announced his resignation from the NPP, on Monday, 25 September 2023 at a press conference.

Mr Kyerematen announced he would be contesting the high office of President of the Republic of Ghana in the 2024 general elections as an independent presidential candidate.

His emblem is the butterfly with the motto: Ghana will rise again.

Mr Kyerematen said he took the decision because he has realised his sacrifices are not appreciated by the NPP.

Chronicling events that has led to his decision, the former Trades Minister stated in his speech: In 2007, I joined a distinguished group of seventeen (17) Presidential aspirants to contest in the presidential primaries of NPP. In that election, under very strange circumstances, the electoral process was truncated on the day of the election, on account of accusations levelled against me, of influencing the course of the elections. This strategy was designed to create disfavour against me, in an attempt to diminish my popularity and the massive support I enjoyed amongst the grassroot activists of the party".

In spite of this unfortunate occurrence, however, when the votes were finally counted, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo came first, and I was the runner-up. According to the rules of the electoral process, the two of us were programmed for a second run ballot. It was in response to this development, that I made my landmark declaration that, to avoid a further deterioration of peace in an already divided Party, I would make the supreme political sacrifice not to contest the run-off but rather support Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to contest as the flagbearer for NPP in the 2008 general elections".

Despite the sacrifice that I made to unite the party as referred to above, there were very serious post-primary attacks on my supporters all over the country, and an open show of hostility. Some of my supporters were victims of brutalities and continue to bear the scars of that treatment. I made several representations to the then leadership of the Party, drawing their attention to the rancorous and divisive behaviour of some elements in the Party.

Regrettably, however, my representations went unheeded. As a consequence, I gave notice of my decision to resign from the Party, in protest against the blatant alienation of my supporters, orchestrated by elements aligned to the leadership of the party".

The protests and reactions from the rank and file of the Party at that time from all over the country, compelled the then Chairman of the Party to constitute a Reconciliation Committee chaired by the then immediate past Chairman of the Party, Ambassador Samuel Odoi Sykes. The Committee upheld all my submissions and prevailed upon me to rescind my decision to resign, which I did, with the firm promise to address all the contentious issues I had raised in my notice of resignation".

As a loyal member of the Party, I accepted the plea of the party leadership and joined the campaign team of then Candidate Akufo-Addo all over the country, providing exceptional support to his campaign".

Unfortunately, however, all the promises made by the Party leadership were never fulfilled, and indeed the divisive and hostile attacks on my person and my supporters remained for several years thereafter, and have continued to date".

It is common knowledge that any Party member who is associated directly or indirectly with Alan, is treated with disdain and considered an outcast. I have endured all this resentment, and maintained my integrity within the Party throughout the past fifteen years.

-classfmonline.com
Members of the Ahafo North Concerned Farmers Association are accusing Newmont Ghana Gold Limited of peddling falsehoods about the recent arrest and detention of some members of the association.

These farmers, who have been battling Newmont over issues surrounding compensation payments for several years, told the media at Terchire, near Duayaw Nkwanta, in the Ahafo Region that the multi-national mining company had been adopting various tactics to infringe on their fundamental human rights, including wrongful arrests and detentions, but would remain resolute in seeking justice through all available legal means.

They were emphatic that Newmonts recent press release on the issue was packed with misinformation that seeks to portray Newmont as a law-abiding and responsible company, but it is a company whose operations in the Tano North District have been characterized by human rights violations of poor farmers.

Newmonts take

It would be recalled that on 13th September, 2023, Newmont issued a statement in which it stated that some 21 farmers had refused to abide by the outcome of the negotiations and agreements with the Resettlement and Crop Rate Negotiation Committees, jointly constituted by the impacted farmers, property owners, traditional leaders, as well as community and government representatives.

The mining giant accused these 21 farmers of being uncooperative despite extensive engagement and are demanding individual negotiation, a situation Newmont considers could result in potential rates beyond what was agreed by the Resettlement and Crop Rate Negotiation Committees

This disagreement between Newmont and the farmers led to the arrest and detention of some of these farmers, a situation which has further increased tension between the two parties.

Farmers concerns

Members of the association, whose membership currently stands at 84, say Newmonts posture in the process is intimidating and insisted that they would stand on their grounds until the right things are done with regards to the taking over of their lands and properties vis-a-vis the right compensations due them.

Addressing the media at Terchire, Mr. John Mensah, the Chairman of the Concerned Farmers Association, accused the chiefs of Yamfo, Susuanso, Afrisipakrom, Terchire and Adrobaa as well as some political leaders of stabbing them at the back by conniving with the company to abuse their rights with impunity.

According to him, based on a complaint by Newmont that it was being prevented from working on these farmers lands, a meeting was held at Duayaw Nkwanta at the instance of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources on December 8th, 2022 during which Newmont was asked to carry out a Land Parcel Survey to first identify the respective boundaries of landowners or lawful occupiers of land who will be affected by its activities.

Till date the company hasnt conducted this land parcel survey to identify and inform which of our members land will be impacted by their mining activities, but they have rather resorted to the practice of entering onto our members lands and destroying their farm properties without their consent, he stated.

Uncompensated lands

Mr. Mensah said Newmont admitted to the destruction of uncompensated land in Paragraph 6 of its media release on 13th September 2023 where it stated that There was an incidence where the companys exploration team inadvertently impacted one of the farms that had not yet been compensated for

He continued: We however want to draw the publics attention to the fact that this wasnt accidental but the usual unlawful mode of operation of the company. The company has entered the lands of about eight (8) members of the Concerned farmers group and unlawfully destroyed their farm properties without the consent of the landowners or lawful occupiers.

He mentioned some of the key properties destroyed by Newmont without any negotiation with landowners as teak trees, cocoa farms, palm trees and food crops.

I, John Mensah, am one of the victims of this atrocity. Other victims are Beatrice Mensah, Yaw Paul Asare, Abraham Amo, Silas Adjei Mensah, Gabriel Kofi Nelson, Abubakar Sadick and Emmanuel Kwame Marfo. We dare Newmont to provide proof of the landowners with whom they claim to have reached an amicable agreement to pay adequate compensation after trespassing onto their land to conduct their exploration activities, as stated in paragraph 6 of their media release, he said.

Please find below the full Statement by the Concerned Farmers Association, as read at their press conference at Terchire near Duayaw Nkwanta, Tano North:

Statement by the Concerned Farmers Association in response to Newmonts media release regarding the arrest and detention of some members of the Concerned Farmers Association. Terchire, Tuesday 26th September 2023.

We have found it necessary to make this statement to address the untruths spread by Newmont in its media release on September 13, 2023 in response to the arrest of members of the Concerned Farmers Association. The media release was packed with misinformation that seeks to portray Newmont as a law-abiding and responsive company, rather than a company whose operations in the Tano North District have been tarnished by human rights violations of affected farmers since its inception.

Access to lands of Members of Concerned Farmers Association

On December 8, 2022, at the invitation of the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Concerned Farmers met with a team representing the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources to act on a complaint from the Newmont Ahafo Mine alleging that the group-Concerned Farmers were preventing Newmont from working on the Concerned Farmers members lands. The Tano North Municipal Chief Executive hosted the meeting at Duayaw Nkwanta. The outcome of the said meeting was that the Minister would write to the parties for Newmont to carry out a Land Parcel Survey to first identify the respective boundaries of Landowners or lawful occupiers of land who will be affected by Newmonts activities. This decision was reached because the Concerned Farmers Association have about 84 members who own or occupy lands within the Tano North District. The identification of lands that would be impacted by Newmonts activities would be basis for further engagement with the affected farmers. The Concerned farmers group were represented by WACAM and CEPIL officials at the said meeting.

Instead of abiding by this decision, the company communicated to the members of the affected group that they would rather conduct a full built assets survey i.e., comprising enumeration of all farm properties and structures on ones land. This was vehemently refused by members of the Association as it wasnt the decision reached with the Ministers representatives. We however indicated our availability for the conduct of the land parcel survey. Subsequent to the meeting of the Concerned Farmers with the team from the ministry, some Chiefs, from Ahafo, the Ahafo regional Minister and the DCE of Tano North organised a meeting at the Tyco City Hotel in Sunyani on 26th January 2023 to seek the mandate of the concerned farmers to represent us in our engagement with Newmont. We declined the proposal from the Chiefs indicating to them that we had mandated CEPIL and Wacam to represent our interest.

Till date the company hasnt conducted this land parcel survey to identify and inform which of our members land will be impacted by their mining activities but they have rather resorted to the practice of entering onto our members lands and destroying their farm properties without their consent

Destruction of uncompensated lands by Newmont

The company has admitted to the destruction of uncompensated land in Paragraph 6 of its media release on 13th September 2023. It stated that There was an incidence where the companys exploration team inadvertently impacted one of the farms that had not yet been compensated for We however want to draw the publics attention to the fact that this wasnt accidental but the usual unlawful mode of operation of the company. The company has entered the lands of about eight (8) members of the Concerned farmers group and unlawfully destroyed their farm properties without the consent of the landowners or lawful occupiers. The destroyed properties comprise teak trees, cocoa farms, palm trees and food crops belong to John Mensah, Beatrice Mensah, Yaw Paul Asare, Abraham Amo, Silas Adjei Mensah, Gabriel Kofi Nelson, Abubakar Sadick and Emmanuel Kwame Marfo. We dare Newmont to provide proof of the landowners with whom they claim to have reached an amicable agreement to pay adequate compensation after trespassing onto their land to conduct their exploration activities, as stated in paragraph 6 of their media release.

Even though Newmont is aware that these farms are the primary source of livelihood and survival for these farmers, they have been callous to the needs and interest of the landowners/ farmers and destroyed them. These farms are the main source of income for these farmers, families and dependents and the loss of these lands has left them impoverished.

On occasions we exercised our constitutional right to protect our farms from destruction, the Company, in concert with the Tano North District Police, arrest and detain our members.

Newmont Peddling lies on Court Orders.

On September 4th, 2023, three (3) members of the Concerned farmers group were arraigned before the Circuit Court, Duayaw Nkwanta upon complaint by the company for trespassing and unlawful damage of property. As the matter is pending before the Honourable Court, well refrain from commenting on the incident. The accused persons were granted bail by the Court.

In Newmonts media release the company disrespected the Court by making a false statement that the Court directed the accused person not to go to the mining area until the final determination of the trial.

We have a certified true copy of the court proceedings from that day in our possession, and there was no such order from the Court. The Court's directives dealt with admitting the accused to bail. The court did not make a determination on whether or not the land in issue is a mining area. Newmonts claim that the Court ordered the accused to refrain from going to their farms or mining area/concession is false, and an afterthought by the company to justify the arrest and detention of four other members of the Association on September 6, 2023. This flagrant untruth and prejudicial statement by Newmont illustrates the company's disdain for not just the Court's orders, but also for the judiciary, our state institutions and the laws of the country.

Arrest and Detention of the farmers

The four persons arrested on 6th September 2023 and detained for two days by the Duayaw Nkwanta District Police, to date, do not know of any offence committed. Upon being granted police enquiry bail on 8th September 2023, Mr John Mensahs approximately sixteen (16) acres teak farm which he sought to protect from destruction had been cleared by the mining company. Clearly the company used his arrest and detention period as an appropriate means to destroy his teak farm.

It is necessary to bring to your attention that none of the arrested persons who owns or is a lawful occupier of a land including John Mensah that had their farm properties destroyed by Newmont occasioning the arrest, consented to giving his or her land/ crops out or negotiated any amount as compensation whatsoever for Newmont to take over their lands. Infact, that necessitated the need for the farmers to protect their farms from destruction when the company started clearing their lands. The company has no right to enter onto the land to undertake any of its mining activities as provided for in Section 13(9) of the Minerals and Mining Act ,2006, Act 703.

Section 13 (9) states Subject to sections 73 and 74(Compensation for disturbance of owners surface rights), a mineral right granted by the Minister under this section is sufficient authority for the holder over the land and entitles the holder to enter the land in respect of which the right is granted.

In this instance, these arrested farmers have not been compensated for the disturbance of their surface rights so Newmont cannot enter onto their lands to conduct mining activities or claim its a mining area.

In the case of Mr Mensah, he is the lawful occupier of a teak farm by a lease agreement he entered with the landowner as far back as 2005. He has had exclusive possession of the land and crops on the farmland as the lawful occupier of the land for the past 18 years. As the lawful occupier he also owns the teak trees subject to the lease agreement with the landowners.

Assuming without admitting that Newmont has paid compensation to the landowner, does the landowners have exclusive possession over the land and teak farm within the lease or tenancy period to assess and negotiate compensation for the teak trees? Absolutely not. It is therefore not correct that Mr Mensah proceeded to harvest all the mature teak tress in the farm as alleged by the company. We the members of the concerned farmers association will continue to adopt all legal means to protect our lands from destruction from the company and ensure that our members whose farm properties have been destroyed are fairly and adequately compensated as well.

Governments Intention to Compulsorily Acquire Lands for Mining and other related purposes

On or about June 2023, the Government of Ghana in a publication declared its intention to Compulsorily acquire some lands within the Tano North District for mining and other related uses. While government has started a process towards compulsorily acquiring some of the lands belonging to some members of the Concerned farmers association, no such lands as we write have been compulsorily acquired yet for the mining operations of Newmont in accordance with law. However, workers and agents of Newmont have entered onto lands belonging to some members of the Concerned Farmers Association and destroyed their farm properties. Although the Government published its intention to acquire land compulsorily in the affected communities in June 2023, there hasnt been any assessment or enumeration of crops/properties by the Lands Commission and the affected farmers to arrive at compensation amounts for the affected farmers. The destruction of these lands will leave the farmers with no basis or evidence to demand compensation payments to be made to them. This again shows the blatant disrespect and disregard of the laws of the land concerning land acquisition processes.

We wish to state that, members of the Concerned Farmers Association are responsible and law abiding people who have made substantial investment on our farms over the years, as such, we will always employ all lawful and legitimate means to protect our investment from any wanton destruction, while demanding respect for our rights and under the laws of Ghana notwithstanding the intimidation, harassment and bullying from Newmont and its agents.

Signed

Joseph Adu Yaw

Secretary, Concerned Farmers Association, Terchire
Saudi Arabia has said that it has decided to end light-touch oversight of its nuclear activities by the UN atomic watchdog and switch to full-blown safeguards, a change the agency has been demanding for years.

Saudi Arabia has a nascent nuclear programme that it wants to expand to eventually include activities like proliferation-sensitive uranium enrichment.

It is unclear where its ambitions end, since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said for years it will develop nuclear weapons if regional rival Iran does.

Riyadh has yet to fire up its first nuclear reactor, allowing its programme to still be monitored under the Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that exempts less advanced states from many reporting obligations and inspections.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has been calling on the dozens of states that still have SQPs to amend or rescind them, calling them a "weakness" in the global non-proliferation regime.

The IAEA has for years been in talks with Riyadh on making the switch to a so-called Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) for years.

"The kingdom has recently taken the decision to rescind its Small Quantities Protocol and to move to the implementation of a full-scope SCA," Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the IAEA's annual General Conference, speaking through an interpreter.

If Saudi Arabia were to introduce nuclear material into its first nuclear reactor, a low-power research reactor in Riyadh that is near completion, it would void the SQP and its exemptions from regular safeguards.

Despite that, its SQP is a sensitive issue given the fears of an arms race in the Middle East. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, but it is enriching uranium to such high purity that Western powers say there is no credible civil explanation.

Prince Abdulaziz did not say whether on top of a regular CSA Saudi Arabia planned to sign up to the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which allows for more wide-ranging and intrusive checks such as snap inspections.

Iran applied the Additional Protocol under its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers but stopped after then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the accord in 2018.

(With newsagencies)
Former Trade Minister Alan Kyerematen has wondered why the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is seeking to return to power when they have not been able to outline even one policy to help the country.

He said that he has not heard the NDC propose even one policy but are always preaching a comeback to power.

I have not heard not even one policy, how do you bring back NDC, to do what? he said in an interview with Berla Mundi on the New Day show on TV3 on Wednesday, September 27.

Although he has resigned from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to contest as an independent presidential candidate, he said the NPP has done a lot, but we have serious challenges with the economy.

Mr Kyerematen further said he wished to use the NPP as the vehicle to project and implement his vision for the country as president but he had to leave the party because of troubles.

He stated that he had been a strategic politician all these years and wanted the NPP to benefit from his ideas as the president of Ghana.

But at the moment, he said, he has to go directly to Ghanaians as an independent candidate to sell his vision to them.

I have been very stage about how I have positioned myself over the years, he said.

I would have wished to use the party but for various reasons, I have decided that I will go directly to the people of Ghana, he added.

Mr Kyeremanen who placed third in the super delegates conference of the NPP on August 26 announced his resignation from the party on Monday, September 25 to enable him to contest for the office of president as an independent presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.

This made it the second time he resigned from the NPP after he first did so in 2007 but later returned.

Mr Kyerematen said that he had come to the realisation that his contributions were no longer needed in the party hence his resignation.

He said this followed the harsh treatment meted out to his supporters by the party.

Persons associated with me are treated with disdain and outright outcast, Mr Kyerematen who placed third in the super delegates conference of the NPP held on August 26 said.

He accused the leadership of the NPP of skewing the internal elections in favour of one particular aspirant.

-3news.com
It is essential that you stop allowing your former enslaver to define the history of humanity. As the original human beings, only the Afrakan can define the history of humanity.

Archaeology proves Eniyan (complete homosapiens physiologically identical to modern humans) began AT LEAST 400,000 years ago (4-7 million if we include various early hominids) in the Great Lakes region of Central-East Africa. The Twa people of today (misnamed Pygmies) are the closest descendants of these original homosapiens.

It is crucial that you understand that homosapiens only lived in Afraka for the first 75% or more of human existence. In truth, there was no need to leave Afraka. It was protected on all sides by water, save for a tiny link in Sinai. There was no Sahara, just green pastures and great lakes full of fish and wildlife. Afraka was a paradise on Earth.

Nearby in Eurasia was the territory of the Neanderthal, a hominoid manbeast of great savagery and cannibalism. Thus, the original human route out of Africa (approximately 80,000 years ago when man first developed good boats to cross channels) was NOT to Mesopotamia or Asia Minor where the Neanderthal roamed, but via Ethiopia/Eritrea's sea channel with Sabaea (Yemen). From there, Twa human beings on small boats journeyed east along the coast to South India. Many of the Twa humans identical to their African ancestors in skin and hair texture, continued their coastal journey all the way to Thailand and down to Indonesia, eventually reaching Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the close islands of Melanesia.

However, those that stayed in South India eventually became isolated over time when the great migration out of Africa declined. By 40,000 years ago, these people in South India developed a popular trait of straight hair, though maintained the same African facial features and skin color. These people, ancestral to the Tamil (often referred to as Dravidian). They eventually settled nearby islands like Sri Lanka, and some of these sailors traversed the eastern Indian Ocean coast and arrived at Australia, where they grew in massive number. The Australian Aborigines are their descendants, and a more pure form of "Dravidian" appearance before Namu (misnamed "Aryan") invasion of India.

However, the emergence of Namu people, as well as the Shangtu (misnamed Mongoloid), did not begin until after 10,000 bce and the Last Glacial Period of the Ice Age. These massive ice sheets blocked the mountain range passes and the Namu and Shangtu's ancestors became completely isolated from South Asia where they originated from the Dravidians.

In central China, they developed into the Shangtu race, misnamed Mongoloids. They kept many typical African facial features like their Proto-Dravidian ancestors (flat broad noses) as well as the straight hair of Dravidians, but lost significant levels of melanin, going from dark brown to pale yellow.

In the region of northern Iran and the stans between the Caspian and Afghan mountains, the Dravidian hiking explorers became completely isolated as well when the last Ice Age's sheets blocked them from returning south. To spare themselves from cannibal Neanderthals, they intermixed with them (who were now low in number and had lost many people to Africans exterminating them). Via mixing with the Neanderthals, the Dravidians in the Caspian region inherited the Neanderthal's pale-beige (so-called olive) skin, long prominent noses, and excessively hairy bodies.

These mixed species people were called Namu by the Kemetic people because of their endlessly nomadic raiding lifestyle. They referred to themselves as "Aryan" which they wish to claim means "noble." However the accurate etymology of the word Aryan is actually a slur from Kemet, referring to them as Ab-Ra-'n, meaning "Without Ra's Divine Soul." The words Aryan, Ab-ra-ham, Brahmin (ab-ra-hm), and Arab all etymologically originate from this Kemetic slur against Neanderthal descendants.

The youngest of the races, the Oyinbo, are descendants of Namu who had managed to traverse north into Europe. By 4,000 bce, they were able to maintain large numbers in the peninsula that is now northern Germany and Denmark. Here, they were safe from the greatest wild beasts such as giant polar bears which ruled the ice sheets of Europe. Their isolation from other Namu and their greater proximity to the cold gave them some distinct features, such as loss of nearly all melanin in the hair and even eyes. What we called "blue" or "green" eyes is NOT an actual color of the eye, but the reflection of light from an eye lacking in melanin. These features became very common in the early Oyinbo people.

There is no such thing as a Caucasian, or Caucasian origin of Europeans. That is a myth the Oyinbo created to locate themselves in West Asia nearer the land of their Hebrew religion.

However, while the Sumerians (West Asia's first civilization) were Cushitic speakers with half Dravidian ancestry from the Indus, as were the Kanaanites and Sabaeans, the Hebrews were not of any Afrakan or even Dravidian lineage. The mythical biblical chronology of the Hebrew's origin states clearly that they were NOT indigenous to Kanaan (which they would colonize and turn into Israel). But that they came from the land around Mt. Arawat (northeastern Turkey). That region never had a primarily Afrakan presence ever, but was instead the homeland of the Neanderthal. Which is why the Hebrews later presence in Kanaan as colonizers does NOT make them the same Afro-Dravidian race as the Kanaanites or Babylonians. The Hebrew's cultural central myth is rooted in a Neanderthal-based heritage with Neanderthal values such as anti-nature, divine justification for genocide and slavery, scarcity, nomadic colonization over agricultural people, patriarchal structure, etc.

The story of the Hebrews-- which to be clear is based on myth, not history--nonetheless does not belong to any Afrakan race in West Asia. Instead, it is the allegorical Neanderthalian tale of the hairy beige Namu's invasion and colonization of West Asia from the Afro-Dravidian Kanaanites and Mesopotamians.

Give thanks to MaTseba.

MaTseba

MoKga-a-Bjwala

Edward Mitole, PhD

Professor of Development Studies and Dean of Faculty of African Renaissance Studies,

University of the State of the African Diaspora (USOAD)
When President Akufo Addos political campaign platform collapsed, capsized and somersaulted him off the stage twice in the build-up to the 2008 and 2012 general elections, many clean-minded Ghanaians suspected and doubted his intentions for the country as a presidential candidate.

For many citizens, God was speaking to Ghanaians in a sign language, that Ghana has no enemy than this man promising paradise on earth before us. Today, those who fingered him for nursing evil intentions in his bid to govern our dear mother Ghana as president, have been justified loud and clear. The economy is hell, and hes not yet ready to release us by our jugular vein: instead, he is scheming to foist upon us another calamity worse than him in the person of his humiliated vice president, Dr. Bawumia, who has mortgaged truth in leadership and declared war on honesty in the management of Ghanaians economy.

God shall surely deliver us from our national enemies. Amen! Theres certainly light at the end of the tunnel. Despair not, fellow Ghanaians.

The truth is that, the cock that crows early in the morning belongs to a particular household, but the voice or noise belongs to nearby households, and indeed, the whole community. Again, the chicken that is denied the opportunity to drink water, may create its own opportunity to pour it away. Meanwhile, its also true that the death of one mans chicken, would certainly garnish and add aroma to another mans light soup.

Without gainsay, what is happening in the New Patriotic Party, NPP, is surely going to impact us and our beloved country positively and tremendously. The country would soon be unchained from her economic shackles and manacles tightened by her passionate deconstructors and destroyers as the NPP shall soon explode and blow itself out of existence like the Karakatoa volcanic eruption of August 1883 in Indonesia, which blew the Karakatoa island out of existence 150 years ago.

The breakaway of Alan Kyaremanten is certainly a political volcanic eruption to explode and blow the NPP out of political existence and relevance. And who says the butterfly cannot have an impact?

According to Professor Edward Norton Lorenz, a mathematician who coined the butterfly effect, observed how the simple movement of the wings of a butterfly in the Amazonian jungle led to hurricane across entire Europe. The butterfly effect therefore postulates that, small things may have greater results. A reason why a simple wrong turning of a car in 1914, led to the first world war when the Arch Duke Fernand, heir to the then Austria-Hungarian throne was assassinated by a 19 year old young man.

You may call it Alans butterfly effect. But it is a mere political gimmick for now but would eventually serve as the foundation for the new NPP and overthrow the tyranny of President Akufo Addo. Alans butterfly effect is a political agenda to first and foremost mix Dr. Bawumias gari with sand, and obviously, like the proverbial chicken, to pour away the water he Kyaremanten could not get to drink from because of the obvious harassment meted out to his polling agents. Meanwhile, the former president, Mr. John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress, NDC, and most certainly Ghanaians, are going to be the greatest beneficiaries in this whole internal political hullabaloo and brouhaha within the NPP!

And for we as citizens and political onlookers, does this ongoing turmoil in the NPP surprise us? Actually, it is a big no; it doesnt. History teaches mankind that, those who live by the sword, shall perish by the sword. Evil begets evil, and violence begets violence.

Thus, those who cultivate pepper shall never harvest cocoa. Because the evil men do, live after them. This timeless and priceless karmic philosophy has indeed been what caused the rise and fall of president Akufo Addo whose maniacal desire to be president, has degenerated into national collapse and embarrassment. And really, men do rise and fall.

Towards the end of the movie series, Troy, the narrator refers men to winter wind: They rise and fall. Like Achilles and Hector of Greece and Troy, respectively, who were the best fighters and rose to their pinnacles in the art of ending human lives in both wars and single battles, were themselves introduced to the icy hands of death, every man that rises shall fall.

The master Jesus Christ however appears to have a different view: not all men that rise shall fall. For those men who lower themselves and have been raised by God shall not fall, but for those who try to rise above all other men in haughtiness, envy, and arrogance, shall indeed tumble, sag and fall before their time like that of the breasts of a young commercial sex trader. They fall before their time.

Thus Christ said: those who lower themselves in humility shall be elevated in status by God, and for those who elevate themselves in arrogance shall be suppressed, lowered, trampled upon, and humiliated by God.

Fellow Ghanaians, this is the situation of Ghana under Akufo Addo-Dr. Bawumia government and their boat-load of very corrupt, useless men, and plenty of acclaimed Yale and Harvard trained economic and financial idiots and charlatans who have brought nothing to Ghana but shame, pain, octopus of hardships, and have reduced Ghana to a poverty capital of the globe, and sending us back light-years.

That is, the crux of the ongoing political crass and the rapidity of Ghanas economic laa yamuutu fii-ha wa laa yahaya, is as a result of the NPPs satanic mindset of Ana Khayr in the management of the economy which has brought this humiliating suffering upon the nation.

As if that was not bad enough, the NPP did just anything to win political power. A reason why they have allegedly created DUMSOR during the Mahama regime, and has been claimed to have buried over 300 frogs with amulets forced into their months and sewed up which would be explained in the part two of this epistle.

Why would God have mercy upon such a nation if these claims turn out to be true? Why wont the economy find itself in this state of comatose and laa yamuutu fii-ha wa laa yahaya?

In the Quran, 87:13, God describes the punishment of the dwellers of hell as laa yamuutu fii-ha wa laa yahaya. Those who shall be cast into hell shall neither die nor live. God shall forbid that they die and when their skins shall be burnt-out, God shall create new ones for them so that they can continue to taste the pain and punishment of the fire (Quran 4:56).

As it stance, there is no oxymoronic description of the trauma of the ordinary Ghanaian citizens in the current economic mess than the above situation of those who shall occupy that evil abode: hell. In this contraption called economy, Ghanaians can neither live nor die, unless those who choose to kill themselves. And we are where we are today because of the twin evil of Juju politics and arrogance of knowledge of economic management these humiliated economic managers bragged of during their days in opposition.

Fellow Ghanaians should recall the NPP labeled the now obvious abled president, John Mahama, and the political party Ghana can boast of, the NDC, as incompetent. But like Satan in the Quran who became the accursed one because he taught he was better than Adam and hence refused to prostrate to Adam, those who claimed to have been better than former president Mahama, have been exposed, embarrassed, and tamed with their tails now in between their legs.

In the Quran, after God created Adam, He commanded all angels to prostrate to him (Adam). But all except Iblis (Lucifer) who refused to prostrate said I am better than him (Ana Khayr). This arrogance displayed by Satan and claiming to be better than others led to his eternal condemnation an damnation according to Islam.

Its embarrassing that today some thick skulls within the NPP still refer to president Mahama as incompetent despite the unprecedented economic mess they have created.

Actually, through my investigation into the origin of this derogatory label the Akufo Addo-led opposition employed against the NDC government, I have come to realize that, that label was motivated by what the Buhari-led APC adopted in the build-up to the 2015 general elections of Nigeria where the sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan was labelled as clueless! Throughout that electioneering period leading to the unseating of the PDP with its Umbrella symbol, the label, CLUELESS, was always drummed into the ears of the former president, Goodluck Jonathan. So, the NPP also took a pilot project to adopting something derogatory to smear campaign president Mahama and the National Democratic Congress, NDC, which symbol was also an Umbrella.

Unfortunately, however, unlike their Nigerian counterparts, the Buhari-led APC, who perhaps knew the meaning of the word clueless, what it stood for, and adopted it as a political campaign weapon against the Goodluck Jonathan-led PDP, the Nana Addo-led NPP went for a word (incompetent) they had zero understanding of.

With the skyrocketing economic mess and leadership failure engulfing the nation, is it not interesting that some leading members of the NPP still has the shameless audacity to refer to our incoming political and economic savior, former president John Dramani Mahama as incompetent?

Do these bunch of crooks and gangsters really understand what that word, incompetent, really means at all?

For the first time in the annals of our history, our inaugurating president plagiarized another presidents speech, embarrassing himself and the nation in the international news. Yet we were told that is really not incompetence.

For the first time in the history of our dear nation, the countrys currency was ranked as the worst performing currency in the whole wide world. Yet we were gagged not to call that incompetence because those who mismanaged the currency were trained abroad.

For the first time in the history of our dear nation, our economy was ranked the worst economy in the whole world. Ghanaians are silent because the Chairman of the Economic (mis)Management Team is a PhD holder in economics.

For the first in the history of our dear country, we have the nations apex Bank lose up to 60.9 billion. And the one who supervised this colossal lost has been left to continue with his failure because he has been trained at Harvard university.

For the first time in the history of Ghana, the public debt stock balloons to 575.7 billion with more than 70% ratio to Gross Domestic Product; for the first time in our history as a country, a reckless, merciless, useless, clueless, and very thoughtless government has borrowed more than twice what all past presidents have borrowed in 60 years, in just seven years.

Obviously, unless an accursed government fueled by greed and avarice, naughtiness, hatred, and envy of others (Mahama), as well as pride and arrogance of intellectual wherewithal the Nana Addo-led government boast of, no way would our economy have reached this goofing state.

Today, unless the unreasonable among us, indeed, the incompetent has become the competent, and the so-called competent has become super incompetent.

God does not like proud, arrogant, and boastful individuals. Ghanaians therefore have no option than to save themselves from this burdening leadership.

To Be Continued
Coming events cast their shadows. And indeed, it's predictable by even the novice soothsayer to forecast that Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanteng will denounce his Ghanaian Citizenship very soon.

It's no brainer for even a lotto forecaster to bet his last pesewa on it that Alan Kyeremanteng will baldly lose in the upcoming elections if he foolhardily contest as independent candidate.

What will he do then if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia Break The 8, and his stillbirth Butterfly Movement amass a paltry 1% of the total votes cast?

He will blame the sitting president, the Electoral Commission, The police Service, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), and possibly his wife and children.

Yes, no a Ghanaian will be absorbed from blame if Mr. Alan Kyeremanteng is drubbed in his elusive dream of waking up on the 7th of January 2025 to be crowned the president of Ghana.

What an unusual and inordinate calibre of a politician with such whining mentality Alan Kyeremanteng is?

When NPP was poised to BreakThe8 in 2008, it took his tussle with the party to thwart then candidate Nana Akuffo Addo's clear chances.

This time he has rared his ugly head again with "I'm cheated, I'm quitting, I'm starting my movement. .." and bla bla bla.

With our observance of Mr. Alan Kyeremanteng, we the devotees of Nana and Bawumia Free SHS Graduates Association (NBGA), will say without equivocation that he harbours malicious intent to stymie the NPP's quest to break the eight-year jinx of alternating power between NDC and the elephant party.

It's a good riddance he's out of our Kukurudu fraternity. It's time to jubilate this his second exit from the party.

Our party's Secretary Mr. Justin Kodua Frimpong was very charitable to Mr. Kyeremanteng in his response to the allegations the former Trade and Industry Minister diabolically spewed against the NPP as he sought not to quit it in peace but to leave it in pieces.

But for us at NBGA, beneficiaries of the NPP's free SHS programme, our founder and Chairman Mr. Mark Ansu encourages us not to hold back grudges. We've resolved to match Mr. Kyeremanteng boot for boot in his attempts to smear-campaign the NPP in order to splinter our front so the NDC will capitalise on such fragments.

The party hierarchy should be busy about the job to BreakThe8. They should leave Alan Kyeremanteng and his kitchen cabinet of fiendish henchmen to engage in a warfare.

We will protect the party we've sworn allegiance to.

We'll fight tooth and nail to see NPP succeed.

#NBGA #OBAATANPA

#BreakThe8

#It'sPossible

Released by NBGA Communication Team.

+233(0)249542111

Chairman

+39 342 353 8595
27.09.2023 LISTEN

As Ghana joined the international community again this year to celebrate the International Day of Sign Languages on the 23rd of September on the theme, A World Where Deaf People Can Sign Anywhere, I wish to seize the opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of the language.

The 23rd of September was first marked in 2018 as the International Day for Sign Languages during the International Week of the Deaf, first observed in 1958. The date marks the day on which the World Federation of the Deaf was formed in 1951 to preserve cultural diversity and sign language as a prerequisite for protecting the human rights of the over 70 million deaf people across the globe.

In a world that is becoming increasingly diverse and interconnected, the importance of inclusivity cannot be overstated. Among the many marginalized communities, the deaf community often faces unique challenges in their quest for equal opportunities and recognition. One crucial aspect of fostering inclusivity for the deaf community is the recognition and promotion of sign language as a legitimate language. It must be emphasized that Sign Language is not merely a communication tool for the deaf but a vibrant language that plays a pivotal role in ensuring their full participation and inclusion in society. This article seeks to explore the significance of sign language in promoting absolute inclusion within society.

The deaf community is a culturally rich and diverse group that shares a common experience of hearing impairment. However, it is essential to recognize that deaf culture is not defined by its disability; rather, it is a vibrant culture with its language, traditions, and values. Sign language is at the heart of this culture, serving as the primary means of communication among deaf individuals.

In addition, it must be understood that Sign Language is a Language of its own. One of the most common misconceptions about sign language is that it is a universal system of gestures used by deaf people. There are numerous sign languages around the world, each with its unique grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. The American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL), French Sign Language (LSF) and the Ghanaian Sign Language (GSL) are just a few examples. These languages are just as complex and expressive as spoken languages, with their nuances and regional variations. The ensuing paragraphs demonstrate how inclusion can be promoted using sign language.

Sign language is a crucial tool for providing deaf individuals with equal access to information. It enables them to communicate effectively, access education, healthcare, and employment opportunities, and engage fully in their communities. Inclusion means ensuring that information and services are accessible to all, and sign language plays a vital role in achieving this goal. This is further emphasized in Article 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, stressing the need for accessible information for all.

Sign language serves as a tool for language development. Just as spoken language is essential for cognitive and emotional development in hearing individuals, sign language is equally vital for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It is their native language and the foundation of their communication skills. Recognizing sign language as a legitimate language promotes cognitive development and self-esteem among deaf individuals, empowering them to succeed in various aspects of life.

As a way of cultural preservation, sign language is intertwined with deaf culture, and its preservation is essential for maintaining the identity and heritage of the deaf community. Embracing sign language helps bridge the gap between deaf and hearing communities, fostering a more inclusive and diverse society where deaf culture is celebrated and respected.

There is no doubt that inclusive education is a cornerstone of building an inclusive society across the globe, and sign language is one of the vehicles for driving this, as it plays a pivotal role in ensuring that deaf students have access to quality education. It allows them to participate fully in classrooms alongside their hearing peers, reducing barriers to learning and promoting diversity in educational settings.

Regarding employment opportunities, sign language proficiency opens doors to employment opportunities for deaf individuals. Employers who recognize the value of a diverse workforce and provide accommodations for deaf employees contribute to a more inclusive job market. Moreover, deaf entrepreneurs and professionals often thrive when they have the support and resources to communicate in sign language.

In summation, sign language is not merely a tool for communication but a fundamental aspect of the identity and culture of the deaf community. By recognizing the importance of sign language and promoting its use, we can take significant strides toward absolute inclusion. Inclusive societies value diversity and provide equal opportunities for all, regardless of their abilities or backgrounds. Supporting sign language as a legitimate language is not only a step towards inclusivity but also a celebration of the richness and diversity of human expression. As we continue to progress towards a more inclusive world, sign language must be at the forefront of our efforts to ensure that people who are deaf and hard of hearing are part of our everyday communication with the spirit of leaving no one behind.

Author:

Collins Yao Losu

The Disability Consultant & Inclusion Manager for Azubi Africa.
Former member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alan Kyerematen has stressed that he is the right man to lead Ghana as president to bring needed change for the development of the country.

Speaking to TV3 on Wednesday, September 27, the former Minister for Trade and Industry said there is no point in bringing back the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to power.

He said the NDC has nothing to offer Ghanaians and that is why even in the midst of the challenges facing the country, the party has not been able to propose policies.

I have not heard not even one policy, how do you bring back NDC, to do what? Alan Kyerematen said as he urged Ghanaians to reject the party in the 2024 General Election.

In his bid to become president of Ghana, Alan Kyerematen on Monday announced a breakaway from the NPP.

At a Conference in Accra, he said he would contest for president in the 2024 General Election as an Independent presidential candidate.

I wish to use this platform to announce that I am honourably resigning with immediate effect from the New Patriotic Party to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana in the 2024 General Elections, as an Independent Presidential Candidate.

To actualise this goal, I will establish and lead a new MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE in Ghana. The brand logo for the MOVEMENT is the Monarch Butterfly, which politically symbolizes change and transformation, hope, and positivity, Alan Kyerematen announced at his conference.

The former Trade Minister explained that one of the major pillars of his presidential ambition is an assurance to the Ghanaian people to change the political status quo by moving Ghana beyond the duopoly of the NDC and the NPP.

He explained This will break divisive partisanship in governance in Ghana, and bring an end to the winner takes all political syndrome."
27.09.2023 LISTEN

The National Democratic Congress (NDC), one of Ghana's prominent political parties, has had the privilege of having John Dramani Mahama as a prominent figure within its ranks. As a former President of Ghana, a dedicated party member and a flag bearer of the party, Mahama's contributions have earned him a special place in the hearts of many NDC supporters. In this article, we will explore the reasons why the NDC can take pride in John Dramani Mahama.

Distinguished Leadership: John Dramani Mahama's presidency from 2012 to 2017 marked a period of distinguished leadership for Ghana. During his tenure, he steered the nation through various challenges, displaying a commitment to the welfare of the Ghanaian people.

Developmental Achievements: Under Mahama's leadership, Ghana witnessed significant infrastructural development, including the construction of roads, hospitals, schools, and other critical infrastructure projects. These developments contributed to the socio-economic growth of the country.

Stewardship During Challenging Times: Mahama's presidency coincided with challenging energy generation, including intermittent power supply, "dumsor". His administration managed to navigate these challenges with resilience and pragmatism.

Education Reforms: Mahama's government implemented educational reforms, including the introduction of the Progressive Free Senior High School (PFSHS) policy, which aimed to provide access to quality education for all, a move in line with the NDC's commitment to accessible education.

Promotion of Social Justice: Throughout his political career, Mahama has consistently advocated for social justice, championing the rights of marginalized groups, and emphasizing policies that promote inclusivity and equity, values that align with the NDC's core principles.

Commitment to Democracy: John Dramani Mahama's respect for democratic principles and the rule of law was evident during the 2016 presidential election when he gracefully accepted the election results despite its contentious nature. This commitment to democratic ideals is in line with the NDC's values.

International Diplomacy: As a former President, Mahama represented Ghana on the international stage with distinction, engaging in diplomatic efforts that advanced the nation's interests and reputation.

Party Loyalty: Mahama's unwavering loyalty to the NDC is a testament to his commitment to the party's growth and success. He has consistently played a pivotal role in the party's activities and campaigns.

Electoral Leadership: His role as the NDC's flag bearer in multiple presidential elections has galvanized the party's base and contributed to competitive and spirited election campaigns.

Vision for Ghana: Mahama's vision for Ghana, characterized by inclusivity, good governance, and socio-economic progress, resonates with the NDC's aspirations for the nation.

In conclusion, John Dramani Mahama's contributions to the National Democratic Congress and Ghana as a whole are significant sources of pride for the NDC. His leadership, commitment to democracy, developmental achievements, and unwavering loyalty to the party have left an indelible mark on both the NDC and the nation. As Ghana's political landscape evolves, Mahama's legacy within the NDC continues to inspire party members and supporters, reminding them of the potential for positive change and progress in the country.

Michael Agbesi Kelly
Demonstrations and protests have played a pivotal role in shaping the socio-political landscape of Ghana. From pre-independence struggles to contemporary movements, these expressions of public dissent have had a profound significance in advancing democracy, promoting social change, and amplifying the voices of the Ghanaian people.

Historical Context

Ghana's journey to independence from British colonial rule was marked by numerous demonstrations and civil disobedience campaigns led by iconic figures like Kwame Nkrumah. These protests culminated in Ghana becoming the first African nation to gain independence in 1957. Demonstrations were the means through which Ghanaians asserted their right to self-determination.

Advancing Democracy

In post-independence Ghana, demonstrations have continued to serve as a critical instrument in the democratic process. They provide a platform for citizens to voice their grievances, hold leaders accountable, and demand transparency and good governance. Demonstrations have led to electoral reforms, the protection of human rights, and the strengthening of democratic institutions.

Amplifying Citizen Voices

Demonstrations serve as a megaphone for marginalized and vulnerable groups in society. Issues such as social inequality, women's rights, environmental concerns, and labor rights have found resonance through protests. Groups like women's movements, students, and trade unions have used demonstrations to demand justice and equality.

A Catalyst for Social Change

Demonstrations have played a vital role in sparking social change in Ghana. The "Dumsor Must Stop" movement, for instance, mobilized citizens to protest against erratic power supply, leading to improvements in the energy sector. Similarly, the "#FixTheCountry" campaign highlighted issues of economic hardship and governance, pushing policymakers to address pressing issues.

Peaceful Expression

Ghana has a history of peaceful demonstrations, often characterized by a spirit of unity and non-violence. Demonstrators have adhered to principles of peaceful protest, reinforcing Ghana's reputation as a stable democracy in a turbulent region. The peaceful nature of these demonstrations has garnered international attention and respect.

Challenges and Concerns

Despite the positive impacts, demonstrations in Ghana have faced challenges such as sporadic violence, excessive use of force by security forces, and disruptions to daily life. Balancing the right to demonstrate with the need for public order and safety remains an ongoing challenge.

In conclusion, demonstrations in Ghana have a profound significance in shaping the nation's democratic journey and advocating for social change. They embody the spirit of civic engagement, enabling citizens to voice their concerns, hold leaders accountable, and contribute to the country's growth and development. However, it is crucial that these demonstrations continue to be conducted peacefully and with respect for the rule of law to ensure their continued significance and positive impact on Ghana's society.

Michael Agbesi Kelly
27.09.2023 LISTEN

There is a biblical truth inscribed in the Scripture which says To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die  Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2. I have also deduced that there is a time to unite and a time to break away.

Truthfully, the fact cannot be denied that Honorable Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen has been one of the strong pillars in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) since 1992. His financial assistance to the party cannot be glossed over. His gentleness, political and ministerial appointments were quite significant. Therefore, his continued membership to the party would have been so precious and gainful. And no one should jubilate over his resignation and exit from the NPP.

Unfortunately, he may perhaps be acting deliberately and has refused to evaluate the disaster that would cause his (now) former party as he quitted; maybe he has decided to pull down the NPP with the formation of a new party as his strategy to punish the NPP for the pain caused to him. Again, he is old enough to have witnessed in 1979 the circumstances that led to the disintegration of the then Progress Party (PP) when the late Victor Owusu (an Ashanti) was elected to be the presidential candidate for the PP, but the late William Ofori Atta (an Akyim) decided to fall out of the PP and formed the United National Convention (UNC). If the late William Ofori Atta had been so patient and supported the late Victor Owusu in his bid as the Presidential candidate, the PP would have won the election against Dr. Hilla Liman. But the late William Ofori Attas parochial interest collapsed the PP. Ironically, the family and ethnic sentiments in some people including our current president, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, sabotaged the presidential ambition of Victor Owusu and vehemently campaigned for Dr. Hilla Liman; consequently, Victor Owusu lost the 1979 election.

Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen should note and reflect on the Akan proverb that: If you cut your own tongue, roast it sumptuously and chew it, you have not eaten any good meat. Therefore, if he has the intention to punish the NPP because of what he may consider as the ill-treatment from a some small group of people at the top hierarchy of the party, then he should tarry a bit to keep away from repeating the sad political history of PP in 1979. Furthermore, he should look to God and avoid the nemesis of vengeance. I will personally propose to him to seek direction and advice from our former president, H.E. John Agyekum Kuffour, who happens to be his mentor. My dear Hon. Alan Kyerematen, I dont think that you wish to end your political career after 2024 election; but if you rightly want to end your political ambition after the 2024 election, then good bye for now.

We should all note that political partys system of getting position is not by heredity. It does not operate like our traditional instrument where the succession plan is somehow predetermined. Even with that if the kingmakers feel that the next successor does not have the traditional dexterity to become the head, they can skip him and grant the leadership to a younger but brilliant royal. When that happens, he cannot veto against that final decision by the kingmakers; again, he cannot insistently claim that because it was his turn, he should forcefully mount the throne by all means. With this, I beg to state that the slogan of the campaign team of Alan Kyerematen which went as: Aduru me so was inappropriate. When he was given the nod as a minister, his gentle demeanor pinned him to the background so he could not project and sell himself as a potential and attractive presidential figure. Well, his exit from the NPP still makes the party extraordinary competitive against the incompetent opposition party.

Even though Mr. Kyerematen is gone, members of the NPP should never be perturbed at all. I like the Akan adage that goes as if somebody decides to give you a heavy knock on your head, just decide to maintain a firm grip of your mandibles to nullify the dangerous effect of the knock. Going by the political performance of our fourth republic, if Ghanaians would be very honest to ourselves in our evaluation, then the conclusion is that there is no other alternative party that can redeem Ghana to make Ghanaians more comfortable in our living conditions except the NPP.

It is a true fact that Alans exit from the NPP would reduce the number of votes of the party, especially that of the Ashanti region, but the partys top hierarchy should design an efficient campaign strategy; and with strenuous work, we would maintain our normal maximum votes. Nobody should lose hope; breaking the eight is very possible. Many people will bow their heads in shame and their parochial interest to sink the NPP, just as it happened in 1979 will never materialized. All efforts to avoid another split after the November 4 internal election to elect our Presidential flag-bearer should be put in place.

The NPP has done so much than any other political party in Ghana including that of Dr. Nkrumahs CPP (considering the abundant resources that were in Nkrumahs custody); ironically, the partys blatant refusal to inform Ghanaians about her achievements is kicking negatively against her. This is the sad and weak side of the NPP. Look at how some people printed a green book to falsely depict projects that were non-existing, claiming unwarranted credit for themselves. Please, NPP should let the people know; if you dont blow your horns, nobody will blow it for you. Marvelously, the achievements of the Nana Addo/Bawumias administration are unprecedented considering the worlds economic hardships which emanated from 2019 till date.

All nooks and corners in Ghana should be made to be aware of the numerous projects being undertaken by this government; all the social interventions implemented; road construction; sporting amenities; expansion of senior high school projects; TVET; employments created; constant supply of electricity; dumsor eradicated; and on and on. I bet you, if the incompetent opposition party was able to make these achievements, people on other planets would have heard it.

Finally, it appears that our listening President is now developing dimmed ear-drums. His reactions to genuine demands from members of parliament is becoming unimpressive. His Excellency has more than one year to hand over, so until the race is over, he still in control.

Long live, Ghana.

Long live, NPP.

Long live, all Presidential Aspirants.

Lets all support the winner who emerges on November 4.
You should count yourself lucky to have a bed assigned you while on admission at Daboya Health Center in the Savannah Region.

This is because the health facility faces an acute shortage of bed. Healthcare givers have been compelled by the situation to resort to hourly discharge of in-patients due to inadequate beds.

Whereas some of the admitted patients wait for their turn on benches, others have no option but to receive treatment in plastic chairs.

Hospital beds play an important role in healthcare by assisting patients to obtain optimal comfort.

However, its absence has a detrimental impact on the health of patients.

This phenomenon has become a major worrying situation for in-patients at the Daboya and Mankarigu health centers.

At the Daboya Health Centre, a patient on admission will be fortunate to get a bed to lie on.

Nurses have to do hourly discharge of patients to make way for others who are waiting on benches.

Those whose conditions are critical take over the beds with those with mild conditions made to sit in plastic chairs.

Kwame Ebenezer is a nurse practitioner at the Daboya health Centre and he laments the situation is dire.

One of our main challenges is the bedding situation because you have cases you have to detain and take care of and the question is where does the patient lie?

We have to resort to a situation whereby someone will lie for two hours, when you stabilize the situation then you discharge so is more like a shifting thing

Issahaku Ramatu, a resident of Daboya was compelled to take her infusion in a plastic chair because she could not get a bed to lie on.

I was told the beds were full and needed to wait for some time for them to discharge someone and I couldn't wait so I opted to sit in this plastic chair. How can you be well in this situation?

Emmanuel Osei has been working at the Daboya health facility over the past three years.

According to him, the bedding situation is detrimental to healthcare delivery.

The situation even looks dire at the Mankarigu Health Centre.

Here, some patients receive treatment under trees.

The Daboya and Mankargu health centres all serve as referral centres within the North Gonja District.

With an average daily admissions of more than 15 patients for each of the facilities, the availability of beds for use by patients, still remains a challenge.

For patients, relatives and residents, the situation is frustrating.

Our MP is a deputy minister of health and we don't know his seriousness level on this issue.

In a telephone interview, MP for the area Alhaji Asei Seini, who is a Deputy Minister of Health, described the situation as unfortunate but assured that beds would be deployed to the facility in a weeks time.

I distributed some beds a few days ago and still have more at the central medical store in Accra but I think the challenge is the space to keep them. I will dispatch the other beds within a week to address the entire bedding situation.

We are facing this challenge be sit here is no hospital but with the springing up of the agenda 111 Hospital, we shall soon overcome these challenges.

The Sustainable Development Goal 3 targets to achieve universal health coverage, including access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all by 2030.

But issues like no-bed syndrome will derail the country's health gains and may further widen the gap towards achieving quality health goal.

3news
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia says the Government will support Ghanaian electric vehicle assembling firm, Solar Taxi, to scale up its production.

He said the E-mobility company's vision was in tandem with the Government's agenda of promoting the use of electric-based transport system in Ghana to reduce greenhouse gases and ensure cheaper transportation cost.

It was also in line with the world's plan to transition from the use of fossil fuel to renewable energy sources.

We'll support you, you can count on us.We will open the channels and remove the bottlenecks to scale up. This is not about you, it's about us as a nation, Vice President Bawumia said.

Dr Bawumia gave the assurance when he paid a familiarisation visit to the premises of Solar Taxi at Laterbiokoshie, Accra, on Wednesday.

The Vice President toured the company's assembling plant and interacted with its engineers, of which 90 per cent were females.

The company also transported Dr Bawumia and his entourage on its 34-seater electric bus.

Vice President Bawumia said it was possible for a e-mobility company in a developing nation like Ghana to leapfrog those in advanced countries and was optimistic that with the necessary support Solar Taxi could make a headway in leading the charge in the use of electric vehicles in Ghana and Africa at large.

The Vice President stated that high cost of petrol and diesel played major roles in hikes of transportation cost in the country, hence promoting the use of electric vehicles would drastically reduce the cost of transportation and create jobs for the youth.

Dr Bawumia said the government was in the process of putting in place a e-mobility policy framework to guide the use of electric vehicles and was considering inputs from various stakeholders.

He urged the heads of the State Transportation Company Limited, Metro Mass Transit and Bus Rapid Transit System (Aayaloloo) to consider partnerships with Solar Taxi, to convert their fossil fuel-based buses into electric ones to reduce their expenditures on petroleum products.

Mr Jorge Kwadwo Appiah, the Chief Executive Officer, Solar Taxi, said the company started operations in Ghana in 2018 and had so far supplied 500 electric vehicles onto the Ghanaian market.

There were about 460 motorbikes and some tricycles in the northern parts of the country.

He said lack of funds had been a major setback on its ability to scale up production and thus, called for government's support and potential partnerships with state agencies.

He said the company had a plan of establishing an electric vehicle plant in Prampram and, thus appealed for tax incentives from the government.

In the next three to five years, he said, it would like to have 10,000 electric vehicles on the Ghanaian market and create 10,000 jobs.

Currently, it rents out electric vans, motorbikes and tricycles to individuals and corporate entities.

The company also have a ride hailing platform that provide vehicles for drivers on daily basis with some earning GHc300.00 a day and GHC3,000 per month.

GNA
Minority Caucus in Parliament has chastised the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for increasing the cost of renal dialysis from GHS380 to GHS765.42, describing the move as illegal and outrageous.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, the Minority Caucus spokesperson on health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, said that the hospital cannot set its own fees and charges without parliamentary approval.

Korle-Bu is a public institution so they cannot set their own fees and charges and any charge should come through Parliament through the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of course, I am also a member of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee and I dont know of any such outrageous amount approved for the charge for dialysis and so any such fees that is being charged in Korle-Bu is strictly illegal and they must stop with immediate effect, he said.

Akandoh also urged the facility to focus on providing quality healthcare to Ghanaians and not fixate on making profits.

The main objective of a public health facility is not profit-making. The main objective of every public health facility in this country is to provide quality healthcare to the people and not profit-making, he said.

Akandoh added that the Minority Caucus will be compelled to visit the hospital to ascertain the situation if the outrageous charge is not halted by Monday, October 2.

If they do not stop, we will be there by Monday to have first-hand information and from there, we will have to haul the Minister of Health before the Subsidiary Legislation Committee to come and answer some questions because this is highly unacceptable, it is unconscionable, and we must not entertain it, he said.

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Entrepreneur Universe Bright Group Company Profile

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Entrepreneur Universe Bright Group, through its subsidiaries, provides digital marketing consultation services in the Hong Kong and People's Republic of China. It offers consulting, sourcing, and marketing services. The company was formerly known as REE International, Inc and changed its name to Entrepreneur Universe Bright Group in April 2020.

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Ashburton Jersey Ltd lessened its holdings in The Charles Schwab Co. (NYSE:SCHW  Free Report) by 1.6% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 147,002 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 2,456 shares during the period. Charles Schwab makes up approximately 4.1% of Ashburton Jersey Ltds portfolio, making the stock its 12th biggest holding. Ashburton Jersey Ltds holdings in Charles Schwab were worth $8,332,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of SCHW. Cloverfields Capital Group LP lifted its stake in shares of Charles Schwab by 11.5% during the 1st quarter. Cloverfields Capital Group LP now owns 50,785 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,660,000 after buying an additional 5,246 shares in the last quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC grew its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 39.4% in the first quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 25,007 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,328,000 after purchasing an additional 7,073 shares in the last quarter. Bard Financial Services Inc. raised its stake in shares of Charles Schwab by 372.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bard Financial Services Inc. now owns 24,475 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,387,000 after purchasing an additional 19,300 shares during the period. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. boosted its stake in Charles Schwab by 46.0% in the 1st quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. now owns 14,668 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $768,000 after purchasing an additional 4,618 shares during the period. Finally, Avantax Planning Partners Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Charles Schwab by 53.7% in the first quarter. Avantax Planning Partners Inc. now owns 7,724 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $405,000 after buying an additional 2,697 shares in the last quarter. 81.61% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Charles Schwab Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE SCHW traded up $0.30 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $54.50. The stock had a trading volume of 3,413,517 shares, compared to its average volume of 16,418,270. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $61.20 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $56.31. The Charles Schwab Co. has a 1 year low of $45.00 and a 1 year high of $86.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 0.39 and a current ratio of 0.39. The firm has a market cap of $96.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.92.

Charles Schwab Dividend Announcement

Charles Schwab ( NYSE:SCHW Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 18th. The financial services provider reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.71 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $4.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.61 billion. Charles Schwab had a net margin of 33.15% and a return on equity of 27.54%. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 8.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.97 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that The Charles Schwab Co. will post 3.24 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 11th were given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.83%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 10th. Charles Schwabs payout ratio is 29.15%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Raymond James cut their price target on shares of Charles Schwab from $77.00 to $72.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday, September 18th. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of Charles Schwab from $70.00 to $64.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Charles Schwab from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, July 28th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price objective on shares of Charles Schwab from $70.00 to $74.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 19th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on Charles Schwab from $46.00 to $53.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 15th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $72.28.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 75,760 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.60, for a total transaction of $5,045,616.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 59,672,778 shares in the company, valued at $3,974,207,014.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Peter B. Crawford sold 3,792 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.31, for a total value of $217,319.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 44,725 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,563,189.75. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 75,760 shares of Charles Schwab stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.60, for a total value of $5,045,616.00. Following the sale, the chairman now owns 59,672,778 shares in the company, valued at $3,974,207,014.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 159,599 shares of company stock worth $10,542,469. 6.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Charles Schwab

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The Charles Schwab Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a savings and loan holding company that provides wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services. The company operates in two segments, Investor Services and Advisor Services.

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Bank of Queensland Limited (OTCMKTS:BKQNF  Get Free Report) was down 18.7% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $3.68 and last traded at $3.68. Approximately 300 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 57% from the average daily volume of 700 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.53.

Bank of Queensland Trading Down 18.7 %

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $4.53 and a 200-day moving average of $4.58.

About Bank of Queensland

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Bank of Queensland Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial products and services in Australia. The company operates in Retail Banking, BOQ Business, and Other segments. It offers personal banking services comprises savings and term deposits, and transactional accounts; debit and credit cards; home, personal, and car loans; and travel, home and content, landlord, and car insurance, as well as investment services comprising online share trading services, and self-managed superannuation funds.

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BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust (NYSE:BTA  Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 79,500 shares, a growth of 309.8% from the August 31st total of 19,400 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 37,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.1 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BTA. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust by 4.5% in the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 41,048 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $481,000 after acquiring an additional 1,783 shares during the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its stake in BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust by 18.9% in the second quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 12,903 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $125,000 after acquiring an additional 2,054 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. acquired a new stake in BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust in the second quarter valued at $36,000. Osaic Holdings Inc. lifted its stake in BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust by 69.9% in the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 11,617 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $66,000 after acquiring an additional 4,779 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust by 41.1% in the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 17,156 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $171,000 after acquiring an additional 4,993 shares during the last quarter.

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BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust Stock Performance

BTA traded down $0.17 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $8.93. 94,438 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 39,028. BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust has a 1-year low of $8.65 and a 1-year high of $10.61. The stocks 50-day moving average is $9.57 and its two-hundred day moving average is $9.70.

BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust Cuts Dividend

About BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust

The firm also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.043 per share. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 14th.

(Get Free Report)

BlackRock Long-Term Municipal Advantage Trust is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc It is managed by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets of the United States. It uses financial derivatives to invest in municipal obligations. The fund primarily invests in long-term municipal bonds with a maturity of more than ten years at the time of investment.

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Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltd decreased its position in shares of OUTFRONT Media Inc. (NYSE:OUT  Free Report) by 21.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 748,759 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 200,000 shares during the quarter. Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltd owned 0.45% of OUTFRONT Media worth $11,761,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in OUTFRONT Media by 16.4% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,900,724 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $393,432,000 after purchasing an additional 3,643,500 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. grew its holdings in OUTFRONT Media by 3.2% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 19,931,847 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $566,663,000 after acquiring an additional 610,565 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in OUTFRONT Media by 0.5% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 5,922,858 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $96,128,000 after acquiring an additional 28,388 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in OUTFRONT Media by 0.3% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,482,371 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $88,979,000 after acquiring an additional 13,718 shares during the period. Finally, Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP boosted its position in OUTFRONT Media by 51.0% in the 1st quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP now owns 4,348,518 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $70,576,000 after purchasing an additional 1,468,759 shares in the last quarter.

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OUTFRONT Media Price Performance

OUTFRONT Media stock traded down $0.17 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $9.88. The company had a trading volume of 895,494 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,106,361. OUTFRONT Media Inc. has a 12-month low of $9.84 and a 12-month high of $21.65. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $12.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $14.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.21, a current ratio of 0.58 and a quick ratio of 0.58. The company has a market capitalization of $1.63 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.96, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.74.

OUTFRONT Media Dividend Announcement

Insider Transactions at OUTFRONT Media

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 1st will be given a $0.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 31st. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.15%. OUTFRONT Medias dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -47.24%.

In other news, EVP Clive A. Punter acquired 9,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, August 18th. The shares were bought at an average price of $11.12 per share, for a total transaction of $100,080.00. Following the acquisition, the executive vice president now owns 174,647 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,942,074.64. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 0.95% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Barrington Research decreased their target price on shares of OUTFRONT Media from $24.00 to $16.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 11th. Oppenheimer cut OUTFRONT Media from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on OUTFRONT Media from $19.00 to $18.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded OUTFRONT Media from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $20.00 to $14.00 in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Finally, TheStreet cut OUTFRONT Media from a c- rating to a d+ rating in a research report on Monday, September 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $16.50.

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About OUTFRONT Media

(Free Report)

OUTFRONT leverages the power of technology, location and creativity to connect brands with consumers outside of their homes through one of the largest and most diverse sets of billboard, transit, and mobile assets in North America. Through its technology platform, OUTFRONT will fundamentally change the ways advertisers engage audiences on-the-go.

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OZARK  You soldiers are heroes to me, said John A. Junior Galloway as he scanned the crowd attending the formal dedication of the military mural in Ozark Tuesday morning. I salute you.

Galloway served as battalion command sergeant major of the historic 131th Armored Tank Battalion based in the citys now demolished National Guard Armory along Highway 231 for decades.

Five alumni members of the 131st were joined by city and civic officials, students from D.A. Smith Middle School and military from neighboring Fort Novosel at the dedication of the new Welcome to Ozark mural featuring a salute to the citys relationship with military past and present.

Created by Dothan muralist Wes Hardin, the mural painted on the wall of the Ben Baker Flooring Building facing D.A. Smith Middle School, is a tribute to the citys relationship with the military spanning decades. Welcome to Ozark, home of Fort Novosel are the words on the painting that includes a tank and the 131sts insignia, the back-to-back red double Ds on a white field circled in red; an Apache helicopter as a salute to the citys community partner unit, the 1-14th Aviation Regiment; and a Blackhawk helicopter, representing Fort Novosel.

The idea for the mural emerged when it became clear that the name of Fort Rucker was going to change, said Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship. We wanted to be on the cutting edge of having something that had the new name Fort Novosel on it. We wanted the young soldiers to know how much we care about them and how much we wanted them to be a part of Ozark.

The leadership in Ozark, the whole community repeatedly show that dedication and effort to our service members and families. You make your home our home, said Lt. Col. Brian Haas, commander of the citys partnership unit the 1-14th Aviation Regiment. That is important. Truly humbling. This mural is part of the relationship that will last for years to come.

Blankenship said that no tribute to the military would be complete without recognition of the historic 131th Armored Tank Battalion. Galloway was Blankenships first sergeant when Blankenship served with the unit in the 1980s. So that tells you how old he is, the mayor said with a smile.

Galloway enlisted in the 131th Armored Battalion in Nov. 2, 1952 and served until 1995, he said. He serves now as president of the 131th Armored Battalion Alumni Association. I cant get rid of the job, he quipped. There are about a half dozen members in the alumni association that meet quarterly but the numbers are diminishing, the octogenarian said.

The precursor of the 131st Armor was established in 1920 as the 39th Tank Company of the 39th Infantry Division of the Alabama Army National Guard. The unit did not come to Ozark until May 1921.

The unit was activated during World War II and deactivated at the end of it. Some 22 months later, in November 1947, the unit was reorganized, expanded, and re-designated as the 131st Tank Battalion, Alabama Army National Guard, with the battalion headquarters in Ozark. In February 1950, the 131st was re-designated the 131st Tank Battalion 131st Heavy Tank Battalion.

On Oct. 1, 1952, the battalion was re-activated as the 131st Tank Battalion, Alabama Army National Guard, with the headquarters again located at Ozark and Company A in Headland, Company B in Hartford, and Company C in Opp. In 1956 D Company opened in Brantley.

On Oct. 1, 1961, the battalion was mobilized during the Berlin Crisis. The unit was assigned to the Desert Training Center located at Fort Irwin, Calif. The battalion returned Aug. 12, 1962. The battalion was also activated for nine days in September 1963 to maintain order during Federal Court Orders.

In 2012 the National Guard Armory closed and in early 2022, the facility, located along U.S. Highway 231 in Ozark was demolished. The Dale County Schools Bridge Academy vocational education was built on the location and opened to students the next year.

Calling the military aviators present my heroes, Galloway paid tribute to his former soldiers. To be a tanker takes a lot of effort and dedication, he said.

On this mural I see an Apache helicopter and a tank, Galloway said. You have to have them both if you want to win a war.
Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltd grew its position in American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT  Free Report) by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 445,879 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after buying an additional 20,000 shares during the quarter. American Tower accounts for about 2.2% of Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltds portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest holding. Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltd owned about 0.10% of American Tower worth $86,404,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Level Four Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in American Tower by 40.4% during the first quarter. Level Four Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,192 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $1,061,000 after acquiring an additional 1,493 shares in the last quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ grew its holdings in shares of American Tower by 1.2% during the first quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ now owns 84,207 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $17,207,000 after purchasing an additional 1,026 shares during the last quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System increased its stake in shares of American Tower by 2.7% in the second quarter. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System now owns 527,792 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $102,360,000 after buying an additional 14,111 shares during the period. HB Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in American Tower by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. HB Wealth Management LLC now owns 20,731 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $4,236,000 after buying an additional 695 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Peak Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in American Tower during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $351,000. Institutional investors own 89.29% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently issued reports on AMT. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of American Tower from $233.00 to $228.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on American Tower from $265.00 to $218.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on American Tower from $233.00 to $230.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 1st. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of American Tower from $245.00 to $215.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on American Tower from $213.00 to $212.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. Two 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 has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $238.80.

American Tower Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:AMT traded down $4.38 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $158.53. The company had a trading volume of 1,634,903 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,075,294. The stock has a market cap of $73.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 77.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 0.58. The companys 50 day moving average price is $181.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $190.69. The company has a current ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 0.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.96. American Tower Co. has a 52-week low of $158.17 and a 52-week high of $235.57.

American Tower Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 27th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, October 11th will be given a dividend of $1.62 per share. This is an increase from American Towers previous quarterly dividend of $1.57. This represents a $6.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, October 10th. American Towers dividend payout ratio is currently 303.38%.

Insider Transactions at American Tower

In other American Tower news, CFO Rodney M. Smith sold 2,727 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.17, for a total transaction of $510,412.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 50,662 shares of the companys stock, valued at $9,482,406.54. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CFO Rodney M. Smith sold 10,000 shares of American Tower stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $178.14, for a total value of $1,781,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 50,662 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,024,928.68. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Rodney M. Smith sold 2,727 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.17, for a total value of $510,412.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 50,662 shares of the companys stock, valued at $9,482,406.54. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 16,251 shares of company stock worth $2,957,531 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.24% of the companys stock.

About American Tower

(Free Report)

American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of nearly 226,000 communications sites and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities.

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Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners Ltd. (NYSE:BAMR  Get Free Report) shares fell 1.4% during trading on Monday . The stock traded as low as $32.75 and last traded at $32.86. 11,933 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 43% from the average session volume of 20,993 shares. The stock had previously closed at $33.34.

Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners Stock Down 2.5 %

The company has a 50 day moving average of $34.37 and a 200 day moving average of $32.78. The company has a current ratio of 0.28, a quick ratio of 0.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners during the 1st quarter worth about $33,000. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank acquired a new position in shares of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners during the 2nd quarter worth about $60,000. UBS Group AG boosted its position in shares of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 2,854 shares of the companys stock worth $116,000 after acquiring an additional 358 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in shares of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners by 149.0% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 3,302 shares of the companys stock valued at $189,000 after purchasing an additional 1,976 shares during the period. Finally, Credit Suisse AG boosted its position in shares of Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. Credit Suisse AG now owns 6,050 shares of the companys stock valued at $269,000 after purchasing an additional 201 shares during the period. 39.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners Company Profile

Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides annuity-based reinsurance products to insurance and reinsurance companies. The company operates in two segments, Reinsurance and Pension Risk Transfer. It also acts as a direct issuer of pension risk transfer products for pension plan sponsors.

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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (TSE:BIP.UN  Get Free Report) (NYSE:BIP) shares reached a new 52-week low on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as C$40.77 and last traded at C$40.83, with a volume of 43551 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at C$41.01.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from C$47.00 to C$45.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 4th.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Price Performance

About Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 136.46, a quick ratio of 0.45 and a current ratio of 0.65. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of C$43.97 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$46.07. The firm has a market cap of C$18.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 91.04, a P/E/G ratio of -2.12 and a beta of 0.89.

(Get Free Report)

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. owns and operates utilities, transport, energy, and data infrastructure businesses. The Utilities segment operates approximately 2,000 kilometers (km) of natural gas transportation pipelines in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Minas Gerais; approximately 2,200 km of electricity transmission lines in North and South America; and approximately 6.6 million electricity and natural gas connections and 1.1 million smart meters, as well as operates metallurgical coal export terminals.

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Shares of Brookfield Renewable Co. (NYSE:BEPC  Get Free Report) dropped 4.5% on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $25.96 and last traded at $26.03. Approximately 589,092 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 1% from the average daily volume of 596,881 shares. The stock had previously closed at $27.27.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Brookfield Renewable from $37.00 to $34.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 22nd.

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Brookfield Renewable Stock Down 5.4 %

The firm has a market cap of $4.64 billion, a PE ratio of -43.65 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $28.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.39 and a quick ratio of 0.39.

Brookfield Renewable (NYSE:BEPC  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 4th. The company reported ($0.10) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of ($0.07) by ($0.03). Brookfield Renewable had a net margin of 6.43% and a return on equity of 1.98%. The business had revenue of $719.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.39 billion. Analysts expect that Brookfield Renewable Co. will post -0.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Brookfield Renewable Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 29th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 31st will be given a $0.338 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 30th. This represents a $1.35 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.24%. Brookfield Renewables dividend payout ratio (DPR) is -225.00%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Brookfield Renewable

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. PCA Investment Advisory Services Inc. purchased a new position in Brookfield Renewable during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. Ensign Peak Advisors Inc bought a new position in shares of Brookfield Renewable during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Federated Hermes Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Brookfield Renewable during the first quarter valued at $35,000. Spirit of America Management Corp NY raised its holdings in shares of Brookfield Renewable by 76.9% in the second quarter. Spirit of America Management Corp NY now owns 1,150 shares of the companys stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hall Laurie J Trustee purchased a new stake in Brookfield Renewable in the first quarter worth about $37,000. 66.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Brookfield Renewable Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Brookfield Renewable Corporation owns and operates a portfolio of renewable power and sustainable solution assets primarily in the United States, Europe, Colombia, and Brazil. It operates hydroelectric, wind, and solar power plants with an installed capacity of approximately 12,857 megawatts. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (NYSE:CM  Get Free Report) (TSE:CM) shares dropped 1.8% on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $39.04 and last traded at $39.08. Approximately 93,192 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 92% from the average daily volume of 1,203,916 shares. The stock had previously closed at $39.81.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from $72.00 to $67.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 1st. Barclays reduced their price target on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from $58.00 to $57.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 1st. StockNews.com lowered shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Friday, September 22nd. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from $69.00 to $65.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $63.00.

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Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Trading Down 2.8 %

The companys 50 day simple moving average is $41.12 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $41.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05. The company has a market cap of $35.75 billion, a PE ratio of 10.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 1.02.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (NYSE:CM  Get Free Report) (TSE:CM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 31st. The bank reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.25 by ($0.11). The firm had revenue of $4.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.29 billion. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce had a return on equity of 13.29% and a net margin of 9.26%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will post 4.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 27th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 28th will be given a $0.657 dividend. This is an increase from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces previous quarterly dividend of $0.64. This represents a $2.63 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.79%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, September 27th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces payout ratio is currently 69.75%.

Institutional Trading of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CM. Ridgewood Investments LLC acquired a new position in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce during the 1st quarter worth $25,000. Pacifica Partners Inc. raised its stake in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce by 65.9% during the 1st quarter. Pacifica Partners Inc. now owns 846 shares of the banks stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 336 shares during the last quarter. Aspire Private Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce during the 1st quarter worth approximately $39,919,596,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC acquired a new stake in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce during the 1st quarter worth approximately $41,000. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce by 277.9% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 1,126 shares of the banks stock valued at $48,000 after purchasing an additional 828 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 43.72% of the companys stock.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a diversified financial institution, provides various financial products and services to personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Canadian Personal and Business Banking; Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; U.S.

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Dongfang Electric Co. Limited (OTCMKTS:DNGFF  Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,000 shares, a decrease of 93.3% from the August 31st total of 15,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 0 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently  days.

Dongfang Electric Price Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS DNGFF remained flat at $1.22 during trading hours on Wednesday. Dongfang Electric has a 52-week low of $1.22 and a 52-week high of $1.78. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $1.22.

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About Dongfang Electric

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Dongfang Electric Corporation Limited engages in the design, develop, manufacture, and sale of power generation equipment in China and internationally. It operates through five segments: Renewable Energy Equipment, Clean and Efficient Energy Equipment, Engineering and Trade, Modern Manufacturing Services Industry, and Emerging Growth Industry.

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JTC Employer Solutions Trustee Ltd lowered its position in EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT  Free Report) by 18.2% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 662,984 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after selling 147,623 shares during the period. EQT makes up approximately 2.6% of JTC Employer Solutions Trustee Ltds investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest holding. JTC Employer Solutions Trustee Ltds holdings in EQT were worth $27,265,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Andesa Financial Management Inc. bought a new position in EQT in the 1st quarter worth about $356,000. Ahrens Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in EQT in the 1st quarter worth about $29,000. City Holding Co. bought a new position in EQT in the 1st quarter worth about $32,000. Clearstead Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of EQT in the 3rd quarter worth $41,000. Finally, Zullo Investment Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of EQT by 258.6% in the 4th quarter. Zullo Investment Group Inc. now owns 1,040 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 750 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 99.44% of the companys stock.

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EQT Stock Up 2.1 %

Shares of EQT traded up $0.83 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $39.79. 1,983,222 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,297,418. EQT Co. has a 1-year low of $28.10 and a 1-year high of $45.91. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The company has a market capitalization of $14.39 billion, a PE ratio of 4.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.93 and a beta of 1.22. The business has a 50 day moving average of $41.91 and a 200 day moving average of $37.46.

EQT Dividend Announcement

EQT ( NYSE:EQT Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 25th. The oil and gas producer reported ($0.17) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.26) by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $993.08 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. EQT had a net margin of 38.44% and a return on equity of 10.61%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 38.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.83 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that EQT Co. will post 2.16 EPS for the current year.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 9th were issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 8th. EQTs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.75%.

Insider Activity

In related news, major shareholder S Wil Vanloh, Jr. sold 20,000,000 shares of EQT stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $41.40, for a total transaction of $828,000,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 23,946,108 shares of the companys stock, valued at $991,368,871.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.53% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

EQT has been the subject of several research reports. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on EQT from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Friday, August 18th. Tudor Pickering upgraded shares of EQT from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, June 20th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of EQT from $46.00 to $49.00 in a report on Friday, July 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $48.00 price target on shares of EQT in a report on Wednesday, August 23rd. Finally, Mizuho cut their price target on EQT from $52.00 to $47.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Monday, September 18th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, EQT presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $48.00.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on EQT

EQT Profile

(Free Report)

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. As of December 31, 2022, it had 25.0 trillion cubic feet of proved natural gas, natural gas liquids, and crude oil reserves across approximately 2.0 million gross acres, including 1.8 million gross acres in the Marcellus play.

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First Commonwealth Financial (NYSE:FCF  Get Free Report) was downgraded by research analysts at StockNews.com from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday.

First Commonwealth Financial Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of FCF traded down $0.11 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $11.96. The company had a trading volume of 517,234 shares, compared to its average volume of 652,324. The stock has a market cap of $1.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.19 and a beta of 0.95. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $13.31 and a 200-day simple moving average of $12.91. First Commonwealth Financial has a fifty-two week low of $11.32 and a fifty-two week high of $16.53. The company has a current ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

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First Commonwealth Financial (NYSE:FCF  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The bank reported $0.42 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $0.42. The company had revenue of $155.79 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $121.91 million. First Commonwealth Financial had a net margin of 27.15% and a return on equity of 14.05%. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.33 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that First Commonwealth Financial will post 1.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On First Commonwealth Financial

About First Commonwealth Financial

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Comerica Bank acquired a new position in shares of First Commonwealth Financial during the 2nd quarter valued at $180,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its holdings in shares of First Commonwealth Financial by 173.9% during the 1st quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 4,086 shares of the banks stock valued at $51,000 after acquiring an additional 2,594 shares in the last quarter. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co NY lifted its holdings in shares of First Commonwealth Financial by 14.1% during the 4th quarter. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co NY now owns 5,758 shares of the banks stock valued at $80,000 after acquiring an additional 710 shares in the last quarter. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of First Commonwealth Financial by 16.6% during the 1st quarter. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. now owns 8,169 shares of the banks stock valued at $102,000 after acquiring an additional 1,164 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in shares of First Commonwealth Financial by 23.2% during the 1st quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 8,402 shares of the banks stock valued at $104,000 after acquiring an additional 1,581 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.73% of the companys stock.

(Get Free Report)

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation, a financial holding company, provides various consumer and commercial banking services in the United States. Its consumer services include personal checking accounts, interest-earning checking accounts, savings and health savings accounts, insured money market accounts, debit cards, investment certificates, fixed and variable rate certificates of deposit, mortgage loans, secured and unsecured installment loans, construction and real estate loans, safe deposit facilities, credit cards, credit lines with overdraft checking protection, IRA accounts, and automated teller machine (atm) services, as well as internet, mobile, and telephone banking services.

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Golden State Equity Partners grew its stake in shares of The Charles Schwab Co. (NYSE:SCHW  Free Report) by 32.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 22,809 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 5,645 shares during the period. Golden State Equity Partners holdings in Charles Schwab were worth $1,293,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Dodge & Cox lifted its stake in Charles Schwab by 1.3% in the 1st quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 78,462,490 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $4,109,865,000 after purchasing an additional 1,033,760 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 5.0% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 41,880,424 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,193,697,000 after buying an additional 2,000,383 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Charles Schwab by 1.5% during the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 27,050,168 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,413,244,000 after buying an additional 391,238 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in Charles Schwab by 62.5% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 22,255,649 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,853,005,000 after buying an additional 8,563,389 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC increased its stake in Charles Schwab by 107.1% in the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 16,784,516 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,399,817,000 after acquiring an additional 8,680,289 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.61% of the companys stock.

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Charles Schwab Trading Up 0.3 %

SCHW stock traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $54.35. The company had a trading volume of 3,506,172 shares, compared to its average volume of 16,418,270. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $61.20 and a 200 day moving average of $56.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.39 and a quick ratio of 0.39. The Charles Schwab Co. has a 12 month low of $45.00 and a 12 month high of $86.63. The company has a market capitalization of $96.21 billion, a PE ratio of 15.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.92.

Charles Schwab Announces Dividend

Charles Schwab ( NYSE:SCHW Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 18th. The financial services provider reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.71 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $4.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.61 billion. Charles Schwab had a return on equity of 27.54% and a net margin of 33.15%. Charles Schwabs revenue was down 8.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.97 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that The Charles Schwab Co. will post 3.24 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 25th. Investors of record on Friday, August 11th were issued a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 10th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.84%. Charles Schwabs payout ratio is currently 29.15%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on SCHW. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Charles Schwab from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, July 28th. JMP Securities restated a market outperform rating and set a $77.00 target price on shares of Charles Schwab in a research report on Thursday, September 21st. Wolfe Research lowered their price target on shares of Charles Schwab from $62.00 to $60.00 in a report on Monday, June 26th. StockNews.com cut Charles Schwab from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, Raymond James lowered their price objective on Charles Schwab from $77.00 to $72.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $72.28.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Charles Schwab

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 75,760 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.60, for a total value of $5,045,616.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 59,672,778 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,974,207,014.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 75,760 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.60, for a total value of $5,045,616.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 59,672,778 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,974,207,014.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Peter J. Morgan III sold 8,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.61, for a total value of $476,880.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 8,014 shares in the company, valued at approximately $477,714.54. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 159,599 shares of company stock valued at $10,542,469 over the last three months. 6.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Charles Schwab Profile

(Free Report)

The Charles Schwab Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a savings and loan holding company that provides wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services. The company operates in two segments, Investor Services and Advisor Services.

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Golden State Equity Partners purchased a new position in Two Harbors Investment Corp. (NYSE:TWO  Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 69,442 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock, valued at approximately $964,000. Golden State Equity Partners owned approximately 0.07% of Two Harbors Investment at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of TWO. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System increased its stake in Two Harbors Investment by 12.7% during the 2nd quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System now owns 50,700 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $704,000 after purchasing an additional 5,700 shares in the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its position in shares of Two Harbors Investment by 0.7% during the second quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 5,084,023 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $70,566,000 after acquiring an additional 37,336 shares in the last quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Two Harbors Investment by 33.2% during the second quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 18,410 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $256,000 after acquiring an additional 4,590 shares during the period. Howard Financial Services LTD. raised its holdings in shares of Two Harbors Investment by 3.6% during the second quarter. Howard Financial Services LTD. now owns 35,690 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $495,000 after acquiring an additional 1,254 shares during the period. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its position in Two Harbors Investment by 547.2% in the 2nd quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,838 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,554 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 63.80% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TWO has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. TheStreet raised Two Harbors Investment from a d+ rating to a c- rating in a research report on Monday, July 31st. JMP Securities reiterated a market outperform rating and issued a $14.50 price objective on shares of Two Harbors Investment in a report on Friday, July 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Two Harbors Investment from $15.00 to $13.50 in a research note on Monday, July 24th. Credit Suisse Group reiterated a neutral rating and issued a $14.00 price target on shares of Two Harbors Investment in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Two Harbors Investment to a sell rating in a report on Wednesday, August 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $15.19.

Two Harbors Investment Stock Performance

NYSE TWO traded down $0.06 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $12.99. The companys stock had a trading volume of 415,699 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,081,737. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $13.49 and a 200 day moving average price of $13.41. Two Harbors Investment Corp. has a 12 month low of $11.57 and a 12 month high of $18.67. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.61 and a beta of 1.76. The company has a current ratio of 1.07, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.08.

Two Harbors Investment Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 27th. Investors of record on Tuesday, October 3rd will be paid a $0.45 dividend. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 13.86%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, October 2nd. Two Harbors Investments dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently -352.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Two Harbors Investment news, insider Nicholas Letica sold 8,653 shares of Two Harbors Investment stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $12.96, for a total value of $112,142.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 77,693 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,006,901.28. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.45% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Two Harbors Investment

(Free Report)

Two Harbors Investment Corp. operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on investing in, financing, and managing residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), mortgage servicing rights, and other financial assets in the United States. Its target assets include agency RMBS collateralized by fixed rate mortgage loans, adjustable rate mortgage loans, and hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs); and other assets, such as financial and mortgage-related assets, including non-agency securities and non-hedging transactions.

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RHENEN, Netherlands  Giant panda Fan Xing began a long journey home on Wednesday  to a country she has never visited.

The 3-year-old was given a ceremonial send off Wednesday from Ouwehands Zoo in the Netherlands, where she was born, for the first leg of her journey to China, where she will join a breeding program that is helping preserve the vulnerable species.

Wouter Jurgens, director Asia and Oceania at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he hoped the panda would be an ambassador for relations between the Netherlands and China.

Those links have been strained in recent months by the Dutch decision to limit sales of advanced semiconductor processor chips. The government called the move country neutral, but it was seen as part of a U.S. policy aiming at restricting Chinas access to materials used to make such chips, which can be used in military technology.

Jurgens said Fan Xing represented a sign of the special relationship between the Netherlands and China in the field of nature conservation, but of course also much broader.

So today I would also like to express the hope that this Dutch-born panda, Fan Xing, will contribute ... not only to the protection of nature, the protection of a species and of biodiversity, but also continue to contribute to the relationship between the Netherlands and China.

Fan Xing was born on May 1, 2020, the first cub born in the Netherlands as a part what was once known as China's panda diplomacy program. At the time, a quick check determined that the cub was male, but a test late last year that was part of meticulous preparations for her trip to China established that Fan Xing is female.

For decades, China gifted friendly nations with its national mascot. The country more recently has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms.

Fan Xing's parents, Xing Ya and Wu Wen, were sent to the Netherlands from Sichuan province in 2017. Under terms of the deal that brought them to this small town in the central Netherlands, any cubs they produce must be sent to China before they reach the age of 4.

Photos: Pandas explore habitat at Berlin Zoo
Grant GrossMendelsohn LLC bought a new position in General Electric (NYSE:GE  Free Report) in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 3,569 shares of the conglomerates stock, valued at approximately $397,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its position in shares of General Electric by 22.7% during the 2nd quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 387,641 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $42,582,000 after acquiring an additional 71,800 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP lifted its position in shares of General Electric by 5.8% during the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 11,527 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $1,266,000 after acquiring an additional 635 shares during the period. Intelligence Driven Advisers LLC acquired a new position in shares of General Electric during the 2nd quarter valued at $234,000. Members Trust Co acquired a new position in General Electric during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $371,000. Finally, Fiduciary Alliance LLC acquired a new position in General Electric during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $95,000. 74.83% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on GE. Bank of America upped their price target on General Electric from $108.00 to $120.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 6th. Oppenheimer downgraded shares of General Electric from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a report on Monday, July 31st. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of General Electric from $126.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, July 27th. Argus upped their price objective on shares of General Electric from $112.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of General Electric from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, July 17th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, General Electric currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $120.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other General Electric news, SVP Michael J. Holston sold 112,614 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.20, for a total value of $12,973,132.80. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 57,923 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,672,729.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other General Electric news, major shareholder General Electric Pension Trust bought 35,160 shares of General Electric stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 30th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $995.44 per share, for a total transaction of $34,999,670.40. Following the completion of the purchase, the insider now directly owns 175,160 shares of the companys stock, valued at $174,361,270.40. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, SVP Michael J. Holston sold 112,614 shares of General Electric stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.20, for a total transaction of $12,973,132.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 57,923 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,672,729.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.67% of the companys stock.

General Electric Stock Performance

Shares of GE traded up $0.51 on Wednesday, reaching $110.44. 2,623,064 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,051,752. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market cap of $120.20 billion, a PE ratio of 13.04, a PEG ratio of 7.03 and a beta of 1.28. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $113.32 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $105.31. General Electric has a 52-week low of $48.06 and a 52-week high of $117.96.

General Electric (NYSE:GE  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 25th. The conglomerate reported $0.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.46 by $0.22. General Electric had a net margin of 13.32% and a return on equity of 9.30%. The business had revenue of $15.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $14.76 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.78 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 18.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that General Electric will post 2.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

General Electric Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 25th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 26th will be given a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 25th. General Electrics dividend payout ratio is currently 3.80%.

About General Electric

(Free Report)

General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company in Europe, China, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa. It offers gas and steam turbines, full balance of plant, upgrade, and service solutions, as well as data-leveraging software for power generation, industrial, government, and other customers.

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Greystone Financial Group LLC reduced its position in shares of Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT  Free Report) by 0.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 61,127 shares of the retailers stock after selling 216 shares during the period. Walmart comprises about 2.2% of Greystone Financial Group LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest position. Greystone Financial Group LLCs holdings in Walmart were worth $9,608,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Walmart by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. now owns 126,558 shares of the retailers stock valued at $18,661,000 after buying an additional 1,004 shares during the period. Wiley BROS. Aintree Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Walmart by 0.8% in the first quarter. Wiley BROS. Aintree Capital LLC now owns 11,803 shares of the retailers stock valued at $1,740,000 after acquiring an additional 94 shares during the last quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. raised its holdings in Walmart by 7.3% during the 1st quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 4,737 shares of the retailers stock worth $699,000 after purchasing an additional 323 shares during the last quarter. Lodestar Private Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Walmart by 6.2% during the 1st quarter. Lodestar Private Asset Management LLC now owns 3,873 shares of the retailers stock valued at $571,000 after purchasing an additional 226 shares during the period. Finally, BOS Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Walmart in the 4th quarter valued at about $503,000. 33.18% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other Walmart news, EVP John D. Rainey sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.37, for a total transaction of $161,370.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 169,735 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,390,136.95. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, EVP John D. Rainey sold 1,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.37, for a total transaction of $161,370.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 169,735 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,390,136.95. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO C Douglas Mcmillon sold 9,708 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $159.58, for a total transaction of $1,549,202.64. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,480,924 shares in the company, valued at $236,325,851.92. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 3,705,988 shares of company stock valued at $572,785,986. 46.51% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Walmart Stock Performance

Shares of WMT traded down $0.43 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $162.64. The company had a trading volume of 3,014,690 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,903,546. The business has a fifty day moving average of $160.34 and a 200-day moving average of $153.69. The company has a quick ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50. The firm has a market cap of $437.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.36, a PEG ratio of 3.83 and a beta of 0.49. Walmart Inc. has a 12 month low of $128.07 and a 12 month high of $165.85.

Walmart (NYSE:WMT  Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 17th. The retailer reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.15. Walmart had a return on equity of 21.47% and a net margin of 2.23%. The business had revenue of $161.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $160.22 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Walmart Inc. will post 6.44 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WMT has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Telsey Advisory Group lifted their target price on shares of Walmart from $168.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, August 18th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Walmart from $162.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, August 18th. HSBC initiated coverage on Walmart in a research report on Friday. They set a buy rating and a $200.00 target price for the company. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Walmart in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a strong-buy rating on the stock. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Walmart from $173.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, August 18th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Walmart has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $177.22.

Check Out Our Latest Analysis on WMT

Walmart Profile

(Free Report)

Walmart Inc engages in the operation of retail, wholesale, and other units worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Walmart U.S., Walmart International, and Sam's Club. It operates supercenters, supermarkets, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, cash and carry stores, and discount stores under Walmart and Walmart Neighborhood Market brands; membership-only warehouse clubs; ecommerce websites, such as walmart.com, walmart.com.mx, walmart.ca, flipkart.com, and samsclub.com; and mobile commerce applications.

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Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. (NYSE:AVAL  Get Free Report) declared a monthly dividend on Tuesday, September 19th, investing.com reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 29th will be paid a dividend of 0.0147 per share by the bank on Tuesday, October 10th. This represents a $0.18 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.18%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 28th. This is an increase from Grupo Aval Acciones y Valoress previous monthly dividend of $0.01.

Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores has decreased its dividend by an average of 2.0% per year over the last three years. Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores has a payout ratio of 44.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores to earn $0.37 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.22 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 59.5%.

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Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores Price Performance

Shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores stock remained flat at $2.46 during trading hours on Wednesday. 2,781 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 92,301. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.77 and a beta of 1.22. Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores has a fifty-two week low of $1.96 and a fifty-two week high of $2.71. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $2.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $2.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.06 and a quick ratio of 1.06.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores ( NYSE:AVAL Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 16th. The bank reported $0.03 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $0.03. Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores had a return on equity of 2.36% and a net margin of 2.22%. The company had revenue of $688.53 million during the quarter. As a group, research analysts predict that Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores will post 0.28 EPS for the current year.

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores by 2.8% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 179,975 shares of the banks stock valued at $820,000 after buying an additional 4,870 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores by 19.7% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 50,266 shares of the banks stock worth $229,000 after purchasing an additional 8,271 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores by 9.5% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 64,142 shares of the banks stock worth $228,000 after purchasing an additional 5,541 shares during the last quarter. Citadel Advisors LLC boosted its position in Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores by 24.2% during the 2nd quarter. Citadel Advisors LLC now owns 64,330 shares of the banks stock valued at $228,000 after purchasing an additional 12,520 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores by 2.1% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 760,490 shares of the banks stock worth $1,871,000 after acquiring an additional 15,762 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 0.25% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on AVAL. TheStreet lowered shares of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores from a c- rating to a d rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores from a neutral rating to an underweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 16th.

View Our Latest Report on AVAL

About Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores

(Get Free Report)

Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores SA provides a range of financial services and products to public and private sector customers in Colombia and Central America. It offers traditional deposit services and products, including checking accounts, savings accounts, time deposits, and other deposits. The company also provides commercial loans comprising general purpose loans, working capital loans, leases, loans funded by development banks, corporate credit cards, and overdraft loans; consumer loans, such as payroll loans, personal loans, automobile and other vehicle loans, credit cards, overdrafts, leases, and general purpose loans; and microcredit and mortgage loans.

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Shares of Henderson European Focus Trust (LON:HEFT  Get Free Report) dropped 0.6% during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as GBX 155.85 ($1.90) and last traded at GBX 158 ($1.93). Approximately 52,856 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 73% from the average daily volume of 196,792 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 159 ($1.94).

Henderson European Focus Trust Stock Down 0.6 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.66, a quick ratio of 6.48 and a current ratio of 1.75. The stock has a market capitalization of 336.18 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 929.41 and a beta of 0.88. The firms fifty day simple moving average is GBX 161.57 and its 200 day simple moving average is GBX 158.22.

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Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Melanie Blake bought 3,058 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, September 4th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of GBX 163 ($1.99) per share, for a total transaction of 4,984.54 ($6,086.87). Corporate insiders own 8.91% of the companys stock.

About Henderson European Focus Trust

Henderson European Focus Trust plc is a closed-ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Henderson Investment Funds Limited. It is co-managed by Henderson Global Investors Limited. The fund invests in public equity markets of Continental Europe. It seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors.

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TriNet Group, Inc. (NYSE:TNET  Get Free Report) CEO Burton M. Goldfield sold 2,786 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, September 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.99, for a total value of $323,148.14. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 170,703 shares of the companys stock, valued at $19,799,840.97. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

TriNet Group Stock Down 1.9 %

NYSE TNET traded down $2.20 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $113.16. 347,156 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 453,595. The stock has a market cap of $6.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.39 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $107.40 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $95.59. TriNet Group, Inc. has a 1 year low of $60.60 and a 1 year high of $118.63.

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TriNet Group (NYSE:TNET  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The business services provider reported $1.52 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.45. The company had revenue of $341.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $310.34 million. TriNet Group had a return on equity of 45.40% and a net margin of 6.91%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that TriNet Group, Inc. will post 6.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on TNET shares. StockNews.com started coverage on TriNet Group in a report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on TriNet Group from $120.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, September 11th. Credit Suisse Group restated a neutral rating and set a $87.00 price objective on shares of TriNet Group in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on TriNet Group from $90.00 to $107.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen raised TriNet Group from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and increased their price objective for the company from $95.00 to $125.00 in a report on Monday, August 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, TriNet Group currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $99.67.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on TriNet Group

Institutional Trading of TriNet Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Virginia Retirement Systems ET AL purchased a new stake in shares of TriNet Group in the 2nd quarter valued at about $931,000. Osaic Holdings Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of TriNet Group by 741.3% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 7,025 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $667,000 after purchasing an additional 6,190 shares during the last quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky purchased a new stake in shares of TriNet Group during the second quarter worth approximately $1,142,000. GTS Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TriNet Group in the 2nd quarter worth $535,000. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its holdings in TriNet Group by 1,012.9% during the second quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 97,386 shares of the business services providers stock worth $9,249,000 after purchasing an additional 88,635 shares in the last quarter. 93.58% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

TriNet Group Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

TriNet Group, Inc provides human resources (HR) consulting services, employee benefit options, payroll services, and employment risk mitigation services for small and medium size businesses in the United States. The company offers multi-state payroll processing and tax administration; employee benefits programs, including health insurance and retirement plans; workers compensation insurance and claims management; employment and benefits law compliance; and other HR related services.

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Lithium Americas Corp. (NYSE:LAC  Get Free Report)s share price was down 3.9% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $16.53 and last traded at $16.54. Approximately 1,307,836 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 34% from the average daily volume of 1,979,478 shares. The stock had previously closed at $17.21.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on LAC shares. Stifel Nicolaus set a $37.00 price target on Lithium Americas and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, August 23rd. Piper Sandler cut their price target on Lithium Americas from $33.00 to $29.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Friday, September 1st. HSBC cut their price target on Lithium Americas from $36.00 to $30.00 in a report on Friday, June 23rd. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their price objective on Lithium Americas from $26.00 to $25.00 in a research report on Thursday, August 10th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $36.70.

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Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on LAC

Lithium Americas Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $2.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -156.44 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $18.68 and a 200-day moving average price of $19.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 10.13 and a current ratio of 10.13.

Lithium Americas (NYSE:LAC  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 9th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.13) by $0.29. On average, equities research analysts expect that Lithium Americas Corp. will post 0.14 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Lithium Americas

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Lithium Americas by 3.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,200,424 shares of the companys stock valued at $83,947,000 after purchasing an additional 93,027 shares during the period. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of Lithium Americas by 12.2% in the 2nd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 1,878,941 shares of the companys stock valued at $38,069,000 after purchasing an additional 204,083 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its position in shares of Lithium Americas by 8.8% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,650,410 shares of the companys stock valued at $33,357,000 after purchasing an additional 133,973 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Lithium Americas by 11.2% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,022,517 shares of the companys stock valued at $39,357,000 after acquiring an additional 102,752 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Lithium Americas in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $17,582,000. 27.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Lithium Americas Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Lithium Americas Corp. operates as a resource company in the United States and Argentina. The company explores for lithium deposits. It owns interests in the Cauchari-Olaroz project located in Jujuy province of Argentina; Thacker Pass project located in north-western Nevada; and Pastos Grandes project located in the Salta province of Argentina.

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Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI  Get Free Report) was upgraded by stock analysts at StockNews.com from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Tuesday.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $320.00 to $311.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $329.00 to $322.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Finally, Raymond James lifted their target price on shares of Motorola Solutions from $315.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Motorola Solutions presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $309.67.

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Motorola Solutions Price Performance

Shares of Motorola Solutions stock traded down $3.16 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $273.50. 583,638 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 734,153. The stock has a market cap of $45.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.01, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 17.14, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a current ratio of 1.23. The firms fifty day moving average price is $284.01 and its 200-day moving average price is $284.17. Motorola Solutions has a 12 month low of $212.76 and a 12 month high of $299.43.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The communications equipment provider reported $2.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.51 by $0.14. Motorola Solutions had a net margin of 15.72% and a return on equity of 2,157.02%. The company had revenue of $2.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.87 EPS. The firms revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Motorola Solutions will post 10.44 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Motorola Solutions

In related news, Director Kenneth D. Denman sold 1,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $284.58, for a total transaction of $284,580.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 8,101 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,305,382.58. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 1.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Tucker Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Motorola Solutions in the first quarter valued at $27,000. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Motorola Solutions in the second quarter valued at $33,000. Albion Financial Group UT lifted its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions by 3,633.3% in the second quarter. Albion Financial Group UT now owns 112 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 109 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL bought a new position in shares of Motorola Solutions in the first quarter valued at $35,000. Finally, Tortoise Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Motorola Solutions by 1,140.0% in the second quarter. Tortoise Investment Management LLC now owns 124 shares of the communications equipment providers stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 114 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the companys stock.

About Motorola Solutions

(Get Free Report)

Motorola Solutions, Inc provides public safety and enterprise security solutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Products and Systems Integration, and Software and Services. The Products and Systems Integration segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories, and video security devices and infrastructure, as well as the implementation and integration of systems, devices, software, and applications for government, public safety, and commercial customers who operate private communications networks and video security solutions, as well as manage a mobile workforce.

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Nelson Van Denburg & Campbell Wealth Management Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of iShares National Muni Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:MUB  Free Report) by 12.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 139,685 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after purchasing an additional 14,914 shares during the period. iShares National Muni Bond ETF makes up approximately 1.0% of Nelson Van Denburg & Campbell Wealth Management Group LLCs holdings, making the stock its 22nd largest position. Nelson Van Denburg & Campbell Wealth Management Group LLCs holdings in iShares National Muni Bond ETF were worth $14,898,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Fortis Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in iShares National Muni Bond ETF in the 4th quarter worth approximately $25,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in iShares National Muni Bond ETF in the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. Tri Star Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in iShares National Muni Bond ETF in the 1st quarter worth approximately $29,000. First Manhattan Co. purchased a new position in iShares National Muni Bond ETF in the 4th quarter worth approximately $29,000. Finally, EPG Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in iShares National Muni Bond ETF in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000.

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iShares National Muni Bond ETF Price Performance

NYSEARCA MUB traded down $0.14 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $102.95. The stock had a trading volume of 3,426,614 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,684,740. iShares National Muni Bond ETF has a 1 year low of $101.35 and a 1 year high of $108.66. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $105.50 and a 200 day moving average price of $106.37.

iShares National Muni Bond ETF Company Profile

iShares National AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index (the Index).

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Ninety One UK Ltd raised its position in Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:GOLD  Free Report) (TSE:ABX) by 11.2% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,806,572 shares of the gold and copper producers stock after purchasing an additional 1,493,979 shares during the period. Ninety One UK Ltd owned about 0.84% of Barrick Gold worth $250,675,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOLD. Snider Financial Group purchased a new position in shares of Barrick Gold during the 1st quarter worth about $185,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Barrick Gold by 239.8% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 8,556,865 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $158,901,000 after acquiring an additional 6,038,440 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Barrick Gold by 13.9% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 42,464,736 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $788,570,000 after acquiring an additional 5,188,456 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Barrick Gold by 40.8% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 17,824,320 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $437,387,000 after acquiring an additional 5,164,698 shares during the period. Finally, Canoe Financial LP acquired a new stake in Barrick Gold during the 1st quarter worth approximately $94,523,000. 58.20% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GOLD has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Barrick Gold from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 13th. CSFB lowered their price objective on shares of Barrick Gold from $22.00 to $20.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. Finally, Cormark raised shares of Barrick Gold from a market perform rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $22.48.

Barrick Gold Stock Down 3.3 %

Shares of Barrick Gold stock traded down $0.50 on Wednesday, hitting $14.71. 21,142,363 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,724,856. The stock has a market cap of $25.82 billion, a P/E ratio of -371.00, a PEG ratio of 9.80 and a beta of 0.38. The company has a quick ratio of 2.14, a current ratio of 2.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The firms 50-day moving average is $16.36 and its 200 day moving average is $14.13. Barrick Gold Corp has a 52-week low of $13.01 and a 52-week high of $20.75.

Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD  Get Free Report) (TSE:ABX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 8th. The gold and copper producer reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.02. Barrick Gold had a return on equity of 3.46% and a net margin of 1.06%. The firm had revenue of $2.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.40 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.24 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Barrick Gold Corp will post 0.98 earnings per share for the current year.

Barrick Gold Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 31st were paid a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 30th. This is a boost from Barrick Golds previous quarterly dividend of $0.07. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.72%. Barrick Golds dividend payout ratio (DPR) is -1,025.00%.

Barrick Gold Company Profile

(Free Report)

Barrick Gold Corporation is a sector-leading gold and copper producer. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GOLD and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ABX.



In January 2019 Barrick merged with Randgold Resources and in July that year it combined its gold mines in Nevada, USA, with those of Newmont Corporation in a joint venture, Nevada Gold Mines, which is majority-owned and operated by Barrick.

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Norris Perne & French LLP MI boosted its stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL  Free Report) by 2.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 428,233 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 8,238 shares during the quarter. Ball makes up about 2.1% of Norris Perne & French LLP MIs holdings, making the stock its 13th biggest position. Norris Perne & French LLP MI owned approximately 0.14% of Ball worth $24,927,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of BALL. Hunter Perkins Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ball by 100.0% during the second quarter. Hunter Perkins Capital Management LLC now owns 80,000 shares of the companys stock worth $2,330,000 after acquiring an additional 40,000 shares in the last quarter. KFG Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ball during the 2nd quarter worth about $359,000. Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV acquired a new stake in shares of Ball during the 2nd quarter valued at about $204,000. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board grew its stake in shares of Ball by 5.5% in the 2nd quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board now owns 15,278 shares of the companys stock valued at $889,000 after buying an additional 800 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Impact Partnership Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Ball in the second quarter worth approximately $95,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.79% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BALL has been the subject of several recent research reports. Bank of America downgraded shares of Ball from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $65.00 to $63.00 in a research report on Monday, July 10th. Credit Suisse Group lowered Ball from an outperform rating to a neutral rating and cut their target price for the company from $65.00 to $58.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 13th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Ball from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and upped their price target for the stock from $52.00 to $55.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 20th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on Ball from $59.00 to $61.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Ball from $57.00 to $56.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 10th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Ball has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $57.85.

Ball Stock Performance

Shares of BALL traded down $0.19 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $47.96. The companys stock had a trading volume of 676,414 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,748,190. The stocks 50-day moving average is $54.49 and its two-hundred day moving average is $54.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.11 billion, a PE ratio of 19.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 0.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.92, a quick ratio of 0.50 and a current ratio of 0.78. Ball Co. has a one year low of $46.00 and a one year high of $62.14.

Ball (NYSE:BALL  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.61 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $3.57 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.84 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 21.43% and a net margin of 5.48%. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 13.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.82 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.03 EPS for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 1st were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 31st. Balls payout ratio is 31.75%.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider David A. Kaufman sold 3,820 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.41, for a total value of $200,206.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 8,861 shares of the companys stock, valued at $464,405.01. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, insider David A. Kaufman sold 3,820 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.41, for a total value of $200,206.20. Following the sale, the insider now owns 8,861 shares in the company, valued at approximately $464,405.01. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Deron Goodwin sold 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.85, for a total transaction of $26,425.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 12,001 shares in the company, valued at $634,252.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Ball Company Profile

(Free Report)

Ball Corp. provides metal packaging for beverages, foods, and household products. It operates through the following business segments: Beverage Packaging North and Central America, Beverage Packaging South America, Beverage Packaging Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Aerospace. The Beverage Packaging North and Central America segment includes multi-year supply contracts to fillers of carbonated soft drinks, beer, energy drinks, and other beverages.

Further Reading

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Over half (53%) of Australian shoppers are considering using AI-powered tools for hunting deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

This significant statistic underscores the burgeoning acceptance of AI as a reliable tool capable of delivering personalized and tailored solutions that cater to the unique needs of each customer.

UserTesting, a renowned leader in experience research and insights, has recently unveiled the findings of a global survey conducted in partnership with OnePoll, shedding light on Australian consumer attitudes and experiences concerning the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) in the upcoming festival sales. This survey provides intriguing insights into the evolving landscape of consumer preferences and technology adoption Down Under.

Australias Generative Artificial Intelligence Opportunity Report paints an optimistic picture of the nations economic future. It highlights the substantial potential for Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) to make a transformative impact, potentially contributing an astonishing $115 billion annually to the countrys economy by 2030. This promising outlook aligns seamlessly with the sentiments expressed by Australians in UserTestings survey. Astonishingly, over 28% of respondents believe that AI possesses a better understanding of their shopping preferences compared to even their closest friends and family members. Out of this group, 12% go as far as to assert that AI has a better grasp of their shopping habits than they do themselves. Moreover, an impressive 63% of Australians firmly believe that AI enhances their overall shopping experience, citing key factors such as time efficiency (67%), access to superior deals (59%), and the unmatched convenience it provides (56%).

However, while Aussies exhibit a notable openness to embracing technology in their retail journeys, a considerable 36% of respondents express a strong preference for discovering the best shopping deals through traditional in-person methods. For them, the tactile and tangible aspects of the in-store shopping experience hold significant value when it comes to deal hunting. Conversely, a mere 15% of respondents rely on online platforms, particularly social media, as their go-to source for uncovering the most attractive deals.

The topic of privacy also emerges as a critical factor in the Australian consumer experience. The UserTesting survey reveals that only 24% of Australians feel comfortable sharing their personal information with brands in exchange for exclusive deals and personalized recommendations. A significant 50% expressed discomfort with such practices. For those who are willing to share information, the types of data they are comfortable sharing include their email address (68%), full name (57%), birthdate (50%), food preferences (32%), favorite colors (32%), and hobbies (31%).

Global retailers plan to adopt AI, ML, and CV in the next year



A recent survey conducted by Honeywell has revealed that approximately 60% of retailers on a global scale are gearing up to embrace cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and computer vision (CV) within the next year. These technological advancements are anticipated to usher in substantial transformations in the retail landscape, impacting both physical brick-and-mortar stores and the online retail sphere.

Whats intriguing is that the survey underscores the perspective of retailers who see these advanced technologies as tools aimed at augmenting their workforce rather than displacing human jobs. Honeywell, renowned for its industry-specific solutions promoting smarter, safer, and more sustainable supply chains, conducted this comprehensive AI in Retail survey. The study spanned the globe, encompassing approximately 1,000 retail leaders in key positions within IT, operations, and customer experience across regions including the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Significantly, retail leaders anticipate that AI, ML, and CV will add substantial value to four fundamental retail functions: automating and facilitating daily tasks such as scheduling and order picking, enhancing customer service via digital channels like live chat, crafting targeted marketing campaigns, and refining inventory management.

To access the UserTesting AI & Shopping Report, click here.

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Norris Perne & French LLP MI raised its holdings in Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN:LNG  Free Report) by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 205,303 shares of the energy companys stock after buying an additional 1,440 shares during the quarter. Cheniere Energy makes up about 2.6% of Norris Perne & French LLP MIs holdings, making the stock its 5th largest holding. Norris Perne & French LLP MIs holdings in Cheniere Energy were worth $31,280,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Golden State Equity Partners raised its holdings in Cheniere Energy by 31.3% in the 2nd quarter. Golden State Equity Partners now owns 1,967 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $300,000 after acquiring an additional 469 shares during the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its stake in Cheniere Energy by 79.2% during the second quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 146,123 shares of the energy companys stock worth $22,263,000 after buying an additional 64,577 shares during the last quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cheniere Energy in the 2nd quarter worth $441,000. Fundamentum LLC raised its holdings in shares of Cheniere Energy by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Fundamentum LLC now owns 17,746 shares of the energy companys stock worth $2,704,000 after acquiring an additional 252 shares during the period. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Cheniere Energy by 8.9% during the 2nd quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 175,417 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $26,727,000 after acquiring an additional 14,300 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.86% of the companys stock.

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Cheniere Energy Stock Up 2.6 %

LNG stock traded up $4.27 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $166.28. The companys stock had a trading volume of 935,434 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,623,388. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $153.52 and a 200-day simple moving average of $152.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $40.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.90, a PEG ratio of 0.34 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.60. Cheniere Energy, Inc. has a 52-week low of $135.00 and a 52-week high of $182.35.

Cheniere Energy Dividend Announcement

Cheniere Energy ( NYSEAMERICAN:LNG Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The energy company reported $5.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.81 by $2.80. Cheniere Energy had a return on equity of 481.80% and a net margin of 28.47%. The firm had revenue of $4.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.25 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.90 earnings per share. Cheniere Energys revenue was down 48.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Cheniere Energy, Inc. will post 16.65 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 16th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 9th were paid a dividend of $0.395 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 8th. This represents a $1.58 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.95%. Cheniere Energys payout ratio is 4.65%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have commented on LNG shares. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Cheniere Energy from $172.00 to $194.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. Capital One Financial assumed coverage on Cheniere Energy in a research report on Wednesday, September 6th. They issued an overweight rating and a $200.00 price objective for the company. Mizuho decreased their price target on Cheniere Energy from $200.00 to $187.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 22nd. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Cheniere Energy in a report on Saturday, August 19th. They set a strong-buy rating for the company. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Cheniere Energy from $230.00 to $222.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 8th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $199.50.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Cheniere Energy

Cheniere Energy Company Profile

(Free Report)

Cheniere Energy, Inc, an energy infrastructure company, primarily engages in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) related businesses in the United States. It owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana; and the Corpus Christi LNG terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas. The company also owns Creole Trail pipeline, a 94-mile pipeline interconnecting the Sabine Pass LNG terminal with various interstate pipelines; and operates Corpus Christi pipeline, a 21.5-mile natural gas supply pipeline that interconnects the Corpus Christi LNG terminal with various interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines.

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Ninety One UK Ltd trimmed its stake in shares of Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report) by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 9,395,515 shares of the companys stock after selling 187,098 shares during the period. Philip Morris International comprises about 2.7% of Ninety One UK Ltds holdings, making the stock its 6th biggest holding. Ninety One UK Ltd owned 0.61% of Philip Morris International worth $917,190,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Green Square Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Philip Morris International during the second quarter valued at $232,000. Herold Advisors Inc. increased its position in Philip Morris International by 8.6% in the 2nd quarter. Herold Advisors Inc. now owns 5,484 shares of the companys stock worth $535,000 after purchasing an additional 434 shares during the last quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Philip Morris International in the 1st quarter worth about $98,000. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC increased its position in Philip Morris International by 59.0% in the 1st quarter. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC now owns 4,214 shares of the companys stock worth $410,000 after purchasing an additional 1,563 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cypress Wealth Services LLC increased its position in Philip Morris International by 6.3% in the 1st quarter. Cypress Wealth Services LLC now owns 4,514 shares of the companys stock worth $439,000 after purchasing an additional 267 shares during the last quarter. 79.70% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Philip Morris International Trading Down 0.5 %

NYSE:PM traded down $0.44 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $90.63. 2,514,440 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,204,198. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $95.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $95.86. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 12 month low of $82.85 and a 12 month high of $105.62. The firm has a market capitalization of $140.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.71.

Philip Morris International Increases Dividend

Philip Morris International ( NYSE:PM Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The company reported $1.60 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.50 by $0.10. Philip Morris International had a negative return on equity of 127.84% and a net margin of 11.63%. The firm had revenue of $8.97 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.76 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.48 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 14.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.19 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 12th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th will be given a $1.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 26th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.74%. This is an increase from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. Philip Morris Internationals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 98.26%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have weighed in on PM shares. StockNews.com started coverage on Philip Morris International in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Barclays lowered their price objective on Philip Morris International from $115.00 to $110.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 21st. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Philip Morris International from $113.00 to $111.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, August 22nd. Citigroup raised Philip Morris International from a neutral rating to a buy rating and increased their price objective for the company from $109.00 to $117.00 in a report on Tuesday, June 20th. Finally, 22nd Century Group reissued a reiterates rating on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Tuesday, June 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $110.64.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International Company Profile

(Free Report)

Philip Morris International Inc operates as a tobacco company working to delivers a smoke-free future and evolving portfolio for the long-term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. The company's product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products primarily under the IQOS and ZYN brands; and consumer accessories, such as lighters and matches.

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PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk (OTCMKTS:ADOOY  Get Free Report) saw a significant decline in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 600 shares, a decline of 83.8% from the August 31st total of 3,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.9 days.

PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk Stock Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS:ADOOY traded down $0.50 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $8.70. The companys stock had a trading volume of 723 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,994. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $8.60 and its 200-day simple moving average is $8.66. PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk has a fifty-two week low of $7.04 and a fifty-two week high of $13.64.

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PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk Company Profile

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PT Adaro Energy Indonesia Tbk, together with its subsidiaries, engages in coal and mining business in Indonesia. The company operates through Coal Mining and Trading; Mining Services; Logistics; and Others segments. It provides trading, transportation, warehousing, quarrying, cargo handling, mining, and transportation support services.

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Rio Novo Gold Inc. (TSE:RN  Get Free Report)s stock price passed above its 200-day moving average during trading on Monday . The stock has a 200-day moving average of C$0.00 and traded as high as C$0.13. Rio Novo Gold shares last traded at C$0.13, with a volume of 34,500 shares trading hands.

Rio Novo Gold Price Performance

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of C$0.13.

Rio Novo Gold Company Profile

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Rio Novo Gold Inc acquires, explores, and develops gold mineral resource properties in Brazil and Colombia. It holds interests in the Almas Gold Project located in the Tocantins State, Brazil; the Matupa Gold Project located in the Mato Grosso State, Brazil; and the Tolda Fria Gold Project located in the Caldas State, Colombia.

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Rolls-Royce Holdings plc (OTCMKTS:RYCEY  Get Free Report) was the target of a large drop in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 284,200 shares, a drop of 61.1% from the August 31st total of 731,200 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 5,966,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.0 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Atlas Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in Rolls-Royce Holdings plc in the 1st quarter valued at $25,000. FineMark National Bank & Trust acquired a new position in Rolls-Royce Holdings plc in the 1st quarter valued at about $30,000. SVB Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc by 52.6% in the 1st quarter. SVB Wealth LLC now owns 19,515 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 6,729 shares during the period. OLD National Bancorp IN acquired a new position in Rolls-Royce Holdings plc in the first quarter valued at approximately $77,000. Finally, Comerica Bank purchased a new stake in Rolls-Royce Holdings plc in the 2nd quarter valued at about $217,000. 0.05% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Rolls-Royce Holdings plc Price Performance

Rolls-Royce Holdings plc stock traded down $0.03 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $2.61. The company had a trading volume of 1,433,191 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,577,179. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $2.54 and its 200 day simple moving average is $2.09. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc has a 1-year low of $0.71 and a 1-year high of $2.82.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently commented on RYCEY. Morgan Stanley began coverage on Rolls-Royce Holdings plc in a report on Tuesday, June 13th. They set an equal weight rating for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc from an underweight rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, August 7th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Rolls-Royce Holdings plc has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $97.50.

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About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

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Rolls-Royce Holdings plc operates as an industrial technology company in the United Kingdom and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Civil Aerospace, Defence, Power Systems, and New Markets. The Civil Aerospace segment develops, manufactures, markets, and sells aero engines for large commercial aircraft, regional jet, and business aviation markets, as well as provides aftermarket services.

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Tesco PLC (OTCMKTS:TSCDY  Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest during the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 192,000 shares, an increase of 284.0% from the August 31st total of 50,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 114,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.7 days.

Tesco Trading Down 1.2 %

TSCDY traded down $0.12 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $9.66. 146,730 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 167,913. Tesco has a one year low of $6.54 and a one year high of $10.75. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $9.77 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $9.81. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on TSCDY. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Tesco from GBX 320 ($3.91) to GBX 325 ($3.97) in a research note on Friday, August 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Tesco from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Tesco from GBX 304 ($3.71) to GBX 306 ($3.74) in a research report on Thursday, August 31st.

About Tesco

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Tesco PLC, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a grocery retailer in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. It offers grocery products through its stores, as well as online. The company is also involved in the food and drink wholesaling activities.

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Aegon (NYSE:AEG  Get Free Report) was downgraded by research analysts at StockNews.com from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report issued on Tuesday.

AEG has been the subject of a number of other reports. Royal Bank of Canada assumed coverage on Aegon in a report on Wednesday, June 7th. They set an outperform rating for the company. HSBC upgraded Aegon from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, June 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $5.40.

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Aegon Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AEG traded down $0.04 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $4.87. 1,682,689 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,735,259. The company has a current ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 0.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $5.17 and a 200 day simple moving average of $4.81. Aegon has a twelve month low of $3.76 and a twelve month high of $5.68.

Aegon (NYSE:AEG  Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 17th. The financial services provider reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Aegon had a negative return on equity of 6.45% and a negative net margin of 8.08%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Aegon will post 0.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Aegon

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new stake in shares of Aegon in the 1st quarter valued at about $117,160,000. Brandes Investment Partners LP raised its holdings in shares of Aegon by 774.0% in the 1st quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 1,351,339 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $5,811,000 after purchasing an additional 1,196,721 shares during the period. Summit Global Investments raised its holdings in shares of Aegon by 2,837.5% in the 2nd quarter. Summit Global Investments now owns 1,035,242 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $5,249,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000,000 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Aegon by 14.5% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,503,613 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $21,794,000 after purchasing an additional 697,389 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Aegon in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,002,000. Institutional investors own 18.95% of the companys stock.

Aegon Company Profile

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Aegon N.V. provides insurance, pensions, retirement, and asset management services in the Americas, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company offers life, accident, property and casualty, and health insurance; annuities, retirement plans, and mutual funds; mortgage loans; and individual retirement accounts, as well as stable value, investment management, and digital banking solutions.

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Callon Petroleum (NYSE:CPE  Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report issued on Tuesday.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Citigroup raised Callon Petroleum from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the company from $40.00 to $45.00 in a research note on Wednesday, August 16th. Truist Financial lowered their price target on Callon Petroleum from $51.00 to $48.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $50.00 price objective on shares of Callon Petroleum in a research report on Wednesday, August 9th. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Callon Petroleum from $59.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Callon Petroleum from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Friday, August 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Callon Petroleum currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $51.00.

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Callon Petroleum Trading Down 0.7 %

NYSE:CPE traded down $0.28 on Tuesday, hitting $37.85. 1,210,353 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,533,492. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 2.74. The companys 50-day moving average price is $37.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $34.77. Callon Petroleum has a 52 week low of $28.91 and a 52 week high of $50.19.

Callon Petroleum (NYSE:CPE  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 2nd. The oil and natural gas company reported $1.99 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.21. The company had revenue of $562.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $561.08 million. Callon Petroleum had a return on equity of 21.41% and a net margin of 35.11%. Callon Petroleums revenue was down 38.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.68 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Callon Petroleum will post 7.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Callon Petroleum

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of CPE. Strs Ohio acquired a new position in Callon Petroleum during the 1st quarter worth approximately $26,000. State of Wyoming acquired a new position in Callon Petroleum during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise acquired a new position in Callon Petroleum during the 1st quarter worth approximately $33,000. CWM LLC boosted its position in Callon Petroleum by 260.7% during the 2nd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,100 shares of the oil and natural gas companys stock worth $39,000 after acquiring an additional 795 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Callon Petroleum during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $40,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.79% of the companys stock.

About Callon Petroleum

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Callon Petroleum Company, an independent oil and natural gas company, focuses on the acquisition, exploration, and development of oil and natural gas properties in West Texas. The company was founded in 1950 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

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Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE:VNO  Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Compass Point assumed coverage on shares of Vornado Realty Trust in a research report on Tuesday. They issued a neutral rating and a $25.00 price target on the stock. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of Vornado Realty Trust from $21.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 16th. Truist Financial cut shares of Vornado Realty Trust from a buy rating to a hold rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $22.00 to $27.00 in a research report on Friday, September 15th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price target on Vornado Realty Trust from $18.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 8th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and nine have issued a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $19.91.

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Vornado Realty Trust Price Performance

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Vornado Realty Trust

Vornado Realty Trust stock traded down $0.64 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $21.61. The companys stock had a trading volume of 3,002,281 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,982,938. The company has a quick ratio of 4.15, a current ratio of 4.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.72. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $22.90 and its 200-day moving average price is $17.95. Vornado Realty Trust has a 12 month low of $12.31 and a 12 month high of $26.76. The company has a market capitalization of $4.12 billion, a PE ratio of -9.56 and a beta of 1.47.

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky grew its stake in Vornado Realty Trust by 10.3% during the 2nd quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 28,257 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $513,000 after acquiring an additional 2,635 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Vornado Realty Trust by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 349,429 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $6,339,000 after acquiring an additional 5,200 shares in the last quarter. GTS Securities LLC purchased a new position in Vornado Realty Trust during the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,212,000. Heitman Real Estate Securities LLC grew its stake in Vornado Realty Trust by 34.4% during the 2nd quarter. Heitman Real Estate Securities LLC now owns 76,167 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,382,000 after acquiring an additional 19,476 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Waterfront Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in Vornado Realty Trust during the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,852,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.86% of the companys stock.

Vornado Realty Trust Company Profile

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Vornado is a fully integrated real estate investment trust (REIT) with a portfolio of premier New York City office and retail assets and the developer of the new PENN DISTRICT. While concentrated in New York, Vornado also owns the premier assets in both Chicago and San Francisco. Vornado is a real estate industry leader in sustainability, with over 27 million square feet of LEED-certified buildings and over 23 million square feet at LEED Gold or Platinum.

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Grimes & Company Inc. trimmed its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM  Free Report) by 0.2% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 238,471 shares of the semiconductor companys stock after selling 463 shares during the quarter. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing comprises 0.9% of Grimes & Company Inc.s portfolio, making the stock its 21st largest holding. Grimes & Company Inc.s holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing were worth $24,066,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 30.0% in the 1st quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 1,381,845 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $144,071,000 after acquiring an additional 318,570 shares during the period. Zions Bancorporation N.A. increased its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 29.2% in the 1st quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 597 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $62,000 after acquiring an additional 135 shares during the period. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. increased its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 40.1% in the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 12,700 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $1,324,000 after acquiring an additional 3,638 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 17.3% in the 1st quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC now owns 2,350 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $245,000 after acquiring an additional 346 shares during the period. Finally, Ergoteles LLC increased its holdings in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 138.6% in the 1st quarter. Ergoteles LLC now owns 45,497 shares of the semiconductor companys stock worth $4,744,000 after acquiring an additional 26,426 shares during the period. 16.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from $118.00 to $115.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 21st. Susquehanna increased their target price on shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from $128.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a positive rating in a research report on Friday, July 14th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday. Six analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $108.33.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Price Performance

Shares of TSM traded up $0.13 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $84.42. The companys stock had a trading volume of 4,175,806 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,283,771. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $93.29 and a 200 day moving average price of $93.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $437.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.91, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 2.42 and a quick ratio of 2.13. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited has a fifty-two week low of $59.43 and a fifty-two week high of $110.69.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 20th. The semiconductor company reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $15.68 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $15.52 billion. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing had a net margin of 43.31% and a return on equity of 32.08%. On average, research analysts predict that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited will post 4.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 11th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 15th will be paid a $0.4724 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 14th. This represents a $1.89 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.24%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturings dividend payout ratio is currently 24.59%.

About Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, packages, tests, and sells integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices in Taiwan, China, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, the United States, and internationally. It provides complementary metal oxide silicon wafer fabrication processes to manufacture logic, mixed-signal, radio frequency, and embedded memory semiconductors.

Further Reading

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AI and robotics leader Advanced Navigation has unveiled its state-of-the-art robotics facility dedicated to autonomous systems, nestled within the UTS Tech Lab in Botany, New South Wales (NSW).

This facility marks a significant leap forward in the production of Advanced Navigations groundbreaking AI navigation systems tailored for GPS-denied environments. Among its innovations is the digital fibre-optic gyroscope (DFOG) technology, aptly named Boreas.

Distinguishing itself globally, Advanced Navigation is one of just four companies endowed with the capability to craft strategic-grade fibre-optic gyroscopes. This remarkable technology serves as the bedrock for reliable navigation across diverse domains, encompassing marine vessels, space missions, aerospace applications, defense sectors, autonomous vehicles, and the emerging realm of flying taxis. The company harnesses advanced AI-driven physics algorithms to tackle complex challenges, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial.

Strengthening Australias Sovereign Capabilities: Xavier Orr, CEO and co-founder of Advanced Navigation, underscored the critical importance of enhancing Australias economic complexity and sovereign capabilities. He emphasized the need to bolster industrial capacity in high-tech sectors while fostering collaboration among government agencies, academic institutions, and industry leaders.

State-of-the-Art Robotics Manufacturing for Autonomous Systems: In response to the changing landscape of sovereign manufacturing, characterized by AI, automation, and precision engineering, Advanced Navigations facility adheres to a vertical integration framework. It houses cutting-edge equipment and processes for automated manufacturing infused with machine learning, ensuring the delivery of dependable, durable, and top-quality navigation systems.

Collaboration with UTS and Innovation Ventures: Beyond its manufacturing role, the facility will serve as a hub for extensive research collaborations between Advanced Navigation and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). This partnership aims to expedite the commercialization of socially impactful technologies, including:

Light Detection, Altimetry and Velocimetry (LiDAV) System: This system provides precise three-dimensional velocity and altitude data relative to the lunar surface, facilitating complex autonomous lunar landings. It is slated for integration into NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program via Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander.

This system provides precise three-dimensional velocity and altitude data relative to the lunar surface, facilitating complex autonomous lunar landings. It is slated for integration into NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program via Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander. Cloud Ground Control: A pioneering cloud-based solution empowering remote command and control of unmanned vehicles across air, land, and sea. It enhances real-time video and telemetry access, streamlines data management, and offers situational awareness in critical operations like search and rescue, emergency response, and disaster relief.

A pioneering cloud-based solution empowering remote command and control of unmanned vehicles across air, land, and sea. It enhances real-time video and telemetry access, streamlines data management, and offers situational awareness in critical operations like search and rescue, emergency response, and disaster relief. Guidance for Visually Impaired Passengers: Developed under the NSW Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) program, this indoor positioning technology aids visually impaired individuals in safely navigating underground train stations.

Professor Andrew Parfitt, Vice-Chancellor and President of UTS, said, UTS is pleased to be working with Advanced Navigation to tap into critical growth areas, including AI, robotics and space technologies.

The collaboration between UTSs global research leaders in autonomous systems technology and Advanced Navigations exceptional team of scientists and engineers, utilising UTS Tech Labs cutting-edge facilities, highlights our commitment to developing sovereign capabilities for defence and space.

We look forward to deepening and expanding our collective capabilities with Advanced Navigation to accelerate the production of high-impact innovations.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its holdings in Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT  Free Report) by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 193,681 shares of the industrial products companys stock after buying an additional 4,679 shares during the quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Caterpillar were worth $47,655,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of CAT. Horan Securities Inc. raised its stake in Caterpillar by 678.6% during the 1st quarter. Horan Securities Inc. now owns 109 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 95 shares in the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Caterpillar in the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Caterpillar by 272.4% in the 1st quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC now owns 108 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares during the period. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC increased its position in Caterpillar by 730.8% during the first quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 108 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 95 shares during the period. Finally, TFC Financial Management Inc. lifted its stake in Caterpillar by 470.8% in the first quarter. TFC Financial Management Inc. now owns 137 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. 69.20% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Caterpillar Price Performance

NYSE CAT traded up $1.98 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $271.50. The stock had a trading volume of 920,758 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,030,037. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $275.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $243.43. The company has a market cap of $138.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 1.13. Caterpillar Inc. has a 52-week low of $163.54 and a 52-week high of $293.88. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Caterpillar ( NYSE:CAT Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The industrial products company reported $5.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $4.57 by $0.98. The business had revenue of $17.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $16.46 billion. Caterpillar had a return on equity of 55.93% and a net margin of 12.91%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 21.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.18 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Caterpillar Inc. will post 19.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CAT has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Caterpillar from $240.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Caterpillar from $287.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Caterpillar from $183.00 to $234.00 and gave the company an underperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Caterpillar from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on Caterpillar from $274.00 to $315.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $267.00.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Caterpillar

Insider Buying and Selling at Caterpillar

In other news, insider Anthony D. Fassino sold 2,923 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $279.00, for a total transaction of $815,517.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 16,182 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,514,778. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, insider Cheryl H. Johnson sold 6,415 shares of Caterpillar stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.00, for a total transaction of $1,667,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 16,362 shares in the company, valued at $4,254,120. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Anthony D. Fassino sold 2,923 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $279.00, for a total transaction of $815,517.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 16,182 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,514,778. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 54,918 shares of company stock valued at $15,299,870 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.33% of the companys stock.

About Caterpillar

(Free Report)

Caterpillar, Inc engages in the manufacture of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives. It operates through the following segments: Construction Industries, Resource Industries, Energy and Transportation, Financial Products, and All Other.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas increased its stake in EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG  Free Report) by 18.1% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 294,321 shares of the energy exploration companys stock after purchasing an additional 45,089 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas owned approximately 0.05% of EOG Resources worth $33,682,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its stake in EOG Resources by 16.0% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 16,031 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $1,911,000 after acquiring an additional 2,213 shares in the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. bought a new stake in shares of EOG Resources in the first quarter worth $404,000. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in EOG Resources during the first quarter worth $278,000. Zions Bancorporation N.A. grew its position in EOG Resources by 237.7% in the first quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 1,155 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $138,000 after purchasing an additional 813 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. grew its position in EOG Resources by 23.7% in the first quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 662 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $79,000 after purchasing an additional 127 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.21% of the companys stock.

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EOG Resources Stock Performance

EOG stock traded up $2.18 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $129.06. 1,027,019 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,359,648. The company has a current ratio of 2.39, a quick ratio of 2.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $129.27 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $119.12. EOG Resources, Inc. has a 12 month low of $98.52 and a 12 month high of $150.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $75.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.72, a P/E/G ratio of 0.40 and a beta of 1.57.

EOG Resources Dividend Announcement

EOG Resources ( NYSE:EOG Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The energy exploration company reported $2.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.28 by $0.21. EOG Resources had a net margin of 33.58% and a return on equity of 28.52%. The firm had revenue of $5.57 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.74 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.74 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 24.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that EOG Resources, Inc. will post 11.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 31st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.825 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, October 16th. This represents a $3.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.56%. EOG Resourcess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling at EOG Resources

In other news, COO Lloyd W. Helms, Jr. sold 4,551 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.76, for a total transaction of $595,088.76. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 145,259 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $18,994,066.84. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other EOG Resources news, EVP Jeffrey R. Leitzell sold 2,031 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.26, for a total transaction of $238,155.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 37,607 shares in the company, valued at $4,409,796.82. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, COO Lloyd W. Helms, Jr. sold 4,551 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.76, for a total value of $595,088.76. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 145,259 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,994,066.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.40% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. downgraded shares of EOG Resources from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, August 24th. Truist Financial increased their price target on EOG Resources from $150.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, August 7th. UBS Group boosted their price target on EOG Resources from $139.00 to $164.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. Citigroup increased their price objective on EOG Resources from $138.00 to $144.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, September 20th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of EOG Resources from $154.00 to $152.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 1st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $149.87.

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EOG Resources Profile

(Free Report)

EOG Resources, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, and natural gas and natural gas liquids. Its principal producing areas are in New Mexico and Texas in the United States; and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The company was formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Company.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC  Free Report) by 5.3% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 210,708 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 10,688 shares during the quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies were worth $39,630,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Main Street Financial Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 5.0% during the first quarter. Main Street Financial Solutions LLC now owns 2,064 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $345,000 after purchasing an additional 98 shares in the last quarter. AXS Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 6.4% during the first quarter. AXS Investments LLC now owns 7,254 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,208,000 after acquiring an additional 439 shares during the period. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 17.7% in the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 3,839,108 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $639,403,000 after purchasing an additional 576,958 shares in the last quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 50.2% in the 1st quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC now owns 1,959 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $326,000 after purchasing an additional 655 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Colonial Trust Co SC increased its position in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 377.6% during the 1st quarter. Colonial Trust Co SC now owns 1,490 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $246,000 after purchasing an additional 1,178 shares in the last quarter. 86.64% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from an in-line rating to an outperform rating and lifted their target price for the company from $195.00 to $199.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $182.00 to $197.00 in a report on Thursday, July 6th. Raymond James increased their price objective on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from $195.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Monday, July 24th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from $200.00 to $208.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, July 21st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies from $197.00 to $201.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Monday, July 24th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $193.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Dean Michael Klisura sold 12,976 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.20, for a total value of $2,493,987.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 20,935 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,023,707. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Mark C. Mcgivney sold 70,106 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.53, for a total transaction of $13,006,766.18. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 33,678 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,248,279.34. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Dean Michael Klisura sold 12,976 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $192.20, for a total value of $2,493,987.20. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 20,935 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,023,707. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 86,082 shares of company stock worth $16,085,453 over the last ninety days. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Trading Down 0.8 %

MMC traded down $1.51 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $191.99. 480,774 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,580,113. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $94.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.39, a PEG ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 0.94. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $192.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is $181.70. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. has a one year low of $148.13 and a one year high of $199.20.

Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The financial services provider reported $2.20 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $5.88 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.77 billion. Marsh & McLennan Companies had a net margin of 15.20% and a return on equity of 33.69%. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 9.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. will post 7.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 6th will be paid a $0.71 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.48%. Marsh & McLennan Companiess payout ratio is 43.36%.

Marsh & McLennan Companies Company Profile

(Free Report)

Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc, a professional services company, provides advice and solutions to clients in the areas of risk, strategy, and people worldwide. It operates in two segments, Risk and Insurance Services, and Consulting. The Risk and Insurance Services segment offers risk management services, such as risk advice, risk transfer, and risk control and mitigation solutions, as well as insurance and reinsurance broking, strategic advisory services, and analytics solutions; and insurance program management services.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) by 15.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,247,919 shares of the financial services providers stock after acquiring an additional 166,154 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Wells Fargo & Company were worth $53,261,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Wells Fargo & Company by 1.3% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 4,664,647 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $174,365,000 after acquiring an additional 58,249 shares during the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc boosted its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company by 18.2% in the first quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 185,306 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $6,927,000 after purchasing an additional 28,551 shares in the last quarter. Wayfinding Financial LLC increased its position in Wells Fargo & Company by 5.1% during the first quarter. Wayfinding Financial LLC now owns 7,421 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $277,000 after buying an additional 363 shares during the last quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company by 13.0% during the first quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. now owns 25,076 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $937,000 after buying an additional 2,888 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vista Private Wealth Partners. LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company in the second quarter worth about $206,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.47% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on WFC. Wolfe Research downgraded Wells Fargo & Company from an outperform rating to a peer perform rating in a research note on Friday, July 7th. VNET Group restated a maintains rating on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a research note on Monday, June 26th. Atlantic Securities raised their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $50.00 to $52.50 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a buy rating and set a $44.00 target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a research report on Friday, September 22nd. Finally, Odeon Capital Group lowered Wells Fargo & Company from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $43.75 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, July 17th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Wells Fargo & Company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $48.02.

Wells Fargo & Company Price Performance

Shares of WFC traded up $0.03 on Wednesday, hitting $40.68. The companys stock had a trading volume of 5,422,613 shares, compared to its average volume of 20,120,678. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The company has a market capitalization of $148.84 billion, a PE ratio of 10.18, a PEG ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.14. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $43.21 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.32. Wells Fargo & Company has a fifty-two week low of $35.25 and a fifty-two week high of $48.84.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 14th. The financial services provider reported $1.25 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.16 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $20.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $20.11 billion. Wells Fargo & Company had a return on equity of 11.15% and a net margin of 16.18%. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.74 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Wells Fargo & Company will post 4.84 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wells Fargo & Company Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $0.35 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 3rd. This is a positive change from Wells Fargo & Companys previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.44%. Wells Fargo & Companys payout ratio is currently 35.00%.

Wells Fargo & Company Profile

(Free Report)

Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas lessened its position in Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM  Free Report) by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 467,121 shares of the companys stock after selling 16,320 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $45,600,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PM. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 43,512,330 shares of the companys stock worth $4,403,883,000 after purchasing an additional 411,358 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 3.3% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 34,959,139 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,399,777,000 after acquiring an additional 1,106,408 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 30,296,422 shares of the companys stock worth $3,061,665,000 after acquiring an additional 449,971 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 21,448,722 shares of the companys stock worth $2,085,888,000 after acquiring an additional 1,099,430 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 8.8% in the 1st quarter. FMR LLC now owns 16,211,020 shares of the companys stock worth $1,576,522,000 after acquiring an additional 1,315,656 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.70% of the companys stock.

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Philip Morris International Price Performance

NYSE:PM traded down $0.59 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $90.48. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,952,865 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,201,215. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $95.98 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $95.86. Philip Morris International Inc. has a twelve month low of $82.85 and a twelve month high of $105.62. The stock has a market cap of $140.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.62, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.71.

Philip Morris International Increases Dividend

Philip Morris International ( NYSE:PM Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 20th. The company reported $1.60 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.50 by $0.10. Philip Morris International had a negative return on equity of 127.84% and a net margin of 11.63%. The business had revenue of $8.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.76 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.48 EPS. The companys revenue was up 14.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 12th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th will be paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 26th. This is a boost from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. Philip Morris Internationals payout ratio is currently 98.26%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have weighed in on PM shares. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Philip Morris International in a report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Philip Morris International from $115.00 to $110.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 21st. 22nd Century Group reaffirmed a reiterates rating on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Tuesday, June 27th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Philip Morris International from $113.00 to $111.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 22nd. Finally, Citigroup upgraded Philip Morris International from a neutral rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the company from $109.00 to $117.00 in a report on Tuesday, June 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and nine 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 $110.64.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International Profile

(Free Report)

Philip Morris International Inc operates as a tobacco company working to delivers a smoke-free future and evolving portfolio for the long-term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. The company's product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products primarily under the IQOS and ZYN brands; and consumer accessories, such as lighters and matches.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its position in shares of Illinois Tool Works Inc. (NYSE:ITW  Free Report) by 30.9% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 137,238 shares of the industrial products companys stock after buying an additional 32,391 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Illinois Tool Works were worth $34,331,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ITW. Aspire Private Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Illinois Tool Works during the first quarter worth approximately $16,798,050,000. GoalVest Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Illinois Tool Works during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Creative Capital Management Investments LLC increased its holdings in Illinois Tool Works by 145.2% during the 1st quarter. Creative Capital Management Investments LLC now owns 103 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares in the last quarter. Sturgeon Ventures LLP bought a new position in Illinois Tool Works in the 1st quarter valued at $26,000. Finally, Quarry LP boosted its stake in Illinois Tool Works by 52.7% in the first quarter. Quarry LP now owns 142 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares in the last quarter. 79.56% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Illinois Tool Works Trading Up 0.5 %

Illinois Tool Works stock traded up $1.20 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $231.29. 297,957 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,062,887. The stock has a market capitalization of $69.94 billion, a PE ratio of 22.76, a P/E/G ratio of 4.18 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $243.72 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $238.74. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25. Illinois Tool Works Inc. has a 52 week low of $180.27 and a 52 week high of $264.19.

Illinois Tool Works Increases Dividend

Illinois Tool Works ( NYSE:ITW Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 1st. The industrial products company reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.02. Illinois Tool Works had a net margin of 19.30% and a return on equity of 94.14%. The company had revenue of $4.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.14 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.37 earnings per share. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 1.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Illinois Tool Works Inc. will post 9.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 29th will be issued a $1.40 dividend. This is an increase from Illinois Tool Workss previous quarterly dividend of $1.31. This represents a $5.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.42%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 28th. Illinois Tool Workss dividend payout ratio is 51.83%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com lowered Illinois Tool Works from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, August 25th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Illinois Tool Works from $235.00 to $240.00 in a research report on Monday, July 10th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Illinois Tool Works from $213.00 to $198.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 7th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Illinois Tool Works from $230.00 to $232.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Illinois Tool Works from $256.00 to $258.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $237.18.

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Illinois Tool Works Profile

(Free Report)

Illinois Tool Works Inc manufactures and sells industrial products and equipment worldwide. It operates through seven segments: Automotive OEM; Food Equipment; Test & Measurement and Electronics; Welding; Polymers & Fluids; Construction Products; and Specialty Products. The Automotive OEM segment offers plastic and metal components, fasteners, and assemblies for automobiles, light trucks, and other industrial uses.

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TELUS Co. (TSE:T  Get Free Report) (NYSE:TU) hit a new 52-week low during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as C$22.11 and last traded at C$22.13, with a volume of 675087 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at C$22.43.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on T shares. National Bankshares lowered their target price on TELUS from C$30.00 to C$28.00 in a research report on Friday, July 14th. UBS Group cut their price objective on TELUS from C$28.00 to C$27.00 in a research note on Friday, July 14th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of TELUS from C$33.00 to C$29.00 in a report on Monday, July 17th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on shares of TELUS from C$32.00 to C$31.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 17th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group reduced their price objective on shares of TELUS from C$32.00 to C$31.00 in a research note on Monday, July 17th.

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View Our Latest Stock Report on TELUS

TELUS Stock Performance

The firms 50-day moving average price is C$23.38 and its 200-day moving average price is C$25.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 155.24, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.52. The stock has a market cap of C$31.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.98, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.68.

TELUS (TSE:T  Get Free Report) (NYSE:TU) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 4th. The company reported C$0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$0.23 by C($0.04). TELUS had a net margin of 6.04% and a return on equity of 7.22%. The company had revenue of C$4.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of C$4.93 billion. Sell-side analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 1.1755765 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, September 8th will be issued a $0.364 dividend. This represents a $1.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.63%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 7th. TELUSs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 176.83%.

About TELUS

(Get Free Report)

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services.

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THOR Industries (NYSE:THO  Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The construction company reported $1.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.95 by $0.73, MarketWatch Earnings reports. The company had revenue of $2.74 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.43 billion. THOR Industries had a return on equity of 9.90% and a net margin of 3.37%. The firms revenue was down 28.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $5.15 EPS. THOR Industries updated its FY24 guidance to $6.25-7.25 EPS and its FY 2024 guidance to $6.25-$7.25 EPS.

THOR Industries Trading Down 2.1 %

Shares of THO stock opened at $92.86 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 1.79. THOR Industries has a 52-week low of $67.09 and a 52-week high of $116.31. The company has a market capitalization of $4.95 billion, a PE ratio of 13.36 and a beta of 1.87. The businesss fifty day moving average is $104.89 and its 200 day moving average is $92.79.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on THO. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $115.00 price target on shares of THOR Industries in a research note on Tuesday. Roth Mkm reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $72.00 price target on shares of THOR Industries in a research note on Friday, September 22nd. StockNews.com began coverage on THOR Industries in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Citigroup upped their price target on THOR Industries from $97.00 to $107.00 in a research note on Friday, September 1st. Finally, DA Davidson upped their price target on THOR Industries from $72.00 to $85.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 8th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, THOR Industries has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $92.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at THOR Industries

In other news, SVP Kenneth D. Julian sold 10,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.72, for a total transaction of $1,107,200.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 30,811 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,411,393.92. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 4.50% of the companys stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Osaic Holdings Inc. grew its stake in shares of THOR Industries by 23.5% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 53,668 shares of the construction companys stock worth $5,557,000 after buying an additional 10,211 shares during the last quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky grew its stake in shares of THOR Industries by 10.3% in the 2nd quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 9,658 shares of the construction companys stock worth $1,000,000 after buying an additional 898 shares during the last quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of THOR Industries in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $262,000. State of Tennessee Treasury Department grew its stake in shares of THOR Industries by 160.3% in the 2nd quarter. State of Tennessee Treasury Department now owns 16,793 shares of the construction companys stock worth $1,738,000 after buying an additional 10,341 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Atlas Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in THOR Industries in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $428,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.52% of the companys stock.

THOR Industries Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

THOR Industries, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells recreational vehicles (RVs), and related parts and accessories in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company offers travel trailers; gasoline and diesel Class A, Class B, and Class C motorhomes; conventional travel trailers and fifth wheels; luxury fifth wheels; and motorcaravans, caravans, campervans, and urban vehicles.

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Victoria Gold Corp. (TSE:VGCX  Get Free Report) shares traded down 1.8% during trading on Monday . The stock traded as low as C$6.05 and last traded at C$6.12. 161,661 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 60% from the average session volume of 408,793 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$6.23.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently commented on the stock. CIBC cut their price objective on shares of Victoria Gold from C$11.00 to C$10.50 in a report on Friday, August 11th. HC Wainwright raised their price objective on shares of Victoria Gold from C$20.00 to C$24.00 in a report on Friday, August 11th. Finally, Cormark lowered their target price on shares of Victoria Gold from C$19.00 to C$17.50 in a research note on Friday, August 11th.

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Read Our Latest Report on VGCX

Victoria Gold Stock Performance

Victoria Gold Company Profile

The companys 50-day moving average price is C$7.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is C$8.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 45.51, a quick ratio of 0.34 and a current ratio of 2.30. The stock has a market cap of C$377.89 million, a PE ratio of 18.93 and a beta of 1.66.

(Get Free Report)

Victoria Gold Corp. acquires, explores, and operates mineral properties in Canada and the United States. The company primarily explores for gold deposits. Its flagship property is 100% owned Dublin Gulch property, which hosts the Eagle and Olive-Shamrock Gold deposit covering an area of approximately 555 square kilometers located in central Yukon, Canada.

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Whitecap Resources Inc. (TSE:WCP  Get Free Report) announced a monthly dividend on Thursday, September 14th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Saturday, September 30th will be given a dividend of 0.048 per share on Monday, October 16th. This represents a $0.58 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.01%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 28th.

Whitecap Resources Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of WCP stock opened at C$11.50 on Wednesday. Whitecap Resources has a 52-week low of C$8.10 and a 52-week high of C$11.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 24.26, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.87. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of C$11.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$10.34. The company has a market capitalization of C$6.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.50, a PEG ratio of -0.33 and a beta of 2.88.

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Whitecap Resources (TSE:WCP  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 26th. The company reported C$0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of C$0.25 by C$0.04. The business had revenue of C$873.40 million during the quarter. Whitecap Resources had a net margin of 31.05% and a return on equity of 21.71%. Research analysts anticipate that Whitecap Resources will post 1.1299213 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have weighed in on WCP. Raymond James boosted their target price on shares of Whitecap Resources from C$15.00 to C$16.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Friday, September 8th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Whitecap Resources from C$14.00 to C$13.00 in a research note on Friday, June 30th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Whitecap Resources from C$13.75 to C$14.75 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, September 1st. Desjardins upped their target price on shares of Whitecap Resources from C$12.75 to C$13.50 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, September 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Whitecap Resources from C$13.00 to C$14.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, July 27th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of C$14.63.

Check Out Our Latest Report on WCP

About Whitecap Resources

(Get Free Report)

Whitecap Resources Inc, an oil and gas company, focuses on the acquisition, development, and production of oil and gas assets in Western Canada. The company's primary areas of focus of its development programs are in Northern Alberta and British Columbia, Central Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Whitecap Resources Inc was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Petrovietnam Gas workers are seen in a factory. Photo courtesy of Petrovietnam

The 19 state-owned companies run by the State Capital Investment Corporation reported revenues of nearly US$82 billion last year, or 20% of Vietnams GDP.

Their combined equity was worth VND1.15 quadrillion, up 10% from 2018 when they were transferred to the SCIC, Pham Van Son, head of the sovereign funds general department, said.

Oil and gas giant Petrovietnam and coal mining company Vinacomin last year reported the highest revenues in their history.

State-owned companies play an important role in a number of key sectors.

For instance, Vietnam Electricity, Petrovietnam and Vincomin account for around 87% of the countrys total electricity supply.

State-owned firms also account for around 84% of the retail fuel market.

But Son said these companies have yet to reach their full potential or produce hi-tech products that could transform the economy.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Do Thanh Trung said these companies, despite holding large amounts of assets, have not been able to compete globally.

The SCIC needs to be make them efficient at utilizing their assets worth VND1.1 quadrillion ($45.08 billion).

Economist Vo Tri Thanh said to achieve that goal state-owned companies need to change their operation structure.

"They should operate as investors similar to fund management companies."

The investment ministry has called on the government to adopt a sandbox model for state-owned companies to test new technologies and products.

Trung said: "We need to learn from global state-owned companies to be flexible in managing state funds."

Industries such as offshore wind energy, green hydrogen and semiconductor need the participation of large state-owned enterprises, he added.

"State-owned companies should do the big, difficult and new things to stimulate economic growth while allowing room for private companies to grow."
Yamana Gold Inc. (TSE:YRI  Get Free Report) (NYSE:AUY)s share price shot up 0.1% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as C$8.07 and last traded at C$7.89. 23,617,782 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 1,101% from the average session volume of 1,967,190 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$7.88.

Yamana Gold Stock Up 0.1 %

The firm has a market capitalization of C$7.59 billion, a P/E ratio of -5.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of -0.78 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a current ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 23.61. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is C$7.90.

About Yamana Gold

(Get Free Report)

Yamana Gold Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a precious metal producer. It has gold and silver production, development-stage properties, exploration properties, and land positions throughout the Americas, including Canada, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The company was formerly known as Yamana Resources Inc and changed its name to Yamana Gold Inc in August 2003.

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Sohil Sehran is a journalist with 10 years of experience in print, broadcast, and digital media. He covers politics and national affairs at Moneycontrol. He tweets @SohilSehran
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The agriculture ministry is scheduled to work with the European Commission inspection team during October 10 - 18 over Vietnam's efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The team will consist of representatives of the ECs Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and Delegation in Vietnam.

The inspection targets the implementation of the EC recommendations on IUU fishing, with a specific emphasis on the monitoring of fishing vessel activities in Vietnamese waters, vessel arrivals and departures at ports and their activities at sea, imported raw materials, and origin tracing of seafood from fishing.

It is anticipated that the team will conduct on-site examinations and technical work from October 10 to 15. Accordingly, they will work with the Department of Animal Health and the Department of Quality, Processing and Market Development under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and some export enterprises. They will run on-site inspections at designated fishing ports in accordance with the Agreement on Port State Measures and in local areas.

On October 16 and 17, the team will engage in technical discussions with the two aforementioned departments, the Directorate of Fisheries, the Directorate's fisheries surveillance unit, and other relevant units.

On October 18, EC representatives will hold a high-level dialogue with the ministry's leaders, and they are scheduled to meet with leaders of the government and the National Steering Committee for IUU Fishing Prevention on the same day.

According to the agriculture ministry, the Vietnamese side continues reaffirming the country's strong commitment to combating IUU fishing, aligning with international regulations and fostering the sustainable development of the local seafood industry, and building trust and mutual understanding regarding Vietnam's current situation, efforts, and determination in combating IUU fishing and transitioning from small-scale to responsible fishing practices through the enforcement of the 2017 fisheries law.
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An area that is subject to be clear to serve the construction of Bien Hoa - Vung Tau Expressway. Photo by VnExpress/Phuoc Tuan

The building of a major expressway and ring road through Dong Nai has fallen far behind schedule as the southern province has failed to clear the sites needed for construction.

Work on the Bien Hoa - Vung Tau Expressway between the beach city of Vung Tau and the industrial city of Bien Hoa in Dong Nai Province began in June.

But contractors have yet to receive cleared land to build the expressway in Dong Nai.

Slated to cost around VND18 trillion (US$755.67 million) in total, the expressway will run 53.7 km in Ho Chi Minh City and 34 km in Dong Nai before reaching Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province.

In Ba Ria  Vung Tau, 80% of site clearance has been completed, while in Dong Nai progress has reached just 6%.

Nguyen Hong Que, deputy director of the board that is in charge of site clearance and compensation for the expressway in Dong Nai, said 290 hectares still need to be cleared to serve the project.

Of 3,700 houses that need to be removed, many were built illegally, and their owners do not have official house ownership certificates. Instead, they have only hand-written papers, making it complicated for compensation procedures, said Que.

In addition, there have been disagreements between the Dong Nai Rubber Corporation and units under the Ministry of National Defense over acquiring land for the expressway and resettlement areas. This has worsened the delays in site clearance.

Until now, none of the four resettlement projects slated to serve those affected by the site clearance have been completed.

Of them, Dong Nai authorities have only approved investment procedures for two, and they will not be completed until 2025.

Bien Hoa - Vung Tau Expressway is one of three approved expressways aiming to serve the urgent transportation needs in the southern key economic region. The region includes HCMC and the provinces of Dong Nai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Tay Ninh and Binh Phuoc.

National Highway 51 is currently the only link between Bien Hoa and Vung Tau.

When put into use, the new expressway is expected to shorten the travel time between HCMC and Vung Tau from two hours to 70 minutes.

Obstacles to site clearance are also affecting the building of Ring Road No.3, which will run 90 km through Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An provinces.

Its first phase will stretch 76 km long, and each locality is in charge of clearing sites and building the section in its territory.

Until now, Dong Nai has cleared only 6% of the sites needed for building the ring road, while HCMC has cleared 95%, Binh Duong 44% and Long An 97%.

While work has already begun in the other four provinces, the contractor of the ring road section in Dong Nai had to send a statement to authorities asking for cleared sites to begin construction.

Explaining the tardiness in site clearance for the ring road section in Dong Nai, the Ministry of Transport said the origin of some land plots had not yet been determined and there were currently 169 houses of which the owners had yet to be identified.

Difficulties in hiring a consulting unit and the lack of agreement on land valuation methods have also been causes of delay.

Le Huu Thanh, vice chairman of Nhon Trach District, which the ring road will run through, said site clearance has been late because the province was tardy in approving the project and setting the boundary for the area that needed to be cleared.

"It was not until April that we received a decision on where to set the boundary maker to identify the area where the ring road will be built. Only after that decision could we make a plan for site clearance and compensation for approval," he said.

The entire Ring Road No.3 will run 6 km in Long An, and around 11 km each in Binh Duong and Dong Nai.

For the section in Dong Nai, the road will run 6.3 km through Nhon Trach.

While working with Dong Nai authorities on the Bien Hoa - Vung Tau Expressway on Monday, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Anh Tuan said local site clearance work was moving much slower than the plan set by the National Assembly and the government.

He asked the province to speed up work, and he agreed with a previous proposal by the province to relocate families affected by the Bien Hoa  Vung Tau Expressway to a resettlement area built for those affected by the Long Thanh airport project.

The airport, which is set to become the largest in Vietnam, is under construction in Dong Nai.
The market recorded a strong rebound from its 50-day EMA (exponential moving average) placed at around 19,550 and formed a bullish candlestick pattern with a long lower shadow which resembles a Bullish Engulfing pattern formation at the downtrend on the daily timeframe on September 27, indicating sign of reversal. Hence, the Nifty50 may face a hurdle at 19,800-20,000 levels in coming sessions, with support at 19,600-19,500.

The BSE Sensex climbed 173 points to 66,119, while the Nifty50 was up 52 points at 19,716, after consolidation in the previous two sessions, ahead of the monthly F&O expiry on September 28.

"Technically, Wednesday's market action is indicating the formation of a Bullish engulfing pattern. Normally such patterns after a reasonable decline or near the supports signal chances of upside bounce in the underlying post confirmation," Nagaraj Shetti, technical research analyst at HDFC Securities said.

After the rangebound movement in the last few sessions, the market showed a false downside breakout of the range in the early part of Wednesday before witnessing a sharp intraday upside bounce. Hence, there is a higher possibility of upside breakout of the narrow range at 19,750 levels, according to Shetti.

He said a follow-through upmove could confirm a short-term higher bottom reversal pattern. "Immediate support is placed around 19,600-19,550 levels and a decisive move above the hurdle of 19,750 levels could pull the Nifty towards 19,950-20,000 levels."

The broader markets also traded higher though the breadth was not strong enough. The Nifty Midcap 100 index jumped 0.75 percent and Smallcap 100 index gained nearly 1 percent.

We have collated 15 data points to help you spot profitable trades:

Note: The open interest (OI) and volume data of stocks are the aggregates of three-month data and not just the current month.

Key support and resistance levels on Nifty

The pivot point calculator indicates that the Nifty may be taking support at 19,600, followed by 19,558 and 19,490. On the higher side, 19,735 can be an immediate resistance, followed by 19,776 and 19,844.

Nifty Bank

On September 27, the Bank Nifty, too, recouped more than 400 points loss from the day's low and closed with minor losses of 36 points at 44,588 ahead of the monthly futures & options expiry, forming a bullish candlestick pattern with a long lower shadow and minor upper shadow on the daily scale, indicating buying at lower levels.

The Bank Nifty bulls displayed resilience by defending the key support level at 44,200, which coincided with the rising trendline support. However, the index is currently trading below its 20-day moving average (20DMA) positioned at 45,000. "A decisive break above this level could trigger significant short-covering," Kunal Shah, senior technical & derivative analyst at LKP Securities said.

Currently, the Bank Nifty is trading within a broad range of 44,200 to 45,000. A clear break on either side of this range will likely lead to trending moves, he feels.

Nevertheless, within this range, the overall sentiment remains bullish, suggesting that a "buy on dip" approach may be favourable, Kunal advised.

As per the pivot point calculator, the banking index is expected to take support at 44,294, followed by 44,180 and 43,994. On the upside, the initial resistance is at 44,665 then 44,780 and 44,965.

Call options data

The options data suggested that the maximum weekly Call open interest (OI) was seen at 19,800 strike with 1.5 crore contracts, which can act as a key resistance for the Nifty. It was followed by 19,900 strike which had 1.13 crore contracts, while 20,000 strike had 1.1 crore contracts.

The meaningful Call writing was seen at 19,900 strike, which added 22.02 lakh contracts followed by 19,800 and 19,500 strikes, which added 17.13 lakh and 5.34 lakh contracts.

The maximum Call unwinding was at 20,100 strike, which shed 19.86 lakh contracts followed by 20,500 strike and 20,200 strike, which shed 13.71 lakh contracts, and 9.69 lakh contracts.

Put option data

On the Put side, the maximum open interest remained at 19,600 strike, with 1.31 crore contracts. This can be an important support for the Nifty in the coming sessions.

It was followed by 19,500 strike comprising 1.24 crore contracts, and 19,700 strike with 1.06 crore contracts.

The meaningful Put writing was at 19,600 strike, which added 43.66 lakh contracts, followed by 19,700 strike and 19,500 strike, which added 38.88 lakh and 38.41 lakh contracts.

Put unwinding was at 19,800 strike, which shed 6.17 lakh contracts followed by 19,900 strike and 20,000 strike, which shed 4.34 lakh and 2.47 lakh contracts.

Stocks with high delivery percentage

A high delivery percentage suggests that investors are showing interest in the stock. Max Financial Services, UltraTech Cement, InterGlobe Aviation, Bharti Airtel, and Mahindra & Mahindra have seen the highest delivery among the F&O stocks.

55 stocks see a long build-up

A long build-up was seen in 55 stocks, including Escorts, Max Financial Services, REC, Balkrishna Industries, and BHEL. An increase in open interest (OI) and price indicates a build-up of long positions.

28 stocks see long unwinding

Based on the OI percentage, a total of 28 stocks including Ramco Cements, Titan Company, Eicher Motors, India Cements, and Trent, saw long unwinding. A decline in OI and price indicates long unwinding.

23 stocks see a short build-up

A short build-up was seen in 23 stocks, including Gujarat Gas, Colgate Palmolive, Vedanta, Hindustan Aeronautics, and ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company. An increase in OI along with a fall in price points to a build-up of short positions.

82 stocks see short-covering

Based on the OI percentage, 82 stocks were on the short-covering list. These included Hindustan Copper, Navin Fluorine International, Balrampur Chini Mills, Delta Corp, and Apollo Tyres. A decrease in OI along with a price increase is an indication of short-covering.

Bulk deals

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Investors meeting on September 28

Stocks in the news

Yatra Online: The corporate travel services company will list its equity shares on the BSE and NSE on September 28. The issue price has been fixed at Rs 142 per share. The date of allotment of IPO shares was set as September 25.

Aurobindo Pharma: Subsidiary Auro Vaccines has entered into a licence agreement with Hilleman Laboratories Singapore Pte Limited to develop, manufacture and commercialise a pentavalent vaccine candidate used in children's vaccination. Auro Vaccines will make milestone payments to Hilleman upon achieving certain development and clinical study outcomes, while Hilleman will also be paid royalties upon commercialisation of the vaccine candidate.

Dixon Technologies: Subsidiary Padget Electronics has entered into an agreement with Xiaomi Technology India for the manufacturing of smartphones and other related products for Xiaomi. The said manufacturing will take place from Padgets manufacturing facility at Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

Tata Power Company: Subsidiary Tata Power Renewable Energy (TPREL) will set up a 41 MW captive solar plant at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu for TP Solar's new greenfield 4.3 GW solar cell and module manufacturing facility at Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.

Reliance Industries: Subsidiary Reliance Jio has net added 39.07 lakh wireless subscribers in the month of July 2023, up sharply from 22.7 lakh subscribers addition in the previous month, as per the data published by the TRAI. With this, the firm held a 38.60 percent market share of wireless subscribers as of July 2023.

Bharti Airtel: The telecom operator has net added 15.17 lakh subscribers in the month of July, increasing from 14.1 lakh subscribers addition in the previous month. The firm has a 32.74 percent market share in the wireless subscribers segment as of July 2023.

NBCC India: The state-owned construction company has announced the sale of commercial built-up space in World Trade Centre, New Delhi through e-auction. It launched the sale on September 27 and the e-auction will take place on October 23 this year. The area offered for sale is 14.75 lakh square feet and the value of the area offered is Rs 5,716.43 crore.

Fund Flow (Rs Crore)

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 354.35 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) bought Rs 386.28 crore worth of stocks on September 27, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.

Stocks under F&O ban on NSE

The NSE has retained Delta Corp and India Cements to its F&O ban list for September 28. Balrampur Chini Mills, Canara Bank, Hindustan Copper, and Indiabulls Housing Finance removed from the said list.

Securities banned under the F&O segment include companies where derivative contracts cross 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

Disclaimer: MoneyControl is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
Souptik Datta Reports real estate, infra and city in Bengaluru. Btw, curiosity never kills the cat.
Mehul R Thakkar is Special Correspondent, Moneycontrol, Indias leading financial news platform, based in Mumbai where he is focussed on covering the real estate sector.
Designer Do Manh Cuong announced that he would no longer take part in the Los Angeles Fashion Show due to problems in delivering his creations to the U.S. from Vietnam.

Designer Do Manh Cuong in New York ahead of his show at the New York Fashion Week, which takes place on September 10, 2023. Photo from Cuong's Facebook

Cuong said outfits he prepared for the show were not delivered on time, leaving him unable to hold the show as planned.

"Its a shame, but its a force majeure event," he said. "I hope to get understanding from guests that have arranged their schedules to get to Los Angeles to watch my show."

Cuong was set to open the Los Angeles Fashion Show on Wednesday, only 17 days after he introduced his latest collection at the 2024 S/S New York Fashion Week on September 10.

The short leap between the two events had made him worried and hesitant when he first received the invitation from the organizers, but he decided to accept.

He had invited 500 guests to the show, including celebrities and loyal customers.

The designer said he would introduce outfits meant to be introduced in Los Angeles at a more suitable time. His highest priority at the moment is to return to Vietnam to reunite with his children.

Cuong, 42, graduated in the top 20 of his class at the French fashion school Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. He interned at Dior before returning to Vietnam and establishing his first brand DMC by Do Manh Cuong in 2007, then his second brand SIXDO in 2020.
Pallavi Singhal is a Correspondent at Moneycontrol.com covering commerce, agriculture and education. With a total experience of four years, she has reported on varied subjects covering crime, courts, civic affairs, health & politics. Human interest and feature stories have always piqued her interest.
Passengers queue at airline counters in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines, January 2, 2023. Photo by Reuters

A total of 19 airport security screeners have been sacked since July last year after they were caught stealing from airline passengers, a Filipino top official said

"Actually, we have investigated 60 cases of theft at the airports involving security employees," Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said on Tuesday during the Senate deliberations, as cited by Inquirer.net.

His statement came in the wake of increasing theft cases involving security officers at airports across the Philippines.

The latest incident happened on September 8 as a female security officer at Ninoy Aquino International Airport was caught in a video swallowing US$300 in cash stolen from a Chinese passenger's wallet.

The Chinese tourist handed over his shoulder bag to her before going through a security scanner but then found that his wallet was open and his money inside was missing.

Philippine airport authorities announced charges would be filed against her.

In response to increasing incidents of theft at the airport, Filipino authorities have ordered personnel to stop wearing jackets and remove pockets from their uniforms.
Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
As the annual convocation of the United Nations General Assembly wound down in late September, world leaders unveiled an ambitious effort to intensify the fight against tuberculosis, a disease that is the worlds leading infectious disease killer.

Tuberculosis, or TB, has plagued humans for thousands of years. It is believed to have evolved along with people - and it is still evolving, and still killing its victims. Even though TB is a preventable and curable disease, each day, some 4,000 people die because of it, and another 30,000 become ill with it. It is often a disease of the poor, the under-nourished and those who do not have access to healthcare.

At the High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis, global leaders set several goals to be reached by 2027. They include reaching 90 percent of people with TB prevention and care services, providing social benefit packages to all people with TB, licensing at least one new vaccine, and closing funding gaps for implementation.

For our part, the United States, working through USAID, has launched new programs to support countries in fighting tuberculosis.

This is part of USAIDs global investment of over $394 million meant to counter TB in Fiscal Year 2023. Notably, USAID will use $8.5 million to increase its support of TB programs in conflict settings, especially among the populations most at risk of TB in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Burma.

At the same time, one to two of USAIDs TB priority countries will receive as much as $15 million more during this fiscal year, to roll out innovative Tuberculosis diagnostics and treatments at the community and primary health care levels.

USAID, in cooperation with the SMART4TB Consortium led by Johns Hopkins, launched a new foundational clinical trial on a TB preventive therapy regimen, for the future study of a single-dose, long-acting injectable medicine.

As the worlds largest bilateral donor leading the fight to end Tuberculosis, USAID has provided $4.7 billion in assistance to combat this disease since 2000. Working with partners, USAID has saved more than 75 million lives to date. This most recent effort yet again illustrates USAID's steadfast commitment to ending TB globally.
Dave Lee is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Anita Rao Kashi is an independent travel and lifestyle writer. Anita is on Instagram @anitaraokashi
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced an additional $65 million in U.S. assistance to Haiti to further professionalize the Haitian National Police and strengthen its capacity to safeguard communities. The United States is also imposing additional visa restrictions on current and former Haitian officials who are enabling the violence that has engulfed the Haitian people.

Secretary Blinken called the situation in Haiti dire.

More than 2,000 killings in the first six months of this year; more than 1,000 kidnappings in the same period; over five million Haitians who urgently need humanitarian assistance, tens of thousands of Haitians facing catastrophic hunger, nearly 60,000 suspected cholera cases. Nearly half of those cases are children.

Hosting a Haiti-focused event on the sidelines of the recent U.N. General Assembly, Secretary Blinken urged the Security Council to pass a resolution authorizing a U.N.-backed Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti. The Kenyan Government has expressed willingness to serve as the lead nation of the mission, and the United States, said Secretary Blinken, is prepared to give substantial assistance.

We intend to work with our Congress to provide $100 million in support. And our Department of Defense is prepared to provide robust enabling support - including planning assistance, intelligence support, airlift, communications and medical support. We urge the international community to pledge additional personnel, as well as equipment, logistics, training, and funding. We cannot be successful without these contributions.

Secretary Blinken stressed that progress must also be made on Haitis political crisis. The support mission will not be a substitute for political progress, he said, but it can help create space for Haiti to move forward.

With international support, the mission could be deployed within months, said Secretary Blinken. We really have no time to lose. We can and we must do whats necessary to make that happen, he declared. The safety, the security, the future of the Haitian people  and people across the region - depend on the urgency of our action.
The small-cap sector has now underperformed the Top 100 stocks for 22 months! Thats longer than the two previous drawdowns over the last 25 years or so. The macro noise is loud right now. But there is always opportunity in the market, even when so much seems to be working against us

Im sitting in an office tower in the Melbourne CBD when David Wanis of Longwave Capital Partners shares the following chart:



Source: LongWave Capital Partners [Click to open in a new window]

This again!

Its not the first time Ive seen it. David has been updating it for a while, and God bless him for doing so.

The chart shows that the small-cap sector has now underperformed the Top 100 stocks for 22 months!

Thats longer than the two previous drawdowns over the last 25 years or so.

When will this dud period end?

I saw the same chart when it was 18 months15 monthsyou get the idea.

It gives you an idea of how tough the market has been since late 2021.

Its also a clue to see where a big opportunity lies.

Markets move in cycles. Periods of underperformance are often followed by outperformance.

Yes  past performance is no guarantee of future performance. However, the market, like life, is a matter of playing the odds.

Id expect an equivalent period of small-cap strength relative to the Top 100 when they start firing.

David also made an important point that day. Its that individual stock picking can buck this malaise.

The macro noise is loud right now.

But theres another way we can use this drawdown.

Thats to see which stocks are NOT going down with the general trend of the small-cap sector.

One of those stocks is part of my latest report available here. Its called Maas Group Holdings [ASX:MGH].

Its up about 30% in 2023. That might look modest in the context of what small caps can do at time.

However, its a very tidy return for any part of the market. Its been a tough year.

The good news is that I think this makes for an excellent hold for the foreseeable future.

Maas has a strong foothold in the construction and infrastructure space.

One way to read the market is to look for confirmation elsewhere.

Seven Group Holdings [ASX:SVW]  a much bigger stock  is also heavily exposed to construction and infrastructure.

Look how it keeps grinding up, despite all the negativity at play in the markets right now

Clearly, investors dont give a damn about China, bond yields and a potential US recession when it comes to these two.

Theyre happy to hold come what may  at least for now.

The point is that there is always opportunity in the market, even when so much seems to be working against us.

Another of my small-cap recommendations is up 60% since March too.

Why? Its growing its business! Im excited for this one. Its possible that by 2025 or 2026 this stock is up 200300%.

I cant guarantee it, of course! But, again, I like the odds.

But you have to be prepared to buy and hold for all that time. It can be an oddly difficult thing to do.

Human nature wants to snatch any gain that appears. We get spooked. We get bored. We need the money for a holiday.

Sometimes you just have to leave well enough alone.

This is the opportunity in front of you now. Small-cap stocks, as a sector, are on the floor.

Every investing book you can ever read would suggest buying low now  and potentially selling high in two, three, five years.

Thats pure logic.

But I can tell you that people respond emotionally to the stock market.

And people right now arent feeling bullish, and they see the market having a tough time now and put it all in the too hard basket.

I urge you not to make the same mistake (as I see it). Go here for the full run down on why now could be the time to go shopping!

Human psychology is a fascinating thing

We can see it playing out in healthcare stock ResMed [ASX:RMD] right now too. There might be a short-term opportunity here.

ResMed is one of the most highly regarded firms on the ASX. Earlier in the year it was trading on a 38 P/E ratio.

Lately its been smashed around 35%.

ResMeds business model (treating sleep apnoea) is coming under a perceived threat from new weight loss drugs taking the market by storm.

I dont know enough about either to say whether this is true, or to what extent. ResMed is not a small cap  my area of expertise.

However, Im always interested in opportunity.

Im aware some big fund managers have come out in support of the stock.

I also know that weve seen some big sell offs in various stocks lately  and these proved overdone in hindsight. Its a twitchy market.

The huge volume profile over the last two months suggests some big funds are buying this dip.

Its possible the stock is now bottoming out.

Take that with a huge dose of caution. Calling a bottom in any stock is a dangerous game.

But ResMed was up yesterday on big volume. I noted that I expected a rally before I went to bed last night.

See the chart here

Its playing out so far

ResMed was up in US trading overnight, even as the Dow and S&P500 fell.

Another thing to watch for here is the role of short sellers.

I know these guys were taking their positions back in August, and maybe earlier. At some point they will roll off  and buy back the stock to get out.

Lets see what happens from here.

The way I read it is that ResMed should not break below the $21 level now set as the current low.

If it does, forget the idea. It will be a dud.

However, right now ResMed should stabilise and potentially recover some lost ground.

Another example of potential opportunity in the current carnage.

Best wishes,

Callum Newman,

Editor, Money Morning
I-Life is empowering young minds with knowledge & immersive experiences for a limitless future

I-Life's distinctive approach follows a sophisticated spiral model, perfectly tailored to students' advancement in higher grades. At the core, it nurtures vital 21stcentury skills creative thinking, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. This framework seamlessly extends to technology-focused programs like AI, coding, and robotics, while encompassing finance, marketing, and industry-specific knowledge. With a harmonious blend of teacher guidance and student autonomy, I-Life empowers educators through an intuitive instructional design integrated within their comprehensive teacher's dashboard. Our methodology involves introducing Real Life Concepts along with the Social and Emotional development of every child in the early years of learning. We are Indias first organization to create a program which provides on-job teachers training and development process which encompasses real-time teachers classroom, delivery management and effective learning mechanism for students, says Ruhi Thakkar, Co-Founder and Head of Academics.The formidable team at, I-Life comprises exceptional individuals with extensive expertise and unwavering dedication to revolutionizing education. Led by visionary CEO and Founder, Amarnath Chayanam, the team combines business acumen and critical thinking to make a lasting impact on children's lives. Ruhi Thakkar, Co-Founder and Head of Academics shapes a holistic curriculum using her profound knowledge of dance and early childhood development. Gayathri Uday, Head of Operations, ensures seamless organizational functioning with her insightful HR expertise. Manas Sarangi, Chief Technology Officer, leverages his extensive IT background to drive technological advancement, and Vijay Koganti is the firms second head of technology managing a robust animation team for AR and VR. Gangadharan is the Vice President of Sales responsible for leading the sales team to meet and exceed goals. Together, this extraordinary team sets the stage for, I-Lifes transformative impact, fueled by its commitment and creativity.The firms visionary roadmap leaps into the metaverse, unlocking boundless possibilities. Through immersive experiences using the Oculus system, the company immerses young minds in captivating ecosystems, nurturing skills and expanding horizons. Secrets of electric car engineering, battery development, hydroponics in agriculture, and pressing topics like climate change and sustainable practices come alive. Currently, I-Life is working extensively in Dallas & Huston, Texas USA, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah UAE, and four states in India. I-Life's virtual tours reveal the inner workings of banking, mutual funds, credit management, and the vibrant Moonspell community. This holistic approach empowers young learners with a well-rounded understanding of diverse industries, enabling them to embark on their future careers with clarity and purpose.
By Nigina Mirbabaeva

EBRD lends 110 million to residential-for-rent property owner and operator Heimstaden Bostad

Investment to finance large scale energy efficiency renovation of a portfolio of residential buildings

Energy efficiency measures in buildings key to support decarbonisation and move to net-zero

The EBRD is supporting residential energy efficiency in the Czech Republic by providing a 110 million loan to Heimstaden Bostad, the owner of the largest portfolio of private residential rental units in the Czech Republic.

The EBRD is investing alongside a consortium of commercial banks, to finance large scale and systemic green renovation of Heimstaden Bostad's portfolio residential buildings, which house circa 42,500 residential units in the country.

The EBRD's green and sustainability-linked loan will enable Heimstaden to implement building improvements such as thermal insulation and transition to low-carbon energy supply such as renewable energy and heat pumps. The green investments will support the company in achieving its ambitious climate targets of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of its overall portfolio by 42 per cent by 2030, from 2020 as the base year. With the majority of the emissions reduction expected to come from the Czech portfolio, the EBRD's investment will provide the necessary financing to help meet this objective.

Charlotte Ruhe, EBRD Managing Director for Central and South Eastern Europe, said: "Buildings are responsible for more than a third of global carbon emissions, so supporting their energy efficiency and green transformation is crucial to reach global decarbonisation goals. This project demonstrates what can be done when private sector firms collaborate to achieve change. It serves as an excellent example to other players in the market, which we hope will advance further green investments in the real estate sector."

Heimstaden Bostad's CEO Helge Krogsbl commented: "We are pleased to announce our cooperation with EBRD, Unicredit, and the Czech banking consortium. These funds strengthen our balance sheet and will enhance the sustainability of our Czech portfolio. Heimstaden Bostad was the first major European residential real estate company to attain Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) validation for our Climate Roadmap, with our Czech portfolio offering the highest potential for reducing CO2 emissions."

Heimstaden was one of the first pan-European residential real estate companies and the first real estate company in the Czech Republic to commit to the globally recognised Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a third-party recognition that validates climate targets to ensure that they meet the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C.

As part of the Bank's investment, Heimstaden is going further and will also join the World Green Building Council's initiative on the development of a national whole-life decarbonisation roadmap for the Czech Republic. The roadmap will identify specific actions, measures and policy interventions to address decarbonisation opportunities across the building value chain to reduce buildings' whole lifecycle carbon footprint.

Heimstaden is Europe's second largest residential for rent landlord, currently present in nine countries, including the Czech Republic and Poland. Heimstaden operates in the professional private rental sector with a total portfolio of more than 160,000 residential units including circa 42,500 residential units located mainly in the Moravia-Silesia region in the Czech Republic.

The EBRD resumed investing in the Czech Republic in 2021, following the authorities' request to help with the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The EBRD invested 111 million in the Czech Republic in 2022, more than 80 per cent of which went into green projects. The Bank's engagement in the country focuses on the private sector.
Using the Air NZ phone app, you will know where your luggage is from when you drop it on the conveyor belt to when it's in hand at your destination.
Property owners in New York need to reduce emissions from their buildings. Sweden can help with this, as Swedish companies have long experience and new innovations that can contribute to New York's climate transition.

Skyscrapers with single-glazed windows, boilers that are heated with natural gas and heat steam which is not recycled but rises from the underground. Heat recovery is low, and many buildings have not been updated with modern energy efficiency standards since they were built in the second half of the 20th century. This is standard for the urban environment of New York. But the iconic setting comes with a high price - soon to be even higher.

Buildings account for about 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and reducing their impact is a key part of the work in the climate transition. Three major issues need to be resolved. How will existing construction be made more energy efficient? How to build sustainably in the future? How do buildings get the right supply of energy, heating and cooling, from a system perspective?

In an effort to speed up the transition, New York has for several years introduced strict regulations for emission reductions on large buildings. As early as 2024, property owners who do not live up to the requirements will be fined.



Another initiative from the State of New York is to prioritise further development of district heating in the region. The current district heating system is based on steam, but new solutions are required to serve the modern city and there are many buildings to be converted.

New York Climate Week

New York Climate Week takes place every year in September and is an important forum for highlighting different parts of the transition. The Swedish Energy Agency is participating again, to increase the visibility of Swedish solutions in several areas and promote cooperation between the State of New York and Sweden.

- New York is an attractive market for Swedish companies, and there is a great need for energy efficiency and system solutions in heating and cooling. Swedish companies have extensive experience and new innovations that can contribute to New York's transition. It is not an easy market to approach - and the role of the Swedish Energy Agency is to open doors and enable their journey across the Atlantic, said Sandra Ideskar, business developer at the Swedish Energy Agency.

With the help of the Swedish Energy Agency's accelerator programme Skyline, six Swedish companies with solutions that will make buildings more energy efficient get an opportunity to visit New York and learn more about the challenges and opportunities on the market. Companies get to network, pitch their products, participate in platforms, and descend into boiler rooms to see the true reality of New York's buildings.

Close cooperation with key players in district heating

The Swedish Energy Agency has been active in New York since 2022 to promote Swedish energy efficiency solutions that can be implemented quickly, as well as to spread know-how from Sweden in major system solutions such as district heating and geo energy.

In June, a delegation of property owners and other real estate actors from New York were invited to Stockholm. They visited showcased solutions in reconstruction and gained insight on how a state-of-the-art district heating system can present benefits for consumers and commercial real estate players, through heat recovery.

During Climate week, the Swedish Energy Agency organises an event to highlight the role of district heating in an energy-efficient urban environment - "The Future of Heat: Thermal Energy Networks in Stockholm and New York". The event is co-organized with The New York Building Energy Exchange and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

Stockholm Exergi will be present to share best practise about Stockholm's district heating system - from heat recovery to bio-CCS. The event is a follow-up to the visit to Stockholm in June.



Contact

Sandra Ideskar

+46 73-660 55 93
2023 Toys for Tots campaign kicks off in Guam and CNMI
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.
RWE is further expanding its battery storage business worldwide. The company has now finalised its investment decision for a Dutch battery storage project with an installed power capacity of 35 megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 41 megawatt-hours (MWh). A total of 110 lithium-ion battery racks are to be installed at RWE's biomass plant in Eemshaven on an area of around 3,000 square metres. RWE plans to invest approximately 24 million euros.

The battery project is an important step towards a portfolio of innovative demand assets to optimally integrate the weather-related fluctuating power generation profile of the "OranjeWind" offshore wind farm into the Dutch energy system. In 2022, RWE had secured the implementation of the offshore project off the Dutch coast with a system integration concept that combines the wind farm with the generation of green hydrogen and other solutions such as battery storage.

Roger Miesen, CEO RWE Generation and Country Chair for the Netherlands: "With the increasing share of renewable energies in the electricity mix, the demand for flexible battery storage is also rising. With this large-scale project, RWE is gaining experience in the marketing of energy storage systems on the Dutch energy markets and is actively contributing towards stabilising the Dutch electricity grid."

The planned battery storage facility can operate at its installed capacity of 35 MW for over an hour. This is sufficient to charge around 800 EVs. The system has been designed to be virtually coupled across technologies with RWE power plants in the Netherlands. This enables optimal management of balancing energy, which can be supplied by selected units either individually or as a group. The battery storage system receives excess power from the electricity grid and feeds it back into the system when required, in order to maintain the required grid frequency.

Battery storage@RWE

Battery storage systems are an essential part of the energy transition - they store the leftover electricity from surplus production and make it available again when needed.

As one of the leaders of the energy transition, RWE develops, builds and operates battery storage systems in Europe, Australia and the US. RWE aims to build more than three gigawatts of batteries by 2030. RWE benefits from its many years of experience with battery storage systems and is therefore taking care of the detailed planning, modelling, system integration and commissioning of the projects directly and entirely on its own.

In Germany, RWE commissioned its mega battery in Lingen and Werne, with a total capacity of 117 MW, at the beginning of 2023. The company plans to virtually connect this battery storage system with its run-of-river power plants on the Moselle River. A 220-MW battery storage system is currently under construction at RWE's Neurath and Westfalen power plants. In March, the company acquired British developer JBM Solar, with an advanced development pipeline of 2.3 gigawatts of battery storage projects. At its German opencast mines, RWE is implementing innovative PV-storage plants. Recently, RWE won an Australian tender for a long-term battery storage facility (50 MW/400 MWh).

A graphic for media use (credit: RWE) is available at the RWE Media Centre.
* Since the end of last year, several Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade delegations to Europe to draw investment and expand markets in the face of obstacles posed by slow global economic development and weak demand.

* Numerous Chinese trade delegations have engaged in discussions with local chambers of commerce and companies, with the aim of enhancing and endorsing the local business environment as well as attracting high-caliber projects for China.

* Several international firms are leveraging the favorable Chinese market conditions and fostering development in China, which has contributed to stabilization of the global supply chain and the expansion of cooperation.

FRANKFURT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- "We made the right option to partner with a Chinese company, which guarantees trustworthy quality and prompt supply!" said Jacob Borgesius, CEO of Dutch company Alp Lift, when receiving goods from his Chinese supplier Chenli.

"After Chenli's CEO came to the Netherlands to meet us last year and inked a deal, we have now received five order deliveries," said Borgesius. "So I'm really happy with the flexibility in production, and with the timing of our Chinese partners."

Numerous companies have partaken in trade delegations to Europe organized by Chinese provinces and cities to explore business opportunities.

The open and positive mindset of these trade delegations has boosted European companies' confidence in their development in China. Several multinational companies are actively transitioning from a "in China for China" approach to a more global perspective.

This photo taken on June 12, 2023 shows a worker assembling vehicles at the general assembly line of FAW-Volkswagen in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province. (Xinhua/Yan Linyun)

ORDERS FROM OVERSEAS

Since the end of last year, several Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade delegations to Europe to draw investment and expand markets in the face of obstacles posed by slow global economic development and weak demand.

Along with government personnel, many business leaders participated in these trade delegations with a strong desire to engage with their international partners and gain insights into the global business landscape.

"We must adopt a proactive approach and seek business opportunities abroad because opportunities rarely come knocking if we merely stay passive at home," said Li Chendao, chairman of Foshan Juyang New Energy Co., Ltd. This sentiment resonates with many other Chinese enterprises.

After Foshan Juyang's representatives visited its overseas customers as part of a business delegation last November, the company delivered three orders to its Polish customers and two orders to its German customers.

"The trust between us and our customers has deepened, and some customers will pay tens of thousands of dollars in advance as a deposit to confirm their intention to cooperate," Li said.

After nearly three years of online meetings, Borgesius eventually met Chenli's CEO Liu Aijun in person when Liu traveled in December to Europe as a member of a delegation from Jiangsu Province.

"Talking face to face allows for better communication and understanding of the other person," Borgesius said, adding that the meeting made him more confident about working with Chenli. "We hit it off right away at the meeting and signed a 530,000-U.S.-dollar order on the spot."

Borgesius is also planning a trip to China as he wants to "go to China to see the production, to meet the people and to further strengthen the cooperative relationship."

People visit the booth of ZF during the 2023 International Motor Show, officially known as the IAA MOBILITY 2023, in Munich, Germany, Sept. 5, 2023. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

DRAWING PROJECTS TO CHINA

Numerous Chinese trade delegations have engaged in discussions with local chambers of commerce and companies, with the aim of enhancing and endorsing the local business environment as well as attracting high-caliber projects for China.

An example is the partnership between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and China's Chengdu city led to the establishment of Airbus' first aircraft lifecycle service facility outside Europe.

The service center, which will commence operations early next year, is described as a key milestone in Airbus' cooperation with China as its footprint in the country has been expanded to cover the entire industrial chain and strengthen the local aviation industry in aftermarket services, noted the manufacturer's press release.

"Expanding our presence in the Chinese market provides us with the opportunity to discover additional avenues for growth," said Brian Agnew, general manager of Airbus Lifecycle Services, adding that the Chengdu project is driving Airbus to expedite the development of localized services, benefiting not only Chinese customers but also global clients.

Bosch, a leading German engineering and technology company, received a delegation from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province last December.

"The positive signal sent by the Wuxi delegation to Europe further enhanced our confidence in investment and long-term development in China," the company told Xinhua.

Following the meeting in Europe, Bosch representatives also came to China to continue exploring cooperation opportunities. In March, Bosch signed a strategic agreement with Wuxi to promote the development of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles.

Nowadays, components manufactured at Bosch's Wuxi facility are being utilized in the production of fuel-cell power modules in China and actively contributed to the low-carbon development of the local automotive industry.

Luo Hongxing (L), the overseas marketing director of Foshan Juyang New Energy Co., Ltd., discusses business with overseas customers during a trade delegation's visit to Europe, on Nov. 24, 2022. (Xinhua)

"IN CHINA FOR THE GLOBAL"

Several international firms are leveraging the favorable Chinese market conditions and fostering development in China, which has contributed to stabilization of the global supply chain and the expansion of cooperation.

"What does it mean to 'rely on China'? Let's look at the market size of China and you will want to have a certain share," said Holger Klein, CEO of German auto parts and components supplier ZF Group, noting that the company has launched several new projects in five Chinese cities this year.

Faced with global economic and industrial transformations, ZF China collaborated with the global team to ensure stability in the supply chain and operations, Klein noted.

More German companies are opting to relocate their industries to China after the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the continued reliability of the Chinese market and supply chain, said Jens Hildebrandt, executive director and board member of the German Chamber of Commerce in China -- North China.

Currently, an increasing number of multinational corporations are intensifying their efforts to localize research and development activities in China, transitioning from the "in China for China" approach to the "in China for the global" strategy.

As a pacemaker in the technology sector, China shows what will happen in the next 10 years around the world, which represents "a big opportunity, especially with our strong connection with our Chinese partners," said Oliver Blume, chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group.

Cooperation with China means more opportunities than threats, boosts Volkswagen's business across the world and makes the company even stronger, Blume added.

Editor: WJH
Governor Gavin Newsom View Photo

Governor Gavin Newsom addressed the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit hosted by the UN Secretary-General, highlighting Californias climate action on the world stage and called out the oil industry for their role in causing our climate crisis.

Newsom was Wednesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

Thank you, Secretary-General. Thank you all for the privilege of this opportunity. And the spirit of this convening around movers and doers  I come from a state of dreamers and doers. A state that has long prided itself on being on the leading and cutting edge. We love to say about California, the future happens there first. We are Americas coming attraction.

Unsurprisingly, it was 1945 where the United Nations charter was founded in the great state of California. I say that, again, as a point of pride, and a point of consideration as it relates to the issue that brings us here today. It was just 22 years later in 1967 when then-conservative Governor Ronald Reagan began the process of leading the modern American environmental movement with the creation of the California Air Resources Board, and the first regulations of tailpipe emissions in America. Richard Nixon himself codified that effort in 1970 with the Clean Air Act.

California continued to lead by example in the 70s with energy efficiency. We led with the first fully-functioning cap-and-trade program in the United States. We continue to lead as it relates to efforts to completely transition to 100% zero-emission vehicles  the first state in America to establish a firm goal. And we also have established the most comprehensive plan to implement  we call it the great implementation  our ambitious goals and advance our low-carbon, green-growth future.

I say all of that very mindful that if you read the newspaper or turn on your TV, that you see a state not just of dreamers and doers, but you see a state thats burning up. A state thats choking up. A state thats heating up with wildfires and floods and droughts. Places, lifestyles and traditions being destroyed right in front of our eyes, despite all of that leadership, despite that ambition.

So Im here with humility and gratitude to all of you  but particularly you, Mr. Secretary-General, for your clarity  because I think its time for us to be a lot more clear.

This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. This climate crisis persists. Its not complicated. Its not complicated. Its the burning of oil. Its the burning of gas. Its the burning of coal. And we need to call that out.

For decades and decades, the oil industry has been playing each and every one of us in this room for fools. Theyve been buying off politicians. Theyve been denying and delaying science and fundamental information that they were privy to that they didnt share or they manipulated. Their deceit and denial, going back decades, has created the conditions that persist here today.

And so, thank you, Madame Undersecretary, for recognizing Californias effort to join the efforts of others to be more clear and concise in terms of what were up against and our responsibility to do more, and be more.

And I say all of that in closing with a spirit not of a closed fist, but of an open hand in an appreciation that we are all in this together, and mindful that all of us have unique circumstances, all of us have unique traditions, all of us have unique challenges. And I just offer this, Mr. Secretary-General: again, gratitude to you, not just for your position, formal authority, but exercising your moral authority and sharing voice, and your action and passion on clarifying what were up against. And I thank each and every one of you for the privilege of this time.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
Governor Gavin Newsom sings gun laws View Photo

Sacramento, CA  New prohibitions on where guns can be carried, and higher taxes on gun and ammunition sales, are among new laws signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Assembly Bill 28 puts a new 11% tax on the sale of guns and ammunition in the state. It is in addition to the 10-11 percent federal tax on firearms, depending on the type of gun. The Governors Office estimates that it will bring in $160 million annually that will go to school safety and gun violence prevention programs in the state. The existing federal tax on guns goes to hunter-education and wildlife conservation efforts.

In addition, Senate Bill 2 will prohibit guns from being carried in over two dozen types of public and private spaces, where large amounts of people gather, including public parks, playgrounds, demonstrations, amusement parks, banks, and churches. There is a caveat, though, that owners of private property may place a sign up stating that guns are allowed.

Newsom argues, California will keep fighting because gun safety laws work. The data proves they save lives.

The gun bills were opposed by the Mother Lodes elected lawmakers, Democratic Senator Marie Alvarado Gil, Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson, and Republican Assemblyman Heath Flora.
BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) issued a report on Monday on the development of electronic information engineering in China, outlining 14 major challenges in the future development of the sector.

According to the report, the 14 major challenges lie in the areas of digitalization, informatization, optical engineering, networks and communications, cybersecurity, computer systems and software, marine network information system, among others.

The report provides an important reference for scientific and technological workers to grasp the development trend of the electronic information field in a timely manner, said Wu Manqing, vice president of CAE.

Since 2014, CAE has been releasing annual reports on the technology development of China's electronic information engineering sector, focusing on the key challenges and latest trends.

Editor: ZAD
First shipments of 210,000 tonnes of coal contracted by DTEK in Poland on their way  top manager

DTEK expects the first batches of 210,000 tonnes of coal contracted in Poland for delivery in September 2023-March 2024 to arrive in the near future, executive director of the company Dmytro Sakharuk has said.

"The first shipments are already on their way. I think the first coal will arrive in the near future," he said in a commentary to Energy Reform on the sidelines of the Business Energy forum, organized by Forbes.ua on Tuesday.

At the same time, Sakharuk noted that logistics is problematic in this issue.

"The problem is logistics. The volume by rail is not unlimited: 50,000-60,000 tonnes per month can be brought. Another problem is the ports, in Poland they are busy, there is a queue to unload, and time that needs to be booked in advance," he described the situation.

According to him, coal will be delivered in batches, the volume of one being 3,500 tonnes.

"The cumulative effect will be 30,000-40,000 tonnes per month," Sakharuk noted.

At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that DTEK is transporting coal "to be on the safe side."

"The volume of coal that we produce is enough. Some UAH 7 billion is our investment this year in its production. We will provide for ourselves. But if necessary, we will be able to help other generations. There may be different situations," the top manager of DTEK said.
President Mnangagwa briefed several regional leaders on Zimbabwes recent elections and discussed energy cooperation with Mozambique during meetings at the United Nations General Assembly last month.

According to Information Minister Jenfan Muswere, the President met with counterparts from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa on the sidelines of the UNGA from September 18-22nd. He described Zimbabwes August 23rd elections as peaceful, free and fair.

President Mnangagwa also met with the UK International Development Minister, the African Development Bank president, and leaders of other international institutions. His engagements aimed to showcase Zimbabwes successes, including record wheat and tobacco production boosting food security.

The Cabinet was briefed on these meetings after the President returned home and chaired his first session since the elections. Minister Muswere noted that Zimbabwes land reform policy has yielded economic benefits despite Western sanctions.

At the UNGA, President Mnangagwa participated in summits on sustainable development, financing for development, pandemic preparedness, universal healthcare, and fighting tuberculosis. He called for reforming the global financial system and boosting investments in health.

Along with allies, Mnangagwa urged lifting the unilateral sanctions against Zimbabwe, saying they are hurting the population. Regional partners from Angola, Cuba, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa voiced similar calls.

The Presidents engagements at the UN General Assembly focused on sharing positive developments in Zimbabwe as well as lobbying for sanctions relief and strengthened international cooperation.

Breaking News via Email
Zimbabwes main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), has criticized a Roman Catholic priest for his comments urging their leader Nelson Chamisa to accept defeat in the 2023 elections.

Father Fidelis Mukonori, who has previously acted as a mediator in political disputes, said in an interview that Chamisa should seek dialogue with President Emmerson Mnangagwa rather than disputing the election results. He warned that protests by CCC supporters could turn violent.

However, CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi accused Mukonori of bias towards the ruling party. In a statement, Mkwananzi said the preachers view in the state newspaper further affirm[s] questions about his relationship with the Mnangagwa regime.

Chamisa has rejected the official results of the August presidential poll, which saw Mnangagwa declared winner with 52.6% of votes to Chamisas 44%. Observers also raised concerns about the election process. But Mukonori maintains that Chamisa should accept he lost and engage in discussions.

Mkwananzi argued any dialogue should not be based on labelling either side winners or losers, but rather on establishing a transitional interim government until credible new elections can be held. He proposed a broad dialogue process involving multiple stakeholders under Southern African regional body SADCs oversight.

The sole purpose, according to Mkwananzi, should be adopting reforms to ensure free and fair polls. Both the opposition and observers have called into question the credibility of Zimbabwes recent elections amid accusations of ruling party manipulation.

The clerical figures remarks and the CCC response reflect ongoing political tensions in the aftermath of the disputed August vote. Disagreements remain over how to find a resolution that can build confidence in the electoral system.

Breaking News via Email
Kasukuwere blames Mnangagwa regime after fire destroys citrus trees at his farm

Saviour Kasukuwere has accused the Zimbabwean government of orchestrating a veld fire that destroyed hundreds of citrus trees at his farm in Mazowe.

The former ZANU-PF official, who sought to run for president in Augusts election but was barred by the courts, claims the blaze was retribution for his political ambitions. Kasukuwere says 70 hectares of his Concorpia Farm were completely destroyed by the fire, along with infrastructure like an irrigation system.

The cruelty we are experiencing is beyond comprehension, Kasukuwere told ZimLive from his exile in South Africa.

I never thought ones country and those you have worked with in life can go to this extent.

Concorpia has been at the centre of an ongoing land dispute. Kasukuwere alleges the government illegally seized the farm and gave it to a war veterans leader from Mashonaland Central, Ephanos Mudzimunye, despite a court order in Kasukuweres favour.

Production has ground to a halt amid the stalemate, as Mudzimunye refuses to vacate the farm despite the ruling. Kasukuwere blames President Emmerson Mnangagwas regime for allowing this to occur and not protecting his property rights.

While the full extent of damage from the fire is still unknown, it has further exacerbated tensions and devastated Kasukuweres citrus crop. He sees it as the latest move targeting him politically after the courts prevented his presidential bid. The tragedy underscores the still controversial nature of Zimbabwes land reforms.

Breaking News via Email
The countries that share the Limpopo River Basin are coming together next month to discuss strategies for better managing this important water source. Representatives from Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will attend the 10th River Basin Organisations and Shared Watercourse Institutions meeting from October 2nd to 4th in Maputo, Mozambique.

This annual gathering is organized by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in collaboration with the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM). Theyll have high-level discussions with technical support from the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSA) around enhancing water resource management across the region.

At previous in-country meetings, the governments of the four Limpopo basin nations reaffirmed their commitment to cooperation on sustainably developing the river. LIMCOM said this shows growing ownership and support for their collaborative project.

The theme of this years hybrid meeting is Promoting water security through inclusive transboundary conjunctive management and development of water resources. The goal is to improve strategies for effective cross-border water planning, development, and governance while protecting the environment and building resilience.

By enhancing regional water security, these efforts aim to reduce poverty and spur greater economic productivity, integration, and industrialization. The gathering also supports SADC members in strengthening the institutions that oversee shared rivers and waterways.

Participants will share best practices, including for setting up early flood warning and decision support systems. Bringing together river commissions allows authorities to learn from each others experiences. Development partners from sectors like energy, food security, trade, and beyond will attend to help build consensus on the regions strategic water priorities.

The Limpopo basin covers over 400,000 square kilometers across the four countries. It supports diverse activities and over 18 million people while hosting important protected areas. By continuing these cooperation discussions, the hope is to ensure sustainable and equitable management of this vital cross-border resource for years to come.

Breaking News via Email
McKinsey has agreed to a settlement, subject to court approval, which will enable the giant consulting firm to settle the liability resulting from its advice to Purdue Pharma and other opioid pushers. A high-level recap from the Financial Times:

Thousands of lawsuits from municipalities, school districts, tribes, parents and others were consolidated into a class action complaint heard in the federal court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs alleged McKinseys advice to clients such as Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, had directly contributed to the opioid crisis. US drug overdose deaths involving prescription opioids rose fivefold between 1999 and 2017, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The plaintiffs drew on documents disclosed in earlier litigation which showed McKinsey consultants urging Purdue directors to consider whether to turbocharge the sales engine. The documents said consultants encouraged directors to steer sales representatives towards doctors with records of prescribing large amounts of opioids.

One of the key PowerPoint presentations which made it pretty much impossible for McKinsey to deny its, erm, thought leadership role, is Oxycontin  driving growth through stronger brand loyalty. I strongly encourage readers to have a gander. I would have embedded it but the file size is way too large. You con find the full set of McKinsey documents here.

The pink paper points out the supposed reputational cost to McKinsey, which back in the day was all over what became the then-largest US bankruptcy, Enron, yet barely seemed to get its hair messed. Again from the Financial Times:

The litigation has further tarnished the reputation of the firm, which has also been caught in a South African corruption scandal and faced criticism for its work for clients ranging from Saudi Arabia to fossil fuel companies. The cost of its legal settlements, which cut into the profit pool shared by partners, was cited by some insiders as one reason why former managing partner Kevin Sneader did not win a second three-year term in 2021. In its statement on Tuesday, McKinsey noted that it had agreed in 2019 to stop advising clients on any opioid-related business. It had also tightened its client selection policy and invested nearly $700mn since 2018 to strengthen its risk management, it said.

I dont see how it is possible for McKinsey to have spent $700 million on risk management, save having had premiums on various types of insurance go up considerably at it was also buying more cover, and retaining a boatload of litigation firms so as to conflict out the most ferocious potential opponents.

The comments at the Financial Times were uniformly derisive. Some examples:

shug4476

Weve handed over a billion dollars because we did nothing wrong. User JP1976

Criminal charges need to be brought again this amoral firm And shame to the companies that continue to use this firm Like working with suppliers of poisonous gas to the concentration camps Michael bezzett

So it pays out $870m and invests $700m to protect its self in future with better risk management. This isnt about risk management its about morals. Shocking. Think about it

I really do not know how McKinsey passes a KYC Onboarding processes with the clients they work for. Based on the facts AI processes would simple bin the application as an unreliable organisation with a difficult history and a complicated reputation. Liszt

McKinsey is truly a farce. Amazing that they still get business outside of their incestuous circle.

Yours truly, having worked at both Goldman and McKinsey (so long ago that misconduct was marginal at both firms and then only rose to badly behaved) holds the counterintuitive view that management consulting of the sort that McKinsey, Bain, and BCG do is inherently more ethically problematic than finance.

In banking and investment banking, the professionals are facilitating transactions, as brokers, salescritters, and/or traders. In most countries, these activities are at least somewhat regulated at the retail level. Where the big fleecing of clients can take place is with large transactions and over-eager or not-as-sophisticated-as-they-fancy-themselves clients. Clients can also pay big fees for a banker to facilitate misconduct, like engage in money laundering or use derivatives to evade taxes.

However, there are entire swathes of finance where the firm is executing a transaction, for fees the client might resent, and so the fundamental exchange is straightforward: you do something for me I cannot or cannot readily do on my own, and I pay you via a commission, an underwriting discount, a portion of a bid-asked spread, or a professional fee (well leave out private equity, since the development and refinements of that model are way way way outside historic norms for client exploitation. And the worst is most want more!).

A short version of what went wrong is the deregulation of stock market commissions was the start of a destructive trend of moving the entire industry from a relationship-based model to a transactional model. In the hoary old days when investment bankers could make a pretty good living (on a par with very good surgeons), they generally took very good care of their clients/customers and if they fleeced them, it was only a little and once in a while so they could try to make it look like an accident if they were caught. The regulatory prioritization of lowering transaction costs greatly increased transaction volumes and put many in finance in the position of seeing their clients as counterparties (who should be able to fend for themselves) than customers.

Needless to say, things devolved over time. As we wrote in ECONNED:

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the vast panorama of financial instruments and strategies that have grown up (and blown up), in recent years. But the complexity of these transactions and securities is all part of a relentless trend: toward greater and greater leverage, and greater opacity. The authorities now claim they will find ways to solve the problems of opacity, leverage, and moral hazard. But opacity, leverage, and moral hazard are not accidental byproducts of otherwise salutary innovations; they are the direct intent of the innovations. No one was at the major capital markets firms was celebrated for creating markets to connect borrowers and savers transparently and with low risk. After all, efficient markets produce minimal profits. They were instead rewarded for making sure no one, the regulators, the press, the community at large, could see and understand what they were doing.

Now that sounds and is bad, no? But recall that this result came out of the regulatory intent to increase liquidity, as opposed to letting participants earn a decent living even on plain vanilla transactions.

Remember, in banking, compensation is tied pretty directly to getting transactions done, so the financier can point to a concrete outcome. By contrast in high-end management consulting, the vague language McKinsey uses (adding value) and disclaiming responsibility for their role should raise alarms. Similarly, I was shocked when I arrived that slide shows were the only method for delivering study findings to clients (I was deviant and when I managed a study was the first in the memory of the New York Office to give the client full text documents with charts and tables as needed). How could something so incomplete be an acceptable deliverable?

But the big problem is there is no way of determining if the consultant did a good job or a bad job. Even if the reports looked great, the analysis seemed persuasive, and the client went gung ho and implemented, how can you be sure the client wouldnt have shown similar results if theyd been left to their own devices? Or alternatively, a consultant might actually correctly comfort himself that if a client continued to muddle along, he would have done worse ex the consultant involvement.

Similarly, most big companies need financial transaction services. Some need them all the time, some need them periodically. That means consultants are having to sell work all the time, whether or not clients necessarily need it. Mind you, there are CEOs who keep McKinsey around so they can use the senior McKinsey partner on their account as a personal counselor. McKinsey does not allow for the separate sale of director time; you have to buy a lot of studies to get that.

In other words, the very existence of McKinsey-style consulting suggests management isnt coping very well. In the very old days, McKinsey did have a bona-fide role in helping propagate new management practices across industries.

The reasons I knew I would not stay at McKinsey were two-fold. First, I didnt see how partners could feel good about what they were doing. As a manager, you could take pride in your work by getting your analyses done without overtaxing your team, having your presentations be tightly-structured and documented, and having the progress review with the client go well. But as a partner, most clients did not get better, yet you were taking fees from them and trying to create dependence.

The second was there were people there I would not want to have as partners. One was in the New York office who was known to fabricate data in client reports. The second, who I had the great misfortune to work with in the London office,1 would lie to clientsand in front of his team! Confirming my judgement, when the London partner came up for review to join the tenured group (director), one of the partners on the shareholder committee quit over his elevation.

And mind you, it wasnt that the firm had some bad apples among its partners (mind you, both these cases were shareholders who were not yet directors so forcing them out would not have been all that hard). It was that even I as a pretty new and junior person know about them and the firm had no interest in, and not even any mechanisms, to do anything about it

Or perhaps, to put the issue more crisply, consider two rules of consulting:

The problem with consulting is you are hired by the problem The most profitable clients are the most diseased

As we see from McKinseys increasing walks with addict-creating opioid firms and unsavory third world types, most diseased has gone beyond management rot to now include the corrupt.

____

1 I had been assigned to the London study, for Citibanks Treasury operation, because I was the only person in the firm who had spent time on a trading floor. The Treasury unit included Citis big foreign exchange trading desk.

The partner announced at the first meeting of the team that McKinsey was going to figure out how to beat the foreign exchange market.

I tried, politely as I could, that that was a non-starter. All we had was four months of end of day trading data in four currency crosses. This was not the right data. We would need not only Citis intraday trading data, which we did not have, but the intraday data of everyone in the market, which we would never get, since it was an over-the-counter market.

On top of that, even if this had been the right data, there was not enough of it to conclude anything.

I didnt add a discussion of efficient market hypothesis.

The partner decided I was lazy and didnt want to use the computer.

And predictably, a study that had been sold as taking four months wound up taking nine.
Yves here. For the technically-minded, below is a slightly more detailed discussion of FCC internet service provider designation that the agency plans to restore to its pre-2017 status. The very short version is that the former designation of broadband providers as falling under Title II severely restricted their ability to throttle bandwidth and traffic-discriminate, while Title I allows them to act as gatekeeper. From the Center for Democracy and Technology, arguing against the 2017 rule change that took place and the FCC now intends to roll back:

From a regulatory perspective, the heart of the net neutrality debate is about how the FCC classifies broadband internet access. This classification determines which part of the Communications Act (the Act) applies to ISPs and the scope of authority the FCC may use to regulate providers. Two years ago, after a decade of struggling to regulate ISPs under Title I of the Act, the FCC reclassified broadband internet access as a telecommunications service. As providers of telecommunications services, ISPs are subject to regulation under Title II of the Act. Now, Chairman Pai wants to reverse that classification, making broadband internet access an information service under Title I of the Act. So why all the fuss? To oversimplify, Title II explicitly provides the FCC authority to protect consumers and online businesses against unjust or unreasonable practices of ISPs. Title I does not. Lets break down the legal and policy arguments for both classifications and discuss their ramifications: The legal arguments boil down to which definition provides a better fit for internet access. The Act defines telecommunications as the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the users choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received. When you click a link from your browser, the ISP delivers your message (I want to see the information at this address) to the hosts server, which then sends that information back to you. These messages are packaged by your computer, and the hosts server, as one or more packets, each of which is stamped with your respective addresses and other handling information. The ISP transmits the packets through its network, which connects your computer to the rest of the internet, carrying them from your computer to websites and services based on your direction. Compare that to an information service, which provides the capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications. In the earlier days of the internet, before the explosion of third parties who now offer countless options for each of these activities, ISPs offered services like email, web hosting, and news aggregation. And because these services werent as widely available, many people used these included services and perhaps thought of internet access and the various additional services as one and the same. Its true that ISPs still provide these additional services, and some customers may still use them, but for most internet users, ISPs are simply a conduit between them and the rest of the internet. In the NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) released by Chairman Pai, the FCC argues that internet access should be considered an information service. More specifically, the agency argues that because internet access allows people to connect to third parties that offer options for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information, it provides the capability for those activities. By this logic, which conflates capability with access to capability, any communication technology could be considered an information service. Do ISPs offer information services? Yes. Is the internet access provided by an ISP an information service? Definitely not. CDT, along with other internet advocates, edge providers, and the vast majority of internet users believe that some oversight and consumer protections are necessary to prevent ISPs from leveraging their gatekeeper positions (you have to go through them to reach the rest of the internet) in ways that harm consumers and competition among edge providers. We believe that, in the absence of enforceable rules, ISPs have both the ability and the incentives to do this in a variety of ways, such as charging edge providers to prioritize their traffic (paid prioritization) or using data caps and zero rating to push users towards the content and services of ISPs and their affiliates.

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

Open internet advocates across the United States celebrated on Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced her highly anticipated proposal to reestablish FCC oversight of broadband and restore net neutrality rules.

We thank the FCC for moving swiftly to begin the process of reinstating net neutrality regulations, said ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff. The internet is our nations primary marketplace of ideasand its critical that access to that marketplace is not controlled by the profit-seeking whims of powerful telecommunications giants.

Rosenworcelappointed to lead the commission by President Joe Bidendiscussed the history of net neutrality and her new plan to treat broadband as a public utility in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which came on the heels of the U.S. Senates recent confirmation of Anna Gomez to a long-vacant FCC seat.

Back in 2005, the agency made clear that when it came to net neutrality, consumers should expect that their broadband providers would not block, throttle, or engage in paid prioritization of lawful internet traffic, she recalled. In other words, your broadband provider had no business cutting off access to websites, slowing down internet services, and censoring online speech.

After a decade of policymaking and litigation, net neutrality rules were finalized in 2015. However, a few years laterunder former FCC Chair Ajit Pai, an appointee of ex-President Donald Trumpthe commission caved to industry pressure and repealed them.

The public backlash was overwhelming. People lit up our phone lines, clogged our email inboxes, and jammed our online comment system to express their disapproval, noted Rosenworcel, who was a commissioner at the time and opposed the repeal. So today we begin a process to make this right.

The chair is proposing to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, which is the part of the law that gives the FCC clear authority to serve as a watchdog over the communications marketplace and look out for the public interest, she explained. Title II took on special importance in the net neutrality debate because the courts have ruled that the FCC has clear authority to enforce open internet policies if broadband internet is classified as a Title II service.
To protect wild bumblebees, people have to find them first High Country News

What Do Sharks Eat? Field and Stream

How to Outperform How to Outperform

Climate

Water

New York Becomes the Latest State to Require Flood Risk Disclosure for Home Sales Inside Climate News

China?

This could be the holy grail to replace palm oil  research team BBC

The Bezzle

European Disunion

New Not-So-Cold War

Biden Administration

House Republicans Are Hurtling Toward the Most Pointless Shutdown Ever Ryan Grim, The Intercept

2024

Spook Country

Antitrust

Amazons most prominent antitrust critic makes her case FT What motivated Apple? Big Tech on Trial. The overarching theme of Cues afternoon testimony was that Apple sets Google as the default search engine, because it provides the best experience for users. Hilarity ensues. If Apple really cared about the best experience for users, there would be a Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, as there is for MacOS. There isnt.

Tech

The 420

Healthcare

The fading of the mpox outbreak among men who have sex with men: a mathematical modelling study Journal of Infectious Diseases. From the Abstract: The limited duration of the mpox outbreak in the Netherlands can be ascribed primarily to infection-induced immunity among MSM with high sexual activity levels. The decline was accelerated by behavioural adaptations. Immunity among those most sexually active is essential to impede mpox resurgence.

B-a-a-a-d Banks

JPMorgan will pay $75 million on claims that it enabled Jeffrey Epsteins sex trafficking operations AP. To the Virgin Islands.

Supply Chain

In Support of Maritime Arbitration: The English Courts Role in Enforcing Peremptory Orders and Awards Hellenic Shipping News

The Final Frontier

Akin Adds Top Space Industry Leader, Building Out its Space Regulatory and Policy Practice (press release) Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Zeitgeist Watch

Sports Desk

Brooksie JoeBlogs

Imperial Collapse Watch

Class Warfare

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus Antidote (DG):

DG writes: I do have this wonderful Pileated Woodpecker (attached) which is one of a pair that has pretty much cleared the yard of stumps. I am always disappointed when I see people dig up stumps of old trees. Those are candy to pileateds and much more eco-friendly than nearly any other way to accomplish the same thing. Yes. It takes more than one season, but its worth it to have these guys in the yard.

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here
The procedure for the Ukrainian government to issue licenses to agricultural entrepreneurs for the export of wheat, rapeseed, corn and sunflower to Poland was discussed by Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solsky during an online meeting with Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Republic of Poland Robert Telus, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy reported.

According to the report, the parties discussed Ukraine's action plan for exporting agricultural products to Poland.

The Polish minister informed his Ukrainian counterpart that his government was studying mechanisms for issuing licenses to Ukrainian exporters. The Polish government is discussing this issue, in particular, determining who will approve or not approve the issuance of such licenses.

At the same time, Telus drew attention to the fact that Poland would like Ukraine to withdraw the complaint filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding restrictions on the export of agricultural products to neighboring European countries.

According to Solsky, in the coming days there will be a trilateral meeting of the ministers of agriculture of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania on the transfer of veterinary control to the territory of the country of export destination to improve transit through Poland.

A similar procedure must be agreed upon for the transit of agricultural products from Polish territory to Germany, the minister explained and recalled that in August such a control mechanism was agreed upon by Hungary and Slovakia.

As the Polish minister told reporters following an online meeting, his government "takes a clear position: grain from Ukraine cannot enter the Polish market."

As the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland reported on Twitter, "Ukraine accepted our arguments."

Telus also confirmed to reporters that he had asked the representative of the Ukrainian government to withdraw Ukraine's complaint to the WTO as groundless. "We want to look for solutions for the future, to build mechanisms that will allow grain to flow where it did before the war," he said.

According to the minister, transit issues were discussed during negotiations with his Ukrainian colleague. Poland is in the final stage of transferring control to Lithuanian ports. The Ukrainian side proposed to transfer control also to German ports.

"During negotiations with Minister Solsky, a licensing proposal was made, which Poland will analyze. However, there are no corresponding procedures yet. The most important thing is that grain does not flow into Poland at this time," the press service of the Polish Agrarian Ministry quoted Telus as saying.

The agricultural ministers of both countries agreed in a week to again discuss the results of consideration of the issue of introducing a licensing procedure.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina to NATO Headquarters on Wednesday (27 September 2023) to discuss Russias war against Ukraine and follow up on decisions taken at the recent NATO Summit in Vilnius.

Mr Stoltenberg thanked Prime Minister Silina for Latvias contributions to the Alliance, including the countrys strong leadership on defence spending, deployments to missions in Kosovo and Iraq, and substantial political and military support provided to Ukraine. Latvia also hosts a Canadian-led battlegroup, strengthening NATOs deterrence and defence on the Alliances eastern flank.

The Secretary General hailed the steady progress made by Ukraines counteroffensive, in which Ukrainian forces have pressed past Russias first line of defence and are now inflicting heavy damage on Russias Black Sea fleet. However, he warned that we see no sign that Putins objectives have changed, and reaffirmed that Russias war of aggression against Ukraine remains the biggest threat to our security in decades. Given this, he welcomed the significant contributions from NATO Allies which are boosting Ukraines ability to push back the Russian forces, including the arrival of the first American Abrams tanks in Ukraine.
On Wednesday (27 September 2023), NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana met Colombian Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez Gomez at the NATO Headquarters. The Deputy Secretary General underlined the importance of NATOs partnership with Colombia and the unique perspective that Colombia brings as NATOs partner in Latin America.

Mr Geoana and Mr Velasquez discussed common security challenges and areas for cooperation under the new NATO-Colombia partnership programme agreed in December 2021. The impact of climate change on security, maritime security, demining, military interoperability, and defence education are among the priorities for enhanced cooperation between NATO and Colombia.

Mr Geoana also commended Colombia for its work on building integrity and for its strong commitment to deepen its cooperation with NATO on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Colombia became a NATO partner in 2017, the first in Latin America.
On Friday 29 September 2023, the NATO Secretary General, Mr Jens Stoltenberg, will travel to Denmark. During the visit, Mr Stoltenberg will participate in the Copenhagen Quantum 2023 Conference, where he will give a speech on the need to build a Transatlantic quantum community. He will also meet with the Prime Minister of Denmark, Ms Mette Frederiksen, and the Minister of Defence, Mr Troels Lund Poulsen, as well as other senior government officials.

The NATO Secretary General will also participate in the inauguration of the Deep Tech Lab  Quantum (DTL-Q), NATOs DIANA accelerator site.



Media advisory

12:15 (CEST) Speech by the NATO Secretary General at the Copenhagen Quantum 2023 Conference

15:15 (CEST) Remarks and inauguration of the DTL-Q by the NATO Secretary General

Media coverage

The Secretary Generals speech at the Copenhagen Quantum 2023 Conference, as well as his remarks at the DTL-Qs inauguration, will be streamed live on the NATO website.

Transcripts of the Secretary Generals engagements, as well as photographs, will be available on the NATO website after the events.

For more information:

Contact the NATO Press Office

For more information about the events in Copenhagen, including media access, please contact Ms Astrid Striib: asd@fmn.dk

Follow us on Twitter (@NATO, @jensstoltenberg and @NATOPress).
(As delivered)

Prime Minister Silina,

Dear Evika,

Welcome to NATO.

It is great to see you and thank you so much for coming here and meeting with me at your first visit abroad as Prime Minister of Latvia.

Congratulations on your appointment.

And thank you for your commitment to NATO.

Latvia is a highly valued NATO Ally.

You contribute to our operations in Kosovo and Iraq and you lead by example on defence investment, already spending more than 2% of GDP on defence.

And you host a Canadian-led battlegroup, strengthening our deterrence and defence on NATOs eastern flank.

Latvia is also one of Ukraines strongest supporters, providing Kyiv with military support and training Ukrainian soldiers.

In response to Russias war, NATO has increased our presence from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

In the air, Italian and Spanish jets keep Latvian skies safe.

On land, we are enhancing our presence, with Canada planning to double its troop numbers in Latvia.

And at sea, some 30 warships just concluded exercise Northern Coasts, off Latvias shores.

One of our biggest exercises in the region.

Testing high-end naval warfare.

And sending a clear message of NATOs vigilance.

Today in our meeting, we addressed Russias war against Ukraine.

Ukraines counteroffensive continues to make steady progress.

In some areas, Ukrainian forces have pressed past Russias defences.

But we see no sign that Putins objectives have changed.

So the best way to lasting peace is to step up our support for Ukraine.

So I welcome the significant contributions that NATO Allies are making.

Including the first American Abrams battle tanks that have arrived in Ukraine.

Boosting Ukraines capacity to push back the Russian forces.

Russias war of aggression against Ukraine is the biggest threat to our security in decades.

So at the NATO Summit in Vilnius, we took important steps to keep our countries safe.

We agreed the most robust regional defence plans since the Cold War.

Backed by 300,000 troops on higher readiness.

And substantial air and naval power.

NATO is ready to defend every inch of Allied territory.

And I know Latvia will continue to play its part.

For our security and for Ukraines.

So thank you again, Prime Minister.

And I look forward to working with you.

Once again,

Welcome.
Biden BOASTS of reaching historic high number of REFUGEES pouring into the USA from Latin America

As the United States struggles, grappling for workforce and resources amid the massive illegal migration tsunami, President Joe Biden admits that the influx was not an unseen circumstance, but according to his directive and by design

During his speaking engagement at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute 46th Annual Gala at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on September 21, Biden bragged about his open borders policy as a new surge of migrants was flooding the U.S. southern border, particularly in Eagle Pass in Texas. The president boasted of all the steps he has taken to increase legal immigration and work permits, pointing out that he "also directed my team to make a historic increase in the number of refugees admitted from Latin America, people fleeing violence and persecution who simply want their kids to have a better life," a statement that received applause from his audience.

He was even proud to say that his administration is supporting states and cities that have seen a surge in immigrants. "We've developed federal experts and deployed them to help train city workers. We've launched outreach campaigns helping over a million eligible migrants apply for work permits. And we're accelerating a process for work permit applications," Biden added.

Biden: "We're significantly expanding legal pathways to entry so businesses can get workers they need. I've also directed my team to make historic increases in the number of refugees from Latin America." pic.twitter.com/UXjVATOuBd  Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 22, 2023

However, the Democratic Mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas, who recently declared a state of emergency in his town due to the heavy surge of illegals, is calling on Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris to come and visit to see what the community is dealing with. He has pleaded for the top officials or anyone from the administration to "acknowledge the situation" and "let us know what they're doing to deter and control the situation." And yet, he did not get a single reply from the White House.

Speaking at Fox News' "Your World," the mayor said that the local economy has taken a hit from the ongoing crisis which he described as "chaotic and disappointing." "To have that amount of people roaming our streets. It's just unacceptable. We have limited resources, a limited police force and fire teams. So it's disappointing to see all these people come in without a consequence," he lamented. "It's very disheartening to see this happening, especially here in the city of Eagle Pass." He also debunked government claims that things are still manageable in his jurisdiction, saying this should not happen in any city in America "because we're a nation of laws." "People should be able to come here legally. We're all for that. I'm sure everybody agrees, but thousands of people come in without consequence, that should not be allowed into the United States," he pointed out.

Moreover, another city mayor is criticizing the POTUS' border policies. New York City Mayor Eric Adams's video, where he admitted that the ongoing migrant crisis "will destroy" the Big Apple and that he does not see a way to fix the issue, has already gone viral. The D.C. columnist of the Federalist, Eddie Scarry, said that rival politicians publicly denouncing Biden's immigration policies are expected, however, Adams, just like Salinas, is a Democrat. (Related: NYC Mayor Eric Adams admits mass illegal immigration is inherently destructive for the Big Apple.)

Adams spoke about the unabated stream of migrants sent to his city via Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's migrant busing program. He said these asylum seekers get the privilege of bathing, clothing, feeding and housing them all at the local taxpayers' expense. "Let me tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to  I don't see an ending to this," Adams stated earlier in September. "This issue will destroy New York City." According to him, this money doesn't get to be spent on things like homeless shelters, police and more public services that would otherwise go to actual Americans and legal residents. Adams also pointed out that the city's requests were still mostly "unaddressed." He even called for a federal emergency and a national "decompression strategy at the border."

August stats are out: Most immigrant encounters ever recorded

Last Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released operational statistics for August 2023, indicating the most immigrant encounters in August ever recorded. It included more than 300,000 immigrants that attempted to enter the U.S. unlawfully or were paroled during August, spelling a catastrophe for the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the current leadership, which seems to be in denial, claims its sweeping policy reforms were working.

According to CBP, 304,162 people apprehended by Border Patrol while crossing the border illegally, were deemed inadmissible by customs officers at ports of entry, or used new Biden initiatives to bypass the border and fly under the umbrella of temporary parole. Also, 181,059 immigrants were arrested at the southern border after walking around the ports of entry and crossing into America. Approximately 74,000 of that number were single adults, 19,000 arrived with a family member, and 13,500 were unaccompanied children.

Today, CBP released August 2023 statistics for its primary mission areas related to protecting the American people, safeguarding our borders and enhancing the nations economic prosperity. ?? Press release: https://t.co/xrt8TXLszO ?? Stats: https://t.co/zaPvUr5BwR pic.twitter.com/jmKDklBLfg  CBP (@CBP) September 22, 2023

Meanwhile, when asked by a reporter at a press briefing last week about how many illegal aliens crossing the border is enough for the administration, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre seemed annoyed before answering: "Enough for what?" When the member of the press provided the current statistics, she bantered: "I know the numbers." The reporter repeated the question completing it with: "Enough to stop the flood." She eventually replied: "This is a problem that's been around for some time now, for decades  a broken system." The question was not directly answered.

Check out InvasionUSA.news for stories similar to this.

Sources for this article include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

WhiteHouse.gov

NYPost.com

NYTimes.com

WahingtonExaminer.com
British Telecom CEO firing Whites, hiring minorities for diversity bonuses

The CEO of telecommunications firm British Telecom (BT) is reportedly axing more than 1,000 employees in East Anglia  a rural area with an overwhelmingly White population  to replace them with non-White employees

The Mail on Sunday (MoS) first broke the news, citing leaked audio of BT Chief Networks Officer Howard Watson during a meeting with staff members. While he described the headcount reduction as a "shocking number," he stressed that BT would be able to recruit new workers in "many more places"  a move which would "improve diversity inclusion over time."

According to the MoS, the plan to reduce staff members in East Anglia was the brainchild of BT CEO Allison Kirkby. Under the plan dubbed the "Better Workplace Program," up to 1,100 jobs will be cut in BT's Martlesham office as part of a major overhaul. Affected staff members will be given the chance to move to "strategic hub" cities where the company has facilities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester.

In response to a question about whether boosting diversity and inclusion was the key reason for the relocation, Watson replied in the affirmative. "That was a significant factor in the choice of the locations," he said. Martlesham has a 95.8 percent White population as per the latest figures, while Birmingham only has a 48.7 percent White population.

BT announced plans two years ago to more than double the share of its workforce from non-White backgrounds to 25 percent by 2030, becoming the biggest British employer to impose such a goal. The proportion of minority staff members in the telecommunications firm as of March was 13.4 percent. But BT executives want this proportion to increase, with a target of 16 percent by 2025.

The scheme to fire White employees appears to be driven by money, as Kirkby could receive 220,000 ($268,136) for hitting diversity recruitment quotas. The targets have a maximum payout of 2.2 million ($2.68 million), on top of the 1.1 million ($1.34 million) salary she already receives.

Tory MP accuses BT of "pandering to political correctness"

A Conservative (Tory) Minister of Parliament (MP) accused the telecommunications firm of "pandering to political correctness." John Hayes, the MP for South Holland and The Deepings, warned BT that it could be illegally discriminating against White staff members.

"BT shouldn't be pandering to political correctness," he stressed. "It needs to be clear if it is jeopardizing workers' interests around an ideological agenda. That would be reprehensible and possibly illegal too."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the company stressed that the Martlesham facility "remains an essential site." They added: "Our need to relocate roles reflects UK-wide efforts to focus investment into fewer, but more modern, buildings."

This anti-white discrimination is not limited to private firms, as the British public sector is also engaged in the practice. In May, the National Pulse zoomed in on an internship offered by Transport for London (TFL). The office, which is chaired by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, is in charge of the public transport system and roads of the British capital.

The Stuart Ross Communications Internship (SRCI) offered by TFL explicitly prohibits Whites from applying. Its rules state that potential applicants "must be of Black, Asian and minority ethnic background, defined as having some African, Afro-Caribbean, Asian or other non-White heritage." (Related: London mayor's office in charge of public transport system BANS WHITES from applying for internships.)

"The SRCI has been excluding 'non-Whites' for a number of years already, with many graduates of the scheme going on to work in a number of industries  including local government and the Metropolitan Police," the National Pulse said.

Visit AntiWhite.news for more stories about discrimination against White people in the workplace.

Watch this video about a man suing the city of Seattle for anti-White discrimination.

This video is from the HALOROCK channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

NASCAR goes woke, EXCLUDES WHITES from internship program.

Cambridge University blocked White students from applying for post-graduate programme.

WHITES NOT WELCOME: Democrat supporters re-implement segregation at universities to exclude Whites.

UK state-run health system demands written explanation whenever white candidates are hired over ethnic "minorities."

PHARMA RACE WARS: While Pfizer places all races at risk with their COVID vaccines, WHITES and ASIANS are NOT allowed to apply for Pfizer's fellowship grant program.

Sources include:

InformationLiberation.com

DailyMail.co.uk

TheNationalPulse.com

Brighteon.com
RIGGED: FBI INFORMANT established one of the largest Neo-Nazi groups in America

An informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) founded one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the U.S., according to a report.

Headline USA broke the news following its review of previously unpublished records dubbed the "Fed Files." The documents disclosed that an informant for the federal law enforcement agency served as the co-founder of the National Socialist Movement (NSM). The NSM had been connected to "numerous crimes and violent events," including the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The NSM was once known as the "Hollywood Nazis" for its flamboyant demonstrations and crude propaganda. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the group's specialty of "theatrical and provocative protests." It continued: "The group's brand and tactics of demonstrating in quasi-Nazi uniforms stalled, and its membership tally subsequently dipped."

The NSM was established in 1974 by Cliff Herrington and Robert Brannen, who were chief lieutenants of George Lincoln Rockwell. Fifteen years prior in 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party. But by 1976  two years after the NSM's founding  there were rumors of Brannen colluding with the FBI circulating within the neo-Nazi sphere.

An April 1976 article on the National Socialist, the NSM's own publication, served to fuel these rumors. The said article denied an accusation by the rival National Socialist White Peoples Party (NSWPP) that Brannen was an informant, calling such allegations a "reckless and irresponsible smear attack" on the NSM co-founder.

But an internal FBI memo from May 1976 warned that Brannen's cover might have been blown with the publication of the article. While the redacted memo didn't identify him by name, it referenced Brannen through the National Socialist piece and the accusations against him at the time. "Informant's photograph and description appeared in the February 1976 NSWPP publication and he was named an FBI informant," the memo stated.

Brannen's successor later accused of working with the feds

Brannen stayed on as NSM leader until 1983, when he suffered several strokes. Herrington took over his colleague's position until 1994, when he stepped down and appointed Jeff Schoep to replace him. Schoep then left the NSM in 2019, but not before appointing Burt Colucci  who leads the group to this day  as successor.

But Bill White, a former NSM member, alleged that Schoep was also an informant for the FBI just like the group's co-founder. White, who is serving time in jail for multiple felony convictions, made these allegations in a 2017 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit and a 2020 court declaration. He attached the May 1976 FBI memo to the 2020 court declaration.

White alleged that the FBI took control of the NSM as early as 2004, and likely much earlier. He claimed in the 2017 FOIA lawsuit that the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) "would use the National Socialist Movement to hold phony 'white supremacist' rallies."

"The FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) would also arrange for violent counter-demonstrations against these rallies through informants in groups such as Anti-Racist Action," White's lawsuit alleged. "The ATF was also using the NSM in a similar fashion."

"Neither party was disclosing that the rallies were fraudulent. Instead, the federal government was using the rallies to make it appear as if there was a 'domestic terror threat' when no such threat existed." (Related: Capitol protest organizer outed as "prolific" FBI informant.)

White expressed the belief that Schoep was indeed an FBI informant due to the then-NSM leader's tendency to "frequently lie" when they worked directly together between 2005 and 2006. "Schoep frequently asked me to go various places to perform tasks that only advantaged the FBI-JTTF operation, either by adding legitimacy to their front groups or to get me away from situations," he wrote.

Herrington denied that his colleague was an FBI informant, saying in an email: "I knew Brannen personally, [and] he wasn't on the take." Meanwhile, Schoep also denied that he was an FBI informant during his time at the top of the NSM. He even noted that he openly collaborates with the federal law enforcement agency nowadays and has disavowed his earlier ties to the neo-Nazi movement.

Visit FalseFlag.news for more stories like this.

Watch this video about how FBI informants were responsible for the 2020 kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

This video is from the King Libertarian channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

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FBI informant involved in the phony Gretchen Whitmer "kidnapping" hoax has been charged with another crime.

Ukrainian Nazi "BoneFace" threatens Laura Loomer for outing him as U.S. intel asset on social media.

Tucker: Jan. 6 "insurrection" organizers were FBI assets.

Sources include:

BlacklistedNews.com

SPLCenter.org

Brighteon.com
Jabbed-up Jimmy Kimmel, who once said hospitals shouldnt treat the unvaccinated, cancels live show after contracting COVID

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel has canceled his upcoming live Strike Force Three show after contracting Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

He was scheduled to appear at the MGM in Las Vegas to record a live episode of the podcast with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon. The comedians have been hosting the podcast during the Writers Guild of America strike, along with late-night hosts John Oliver and Seth Meyers, with proceeds going toward covering the costs of their crews as they remain out of work.

Well, Las Vegas, I got COVID, and sadly, we need to cancel this weekends Strike Force Three show. I could never live with myself if I got my hometown friends sick.

Of course, its likely that his hometown friends, like him, are all vaccinated, so he is essentially acknowledging that the jab he mercilessly mocked people for avoiding is not effective at preventing the disease in the first place, something that we are seeing more evidence of every day.

This is the same Jimmy Kimmel who joked in his shows fall premiere in 2021 that hospitals shouldnt treat people who used Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, buying into the medias lies that the drug was horse medicine unsuitable for human usage.

On that occasion, he referenced a statement by Dr. Anthony Fauci that ICUs were filling up and hospitals would have to make tough choices.

Kimmel said: "That choice doesn't seem so tough to me. Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in. We'll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy."

Since he is such a fan of Dr. Fauci, perhaps he could have hosted the show anyway and worn a mask. After all, if you believe Fauci, masks can stop the disease from spreading.

Kimmel is never called out on hypocrisy, however, because he is revered by the mainstream media for his brazen attacks on conservatives, who are largely the target of the jokes on his show. He has even gone so far as to compare the state of Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis to North Korea.

Kimmels past includes being a host of The Man Show, a program in which male comics made fun of women that ended with girls in bikinis jumping on trampolines, something the woke left would never stand for today.

Likewise, he has never been called out for the homophobic slurs he used against Fox News Sean Hannity or the fact that he wore blackface on several occasions during The Man Show to impersonate Oprah Winfrey and Karl Malone. This sort of thing would be enough for the woke left to call for other celebrities to be canceled, but theyre willing to look the other way because hes all too happy to push the lefts liberal agenda and mock conservatives every chance he gets.

High-profile COVID cancellations could be part of a vaccine scare tactic

Hes not the only entertainer to contract the virus recently. Sherri Shepherd canceled tapings of her daytime talk show this week after testing positive for the virus, while Steve Martin announced that he would need to cancel shows in Las Vegas due to the virus as well.

"Unfortunately, our sold-out shows at the Wynn in Las Vegas this Friday and Saturday has to be postponed because of rampant COVID in our crew and one other essential guy," Martin announced on X.

Why are we suddenly seeing so many high-profile COVID cancellations lately? It wouldnt be surprising if its all part of a concerted effort to scare Americans into lining up for their next batch of boosters.

Sources for this article include:

CNN.com

CBSNews.com

HollywoodInToto.com
MSM receives billions of dollars from globalists to fabricate coordinated, fearmongering-based climate change propaganda pretending to be news

A common observation about mainstream media's reports on climate focuses on its "devastating effects" with a strong promotion of shifting to going green or pushing for the use of renewable energy. Now, a state energy reporter for Cowboy State Daily has revealed why Big Media is conspiring to write this uniform rhetoric.

According to a recent article by Kevin Killough, the "monoculture of perspectives" on climate change and energy is due to the regular funding received by major media outlets directly or indirectly from billionaire foundations and global elites who are steering the world away from fossil fuels. Killough cited the Washington Post as an example of a news outlet "colluding" with "climate alarmists" and green tyrants. It announced back in 2020 that it was partnering with the Rockefeller Foundation to advance "a major paradigm shift" in its coverage of food systems, public health, capitalism and climate change.

The Rockefeller Foundation is a philanthropic foundation that aggressively advocates for the elimination of fossil fuels and for them to be replaced with wind and solar energy. As per the non-profit information service Guidestar, the foundation has nearly $4.5 billion in gross receipts and $7.5 billion in assets. It is also one of the most vocal proponents of the fossil fuel divestment and environment, social and governance (ESG) movements. Furthermore, it also pledged $8 million over three years to the Associated Press to cover "climate issues," which funded about 20 climate reporter positions at the outlet. There were also reports that the Guardian has received grants from Rockefeller.

Meanwhile, it is also one of the funders for Covering Climate Now (CCN), a global group co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and the far-left publication The Nation, in association with the Guardian. "More than 500 news and media outlets partner with the organization, which represents an audience of two billion people in 57 countries. Its partners include big media names like ABC News, CBS News, Reuters, the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald and the San Francisco Chronicle," Killough reported. This was supported by an article on the CCN website that said the organization "collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories, to make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom."

"CCN is really a grassroots advocacy group for journalists," Dan Schneider, vice president of Free Speech America (FSA), told Cowboy State Daily. FSA is an organization that is a part of the Media Research Center. It aims to counter left-wing bias in the news media and popular culture.

In the CCN's resource site, an article titled "10 Climate Change Myths Debunked" listed each "myth" that it disputed. It also included languages that reporters should use to counter any comments or information that the organization deems unacceptable. "What this really reflects is the death of journalism. It used to be that reporters followed certain ethics rules. Now, reporters have adopted the agenda of the left, for the most part," Schneider lamented.

Moreover, Dr. Roger Piekle Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said that the globalist organization is controlled by billionaires who "coordinate and direct how climate should be covered and many media outlets simply repeat what this organization tells them to write."

Big Media, Big Tech and Big Government collude to fearmonger the public about climate change

For Schneider, CCN is a symptom of a much larger problem in the media. "There's a collusion between Big Media, Big Tech and Big Government," he said. "This cabal is threatening the very purpose of our nation's founding. Our country was founded on the idea that individuals could participate in self-government."

Meanwhile, Pielke said he often hears from readers of his Substack articles who are surprised to learn that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific data don't support much of the alarmist tone on climate change that they read in the media. "Why climate reporters play a role more like climate campaigners rather than journalists is puzzling," he said.

Also, influential climate journalist Emily Atkin was among the many climate alarmists who attacked the publication for daring to suggest that climate change wasn't the cause of the fires. Eventually, ABC News caved and updated the headline to suggest that climate change amplified the event. However, the public already knew that climate change had almost nothing to do with the fires. (Related: Thousands of scientists unite to end CLIMATE EMERGENCY hysteria.)

Pielke said that reporting on climate often departs significantly from the consensus assessment of the scientific community, most notably those of the IPCC, the World Meteorological Organization and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). How CCN encourages reporters to connect every extreme weather event to climate change is an example of this.

While climate change is not ruled out entirely as an influence in every extreme weather event, the articles demonstrate that there's a lot of uncertainty and nuance about the relationship between greenhouse gasses and extreme weather. Despite the uncertainty about the connection between human-caused climate change and hurricanes, CCN also insisted that reporters make a connection between the two. "Climate change intensifies  hurricanes, making them more severe," the organization explains in an article on extreme weather, which asserts that "scientists overwhelmingly agree that human-caused climate change makes weather more extreme."

Visit ClimateAlarmism.news for more stories about the climate hoax.

Sources for this article include:

CowboyStateDaily.com

WashingtonPost.com

APNews.com
Trudeau and Zelensky emphatically honored a Nazi SS soldier before the Canadian Parliament in deeply embarrassing incident

Last Friday, Sept. 22, a 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who fought during World War II was honored by the Canadian parliament, where he received a standing ovation from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. While this may sound reasonable on the surface, there is one aspect of the story that has drawn criticism from around the world: the man in question, Yaroslav Hunka, was a Nazi SS soldier

Hunka was described before the Canadian Parliament as a veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98. House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota called him a Canadian hero and a Ukrainian hero before prompting a standing ovation for him.

However, his record indicates that he fought with the Nazis as part of the 14th Waffen, or SS Galizien, during the Third Reich. SS Galizien was a division made up mostly of Ukrainian volunteers after being set up by Nazi Germany in 1943.

They took part in horrific acts against civilians. Some of their atrocities included enforcing the racial purity policies of the Nazis, destroying and annihilating entire villages, and causing thousands of residents to be displaced, taking part in anti-partisan operations that caused countless civilian casualties, and playing a role in the mass murder of Jewish and Polish civilians.

The Canadian Parliament's actions were condemned by the Canadian Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), who stated on X: We are deeply troubled & disturbed that a Ukrainian veteran of the infamous 14th Waffen Grenadier of the Nazi SS  which actively participated in the genocide of Jews  was celebrated with a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament.

Speaker of Canadian House of Commons apologizes

The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Anthony Rota, has already apologized for honoring Hunka and claims he was not aware of his questionable past. Speaking about honoring Hunka, he noted: "I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so."

He added that he acted alone in recognizing the man and that Trudeau and others were not aware of his intention to do so beforehand.

He said: "I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my actions."

Rota is currently facing calls from opposition parties to resign over the incident; they say that an apology is not enough to make things right. Although Trudeau has not called for his resignation, he did say the nation was embarrassed by his actions.

Trudeau said: "It's extremely upsetting that this happened. The Speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized. But this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre implied that Trudeau was simply trying to shift the blame and should have vetted a guest list before the incident.

He said: Canadians are sick and tired of a prime minister who never takes responsibility for the things that happen on his watch." He said that Trudeau is always trying to find someone else to throw under the bus and then pointed to Rota and asked him if he was that person in this case.

Other Canadian politicians have pointed out that the situation was easily avoidable as a simple online search would have revealed the damning information about Hunka and his Nazi past.

Sources for this article include:

Twitchy.com

Breitbart.com

BBC.com

CBC.ca
The State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine (SATD) and U.S. Airbnb will cooperate to popularize Ukraine in the world as a tourist attractive destination.

The press service of the agency told Interfax-Ukraine that the corresponding Memorandum was signed on September 25, 2023 during a meeting of Head of the SATD Mariana Oleskiw and co-founder and chief strategy officer of Airbnb Nathan Blecharczyk at the Consulate General of Ukraine in Munich (Germany).

"Airbnb's initiative to provide free temporary housing to over 100,000 refugees from Ukraine at the beginning of the full-scale invasion was a significant support for us. After the victory, we want to express our gratitude and demonstrate our hospitality by inviting the whole world, which has been standing next to Ukraine all this time. The document signed today now officially testifies to our intentions to jointly restore the tourism industry of our state," Oleskiv said.

The document provides for joint marketing activities to promote the tourism potential of Ukraine  providing online publications and distributing promotional photo and video content of tourist attractive destinations in our country, including Crimea after its de-occupation. Another priority area of cooperation will be the exchange of analytical and statistical information.

Blecharczyk said that, despite the fact that tourism is hardly possible in Ukraine today, it is important now to set a course for the post-war recovery of the industry.

"With this memorandum, we agree to support tourism in Ukraine after the end of the war. This cooperation is a significant sign for our community around the world," Blecharczyk said.

As reported, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Airbnb.org resource has helped find free and temporary housing for more than 130,000 Ukrainians. The accommodation was financed by Airbnb, Inc. itself and other Airbnb.org donors, as well as hosts who offered accommodation for free or at a significant discount for Ukrainian citizens.
Polls: Trumps approval rating among Black and Hispanic voters the highest a Republican has enjoyed in 50 YEARS

An analysis conducted by the Washington Post revealed that former President Donald Trump has received a 20 percent approval rating among Black voters and a 42 percent approval rating among Hispanic voters  a feat no Republican in 50 years has achieved

Five polls conducted by different organizations in recent weeks show that Trump's current approval ratings have improved from the 2020 elections, when the official count claimed he only received eight percent of the Black vote and 36 percent of the Hispanic vote.

"Both numbers  and especially that for Black voters  could set modern-day records for a Republican in a presidential election," wrote Aaron Blake of the Washington Post. Trump has not yet secured the GOP nomination for the 2024 election, but his growing appeal, especially among younger minority voters, signifies a shifting tide that could catapult him back into the White House.

Younger voters in minority communities appear to be looking beyond political rhetoric and seeking tangible solutions to improve their lives.

Moreover, national polls conducted by the New York Times and Siena College show that President Joe Biden is now slowly losing his support from these minority groups. In 2022 and 2023 polls, Biden led Trump by 53 percent to 28 percent among registered non-White voters, far beyond the 70 percent voter support he had in 2020.

"Democrats have lost ground among non-White voters in almost every election over the last decade, even as racially charged fights over everything from a border wall to kneeling during the national anthem might have been expected to produce the exact opposite result," wrote Nate Cohn of the New York Times.

Democrats' attack against Trump has backfired

Trump has been facing multiple indictments for years and just recently, his mug shot was taken. Democrats had hoped that these legal troubles would end Trump's political career and that his mug shot would symbolize his downfall. However, the odds are all in favor of Trump.

And now, these poll outcomes, the consequences of multiple indictments and the mugshot are making the Democratic National Committee panic as Trump gains unexpected sympathy and support from the African-American community.

The groundswell of support transcended physical demonstrations and permeated social media platforms, where hashtags like "#Trump2024" gained significant traction among Black social media users. (Related: Trump has garnered sympathy and support from African American community after the release of his mug shot.)

Many of Trump's newfound African-American supporters believe that his experience with the justice system resonates with their own encounters with racial bias and unfair treatment. Some even find Trump's booking made him more relatable.

This unexpected hype of Trump's popularity among black voters has ignited mixed reactions across the political spectrum. Liberals, who initially anticipated Trump's mug shot as a downfall, are now grappling with the unforeseen reality of their error.

Cohn even showed in his comment that people on the political left are confused because the policies and plans they thought would make minority voters stop supporting Trump and the Republican party are actually making more minorities support them instead.

Even Philip Bump, the Washington Post writer who made fun of Jesse Watters from Fox News for saying the mugshot "unintentionally created a bond between Donald Trump and black Americans," now has to admit that the polls are not something to mock about.

Read more news about Donald Trump at Trump.news.

Watch this episode of "Brighteon Broadcast News" as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, discusses Trump's indictment and his defiance against tyranny.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

The photo that will win Trump the 2024 presidency.

Trump 100% confident HE WILL WIN against Biden in the 2024 presidential elections.

Trump: FEARMONGERING about new COVID-19 variants a lunatic ploy to rig 2024 elections.

Trump lays out 2024 presidential run agenda, promises to complete mission and build America up again.

President Trump vows to ban Big Tech-federal government censorship collusion if re-elected in 2024.

Sources include:

WesternJournal.com

ZeroHedge.com

Brighteon.com
Steve Bannon describes Zelenskys U.S. visit as CATASTROPHICALLY BAD

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's recent U.S. visit as "catastrophically bad" during a recent episode of his "Bannon's War Room" podcast.

"Zelensky's visit was catastrophically bad, and everybody knows that," Bannon said. "People who are in this know it. It's catastrophically bad."

The Ukrainian leader made a whirlwind visit to the American capital on Sept. 21, delivering an optimistic message on the war's progress while facing new questions about the flow of American dollars that for 19 months have helped keep his troops in the fight against Russian forces. Compared to the hero's welcome he received during his 2022 visit, Zelensky received a much quieter reception on Capitol Hill.

He arrived at the U.S. Capitol with a strong message in private discussions with Republican and Democratic leaders, working to reinforce American support for Ukraine. Zelensky also won favorable remarks on the next round of U.S. aid he said he needs to stave off defeat.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, gave Zelensky a red-carpet arrival and more ceremonies than other world leaders usually receive when the Ukrainian leader arrived at the White House.

Zelensky's visit aims to soften GOP stance on Ukraine funding

According to Bannon, the heart of Zelensky's visit is the Republican members of the House of Representatives. The House GOP has stressed that they won't address the $24 billion supplemental funding for Ukraine as it isn't happening. The $24 billion was part of a $40 billion package Biden requested from Congress last month. Included in this package are $12 billion for disaster relief and $4 billion for border security. (Related: ENDLESS AID: Biden to ask Congress for supplemental aid package north of $10B for Ukraine)

A senior Biden administration official stated the needs were huge, and the White House was hopeful an agreement could be reached with Congress on the request, which covers only the first quarter of the present 2024 fiscal year.

However, the request faced opposition in Congress, where some GOP members  especially those with strong links to former President Donald Trump  want to cut back the billions in assistance Washington has sent to Ukraine since Russian troops invaded in February 2022. Congress previously approved aid for the Zelensky government worth $48 billion in December, before Republicans took control of the House.

Trump, the current front-runner in the race to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2024, has been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war. Seventy House members supported an unsuccessful proposal in July to decrease funding for Ukraine.

In June, the House GOP under the leadership of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California signaled that any request for more assistance for Ukraine would encounter an uphill climb through Congress. A spokesperson for McCarthy said he would review Biden's proposal and the "Republican-led House will not rubber-stamp any blank-check funding requests." They added that the Biden administration's emergency funding requests must be reviewed and examined on merits consistent with the practice and principles of the House majority.

A separate Biden administration official noted that the U.S. was making good in its promise to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The official added that Washington won't be reluctant in requesting extra funds if necessary.

Follow UkraineWitness.com for more news about Ukraine.

Watch Steve Bannon criticizing the "catastrophically bad" U.S. visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky below.

This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

11 House Republicans led by Matt Gaetz introduce Ukraine fatigue resolution to halt US military and financial aid to Ukraine.

Presidential candidates clash over Ukraine aid during first 2024 GOP primary debate.

Zelensky dismisses seven top defense officials in bid to reboot his corruption-ridden Defense Ministry.

Biden administration announces another military package for Ukraine.

MORE, MORE, MORE! Zelensky calls on West to provide Ukraine with air defense systems.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

APNews.com

Reuters.com
Beware of nations, states, corporations, or groups offering benefits that require digital ID: You are entering a covenant with death

All nations rich and poor will be wrapped into the new globalized digital system being promoted by the UN and WEF: No person will be left behind

(Article republished from LeoHohmann.com)

The nation of Kazakhstan, one of Russias southern neighbors, has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme in rolling out a new digital ID that offers social welfare programs called the Digital Family Card.

Whats this got to do with me, you ask?

This is but one example of how the digital ID will come at you, regardless of where you live on Planet Earth in the 21st century.

Ive said in the past that the digital ID will come in many tantalizing forms tailored to different types of people in the social strata. The one in Kazakhstan is meant to appeal to the poor and dependent, whether its single mothers dependent on food stamps or childcare, or the elderly dependent on their Social Security check and government-subsidized healthcare. The end result will be a massive government spy network able to penetrate down to the household level of each family that signs up for this scam.

While the Digital Family Card scheme was first introduced in 2022, it was unveiled to the world last week before the UNs Sustainable Development Goals Summit in New York City. This means its a U.N. model program designed to be rolled out in every nation.

The Digital Family Card is being promoted to achieve SDG #10 Reduced Inequalities, according to the Deputy Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in Kazakhstan.

A fact sheet published February 13, 2023, titled Digitalisation for sustainable development and social well-being of society, explains how the Digital Family Card works.

As explained by the UN, Digital Family Card is as follows:

The Digital Family Card is unique in that it provides a single point of interaction between government agencies to support the population in areas such as education and social protection, finance, justice and medical and social support, and so on. After receiving the data with the family vulnerability assessment, the Digital Family Card automatically initiates state support measures, identifies the responsible public authority and through e-gov (e-government) provides the service in proactive mode. Now citizens do not have to go to each of the public services to apply. The principle of the Digital Family Card is as simple as it can be: the potential recipient of state support is sent a SMS notification to consent to the provision of a public service. If the recipient agrees, a social benefit, payment or other type of support is granted and then credited to their bank account.

Here is the U.N.s promotional video on its new partnership with the government of Kazakhstan.

Judging from the above video, this project sounds like a massive data-mining exercise meant to ensnare families and make them dependent on the state for all their needs.

The idea is to get people hooked into these digitized frameworks, enticing them by touting all of the benefits, the ease of use, the convenience, the free handouts, and only after the masses are fully engaged and addicted, then will they be informed about the dark side of digital slavery. Like the possibility of being penalized for a low social-credit score. This is the same system already rolled out in China and now being introduced to one nation after another. But it will come in many forms, using specialized propaganda targeting many different ethnic cultures and demographics.

This is part of United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which is the global plan to control all of the worlds resources, both living and non-living. The mantra of UN Agenda 2030 is No person left behind.

This particular program was tied to the Sustainable Development Goal Number 10, Reduced Inequality. It also furthers Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, which calls for governments to register every citizen of the world with a digital ID.

On September 17 at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Bagdat Mussin, who is Kazakhstans minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry, presented the Digital Family Card to the assembly.

Her presentation was buried within an over six-hour session of speeches dubbed SDG Digital.

Mussin boasted about how the government created a data lake comprised of 18 different data points and documentation from their millions of families, which include things like their pensions, taxes, real estate registry, health records, and so forth; that allows the government to procure and retroactively update the Digital Family Card.

We can monitor social and economic conditions, home conditions, healthcare, education, and others. [] We are now able to identify family problems that need to be addressed, she said.

Steve Quayle posted an article about this UN-Kazakhstan partnership on his website today, September 21, from The Winepress News and said any nation that enters into a partnership with the UN is entering a covenant with death. I agree with that assessment.

But whatever you want to call it, this is Orwells 1984 on steroids. And its coming soon to a city/state/country near you. Now is the time to be making plans and preparations for how you will live outside of this burgeoning beast system.

Read more at: LeoHohmann.com
Canada and Japan sign electric vehicle battery supply chain agreement to strengthen their position in the EV market

Canada and Japan have inked an electric vehicle battery supply chain agreement to strengthen the former's position in the EV battery sector while helping the latter secure better access to lucrative American EV subsidies for its automakers.

The deal was finalized during a state visit of Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, who was accompanied by representatives from the Japanese industry group the Battery Association for Supply Chain. On Sept. 21, Nishimura and his Canadian counterparts signed a "memorandum of cooperation" with Canadian companies on the matter.

Japanese and Canadian corporations also signed separate joint ventures providing for greater collaboration between the two nations to address the growing demand for batteries in the EV market.

Canadian Minister of Industry Francois-Philippe Champagne and Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson hinted that further discussions were ongoing with Japanese industry giants Toyota and Honda for the possible creation of battery manufacturing centers in Canada. (Related: Saudi Arabia signs $5.6 billion deal with China to boost the kingdoms EV industry.)

"As worldwide demand shifts increasingly towards cleaner forms of energy, Canadas critical minerals resources and battery supply chains will play a vital role in how we get there," said Wilkinson.

Japan and Canada plan to fight China's dominance in the EV industry

Besides having the same goal in the battery supply chain, Japan and Canada are also driven by their desires to counter the economic and political dominance of China in the Indo-Pacific region and the global battery industry.

In line with their goals, Canada has been "friendshoring" or cooperating with allies while Japan uses the Pacific Rim trade deal now known as the CPTPP to secure essential minerals and technology supply chains and reduce their dependence on China and Russia.

Canada has invested tens of billions of dollars to become a major player in the battery industry, including giving billions of dollars in subsidies to companies like Volkswagen and Stellantis to build battery plants in Ontario.

In 2022, Champagne visited Japan multiple times to promote Canada's capacity for battery materials to Japanese carmakers and electronics companies. Canada could also assist Japanese automakers in making electric vehicles that qualify for a substantial consumer tax rebate in the United States, which is available only for vehicles made in North America.

Moreover, Japan became the best option for Canada as its relationship with India was on the verge of breaking down. Canada has canceled its plan to trade mission and paused ongoing trade deal talks with India. After the termination, the Indian government was allegedly involved in the shooting of a Vancouver Sikh leader.

"Looking back over the past four years, international affairs have become increasingly unstable, with the spread of infectious diseases, Russian aggression against Ukraine and attempts by some nations to weaponize economic independence in the form of coercion for diplomatic and security purposes," said Nishimura. "In this context, the need for cooperation between Japan and Canada has increased greatly. We share common values and are good partners in the Indo-Pacific region."

Visit RoboCars.news for more news about electric vehicle manufacturing around the world.

Watch the video below that talks about the danger of America's supply chain dependence on China.

This video is from the Chinese taking down EVIL CCP channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

SUPPLY CHAIN WARNING: China flexes world domination muscle, restricts mineral exports vital for semiconductors and EV battery production.

Biden says US WONT DECOUPLE from China during G7 meeting in Japan.

Arizona and Texas to become hubs for EV, battery and semiconductor companies.

Illinois bills seek to require EV charging stations in new and renovated homes.

EV COLLAPSE: Car dealerships are now rejecting EV deliveries due to low sales.

Sources include:

Mining.com

CP24.com

CBC.ca

Brighteon.com
Dr. Stella Immanuel warns of UNLIMITED WARFARE against humanity through mRNA technology

Dr. Stella Immanuel has warned of an unlimited warfare being waged against mankind

"This is serious. This is like unlimited warfare against humanity. [Just] look at everything going on, the level of warfare that we are against," she remarked during a Sept. 8 appearance on "The Alex Jones Show."

"[They are] even trying to put nanotechnology  right now, the mRNA  in our vegetables. They want to inject it in our cows. They want to spray it, because the bottom line is they want every one of us genetically corrupted with this nanotechnology."

The Cameroonian-American physician based in Texas pointed out the dire consequences of this genetic corruption. People with immune systems who fight off the mRNA nanotech will end up dying. Meanwhile, those who accept the mRNA nanotech will turn into some kind of human cyborg.

"We need to be prepared," Immanuel emphasized. "Everybody needs to be prepared, spiritually prepared, physically prepared [and] medically prepared."

Jones agreed with his guest, adding that the people really need to be prepared as the globalist-controlled governments are gearing up for more control and lockdowns. According to the InfoWars founder, the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic is making a comeback and a massive rollout of propaganda is already underway. (Related: FEAR REBOOT: Health experts, CDC claim COVID-19 cases are rising again.)

The talk show host and writer added that people won't know what is in the new COVID-19 booster because Big Pharma won't tell them.

But Immanuel noted that people are beginning to understand what this is all about.

"I know for certain that the agenda is actually depopulation and control. I've said this over and over that now, the Devil has decided to use science and technology to destroy humanity. But we have to be ready. We cannot just sit down and wait for them to come after you," she said.

Immanuel urges Americans to be MEDICALLY PREPARED

Immanuel, who hosts "Bible and Science: The Dr. Stella Immanuel Show" on Brighteon.TV, also reminded people to stock up on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin in their medicine cabinet to protect themselves. While the COVID-19 bioweapon is already endemic, she emphasized the need for people to take their weekly doses of HCQ, ivermectin and other supplements to stay safe.

She also cited the importance of taking vitamin C, vitamin D, quercetin and zinc against COVID-19. According to Immanuel, zinc is a potent antiviral against most RNA viruses that cause diseases like the flu viruses, respiratory syncytial virus and coronaviruses.

Supplementing zinc with quercetin makes it more effective, as the phytochemical opens zinc channels and allows zinc to go into the cell so that it can kill the virus. However, she cautioned against taking too much zinc as it could cause anemia and copper deficiency.

Immanuel also mentioned to Jones that her two clinics in Texas do not charge much because they follow the regular price for the products they have. They also do not overcharge their patients, especially when they buy HCQ and ivermectin. Both these drugs are available in pharmacies, she added.

Aside from being medically prepared, the Texas-based physician also urged Americans to be prepared when it comes to their food supply. She called on them to grow their own food, leave the cities and live in farms and communities where they can protect each other.

Follow Depopulation.news for more stories about the war on humanity through mRNA.

Watch the full conversation between Dr. Stella Immanuel and Alex Jones below.

This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Dr. Stella Immanuel: Everybody needs to have hydroxychloroquine at home  Brighteon.TV.

Biden wants Americans to get another COVID booster shot as he schemes to unleash COVID 2.0 in the coming weeks.

Top 7 ways COVID-19-VACCINE DAMAGE is being covered up by the vaccine industrial complex.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

DrStellaMD.com
Mayor of El Paso, Texas says his city is now at BREAKING POINT due to influx of ILLEGALS

A mayor in a Texas border city has lamented how his area has reached the breaking point due to the influx of illegal immigrants entering the unsecured southern border.

El Paso, Texas Mayor Oscar Leeser said on Sept. 23 that the dramatic increase in illegal aliens crossing the border has pushed his city to the limit. More than 2,000 people are seeking asylum in the city every day, exceeding shelter capacity and straining resources.

"The city of El Paso only has so many resources, and we have come to a breaking point right now," he said at a news conference. "I think it's really important to note that we have a broken immigration system. It's the same thing over and over again."

According to Yahoo News, "the arrival of largely Venezuelan asylum seekers is part of a larger swell of immigrants who traveled dangerous routes on buses and cargo trains to Mexican border towns near San Diego and the Texas cities of El Paso and Eagle Pass." Leeser added that many migrants from the South American nation "lacked transportation to their desired destinations."

The outlet added that about 350 to 400 people were crossing into El Paso as recently as six weeks ago. But during the past few days, this has risen to 2,000 illegals and more. About two-thirds entering El Paso illegally  66 percent  are single men, while families comprised about 32 percent and unaccompanied children made up two percent. (Related: Elon Musk warns: The border is WIDE OPEN for all who want to crash it.)

The city's shelter for illegal aliens can only house 400 people, including homeless Americans. But given the influx of illegals, the mayor said El Paso plans to open a new shelter. In the meantime, El Paso has worked with the U.S. Border Patrol to provide shelter for 6,500 people.

Also on Sept. 23, Leeser  a Democrat  chartered five buses to take migrants to three sanctuary cities: New York, Chicago and Denver. Republican politicians in the Lone Star State, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have been closely linked to this migrant busing strategy. However, Leeser defended his decision and stressed that all the bused migrants were going voluntarily to the cities of their choice.

Even Eagle Pass declares STATE OF EMERGENCY

Further down south, the city of Eagle Pass has buckled from the strain of illegals entering the country, thanks to the Biden administration's open borders policy. This has led the city to declare a state of emergency.

Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. did just that, signing an emergency declaration on Sept. 19 set to last seven days unless renewed. The declaration allows the city to access more resources to help manage the influx of illegals at the border. "The city of Eagle Pass is committed to the safety and well-being of our local citizens," Salinas said in a press release announcing the state of emergency.

In a video posted on Sept. 20, Salinas narrated a visit to the Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras International Bridge and described what he saw. Based on the footage, the mayor was accompanied by the police chief, fire chief and other staff members who were "on top of the situation."

"As you can see, this is not normal to have thousands of people down on the international bridge," he said. "This presents a lot of problems potentially for our community."

According to Salinas, many of the illegals entering are single males as opposed to family units. He even pointed out that some of them have criminal records.

"We don't want these people just to be walking our streets," the mayor lamented. "A lot of them do have [criminal] records. And talking to Border Patrol, talking to the [Texas Department of Public Safety], there's no way of confirming who are these people."

"This already has taken a toll on the economy by affecting commercial traffic. But we're going to do everything possible to make sure we maintain the order [and] maintain peace in Eagle Pass."

Visit InvasionUSA.news for more stories about the influx of illegal aliens in border cities.

Watch Next News Network's Ivory Hecker stating that illegal aliens will benefit from tax dollars paid by El Pasoans.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Migrant TSUNAMI: Eagle Pass declares STATE OF EMERGENCY as nearly 14K border crossers flood the city in less than two weeks  many more to come.

El Paso mayor declares state of emergency as city braces for influx of illegal aliens once Title 42 expires.

US border crisis persists: Thousands of migrants continue to cross daily despite the summer heat.

El Paso mayor: 20K illegals waiting to surge across southern border once Title 42 ends.

Sources include:

News.Yahoo.com

TheHill.com

Brighteon.com
FASCISM RUN AMOK: Canadian libraries engaging in mass BOOK BURNINGS to purge history and truth from peoples minds

strange phenomenon is taking place in Canada where books at public schools and libraries are

CBC Investigates published a report about the matter, explaining that all books published in 2008 or earlier are being "burned," so to speak, because they do not meet the Justin Trudeau regime's new "equity-based" process for public materials.

Everything from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is no longer allowed at Canadian public schools and libraries because they do not meet the anti-white standards being forced on Canada.

"This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books," said Reina Takata, a 10th grade student who says her public high school library in Mississauga, Ont., which she visits during her lunch hour most days is devoid of most books.

While still in grade school at Erindale Secondary School, Takata also noticed that books were gradually disappearing. Now, as a high school student, she is noticing this phenomenon more and more, estimating that more than 50 percent of her school's library books are now gone.

(Related: The Google-owned YouTube video platform is doing its part to "burn books" by now requiring that all channels sharing medical information undergo a special "certification" process approved by the Censorship Industrial Complex.)

All books published prior to 2008 are now ILLEGAL at Canadian public institutions, including schools and libraries, in certain provinces

Back in the spring, Takata says staff at her school informed all students that "if shelves look emptier right now, it's because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008."

In speaking to CBC Toronto, Takata and other students, parents, and community members at the Peel District School Board (PDSB) revealed that there is an inconsistent approach being taken as far as the new equity-based book weeding process taking place in their area.

Last spring, for those who missed it, a provincial directive from the Minister of Education started forcing public school systems and libraries to remove all books published in 2008 and prior because they do not qualify as "inclusive."

Before CBC went public with an expose about all this, it reached out to Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce's office, only to receive no comment either from him or his department. Leece did, however, issue a general statement indicating that he has told the PDSB to stop burning all the books published prior to 2008.

"Ontario is committed to ensuring that the addition of new books better reflects the rich diversity of our communities," Leece said. "It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada's history, antisemitism or celebrated literary classics."

To be clear, this does not mean that the book burning will end. It just means that arbitrarily burning all books published prior to 2008 will no longer be the standard.

"I think that authors who wrote about Japanese internment camps are going to be erased and the entire events that went on historically for Japanese Canadians are going to be removed," Takata, who is Japanese, commented. "That worries me a lot."

Another major concern is how Canadian authorities are arbitrarily defining things like "inclusivity," seeing as how there is nothing inclusive from a white person's perspective to have all European and Caucasian reading material banned simply because it does not focus on non-white issues, cultures, or history.

"Who's the arbiter of what's the right material to go in the library, and who's the arbiter of what's wrong in our libraries? That's unclear," said Tom Ellard, a PSDB parents and the founder of a group called Libraries Not Landfills.

"It's not clear to the teachers who've provided us this material, and it's not clear to me as a parent or as a taxpayer."

The latest news about the ongoing information purge can be found at Censorship.news.

Sources for this article include:

CBC.ca

NaturalNews.com
Brain CONTROL: Musks neurotechnology company Neuralink looking for brain implant trial volunteers

Elon Musk's neurotechnology company Neuralink announced that it is searching for human volunteers for brain chip trials amid leaked reports of dangerous animal tests and criticism from worried experts.

An independent review board has allegedly given Musk's company the green light to start its brain-computer interface testing on people suffering from paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injuries or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Musk has previously claimed that Neuralink's brain-computer interface (BCI) called the Link "will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs."

However, Neuralink isn't the first or only company working on brain interface devices. For decades, scientists in various countries have been studying the potential use of implants and devices to treat health issues like depression and paralysis. To date, thousands of people are already using neuroprosthetics like cochlear implants for hearing.

But the extensive scope of capabilities Musk is promising for the Neuralink device has caused concern and doubt among experts.

Neuralink entered the industry in 2016 and designed the Link, an electrode-laden computer chip that can be sewn into the surface of the brain. The Link can be connected to external electronics and a robotic device that implants the chip.

John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University, said the brain implant's design seems to use a novel kind of electrode. He led the research team that worked on the brain-computer interface "BrainGate" to help restore movement for individuals with paralysis.

According to Musk, Neuralinks device could be used for various therapeutic uses, such as treating conditions like blindness, paralysis and depression. He added that the eventual goal is to create a "general population device" that could connect a users mind directly to supercomputers and help humans keep up with artificial intelligence (AI).

Additionally, Musk suggested that the brain implant could one day be used to extract and store thoughts, like a "backup drive for your non-physical being, your digital soul."

Neuralink trial to last six years

Musk revealed that Neuralink will soon initiate recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant. However, he didn't share any details about the number of participants to be enrolled in the trial, which is slated to take an estimated six years.

During the study, a robot will implant the chip in the brain region that control's a person's intention to move. Musk's aim is for the person's thoughts to control a computer cursor or keyboard using the brain implant. (Related: UNESCO warns against BRAIN CHIPS being used as personality-altering weapons.)

In May, Neuralink revealed that the company had obtained Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its first-in-human clinical trial. Neuralink initially wanted to test on 10 human volunteers, but it then reported that the undisclosed final number was reevaluated due to FDA concerns.

Despite Musk's bold claims of the BCI functioning as a backup drive for the "digital soul," the company still has far to go.

As of writing, Neuralink has tested the brain implants on animals. One video released in 2021 shows a monkey using the device to play the video game Pong with his mind. Another video from 2022 allegedly shows a monkey typing on a computer telepathically.

While the FDA approval cleared the first hurdle on a human clinical trial, the scope, focus and design of the study are still unclear.

To add to the worry and concern of experts not involved in the upcoming Neuralink trial, FDA applications and approval processes are not available to the public. As a private company, Neuralink does not need to disclose such regulatory interactions to investors.

Reports revealed that the FDA's safety concerns were linked to the brain implants lithium battery potentially overheating. The agency also had questions about whether the machines small wires could migrate to other parts of the brain and whether the device could be removed without damaging brain tissue. No details have been released about how these concerns were resolved.

The FDA declined to comment specifically on Neuralinks application process, but a spokesperson said that, generally, the agency has a "scientifically rigorous process to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of medical devices." The FDA spokesperson added that the FDA has "a deep commitment to ensure the responsible and humane care of animals" included in testing.

Meanwhile, Neuralink declined to comment on its plans for the human clinical trials.

Report reveals Neuralink has killed over 1,500 animals in experiments since 2018

The FDA approval also comes amid an ongoing investigation into Neuralinks testing practices, along with shocking allegations of animal cruelty.

A report from Reuters revealed that Neuralink has killed more than 1,500 animals since it started experimenting on them in 2018.

The death of animal test subjects is not uncommon in labs, but employees have reported that the mortality rate of Neuralink is higher than necessary because of Musks "grueling development timeline," which they claim has resulted in more mistakes and failed operations.

Former employees also described some experiments as "hack jobs." In one failed experiment, the wrong size of devices was installed in 25 of 60 pigs used for testing.

In another experiment, the device was accidentally implanted into the wrong vertebra of two different pigs during two separate surgeries. The animals were euthanized to end their pain and suffering.

Neuralink did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.

The FDA also declined to comment, citing laws keeping commercial information private.

Several of Neuralink's companys founders, which included well-known and respected researchers in the field, have left the company. Since July 2022, only two of the eight founding members remain at Neuralink.

L. Syd M. Johnson, a neuroethicist at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University (SUNY Upstate Medical University), has stated that she wants to know exactly "what the FDA was thinking."

According to Johnson, one of the concerns about Musk's company is that "its not functioning in the way that many other research laboratories or organizations function."

"There are concerns about the potential that they are performing a kind of sloppy work and that their data may not be reliable," she concluded.

Amid the allegations and criticism about Neuralink's cruel animal studies, Musk has denied the tragic animal deaths.

Earlier in September, Musk replied to a meme of himself on X (formerly Twitter) where a user joked that he should take an ethics class after the death of the animal subjects involved in the company's experiments. In his reply, Musk insisted that "No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant."

Visit ElonMuskWatch.com for more articles about Musk and Neuralink's dangerous projects.

Watch the video below to learn more about the hidden dangers of Neuralink.

This video is from the Kim Osbol - Copenhagen Denmark channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

WEF speaker touts technology allowing companies to monitor employees brains.

Ethical questions raised after Elon Musks Neuralink company implants chip in monkeys brain.

UNESCO: Combination of neurotechnology and AI threatens mental privacy.

Sources include:

DailyStar.co.uk

TheGuardian.com

Reuters.com

Twitter.com

Brighteon.com
REVISIONIST HISTORY: European Commission Pres. Ursula von der Leyen falsely implies RUSSIA dropped nuke on Hiroshima in bizarre misinformation speech

The dumbing down of the world by the globalists reached a new low this week after European Commission (EC) head Ursula von der Leyen, who perhaps not-so-oddly resembles the wicked Ursula character from blatantly lied to the world about who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, towards the end of World War II.

In von der Leyen's revisionist history version of events, Russia is responsible for that act, which killed some 78,000 civilians. Von der Leyen urged her listeners to remember that event, "especially at a time when Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons once again" (our emphasis).

By uttering the words "once again" at the end of that statement, von der Leyen tacitly implied that Russia dropped a nuke on Hiroshima when a simple fact check shows that it was the United States and its axis of evil that bears all guilt for that atomic bomb and what it did to tens of thousands of innocents.

Shameful words by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. What do you mean with "once again"? Treacherous words used on her speech delivered at the 2023 Atlantic Council Awards to suggest that Russia used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pic.twitter.com/nJFd8acJbq  Alexandre Guerreiro (@ATGuerreiro) September 22, 2023

(Related: Von der Leyen is also calling for the global implementation of what could, should this "side" of politics be successful, bring about a type of Mark of the Beast where one cannot buy or sell without it.)

FACT CHECK: The U.S. bombed Hiroshima, not Russia

At no point during her speech did von der Leyen reveal or even suggest that the U.S. played any role in dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, even though it was the U.S. that bears full responsibility for it. In fact, the U.S. dropped no less than two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, for those who know their history.

Apparently, too few people remember history anymore, and perhaps this is why von der Leyen flat-out lied to the world the other day by blaming Russia for it. Has the population of the world really descended that far into ignorance that this kind of stuff goes unaddressed, and in many cases even unnoticed?

Here's an exact transcript of what von der Leyen falsely stated in an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the world concerning who is really responsible for Hiroshima:

"You, dear Prime Minister, showed me the meaning of this proverb during the G7 summit in Japan last year. You brought us to your hometown of Hiroshima, the place where you have your roots and which has deeply shaped your life and leadership. Many of your relatives lost their life when the atomic bomb razed Hiroshima to the ground. You have grown up with the stories of the survivors. And you wanted us to listen to the same stories, to face the past, and learn something about the future.

It was a sobering start to the G7, and one that I will not forget, especially at a time when Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons once again. It is heinous. It is dangerous. And in the shadow of Hiroshima, it is unforgivable."

In a formal rebuttal of von der Leyen's speech, Russia issued its own statement blasting her blatant misinformation. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated unequivocally that the EC president made "no mention whatsoever of the U.S. and its executioners who dropped the bombs on populated Japanese cities."

Pretty much everything the establishment is saying these days is a blatant lie. Learn more about their game plan at Deception.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Fauci, Walensky and the U.S. government knew that covid jabs were causing myocarditis and blood clots in early 2021, but hid this from the public

On August 29, 2023, the U.S. government was forced to release 472 pages of emails dated February 1, 2021 through May 31, 2021 . During this timeframe, the federal government carried out their liability-free contracts with Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, and disseminated their first round of experimental mRNA spike protein, which they claimed was a safe and effective vaccine.

These bombshell emails were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, submitted by attorney Edward Berkovich. The emails reveal that Anthony Fauci (NIAID), Francis Collins (NIH) Rochelle Walensky (CDC), Vivek Murthy (U.S. Surgeon General) and other top level government employees knew that the covid jabs would cause myocarditis and blood clotting disorders. These risks were brought to their attention several times and discussed throughout the email chain.

Instead of being honest with the American people about these serious and life-threatening risks, these government figures devised a series of media messages to promote the mRNA injections as safe and effective and mandatory to return to normal. The emails, highly redacted, reveal the governments conspiracy to withhold important risk information from the public, while pushing forth an experiment that should have never come near a single human being.

These same government figures brought forth policies threatening the rights of the people, coercing individuals to take part in multiple rounds of that same medical experiment that had well documented risks. These government figures even worked with social media companies to suppress the truth about these harmful covid jabs and pressured the companies to elevate their deceptive messaging which reaffirmed that the jabs were safe and effective even when they knew they were not.

The federal government conspired to withhold life-threatening risks on the COVID jab from the public

The emails obtained by the FOIA all contain the word myocarditis and include correspondence between CDC personnel, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Sherri A. Berger, and Kevin Griffis. A whistleblower from within the agency also provided an additional 46 pages of emails showing how the White House knew about these vaccine harms in the Spring of 2021, but decided to hide the risks from the public, while continuing to push multiple shots on unsuspecting Americans.

Shockingly, over 80 percent of the 46 pages were fully redacted, according to Amy Kelly of DailyClout. These pages included correspondence on vaccine messaging involving the White House and the Executive Office of the President. The Office of the President was able to hide (redact) much of their treachery regarding the vaccine due to a special rule built into FOIA requests that entitles the President to secrecy. Exemption 5 states, The Presidential communications privilege protects documents solicited and received by the President or his immediate White House advisers who have broad and significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given to the President.

Dr. Naomi Wolf spoke out about these redactions on Steve Bannons War Room. She said, The reason for all these redactions is that what is redacted was solicited or shared with the President or his most senior advisors. Dr. Wolf analyzed the emails. Around May 24-25, high ranking officials form the White House, the NIH, CDC, and other federal agencies were freaking out about myocarditis and thrombotic thrombocytopenia syndrome. Instead of addressing these issues honestly and ethically, the agencies engaged in a coordinated coverup -- a media response that doesnt tell the truth.

When dealing with the issue of myocarditis, Abbigail Tumpey, a former communicator at the CDC wrote to former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and other high ranking health officials about the need for a press conference (which they redacted). Instead of addressing the issue with Americans, the issue was made trivial and the vaccine was made mandatory.

When dealing with the same issue, Benjamin Wakana, a top White House communications official, sent an email titled COVID Tough QA. The email, dated May 25, 2021, went out to Murthy, Walensky, Fauci, and other White House advisors, but all seventeen pages of the communication were redacted.

Dr. Wolf said, The final email is from Grace Kwak, White House Advisor to the Deputy COVID-19 Response Coordinator, Executive Office of the President, asking Dr. Walenskys Executive Assistant, Lynn Gershman, where to find papers/briefings about updates on TTS [Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Syndrome], myocarditis, etc. Ms. Gersham forward this request from WH to Sherri Berger.

The individuals implicated in the conspiracy to withhold life-threatening risk information about the COVID jab from the public also include: Courtney M. Rowe, Director of Strategic Communications and Engagement for the White House COVID-19 Response Team; Kate Berner, White House Principal Deputy Communications Director; Kevin Munoz, White House Assistant Press Secretary; John Burklow, Acting Chief of Staff in the Office of the Director of the NIH; Renate Myles, Acting Associate Director for Communications and Public Liaison, NIH; Max Lesko, JD, Chief of Staff, Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, White House COVID-19 Response Team; Subhan N. Cheema, Senior Strategic Communications Advisor, White House COVID-19 Response Team; Mariel S. Saez, White House Director of Broadcast Media; Cameron Webb, M.D., senior Advisor for Equity to the White House COVID-19 Response Team; Kristen Allen, White House National Press Secretary, Health and Human Services; and Sherice Perry, former Senior Advisor, COVID-19 Equity Task Force, Health and Human Services.

Sources include:

Expose-News.com

DailyClout.io

DailyClout.io

Brighteon.com
China welcomes more U.S. companies to invest in China

Xinhua) 08:04, September 27, 2023

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng meets with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2023. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Han Zheng Tuesday met with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in Beijing, saying China welcomes more U.S. companies to invest and do business in China to share development opportunities.

Noting China-U.S. relations are the most important bilateral relations in the world today, Han said the two countries, one being the biggest developing country and the other the biggest developed country, should enhance mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas, push forward the world's economic recovery together, and address global challenges.

Han said China always follows the guiding principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation in dealing with relations with the United States. It is hoped that the U.S. side could work with China to bring the bilateral ties back to the track of sound and steady growth.

Since the beginning of this year, China's economy has kept on a general rebound track. The Chinese side will continue to optimize economic structures, deepen reform and opening up, and achieve high-quality development, said Han.

"We welcome more U.S. companies to invest and do business in China to share development opportunities together," Han added.

For his part, Paulson said he has confidence in the prospects of China's economic development. The U.S.-China relations have an important impact on the world. The two countries should maintain communication and dialogue, strengthen people-to-people exchanges and economic and trade cooperation, and jointly cope with global challenges such as climate change.

Paulson also expressed willingness to continue playing a positive role in promoting the steady development of U.S.-China relations.

Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, met with a delegation led by Paulson on the same day.

Wang said the nosedive of China-U.S. relations does not meet the interests of the two peoples, the expectations of the international community, and the trend of the times. It is hoped that the United States will return to the rational and pragmatic track in its China policy, take concrete actions to lengthen the positive list and shorten the negative list, and work with China to explore ways of peaceful coexistence as two major countries.

Paulson welcomed the recent resumption and maintenance of dialogue between the United States and China, adding the two sides should indeed find the right way to get along with each other, build mutual trust, and push for the steady improvement of U.S.-China relations.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine continues to promote the idea of creating a Ukrainian Sovereign Fund (USF), which could unite 76-77 key strategic companies and become the only management entity in the state property market, the acting head of the SPF, Oleksandr Fedoryshyn, said at a conference in Kyiv "Reforms of state and municipal property: transparency, efficiency and opportunities for the private sector."

"Today we have almost 90 management entities. The State Property Fund is only one of 90 entities, there are other ministries and departments that also manage, each has its own different styles, its own different approaches, and the result is a rather unbalanced situation. In this situation, we want there to be a single management entity, the Ukrainian Sovereign Fund, which will unite key strategic companies under its umbrella; we have identified them for ourselves - these are 76-77 companies that will be managed according to the best standards," Fedoryshyn said.

According to him, the USF will be analogous to the Norwegian Pension Fund, which manages 74 state-owned companies, while in Ukraine there are still 1,600 state-owned enterprises.

The head of the SPF also said that at one of the last meetings with the Ministry of Economy, as a result of the triage, 107 companies were identified that were not subject to privatization, and a corresponding bill was being prepared to consolidate this.

"We are focusing directly on this list, we will ask to join the discussion so that these companies could potentially enter the management of the Ukrainian Sovereign Fund," Fedoryshyn said.

Among other things, the head of the SPF informed that thanks to the government, it became possible to create a land bank, which would become one of the first assets that would come under the management of the USF.

"In addition, we are simultaneously considering the Real Estate Investment Fund product..." Fedoryshyn added.

The conference was organized by the Verkhovna Rada and the USAID/UKaid project State-Owned Enterprises Reform Activity (SOERA).

"Privatization and liquidation have very practical consequences. This is an opportunity for private entrepreneurs to recover losses from the war, meet the needs of the population and actively support the post-war economy. Reducing the number of state assets means reducing the potential for corruption. And this is one of the priority issues for international and Ukrainian investors, donors and citizens of Ukraine," John Tokolish, deputy head of the USAID/UKaid project, emphasized at the conference.
U.S. tax dollars sent to Ukraine being used for wasteful excesses like subsidizing Ukrainian corporations, paying politicians salaries, and even buying fertilizer for farmers

The tens of billions of stolen taxpayer dollars that fake president Joe Biden is pumping into Ukraine are being used for all sorts of corrupt, wasteful, and non-war-related things like corporate subsidies, politicians' salaries, and even food-growing inputs for Ukrainian farmers.

Each U.S. tax dollar that Biden sends to Volodymyr Zelensky is basically being used as welfare by and for Zelensky and his corrupt regime. In his quest to create a new "Israel" in Ukraine, Zelensky is basically using U.S. taxpayers as the cash cow, sucking them dry simply to enrich Ukraine while our own nation crumbles into oblivion.

"Joe Bidens government is pumping billions of dollars not only into the Ukrainian war machine, but into the Ukrainian economy, using taxpayer cash to pay the salaries of almost 60,000 state employees, subsidize private businesses, and even buy seed and fertilizer for farmers," explains Jack Montgomery, writing for The National Pulse.

"At the same time, NATO allies including Poland and Hungary complain their own farmers are being overwhelmed by Ukrainian produce being dumped on European markets."

(Related: Did you catch the Health Ranger's recent interview with Jeffrey Prather in which they discuss how Russia is winning the war against Ukraine and the West?)

Poland, one of Ukraine's closest allies, has HALTED military supplies to the country over widespread corruption and betrayal by Zelensky

Investigative reporters found that all those billions Biden is sending to Ukraine is helping to pay the salaries of all 57,000 of Ukraine's first responders, for instance. All that money is also being used to subsidize Ukrainian businesses, including by securing them new customers overseas through USAID.

If this is not already upsetting enough, we also now know that Zelensky is waging war against neighboring European countries that are struggling to keep their farming sectors alive as Zelensky's regime dumps gobs of cheap produce within their borders to undercut their own native industries.

In essence, Zelensky, the world's most obnoxious welfare queen, is using U.S. tax dollars to give the corrupt Ukrainian regime an artificial upper hand in the world economy. In other words, the war on Russia is actually being waged on you while your sellout politicians on both sides of the aisle steal your hard-earned money and give it all to Zelensky.

Poland, one of Ukraine's closest allies, is so upset at what is going on and how it is impacting that country that it has since stopped supplying military gear, ammunition, and other war supplies to the Zelensky regime.

"It had previously been one of Zelenskys most important backers, supplying him with warplanes and over 300 tanks, and pushing other NATO members to offer similar assistance," Montgomery writes about Poland's new stance against Ukraine, which has betrayed Poland, the U.S., and every other country that has been supporting its war efforts against Russia.

Compare the tens of billions of dollars that have already been sent to Ukraine to the mere $3.17 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent as assistance to the actual Americans who are suffering in Maui now that their homes, businesses, and livelihoods have been destroyed by the corrupt globalists who infest America's government and their directed energy weapons (DEWs).

Be sure to check out the segment below from 60 Minutes about Ukrainian corruption:

60 Minutes discovered the U.S. is financing more than weapons in Ukraine. The government is buying seeds/fertilizer for farmers, paying the salaries of 57,000 first responders and subsidizing small businesses. https://t.co/vKWwWDqUwM pic.twitter.com/BxXItNgQce  60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 24, 2023

The latest news about the corrupt money pit known as Ukraine and the government's artificial propping up of Zelensky's empire using your tax dollars can be found at Treason.news.

Sources for this article include:

TheNationalPulse.com

NaturalNews.com
Zelensky wants artist Marina Abramovic  infamous for satanic worship ceremony Spirit Cooking  to be Ukrainian Ambassador

While dealing with the ever-dragging and moneymaking war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came up with his "brilliant" idea to ask Serbian "extreme and bizarre" performance artist Marina Abramovic to become an "Ambassador" for the war-torn country. According to the Telegraph U.K., Abramovic, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of the country, said that Zelensky had asked for her help in rebuilding schools.

?"I was the first artist to support the Ukraine war against Russia and to give my voice. It is definitely a repetition of history," she said in an interview with the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai. ?"I have been invited by Zelensky to be an ambassador of Ukraine, to help the children affected by rebuilding schools and such."

The news outlet reported that ?the 76-year-old Serbian is holding her first solo exhibition in England and is the first female artist to have a major show in the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. ?Visitors to the exhibition must reportedly squeeze between two nude models to enter the show, or opt to bypass what one journalist dubbed the "naked gates."

Abramovic posted a video online a few days after Putin launched his war with Kyiv. In it, she spoke about being born in the former Yugoslavia, which was invaded by the Soviet Union, and called Ukrainians "proud, strong and dignified." "I have full solidarity with [the Ukrainian people] on this impossible day. An attack on Ukraine is an attack on all of us. It's an attack on humanity and has to be stopped," she added.

For some reason, Zelensky sees hope in the said artist, as all his efforts of fighting with Moscow are crumbling, despite Western media's claim that they are winning. The "Spring Offensive" by Ukraine against Russia this past spring failed. Ukraine's three-month-long 'counteroffensive' against Russia this past summer, also failed. It met this failure by demanding critics 'shut up' about its failure. (Related: Ukrainian armed forces failed to achieve goals in three months of counteroffensive effort, Russian defense minister reports.)

"The military effort has become so strained, the United States has resorted to utilizing international terrorism against Russia by blowing up Russia's Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022," the Gateway Pundit further wrote. Now, for some reason, the war effort depends on the self-described artist, who was most famous for holding severed, bloody, goat heads. She reportedly denied being a Satanist, claiming she's just an artist. She was briefly a featured artist for Microsoft in 2020 "until her ties to Satan became too much even for a company responsible for Windows ME," GP also commented.

The said "performer" was photographed in front of a painting by Thomas Lawrence titled "Satan Summoning his Legions" with leftist billionaire Jacob Rothschild. She also had transgressive art installations called "Spirit Cooking" in 1996 that featured the consumption of bodily fluids, such as congealed blood, urine, breast milk, and sperm, while chanting phrases that some allege are Satanic.

Back in 2016, when Wikileaks published the Podesta Archive of emails. John Podesta, who previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and as Hillary Clinton's campaign Chairman, was revealed to be attending the said "evil-summoning ceremony" as late as 2015.

Abramovic reportedly denied she worships the devil despite her Twitter user handle including 666 during that time.

Zelensky engages famous celebrities to support his "war"

Abramovic is just one of several celebrities to be recruited to help Kyiv's public relations battle to ensure continued support for its struggle. While there are many ways to support, celebrities are first of all mobilizing funds for organizations delivering "humanitarian aid."

Barbra Streisand has supported UNITED24's Medical Aid work by popularizing the 24,000 "Friends of Ukraine" project encouraging people to sign up for a monthly donation of $24 to support medical workers. Streisand herself was said to have contributed a total of $24,000. Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker in the original "Star Wars" films, has also raised money to buy reconnaissance drones for front-line Ukrainian troops.

Moreover, Hollywood couple Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher also kickstarted a GoFundMe campaign with a $3 million donation last year. The fundraiser has since raised over $18 million. The former "That 70s Show" co-stars launched the initiative in a video where Kunis, who was born in Chernivtsi in Ukraine and later came to the U.S. in 1991, shared her pride in her heritage.

Oscar-winner and climate advocate Leonardo DiCaprio also reportedly donated $10 million to support Ukraine through the International Visegrad Fund. DiCaprio's grandmother was born in Odesa in Ukraine and migrated to Germany in 1917. Supermodel Gigi Hadid, whom DiCaprio dated for a year, also donated all her earnings from participating in "Fall 2022 Fashion Week" to support humanitarian relief efforts for people impacted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Popular British couple David and Victoria Beckham also donated 1 million through the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), where David is an ambassador. Meanwhile, another husband and wife tandem, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, matched up to $1 million in donations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Furthermore, Sean Penn, Liev Schreiber, Jessica Chastain, Ben Stiller, and Angelina Jolie all personally made visits to Ukraine. Their visits usually focused on humanitarian issues. The "war business" looks good, so far, critics seem to observe.

Check out UkraineWitness.com to read more updates on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Sources for this article include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

Reuters.com

TheGuardian.com

UkraineWorld.org

GlobalCitizen.org
Small furry animals like bats, rodents, and shrews have been found responsible for cross-species virus transmission and evolution. These findings are according to a new study led by scientists in China, suggesting that several species of small mammals affect the spread and mutation of viruses.

The research also implies that some viruses can thrive inside the bodies of their mammalian host, potentially enabling them to jump to other species.

For decades, virologists have attempted to study the nature and behavior of biological viruses, as well as the pathogens' exact origin, which remains unknown until now.

However, the advancement of technology in virology over the past century has allowed humans to gaze upon the microscopic world of viruses and the diseases they cause not only to people but also to animals.

Small Furry Animals

In the study published in the journal Cell on September 20, scientists from different institutions in China examined how small furry animals influence the spread and evolution of viruses, acknowledging that bats, rodents, and shrews are the main sources of human infectious diseases. Prior to their conclusion, the scientists link the internal organs of these small mammals factors to the survival and spread of the pathogens.

As a result, the research team, led by Yan-Mei Chen from Fudan University, conducted a meta-transcriptomic sequencing of the internal organ and fecal samples of 2,443 wild bats, rodents, and shrews living in four Chinese habitats. The sampling led to the identification of 669 viruses, including 534 novel viruses across the mammalian virome.

Also Read: Shapeshifting Virus Thriving in Volcanic Springs May Open New Doors in Viral Study

Cross-Species Virus Transmission

In relation to cross-species virus transmission, the team's observation suggests that a virus has a higher chance of spreading to other species if it is present in multiple internal organs of its host. Out of the small furry animals mentioned earlier, there are varying degrees of spread and mutation depending on the species.

For instance, the China-led study found shrews carry the most viruses in a single animal species. Meanwhile, rodents harbored the greatest number of viruses and with the potential to transmit them to a new host species.

Virus Evolution

Neither dead nor alive, as described by scientists, viruses are capable of mutation and evolution, based on evidence from previous research. Aside from cross-species transmissions, viruses can also jump from one animal group to the other, such as from birds to mammals.

Based on a separate study published in the journal Trends in Microbiology, there were three hypotheses during the early 20th century regarding the origin of viruses such as:

Viruses are degenerate intracellular parasites

Viruses are relics of precellular life

Viruses are cellular genes that escaped

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the more viruses circulate, the more they can change. Citing an example from the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infection tends to mutate more slowly than other pathogens such as HIV or influenza viruses.

Related Article: How Ancient Virus DNAs Are Guarding Marsupials From Modern Diseases
El Nino winter is coming and meteorologists confirm that the warm climate pattern's impact in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, could be felt ahead of the upcoming 2023 winter season. The said phenomenon may alter weather conditions in the coming months, particularly starting December 2023. Some of the potential winter weather hazards include rainfall and warmer temperatures. Yet, harsh winter storms like the ones last year are still possible.

The US is heading to its 'projected' warmer-than-usual winter later this year. However, the effects of the warm climate phenomenon remain hardly felt for now, as the current Atlantic hurricane season remains busy. This is in addition to the recent and ongoing severe thunderstorms in different parts of the country. Yet, a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indicates the El Nino winter has a 95% chance of persisting during the approaching winter.

El Nino Winter

In its updated forecast, the NOAA through its Climate Prediction Center (CPC) on September 14 stated that El Nino is expected to continue during the Northern Hemisphere winter, with a chance greater than 95% from January 2024 to March 2024. This projection is based on above-average sea surface temperatures back in August 2023 across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, as well as in the central and east-central Pacific.

According to the CPC, the most recent data shows El Nino will persist during the 2023-2024 winter season in the Northern Hemisphere, despite having almost the same 'ensemble mean amplitude' last month. Furthermore, the NOAA winter forecast says the impacts of at least a strong El Nino can be felt as early as November.

Also Read: Australia Forecast: El Nino Likely to Cause Hot, Dry Weather

El Nino Arrival

In June 2023, the NOAA declared the arrival of El Nino, with forecasters issuing "El Nino Advisory" which shows that "El Nino conditions" have emerged and are anticipated to gradually intensify into the winter season, as cited by the National Weather Service (NWS).

According to the NWS, El Nino (sometimes spelled as El Nino), is a natural climate phenomenon known for its warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the Central Pacific and Eastern Pacific Ocean, near the equator. This phenomenon occurs every 2 to 7 years on average, with impacts extending far beyond the Pacific.

Is El Nino a Disaster?

In the past, El Nino has driven the occurrence of extreme weather events in different parts of the world, causing catastrophic natural disasters.

El Nino can cause severe drought in Australia, Indonesia, and South Asia, as well as Central America and northern parts of South America, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Back in July 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that El Nino conditions have developed, warning that it can cause disruptive weather and climate patterns and global temperature rise.

Related Article: El Nino to Bring Warmer Temperatures After Official End of La Nina
LEGO brick manufacturing from recycled plastic bottles has been abandoned because it could not achieve its carbon emission reduction goals.

The company will keep looking for sustainable alternatives.

No More Brick From Recycled Plastic Bottles

LEGO scrapped plans to produce its well-known bricks from recycled plastic bottles, claiming that the manufacturing process would prove more environmentally damaging than the way the bricks are now made, which is from oil.

After testing recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for years as a more environmentally responsible substitute for the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) it uses in the majority of its toys, LEGO reached the choice.

The toymaker showed a prototype PET-recycled brick two years ago as part of its commitment to using entirely sustainable materials in its manufactured goods by 2032.

The plastic comes from soda or water bottles that are often used.

However, since then, LEGO has discovered that producing bricks from recycled material would necessitate purchasing new machinery and entail more procedures, which would ultimately result in higher levels of planet-heating pollution than the current practice, a company representative said.

The decision by LEGO highlights the difficulty businesses confront in trying to modify their processes and products in order to address the climate crisis.

After over three years of testing, the company opted against moving further with the production of recycled PET bricks because it was discovered that the material did not cut carbon emissions.

Testing revealed that the recycled plastic was not as strong and secure as ABS and lacked the substance's "clutch power," which allows bricks to adhere to one another and be easily torn apart, the representative added.

LEGO asserted that it is entirely dedicated to producing sustainable materials for LEGO bricks by 2032 and is not giving up on its mission to produce oil-free building blocks.

The company has examined hundreds of materials as potential ABS substitutes, the representative claimed, with recycled PET being just one of them.

LEGO plans to cut its carbon emissions by 37% from 2019 levels by 2032 as a result of the testing.

Also Read: Forever Chemicals PFAS Detected in 'Eco-Friendly' Plant-Based Straws, Study Says

Sustainability Efforts From LEGO

Despite an 8% increase in production, LEGO is on track to meet its 2023 target for carbon emissions, with carbon reduction initiatives including increased solar energy production at their factory sites and continued emphasis on energy efficiency efforts, such as upgraded and more precise temperature control throughout all buildings at their factory in Monterrey, Mexico, that allow them to consume less energy as possible.

The business is making headway toward its goals of using more environmentally friendly packaging and getting rid of single-use plastic from LEGO boxes towards the end of 2025 and this company has been using paper-based bags instead of plastic pouches in LEGO boxes throughout Europe during the first half of 2023.

For the next two years, LEGO said it will continue to be actively investing in new packaging machinery to support the global roll-out.

Sustainability Targets in the US

After rejoining the Paris Agreement, the government has established a National Climate Task Force, to work on sustainability goals including greenhouse gas emissions reduction, 100% carbon-free electricity, a net-zero economy, as well as clean energy for disadvantaged communities.

Related Article: Sustainable Energy From Extinct Underwater Volcano Zuidwal Could Bring Heat to Netherlands Homes
A missing Michigan toddler was found sleeping in the woods guarded by family dogs, as a result of a frantic search of the area by police, rescue teams, and volunteers in the Michigan heavily wooded area.

The incident occurred last week when a two-year-old girl, named Thea Chase, wandered away from her home in a remote area of the state.

After several hours of being missing, Thea was spotted safe and sound with the two dogs, one used as a pillow and the other as her bodyguard.

Missing Toddler Found

It was around 7:30 p.m. local time on September 20 when Brooke Chase, the mother of the missing toddler, reported her disappearance at their home in the small town of Faithorn in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, according to local sources.

The town lies in the state's Menominee County, along County Road 577 close to the Canadian border near Sault Ste. Marie.

Brooke told a local outlet that Thea's uncle told her daughter, who was playing in the yard barefoot, to go back inside their house and put some shoes on.

After checking a few moments later, Brooke and her brother-in-law were surprised not to find Thea along with the dogs, an English Springer named Hartley and a Rottweiler named Buddy.

The two then searched the surrounding areas for the missing toddler for half an hour but to no avail, according to reports.

It was during this time that they called the police around 8 p.m. on the same day, resulting in local community members forming volunteer search parties to look for Thea.

It was during midnight when a family friend found the missing girl.

Also Read: US: Gus the Three-Legged Dog Saves Baby Otter Along the Minnesota River

Can Dogs Protect You When in Danger?

The incident involving the missing Michigan toddler shows the seeming intelligence and sense of security of some pet dogs, especially toward its owners and their family members, as previously claimed by many.

According to experts, the behavior of dogs when it comes to protecting their owners and other humans varies on an individual case.

The Georgia Veterinary Associates animal hospital provides a list of some of the most protective dog breeds in the world:

Belgian Malinois

German Shepherd

Rottweiler

Doberman Pinscher

Bullmastiff

Giant Schnauzer

Rhodesian Ridgeback

Cane Corso

Great Dane

The case of the missing toddler last week is only one of the many instances in which pet dogs have proven their loyalty and companionship to humans.

In July 2023, reports of an Australian sailor, named Timothy Shaddock, was stranded in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Mexico along with his dog.

Shaddock was destined to French Polynesia during a 3,700-mile voyage when a storm struck his small catamaran boat.

In 2022, a video surfaced online after showing a German Shepherd saving a six-year-old who was about to be attacked by another dog.

Meanwhile, in 2016, an abandoned seven-day-old baby in a crossing was rescued, which would not be possible if not for the protection of four stray dogs, which helped chase away crows and surrounded her until help came.

Related Article: Heroic Dog Sacrifices Self to Save Teen Owner From Dangerous Rattlesnake Attack
According to the latest forecast, cooler weather outlook and snow potential are likely in the first week of October in portions of Northwestern US.

The fall weather recently started in the US, and the NWS reported that cooler conditions could unfold in parts of the Pacific Northwest and high-elevated areas in the country.

The cooler outlook can help ease the prolonged dry and intense heat in the region.

In addition, the rainy outlook can ease the prolonged drought.

Cooler Weather Likely in Parts of the Northwest

Based on the latest advisory, the Pacific Northwest expects wet weather this week. The low-pressure systems can unleash the region's rain, including in Washington and Oregon.

Homeowners with travel plans should monitor the weather activity this week due to the chances of heavy precipitation. It is also best to bring an umbrella for residents in the Northwestern US.

On Thursday, a weaker system can play a significant role in the rounds of rain in portions of Northern California.

In addition, the beneficial rain can relieve the drought conditions in Northwest Oregon and Washington.

On the other hand, the AccuWeather forecast showed that the storms over the Pacific Ocean helped with the dry outlook, including in British Columbia.

In the weather outlook, beneficial rain is likely on Friday in the following areas:

Spokane

Boise

Seattle

Portland

Medford

Redding

Recently, Seattle and Portland experienced heavy rain conditions due to a low-pressure system in the Pacific Northwest.

In addition, the beneficial rain can reduce the vulnerability to potential bushfires and wildfires. Although the relief is coming, homeowners should stay alert for possible flooding rainfall.

Beachgoers should watch out for challenging waves and rip currents. Power outages are also likely due to the poor weather conditions and wind gusts.

On Friday, residents can notice below-average temperatures and relief from the heat. Snow potential can unfold in high elevation and Northwestern US mountains.

From Friday to Sunday, cooler weather conditions can occur in the following areas:

Seattle

Spokane

Helena

Boise

Salt Lake City

Redding

Portland

Also Read: Dry Conditions, Summer-Like Temperatures to Unfold in Northern New England, Rockies, Plains This Week

Weather conditions in Florida

Portions of Florida can also expect possible wet weather conditions in midweek. The NWS noted the autumn thunderstorms this week.

The cold front and low pressure on the Southeast coast will help unleash the heavy rain outlook in the region.

In addition, the dangers of urban flooding can unfold with strong thunderstorms. With the atmospheric moisture, the rain can likely intensify.

An excessive rainfall alert is present in the Sunshine State until Friday. Flooding can become challenging for low-lying and flood-prone areas in Florida.

Meanwhile, motorists should watch out for flooded roads. Car owners should check the road conditions before driving this week.

To stay safe from flood concerns, homeowners should remain updated with the latest forecasts in the US, especially in California and Florida.

Related Article: US Weather Forecast: Isolated Tornadoes, Hail to Hit Midwest This Midweek

For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature World News.
A surge of saltwater is feared to infiltrate treatment plants in New Orleans, which can later pollute the drinking water of thousands of residents in the area.

Authorities said that this incident could have an adverse effect to 20 percent of the state.

Officials said that millions of Louisiana residents are at risk of having possible drinking water crisis because the saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico is feared to contaminate the freshwater supply.

Read Also: Research Investigate the Influence of Chemical Compounds Released by Corals Into Saltwater

Threat to drinking water

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards earlier warned that the saltwater intrusion could threaten the quality of drinking water for those areas that have water intakes along the Mississippi River where intrusion occurs.

Edwards, however, said that no parishes upriver from Plaquemines Parish are likely to see any change in their drinking water until the middle to late October.

The official also said that water systems would eventually be affected including St. Bernard, Orleans and Jefferson parishes. He also requested a federal emergency declaration for four parishes: Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Jefferson and Orleans.

The saltwater intrusion is seen to have serious consequences due to the fact that many local water treatment facilities are ill-equipped to handle high salt content, which can corrode pipes and pose health risks when consumed.

To address the possible effects to residents, Edwards held a modified Unified Command Group (UCG) meeting in New Orleans to discuss the update on the saltwater intrusion threat that continues to grow in the Lower Mississippi River region.

In the meeting, he was joined by several parish presidents and officials from the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

The USACE already constructed an underwater barrier sill in July 2023 to create an artificial basin that will help delay the ingress of saltwater.

Meanwhile, the upriver intrusion of saltwater from the Gulf overtopped the sill's existing elevation.

The governor said additional work would also be conducted to further delay an increase of the intrusion of the saltwater.

Cause

According to the National Weather Service Mississippi River forecast, the river volume will fall to historic lows over the next several weeks.

As an adverse result to this, the salt water from the Gulf of Mexico is intruding upstream.

Experts said that the Plaquemines Parish has been affected by this issue since June. Further, drought conditions have only gotten worse since that period and that means additional communities along the Mississippi River could be impacted.

They also observed that there is not enough freshwater flowing down the Mississippi River after months of extreme heat and low rainfall.

Exceptional drought, which has been considered as the worst category, has spread across parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

This year has so far been dubbed as the hottest on record for both states, according to the recent figures that was released by NOAA dating through August.

Extreme drought is also present upstream, where a lot of the river's water originates: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri, according to the US Drought Monitor.

Related Article: Mississippi River Suffers from Low Water Levels Due to Prolonged Drought, Dry Conditions

Related Video:
Some 105,000 Russian war crimes have been registered in Ukraine, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said in an interview with Voice of America.

"At the moment we have registered 105,000 cases of war crimes and what is important is that these are not all the war crimes committed. Many of the figures are underestimated because war crimes are still being committed in the occupied territories or people who have already been killed were unable to report the crimes of war committed against them. Therefore, we understand that this is a huge number," Kostin said.

He said one of the core problems in investigating these crimes is their unprecedented number, and both the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI will help Ukrainian prosecutors in solving them.

It is reported that in addition to priority cases, such as the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, the U.S. Department of Justice will assist Ukrainian colleagues in investigating crimes in new areas, such as crimes against the environment and investigations of cyberattacks.

"By creating new practices, we must be sure that the results of our investigations will be credible at the international level and will be perceived by the international community as real fair justice. This is our main difference from the aggressor state (Russia)," the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said.
The defense ministers of NATO member states will gather for a meeting on October 11 and 12. Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov has been invited to take part in a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council.

The meeting of NATO defense ministers is reported by the alliance headquarters. "A meeting of Defence Ministers will take place on 11-12 October 2023 at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. The meeting will be chaired by the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg," according to the announcement.

The invitation of the Ukrainian head of the defense department of Ukraine to a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council was announced to journalists in Brussels by Head of Ukraine's mission to the alliance Natalia Halibarenko.

"The official acquaintance of the Minister of Defense with the member countries of the alliance at the headquarters will take place in October, when a meeting of the alliance's defense ministers will take place, to which he is invited as part of the Council meeting. I think this will be a good opportunity to get acquainted in such a wide format and exchange views," the Ukrainian diplomat said.
Shruti Kakkar By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre for its inordinate delay in clearing various collegium recommendations for the appointment and transfer of high court judges.

A bench of judges S K Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia asked Attorney General R Venkataramani to get the governments view on this, adding it would take up the issue every 10 days till some progress is made.

There were 80 recommendations pending until last week when 10 names were cleared. Now, the figure is 70, of which 26 recommendations are of transfer of judges, seven are reiterations, nine are pending without being returned to the collegium, and one case is of appointment of the Chief Justice to a sensitive high court, the bench said. It added that the delay leads to loss of talent for the judiciary because candidates withdraw their consent.

"I thought of saying a lot, but since the attorney general is only seeking seven days' time, Im holding myself. Today, I am quiet... The next time I will not be quiet. Use your good office to see these issues are resolved, Justice Kaul told Venkataramani.

The observation came during the hearing of a petition filed by the Advocates Association of Bengaluru seeking contempt action against the Union Ministry of Law and Justice for not adhering to the timeline set

by the court in a 2021 judgment.

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, representing the petitioner, said delays in the appointment of judges were not only detrimental to the judiciary but also embarrassing for the candidates involved.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for another petitioner NGO Common Cause, told the court that 16 names reiterated by the collegium are pending before the Centre. He said many advocates have withdrawn their consent for judgeship in view of the delay in appointments. So many recommendations are pending. This cant go on forever, Bhushan said.

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre for its inordinate delay in clearing various collegium recommendations for the appointment and transfer of high court judges. A bench of judges S K Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia asked Attorney General R Venkataramani to get the governments view on this, adding it would take up the issue every 10 days till some progress is made. There were 80 recommendations pending until last week when 10 names were cleared. Now, the figure is 70, of which 26 recommendations are of transfer of judges, seven are reiterations, nine are pending without being returned to the collegium, and one case is of appointment of the Chief Justice to a sensitive high court, the bench said. It added that the delay leads to loss of talent for the judiciary because candidates withdraw their consent.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "I thought of saying a lot, but since the attorney general is only seeking seven days' time, Im holding myself. Today, I am quiet... The next time I will not be quiet. Use your good office to see these issues are resolved, Justice Kaul told Venkataramani. The observation came during the hearing of a petition filed by the Advocates Association of Bengaluru seeking contempt action against the Union Ministry of Law and Justice for not adhering to the timeline set by the court in a 2021 judgment. Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, representing the petitioner, said delays in the appointment of judges were not only detrimental to the judiciary but also embarrassing for the candidates involved. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for another petitioner NGO Common Cause, told the court that 16 names reiterated by the collegium are pending before the Centre. He said many advocates have withdrawn their consent for judgeship in view of the delay in appointments. So many recommendations are pending. This cant go on forever, Bhushan said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Speculation over, its time for the real thing. The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is expected on January 22, said Nripendra Mishra, chairperson of its construction committee on Wednesday.

The construction of the ground floor of the three-storey temple will be over by December-end, he told a news agency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to take part in the pran pratishtha (consecration) between January 20-24, he said, adding the final date is yet to be communicated by the Prime Ministers Office. But it is expected to be during January 20-24 as after that the PM will be very busy with Republic Day and other programmes, Mishra told PTI.

The Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will formally invite Modi for the consecration during which the idol of Ram Lalla will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum.

Equipment is to be installed on the shikar of the temple, which will make the Suns rays fall momentarily on the forehead of the deity in the sanctum sanctorum on the Ram Navami day every year. It is being built in Bengaluru and its design is being overseen by scientists, he added. The Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee and an institute in Pune jointly created a computerised programme for this, Mishra said.

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NEW DELHI: Speculation over, its time for the real thing. The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is expected on January 22, said Nripendra Mishra, chairperson of its construction committee on Wednesday. The construction of the ground floor of the three-storey temple will be over by December-end, he told a news agency. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to take part in the pran pratishtha (consecration) between January 20-24, he said, adding the final date is yet to be communicated by the Prime Ministers Office. But it is expected to be during January 20-24 as after that the PM will be very busy with Republic Day and other programmes, Mishra told PTI.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will formally invite Modi for the consecration during which the idol of Ram Lalla will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum. Equipment is to be installed on the shikar of the temple, which will make the Suns rays fall momentarily on the forehead of the deity in the sanctum sanctorum on the Ram Navami day every year. It is being built in Bengaluru and its design is being overseen by scientists, he added. The Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee and an institute in Pune jointly created a computerised programme for this, Mishra said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Archita Raghu By

Express News Service

KOCHI: In an essay titled Everyday Moments, writer Perumal Murugan begins recounting personal experiences with the line: caste is like god. This omnipresent god dangles threateningly in daily life from house-hunting struggles to caste determining if the author must eat a meal on an easily disposable leaf or a familys steel plate.

There is no difference in villages, cities, mountains or among the educated or uneducated  god is everywhere; so is caste everyday moments constantly produce before us visuals of caste  these thoughts find a place in a 2013 collection titled Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell.

A decade has passed since this collection was published but Perumals words continue to ring true. With a long list of prolific works ranging from his novel Pyre (Pookuzhi) to short stories like The Goat Thief, he continues to chronicle tales of discrimination. Earlier this week, for a lifetime of speaking against discrimination, Perumal was awarded the New Indian Expresss Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman for Literary Excellence, launched this year.

As the citation notes, A litterateur of rare empathy and insight, in his oeuvre of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, he has portrayed the rhythms of rural life with a rare nuance. After receiving this award, the author talks to TNIE about his new collection of short stories Sandalwood Soap, and the role of love in annihilating caste.

Edited Excerpts:

How do you feel about receiving the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman at the Odisha Literary Festival?

In the name of Ramnath Goenka, this is the first series of awards. There were three categories  fiction, non-fiction, and lifetime achievement awards. They gave me the last one, and I was happy about it. But it also made me feel like I am old!

Its been over 30 years since your debut novel, Eru Veyyil or Rising Heat. How do you look back on your journey?

Its been quite good. And these awards seem to cement the same idea. Eru Veyyil has been translated into English, and panels of judges have read this and had meetings and discussions about it. My novel has been translated to other languages, and they seem to have garnered a good impression. That gives me the belief that my path has been good.

The translated collection of your short stories, Sandalwood Soap, was released recently. What was the process and translation like?

Sandalwood Soap is my third collection of short stories,. (Journalist and writer) Kavitha Muralidharan translated it. She had already worked on my interviews, compositions, essays, and book Amma. It is a pleasure to work with her as she has read widely in Tamil and many of my books. In this collection, she translated three of my stories for magazines. It was a natural and jolly process. As my stories feature the Kongu dialect, she clarified the meaning of certain words. I never expected Sandalwood Soap, the titular story, to be selected, as it had been written 20 years ago. I was happy as Kavitha and the Juggernaut editor liked it.

In your essay Everyday Moments, which is part of the collection Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell, you mention that caste is like god. Could you elaborate on that?

Belief in god is inseparable from ones lifestyle. Caste is like that  one cannot go without thinking about caste, it is everywhere. I wrote that in this context. In some way, even if we leave our villages for cities, there would be something that would make us think or speak of caste, or associate our identity with caste. This is not seen only during weddings when brides and grooms look at caste, but even when we meet someone for the first time physically or on the internet.

If we encounter someone for the first time at a mess in Chennai and he is from Namakkal, the thought of which caste he belongs to runs through our mind. The question of caste enters in a camouflaged way. If they find out they are from the same caste, they want to figure out if they are related. Caste prevails everywhere in that sense in day-to-day life.

Several writers have contributed to this collection. How important is it for writers from different communities to address caste?

I began this collection for that reason, for writers to write openly about caste. While it was not openly spoken about, it did not mean caste did not exist. We can only think about how to (annihilate it) if we all openly speak about caste, think about it.

What role do love and inter-caste marriages play in destroying caste?

Inter-caste marriages play an important role in annihilating caste. Caste is well-protected when many marriages occur within the community and caste. Just like Periyar and Ambedkar have said, as long as marriages within the same caste happen, it will not be eradicated. If one person is Dalit, the couple will have reservation. Reservation must be increased, as only if inter-caste marriages are encouraged will caste come to an end. In cities, such marriages occur, and it is a welcome trend. But in villages and smaller towns, this is not the case. Threats and honour killings still take place. The government must bring in some plan and policy.

What have your experiences been like during teaching? How do you take topics like caste, or gender to classroom spaces?

I would take Tamil literature to class so I would have more of a chance to speak about these topics and for (discussions) to happen naturally. I would converse with my students on caste and gender discrimination through short stories and poems. There would be good responses from students. They accept caste discrimination. However, but (often) male students wont accept gender discrimination. A lot more discussion and communication is needed for that.

Apart from writing, can teaching also be a form of protest?

We learn gender and caste politics from family and society. It is not easy to remove these ideas recorded in our common sense. It should be a continuous process. Holding flags, slogans and clashes are not the only ways to protest. Protests can be through meaningful discussions. In my experience, I feel writing and classrooms can do this.

What next?

Currently, I am writing short stories. I also plan to write a novel. Over the past four-five years, I have written several essays about freedom of expression. In October, a collection of these essays will be released during the Madurai Book Fair. I have signed agreements for other books to be translated.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

KOCHI: In an essay titled Everyday Moments, writer Perumal Murugan begins recounting personal experiences with the line: caste is like god. This omnipresent god dangles threateningly in daily life from house-hunting struggles to caste determining if the author must eat a meal on an easily disposable leaf or a familys steel plate. There is no difference in villages, cities, mountains or among the educated or uneducated  god is everywhere; so is caste everyday moments constantly produce before us visuals of caste  these thoughts find a place in a 2013 collection titled Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell. A decade has passed since this collection was published but Perumals words continue to ring true. With a long list of prolific works ranging from his novel Pyre (Pookuzhi) to short stories like The Goat Thief, he continues to chronicle tales of discrimination. Earlier this week, for a lifetime of speaking against discrimination, Perumal was awarded the New Indian Expresss Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman for Literary Excellence, launched this year.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); As the citation notes, A litterateur of rare empathy and insight, in his oeuvre of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, he has portrayed the rhythms of rural life with a rare nuance. After receiving this award, the author talks to TNIE about his new collection of short stories Sandalwood Soap, and the role of love in annihilating caste. Edited Excerpts: How do you feel about receiving the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman at the Odisha Literary Festival? In the name of Ramnath Goenka, this is the first series of awards. There were three categories  fiction, non-fiction, and lifetime achievement awards. They gave me the last one, and I was happy about it. But it also made me feel like I am old! Its been over 30 years since your debut novel, Eru Veyyil or Rising Heat. How do you look back on your journey? Its been quite good. And these awards seem to cement the same idea. Eru Veyyil has been translated into English, and panels of judges have read this and had meetings and discussions about it. My novel has been translated to other languages, and they seem to have garnered a good impression. That gives me the belief that my path has been good. The translated collection of your short stories, Sandalwood Soap, was released recently. What was the process and translation like? Sandalwood Soap is my third collection of short stories,. (Journalist and writer) Kavitha Muralidharan translated it. She had already worked on my interviews, compositions, essays, and book Amma. It is a pleasure to work with her as she has read widely in Tamil and many of my books. In this collection, she translated three of my stories for magazines. It was a natural and jolly process. As my stories feature the Kongu dialect, she clarified the meaning of certain words. I never expected Sandalwood Soap, the titular story, to be selected, as it had been written 20 years ago. I was happy as Kavitha and the Juggernaut editor liked it. In your essay Everyday Moments, which is part of the collection Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell, you mention that caste is like god. Could you elaborate on that? Belief in god is inseparable from ones lifestyle. Caste is like that  one cannot go without thinking about caste, it is everywhere. I wrote that in this context. In some way, even if we leave our villages for cities, there would be something that would make us think or speak of caste, or associate our identity with caste. This is not seen only during weddings when brides and grooms look at caste, but even when we meet someone for the first time physically or on the internet. If we encounter someone for the first time at a mess in Chennai and he is from Namakkal, the thought of which caste he belongs to runs through our mind. The question of caste enters in a camouflaged way. If they find out they are from the same caste, they want to figure out if they are related. Caste prevails everywhere in that sense in day-to-day life. Several writers have contributed to this collection. How important is it for writers from different communities to address caste? I began this collection for that reason, for writers to write openly about caste. While it was not openly spoken about, it did not mean caste did not exist. We can only think about how to (annihilate it) if we all openly speak about caste, think about it. What role do love and inter-caste marriages play in destroying caste? Inter-caste marriages play an important role in annihilating caste. Caste is well-protected when many marriages occur within the community and caste. Just like Periyar and Ambedkar have said, as long as marriages within the same caste happen, it will not be eradicated. If one person is Dalit, the couple will have reservation. Reservation must be increased, as only if inter-caste marriages are encouraged will caste come to an end. In cities, such marriages occur, and it is a welcome trend. But in villages and smaller towns, this is not the case. Threats and honour killings still take place. The government must bring in some plan and policy. What have your experiences been like during teaching? How do you take topics like caste, or gender to classroom spaces? I would take Tamil literature to class so I would have more of a chance to speak about these topics and for (discussions) to happen naturally. I would converse with my students on caste and gender discrimination through short stories and poems. There would be good responses from students. They accept caste discrimination. However, but (often) male students wont accept gender discrimination. A lot more discussion and communication is needed for that. Apart from writing, can teaching also be a form of protest? We learn gender and caste politics from family and society. It is not easy to remove these ideas recorded in our common sense. It should be a continuous process. Holding flags, slogans and clashes are not the only ways to protest. Protests can be through meaningful discussions. In my experience, I feel writing and classrooms can do this. What next? Currently, I am writing short stories. I also plan to write a novel. Over the past four-five years, I have written several essays about freedom of expression. In October, a collection of these essays will be released during the Madurai Book Fair. I have signed agreements for other books to be translated. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
The 6th Steering Committee of the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine met in person in Brussels to discuss Ukraines financing needs beyond 2023 as well as its vision for recovery, reconstruction and modernisation and the absorption capacity of donor financing for 2023 rapid recovery needs and project implementation, according to a press release from the European Commission following the meeting.

"We rely on our partners, in particular within the framework of the Platform, to cover social and recovery expenditures. The budget deficit for 2024 is estimated at about $43 billion," in turn, the words of Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko are quoted in a press release Ministry of Finance of Ukraine after the meeting.

The European Commission said that following the proposal of the 2024 state budget, the Government of Ukraine outlined its budgetary and rapid recovery needs beyond 2023. It also informed the Steering Committee members on the progress with the absorption of donor financing for 2023 rapid recovery needs and project implementation. In this context, the Steering Committee agreed on the need to support Ukraine in this process going forward, including with possible technical assistance and advisory support.

In addition, The Government of Ukraine, the Commission and the International Monetary Fund updated the Platform Members on Ukraine's progress in implementing the four-year $15.6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and reforms essential to Ukraine's economic future, and the Platform members discussed ways to support Ukraine in its reform plans.

The Government of Ukraine presented the work ongoing on the Ukraine Plan, a medium-term growth strategy for the country, which will be supported by the EU four-year EUR 50 billion Ukraine Facility initiative. It has four main goals, notably to provide a coherent roadmap for Ukraine's reforms and investments, boost growth potential, help rebuild and modernize, facilitate EU accession, and strengthen macro-financial stability.

"The Steering Committee discussed the possibility of using the Ukraine Plan as a point of reference for coordinated donor support and reform/investment roadmap," the European Commission said.

The Steering Committee exchanged views on the Ukraine Plan  a key medium-term document and the continuation of the implementation of key reforms: anti-corruption, public procurement, public-private partnership, construction, regional development, the rule of law and others, the documents say.

The meeting was opened by the country with G7 Presidency, co-chaired by Director-General of the European Commission for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations Gert Jan Koopman, together with the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov, and White House Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Michael Pyle. The event was also attended by Marchenko, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko and U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine's Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker.

"We need to continue looking closely at Ukraine's capacity to absorb and implement donor financing for 2023 & beyond. Strengthening public finance, investments planning, & public administration capacity is key. Good to see donors are broadly aligned on reform priorities," Koopman said on Twitter.

He noted his satisfaction with the discussion on the latest developments regarding the Ukraine Plan, a vision for recovery, reconstruction and modernisation.

"Reforms to strengthen the business environment are essential to Ukraine's economic future!" the representative of the European Commission said.

As reported, the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine was launched on January 26, 2023 at the first meeting of the Steering Committee. It brings together senior officials from Ukraine, the EU, G7 countries, as well as partners from international financial institutions, in particular the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to coordinate efforts to meet Ukraine's financial needs in both the short-term, and in the medium term.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Oman Air, Omans flag carrier, will launch a direct flight on the Thiruvananthapuram-Muscat sector on Sunday. Oman Air will be operating the Thiruvananthapuram-Muscat flight with Boeing 737 aircraft with a capacity of 162 passengers.

The flight will operate from Thiruvananthapuram on Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The flight will arrive at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at 7:45 AM and depart at 8:45 AM on Sundays and Wednesdays. On Thursdays, the flights arrival will be at 1:55 PM, while it will depart at 4:10 PM.

The aircraft will arrive at the airport at 2:30 PM and depart at 3:30 PM on all Saturdays, said TIAL spokesperson in a statement. Oman Air is the second carrier in the Thiruvananthapuram- Muscat sector. Air India Express is operating daily services on this route.

At present, TI AL manages an average of 12,000 daily passengers and operates around 82 air traffic movements per day. In the first quarter of 2023-24, TIAL recorded nearly 1.04 million passenger movements.

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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Oman Air, Omans flag carrier, will launch a direct flight on the Thiruvananthapuram-Muscat sector on Sunday. Oman Air will be operating the Thiruvananthapuram-Muscat flight with Boeing 737 aircraft with a capacity of 162 passengers. The flight will operate from Thiruvananthapuram on Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The flight will arrive at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at 7:45 AM and depart at 8:45 AM on Sundays and Wednesdays. On Thursdays, the flights arrival will be at 1:55 PM, while it will depart at 4:10 PM. The aircraft will arrive at the airport at 2:30 PM and depart at 3:30 PM on all Saturdays, said TIAL spokesperson in a statement. Oman Air is the second carrier in the Thiruvananthapuram- Muscat sector. Air India Express is operating daily services on this route.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); At present, TI AL manages an average of 12,000 daily passengers and operates around 82 air traffic movements per day. In the first quarter of 2023-24, TIAL recorded nearly 1.04 million passenger movements. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Dr Nithya Franklyn By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Chettinad cuisine, one of the most renowned cuisines of Tamil Nadu, is linked to a community called Nattukottai Chettiar (Nagarathar) from the Chettinad (Sivagangai) region. History tells us that Nagarathars who initially lived around the modern-day Poompuhar relocated inland to the hot, dry and arid Sivagangai region due to natural calamities. The Chettiars didnt stop there and as traders and mercantile bankers, they started to travel and trade with Malabar region, Calcutta, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma and Malay states (Malaysia, Singapore).

The explorations brought changes in their lifestyle, food and economy. The Chettiars who were traditionally vegetarians were introduced to meat, fish, pepper, red rice and spices because of their life beyond the Chettinad.

Their proximity with the Britishers and the westernisation of their palate gave birth to the Butler cuisine (Anglo-Indian-British food with Indian spices), a forerunner of modern-day fusion food. Dishes like mutton chops, mulligatwany soup and cutlets are examples. In addition to accumulating wealth, local spices and food habits, the Chettiars also helped to boost the economy by contributing to the paddy cultivation in Burma, reviving coffee plantations in Sri Lanka and so on.

Chettinad food is an amalgamation of both subtle and strong flavours. The ancient Tamil saying One is lucky to eat like a Chettiar is happily vouched for by the community. A typical Chettinad meal is cooked by a set of cooks under the watchful supervision of aachis and is served on a banana leaf. The dishes are served in a clockwise direction, in odd numbers. Each spicy dish is interspersed with a subtly flavoured dish to cool the system. Spicy dishes give way to the piquancy of a sour tamarind curry. Hence, there is a progression of flavours and this gives the diner an unforgettable gastronomic experience.

The traditional Chettinad dishes mostly use locally sourced spices like kalpasi (stone flower), fennel seeds, Marathi moggu and pepper that impart a unique flavour. The adoption of foreign techniques for preservation, including sun drying for meat and vegetables, pickling in brine, has enriched their culinary repertoire.

The aachis oversee the careful roasting and grinding of spices, in stone grinders, and chopping of vegetables with aruvamanai and every kitchen in a Chettiar home is equipped with olden-day equipment like aatukal, ammikal, yanthiram, ulakkai and kunthani. A typical meal includes a varuval like baby potato roast, a kootu (lentil curry), urundai, masiyal (mash), mandi (curry), kolambu like paruppu urundai kulambu, rasam, dangar chutney which are served with rice and palagaarams (appam or paniyaram).

The famous non-vegetarian dishes include nandu rasam, mutton uppukari, chicken pepper masala, kadai roast. Surprisingly, there is no such dish called Chettinad chicken as it is an adaptation of their pepper chicken. Multiple traditional sweets like ukkarai, payasam, kavuniarisi and Butler desserts like bread and butter pudding and mousse provide a sweet ending to a Chettinad feast.

Vazhappoo/Saiva meen kolambu

Tadka

Mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp

Urad dal: 1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seeds and fennel seeds: 1/2 tsp each, Gingelly oil: 3 tbsp

Paste

Coconut: 3 tbsp

Cashews: 6

Ingredients

Banana flower: 1 bunch, Besan: 3 tbsp

Rice flour: 1 tbsp

Baking soda: 1 pinch

Shallots: 10, Garlic: 10

Tomato: 2

Tamarind: 1 marble-sized

Chilli powder: 1 tsp

Coriander powder: 2 tsp, Turmeric: 1/2tsp

Clean the banana flower and boil it for three minutes. Make a batter with besan, rice flour, salt, baking soda and chilli powder. Dip flowers into the batter for two seconds and fry till they turn golden. Heat oil and add the tadka ingredients and then add the curry leaves and garlic. After a minute, add shallots, green chilli and saute. Add tomatoes, dry spice powders and fry till the oil separates. Now, add the tamarind water, salt and cook for five minutes. Add the coconut paste and cook for five more minutes. Remove from the flame, add the fried flowers and serve after 10 minutes with hot rice.

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CHENNAI: Chettinad cuisine, one of the most renowned cuisines of Tamil Nadu, is linked to a community called Nattukottai Chettiar (Nagarathar) from the Chettinad (Sivagangai) region. History tells us that Nagarathars who initially lived around the modern-day Poompuhar relocated inland to the hot, dry and arid Sivagangai region due to natural calamities. The Chettiars didnt stop there and as traders and mercantile bankers, they started to travel and trade with Malabar region, Calcutta, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma and Malay states (Malaysia, Singapore). The explorations brought changes in their lifestyle, food and economy. The Chettiars who were traditionally vegetarians were introduced to meat, fish, pepper, red rice and spices because of their life beyond the Chettinad. Their proximity with the Britishers and the westernisation of their palate gave birth to the Butler cuisine (Anglo-Indian-British food with Indian spices), a forerunner of modern-day fusion food. Dishes like mutton chops, mulligatwany soup and cutlets are examples. In addition to accumulating wealth, local spices and food habits, the Chettiars also helped to boost the economy by contributing to the paddy cultivation in Burma, reviving coffee plantations in Sri Lanka and so on. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Chettinad food is an amalgamation of both subtle and strong flavours. The ancient Tamil saying One is lucky to eat like a Chettiar is happily vouched for by the community. A typical Chettinad meal is cooked by a set of cooks under the watchful supervision of aachis and is served on a banana leaf. The dishes are served in a clockwise direction, in odd numbers. Each spicy dish is interspersed with a subtly flavoured dish to cool the system. Spicy dishes give way to the piquancy of a sour tamarind curry. Hence, there is a progression of flavours and this gives the diner an unforgettable gastronomic experience. The traditional Chettinad dishes mostly use locally sourced spices like kalpasi (stone flower), fennel seeds, Marathi moggu and pepper that impart a unique flavour. The adoption of foreign techniques for preservation, including sun drying for meat and vegetables, pickling in brine, has enriched their culinary repertoire. The aachis oversee the careful roasting and grinding of spices, in stone grinders, and chopping of vegetables with aruvamanai and every kitchen in a Chettiar home is equipped with olden-day equipment like aatukal, ammikal, yanthiram, ulakkai and kunthani. A typical meal includes a varuval like baby potato roast, a kootu (lentil curry), urundai, masiyal (mash), mandi (curry), kolambu like paruppu urundai kulambu, rasam, dangar chutney which are served with rice and palagaarams (appam or paniyaram). The famous non-vegetarian dishes include nandu rasam, mutton uppukari, chicken pepper masala, kadai roast. Surprisingly, there is no such dish called Chettinad chicken as it is an adaptation of their pepper chicken. Multiple traditional sweets like ukkarai, payasam, kavuniarisi and Butler desserts like bread and butter pudding and mousse provide a sweet ending to a Chettinad feast. Vazhappoo/Saiva meen kolambu Tadka Mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp Urad dal: 1/2 tsp Fenugreek seeds and fennel seeds: 1/2 tsp each, Gingelly oil: 3 tbsp Paste Coconut: 3 tbsp Cashews: 6 Ingredients Banana flower: 1 bunch, Besan: 3 tbsp Rice flour: 1 tbsp Baking soda: 1 pinch Shallots: 10, Garlic: 10 Tomato: 2 Tamarind: 1 marble-sized Chilli powder: 1 tsp Coriander powder: 2 tsp, Turmeric: 1/2tsp Clean the banana flower and boil it for three minutes. Make a batter with besan, rice flour, salt, baking soda and chilli powder. Dip flowers into the batter for two seconds and fry till they turn golden. Heat oil and add the tadka ingredients and then add the curry leaves and garlic. After a minute, add shallots, green chilli and saute. Add tomatoes, dry spice powders and fry till the oil separates. Now, add the tamarind water, salt and cook for five minutes. Add the coconut paste and cook for five more minutes. Remove from the flame, add the fried flowers and serve after 10 minutes with hot rice. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Rajesh Asnani By

Express News Service

JAIPUR: In the midst of the election year in Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted a surprise raid on Tuesday at the residence of State Minister of Home Affairs, Rajendra Yadav. This operation by the ED is believed to be connected to an ongoing investigation into the alleged mid-day meal scam case.

Reports indicate that ED teams simultaneously visited establishments affiliated with Minister Rajendra Yadav in Jaipur, Kotputli, Viratnagar, and other locations during the early hours of the morning. These teams are presently scrutinising company documents associated with Minister Yadav's business.

According to inside sources, the ED teams from Delhi also extended their investigation to the minister's relatives. It is reported that a group of officers and ED personnel conducted a thorough search at the minister's residence from 7 am to 5 pm. In the presence of the minister, the locks on two cupboards and a box were opened. Subsequently, several documents were discovered within.

It is worth recalling that approximately a year ago, in September, the Income Tax Department had conducted raids in connection with the Mid-Day Meal Scam case. During that time, enforcement actions took place at a total of 53 locations connected to Minister Yadav across the state.

As per available information, the minister and his relatives have numerous contracts related to the supply of food for the mid-day meal program. Minister Yadav holds the position of director at the Rajasthan Flexible Packing Factory Company, situated in Kotputli. Additionally, his elder son, Madhur Yadav, serves as the company's manager. It is worth noting that Yadav is also a Congress party MLA representing Kotputli.

The Congress party has vehemently criticized these actions, particularly in the context of an election year. Speaking to the media, Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari alleged, "Now, the ED in the country appears to be functioning as a frontal organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)." Tiwari described these raids as election stunts and asserted, "We have some of the finest police officers in the country. Yet, Sanjay Mishra's tenure was abruptly terminated following Supreme Court orders. This suggests that there may be undisclosed motives at play. Consequently, it can be inferred that the ED is working to diminish the BJP's credibility as a political organization. It is highly likely that similar tactics will be employed in future elections."

Meanwhile, Minister Yadav has consistently refuted the allegations made against him. He maintains that his family has been engaged in the business sector since 1950 and has no involvement in the mid-day meal program itself. Their primary responsibility is packaging, and they bear no responsibility for the contents of the sacks they supply.

Minister Yadav notably operates a factory in Kotputli dedicated to the production of nutritious food products. The ED's actions were prompted by allegations of financial impropriety related to this enterprise.

Within the purview of these developments, it's essential to highlight the existence of a company known as the Rajasthan Flexible Packaging Factory, situated in Kotputli. This company specializes in the manufacturing of packaging materials, specifically bags. During the earlier Income Tax raid, this factory had come under scrutiny in connection with irregularities concerning the supply of mid-day meals. Minister Rajendra Yadav serves as the director of this company, while the position of manager is held by his elder son, Madhur Yadav.

Rajendra Yadav, currently in his second term as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing Kotputli, assumed the role of a minister for the first time. He has previously held the position of Congress District President in Jaipur Rural. Beyond his political career, Minister Yadav has a significant presence in the packaging industry. He operates state-of-the-art packaging facilities in Gurgaon, Delhi, and Uttarakhand, continuing a family legacy that traces its roots back to his father's era.

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JAIPUR: In the midst of the election year in Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted a surprise raid on Tuesday at the residence of State Minister of Home Affairs, Rajendra Yadav. This operation by the ED is believed to be connected to an ongoing investigation into the alleged mid-day meal scam case. Reports indicate that ED teams simultaneously visited establishments affiliated with Minister Rajendra Yadav in Jaipur, Kotputli, Viratnagar, and other locations during the early hours of the morning. These teams are presently scrutinising company documents associated with Minister Yadav's business. According to inside sources, the ED teams from Delhi also extended their investigation to the minister's relatives. It is reported that a group of officers and ED personnel conducted a thorough search at the minister's residence from 7 am to 5 pm. In the presence of the minister, the locks on two cupboards and a box were opened. Subsequently, several documents were discovered within.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); It is worth recalling that approximately a year ago, in September, the Income Tax Department had conducted raids in connection with the Mid-Day Meal Scam case. During that time, enforcement actions took place at a total of 53 locations connected to Minister Yadav across the state. As per available information, the minister and his relatives have numerous contracts related to the supply of food for the mid-day meal program. Minister Yadav holds the position of director at the Rajasthan Flexible Packing Factory Company, situated in Kotputli. Additionally, his elder son, Madhur Yadav, serves as the company's manager. It is worth noting that Yadav is also a Congress party MLA representing Kotputli. The Congress party has vehemently criticized these actions, particularly in the context of an election year. Speaking to the media, Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari alleged, "Now, the ED in the country appears to be functioning as a frontal organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)." Tiwari described these raids as election stunts and asserted, "We have some of the finest police officers in the country. Yet, Sanjay Mishra's tenure was abruptly terminated following Supreme Court orders. This suggests that there may be undisclosed motives at play. Consequently, it can be inferred that the ED is working to diminish the BJP's credibility as a political organization. It is highly likely that similar tactics will be employed in future elections." Meanwhile, Minister Yadav has consistently refuted the allegations made against him. He maintains that his family has been engaged in the business sector since 1950 and has no involvement in the mid-day meal program itself. Their primary responsibility is packaging, and they bear no responsibility for the contents of the sacks they supply. Minister Yadav notably operates a factory in Kotputli dedicated to the production of nutritious food products. The ED's actions were prompted by allegations of financial impropriety related to this enterprise. Within the purview of these developments, it's essential to highlight the existence of a company known as the Rajasthan Flexible Packaging Factory, situated in Kotputli. This company specializes in the manufacturing of packaging materials, specifically bags. During the earlier Income Tax raid, this factory had come under scrutiny in connection with irregularities concerning the supply of mid-day meals. Minister Rajendra Yadav serves as the director of this company, while the position of manager is held by his elder son, Madhur Yadav. Rajendra Yadav, currently in his second term as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing Kotputli, assumed the role of a minister for the first time. He has previously held the position of Congress District President in Jaipur Rural. Beyond his political career, Minister Yadav has a significant presence in the packaging industry. He operates state-of-the-art packaging facilities in Gurgaon, Delhi, and Uttarakhand, continuing a family legacy that traces its roots back to his father's era. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Sudhir Suryawanshi By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: In view of rising incidents of farmers and unemployed youths jumping off the Mantralaya building and attempting to die by suicide, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued resolutions tightening the entry of outside visitors and has set up an SOP for entry to the Mantralaya.

The Mantralaya is a seven-storeyed building that houses most of the departments of the state government.

According to the state government-issued GR, anyone who is entering Mantralaya will have to take a pass, and in a day, more than 3,200 visitors will not be allowed to visit the Mantralaya.

On Tuesday, an unemployed youth Ranjeet Awhad tried to die by suicide by jumping off the Mantralaya, however, police rescued him.

Earlier, farmers tried to die by suicide by jumping off the second floor of the Mantralaya.

The GR stated that visitors and people working in Mantralaya will not be allowed to go to the terrace of the Mantralaya.

The records of all visitors will be kept. There are some open spaces like windows that will be also covered with invisible steel wires. Street dogs and cats will not be allowed inside the premises of Mantralaya. The visitors will not be allowed to carry more than Rs 10,000 as cash with them. The drones will be also used to monitor inside and outside the Mantralaya activities, reads the GR.

After their work, the visitors in Mantralaya should not linger after office time. The police deployed at Mantralaya should check and ensure that no visitor should remain inside the Mantralaya premises. There will be regular vigil and surveillance will be done by the police. Besides, without any written letter by the concerned department secretaries and ministers, no visitors should be allowed on oral request at all, stated the GR.

The GR further states that some of the visitors come in vehicles that are designated for the ministers and secretaries and that they should not be allowed inside without prior written permission.

Some more rules include: Outside food should not be allowed however homemade tiffins can be carried. Staffers who are working late nights should inform their names in advance to the police department. "If someone makes suspicious activities, then through CCTV such visitors will be identified and their activities will be monitored, the GR stated.

Discussing suicides can be triggering for some. However, suicides are preventable. In case you feel distressed by the content or know someone in distress, call Sneha Foundation - 04424640050 (available 24x7)

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MUMBAI: In view of rising incidents of farmers and unemployed youths jumping off the Mantralaya building and attempting to die by suicide, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued resolutions tightening the entry of outside visitors and has set up an SOP for entry to the Mantralaya. The Mantralaya is a seven-storeyed building that houses most of the departments of the state government. According to the state government-issued GR, anyone who is entering Mantralaya will have to take a pass, and in a day, more than 3,200 visitors will not be allowed to visit the Mantralaya.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); On Tuesday, an unemployed youth Ranjeet Awhad tried to die by suicide by jumping off the Mantralaya, however, police rescued him. Earlier, farmers tried to die by suicide by jumping off the second floor of the Mantralaya. The GR stated that visitors and people working in Mantralaya will not be allowed to go to the terrace of the Mantralaya. The records of all visitors will be kept. There are some open spaces like windows that will be also covered with invisible steel wires. Street dogs and cats will not be allowed inside the premises of Mantralaya. The visitors will not be allowed to carry more than Rs 10,000 as cash with them. The drones will be also used to monitor inside and outside the Mantralaya activities, reads the GR. After their work, the visitors in Mantralaya should not linger after office time. The police deployed at Mantralaya should check and ensure that no visitor should remain inside the Mantralaya premises. There will be regular vigil and surveillance will be done by the police. Besides, without any written letter by the concerned department secretaries and ministers, no visitors should be allowed on oral request at all, stated the GR. The GR further states that some of the visitors come in vehicles that are designated for the ministers and secretaries and that they should not be allowed inside without prior written permission. Some more rules include: Outside food should not be allowed however homemade tiffins can be carried. Staffers who are working late nights should inform their names in advance to the police department. "If someone makes suspicious activities, then through CCTV such visitors will be identified and their activities will be monitored, the GR stated. Discussing suicides can be triggering for some. However, suicides are preventable. In case you feel distressed by the content or know someone in distress, call Sneha Foundation - 04424640050 (available 24x7) Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: Union Home Minister Amit Shah urged states to resolve their disputes related to water-sharing with an open mind and discussions. Shah was addressing a meeting of the Northern Zonal Council in Amritsar. The council members are Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Chandigarh.

Punjab reiterated that the state has no water to spare with other state and hence, instead of Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, the project should be now conceived as Yamuna Sutlej Link (YSL). The state demanded that Chandigarh (UT) should be handed over to it.

However, Haryana argued that the SYL should be constructed and Haryana colleges should be affiliated to Panjab University. Himachal Pradesh urged an amendment in the norms for providing relief packages for hill states and took up the issue of border disputes involving J&K.

Addressing the 31st meeting of the council, Shah said the government has been successful in cracking down on narcotics and terrorism. The government is committed to strengthening the security system along the border. Soon, anti-drone system will be deployed on our countrys borders, he said.

Shah asked all the member states to pay special attention to issues such as cooperation movement in the country, school dropout rates and malnutrition. He urged all member states to adopt natural and organic farming. Shah promised all possible help from the Centre to the Himachal government over flood relief.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the Sutlej has already dried up and there is no question of sharing even a single drop of water from it. Mann called the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal a highly emotional issue for Punjab.

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CHANDIGARH: Union Home Minister Amit Shah urged states to resolve their disputes related to water-sharing with an open mind and discussions. Shah was addressing a meeting of the Northern Zonal Council in Amritsar. The council members are Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Chandigarh. Punjab reiterated that the state has no water to spare with other state and hence, instead of Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, the project should be now conceived as Yamuna Sutlej Link (YSL). The state demanded that Chandigarh (UT) should be handed over to it. However, Haryana argued that the SYL should be constructed and Haryana colleges should be affiliated to Panjab University. Himachal Pradesh urged an amendment in the norms for providing relief packages for hill states and took up the issue of border disputes involving J&K.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Addressing the 31st meeting of the council, Shah said the government has been successful in cracking down on narcotics and terrorism. The government is committed to strengthening the security system along the border. Soon, anti-drone system will be deployed on our countrys borders, he said. Shah asked all the member states to pay special attention to issues such as cooperation movement in the country, school dropout rates and malnutrition. He urged all member states to adopt natural and organic farming. Shah promised all possible help from the Centre to the Himachal government over flood relief. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the Sutlej has already dried up and there is no question of sharing even a single drop of water from it. Mann called the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal a highly emotional issue for Punjab. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Narendra Sethi By

Express News Service

DEHRADUN: With an aim to end child marriage in India by 2030, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, organised a state consultation in collaboration with the Home Department of the Uttarakhand government.

Underlining the importance of collective efforts of all stakeholders to combat child marriage and at the same time emphasising that education is a major tool to help completely eradicate child marriage, state Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Radha Raturi said, "To ensure that child marriage is effectively fought and combated, we need to create a collective action plan and we also need to work with vulnerable children to ensure that no injustice is done with them".

On this occasion, all the stakeholders deliberated through discussions and made a roadmap to make Uttarakhand child marriage free.

"Last year, over 76000 women in 7028 villages across the country took to the streets to raise their voice against child marriage in just one day", said Dhananjay Tingal, executive director of BBA, adding that "to fight and completely eradicate child marriage, we need a multi-pronged and multi-pronged strategy".

State Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi also signed an oath to join the campaign for child marriage-free Uttarakhand. (Photo | Express)

Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar discussed various challenges in the way of tackling the issue of child marriage and acknowledged the urgency of implementing ideas to tackle child marriage. "It is ironic that when we are fighting this social evil, child marriage is socially accepted in the society, while it is morally and legally wrong," DGP Ashok Kumar said.

Stressing the need for a united approach to fighting child marriage, Prashant Arya, Additional Secretary, Women Empowerment and Child Development, said, "Child marriage has deep roots in our society on one hand, but at the same time we have to make everyone aware that this social evil affects children, it destroys not only their childhood but their entire life".

According to the 2011 census, there are 51,57,863 girls in India and of these, around 54,858 were married before the age of 18 in Uttarakhand. This is a cause of serious concern and requires urgent action to protect young girls from the evil of child marriage. The National Family Health Survey-V (NFHS 2019-21) reports that nationally, 23.3% of women in the 20-24 age group were married before attaining the age of 18. Whereas, Uttarakhand reported that 9.8% of women in the same age group were married before the age of 18.

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DEHRADUN: With an aim to end child marriage in India by 2030, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, organised a state consultation in collaboration with the Home Department of the Uttarakhand government. Underlining the importance of collective efforts of all stakeholders to combat child marriage and at the same time emphasising that education is a major tool to help completely eradicate child marriage, state Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Radha Raturi said, "To ensure that child marriage is effectively fought and combated, we need to create a collective action plan and we also need to work with vulnerable children to ensure that no injustice is done with them". On this occasion, all the stakeholders deliberated through discussions and made a roadmap to make Uttarakhand child marriage free.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "Last year, over 76000 women in 7028 villages across the country took to the streets to raise their voice against child marriage in just one day", said Dhananjay Tingal, executive director of BBA, adding that "to fight and completely eradicate child marriage, we need a multi-pronged and multi-pronged strategy". State Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi also signed an oath to join the campaign for child marriage-free Uttarakhand. (Photo | Express) Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar discussed various challenges in the way of tackling the issue of child marriage and acknowledged the urgency of implementing ideas to tackle child marriage. "It is ironic that when we are fighting this social evil, child marriage is socially accepted in the society, while it is morally and legally wrong," DGP Ashok Kumar said. Stressing the need for a united approach to fighting child marriage, Prashant Arya, Additional Secretary, Women Empowerment and Child Development, said, "Child marriage has deep roots in our society on one hand, but at the same time we have to make everyone aware that this social evil affects children, it destroys not only their childhood but their entire life". According to the 2011 census, there are 51,57,863 girls in India and of these, around 54,858 were married before the age of 18 in Uttarakhand. This is a cause of serious concern and requires urgent action to protect young girls from the evil of child marriage. The National Family Health Survey-V (NFHS 2019-21) reports that nationally, 23.3% of women in the 20-24 age group were married before attaining the age of 18. Whereas, Uttarakhand reported that 9.8% of women in the same age group were married before the age of 18. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Ramashankar By

Express News Service

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar lost his cool once again after finding a sign-board of a newly established digital library written in English in Banka district on Wednesday. He was so displeased that he asked the officials concerned to change the signboard as early as possible.

You people are ending the importance of the Hindi language. Hindi is our own language. It's also a part of our tradition, he told the senior government officials present at the inauguration of the library.

Nitish, however, hastened to add that it didn't mean that he had any problem with the English language. The officials present at the event were taken aback by the sudden outburst of the chief minister.

I had not imagined that chief minister has so much anger against the use of English language, said a senior deputy collector present on the occasion. He said the chief minister's directive would be followed at the earliest.

This is not the first occasion when Nitish showed his anger against the use of English at any public function.

In March this year, he hit the national headlines when he expressed his displeasure over the use of English by a farmer at a farmers' meeting in the state capital. Bihar CM had reminded the farmer that it was not England but Bharat (India). Moreover, the meeting was being held for the farmers and most of them were not aware of the English language that he was using at the event. The progressive farmer from Samastipur district had not expected that he would have to face the wrath of the chief minister for using English to express his views. If CM had any grudge against the use of English language at any government function, he should have told it earlier, the visibly upset farmer had said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar paid surprise visits to the new secretariat to check whether ministers and officials reached their offices in time.

On Tuesday, several ministers and officials were found absent from their respective offices. Sources said that Nitish even talked to a few ministers who were not present in their offices. Where are you? I am at your office, a senior officer quoted Nitish as having told one of the ministers 'missing' from his office over the phone.

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PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar lost his cool once again after finding a sign-board of a newly established digital library written in English in Banka district on Wednesday. He was so displeased that he asked the officials concerned to change the signboard as early as possible. You people are ending the importance of the Hindi language. Hindi is our own language. It's also a part of our tradition, he told the senior government officials present at the inauguration of the library. Nitish, however, hastened to add that it didn't mean that he had any problem with the English language. The officials present at the event were taken aback by the sudden outburst of the chief minister.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); I had not imagined that chief minister has so much anger against the use of English language, said a senior deputy collector present on the occasion. He said the chief minister's directive would be followed at the earliest. This is not the first occasion when Nitish showed his anger against the use of English at any public function. In March this year, he hit the national headlines when he expressed his displeasure over the use of English by a farmer at a farmers' meeting in the state capital. Bihar CM had reminded the farmer that it was not England but Bharat (India). Moreover, the meeting was being held for the farmers and most of them were not aware of the English language that he was using at the event. The progressive farmer from Samastipur district had not expected that he would have to face the wrath of the chief minister for using English to express his views. If CM had any grudge against the use of English language at any government function, he should have told it earlier, the visibly upset farmer had said. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar paid surprise visits to the new secretariat to check whether ministers and officials reached their offices in time. On Tuesday, several ministers and officials were found absent from their respective offices. Sources said that Nitish even talked to a few ministers who were not present in their offices. Where are you? I am at your office, a senior officer quoted Nitish as having told one of the ministers 'missing' from his office over the phone. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Jaison Wilson By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Centre and state government's response on a plea demanding mandatory registration of FIRs in criminal complaints filed by women against their husbands in relation to physical violence and other offences instead of a 'forced' mediation process.

Issuing notices in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), a bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma asked the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Delhi Police, Special Police Unit for Women and Children and the Delhi government to file their replies.

The plea moved by a group of women petitioners also sought a direction to authorities to modify the 2008 and 2019 standing orders issued by the Commissioner of Delhi Police, claiming they give disproportionate emphasis on reconciliation between husband and wife even in instances of severe physical violence.

The petitioners belong to a marginalised section of society with very limited support structures and means of survival, it was submitted, adding they have suffered severe physical violence at the hands of their husbands for several years and have failed to get any recourse from the authorities concerned.

After hearing the plea, the bench also comprising Justice Sanjeev Narula posted it for further hearing on November 22.

"Failure of the authorities to take cognisance of these serious offences, despite the unwillingness of the women to reconcile, results in the perpetuation of violence against them and the continuing violation of their basic fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution," the plea read.

During the course of the hearing, appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Rebecca John argued; "How can a woman, who has been a victim of physical violence by her husband, be asked to face her perpetrator by going to the Crime Against Women (CAW) Cell and be forced to reconcile."

The standing orders have led to a situation where married women face severe forms of violence at the hands of husbands or in-laws and when they try to seek help from the police, they are asked to approach the CAW Cell for reconciliation or mediation and no FIR is registered and no criminal investigation is conducted on their complaints, the plea said.

This is contrary to the settled position of law laid down by the constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari wherein it was held that registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 if the information given by the complainant discloses commission of a cognisable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation," it added.

The plea said the petitioners are mindful of the reasons behind implementing safeguards before registration of FIRs under Section 498-A of the IPC.

The purpose of the petition is to bring the courts attention to the plight of women who are suffering such severe forms of violence and the blanket assumption that they are agitating a false complaint, making the criminal justice system inaccessible to them, it said.

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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Centre and state government's response on a plea demanding mandatory registration of FIRs in criminal complaints filed by women against their husbands in relation to physical violence and other offences instead of a 'forced' mediation process. Issuing notices in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), a bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma asked the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Delhi Police, Special Police Unit for Women and Children and the Delhi government to file their replies. The plea moved by a group of women petitioners also sought a direction to authorities to modify the 2008 and 2019 standing orders issued by the Commissioner of Delhi Police, claiming they give disproportionate emphasis on reconciliation between husband and wife even in instances of severe physical violence.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The petitioners belong to a marginalised section of society with very limited support structures and means of survival, it was submitted, adding they have suffered severe physical violence at the hands of their husbands for several years and have failed to get any recourse from the authorities concerned. After hearing the plea, the bench also comprising Justice Sanjeev Narula posted it for further hearing on November 22. "Failure of the authorities to take cognisance of these serious offences, despite the unwillingness of the women to reconcile, results in the perpetuation of violence against them and the continuing violation of their basic fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution," the plea read. During the course of the hearing, appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Rebecca John argued; "How can a woman, who has been a victim of physical violence by her husband, be asked to face her perpetrator by going to the Crime Against Women (CAW) Cell and be forced to reconcile." The standing orders have led to a situation where married women face severe forms of violence at the hands of husbands or in-laws and when they try to seek help from the police, they are asked to approach the CAW Cell for reconciliation or mediation and no FIR is registered and no criminal investigation is conducted on their complaints, the plea said. This is contrary to the settled position of law laid down by the constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari wherein it was held that registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 if the information given by the complainant discloses commission of a cognisable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation," it added. The plea said the petitioners are mindful of the reasons behind implementing safeguards before registration of FIRs under Section 498-A of the IPC. The purpose of the petition is to bring the courts attention to the plight of women who are suffering such severe forms of violence and the blanket assumption that they are agitating a false complaint, making the criminal justice system inaccessible to them, it said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Dilip Singh Kshatriya By

Express News Service

AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday, claimed that there had been a conspiracy to defame Gujarat globally in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots and accused the then central government of showing indifference to the state's development. Modi made these remarks as part of his address at the 20th anniversary of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Ahmedabad.

He said he was a first-time chief minister and faced crises such as the 2001 earthquake, preceding drought years, the collapse of cooperative banks, the 2002 Godhra tragedy and the state-wide violence in its aftermath.

Addressing the gathering, PM Modi remarked: "In 2001, there was an uproar in the economic life of Gujarat. In a way, the financial sector of Gujarat was in crisis. At that time, I had become an MLA for the first time, this role was also new for me, I had no experience of running a government. But the challenge was huge."

"Meanwhile, another incident happened. The heart-wrenching incident of Godhra took place and in the circumstances that followed, Gujarat burst into flames of violence. Hardly anyone would have imagined such a dire situation. Even though I did not have much experience as a Chief Minister at that time, I had unwavering faith in Gujarat and the people of Gujarat." he added.

Attacking the opposition, the PM said "Those who carry an agenda were busy analyzing the events in their own way even at that time. It was said that youth from Gujarat, industries from Gujarat, businessmen from Gujarat will all move out, migrate and Gujarat will be so ruined that it will become a huge burden for the country."

"A conspiracy was hatched to defame Gujarat before the world. An attempt was made to create an atmosphere of despair. It was said that Gujarat would never be able to stand on its own feet. Even in that crisis, I resolved that no matter what the circumstances were, I would take Gujarat out of it." he claimed.

The Prime Minister remembered the indifference of the then-central government towards Gujarat.

"...Those who ran central government earlier used to link Gujarat's development with politics. Ministers from the central government refused to come to the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. They used to threaten foreign investors and attempted to stop them from coming to Gujarat. Even after so much threatening, foreign investors came to Gujarat" Modi alleged.

The prime minister said this was possible because of good governance, fair and policy-driven governance, and an equal system of growth and transparency, despite no special incentive.

The Prime Minister explained the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit through its journey.

The 2003 edition attracted only a few hundred participants; today more than 40000 participants and delegates and 135 countries take part in the summit, he informed. The number of exhibitors has also increased from 30 in 2003 to more than 2000 today.

He said that India has become the third-largest economy in the world. He asked the industrialists to focus on sectors that will help with new possibilities for India. He asked for a discussion to take place in the startup ecosystem, agri-tech, food processing, and Shri Anna.

Later, Prime Minister Modi also inaugurated development projects worth Rs 5,206 crore in Chhota Udepur, Gujarat, which includes the provision of village Wi-Fi facilities in 22 districts. The PM also discussed about the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam in Vadodara.

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AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday, claimed that there had been a conspiracy to defame Gujarat globally in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots and accused the then central government of showing indifference to the state's development. Modi made these remarks as part of his address at the 20th anniversary of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Ahmedabad. He said he was a first-time chief minister and faced crises such as the 2001 earthquake, preceding drought years, the collapse of cooperative banks, the 2002 Godhra tragedy and the state-wide violence in its aftermath. Addressing the gathering, PM Modi remarked: "In 2001, there was an uproar in the economic life of Gujarat. In a way, the financial sector of Gujarat was in crisis. At that time, I had become an MLA for the first time, this role was also new for me, I had no experience of running a government. But the challenge was huge."googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "Meanwhile, another incident happened. The heart-wrenching incident of Godhra took place and in the circumstances that followed, Gujarat burst into flames of violence. Hardly anyone would have imagined such a dire situation. Even though I did not have much experience as a Chief Minister at that time, I had unwavering faith in Gujarat and the people of Gujarat." he added. Attacking the opposition, the PM said "Those who carry an agenda were busy analyzing the events in their own way even at that time. It was said that youth from Gujarat, industries from Gujarat, businessmen from Gujarat will all move out, migrate and Gujarat will be so ruined that it will become a huge burden for the country." "A conspiracy was hatched to defame Gujarat before the world. An attempt was made to create an atmosphere of despair. It was said that Gujarat would never be able to stand on its own feet. Even in that crisis, I resolved that no matter what the circumstances were, I would take Gujarat out of it." he claimed. The Prime Minister remembered the indifference of the then-central government towards Gujarat. "...Those who ran central government earlier used to link Gujarat's development with politics. Ministers from the central government refused to come to the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. They used to threaten foreign investors and attempted to stop them from coming to Gujarat. Even after so much threatening, foreign investors came to Gujarat" Modi alleged. The prime minister said this was possible because of good governance, fair and policy-driven governance, and an equal system of growth and transparency, despite no special incentive. The Prime Minister explained the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit through its journey. The 2003 edition attracted only a few hundred participants; today more than 40000 participants and delegates and 135 countries take part in the summit, he informed. The number of exhibitors has also increased from 30 in 2003 to more than 2000 today. He said that India has become the third-largest economy in the world. He asked the industrialists to focus on sectors that will help with new possibilities for India. He asked for a discussion to take place in the startup ecosystem, agri-tech, food processing, and Shri Anna. Later, Prime Minister Modi also inaugurated development projects worth Rs 5,206 crore in Chhota Udepur, Gujarat, which includes the provision of village Wi-Fi facilities in 22 districts. The PM also discussed about the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam in Vadodara. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

DEHRADUN: A major fire broke out at a Lord Ganesh pandal, where BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule were worshipping, late on Tuesday evening.

The fire spread rapidly over the dome of the temporary structure at Lokmanya Nagar in the city. Nadda, who was offering prayer, was quickly taken out of the pandal by his security personnel. No one was injured in the incident.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-III) Suhail Sharma said that police officers at duty immediately responded with local support, and fire brigade units were deployed.

According to a fire brigade official, the blaze may have been caused by fireworks at the pandal set up by the Sane Guruji Ganesh Mitra Mandal to welcome the leaders.

Local BJP president Dhiraj Ghate and security personnel were seen taking Nadda out of the pandal, a replica of Ujjains famous Mahakaleshwar Temple. Minutes after the fire broke out, it started raining, which helped douse the flames.

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DEHRADUN: A major fire broke out at a Lord Ganesh pandal, where BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule were worshipping, late on Tuesday evening. The fire spread rapidly over the dome of the temporary structure at Lokmanya Nagar in the city. Nadda, who was offering prayer, was quickly taken out of the pandal by his security personnel. No one was injured in the incident. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-III) Suhail Sharma said that police officers at duty immediately responded with local support, and fire brigade units were deployed. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); According to a fire brigade official, the blaze may have been caused by fireworks at the pandal set up by the Sane Guruji Ganesh Mitra Mandal to welcome the leaders. Local BJP president Dhiraj Ghate and security personnel were seen taking Nadda out of the pandal, a replica of Ujjains famous Mahakaleshwar Temple. Minutes after the fire broke out, it started raining, which helped douse the flames. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Norway will allocate an additional NOK 1 billion ($92 million) to provide Ukrainians with access to protection and vital assistance, according to a statement on the country's government website.

"Ukraine's civilian population has suffered greatly as a result of Russias brutal war. The efforts of the Ukrainian people to deal with daily attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have been heroic. They need our help to make it through another winter of war," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Anniken Huitfeldt at the opening of the Third Humanitarian Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) on Ukraine in Oslo.

The meeting focuses on the difficult humanitarian situation the war in Ukraine is causing as well as look at ways to provide the right help to the civilian population at the right time. The meeting will also discuss how to implement good solutions for the transition between short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction efforts.

It is noted that 150 participants at the meeting include representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, the UN, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, humanitarian organisations and donor countries.

The UN estimates that more than 17 million people in Ukraine are in need of humanitarian assistance. Some 5 million people are internally displaced and more than 6.2 million have fled from Ukraine and sought refuge in other countries due to Russia's war.

The humanitarian funding is being channeled via the UN, including the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Express News Service

NEW DELHI: As dengue cases in the country see a spike, the centre on Wednesday held a high-level meeting to assess the preparedness of the public health system for prevention, containment and management of the mosquito-borne disease.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired the meeting.

Over 94,000 dengue cases and 91 deaths have been reported in the country till September 17, as per the website of the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control.

The highest number of dengue cases has been reported from Kerala, where 9,770 cases and 37 deaths have been reported, as per the website.

It is followed by Karnataka, which registered 9,185 dengue cases. The other states reporting a hike in dengue cases are Maharashtra (8496), Odisha (6563), Uttar Pradesh (5742), Assam (5604), Rajasthan (5094), Delhi (5221) and Telangana (5138).

As most Indian states are reporting a surge in dengue cases, Mandaviya, in the meeting underlined the challenge posed by the increasing number of cases.

He directed the officials to be fully geared and strengthen prevention, containment and management measures for dengue.

Mandaviya urged states to adhere to the guidelines issued by the centre for prevention and containment of dengue.

He highlighted that the centre has provided all necessary support to the states for screening kits and has provided financial support for fogging and IEC activities as well.

According to a statement issued by the Union Health Ministry, the centre has provided adequate funds to the states under the Program Implementation Plan (PIP) for disease and entomological surveillance, effective management of cases and averting deaths and laboratory diagnosis.

Also, the funds are provided for eliminating the vector breeding and source reduction activities engagement. The budget is provisioned for the procurement of fogging machines too, the statement said.

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NEW DELHI: As dengue cases in the country see a spike, the centre on Wednesday held a high-level meeting to assess the preparedness of the public health system for prevention, containment and management of the mosquito-borne disease. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired the meeting. Over 94,000 dengue cases and 91 deaths have been reported in the country till September 17, as per the website of the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The highest number of dengue cases has been reported from Kerala, where 9,770 cases and 37 deaths have been reported, as per the website. It is followed by Karnataka, which registered 9,185 dengue cases. The other states reporting a hike in dengue cases are Maharashtra (8496), Odisha (6563), Uttar Pradesh (5742), Assam (5604), Rajasthan (5094), Delhi (5221) and Telangana (5138). As most Indian states are reporting a surge in dengue cases, Mandaviya, in the meeting underlined the challenge posed by the increasing number of cases. He directed the officials to be fully geared and strengthen prevention, containment and management measures for dengue. Mandaviya urged states to adhere to the guidelines issued by the centre for prevention and containment of dengue. He highlighted that the centre has provided all necessary support to the states for screening kits and has provided financial support for fogging and IEC activities as well. According to a statement issued by the Union Health Ministry, the centre has provided adequate funds to the states under the Program Implementation Plan (PIP) for disease and entomological surveillance, effective management of cases and averting deaths and laboratory diagnosis. Also, the funds are provided for eliminating the vector breeding and source reduction activities engagement. The budget is provisioned for the procurement of fogging machines too, the statement said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Rajesh Kumar Thakur By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has reportedly withdrawn its support from the upcoming 109th Science Congress amid allegations of misconduct.

Sources within the department revealed that the Science Congress has been relocated from Lucknow to Jalandhar, and the department has disassociated itself from funding or organising the Science Congress, scheduled for 2024.

In a notice dated September 25, issued by Senior DST secretary R N Upadhyay, the DST has made grave accusations against the members of ISCA (Indian Science Congress Association) and their conduct.

The notice asserts that certain office bearers of ISCA have been making unilateral decisions without the requisite authorisation from the Government of India or the General Body of the Council.

Sources close to senior rank of the department confirmed that the Central government has distanced itself from the Indian Science Congress Association, following the allegation of taking unilateral decisions.

The government took this decision after the venue of the Indian Science Congress-2024 was changed allegedly without consent from the Department from Lucknow University to Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar.

According to sources in the Department of Science and Technology, a notice to all secretaries of scientific departments has been issued by the department directing them that no resources or support should be provided for the upcoming ISCA programme.

The annual event of ISCA has already lost its relevance among the scientific community. There is a lack of professional approach in the conduct of the meeting on many fronts," the government notice said.

All this is happening while India is making strides in other fields of science. It is nearing self-sufficiency in rocket manufacturing, with approximately 95% of the components used in rocket configurations now sourced domestically.

Speaking at the 82nd foundation day of CSIR in New Delhi, ISRO chief S Somanath proudly asserted that nearly 95% of the components used in Indian rocket configurations are now procured within the country.

Somanath said most technical work, including the development of rockets, satellites, and space applications, is now held in-house within India. It is a matter of great pride that almost 95% of the materials, devices, and systems used in ISROs rockets are domestically sourced.... he said.

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NEW DELHI: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has reportedly withdrawn its support from the upcoming 109th Science Congress amid allegations of misconduct. Sources within the department revealed that the Science Congress has been relocated from Lucknow to Jalandhar, and the department has disassociated itself from funding or organising the Science Congress, scheduled for 2024. In a notice dated September 25, issued by Senior DST secretary R N Upadhyay, the DST has made grave accusations against the members of ISCA (Indian Science Congress Association) and their conduct.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The notice asserts that certain office bearers of ISCA have been making unilateral decisions without the requisite authorisation from the Government of India or the General Body of the Council. Sources close to senior rank of the department confirmed that the Central government has distanced itself from the Indian Science Congress Association, following the allegation of taking unilateral decisions. The government took this decision after the venue of the Indian Science Congress-2024 was changed allegedly without consent from the Department from Lucknow University to Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar. According to sources in the Department of Science and Technology, a notice to all secretaries of scientific departments has been issued by the department directing them that no resources or support should be provided for the upcoming ISCA programme. The annual event of ISCA has already lost its relevance among the scientific community. There is a lack of professional approach in the conduct of the meeting on many fronts," the government notice said. All this is happening while India is making strides in other fields of science. It is nearing self-sufficiency in rocket manufacturing, with approximately 95% of the components used in rocket configurations now sourced domestically. Speaking at the 82nd foundation day of CSIR in New Delhi, ISRO chief S Somanath proudly asserted that nearly 95% of the components used in Indian rocket configurations are now procured within the country. Somanath said most technical work, including the development of rockets, satellites, and space applications, is now held in-house within India. It is a matter of great pride that almost 95% of the materials, devices, and systems used in ISROs rockets are domestically sourced.... he said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Online Desk

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned at least three Americans active in the Sikh community that their lives were in danger after the murder of separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, Guardian reported.

This revelation by the federal law enforcement agency comes a few days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged that the Indian government may be behind the killing, the accusation which has led to diplomatic tensions between the two nations.

India denied the allegations made by Canada, calling it" motivated" and asked the latter to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil instead.

The accusation also sparked tit-for-tat retaliation, with each country expelling diplomats. India has also indefinitely suspended visa services in Canada, citing security threats to its officials.

On Tuesday, Pritpal Singh, a 69-year-old US citizen who serves as a coordinator for the American Sikh Caucus Committee, confirmed to The Guardian that he, his associate Amarjit Singh and another person were called by the Federal Bureau of Investigation just days after Nijjars murder.

The FBI also warned another American named Amarjit Singh, a 70-year-old New York-based journalist and commentator.

According to The Guardian, Amarjit Singh was first contacted by the FBI as he was returning from a protest against Modi in Washington, during Modi's state visit.

Meanwhile, calling Canadas allegations on India regarding the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar as concerning, the US State Department reiterated its stand urging New Delhi to cooperate in the investigation.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated there needs to be a full and fair investigation.

READ MORE | Why India Fears Khalistan movement and how Canada became embroiled in a diplomatic spat

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned at least three Americans active in the Sikh community that their lives were in danger after the murder of separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, Guardian reported. This revelation by the federal law enforcement agency comes a few days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged that the Indian government may be behind the killing, the accusation which has led to diplomatic tensions between the two nations. India denied the allegations made by Canada, calling it" motivated" and asked the latter to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil instead.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The accusation also sparked tit-for-tat retaliation, with each country expelling diplomats. India has also indefinitely suspended visa services in Canada, citing security threats to its officials. On Tuesday, Pritpal Singh, a 69-year-old US citizen who serves as a coordinator for the American Sikh Caucus Committee, confirmed to The Guardian that he, his associate Amarjit Singh and another person were called by the Federal Bureau of Investigation just days after Nijjars murder. The FBI also warned another American named Amarjit Singh, a 70-year-old New York-based journalist and commentator. According to The Guardian, Amarjit Singh was first contacted by the FBI as he was returning from a protest against Modi in Washington, during Modi's state visit. Meanwhile, calling Canadas allegations on India regarding the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar as concerning, the US State Department reiterated its stand urging New Delhi to cooperate in the investigation. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated there needs to be a full and fair investigation. READ MORE | Why India Fears Khalistan movement and how Canada became embroiled in a diplomatic spat Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Online Desk

In an alarming scenario, more than one instance of hate speech gatherings or rallies targeting Muslims was recorded daily throughout the first half of 2023, according to a report by Hindutva Watch.

Hindutva Watch, a data-based research initiative monitoring the Hindu right-wing ecosystem said there were 255 recorded instances of hate speech gatherings or rallies targeting Muslims in the first six months of 2023.

Overwhelmingly, 205 (80 per cent) of these hate speech events occurred in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and union territories, said the Washington DC-based research group.

Hindutva Watch stated that the most number of these events took place in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It also highlighted that despite Uttarakhand comprising less than 1 per cent of Indias total population, nearly 5 per cent of the hate events this year took place in the state.

The report also revealed a significant proportion of these incidents occurred in states scheduled to hold legislative elections in 2023 and 2024, highlighting the potential use of anti-Muslim hate speech events for voter mobilization.

Most hate speech gatherings were orchestrated by entities affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Sakal Hindu Samaj, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The most employed method by these groups was propagating prominent anti-Muslim conspiracy theories like love jihad, land jihad and misinformation about the growth of the Muslim population in India.

READ MORE | BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri uses communal slurs in LS, calls BSP's Muslim MP Danish Ali 'terrorist'

A concerning 33 per cent of all the gatherings explicitly called for violence against Muslims. About 11 per cent of events included explicit calls for Hindus to boycott Muslims, while 4 per cent of all the events featured hate-filled and sexist speeches explicitly targeting Muslim women.

The report also underlined that incidents of hate speech saw a surge in March, coinciding with the Hindu festival of Ram Navami. Eighteen hate speech events took place across the country in the last week of the month, suggesting a possible coordinated effort to incite violence on the day.

#Report 255 documented incidents of hate speech events/gatherings targeting Muslims recorded in the first half of 2023. Overwhelmingly, 205 (80%) of these hate speech events occurred in BJP-ruled states and union territories.



Read the full report here: https://t.co/RFpLx8Ac1C pic.twitter.com/URqtmLuc7a  HindutvaWatch (@HindutvaWatchIn) September 26, 2023

The Hindutva watch relied on social media and news reports to gather this data. It said that it deployed data-scraping techniques to identify verifiable videos of hate speech events and followed it with in-depth interviews by researchers and journalists, as part of its methodology.

Since India does not have an official definition of hate speech, the group used the United Nations framework for the categorisation.

The UN defines hate speech as any form of communication, whether oral, written, or behavioural, that employs prejudiced or discriminatory language towards an individual or group based on attributes such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factors.

READ MORE | Nuh: Violence in the name of god & distortion of religious processions

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In an alarming scenario, more than one instance of hate speech gatherings or rallies targeting Muslims was recorded daily throughout the first half of 2023, according to a report by Hindutva Watch. Hindutva Watch, a data-based research initiative monitoring the Hindu right-wing ecosystem said there were 255 recorded instances of hate speech gatherings or rallies targeting Muslims in the first six months of 2023. Overwhelmingly, 205 (80 per cent) of these hate speech events occurred in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and union territories, said the Washington DC-based research group.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Hindutva Watch stated that the most number of these events took place in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It also highlighted that despite Uttarakhand comprising less than 1 per cent of Indias total population, nearly 5 per cent of the hate events this year took place in the state. The report also revealed a significant proportion of these incidents occurred in states scheduled to hold legislative elections in 2023 and 2024, highlighting the potential use of anti-Muslim hate speech events for voter mobilization. Most hate speech gatherings were orchestrated by entities affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Sakal Hindu Samaj, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The most employed method by these groups was propagating prominent anti-Muslim conspiracy theories like love jihad, land jihad and misinformation about the growth of the Muslim population in India. READ MORE | BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri uses communal slurs in LS, calls BSP's Muslim MP Danish Ali 'terrorist' A concerning 33 per cent of all the gatherings explicitly called for violence against Muslims. About 11 per cent of events included explicit calls for Hindus to boycott Muslims, while 4 per cent of all the events featured hate-filled and sexist speeches explicitly targeting Muslim women. The report also underlined that incidents of hate speech saw a surge in March, coinciding with the Hindu festival of Ram Navami. Eighteen hate speech events took place across the country in the last week of the month, suggesting a possible coordinated effort to incite violence on the day. #Report 255 documented incidents of hate speech events/gatherings targeting Muslims recorded in the first half of 2023. Overwhelmingly, 205 (80%) of these hate speech events occurred in BJP-ruled states and union territories. Read the full report here: https://t.co/RFpLx8Ac1C pic.twitter.com/URqtmLuc7a  HindutvaWatch (@HindutvaWatchIn) September 26, 2023 The Hindutva watch relied on social media and news reports to gather this data. It said that it deployed data-scraping techniques to identify verifiable videos of hate speech events and followed it with in-depth interviews by researchers and journalists, as part of its methodology. Since India does not have an official definition of hate speech, the group used the United Nations framework for the categorisation. The UN defines hate speech as any form of communication, whether oral, written, or behavioural, that employs prejudiced or discriminatory language towards an individual or group based on attributes such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factors. READ MORE | Nuh: Violence in the name of god & distortion of religious processions Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy will unveil an updated new "indigenisation roadmap" next week with a focus on specific initiatives to achieve self-reliance in acquiring various critical technologies and platforms to boost its overall military might.

The roadmap will be released at the second edition of the annual 'Swavlamban' seminar to be held on October 4 and 5, Navy officials said on Wednesday adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the conclave.

At a media briefing, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff Vice Admiral Sanjay Jasjit Singh said the Navy resolved to develop 75 technologies at the Swavlamban seminar last year and the aim has been achieved. "Last year, in the presence of the prime minister, the Indian Navy had committed to develop at least 75 technologies as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav," he said.

The Vice Chief said the Navy has invested considerable time and efforts towards realising this commitment. "Today, I can say with confidence that the Swavlamban initiative has gained critical mass, and is gathering continuous momentum. And, I am happy to inform you that the promises made last year have been fully met, and even surpassed in some cases," he said.

These technologies will be showcased during the upcoming Swavlamban seminar.

An updated "Indian Navy indigenisation roadmap", a document titled 'Swavlamban 2.0' and new challenges for the industry are planned to be released at the seminar, said another senior official.

The Navy will showcase the new technologies that include swarm drones of various categories as well as applications of robotics and artificial intelligence at the seminar.

Vice Admiral Singh said over the past year, each and every proposal received by the Navy has been examined, processed and pursued by dedicated teams of officers to ensure that the force has an array of "trials cleared products", which are consequently ready, or nearly ready, for induction.

"We have already obtained Acceptance of Necessity for 12 such cases, worth close to 1500 Crores, and procurement orders for products worth 200 crore amongst these have already been signed.

In the coming weeks, we are looking to conclude many more such contracts," he said.

The Navy is encouraging the development of new products under the 'Sprint' initiative that was launched at the Naval Innovation and Indignation Organisation (NIIO) Seminar in July last year.

These products are being developed under the Innovation for Defence Excellence scheme of the Ministry of Defence and Technology Development Acceleration Cell of the Indian Navy.

"Sprint has been more than just a scheme - it has been a 'Statement of Intent'," Vice Admiral Singh said.

"The results have been to our satisfaction, and we are confident that many of the products that have been developed, as part of this initiative, will find their way into the other armed forces, government and civil sectors, and also export to friendly foreign countries," he said.

The Swavlamban is the annual seminar of the NIIO. The upcoming edition will be the second edition of the series. The purpose of the seminar is to engage the Indian industry and academia towards achieving self-reliance in the defence sector.

The upcoming seminar will have sessions dedicated to innovation and aviation, in addition to the plenary session on the first day.

The sessions on innovation entail discussions on the 'Sprint' initiative followed by interactions on procurement, policies and certification.

In addition, a number of other launches and major policy announcements concerning all three services are expected.

The second day will feature sessions on indigenisation and armament, including an interactive session with the industry on the Swavlamban 2.0 document.

The second day will also feature breakout sessions on medical innovations and participation of defence attaches and diplomats from more than 50 friendly foreign countries, Navy officials said.

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NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy will unveil an updated new "indigenisation roadmap" next week with a focus on specific initiatives to achieve self-reliance in acquiring various critical technologies and platforms to boost its overall military might. The roadmap will be released at the second edition of the annual 'Swavlamban' seminar to be held on October 4 and 5, Navy officials said on Wednesday adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the conclave. At a media briefing, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff Vice Admiral Sanjay Jasjit Singh said the Navy resolved to develop 75 technologies at the Swavlamban seminar last year and the aim has been achieved. "Last year, in the presence of the prime minister, the Indian Navy had committed to develop at least 75 technologies as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav," he said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The Vice Chief said the Navy has invested considerable time and efforts towards realising this commitment. "Today, I can say with confidence that the Swavlamban initiative has gained critical mass, and is gathering continuous momentum. And, I am happy to inform you that the promises made last year have been fully met, and even surpassed in some cases," he said. These technologies will be showcased during the upcoming Swavlamban seminar. An updated "Indian Navy indigenisation roadmap", a document titled 'Swavlamban 2.0' and new challenges for the industry are planned to be released at the seminar, said another senior official. The Navy will showcase the new technologies that include swarm drones of various categories as well as applications of robotics and artificial intelligence at the seminar. Vice Admiral Singh said over the past year, each and every proposal received by the Navy has been examined, processed and pursued by dedicated teams of officers to ensure that the force has an array of "trials cleared products", which are consequently ready, or nearly ready, for induction. "We have already obtained Acceptance of Necessity for 12 such cases, worth close to 1500 Crores, and procurement orders for products worth 200 crore amongst these have already been signed. In the coming weeks, we are looking to conclude many more such contracts," he said. The Navy is encouraging the development of new products under the 'Sprint' initiative that was launched at the Naval Innovation and Indignation Organisation (NIIO) Seminar in July last year. These products are being developed under the Innovation for Defence Excellence scheme of the Ministry of Defence and Technology Development Acceleration Cell of the Indian Navy. "Sprint has been more than just a scheme - it has been a 'Statement of Intent'," Vice Admiral Singh said. "The results have been to our satisfaction, and we are confident that many of the products that have been developed, as part of this initiative, will find their way into the other armed forces, government and civil sectors, and also export to friendly foreign countries," he said. The Swavlamban is the annual seminar of the NIIO. The upcoming edition will be the second edition of the series. The purpose of the seminar is to engage the Indian industry and academia towards achieving self-reliance in the defence sector. The upcoming seminar will have sessions dedicated to innovation and aviation, in addition to the plenary session on the first day. The sessions on innovation entail discussions on the 'Sprint' initiative followed by interactions on procurement, policies and certification. In addition, a number of other launches and major policy announcements concerning all three services are expected. The second day will feature sessions on indigenisation and armament, including an interactive session with the industry on the Swavlamban 2.0 document. The second day will also feature breakout sessions on medical innovations and participation of defence attaches and diplomats from more than 50 friendly foreign countries, Navy officials said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Unhappy over the governments inept handling of the current turmoil in Manipur, celebrated Manipuri actor Rajkumar Kaiku aka Somendra resigned from the BJP on Wednesday.

Kaiku, who acted in over 400 films including two Kuki movies, submitted his resignation letter to BJP leadership. The party requested him to reconsider his decision.

He had unsuccessfully contested the last Lok Sabha elections as an independent and joined the BJP in November 2021.

After quitting the party, he told journalists that his priority is public first and party second and I applied my mind to quit BJP.

It is disheartening to notice that the government is yet to take up proactive measures to resolve the unending public disorder, the actor said.

I joined the BJP thinking that it would bring a significant change in our state with its double-engine government. It brought changes in different sectors like tourism under Chief Minister N Biren Singh. I thought the central leaders would act swiftly over the ongoing issue and put an end to the conflict but, it appears they paid no attention to the pain and misery of the people, Kaiku said.

He appealed to all sections of society to bring an everlasting solution to the ongoing problem.

As I have left BJP, Im now a free citizen to join the peoples campaign to restore public order, he said and rejected the demand of Kuki-Zo legislators and civil bodies for a separate administration for their community.

ALSO READ | Have every right to speak up: Manipuri actor Soma Laishram on ban by civil society group

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GUWAHATI: Unhappy over the governments inept handling of the current turmoil in Manipur, celebrated Manipuri actor Rajkumar Kaiku aka Somendra resigned from the BJP on Wednesday. Kaiku, who acted in over 400 films including two Kuki movies, submitted his resignation letter to BJP leadership. The party requested him to reconsider his decision. He had unsuccessfully contested the last Lok Sabha elections as an independent and joined the BJP in November 2021. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); After quitting the party, he told journalists that his priority is public first and party second and I applied my mind to quit BJP. It is disheartening to notice that the government is yet to take up proactive measures to resolve the unending public disorder, the actor said. I joined the BJP thinking that it would bring a significant change in our state with its double-engine government. It brought changes in different sectors like tourism under Chief Minister N Biren Singh. I thought the central leaders would act swiftly over the ongoing issue and put an end to the conflict but, it appears they paid no attention to the pain and misery of the people, Kaiku said. He appealed to all sections of society to bring an everlasting solution to the ongoing problem. As I have left BJP, Im now a free citizen to join the peoples campaign to restore public order, he said and rejected the demand of Kuki-Zo legislators and civil bodies for a separate administration for their community. ALSO READ | Have every right to speak up: Manipuri actor Soma Laishram on ban by civil society group Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Ramashankar By

Express News Service

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) suffered a major setback on Wednesday when the party's former MLC and executive committee member Ranveer Nandan resigned from the primary membership and also from all posts that he held in the organisation.

Nandan's resignation came barely a couple of hours after the Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RLJD) chief and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha claimed that JD (U)leaders were in touch with his party and other parties, including BJP, as they were feeling neglected and were being humiliated by some top leaders of JD(U).

JD (U) MLC Ranveer Nandan resigned from the primary membership of the party on Wednesday and sent his resignation letter directly to JD (U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh and Nitish Kumar.

Nandan is expected to join the BJP, sources added.

Nandan, who is considered a close associate of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was spokesperson of JD(U).

On the other hand, JD (U) state chief Umesh Kushwaha said that the party expelled Nandan for six years. He said that Nandan had been expelled from the party for his anti-party activities and giving statements in the media against the party's top leadership.

Earlier Upendra Kushwaha contended that JD (U) was heading toward a huge split and there were no ifs and buts over it. He said that barring one or two JD (U) leaders, remaining all party leaders were in touch with other parties to join them. He said that some JD (U) leaders were in touch with his party too.

RLJD chief said that JD (U) leaders had realised they could not achieve electoral success by remaining in JD (U) and almost all leaders were in touch with one party or another.

He also added that JD (U) might not suffer a huge division at one time but it would be facing splits in parts.

Refusing to comment on Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's return to NDA, he stated that it was an internal matter of the BJP, former Union Minister Kushwaha claimed that going by Nitishs statements, it appeared that he was in delusion.

He claimed that his party had been done ever since he joined hands with RJD. Nitish has lost his support base and so there is no meaning to his claims, he remarked. Kushwaha claimed that JD (U)`s senior leaders were unhappy over Nitish`s political moves as it was becoming clearly evident now.

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PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) suffered a major setback on Wednesday when the party's former MLC and executive committee member Ranveer Nandan resigned from the primary membership and also from all posts that he held in the organisation. Nandan's resignation came barely a couple of hours after the Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal (RLJD) chief and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha claimed that JD (U)leaders were in touch with his party and other parties, including BJP, as they were feeling neglected and were being humiliated by some top leaders of JD(U). JD (U) MLC Ranveer Nandan resigned from the primary membership of the party on Wednesday and sent his resignation letter directly to JD (U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh and Nitish Kumar.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Nandan is expected to join the BJP, sources added. Nandan, who is considered a close associate of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was spokesperson of JD(U). On the other hand, JD (U) state chief Umesh Kushwaha said that the party expelled Nandan for six years. He said that Nandan had been expelled from the party for his anti-party activities and giving statements in the media against the party's top leadership. Earlier Upendra Kushwaha contended that JD (U) was heading toward a huge split and there were no ifs and buts over it. He said that barring one or two JD (U) leaders, remaining all party leaders were in touch with other parties to join them. He said that some JD (U) leaders were in touch with his party too. RLJD chief said that JD (U) leaders had realised they could not achieve electoral success by remaining in JD (U) and almost all leaders were in touch with one party or another. He also added that JD (U) might not suffer a huge division at one time but it would be facing splits in parts. Refusing to comment on Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's return to NDA, he stated that it was an internal matter of the BJP, former Union Minister Kushwaha claimed that going by Nitishs statements, it appeared that he was in delusion. He claimed that his party had been done ever since he joined hands with RJD. Nitish has lost his support base and so there is no meaning to his claims, he remarked. Kushwaha claimed that JD (U)`s senior leaders were unhappy over Nitish`s political moves as it was becoming clearly evident now. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

BHOPAL: Faced with anti-incumbency in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has named seven sitting Lok Sabha members, including three Union ministers for the upcoming assembly polls, but the road to success doesnt seem easy for some of the big guns.

Four-time MP from the Satna constituency of Vindhya region Ganesh Singh has been fielded from the Satna assembly seat that falls under his parliamentary constituency. But the powerful OBC leader could find things a bit too hard as the upper caste, particularly Brahmins, hold a decisive sway here.

In the neighbouring Sidhi district, the party has fielded second-time Lok Sabha member Riti Pathak from Sidhi assembly seat. The seat has been won in the last three polls by BJPs veteran Brahmin leader Kedarnath Shukla, who has been denied a ticket possibly over the July 2023 controversy generated by a viral video showing his alleged supporter Pravesh Shukla urinating on a tribal man.

With Kedarnath Shukla being among those few BJP politicians, whose vote has increased in every assembly poll, he is readying to contest against Pathak as an independent candidate, sources close to Shuklas family said.

In the Gadarwara seat in central MP, the ruling party has fielded a third-time MP from Hoshangabad Pratap Singh, who, according to sources, was lobbying for a ticket from either Tendukheda seat or Seoni-Malwa as both these seats have a sizeable chunk of Jat community voters.

Not only does the Gadarwara seat have a lower number of Jat voters, but also the denial of tickets to Brahmin and Kourav-Patel ticket aspirants could make things tough for him.

In the Jabalpur-West seat, from where the fourth-time sitting Jabalpur MP and former state BJP president Rakesh Singh has been fielded, the going doesnt seem to be too easy because sitting Congress MLA and former minister Tarun Bhanot is considered a much stronger candidate.

Bhanot who belongs to a powerful Congress family had won the seat even in 2013 at the peak of the Modi wave.

In the adjoining Mandla district, sitting MP from the Mandla-ST seat and Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste makes a return to Vidhan Sabha polls from the Niwas-ST seat.

If the sitting Congress MLA from the seat Ashok Marskole is again fielded, it might be a tough battle for the Union minister.

Day after 2nd list, party releases 3rd list

A day after naming 39 candidates in its second list, the BJP came out with the third list of just one candidate  Monika Batti.

A law graduate, Batti is named the candidate from the Amarwara-ST seat in Chhindwara district, which has been the state Congress chief Kamal Naths pocket borough for over 40 years.

Monika, who quit as the president of Akhil Bhartiya Gondwana Party, is the daughter of powerful tribal politician Late Manmohan Shah Batti, who had won the same Amarwara-ST seat in 2003 on Gondwana Gantantra Party ticket.

Amarwara-ST seat of Chhindwara district has been won by Kamlesh Shah in the last two polls.

All seven seats of Chhindwara were won by the Congress in 2018.

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BHOPAL: Faced with anti-incumbency in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has named seven sitting Lok Sabha members, including three Union ministers for the upcoming assembly polls, but the road to success doesnt seem easy for some of the big guns. Four-time MP from the Satna constituency of Vindhya region Ganesh Singh has been fielded from the Satna assembly seat that falls under his parliamentary constituency. But the powerful OBC leader could find things a bit too hard as the upper caste, particularly Brahmins, hold a decisive sway here. In the neighbouring Sidhi district, the party has fielded second-time Lok Sabha member Riti Pathak from Sidhi assembly seat. The seat has been won in the last three polls by BJPs veteran Brahmin leader Kedarnath Shukla, who has been denied a ticket possibly over the July 2023 controversy generated by a viral video showing his alleged supporter Pravesh Shukla urinating on a tribal man.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); With Kedarnath Shukla being among those few BJP politicians, whose vote has increased in every assembly poll, he is readying to contest against Pathak as an independent candidate, sources close to Shuklas family said. In the Gadarwara seat in central MP, the ruling party has fielded a third-time MP from Hoshangabad Pratap Singh, who, according to sources, was lobbying for a ticket from either Tendukheda seat or Seoni-Malwa as both these seats have a sizeable chunk of Jat community voters. Not only does the Gadarwara seat have a lower number of Jat voters, but also the denial of tickets to Brahmin and Kourav-Patel ticket aspirants could make things tough for him. In the Jabalpur-West seat, from where the fourth-time sitting Jabalpur MP and former state BJP president Rakesh Singh has been fielded, the going doesnt seem to be too easy because sitting Congress MLA and former minister Tarun Bhanot is considered a much stronger candidate. Bhanot who belongs to a powerful Congress family had won the seat even in 2013 at the peak of the Modi wave. In the adjoining Mandla district, sitting MP from the Mandla-ST seat and Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste makes a return to Vidhan Sabha polls from the Niwas-ST seat. If the sitting Congress MLA from the seat Ashok Marskole is again fielded, it might be a tough battle for the Union minister. Day after 2nd list, party releases 3rd list A day after naming 39 candidates in its second list, the BJP came out with the third list of just one candidate  Monika Batti. A law graduate, Batti is named the candidate from the Amarwara-ST seat in Chhindwara district, which has been the state Congress chief Kamal Naths pocket borough for over 40 years. Monika, who quit as the president of Akhil Bhartiya Gondwana Party, is the daughter of powerful tribal politician Late Manmohan Shah Batti, who had won the same Amarwara-ST seat in 2003 on Gondwana Gantantra Party ticket. Amarwara-ST seat of Chhindwara district has been won by Kamlesh Shah in the last two polls. All seven seats of Chhindwara were won by the Congress in 2018. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Agencies

A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, will reach Imphal in a special flight on Wednesday to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two Meitei students who went missing in the northeastern state on July 6, sources told PTI.

The decision was taken within hours of the case being handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Manipur government.

The team of officials under Bhatnagar, the second-in-command in the federal agency, will also have Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is camping in Imphal, sources told PTI.

The team will comprise officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation and technical surveillance. It will also have experts from the CBI's elite Central Forensic Science Laboratory, sources told PTI.

Photos of the bodies of the two students -- Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) -- who have been missing since July, went viral on social media on Monday. In one photo, the two students are seen sitting on a grassy compound with two armed men in the background. Another photo showed their bodies with the head of Hemjit appearing to be missing.

Police had previously said the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off. The last location of their mobile handsets was traced to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district, police had said.

In a post on X, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said: "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the state that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators."

He said the presence of the CBI officers in the state "underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter". "I have been constantly in touch with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri @AmitShah ji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice," Singh said.

Security personnel have been put on alert and additional measures have been taken to prevent any incident following the photos of the deceased students going viral, the Chief Minister's statement added. The government has also appealed to the public to exercise restraint and to let the authorities handle the investigation.

Killing of 2 students triggers massive protest in Manipur, over 50 injured

Over 50 students were injured in the Manipur capital Imphal on Tuesday during a massive protest against the killing of two missing students.

Thousands of students on Tuesday hit the streets to condemn the killings and demand justice for the slain duo. When they attempted to march towards the residence of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, police and paramilitary personnel fired tear gas shells and smoke bombs to disperse them.

State govt suspends internet services

After fresh violence on Tuesday, the government reimposed the ban on mobile internet and internet services through VPN in the state for five days with immediate effect. Mobile internet services, suspended on May 3 over of ethnic violence, were restored three days ago.

More than 175 people have been killed and several hundreds injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.

(With inputs from PTI and Express News Service)

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A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, will reach Imphal in a special flight on Wednesday to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two Meitei students who went missing in the northeastern state on July 6, sources told PTI. The decision was taken within hours of the case being handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Manipur government. The team of officials under Bhatnagar, the second-in-command in the federal agency, will also have Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is camping in Imphal, sources told PTI.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The team will comprise officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation and technical surveillance. It will also have experts from the CBI's elite Central Forensic Science Laboratory, sources told PTI. Photos of the bodies of the two students -- Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) -- who have been missing since July, went viral on social media on Monday. In one photo, the two students are seen sitting on a grassy compound with two armed men in the background. Another photo showed their bodies with the head of Hemjit appearing to be missing. Police had previously said the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off. The last location of their mobile handsets was traced to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district, police had said. In a post on X, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said: "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the state that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." He said the presence of the CBI officers in the state "underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter". "I have been constantly in touch with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri @AmitShah ji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice," Singh said. Security personnel have been put on alert and additional measures have been taken to prevent any incident following the photos of the deceased students going viral, the Chief Minister's statement added. The government has also appealed to the public to exercise restraint and to let the authorities handle the investigation. Killing of 2 students triggers massive protest in Manipur, over 50 injured Over 50 students were injured in the Manipur capital Imphal on Tuesday during a massive protest against the killing of two missing students. Thousands of students on Tuesday hit the streets to condemn the killings and demand justice for the slain duo. When they attempted to march towards the residence of Chief Minister N Biren Singh, police and paramilitary personnel fired tear gas shells and smoke bombs to disperse them. State govt suspends internet services After fresh violence on Tuesday, the government reimposed the ban on mobile internet and internet services through VPN in the state for five days with immediate effect. Mobile internet services, suspended on May 3 over of ethnic violence, were restored three days ago. More than 175 people have been killed and several hundreds injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts. (With inputs from PTI and Express News Service) Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency Wednesday detained several suspects during a massive multi-state crackdown on a nexus of terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers, an official said.

The raids related to cases against the associates of Arsh Dalla, a listed terrorist, and many dreaded gangsters, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The respective state police force provided necessary support to the daylong raids carried out at 53 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The official said pistols, ammunition, a large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raids aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-smuggler nexus.

The action focused on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs working with drug smugglers and terror outfits based in Pakistan, the UAE, Canada, Portugal and other countries, he said.

Some of the locations where raids were conducted included Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozepur, SAS Naga and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand, the spokesperson said.

Raids were also carried out in the southeast district of Delhi-NCR and Chandigarh, he said.

Besides Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri and Deepak Tinu, the spokesperson said.

The raids were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by the NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new registered against organised criminal gangs in July this year.

The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits and extortion by gangsters many of whom are lodged in jails or are operating from various foreign countries, the spokesperson said.

Investigations have revealed that these conspiracies were being hatched in jails in various states and were being executed by an organised network of foreign-based operatives.

These conspiracies included the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year, the spokesperson said.

The official said many of the criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now carrying out terror and violence-related activities from there.

"These criminals have been engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions," the spokesperson said.

The official said the spotlight on these gangs got sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail.

The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to the seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition.

The agency has so far frozen 87 bank accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles.

Also, two absconders have been declared designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused as Proclaimed Offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) issued against nine others as a result of NIA's efforts to destroy and dismantle the deadly nexus between terrorists like Dalla and dreaded gangsters and drug smugglers, the spokesperson said.

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NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency Wednesday detained several suspects during a massive multi-state crackdown on a nexus of terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers, an official said. The raids related to cases against the associates of Arsh Dalla, a listed terrorist, and many dreaded gangsters, a spokesperson of the federal agency said. The respective state police force provided necessary support to the daylong raids carried out at 53 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The official said pistols, ammunition, a large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raids aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-smuggler nexus. The action focused on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs working with drug smugglers and terror outfits based in Pakistan, the UAE, Canada, Portugal and other countries, he said. Some of the locations where raids were conducted included Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozepur, SAS Naga and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand, the spokesperson said. Raids were also carried out in the southeast district of Delhi-NCR and Chandigarh, he said. Besides Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri and Deepak Tinu, the spokesperson said. The raids were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by the NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new registered against organised criminal gangs in July this year. The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits and extortion by gangsters many of whom are lodged in jails or are operating from various foreign countries, the spokesperson said. Investigations have revealed that these conspiracies were being hatched in jails in various states and were being executed by an organised network of foreign-based operatives. These conspiracies included the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year, the spokesperson said. The official said many of the criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now carrying out terror and violence-related activities from there. "These criminals have been engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions," the spokesperson said. The official said the spotlight on these gangs got sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail. The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to the seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition. The agency has so far frozen 87 bank accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles. Also, two absconders have been declared designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused as Proclaimed Offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) issued against nine others as a result of NIA's efforts to destroy and dismantle the deadly nexus between terrorists like Dalla and dreaded gangsters and drug smugglers, the spokesperson said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Head of Ukraine's mission to NATO Natalia Halibarenko claims that at the headquarters of NATO there are no discussions, either official or unofficial, about granting Ukraine membership in NATO in exchange for the surrender of temporarily occupied territories of Russia.

"There are no such discussions at headquarters. We spoke with various delegations, who confirmed that even at unofficial levels there is no such discussion and never took place," she said in a conversation with Ukrainian journalists in Brussels.

In this regard, the Ukrainian diplomat mentioned the words of Director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General Stian Jenssen, previously disseminated in the media, which, as she noted, were taken out of context and were subsequently refuted.

Answering a clarifying question about whether there were "peaceful indecent proposals" from the partners, Halibarenko said: "I'll be honest: never at headquarters. At some forums where experts and non-governmental organizations gather, I heard statements that Ukraine should take into account the experience of Germany, which joined NATO in parts. But these are informal discussions in which the waters are tested: they want to see what the reaction will be to certain proposals. Here at NATO headquarters there is no such thing."

The head of Ukraine's mission to NATO said the discussions taking place at headquarters mostly concern how Ukraine can combine military operations to achieve victory over Russia with reforms. "Everyone understands how difficult this is. Sometimes our partners even admit that they demand too much from us, because for reforms we are given the same demands that countries fulfilled in peacetime. We do not have ten years to carry out reforms and achieve intercompatibility. We have different deadlines," Halibarenko said.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Amid the row over BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri's using derogatory remarks in the Lok Sabha against him, BSP lawmaker Danish Ali on Wednesday claimed some people were sending him hateful and threatening messages and urged the Delhi Police to take action.

Ali also shared on X the screenshot of a purported hate message in Hindi referring to the derogatory remarks made by Bidhuri.

"Since the parliament episode came to light last Friday, some individuals are sending hateful messages and issued threats to my life. Hope Delhi Police will notice and take appropriate action," the Lok Sabha MP from Amroha said on X and tagged Home Minister Amit Shah.

Bidhuri's remarks targeting Ali during a discussion on the success of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission last Thursday sparked a furore, with opposition leaders calling for stringent action against the BJP MP.

ALSO READ | India saw 255 Islamophobic hate speech events in 2023, most in BJP-ruled states

In a post on X on Tuesday, Ali shared an over 30-second video clip in which he is seen protesting Bidhuri's remarks to the chair and demanding the BJP MP apologise.

The BSP MP had on Monday questioned the "delay" in action against the leader of the ruling party and alleged the comments seem to have been sanctioned by the BJP's top leadership to build a narrative around him and his community.

Ali also claimed that evidence was being "dug up" against him from the day the incident took place.

Several BJP MPs have urged Speaker Om Birla to also probe BSP MP Danish Ali's conduct in Lok Sabha.

On Friday, Ali had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Birla, demanding the issue of Bidhuri using abusive language on the floor of the House be referred to the privileges committee. Ali had sought an immediate inquiry into the matter.

Opposition parties have rallied around Ali and targeted the BJP on its MP's remarks. Several members of Congress, TMC and NCP among others have written to Birla seeking the strictest action against Bidhuri.

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NEW DELHI: Amid the row over BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri's using derogatory remarks in the Lok Sabha against him, BSP lawmaker Danish Ali on Wednesday claimed some people were sending him hateful and threatening messages and urged the Delhi Police to take action. Ali also shared on X the screenshot of a purported hate message in Hindi referring to the derogatory remarks made by Bidhuri. "Since the parliament episode came to light last Friday, some individuals are sending hateful messages and issued threats to my life. Hope Delhi Police will notice and take appropriate action," the Lok Sabha MP from Amroha said on X and tagged Home Minister Amit Shah.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Bidhuri's remarks targeting Ali during a discussion on the success of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission last Thursday sparked a furore, with opposition leaders calling for stringent action against the BJP MP. ALSO READ | India saw 255 Islamophobic hate speech events in 2023, most in BJP-ruled states In a post on X on Tuesday, Ali shared an over 30-second video clip in which he is seen protesting Bidhuri's remarks to the chair and demanding the BJP MP apologise. The BSP MP had on Monday questioned the "delay" in action against the leader of the ruling party and alleged the comments seem to have been sanctioned by the BJP's top leadership to build a narrative around him and his community. Ali also claimed that evidence was being "dug up" against him from the day the incident took place. Several BJP MPs have urged Speaker Om Birla to also probe BSP MP Danish Ali's conduct in Lok Sabha. On Friday, Ali had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Birla, demanding the issue of Bidhuri using abusive language on the floor of the House be referred to the privileges committee. Ali had sought an immediate inquiry into the matter. Opposition parties have rallied around Ali and targeted the BJP on its MP's remarks. Several members of Congress, TMC and NCP among others have written to Birla seeking the strictest action against Bidhuri. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
Narendra Sethi By

Express News Service

DEHRADUN: A report by the National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee (NIH) said tampering with drainage routes and lack of drainage system has further aggravated the cause of devastation and damage in Joshimath.

The National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee (NIH) report clearly mentions, "The water source at JP Colony in Joshimath on January 1, 2023, took everyone by surprise. "Initially, this water was coming out at the rate of 17 liters per minute, which reached 540 liters per minute on February 6. After this, the situation returned to normal", the report said.

"Natural drainage is not possible in these areas," the NIH report said, highlighting the geological and geomorphological status of Joshimath's Sunil Ward, Manohar Bagh, JP Colony, and Singhdhar area.

"The possibility of a drain being built in this area is negligible, whatever water came from above, it entered the ground and came in the form of a waterfall around JP Colony. "The old map of the Survey of India shows six natural water springs around JP Colony, while the institute has identified 16 water springs here in the study," the NIH report said.

"Natural water sources and stormwater drains have been blocked due to uncontrolled development in Joshimath", mentioned prominently by several scientific institutions in their reports. Due to the Chardham Yatra route, large constructions were erected in an uncontrolled manner, causing a natural disaster to submerge the land in Joshimath.

The report also seriously advises with the opinion of experts that "the development of this sector needs to be controlled and in line with the standards and monitored through technology available in satellite or remote sensing".

Earlier, The New Indian Express had quoted experts as citing possible reasons for the landslide at Joshimath, which are now coming out in the report. Y P Sundariyal, the then professor of geology at Hemati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, and Delhi-based geologist Naresh Rana had expressed deep concern over this at that time.

"Excessive overloading of new buildings and lack of sewerage, drainage system and thousands of litres of wastewater seeping into the ground daily led to conditions of land submergence in Joshimath", the report said, "Based on satellite imagery, the Indian remote sensing agency had said that Joshimath town shrank 2.5 inches every year between 2020 and March 2022".

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DEHRADUN: A report by the National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee (NIH) said tampering with drainage routes and lack of drainage system has further aggravated the cause of devastation and damage in Joshimath. The National Institute of Hydrology Roorkee (NIH) report clearly mentions, "The water source at JP Colony in Joshimath on January 1, 2023, took everyone by surprise. "Initially, this water was coming out at the rate of 17 liters per minute, which reached 540 liters per minute on February 6. After this, the situation returned to normal", the report said. "Natural drainage is not possible in these areas," the NIH report said, highlighting the geological and geomorphological status of Joshimath's Sunil Ward, Manohar Bagh, JP Colony, and Singhdhar area.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "The possibility of a drain being built in this area is negligible, whatever water came from above, it entered the ground and came in the form of a waterfall around JP Colony. "The old map of the Survey of India shows six natural water springs around JP Colony, while the institute has identified 16 water springs here in the study," the NIH report said. "Natural water sources and stormwater drains have been blocked due to uncontrolled development in Joshimath", mentioned prominently by several scientific institutions in their reports. Due to the Chardham Yatra route, large constructions were erected in an uncontrolled manner, causing a natural disaster to submerge the land in Joshimath. The report also seriously advises with the opinion of experts that "the development of this sector needs to be controlled and in line with the standards and monitored through technology available in satellite or remote sensing". Earlier, The New Indian Express had quoted experts as citing possible reasons for the landslide at Joshimath, which are now coming out in the report. Y P Sundariyal, the then professor of geology at Hemati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, and Delhi-based geologist Naresh Rana had expressed deep concern over this at that time. "Excessive overloading of new buildings and lack of sewerage, drainage system and thousands of litres of wastewater seeping into the ground daily led to conditions of land submergence in Joshimath", the report said, "Based on satellite imagery, the Indian remote sensing agency had said that Joshimath town shrank 2.5 inches every year between 2020 and March 2022". Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: Making the latest change in its plan to stage a protest in Delhi next month, the TMC has decided to take over 2,000 men and women job-card holders under the 100-day employment guarantee scheme to the national capital by a special train to participate in a programme the party plans to organise to press for the Centres release of funds due to Bengal.

The sit-in-demonstration led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees nephew and TMCs national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to be held on October 2.

Though Mamata had earlier announced that she would be present in the protest event she decided to skip as the doctors prescribed her rest for 10 days because of her old knee injuries.

TMC claims Bengal has central dues amounting to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore, of which around Rs 7,000 crore is on account of the 100-day employment guarantee scheme.

The party leadership wants to make the protest event a mega show in the national capital and this is why the plan to take the beneficiaries of the rural job scheme as participants was taken. The partys district-level functionaries have been asked to send as many women job card holders as possible. We are focused on involving the women in the protest programme as the women electorates had played a crucial role in TMCs thumping victory in the 2021 Assembly elections, said a senior TMC leader.

TMCs district leaders were asked to select at least 10 job card holders, including women, from each of the 341 blocks and engage one person as their handlers. The party finally decided to shortlist over 2,000 job card holders from 3,410 as the venue of the protest is Delhi where police report to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, said the leader.

Sources in the party said they reserved a train to transport the job-card holders from various districts to Delhi. Besides, TMC MPs, MLAs and senior zilla parishad functionaries will also participate in the protest event.

The train with over 2,000 people will leave Howrah on September 30 and depart from Delhi on October 3, said another TMC leader.

While addressing the annual Martyrs Day rally on July 21 in Kolkata, Mamata had said if the BJP tried keeping the protesters from entering Delhi, she would lead the protest from whichever point her people were stopped and ensure the voice of Bengals masses reached the ears of the national leaders in Delhi.

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KOLKATA: Making the latest change in its plan to stage a protest in Delhi next month, the TMC has decided to take over 2,000 men and women job-card holders under the 100-day employment guarantee scheme to the national capital by a special train to participate in a programme the party plans to organise to press for the Centres release of funds due to Bengal. The sit-in-demonstration led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees nephew and TMCs national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to be held on October 2. Though Mamata had earlier announced that she would be present in the protest event she decided to skip as the doctors prescribed her rest for 10 days because of her old knee injuries.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); TMC claims Bengal has central dues amounting to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore, of which around Rs 7,000 crore is on account of the 100-day employment guarantee scheme. The party leadership wants to make the protest event a mega show in the national capital and this is why the plan to take the beneficiaries of the rural job scheme as participants was taken. The partys district-level functionaries have been asked to send as many women job card holders as possible. We are focused on involving the women in the protest programme as the women electorates had played a crucial role in TMCs thumping victory in the 2021 Assembly elections, said a senior TMC leader. TMCs district leaders were asked to select at least 10 job card holders, including women, from each of the 341 blocks and engage one person as their handlers. The party finally decided to shortlist over 2,000 job card holders from 3,410 as the venue of the protest is Delhi where police report to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, said the leader. Sources in the party said they reserved a train to transport the job-card holders from various districts to Delhi. Besides, TMC MPs, MLAs and senior zilla parishad functionaries will also participate in the protest event. The train with over 2,000 people will leave Howrah on September 30 and depart from Delhi on October 3, said another TMC leader. While addressing the annual Martyrs Day rally on July 21 in Kolkata, Mamata had said if the BJP tried keeping the protesters from entering Delhi, she would lead the protest from whichever point her people were stopped and ensure the voice of Bengals masses reached the ears of the national leaders in Delhi. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Online Desk

A 12-year-old mentally challenged girl was found half-naked and soaked in blood after being raped in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain, according to local media reports.

CCTV visuals show the minor wandering in a semi-naked state and asking for help from the public who refuse. Afterwards, the girl reportedly fainted near Dandi Ashram and was finally rescued by sadhus (priests). The ashram sadhus first covered the girl properly with a towel and subsequently rushed her to the local government hospital, after which the matter came to the local polices notice.

Charak Hospital doctors confirmed she was raped and found that her private parts were damaged and that there was bleeding. The doctors also revealed that the victim was suffering from diabetes.

The cops who escorted the alleged sexual assault survivor girl to Indore, donated their blood to save the girls life.

Later, she was referred by doctors of the government hospital in Ujjain to adjoining Indore city, where she is now reported to be stable.

Initial investigation revealed that she is from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. She has reportedly been unable to explain how she arrived in Ujjain.

Shocker in religious city Ujjain: A mentally challenged minor (aged between 12 and 15 yrs) possibly hailing from Prayagraj (UP) raped by unidentified accused in Ujjain. The savagery happened on September 25. @NewIndianXpress @TheMornStandard @santwana99 @Shahid_Faridi_  Anuraag Singh (@anuraag_niebpl) September 27, 2023

A case of sexual assault (rape) has been lodged at the Mahakal police station and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have also been invoked. A special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe the entire matter, including the place of the crime and those involved. Though the girl is unable to tell things clearly, her language suggests she could be from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, Ujjain district police superintendent Sachin Sharma said.

On July 28, a minor, hailing from a very poor Scheduled Caste family, was gang-raped by two men, in the jungles close to the Goddess Sharda Temple in Maihar town of Satna district of MP.

Taking to the social media platform X, state Congress president Kamal Nath listed a series of questions, seeking a reply from the CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Isnt the daughter with whom the savagery happened in Ujjain, also a Ladli Laxmi and Ladli Behna, will you only be focused on fighting polls and making false announcements, will you only inundate hoardings with images of daughters created from artificial intelligence or really focus on the security on real daughters on the ground. I demand that the culprits of the Ujjain savagery be rendered the sternest punishment and the sexual assault survivor's daughter be given Rs 1 crore financial assistance.

Earlier this month, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her father in Bairagarh on September 6. Bairagarh police had registered a rape case against the accused under relevant sections of the IPC and POSCO Act and arrested him.

(With inputs from Express News Service)

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A 12-year-old mentally challenged girl was found half-naked and soaked in blood after being raped in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain, according to local media reports. CCTV visuals show the minor wandering in a semi-naked state and asking for help from the public who refuse. Afterwards, the girl reportedly fainted near Dandi Ashram and was finally rescued by sadhus (priests). The ashram sadhus first covered the girl properly with a towel and subsequently rushed her to the local government hospital, after which the matter came to the local polices notice. Charak Hospital doctors confirmed she was raped and found that her private parts were damaged and that there was bleeding. The doctors also revealed that the victim was suffering from diabetes.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The cops who escorted the alleged sexual assault survivor girl to Indore, donated their blood to save the girls life. Later, she was referred by doctors of the government hospital in Ujjain to adjoining Indore city, where she is now reported to be stable. Initial investigation revealed that she is from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. She has reportedly been unable to explain how she arrived in Ujjain. Shocker in religious city Ujjain: A mentally challenged minor (aged between 12 and 15 yrs) possibly hailing from Prayagraj (UP) raped by unidentified accused in Ujjain. The savagery happened on September 25. @NewIndianXpress @TheMornStandard @santwana99 @Shahid_Faridi_  Anuraag Singh (@anuraag_niebpl) September 27, 2023 A case of sexual assault (rape) has been lodged at the Mahakal police station and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have also been invoked. A special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe the entire matter, including the place of the crime and those involved. Though the girl is unable to tell things clearly, her language suggests she could be from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, Ujjain district police superintendent Sachin Sharma said. On July 28, a minor, hailing from a very poor Scheduled Caste family, was gang-raped by two men, in the jungles close to the Goddess Sharda Temple in Maihar town of Satna district of MP. Taking to the social media platform X, state Congress president Kamal Nath listed a series of questions, seeking a reply from the CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Isnt the daughter with whom the savagery happened in Ujjain, also a Ladli Laxmi and Ladli Behna, will you only be focused on fighting polls and making false announcements, will you only inundate hoardings with images of daughters created from artificial intelligence or really focus on the security on real daughters on the ground. I demand that the culprits of the Ujjain savagery be rendered the sternest punishment and the sexual assault survivor's daughter be given Rs 1 crore financial assistance. Earlier this month, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her father in Bairagarh on September 6. Bairagarh police had registered a rape case against the accused under relevant sections of the IPC and POSCO Act and arrested him. (With inputs from Express News Service) Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By Associated Press

BRUSSELS: A prominent Belgian bishop on Wednesday criticized the Vatican for failing to defrock a former bishop who admitted sexually abusing children, saying it had led to massive frustration with the highest Roman Catholic authorities.

Disgraced bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was brought down by a sexual abuse scandal 13 years ago, became a symbol in Belgium of the Roman Catholic church's hypocrisy in dealing with abuse in its own ranks.

We, the (Belgian) bishops, have been asking for years for a reaction. The letters are there, the discussions. All noted down in lists. When will we have a reaction? And why dont we get one?" Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp, said on broadcaster VRTs website.

Vangheluwe shot to international infamy amid disclosures he had sexually abused his young nephew for over a dozen years when he was a priest and later a bishop. He later admitted he also abused a second nephew. The whole time, he made light of his crimes.

Reacting to a VRT series on child sexual abuse in the church, Deserted by God, Bonny said that even if the Belgian church authorities wanted to take more action against Vangheluwe, the Vatican stood in their way.

I want to honestly say that our conference of bishops has been asking Rome to do this for years  through the nuncio (papal envoy) and directly in Rome, Bonny said. Last year in November during the visit of the bishops to Rome, we put it up for discussion again, and after the umpteenth time, Rome's reaction is no different."

The Associated Press has asked the Vatican for its reaction to Bonnys remarks.

His acknowledgement underscores a popular belief that even if there is a willingness at the grassroot level to take action, the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy are too slow or loathe to take forceful action.

In Vangheluwe's case, the scandal was compounded when it became clear that his superior, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, had approached one of the victims and sought to keep the scandal secret until the bishop retired.

Rumours of child sexual abuse by clergy in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation of 11.5 million had been rampant for generations, affecting just about every Catholic school or parish. However, evidence was rare: instances were rarely punished and quickly suppressed until Vangheluwes case proved a watershed moment.

In the wake of the scandal, a special commission produced a report with harrowing accounts of Catholic clergy molesting hundreds of victims, some as young as two years old, and said the abuse led to at least 13 suicides. The head of the commission said in reality, the abuse was even worse but many victims could still not bring themselves to talk.

Despite his actions and a self-professed commitment to move somewhere hidden to contemplate his errors, Vangheluwe showed little remorse. While he gave up the Bruges bishopric, he refused to heed the many calls to leave the priesthood altogether.

In 2011, Vangheluwe spoke of his sexual abuse as a little game, that involved no rough sex and denied he was a paedophile since he never felt the least attraction to a child.

Trying to turn the victim into an accomplice, he said, I had the strong impression that my nephew didnt mind at all. To the contrary.

He moved to central France to live in a Roman Catholic community, never having been officially punished for his crimes. He was never prosecuted by authorities because his actions exceeded the statute of limitations.

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BRUSSELS: A prominent Belgian bishop on Wednesday criticized the Vatican for failing to defrock a former bishop who admitted sexually abusing children, saying it had led to massive frustration with the highest Roman Catholic authorities. Disgraced bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was brought down by a sexual abuse scandal 13 years ago, became a symbol in Belgium of the Roman Catholic church's hypocrisy in dealing with abuse in its own ranks. We, the (Belgian) bishops, have been asking for years for a reaction. The letters are there, the discussions. All noted down in lists. When will we have a reaction? And why dont we get one?" Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp, said on broadcaster VRTs website.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Vangheluwe shot to international infamy amid disclosures he had sexually abused his young nephew for over a dozen years when he was a priest and later a bishop. He later admitted he also abused a second nephew. The whole time, he made light of his crimes. Reacting to a VRT series on child sexual abuse in the church, Deserted by God, Bonny said that even if the Belgian church authorities wanted to take more action against Vangheluwe, the Vatican stood in their way. I want to honestly say that our conference of bishops has been asking Rome to do this for years  through the nuncio (papal envoy) and directly in Rome, Bonny said. Last year in November during the visit of the bishops to Rome, we put it up for discussion again, and after the umpteenth time, Rome's reaction is no different." The Associated Press has asked the Vatican for its reaction to Bonnys remarks. His acknowledgement underscores a popular belief that even if there is a willingness at the grassroot level to take action, the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy are too slow or loathe to take forceful action. In Vangheluwe's case, the scandal was compounded when it became clear that his superior, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, had approached one of the victims and sought to keep the scandal secret until the bishop retired. Rumours of child sexual abuse by clergy in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation of 11.5 million had been rampant for generations, affecting just about every Catholic school or parish. However, evidence was rare: instances were rarely punished and quickly suppressed until Vangheluwes case proved a watershed moment. In the wake of the scandal, a special commission produced a report with harrowing accounts of Catholic clergy molesting hundreds of victims, some as young as two years old, and said the abuse led to at least 13 suicides. The head of the commission said in reality, the abuse was even worse but many victims could still not bring themselves to talk. Despite his actions and a self-professed commitment to move somewhere hidden to contemplate his errors, Vangheluwe showed little remorse. While he gave up the Bruges bishopric, he refused to heed the many calls to leave the priesthood altogether. In 2011, Vangheluwe spoke of his sexual abuse as a little game, that involved no rough sex and denied he was a paedophile since he never felt the least attraction to a child. Trying to turn the victim into an accomplice, he said, I had the strong impression that my nephew didnt mind at all. To the contrary. He moved to central France to live in a Roman Catholic community, never having been officially punished for his crimes. He was never prosecuted by authorities because his actions exceeded the statute of limitations. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By AFP

JAKARTA: Indonesia has banned goods transactions on social media platforms in a new regulation, its trade minister said Wednesday, as Jakarta aims to rein in direct sales on major platforms it says are harming millions of small businesses.

Calls have grown in recent months for a regulation governing social media and e-commerce, with offline sellers seeing their livelihoods threatened by the sale of cheaper products on TikTok Shop and other platforms.

"This trade regulation has been in force (since yesterday)," Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan told a news conference in the capital Jakarta.

He said social commerce platforms would have a week to comply with the new rule.

"Any government would protect local small businesses," he said, saying the regulation was passed to ensure "equality in business competition".

The regulation means social media firms will not be able to conduct direct transactions but only promote products on their platforms.

"Social commerce can place ads like TV, but it mustn't be transactional. (They) can't open shop, can't directly sell," he said, without mentioning TikTok by name.

Laws in the archipelago nation did not cover direct transactions through social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook or Instagram before the new regulation.

The new regulation is yet another setback for TikTok, which has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations in recent months over users' data security and the company's alleged ties to Beijing.

"Other countries are banning, we don't, (we're) regulating," Hasan said.

Indonesia is one of the world's biggest markets for TikTok Shop and was the first to pilot the app's e-commerce arm.

But Indonesia is now the first country in the region to act against the platform's growing popularity in social media commerce.

The ministerial-level regulation -- an amendment to a trade regulation issued in 2020 -- did not need approval by lawmakers.

Chinese technology giant and TikTok owner ByteDance and TikTok Indonesia did not respond immediately to a request for comment Wednesday.

But a TikTok Indonesia spokesperson told AFP on Monday the ban would harm as many as six million local sellers who market their products on the platform.

Meta -- which owns Facebook and Instagram -- did not respond to a request for comment.

'Markets are quiet'

How the ban will work exactly remains unclear but experts said it could mean social media firms would have to obtain a separate approval for their e-commerce arms.

"It could be that their license will be rearranged," said Tauhid Ahmad, executive director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Development of Economics and Finance.

Offline sellers at Tanah Abang market in Jakarta applauded the government's decision.

"The government should... dare to innovate given the current situation, where markets are quiet like this," said Stevanie Ahua, a 60-year-old wholesale denim jeans seller.

She said her revenue had dropped by 60 per cent in recent months as buyers turned to online shops.

Others like 29-year-old cookie baker Panji Made Agung in Bali said he was disappointed by the ban.

"For sellers like me, TikTok can be used for soft selling. We can become influencers and sellers at the same time," he said.

Indonesia's e-commerce market is dominated by platforms such as Tokopedia, Shopee and Lazada but TikTok Shop gained a significant market share since launching in 2021.

Indonesia, with 125 million users, is TikTok's second-largest global market after the United States, according to company figures.

TikTok's chief executive Shou Zi Chew visited Jakarta in June, pledging to pour billions of dollars into Southeast Asia in the coming years.

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JAKARTA: Indonesia has banned goods transactions on social media platforms in a new regulation, its trade minister said Wednesday, as Jakarta aims to rein in direct sales on major platforms it says are harming millions of small businesses. Calls have grown in recent months for a regulation governing social media and e-commerce, with offline sellers seeing their livelihoods threatened by the sale of cheaper products on TikTok Shop and other platforms. "This trade regulation has been in force (since yesterday)," Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan told a news conference in the capital Jakarta.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); He said social commerce platforms would have a week to comply with the new rule. "Any government would protect local small businesses," he said, saying the regulation was passed to ensure "equality in business competition". The regulation means social media firms will not be able to conduct direct transactions but only promote products on their platforms. "Social commerce can place ads like TV, but it mustn't be transactional. (They) can't open shop, can't directly sell," he said, without mentioning TikTok by name. Laws in the archipelago nation did not cover direct transactions through social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook or Instagram before the new regulation. The new regulation is yet another setback for TikTok, which has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations in recent months over users' data security and the company's alleged ties to Beijing. "Other countries are banning, we don't, (we're) regulating," Hasan said. Indonesia is one of the world's biggest markets for TikTok Shop and was the first to pilot the app's e-commerce arm. But Indonesia is now the first country in the region to act against the platform's growing popularity in social media commerce. The ministerial-level regulation -- an amendment to a trade regulation issued in 2020 -- did not need approval by lawmakers. Chinese technology giant and TikTok owner ByteDance and TikTok Indonesia did not respond immediately to a request for comment Wednesday. But a TikTok Indonesia spokesperson told AFP on Monday the ban would harm as many as six million local sellers who market their products on the platform. Meta -- which owns Facebook and Instagram -- did not respond to a request for comment. 'Markets are quiet' How the ban will work exactly remains unclear but experts said it could mean social media firms would have to obtain a separate approval for their e-commerce arms. "It could be that their license will be rearranged," said Tauhid Ahmad, executive director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Development of Economics and Finance. Offline sellers at Tanah Abang market in Jakarta applauded the government's decision. "The government should... dare to innovate given the current situation, where markets are quiet like this," said Stevanie Ahua, a 60-year-old wholesale denim jeans seller. She said her revenue had dropped by 60 per cent in recent months as buyers turned to online shops. Others like 29-year-old cookie baker Panji Made Agung in Bali said he was disappointed by the ban. "For sellers like me, TikTok can be used for soft selling. We can become influencers and sellers at the same time," he said. Indonesia's e-commerce market is dominated by platforms such as Tokopedia, Shopee and Lazada but TikTok Shop gained a significant market share since launching in 2021. Indonesia, with 125 million users, is TikTok's second-largest global market after the United States, according to company figures. TikTok's chief executive Shou Zi Chew visited Jakarta in June, pledging to pour billions of dollars into Southeast Asia in the coming years. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By AFP

GORIS: Armenia said Wednesday that more than a third of Nagorno-Karabakh's population has fled the enclave since Azerbaijan crushed the rebels' decades-long fight for an independent state last week.

Yerevan's attempts to absorb the sea of homeless and hungry ethnic Armenians come with officials still trying to identify the whereabouts of more than 100 people reported missing in a fuel depot blast Monday that claimed 68 lives.

The fireball erupted as refugees from the rebel enclave of Azerbaijan were stocking up on fuel for the long drive along the lone mountain road leading to Armenia.

The Armenian government said 42,500 refugees had entered since Azerbaijan lifted its nine-month blockade on the enclave on Sunday.

It added that nearly five thousand more were already en route.

That represents over a third of the region's estimated 120,000 population and marks a fundamental shift in ethnic control of lands that had been disputed by mostly Christian Armenians and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijanis for the past century.

It also adds to the economic strains of Armenia -- a landlocked Caucasus country with few natural resources and emerging problems in its longstanding diplomatic and military partnership with Russia.

Pensioner Alekhan Hambardzyumyan was one of hundreds of people trying to survive on the streets of Armenia's mountaintop village of Goris after fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh this week.

Goris has become the main destination point for families fleeing their hometowns in beat-up Soviet-era Ladas and farm vehicles.

The golden-toothed 72-year-old was spending nights in a shelled-out van and grieving the loss of his son in last week's fighting.

"I want to go to Yerevan," Hambardzyumyan told AFP. "But I don't know what the state can offer me."

Humanitarian crisis

The Armenian government said it had prepared living arrangements for 40,000 families after last week's fighting broke out.

But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's spokeswoman said late Tuesday that the government had so far been able to find housing for just 2,850 people.

The looming humanitarian crisis poses a political problem for Pashinyan.

The opposition agreed to end six days of anti-government protests on Tuesday to allow officials to focus on helping the displaced.

The opposition is also fractured and lacks a single figure who can challenge Pashinyan.

But analysts say the opposition is being spearheaded by Moscow and Nagorno-Karabakh supporters who have roots in the region.

"The influx of refugees will have a serious impact on the domestic political situation in Armenia," independent political analyst Boris Navasardyan told AFP.

"Armenia lacks resources to deal with the refugee crisis and will not be able to overcome it without assistance from abroad."

Burn victims

The Red Cross and the United Nations' refugee agency are trying to organise immediate help.

But Russia is working hand-in-hand with Azerbaijani forces and focused on disarming the separatists under the terms of a ceasefire reached last Wednesday.

The separatists reported the death of 213 people in the one-day fight and Azerbaijan put its toll at 192 soldiers and one civilian killed.

Moscow is now firing daily barbs at Pashinyan for his vow Sunday to pivot away from Armenia's longstanding alliance with the Kremlin.

Pashinyan has blamed Russia for failing to avert the Azerbaijani offensive and called Armenia's current foreign security alliances "ineffective" and "insufficient".

The comments underscored the extent to which the Kremlin's influence has shrunk across former Soviet republics since it became bogged down in its war on Ukraine.

But Moscow still has an important military base in Armenia and has indicated that it will try to keep Yerevan in its sphere of influence.

Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Moscow expected "all agreements on developing bilateral cooperation ... to continue to be implemented" in full.

'I decided to act'

Much of the immediate international aid from organisations such as the Red Cross is being channelled to helping the burn victims of Monday's catastrophic blast.

The explosion happened while hundreds of people were scrambling to get access to the limited supplies of fuel still available in the region after Azerbaijan's blockade.

Today, I drove from Yerevan to near the entrance to the Lachin corridor, which is now flooded with people leaving Nagorno-Karabakh. 28k have fled to Armenia in just the last few days. Exhausted, hungry, & traumatized families are arriving, with only a few of their possessions. pic.twitter.com/84XlbZVm8m  Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) September 26, 2023

Azerbaijan waved through about 20 Red Cross ambulances on Tuesday and allowed Armenia to ferry some of the victims by helicopter to a burn clinic in Yerevan.

The blast injured 290 people in all. But officials said on Tuesday that 105 remained unaccounted for and some of the victims were still fighting for their lives.

The simultaneous crises have prompted an outpouring of support of the refugees among Armenian civil society groups and regular village residents such as Liana Sakhakyan.

The Goris native set up a table laden with cakes in front of her house to feed the hungry masses.

"When I saw so many people arriving yesterday, I decided to act," she said.

"The important thing is not just the food: it's the welcome, a warm atmosphere. This is what the displaced people of (Nagorno-Karabakh) must feel."

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GORIS: Armenia said Wednesday that more than a third of Nagorno-Karabakh's population has fled the enclave since Azerbaijan crushed the rebels' decades-long fight for an independent state last week. Yerevan's attempts to absorb the sea of homeless and hungry ethnic Armenians come with officials still trying to identify the whereabouts of more than 100 people reported missing in a fuel depot blast Monday that claimed 68 lives. The fireball erupted as refugees from the rebel enclave of Azerbaijan were stocking up on fuel for the long drive along the lone mountain road leading to Armenia.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The Armenian government said 42,500 refugees had entered since Azerbaijan lifted its nine-month blockade on the enclave on Sunday. It added that nearly five thousand more were already en route. That represents over a third of the region's estimated 120,000 population and marks a fundamental shift in ethnic control of lands that had been disputed by mostly Christian Armenians and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijanis for the past century. It also adds to the economic strains of Armenia -- a landlocked Caucasus country with few natural resources and emerging problems in its longstanding diplomatic and military partnership with Russia. Pensioner Alekhan Hambardzyumyan was one of hundreds of people trying to survive on the streets of Armenia's mountaintop village of Goris after fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh this week. Goris has become the main destination point for families fleeing their hometowns in beat-up Soviet-era Ladas and farm vehicles. The golden-toothed 72-year-old was spending nights in a shelled-out van and grieving the loss of his son in last week's fighting. "I want to go to Yerevan," Hambardzyumyan told AFP. "But I don't know what the state can offer me." Humanitarian crisis The Armenian government said it had prepared living arrangements for 40,000 families after last week's fighting broke out. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's spokeswoman said late Tuesday that the government had so far been able to find housing for just 2,850 people. The looming humanitarian crisis poses a political problem for Pashinyan. The opposition agreed to end six days of anti-government protests on Tuesday to allow officials to focus on helping the displaced. The opposition is also fractured and lacks a single figure who can challenge Pashinyan. But analysts say the opposition is being spearheaded by Moscow and Nagorno-Karabakh supporters who have roots in the region. "The influx of refugees will have a serious impact on the domestic political situation in Armenia," independent political analyst Boris Navasardyan told AFP. "Armenia lacks resources to deal with the refugee crisis and will not be able to overcome it without assistance from abroad." Burn victims The Red Cross and the United Nations' refugee agency are trying to organise immediate help. But Russia is working hand-in-hand with Azerbaijani forces and focused on disarming the separatists under the terms of a ceasefire reached last Wednesday. The separatists reported the death of 213 people in the one-day fight and Azerbaijan put its toll at 192 soldiers and one civilian killed. Moscow is now firing daily barbs at Pashinyan for his vow Sunday to pivot away from Armenia's longstanding alliance with the Kremlin. Pashinyan has blamed Russia for failing to avert the Azerbaijani offensive and called Armenia's current foreign security alliances "ineffective" and "insufficient". The comments underscored the extent to which the Kremlin's influence has shrunk across former Soviet republics since it became bogged down in its war on Ukraine. But Moscow still has an important military base in Armenia and has indicated that it will try to keep Yerevan in its sphere of influence. Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Moscow expected "all agreements on developing bilateral cooperation ... to continue to be implemented" in full. 'I decided to act' Much of the immediate international aid from organisations such as the Red Cross is being channelled to helping the burn victims of Monday's catastrophic blast. The explosion happened while hundreds of people were scrambling to get access to the limited supplies of fuel still available in the region after Azerbaijan's blockade. Today, I drove from Yerevan to near the entrance to the Lachin corridor, which is now flooded with people leaving Nagorno-Karabakh. 28k have fled to Armenia in just the last few days. Exhausted, hungry, & traumatized families are arriving, with only a few of their possessions. pic.twitter.com/84XlbZVm8m  Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) September 26, 2023 Azerbaijan waved through about 20 Red Cross ambulances on Tuesday and allowed Armenia to ferry some of the victims by helicopter to a burn clinic in Yerevan. The blast injured 290 people in all. But officials said on Tuesday that 105 remained unaccounted for and some of the victims were still fighting for their lives. The simultaneous crises have prompted an outpouring of support of the refugees among Armenian civil society groups and regular village residents such as Liana Sakhakyan. The Goris native set up a table laden with cakes in front of her house to feed the hungry masses. "When I saw so many people arriving yesterday, I decided to act," she said. "The important thing is not just the food: it's the welcome, a warm atmosphere. This is what the displaced people of (Nagorno-Karabakh) must feel." Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp
By PTI

NEW YORK: In the wake of Canada's allegations about India's "potential" involvement in the killing of a Khalistani separatist on its soil, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that New Delhi conveyed to Ottawa that it is not the government of India's policy and it is open to looking at "specific" and "relevant" information in the case.

Jaishankar made the comments in a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday after addressing the UN General Assembly session.

"Yes, I do have a comment.

I'll share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians," Jaishankar said when asked if he had any comment on recent allegations by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that "agents of the government of India are linked to the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil on June 18.

"One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy," Jaishankar said.

"Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know.

We are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said while responding to a question from former US Ambassador to India and CFR Distinguished Fellow Kenneth Juster, in his first public comments on the issue.

Jaishankar asserted that one must also understand the context because the "picture is not complete" without the context of it.

"You also have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence, extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up," he said.

He said India has been talking about "specifics and information".

ALSO READ | Jaishankar asks UN members not to let 'political convenience' determine responses to terrorism, extremism

"We have actually been badgering the Canadians, we have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified," he said, adding that one has to understand that there is an "environment out there.

"That is important in a way to factor in if you have to understand what is going on out there. And our concern is that it's really been very permissive because of political reasons. So, we have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made about 'there's interference in our politics'. And, a lot of this is often justified as saying, well, that's how democracies work," Jaishankar said.

When asked by Juster whether the government of India will cooperate with Canada if there are specific pieces of evidence provided to it, Jaishankar said, "If somebody gives me something specific, it doesn't have to be restricted to Canada, but if there is any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government I would look at it. Of course, I would look at it."

Tensions flared between India and Canada following Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.

India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

Jaishankar was asked about reports that intelligence about the killing was shared amongst the Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and that the FBI is telling Sikh leaders in the US that there are credible threats to them.

"I'm not part of the Five Eyes. I'm certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person," Jaishankar said in response to another question from a journalist.

He was then asked about Canadians providing documents to India that purported to show evidence that Indian officials in Canada were aware of the attack on Nijjar.

"Are you saying the Canadians gave us documents?" Jaishankar asked.

"I have said that if somebody gives us specific or relevant information, we are prepared to look at it," he added.

When asked again if he had not received those intercepted communications from Canada, Jaishankar replied "If I had, would I not be looking at it."

On Tuesday, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar asked the UN member states not to allow "political convenience" to determine responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, in a veiled attack on Canada amidst the diplomatic standoff over the killing of Niggar.

Meanwhile, Canadian media reported that the country's Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae has said that his Indian counterpart Ruchira Kamboj approached him after he addressed the UN Tuesday and thanked him.

"She pulled me aside to say it's important that we keep working together as the governments try to work out the situation that has to be worked on," Rae told CBC News.

"I took some comfort from that.I think there is room for diplomacy and I think we're going to see more room as we go forward."

"I think it is important for people to know that every effort has to be made to find an approach that will deal with the problem and deal with the issue that we've raised because it is extremely important," Rae said.

He added that Canadians need "to understand that there's a lot of connecting that we need to do and a lot of mutual respect that we need to achieve in order to get to a better place."

There was no immediate comment from the Indian mission on Rae's remarks.

Trudeau on Friday said that Canada shared with India "many weeks ago" evidence on the killing of Nijjar and wants New Delhi to commit constructively with Ottawa to establish the facts in the "very serious matter."

ALSO READ | Trudeau repeats allegations, says he's not looking to 'provoke', urges India to work with Canada to uncover truth

When asked about Canada sharing any information in the case with India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi said: "No specific information has been shared by Canada on this case, either then or before or after. We have, you know, as we have said, or I think we have made very clear, we are willing to look at any specific information."

Canada's Defence Minister Bill Blair on Sunday voiced concern over the measures taken by India including the suspension of visa services for Canadians and urged New Delhi to cooperate fully in the investigation of the killing of Nijjar to uncover the truth and work together to resolve it appropriately.

Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

NEW YORK: In the wake of Canada's allegations about India's "potential" involvement in the killing of a Khalistani separatist on its soil, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that New Delhi conveyed to Ottawa that it is not the government of India's policy and it is open to looking at "specific" and "relevant" information in the case. Jaishankar made the comments in a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday after addressing the UN General Assembly session. "Yes, I do have a comment.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); I'll share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians," Jaishankar said when asked if he had any comment on recent allegations by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that "agents of the government of India are linked to the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil on June 18. "One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy," Jaishankar said. "Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said while responding to a question from former US Ambassador to India and CFR Distinguished Fellow Kenneth Juster, in his first public comments on the issue. Jaishankar asserted that one must also understand the context because the "picture is not complete" without the context of it. "You also have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence, extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up," he said. He said India has been talking about "specifics and information". ALSO READ | Jaishankar asks UN members not to let 'political convenience' determine responses to terrorism, extremism "We have actually been badgering the Canadians, we have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified," he said, adding that one has to understand that there is an "environment out there. "That is important in a way to factor in if you have to understand what is going on out there. And our concern is that it's really been very permissive because of political reasons. So, we have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made about 'there's interference in our politics'. And, a lot of this is often justified as saying, well, that's how democracies work," Jaishankar said. When asked by Juster whether the government of India will cooperate with Canada if there are specific pieces of evidence provided to it, Jaishankar said, "If somebody gives me something specific, it doesn't have to be restricted to Canada, but if there is any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government I would look at it. Of course, I would look at it." Tensions flared between India and Canada following Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020. Jaishankar was asked about reports that intelligence about the killing was shared amongst the Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and that the FBI is telling Sikh leaders in the US that there are credible threats to them. "I'm not part of the Five Eyes. I'm certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person," Jaishankar said in response to another question from a journalist. He was then asked about Canadians providing documents to India that purported to show evidence that Indian officials in Canada were aware of the attack on Nijjar. "Are you saying the Canadians gave us documents?" Jaishankar asked. "I have said that if somebody gives us specific or relevant information, we are prepared to look at it," he added. When asked again if he had not received those intercepted communications from Canada, Jaishankar replied "If I had, would I not be looking at it." On Tuesday, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar asked the UN member states not to allow "political convenience" to determine responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, in a veiled attack on Canada amidst the diplomatic standoff over the killing of Niggar. Meanwhile, Canadian media reported that the country's Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae has said that his Indian counterpart Ruchira Kamboj approached him after he addressed the UN Tuesday and thanked him. "She pulled me aside to say it's important that we keep working together as the governments try to work out the situation that has to be worked on," Rae told CBC News. "I took some comfort from that.I think there is room for diplomacy and I think we're going to see more room as we go forward." "I think it is important for people to know that every effort has to be made to find an approach that will deal with the problem and deal with the issue that we've raised because it is extremely important," Rae said. He added that Canadians need "to understand that there's a lot of connecting that we need to do and a lot of mutual respect that we need to achieve in order to get to a better place." There was no immediate comment from the Indian mission on Rae's remarks. Trudeau on Friday said that Canada shared with India "many weeks ago" evidence on the killing of Nijjar and wants New Delhi to commit constructively with Ottawa to establish the facts in the "very serious matter." ALSO READ | Trudeau repeats allegations, says he's not looking to 'provoke', urges India to work with Canada to uncover truth When asked about Canada sharing any information in the case with India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi said: "No specific information has been shared by Canada on this case, either then or before or after. We have, you know, as we have said, or I think we have made very clear, we are willing to look at any specific information." Canada's Defence Minister Bill Blair on Sunday voiced concern over the measures taken by India including the suspension of visa services for Canadians and urged New Delhi to cooperate fully in the investigation of the killing of Nijjar to uncover the truth and work together to resolve it appropriately. 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Details of the structure of the Ukraine-NATO Council created during the Vilnius summit, as well as its work plan, are currently being developed for subsequent approval before the end of the year, Head of Ukraine's mission to NATO Natalia Halibarenko said.

"Now, along with the NATO Secretariat, we are working to develop the structure and work plan of the Council. The work plan will indicate when the Council will meet, at what levels, and so on," she said during a conversation with Ukrainian journalists in Brussels.

At the same time, Halibarenko said already in the decision of the Vilnius summit it is clearly defined that the Council meets at the level of ambassadors  permanent representatives, at the level of foreign ministers  twice a year, defense ministers  twice a year, heads of general staffs  once a year year and military representatives  twice a year. "Plus, it is provided that in the event of any crisis situation, the Council can be used as a crisis consultation mechanism. We have already taken advantage of this right when we convened a meeting of the Council due to Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and when Russia began to create for us threats in the Black Sea," she said.

According to the head of Ukraine's mission to NATO, work is also currently underway to establish committees and working groups within the Council. "The big advantage and big challenge for us, from my point of view, is that this is no longer format 31 plus Ukraine, we are already in format 32, which means we are talking about our institutional ability to take equal part in discussions, consultations and meetings. As well as taking part in the writing of draft documents," the Ukrainian diplomat said.

In this regard, Halibarenko said on the Ukrainian side, this work will cover many ministries and departments, "which will take part in meetings on an equal basis in NATO." "In the near future we will come to a consolidated version (of the Council's work plan), the discussion is already underway, and we will approve the work plan together with the adapted Annual National Programme. Therefore, by the end of the year we will be able to say that most of the decisions of Vilnius have been put into effect: will be introduced the adapted ANP will be put into effect, the Council will work, and in such a work process we will be able to see how all this will work together," Halibarenko said.
New Delhi, Sep 25

P ower and New & Renewable Energy Minister R.K Singh on Monday expressed confidence that India will achieve its target of producing 500 GW renewable energy well ahead of the 2030 deadline.

Addressing apex business chamber FICCI's India Energy Transition Summit 2023, the minister further stated if the country had not lost two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would have achieved the goal of setting up 50 per cent of its power generation capacity based on non-fossil fuels, by now.

India has 424 GW of power generation capacity in place which includes around 180 GW from non-fossil fuels and another 88 GW is in the process of being set up, the minister said.

"We will achieve 500 GW of renewable energy (RE) well before 2030The RE capacity addition is the fastest in the world," Singh added.

Speaking at the event, New and Renewable Energy Secretary Bhupinder Singh Bhalla said India added 15 GW of renewable energy in the last financial year (2022-23) which would be enhanced to 25 GW in 2023-24 and then stepped up to 40 GW in 2024-25. He also said 50 GW of RE projects would be put up for bidding annually from this year onwards.

India's commitments towards climate action in the Panchamrit Statement as a 5-point agenda makes Energy Transition as the most important pillar for the country's climate action plan. The launch of the National Green Hydrogen Mission has also given a boost to the efforts and initiatives of the stakeholders towards green transition.

FICCI has organised a 2nd Edition of India Energy Transition with a special focus on development of an enabling Green Hydrogen ecosystem in the country, while simultaneously also highlighting solar and wind energy, international collaborations, pumped storage and battery energy storage, financing and capacity augmentation.

Apart from policy makers and senior government functionaries, financial institutions, project developers, manufacturers, user industry, technology companies, start-ups, foundations, research and training institutions, bilateral and multilateral agencies are attending the event.

India headed to meet 500 GW green energy target ahead of 2030, says minister

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Immunisation campaign against polio launched in 24 Afghan provinces

Kabul, September 25

A vaccination campaign against polio was launched across 24 provinces of Afghanistan on Monday, Khaama Press reported, adding that the disease remains a public health concern for the country.

Citing a press statement from the Taliban's Ministry of Public Health, Khaama Press reported that as part of the vaccine programme, more than 11 million children under the age of five in the country will be immunised.

Children in this age bracket are already in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Five polio cases have been reported in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year. Health agencies affiliated to the United Nations are supporting efforts to combat this illness.

Further, according to Khaama Press, only two cases of polio were documented in Afghanistan's Paktia and Kandahar provinces in 2022.

Infantile paralysis, or polio, is a viral illness that has no known treatment, and the only method to protect infants from this virus is by immunisation.

Immunisation campaign against polio launched in 24 Afghan provinces

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Shimla, Sep 25

O n his first visit to border areas adjoining Kinnaur district in the Himalayan terrain, which shares a border with China, Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla on Monday interacted with soldiers at army base camp in Sumdoh.

He also met Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel at Lepcha, a forward post at an altitude of 13,000 feet.

The Governor's wife, Janaki Shukla, accompanied him.

Appreciating the valour of armed forces guarding the nation in adverse topographical conditions, the Governor said serving in a harsh climate and in sub-zero temperature was not an easy task.

He said the forces were keeping a hawk's eye on every activity of other side of the border.

"It is not easy to conduct recce on such difficult terrain and I salute the brave hearts for their valour and enthusiasm who were serving here far from their homes."

The Governor said the enthusiasm, passion and dedication of the soldiers for the country was remarkable.

"Our army is among the best in the world protecting the nation from any foreign aggression so that the people of the country should stay protected."

He was accorded a warm welcome on reaching Sumdoh helipad by Brigade Commander R.P. Singh and officers of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur district administration.

ITBP Commandant Shripal briefed the Governor about the frontier post and the day-to-day activities being undertaken.

The Governor also visited villages under the Vibrant Village Scheme.

Later, the people of border villages met the Governor and informed him about their demands.

The Governor said infrastructure is being developed rapidly in this area and drinking water schemes and other facilities were also being ensured.

The Buddhist-dominated Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti districts, with elevations ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 feet above sea level, share a porous border with China.

Himachal Governor visits forward areas bordering China

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As of September 26, only half of the 100 ships that were blocked after the start of a full-scale invasion remained in Ukrainian ports, Andriy Klymenko, head of the Monitoring Group for Sanctions and Freedom of Navigation at the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies, said on Facebook.

"As of September 26, out of 100 ships that were blocked in Ukrainian ports on February 24, some 50 ships remain. Some 29 of them are in the ports of Mykolaiv region, 14 in Kherson, five in Mariupol. For various reasons, two sea vessels out of 41 that were blocked on February 24 remain in the ports of Odesa region," the message states.

It is noted that out of 50 vessels, 15 belong to ship owners from EU countries (Greece - eight, Malta - three, one vessel each from Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Denmark), 14  ship owners from Turkey, and eight - from Ukraine.

Among other ship owners whose ships are blocked in Ukrainian ports are companies from Norway and China, Great Britain, Montenegro, Bangladesh, the Marshall Islands, Lebanon, Egypt, and Singapore.

The bulk carrier EMMAKRIS III, which was detained in July 2022 at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office as part of an investigation against its Russian owner, also remains in the port of Chornomorsk, according to the text of the updated database of blocked ships of the monitoring group of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies and the BlackSeaNews editorial office.

At the time of the start of the full-scale invasion, there were 100 commercial ships in the sea trading ports on the Black and Azov Seas, in addition to the occupied Crimean Peninsula (excluding port fleet vessels). The ships were unable to leave the ports under the conditions of a naval blockade by the Russian Federation. Some 34 out of 100 ships belonged to ship-owning companies from EU countries (21 from Greece), another 24 belonged to ship owners from Turkey.

"Most of the ships arrived for loading at Ukrainian ports literally a day or two before the start of a full-scale war. Some of the ships at that time were undergoing repairs at the corresponding ship repair yards in the ports of Chornomorsk and Kherson," the monitoring group's report clarifies.
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Preserving a piece of paper is one thing, but how can you preserve digital files as technology continues to evolve? Librarians, archivists, historians and tech experts from all over the world are on campus this week trying to answer that question.
Elements of new 25th Russian Army stretched along entire front line, so likelihood of new offensive by Russian troops reduced  British intelligence

Considering that the newly created 25th Combined Arms Army of Russia is being deployed in parts to strengthen the stretched front line, the likelihood of a new offensive by Russian forces is decreasing, British intelligence believes.

"Since mid-September 2023, Russia has highly likely committed elements of its new 25th Combined Arms Army (25 CAA) to begin action for the first time. The formation started moving into Ukraine from late August 2023," the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland said in the report published on the X social network on Wednesday morning.

As reported, according to available data, units of two maneuver components of the 25th Artillery Army  the 67th Motorized Rifle Division and the 164th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade  are fighting at the front in the sector west of Sieverodonetsk and Kreminna, on the border of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Since the start of the invasion, Russia has only rarely maintained an uncommitted army-size grouping which could potentially form the basis of a major new offensive thrust. With 25 CAA apparently being deployed piecemeal to reinforce the over-stretched line, a concerted new Russian offensive is less likely over the coming weeks," British intelligence said.
When Tekeyra Moore got a call from Habitat for Humanity of Champaign County informing her that her family had been approved for the first home theyll ever own, she could hardly believe it was real.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded $45 million to rapidly develop sense-and-respond implant technology that could slash U.S. cancer-related deaths by more than 50%.

The award to a Rice University-led team of researchers from seven states will fast-track development and testing of a new approach to cancer treatment that aims to dramatically improve immunotherapy outcomes for patients with ovarian, pancreatic and other difficult-to-treat cancers.

Instead of tethering patients to hospital beds, IV bags and external monitors, we'll use a minimally invasive procedure to implant a small device that continuously monitors their cancer and adjusts their immunotherapy dose in real time. This kind of 'closed-loop therapy' has been used for managing diabetes, where you have a glucose monitor that continuously talks to an insulin pump. But for cancer immunotherapy, it's revolutionary." Omid Veiseh, Rice bioengineer, principal investigator (PI) on the ARPA-H cooperative agreement

Rice President Reginald DesRoches said, "Rice is proud to be the recipient of the second major funding award from the ARPA-H, a new funding agency established last year to support research that catalyzes health breakthroughs. The research Rice bioengineer Omid Veiseh is doing in leading this team is truly groundbreaking and could potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. This is the type of research that makes a significant impact on the world."

The team includes engineers, physicians and multidisciplinary specialists in synthetic biology, materials science, immunology, oncology, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence and other fields spanning 20 different research labs. The project and team are named THOR, an acronym for "targeted hybrid oncotherapeutic regulation." THOR's implant, or "hybrid advanced molecular manufacturing regulator," goes by the acronym HAMMR.

Dr. Amir Jazaeri, a co-PI and professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, summarized the clinical need and potential of the technology as follows: "Cancer cells are continually evolving and adapting to therapy. However, currently available diagnostic tools, including radiologic tests, blood assays and biopsies, provide very infrequent and limited snapshots of this dynamic process. As a result, today's therapies treat cancer as if it were a static disease. We believe THOR could transform the status quo by providing real-time data from the tumor environment that can in turn guide more effective and tumor-informed novel therapies."

The THOR team includes 19 co-PIs from Rice, MD Anderson, Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, the University of Houston, Johns Hopkins University, the Chicago-based startup CellTrans and New York City-based Bruder Consulting and Venture Group.

The THOR cooperative agreement includes funding for a first-phase clinical trial of HAMMR for the treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer. The trial is slated to begin in the fourth year of THOR's 5 1/2-year project.

"The technology is broadly applicable for peritoneal cancers that affect the pancreas, liver, lungs and other organs," said Veiseh, an associate professor of bioengineering at Rice and a CPRIT Scholar with the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. "The first clinical trial will focus on refractory recurrent ovarian cancer, and the benefit of that is that we have an ongoing trial for ovarian cancer with our encapsulated cytokine 'drug factory' technology. We'll be able to build on that experience. We have already demonstrated a unique model to go from concept to clinical trial within five years, and HAMMR is the next iteration of that approach."

The THOR award will be administered through the Rice Biotech Launch Pad, a new medical innovation and commercialization initiative. Directed by Veiseh, the initiative aims to rapidly turn Rice-discovered technologies into medical treatments that cure diseases and improve lives.

THOR is the second program funded under ARPA-H's inaugural Open Broad Agency Announcement solicitation for research proposals. The first is a $24 million project to boost immune cell function led by Emory University that was awarded Aug. 23.
The health care landscape has undergone rapid changes in recent years, requiring clinicians and stakeholders to consider innovative ways to provide care in traditional and non-traditional settings. The American College of Cardiology has released a workbook on home-based cardiac care that provides the cardiovascular care team with tools and resources to incorporate high-quality, patient-centered care in the home setting.

Home-based care is defined as any form of medical care that takes place in the home of the patient; this includes the acceleration of virtual care seen during the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased consumer demand, clinician interest and regulatory changes. While other countries have integrated home-based care models into their health care system, the United States had a significant decline in house calls and home-based care after 1997 when benefits were capped to help control Medicare costs.

While interest in and access to home-based care has grown considerably in the last few years, these services often remain underutilized, especially in the case of acute and specialty care. However, given the rise of chronic diseases like heart disease and many elderly people's desire to remain in their own homes as they age, it is vital that we look at every possibility for how to appropriately provide care at home. The ACC created this workbook in hopes that all stakeholders in this space might see the possibilities and benefits of increasing home-based care." Nivee P. Amin, MD, MHS, FACC, chair of the ACC Home-Based Care Workbook writing committee

The workbook examines the full spectrum of what providing home-based cardiac care in the U.S. would look like, including:

Advantages and disadvantages of basic and advanced cardiac care in the home

Guiding principles and objectives for developing a home-based care program

Key performance indicators to measure the success of home-based care programs

Other key areas the workbook covers include challenges related to home-based care, the scope of home-based health care, program considerations for home-based care and reimbursement.

According to the authors, there are numerous applications for home-based care in cardiovascular medicine and its use is likely to expand in the coming years. The workbook provides a general framework of clinical scenarios where the integration of home-based care may be impactful:

Elective outpatient percutaneous coronary intervention and peripheral vascular intervention

Cardiac implantable electronic device placement

Electrophysiology catheter ablation

Home care after an acute coronary syndrome or critical limb ischemia

Chronic arrhythmia management

Heart failure

"Many within the health care industry believe that cardiovascular care will be increasingly delivered in non-traditional ambulatory settings," Amin said. "The cardiovascular care community must consider and prepare for this eventuality. The ACC looks forward to leading this effort so that home-based care improves patient access and outcomes."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, following a conference call on Wednesday, announced the advancement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk direction.

"Daily meeting of headquarters. Delivered reports on the situation at the front, supplies of equipment and ammunition, intelligence data. We are moving forward in Donetsk direction. There are other plans that are being implemented," he said in his Telegram channel.

In addition, Zelenskyy noted, based on the results of the received report on the situation with the shelling of Russian forces in Kherson region, he instructed to find additional solutions to stop this terror.

"The enemy continues to terrorize the territories [in Kherson region] that he can reach. Some 26 attacks by KAB in the last 24 hours. The consequences are being eliminated, people are being helped. I have instructed to find additional solutions to stop this terror," he said.

In addition, the head of state called the work of the SBU to expose the gunners who corrected the attack on Kyiv a week ago, "a good signal meaning that there will be retribution."
Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when an infection causes a chain reaction throughout the body that can lead to the failure of multiple organs in rapid succession. In the United States about 350,000 people die from sepsis each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making proper diagnosis a matter of life-or-death importance.

When a patient who is at higher risk for sepsis -; typically older adults and people with chronic health conditions like kidney disease or cancer -; enters a hospital through the emergency department, doctors screen them for sepsis. There is no test that can definitively diagnose sepsis, so doctors employ judgement to identify the combination of infection and inflammation associated with the condition.

Interdisciplinary research led by Christopher Hollenbeak, professor of health policy and administration in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development, found that a new blood test for sepsis could save lives and money. The results were published in Critical Care Explorations.

The IntelliSep test characterizes changes in a patient's white blood cells to provide a rapid evaluation of whether the patient is at high risk of sepsis. Hollenbeak, a health economist, and his team modeled the economics of using the IntelliSep test in hospital emergency departments.

"One of the tools that health economists use frequently is decision modeling," Hollenbeak said. "In decision modeling, we use a mathematical model to calculate the likely outcome and cost of a specific decision. In this case, we evaluated the cost and benefit of using the IntelliSep test on patients who are suspected to have sepsis."

Hollenbeak explained that there are no value judgments associated with decision modeling.

We provide straightforward information like, 'This is what an innovation will cost to implement,' and 'This is the result you can expect for your investment. Then doctors, health systems, and other stakeholders can use our analyses to make decisions about what to incorporate into the care they provide. In the case of this test for sepsis, using it could save people's lives." Christopher Hollenbeak, professor of health policy and administration, Penn State College of Health and Human Development

The company Cytovale developed and tested IntelliSep. They then reached out to Hollenbeak to conduct decision modeling on IntelliSep to understand the costs and benefits of the test. Hollenbeak said analyses like this study are common in health economics. When a medical innovation -; a procedure, drug or test -; is created, it must be evaluated. Once medical testing has shown the innovation to be safe and effective, there are still questions about whether it provides enough health benefits relative to the cost of widespread use.

Health economists take available data about the innovation and combine it with other data about the health care context to explore situations where there is uncertainty about the overall benefits of the innovation. This lets health economists examine how different pieces of information -; like cost and effectiveness -; might influence whether health care providers should use the innovation.

For this analysis, researchers used data from a trial of the IntelliSep test conducted at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge. They compared these data with data about another available test that can be used to indicate sepsis: measures of patients' procalcitonin levels. The researchers said they used procalcitonin testing as a comparison because it was the best widely available test for sepsis.

Procalcitonin is a biomarker that the body releases in response to infection. It can be measured with a simple blood test. Studies have shown that procalcitonin levels can be used to help diagnose sepsis, but procalcitonin only indicates the presence of infection and not the inflammation associated with sepsis. The research team said that procalcitonin testing is not part of current clinical guidelines and that medical practitioners have never widely favored the use of procalcitonin tests over the use of judgement.

Results from this study indicated that IntelliSep performed better than procalcitonin testing. The use of the IntelliSep test could result in more than 95% of patients surviving with a treatment that costs less than $4,000 per person. This was a slightly higher survival rate and lower cost than testing procalcitonin levels.

Most of the cost savings resulted because more people would be accurately diagnosed with sepsis, according to Hollenbeak. People with sepsis who go undiagnosed can become very expensive to treat and are at significantly greater risk of dying.

"For patients who have sepsis, getting sent home from the hospital is very serious because they can suffer multiple-organ failure within hours," Hollenbeak said. "Every year, there are patients who enter the emergency department of a hospital, present with a limited number of sepsis symptoms and are sent home. This test could save many of those people's lives."

Hollenbeak emphasized that the test cannot replace quality clinical care. Instead, the test would function as a diagnostic tool for clinicians.

"Admitting someone to the hospital is a serious decision," Hollenbeak said. "It inconveniences the patient and costs a lot of money. In medical care, all doctors have to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, so they always need the best information possible. If emergency department doctors can get information quickly about the likelihood that someone has sepsis, that is going to be very useful to them."

Daniel Henning of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington; Glenn K. Geeting of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Grant Memorial Hospital in Petersburg, West Virginia; Nathan A. Ledeboer of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Imran A. Faruqi of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Christi G. Pierce of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Christopher B. Thomas of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Hollis R. 'Bud' O'Neal Jr. of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge all contributed to this research.

Cytovale, the manufacturer of the IntelliSep test, funded the study. The company played no role in the design or execution of the study or interpretation of results. This research was independently peer-reviewed and published.
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University Medical Center Mannheim (UMM) successfully tested a new form of cellular immunotherapy against brain tumors in mice for the first time.

Glioblastomas are the most aggressive of all brain tumors. They spread diffusely in the brain and are difficult to remove completely by surgery. Chemotherapy or radiation therapy also often have limited effectiveness. To find new, more effective treatment options for those affected, doctors and scientists are testing numerous immunotherapeutic approaches, including so-called "adoptive" T-cell therapies: This involves isolationg T cells from the patient, modifying them in the culture dish and transferring them back to the patient. Doctors are pursuing a variety of approaches.

Lukas Bunse, a scientist at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and a physician at the University Medical Center Mannheim, relies on the comparatively new concept of "T cell receptor transgenic cells" in his current study: To this end, brain tumor patients were first inoculated with an antigenic fragment of the protein NLGN4X (Neuroligin4X). This protein is involved in the formation of synapses. It is found in large quantities in glioblastoma cells, but is virtually undetectable in healthy brain tissue.

Bunse's team then isolated from the blood of the vaccinated individuals those T cells that had been activated by NLGN4X and consequently carried a T cell receptor that specifically "recognizes" this glioblastoma-associated antigen.

However, since only a few NLGN4X-specific T cells can be obtained in this way, which are not sufficient for cell therapy, the scientists resorted to a trick: they isolated the gene coding for the NLGN4X-specific T cell receptor. They were then able to use this to equip T cells from donor blood or also T cell lines in the culture dish. In this way, they succeeded in producing large numbers of T cells with identical specificity, all of which recognize the cancer antigen NLGN4X.

Bunse's team then demonstrated that the NLGN4X-specific T cells are able to kill brain tumor cells in the culture dish. Brain tumor-bearing mice treated with transgenic NLGN4X-specific human T cells had a greater than 40 percent response to treatment. The tumors shrank and the animals survived longer than untreated conspecifics.

After these initial studies had yielded such promising results, Lukas Bunse expects that vaccine-induced T-cell receptors targeting brain tumor antigens could be a promising approach to develop new immunotherapies against glioblastoma. In melanoma, the malignant black skin cancer, such T-cell receptor transgenic T cells have already been shown to prolong the lives of some patients. According to the scientist, it is also conceivable to generate T cell receptor transgenic cell therapies against patient-individual cancer antigens.

Much more advanced in clinical development than T-cell receptor transgenic cells are cellular therapies using so-called CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor) cells, which have already been approved for the treatment of various leukemias and lymphomas. But the two cell therapy approaches differ in one important respect. "With the T-cell receptor transgenic cells, we can also target antigens that are only found inside cancer cells and whose fragments are exhibited on the cell surface via presentation molecules known as MHC class 1," explains Lukas Bunse. This is not possible with the receptor of the CAR-T cells.

Michael Platten, director of the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Mannheim and department head at the German Cancer Research Center, sums up, "We will now work intensively to be able to test this concept in the clinic."
"Covid is not pretty in a nursing home," said Deb Wityk, a 70-year-old retired massage therapist who lives in one called Spurgeon Manor, in rural Iowa. She twice contracted the disease and is eager to get the newly approved vaccine because she has chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which weakens her immune system.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the latest vaccine on Sept. 12, and the new shots became available to the general public within the past week or so. But many nursing homes will not begin inoculations until well into October or even November, though infections among this vulnerable population are rising steeply, to nearly 1%, or 9.7 per 1,000 residents, as of mid-September from a low of 2.2per 1,000 residents in mid-June.

"The distribution of the new covid-19 vaccine is not going well," said Chad Worz, CEO of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. "Older adults in those settings are certainly the most vulnerable and should have been prioritized."

With the end of the formal public health emergency in May, the federal government stopped purchasing and distributing covid vaccines. That has added complications for operators of nursing homes who have encountered resistance throughout the pandemic in persuading employees and residents to get the shots.

The coronavirus decimated nursing homes during the first two years of the pandemic, killing more than 200,000 residents and staffers. Elizabeth Sobczyk, project director of Moving Needles, a CDC-funded initiative to improve adult immunization rates in long-term care facilities, said without a government agreement to purchase the shots, vaccine manufacturers will make large quantities only once CDC experts have recommended approval.

"Then they need to be FDA inspected  we want safe vaccines  then there is contracting and rollout," Sobczyk said. "So I completely understand the frustration, but also why the availability wasn't immediate."

Even once the shots are available, nursing homes face continuing resistance to the vaccine among nurses and aides. Without state mandates for workers to be vaccinated, most nursing homes are relying on persuasion, and that is often proving difficult.

"People want covid-19 to be in the rearview mirror," said Leslie Eber, medical director of Orchard Park Health Care Center in Centennial, Colorado. "We're going to have to remind people more this year that covid-19 is not benign. Maybe it's a cold for some people, but it's not going to be a cold for the folks I care for."

Sixty-two percent of nursing home residents are up to date on their vaccines, meaning they received the second booster available before this month's new shot. That's an improvement over the 38% rate at the start of October 2022, according to the most recent federal data as of mid-September.

But only 25% of nursing home employees are up to date, which is close to last October's rate.

In a written statement, the Department of Health and Human Services said that it will be identifying long-term care facilities with low vaccination rates and reaching out to ensure "proven infection prevention and control measures are being implemented to protect seniors."This year, more nurses and aides will have to obtain shots at drugstores or health centers, on their personal time rather than at work. Many homes run clinics, with their long-term care pharmacies supplying the vaccine as they did before, but face extra bureaucratic hassles in billing insurers for the vaccine for both residents and employees.

On top of that, homes are rolling out a new vaccine for a dangerous respiratory virus, RSV, which will be a third shot for many residents along with vaccines for covid and the flu.

The trio of vaccines will create more administrative complexity for nursing homes since this year they must bill Medicare to be reimbursed for the shots. The covid vaccine should be charged to Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient and physicians' services, but the RSV vaccine must be billed to Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit.

"The United States has been phenomenal in screwing up vaccinations," said David Nace, chief medical officer of UPMC Senior Communities in Pittsburgh. "This idea that some are under Part B and some are under Part D and some can be billed by a pharmacy  who in God's name came up with this?"

While Medicare will pay for vaccines for most nursing home residents, employees may face private insurance red tape and, for a small group, potential out-of-pocket costs.

Leslie Frane, an executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 134,000 workers in 1,465 nursing homes, said that many homes had stopped running clinics in their facilities and told workers to go to the drugstore to get vaccinated. She said this would lead to more workers skipping their shots.

"There's very little time, given how many nursing home workers work multiple jobs," she said.

The CDC has arranged for 25 million to 30 million people lacking health insurance or whose insurance doesn't cover the complete cost of the vaccine to get free covid shots at select pharmacies, health centers, and medical offices listed at vaccines.gov. Frane said that program is not well known among workers, and Worz said distribution is favoring the large pharmacy chains, slowing access in rural communities. Of the nations 19,400 independent pharmacies, federal officials said 627, many in rural areas, are enrolled in the program and 100 are being added.

A big obstacle, though, continues to be resistance to the vaccination among nurses and aides. Like many facility owners, Avalon Health Care Group, which owns or operates more than a dozen nursing homes in Western states, is not mandating staff be vaccinated. Sabine von Preyss-Friedman, Avalon's chief medical officer, said she tries to address the reasons with each worker and wont abandon the push.

"We're not going to just say, 'OK, everyone get vaccinated' and then forget it about," she said.

Avalon's homes have used modest financial incentives, such as organizing contests between different units, with the winner getting prizes like a pizza party or a drawing for a gift certificate from a department store, and those efforts will resume this year.

Jim Wright, medical director of Our Lady of Hope Health Center and two other nursing homes in Richmond, Virginia, said that rewards and respectful persuasion were not enough to sway his homes' employees. They tend to be in their 20s and 30s and are not worried about catching covid, which many of them have already weathered.

"They most likely will not do it to protect the residents or protect themselves," he said. "I don't know what the answer is."

Sheena Bumpas, a certified nursing assistant in Duncan, Oklahoma, and vice chair of the National Association of Health Care Assistants, plans on getting this season's shot but said some of her colleagues won't.

"Now that the public health emergency has ended, I think people are done with it," she said.

Edenwald Senior Living, a nursing home within a retirement community in Towson, Maryland, is requiring its workers to be vaccinated unless they can justify an exemption for medical or religious reasons.

As of Sept. 10, about three-fourths of the home's workers were up to date with their previous covid vaccines, which is triple the national rate for nursing home employees, according to federal records.

Edenwald is relying on the Giant supermarket pharmacy to administer the shots in the auditorium of its independent living section. Sign-up sheets have already been distributed for clinics later this month. The home is billing workers' insurance for the shots, but facility managers said it will pay for employers without health coverage.

"This is our seventh clinic for covid," said Meghan Curtis, Edenwald's director of care management. "We've kind of got it down pat."

Swati Gaur, medical director of three nursing homes affiliated with Northeast Georgia Health System, said leaders may offer recalcitrant employees the option to take the Novavax vaccine. It relies on more traditional virus-blocking technology than the Moderna or Pfizer shots that use messenger RNA.

"We are basically saying, 'Why are you not taking the vaccine? Have you thought about Novavax? It's manufactured like the flu vaccine,'" Gaur said.

For the first time, nursing home residents will be offered a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. The virus causes the hospitalizations of as many as 160,000 people 65 and older each year, killing up to 10,000. Most nursing homes are coupling the flu vaccine with either the covid vaccine or the RSV vaccine, but not attempting to give all three simultaneously.

Gaur said because of the novelty of the vaccine and the relative unfamiliarity with RSV, clinicians will need to spend more time explaining the reason for the shots.

In Dallas Center, Iowa, Spurgeon Manor, an independent nonprofit home, is partnering with the pharmacy from a nearby Hy-Vee grocery store to provide the covid shot, most likely in early October, to 85 residents of the nursing home and an adjoining assisted living center as well as employees.

Alana Marean, Spurgeon's assistant director of nursing, said workers will be encouraged to receive the shots, but she guessed that not even half would do so. "There's a lot of stigma out there about it," she said.

Resident Lee Giese, 95, a retired truck driver, said he's looking forward to the latest shot after coming down with covid last winter. He suspects his earlier vaccinations helped protect him from more serious symptoms.

He expects most residents of his facility will get the shots, but a few will refuse. "Some people have a death wish," he said.
After a major cardiac event, proper attention and care must be given if the individual is to recover as much function and good health as possible. A new paper in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology discusses the potential factors impacting womens participation in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs.

Study: Womens cardiac rehabilitation barriers: results of the International Council of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitations first global assessment. Image Credit: Elnur / Shutterstock.com

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading killer among both men and women. Women are at an increased risk of CVD after menopause, as the protective effects of estrogen on the heart and vascular system weaken.

CR is a crucial secondary prevention approach that aims to prevent the further deterioration of patients with CVD and promote their health. These programs, which are designed to operate in outpatient clinics, have provided positive effects on women with CVD.

Nevertheless, there remains a global gap in the usage of CR by both sexes, predominantly in women, as compared to the need. In fact, even when provided referrals by their physicians, women are often reluctant to enroll in or complete CR programs. This could be the secondary effect of gender discrimination towards women, as egalitarian countries like Sweden report greater use of CR than other Western countries.

To date, only two studies have examined differences in availing CR between the sexes using an accepted scale. One study was performed in Canada, where women reported some barriers impacting their access to CR more than men despite the liberal culture of this nation. The other study was conducted in Iran and reflected a universally greater level of difficulty in CR access among women.

The current study was conducted in China, Korea, Portugal, and the Middle East. The aims included identifying the major CR barriers in women, differences in CR barriers by sex, differences in womens CR barriers by social characteristics, the relative importance of the various womens barriers, and evaluating various counter-strategies.

The patients who were considered eligible for CR were identified by members of the International Council of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation. All study participants were given questionnaires in the locally appropriate language between March 2021 and March 2023

What did the study show?

Over 2,000 patients from 16 countries in six World Health Organization regions were included in the study, about 40% of whom were women. The mean age of the study cohort was 62 years.

Women did not generally report that they faced greater barriers to participating in CR programs. However, sex differences were observed in Brazil and the Western Pacific.

The greatest obstacles were observed in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, wherein patients were not aware of the availability or need for CR programs. Unemployed women also faced difficulty in accessing such programs.

Conversely, men were underserved in the Eastern Mediterranean region and reported issues with transportation, less access to CR, and difficulties posed by other illnesses or low physical function. This difference could be because more workers outside the home are men, which accounts for time/work conflicts with CR.

Likewise, in Europe, men reported more barriers than women in logistical and health- or functional status-related areas. Logistical and function-related difficulties were more prominent for women in Brazil as compared to men, while issues related to working hours or lack of time for the program were less impactful.

A lower proportion of women received CR referrals at 40% as compared to over 70% of men. Women who were referred for CR were less likely to report barriers than those non-referred. Less than half of referred women eventually enrolled in the program.

Among those referred, women who were unemployed or previously sedentary were more likely to experience barriers to CR participation than physically active or employed women. Women who did not exercise routinely before they were diagnosed with CVD needed CR the most; however, these women reported more barriers.

These barriers included poor access to CR programs, transportation issues, family or workplace responsibilities, health/functioning status issues, CR-related pain or fatigue, low sense of need or poor healthcare utilization, weather-related costs, and personal opinions and preferences.

The most notable barriers among women not enrolled in CR included ignorance of the existence of CR and the failure of the program coordinators to contact patients. The cost of the program and fatigue or pain following the initial exercises also reduced CR participation in women. In enrolled women, logistics and family responsibilities interfered the most with CR.

Various factors interact to create barriers to CR use by men and women. Among women, those who were retired or on disability were most likely to be enrolled in CR. The lowest participation rates were reported among women who were out of work who also reported the greatest barriers.

What are the implications?

In each of the four barrier categories of logistics, health issues/low functional status, other work/time commitments, and lack of interest or perceived need for CR, both sexes reported more barriers in at least one region.

The study findings demonstrate the crucial need for CR programs with automatic enrollment for women who have suffered cardiac events. Plans to reduce the barriers preventing unemployed women from utilizing these programs are also urgently needed.

Unlike earlier studies, the scientists did not find age, educational level, or ethnic origin associated with barriers to CR. Thus, the individuals sex alone appears to account for much of the disparity in CR participation rates.

It is the association of social and economic determinants of health as they relate to use of CR that is important. CR barriersmens and womensvary significantly according to region, necessitating tailored approaches to mitigation.
Fincare Small Finance Bank and Western Carriers (India) Ltd, have got approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to proceed with their plans to raise funds through initial public offerings (IPOs). Both companies submitted preliminary IPO papers to the SEBI between May and June. Now, the market regulator has given a go ahead for the launch of the IPOs.

For the unversed, receiving an observation letter from SEBI signifies that the company has clearance to proceed with the public issue.

Western Carriers (India) Ltd, the countrys largest multi-modal asset-light logistics company, had submitted its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI in June and it received the approval for IPO on September 22.

On the other hand, Fincare Small Finance Bank had submitted its DHRP with the market regulator in May. The Small Finance Bank received the observation letter from SEBI on September 15. The banks IPO includes a fresh issuance of equity shares worth Rs 625 crore and an Offer for Sale (OFS) of 1.7 crore equity shares held by promoters and investors.

Entities selling shares in the OFS include promoter Fincare Business Services Ltd, along with some investors like Wagner, True North Fund V LLP, Indium IV (Mauritius) Holdings Ltd, Omega TC Holdings PTE Ltd, and Leapfrog Rural Inclusion (India) Ltd. Besides, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance Company, Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company, Silver Leaf Oak (Mauritius) Ltd, Tata Capital Financial Services Ltd, and Zuno General Insurance (formerly known as Edelweiss General Insurance Company).

On the other hand, Western Carriers initial public issue consists of a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 500 crore and an OFS of 93.29 lakh shares by promoter Rajendra Sethia.

As per the reports, the Kolkata-based bank will use its net fresh issue proceeds to repay debts of a total of Rs 200.24 crore. Moreover, it will also use them for capital expenditure for commercial vehicles including 40-foot specialised containers and 20-foot normal shipping containers. The remaining funds will be utilised by the company for other corporate purposes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said India is the fastest-growing major economy and the country is at the cusp of becoming the global economic powerhouse. He also said India will be among the top-three economies in the world in the next few years.

India, I guarantee, will be among the top-three economies in the world in few years, the prime minister said while speaking at an event in Ahmedabad marking the completion of 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

Currently, India is the fifth largest economy in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). India now trails behind the US, China, Japan and Germany in terms of economy. A decade ago, Indias rank was 11th among the worlds largest economies, while the UK used to stand firm at Number 5. From 2015, India has moved ahead of Russia, Brazil, Italy, France and the UK in terms of GDP.

On Wednesday, the prime minister appealed to industrialists to explore sectors where India can make new possibilities or can further improve its position.

Modi said India is leading in sustainability. He also said there is a need to find ways how investor summits can benefit the start-up ecosystem.

Agritech is a growing sector today. The food processing sector is also expanding fast. Our millets have found place at the dining tables across the world. It is creating new opportunities like food processing, and packaging, he said.

In todays deeply connected world, the need for financial institutions is fast rising. In Gujarat, there is already a GIFT-City, whose relevance is increasing day by day, the prime minister said.

GIFT-City gives a reflection of the government whole-of-the-goverment approach where the Centre, state and IFSC work together to create the worlds best regulatory environment. We should step up efforts to create it a globally competitive financial market. For this, we can benefit from our large domestic demand.

On 20 years of Vibrant Gujarat Summits, Modi said, We sown a seed 20 years ago. Now, it has become a big vibrant tree. Vibrant Summit is not just for branding, but for bonding.

He added that 20 years ago, when Vibrant Gujarat Summit first took place in 2003, the state was struggling in every aspect, mainly from earthquake and drought, some mercantile banks also collapsed that time, and the state was in a deep financial trouble.

The resolve to get the state out of the financial trouble led to the idea of Vibrant Summit, which became a medium of showing the capability of Gujarat to the world. Now, the summits have become the festival of the industrial development in the state.

The last Vibrant Gujarat Summit took place in 2019. After a five-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vibrant Gujarat Summit is scheduled to be held from January 11 to 13, 2024. It generally takes place every two years.

Modi said, In 2003, only a few participants connected with the summit. Now, over 40,000 participants from 135 countries take part in it. Gujarat Vibrant Summit has now become from one-time event earlier to an institution now.

Speaking at the event, B K Goenka, chairman of Welspun Group, said, As a participant from the first the event to the last, I have seen how this event has increased the investment in Gujarat, leading to unparalleled growth and improvement in the socio- economic standards of Gujarat.

Lakshmi Mittal, executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, said, Feeling proud on the completion of 20 years of Vibrant Gujarat Summit. India is now greatly open for international investor community.

Takashi Suzuki, chief director-general of Japan External Trade Organisation (South Asia), said Japan has contributed a lot to the make-in-India. He said a lot of investors from Japan are showing interest to invest in India.

He also said a Japanese delegation consisting of semiconductor firms is expected to visit the state on November 8-9. Suzuki said there were 360 Japanese companies operating in Gujarat.
JSW Infrastructure IPO Day 2: The JSW Infrastructure public issue received a good investor response on the second day of subscription as well. JSW Infrastructure IPO was subscribed 2.14 times on day 2. The book build issue will remain open for subscribers till Wednesday, September 27, 2023. JSW Infrastructure Limited aims to raise Rs 2,800 crore from its initial offer, which will be 100 per cent fresh in nature. The public offer is proposed for listing on BSE and NSE.

Key Points Investors Should Know:

JSW Infrastructure IPO Subscription

JSW Infrastructure IPO was subscribed 2.14 times on day 2. JSW Infra IPOs retail investors portion was subscribed 4.55 times, NII portion was subscribed 3.70 times, and Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) portion was subscribed 55%.

JSW Infrastructure IPO Price Band

The price band for the offer has been set at Rs 113-119 per share.

JSW Infrastructure IPO Size

The company plans to mop up Rs 2,800 crore from the public issue at the upper price band. The IPO comprises only a fresh issue component by the company and it does not have an offer-for-sale portion.

Out of the total offer size, Rs 1,260-crore was raised by the company from several anchor investors on September 22, including Monetary Authority of Singapore, Morgan Stanley, the Government of Singapore, HSBC, The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Goldman Sachs, Theleme India Master Fund, Principal Global, Sunil Singhania-owned Abakkus, LIC Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Aditya Birla Sun Life Trustee, and Max Life Insurance Company.

JSW Infrastructure IPO Objectives of Fresh Issue

The net issue proceeds will be used to repay debts amounting to Rs 880 crore, and Rs 1,029.04 crore will be spent on expansion or upgrade works at Jaigarh Port, owned by subsidiary JSW Jaigarh Port. The company had a total consolidated debt at Rs 4,228.39 crore as of June 2023.

Further, the fresh issue proceeds will also be used for the expansion at Mangalore Container Terminal (Mangalore container project) owned by subsidiary, JSW Mangalore Container Terminal at a cost of Rs 151.05 crore. And the remaining amount will be used for general corporate purposes.

JSW Infrastructure IPO Lot Size

Investors can bid for a minimum 126 equity shares, i.e. one lot and in multiples of 126 shares thereafter. The minimum application amount for retail investors works out to be Rs 14,994 (for 126 shares) and their maximum investment is Rs 1,94,922 (1,638 shares) as they can not exceed the investment limit of Rs 2 lakh.

JSW Infrastructure: About the Company

JSW Infrastructure provides maritime-related services, including, cargo handling, storage solutions, logistics services and other value-added services to customers. Its ports and port terminals typically have long concession periods ranging between 30 to 50 years, providing it with long-term visibility of revenue streams.

JSW Infrastructure Financial Performance

JSW Infrastructures revenue from operations recorded a CAGR of 41.15 per cent during FY21-FY23, and profit after tax averaged a growth rate of 62.28 per cent in this period.

On a year-on-year basis, the net profit at Rs 749.5 crore for the year ended March FY23 increased by 126.8 per cent and revenue from operations jumped 40.5 per cent to Rs 3,194.7 crore during the same period.

In the quarter ended June FY24, the companys net profit grew 67.3 per cent on-year to Rs 322.2 crore and revenue increased by 7.1 per cent to Rs 878 crore compared to June FY23 quarter.

JSW Infrastructure IPO: GMP

JSW Infrastructure IPO GMP today or or grey market premium is +19 similar to the previous trading session. This indicates JSW Infra share price were trading at a premium of Rs 19 in the grey market on Wednesday.

Considering the upper end of the JSW Infrastructure Limited IPO price band and the current premium in the grey market, the estimated listing price of JSW Infra share price is Rs 138 apiece, which is 15.97% higher than the IPO price of 119.

Grey market premium indicates investors readiness to pay more than the issue price.

JSW Infrastructure IPO Share Allotment & Listing

The basis of the allotment of IPO shares will be finalised by the company in consultation with the BSE by October 3, and the shares will be credited to the demat accounts of eligible investors by October 5. The Initiation of refunds (if any, for anchor investors) or unblocking of funds from the ASBA account will take place by October 4.

The trading in the equity shares of JSW Infrastructure on the BSE and NSE will be commenced with effect from October 6, as per the IPO schedule.

JM Financial, Axis Capital, Credit Suisse Securities (India), DAM Capital Advisors, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India), ICICI Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company and SBI Capital Markets are the book-running lead managers to the issue. Kfin Technologies is the registrar of the offer.

Should You Invest?

Most analysts recommended a subscribe rating to the IPO on the companys decent financial track record and fair valuations. They believe the company will benefit from the governments focus on port development, limited competition and strong parentage.

JSW Infrastructure Ltd is the port-related infrastructure company with the fastest growth rate, according to brokerage Nirmal Bang. By utilising locational advantage and maximising assets, it has a broad customer base that includes third-party customers from various geographic locations.

Hence it is able to generate higher EBITDA margins and ROCE compared to Adani Ports. It intends to leverage its presence in the non-major ports to provide fully integrated logistics solutions to its customers. JSW Infrastructure Ltd is being offered at reasonable valuations at 17.2x FY23 EBITDA and thus we recommend subscribing to the issue, said the brokerage.
Vedanta Shares Decline: Shares of Vedanta tumbled 6.25 per cent to Rs 210 apiece on the BSE on Wednesday after Moodys Investors Service downgraded the corporate family rating for Vedanta Resources Limited (VRL) to Caa2 from the earlier Caa1.

In the past three months, Vedanta stock has slipped 24 per cent as against 5 per cent rise in the benchmark Sensex. Earlier, the stock had touched a 52-week low of Rs 222 apiece on September 22.

Additionally, Moodys has also downgraded rating on senior unsecured bonds to Caa3 from Caa2, issued by Vedanta Resources Limited (VRL) and those issued by VRLs wholly-owned subsidiary, Vedanta Resources Finance 11 Plc, and guaranteed by VRL. At the same time, they have maintained a negative outlook.

The downgrade reflects elevated risk of debt restructuring over the next few months because VRL has not made any meaningful progress on refinancing its upcoming debt maturities, in particular the $1 billion bonds maturing each in January 2024 and August 2024, said the ratings agency.

It is to be noted that Vedanta Resources faces repayment of notes worth nearly $2 billion in the financial year 2025. Including these bonds, the company is facing debt repayment worth $3.6 billion in the next financial year, as per Kotak Institutional Equities. As of March 2023, Vedantas debt/EBITDA stood at 3.7 times.

The downgrade reflects elevated risk of debt restructuring over the next few months because VRL has not made any meaningful progress on refinancing its upcoming debt maturities, in particular the $1 billion bonds maturing each in January 2024 and August 2024, says Kaustubh Chaubal, a Moodys Senior Vice President and lead analyst on VRL.

VRLs consolidated debt/EBITDA leverage was 3.7x as of March 2023  substantially strong for its Caa category CFR. Still, the company continues to face challenges in refinancing its debt, a reflection of reduced appetite from the lending community, and a key credit concern, Moodys said in its note.

Moodys said VRL sold a 4.3 per cent stake in August 2023 in key subsidiary Vedanta Limited (VDL) for around $500 million to stave off some of the pressure arising from the holdcos imminent cash needs.

Given that its entire shareholding in VDL and that VDLs entire 64.9 per cent shareholding in Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL), which holds around two-thirds of the groups consolidated cash, have already been pledged, this implies VRL has limited financial flexibility to raise financing.

The negative outlook reflects VRLs persistently weak liquidity profile and Moodys concerns over the companys ability to address the imminent cash needs, especially at the holdco, Moodys said.

Last week, on September 21, Vedantas board of directors approved to raise Rs 2,500 crore on a private placement basis, as non-convertible debentures (NCDs). The company said that the fund-raising was part of its routine refinancing undertaken in the ordinary course of business.

Earlier, in March, Crisil downgraded its outlook from stable to negative due to the possibility of higher-than-expected financial leverage and lower financial flexibility of the company.

Separately, India Ratings too revised its outlook on the company to negative, owing to elevated risk of refinancing at an increased cost of borrowing.
Kannada Okkuta, an umbrella association for Pro-Kannada organisations led by Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, has called for yet another statewide bandh on September 29 in the midst of the present protest against the Karnataka governments decision to release 5,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from state dams. The demand for the Karnataka Bandh comes just one day after the Bengaluru Bandh, which took place on September 26.

Due to the bandh, Bangalore University announced the postponement of its 58th Convocation, which had been scheduled for September 29. It is important for students to be aware that Bangalore University has not yet announced a new date for the convocation. The University announced that the revised date would be communicated to students as soon as it was decided.

The Bengaluru Bandh on September 26 also prompted the University to postpone the Semester II and IV Degree Examinations from September 26 to September 27, 2023. Through a formal circular posted on the colleges official website, this information was made available to all students.

At the moment there has been no official notification about the impact of the state-wide bandh on September 29 on schools and universities. For any updates on the closure of schools/ colleges, it is encouraged that students and parents stay in touch with the administrators and instructors of their individual institutes.

Private school administrators, according to a Times Now report, have expressed concern about disruptions brought on by bandhs during the ongoing exam season. Nonetheless, they had requested the government to decide whether or not educational institutions should be open on September 26 in order to ensure the safety of children. On that particular day, a notification announcing the closure of all educational institutions was released.

A similar decision will most likely be made on September 29 after taking stock of the situation at the time.

The vast majority of the organisations that earlier supported the farmers protests have retracted their support, signalling that they would most likely participate in Fridays Karnataka bandh.

According to reports, the Hotels Association and the Ola Uber Drivers and Owners Association have both chosen to take part in the state-wide Bandh on Friday. Marketplaces, schools, colleges, universities, and public transit services, such as buses and taxis are most likely to also be shut down, causing inconvenience to the people.
Lithuanian Navy handed over sets of radar equipment to the Ukrainian Navy, the Lithuanian military department said.

They stated that the equipment was sent in accordance with the requests of the Ukrainian Navy.

"For Ukraine, which is being destroyed by Russia's war, this radar equipment will be of great importance both for the protection of its territorial waters and for ensuring the safety of its citizens," Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said.

The ministry said they could not disclose the cost and quantity of the equipment being transferred.

Lithuania has formed a new package of military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of EUR 200 million for the period 2024 to 2026.

In addition to regular supplies of military equipment, Lithuania trains Ukrainian military personnel, provides Ukrainians with treatment and rehabilitation, prepares expert consultations, and allocates funds to international funds to support Ukraine.
The University of Delhi (DU) will release the merit list for the final special spot round admissions via CSAS today, September 27 at 5 PM. Interested and eligible candidates can view the merit list at the official website admission.uod.ac.in. Candidates can accept allotted seats soon after the results are released up till 5 pm tomorrow, September 28.

The allocation of seats will be done through the availability of seats, programme-specific merit, order of preference of colleges (colleges and programmes), and category of the candidates, DU said in an official notice. Following the release of the merit list, candidates must accept their seats otherwise DU will forfeit the students eligibility for further admission to the varsity.

Colleges will be allowed to verify the documents and approve the admissions between September 27 and 29, up to 5 pm. Candidates must note that the deadline to pay the admission fees is September 30, up to 5 pm. The registration process for the DU UG admission final special spot round concluded on September 26.

DU UG Final Special Spot Round Admissions 2023: How to Check Merit List

Step 1  Go to the DU admissions website  admission.uod.ac.in

Step 2  Click on the DU UG final special spot round merit list link

Step 3  Log in using the required credentials

Step 4  The merit list will appear on the screen

Step 5  Save and download the page for further use.

This year, Delhi University admitted students on the basis of their CUET 2023 scores. DU conducts Common Seat Allocation System (UG) 2023 for the UG admissions. The CSAS comprises three stages which include applying to the University of Delhi, filling out the preferences for courses as well as colleges, and finally the allocation of seats and admission to colleges. Candidates were required to enter their CUET UG 2023 application number to access the application portal. The first list of colleges allocated via CSAS was published on August 1.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the G20 University Connect Finale programme at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on September 26. Addressing the participating students and faculty members of universities, PM Modi said that the youth of a country progress where there is optimism, opportunities, and openness.

He asked the youth to think big. There is no achievement that is beyond you or the country is not behind you, he said. No occasion should be treated as small and effort should be made to convert every activity into a benchmark, the prime minister further added.

He also praised the participation of youth in the event as more than 1 lakh students from more than 100 universities participated in the G20 University Connect, as per the official release by PIB. The government took the G20 to 5 crore students in schools, higher education, and skill development institutions. Our people think big and deliver even grander, he added.

The G20 University Connect initiative was undertaken with the aim to build an understanding of Indias G20 Presidency among Indias youth and enhance their participation in the different G20 events.

More than 1 lakh youth have been handed over appointment letters in the central govt, PM Modi informed adding that over 6 lakh youths have been given appointment letters since the inception of Rozgar Melas.

He also talked about the growth of startups in the country after 2014 from less than 100 to more than 1 lakh today. India is the second biggest mobile handset manufacturer in India. Defence exports increased by 23 times as compared to 2014. Mudra Yojana is making the youth a job-creator, he said. He informed that 8 crore first-time entrepreneurs were created in the scheme and 5 lakh Common Service Centers were opened in India in the last 9 years.

The progress of India and its youth is extremely important for the progress of the world, said Modi. My strength lies in the youth of India, he said. Noting that Indias college and university campuses can become crucial centers for Vocal for Local, the prime minister urged the students to make Khadi a fashion statement of the campus. He suggested conducting Khadi fashion shows and promoting the work of Vishwakarmas at college cultural fests.

PM Modi also released four publications on the occasion  The Grand Success of G20 Bharat Presidency: Visionary Leadership, Inclusive Approach; Indias G20 Presidency: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam; Compendium of G20 University Connect Programme; and Showcasing Indian Culture at G20. Union Minister for Education and Skill Development, Dharmendra Pradhan was also present on the occasion.
Altogether 45 students were injured in Manipurs Imphal Valley on Tuesday as the police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged a mob protesting against the killing of two youths who were allegedly kidnapped in July, officials said. All schools in the state will be closed till Friday in view of the prevailing situation. The students of Imphal-based schools and colleges brought out the protest rallies hours after photos of the bodies of the two youths went viral on social media, demanding the arrest of those involved in the killing.

The protesters clashed with the police near Sanjenthong in Imphal East district when security forces stopped them from advancing towards the chief ministers secretariat here. The police used tear gas shells and batons to disperse the agitators. School and college students took out a rally in Imphal to protest against the killing of the two youths. As the students were heading towards the CMs Secretariat, security personnel took action to disperse them, a police officer said.

Over 45 students were injured in police action and admitted to various private and government hospitals in Imphal East and West districts, officials of the medical facilities said. Of them, 31 are being treated in a private hospital, 12 others are in two government facilities. Two others were admitted to another private hospital. Because of the prevailing law and order situation, the state government in a notification declared that all government and private schools will be closed on Wednesday and Friday. Thursday is a public holiday in the state on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad.

Photos of the bodies of the two missing students surfaced on social media on Monday, following which the Manipur government has asked people to exercise restraint and allow authorities to investigate the kidnapping and killing of them. The two youths were identified as Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17). Students also took out rallies at Uripok, Old Lambulane, Singjamei in Imphal West district demanding arrest of those involved in the killing of the two youths. Similar clashes between students and security forces have been reported from Thoubal, Kakching and Bishnupur districts.

Abungo Th, a student who participated in the protest, told the media, The missing students were killed and the govt is yet to arrest the killers. The location of the bodies where they have been buried is still unknown. The government is reluctant to take action. In a statement issued by the secretariat of Chief Minister N Biren Singh late on Monday night, the state government said the case has already been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The state police, in collaboration with the central security agencies, are actively investigating the case to determine the circumstances surrounding their disappearance and to identify the perpetrators who murdered the two students. The security forces have also started the search operation to nab the perpetrators, the statement said. Security personnel have been put on alert, and additional measures taken to prevent any incident after the photos of the students have gone viral, a senior officer said.

The government assured people that swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi, the statement said. The government is committed to ensuring justice and will impose severe punishment on any perpetrator found responsible for the heinous crime, it said.

The police had previously said that the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off. The last location of their handsets was traced at Lamdan near the winter flower tourist spot in the Churachandpur district, they had said earlier. Manipur has been witnessing ethnic violence since early May.

More than 175 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a Tribal Solidarity March was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei communitys demand for Scheduled Tribe status. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipurs population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that lawmakers from the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will not win the next election.

Speaking to reporters here, Raut also claimed that CM Shinde was keen on a foreign tour, while farmers in parts of the state were staring at crop losses due to erratic rainfall.

Asked about the possibility that Shindes side may issue a whip against four Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs for not attending a discussion on the women reservations bill in Parliament, Raut said, It is a trivial matter for us that they would issue a whip against four of our Lok Sabha members. They (Shinde group lawmakers) should first know that none of them are going to win the next election, the Rajya Sabha member claimed.

A revolt led by Shinde in June last year led to a split in the Shiv Sena and collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-headed Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state.

Raut said Shinde had plans to visit some foreign countries to attract investment, and claimed the CM cancelled his plans only after a critical post on X by Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray.

Shindes visit to the United Kingdom and Germany, scheduled from October 1 to 8, has been postponed, an official from the CMO said on Tuesday, adding the new dates are being worked out.

Asked about reports of Shinde-led group citing water scarcity and and other issues in the state leading to postponement of his foreign tour, Raut sarcastically said, Did he come to know about all those challenges only after Aaditya tweeted? We should be thankful to CM Shinde for showing such sensitivity. Why did he (CM Shinde) not visit Nagpur, which was literally submerged due to illegal constructions and encroachments. There are farmers likely to lose their crops because of the erratic rains, but Shinde seems to be keen on his foreign tour, the Sena (UBT) leader claimed.
Just as the campaign was heating up before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was giving the opposition parties, who too were confident of a comeback, a run for their money, came the news of surgical strikes by India in response to the killing of the Indian Army jawans.

A senior opposition leader, who is no more, had told this reporter: The campaign is over for us. Indians will always back a party that looks strong. Patriotism is an invincible weapon and we will be defeated. The prediction came true and the BJP won with a thumping majority.

In fact, in 2014, the weak prime minister tag for Dr Manmohan Singh and the many acts of terror clicked for Narendra Modi. He was able to sell the dream of a safer and stronger India to the voters.

ALSO READ | Have Something Specific? Let Us Know: Jaishankar on Canadas Claims Over Nijjar Killing

His image of being a strong PM continues to work for Modi. Plus, the increase in the global stature continues to be the USP of the Modi regime.

As we head towards another Lok Sabha election, all eyes are again focused on the international scene and Indias standing. Even more so with the fracas between India and Canada over the Khalistan issue.

EAM S Jaishankar tears into Canadian PM Justin Trudeau amid allegations over Nijjar's killing CNN-News18's @abhishekjha157 shares more details in this report #Canada #JustinTrudeau #World #India pic.twitter.com/XwLmvflYiJ  News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2023

INDIA-CANADA STANDOFF

Canada PM Justin Trudeau had to hear some strong words from the PM and he went back with a huge issue at hand. He has now lost his goodwill in India and Canada. Supporting pro-Khalistani elements back home is a political and survival compulsion for Trudeau. However, this is Indias zero tolerance zone.

India has talked tough and geared up global support in favour of Indias stand on the issue. Countries namely the United States and United Kingdom (UK) have begun to see Indias point. Not just this, international platforms such as the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) summit are being used to convey Indias strong stance.

STRONG-ARM TACTIC

This works ahead of the Lok Sabha polls too. Once again, the BJP will push the Canada issue and Indias strong-arm tactic to make the point that India will never allow anyone to jeopardise its national security, even if the countries concerned are powerful and influential.

The BJP knows very well that the Congress cannot afford to disagree on this, as it has lost one of its prime ministers to Khalistani elements.

ALSO READ | Why Modi Conveyed Strong Concerns to Trudeau & What Prompted India to Take Hard Stance | Explained

In Punjab, this standoff with Canada has got the Sikhs worried as their livelihood depends on Canadian dollars. However, the BJP has calculated that the larger cause of India is more important.

For the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is aware that a compromise for the sake of Punjabis wont help nationally.

Nation first. And the lal aankh to Canada will bring electoral dividends to the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.
Rupali Gangulys role in the popular show Anupamaa has not only earned her numerous accolades but also cultivated a dedicated fan following. Her portrayal of a housewifes transformation into an empowered, independent woman has resonated with viewers and resulted in her widespread popularity. Rupali Ganguly is frequently surrounded by admirers whenever she ventures out in public. Recently, paparazzi captured a heartwarming moment in Mumbai as Rupali interacted with a group of fans and was visibly touched by the outpouring of love and support.

In a video shared by a paparazzi handle on Instagram, a woman could be seen approaching Rupali Ganguly and hugging her. The fan seemed quite excited and said, Mein Aapko Bahut pasand karti hoon. She then touched Rupalis feet as well. The actress greeted her back and smiled lovingly at her gestures. She also clicked a few snaps with the fans infant.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani)

The online community was left awestruck witnessing their favourite star interacting with her fans. One of them said, I have met her twice in a restaurant and she is really sweet and nice, while another said, Anupama u r soo sweet.

Rupali Ganguly is indeed an unconventional star. Some time back, she made waves during her visit to Ahmedabad for a special event. She was warmly welcomed by throngs of devoted fans eager to catch a glimpse of their beloved celebrity. Thousands of enthusiasts gathered at the venue, creating a vibrant atmosphere. Rupali, adorned in traditional attire, donned a striking, heavily embellished red saree. In a heartening moment, she was seen engaging briefly with the enthusiastic crowd.

If this is not stardom and craze,Then I don't know what is ..,And the way #RupaliGanguly meets and greets everyone with Humbleness is heart warming Thu thu thu  for the love coming her way#Anupamaa pic.twitter.com/Gbmjz45f4R  nidz_mehtz (@nidhimehta06) August 20, 2023

The actress is currently basking in the consistent success of her show Anupama, where she stars along with Gaurav Khanna, Sudhanshu Pandey, Madalsa Sharma Chakraborty, Muskaan Bamne, Nidhi Shah, Alpana Buch, and others. The show is produced by Rajan Shahis Directors Kut Production and has been a TRP chart leader since its inception in 2020.

Rupali Ganguly ventured into the world of television with her debut series, Sukanya. Since her humble beginnings, her impressive resume has grown to include notable titles such as Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, Zindagi Teri Meri Kahani, Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai, Apki Antara, and Parvarrish: Kuchh Khattee Kuchh Meethi, among others. Her journey in the industry showcases her versatility and enduring presence on the small screen.
A day after one of the biggest burglaries was reported in the national capital, a similar crime took place in north Delhis Samaypur Badli on Wednesday where three bike-borne men wearing helmets robbed a jewellery store of ornaments worth Rs 28 lakh.

Three armed men wearing helmets barged into the store, robbed around 480 grams of jewellery worth around Rs 28 lakh and fled on the bike. According to the police, the incident took place around 1.30 pm when there were two to three customers inside the jewellery store.

They fired a bullet in the air while escaping from the spot as there was some traffic and people tried to overpower them, a senior police officer said.

#WATCH | Delhi: A jewellery shop was looted by three armed miscreants in the SamayPur Badli area today. Viral video (confirmed by police) showed that after looting and while they were escaping, the miscreants fired in the open on the streets. pic.twitter.com/r5ijsCJ4WN ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

A video of the incident is also surfacing on social media where three people on a motorcycle are seen escaping from the spot.

A case under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Arms Act is being registered and an investigation has begun, police said.

Earlier this week, jewellery worth Rs 20 to 25 crore was looted from a shop in Delhis Jangpura. To get into the strongroom of the jewellery shop, the thieves first disconnected the cameras and made a hole into the locker. According to officials, thieves had meticulously planned the entire heist.

The burglars gained access through the terrace of the four-story building, making their way to the ground floor where the secure vault was situated, according to officials.

Subsequently, they drilled a hole into the wall to gain entry to the vault where the valuable ornaments were stored. In addition to these, they also made off with the jewellery on display in the showroom.

The owner of the showroom, who had locked up the establishment on Sunday evening, made the discovery of the theft upon reopening on Tuesday morning. The store remains closed on Mondays.
External Affairs Minister (EAM), S Jaishankar on Tuesday said, that efforts are on to bring back a sense of normalcy in Manipur. He was speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York when a question was asked on the situation in the northeastern state of India.

The minister said, If you ask me what is happening today in ManipurOne part of the problem in Manipur has been the destabilising impact of migrants who have comeThere are also tensions which have a long historyThe effort is on the part of the State government and Union government, to find a way by which a sense of normalcy returns.

In the public gathering, EAM said, to return the sense of normalcy, both governments are making efforts on there parts such that seized arms during the tense period are recovered and there is enforcement of adequate law-and-order so that incidents of violence dont happen.

Earlier, a group of experts from the United Nations asserted that they are appalled by the reports and images in Manipur targeting women and girls in particular. The expert group urged Indian government to take robust actions to investigate and hold the culprits accountable.

These experts further raised alarms on serious human rights abuses, extrajudicial- killings, sexual violence, home destruction, and forced displacement in Manipur. However, Indian government had rejected these claims and termed them, unwarranted, presumptive and misleading.

In the gathering, Jaishankar was also asked about dismissing of the claims put forth by UN expert group and calling them presumptive. To this question, EAM replied, The comment wasnt made by me personally but by the spokesperson. Was that comment correct? My answer to you would be yes.

Questions were also asked on freedom and democracy status in India citing various foreign reports. He said, I think it answers the question if you would be objective enough to understand it. I think it says very clearly that the people who are writing these reports have a strong bias, often they distort facts. Many of these reports are actually riddled with inaccuracies.
A Gas Economy Strategy and a Comprehensive Restructuring Plan  the Petroleum Ministry is formulating these plans to reduce Indias import dependence in the oil and gas sector by 15 per cent by 2030, 50 per cent by 2040, and achieve energy independence by the year 2047.

The ministry has sought the help of a private consultant for the job for the next 15 months.

News18 has accessed government documents listing out the plan which will see the selected consultant study mature gas markets like USA and Europe and competitive markets like Japan and South Korea.

The plan is to also rapidly accelerate oil and gas exploration as well as production, switching to a gas-based economy and the transition to alternate fuels.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) is also open to a comprehensive restructuring plan to become a future-ready agile organisation, the documents say, asking the consultant to embark on such an exercise.

The government note says India could account for 12 per cent of the worlds energy consumption by 2050. Currently, India has a large import dependence, with less than 15 per cent of oil demand met domestically.

The Consultants Job

The brief to the consultant hence is to focus on all energy levers for much faster exploration and production and scaling up refining and strategic storage, while progressing on the sustainability agenda.

The consultant is being asked to study how production enhancement and expedition of exploration and production can be done in non-producing blocks. The focus is on completing the appraisal and exploration of sedimentary basins and improving prospectively perception of Indian sedimentary basins globally.

To maintain Indias net exporter position, India needs to undertake large-capital intensive refining capacity projects. India will also need to provide gas and naphtha supply towards helping double local petrochemical production capacity to 40.9 MMPTA by 2030, and thereby reduce petrochemical import dependence, the document says.

It says India also needs to double down on alternative fuels to bridge the demand-supply gap.

The consultant will study the energy sector landscape assessment through global trends and prepare a roadmap for the strategic role of bio-fuels in the Indian energy market to reduce import dependence.

Restructuring MoPNG

The consultant will also study the roles played by energy sector government ministries in major developed countries and emerging markets to understand their institutional structure and establish via benchmarking the best practices in such organisational structures and interfaces.

The agency will then examine the organisational structure of the MoPNG and the current operation model while suggesting reforms to enable ease of doing business. The idea is to identify key gaps between what exists in India today and global best practices, the document says.

A possible restructuring of MoPNG could be done after the exercise. The consultant has been asked to envision possible future role to be played by MoPNG based on current and evolving responsibilities and recommend an operating model for the to-be organisation including designing the process maps and metrics the document mentions.
Payments to persons who did not work, people not able to get work even when available, fake entries, booked expenses not being spent, non-issuance of payslips to workers, and job cards not being updated are among the major findings of the social audit reports prepared by states for the various flagship schemes run under the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), News18 has learnt.

According to officials, some of the issues panning across states are of workers grievances not being addressed in a time-bound manner from updating of information boards to job cards at various administrative levels.

Ten states & UTs  Jharkhand, Assam, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Meghalaya and Nagaland  presented their reports in a day-long seminar on social audit of rural development programmes held on Tuesday under the theme Re-imagining social audit with a view to bring transparency and accountability. This was the second such national workshop organised by the ministry since 2019.

Several issues have been flagged during the review of the schemes under the various categories such as significant differences between measurements at worksite and the values stated in the record books, expenditure not made in proportion to the actual work done and payments being made to persons without making an entry. Members in the Gram Sabha, which is the body that validates the issues that finally go up in the review, said there are instances of workers not being able to find work while some others are being paid without even registering for it, said an official requesting anonymity.

Also, process violations, another parameter against which the schemes are evaluated, include concerns on executive agencies not cooperating or guiding workers adequately. Some of the most common issues flagged are those pertaining to job cards of workers not being updated, inadequate dissemination of information relating to work opportunities, not carrying out systematic exercises to identify works, poor quality of work and work being left incomplete indefinitely. There is course correction upon the audit to an extent, but it needs to be strengthened much more, said another official.

There are also issues being raised with the monitoring and the technical aspects of the newly introduced National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app for capturing attendance of workers registered under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

There are several stages at which the photographs of workers are needed to be uploaded. But, in many cases, photographs uploaded are either not adequate or are missing at one or the other stages. Due to this, workers have to approach senior authorities to have their attendance registered for payment of the work done, which is then delayed for days altogether, the official added.

Union Minister for Rural Development Giriraj Singh, who addressed the seminar, said the social audit is the spine of all central and state schemes to maintain financial discipline, while stating that there is a lack of peoples participation in the audits. Jan Bhagidari or peoples participation must be the focal point in this process. The impact of the audit should be assessed by all concerned for taking its maximum benefit, Singh said.

According to a senior official, several changes have been proposed for social audit guidelines for National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP). Some of the issues with the audit include states/UTs not conducting social audit of NSAP schemes regularly.

As per National Level Monitoring (NLM) reports, social audit has been conducted in 47 per cent villages of 28 states during last year. Some state governments are not providing action-taken reports on social audit reports prepared by the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR). Also, there is lack of mechanism for coordination between rural and urban social audit units at state and field level, the official said.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has discussed with President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Odile Renaud-Basso the implementation of joint initiatives in the energy sphere.

"The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is one of Ukraine's most important partners The EBRD undertook an obligation to invest in our country EUR 3 billion during two years. The Bank's support allows us to ensure stable operation of the critical infrastructure and the private sector," Shmyhal said on the Telegram channel following the meeting on Wednesday.

The parties also discussed the implementation of joint initiatives, including in the energy sphere. The Ukrainian prime minister said that the EBRD is preparing new projects with NPC Ukrenergo and NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy.

"I also presented the other promising directions for investment: humanitarian demining market, military industry, machine building, support for small- and medium-sized businesses, development of veterans' entrepreneurship. We count on the EBRD's active participation in the restoration of Ukraine," Shmyhal said.
A 19-year-old boy died of suspected cardiac failure while playing Garba in Gujarats Jamnagar. The incident took place on Monday night when the boy, identified as Vinit Kunvariya, an engineering student, was practising garba in a class in the Patel Park area for a Navratri event.

According to police, Vinit suddenly collapsed after completing the first round. He was rushed to a nearby private hospital, from where he was referred to GG Hospital where he was declared dead.

Vinits Garba trainer Dharmesh Rathod said he had been coming to the classes for the past two months and was doing well, a TOI report said.

Vinit had been coming to my garba classes for the past two months and was doing well. On Monday too, we were all enjoying ourselves when he suddenly collapsed on the ground We called a 108 ambulance and took him to the hospital but unfortunately, we could not save him, he said.

In a similar incident, a 19-year-old youth died after collapsing due to cardiac arrest while running on a treadmill in a gym in Ghaziabad, earlier this month. The CCTV clip of the unfortunate incident that took place in Saraswati Vihar went viral on social media.

In the footage, Singh was seen slowing down on the treadmill and gradually losing consciousness, eventually collapsing on the machine. Other gym-goers, who were present at the scene rushed to pick him up and tried to revive him but all in vain.
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar yesterday in New York spoke on the India-Canada tensions over Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing.

Jaishankar said that he is not a part of the intelligence group when he was asked for a comment on the reported sharing of intelligence between Five Eyes countries on Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing.

India-Canada News LIVE Updates

Im not part of the Five Eyes. Im certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person, Jaishankar said.

Watch Here:

#WATCH | New York: On India-Canada row, EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, "I'm not part of The Five Eyes, I'm certainly not part of the FBI. So I think you're asking the wrong person." pic.twitter.com/2xogAu0aDc ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2023

Jaishankar at Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York was asked about the reports citing the role of the Five Eyes group regarding the intelligence behind the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and reports of the FBI warning US Sikh leaders about credible threats to them.

ALSO READ: Jaishankar at UNGA Amid Canada Row: Political Convenience Shouldnt Determine Response to Terrorism

A diplomatic row over sharing of intelligence inputs on Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing has been hitting the headlines amid the strained ties between India and Canada. A few days back, US Ambassador to Canada David Cohen had said that it was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that led the Trudeau administration to make the claim of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the killing of separatist Sikh Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

What is Five Eyes

The Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council (the Council), also known as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising five countries  Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

According to the Canadian governments website, These partner countries share a broad range of intelligence with one another in one of the worlds most unified multilateral arrangements.

ALSO READ: What is Five Eyes and Why It Is In News | EXPLAINED

The Five Eyes agreement stands out from other arrangements because the parties are diverse societies, governed by rule of law and robust human rights and are bonded by a common language. These characteristics aid the partners in sharing information with one another to protect their shared national interests, the Canadian governments website said.

What Is Happening Between India and Canada

India and Canada are undergoing a phase of strained ties over Khalistan extremism after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 18 claimed there are credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a wanted Khalistani terrorist, was killed in June this year in British Columbia province of Canada, raising tensions between Sikh separatists and the Indian government.

ALSO READ: Nijjar Killing in Canada: A Coordinated Op Followed by Slow Response, Turf Battle & Botched Probe | WaPo Report

Trudeaus remark was followed by expulsion of a senior Indian diplomat by Canada and then a tit-for-tat move by India of removing a senior Canadian diplomat.

Row Over Hardeep Singh Nijjars Killing

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a gurdwara in the Punjabi-dominated Surrey city of British Columbia province of Canada by two unidentified bike-borne assailants in June this year.

Nijjar, President of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and member of a separatist organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), was declared a wanted terrorist by the government of India, due to his involvement in acts of violence.

The Indian government had also directed Canadian authorities to act against the terrorist and his name had featured on a list of 40 designated terrorists released by the Indian government. His outfit Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) is also banned in India.

ALSO READ: India Junks Trudeaus Claims as Canada Expels Indian Diplomat Over Khalistan Terrorists Killing

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was from Bharsinghpur village in Punjabs Jalandhar and there were several cases registered against him in terror activities. He moved to Canada in 1997 and worked as a plumber.

During the early years, he was involved in Babbar Khalsa International and later made his own organisation Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), a Canada-based pro-Khalistan outfit.
Was alleged Canadian Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar killed by Pakistans spy agency ISI? Indian government sources told CNN-News18 that getting in close proximity to Nijjar was impossible without someone known to him.

The sources said that ISI may have wanted to eliminate Nijjar to put India on the back foot.

According to them, Rahat Rao and Tariq Kiyani are two ISI plants in Canada who are doing the most work for the Pakistani agency.

They are allegedly even handling the terrorists who are coming from India and are on the wanted list.

According to the sources, due to possible business reasons and to get more cuts from new people, Rao and Kiyani may have been involved in the task of killing Nijjar.

The sources also said that getting in close proximity to Nijjar would have been impossible for any unknown person because he was very cautious and guarded.

There are many former ISI officials staying in Nijjars neighbournood, from Major Generals to Hawaldars, said the sources.

This task to finish Nijjar may have been given to one of these people so that the local drug business could be directly controlled by Rao and Kiyani, they added.

Nijjar was becoming powerful with time and gaining popularity in the local Canadian community also, said the sources.

According to them, the trio of Rao, Kiyani, and separatist leader Gurcharan Punnun was possibly involved in this operation to control the drug and immigration business, which is the main source of income for them.

Nijjars proximity and ties with Pakistan-based group leaders like Wadhawa Singh and Ranjeet Singh Neeta were also a problem for ISI because these people were unable to carry out major tasks, said sources.

Young operatives like Happy PhD were killed in major crackdowns in Pakistans Punjab province, they added.

So, possibly to restructure all businesses, they made Nijjar the first target, said the sources.
In a blistering critique of the religious organization, BJP MP Maneka Gandhi said the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is the biggest cheat in the country due to its purported sale of cows from its gaushalas (cowsheds) to butchers.

The ISKCON, which is recognized as the most influential Krishna sect globally, refuted these accusations and said they are unsubstantiated and false.

Assessment of the local Member of Parliament and MLAs who are regular visitors to the Goshala should some more light on this matter. While Smt Gandhi has stated to have visited the Goshala, none of the workers or staff recollect seeing/meeting her. pic.twitter.com/2IF0YSfP2c Yudhistir Govinda Das (@yudhistirGD) September 26, 2023

Gandhi, a former union minister and an animal rights activist, has been vocal on social media over issues of animal welfare.

The biggest cheat in the country is ISKCON. They establish Gaushalas for which they get unlimited benefits from the government to run the gaushalas, Gandhi is heard saying in a video, which has now gone viral.

BJP Leader accusing ISKCON of selling Cows to the Butcher. If the allegation is true, I really dont know whom to support pic.twitter.com/JaSiEy5t1h Joy (@Joydas) September 26, 2023

Gandhi, an ex-Union Minister and a fervent animal rights advocate, has consistently expressed her views on animal welfare through social media and also on ground.

Talking about on her visit to ISKCONs Anantpur Gaushala in Andhra Pradesh, she recollects that she couldnt come across any cow that wasnt either giving milk or had calves.

There was no dry cow in the entire dairy. Not a single calf was there. This means all of them were sold, said Gandhi in the video.

ISKCON spokesperson Yudhistir Govinda Das, however, rejected Maneka Gandhis claims and said: ISKCON has been at the forefront of cow and bull protection and care not just in India but globally. The cows and bulls are served for their life not sold to butchers as alleged.

He also added: Assessment of the local Member of Parliament and MLAs who are regular visitors to the Goshala should put some more light on this matter. While Gandhi has stated to have visited the Goshala, none of the workers or staff recollect seeing/meeting her.
Addressing the allegations by Canada of Indias potential involvement in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on its soil, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India has asked Canada to let it know if Canadian government has something specific.

Jaishankar, in a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York on Tuesday, frankly answered queries on Canadas allegations.

India-Canada News LIVE Updates

Yes, I do have a comment. Ill share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians

Jaishankar said, One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of Indias policy. Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it.

LISTEN IN:

#WATCH | New York: On India-Canada row, EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, "We told the Canadians that this is not the Government of India's policyIf you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at itThe picture is not pic.twitter.com/VcVGzDelJt ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2023

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 18 made allegations that agents of the government of India are linked to the killing of a Canadian Sikh  Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Jaishankar on Tuesdsay asserted that one has to understand the context also because the picture is not complete without the context of it.

ALSO READ | Not Part of Five Eyes: What EAM Jaishankar Said on Sharing of Intelligence Over Nijjars Killing

You also have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence, extremism. Theyre all very, very deeply mixed up, Jaishankar said.

We Have Been Badgering Canadians

The external affairs minister said India actually has badgering the Canadians and has been talking about specifics and information.

We have actually been badgering the Canadians, we have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified, Jaishankar said, adding that one has to understand that there is an environment out there.

That is important in a way to factor in if you have to understand what is going on out there. And our concern is that its really been very permissive because of political reasons. So we have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made about theres interference in our politics. And, a lot of this is often justified as saying, well, thats how democracies work, Jaishankar said.

Not Part of Five Eyes: Jaishankar on Sharing of Intelligence Over Nijjars Killing

Jaishankar also said that he is not a part of the intelligence group Five Eyes asked for a comment on the reported sharing of intelligence between member countries on Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing.

Im not part of the Five Eyes. Im certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person, Jaishankar said.

India-Canada Tensions

India and Canada are undergoing a phase of strained ties over Khalistan extremism after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 18 claimed there are credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a wanted Khalistani terrorist, was killed in June this year in British Columbia province of Canada, raising tensions between Sikh separatists and the Indian government.

Jaishankar at UNGA: Political Convenience Shouldnt

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday addressed the India-Canada tensions at the General Debate of the 78th session of UNGA in New York as well. Taking a veiled jibe at Canada, Jaishankar said political convenience should not determine response to terrorism.

Nor must be countenance that political convenience determines responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, the EAM said during the General Debate of the 78th session of UNGA in New York.
The direction of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee to Karnataka to release water at the rate of 3,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) to Tamil Nadu from Thursday to October 15 will be challenged before the Supreme Court, the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday.

Siddaramaiah said he has spoken to the States legal team which opined that it should be challenged in the apex court.

We are challenging the order of the Regulation Committee before the Supreme Court. We dont have water to give, the CM told reporters at Male Mahadeshwara Hills in this district.

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar had on Tuesday expressed satisfaction over the CWRC rejecting the request of Tamil Nadu, which wanted Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs.

Karnataka submitted before CWRC at its meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday that the shortfall in cumulative inflows to its four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin up to September 25 is 53.04 per cent.

According to Karnataka officials, due to the failure of the south-west monsoon (from June to September) this year, there is no sufficient storage in the four reservoirs and the State is facing such a grave situation that it is finding it extremely difficult even to cater to the drinking water requirements let alone supplying for irrigation.

The rainfall received in Karnataka this year in the months of August and September is the lowest in the last 123 years, they said.

Later speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Shivakumar, the Water Resources Minister, appealed to Kannada organisations to drop the call for bandh on Friday, and said the government is committed to protect the interest of the farmers and drinking water requirements of the state.

Yesterdays (Bengaluru) bandh has been by and large successful, people have cooperated.we too are with protesters, as we are in the government, we have to abide by law and rules. Some organisations have called for bandh on September 29, I appeal to them, as people have cooperated with yesterdays bandh; once again calling a bandh will cause losses and inconvenience to them, let that not happen, he said.

Following the agitations and after hearing the arguments made by the government, the quantum of water to be released to Tamil Nadu has been reduced from 5,000 cusecs to 3,000 cusecs, the Congress leader pointed out.

Rejecting Tamil Nadus request for releasing 12,000 cusecs is a big (thing) for Karnataka. Earlier we had committed 3,000 cusecs, but in the recent hearing we said we will not release water. Even now, it is the opinion of the Chief Minister and mine is not to release water from KRS dam.

In other places there is inflow and any ways the water including the seepage water will go (to TN), and there will be evaporation as well, he added.

Karnataka bandh has been called on September 29 by Kannada Okkuta, an umbrella outfit for Kannada organisations, led by activist Vatal Nagaraj.
The Kerala government will examine the possibilities of setting up a tourism university in the state to tap immense opportunities offered by the fast-growing sector, Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas said on Tuesday. Addressing a felicitation ceremony, Take Off 23, organised at Kerala Institute of Tourism and Travel Studies (KITTS) ahead of World Tourism Day, the minister said the sector has plenty of scope to further develop and generate employment for youth with proper skills and training. If a university is set up based out of KITTS this immense potential of the tourism sector could be tapped fully, Riyas said in a statement. In such a scenario, food craft and hospitality institutes could also be brought together, he suggested.

By bringing together institutes for tourism studies and providing training on a par with international standards, Kerala Tourism aims at moulding skilled professionals to handle a wide variety of jobs in the fast-expanding sector, Riyas said. The tourism sector is poised to soar to new heights especially with more domestic and international flights coming to the state, he added. The minister also noted that the tourism sector in the southern state has made major strides in developing human resources. Director of KITTS, Dr Dileep M R, and Principal, Dr B Rajendran, were also present.
The National Investigation Agency carried out a major raid at 50 locations across six in connection to Khalistan-Gangster nexus. According to sources, raids were done to nab hawala operators and logistic coordinators of gangsters, who have links with Khalistan.

The states where the raids were on are: 30 locations in Punjab, 13 in Rajasthan, 4 in Haryana, 2 in Uttarakhand and 1 each in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

According to sources, NIA has detained one person, identified as aide of gangster-turned-terrorist Arsh Dala, from Punjabs Ferozepur. NIA is likely to question him in Chandigarh. Joras family, however, claimed that he is just a labourer, who earns only Rs 12,000 a month. The agency has served a notice under Section 160 CrPC.

NIA Releases List of 19 K-Fugitives

National Investigation Agency (NIA) had earlier released a list of 19 fugitive Khalistani terrorists residing in UK, US, Canada, Dubai, Pakistan and other countries, whose properties are likely to be confiscated, sources said.

The NIA had confiscated the properties of designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a member of the banned pro-Khalistani group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).

According to reports, the action against these 19 fugitives will be taken under the anti-terror law UAPA. They have been accused of running anti-India propaganda from abroad.

Reward of Rs 10 Lakh

The NIA has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh each for information leading to the arrest of designated terrorist Harwinder Singh Sandhu alias Rinda and Lakhbir Singh Sandhu alias Landa. He is allegedly linked to the banned outfit Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), accused of promoting terror activities in India.

Intensifying its crackdown on pro-Khalistan terrorists, the NIA had also announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh on BKIs three associates named Parminder Singh Kaira from Ferozpur, Satnam Singh and Yadvinder Singh from Tarn Taran in Punjab.

According to the NIA, and four others are wanted in a case registered early this year related to the BKIs terrorist activities aimed at disturbing Indias peace and communal harmony and spreading terror in Punjab.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that lawmakers from the Shiv Sena led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will not win the next election.

Speaking to reporters here, Raut also claimed that CM Shinde was keen on a foreign tour, while farmers in parts of the state were staring at crop losses due to erratic rainfall.

Asked about the possibility that Shindes side may issue a whip against four Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs for skipping voting on the womens reservation bill in Parliament, Raut said, It is a trivial matter for us that they would issue a whip against four of our Lok Sabha members. They (Shinde group lawmakers) should first know that none of them are going to win the next election, the Rajya Sabha member claimed.

A revolt led by Shinde in June last year led to a split in the Shiv Sena and collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-headed Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state.

Raut said Shinde had plans to visit some foreign countries to attract investment, and claimed the CM cancelled his plans only after a critical post on X by Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray.

Instead of trying to attract FDI from his foreign tour, Shinde should first bring back the investment that was supposed to come to Maharashtra but went to a neighbouring state, he said.

Shindes visit to the United Kingdom and Germany, scheduled from October 1 to 8, has been postponed, an official from the CMO said on Tuesday, adding the new dates are being worked out.

Asked about reports of Shinde-led group citing water scarcity and and other issues in the state leading to postponement of his foreign tour, Raut sarcastically said, Did he come to know about all those challenges only after Aaditya tweeted? We should be thankful to CM Shinde for showing such sensitivity. Why did he (CM Shinde) not visit Nagpur, which was literally submerged due to illegal constructions and encroachments. There are farmers likely to lose their crops because of the erratic rains, but Shinde seems to be keen on his foreign tour, the Sena (UBT) leader claimed.

When the people of Nagpur were reeling under heavy rains, Shinde invited film stars to his official residence (in Mumbai). He should not forget that solving peoples problems is his duty. Farmers are protesting against imposition of export duty on onions, but he does not pay attention, Raut said.

On the meeting between Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and onion traders from Maharashtra remaining inconclusive, the Sena (UBT) leader said, It is unfortunate. The issue pertains to Maharashtra and the minister was in Mumbai. Still, he asked everyone to meet him in Delhi later. Raut also taunted Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, saying he does not have enough rights to take right decisions.

Pawar was present at the meeting aimed at finding a solution to onion traders demand, but he failed to do it. He does not have enough rights to take right decisions. It is saddening to see farmers onions worth Rs 100 crore getting stuck and the government not paying enough attention to it, he said.

Raut dismissed as rumours the reports that Ajit Pawars wife Sunetra Pawar is likely to contest the next years Lok Sabha election against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule from the Baramati constituency.

I know the Pawar family and I can tell you that it is merely a rumour. There is no truth in it. It will not happen. However, no matter who contests against Sule, she will definitely win this election as well, he said.
A 26-year-old man died after he was allegedly tied to a pole and thrashed by some people who suspected him of being a thief in northeast Delhis Sunder Nagri, police said on Wednesday.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning at G4 block of the locality, they said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast) Joy Tirkey said, fruit vendor Abdul Wajid (60), a resident of Sunder Nagri, lodged a complaint claiming that his son Isar died after being assaulted by some people on suspicion of theft.

According to Wajid, when he reached his house on Tuesday evening, he saw his son lying outside, writhing in pain. There were injury marks all over his body, the DCP said.

Isar told his father that around 5 am, some youngsters caught him near G4 block and accused him of stealing. They then tied him to a pole and thrashed him with sticks. He said the assailants lived near the G4 block, Tirkey said.

Isars neighbour Aamir brought him home in a rickshaw and at around 7 pm, he succumbed to injuries, he said.

Wajid informed the police and the body was shifted to GTB Hospital where an autopsy will be conducted, the DCP said.

A case or murder has been registered, police said, adding efforts are being made to identify the people who assaulted Isar, police said.
Units of Ukrainian troops continue the offensive operation south of Bakhmut. In particular, over the past day, successes have been achieved in the areas of Klischiyivka, Otradovka and Shumy, said Illia Yevlash, head of the press service of the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

"There, our defenders continue their offensive and dislodge the occupiers from the occupied borders, continue to consolidate their positions. Also, the enemy does not abandon his idea to recapture the lost positions near Klischiyivka and Andriyivka, constantly storming and delivering fire strikes on the positions of our defenders. We are holding the defense, we are holding our borders securely, and we continue to inflict fire damage on the enemy," Yevlash said on the telethon.

He pointed out that over the past day, the enemy fired 544 times from various weapons, including heavy artillery systems and tank weapons, at the positions of Ukrainian defenders. There were seven military clashes. The enemy used its tactical and army aviation four times.

"We managed to eliminate 115 occupiers in this direction, and three surrendered," Yevlash added.

He also noted the effectiveness of the work of the Ukrainian counter-battery units working together with the UAV units.

"So, we managed to destroy four installations Msta-B and one Msta-C, one 203 mm Peony, two self-propelled Giatcint, and, in addition, eight D-30 guns, as well as two anti-tank guns MT-12 Rapira. That is, a fairly powerful blow was received by the enemy's artillery group in this direction. They also destroyed three cars, two ammunition depots and one electronic warfare station. We constantly continue to identify enemy command posts, their control points with drones, identify their locations and strike at them," Yevlash said.
In a shocking incident from Madhya Pradeshs Ujjain, a 12-year-old girl, bleeding and in a semi-naked condition after allegedly being raped, was refused help. The incident was caught on CCTV camera at Badnagar road, about 15 km from Ujjain.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said a special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe the matter and a suspect has been detained.

In the video, the minor, semi-naked and visibly injured, was seen going from door to door asking for help but to no avail. She was even shooed away by a man standing outside his home when she approached him for help.

#BreakingNews: Schoker from Ujjain stuns India; Minor seeks help after rape; Victim seen walking naked on the streets of UjjainActivist @BrindaAdige shares her views, listen in@nikhil_lakhwani brings in more details | @poonam_burde pic.twitter.com/iERgAbHIzn  News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2023

According to reports, the girl eventually reached an Ashram and a priest covered her with a towel and rushed her to the district hospital. The minors medical examination at the district hospital confirmed rape.

The girl was then referred to Indore as her injuries were serious. Police personnel came forward to donate blood when she needed it during her treatment. Her condition is now learnt to be stable.

The girl could not answer coherently when police asked her name and address.

A case of rape has been against unidentified accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Ujjain police chief Sachin Sharma said a special team has been formed to identify and catch the accused at the earliest.

The medical examination has confirmed rape. We have formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and closely following this. We appeal to the people to inform police if they get any information, Sharma said.

The girl was not able to tell us exactly where she is from. But her accent suggests she is from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, he added. Uttar Pradesh police has also been contacted in the case.
The NHRC has sent a notice to the Bihar government and the states police chief over reports that a woman, belonging to Scheduled Caste, was allegedly brutally assaulted, stripped and urinated upon in a village in Patna.

Reportedly, she was subjected to torture and inhuman treatment after purportedly failing to repay additional interest on a loan, amounting to Rs 1,500 which she had borrowed from a local strongman, the rights panel said in a statement.

The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report that a 30-year-old woman belonging to Scheduled Caste, was brutally assaulted, stripped and urinated upon in the village on September 23, it said.

The Commission has observed that the contents of the media report, if true, amount to violation of the human rights of the victim woman.

The reported incident is indicative of the free will with which perpetrators acted without a fear of law, which is a matter of concern. Accordingly, it has issued notices to the chief secretary and the director general of police of Bihar, seeking a detailed report within four weeks, the statement said.

The report should also include the status of the FIR, physical as well as mental health status of the victim woman and compensation, if any, granted to her, it added.

The victim, reported to be from the Scheduled Caste community, is also eligible for the compensation in accordance with the provision of rules framed under the SC/ST (PoA) Act.

The authorities are expected to explain in the report about the status of the installment of the compensation given to the victim.

The victim has passed through a trauma, hence, it is also expected from the state government to intimate whether any counselling has been provided to her, it said.

According to the media report, carried on September 25, the accused had approached the woman four days before the incident, coercing her to repay an additional amount as interest and the victim had reported the matter to the police.

The accused reportedly belong to a dominant caste, while there are only a few Scheduled Caste families residing in the village, who have stated that they are in fear and are thinking of leaving the place for some days, the statement said.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has picked up a labourer", Yunis alias Jora from Punjabs Ferozepur, for questioning in the gangster-terror network case after the searches on Wednesday.

ALSO READ | NIAs Code Raid: 53 Spots Covered, Arsh Dalla Aides Held | Exclusive on Terrorist-Gangster-Drug Smuggler Nexus

Jora has been issued a notice under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) asking him to join the investigation. The NIA is likely to question him in Chandigarh. NIA officials suspect that Jora is associated with terrorist Arsh Dallas gang. His family, however, claims Jora is a labourer whose monthly income is only Rs 12,000.

It appears that you were acquainted with the facts of this case. Therefore, you are hereby required to appear at NIA office at Chandigarh for purpose of investigation to answer certain queries pertaining to the said case," the notice given by the investigating officer of NIA , seen by News18, said.

Earlier, the NIA confirmed that searches were carried out across 51 locations in six states in connection with three cases. The NIA is conducting raids across 6 states in 3 cases (RC 37/2022/NIA/DLI, RC 39/2022/NIA/DLI and RC 22/2023/NIA/DLI) in 51 locations belonging to associates of Lawrence, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs," NIA said.

The agency in its statement said, The NIA on Wednesday detained several suspects during a massive multi-state crackdown on the terrorists-gangsters-drug smugglers nexus, connected with listed terrorist Arsh Dalla and many dreaded gangsters."

700+ ASSOCIATES OF GANGSTERS SPREADING TERROR IN PUNJAB

The charge sheet, filed by the NIA earlier in the year, said several youths from Punjab were being lured into the gangs run by Lawrence Bishnoi and others promising them Canada visa and ticket.

Around 700-800 recruits could be working for these gangs. Each person is given a specific task and details are given only on need-to-know basis. Most gang members are unaware of the identity of others to protect multiple arrests in case of a crackdown," the agency charge sheet said.

ARMS AND AMMUNITIONS RECOVERED

The NIA raids on Wednesday were carried out after leads from arrested suspects and analysis of digital and material evidence, officials said. The focus of raids, aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-drug smuggler nexus, was on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs and their operatives. These gangs are working with drug smugglers and terrorists based out of other countries, including Pakistan, UAE, Canada, Portugal etc," the NIA spokesperson said.

A total of 53 locations were raided during the day-long operation, which started early this morning. Pistols, ammunition, large numbers of digital devices and incriminating material, were seized during the raids that spanned the six States of Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and the UT of Chandigarh," NIA spokesperson said .

ALSO READ | Khalistan-Terror Nexus: NIA Raids 50 Locations Across 6 States; Gangster Arsh Dallas Aide Detained

Besides Arsh Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri, Deepak Tinu etc.

These were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new cases registered against Organised Criminal Gangs in July 2023. The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits, extortion, etc. by the gangsters, many of whom are lodged in various Jails or are operating from various foreign countries, including Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, Portugal and Australia, etc.

CONSPIRACY FROM BEHIND BARS

NIA investigations have revealed that the conspiracies under investigation were being hatched in jails of different states and were being executed by an organised network of operatives based abroad.

Among the conspiracies were the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year.

Many criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now pursuing their terror and violence-related activities from there, as per NIA investigations. These criminals are engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions.

The spotlight on these gangs has become sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars, which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail, etc.

Some of the locations where raids were conducted are Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka , Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozpur, SAS Nagar, Amritsar, and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganga Nagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand; besides South-east district of Delhi/ NCR and UT of Chandigarh.

ALSO READ | NIA Raids 50 Spots Across India: Amit Shah Attacks Terror-Gangster-Drugs Nexus | Exclusive

The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition. The NIA has so far frozen 87 banks accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles. Two absconders have been declared as designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused declared as proclaimed offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) have been issued against nine others.
In a massive crackdown on the terrorist-gangster-drug smuggler nexus, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday raided 53 spots in six states and one union territory and detained several suspects connected with listed terrorist Arsh Dalla and other dreaded gangsters. The State Police forces provided the necessary support and assistance.

ALSO READ | Khalistan-Terror Nexus: NIA Raids 50 Locations Across 6 States; Gangster Arsh Dallas Aide Detained

The raids began early morning, with pistols, ammunition, large numbers of digital devices and incriminating material being seized from Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and the UT of Chandigarh.

Besides Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters namely Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri, Deepak Tinu, etc. Some of the locations where raids were conducted are Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka , Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozpur, SAS Nagar, Amritsar, and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganga Nagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand; besides South-east district of Delhi/ NCR and UT of Chandigarh.

The focus of the raids was weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs and their operatives. These gangs are working with drug smugglers and terrorists based out of other countries, including Pakistan, UAE, Canada, Portugal etc.

CONSPIRACIES IN JAILS

NIA investigations have revealed that the conspiracies under investigation were being hatched in jails of different states and were being executed by an organised network of operatives based abroad.

Among the conspiracies were the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year.

Many criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now pursuing their terror and violence-related activities from there, as per NIA investigations. These criminals are engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions.

The spotlight on these gangs has become sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars, which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail, etc.

SEVENTH IN THE SERIES

These were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by the NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new cases registered against Organised Criminal Gangs in July 2023. The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits, extortion, etc. by the gangsters, many of whom are lodged in various jails or are operating from various foreign countries, including Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, Portugal and Australia, etc.

ALSO READ | NIA Raids 50 Spots Across India: Amit Shah Attacks Terror-Gangster-Drugs Nexus | Exclusive

The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition. The NIA has so far frozen 87 banks accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles. Two absconders have been declared as designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused declared as proclaimed offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) have been issued against nine others.
The Law Commision on Wednesday said concerating the final document for over one nation, one poll would require some more time and more meetings have to be done.

According to sources, the law panel also said that certain constitutional amendments are required for smooth and flexible one nation, one poll.

The panel, however, is yet to decide on reducing age of consent and a report on that would be available later today.

Law commission of India met on Wednesday to finalise its report regarding One Nation One Poll and also on the question whether the age of consent under POCSO Act can be reduced from 18 to 16.

The report by the 22nd Law Commission, which was supposed to be submitted to the Law Ministry, comprises three  the third one being recommendation of a law to provide for online filing of First Information Reports (FIR).

It is being said that the Commission is likely to frame tentative timelines for simultaneous polls for the 2024 and 2029 cycles.

Sources privy to the development have told News18 that One Nation One Poll would be beneficial not only in national interest but would also save a lot of financial reserves of the government.

Another observation that the Commission has got is that voter turnout increases when elections are held after a substantial period of time implying that ONOP could actually result in higher voter turnouts. If the country is gripped in continuous poll, security forces too would be engaged, sources said.
Ayodhya Ram Mandir Construction Committee chairman Nripendra Misra on Wednesday said pilgrims would be able to have a glimpse of Lord Ram in his child form before January 26, 2024.

Misra said that the committee is waiting for a response from the Prime Ministers Office regarding PM Narendra Modis participation on the last day of Praan Pratishtha.

I will not be able to give you the exact date because that would depend on the date announced by the Prime Ministers Office for the participation of PM on the last day of Praan Pratishtha, which is not being fixed yet. The date has not come from the Prime Ministers Office and we have to respect the decision of the PMs office in this matter, Misra told ANI.

#WATCH | Chairman of Ayodhya Ram Mandir construction committee, Nripendra Misra says PM Modi, by nature, entrusts the responsibilities of all projects to the people who have to do the work. So this temple was entrusted to trust. The trust was formed as per this Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/CRutLhzJnR ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

The Ram Temple Construction Committee Chairperson has said that the construction of the ground floor of the three-storey Ram temple in Ayodhya will be completed by December end, and the consecration ceremony is expected to take place on January 22.

Mishra also said work is underway to design an apparatus that will be installed on the shikhar of the temple, which will make sun rays fall momentarily on the forehead of the deity in the sanctum sanctorum on the day of Ram Navami every year. It is being built in Bengaluru and its design is being overseen by scientists, he added.

The Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, and an institute in Pune have jointly created a computerised programme for this, Mishra said.

The Supreme Court in a 2019 verdict had paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple by a trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternative five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a prominent place in the holy town of Uttar Pradesh.

The court had ruled that the 2.77 acres of the disputed land where the demolished 16th century-era Babri Masjid once stood will remain with a Central government receiver and be handed over to the trust within three months of the ruling for the construction of the temple.

The Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will formally invite Prime Minister Modi for the consecration ceremony during which the idol of Ram Lalla will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.

The temple trust has decided to start the process of the consecration of Ram Lalla after Makar Sankranti on January 14 and observe a 10-day ritual of Ram Lallas pran pratishtha (consecration).

(With inputs from ANI, PTI)
While appreciating the courage shown by a District Revenue Officer in refusing to issue patta in favour of a private construction company, the Madras High Court expressed surprise that the erstwhile AIADMK government had assigned 3.45 acres of public land for construction of a mall and hypermarket by a private company.

Through a government order in 2021, just before the announcement of Assembly elections, the AIADMK government had assigned 3.45 acre near Koyambedu central bus terminus in Chennai for construction of a shopping mall by Baashyaam Constructions Private Limited, holding power of attorney from Hotel Saravana Bhavan. However, after change of government in 2021 as the DMK came into power, the order was cancelled.

The bench of Justice SM Subramaniam said the case was a classic one, where a schematic way of land grabbing was carried out by highly influential people.

The court said by executing an unregistered deed of family arrangement, the land grabbers had attempted to convert the government land into a private one with an active collusion of the revenue authorities.

It further said it was not a single case, rather there are several incidents where corrupt practices are being adopted to assign government lands to some people who are wealthy, influential, and are political members of the society.

The stratagem employed by the land grabbers is foolproof and can be witnessed specifically in lands belonging to the government across different political spectrums, the single judge bench pointed out.

The court also said the method adopted in bringing about this systemic violation is done hand in hand by the bureaucracy and the politico.

The convergence happens at this singular point. In spite of different parties being in power across different political landscapes, the convergence and tactics adopted in such systemic violations are all in a similar fashion and is all pervasive across different layers of governance, it underscored.

It opined that this is not only a matter of grave concern but raises several serious questions.

This structural corruption is the beginning of all forms of social evils. It shakes the foundation of a good governance, it underlined.

Therefore, while stating that it is high time that the government contemplates the bringing about of a special legislation to penalise land grabbing, the court ordered the Tamil Nadu government to initiate appropriate criminal prosecutions and disciplinary actions against all people including the public servants responsible for grabbing high-value government properties in Chennai and across the state.

It also ordered appointment of a high-level committee to spot illegal activities such as land seizures, unpaid lease rents, and unauthorised use of public land, with the authority to take legal action, including prosecution.

The order was passed in a plea moved by Hotel Saravana Bhavan seeking directions to the state to grant them patta for 3.75 acres of government natham puramboke land situated in Koyambed in Chennai.

The court noted that the land was initially classified as Grama Natham in revenue records, which meant it could only be used for residential purposes. However, in 1983, a Tahsildar reclassified it as Ryotwari land, and in 1994, Hotel Saravana Bhavan acquired it along with an adjoining private property measuring 5.80 acres.

The court held that facts established and the documents produced by the respective parties to the lis on hand showed that the petitioner was an encroacher of the government land who had grabbed the land for unjust gains in a systematic manner.

Therefore, while refusing to allow the prayers as stated in the petition, the court disposed of it with the above-mentioned directions.
Addressing the Summit of Success organised in Ahmedabad to celebrate 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed that what was once a small sapling has now grown into a vast and vibrant banyan tree. The Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit has transformed from a one-time event into an institution. With each iteration, the summit has achieved new heights of success, further emphasising its significance. Prime Minister Modi explained the mantra behind the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, attributing it to core elements like idea, imagination, and implementation.

Through the platform of Vibrant Summit, Gujarat has demonstrated how it can bring about changes with effective decision-making and a focused approach. The Vibrant Summit has become a platform for Gujarat to showcase the potential of its people and the opportunities in various sectors to the world. It serves as a medium to introduce the nations talent and highlight the richness of Gujarats heritage, grandeur, and cultural legacy to the global audience.

The Prime Minister called upon both domestic and international industrialists to identify sectors where India can bolster its position through fresh development opportunities. He encouraged them to deliberate on these prospects in the upcoming Vibrant Summit.

The Prime Minister paid tribute to Swami Vivekananda, stating that often, every endeavour has to go through three stages: ridicule, opposition, and acceptance. He remarked that when the Vibrant Summit was initiated, it was said to be just a branding event. However, the success of Vibrant Summit before the world has proven that it is not just a branding event, but a platform for bonding. Over the past 20 years, every edition of Vibrant Summit has been successful, thanks to the strength and affection of the seven crore people of Gujarat.

The Prime Minister highlighted the successful journey of Vibrant Summit, stating that in 2003, there were only a few hundred participants, but now, the summit sees the participation of over 40,000 individuals. Back in 2003, a handful of countries were partners, and now, more than 135 countries actively participate in the Vibrant Summit. In 2003, there were approximately 30 exhibitors, whereas today, the summit hosts over 2,000 exhibitors.

Gujarat took a unique approach at the Vibrant Summit, inviting a developed nation as a partner countryan idea that others hadnt considered. With its existing officers and resources, Gujarat achieved what was previously unattempted or contemplated.

We also extended invitations to Chief Ministers of other states in the country to participate in the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, to showcase the capabilities of their respective states. We connected various organisations, industrial fairs, and other verticals with the Vibrant Summit, progressively expanding its scope, said the PM.

The Prime Minister exclaimed that 20 years is a long time, and todays younger generation may not be aware of the situation in Gujarat before 2001! In the years leading up to 2001, Gujarat faced constant water scarcity, and after the devastating earthquakes, thousands of homes were damaged, leaving lakhs of people in distress and hardship. Not only this, The closure of Madhavpura Mercantile Bank and the subsequent impact on 133 cooperative banks added to the economic woes in Gujarat. The states economic life was in turmoil, he added.

He stated that in such challenging circumstances, he had unwavering faith that Gujarat would emerge from this crisis. However, people who criticised Gujarat and tried to tarnish its image analysed every incident to defame the state, saying that youth, businessmen, and industries would flee and Gujarat would become a burden for the country. Those who were conspiring to bring Gujarat down had created an atmosphere of disappointment, claiming that Gujarat would never recover, he said.

I took a pledge that whatever the circumstances, I will take Gujarat out of this situation. We were not just thinking about reconstruction but were also planning for its future and we made the Vibrant Gujarat Summit the chief medium for this, the Prime Minister said. This development has transformed Vibrant Gujarat into a global Summit of Success.

He said that when the Vibrant Gujarat Summit started, the Central Government initially showed little interest in Gujarats development. However, Good, Fair, and Transparent Governance, a policy-driven state, and an equal system of growth attracted domestic and foreign industries to Gujarat. The economic distress that was prevalent in Gujarat gradually turned into an opportunity.

The Prime Minister mentioned that when they initiated the Vibrant Summit, their objective was to transform Gujarat into the driving force behind the nations development. This vision has now become a reality, evident to the entire nation.

Upon taking leadership at the Centre in 2014, he was determined to position India as the global growth engine. Today, India stands as the worlds fastest-growing economy and is well on its way to becoming a global economic powerhouse. He further emphasised the goal of propelling India into the top three economies worldwide.

Noting that the identity of Gujarat in the 20th century was that of trade, the Prime Minister informed that the transformation from the 20th to the 21st century led Gujarat to become a powerhouse in agriculture and a financial hub, and the state got its new identity as an industrial and manufacturing ecosystem. All these changes have made Gujarats business environment stronger.

PM Modi also informed that Gujarat is the largest exporter in India with a current transactional value of USD 2 billion. Defence manufacturing will be a very big sector in the coming times, he added.

He mentioned that today, India is a leader in sustainability worldwide, and Gujarat has played a crucial role in that leadership. The startup ecosystem in the state, working as an incubator of innovation and industry, is contributing significantly. Gujarat is now focusing on new technologies, new industries, and new employment opportunities. All thanks to the success of Vibrant Summit, he noted.

He further highlighted that in the last two decades, Gujarat has taken significant strides in various sectors, including automobile manufacturing, chemicals, dyes, intermediates, food processing, medical device manufacturing, processed diamonds, ceramics, and more. New milestones have been achieved in these sectors in Gujarat.

In conclusion, the Prime Minister said that this is not the time to stop. The next 20 years are more important than the last 20 years. When Vibrant Gujarat completes 40 years, India will not be far away from the centenary of its independence. This is the time when India will have to create a roadmap that will make it a developed and self-reliant nation by 2047, he exclaimed, expressing the hope that the summit will move in this direction.

Chief minister Bhupendra Patel commenced his speech by extending heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on behalf of the people of Gujarat for the historic success of Indias G20 Presidency.

The chief minister emphasised that nations across the globe are eager to collaborate with India under the Prime Ministers visionary leadership. This has led to the influx of new technology, new industries, and fresh employment opportunities in the country.

He noted that Vibrant Summit was conceptualised two decades ago by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the vision of ushering in new industries, advanced technology, and increased job prospects in Gujarat.

Bhupendra Patel underlined that the seed of the Vibrant Summit, sown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2003, has now grown into a mighty banyan tree over the course of 20 years. Shri Narendrabhais dream of positioning Gujarat prominently on the global stage in terms of industries, investments, and employment generation has become a reality. Therefore, we are commemorating this occasion as a Summit of Success, he said.

Stating that the Vibrant Gujarat Summit has set new benchmarks in the states progress, CM Patel said that the economic development spurred by this investment summit has reached every section of society and spread across sectors. Today, Gujarat is the leading state in exports of the country and many Fortune 500 companies have established their operations in the state.

The chief minister stated that at the inception of the Vibrant Festival two decades ago, the Prime Minister had expressed unwavering faith in the potential of Gujarat and Gujaratis, encapsulated in the motto Gujarat Can and Gujaratis Will. Today, this belief, instilled by the Prime Minister, has been embodied by the mantra of Sauno Saath, Sauno Vikas.

The CM highlighted that today, Gujarat is home to world-class projects of immense scale, Indias first International Financial Services Centre  GIFT City, and the largest Greenfield Investment Region  Dholera, the worlds largest office complex  DREAM City, etc.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has become the fifth largest economy in the world and his aim is to make India a five trillion-dollar economy by 2027. He expressed confidence that Gujarat is committed to contributing to this goal with proactive policies and pro-people governance.

Bhupendra Patel said that Gujarat is focusing on emerging sectors like semiconductors, display fabs, green hydrogen, artificial intelligence, 5G, advanced materials, cloud computing, and e-commerce.

Under the guidance of the Prime Minister, Gujarat is ready to contribute to global sustainability by becoming a Green Hydrogen Hub in the coming years to combat global climate change, said the CM. Gujarat is ready to become the Gateway to the Future for the countries of the world by highlighting such capabilities, he said.

Minister of industries Balvantsinh Rajput mentioned in his welcome address that 20 years ago, the then chief minister and the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had initiated Vibrant Gujarat in 2003 to propel the progress of Gujarat in the industrial sector. It is a matter of pride for all of us that, under his guidance, the 10th edition of Vibrant Gujarat is being organised today.

The minister further noted that an impressive 90 per cent of the MoUs inked during the 9th Vibrant Gujarat Summit in 2019 have been successful. Preceding the Azadi Ka Amrit Kaal, a total of 118 projects in the state have been backed by MoUs, signifying an anticipated capital infusion of Rs 1,47,000 crore from December 2022 till now.

Director General of JETRO (South Asia) Takashi Suzuki, Chairman of ArcelorMittal Group Lakshmi Mittal, and Chairman of Welspun Group BK Goenka were present at the event.

The Prime Minister had earlier inaugurated and visited the Summit of Success pavilion at Science City.

Minister of state for industry Harsh Sanghvi, minister of state for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Jagdish Vishwakarma, Navsari MP CR Patil, members of the council of ministers, mayor of Ahmedabad Pratibha Jain, chief secretary Raj Kumar, chief principal secretary to the chief minister K Kailashnathan and other senior officials, prominent industrialists, industry associations, leading personalities in the field of trade and commerce, young entrepreneurs, startups, and students from colleges imparting higher and technical education were present.
Scientists across the world fear that in the near future, another potential pandemic will arise, which will be far more deadly than COVID-19. Recently, a health expert from the United Kingdom said that a potential pandemic can be caused by Disease X, a name coined by the World Health Organization (WHO). It also gave a cautionary warning that it might have a similar impact to the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918.

According to health expert, Dame Kate Bingham, who chaired the UKs vaccine task force in 2020, the pandemic caused by Disease X could claim at least 50 million lives. Reportedly, this virus has the potential to result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus.

As reported by the Daily Mail Report, Dame Kate Bingham mentioned that scientists have identified 25 virus families, but that there could be more than a million unidentified variants.

In an interview with the news portal, Dame Kate Bingham said, The world will have to prepare for mass vaccination drives and deliver the doses in record time. Imagine Disease X is as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola (67 per cent). Somewhere in the world, its replicating and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.

If Disease X causes an epidemic in a large population, it would be difficult to manage. It would change its form or mutate and might infect a human being. The Ebola outbreak had a fatality rate of about 67 per cent, while the rate of death during bird flu and MERS was high as well.

The WHO already recognises the threat posed by Disease X and has called it a global challenge. As per WHO, Disease X is a bacterium or a fungus for which there is no treatment yet. However, UK scientists are currently working towards developing a vaccine for this pathogen.

Till now, WHO considered animals to be the carriers of the Zoonotic Pathogen. Even health expert Dame Kate Bingham mentioned that many dangerous viruses like Smallpox, Measles, Ebola and HIV first originated from animals and later mutated and infected humans.
Eid Milad Un Nabi, also known as Mawlid al-Nabi, is a Muslim holiday that commemorates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. It is celebrated on the 12th day of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal. This year it will be celebrated in India on Thursday, September 28, 2023. The date of Eid Milad Un Nabi varies each year in the Gregorian calendar because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. However, it is always celebrated on the same day in the Islamic calendar.

ALSO READ: Eid Milad-Un-Nabi 2023 Mubarak: Happy Milad Un Nabi Wishes, Images, Quotes, Status, Messages, Wallpapers, Photos and Greetings For a Special Mawlid

In India, Eid Milad Un Nabi is a public holiday in most states. It is a time for Muslims to come together and celebrate the birth of their prophet. Muslims attend special prayers, give to charity, and visit family and friends.

EID MILAD UN NABI: CORRECT DATE

The Islamic lunar calendar, distinct from the Gregorian calendar, relies on the sighting of the crescent moon. As a result, the Sunni Muslims who observe Eid-e-Milad do so on the 12th day of Rabi al-awwal, while the Shia community commemorates it on the 17th of Rabi al-awwal.

This year, Eid-e-Milad will be celebrated on September 27 in Saudi Arabia and on September 28 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and various other regions within the subcontinent.

EID MILAD UN NABI: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

Eid Milad Un Nabi commemorates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, who is considered by Muslims to be the last prophet and messenger of God. Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in the year 570 AD.

It is a time for Muslims to celebrate the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims attend special prayers, give to charity, and visit family and friends. They also read the Quran and listen to sermons about the Prophet Muhammads life and teachings.

In addition to the religious observances, Eid Milad Un Nabi is also a time for Muslims to come together and celebrate their community. Muslims often hold parades and festivals to mark the occasion. They also distribute food and sweets to the poor and needy.

EID MILAD UN NABI HISTORY

The celebration of Eid Milad Un Nabi dates back to the early days of Islam. However, it became more popular in the 13th century, during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were great patrons of the arts and sciences, and they used Eid Milad Un Nabi as an opportunity to promote Islamic culture and civilization.

EID MILAD UN NABI SIGNIFICANCE

Eid Milad Un Nabi is a significant day for Muslims because it is a time to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, who is the most important figure in Islam. Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet and messenger of God, and that he was sent to guide humanity to the straight path.

EID MILAD UN NABI CELEBRATIONS

It is celebrated in different ways in different parts of the world. However, some common traditions include attending special prayers, giving to charity, visiting family and friends, reading the Quran, listening to sermons about the Prophet Muhammads life and teachings, and holding parades and festivals.
On the Day of Defenders, Kyiv will provide financial assistance to almost 36,000 citizens for a total amount of about UAH 35 million, Mayor of the capital Vitali Klitschko said.

"For the Day of Defenders of Ukraine, Kyiv will pay almost UAH 35 million of targeted one-time financial assistance. Additional financial assistance from the city under the Care program. "Almost 36,000 residents of the capital will receive a welcome to the people of Kyiv," he said on the Telegram channel on Wednesday.

As Klitschko said, financial assistance will be received, in particular, by "Kyiv residents  members of the families of military personnel who defended the territorial integrity of Ukraine and participated in the ATO/JFO, died or went missing; Kyiv residents who received group one, two and three disabilities as a result of the war; Kyiv residents who took part in the Revolution of Dignity; as well as family members of Kyiv residents who died during the Revolution of Dignity."

"The amount of payments ranges from UAH 900 to UAH 1,500," the mayor said.
Have you ever heard of a boiling river? Well, there is indeed one. Location: the Peruvian Amazon. Reportedly, the water can easily reach a temperature of 93.3 Celsius. It is surrounded by off-white-coloured stones and a lush green forest with tall trees. As per the local tradition of Peru, it is a sacred river which has healing powers. Andres Ruzo, a geophysicist, used to hear the story his Peruvian grandfather used to narrate about Shanay-Timpishka, aka, La Bomba or Boiling River. When loosely translated, it means boiling with the heat of the Sun. Andres Ruzo became quite interested in this river and one of his aunts decided to take him to this mysterious place. He went on an expedition to Central Peru to see the river, which is protected by the Shamans of the town of Mayantuyacu, which is also a healing centre. As per their traditions, a person can visit the river only after seeking permission from a Shaman, which Andres Ruzo did.

When Andres Ruz reached the spot, he was mesmerised by the scenic beauty. He soon created a thermal map and discovered a large spot of the largest geothermal features ever found. He tested the temperature of the water and the highest temperature recorded was 93.3 degree Celsius.

As per reports, the mud on the riverbank is too hot to walk on. And if any living being falls in the water, it will die. As per the information available, he found dead animals floating in the water. The geophysicist decided to sample the water from different areas, and its temperature varied from 86 to 93 degrees. This puzzled Andres Ruzo, as he could not find any volcanic or magmatic activity that was causing the water to get heated up so much.

After a lot of investigation, he believes that it is a hydrothermal feature which caused the river to reach boiling temperatures. As per the legends and folklore, Yacumama, aka, Mother of the Waters, a giant serpent spirit gives birth to hot water.
Smita Banerjees intriguing study of the iconic Uttam Kumar- Suchirta Sen era helps us get a better understanding of how a generation was shaped by these stars. Her book, titled Modernities and the Popular Melodrama: The Suchitra-Uttam Yug in Bengali Cinema, gives us a peek into how this pair defined love and modern romance for millions over decades. The stars who were in their prime from the 1950s to the 1970s found themselves at the vanguard of a revolution post-independence.

The book explores how deep an imprint they left on Bengali and Indian cinema in general. In an interview with News18, Banerjee helps us understand the Mahanayak and Mahanayika of Bengali cinema with a human lens.

Excerpts from an interview:

What was the idea behind writing the book?

It was an under-researched area. I had grown up listening to their hit romantic songs and had heard about their films from family and elder acquaintances who had grown up watching those films in the 1950s or 1960s. The germ of the idea came out of an archival project, that eventually drove my PhD dissertation at JNU and then became the book.

How influential were Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen to the then-young Bengali population? And how far did their reach extend outside Bengal?

Very influential as I have heard my family who have been in Delhi since the 1930s mention the regular Bengali film screenings at the Regal theatre which has now shut in CP. Also, the Durga Puja pandals in Delhi and many cities outside Kolkata were either doing Film screenings or the songs would play in the pandals. The circulation of Bengali literary and film magazines outside Bengal was also very influential in that enterprise.

Suchitra Sen is a fascinating personality. Can you tell our readers about how enchanting she was? What made her different from the others?

She arrived at a particular point in the industry where her screen presence and charisma created a fantastic aura of allure that was quite spectacular. She navigated her stardom very effectively by the dint of her performance, her beauty and her meticulous attention to her persona. I have heard stories of her refusal to give shots if her favourite Max Factor pancake was not available! She was known for being very punctual and dedicated to her acting and her producers. Very few people know (and I mention this in the book) that Satyajit Ray had wanted to cast her in his adaptation of Bankims Devi Chaudhurani in the 1950s but she refused as she was unable to give block dates for his shoot as she was busy with other productions.

This was the Nehruvian era. How different was a Bengali star or a superstar in general compared to now?

We are in a very different era now, of course, due to the ubiquitous social mediascape, nonetheless the then Film star was equally in the public eye and had to perform their personas in all senses of the word. But the kind of superstar status that both Suchitra and Uttam achieved is still unparalleled. Suchitra received the Best Actress award in 1962 for Saat Paake Bandha (remade as Kora Kagaz in Hindi), and the committee that chose this film had Ray on board; the point being that despite her refusal, Ray didnt think twice about recommending a good film that deserved the nomination, personal differences aside.

While researching the book, you are also revisiting those times, was it a nostalgic affair? What was that experience like?

Of course, nostalgia played a big role in the process, not only mine but multiple people who took an interest in my project and opened their doors to me. I was also fortunate that I was invited to screen one of the top hits of the pair Saptapadi at IHC, Delhi and was excited to discover that the Bangladesh High Commissioner was in the audience with his elder sister who had actually seen the film when it had released in 1961 in Kolkata! The nostalgic recall is still very strong about the pair, and the contemporary media is also very invested in this recall value, the multiple anniversaries of their birthdays, deaths, film anniversaries, remakes etc. all testify to that nostalgic remembrance at present.
Malayalam movie 2018: Everyone is a Hero has become Indias official entry for Oscars 2024. The Jude Anthany Joseph directorial was selected for the Best International Film category by a jury on Wednesday, September 27. Besides 2018, many Indian movies, including The Kerala Story, Gadar 2, and Mrs Chatterjee vs. Norway, were in the running to become Indias official entry to the prestigious award function before the Malayalam flick emerged victoriously. The 96th Oscars ceremony will take place in Los Angeles next year on March 10, 2024. Before the results are out, heres everything that you need to know about the film.

What is 2018: Everyone is a Hero about?

This Tovino Thomas starrer film is a cinematic recreation of the catastrophic 2018 Kerala floods. The graphic images from the unprecedented rainfall that hit the state remain fresh in the memory of not just those who fell prey to the calamity but also the entire nation. Stakes were high for director Jude Anthany Joseph as he decided to touch a sensitive subject that left an emotional void in the hearts of the nation. It was inevitable that anything less than an authentic depiction of the calamity could be easily rejected by the masses. This is why the filmmaker fictionalized characters with basic and humble characters to fit into the plotline.

2018 introduced audiences with a set of parallel running stories who would later be at the centre of action when the floods began to wreak havoc in the state. Additional limelight was shed on the life of Anoop (played by Tovino Thomas), a scared man who fakes his health condition to abandon military service. The character graph of Anoop matures drastically as the film progresses. He goes on from being an ignorant and fearful bloke to turning brave and realizing his responsibilities in the hour of crisis.

Elsewhere in the film, the director doesnt fail to hit the dramatic dials. Be it covering a child with special needs stuck neck-deep in water or the fisherman whose marriage proposal gets rejected by an arrogant man but the latter learns his lesson when fishermen arrive with their boats to save his family. The movie sincerely turned a reminder of the days when people in Kerala, irrespective of their background and status, came together to rescue those in distress. It was the humanitarian message of the film that struck a chord with moviegoers and eventually, 2018 began one of the highest-grossing Malayalam movies of the year.

Besides Tovino Thomas, actors Kunchacko Boban, Asif Ali, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Narain, and Lal paid their significant dues in the allotted screen time. 2018: Everyone is a Hero was released theatrically in May 2023.
K-pop idol Jungkooks second solo was teased last weekend when the BTS member played a headline set at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City on September 23. Just days after, his management agency dropped the official teaser video of the new track. Titled 3D, the peppy number includes the feature of six-time Grammy-nominated rapper Jack Harlow. With peppy beats playing in the background, the video opens with a stunning stair walk of Jungkook in an all-white ensemble emanating rockstar vibes. Just seconds later, a completely contrasting Jungkook in all-black street casuals appears strolling, welding a hammer on his shoulder.

Jack Harlow makes a short cameo playing a game of chess with the Korean idol before the short teaser comes to an end. From the looks of the official teaser, 3D seems to be yet another peppy dance number following the release of SEVEN. Catch a glimpse of it here:

After the promotion at the Global Citizen Festival, BigHit Music officially confirmed the single via Weverse on Saturday night. We are excited to announce the release of BTS member Jungkooks digital single 3D (feat. Jack Harlow)," wrote the agency in their official note. Though details of 3D remain quite unclear, BIGHIT Music confirmed its a Pop R&B track that contains clever expressions of feelings toward an unattainable person from the perspectives of first, second, and third dimensions." The official announcement braced fans for meeting a more mature side of Jungkook in the music video accentuated by the unique rap style and zest of Jack Harlow.

A day after the official announcement, Jack Harlow also teased the upcoming solo in an ambiguous style on X. Ill fly u from Korea to Kentucky," he wrote on the social media platform, leaving fans to wonder if theyre the lyrics of the song.

Ill fly u from Korea to Kentucky Jack Harlow (@jackharlow) September 23, 2023

Jungkook and Jack Harlows maiden collaboration is set to be released on Friday, September 29 at 1 pm KST and 12 am EST. The K-pop idols first solo Seven featuring Latto broke several records and even debuted at number one on Billboard Hot 100. The massive success of the previous track has set a higher benchmark for the upcoming number.

Earlier this month, Jungkooks fellow band member Kim Taehyung aka V dropped his first solo album Layover.
Anil Kapoor has shared an emotional post on Instagram, describing his Bollywood journey  an extraordinary experience. He thanked every individual who helped him to grow as an actor. Sharing a series of throwback pictures, the actor said, I have had a long and eventful journey in this industry and Ive tread many paths as an actor and a producer.Very early on, I was exposed to the life of a producer as I saw my father live it. Its trials, tribulations and upheavals became a part of our DNA as Boney and I embarked on first production journeys.

He stated, We rolled up our sleeves and did everything we were required to do, from fetching coffee, driving stars, juggling dates to not paying ourselves! With Hum Paanch, Woh Saat Din and Mr. India, we had quietly but surely established ourselves as producers to be reckoned with.

The actor thanked his dear friend and co-star Anupam Kher. He wrote, It wasnt until Anupam suggested that I listen to Feroz Abbas Khans Gandhi My Father that I truly dared to dream big. I dreamed of Gandhijis personal story being acknowledged and applauded on global stages, and even though it won several awards nationality, it couldnt make a mark internationally. But no dream remains unfulfilled if there is vision and passion to drive it.

Anil Kapoor, who will be next seen in son-in-law Karan Boolanis film, said, Thanks to my daughter Rhea Kapoor and my son Karan Boolani, I am now living that dream through the incredible reception and appreciation of #ThankYouForComing at #TIFF. We at AKFC have proudly produced some very memorable films, but #ThankYouForComing is a milestone that we will never stop celebrating. So heres to all the creators out there  persist and have faith And #ThankYouForComing! I call upon @anupampkher @madhuridixitnene @shekharkapur @sandeipm to share their stories!, the actor concluded.

Apart from this, Anil Kapoor has Animal in the kitty. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role.
Chandramukhi 2 is one of the most awaited films which is set to hit the theatres this Friday, September 28. The sequel has completed all the paperwork and has acquired a certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). According to reports by ETimes, the film has received a U/A certificate and the films run time has been also locked. It was initially submitted with a run time of 2 hours and 52 minutes but the censor board has chopped multiple portions of the film due to its vulgarity and other reasons.

The film will now have a run time of 2 hours and 37 minutes. The P Vasu directorial features Raghava Lawrence and Kangana Ranaut in the lead roles with Lakshmi Menon, Subhiksha, Srusthi Dange, Ravi Mariye, Vadivelu, Suresh Menon, Raadhika Sarathkumar and Mahima Nambiar in supporting roles. The music of the film has been scored by Oscar-winning composer MM Keeravani.

Chandramukhi 2 was initially supposed to be released on the big screens on September 15 but it got delayed. In a recent press conference, director P Vasu reportedly revealed that around 450 shots from the film went missing which was the reason for postponement from September 15. He added that he did not know what to do when he learned about the missing footage. He also shared that around 150 technicians were searching for the shots for 4 days and later retrieved them. But they couldnt edit the shots in time which led to the delay of the release by 15 days.

Ahead of the release of the film, actor Raghava Lawrence met Rajinikanth to seek blessing from the superstar and congratulate him on the success of Jailer. In the pictures that he posted on X, he can be seen touching Rajinikanths feet for blessings. Hi friends and fans, Today I met my Thalaivar and Guru Rajinikanth to wish him for Jailers blockbuster success and got blessings for Chandramukhi 2 release on September 28th. Im so happy. Thalaivar is always great. Guruve Saranam, he tweeted.

Hi friends and fans, Today I met my Thalaivar and Guru @rajinikanth to wish him for jailers blockbuster success and got blessings for #Chandramukhi2 release on September 28th. Im so happy. Thalaivar is always great. Guruve Saranam  pic.twitter.com/hBosLhf3il Raghava Lawrence (@offl_Lawrence) September 26, 2023

Chandramukhi 2 focuses on the story of Chandramukhi who becomes a court dancer in the kingdom of Vettaiyan Raja.
Navya Nanda is one of the most famous star kids. She may not have entered Bollywood but enjoys a huge fan following. The star kid often makes headlines for her statements just like this one. She has recently opened up about her marriage plans and having kids in a conversation with Nikhil Kamath. To note, the actress is reportedly dating actor Siddhant Chaturvedi. They are often seen together but nothing has been confirmed.

ETimes reported that when Nikhil asked about her plans for marriage and having kids. She added, I will definitely get married, and I have kids. In the same conversation, Navya mentioned that she finds it difficult to complain about difficulties in life because she has rarely encountered any. Reflecting on her path to becoming an entrepreneur after graduating from college a few years ago, Navya said, I cannot say that I have had a hard time. For me to wake up at 21, when I graduated, and say that I wanna do this and be able to do that, is not the reality of a lot of young girls in India.

Navya added, I think I had a big advantage. I had it very, very easy comparatively. There are other pressures that come with it, but I dont think I am in a position to complain at all.

Despite what is commonly believed, Navya, the child of Shweta Bachchan and businessman Nikhil Nanda, did not spend her formative years in Mumbai, where her maternal relatives stay. She clarified, Unlike what a lot of people assume, I didnt grow up in Mumbai. I studied in Delhi till I was 12, and I studied in a boarding school in the UK and went to a college in the US for five years. I graduated during Covid-19.

Apart from managing Project Naveli, Navya also hosted a podcast last year where she talked about different topics like love, financial independence, and womens health with her mother Shweta Bachchan and grandmother Jaya Bachchan.
Nithya Menen has finally reacted to the claims that she accused a Tamil hero of harassing her during the making of a film. On Tuesday, reports went viral claiming that Nithya allegedly opened up about the harassment she faced in the Tamil film industry. I have never faced any problems in Telugu industry but I have faced a lot of problems in Tamil industry. A Tamil hero harassed me while shooting for a film (sic), her alleged statement read. It was soon clarified that the statement was false. The actress has now taken to her Instagram account to slam the false reports. She urged those who amplified the false news to be better.

Sharing screenshots of accounts on X (previously known as Twitter) that spread the false claims, the OK Kanmani star said, False news! Completely untrue! I have never given an interview. If anyone knows, please point me in the direction of who started this rumour. Need to hold people accountable for simply making up these types of false news just to get clicks (sic). She added, Its very sad that certain sections of journalism have come down to this. I urge you  Be Better than this ! #stopfakenews.

In a follow up post, Nithya said she found the user who started the false claim and wrote, We are all here for such a short period of time . It always surprises me how much wrong we do to each other  I point this out today because only accountability stops bad behaviour. Be better humans thebuzzbasket ursbuzzbasket letscinema and all the others who have followed this bandwagon. #stopfakenews.

On the work front, Nithya will be seen in D50. The film is directed by Dhanush. He also stars in the film. D50 is produced by Sun Pictures and it also stars S. J. Suryah, Sundeep Kishan, and Kalidas Jayaram.
During the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai, there is always a significant buzz surrounding the Lalbaugcha Raja Ganpati pandal. Just like every year, this time too, the iconic pandal witnessed a massive influx of TV and silver-screen celebrities who flocked to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesha. Among these prominent personalities, the arrival of actor Sonu Sood stole the show. In a video posted on social media, one can see thousands of fans flocking all around the beloved actors car to get a glimpse of him. While some enthusiastic people tried to capture photos of the moment on their phones, others tried to shake hands with their favourite star.

In the midst of the ensuing chaos, Sonu maintained their composure, gracefully interacting with their adoring fans and acknowledging their unwavering support. The actor was dressed in a simple white kurta. He waved at his fans from the sunroof of his car, and the people reciprocated with love and a flurry of photographs.

Watch the video here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Voompla (@voompla)

This overwhelming response from the crowd served as a testament to the immense popularity and adoration that Sonu Sood has garnered in the hearts of their fans. Reportedly, the actor visited the pandal with his wife on Tuesday, September 26. The couple also offered prayer together.

The comment section of teh video is also filled with people who hailed the actor as a real hero.

Other celebrities like Manushi Chhillar and director Farah Khan also made their way to the Lalbaugcha Raja pandal on the same day to seek Lord Ganapatis blessings.

Other Bollywood and TV celebrities who paid a visit to the sacred Lalbaugcha Raja this year included stars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Shehnaaz Gill, Kartik Aaryan, Shilpa Shetty, Urfi Javed, Archana Gautam, Remo DSouza, Kushal Tandon, Varun Dhawan, among others.

Shifting the focus to Sonu Soods professional endeavours, his upcoming film, Fateh, emerges as a thrilling and action-packed drama and has been generating considerable anticipation, thanks to its captivating storyline and the involvement of accomplished Hollywood stunt coordinators.

The plot of the movie revolves around a former gangster named Fateh, who is hired to guard a young woman. In order to keep her safe, Fateh must employ all of his abilities while simultaneously attempting to learn the truth about the nature and causes of threats the woman faces. Directed by Vaibhav Mishra, Fateh will also star actress Jacqueline Fernandez and Vijay Raaz in major roles.
Tovino Thomas has finally reacted to 2018 (also known as 2018: Everyone is a Hero) being selected as Indias official entry for Oscars 2024. In a statement via SonyLiv, the Malayalam actor called the selection an incredible recognition. He said 2018 is a reflection of the resilience and indomitable spirit of the people of Kerala and with the film, the team aimed at reminding everyone that there is always a glimmer of hope despite the chaos and destruction.

Being chosen as Indias official entry for the Oscars is truly an incredible recognition for our film. Its not just a moment of pride for me as an actor, but for the entire team that poured their heart and soul into this project. 2018 is a reflection of the resilience and indomitable spirit of the people of Kerala in the face of one of the most devastating natural disasters of our time, Tovino Thomas said.

Through the film, we aim to remind everyone that amidst the chaos and destruction, there is always a glimmer of hope, and its the human spirit that shines the brightest. This nomination serves as a shining example of our collective efforts, and I am hopeful that it will resonate with the international audience, just as it did with our own, he added in the statement.

Meanwhile, speaking with India Today, Kunchacko Boban said that the film truly deserved the honour. Its a moment of pride for us. It was wonderful shooting for it and the film broke all records in Kerala. Globally, 2018 was lauded by people and broke many milestones. It documented the emotions of the people, which is why it was relatable to many. Since it is a real story, it managed to reach a wider audience, he said.

Not just the story, the film is technically strong as well. It is a film that deserves the honour. I cant explain my happiness right now. 2018 is a film that is deserved to be placed in the Oscars 2024 race, Kunchacko added.

2018: Everyone Is A Hero narrates the stories of humanity triumphing over adversity set in the backdrop of the 2018 floods that devastated parts of Kerala. In the film, Tovino Thomas is a young man who leaves the Indian Army with a fake medical certificate and redeems himself during the floods. The film also stars Asif Ali, Lal, Narain, Kunchacko Boban, and Aparna Balamurali in prominent roles.

Produced by Venu Kunnappilly, C. K. Padmakumar, and Anto Joseph, 2018: Everyone is a Hero boasts stellar performances by an ensemble cast, including Tovino Thomas, Kunchako Boban, Asif Ali, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Aparna Balamurali, Kalaiyarasan, Indrans, Sudheesh, Gilu Joseph, Vinitha Koshy, Aju Varghese, Thanvi Ram, and Gauthami Nair.

2018: Everyone is a Hero is streaming on SonyLiv.
The Defense Committee of the Bulgarian parliament has approved a draft decision on the transfer of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles in need of repair to Ukraine, so that Ukrainians can bring them into a suitable for use in air defense, The Sofia Globe agency reports.

The draft decision, tabled on September 26 and signed by Boiko Borissov, Delyan Peevski, Hristo Ivanov and Kiril Petkov, also provides for Bulgaria to give Ukraine 5.56 calibre cartridges from Interior Ministry stores that are surplus to requirements.

Those supporting the draft decision said that the S-300 missile systems had been deemed to be unserviceable by the military and while it was not possible to repair the missiles in Bulgaria, Ukraine had the capacity to use them.

Our country does not have the necessary capacity to independently repair these munitions. Their use by our army would create a serious risk to the lives of Bulgarian servicemen. Unlike Bulgaria, Ukraine has declared that it has the capacity to put such defective munitions into service and have them serve of the Ukrainian army, the signatories said in an explanatory memorandum appended to the draft decision.

Supplying the missiles would improve the defence of Ukrainian cities against Russian air attacks, while the cartridges could be used by Ukrainian soldiers equipped with NATO small arms.
The makers of Leo, starring Vijay, Trisha and Sanjay Dutt, have announced that the audio launch event of the movie has been cancelled, leaving Thalapathy fans extremely disappointed. The makers have revealed that the event has been called off due to the safety constraints and overflowing passes requests.

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Seven Screen Studio shared: Considering overflowing passes requests & safety constraints, we have decided not to conduct the Leo Audio Launch. In respect of the fans wishes, we will keep you engaged with frequent updates. P.S. As many would imagine, this is not due to political pressure or any other reasons.

This has come a few days after AR Rahmans Chennai concert was met with severe criticism online after fans complained of overcrowding and a stampede-like situation at the venue in Paniyur.

Vijays movie Leo has been creating an immense buzz ever since its announcement. While the film is scheduled to release in theatres in October, a recent report claimed that Vijay has already watched the Lokesh Kanagaraj directorial. Leo is an action thriller which also features Trisha Krishnan and Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt in key roles.

Thalapathy Vijay reportedly watched Leo at a special screening in Chennai recently, according to a Tamil YouTube channel Valai Pechu, quoted by Pinkvilla. Even though the post-production and re-recording works of the movie are yet to be finished, Vijay reportedly expressed his desire to watch the film after finishing dubbing for his portions, as per the report.

The report suggested that Vijay was super impressed with how Leo turned out. The actor is likely to watch the film once again with his family, once its final cut is ready. However, the makers of Leo havent confirmed the report.
At half past midnight in a busy emergency room in a Delhi government hospital, an unconscious patient in his mid-20s was wheeled on a stretcher. His relatives told us that he tried to end his life by drinking a toilet cleaner. Our team rushed into action and was able to stabilise him thankfully. After he came to his senses, we found out that the young rickshaw puller had tried to kill himself because he was suffering from erectile dysfunction and his wife had left him. Hed spent close to Rs 1 lakh on snake oil treatments, running from one quack to another in desperation. This in a country where a generic Viagra pill costs less than Rs 25. This in the national capital. What happens in the hinterlands is definitely beyond the pale.

This sexual health month, we talk about the silent epidemic of sexual dysfunction in rural India.

Globally, 1 in 4 men suffer from at least some form of sexual dysfunction. The numbers for women arent very different either. One of the major reasons these dysfunctions go untreated or mistreated is the taboo around the topic. But, changes in societal attitudes take decades and cant be rushed through. While government initiatives like the National Health Mission and National AIDS Control Organisation have made substantial inroads in increasing access to treatments related to maternal and infant mortality and sexually transmitted diseases respectively, the more routine sexual disorders have gone unnoticed.

The abysmal doctor-patient ratio in small towns and rural India is just one part of the problem. The fact that most people there live in tightly-knit small communities where more people know each other adds another level of complexity to it. Data from an ongoing study undertaken by us and our colleagues in Bihar suggests that the number of patients that consult a doctor for sexual dysfunction is almost negligible.

This, added to the misinformation around sexual health, creates a vacuum ripe for quacks to fill. The quacks are usually on the move and sit at a place only once or twice a week. Their lack of rootedness in a particular locale allows the patients some level of impersonal touch to the communication that they arent able to find with a local doctor. According to the Indian Medical Association, there are at least 10 lakh quacks practising in the country, many of them proclaiming to cure sexual dysfunction. They usually prescribe self-prepared and untested traditional medicines that dont work and in many cases, prove fatal for the patients. The same is true for most over-the-counter traditional medications available to treat such dysfunction.

A 2022 NITI Aayog study found that the average blood lead level in India is 4.9 g/dl. The numbers for the Hindi belt go up to 10.4 for Bihar, 8.7 for Uttar Pradesh and 8.3 for Madhya Pradesh. For comparison, these numbers globally average between 0.8 to 3.2 g/dL and anything above 3.5 g/dL is flagged as a concern requiring medical intervention by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States. Among other reasons, NITI Aayog puts traditional medicines sold over the counter or by quacks as a primary source for such lead poisoning that results in an estimated 2.3 lakh deaths annually in India.

To address this, we recommend an approach based on Rohini Nilekanis framework of demarcation and continuum among samaaj, sarkar and bazaar (society, state and market). Given the high disease burden of sexual dysfunction, an increased focus on the same is called for in our national and state health programs. This can be done by incorporating it into the National Health Mission via the Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs). But in order for it to work, the government will need to impart special training to the last-mile healthcare workers. Currently, sexual medicine is not recognised as a separate discipline in India and is scattered among andrology, urology, dermatology and psychiatry. A Medical Council of India recognised 6-month or year-long fellowship in Sexual Medicine after MBBS can help out in regularising the discipline. Various certifications by the International Society for Sexual Medicine provide a template for such a fellowship.

Teleconsultation circumvents the taboo and shame attached to these disorders and provides much-needed confidentiality to the patient. It can prove to be one of the most important tools in enabling access in this context. The government should facilitate private initiatives in this area and should not over-regulate or restrict teleconsultation/e-pharmacies as it can prove to be counter-productive. Once the initiatives around increasing access start showing results, a crackdown on quacks is desirable as they not only benefit from making the topic a taboo but also perpetuate it by offering snake oil treatments that dont work.

The long-term solution to these is sensitising the population on sexual health and enabling their access to quality information on the same. Introducing elements of sexual health education in schools can help. The samaj (society) element of it comes in the dissemination of information and awareness around sexual health through mass media and popular culture. Movies like OMG 2 show that such a revolution might be in the offing.

Rural India needs a solution to this silent epidemic mired in shame and the time to act is now.

The authors are co-founders of a rural health tech company Raazapp. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
On Sunday, Indias External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Armenian counterpart against the backdrop of a cataclysmic fate being meted out to Armenians in Azerbaijan. With all its focus on Ukraine, the international community has turned a blind eye toward an ethnic cleansing underway, elsewhere. More than 120,000 ethnic Armenians are being driven out of their homeland, the Nagorno-Karabakh region, at the hands of Azerbaijan. Yet, not a single global power has stepped up to prevent this tragedy from unravelling.

So much for the Wests sanctimonious sermons or Russias intimidating temerity. For all they care, one may describe the current state of affairs as Azerbaijan having a free pass to do as it pleases with the Armenians.

Last week, backed by Turkey, Baku launched a lightning offensive on the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave where the breakaway Republic of Artsakh resides. The government in the region has been asked to disband. The Lachin corridor connecting Armenia to the region has been blockaded by Azerbaijan since last years winter, causing acute food shortages. Electricity and gas supplies, which pass through Azerbaijan-controlled territory, have also dried up. War and deadly bomb blasts targeting civilians are further driving away ethnic Armenians, who fear an impending violent takeover by Azerbaijan. Streams of thousands of Armenians are fleeing a region that they have called home for millennia.

The conflict is a gruesome lesson on the geopolitical tussle that grips the Transcaucasian region leaving numerous casualties and injustices in its wake. While the world has let Armenia down, India has a bigger role to play.

The World Lets Armenia Down

Armenia is ready to take in all the refugees and Azerbaijan, having finally won over the Armenians, is all set to establish complete control over the mountains of Nagorno Karabakh. In fact, the matter is already a done deal as Azerbaijan finds itself in a geopolitical sweet spot.

Russia, tied up in Ukraine and geopolitically invested in Azerbaijan, is only playing the role of a mediator with its peacekeeping forces having done little to stop Bakus advances. This is despite Russia being a Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) ally of Armenia, whose immediate territory is also under attack. Iran, an ally of Armenia, is sitting out this conflict as well. This is because the European Union will let Bakus excesses slide, as it views Azerbaijan as an alternative source of gas to fall back on since the decoupling with Russia.

The catch here is that a quarter of Azerbaijans gas fields are owned by Russia and moreover, it does not have the resources to fulfil even part of Europes needs, making it a convenient indirect source of Russian and Iranian gas. Meanwhile, the United States is too invested in defeating Russia through Ukraine than in preventing an Armenian tragedy from unfolding. And by extension, Turkey, which supported Azerbaijan with arms and mercenaries against the Armenians, is relishing this victory.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said to his troops that the fact that Azerbaijan is right is not questioned by major international actors. This is true. And it has emboldened Aliyev to rub Armenias nose on the ground. Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nicol Pashinyan has grown vocal over Russias inaction and failure to come to Armenians rescue despite being a CSTO ally.

What Azerbaijan Wants

The breakup of the USSR led to the formation of the independent states of Armenia and Azerbaijan among thirteen other nations. While Nagorno Karabakh was completely inhabited by ethnic Armenians after a long war amid the fall of the Soviet Union, the territory is officially recognised to be part of Azerbaijan. During the war, thousands of ethnic Armenians and Azeris were massacred or displaced as violence escalated to its peak.

Since then, peace remained fragile until a complete breakdown in 2020, when Azerbaijan initiated the second Karabakh war taking over vast swathes of land and closing in on the Lachin corridor which connects with the Armenian border. Armenian resistance, however, is verging on complete exhaustion with its border areas under attack by Azerbaijan.

Not only does Baku want to establish control over Nagorno-Karabakh, but it also seeks to cut through the southern part of Armenia to connect with the Azeri exclave of Nakhchivan and establish an uninterrupted corridor between itself and Turkey, continuing the centuries-long tradition of nibbling away at Armenian territory.

A Win for Turkey-Pakistan-Azerbaijan Nexus

A cruel narrative is being weaved by Azerbaijan and its Turkish backers. According to them, this mass exodus of Armenians is voluntary and none of them have been asked to leave. But they are not being assured either of safety or security as Azerbaijani armed forces march on. Instead, bomb blasts and civilian killings even as the Armenians leave, paint a different picture. Having faced brutal persecution at the hands of Turkic Islamic forces for centuries, the Christian Armenians know better than to stay back at their mercy.

Even as Turkey continues to deny it, the Armenian genocide executed by the Ottoman Empire amid World War I is not lost on the world. Over 1.5 million Armenians were killed in their systematic erasure from eastern Anatolia. Forcefully Islamised, thrown into the frontlines as cannon fodder or sent into death marches in the Syrian Desert, were some of the ways in which Armenians were uprooted from their homeland, making way for an ethno-nationalist Turkish state.

A century has passed since, but Turkeys hostility towards Armenians remains. Since 2020, it has backed Azerbaijans war and sent arms and Syrian mercenaries to tilt the scales in Bakus favour. Pakistan jumped in on the military campaign with its soldiers allegedly fighting for Azerbaijan as well. The Ankara-Baku-Islamabad troika has enjoyed a free run over the South Caucasus and the impact of their violent geopolitical victory will reverberate in the foreseeable future.

Where India Comes In

India has a deep interest in the South Caucasus region. The active conflict has a bearing on the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that passes through this region. However, just like most powers around the world, its reaction to the reprehensible hostilities by Azerbaijan has been muted. But New Delhi is not oblivious to the threat that emanates from this part of the world, especially with Azerbaijan backing Pakistans claims on Kashmir. When it comes to India, the trio of Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan are up to no good. The three countries engage in military drills and officially back each others position on Kashmir, Cyprus and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Meanwhile, Armenia has wholeheartedly expressed support for India on the matter of Kashmir. Notwithstanding Bakus protests, India has been exporting arms to Yerevan including the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher, which is the DRDO-developed equivalent of the American HIMARS rocket launcher. India has also exported the counter-battery Swathi radar systems to Armenia.

With the INSTC, its burgeoning energy needs, and Russias presence in retreat, Indias role in Transcaucasia is bound to deepen in the coming years. The troika of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan, however, threaten Indias geopolitical foothold in the region. Armenia is as much a natural ally as it is a strategic one to India and must be boldly empowered by New Delhi to keep the ATP nexus in check.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
Very few politicians in India can match Hyderabad MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Assaduddin Owaisi when he gets on to his soap box. At most times, his high-decibel sectarian proclamations and provocations are best ignored. But occasionally, the bombastic barrister can conjure some bitter truths.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, Owaisi is keen to have a showdown  an electoral duel to the finish line so to speak  to establish who is the guarantor of secularism in India. And Owaisi has identified his quarry.

You keep giving big statements, Owaisi intoned from the lectern recently, (Rahul) come to the ground and lets have a contest. People from the Congress will say a lot of things, but I am ready. Come and face this man with a beard and sherwani, you will know what a contest means.

Owaisi is a perceived sectarian politician, who is a ferocious champion of Muslim and Dalit rights. That he thinks he can easily dent the Congress partys secular credentials is a telling comment on the hollowness of the latters Bharat Jodo pitch.

Rahul Gandhis 2024 campaign rests on the claim that the Congresss mohabbat ki dukaan caters to the overarching yearning for communal amity. He alleges that the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) supposed ethnic nationalism propelled by an exclusionary Hindutva has shattered inter-faith peace.

For evidence that the Congress best represents sabka saath, its media managers routinely point towards the partys acceptability in constituencies such as Wayanad. This hill station is a Muslim majority Lok Sabha seat in Kerala. In 2019, Wayanads voters elected Gandhi to Parliament by a record margin.

To be sure, Gandhis victory in 2019 from Wayanad or those of other Congress candidates from similar minority dominated constituencies wasnt strictly down to his or the partys glowing secular credentials.

In 2019, the Muslim League, which has a grip over the Muslim vote, had allied with the Congress in Kerala. The alliance was a significant reason for Muslims backing Gandhi over the Communist partys candidate. Now, after the formation of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) grouping, the Muslim League and the Communist party are on the same side. They are hoping that Gandhi will give up the Wayanad seat in the spirit of coalition dharma. Six months from the election, its anybodys guess what will happen in Wayanad should Gandhi decide to contest against the wishes of his alliance partners.

Moreover, in 2019, Muslims voted en bloc nationally. Tactical voting, they reckoned, had a better chance at impeding a BJP re-capture of Delhi. Voting for the Congress party made sense. First, it was in direct contest with the BJP in 200+ seats. Second, non-Congress parties, although secular on paper, couldnt always be trusted. Several of them have taken Muslim support only to strike deals with the BJP.

Even though fighting and defeating Owaisi in his bastion in Hyderabad would unambiguously demonstrate Gandhis secular credentials, the Congress is unlikely to let him.

The party, after all, has too much to lose. Owaisi is a master at grandstanding. On home turf, he will tear into the Congress for betraying Muslim voters with unkept promises and a raft of expedient sops. Owaisi has often claimed with proof that the Congresss beneficence towards Muslims never went beyond empty tokenism.

In January 2006 for one, then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh announced at a meeting of the National Development Council that his government was in favour of devising plans to ensure that Muslims get a first claim on the states resources. The Congress failed to walk its ludicrous talk that clearly mocked secularism. And even when schemes were devised to privilege Muslims, they were plagued by poor implementation.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliances (UPA) open discrimination had another unintended consequence for Muslims. They became alienated from Hindus.

As the years went by, the chasm between Hindus and Muslims only deepened as the UPA thought up other iniquitous schemes.

The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 was yet another one. The Bill was the brainchild of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC). Had it become law, it would have served to disadvantage Hindus disproportionately. Largely because the protective umbrella against communal strife that the Bill was promising to offer would have extended only to linguistic and religious minorities, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Hindus were left out, condemned to be cast forever as aggressors, even where they were in a minority. Absurd, but true.

In these ways the Congress partys minoritarian-ism only served to trap Muslims in a minority mindset. Muslim minds held hostage by a sense of exceptionalism were destined to retreat inwards, which marred the communitys further integration into society.

The Congress may publicly blame the BJP today for vitiating the peace, but it privately knows that its purely self-serving vote bank politics left Muslims out to dry. Thankfully, the Hindu backlash wasnt violent. Instead, Hindus expressed their frustration peacefully through the ballot by voting for the BJPs poster-boy Narendra Modi. In 2014, Modi had made dismantling the Congress style-appeasement politics as a mainstay of his electoral campaign.

Ten years later and after being chastened by Hindus, would Rahul Gandhi now want to risk the ignominy of a Muslim backlash in Hyderabad? Doubt it.
In a shocking and deplorable turn of events, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament, Ramesh Bidhuri, ignited a firestorm of controversy by hurling religious slurs and hateful phrases at fellow Lok Sabha member, Danish Ali of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), during a momentous session in the new Parliament building this week. Such reprehensible behaviour, within the hallowed halls of Indias parliamentary institution, stands as a grave affront to the very essence of democracy and the values it upholds. It is imperative that we collectively condemn this act and emphasise that in a sacred place like the Parliament of India, where the most vital issues concerning the nation are deliberated upon, there should be no room for unparliamentary or abusive language. However, let us not forget that the Opposition, too, has not been entirely free from such disgraceful conduct.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra launched a scathing attack on a prominent industrialist, widely understood to be Adani, and by extension, Prime Minister Modi, in the wake of the Hindenburg report. Accusing the billionaire businessman of taking the nation for a ride, Moitra, without explicitly naming Adani, wielded words like a sword, insinuating that a certain A to I, who was not Advani, exuded the stench of crony capitalism, leaving the nation duped. However, her impassioned speech did not end there, as it quickly ignited a fiery exchange between TMC and BJP members. Moitra, unfortunately, did not temper her language, leading the Chair to object and implore members to refrain from the use of cuss words. What followed, though, was equally disheartening as Mahua Moitra directed unparliamentary language towards BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri and called him harami which means bastard.

The demand for an apology from BJP MPs was swift, but Moitras response was anything but remorseful. In an audacious stance, she defended her words, challenging the very notion of parliamentary etiquette. It is indeed ironic that Mahua Moitra, who once used unparliamentary language and defended her actions, is now the first one to criticise the BJP for allowing communal slurs and is demanding strict action.

As the political arena resounds with accusations and counter-accusations, it becomes increasingly pertinent to question the Oppositions stance when the ball is squarely in their court. The recent incident involving BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuris condemnable remarks must indeed be met with stern censure. However, it is essential to remember that this is not an isolated occurrence. The Opposition, too, has played its part in the theatre of derogatory remarks. In response to the situation, BJPs spokesperson Amit Malviya argued that Bidhuris comments in the Lok Sabha were provoked by Danish Alis name-calling of the prime minister. The echoes of neech casteist jibes were used by Danish Ali but also from the Congress camp, as exemplified by Manishankar Aiyars infamous statement about Prime Minister Modi.

When the Opposition indulges in similar vitriolic language, it becomes evident that the pot is calling the kettle black. In these instances, it is not just a question of condemning actions, but of acknowledging that the Opposition often digs its own hole, thereby diminishing the moral high ground they seek to occupy.

In a secular India where the bedrock principles of justice and equality are held sacred, a chilling incident unfolded, leaving the nation grappling with questions about the even-handedness of our legal system. It was a day when the air was thick with tension, and the echoes of provocative rhetoric reverberated through the streets. In the heart of Maharashtras Marathwada region, AIMIM MP Imtiaz Jaleel took to the stage in what he termed an unplanned and spontaneous protest rally. The gathering was in response to the heated controversy surrounding Nupur Sharma, the now-suspended national spokesperson of the BJP. Sharma had found herself in the midst of a firestorm of condemnation for her remarks in a live TV debate, remarks that had targeted Islam and its followers.

But what transpired next would send shockwaves through the nation. Imtiaz Jaleel, standing before a fervent crowd, did not merely seek to express dissent or disagreement. Instead, in an incendiary address, he issued a harrowing call to action. His words, dripping with anger, cut through the charged atmosphere: Nupur Sharma should be hanged in Aurangabad.

The crowd, already primed with emotion, erupted in response to Jaleels inflammatory rhetoric. Chants of Sar Tan Se Juda and phasi filled the air, as the impassioned assembly seemed to embrace the idea of a public execution. In those tense moments, the very fabric of a nation founded on the principles of secularism and justice appeared to be unravelling, leaving us to ponder the ramifications of such an alarming turn of events.

In a twist of bitter irony, its the very same party that once incited a mob, whose chief, Asaduddin Owaisi, is now reacting to Ramesh Bidhuris controversial comments with a grim warning. Owaisi declared, The day is not far when a Muslim will be mob-lynched in Parliament.

These events remind us that the line between civility and chaos must be drawn firmly, condemning reprehensible acts both inside and outside the Parliament. These politicians and influential figures may present themselves as flagbearers of truth, but their actions reveal a disturbing game of selective fairness. They seem to possess an eerie ability to ignite the fires of violence. In a world where truth and justice should be paramount, their actions and silence paint a disheartening picture, showing that they are more adept at perpetuating discord than fostering genuine understanding and harmony.

While our constitution safeguards free speech for MPs and MLAs, its vital to remember that with great power comes great responsibility. We, as citizens, must acknowledge that we need better politics and any environment that fosters irresponsible speech or turns a blind eye to corruption must be dismantled. It is, first and foremost, our collective responsibility as citizens and the choices we make in the realm of politics. When entrusted with power, we must remember that its purpose is not for misuse, but to serve the greater good of our democracy, a truth universally acknowledged that we must uphold and cherish.

When wrongdoing occurred within, the BJP acted swiftly, issuing a show-cause notice to Bidhuri. However, the question lingers: What about the Opposition? Its imperative to stress that all such actions, regardless of political affiliation, are condemnable. In the pursuit of a responsible political landscape, theres no partiality in denouncing actions that undermine our democracy.

The author is a practising Advocate. She writes article on womens rights, politics and law. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
The key outcome of the G20 summit earlier this month was the MoU signed to develop the India-Middle East-Europe (IMEC) corridor. The blueprint for the corridor, as per the MoU, will be ready within 60 days. Thats just before the virtual summit of the G20 on November 30, 2023, to formally end Indias year-long presidency.

Significant geopolitical and geo-economic consequences will flow from the IMEC. It will trigger an infrastructure boom in sea terminals, railways, roadways and undersea cables for green energy. Indias western coast will witness both greenfield and brownfield expansion in seaports.

Indian companies such as private sector Larsen & Toubro and public sector giants like IRCON International and RVNL are well equipped to win contracts to build rail and road projects from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan through to Israels Mediterranean ports.

Once diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are formalised, a direct route on rail and road through Jordan from Saudi Arabia to Israels coast can be established.

Since the United States and the European Union are signatories to the MoU, IMEC has strong financial backers. Germany, France and Italy, Europes three largest economies, are also signatories in their sovereign capacities along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and India.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is usually a sceptic on direct infrastructure linkages between South Asia and Western Europe. But even the council, in a briefing note on September 15, 2023, by its director for the Middle East and North Africa programme Julien Barnes-Dacey and visiting fellow Cinzia Bianco, conceded: The G20 announcement establishing the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor (IMEC) has been hailed as a historic breakthrough by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The project aims to build a railway and, later, digital and electric cables, as well as a clean hydrogen pipeline, from India to Europe via Jordan and Israel.

IMEC will quickly force the West to confront the mismatch between how they and key Gulf actors see the multipolar world. The West believes it can still cement its regional influence at the expense of China, offering an alternative to Beijings Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But Gulf actors see this agreement within the context of a new global order in which they can balance ties with both China and the West to maximise their own gains.

Sceptics of IMEC are thicker on the ground in India. Vivian Fernandes writing in BQ Prime pointed out: Is the transcontinental transport corridor between India, the Middle East and Europe an idea that will acquire shape and substance in the foreseeable future, or will it fizzle out like other such grand announcements?

Near-seamless goods transport through IMEC is predicated on the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. They do not have diplomatic ties, though the ice is melting. Saudi Arabia did not join the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. It is also not part of I2U2, a group comprising India, Israel, the UAE, and the US formed in 2021 for deeper engagement in six areas, including transportation and energy.

For India, the corridor is a plug-and-play project. Much of the investment will be made by the West Asian countries. But it could leverage the project for greater integration of South Asian economies.

The positive impact of the IMEC corridor on the Indian economy is indisputable. Apart from enhancing Indias position as a logistical hub for the Middle East and Western Europe, the spin-off benefits to the Indian economy will come in several other ways.

Exports from India will be streamlined. Once fully developed, the IMEC corridor will cut logistical costs for both Indian exports and imports.

But the real impact of IMEC is geopolitical. With countries involved in Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) struggling with debt, IMEC provides an alternative route from east to west.

BRI was to cut across Eurasia, past the Middle East and onwards to Europe. It would pass through sovereign Indian territory in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, illegally occupied by Pakistan.

Italy is set to withdraw from the BRI in April 2024 when its five-year agreement with China ends. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang at the G20 summit in New Delhi that the BRI agreement would not be renewed. Since Italy was the first  and only  Western European country to sign on to the BRI in 2019, its withdrawal will be a setback to Beijings plans to revive the stalled initiative.

India obviously is not putting all its geo-economic eggs in the east-to-west IMEC basket. It is simultaneously developing a strategic Indo-Pacific military and civil maritime corridor in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Rs. 72,000 crore Great Nicobar project came under criticism from environmentalists and the National Green Tribunal (NGT). All construction work was halted as a result. These concerns were studied, as mandated, by a group of experts who last month gave the Great Nicobar project the green signal.

According to the Journal of Projects, Infrastructure and Energy Law (IJPIEL), The idea behind this project is to enable India to use its geographical access to major shipping routes between East Asia and South Asia and major trade cities like Colombo, Port Klang and Singapore to leverage a significant share of the regional maritime economy. The geographical vicinity will act as a major economic benefit due to the instance of cost savings for containers shipping cost.

The proposed Great Nicobar Island International Airport (GNIIA) has been decided to be developed as an International Airport in Great Nicobar. The airstrip should be developed to cater for operations of Airbus A-380 type of aircraft in all weather conditions.

Military and civilian aircraft will now have access to the South Pacific Sea. The expanded Indian naval base in the Great Nicobar lies just over 100 miles from the tip of Indonesia and overlooks the entrance to the Strait of Malacca through which most of Chinas trade passes.

The combined impact of IMEC and the Great Nicobar Project will help India cut a swathe from Western Europe past North Africa and the Middle East to the Indian Ocean, East Asia and the South Pacific Sea.

The benefits of the two projects will make India the trading hub it was for centuries before the advent of European colonialism. The tables have turned.

The writer is an editor, author and publisher. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
The more one ponders over Justin Trudeaus hitjob against India, the more it becomes obvious that he may not be the only player in the sinister game to corner New Delhi. He, in fact, may not be the main player either. This is despite the fact that Trudeau was upset at being ignored at the recently held G20 Summit hosted by India. He was also snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Ottawas dubious Khalistani connections. Of course, he finds himself trailing in Canadian politics and wants to catch up with his opponents by raising an emotive issue. And yes, he has an unsavoury Chinese connection for which the ruling Liberal Party is facing a probe.

Still, Trudeau resurrecting an India ghost in the assassination of a Canadian national, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a known Khalistani terrorist, has all the ingredients of Western deep state connections. More so as it comes soon after India upscaled its global stature post-G20 presidency. The suspicion gathered steam when a New York Times report on Sunday, 24 September, stated that US spy agencies reportedly provided information to Canada on Nijjars killing, which took place this June. According to the report, American agencies offered their Canadian counterparts context that helped Ottawa conclude that New Delhi was involved in the killing. Interestingly, following Trudeaus outburst, the United States has urged India to cooperate with Canada in its investigations.

One wonders if Trudeau was hoodwinked by American agencies which, as per NYT, provided Canada with some information on Nijjars killing. Maybe that was the reason why Trudeau, mistakenly and foolishly assuming it to be the US support for Canada, could go as far as he went this time, accusing India of extra-territorial killing. But then, the Americans apparently didnt share any specific details; it was, as the NYT report says, just the context, which Trudeau badly misinterpreted to push the Indo-Canadian ties to a new low.

One may wonder why the US would try to corner India soon after the Modi-Biden bonhomie at the G20 Summit in Delhi. The answer may lie in what Gautam Sen wrote in one of his articles for Firstpost, Why West is so uncomfortable with rising India and happy to sponsor its enemies (July 18, 2022): The Americans and their European allies have uses for India but no real camaraderie or commitment towards it. One can sense the Western unease with the rising, new India from the kind of bad press the latter gets on a daily basis in the Euro-American media.

However, before falling into anti-American trappings, one needs to understand that a countrys foreign policy is largely governed by its national interest. The West, especially the US, while acknowledging Indias utility, especially against growing Chinese threats, believes that a strong Delhi would ultimately propel out of its orbit of influence. While the West is within its right to forward its agenda, India too should wisely mix its geostrategic advantages and economic leverages to push its national interest.

However, whats disconcerting is the American (Western) tendency to compromise long-term interest for flippant, short-term gains. The ongoing Ukraine war is a case in study where the US sacrificed its long-term objective of creating a larger, stronger coalition against growing Chinese hegemony by obsessively focusing on the immediate  of fixing Vladimir Putin, who, if the Americans had handled him with the maturity of a sole superpower, could have been a valued ally against Xi Jinpings pernicious designs.

Coming back to the core issue, this fear of India becoming too big to control often turns the West into a frenemy. It would hug India one moment and in the next, it would look for reasons to corner it with issues, real or imagined. It both admires and abhors India, often simultaneously. This is a Western way of having the cake (Indias support vis-a-vis China) and eating it too (constantly finding issues to corner Delhi).

Khalistanis, for that matter, are a mere tool for the West to keep New Delhi engaged, just the same way they have been used by Pakistanis to push their balkanisation plan. A glance at the official map of Khalistan, published by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), led by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, one of the top Khalistani leaders who practices law in New York, would show how the entire endeavour has been less about Sikh identity and aspiration and more about hitting out at India. The official Khalistani map, for instance, incorporates not just the Indian state of Punjab, but also the whole of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi; Khalistanis also claim a large part of Rajasthan.

The map is ludicrous on two counts. One, Khalistanis are seeking overwhelmingly non-Punjabi states for the creation of a Punjabi nation. Except Punjab, all other Indian states claimed by Khalistanis have minuscule Sikh presence. Haryana has 87 per cent Hindus; Delhi has 81 per cent Hindus; Himachal Pradesh has 95 per cent Hindus, while in Rajasthan there are 88 per cent Hindus.

Even more ludicrous is the Khalistani generosity not to seek any territory from Pakistan, despite the presence of a number of historical and religious sites of Sikhs on the other side of the border. The Khalistani reverence for the Radcliffe Line is so absolute that nothing is sought from Pakistani Punjab  not even Lahore, which was the erstwhile capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Even the holy Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, is voluntarily excluded from the Khalistan map. The very fact that the Khalistanis want Delhi and not Lahore exposes the real, pernicious agenda of the movement for the so-called nation of the Sikhs.

One finds the West-Pakistan nexus from the very beginning of the Khalistani misadventure. The founder of the Khalistan movement, Jagjit Singh Chauhan, was in Pakistan soon before setting up this terror group. During his stay there, he was warmly received by Gen Yahya Khan, the countrys military dictator then. After this, he went to New York and on 12 October, 1971, came out an advertisement in The New York Times proclaiming the birth of Khalistan. We are going to wait no more, the ad said. Today we are launching the final crusade We are a nation in our own right. The Pakistan Embassy was believed to have paid for that ad on American soil!

After the humiliation in the 1971 war, which saw the birth of a new country called Bangladesh, the Pakistani aspiration to balkanise India got a new, revenge angle too. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who took over from Gen Yahya Khan, inherited the Khalistan project too and added to it the Pakistani rage for revenge. As a young journalist in 1973, Tarek Fatah, the late Pakistan-born, Canadian journalist, heard Bhutto pledge at an off-the-record briefing to carve out a piece from India  Khalistan  to avenge 1971. Pakistan will also have a Bangladesh, carved out of India, Fatah quoted Bhutto as saying, except it will be on Pakistans border. It also made geostrategic sense: For, once Khalistan was accomplished, then Kashmir, geographically cut off from the rest of India, would be there for the taking!

Be that as it may, the fact is India and the West, especially the US, need each other for their own interests, and also for the sustenance of the liberal world order, currently under threat from Xi Jinpings China. Agreed, the two have a few commonalities and some differences, which may explain why India and the US may not be allies in the way the Americans and Europeans are, but they have to be friends for the liberal world order to remain liberal and ordered. And for that, the US-led West has to draw a line on patronising anti-India elements in the West.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
While Indias Constitution-makers borrowed many provisions from the Government of India Act, 1935, somewhat puzzlingly they decided to differ on one key aspect. The Constitution of India, when promulgated on January 26, 1950, did not have the 1935 Acts provision for reservation of seats for women.

The issue of womens representation in the countrys legislatures never emerged as a matter of significance in the Constituent Assembly, which otherwise debated threadbare the smallest of the constitutional issues. The members of the Constituent Assembly who discussed the issue were either over-optimistic about womens presence in the law-making chambers, to the extent of being cut off from ground reality, or were unwilling to take the issue in all its seriousness.

The most striking feature of the absence of reserved seats for women was that the opposition to such a provision came from the women members of the Constituent Assembly.

On December 19, 1946, at the very initial stages of the debates, feminist and social activist Hansa Mehta spoke against the reservation of seats for women. Instead, she argued for social, economic, and political justice for women. Women form one half of the population of this country and, therefore, men cannot go very far without the co-operation of women, Mehta warned.

Mehtas husband Jivraj Mehta, who was Gandhis personal physician for some time, would go on to become the newly formed Gujarats first chief minister in 1960.

Speaking on July 18, 1947, Renuka Ray was more forthright. We are particularly opposed to the reservation of seats for women, she declared, adding, Ever since the start of the womens movement in this country, women have been fundamentally opposed to special privileges and reservations. Ray told the Assembly that the Government of India Act, 1935, had provided for reserved seats for women despite objections raised by the representatives of the All India Womens Conference (AIWC). The three representatives of the AIWC had made it clear to the British Joint Parliamentary Committee, based on whose report the law was framed, that Indian women were against the reservation of seats or any special privileges for women. Now, Indian women will not tolerate any such reservations in the Constitution, Ray thundered.

Sarojini Naidu also declared, I think that the time has come in the onward march of the world-civilisation when there should be no longer any sex consciousness or sex separation in the service of the country.

A differing voice was heard on a related matter in October 1949, when the Constituent Assembly was just over a month away from closing the debates on the Draft Constitution and adopting the final version. The matter came up in relation to replacing the members of the Assembly who were vacating their seats, as those who were members of both provincial legislatures and the Constituent Assembly had to choose any one.

When BR Ambedkar proposed that any seat vacated by a Sikh, Muslim, or a Scheduled Caste member should be filled up by a member of the same community, Purnima Banerji suggeted that the same rule should apply to seats vacated by women too. She noted with much chagrin that the three seats vacated by Sarojini Naidu (who had passed away), Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and Malati Chaudhuri were filled up by men.

Banerji, who was hesitant to raise her demand to start with, fearing ridicule from those who opposed the reservation of seats for women, withdrew soon.

The big question is: what was the thought process behind the vocal women members refusing reservation? Renuka Ray held up the example of Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Indias ambassador to the Soviet Union. No reservation of seats was required to induce the men who are today in power to select a woman as Ambassador, Ray argued.

She thought that the provision for reservation of seats for women in the Government of India Act, 1935, had caused dissension amongst political workers and had divided the country. She believed that reserving seats for women would create a hurdle for considering even competent women for general seats. Her hope was that not only women with exceptional abilities but also those women who were equally able as men would be considered for being chosen as representatives in the legislatures, irrespective of their gender.

It is not the case that these members were not conscious of the fact that Sarojini Naidu and Vijayalakshmi Pandit were not appropriate benchmarks when considering the empowerment of the ordinary women of the country. For instance, Hansa Mehta admitted in her speech: It is true that a few women in the past and even today enjoy high status and have received the highest honour that any man can receive, like our friend, Mrs Sarojini Nadu. But these women are few and far between. One swallow does not make a summer. These women do not give us a real picture of the position of Indian women in this country. The average woman in this country has suffered now for centuries from inequalities heaped upon her by laws, customs and practices of people who have fallen from the heights of that civilisation of which we are all so proud There are thousands of women today who are denied the ordinary human rights. They are put behind the purdah, secluded within the four walls of their homes, unable to move freely. The Indian woman has been reduced to such a state of helplessness that she has become an easy prey of those who wish to exploit the situation.

Even this acute consciousness somehow appears to have been dulled by a strange dose of Gandhian utopia, leading to pious hopes completely divorced from that very consciousness. A sudden surge of gratitude for men took over, as if blinding the women members from Indias societal reality. Renuka Ray told the Constituent Assembly: When Mahatma Gandhi gave his call so specifically to the women of this country to take part in the national movement, all the social barriers of centuries broke down. There are no words to convey the gratitude of the women of this country to this Great man Sir, it is not only the inherent qualities of women but more particularly I should say the qualities of our men that is responsible for the fact that in our country, there has never been any strife between men and women.

There were members like Naziruddin Ahmad and KT Shah, who opposed the use of the phrase men and women instead of citizens. Shah alleged that such usage smacked too much of patronising by men over women. While members like Jaipal Singh put forth categorical statements such as There are too many men in the Constituent Assembly. We want more women, more women of the type of Mrs Vijayalakshmi Pandit, there were other members whose comments were borderline misogynistic. Rohini Kumar Chaudhari argued in favour of separate womens constituencies, and his reasons were nothing short of spectacular: If you give them a special constituency, they can have their scramble and fight there among themselves without coming into the general constituency. Otherwise, we may at times feel weak and yield in their favour and give them seats which they are not entitled to.

The strategy which they have played by the non-reservation of special seats in the future legislature only goes to prove that they will get more seats when they do not ask for it, Chaudhuri continued, because in his experience, he claimed, If a woman does not ask for anything you give her more. If she asks, you may sometimes refuse.

Chaudhuri went as far as hinting that when there were more women members in Parliament, there would be more loose talk.

G Durgabai, a member of the Constituent Assemblys Steering Committee, also raised serious accusations against some members for remarking that a lady has been put up to defend the action of the Drafting Committee. An angry Durgabai told the Assembly: I am very sorry to find some of the honourable Members of the House  male Members  still conscious of this sex business though the women Members have completely forgotten it.

If Gandhi was being invoked by the women members to refuse reservation of seats, the male members not kindly disposed towards the concept of equality of men and women were also talking of Gandhi. Lokanath Mishra, for example, shared his fears with the Assembly by warning: If unfortunately, on the emergence of the new woman, women claim freedom and equality in all respects with men and thereby become competitors and rivals to men, I am sure there will be an end to our civilization on which we have been living all these years.

Reminding the members of the Assembly of Gandhis words to the effect that India has a mission, he hinted that the inclusion of fundamental rights of equality of sex and liberty acted against that Gandhian idea. His suggestion, therefore, was to call the Indian Constitution an Anglo-American Constitution Act for India.

Surprisingly, these incidents were apparently not enough to clear the mist of false hopes from the minds of the Constitution-makers.

On the last day of 1949, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to the premiers of the provinces that for the upcoming elections to fill the vacant seats in the provisional parliament, they should encourage the nomination of suitable men, especially from the Scheduled Castes as they were not adequately represented in Parliament. Perhaps on second thought he wrote to the premiers again just four days later about the necessity of having an adequate number of women members elected. The provincial Congress Committees were, however, not paying much importance to that advice. In the middle of January, Nehru wrote to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, I am afraid I can do nothing more at this stage.

That the ship had sailed, and that the Prime Minister was not going to stir the hornets nest over it was clear from Nehrus speech in the provisional parliament on February 3, 1950, where he designated the low representation of women as a relatively small matter. He stated clearly the problem of inadequate representation of women is not a matter which concerns Government policy, or on which we can say much, except that I would like to express my entire concurrence with that complaint and my firm opinion that women have not had a fair deal in this country.

In other words, Nehru believed that women should have had greater representation in the legislature, but his government was not ready to translate the idea into reality. It was probably this thought process that prevented the issue of reservation of seats for women from being seriously debated in the Constituent Assembly.

Chandrachur Ghose is author of the national bestsellers 1947-57, India: The Birth of a Republic (2023) and Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist (2022), both published by Penguin. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday alleged that opposition parties stalled the womens reservation bill for three decades, and are now trying to divide women on the lines of caste and religion when the bill has been passed.

He was speaking at a program in Vadodara, organised by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to thank him for the passage of the bill in both houses of Parliament.

Opposition stalled the womens reservation bill for three decades, look at their track record. They are trying to divide women in the name of caste and religion when the bill has been passed, said Modi, speaking at the event attended by thousands of women at Navlakhi ground.

As the opposition parties reluctantly extended support to the bill, I urge women to be wary of them, Modi added.
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday sought details of expenditure on the use of a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft by the Bhagwant Mann government, accusing it of spending public money on luxury sorties for AAP campaigns in other states.

Sidhu wrote to the secretary of the Punjab Civil Aviation Department, seeking the information under the Right to Information Act.

The Congress leader said the Aam Aadmi Party government, in the last one and a half years, used the aircraft for election campaigning in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and other states.

It has come to notice that the Punjab government on various occasions has used the official state chopper and also hired fixed-wing aircraft for campaigns and tours regarding party affairs, I need information on various accounts under RTI, he wrote.

As the state government has to pay for the financial burden caused by hiring of fixed-wing aircraft, I request you to kindly inform the following things, the former minister wrote.

Firstly, on how many occasions was a private jet hired by the state government in the last one and a half years, where all the aircraft was taken, what was the purpose, and what was the total bill of all the flights and hiring of aircraft, including aircraft rent and airport charges, Sidhu wrote.

It has also been learnt that the state chopper was also used for campaign purposes in various states, the Congress leader said. I also seek similar information in this regard, he said.
Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleh Nikolenko commented on the intentions of the Russian Federation to return to the UN Human Rights Council, from where it kicked out in April 2022 after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian Federation is promoting its candidacy to the UN Human Rights Council. Let me remind you that in the past it was deprived of its membership rights in response to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With this step, Russia is trying to prove that it can continue to grossly violate human rights with impunity, commit war crimes and crimes against humanity," Nikolenko wrote on Facebook on Wednesday evening.

The Foreign Ministry stressed that Ukraine's position is clear: Russia should not get the right to return to one of the key UN bodies until it bears responsibility for all crimes.

The place of Russian war criminals is on the benches of the tribunal, and not in the UN Human Rights Council, the ministry said.

Earlier, the BBC reported that Russia is distributing a position paper among UN member states calling for support for its election to the Human Rights Council, from where it was kicked out because of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday voiced his extreme displeasure over the signboard of a government schools library bearing the inscription in English.

Kumar was in Banka district, about 250 kms from the state capital, where he reached after inspection of a bridge in the adjoining Jamui which got damaged after heavy rainfall last week.

In Banka, Kumar inaugurated a newly constructed hospital and inspected a recently renovated indoor stadium before visiting a high school and got upset upon seeing the signboard stating it was a digital library.

Why is this not in Hindi? We are not living in the British era, he told the District Magistrate Anshul Kumar who was present there.

#WATCH | Banka: Reportedly after the board of a digital library was found written in English, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar asked the officials to change it.He said, You are ending the importance of the Hindi language. It is our language Change it (board) CM Nitish Kumar pic.twitter.com/cDKC6uotXJ  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

Look, I have nothing against English. It was the medium of my instruction while I was studying engineering. Many of my speeches in Parliament, too, were in that language, said the longest-serving CM of Bihar.

He added, But, at one point of time, I decided to promote the use of Hindi. I therefore gave up putting on my signature in English. Please get this signboard changed, at the earliest.

The DM assured Kumar that the needful would be done today itself.

The septuagenarian, who owes his passionate advocacy for Hindi to his ideological devotion towards late socialist stalwart Ram Manohar Lohia, has voiced displeasure, in public, over the use of English on more than one occasion.

In February, he reprimanded an agricultural entrepreneur for making a presentation that contained too many English words.

A month later, inside the state legislative council, he chided Chairman Devesh Chandra Thakur, who belongs to his JD(U), upon seeing words like honourable and speaking time on the electronic display board.

The chief minister was accompanied by cabinet colleagues and top government officials during his tour of the two districts.
Technology giant Google has turned 25 years old as a company today, on September 27th. On the occasion of this special event, Google has revealed a new doodle that shows the history of Google logos over the years and has added a new confetti easter egg that plays every time you search for anything birthday-related.

Twenty-five years ago, we launched Google Search to help you find answers to questions big and small. Since then, billions of people have turned to our products to do just thatto satisfy their curiosity, Google said.

Highlights Over The Last 25 Years

Over the course of 25 years, Google has transitioned as a company and has launched a plethora of new products and additions to search. For instance, the company brought Google Images in 2001, along with the ability to find images. Google also introduced the Did You Mean feature in 2001, which prompted users to correct their spellings.

Later in 2006, Google introduced the Google Translate feature, making it easy for people to quickly translate one language to another. Initially, the feature was limited to translation between Arabic and English, but now Google Translate works with over 100 languages.

Next, in 2008, Google launched its mobile app on iPhone, adding features like autocomplete and my location. Another major launch in 2008 was Google Voice, which enabled users to search by their voice. Today, Google notes, search by voice is particularly popular in India, where the percentage of Indians doing daily voice queries is nearly twice the global average.

In 2017, Google introduced Google Lens, showcasing its machine learning prowess and its ability to recognize objects and subsequently convert them into search queries. And now, Lens sees more than 12 billion visual searches per month, Google said.

Google also introduced quality-of-life features like Hum to Search, which enables users to hum a song that has been stuck in their head as an earworm. In 2020, Google used its machine learning expertise to enable this feature.

And now, in 2023, Google has finally shifted its focus to generative AI-powered experiences with Google Bard and its LLMs like PaLM 2 and the upcoming Gemini.
An iPhone is indeed the apple of the eye of many teenagers. Many want to own the latest iPhone but not all can afford it. So, how about forming a group of 50 people and looting the nearest Apple store? It looks very easy to steal from an Apple store as all the iPhones and latest Apple devices are just kept on a table and security is almost none. But it is a dumb idea to raid an Apple store. Why?

For starters, the iPhones that are just kept on the table" can simply be considered as demo units" with Apples own enterprise grade device management OS. Very little is publicly known about this software but it does a really good job at rendering these stolen demo units" as useless the moment they leave the perimeter of the Apple store.

The real loot is always protected in a safe the size of a room with electronic locks and of course lots of cameras in a discreet part of the store. In fact, it would actually take a lot of skills to successfully raid an Apple store in minutes. And no amount of motivation derived from watching Money Heist episodes can help otherwise law-abiding citizens rob the safe room of an Apple store. Its like a bank.

WATCH VIDEO: iPhone 15: Apple Store LOOTED in US

A lot of young people in Philadelphia, US understood this fact the hard way. Recently, a crowd of juveniles, around 100, looted the Apple Walnut Street Store along with other stores in the area, including Chestnut and Lululemon, in City Center. While you may be thinking that they would be partying hard right now, little did they know that the iPhones that they easily stole from the Apple store got permanently locked the moment they left with their loot.

Not just that, the location of those iPhones are tracked continuously, even if the iPhones are switched off and cops may be just reaching their apartments soon. Already 20 people have been arrested. Apple can remotely activate an alarm on the stolen iPhones and the locked devices show a message which reads: Please return to Apple Walnut Street. This device has been disabled and is being tracked."

To make things worse, the camera gets activated and it may record videos or photos of the person holding a stolen iPhone.

So, after raiding an Apple store, you are sitting in your apartment with a disabled iPhone that is playing an alarm, recording you and your location is getting tracked. While you try to figure out a way to reset the phone or call for tech support", the police may be banging on your doors any minute. This is exactly why many raiders" in Philadelphia simply abandoned their loot just outside the store itself. And for the rest, Apples insured.

Apple Store FAQ:

What is the Apple Stores shoplifting policy?

Apple has a strict shoplifting policy and works closely with local law enforcement agencies to track and get people arrested if someone is caught shop lifting. For most devices, Apple remotely disables devices and tracks the location.

Can Apple track stolen products?

Yes, Apple uses its own software to track stolen devices.
Renowned content creator Bhuvan Bam has clinched the prestigious title of Best Content Creator at the esteemed Septimius Awards 2023 held in Amsterdam. This recognition marks a significant milestone not only in Bhuvans illustrious career but also in the annals of Indian content creation.

Nominated in two distinguished categories, Best Asian Actor for his stellar performance in the debut series Taaza Khabar and Best Content Creator across the world, Bhuvan Bams outstanding contributions were lauded by the jury and audience alike. He emerged as the clear winner in the Best Content Creator category, solidifying his position as a trailblazer in the content creation industry.

Bhuvan Bam embarked on his journey as a content creator with humble beginnings, crafting, scripting, and editing self-recorded videos, portraying a diverse range of onscreen avatars. His distinctive approach quickly garnered him a massive following, propelling him to the forefront of Indias content creator landscape.

Also Read: Meet Bhuvan Bam, The Man Who Redefined Comedy on YouTube Using Just a Phone

Over the years, Bhuvan Bams commitment to delivering unique and engaging content earned him the title of the Biggest Content Creator in India. His remarkable foray into the world of OTT platforms with the highly successful web series Taaza Khabar last year further underscored his versatility and creative prowess. Notably, Bhuvan Bam, alongside his business partner and manager Rohit Raj, played an integral role in producing the show, demonstrating his multifaceted talents.

Accepting the Best Content Creator Award in person, Bhuvan Bam expressed heartfelt gratitude, he said, Thank you for honouring me as the best content creator. Its dedicated to everybody back in India who have supported me to reach this stage. Im glad to win this award. To be on this international platform with some of the best talent from the creators and acting world here and to be given this honour is definitely one of the biggest highlights of my work and of 2023 so far. To be recognised for a journey from starting in my living room to this global stage in Amsterdam representing India has been a truly unreal moment.

With this latest accolade, Bhuvan Bam has added yet another illustrious feather to his cap, solidifying his status as a pioneering force in the world of content creation.
Amidst all the controversies swirling around Humans of Bombay, online critics continue to target its founder, Karishma Mehta, accusing her of profiting from the narratives of ordinary people. Just a day after Humans of New York, the platform that originally inspired HoB, criticised such profit-driven practices and cited Humans of Amsterdam as an exemplar of the Humans of concept, Humans of Amsterdam issued a statement. This development offered yet another opportunity for Indian critics to voice their concerns, with many hoping that Mehta would learn from these examples.

In an official statement posted on the micro-blogging site X, Debra Barraud, the creator of Humans of Amsterdam, stated, There would be no Humans of Amsterdam without Humans of New York. She recounted how she was inspired after seeing stories from New Yorkers on her Facebook feed and strongly believed that Amsterdam also needed its own Humans of project. This led her to take matters into her own hands, and she has been passionately involved with Humans of Amsterdam for a decade now.

I never wanted to monetize any of my stories because I felt it would damage the soul of the project. I want Humans of Amsterdam to maintain its credibility, and I cant achieve that if my voice is paid for. Over the years, I refused a lot of high-paid offers, but I see myself doing this for many more years. I can sustain Humans of Amsterdam through book sales, publishing in our local newspaper, and most importantly, Patreon, she added. This aligns with the perspective of HONY creator Brandon Stanton, who also values art created without profit as a driving force.

Take a Look:

There would be no Humans of Amsterdam without @humansofny pic.twitter.com/lgmBRicCeC Humans of Amsterdam (@HumansofAdam) September 27, 2023

In response, Indians took to the comment section, echoing the sentiment that Mehta should not only take inspiration from these renowned Humans of projects but also embrace the core values they uphold. One commenter stated, Thanks for your contribution to storytelling, its truly a shame what @HumansOfBombay is doing. Another called out, Ab to sharam krle @HumansOfBombay.

Also Read: Humans of Bombay Sues People of India Over Copyright Infringement, HONY Founder Reacts

Consequently, after facing public criticism from Brandon Stanton individually, then through a statement from HONY, and now with Humans of Amsterdam also weighing in, HoBs situation has taken a serious turn that Mehta probably did not anticipate. Ironically, her copyright lawsuit against People of India has unexpectedly jeopardised the very creation she sought to protect.
Who doesnt like gifts? not everyone is fortunate enough to have their desires fulfilled. However, this wasnt the situation for a young boy who made a playful request for a Mercedes from Saudi Arabias Prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and lo and behold, the generous gift arrived from the Royal family member! Dont believe us? A video capturing the sequence of events leading up to this fortunate child receiving exactly what he wished for from none other than the Prince himself is now making the rounds on the internet.

In the video, which was shared on the micro-blogging site X, the Prince could be seen exiting a building, accompanied by his entourage, while a crowd of people eagerly awaited to greet him. In the midst of the crowd, a man approached him, cradling his son (presumably), and the two warmly greeted the Prince. It was during this interaction that the young boy somewhat unclearly expressed, I want a Mercedes, to which the Prince responded, Do you want a Mercedes? The boy nodded eagerly, and the Prince, with a warm smile, promptly instructed one of his associates to take down the boys address.

Also Read: Dubai Sheikhs Huge Hummer Towers Over Regular Cars on Road, Old Video Goes Viral Again

The very next day, the childs wish was granted, as a picture of him posing with the luxurious car was included in the same video.

Soon, the video went viral on the internet, leaving users green with envy over the fortunate recipient of the Mercedes. People began reacting to the video, with one user commenting, Blessed countrytake the address and next day Mercedes at home. Another user humourously contrasted this generosity with more modest treats, stating, And here we figure out if the kid is eligible enough for a bag of chips or not.

Also Read: Dubai Woman Does Rs 70 Lakh Shopping In 1 Day, Says, Spending Husbands Money Is Hobby

While the clip has achieved widespread attention, News18 couldnt verify the exact date when this heartwarming incident took place.

Watch it Here:

One of the biggest Flex ive seen. pic.twitter.com/660Nz01244 (@mvccido_szn) September 25, 2023

Meanwhile, the Prince is renowned for his generous gift-giving, and there was even a rumour circulating during the FIFA World Cup 2022 that the Middle Eastern countrys royal family intended to gift each player a Rolls Royce Phantom worth Rs. 11 crores for their extraordinary achievements in Qatar.
Even though the transition of day to night is a smooth process, it requires hours for the sun to set and the moon to become visible in the sky. But now a stunning time-lapse video has captured how the dark clouds replace a sunny sky and the result is just ecstatic. The visuals in question emerge from the city of Caxias do Sul in Brazil and it is sure to leave you enticed. Right from the beginning, the stunning transitions keep viewers hooked with the moving cloud taking over the entire frame. At first, the movement is slower but as the video progresses the smoky accents affect the footage visibility. The hazy clouds hover over the tall buildings and toward the end leave a foggy trail behind to follow.

The X user who shared the clip online used a Portuguese caption to describe the beauty of mother nature. When roughly translated to English, the caption means, The day turned into night, in the city of Caixas do Sul, Rio Grande do Su. The

gigantic cloud covers the city.

Take a look at the video here:

O dia virou noite,na Cidade de Caixas do Sul,Rio Grande do Sul. A nuvem gigantesca cobre a cidade. pic.twitter.com/Qz46ZYrE8L Sergio Batista (@sergiobp37) September 23, 2023

While reacting to the video, a user commented, Looks like the movie 2012. For those unaware, the survival movie chronicles a series of catastrophic events that threaten to eradicate mankind from the face of the earth.

Looks like the movie 2012 Mukunda HS (@mukundahaveri) September 26, 2023

Meanwhile, another user who seemed to be speechless could only manage to drop a Wow in the reply section.

This isnt the first time that a time-lapse video has caught the attention of internet users. Previously, fast-moving footage of the night sky went insanely viral on social media. The stabilized visuals featuring the Milky Way were captured over Crater Lake. While sharing the video, photographer Eric Brummel explained its purpose was to, Help us visualize the Earths rotation. Its something we know is happening, but is not something we directly perceive.

Wondering how the photographer managed to record what seemed to be impossible? He explained, The camera was mounted on a moving motorized rig. It is fixed on a particular sky spot and it is programmed to move enough for the stars and Milky Way to be in the same place in each picture it takes. Since the Milky Way and the sky move throughout the night and the camera follows them and keeps them in the same spot in the pictures this gives us the opportunity to see the earth rotating since were fixed on the stars.

Catch a glimpse of it here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Space | Cosmos | Galaxy (@spaceinnutshell)

Reportedly, the time-lapse was filmed on July 19, 2020, at the Crater National Park in Oregon, United States.
Canadas envoy to the United Nations, Bob Rae, on Tuesday said Canadians are worried about increasing incidents of foreign interference in the country. We cannot bend the rules of state-to-state relations for political expediency because weve seen and continue to see the extent to which democracies are under threat through various means of foreign interference, Bob Rae said, while addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

But the truth is, if we dont adhere to the rules that weve agreed to, the very fabric of our open and of our free societies may start to tear, Rae said.

The Canadian government under the Liberal Party-NDP coalition has flagged instances of foreign interference in Canadas internal affairs. However, Canadian news agencies said that the Canadian government has received intel from Canadian spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), on Chinas efforts to meddle in Canadas political, economical and electoral affairs but the Trudeau government has dragged its feet in addressing the concerns.

A report by Foreign Policy said the Trudeau government had never publicly accused China when its spy agencies reported that China, for several years, has been meddling in Canadas affairs. It also said that the Canadian spy agency members felt as if they were being held back.

The comments also come amid Trudeaus allegations that India played a role in the murder of Khalistani separatist-terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was shot dead by unknown miscreants in British Columbias Surrey, outside a gurdwaras parking lot in June.

The external affairs minister S Jaishankar weighed in on the issue and said if Canada finds something specific it should let India know. One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of Indias policy. Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it, Jaishankar said during a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York.

Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence, extremism. Theyre all very, very deeply mixed up, the foreign minister further added.

The foreign minister also pointed out that Canada has been warned regarding the organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada.

We have actually been badgering the Canadians, we have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified, Jaishankar said.
In a meeting of their overseas ministry officials, Saudi Arabia has told Pakistan to be careful with the selection of its Haj quota candidates, sources told CNN-News18 on Wednesday.

Out of the beggars arrested, 90 per cent are from Pakistan, who are on Umrah visas, Saudi Arabia has said, added the sources.

According to them, Pakistans overseas secretary was chastised for sending repeat offenders.

Our prisons are full of your prisoners, Saudi Arabia is believed to have said.

Pakistani officials were reportedly also told that all the pickpockets near the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca are also from their country.

According to the sources, the Saudis are upset that these miscreants from Pakistan go on Umrah visas and not Arab visas. They say the reason for this is that they dont get invites or employment letters because the Arabs dont trust them as skilled labour. For that, they depend more on Indian and Bangladeshi workers.
At least 114 people were killed and over 150 were injured early Wednesday when a fire broke out at a wedding inside an event hall in the northern Iraqi town of Hamdaniyah, news agency Associated Press said in a report.

Health officials from Iraqs Nineveh province who rushed to the spot said they have counted at least 100 dead and more than 150 injured in the fire. The Iraqi state-run press agency INA and an official from the nations health ministry said it is a preliminary tally.

News agency AFP said several ambulances rushed to the accident site and people gathered in the courtyard to donate blood. People also gathered at the doors of a refrigerated truck carrying several black body bags, as seen in pictures released by the news agency.

The report by Associated Press said flames engulfed the wedding hall and once the fire was doused only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene of the fire, with lights coming from TV cameras and the lights of onlookers mobile phones.

All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident, health ministry spokesperson Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr said.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the countrys Interior and Health officials to provide relief

Hamdaniyah is a predominantly Christian town east of Mosul.

Iraqi authorities said there were highly flammable prefabricated panels which contravened safety standards inside the wedding hall that caught fire. The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials. Preliminary information indicates that fireworks were used during a wedding, which triggered a fire in the hall, the statement said.

Safety standards in Iraqs construction and transport sectors are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is regularly the scene of fatal fires and accidents, news agency AFP said in its report.

The Iraqi news agencies citing officials also said that the wedding halls exterior was decorated with highly flammable cladding that was illegal in the country.
The Defense Forces of Ukraine repelled the attacks of the Russian occupiers in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shakhtar directions in Donetsk region over the past day, and also continue the offensive operation in Melitopol direction, offensive (assault) actions in Bakhmut direction.

As reported in the operational information on the Russian invasion as of 18:00 of Wednesday, published on the Facebook page of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine inflict losses on the occupying forces in manpower and equipment, exhaust the enemy along the entire front line.

During the day there were 14 military clashes. The operational situation in the east and south of Ukraine remains difficult.

"In Bakhmut direction, our defenders successfully repelled the enemy attack in the area of Hryhorivka, Donetsk region  In Maryinka direction during the day, our defenders successfully repelled eight enemy attacks directly in Maryinka area of Donetsk region  In Shakhtar sector, our defenders successfully repelled an enemy attack in the area of Rivne, Donetsk region," the report says.

In Siversk and Slobozhansk directions, the enemy maintains a military presence in the border areas, continues shelling settlements from the territory of the Russian Federation, increases the density of mine-explosive barriers along the state border of Ukraine.

In Volyn and Polissia directions in the north of Ukraine, the operational situation has not significantly changed. "There are no signs of the formation of offensive groups. Certain units of the armed forces of Belarus perform tasks in areas bordering Ukraine," the General Staff said.
Ties between India and Canada hit a new low last week when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made explosive allegations of a potential involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

India has rejected the allegations as absurd and motivated and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawas expulsion of an Indian official over the case. Sources in the Indian government have also told News18 that Ottawa has no evidence to support its allegations.

Trudeau has also been accused of being selective with investigations into the deaths of citizens where foreign interference has been alleged. Sources in Canada told News18 that Trudeau has been selective with investigations into the killing of Chinese-origin Wei Hu and Pakistani-origin Karima Baloch allegedly at the behest of China and Pakistan, respectively.

While Ottawas case against New Delhi appears thin and motivated by domestic politics, some infamous extra territorial assassinations have made headlines in the last few decades.

Osama Bin Laden

The most famous instance of overseas targeted killing, Al-Qaeda chief and 9/11 attacks mastermind Osama bin Laden was killed in the clandestine Operation Geronimo raid by US Navy Seals in the early hours of May 2, 2011. And it was the location of the raid that stumped the world  Pakistans garrison city of Abbottabad.

The operation had global repercussions and dented Pakistans international reputation  exposing contradictions in a country that had long served as a rear base for Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies.

Bin Laden had been living in seclusion for at least five years in Abbottabad, hidden behind the high walls of an imposing white building less than 2km from a renowned military academy.

The raid caught Pakistan between a rock and a hard place. Officials could deny knowing he was there  but in doing so they would effectively be admitting to a shocking intelligence failure.

They could also have admitted that the worlds most infamous fugitive was under their protection, but that would concede being powerless to prevent Washington from carrying out such a daring raid on sovereign soil.

They opted for the former, but the US operation reinforced an already strong anti-American sentiment among a population tired of the heavy financial and human toll paid for the war on terror  and Islamabads alliance with Washington after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Then Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan caused a scandal two years ago by telling parliament that bin Laden had died a martyr.

Ayman al-Zawahiri

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Afghanistan on July 31, 2022, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Until the US announcement, Zawahiri had been rumored variously to be in Pakistans tribal area or inside Afghanistan.

A Reuters report dated August 3, 2022 quoted a senior administration official as saying that the US government had been aware of a network supporting Zawahiri and, following the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, officials had been watching for indications of Al Qaedas presence in the country.

In 2022, officials identified that Zawahiris family  his wife, his daughter and her children  had relocated to a safe house in Kabul and subsequently identified Zawahiri at the same location.

We were able to build a pattern of life through multiple independent sources of information to inform the operation, Reuters quoted the official as saying.

Once Zawahiri arrived at the Kabul safe house, officials were not aware of him leaving it and they identified him on its balcony  where he was ultimately struck  on multiple occasions, the official said. The strike was ultimately carried out at 9:48 pm ET (6:18am local time) on July 30, 2022 by a drone firing so-called hellfire missiles.

Gen. Qassem Soleimani

The most recent case of cross-territorial killing, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Irans regional military activities, was killed in a US drone strike in neighboring Iraq on January 3, 2020. He is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Irans theocracy, while the protesters have torn down billboards and defaced other images of him.

Iran had responded to the killing of Soleimani by launching a barrage of missiles at US bases in Iraq, causing dozens of brain concussion injuries but no deaths among US soldiers stationed there. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to take further steps and imposed sanctions on individuals accused of taking part in the operation.

Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Irans Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping arm, train and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and fighters in Syria, the Palestinian territories and Yemen. The US held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq.

Adolf Eichmann

The most famous, and daring, of Israels escapades on foreign soil, Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, was executed in 1962 following a war crimes trial.

Eichmann was one of the architects of the Nazis Final Solution, and he oversaw the rounding up and deportation of Jews to death camps such as Auschwitz.

In 1960, Israels Mossad intelligence agency abducted Eichmann from Argentina, where he was living under an assumed identity. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes against the Jewish people. He is the only person to have been executed by Israel since its founding in 1948.

In 2016, Israel made public a handwritten request for clemency by Eichmann. In his letter to then-President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Eichmann said he was a mere instrument of leaders responsible for the killing of 6 million Jews in World War 2.

His plea for his death sentence to be commuted was dated two days prior to his hanging. In the letter, Eichmann wrote: I was not a responsible leader, and as such, do not feel myself guilty.

Alexander Litvinenko

The ex-KGB agent and outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin died aged 43 after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210, a rare and potent radioactive isotope, at Londons Millennium Hotel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved the killing, a British inquiry concluded in 2016. The Kremlin has denied involvement.

An inquiry led by a senior British judge found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation that he said was probably directed by Russias Federal Security Service (FSB), the main heir to the Soviet-era KGB.

Litvinenko fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Iraqi jihadist who rose from obscurity to declare himself caliph of all Muslims as the leader of Islamic State, died in a raid by US special forces in northwest Syria in October 2019.

Baghdadi had long been a target for U.S. and regional security forces trying to eliminate Islamic State, even as they reclaimed most of the territory the group once held.

The Islamic State or caliphate that Baghdadi declared in July 2014 over a quarter of Iraq and Syria was notable for atrocities against religious minorities and attacks on five continents in the name of a version of an ultra-fanatic Islam that horrified mainstream Muslims.

The genocide of Yazidis, adherents of one of the Middle Easts oldest religions, illustrated the brutality of his rule. Thousands of men were slaughtered on their ancestral Sinjar mountain in northwestern Iraq and women were killed or taken as sex slaves. Some other religious groups suffered sexual slavery, slaughter and floggings.

The group also caused global revulsion with beheadings of hostages from countries including the United States, Britain and Japan.

The United States put up a $25 million reward for his capture, the same amount as it had offered for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahri.

With inputs from Reuters, Associated Press and AFP
Armenia said Wednesday that nearly half of Nagorno-Karabakhs population has fled the enclave since Azerbaijan crushed the rebels decades-long fight for an independent state last week.

Yerevans attempts to absorb the sea of homeless and hungry ethnic Armenians come with officials still trying to identify the whereabouts of more than 100 people reported missing in a fuel depot blast Monday that claimed 68 lives.

The fireball erupted as refugees from the rebel enclave of Azerbaijan were stocking up on fuel for the long drive along the lone mountain road leading to Armenia.

The Armenian government said more than 50,000 refugees had entered since Azerbaijan lifted its nine-month blockade on the enclave on Sunday.

Some of the refugees at the border told AFP that they were urged to leave by the separatist authorities.

That represents nearly half of the regions estimated 120,000 population and marks a fundamental shift in ethnic control of lands that had been disputed by mostly Christian Armenians and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijanis for the past century.

It also adds to the economic strains of Armenia  a landlocked Caucasus country with few natural resources and emerging problems with longstanding diplomatic and military partnership with Russia.

Pensioner Alekhan Hambardzyumyan was one of hundreds of people trying to survive on the streets of Armenias mountaintop village of Goris after fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh this week.

Goris has become the main destination point for the families fleeing their hometowns in beat up Soviet-era Ladas and farm vehicles.

The golden-toothed 72-year-old was spending nights in a shelled-out van and grieving the loss of his son in last weeks fighting.

I want to go to Yerevan, Hambardzyumyan told AFP. But I dont know what the state can offer me.

 Humanitarian crisis 

The Armenian government said it had prepared living arrangements for 40,000 families after last weeks fighting broke out.

But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans spokeswoman said late Tuesday that the government had so far been able to find housing for just 2,850 people.

The looming humanitarian crisis poses a political problem for Pashinyan.

The opposition agreed to end six days of anti-government protests on Tuesday to allow officials to focus on helping the displaced.

The opposition is also fractured and lacks a single figure who can challenge Pashinyan.

But analysts say the opposition is being spearheaded by Moscow and Nagorno-Karabakh supporters who have roots in the region.

Their anger could rise after Azerbaijans detention of Ruben Vardanyan  a Nagorno-Karabakh businessman who headed the separatist government from November 2022 until February  while he was trying to enter Armenia on Wednesday.

The influx of refugees will have a serious impact on the domestic political situation in Armenia, independent political analyst Boris Navasardyan told AFP.

 Burn victims 

The Red Cross and the United Nations refugees agency are trying to organise immediate help.

But Russia is working hand-in-hand with Azerbaijani forces and focused on disarming the separatists under the terms of a ceasefire reached last Wednesday.

The separatists reported the death of 213 people in the one-day fight and Azerbaijan put its toll at 192 soldiers and one civilian killed.

Moscow is now firing daily barbs at Pashinyan for his vow Sunday to pivot away from Armenias longstanding alliance with the Kremlin.

Pashinyan has blamed Russia for failing to avert the Azerbaijani offensive and called Armenias current foreign security alliances ineffective and insufficient.

The comments underscored the extent to which the Kremlins influence has shrunk across former Soviet republics since it became bogged down in its war on Ukraine.

But Moscow still has an important military base in Armenia and has indicated that it will try to keep Yerevan in its sphere of influence.

Russias foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Moscow expected all agreements on developing bilateral cooperation  to continue to be implemented in full.

 I decided to act 

Much of the immediate international aid from organisations such as the Red Cross is being channelled to helping the burn victims of Mondays catastrophic blast.

The explosion happened while hundreds of people were scrambling to get access to the limited supplies of fuel still available in the region after Azerbaijans blockade.

Azerbaijan waved through about 20 Red Cross ambulances on Tuesday and allowed Armenia to ferry some of the victims by helicopter to a burn clinic in Yerevan.

The blast injured 290 people in all. But officials said on Tuesday that 105 remained unaccounted for and some of the victims were still fighting for their lives.

The simultaneous crises have prompted an outpouring of support of the refugees among Armenian civil society groups and regular village residents such as Liana Sakhakyan.

The Goris native set up a table laden with cakes in front of her house to feed the hungry masses.

When I saw so many people arriving yesterday, I decided to act, she said.

The important thing is not just the food: its the welcome, a warm atmosphere. This is what the displaced people of (Nagorno-Karabakh) must feel.
Amid the ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday delved into New Delhis growing profile on the world stage, as he broke down Indias steady ties with Russia since the 1950s, the pleasures of dealing with China, and Bharats growing relationship with the United States.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, the minister talked about Indias vision and strategy in dealing with the multipolar world. In a conversation with former US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, Jaishankar said, You actually see an India whose footprint is more, whose interest and activities are more.

On the sidelines of UNGA, Jaishankar stressed how the nature of world politics has changed and the issues have changed, adding that there are a variety of issues driving heightened Indian activity on the world stage. The goal is now to strive to be a developed country in a quarter of a century, he added.

Never been easy with China

Jaishankar opened up about the ongoing tensions in India-China ties. He said, One of the pleasures of dealing with China is that they never quite tell you things. You often end up trying to figure it out. There is always ambiguity out there.

It has never been an easy relationship. There was a war in 1962 and military incidents after that, but after 1975, there has never been a combat fatality on the border. In 1988, we normalised the relationship when then-Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi went to China. In 1993 and 1996, we did two agreements with China to stabilise the boundary which is disputed. At the Line of Control (LoC), it was agreed that either of us would amass troops there. If we brought more troops, the other side would be notified. So, it was expected the way it was laid out. There were subsequent agreements after that, one in 2005 and one in 2012, he said.

On the Galwan border clash in 2020, the minister continued saying, It was in many ways a very unique situation because what would happen in the boundary areas is that troops on either side would step out of their military bases, they would do their patrolling and go back to bases. If they happened to intersect, there were very clear rules on how they would conduct themselves.

In the aftermath of the deadly clash, Jaishankar said, Its hard to be normal with a country that has broken agreements and done what it has done. For the last three years, there has been an abnormal state, contacts have been disrupted, visits have not taken place, and there have been high levels of military tensions. It has also impacted the perception of China in India. This perception was not positive in the 1960s and 1970s. I think there is an immediate issue, a medium-term issue, and a possibly long-term.

Steady Russia Ties Since 1950s

When asked about Indias relations with Russia given the no-limit partnership between Beijing and Moscow, Jaishankar said, Because its relationship with Europe has been so severely disrupted, Russia is turning to Asia and other parts of the world. I would predict that Russia would make strenuous efforts to build alternative relationships, many of which will be in Asia. This would reflect in the economy and trade and perhaps in other domains as well. Russia-China would have a particular profile and particular salience in this. But I would say that our own relationship with Russia has been extremely steady since the 1950s.

If you look at the last 70 years of world politics, Jaishankar said there have been very big ups and downs in ties between Russia, the US, China, and Europe. But the India-Russia relationship held very very stead. There is an understanding between the two countries. There is a kind of structural basis for our having to get along and wanting to get along. And we take great care to make sure the relations are working, he said.

US-India Partnership

Asked about the limits of the US-India partnership, he said, Rather than limits, I would put it as possibilities. Lets take a more optimistic view of how relationships work. My sense is that the United States is fundamentally readjusting to the world. It is doing so part of is long-term consequences of Iraq and Afghanistan. But thats only one part of it, he said.

Jaishankar suggested that the US is adjusting to a multipolar world. We will actually be looking at a world and probably entered that world where the United States is no longer in a way of saying, okay I basically leave it at my allies. Quad itself is a demonstration of that, he added.

On India-US ties, the minister said the convergence today far outweighs the divergence. I am no longer prepared to think that where are the limits but I think where are all the opportunities and how much we can step on the gas and take up forward, he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Jaishankar addressed the 78th UN General Assembly, and called on UN member states to resist political convenience in their responses to terrorism and violence. In an apparent reference to Canada, he added that respect for territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs must be universal.
A crocodile expert confessed in an Australian court that he raped dozens of dogs, and tortured and killed them later.

Adam Britton, 51, appeared emotionless while he was pleading at the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory (NT) in Australia on Monday. He pleaded guilty to 56 counts of animal cruelty and four counts of accessing and transmitting child abuse material, UKs tabloid Metro reported.

As per the report, the prosecutors told the court that Britton has had a sadistic sexual interest in animals and in particular dogs since at least 2014. They said the man used to torture animals in his torture room until their death, record acts and post the material online.

In an unusual move, Chief Justice Michael Grant, alarmed by the horrifying and grotesque nature of Brittons crimes, requested that both the public and security staff vacate the courtroom before the prosecutors presented the details of the case.

Who is Adam Britton?

Britton, who grew up in UKs West Yorkshire before he moved to Australia 20 years ago, is a leading zoologist who has worked with the BBC and National Geographic on productions. He held an academic position at Charles Darwin University in northern Australia for many years.

The 51-year-old was arrested in April 2022. He once hosted British broadcaster David Attenborough at his home. The proceedings in this case have been adjourned until December for the sentencing phase.

How Britton Got Dozens of Dogs?

Britton lured a trap through an online marketplace platform to get dogs from dog owners. He utilized the platform to specifically target pet owners in the Darwin region, many of whom were reluctantly seeking new homes for their pets due to work or travel obligations.

When contacted by pet owners seeking updates on their former pets, Britton would construct a false narrative, assuring them that the animals were in good health and even sending them outdated photos.

According to the prosecution, Britton maintained a Telegram account through which he communicated with like-minded individuals.

Under various pseudonyms, Britton would post videos and images of himself sexually exploiting the dogs on online forums.
The Taliban has expressed regret that the UN talks on Afghanistan at the Security Council on Tuesday were diverted by what the outfit described as small topics of womens education and work. In a statement on X, the spokesperson of the radical Islamic group complained that UN sanctions on the Taliban and other important issues were subsided at the high-level briefing.

Discussions and opinions in the United Nations were diverted by raising only two small and domestic topics as such womens education and their work. In Afghanistan, security, general amnesty, peace and stability, economic development, formation of security forces, provision of budget from internal revenue, extending education across the country and dozens of other developments have not been discussed, Talibans spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Islamic Emirates Spokesmans Statement Regarding Discussions and Opinions at the United NationsDiscussions and opinions in the United Nations were diverted by raising only two small and domestic topics as such womens education and their work. In Afghanistan, security,1/5  Zabihullah (..   ) (@Zabehulah_M33) September 27, 2023

In a long thread, Mujahid added, It was necessary to discuss the end of the blacklist in the United Nations, the removal of sanctions, the release of seized assets, and finally the recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the handing over of the seat of Afghanistan to Afghans.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021 and imposed policies severely restricting the basic rights of all citizens, particularly those of women and girls. The Talibans policies have had a devastating impact on their lives. Millions of Afghan women and girls have been forced to leave their jobs, schools, and homes. Many have been subjected to violence and intimidation.

At the UN Security Council Briefing on Tuesday, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said the last time the Security Council met on Afghanistan, it was reported that there were more than 50 edicts and decrees restricting womens rights. More have been added since, she added.

Bahous highlighted the Talibans attacks on womens rights exacerbate this, pushing women out of jobs and opportunities to generate income, and out of the education they need to be part of Afghanistans future.

Today @unwomenchief briefed the @UN Security Council on the situation in #Afghanistan.Women in Afghanistan continue to demand that the international community provide spaces for them to speak directly with the de facto authorities. Full speech: https://t.co/T5psn7j67W#UNSC pic.twitter.com/FgOAgq2JlQ  UN Women (@UN_Women) September 26, 2023

In her briefing to the Security Council, UN Special Representative and UNAMA head Roza Otunbayeva said the policies of the de facto authorities that drive the exclusion of women are unacceptable to the international community.

Tuesdays meeting at the Security Council came in the backdrop of a recent UN report documenting more than 1600 cases of human rights violations during the arrest and detention of Afghans in the last 19 months.

According to the report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released last week, nearly 50 percent of these violations comprise acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The United States said Wednesday it would start letting Israelis visit without visas, after what it said were successful efforts by its ally to address concerns it discriminates against Arab Americans, an assessment contested by some lawmakers.

In an achievement long sought by Israel that places it in the same league as most Western nations, President Joe Bidens administration said that Israelis will no longer need visas for short trips to the worlds largest economy starting in late November.

The decision came after Israel in July promised a series of steps to comply with longstanding US demands to treat all US passport holders equally without discriminating against Americans who are of Palestinian or other Arab heritage or who are Muslim.

Israels admittance into the visa waiver program is an important achievement in the 75-year-old US-Israel partnership, a US official said on condition of anonymity.

But to be clear, the decision to admit Israel was taken not as a favor, but because it benefits both US and Israeli interests, he said.

Despite the insistence on politics not playing a part, Biden made the decision as he increasingly works with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  whose hard-right government Biden has frequently criticized  to seek a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia.

A number of lawmakers from Bidens own Democratic Party had urged him not to go ahead before a Saturday deadline, saying that the United States should have maintained pressure until Israel ends a two-tiered system that treats US citizens with Palestinian connections differently.

It is clear that Israel is not in compliance with this law as it relates to reciprocal treatment for all US citizens, said a letter signed by 15 senators led by Chris Van Hollen and Brian Schatz and including Bernie Sanders.

 Enough progress? 

Already, Israel does not require visas for Americans generally.

But until the July agreement, Palestinian Americans seeking to enter the West Bank were obliged to cross by the Allenby Bridge with Jordan and were not allowed through Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, Israels main international gateway.

The US official called the impact of the July agreement impressive, saying that some 100,000 Americans have entered since then, including tens of thousands of Palestinian Americans, some of them through Ben Gurion airport.

But the Democratic senators said that more change was necessary as US citizens who hold Palestinian identification cards still cannot rent cars at Ben Gurion and some have been stopped at Israeli checkpoints that prohibit Palestinians from going through.

An Arab American group announced Tuesday that it was filing a lawsuit to stop Israels admission into the visa waiver program and also pointed to the questioning of Palestinian Americans as they try to leave.

Announcing the lawsuit, Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said there could be no separate classes of US citizens.

Admitting Israel into the visa waiver program would be an endorsement of discrimination against Palestinian and Arab Americans, he said.

But another US official said that Israel met demands by keeping refusal of Americans seeking to enter as non-immigrants at 2.27 percent in the last fiscal year, within the target of a maximum three percent.

US officials said they would review Israels progress and could rescind the visa waiver status if there is backsliding.

Historically the United States, in letting foreigners enter without visas, has been most concerned that they will not stay illegally and that their countries verify their passports.

Nearly all Western nationals enjoy visa-free entry into the United States including people from all European Union members except Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania.

Other beneficiaries include people from high-income Asian societies  Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Brunei.
Uyghur children in Chinas Xinjiang province are being forcibly removed from their parents and sent to re-education camps styled as boarding schools where they are being raised as orphans, Uyghur activists speaking to CNN-News18 said.

Their parents are taken away to concentration camps and treated like prisoners. These kids are losing their identity and no one is talking to China except issuing statements, a Uyghur activist said.

The Uyghur activist also noted that the United Nation expressed concern over the allegations of Xinjiangs state-run boarding school system where children are taught in Mandarin language and are being forced to adopt Han cultural practices.

The UN statement is welcome but the UN is not clearly talking about concentration camps.

We are deeply concerned that boarding schools in Xinjiang are teaching almost exclusively in the official language with little or no use of Uyghur as medium of instruction and that the separation of mainly Uyghur and other minority children from their families could lead to their forced assimilation into the majority Mandarin language and the adoption of Han cultural practices, the UN experts said this week.

They flagged that forced separations and language policies for Uyghur children carry risk of forced assimilation. They pointed out that the discriminatory nature of the policy and the violation of minorities right to education without discrimination, family life and cultural rights will adversely impact the growth of these children.

UN experts found out this week about large-scale removal of children, mainly Uyghur, from their families this week. Among those children, some of them were very young. The parents of these younger children are in exile or interned/detained.

These children are placed in full-time boarding schools, pre-schools, or orphanages where the medium of instruction is almost exclusively Mandarin.

Uyghur and other minority children in highly regulated and controlled boarding institutions may have little interaction with their parents, extended family or communities for much of their youth, the experts said

This will inevitably lead to a loss of connection with their families and communities and undermine their ties to their cultural, religious and linguistic identities, they further added.

The report also revealed that these children placed in these schools have little or no access to education in the Uyghur language. They face pressure to speak and learn only Mandarin as opposed to achieving bilingualism in both Uyghur and Mandarin. Teachers who may inadvertently use Mandarin as a medium of instruction are also sanctioned for using the language outside of specific language classes.
A large group of juveniles in the US city of Philadelphia engaged in looting and property damage throughout Center City on Tuesday night, according to law enforcement officials. According to NBC, around 8 pm Tuesday (local time) reports began pouring into the police, alerting them to the presence of large crowds of juveniles converging on Center City in the largest city in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Over 100 juveniles and young adults were involved in the unrest, according to US media reports. Among the establishments targeted by looters were the Footlocker and Apple stores near 15th and Chestnut, as well as the Lululemon store in Center City.

John Stanford, Acting Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, said that Tuesday nights looting was unrelated to the earlier peaceful protest following the dismissal of charges against an officer involved in the shooting of Eddie Irizarry.

Commissioner Stanford also disclosed that the police have made between 15 to 20 arrests thus far and have recovered two firearms. However, they have yet to establish a definitive link between these firearms and the looting. What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists, he added.

US media reports said that the law enforcement personnel had been strategically deployed to the area after the protest, ensuring swift response to any untoward developments. These were not protesters; these were criminals, Stanford said.

Hakeem Russell, a security guard at Wendys, recounted that the store adjacent to Wendys on Chestnut Street had been breached, and he had been assaulted in the process. A couple of kids decided they wanted to take full advantage of the unjust shooting thats happened, Russell was quoted as saying by the NBCPhiladelphia. Its definitely been unrest around here since the verdict.

The local police complained that Tuesdays looting was a reminder of the citys experiences in 2020 and denounced any attempts to replicate them. Commissioner Stanford urged, Everyone in the city should be angry.
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk will be on a working visit to Ireland on September 28-29, the press service of the Ukrainian Parliament reports.

In Dublin, he will take part in the European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments, where he will speak at a panel discussion entitled "Consequences of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and role of national parliaments in Ukraines reconstruction."

"The conference, which unites the heads of parliaments of 46 member states of the Council of Europe, as well as the heads of the most authoritative inter-parliamentary assemblies and partner countries, is an important platform for consolidating support for Ukraine in the conditions of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and promoting, in this context, important foreign policy initiatives of our state. In addition to direct participation in the discussions of the Conference, a wide range of bilateral meetings of Ruslan Stefanchuk is planned, both with his European colleagues and with the heads of parliaments of other regions of the world, presidents of interparliamentary assemblies," the message says.

The focus is on strengthening military, financial and humanitarian support for Ukraine, European and EuroAtlantic integration of Ukraine, the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula, as well as strengthening the dynamics of inter-parliamentary cooperation.
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THE SADC Council of Ministers yesterday congratulated Zimbabwe on holding free, fair and peaceful elections last month, in line with the regions principles and guidelines.

The meeting was held to consider the Draft Budget for the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).

Speaking during an Extraordinary Council of Ministers Meeting held virtually, Angolas Minister of External Relations, who is Chairperson of the SADC Council of Ministers, congratulated Zimbabwe on holding free and fair elections in a climate of peace and tranquillity, in accordance with the regional bodys principles and guidelines.

The endorsement of Zimbabwes August 23 and 24 harmonised elections by the SADC Council of Ministers flies in the face of a preliminary report released by the SADC Election Observation Mission that was led by Dr Nevers Mumba of Zambia, which scrutinised the countrys laws.

It is not in the purview of election observation missions to stray into helping countries come up with their desired legislation, as their mandate is specifically to observe the conduct of elections, their freeness and fairness, and come up with reports along those lines.

Former liberation movements have expressed concern over the preliminary report crafted by Dr Mumba and his team, and there is a feeling in the region that some people are being used by Western capitals that wish to replace them with pliable opposition parties they illegally sponsor.

Diplomatic sources say some SADC countries holding elections this year are no longer comfortable with SADC Election Observation Mission heads following Zimbabwes incident.

Political analysts say Zimbabwe held probably the most open elections ever witnessed in the region, if not the world, with minor incidents that were noted such as delayed distribution of ballot papers in a few constituencies not peculiar to Harare.

In his remarks during the meeting, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Ambassador Frederick Shava, said yesterdays meeting was important.

We commend you Chair, on the able manner in which you are handling our proceedings.

While we note the smooth preparations towards the general elections scheduled in the DRC for December 2023, in which 43 million people have registered to vote, we also note with concern that attacks in the Eastern DRC have displaced over 3 million people, most of whom have not managed to register to vote for the scheduled December elections, said Ambassador Shava.

He also said it was important that there be a conducive environment for the running of free and fair elections, adding that the deployment of the SAMIDRC should be seen in that light.

Mr Chairman, we take note of the revised SAMIDRC budget of US$436 183 884 million that was recommended by the Extraordinary Defence Sub-Committee, at its virtual meeting held on 30 August 2023.

Honourable Chair, we should approve a budget that does not strain member States, as they strive to meet their assessed contributions. We are all aware that all countries in the region are still reeling from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, hence the need to be more pragmatic and realistic, he said.

Providing the Mission with sufficient funds was essential for it to be effective in dealing with the enormous challenge at hand, said Ambassador Shava.

He added that the assumption that International Co-operating Partners (ICPs) would contribute US$100 million, presents a challenge to his delegation.

The International Cooperating Partners may contribute as per assumption of our Secretariat, and they may as well not contribute. We may be wrong in our assumptions, but we need to be cautious and realistic.

Perhaps we need to work from the premise that SADC member States will fund the operation 100 percent, and then adjust when the International Co-operating Partners make their US$100 million contributions.

Mr Chairman, maybe Zimbabwe is too cautious, at a time when the Secretariat has positive indications from the International Co-operating Partners. Possibly, the Secretariat can shed some light on their resource mobilisation efforts so far, so that our fears can be addressed. It will also be helpful if the Secretariat can address the issue of alternative funding sources, said Ambassador Shava.

He assured the meeting that Zimbabwe will meet its assessed contributions, in line with its desire to see peace and security thrive in the region. Herald
UPDATE

Sep 26, 2023 6:42 PM CDT

A judge revoked bail Tuesday for a man who was confined at home while awaiting trial for driving his SUV into a Massachusetts Apple store last year, killing a man and injuring nearly two dozen others, officials said. Bradley Rein, 54, was ordered to jail for 60 days after police went to his home several times over the weekend because his GPS monitoring bracelet was not working, Plymouth County DA Timothy J. Cruz announced Tuesday. Rein was accused of failing to charge the monitoring device, Cruz said. Rein pleaded not guilty after being indicted on an upgraded murder charge last year. He was allowed to remain free on $100,000 bail under several conditions including that he not drive and that he wear a GPS tracking device, the AP reports.

Nov 22, 2022 3:25 PM CST

A man accused of crashing his SUV through the front of a Boston-area Apple store Monday, killing one person and injuring 20 others, says it was an "unfortunate accident," according to his attorney. Bradley Rein, 53, has been charged with reckless homicide by motor vehicle and reckless operations of a motor vehicle. He is being held on $100,000 bail and if he makes bail, he won't be allowed to operate a motor vehicle or leave Massachusetts, CNN reports. Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz said Rein was arrested Monday night after an "extensive investigation" of the Hingham crash.
Hattie McDaniel's best supporting actress Oscar for 1939's Gone With the Wind is one of the most important moments in Academy Award history. McDaniel was the first African American to win an Oscar, and it would be a half-century before another Black woman again won an acting award. But the whereabouts of her award itself has long been unknown. Now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has created a replacement of McDaniel's legendary Academy Award that it's giving to Howard University, per the AP . McDaniel's award was a plaque, not a statuette, as all supporting acting winners received from 1936 to 1942.

Upon her death in 1952, McDaniel bequeathed her Oscar to Howard University, where it was displayed at the drama department until the late '60s. It's not clear what happened to the plaque after that, though several theories have been bandied about over the years, including that it had been thrown into the Potomac River by student activists. A George Washington University law school professor who's looked into the matter has since "largely dismissed" that theory, per People. The film academy, along with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, announced Tuesday that the replacement award will reside at the university's Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.

The Oscar will be presented in a ceremony titled "Hattie's Come Home" on Oct. 1 on the campus of the university in Washington, DC. "Hattie McDaniel was a groundbreaking artist who changed the course of cinema and impacted generations of performers who followed her. We are thrilled to present a replacement of Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award to Howard University," said Jacqueline Stewart, Academy Museum president, and Bill Kramer, chief executive of the academy, in a joint statement.

story continues below

"This momentous occasion will celebrate Hattie McDaniel's remarkable craft and historic win," the statement added. During the 12th Academy Awards in February 1940, McDaniel was seated at a segregated table on the far side of the room at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. "I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry," McDaniel said upon accepting the award. "My heart is too full to tell you just how I feel, and may I say thank you and God bless you." McDaniel died in 1952 of breast cancer at the age of 59.

(Read more Oscars stories.)
UPDATE

Sep 28, 2023 3:06 PM CDT

The looting in Philadelphia continues. At least eight businesses were burglarized overnight, resulting in six more arrests, say police, per NBC News. That brings to nearly 60 the number of arrests when combined with Tuesday night. The businesses raided Wednesday night included a Walmart, a Family Dollar, and an Auto Zone. Police also said a state-run liquor store was burglarized Thursday, even thought it and all other such stores had been closed because of the earlier looting. The unrest follows the dismissal of charges against police officer Mark Dial in the fatal shooting of Eddie Irizarry.

Sep 27, 2023 8:42 AM CDT

A peaceful protest followed word Tuesday that former Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial would escape charges after fatally shooting a motorist last month. Then came mass looting. "Large groups of young people broke into numerous stores across Philadelphia Tuesday night, stealing merchandise and vandalizing property," reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The first reports of break-ins came around 8pm, about half an hour after the protest at City Hall broke up, per CNN. But Acting Police Commissioner John Stanford said protesters who demanded justice in the death of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry did not participate in the unrest. "What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and try to destroy our city," he said. "It's disgusting."
UPDATE

Sep 27, 2023 6:38 AM CDT

The US soldier who sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas two months ago was released into American custody Wednesday, according to two officials. Earlier, North Korea said it would expel Pvt. Travis Kingan announcement that surprised some observers who'd expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals. King's expulsion almost certainly doesn't end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans, reports the AP.

Sep 27, 2023 6:38 AM CDT

There remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place. His fate also remains uncertain, having been declared AWOL by the US government. That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay, or a dishonorable discharge. King was transferred to American custody in China, according to one of the officials. The two US officials spoke on condition of anonymity. King, who'd served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years. At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.
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Australian Army M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and vehicles are unloaded from the United States Army Vessel SSGT Robert T. Kuroda at Tanjung Perak Port in Indonesia during Exercise Super Garuda Shield 2023. At the invitation of Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), Australia is contributing over 125 personnel from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to Exercise Super Garuda Shield 2023 (SGS23). SGS23 is an TNI and United States Indo Pacific Command led bilateral training activity. It is focused on joint operations with international partners in and around East Java in Indonesia from 31 August to 13 September. Held since 2009, the ADF first participated in 2022, and in 2023 is contributing an Australian Army force element including a Troop of M1A1 Abrams tanks from the 1st Armoured Regiment. The contingent also includes an Infantry Platoon from the 10th/27th Battalion, Royal South Australian Regiment, command and control elements, and a range of armoured vehicles, trucks and recovery vehicles. (Photo by Australian Defence Force Cpl. Dustin Anderson)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan doesn't compel anyone to leave Karabakh, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan - Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev told DW, Trend reports.

According to him, leaving Karabakh is a personal and individual decision of the residents.

The official went on to say that during the most recent anti-terrorist activities, neither Karabakh's civilian population nor its infrastructure were targeted.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.

In parallel, all weapons and heavy equipment are surrendered.

The implementation of the above-mentioned processes is ensured in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Reported by Julia Cassano

Legendary Bahraini artists were thrilled to witness the spectacular donation of $80,000 (BD30,159) made by the RAK Foundation to the National Art Council.

The move was made to boost investment into Bahrains vibrant art ecosystem and support unique Bahraini artists, which contributes to the development and awareness of the importance of art across all segments of Bahraini society.

The RAK Art Foundation is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to empowering artists worldwide by providing them with opportunities, encouraging cross-cultural collaborations and exchange and fostering international partnerships.

Popular Bahraini artist and founder of Creatives of Bahrain Layan Raed shared her enlightening thoughts on the donation.

As a Bahraini artist I am thrilled to witness the immense impact of the RAK foundation. The altruistic dedication to empowering artists and fostering collaboration is truly inspiring, she said Layan has captivated the masses with her brilliant artwork, by incorporating history, modern fashion and her beloved home - Bahrain into her art pieces and hopes for viewers to take away a sense of inspiration and to explore the unknown.

Through their recent donation to the Bahrain National Art Council, they have not only invested into Bahrains art scene, but also provided much-needed support to talented Bahraini artists, Raed relayed.

She added that the generous contribution goes beyond monetary value, as it symbolises a heart-felt commitment to the vibrant community that Bahrain has.

With the backing of organisations like the RAK Foundation, we can continue to elevate the arts, nurture emerging talents and create a legacy of cultural excellence, said the young artist. One of Bahrains most well-known and promising young photographers Enas Sistani, was also moved by the generous contribution.

The recent donation by the RAK Foundation is a game changer for Bahrains art community. This generous contribution can help empower young artists by providing resources for creative exploration through grants and exhibitions, Enas voiced.

Sistani added that she believes such initiatives contribute towards fostering artistic growth from educational programmes and cultural and artistic events.

If anything, this step signifies a commitment to elevating Bahrains vibrant, yet creative spirit and ensures a flourishing future for the local art scene, the Bahraini photographer said.

Enas is well-known in the kingdom for shedding light on important subjects such as mental health and respect for various cultures, as well as capturing the beauty found in the simple, yet unadorned things of daily existence.
Press Release

September 26, 2023 Co-Sponsorship Speech

2023 Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipinos

(by Sen. Dela Rosa) Mr. President, it is my distinct honor to rise today, in order to co-sponsor Senate Resolution No. 724, honoring and commending the Awardees of the Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipinos of 2023. 2022 has largely been the year of transition for most Filipinos. Still bouncing back from the painful and staggering effects of a global pandemic, each one of us certainly needed all the help we could get in this regard. How blessed, how fortunate we are, therefore, that there are Filipinos all over the country who have been more than willing to leave their respective comfort zones, if only to help make this transition period more bearable and manageable for all of us. Today we recognize them as the Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipinos for 2023. To Rex Sario, June Elias Patalinghug, Edgar Durana, Jovelyn Delosa, Staff Sergeant Danilo Banquiao, PA., Lt.Col. Joseph Bitancur, PAF., Col. Joseph Jeremias Cirilo C. Dator, PA., Police Chief Master Sgt. Dennis Bendo, Police Major Mae Ann Cunanan, and Police Colonel Renell Sabaldica: you all inspire us. Many of us are content to simply fulfill expectations, doing our day-to-day tasks. These Outstanding Filipinos, however, have gone above and beyond the call of duty. I am certain that this recognition does not even begin to capture all that they have done. From making learning more inclusive and engaging, to countering terrorism and insurgency, as well as strengthening community relations for securing our communities - their achievements are worthy of emulation. We wish to thank and honor these Awardees. Being teachers, soldiers, and police officers won't always change the world. But by their example, we are moved to know that it surely wouldn't hurt to try. Thank you, Mr. President.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. September 27 (the beginning date of the 2020 second Karabakh war that ended the 30-year Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands) in Azerbaijan is the Day of Remembrance of those who became symbols of historical heroism and patriotism, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry wrote on its page on X (Twitter), Trend reports.

"We honor our martyrs with deep respect and gratitude, whose sacred memory always lives in our hearts," the ministry said.

The Remembrance Day is a public holiday in Azerbaijan for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died while serving in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the second Karabakh war.

Following over a month of military action to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation from late Sept. to early Nov. 2020, Azerbaijan has pushed Armenia to sign the surrender document. A joint statement on the matter was made by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

Established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, dated December 2, 2020, the holiday is held on September 27, the day when the war began.
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - Wealthsimple, the financial services company on a mission to help Canadians achieve financial freedom, today announced it has secured provisional approval to join the Interac e-Transfer service as a participant. Wealthsimple will become the first securities dealer to join the service.

While the company currently offers Interac e-Transfer services for Canadians, becoming a participant will greatly expand those services, offering clients the same experience moving money as they would expect at a bank or credit union.

An example of Wealthsimple's managed investing product. (CNW Group/Wealthsimple) Michael Katchen, co-founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, at the company's headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. (CNW Group/Wealthsimple)

"For nearly 10 years, we've been breaking down barriers for our clients through simple, transparent financial products, earning the trust of millions of Canadians in the process," said Michael Katchen, Wealthsimple CEO. "Joining the Interac e-Transfer service is both a milestone for the company, and also a sign of our commitment to being a leader in Canadian financial services."

Wealthsimple facilitates millions of transactions each month into and out of its platform, and between its products. As a member of Payments Canada, Wealthsimple recently secured approval for a settlement account with the Bank of Canada, granting it direct access to the pending Real-Time-Rail payment system.

"Canadians used the Interac e-Transfer service to complete over a billion transactions in 2022. By broadening access to an expanded category of financial institutions, Interac is focused on enabling Canadian consumers and businesses to transact with confidence and leverage new innovative service offerings," said Jeremy Wilmot, President & CEO at Interac. "I'm thrilled that Wealthsimple is set to join over 280 financial institutions in allowing customers to send, request and receive money between accounts using the Interac e-Transfer service."

Participation in the Interac e-Transfer service will unlock the potential for product innovation, an area where Wealthsimple has repeatedly proven itself. The company was the first to offer commission-free trading of stocks and ETFs; fractional shares of US and Canadian securities; regulated cryptocurrency trading and staking; a Shariah-compliant ETF; private investing opportunities for retail investors, eligibility for up to $300,000 in CDIC deposit insurance; and more.

Wealthsimple serves more than three million Canadians and holds over $20 billion in assets. Its easy-to-use platform provides access to managed investing, self-directed trading, cryptocurrency, spending, saving, and tax filing services. Wealthsimple's straightforward, educational approach to finance has led one-in-five Canadians under the age of 40 to trust Wealthsimple with their money.

SOURCE Wealthsimple

For further information: [email protected]
The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has awarded a grant to HB11 Energy as part of its Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program with the objective, to accelerate basic research to develop cost-effective, innovative fusion energy technologies in the private sector.

The program will provide access to world-leading expertise from the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester, an institutional partner of the National Ignition Facility which recently demonstrated net energy gain from laser fusion. Led by HB11 Energys Prof. Thomas Mehlhorn and Prof. Adam Sefkow from LLE, the research will be focused on innovative hydrogen-boron fuel targets in its program to develop clean and safe fusion energy.

INFUSE is one of the first public-private-partnership (PPP) programs established to accelerate fusion energy R&D in partnership with the private sector as part of a broader vision announced by the White House to realise a fusion power plant on a decadal time-scale. To achieve this vision, the DoE is planning a greater PPP program, which is expected to be based on the NASA COTS program that supported SpaceX and established the commercial space launch industry.

The project will see hydrogen-boron developed as an alternative fuel to the deuterium-tritium used in most other fusion approaches, which faces enormous challenges to reach economic viability. Bypassing many of these challenges, the HB11 Energy technology uses a laser to drive the aneutronic hydrogen-boron-11 fusion reaction enabling a clean, safe, reliable and virtually unlimited source of energy that uses abundant fuels resulting in little or no harmful waste.

It is a great honour to us all at HB11 Energy to have the DoEs fusion program supporting our world-leading researchers and their scientific developments towards hydrogen-boron fusion energy generationan approach previously thought by many to be impossible, said Dr. Warren McKenzie, founder & Managing Director of HB11. We are now one step closer to realising the 1970s theories of our co-founder Professor Hora. Being aneutronic, the technology pathway to a functioning HB11 fusion energy reactor is significantly less complicated and therefore, shorter and much less expensive than any other proposed method of fusion energy. HB11 Energys technologies could create the worlds safest, most economic, lowest-carbon source of abundant clean energy.

The INFUSE project builds upon another recent milestone for HB11the publication of a special issue of Laser & Particle Beam journal, including thirteen scientific papers advancing the field of hydrogen-boron fusion as a new clean energy source. The papers are published by HB11s network of scientific collaborators, led by HB11s Chief Scientist, Professor Dimitri Batani. The editorial headlining the special issue describes the origins of the field as the theoretical physics work by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora since the 1970s at UNSW Sydney and more recently through his company, HB11 Energy.

The new research published in the special issue analyses novel approaches to laser-driven hydrogen-boron fusion energy and the applications of high-brightness alpha-particle sources by the world leading physicists including members of HB11 Energys Scientific Advisory Board:

Fabio Belloni, nuclear physicist at the University of New South Wales, who has shown that by exploiting suprathermal effects, proton-boron fusion can be achieved at lower temperatures than previously thought, opening the possibility of ignition and fusion burn.

Thomas A. Mehlhorn, who presented a roadmap to exploit these newly understood suprathermal effects in a scheme to achieve nonequilibrium thermonuclear burn as a novel strategy to achieve net-energy-gain and economically viable fusion energy from laser driven proton boron fusion.

According to HB11 Energy, the National Ignition Facilitys net energy gain breakthrough, which also observed suprathermal effects in recent experiments, brings greater focus to the possibilities of laser fusion and what it can achieve, particularly with many of the economic and engineering benefits of using hydrogen-boron-11 as the fuel.
Which dinosaurs made the tracks?

The three newly uncovered trackways lie between the towns of Imilchil and Outerbat in central Morocco and feature a range of different footprints.

Trackways made by the same species of animal are rarely the same, meaning that they vary significantly depending on what it was walking on, the speed it was moving at, and its age at the time. This means palaeontologists tend to link footprints to general groups of animals rather than any one species.

For instance, the researchers used the general size and shape of the Moroccan footprints at the first tracksite to link them to four key groups of dinosaurs. These included the theropods, a group of carnivores like Tyrannosaurus rex which walked on two legs, as well as sauropods, which are long-necked, large-bodied herbivores which included Diplodocus.

In addition, there appeared to be three thyreophoran tracks, the group of armoured dinosaurs which includes stegosaurs and ankylosaurs, as well as one track from a herbivorous ornithopod.

A separate ornithopod trackway was also found at the second site, along with many small theropod footprints measuring just a couple of centimetres wide. These tracks are the smallest found in the region and potentially the entirety of Morocco, and might suggest a group of dinosaurs moving together in a group.

However, it wasnt just dinosaurs leaving their mark. The researchers found one footprint with four digits that might have been left by a pterosaur landing in the mud.

Tracksite three, meanwhile, has preserved evidence of ancient burrows, as well as signs of microbes. These were accompanied by a single trackway of bird-like footprints, likely from the animal which made them when wading through deep, soft mud.

Together, the diversity of tracks suggest that many more species of dinosaur were living in North Africa during the Middle Jurassic than are currently known. Further excavations could help to uncover some of these animals, and fill in a gap in our understanding of the prehistoric world.

Im originally from Imilchil, so I'm determined to find out more about the regions palaeontology, Ahmed says. I've already discovered other tracksites that I hope to publish on soon, and I'd like to continue my research in collaboration with other specialists to improve knowledge of Imichils past.
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth.

Over the past couple of centuries, through dramatic changes in industry, agriculture and development, the animals and plants that call the UK home have borne the brunt of this change. But rather than these historic declines stopping in recent times, they have continued.

This is the sobering conclusion from the latest State of Nature report, which though the combination of the expertise of over 60 nature organisations is the most comprehensive analysis covering the natural world in the UK. It has found that since the 1970s wildlife populations are continuing to decline, on top of an already perilously low baseline.

This has resulted in the UK having only half of its biodiversity remaining.

The UKs wildlife is better studied than in any other country in the world and what the data tell us should make us sit up and listen, explains Beccy Speight, the RSPBs Chief Executive. What is clear is that progress to protect our species and habitats has not been sufficient and yet we know we urgently need to restore nature to tackle the climate crisis and build resilience.

Read the State of Nature 2023 report in full, in addition to regional breakdowns for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Today marks the third anniversary of the second Karabakh war, which began on September 27, 2020, at the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, former Turkish Ambassador, representative of the Turkish IMZA Social Development Support Public Union, co-chair of the Union of Elders of Turkiye and the Turkic World Hulusi Kilic told Trend.

He noted that September 27 is the day when Azerbaijan inscribed its victory in golden letters in history.

"Many became martyrs while fighting for their homeland. The second Karabakh war revealed Azerbaijan's strength in the region. September 27 marked the beginning of the liberation of lands occupied for 30 years, the return of displaced people to their ancestral lands, and the start of the path towards the Day of Pride for the Turkic world," the former ambassador said.

"Our martyrs are always in our hearts. The whole world saw how the memory of martyrs is highly respected in Azerbaijan. The world also witnessed a mother who, after losing one son as a martyr, sent her second child to war. The martyrs, at the cost of their own lives, gifted us these lands," Kilic added.

Remembrance Day is a public holiday in Azerbaijan for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died while serving in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the second Karabakh war.

Following over a month of military action to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation from late September to early November 2020, Azerbaijan has pushed Armenia to sign the surrender document. A joint statement on the matter was made by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

Established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, dated December 2, 2020, the holiday is held on September 27, the day when the war began.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. September 27 is marked as the Day of Remembrance in Azerbaijan in accordance with the decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev, Trend reports.

Soldiers and officers who showed heroism, peaceful inhabitants who worked in the rear - all the Azerbaijani people, having manifested determination and will, unity and solidarity, united in one fist, inflicted devastating blows on Armenia during the 44-day Second Karabakh War [from late Sept. to early Nov.2020], which became for Azerbaijan a matter of honor in the struggle for sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.

Azerbaijan highly appreciates the heroism of its brave sons and daughters and gives tribute to the memory of its martyrs. September 27 is marked as the Day of Remembrance in Azerbaijan as a sign of deep respect to the memory of Azerbaijani soldiers and officers, all Azerbaijani martyrs who fought heroically in the second Armenia-Azerbaijan Karabakh war, and sacrificed their lives for the territorial integrity of the country and raised the Azerbaijani flag in the ancestral lands of Azerbaijan.

During the 44 days of military operations, the Azerbaijani army had defeated the Armenian armed forces and liberated Jabrayil, Gubadli, Zangilan, Fuzuli districts, a large part of Khojavend district, a number of villages in Lachin district from the Armenian occupation. At the same time, they liberated five cities, four settlements, 286 villages, and numerous strategic heights.

On November 8, after 28 years of the Armenian occupation, there was liberated the city of Shusha, which has a great spiritual and symbolic meaning for the Azerbaijani people. As a result, Armenia had no choice but to sign the act of capitulation.
Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house of representatives, has declared the seats of lawmakers appointed as ministers by President Bola Tinubu, vacant.

Tunji Olubunmi-Ojo and Tanko Sununu were the two members of the green chamber appointed as ministers by Tinubu.

Olubunmi-Ojo represented Akoko north-east/ Akoko north-west of Ondo state, while Sununu represented Yauri/Shanga/Ngaski federal constituency of Katsina.

Tinubu had appointed Olubunmi-Ojo as minister of interior, and Tanko Sununu as minister of state for education.

Abbas declared the seats of the former lawmakers vacant after reading their letters of resignation as members of the house of representatives during the plenary on Tuesday.

The declaration of the seats vacant by the speaker is in line with section 68 of the 1999 constitution.

Section 68 of the 1999 constitution states that: (1) A member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if -he becomes President, Vice-President, Governor, Deputy Governor or a Minister of the Government of the Federation or a Commissioner of the Government of a State or a Special Adviser.

In June, Femi Gbajabiamila, former speaker of the house, resigned as a member of the 10th house of representatives after Tinubu appointed him as his chief of staff. His seat was thereafter declared vacant.

Meanwhile, Salisu Majigiri, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been sworn in as a member of the house.

Majigiri was declared the winner of the 25 February election to represent Mashi/Dutsi federal constituency of Katsina.

He polled 27,387 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mansir Ali of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 20,596 votes.

However, his candidacy faced opposition from Nazifi Yusuf, a PDP member, who took the dispute all the way to the supreme court, where his victory was confirmed.




Former husband of Nollywood actress Tonto Dike, Olakunle Churchill has reacted to the controversies that have trailed death of muscian Mohbad.





Churchill in a post on his social media handles said cyberbullies are not so different from those responsible for Mohbads tragic demise.





The unfortunate passing of the talented artiste Mohbad has led to a concerning trend of online scrutiny and criticism directed at celebrities. These famous individuals find themselves under close examination, with some even being told how they should express their grief over Mohbads death.





Pretty Mike of Lagos had previously spoken out against the insensitive behavior displayed by some internet users following Mohbads passing. Adding his voice to Pretty Mikes sentiments, Churchill voiced his own opinion:





@prettymikeoflagos is one of the smartest people i know in the industry. He literally took words out of my mouth with this post.





As we demand justice for Mohbad, let us refrain from becoming cyberbullies ourselves.





There is little distinction between Cyberbullies and the alleged culprits in the attack on the young artist.





Blackmailers and bullies are arguably worse than witches and wizards. It is disheartening that they would exploit peoples tragedies and pretend to show support in public.





Let us cease tearing people down while hiding behind our keyboards.





#SayNoToBully #StopOnlineBully #DontDrivePeopleIntoDepression #saynotoblackmail #justiceformohbad #saynotobullying





In the days following Mohbads unfortunate death, famous individuals have faced harsh criticisms and are being told how they should express their sadness.





Churchill believes that this online behavior is a form of cyberbullying, and its important to realize that those who engage in online harassment arent far removed from the people responsible for Mohbads tragic end.





The controversy surrounding Mohbads death took a new turn yesterday when Naira Marley released an official statement addressing the accusations against him. In the statement, he strongly denied any involvement in a physical fight with Mohbad or any form of bullying or harassment. He also denied rumors that his record label, Marlian Music, had connections to a drug cartel or secret group.




Some former members of the Ondo State House of Assembly have voiced their disapproval of the process taken by the state legislature to impeach the Deputy Governor of the state, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.





The ex-lawmakers, under the aegis of the Concerned All Progressives Congress Ex-Lawmakers in Ondo State, expressed concern that it is premature for the members of the 10th Assembly to prioritise the issue of impeachment while neglecting the numerous challenges currently facing the state.





While addressing newsmen during a press briefing in Akure, Abiodun Jerome, who spoke on behalf of the concerned former lawmakers, urged the state assembly to adhere to proper procedures and cautioned against causing unrest within the state.





Jerome emphasised the importance of the House of Assembly rising above reproach and distractions. He stressed the significance of upholding the principle of separation of powers and reminded the Assembly members that the eyes of the world are upon them during this critical period.





The group appealed to the House of Assembly to exercise restraint, exercise due diligence, and ensure that they handle the impeachment process in a fair and transparent manner.





They urged the Assembly to focus on addressing the pressing issues affecting the state and its citizens rather than expending their energies solely on the impeachment proceedings.





As former lawmakers, we have the responsibility to draw attention to all forms of abnormalities we observe so that the general public is not misled.





Although we could have ordinarily ignored the shenanigans of the orchestrators of the dastardly act, however, we are compelled by the trust once held by us with the political responsibilities as representatives of our various constituencies.





It is on this note that we challenge the present Assembly not to endorse a bad precedent by going ahead with this planned impeachment of the deputy governor.





This is one impeachment too many! Today it is Lucky; tomorrow it could be anyone. There is life after the House of Assembly. A word is enough for the wise!




Victor Osimhen now wants to leave Napoli as soon as possible.





This is according to his friend and journalist, Oma Akatugba, who said the striker is looking to leave the Italian side.





Reports in Europe suggest that Chelsea and Arsenal are currently monitoring the players situation.





Recall that problem started after the club made a mockery of Osimhen on social media.





The club mocked Osimhen, their highest goalscorer last season, on Tik Tok after he missed a crucial penalty.





The 24-year-old netted 31 goals and made five assists in 39 games for the club last season, helping them claim the Serie A title.





It all appears that the Nigerian decided to leave the club, having deleted all pictures of him in a Napoli kit on Instagram.





Akatugba said that the 24-year-old is now keen on leaving, feeling disrespected.





Its incredible that your clubs official account makes fun of you for a missed penalty, Akatugba told Sport Mediaset.





Now what are the consequences? That Napoli will lose Victor Osimhen.





He will not renew his contract and will want to leave as soon as possible.





I say this as a journalist, I dont speak for him; I only say what is inevitable. Osimhen will leave as soon as possible. No team makes fun of its best player.





I dont believe that we are talking about racism and I dont believe that Napoli are, but it is a shame, unacceptable, a great lack of respect, ridiculous, and it is a gross mistake.





We are talking about the best striker in Italy, candidate for the Ballon dOr and the best player in Serie A.




Former Chief Press Secretary to Adegboyega Oyetola, the immediate past Governor of Osun State, Ismail Omipidan has described the allegation by the Ademola Adeleke administration that the former governor abandoned the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, projects in Osogbo and Iragbiji as an attempt to play politics with governance.





This is as Omipidan maintained that former governor Oyetola handed over the SDGs projects sites in the State to relevant authorities before leaving office.





In a statement signed by Omipidan and obtained by newsmen on Wednesday, Omipidan noted that it was preposterous for the present administration to accuse the Oyetola government of abandoning projects that were duly completed, equipped and inaugurated weeks before the expiration of its tenure.





The Oyetola administration after the inauguration of the SDG projects, handed over the Skills acquisition centres to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the hospitals to the Osun State University Teaching Hospital, he said, asking how a government which took over in November 2022, would suddenly wake up 10 months after to say the projects were abandoned.





It is the present administration that should be accused of abandoning the projects, he added.





While accusing the government of lacking the requisite skills and character to oversee the affairs of a state like Osun, Omipidan accused the government of not doing anything after taking over in November.





You only woke up 10 months after to accuse us of abandoning the projects.





It is on record that to ensure efficient use of the facilities, the Skills acquisition centers were handed over to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, while the hospitals were handed over to the University of Osun Teaching Hospital management. How can an administration which took such bold steps be accused of abandoning such projects?





The Iragbiji community especially should be commended for providing adequate security around the projects to ensure that they were not looted even when they gave the government the land free of charge to accommodate the projects.





Assuming these projects were sited in Ede, the Governors country home, will the government abandon them? I am aware that part of the hospital equipment donated to Ila-Orangun General General Hospital by an NGO were moved to Ede to equip the General Hospital there. If the Governor could do that, I am tempted to believe that the government decided to abandon the SDG projects because they were sited in Osogbo and Iragbiji and not Ede, he said.





It was reported that the APC in Osun State had in a statement signed by its Chairman on Tuesday accused the Ademola Adeleke administration of running the states finances and economy aground since it came into power in November, 2022.





But defending the state government, the Osun Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in a statement by its Chairman, Sunday Bisi insisted that the governor has been managing the states economy and finances sustainably.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Embassy of the United States in Azerbaijan shared a publication on the occasion of September 27 - Remembrance Day, Trend reports.

"On Azerbaijan's Remembrance Day - September 27, we express our condolences to the families of those killed in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Today, our embassy will observe a minute of silence in memory of those killed in the conflict. The United States is committed to promoting a peaceful and prosperous future for the South Caucasus region," the embassy said.

The second Karabakh war, which lasted 44 days and ended with Azerbaijan's brilliant victory over Armenia, began on September 27, 2020.

According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day second Karabakh war and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.




Brentford have set a price tag for their striker Ivan Toney amid reported interest from Arsenal and Chelsea.





The Bees are hoping to spark a bidding war between Arsenal and Chelsea for Toney ahead of the January transfer window.





Toney is currently serving an eight-month ban for breaching betting regulations.





The 27-year-old will be eligible to make his competitive return come the New Year.





However, according to the Evening Standard, Brentford are ready to sanction the sale of Toney and will seek to get at least 80million for their attacker.





Toney had forced his way into England manager, Gareth Southgates team prior to his suspension.
President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday felicitated with the presiding Bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide (Winners Chapel International), Dr. David Oyedepo, on the occasion of his 69th birthday on September 27, 2023.

This was disclosed in a statement by Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.

Tinubu affirmed that the words and works of wisdom demonstrated by the visionary gospel leader continue to resonate within and beyond Nigeria, impacting greatly on the economy in the areas of education, healthcare, infrastructure, banking, publishing and transportation.

The President acknowledged Oyedepos great strides in pursuing personal, intellectual and spiritual development for humanity, while encouraging many to grow through the practical teaching of the Word of Faith with remarkable results in the expansion of the ministry.

He believes the lifestyle of Oyedepo, reflected in his teachings on love, peace, prosperity, faith and wisdom, remain exemplary even as his dedication to building lasting institutions and a God-fearing generation speaks of his unequivocal commitment to God, the statement said.

Tinubu prayed that the Almighty God will continue to fortify and multiply His grace on Oyedepo and his family.
A man has been arrested in an investigation into the sexual assault of a child in North Jersey, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.

Jarrell Taver-Hudson, 32, of Garfield, is accused of sexually assaulting a child 14 years of age or younger on one occasion, authorities said.

The Division of Child Protection & Permanency contacted prosecutors on July 26, reporting the alleged assault. The investigation identified Taver-Hudson as a suspect and detectives arrested him in Garfield on Tuesday.

Taver-Hudson has been charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, officials said. He is being held in Bergen County Jail pending his first court appearance.

No other information was immediately released. Attorney information for Taver-Hudson was not immediately available.

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Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
A 47-year-old New Jersey man defrauded online customers out of more than $130,000 by selling counterfeit health supplements, authorities said.

Brad Snyder is charged with two counts apiece of theft by deception and counterfeiting as well as computer criminal activity, Evesham police said.

Police in Evesham obtained search warrants for Snyders condominium in on Woodhollow Drive and a public storage facility on Route 70 west in the Marlton section of the Burlington County town on Tuesday, officials said.

Eversham police didnt disclose what they found, but officers arrested Snyder at his home in the Hollows Condominiums. Police Chief Walt Miller is expected to disclose more information about the scam at a Wednesday afternoon press conference, officials said.

Snyder was brought to the Burlington County jail, where he is being held ahead of a first appearance in court. Attorney information for Snyder wasnt immediately available.

Anyone with information is asked to call Evesham Police Department at 856-983-1116, the confidential tip line at 856-983-4699 or email magnusj@eveshampd.org. Anonymous tips can be sent by texting ETPDTIP to 847411.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
A dolphin washed up on the beach in Sea Isle City on Monday, hours after people had pushed the mammal into the water after it first stranded, officials said.

The male common dolphin, which was not fully grown, was barely alive when it re-stranded and had to euthanized because it was in poor condition, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. The stranding center noted the dolphin was underweight and lethargic.

Sea Isle City police were called to the 29th Street beach at the north end of the promenade around 7 a.m. when a passer-by saw the dolphin, according to a city spokeswoman. Police then notified the stranding center.

The New Jersey Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory is performing an autopsy on the dolphin. Results are pending.

The stranding was the first in September in New Jersey involving a mammal.

Sea Isle City has been the site of other strandings this year. An adult male common dolphin was found dead in Sea Isle City on May 21. In March, six dolphins were euthanized after washing ashore in a mass stranding at a Sea Isle City beach, just hours after two others had died.

A bottlenose dolphin was found floating dead off Cape May on Aug. 30, the stranding center said.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
A state panel has overturned the dismissals of five faculty members at the County College of Morris, including the former president of the faculty union, and is requiring the school to offer to give the professors their jobs back.

The two-year public college violated state law when it declined to reappoint the non-tenured professors in April 2021 in retaliation for protected union activity, according to the 72-page ruling by the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission, known as PERC.

The ruling ordered the college to compensate the five professors for lost salary and benefits, including accrued leave time. But the ruling did not specify how the total payments will be calculated or how much it will cost the school.

The five professors  James Capozzi, Geoff Peck, Mark Schmidt, Robb Lauzon and Anastasia Kilhaney  were all faculty union officials or had ties to the union before they lost their jobs, the ruling said. Capozzi was president of the union, known as the Faculty Association of County College of Morris.

The union filed its complaint days after the colleges board of trustees voted to not reappoint the five professors for the 2021-22 academic year as the union battled with Anthony Iacono, the colleges president. The school retained nearly three dozen other non-tenured faculty at the same meeting.

Capozzi, now teaching at Virginia State University, would have qualified for tenure a few months after his dismissal in his sixth year on the job.

He told NJ Advance Media he is happy with the PERC ruling, but has not decided if he will return to the County College of Morris.

Were happy that it seems to have resolved in the way that it did. Its a relief. Its almost not a surprise, to those that lived through it, said Capozzi, who taught English and edited the colleges poetry journal.

Some of the other dismissed professors are now teaching in other states, but said they were pleased with the PERC ruling.

Its been a long time. Its incredibly gratifying to get the ruling, said Peck, a professor in the County College of Morris English and philosophy department who is now teaching at a county college in Nevada.

A County College of Morris spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on the ruling on behalf of either the college or Iacono.

In the Sept. 19 ruling, PERC disagreed with Iaconos public statements that the professors were dismissed because of financial challenges, including an enrollment drop, at the college and not their union activity.

Iacono contacted police in his hometown of Mount Olive two days after the five faculty members were notified they were losing their jobs to report the tires on a yard cart on his property had been slashed. He allegedly told police, without evidence, that the dismissed faculty members might be involved, the ruling said.

Iaconos report to police was an even more extreme example of CCMs hostility towards the Associations protected activities, the PERC ruling said.

The ruling said the college declined to call Iacono to testify at the commissions hearings and the colleges rationale for the dismissals evolved over time.

Although CCM argued that the association was hostile to Iacono, and in fact was trying to get Iacono to resign or be fired from his position, those actions, including the Associations social media postings, constitute protected activity, the commission found.

Several of the dismissed professors had prominent roles in the faculty union. Peck headed the unions grievance committee and Lauzon chaired the communications committee, the ruling noted. Kilhaney brought a union representative to a meeting with the colleges administration in February 2020. Schmidt wore union attire to a board of trustees meeting in November 2019 and sat in the front row holding union signs.

The commission declined to order the reinstatement of a sixth dismissed professor named in the complaint. Though the professor was in the union, there is no evidence the college knew of any union activity on his part and he was not among those named by Iacono in his police report following the alleged vandalism.

The union released a statement Tuesday calling on the County College of Morris Board of Trustees to remove Iacono as president.

For over two years we have fended off Iaconos repeated attacks as we fought with conviction for justice for our colleagues, ourselves, and our students. Justice has arrived, the union said in a statement shared with NJ Advance Media.

To all those who testified, rallied, raised a sign, donated, wrote a letter, wore a red shirt, spoke out, and stood up in the face of Iaconos continued hostility, this decision honors your moral courage. Congratulations on a tremendous victory for our union and for labor rights in New Jersey, the statement said.

Peck, the dismissed professor now working in Nevada, said he has not made a decision about returning to County College of Morris.

Peck said he learned he would be losing his job at County College of Morris in April 2021 on the same day he and his wife gained pre-approval to buy a house. The middle of April is a challenging time to look for a fall teaching vacancy, he explained, but he landed a job at Eastern Wyoming College.

He left the Wyoming job after a year for another teaching job at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada. Peck recently began his second year teaching English at the school, which is located more than 2,600 miles from County College of Morris campus in Randolph.

I wanted to keep teaching, he said.

Lauzon, another of the dismissed professors, recently started a teaching job at Juniata College in Pennsylvania after working in a post-doctorate research position at the University of Central Florida.

He said he has no intention of returning to County College of Morris, noting his daughter was two years old when he lost his job in New Jersey.

I cant keep moving my daughter. Its not fair to her, said Lauzon, who taught in the County College of Morris communications department staring in August 2018.

Lauzon said he is still bothered by the unfounded vandalism complaint filed by the college president shortly after the professors dismissals.

Having the police called on me like Im some kind of petty hooligan, give me a break. I work in peace and conflict studies. Saying Im going to slash tires is crazy, he said.

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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
Voters in two Monmouth County municipalities approved a plan Tuesday for two elementary school districts to be absorbed into a third district that currently serves middle school and high school students.

The K-6 school districts in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands will be joining the Henry Hudson Regional School District, which already serves students from both municipalities, starting in July 2024.

Voters in Atlantic Highlands approved the plan with 544 in favor and 323 opposed, and it also passed in Highlands by 432 to 216, according to results posted by the Monmouth County clerks office.

Proceeding with the merger required approval from voters in both Atlantic Highlands and Highlands, school officials said previously.

Overall, the plan received 976 voters in favor, with 539 opposed.

The impending merger of the three school districts will be the first in New Jersey since 2013, when voters in Hunterdon County approved merging four school districts into the South Hunterdon Regional School District, according to the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Henry Hudson Regional are relatively small, with a combined enrollment of 740 students as of last year. A single superintendent, Tara Beams, is already leading what had been characterized by local officials prior to Tuesdays vote as a tri-district.

Each district is home to a single school. Highlands Elementary School and Atlantic Highlands Elementary School serve grades K-6. Henry Hudson Regional High School opened in 1962 and serves grades 7-12.

New Jersey, which is home to about 600 school districts, has few regionalized districts compared to many other states. Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that gave districts financial incentives to study consolidation, including combining into county-wide or regional school districts.

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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
An Essex County man who admitted stealing over $237,000 in Social Security benefits meant for his dead brother was sentenced Tuesday to one year in prison, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Silvano Chable, 54, of Irvington, applied for the benefits in March 2000 on behalf of his brother, who was paralyzed as a result of a motor vehicle accident, the office said. The brother began to receive Social Security benefits in July 2000 and he died in May 2001.

However, Chable did not notify the Social Security Administration of his brothers death and he continued to receive monthly benefit payments intended for his sibling, investigators said.

Chables scheme, which netted him $237,780 in Disability Insurance Benefits, lasted from May 2001 to November 2017, federal prosecutors said.

He was arrested and later pleaded guilty to wire fraud, authorities said.

In addition to his prison term, U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton ordered Chable to pay back the entire $237,780 in funds he took for himself, the office said.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka announced a shakeup of the citys fire departments leadership on Tuesday, moving its top uniformed official into a newly created civilian job as assistant public safety director and replacing him as fire chief.

The outgoing chief, Rufus Jackson, a 28-year veteran of the NFD, was named assistant director of the Newark Department of Public Safety, which includes the police and fire divisions and the office of emergency management.

Del Ortiz, a 22-year veteran of Newarks fire division, was appointed to replace Jackson.

Ortiz had served as a battalion chief, the divisions second-highest uniformed position after fire chief. In a statement on Tuesday, Baraka called both promotions momentous.

Our expectations for both these men are nothing less than the outstanding performance they exhibit every day and their unwavering support of fellow public safety professionals, the mayor said.

Director Fritz Frage, a former New Jersey State Police colonel, heads the public safety department. He replaced Brian OHara in August 2022 after OHara was moved to a deputy mayors post. A month later, OHara left the city for a job as the Minneapolis police chief.

Frage said in a statement that Jackson brings to the role an extensive depth of professionalism and integrity, along with substantial proficiency in leadership and organizational foresight.

Jackson will replace Raul Malave as the public safety departments second-ranking official after Malave, a veteran Newark firefighter, retired in February as assistant director.

The leadership changes come less than three months after the citys fire division came under scrutiny following a July 5 blaze aboard a cargo ship at Port Newark that resulted in the death of veteran firefighters Augusto Augie Acabou, 45, and Wayne Bear Brooks Jr., 49. The U.S. Coast Guard is leading a wide-ranging, inter-agency investigation of the fire.

Crystal Rosa, the citys communications director, said the leadership changes were unrelated to the fire at the port.

Malave retired, and Jackson is the best fit moving forward, she said in an email.

Tuesdays announcement said Jackson would work closely with Frage, new Fire Chief Ortiz, and the departments executive staff to provide guidance and executive oversight to the police and fire divisions and the emergency management office.

Anthony Tarantino, president of the Newark Fire Officers Association, representing Newarks 140 fire captains, battalion chiefs and deputy chiefs, welcomed both moves on Tuesday.

Tarantino said Jacksons administrative experience as the fire departments chief of staff before its 2016 merger with the police to form the Public Safety Department would help him in his new role. He praised Ortiz as a skilled operations manager, respected among supervisors and rank-and-file firefighters and officers.

Hes well respected by the men. His knowledge is second to none, Tarantino said. He is definitely the right person for this job. Personally, Im very happy for him and happy for the department.

Michael Giunta, president of the rank-and-file Newark Firefighters Union, likewise praised Ortiz as the incoming chief and wished Jackson luck in his new civilian job. Giunta also commended Baraka for the leadership moves.

I really think hes making changes in a positive way, Giunta said.

Del Ortiz was named Newark Fire Chief, the fire division's top uniformed position, to replace Rufus Jackson, who was promoted to the civilian job of assistant public safety director.Newark Department of Public Safety

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com
UPDATE: On Wednesday, a judge ruled that Swajkowski will be detained in the Essex County jail pending resolution of the case, according to Robert Florida, a spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutors Office.

A Verona High School teacher who also oversees the schools chess club was arrested last week after he was accused with sexually assaulting a student member of the club, authorities announced Tuesday.

Matthew Swajkowski, 36, of Verona, was charged with sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, sexual conduct with a minor, and purposely or knowingly offering or serving or making available an alcoholic beverage to a person under the legal age for consuming alcoholic beverages, according to a release from the Essex County Prosecutors Office.

In July, the Verona Police Department was notified of the alleged assault, the office said.

Investigators said the incident allegedly happened in Verona but no other information was released by prosecutors.

While the age of consent in New Jersey is 16, it is unlawful for anyone whose legal, professional or occupational status gives them supervisory or disciplinary power over a child who is at least 16 but less than 18 years old to engage in sexual conduct with that child, the office said in a statement.

Verona School District Superintendent Diane DiGiuseppe told NJ Advance Media that upon learning about the allegations against Swajkowski, he was placed on administrative leave, and the district cooperated fully with the law enforcement investigation.

The accusations against and subsequent arrest of a staff member are extremely distressing, DiGiuseppe said. The district takes any accusation of inappropriate conduct by a staff member seriously, cooperates with law enforcement authorities, and takes personnel action as permitted by law.

Swajkowski started teaching at Verona High School in 2014, according to his biography on the schools web site.

As of 2021, his salary was $75,687, according to New Jersey public employee salary data. Attorney information for him was not immediately available.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. No civilian object was damaged during the anti-terrorist activities, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told reporters, Trend reports.

The minister noted that Armenia opposed the peace initiatives of Azerbaijan after the 2020 second Karabakh war.

The Armenian armed forces didn't withdraw from Karabakh [contrary to the trilateral statement signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the second Karabakh war], and provocations against us continued. As a result of the last such provocation, six of our citizens were killed. After that, on September 19, Azerbaijan began anti-terrorist activities, he added.

On September 19, 2023, a KAMAZ truck transporting personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan hit a mine near the village of Taghavard in Azerbaijan's Khojavand district. The mine had been previously planted by illegal Armenian armed groups.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.

In parallel, all weapons and heavy equipment are surrendered.

The implementation of the above-mentioned processes is ensured in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
EDITORS NOTE: NJ Cannabis Insider, NJ.coms B2B cannabis industry trade journal and events vertical, is hosting the states foremost business conference on Oct. 12. Tickets are limited.

On my recent visits to Puffin Store in New Brunswick and Queen City Dispensary in Plainfield I saw a few brands that were new to the New Jersey legal weed market.

One of them was Flower x Edie Parker. Seeing these pre-rolled joints on their menus intrigued me because I recognized the brand name, but hadnt previously associated it with actual weed.

Edie Parker, as far as I knew at that point, is a fashion designer. Before this year, the brand was known for handbags and accessories. They also offer eccentric glassware for smoking and joint-shaped purses, as I had suggested them as gifts in a post-holiday gift guide earlier this year.

The first time I saw this new line of Flower x Edie Parker branding while I was in line at Curaleaf Bordentown, the orange-and-blue striped package of the Nudist Peach crush cones caught my eye. There was also a pink and green box for the Strawberry on Top flavor. I grabbed both to test them out.

The peach flavor is released when you crush a bead in the filter of the cone  it is very subtle, mostly tasted on the exhale of each puff of smoke. I found them easy to use and they made me feel hip and trendy as I stuffed the peach-printed sheet in front of my friends. Most importantly, I could still taste the terpenes in my weed. It didnt interfere with its aroma.

So naturally when I came across pre-rolled joints ($24, 1 gram) by the same name, I was curious. The very experienced budtender at Puffin who helped me choose a product based on effects suggested the Early Bird variety, a blend of strains Mandarin Zkittles and Rollie.

The terpene profile of this blend  limonene (citrus), beta caryophyllene (pepper), linalool (floral), humulene (hoppy)  suggests that it will make me feel calm and sleepy, kill my anxiety and inflammation, and elevate my mood.

I was looking for a cannabis product that would raise my spirits and manage aches without making me feel jittery or put me to sleep. My tolerance is very low, as I took a 10-month hiatus from consuming.

These days, I either microdose with edibles (consume less than 5 mg at a time) or time my moment for consumption perfectly.

Right after I ran a couple of errands, I stepped onto my patio to open the stylish lime green package. Inside, I found two clear doob tubes with a half gram joint in each. I popped one open, ran the joint under my nose, then lit up.

By the second puff, I was potently high; I could feel the back and neck pain melting away, and the floating feeling setting in. It might be my low tolerance, but I found this blend to be very strong. I puffed just three more times to really take in the flavor before I called it quits. I put the joint back in its tube to contain the smell.

I tried to go about my day, doing small chores around the house. After about 20 minutes, I could tell I was no good at focusing on any one task. The floating feeling was inhibiting. I needed to lay down. So I stayed in bed for about three hours, but I didnt sleep.

When I got up again, I felt the more positive effects. My mood was elevated; I found myself singing aloud and thinking more creative thoughts. I felt refreshed and reflective.

This pre-roll had done everything I expected and needed it to do for me. While I didnt enjoy the high itself (I just dont like the floating feeling as much anymore), I enjoyed the effects and the aesthetic of the packaging.

For women, we make our shopping choices based on functionality and aesthetics. They are equally important. The whole experience felt delicate and feminine.

This is when I knew Edie Parker was more than just an accessories designer. The Flower x Edie Parker line is so much more than ashtrays or keychains. Its more than joint-shaped barrettes or candles. It is a fully conceptualized lifestyle brand.

From high-end glass table pieces that double as lighters, pipes or ashtrays to lighters, stick batteries and weed storage options, the brands mid-century style aesthetic is fully embodied. Their motto, where fashion meets flower and the catchphrase for this particular line of products, for a good time, are telling.

Have a question about consuming weed? Ask me anything.

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Gabby Warren is NJ.coms Cannabis Life reporter. Shell be covering all things weed retail, commerce and culture.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A bill to preserve the site of the Wounded Knee massacre  one of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history  cleared the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month.

The Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial and Sacred Site Act, introduced by Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota in May, passed the House by voice vote on Sept. 20. The Senate is considering companion legislation.

More than 200 Native Americans  including children and elderly people  were killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The bloodshed marked a seminal moment in the frontier battles the U.S. Army waged against tribes.

The Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes joined together last year to purchase about 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark in South Dakota to ensure the area was preserved as a sacred site. Leaders of both tribes testified in support of the House bill, which would put federal protections on the land on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the bills passage. In a previous statement, he said: We must remember the sacrifices our ancestors have suffered for us. What happened at Wounded Knee is a reminder that we as a Oyate (people) have succumbed incredible odds to survive, so we must honor our ancestors by preserving the land for future generations to come.

A phone call to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe rang unanswered last week. In a previous statement, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Ryman LeBeau and Wounded Knee survivor descendants Manny and Renee Iron Hawk said, We stand in strong solidarity in memorializing this sacred site, that will be honored as such forever more.

In a speech on the House floor, Johnson described his trip to the Wounded Knee site in June, when he visited with descendants, including an elder whose grandmother survived the massacre.

These are real people. These are real places. These are not ancient tales of a distant land, Johnson said.

The site has figured prominently in Indigenous peoples struggles with the U.S. government. A private citizen, James Czywczynski, purchased the property in 1968. His family operated a trading post and museum there until 1973, when American Indian Movement protesters occupied the site, destroying both the post and Czywczynskis home.

The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded led to heightened awareness about Native American struggles and propelled a wider protest movement.
A fire Sunday in South River, which prompted response units from multiple towns and took hours to extinguish, was especially costly for one family and two businesses, the towns mayor said Tuesday.

A GoFundMe campaign (is) planned for one apartment family (who) lost everything, said South River Mayor John Krenzel, who added that happily the blaze did not result in any injuries.

The mayor noted that a law firm and Marys Express, which describes itself as a grocery and multi-services store, located on the first floor of the impacted structures were both destroyed in the blaze.

Sections of the busy business thoroughfare were cordoned off with yellow tape Sunday morning  from about 10 a.m. to as late as 3 p.m.  as crews doused the building at 43 Main St., one witness who works nearby said.

Krenzel, who deferred questions about the response to local authorities, said the fire started just before 10 a.m. and caused smoke damage to adjacent properties.

Additional information on the cause of the fire was not released.

The South River Fire Department and South River Police Department could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

In videos of the scene, smoke could be seen billowing from the structures as dozens of firefighters from the area  including South River, East Brunswick and Sayreville  assisted.

Once again, the South River firefighters and surrounding communities did an outstanding job, Krenzel said Tuesday in a statement.

A spokesperson from the law firm Gary D. Appleby declined to comment Wednesday following the fire. A call to Marys Express  the other business impacted in the blaze  was not immediately returned Tuesday.

In Facebook posts following the fire, Marys Express said fortunately the incident did not result in anyone hurt.

Due to recent events, we would like to inform you that unfortunately Marys Express will be temporarily closed, Marys Express wrote in Spanish in an update Monday. But we would like to emphasize that we will continue to strive to better serve the South River community and will soon be in a new location.

We appreciate the various messages, the business wrote a day prior, and are committed to continuing to strive for our community.

Diane Concannon, of the American Red Cross of New Jersey, said Sunday the organization was helping at least four people from two families with temporary lodging, food, clothing and other immediate needs.

Photos of the scene, posted by local photographer Elias Paone, showed vans from RWJBarnabas Health, the Milltown Rescue Squad and PSE&G on the scene as well.

To donate to the fire victims visit www.gofundme.com/f/main-street-fire-victims.

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Steven Rodas may be reached at srodas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @stevenrodasnj.
Your phone, TV and radio will sound off an alarm on Oct. 4 at 2:20 p.m. But, its just a test.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to conduct a nationwide test to gauge how effective the governments mass communication can be in the event of an emergency, the agency said in a statement.

The test will be conducted in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission.

Cell phone will sound and display the message: THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.

The purpose of the test is to analyze how effective sending nationwide messages is in the event of an emergency. Recipients of the alerts do not need to do anything, FEMA officials said.

The agency will send the alert with both a unique tone and vibration to make sure the message is accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities, the agency said.

The alert is split into two portions, one to test the Wireless Emergency Alerts and another to test the Emergency Alert System.

The Wireless Emergency Alert test will target all cell phones and will display in either English or Spanish  whichever language to which the cell phones settings is set. The Emergency Alert System test will target all radios and televisions nationwide, according to the agency.

The television and radio portion on the test will last approximately one minute on radio and television broadcast stations, cable systems, satellite radio and other television and video providers.

This will be the second time an emergency alert test has been sent to all cell phones nationwide, FEMA officials said. It will also be the seventh test sent to televisions and radios nationwide.

The most recent nationwide emergency alert test was in August 2021.

The Oct. 4 test may be postponed to Oct. 11 if there is widespread severe weather or another significant event, officials said.

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Camille Furst may be reached at cfurst@njadvancemedia.com.
Groups of people swarmed into stores in Philadelphias Center City on Tuesday, stuffing plastic bags with merchandise and fleeing, although police made arrests, authorities and witnesses said.

An Apple Store was hit at around 8 p.m. and police chased fleeing teenagers and young adults, recovering dropped iPhones and a pile of iPads at one spot, a police statement said.

More than 100 people who appeared to be teenagers looted a Lululemon store, NBC10 Philadelphia reported, citing a police officer.

Philadelphia Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford said that authorities received calls throughout the city of looting incidents. He told reporters we know of somewhere around 15 to 20 arrests have taken place thus far. At least two firearms have been recovered.

Video posted on social media showed masked people in hoodies running out of Lululemon and police officers grabbing several and tackling them to the sidewalk, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

No injuries were immediately reported but CBS Philadelphia said a security guard was assaulted at the Foot Locker.

The flash mob-style ransacking followed an earlier peaceful protest over a judges Tuesday decision to dismiss murder and other charges against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver, Eddie Irizarry, through a rolled-up window.

However, several police commanders said that the store ransacking wasnt connected to earlier demonstrations, CBS Philadelphia reported. Stanford reiterated that point.

This had nothing to do with the protest. What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and make an attempt to destroy our city, he said.

Stanford also said that were investigating that there was possibly a caravan of a number of different vehicles that were going from location to location. He added that some individuals allegedly involved with it were taken into custody.

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A body that washed up in Point Pleasant Beach on Saturday afternoon has been identified a boater who went missing after his vessel capsized in the Manasquan Inlet earlier this month, authorities said

Troopers were dispatched to Channel Drive in Point Pleasant Beach at 3:05 p.m. on Saturday in response to a report of an unidentified body found washed up in the area, a spokesman for New Jersey State Police said.

On Tuesday, he was identified as Derek Narby, 21, of Brick Township, who had been missing since Sept. 14 when a boat he was on with two others was struck by a wave and capsized, officials said.

The two other people were rescued by police the night of the incident. They were identified as Narbys father and brother, according to a report by the Asbury Park Press.

Large waves that struck the boat were churned up by Hurricane Lee as it moved north at the time, hundreds of miles off the coast of North Carolina.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Recently, I ordered a copy of the new book Enough, written by New Jersey native Cassidy Hutchinson. She served as assistant to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff during the last years of Donald Trumps presidency.

Hutchinson, who grew up in Pennington, is someone who had close access to the president and what transpired in the White House. On Sept. 25, I watched MSNBCs Rachel Maddow interview Hutchinson, who famously testified in 2022 before the Jan. 6 congressional committee.
Six months after a surprise state takeover of the troubled police department in New Jerseys third-largest city, state authorities say crime is down, public sentiment is improving and new technology is helping hold cops accountable.

Patersons police force has been under the microscope since March, when state Attorney General Matthew Platkin citied a crisis of confidence in law enforcement in this city and took over the department.

Since then, an ex-NYPD chief installed to turn things around has ordered more officers onto foot patrols, dramatically increasing their presence along the citys Broadway corridor. The effect has been significant, city officials and residents say.

Broadway has become a billboard for what change can look like in the city of Paterson, Issa Abbassi, the officer in charge in Paterson, said during a law enforcement briefing at the citys public library, which sits along Broadway.

But it cant stop there.

The location was no accident. Platkin said the library had become a dangerous place to some city residents, a hub of drug activity and crime that kept away families.

Since Paterson police doubled down on foot patrols and community policing on Broadway, the attorney general said, this neighborhood blossomed and the library once again became accessible to the children of Paterson as a safe and welcoming place.

Crime is down across the city, Abbassi said. Compared to this same time last year, Paterson has seen a 57% reduction in murders and a 32% decline in shootings. Robbery, rape and aggravated assault numbers are similarly down, officials say.

Going forward, the department is launching nighttime walking patrols in five other areas of the city known to have problems similar to those endemic on Broadway.

The officer in charge also outlined a raft of reforms, including a requirement that every cop on the force be trained in and carry less lethal weapons including pepper spray and Tasers.

The department has contracted with a technology firm to use artificial intelligence to monitor officers body-worn camera footage, which officials say will vastly improve oversight of the large department.

Officials are also moving the departments internal affairs functions out of police headquarters  a calculated move to make people more comfortable filing reports of excessive force or corruption.

Its been a long time coming, Teddie Martinez, a violence intervention worker in the city, said of the reforms.

Weve been asking for community policing. Weve been asking police to step into that role, to get familiar with the community.

The reforms come after years of problems, including criminal charges against a dozen officers, millions in legal settlements and fierce criticism of police use of force. Platkin, the attorney general, acknowledged the department still has a long way to go.

There is much work to be done, he said. No Mission Accomplished banner here.

Some critics of the troubled department, particularly longtime city activists, remain skeptical of outside pledges of reform  particularly those that involve more policing.

Police cannot police themselves, said Corey Teague, a Paterson activist. And many times crimes arent reported because people are afraid to come to them.

Teague said any reforms that dont include the creation of a civilian review board with subpoena power is a waste of time at this point.

Platkin said the creation of a civilian review board would require legislative action in Trenton.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com.
A former Paterson mayor was indicted Tuesday by a grand jury after he was accused of launching a new bid to run the city in 2022, despite being barred from doing so six years ago, authorities said.

Jose Joey Torres, 64, of Paterson, was indicted on a charge of criminal contempt for his alleged violation of the 2017 court order, according to a release from the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office.

Torres pleaded guilty in September of that year to second-degree conspiracy to commit official misconduct for using city employees to work at a liquor distributorship his family planned to open, while bilking the city out of overtime, officials said. As part of his plea deal, Torres was required to forfeit his position as mayor, serve five years in prison without parole eligibility, forfeit future public employment, and pay $800.

State prison records show Torres was paroled in December 2018 after serving 13 months of his five-year sentence.

Nonetheless, Torres was accused of making a public speech in February of last year stating that he was running for mayor of the City of Paterson in the 2022 election and requesting that the people in the audience vote to return him to City Hall, the office said.

On March 4, the ex-mayor went to the Paterson City Clerks Office and presented a stack of purported nominating petitions in support of his candidacy, investigators said. After the petitions were rejected by the clerk, Torres filed a civil action seeking to compel the clerks office to accept the petitions.

In that civil action, Torres certified that he submitted the petitions to run for mayor and if the city clerk continued to refuse to accept his petitions, he would be irreparably harmed by being denied his right to run for office, authorities said.

By holding himself out as a candidate for mayor, soliciting signatures on nominating petitions, and attempting to force the petitions upon the clerks office, Torres disobeyed the 2017 forfeiture order that followed his guilty plea, the office said. Last year he was charged with criminal contempt for the alleged attempt to run.

It takes remarkable brashness to flout a state court order and then attempt to strong-arm the city clerk, via civil litigation, into allowing an impermissible campaign to proceed, said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said in a statement. That is bold. And, according to the grand jury, it is also indictable.

Torres defense attorney, Michael DeMarco, could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, pleading not guilty to corruption charges after prosecutors claim he abused his office and gave sensitive government information to Egypt in exchange for cash, gold and other bribes.

New Jerseys senior senator, Menendez, a Democrat, faces a three-count bribery and corruption indictment.

Menendez did not respond to questions shouted by reporters as he entered the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, holding his wifes hand as the two emerged from a car.

Step down! someone yelled from the crowd.

The 69-year-old, who is facing re-election next year, is accused of taking a series of official acts and breaches of official duties in exchange for bribes that benefited both Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, who was charged alongside him.

Three New Jersey businessmen  Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe  were also charged with bribing the senator. Daibes and Uribe were also in court on Wednesday to be arraigned. Hana pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery after he was arrested at New Yorks Kennedy International Airport after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges. He was freed pending trial.

Inside the crowded 26th floor wood-paneled courtroom, Menendez and his wife were separated at the defense table by their attorneys as they faced U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang. Neither said anything except to acknowledge questions with a yes, your honor.

A lawyer entered the not guilty plea for Menendez, who was forced to step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being indicted.

All four were released afterward, with Menendez freed on $100,000 bond. He was allowed to travel anywhere within the United States, or internationally upon notice to the government. Bond was set at $250,000 for his wife, who was restricted in her travel to New Jersey, New York, Washington and Florida, where she has family.

Uribe was freed on $1 million bond and Daibes on $2 million.

After the hearing, Menendez appeared to be in good spirits. Chatting with his attorney, he led his wife out of the courtroom by her hand.

The senator ignored shouted questions as he emerged from the courthouse and entered a waiting black car.

If I give you some gold bars, will you resign? shouted one man who had been heckling the senator.

Lawyers for the defendants took no questions after the hearing.

In an indictment made public Friday, prosecutors painted a stark portrait of wide-ranging corruption, from giving sensitive U.S. government information on arms deals and other matters to Egypt, to meddling in three criminal probes into his wealthy friends in New Jersey.

Photographs of gold bars, cash pulled from jacket pockets and a $60,000 Mercedes convertible  the alleged proceeds of the various schemes  were included in the indictment, quickly spreading on social media and lighting up television screens.

Several top Democrats in New Jersey and beyond, including Gov. Phil Murphy and, as of Tuesday, Menendezs colleague in the Senate, fellow Democrat Cory Booker, have all called for Menendez to resign.

Despite the calls to step down, Menendez has forcefully denied the charges, saying prosecutors had skewed their evidence to appear as salacious as possible.

Prosecutors get it wrong sometimes, he said at a Monday press conference. Sadly, I know that.

This marks the second time in eight years Menendez has been indicted, after a 2015 case was dismissed after a mistrial. He also was the subject of a corruption investigation in 2006 that did not produce charges.

I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet, Menendez said Monday. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator.

Included in the indictment were text messages and emails from Menendezs wife to the senator and three businessmen. She is accused of facilitating many of the bribes.

They include the cash and car, as well as a no-show job for Arslanian at a New Jersey company that Menendez helped secure a business monopoly on certifying halal meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt, a multi-million dollar industry, according to the indictment.

That company was owned by Hana.

Hana allegedly introduced the senator to Egyptian intelligence and military officials. Prosecutors claim that, in exchange for bribes, Menendez gave Hana non-public information about U.S. military aid to Egypt.

Daibes and Uribe are also accused of bribing the senator for his help to quash criminal investigations involving their businesses or associates.

The indictment charged that Menendez promised to use his influence and power to recommend that President Joe Biden nominate an individual as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey who Menendez believed could be influenced with respect to an unrelated federal criminal prosecution of Daibes.

That earlier case led to Daibes pleading guilty last year to taking part in an insider loan scam at Mariners Bank, the financial institution that he founded and where he served as chairman of the board of directors. The Edgewater-based developer whose high-profile projects have transformed the Hudson River waterfront admitted concealing a $1.8 million bank loan made to him in that case. He is still awaiting sentencing.

In Uribes case, the indictment said Menendez promised to use his influence to disrupt an investigation by the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office involving insurance fruad. In a text message to an associate, prosecutors say, Uribe described their arrangement.

The deal is to kill and stop all investigation, Uribe allegedly wrote.

The defendants are next due in court Oct. 2.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative to the OSCE Rovshan Sadigbayli addressed a special meeting of the Permanent Council, Trend reports.

"We presented our views on the overall OSCE activities and current challenges. Information was given on the demilitarization process as a result of local anti-terrorist activities carried out by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region," Sadigbayli said on X (Twitter).

Information was also provided on the ongoing reintegration efforts of the Azerbaijani Central Authorities and the work done to deliver fuel, medicines and foodstuffs to the residents of Khankendi, he said.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Within the framework of the activities, positions of Armenian armed forces formations, their long-term firing points, as well as military means and military facilities were disrupted using high-precision weapons in the front line and in depth. Civilians and civilian infrastructure were not targets, only legitimate military targets were disabled.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions: the Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.

Ramin Mammadov, responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Karabakh, held a regular meeting with representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh in the town of Khojaly on September 25, 2023.

At the meeting, which took place in a constructive atmosphere, satisfaction was expressed with the actions taken to resolve the issues discussed on September 21 in Yevlakh, in particular, the short-term delivery of humanitarian aid, fuel and the restoration of electricity supply.
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Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening followed mostly cloudy skies and a few snow showers after midnight. Low 29F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 30%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening followed mostly cloudy skies and a few snow showers after midnight. Low 29F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 30%.
Sting and Flo Rida will top the lineup at the Endymion Extravaganza, the Carnival krewe's enormous post-parade concert and party on Feb. 10, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Sting, the winner of 17 Grammy awards, broke into international stardom in the 1980s with the band The Police, and went on to a successful solo career.

Flo Rida has been a chart-topping rapper since the early 2000s. He is reprising his 2019 appearance with Endymion, when he rode as parade grand marshal.

The two headliners will be joined by local acts The Mixed Nuts, Groovy 7, and The Wiseguys.

Musicians used to customarily ride in the hours-long parade, before performing afterwards, but that is no longer typically the case. Its unclear if either star will ride in Endymion 2024.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Armenia has ignored Azerbaijan's intentions to help, continuing to engage in political and military provocations over the past three years, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said, Trend reports.

All the steps taken over these three years towards peace have been taken by Azerbaijan, said Bayramov.

He noted that since the Armenian side ignored the appeals, Azerbaijan was forced to carry out anti-terrorist measures, and the Azerbaijani army neutralized the Armenian separatists in Karabakh without damaging any civilian objects. As a result of these measures, the separatist regime in Karabakh surrendered and accepted the legitimate demands of Azerbaijan.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.
Frannie and John Conner relax French style during a Bastille Day celebration in July at Alliance Francaise in New Orleans. The Alliance is hosting an October series on celebrating French heritage.
New Orleans may need to deal with salt threatening local drinking water supplies for as long as three months, meaning through January according to current forecasts, a top city official said Wednesday.

Collin Arnold, New Orleans' homeland security chief, said that timeframe was based on advice from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The city, in cooperation with the surrounding region, is hoping to build a pipeline further upriver to pump water that would dilute the salt at treatment plants  an expensive plan, but one that could potentially be converted into a permanent solution.
It is creeping up the river like a rising thermometer. Pumping in fresh water via pipeline from above what is known as the "Kenner hump" in the Mississippi River could help solve the problem.
Mayor Tim Kerner Jr. stands in the mud as he talks about his need for a levee around Lafitte, Jean Lafitte and Barataria, after Hurricane Ida in Lafitte, La., Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Russian billionaire of Armenian origin Ruben Vardanyan has been detained by Azerbaijani authorities, Trend reports.

Vardanyan, who previously held the "position" of the so-called "state minister" of the separatist regime in Karabakh, was detained on September 27 at the Lachin border checkpoint, while trying to escape from Azerbaijan's territory to Armenia.

He was detained by the Azerbaijani State Border Service.

He was brought to Baku accompanied by officers of the Rapid Response Force of the State Border Service.

Vardanyan was transferred to the relevant Azerbaijani authorities. The decision on him will be made at a later stage.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Turkic-speaking countries support the anti-terrorist activities of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in Karabakh, the Deputy Director General of the Trend News Agency and the Head of the Turkic.World media platform, Rufiz Hafizoglu said, Trend reports.

He also noted that these anti-terrorist measures and their consequences are regularly reflected on the various information resources of the Turkic-speaking countries and are also on the agenda in the social networks of these countries.

"The result achieved during the anti-terrorist measures in a very short period of time was widely covered by all media structures and TV channels in Turkiye, as well as other Turkic-speaking media," Hafizoglu said.

He said that it was brought to the attention of the Turkish audience that only legitimate military facilities and infrastructure were the target of the Azerbaijani army.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.
Plans to install electrical infrastructure for a floating wind farm off the North Devon coast which will power 135,000 homes have been submitted to the district council.

North Devon District councillors will be seeking reassurances that environment damage will be minimal when underground cables are installed from Saunton Sands car park to a new substation at East Yelland to connect the turbines to the national distribution network.

The 100MW White Cross Offshore Wind project, a joint venture between Cobra and Flotation Energy, will test new technology in the Celtic Sea and has been the subject of several public consultations. The windfarm site is approximately 50km off North Devon and covers an area of 50 square kilometres, but only 20 per cent of this area will be required for the six to eight turbines.

Onshore infrastructure plans include a permanent substation access road and temporary facilities during construction.

But some local residents are concerned about potential disturbance to the environment and wildlife from the installation of the cables and the increase in traffic. They say a substantial number of HGV movements a day will go through the area for two years.

Saunton Sands is one of the south wests most popular beaches, claiming some of the countrys best surf, but the narrow roads to it are very busy during the summer. The beach is backed by one of the largest sand dune systems in Britain, the Unesco-protected Braunton Burrows Biosphere Reserve, which has a diversity of plant and animal life, and is within the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The rights for the White Cross development were secured from The Crown Estate in 2021 as a test and demonstration site. It aims to reduce carbon dioxide by 215,000 metric tonnes each year, with windfarm forming part of a UK plan to reach net zero by 2050.

The project is expected to be fully operational in 2026/27 once a final investment decision is made next year. It may be seen in good weather from Lundy Island, 44 kilometres away.

Both onshore and offshore, the cables will be trenched and buried, to a depth of between 0.5 and three metres.

Cllr Neil Denton (Ind, Fremington) said there would be some detriment to the countryside: There is no such thing as no harm. Whilst this windfarm is potentially beneficial long term, in the short term it needs to be highly monitored.

The company says it will reinstate land, and replant and reseed areas.

By the very natural of the project I would hope that any negative environmental implications would be kept to a minimum. My concern is the traffic impact on Croyde and Saunton Sands and the impact on tourism.

Cllr Liz Spear (Lib Dem, Braunton East) said with it being a pilot project they wouldnt really know the impact until it takes place. We have had two or three consultations in Braunton but surprisingly they werent that well attended. As I understand it most of the cabling will be underground and not have too much impact. Transport is the issue for me as we were told there could be as many as 90 HGV movements a day and the roads through Braunton, the marshes and Saunton Sands are narrow.

White Cross Offshore Wind Ltd said that onshore where trenching and burying the cable was not possible due to the sensitivity of the habitat or presence of infrastructure, such as roads, alternative methods including hydraulic directional drilling would be used to avoid damage to these features.

It added: A full environmental impact assessment has been undertaken. Potential impacts associated with the cable route will be temporary, lasting during the construction period only. Any visual impacts from the substation will be mitigated over time as the landscaping and planting matures. 

The project would provide 10 per cent biodiversity net gain, it said. Biodiversity net gain (BNG) was a way to contribute to the recovery of nature while developing land, making sure the habitat for wildlife was in a better state than it was before development.

White Cross will work in collaboration with the North Devon Unesco Biosphere Reserve and their Natural Capital Marketplace to ensure that the environmental measures incorporated by the project are compatible with the local area and priorities.

White Cross also said that traffic movements although 'significant' would avoid peak times and be staggered throughout the day. A community liasion officer would be appointed to act as first point of contact for communities. A traffic management plan would be be put in place to reduce potential traffic impact.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power has arrived in Azerbaijan.

As USAID's Baku office told Trend, administrator Power is joined by U.S. Department of State Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim.

During her visit, Samantha Power will also address the prospects for a durable peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

From 1991 onwards, USAID has allocated $431 million toward initiatives aimed at assisting the Azerbaijani population. These programs encompass humanitarian aid, healthcare improvements, and endeavors related to economic and governance reforms.
Press Release

September 27, 2023 SPONSORSHIP SPEECH

Self-Reliant Defense Posture

27 Sept 2023 Mr. President, distinguished members of this august chamber, ladies and gentlemen, as your Chairperson of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, it is my honor to sponsor an important legislation that will fortify our defenses against present and future security challenges and provide the essential and meaningful support to our valiant men and women who risk their life and limb to preserve peace and secure our territory. Senate Bill No. 2455 under Committee Report No. 153 authored by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, Majority Floor Leader Sen. Joel Villanueva, Sen. Ramon Bong Revilla, Jr., Sen. Imee Marcos and this representation, is a priority measure identified under our Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 and by our Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council or LEDAC. The Self-Reliant Defense Posture bill or SRDP, as the name suggests, aims to ensure adequate defense assets and hardware for the country through domestic production and manufacturing, the development of a national defense industry, and lessening our dependence on foreign and overseas suppliers. As relayed by the Department of National Defense (DND) during our public hearing, majority of our defense acquisitions are government-to-government procurements. In 2022, military-related imports totaled approximately 305 million dollars, while arms-related exports amounted only to 85 million dollars. We aim to cure this significantly lopsided trade imbalance by providing incentives and government support to local defense industry, and in the process stimulate job generation, promote transfer of advanced technologies, and expand our exports sector. Hindi natin maitatanggi na sa maraming pagkakataon, ang Pilipinas ay nakatanggap ng mga kagamitang pang-militar mula sa ating mga kaibigan at kaalyadong bansa, na nakatulong nang malaki upang mapataas at mapalawak ang kakayahan ng ating sandatahang lakas. Ngunit, hindi po tayo maaaring masanay na naghihintay at umaasa na lamang sa mga donasyon at gawa ng ibang bansa. As we have all learned from this pandemic, the safest and most reliable source of the nation's needs is the domestic one. This representation firmly believes that we have enough resources we need in our midst - manpower assets, natural resources, and Filipino ingenuity forged by our long history and tradition of seafaring and craftsmanship. No doubt, we have the capability to develop our own. We just have to throw our full support and lay down policies that will catalyze its growth, and exercise political will and strategic foresight to sustain its development. Our neighbors in Southeast Asia, like Indonesia and Singapore, already have their own defense industries, and their relatively modest military-industrial complexes are slowly expanding with heavy investments, and finding their niche in the global defense market. Others found renewed interest and saw the wisdom behind nurturing their own indigenous arms manufacturing, in the face of regional tensions and political realignments. Mr. President, the SRDP program is actually not new. This measure seeks to revitalize the SRDP Program which was initially conceived and implemented during the 1970s. Recalling his younger years as a cadet, Vice Chairperson Sen. Bato dela Rosa shared during our public hearing: "Mayroon na tayong pagawaan ng missile noon, mayroon na tayong pagawaan ng mga mini cruiser, sariling sasakyan ng military..." Sen. Imee Marcos in submitting her own version of the SRDP bill - also remembered with much pride that her father's SRDP program was able to manufacture armaments such as "M16 rifle, 60mm Mortar tube, 81mm Mortar Tube and gun barrels, ammunitions, hand grenade MKII, and 81mm Mortar ammunition, and that the country was able to produce vehicles like the jiffy jeeps, mini cruisers, hovercraft, speed boats, and whale boat," among others. The early years of the SRDP program successfully met the basic requirements of the AFP through joint ventures and partnerships with the private sector. It produced all-terrain light vehicles, radio for the operating troops, rifles, pistols and small arms ammunition, and textile industry that supplied close to 100% of AFP's clothing requirements. In the 1980s, "SRDP had contributed significantly in improving the fill-up of AFP's basic weapons, ammunitions, tactical communication sets, and mobility equipment". Mainly due to tightened defense appropriations, lack of prescience, and discontinuity of long-term horizon planning, the program was not able to fully soar and prosper. In light of the continuing foreign harassment and recent incursions on Philippine waters and within our Exclusive Economic Zone, it is imperative that we build up our arsenal and naval fleet, not to provoke further hostilities, but to maintain a respectable and credible defense posture that can effectively deter aggression and defend our territorial domain. Gayunpaman, ang kahalagahan ng panukalang ito ay hindi limitado sa usapin ng tanggulang pambansa. Ito ay sumasakop din sa pagpapataas ng antas ng ating kakayahan sa pag-responde sa panahon ng sakuna at kalamidad. Moreover, we envision this bill not only as a means to ensure inventory of traditional military items, but also to advocate and fire up technological advancements and development of products with commercial applications. Under this bill, the Self-Reliance Defense Program shall be designed to: * prioritize local employment and contribute to foreign currency exchange savings;

* incentivize manufacturers to establish or relocate production or assembly of materiel in the Philippines, while ensuring protection of local counterparts against unfair competition;

* promote technology transfer;

* drive proactive research and development efforts and the adoption of innovative technologies; and

* promote the export of locally-made materiel to other countries. Finally, this bill proposes rationalization of defense acquisition by providing preferential terms to domestic suppliers and in-country enterprises, under the ambit of Filipino First policy. Just as this Senate took a unified stand in strongly condemning the harassment of Filipino fishermen and the persistent incursions in the West Philippine Sea, I urge my dear colleagues to also rally behind this timely legislation that would modernize and upgrade the capacities of our armed forces. Thank you, Mr. President.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. EU Council President Charles Michel's statement after the "performance" of EU High Representative for International Relations and Security Policy Josep Borrell at the UN Security Council suggests that Brussels' attitude towards the new situation in the South Caucasus, especially after Azerbaijan's recent successful anti-terrorist activities, differs from that demonstrated by pro-Armenian Western politicians, political observer Elchin Mirzabeyli told Trend.

According to him, it also confirms that the EU is interested in the Brussels platform as the main format for discussing the process of normalizing Azerbaijani-Armenian relations.

Mirzabeyli also noted the attitude and attention shown by the central government of Azerbaijan towards the Armenian residents of Karabakh and the urgent measures taken to eliminate the existing problems in the region.

"Azerbaijan does its best to protect the rights and freedom of the population of Armenian origin, ensure their security, and fulfill their needs. It sincerely wishes that people do not leave their places of residence. At the same time, the free choice of those who want to leave the territory of Azerbaijan is respected," he said.

Mirzabeyli added that all the events that have taken place once again show that there is no alternative to peace.

"The only way to peace, security, stability, and prosperity not only in the South Caucasus but also in the whole world is to protect the territorial integrity and sovereign rights of states and to prevent double standards and attempts to deactivate mechanisms of international and regional security," he said.
VALPARAISO  A 42-year-old Portage woman is charged with stealing tens of thousands of dollars from her mother, who has dementia and has been residing for years at assisted living facilities, a newly-filed court document says.

The accused, Jennifer Krikshiunas, reportedly told an investigator in January, "she and her husband were currently unemployed, and she was unaware she couldn't spend her mother's money on herself."

Police said the alleged victim, who receives Social Security payments, should have had savings totaling $14,926 in 2021 and $21,532 in 2022. But an investigator learned the mother was left with balances of $1.34 in 2021 and just 3 cents in 2022.

Krikshiunas is charged with a felony count of theft and misdemeanor exploitation of an endangered adult, records show.

Police say the thefts took place from Dec. 28, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2022.

An investigator with Indian Adult Protective Services met with Portage police in January to report the allegations after being tipped off by another daughter of the alleged victim, who lives out of state, court records show.

Region high school student nabbed doing body piercings in restroom, county police say "Even though these disruptions are being caused by a very small percentage of the student population, they have a ripple effect throughout the school," according to police.

It was determined the alleged victim has two bank accounts, one which was shared and both accessible by Krikshiunas, police said. It was by calculating the mother's expense versus Social Security income that an investigator determined how much money had been taken from the accounts.

Funds were routinely transferred from the account accepting Social Security payments to the joint account, oftentimes leaving the first account in the negative when tapped for bills, police said.

Police said they found records of numerous fast food, online and retail store purchases and ATM withdraws from the shared account.

Porter County woman to live out life in prison for 'execution style' slaying of boyfriend The doctor who conducted the autopsy said the wound suffered by the victim was not consistent with the story given by Karen Sons, police said.

Police said Krikshiunas told them in February she had power of attorney over her mother and had been using her mother's account in a shared manner without any knowledge of the rules pertaining to the funds.

The out-of-state daughter, who reported the theft, reportedly told police her mother has lived with dementia for about 10 years and had been in assisting living facilities from 2018 through 2022. The mother had lived briefly with Krikshiunas before being moved to a local assisted living facility.

The out-of-state sister said Krikshiunas had asked her for money while hosting her mother, saying she was struggling to pay bills, police said.

The criminal case is pending before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer and Krikshiunas has left jail after posting a $1,500 cash-only bond, records show.
VALPARAISO  A 61-year-old Porter County woman is expected to spend the rest of her life behind bars for the 2017 "execution style" slaying of her boyfriend, who police say was attempting to redirect his Social Security benefits away from her.

Karen Sons was sentenced Tuesday by Porter Superior Court Judge Mike Fish to 65 years behind bars after a jury found her guilty last month of murder and a firearm enhancement, records show.

The judge cited her history of criminal behavior and being out on bond at the time of the killing.

During her trial, Porter County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Armando Salinas leaned back in the witness chair in the front of the courtroom to show jurors how he believes 54-year-old Robert Head was positioned in a recliner when shot to death by Sons.

Using graphic photos of the shooting scene, Salinas argued that Sons shot him from behind in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

The description was in stark contrast to claims by defense attorneys Bob and Jesse Harper that Sons shot Head on Dec. 8, 2017, at their Lake Eliza home in self defense.

Sons, who showed no obvious reaction to the graphic photos and description during trial, allegedly confessed to the shooting, Salinas said. The question before jurors was whether it was carried out in self defense, which he argued it was not.

Salinas said there is no record of Sons attempting to call 911 following the shooting as she claimed. There were also no bullet casings found at the scene and Sons did not report the death for a couple days, police said.

Sons reportedly told police Head pointed a gun at her face and she heard it click, so she pulled the trigger on the rifle she was holding and shot him. Sons shot him in the head, according to court records.

The doctor who conducted the autopsy said the wound suffered by Head was not consistent with the story given by Sons, police said.

Sons told police she stayed at home with Head's body several days, but video evidence shows that she was out using debit cards, prosecutors have said.

Probation approved for Porter County man shot by police in sex case James Filby pleaded guilty in July to felony counts of vicarious sexual gratification, attempted sexual battery and sexual battery.

Co-defendant David Parrish, of Portage, who allegedly helped Sons move the body off the chair, is charged with felony counts of assisting a criminal and obstruction of justice.

Parrish is further accused of looking for a gun that had a serial number that could not be traced back to either Sons or himself, a charging document says.

"David Parrish indicated that he had to help Karen make it look like self-defense, and that he (David) had gone there to help her clean up," police said.

The criminal case against Parrish is pending before Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary DeBoer and is set for trial Dec. 4, records show.
HAMMOND  A federal magistrate denied a Sin City Deciples member's pre-trial release request on Tuesday at the U.S. Northern District Court in Hammond.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joshua Kolar found the government had met its burden of proof and that defendant Richard White would be a continued threat to the community if he were released ahead of trial.

White, aka "Ignorant Bastard," was one of sixteen people from the Gary-based motorcycle gang charged in October 2021.

Court records indicate White was charged with racketeering and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

The superseding indictment states that when White was arrested, he told officers, I have nothing to do with any of that drug stuff, Im the muscle.

Assistant U.S. District Attorney Michael Toth said during the first portion of White's detention hearing on Thursday that investigators connected the man to the gang from surveillance footage.

The footage showed a man, who Toth said a witness identified as White, standing outside of a Sin City hub in Pittsburgh.

Whites attorney John Maskimovich said on Thursday that there was no way to be certain of the witness' credibility nor that White was actually the man in the picture.

The official trial date for the Sin City Deciples has not yet been set, but witness lists for attorneys are due on Oct. 16., according to court records.

Records indicate that attorneys have until Friday to submit any plea deals.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Second Karabakh War provided a framework for a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza told Trend.

I think that the Second Karabakh War, and the way it ended, was a huge turning point for the South Caucasus, because it provided a framework for what I anticipate soon will be a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia. That will then lead to, I believe, a fair and lasting peace, as well as Armenias reintegration into the regional economy by reopening its transportation links with both Azerbaijan and Turkiye and then benefiting from flow into Armenia, but also into Azerbaijan and Georgia and eastern Turkiye of investment, which will create jobs and economic growth and prosperity, he said.

Bryza noted that Armenia did not fulfill the key conditions of the November 10, 2020 ceasefire statement, and, most importantly, it was violating international law by keeping its armed forces in Azerbaijan, in Karabakh.

Those troops posed a threat to the security of Azerbaijan. And they also made it difficult for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to proceed with a peace treaty, because his extreme political opponents would pressure him to use those military assets as leverage to keep the conflict open with Azerbaijan. But with those troops now gone and with the separatist regime dismantled, I think the way is now clear, the road is open for Azerbaijan and Armenia to secure the peace treaty, I'm sure they both want. But without the Second Karabakh War, we couldn't have gotten to this latest round of action, said the former ambassador.

He recalled that previously, Armenia was the status quo power, it didn't want anything to change, it didn't want any real progress toward an agreement and Azerbaijan wanted change and progress toward an agreement.

Now the situation is flipped: Azerbaijan is a status quo power when it comes to the formerly occupied territories and Azerbaijan is ready to move ahead with a peace treaty, Bryza concluded.

The second Karabakh war, which lasted 44 days and ended with Azerbaijan's brilliant victory over Armenia, began on September 27, 2020.

According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually marks the Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day second Karabakh war and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn
MTAS vehicle A vehicle for the Merrillville Tactical Apprehension Team prepares to park Monday on the 6600 block of Pennsylvania Street.

MERRILLVILLE  After several hours of negotiations with a suspect, police were able to bring a woman to safety after she was held hostage inside a residence Monday afternoon, police said in a news release Tuesday.

Officers with the Merrillville Police Department were dispatched around 4:10 p.m. to a home on the 6600 block of Pennsylvania Street for a report of a possible hostage situation. They weren't able to make contact with anyone inside, but heard a woman shouting for help, according to the release.

Merrillville's Tactical Apprehension Team was called to the scene and were able to speak to the residents by phone. The woman was eventually brought out of the residence and tactical apprehension team members entered the home to arrest the suspect.

Anthony Bonner, 38, was taken into custody and booked into the Lake County Jail, Merrillville police said. Criminal charges have not been filed, according to online court records.

Anyone with information related to the incident can contact Detective James Bogner at jbogner@merrillville.in.gov or 219-769-3531.
The Hour Glass Cottage in Ogden Dunes has been enshrined in the National Register of Historic Places.

The U.S. Department of the Interior recognized the historic significance of the cottage at 8 Lupine Lane in the Duneland community in Porter County. It's now home to the Hour Glass Museum that chronicles the history of Ogden Dunes, such as the Ogden Dunes ski jump, the birthplace of the Save the Dunes movement that eventually brought about the Indiana Dunes National Park and the Alpha Shipwreck that washed ashore on Lake Michigan.

A listing on the National Register offers some protection of the property and also officially acknowledges the importance of the site.

Pete Nicholson built the three-story cottage for Orlin D. and Tillie Frank, who named it the Hour Glass in reference to the "Sands of Time." Orlin Frank was a naturalist and botanist who taught at the University of Chicago Laboratory School.

They moved to Ogden Dunes full-time after he retired from the university, expanding the cottage by adding a garage, three more bedrooms and two more half-baths.

After their deaths, the house was passed on to family members and sold to Sue Mechtersheimer, a longtime Ogden Dunes resident who worked as a teacher, administrator and part-time realtor who originally sold the Franks the lot.

She gifted it to the Odgen Dunes Historical Society. It hosts an exhibit on the first floor, as well as rotating and seasonal exhibits.

The Great Room on the second floor of the Hour Glass Cottage accommodates audiences of at least 40 people for programs. It features a Friendship Fireplace made with fossils and more than 400 numbered stones with an index of who gave it to the Franks, when and where it was from. They often received such gifts given their interest in natural history and travel.

The double fireplace is shaped like an hourglass and there's a second fireplace in the loft over the living room.
Michigan City fire A haze covers a field of vehicles and scrap metal after a fire erupted through a property Monday on the 8100 block of Meer Street in Michigan City.

MICHIGAN CITY  Firefighters fought to contain the flames that flooded a property with numerous vehicles, tires and scrap metal pieces Monday night.

The fire engulfed a large barn full of cars, a smaller garage and multiple trees nearby, the Michigan City Fire Department said. Firefighters were called around 6:15 p.m. to the scene on the 8100 block of Meer Street and spent hours trying to fight the fire.

"The amount of vehicles on the property heavily restricted access to the fire and hampered our ability to fight the fire efficiently," Michigan City fire said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

Crews hauled their equipment through the barn and were able to put out most of the fire with the help of neighbors who assisted with pulling hoses. The neighbors also provided a cooler of water bottles for the firefighters.

Firefighters handled smaller areas that continued to burn Tuesday morning.

No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to the post.
A rewrite of campaign finance statutes may be on the agenda of next year's General Assembly after the Indiana Supreme Court recently determined current state law prohibits certain corporate donations protected by the U.S. Constitution.

In a 4-1 decision, the state's high court said it cannot simply declare the relevant Indiana statues unconstitutional because the laws are both unenforced and unambiguous, and the role of the Supreme Court is not to rewrite the law to conform it to constitutional requirements when no one is harmed by it.

Instead, it's the duty of the General Assembly to update Indiana law to reflect the change in federal constitutional interpretation, said Justice Derek Molter, a Newton County native, writing on behalf of the Supreme Court.

"We are mindful that the parties expect this holding will lead the federal courts to enjoin the election officials' enforcement of those statutes," Molter said. "But we must leave it to the General Assembly to update its statutes to remedy any such constitutional defect, as statutory revision is beyond our authority."

At issue is a proposed $10,000 donation by a Bloomington business, Sarkes Tarzian Inc., to Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund, a so-called "super" political action committee, or Super PAC, based in Indianapolis.

The U.S. Supreme Court controversially ruled in its 2010 "Citizens United" decision that corporations are entitled under the 1st Amendment to make unlimited donations to Super PACs for independent expenditures, which is campaign spending in support of or opposition to a candidate that's not coordinated with the candidate or the candidate's campaign.

However, Indiana campaign finance law has not been meaningfully updated since that ruling to account for the new role of Super PACs  prompting Terre Haute attorney James Bopp Jr., who led the Citizens United litigation, to ask a federal court to permit the Sarkes Tarzian donation to the Indiana Right to Life Super PAC, even though state law otherwise strictly limits corporate campaign donations.

The lawsuit filed by Bopp, who also is contracted to work for the attorney general's office that's defending Indiana's campaign finance statutes, initially was dismissed by the federal district court for lack of standing, since the potentially illegal corporate donation has not yet been made.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently referred the issue to the Indiana Supreme Court for guidance in interpreting the statute as the Super PAC issue never has been litigated in state courts.

Molter suggests the whole question is somewhat irrelevant since state enforcement authorities have said they don't intend to punish Indiana corporate donations to Super PACs  even if prohibited by state law  because the donations are authorized by the federal Citizens United decision.

Nevertheless, Molter said Indiana law clearly limits corporate campaign donations to specific authorized uses, and its silence on Super PACs does not mean Sarkes Tarzian is permitted to make the donation it wishes to make.

"The plain, unambiguous meaning of the text is that the contributions are prohibited," Molter said.

Justice Christopher Goff dissented from the high court's ruling. He said the Supreme Court easily can "supply a workable remedy for an entirely hypothetical constitutional violation" by finding the state restrictions on corporate campaign spending do not apply to independent expenditures through Super PACs.

"We dont have to upset the apple-cart by substituting our own rigid textualism for everybody else's practical, commonsense understanding of the law," Goff said. "Ultimately, I don't believe that we have to throw a wrench into Indiana's campaign finance system."

"Rather than giving the statute an interpretation that all parties, including the enforcing officials, deem unconstitutional, a better way forward is to ask what the General Assembly would have intended in light of the (U.S.) Supreme Court's constitutional holding."

The federal appeals court is expected in the months ahead to decide how to move forward with the case now that it's received the Indiana Supreme Court's statutory interpretation.

Though the issue potentially could be resolved much quicker if Bopp and his allies work to persuade the Indiana General Assembly to revise state law to address the Super PAC campaign finance issue during its 10-week annual session scheduled to begin in early January.

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An article on Sept. 7 about a missile strike on a street market in Kostyantynivka, Ukraine, overstated what is known about the origin of the missile. While President Volodymyr Zelensky attributed the strike to Russia, which had shelled the town in recent months, evidence uncovered later suggests an errant Ukrainian missile may have hit the market. A spokesman for Ukraines armed forces said the countrys security service was investigating the episode.

An article on Sunday about mercury poisoning caused by gold mining misstated the substance that large-scale gold miners sometimes use. It is cyanide, not arsenic.

INTERNATIONAL

An article on Monday about Ukraines use of a new shipping route misstated the amount of Ukrainian agricultural products and iron ore that Oleksandr Kubrakov said ships would export. It is 127,000 metric tons, not 127 metric tons.

An article on Thursday about a police officer in London charged with murder for fatally shooting a Black man referred imprecisely to the car Chris Kaba was driving. It was not registered in his name.
It was not enough for him to imprison me and send me into exile in addition to stigmatizing me as a terrorist and traitor.

HAYDEE CASTILLO, a human rights activist whose property in Nicaragua was among those seized by the government of Daniel Ortega in a crackdown against dissenters. Ms. Castillo now lives in Baton Rouge, La.
The Biden administration plans to bring back open internet rules that were enacted during the Obama administration and then repealed by the Trump administration.

In a speech on Tuesday, Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, declared that the repeal in 2017 put the F.C.C. on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the public.

The earlier open internet rules, known as net neutrality, prohibited broadband internet suppliers  telecommunications and cable companies  from blocking or slowing online services. It also banned the broadband companies from charging some content providers higher prices for priority treatment, or fast lanes on the internet.

This afternoon, Ms. Rosenworcel said in her speech at the National Press Club in Washington, I am sharing with my colleagues a rule making that proposes to restore net neutrality.
The founder and chief executive of a Baltimore tech start-up who was acclaimed as a rising entrepreneur in the city was found dead on Monday, the police said, prompting a manhunt on Tuesday for a suspect considered to be armed and dangerous.

The entrepreneur, Pava LaPere, 26, who founded EcoMap Technologies, a company that curates data for free platforms, was found dead at around 11:30 a.m. at an apartment complex in the 300 block of West Franklin Street by officers who detected signs of blunt-force trauma, the Baltimore Police Department said in a statement.

The authorities said that they had received a missing-person call shortly beforehand.

On Tuesday, the police said they had identified Jason Dean Billingsley, 32, of Baltimore, a sex offender who was released from prison last fall, as the suspect in Ms. LaPeres killing. The department did not say how it had determined Mr. Billingsley to be the suspect.

Mr. Billingsley has also been named a suspect in a case of attempted murder, arson and rape that occurred on Sept. 19 in the 800 block of Edmondson Avenue, the police said on Wednesday. The authorities are offering a reward of up to $6,000 for information that leads to his arrest.
The near-entirety of an art collection belonging to Gerard Depardieu, the prolific French actor whose career was clouded in recent years by accusations of sexual assault and harassment, was sold at a two-day Paris auction this week that brought in 4 million euros, including fees, or about $4.2 million.

Over 230 items went under the hammer on Tuesday and Wednesday at a sale organized at the Hotel Drouot by the Ader auction house, including paintings by Alexander Calder and sculptures by Auguste Rodin, whom Depardieu played in the 1988 movie Camille Claudel.

About 100 people crammed into the auction room on Tuesday night for the sale of the collection's most prominent items, including a small oil painting of a flower vase by Odilon Redon, which sold for 50,000, and the three small Rodin sculptures, which sold for 15,000 to 65,000.

The star of the night seemed to be a 4.5-foot enlargement of Walking Man, a bronze sculpture originally made by Germaine Richier in 1945. The enlargement, which used to dominate Depardieus living room, was hammered up to 510,000  but the auction house said in a statement Wednesday that the actor decided at the last minute not to sell the sculpture, and withdrew the lot.
It was a surprising diplomatic event on New Yorks Upper East Side  one that started with an auspicious bonsoir, and ended with an unexpected au revoir.

Gaetan Bruel, the director of French cultural services in the United States, gathered with dignitaries at Villa Albertine, its headquarters, on Sept. 20, to announce additional initiatives supporting increased French American cultural exchange.

Bruel, with Laurent Bili, the French Ambassador to the United States, and Catherine Colonna, the French foreign minister, offered up a greatly expanded model for artists residencies that would let even more French or French-speaking artists, scholars and artisans travel anywhere in the United States  or even, in one case, around the world on a French container ship.

This France is perhaps less polished, possibly less expected, certainly more diverse, younger, more daring, surprising, Bruel said. He added, Why not let the artists choose where they want to go?
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. September 27 is the Remembrance Day of the martyrs of the second Karabakh war, who not only liberated their lands from occupation but also became an example for humanity, Turkish professor and historian Shevki Karabekiroglu told Trend.

He noted that Azerbaijanis have taken steps before, which will always be an example for humanity.

"However, Armenians misrepresent these justified steps of Azerbaijan to the international community. During the occupation, Armenians forcibly and by torture evicted Azerbaijanis from their lands. Now that Azerbaijan has fully restored its sovereignty over its lands, we see that not a single resident of Armenian origin living there has been injured. They voluntarily go wherever they want in their cars. Here we see the difference in culture and humanity between the two peoples. However, there are those who still do not see reality and lie, said Karabekiroglu.

The second Karabakh war, which began on September 27, 2020, put an end to the 30-year occupation of Azerbaijani lands. Today, Karabakh is being cleansed of Armenian separatist troops. We appreciate the policy pursued by Azerbaijan in this direction and the steps taken," said a Turkish professor.

The second Karabakh war, which lasted 44 days and ended with a brilliant victory for Azerbaijan over Armenia, began on September 27, 2020.

According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually marks Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect to Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day second Karabakh war and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
For months, the Berlin State Opera, one of the worlds premier opera houses, has been in a state of uncertainty. Its revered leader, the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, resigned in January after three decades in charge because of health problems. Musicians and cultural leaders questioned whether anyone would be able to match his impact and influence.

But on Wednesday, German officials said they had found their maestro: the acclaimed Wagnerian Christian Thielemann, the principal conductor of the Staatskapelle orchestra in Dresden, who will take over as general music director of the Berlin State Opera in September 2024.

It was a perfect match, Joe Chialo, Berlins senator for culture, said in an interview. This is a new beginning.

Thielemann, 64, the heir to storied maestros like Wilhelm Furtwangler and Herbert von Karajan, for whom he once served as an assistant, praised the opera houses long and illustrious tradition and thanked Barenboim for his wonderful work and constant support. As a child, he said he traveled from West Berlin to East Berlin to catch performances at the opera house.
Other times the elders, and in some cases spirits, step in to fill the parental roles, however imperfectly. Throughout the series, Bear is shadowed by William Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth), the pontificating spirit of a warrior who died when his horse stepped in a gopher hole at the battle of Little Bighorn. In a Season 3 episode, several elders take Cheese out to teach him about fishing and manhood; he ends up leading them in a talk-therapy session where they work through their own guilt about failing to support Maximus when he suffered from mental illness.

Whats distinctive about Reservation Dogs, for a show about youth, is that the adults are just as well fleshed out as the young leads. (Often in very little time; Gladstone makes Hokti a full, complex being in just a handful of scenes.) They may be eccentric  like Big (Zahn McClarnon), the tribal policeman whos both a dogged pursuer of miscreant kids and a moony romantic  but theyre not ridiculous, or at least no more ridiculous than anyone else.

Elders, after all, are just kids who have lived long enough; the kids are just elders who havent, yet. As Reservation Dogs depicts it, community makes possible a kind of time travel: Through those who come before you, you visit the deep past, and through those who come after, you live in times that your eyes will never see. As the elder Maximus (Graham Greene) says, We are just echoes of things that came before.

That idea pervades the emotional finale, which is built around Fixicos funeral, in which Fixico is buried and the young characters figure out their next moves in life. But it was also prefigured in the unforgettable Season 2 episode Offerings, in which Willie Jack visits Hokti for the first time.

Hokti has resisted seeing family while in prison; seeing Willie Jack reminds her too much of her dead son, Daniel. But pushed by Willie Jack  and by the nagging of a chipper ancestor spirit who once walked the Trail of Tears  she gives in and talks her niece through another rough time, asking her to imagine the generations that came before her. Willie Jack closes her eyes, and a tableau of figures fades in behind her, ancestors of different eras and traditions.
In 1968, a young Malian author living in Paris published his first book to the highest praise: Critics called it a great African novel, and awarded it one of Frances most prestigious literary prizes. But soon, his rise gave way to a devastating fall from grace.

The author, Yambo Ouologuem, was accused of plagiarism, but he denied any wrongdoing and refused to explain himself. His publishers in France and the United States withdrew the novel, Le Devoir de Violence, or Bound to Violence. After a crushing decade, Ouologuem returned to Mali, where he remained resolutely silent on the matter, responding to questions about his aborted literary career with digressions or outbursts of anger, refusing even to speak French.

He died in 2017, forgotten by most, his novel read by few  until recently, when another award-winning novel by a West African author helped bring new attention to Ouologuem and the tormented trajectory of his book. The Most Secret Memory of Men, by the Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, follows a mysterious writer who disappears from public life after being accused of plagiarism in Paris  a loose reference to Ouologuem. It won the Goncourt prize in 2021 and was published in the United States by Other Press this week, in a translation by Lara Vergnaud.
Under what circumstances should an elected politician resign?

The indictment of Senator Robert Menendez on corruption charges last week has raised that question again, and it can be a tricky one. It also led to passionate debate after allegations against Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Ralph Northam (none of whom resigned) as well as Al Franken, Andrew Cuomo and Richard Nixon (all of whom did).

Yesterday, a flood of other senators called on Menendez to step down, as my colleague Annie Karni explains. Some of the first calls for resignation came from Democratic senators running for re-election next year in swing states, and Senator Cory Booker  Menendezs fellow New Jersey Democrat  joined the group, too. Booker said that the indictment contained shocking allegations of corruption and specific, disturbing details of wrongdoing.

Menendez has rejected those calls and asked people to allow all the facts to be presented.

In todays newsletter, Ill try to make the best case on each side of the debate.

He should quit

At the crux of the argument that Menendez should resign is the idea that the standards for a U.S. senator should be higher than merely not having a criminal conviction. Serving as a senator is a privilege, not a right, and Menendez has offered no good explanation for his actions  even if they are not criminal.
American soldier who fled to North Korea is in U.S. custody

Pvt. Travis King, the American soldier who crossed into North Korea on July 18, was released into U.S. custody yesterday after weeks of diplomacy mediated by the Swedish government, U.S. officials said.

Kings first stop after leaving North Korea was China, where American officials were waiting for him. The private was then put on a plane and flown to a U.S. military facility. King was to be reunited with his family in the U.S. and given physical and mental health support.

Officials said the U.S. learned from Sweden  which serves as the diplomatic go-between for the U.S. in North Korea  several weeks ago that the North Koreans had decided to expel King. That kicked off indirect negotiations between Washington and North Korea, and direct discussions with China, including talks between Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China during high-level discussions in Malta this month, a senior White House official said.

U.S. officials praised the Chinese government for its assistance in facilitating Kings departure from the country, but insisted that China did not participate in mediating the talks with North Korea. A senior administration official said President Biden made no concessions to North Korea.
Environmental groups, however, were dismayed by the decision.

This is yet another colossal failure of leadership from a government that seems determined to ignore the scientific warnings on the climate crisis, Friends of the Earth said in a statement.

Rosebank is a very large, undeveloped field in the British North Sea, with an estimated 300 million barrels of recoverable oil. Discovered almost two decades ago, it has long been on the shelf because of prohibitively high projected costs tied to its location in the far northern part of the North Sea, about 80 miles northwest of the Shetland Islands.

A new, cheaper approach led by Equinor has changed the calculations. We believe it is very attractive, economically, said Gilad Myerson, executive chairman of Ithaca Energy, an Israeli-controlled, London-based company that owns the remaining 20 percent stake in Rosebank.

But there is heated debate in Britain about whether new oil and natural gas projects in the North Sea should be permitted at all, given the countrys ambitions to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Environmental groups have turned what had been a routine process of reviewing applications for new offshore drilling into tests of the governments commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

At present, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is choosing to allow some new petroleum investment, figuring that it is preferable for both environmental and energy security reasons to produce oil and gas in domestic waters than import it from elsewhere.
Cryptocurrency lobbyists were riding so high in early 2022 that an FTX executive felt comfortable directly emailing Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, to ask him to meet with Sam Bankman-Fried, the soon-to-be-disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange.

It worked.

The day that would work for me is February 1, Mr. Powell replied to a Jan. 11 email from Mark Wetjen, an FTX policy official and former commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Mr. Powells public calendar shows that he and Mr. Bankman-Fried met as planned. And Mr. Wetjen went on to send the Fed chair two policy papers that FTX had recently published, according to emails obtained through a public records request. Hope youre finding these useful! Mr. Wetjen wrote. Great to have people like you serving our country.

Mr. Powell has long been cautious about the digital currency industry, but, like many in Washington, he was trying to learn more. FTX was eager to do the teaching. According to newly released records, Mr. Wetjen managed to gain access to a range of federal officials. The records show that Mr. Bankman-Fried secured a virtual meeting in October 2021 with another top Fed official, Lael Brainard, who is now the director of the White House National Economic Council. And public calendars show that Mr. Bankman-Fried went on to meet with another top financial regulator, Martin Gruenberg, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Samsung and SK Hynix, the semiconductor titans of South Korea, have spent over $52 billion to build up their operations in China. Business with China has long made up a sizable portion of their sales.

But the ties between South Koreas chip companies and China are under strain from geopolitics.

South Korea, which relies heavily on its semiconductor sector for jobs and revenue, is wedged between China and the United States, South Koreas longstanding ally, in their trade war over technology.

To curb Chinas access to advanced chips that could power its military, Washington has escalated steps to control the sale of such technologies. The Biden administration imposed restrictions last October, raising alarms in Seoul and setting off furious lobbying in Washington to try to minimize damage to South Koreas semiconductor industry.

A one-year waiver from the export rules that the companies received in mid-October is set to expire soon. While a new waiver is widely expected, uncertainty surrounds how long it might last.
Ms. Tremain tends to hear from people after theyve quit their jobs and received a letter from their former employer stating that they owe money for training. The most common dollar value she sees listed is $20,000. Enforcement can seem random at times, and Ms. Tremain said some employers seemed to send a relatively small proportion of cases to court or to debt collectors.

Its really an enormous amount of power that the employer holds in that situation, she said.

Employers see T.R.A.s as a way to improve retention and prevent paying for training employees who then leave soon after.

Dan Pyne, a lawyer with Hopkins & Carley, a law firm in Silicon Valley, who has written T.R.A.s and represented employers enforcing T.R.A. contracts, said companies who came to him tended to fall into two categories: One group is made up of employers looking to shift some of the costs of their operations to employees, which is not legal in California. The other group is employers looking to help employees gain new skills that will serve them later on in their careers. This second type of T.R.A. is more legally enforceable.

When the training is required by the employer, that is the employers cost of doing business, and they cant force the employee to bear that cost or to reimburse that cost, Mr. Pyne said. But when the employee is going through the training voluntarily, primarily for their own benefit, in those situations, as a rule, the repayment obligation would be enforceable, and would be legal.

The owner of Oh Sweet Skincare in Bellevue, Wash., sued a former employee for $2,244  a sum that included $1,900 in training reimbursement and expenses related to a work conference. The employer, who asked not to be named for fear of harassment, said that she enforced the T.R.A. because employees who bounced from job to job were detrimental to small businesses like hers, and that she lost money on spending time to train new employees. She does not ask experienced employees to sign the agreements, she said, if they can prove they know the skills required to perform the services.
Covid is not pretty in a nursing home, said Deb Wityk, a 70-year-old retired massage therapist who lives in one called Spurgeon Manor, in rural Iowa. She has contracted the disease twice, and is eager to get the newly approved vaccine because she has chronic leukemia, which weakens her immune system.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the latest vaccine two weeks ago, and the new shots became available to the general public within the last week or so. But many nursing homes will not begin inoculations until well into October or even November, though infections among this vulnerable population are rising, to nearly 1 percent, or 9.7 per 1,000 residents, as of mid-September, from a low of 2.2 per 1,000 residents in mid-June.

The distribution of the new Covid-19 vaccine is not going well, said Chad Worz, the chief executive of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. Older adults in those settings are certainly the most vulnerable and should have been prioritized.

With the end of the formal public health emergency in May, the federal government stopped purchasing and distributing Covid vaccines. That has added new complications for operators of nursing homes, who have encountered resistance throughout the pandemic in persuading people, especially employees, to receive yet another round of shots.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The working visit of Azerbaijan's parliamentary delegation led by the Chairperson of the Parliament Sahiba Gafarova to Ireland has begun, the parliament told Trend.

The delegation has gone on a business visit to Dublin to participate in the European Conference of Speakers of Parliaments.

During the visit, Gafarova will speak at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliament, and will also hold meetings with the heads of delegations of a number of countries participating in the event.

The European Conference of Presidents of Parliament will take place at The Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) on September 28-29, 2023.
Lea Iodice was thrilled to hear that the Peace Corps had accepted her application and was sending her to Senegal as a community health care worker. She shared the good news with her roommates, her family and her favorite professor and daydreamed about her last day at her job, managing a gym called SnapFitness.

She was crushed, about a month later, to receive a letter from the Peace Corps Office of Medical Services saying that her offer was being rescinded because she was in treatment for anxiety. Though she had been in therapy to manage occasional panic attacks, she had never taken any psychiatric medication, been hospitalized or engaged in any kind of self-harm.

The reason for medical nonclearance is that you are currently diagnosed with an unspecified anxiety disorder, read the letter, which appeared in her online application portal. You indicated that your anxiety symptoms of increased heart rate and queasiness recur during periods of stress, which is likely to occur during service.

Searching online, Ms. Iodice discovered that her experience was not uncommon. For years, comparing notes under anonymous screen names, Peace Corps applicants have shared stories about being disqualified because of mental health history, including common disorders like depression and anxiety.
Oh, thats good. And yeah, every kid who experiences it has that same thing. Theres mischief in every Dahl story, and the voice of the writer is very strong. Also, there was always a picture of him in these books, so I was very aware of him and the list of all his children: He lives in a place called Gipsy House, and hes got Ophelia and Lucy and Theo. Do you know about his writing hut?

I didnt until I watched Henry Sugar, but it looks like you recreated part of Dahls house for the scenes in which Ralph Fiennes plays him.

When I made Fantastic Mr. Fox and I was working on the script, we stayed at the house for some time. In those days, that writing hut was still filled with his things and left the way he had it. [Dahl died in 1990.] There was a table with all these sort of talismans, little items laid out, which I think he just liked to have next to him when he was writing. He had this ball that looks like a shot put, made of the foil wrappers of these chocolates he would eat every day. Hed had a hip replacement, and one of the talismans was his original hip bone. And there was a hole cut in the back of his armchair because he had a bad back. It is odd to have somebody write in a way thats sort of cinematic.

You grew up imagining Dahl and the place he lived. How did it feel to stay there?

It was a dazzling thing. Its the house of somebody who has a very strong sense of how he wants things to be.

Something Im sure you cant relate to it all as a director.

No. [Laughs] I remember the dinner table, a great big table with normal chairs, but at the end of it is an armchair  not a normal thing at a dinner table  with a telephone, a little cart with pencils and notebooks, some stacked books. Essentially, You can all eat here, and this is where I sit and have everything I want. Also, he bought art and he had a good eye. I remember theres a portrait of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon next to a portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud. The place is filled with interesting things to look at.

It sounds like the kind of set I might expect to see in a Wes Anderson film, filled with these totems and details.
But after Mr. Bidens visit, his administration announced it would grant a special status to Venezuelan migrants to allow them to legally apply to jobs, something the mayor and Gov. Kathy Hochul had been lobbying for.

That was not, in fact, the immigration policy change Mr. Abbott had in mind.

There probably could not be a worse strategy, a worse policy than temporary protected status, Mr. Abbott said. Temporary protected status leads to permanent magnet status. Theyll be attracting millions and more people to come to this country illegally.

President Biden and Mr. Abbott are currently in court over Texass controversial buoy system  a floating barrier in the Rio Grande that is meant to deter illegal entry but that federal authorities say increases the risk that migrants will drown. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Mr. Abbott to remove the buoys by Sept. 15. Mr. Abbott said at Wednesdays breakfast that the buoys still remain in place as we speak.

Crossings have been increasing along the southern border over the last month, to about 9,000 people per day  one of the highest rates in recent history. The number of people coming to New York has also continued to surge, according to city officials.

About half the people who have come to the city are staying in the homeless shelter system, which the Adams administration has said has long passed its breaking point. To reduce the population, the city recently instituted a 60-day limit for stays by migrant adults without children, which began to go into effect last week.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and his wife, Nadine Menendez, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to bribery charges, marking the second time in eight years he has stood before a federal judge accused of trading his political influence for cash and luxury items.

The Menendezes were released on personal recognizance bonds. But a Manhattan federal magistrate judge told Mr. Menendez, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that he could travel out of the country only for official business, with prior notification to the court.

Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, and his wife of three years held hands as they left the 26th-floor courtroom, whispering briefly to each other as they headed downstairs to complete paperwork. Neither spoke nor answered questions shouted by reporters as they exited the courthouse in Lower Manhattan, four hours after they had arrived.

The arraignments followed an astonishing announcement last week that Mr. Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen had been charged in a lurid scheme to direct federal aid and weapons sales to Egypt in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars, bars of gold bullion and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.
At the time of the 2014 standoff, Alan ONeill, who had a similar struggle with Mr. Bundy when he was superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, expressed concern that the government had done nothing to stop the scofflaw rancher.

He calls himself a patriot, and says he loves America, Mr. ONeill told The Times. And yet he says he wont follow any federal laws. You just cant let this go by, or everybody is going to be like, If Bundy can break the law, why cant I?

Good question. But you wont get an answer from the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the land that Mr. Bundys cattle continue to graze illegally. The agency wont discuss why Mr. Bundy has been allowed to run roughshod over rules other ranchers follow or how much he owes in fees and fines to federal taxpayers. (As of 2014, it was an estimated $1.1 million.)

As for Mr. Bundy, he did not respond to a request for an interview. But one of his supporters, Vincent Easley II  who said he administers the Facebook page Cliven Bundy American Patriot  did. He pointed to a recent article in The Las Vegas Sun that said that Mr. Bundy was quoted in 2018 saying that if B.L.M. ever came to seize his cattle over unpaid grazing fees again, they would encounter the very same thing as last time. To which Mr. Easley added in an email to me: It is my belief that if this happens, not hundreds, but thousands would converge on the Bundy ranch to stand as a buffer against such action.
Discarding a belief in God can feel like an intellectual rite of passage to adulthood. Just as our bodies develop and change, so can our relationship to things spiritual, leading us sometimes to set aside organized religion. For African Americans, in particular, adult faith is complicated by the way certain understandings of Christianity were used to justify our ancestors enslavement.

Before wokeness became a right-wing propaganda tool, it was a descriptor for Black people who learned the truth about our history and culture. In my late teens and early 20s, freshly awakened friends challenged me, declaring Christianity a white mans religion.

I could not deny skepticisms literary and cultural cachet. Black intellectuals with the most insightful things to say about race, thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, often had very conflicted relationships with Christianity if not hostility toward it. The Black literary canon is a beautiful thing, a hard-wrought wonder. Its creators have been my constant companions.

Perhaps they felt that we had lost our spiritual bearings during our sojourn on this continent. Maybe it started when masters preacher told the enslaved that God destined them to be docile and obedient. Certainly the hypocrisy of some of Christianitys adherents was plain. In any case, Christ was the God of the enslavers, not the enslaved. For them, the path to the promised land was not one in which God was a pillar of cloud guiding the faithful by day and a pillar of fire by night, as he was in the book of Exodus telling.
The autoworkers picketing factories across America arent just seeking higher pay. They are also, audaciously, demanding the end of the standard 40-hour workweek. They want a full weeks pay for working 32 hours across four days. And well all benefit if they succeed.

Americans spend too much time on the job. A shorter workweek would be better for our health, better for our families and better for our employers, who would reap the benefits of a more motivated and better-rested work force. Other countries may seek an advantage in the global marketplace by wringing every drop of labor from their workers; American companies have to be more productive, and that means taking better care of their workers.

In 2015, the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, decided to reduce the workweek for 68 nurses at a city-owned elder-care facility. Instead of eight-hour days, the nurses worked for six hours, and the city hired 15 additional nurses to maintain the same level of staffing. As one might expect, the nurses were happier and healthier. The patients were happier and healthier, too.

A growing number of similar experiments by companies in other developed countries have yielded similar results. Working less improves the lives of workers  and it also benefits employers. Of the 61 British firms that participated in a six-month experiment with shorter workweeks last year, 56 decided to let employees continue to work less.
Just down the islands main road, the Red Coconut R.V. Park had attracted tourists since the 1920s, evolving into an unofficial community hub. Like the Silver Sands, it was wiped off the map. For now, the land it stood on sits empty, but this month, the nearly 10-acre Red Coconut property was sold for $52 million to Seagate Development Group, which has developed numerous communities of multimillion-dollar homes in Southwest Florida.

Developed in response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and put in place in 2002, building codes require, among other things, that structures within a mile of shorelines prone to high winds have impact-resistant windows and that those in flood zones be anchored on pilings or columns clearing the height of anticipated flooding and have ground-level breakaway walls (or no ground-level walls at all) to let water pass through during floods. In cases of rebuilding after storms, if repair costs amount to at least 50 percent of a propertys value, the owner is required to rebuild in adherence to the new codes. For most homes in Fort Myers Beach, this means that rebuilding what was there before Ian isnt an option. For a hotel development like Margaritaville, the building codes helped it weather Ian with damage from which it could recover.

Building up to code is costly  far more so than building wood-frame beach bungalows. It also requires a tolerance for risk that often only money can buy; when insurance no longer covers full rebuilding costs, mainly those with deep pockets can build on the water. That means existing property owners like those of the Silver Sands, Red Coconut and countless private homes end up cutting their losses and selling. What will go up are apparently second homes and luxury resorts that can turn a profit in a few years before another hurricane hits. (A new hotel typically pays for itself in five to 15 years, obviating the need to think about 30 years down the line, when sea levels will have risen even further.) For well-funded developers, the risk and expense can be worth it, even if it means betting on a potentially doomed parcel of land.

Theyre also banking on the infinite desirability of the beachfront, as are the state authorities responsible for the building codes that allow redevelopment after hurricanes and floods. But when the beaches have to be fortified against erosion and sea level rise, taxpayers and governments are stuck with the bill.

Instead, the state could cultivate solutions that benefit a wider set of people who want to live near the coast: temporary, movable structures for tourists and residents and other ways to motivate people to move away from the riskiest places, a strategy called managed retreat. The biggest obstacle to managed retreat remains local resistance. From the Florida Keys to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to New York City, homeowners have so far largely resisted efforts to encourage relocation even as the rising tides bear down on their areas.
To the Editor:

Re Fraud by Trump Found as Judge Issues Penalties (front page, Sept. 27):

Justice Arthur F. Engorons ruling that Donald Trump engaged in a pattern of widespread fraud, whereby he embellished the size and scope of his various business entities for accounting advantages, is very much in keeping with his propensity for engaging in similar grandiose fabrication as president.

In fact, literally on the very first day of his presidency, Mr. Trump found it necessary to overstate the size of the inaugural crowd to a demonstrably laughable degree. Such reflexive and self-serving exaggeration, regarding matters large and small, by Mr. Trump persisted to the end of his term, culminating in his wildly fantastical claims of election fraud.

Mr. Trumps fraudulent business practices over a period of several years were a glaring road map, for anyone bothering to look, as to how he would conduct himself as commander in chief. His fate now rests in the combined hands of the judicial system and the electorate.

Mark Godes

Chelsea, Mass.

To the Editor:

In an extraordinary ruling, Justice Arthur F. Engoron held that Donald Trump, by illegally inflating the value of his properties, committed fraud by as much as $2.2 billion. A trial in this case, brought by New Yorks attorney general, Letitia James, is scheduled for Monday morning, but this ruling is a huge blow to Mr. Trump and his entire family.
Germantown was supposed to be Jamil Hoskinss second home. After he, his wife and their two young children spent the first year of the pandemic in the Columbia County town, they returned to Brooklyn for the 2021 school year. But city life seemed too fast and dangerous.

Im too scared of people speeding everywhere, and are they going to pop the curb? said Mr. Hoskins, 43, who moved with his family to Germantown full-time last year, leaving their two-bedroom rental in Gowanus. We were on Fourth Avenue, and what did it for us was when that person did the shooting on Fourth Avenue and 36th Street, on the subway. That was our line. Theres video of him walking by the school where our kids went.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense has updated information about the amount of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition seized after the completion of local anti-terror activities conducted in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region as of 17:00 (GMT +4) on September 27, Trend reports.

The updated list includes:

1. Small arms and grenades - 1,132

2. Artillery weapons - 61

3. Air Defense means -235

4. Various ammunition - 434,295

5. Accouterments - 2,732

6. Optical and other devices - 231

7. Vehicles (armored - 26, other - 125)

8. Trailers - 21
Endel Tulving, whose insights into the structure of human memory and the way we recall the past revolutionized the field of cognitive psychology, died on Sept. 11 in Mississauga, Ontario. He was 96.

His daughters, Linda Tulving and Elo Tulving-Blais, said his death, at an assisted living home, was caused by complications of a stroke.

Until Dr. Tulving began his pathbreaking work in the 1960s, most cognitive psychologists were more interested in understanding how people learn things than in how they retain and recall them.

When they did think about memory, they often depicted it as one giant cerebral warehouse, packed higgledy-piggledy, with only a vague conception of how we retrieved those items. This, they asserted, was the realm of the mind, an untestable, almost philosophical construct.
Antimatter just lost a little more pizazz.

Physicists know that for every fundamental particle in nature there is an antiparticle  an evil twin of identical mass and spin but endowed with equal and opposite electrical charges. When these twins meet, they obliterate each other, releasing a flash of energy on contact.

In science fiction, antiparticles provide the power for warp drives. Some physicists have speculated that antiparticles are being repelled by gravity or even traveling backward in time.

A new experiment at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, brings some of that speculation back down to Earth. In a gravitational field, it turns out, antiparticles fall just like the rest of us. The bottom line is that theres no free lunch, and were not going to be able to levitate using antimatter, said Joel Fajans of the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Fajans was part of an international team known as ALPHA, the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus collaboration, which is based at CERN and led by Jeffrey Hangst, a particle physicist at Aarhus University in Denmark. Dr. Fajans and his colleagues assembled about 100 anti-atoms of hydrogen and suspended them in a magnetic field. When the field was slowly ramped down, the anti-hydrogen atoms drifted down like maple leaves in October and at the same rate of downward acceleration, or g force, as regular atoms: about 32 feet per second per second. They published their result on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Myuri Thiruna, a freelance photographer in Toronto, used to post frequently on Instagram and discuss photography with other users. But she said she had stopped two years ago, feeling drained by the demands of social media and the pursuit of followers and trends.

Then in July, Ms. Thiruna discovered Can of Soup, a new invitation-only social network where people make fantastical images of themselves with artificial intelligence and share the images with others. Enthralled by those abilities, she created A.I. images that showed her sitting on a unicorn floating in an ocean and her wearing a jacket made of Froot Loops.

Ms. Thiruna, 33, also commented on other users posts, chatting with them and making images together. She now spends as much five hours a day interacting with others on the app, she said.

I met so many people on this app that I didnt know before, and it goes beyond just posting and getting the likes, she said. Its this meaningful connection with people and being also inspired by what theyre doing.
The Facebook page in Slovakia called Som z dediny, which means Im from the village, trumpeted a debunked Russian claim last month that Ukraines president had secretly purchased a vacation home in Egypt under his mother-in-laws name.

A post on Telegram  later recycled on Instagram and other sites  suggested that a parliamentary candidate in the countrys coming election had died from a Covid vaccine, though he remains very much alive. A far-right leader posted on Facebook a photograph of refugees in Slovakia doctored to include an African man brandishing a machete.

As Slovakia heads toward an election on Saturday, the country has been inundated with disinformation and other harmful content on social media sites. What is different now is a new European Union law that could force the worlds social media platforms to do more to fight it  or else face fines of up to 6 percent of a companys revenue.

The law, the Digital Services Act, is intended to force social media giants to adopt new policies and practices to address accusations that they routinely host  and, through their algorithms, popularize  corrosive content. If the measure is successful, as officials and experts hope, its effects could extend far beyond Europe, changing company policies in the United States and elsewhere.
Sony has long been one of the most dominant companies in the lucrative video game industry, publishing popular franchises like Spider-Man and The Last of Us. In 2020, the company released the PlayStation 5, its latest console, to critical acclaim. Mr. Ryan wrote in a blog post in July that Sony had sold more than 40 million PlayStation 5s.

Sonys chief competitors are Nintendo, which makes the Switch console, and Microsoft, which makes the Xbox. Sony has long held an edge over Microsoft in the number of hit games it makes that are exclusive to its system, driving gamers interest in the PlayStation.

To compete, Microsoft pioneered a new form of video game distribution: a Netflix-style subscription service in which gamers pay a monthly fee for a library of titles, rather than buying individual games.

Microsoft has also been on a spending spree in hopes of catching up to Sony, buying Bethesda Game Studios and a host of other studios in 2020 for $7.5 billion. Sony was a fierce objector to Microsofts other big purchase: a $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard that is still under review by regulators.

Mr. Ryan testified in a recorded video deposition with the Federal Trade Commission that he believed Microsofts acquisition of Activisions library of games would harm PlayStation users and limit competition.
The closing of The Phantom of the Opera last spring left a chandelier-sized hole in New York. And as of this summer, for the first time in 44 years, there is no Andrew Lloyd Webber musical running on Broadway.

But now comes an unexpected new chapter in the career of one of musical theaters most successful, if not always appreciated, composers: Several adventurous contemporary directors are declaring they love his work and want to put their stamp on it.

Ivo van Hove, the Belgian director known for his profuse use of video and viscous fluids, is tackling Jesus Christ Superstar in Amsterdam, while Jamie Lloyd, the British auteur with a penchant for Pinter and an aversion to scenery, is sharpening Sunset Boulevard in London. Meanwhile, in the United States, Sammi Cannold is putting a feminist stamp on Evita, while Bill Rauch and Zhailon Levingston are humanizing Cats.

The shows, and Lloyd Webber himself, occupy a paradoxical place in the theatrical canon.

Critics have sometimes dismissed his work as overwrought. This newspapers reviewers, in particular, have often been underwhelmed, initially declaring that Jesus Christ Superstar had minimal artistic value, and also deriding Evita (like reading endless footnotes from which the text has disappeared), Cats (if you blink, youll miss the plot) and Sunset Boulevard (lurid).
Many of our M.F.A. students come in with significant undergraduate debt, and some have maxed out the federal loans they can take, said Evan Yionoulis, the dean of Juilliards drama division. This will allow them to be here without that financial weight on their shoulders, and allow them the freedom, when they graduate, to make choices to build their craft and to have the patience it takes to build their career.

Juilliards move comes two years after Yale University made its drama school, which is also top-ranked and is larger than Juilliards, tuition-free with a $150 million gift from David Geffen. James Bundy, the dean of what is now called the David Geffen School of Drama, said the waiving of tuition had already had a significant impact at Yale.

Weve seen a rise in applications  weve had the two highest years in the schools history, which tells me that a great many more people saw the school as financially accessible, Bundy said. Weve had a substantial increase in the portion of the applicant pool that identified as Black, Indigenous, or people of color. And taking tuition out of the equation has enabled us to increase stipends for living expenses for students with need, which has the long-term impact of driving down indebtedness.

Juilliard already has several other tuition-free programs, including the drama divisions two-year playwriting program, which currently has eight students, as well as several specialized music programs. Once the graduate acting program goes tuition-free, 26 percent of all Juilliard students will pay no tuition to attend.

But many music and dance students, as well as drama undergraduates, will continue to have some tuition obligations; the graduate acting program is going tuition-free now because there were donors who stepped forward to make that possible.
The book, on the other hand, has been revised since Sondheims death by its writer, David Ives, and director, Joe Mantello. But the team said that the three collaborators agreed after the informal reading that took place on Sept. 8, 2021, that Steves songwriting for both acts was complete.

There is a long history of work in various stages of completion being released after the death of an artist. Mozarts Requiem, Puccinis Turandot and Bergs Lulu were all left unfinished when their composers died and are now considered classics.

The work that David and Stephen did should absolutely be seen, said Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, which was working with Sondheim to develop the show until a few years ago. Its a jewel, its small, its incomplete, but its absolutely delightful and smart and gorgeous, and it would be a crime for it not to be seen. So Im entirely in favor of the work being shown in public.

James Lapine, who as a librettist collaborated with Sondheim on shows including Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park With George, agreed. I really trust David and Joe, and dont think they would be putting up something they didnt feel was finished  not on this scale, he said. Theyre smart cookies, and if they wanted to do a workshop because it wasnt finished, they could. But they see it as finished, and Steve gave his blessing, so its going to be an addition to the canon.

The show, in Sondheims pithy description in that last interview, has a so-called plot in which the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they cant get out.
For most travelers from the United States, going to Europe is a relatively smooth experience, without the need to apply for visas or pay steep fees for short visits.

But for people like Duygu Yildirim, that isnt the case. Ms. Yildirim, 36, holds a Turkish passport and lives in Knoxville, Tenn. Within Europes Schengen Area, a border-free zone allowing free movement among 27 European countries, citizens of Turkey and dozens of other countries, including India, South Africa and China, must apply for visas for stays of fewer than 90 days.

The application process is expensive, anxiety-inducing and time-consuming. For every visit to Europe, the visa costs 80 euros (about $85) and requires an in-person appointment as well as hard copies of various legal documents. These appointments, usually outsourced to for-profit companies, have been scarce in recent months. Travelers say that its also taking longer than the typical three-week period  in some cases, several months  to get a visa in hand. Applicants have failed to receive visas in time for their trips, or receive visas for the full duration of their travel. Some have even been denied visas altogether.

Ms. Yildirim, an assistant professor, said that she had applied for at least 10 Schengen visas in recent years. There are no visa centers in her area, forcing her to travel to other states for hard-to-find appointments.
More than a dozen species of North American birds rarely seen in Britain and Ireland have been spotted along the countries western shores after being blown off their usual migration routes by remnants of Hurricane Lee and surviving the perilous journey across the Atlantic, experts said.

The arrival of warblers, vireos and other colorful birds last week has excited Britains twitching community  enthusiastic bird-watchers who will travel long distances to view new or unusual species. A sighting of a Canada warbler was the first recorded in Britain and similarly, a Blackburnian warbler was spotted in Ireland for the first time. Experts said twitchers should act fast if they want to see the North American arrivals, as the phenomenon will last just a few days longer.

Alexander Lees, an academic who specializes in biodiversity at Manchester Metropolitan University and the chairman of the British Ornithologists Union Records Committee, a group that maintains the official list of bird sightings in Britain, said on Tuesday that a series of storms had recently held up some bird migration in North America. When the birds decided to fly south for the winter, they were swept up in the remnants of Hurricane Lee, which made landfall in New England and Canada in mid-September before moving east toward Europe. That storm reached Britain and Ireland last week, bringing several inches of heavy rain to much of Wales and northwest England.

While some birds may have been able to reorient around the storm to stay on their migration route, tens of thousands of others were probably pushed out to sea, Dr. Lees said. A tiny number reached Britain and Ireland, he added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The reassertion of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh was inevitable the moment Azerbaijan won the war in November 2020, Michael Doran, an American analyst of the international politics of the Middle East, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute, wrote on his page on X (Twitter), Trend reports.

"That reassertion is just and right, but my moral assessment is incidental to the main point: the inevitability of the reassertion. International law and, more importantly, the major players [the US, Russia, Turkiye] regard Karabakh as Azerbaijani. It was only a matter of time before Baku took control," he noted.

Responding to allegations made by an Iranian-American columnist and editor, Sohrab Ahmari, who claimed that Azerbaijan is purportedly displacing Armenians from Karabakh through "ethnic cleansing", Michael Doran pointed out that there is no evidence of that.

"This is a voluntary exodus of Armenians, not ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is what the Armenians conducted in the First Karabakh War, killing children and old people," he added.

Meanwhile, in order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, suppression of large-scale provocations in Azerbaijan's Karabakh economic region, disarmament, and withdrawal of Armenian armed forces formations from the territories of Azerbaijan, localized anti-terrorist activities were carried out in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian population of Karabakh through the Russian peacekeeping contingent, an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities.

Later, at the invitation of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ramin Mammadov, responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Karabakh, met with representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh on September 21, 2023, in Yevlakh.

In the context of discussing social and humanitarian issues, the representatives of the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region informed that there is a special need for fuel. At the same time, they asked for humanitarian assistance in the form of foodstuffs.

As a result of the meeting, their request was taken seriously. Until now, Azerbaijan has already supplied fuel for the heating systems of kindergartens and schools, as well as the emergency medical service and fire department, and provided humanitarian support for Karabakh residents.
In Washington, Ms. Fager single-handedly took on the city and federal government when work crews dug into the border of the Female Union Band Society cemetery to revamp a bike path. In Midland, Ga., Yamona Pierce demanded that Georgia Power repair the damage from plowing an access path over graves at Pierce Chapel African Cemetery. In Houston, Ms. Williams pushed a lawn mower the mile to and from her home to Olivewood for months, eventually convincing the county to legally entrust her with the overgrown cemeterys care.

No accurate count exists of how many Black burial grounds survive. Brent Leggs, the director of the National Trust for Historic Preservations African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, notes that a recent grant competition drew proposals from 5,400 Black cemeteries seeking a total of some $650 million, more than six times the amount available from private and corporate donors. The trust has begun to map Black burial places, and offers preservation grants. But the work is slow, and the money never enough.

Within the Black community, there is a deep well of civic needs, and it can be difficult to make the case for preservation, Mr. Leggs said. But this is about reminding the nation of its social responsibility to care for its history.

Washington provides little help. Late last year, Congress passed the African American Burial Grounds Preservation Act, which authorized $3 million for competitive grants to identify, research and preserve Black cemeteries. Congress has yet to appropriate even that.
Garbage, feces and needles run through the rivers in Missoula, Mont. On the streets of San Francisco, tents are so thick that sidewalks in the Tenderloin neighborhood have become unofficial open-air public housing. In Portland, Ore., a blaze shut down an on-ramp to the Steel Bridge for several days in March after campers tunneled through a cinder block wall and lit a campfire to stay warm.

In a surge of legal briefs this week, frustrated leaders from across the political spectrum, including the liberal governor of California and right-wing state legislators in Arizona, charged that homeless encampments were turning their public spaces into pits of squalor, and asked the Supreme Court to revisit lower court decisions that they say have hobbled their ability to bring these camps under control.

The urgent pleas come as leaders across the country, and particularly in the West, have sought to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and restore normalcy in cities. In more than two dozen briefs filed in an appeal of a decision on homeless policies in a southern Oregon town, officials from nearly every Western state and beyond described desolate scenes related to a proliferation of tent encampments in recent years.

They begged the justices to let them remove people from their streets without running afoul of court rulings that have protected the civil rights of homeless individuals.
Why It Matters: Montanas case drew national attention.

Montana was a high-profile battleground for a fight that took place in many state legislatures this year over medical procedures for transgender minors. In April, it became one of 22 states to ban or sharply restrict procedures that include puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries.

In a 47-page ruling, Judge Jason Marks wrote that the plaintiffs demonstrated that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the law goes into effect.

The judge wrote that the record of the legislative debate over the bill was replete with animus toward transgender persons. It mischaracterized the nature of the treatments, the judge said, and included statements from lawmakers who conveyed personal, moral or religious disapproval of gender transition.

Judge Marks, who previously served as a prosecutor and a public defender, was appointed to his current role in 2019 by Steve Bullock, the former Democratic governor.

Background: The ban sparked an acrimonious debate in Montana.

Montana became a flashpoint in the debate over transgender rights after Representative Zooey Zephyr, the first openly transgender woman elected to the State Legislature, was barred from the House floor over a speech in which she warned colleagues that they would have blood on your hands if they passed the measure.
The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would allow Israeli citizens to enter the United States without a visa, a step toward improving relations between the two nations at a time when President Biden is engaged in complex diplomacy with Israel on a range of issues.

The move means Israel must take reciprocal actions toward American citizens, including Palestinian Americans who often face difficulties in traveling to Palestinian territories to see family members and friends.

Administration officials said the Homeland Security Department agreed to accept Israel into the U.S. governments visa waiver program after monitoring a pilot effort since July, when the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding. Since July 20, Israel has allowed more than 100,000 U.S. citizens, including tens of thousands of Palestinian Americans, to enter Israel without a visa, the officials said.

Any U.S. citizen trying to visit the West Bank can now fly into Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv and travel to the Palestinian territory overland, the officials said. Previously, Israel forced many Palestinian Americans to go to Jordan first and then cross into the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge.
The documents also include an email in which a prosecutor at the U.S. attorneys office in Delaware prohibited investigators from mentioning President Biden in a proposed search warrant in August 2020. Republicans argue that shows the Justice Department was biased in favor of Mr. Biden, but the warrant was being prepared months before the elections, during a period when the agencys longstanding policy is to avoid taking high-profile actions against any political candidate.

The G.O.P. has struggled so far to link Hunter Bidens business activity to the president or get anywhere close to revealing proof of high crimes and misdemeanors. Despite their review of more than 12,000 pages of bank records and 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, none of the material released so far shows any payment to his father.

Leaders of the three panels carrying out the inquiry  the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means Committees  hope to accumulate evidence that the elder Biden abused his office, accepted bribes or both, according to the officials familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details.

The officials emphasized that the inquiry might never result in impeachment charges if the evidence they compile does not support such charges  or any other. And Republicans are privately cognizant that they currently lack enough support within their ranks to push charges through the House, and that any charges would be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

For Thursdays hearing before the Oversight Committee  the first since Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under pressure from his right flank, announced the inquiry  Republicans have booked a trio of conservative legal analysts to opine about the Bidens and the law. The analysts are not, however, in a position to present new facts in the case.
On an unseasonably warm night in February, dinner guests at Gen. Mark A. Milleys Virginia home were wondering, a bit nervously, what could possibly be going on.

General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been called away once, twice, three times, retreating upstairs to a secure room to consult with other top military brass. His wife, Hollyanne, was also missing.

A Chinese spy balloon had been detected over the Western United States. Soon, President Biden was on the line with General Milley, his highest-ranking military official, unbeknown to the guests downstairs. And Mrs. Milley, a nurse of nearly four decades, was busy making calls from another room upstairs, oblivious to the drama unfolding next door.

I was on the phone with patients, Mrs. Milley recalled about the evening, so I couldnt come down.
She distinguished herself with her answers on abortion and foreign policy while seizing the opportunity to position herself as the adult in the room as her male rivals bickered. She raised more than $1 million over the 72 hours that followed the event, winning over Republican donors who had been looking for a plausible alternative to Mr. Trump. And she elevated herself over Senator Tim Scott, a fellow South Carolinian, as the next-generation conservative who could potentially appeal to independents and some disaffected Democrats.

Mr. Scott faded on the stage in Milwaukee. But while its critical for him to make a splash at the Reagan Library in order to eat into Ms. Haleys gains, any spotlight-grabbing moments cannot tarnish his persona as the happy warrior with the winning smile and the hopeful message. A bad night, or just an invisible night, for Mr. Scott would dim hopes of a resurgence.

Can the more vocal Trump critics make a case?

Former Vice President Mike Pence and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, have tried to position themselves as the anti-Trumps. Mr. Christie is the loudest castigator of the former president as a threat to the nation, while Mr. Pence has denounced his former running mate as a false conservative, soft on abortion and too populist on trade and foreign policy. Neither argument has gained traction with voters so far.

For both men, the debate will be a chance to find an anti-Trump message that actually appeals to Republican voters. Mr. Christie tried to use his trademark slashing style in Milwaukee, only to be booed by an audience that registered its loyalty to Mr. Trump. The audience Wednesday night could prove to be more sympathetic, or at least more polite, allowing more of the former governors blows to land.

Shutdown politics

The federal government appears to be barreling toward a shutdown this Sunday, with Congress paralyzed into inaction by a fractured Republican majority in the House that is unable to pass the spending bills needed to keep federal agencies operating past Sept. 30. Complicating House Republican calculations is Mr. Trump, who has demanded that his followers vote against any spending measure that keeps funding the Justice Departments prosecution of him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and hide highly classified documents that he took from the White House. It is an impossible request.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday was toiling to build Republican support for a long-shot bid to avert a shutdown, floating a bill that would keep government funding flowing at vastly reduced levels while imposing stringent immigration restrictions demanded by conservatives.

The proposal stands little chance in the Democrat-controlled Senate. But Mr. McCarthys more immediate problem is in his own chamber, where the math is not in his favor.

Already, at least 10 hard-right lawmakers have declared they will not vote for any stopgap measure under any circumstances, because they are opposed to funding the government  even temporarily  with a single up-or-down vote.

Their opposition effectively closes off Mr. McCarthys simplest escape hatch to avoid a government shutdown on Sunday. With Democrats sure to oppose the spending cuts and border restrictions, he can afford to lose no more than four Republicans if all members show up and vote. And turning to Democrats for help would put his speakership at risk.
Prosecutors called a retired F.B.I. agent this week to testify that the man who is accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks freely discussed the deadly hijacking plot during four days of questioning in January 2007.

In doing so, the former agent, Frank Pellegrino, revealed that at the outset of the interrogation, the prisoner asked when he would see a lawyer.

Mr. Pellegrino said he brushed off the request and went on to obtain a confession during 12 to 13 hours of questioning at Guantanamo Bay.

The prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, would not get to consult a lawyer for another 15 months. By then, prosecutors had issued capital charges against him, five years after his capture in Pakistan and after years in the C.I.A.s clandestine prison network, the black sites, where he was tortured.
The leader of the United Automobile Workers union ruled out meeting former President Donald J. Trump, the 2024 Republican front-runner, when he visits Michigan on Wednesday, casting him as an out-of-touch billionaire who has been hostile toward the industrys workers, who are currently on strike.

When Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, was asked by CNN in an interview on Tuesday whether he would be open to such an audience with Mr. Trump, he said that there was no upside.

I see no point in meeting with him because I dont think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for, Mr. Fain said. He serves a billionaire class, and thats whats wrong with this country.

His remarks came just hours after President Biden, at the invitation of Mr. Fain, joined a picket line outside a General Motors facility in Belleville, Mich., near Detroit.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan's vision of the future is based on a peaceful approach, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said, Trend reports.

He made a remark during the commemoration and donor action event held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and dedicated to September 27 - Remembrance Day.

The event was attended by the leadership and employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, family members of the martyrs of the second Karabakh war.

The memory of martyrs, who gave their lives for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan, has been commemorated with a minute of silence.

Jeyhun Bayramov noted that as a result of Azerbaijan's victory in the second Karabakh war, an end was put to almost 30 years of Armenian military occupation of Azerbaijani lands.

He said that along with the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, historical justice was restored. This heroic chronicle of the Azerbaijani army under the leadership of the President of Azerbaijan, the victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, is inscribed in golden letters in Azerbaijan's history.

In addition, the minister noted that Azerbaijan, which did not accept the occupation of its lands, from the very beginning constantly worked on a peaceful solution to the issue, but Armenia was engaged in imitation of negotiations, and also continued its military-political provocations. Armenia repeatedly attacked the Azerbaijani civilian population during the second Karabakh war.

Bayramov noted that after the end of the war, Azerbaijan offered peace to Armenia, and Armenia, recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, continued its provocations. In order to stop the provocations of Armenia, Azerbaijan has conducted local anti-terrorist activities in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

The memory of the soldiers and officers of Azerbaijan who gave their lives for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will always live in our hearts, said the minister.

The event featured a historical documentary film - "WE" - dedicated to the second Karabakh war, created with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan jointly by the Baku Media Center and the "Azerbaijanfilm" film studio named after Jafar Jabbarly.

In addition, with the joint organization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Central Blood Bank of the National Hematology and Transfusiology Center of the Ministry of Health, with the participation of the leadership and staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a donor campaign was held.

Moreover, the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited the territory of the Patriotic War Memorial Complex and the Victory Museum under construction, and laid flowers at the memorial stone.

According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually marks Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect to Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day second Karabakh war and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Seeking more of the voters who paved his way to the White House in 2016, former President Donald J. Trump rallied at a Michigan auto parts factory on Wednesday night, vying for the support of blue-collar workers one day after President Biden appeared on a picket line with striking United Automobile Workers.

Mr. Biden on Tuesday affirmed his support for U.A.W. strikers demands for a 40 percent pay raise. In his appearance at a nonunion factory on Wednesday, Mr. Trump repeatedly asked for the endorsement of the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain  calling him Shawn  but did not back any of the unions contract demands.

Your head man, Shawn, hes a good man, Mr. Trump told the crowd, though it was unclear if there were more than a handful of U.A.W. members present. But hes got to endorse Trump.

Mr. Fain, who appeared with Mr. Biden during his visit to the picket line, has withheld the unions endorsement, saying it must be earned. But Mr. Fain has been clear that the U.A.W. would never support Mr. Trump, who pursued many anti-union policies in office.
Nearly every aspect of Donald J. Trumps life and career has been under scrutiny from the justice system over the past several years, leaving him under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions and being held to account in a civil case for what a jury found to be sexual abuse that he committed decades ago.

But a ruling on Tuesday by a New York State judge that Mr. Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career.

By effectively branding him a cheat, the decision in the civil proceeding by Justice Arthur F. Engoron undermined Mr. Trumps relentlessly promoted narrative of himself as a master of the business world, the persona that he used to enmesh himself in the fabric of popular culture and that eventually gave him the stature and resources to reach the White House.

The ruling was the latest remarkable development to test the resilience of Mr. Trumps appeal as he seeks to win election again despite the weight of evidence against him in cases spanning his years as a New York developer, his 2016 campaign, his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of national security secrets after leaving office.
In 2014, Bryan Bailey, the sheriff of Rankin County, Miss., made what seemed like a series of routine requests of the local district attorneys office.

He needed grand jury subpoenas, he said, to force the phone company to turn over records of calls and text messages for what he called a confidential internal investigation.

Sheriff Bailey scrawled a brief note on a subpoena form and gave it to a paralegal in the district attorneys office. Please keep this confidential between you and I, the note read. Possible wrongdoing by school district employee.

But his requests had nothing to do with alleged wrongdoing, or any criminal investigation, according to a previously undisclosed report obtained by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today. Instead, Sheriff Bailey tapped into the power of a grand jury at least eight times over a year to spy on his married girlfriend and the school employee with whom she was also unfaithful, the documents show.
The city of El Paso, a West Texas way station long accustomed to migrants arriving from Mexico, has begun to buckle under the pressure of thousands upon thousands of people coming over the border, day after day.

The usual shelters have been filled. So too have the hundreds of hotel rooms wrangled by the city to house migrants. A new city-run shelter opened over the weekend in a recreational center, and rapidly filled all of its roughly 400 beds. Another shelter is planned in a vacant middle school.

Mayor Oscar Leeser said over the weekend that the city had reached a breaking point and was no longer able to help all the migrants on its own. He welcomed the buses, chartered by the administration of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, that once again began carrying hundreds of migrants out of the city to Denver, Chicago or New York. The mayor said he was seeking millions of dollars in additional aid from the Biden administration.
The answer is simple, the official said. There were none. Full stop.

Private King, 23, had been assigned to South Korea as a member of the First Brigade Combat Team, First Armored Division. After being released in July from a South Korean detention center, where he had spent time on assault charges, he was escorted by U.S. military personnel to Incheon International Airport outside Seoul to board a plane to the United States, where he was expected to face additional disciplinary action.

He never boarded the plane. Instead, he fled to the North through the Demilitarized Zone, which separates North and South Korea, by taking a bus the next day to the border village of Panmunjom, which lies inside the DMZ and allows tourists to visit.

The soldier willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Col. Isaac Taylor, the public affairs officer for U.S. Forces Korea, said at the time.

American officials offered few details of what they said was a truly complex operation to retrieve Private King from one of the worlds most isolated countries. They said the key was Swedens government, which serves as the so-called protecting power, or diplomatic go-between, for the United States in North Korea.

Officials said the United States had learned from Sweden several weeks ago that the North Koreans had decided to expel Private King in the near future. That kicked off a period of indirect but intense negotiations between the United States and North Korea, and direct discussions with China.
The authorities in Germany on Wednesday banned a relatively small far-right group and raided the homes of its members in a coordinated sweep, the latest in a series of moves against extremist organizations in the country.

The crackdown is the second such action taken in the past several days. The latest group targeted, called Artgemeinschaft, was described by the authorities as racist and antisemitic, and promoted a white supremacist ideology, including advocating white-only families.

In Germany, it is illegal to display or promote Nazi ideology or other antisemitic views.

About a week ago, the authorities carried out similar raids against another racist far-right group, called the Hammerskins, a violent neo-Nazi organization that originated in the United States in the 1980s.

The latest crackdowns come nearly 10 months after the authorities foiled what they described as a far-right plot to topple the democratically elected government in Germany and replace it with a group led by an obscure prince.
The German government on Wednesday announced that it was strengthening controls along its border with Poland and the Czech Republic, responding to increasing political pressure to deal with the rising number of people it said are crossing illicitly into the countrys east.

The measures follow months of complaints from some eastern regions, where the far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as the AfD, has gained strength, that too many migrants and asylum seekers are entering the country. The step also comes ahead of two important state elections in Bavaria and Hesse early next month.

Immigration has become a major issue in German politics in recent months, with even mainstream parties urging action to address the rising number of asylum seekers. The calls have come amid increased support, even in some western regions, for the AfD.

The new willingness of the government to try to control the number of migrants and asylum seekers by putting in place checks on the borders of fellow European Union countries represents a change from an earlier era under Angela Merkel, the former chancellor, analysts said.
The bride and groom had just swept onto the dance floor  her dress billowing around her  for the traditional slow dance while people lit flares to add excitement to the romantic moment. But the flames shot upward, igniting the decorations draped over the chandeliers and hung from the ceiling, turning a night of celebration into a time of mourning.

Fragments of the flaming decorations dropped onto tables and wedding guests. By the time the fire was out, about 100 people were dead and 150 others were injured, suffering from severe burns or smoke inhalation. Early counts estimated that almost a quarter of the guests were either dead or hurt.

The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the Al Haithem wedding hall near the village of Qaraqosh, in Hamdaniya, about 20 miles southeast of Mosul. Christians have lived in the area, known as the Nineveh Plain, for nearly 2,000 years, but many fled the Islamic State in 2014. Only in the last several years have they begun to return and raise families again in these small villages, local officials said.

The toll of those killed and injured was so high, witnesses suggested, because at the moment the blaze began, the lights went out. The guests were unable to see, and stumbled and fell as they rushed toward the main entrance of the wedding hall, said Nabil Ibrahim, a guest.
For years, the two aging dams loomed in the mountains above the Libyan city of Derna, riddled with cracks and fissures, threatening the thousands of people living in the valley below.

A Turkish company, Arsel Construction, was eventually hired by the Libyan government to upgrade the dams and build a new one. The work, Arsel said on its website at the time, was completed in 2012.

By then, the government had paid millions of dollars to the Turkish contractor for preliminary work, according to a government assessment dated 2011. But Arsel left Libya in the turmoil of the 2011 popular revolt against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the countrys longtime dictator. Neither dam was ever repaired, the assessment said, and no third dam ever materialized.

When a lethal storm rolled up the Mediterranean Sea toward Derna two weeks ago, dumping far more rain than usual on the Green Mountains above the city, the dams burst. An avalanche of water boomed down into the valley below, driving much of Derna out to sea and killing at least 4,000 people. More than 8,000 others are still missing.
Parallel visits this week by an Israeli minister to Saudi Arabia and a Saudi envoy to the Israeli-occupied West Bank have highlighted the fast-warming ties between the Jewish state and the most powerful Arab country.

In the first-ever public visit by an Israeli minister to the Arab kingdom, Haim Katz, the Israeli tourism minister, attended a multilateral tourism conference in Riyadh on Tuesday and Wednesday that was organized by the United Nations.

Simultaneously, the Saudi ambassador to the Palestinians, Naif al-Sudairi, traveled through an Israeli border checkpoint to visit the West Bank, where he met with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, the organization that administers just under 40 percent of the Israeli-controlled territory.

Experts said the visit by Mr. Sudairi, who is based in neighboring Jordan, was the first known visit by a Saudi official to the region since Israel captured it from Jordan in the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. There is no way that this continued illegal presence of Armenian armed forces in the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, as well as fake "state structures" could continue to exist, Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Special Assignments Elchin Amirbayov told BBC, Trend reports.

"We have tried to make our best in order not to make any collateral damages during the operation, which actually lasted like a lightning, for one day, it was like a surgeon precision type of action, which addressed, or tried to neutralize the legitimate military targets that is the outpost of Armenian armed forces inside Azerbaijans Karabakh region," he said.

This shows that Azerbaijan's intention was to have this action to last as short as possible, and also to convince the other side that there is no way that this illegal presence and fake "state structures" could not continue to exist within the sovereign Azerbaijani territory, he concluded.

Meanwhile, in order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, suppression of large-scale provocations in Azerbaijan's Karabakh economic region, disarmament, and withdrawal of Armenian armed forces formations from the territories of Azerbaijan, localized anti-terrorist activities were carried out in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian population of Karabakh through the Russian peacekeeping contingent, an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities.

Later, at the invitation of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ramin Mammadov, responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Karabakh, met with representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh on September 21, 2023, in Yevlakh.

In the context of discussing social and humanitarian issues, the representatives of the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region informed that there is a special need for fuel. At the same time, they asked for humanitarian assistance in the form of foodstuffs.

As a result of the meeting, their request was taken seriously. Until now, Azerbaijan has already supplied fuel for the heating systems of kindergartens and schools, as well as the emergency medical service and fire department, and provided humanitarian support for Karabakh residents.
We need to be able to break the gridlock that too often stymies progress and blocks consensus on the Council. We need more voices and more perspectives at the table, President Biden said in his address to the General Assembly last week. Mr. Biden called for overhauling the Security Council in his U.N. speech a year ago, putting Washingtons weight behind efforts for change.

One proposal calls for more permanent members to the Security Council  but whether they would be granted veto power is not clear. Japan, Brazil, India and Germany are contenders under this proposal. Leaders in Africa have demanded at least two permanent seats for member states from the continent.

Another proposal favors adding more members to the elected seats from different regions in the world and allowing them to serve longer, renewable terms. Proponents of this plan include Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, Turkey, Italy and Canada.

But any proposal could face intense opposition.

For every country that wants a permanent seat, there are one or more that are determined to stop it. Italy wants to stop Germany, Pakistan wants to stop India, China wants to stop Japan, said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group, who has conducted extensive research on reform efforts.
When your world feels like its falling to pieces  and just dragging yourself out of bed and into the kitchen to shove a few Oreos into your mouth can feel like a herculean task  shopping for and cooking something can feel downright impossible. If your friend or family member is going through a terrible ordeal, making something delicious and delivering it to their door with a sweet little note may not scare away the monsters, but it can provide sustenance for the hard (and hopefully healing) days ahead. These are the dishes New York Times Cooking editors, writers and more like to make for their loved ones.
What You Need

You dont need anything but yourself. If you have a yoga mat, thats great but not necessary. A towel works, too, or you can just sit on the floor. Find a comfortable spot where you can be alone and uninterrupted for only five minutes. Depending on how your body feels, you may want to use a yoga block, blanket or meditation cushion to place underneath your body to support your body in a comfortable seated position.

You can also take this same yoga and mindfulness practice outside for a change of scenery and influx of nature. Experiencing the vibrant colors, sounds and feel of the outdoors during your yoga practice can provide a positive energy boost.

Start With Some Mindfulness

Lets start with your breath. This is a great way to slow down, become present in the moment and connect with yourself:

1. While sitting, allow your shoulders to relax.

2. Extend your tailbone down and contract your stomach, which will help to straighten your back and lengthen your back from the top of your head.

3. Inhale for six seconds while pushing your stomach away from your body.

4. Exhale, allowing your stomach to come back to your body.

Do this four times (or more if time permits).


CA Wants to Hike Awareness of OCal Cannabis Seal Wed., Nov. 1, 2023 The California Department of Food and Agriculture plans to hire a firm for an education and outreach campaign to create awareness of the OCal seal on commercial cannabis products.
Storm Agnes is still making its presence felt across the country and a large tree has come down in Offaly this evening.

Drivers are being warned to avoid the area after a large tree fell right across the road outside Drumcooley House, not far from Edenderry town.

While status orange wind and rain warnings for the south of the country have now lapsed, a Status Yellow rain warning remains in place for Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Waterford from 7am to midnight on Wednesday.

Separately, a Status Yellow wind warning is in place for Leinster, Munster and Galway during the same time period.

"Becoming very windy on Wednesday with very strong and gusty southerly winds, veering westerly later on," Met Eireann added.

In their latest forecast, Met Eireann said: "Storm Agnes will track northeastwards over Ireland today with disruption likely in places. It will be wet and very windy with strong to gale force southeast winds, veering westerly later in the day.

"Becoming extremely windy or stormy for a time in the east and south with the potential for severe and damaging gusts. Strong onshore winds and high seas will bring the risk of coastal flooding on eastern and southern coasts. Heavy rain extending nationwide through the morning with the likelihood of some localised flooding. Highest temperatures of 14 to 17 degrees."
THE whiskey distillery in Tullamore is set for further expansion after the purchase of another 12 acres of neighbouring land.

That brings the total Tullamore DEW site size off the town bypass to 70 acres, the company has confirmed.

Tullamore DEW owners William S Grant restarted distilling in the town in 2014 at a new purpose-built distillery.

We started with 12 people here and now we have over 100, said Tullamore DEW global culture and distillery ambassador Kevin Pigott.

Some estimates have employment at the distillery growing by as much as another 100 in the next 15 years.

I don't know how many we'll have. It started slower and then we brought in the bottling, where many of the jobs are. And always in construction you get a lot of investment. And we have agency staff and contractors, said Mr Pigott.

The ambition is still big, so we'll see how we go.

The Tullamore site contains all three of the essential elements of the entire operation in one place  distilling, maturing and bottling.

The plan will be, as we grow, to add more warehousing, to expand the site and hopefully that will lead to more employment.

The bigger the site gets the more people we can hire, the more people we can bring to Tullamore, and hopefully [an increased] multiplier effect.

Tullamore DEW's latest marketing campaign is focussed very strongly on the character of the town which gives the whiskey its name.

The original distillery was established in 1829 and the revival of distilling has boosted local tourism.

Speaking last Friday, Mr Pigott said: I was talking to some of the local pubs and they say they see the people coming in and last night my guests couldn't even get a hotel in Tullamore and they stayed in the excellent B&Bs.

He added: It's a good sign, because we're not now in May or June, we're in September, so long may it continue.

The company said it is extraordinary that a small town like Tullamore is now producing the world's second best selling Irish whiskey, with 15.2 million cases sold at home and abroad in 2022.

Business is booming, said Emma Slevin, senior brand manager. Being the world's second-largest Irish whiskey brand, we're proud of our journey, but even more proud of our roots. Tullamore is more than a name; it's our home. We wanted to share a little of what makes Tullamore town so special with the world, so we're very excited to today launch our new campaign that does just this, in countries right across the globe.

Ms Slevin continued: We began crafting whiskey in Tullamore back in 1829, long before the era of push notifications and photo filters. We wanted our new campaign to highlight the enduring values that continue to drive our success. We hope it serves as a reminder of what matters in life  genuine friendships, authentic conversations, and being in the moment. Cheers to that!

Tullamore DEW is notably popular in areas such as the Nordic countries and in central Europe. It is the number one selling Irish whiskey in countries such as Sweden and the Czech Republic.

Speaking of its popularity in Sweden, Swedish drinks aficionado and renowned content creator in his home country, Robin Bruhn said: I'm a big fan of Irish whiskey and ever since my first sip of Tullamore DEW I've always considered this to be a no fuss whiskey that never fails to impress with its unique and fruity flavour. By itself or in an Irish coffee Tullamore DEW is the whiskey I'm always recommending to buy if someone here in Stockholm asks me for the best bang for their buck Irish whiskey.
The Diocese of Killaloe is undertaking a year-long initiative to encourage men to consider joining the priesthood.

Visits to parishes across the Diocese in Clare, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary and Limerick commence next weekend in Ennis followed by visits to Nenagh, Birr and Castleconnell during October.

With just over half of the 58 parishes in the Diocese currently served by a resident priest, Vocations Director Fr. Iggy McCormack says there is hope the three vocations recorded in the Diocese of Killaloe during the past 12 months can be built on during the Year for Vocations to the Diocesan Priesthood.

Geographically, we are the third largest Diocese in the country and is it has become increasingly difficult to maintain full cover across the five counties due to retirements and a lower number of vocations, he explained. The idea of young men taking up a vocation has arguably become more countercultural in recent years, but we are very hopeful that we can build on recent progress whereby three men from the Diocese will enter the seminary at Maynooth over the next 12 months.

Fr. McCormack, who also is Principal of St. Flannans College in Ennis, said the vocations initiative will encourage people to discover more about vocations on the Diocesan website while the parish church visits are aimed at kickstarting conversations within family groups, with local priests and in communities across the Diocese on the vocation of priesthood.

He continued, I am encouraging any man who has been considering a vocation and is exploring their calling to make contact today with the Vocations Office or to speak with their local priest. Most newly ordained priests will comment on how the encouragement and counsel they received from their local priest greatly assisted in commencing their journey to priestly ministry.

Ennis native Mark Nestor, a former secondary school teacher and Clare County Councillor, entered the National Seminary at Saint Patrick's College Maynooth last week having spent the past year at the Royal English College of St Alban in Valladolid, Spain.

"Answering yes to my vocation to the priesthood has resulted in a great sense of contentment in my life, Mark explained.

The support I have received from family, friends and the Diocese over the last two years has been phenomenal. I would encourage anyone who feels they have a vocation to priesthood to reach out and talk about their vocation."

Visit www.killaloediocese.ie or follow the Killaloe Diocese on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more on the Year for Vocations to the Diocesan Priesthood.

Pictured at St. Flannans College is Diocese of Vocations Director Fr. Ignatius McCormack and Mark Nestor of Ennis, County Clare, who entered the seminary at Maynooth during September 2023. Mark is a former student of St. Flannans College where Fr. Iggy currently is Principal. Photo Eamon Ward.
Tullamore man Barry Madden (44) and his wife Emma O'Sullivan (35) live on a barge on the Grand Canal in Sallins, Kildare with their two dogs Sasha and Ru.

The couple love the lifestyle but with Waterways Ireland seeking to introduce new bye-laws including massive increases in rates, their way of life is under threat.

''We moved here two years ago because we wanted to get our own place and it was a way to get on the property ladder... a form of housing. It also meant we weren't tied to a long term mortgage,'' said Barry.

The couple who both work in the theatre had stayed on a barge for two weeks the previous summer. They ''really liked it'' and decided to make it permanent.

''We knew everybody in the first three weeks of moving here. It's a fantastic community. It's not like living in a housing estate. We lived in Drumcondra for six years and we only got to know people through Covid. On the canal everybody has something in common, we always look after the boats of people who are not living on them. We keep an eye on those using the towpath, we make sure there is no fly-tipping or anti-social behaviour, if the water level is dropping we report it,'' said Barry.

Now Waterways Ireland want to impose steep rate increases on those living in houseboats of between 400% and 2000% depending on where you live. In the case of Barry and Emma their rates will rise from 126 per year to 1,500.

Barry, who is the son of Dominic and Marguerite Madden from the New Road, says, ''Waterways Ireland are saying they just want to bring the charges in line with best practise in other countries. They employed KPMG to do a report. KPMG looked at different canals in Europe, mainly the Clyde Canal in Scotland which is a couple of kilometres shorter than the Grand Canal, but they have 26 facilities for pumping out waste water and getting water, while the Grand Canal has only 3, one in Shannon Harbour, one in Sallins, one in Lowtown. There is one in Grand Canal Dock, but that's closed off unless you get prior written permission. The pump in Tullamore has been out of service for years,'' Barry added.

Barry and Emma's barge has a toilet with a holding tank, water tank, kitchen, bedroom, living area and bathroom. ''If we want to get water for washing or showering we travel to the tap and fill up the water in the tank, this takes 20 minutes and an hour to fill up the water. We do that once every 10 days. We have to conserve the water, it's a finite resource. It's the same with electricity, there is no plugging into any sort of mains. We are living off grid, we have solar panels. We don't get a grant for those. The solar panels charge up battery banks to use over the night. During the winter months there is less solar and we run a generator to charge up batteries. For cooking we have gas bottles, we get 2 or 3 months out of them,'' said Barry.

In its opening statement to the Dail Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage which took place on September 21 last, Jer Gleeson and Liam Finnegan on behalf of IRBOA [Irish Residential Boat Owners Association] said its aim is that, ''houseboat dwellings be considered part of the housing mix in Ireland. Not only at a time of housing and cost of living crises but beyond those to a vision of a vibrant canal system where tourist boats,weekend boats, and boat dwellers bring life and colour through Dublin on the Grand and Royal Canals and out through Kildare, Offaly, Laois, Meath and Westmeath.''

Mr Gleeson said the Waterways Ireland's proposed Canal Bye-Law Amendments would create ''Dead Zones with new mooring and passage restrictions.''

He said, ''these are communities of resilient, self-sufficient people that generate a significantly smaller carbon footprint than would a similarly sized community of traditional bricks and mortar dwellings. Waterways Ireland are proposing to introduce increases in permit fees from between 400% and 2,000% depending on the area, aside from the very real threat of driving members of our community into homelessness, this will have the effect of pushing boat dwellers out of areas serviced by public transport into more rural areas where cars are the only option. This we believe runs counter to the stated objective of the Climate Action Plan to reduce car journeys by 20% by 2030. ''

Barry Madden fears that the next time he applies for a permit he may not get it. ''We are not sure how they are given out. If we had to move to Naas, there are no services, we would have to travel through 5 locks, to get them. Waterways Ireland have a mammoth task looking after the waterways, but we would like to see a guarantee that there will be an increase in services at the hubs and work with them on that. They have the right to refuse permits and if you disagree there is no internal review only the district court,'' stressed Barry.

''They are also bringing in inspectors that can fine people on the towpath, and they will have no right to appeal. If you live in an area with a canal you should make yourself aware of the bye laws,'' advised Barry.

The IRBOA says '' the new proposed Draft Revisions to the Shannon Navigation Bye-laws and Grand & Royal Canal and Barrow Navigation Bye-laws will decimate the Houseboat communities on Ireland's Inland Waterways. In IRBOA's own words ''Don't Empty the Canals.''

They have set up an online petition to stop the bye-laws from coming into force in addition they are asking people to email their local TD's and Senators. The period of public consultation finishes on October 2, 2023.

At a recent sitting of Offaly County Council Chief Executive Officer Anna Marie Delaney suggested that the local authority make a submission on the bye-laws however, this was rejected by Councillor Sean O'Brien who felt it would be better to write to the Minister.
A number of houses in Tullamore will be without electricity supply until this evening due to a fault, it has been confirmed.

The power outage is currently affecting 82 houses at Sragh, in Tullamore.

It began just after 1pm, with power not expected to be restored until 4.45 pm, according to ESB Networks.

"We apologise for the loss of supply. We are currently working to repair a fault affecting your premises and will restore power as quickly as possible," they stated.

Storm Agnes has wreaked havoc in the southern part of the country in particular, with power-outages mainly concentrated in Kerry, Cork and south Tipperary. At present, a few thousand customers are said to be affected and ESB Networks is deploying crews to deal with outages where conditions allow.

A Status Orange wind warning has been issued for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Waterford by Met Eireann. A Status Orange rain warning has also been issued for Cork, Kerry and Waterford.

A Status Yellow wind warning has also been issued for Leinster, Munster and Galway until midnight.

Met Eireann has warned of coastal flooding, difficult travel conditions, power outages and fallen trees

As the operator of Irelands gas network, Gas Networks Ireland has reassured its 720,000 customers that it does not anticipate any disruption to gas supplies during Storm Agnes.

It says Irelands gas network is one of the safest and most modern gas networks in the world and with the added security of its 14,664km of pipeline being underground it is unlikely to be impacted by adverse weather conditions.

"All works are currently scheduled to take place as normal, however as the safety of our staff, customers and the public is paramount, our teams will assess conditions locally and may defer some work if required for safety reasons," a spokesperson said.

Irrespective of what alert is in place, Gas Networks Ireland emergency services continue to operate as normal. They urge anyone who smells gas at home or on the street, please call 1800 20 50 50 immediately.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan expressed condolences to Iraq, the ministry said, Trend reports.

"We extend our condolences to the families of the victims, to the government and people of Iraq over the death of more than 115 and injury of dozens of people during the fire at a wedding hall in Nineveh province," said the ministry on X (Twitter).

On 26 September 2023 a fire broke out at the Al Haytham Wedding Hall during a wedding in Qaraqosh, Al-Hamdaniya District, Nineveh Governorate.

According to preliminary reports, the fire was started by fireworks, with its spread exacerbated by flammable building materials and pre-fabricated panels which were in violation of safety regulations. Due to the combustion of the composite panels, which contained plastic, the fire spread very quickly and released toxic gases.

The number of dead and injured as a result of a fire in Iraq's Nineveh province has reached 450 people.
Some weather warnings are already in effect this morning as Storm Agnes makes landfall in Ireland bringing strong winds and intense rain.

A Status Yellow Rain Warning for Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Waterford with Met Eireann warning of heavy rain for these areas came into effect at 7am and remains in place until midnight.

A Status Yellow Wind Warning for Leinster, Munster, Galway with Met Eireann warning that it will become very windy on Wednesday with very strong and gusty southerly winds, veering westerly later on. This warning is also in place from 7am on Wednesday until midnight.

A Status Orange Wind Warning for Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford comes into effect at 9am. Met Eireann is warning that there will be very strong and gusty southerly winds, with some severe and damaging gusts with potential impacts including coastal flooding, difficult travel conditions, power outages and fallen trees. The warning is valid from 9am on Wednesday until 5pm on Wednesday.

There is also a Status Orange Rain warning for Cork, Kerry and Waterford. Met Eireann is warning that there will be spells of heavy and occasionally intense rain, combined with very strong and gusty winds. That warning is in place from 9am on Wednesday until 3pm on Wednesday.
WORK is progressing on a large-scale pyrolysis facility at Derryclure outside Tullamore.

The plant was first granted permission in 2011 and will be used for the recovery of energy from biomass and waste.

In 2021 the Derryclure Energy Centre was described as the largest of its kind in the world by TSK, the Spanish company tasked with the design, supply and commissioning of the waste pyrolysis plant for the value of 65 million euro.

At the time TSK announced that the plant,''represents a new milestone within the European framework of development and energy transition towards a circular economy model, avoiding the disposal of processed waste in landfills and making it possible to generate electricity from it.'' However,TSK who were employed by C6 WtE Ireland 1 Holdings (participated by the US companies Gen2Power, Green Waste Energy and the Irish company Glanpower) has said it is no longer involved with the project.

In 2020 Bord na Mona said it would supply thousands of tons of organic rubbish to the energy plant. However, they are also no longer involved.

The plant was first announced in 2010 when it promised 200 construction jobs and an estimated annual boost to the midlands economy of 5 - 8 million.

Other benefits included incentives to local biomass producers worth 2 million per annum, investment in local community projects of 100,000, and knock-on benefits such as eco-tourism worth 4 million per annum to the midlands economy into the future.

In January 2011, Offaly County Council gave permission for the facility to proceed. However, an appeal was lodged with An Bord Pleanala, by a number of residents living near the site who had fears about possible emissions.

An Bord Pleanala upheld the council's decision and gave the green light to Glanpower Limited to develop the advanced pyrolysis system for the recovery of energy from biomass and waste.

The approximate output was announced at the time to be six megawatts of renewable electricity for export to the national grid. The building was to consist of an enclosed energy fuel recovery area, treatment area and have 19 and 30 metre stacks.

The facility will utilise a system known as Pyrolysis to process organic material, converting it into forms of usable energy that can be consumed at the source, or supplied to customers via the electricity grid.
Storm Agnes is making its way across Ireland and could bring local mini tornadoes to some parts, according to European weather experts.

Forecasters at the European Storm Forecast Experiment group (ESTOFEX) have raised the alert level for tornado activity over Ireland amid the horrendous weather conditions.

Storm Agnes is sweeping across Ireland from the southwest, bringing with it possible gusts of 120km/h and 40mm of rain to some areas in the south and south west.

In an update to followers, Carlow Weather forecaster Alan O'Reilly shared the ESTOFEX data and warning.

He said: "A level 2 issued by Estofex for parts of Ireland today with a small risk of local tornadoes from Storm Agnes. These are very difficult to forecast and can be small and very short lived but worth sharing the information."

In their update, ESTOFEX says: "A level 2 has been issued across Ireland, Wales, and W England for severe wind gusts and tornadoes.

"Rapid cyclogenesis is underway across the E Atlantic and will result in an intense low-pressure system approaching the British Isles at the start of the forecast period.

"The combination of high low-level streamwise vorticity and low cloud bases points to the risk of tornadoes, including strong tornadoes."

They added: "As the cold front pushes east-northeast, instability and shear over the UK gets weaker, with showers and isolated thunderstorms becoming gradually less severe. Still, some severe wind gusts and tornadoes are forecast until the afternoon."

Met Eireann has not predicted any tornadoes but has issued a number of Storm Agnes warnings, including a Status Orange wind and rain alert for counties in the south of the country.

A level 2 issued by @Estofex for parts of Ireland today with a small risk of local tornadoes from #StormAgnes these are very difficult to forecast and can be small and very short lived but worth sharing the information. pic.twitter.com/B7Le0BvVTx  Carlow Weather (@CarlowWeather) September 27, 2023

Originally, Met Eireann released an orange warning for Cork and Kerry but that wind warning now covers Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford.

It warns of "very strong and gusty southerly winds, with some severe and damaging gusts" and the potential for "coastal flooding, difficult travel conditions, power outages and fallen trees."

The warning is valid from 9am until 5pm on Wednesday.

A Status Orange rain warning covers Cork, Kerry and Waterford and warns of "spells of heavy and occasionally intense rain, combined with very strong and gusty winds."

Impacts include difficult travel conditions, localised flooding and poor visibility. That warning too is valid until 3pm on Wednesday.

These is a Status Yellow rain warning for Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Waterford from 7am to midnight on Wednesday.

Finally, a Status Yellow wind warning is in place for Leinster, Munster and Galway during the same time period.

"Becoming very windy on Wednesday with very strong and gusty southerly winds, veering westerly later on," Met Eireann added.

In their latest forecast, the national forecaster continued: "Storm Agnes will track northeastwards over Ireland today with disruption likely in places. It will be wet and very windy with strong to gale force southeast winds, veering westerly later in the day.

"Becoming extremely windy or stormy for a time in the east and south with the potential for severe and damaging gusts. Strong onshore winds and high seas will bring the risk of coastal flooding on eastern and southern coasts. Heavy rain extending nationwide through the morning with the likelihood of some localised flooding. Highest temperatures of 14 to 17 degrees.

"Staying windy for a time tonight with strong and gusty westerly winds gradually easing as Storm Agnes clears towards Scotland. Outbreaks of heavy rain in the northeast will give way to a mix of clear spells and scattered showers. Lowest temperatures of 9 to 12 degrees."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The US wants Azerbaijan and Armenia to return to the negotiating table, US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said at a briefing, Trend reports.

"The US Secretary of State has held direct discussions with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia. A number of US officials have visited the region not only last week, but also over the past months. We have done everything possible to ensure that diplomatic efforts continue, but it must be remembered that ultimately it's up to the two parties who have differences. We can do our best, but ultimately they have to agree to talk and come to some kind of resolution. We intend to continue to play our role in facilitating this process," he said.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan held bilateral talks on June 27-29 at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia.

They met with US Secretary Antony Blinken and Assistant to the President and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington.

The ministers and their teams continued working on the draft bilateral peace agreement. They reached an agreement on additional articles and achieved mutual understanding on the draft agreement, meanwhile acknowledging that the positions on some key issues require further work.
Big Cat On The Loose: Leopard Spotted Yet Again Near IT Park In Kudlu, Residents Panic

What Caused Bengaluru's ORR Traffic Congestion On September 27?

Bengaluru

oi-Madhuri Adnal

A day after the Bengaluru bandh brought about deserted roads on Tuesday, the city swiftly reverted to its usual bustling self as extensive traffic snarls were reported in various parts of the city on Wednesday.

On September 27, traffic reached double the standard volume. Ordinarily, Wednesdays witness a vehicle count ranging from 150,000 to 200,000, but on September 27, the count surged to 359,000 by 7:30 p.m, according to moneycontrol report. This surge was largely attributed to the effects of the Bengaluru bandh that unfolded on September 26, as a significant number of employees reported to their workplaces and departed simultaneously on September 27.

Several factors contributed to the traffic congestion on September 27:

Long Weekend: One possible reason could be an extended weekend that may have prompted many to leave the city. September 28 marks a holiday for Eid e Milad, followed by a Karnataka bandh called by pro-Kannada organizations on September 29. This is followed by the regular Saturday and Sunday, and October 2, Monday, is Gandhi Jayanti.

Rain-Induced Waterlogging: Persistent rainfall led to water accumulation on various inner roads, which remained uncleared, exacerbating traffic congestion.

Potholes Due to Rain: The heavy downpours also resulted in the formation of numerous potholes, hindering the smooth flow of traffic.

Vehicle Breakdowns: Between 3:30 pm and 5 pm, six vehicle breakdowns occurred on the Outer Ring Road (ORR), which was already narrowed due to ongoing Metro construction. These breakdowns further compounded the traffic congestion.

Bengaluru Traffic Nightmare: Massive Jam On ORR, Marathahalli And Sarjapura; Commuters Facing Long Delays

The heavy traffic congestion on September 27 caused significant inconvenience to commuters. Many people had to spend long hours in traffic jams, leading to delays and missed appointments. Some people even had to abandon their vehicles and walk to their destinations.

Meanwhile, a Domino's delivery driver went above and beyond to deliver a pizza to a customer stuck in traffic. The customer, who goes by the Twitter handle @rishivaths, posted about their experience on Twitter, praising the driver for his dedication and customer service.

When we decided to order from @dominos during the Bangalore choke. They were kind enough to track our live location (a few metres away from our random location added in the traffic) and deliver to us in the traffic jam. #Bengaluru #bengalurutraffic #bangaloretraffic pic.twitter.com/stnFDh2cHz  Rishivaths (@rishivaths) September 27, 2023

It took 5 hrs to reach my room from office today which is just 10 km away.



Average speed 2km/hr 



Horrible traffic in Bengaluru#bengalurutraffic #Bengaluru #bangaloretraffic pic.twitter.com/vCqMYWKtxn  Ranjith RKP (@iamranjithrkp) September 27, 2023

The traffic congestion also had a negative impact on the city's economy. Many businesses reported a drop in sales as customers were unable to reach their stores. The congestion also led to increased fuel consumption and pollution.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Thursday, September 28, 2023, 0:46 [IST]
Karnataka Bandh On September 29: Will Shut Toll Gates, Railway Stations, Says Vatal Nagaraj

Bengaluru

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Pro-Kannada activists, led by Vatal Nagaraj, paid a visit to the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce to seek their support for the statewide Karnataka bandh scheduled for September 29. This bandh is organised under the banner of 'Kannada Okkuta,' an amalgamation of various pro-Kannada organizations, and is in protest of the Cauvery issue, with the intention of bringing the entire state to a standstill.

During a press conference, Vatal Nagaraj highlighted the widespread support the bandh has garnered, involving thousands of organisations. He announced that the Film Chamber has committed to suspending all activities within the film industry on the day of the bandh. Additionally, a grand rally is planned from Town Hall to Freedom Park at 10 am, and Nagaraj extended an invitation to all artists to participate in this event.

Nagaraj conveyed a stern warning to the government not to obstruct their march and cautioned that they would escalate their protests if such interference occurred. The bandh is slated to run from 6 am to 6 pm on September 29 and will encompass the entire state, affecting National Highways, toll gates, railways, and airports. Vatal Nagaraj underlined the broad-based support for the bandh, citing endorsements from over 1,900 organizations.

Nagaraj also appealed to the government not to detain activists during the bandh and warned of heightened protests if this plea was disregarded. Several organizations have expressed their support for the bandh and have resolved to suspend their services.

Karnataka Bandh On September 29: Will Cabs Be Available? Will Theaters And Restaurants Be Open?

It must be noted that the Karnataka Water Conservation Committee, led by President Kurubur Shanthakumar and supported by various organizations, had already observed a Bengaluru bandh on September 26 in a separate demonstration related to water conservation issues.
After Spending Over 40 Days In Jail, YouTuber TTF Vasan Will Be Finally Out Of Prison

Udhayanidhi Stalins surprise gift to 3 women priests

Chennai

oi-Oneindia English Desk

One of the principles of DMK is 'among nature's creation, everyone is equal'. In reality, discrimination and untouchability are still prevailing, the condition of women is even worse. DMK played a crucial role in eradicating social evils and establishing social justice.

Former CM Karunanidhi, implemented a law which allowed all persons to become priests irrespective of castes. This particular law was challenged in the Supreme Court (SC) by some sections of people. The Supreme Court in 1972 ruled that the law is constitutional and valid since it helps in establishing equality.

Going by the revolutionary judgement of SC, three women have become priests who will enter into the sanctum sanctorum (Garbagriha). Regarding the historic decision, CM Stalin has tweeted this in his twitter page, "Women can become pilots, astronomers and even soldiers but the one thing they cannot do is enter into the sanctum sanctorum even if it is a temple for women deity. Periyar's dream of making all caste people as priests was made into a reality by #Dravidian model government."

Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has invited the three women priests and gifted them android mobiles surprisingly. Here are some details about the 3 women priests and their background information.

Priest Ramya shared with us her personal details and the experience of becoming a priest. Ramya is an MSc. Mathematics graduate who is residing in Meladhanur village of Tittakudi taluk near Virudhachalam. CM Stalin announced the scheme for all persons to become priests irrespective of castes when she completed her studies. The scheme encouraged Ramya to study in Priest Training school in Srirangam.

DMK government took care of the expenses of Ramya's studies and additionally gave Rs.3000. Recently all three women priests received their graduation certificate from CM Stalin and Minister Sekar Babu.

Ramya said, "I am proud and happy to be a woman priest. We three are role models for the future generation women who want to become priests. My sincere thanks to CM Stalin for introducing such a scheme and making me a priest."

She continued, "Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin invited us to his office and gifted android mobiles to us unexpectedly. He genuinely took interest in us and asked about our ambition to become women priests. We are eternally grateful to CM Stalin who fought many legal battles and overcame all the barriers so that women like us can become priests and enter into sanctum sanctorum."

Krishnaveni who also came from Meladhanur village belongs to an agricultural family. In order to become a priest she joined the Srirangam Priest Training school and learnt Vedas, astrology etc.

The third woman priest Ranjitha said, "I belong to an agricultural family residing in Koradacheri village in Thiruvarur district. I completed my studies from government school and government college. After the completion of my college, I came across the scheme for all to become priests and joined the Srirangam Priest Training School. Now I have been selected as one of the first women priests. My aim is to achieve a lot in the religious field."

3-women scenario today has to become 3000 tomorrow! Best wishes for that.
Why 'Leo' Audio Launch Is Cancelled & How Vijay Fans Are Reacting To It?

Chennai

oi-Prakash KL

The makers of actor Vijay's upcoming Tamil movie 'Leo' have cancelled the audio launch of the movie over "safety constraints."

However, the fans believe that the event was cancelled due to political pressure. In an official statement, the Seven Screen Studio said, "Considering overflowing passes requests & safety constraints, we have decided not to conduct theLeo Audio Launch. In respect of the fans' wishes, we will keep you engaged with frequent updates. P.S. As many would imagine, this is not due to political pressure or any other reasons."

The event was scheduled to take place on September 30 at Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai.

A few days ago, rumors circulated suggesting that Red Giant Movies, a production house owned by DMK minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, was exerting pressure on the makers of 'Leo' to secure distribution rights in Tamil Nadu.

As the makers refused to budge, the ruling party was reluctant to grant event permission to organise the event. However, these rumors have been debunked with an official announcement from the makers.

3-Year Old Boy Who Attended SRK's 'Jawan' Audio Launch Killed In Accident Involving Stray Cattle

The makers have said that they will give all film updates via their official Twitter (X) account.

Vijay's manager Jagadish, who has co-produced the film, said, "It is a very hard decision and We feel the same level of disappointment as each one of the fan will go through. Despite working out various options and tremendous effort, we had to take this tough call, considering the extreme overflow in tickets demand and prioritising the safety of the guests."

How Fans Respond To The Development?

The fans of Vijay are venting out their anger at the ruling DMK, blaming the party for the cancellation of 'Leo' audio launch. They have started expressing their views using the hashtag - #DMKFearsThalapathyVIJAY - on X.

"People who are saying crowd management as a reason that the capacity is 10K & ticket requests were 100K!! Don't the producer know about the ticket demand will be this much only from day one itself? What were they doing since then? ippo thaan crowd control & safety constraints ellam nyabagam varuthaa? So many alternative options could have been thought of & executed..its after all the biggest promo material for your film & now its gone..nothing could match a full-fledged AL vibe," one user said.

DMK 2026 Election Apo thalapathy Vijay Fans Power ennanu katrom 



Tag : #DMKFearsTHALAPATHYVijay pic.twitter.com/oQY95tYf82  SAMCRUZE  (@SamCruze20) September 26, 2023

Second user stated, "Long ago, @annamalai_k pointed out that the #DMK government will use every trick in the book to hinder #Thalapathy @actorvijay's entry into politics. This is what is happening now!!! #BJP #MakkalIyakkam"

Third user commented, "Red giant & Sun pictures dominating Kollywood. In the last 3 years, all big movies released only by them. SAC knocked madam Jayalalitha's door on "kavalan" movie release. Now history repeating for #Leo DMK should bite the dust in upcoming elections for everyone's future."

Some are also using the hashtag #WeStandWithLEO to comment about the latest development.
After Mars, Moon, Sun, The Next Big Thing For ISRO Is Venus Shukrayaan

India

oi-Stuti Tripathi

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has once again elevated the nation's standing on the global stage by achieving historic milestones. First, they accomplished the remarkable feat of Chandrayaan-3's soft landing on the South Pole of the moon, followed by the successful launch of India's maiden solar mission, Aditya-L1. Now, ISRO Chairman S Somanath has revealed that preparations for a mission to Venus, unofficially dubbed 'Shukrayaan,' are already underway, with payloads for this ambitious venture in advanced stages of development.

Addressing the Indian National Science Academy in Delhi, ISRO's chief, Somanath, affirmed, "We have a lot of missions in the conceptual phase. A mission to Venus is already configured. Payloads have already developed for it." He went on to emphasize the significance of exploring Venus, an intriguing planet that holds answers to pressing questions in the realm of space science. While an official launch date for 'Shukrayaan' has not been announced, it is expected to take place in December 2024.

WHY IS VENUS MISSION THE NEXT FOR ISRO: The primary objective of India's mission to Venus is to unravel the mysteries of this enigmatic planet. "Venus is a very interesting planet. It also has an atmosphere. Its atmosphere is so thick. The atmospheric pressure is 100 times that of Earth and it is full of acids. You cannot penetrate the surface. You don't know if its surface is hard or not," remarked S Somanath. He further elaborated on the mission's significance by suggesting that understanding Venus could shed light on the potential evolution of Earth over millennia, saying, "Why are we trying to understand all of this? Earth could be one day Venus. I don't know. Maybe 10,000 years later we (Earth) change our characteristics. Earth was never like this. It was not a habitable place long long back."

Efforts Made To Communicate With Vikram Lander, No Signal Received Yet: ISRO

Venus, as the second planet from the Sun and Earth's closest planetary neighbor, shares similarities with our own planet in terms of size and density, earning it the name of Earth's twin. Previous Venus missions, including ESA's Venus Express and Japan's Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter, have contributed to our knowledge of this intriguing world. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has also conducted flybys of Venus, capturing visible light images of its surface during a 2021 flyby.

ISRO'S SUN, MOON, AND MARS MISSIONS: India's space agency, ISRO, continues to shine brightly on the global stage, with achievements like the successful Chandrayaan -3 mission, Aditya-L1 mission to study the sun, the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) in 2013, and the launch of AstroSat in 2015, marking India's inaugural foray into dedicated astronomical research. With 'Shukrayaan,' ISRO is poised to make another significant stride in space exploration, demonstrating India's prowess in the field.

(With inputs from ANI)
Amit Shah and J P Nadda Strategize with BJP's Rajasthan Leadership for Upcoming State Assembly Elections

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda held discussions with the party's Rajasthan leadership on the upcoming state assembly elections. The meeting included former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, Union ministers Gajendra Singh, Arjun Meghwal, Kailash Chaudhary among others.

India

-Krishna Kripa

In the run-up to the forthcoming Rajasthan Assembly elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda held a high-level meeting with the party's state leadership in Jaipur on Wednesday. The meeting has sparked off speculations that two central ministers might be asked to contest in the upcoming polls. This conjecture follows closely on the heels of BJP announcing three Union ministers and four other MPs as candidates for the impending Madhya Pradesh elections.

High-Level Discussions

Amit Shah and JP Nadda arrived in Jaipur via a special plane on Wednesday evening, proceeding directly to a hotel near the airport where they attended a core committee meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to party sources, Shah and Nadda initially had an exclusive discussion with former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje which lasted around 15 minutes.

Strategy Planning

The duo then proceeded to engage with senior leaders where they discussed potential constituencies and election strategies. Feedback was also sought regarding four 'parivartan yatras' that were recently concluded. The discussions marked an important step towards finalizing their game plan for the Rajasthan Assembly Elections.

Key Participants

Notable attendees at this crucial meet included Union minister Pralhad Joshi who is also designated as BJPs election in-charge for Rajasthan; co-in-charge Nitin Patel; Arun Singh, who holds charge for Rajasthan from BJP's end; state president CP Joshi; Union Ministers Gajendra Singh, Arjun Meghwal, Kailash Chaudhary; leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore; and deputy leader of opposition among others. Their collective inputs will significantly contribute towards shaping up BJPs strategy for these critical electoral battles.

The meetings are understood to be a part of BJPs comprehensive strategy to regain power in Rajasthan. The party is leaving no stone unturned to ensure an effective and winning strategy, which includes roping in central ministers to contest the elections, thereby adding more weightage and credibility to their campaign.

In conclusion, these discussions highlight BJP's strategic approach towards the forthcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan. By involving its top leadership along with Union ministers and senior state leaders, the party aims at formulating a robust election strategy that can pave the way for it to reclaim power in this politically significant state. It remains to be seen how these strategies will unfold on ground zero during campaigning and whether they would indeed translate into electoral victory for BJP.
Tragic Death and Heroic Rescue at Baran Festival: One Dead, One Saved by Quick-Thinking Cop

During a festival in Baran city, one man died of cardiac arrest while performing stunts. Another man who fainted was revived by Deputy Superintendent Rajendra Kumar Meena through CPR. The incident occurred during the Dool procession on Jaljhulani Ekadash.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The city of Baran, Kota RJ, was witness to a tragic incident on September 27th. A local festival turned into a scene of despair as a young man died from an apparent cardiac arrest while another collapsed but was miraculously revived by quick-thinking police officer. The incident throws light on the importance of immediate medical intervention and presence of mind during emergencies.

Tragedy Strikes Amidst Festivities

A 26-year-old man named Lucky Soni was participating in the Dool procession, part of Jaljhulani Ekadashi festivities at one of the akhadas in Baran city. He was performing stunts with sticks when he suddenly collapsed unconscious Tuesday evening. Despite being rushed to the hospital immediately, doctors declared him brought dead upon arrival, according to Circle Inspector Rajesh Khatana.

Quick-Thinking Officer Saves Another Life

In a similar incident at the same procession, another 25-year-old participant fainted mid-performance. This time however, tragedy was averted thanks to swift action taken by Deputy Superintendent of Police for Baran city, Rajendra Kumar Meena who happened to be present at the spot. The young man had injured his mouth during his fall and was bleeding profusely when DSP Meena stepped in.

Showing remarkable presence of mind and training in emergency response techniques like Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), DSP Meena administered CPR on the unconscious victim for five straight minutes until he revived him back to consciousness.

Praise for Heroic Actions

The heroic act did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Additional Director General (ADG)of Police for Crime Branch Dinesh MN took special notice and lauded DSP Meena's quick thinking and bravery on social media platform X. In his post, the ADG wrote: "RPS officer Rajendra Kumar Meena saved the life of a young man who got heart attack by giving CPR in Baran district. Kudos to the presence of mind of the officer and his heroism."

The incident serves as a stark reminder of how quickly joyous occasions can turn tragic without warning. It also highlights the importance of quick medical intervention during emergencies and having trained personnel on site at public gatherings. The swift actions taken by DSP Meena undoubtedly saved a life that day, demonstrating not only his professional training but also his personal commitment to serve and protect.

In conclusion, while one family grieves for their lost loved one, another thanks their stars for having had a guardian angel in uniform present at just the right moment. This incident underscores not only the unpredictability of life but also reinforces faith in humanity through acts of selfless service.
Suspected Facilitator of Illegal Immigration Arrested after Migrant's Tragic Death in English Channel

The UK National Crime Agency announced the arrest of a 21-year-old Sudanese man suspected to be involved in an incident where a woman died attempting to cross the English Channel. The suspect is believed to have piloted a boat that reached UK waters. The case is being investigated by both French and British authorities.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The UK National Crime Agency reported on Wednesday that a 21-year-old Sudanese man has been apprehended in connection with the investigation into the death of a woman attempting to cross the English Channel. The arrest occurred in Dover, a southern English port town, where the man is currently held under suspicion of illegal entry and facilitating illicit immigration.

Suspect's Alleged Role

Authorities believe that this individual may have piloted the small boat that reached UK waters on Tuesday. This development follows after authorities in Calais, northern France, discovered an unidentified woman's body washed up on their shores. Both countries are now collaborating closely to bring those responsible for this tragic event to justice.

Victim Identified as Eritrean Migrant

The Pas-de-Calais regional administration identified the deceased as a 24-year-old migrant from Eritrea. She was found dead at Bleriot-Plage beach after reportedly falling from a boat during her perilous attempt to traverse the English Channel. French authorities are currently leading an investigation into this incident with support from British law enforcement agencies.

Joint Investigation Underway

Craig Turner, deputy director of Britains National Crime Agency, expressed his commitment towards identifying those involved in this unfortunate incident. He emphasized collaboration between both nations' respective law enforcement agencies and highlighted their common goal - bringing those responsible for such tragedies to justice.

British Government's Stance

This incident underscores British Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks Conservative governments increasingly punitive approach towards unauthorized arrivals by sea or other non-conventional means. While human rights advocates argue that these individuals are often fleeing dire circumstances and should be treated with empathy and respect, governments like Sunak's assert that stricter border controls are necessary for national security purposes.

In conclusion, the arrest of a 21-year-old Sudanese man in connection with the death of an Eritrean migrant attempting to cross the English Channel has once again brought issues surrounding immigration and border control into sharp focus. As investigations continue, it remains to be seen what impact this incident will have on existing UK policies and attitudes towards illegal immigration.
Press Release

September 27, 2023 'The more we should invest on health' -- Bong Go reiterates call for increased health budget as country navigates towards pandemic recovery Senator Christopher "Bong" Go, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Health, emphasized in an interview on Tuesday, September 26, the urgent need to bolster the Department of Health's (DOH) budget as the country navigates towards pandemic recovery even amid several existing and emerging public health concerns. "Gaya ng sinabi ko noon, full support ako sa DOH kung ano ang makakatulong sa ating healthcare system," said Go. He recalled the budget deliberations in December 2019 when there were attempts to cut the budget of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) for year 2020. "Nag-budget hearing noong December 2019, tinapyasan ang proposed budget sa RITM at DOH, di po ako pumayag noon. Dinagdagan pa natin at ibinalik natin ang pondo," he narrated. This decision turned out to be crucial then, as RITM later played a vital role in COVID-19 testing when the pandemic started in 2020. Go noted that the restoration of RITM's budget underscored the importance of adequately funding healthcare institutions, especially in unpredictable times. Go's recollection came at a critical time when DOH is facing a P10-billion budget cut for 2024. The proposed budget cut would bring DOH's overall budget down to P199.45 billion from P209.62 billion under the General Appropriations Act of 2023. With this, Go argued that the healthcare system needs more, not less, financial support. He then underscored the urgency for increased investment in the public healthcare system. "The more we should invest sa ating healthcare system, dagdagan ang pondo," Go reiterated. "Para sa akin po, dapat suportahan natin na dagdagan ang pondo ng DOH. 'Wag pong bawasan, dagdagan pa po," he stated further. He emphasized that the funds should be used wisely to benefit patients particularly the less fortunate. "Makinabang dapat ang mga pasyente, makinabang po ang mahihirap nating kababayan na walang ibang matakbuhan kundi tayo pong nasa gobyerno," he said. Go said that those who are wealthy have the option to seek medical care in private hospitals, while the less fortunate are left with no other choice but to rely on public healthcare facilities that rely on government funding. "Ito pong mga helpless, mga hopeless nating kababayan, sila ang unahin natin. 'Yung mayayaman naman po, di pupunta sa public hospitals 'yan," he said. During the Commission on Appointments hearing on the ad interim appointment of Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa which Go presided on early that day, the senator also appealed to DOH to ensure that poor and indigent patients are given utmost attention in public hospitals. Go cited a recent department memorandum signed by Herbosa instructing medical center chiefs to ensure that all patients must be accorded with the available services in Malasakit Centers. The Malasakit Center serves as a one-stop shop aimed at helping particularly poor and indigent patients minimize their medical expenses to the lowest amount possible by collaborating with various agencies offering medical assistance programs. This initiative was institutionalized under Republic Act No. 11463, a law principally authored and sponsored by Go in the Senate. Presently, there are 159 Malasakit Centers spread across the country, and they have collectively provided support to more than seven million Filipinos, as reported by DOH. Moreover, echoing President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.'s priority of bringing specialized medical services closer to other parts of the country, Go highlighted that he has principally sponsored and is one of the authors of the Regional Specialty Centers Act which was recently enacted into law. The law mandates the establishment of regional specialty centers within existing DOH regional hospitals. Given this, Go reminded the DOH that sufficient funding must be allocated in the coming years for the proper implementation of the law. Moreover, Go also emphasized the need to continue bringing basic health services closer to the grassroots through the establishment of more Super Health Centers nationwide which he had advocated for since the time of former president Rodrigo Duterte. "Ipagpatuloy natin na ilapit ang serbisyong medikal mula gobyerno sa ating mga kababayang mahihirap na walang ibang matakbuhan. The more we should support their health needs, the more na mag-invest po tayo sa ating healthcare system," Go said. "Huwag po natin silang pahirapan. Marami po sa mga kababayan natin sa iba't ibang sulok ng Pilipinas na wala silang sariling health facility. Kaya importante na mailapit natin ang serbisyong medikal mula gobyerno sa mga taong nangangailangan nito," he stressed.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov has held a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Trend reports citing Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

During the conversation the current agenda of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia, the process of normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the current situation in Karabakh were discussed.

Minister Jeyhun Bayramov emphasized Azerbaijan's commitment to dialogue on the reintegration of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region.

It was noted that the liquidation of the illegal regime in the territories of Azerbaijan and the disarmament of the armed forces of Armenia, as well as their withdrawal from the territories of Azerbaijan, are being carried out.

During the telephone conversation, views were exchanged on other issues of mutual interest.
Four Arrested by CBI in Probe into Missing Manipuri Students Case

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CBI books Bipin Batra for illegally occupying the post of Additional Director of NBEMS

CBI Team Led By Spl Director In Manipur, Starts Probe Into Killing Of 2 Youths

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, has reached Manipur and started investigating the killing of two youths who had gone missing in July, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said.

Singh told a press conference that Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured him that those who kidnapped and killed the two will be arrested and punished.

"After landing in Imphal, they have started their investigation," the chief minister said without disclosing the place where the CBI team has gone.

Photos of the bodies of the two missing youths went viral on social media, leading to protests by students in the state since Tuesday. The photos surfaced on social media on Monday.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 19:16 [IST]
Credible Evidence Of India's Involvement In Nijjar's Killing: Canadian Sikh MP

India

oi-Sushmita Halder

A chief of Canada's New Democratic Party stated an apparent involvement of a foreign nation in the assassination of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh while addressing the media said, "As the prime minister shared publicly, there is Canadian intelligence which indicates that a Canadian citizen was killed on Canadian soil and a foreign government was implicated."

Singh's New Democratic Party is the fourth largest party in the House of Commons or Lower House of the Canadian Parliament.

Reacting to the allegations by Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against India, Singh said that his views were based on the intelligence briefing he received.

Not India, Pakistan Devised Plan To Kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar In Canada [Report]

"This is unprecedented intelligence that has come forward and that is why we're going to continue to urge that the Canadian government have a thorough investigation that those responsible are brought forward," the NDP leader said.

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Responding to a question, Singh said the United States has been very supportive of Canada's call for transparency from India. "We are going to continue to push for those things," he added.

He further said there is a very real fear of Sikhs being targeted in Canada.

"For a long time, members of the Sikh community have been targeted by actions of the Indian government and for a long time it's gone often unnoticed or unrecognised. For a lot of people hearing the prime minister of a G7 nation provide intelligence that connects the killing of Khalistani terrorist on Canadian soil by foreign government, really confirmed a lot of the fears that people have felt and has made those fears even more real and more tangible," Singh said.

He also claimed that many other Indian diaspora communities criticize the Indian government and its policies and share the same fear.

"I speak of other religious minority communities like Muslims, other communities that are oppressed like women and groups that are from low caste backgrounds or tribal backgrounds who've expressed very deep concerns about the treatment that they've received. They're also feeling that real sense of fear and worry," he said.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar's Murder Caught On Camera: CCTV Footage Shows How He Was Killed

Tensions escalated between India and Canada due to Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau's accusations of possible involvement of Indian representatives in the assassination of 45-year-old Hardeep Singh Nijjar, labeled as a Khalistani terrorist, in Canadian territory, specifically in British Columbia on June 18. Nijjar was identified as a terrorist by India in 2020.

In response to what it deemed as "absurd" and "motivated" allegations, India retaliated by removing a high-ranking Canadian diplomat. This action mirrored Ottawa's decision to expel an Indian officer over the same matter.

Meanwhile, India declared a temporary halt on visa issuance to Canadian nationals and has requested Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic representation in the country.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 13:38 [IST]
Dramatic Rescue of 35 People From Burning PG in Delhi: All Safe and Sound

A fire broke out at a womens paying guest facility located in Northwest Delhis Mukherjee Nagar area. The incident led to the successful rescue of 35 people by firefighters with no fatalities reported. Five individuals were taken to hospital due to smoke inhalation while the cause of the fire was identified as an electrical short-circuit.

India

-Krishna Kripa

A fire broke out in a women's paying guest facility in Northwest Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar area on Wednesday evening, leading to the rescue of thirty-five people, including a four-year-old girl. The swift response by firemen ensured that all inmates were safely evacuated from the premises, averting potential casualties.

Rescue Operation and Casualties

The officials from the fire department reported that five individuals had to be rushed to hospital due to inhalation of fumes. Among these was the young girl who was also staying at the facility. Despite sending 20 fire tenders to tackle the blaze, only eight could reach the location owing to traffic congestion and narrow lanes characteristic of this part of Delhi.

"All inmates of the PG were safely rescued and there was no casualty," confirmed an officer from Delhi Police. This sentiment was echoed by Deputy Commissioner of Police (northwest), Jitender Kumar Meena who added, "Around 7.45 PM, we received a call regarding a fire breaking out in a PG. Shortly after, local police and the fire brigade arrived at the scene."

Investigations into Cause

Post evacuation and containment efforts, preliminary investigations have revealed that a short-circuit may have been responsible for sparking off this incident. "The cause of the fire was identified as a short-circuit in meter sic", said DCP Meena.

Government Response

In light of this incident which has raised concerns over safety standards maintained at such facilities across Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal assured citizens that he is monitoring developments closely.

The Role Of Fire Department

The role played by firefighters in managing this crisis cannot be overstated; their prompt action resulted not just in extinguishing flames but also ensuring that all residents were brought to safety. The fire department was alerted about the incident through an emergency call and they responded with immediate effect.

In conclusion, this incident serves as a stark reminder of the potential dangers posed by electrical faults and the importance of maintaining high safety standards in residential facilities. The quick response from the fire department and local police is commendable, which ensured minimal damage and no loss of life. However, it also highlights the need for better infrastructure planning in congested areas like Mukherjee Nagar to allow for smooth functioning of rescue operations during emergencies.
Delhi Government's 'Mohalla' Bus Scheme To Be Launched Soon

India

oi-PTI

The Delhi government's ambitious 'mohalla' bus scheme is expected to be rolled out within the next few months with the DTC likely to sign a contract for procuring electric buses within this week, an official said on Wednesday. The mohalla bus service, announced in the 2023-24 Delhi budget, aims to deploy shorter nine-metre electric buses to boost last-mile connectivity in areas with roads that have less width or are crowded.

"We are likely to sign a contract with the e-bus manufacturers this week or early next week for procurement of buses. The delivery of buses will take anywhere between three to five months," the official said. Last week, in an interview with PTI, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said strengthening last-mile connectivity is a key focus area of the government. "We have held several consultations and also constituted a committee. I will also be holding one-on-one meetings with MLAs, and councillors to get first-hand experience. We are also planning to hold public meetings in different areas. After these consultations we will finalise the routes of the service," he said.

Gahlot had said that these buses would ply in a circular motion in a mohalla so that people could reach nearby metro stations, markets or hospitals. The Arvind Kejriwal government has planned to procure more than 2,000 feeder buses to operate on routes that cannot be accessed by 12-metre buses.

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A technical committee was constituted by the transport minister in May to decide on routes and operational characteristics of the new bus scheme. The committee has completed the route survey based on the public feedback. "Now the survey data is being tallied with the population data of those, road infrastructure and width of roads," the official said. The mohalla buses will be specifically designed to cater to areas where the width of the road is less or areas that are too crowded for regular 12-metre buses to ply.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 15:49 [IST]
When Is Eid Milad Un Nabi Celebrated In India? What Is Significance Of Mawlid? Details Inside

Eid Milad 2023: Wishes, WhatsApp Status Quotes, Messages To Share With Muslim Friends

India

oi-Prakash KL

Muslims worldwide will celebrate Eid-e-Milad, Nabi Day, or Mawlid to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad on Thursday.

This festival is observed during Rabi' al-awwal, the third month of the Islamic year. The start of the month Rabi al-awwal was marked with the sighting of the moon on October 18, in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, along with other regions of the subcontinent. In accordance with the Gregorian calendar, the month commenced on October 19.

The date of Eid Milad-un-Nabi is determined based on the moon's sighting. This year, it will begin on the evening of September 27 and conclude on the evening of September 28.

Eid Milad-un-Nabi is observed on the 12th day of Rabi' ul-awwal, the third month of the Islamic calendar. It's essential to recognize that there's a discrepancy in its celebration between the Shia and Sunni sects. Sunni scholars designate the 12th Rabi' ul-awwal for Eid Milad-un-Nabi, whereas Shia scholars commemorate it on the 17th Rabi' al-awwal.

What Is Eid Milad-un Nabi 2023? Check Out Date And Significance

Wishes, WhatsApp Quotes, Messages and Greetings To Share With Muslim Friends

On this joyous occasion of Eid-e-Milad, I extend my warmest greetings and heartfelt wishes to all Muslims around the world. Eid Mubarak!

May the light of Prophet Muhammad's teachings guide us towards peace, compassion, and unity. Let us reflect on his life, embrace his virtues, and spread love and kindness in our communities. Eid Mubarak!

May the blessings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad illuminate your life and guide you towards a fulfilling and prosperous journey. Eid-e-Milad Mubarak!

On this blessed occasion, may your heart be filled with love, your soul be enriched with wisdom, and your life be adorned with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad. Happy Eid-e-Milad!

Wishing you and your family a joyous Eid-e-Milad, filled with peace, harmony, and love. May your faith be strengthened and your path enlightened. Eid Mubarak!

Eid-e-Milad brings joy and hope to our hearts. May this auspicious day bring you blessings and happiness beyond measure. Eid Mubarak to you and your loved ones!

As we celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad, may his exemplary life inspire us to be better individuals and strive for compassion, love, and unity. Eid-e-Milad Mubarak!

On this special day, may Allah's blessings be showered upon you, your family, and your friends. May your days ahead be filled with peace, prosperity, and faith. Happy Eid-e-Milad!

Sending you warm wishes on Eid-e-Milad, a day to honor and celebrate the life of the Prophet. May his teachings guide you to the path of righteousness. Eid Mubarak!

Eid-e-Milad is a reminder of the mercy and love Allah bestowed upon us by sending Prophet Muhammad. May his teachings be the light that guides you in life. Eid Mubarak!

On this beautiful day of Eid-e-Milad, I pray that your heart is filled with joy, your soul is enriched with peace, and your mind is open to the wisdom of Prophet Muhammad. Eid Mubarak!

May the spirit of Eid-e-Milad fill your heart with faith, peace, and love for all. Wishing you and your loved ones a blessed and joyous celebration. Eid Mubarak!

Eid-e-Milad is a day to remember the teachings of the Prophet and apply them in our lives. May we embody his compassion and love for humanity. Eid Mubarak!
Murder of Dalit Family Leads to Suspension of Four Land Consolidation Department Employees in Kaushambi

Following the murder of three members of a Dalit family, four employees from the land consolidation department have been suspended by district administration. The suspensions are based on an investigation led by Additional District Magistrate Legal Jaichand Pandey.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The district administration of Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh has taken strict action following the tragic murder of a Dalit family over land disputes. On Wednesday, four employees from the land consolidation department were suspended and a request was made for the suspension of an assistant land consolidation officer. The decision came after an investigation into the incident which resulted in the death of three members of a Dalit family.

Investigation Leads to Suspensions

A three-member committee led by Additional District Magistrate Legal Jaichand Pandey conducted an inquiry into this horrifying incident. Based on their findings, Raj Kiran, Shilvant Singh, Sivesh Singh and Ram Asre - all land consolidation lekhpal (accountants) - have been suspended due to their involvement in this case. Additional District Information Officer Ravi Jaiswal confirmed these suspensions and added that they have also requested for Assistant Land Consolidation Officer Afzal Ahmed's suspension.

The Tragic Incident

The victims identified as Shivsharan (30), his wife Brijkali (25), and his father-in-law Horilal (60) were gunned down inside their home on September 15th allegedly over property dispute. This gruesome event took place during the early hours while they were asleep at their residence in Chhabilepur village.

Police Action Following The Incident

In response to this heinous crime, police have made several arrests including apprehending last week's mastermind behind these killings. It was earlier reported by police that Shivsharan had purchased a piece of land adjacent to his in-laws' house in Chhabilepur village three years ago where he resided with his wife.

Increased Security Measures Post-Incident

In light of recent events and escalating tensions, a temporary police station has been established at Mohiuddinpur to increase vigilance and ensure the safety of local residents. This measure is expected to deter any further violent incidents and bring a sense of security among the villagers.

In conclusion, the tragic killing of three members of a Dalit family over land disputes in Kaushambi district has led to strict action by the administration including suspensions within the land consolidation department. The incident serves as a grim reminder that property disputes can escalate into deadly violence if not handled appropriately. It also underscores the need for stringent measures from authorities to prevent such unfortunate events from recurring. The establishment of a temporary police station post-incident indicates an increased focus on maintaining law and order in the region, providing some solace amidst this tragedy.
Manipur Violence: CBI Team Led by Special Director To Probe Killings Of Missing Youths

India

oi-PTI

A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, will reach Imphal in a special flight on Wednesday to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two students who went missing in the northeastern state on July 6, sources said. The decision was taken within hours of the case being handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Manipur government.

The team led by Bhatnagar, the second-in-command in the federal agency, will also have Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is camping in Imphal, sources said. The team will comprise officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation and technical surveillance. It will also have experts from the CBI's elite Central Forensic Science Laboratory, the sources said.

Photos of the bodies of the two missing youths went viral on social media, leading to protests by students in the state. The photos surfaced on social media on Monday. Altogether 45 students, many of them girls, were injured in Imphal Valley on Tuesday as the police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged protesters demonstrating against the killing of two youths who were allegedly kidnapped in July, officials said.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh posted on X: "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." "To further expedite this crucial investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director, along with a specialised team, will be arriving in Imphal tomorrow morning in a special flight. Their presence underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter," Singh said. The CM further said he has been in constant touch with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to find the perpetrators of the killings. The state government earlier said the case has already been handed over to the CBI.

RAF Refutes Making Casteist Remarks While Controlling Demonstrators In Imphal: Manipur Police

Photos of the bodies of the two students -- Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) -- who were missing since July, went viral on social media on Monday. One of the two photos purportedly showed the students with two armed men and the other was of two bodies. Police had previously said the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off. The last location of their mobile handsets was traced to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district, police had said.

More than 175 people have been killed and several hundreds injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 13:59 [IST]
Manipur Violence: State Govt Declares Entire State As 'Disturbed Area', Imposes AFSPA

India

oi-Stuti Tripathi

Amid unrest, the Manipur government on Wednesday declared the entire state a 'disturbed area' under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and extended the status across the state, except 19 designated police station areas.

This move follows a prior development earlier this year in March when the Central government decided to remove AFSPA from four police stations - Wangoi, Leimakhong, Nambol, and Moirang - within Manipur. This reduction in the application of AFSPA left 19 police station areas in seven districts of Manipur without the act's jurisdiction.

The decision to label the entire state as "disturbed" and extend AFSPA comes in response to the Governor of Manipur's assertion that the ongoing violent activities perpetrated by various extremist and insurgent groups necessitate the deployment of the Armed Forces in support of civil administration. This official stance is detailed in a notification, which also specifies the 19 police station areas excluded from the extension of AFSPA.

Manipur Violence: CBI Team Led by Special Director To Probe Killings Of Missing Youths

The unrest in Manipur stems from a complex web of factors. It began with ethnic clashes ignited by a high court order in March that directed the Manipur state government to recommend the inclusion of the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list. Protests and tensions escalated between the Naga and Kuki-Zomi tribes, who opposed this decision, and the Meitei community. The situation took a disturbing turn when a distressing video emerged on social media, displaying the humiliation of two tribal women who were forcibly paraded naked by a group of men. This shocking incident sparked widespread outrage and deepened the conflict.

Recent tensions flared up once again when photos circulated on social media, revealing the lifeless bodies of two students who had gone missing. These young individuals, identified as Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17), became the focal point of renewed unrest.

Amid this turmoil, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge directed his criticism toward Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to address the situation in Manipur and take action. Kharge demanded the removal of the state's BJP chief minister, citing incompetence and alleging that the BJP had turned Manipur into a battleground. He raised concerns about the weaponization of violence against women and children in the region.

For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the state.



The horrific images of students being targeted in this violence has once again shocked the entire nation.



It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponised  Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) September 27, 2023

The latest clash occurred in the Singjamei area of Imphal, where Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel confronted local protesters decrying the killing of the two missing students, who had vanished on July 6. The security forces resorted to tear gas shells, rubber bullets, and baton charges, resulting in injuries to 45 protesters, the majority of whom were students.

Manipur has endured 147 days of hardship and unrest, prompting calls for Prime Minister Modi to visit the state and address the ongoing crisis. The Manipur government has implored the public to exercise restraint and allow authorities to investigate the tragic "kidnapping and killing" of the two missing youths.
Massachusetts Man Crashes Into Home, Stabs Five Officers After High-Speed Chase

Douglas Hagerty of Lakeville, Massachusetts is accused of injuring five police officers during a high-speed chase that ended when he crashed into a home. Among those injured was local Police Chief Edward Walsh.

India

-Krishna Kripa

In a shocking incident in Taunton, Massachusetts, a man who attempted to evade police during a traffic stop ended up leading officers on a high-speed chase that culminated in him crashing into a house and stabbing five policemen. The assailant was subsequently arrested.

High-Speed Chase Leads to Violent Confrontation

The dramatic series of events unfolded when local law enforcement tried to pull over Douglas Hagerty, 35, from Lakeville, Massachusetts. Police accused Hagerty of driving erratically but rather than complying with the officers' orders, he chose instead to speed away. This reckless decision sparked off an intense chase during which Hagerty almost hit an officer with his vehicle. In his desperate bid to escape the pursuing police cruisers, he drove directly at one car before colliding with another and ultimately crashing into the residence of one of his relatives.

Officers Sustain Injuries During Arrest

This violent confrontation did not end with the crash; it escalated further when Hagerty attacked five officers trying to apprehend him after the collision. One officer sustained serious slash wounds across his face, neck and back and had to be transported for treatment at a hospital in Boston located approximately thirty miles northwards. His current condition remains unknown as police have yet to release any updates.

The other four injured officers were treated locally including Police Chief Edward Walsh who also fell victim to this brutal assault despite being off-duty at that time but responding due his proximity to the scene. He suffered stab injuries in his stomach but was later released after receiving medical attention.

A Community Shaken by Unprecedented Violence

This horrific incident has left its mark on this small community where such violence is rare. It underscores the risks that law enforcement personnel routinely undertake while performing their duties - even something seemingly routine like pulling over an erratic driver can escalate into a life-threatening situation. The police force's dedication to maintaining law and order is commendable, as they risk their lives in the line of duty.

In conclusion, this incident serves as a stark reminder of the unpredictable dangers that law enforcement officers face daily. It underscores the need for constant vigilance, preparedness and effective strategies to handle crisis situations. As we await more details on the condition of the officer sent to Boston hospital, our thoughts are with all those affected by this shocking act of violence.
Nearly 1.6 Lakh Indians Opted For Canadian Citizenship In Last 5 Years: MEA

India

oi-Sushmita Halder

Around 160,000 Indians, comprising nearly 20% of the total global figures, have chosen Canadian citizenship between January 2018 and June 2023, according to data from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). This comes during a period of tense relations between India and Canada.

A report by the Times of India reveals that Canada has become the second most popular location for Indian expats at this time, trailing behind the United States. Australia and the UK rank as the third and fourth choices respectively.

The report stated that roughly 840,000 Indians renounced their Indian nationality within the stated period, obtaining citizenship in 114 diverse nations, and a significant 58% opted for the US or Canada.

As per TOI, the annual data indicating the number of Indians giving up their nationality shows a generally increasing pattern, although there was a decrease in 2020 because of the global health crisis. The figures rose sharply from 130,000 in 2018 to 220,000 in 2022. Slightly more than 87,000 Indians chose to take up foreign citizenship in the initial six months of 2023.

Justin Trudeau Is Not The Best Choice For Next Canada PM: Says A Poll

Ravneet Bittu, Ludhiana MP from the Congress party, recently penned a note to Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighting the apprehension experienced by Indians based in Canada due to ongoing stress.

"Over six lakh Indian students are studying in Canada, many of them have also applied for permanent residency. The increased tension might lead to delays or complications in visa processing for Indian students, who plan to study in Canada or those seeking visa extensions," he was quoted as saying. He appealed to PM Modi to prioritize the students' welfare in Canada.

Manpreet Kaur, a Punjab student working in Toronto, was quoted as saying, "My sister-in-law is pregnant and she holds Canadian citizenship. We were expecting my mother to visit us in Canada and her visa application was already made in India. Under these existing circumstances, we are uncertain on how to proceed."

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 11:00 [IST]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. It is necessary to create a new format of economic relations in the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), Orkhan Mammadov, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Development of Small and Medium Business (SMB) under Azerbaijan's Ministry of Economy, said at the 2nd Agribusiness Forum of Turkic States, Trend reports.

According to him, the Agency for Small and Medium Business Development closely cooperates with agencies associated with the Organization of Turkic States and relevant institutions of observer countries of the structure. Over the past period, memoranda of understanding were signed with the structures of Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Hungary, and joint business forums and meetings were held.

"In September last year, with the support of the Organization of Turkic States, the Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Economy, a joint organization of the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium Business, and the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs' Organizations of Azerbaijan, the Shusha Turkic Business Forum was held on the restoration and development of the Karabakh region," Mammadov said.

He noted that a few days ago, a business and investment forum was held in Istanbul within the framework of the 12th meeting of the economy ministers of the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States. As for agribusiness, which is the topic of the current event, the creation of an innovative agribusiness environment and its development in accordance with modern challenges are of exceptional importance.
NIA Raids 50 Locations In Khalistani Nexus Probe

India

oi-Sushmita Halder

The National Investigation Agency is conducting a large-scale operation involving searches at 50 sites in six diverse areas related to the Khalistan-Gangster connection. Reportedly, the agency's agenda includes capturing hawala operatives and logistics supervisors linked to gangsters affiliated with Khalistan.

The raids are currently taking place in several states, including 30 locations in Punjab, 13 in Rajasthan, 4 in Haryana, 2 in Uttarakhand, and 1 in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh each.

Earlier, the agency disclosed a list of 19 absconding Khalistani terrorists located in the UK, US, Canada, Dubai, Pakistan, and other nations, whose properties would be seized, as per sources.

The NIA seized the assets of identified terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is part of the prohibited pro-Khalistani organization Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). Reports suggest that these 19 absconders will face legal consequences under the UAPA anti-terrorist legislation, as they are charged with spearheading anti-India activities from overseas.

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NIA Launches Nationwide Raids on Khalistan-Terror Nexus | Key Gangster Aide nabbed | One India News

The NIA declared a reward of Rs 10 lakh each for information related to alleged terrorists Harwinder Singh Sandhu, also known as Rinda, and Lakhbir Singh Sandhu, known as Landa. They are purportedly connected to the prohibited group Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), which is charged with fostering terror activities in India.

Assets Of Khalistani Extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun Seized By NIA In Punjab

The NIA has increased its efforts against pro-Khalistan terrorists, and have offered a monetary reward of Rs 5 lakh for information on three accomplices from BKI. These individuals are Parminder Singh Kaira from Ferozpur, Satnam Singh, and Yadvinder Singh from Tarn Taran in Punjab.

The NIA has stated that there are four individuals sought in relation to a case filed earlier this year. This case involves the BKI's actions of terrorism, which intended to disrupt India's peaceful society and incite fear in Punjab.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 10:12 [IST]
Not India, Pakistan Devised Plan To Kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar In Canada [Report]

India

oi-Prakash KL

While Canada has pointed fingers at India over the killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a report has now claimed that it is Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that hatched the plan to eliminate him.

According to a report in India Today, the ISI hatched the plan to strain India and Canada's relationship by killing Nijjar.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was the chief of the banned Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) and one of India's most-wanted terrorists who carried a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. He was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen outside a gurdwara in Surrey in the western Canadian province of British Columbia in June.

The ISI killed Nijjar through hired criminal, the report said citing sources. Also, the Khalistani leader was pressurised to support gangsters in the last two years by the ISI.

With his death, the ISI is now looking for Nijjar's replacement.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar's Murder Caught On Camera: CCTV Footage Shows How He Was Killed

On the other hand, India and Canada's relationship took a blow after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an explosive statement recently accusing an Indian government agency of killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He also expelled an Indian diplomat identified as Pavan Kumar Rai, the head of India's foreign intelligence agency in Canada, the Toronto Star newspaper reported.

Since then, both the countries have taken several actions which have only intensified the tensions between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the latest report in the Washington Post has claimed that at least six assailants were involved in the incident and over 50 bullets were fired at Nijjar.

The report also claims that the authorities arrived late to the crime scene despite the cops patrolling the neighborhood regularly. Precisely, they came between 12 and 20 minutes after the gunshots were first heard.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 13:17 [IST]
Outrage as Embattled BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri Gets New Poll Role Despite Derogatory Remarks

The BJP has faced criticism from opposition leaders for assigning a new role to Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Bidhuri despite his controversial remarks against BSP MP Danish Ali. The move is seen by some as rewarding inappropriate behavior.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The recent decision by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to assign Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Bidhuri with poll responsibilities in Rajasthan's Tonk district has triggered a wave of criticism from opposition leaders. The move comes despite Bidhuri being embroiled in controversy for his derogatory remarks against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Danish Ali during a Lok Sabha session.

Opposition leaders have expressed their disapproval, accusing BJP of rewarding Bidhuri instead of holding him accountable for his offensive comments. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh took to social media platform X to express his views, sarcastically referring to BJP's slogan 'Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas' as mere rhetoric.

Criticism from Opposition

Jairam Ramesh posted on X: "Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwasyeh sab hai inka bakwaas." Translated into English this means 'Everyone's support, everyone's development and everyone's trust - all these are their nonsense.' This post was seen as an indirect jibe at the ruling partys action towards Bidhuri.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra also joined the chorus of critics. She questioned how a person who has been showcaused can be given a new role by BJP. In her post on X she asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi if this was part of his outreach program aimed at minorities which he calls 'Sneha Yatra.'

Bidhuris Role in Tonk District

Tonk district is significant due to its large Gurjar community population and comprises four assembly seats including one held by senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot. BJP believes that Bidhuri, who also belongs to the Gurjar community, could potentially swing votes in their favor.

Party sources have indicated that Bidhuris role will be similar to a poll in-charge for the district. In his recent post on X, he confirmed attending a coordination meeting for this purpose.

Conclusion

The decision by BJP to assign Ramesh Bidhuri with poll responsibilities despite his controversial remarks has sparked criticism from opposition leaders. It remains to be seen how this move will impact the party's standing among voters, particularly those belonging to minority communities and whether it will succeed in swaying votes in Tonk district. The debate around this issue highlights the ongoing tension between India's ruling party and its critics over issues of inclusivity and representation.
Opposition Leaders Join School Job Aspirants' Protest in Kolkata, Sparking Speculations of Covert Alliance Against TMC

BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari and Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi participated in a protest rally organised by aspiring candidates for school jobs in West Bengal. Their participation has triggered accusations from the ruling TMC of a covert alliance among the CPIM, Congress, and BJP.

India

-Krishna Kripa

The political landscape of West Bengal witnessed an interesting development on September 27, when BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari and Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi joined a protest rally organized by aspiring candidates for school jobs. The event took place at Camac Street in South Kolkata, close to the office of TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. This unexpected alliance has led to accusations from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party of a covert coalition among the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress, and the BJP.

Protest Against Alleged Corruption

The primary focus of the protest was alleged corruption within the TMC government affecting job aspirants for schools. "The school job aspirants, who are suffering due to the corruption of the TMC government, have organised a protest rally and have invited me to participate in it as the leader of opposition in assembly," stated Adhikari addressing reporters at the scene. He further added that anyone keen on fighting against TMC's misrule and alleged corruption is welcome to join such demonstrations.

A United Front Against Corruption?

Bagchi echoed similar sentiments regarding his participation in this protest. He expressed no reservations about participating in any rally or programme against what he perceives as corrupt practices within TMC's governance structure. He said: "I have no qualms walking with Suvendu Adhikari against the TMC government." At this demonstration, alongside posters criticising TMC were placards promoting an 'INDIA' alliance - hinting at possible future collaborations between these seemingly disparate political entities.

An Unlikely Alliance?

This joint appearance by leaders from two different parties has sparked speculation about potential alliances forming ahead of future elections. It also raises questions regarding whether these parties are willing to set aside their ideological differences in order to combat what they perceive as a common enemy - the ruling TMC party. However, it remains unclear whether this is a one-off incident or an indication of more concerted efforts towards collaboration in the future.

In conclusion, this protest rally has stirred up the political dynamics within West Bengal, with accusations of covert alliances and potential collaborations making headlines. The participation of BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari and Congress leader Kaustav Bagchi in a protest against alleged corruption within the TMC government signals a possible shift in political strategies. While it's too early to predict how this will impact upcoming elections, it certainly adds another layer of complexity to West Bengal's already vibrant political scene.
London-Based Chartered Accountant Falls Victim to Infamous Rice Puller Metal Scam in India

India

-Krishna Kripa

On Wednesday, Thane Police reported a case of the infamous rice puller metal scam in which a 53-year-old chartered accountant was allegedly cheated out of Rs 59 lakh by four men. The victim, who resides in London and visits India intermittently, met one of the accused two years ago at a hotel in Mumbai. Over time, they remained in contact and eventually, this acquaintance introduced the victim to three other accomplices.

The Deception

Under the guise of promising returns on investment, these four individuals enticed the London-based accountant into investing in what they claimed to be 'rice pulling.' According to police reports based on the FIR lodged by the victim, he made an initial payment of Rs 55 lakh in September 2022 followed by another payment of Rs 4 lakh later. However, after receiving his money, the quartet began ignoring him and failed to provide any return on his investment as promised.

Rice Puller Metal Scam

In essence, this scam revolves around luring potential victims into investing large sums of money into what is referred to as 'copper iridium' or 'rice puller metal.' Allegedly possessing rare powers and used by aerospace organisations for its unique properties; this metal is often leveraged as bait with promises of high returns.

The Aftermath

The realization that he had fallen prey to such a fraud dawned upon our victim when he noticed that not only were his calls being ignored but also there was no sign whatsoever regarding any returns on his hefty investments. Consequently, he approached Thane Police who have registered a case under various sections of IPC for cheating against these four unidentified men.

Awaiting Justice

No arrests have been made so far according to investigation officers handling this case. It is crucial to note that this incident has once again brought to light the increasing number of such fraudulent schemes that prey on unsuspecting victims with promises of lucrative returns. The police are urging the public to be more vigilant and sceptical when approached for investments in unusual commodities.

In conclusion, while it is paramount for law enforcement agencies to bring these culprits to justice swiftly, it is equally important for individuals to exercise caution and due diligence before parting with their hard-earned money. As we await further updates on this investigation, let us remember the old adage - "If something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't."
New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez Denies Federal Bribery Accusations

US Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that accuse him of receiving bribes in return for using his political influence for personal gain and advancing Egyptian interests. The senator, who was released on a $100,000 bond, is also accused of doing favours for local businessmen.

India

-Krishna Kripa

US Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wife were recently charged with allegations of accepting bribes in the form of cash and gold bars. They are accused of using political influence to clandestinely advance Egyptian interests and provide favors for local businessmen. Both pleaded not guilty during a brief hearing at the lower Manhattan federal courthouse.

The Indictment

The indictment, unsealed days before the court appearance, alleges extensive corruption by Menendez, a Democrat. The charges led him to step down as chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez spoke only once during the court proceedings when each defendant was asked to confirm that they understood their respective charges. His lawyer entered his not guilty plea.

Post-Hearing Proceedings

After the hearing, Menendez led his wife out of the courtroom by hand amidst a flurry of reporters' questions which he chose to ignore. He maintained a tight-lipped smile as he made his way into a waiting car outside the courthouse.

Bail Conditions

The senator was granted release on posting a USD 100,000 bond but has been ordered to surrender all personal passports as part of his bail conditions. However, he will be allowed to retain an official passport enabling him travel outside US for government business if required.

Implications on Political Career

This scandal could have severe implications on Menendez's political career should he be found guilty after trial. As these allegations involve misuse of power for personal gain and advancing foreign interests secretly, it raises serious doubts about his integrity and capacity in public service.

Awaiting Trial

The trial is set to commence soon where both defendants will face rigorous cross-examination from prosecutors who aim at establishing their guilt beyond reasonable doubt based on evidence gathered so far. The outcome of this trial will undoubtedly have far-reaching effects, not just on Menendez's career but also the broader political landscape.

In conclusion, the allegations against Senator Bob Menendez and his wife are serious and potentially damaging to his reputation and political career. The couples plea of not guilty has set the stage for a high-profile trial that could expose further details about corruption within political circles. As we await the commencement of proceedings, it is clear that this case serves as a stark reminder about the importance of integrity in public service. It underscores the need for transparency in government dealings and highlights how misuse of power can lead to dire consequences.
Unwavering Dedication: Mamata Banerjee Continues Work Despite Physical Injuries

India

-Krishna Kripa

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, recently disclosed that she has suffered numerous injuries throughout her 34-year-long political career. Despite the recurring pain from these injuries, Banerjee insists that she never allows them to interfere with her work. This revelation was made during a recorded speech at the TV9 Bangla Nakshsatra Samman event on Wednesday.

Mamata Banerjee's Tribute and Revelation

In her address, which was delivered via a telephone conversation with TV9 CEO Barun Das and played back at the start of the programme for an audience consisting of Kolkata's glitterati, Banerjee paid tribute to those who were conferred awards at the event. She stated that all recipients have brought honor to West Bengal through their various achievements in different fields.

During this same conversation, Banerjee revealed personal information about her own struggles during her extensive political career. "I withstood many physical injuries in 34 years of political life during which I was attacked many times," she said. "These wounds often create problems as the pain revives. But I never let the pain come in the way of my work."

Health Concerns Prompt Rest

This disclosure comes after doctors advised Banerjee to take rest for ten days due to complications arising from old injuries during her recent official tour across two nations. The chief minister has been known for maintaining a rigorous schedule and being committed to public service despite any health concerns.

Eminent Personalities Honored

The TV9 Bangla Nakshsatra Samman event recognized several notable personalities for their contributions in diverse fields. Among them were painter Jogen Choudhury; writer Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay; poet Joy Goswami; classical vocalist Pt Ajay Chakraborty; elocutionists Jagannath Basu and Urmimala Basu; and a magician whose name was not mentioned in the original report.

In conclusion, Banerjee's candid revelation about her health challenges underscores her dedication to serving West Bengal despite personal hardships. Her tribute to the awardees at the TV9 Bangla Nakshsatra Samman event further highlights her commitment to recognizing and celebrating talent within the state. As she takes time off for rest as per medical advice, it is anticipated that she will return with renewed vigor to continue leading West Bengal towards progress.
Severe malnourished baby from Iraq with rare heart defect treated in India

Iraq gets a new government after a year of deadlock

Iraq: At least 100 killed in fire at wedding

International

dwnews-DW News

At least 113 people were killed, and more than 150 injured, after a fire broke out at a wedding celebration in northern Iraq on Wednesday.

The disaster occurred in the town of Al-Hamdaniyah near Mosul in Nineveh province.

Video footage showed emergency workers climbing over charred wreckage of the wedding hall searching for survivors.

"All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident," a spokesperson for the Health Ministry said.

What caused the fire?

The fire tore through the building after fireworks were lit during the wedding celebration, local civil defense officials said.

Civil defense authorities reported the use of prefabricated panels that were "highly flammable and contravened safety standards" inside the hall.

Iraq: US citizen reportedly killed in Baghdad

"The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials," a statement from the civil defense authorities said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has ordered a probe into the blaze and has asked the country's interior and health ministries to provide relief, a statement published by his office said.

The provincial governor of Nineveh, Najim al-Jubouri, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals.

He added that there were no final casualty figures yet from the fire, which suggests the death toll could still increase.

Source: DW
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Nagorno-Karabakh: Why There Has Been A Conflict Between Azerbaijan And Armenians?

International

oi-Prakash KL

A large number of ethnic Armenians escaped from Nagorno-Karabakh, forming lines for fuel and congesting the route to Armenia. This exodus followed the swift military operation by Azerbaijan, resulting in the defeat of the decades-old separatist state.

The self-proclaimed state situated in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region, acknowledged by no nation, disappeared so rapidly last week. The ethnic Armenian inhabitants had mere minutes to pack their belongings before leaving their residences, becoming part of a mass departure fueled by concerns about potential ethnic cleansing following Azerbaijan's victory.

Some 120,000 Armenians, who considered Karabakh as their home, left for Armenia.

Where is Nagorno-Karabakh Situated?

Situated in the mountainous South Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, this territory has been a longstanding point of contention.

What is the conflict all about?

The historical conflict in the region between Christian Armenians and Turkic Muslim Azeris spans over a century.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, in their present forms, were integrated into the Soviet Union during the 1920s.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an area with a predominantly Armenian population, was under the control of Azerbaijan. As the Soviet Union started to disintegrate in the late 1980s, the regional parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to unite with Armenia.

Azerbaijan aimed to quell the separatist movement, while Armenia supported it. These circumstances sparked ethnic conflicts, which escalated into a full-fledged war after both Armenia and Azerbaijan declared independence from Moscow. Subsequently, years of violence and hardship ensued.

Throughout the years, the death toll reached tens of thousands, with over a million individuals forcibly displaced. Reports emerged of ethnic cleansing and massacres perpetrated by both factions.

The initial Nagorno-Karabakh conflict concluded through a ceasefire brokered by Russia in 1994. At the end of the hostilities, Armenian forces had secured control over Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding regions.

According to the agreement, Nagorno-Karabakh retained its status as part of Azerbaijan. However, in practice, it has been primarily governed by a self-proclaimed separatist republic, led by ethnic Armenians and supported by the Armenian government.

In a 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured seven surrounding districts and took back about a third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself and Russia brokered the peace deal.

Under the agreement, Armenian forces had to withdraw from these areas and have since been confined to a smaller part of the region.

The Role of Russia and Turkey

While Turkey has been an ally of Azerbaijan, Russia had close ties with Armenia. Both Russia and Armenia are part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military alliance of six former Soviet states.

However, the relationship between both the countries has strained since Nikol Pashinyan, who led huge anti-government protests in 2018, became Armenia's prime minister.

Recently, Pashinyan claimed that Armenia's dependence on Russia as its single source of security was a "strategic error". He had also questioned Russian peacekeepers in the conflict hit zone.

It has to be noted that Russia deployed peacekeepers to the region in 2020. They had pledged to maintain access to the crucial lifeline-the sole road connecting the enclave to Armenia, vital for Artsakh.

Ukraine Issue

However, Moscow, preoccupied with the conflict in Ukraine and seeking strengthened economic and political relations with Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey, refrained from intervening this year when Azerbaijan shut down this route. This action resulted in a blockade, disrupting the supply of essential resources like food, fuel, and medicine. During the recent rapid attack on Artsakh's vulnerable defenses, the Kremlin instructed its peacekeepers to refrain from involvement.

The Ceasefire

Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh announced a ceasefire, facilitated by Russia, on 20 September, effectively halting 24 hours of conflict.

The ceasefire agreement outlined the complete disarmament and dissolution of local Armenian forces. the integration of the enclave into Azerbaijan.

However, a significant portion of the region's 120,000 ethnic Armenians have been apprehensive about their prospects and place in Nagorno-Karabakh's future. Hence, they are going to Armenia.
Philadelphia Apple Store Robbery: Masked Looters Steal iPhone 15 Devices

International

oi-Madhuri Adnal

An Apple store in Philadelphia, US was targeted by a group of masked individuals who made off with the latest Apple products, including iPhone 15 units and iPads.

Footage of the incident, which has since gone viral, depicts police officers trying to apprehend the looters, who were clad in Halloween masks, as they pillaged the store.

As per reports from the Daily Mail, the attack on the Apple Store occurred around 8 p.m. on Tuesday. The police engaged in a pursuit of the looters and managed to recover discarded iPhones and a considerable stack of iPads at one location.

Videos showed Apple devices being forcibly removed from their display stands during the looting.

The group of masked looters, numbering over a hundred, also targeted other stores prior to the arrival of law enforcement, as stated in the report.

Apple iPhone 15 Launched: 'Made In India' Still Pricey, See Details

The police have already made about 20 arrests in connection with the incident.

Reportedly, one of the looters, a woman named Dayjia Blackwell, even live-streamed the chaotic scene. She was posting footage of the looting on Instagram and was subsequently apprehended by the police.

Numerous other social media videos captured masked individuals dashing out of a Lululemon store while being intercepted by law enforcement officers.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 21:22 [IST]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry has shared a publication on the occasion of September 27 - Remembrance Day on Facebook, Trend reports.

We are inspired by the heroism of the people who died for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. We are proud of our martyrs," the ministry said.

Remembrance Day is a public holiday in Azerbaijan for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died while serving in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the second Karabakh war.

Following over a month of military action to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation from late September to early November 2020, Azerbaijan has pushed Armenia to sign the surrender document. A joint statement on the matter was made by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

Established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, dated December 2, 2020, the holiday is held on September 27, the day when the war began.
DCW Chief Swati Maliwal Sleeps Outside Hospital After Being Denied From Meeting Delhi Rape Victim

Zoologist Adam Britton Admits To Sexually Assaulting Dogs

International

oi-Sushmita Halder

Renowned British crocodile specialist, Adam Britton, confessed in an Australian court to sexually assaulting and murdering dogs, documenting his horrific deeds on film and sharing them online.

Britton, a prominent zoologist who previously worked with the BBC and National Geographic, acknowledged that he inhumanely tormented numerous dogs to the point of death, capturing these gruesome deeds on camera.

Britton, who also confessed to accessing child abuse material online among 60 charges, is yet to be sentenced.

Reportedly, the judge presiding over a case at the Northern Territory Supreme Court advised attendees to vacate the courtroom, as the graphic nature of the crime details could potentially induce a nervous shock.

The prosecutors claimed that Britton has been engaging in sadistic sexual activities involving animals since 2014, exploiting both his pets and dogs he received from previous owners.

The court was informed by prosecutors that Britton would seek individuals who were handing over their pets because of travel or job obligations and attempt to gain guardianship of the animals. He was accused of misleading the animals' previous owners with outdated pictures when they sought progress reports on their former pets.

The court heard that he had transformed a cargo container into an animal abuse chamber using recording equipment, which he named the "torture room".

In 2022, Britton, a zoology PhD holder from Charles Darwin University, was apprehended by the Northern Territory Police due to a video they discovered. His sentencing is scheduled for December. The report revealed that of the 42 dogs he mistreated over a year and a half before his capture, 39 passed away.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 12:00 [IST]
Travis Travale King is a United States Army soldier who crossed over the Military Demarcation Line in the Joint Security Area (JSA) into North Korea on 18 July 2023 while on a civilian tour of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). King was facing dishonorable discharge from the United States Army due to legal charges in South Korea, the country he was stationed in at the time of the crossing.
Seth Adam Meyers is an American comedian, television host, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. He currently hosts Late Night with Seth Meyers, a late-night talk show on NBC. Prior to Late Night, Meyers was a cast member on NBC's sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2001 to 2014, and served as the show's head writer and anchor of their news parody segment, Weekend Update, from 2006 until his departure.
Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the MontrealLondonDelhiBombay route. On 23 June 1985, it was operated using Boeing 747-237B registered VT-EFO. The aircraft suffered a catastrophic decompression mid-air en route from Montreal to London, at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 m) over the Atlantic Ocean as a result of an explosion from a bomb planted by terrorists. The remnants of the aircraft fell into the sea approximately 190 kilometres off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens. The bombing of Air India Flight 182 is the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Air India, and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the September 11 attacks in 2001. Inderjit Singh Reyat, a dual British-Canadian national, pleaded guilty in 2003.
Lim was campaigning for the Indigenous Voice to parliament at Strathfield train station when the alleged assault occurred.
Yerevan said more than 42,000 ethnic Armenians have fled in fear of reprisal from Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Germany and the US are pushing to get independent observers into the breakaway region. DW has the latest.
The president has ordered officials to declare a state of emergency and "take a firm stance." Germany's human rights commissioner has raised concern over the rights situation in the region that forces many to flee.
The candidates dueling styles were on clear display as the two men tried to woo voters affected by the United Automobile Workers..

NYTimes.com 28 Sep 2023
New Russian assault units are allegedly being established to overwhelm Ukraine. This was claimed by a U.S.-based think-tank.
Just after Ukrainian President Zelenskyy gave an address in the House of Commons, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when the House speaker drew attention to him.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The treatment of Azerbaijani MP Ganira Pashayeva continues in the intensive care unit, the Central Clinic Hospital told Trend.

"Comprehensive measures for examination and treatment are being carried out. The general condition is assessed as serious," the hospital said.

On September 24, Pashayeva fell into a coma as a result of exposure to medicines and was taken to the Central Clinic Hospital in Baku.
Qantas chairman Richard Goyder on Wednesday rejected calls for his resignation over a string of scandals that have buffeted the Australian airline's reputation.
Are we putting money where the mouth is to reach the missing millions? SHOBHA SHUKLA, BOBBY RAMAKANT - CNS Unless we find people with TB and put them on treatment, how will we be able to reduce avoidable human suffering, untimely deaths, and break the chain of infection transmission? Finding TB remains the critical entry point to TB care pathway. Amidst the growing call for finding new tools to prevent, diagnose and treat TB, are we using the best of such tools we have today to the greatest possible extent? While we must fully fund and support TB science for better new tools, it is no less a compelling priority and a human rights imperative to ensure that all the new evidence-backed technologies we have today, are maximally deployed and utilised - everywhere. Scientific breakthroughs must be converted into public health advances, no excuse not to do so. A day before the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB was held on 22 September 2023, we read a news from Papua New Guinea. The island nation has 70 WHO recommended molecular testing machines (Gene Xpert - which requires semi-centralised infrastructure) to diagnose TB in each of the 22 provinces or cities; but all are underused except one which is installed in its capital city at Port Moresby General Hospital. Despite 32% of those with TB could not be diagnosed in 2021, all but one of its molecular testing tools lie underused in the country in 2023. Reasons cited for underuse of Gene Xpert molecular tests were: "sputum transportation challenges, road conditions, etc." Real reason, which is not cited in the news, could be that Papua New Guinea has deployed Gene Xpert which is not laboratory independent and requires semi-centralised infrastructure in place. One wonders that why was the existing WHO-recommended point-of-care, laboratory independent and decentralised molecular test (Truenat) not deployed in Papua New Guinea instead, to resolve issues such as, "sputum transportation challenges, road conditions, etc." Are we missing a chance to make a change? Among the WHO recommended molecular tests, Truenat (made by Molbio Diagnostics in India) is the only laboratory independent, portable, and low maintenance platform solution that can replace microscopy for TB, and also perform multi-disease testing at the primary healthcare level. It works equally well in secondary or tertiary healthcare services too. Why are we knowingly making a wrong choice? Today, thanks to scientific advancements, we have a far better and proven choice to find and treat TB. So why are a large majority of people with TB still getting diagnosed using old archaic and inefficient tools (like sputum microscopy) and treated with drugs that are toxic, far less effective, and have a longer treatment duration? There is no reason why old tools, that are inefficient in preventing, diagnosing or treating TB, should not be done away with when we have better choices today. Let's do a reality check: In 2021, globally 39% of people with TB were not even diagnosed. During 2018-2021, a whooping 62% of those diagnosed with TB did not get a WHO recommended molecular test - instead they received the 140 years-old smear microscopy that underperforms to detect TB. Despite having the scientific evidence and WHO recommended molecular tests that have proven to work effectively, why have we not replaced all microscopy tests with the molecular tests by now? Perhaps, this is a moment of truth - have we truly invested to ensure that a person with TB gets the best of standard WHO recommended diagnosis, treatment, care, and support? With the gaping chasm between what-we-know works and what-we-do, how do we hope to end TB in the next 27 months in India and 87 months worldwide? Is it not time for people to demand that they be tested with WHO recommended molecular tests and treated with the one-month regimen for latent TB infection (TB preventive therapy), four-months regimen for drug-sensitive TB, and six-months regimen for drug-resistant TB? Rocking chair? Every motion does not result in moving forward. There is a price we pay if we do not use the best of existing diagnostic tools or treatments: the price is so heavy and so inhumane - and so avoidable - in form of more human suffering, untimely deaths, and more infection spread. This is so unacceptable. Put money where the mouth is: Taking TB services to those unreached The WHO, Stop TB Partnership, national TB programmes, affected communities, and partners have ably demonstrated that high TB burden countries can use innovative new tools to screen and diagnose TB and link the people with TB to treatment and care. With deployment of new innovative tools, not only these projects were able to find more people with TB but also put them on lifesaving treatments. Having the best of molecular tests is not enough unless they are accessible and within reach of all those who may be at risk of TB. The national TB prevalence survey of the government of India (2019-2021) shows that half of those diagnosed for TB did not have typical TB symptoms, but showed an abnormality in the chest X-ray, which led to their TB diagnosis. If we are to end TB, we must ensure that all people are screened for TB and not just those who are symptomatic. In the 1970s, richer nations like Australia had screened everyone (not just those with TB symptoms) and provided TB treatment to those found positive. Eventually Australia could bring TB rates so low that TB was considered eliminated in the nation. It is important to note that back then Australia did not have the latest TB diagnostic tools we have today. More recently, a few years back in some parts of Vietnam, all people were screened using modern diagnostic tools for TB, molecular tests were provided to those with presumptive TB, and those found with the disease were linked to treatment and care. As a result of this, TB rates dropped by 68% in a period of 4 years, said Dr Nguyen Binh Hoa, deputy manager of Vietnam's National TB Programme. The best time for a paradigm shift was years back. Next best time is now. Science-based active TB case finding needs to be a norm and not confined to pilots anymore. We have to walk the talk on active case finding by using the best of screening tools recommended by the WHO (and not merely through verbal questioning for TB symptoms), and follow those with presumptive TB by offering a molecular test on their doorstep, and treatment, care and support to those found positive for TB. TB lab on wheels Dr Arvind Mathur, WHO Representative to Timor-Leste shared how an innovative approach - "TB Laboratory on Wheels" - one stop mobile diagnostic van - is being used to find the missing people with TB. TB Lab on wheels has taken TB diagnostics closer to the communities. It is equipped with digital x-ray, WHO recommended molecular test Truenat, and electronic medical record facility synchronized with Artificial Intelligence (AI) for reading the digital X-ray films. This van is helping to screen TB among different populations including high risk people and in villages and hamlets. "We were looking at how to increase case detection rate, how to go about screening large populations for TB in a short span of time. This molecular diagnostic tool (Truenat) is much more easily accessible, requires low maintenance, and gives quicker results. On one side we have digital x-ray with AI that can provide us a very formal confirmation to some extent about where the problem is, and then at the same time we could run the molecular test (Truenat) to confirm diagnosis of TB, within the same settings and look into drug resistance in relation to the next step to be taken," said Dr Mathur to CNS (Citizen News Service). The impact: "In a short span of time, around 7000 individuals have been screened with more than 600 people identified with presumptive TB. A 32% increase in detection has been observed as a result of using this technology," confirmed Dr Mathur. TB lab on wheels approach is being adopted by many other countries (and customised to their contexts) such as Cameroon and Bangladesh, among others. Now, the big van is just a big car with a mounted Truenat molecular test and other best of TB screening tools. TB lab on utility boat goes from islet to islet in the Philippines Dr Samantha Tinsay, Municipal Health Officer, Bantayan Municipality in Cebu, Philippines shared how Truenat molecular test machines, along with Fujifilm portable x-ray, were kept in a plastic tub and taken in a utility boat from islet to islet to screen and diagnose people with TB. "Case detection went up by over 317% and screening of presumptive TB went up by 1293%," said Dr Tinsay. It is not difficult to imagine the huge positive public health outcomes if what Dr Mathur and Dr Tinsay have done in a limited manner was done on a larger scale in all high TB burden countries. What is holding us back from doing so? We can tailor the approach to find TB and treat TB in local contexts but if we continue to do 'business as usual', we will miss this opportunity to make a real difference by using the right tools at the right place and time. Finding the missing millions timely with appropriate tools With TB elimination targets far off the track, the sense of urgency and purpose should drive us to turbocharge deployment of the best of tools we have to find and treat TB. We also need to turbocharge the efforts to find better new tools to prevent, find and treat TB too. This is not an "either/or" situation, but it is about doing both with compelling commitment and urgency. Finding new tools is one part of the relay race, deploying them and ensuring full uptake of the services is another. Full scale deployment and uptake of new innovative tools to find and treat TB globally will also pave the way for better rollout of new tools that are in the research pipeline (if and when they come in future). The 2nd UNHLM on TB (although attended by only one head of nation, Zimbabwe, among others) ended with an important political declaration. Next UNHLM will be in 2028. But answer to the question "will we walk the talk on the promise to end TB" will be written by us - especially donors and governments - if we can eliminate the divide between what-we-know-works and what-we-do. It is high time to make the right turn to end TB, so do we believe. Shobha Shukla, Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service) (Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant are part of the editorial team of CNS (Citizen News Service). Both are on the governing board of Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health and Development (APCAT Media) and PRB Public Health Reporting Corps. Follow them on Twitter: @Shobha1Shukla, @BobbyRamakant). - Shared under Creative Commons (CC)
The tensions between the United States and its geopolitical adversaries grow with each passing day, month, and year.

Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine continues to play out, and many are worried that a large war will break out if China invades Taiwan. However, there's a way we can turn down the tensions a bit - arms control. Writer Shannon Bugos addressed the subject of in her story "Three Months Later, still no US Arms Control Proposal to Russia". The United States has yet to send a written arms control proposal to Russia, three months after U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan first outlined the Biden administration's strategy and suggested arms control talks in a June address.

A National Security Council spokesperson said last summer that the US is open to discussing arms control with Russia, but also that Russia doesn't seem to be willing to do the same. In addition, the spokesperson noted the administration conveyed the proposal to Moscow but declined to elaborate at the time.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal remains necessary to ensure its national security, and he referenced Ukraine. He also said: "A great danger in the context of the Ukrainian conflict is linked with the fact that the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Alliance countries, while gearing up for confrontation, run the risk of becoming involved in a direct armed clash between nuclear powers. To prevent such an outcome, we must remind everyone about the existence of enormous military and political risks and send sobering signals to our opponents."

If Washington and Moscow do resume an arms control dialogue, the talks would likely focus on potential arrangements to follow the expiration of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early 2026, as stated by Bugos. Like arms control in general, the treaty represents security through fewer arms. Last summer, the US State Department released an annual assessment that said New START enhances US national security despite the ongoing dispute with Russia that has halted treaty activities, such as on-site inspections of nuclear weapons-related facilities and daily notifications on the status and the location of treaty-accountable items.

The renewing of New START uses the concept of international law to keep the conflict between the US and its allies and the China/Russia block and its allies within boundaries. It could be considered a start in what could be a happy ending to our current Cold War, hopefully. In time, if history plays its bright side, the expansionary tendencies of the China/Russia block will fade, and a more lawful world will emerge. Hopefully, the trend of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes will fade, and various forms of democracy will prevail, as this will rob the China/Russia block of an ideological weapon.

History doesn't always move in a peaceful direction, but all we can do is hope this time it does.

Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer of the Peace Economy Project
The massive flood that killed thousands in Libya earlier this month was blamed on the collapse of two dams and heavy rainfall. But there is a more sinister reason behind the tragedy: climate change.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group recently published a study in which they said the deluge of the magnitude seen in northeastern Libya - an event that occurred only once every 300-600 years - was more likely caused by the human contribution to global warming.

Researchers from Greece, the U.S., the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the heavy rainfall that led to the flooding.

They found that the rains were both more likely and heavier because of human-caused global warming, with up to 50 percent more rain during the period.

Storm Daniel, the hurricane that swept across large parts of the Mediterranean in early September, as well as conflict and poor dam maintenance, may have helped turn extreme weather into a humanitarian disaster, but global warming is the main cause - and humans are to blame.

According to the study, on Sep. 3, "torrential rain fell within a few hours in Spain, followed by very heavy rain and floods caused by the low-pressure system 'Daniel' in Greece and Bulgaria between the 4th and the 7th of September, and devastating floods in Libya after very extreme rainfall during the 10th."

The intense flooding submerged numerous communities. Thousands were displaced, with the death toll reaching four in Bulgaria, six in Spain, seven in Turkey, and 17 in Greece. The Libyan city of Derna alone reported 12,000 casualties.

In the broader region, encompassing Greece and portions of Bulgaria and Turkey, the WWA study suggests that human-driven climate change might have increased the chances of witnessing such extreme events by up to 10-fold and intensified their severity by up to 40%. As for the devastating flood in Libya, with the backdrop of a climate that's 1.2 degreesC cooler, such an extreme incident has now become up to 50 times more probable, with intensities surging by up to 50%.

The study emphasizes that these figures come with a significant margin of error, spanning a range that includes the potential for no observable change. However, the scientists said there are multiple indicators that reinforce their belief that climate change did indeed amplify the likelihood of these extreme weather events.

Libya's ongoing conflict and political instability exacerbated the flood's aftermath, according to WWA. This led to neglect and the gradual degradation of the dam structures, which raised the risk levels significantly and resulted in the subsequent tragedy. Libya's internal conflict also hampers the country's ability to strategize and cooperate on various climate-related challenges, from water shortages to extreme climatic conditions like heatwaves and flooding.

This disaster also points to the need to design and maintain infrastructure not just for the climate of the present, but also the future. In Libya, this means considering the long-term decline in average rainfall, and at the same time, the increase in extreme rainfall like we just witnessed. Climate change will only make matters worse in the future.

The WWA scientists are not alone in their thinking.

A new study by JW Surety Bonds, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm, used artificial intelligence to project climate change effects on major U.S. cities by 2123. It found that homes in cities like New York City, Oakland, California, Miami and Cape Coral, Florida would be underwater in 100 years.

According to Climate.gov, the global average sea level has risen 8-9 inches (21-24 centimeters) since 1880. "In 2021, global sea level set a new record high 97 mm (3.8 inches) above 1993 levels. The rate of global sea level rise is accelerating: it has more than doubled from 0.06 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year throughout most of the twentieth century to 0.14 inches (3.6 millimeters) per year from 2006-2015."

The climate agency adds that with continued high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse in the Arctic, "models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150.

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Pakistan, a nation marred by political turmoil and security challenges, is on the precipice of a significant event in its history: the general elections. The caretaker Prime Minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, finds himself at the center of this maelstrom, addressing issues ranging from the security situation at the borders to the demands for a swift election announcement by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). In this editorial, we delve into the complexities surrounding Pakistan's electoral process, examining PM Kakar's stance, the ECP's rationale, and the broader implications of these developments.

One of the foremost concerns that PM Kakar addresses is the security situation along Pakistan's borders, both eastern and western. The country has grappled with security threats from militant groups and tensions with neighboring nations, particularly Afghanistan. The presence and activities of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) pose a significant security challenge. In this context, PM Kakar asserts Pakistan's right to self-defense, pledging to take necessary action to protect its land and people when needed. This stance underscores the gravity of the security situation and the importance of a stable political environment to address these challenges effectively.

The debate over the timing of the general elections has taken center stage. The ECP's decision to postpone elections beyond the constitutionally mandated 90 days following the dissolution of the National Assembly on May 9 has sparked controversy. The ECP cites the need to wait for the results of the new digital 2023 census and the Elections Act's Section 17(2), which calls for constituency delimitation after every census. On the other hand, President Dr. Arif Alvi proposed holding elections by November 6, asserting a constitutional time frame for polls. PM Kakar emphasizes that determining the election date and organizing the polls are the ECP's responsibilities, and the caretaker government's role is to assist the commission.

This situation highlights the need for transparent communication and cooperation between the institutions involved. While it is essential to adhere to constitutional provisions, ensuring that the elections are free, fair, and timely is equally crucial. The caretaker government should continue to provide necessary support while respecting the ECP's independence.

The ongoing debate also raises questions about the Election Commission of Pakistan's autonomy. Recent amendments to the Elections Act in 2017 have empowered the commission to announce election dates unilaterally without consulting the president. This reflects a fundamental principle of democracy - the independence of electoral bodies. An independent ECP is critical to ensuring free and fair elections, as it can act without undue political influence. PM Kakar and others rightly emphasize that the ECP must exercise its mandate independently, safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process.

Speculation surrounding election dates and processes is a common occurrence in the lead-up to any election. PM Kakar asserts that it is not the caretaker government's role to address such speculation. Instead, he emphasizes that their responsibility is to assist the ECP in fulfilling its constitutional duties. This stance reinforces the idea that the caretaker government's primary function is to provide support and facilitate the electoral process while refraining from interfering in the ECP's decisions.

PM Kakar also touches upon Pakistan's interests in its relations with Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban. He underscores that Pakistan's interests are a top priority in negotiations with the Afghan Taliban. This assertion reflects the nation's commitment to regional stability and security. Additionally, he highlights the importance of the Doha deal, which obliges the Taliban not to use Afghan soil against other countries. Pakistan's role in facilitating this agreement and holding all parties accountable is crucial for peace in the region.

The caretaker prime minister dispels the notion that Pakistan is becoming isolated on the world stage due to growing ties between Gulf countries and India. He correctly points out that nations forge alliances based on converging interests and conflicts, highlighting the economic significance of the Gulf Cooperation Council's hydrocarbon exports. Pakistan's focus on strengthening trade ties with Afghanistan and Central Asia demonstrates its commitment to regional integration and economic development.

In response to questions about press freedom and the alleged restriction on broadcasting PTI Chairman Imran Khan's name, PM Kakar asserts that Pakistan maintains robust journalistic freedom relative to the region. He maintains that journalists have the liberty to raise their voices on various issues, including human rights, state institutions, and economic reforms. On the matter of Imran Khan's ongoing legal cases, PM Kakar underscores the importance of transparent judicial proceedings, hoping that this process will dispel any perception of political exclusion.

Pakistan stands at a critical juncture in its history, with general elections on the horizon and a host of complex challenges to address. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar's measured and principled approach to these issues highlights the need for institutional autonomy, transparent communication, and a focus on Pakistan's national interests. As the nation navigates these treacherous waters, it is essential to prioritize the stability of the electoral process, regional security, and democratic principles to ensure a prosperous and secure future for Pakistan.


American Troops In Vietnam

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December of 2023, and a cloud has appeared in the neocon sky: the Russians are advancing towards Kiev, and the few Ukrainian soldiers left can only destroy bridges to slow them down or send drones against Moscow banks to destroy their pension plans. As Russian troops pass through villages, old women throw rocks. Two teenagers emptied cans of light-blue and then yellow paint onto a passing tank; the video, of course, has made the evening news from New York to Tokyo, and rivers of commentary exalt the never-give-up pluck of Ukrainians.

There are rumors of a putsch in Kiev, however, and to add insult to injury, extra Marines have had to surround the American Embassy because crowds are showing up, the quiet ones desperate to get American visas, but the noisy ones -- and they are legion -- to bang on pots and pans to protest the U.S. getting them into this mess. Media reports dutifully call them "victims of Putin's disinformation."

Something must be done. The neocons have spent 100 billion taxpayer dollars and all America's political capital on the Ukraine War. But neocons do not do defeat. A meeting with the president is called to turn this hiccup into victory.

It is evening in Washington now, and Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, and Tony Blinken file into the Oval Office and sit down on parallel sofas. Nuland has brought a jar of cookies and puts it on the coffee table. The President turns on a television, which shows the line of heavily-dressed people, some with sleeping children, sitting outside the embassy, waiting to be permitted entrance. The protesters have disappeared.

"Well!" he says with relief, plopping down in an armchair. "That doesn't look so bad. Those protesters must have shrunk away, embarrassed after all we've done for them."

Nobody mentions that it's two a.m. in Kiev.

"So what have you got for me?" says Biden, adding with a wave at the silent TV, "Don't get discouraged by this. Freedom always wins out. Hey, I was thinking: what if we blow up another Russian pipeline? You know, send them a message: 'This is unacceptable.'"

Blinken: "Really, what we need, first and foremost, sir, is to create a new reality."

Sullivan sighs. "Tony, can we please not get into reality? Reality exists. It's like air; you don't change it or invent it."

Beside him on the sofa, Nuland jabs Blinken in the ribs.

"We think, sir, the situation calls for a stronger" -- he glances at Sullivan -- "calibration. If we send in troops now, we can probably -- no, surely -- hold the Russians well short of Kiev."

"American boys in harm's way? No. I've said that from the get-go: we will not enter the war. No way."

"Then we are looking at the Russians in Maidan Square within a week, sir," says Sullivan.

Biden: "Freedom will out, you just have to have faith."

Sullivan: "We all love freedom, sir, but think of a Russian flag pulled up a flagpole in Maidan. The visuals are going to be terrible."

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Addressing the UN Security Council on September 20, 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a heartfelt plea "to update the existing security architecture in the world, in particular, to restore the real power of the UN Charter."

This call for strengthening international security under the aegis of the United Nations makes sense not only for Ukraine a country suffering from brutal military invasion, occupation, and annexation by its much larger, more powerful neighbor, the Russian Federation but for the nations of the world.

For thousands of years, competing territories, nations, and empires have spilled rivers of blood and laid waste to much of the world through wars and plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have died, while many more have been horribly injured or forced to flee their shattered homelands in a desperate search for safety. World Wars I and II, capped off by the use of nuclear weapons to annihilate the populations of entire cities, brought massive suffering to people around the globe.

In 1945, this mad slaughter and devastation convinced far-sighted thinkers, as well as many government leaders, that human survival was dependent upon developing a framework for international security: the United Nations. The UN Charter, adopted in a conference in the spring of that year in San Francisco by 50 Allied nations, declared that a key purpose of the new organization was "to maintain international peace and security."

The UN Charter, which constitutes international law, included provisions detailing how nations were to treat one another in the battered world emerging from the Second World War. Among its major provisions was Article 2, Section 4, which declared that "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Furthermore, Article 51 declared that "nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations."

Although the UN Charter provided for a General Assembly in which all member nations were represented, action to maintain international peace and security was delegated primarily to a UN Security Council with fifteen members, five of whom (the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France) were to be permanent members with the right to veto Security Council resolutions or action.

Not surprisingly, the right of any of these five nations to block Security Council peace efforts, a right they had insisted upon as the price of their participation in the United Nations, hamstrung the world organization from enforcing peace and international security on numerous occasions. The most recent instance has occurred in the case of the Ukraine War, a conflict in which, as Zelensky lamented, "all [Security Council] efforts are vetoed by the aggressor." As a result, the United Nations has all too often lacked the power to enforce the principles of international law confirmed by its members and enshrined in its Charter.

Some people are perfectly content with the weakness of the United Nations. Fierce nationalists, as exemplified by Donald Trump and his Republican followers, are contemptuous of this or any international security organization, and many would prefer its abolition. Others have little use for the United Nations but, instead, place their hopes for the maintenance of international peace and stability upon public and governmental acceptance of great power spheres of influence. Meanwhile, a segment of the international Left ignores the United Nations and insists that world peace will only be secured by smashing "U.S. imperialism."

Sadly, those forces opposing international organization and action fail to recognize that their proposals represent not only a return to thousands of years of international strife and mass slaughter among nations, but, in today's world, an open door to a nuclear holocaust that will end virtually all life on earth.

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A Libyan official has said they will investigate to find those responsible for the dead in the recent flooding at Derna, Libya which may be more than 11,000. They don't need an investigation to know the responsible party is US President Barack Obama, who devised and engineered a US-NATO attack on Libya in 2011 for regime change.

"The U.N. Security Council never aimed to topple the Libyan regime," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in April 2011. "All those who are currently using the U.N. resolution for that aim are violating the U.N. mandate."

In 2016, a report found that the intervention of UK, French, and US armed forces into Libya in March 2011 was "not informed by accurate intelligence."

The report said that the US-NATO attack had "drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change," the result of which was "political and economic collapse, inter-militia and intertribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of [weapons] across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa."

The attack was successful in removing the Libyan leader Muamar Gadhafi, destroying the civil infrastructure, preventing any recovery of the country from 13 years of armed conflict, and is responsible for the lack of government in Libya today, which failed to warn people about the weather danger from the storm Daniel, which unleashed enough rainfall to collapse two dams.

The US spent billions of dollars on destroying Libya, but they have not spent on reconstruction of the infrastructure they destroyed, such as dams, water supplies, hospitals, schools and electricity power stations. International donations are arriving in Libya now, but the US will not be sending anything other than what they provide to USAID, which is distributed through the United Nations humanitarian relief. Tents and bandages will not help Libya to recover from what Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron did in 2011.

The Mayor of Derna, Abdel Moneim al-Ghaithi, said the dams had been unmaintained due to the armed conflict raging since 2011.

The US never justified its destruction of Libya by developing, or even imposing, a form of democracy there. Instead, the country is divided into east and west, with two separate governments, neither of which have been voted into office by the people.

In the west, there is the Tripoli based Government of National Unity, a misnomer. The officials are followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global terrorist group advocating the same political platform as Al Qaeda and ISIS. They are supported by the US and recognized by the UN. Their allies are Qatar and Turkey, fellow Muslim Brotherhood regimes.

In the east, there is the Tobruk based Libyan National Army, headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Hafter, which is responsible for Derna and the region. Most of the country's oil resources are in the east.

Libya and Syria were both US-NATO attacks for regime change begun under the Obama administration, and both followed the 2003 US-NATO attack on Iraq, also for regime change, which was a success in removing Saddam Hussein, and destroying the country. Iraq still lacks water, electricity, hospitals, medicines, and schools even after 20 years. Iraq has never recovered, or been rebuilt, and we can foresee that neither Syria nor Libya will ever recover or be rebuilt.

Like Iraq, Libya saw a huge number of civilian deaths. In over twenty thousand massive "shock and awe" aerial bombardments, major cities and civilian infrastructure were routinely targeted.

Syria suffered from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6. The US never sent even one loaf of bread, or one bottle of water to Latakia, Syria, one of the hardest hit areas, because it remains under the Damascus central government. Instead, they sent their humanitarian donations to Idlib, which is a province living under the occupation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The HTS leader, Mohammed al-Julani, likes to wear a suit and tie these days as he tries to rebrand himself for the US public. He granted an interview to the US media PBS where he looked like a US supported statesman, even though he was formerly an officer under ISIS leader Baghdadi.

But, there is something different between Syria and Libya: in the case of Syria, the regime change the US was willing to use terrorists to fight for, failed. The central government in Damascus never fell, and the Syrian Arab Army never split. The Syrian infrastructure is destroyed and people lack electricity because of the US military occupying the main oil and gas field in Syria, thus cutting off the domestic energy resources.

In 2014, Seymour M. Hersh published "The Red Line and the Rat Line". He exposed the Obama administration's use of stolen Libyan weapons covertly sent to the terrorists in Syria to topple the Syrian government.

On the day Tripoli fell, the New York Times' headline read, "The Scramble for Access to Libya's Oil Wealth Begins". Libya's vast oil reserves, the largest in Africa and next door to Europe, were free for the taking. Now, the east and west based governments in Libya have used oil resources as a weapon in their war against each other.

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Oregon Health & Science University has reached a tentative accord with more than 3,100 nurses in a deal that includes wage hikes of 15%, 6% and 6% in the next three years.

OHSU also pledged to spend at least $10 million to improve worker safety and achieve sufficient staffing to allow nurses to take their breaks and eat lunch or dinner.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijani Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, and other high-ranking officers of the Defense Ministry have visited the Second Alley of Martyrs on the occasion of Remembrance Day, Trend reports via the ministry.

According to the ministry, first, the National Anthem of Azerbaijan, accompanied by the military orchestra, was performed.

"The memory of the sons of Azerbaijan, who became martyrs for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, was honored with observing a minute of silence, prayers were made for their souls, and flowers were laid at their graves," the ministry said.

Besides, Hasanov and other high-ranking officers of the ministry met with martyrs families and relatives and inquired about their concerns.

"Members of martyrs' families expressed satisfaction with the reconstruction and landscaping work done in the alley, including the conditions created for visitors. They expressed gratitude for the respectful and careful attitude towards the graves of martyrs," the ministry added.

Remembrance Day is a public holiday in Azerbaijan for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died while serving in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the second Karabakh war.

Following over a month of military action to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation from late September to early November 2020, Azerbaijan has pushed Armenia to sign the surrender document. A joint statement on the matter was made by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
BJ Smith, the former Smokehouse Tavern owner and Top Chef contestant, has teamed up with Swift Lounge owners Paul Francis and Robert Thomas on a new North Portland bar.

Sit-Tite, which opened last Saturday, took over the North Interstate Avenue storefront previously home to The Coop, just south of the Arbor Lodge New Seasons. The longtime friends and now business partners split the space into three distinct areas, an arcade room with six pinball machines, a pool table and photo booth; a bar and dining room; and a large outdoor space in the backyard.

Smith, who previously ran The Original Dinerant and owned Northwest Portlands Smokehouse 21 and its Southeast Portland sister, Smokehouse Tavern, among other concepts, recently spent six months working at Okta, the McMinnville hotspot recently named one of the New York Times 50 favorite restaurants for 2023.

According to Smith, Sit-Tite will serve blue-collar East Coast Italian fare, including fried calamari, fried ravioli; various Parm sandwiches including a meatball and an eggplant and two pastas, spaghetti and meatballs and a rigatoni with spicy vodka sauce. The drinks menu includes non-alcoholic cocktails for the non drinkers like myself, Smith said.

North Portland's new Sit-Tite bar has three Parm sandwiches on its menu, a meatball, an eggplant and a chicken.Courtesy of Sit-Tite

Our mission with this project has been to create something fun, not too expensive and embracing the old Portland vibe that we dont see too much of these days, Smith wrote in an email. We really just want to provide a fun space with great food and delicious cocktails.

Sit-Tite is open from 4 p.m. to midnight Sunday-Thursday and 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday at 6214 N. Interstate Ave., sit-tite.com

 Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com

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When it comes to comedy duos, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler might be the funniest, and most successful, working today. Both women have led successful sitcoms (Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock), theyve made movies together and hosted awards shows.

And that was all after being some of the most well-known comics on Saturday Night Live.

Now, the two are on tour and coming to both Moda Center and the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in January.

The Restless Leg Tour will stop at the Schnitz on Friday, Jan. 12, and then do two shows at Modas Theater of the Clouds on Saturday, Jan. 13.

Tickets for the Moda Center shows are already available through Ticketmaster. Tickets for the show at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29.

Tickets will also be available through Vivid Seats, StubHub, SeatGeek and Ticket Squeeze.

 Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052; lacker@oregonian.com; @lizzzyacker

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I feel honored, and I felt a lot of pressure, says Kelly Bartlett, about being the latest Oregonian to compete on the popular Fox competition series, Lego Masters, which begins a new season on Thursday, Sept. 28.

(Lego Masters Season 4, Episode 1 airs at 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, on Fox. No cable or antenna? You can stream episodes live on Fubo, which offers a free trial; or watch on Hulu, which streams episodes the day after they air.)

As a contestant on Lego Masters, Bartlett, who lives in Wilsonville, was trying to win. She was also conscious of following in the footsteps of Boone Langston and Mark Cruickshank, a team from Oregon who finished as runners-up, just shy of victory, on the first season of the show.

I had some pretty big shoes to fill, Bartlett, 46, says.

Not that Bartlett is any slouch when it comes to working with Lego, and coming up with impressive creations. During a recent phone interview, Bartlett was calling from Billund, Denmark, known as the hometown of Lego bricks. Two of Bartletts pieces are included in an exhibition at the Lego House Masterpiece Gallery, which features works from international creators.

Bartletts Lego House pieces are a model of a chocolate shop, and a clockmakers studio. Both are the kind of thing you look at, and you dont automatically know its made out of Lego bricks, Bartlett says. I like things that fool the eye, where you dont necessarily think its Lego.

On the Lego Masters premiere, Bartlett will be partnered with Emilee Dahl, of Gilbert, Arizona. As Bartlett, a former teacher, became more active in the Lego community, she traveled to conventions and other events. Bartlett met Dahl through that community, she says, and we just became friends. Theres not a lot of women builders.

The show initially approached Bartlett and Dahl separately. We each auditioned with different people originally, and wound up getting together as partners, Bartlett says.

The new season of Lego Masters brings together 24 brick enthusiasts, as the publicity says, who will compete in teams of two in hopes of winning the $100,000 cash prize.

Actor Will Arnett is host and an executive producer, and Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard serve as judges. Teams will compete in brick-building challenges, which include a Cirque du Soleil challenge, and an explosive volcano build.

Bartlett recalls getting her first Lego set when she was 4 years old, and growing up making sets with her brother. As a kid, she says, she remembers getting frustrated with the limited colors and shapes, because thats what existed then.

When Bartlett became a parent  her kids are now 17 and 18  they got into Lego, and I helped them build their sets. And then my kids got old enough to build their own sets, and I kept trying to get in there, asking, Are you sure you dont need my help? My husband insisted I get my own Lego set, and it turns out that at that time, there were sets that were marketed to adults. He got me one, and thats how I got back into Lego as an adult.

Bartlett took a class from Langston, the Lego Masters Season 1 veteran. My daughter and I did it together, and it got me to make some small things, and my brain picked up on the process of how to make things from scratch. I started small, and then I gradually started making bigger things.

Filming for Season 4 happened earlier this year, in Atlanta, Georgia. It was definitely an experience, says Bartlett, who described being on the show as challenging and stressful, but it was also fun. Doing a reality show in the first place is difficult. Doing this to the best of your ability, with the cameras on, and the clock running made it even more daunting, Bartlett says. We tried to do our best for every challenge.

 Kristi Turnquist

503-221-8227; kturnquist@oregonian.com; @Kristiturnquist

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At least a dozen windows at the World Forestry Center were smashed this week as a timber-industry conference got underway. The conference, called Who Will Own the Forest?, continues amid protests.

The group that organized demonstrations outside the centers Southwest Portland campus denied responsibility for the vandalism. An anonymous blog post on a website dedicated to disseminating anti-fascist messages took credit.

In the early hours of Monday morning, anarchists attacked two buildings at the World Forestry Center, read a post on Rose City Counter-Info, published Wednesday. We hope this action reminds anarchists that we can attack without a call to action.

A small group of activists blocked the entrance to the conference Wednesday morning, chanting Shame and Clean water, clean air, not another billionaire, a Pacific Northwest Forest Climate Alliance spokesperson said in a statement.

Windows and doors were boarded up with plywood late Wednesday morning as demonstrators gathered on the sidewalk with signs and banners.

The World Forestry Center after windows were broken.

Activists from organizations that are part of the Pacific Northwest Forest Climate Alliance were in attendance, protesting the environmental impacts of logging and, more broadly, big-business ownership of forests.

When we think of who will own the forest, we must remember the people who have always had the longest relationship with the forest, Thomas Joseph of the Indigenous Environmental Network said in an email statement sent to The Oregonian/OregonLive. These are the same people whose livelihoods and well-being are intertwined with forests health.

Brenna Bell, one of the spokespeople for the demonstrators outside the forestry center, said she did not know who had smashed the centers windows.

We firmly believe that people can take autonomous action, Bell said, but she distanced herself and the protest organizations there from the vandalism. Its just not what were focused on doing.

At least a dozen World Forestry Center windows were smashed the same week the center was holding a timber industry conference titled "Who Will Own the Forest?" Demonstrations continued Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023.

The Who Will Own the Forest? conference was launched in the early 2000s to address a shift in forest-ownership trends that has occurred over the last several decades.

For much of the 20th century, most private companies that owned timberland in the U.S. also owned the mills that processed their harvest. Since the mid-1980s, however, many of those companies have sold off their forestland holdings to timber investment management organizations, which buy, sell and manage forestland on behalf of Wall Street investors like pension funds and insurance companies. That, in turn, has raised questions about whether that forestland will be sustainably managed, and what it means for rural communities, the forestry sector and tax revenues.

Conference attendees this year include leading names in the timber industry, such as Weyerhaeuser, and international investment firms like J.P. Morgan.

World Forestry Center spokesperson Tyler Quinn said there had been some vandalism that has since been cleaned up, adding that the center has been talking to police.

This event is focused on welcoming more voices into the conversation about how we care for our forests, Quinn said in an email. We support everyones right to express their opinion in public spaces, so long as they do so in a safe manner.

The Portland Police Bureau said that anyone with information about the World Forestry Center vandalism should e-mail crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov and reference case number 23-252015.

Staff writer Ted Sickinger contributed to this report.

 Fedor Zarkhin

Office: 503-294-7674; Cell: 971-373-2905; fzarkhin@oregonian.com

 Gosia Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka
Washington County Sheriff Pat Garrett will retire in December after 12 years in the top job and 35 years in law enforcement, the county sheriffs office said Tuesday.

Garrett, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, told county commissioners earlier this month he would retire due to changing family obligations after his fathers death in June.

My duties attending to my mother increased to the degree necessary to transition my primary focus to her, Garrett wrote in a Sept. 11 letter to commissioners.

Garrett, who a county spokesperson said is currently paid $213,857, recommended that the county replace him with Undersheriff Caprise Massey, citing her experience as commander of the jail and patrol divisions and her nine years in the Navy, among other qualifications.

The next election for Washington County sheriff takes place in 2024.

 Fedor Zarkhin

Office: 503-294-7674; Cell: 971-373-2905; fzarkhin@oregonian.com
A nine-month review of Multnomah County Animal Services elicited more than 100 recommendations that leaders say they will implement over the next 15 months as they try to overhaul operations and improve animal care at the long-troubled shelter.

In a presentation to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, shelter leaders laid out their plan for addressing key problems, which were allowed to fester for years despite outcries from staff and community members and multiple attempts by auditors and experts to provide the shelter with a roadmap for improvement.

For too long the necessary changes were not made at the shelter, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said. We cant say we didnt have a heads up that these changes were required. We absolutely did, but the result was inadequate animal care and poor morale around staff and volunteers.

Vega Pederson called for the extensive review in January after the division reached a crisis point and reports from The Oregonian/OregonLive and other media outlets laid bare longstanding problems at the shelter that had led to years of animal neglect, understaffing and a lack of accountability.

Over the last nine months, shelter leaders and two outside consultants combed through past recommendations from auditors and experts and solicited feedback from about 350 past and current staff members and volunteers, animal welfare organizations and the public. The review found that the shelter didnt have adequate staffing to meet national standards for cleaning, feeding and enrichment; didnt have policies to ensure the integrity of data; hadnt maintained adequate documentation on animal behavior or euthanasia decisions; and had failed to implement formal staff training, among other issues.

Auditors first raised concerns about all those problems seven years ago.

We started in a really bad place, Commissioner Sharon Meieran said. MCAS had basically imploded under the management of the former chair (Deborah Kafoury). A toxic culture was allowed to fester. Volunteers and the public were alienated. Animals suffered and died.

Meieran said Tuesday that it was nice to finally see a work plan for implementing the longstanding recommendations for improvement, but said she wants to see a clearer picture from shelter leaders on the type of organization it is aiming to become and how long and how much it will cost to get there.

We really do need to be continuing to look at the systems, practices and outcomes, Meieran said. The presentation, I appreciated it. It didnt really tell us much thats new. Its sort of a review of years of reviews and highlighting a lot of whats been called out in reviews.

However, shelter leaders say the plan theyve created this time puts them on a path to meaningful change.

Theyve grouped the 106 recommendations into six key categories spanning all facets of shelter operations: improving the safety and well-being of pets, standardizing policies and procedures, rightsizing staffing levels, changing the shelter culture, improving facilities and ensuring data integrity.

The county hired Bud Garrison, a healthcare management instructor at Oregon Health & Science University and a longtime shelter volunteer, to oversee the overhaul. Garrison is being paid an annual salary of about $97,000.

Erin Grahek, director of animal services, said the shelter has already made significant improvements since January. The board approved 10 additional staff members for the shelter this fiscal year. Grahek said Tuesday that the shelter had filled half of those new positions with outside hires, made two promotions and were in the process of hiring for three additional positions.

Shelter leaders have promised to implement a handful of other recommendations by the end of the month, according to their work plan. Those include ensuring that staff accurately record when an animal is euthanized, providing staff and volunteers with standardized information, remedying health and safety issues identified within the shelter building and revamping the shelters policy for screening potential adopters.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in August that a series of mistakes that took place under the shelters current leadership led to two dogs being neglected by an adopter with a criminal history. Shelter leaders still dont know whether the two dogs are alive.

The work plan shows it will take until the end of the year for the shelter to consistently provide detailed notes on reasons for euthanizing or adopting out animals that exhibit behavioral issues  a problem that has been consistently raised by auditors since 2016. It will take until the end of January for the shelter to fully implement a program to ensure all cats and dogs receive daily social contact, mental stimulation, and physical activity, according to the work plan. That issue has also been repeatedly raised by auditors who said the shelter was failing to meet national standards for animal care.

Lara Media, an outside consultant hired by the county this summer, reported that about half of the staff, volunteers, animal welfare organization leaders and members of the public it spoke with pointed to the animal care as the area that needed the most improvement.

The work plan shows it could take up to 15 months to implement other recommendations, including those regarding facility and website upgrades.

Commissioner Susheela Jayapal said the timeline might seem long, but that she appreciates shelter leaders work to formulate a strategic plan for improvement while continuing to make immediate changes. I do appreciate the detail of this, the fact that you really did go back and look through all those recommendations, sort them and come up with this plan, Jayapal said.

However, Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards raised concerns about whether the division will be able to make all the needed changes until a new building is identified for the shelter, which is currently housed in a small and old building in Troutdale. She said she is hopeful that the commission will consider a bond or capital allocation next year for major facility improvements.

Even if everything gets implemented and its of a very high quality, the facility has limitations that will make it very difficult for the county to provide humane care, Brim-Edwards said. The space is small. Its cramped. Its less than ideal for not just the animals but also the people working there.

Several recommendations are currently on hold, according to the work plan, including a recommendation that the shelter expand its in-house spay and neuter program. Documents show that the county has put that expansion on hold until the shelter can hire more veterinarians. Grahek said the shelter recently received approval to increase the pay rate for a veterinarian, which she said she hopes will attract more applicants.

Since last year, the shelter has adopted out unfixed pets and some animals that hadnt received rabies vaccinations due to a veterinarian shortage. It has provided adopters with vouchers to receive those procedures, but adopters say that program has been fraught with problems, including one county partner that failed to accept some of the vouchers. Grahek said the shelter has worked to correct those problems and has since added other spay and neuter partners, including the Oregon Humane Society.

Shelter leaders said they will create a dashboard to track the status of recommendations, but didnt say when that dashboard will go live.

This isnt a beginning point or an end point, Vega Pederson said. This is the point where we are able to have the picture of where we are going. ... This is work thats been underway for the past nine months and work that will continue.

 Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; 503-221-8228; @jamiebgoldberg

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Three former public officials in Morrow County could be hit with thousands of dollars in penalties for failing to acknowledge that they stood to profit when they gave tax breaks to Amazon data centers and arranged land sales to make way for the huge installations.

Staff with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission have proposed settling ethics charges against the three officials. Two would pay $5,000 penalties and another would pay $2,500. Their attorney is contesting the charges and wants the ethics commission to waive all penalties and issue a letter of education instead.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Work is underway in Azerbaijan on more than 800 new types of weapons, Azerbaijani Minister of Defense Industry Madat Guliyev told reporters, Trend reports.

In local anti-terrorist activities, Azerbaijani-made weapons, which are a product of the latest technologies, were used, the minister added.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.

In parallel, all weapons and heavy equipment are surrendered.

The implementation of the above-mentioned processes is ensured in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Due to the measures taken by employees of the State Fire Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan, the fire started as a result of an explosion at a gas station near Khankendi and has been extinguished, Trend reports.

About 10 special-purpose vehicles of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) with a crew of 50 people left for Khankendi in connection with the incident in order to carry out search-and-rescue and other necessary security measures.

Also, 53 MES vehicles, personnel, and necessary equipment will go to the construction of a field hospital near Khojaly.

Earlier on September 25, an explosion occurred at a gas station near Khankendi.

As a result of the incident, there are dead and injured people.

In this regard, in order to provide assistance to the injured, an ambulance was initially sent along the Aghdam-Askeran-Khankendi road with anti-burn medical supplies, dressing materials, gloves, and medicines (sprays, creams, painkillers, antibiotics, etc.) to treat 200 people.
Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - Algeria have withdrawn from the race to host the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) on the eve of the vote which will decide which countries are awarded the tournaments
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Government of National Unity has condemned the "treacherous terrorist" attack against Bahraini defence forces on the southern border of Saudi Arabia taking part in Operation Decisive Storm, which resulted in the death of an officer and the wounding of several others
Photo: (Photo : Agape Trn on Unsplash)

Anna Katogiritis, born in Athens and raised on the remote island of Karpathos, Greece, found solace in the company of thousands of stray cats during her 1990s childhood, a time marked by bullying and isolation. These feline companions, part of Greece's significant stray population, offered her a glimmer of kindness and shaped her ambition to become a veterinarian.

From Dreams to Reality

Moved by the warmth she received from these strays, Anna embarked on a journey of educational and professional accomplishments. She earned a degree in molecular biology and biotechnology from the University of Crete, followed by a veterinary degree from the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Her passion for animal welfare led her to volunteer at the Jane Goodall Institute and forge a lasting relationship with Dr. Goodall, a renowned advocate for animals.

Despite her extensive work and numerous achievements, Anna never forgot her promise to aid the stray cats of Karpathos. The stray population remained an issue, with only two vets and limited facilities available on the island. Fueled by determination and compassion, Anna founded the non-profit Animal Welfare Karpathos in August 2020 with a mission to address the island's stray animal crisis.

Facing funding challenges, Anna personally financed the pilot program, recruiting volunteer veterinary students from the U.S. Despite delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the program launched in 2021, focusing on spaying and neutering stray cats and community outreach. The initiative treated around 300 to 320 cats in three weeks, emphasizing community involvement and education to ensure the program's sustainability and acceptance.

The community's response was overwhelmingly positive, with local hotels providing accommodation for volunteers and tourists contributing donations. Anna's dedication continued in 2022, as she returned to Karpathos, five months pregnant, to further the program's impact. The emphasis on education and changing local attitudes towards stray animals became a cornerstone of Animal Welfare Karpathos's efforts, with local children actively participating in the program, learning about animal welfare, and even expressing their aspirations to become veterinarians.

Anna's organization also facilitated the adoption process for stray cats, requiring potential adopters to undergo a thorough application process. The community of adopters, connected through a Facebook group, has successfully found homes for over 300 pets in three years.

Read Also: Some Veterinarians Allergic to Pets Too

Legislative Hurdles and Solutions

Addressing the root cause of Greece's stray animal issue, Anna pointed to government neglect and the lack of spaying and neutering programs. Despite recent government measures to combat the problem, including mandatory neutering and fines for non-compliance, the stray population remains a significant concern.

Anna's relentless work on Karpathos is a testament to her commitment to animal welfare. With over 700 animals treated through her programs and plans to continue her efforts in 2024, Anna hopes to instill a sense of responsibility and compassion in the younger generation. She envisions a future where local communities actively participate in animal welfare and contribute to long-lasting change.

Anna's broader aspirations extend beyond Karpathos. In 2022, she founded Veterinary Global Aid, aiming to provide free care to animals in need worldwide. While her long-term goal is for such organizations to become unnecessary, she acknowledges the ongoing need for philanthropy and charity work in animal welfare. Anna credits the success of Animal Welfare Karpathos to her dedicated team of volunteers, highlighting the importance of collaboration in turning ideas into reality.

Anna's story is one of transformation and hope-from a bullied, small-sized girl finding companionship in stray cats to a determined veterinarian making a tangible difference in animal welfare on Karpathos. Her journey exemplifies the power of kindness and the enduring impact of promises made in childhood.

Related Article: Robot Pets Can Help with Autism, PTSD, and Even Household Chores
A heart-wrenching incident stemming from a previous disagreement has plunged the South Carolina community into mourning.

A South Carolina shooting, now under investigation, left 3 teens killed, highlighting the grave implications of letting grudges fester.

Backdrop of a Longstanding Grudge

This South Carolina shooting, as described by authorities, unfolded as a violent chapter ending a story of bitterness that began two years ago.

The young lives snuffed out in this tragic episode belonged to teenagers aged 16 and 17, who, despite being rushed to the hospital immediately after the incident, did not survive. The reason? An old "beef" or disagreement that took place years prior.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott voiced his distress, asking why these young souls couldn't choose paths of understanding and reconciliation instead of violence. The community's grief is intensified by the revelation that all those involved in the South Carolina shooting were students.

The 3 teens killed were identified by the Richland County Coroner's office as Caleb Wise, 16, JaKobe Fanning, 16, and Dre'von Riley, 17. Their connection? All three attended Eau Claire High School, making the tragedy hit even closer to home for the Richland County School District.

Not only has the Eau Claire High School community been affected by the loss of its students, but it's also grappling with the fact that among those arrested in connection to the South Carolina shooting, two are 17-year-olds and another is a 14-year-old, all are students of either Eau Claire High School or Alcorn Middle School.

Richland County School District Responds

In response to the South Carolina shooting where 3 teens were killed, the Richland County School District has expressed deep sorrow.

District Superintendent Craig Witherspoon commented on the tragedy, stating that the Richland County School District is devastated by the loss of three young lives from Eau Claire High School to senseless gun violence.

The Richland County School District, where Eau Claire High School is a part of, announced that crisis counselors have been deployed to support the students and staff. This move underscores the profound impact of the shooting on Eau Claire High School and the entire Richland County School District community.

Sheriff Lott, while discussing the South Carolina shooting, recounted the harrowing details. On that tragic Sunday, the 3 teens killed were sitting outside a vacant house.

Without warning, they found themselves under attack as two 17-year-olds unleashed a torrent of bullets upon them. As they tried to escape to the backyard, their attackers pursued, continuing their assault.

While the immediate reason for the attack seems to be a "beef" from two years ago, the larger context and details remain under investigation.

Sheriff Lott mentioned that this disagreement from the past was linked to a burglary. He expressed his despair at such a violent resolution to a disagreement, emphasizing the irreplaceable loss of the 3 teens killed in the South Carolina shooting.

Read Also: Trial of Netflix's 'Take Care of Maya' Reveals Heartbreaking Abuse in Johns Hopkins Hospital

Community Leaders Call for Unity

Recognizing the magnitude of the tragedy, community leaders including Richland County Councilwoman Gretchen Barron, State Rep. Kambrell Garvin, and local pastor Aaron Bishop have joined forces. Their collective message is clear: tragedies like this South Carolina shooting should unite communities, not tear them apart.

Sheriff Lott highlighted the importance of collective responsibility, encouraging everyone to come together, especially now, as the Richland County School District, Eau Claire High School, and the broader community grapple with the devastating aftermath of 3 teens killed senselessly.

Related Article: Fatal New York Bus Crash: Regency Transportation's Record Shows Failed Safety Inspections
Photo: (Photo : Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Parents, law makers, and medical researchers are grappling with the growing social media addiction and screen time concerns of the youth. A new study now reveals the constant exposure to distraction from phone prompts affects teenagers nowadays.

The modern digital age presents numerous benefits, but recent findings also highlight potential pitfalls, with young users becoming increasingly overwhelmed by phone prompts. A new study sheds light on the alarming rates of notifications received by today's youth, raising questions about its impact on their focus and sleep patterns.

Navigating Phone Prompts and Tiktok Notifications

At the heart of this concern lies the experience of Armita Mojazza, a 14-year-old from White Plains, NY. Like many in her age group, she faces a relentless barrage of phone prompts stemming from her social media interactions, especially on platforms like TikTok.

While weekdays demand up to five hours of her attention, weekends see her screen time surging to eight hours and beyond. Such high levels of engagement leave many parents, like Shahrzad Mojazza, astounded. The sheer volume and frequency of phone prompts and notifications seem both unprecedented and alarming.

Jim Steyer, a prominent voice from Common Sense Media, eloquently captures this overwhelming phenomenon, describing it as a "constant buzzing."

Drawing from their latest research, Steyer's organization unveils that approximately half of the participants, aged between 11-17, experience an overwhelming 237 phone prompts daily. Of these, 5% punctuate the silence of the night, and a staggering 25% come flooding in during school hours.

Diving deeper into the data, one discovers even more astounding figures: some teens grapple with nearly 5,000 notifications in a mere 24-hour window.

While the majority of these phone prompts emanate from friend interactions on social media, the sheer volume raises poignant questions about mental well-being and focus.

Read Also: Trial of Netflix's 'Take Care of Maya' Reveals Heartbreaking Abuse in Johns Hopkins Hospital

Teens Grappling From Phone Prompts

While the phone prompts may seem benign at first, experts warn of their potential impact. Dr. Benjamin Maxwell, an authority in child and adolescent psychiatry, expresses his reservations about this "highly stimulating environment."

The constant buzz and barrage of phone prompts might have repercussions on the cognitive ability, attention span, and memory of youngsters, especially considering their brains are still in developmental stages. However, amidst this deluge of notifications and the consequential concerns, a glimmer of hope emerges. Many teenagers, aware of the inundation, are proactively seeking ways to manage their online presence.

Leveraging features like "do not disturb," they attempt to exert control over the ceaseless phone prompts. This sentiment resonates with Armita Mojazza, who, despite setting screen time boundaries, often finds herself going overboard.

The critical question remains: why is it so challenging for teenagers to detach from their screens? Steyer offers a perspective, pointing the finger at the inherent business models of social media platforms.

Platforms like TikTok design their algorithms and features to captivate users, ensuring prolonged engagement and, consequently, increased ad revenue. As he succinctly puts it, these platforms are engaged in "an arms race for your attention," turning phone prompts into powerful weapons.

In the age of digital connectivity, while the benefits are manifold, the challenges, especially for the younger generation, are becoming increasingly evident.

The incessant phone prompts, though seemingly innocuous, might be shaping behavioral patterns and cognitive functions in ways we are yet to fully comprehend.

Related Article: South Carolina Tragedy: "Beef" Leads to Death of 3 Teens in Senseless Shooting
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Ive recently noticed an, umm, online discussion in which several former Latter-day Saints appear to be taking the position that there is simply no evidence for the existence of Joseph Smiths Book of Mormon plates. Saying that actual physical plates existed is, theyre saying, merely a faith position. Its rather like asserting the existence of Bigfoot. Its no better than circular reasoning.

I find such declarations deeply disheartening. I caught just a few minutes this past Sunday night of CNNs Waiting for JFK: Report from the Fringe, on The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper. I hope to be able to see the entire thing. It was stunning, but it disheartened me in much the same way as these confident but unargued declarations of the nonexistence of the plates do.

Let me be clear: Although I find them completely unpersuasive and even, sometimes, somewhat desperate, I can understand arguments that there were no plates or, slightly better, that there were plates but that they were modern forgeries, or something of that type. But to simply assert that no plates actually existed? And, moreover, that no evidence of their reality exists at all?

I had hoped that the stimulus to conversation provided by Witnesses, Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, our still not-yet-complete series of short Insights videos on the topic, and our still-under-construction Witnesses of the Book of Mormon website would have made it almost impossible to remain in such willful ignorance.

The blithe dismissal of evidence for the existence of the plates should have lost its already thin veneer of respectability among anti-Mormons more than four decades ago, with the publication of Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981). Theres been plenty of time for the historical facts to have sunk in.

Moreover, Professor Anderson wrote many other very important articles on the witnessesand on other relevant topicsafter the publication of Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses. These are available online, including but not limited to Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/1 (2005): 1831; Personal Writings of the Book of Mormon Witnesses, in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1997), 3960; and The Credibility of the Book of the Mormon Translators, in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds and Charles D. Tate (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982), 21337. But Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses remains, I think, the place to start on this vital subject.

Off the top of my head, I would also recommend these:

Andrew H. Hedges, All My Endeavors to Preserve Them: Protecting the Plates in Palmyra, 22 September-December 1827

Episode 304 of the Salt Lake Tribunes Mormon Land series: Live with eminent scholars Richard and Claudia Bushman (A discussion of the plates commences at about the ten-minute mark.)

Kirk B. Henrichsen, How Witnesses Described the Gold Plates

The assertion in such writing that real, tangible plates existed isnt a mere profession of faith or an appeal to circular reason. It appeals, rather, to eyewitness testimony and other external evidence. The stuff, in other words, of which ordinary, conventional historiography is made and upon which most historical scholarship is based. Simply that. To claim othewise is either ignorant or, I think, a willfully disingenuous pretense.

I realize, of course, that there is such a thing as invincible and militant ignorance, that you can lead a horse to water but cant make him drink, that there are none so blind as those who will not see, and that even the most widely accepted, effective, and common vaccinations fail in roughly 2-10% of the cases where theyre used. But, really, there is no excuse for such freely-chosen obtuseness.

Moreover, its tiresome. I used to enjoy cops and robbers with my neighbors, using either squirt guns or just our fingers. By the age of about six or seven, though, I had had enough of neighbor kids who, although their shirts were completely soaked, continually insisted that You missed me! You missed me!

A week ago last night (Monday, 18 September), we went out to dinner at the Joy Luck Restaurant, in Sandy, with a group of neighbors and former neighbors. The food was good, but its especially good just to have a few minutes to visit with people that we enjoy. And then, afterwards, we attended a performance at the nearby Hale Centre Theatre of Catch Me If You Can: A Murder Mystery (not to be confused with the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, which is completely distinct).

Last night (Monday, 25 September), our group of neighbors and friends met for dinner at Pei Wei Asian Kitchen, also in Sandy. I confess, perhaps just a bit guiltily, that I like Pei Wei. But, once again, the chief attraction for me in these gatherings are the conversations. Afterwards, we went again to the Hale Centre Theatre, where we saw a well-acted performance of Jules Vernes Around the World in 80 Days. Pure fluff, but very enjoyable fluff  although I seem, frankly, to have enjoyed it more than the other three people in our car did.

With acrobats and aerialists and a ship at sea and a large elephant, and the like, Around the World in 80 Days made very good use of many of the most spectacular resources in that remarkable building. Ive said it before, but I firmly believe it to be true: The Hale Centre Theatre is one of the great treasures along the Wasatch Front. If Broadway or Los Angeles has a theater building to equal the Hale in terms of technical capacity and bells and whistles, I havent seen it. I realize, of course, lowbrow that I am  Im heading here to head some of my more obsessive and comprehensively hostile critics off at the pass  that really great drama (William Shakespeares Othello, for instance, or the Antigone of Sophocles, or T. S. Eliots Murder in the Cathedral, or Michael Frayns Copenhagen) doesnt need bells and whistles. But the Hale is an astonishing place and, for what it does, I havent seen its like.
[see book and purchase information]

The late Steve Hays made a response to me on 14 January 2010 entitled Up from the acorn. It mostly had to do with the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) and early ecclesiology, and was a reply to some of my arguments in my article, Catholic Development of Doctrine: A Defense: Part I (vs. Jason Engwer; Emphasis on the Canon of the Bible & Church Infallibility) [1-13-10].

This is a mere fifteen days before he described me as possessing an evil character: which he added to his colorful repertoire of personal insults sent my way; for example, narcissistic little jerk and actually evil (4-13-09), hypersensitive, paranoid, an ego-maniac, with a martyr and persecution complex (7-16-09), a stalwart enemy of the faith whose goal is to destroy faith in Gods word (1-28-10), schizophrenic . . . . self-important. . . . emotionally unhinged (4-18-10), and a bad man (12-7-11). Thankfully, however, in this instance, he decided to actually discuss theology, minus the childish and asinine foolishness. Good for him. Please pray for his soul.

His words will be in blue. Words of mine that he cited from that article will be in green.

*****

Dave Armstrong is attempting to critique a post by Jason Engwer. . . . Ill just comment on what I think is most germane.

[T]he concept is already (I would contend) explicitly present in Scripture, in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), which not only claimed profoundly binding authority, but even the express sanction of the Holy Spirit, making it close to the concept of biblical inspiration: a thing that goes beyond all Catholic claims for infallibility: an essentially lesser gift than inspiration.

Is the council of Jerusalem really the archetype and prototype for the ecumenical councils of Rome?

Yes.

Does the council of Jerusalem point to an authoritative church, as the church of Rome defines herself?

Yes. It had all the hallmarks of an ecumenical council:

1) It was called to consider and resolve a pressing issue troubling the Church (15:1-6). 2) It was attended by bishops (apostles: from whom bishops are successors: Acts 15:6, 22-23) from the Church at large. 3) It was attended and influenced by those with less authority than bishops also (elders: 15:6, 22-23). 4) It was dominated by and influenced the most by the leader of the early Church, Peter, who put an end to much debate(15:7), by authoritatively rebuking the Judaizers (God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe . . . why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples . . .?: 15:7, 10). This produced the dramatic effect of silence in the assembly after he spoke (15:7-12). Peter (having been informed already of the issue by God in a vision: Acts ch. 10-11) provided the principles by which the council made its decision. If Peter dominated the council and influenced it the most, in effect this was the developmental kernel of papal supremacy. 5) The local bishop, James, also played a prominent but secondary role. When he spoke, he deferentially referred back to Peters key and decisive address (Simeon has related . . .: 15:14), which is how one defers to superiors and authority figures; then he noted that the prophets agree with what Peter said (15:15) and cited them (15:16-18). When he proclaimed, Therefore my judgment . . . (15:19), he was simply agreeing with what Peter had already made clear, which he noted was in harmony with the prophets (i.e., the Bible). 6) It reached a profound unity of mind and came to one accord (15:25). 7) It made an authoritative decree for the larger Church (15:19-21, 28-29). 8) It invoked the guidance of the Holy Spirit in so doing (15:28); i.e., infallibility. 9) It authoritatively and infallibly interpreted Scripture (matters concerning the application of the Mosaic Law to Gentile Christians: 15:1-6, 19-21, 28-29). 10) Its decree was proclaimed for observance across Asia Minor, by no less than St. Paul himself (16:4). He had played a far lesser role than Peter and James in the council, since he and Barnabas simply related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles (15:12). Likewise, great bishops through history like St. Augustine and St. Athanasius advised councils and appealed to them as profound authorities but didnt lead them.

So although it came at a very early time in the development of ecclesiology, all of the essential elements of what would become ecumenical councils are remarkably present, according to the record of inspired revelation. Its a devastating argument against sola Scriptura, which denies the infallibility or final authority of anything besides Holy Scripture.

Hays cites the Catholic Encyclopedia article, General Councils:

Ecumenical Councils are those to which the bishops, and others entitled to vote, are convoked from the whole world (oikoumene) under the presidency of the pope or his legates, and the decrees of which, having received papal confirmation, bind all Christians.

*

The bishops in councilhold no power, no commission, or delegation, from the people. All their powers, orders, jurisdiction, and membership in the council, come to them from above  directly from the pope, ultimately from God.

*

The council is, then, the assessor of the supreme teacher and judge sitting on the Chair of Peter by Divine appointment; its operation is essentially co-operation  the common action of the members with their head  and therefore necessarily rises or falls in value, according to the measure of its connection with the pope. A council in opposition to the pope is not representative of the whole Church, for it neither represents the pope who opposes it, nor the absent bishops, who cannot act beyond the limits of their dioceses except through the pope. A council not only acting independently of the Vicar of Christ, but sitting in judgment over him, is unthinkable in the constitution of the Church.

On this model, you have one authoritative, hierarchical institution.

Thats right. John Calvin agreed. He wrote:

To those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother . . . (Gal. 4:26). (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, 1:1) [A]ll who reject the spiritual food of the soul divinely offered to them by the hands of the Church, deserve to perish of hunger and famine. (Inst., IV, 1:5) [T]he Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. And what else do these words mean, than just that the truth of God is preserved in the Church, and preserved by the instrumentality of preaching; . . . The reason, therefore, why the truth, instead of being extinguished in the world, remains unimpaired, is, because he has the Church as a faithful guardian, by whose aid and ministry it is maintained. (Inst., IV, 8:12) [T]here is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for, as Isaiah and Joel testify (Isa. 37:32; Joel 2:32). . . . the abandonment of the Church is always fatal. (Inst., IV, 1:4) We may add, that so long as we continue in the bosom of the Church, we are sure that the truth will remain with us. (Inst., IV, 1:3) So highly does he recommend her authority, that when it is violated he considers that his own authority is impaired. For there is no small weight in the designation given to her, the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). By these words Paul intimates, that to prevent the truth from perishing in the world, the Church is its faithful guardian, because God has been pleased to preserve the pure preaching of his word by her instrumentality, and to exhibit himself to us as a parent while he feeds us with spiritual nourishment, and provides whatever is conducive to our salvation. (Inst., IV, 1:10)

The bishops are papal appointees. They derive all their authority from the pope.

Methods of appointment are non-essential elements and developed through time. The important thing to note is that there were bishops, and a leader of the disciples who then became a leader of the bishops. This is all quite biblical. See my well-known (or in some circles, notorious), article, 50 New Testament Proofs for Petrine Primacy & the Papacy [1994].

The church of Rome is the central institution which empowered them in the first place.

Yes; following the model of the early Church, which appointed Matthias to replace Judas (Acts 1:20-26), and commissioned St. Paul (Gal 2:9), etc. Peter had been established in the office of the papacy by Jesus Himself (Mt 16, etc.). And the disciples, the first apostles had been called and commissioned by Him as well.

ii) Compare that to Acts 15.

a) Pope Peter doesnt even preside at the council. James does. What is more, Pope Peter doesnt even confirm the proceedings of the council.

See my summary of the council in #4-5 above. James gave his opinion, in agreement with what Peter had already made clear. The text doesnt say he was presiding over the council. When the decree was made, it was made in the name of the entire council (15:22-29). The text doesnt say that either Peter or James ratified or confirmed the letter. That being the case, and all things considered, I think the data we do have from Acts 15  per my reasoning above  suggests that Peter was the leader and most influential figure in the council: especially in light of the fact that he had been presented in the Gospels as the leader of the disciples and in early Acts as the leader of the young Church. Thus, being leader of the first council of the Church would be entirely consistent with that picture.

b) The council of Jerusalem exists to pass judgment on Peters actionsas well as Pauls. Peter is not above the council.

Again, if Peter dominated it, he could be described as being supreme in it (the beginnings of papal supremacy). The council, in its decree, directly reflected what both Peter and Paul had already come to understand about the Gentiles (and Peter by virtue of a vision from God).

Mind you, this is collegial. No individual mission leader outranks any other individual mission leader in these proceedings. No one is above another.

Thats what we would expect in an early Church where the first believers were together and had all things in common (Acts 2:44). Jesus had taught that the disciples were not to lord it over anyone:

Mark 10:42-44 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. [43] But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, [44] and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

But this is not inconsistent with leadership, since Jesus Himself washed feet and acted as a servant to His own disciples, while still being their Lord. Likewise, with Peter and the apostles. Acts 15 shows Peter acting as the leader.

Indeed, as Paul makes emphatically clear in Gal 1-2, his authority did not derive from the authoritative church of Jerusalem.

His calling came from God, as all callings ultimately do. It doesnt follow that he was not under any authority in the Church. Its no mere coincidence that when Paul first interacted with the Church in Jerusalem, he first talked to Cephas [Peter, from the Aramaic kepha], and he remained with him fifteen days (Gal 1:18). The only other apostle he saw was James the bishop of Jerusalem (Gal 1:19). So the scenario is just as it was in the council: Peter was the leader and James a secondary leader. Note that I am using the same text that Hays claims proves that Paul was supposedly not under authority. Paul basically contends that he was commissioned (or given the okay) by Peter, James, and John:

Galatians 2:9 and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised;

Ellicotts Commentary for English Readers stated that the word pillars was in common use among the Jews as a designation for the great Rabbinical teachers.

c) Each speaker in this debate (Peter, Paul, Barnabas, James) is the coequal leader of different mission churches or missionary fields. There is no hierarchy in which one individual (the supreme leader) appointed the others to subordinate positions in the power structure. No chain-of-command at this level. There may be people under Peter, Paul, James, &c. But no one is over them.

Again, I say that Peter is presented as the leader, but hes not lording it over them, since he is following his master, Jesus lead. Paul and Barnabas were, in fact, sent off by the assembly to proclaim its message (15:25, 30; 16:4), along with Judas and Silas (15:27), so there is some sense of chain of command there (however gentle), I submit.

What we have, rather, are representatives of different, semiautonomous mission churches who come together to hammer out a common policy for the good of the church at large. On the one hand they arent entirely independent of each another. On the other hand, no one church can unilaterally impose its will on other mission churches and mission leaders.

This is simply a low church bias. Hays first sentence is essentially describing episcopal, hierarchical church government. But then he contradicts himself in his final sentence. The decree of the council is precisely the church in Jerusalem imposing its will on other local churches (in Asia Minor, as we learn from Acts 16:4), regarding the question of how responsible Gentiles were to keep the Law. In fact, its decision held subsequently throughout all Church history.

Thats a completely different polity than Roman Catholicism. Yet this was Armstrongs paradigmatic example of the authoritative church in action.

Sorry, I dont see any big (let alone essential) difference here, per my arguments above, which are far more detailed, in-depth, and Bible-based than Steves arbitrary bald pronouncements.

Now, Dave may claim that things change when we transition from the apostles to their successors, but he cant logically evolve the Catholic ear from the kernel of Acts 15.

Things develop, as always. Development is a consistent progression in complexity and understanding, while maintaining the essence all along, not an evolutionary doctrinal change: a thing which the Church has condemned. When Pope St. Pius X condemned evolution of dogma, at the same time he enthusiastically advocated and praised Newmanian development of doctrine. Steve Hays never understood these sorts of things about Catholicism, and he displayed his uncomprehending ignorance again here.

d) Although Paul complies with the policy which he and his fellow mission leaders agreed to at the time (15:30), he does so at his own discretionfor he also feels at liberty to demur from the conciliar prohibitions regarding sacrificial food when he must later deal with the Corinthian situation (1 Cor 10:27-28).

Therefore, he doesnt regard the canons and decrees of the Jerusalem council as binding on him or his congregants. Rather, its a pragmatic compromise which can be selectively set aside depending on the demands of the situation at hand.



Those are all secondary considerations and not of the essence, and as such, no disproof of my claims. All Paul did was what the Church at large at length decided, as to matters of food. Applications of Church decrees develop, too, as new situations arise.

And this is a textbook example of Catholic spooftexting, whereby Armstrong begins with Catholic ecclesiology as his frame of reference, then anachronistically superimposes that grid onto Acts 15, conveniently overlooking or disregarding the fundamental differences.

I did no such thing. We all do have our natural biases, though, depending on our Christian affiliation. I will tend to see  going in  primitive Catholicism here, just as Hays saw primitive Calvinism and low church ecclesiology. That said, and freely admitted, I have argued from the Newmanian perspective of development of doctrine. Nothing I see in Acts 15 contradicts that understanding in the least. And I have laid out my view far more comprehensively than Hays has done with his. I think its most consistent  indeed, strikingly so  with a primitive Catholicism perspective.

The authoritative Church also includes apostolic succession. The true apostolic tradition or deposit is authoritatively passed down.

Of course, that simply begs the question.

Not when I can back up my claim with lots of Scripture:

Visible, Hierarchical, Apostolic Church [1996]

Apostles Became Bishops (Apostolic Succession) [1997]

Biblical Arguments for Apostolic Succession [9-9-09]

Apostolic Succession: More Biblical Arguments [1-6-17]

Apostolic Succession as Seen in the Jerusalem Council [National Catholic Register, 1-15-17]

Answers to Questions About Apostolic Succession [National Catholic Register, 7-25-20]

A New Biblical Argument for Apostolic Succession [National Catholic Register, 4-23-21]

New Apostle Matthias: Proof of Church Infallibility [12-31-21]

Apostolic Succession, Judas, & Matthias [5-26-23]

Petrine & Roman Primacy & Papal Succession (vs. Calvin #14) [6-13-09]

The Biblical Argument for Papal Succession [12-12-15]

Papal Succession: A Straightforward Biblical Argument [4-28-17]

All that really needs to be found, then, is a notion of an authoritative Church that can bind and loose, over against sola Scriptura, in which Scripture alone is the infallible authority.

i) Dave would need to properly exegete the concept of binding and loosing in the Gospels.

I wrote in my first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (1996, p. 225):

Binding and loosing were technical rabbinical terms meaning, respectively, to forbid and to permit, with regard to interpretations of Jewish Law. In secondary usage, they could mean to condemn and to acquit. This power is also given to the Apostles in Matthew 18:17-18, where it apparently refers particularly to discipline and excommunication in local jurisdictions (whereas Peters commission seems to apply to the universal Church). In John 20:23 it is also granted to the Apostles (in a different terminology, which suggests the power to impose penance and grant indulgences and absolution). Generally speaking, binding and loosing usually meant the prerogative to formulate Christian doctrine and to require allegiance to it, as well as to condemn heresies which were opposed to the true doctrine (Jude 3). [1] Marvin Vincent writes: No other terms were in more constant use in Rabbinic canon-law than those of binding and loosing. They represented the legislative and judicial powers of the Rabbinic office. These powers Christ now transferred, . . . in their reality, to his apostles; the first, here, to Peter, as their representative, the second, after his Resurrection, to the Church (John 20:23) . . . [2] FOOTNOTES 1. See, for example, Protestant works: Allen C. Myers, editor, Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1987 [English revision of Bijbelse Encyclopedie, edited by W. H. Gispen, Kampen, Netherlands: J. H. Kok, revised edition, 1975], translated by Raymond C. Togtman and Ralph W. Vunderink, p. 158; D. Guthrie, and J. A. Motyer, editors, The New Bible Commentary (NBC), Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 3rd edition, 1970 [Reprinted, 1987, as The Eerdmans Bible Commentary], p. 837; Leon Morris, general editor, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press / Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1985, vol. 1: Matthew, R. T. France, p. 256. 2. Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1946 (originally 1887), 4 volumes, vol. 1, p. 96.

Aspects of particulars such as where this Church resides, exactly how it is governed, etc., are distinct from this basic kernel, and we would fully expect relatively more disagreement in the early centuries, just as we would expect the known fact of disagreement over the NT books (the canon): more so, the further we go back. That should surprise no one or make no one think Catholic doctrine is brought into question on this ground by itself. Men could differ on the exact nature of the infallible Church, while agreeing that there is such a thing, just as men can differ on individual books, while agreeing that there is such a thing as a Bible, that is inspired.

i) If we equate early tradition with apostolic tradition, with a deposit of faith handed down without adulteration from one successor to another, then we wouldnt expect more disagreement the closer back in time we go to the wellspring. To the contrary, wed expect more unanimity.

We see that on the basics and fundamentals, but not the fine points and specifics. But even basic things like Christology and the theology of trinitarianism, took (as is well-known) some six centuries to fully develop into their present orthodox form. Ecclesiology was rather slow in development, though we do see its kernel clearly in the Bible, and see it also very plainly in St. Clement. (c. 35  c. 101).

ii) Dave cant legitimately isolate the bare kernel of an infallible/authoritative church from the particulars, for, on his model, the true church is self-defining and self-identifying. The infallible church is the custodian of the kernel. It defines the kernel.

Nice try. Its not circular reasoning. It is what it is, based on the account in the New Testament, and subsequent history. I didnt make it what it is. Nor did the Catholic Church arbitrarily define itself (no matter how much Hays desperately wished and fantasized that that were true). It did based on the apostolic deposit, passed down from our Lord Jesus Christ.

So you need the true definition to identify the true church, yet you need the true church to identify the true definition. Unless you already know where this church resides, you cant specify what is meant by an infallible, authoritative church. For the church itself must specify the concept. Otherwise, words like authoritative and infallible are simply ciphers.

The Jerusalem Council is where we look to see the beginning and the essence.

But unless you already have an accurate definition, you cant use that to pick out the one true church. So how does Dave ever get started?

I start with the New Testament and words of Jesus, of course. One exercises faith, serous exegesis, and historical analysis, rather than Hays trademark hyper-skepticism and cynicism towards anything different from his own beliefs.

iii) He cant very well invoke the criterion of binding and loosing in the canonical gospels, for, according to him, its up to the authoritative church to authorize the canon in the first place. Without his infallible church, he has no warrant for the binding and loosing criterion.

Nonsense. It had a long Jewish and rabbinical pedigree, from which it developed, as the several Protestant scholars whom I cited in my first book (see above) explain.

iv) And if all we need is the bare concept of an authoritative, infallible church, then the LDS church might as well claim to be the oak which sprang from this indistinct acorn.

Sure, if it hadnt begun based on alleged visions of Joseph Smith in 1823. Its a bit of a later arriver, Im afraid. The true Church has to trace itself to the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

Protestantism didnt exist. When it does come around over a thousand years later, it obviously has to be derived from Catholicism (being a western European phenomenon) in order to claim historical continuity, and then it has to provide a rationale for the primacy supposedly being switched over to them over against the existing Catholic Church.

But given the principle of development, Protestantism, in its particulars, didnt have to exist back then. All wed need to unearth is a Protestant acorn from which the Protestant oak tree arose.

Best wishes in that endeavor! Talk about an impossible task!

The existence of apostolic succession as a major part of the rule of faith in the fathers isnt even arguable. It is simply a fact. It also has a directly biblical basis and a secondary, indirect (deductive) biblical basis, if the thing itself is to be disputed.

Its gratifying to see Armstrongs bold confidence in the perspicuity of Scripture. But now that hes affirmed his faith in the perspicuity of Scripture, the Magisterium is dispensable.

Why would it (logically) be dispensable? It doesnt follow. Nor will the Bible itself allow that, since it explicitly asserts ecclesial infallibility:

1 Timothy 3:15 = Church Infallibility (vs. Steve Hays) [5-14-20]

In other words, if you accept an infallible Bible, you must necessarily also accept an infallible Church, since the infallible Bible proclaims it.

They could conceivably be so, but the historical pedigree in those cases is far inferior to the pedigree of Rome: largely because of the historical function of the papacy.

Would the pedigree of Rome include the False Decretals, fraudulent papal elections, &c.?

One can always find anomalies, shortcomings, and sins among the human beings, even in the one true Church. These dont falsify the essential claims made.

Related Reading

Jerusalem Council vs. Sola Scriptura [9-2-04]

Acts 16:4 vs. Sola Scriptura & John Calvin?: Is Conciliar Authority Binding on Protestants (Especially When it is Guided by St. Paul and St. Peter?) [11-2-15]

C. S. Lewis vs. St. Paul on Future Binding Church Authority [National Catholic Register, 1-22-17]

Armstrong vs. Geisler #10: Ecclesiology (Jerusalem Council) [3-2-17]

Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) Decrees: Universally Binding? [11-21-19]

Did Peter or James Preside at the Jerusalem Council? (And Was it the Prototype of Ecumenical Councils or Merely a Local Synod?) [5-21-21]

Jerusalem Council, Idol Food, Paul, & Doctrinal Development: Reply to Lydia McGrew [12-9-22]

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Summary: I reply to various objections to the Catholic and episcopal interpretation of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) made by the late anti-Catholic Calvinist Steve Hays.
Details added (first version published at 14:38)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Russian billionaire of Armenian origin Ruben Vardanyan has been detained, Trend reports.

Ruben Karlenovich Vardanyan, born in 1968, who was heading from Azerbaijan to Armenia and illegally arrived in Azerbaijan and held the "position" of the so-called "state minister" of the separatist regime in Karabakh, was detained on September 27 at the Lachin border checkpoint on the state border as a result of the vigilance of servicemen of Azerbaijani State Border Service.

He was brought to Baku accompanied by officers of the Rapid Response Force of the State Border Service.

He was handed over to the relevant state bodies to make an appropriate decision regarding the detainee.
Microsoft releases a new version of its two operating systems Windows 10 and 11 every autumn. However, the software company has only delivered new features for Windows 11, limiting Windows 10 to basic upgrades alone.

Windows 10 also received an update a short time later, but you wont find any real innovations. Its limited to improvements that affect the quality, productivity, and security of Windows 10, per Microsoft.

Thats disappointing for Windows 10 users  but youre not fully left behind. Heres how you can implement the new Windows 11 features into Windows 10 as well.

What Windows 11 Explorer has to offer

After years of stagnation, the Windows File Explorer is increasingly the focus of Microsoft developers. A feature that has been planned for years has made it into Windows Explorer with Windows 11 22H2: displaying multiple folders in different tabs. A new tab can be opened with the key combination Ctrl+T or the + button.

This is practical if you want to switch quickly between folders, for example to copy files. With the impending Windows 11 2023 Update, Microsoft will allow Windows Explorer to unpack Rar and 7-Zip files as well as the tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives commonly used under Linux. So far  as with Windows 10  only Zip archives are supported, but unpacking should be faster in the future.

Files: Installing alternatives to Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer replica: The Files app hardly differs visually from Windows Explorer. The tool also offers tabs for Windows 10 and additionally a two-panel view. IDG

For those who are used to Windows Explorer, the Files app is probably the best alternative at the moment. When installed via the Microsoft Store in Windows 10, Files costs $8.99, which you use to support the project. You can find a free download on Github. Files can also be installed free of charge via the Microsoft Store for Windows 11.

Files looks almost like Windows Explorer and can be operated in the same way. However, there are considerably more options. In the context menu of the tabs, for example, you will find Duplicate Tab and Open Tab in New Window. A new tab can be created with Ctrl+T or the + button. If you prefer to work with a split view, you can go to New panel in the three-point menu on the far right of the toolbar. This allows two folders to be displayed side by side.

Configure files: Useful options can be activated in the settings, which can be reached via the cogwheel symbol at the top right. Under General > Start settings you can select Continue where you left off. Files then remembers the open folders and restores the view at the next start. In the Appearance section you can activate the Dark mode and also set other colors for the window.

Dealing with archive files: Via the context menu item Compress, files or folders can be packed into archives in the Zip and 7-Zip formats. Compress > Create archive leads to a dialogue in which you can specify the name and format as well as a password for the encryption. There are also settings for the compression level, and large 7-Zip archives can be saved in smaller individual files (split size). Zip, 7-Zip, and Rar archives can be opened by double-clicking, the contents viewed or files extracted.

The Files App Microsoft

Other features: For the organization of files and folders, you can assign a tag such as Home or Work via the context menu item Edit tags, which Files displays in the Tags column. In the settings, activate the tags option under General > Widgets. The start page then shows Tags in addition to Quick Access and Drives, and the folders and files can be opened with a mouse click.

It is also possible to search for items with tags if you prefix the search term in the field at the top right with tag:. In the settings under Tags you can change the designations and add new tags.

The disadvantages of Files: In our tests, the tool mostly worked reliably, but occasionally it crashed. Compared to Windows Explorer, Files often opens folders and drives containing numerous items with a slight delay.

Windows Explorer with Tabs

Two new Explorer functions of Windows 11 also in version 10: on top the practical tabs, below that the used capacity of OneDrive and other cloud storage. IDG

It took a long time for Microsoft to add tabs to Windows Explorer. The practical feature, which you know from web browsers, enables the file manager to switch quickly between different folders and to copy or move data conveniently.

With Clover and QT Tab Bar, you have two tools that also equip Explorer with tabs under Windows 10. If you decide to use QT Tab Bar, install the tool, restart the PC, and open Windows Explorer. Now click on the down arrow in the View tab on the right under the Options symbol and activate the Qttabbar list entry. The new tab bar now appears in Windows Explorer.

The tabs are more closely aligned with the new Explorer design of Windows 11 with Clover. With this tool, however, you have to make an effort because the setup wizard shows Chinese characters. This is not a problem, however, because you only need to click the central button at the beginning and end of the installation. After that, the Windows 10 Explorer has tabs.

Tabs and window groups for all programs

Microsoft has been planning a function that allows you to group several windows for several years. So far, however, nothing has been seen of this idea in Windows. Groupy offers more or less the functions that Microsoft may be planning for the future, and then some. You can try out the program free of charge for 30 days. A license for five PCs costs $9.99.

The first time you start Groupy, click on Start 30-day trial; then you have to enter your email address. In the confirmation email, click on the activation link.

Groupy adds a second tab bar above the title bar of the windows. In Windows Explorer the bar is always visible, in other windows it is only visible when you move the mouse to the area above the title bar. In Windows Explorer, a click on the + button opens the currently displayed folder again in a new tab. You can now navigate to different folders in both tabs. If you drag a file with the mouse from the Windows Explorer window to the other tab, the tab is activated and the file can be moved to the folder. To copy the file, press the Ctrl key.

Tabs with Groupy: The tool builds a bar with tabs above the title bar. These can display not only folders, but almost any application. Groupy

Proceed in the same way for any other program: Open Windows Explorer and, for example, the Windows editor Notepad. Click on the Notepad window in the Groupy bar with the mouse and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag it to the upper area of the Windows Explorer window until Insert into group here appears. As soon as you release the mouse button, a new tab appears. Repeat this with all windows that you want to dock as tabs. You can undock a tab by simply dragging it away from the window and onto the desktop.

Alternatively, use the small button with the down arrow in the Groupy bar. In the menu you will see a list of open windows. Select the window for which you want to create a tab. Use All unordered windows on this monitor to create tabs for all windows.

You want to continue where you left off? In the context menu of a Groupy tab, select Group > Save group as, give it a meaningful name and click on Save. To load the group again later, go to Group > Saved Groups in the context menu and select the desired one.

Fill level of the cloud storage

In addition, the Explorer in Windows 11 now shows the data fill level of OneDrive. This useful feature can also be retrofitted and extended to other cloud storage right away.

This is how it works: Install Raidrive including the Runtime and Visual C++ modules that may be additionally required. After starting the program, click on + Add at the top, activate the entry OneDrive in the Personal tab and select a free drive letter for Drive. Clicking on Connect takes you to the OneDrive login, where you log in with your Microsoft account and allow Raidrive access to your cloud. To see the used storage space in Windows, click on View > Tiles or View > Contents in Explorer. In the same way, you can integrate Dropbox, Google Drive, et al into Explorer via Raidrive.

Snap Bar, Clipchamp, and Task Manager with Efficiency Mode

The Windowgrid tool makes it possible to arrange open program windows on the computer monitor as desired via the desktop grid that appears. IDG

With Windows 11 version 22H2, Microsoft has expanded the Snap Layouts for quickly arranging program windows on the screen with the new Snap Bar. Instead of clicking precisely on a function icon, one simply drags an open window to the top of the desktop and selects the desired predefined placement.

Windowgrid also makes it possible to arrange windows under Windows 10. To do this, click the left mouse button at the top of the window, move it minimally, and now also press the right mouse button. This places a grid over the desktop. As soon as you release the right mouse button, you can place the window in the grid as desired by dragging it with the left button. Sounds complicated, but trial and error makes it immediately clear.

Another alternative is the Microsoft PowerToys (in the Microsoft Store) with the FancyZones feature. Because FancyZones offers many possibilities for placing and docking windows, the tool requires some training. Fortunately, weve got a FancyZones primer to help you wrap your head around it.

get windows 11 pro for cheap in pcworld's software store Windows 11 Pro Best Prices Today:

Also not limited to Windows 11 is the new video editor app Clipchamp, which is available under Windows 10 in the Microsoft Store. If the Store and Store apps are up to date, Windows 10 automatically offers the new app when the previous Video Editor app is called up.

Microsoft highlights the new efficiency mode in the task manager of Windows 11 version 22H2. This is not a unique feature, however, because it is already included in Insider builds of Windows 10 as Eco Mode.

It has not yet made it into the regular autumn update, but even without it you can prioritize processes without terminating them completely. To do this, right-click on a process entry in the Details tab of the task manager and continue with Set priority: In the test, the Low option reduced the CPU load of a demo application from almost 100 to 65 percent.

Alternatives to the Windows Sandbox

Sandboxie offers a safe environment to try out unknown software without risk. Virtual systems with Virtual Box or Vmware Player require more effort Foundry

Microsoft has already introduced the sandbox for safely trying out software and system settings in 2019, i.e. in Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise. It has remained limited to the two professional versions, but since the autumn update, the virtual system no longer loses all changes when rebooting as it did before  but only under Windows 11. Sandboxie Plus does the same and runs under Windows 10 including Home Edition.

This is how it works: After installing and starting Sandboxie, right-click on Sandbox DefaultBox > Start in Sandbox > Start Program > Search on the control surface. In the Programs or Programs (x86) folder, select the executable file of the software that is to start in the sandbox. In the next step, activate the option Start as UAC administrator, click on OK and, depending on the setting of the user account control (UAC), on Yes.

If you want to set up Windows as a complete virtual system, use VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player. The ISO files for installing Windows 10 or 11 are available from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/software-download.

The instant recovery tools Reboot Restore Rx and Time Freeze are convenient alternatives. They discard all changes made in the meantime and thus also remove potential malware. The tools also work with virtualization, but the virtual system does not have to be restarted.

Add Smart App Control

With Smart App Control (SAC), Microsoft has introduced a function in Windows 11 version 22H2 that was previously reserved for Windows in S-mode  namely, to rigorously block everything that the system does not explicitly classify as harmless. This is a significant difference to conventional virus protection. The latter only warns or blocks what probably contains malicious code.

The new function uses artificial intelligence and certificate-based signatures. How it will prove itself in practice remains to be seen. SAC does not currently provide for manually set exceptions to be able to run programs that are classified as unsafe. Microsoft is also aware that Smart App Control is a radical step: SAC can only be used on PCs with freshly installed Windows 11. Those who updated their PC to version 22H2 in autumn must first reset it.

Initially, the feature runs in evaluation mode. This analyzes the individual user behavior and then decides whether the protection seems to make sense in concrete use. Then it switches on automatically after some time; this can be done manually at any time. Once a protection mode has been activated, it can easily be deactivated again, but it cannot be reactivated without resetting Windows 11. Since the installed software is lost when resetting, this step needs to be carefully considered.

Windows 10, on the other hand, does not support the third-party Smart App Control, but offers a number of similar protection mechanisms. Microsoft summarizes these in the Settings app under Windows Security.

Some, such as virus, real-time, tamper and cloud-based protection, as well as the firewall, are turned on by default. But the other protection functions that are not automatically activated are also useful. These include Monitored Folder Access against ransomware (under Virus and Threat Protection), blocking potentially unwanted apps and downloads, and  only in the Pro version  Microsoft Defender Application Guard (both under App & Browser Control Reliability-Based Protection). Depending on the CPU, you will also find Core Isolation under Device Security.

This juxtaposition of different security functions is partly responsible for the fact that Windows sometimes also warns falsely. For example, if the system warns you when installing an established program, download it again from the manufacturer or from a secure source. You can also check the file with an online multiscanner such as Virustotal or Jottis Malware Scan before setting it up. If it gives the green light, install the software via More information > Run anyway at your own risk. Many security suites also offer real-time and system protection.

Screenshots can be created with the app Cut and Sketch (Snipping Tool), which can be called up most easily with the key combination Win+Shift+S. In the bar, you can select the screenshot you want to take. In the bar you can choose whether you want to cut out a window or an area. The image is on the clipboard, and a click on the notification opens it in the app, which offers some editing functions.

Whatever Microsoft plans for the Cut and Sketch app, the free tool Greenshot can probably already do it. After installation, it appears as an icon in the notification area next to the clock and registers the key combinations Print key (area), Alt-Press (window), and Ctrl-Press (desktop) for itself. The key combinations can be changed in the settings. After Ctrl-press, for example, a menu appears that can be used to save the screenshot, copy it to the clipboard, or open it in the Greeenshot Editor. The editor offers numerous editing functions. You can draw lines or rectangles in the image and add speech bubbles and text boxes.

Bluestacks brings Android apps to PCs

The Bluestacks App Player offers access to Googles official Play Store as well as the possibility to install Android apps as APK files on Windows PCs. IDG

Finally, can Android apps also be installed under Windows 10  i.e. one of the core functions of Windows 11, which Microsoft had to postpone at the launch of the operating system in autumn 2021 for performance reasons and which was only released a year later.

The Windows subsystem for Android and thus the apps themselves are not available with Windows 10. But the Android emulator Bluestacks App Player brings the Android apps into the predecessor system as well.

This is how it works: Run the Bluestacks installer and wait until all the necessary program files have been downloaded and the emulator has been installed. You can start the actual player with all its functions by clicking on the symbol at the bottom left of the Bluestacks interface. The function bar on the right offers so many possibilities that you need some time to get to know and set up the new system. This includes the fact that after logging into the integrated Google Play Store, almost all Android apps are available in principle. In addition, Bluestacks offers cross-system functions, such as file and media access via Windows Explorer.

Searching with artificial intelligence Since the release of Chat-GPT, everyone has the option of getting help from an AI. Microsoft, which has a stake in Open AI, has meanwhile integrated the AI chat into the Edge web browser. It can be accessed via the icon (Discover) in the sidebar. The function is available to users of Windows 10 and 11. Insider build 23493 of Windows 11 already shows what Microsoft plans to do with AI in the future. The key combination Win + C now no longer leads to Cortana, but to Windows Copilot. The window looks like Edge and you can type a question into the input line to communicate with the AI. However, commands that are started on the PC are also possible. Take a screenshot, for example, searches for an action and then opens the snipping tool. Switch to dark mode activates the dark mode for Windows and apps after a query. So far, Windows Copilot is still a pre-release version; the features are limited. Microsoft will probably not offer Copilot for Windows 10. To our knowledge, there are no alternative programs. With the rapid development in the field of artificial intelligence, other providers will certainly also work on tools for PC control via AI.

This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.
Tawa Bolarin, Vodafone Ghanas Director of the Enterprise Business Unit, has called on Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs) across the nation to take advantage of the upcoming Vodafone Business Runway event to bolster their growth and resilience in an ever-evolving marketplace.



In todays dynamic business landscape, its crucial for SMEs to equip themselves with the right tools and knowledge. The Vodafone Business Runway is not just an event; its an opportunity, said Tawa.



This years event is themed "Good to Great with Vodafone: Innovate, Comply and Expand." The line-up promises a wealth of knowledge from industry experts. Ama Bawuah, Board Chair of Access bank and Charlotte Amankwah, Director of Commercial Business Banking at Ecobank Ghana, will discuss "Accessing Sustainable Finance." Andrew Ackah, CEO of Dentsu Ghana, will share insights on "Building Innovative Brands." Dr Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, Managing Partner at Ali-Nakyea & Associates, will delve into the intricacies of "Navigating the Tax Maze."



Beyond the Business Runway, Vodafone Ghana has consistently shown its commitment to the SME sector. As part of the SME Month, the company has rolled out a comprehensive suite of initiatives, including the introduction of 4G+ connectivity, device financing schemes, and the innovative One Business offering, designed to provide companies with a holistic communication solution.



In a nod to the changing times and the importance of inclusivity, Vodafone Ghana has innovatively designed the event to cater to both physical and virtual attendees. We understand that not everyone can be physically present, but we believe in leaving no one behind. Our hybrid event model ensures that all interested SMEs, regardless of their location, can benefit from the insights shared, Tawa added.



The event is scheduled for 29th September at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel, Accra from 8:00am to 12:00 pm.



SMEs are encouraged to seize this unique opportunity by grabbing one of the limited slots available on vodafone.com.gh/vbrunway. Interested SMEs can join virtually through Vodafone Ghanas social media pages. For more information, SMEs can also reach out directly at 0302334040.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Ghana is in the final stages of becoming the 1st African country to issue FLEGT license to cover its timber and wood products traded on the European Market. The feat was achieved during the 11th Joint Monitoring and Review Mechanism meeting held between Ghana and the EU in Brussels between 20th  26th September, 2023.



This places Ghana as the 2nd country in the world after Indonesia to begin the trade in legally certified wood and wood products with the EU under the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) mechanism.



Ghanas Timber Legality Assurance System when it becomes fully operational in 2024, will mark over a decade of institutional and regulatory reforms in the trade in legal timber. It will also be evidence of the Governments commitments at responsible management of the nations forest resources.



In November 2009, Ghana became the first timber-producing country to sign a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (hereinafter referred to as VPA or Agreement) with European Union (EU). The Agreement entered into force on 1 December 2009.



A FLEGT licence is an export licence issued by a VPA partner country for timber or timber related products destined for the EU market which certifies that the timber or timber related products exported under that licence are legal. Under the FLEGT licence, timber and timber related products covered by a valid FLEGT licence automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) and prohibits the placing onto the EU market illegally harvested timber and timber related products derived from such timber.



The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Samuel A. Jinapor, MP, led a high-level Ghanaian delegation made up of representatives from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forest and key stakeholder groups, including the Ghanaian public authorities in charge of forest administration, private sector and civil society, at the 11th Joint Monitoring and Review Mechanism (JMRM) meeting in Brussels from 20 - 26 September, 2023. This JMRM sought to advance on the final procedural steps towards the issuance of FLEGT licences.



This meeting marks a major milestone in the global fight against illegal timber trade and testaments to achieving the VPA objective of improved forest governance.

This session of the JMRM was the first since May 2019, and also the first one to be convened outside of Ghana. During the technical meetings, the Parties reviewed and discussed the status of implementation of the Agreement.



The Parties also agreed on the Joint Action Plan towards FLEGT licensing, and raised outstanding procedural issues to be addressed before FLEGT licences can be issued. The FLEGT licences attest to the legality of Ghanas timber and will facilitate trade in timber and timber related products for both exporters and importers.



In 2016, Indonesia became the first country in the world to issue FLEGT licences. With the conclusion of the VPA, Ghana will become the second country in the world and the first in Africa to issue FLEGT licence.

According to Koen Doens, Director General at the European Commission's Directorate General for International Partnerships (INTPA), Over the years, we have witnessed a remarkable dedication to sustainable forest management and the combatting of illegal logging.



The dedication of Ghana's government and its forestry sector, alongside the support and cooperation of our European partners, has brought us to the cusp of FLEGT licensing. This achievement underscores the power of international cooperation in addressing critical global challenges such as deforestation and illegal logging. We look forward to the positive impact that FLEGT licensing will have on Ghana's timber industry and the broader environment, demonstrating how partnerships and persistent efforts can lead to meaningful change".



Ghana has undertaken major legislative reforms in its forestry sector to enhance forest governance which supports the objectives of the VPA and Ghanas commitment to sustainable forest management and the fight against climate change.



In addition to these advances, Ghana is also addressing the trade of illegal timber in both domestic and regional markets. In this regard, Ghana is rolling out a new system for tracking timber on the domestic market that involves both suppliers and traders, and requires proof of legality through the chain of custody.



Through the VPA, Ghana is controlling illegal timber trade, modernising timber operations and ensuring forestry brings employment in the formal economy and social benefits such as payments to communities through SocialResponsibility Agreements. For the EU, the VPA contributes to achieving the goals of the EUs FLEGT Action Plan which aims to improve forest governance and combat illegal logging.



The Hon. Minister for Lands and Natural Resources of Ghana, Mr. Samuel A. Jinapor, MP, stated that Ghana has seen significant improvements in forest governance with the implementation and operation of the timber legality assurance system. He indicated that the impending issuance of FLEGT licenses to the EU market and licenses to other international destinations will be undergirded with the same legality standards.



This will be the next logical step in consolidating the gains towards sustainable forest management and forest governance as a whole. Ghanas commitment to the VPA, as well as halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030 remain absolute.



Fourteen years after the start of the implementation of the Agreement, and after several significant technical, legal and governance developments in Ghanas forestry sector, Parties have agreed that they are ready for FLEGT licensing.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The leading causes of death in the country now are heart diseases and stroke, the Ag. Director of the National Cardiothoracic Centre (NCTC), Professor Mark Mawutor Tettey, has disclosed.



Quoting a research conducted by a trainee of the centre, Mr Tettey said high cholesterol (fat) in the blood, known as dyslipedemia, stood out as the worst cause of heart attacks.



Other pervasive risk factors are hypertension, diabetes, obesity and smoking.



Worldwide, Prof, Tettey said, it was estimated that 18.6 million people died from heart diseases and stroke, which were also the leading causes of death in the world.





The cardiologist therefore stressed the need for people to take good care of their heart by eating healthily, exercising and avoiding stress in order to reduce the risk of the two conditions.



Prof. Mark Tettey - Ag. Director of the National Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, delivering his address at the media launch of the World Heart Day celebration. Picture: EDNA SALVO-KOTEY





World Heart Day

He said this at the launch of the World Heart Day in Accra yesterday.



September 29 each year is marked as the World Heart Day to spread awareness of heart diseases and stroke prevention.





The theme for this years celebration is:



Use heart, Know heart.



Activities planned for the day by the centre include a free health screening and a talk on the importance of the heart.



Before using your heart for others, one must know that you yourself are fit and stress-free enough.





We can use our hearts for ourselves by taking good care of them.



Eating healthy, exercising daily and kicking out the tensions and the stress of life are helpful for a healthy heart, he said.



Important organ

Describing the heart as the most important organ in the body, Prof. Tettey, who is also a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon and head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Ghana Medical School, said the heart was like the pillar holding ones life and that when it crushed, ones life went with it.



Before anybody is declared dead, the heart must be examined and must be found to have ceased beating.



No matter how you appear to look after sickness or accident, if your heart is still beating, you can never be declared dead.



Our state in this world, whether dead or alive, is determined by our heart.



You have life in you because your heart is working, he explained.



He said despite the importance of the heart, unfortunately, management of heart diseases in the country was too expensive for most Ghanaians to afford.



Backing that fact with figures, he said for a diagnosis of a heart disease and treatment, one needed to cough out not less than GH40,000, while a heart surgery cost not less than GH80,000.



How many of us can afford this?



There should be a way around this so that Ghanaians who need these services will not be denied access because of poverty.



Heart diseases do not respect your status in life, he said.



Worst of all, Prof. Tettey lamented that the NCTC had outgrown its limited space to ensure efficient practice, with congestion everywhere.



He said it was for this reason that the management of the centre had now decided to build a National Heart Institute which would house the latest facilities and equipment for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care of any heart disease and research.



In line with that, he announced the establishment of the National Heart Foundation by the management of the centre, which would, among others, mobilise funds to ensure the construction of the institute and in the long term help make heart surgery and other expensive procedures involved in the management of heart diseases free of charge in the country.



If we can get at least 2 million workers in Ghana who are willing to sacrifice a bottle of coke, thats about GH5 a month, I can assure the country that we can treat heart diseases free of charge.



All hospitals that will be engaged in offering advanced heart treatment in the country will be linked to this fund, he explained.



He therefore appealed to well-meaning Ghanaians and companies to make a commitment to this foundation which, he said, was more reliable and could serve the entire country.



Awareness

Touching on the theme, a Cardiologist and Head of Cardiology at the centre, Dr Abdul-Samed Tanko, revealed that the ways to know the heart included knowing ones blood pressure, BMI, sugar and fat levels.



Some people dont even know they are walking with bad cholesterol in their system and lots of people come from families with these diseases that lead to stroke which they are not aware of.



The only awareness is when they get stroke. People should do regular checks to know their cholesterol, sugar and other levels, he admonished.

Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Independent presidential hopeful, Alan Kyerematen has addressed an infamous letter written in 2008 by then chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the late B.J. da Rocha.



In the said letter, the chairman is on record to have said Alan should be allowed to leave the party as he wished because he was a disruptive force in the group.



A Ghana News Agency report at the time said, the chairman held that aside being a disruptive factor in the party," Alan was also "a stumbling block and loose cannon.



The party has an election to win. We should concentrate our efforts on the task ahead and let him go his way in peace, Mr da Rocha said in the GNA report.



Alan has, however chronicled a sequence of events relative to how he had to confront the late chairman over his approach in seeking to resolve tensions at the time.



I had just met Da Rocha in Accra on my way to Kumasi and when I arrived, he had already an granted an interview (i.e. issued a statement), calling me a disruptive factor.



"When I had the opportunity, I confronted him frontally and asked him if he was serious at all because I felt as an elderly person, he should have known better.



"I told him he acted in bad faith. Later on, he called consistently to apologise before his death, he disclosed on Accra-based UTV on September 26.



The said statements by da Rocha has resurfaced in the light of Alan's second resignation from NPP on Monday.



Alan Kyerematen's decision to run as an independent candidate came on September 25, when he officially resigned from the NPP.



This move followed his withdrawal from the NPP's flagbearer race, which reportedly stemmed from challenges encountered during a Super Delegates Conference held within the party in August 2023.



In his official statement regarding his resignation and independent candidacy, Alan Kyerematen stated, "Under the circumstances and given the context, I am honorably resigning from the New Patriotic Party to contest the high office of the presidency in 2024 as an independent presidential candidate."



Watch his explanation below:





I have not seen and heard @AlanKyerematen like this because he spoke passionately as he feels he's been wronged and story twisted to cause him disaffection

He says BJ Da Rocha apologized to him before his death



NB: efunu di f



4/6 pic.twitter.com/07ZG4OkD6x  Austine (@obiMpenaAustine) September 26, 2023









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Kennedy Agyapong has disclosed one of the ways he will instill discipline in the populace if he becomes president after the 2024 general elections.



The New Patriotic Party flagbearer aspirant said in an interview on Kings Radio (September 24) that there is currently no discipline in Ghane leading people to behave anyhow.



I will put National Service personnel to good use. Because of indiscipline in Ghana, every National Service person, every university graduate will serve six months in the military, he told host of the programme.



You will serve six months in the military before completing your remaining six months National Service, he stressed.



National Service is a scheme for all students of tertiary institutions nationwide to serve a year in public or private institutions, more often than not they are deployed across regions to supplement the government workforce and receive a monthly stipend.



Agyapong, who is sitting Member of Parliament for Assin Central has unveiled a PHD philosophy for presidential bid  Patriotism, Honesty and Discipline.



He has over the past months toured the country meeting delegates selling his political, economic, social and leadership plans as the NPPs race towards the November 4 presidential primaries heats up.



The four aspirants in the race are Kennedy Agyapong, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, former agric minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and former MP, Francis Addai-Nimoh.



The winner of the primary will become a successor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as leader of the party.



He shall also lead the NPP into the 2024 General Elections.













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Mr. Jeff Konadu, the Eastern Regional Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), has called on party members to prioritise unity and focus on winning the upcoming 2024 general elections to realise the breaking the 8 mantra in Ghanas politics.



In a recent interview on Wontumi Radio, Chairman Konadu emphasized the importance of party cohesion and praised the accomplishments of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), George Akuffo-Dampare, regardless of his political affiliation.



He urged NPP members to set aside political differences of issues surrounding the IGPs leaked tape, and rally behind the common goal of securing victory in the 2024 general elections.



He stated, Lets focus on building our party unity in winning the 2024 general elections, and thats the most important. He underscored the partys commitment to presenting a united front to voters and ensuring a successful electoral outcome.



Mr Konadu encouraged party members to support IGP Dampare Akufo in carrying out his duties impartially. He remarked, Lets shun whether the IGP, Dampare Akufo, is NDC or whatever to do his work. I think his tenure as the IGP, he has done his part.



He also highlighted the significant achievements made in bolstering law enforcement and security in the country. He praised the efforts of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in providing essential resources to the police force. Our NPP has been able to resource the Police, and its pleasing to the eyes when you pass by the CID Headquarters, he stated.



Commendation



The Eastern Region Chairman specifically commended the substantial investments made by the government in the police force, including the provision of motorbikes, the construction of essential infrastructure, and the deployment of necessary security apparatus.



He pointed out that the recent acquisition of two helicopters by the Police Service was an unprecedented milestone in enhancing law enforcement capabilities.



Mr Konadu also highlighted the positive impact of these investments on the Eastern Region. He noted that prior to IGP Dampare Akufos tenure, armed robbery incidents in areas like Afram Plains were on the rise, affecting market women who often fell victim to ambushes and theft.



However, he affirmed, Since IGP came, all these activities have stopped. He also highlighted the improved security conditions and the effectiveness of the police force under the IGPs leadership

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea are about to begin celebrating the annual religious holiday Meskel, which marks the finding of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.



According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, St Helena, the mother of 4th Century Roman Emperor Constantine, lit a bonfire with frankincense in it - and its smoke led her to the spot where the cross had been buried in Jerusalem.



After its discovery, she lit a bigger bonfire - known in Ethiopia and Eritrea as a damera - to let her son know she had found the cross.



Other variations of this story say the initial bonfire was so big it collapsed to one side - pinpointing the spot where the cross was buried.



As part of traditional Meskel events today bonfires are constructed with long sticks and lit in towns and cities across Ethiopia and Eritrea.



Much symbolism is attached to which way the burning wood falls - if it is towards the east, it is a sign of good times ahead for the next year; the west is a bad omen and a warning of looming danger to come.



If the bonfire stays upright or goes either to the north or south, things will continue as they are - or at least things will not get any worse.



In a part of the world plagued by conflict and drought, many Orthodox followers will be keen to see how this years dameras fall.



In the past, there have been stories of unscrupulous authorities trying to manipulate the way the sticks fall.



For example, when Eritrea was still part of Ethiopia, some remember how officials of former Ethiopian ruler Mengistu Hailemariam interfered with the clergy, whose job it is to organise the event.



They tried to ensure the damera in Eritreas capital, Asmara, fell to the east - fearing if it went westwards, people would associate it with the fall of the Derg as Mengistus former military government was known.



His regime eventually fell with gunfire in 1991 - after 18 bonfires.



In Ethiopia, the main damera is lit in the capital, Addis Ababa, on the eve of Meskel - which this year is on Wednesday evening (see pictures above), while in neighbouring Eritrea, the principal bonfire is lit on the actual day.

Source: BBC









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Nuclear Power Ghana (NPG) has identified two potential sites to host the countrys first nuclear power plant.



The sites are Nsuban in the Western Region, which is the preferred option, with Obotan in the Central Region as the backup site.



Already, comprehensive technical assessments are being concluded at the sites to help make a final decision.



The Executive Director of NPG, Dr Stephen Yamoah, who made this known, explained that the selection of the site was part of the second phase of activities in the countrys nuclear power programme.



The phase entails selecting a preferred site, conducting detailed site investigations and assessment of various technologies; selecting a strategic partner and conducting engagement and stakeholder management.



Sites identified

Four candidate sites were initially selected for the construction of the nuclear power plant and after further studies by Ghanaian researchers, the team ranked the sites to settle on the first option and the backup.



Dr Yamoah said the vendor engagement for strategic partner had advanced.



The report is being finalised for submission and engagement with the Ministry of Energy, he said.



He explained that the nuclear power projects involved a particularly complex supply chain with quality control issues at different levels.



As a newcomer country, it is critical to ensure the qualification of local suppliers to guarantee the success of the project, Dr Yamoah added.



He said it was important to maximise the economic opportunities that came with the project.



We must, therefore, get ourselves ready to maximise the economic opportunities that come along with the project.





This is because there are benefits for capacity-building opportunities, technology transfer, strengthening partnerships, access to world market in nuclear and non-nuclear areas, he said.



Local suppliers

The NPG Executive Director explained that the nuclear power projects involve a complex supply chain with quality control issues at different levels.



To promote the use of local industries in the nuclear power project, the Executive Director said the NPG would work with the government and the Association of Ghana Industries to develop an understanding of the scope of commodities, components and or services needed for the project.



Dr Yamoah said they would also establish a process for identifying local suppliers who could reliably supply commodities, components and/or services, as well as others who could develop those capabilities over time.



He stated that they would develop approaches and programmes, supported by national and local investments to contribute to the upgrade of skills and capabilities required to support the project.



We will develop incentive programmes to realise the full potential for localisation, establish policies for developing industrial capacity, providing training in nuclear industrial standards and quality assurance mechanisms and requirements.



We will also establish partnerships with qualified nuclear international suppliers, he said.



Dr Yamoah expressed commitment to foster sustained collaboration with industry, partner to ensure efficient local content delivery with associated benefits and strengthen regional businesses in the supply chain.

Source: graphiconline.com









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BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Azerbaijan's Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, and other high-ranking officers of the Ministry visited the Victory Park, which is under construction in Baku on September 27, Trend reports via Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense.

The leadership of the Ministry and a group of military personnel laid flowers on the memorial stone at the park entrance.

VIDEO:

As a sign of deep respect for the memory of martyrs - soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the second Karabakh war of Azerbaijan and sacrificed their lives for their motherland - who raised the Azerbaijani flag in the Azerbaijani territories liberated from Armenian occupation, by order of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who issued an order dated December 2, 2020, a decision was made to annually mark September 27 as Remembrance Day.
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has added its voice to the condemnation of the mistreatment of protesters of Democracy Hub by the Ghana Police Service last Thursday.



In a statement dated September 25, 2023, the independent state institution said there was absolutely no justification for the alleged heavy handedness and excessive response by personnel of the police on the demonstrators.



Indeed, it is unfortunate that after 30 years of constitutional democracy, the Police Service often appears to have difficulty responding to basic crowd control challenges, and all too frequently, resort to heavy-handed tactics, it added.



Caution

However, the NCCE also cautioned citizens that fundamental human rights were not absolute and that demonstrations, processions and other expressions of citizens' discontent must happen within the confines of the law.



The Commission reiterates the need for all Ghanaians, including the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary, state institutions, political parties, civil society organisations, and the clergy to unite and work together to help consolidate and preserve Ghana's democracy in order to bequeath to posterity, a democracy better than what we inherited, it said.



Background

About 49 protesters participating in the protest dubbed; Occupy Jubilee House were arrested last Thursday for allegedly defying a court injunction secured by the police to ban the demonstration.



The protesters, made up mainly of the youth, were spotted in red and black attires with red bands around their heads and arms.



The first 30 protesters, who gathered at the assembly point, were arrested by police officers in riot gear and taken away in waiting buses.



Later, an additional group of about 19 protesters were also arrested and taken together with those arrested.



Demand

Among their reasons for organising the demonstration was a demand for the government to implement sustainable measures to alleviate the difficulties in the country.



They are also demanding some reforms, including improved governance, measures to fight corruption, reduction in the high cost of living, good economic management and improved relief packages for the citizenry, among other things.



Despite the alleged brutality, the group went on to demonstrate for two more days at the entrance of the 37 Military Hospital.







Source: graphiconline.com









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A private members bill proposing an amendment to remove the 15 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on menstrual hygiene products has been introduced to Parliament.



The proposed bill seeks to amend the VAT (Amendment) Act, 2022 (Act 1082) to remove the VAT on sanitary pads and tampons.



In an interview with Peace FM news, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu who proposed the bill to parliament, said that the proposed bill to Parliament will help eradicate the 15% VAT imposed on the sanitary pads.



He, therefore, said that there are no taxes on condoms and why are taxes on sanitary pads which helps in promoting good hygienic conditions among women.



He added that they have presented this bill to help remove the VAT on the sanitary pads to help improve good hygiene among women.



He, therefore, called on his fellow female Members of Parliament to partake in the push to remove the 15% VAT imposed on the sanitary pads.



He said that no tax amendments can be reintroduced and urged the government to rely on alternative revenue and improve on efficiency in tax collections.

Source: Clinton Akwasi Amoako/Peace FM Newsroom









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Former Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, has announced his intention to conduct a thorough review of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy if he secures the presidency in the 2024 elections.



During an interview on UTV, Mr. Kyerematen commended the NPP government's commendable efforts in enhancing accessibility to education through the Free SHS policy.



However, he stressed the importance of subjecting the policy to a comprehensive evaluation after seven years of implementation.



He articulated his vision for the education sector, emphasizing the critical need for a comprehensive review of the Free SHS policy.



In addition to ensuring continued access to education, Mr. Kyerematen pledged to focus on upholding and elevating the quality of education provided to children.



He elaborated on his plans, underlining the imperative for increased investment in infrastructure, teacher training, and curriculum development.



Furthermore, he highlighted the intention to construct additional Community Day Senior High Schools and enhance education at the Basic School level.



Mr. Kyerematen emphasized the significance of creating a well-rounded education system that equips students to tackle both academic and practical challenges.







Source: graphiconline.com









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New Patriotic Party (NPP) member, Nana Akomea has expressed sadness over the announcement by Alan Kyerematen to resign from the party and contest as an independent candidate in the 2024 election.



Alan Kyerematen, on Monday, September 25, shook the airwaves declaring that he is no longer a member of the New Patriotic Party.



" . . under the circumstances, and given the context provided I wish to use this platform to announce that I am honourably resigning with immediate effect from the NPP to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana as an independent presidential candidate," Alan said during a press conference at the Movenpick Hotel in Accra.



He described the New Patriotic Party to have been invaded by unscrupulous persons.



"I joined the New Patriotic Party at the very beginning of its establishment as a Founding Member, believing in its core values and the long-standing traditions of its antecedents, predicated on fairness, equity, probity, accountability, and transparency.



" . . the NPP as it exists now has very little resemblance to the Party that I joined in 1992 and helped to nurture. The Party has been hijacked by a selected group of Party leaders and elders, government appointees, 'behind the curtain power brokers and some unscrupulous Party apparatchiks."



Tackling this matter during Peace FMs morning show Kokrokoo with Kwami Sefa Kayi, Nana Akomea opined that Alan forming his own movement to run as an independent candidate will amount to nothing.



"It will go nowhere", he asserted and advised the former Trade Minister saying "there will be no benefit for him" on this political journey he is taking.



Nana Akomea backed his assertions with historical accounts of persons in the country who decided to contest general elections as independent candidates and those who defected from their parties to form their own political movements.



He recounted how none of them has been elected President of Ghana neither did any of them come close to achieving more than 1 percent of votes in the elections.



The STC Chief Executive believes it is a wrong move for Alan to compete with the New Patriotic Party in next years elections.



"I am sad that he has defected from the party...History has proven that there is nothing in being an independent candidate. Those who also left to form their own party didn't achieve any better result. This is why it saddens me that my big brother Alan, the way he is experienced in Ghana's politics, didn't consider all these historical accounts and is plying this same route; I am really sad," he stated.



He added; "We must tell him the truth that this path he is taking won't help him. It's unnecessary!"





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho, has slammed Alan Kyerematen's decision to resign from the New Patriotic Party (NPP).



According to him, Alan Kyerematen is behaving like an overpampered child who wants breast milk.



Alan Kyerematen officially announced his resignation from the NPP on Monday, September 25, 2023, as he prepares to contest the 2024 elections as an independent candidate under the banner of the 'Movement for Change'.



But speaking On Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' programme, Koku Anyidoho characterized Alan Kyerematen as a "crybaby who wants to be breastfed" and suggested that Alan had previously "lost his balls" when he resigned from the NPP in 2008 before eventually rejoining the party.



"So, if we all decide to leave our political parties after elections heckling, and form new parties, can you imagine the number of political parties we would have in the country? Alan is just a crybaby who wants to be breastfed. He lost his balls when he first resigned in 2008," Mr. Anyidoho added.



Mr. Alan Kyerematen at a press conference said, "Under the circumstances and given the context, I am honorably resigning from the New Patriotic Party to contest the high office of the presidency of 2024 as an independent presidential candidate."



Watch Video Below







Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Nana Akomea has rebuked Alan Kyerematen for choosing to resign from the New Patriotic Party to run as independent candidate in the 2024 elections.



"I joined the New Patriotic Party at the very beginning of its establishment as a Founding Member, believing in its core values and the long-standing traditions of its antecedents, predicated on fairness, equity, probity, accountability, and transparency.



" . . the NPP as it exists now has very little resemblance to the Party that I joined in 1992 and helped to nurture. The Party has been hijacked by a selected group of Party leaders and elders, government appointees, 'behind the curtain power brokers and some unscrupulous Party apparatchiks," Alan expressed his disappointment in the New Patriotic Party during a press conference in Accra on Monday, September 25.



He noted, after examining the recent happenings in the party which, to him, were unfavorable towards him; he believes that "what Ghana needs now is a new leader and not a new political party".



" . . under the circumstances, and given the context provided I wish to use this platform to announce that I am honourably resigning with immediate effect from the NPP to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana as an independent presidential candidate," he announced.



He is also convinced he is the new leader that Ghana requires, emphasizing "what Ghana needs now is CHANGE, which will provide long-lasting solutions to the challenges confronting our country".



Alan further noted his inspiration comes from some leaders who set remarkable records in the world, mentioning "George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America, Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Deng Xiaoping of China, and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana".



But to Nana Akomea, it is becoming Alan's character to quit the NPP anytime he feels something doesn't go his way.



He referenced a similar action that the former Trade Minister took in previous years when he failed to win any of the presidential contests in the New Patriotic Party.



"This is the same thing that happened in 2008. Seventeen (17) candidates contested the NPP flagbearer race, at the end, only Alan Kyerematen resigned out of the seventeen people. It is becoming his attitude. When you check the record, it is becoming his character," he said on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo".



Nana Akomea questioned Alan's assertion that what Ghana needs is an independent candidate, not a political party as he believed an independent candidate will ensure "a Government of National Unity".



"When did he realize that political parties are not important? If you say you are leaving the NPP because you have seen that the political parties are not important but rather someone who is a great leader, when did you discover this?



From your own mouth, you say you wanted to contest in 1996. You contested in 2008, 2010, 2014 and 2023; just last month and if you are now leaving, you say you have seen that the political parties are not relevant but what is important is someone with a vision. When did you know that political parties are not important?", he asked and reminded Alan Kyerematen that the names he mentioned like the Kwame Nkrumahs and others were all members of a political party.





Nana Akomea also found Alan's reasons for exiting the NPP "baseless", wondering why he would resign from the party when he came third among five candidates chosen to compete in the New Patriotic Party's upcoming presidential elections.



"You claim you were intimidated, yet you came third. You know the election was to choose five candidates and you were part of the list. So, what is your problem again? You say you were intimidated, what about the person who came fourth or the one who had zero?", he further queried.



"So, the things he has outlined as basis for his resignation from the party don't even make sense," he said, stressing "it looks like he came into the party to use it to achieve his agenda, so if it didn't happen, then he will leave the party. He is the only person, leading member who after the election, things don't go his way; he says I have left the party. This is not the first time; this is the second time".

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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NPP stalwart and Chief Executive Officer of the State Transport Corporation, Nana Akomea shares a strong view that Alan Kyerematen's defection from the New Patriotic Party will have no significant effect on the party's political fortunes.



Alan Kyerematen, at a press conference on Monday, September 25, announced he has severed ties with the New Patriotic Party(NPP).



"I joined the New Patriotic Party at the very beginning of its establishment as a Founding Member, believing in its core values and the long-standing traditions of its antecedents, predicated on fairness, equity, probity, accountability, and transparency.



" . . the NPP as it exists now has very little resemblance to the Party that I joined in 1992 and helped to nurture. The Party has been hijacked by a selected group of Party leaders and elders, government appointees, 'behind the curtain power brokers and some unscrupulous Party apparatchiks", he expressed his disappointment in the NPP.



Alan emphasized he is "honourably resigning with immediate effect from the NPP to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana as an independent presidential candidate".



Alan's breakaway, to some critics, won't augur well for the NPP but Nana Akomea dissents to such comments.



He doesn't believe Alan deserting the NPP will result in a mass exodus of the party's members and supporters nor his exit affect the party in any negative manner.



To him, Alan doesn't command power as people think he does in the New Patriotic Party.



Nana Akomea cited the votes that Alan polled in their Special Delegates Congress asserting it proves how little the impact of his separation from NPP will have on the party.



The STC boss expressed no fears over Alan forming a new movement to compete with the NPP in next year's elections.



" . . in NPP nobody is panicking...even the stalwarts who were behind Alan are standing firm in the party, so nobody is shaking," he told Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo".



He, however, prayed that Alan Kyerematen maybe "will change his mind" and return to the NPP.



Watch video below





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Minister of National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah, has filed a lawsuit against Mawuse Oliver Barker-Vormawor for making an attempted bribery allegation against him.



Mr Kan-Dapaah on Tuesday, September 26, filed the lawsuit through his lawyers seeking a declaration that the words uttered by the defendant (Barker-Vormawor) and particularized below or words to that effect are Defamatory of the Plaintiff.



"They went as far as offering us US$1 Million, they offered us a Committee Appointment, set up a Committee and appoint us to Government positions in order to stop this activism. This was made directly to me and other leaders of fix the Country Movement. This conversation we had with the Minister of National Security, the Minister of Finance and a Brigadier General at a safe home."



The National Security Minister is seeking a retraction and apology as well as a "recovery of the sum of Ten Million Ghana Cedis (GH10,000,000.00) as General Damages including Aggravated and/ or Exemplary Damages for Defamation for the words uttered by Defendant".

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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National Organizer of the New Patriotic Party, Henry Nana Boakye alias Nana B has refuted some claims made by Alan Kyerematen for which reason he has resigned from the party to spearhead a new political group he terms "Movement for Change".



The former Trade Minister and former NPP presidential hopeful, Alan Kyerematen announced his resignation at a press conference held at the Movenpick Hotel in Accra on Monday, September 25.



According to him, the behavior of the leadership of the NPP towards him clearly indicates that his "services and contributions to the Party are not appreciated, and that my continuous stay in the Party will create further tension and division, which is an exact replay of circumstances that led to my decision to resign from the Party in 2008".



He stressed; "I am honourably resigning with immediate effect from the NPP to contest for the high office of the President of the Republic of Ghana as an independent presidential candidate."



Nana B Is A Newbie In NPP



Barely a day after that press conference, and in a subsequent interview on UTV's Adekye Nsroma, the former NPP Presidential hopeful questioned the temerity of Nana B to comment on his decision to sever ties with the ruling party. To him, Nana B doesnt qualify to be talking big because he is a relative new comer in the NPP.



This was after the host of the show, Yaa Konama had sought clarifications from the embattled former NPP member on attempts made by the NPP hierarchy to resolve his electoral concerns.



I talked to Nana B yesterday (Monday) and asked him what has been done about Alans withdrawing from the contestwas there an effort to talk to him to know his grievance? He said Chairman Ntim came to your office to have a discussion with you and that everything was okay, Yaa Konama offered.



Clearly not enthused with the information said to have been put out by the NPP's National Organizer regarding the outcome his (Alan's) meeting with the partys National Chairman, Mr Kyeremanten responded; I dont want us to wash our dirty linen in publicAs a Chairman of the party, he should be careful with some of his utterances because I dont want to come out in a way that will deepen the issues at hand, and further issued a stern warning to Nana B to stay out of such matters; That Nana B, when did he join the party for him to be talking anyhow? This is the reason why some people think Im talking too much, but if what youre saying is wrong, I will say it.



Alan Has Benefitted From NPP



But Nana B has punched holes in Alan's reasons for leaving the NPP, particularly the part to do with his services not being appreciated by the party.



He recounted that the NPP has been good to Alan since he joined, referencing Ex-President J.A Kufour making him an Ambassardor to United States and a Cabinet Minister and additionally, President Nana Addo appointing him as Trade Minister in his two terms in government.



"So, it can never be said that his services were unappreciated because for 16 years of NPP in government, he has had the opportunity to serve the NPP government for 14 years", Nana B maintained.



He however extended his well-wishes to Alan on his new endeavors.



"We wish him well", he said while speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, adding the New Patriotic Party remains united.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Scheduled for Saturday, October 28th, 2023, the sixth edition of Africa Top Entrepreneurs Awards (ATEA) will be hosted in Accra, the capital city of Ghana after its 5th edition held in Lagos State, the commercial centre of Nigeria last year.



ATEA, which was established in 2018 by Aketesia Group Media is being run consistently and has impacted many lives through its numerous seminars and skills training across Africa.



The scheme that is taking a continental shape will acknowledge, appreciate and reward budding entrepreneurs who are making monumental impact on the continent.



Speaking on the reason to host the 6th edition in Ghana, CEO of Aketesia Group Media and Ghanaian actress Regina Adu Safowaah said, We intend to host it at the headquarters (HOME) where the brand was established, Ghana.



Our nominees consist of Emerging and giant entrepreneurs from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Namibia, Kenya etc pushing entrepreneurship to their respective chosen field.



Plans are already underway for the 7th edition tentatively scheduled to be held in Kenya or South Africa, she concluded.



ATEA 2023 is powered by ANDOC PRESTIGE LIMITED (REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS).



For sponsorship, please contact ATEA AWARDS ON 0244026006 (call and WhatsApp)

Source: Ghanaweb









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Armenian residents [of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region] willing to live in accordance with Azerbaijan's laws will be regarded as its citizens, the Chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of Azerbaijan Ulvi Mehdiyev told reporters, Trend reports.

They will be able to use all services, like other citizens of Azerbaijan, Mehdiyev added.

Previously, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that Azerbaijan is committed to the process of reintegrating Armenian residents living on Azerbaijan's territory.

On September 25, 2023, Ramin Mammadov, who is responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Karabakh, held another meeting with representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh in Khojaly.

At the meeting, which was held in a constructive atmosphere, satisfaction was expressed with the actions taken to solve the issues discussed on September 21 in Yevlakh, in particular, the short-term delivery of humanitarian aid, fuel and restoration of electricity supply.
Pennsylvania American Water has announced it has reached an agreement to purchase a company in Montgomery County.

Pennsylvania American Water has agreed to acquire Audubon Water Company, a private, investor-owned system serving approximately 2,900 customers in Lower Providence Township, Montgomery County and is located directly between Pennsylvania American Waters existing Royersford and Norristown water systems.

Under the terms of the transaction, an affiliate of Pennsylvania American Water will merge with Audubon, with shareholders of Audubon Water receiving shares of AWK common stock in exchange for all of the issued and outstanding shares of Audubon, and subsequently, Audubon will merge into Pennsylvania American Water. The transaction values Audubon at approximately $8 million, according to Pennsylvania American Water.
UPDATE: After 11 years, missing mans family gets answers: He was killed in love triangle, dumped in Pa.

The man whose gunshot-riddled remains were found nine years ago at the bottom of a Perry County embankment has been identified and charges filed in his death, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

The skeletal remains were discovered May 27, 2014, in a wooded area in state game lands off Trout Run Stream, off Idle Road in Rye Township. Pennsylvania State Police later announced that the victim had was shot multiple times  including in the head  at close range.

But his identity and who killed him remained unknown for nearly a decade.

District Attorney Lauren Eichelberger announced Wednesday at a news conference a break in the case. She said DNA was extracted from the remains last year and sent for forensic testing. Comparisons led to a distant relative and helped to identify the remains as of Michael Allen Holober, 47, authorities said.

With the genealogical connection, authorities determined the remains belonged to Holober, who was living in Strasburg, Virginia at the time of he disappeared, around 2012, Eichelberger said.

Investigators determined James Callahan fatally shot Holober at a Strasburg home and traveled to Perry County to dispose of his body, Eichelberger said. Its unclear why Callahan came all the way to central Pennsylvania to dispose of the remains, she said. She believed he was familiar with the area and simply drove and picked a place.

Callahan was arrested in Strasburg on Tuesday, Eichelberger said. Criminal proceedings will move forward in Virginia, as thats where authorities say the majority of the criminal activity took place.

James Edward Callahan, 48, was arrested and charged with murder Tuesday Sept. 26, 2023 in connection with the 2012 killing of Michael Holober.

This case is a testament that even as time passes, unsolved cases are not forgotten, she said.

When investigators spoke with Holobers brother Tuesday night, state police said he was tearful and incredibly thankful to have answers about what happened to his brother.

Its always a long and arduous process, particularly when we start with a lot of unknowns, Eichelberger said.

Genealogical DNA comparisons have led to arrests in a number of central Pennsylvania cases in recent years. In the summer of 2022, Lancaster County prosecutors announced that nontraditional DNA technology led to the arrest of a Lancaster man in connection to the 1975 stabbing death of Lindy Sue Biechler, 19.

READ MORE: Man killed while trimming trees along central Pa. road: coroner

Central Pa. man beat woman with bike and fish tank, breaking her back: police
The body of a flight attendant was discovered inside a Marriott hotel room at the Philadelphia International Airport.

Now, the shocking discovery has sparked the Homicide Detectives Division to investigate, according to reports.

Authorities were called to the Philadelphia Airport Marriott at 1 Arrival Road around 10:40 p.m. Monday after the 66-year-old woman was found unresponsive inside one of the hotel rooms by a cleaning crew with a cloth in her mouth. Multiple unopened bottles of prescription drugs also were found in the room.

The woman was said to have been on several medications, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said to NBC10.

She was pronounced dead at the scene around 10:45 p.m.

It was confirmed that the woman was a flight attendant for American Airlines.

It was also confirmed that the woman who was found dead was supposed to have checked out two days earlier, but the hotel hasnt released further information as to why they didnt realize that she had not checked out, 6ABC reported.

Small also told NBC10 that the death is considered suspicious even though the woman was believed to have suffered a sudden death. There were also no signs of forced entry into the hotel room and no detectable signs of struggle, both news sources have reported.

So far, no arrests have been made and no weapons were recovered from the scene.

Read More:
The superintendent of the Cumberland Valley School District  Dr. David Christopher  entered his resignation to the school board of directors and will serve his last day with the district on Dec. 1.

Christophers resignation comes after he announced he would be starting as the superintendent of the West Chester Area School District in December. He previously held the deputy superintendent position in the North Allegheny School District near Pittsburgh.

While I am excited for this new opportunity, I am also sad to be leaving such a great place, Christopher wrote.

Christopher started as CVSDs superintendent in August 2019, following Fred Withums retirement.

There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. Christophers absence will be noticeable. His calm resilience and focus on students, even in the face of immense scrutiny and skepticism about public education, will be hard to match, and we are very saddened to see him leave, said Heather Dunn, president of the Cumberland Valley School Board of Directors, in a Tuesday statement.

Due to several open seats on the school board of directors leading up to Novembers election, an interim superintendent will not be selected until December, Dunns statement says.

I wish Dr. Christopher nothing but the best as he begins his next chapter. He is a first-class educational leader but an even better person. He will be missed in CV, Dunn added.

Wrote Christopher, I will be forever grateful for my time here at Cumberland Valley and forever grateful for the support that my family and I have received here. It has been the honor of my life to lead this district, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

READ MORE:

Rep. Scott Perry, so often working from the extremes, seeks federal budget compromise - to a point

Another Aldi discount store is coming to Dauphin County
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have postponed the remainder of their 2023 tour, citing Springsteens recovery from an illness.

The band announced Wednesday that while Springsteen, 74, has continued to recover steadily from peptic ulcer disease, the 15 remaining dates scheduled for U.S. and Canada this year have been moved to 2024. The band already postponed eight September dates last month, announcing The Bosss illness.

Thanks to all my friends and fans for your good wishes, encouragement, and support, Springsteen said in statement posted to social media. Im on the mend and cant wait to see you all next year.

Rescheduled dates for 2024 have not yet been announced. When the dates are announced, ticket holders will have 30 days to request a refund, the statement said. All tickets will be cross-honored for the rescheduled dates.

This 2023 tour is the bands first roadshow in six years, and visited MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford Aug. 30, Sept. 1 and 3. It also played Prudential Center in Newark April 14. No New Jersey shows were affected by this additional postponement.

Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook.
Sheetz customers can get a free Nitro coffee or cold brew in celebration of National Coffee Day.

The deal is good for one free any size Nitro or cold brew with any purchase made via the Sheetz app from Friday, Sept. 29, through Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.

The offer is good at all of Sheetzs more than 700 locations. It also includes free add-ons such as salted caramel cold foam.

The redeem the offer, use the code BREW4U in the Offerz tab of the Sheetz app. The offer can only be redeemed once per Sheetz Rewardz account.

Sheetz Bros. coffee features four signature blends with a light to dark progression, freshly ground in every store. Additionally, Sheetz offers a full line of Made-to-Order cappuccinos, lattes, espressos, mochas and more created on traditional Italian espresso machines, Sheetz said.

Other retailers offering free coffee for National Coffee Day on Friday, Sept. 29, include Krispy Kreme and Dunkin.

The Krispy Kreme offer for a free medium coffee does not require a purchase. On the same day, the brand will offer a doughnut deal - buy any dozen and get a dozen glazed for $2.

Dunkin rewards members can get a free medium hot or iced coffee with any purchase. Also on Friday, Dunkin and the Little Words Project will launch a collection of affirmation bracelets for sale for $30 each.

READ MORE

Pennsylvania location among top 10 best coffee cities: study

The Central Perk coffee shop from Friends is real. Heres where and when you can visit.

Original Donut Shop adds a favorite candy bar flavor (left or right?) to a new coffee K-Cup
People from throughout Pennsylvania marched and rallied in Harrisburg on Wednesday, describing severe shortages of mental health services that can cause delays of a year or more even for people who are severely depressed.

Donna Black, who traveled to the event from Lehigh County, said she lost a 13-year-old relative to suicide, and another loved one with mental illness is on a year-long waiting list for a doctor within reasonable driving distance.
Fans of the queen of country music can find a-mazing ways to celebrate her this fall in Pennsylvania.

Reba McEntire has partnered with 40 farms across the United States to host Reba-themed corn mazes to celebrate her upcoming book, Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots.

One of those is in Dillsburg, York County.

Mt. Airy Orchards is owned by Karen and Dan Paulus. According to the orchards website the maze - which from above looks like McEntires face - is within a five-acre cornfield with miles and miles of trails. There also is a smaller maze for children.

The maze takes about 35 minutes to 45 minutes to complete. The maze is included in the Fall Fun admission and is open Saturdays and Sundays in September and October as well as on Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 9.

While I admit being in a corn maze is one of the more unique things Ive ever been invited to be a part of, I couldnt be more excited to be involved with some of the things that matter most to me - farming, family and friends, McEntire said in a news release.

Growing up on a farm in Oklahoma, I know how important agriculture is and I love being involved with something that brings more people out to farms across the country for good wholesome fun.

McEntires book will be released on Oct. 10. One winner from each farm will receive an autographed copy.

According to The MAiZE, there are mazes in 23 states. Other Reba-themed mazes in Pennsylvania are at Winding Brook Farm in Warrington and Shady Brook Farm in Yardley, both in Bucks County.

READ MORE: Dutch Wonderlands Halloween is a little bit spooky and a whole lot of silly
State lawmakers are currently looking into various ways to fix Pennsylvanias continuing teacher shortage.

This issue is being felt greatly in specific areas like Philadelphia, which a new study has found has the second highest number of teacher vacancies on Indeed in the country.

Study.com  a website whose blog provides information and advice for students, parents, and teachers to tackle their biggest challenges in education  conducted and published this study, which sent out a survey to over 870 teachers across the United States to gage their thoughts on the teacher shortage.

Researchers, according to a press release, also took a look at the over 113,000 job vacancies on Indeed  a number which stands as of September  thus noting that Philadelphia had the second highest amount of openings in the country. The city with the overall highest was Chicago, Ill., and third, Jacksonville, Fla.

As far as survey answers go, Study.com found that 89 percent of educators felt burnout at one point in their job  63 percent of which stated was the result of heavy workloads  with those whove worked less than six years more likely to leave the profession because of this burnout.

The solution [to burnout]? posits the study. Possibly, the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact (ITMC). This legislation has passed at the national level, but it still needs at least 10 states to agree to participate.

Once it passes at the state level, licensed teachers can move more easily between participating states, hopefully easing teacher shortages in affected areas. ITMC may also lessen b burnout as greater mobility would allow teachers to find or negotiate better working conditions, professional growth opportunities, and more competitive pay.
By Bill Lukitsch, The Kansas City Star (TNS)

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  A suburban Kansas City doctor for decades sexually assaulted women and girls, mostly from Amish communities, under the guise of performing routine breast and pelvic exams, prosecutors say.

David B. Clark, 70, of Independence, was charged Monday with six felonies in Jackson County Circuit Court based on a long-running investigation led by the FBI. He is accused of assaulting patients at his Health+Plus clinic in Oak Grove, a town of about 8,500 people 30 miles east of Kansas City.

Clark is accused of sexually stimulating patients  describing the act as treatment  during pelvic exams. Sometimes the abuse occurred while employees or family members of the patients were present in the room.

He also performed excessively long breast examinations on multiple victims, according to an affidavit prepared by an FBI agent, and the women told investigators Clark seemed to derive enjoyment from that.

Authorities allege Clark concealed the sexual abuse from his patients by saying his actions were medically necessary. He also targeted girls and women from Amish communities who would have little if any experience with a gynecologist or obstetrician, the affidavit says.

Following his arrest Monday, records show a $250,000 cash-only bond was posted for Clark to be released from the Jackson County jail. Under the terms of his release, which include GPS monitoring, Clark is forbidden from contacting anyone involved in the case or performing medical treatment for any reason.

A voicemail left on the doctors business line was not immediately returned.

While Clark was licensed as a chiropractor, his Health+Plus clinic advertises a variety of services under the banner of a holistic alternative health and wellness center. Its website, parts of which were inaccessible Monday afternoon, offers general wellness consultation and diagnosis based on latest scientific methods paired with traditional approaches.

Clark presented himself to patients as a naturopath, according to the FBI affidavit, promising a style of medicine that Amish people are often drawn to. No such classification exists as a medical license in Missouri.

Charges filed against Clark concern five women, four of whom were minors at the time of the reported abuse. The earliest criminal allegation dates to July 1999, though authorities allege Clark is believed to have committed similar crimes against dozens of victims since the 1980s.

More:

Central Pa. womans bail set at $1M on sex assault charges involving preschool kids

Ex-Pa. officer charged with sexually assaulting girls, women in his police car: reports
Press Release

September 27, 2023 Transcript of Q&A of Senator Risa Hontiveros at the Manila Bay reclamation hearing Senator Risa Hontiveros (SRH): I'd like to ask about the Chinese involvement, sa PRA po. Atty Literal, PRA: The involvement of the Chinese contractor is on the side of the contractual joint venture between the LGU of Manila and its partner, which is Waterfront Premier Development Corporation. The contractor of Waterfront, it's a subsidiary of the CCCC, this is China First Highways Engineering Corporation, Madame Chair. SRH: Gayunpaman, Atty. Literal, kahit sa opinyon nalang po ng PRA, hindi po ba tayo concerned na yung Chinese state-owned contractor na gumagawa ng reclamation work sa Manila Bay, dahil kayo naman ang Philippine Reclamation Authority, baka may opinyon kayo dito, hindi po ba tayo concerned na yun ay may ties sa Chinese company na tinutulungan ang Tsina imilitarize ang West Philippine Sea, dahil po sa artificial islands na cinonstruct nitong kumpanyang ito, yung Chinese Coast Guard at yung People's Liberation Army Navy tuloy ay nahaharras nila, halos nonstop yung mga Philippine vessels. So concerned po ba yung PRA doon? Atty. Literal: Actually we're concerned because of these issues which happened lately. But first even before we allowed the operations of these contractors from China, we required these contractors to secure a special permit under the rules of the Marina and as submitted to us since we are the one evaluating this permit. They have submitted a clearance from the Coast Guard, from the Marina, and also, during that time, Madame Senator, an endorsement from the National Security Council. So during that time, actually Maam, hindi naging issue unlike nitong when they were already undertaking na nagkaroon na ng isyu, nung naraise na po ito ng US Embassy and yung sa World Bank blacklisting of CCCC. So moving forward, siguro kasi nandito na po yun, so we're doing risk management on the part and also naman nakasuspend po siya but prospectively, these areas should be considered as part of the requirements of PRA. SRH: So sir kelan po sila nakapagsubmit sa inyo ng mga dokumento o permit galing sa Marina Coast Guard at NSC? Anong taon po yun? Atty. Literal: Mga 2022 po yun. SRH: Just last year, sir? Atty. Literal: Yes, ma'am. Chair Cynthia: Can you give us the papers? Atty. Literal: Yes, ma'am ... We will submit yung proforma MOU you resquested earlier and also these clearances from Marina, Coast Guard, and NSC. We will submit madame Chair. .... SRH: Doon sa mitigation hierarchy, kung umabot po sa punto na hindi mamitigate to a satisfactory degree yung harms at walang compensation na makukuha na katumbas o lampas sa harms, kasama po ba sa hierarchy to stop and shelve the projects? Sec. Loyzaga: There could be an instance where, in fact there could be no compensatory action that will be available, at which point and this is the reason we are an evidence-informed process, we do understand that there are social and economic benefits for example that may be weighed against the costs. These are decisions that would be made by a higher authority than ourselves in terms of the development planning priorities of the country. Recommendatory basis for whether something should be stopped or minimized will be established by the science that we will do. SRH: The Department could recommend to the higher authority or to the President not to continue with or to stop the project? And it would be up to him to make the final decision? Sec. Loyzaga: There could be an instance po that in fact such a recommendation could be put forward. We do need to conduct the study in order to establish that. ... SRH: Ano po yung status ng reclamation projects in other parts of the country? Halimbawa Palawan kasi nakikita ko po dito yung Sagip coron. Atty. Literal: Backgrounder lang po sa Palawan project. It's a project of the provincial government. Actually it's a 50-hectare project. The first 10 hectares was already completed and then po yung remaining po ngayon is the 40 hectares, however, during the pandemic time, there was an activity and about 22 hectares were completed but nagkaroon po ng problem with the ECC compliance and wala pang area clearance during that time so nakaabot po kay President Duterte during that time yung issues ng Palawan, Coron to be exact. And based on the meeting in 2022, there was a directive from the President to forfeit, to stop the reclamation, and rehabilitate and make it green again. After that, the ECC issued on that project was cancelled and until now the forfeiture issued by PRA is still standing and effective. SRH: Salamat, Atty. Literal. That's one good news to emerge so far in the hearing at sana during the hearing makarinig din tayo diretso mula sa Sagip Coron, kasi shocking marinig ng kahit sinong Pilipino na may reclamation sa Palawan, sa Coron. So this is one good news po kung ganito po ang status and we can ask Sagip Coron to validate or to correct as necessary during the hearing, I hope we can do that. Senator Koko Pimentel: Once upon a time nabigyan ng mga permits yan? Notice to proceed ganon? SRH: Nabigyan for 50 hectares and a total of 22 hectares had been completed during that time ... Paano po naka-obtain ng approval for reclamation sa Coron, in the first place? Kasi ang pinupuntahan naman ng mga domestic and foreign tourists sa Coron ay yung karagatan nila, yung mga kasalukuyang isla, hindi naman po yung mas malaking mga lupa, so paano po naka-obtain ng approval for reclamation in Coron in the first place? Kasi siguro the fact na nakapag-reclaim ng dagdag pa na total of 22 hectares dahil may nasimulang sampu, paano po nakakuha ng pag-apruba para dun sa unang sampu? Atty. Literal: Yung first 10 po ng province nag-apply po yung province under a regulation wherein they have already started so nagkaroon po ng post compliance. What happened is, yung term po namin dito ay regularization, because public funds po ang ginamit and then they have complied, submitted the necessary permits and documents. SRH: Pero after the fact na po? Post-compliance. So hindi sila sumunod kahit sa mga rules ng reclamation? Atty. Literal: Ito po yung next function ng PRA. Marami po kasing illegal and unauthorized nationwide. So ito po yung nagiging ano.. especially po kapag government project and funded by public funds, we have to go through the process of regularization. Ang problem lang po natin dito kasi during that time they even want to secure a title over it pero may moratorium po si DENR not to process a titling and proclamation on the entire Palawan province. SRH: So rineclaim na nga na hindi sumusunod sa rules ng PRA, gusto pang i-title. Parang China. Nag-iimbento ng artificial islands sa West Philippine Sea, mimilitarize nila, sasabihin nilang kanila yun. I'm glad to hear from PRA na sabi niyo mismo, maraming ilegal at unauthorized na reclamation around the country at yun yung tinitignan po nung aming inquiry o imbestigasyon kasi kung may parang original sin doon sa unang sampung hectares sa Coron eh kaya nagkaroon ng platform on which to further reclaim a total 22 hectares at may target palang kabuoang 50 hectares, so actually sir, salamat. Kaya lumalabas po kung regularization, nilelegalize yung mga illegal reclamation. Ano po yung legal basis ng ganon? Ng regularization o pag-legalize ng mga illegal na actions? Atty. Literal: Basically it came from PD3-A. Again, we're talking of forfeiture. So ang process po kasi ng forfeiture is not just getting back, it's also doing the titling in favor of the national government. However, there's a situation just like the one in the 10-hectare ng Coron na wherein the illegal and/or unauthorized reclamation was funded by public funds or by the province so ang nangyari po dito since it's already government narin po, what we need to do is to have all the documents all the studies submitted para po ma-ensure namin that this property na illegal and unauthorized before would be complying with the requirements po ni PRA. SRH: Ewan ko po kung parang government would thus be just making the best of a bad situation. Medyo masakit paring pakinggan na ok dahil ginamit ang public funds na galing sa buwis ng mamamayan, hawak natin sa gubyerno, pero ginamit sa iligal, sa unauthorized, so aayusin nalang. So, I understand logically bakit ganyan ang isang option pero baka there can be more options, better options generated by PRA and our other government agencies, otherwise, baka ma-encourage lang yung iba dun na ganun ding route ang dadaanan. Magrereclaim sa Coron at iba pang lugar, and then sasabihin nila, anyway kasi public funds ang ginamit, aayusin na yan ng local and national governments down the road. So gusto po nating maiwasan yun at maparusahan po yung ganon. Makakabalik ako dun sa mga punta niyo kanina, mga tanong ko po about Chinese involvement and other issues sa PRA. Sabi niyo nga po nakapagsubmit naman na itong CCCC, yung Chinese state-owned contractor, nakapagsubmit ng documents from Marina, Coast guard, NSC, as late as last year. Nakakagulat. Ibig sabihin ang haba talaga ng pisi ng Coast Guard na hanggang ngayon halos araw-araw hinaharass ng Tsina sa West Philippine Sea and despite the fact that NSC itself has said na yung primary national security concern ng ating bansa ngayon ay Tsina sa West Philippine Sea. So ang haba talaga ng pisi nating mga Pinoy but actually even before the US Embassy complained, marami na tayong mga Pilipinong ahensya at mamamayan na nagrereklamo. Sabi niyo nga po gumagawa ang PRA ng risk management, magbubuo po kayo ng bagong rules, we look forward to seeing those. Sabi niyo po may condition na sa clearance na satisfactory na sa Philippine Navy, sa DENR-NCR, and that.. sabi pala ito ni Sec. Tony kanina there would be a modification of the government process for reclamation. In another issues po, addressed to PRA, alam ba ng authority kung ilang Chinese workers ang ipinasok na nitong mga Chinese state-owned enterprises para magtrabaho sa mga proyektong ito? Itong reclamation projects? Kasi during his confirmation, the DND Secretary mentioned that the presence of Chinese workers in the Philippines is a security risk. So may mga measures po ba na ginagawa para i-monitor ang sitwasyong ito? Atty. Literal: We require also the processing of the.. Dalawa po kasing work permit ang nangyayari sa foreign.. Example yung Chinese. There are expats, the technical people, that they secure from immigration a different set of work permit and there are also crew ng foreign vessels itong special permits na nagrerequire naman ng seaman's book processing so we're not privy to the requirements and siguro maam tama po kayo we should be updated on the number of foreign employers na na ano but again these are contractors po kasi na nasa side po ng JV. So we're just being furnished with the number but we will secure the exact number. But with respect to the processing of the permits, they pass through the.. aside from the special permit na namention ko dun sa vessel, but for the warm bodies, there are two work permits for one for the seamen or the crew and the others for the technical people doing the technical aspect of the reclamation. SRH: Salamat Atty. na aalamin niyo ito dahil kahit joint venture ito pero dahil alam na po ng buong bansa natin na state-owned enterprise yan invovled in some of the reclmation projects, at the very least pwedeng maging mas proactive siguro ang PRA to exercise over a matter na flinag narin po ng DND Secretary. Lastly, sa PRA, dito sa Chinese involvement, hindi ba parehong kumpanyang iyan na involved sa Samal-Island Davao City connector bridge project. I believe that there were some concerns that the landing point on the Samal side threatened the remaining live coral reef in the area. So alam po ba ng PRA ano na yung status ng mga coral reefs ngayon? At pano inaddress yung mga environmental concerns na iyon? Atty. Literal: Ma'am we're not familiar with the Samal bridge project. But we understand that it's a Chinese contractor nga po and this bridge project has not been applied to PRA dahil wala naman siyang at this point na specific reclamation component, on the bridge, yan lang po ang alam namin po. Sec. Loyzaga: Madam Chair, I just wanted to clarify the DENR's position on the Philippine Navy requirement. We are now reviewing all the conditions that have been attached to the ECC and the AC. And among these are in fact the compliance to the Philippine Navy's requirement. However, it is in the context of the additional context of the geostrategic concern that we are now recommending that in fact this be elevated not just to the Navy or any branch of service, but to the specific department, which is the Department of National Defense for clearance and the Department of Foreign Affairs as well. SRH: Thank you, good secretary, Madam Chair. I really appreciate yung pag-angat ng department sa ganoong mga antas din, yung pag-oversight and regulate and correction if necessary nang ganitong, hindi lang environmentally, but gaya ng sinabi niyong geostrategically-sensitive na mga proyekto. If I could move, Madam Chair, to the environmental impact and ask Dr. Rodolfo and Mr. Narod Eco some questions? Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo, Narod Eco and Arlene Tengonciang have done extensive work on the effect of large-scale reclamation projects on the environment and coastal communities. Dr. Rodolfo even published a scientific paper on this subject. So kung matanong ko po sila, si Dr. Rodolfo, Sir Narod, si Ma'am Arlene, ano ang mga factors at considerations dapat aware kaming mga policymakers vis-a-vis itong mga large-scale reclamation projects? (Presentation) (End of first part of Q&A) (Start of second part of Q&A) SRH: Mayroon po bang no-go zones para sa reclamation? O kung bibigyan ng pagkakataon, ire-reclaim ba ng PRA yung buong Pilipinas? Atty. Literal: Madam Chair, if I may. Pagdating po sa Manila Bay, we depend on the just formalized or approved Manila Bay Sustainable Development Masterplan. And under the masterplan, isa-scite ko lang po yung integrated coastal zone management framework na nag-identify po ng five zones. Chair Villar: Who did that? SRH: It was under an EO. This is with regards to the mandamus, ma'am. Ito po yung Netherlands, NEDA and DENR. Chair Villar: It's a study daw by NEDA and the Dutch and it was never finished? Atty. Literal: Ay, ma'am, finished na po siya. Chair Villar: Pero in-accept ba yan? It's just your point of view. It was never accepted. We don't know about that. Atty. Literal: Ma'am mayroon po kasi silang sinabi na protected area. And then there's a protect and restore existing ecosystem and there's another area which is a protected habitat area. And then there's a sustainable use area. And then there's an area which is a no-build zone area. And then there's also an area, yung sinasabi nilang outside of four zones which can be optimize the use of available resources for greater benefits. And the development projects within Zone 4 are allowed. This includes potential change of economic activities in favor of better economic and financial outcomes. Under this integrated coastal zone management framework, this area po na pwedeng i-develop, this will be under the mandates of the LGUs, DENR and PRA. SRH: So sa limang- Atty. Literal: Ma'am, I stand corrected, four zones pala siya. SRH: Four zones na yung isa doon ang tawag ay no-build zone. Atty. Literal: Ma'am mayroon kasing protected area na zone talaga. SRH: Oo nga po. Yung una niyong binanggit, protected area at huling binanggit niyo ay no-build zone. Magkaiba po ba ito? Ito ba ay no-go zones for reclamation? Atty. Literal: Ma'am i-check ko lang po yung exact term. SRH: Madam Chair, the secretary would like to interject. Sec. Loyzaga: Thank you, Madam Chair, Madam Senator. If we can have Undersecretary Jonas Leones comment on the study? Usec. Leones: Good afternoon Madam Senator. Regarding sa masterplan indicated, mentioned by the PRA. With due respect po sa comment ng PRA, but the status of masterplan development initiated by NEDA with the Netherlands has not yet been adopted and finalized. So it still remains a draft. So the inter-agency task force still has to adopt the masterplan. So I think, being the case, we need to further review the masterplan, Madam Senator. (...) SRH: So yung huling follow-up ko na lang po dito, dahil yung Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan ay hindi pa adopted ng inter-agency task force, so ibig sabihin po bang may possibility na may zones na ia-identify at ia-adopt na no-go zones for reclamation? Sec. Loyzaga: Thank you, Madam Chair, Madam Senator. This is precisely why we need to conduct the cumulative impact assessment. There needs to be a scientific basis for us to support any recommendation on no-go or go zones. We understand that a good deal of work was put into the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Plan. However, since it was not accepted, we have taken the initiative to actually undertake the impact assessment ourselves. Chair Villar: So it's subject to study? SRH: Well, apparently, Madam Chair, kahit po yung not yet adopted masterplan, maari palang ma-supersede ng cumulative impact assessment study which will, sabi kanina. Within six months may nabubuo nang findings or recommendations? And then within a year po ba, kumpleto na? Sec. Loyzaga: Not necessarily superseding po, Madam Senator. We hope there would be a way for us to see how both studies can actually be either be complementary or supplementary to each other. However, the cumulative impact assessment that will be conducted will be independent of the sustainable development master plan draft. Chair Villar: Anyway, the questions of Senator Risa, can you please answer it whether we agree or not? Then you give us a copy of all the answers to the question para at least we can understand, we can read di ba? And even your study that is not accepted, maybe you can give us a copy para we can study it. Para kapag nagkaroon ng ano, medyo may alam na kami. Kasi sometimes, hindi namin alam kaya nagkakahirapan tayo.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Chairman of Azerbaijan's State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, Rovshan Rzayev met with a group of IDPs from Khankendi on September 26, the Committee told Trend.

As a result of the 44-day second Karabakh war three years ago, Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur were liberated from Armenian occupation. The illegal Armenian armed formations remaining in these territories were liquidated as a result of anti-terrorist activities carried out by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces within one day.

It was stressed at the meeting that today purposeful work is being carried out towards the restoration and reconstruction of the territories liberated from occupation and the implementation of the "Great Return" program. IDPs are gradually returning to their homeland, and the day is not far when IDPs from Khankendi will also join this process.

The Chairman of the State Committee informed the participants of the meeting about the measures taken in connection with the preparation of IDPs for return, the progress of the resettlement process, talked about the upcoming tasks in organizing the return of the Azerbaijani population to Khankendi, and brought to attention the assignments of the Head of State in this regard.

The participants of the meeting expressed gratitude to the head of state and the Azerbaijani Armed Forces for the restoration of Azerbaijan's state sovereignty in all territories liberated from occupation, honored the bright memory of the martyrs, and wished recovery to the veterans.

The meeting was attended by representatives of communities of IDPs from Khankendi, intellectuals, and public activists, as well as members of the Public Council under the State Committee, who expressed their opinions and proposals on preparation for return.
By JOHN OCONNOR, The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  During his momentous U.S. Senate campaign against Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln sat for a photograph after politicking in western Illinois and presented one of the copies to a man severely injured while testing a cannon for Lincolns campaign rally.

As a small measure of compassion, Lincoln presented one version of the image to the injured man, Charles Lame, who overcame a deadly infection in an arm torn up by the blast with the help of flesh-eating maggots.

The tale provides an unlikely, ghastly background to the original 1858 ambrotype created during the future nation-saving Civil War presidents ascendancy, an image which the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has added to its collection, officials said this week.

Original images of Abraham Lincoln are extraordinarily rare, and images with a fascinating back story like this are even more rare, said Christina Shutt, executive director of the library and museum. Lincoln fans everywhere should thank Charles Lames descendants for this generous donation.

This photo provided by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum shows an ambrotype image of President Abraham Lincoln circa 1858. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum via AP)AP

The ambrotype given to Lame remained in the family and was inherited by Mary Davidson of Hendersonville, Tennessee. When she died in August 2022, her children decided the image should go to Springfield.

Lincolns celebrity was on the upswing when he arrived on Sept. 30, 1858, in Pittsfield, about 110 miles northwest of St. Louis. He had completed four of his seven headline-grabbing debates with Douglas, whose view that the introduction of slavery into new territories should be up to local voters had drawn Lincoln, a former one-term congressman, back into politics.

Centering largely on slavery, the campaign ended in defeat for Lincoln. But he had forced Douglas into statements that alienated him from slave-holding Southern states to the point that they rejected him for president in 1860, paving Lincolns way to the White House.

Following his two-hour Pittsfield speech on Oct. 1, local lawyer Daniel Gilmer, who had opened his home to Lincoln for lunch that day, persuaded the candidate to sit for the ambrotype at the gallery of Calvin Jackson.

Despite Lincolns heroic welcome, tragedy had struck the town a day earlier. About the time Lincoln reached the home of his overnight host, supporters Robert Scanland, a longtime Lincoln friend, and Lame, a furniture storekeeper, were preparing an unloaded cannon, which in keeping with political tradition would be fired during the rally, according to a 1968 article by historian LeRoy H. Fischer.

On a second test, Lame was ramming the powder charge when sparks from Scanlands torch inadvertently ignited it and the cannon fired, severely burning Lames face and sending the ramrod through his arm before it penetrated a tree a block away.

Carried to his home, a physician decided not to amputate Lames viciously lacerated arm, a risky decision in an era predating antibiotics. Infection rapidly set in, Lames temperature rose and he lay on the cusp of death.

So dire was his condition that when Lincoln tried to see him after the rally, Lames wife turned him away on doctors orders, at which point Lincoln promised that a copy of his photo would be delivered.

Lincolns gift was a small gesture, but it reaffirms his reputation as a man of compassion. The photo ... is a physical reminder of his kind spirit and concern for others, said Ian Hunt, head of acquisitions for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

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Editors note: This post was updated at 9:08 a.m. Wednesday to include some more information on Rep. Perrys position on the broader issue of federal spending.

Name a policy or spending fights in Congress, and U.S. Rep. Scott Perry can often be found right in the middle of the action, making vigorous arguments for the conservative position of the day.
Authorities in Philadelphia are investigating after two police officers were involved in an early morning crash Wednesday that happened in North Philadelphia, according to reports.

The incident happened before or about 1 a.m. when the officers cruiser collided with an SUV at the intersection of West Allegheny Avenue and West Glenwood Avenue in Fairhill, 6ABC reported.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told NBC10 that the impact caused major damage to the officers cruiser. As a result, all of those involved were injured.

The two officers and the unidentified driver of the SUV were transported to Temple University Hospital and were all listed in stable condition, and have since been released, both news outlets reported.

Read More:
A body that washed up in Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon has been identified as a boater who went missing after his vessel capsized in the Manasquan Inlet this month, authorities said

Troopers were dispatched to Channel Drive in Point Pleasant Beach at 3:05 p.m. on Saturday in response to a report of a body found in the area, a spokesman for New Jersey State Police said.

On Tuesday, he was identified as Derek Narby, 21, of Brick Township, who had been missing since Sept. 14 when a boat he was on with two others was struck by a wave and capsized, officials said.

The two other people were rescued by police the night of the incident. They were identified as Narbys father and brother, according to a report by the Asbury Park Press.

Large waves that struck the boat were churned up by Hurricane Lee as it moved north at the time, hundreds of miles off the coast of North Carolina.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Update: Several arrested as looting follows peaceful protest over Philly police shooting

Several stores in Philadelphia were looted by more than 100 juveniles Tuesday night, according to police.

The Footlocker and Apple stores near 15th and Chestnut and the Lululemon store in Center City were all looted, according to NBC10.

Multiple videos of the looting were posted to social media and show police officers trying to arrest people while windows are smashed and items are stolen.

The looting comes after a judges decision to drop the charges against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver.

About 100 supporters of the man who was shot  Eddie Irizarry  came together at City Hall to protest the decision to drop all charges  including murder  against Mark Dial, a former Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot Irizarry during a traffic stop last month, the Philadelphia Inquirer says.

A couple of kids decided they wanted to take full advantage of the unjust shooting thats happened, Hakeem Russell  a security guard at the Wendys on Chestnut  told NBC10. Its definitely been unrest around here since the verdict.

People reported as many as 200 minors with masks breaking into stores to loot them, the story says.

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The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is accepting construction and maintenance services feedback through an online survey. The public can take the survey through Oct. 20 by visiting 2023 PennDOT Construction/Maintenance Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Construction and maintenance work has been underway across the state this year, according to a press release. From January through August, 485 bridges were put out for bid to be repaired, replaced, or preserved by PennDOT or industry forces. So far this year 161 state and local bridges have been completed, 17 of which went out for bid this year. Additionally, from January through August, more than 3,100 roadway miles were improved by department or partner crews. This includes 1,065 miles of paving.

PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll said in the release, This survey is one way that we continually look for educational opportunities and areas of success or potential improvement.

The 24-question survey asks respondents how they receive PennDOT roadway information and how often PennDOT meets or exceeds expectations in construction and maintenance activities. Respondents are also asked about experiences with reporting concerns to the department, and whether or how they use the states 511PA traveler information services.

Motorists can check conditions on major roadways by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 1,000 traffic cameras.

511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following regional Twitter alerts.

Subscribe to statewide PennDOT news and traffic alerts at www.penndot.pa.gov/news or choose a region under Regional Offices. Information about the states infrastructure and results the department is delivering for Pennsylvanians can be found at www.penndot.pa.gov/results. Find PennDOTs planned and active construction projects at www.projects.penndot.gov.

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Update: Man killed while trimming trees along central Pa. road: coroner

The Lancaster County Coroners Office responded to a fatal tree-trimming incident in Manor Township on Tuesday afternoon, according to reports.

A fallen tree limb killed one person just after 12:30 p.m. on the 2000 block of Stone Mill Road, according to CBS21 and abc27. The Lancaster County News Facebook page reported an unconscious person stuck in a lift at 2001 Stone Mill Road around the same time.

A caller told authorities a person was stuck on a ladder attached to a bucket truck while trying to trim trees, the CBS21 story says. Emergency workers responded for a high-angle rescue of an unconscious person.

The victims identity was not released so relatives could be notified, according to CBS21. OSHA and the coroners office are investigating the incident, abc27 says.

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Hours after a judge dismissed the case, the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office filed a motion Tuesday to reintroduce charges against a former city police officer who shot and killed a driver during a traffic stop.

Mark Dial was previously charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangering another person and official oppression in connection to the Aug. 14 death of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry in Philadelphia.

Police initially said Irizarry lunged at officers with a knife, but surveillance video and body camera footage contradicted their narrative and showed Dial shoot six rounds through Irizarrys driver side window, according to USA Today.

In Tuesdays preliminary hearing, the defense argued that Dial believed Irizarry had a gun and acted in self-defense, but police did not find a gun in Irizarrys car  only a kitchen knife and a serrated folding knife, USA Today says.

He is firing while trying to take cover, Dials defense attorney said, according to USA Today.

To which Municipal Judge Wendy Pew replied I agree with you 100 percent, before dismissing the case due to insignificant evidence.

About 100 supporters of Irizarry came together at City Hall to march against the judges initial decision, according to USA Today.

Youre sitting here telling me that he was trying to lunge at you. He was not. He was locked in the car. So there was no way that he could get to you guys, and yet you still felt threatened and shot at him, Irizarrys cousin Aracelis Brown, 28, told the Associated Press.

Dial, who was suspended with intent to dismiss last month for not cooperating with investigators, worked as a Philadelphia police officer for five years before he was fired on Sept. 18, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw told USA Today.

Dials bail was originally revoked due to the charges in the case, but he was released Tuesday according to his attorney, the story says.

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By Lee O. Sanderlin, The Baltimore Sun (TNS)

BALTIMORE  The Maryland Attorney Generals Office released a newer, less-redacted version Tuesday of its report on the history of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, but some key names remain hidden as people are appealing their inclusion.

The names of five high-ranking Catholic officials who helped enable and cover-up abuse, according to the report, are still redacted along with the name of one alleged abuser.

Their names, which The Baltimore Sun previously verified and published, were set to be included in this most recent version of the report but are being withheld because the six are appealing the courts decision to release them. Another alleged abusers name is being withheld because the attorney generals office was unable to contact him  The Sun also was able to identify him.

The attorney generals report, released in April, details how at least 156 clergy and laypersons abused more than 600 children and young adults throughout the 20th century. The report also shows the extent the church worked to cover-up the abuses.

While two alleged abusers names remain redacted in the latest public version of the report, eight names of abusers were not redacted as they were before. The release of those names confirms reporting by The Sun and other news organizations about the abusers identities.

Neither the individuals whose names remain shielded nor those whose names are now public have been criminally charged.

This interim version of the report is the latest development in the ongoing fallout from the revelations of the decades of abuse. Earlier this month, The Sun revealed that archdiocesan officials were considering filing for bankruptcy to insulate the church from the financial consequences of what is expected to be several new lawsuits from abuse survivors. Maryland lawmakers made it easier this year to sue institutions who employed abusers, but the law is expected to be challenged in court.

At the center of the monthslong legal battle over whether blacked-out names in the report about the archdiocese should be made public were 15 people: 10 accused abusers and the five officials. Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert Taylor ruled in August that the attorney general could release 43 of the 46 blacked-out names, including the five officials and 10 alleged abusers.

All court filings and hearings surrounding the decision whether to release the report and to un-redact names have been hidden from the public by order of Baltimore judges because the state attorney generals initial investigation relied on grand jury materials, which are secret under Maryland law and require a court order to make public. Its not clear whether the appeals will happen in open court; records of previous hearings and filings in the matter remain sealed.

Should the appeals be unsuccessful, the attorney general could release those names in the future, the office said in a news release.

Without putting names to those who acted or failed to act when confronted with a slow-motion crisis of sexual abuse that revealed itself throughout most of the 20th century and beyond  it becomes impossible to fully understand the scope of what is detailed in the report, Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert Taylor wrote in his Aug. 16 opinion.

The five officials held some of the highest positions in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and were historically in charge of priest personnel issues. Identified in the redacted report as Officials A-E, they are as follows:

Official A  Msgr. J. Bruce Jarboe

Official B  Msgr. Richard Rick Woy

Official C  Bishop W. Francis Malooly

Official D  Msgr. George Moeller

Official E  Msgr. G. Michael Schleupner

Of the five, Malooly rose the highest in the Catholic hierarchy, eventually being appointed as the bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.

All five have repeatedly declined The Suns interview requests.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore did not oppose the reports release, but did pay the legal fees of a group of people (likely including the five officials) who sought to challenge their inclusion in the report. Its not clear if the archdiocese is footing the bill for the appeals; a spokesperson did not address the question.

Since the start of the investigation by the Maryland Office of Attorney General into child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and throughout the entirety of the ensuing legal process, the Archdiocese offered its full cooperation and support, Baltimore archdiocese spokesman Chrisitian Kendzierski wrote in an email. At the same time, we believed that those named in the report had a right to be heard as a fundamental matter of fairness.

In todays culture where hasty and errant conclusions are sometimes quickly formed, the mere inclusion of ones name in a report such as this can wrongly and forever equate anyone named, no matter how innocuously, with those who committed the evilest acts, Kendzierski wrote.

Teresa Lancaster of Edgewater, left, and Jean Hargadon Wehner, of Elkridge, were abused at Archbishop Keough High School in the late 1960s. They spoke at an Aug. 2, 2022, protest outside the Maryland attorney general's office in Baltimore.TNS

When The Sun revealed the names of those clerics, Woy resigned from the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center board and Archbishop William E. Lori canceled Jarboes previously planned transfer to a prominent parish in Towson after backlash from parishioners and families with children at its parochial school.

Taylor wrote in his August opinion that the officials argued the attorney generals report mischaracterized their actions and insinuated sinister motives when they were blameless, or at least justified, in their actions. Taylor wrote that the five officials are free to make those claims in a public manner, but this is an argument for more transparency, not less.

To continue to hide their identities does not advance that interest in public discourse; just the opposite, the judge wrote. It allows the most negative possible inferences to be drawn, while continuing to shroud this troubling history in secrecy.

The other notable name being withheld is that of Frank Cimino Jr., who resigned from his position with the Maryland State Boychoir after The Sun revealed his inclusion in the report in late May.

Cimino, through an attorney, threatened to sue the newspaper and has denied all wrongdoing. According to the attorney generals report, he was fired in 1987 from his role as choir director at St. Thomas More after a seminarian accused Cimino of molesting him in the 1970s. Cimino founded the Maryland State Boychoir shortly after his firing.

Taylor determined that the name of former Rev. Joseph F. OBrien, No. 154 on the reports List of Abusers, would remain redacted for the time being because the attorney generals office has been unable to notify him about his inclusion in the report. That meant he was not afforded an opportunity to participate in a July hearing to argue against his name being made public.

The Sun identified OBrien in May and located him in Newport News, Virginia. He told a reporter he could not have committed the abuse because the girl who accused him of unwanted kissing and fondling didnt wear dresses and was gay.

The names of the eight alleged abusers whose names were previously shielded and were un-redacted Tuesday are as follows: Rev. Joseph G. Fiorentino; Sister Catherine A. Hasson; Rev. Thomas Hudson; Rev. John Peter Krzyzanski; Rev. Samuel Lupico; Brother Ronald N. Nicholls; Rev. Joseph O Meara; and Michael V. Scriber.

In addition to the six most notable appeals, it appears as if the majority of the other earlier redacted names still remain hidden, meaning it is likely they are also appealing. Taylor described them in his opinion as having played relatively minor roles  and they have largely avoided public scrutiny.

2023 The Baltimore Sun. Visit at baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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John Fettermans clothes are a news item. His casual, working-class mode of accoutrement has raised the ire of right-wing senators. Fettermans style expresses a public concern for the working class and poor, a concern not much expressed in the staid halls of the highly undemocratic, wealth soaked, and war-mongering U.S. Senate (Wyoming, population 583,279 gets two Senators; California, population 38,915,693, gets two Senators  a 67 to 1 ratio).

Fetterman has a suit, and occasionally wears it - so it goes.

The outrage expressed about the new Senate dress code leaves one a bit cold: Its a disgrace! Hes an affront to the dignity of the office! This is a material debasement of a storied institution 

A hoodie and shorts = a disgrace, but not authorizing the mass murderous criminal assault on Iraq that is linked to the deaths of well over one million people, and the spread of violence throughout the region. Why is it not an affront to the dignity of the office to accept legal bribes from oil and gas companies, the real estate industry, and the securities and investment firms, etc.? What about the material debasement of the Senate bailing out Wall Street in 2008 and sending millions of working people into the gutter?

Those who take the largest bribes, support the criminal wars, and bail out the largest banks, follow the old dress code. One doubts a new dress code will change much of that, even if a few, like Fetterman and Sanders, support peace, fairness, working people, and the impoverished.

Doug Morris, Ph.D., Mechanicsburg, Pa.
By LISA MASCARO and STEPHEN GROVES, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  The U.S. Congress is starkly divided over different paths to preventing a federal shutdown  the Senate charging ahead with a bipartisan package to temporarily fund the government but the House slogging through a longshot effort with no real chance of finishing by Saturdays deadline.

With days remaining before a federal closure, the stakes are rising with no resolution at hand.

A shutdown would furlough millions of federal employees, leave the military without pay, disrupt air travel and cut off vital safety net services, and it would be politically punishing to lawmakers whose job it is to fund government.

President Joe Biden, who this year reached a budget deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy that became law, believes its up to the House Republicans to deliver.

A deal is a deal, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. This is for them to fix.

Late Tuesday, the Senate pushed ahead in sweeping bipartisan fashion to break the stalemate, advancing a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep government running through Nov. 17. It would maintain funding at current levels with a $6 billion boost for Ukraine and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief, among other provisions.

Its on track for Senate approval this week but faces long odds in the House.

Republican McCarthy, pushed by a hard-right flank that rejects the deal he made with Biden and is demanding steep spending cuts, showed no interest in the Senates bipartisan effort  or the additional money for Ukraine.

I think their priorities are bad, he said about the Senate effort.

Instead, McCarthy is reviving plans for the House Republicans stopgap funding measure that would slash federal spending by 8% for many agencies and attach a hardline border security measure that conservatives are demanding. Hes planning a Friday vote, but Biden, Democrats and even some Republicans have said the package is too extreme.

McCarthy is trying to goad Biden into negotiations over the border package, highlighting the record numbers of migrants crossing the Southern border with Mexico, but the speaker has little leverage at this point and the White House has downplayed the prospect of talks.

But first, McCarthy is expected to spend much of this week trying to pass some of the bills needed to fund government agencies  Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State and Foreign Operations.

Its a daunting task ahead. The House Republicans advanced those bills late Tuesday after a days of setbacks and disarray, but it is not at all clear McCarthy has the votes from his hard-right flank to pass the four bills this week.

The 79-page Senate bill would fund the government at current levels and would include the Ukraine and U.S. disaster aid that has been in jeopardy. It also includes an extension of Federal Aviation Administration provisions expiring Saturday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate bill shows bipartisanship can triumph over extremism.

Schumer said, We all know together that a government shutdown will be devastating, devastating to this country.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared on board with the bipartisan Senate plan, saying, Government shutdowns are bad news.

The hard-right House Republicans are being egged on by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who has urged them to stand firm in the fight or shut it down.
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, pleading not guilty to corruption charges after prosecutors claim he abused his office and gave sensitive government information to Egypt in exchange for cash, gold and other bribes.

New Jerseys senior senator, Menendez, a Democrat, faces a three-count bribery and corruption indictment.

Menendez did not respond to questions shouted by reporters as he entered the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, holding his wifes hand as the two emerged from a car.

Step down! someone yelled from the crowd.

The 69-year-old, who is facing re-election next year, is accused of taking a series of official acts and breaches of official duties in exchange for bribes that benefited both Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, who was charged alongside him.

Three New Jersey businessmen  Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe  were also charged with bribing the senator. Daibes and Uribe were also in court on Wednesday to be arraigned. Hana pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including conspiracy to commit bribery after he was arrested at New Yorks Kennedy International Airport after returning voluntarily from Egypt to face the charges. He was freed pending trial.

Inside the crowded 26th floor wood-paneled courtroom, Menendez and his wife were separated at the defense table by their attorneys as they faced U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang. Neither said anything except to acknowledge questions with a yes, your honor.

All four were released afterward, with Menendez freed on $100,000 bond. He was allowed to travel anywhere within the United States, or internationally upon notice to the government. Bond was set at $250,000 for his wife, who was restricted in her travel to New Jersey, New York, Washington and Florida, where she has family.

Uribe was freed on $1 million bond and Daibes on $2 million.

After the hearing, Menendez appeared to be in good spirits. Chatting with his attorney, he led his wife out of the courtroom by her hand.

In an indictment made public Friday, prosecutors painted a stark portrait of wide-ranging corruption, from giving sensitive U.S. government information on arms deals and other matters to Egypt, to meddling in three criminal probes into his wealthy friends in New Jersey.

Photographs of gold bars, cash pulled from jacket pockets and a $60,000 Mercedes convertible  the alleged proceeds of the various schemes  were included in the indictment, quickly spreading on social media and lighting up television screens.

Top Democrats, including Gov. Phil Murphy and, as of Tuesday, Menendezs colleague in the Senate, fellow Democrat Cory Booker have all called for Menendez to resign.

Despite the calls to step down, Menendez has forcefully denied the charges, saying prosecutors had skewed their evidence to appear as salacious as possible.

Prosecutors get it wrong sometimes, he said at a Monday press conference. Sadly, I know that.

This marks the second time in eight years Menendez has been indicted, after a 2015 case was dismissed after a mistrial. He also was the subject of a corruption investigation in 2006 that did not produce charges.

I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet, Menendez said Monday. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator.

Menendez was joined in court by his wife, whose text messages and emails with the senator and three businessmen were included in the indictment. She is accused of facilitating many of the bribes.

They include the cash and car, as well as a no-show job for Arslanian at a New Jersey company that Menendez helped secure a business monopoly on certifying halal meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt, a multi-million dollar industry, according to the indictment.

That company was owned by Hana.

Hana allegedly introduced the senator to Egyptian intelligence and military officials. Prosecutors claim that, in exchange for bribes, Menendez gave Hana non-public information about U.S. military aid to Egypt.

Daibes and Uribe are also accused of bribing the senator for his help quash criminal investigations involving their businesses or associates.

The indictment charged that Menendez promised to use his influence and power to recommend that President Joe Biden nominate an individual as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey who Menendez believed could be influenced with respect to an unrelated federal criminal prosecution of Daibes.

That earlier case led to Daibes pleading guilty last year to taking part in an insider loan scam at Mariners Bank, the financial institution that he founded and where he served as chairman of the board of directors. The Edgewater-based developer whose high-profile projects have transformed the Hudson River waterfront admitted concealing a $1.8 million bank loan made to him in that case. He is still awaiting sentencing.

In Uribes case, the indictment said Menendez promised to use his influence to disrupt an investigation by the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office involving insurance fruad. In a text message to an associate, prosecutors say, Uribe described their arrangement.

The deal is to kill and stop all investigation, Uribe allegedly wrote.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com.
RCMP officers in October 2022 seized $163,000 in cash and three kilograms of cocaine from this home at 2404 Wiltse Dr. in Penticton. The residents have since forfeited the cash as proceeds of crime.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, talks with reporters before a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Thursday, June 22, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Canadian cannabis companies are cheering a Senate committees decision today to push forward with easing federal financing restrictions on the U.S. industry. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Mariam Zuhaib
BAKU. Azerbaijan, September 27. The 3rd Azerbaijan-Turkiye Energy Forum and the first "Nakhchivan-Green Energy Zone" international conference will be held in Nakhchivan from September 28 through September 29 this year, Trend reports.

According to the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan, meetings of joint working groups on hydrocarbon and petrochemical products, energy efficiency, the electricity market, the distribution and transmission of electricity, energy regulation, the use of renewable energy sources, and the mining industry will be held within the framework of the forum.

The events will be attended by the Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, Parviz Shahbazov and the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkiye Alparslan Bayraktar.

In addition, within the framework of the event, plenary sessions on the energy transition, the green energy zone, the green energy potential of Nakhchivan, and other issues are planned, as well as speeches by the parties.

The Azerbaijan-Turkiye Energy Forum was initiated within the framework of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation between the two countries in order to further strengthen strategic energy cooperation. The first forum was held from December 21 through 22, 2021, in Baku, and the second from October 5 through 6, 2022, in Istanbul.
"3AHYDA" Wins 888poker XL Autumn $162 Mystery Bounty

September 27, 2023 David Salituro Live Reporter

3AHYDA was already guaranteed to be the biggest winner in the 888poker XL Autumn Series $162 Mystery Bounty even before the final table. The Mexican player was the lucky one to pull the $20,000 jackpot envelope yesterday.

But their journey wasnt done there, and it ended with 3AHYDA holding every chip in play after defeating SuiC1deKin9 heads-up to win the title and $15,400 top prize.

3AHYDA more than tripled their previous highest cash with the $36,886 total they earned on the virtual felt today. They won $10,000 for finishing second in a $1,000 event on 888poker in July 2022, and won a mystery bounty tournament in April for $3,719. But not even those two scores came close to matching what they pulled off today.

Final Table results

Rank Player Prize Bounties Total Prize 1 3AHYDA $15,480 $21,406 $36,886 2 SuiC1deKin9 $11,290 $2,524 $13,814 3 Simon "Snygren" Nygren $8,300 $1,184 $9,484 4 Con88 $6,150 $341 $6,491 5 Svarozhits $4,550 $1,243 $5,793 6 8Packed $3,400 $622 $4,022 7 Hvalavam $2,560 $1,184 $3,744 8 Bartu79 $1,940 $1,043 $2,983

Final Table action

3AHYDA began the final table as the chip leader with 3,172,818 when play resumed at 7 p.m. GMT. Hvalavam was the short stack but cracked Bartu79s set to double up early. Hvalavam then flopped a set on Bartu79, and no miracles arrived this time as Bartu79 was sent to the rail in eighth place.

The two players who started the day at the top of the counts then tangled in a massive pot. Both 3AHYDA and SuiC1deKin9 hit a pair of kings, but SuiC1deKin9 won the pot and secured a double up with a queen-kicker to knock 3AHYDA" from atop the leaderboard.

Swedish Twitch streamer Simon Snygren Nygren then busted Hvalavam in seventh when the short stack shoved for around 1,200,000 with ace-seven but ran into ace-ten. Shortly after, SuiC1deKin9 hit trips to knock out 8Packed in sixth place.

3AHYDA began their comeback by eliminating Svarozhits in fifth place, spiking an ace on the river to crack pocket jacks. 3AHYDA and Con88 then got involved in a raising war on a nine-high flop that ended when 3AHYDA had their last 1,845,015 in the middle with a pair of kings and Con88 showed down jack-nine. Con88 couldnt improve on the turn and river as 3AHYDA doubled up.

Win Up To $10,000 With the Awesome Card Strike Feature Find out more

Con88 was left on an extremely short stack and was eliminated by SuiC1deKin9 the next hand. Nygren then doubled up off SuiC1deKin9 three times to jump back into contention as 3AHYDA opened a big lead over his two opponents during three-handed play.

SuiC1deKin9 was all in for 1,738,341 with ace-eight against 3AHYDAs king-jack as the flop brought a king, but SuiC1deKin9 made a running straight to stay alive. Nygren wouldnt have the same luck after calling off their last 2,035,704 with ace-seven. 3AHYDA had nine-eight and flopped trip eights to bust Nygren in third place.

3AHYDA led 12,310,318 to 3,121,682 at the start of heads-up and didnt wait long before widening the lead. They made a pot-sized bet of 1,478,000 on the river and SuiC1deKin9 called only for 3AHYDA to show a rivered two pair. SuiC1deKin9 cracked a flopped set with a turned straight to double up, but was knocked back down to just over 2,000,000 when they got their last chips in with king-ten.

3AHYDA had ace-four as the flop brought a king to give SuiC1deKin9 the lead. The turn, though, was an ace and 3AHYDA took the lead. A safe river secured the title for 3AHYDA after a wire-to-wire final table performance.

Final Hand

888poker XL Autumn Results So Far

Event Buy-in Entrants Prize Pool Champion Prize #01 - $35,000 Mystery Bounty Mini Opening $55 800 $40,000 MyNumber7 $3,977* #02 - $120,000 Mystery Bounty Opening $109 1,142 $120,000 MrBoJinglez $10,074* #03 - $35,000 High Roller Opening $525 89 $44,500 Kabosu69 $12,259 #04 - $12,000 PKO Mini $22 717 $14,340 KidCarey13 $2,051* #05 - $12,000 PKO $109 171 $17,100 Blondal $3,727* #06 - $15,000 Mystery Bounty $55 379 $18,950 SupertrampBR $2,543* #07 - $20,000 Mystery Bounty High Roller $320 97 $29,100 dmg34 $8,306* #08 - $12,000 6-Max Mini $22 539 $12,000 magnf1cious $2,322 #09 - $12,000 6-Max $109 130 $13,000 linguinhaaa $3,380 #10 - $15,000 Super KO $55 329 $16,450 cbetoulevou $2,011* #11 - $5,000 Super KO Mini $8.80 551 $5,000 AmbasadorPro $524* #12 - $12,000 PKO Turbo Deep Mini $22 541 $12,000 PivoSolver $1,922* #13 - $12,000 PKO Turbo Deep $109 101 $12,000 Bhs_Luck $2,846* #14 - $35,000 Mystery Bounty $55 759 $37,950 Dred_Rednose $4,972* #15 - $10,000 Mystery Bounty Mini $11 1,102 $11,020 Maydin24 $1,164* #16 - $40,000 HR Turbo Deep $525 79 $40,000 cherrywine $11,020 #17 - $25,000 Mystery Bounty $109 307 $30,700 shashOs21 $6,560* #18 - $12,000 Big Shot Mini $22 510 $12,000 Matheus_lima $2,076 #19 - $12,000 Big Shot $109 140 $14,000 Escabofildo $3,255 #20 - $200,000 Mystery Bounty $162 1,286 $200,000 3AHYDA $36,885* #21 - $15,000 Turbo Deep Mini High Roller $55 288 $15,000 thenewmig $3,040 #22 - $20,000 Turbo Deep High Roller $320 72 $21,600 popsnpoker $6,048

The XL Autumn Series on 888poker concludes next week with the $250 Mystery Bounty Main Event, featuring a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. Starting flights take place up to October 2, with the series ending on October 3 with the crowning of a champion.

PokerNews will be back providing live updates in a weeks time, but for now, it was 3AHYDA who had the tournament of their lifetime here today.

Try out the PokerNews Online Tournament Calendar and find your perfect 888poker tournament. Apply filters to narrow down your search before hitting the tables and becoming an 888poker champion.

Sharelines Here's how the final table of the 888poker XL Autumn Series $162 Mystery Bounty went down.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) and the World Bank (WB) are jointly implementing "Financial Sector Modernization Project 3", Trend reports.

According to CBA, in order to determine the scope of the project and refine its directions, a WB expert mission will visit Baku in the last week of September this year for relevant meetings.

The main goal of the project is to strengthen the supervision and regulation of the financial sector, support the implementation of the state program for financial accessibility, and provide support to the CBA in monitoring the financial sector.

The previous meeting between representatives of the CBA and the WB discussed current cooperation and future directions for technical assistance.
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Trump is not taking the judges ruling that he has been committing fraud for years well. The former president is attacking the judge and New York AG Letitia James.

Trump posted on Truth Social:

Trump is thinking that because he put a disclaimer on his lies then he is covered, but that is not how fraud works. Trumps claim that his company has hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and very little debt is also a lie. Trump was so cash-poor during the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns that he claimed he didnt have the cash to self-fund his runs for the presidency.

The idea that his companies have no debt is also a lie. The company owes millions of dollars in loans to the Chinese government.

Trump is losing his mind because New York Attorney General Letitia James laid out and a judge agreed, the former presidents pattern of fraud. The idea is that Trumps real business wasnt real estate. It was inflating the value of real estate to defraud banks.

The judges ruling also covers Trumps brand, as the judge found that Donald Trump also overvalued his brand.

It was all an overinflated lie. Trump overinflated the value of every piece of property that he is involved with. The most absurd case is Mar-a-Lago which overinflated by 2,300%.

Letitia James has crushed the myth of Donald Trump, and the failed one-term president is losing it as he watches his house of cards come tumbling down.
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Transactions involving Donald Trump and Jared Kushner set off money laundering alerts at Deutsche Bank.

The New York Times reported:

Anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trumps now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.



Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Banks Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals.

Bank executives didnt turn Trump and Kushner in because they had loaned the ex-president and his son-in-law billions of dollars.

In the coming days, the nation will hear House Republicans prattle on about Suspicious Activity Reports and bank records involving Hunter Biden.

The real scandal is one that they are choosing to ignore.

Suspicious Activity Reports are not by themselves an indication of guilt, but if House Republicans are going to use SARs as a reason to impeach Joe Biden for his sons business dealings, then they need to be prepared to look at the SARs involving Donald Trump and Jared Kushner.

There have been rumors about Trump being involved in Russian money laundering for decades, and the Deutsche Bank report deserves congressional scrutiny that wont come from the House Republican majority, but Senate Democrats need to launch an investigation.
The State Ports Authority has filed a formal request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that cleared the way for union workers to run the container cranes at the $1.5 billion Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston.

Lawyers for the maritime agency in Washington, D.C., and Columbia spelled out their arguments in a 32-page brief dated Sept. 25.

"The court should step in," they wrote.

The nine justices haven't decided whether they'll review the dispute, which has all but shut down the Port of Charleston's newest cargo hub.

The SPA's longtime hybrid labor model suffered a serious blow in late July, when a three-judge panel at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of the International Longshoremen's Association in its bid to run the towering devices that move cargo on and off ships at the former Navy base.

The ruling upheld a December 2022 decision from the National Labor Relations Board, which the ports authority unsuccessfully challenged. At the time, the SPA said it was reviewing its options and hadn't decided whether it would seek another appeal.

This week, the agency described "the practical implications" of the 4th Circuit ruling as "devastating." Last year, Leatherman was operating at about 15 percent of its total cargo-handling capacity.

"This is of national importance as it will impact how all operating ports are run," SPA Chief Executive Officer Barbara Melvin said Wednesday in a written statement about the decision to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

She described the idled terminal as "a significant supply chain asset for all port-dependent businesses in South Carolina and beyond."

"Ocean carriers transport goods for U.S. importers and exporters, who benefit from our operational excellence," Melvin said. "The union's intent is to displace our operators with union members."

The SPA is asking the highest court in the land to address two questions. Both seek to answer whether the 4th Circuit decision "eviscerates" a federal prohibition against "secondary boycotts," referring to the ILA's ability to damage the port by threatening SPA customers with legal action if they use Leatherman.
COLUMBIA  Nearly a year after being put on notice by federal regulators, Nephron Pharmaceuticals remains under the microscope, with its latest inspection showing continued issues with how it produces high-demand, commonly used sterile drugs for hospitals and medical clinics across the country.

The inspection, which U.S. Food and Drug Administration agents conducted in February and published this week, cited issues related to cleaning procedures, problems with equipment and maintenance, employees lacking all necessary training and improper storage of ingredients.

The inspection followed a stern October 2022 warning letter from the federal agency responsible for regulating pharmaceutical production in the United States, saying the West Columbia drugmaker has not gone far enough in its response to issues raised during an inspection earlier in the year.

That warning letter triggered an internal recall by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs of all Nephron-made drugs and a pause on the ordering and use of the companys products until federal regulators determine that conditions have improved. The VA recall is in addition to 7.6 million doses that Nephron has recalled since May 2022.

Nephron, in a statement, said it has since made strides to correct issues that inspectors raised.

In the months since FDA last visited Nephron, we have worked overtime: engaging expert consultants, hiring new talent and addressing any questions inspectors had as a part of the continuous improvement and innovation for which Nephron has come to be known," CEO Lou Kennedy said.

"We look forward to welcoming the FDA back anytime they want to visit and working together to make sure patients have access to the lifesaving medications we work hard to produce day in and out.
NORTH CHARLESTON  As Trident Technical College has grown to become the third-largest college in undergraduate enrollment in South Carolina, one president has led the efforts to expand the community college's offerings. Now, Mary Thornley has announced her retirement after leading the college for over 30 years.

"If you've been at a college campus a long time, particularly a community college, what you're doing is you're spending your life with people who, regardless of whether they're 18 or 50, they've got a dream. And a dream makes you young," said Thornley, who is retiring June 1, 2024.

As the longest-standing president at the college, Thornley admits she will never be ready to leave. At 80 years old, her dedication to the prosperity of the college is evident from the laundry list of projects she recited that will be in the works through the end of her tenure.

"We've got things to do," said Thornley, who has been employed by the college for 50 years. "You're either growing or you're dying. Trident Tech is growing."

Under Thornley's leadership, the college's enrollment has increased from just under 8,000 students to more than 13,000 enrolled this fall. Physically, the campus has more than doubled. Additionally, the college expanded from three campuses to five, including one in Mount Pleasant and Summerville, and two training sites. Last year, the college received the final funding to renovate the Berkeley Campus in Moncks Corner.

Thornley has received numerous awards during her tenure, including the Order of the Palmetto, the Joseph P. Riley Leadership Award, the Shirley B. Gordon Phi Theta Kappa Presidential Award of Distinction and the South Carolina Association of Technical College Commissioners CEO award.

The main campus in North Charleston even bears her name  the college's Area Commission voted to name it Thornley Campus in 2018 to honor her years of service and leadership.
President Joe Biden, in a rare use of his veto powers, has lent his sizable protection to an endangered chicken and bat.

On Sept. 26, the president  issuing the seventh and eighth vetoes of his presidency  blocked bills from Republican lawmakers that would have stripped federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken and the northern long-eared bat, which resides in South Carolina.

The bills would have "overturn(ed) a science-based rulemaking that follows the requirements of the law, and thereby undermines the Endangered Species Act," the president said in a veto message.

South Carolina doesnt have prairie chickens; it does have northern long-eared bats. In recent months, the tiny bat has attracted the ire of Republican lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, a Rock Hill-based Republican.

Norman made headlines in July for making anti-bat statements.

I see the bald eagle. That makes sense. I see the bears. That makes sense. But, long-eared bats? I hope the white-nose syndrome wipes all of them out. We wont have it to worry about, Norman said at a U.S. House Rules Committee that voted in favor of the "disapproval resolutions," which aimed to overturn decisions the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made last November. Those decisions, based on science, placed the two species on the endangered species list.

To be fair, the only American bear to ever reach the endangered list is the polar bear.

American bald eagles, however, were once the face of the Endangered Species Act. In 1973, when Nixon signed the law, there were fewer than 1,000 eagles left in the Lower 48 states. The iconic bird was one of the first endangered species as well as one of the first to bounce back because of its listing designation. In 2007, the species was deemed fully recovered.

Norman, a successful commercial real estate developer, commented on the money that could be saved by not having to pay for saving the northern long-eared bat. "Think of the tax revenue," added Norman, whose company's portfolio includes upscale shopping centers with chain retailers, restaurants and hotels, along with office space and storage-unit facilities.
GEORGETOWN  Charlestons largest restaurant group is adding Georgetown to its portfolio.

The Independent, a waterfront eatery inside a forthcoming hotel, is a few months away from opening, Indigo Road Hospitality Group president Steve Palmer told The Post and Courier. The group owns restaurants and hotels across the Southeast, including The Independents home: the 56-room George Hotel.

The hospitality group announced it was venturing into the hotel business in early 2020 with projects in development in Asheville and Savannah. The group now lists several lodging projects on its website, including The George, Indigo Road's first hotel holding in its home state.

When it comes to restaurants, Indigo Road has a big presence in Charleston, along with Atlanta, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Charlotte. Best known for Indaco, O-Ku and Oak Steakhouse, the group has tapped Thomas Vance to lead the new Georgetown kitchen.

The Art Institute of Charleston graduate was enthralled with food from an early age, spending time in the kitchen tasting his mothers Sunday gravy and grandmothers hand-rolled meatballs. That love of food led to a career in restaurants  Vance previously spent time at Charlestons Peninsula Grill, Charlottes Carpe Diem and others. He applied for The Independent job shortly after moving back to the Lowcountry.

With Vance on board, Palmer and his team will now need to hire a large enough staff to serve a 75-seat restaurant with outdoor seating along the marina in the Georgetown Historic District. The longtime restaurateur feels confident in the endeavor given their success at Town Hall in Florence.
CLEMSON  For more than a decade, one Clemson professor has made a trip to the mountains into a September pilgrimage of sorts. But this year's journey may be a precursor to the ones he hopes several hundreds of people will follow.

Forest ecology Assistant Professor Don Hagan made his mid-September trip up the Blue Ridge Parkway and came home with a report that, though it may take some time, the fall colors are coming.

In most peoples minds, a good fall color season is one where you have a variety of different species hitting their peaks at the same time, Hagan said. So, this little delay we have this year  maybe just a couple days, maybe a week  is going to increase the odds that we have lots of species firing off their best colors at the same time.

This isnt necessarily a better late than never kind of patience, either, he said. As evening temperatures drop into a range that makes many eager to start toasting marshmallows over the fire or keep an extra jacket in the car, the trees make their annual adjustments, too.

If we get some cooler weather, which you know we will as we get into fall, those shorter, cooler days and longer nights are the environmental triggers that are going to bring about the change for most species, Hagan said in his report. At this elevation this year, it might be delayed a little bit. Maybe a few days later than what would be the typical peak of fall color  not a lot, but a few days. The first couple of weeks of October, maybe even the third week, should be really nice up at these higher elevations.

For Hagan, the higher elevations mean around 5,000 feet, where there is more diversity in tree species to show off a variety of bold fall colors.

Most of the tree line above 5,000 feet largely consists of evergreens, but around that point is when the forest gives way to maples, oaks and poplars that make the drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway worthwhile on a sunny autumn day.
GREENVILLE  As Election Day nears, Greenville's longtime mayor faces his first election challenger since 2007 in what he says will be his final campaign  win or lose.

Mayor Knox White, a Republican often credited with guiding the continued revitalization of the city and its downtown, will face Michelle Shain, a Democratic former city councilwoman and nonprofit leader who has raised a war chest of campaign funds to loosen the incumbents grip on the position.

Shain also stands as the first serious challenger since White took office in 1995.

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Shain, a Democrat, contends some of the citys biggest challenges today  especially rising housing costs  came about on Whites watch and that creative solutions and more political will are needed to solve them.

White touts the city's investments in affordable housing and said he wants to guide major projects that remain.

That would add to the long list of landmarks born under his tenure, from Falls Park to Fluor Field  both achievements that Shain also worked on as a city councilwoman.

The two candidates will participate in a debate open to the public and hosted by The Post and Courier following a City Council debate Oct. 2 at the Kroc Center in downtown Greenville.

Similar messages, different visions

White last faced a challenger to his position in 2007, during a Republican primary where he faced Billy Mitchell, a longshot candidate who ran against him following the city's seizure of a building he owned to make way for redevelopment around Falls Park.

The last serious contender was in 1995, when White defeated current Democratic City Councilwoman Lillian Brock Flemming after beating incumbent Bill Workman in the Republican primary that year.
GREENVILLE  Greenville Mayor Knox White will debate challenger Michelle Shain a month ahead of the general election during a forum hosted by The Post and Courier's Palmetto Politics team.

The Oct. 2 debate, which the same evening will feature a debate between incumbent City Councilwoman Dorothy Dowe and challenger Randall Fowler, is in partnership with the Greenville Chamber.

The event at the KROC Center downtown will begin with the council debate at 5:30 p.m., followed by the mayoral debate at 6:15 p.m.

The event is free, but it requires registration.

This year's city election cycle features only two contested races, as Councilmen John DeWorken and Ken Gibson face no opposition.

In the mayoral race, former City Councilwoman Michelle Shain, running as a Democrat in the city's partisan election system, is giving White his first challenge since the 2007 primary.

First elected mayor in 1995, White is running for an eighth consecutive term.

Dowe, a Democrat, is finishing her first term after winning one of the city's two at-large seats in 2019. Republican Randall Fowler, a political newcomer, is challenging her.

The event is part of The Post and Courier's Palmetto Politics LIVE team, which is hosted such forums across the state, in collaboration with the AARP of South Carolina.

The Post and Courier Upstate and Regional Editor Sam R. Hall will moderate.

Panelists will be Local Editor Eric Connor and Jason Zacher, the chamber's senior vice president and executive director of the Business Advocacy & Upstate Chamber Coalition.
BEAUFORT  The population growth that has occurred in Beaufort County over the last few years has impacted traffic, schools, housing costs and any number of other facets of daily life.

Medical services have been no exception. Since 2018, the number of surgeries performed at Beaufort Memorial Hospital has increased by 50 percent. The hospital ended its most recent fiscal year having completed more than 12,000 surgeries.

Over the next five years, that number is likely to grow by at least another 50 percent. It could even double, said Russell Baxley, the hospital's president and CEO.

With those numbers in mind, hospital officials kicked off a three-year, $24 million project to expand and renovate the Surgical Pavilion to help meet the region's increasing surgical demand.

"Today is a huge occasion for Beaufort Memorial," Baxley said Sept. 26. "We break ground on a massive renovation to our OR that's not only going to modernize what our physicians do and our medical staff does, it's going to expand our capacity."

Baxley underscored the need for the expansion, noting that the hospital's surgery center still had the same number of rooms and the same amount of space it did in 2018.

"The need is great because we don't see the number of surgical cases slowing down any time soon," Baxley added.

The project will add two state-of-the-art surgical suites and enlarge existing suites to accommodate the latest technologies and optimize the surgical process. The project will also renovate the pre- and post-operating care areas to streamline patient flow.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., attended the ceremony. Graham secured a $17.9 million earmark from the 2022 Omnibus Bill, which was passed to provide support for critical infrastructure projects throughout the nation.

"This is not my money, it's your money," Graham said. "It's my job to figure out how to spend your money, and I think I made a great decision bringing it here to Beaufort."
The Modern Woodmen Hometown Hero Award recognizes individuals who have provided outstanding volunteer service to their local community. Each year, Modern Woodmen members honor an individual with the award. This year, the honor was bestowed upon Commander John R. Barney Barnes. Read moreBarnes receives 'Hometown Hero' award
Smantha Preeal William a student of Williamsburg County School District was selected to attend the South Carolina Governors School for Science and Math. GSSMs two-year, tuition-free, in-residence program provides high school juniors and seniors with exceptionally strong academic preparation across disciplines.

+2 School District unveils new 2023 logo Williamsburg County School District announced the recent unveiling of a new logo as of Janua

GSSM offers unique opportunities for the advanced study of science, math, and engineering, paired with equally strong offerings in humanities and social sciences. Students emerge with the deep knowledge and broad, well-rounded perspective that is the foundation for success and achievement in a wide range of future pursuits.

The curriculum, which utilizes state-of-the-art lab facilities and equipment, allows students to work ahead of their grade level and challenge themselves with new aspects of their favorite subjects. The GSSM also offers college- and graduate-level learning opportunities not available in traditional high schools, like international research, independent study, and mentored science and economics research.

I want to start off by saying that I am beyond honored to be selected for the South Carolina Governors School for Math and Science in Hartsville. I thank the Lord for this blessing. I want to thank my KMMS, KHS teachers, friends, and family who are supporting me in this process. Im grateful for this opportunity as I will go on to pursue my career in the STEM field. GSSM, in this past month, has provided me with many great opportunities to be a great student and a service to the community. I am excited to see what the future holds for me. I would like to finish off by saying, If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Thank you. Smantha Preeal William
WASHINGTON DC - Back in 1944 songsters Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer gave us an uplifting piece of music: it was called Accentuate the Positive. Nearly 80 years later Michael Seifert, the founder, CEO, and president of PublicSq [Public Square], is doing just that; as the lyric goes, hes la Read moreEntrepreneur Michael Seifert warns, your wallet is a weapon
Russell Laffitte, the former Hampton banker convicted of conspiring with Alex Murdaugh to steal from vulnerable clients, will report to federal prison Sept. 28 after a months-long fight to retain his freedom.

Laffitte, 52, was sentenced to serve seven years in federal custody.

In a one-sentence order, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., denied Laffittes request to stay out of prison on bond as he seeks an appeal to overturn his conviction. The court issued its decision the day before he was due at a federal facility in central Florida.

Laffittes attorneys had pleaded with the court this week to make a decision quickly because U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, who oversaw his trial, was unwilling to give him another extension as the appeals court deliberated. His assigned prison, FCI Coleman, is a five-hour drive from Hampton, the attorneys wrote, so he needed a day's notice to make his noon deadline there.

Laffitte, the former chief executive of Hampton-based Palmetto State Bank, was convicted in November of six federal counts, including bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and misapplication of bank funds. The charges centered on a scheme in which Laffitte used his position at Palmetto State Bank to divert money belonging to Murdaughs clients to pay off the once-prominent attorneys debts.

To make the scheme work, Murdaugh had judges appoint Laffitte to serve as a custodian of some of his vulnerable clients accounts. With his role at the bank, Laffitte then had full control over the funds when checks came in. He claimed he didnt notice his wards names on the checks he was depositing for Murdaughs benefit.
ATLANTIC BEACH  Fearing irreversible change in their community, a group of Atlantic Beach landowners filed a lawsuit this week in an attempt to stop the development of a 21-story oceanfront hotel and condo project in the historically Black town.

"The Black Pearl of the Atlantic" condo-hotel would be located near 30th Avenue South and South Ocean Boulevard. Plans call for the complex to offer 168 hotel rooms, 36 short-term rental units, 24 luxury-condo units and 420 parking spaces along with a nearby 11-story parking garage.

We refuse to stand idly by as a high-rise condo plan gains momentum, potentially devastating our entire community, Traci Cooper, one of the concerned town residents, said in statement. "We will not let Atlantic Beach suffer the same fates as Bruces Beach, American Beach and other predominately African American beach communities, where indigenous people lose their power, voice and culture."

Known as the Black Pearl, Atlantic Beach is home to nearly 300 residents. The town spans close to 100 acres between the city limits of North Myrtle Beach.

During the segregation era, Atlantic Beach was one of the most popular vacation destinations for Black families along the East Coast  with its hotels, nightclubs, restaurants and stores where they could gather and mingle without fear of discrimination.

In recent decades, the town has been known as the home of the Black Pearl Cultural Heritage Festival, commonly known as Atlantic Beach Bikefest.

The condo-hotel project has stirred debate for months over its potential impact on the town's historic and cultural significance.

The group Supporters for Tyson's Ancestral Restrictions on the Deeds (STARD) filed a lawsuit Sept. 26 on behalf of local landowners. Defendants include the town; 9 Thru 11+1 LLC, which currently owns the land for the proposed project; and Morant Properties LLC, the New York-based company behind the proposal.
MYRTLE BEACH  A series of court settlements has cleared the way for three health care providers to build hospitals in Horry County.

The dismissal of legal challenges means McLeod Health can construct a hospital in Carolina Forest, Tidelands Health can build a hospital in Socastee and Grand Strand Health can upgrade its South Strand complex to a hospital.

Horry County is home to the nations fastest-growing area, and the need for additional health care is clear, Bruce Bailey, Tidelands Healths president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.

For more than two years, these hospital projects have been tied up in court as each provider pursued what's known as a certificate of need, or CON, from the state.

This process has traditionally required South Carolina health care providers to seek state permission to build new facilities, expand existing sites or buy expensive medical equipment. Approved applications often draw lawsuits from competitors, and the legal fights can drag on for years.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill on May 17 eliminating much of the state's certificate-of-need program in stages, with some of rules going away on July 1 and the rest on Jan. 1, 2027. However, the CON regulations for hospitals will remain until 2027.

We were kind of sitting on go, said Mark Sims, CEO of Grand Strand Medical Center. We had all these applications that were sitting out there. Although the CON law was changed, it had those two elements where if you wanted to build a new hospital or you wanted to add new inpatient beds, you still had to get a certificate of need.  So we were still logjammed.  We couldnt move forward.

Once the settlement was finalized last week in the S.C. Administrative Law Court, that cleared the way for state officials to issue certificates to Grand Strand, McLeod and Tidelands on Sept. 26, according to public records.
HANAHAN  It was overcast but the cloudy weather didnt stop residents from commemorating the citys 50th anniversary.

Children raced around on the grass, jumped in bounce houses and got glitter tattoos and face paint. Parents ran after said children, but also lounged around the amphitheater while eating food, clinking drink glasses and taking in live country music performances.

It was a celebration Sept. 23 as residents celebrated 50 years since the city was first incorporated.

Prior to being officially recognized as a city in 1973, Hanahan was known as a public service district, said Earl Copeland, the second mayor of Hanahan.

According to the citys website, Hanahan wasnt able to incorporate due to a state law that prohibited incorporation of a new city within two miles of an existing city of 15,000 people. Copeland said the Berkeley County legislative delegation changed that law so Hanahan would be able to officially become a city.

Copeland said another reason why Hanahan incorporated was because shortly after North Charleston incorporated in 1972, the city successfully annexed a parcel of land in Hanahan.

The people of Hanahan realized that it was just a matter of time before we were gobbled up by North Charleston, Copeland said.

According to the Census Bureau, the citys population has increased almost 58 percent from 12,890 in 2000 to 20,325 in 2020. The Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments projects the 2030 population to exceed 30,000.

Christen Bee, owner of custom sign-painting business Bee Creative with Brushstrokes, said that while she is a Summerville resident, she does business in Hanahan all the time because of the citys abundance of community-based activities. Having lived in Summerville for over 30 years, she said shes witnessed Hanahans growth from afar.

Hanahan wasnt even a thing, Bee said. Theyve definitely put themselves on the map.
Charleston County School Board member Courtney Waters had one word to describe her reaction to how the Sept. 25 board meeting unfolded: grief.

The meeting included a 5-4 vote to place Superintendent Eric Gallien  who started in his position July 1  on administrative leave while he is investigated for a complaint.

The meeting, like many other recent Charleston school board gatherings, left many confused and frustrated.

I was getting my daughter ready for school and I was like, I just kept tearing up because it's such a loss. This is such a loss for our children, Waters said. We had a system that for the first time was showing very strong signals.

More Coverage To read more in-depth stories from The Post and Courier's Education Lab, go to postandcourier.com/education-lab.

The trouble grew Sept. 22 when an agenda for the meeting was sent out with an item that then-general counsel Alice Paylor added for the board to discuss as a personnel matter in executive session.

But Gallien said Paylor hadnt notified him about the discussion before the agenda went out and that she told him about it over a text message.

Scant information about the subject of the discussion was provided prior to the meeting other than it would be held in executive session and away from public view.

Gallien sent Paylor a letter firing her on Sept. 24.

During the board meeting, Paylor said the agenda item had to do with a complaint against Gallien. But Waters said Paylor was one of Galliens staff members when she requested the discussion be put in the agenda, and therefore any of her additions had to be approved by the superintendent before being included.
As a frequent visitor to Charleston, I have marveled at the beauty of the state. During a recent visit, I also took a side trip to Boston, traveling by air. I am a physician as well as a patient and worker-safety advocate. So when my driver in Boston asked me how he would identify me, I resp Read moreCommentary: Charleston airport needs to improve its air quality
It would have been easy for public officials and cycling advocates to shrug their shoulders and give up on creating a better bicycle-pedestrian link across the Ashley River years ago, after they determined they couldn't convert a traffic lane on the existing U.S. Highway 17 bridge for bike-ped use. Read moreEditorial: Ashley River crossing shows persistence pays off. We need more of it.
RETAIL THEFT: Razor blades are locked up inside a glass showcase at a CVS store in Woodland Hills, California on Oct. 19, 2022. Retail chains are adding more security measures to combat retail theft. Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/TNS
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed a decree approving the structure of the central office of the state commodity and raw materials exchange, Trend reports.

The document was adopted in order to increase the export potential of the country, develop market relations, as well as improve the activities of the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange.

In accordance with the Resolution, the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange of Turkmenistan and the Ministry of Justice are instructed to prepare and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers proposals on amendments and additions to the legislation of Turkmenistan arising from this resolution within a month.

Last week, a total of 16 transactions were registered at the auctions of this commodity exchange.

The State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange of Turkmenistan was established on July 29, 1994. It is the most important body of state regulation of export-import operations.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has posted a press release in his continuing investigation of the Biden family business. In the press release

Comer announced that, according to subpoenaed bank records he has obtained, in 2019 Hunter Biden received a $10,000 wire from Wang Xin and a $250,000 wire from Jonathan Li and Tan Ling. Both wires originated in Beijing and listed Joe Bidens Wilmington home as the beneficiary address. Comer noted that the wires in July and August 2019 followed the announcement of Bidens candidacy in the 2020 presidential election the preceding April. The New York Post adds background here, Breitbart News here.

I take it from the press release that the wires were directed to Hunter Biden individually rather than one of the 20 or 21 shell companies Comer has previously identified, although that is not entirely clear to me. The Post story states that the two payments are linked to BHR Partners, a venture between Hunter Bidens Rosemont Seneca and Bohai Capital, a Chinese investment firm. The use of Joe Bidens Wilmington home address on the wires at the least suggests that the footsteps are getting louder for the Big Guy.

Related: Paul Sperry, Did Hunter Biden lie to his own memoir? (RealClearInvestigations, September 19, 2023).

On a happier note, Comer has me thinking of Jackie Wilson. Gettin louder should probably be in parentheses.
With apologies to the old British farce No Sex PleaseWere British!, apparently academic anthropology wants to do a humorless remake. (Did I even need to include humorless after academic anthropology?)

I would have thought that case studies in sex lives was a rather integral part of anthropology, at least it seemed that way when Margaret Mead was the hot anthropologist of her day, a forerunner of the over-rated Jared Diamond. But no.

The next meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) had scheduled a panel on the topic, Lets Talk about Sex Baby: Why Biological Sex Remains a Necessary Analytic Category in Anthropology. The panel consisted of six women anthropologists.* And you can guess what happened next. The following letter came from the leadership of the AAA:

Dear panelists, We write to inform you that at the request of numerous members the respective executive boards of AAA and CASCA reviewed the panel submission Lets Talk about Sex Baby: Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology and reached a decision to remove the session from the AAA/CASCA 2023 conference program(me). This decision was based on extensive consultation and was reached in the spirit of respect for our values, the safety and dignity of our members, and the scientific integrity of the program(me). The reason the session deserved further scrutiny was that the ideas were advanced in such a way as to cause harm to members represented by the Trans and LGBTQI of the anthropological community as well as the community at large.

The six women anthropologists issued an open letter to the AAA decrying the decision; you can find the full text of the original panel description, the AAAs appalling notice, and the open letter at Elizabeth Weisss website. But the conclusion of the letter is worth highlighting here:

Anthropologists around the world will quite rightly find chilling this declaration of war on dissent and on scholarly controversy. It is a profound betrayal of the AAAs principle of advancing human understanding and applying this understanding to the worlds most pressing problems.

* Kathleen Lowrey, Associate Professor at University of Alberta; Elizabeth Weiss, Professor at San Jose State University; Heterodox Academy Faculty Fellow; Kathleen Richardson, Professor at De Montfort University; Michele Sirois, Presidente de PDF Quebec; Silvia Carrasco, Professor at Autonomous University of Barcelona; and Carole Hooven, Associate, Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
The UAW is striking the Big Three American auto companies. On behalf of its members, the union is fighting the Man for substantially higher pay and substantially less work.

One doesnt read about it much, but one of the big reasons why the UAW is fighting right now is the shift to electric vehicles. See, for example, the Yahoo! Finance backgrounder here explaining why the shift to EVs is such a big deal to workers. The shift to EVs represents a component of the increasingly power mad and destructive global warming / global cooling / climate change religion.

In the form of the Biden administration, the Man is promoting the religion in a big way. The Big Three have become obedient citizens of woke corporate America. When it comes to EVs, they have saluted the Man and pledged their fealty to the religion.

Yesterday President Biden joined UAW President Shawn Fain in support of the union picket line at Willow Run in Belleville, Michigan. Thats the thanks the Big Three have reaped for toeing the Biden line.

Biden opened and closed for Fain. The White House has posted the transcript of their remarks here.

Fain invoked World War II in his remarks. He compared the Big Three to the Axis powers. See if you can follow his train of thought:

You know, this site, Willow Run, it holds a historic place in the history of our union and our country. You know, this was part of the Arsenal of Democracy during World War Two. Its where they built the B-24 Liberator bomber. You know, that  that bomber  they built one of those per hour when they were at their peak. Its what helped us win the war. So, today, 80 years later, we find ourselves here again, with the arsenal of democracy. Its a different kind of arsenal of democracy, and its a different kind of war were fighting. Today, the enemy isnt some foreign country miles away. Its right here in our own  in our own area. Its corporate greed. (Applause.) And the weapon we produce to fight that enemy is the liberators  the true liberators  its the working-class people. All of you working  working your butts off on those lines to deliver a great product for our companies. Thats how were going to defeat these people. Thats how were going to defeat corporate greed is by standing together. (Applause.)

Whereas the workers produced the bombers in times of old, now they are the bombers. Im not sure Fain has mastered the rhetorical art, but I get the gist of his remarks. Hes giving it to the Man. Biden seconded Fains remarks with a fist pump of his own.

Fain also gave it up for the Big Guy:

You know, this is a historic moment  the first time in our countrys history that a sitting USA president has came out and stood on the picket line. (Applause.) Our president has chosen to stand up with workers in our fight for economic and social justice. (Applause.)

Biden, however, is the Man. Bidens pretense that he is fighting the Man is some kind of a joke. Someone should probably explain it to them, but a joke isnt funny if it has to be explained and the union members are undoubtedly in on it in any event.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 19:32:33

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Big Tree Carbon Inc. (the "Company" or "Big Tree") (TSXV:BIGT) is pleased to announce that, further to its press release of June 6, 2023, R&B Cormier Inc. ("Cormier") has prepared two reports with an effective date of September 14, 2023 with the first entitled "Assessment for Generating Carbon Credits in Ontario's Ogoki Crown Forest" (the "Assessment Report") and the second entitled "Opportunities: Green Energy & Non-Timber Forest Products in Ontario's Ogoki Crown Forest" (the "Opportunities Report"). The Assessment Report provides an assessment of carbon sequestration potential of the Ogoki Crown Forest Management Unit for purposes of generating carbon offsets in both compliance and voluntary market scenarios.Based on the author's goals of maximizing quality carbon credits and environmental stewardship in the long-term, the Assessment Report provides four possible scenarios for the development of carbon credits whereby the Ogoki Crown Forest Management Unit could generate between $6.6 million and $9.4 million per year in revenues based upon 2023 market prices for carbon credits. The Assessment Report recommends the following two scenarios, each taken from a conservative standpoint for estimation and cognizant of existing wood supply agreements:Federal (ECCC) draft Improved Forest Management protocol ("IFM"):~204,000 net Carbon Dioxide Equivalent credits ("CO2e") /year - Compliance market based upon an estimated selling price of $45.50/metric tonne("MT") (being a 30% discount from the current Canadian regulated price on carbon of $65/MT) for $9.3 million in revenue less expenses for a net of $8.5 million per yearVerra / Verified Carbon Standard ("VCS") Canadian IFM protocol:~540,000 net CO2e credits/year - Voluntary market based on an estimated selling price of $15.00/MT for $8.1 million in revenue less expenses for a net of $7.3 million per yearBig Tree's wholly-owned subsidiary, Big Tree Carbon Corp., has partnered with Agoke Development Limited Partnership ("ADLP") to develop the carbon credit potential of the Ogoki Crown Forest. ADLP is a limited partnership managed by Agoke Development Corporation ("ADC"), the limited partners of which comprise the Aroland First Nation, the Eabametoong First Nation and the Marten Falls First Nation (collectively, the "ADLP First Nations") within whose traditional territories the Ogoki Crown Forest is located. The benefits derived by the ADLP First Nations from the monetization of the carbon credits, net of expenses, will be split as to 75% to ADLP and 25% to Big Tree for a 5-10 year term from the date the first emission reduction benefits available for sale are generated by the project (reference is made to the press release dated November 8, 2021).The Assessment Report recommends pursuing co-benefit certification of any developed project to ensure that generated Verified Carbon Units ("VCU") achieve a rigorous "quality" standard which would attract a purchase premium at auction. The Assessment Report has identified forest stands best suited to generation of carbon offsets, delivered project development estimations of costs for registering offsets in both compliance and voluntary market scenarios, and delivered project operation costs and audit/verification costs on an annual basis. The Assessment Report baseline conditions included current conditions within the Ogoki Crown Forest, including planned harvest blocks and fibre commitments during the 2023-28 plan period.ADC signed a ground-breaking forestry agreement with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNR&F) to take on forest management of the Ogoki Forest's Sustainable Forestry License (SFL). (See www.agokedevcorp.ca) . The Ogoki Forest is one of 42 Crown Forest management units in Ontario, and one of 18 in Northwestern Ontario.In June 2018, ADC signed a joint venture agreement with the Nakina Sawmill, with the sawmill being a principal consumer of fibre from the Ogoki Forest Management Unit. Big Tree acknowledges that this relationship is very significant to ADC and the partner First Nations, and is reflected in the methodology for the Assessment Report.Big Tree acknowledges that the Province of Ontario does not have a policy to guide the consideration of carbon offset projects involving Crown resources, nor has it proposed to develop an offset policy in the short term. While this is currently the most significant impairment to realizing the revenue from this project, there are, however, precedents in other provincial jurisdictions in Canada that can represent a win-win for the ADLP First Nations, the Crown, Big Tree and emitters that have need of high-quality carbon offset credits.Big Tree and the Crown have an obligation under clause 92 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (the "TRC Report") and particularly clause 92.ii. of the TRC Report to ensure "that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects." Chris Angeconeb, President and CEO of Big Tree stated: "Big Tree and ADLP will be consulting with the Ontario Government to establish protocols to facilitate this project. This project offers a perfect opportunity to provide the ADLP First Nations with long-term sustainable benefits. With the cooperation of the Ontario Government, the substantial revenue generated from this project could be split equitably between the Crown, ADLP and Big Tree".Please note that the project is contingent upon and cannot proceed until agreement is reached with the Government of OntarioThe Assessment Report and the Opportunities Report are available on the Company's website at www.bigtreecarbon.ca ABOUT R&B CORMIER INC.R&B Cormier Inc. is a Natural Resource Contracting and Consulting firm based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. The Contracting division supplies satellite, radar and airborne imagery, operational field services, and three dimensional land mapping. The Consulting division specializes in wood supply and biomass analysis, including timber and non-timber product research. (See www.rbcormier.com) ABOUT BIG TREE CARBON INC.Big Tree Carbon Inc. is an indigenous led publicly-traded natural asset development company based in Ontario, Canada. The Company maintains several legacy mineral exploration properties in Northwestern Ontario as active exploration holdings, including the Ranger Lake, Richardson Lake, and Bridget Lake properties. The Company is currently developing two First Nations forest carbon offset project development partnerships for the Lac Seul First Nation "Lac Seul Community Forest Project" and the Ogoki Forest. Subsidiary corporation Wiigwaasaatig E
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BERWYN, PA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Chilean Cobalt Corp. (OTCQB:COBA) ("C3" or the "Company"), a US-based and US-listed critical minerals exploration and development company focused on its La Cobaltera, cobalt-copper project today announced with great sadness the death of Country Manager and Board Member Ignacio Moreno Fernandez, who passed away after a battle with cancer."Ignacio had such vibrant energy and passion for La Cobaltera, for Chile, and for doing everything the right way - both professionally, as well as in his personal life. Through his experience working in both the Chilean government and private sector, his vast knowledge of the country and mining industry provided a valuable contribution towards the creation and development of C3 and will forever be remembered. We will miss his contribution and his friendship. We offer our deepest condolences to his family and many friends." - Duncan T. Blount, CEO & Director of C3.Ignacio Moreno Fernandez, 1969 - 2023About Chilean Cobalt Corp.Chilean Cobalt Corp. ("C3") is a US-based and US-listed critical minerals exploration and development company focused on the La Cobaltera, cobalt-copper project, located in the past-producing San Juan District in northern Chile, one of the world's few primary cobalt districts known globally. C3 has a deliberate focus on building a dynamic and sustainable business with an emphasis on applying leading environmental stewardship, social engagement, and corporate governance practices to its strategy.Safe Harbor StatementThis news release contains statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions (such as those relating to future business or financial results) and other factors discussed from time to time in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. These statements are forward-looking and are subject to risks and uncertainties, so actual results may vary materially. You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as "may," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend," "plan" and other similar expressions. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors not within the control of the company. The company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.CONTACT:Chilean Cobalt Corp.Duncan T. BlountCEO & DirectorDuncan.blount@chileancobaltcorp.com SOURCE: Chilean Cobalt Corp.
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, September 27. The aviation authorities of Uzbekistan and Russia have agreed on a significant increase in the number of flights, Trend reports.

As per data by the Ministry of Transport of Russia, increase will be recorded in the number of following routes:

Tashkent - Moscow - Tashkent  from 39 to 50 times a week

Tashkent - St. Petersburg - Tashkent  from 7 to 14 times a week

Bukhara - Moscow - Bukhara  from 10 to 14 times a week

Urgench - Moscow - Urgench  from 7 to 14 times a week

Tashkent - Krasnoyarsk - Tashkent  from 7 to 14 times a week

"The increase in the number of flights will have a positive impact on the development of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Russia and hence will contribute to meeting the demand of air passengers for transportation between the two countries," the Ministry noted.

As per data provided by Uzbekistans Statistics Agency, 345,000 Russian tourists visited Uzbekistan from January through June 2023, which is 11.1 percent of the whole tourist influx (3.1 million).

In 2022, the number of tourists visiting Uzbekistan will have almost tripled compared to the previous year, increasing from 1.8 million to 5.2 million people. Russias share of this number amounts to 10.9 percent (567,700 people).
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC, a nationally recognized law firm, notifies investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Comerica Incorporated ("Comerica " or the "Company") (NYSE:CMA) and certain of its officers.Class Definition:This lawsuit seeks to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws on behalf of all persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Comerica securities between February 9, 2021 and May 29, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Such investors are encouraged to join this case by visiting the firm's site: www.bgandg.com/cma Case Details:The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose, among other things, that: (1) Comerica failed to provide meaningful oversight over the vendors to whom it contracted out day-to-day operations of the Direct Express program, a system through which it is contracted to provide federal benefits to millions of Americans without bank accounts; (2) as a result of violations in the day-to-day operations of Direct Express, including handling fraud disputes and allowing sensitive data to be handled out of a vendor's office in Pakistan, Comerica was not in compliance with the Federal Contract, and knew it was not in compliance; (3) Comerica knew and failed to disclose that it was in potential violation of Regulation E due to inadequate fraud prevention in the Direct Express program and responses to instance of fraud; and (4) as a result, Defendants' statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.What's Next?A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to review a copy of the Complaint, you can visit the firm's site: www.bgandg.com/cma or you may contact Peretz Bronstein, Esq. or his Law Clerk and Client Relations Manager, Yael Nathanson of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC at 332-239-2660. If you suffered a loss in Comerica you have until October 20, 2023, to request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff.Why Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman:Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is a nationally recognized firm that represents investors in securities fraud class actions and shareholder derivative suits. Our firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors nationwide.Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.CONTACT:Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLCPeretz Bronstein or Yael Nathanson332-239-2660 | info@ bgandg.com SOURCE: Bronstein, Gewirtz and Grossman, LLC
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LAFAYETTE, IN / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / In an endeavor to nurture the future pioneers of healthcare, Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon is pleased to announce the establishment of the Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon Scholarship for Medical Students. This prestigious scholarship, offered as a one-time award of $1,000, is aimed at recognizing and supporting the outstanding talents and aspirations of medical students across the United States.Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon, a distinguished neurologist renowned for his contributions to medicine, education, and patient care, is committed to fostering the growth and development of promising medical students. With a profound dedication to advancing the medical field, Dr. Ungar-Sargon's scholarship initiative seeks to inspire and empower the next generation of healthcare leaders.The Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon Scholarship for Medical Students is open to both undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a medical degree at accredited institutions in the United States. The scholarship is not only a testament to Dr. Ungar-Sargon's commitment to the medical community but also a reflection of his passion for education and mentorship.To be eligible for this scholarship, applicants must meet the following criteria:Enrollment: Applicants must be currently enrolled in an accredited medical school or pre-medical program in the United States.Academic Standing: Strong academic records that demonstrate excellence in coursework and a commitment to learning and professional growth.Essay Submission: Applicants will be evaluated based on an essay contest. They are required to submit a creative and thought-provoking essay of under 1000 words in response to the following prompt: "Describe a significant medical innovation or advancement that you believe has the potential to revolutionize patient care. Discuss its impact on the healthcare industry and how it can improve patient outcomes." The scholarship committee is looking for essays that showcase a deep understanding of medical advancements, critical thinking skills, and the ability to articulate ideas effectively.Passion for Medicine: Applicants must exhibit a genuine passion for medicine and a strong desire to make a positive impact in the field of healthcare. This can be reflected in their personal experiences, achievements, community involvement, or future aspirations.Eligibility: The scholarship is open to legal residents or citizens of the United States.The application deadline for the Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon Scholarship for Medical Students is February 15, 2024. The scholarship recipient will be announced on March 15, 2024.Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon, a luminary in the field of neurology, has earned prestigious degrees from London University, including L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., MB, BS. His commitment to learning has led him to explore diverse areas of knowledge, culminating in a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature from Brandeis University. Throughout his illustrious career, he has made significant contributions to the field of neurology, particularly in electrodiagnosis and pain management.Beyond his clinical practice, Dr. Ungar-Sargon has held teaching positions at esteemed institutions, including the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School. His dedication to education and mentorship has influenced countless healthcare professionals, shaping the future of medicine.Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon's contributions have been recognized through numerous honors and awards, including the Kiffin-Penry Epilepsy Mini-Fellowship and Most Compassionate Physician Recognition Awards. His active involvement in advisory boards and academic appointments further solidifies his impact on the medical community.In addition to his medical pursuits, Dr. Ungar-Sargon has served in the military, holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Indiana Guard Reserve. His commitment to service extends to his role as Medical Director of MEDCOM, Indiana Guard Reserve, and his involvement in organizations such as the State Guard Association of the United States.Through the establishment of the Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon Scholarship for Medical Students, Dr. Ungar-Sargon continues to inspire and support future generations of healthcare leaders, ensuring a bright and promising future for the field of medicine.This scholarship represents an unparalleled opportunity for aspiring medical professionals to not only receive financial support but also to gain recognition and mentorship from a prominent figure in the medical community. Applicants are encouraged to apply and showcase their dedication to medicine and their potential to shape the future of healthcare.For more information about the Dr. Julian Ungar-Sargon Scholarship for Medical Students and to access the application, please visit the official website at https://drjulianungarsargonscholarship.com/dr-julian-ungar-scholarship/ About Dr. Julian Ungar-SargonDr. Julian Ungar-Sargon is a distinguished neurologist with a remarkable career spanning expertise in various areas of medical practice, research, and education. With a profound commitment to patient care, academic excellence, and advancing medical knowledge, Dr. Ungar-Sargon has become a respected figure in the field of neurology.His educational journey began at The Royal London Hospital Medical College, where he laid the foundation for his medical studies. He further pursued clinical studies at The Royal London Hospital Medical College, earning several prestigious degrees, including L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., MB, BS, from London University.Dr. Ungar-Sargon's passion for learning led him to explore diverse areas of knowledge beyond medicine. He obtained a Rabbinical Ordination from Yeshivat Mikdash Melech in Brooklyn, New York, and went on to earn a Master's degree in Theological Studies from Harvard University and a Master's degree in Literature from Brandeis University. He culminated his academic journey with a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature from Brandeis University.Throughout his career, Dr. Ungar-Sargon has made significant contributions to the field of neurology. His expertise in electrodiagnosis, including E.M.G., E.E.G., and evoked potentials, has been invaluable in diagnosing and treating neurological conditions. Additionally, his specialization in pain management, utilizing innovative techniques such as epidurals, nerve blocks, and BoTox injections, has brought relief to numerous patients.Beyond clinical practice, Dr. Ungar-Sargon has held teaching positions at esteemed institutions such as the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School. His commitment to education and mentorship has influenced the next generation of healthcare professionals, shaping th
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SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2023 / The law firm of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces that purchasers or acquirers of Enviva Inc. (NYSE:EVA) common stock on a U.S. open market between November 3, 2022 and May 3, 2023, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period") have until November 13, 2023 to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the Enviva class action lawsuit. Captioned Dhatt v. Enviva Inc., No. 23-cv-02474 (D. Md.), the Enviva class action lawsuit charges Enviva as well as certain of its top executive officers with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.If you suffered substantial losses and wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the Enviva class action lawsuit, please provide your information here:You can also contact attorney J.C. Sanchez of Robbins Geller by calling 800/449-4900 or via e-mail at jsanchez@ rgrdlaw.com CASE ALLEGATIONS: The Enviva class action lawsuit alleges that defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose material information about the financial condition of Enviva, including its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and net loss forecasts, liquidity position, capital allocations, operation costs, productivity, and the impact of these metrics on Enviva's ability to continue paying dividends in 2023.The Enviva class action lawsuit further alleges that on May 3, 2023, Enviva revised down its 2023 guidance, lowering its net loss projection from $18-$48 million to $136-$186 million, and suspending dividend payments for 2023. The Enviva class action lawsuit alleges that on this news, the price of Enviva common stock fell more than 67%.THE LEAD PLAINTIFF PROCESS: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased or acquired Enviva common stock on a U.S. open market during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff of the Enviva class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff is generally the movant with the greatest financial interest in the relief sought by the putative class who is also typical and adequate of the putative class. A lead plaintiff acts on behalf of all other class members in directing the Enviva class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the Enviva class action lawsuit. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff of the Enviva class action lawsuit.ABOUT ROBBINS GELLER: Robbins Geller is one of the world's leading complex class action firms representing plaintiffs in securities fraud cases. The Firm is ranked #1 on the most recent ISS Securities Class Action Services Top 50 Report for recovering more than $1.75 billion for investors in 2022 - the third year in a row Robbins Geller tops the list. And in those three years alone, Robbins Geller recovered nearly $5.3 billion for investors, more than double the amount recovered by any other plaintiffs' firm. With 200 lawyers in 10 offices, Robbins Geller is one of the largest plaintiffs' firms in the world and the Firm's attorneys have obtained many of the largest securities class action recoveries in history, including the largest securities class action recovery ever - $7.2 billion - in In re Enron Corp. Sec. Litig. Please visit the following page for more information:Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP655 W. Broadway, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101J.C. Sanchez, 800-449-4900jsanchez@ rgrdlaw.com SOURCE: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 22:50:39

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MILLSBORO, DE / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / In a resounding celebration of academic excellence and dedication to the field of healthcare, Nihar Gala, the esteemed founder and CEO of Alpha Care Medical, proudly announces the winner of the prestigious "Nihar Gala Grant for Healthcare Students." This scholarship, worth $1,000, serves as a testament to Gala's unwavering commitment to nurturing the future leaders of healthcare. The grant is awarded to a promising student who has demonstrated exceptional vision and innovation in addressing critical global issues.Students with an ardent interest in healthcare had the opportunity to vie for this generous financial grant fund by participating in an essay contest. The competition, hosted on the official Nihar Gala Grant website https://nihargalagrant.com/nihar-gala-grant/ , invited eligible candidates, including those currently enrolled in accredited colleges or universities pursuing healthcare degrees and high school students aspiring to enter healthcare programs at the university level.Applicants were tasked with crafting an essay of 1000 words or less, addressing the profound question: "What is a national or global problem that concerns you, and how do you propose a solution?" The level of engagement and ingenuity displayed by the entrants was nothing short of remarkable.Nihar Gala, a respected figure in Delaware's healthcare landscape, has consistently upheld the highest professional standards in his practice at Alpha Care Medical. With fluency in English, Spanish, and Hindi, he has effectively bridged linguistic barriers to provide comprehensive healthcare to a diverse patient base.Gala earned his medical degree from Rutgers University Medical School in 2012 and subsequently completed an internship and residency program at the same institution. In 2017, he founded Alpha Care Medical, a testament to his unwavering dedication to delivering quality medical services. Under his visionary leadership, Alpha Care Medical has evolved into a premier healthcare provider with four locations across Delaware, including Millsboro, Harrington, Dover, and Seaford. The practice's core values revolve around delivering quality medical services, compassionate care, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.The recipient of the "Nihar Gala Grant for Healthcare Students" will not only receive financial support for their education but also join the ranks of future healthcare leaders committed to shaping health policy, conducting groundbreaking research, and making a lasting impact on the healthcare industry.The $1,000 grant, funded by Nihar Gala himself, aims to alleviate some of the financial burdens associated with pursuing a healthcare education. Whether it be tuition fees, textbooks, or living expenses, this scholarship is designed to empower promising individuals to continue their studies and excel in their chosen healthcare fields.Nihar Gala's profound commitment to professionalism and quality care has solidified Alpha Care Medical's position as a trusted healthcare provider in Delaware. His passion for the healthcare industry is evident in the practice's exponential growth and continued pursuit of innovative healthcare solutions.In conclusion, the "Nihar Gala Grant for Healthcare Students" is more than just a financial award; it represents a beacon of hope for future healthcare professionals. Nihar Gala's dedication to nurturing the next generation of healthcare leaders underscores his unwavering commitment to the betterment of healthcare, not only in Delaware but on a national and global scale.About Dr. Nihar Gala:Nihar Gala is the founder and CEO of Alpha Care Medical, a comprehensive healthcare provider with four locations throughout Delaware: Millsboro, Harrington, Dover, and Seaford. He specializes in addiction medicine, pain management, and other areas of healthcare, utilizing his fluency in English, Spanish, and Hindi to effectively work with patients from all backgrounds.The high quality of care that Alpha Care Medical provides is a direct result of Nihar's commitment to the highest professional standards in his practice. He earned his medical degree from Rutgers University Medical School in 2012 and completed both an internship and residency program there as well. In 2017, he founded Alpha Care Medical and has since put all his energy into ensuring that it offers the best possible care to its patients.Under Nihar Gala's leadership, Alpha Care Medical has become a premier healthcare provider in Delaware and is committed to providing quality medical services for people of all ages. The practice is dedicated to helping its patients achieve their health goals through quality medical services, compassionate care, and an unparalleled commitment to excellence. With these values in mind, Nihar Gala continues to strive for the best possible healthcare solutions for his patients.By staying true to his values of professionalism and quality care, Nihar Gala has established Alpha Care Medical as a trusted provider of health services in Delaware. He has shown his dedication and passion for the healthcare industry through his continued commitment to providing quality care, which is evident in the growth of Alpha Care Medical. Under Gala's guidance, Alpha Care Medical will continue to be a leader in providing comprehensive healthcare services that meet the needs of people throughout Delaware.Contact Info:Spokesperson: Nihar GalaOrganization: Nihar Gala GrantWebsite: https://nihargalagrant.comEmail: apply@ nihargalagrant.com SOURCE: Nihar Gala
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 16:01:44

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Author and anti-hate activist Tony McAleer and filmmaker Peter Hutchison of Eat the Moon Films are proud to announce the launch of THE CURE FOR HATE, a nationwide educational and social impact campaign designed to combat the rising national hate crimes crisis this fall.Tony McAleer Tony McAleer in 'The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz,' directed by Peter Hutchison"Several years in the making - from the U.S. to Poland to Canada - we're thrilled to begin sharing 'The Cure for Hate' and our social impact program with high schools and communities across America," said Hutchison. "Stories like these are a powerful tool, and can play a crucial role in helping to turn the tide of racism and intolerance." The program will debut in Pittsburgh on Sept. 27 with Dismantling Conspiracy Theories and Holocaust Denial: a film screening and panel discussion hosted by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. The Cure for Hate team, former neo-Nazi turned anti-hate activist Tony McAleer and filmmaker Peter Hutchison (the upcoming "The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism," "Healing from Hate," "Requiem for the American Dream") will also visit area secondary schools to engage with students, screen the film, and deliver the curriculum. THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ will screen at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. The program will also host a Teen Screen event with Film Pittsburgh in late September.The engagements in Pittsburgh mark the first stop in an extensive screening tour targeting secondary schools and select communities across the country with stops in Oregon with Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Idaho with the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, Houston with TAPS Academy as part of its Anti-Hate Week, Tennessee with TN Holocaust Commission, and more to be announced shortly."I am really excited to share my journey and the history of the Holocaust with young people in a way that teaches important lessons to ensure it never happens again," said McAleer.In the Jewish tradition, tshuvah means "return" and describes the return to God and our fellow human beings that is made possible through repentance for our wrongs.THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ follows Tony McAleer, a former Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, who went on to become a founding member of the anti-hate activist group Life After Hate. Profoundly aware and deeply ashamed of the lineage of hate he'd once promoted, McAleer had long-contemplated traveling to Auschwitz in the spirit of tshuvah - to bear witness to the inconceivable ravages of the Holocaust and deepen his personal work against the rise of extremist politics.This project documents his profoundly personal journey of atonement to Auschwitz/Birkenau - exploring the conditions that allowed for the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe; shedding a unique light upon how men get into, and out of, violent extremist groups; and serving as a cautionary tale for our time that underscores the dangers in allowing hate to be left unchecked."The Cure for Hate brings the lessons of Auschwitz into the present, as living history - at this crucial moment, with hate and intolerance on the rise and continuing to dominate the headlines," said Hutchison. "Tony's journey stands as a remarkable example of what is possible. After all, if a hardened neo-Nazi can find his way back from hate, then what lessons can it hold for the rest of us?"Thanks to a grant from The Center for Prevention Programs & Partnerships "Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Program," THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ aims to use the film and the lived experiences of author and subject Tony McAleer to counter the rising tide of intolerance and violent extremism. The impact program was created to engage vulnerable youth and select communities and - through the use of experiential learning exercises and the exploration of history - enhance resilience to indoctrination and radicalization."In this time of rising anti-Semitism, this film serves as both a memory and a warning of what hate can lead to if left unchecked," said McAleer.Contact Information:Scott Motisko Publicist scott@ scottmotiskopr.com 570-335-1305Related Video:SOURCE: Eat the Moon Films
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 07:46:41

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bernstein Liebhard LLP:Do you, or did you, own shares of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE)?Did you purchase your shares between February 28, 2019 and August 16, 2023, inclusive?Did you lose money in your investment in Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc.?Do you want to discuss your rights?Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the securities of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. ("Hawaiian Electric" or the "Company") (NYSE:HE) between February 28, 2019 and August 16, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the "Complaint").If you purchased or acquired Hawaiian Electric securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 23, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.The Complaint alleges that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements throughout the Class Period. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose that: (i) Hawaiian Electric's wildfire prevention and safety protocols and procedures were inadequate to meet the challenges for which they were ostensibly designed; and (ii) the Company's inadequate safety protocols and procedures placed Maui at a heightened risk of devastating wildfires.In early August 2023, a series of severe wildfires broke out in Hawaii, predominantly on the island of Maui. The most destructive fire began in West Maui near the town of Lahaina on the morning of August 8, 2023. By that afternoon, intense winds had knocked down approximately 30 utility poles throughout Maui, resulting in at least 15 separate outages impacting more than 12,400 customers. Moreover, videos captured by local residents showed that downed power lines belonging to Hawaiian Electric appeared to have ignited at least several of the fires. Ultimately, the wind-driven fires prompted evacuations, caused widespread damage, and have killed at least 114 people, with some 850 others still missing in Lahaina.On August 17, 2023, the Wall Street Journal ("WSJ") reported that Hawaiian Electric had been aware for years of the threat posed by wildfires but did not act. The WSJ stated that between 2019 and 2022 the Company spent less than $245,000 on wildfire-specific projects on Maui and did not seek state approval to raise utility rates to pay for broad wildfire safety improvements until 2022.On this news, Hawaiian Electric's stock price fell $2.54 per share, or 17.43%, to close at $12.03 per share on August 17, 2023.If you purchased or acquired Hawaiian Electric securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for sixteen consecutive years.ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2023 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.Contact Information:Peter AlloccoBernstein Liebhard LLP https://www.bernlieb.com(212) 951-2030pallocco@ bernlieb.com SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bernstein Liebhard LLP:Do you, or did you, own shares of Hayward Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HAYW)?Did you purchase your shares between March 2, 2022 and July 27, 2022, inclusive?Did you lose money in your investment in Hayward Holdings, Inc.?Do you want to discuss your rights?Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the common stock of Hayward Holdings, Inc. ("Hayward" or the "Company") (NYSE:HAYW) between March 2, 2022 and July 27, 2022, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the "Complaint").If you purchased or acquired Hayward common stock, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Hayward Holdings, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 2, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.The Complaint alleges that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements throughout the Class Period. Among other things, Defendants failed to disclose that: (i) Hayward and its management had engaged in a channel-stuffing scheme designed to artificially boost Hayward's short-term sales and earnings; (ii) Hayward had flooded its channel partners with inventory that they did not want or need at a level that far outpaced then-existing consumer demand; (iii) Hayward's channel partners were suffering from an inventory glut as a result of the channel-stuffing scheme that would require a massive de-stocking in the second half of 2022; (iv) Hayward's channel-stuffing scheme had cannibalized future sales, materially impairing Hayward Holdings' ability to sell to its customers; and (v) the demand for pool equipment had slowed down, which, combined with flooding channel partners with more inventory, led to an inventory glut and the need for these channel partners to reduce inventory levels.On July 28, 2022, Hayward reported poor second quarter 2022 results - the same quarter during which the SPO was conducted. Most notably, Hayward disclosed the need for a massive inventory de-stocking as its distribution partners had far more product than they could sell to consumers. Hayward slashed expected 2022 net sales growth from a range of 9% to 12% to a decline of 2% to 6%. In addition, Hayward cut expected 2022 adjusted earnings from a range of $460 million to $475 million to a range of just $385 million to $400 million, a 16% decline at the mid-point. Because Hayward had already achieved $254 million in adjusted earnings during the first six months of the year, at the low end of this range Hayward's adjusted earnings would fall by half over the next six months.On this news, Hayward's common stock declined $3.23 per share, or approximately 23.5%, to close at $10.48 per share on July 29, 2022.If you purchased or acquired Hayward common stock, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Hayward Holdings, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for sixteen consecutive years.ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2023 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.Contact Information:Peter AlloccoBernstein Liebhard LLP https://www.bernlieb.com(212) 951-2030pallocco@ bernlieb.com SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 09:00:16

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PDMR DealingsEASTLEIGH, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / i3 Energy plc (AIM:I3E)(TSX:ITE), an independent oil and gas company with assets and operations in the UK and Canada, has been notified that on 22 September 2023 and 25 September 2023, Jason Dranchuk, Chief Financial Officer, purchased in aggregate 200,000 ordinary shares of 0.01 pence each in the Company ('Ordinary Shares'), at a price of CAD 0.215 per share.As a result, following the transactions, Jason Dranchuk now has a total beneficial interest, in aggregate, of 200,000 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.02% per cent. of the Company's issued share capital.Enquiries:i3 Energy plcMajid Shafiq (CEO) / Jason Dranchuk (CFO)c/o CamarcoTel: +44 (0) 203 781 8331WH Ireland Limited (Nomad and Joint Broker)James Joyce, Darshan PatelTel: +44 (0) 207 220 1666Tennyson Securities (Joint Broker)Peter KrensTel: +44 (0) 207 186 9030Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited (Joint Broker)Ashton Clanfield, Callum StewartTel: +44 (0) 20 7710 7600CamarcoAndrew Turner, Sam Morris, Violet WilsonTel: +44 (0) 203 757 4980The following notifications are made in accordance with the requirements of the UK Market Abuse Regulation relating to certain transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibility:Notification of a Transaction pursuant to Article 19(1) of Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities/person closely associateda.NameJason DranchukReason for notificationa.Position/StatusChief Financial Officerb.Initial notification/ AmendmentInitial notificationDetails of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitora.Namei3 Energy plcb.LEI213800949OZA9QA9FS17Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducteda.Description of the financial instrument, type of instrumentIdentification CodeOrdinary sharesISIN: GB00BDHXPJ60b.Nature of the transactionPurchase of Ordinary Sharesc.Price(s) and volume(s)Price: CAD 0.215Volume: 200,000d.Aggregated information-Aggregated Volume- Price200,000CAD 0.215 per sharee.Date of the transaction22 September 2023 and 25 September 2023f.Place of the transactionToronto Stock ExchangeNotes to Editors:i3 Energy is an oil and gas Company with a low cost, diversified, growing production base in Canada's most prolific hydrocarbon region, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and appraisal assets in the North Sea with significant upside.The Company is well positioned to deliver future growth through the optimisation of its existing asset base and the acquisition of long life, low decline conventional production assets.i3 is dedicated to responsible corporate practices and the environment, and places high value on adhering to strong Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") practices. i3 is proud of its performance to date as a responsible steward of the environment, people, and capital management. The Company is committed to maintaining an ESG strategy, which has broader implications to long-term value creation, as these benefits extend beyond regulatory requirements.i3 Energy is quoted on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol I3E and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ITE. For further information on i3 Energy please visit https://i3.energy/ The Company advises that it has obtained an exemption pursuant to Section 602.1 of the TSX Company Manual (the Manual), in respect of certain shareholder approval requirements that would otherwise be applicable to the Company's Employee Stock Option Plan and Non-Employee Stock Option Plan (together, the Plans), namely those set forth in Section 613 of the Manual (the Exemption). As such, the Company is exempt from complying with the requirements of Section 613 in respect of the Plans.Pursuant to the Manual, the Exemption will be valid for a period of three years from the date hereof, expiring on July 17, 2026. The Company follows AIM Rules for Companies and has received shareholder approval for its Employee Stock Option Plan and Non-Employee Stock Option Plan.This announcement does not contain inside information.This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@ lseg.com or visit www.rns.com SOURCE: i3 Energy PLC
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 15:03:18

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Leading Provider of Logistics Performance Intelligence Joins Premier Network to Help Drive Cutting-Edge Research and Thought Leadership in Supply Chain ManagementSAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / ISO (Isometric Technologies), a leading logistics performance intelligence platform, proudly announces its collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) as a distinguished member of the Supply Chain Exchange. This collaboration aims to spearhead essential research and thought leadership initiatives that address critical supply chain and transportation challenges.ISO Logo Isometric Technologies official logo As a member of the Supply Chain Exchange, ISO is committed to advancing MIT CTL's research endeavors in multiple crucial areas. ISO will leverage its status as the industry-leading platform for measuring service performance among shippers, brokers, and carriers. This will help the industry advance data standardization and performance measurement. With a robust infrastructure processing millions of data points across partner networks, ISO will contribute invaluable anonymized data that sheds light on service trends throughout the supply chain, contributing to MIT CTL's groundbreaking research.ISO's collaboration with MIT CTL will further facilitate in-depth analyses of the ripple effects of truckload service performance. By examining how performance issues resonate upstream and downstream, ISO's insights will provide a comprehensive view for MIT CTL's researchers. Moreover, this collaboration aims to drive a paradigm shift in the procurement mindset, emphasizing a value-based approach over traditional cost-based risk assessments."ISO is excited about the valuable and previously unattainable insights that our collaboration with MIT CTL will bring to the industry. By partnering with the largest shippers in North America and their logistics service providers to validate and align performance data at scale, we can help inform a wide range of important MIT CTL research on the trends and inefficiencies in transportation procurement. We look forward to supporting MIT CTL and the entire Supply Chain Exchange," said Brian Cristol, co-founder and CEO of ISO.David Correll, a research scientist and freight expert at CTL, said, "ISO is doing what much of our research suggests needs to be done: integrating data across firm boundaries - across supply chain partners - in order to solve operational problems. As researchers, we're excited to be on this journey with the ISO team, contributing where we can and closely observing their progress in the field.ISO's collaboration with MIT CTL is further exemplified by its sponsorship of the annual Supply Chain Sustainability report. This report, a pulse check on industry sustainability priorities, aligns with ISO's perspective that effective measurement is essential for sustainable progress. ISO will also participate with MIT CTL on the sustainability panel at CSCMP Edge in October this year to further solidify this knowledge exchange.About ISO:ISO is the only neutral platform that provides shippers, brokers, and carriers with the ability to measure the total cost of transportation procurement. Our Logistics Performance Intelligence platform arms customers with trustworthy data so they can measure the hidden costs of service, supercharge carrier procurement, and build stronger network relationships with more accountability. Learn more: https://www.iso.io/ About the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics:For half a century, the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) has been a dynamic hub where industry leaders, faculty, and students collaborate to advance supply chain education and research. MIT CTL fosters innovation through its Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network, a worldwide presence spanning multiple centers of excellence and numerous corporate partnerships. Learn more: https://ctl.mit.edu/ Contact Information:Justin Kloc Director of Marketing justin@ iso.io 2676649563SOURCE: ISO (Isometric Technologies)
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Seven of Luxury Cruise Connections' advisors received the title this year, elevating the agency's relationship with over 400 select cruise lines. For clients, this means exclusive benefits and special discounts via the Virtuoso Voyages program.MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Virtuoso, the leading global network specializing in luxury and experiential travel, has recognized seven of Luxury Cruise Connections' travel advisors as 2023 Virtuoso Cruise Icons, a distinctive honor for a group of advisors whose sales performance excels within the industry. Only a select group of 78 advisors within the network have been honored with the Virtuoso Cruise Icon designation. This means Luxury Cruise Connections' team represents 10 percent of an elite group of advisors marked as the top one percent in Virtuoso's cruise sales, reinforcing its position as a leader within the luxury travel industry.Luxury Cruise Connections Travel Advisors Named 2023 Virtuoso Cruise Icons Virtuoso, the leading global network specializing in luxury and experiential travel, has recognized seven of Luxury Cruise Connections' travel advisors as 2023 Virtuoso Cruise Icons.As Virtuoso Cruise Icons, JC Quintana, Derek Avello, Steven Gulko, Laura Bowman, Roger Powe, Monica Anderson, and Xavier Salinas will have access to various events and networking opportunities designed to foster growth, collaboration, and sharing of best practices within the network's cruise community, including Virtuoso Travel Week, luxury travel's preeminent worldwide gathering.Virtuoso's combined annual sales of $28 billion to $32 billion allow advisors, including Virtuoso Cruise Icons, to offer exclusive benefits to their clients on over 400 select cruises annually across 12 separate cruise lines via the Virtuoso Voyages program, including a dedicated onboard host and a choice of an additional benefit ranging in value from $500 per couple to several thousand dollars, depending on the sailing. The network's advisors also receive access to enhanced traveler advantages at more than 1,500 preferred partner hotels and resorts, such as complimentary upgrades, personalized amenities, and additional bonuses that enrich the overall stay.For more information about Luxury Cruise Connections and its luxury travel offerings, please visit www.luxurycruiseconnections.com . To learn more about Virtuoso and its professional travel advisors, please visit www.virtuoso.com Contact InformationCarlos Edery CEO & Co-founder Luxury Cruise Connections carlos@ luxurycruiseconnections.com (305) 914-3040Misty Belles Vice President, Global Public Relations Virtuoso mbelles@ virtuoso.com (202) 553-8817SOURCE: Luxury Cruise Connections
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, September 27. Uzbekistan and China plan to form new multimodal transport corridors, Trend reports.

The news followed a recent meeting between Uzbekistans Minister of Transport Ilkhom Makhkamov and his Chinese counterpart, Li Xiaopeng.

During the meeting, the ministers touched upon the construction of the ChinaKyrgyzstanUzbekistan railway and the development of the AndijanOshIrkeshtomKashgar multimodal transport corridor.

In addition, the parties discussed simplifying the issuing of visas to drivers engaged in cross-border cargo transportation.

Earlier this month, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Bakyt Torobaev noted that the implementation of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project will lead the region out of the deadlock. He made these remarks while participating in the Global Sustainable Transport Forum, held in Beijing.

"The project will connect approximately 4 billion people. The expansion of cargo transportation from Asia to Europe, the Middle East, Iran, the Persian Gulf, and North Africa will positively impact mutual trade growth," he said.
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Santa Helena's resource delineation and exploration drill program to be doubledLONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Meridian Mining UK S (TSX:MNO)(OTCQX:MRRDF)(Frankfurt/Tradegate:2MM) ("Meridian" or the "Company") is pleased to report further strong near-surface results at the Santa Helena copper, gold, silver and zinc mine ("Santa Helena"), with CD-321 returning a high-grade gold zone grading 3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn from 10.0m within a broader interval of 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag and 0.4% Zn from 6.1m, ("Figure 1"). Assay grades are again characteristic of gold enrichment superimposed on the Cabacal VMS Belt. The Company is also reporting that Santa Helena's southeast trending exploration corridor's footprint has been extended by 500m to at least 1.6km ("Figure 2"), projecting to a strong gold-copper anomaly. Based on these strong results, Meridian has committed to doubling the current program to test the considerable potential.Meridian is also reporting that a zone of strong gold mineralization has been defined at surface at the Cabacal Mine's Northwest Extension ("CNWE"). Recent trenching returned a result of 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq, ("Figure 3") highlighting the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to the first-year open pit development schedule1. Further results are pending.Highlights Reported TodayShallow high-grade gold confirmed at the Santa Helena Cu-Au-Ag & Zn mine;Santa Helena returns near surface high-grade gold and base metal mineralization;CD-321: 23.1m @ 0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag & 0.4% Zn) from 6.1m; Including3.6m @ 1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn) from 10.0m;Santa Helena's prospective southeast trending exploration corridor, extended by 500m to 1.6km with survey ongoing;Meridian to extend Santa Helena drill program targeting poorly tested upside;Cabacal program continues to deliver strong ongoing Cu-Au-Ag results:CA_TR_034: 7.0m @ 4.0g/t AuEq (3.9g/t Au, 0.1% Cu & 1.6g/t Ag);Result emphasises the presence of high-grade mineralization easily accessible to surface open pit development; andCabacal's PEA and resource upgrades progressing well.True width is considered to be 80 to 90% of intersection width.Mr. Gilbert Clark, CEO, comments: "The Company is very pleased to confirm with this latest intersection that Santa Helena displays all of the hallmarks of a gold-enriched VMS system, creating a great opportunity to repeat the success in resource growth that we saw in the Cabacal deposit. Santa Helena's near mine exploration upside has also been extended out to at least 1.6km beyond the historical resource limits, with the geophysical anomaly now shown to coincide with an eastern copper-gold anomaly, enhancing the potential for further discovery. The Cabacal VMS belt hosts numerous copper-gold and gold-only prospects, with the gold overprint interpreted to be sourced from the underlying tonalite intrusion. This largely untested exploration upside in the belt is underpinned by the robust economics of the Cabacal Mine's PEA. We see this combination as the logical fit of our dual track development and exploration strategy with Meridian emerging as Brazil's near-term copper-gold mine developer." Santa Helena Drill ProgramSanta Helena is a Cu-Au-Ag & Zn deposit located ~9km to the southeast of the Cabacal Mine area. It has over 10,000m of historical drilling and is one of a series of exploration targets along the Mine Corridor. The Company commenced initial drilling in August 2023 as part of a verification program, to validate the historical data in line with 43-101 requirements, and to initiate scout drilling for resource extensions defined by geophysics. The Company's compilation of historical drill data indicated that many historical holes were not completely sampled, that reconciliation of surveyed drilled positions and past mine workings suggested that the high-grade massive sulphide mineralization was only partially mined, and that extensions of near-surface mineralization to the east were also not integrated into the historical resource calculations2. The Company has concluded that this historical resource area is considered open.Figure 1: Cross section through the CD-321 drill site, twinning JUCHD-101, showing wider mineralization envelop than previously interpreted.The Company has completed 12 holes to date, with the first two reported confirming strong near-surface mineralization: CD-325: 14.9m @ 3.1% CuEq from 26.3m; CD-311: 19.1m @ 1.3% CuEq from 8.0m3.The latest result ("Table 1") is from a site where historical trenching and drilling was undertaken by BP Minerals, but individual drill assays have been lost. The Company twinned an historical hole, JUCHD-101, which records indicated had returned 18.9m @ 1.3g/t Au from 6.3m (base metal results not analysed). The twin hole, CD-321, returned a broader envelop of gold and base metal mineralization: 23.1m @ 1.0% CuEq (0.5% Cu, 0.9g/t Au, 13.9g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn) from 6.1m, Including 3.6m @ 3.3% CuEq (1.3% Cu, 4.2g/t Au, 35.3g/t Ag, 0.5% Zn) from 10.0m. The hole is below a BP trench (T5) which returned multiple broad gold intersections: 18.0m @ 1.1g/t Au, 8.0m @ 0.9g/t Au, 4.0m @ 0.8g/t Au ("Figure 1"). The position is in a structural domain where the VMS horizon is interpreted to be folded into an anticline, cut by steeper subvertical structures. The Company considers that like the Cabacal mine area, the gold content of the Santa Helena VMS system has been upgraded by an overprinting event. A belt-scale tonalitic intrusion most likely contributed as a heat engine for this mineralization.With the new results from CD-321, the Company continues to add data that can be integrated into a resource update, expanding the footprint of near-surface high-grade mineralization.Following the positive results to the first phase of work, the Company will expand the Santa Helena Program with at least an additional 1000m.Santa Helena's Expanding near-mine Exploration CorridorThe Company has continued its Gradient Array Induced Polarization survey ("IP survey") over the southeastern extensions to Santa Helena, into the Alamo property. This newly defined chargeability corridor has been extended a further 500m southeastwards, now totaling 1.6km from the limit of Santa Helena's historical resource. The eastern flank of the anomaly aligns with gold and base metal soil anomalies defined in BP surveys, adding valuable context to this target as an extensional corridor for Santa Helena style mineralization.Figure 2 - Santa H
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Reaching the Unreached: As COVID Cases Climb, White House Looks to Reach the UnvaccinatedBERRYVILLE, AR / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Just when we thought there was a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, the newest Omicron subvariant has dashed hopes of COVID-19's departure. Cases are rising across the U.S., fueled by the highly transmissible new strains BA.2, EG.5, BA.2.86 , BA 2.12.1, and other various subvariants. With many Americans forgoing masks and returning to normal life, health officials worry we could face another deadly surge.Experts insist that the best defense remains vaccination. Yet despite ample supply of free shots, uptake has stalled. Only two-thirds of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated. Booster rates are even lower, leaving people more vulnerable to breakthrough infections. Now, with infections climbing, the current administration aims to convince millions more Americans to get their first shots or overdue boosters. But reaching the vaccine hesitant and indifferent won't be easy.After two exhausting years of pandemic news, many are simply tuned out. COVID fatigue is real. Endless PSAs to mask up, stay home, and get jabbed have faded into background noise. And misinformation continues sowing distrust about vaccine safety on social media. Getting through to stubborn holdouts and those on the fence will require meeting people where they are.Rusty Dycus, founder of marketing firm Olde School, believes the solution may be surprisingly low-tech: direct mail. He proposes utilizing old-fashioned print materials like postcards, brochures, and other tangible mailers to promote lifesaving vaccines in communities lagging behind. "People are inundated with digital noise - emails, online ads, social media. But physical mail can cut through the clutter," Dycus says. "It's tangible, creates longer-lasting impression, and gets engagement." Recent consumer research backs this up. Seventy-seven percent of Americans surveyed said they pay closer attention to direct mail versus digital ads. Other studies reveal we're more likely to remember information from print materials than online sources. And this appeal holds true across ages."Print marketing elicits an emotional response - what neurologists call the 'paper pleasing effect,'" Dycus explains. "This is the sensory satisfaction of touching and engaging with physical media." Targeting postal flyers also enables hyperlocal outreach to specific neighborhoods lagging in vaccination. By geo-mapping high-risk communities, Dycus can flood them with vaccine facts where they're needed most. "Our direct mail techniques allow precision targeting at a granular level not possible with TV or radio," he says. "We can blanket hard-hit zip codes to get these life-saving messages out." Messaging will also be tailored based on barriers deterring different groups from getting vaccinated. For instance, according to many sources including the National Institutes of Health, there is a hesitancy among African Americans to receive the vaccine. According to RAND, Black Americans cite low vaccine confidence and mistrust of the healthcare system rooted in past discrimination. Therefore, mailers to majority-Black areas could feature relatable messengers like community leaders and local physicians of color. For politically conservative regions, language might focus on personal freedom and responsibility.The impact could be transformative. An extensive mail campaign from the White House could finally motivate millions left unprotected to get shots. Even nudging holdouts to just take that first jab could strengthen immunity nationwide. And direct mail complements wider efforts to make accessing vaccines as easy as possible, like offering shots at pharmacies, workplaces, and houses of worship.Of course, while persuasive and targeted marketing makes sense, some critics argue we shouldn't have to essentially beg people to get a safe, free vaccine during an ongoing public health crisis. When over 1 million Americans have died horrific deaths from COVID-19, continuing to refuse basic prevention tools seems unthinkable to many.But clearly, large swaths of the population remain hesitant or apathetic for complex reasons. Renewed government urgency is required to maximize vaccination rates and prevent avoidable suffering. Biden's team is wisely pulling out all the stops on outreach, even unconventional printed mailers. With COVID cases multiplying daily, many experts say we need full protection now.Direct mail alone won't end the pandemic. But utilizing surprising old-school tactics could just help steer us out of this latest COVID surge. The virus continues evolving, and so too must our playbook to defeat it. With fresh thinking and creative solutions, we might bring these frightening numbers back down. And opening more minds to vaccination, even through simple mailers, may ultimately help to save lives.ABOUT OLDE SCHOOL MARKETINGSince their founding in 2019, Olde School Marketing has built up a team of passionate and thoughtful storytellers who put immense amounts of effort into producing great results for their clients. Through a wide range of services, OSM provides strategic guidance by coming up with the right solution for each client served. Owner and Founder Rusty Dycus is a US Navy Veteran with 23 years as an executive-level businessman, who has had a passion for marketing from the beginning of his career. Now focused on helping other businesses be successful in marketing, direct mail, and fulfillment, he created Olde School Marketing to be a full print house and merchandise distributer. For more information, visit oldeschoolmarketing.com . For additional information, visit Olde School Marketing on YouTube and Facebook.CONTACT:Rusty Dycussales@ oldeschoolmarketing.com(870) 505-6580SOURCE: Olde School Marketing
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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Regency Silver Corp. ("Regency Silver" or the "Company")(TSXV:RSMX)(OTCQB:RSMXF) is pleased to announce that it has completed the first tranche of a previously announced non-brokered private placement. Also, due to strong demand, the private placement has been upsized to CAD$1.75 Million from $1.5 Million.Regency Silver has issued 5,613,500 units at a price of $0.20 per unit on this first tranche closing for gross proceeds of CAD$1,122,700. Each Unit is comprised of one common share of the Company and one half of one transferable common share purchase warrant (the "Warrants"). Each whole Warrant is exercisable to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of CAD$0.30 per share for a period of two years from the date of issuance. The second tranche is expected to close shortly.In connection with this first tranche closing, the Company paid cash finder's fees of $21,312 and issued 106,650 broker warrants. Each broker warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of CAD$0.30 per share for a period of two years from the date of issuance.Bruce Bragagnolo, Regency Silver's Executive Chairman stated, "We are pleased to complete the first tranche of this private placement and thank our existing shareholders and new shareholders for their strong support." All securities issued under the private placement will be subject to a four month hold period expiring on January 26, 2024, in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.The proceeds will be used for exploration and development of the Company's properties and general working capital.Regency Silver's flagship project is the Dios Padre gold-copper-silver project in Sonora, Mexico. Regency Silver has made a new high grade discovery at Dios Padre and has drilled 35.8 metres of 6.84 g/t gold, 0.88% copper and 21.82 g/t silver in Hole REG-22-01. Hole REG-23-14 intersects 35.9m of 5.51 g/t Au including 29.4m of 6.32 g/t gold.As announced in July of 2023, 8 of 9 holes drilled at the Dios Padre property intersect the targeted breccia zone down-dip and along strike to both the east and west from REG-22-01 with room for expansion in all directions. Breccia appears to widen with increased depth. The 10th hole, REG-23-22 targets a potential up-dip extension of the mineralized zones ~200m to the west of the discovery area coincident with the strongest chargeablilty anomaly detected in the 2023 IP survey. Significant concentrations of sulphide (dominantly Pyrite) are found coincident with this zone.The assay results for 6 of the above holes into the breccia zone and 1 hole into the strong chargeability anomaly will be released shortly.For further details about Regency Silver please visit the Company's website at www.Regency-Silver.com Contact InformationRegency Silver Corp.Kin Communications Inc.Phone: 1-604-684-6730Email: RSMX@ kincommunications.com Bruce Bragagnolo, Executive ChairmanPhone: 1-604-417-9517Email: bruce@ regency-silver.com Gijsbert Groenewegen, Chief Executive OfficerPhone: 1-646-247-1000Email: gijs@ regency-silver.com ABOUT REGENCY SILVER CORP.:Regency Silver is a gold-copper-silver exploration company focused on the Americas. Regency Silver is led by a team of experienced professionals with expertise in both exploration and production. Regency Silver's flagship project is the Dios Padre gold-copper-silver project in Sonora, Mexico. Regency Silver has made a new discovery at Dios Padre and has drilled 35.8 metres of 6.84 g/t gold, 0.88% copper and 21.82 g/t silver in Hole REG-22-01 and REG-23-14 intersects 35.9m of 5.51 g/t Au including 29.4m of 6.32 g/t gold.Technical InformationThe technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed by Company director Michael Tucker, P.Geo, who is recognized as a Qualified Person under the guidelines of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Tucker is a director of the Company and for that reason is not considered independent. Mr. Tucker has read and approved the technical contents of this news release.CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:This news release includes certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements"). All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds of the private placement by the Company. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events may vary from those anticipated in such statements. Important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's plans or expectations include the risk that regulatory changes, fundraising, and risk associated with mineral exploration, including the risk that actual results of exploration will be different from those expected by management. The forward-looking statements in this news release were developed based on the expectations of management and that the risks described above will not materialize. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Regency Silver Corp.
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bernstein Liebhard LLP:Do you, or did you, own shares of RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX)?Did you purchase your shares between February 8, 2021 and July 25, 2023, inclusive?Did you lose money in your investment in RTX Corporation?Do you want to discuss your rights?Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the securities of RTX Corporation f/k/a Raytheon Technologies Corporation ("RTX" or the "Company") (NYSE:RTX) between February 8, 2021 and July 25, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the "Complaint").If you purchased or acquired RTX securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit RTX Corporation Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 2, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.The Complaint alleges that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements throughout the Class Period. Among other things, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that RTX's geared turbofan ("GTF") engines had been affected from at least 2015 by a quality control issue, which would require RTX to recall and reinspect many of its GTF airplanes, affecting customers and harming its business.On July 25, 2023, Reuters released an article entitled "RTX shares tumble on Pratt & Whitney airliner engine problem," which reported that "more than 1,000 [GTF] engines must [be] removed from Airbus planes and checked for microscopic cracks." Reuters further reported that "RTX said it was reducing its 2023 cash-flow forecast by $500 million to $4.3 billion due to the inspections." On this news, RTX's share price fell $9.91 per share, or 10.2%, to close at $87.10 on July 25, 2023.If you purchased or acquired RTX securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit RTX Corporation Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for sixteen consecutive years.ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2023 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.Contact Information:Peter AlloccoBernstein Liebhard LLP https://www.bernlieb.com(212) 951-2030pallocco@ bernlieb.com SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of RTX Corporation f/k/a Raytheon Technologies Corporation ("RTX" or the "Company") (NYSE:RTX). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@ pomlaw.comor 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.The investigation concerns whether RTX 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]On July 25, 2023, RTX issued a press release announcing an update on the aircraft fleet of its Pratt & Whitney subsidiary. Raytheon stated that "Pratt & Whitney has determined that a rare condition in powdered metal used to manufacture certain engine parts will require accelerated fleet inspection. This does not impact engines currently being produced. As a result, the business anticipates that a significant portion of the PW1100G-JM engine fleet, which powers the A320neo, will require accelerated removals and inspections within the next nine to twelve months, including approximately 200 accelerated removals by mid-September of this year." On this news, Raytheon's stock price fell $9.91 per share, or 10.22%, to close at $87.10 per share on July 25, 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 numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP
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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Shift4 Payments, Inc. ("Shift4" or the "Company") (NYSE:FOUR) and certain officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and docketed under 23-cv-03206, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Shift4 securities between November 10, 2021 and April 18, 2023, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants' violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Shift4 securities during the Class Period, you have until October 19, 2023 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com . To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@ pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.[Click here for information about joining the class action]Shift4 provides software and payment processing solutions in the United States. The Company provides, among other products and services, integrated and mobile point-of-sale ("POS") solutions.In Shift4's third quarter of 2022, the Company completed its so-called "mass strategic buyout program" as part of a purported strategic initiative to insource its sales distribution network.According to Shift4, because the Company is not a "member bank" as defined in certain payment network rules, the Company is not eligible for primary membership in certain payment networks and is therefore unable to directly access them. Accordingly, Shift4's payment networks require the Company to be sponsored by a member bank as a service provider, which the Company has accomplished through a sponsorship agreement with its sponsor bank. To cover overdraft obligations at the sponsor bank, prior to December 2022, Shift4 had funds deposited in a sponsor bank merchant settlement account to facilitate gross card transaction deposits for those customers the Company bills on a monthly, as opposed to a daily, basis.The Complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operations, and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Shift4 had inadequate disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting; (ii) as a result, Shift4 failed to properly account for customer acquisition costs, thereby artificially inflating its net cash provided by operating activities; (iii) accordingly, Shift4 would likely be forced to restate one or more of its previously issued financial statements; (iv) Shift4 employed accounting maneuvers in connection with, among other things, its mass strategic buyout program and sponsor bank merchant settlement account, that were designed to present an inaccurate picture of, inter alia, the Company's performance, its underlying business quality, and its earnings power; (v) all the foregoing, once revealed, was likely to negatively impact Shift4's reputation and business; and (vi) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.On October 21, 2022, Shift4 disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the Company's third quarter 2021, full year 2021, first quarter 2022, and second quarter 2022 financial statements should no longer be relied upon and would need to be restated because of a material weakness in the Company's financial controls, which had caused it to incorrectly treat "customer acquisition costs" as cash used in investing activities rather than cash used in operating activities in its Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows. As a result, Shift4 was forced to negatively revise its net cash provided by operating activities to $3 million (down from its originally reported $29.2 million), $30.8 million (down from its originally reported $37.1 million), and $70.8 million (down from its originally reported $85 million) for the year ended December 31, 2021, the three months ended March 31, 2022, and the six months ended June 30, 2022, respectively.On this news, Shift4's stock price fell $1.21 per share, or 2.67%, to close at $44.16 per share on October 24, 2022.On April 19, 2023, Blue Orca Capital published a report addressing Shift4 (the "Blue Orca Report"). The Blue Orca Report alleged, among other things, that "Shift4 [is], in reality, a roll-up of low-tech POS systems and payment processors which is substantially less profitable, generates far less cash, and is materially more levered than investors are led to believe." The Blue Orca Report further alleged that in 2022, "Shift4 engaged in a string of highly questionable and hyper-aggressive accounting maneuvers seemingly designed to keep the stock afloat, from cash flow manipulation to inexplicable distributor acquisitions that enabled it to capitalize a major component of COGS [cost of goods sold]." For example, the Blue Orca Report alleged, inter alia, that Shift4's "buyout of 50% of its independent distributors"-i.e., in connection with its mass strategic buyout program-"and Q4 2022 cash account withdrawal" from its sponsor bank merchant settlement account "together inflated operating cash flow by 61%."On this news, Shift4's stock price fell $5.95 per share, or 8.68%, to close at $62.59 per share on April 19, 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 w
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 07:47:04

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bernstein Liebhard LLP:Do you, or did you, own shares of Shift4 Payments, Inc. (NYSE:FOUR)?Did you purchase your shares between November 10, 2021 and April 18, 2023, inclusive?Did you lose money in your investment in Shift4 Payments, Inc.?Do you want to discuss your rights?Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the securities of Shift4 Payments, Inc. ("Shift4" or the "Company") (NYSE:FOUR) between November 10, 2021 and April 18, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the "Complaint").If you purchased or acquired Shift4 securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Shift4 Payments, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 17, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.The Complaint alleges that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements throughout the Class Period. Among other things, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (i) Shift4 had inadequate disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting; (ii) as a result, Shift4 failed to properly account for customer acquisition costs, thereby artificially inflating its net cash provided by operating activities; (iii) accordingly, Shift4 would likely be forced to restate one or more of its previously issued financial statements; (iv) Shift4 employed accounting maneuvers in connection with, among other things, its mass strategic buyout program and sponsor bank merchant settlement account, that were designed to present an inaccurate picture of, inter alia, the Company's performance, its underlying business quality, and its earnings power; and (v) all the foregoing, once revealed, was likely to negatively impact Shift4's reputation and business.On April 19, 2023, Blue Orca Capital published a report alleging, among other things, that "Shift4 [is], in reality, a roll-up of low-tech POS systems and payment processors which is substantially less profitable, generates far less cash, and is materially more levered than investors are led to believe." The Blue Orca Report further alleged that in 2022, "Shift4 engaged in a string of highly questionable and hyper-aggressive accounting maneuvers seemingly designed to keep the stock afloat, from cash flow manipulation to inexplicable distributor acquisitions that enabled it to capitalize a major component of COGS [cost of goods sold]." For example, the Blue Orca Report alleged, inter alia, that Shift4's "buyout of 50% of its independent distributors" - i.e., in connection with its mass strategic buyout program - "and Q4 2022 cash account withdrawal" from its sponsor bank merchant settlement account "together inflated operating cash flow by 61%."On this news, Shift4's stock price fell $5.95 per share, or 8.68%, to close at $62.59 per share on April 19, 2023.If you purchased or acquired Shift4 securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Shift4 Payments, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for sixteen consecutive years.ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2023 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.Contact Information:Peter AlloccoBernstein Liebhard LLP https://www.bernlieb.com(212) 951-2030pallocco@ bernlieb.com SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 23:31:46

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EXPANDS ZINC COPPER SILVER FOOTPRINT IN BMCCORE INTERVALS TO 14.51% ZINC, 5.86% LEAD, 0.67% COPPER AND 139.9 G/T SILVERMIRAMICHI, NB / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / SLAM Exploration Ltd. (TSXV:SXL) ("SLAM" or the "Company") announces that further to the news release dated September 6, 2023, it has closed the property option agreement dated September 1, 2023 (the "Option Agreement") with Ian Ross (the "Optionor") to acquire a 100% interest in and to the Mine Road project, which is located adjacent to the former producing Heath Steele mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp ("BMC") of northern New Brunswick.Mine Road Project: The 7,500 hectare Mine Road project comprises 347 units in 2 mineral claims adjacent to the former producing Heath Steele mine property. From 1957 and 1996, the operator mined 21 million tonnes at Heath Steele with an average grade of 4.98% zinc, 0.36% lead, 0.54% copper and 69.66 g/t silver. A total of 2,330 million pounds of zinc, 833 million pounds of lead, 446 million pounds of copper and 45 million ounces of silver were processed. (For reference, these numbers are derived from: McCutcheon, S.R. (compiler) 1997; Geology and massive sulphides of the Bathurst Camp, New Brunswick; Geological Association of Canada - Mineralogical Association of Canada, Joint Annual Meeting, Ottawa '97, Field Trip B7, Guidebook, 85 p.)Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide Occurrences: The Mine Road project contains 7 volcanogenic massive sulphide occurrences including the Railroad Zone described above. The Company expects to generate additional targets once the Mine Road project database is integrated with SLAM's extensive Bathurst Joint Venture database. A total of $1,448,000 in exploration expenditures have been applied to the Mine Road project during the past 10 years and assessment work credits of $428,776 are available for future claim renewals.Infrastructure: The Mine Road project is located on the Mine Road (Route 430) which connects the former Heath Steele mine to the city of Miramichi which is 60 kilometres to the southeast. The claims are accessed from this paved road and a series of logging roads. Electric power is available from lines that connect Heath Steele to the New Brunswick power grid.The Agreement: The Company has made the first share issuance due pursuant to the Option Agreement and it has issued 100,000 common shares to the Optionor at a deemed price of $0.05 per share. The securities have a four month and one day hold period which will be expire on January 28, 2024, pursuant to Canadian securities laws.The Company can earn a 100% interest in and to the Mine Road project by making the following cash payments and common share issuances over a period of 4 years:Due DateCash PaymentsCommon Share IssuancesWithin 5 days receipt of approval from the TSX-V-100,000 (issued)On or before the 1st anniversary of the option agreement$10,000100,000On or before the 2nd anniversary of the option agreement$10,000100,000On or before the 3rd anniversary of the option agreement$10,000100,000On or before the 4th anniversary of the option agreement$20,000100,000Total$50,000.00500,000The Mine Road project is subject to a 2% NSR royalty. SLAM retains the right to buy back half the royalty equal to 1.0% NSR for $1,000,000 and the further right to buy back the remaining royalty equal to 1.0% NSR for $1,000,000 at any time. No finders' fees were paid on this arm's length Option Agreement.The Company also announces that its board of directors has approved the grant of incentive stock options (the "Options") to directors, officers, employees and consultants to acquire a total of 2,400,000 common shares in the capital of the Company at an exercise price of $0.055. All Options were granted pursuant to the Company's 10% rolling stock option plan (the "Plan") and are subject to the terms of the Plan, the applicable grant agreements and the requirements of the TSX-Venture Exchange. The Options are exercisable for a five-year term expiring September 27, 2028.About SLAM Exploration Ltd.The Mine Road project is a significant addition to SLAM's portfolio of wholly-owned BMC projects that include the A'Hearn, Strachens and Portage volcanogenic massive sulphide projects. The Company has extensive experience in the BMC and owns a huge database covering the entire mining camp dating back to its participation in the Bathurst Joint Venture. The Company holds NSR royalties and expects additional cash and share payments on the Wedge, Goodwin, Ramsay and Ferguson projects in this mineral rich area.Elsewhere in the mineral-rich province of New Brunswick, exploration for gold along regional fault structures has resulted in significant gold discoveries. These include the Maisie gold vein system at SLAMs wholly owned Menneval project. With gold and copper trends up to 20 km long, SLAM has identified an area with high potential for additional gold discoveries and acquired the Shadow Lake, Jake Lee, Rogers Lake and Highway projects. These projects are associated with the Fundy fault zone and located in southwestern New Brunswick where Galway Metals recently announced a 2.3-million-ounce gold deposit at Clarence stream. Targeting critical elements as well as gold, the Company aggressively pursues new exploration opportunities such as the recent Highway and Mine Road acquisitions.To view SLAM's corporate presentation, click SXL-Presentation. Additional information is available on SLAMs website SLAM and SEDAR+ filings at www.sedarplus.ca . Follow us on twitter @SLAMGold.QA-QC Procedures: The drilling results described above are from assessment reports by well established mining firms with assays from commercial laboratories. The assessment reports included a summary of QA-QC procedures and the Company deems these results to be reliable.Qualifying Statements: Mike Taylor P.Geo, President and CEO of SLAM Exploration Ltd., is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and has approved the contents of this news release.Certain information in this press release may constitute forward-looking information, including statements regarding mineral resources and the Company's plans with respect to the exploration and development of its properties. This information is based on current expectations that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward looking-statements unless and until required by securities laws app
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 15:02:29

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LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Star Alliance International Corp. (OTC PINK:STAL), ("Star or the Company") has agreed to acquire 51% of AIEnglishOTG LLC.Star Alliance is proud to announce that it has opened an IT division specializing in artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and fintech programs. AIEnglishOTG is STAR's first AI technology company bringing its revolutionary AI technology for learning the English language across the globe.The global market size for English language instruction is currently $59.6B and estimated to be $191 billion by 2028 with a compound annual growth rate of 18.3%.) It is projected that 45% of the market growth is originating from the Asian Pacific region where AIEnglish is poised to launch. The Digital English learning market accounts for USD $14.37 billion and the growth momentum of the market will accelerate by 16.78% during the next twelve months.Richard Carey, Chairman and President of STAR stated: "This revolutionary technology is both unique and way ahead of any other English learning programs. Although, Star continues to grow its core gold mining business and mining technology, we will continue to add other growth opportunities where it makes sense to the Company and its shareholders. We will always strive to enhance the value of our Company and increase shareholder value." Mark Emerson CEO of AIEnglishOTG: stated, "Our AI tech is ahead of the curve and unmatched by any significant competitor. I have spent 22 years in this industry and right now I see the biggest market shift we have ever seen in history. Today English language learners are shifting away from classroom learning, and toward personal device learning using AI - especially in foreign countries. Our AI for learning the English language is fully developed and ready for viral sharing across 48 Asian countries and 21 Latin American countries beginning in Q4'23.The single biggest issue in English language learning today is lack of quality one-on-one instruction from a teacher. To meet that market shift we have developed breakthrough artificial intelligence capabilities that are the ultimate Super Teacher'. Our AI is engineered to be scalable across the entire globe and provides native language translation in 60+ languages and attacks the global market and its 3 billion people trying to learn English." Mr. Emerson is an award-winning technology executive with 22 years experience in English language technology. Emerson originally led the restructuring of Ellis Inc., an English-language technology company that was publicly listed at the time. After building Ellis to renewed strength, he sold it to Pearson Education, the largest education company in the world. Emerson then served as VP of International Digital English at Pearson Education for eight years where he further strengthened his network and his expertise in global product distribution. Mr. Emerson has rare and invaluable knowledge of how English language instruction products are used globally.About Star Alliance International Corp.Star Alliance International Corp. ("the Company", or "STAL") was incorporated in the State of Nevada on April 17, 2014, under the laws of the State of Nevada.Star Alliance International Corp is a Worldwide Holding Company with strong assets in the US, Honduras, and Guatemala.STAL's assets include gold mines in California and Honduras. In addition, Star searches out innovative new technologies that are eco-friendly including "Genesis," our environmentally safe gold extraction system.The Genesis gold and other minerals extraction system extracts minerals from oxide and complex ores much faster than other processes in an environmentally safe manner.The Company anticipates continued expansion of our efforts domestically and abroad, with a particularly keen focus on mining technologies for precious metals and rare earth minerals, as well as other innovative technologies that will enhance the value of the Company.It is STAL's goal to become a very well-rounded enterprise with planned diversification, paired with a balanced approach, ensuring the very best possible results and the highest possible value for our shareholders.Safe Harbor and Informational StatementThis press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Security Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), including all statements that are not statement of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company, its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) the company's financing plans; (ii) trends affecting the company's financial conditions or results of operations; (iii): the company's growth strategy and operating strategy; and (iv) the declaration and payment of dividends.The words "may", "would", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "intend", and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statement is not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors including the risk disclosed in the company's statements and reports filed with the OTC Markets. The Company claims the safe harbor provided by Section 21E(c) of the Exchange Act for all forward-looking statements.For more information, contact STAL.E Mail: info@ staralliancemines.comAIEnglish web site: www.nycedutec.comSTAR Web Site: www.staralliancemines.comFacebook , Linkedin,Twitter, @staralliancein1SOURCE: Star Alliance International Corp.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 12:00:25

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NEW YORK, NY and TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. (OTC PINK:SUIC) today announced that SUIC's IHart received big orders across its businesses to supply a government agency, a brand name hotel chains, the third largest convenience store network, global listed companies, raw material suppliers, and an O2O platform as more substantial orders on the way.IHart's buyers include Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co. Ltd., a reputed government agency in charge of agricultural products marketing company in Taiwan, known as the "Refrigerator of Northern Taiwan". It has the most complete and advanced fruit and vegetable auction system in the country, providing the highest quality and professional services to producers, suppliers, financiers and consumers with 70% market share. Website at http://www.tapmc.com.taipei/ My Humble House Group, is a publicly listed company that operates 5 brand name hotels in Taiwan including Sheraton Taipei Hotel, Le Meridien Taipei, Hanmu Hotel Jiaoxi, Elle Hotel Humble House, and Hanju Hotel, and also offers hospitality consulting services. Website: https://www.mhh-group.com Hi-Life is a well-known convenience store chains in Taiwan with 1,500 stores, ranked third largest after 7-11 and Family Mart. https://www.hilife.com.tw/ JustKitchen, a publicly listed company in Germany & Canada, is Taiwan's first cloud kitchen company that integrates central kitchens, multiple virtual restaurant brands and delivery services. It successfully delivers the meals to consumers all over Taiwan and overseas. It currently manages 30 brands in their brand portfolio and has 20 locations in Taiwan. It is publicly listed around the world including in Canada, Germany and the USA. Website: https://www.justkitchen.com/ BestMart 360, a publicly listed company in Hong Kong is the largest chain store in Hong Kong and Macau. It operates more than one hundred stores in both places. Website: https://www.bestmart360.com/ Others include the JC Organic - Haijin Enterprise Co., Ltd., is an organic food raw material supplier that passed the ISO22000 and HACCP dual international certifications from Taiwan Inspection Technology Co., Ltd. (SGS). It serves well-known food distributors and organic specialty stores, such as Yuanyuandi, Meifu Food Market, Laf'e Taiwan Lefei, Yueke Shop and more. Website: http://www.jinchuan.com.tw/ House Creation develops systems specializing in self-service equipment, fully integrates the design of self-service equipment into a O2O platform business model through a one-stop service approach It operates i-TRY smart vending machines, i-TRY 's self-operated brands, i-TRY community app, i-TRY online shopping platform, and i-TRY lifestyle media marketing channels. Website: https://hctong.com.tw/ "SUIC is confident that IHart's diversified business will solidify its position in international food markets through various joint ventures that will boost sales and marketing capabilities and expand its footprint in the global arena, leveraging the strong presence of SUIC's IHart in the food industry. These partnerships will significantly ramp up the number of franchisees and suppliers with standard operating procedures for more expected orders in the FY 2023-24. SUIC's IHart expects a positive impact on EBITDA margins in the medium term," said Hank Wang, CEO of SUIC.About SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd., USASUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd. provides research and development, venture financing for and investing in private enterprises and the public sector that develop products and services adopting core capabilities of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile payment, Big Data, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, to enhance and streamline existing processes, and establish new and exciting business models that will create revolutionary products and services. Shareholders of SUIC will be exposed to the diverse application of advanced services in various parts of the economy. Additionally, existing and potential customers can benefit from this company's diversified portfolio of technologies. As one of the pioneering publicly traded technology companies, SUIC will help build tech-enabled businesses of the future. To learn more, please visit www.sinounitedco.com Forward-Looking StatementThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results are achieved. This press release is considered considering all Company filings contained in the Edgar Archives of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov ContactSUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.New Release Department929-391-2550SOURCE: SUIC Worldwide Holdings Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 18:17:58

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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / International Paper CompanyOriginally published in International Paper's 2022 Sustainability ReportAs a manufacturer of sustainable fiber products, we're committed not only to relying on a renewable resource, but also to minimizing climate impact in our manufacturing process. This includes reducing energy and water consumption both within our facilities and across our value chain.Our progress toward Vision 2030Goal: Improve our climate impact and advance water stewardshipTarget: Reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 35%Aligned with the best available climate science, we're committed to reducing our absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 35% by 2030 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3.2022 Impact:In 2022, we faced significant challenges in our facilities with respect to operational decarbonization. While we made progress in reducing our Scope 1 emissions at several mills, those reductions were offset by increases in fossil fuel used at other facilities due to reduced biomass fuel. We are proud of the emissions reductions we achieved at our containerboard mill in Rome, Georgia- the result of a capital project that was included in our decarbonization plan.For Scope 2 emissions, we saw reductions associated with grid greening and an overall increase due to the sale of renewable energy certificates (RECs). This does not amount to a change in actual emissions, but rather, sales of environmental attributes from our renewable power generation. REC sales will continue in the short term, but will eventually be retired in support of our Vision 2030 target.We are committed to advancing our decarbonization plan and are optimistic about emission reductions from key energy efficiency investments and other projects in the coming years. For more information see our TCFD report. As one of the first North American pulp and paper producers to have our GHG emissions reduction target approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2021, we continue to assess and incorporate developments in emissions accounting, including the GHG Protocol, the ScienceBased Targets initiative (SBTi) and CDP. We are engaged directly in working groups focused on relevant forest sector topics.Spotlight: Two mills, two GHG reduction projectsOur Rome, Georgia containerboard mill has demonstrated a 39% reduction in total Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions since the baseline year of 2019 after switching the mill's power boiler from primarily coal to natural gas as a fuel source.Our Red River, Louisiana containerboard mill replaced five refiners on their paper machine. The refiners were replaced with updated energy efficient refiners, saving an average of 24% of the energy use on this equipment and an estimated 7% reduction in Scope 2 GHG footprint for the mill.Our ApproachOur Sustainable Operations approach addresses some of our most important environmental impacts and reflects our commitment to improving our footprint across our businesses, operations and value chain.Improving our climate impactHaving a positive climate impact begins with reducing carbon emissions. Rather than rely on carbon offsets, International Paper focuses on reducing energy consumption as well as relative GHG emissions across our mills and manufacturing facilities. Between 2019 and 2022, we reduced 3% of Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions but show an increase of 9% due to Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) sales.We're expanding our use of renewable energy, including generating our own renewable energy source via carbon-neutral biomass derived from our manufacturing processes.Enhanced tracking and reportingApproved by the Science Based Targets initiative, our GHG emissions reduction target aligns with the Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global temperature rise to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.Working with strategic partners, we track and report on our global GHG emissions by participating in ESG reporting programs, including:Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD)U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mandatory Reporting RuleEuropean Union Emissions Trading SystemMultiple state, regional and national reporting programsGlobal Reporting Index70% of our mill energy is derived from carbon-neutral biomass residuals.We reduced our GHG emissions by about 20% between 2010 and 2022, while cutting our use of coal and fuel oil in half.Improving our climate impactScope-by-scope reductionsWe have a track record of reducing Scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions at our operations. As part of our Vision 2030 goals, we're also working to track, report and ultimately reduce our Scope 3 emissions across our value chain. Specifically:Scope 1: We're committed to making capital investments to substantially reduce Scope 1 GHG emissions in our facilities over the next decade. We're evaluating and pursuing investments in energy efficiency and fuel-switching for lower-carbon thermal energy sources in our operations. These initiatives often result in both cost savings and GHG emission reductions by optimizing processes, upgrading equipment and advancing energy conservation measures.Scope 2: To reduce Scope 2 GHG emissions, we're participating in renewable power development.Scope 3: To mitigate GHG impacts outside our direct operations, we team up with our suppliers and customers to effect meaningful change. We assess our supply chain to identify areas of impact, and we engage our suppliers and customers to reduce emissions. This work is closely tied to our goals for Renewable Solutions, which focus on how customers use and dispose of our products.Reducing our operational GHG emissions is just one of the actions we're taking to improve the climate. Our efforts extend across our entire value chain and through to our sustainable forestry and renewable products initiatives. We continue to make progress toward our Vision 2030 target through renewable power participation, capital investments and collaboration with forest landowners to improve forest management for carbon sequestration.Improving our climate impactLooking aheadWe are renewing our focus on supplier engagement to reduce value chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2023 and 2024. As we continue our efforts to reduce GHG emissions and address climate change, we recognize the need to explore new and emerging technologies for decarbonization. We will continue to drive forward with renewable power participation initiatives, such as renewable energy procurement and investments in on-site renewable energy systems.In addition, we will look to take advantage of supportive legislation, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the U.S., to accelerate our efforts in
PR-Inside.com: 2023-09-27 19:31:43

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Tsodilo Resources Limited ("Tsodilo" or the "Company") (TSX-V:TSD)(OTCQB:TSDRF)(FSE:TZO) announces that the High Court of Botswana has today rendered an order that interdicts and restrains Minister of Mines and Energy, through theDepartment of Mines or any other Department from receiving, considering or assessing the renewal applications in relation to Prospecting Licenses PL's 021024/2018 pending the delivery of the judgement in the Applicant's review application with respect to Prospecting License PL021/2018.James M. Bruchs, Chairman and CEO, commented "The issue is relatively straight forward, pursuant to Section 19 of the Mines and Minerals Act (Act), contiguous prospecting licences covering the same period and the same mineral or minerals, the Minister shall, for the purposes of the elimination (reduction) of part of any of the areas thereof, permit the areas covered thereby to be deemed to be one area, the subject of one such prospecting licence. The Xaudum Iron Formation (XIF) project extends for a known length of some 40 kilometers and traverses most if not all of the licenses set forth below. The effect of granting some of the PL's at one time and not all of the contiguous licenses that form the project effectively diminishes the value or potential of the project as it impacts the evaluation and exploration activities. We believe the Act makes it clear that it is the discretion of the license holder to determine which areas to retain and which areas to relinquish as it protects the license holder from instances where one would be required to relinquish the prospective area and keep the non-prospective area. Given that one of our prayers for relief in our PL020/2018 review application is to re-align the 5 licenses so that their durations remain coherent with one another, we felt it timely that any actions with respect to PL's 021-024/2018 be stayed as the date for the renewal applications was imminent".PL No.Grant DateArea km21st RenewalFiling Date1st RenewalGrant DateArea km2020/201810/01/18570.06/30/2021Pending447.7021/201810/01/18964.96/30/20211/01/2022572.5022/201810/01/18317.16/30/20211/01/2022160.4023/201810/01/18978.66/30/20211/01/2022491.2024/201810/01/18807.36/30/20211/01/2022781.7025/201810/01/18454.5DNR*--026/201810/01/18828.1DNR*--Total4,920.50 Total2,453.50*DNR - did not renewRenewed49.86% To be fully transparent and meet the volume of requests, the Company has established landing page(s) regularly updated to include all records related to the litigation. See, Botswana Litigation for litigation documents and Tsodilo Resources Ltd. - MMGE for related documents.XAUDUM IRON FORMATION (XIF)About the XIF ProjectThe project is located in the North-West District of Botswana and is proximate to the Namibian border and lies twenty-two (22) miles from the town of Divundu in Namibia. The Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor (previously known as the Trans-Caprivi) line linking Zambia and Namibia is planned to pass through Divundu, providing access to Walvis Bay, Namibia's deep-sea port. The project is also located within forty-three (43) miles of the proposed Mucusso line to Angola's Namibe Port.Preliminary work on the Xaudum Iron project has defined a CIM compliant Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 441 million tonnes (Mt) with an average grade of 29.4% Fe, 41.0% SiO2, 6.1% Al2O3 and 0.3% P for the Block 1 magnetite XIF.Block 1 is a fraction of the potential XIF magnetite resource. An extrapolated exploration target has defined the XIF to be in the order of 5 to 7 billion tonnes at 15 - 40% Fe. This exploration target was generated by inversion modelling of ground magnetic geophysical data which was compared and moderated to volumes from drilling data within Block 1 and its potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature. To date, there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource other than in Block 1 and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource. See, Press Release of 6/02/2014 on the Company's website for further details.Metallurgical magnetic separation results (Davis Tube Recovery) show that an average concentrate of 67.2% Fe, 4.2% SiO2, 0.5% Al2O3, 0.07% P is obtained at P80 grind size of 80 microns, although higher grades are possible at finer P80's. See, Press Release of 12/17/2013 on the Company's website.Further exploration will be focused on Block 2a where the Company expects an increase in the resource.Additional informational of the project can be found on the Company's website at https://tsodiloresources.com/s/Metals.asp.html and further technical information can be found in a report prepared by SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd. for Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Ltd. titled "Mineral Resource Estimate for the Xaudum Iron Project (Block 1), Republic of Botswana" with an effective date of August 29, 2014, and filed on SEDAR under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.About Tsodilo Resources LimitedTsodilo Resources Limited is an international resource exploration company engaged in the search for economic metal and diamond deposits at its Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Limited ("Gcwihaba") and Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. ("Bosoto) projects in Botswana. The Company has a 100% stake in its Gcwihaba project area consisting of five metal (base, precious, platinum group, and rare earth) prospecting licenses all located in the North-West district of Botswana. The Company has a 100% stake in Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. which holds the BK16 kimberlite project in the Orapa Kimberlite Field (OKF) in Botswana. Tsodilo manages the exploration of the Gcwihaba and Bosoto projects. Overall supervision of the Company's exploration program is the responsibility of McDonald Kahari (Pr. Sci. Nat.) a "qualified person" as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101.FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:James M. Bruchs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer JBruchs@ TsodiloResources.comHead Office Telephone +1 416 572 2033 Facsimile + 1 416 987 4369Website http://www.TsodiloResources.comThis press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements pertaining to the use of proceeds, the impact of strategic partnerships and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals)
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Do you, or did you, own shares of UiPath, Inc. (NYSE:PATH)?Did you purchase your shares between April 21, 2021 and March 30, 2022, inclusive?Did you lose money in your investment in UiPath, Inc.?Do you want to discuss your rights?NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the common stock of UiPath, Inc. ("UiPath" or the "Company") (NYSE:PATH) between April 21, 2021 and March 30, 2022, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the "Complaint").If you purchased or acquired UiPath common stock, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit UiPath, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than November 6, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.The Complaint alleges that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements throughout the Class Period. Among other things, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (i) UiPath had enacted a widespread discounting program prior to its IPO, which had the effect of temporarily boosting UiPath's revenue and annualized recurring revenue ("ARR") metrics, cannibalizing its future sales, eroding UiPath's margins, and increasing the risk of client churn; (ii) UiPath's actual total addressable market was not as large as portrayed by defendants, because many companies included in UiPath's market survey did not need the type of high-cost, high-functionality automation products offered by UiPath; (iii) UiPath was losing customers to Microsoft, ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce, IBM, and other established enterprise software vendors that were building automation into their platforms; (iv) UiPath was losing customers due to the increased availability of low-code automation software offered by vendors, such as Microsoft's Power Automate software, which were capable of addressing the majority of customer use cases at a fraction of the price of UiPath's products and services; and (v) UiPath was suffering from a loss of channel sales due to strained relationships with UiPath's partners as a result of increased competition between UiPath and these partners.On March 30, 2022, UiPath announced financial results for the quarter and year ended January 31, 2022. UiPath disclosed that it had earned revenues of just $289.7 million during the quarter, representing year-over-year growth of 39%. UiPath further revealed deeply disappointing ARR and revenue guidance, revealing that the declining growth trends adversely impacting UiPath were expected to continue. UiPath also announced the abrupt departure of Thomas Hansen, UiPath's Chief Revenue Officer, who was responsible for developing relationships with UiPath's current and prospective customers, expanding UiPath's partnership network, and fostering UiPath's developer community.On this news, UiPath's common stock fell $7.45 per share, or approximately 25.65%, to $21.59 per share on March 31, 2022.If you purchased or acquired UiPath common stock, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit UiPath, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@ bernlieb.com Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for sixteen consecutive years.ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2023 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.Contact Information:Peter AlloccoBernstein Liebhard LLP https://www.bernlieb.com(212) 951-2030pallocco@ bernlieb.com SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP
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WOODBRIDGE, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Visual Lease (VL), the #1 lease optimization software provider, today announced the winners of its annual Customer Excellence Awards, recognizing organizations that are using VL's platform to achieve optimal strategic financial and operational outcomes. The winners were unveiled at the company's annual Customer Advisory Board (CAB) Summit, a multi-day event in San Antonio, TX, for select customers and partners."This year's recipients reflect how best-in-class companies are capitalizing on VL's unique capabilities to streamline critical workflows, promote cross-departmental collaboration and ensure data accuracy," said Robert Michlewicz, Visual Lease's Chief Executive Officer. "With more than 1,500 global organizations leveraging VL's platform to mitigate risks, create value and minimize costs associated with their lease records, these companies represent a valuable guidepost for our evolving industry." This year's VL Customer Excellence Award winners were recognized for:Enhanced Controls: American Axle Manufacturing. A two-time VL Customer Excellence Award winner, American Axle Manufacturing extended its controls framework and audit-preparedness, resulting in an 85% reduction in its controls deficiencies.Data-Driven Decisions: Compass. By merging its lease portfolio and business data into a proprietary visualization tool using the VL platform, the company now makes more strategic, data-driven decisions. Unified Teams & Data: Quanta Services. By automating cross-departmental workflows, Quanta Services saved an impactful amount of time and money, allowing for a more collaborative and efficient workflow.Driving Shared Success: RSM US LLP. VL's partnership and shared mission with RSM assists a diverse and complex field of organizations seeking to implement processes and technologies which recognize risks and opportunities across a client's lease portfolio.For other updates from VL, visit this link.About Visual LeaseVisual Lease is the #1 lease optimization solution provider, empowering organizations to leverage their lease portfolio for strategic financial and operational outcomes. Our powerful and secure platform serves as a centralized system of record for all lease financial, operational and legal data, and is purpose-built to support every team that interacts with a company's lease portfolio. Informed by nearly three decades of experience, our solutions help companies easily sustain compliance with FASB, IFRS, GASB and ISSB reporting requirements, and mitigate the risks and maximize the value associated with their lease records. Our award-winning software is used by 1,500+ organizations to manage more than 1 million real estate, equipment and other leased asset records globally. For more information, visit visuallease.com Media ContactsErica BonavitacolaVisual LeaseT+1 732 860 4838ebonavitacola@ visuallease.com SOURCE: Visual Lease
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2023 / In a world where the intersection of aesthetics and empowerment takes center stage, Hadeed Plastic Surgery renowned plastic surgery practice, is revolutionizing the industry. With an unyielding commitment to individualized care and exceptional results, the practice is poised to transform the way patients perceive and experience plastic surgery.Nine Years of ExcellenceFor nine years, Hadeed Plastic Surgery has been dedicated to enhancing the lives of its clients through cosmetic transformations. With a stellar 5.0-star Google review rating and led by a double-board-certified surgeon, this practice has solidified its reputation as a trusted authority in the world of plastic surgery.Unparalleled ExpertiseAt the heart of Hadeed Plastic Surgery lies the exceptional expertise of its lead surgeon. Double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, this accomplished surgeon brings a wealth of knowledge, precision, and innovation to each procedure. The practice takes pride in consistently exceeding industry standards, ensuring the highest level of safety and patient well-being. The surgeon's commitment to staying at the forefront of advancements in the field sets Hadeed Plastic Surgery apart from the rest.Personalized Care, Every Step of the WayWhat truly sets Hadeed Plastic Surgery apart is its unwavering dedication to personalized service. This is not a one-size-fits-all practice; rather, each patient is treated as a unique individual with distinct needs and desires. The team is not just responsive; they are empathetic, compassionate, and deeply committed to ensuring every patient's journey is tailored to their specific goals and comfort. This boutique-style approach fosters a supportive environment where individuals feel valued and heard, rather than just another case.Empowering Your Best Self"We pride ourselves on being able to give our patients the results they are looking for," says this revolutionary practice's founder, Dr. Josef Hadeed. "Our mission is to empower people to look and feel their best while providing industry-leading care." Dr. Josef Hadeed, the visionary behind the innovative practice, is committed to empowering individuals to look and feel their absolute best. With nearly a decade of excellence in plastic surgery, Dr. Hadeed combines the latest surgical and non-surgical cosmetic advancements with a compassionate approach that goes beyond physical changes.Every consultation at Hadeed Plastic Surgery is an opportunity to explore personal thoughts and concerns. Dr. Hadeed and his team listen, understand, and empathize with each patient's unique journey, ensuring the right procedure is chosen and patients feel supported throughout their transformation.For those considering their own journey to self-enhancement, Dr. Hadeed invites them to a private consultation where they can experience the warmth of the office, interact with the knowledgeable staff, and establish trust with Dr. Hadeed himself.Customized Services For Personalized TransformationsHadeed Plastic Surgery offers a comprehensive range of services designed to meet diverse needs and preferences, ensuring each client's unique journey towards their personal transformation. Their specialized procedures include:Liposuction - Unlocking Your Ideal ContoursIdeal for individuals aged 20 to 55, liposuction sculpts the body for a more contoured appearance. This transformative treatment targets stubborn fat deposits, delivering precision results tailored to each patient's body and aesthetic goals.Breast Augmentation - Enhancing Beauty and SpiritTailored for women in their 20s to 40s, breast augmentation enhances natural beauty and self-confidence. This personalized service allows women to achieve their desired breast size and shape while maintaining harmony with their overall physique.Gynecomastia - Restoring ConfidenceDesigned for men in their 20s and 40s, gynecomastia addresses excess breast tissue concerns. This transformative procedure boosts self-esteem by sculpting a masculine chest contour that aligns with each patient's unique physique, restoring both appearance and self-assuredness.At Hadeed Plastic Surgery the focus is on individuals, understanding their goals, concerns, and expectations, and crafting personalized treatment plans that ensure a safe, effective, and empowering transformation.A Practice for AllHadeed Plastic Surgery welcomes both males and females between the ages of 25 and 60. Their focus extends to individuals interested in plastic and cosmetic surgery, as well as those who appreciate fashion, beauty, and luxury brands. Marital status is not a limiting factor; the practice is inclusive and accommodating to all, including those who have completed their child-bearing journey and are seeking a "mommy makeover" or a "daddy do-over." Quality, Safety, and PersonalizationThis practice serves a diverse clientele, from young professionals to seasoned individuals, and it's not just about age or marital status- it's about enhancing your best self. With incomes at or above the local/national median, their clients value quality, safety, and a personalized approach to cosmetic surgery.For More InformationFor more information on Hadeed Plastic Surgery and their personalized services, please visit their website at https://www.josefhadeedmd.com/ About Hadeed Plastic SurgeryHe is a leading plastic surgery practice in Beverly Hills, California with a satellite office in Miami, FL. With a focus on personalized care, safety, and exceptional results, the practice has gained recognition for its commitment to empowering individuals through aesthetic transformations. Led by a double board-certified surgeon, Hadeed Plastic Surgery offers a range of procedures, including liposuction, breast augmentation, and gynecomastia, tailored to meet the unique needs and desires of each patient.Business Name: Hadeed Plastic SurgeryWebsite: https://www.josefhadeedmd.com/Phone Number: 3109702940Email: info@ josefhadeedmd.com SOURCE: Hadeed Plastic Surgery
Nigeria is ranked sixth in the world for organised crime, according to the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index.

The report stated that Nigeria continues to face a series of security challenges, corruption and other criminal activities.

According to the survey done by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, which was released on Wednesday, the status of organised criminality in Nigeria increased by 0.13 points.

Nigeria scored 7.28 out of 10 points which makes it the sixth in the world and second highest in Africa behind the Democratic Republic of Congo (7.35) and ahead of South Africa (7.18).

In 2021, the last time the report was released, Nigeria was ranked fifth with a score of 7.14 points.

Myanmar has the highest criminality score (8.15), followed by Colombia (7.75) and Mexico (7.57).

The report noted that levels of criminality are increasing worldwide while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat..

In the criminal actors category, Nigeria has 7.20 points with an increase of 0.5 while it scored 8.50 points in the criminal network score. The survey also shows an increase in the number of foreign criminal actors active in the country as its score increased by 0.50 in that category.

The country also scored 5.50 points for the presence of mafia-style groups, 7.00 points for private-sector actors and 7.50 points for state-embedded actors.

For the purpose of the Global Organized Crime Index, organised crime is defined as illegal activities conducted by groups or networks acting in concert, by engaging in violence, corruption or related activities in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit. Such activities may be carried out both within a country and transnationally.

Drawing on a more comprehensive dataset and informed by the specialist knowledge of over 400 experts worldwide, the results of the 2023 Index offer a complex picture of the trajectory of organized crime, underscoring the intricacies in measuring this clandestine phenomenon, the report stated.

Insecurity in Nigeria

Nigeria is facing a myriad of spiralling security challenges that have led to multiple humanitarian crises over the years. All the six geo-political zones face security challenges including terrorism, human trafficking, and arms smuggling among others.

The country also has cases of money laundering and corruption among top and junior government officials.

While the Boko Haram insurgency has not been completely dealt with in the North-east of the country, the North-west region faces layers of security challenges from terrorists locally called bandits.

These terrorists regularly attack rural communities and engage in widespread kidnapping for ransom as well as the killing of motorists and other residents. Thousands of people have either been killed, abducted, or displaced in the region.

In the North-central, farmers and herders have been engaged in a tit-for-tat crisis leading to the death and displacement of hundreds of people. In recent years, the crisis has evolved to become more ethno-religious in complexion.

A part of the region is also being attacked by bandits.

In the South-east region, secessionist agitation is rife, and thousands of people have been killed by the separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other copycat criminal groups in the region.

In the South-south region, sea piracy and oil theft have continued with the military accused of involvement in the theft.

In the South-west region, kidnapping and armed criminality are on the increase.

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The Agbado Oke-Odo market near Ile-Epo in Abule Egba has been sealed indefinitely by the Lagos Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC), popularly known as KAI.

The market was sealed on Wednesday due to identified environmental infractions like street trading, hawking, indiscriminate dumping of refuse and lack of general hygiene, Lukman Ajayi, KAI spokesperson, said in a statement.

Recently, the state authorities shut down the Oyigbo and Alayabiagba markets over proper waste disposal.

According to the statement, the corps marshal of the agency, Gbemisola Akinpelu, a retired police commissioner, said the closure was enforced following petitions and complaints from Lagos residents about the deplorable level of filth, environmental degradation at the Agbado Oke-Odo market area and our intelligence team investigate these claims which turned out to be true, resulting in the closure of the market till further notice and arrests of suspects for obstruction.

She said that three persons  Taiwo Abeeb, 53, Ismaila Adeniji, 35, and Akeem Kelani, 40, were arrested for obstructing and attacking their operatives with dangerous weapons and ammunition.

The agency said the attack resulted in a deadly stab wound of a KAI operative.

Ms Akinpelu said the suspects will be charged to court for prosecution.

The retired police chief emphasised the need for markets to maintain a high level of hygiene through appropriate dumping of refuse via approved PSP operators, adding that the setbacks, lay-bys of external market premises must not accommodate street traders and hawkers.

She also said that street trading remains banned in the state as there will be no hiding place for street traders and hawkers as part of a renewed drive to enforce environmental laws.

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A 27-year-old man in Enugu State, South-east Nigeria, has allegedly raped his friends wife in the state.

The suspect, Gabriel Gibson, otherwise known as Ogidi, was said to have committed the act in his friends apartment at about 5 a.m. on 18 August.

The police spokesperson in Enugu State, Daniel Ndukwe, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.

Mr Ndukwe, a deputy superintendent of police, said the suspect has been arrested over the incident.

The suspect was arrested on 21 August at about 10 a.m. by police operatives serving in Oji-River Police Division, he said.

The police spokesperson said the suspect had visited the apartment in his friends absence and raped the wife.

He did not mention the community in the state where the incident happened.

The case is undergoing further investigation, he stated.

Prohibited in Nigeria

Nigeria, in 2015, enacted the Violence against Persons (Prohibition) Act, which outlawed all forms of violence against women and girls, including rape, female circumcision and forceful ejection, among others.

Offenders, on conviction, face life imprisonment or maximum of 14-year jail term, depending on the age of the offender and type of violence committed.

Several persons have been convicted by various courts for rape.

An Ado-Ekiti High Court, in July 2022, sentenced a 49-year-old man, Dele Adeyanju, to four years imprisonment for raping an 11-year-old girl.

A Bauchi High Court, in 2017, sentenced two middle aged men to life in prison for raping a 40-year-old woman and plucking her eyes.

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The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Ishaq Oloyede, will be the Chairman of the 2023 Annual Conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP).

This was disclosed by the 2023 Conference Planning Committee chairman, Danlami Nmodu, in a press statement by the Publicity Secretary of GOCOP, Remmy Nweke.

According to Nmodu, the conference will be held at the Abuja Continental Hotel (Old Sheraton) in the Federal Capital Territory on Thursday, 5 October 2023, at 10 a.m.

He also said that the theme for the 2023 conference is Nigeria: Roadmap for Socio-Economic Recovery and Sustainability.

Mr Nmodu further said the choice of the topic is informed by current socio-political and economic realities facing Nigeria, where a new set of leaders at national and state levels has emerged after the 2023 general elections.

He recalled that Mr Oloyede, a Nigerian professor of Islamic Studies and academic, was a former University of Ilorin Vice-Chancellor. and was reappointed registrar and chief executive of JAMB for the second term in 2021 by the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Oloyede is equally, the Secretary General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs since 2013.

Past Speakers at the Conference include Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto who delivered the 2019 lecture on Economy, Security and National Development: The Way Forward.

In 2021, Boss Mustapha, then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, keynoted the Conference as Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19. He spoke on: Post Covid-19 Pandemic: Recovery and Reconstruction in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: JAMB stops interference in choice of courses by PWDs

In 2022, Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, delivered the address titled: 2023 Elections: Managing the Process for Credible Outcome.

GOCOP was established to ensure that online publishers uphold the tenets of journalism in doing their jobs and the membership is a constellation of editors and senior journalists, whom, having distinguished themselves in their various stations in the print and electronic media, ventured into online publishing which is both the present and future of journalism globally. Currently, the Guild has over 90 corporate publishers as members.

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The National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Enugu State has dismissed a petition filed by Chimaroke Nnamani of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the victory of Kelvin Chukwu of Labour Party (LP) in the 18 March Senatorial election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mr Chukwu winner of the Senate election for Enugu East District.

The LP candidate had polled 69,136 votes to defeat Mr Nnamani, a former governor of Enugu State, who scored 48,701 votes.

The candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the district, Adaku Ogbu-Aguocha came third with 8,548 votes.

But Mr Nnamani challenged the declaration of Mr Chukwu as a validly elected senator for the district.

The former governor alleged that the election was marred by over-voting, irregularities, election malpractices and non-compliance with the 2022 Electoral Law and election guidelines.

He urged the tribunal to declare him the winner of the election or declare as invalid the results of the exercise.

The judgment

Delivering judgment on Wednesday, the tribunal upheld the victory of Mr Chukwu in the victory.

It awarded a cost of N500,000 against the petitioners in favour of three respondents, Mr Chukwu, the LP and INEC.

The three-member panel of judges headed by Justice Nusirat Umar held that the petition was vague, lacking in merit, incompetent, generic and mere academic exercise.

Background

Mr Nnamani served as governor of Enugu State between 1999 and 2007 under the platform of the PDP.

The former governor later served as the senator representing Enugu East District between 2007 and 2011. In 2019, he was reelected into the Red Chamber, but lost in the 2023 election to the LP candidate.

Mr Nnamani would later announce his resignation from the PDP, shortly after the election because of irreconcilable differences with the national leadership of the party.

READ ALSO: Chimaroke Nnamani loses senatorial bid to Labour Party candidate in Enugu

Meanwhile, Mr Chukwu, had earlier emerged the LP senatorial candidate after his elder brother, Oyibo Chukwu, the then candidate of the party was killed by hoodlums.

The deceased, a lawyer, was killed and burnt alongside his aide some days before the election.

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September 27, 2023 Manifestation of Senator Risa Hontiveros after the Senate's approval of the bicameral report on the proposed PPP Act Salamat kaayo, Mr. President. I would like to explain my "yes" vote to this bicameral version of the PPP Act. Tingin ko mababawasan ang uutangin ng Pilipinas, at maiiwasan ang madayang PPP contracts kapag pinatupad na natin itong ating bagong PPP Law. Hindi ako anti-private. Pwedeng maging mahalaga ang papel ng private sector; at itong pag-pirmi at pag-kumpleto ng mga batas para sa PPP at joint ventures ay paraan para gamitin ang yaman at husay ng sektor ng negosyo -- para sa mga serbisyo na karaniwan nang inaasahan natin mula sa gubyerno. Sa Ingles, ito po yung "achieving public ends thru private means." The PPP modality of developing and financing public programs and infrastructure took a back seat during the Duterte Administration, which relied a lot on foreign borrowings to finance the Build Build Build program. P6 trillion ang dumagdag sa utang at siguro hindi kulang sa kalahati nyan ay dahil sa Build Build Build projects na ODA-funded. We will continue to experience the consequences of that Build Build Build borrowing spree, because infrastructure loans contracted back then will only be called on and disbursed in the coming years. Former Finance Secretary Dominguez had his reasons for not liking PPP projects. The deals took years to clinch, the proponents asked for guarantees and tax subsidies . . and for political reasons he preferred that Chinese loans should fund even those projects, such as Bicol Express and the Kaliwa Dam that were already set to be funded by the private sector. Then President Duterte also unilaterally altered PPP deals - for example in water, in the aftermath of the 2019 water crisis in Metro Manila. It is an understatement to say that there was a chilling effect on business -- those years were the winter of public-private partnerships in the Philippines and it was the spring for many largescale debt deals with ADB and JICA. There are indeed many reasons for being cautious about harnessing the private sector and then allowing them to draw subsidies from government, to collect tolls and fees, and to operate and profit from developing properties and services around high capacity transit ports. But I would say that the behavior of PPP partners will only be as good, or as bad, as the behavior of our PPP decision-makers. In turn, the achievement of public ends will depend on the solidity of our PPP and joint venture rules. It takes two to tango, as they say. And here, we are firming up some compulsory dance steps so that the dance will not be troublesome, and contentious, with one side taking advantage of the vulnerability of the other. I think this PPP law is far from perfect, but it introduces predictability in the procedures and strengthens the accountability of our officials and staff in implementing agencies and oversight agencies. So salamat po to our Sponsor, Senator JV for seeing this through. Salamat kaayo, Mr. President.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The most useful and appropriate solution for Iran on its nuclear program is to negotiate directly with the US, an Iranian expert on international affairs Hasan Beheshtipour said, Trend reports.

Beheshtipour emphasized that Iran should agree to talk directly with the US, even if it does not achieve what it wants.

The expert also spoke about what Irans Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said on Sept. 26 with regards to Japan's constructive role in restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

Beheshtipour said that it is unclear what this positive role means and how it will be implemented. However, he said that it is not reasonable for Japan or any other country to act as a go-between for Iran and the US.

According to him, it would be good if third countries helped to make direct talks between Iran and the US possible, but when there are intermediaries in the talks, the situation becomes more complex and lengthy.

Beheshtipour also said that some reports suggest that the Iranian government is not opposed to direct talks with the US. The only condition is that direct talks will be beneficial and protect the rights of the Iranian people.

It should be noted that there is no assurance that the rights of the parties involved in the talks will be protected before the talks start. In fact, talking is a rational diplomatic solution that should be used in time, he noted.

The expert pointed out that Iran can get the sanctions lifted through direct talks with the US. Because the sanctions have caused Iran to lag behind in competing with the regional countries and to spend more money on economic matters. However, those funds can be used for the development and progress of the country.

On January 16, 2016, Iran's nuclear program triggered the creation of the JCPOA between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany).

However, on May 8, 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 group (Russia, China, the UK, France, the US, and Germany) and imposed new sanctions against Iran as of November 2018.

Over the past period, the sanctions affected Iranian oil exports and more than 700 banks, companies, and individuals. The sanctions have resulted in the freezing of Iranian assets abroad.

Iran is currently looking for various ways to resume discussions with the other parties regarding its nuclear program and eventually restore the JCPOA.

In discussions on the nuclear program, Iran is mainly trying to achieve the abolition of sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, the removal of its funds frozen abroad, and the abolition of the restriction on the export of crude oil. In return, the US and Western countries want Iran not to acquire an atomic bomb, to keep its nuclear program under control, and to reduce the level of uranium enrichment.

In late 2020, the Iranian parliament decided to implement a strategic plan to tackle the sanctions, citing the non-implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and six countries and the imposition of sanctions on Iran. According to the decision of the Iranian parliament, as of February 23, Iran suspended the implementation of additional steps and an additional protocol provided for in the nuclear deal. As a result, the control mechanism of the IAEA decreased by 2030 percent.

As reported, Iran discloses various programs related to its nuclear industry to reflect that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, according to the information obtained by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has increased the amount of highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months, and currently, the country's enriched uranium reserves are 4,745 kilograms. This is 15 times more than the amount of uranium allowed for Iran in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

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The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has issued a two-day ultimatum to traders to vacate the rail tracks of the ongoing Red Line rail project which will link Oyingbo to Marina.

He made this known during a tour of the project at the Agege Station, Wednesday.

It is a government road, thats why the government built everything, he said.

It is for transportation. It is not for market traders. I have given you two days notice.

Mr Sanwo-Olu told the traders that by next week, the enforcement team will come to enforce compliance and seize items of any trader that violates the directive.

You cant stay here. Thats why I came myself, its not possible, the governor further warned. We dont want anyone to die. Once the train starts working, it will pass here every ten minutes.

Red line

The 37-kilometre rail route will be constructed in two phases.

The first phase (28km) would have 12 proposed stations covering Agbado to Oyingbo, with nine stations.

The phase two, which would be mostly elevated, would have stations at Iddo and Ebute-Ero before terminating at Marina, the governor had said during the flag off ceremony.

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A Federal High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Monday, sentenced an internet fraudster, Mbang Uba, to one-year imprisonment over a $300 scam.

The judge, Maureen Onyetenu, however, gave the convicted fraudster an option to pay N500,000 fine, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which prosecuted the case.

With one dollar trading at N1,000, the fine translates to $500.

Mr Uba had, sometime this year, presented himself as Sophia Johnson on Facebook to scam a man identified as Bernie Smith of US $300. He was arrested and charged with criminal impersonation and obtaining by false pretences, the EFCC said in the statement.

He committed an offence contrary to Section 22 (2) (b) (i) and (ii) of the Cyber Crime (Prohibition, Prevention) Act 2015 and punishable under Section 22 (b) (iv) of the same Act.

He pleaded guilty to the charges. His lawyer, Innocent Eze, pleaded for leniency.

The EFCC said Mr Uba was arrested on 6 June in Calabar, Cross River State, for online criminal activities, and that investigations had revealed that he specialised in impersonating foreign nationals and using social media to defraud his unsuspecting victims.

The prosecuting counsel, Victor Ukagwu, had tendered Mr Ubas statements, his iPhone X and all the incriminating documents printed from his phone, which the court admitted in evidence.

The EFCC has been clamping down on internet fraudsters in Nigeria.

The commission recently handed over a three-bedroom semi-detached duplex in Edo State, South-south Nigeria, to an American named Cheryldene Cook, who was scammed by a Nigerian, Aisosa Ohue.

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During our meeting today, I thanked him for hosting US forces at Manda Bay and for his commitment to our shared security. Signing the Framework for Defense Cooperation between our countries today reinforces the importance of our strategic partnership with Kenya, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said in an address from Nairobi, Kenya on Monday, describing his meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto.

We intend to work with the United States Congress to provide up to $100 million in support, Mr Austin said, because were grateful to Kenya for its leadership in tackling security challenges in the region and around the world. I also thanked the Secretary today for Kenyas willingness to consider leading a Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti.

Mr Austin held a meeting with Mr Ruto to discuss various key topics. The primary focus was on the strong bilateral defence relationship between the United States and Kenya, with an emphasis on regional security and joint efforts to combat terrorism.

He expressed gratitude for Kenyas partnership and its role in hosting US forces at Manda Bay. He also commended Kenya for leading the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti, which was initiated in response to an invitation from Haiti and a request from the UN Secretary-General.

In addition to the meeting with President Ruto, Secretary Austin also met with Kenyas Cabinet Secretary of Defence Aden Duale. Their discussions centred on mutual plans to advance shared bilateral security priorities and regional concerns, particularly Kenyas leadership role in countering the extremist group al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Furthermore, the two leaders signed a new roadmap agreement, outlining the framework for US-Kenya defence cooperation for the next five years.

Kenya has responded to Haitis call and for considering to serve as the lead nation for a multinational force in Haiti to assist in addressing insecurity caused by gang violence, the US Secretary of State said in an August statement applauding the Kenyan government.

Pearl Matibe is a Washington, DC-based White House Correspondent, and media commentator with expertise in U.S. foreign policy and international security. You may follow her on Twitter: @PearlMatibe

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US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin before embarking on a tour of Djibouti, Kenya, and Angola, met with Mozambiques President Filipe Nyusi to recognize his efforts in promoting womens roles in security. The meeting took place at the Pentagon following the 78th UN General Assembly.

Mr Austin also praised President Nyusi for his pivotal role in the signing of the 2019 Maputo Accord for Peace and National Reconciliation, which contributed significantly to ending years of conflict in Mozambique.

Were aligning diplomacy, development and defence to get after the forces that fuel instability and insecurity, Mr Austin said.

Were deeply grateful for your partnership to counter violent extremist groups in northern Mozambique and your cooperation with the Southern Africa Development Community [SADC], the European Union and others, he said, adding that he hopes to deepen military training between the two nations.

Additionally, he congratulated President Nyusi for signing a new compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), amounting to $500 million, supplemented by $37.5 million from the Government of Mozambique. This five-year partnership aims to develop infrastructure in Mozambiques Zambezia Province, including a vital 1.1-mile bridge across the Licungo River, crucial for economic connectivity between the countrys north and south.

In regard to this historic funding, it is our duty to ensure accountability and adherence to good practices in the management of the involved public goods, thus consolidating trust and good moment of the relationship between Mozambique and the United States of America. Therefore, we will keep up the standards in respecting the sacrifice of the taxpayers of both countries, said Mr Nyusi.

President Nyusi expressed gratitude for the support from Secretary Austin, President Joe Biden, and Congress across various sectors, including the economy, healthcare, and security. He reaffirmed Mozambiques commitment to combat terrorism and improve maritime domain awareness, extending an invitation for military-to-military training with the United States. He also welcomed US Navy vessels to make port visits to Mozambique.

The newly established Mozambique Connectivity and Coastal Resilience Compact is anticipated to bring about positive changes in the lives of 57 million Mozambicans by fostering sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Management of the allocated funds will be overseen by the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Mozambique office, a body comprising representatives from the Mozambique government, civil society, and the private sector.

This comprehensive compact comprises three distinct projects. First, the Connectivity and Rural Transport Project (CTR) will focus on enhancing the quality and climate resilience of major transportation routes in Zambezia. This effort involves the improvement of roads and bridges and addressing deferred maintenance, notably the crucial Mocuba Bridge.

Second, the Promoting Reform and Investment in Agriculture Project (PRIA) aims to uplift the incomes of smallholder farmers and other stakeholders within the agricultural value chain. The project seeks to increase investments in the agriculture sector while promoting fiscal reforms and incentives related to agriculture.

Lastly, the Coastal Livelihoods and Climate Resilience Project (CLCR) aims to bolster ecosystem productivity by addressing long-standing issues linked to ecosystem degradation and fishery loss along the coastline.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an autonomous US government agency, is responsible for reducing global poverty through economic growth initiatives. Established in 2004, MCC provides time-limited grants and support to countries that meet stringent criteria related to good governance, anti-corruption efforts, and adherence to democratic principles.

Pearl Matibe is a Washington, DC-based White House Correspondent, and media commentator with expertise in U.S. foreign policy and international security. You may follow her on Twitter: @PearlMatibe

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On 26 September  after the conclusion of the 78th UN General Assembly  in a meeting held at the Treaty Room of the US Department of State, in Washington, DC, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warmly welcomed his counterpart and friend, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor.

Mr Blinken expressed his appreciation for the close collaboration they have had in recent years, both globally, and on various regions and topics.

Its always a great pleasure to be with my colleague and my friend Foreign Minister Pandor. Weve had many opportunities over the last couple of years to work closely together, quite literally around the world. But its particularly gratifying to have the foreign minister here at the State Department in Washington, said Mr Blinken.

Highlighting the importance of South Africa as a strategic partner, Mr Blinken noted that their discussions would cover a wide range of topics, including regional issues and the bilateral relationship. He emphasized the collaborative efforts between the two countries in areas such as climate change, energy, infrastructure development, and healthcare.

Mr Blinken also emphasized the significance of this meeting, given the evolving dynamics in the region and beyond, and expressed his eagerness to consult and exchange ideas with Foreign Minister Pandor.

Ms Pandor reciprocated the sentiment, thanking Mr Blinken for making time for their meeting despite his busy schedule. She mentioned that South Africa was currently hosting its ambassadors from the Americas in Washington and engaged in in-depth discussions about their relationships with countries across the continent. She highlighted the United States as a vital partner for South Africa and expressed her enthusiasm for the opportunity to discuss developments in Southern Africa and the broader African continent.

We are hosting all our ambassadors that are in the Americas here in Washington and have quite in-depth discussions with them, looking at the wide scope of our relationship with all countries in the Americas, said Ms Pandor adding, And as always, the United States of America features as one of the most important partners for South Africa, so Im thrilled that we have the opportunity to catch up and to give you some sense of whats happening in Southern Africa and broadly on the continent, and just to continue the wonderful cooperation weve built together.

The two leaders had a productive and direct exchange, affirming the need for robust cooperation between South Africa and the United States on issues of common interest, including reform of international financial institutions to ensure greater inclusivity of the Global South, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Secretary Blinken emphasized our desire to continue moving forward with the Just Energy Transition Partnership to help South Africa meet its energy needs and thanked South Africa for hosting the upcoming African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum [AGOA], he said.

On the margins of the 78th UN General Assembly, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and South African Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition Ebrahim Patel jointly announced that the 20th U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum (AGOA Forum) will be hosted by the Government of South Africa. The event is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg from 2 November to 4 November 2023.

The AGOA Forum will serve as a platform for dialogue and collaboration, bringing together the United States, AGOA-eligible nations, representatives from regional economic organizations, the private sector, civil society, and labour. The central focus of the forum will be discussions on enhancing trade and investment relations between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, participants will deliberate on strategies to promote resilient, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth and development.

A highlight of the forum will be the Made in Africa Exhibition, which is set to showcase regional value chains on the African continent, further emphasizing the importance of economic collaboration and innovation within the region.

The Tuesday, 26 September meeting between Mr Blinken and Ms Pandor underscored the importance of the US-South Africa partnership and their commitment to ongoing collaboration on various global and regional issues.

Pearl Matibe is a Washington, DC-based White House Correspondent, and media commentator with expertise in U.S. foreign policy and international security. You may follow her on Twitter: @PearlMatibe

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The Ebonyi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has upheld the election of Francis Nwifuru as governor of the state.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mr Nwifuru, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the 18 March governorship election in the state.

Mr Nwifuru polled 199,131votes to defeat his closest challenger, Ifeanyi Odii of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who garnered 80,191 votes.

The candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Bernard Odoh, came third with 52,189 votes.

Mr Odoh and his party, the APGA, challenged the declaration of Mr Nwifuru as the elected governor of the state and asked the tribunal to nullify his election on the grounds of alleged certificate forgery and ineligibility to stand for the election.

The APGA candidate, a geophysics professor, contended that Mr Nwifuru, at the time of the election, was still a member of the PDP and therefore ineligible to be sponsored for the election by the APC.

Mr Odoh further argued that Mr Nwifuru was not qualified to stand for the election because he allegedly submitted a fake certificate to INEC.

He urged the tribunal to order for a second election between the other two candidates who scored the highest number of votes at the previous election and exclude the governor from taking part in it.

The Judgment

Delivering judgment, on Wednesday, a three-member panel of judges headed by Lekan Ogunmoye ruled that the petitioners failed to prove that Mr Nwifuru was at the time of the election not qualified to contest the election, according to a report by Vanguard.

It held that there was substantial material evidence before the tribunal that the governor duly resigned his membership of the PDP.

The tribunal further held that the petitioners failed to approach a competent court to entertain the issue of membership of a political party, adding that it has no power to entertain an issue that took place before the election.

The tribunal also said that the petitioners have no locus standi to challenge the membership of a candidate of another political party

READ ALSO: Gov Nwifuru urges federal govt to investigate abandoned road projects in Ebonyi

The tribunal further held that the claim that Mr Nwifurus APC form was forged holds no water because the allegation was not supported by any evidence from the petitioners.

It will be unjust to hold that the 2nd Respondent (Nwifuru) was not qualified to contest the Governorship election of Ebonyi State by the mere fact that he failed to vacate his seat in line with the order in judgment delivered by Justice Ekwo, the tribunal ruled.

It accordingly struck out the petition.

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The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has bombed armouries and hideouts of suspected members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its militant wing, Eastern Security Network (ESN) in the South-east.

The NAF spokesperson, Edward Gabkwet, in a statement on Wednesday said the operation was carried out on Tuesday with the forces fighter jets under the air component of Operation Udo Ka II of the Nigerian military.

Mr Gabkwet, an air commodore, said several air strikes were carried out on the enclaves of IPOB fighters in Mother Valley Orsumughu in Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State and at Aku, Ihube in Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo State.

The spokesperson said the air operations were executed in response to an intelligence report that the fighters had concluded plans to launch an attack on residents of the states and the entire region.

Air strikes were also conducted on the same day in close coordination with surface forces at IPOB/ESN hideout camps in Aku Ihube in Imo State after a detailed analysis of intelligence on the terrorists converging for a likely rendezvous at their hideout, he said.

He added that the air strikes were carried out in conjunction with ground troops and other security agencies on the location believed to also house some weapons and ammunition of the IPOB members.

The strikes at both locations achieved their intended outcome and were deemed effective, he said.

Mr Gabkwet stressed that the air strikes were authorised on the hideouts by the countrys military authorities.

The spokesperson assured that NAF, alongside other security agencies, will continue to fight to ensure a terrorism-free Nigeria.

He noted that support from Nigerians to the security agencies is critical to defeating criminals terrorising various parts of the country.

IPOB, a group seeking to carve out a sovereign state of Biafra from South-east and some parts of the South-south Nigeria, has been linked to some deadly attacks in the two regions.

But the separatist group has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

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The Godshield Kanjal Journalism Foundation, in collaboration with the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Cross River State Council, has trained journalists on climate reporting in Calabar.

The one-day training, which took place on 21 September, is the first collaboration between foundation and the NUJ, became necessary because of the underreported climate issues in Cross River State and other states in South-south Nigeria, the organisers said.

The foundations founder, Godshield Kanjal, advised participants to take advantage of this training plus the experience and expertise in this job to solve societal and climate issues.

He decried the minimal rate of participation by journalists in Cross River and southern Nigeria in specialised beats, especially on climate change.

The Deputy Editor of Prime Progress newspaper, Ogar Monday, who was a resource person at the training, emphasised the need for data journalism.

Data connects your story to the global audience and gives it a human face, he told the participants.

Mr Monday said the deployment of data helps in showcasing facts in journalism practice.

He enjoined participants to acquaint themselves with facts backed up with data to enable them to hold solid grounds when reporting their beats.

A participant, Tina Todo of the Pillar newspaper, thanked the organisers of the training which she said had boosted her knowledge on climate reporting.

Another participant, Solomon Azu of the Guardian newspaper, said journalists in Cross River needed more of such training.

Journalists from Leadership, Blueprint, Daily Trust, Daily Post, Pillar, and Cross River Watch were among the participants.

Godshield Kanjal Journalism Foundation launched a fellowship after the training.

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The Ondo State House of Assembly has begun a process for the impeachment of Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who, until a few weeks ago, was the states acting governor while Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was in hospital in Germany.

Mr Aiyedatiwa was severally accused by aides of Mr Akeredolu of disloyalty to the governor while he held sway but the offences cited by the lawmakers for wanting to remove him from office centre on alleged gross misconduct.

According to the notice served by the House on him, the allegations are: (I) Gross misconduct (II) abuse of office with actions likely to bring down Ondo State Government. (III) Financial recklessness (IV) Publications in print media by your media aides maligning the credibility of the Governor, etc.

Eleven lawmakers signed the notice of allegations which was sent to Mr Aiyedatiwa last week. After the House asked the states chief judge, Olusegun Odusola, to set up the mandatory seven-member panel for his trial for the allegations, the deputy governor obtained a restraining order from the Federal High Court in Abuja against the lawmakers, governor and chief judge of the state.

But the House immediately rejected the order, citing constitutional protection against the interference of the courts in impeachment proceedings.

For the avoidance of doubt, the House is fully conscious of Section 188 (10) of the Constitution which clearly states that No proceedings or determination of the panel or the House of Assembly or any matter relating to such proceedings or determination shall be entertained or questioned in any court, the speaker of the House, Olamide Oladiji, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Akeredolu has not stepped into the state since resuming from his three months-long medical leave, over two weeks ago, but his hands are visible in what is playing out at the state House of Assembly in Akure.

Ironically, his first deputy, Agboola Ajayi, had also faced impeachment proceedings at the House of Assembly. However, Mr Agboola survived the move in July 2020 when the then chief judge of the state, Oluwatoyin Akeredolu, declined the request by lawmakers to set up a panel because the deputy governor had a case in court over the process.

Does Mr Agboolas experience thus offer any hope for his successor, Mr Aiyedatiwa? Or does he stand to suffer the fate of Ali Olanusi, who was removed from the same office by impeachment in 2015? It is noteworthy that the courts later voided the impeachment of Mr Olanisi, although that came long after the expiration of his tenure.

As of the time of writing this report, the chief judge has not stated her position on the issue.

Ondo and gubernatorial rifts

Ondo State appears to be prone to conflict between governors and their deputies. The phenomenon began with the first elected governor of the state, Adekunle Ajasin, and his deputy, Akin Omoboriowo, in the Second Republic.

Their rift eventually led to a tragic post-election conflagration in which many people were killed and properties razed across the state, after the electoral commission declared Mr Omoboriowo as the winner of the 1983 poll. The courts eventually voided Mr Omoboriowos return and declared Mr Ajasin as the winner of the controversial poll.

In the current Fourth Republic, the first reappearance of the phenomenon was under Governor Olusegun Mimiko who was sworn in in 2008 after the courts voided the return of Governor Segun Agagu as the winner of the 2007 governorship election. Mr Mimiko went on to win a second term which he completed in 2016.

Along the line, Mr Mimiko fell out with his deputy, Ali Olanusi, leading to the deputy governors impeachment in 2015 shortly after their party, the PDP, lost the presidential election.

Mr Olanusi had defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) before then. He had not hidden his rift with Mr Mimiko and openly complained against his principal while still in office. Mr Olanusi was eventually removed from office after his indictment by a seven-member panel, headed by a chief magistrate.

Mr Mimiko had strategically delayed the impeachment move until after the state House of Assembly elections, which gave his PDP 21 out of the 26 seats in the House. Mr Olanusi was soon removed from office in May 2015 and replaced with Lasisi Oluboyo, who served out his tenure.

Akeredolu vs Agboola Ajayi

The flu of gubernatorial conflict infected the Akeredolu administration shortly before the end of his first tenure, when Mr Ajayi began to pursue an ambition to displace his boss.

He challenged Mr Akeredolu for nomination as the candidate of the APC. As punishment for his effrontery, the governors camp initiated the impeachment process against him, spearheaded by the then speaker of the House, Bamidele Oleyeloogun.

However, Mr Ajayi fought the process with the support of nine lawmakers who refused to sign the impeachment notice. The states chief judge eventually delivered the coup de grace on the process. The deputy governor remained in office until he voluntarily resigned to contest the governorship election on the platform of the Zenith Labour Party.

Endless tales of disloyalty

Mr Akeredolu won a second term with Mr Aiyedatiwa. He had presented him to the party faithful and the voters with the assurance that his new deputy would not betray him like his predecessor.

This person has been with us since the beginning of this political journey in 2012, Mr Akeredolu said while presenting Mr Aiyedatiwa in 2020. In arriving at this choice, some important factors assisted the leaders of this great party. We have decided to sever ties with mediocrity and treachery.

A candidate with verifiable credentials and pedigree has been chosen to complete the last part of the gubernatorial race.

We may not have chosen a saint and the best but let it not be said that we, either wittingly or otherwise, settle for an avowed hater of human beings and good things, an enemy of his own people and a serial forger. We owe our people the duty of care in this regard.

But the story has changed. History is being repeated just as the election season approaches again.

Mr Aiyedatiwa has been accused of disloyalty and seeking to bring down the government of Mr Akeredolu. The House of Assembly sums up his transgressions as Gross Misconduct. The details are not contained in the notice of impeachment, but feelers from the government offer clues.

One of these is that Mr Aiyedatiwa allegedly procured a N300 million bullet-proof SUV for himself as acting governor from funds set aside for the procurement of fuel subsidy removal palliatives for the people of the state. The chairman of the House Committee on Information, Olatunji Oshati, confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Aiyedatiwa is also alleged to have sought to induce lawmakers to impeach the governor who was then on medical leave in Germany.

But he denies any wrongdoing. In his motion before the State High Court seeking to stop the impeachment proceedings, the deputy governor said he was wrongly and falsely accused.

In the affidavit in support of the originating summons, he accused the lawmakers of embarking on a media trial to scandalise him and incite public opinion against him.

He also accused the House of Assembly of persecuting him without lawful basis in conspiracy with certain persons who are gladiators in the political circles.

Court to the rescue?

Aside from some weak voices coming up to raise the morale of the deputy governor, the courts appear to be his main hope for survival. He has secured an order of the court restraining the House of Assembly. But the lawmakers have ignored the order.

In Mr Ajayis case in 2020, the then chief judge, Mrs Akeredolu, declined to constitute a panel of inquiry to conduct the trial. Mrs Akeredolu gave two reasons for her decision  that the assembly had not completed the process of impeachment as stipulated by the Constitution and that the matter was subjudice, as it had been challenged in court.

It would be recalled that Mr Olanusi had been impeached by the House and removed from office under Governor Mimiko, despite also obtaining a restraining order from the court. However, his impeachment was eventually declared null and void by the courts for not meeting the requirement of fair hearing. But that reprieve came too late to return him to the office.

A serious question

So, can Mr Aiyedatiwa survive this onslaught? This is the question on the lips of political observers. For members of Mr Akeredolus kitchen cabinet, the sack of the deputy governors media aides is an indication that the governor has reached the point of no return on the issue.

Sources close to the ruling party said politics will determine Mr Aiyedatiwas ultimate fate. Those who should speak for him have their political interest and would not want to fall out of favour with the governor and the cabal, a source who does not want to be named, said.

His situation is completely different from Agboolas because the latter had a strong backing from the House of Assembly and at the time he was being wooed by other political parties to run on their platform, so he could do what he wanted.

The current deputy governor has no such advantage. He is alone and he is dealing with chiefly the APC. The opposition will not speak for him, even in the House. The few members of the opposition there will see this as purely an APC affair, so the impeachment is no doubt a done deal.

However, Kunle Adeyemi, an Akure-based political analysts, said the situation has big consequences. To impeach the deputy governor in this present situation is to erode the goodwill left for this administration, he said.

A lot of people had been praying for the governor to recover, and we are still praying right now. He is yet to fully regain himself. Instead of praying and thanking God for mercies and grace to be alive, the governor is finding time to be vindictive. This could further erode the goodwill of the APC in the coming elections.

A few voices have risen up to speak out against the impeachment move. One of them is the Ondo Redemption Front (ORF), a group of professionals in the state.

The group on Monday called on the National Assembly to intervene in the overriding interest of the people of the state and the country at large.

Its chairman, Ayodeji Ologun, said the impeachment move was not about accountability but about vendetta by a class of crass opportunists who have unfettered access to the resources of the state occasioned by the incapacity of the governor.

2024 in view

The coming election is the major reason for the altercations. Election was the reason for the fight between Messrs Mimiko and Olanusi; It was also the basis for the war between the governor and Mr Ajayi.

It is all about the election and the governor is not contesting again, Senior Special Assistant on Special Duties, Doyin Odebowale, captures the mood of the time when he spoke on Channels TV recently.

People want to be governor. It is within their right, but they were distracting us and were recruiting people to be distracting us. No governor will sit down and see that happen.

Impeachment

Messrs Akeredola and Aiyedatiwa have 17 months left of their tenure, having both been sworn in on 24 February 2020. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has already announced 16 November, 2024 as the day for the next governorship election in the state.

The consequences of an impeachment are dire. Those who suffer it labour hard at the courts to upturn the legislative verdict several years after, even when doing so had become ceremonial.

An impeached deputy governor, for instance, will lose their retirement benefits and may not be eligible for election to a public office for a long period of time. The indictment itself lowers the reputation of the affected public officer.

This is why the ongoing attempt to impeach Mr Aiyedatiwa threatens his political future and why he has to fight it with all his might.

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Kota: Thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts, the Women's Reservation Bill, which had been stuck for 20 years, was passed in the Indian Parliament on the first day of the new session as a tribute to women's power. The bill ensures 33% reservation for women in state legislatures and the Lok Sabha. This development has created an atmosphere of happiness and enthusiasm among women across India. The significant presence of women at the Kota State Assembly office during a meeting of women activists today was indicative of this. Kota North MLA Prahlad Gunjal addressed the meeting held at the Kota North office, where women activists were called. He stated that Prime Minister Modi has always been concerned about the safety and protection of women. Thanks to his efforts, the country's female population has finally benefited from reservations that were stuck for years.

Gunjal stated in his address that Prime Minister Modi's decisions have led to women expressing their gratitude. He said that while the government is addressing women's issues, especially cases of harassment and rape, there are ministers who make inappropriate statements about women regularly instead of focusing on women's safety. He mentioned that instead of discussing improvements and women's security, the government's cabinet ministers continue to make inappropriate comments daily. He noted that Rajasthan is ranked number one in cases of increasing rapes, branding Rajasthan as a state for men. Referring to the character assassination of a 16-year-old girl, who had complete faith in the government and ministers, he said that it is an insult to all mothers and sisters. Gunjal stated that the female population of Kota will take action against such ministers in the upcoming 'Matrishakti Sangam' to be held on October 17th.

Gunjal emphasized that the government's repeated inappropriate statements about women's issues have fueled tremendous anger among mothers and sisters. He declared that they will show the Rajasthan government, which is consistently silent on the rising rape cases in the state and allows its cabinet ministers to make derogatory remarks, a lesson. He urged women to participate actively in the forthcoming Matrishakti Sangam, and like the brave Chandibai who took to the streets earlier, they will also contribute to teaching the government and ministers a lesson. He said that the character assassination of a 16-year-old girl who was trusted by millions of parents is an insult to the entire 'Matrishakti' (women power).

Gunjal mentioned that whenever an issue related to women's honor arises, the government tends to respond with derogatory and offensive comments rather than addressing the matter seriously. He said that the derogatory comments have become a part of the minister's nature this time; however, women will treat themselves in the forthcoming 'Matrishakti Sammelan' by reprimanding the government and ministers. He stated that it is the government's attitude that has led to the anger and resentment among women activists. Gunjal said that a large number of women would participate in the Matrishakti Sangam, just like Chandibai did before. They would teach the Rajasthan government, which has allowed a 16-year-old girl to die tragically after being abused, a valuable lesson.

During the meeting held at Kota North BJP office, more than a dozen women Congress activists expressed their dissatisfaction with the minister's statements, left the Congress, and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Those who joined the BJP under the leadership of Prahlad Gunjal, Kota North MLA, included Kantavarma, Gulab Bai from Udiya Basti, and Santosh Bai, who works at the railway station, among others.

The meeting saw a large number of women activists in attendance, including Tanuja Khanna, Kali Bai Nayak, Meenu Barwa, Putra Vadhoo, former MP Oonkar Lal Barwa's daughter, Gulabi Bai Udiya, Santosh Barwa, Kusum Seni, Puja Suman, Pooja Kevat, Megha Gurjar, former councilor Hema Saxena, Madhu Kumawat, Dhapu Mehera, Mamta Mahawar, Sunehlati Krantikari, Vandana Agrawal, Meenakshi Gupta, Maya Sharma, Garima Soni, Hemlata Parihar, Sushila Sharma, Vaishali Jain, Prem Bai, Bardhi Bai, Nidhi Agrawal, Rinki Devi, Ladhi Bai, Geeta Bai, Kalavati, and Neelu Sharma, among others.

More Than a Dozen Women Congress Activists Join BJP in Protest Against Minister's Remarks

During a meeting of women activists held at the Kota North BJP office today, more than a dozen women Congress activists expressed their dissatisfaction with the minister's statements and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Prahlad Gunjal, Kota North MLA, led the women in reprimanding the government and ministers. Gunjal encouraged women to actively participate in the upcoming 'Matrishakti Sangam,' where they will contribute to teaching the government and ministers a lesson.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. US democratic congressman Adam Schiff shamelessly promotes his commitment to supporting the most vulnerable Americans, such as programs for the homeless and drug addicts. However, this is incomplete and potentially misleading information about achievements in the field of targeted budget allocations, an article in Politico says, Trend reports.

Upon careful examination of the issue, it becomes clear that early in his career, he provided generous allocations from the treasury to corporate beneficiaries, including significant sponsors of his political campaigns.

In addition to funds for the homeless and addiction treatment, Schiff also directed budget millions to commercial corporations, all while collecting tens of thousands of dollars for his congressional campaigns from the leaders of these corporations and those associated with them, the article notes.

Among the recipients of Schiff's targeted funding are substantial contributions to defense companies Smiths Detection and Phasebridge Inc., based in his district, among others.

According to the author of the article, Schiff's track record serves as a reminder that, despite positioning himself as a fierce opponent of Trump, fighting at the forefront for democracy, the congressman spent years adhering to the two-party Washington traditions of quiet behind-the-scenes compromises.

Shiff, a California democratic congressman, is the vice-chairman of the Armenian Caucasian faction. He was the head of this committee in 2019-2022 and is charged with abuse of office against the US interests.

He implemented a persistent policy aimed at advancing Armenian concerns. As an ex-officio member of the Appropriations Subcommittee, he also championed the recognition of the so-called "genocide" of Armenians and actively supported efforts related to the unrecognized "artsakh".
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330 devotees embarked on a historic Guru Darshan Yatra from Udaipur to Neemuch-Ratlam, returning to Udaipur. On September 23, at 5 AM, a convoy of seven buses carrying 330 pilgrims departed from Udaipur and arrived in Neemuch. There, they had the privilege of attending the enlightening discourse by Acharya Shri Ramesh and other revered speakers.

During the discourse, Acharya Ramesh inspired the Udaipur pilgrims by calling upon them to undertake a rigorous oil-free fasting (Telya Tap) as a part of the ongoing tapasya (austerities) in Neemuch. Without delay, 51 members from Udaipur pledged to observe this fasting during the Chaturmas (four-month period of spiritual observance).

It is worth noting that under the divine presence of Acharya Shri Ramesh, more than 75 individuals in Neemuch successfully completed an extended period of fasting and spiritual observance.

Following the discourse, Acharya Ramesh granted a special audience to the Udaipur group, where they requested the presence of Chaturmas Chaturvidh Sangh (a group of monks observing four different spiritual practices during Chaturmas) in Neemuch every year.

In the afternoon, at 3:30 PM, the devotees had the opportunity to receive blessings and attend the Mangalik Shravan (auspicious listening) session with Acharya Shri Ramesh. They filled the entire premises with resounding chants and jubilation.

As the pilgrims prepared to depart for Ratlam after their evening meal, they received wonderful news. Mumukshu Sister Tamanna Ji, whose Jain initiation ceremony is scheduled for the upcoming month, had arrived in Neemuch. The entire Udaipur pilgrim contingent warmly welcomed Mumukshu Sister Tamanna Ji. This special occasion was graced by the presence of Aditya Muni Ji, the newly appointed National President of the Sadhumargi Sangh, who congratulated the Udaipur Youth Sangh on this remarkable event.

On September 24, the second day of the journey, all pilgrims gathered in an orderly fashion and set off to visit the revered saints and acharyas, including Aditya Muni Ji, Masa Ji, and others, at the discourse venue.

Walking approximately 1-1.50 kilometers together with morning chants of "Gaganbhed Jai Jaikaar," the devotees reached Samata Bhavan. There, Masa Ji conducted the Mangalik Shravan.

During this time, the Udaipur Samata Sangh requested Chaturmas for the year 2024 from Shri Aditya Muni Ji, even though the granting of Chaturmas and its arrangements lie in the hands of Acharya Shri himself. The fervent appeal of the Udaipur Sangh showcased their deep-seated devotion.

Following the discourse, Aditya Muni Ji, Masa Ji, and other saints spent time with the Udaipur Samata Sangh. This gave everyone an opportunity to recall the unforgettable moments of the Ram Mahotsav in Udaipur.

Masa Ji praised the dedication to renunciation, austerity, religion, and meditation that he witnessed in Udaipur. The pilgrims also had the chance to seek blessings and have darshan of the revered Mahasatis, Masa Ji, and other dignitaries during their visit to Ratlam.

At 2 PM, all the pilgrims assembled once more at Samata Bhavan, where they discussed various activities of the Udaipur Youth Sangh, received guidance on religious matters, and attended Mangalik Shravan.

Finally, after the evening meal, the 330 devotees departed for Udaipur in seven buses.

Throughout the journey, the hospitality in Neemuch and Ratlam was exceptional, ensuring that all pilgrims were well taken care of in terms of accommodation and meals.

The journey was a resounding success, thanks to the punctuality, presence, and cooperation of all the pilgrims. Notably, the enthusiasm, camaraderie, and dedication exhibited by 20-25 young members during the journey were praiseworthy.

The purpose of this journey was fulfilled, leaving behind priceless memories for all the devotees and ensuring its place as an unforgettable event for years to come.

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Louis Vuitton announces its presence on Discord, the video and text communication platform, marking a new milestone in the Maisons ongoing commitment to innovate in the digital sphere

This presence opens up new horizons for the Maison in the realm of social media. By establishing itself on Discord, Louis Vuitton aims to provide its followers with an immersive and interactive experience, pushing the boundaries of innovation and digital craftsmanship.

The Louis Vuitton server will serve as a constant showcase of the evolving expertise of the Maison. Members of this community will Learn more about Louis Vuitton innovation savoir-faire and have the opportunity to exchange their views on topics related to innovation.

The Louis Vuitton server on Discord will transcend the spirit of travel that lies at the heart of the Maison, envisioning new digital horizons. Its goal is to forge an increasingly strong connection between Louis Vuitton and its online communities, while also offering privileged visibility to the latest creations and behind-the-scenes insights.

Furthermore, Louis Vuitton announces a new step for its Web3 VIA journey, with the creation of a private channel dedicated to the VIA community. This channel will enable members to connect with the Maison, participate in the development of new ideas, and contribute to this unique experience.

Louis Vuitton invites all fashion, innovation, and digital craftsmanship enthusiasts to join this extraordinary journey by visiting their Discord server at: https://discord.com/invite/louisvuitton

Follow the adventure on social media using the hashtags #LouisVuitton and #LouisVuittonVIA.
2024 honorees described as 'the advisors you want to send into battle'

HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hicks Thomas LLP is pleased to announce that Lawdragon has named 12 firm partners to its list of 500 Leading Litigators in America, a listing of the country's top legal talent.

In its second year, the Leading Litigators listing recognizes "the advisors you want to send into battle." Honorees represent corporations and other entities in cases involving antitrust, financial and securities litigation, intellectual property, commercial, real estate, M&A and chancery, cybersecurity and data privacy, and white collar and investigations.

Hicks Thomas partners John Thomas, Robin Harrison, Paul Mitchell, Jay Old, Allen Rustay, Courtney Ervin, John Deis, Eric Grant, Gregg Laswell, Stewart Hoffer, Stephen Barrick, and Stephen Loftin.

Hicks Thomas partners honored by Lawdragon for their commercial litigation work include:

Mr. Grant has also been recognized for excellence in intellectual property litigation.

"This listing is special in that it goes to the heart of what we do  try cases," said Hicks Thomas partner John B. Thomas. "It is nice to see so many of our firm partners recognized for the hard work they put in for our clients each and every day."

Lawdragon honorees are selected based on the publication's journalistic research, an open nomination process and a rigorous vetting process from a team with decades of experience in legal reporting and analysis. View the complete Lawdragon list of 500 Leading Litigators in America here.

Founded in 1997, Texas-based Hicks Thomas LLP is a premier litigation firm representing plaintiffs and defendants across the nation. With offices in Houston, Austin, Beaumont, Amarillo, and Sacramento, Calif., the firm provides in-depth experience in cases involving oil and gas, environmental, complex commercial, toxic tort, construction, products liability, corporate governance, securities, banking, insurance coverage, transportation, trade secrets and business litigation. Visit the firm at http://www.hicks-thomas.com.

Media Contact:

April Arias

800-559-4534

[email protected]

SOURCE Hicks Thomas LLP
Aircapture's DAC units will initially provide up to 500 tons of CO 2 per year for mineralization by 44.01 with plans to increase after initial pilot testing

per year for mineralization by 44.01 with plans to increase after initial pilot testing This will be the world's largest peridotite mineralization project and a significant scale up in the deployment of 44.01 and Aircapture's technologies

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 44.01, a developer of innovative carbon mineralization technologies, and Aircapture, a leading Direct Air Capture technology company, have joined forces on a Direct Air Capture (DAC) + Mineralization project in Oman. The project, which will begin operations in Oman's Hajar mountains in late 2024, significantly scales up the use of peridotite mineralization technology to eliminate atmospheric CO 2 .

Aircapture will provide modular DAC units capable of delivering up to 500 tons of high-grade liquid CO 2 per year, with plans to increase deployment significantly after initial pilot testing.

44.01 will mineralize the captured atmospheric CO 2 in peridotite using their award-winning technology. Peridotite, an ultramafic rock found in abundance across the world, mineralizes CO 2 naturally in a process that usually takes decades. 44.01's technology accelerates this process, offering a safe, permanent, and scalable way of eliminating CO 2 in less than a year. The project will take place at a site in Oman where 44.01 has already completed successful pilots, and will also see 44.01 mineralize thousands of tons of CO 2 from industrial and biogenic sources.

"The capture and removal of atmospheric CO 2 is critical to avoid the existential threat of climate change and reach global net zero goals," said Matt Atwood, Founder and CEO of Aircapture. "Aircapture's Direct Air Capture process combined with 44.01's mineralization capabilities enable us to demonstrate permanent CO 2 removal that, at scale, could transform the climate crisis."

Talal Hasan, Founder and CEO of 44.01, said, "We see Direct Air Capture companies as critical partners as we work to provide the highest quality, most permanent form of carbon removal. We are pleased to be working with Aircapture to demonstrate the huge potential DAC + Mineralization offers to eliminate CO 2 around the world."

About 44.01

44.01 eliminates CO 2 by turning it into rock. The company's pioneering technology accelerates the natural process of CO 2 mineralization to remove captured CO 2 permanently in less than twelve months. 44.01 takes CO 2 captured directly from the air, or from hard-to-abate industrial processes, helping decarbonize vital industries and ultimately return the atmosphere to sustainable levels of CO 2 . 44.01 began operations in Oman in 2020 and entered the UAE in 2023. Peridotite is also found in the USA, Europe, Africa, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. Once deployed at scale, 44.01's technology has the potential to eliminate billions of tons of CO 2 internationally. The process is safe, scalable and lasts forever.

About Aircapture

Based in Berkeley, CA, Aircapture supplies commercial and industrial customers with clean CO 2 captured from the atmosphere and point-source emissions. Their modular direct air capture (DAC) technology allows for the direct, on-site application into customers' production processes and for large-scale sequestration. Aircapture, in partnership, has been awarded over $30 million in federal grants for their pioneering CO 2 sequestration to help avert the existential threat of climate change and create decarbonized products from atmospheric CO 2 . Founded in 2019, Aircapture is a growing, dynamic team of engineers, chemists, and entrepreneurs passionate about creating and scaling a circular carbon economy.

SOURCE Aircapture
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mage Data, the leading data security and privacy solutions provider has announced the addition of one of the world's leading technology conglomerates as a new customer.

The Mage Data Security Platform is expected to have a transformative impact on the customer's data handling and management strategies. Key benefits include:

Privacy Regulation Compliance: Mage Data's cutting-edge solutions will help in ensuring compliance with global data protection laws and safeguarding sensitive customer data.

Mage Data's cutting-edge solutions will help in ensuring compliance with global data protection laws and safeguarding sensitive customer data. Cost Savings through Outsourcing: By enabling the secure transfer of sensitive data across regions, the organization can realize significant cost savings by allocating resources more strategically across their businesses worldwide.

By enabling the secure transfer of sensitive data across regions, the organization can realize significant cost savings by allocating resources more strategically across their businesses worldwide. Empowered Testing and Support Teams: The organization's testing and support teams will have access to realistic and anonymized data sets that replicate real production data, enabling them to conduct rigorous testing and support operations without the risk of exposing sensitive data, enhancing the overall quality and security of their services.

"We are honored to onboard such a prestigious organization as a customer and support their diverse portfolio of businesses in navigating the complex landscape of data security and privacy" said Ashok Krishnarao, VP of Business Development at Mage Data. "With our world-class data security and privacy solutions, we are confident in our ability to not only help them meet regulatory requirements but also optimize operational efficiency."

"We are excited to continue expanding our growing family of satisfied customers with the addition of this reputable organization" said Anil Bhat, Senior VP of Engineering and Customer Success at Mage Data. "We look forward to a successful partnership by delivering exceptional service and providing the necessary tools to help meet their requirements, enabling continued focus on innovation and growth while ensuring regulatory compliance."

About Mage:

Mage is the leading solutions provider for data security and data privacy software for global enterprises. Built upon a patented and award-winning solution, the Mage platform enables organizations to stay on top of privacy regulations while ensuring security and privacy of data. Top Swiss Banks, Fortune 10 organizations, Ivy League Universities, and Industry Leaders in the financial and healthcare businesses protect their sensitive data with the Mage platform for Data Privacy and Security. Deploying state-of-the-art privacy enhancing technologies for securing data, Mage delivers robust data security while ensuring privacy of individuals.

Visit www.magedata.ai to explore the brand's new website and to check out the company's solutions.

SOURCE Mage Data
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ABC Fine Wine & Spirits (ABC), Florida's largest family-owned and operated wine and spirits retailer, is thrilled to announce the grand opening of its newest store in the flourishing western region of Palm Beach County, marking the second location in Boynton Beach. The store officially opens Thursday, September 28, 2023, and will be commemorated with a big shopping spree giveaway to celebrate the occasion. The store is located at 8601 Boynton Beach Blvd., just west of the Florida Turnpike.

Grand Opening Celebration: On Saturday, September 30, ABC will host a grand opening celebration featuring a complimentary wine tasting from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Attendees will also have a chance to enter an exclusive raffle to win a $250 shopping spree that includes assistance from an ABC wine and spirits expert who will guide the winner in handpicking selections tailored to their tastes.

"We're excited to establish a stronger presence in Boynton Beach, a community that has supported us for years," stated Regional Vice President Mike McBride. "Our newest store will uphold the exceptional service our guests recognize across the state, but with an even broader selection. We believe both our loyal customers and newcomers will be delighted by this much-anticipated location. It's truly a privilege to serve this community."

This new 11,165-square-foot store features wine, spirits and beer experts, thousands of popular brands, exclusive labels from ABC's Sourced & Certified Collection, a walk-in humidor, and a gourmet section. Guests who are new to ABC can sign up for ABC Access Rewards loyalty benefits like $10 off every $100 wine purchase, $5 coupons, free bottles, and Vault access for hard-to-find bottles like Pappy Van Winkle, Blanton's and more.

ABC has been serving Florida residents and visitors since 1936 and offers in-store services from sampling areas, a concierge service for large events, and online shopping with curbside pickup through abcfws.com. ABC has 126 locations in Florida, which typically carry more than 10,000 different wines, spirits, beers, cigars and accessories. Each location is staffed with a knowledgeable, passionate team to help guests find what they are looking for and discover new favorites.

Store Hours of Operation:

Monday to Thursday: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Friday to Saturday: 9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Sunday: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Learn more about ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, by visiting abcfws .com . Keep up with ABC on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.

Media Contact:

Mary Lytle

Sr. Manager of Digital Advertising & Content

[email protected]

SOURCE ABC Fine Wine & Spirits
MUMBAI, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) awarded 9 years contract to ACES India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Communications and Electronics Systems Company (ACES) Saudi Arabia for providing Mobile Infrastructure Services including 4G and 5G services.

From Left to Right: Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR) & Dr. Akram Aburas - CEO of ACES LoA Ceremony held at MMRC office for award of Mumbai Metro Line -3 project to ACES India Pvt. Ltd Fourth from left: Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR) and MMRC team On his Right: Swetal Kanwalu  DGM, Ms. Farha Irani  AGM, Swapnil Labde, Deputy Town Planner) Fifth from Left: Dr. Akram Aburas - CEO - ACES, Mohammed N. Mazher  MD - ACES India and ACES team on his Left

ACES will equip India's longest underground metro line with State of Art mobile telecom infrastructure with 4G and 5G technologies and will cover the entire stretch of 33.5 Kilometers line, which includes 27 stations, platforms, concours, and tunnels. Thus, providing Metro's 1.6 million passengers per day with seamless coverage and enhance mobile data speeds.

Dr. Akram Aburas, CEO of ACES expressed his pride association with this prestigious project and explained ACES future vision as International Neutral Digital Infrastructure Company. He also confirmed that the contract aims to create a modern and intelligent environment for Metro's passengers, travelers and its employees a seamless highspeed mobile service experience.

MMRC Management expressed happiness in partnering with ACES, which aims to equip its longest underground Metro Line-3 with a state of art 4G and 5G Mobile Infrastructure for an exclusive period of 9 years and will neutrally cater 600 million Passengers annually.

The award process was led by Ms. Ashwini Bhide - Managing Director, Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR), Mr. Swetal D. Kanwalu - Deputy General Manager (Town Planning) and Ms. Farha Irani - Assistant General Manager (Town Planning) and others from MMRC.

Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR) expressed happiness for the annual premium offered by ACES being the highest in the country. This endeavor will strongly support Metro Line-3 operations and enhance user experience.

The LoA was received on 26-September-2023 by Dr. Akram Aburas - CEO of ACES, Mr. Mohammed N. Mazher - Managing Director of ACES India Pvt. Ltd., along with other management team members from ACES.

ACES India Private Limited based in India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Company ACES. ACES is one of the leading International Digital Infrastructure company in Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. Several important projects have already been implemented, most notably the expansion of the Holy-Mosque in Makkah, Riyadh Metro, Jeddah Airport, Riyadh Airport, MASAR and international projects like Bangalore Airport, Surat Diamond Bourse, Taj Hotel and others. https://www.aces-co.com/

Mumbai Metro Line - 3 (MML - 3) is one of such key projects to improve the transportation scenario in the financial capital of India i.e. Mumbai. MML-3 project - a 33.5 km. long corridor running along Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ, envisages to decongest the traffic situation in Greater Mumbai. Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) is the nodal agency responsible for the implementation of Mumbai Metro Line3 (MML-3) project. It has been constituted as a JV of the Govt. of India (GoI) and the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) on 50:50 sharing basis. https://mmrcl.com/

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223194/Director_and_CEO_of_ACES.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223196/LoA_Ceremony_held_at_MMRC_office.jpg

SOURCE ACES
LOS ANGELES and SOMERVILLE, Ma., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aitia, the leader in the development and application of Causal AI and Digital Twins to discover and develop new drugs, today announced a collaboration with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), a leading nonprofit in the fight against pancreatic cancer. This strategic collaboration marks a significant milestone for Aitia, reinforcing its commitment to expanding its impact and accelerating the discovery and development of new drugs in pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer, responsible for over 466,003 global deaths in 2020 according to Global Cancer Statistics, is showing promising progress. The American Cancer Society's (ACS) Cancer Facts & Figures 2023 report reveals an all-time high five-year survival rate of 12% for pancreatic cancer. While this is a step in the right direction, it underscores that more efforts are needed in the fight against this challenging disease.

Utilizing PanCAN's health data platform, SPARK, Aitia will integrate PanCAN de-identified human multi-omic data to create Gemini Digital Twins, that will serve a wide range of applications, including the discovery of novel targets and biomarkers, simulation of drug candidates, identification of ideal patient subpopulations for clinical trials, and the determination of optimal drug combinations. PanCAN's SPARK enables qualified researchers to learn from and build on each other's discoveries through secure and open access to de-identified patient data, breaking down the traditional barriers to accelerating research into better treatments for pancreatic cancer and, ultimately, improving survival.

"Unraveling the complex genetic and molecular circuitry of Pancreatic Cancer is critical to the discovery of the next generation of drugs that can significantly increase the survival rate of patients," said Colin Hill, CEO and co-founder of Aitia. "We believe our Gemini Digital Twins, coupled with PanCAN's robust de-identified human multi-omic data, stand to increase efficacy in early research, ultimately leading to the discovery and development of breakthrough drugs. Collaborating with PanCAN is a pivotal milestone in our mission, as we envision reshaping the panorama of pancreatic cancer treatment by harnessing the potential of multi-omic patient data, Causal AI and Digital Twins".

"PanCAN is proud to join forces with Aitia in our shared mission to accelerate research against this devastating disease," said Julie M. Fleshman, President and CEO at PanCAN. "Our collaboration with Aitia opens new doors to cutting-edge research and development, offering hope to pancreatic cancer patients and their families. Together, we are working towards a future where effective treatments are within reach for everyone affected by this challenging disease."

About Aitia

Aitia is the leader in the development and application of Causal AI and Digital Twins to discover the next generation of breakthrough drugs in neurodegenerative disorders, oncology, and immunology. By leveraging the convergence of multi-omic patient data, high-performance computing, and causal learning and AI, Aitia is revealing the hidden biological mechanisms of disease to create Digital Twins. Gemini Digital Twins are being used today to discover novel therapies and accelerate R&D in Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Huntington's Disease, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, and pancreatic cancer, with several more in development. Aitia's partners include six of the top ten pharmaceutical companies, leading academic research and medical centers, medical societies, leading multi-omic data companies, and patient advocacy groups globally.

For more information, please visit www.aitiabio.com

Follow us on social media: LinkedIn, Twitter

About the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network

The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) leads the way in accelerating critical progress for pancreatic cancer patients. PanCAN takes bold action by funding life-saving research, providing personalized patient services and creating a community of supporters and volunteers who will stop at nothing to create a world in which all pancreatic cancer patients will thrive. For 18 years in a row, PanCAN has earned a Four-Star Rating from Charity Navigator  the highest rating an organization can receive. This rating designates PanCAN as an official "Give with Confidence" charity, indicating strong financial health, ongoing accountability, and transparency.

Media Contacts

Aitia Media Contact:

Zena Sfeir

Vice President, Marketing

+1-617-374-2300

[email protected]

PanCAN Media Contact:

Jillian Scholten

Senior Manager, Public Relations

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network

310-706-3360

[email protected]

SOURCE Aitia
Under Federal and State Law, Incarcerated People Cannot Legally Consent to Sex With Prison Guards

Los Angeles Office of Slater Slater Schulman LLP Represents the Largest Number of Prison Abuse Survivors in California, With Approximately 430 State and 90 Federal Prison Clients

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The State of California ("The State") is being named in a civil action filed this week alleging that at least 29 individuals were sexually assaulted by the same correctional officer  Israel Trevino, Jr.  at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla ("Chowchilla") while in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, by attorneys at Slater Slater Schulman LLP, a national law firm focused on representing survivors of catastrophic and traumatic events. Slater Slater Schulman attorneys currently represent more than 400 sexual abuse and assault survivors who were formerly incarcerated at Chowchilla, 20 survivors who were incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Chino, and 10 women survivors who were incarcerated at Valley State Prison. These cases are being brought in a Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding No. 5276 in Sacramento County.

Separately, the United States of America Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") and State of California are being named in a series of civil actions collectively alleging that inmates were sexually assaulted while in the custody of the BOP while housed at the Federal Correctional Institution Dublin ("FCI Dublin"). To date, 10 complaints have been filed by Slater Slater Schulman LLP under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which was enacted in 2003 to establish national standards for preventing and responding to sexual abuse of federal inmates. In total, at least 20 different perpetrators have been identified by at least 92 former female detainees at FCI Dublin who are represented by Slater Slater Schulman LLP.

"People who are incarcerated cannot legally consent to sex," said Adam Slater, Founding and Managing Partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP. "That's because the detainee-guard relationship is one of the most severe power imbalances that exists today. Incarcerated people are dependent upon correctional staff for everything  their safety, privileges, quality of life, contact with the outside world, and even their eventual liberty. Risking everything, these brave women have stepped forward to share their harrowing experiences while in the custody of notorious state and federal prisons. No individual, irrespective of their status or circumstances, should ever endure such trauma, especially within the walls of an institution that should ensure their safety and prioritize their rehabilitation."

As detailed in the Chowchilla complaint, the State of California failed to prevent a disturbing pattern of abuse and neglect against women detainees by Israel Trevino, Jr., a longtime correctional officer. Trevino, who died in 2021, used his position to gain access to at least 29 plaintiffs and many others, and sexually abused and assaulted them in numerous ways. In instances detailed in the complaint, Trevino would even threaten to extend a victim's period of incarceration if they reported the abuse. The survivors' accounts taken together suggest a deeply rooted culture of exploitation and abuse of power, emphasizing the need for urgent reforms to protect inmates' rights and well-being.

In 2005, California's State Assembly passed AB 550, known as the "Sexual Abuse in Detention Elimination Act." The bill's purpose is to protect all inmates and wards from sexual abuse while held in institutions operated by the CA Departments of Corrections and Youth Authority, to make the prevention of sexual abuse in detention a top priority in all state detention institutions, and to ensure that the Departments of Corrections and Youth Authority develop and implement protocols and procedures designed to effectively respond to sexual abuse in detention while protecting the safety of victims.

Separately, the BOP lawsuits identify FCI Dublin, a low-security federal correctional institution for women, as a place of rampant sexual abuse. The sexual assaults detailed in the complaints occurred on numerous occasions between approximately 2019 and 2022. As detailed in the complaints, the fact that the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons failed to respond to an environment of rampant and unchecked sexual assault and harassment of incarcerated women by correctional staff has been recognized and documented throughout state and federal corrections systems.

U.S. Congress enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act ("PREA") in 2003, to establish national standards for preventing sexual abuse of federal inmates and responding to sexual abuse of federal inmates. The United States Department of Justice finalized these mandated standards in May 2021. PREA requires the BOP to have a strict "written policy mandating zero tolerance toward all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment outlining approach to preventing, detecting, and responding to such conduct," which the BOP has adopted. PREA, adopted by DOJ and binding on BOP, require periodic PREA audits of all federal correctional facilities to ensure compliance.

In December, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, released a detailed report entitled "Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates in Federal Prisons." The report concluded that between 2012 and 2022, there were 5,415 cases of reported inmate sexual abuse by BOP employees, 586 of which were substantiated. The report found that FCI Dublin failed to detect the culture of BOP employees sexually abusing female detainees at those facilities before, during, and after abuse occurred. The Senate subcommittee also found that BOP does not systematically analyze complaint data to detect potentially problematic employees or institutions.

Survivors of sexual abuse need to understand that the sexual abuse was not their fault. Many survivors are forced to live with a lifetime of shame, embarrassment, and severe emotional distress and mental pain and suffering. Help is available.

NOTE: Individuals seeking to be linked to resources for sexual assault survivors can call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. The National Sexual Assault Hotline operated by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) provides confidential support from trained staff members and can assist with finding local healthcare resources, help talk through what happened, and offer referrals for long-term support.

About Slater Slater Schulman LLP

Slater Slater Schulman LLP is a leading, full-service law firm with decades of experience representing survivors of traumatic and catastrophic events. Our dedicated attorneys are committed to ensuring the best results for our clients through persistence and compassionate representation. With 10 offices in 9 states, Slater Slater Schulman has achieved successful resolutions in some of the most challenging cases in the nation. We have considerable experience with complex, historical sexual abuse cases involving massive institutions, including academic, religious, and youth organizations. Our firm also represents clients in litigation involving pharmaceutical drugs, product liability, environmental law, employment and labor law, medical malpractice, and personal injury, and has proudly represented thousands of World Trade Center survivors. Learn more at sssfirm.com.

Media Contact:

Joan Vollero & Michael Milazzo / ICR, inc.

[email protected]

SOURCE Slater Slater Schulman LLP
Instrument watch designer, Bell & Ross, adapts the most iconic dial yet of an aeroplane cockpit with the new BR 03 Gyrocompass. A highly evocative timepiece for lovers of aeronautics

The fighter plane silhouette in the centre of the black dial leaves no room for doubt. With the new limited-edition BR 03 Gyrocompass, Bell & Ross pays tribute to one of its favourite worlds: aeronautics. The appearance of the watch is faithful to the kind of technical design used for a pilots dial at the helm of an aircraft, adopting the graphic codes for what is known to professionals as a course indicator. This guiding element on the dashboard is essential: at a single glance, the representation of an aircraft in the sky tells pilots their direction of travel, allowing the position to be realigned on a magnetic compass if necessary. By getting closer to the feeling on board a cockpit, Bell & Ross is staying on course.

The BR 03 family is a central pillar in the Bell & Ross collections. Since launching in 2006, the concept has showcased the watchmaking Maisons full capability: taking the indicators of an aircraft dashboard and reinterpreting them for the wrist. Reinvented this year in new proportions, the iconic rounded square shape of the BR 03 range now comes in a 41mm case. Also available in this new size, the BR 03 Gyrocompass has a black ceramic case just 10.6 mm thick and waterproof to 100 metres. Completing the iconic Flight Instruments collection launched in 2010, the watchs strong personality demonstrates its full functionality, elegantly transposing an aeronautical navigation tool into a timepiece design. A robust finish inspired by aeronautical equipment, the black rubber strap fastens with a steel pin buckle with black PVD coating, underlining the professional dimension of the limited series watch of 999 pieces.

BR 03 Gyrocompass  Bell & Ross

Increased readability by day and night

The display of the new BR 03 Gyrocompass has been designed to offer perfect practical readability in all circumstances, day, or night. The fighter plane silhouette draws attention. The tip of the plane's nose aligns with the indices so that the wearer can tell the time with precision. Its a solution first visited by Bell & Ross in 2013. By externalising the numerical inscriptions on the flange, checking the time becomes a seamless experience. Alongside the hour hand, the large minute hand benefits from a generous white arrow evoking a pointer. Slim and ultra precise, the central second hand creates an interesting kinetic visual effect through its large counterweight that permanently animates the dial, like a plane in flight. Discreet yet efficient, the date is displayed in a round window placed between 4 and 5 o'clock, making it easy to be present when needed, without disrupting the ability to tell the time instantly in the heat of the action.

Ensuring its functionality in the dark, the watch features a sophisticated luminescent treatment: the cardinal points and their triangular indices are coated with Super-LumiNova with a green emission colour, while the time indications are highlighted by an immediately recognisable blue emission. Meanwhile, the aircraft silhouette still stands out in a unique yellow tint with green emissions.

BR 03 Gyrocompass  Bell & Ross

A celebration of mechanical excellence

Beyond the power of the display, the watch pays homage to the complex mechanical design of the aeronautical gyrocompass. For pilots, its crucial to know their precise position. For pilots, it is crucial that they are aware of their precise location  for this reason, engineers have developed the Gyrocompass, a visually simple yet technically complex system, with a mechanism that transfers the position of the plane in flight into a vertical graphic representation on the dial. The BR 03 GYROCOMPASS does not feature a gyrocompass, but a watch movement with proven reliability: the BR-CAL.302 self-winding calibre. Beating at a frequency of 28,800 vph (4Hz), it has a 54-hour power reserve. Its the perfect watch for professional use, whether in flight or on land.

Original and fun, the BR 03 Gyrocompass completes the collection of concept watches directly linked to instruments. With its unique display, the BR 03 is aimed at design and aviation enthusiasts.
TOKYO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund announced today an investment of approximately 907 million yen (US$6.2 million1) for the development of a new prophylactic vaccine against malaria and a new anti-malarial drug and approximately 273 million yen (US$1.8 million1) for multiple product development projects against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), totaling approximately 1.18 billion yen (US$8.0 million1).2

Malaria is an infectious parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitos that affects approximately 250 million people annually and was responsible for approximately 620,000 deaths in 2021.3 NTDs are a group of 20 preventable and treatable diseases that affect more than 1.6 billion people4 worldwide, particularly communities in low-income countries. Despite the need for diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, NTDs are under-researched, under-treated and under-funded. The GHIT Fund invests in new product development with the aim of contributing to global health through Japanese technology and innovation to address these neglected infectious diseases.

Next-generation malaria vaccine in pre-clinical stage by Ehime University, Sumitomo Pharma, EVI and iBET

The GHIT Fund will invest approximately 573 million yen (US$3.9 million1) for the development of a new asexual-blood stage malaria vaccine by Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd., Ehime University (Japan), European Vaccine Initiative e.V. (EVI e.V.), and a Portuguese non-profit research institution, Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnologica (iBET). Given the modest and short-term efficacy of the most advanced malaria vaccine, promotion of this project will lead to the development of a more effective next-generation vaccine.

The GHIT Fund will also invest approximately 334 million yen (US$2.3 million1) for the anti-malarial drug project by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and University of Georgia (UGA) with the aim of delivering a preclinical candidate with a novel mode of action.

In addition, as part of the product development projects toward NTDs, GHIT has decided to invest approximately 150 million yen (US$1.0 million1) for a leprosy vaccine project at a clinical trial stage by Sasakawa Health Foundation, American Leprosy Missions, Inc., and Oswaldo Cruz Institute (IOC/Fiocruz) and approximately 55 million yen (US$0.3 million1) and 66 million yen (US$0.4 million1), respectively, in a development of diagnostics for schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis by a partnership including Medical & Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd., and an American non-profit company, Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases (DDTD).

Dr. Osamu Kunii, CEO of the GHIT Fund, said "We are very pleased to invest in new product development towards malaria and NTDs with strong leadership from Japan and collaboration with our global partners. With the engagement of new partners, we aim to accelerate the product development in the GHIT 3.0 strategy and deliver the new products on the ground as soon as possible."

As of September 27, 2023, there are 47 ongoing projects, including 19 discovery, 17 preclinical and 11 clinical trials5 in the GHIT Fund's portfolio. The total amount of investments since 2013 is 30.2 billion yen (US$207 million).

1 USD1 = JPY146.20, the approximate exchange rate on August 31, 2023.

2 These awarded projects were selected and approved as new investments from among proposals to RFP2023-001 for the Product Development Platform, which was open for applications from November 2022 to July 2023.

3 WHO (World Health Organization): https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

4 Reference: World Health Organization (WHO) https://www.who.int/health-topics/neglected-tropical-diseases

5 This number includes the projects at registration phase.

The GHIT Fund is a Japan-based international public-private partnership (PPP) fund that was formed between the Government of Japan, multiple pharmaceutical companies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The GHIT Fund invests in and manages an R&D portfolio of development partnerships aimed at addressing neglected diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases, which afflict the world's vulnerable and underserved populations. In collaboration with global partners, the GHIT Fund mobilizes Japanese industry, academia, and research institutes to create new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases.

https://www.ghitfund.org/en

Appendix 1. Project Details

G2021-208

Project Title Towards the clinical development of the new asexual blood-stage malaria vaccine candidate PfRipr5 (PfRipr5-PD) Collaboration Partners 1. Ehime University (Ehime)

2. Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd. (Sumitomo Pharma) 3. European Vaccine Initiative e.V. (EVI e.V.) 4. Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnologica (iBET) Disease Malaria Intervention Vaccine Stage Pre-Clinical Development Awarded Amount 572,951,478 (US$3.9 million) Status Continued project Summary [Project objective] This project will build on the established successful collaboration between the partners to further advance the development of the PfRipr5 malaria vaccine candidate. The main objectives are to: 1. Establish a process for PfRipr5 production compliant with current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) 2. Produce PfRipr5 for safety-toxicology study according to cGMP 3. Perform a safety-toxicology study to evaluate PfRipr5 formulated with the SA-1 adjuvant 4. Prepare the dossier for Phase I/IIa clinical trial [Project design] The project workplan has been structured according to the four research objectives defined above. In objective 1, the production and purification processes of PfRipr5 will be fine-tuned using the optimal expression system identified in the previous project (T2018-151) funded by the GHIT Fund. In objective 2, the established manufacturing process will be transferred to the selected CDMO, where PfRipr5 will be produced in accordance with cGMP. PfRipr5 will be formulated with SA-1 and further evaluated in a pre-clinical GLP safety-toxicology study (objective 3). Finally, under objective 4, the clinical trial documentation will be prepared for subsequent ethical and regulatory approval to conduct a Phase I/IIa clinical trial. Project Detail https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfoliodetail/detail/210/en

G2023-104

Project Title Development of Enzyme Inhibitors as a SERCAP for Relapsing Malaria Collaboration Partners 1. Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC) 2. Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) 3. University of Georgia (UGA) Disease Malaria Intervention Drug Stage Lead Optimization Awarded Amount 334,238,778 (US$2.3 million) Status Continued project Summary [Project objective] The ultimate objective of the project will be to deliver a preclinical candidate, with a novel mode of action, with the potential for single dose treatment and/or prophylaxis of malaria. The 2-year project will aim to identify 1-3 Late Lead compounds, as defined by MMV's progression criteria, within 18 months and then to profile them in the subsequent 6 months to select a compound which meets MMV's late lead criteria suitable to progress into preclinical candidate profiling. As an additional objective, the project will endeavor to confirm the proposed mode of action against P. vivax hypnozoites. The project will also assess the potential of the late lead(s) to be developed as a SERCAP for relapsing malaria, which do not cause hemolysis, and thus not requiring G6PD testing. [Project design] A multi-disciplinary drug discovery approach will be used by the project, utilizing the inputs and diverse skills and experiences of medicinal chemists, molecular modelers, parasitologists, pharmacokineticists, toxicologists, formulation and scale-up chemistry. Starting with the identified Lead Series, rational and systematic modifications of the leading compounds will be undertaken to further improve their pharmacological, physicochemical, pharmacokinetic and toxicological properties, based on state-of-the-art capabilities and data generated at MMV, MTPC, UGA and our partners. As the putative target of these molecules is an enzyme that is essential to the growth of the malaria parasite, and structural information is available from analogous bacterial proteins, a structure-based drug design (SBDD) approach will be applied, supported at MTPC. This will provide the opportunity to rapidly and rationally design compounds with a higher likelihood of inhibiting the enzyme potently and selectively and achieving the project goals. Project Detail https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfoliodetail/detail/211/en

G2023-110

Project Title A Highly Sensitive and Specific Serological Rapid Diagnostic Test to Support WHO's Schistosomiasis Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Programs Collaboration Partners 1. Medical & Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd. 2. Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases (DDTD) Disease Schistosomiasis Intervention Diagnostics Stage Product Design Awarded Amount 55,712,697 (US$0.3 million) Status New project Summary [Project objective] The overarching project goal is to deliver a Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) to detect exposure to Schistosoma mansoni, one of the main pathogens responsible for schistosomiasis. The RDT will meet the sensitivity and specificity requirements of the WHO TPP. At the end of this project, the test will be ready to be evaluated in the field. This test could be a standalone solution, or could be part of a total solution, in which people would be prescreened with the RDT at the point of contact, and positive results would later be confirmed in a laboratory using stool examination or molecular techniques. [Project design] Different assay formats will be generated and compared in terms of their performance. Great care will be given to demonstrating matrix equivalence between serum and whole blood, given that the test will be developed and validated with serum/plasma samples but eventually used with fingerstick blood, as required by the TPP. In addition to this, the TPP calls for a shelf life of minimally 18 months, and ideally 24 months, at 240C and a relative humidity of 75%. Since stability studies are inherently long and intricate, we will commence them already at this very early stage and dedicate a significant amount of work to them. The antigen(s), or antigen combination, providing the best overall test performance in terms of sensitivity and specificity, as well as matrix equivalence and thermal stability, will be selected for further development. Project Detail https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfoliodetail/detail/212/en

G2023-111

Project Title Supporting WHO Onchocerciasis Elimination Programs: Progressing a Highly Sensitive and Ultra-specific Rapid Diagnostic Test to Commercialization Readiness Collaboration Partners 1. Medical & Biological Laboratories Co., Ltd. 2. Drugs & Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases (DDTD)

3. Big Eye Diagnostics, Inc. (BEDx) Disease Onchocerciasis Intervention Diagnostics Stage Product Design, Development and Validation Awarded Amount 66,870,532 (US$0.4 million) Status New project Summary [Project objective] The project team proposes a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to detect exposure to Onchocerca volvulus, the pathogen responsible for onchocerciasis. Built in a biplex format, the team's test detects IgG4 antibodies specific for two O. volvulus antigens. Our RDT was shown by the CDC to be sensitive and specific enough to meet both WHO TPPs, with a specificity of >99.8% even at the lower bound 95% CI. GHIT and NIH funding will be used to generate the critical biological materials in ISO-13485 grade, and to transition test production from a low-throughput card-to-card format to a high-throughput, manufacturing-friendly reel-to-reel system, under ISO-13485 standards. Test performance will be validated in a laboratory setting by the CDC, and in regional laboratories of targeted onchocerciasis-endemic countries by the TFGH/USAID. [Project design] Given the demand forecast of up to 1 million tests/year, it will be critical to - ensure constant product quality by minimizing the variability between different production lots, compliant with ISO13485 standards - replace the current, low-throughput card-to-card production process with a high-throughput, manufacturing-friendly reel-to-reel process. The team will send the final candidate test to CDC for advanced testing to ensure that sensitivity and specificity criteria defined in the TPPs are met. The team will then organize a round-table meeting involving all key stakeholders (CDC/TFGH/USAID/NIH/BMGF/WHO/GHIT) with the goal to ensure alignment and accelerate the path towards a WHO recommendation to use the test for onchocerciasis elimination mapping and, depending on the test's exact performance profile, for potential additional clinical applications. Project Detail https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfoliodetail/detail/213/en

G2023-114

Project Title Engagement of people affected by leprosy in the LepVax Clinical Trial Collaboration Partners 1. Sasakawa Health Foundation (SHF)

2. American Leprosy Missions, Inc. (ALM)

3. Oswaldo Cruz Institute (IOC/Fiocruz) Disease Leprosy Intervention Vaccine Stage Clinical Phase 1b/2a Awarded Amount 150,379,601 (US$1.0 million) Status New project Summary [Project objective] LepVax clinical research is advancing the mission of interrupting transmission and eliminating leprosy disease. This project is a pivotal phase 1/2 safety study in a leprosy-endemic region of Brazil to demonstrate safety and immunogenicity of a defined subunit vaccine, LepVax, in healthy individuals and leprosy patients. A pioneering component of these clinical trials is the engagement of people affected by leprosy. We will work closely with the members of the organization of people affected by leprosy in Brazil, called MORHAN (Movement to Reintegrate Persons Affected by Hansen's Disease), to bring their perspectives and insight in the investigation, with the goal of realizing quality leprosy services and uptake of interventions in Brazil. Together, we can increase leprosy awareness and clinical opportunities leading to elimination of leprosy. This trial serves as a critical stage-gate for further development of LepVax for therapeutic and prophylactic indications. [Project design] Phase 1b and 2a trials are double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of LEP-F1 + GLA-SE study in healthy adult participants and leprosy patient adult participants, respectively. The phase 1b trial will evaluate a low dose of LEP-F1 antigen (2 g) or high dose of LEP-F1 (10 g) combined with GLA-SE adjuvant (5 g) compared to saline placebo. There will be 18 participants per group. A dose selection of LEP-F1 is proposed for testing in paucibacillary (PB) and multibacillary (MB) leprosy patients. Outcome measures of the phase 1b trial are local and systemic reactions of each study injection and number of participants spontaneously reporting adverse events. LEP-F1 IgG antibody and specific T cell responses based on cytokine secretion will be evaluated as a secondary outcome. Biomarker immune modulation are exploratory outcomes. Outcome measures of the phase 2a trial will also include measurements of inactive lesions, bacillary load, frequency and intensity of leprosy reactions, and neurological function for potential reactogenicity effect of the vaccine. Project Detail https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfoliodetail/detail/214/en

*All amounts are listed at an exchange rate of USD1 = JPY146.20, the approximate exchange rate on August 31, 2023.

Appendix 2. Investment Overview (as of September 27, 2023)

Investments to date

Total investments: 30.2 billion yen (US$207million1)

Total invested projects: 121 (47 active projects and 74 completed projects)

To learn more about GHIT Fund's investments, please visit

Investment Overview: https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/overview/en

Portfolio: https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/portfolio/en

Advancing Portfolio: https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/advancingportfolio/en

Clinical Candidates: https://www.ghitfund.org/investment/clinicalcandidates/en

For more information, contact:

Katy Lenard at +1-301-280-5719 or [email protected]

Mina Ohata at +81-36441-2032 or [email protected]

SOURCE GHIT Fund
Armitron's Tilly Pink Collection Represents Unity and Hope, Showcasing Unwavering Support for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In a powerful partnership with Susan G. Komen, Armitron ( www.armitron.com ), a renowned name in timekeeping, proudly introduces the Tilly Pink collection , showing unwavering support for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer doesn't discriminate, affecting women and families everywhere. Armitron's partnership with Susan G. Komen aims to create a unified front against this disease. By raising awareness and funding for breast cancer research, we can work towards a world where nobody has to face breast cancer alone.

The Pink Tilly Collection, as photographed by Paul Gordon. The Pink Tilly Collection in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Photographed by Paul Gordon.

Experience timelessness, elegance, and a touch of chic with shades of pink that signify strength and unity. The Tilly Pink Collection embodies spirit and purpose, accompanied by Armitron's generous donation of $5,000 to Susan G. Komen.

"Armitron is honored to present the Tilly Pink collection, a reflection of our deep-rooted collaboration with Susan G. Komen. These watches stand as tangible expressions of our shared commitment to breast cancer awareness and research." States Bobbie Weichselbaum, CEO of E. Gluck Corporation. "The Tilly Pink collection serves as a meaningful embodiment of Armitron's dedication to crafting not just timepieces, but also narratives of positive change. With each watch, we fuse our legacy of impeccable craftsmanship with a profound mission of amplifying breast cancer support and empowerment. This partnership is a testament to our resolve to drive awareness, inspire action, and make a difference in the lives of those impacted by breast cancer."

Armitron's Tilly Pink collection transcends beyond being just exquisite timepieces; they symbolize hope and unity. Each watch is meticulously crafted with love and care, reflecting the indomitable strength of breast cancer warriors around the world. By adorning your wrist with one of these refined timepieces, you don't merely express your support for breast cancer awareness; you become an inspiration, encouraging others to unite for the cause. Ensuring there's a perfect match for every individual, the Tilly Pink collection offers a diverse selection of 3 distinct styles, each with a delicate rectangular silhouette that emanates sophistication, accentuated by the traditional Roman numeral markers.

Tilly, 20mm, Rose Gold (Price: $75): Elevate your style with the Tilly Rose Gold watch. The alluring rose gold metal bracelet adds a touch of luxury to any outfit, making the Tilly the perfect accessory for those seeking timeless elegance.

Tilly, 20mm, Pink Ceramic (Price: $100): Unveil timeless beauty with the Tilly Pink Ceramic/Gold watch. The stunning pink ceramic bracelet seamlessly blends with the luxurious gold elements, creating a watch that exudes grace and poise, making it a must-have for any elegant occasion.

Leather Tilly, 20mm, Pink (Price: $65): Embrace classic allure with the Leather Tilly Pink watch. The pink leather band adds a touch of understated elegance to your look, making Tilly a versatile accessory that effortlessly transitions from casual to formal, symbolizing timeless style.

Based in the heart of New York, Armitron has been a pioneer in the world of fashion watches since 1975. The Tilly collection perfectly embodies the brand's legacy of creating dynamic pieces from premium materials, expertly merging quality with accessibility.

For more details about Armitron and the transformative Tilly collection, please reach out to BPM-PR Firm at [email protected] or call 1.877.841.7244.

ABOUT ARMITRON

Since 1975, Armitron has been devoted to nurturing the spirit of individuality with high-quality, high-style watches at accessible price points, driven by the understanding that a timepiece is both a common thread and a distinguishing factor. As a brand underneath the E. Gluck Corporation umbrella, Armitron connects prestige and curation with unprecedented value and convenience. E. Gluck Corporation manufactures watches under its flagship proprietary brand, Armitron. The company also manufactures watches for major fashion brands, including Anne Klein, Nine West, Juicy Couture, Vince Camuto and Steve Madden. Proudly headquartered in New York, Armitron is an Official Timepiece of the New York Yankees. For more information, visit www.Armitron.com .

About Susan G. Komen

Susan G. Komen is the world's leading nonprofit breast cancer organization, working to save lives and end breast cancer forever. Komen has an unmatched, comprehensive 360-degree approach to fighting this disease across all fronts and supporting millions of people in the U.S. and in countries worldwide. We advocate for patients, drive research breakthroughs, improve access to high-quality care, offer direct patient support and empower people with trustworthy information. Founded by Nancy G. Brinker, who promised her sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would end the disease that claimed Suzy's life, Komen remains committed to supporting those affected by breast cancer today, while tirelessly searching for tomorrow's cures. Visit komen.org or call 1-877 GO KOMEN. Connect with us on social at https://www.komen.org/social .

SOURCE Armitron
Ahead of the 2023 BioNTX iC Summit on September 28-29 in Irving, Texas

DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The 9th Annual BioNTX iC Life Science Summit is just two days away, and today's announcement from the newly established federal agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), marks the beginning of an exciting week for the bioscience community. The two-day event, taking place on September 28, 2023, and Friday, September 29, 2023, will bring together bioscience and healthcare innovation leaders, adding celebration to the event following this significant ARPA-H announcement.

The Dallas ARPA-H Hub will be strategically located at Pegasus Park, working in close collaboration with counterparts in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. Its primary focus will be on enhancing customer experience, conducting user testing, promoting adoption, ensuring access, and building trust in ARPA-H projects. These objectives align seamlessly with the stated goals of BioNTX, which aims to foster a vibrant bioscience ecosystem characterized by Innovation, Capital, Collaboration, and Commercialization, collectively represented by the acronym iC. BioNTX is an integral part of Texas' legacy in the biotech and life sciences sector, making this announcement a significant milestone as the organization positions itself for the next chapter of innovation.

Kathleen Otto, CEO of BioNTX, expressed her enthusiasm, stating, "What an exciting week for the bioscience community in North Texas. We have firsthand experience of why Pegasus Park is the ideal location for an ARPA-H Hub, given that BioNTX offices are on the same campus. Innovation and collaboration are deeply embedded in our Texan culture, and we are thrilled to contribute to these values, which will be showcased at our upcoming iC Summit."

The Life Science Summit serves as a dynamic platform for the North Texas bioscience community, offering opportunities for insightful discussions, the sharing of cutting-edge research, and exploration of emerging technologies with the potential to revolutionize healthcare and biomedicine. Anticipating an estimated 400-500 attendees, the 2023 iC Summit will encompass a wide range of key topics, including Cell & Gene Therapy in North Texas, The Physical Space of Biopharma Manufacturing, the Impact of AI in the Biopharma Industry, Resources for Startups, Regulatory and Quality Updates, Tech Transfer Office Showcase and Pitch Competition, Rising Star Presentations, Investment Trends in Bioscience and Healthcare Innovation, and much more.

About BioNTX

BioNTX is a leading bioscience and healthcare innovation trade organization in North Texas. We work to build a strong life science community through collaborative peer to peer networking events, high-level educational programming, supporting companies with a purchasing consortium and by being the voice and champion for the North Texas biosciences and healthcare innovation community.

About iC Summit

The iC Summit brings together and fosters collaboration between academic and industry thought leaders, exchanging knowledge, exploring the latest innovation, products, and services in the life sciences.

Registration for the BioNTX iC Life Science & Healthcare Innovation Summit is now open, and interested participants are encouraged to visit the official BioNTX website for further information, including the agenda, key topics, and speaker lineup.

Media Contact: Kathleen M. Otto  [email protected]

SOURCE BioNTX
LAKELAND, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Polytechnic University announced a new name for its state-of-the-art research building: the Barnett Applied Research Center. The name honors the Barnett family and its longstanding support and generosity for the University.

The Florida Poly Board of Trustees approved the naming during its meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The request honors and recognizes the Barnetts' significant contributions to the University, which exceed $10 million and support student success.

Pictured are Barnett family members Nick Barnett (left), Barney Barnett and Wesley Barnett. Florida Polytechnic Universitys cutting-edge research building will be named the Barnett Applied Research Center in honor of the familys generosity and support for the University.

"We are exceptionally enthusiastic about our partnership with Florida Poly and its role in propelling Central Florida to national prominence as a technology hub over the next half-century," said Wesley Barnett, a founding partner at TampaBay.Ventures and a longtime community advocate. "We firmly believe that the Barnett Applied Research Center will be an engine for innovation, a beacon for top-tier talent, and a driving force in the region's development."

The Barnett family includes brothers Wesley and Nick Barnett and their father, Barney Barnett. Carol Jenkins Barnett, the family matriarch and a well-known philanthropist, passed away in 2021. She was the daughter of Publix Super Markets founder George Jenkins. The family has supported Florida Poly since the early years of its creation.

"Florida Poly is fortunate to have such a strong partnership with the Barnett family and we're honored to have their support," said Kathy Bowman, vice president for advancement at Florida Poly. "It is befitting that a campus jewel such as the Applied Research Center gets to bear the name of this incredibly generous family."

Wesley Barnett said his family's support of Florida Poly over the years has been anchored by their unwavering dedication to seeing the Polk County community and the entire Central Florida region thrive with growth in industry, knowledge, and opportunity.

"We envision the University as an epicenter of innovation, producing top talent and pioneering research that will create progress and attract strong companies," Barnett said. "Our continuous support of the University is driven by the belief that Florida Poly's innovative spirit and strategic location within the technology corridor will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education, research, and economic development in the region."

SOURCE Florida Poly
"A Milestone in European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing": Besins Healthcare Debuts Pioneering Plant to Address Soaring Global Demand for Hormones and to Fortify Europe's Medical Sovereignty

MONACO, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Besins Healthcare, a global lead in Women's and Men's Reproductive Health, today unveiled its novel hormone production facility in Muel, situated near Zaragoza, Spain. This event represents a significant moment in European pharmaceutical history.

Besins Healthcare Unveils State-of-the-Art Hormone Factory in Muel, Spain, Amplifying Global Production Capabilities by 30% (PRNewsfoto/Besins Healthcare)

Built in an astounding time frame since its foundation in mid-2022, this avant-garde facility adheres to the highest quality complying with the highest environmental standards. The plant fortifies Besins Healthcare's commitment to scale up production capacities within Europe, boosting their output by an impressive 30%.

Championing European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Following its strategic acquisition of a hormone production site in Drogenbos, Belgium, in 2022, Besins Healthcare continues to reinforce its commitment to the European Union's initiative to mitigate drug shortages and establish pharmaceutical sovereignty (1). "Being deeply rooted in Europe, it was a natural decision for us to invest here," said Nicolas & Alexandre Besins, CEOs, elaborating that the new facility will help "satisfy the surging global demand for hormone treatments related to menopause and fertility."

Meeting the Escalating Global Demand

The new facility is a timely response to an upsurge in demand for Hormonal Replacement Therapies (HRT). As demographics shift, an increasing number of women reach menopause, requiring female hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) supplementation. In parallel, the average age for first-time pregnancies is climbing, leading to complex fertility scenarios that often necessitate Progesterone support.

Future-Ready Products and Collaborations

Dr. Pedro N. Barri, President of Dexeus Mujer, Barcelona, heralded the opening as "remarkable news in the therapeutic area," and particularly shared his anticipation: 'I look forward to manufacturing new dosages of natural Progesterone (300 and 400 mg)(2) to serve better our patients' needs'.

(1) Factsheet: A European Health Union: A Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, 25 November 2020.  European Union.

(2) Marketing authorization in process in Europe

About Besins Healthcare

Besins Healthcare is a family-owned company, headquartered in Monaco, dedicated to Women and Men's Reproductive Health. It has over 100 years of expertise and is a pioneer on the invention of the topical gel administration route for Estrogen and Testosterone. The group operates over 80 markets, (including the US under the name Ascend) with 22 direct affiliates. The company develops, manufactures, and markets a wide range of products for the treatment of menopausal symptoms and other women's health conditions, as well as testosterone supplementation for men. Besins Healthcare is committed to providing both women and men with the information and support they need to live healthy, active lives.

www.besins-healthcare.com

For media inquiries, please contact:

Thomas Retur, Global Marketing Director, [email protected]

Christophe Pelletier, Head of Global Marketing, [email protected]

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SOURCE Besins Healthcare
DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Binance has entered into an agreement to sell the entirety of its Russia business to CommEX (https://www.commex.com/). To ensure a smooth process for existing Russian users, the off-boarding process will take up to one year. All assets of existing Russian users are safe and securely protected.

"As we look toward the future, we recognise that operating in Russia is not compatible with Binance's compliance strategy," said Noah Perlman, Binance's Chief Compliance Officer. "We remain confident in the long-term growth of the web3 industry around the world and will focus our energy on the 100+ other countries in which we operate."

There will be an orderly process for the migration of users. Binance and CommEX will partner to inform users how to migrate their assets to CommEX. A portion of Russian KYC'd new user registration will immediately be redirected to CommEX and will scale up over time. Over the next several months, Binance will sunset all exchange services and business lines in Russia. Every effort will be made to maintain a smooth user experience during this transition.

While financial details of the deal will not be disclosed, it is important to note that with this sale, Binance fully exits Russia. Unlike similar deals from international companies in Russia, Binance will have no ongoing revenue split from the sale, nor does it maintain any option to buy back shares in the business.

About Binance

Binance is the world's leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. Trusted by more than 150 million users worldwide, the Binance platform is dedicated to increasing the freedom of money for users and features an unmatched portfolio of crypto products and offerings, including: trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization and infrastructure solutions, and more. Binance has built a robust compliance program and has earned licenses and registrations in 18 countries around the world, with five more announced since January 2023. For more information, visit: https://www.binance.com

SOURCE Binance
The #1 Dermatologist Recommended Brand for Stretch Marks

Recognizes the Hard Work of Labor and Delivery Staff Nationwide

CINCINNATI, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bio-Oil announces the launch of its 'Labor of Love' campaign, a nationwide initiative that celebrates Labor and Delivery teams throughout the month of September, the most popular month for birthdays. This campaign recognizes the enormity of the service, kindness, and selflessness hospital staff  including obstetricians, anesthesiologists, techs, doulas, nurses and more  offer to laboring moms during childbirth, especially during a time of year when delivery rooms are very active.

Photo by Danielle Del Valle/Getty Images FOR Bio-Oil Photo by Danielle Del Valle/Getty Images FOR Bio-Oil Photo by Danielle Del Valle/Getty Images FOR Bio-Oil

As a long-time skincare staple for expecting and new moms, Bio-Oil knows that motherhood is a true labor of love, and to extend its support to these hospital workers, the brand is gifting custom care packages to Labor and Delivery staff at some of the busiest Labor and Delivery floors at hospitals nationwide.

Bio-Oil has also partnered with Olympic gymnast, entrepreneur, and soon-to-be mother of three, Shawn Johnson East, to surprise the Labor and Delivery staff at Williamson Medical Center, a local hospital in her hometown of Nashville, with custom care packages to support them during this extremely busy time.

"As a mom of two kids and one on the way, I know how critical the Labor and Delivery staff are in ensuring both me and my babies are healthy, cared for and supported throughout this important time," said Shawn Johnson East. "I'm excited to be partnering with Bio-Oil to give back to the hospital workers in my local community for their hard work and dedication during such a busy month."

Bio-Oil Skincare Oils are dermatologist recommended and clinically proven to help reduce the appearance of scars, stretch marks, and other marks due to pregnancy, surgery, injury, acne, aging, and more. For more information on Bio-Oil's portfolio of skin-loving products, visit www.shopbiooil.com and follow @biooilusa on Instagram.

Williamson Medical Center, part of the Williamson Health regional healthcare system, has been named as one of America's Best Hospitals for Obstetrics by the Women's Choice Award for eight years in a row.

About Bio-Oil

Bio-Oil is best known for the multi-use skincare oil that is clinically proven to help improve the appearance of scars, stretch marks and uneven skin tone. Developed in South Africa in 1987, Bio-Oil has won over 400 skincare awards and has become the #1 dermatologist recommended brand for stretch marks in the US.1

1 IQVIA, using the ProVoice Survey, fielded to 1,421 dermatologists from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022, and recorded product recommendations in the Stretch Mark Creams Category, has validated the following claims at a 99% confidence level: "Bio-Oil is the #1 dermatologist recommended brand in the Stretch Mark Creams category"

About Williamson Health

Williamson Health is a regional healthcare system based in Williamson County, Tennessee, with more than 2,000 employees across more than 30 locations and over 860 physicians and advance care practitioners offering exceptional healthcare close to home. The flagship hospital, Williamson Medical Center, now undergoing a historic $200 million expansion and renovation project, offers extensive women's services, state-of-the-art cardiology services, advanced surgical technologies, an award-winning obstetrics and NICU, leading-edge orthopedics, outpatient imaging services, and comprehensive emergency and inpatient services for both adult and pediatric patients. Other Williamson Health service providers include the Bone and Joint Institute of Tennessee, the Turner-Dugas Breast Health Center, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital Vanderbilt at Williamson Medical Center, Williamson Health physician practices that are strategically located throughout the community, countywide Emergency Medical Services that include 18 rapid response units, Williamson Health Foundation, and multiple joint venture Vanderbilt Health and Williamson Medical Center Walk-In Clinics in Williamson County. Learn more about our many specialized services at www.WilliamsonHealth.org.

CONTACT:

Nandi Millett

[email protected]

SOURCE Bio-Oil
THE EXPERIENCED BOARD TEAM REPRESENTS A DIVERSE ECOSYSTEM OF HIGH-PROFILE SENIOR LEADERS ACROSS THE SOFTWARE AND INVESTMENT COMMUNITY

LONDON, Sept. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Boardwave, the impact-led networking community for European software founders and CEOs, has today announced that it has appointed its first board of directors, assembling a line-up of industry heavyweights to help deliver on its mission across Europe. Today it announces Jonathan McKay, Leo Apotheker and Elona Mortimer-Zhika as new board members. They join Phill Robinson, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Boardwave, along with Kath Easthope as chief operating officer (COO), and are supported by an advisory committee and team of high calibre founding patrons.

Each of the board directors bring a wealth of experience, leading companies through every stage of business growth, from start-up to established global sector leader. This latest announcement from Boardwave comes as the established community reaches a significant milestone of over 1,000 members since its inception in April 2022.

Boardwave is a fast-growing network which brings together software entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs from across Europe and enables them to network, share ideas, experience and best practice, as well as make use of valuable mentorship in order to help accelerate their business growth. Through this approach, Boardwave aims to help build world-beating software companies, with the goal of enabling the European software industry to become a global leader and rival Silicon Valley.

Phill Robinson, founder and CEO of Boardwave, commented: "This is an important and significant milestone in Boardwave's continued development and expansion. Elona, Jonathan and Leo represent a team of industry heavyweights of the highest calibre across the software sector and are each strongly aligned with our mission at Boardwave. Their combined energy and experience provide exceptional support for our growth objectives for the organisation. This best-in-class team demonstrates the weight of senior industry support behind the need to create an active ecosystem of software leaders across Europe."

Boardwave board members announced today:

Jonathan McKay is the new Boardwave chairperson. Jonathan has a distinguished career as an investor, board member and chair of a number of early to mid-stage businesses. Amongst other roles, he is chair of Forward Partners, a leading publicly listed venture capital (VC) firm. Jonathan will represent the interests of members who are founder-led and smaller VC-backed businesses.

is the new Boardwave chairperson. Jonathan has a distinguished career as an investor, board member and chair of a number of early to mid-stage businesses. Amongst other roles, he is chair of Forward Partners, a leading publicly listed venture capital (VC) firm. Jonathan will represent the interests of members who are founder-led and smaller VC-backed businesses. Leo Apotheker takes a role as non-exec director (NED) after joining the Boardwave community very early on as a founding patron. He brings world-leading expertise, having previously been the CEO of SAP and Hewlett Packard. At SAP, Leo led its emergence as a global leading software company. He is also currently the chair at Syncron, Harvest and Eudonet, fast-growing enterprise software organisations. Since joining Boardwave, Leo has been advising and guiding pre-Series A and Series A start-up founders and CEOs. His guidance will be highly relevant to those members who are potential global champions with the goal of going public.

Elona Mortimer-Zhika also joins Boardwave as NED. Elona is CEO of IRIS Software, one of the UK's most successful PE-backed software companies. Elona has been a patron of Boardwave since it was founded and represents mid to large European software companies that are PE owned. Under her leadership, IRIS has acquired 30+ businesses and delivered double-digit growth organically, entered the US market successfully, transitioned to a cloud platform business and has been recognised as a Great Place to Work. Prior to joining IRIS, Elona held several senior leadership roles in Big Four and PE-backed businesses, including Mavenir, Acision, Arthur Andersen and Deloitte.

Phill Robinson is CEO and founder at Boardwave. Phill has 35 years' leadership experience in the software industry. He served in the management teams of a number of international software firms in both the US and Europe . He was CMO of Salesforce, before returning to the UK to lead PE-backed software businesses, including IRIS Software (UK), Exact (NL). Both had successful exits under his leadership. He remains a board director of Exact. He is also currently the chair of the software advisory board for Livingbridge, a UK private equity firm, strategic advisor and director to Upliift, and a member of the development board of Cure Parkinson's.

is CEO and founder at Boardwave. Phill has 35 years' leadership experience in the software industry. He served in the management teams of a number of international software firms in both the US and . He was CMO of Salesforce, before returning to the UK to lead PE-backed software businesses, including IRIS Software (UK), Exact (NL). Both had successful exits under his leadership. He remains a board director of Exact. He is also currently the chair of the software advisory board for Livingbridge, a UK private equity firm, strategic advisor and director to Upliift, and a member of the development board of Cure Parkinson's. Kath Easthope joins the Boardwave board as a director, in her role as chief operating officer of Boardwave, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Boardwave community. She is also the lead for Boardwave's diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy. Kath joined Boardwave at the start of 2023, having most recently been CMO at a leading AI-marketing business which successful exited in 2022. She has a communications agency background and has run some of the UK & Europe's most successful public relations firms focused on the technology sector.

Phill Robinson concluded: "The work we can do together will accelerate the software industry as a whole and create an incredible platform to support our founder and CEO community, as well as the incredible team of investors and advisors we have within our membership network."

About Boardwave

Boardwave is an impact-driven community of 1,000 European software founders and CEOs designed to help members accelerate their business growth, and to improve the overall position of Europe as a home for global software companies. Boardwave offers a programme of events, peer-to-peer mentoring and inspiration, as well as an online platform that connects European software CEOs for advice, insights, expertise and access to capital. It is also a campaigner for change across special interest areas including AI, Government engagement and DE&I.

Software leaders, CEOs and Chairs can access the programme and platform at no cost. The Boardwave community is generously supported and funded by a network of Partners from across the software investor and advisory ecosystem.

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SOURCE Boardwave
KYIV, Ukraine, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The renowned construction company, "Budmehanizatsia," has announced the commencement of active negotiations focused on infrastructure projects in Ukraine. These initiatives are set against the backdrop of the country's post-war recovery efforts, as stated by the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Mr. Yurii Odarchenko.

In a recent blog post, Mr. Yurii Odarchenko expressed profound concern regarding emigration trends in Ukraine and proposed a solution to mitigate this pressing issue. According to a survey conducted by the Center for Economic Strategy, up to 3.3 million citizens may opt not to return to their homeland. This could potentially result in an annual GDP loss of up to 6.3%, and these trends are exacerbating.

Beyond security concerns, the decision of citizens to return home hinges on the restoration of infrastructure and the availability of employment opportunities in their pre-war places of residence. It is now imperative to create conditions to facilitate this process and develop a collaborative system between local authorities and businesses.

"Budmehanizatsia," in partnership with other construction companies and building material manufacturers, has devised and presented a public-private partnership project to authorities. The project's primary aim is the restoration of regional infrastructure and the construction of housing units. This initiative serves as a potent tool to attract investments across Ukraine, offering solutions for land allocation, energy supply network connections, and the seamless transfer of completed projects to the relevant authorities.

The company "Budmehanizatsia" boasts extensive experience in constructing complex infrastructure projects and maintaining successful collaborations with both local and state authorities. Mr. Yurii Odarchenko, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, brings a wealth of experience from his tenure in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, particularly in addressing regional development challenges.

Furthermore, "Budmehanizatsia" has actively participated in humanitarian initiatives in Great Britain and played a pivotal role in establishing a platform for negotiations between businesses and systemic investors in Washington, USA.

About "Budmehanizatsia"

"Budmehanizatsia" specializes in the construction of complex infrastructure projects and is known for its innovative approaches in the construction industry. Founded in 1992, the company has a proven track record of successfully executing projects in Ukraine.

This announcement underscores "Budmehanizatsia's" unwavering commitment to spearheading Ukraine's post-war recovery by championing essential infrastructure projects and fostering strategic collaborations with local authorities and businesses.

SOURCE Construction Company "Budmehanizatsia"
BOSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Burns & Levinson will host its seventh annual "State of the Cannabis Industry" conference, which will focus on cutting-edge issues in the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry, on October 16, 2023, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. ET. The conference will be held at the Westin Waltham Boston. A live stream option will also be available.

Burns & Levinson's seventh annual State of the Cannabis Industry conference will focus on cutting-edge issues in the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.

The conference will feature a wide range of national experts and industry leaders including an in-depth conversation with Joe Campanelli, Chairman, President and CEO of Needham Bank, one of the country's most active lenders in the cannabis industry, and Jason Wild, Executive Chairman of TerrAscend, a pioneer in the cannabis industry. Other highlights include sessions on navigating restructurings, workouts and distressed M&A; accessing capital markets in a down market; and brand/branding strategies. A CEO roundtable will explore what keeps cannabis executives up at night and will feature Terry Fitch, CEO of Good Day Farm; Laurie Holcomb, CEO of Gold Flora; Jon Levine, President and CEO of MariMed Inc.; Ed Schmults, CEO of StateHouse Holdings Inc.; and Darren Weiss, President of Verano.

"The cannabis industry is at a critical juncture. The current realities of market saturation, lack of capital, over leveraging, growing expenditures, and onerous taxation are going to continue to create challenges for cannabis operators and investors. However, relief through safe banking or rescheduling would create some relief, but would it be enough. This year, our industry experts will be sharing ideas and solutions related to these many economic stressors, as well as looking at the myriad opportunities that exist in this new market," said Frank A. Segall, Founder and Chair of the Cannabis Business & Law Advisory Group at Burns & Levinson.

"We are the only major law firm to develop a dedicated cannabis conference, and this event has become a best-in-class forum and networking platform for top cannabis experts around the country to share their guidance and insight. There has never been a more important time to bring thought leaders together to address the pressing issues our entire industry is confronting," added Scott Moskol, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Burns & Levinson's Cannabis Business & Law Advisory Group.

The current conference sponsors include gold sponsors HUB International and Needham Bank, joined by KindTap; Marcum LLP; North Easton Savings Bank; Opus Consulting: CPower; CRB Monitor, Elevate Northeast; Lighthouse Biz Solutions, LLC; Shield Compliance; Northern Bank; AAF CPAs; and Withum.

Burns & Levinson was one of the first major Boston corporate law firms to develop a dedicated cannabis business practice over 10 years ago to advise cannabis businesses, entrepreneurs and investors across the country. The firm has unrivaled experience in cannabis and hemp/CBD business formation and corporate structuring, capital raises, M&A, investment structuring, regulatory matters, workouts, receiverships, ABCs, and overall business issues affecting the fast-growing cannabis industry. The firm is also among the top law firms in the country handling M&A and high-level corporate and financing deals in the private and public markets in the cannabis market.

For more information about the conference and to register, click here . For information on sponsorship opportunities, please contact Kristen Weller at [email protected] .

About Burns & Levinson LLP

At Burns & Levinson, we provide high-level, client-centric and results-oriented legal services to our regional, national and international clients. We are a full-service law firm with over 125 lawyers in Boston, Providence and London. Our areas of expertise include: business/finance, business litigation, cannabis, divorce/family law, venture capital/emerging companies, employment, estate planning, government investigations, intellectual property, M&A/private equity, probate/trust litigation, and real estate. We partner with our clients to solve their business and personal legal issues in a collaborative, creative and cost-effective way. For more information, visit Burns & Levinson at www.burnslev.com .

Contact: Amy Blumenthal

Blumenthal & Associates

617.879.1511

[email protected]







Kristen Weller

Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer

617.345.3555

[email protected]

SOURCE Burns & Levinson
The famous American actor, director and producer, Emmy Award winner and Oscar nominee John Malkovich does not hide his open sympathy for Russia. The Hollywood star has repeatedly visited Moscow, and in 2017 he even starred in the Russian Federation in the film "About Love. For adults only". That is why the filmmaker does not support the global "ban" on Russian actors and culture in general.

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As for the war in Ukraine, Malkovich calls it "a real horror," but supports the well-known narrative of the "good Russians" that "politicians are to blame for everything." The star shared his ambiguous statements in an interview with Spectrum.

The actor does not understand why "serious people do not sit down at the negotiating table." He believes that both Ukraine and Russia are to blame for this war.

"We can only hope that serious people will find an opportunity to sit down at the negotiating table and end this horror. But so far, it does not seem to be part of either side's strategy. I was shocked when the war in Ukraine started, and everything I have seen over the past year and a half is literally tearing me apart," Malkovich commented.

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As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Malkovich has made ambiguous statements about Russian aggression before. Last June, he called the war in Ukraine a tragedy, but did not dare to condemn Russia and dictator Putin. Read more in our article.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel Obozrevateland Viber. Don't fall for fakes!
CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys from the intellectual property and business litigation firm Caldwell Cassady & Curry have filed a federal trade secret misappropriation lawsuit against Marex Capital Markets Inc. on behalf of financial technology leader RVassets Ltd. of London, England.

The lawsuit filed on September 27, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois alleges Marex Capital Markets and two of the company's employees improperly used their access to RVassets' industry-leading cloud-based platform for algorithmic pricing and execution of listed options in order to covertly create and launch a competing software platform called OptionsLive.

RVassets has requested a jury trial on the claims against Marex for trade secret misappropriation under the Illinois Trade Secrets Act and the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, tortious interference, fraud, fraudulent concealment, and unjust enrichment. In addition to damages for RVassets' losses and Marex's unjust enrichment, RVassets is seeking punitive damages and attorneys' fees in the lawsuit.

RVassets is represented by Caldwell Cassady & Curry's Brad Caldwell, Jason Cassady, Austin Curry, Brian Johnston, Seth Reich, and Bailey Blaies.

The lawsuit details how RVassets was formed in 2014 by a group led by Founder and CEO Thomas Fitch, a financial industry veteran with prior banking and commercial trading roles for Dresdner Bank, BNP Paribas, and JP Morgan. RVassets developed a software platform built on Mr. Fitch's proprietary algorithms for pricing and executing listed options, such as U.S. treasury options traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. At the time, there was no other commercially available software offering such functionality.

RVassets licensed the use of its software under strict terms prohibiting unauthorized use and reverse engineering. The lawsuit alleges, while a customer of RVassets' proprietary software, New York's ED&F Man Capital Markets Inc. (now Marex Capital Markets Inc.) hired David Hoffman and Jason Margiotta to improperly access and replicate RVassets' listed options trading software platform. ED&F Man launched its competing OptionsLive platform in late 2020 before the company was later acquired by Marex, which continues to offer the same software.

"We take trade secret protection seriously and are fully committed to pursuing all available legal remedies to ensure that Marex is held accountable for its textbook misappropriation," says Mr. Cassady. "Our objective is clear: to protect our client's valuable intellectual property. We look forward to presenting our case in court."

The case is RVassets Ltd. v. Marex Capital Markets Inc., et al., No.1:23-cv-14192.

Caldwell Cassady & Curry represents companies and individuals in high-stakes civil litigation, including patent infringement cases, trade secrets claims, fiduciary duty cases, class actions, and disputes involving company founders. The firm has tried and won some of the nation's top verdicts against the largest companies in the world. Learn more about the firm at www.caldwellcc.com.

SOURCE Caldwell Cassady & Curry
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows Californians pay $1.86 more per gallon than US drivers for gasoline, the state's new oil market monitor has issued a letter pointing a finger at refinery outages and potential manipulation in the state's spot market.

California Oil Refiners' Profit Margins Grow

Consumer Watchdog said the analysis makes the case for Governor Newsom vetoing a last minute bill weakening the state's power to regulate refinery maintenance, SB 842, and for new legislation allowing the state to regulate gasoline inventory and place the spot market on a public commodities exchange.

The average price for California gasoline was $5.69 per gallon on 9/25 and the average US price was $3.83, according to the EIA.

"The delta between US gas prices and California gas prices should be no more than 80 cents per gallon but is typically $1.10," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "When the gap between US and California pump prices are $1.50 or more per gallon something is wrong. The new gasoline market monitor has pointed to problems with refinery maintenance and inventory management and a questionable transaction in the spot market that artificially drove up the price at the pump. It's good to have a cop on the beat, but now we need him to make some arrests."

"That will require Governor Newsom to veto SB 842, the eleventh-hour bill by Senator Steve Bradford that weakens the state's ability to stop unnecessary refinery maintenance. California also needs to step up its schedule for implementing a price gouging penalty. Refinery margins reported by refiners to the state have doubled since January from 66 cents to $1.20 in June."

The price we pay for gasoline is tied by contract to the price of trades between refiners and traders on the "spot market," a small wholesale market. One trade at an artificially inflated price can drive up the price of gasoline at every gasoline station in the state. Now, the new market monitor believes he has found one such questionable transaction, which raised the price of gasoline by 50 cents over night.

The California attorney general's office is suing traders SK Energy and Vitol for allegedly manipulating the spot market after Exxon's Torrance refinery went down in 2015. The companies are accused, among other things, of making trades in which no gasoline changed hands solely to drive up the price of the fuel.

This was possible because no public ledger of trades on the gasoline spot market existed  only voluntary reports to the Oil Price Information Service, an oil industry news service owned by Rupert Murdoch. SBx1 2 required all spot market trades be reported to the Energy Commission, but not be made public. For the purposes of gasoline pricing, the voluntarily-reported OPIS index still sets the price at gas stations.

"Should the price of California gasoline be set on a public commodities exchange like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange or by a news service owned by the Murdochs?" asked Court.

A single trade can set the price of all retail gasoline in the state for days or weeks. When the spot price is high, there is no incentive to report a trade to OPIS. Robert McCullough, an economist who has studied energy markets for decades, testified before a state Senate committee recently that at the height of the spikes last fall, the spot price for gasoline didn't change for two weeks. If that had happened with the Dow, he wondered, wouldn't someone have noticed?

Research by Greg Karras of Community Energy reSource shows the pattern of oil refiners exporting gasoline as inventories draw down to unprecedented levels continued this summer, driving the gasoline price spike. At the same time, the Energy Commission data under SB 1322 shows the refining margins doubling to $1.20 this summer.

"California's legislature should watch these gas price signals and move next session to make the spot market a public traded market on an actual commodities exchange," said Court. "In addition, the legislature should give the state the authority to stop exports when refiners don't keep sufficient inventories, which the market monitor reports is a driver of the current price spike. The only way to get California gas prices under control is with more tough love of giving the state control over exports and inventory, retaining control over refinery maintenance schedules and a completely transparent spot market."

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog
TAIPEI, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The loss of biodiversity on Earth poses a significant threat to the global economy and supply chains. Cathay Financial Holdings (Cathay FHC) is closely monitoring emerging environmental trends, supporting international biodiversity initiatives, and taking concrete actions in its operations, financial products, and investments. In 2023, Cathay FHC set several precedents among Taiwanese companies. It became the first global strategic partner of the World Climate Foundation and made its debut at the London Stock Exchange to share its key sustainability strategies for sustainable finance. Furthermore, Cathay FHC's Chief Investment Officer, Sophia Cheng, once again engaged in discussions with leaders from various sectors at the "World Biodiversity Summit (WBS)," held alongside the 78th United Nations General Assembly's New York Climate Week.

Cathay Financial Holdings Demonstrates Leadership of Sustainable Finance at World Biodiversity Summit during New York Climate Week alongside UNGA78. (Right: Cathay Financial Holdings' Chief Investment Officer, Sophia Cheng)

Following last year's sharing of its successful experiences in promoting corporate collaboration in Asia and receiving widespread acclaim for its biodiversity initiatives, this year's focus is on how sustainable finance can accelerate solutions for biodiversity. Cathay FHC is proud to be the first Taiwanese company invited to participate for the second consecutive year, once again showcasing its leadership role in sustainability to the world.

WBS kicked off enthusiastically on September 21st with the theme "Partnering for Nature," echoing the global consensus on a concrete blueprint for biodiversity preservation at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15). The goal is to protect 30% of land and water by 2030, known as the "30x30 target." Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for the UAE's COP28, highlighted the need to put nature-positive solutions higher on the global agenda in the opening remark.

Cathay FHC's Chief Investment Officer, Sophia Cheng, participated in WBS's grand opening panel titled "Charting a Course of Action for Nature". Cheng focused on three key questions: How is Cathay FHC addressing biodiversity? How can a financial institution expand and accelerate its commitment to nature initiatives? And what lessons have been learned from practicing sustainable finance?

Cheng shared how Cathay FHC has expanded its influence in sustainable finance through participation in international initiatives. Since its involvement in climate-related financial disclosures in 2018, Cathay FHC has made climate governance a focal point for its board and senior executives. After 2020, Cathay has played a leading role among Taiwanese companies in biodiversity-related initiatives, such as joining TNFD (Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures) and PBAF (Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials). In 2023, Cathay FHC also signed the Call for Action initiative of the Business for Nature Alliance, urging governments worldwide to mandate large corporations and financial institutions to assess and disclose their biodiversity impacts and dependencies by 2031.

Furthermore, Cathay FHC actively incorporates social and environmental impact assessments when evaluating investments and financing. While profit is a priority, it is also important to pay close attention to the impact of investment and financing projects on the natural environment and society. Cathay FHC has implemented analytical tools for detailed assessments of the impact of investments and financing, effectively managing natural risks and opportunities to protect biodiversity.

In expanding and accelerating nature-focused actions, Cheng shared practical advice to global community. She emphasized the importance of technology and innovation, for example, "utilizing blended financing, innovative financial tools, and fostering public-private cooperation to bridge the global funding gap in the future." Financial institutions can play a crucial role in driving sustainable investments and financing by assisting in enhancing the feasibility and financial viability of nature projects, thereby creating opportunities that balance sustainability and profitability. In another WBS session entitled "Bridging Land and Sea," Kristen James, Senior Program Director at CERES, praised Cathay FHC as a dedicated CERES member supporting the role of water stewardship in enhancing ecological and economic prosperity. Jens Nielsen, CEO/founder of World Climate Foundation also took the opportunity to recognize Cathay FHC's strong support throughout the past three years: "To align with the primary objective of COP28, which is to address the importance of 'Nature Positive for Climate Action,' we must focus on three key targets: forests, oceans, and land use. These areas require immediate attention and action to protect our environment. We are pleased to see that Cathay FHC is committed and ambitious in joining this effort to drive actions for the conservation of biodiversity." Cathay is set to participate in more events of COP28 (the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference) in Dubai in December, demonstrating the Asian financial sector's achievements and determination in addressing climate change on the international stage.

SOURCE Cathay Financial Holdings Co., Ltd.
SAN PEDRO, Belize, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Caye International Bank, a cornerstone of the Belizean financial landscape since its inception in 2003, proudly marks two decades of excellence. This milestone is a testament to the bank's unwavering commitment to providing a comprehensive range of financial services, from personal asset protection plans to corporate banking solutions.

In commemoration of this remarkable achievement, Caye International Bank is preparing to host an extravagant 20th-anniversary cocktail celebration, poised to be a highlight of the year.

Cayes 20th Anniversary event promises to be a grand affair, attracting influential figures from various sectors. Distinguished guests include representatives from other financial institutions, regulatory bodies, political circles and esteemed business leaders, particularly from San Pedro and Ambergris Caye island, where the bank has firmly established its presence. Additionally, attendees from the hospitality, aviation, and culinary sectors will be present to honor this momentous occasion.



This festive celebration will unfold at the heart of the action, nearby the premises of the Caye International Bank, the financial epicenter of San Pedro.

Joel Nagel, Caye's Chairman, who has provided steady leadership throughout the bank's journey, stated, "Caye International Bank's legacy reflects our commitment to financial excellence and unwavering client support. We're excited about the future and remain dedicated to serving our clients and the community."



The banks President, Luigi Wewege, remarked, "For two decades, Caye International Bank has been a trailblazer in the offshore banking industry, consistently serving its clients with unwavering dedication to their financial well-being. President Luigi Wewege remarked, 'We have forged strong international partnerships to drive our continued growth and success well into the future.'



Director and Head of the banks Loan committee, Mike Cobb also expressed his admiration for the banks role as one of the few sources for international mortgages, Caye delivers a much needed product to the marketplace, enabling middle class buyers to obtain financing for their international property ownership.

Caye International Bank's contributions to the local community have not gone unnoticed. By financing projects in various tourist centers across Belize, including the Marriott Hotel, the bank has not only boosted tourism but also created job opportunities, directly benefiting the local economy.



Caye's impending 20th-anniversary celebration is more than just a commemoration of the past; it's a promising glimpse into a future filled with innovation, growth, and continued dedication to serving its clients and the local community.



ABOUT CIB

Caye International Bank, founded in 2003, is a leading international bank in Belize, offering a wide range of financial services, including personal asset protection plans and corporate banking solutions. With a legacy of resilience and adaptability, Caye Bank is committed to excellence, innovation, and supporting the local community.

Website: https://www.cayebank.bz/

Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CayeBank

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CayeBank

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caye-bank

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223032/Caye_International_Bank_Logo.jpg

CONTACT:

Lilia Constantino

notify@cayebank.bz

+501-226-2388

SOURCE Caye International Bank
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Comision Federal de Electricidad ("CFE" or the "Company"), a productive state enterprise of the Federal Government of the United Mexican States ("Mexico"), announced today the final tender results of its previously announced tender offer to purchase for cash the outstanding notes of the series set forth in the table below (all such notes, collectively, the "Notes" and each a "series" of Notes), for an aggregate purchase price, excluding accrued and unpaid interest, of up to US$1,000,000,000, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase dated August 28, 2023 (as amended or supplemented, the "Offer to Purchase") and subject to (1) the acceptance priority level of each series of Notes, and (2) possible proration, each as described herein and in the Offer to Purchase (the "Offer").

The Offer expired at 5:00 p.m. (New York City time) on September 26, 2023 (the "Expiration Date").

The following table summarizes the final results of the Offer, including the principal amount of Notes that were tendered after the Early Tender Date (as defined herein) and prior to the Expiration Date and that CFE has accepted for purchase in the Offer:

Title of

Security CUSIPs ISINs Principal

Amount

Outstanding(1) Acceptance

Priority

Level Late Tender

Consideration(2) Principal Amount

Tendered after the

Early Tender Date

and prior to the

Expiration Date

and Accepted in

the Offer Principal Amount

Tendered and

Accepted in the

Offer(3) 4.875% Notes

due 2024 200447 AD2;

P30179 AM0 US200447AD28;

USP30179AM09 US$869,688,000 1 US$947.69 US$2,920,000 US$482,623,000 4.750% Notes

due 2027 200447 AF7; P29595 AB4 US200447AF75; USP29595AB42 US$814,968,000 2 US$921.96 US$800,000 US$325,714,000 6.125% Notes

due 2045 200447 AE0; P30179 AR9 US200447AE01; USP30179AR95 US$618,308,000 3 US$815.92 - US$15,971,000 5.750% Notes

due 2042 200447 AC4; P30179 AK4 US200447AC45; USP30179AK43 US$563,710,000 4 US$801.47 - US$53,179,000























(1) As of the commencement date of the Offer. (2) Per each US$1,000 principal amount of Notes. Holders whose Notes have been accepted for purchase will also receive accrued and unpaid interest ("Accrued Interest") up to, but excluding, the Final Settlement Date (as defined herein). CFE has agreed, subject to specified exceptions and limitations, to pay additional interest to participants in the Offer to cover Mexican withholding taxes on interest payments. (3) Includes Notes tendered on or prior to the Early Tender Date and accepted in the Offer, which were purchased by CFE on September 14, 2023, the early settlement date.

CFE has accepted for purchase all of the Notes validly tendered in the Offer after 5:00 p.m. (New York City time) on September 11, 2023 (the "Early Tender Date") and prior to the Expiration Date. The final settlement date on which CFE will pay for Notes tendered after the Early Tender Date and prior to the Expiration Date and accepted in the Offer is expected to be September 28, 2023 (the "Final Settlement Date").

Holders who validly tendered their Notes after the Early Tender Date but prior to the Expiration Date and whose Notes have been accepted for purchase are eligible to receive the applicable late tender consideration set forth in the table above as well as Accrued Interest on their accepted Notes up to, but excluding, the Final Settlement Date.

Notes that have been validly tendered after the Early Tender Date and prior to the Expiration Date cannot be withdrawn, except as may be required by applicable law.

All conditions described in the Offer to Purchase have been satisfied on or prior to the Expiration Date.

* * *

CFE has retained BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. to act as dealer managers in connection with the Offer (the "Dealer Managers"). Any questions or requests for assistance regarding the Offer may be directed to the Dealer Managers at their contact information set forth below.

BNP Paribas Securities Corp.

787 Seventh Avenue

New York, New York 10019

United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Toll Free: +1 888-210-4358 Collect: +1 212-841-3059 Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

388 Greenwich Street, Trading 4th Floor

New York, New York 10013

United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Toll-Free: +1 800-558-3745 Collect: +1 212-723-6106



Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC 1585 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, New York 10019 United States of America Attn: Global Debt Advisory Group Toll-Free: +1 800-624-1808 Collect: +1 212-761-1057 SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc

277 Park Avenue New York, New York 10172

United States of America Email: [email protected] Attn: Debt Capital Markets  Liability Management Toll-Free: +1 888-284-9760 Collect: +1 212-224-5163

Copies of the Offer to Purchase may be obtained from Global Bondholder Services Corporation, the tender agent (the "Tender Agent") and the information agent (the "Information Agent") for the Offer, at +1 (855) 654-2015 (toll-free) or +1 (212) 430-3774 (collect).

Disclaimer

This press release must be read in conjunction with the Offer to Purchase.

The Offer to Purchase has not been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, nor has it been filed with or reviewed by any federal or state securities commission or regulatory authority of any country. No authority has passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the Offer to Purchase, and it is unlawful and may be a criminal offense to make any representation to the contrary.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN AND IN THE OFFER TO PURCHASE IS EXCLUSIVELY CFE'S RESPONSIBILITY AND HAS NOT BEEN REVIEWED OR AUTHORIZED BY THE MEXICAN NATIONAL BANKING AND SECURITIES COMMISSION (COMISION NACIONAL BANCARIA Y DE VALORES, OR THE "CNBV"). CFE HAS NOT FILED AND WILL NOT FILE WITH THE CNBV A REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION OF THE OFFER. THE OFFER DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A PUBLIC OFFERING (OFERTA PUBLICA) OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING AN OFERTA PUBLICA DE ADQUISICION) IN MEXICO AND IT MAY NOT BE PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED IN MEXICO. THE OFFER MAY ONLY BE MADE AVAILABLE IN MEXICO TO INVESTORS THAT QUALIFY AS INSTITUTIONAL OR ACCREDITED INVESTORS (INVERSIONISTAS INSTITUCIONALES OR INVERSIONISTAS CALIFICADOS), SOLELY PURSUANT TO THE PRIVATE OFFERING EXEMPTION SET FORTH IN NUMERAL I. OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE MEXICAN SECURITIES MARKET LAW (LEY DEL MERCADO DE VALORES). IN MAKING A DECISION AS TO WHETHER TO TENDER ANY OF THEIR NOTES, ALL HOLDERS MUST RELY ON THEIR OWN REVIEW AND EXAMINATION OF THE TERMS OF THE OFFER. CFE WILL NOTIFY THE CNBV OF THE RESULTS OF THE OFFER FOR INFORMATIONAL AND STATISTICAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND THE FILING OR RECEIPT OF SUCH NOTICE BY THE CNBV DOES NOT IMPLY ANY CERTIFICATION AS TO THE INVESTMENT QUALITY OF THE NOTES, CFE'S SOLVENCY, LIQUIDITY OR CREDIT QUALITY OR THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE INFORMATION SET FORTH HEREIN.

The Offer was made solely on the terms and conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase. Under no circumstances shall this press release constitute an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell the Notes or any other securities of the Company or any of its subsidiaries. The Offer was not made to, nor will the Company accept tenders of Notes from, holders in any jurisdiction in which the Offer or the acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities or blue sky laws of such jurisdiction.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are information of a non-historical nature or which relate to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. No assurance can be given that the transactions described herein will be consummated or as to the ultimate terms of any such transactions. CFE undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events or for any other reason.

Media Contact: Carlos Guevara Vega +52 55 5705 3279 [email protected]

SOURCE Comision Federal de Electricidad
NINGBO, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On the evening of September 23, local time in the United States, the Chinese heroine Hua Mulan made a stunning appearance in the lyrical melody at the Wang Theater at the Boch Center in Boston, the United States. The "dance drama" has produced not only a classic legend, bus also a new environment of cultural exchanges. It was applauded once every 10 minutes on average! This was the premiere of the Chinese dance drama "MULAN" in the United States, where many overseas audiences were enchanted. More than 50 actors and actresses conveyed the unique oriental charm to the audience with their majestic and magnificent dancing performance. When the ensemble answering the curtain call, applause and cheers lasted for a full 15 minutes, which was enough to express the enthusiasm and love of more than 1,600 spectators for Chinese art.

On site of the performance (PRNewsfoto/Ningbo International Communications Center)

Huang Ping, Chinese Consul General in New York, Shang Jiyuan, Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Consulate General in New York, Michael Thomas, President of the New England Commission of Higher Education in the United States, Tweed Roosevelt, Chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Institute of Long Island University, and other guests came to see the performance and gave high praise.

Huang Ping said, "This is not only a performance, but also a bridge that communicates the hearts and minds of the people of China and the United States and promotes bilateral exchanges." Tweed Roosevelt from the Roosevelt family praised highly: "This is a great show!"

Mulan is an international acclaimed IP of Chinese culture. The American audience is already familiar with the character of Mulan. Back in 1998, Disney has filmed the animated film Mulan. In 2020, the Disney has released its real-life version of the film Mulan worldwide.

Behind the dance drama "MULAN" was China's leading creative team. It was jointly produced by the Ningbo Performance & Arts Group Co., Ltd., the China National Opera House and the Huangpi District Government in Wuhan and has won China's most prestigious award of the Chinese dance art China Dance Lotus Award. The drama premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in 2017, and has been staged in nearly 100 performances across China since then. It will be staged in Boston and Washington for six consecutive performances this time. "Although factors such as jet lag need to be overcome, the artists are excited. The enthusiasm of the American audience is quite out of my expectation." Hao Ruoqi, the actress of Mulan, commented.

Rick and his wife from Boston came to the show and praised with admiration, "The dancers are very professional! Their costumes and stage design also have Chinese characteristics." Another spectator, Steve, commented: "The part of the performance that Mulan embarking on a heroic journey to the battlefield was very exciting and worthy of recommendation. The dance drama has expressed the yearning for peace, which is the common pursuit of mankind."

It is worth mentioning that the "circular turntable" with a diameter of 15 meters and a weight of 7 tons on the stage has demolished the limitations of time and space and created more scenes for a single stage. "I have been to China. Chinese history and culture are profound. Mulan in my impression is very traditional. I didn't expect the stage of this dance drama to be so modern like this!" Michael Thomas told reporters.

Lin Hong, chairwoman of Ningbo Performance & Arts Group Co., Ltd., said: "Ningbo is located next to Shanghai and is an important port city in China. It has been delivering excellent performances in the recent years. I hope that this performance will play a positive role in the exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations between China and the United States."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2221623/drama_dance.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2217761/4296785/Ningbo_International_Communications_Center_Logo.jpg

Manuscript contact: Li Xiaohang

Contact: 0086-13857875695

Contact email: 406555375@qq.com

SOURCE Ningbo International Communications Center
Kelly's deep strategic finance and operations experience will be instrumental as Chroma advances its vision to develop novel epigenetic editing therapeutics to revolutionize treatment of disease

BOSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chroma Medicine, Inc., (Chroma) a genomic medicine company pioneering single-dose epigenetic editing therapeutics, today announced the addition of innovative biotech business leader Michael A. Kelly to its Board of Directors.

"Michael brings decades of strategic finance and business operations experience to Chroma and builds on the deep expertise of our current board and leadership team. We are excited to welcome him as we pursue the promise of epigenetic editing for patients," said Catherine Stehman-Breen, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Chroma.

Mr. Kelly is the Founder and President of Sentry Hill Partners, LLC, a global life sciences transformation and management consulting firm that he founded in 2018. In addition to Chroma, he serves as an independent member on the boards of Prime Medicine, Amicus Therapeutics, DMC Global Inc., and NeoGenomics Laboratories. Previously, he was a senior executive at Amgen, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President, Global Business Services. Mr. Kelly also twice served as Amgen's acting Chief Financial Officer as well as the Vice President & Chief Financial Officer for International Commercial Operations. He has held senior positions at Tanox, Biogen, and Nutrasweet Kelco Company, a division of Monsanto Life Sciences. He serves on the Council of Advisors and was the former audit committee chair for Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization focused on health outcomes and disaster relief. Kelly obtained his B.Sc. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Industrial Relations from Florida A&M University.

"Genomic medicine is a rapidly growing, cutting-edge field and Chroma's highly specific and durable epigenetic editors have great potential to be transformative in the treatment of serious diseases," said Kelly. "I am thrilled to be part of this important mission as the company continues to build the leading platform of epigenetic editing therapies."

About Chroma Medicine

Chroma Medicine is a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of genomic medicines that harness epigenetics, nature's innate mechanism for gene regulation, to deliver precise, programmable single-dose therapeutics while preserving genomic integrity. The company was founded by the world's foremost experts in genomic research and is led by a strong team of industry leaders and scientists with deep experience in genomic medicine, drug discovery, and development. For more information, please visit chromamedicine.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X (formerly known as Twitter).

SOURCE Chroma Medicine
Chubb leverages industry-leading security solutions to help policyholders enhance cyber defenses and help protect businesses from emerging threats

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb, the world's largest publicly traded property & casualty insurance company, is collaborating with SentinelOne (NYSE: S), a leader in cybersecurity, to streamline cyber risk management practices for U.S. businesses.

As part of the first phase of this collaboration, Chubb's cyber insurance policyholders with over $100 million in revenue will have the ability to share their enterprise "health assessment or security posture" data with Chubb through SentinelOne's endpoint protection and automated incident response solutions. This includes SentinelOne's WatchTower Vital Signs Report app, which securely communicates an accurate profile of a policyholder's cybersecurity posture and controls to Chubb to help streamline underwriting processes.

The benefits for policyholders and their agents include providing potentially incentivized policy pricing subject to applicable insurance laws, streamlined policy renewals, and visibility and cyber threat protection through SentinelOne. Furthermore, subject to applicable insurance laws, these policyholders can also receive a discounted subscription to SentinelOne's solutions empowering them to keep their systems and data safe.

The collaboration with Chubb and SentinelOne is particularly timely as cyber threats continue to increase in sophistication and devastation, prompting companies to prioritize investments to bolster their defenses and business resiliency.

"The incorporation of SentinelOne's endpoint protection and incident response gives Chubb policyholders streamlined and potentially discounted access to a full suite of integrated cyber risk management solutions," said Craig Guiliano, Vice President of Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence at Chubb. "Policyholders will be empowered to defend faster, at a greater scale, and with higher accuracy across their entire attack surface. The other major benefit to the policyholder is the comprehensive view of an enterprise's cybersecurity health for improved policy accessibility."

"SentinelOne is proud to collaborate with Chubb to put the power of cybersecurity technology in the hands of their policyholders and help them take informed action to protect their business from potentially devastating threats today and tomorrow," said Eran Ashkenazi, Chief Customer Officer, SentinelOne.

Chubb Cyber Insurance is a market leader in cyber insurance, offering insurance coverage for data breaches, network security, and other cyber risks, for over 20 years. With these new policyholder offerings, Chubb Cyber Insurance further provides more value-added benefits at a time when organizations are playing defense against the threats of data breaches, business interruption and reputational risk following a cyber incident.

For more information about Chubb Cyber Insurance, please visit https://www.chubb.com/us-en/business-insurance/products/cyber-insurance.html.

About Chubb

Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries and territories, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London, Paris and other locations, and employs approximately 40,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: www.chubb.com.

About SentinelOne

SentinelOne is a leader in autonomous cybersecurity and a Fortune AI 50 company. SentinelOne Singularity is a cybersecurity AI platform that detects, prevents, and responds to cyber attacks at machine speed, empowering organizations to secure endpoints, cloud workloads, containers, identities, and mobile and network-connected devices with speed, accuracy and simplicity. The SentinelOne Singularity Platform is powered by DataSet, an AI-enabled data lake technology. Over 10,000 customers, including hundreds of the Global 2000, prominent governments, healthcare providers, and educational institutions, trust SentinelOne to secure the future today. To learn more, visit www.sentinelone.com.

SOURCE Chubb INA Holdings
BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in collaboration with IE China Center of IE University, is thrilled to unveil a new report titled, "Fuel the Soft Power: The Role of High-Tech Companies in the Soft Power Rivalry between China and the United States."

The report, featuring contributions from seasoned academics and policy experts, provides in-depth perspectives on the evolving dynamics of soft power between China and the United States, emphasizing the pivotal role played by high-tech companies in shaping global influence.

Jose Felix Valdivieso, Chairman of IE China Center, opens the report highlighting China's unique soft power approach. He notes, "China's approach differs from the West's as it invokes a soft power model characterized by a priority on economic development and the maintenance of strong government leadership."

CKGSB Professor Shi Weilei's article discusses the interplay between sustainable value creation and GDP growth. He suggests, "China [should] explain its high performance not as isolated success stories  such as its successful partnership at the port of Haifa or its quantum computing powers  but rather through the lens of sustainable value creation."

CKGSB Professor Tao Zhigang emphasizes how media biases often distort soft power dynamics between China and the U.S. He explains that the narrative around U.S. job losses and China's regulatory actions against monopolies is often skewed, and requires a more balanced perspective.

IE University's Assistant Professor of Leadership, Ma Bin's article, based on an extensive survey of 1,480 individuals, analyzes public perceptions on the soft power wielded by China and the US. He observes, "The United States still holds dominance in overall soft power. However, emerging economies like Mexico and South Africa show a higher favorability towards China. This could be attributed to China's increasing investment and economic collaborations in these regions."

Read the report here: https://english.ckgsb.edu.cn/knowledge/report/fuel-the-soft-power-the-role-of-high-tech-companies-in-the-soft-power-rivalry-between-china-and-the-united-states/

CKGSB is China's first privately-funded and research-intensive business school with over 40 full-time, world-class faculty members, who are dedicated to producing original Asian management theories and a deeper understanding of business from a global perspective.

IE China Centre, belonging to IE University, is dedicated to fostering cross-cultural understanding and collaboration between China and the rest of the world. Through its programs and initiatives, the center empowers individuals and organizations with the skills to navigate the complexities of the Chinese market.

SOURCE Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)
RYE BROOK, N.Y. and NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Daiso, the renowned global retail chain offering a wide range of affordable and unique products, is thrilled to announce the grand opening of two stores on the east coast on October 7th. "We are thrilled to open our stores in Rye Brook and New Rochelle," said Jack Williams, Chief Retail Operations Officer for Daiso USA. "This achievement reflects the dedication and support of our customers who have embraced Daiso's unique concept and diverse product range. We are excited to provide an exceptional shopping experience to these vibrant communities and look forward to serving our customers with the utmost care and dedication."

The new east coast Daiso stores promise to be a haven for shoppers seeking quality merchandise at affordable prices. With its extensive range of products spanning various categories, including Japanese inspired home decor, stationery, food, and more, Daiso has become synonymous with accessible and innovative offerings. John Clarke, Chief Development Officer for Daiso USA says, "New York based Daiso customers have shown us through our online business and social media their desire for us to have more stores within the state, influencing our immediate growth strategy in this region. We currently operate 105 units in 7 states with more states opening in 2024".

On both Saturday, October 7th and Sunday, October 8th, the first 100 customers to shop at the Rye Ridge Shopping Center and Shoprite Plaza location, making a minimum purchase of $30 will receive an exclusive tote bag and plushie. These special offerings are Daiso's way of expressing gratitude to its loyal customers and welcoming new shoppers to the Daiso community.

Daiso invites customers to join in the celebration! Both the Rye Ridge Shopping Center and Shoprite Plaza Daisos will be open everyday from 10 a.m to 8 p.m.

About Daiso:

Daiso is a global retail chain founded in Japan, known for its vast array of unique and affordable products across various categories such as household goods, stationery, beauty, and more. Daiso entered the US market in 2005 and continues to expand its global footprint while maintaining its commitment to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction. The Daiso US headquarters is located in La Mirada, CA.

SOURCE Daiso USA
When planning a trip to Europe, most people probably think through not only the route but also the fashionable outfits. According to the unspoken tourist rule, we always try to merge with the atmosphere of the country we are traveling to. However, sometimes outfits can look inappropriate or too "touristy", giving away the fact that you are a visitor.

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On this occasion, the Anglo-American fashion designer Tan Franz shared with Insider some tips on how to dress chic in Europe without looking like a "total tourist". Frantz is the author of the memoir Naturally Tan, a fashion expert for the Netflix series Queer Eye, host of the web series Dressing Funny, and co-host of Next In Fashion. The Pakistani-born fashion designer is one of the first openly gay South Asians on the big screen and one of the first openly gay Muslims on Western television.

The fashion designer believes that tourists should not bring clothes that are stereotypically associated with the country you are visiting. "The best example I can give you is the beret in Paris," says Tan Franz. "The French don't really wear them, so you can give yourself away. The fashion designer recommends adding a beret to your basic wardrobe because this headwear is a French stereotype that came from mass culture and movies.

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Franz says wearing socks with sandals was another tourist surprise for the locals. "I know it's become a trend, but it's a very American thing," he explained. If you don't want to stand out among the locals, it's best to leave this combination at home.

Franz has more tips on how to dress in a European style in his Trainline style guide, including advice to ditch the camera bag and panama hat.

The fashion designer also shared some of his vacation packing tips, such as favoring cotton and linen fabrics to avoid sweating in the scorching summer heat. "Anything that looks bulky is not going to help when you're in a place without air conditioning, which is usually everywhere in Europe," he says. "You can have a beautiful silk dress, but silk is not a friend of humidity or heat".

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Franz said that he always tries to take hand luggage when traveling in Europe. "It's much easier to move around with a carry-on," he explains, "and honestly, if you're going on a four- to five-day trip, you can fit everything you need in your carry-on without any problems".

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL wrote about 11 anti-fashion trends according to TikTok and how to replace them.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel and Viber. Don't fall for fakes!
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In recent months, several media outlets have investigated an Oregon law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of controlled substances, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, for some persons. The articles have included information suggesting that the law may be responsible for continued increases in overdose deaths. Today, new research led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that in Oregon and Washington, two states that implemented drug decriminalization policies in early 2021, there is no evidence of an association between decriminalization and fatal drug overdose rates.

The findings are the result of a collaboration between the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the Network for Public Health Law, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research team's goal was to investigate whether fully or partially decriminalizing drug possession changed rates of overdose deaths in either state in the first year after the policy change.

Decriminalization advocates assert that laws like those passed in Oregon and Washington will result in increased calls for help by people experiencing or witnessing an overdose and reduce incarceration, which itself is associated with fatal overdose. Critics, meanwhile, argue that decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs might increase drug use and subsequent fatal overdose. This research found no evidence to support either outcome in the first year after the policy change.

"Our analysis suggests that state decriminalization policies do not lead to increases in overdose deaths," said Corey Davis, JD, MSPH, assistant clinical professor with the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and the study's senior investigator.

Another study published by Davis and colleagues last month found that the Oregon and Washington decriminalization policies dramatically reduced arrests for drug possession and did not lead to increased arrests for violent crimes. "These two studies show that drug decriminalization measures in Oregon and Washington reduced arrests and did not increase overdose deaths. Taken together, these findings signal reduced harm to people who use drugs and possibly their communities as well," said Davis.

Policymakers and public health experts are increasingly looking to decriminalization and other harm reduction measures to stem the tide of opioid overdose deaths in the United States, driven largely by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times more potent than heroin and involved in approximately two-thirds of all U.S. overdoses. More than 100,000 people continue to die from drug overdoses each year.

How the Study was Conducted

The team of investigators examined one year of post-decriminalization data in Oregon (February 2021 through March 2022) and Washington (March 2021 through March 2022) using death certificate data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System. Oregon's decriminalization measure is commonly referred to as "Measure 110" while Washington's change was prompted by a state Supreme Court decision that ruled the state's drug possession law was unconstitutional.

The researchers then constructed a synthetic control group made up of 13 states that had similar rates of overdose to Oregon and 18 states that had similar rates to overdose in Washington pre-decriminalization. After the investigators found no statistical significance in overdose death rates between Oregon, Washington and the control group, the investigators conducted a sensitivity analysis incorporating an additional seven months of provisional data. The findings did not change.

"This study is an important first look at the impact of drug decriminalization on overdose, but continued monitoring is needed. In addition to reducing penalties for drug possession, Measure 110 in Oregon directed hundreds of millions of dollars of cannabis revenue to increasing access to programming aimed at reducing overdose risk. However, these funds were not distributed until after our study period," said Spruha Joshi, PhD, MPH, assistant professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health and co-lead author of the study. "It will be important to continue to monitor overdose rates as more data become available to assess the impact of the distribution of these funds."

In addition to Davis and Joshi, other study collaborators from NYU Langone include co-lead author Bianca D. Rivera, MPH, and Magdalena Cerda, DrPH MPH, from the NYU Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Gery P. Guy Jr., PhD, MPH, and Andrea Strahan, PhD, MPP from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Haven Wheelock, MPH, of Outside In, Portland, OR. Davis is also with the Network for Public Health law, a non-partisan non-profit organization.

Funding for the study was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the CDC.

Media Inquiries:

Sasha Walek

646-501-3873

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SOURCE NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health
A Bold New Visual Identity Invites You to Wander the Caribbean

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Denizen Rum proudly presents a revitalized look that mirrors the dynamic rums nestled inside each bottle. The name Denizen draws inspiration from the Latin term "Deintus," which refers to those spirited explorers who roam the world seeking new experiences. A long-time bartender favorite thanks to the rich character and layered flavors that are ideal for crafting cocktails, Denizen's new visual identity honors the brand's commitment to creating an elevated spirit through sourcing and blending some of the best small-batch rums from throughout the Caribbean. The updated packaging encompasses design elements that beckon enthusiasts to delve into the Caribbean's vibrant culture, curious spirit, and the legacy of rum merchants who explored the region.

Denizen Rum Unveils New Look Celebrating its Caribbean Blends

Each label pays tribute to the culture, flora, and fauna of the unique blend's region. The compass, symbolizing the explorers who charted the Caribbean's seas, embodies the adventurous spirit of Denizen. The Tufted Coquette, a bird that flies across the Caribbean collecting pollens, is a symbol for Denizen Rum's commitment to sourcing small-batch rums from across the Caribbean. Maintaining the bottle shape, the new packaging integrates lighter, eco-friendly glass that incorporates a higher portion of recycled materials.

Brian Radics, CMO of Hotaling & Co., states "Our new labels honor the intricate flavors in Denizen rums while positioning Denizen at the forefront of modern rum mixology and the exploration of authentic flavors one seeks in rum cocktails. Importantly, while our appearance has evolved, the exceptional liquid inside remains unchanged, ensuring the same extraordinary taste that bartenders appreciate, and consumers enjoy."

Denizen Aged White

(40% ABV; 750ml; $19.99 SRP)

A Blend of rums predominately from Trinidad aged up to 5 years and resulting in a finished product with multi-dimensions of flavor that is uncommon in most mixing rums. The new label for this remarkably complex mixing rum prominently features a blue hue denoting the expression along with the crocodile and crabier birds indigenous to Trinidad.

Signature serve(s): Classic Daiquiri & Hemingway Daiquiri

Denizen Vatted Dark

(50% ABV, 750 ml, $29.99 SRP)

A 100 Proof blend of full-bodied dark Guyana rums fashioned in the old vatted style, originally formulated in the mid-18th century, and fresh unaged Rhum Agricole from Martinique. Vatted Dark will be released in the new Denizen visual identity in 2024. An eye-catching shade of green and illustrations of the Jaguar and Blazon snake, powerful figures native to the regions of Guyana and Jamaica respectively will adorn the new label.

Signature serve(s): Dark Daiquiri & Rum Manhattan

Denizen Merchant's Reserve

(46% ABV, 750ml, $34.99 SRP)

Centuries ago, merchants would mix their aged Caribbean rums and save the best blends to sell in Europe as "Merchant's Reserve." Crafted as the ultimate cocktail rum, Denizen Merchant's Reserve is a blend of small-batch Caribbean rums including Plummer style Jamaican pot still rums and a rare component of Rhum Grande Arome from Martinique. The dark red label features illustrations of the Blazon snake and Crocodile that hail proudly as emblems from the Jamaican and Martinique Coat of Arms.

Signature serve: Mai Tai

Denizen is imported by San Francisco's Hotaling & Co., the new bottles are available in the following markets: CA, NY, TX, MI, WA, GA, MA, CO, IL, LA, DC, SC, WI, FL, AZ, PA, NV, KS, CT, NJ, MS, RI, NM, VA, OK, NC, SD, HI, UT, NH, ND, NE, DE. To find Denizen near you, use Denizen Rum's product finder tool . Photos of the new bottles can be found HERE. For more information, please visit https://denizenrum.com/ . Follow Denizen Rum on Instagram @DenizenRum

About Hotaling & Co.

A born and bred San Francisco original, Hotaling & Co. is the leading distiller and importer of artisanal spirits and cocktail essentials. Our dedication to artisanal spirits first started 30 years ago under the name Anchor Distilling Company - heralding the return to copper pot distilling in the U.S. with the original craft introductions of Junipero Gin & Old Potrero Straight Rye Whiskey. We carry on that pioneering legacy with the name Hotaling & Co. as a nod to the local legend A.P. Hotaling, who ventured West during the Gold Rush and quickly became one of the most reputable spirits dealers in the country and a notable figure in American drinking culture. Fueled by a passion for beverage expertise, education and hospitality, Hotaling & Co. carries on this tradition of artisanal excellence by bringing together a family of like-minded spirits that share our commitment to craft and care.

Today, Hotaling & Co.'s portfolio is synonymous with brands of unmatched quality and character, including Luxardo Liqueurs & Cherries, Nikka Whisky, Junipero Gin, HINE Cognac, Convite Mezcal, Severo Tequila, Fiero, Tequila, Kavalan Whisky, Denizen Rum, HIRSCH Selected Whiskeys, Writers' Tears Whiskey, Old Pulteney Whisky, Speyburn Whisky, Balblair Whisky, Arran Whisky, Old Potrero Rye Whiskey, and more. Visit www.HotalingandCo.com to explore our full range of brands.

Contact

Karla Orduna

[email protected]

SOURCE Hotaling
~ Virginia is first in nation to submit all required BEAD plans ~



RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development announced today the submission of the Initial Proposal Volume 2 to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which includes the adoption of public comment. The submission of the plans and initial proposals are the final step for Virginia to access its $1.48 billion federal allocation to deploy high-speed internet networks to areas without broadband.

"Virginia maintains its position as a leader in affordable broadband connectivity and remains committed to bridging the digital gap," said Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick. "Virginia stands as a beacon of national leadership in bridging the digital divide, with an unwavering commitment to making broadband accessible to every Virginian."

"In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, high-speed broadband access is not a luxury. It is an essential component of daily life," said DHCD Director and Chief Broadband Advisor Bryan Horn. "We are delighted to announce that the Commonwealth is at the forefront in the nation to reach statewide universal broadband coverage and crafting effective strategies to bridge the digital divide, leaving no Virginian behind."

The Commonwealth is now the first state in the nation to submit its 5-Year-Plan, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Initial Proposal which outline Virginia's plans for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program under the federal Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act. These funds will be prioritized to reach the estimated 162,000 remaining unserved homes, businesses and community anchors in the Commonwealth that are not yet in a broadband deployment project area.

The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion nationwide program to expand high-speed internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment, affordability and adoption programs. The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will administer the Commonwealth's $1.48 billion BEAD allocation to build upon the work of the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI) to reach the remaining unserved regions of the Commonwealth. Once funding for universal broadband access is delivered, DHCD will focus on leveraging these investments through promoting affordability and improving adoption of this critical service.

The next step in the BEAD program involves a challenge process that confirms that all locations lacking access to high-speed internet, and not part of an existing deployment project, are included in this initiative. The challenge process offers an opportunity for local governments, nonprofit organizations and broadband providers to thoroughly review the preliminary list, which currently identifies 162,000 homes, businesses and community anchor institutions without broadband access.

"Broadband is indispensable in today's digital world," said Dr. Tamarah Holmes, Director of Broadband for DHCD. "We encourage our broadband partners to take part in the challenge process to certify no Virginian is left behind in this digital world."

Following the challenge process, DHCD will initiate the application phase. During this phase, broadband providers will have the opportunity to submit proposals to extend their services to these unconnected regions.

For more information about Virginia's broadband efforts, visit dhcd.virginia.gov/vati.

SOURCE Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development
DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Bleisure Travel Market By Employee, By Age Group, By Industries: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2023-2032" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The global bleisure travel market, valued at $315.3 billion in 2022, is expected to experience substantial growth, reaching an estimated $731.4 billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 8.9% from 2023 to 2032.

This growth is driven by shifting boundaries between work and personal life, prompting business travelers to combine work-related trips with leisure experiences.

Emergence of Bleisure Travel

As technology continues to advance, work and personal life are becoming increasingly intertwined. This has led to a rising trend in bleisure travel, where business travelers extend their trips to explore local culture, cuisine, and attractions.

While the term "bleisure travel" is relatively new, many business travelers have long incorporated leisure activities into their work-related trips. Additionally, businesses are now officially supporting bleisure travel, recognizing its benefits for employee relations and overall well-being.

Workcations: A Blend of Work and Vacation

Workcations represent a fusion of personal vacations and work. With flexible work schedules and remote work options, employees can maintain their job responsibilities while enjoying a vacation. For example, workers on a week-long vacation may bring their laptops and allocate time for both work tasks and leisure activities.

This trend is gaining traction as businesses look for ways to combat employee stress and burnout caused by long working hours and increased competition. Maintaining a work-life balance is crucial for employee mental health, and employers who prioritize this often benefit from a happier, more productive workforce.

Digital Transformation Driving Growth

The travel industry is undergoing a significant digital transformation, with the adoption of digital solutions for travel planning, booking, and personalized experiences. Technologies like virtual tours and tailored recommendations are changing how travelers plan and enjoy their trips.

The travel, tourism, and aviation industry is investing heavily in digitization, with an estimated $305 billion allocated between 2016 and 2025. This transformation is expected to benefit both customers and society, with significant value created through digital initiatives.

Market Segmentation

The bleisure travel market is segmented based on age group, industry, employee type, and region:

Age Group : Millennial, Generation X, and others.

: Millennial, Generation X, and others. Industries : Government, corporate, and subtypes such as technology, healthcare, public administration, manufacturing, and others.

: Government, corporate, and subtypes such as technology, healthcare, public administration, manufacturing, and others. Employee Type : Executives, middle management, and entry-level employees.

: Executives, middle management, and entry-level employees. Region: North America (U.S., Canada , Mexico ), Europe ( Germany , UK, France , Italy , Spain , Switzerland , rest of Europe ), Asia-Pacific ( China , India , Japan , South Korea , Australia , rest of Asia-Pacific ), and LAMEA ( Brazil , South Africa , UAE, Argentina , rest of LAMEA).

Key Players

Prominent players in the global bleisure travel market include Airbnb, Inc., BCD Group, Booking Holdings, Inc., Cvent Inc., Expedia Group Inc., Fareportal, Flight Centre Travel Group Limited, Travelator, Inc., TravelPerk S.L.U., and Wexas Travel.

Key Benefits for Stakeholders

Quantitative analysis of market segments, trends, and dynamics from 2022 to 2032.

Insights into key drivers, restraints, and opportunities.

Porter's five forces analysis for strategic decision-making.

In-depth analysis of market segmentation to identify opportunities.

Regional mapping of revenue contributions.

Market player positioning for benchmarking.

Analysis of global and regional trends, key players, market segments, application areas, and growth strategies.

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Rise in Demand for Work-Life Balance

Digital Transformation in the Travel Industry

Increase in the Number of Affordable Hospitality Services

Restraints

Additional Expenditure in Travel Accommodation

Lack of Proper Documentation and Policies for Bleisure Travel

Opportunities

Collaboration with Corporates

Growth in Infrastructure

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jpvx03

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Gives Researchers New Project Management Capabilities, Reduces Duplication, and Improves Cross-Organization Collaboration

BOSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Dotmatics , a leader in R&D scientific software connecting science, data, and decision-making, today announced its new Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution specifically designed to help R&D leaders get more insight from their data, faster. With its focus on simplifying data intelligence, the new Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution helps researchers accelerate new product development by enabling data-driven research, simplifying project management, and reducing the complexities of research IT infrastructure. Learn more at: https://www.dotmatics.com/solutions/chemicals-materials-science-software .

The new Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution helps researchers accelerate new product development by enabling data-driven research, simplifying project management, and reducing the complexities of research IT infrastructure

Leaders in the industry have struggled to extract meaningful and actionable data from IT systems, hindering the ability to respond quickly to competitors, industry trends, and regulatory requirements. The Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution tackles this informatics problem by providing tools and capabilities that focus on three critical needs: project decision making, eliminating duplication of efforts, and improved collaboration across departments, sites, and disciplines.

"The proliferation of data in the development of chemicals and materials should be promising to research organizations pursuing new products, but it has created new complexities and redundancies that are adding time and cost challenges to researchers," said Melanie Nelson, Director of Product Management, Solutions and Integrations at Dotmatics. "We are bringing the Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials solution to market specifically to empower teams to gain insights, make informed decisions, and streamline workflows, ultimately driving greater efficiency and productivity."

The Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution includes the following workflows and capabilities:

Ingredient Management: Leverages Dotmatics Bioregister as a general entity registration framework to define and track ingredient properties. This capability enables complete traceability of formulation constituents and their properties, simplifying workflows and applications setup.

Leverages Dotmatics Bioregister as a general entity registration framework to define and track ingredient properties. This capability enables complete traceability of formulation constituents and their properties, simplifying workflows and applications setup. Formula: Offers a formulations-specific electronic lab notebook (ELN) to define ingredient levels, associate samples, and facilitate planning and analysis of complex formulation experiments.

Offers a formulations-specific electronic lab notebook (ELN) to define ingredient levels, associate samples, and facilitate planning and analysis of complex formulation experiments. Process: Allows researchers to define step-by-step product formation, including equipment used and associated metadata, ensuring in-depth capture of product specifications for efficient data reuse.

Allows researchers to define step-by-step product formation, including equipment used and associated metadata, ensuring in-depth capture of product specifications for efficient data reuse. Testing: Provides a workflow for specifying and requesting tests, enables ingredient/sample tracking, and can be easily extended to connect to lab digitalization capabilities and to integrate with (or fulfill the needs of) a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).

Provides a workflow for specifying and requesting tests, enables ingredient/sample tracking, and can be easily extended to connect to lab digitalization capabilities and to integrate with (or fulfill the needs of) a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). Analysis: Leverages the data accessibility of Dotmatics Platform to provide powerful data insights with query and visualization capabilities, laying a foundation for data modeling (AI/ML) and facilitating improved decision support.

"Croda is happy to be working with Dotmatics in helping to streamline and harmonize our approach to Knowledge Management across our Global Research and Technology (R&T) teams," said Dr. Paul Cameron, Scientific Director at Croda. "Hundreds of scientists around the world are now using the software to capture and share experimental data and project work, and we are excited to have recently rolled out additional functionality to support our groups working in Formulations."

The Dotmatics Chemicals & Materials Solution is now generally available to help researchers accelerate new product development. To learn more about the solution, please visit https://www.dotmatics.com/solutions/chemicals-materials-science-software

Dotmatics Summit

Organizations interested in learning more about Dotmatics including this Chemicals & Materials Solution are invited to join the Dotmatics Summit 2023 in Boston, MA, October 11-12, or in Cambridge, UK, October 17-18. These two-day conferences will feature hands-on sessions, in depth demos, and product updates. Attendees will also find opportunities to network with experts and luminaries about what's possible for scientists and their organizations in the world of scientific R&D through industry best practices and collaboration. To register, visit: https://www.dotmatics.com/summit

About Dotmatics

Dotmatics is a leader in R&D scientific software connecting science, data, and decision-making. Its enterprise R&D platform and scientists' favorite applications drive efficiency and accelerate innovation. More than 2 million scientists and 10,000 customers trust Dotmatics to help them create a healthier, cleaner, safer world. Dotmatics is a global team of more than 800 people dedicated to supporting its customers in over 180 countries. The company's principal office is in Boston, with 14 offices and R&D teams located around the world.

Dotmatics is backed by Insight Partners , a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software scaleup companies. Learn more about Dotmatics, its platform, and applications including GraphPad Prism, Geneious, SnapGene, Protein Metrics, and LabArchives at https://www.dotmatics.com .

SOURCE Dotmatics Inc
CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "Double-sided Tape Market by Resinn Type (Acrylic, Rubber, Silicone), Technology (Solvent borne, Waterborne, Hot-melt-based), Tape-Backing Material (Foam-backed, Film-backed, Paper-/Tissue-backed), End-Use Industry, & Region - Global Forecast to 2028", is growing at a high rate due to the increased demand from various sectors. The global double-sided tape market size was USD 11.6 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach USD 17.2 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 6.7% between 2023 and 2028. The Asia Pacific accounted for the major share of the overall market in 2022. High demand from automotive and building & construction is driving the double-sided tape market in Asia Pacific. Rapidly rising household income and fast growing middle class population in Asia Pacific is also responsible for the high demand from the region. The most potential market is currently in the Asia Pacific region, and this is likely to continue.

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The major driver for the double-sided tape market is the growing demand from packaging industry. The packaging industry's rising presence in less developed areas, demand for packaged goods has increased as a result of more people moving to metropolitan areas and adopting westernized attitudes and lifestyles. The booming e-commerce industry has further accelerated this trend on a global level. Increase in raw material prices is the major restraining factor of double-sided tape market. The industry for double-sided tape is heavily impacted by rising raw material costs. The main issue is that the cost of raw materials is steadily rising. With a noticeable influence on the manufacturing costs experienced by double-sided tape producers, this spike is caused by interruption in supply chains, geopolitical tensions, and changes in energy prices. Potential substitutes to traditional fastening systems offers the opportunity in the double-sided tape market. Although traditional techniques like screws and bolts are efficient, they are complicated, heavy, and unattractive. It reduces vibrations in order to handle different business problems. A flexible and long-lasting adhesive utilized in high-temperature industries is double-sided tape. It firmly connects tiny parts, promoting advancement in electronics and healthcare.

Acrylic segment is expected to hold largest share of the double-sided tape market during the forecasted period.

Acrylic is widely used in double-sided tapes because of its appealing qualities that set them apart in a market. Acrylics are renowned for their quick drying times, outstanding resistance to oxidation, wide temperature range, and capacity to withstand UV rays. Additionally, they display exceptional anti-aging qualities and maintain color consistency over time. They excel in water resistance and have high levels of peel, tack, and shear strength because they expertly balance adhesion and cohesion.

Solvent-based technology segment hold the largest segment in overall double-sided tape market during forecast period.

The solvent-based technology is the largest segment in the overall double-sided tape market. Asia Pacific has emerged as the center of demand for solvent-based adhesive technology and is expected to keep holding onto the top spot through the year 2028. Particularly in a variety of electrical and electronic applications, it provides performance that is unmatched. They are essential to the development of membrane switches and are widely used in both indoor and outdoor settings where utmost durability is required.

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Foam-backed backing material segment hold the largest segment in overall double-sided tape market during forecast period.

The foam-backed backing material is the largest segment in the overall double-sided tape market. Due to its exceptional quality, its demand is rising, particularly in the aerospace, automotive, defense, and building & construction industries. Furthermore, these tapes are eco-friendly and have good anti-vibration qualities, outstanding moisture and solvent resistance, long-term holding power, shock absorption capability, excellent conformance, and global anti-aging properties. The foam-backed double-sided tape market is likely to expand over the forecast period due to characteristics such as high internal strength, flexibility, and low peeling stress.

Automotive end-use industry accounted largest share of the global double-sided tape market during forecasted period.

Automotive is the largest end-use industry segment in the overall double-sided tape market. Double-sided tape is important in the automobile industry since it serves numerous tasks for both the outside and interior of vehicles. These tapes have a wide range of uses, including bonding accessories, adhesion, and vibration resistance. They are also used to attach the body of automobiles.

Asia Pacific region likely to account the fastest growing region of the global double-sided tape market during forecasted period.

The Asia Pacific is the largest double-sided tape market, in terms of both, value and volume, and is projected to be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period. Asia Pacific was driven by the rapidly rising household income and fast growing middle class population. The market in Asia Pacific is now the most promising and is anticipated to remain so in the foreseeable future. Even in these times of a slowing global economy, Asia Pacific remains the most appealing region for double-sided tape manufacturers. Double-sided tape is widely used in the region's construction, packaging, and footwear sectors due to environmental and health and safety concerns.

The key companies profiled in this report are 3M (US), Nitto Denko Corporation (Japan), Tesa SE (Germany), Lintec Corporation (Japan), Avery Dennison Corporation (US).

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Related Reports:

Adhesive Tapes Market - Global Forecast to 2028

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DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Dover (NYSE: DOV) today announced that the Company will feature multiple brands at the National Association of Convenience Stores Trade Show ("NACS Show") and Petroleum Equipment Institute Convention ("PEI Convention")  the leading industry event of the year and the largest of its kind in the U.S.  in Atlanta, GA, on October 3-6, 2023.

Convenience retail is a large, growing, and evolving industry that serves 160 million customers daily. It is a key market for Dover, with multiple avenues for growth including clean energy, retail fueling, software solutions, foodservice and vehicle wash.

Dover's operating companies participating in the 2023 show include Dover Fueling Solutions ("DFS") and OPW.

Dover Fueling Solutions: DFS, a leading global provider of advanced customer-focused technologies, services and solutions in the fuel and convenience retail industry, will display a wide range of products and solutions representing the company's portfolio brands, including Wayne Fueling Systems, Tokheim, OPW Fuel Management Systems, ClearView, ProGauge, Fairbanks, LIQAL and AvaLAN. Further details below:

DFS will release its second annual Future of Fueling Report: Innovation at the Pump at NACS. The report provides insights on what consumers are looking for in their fueling experiences, such as convenience, service, technology, amenities and customization. Industry experts will be available to discuss these findings and assist retailers in implementing insights to improve their customers' experiences and increase profit margins.

DFS will spotlight its recently launched DX Market  powered by GRUBBRR  solution within the DFS Anthem UX  platform on the Wayne Ovation  fuel dispenser. DX Market  is a self-ordering solution revolutionizing retail. It empowers retailers to offer customized promotions and upsells using dynamic videos and static content, meeting the demand for automated fueling stations with enhanced self-checkout options.

powered by GRUBBRR solution within the DFS Anthem UX platform on the Wayne Ovation fuel dispenser. DX Market is a self-ordering solution revolutionizing retail. It empowers retailers to offer customized promotions and upsells using dynamic videos and static content, meeting the demand for automated fueling stations with enhanced self-checkout options. DFS will display its DX Promote Auto service for the DFS Anthem UX  platform, an on-dispenser media management service. Designed to offer retailers the necessary time to prioritize the supervision of daily operations, DX Promote Auto oversees the management, creation and presentation of retailer promotional videos, infotainment and national promotions while also increasing in-store spending and enhancing the customer experience at the pump.

platform, an on-dispenser media management service. Designed to offer retailers the necessary time to prioritize the supervision of daily operations, DX Promote Auto oversees the management, creation and presentation of retailer promotional videos, infotainment and national promotions while also increasing in-store spending and enhancing the customer experience at the pump. DFS will showcase its DFS Anthem UX  platform, including the DFS AX12 (12" color touchscreen display) and DFS AX7 (7" color touchscreen display) models. The Anthem UX platforms, partnered with DX Promote, create scheduled media that drives revenue at the dispenser, freeing site owners to focus on managing their business.

platform, including the DFS AX12 (12" color touchscreen display) and DFS AX7 (7" color touchscreen display) models. The Anthem UX platforms, partnered with DX Promote, create scheduled media that drives revenue at the dispenser, freeing site owners to focus on managing their business. DFS will highlight two of its cutting-edge fuel site controllers, the Synergy Fleet Site Controller and the Synergy Wayne iX Fleet Controller. Each of these controllers offers on-site fleet fueling control and management, providing retailers enhanced security and control with access to the DFS DX Cloud set of solutions where applicable.

DFS will display its comprehensive line of Automatic Tank Gauging (ATG) solutions, from innovative tank gauges and cutting-edge probes to smart sensors, all of which are taking the industry by storm. The ProGauge MagLink LX Plus is certified, scalable, precise and powerful. It has a brilliant 7" color display with intelligent "touch and swipe" technology and supports EPA-certified Static Leak Detection and Continuous Statistical Leak Detection, as well as the option to enable Pressure Line Leak Detection.

OPW: OPW is a global leader in providing equipment and solutions designed to enhance safety, reliability, efficiency and business performance for the retail fueling, vehicle wash, clean energy and fuel transport industries. OPW will feature several industry-leading solutions from its portfolio of brands, including OPW Retail Fueling, OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions and OPW Fluid Transport Solutions. Further details below:

OPW Retail Fueling will be showcasing its complete family of clean fueling nozzles. The OPW 14 Series Nozzles, including the newest member 14HC  for high-speed diesel and truck stop applications, are designed to deliver a cleaner fueling experience. These innovative nozzles feature dripless spouts and diesel capture technology that helps keep gasoline and diesel off your hands, the nozzle, dispensing equipment and most importantly, the environment. In addition to cleaner traditional fueling, OPW will also unveil a hydrogen nozzle and receptacle for 350-bar H 2 refueling applications.

refueling applications. OPW Retail Fueling will feature key products from its portfolio of underground solutions, such as the new fiberglass TSE Tank Sump, which, along with the DSE Dispenser Sump, completes the E-Series family of value priced, high quality fiberglass sumps. OPW's products are the industry's first fiberglass sumps manufactured using a Sheet Molded Compound (SMC) process. OPW will also showcase the new DSE pre-plumbed sump designed to reduce installation time and cost. The dispenser sump is assembled and tested at the factory, making it ready to "plug and play" at the job site.

OPW Retail Fueling has also expanded its Flexworks product line of fuel delivery piping and will introduce a flexible vent pipe system. The new V20 OPW Vent Pipe is UL/ULc listed for UST system vent and vapor applications with all fuel types and alcohol blends.

OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will feature its PDQ LaserWash  360  PLUS that now offers the LaserGlow Arch, giving this touchless in-bay automatic wash one of the most advanced lighting options available to the industry today. In addition to improving driver navigation and throughput rates, the eye-catching lighting of the LaserGlow Arch system can be used to attract potential customers from the street or parking lot. With a multitude of color and lighting patterns, the LaserGlow Arch is a reliable 24/7 marketing tool for one of the industry's leading touchless in-bay automatic wash systems.

360 PLUS that now offers the LaserGlow Arch, giving this touchless in-bay automatic wash one of the most advanced lighting options available to the industry today. In addition to improving driver navigation and throughput rates, the eye-catching lighting of the LaserGlow Arch system can be used to attract potential customers from the street or parking lot. With a multitude of color and lighting patterns, the LaserGlow Arch is a reliable 24/7 marketing tool for one of the industry's leading touchless in-bay automatic wash systems. OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will also highlight the Belanger FreeStyler  soft-touch in-bay automatic vehicle wash. This in-bay automatic improves loading times for increased throughput rates thanks to its five-brush overhead gantry design that creates a more open, less intimidating wash bay for customers.

soft-touch in-bay automatic vehicle wash. This in-bay automatic improves loading times for increased throughput rates thanks to its five-brush overhead gantry design that creates a more open, less intimidating wash bay for customers. OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will debut the SmartStart Pro payment terminal from Innovative Control Systems (ICS). The SmartStart Pro is one of the most affordable payment terminals on the market. Powered by ICS WashConnect management software, the 10.4" touchscreen and multiple cashless payment options help securely speed customers through the purchase process to increase throughput.

OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions will feature the innovative CivaCommand Smart Tank System from Civacon. The CivaCommand integrates all cargo tank loading and unloading components, including overfill protection, cross-drop prevention, air controls, security and productivity, into a seamless, password-protected touchscreen interface.

About Dover Fueling Solutions:

Dover Fueling Solutions (DFS) is part of Dover Corporation and a leading provider of advanced energy dispensing equipment, electronic automation and payment systems, automatic tank gauging and subscription solutions to fueling and convenience retail customers worldwide. Comprised of brands Wayne Fueling Systems, Tokheim, OPW Fuel Management Systems, ClearView, ProGauge, Fairbanks, AvaLAN Networks and LIQAL, DFS is dedicated to offering a broad range of solutions that power vehicles, including conventional fuel and clean energy products that support gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel and ethanol as well as LNG, H2, LPG, CNG and EV chargers. Headquartered in Austin, TX, DFS has a strong global manufacturing and technology development presence, including facilities in Brazil, China, India, Italy, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. For more information about DFS, visit doverfuelingsolutions.com.

About OPW:

OPW is defining what's next through innovations designed to enhance safety, reliability, efficiency and business performance for the clean energy, retail fueling, fluid-handling and vehicle wash industries. Specifically, OPW makes aboveground and below ground products for both conventional, vapor-recovery and clean energy applications in the retail and commercial markets. Additionally, OPW supplies loading arms, valves and dry-break couplings, tank-truck equipment, railcar valves and equipment, and vehicle wash systems. OPW has manufacturing operations in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, with sales offices around the world. OPW is part of Dover Corporation. To learn more about how OPW is defining what's next in each of its markets, visit opwglobal.com.

About Dover:

Dover is a diversified global manufacturer and solutions provider with annual revenue of over $8 billion. We deliver innovative equipment and components, consumable supplies, aftermarket parts, software and digital solutions, and support services through five operating segments: Engineered Products, Clean Energy & Fueling, Imaging & Identification, Pumps & Process Solutions and Climate & Sustainability Technologies. Dover combines global scale with operational agility to lead the markets we serve. Recognized for our entrepreneurial approach for over 65 years, our team of over 25,000 employees takes an ownership mindset, collaborating with customers to redefine what's possible. Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Dover trades on the New York Stock Exchange under "DOV." Additional information is available at dovercorporation.com .

Dover Fueling Solutions Contact:

Amy Cearley

(512) 484-4259

[email protected]

OPW Contact:

Lisa Moloney

(513) 870-3119

[email protected]

Dover Media Contact:

Adrian Sakowicz, VP, Communications

(630) 743-5039

[email protected]

Dover Investor Contact:

Jack Dickens, Senior Director, Investor Relations

(630) 743-2566

[email protected]

SOURCE Dover
The wholesale and distribution company will be unveiling a one-of-a-kind program at the upcoming convenience store trade show

BOISE, Idaho, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Drip Drop Distro, the trailblazing innovator in the counterculture industry, is set to unveil its groundbreaking "Smoke Shop in a Shop" initiative at the highly anticipated NACS Show from October 4-6, 2023, at the Georgia World Congress Center. This revolutionary concept redefines the consumer experience and opens up new horizons for all sized convenience stores, gas stations and retail stores looking to enter the thriving smoke shop category without the hassle.

As consumer demand for smoke shop products continues to rise, many retailers are eager to tap into this lucrative market, but face obstacles in terms of strategy and execution. Drip Drop Distro is proud to be the industry's sole partner that offers an end-to-end solution, from category management and expansion to renovation and remodeling, transforming stores into miniature smoke shops.

With this program, Drip Drop Distro is paving the way for a personalized and tailored experience. The process begins with a meticulous analysis of a store's square footage. The Drip Drop team then crafts a detailed 3D model and layout of the store or market, providing a virtual walk-through experience. This invaluable step allows retailers to visualize the transformation and make informed decisions.

Once the store or gas station owner has explored the potential, they then have the freedom to choose the elements that best suit their vision, including:

Custom Humidors: A custom-made humidor can be at your door in just ten weeks.

Renovation and Remodeling: Transform your store within as little as eight weeks.

Product Placement: Customize your product offerings to cater to your unique market.

Cost: Costs vary, starting from five grand and extending up to twenty, offering flexibility for retailers of all sizes.

Matthew "Motu" Nu'uvali is the brainchild behind the concept. As a VP and Partner at Drip Drop Distro, he explains, "The industry is slowly closing the gap between counterculture and the mainstream industries. Consumers are seeking new options to fit their lifestyles, and we want to make it as simple as possible for retailers to cater to their customers. With Smoke Shop in a Shop, we bring the smoke shop to already established convenience stores, gas stations and mini marts, and take away all of the guesswork."

"Smoke Shop in a Shop" is poised to revolutionize the retail landscape. By seamlessly integrating Drip Drop Distro's offering of smoke shop products into a convenience store, retailers can diversify offerings, attract new customers and boost revenue, all in a streamlined process.

Drip Drop Distro will showcase its game-changing initiative at the 2023 NACS Show. Visit booth #C9829 to experience firsthand the future of smoke shop retailing and learn how Drip Drop can transform any convenience store into a one-stop shop, while unlocking new opportunities, driving growth and staying ahead of the competition.

About Drip Drop Distro

Born from resilience in 2017, Drip Drop Distro is a unique, rapidly growing wholesale/distribution company that builds brands into powerhouses. The company is built on the foundation of second chances, comprised of individuals from all walks of life. There is no shortage of heart or hustle in the organization. Beyond collaborations with established brands, Drip Drop Distro takes pride in building its own distinctive lifestyle branded products  all at a competitive price without sacrificing quality. Explore Drip Drop Distro's lineup of "Premium Brands That Sell" at dripdropdistro.com.

Media Contact:

Matt Kovacs

[email protected]

310-395-5050

SOURCE Drip Drop Distro
Adidas ordered independent report to evaluate new technology

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DyeCoo's waterless dyeing technology, operated by CleanDye's factory in Vietnam, generated 58 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional textile dyeing vendors, an independent lifecycle assessment (LCA) commissioned by Adidas shows.

The LCA was commissioned as part of a program with Adidas to identify and certify low carbon textile coloration technologies.

DyeCoo and CleanDye CO2 Dyeing Technology Slashes Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 58 Percent Compared to Conventional Dyeing

As brands like Adidas reshape the apparel industry to address climate concerns, technologies such as DyeCoo's supercritical CO 2 dyeing that reduce both carbon emissions and water pollution are essential for sustainable fashion. Based on these results, Adidas will be incorporating CO 2 dyeing into its supply chain.

The LCA was conducted by Sphera, a third-party consultant with a proven track record of producing reliable sustainability reports across several industries. Sphera compared CleanDye and DyeCoo's waterless dyeing process to three of Adidas' conventional fabric vendors and found that CleanDye and DyeCoo generated a 58 percent smaller carbon footprint versus conventional fabric dyeing technology.

This report coincides with increasing interest in DyeCoo's technology from firms all over the world, including manufacturers in Turkey, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and Central America and large international brands and retailers that seek to reduce their carbon footprint over the coming years. DyeCoo received enthusiastic feedback at ITMA  the world's largest international textile and garment technology exhibition, which was held in Italy in June. During the exhibition, DyeCoo introduced a range of new CO dyeing solutions, including a smaller fully electric CO dyeing machine suitable for sampling and small-scale production, as well as an advanced lab system for R&D purposes.

"We are thrilled about this report  and that CO dyeing is gaining momentum in textile manufacturing," said Kasper Nossent, commercial director at DyeCoo. "We look forward to expanding our technology beyond our current customers to other factories around the world in collaboration with our brand partners."

Besides the significant sustainable impact, DyeCoo's CO dyeing technology also provides a full color gamut and a very high batch-to-batch consistency in bulk production, without compromising on quality and cost.

Simon Weston, CleanDye's chief executive officer, said, "The LCA is also a testament to our Vietnam facility, where we use DyeCoo technology to deliver high-quality, sustainably manufactured fabric at competitive prices."

CleanDye has already produced fabrics for brands such as Decathlon, Tom Tailor, s.Oliver, Marco Polo, and Bonprix, and many other global apparel and footwear brands are in discussions to incorporate DyeCoo and CleanDye into their supply chains.

"After analyzing the LCA, CleanDye has made further improvements to our process, and we are confident that our carbon emissions are even lower than the already impressive LCA figures," added Weston.

"We already knew that CO dyeing technology dramatically reduces water pollution from textile manufacturing," said Kenneth Katz, managing director & head of Asia at TAU Investment Management, a New York- and Hong Kong-based private equity firm that holds a controlling interest in CleanDye and a significant interest in DyeCoo. "Innovation like this is critical. Twenty percent of industrial water waste comes from textile dyeing. But this report is especially exciting since it demonstrates that DyeCoo's patented technology and CleanDye's purpose-built dyeing facility in Vietnam also dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

"We look forward to expanding the impact of DyeCoo and CleanDye's innovation in the sustainable transformation of the fashion industry," Katz said.

About DyeCoo

DyeCoo Textile Systems B.V. is a Dutch company that successfully developed and commercialized supercritical CO fabric and yarn dyeing and offers CO dyeing solutions from lab scale to bulk production. DyeCoo's supercritical CO dyeing technology completely eliminates the use of water and chemicals in the polyester dyeing process and significantly reduces its carbon and water footprint. DyeCoo technology operates in the textile supply chains of global apparel and footwear brands and retailers, and the automotive supply chain.

About CleanDye

In 2019, CleanDye opened the first factory in the world dedicated to using 100% water- and chemical-free textile dyeing technology. CleanDye's factory in Vietnam exclusively uses supercritical CO 2 technology to dye fabrics and yarns for global customers, making its factory is safer, cleaner and more energy efficient than traditional dyehouses. CleanDye is staffed by a team of global industry veterans with offices in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands.

About TAU Investment Management

TAU is a New York- and Hong Kong-based investment and advisory firm that enables leaders to make critical decisions at every connection point in the global apparel supply chain. TAU originates, executes and manages proprietary private equity investments through funds, single deal vehicles, co-investments, and offers separately managed accounts. TAU advisory services provides actionable advice in areas including organic growth strategy, M&A, responsible manufacturing technology, sustainability strategy, market entry, and worker safety allowing businesses to seize opportunities in a rapidly changing environment.

SOURCE Cleandye Vietnam Company Limited
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Electronic Warfare Market size is projected to increase by USD 6.36 billion, accelerating at a CAGR of about 5.54% during the forecast period. The electronic warfare market is driven by the increasing importance of CREW (Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device) systems. The CREW systems hold particular significance as they are widely employed by military and law enforcement personnel to safely neutralize RCIEDs (Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices). This utilization of CREW systems has led to a substantial reduction in casualties resulting from RCIED attacks. Furthermore, it is crucial to provide comprehensive training for operating CREW systems effectively in order to disrupt the communication links of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). The report analyses the market size and growth and provides accurate predictions on the growth of the market. View Free PDF Sample report

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Electronic Warfare Market 2023-2027

Electronic Warfare Market 2023  2027: Key Highlights:

The report recognizes the following as some of the key players in the electronic warfare market: Airbus SE, ASELSAN AS, BAE Systems Plc, Cobham Ltd., Elbit Systems Ltd., General Dynamics Corp., Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., L3Harris Technologies Inc., Leonardo Spa, Lockheed Martin Corp., Mercury Systems Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., Raytheon Technologies Corp., Saab AB, Sierra Nevada Corp., SRC Inc., Teledyne Technologies Inc., Terma AS, Thales Group, and The Boeing Co.

Electronic Warfare Market is fragmented in nature.

Market to observe 4.81% YOY growth in 2023.

Electronic Warfare Market 2023  2027: Market Dynamics:

Trend  The market trends indicate notable progress in electronic warfare equipment, largely attributed to advancements in algorithms and software. These developments significantly enhance the operational capabilities of electronic warfare systems. Moreover, there is a growing trend of integrating these systems onto various military platforms, spanning land, air, sea, and space.

The market trends indicate notable progress in electronic warfare equipment, largely attributed to advancements in algorithms and software. These developments significantly enhance the operational capabilities of electronic warfare systems. Moreover, there is a growing trend of integrating these systems onto various military platforms, spanning land, air, sea, and space. Challenge  The issues related to classifying emitters is a challenge in the electronic warfare market, particularly in densely packed electromagnetic tactical environments. The classification of emitters determines the most effective countermeasure techniques to adopt. Electronic support (ES) devices serve the primary function of intercepting signals emitted by sources like radars, enabling countermeasures, and ultimately detecting and pinpointing enemy communication emitters.

The report also covers information on the upcoming trends and challenges. Explore detail information by purchasing report

Electronic Warfare Market 2023  2027: Key Segments:

The market is segmented by Application (Support, Protection, and Attack), Platform (Airborne, Ground, Naval, and Space), and Geography (North America, APAC, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and South America).

The support segment is expected to experience significant growth during the forecast period. Electronic support (ES) encompasses actions that are under the direct control of operational commanders or operators. These actions aid in identifying threats, selecting targets, avoiding threats, and guiding munitions. The data generated, such as the frequency, bandwidth, and modulation of incoming threats, can be valuable for long-term operational planning. Additionally, when combined with ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) data, this ES information can enhance the situational awareness of aircrew members during contingency operations.

Get a glance at the market contribution of the segments, Request Free Sample report now

FAQS

How do the major trends impact the market?

How big is the North America market?

market? How do the key drivers and challenges impact the market?

Related Reports:

Cognitive Electronic Warfare System Market: The cognitive electronic warfare system market share is expected to increase to USD 632.24 million from 2021 to 2026, and the market's growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 20%.

DRFM Market: The DRFM market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.07% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 559.21 million.

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary Market Landscape Market Sizing Historic Market Sizes Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation by Application Market Segmentation by Platform Market Segmentation by Geography Customer Landscape Geographic Landscape Drivers, Challenges, & Trends Company Landscape Company Analysis Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
French actor Vincent Cassel, 56, started a new romance 6 months after it became known that he had broken up with his wife, 30 years younger model Tina Kunaki. The star's new chosen one turned out to be strikingly similar to his ex.

ADVERTISIMENT

Although there is no official confirmation of the actor's new romantic interest, it is increasingly rumored that he has fallen in love with 27-year-old Australian model Nara Baptista. OBOZREVATEL will tell you why they are being compared (scroll to the bottom of the page to see the photo).

The rumors about the romance were confirmed by the fact that the couple were often seen together in the company of mutual friends and at parties, Cassel commented on the posts of his potential chosen one, and she posted photos with him on her blog. In one of the comments, the Frenchman touchingly addressed the beauty with the words that he could not admire her.

ADVERTISIMENT

Celebrity fans immediately noticed how much the Miss Universe Australia 2020 contestant resembles the actor's ex-wife.

She also has dark skin, long black curls, and a figure and style of dress similar to Tina Kunaki. In addition, they share an almost identical age difference with the actor.

Nara is also a model. She is an active member of the Black Lives Matter movement and fights against racial discrimination. Now Cassel's "chosen one" lives far from her homeland in the United States of America.

ADVERTISIMENT

We would like to remind you that the actor's previous relationship broke up in the spring of this year. His and Tina Kunaki's stormy romance lasted 7 years, and their marriage lasted 5 years. Read more about their love story here.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL wrote that in 2021, Tina Kunaki starred for the Ukrainian magazine L'Officiel. The celebrity posed for the cover of the glossy in an outfit by fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and the Japanese brand Sacai.

ADVERTISIMENT

Only verified information on our Telegram channel Obozrevatel and Viber. Don't fall for fakes!
EnCompass plans to immediately initiate clinical site start-up activities in the US

CARSON CITY, Nev., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- EnCompass Technologies, Inc., a privately held medical device company focused on protecting patients from brain injury during cardiovascular procedures, announced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially granted conditional Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) approval for its F 2 cerebral embolic protection system on Friday, September 22, 2023.

While interventional therapies for structural heart disease have significantly improved the quality of life and longevity of many patients, brain injury (including stroke) remains a feared complication. All cardiovascular procedures cause the release of particulate debris (calcium, vessel wall, blood clot) and air bubbles, called emboli. The emboli can cause injury if they reach the brain, affecting one person about every 30 seconds globally.1 The severity of brain injury typically depends on the size and number of emboli. Such emboli often are small and most are less than 40 micrometers (m) in size.2

The F 2 filter by EnCompass is currently the only filter with pores small enough to block most emboli to the brain while preserving blood flow. The F 2 filter has the smallest average pore size among all CEP devices at 30 m. During the TAVR procedure, 360-degree wall apposition of the F 2 filter in the aortic arch is designed to prevent migration. Because the F 2 filter is attached to a self-expanding nitinol stent, it is easy to insert, deploy, and retrieve.

At the 21st Annual Meeting of the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery (August 14-17, 2023), researchers from UCLA presented an in vitro study comparing the F 2 filter versus Boston Scientific's Sentinel. Using a 3D printed silicone model of the aortic arch perfused with saline at 5 L-min-1, artificial emboli of three sizes (45-53 m, 106-125 m, and 250-300 m) were injected into the aortic root. Effluent was continuously collected from the left and right common carotid and vertebral arteries. For all sizes of emboli, the F 2 filter prevented 94 percent more emboli from reaching the brain than Sentinel.3 In April 2023, a first-in-human (FIH) study began in Tbilisi, Georgia, where three patients undergoing TAVR received the F 2 filter. This small cohort of patients demonstrated 100 percent procedural success and no adverse events. In September 2023, a similar pilot study began in Australia and now with FDA conditional IDE approval, EnCompass plans to commence its first US pilot study. These pilot clinical studies will lead to a US pivotal clinical trial in 2024.

"Brain injury after TAVR, as well as other cardiovascular procedures, remains a significant problem. As most of these complications are caused by emboli, it makes sense to use a filter that blocks most harmful emboli from entering the brain. The US pilot study, along with our growing clinical experience outside the US, represents the beginning of our clinical journey towards demonstrating meaningful patient benefits," said George Wallace, CEO of EnCompass Technologies.

About EnCompass Technologies

EnCompass Technologies, Inc. is a privately held medical device company based in Carson City, Nevada. The company is focused on the development of embolic filtration devices that protect patients from brain injury during cardiovascular procedures. F 2 is not commercially available and is intended for investigational use only.

Press Inquiries

[email protected]

References

1. Wolman, R. L., Nussmeier, N. A., Aggarwal, A., et al. Cerebral injury after Cardiac Surgery. Stroke, 30(3), 514522. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.str.30.3.514

2. Pugsley et al. Stroke 1994;25:1393-1399.

3. https://jnis.bmj.com/content/15/Suppl_1/A128.abstract

SOURCE EnCompass Technologies
DUBLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Service Type (Pre-clinical & Clinical), By Host Cell (Mammalian, Bacterial), By End-use, By Country, And Segment Forecasts, 2023 - 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Europe recombinant protein manufacturing services market size is expected to reach USD 3.26 billion in 2030, growing at 14.88% CAGR from 2023 to 2030

Recombinant proteins have many applications in the field of biotechnology research and medicine. Furthermore, recombinant protein manufacturing is one of the effective procedures utilized in the life sciences sector, which significantly impacts advanced healthcare.



Proteins are altered using specific procedures to produce recombinant proteins. These recombinant proteins are then encoded by genes to produce massive amounts of protein, which are then utilized to manufacture therapeutic products. Increased government initiatives and investment in the field of life sciences are likely to drive Europe recombinant protein manufacturing services industry expansion.



In addition, the growing demand and complexity of manufacturing laws & regulations and the rising maintenance cost of GMP certification at sites are driving the adoption of outsourced manufacturing & packaging models. Outsourcing is also enabling companies to release capital and cut overhead costs.

Furthermore, the biotech companies in the UK are outperforming their European peers in terms of securing early-stage funding. From 2018 to 2020, biotech start-ups in the country raised USD 3.6 billion, a 20% increase from the amount raised from 2015 to 2017. As a result, the R&D services landscape in the country is expected to witness significant growth in the coming decade.



In Europe, several leading companies offer recombinant protein production services, including Lonza; GenScript; Merck KGaA; Kaneka Eurogentec S. A.; ExcellGene SA., and others, creating growth prospects for outsourcing activities. Key players in the region are expanding their manufacturing capabilities to cater to the growing outsourcing demand in Europe.



For instance, in October 2022, Merck KGaA opened a new commercial facility for its Millipore CTDMO Services in Martillac, France. The new 2,700 sq. m. facility was built for producing drug substances, including monoclonal antibodies and other recombinant proteins.

Similarly, in August 2019, Fujifilm acquired Biogen's Denmark-based biologics manufacturing site for around USD 890 million. Such initiatives are expected to create lucrative growth opportunities in the recombinant protein manufacturing services industry over the coming decade.



Although the presence of strong regulations helps safeguard patient health and safety, it may lead to delayed approvals, high manufacturing costs, and challenges in compliance, which may hamper the development of recombinant protein-based products, limiting the growth of manufacturing services.



Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market Report Highlights

By service type, the commercial production services segment accounted for the largest share of 58.82% in 2022. This attributed to the growing accessibility of high-yield expression systems

By host cell, the mammalian segment accounted for the largest share of 54.70% in 2022. The market is expanding due to growing demand for mammalian cells from pharmaceutical and biotech companies

By end-use, the pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies segment accounted for the largest share of 78.79% in 2022. Recombinant proteins have gained immense traction in the biotechnology & pharmaceutical industries, wherein they can be utilized to create vaccines and treatments for various illnesses and protein manufacturing services

Germany held a large share of total revenues in 2022. This is mostly due to the presence of major market participants, increased research spending, and the availability of well-established healthcare infrastructure, which is driving market growth across the region

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope

1.1. Market Segmentation and Scope

1.2. Market Definitions

1.3. Research Assumptions

1.4. Information Procurement



Chapter 2. Executive Summary

2.1. Market Snapshot

2.2. Segment Snapshot

2.3. Competitive Landscape Snapshot



Chapter 3. Market Variables, Trends, & Scope

3.1. Market Lineage Outlook

3.1.1. Parent Market Outlook

3.1.2. Related/Ancillary Market Outlook

3.2. Market Trends and Outlook

3.3. Market Dynamics

3.3.1. Increasing adoption of outsourcing models for recombinant protein manufacturing

3.3.2. The increasing scope of applications for recombinant protein-based products

3.3.3. Increasing the use of recombinant proteins in research-use activities

3.4. Market Restraint Analysis

3.4.1. Stringent regulations associated with recombinant protein-based biopharmaceuticals

3.5. Business Environment Analysis

3.5.1. SWOT Analysis; By Factor (Political & Legal, Economic And Technological)

3.5.2. Porter's Five Forces Analysis

3.6. COVID-19 Impact Analysis



Chapter 4. Service Type Business Analysis

4.1. Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market: Service Type Movement Analysis

4.2. Pre-clinical & Clinical Services

4.3. Commercial Production Services



Chapter 5. Host Cell Business Analysis

5.1. Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market: Host Cell Movement Analysis

5.2. Mammalian Cells

5.3. Bacterial Cells

5.4. Insect Cells

5.5. Yeast & Fungi



Chapter 6. End-use Business Analysis

6.1. Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market: End-use Movement Analysis

6.2. Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies

6.3. Academic & Research Institutes



Chapter 7. Country Business Analysis

7.1. Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market Share By Country, 2022 & 2030

7.2. Europe

7.2.1. Europe Recombinant Protein Manufacturing Services Market, 2018 - 2030 (USD Million)



Chapter 8. Competitive Landscape

8.1. Company Categorization

8.2. Strategy Mapping

8.3. Company Profiles/Listing

8.3.1. Lonza

8.3.1.1. Overview

8.3.1.2. Financial Performance (Net Revenue/Sales/EBITDA/Gross Profit)

8.3.1.3. Product Benchmarking

8.3.1.4. Strategic Initiatives

8.3.2. Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH

8.3.3. FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies

8.3.4. Merck KGaA

8.3.5. Bruker (InVivo BioTech Services GmbH)

8.3.6. Sino Biological, Inc.

8.3.7. GenScript

8.3.8. Kaneka corporation (Kaneka Eurogentec S.A)

8.3.9. Polyplus Transfection (Xpress Biologics)

8.3.10. Boster Biological Technology

8.3.11. Trenzyme GmbH

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/4j09b2

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KIRKLAND, Wash., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evergreen Impact Housing Fund (EIHF), developer Inland Group, and Microsoft are pleased to announce the full financing of the Polaris at Totem Lake affordable housing development in Kirkland, WA. Polaris is slated for completion in 2026.

Polaris will create more than 440 apartments that are affordable to people with different levels of income. This will include 260 affordable housing units for households earning 50-60% of the area median income (AMI), and 40 units for very low-income families earning 30-50% AMI. Designed with wrap-around services for those who had been experiencing homelessness, families living in the new development will have access to public transportation and resources through the nonprofit Hopelink, including onsite behavioral health providers to support their transition.

"Access to affordable, stable housing is especially important at a time of economic uncertainty. More and more working families throughout Washington State are facing rising housing costs and growing threats of displacement," said Kris Hermanns, fund manager of EIHF at Seattle Foundation. "In partnership with local investors and developers, EIHF helps to bridge funding gaps that stall large-scale housing projects with family-sized units. EIHF's patient, low-interest financing helps ensure the folks who make our communities thriveour health workers, teachers, store clerks, laborers, and firefighterscan call this region home."

Microsoft has invested in EIHF since the Fund's inception and is providing support for various stages of the Polaris project through several programs: land acquisition through the Washington State Housing and Finance Commission (WSHFC), direct construction financing, and permanent financing through EIHF, making it possible for this project to be realized.

"It will take bold leadership, partnership and ingenuity across our community to address the region's housing and affordability crisis," said Jane Broom, Senior Director, Microsoft Philanthropies. "EIHF is a great example of how the private, public, and nonprofit sectors can work together to find new solutions that advance affordable housing development. We are pleased to provide much-needed capital to move Polaris forward."

This is the second collaboration between EIHF and the developer Inland Group, whose portfolio includes 17 affordable apartment home communities across the western United States. "It is challenging to build large-scale affordable housing in Washington State, but working with EIHF and its investors allows projects like Polaris to happen. We're thrilled that EIHF and Microsoft have stepped up to fill financing gaps," said John Fisher, Developer at the Inland Group. "Helping working families get access to affordable apartments is truly a group effort and takes creative partnerships."

WSHFC coordinated the resources for the Polaris project, including the allocation of bond cap and tax credits. WSHFC administers the Expanded Land Acquisition Program (ELAP), a collaboration between the Commission and Microsoft that enables developers to purchase land and improved real property in east King County for affordable rental housing or single-family homes.

The full financing of the Polaris project is a testament to the power of collaboration and the urgent need to address the affordable housing crisis. It stands as an example of how public and private entities can come together to create positive, sustainable change in Washington State.

ABOUT EIHF:

Evergreen Impact Housing Fund (EIHF) provides catalytic impact capital to build more affordable apartments in Washington State. EIHF's investments are designed to ensure financial feasibility of projects, counteract market distortions, complement established financing for affordable housing, and advance positive outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

EIHF is managed by the Seattle Foundation Impact Funds Manager and partners with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission to identify and invest in 200+-unit projects. EIHF is closely aligned with Seattle Foundation's aims to advance racial justice and economic equity in our region through transformative capital. Learn more at https://evergreenimpact.org/.

Contact:

Caroline Hall

(206)-819-8749

[email protected]

SOURCE Seattle Foundation
TWIN CITIES, Minn., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Everlight Solar, a leading provider of sustainable solar energy solutions in the Midwest, is thrilled to announce that they have been honored with the prestigious Metro Area Better Business Bureau Spark Award in Minnesota. This recognition proves Everlight Solar's commitment to upholding the BBB's rigorous standards for trust and integrity in business.

Everlight Solar Achieves Prestigious Better Business Bureau Spark Award, Reinforcing Trustworthiness in Green Energy. Post this Everlight Solar, a leading provider of sustainable solar energy solutions in the Midwest, is thrilled to announce that they have been honored with the prestigious Metro Area Better Business Bureau Spark Award in Minnesota. Shown above is their Brooklyn Park office. Everlight Solar, a leading provider of sustainable solar energy solutions in the Midwest, is thrilled to announce that they have been honored with the prestigious Metro Area Better Business Bureau Spark Award in Minnesota. Shown above is their Savage office.

This award is given to business owners in Minnesota and North Dakota. To receive this award, companies must display the Better Business Bureau's standards for trust. These standards include building trust, advertising honestly, telling the truth, being transparent, honoring promises, being responsive, safeguarding privacy, and embodying integrity. In addition to these standards, the Better Business Bureau also bases its selections on how well a company exemplifies the "Three C's of Trust criteria": Character, Culture, and Community. To read more about this award, click here.

How Everlight Solar Gives Back

Not only does Everlight help people go solar, but they also participate in local cleanups, fundraisers, and other charitable events. They have partnered with charities like BrainPower in a BackPack to provide food to students in need. During the grand opening of their Brooklyn Park office, they partnered with Second Harvest Heartland to achieve a wildly successful food drive. Events like these keep Everlight Solar deeply rooted in the Minnesota communities.

Every year, Everlight Solar awards students $5,000 Clean Energy Scholarships. Everlight is thrilled to provide this scholarship to University of Minnesota students who focus their academics and future professional lives on clean, renewable energy and climate change.

Everlight Solar's dedication to these principles has earned them the BBB Spark Award, highlighting their commitment to ethical business practices and customer satisfaction.

To see a complete list of awards Everlight Solar has won, visit here.

About Everlight Solar

Everlight Solar is the fastest-growing solar company in the Midwest, with operations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. In their first year of eligibility, Everlight Solar was ranked number 632 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list with a staggering 930% growth rate. To learn more about open jobs or about going solar for your own home, visit www.everlightsolar.com.

SOURCE Everlight Solar
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evo Security is thrilled to announce that CRN , a brand of The Channel Company , has named Nick Wolf, Director of Partner Acquisition at Evo Security, as one of the IT channel's 100 People You Don't Know But Should for 2023. Every year, this list honors the people working tirelessly behind the scenes to craft and maintain the channel, sales and marketing programs and processes their company's partners need to succeed.

Nick Wolf, Director of Partner Acquisition at Evo Security.

The CRN editorial team compiles the list each year to bring well-deserved attention to the best and brightest channel contributors who work outside the spotlight. The selections are based on feedback from industry executives and leading solution providers.

Nick Wolf has a proven track record in the channel, having been a top performer at Datto driving Partner growth, and helping accelerate SKOUT Cybersecurity's expansion in the channel. Today, Nick is Director of Partner Acquisition at Evo Security, an identity and access management (IAM) company that consolidates multiple identity and privileged access management tools into one platform, the Evo Partner Identity Cloud.

At Evo, Nick is helping drive the evolution of IAM for the MSP community by enabling MSPs with Evo's Partner Program and educating MSPs on the benefits of IAM as a core component of any cybersecurity stack.

Michael Roth, Evo's CEO and Founder said "Nick Wolf is an impressive professional and a core component of our hyper growth sales and marketing strategy. He's done a fantastic job of educating Partners about Evo's consolidated value and why identity and access management is so critical to every cybersecurity stack. Overall, Nick has made a remarkable impact on our business and I'm truly grateful to have him on the team. For anyone that doesn't know Nick Wolf, what's clear to me is he's a true MSP evangelist, and I'm happy to see him win this very deserving award."

"We are excited to recognize the truly talented group of individuals making smart and strategic decisions every day, behind the scenes," says Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. "Thank you to the 100 People You Don't Know But Should, for your indispensable contributions across the channel community."

The 100 People You Don't Know But Should list will be featured in the October issue of CRN Magazine and can be found online at www.crn.com/100people.

About Evo Security

Based in Austin, Texas, Evo Security is an identity and access management cybersecurity company that builds enterprise-grade products with the MSP in mind. Evo offers two products for MSPs. Evo Secure Login is a product built for both the MSP and their end user clients that offers Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Single Sign On (SSO) for Windows and Mac endpoints, web applications, and network devices. Evo Elevated Access is a product built for the MSP use case that allows their service delivery team to access client devices as an administrator without the need to copy/paste administrative credentials from third party tools.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end users. Backed by more than 40 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace.

thechannelcompany.com

Follow The Channel Company: Twitter , LinkedIn, and Facebook

 2023 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Evo Security, Inc.
-- Padagis Determined They Will Not Challenge the Phexxi Patents --

-- Evofem Has Phexxi Patent Protection Through 2033 --

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evofem Biosciences, Inc., (OTCQB: EVFM) today announced that Padagis Israel Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Padagis) has withdrawn the Paragraph IV certification in its previously-submitted Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for a generic version of Phexxi (lactic acid, citric acid and potassium bitartrate) and has instead converted to a Paragraph III certification. With this pivot to Paragraph III certification, rather than challenging the Phexxi patents and seeking approval of the ANDA prior to expiration of any of those patents, Padagis is instead now asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to wait until after all the Phexxi patents expire before issuing final approval of the ANDA. The latest-expiring Phexxi patents do not expire until 2033.

Padagis previously submitted its ANDA in April 2023 requesting permission to manufacture and market a generic version of Phexxi. That ANDA contained a Paragraph IV certification, in response to which Evofem initiated patent infringement litigation against Padagis. As a result of its conversion to a Paragraph III certification, Padagis is effectively no longer challenging the Phexxi Patents; accordingly, the parties have submitted a stipulation to dismiss the case.

Phexxi is currently protected by four patents, each of which are listed in the FDA's publication Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, commonly known as the 'Orange Book.' All four patents would need to expire or be deemed invalid or not infringed before a generic version of Phexxi could be marketed.

About Evofem Biosciences, Inc.

Evofem Biosciences, Inc., is commercializing innovative products to address unmet needs in women's sexual and reproductive health. The Company's first FDA-approved product, Phexxi, is a hormone-free, on-demand prescription contraceptive vaginal gel. It comes in a box of 12 pre-filled applicators and is applied 0-60 minutes before each act of sex. Learn more at phexxi.com and evofem.com.

Phexxi is a registered trademark of Evofem Biosciences, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes "forward-looking statements," within the meaning of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements provided by Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 including, without limitation, statements related to patent expiration dates, FDA approval of a generic version of Phexxi, and marketing of a generic version of Phexxi. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are current only as of the date of this press release. Each of these forward-looking statements involves risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements are disclosed in the Company's SEC filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, filed with the SEC on March 10, 2022, its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2023 filed with the SEC on August 14, 2023 and any subsequent filings. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by such factors. The Company does not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statement except as required by law.

Investor Contact

Amy Raskopf

Evofem Biosciences, Inc.

araskopf@evofem.com

(917) 673-5775

SOURCE Evofem Biosciences, Inc.
LAS VEGAS, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Fibocom (Stock Code: 300638), a global leading provider of IoT (Internet of Things) wireless solutions and wireless communication modules, has exhibited at MWC Las Vegas 2023 at Booth #438 in West Hall. With unveiled Industry-leading 5G/AI/LTE/Smart wireless modules and solutions, Fibocom demonstrates innovations for the future city enabled by 5G technology.

Boosting Global 5G Scale Commercialization with Affordable 5G NR Light Modules

Fibocom launched its RedCap module series in the first half of 2023 and demonstrated the full portfolio at this event. Compliant with 3GPP R17 standard, Fibocom RedCap modules FG131 and FG132 series support 5G SA globally, featuring different regions and global versions. RedCap modules can deliver significant reductions in 5G terminal costs and power consumption. While inheriting the exceptional performance of 5G, it perfectly caters to the demands of high-speed and low-power IoT industries.

From the speed perspective, FG131 and FG132 can reach the maximum downlink peak at 226Mbps, and the maximum uplink peak at 121Mbps in a 5G SA network. Regarding form factor compatibility, the FG131 series is compatible with Fibocom LTE Cat 6 modules and the FG132 series is compatible with Fibocom LTE Cat 4 modules. All series can accelerate the large-scale commercialization of 5G IoT in multiple fields such as FWA, Smart Grid, and Industrial Automation.

In addition to RedCap modules, Fibocom exhibited the global version of edge-leading 5G Sub-6GHz and mmWave module FM190 for the world 5G IoT market. FM190 series is based on the Snapdragon X75 that complaints with the 3GPP R17 standard. Supporting Sub-6GHz and mmWave dual-connectivity, the FM190 series can reach the maximum downlink speed of up to 10Gbps and bring impressive cellular performance for fields like mobile broadband, FWA, enterprise 5G, and IIoT.

FG132-GL and FM190(W) both are capable of covering global mainstream frequency bands and gaining global mainstream certifications, which paves the way to 5G scale commercialization easily.

During the event, Fibocom also showcased the FM160-NA, highlighting its recent achievement of receiving certifications from all three major US carriers. It signifies FM160-NA's ability to provide exceptional 5G connectivity services crossing the networks and strengthen mobile broadband applications with a top-tier 5G experience.

Catalyzing Computing Advancements through Fibocom's AI/Smart Modules

It's worth noting that Fibocom also exhibited several AI/Smart modules on-site.With the support of rich interfaces (MIPI/ USB/ UART/ SPI/ I2C), Fibocom's SC151 and SC126 modules are designed for applications like Robot, Industry PDA & Pad, PoC Radio, Smart Home, etc. Satisfying diverse demands, SC151 supports 5G NR Sub-6GHz, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and Android 13 OS, while the SC126 is the 4G LTE module, supporting dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 as well as Android 13 and Linux OS.

Powered by a high-performance graphics engine and Hexagon Vector Extensions (HVX) image processing tech, Fibocom's SC138 module enables smooth 4K video playing and multi-channel camera input with low power consumption. It's ideal for IVI (in-vehicle infotainment), Smart Retail, Industry Handhelds and Robotics.

Empowering Global AIoT Applications with Innovative Wireless Modules and Solutions

Fibocom unveiled its extensive empowerment through the AIoT industry for multiple applications like retail, asset tracking, in-home/industrial connectivity, IIoT, etc. The POS (point-of-sale) machine for the small/medium-sized business(SMB), is equipped with Fibocom LTE Cat 1 module MC116 providing a low-cost and highly functional Android-based solution. Embedded with Fibocom Cat 1 bis module L610, the tracker can be used for heavy vehicles fleet management and tracking. Equipping with Fibocom's CBRS-only module FM101-CG, the 4G router can boost the deployment of private LTE in various scenarios. The 5G Wi-Fi gateway and the 5G CPE integrated with Fibocom FG360 can provide stable 5G connectivity for multi-users.

Furthermore, Fibocom showcased the latest FWA solutions to speed up clients' verification processes. The 5G CPE/Mobile Hot Spot solutions are based on Fibocom's modules FG370/FG160. All of these solutions can elevate and refine the 5G experience to a whole new level.

"Fibocom is delighted to once again be a prominent presence at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas", said Ron Friedman, VP of the Americas Sales Department at Fibocom. "We're here to showcase our latest wireless modules and solutions that drive the global 5G scale commercialization to next level. It's a real pleasure to engage with all customers and ecosystem partners and illustrate how 5G innovations empower a connected and progressive tomorrow."

The exhibition continues in Las Vegas, welcome to visit Fibocom at Booth #W438 and meet up with our experts to explore more!

SOURCE Fibocom Wireless Inc.
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FileCloud, a leader in the secure enterprise file-sharing and data governance space, is delighted to announce a strategic technology partnership with OPSWAT , a leading provider of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) cybersecurity solutions. This collaboration aims to empower FileCloud customers to bolster their data security posture through the seamless integration with MetaDefender, OPSWAT's advanced threat detection and prevention platform.

FileCloud Partners with OPSWAT

FileCloud is trusted by tens of thousands of end-users globally to deliver secure collaboration, governance, and safeguarding of sensitive content. Committed to equipping enterprises with proactive security measures, FileCloud collaborates closely with strategic technology partners like OPSWAT to fulfill this commitment.

A key technology of OPSWAT's MetaDefender platform is Multiscanning, which harnesses the power of over 30 anti-malware engines, aggregating insights from global malware labs. This multifaceted approach significantly enhances malware detection rates, reduces outbreak detection times and minimizes potential exposure associated with relying on a single vendor. The integration of FileCloud and OPSWAT MetaDefender empowers customers to leverage Multiscanning's threat detection capabilities when uploading content into the FileCloud ecosystem, thereby protecting against potential threats.

FileCloud's CEO, Ray Downes, said, "OPSWAT MetaDefender's cutting-edge threat detection and prevention capabilities, combined with FileCloud's secure content collaboration and governance solution makes for an ideal partnership. Data is the lifeblood of a modern business and ensuring that the wide surface area it provides to potential threat actors is safeguarded is a vital part of any customer's security strategy. The integration builds on the principles commonly adopted by CISOs today of assuming zero trust for any inbound files until proven otherwise. We're excited about the joint value proposition that we can now offer and look forward to addressing customers' data security requirements together."

A Partnership that Harnesses Leading Technologies

As part of this integration, FileCloud will act as an intermediary, sending an ICAP request to MetaDefender whenever a user attempts to upload a file. MetaDefender will conduct a comprehensive scan for viruses and other threats using its powerful multiscanning technology. Once MetaDefender completes the scan, it will generate an ICAP response with data on the scan results. Depending on these results, the file will be delivered, or the FileCloud user will be notified that the file is malicious and has been quarantined.

"Making OPSWAT an even stronger partner for FileCloud are the other zero-trust technologies that can be leveraged on the MetaDefender platform, including Deep Content Disarm and Reconstruction (Deep CDR), file-based vulnerability assessment, and adaptive threat analysis with OPSWAT Sandbox," said George Prichici, VP of Products at OPSWAT. "Through our partnership, we can fulfill our commitment to safeguarding data and delivering comprehensive security solutions that empower organizations to stay one step ahead of evolving threats and protect their valuable assets and critical infrastructure."

FileCloud is already an innovator in relation to file security measures. Its Zero Trust File SharingSM feature is an industry first, while its comprehensive set of security features include Data Leak Prevention (DLP), endpoint device management, and data governance capabilities. FileCloud's built-in compliance features help enterprises to simplify adherence to complex regulations, such as ITAR, GDPR, and HIPAA, through powerful automation capabilities.

For more information about FileCloud and its partnership with OPSWAT, you can read more here .

About FileCloud

FileCloud is a hyper-secure content collaboration platform (CCP) that provides industry-first Zero Trust File Sharing, compliance, data governance, data leak protection, data retention and digital rights management capabilities. Workflow automation and granular control of content sharing across most enterprise platforms is fully integrated into the complete CCP stack.

The platform offers powerful file sharing, sync, and mobile access capabilities on public, private, and hybrid clouds. FileCloud is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is used by millions of users around the world, including top Global 1000 enterprises, educational institutions, government organizations, and managed service providers.

About OPSWAT

For the last 20 years OPSWAT, a global leader in IT, OT, and ICS critical infrastructure cybersecurity, has continuously evolved an end-to-end solutions platform that gives public and private sector organizations and enterprises the critical advantage needed to protect their complex networks and ensure compliance. Empowered by a "Trust no file. Trust no device." philosophy, OPSWAT solves customers' challenges around the world with zero-trust solutions and patented technologies across every level of their infrastructure, securing their networks, data, and devices, and preventing known and unknown threats, zero-day attacks, and malware. Discover how OPSWAT protects the world's critical infrastructure and helps secure our way of life; visit www.opswat.com.

Media Relations Contact:

Noemi Toth

FileCloud

1 (888) 571-6480

[email protected]

SOURCE FileCloud
CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The fire protection system testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) market is projected to grow from USD 533 million in 2023 to USD 633 million by 2028, registering a CAGR of 3.5% during the forecast period according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. Various factors, government regulations and industry standards are progressively tightening for fire protection systems, fueling the need for testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) services to guarantee compliance with the latest mandates. The rising adoption of intelligent fire protection systems, prized for their swift and effective fire detection and response capabilities, necessitates TIC providers to ensure their proper operation.

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Fire Protection System Testing, Inspection, And Certification (TIC) Market Report Scope:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $ 533 million Estimated Value by 2028 $ 633 million Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 3.5% Market Size Available for 20192028 Forecast Period 20232028 Forecast Units Value (USD Million/Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered By Service Type, System Type, Application and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of World Key Market Challenge Low adoption rate of innovative technologies in fire protection system TIC services Key Market Opportunities Adoption of foam-based fire detection systems owing to less negative impact on the environment Key Market Drivers Growing urbanization will drive the growth of the construction industry

Building automation trends have birthed integrated fire protection systems that collaborate with HVAC and security counterparts, demanding rigorous testing by TIC providers. Additionally, an escalating emphasis on sustainability is prompting TIC firms to offer services that aid clients in reducing environmental footprints. Further bolstering the fire protection system TIC market are expanding fire safety requirements in emerging economies, heightened awareness of fire safety, and a growing need for system maintenance and testing services. Consequently, TIC providers offering innovative solutions are poised for success in this evolving market.

By service type, the certification service records the highest growth rate during the forecast period.

The highest growth rate in certification services for Fire Protection System Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) services can be attributed to the growing importance of stringent regulations, risk mitigation, insurance prerequisites, adherence to industry best practices, bolstering consumer confidence, market competition, global expansion, and technological advancements in fire protection systems. Certification serves as a crucial validation of safety and compliance, driving increased demand as businesses seek to meet evolving safety standards, reduce risks, and enhance their reputations, ultimately propelling the certification services segment to record the highest CAGR in the Fire Protection System TIC market.

Certification bodies issue product certificates or licenses to organizations, enabling them to display a mark of conformity on their product or issue a certificate indicating the product's conformity with specified requirements. In this way, consumers are assured that the product they are purchasing fulfils the set standards. Product certification offers companies a formal document that the product they offer has been tested by qualified personnel and adheres to codes and/or standards. Those seeking certification for their products must demonstrate that they have adequate quality control systems in place to maintain conformity of their products with the standards.

The sprinkler system is likely to record the highest growth rate between 2023 and 2028

During the forecast period, the Fire Protection System Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) industry is expected to witness a substantial market share held by the sprinkler system segment. This dominance is driven by regulatory mandates, increased awareness of fire safety, technological advancements, and the need for certification to ensure compliance with safety standards and local fire codes, making sprinkler systems a focal point for TIC services in safeguarding lives and property.

A fire sprinkler system is a crucial component of fire protection systems, consisting of pipes and heat-sensitive sprinkler heads that activate and release water when exposed to high temperatures, effectively suppressing fires in buildings and safeguarding lives and property by providing rapid fire control and prevention of fire spread. A fire sprinkler system is a critical component of fire protection and safety in buildings and facilities. It consists of a network of pipes, water supply, and sprinkler heads strategically installed throughout a structure. These sprinkler heads are designed to automatically release water when they detect high temperatures, typically caused by a fire. Fire sprinkler systems are highly effective in suppressing and controlling fires, limiting their spread, and providing occupants with valuable time to evacuate or access firefighting equipment. They are widely used in residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings to enhance fire safety and minimize property damage. Modern fire sprinkler systems are often connected to fire alarms and monitoring systems, further enhancing their efficiency and ensuring a rapid response to fire incidents. These systems can be categorized into wet sprinkler systems, dry sprinkler systems, pre-action sprinkler systems, deluge sprinklers, and others (foam water sprinkler systems and water spray sprinkler systems).

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North America is likely to account for the largest market share in the global fire protection system testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) market during the forecast period

North America traditionally held a prominent share in the global Fire Protection System Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) market due to its strict regulatory environment, well-established industries, and heightened fire safety awareness. The region's mature industrial infrastructure, including manufacturing, healthcare, and commercial sectors, drove the demand for TIC services to ensure compliance and safety. While North America historically played a leading role, market dynamics can shift, and it's essential to verify the current market status through up-to-date research as regional market shares may have evolved since then.

Key Players

SGS SA (Switzerland), Bureau Veritas (France), DEKRA (Germany), TUV SUD (Germany), and TUV Rheinland (Germany), DNV GL (Norway), Intertek Group plc (UK), TUV NORD Group (Germany), UL LLC (US), Eurofins Scientific (Luxembourg), Kiwa (Netherlands), APi National Service Group (APi NSG) (US), Applus+ (Spain), Element Materials Technology (UK), SAI Global Australia PTY Ltd (Australia), Lloyds Register Group Services Limited (UK), Warringtonfire (Cheshire), Rina S.p.A (Italy), BRE Group (UK), and The British Standards Institution (England) are the dominant companies in the fire protection system testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) companies.

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SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Focus Learning Corporation, provider of the VISION Training and Performance Support System, is excited to announce its acquisition by The Brydon Group. Focus Learning's VISION system, a compliance-based workforce training software platform for highly-regulated industries, is ubiquitous among commercial nuclear sites across the United States and Canada, and its use is growing worldwide and in other regulated industries.

The Brydon Group is an investment firm that specializes in partnering with seasoned mid-career executives for the acquisition and operation of small businesses in the software, business-to-business, government, and highly regulated sectors.

Focus Learning is set to embark on a new chapter under the leadership of its newly appointed CEO, Jay Steele. Jay is a former Navy nuclear engineer and business development manager with Amazon. He possesses a wealth of experience in overseeing complex engineering and business environments.

Jay remarked, "First, I am honored to join the talented team at Focus Learning and excited to work with our customers. We are committed to delivering best-in-class solutions to our nuclear customers as well as customers in our other regulated markets, including the government, aviation, and transmission and distribution sectors. We are executing our strategy to invest in the next generation of our software system, while maintaining our commitment to instructional design best practices".

Gary Sprague, a founder of Focus Learning Corporation, will continue to support the Company in an advisory role following the transaction. Gary expressed his excitement about the partnership, stating, "I couldn't have chosen better partners to help guide the next stage of growth for Focus Learning and our products. We have an obligation to our mission-critical industry partners to consistently deliver, maintain, and support essential training and compliance technology. As part of the transaction, The Brydon Group is making significant investments in further improving the software platform, enhancing customer support, while maintaining a strong focus on the principles of instructional design and performance-based training. Under Jay's leadership and leveraging resources of The Brydon Group, Focus Learning is poised to reach new heights."

Alex Mears, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of The Brydon Group, expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration, stating: "We are excited about the incredible potential that this partnership holds. Focus Learning plays a critical role in ensuring the safe and efficient maintenance and operation of our nation's nuclear facilities. We appreciate this tremendous responsibility and are excited to invest further in Focus' core technology offerings to continue serving its customers."

Goodwin Procter provided legal counsel, Mowery & Schoenfeld served as the accounting advisor to The Brydon Group during the transaction.

About Focus Learning Corporation:

Focus Learning is the leading provider of training and compliance software to commercial and government customers in the nuclear industry and adjacent heavily regulated industries.

SOURCE Focus Learning Corporation
Georgia, with 30% of its territory occupied by Russia, continues to warmly welcome tourists from the aggressor country. An unforgettable reception was organized by a Russian woman at the Oishi Sushi sushi bar in Tbilisi. The staff refused to speak Russian with the visitor, and when she complained about the restaurant on social media, she received a telling response.

ADVERTISIMENT

Representatives of the sushi bar called Russian "the language of pigs," and the disgruntled visitor was advised to return to her "hole, which Russians call a country." A Russian citizen was humiliated on a catering review service.

"We couldn't find the place, we called and tried to find out in Russian, they said they didn't speak Russian and hung up. We finally found it and ordered, they brought us rolls with thawed fish, the taste was disgusting. I don't recommend it to anyone," the tourist complained, giving Oishi Sushi one star out of five.

The staff of the Georgian sushi bar did not bother to patronize the guest from the occupying country, and therefore responded sharply: "Hello, we are very sorry for the inconvenience, but we do not speak the language of pigs. You can go back to the hole you call a country and enjoy some sushi there, unless, of course, you are called upon to do so. We wish you all the best."

ADVERTISIMENT

The news quickly spread on various propaganda platforms. Hysterical Russians decided to attack the "Russophobic" establishment with angry reviews and low ratings to spoil its statistics.

However, the Oishi Sushi representatives were not intimidated. They posted a picture of a pig in the colors of the Russian flag on their social media pages and left a message for unwanted guests.

"It's sad that you decided to focus your heroic efforts on attacking a sushi bar instead of confronting your terrorist government. Perhaps then you would not have had to seek asylum in a country that is unfriendly to you," the Georgians wrote.

ADVERTISIMENT

Later, representatives of the establishment also revealed that the Russians continue to send them insults and violent threatening messages. All of them have nothing to do with the service, food or quality of food - it's just a stream of rude language, humiliation and threats to "cut Georgian children."

Earlier, a video of street musicians (probably Russians) in Georgia singing Russian songs was shared online. One of the local residents, who apparently strongly condemns the occupation policy of the Russian Federation and does not want to listen to the music of the terrorist country at home, did not like it. He tried to stop the street concert of Russian performers.

ADVERTISIMENT

Also, as OBOZREVATEL wrote, one of the tourists from Russia complained about Russophobia in Georgia. Moreover, the Russian woman had the audacity to express her dissatisfaction with the service in the country.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Collaboration Introduces Innovative Ampere Processors for Demanding Cloud Workloads

LUXEMBOURG, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Gcore ,  a European provider of public cloud and edge computing, content delivery, security, and AI, announces its collaboration with Ampere, a pioneer in the development of cloud-native processors. The collaboration brings together Gcore's cloud infrastructure expertise with Ampere's innovative 128-core processors based on the ARM architecture and optimized for cloud workloads.

Gcore virtual machines (VMs) now support configurations based on the Ampere Altra processor familythe industry's first cloud-native processor that delivers predictable high performance, linear scalability, and power efficiency for data center deployments from the hyperscale cloud to the edge cloud. Ampere's processors offer high core counts, allowing for efficient parallel processing of workloads.

A performance comparison of Ampere, Intel, and AMD processors on a single node running typical workloads shows that Ampere is on average 2.5x faster than Intel Xeon 3rd Gen and 1.7x faster than AMD EPYC 3rd Gen.

Gcore VMs are hosted on HPE ProLiant RL300 Gen11 servers, which are equipped with Ampere Altra processors. This is the server designed specifically for providers and digital-first enterprises that need to deploy cloud applications.

The scalability of the Ampere Altra product family enables cloud providers and data centers to handle a large number of concurrent tasks and efficiently scale their infrastructure as demand increases. Ampere Altra is cloud-optimized, and helps to maximize overall performance and cores-per-rack density. Ampere processors are based on the ARM architecture, which offers several advantages for cloud-native environments, including power efficiency, performance per watt, and support for heterogeneous workloads.

Gcore Product Director, Edge & AI Cloud, Vsevolod Vayner, stated, "We are excited to partner with Ampere and bring their innovative processors to our Cloud. Together, we can provide our customers with powerful and efficient virtual machines that will strengthen their efforts to deliver and maintain modern cloud applications."

Ampere Chief Product Officer, Jeff Wittich, commented, "Our collaboration with Gcore is an important step in providing cloud-native solutions that meet the needs of today's most demanding cloud workloads. Working together allows us to extend the reach of our Altra Altra processor family and bring its performance benefits to a broader range of customers."

The collaboration between Gcore and Ampere represents a major step forward in cloud infrastructure. It provides a reliable and efficient solution for customers by delivering modern cloud-native applications based on scale-out and elastic cloud architectures. By collaborating on cutting-edge technologies, Gcore and Ampere are positioned to lead the industry in cloud infrastructure solutions built on high-performance and scalable hardware.



Find out more about collaboration between Gcore and Ampere on gcore.com/partners/ampere

About Gcore

Gcore is an international leader in public cloud and edge computing, content delivery, hosting, security, and AI solutions. Headquartered in Luxembourg, with a staff of 500+ operating from 12 bases worldwide, Gcore provides its solutions to global leaders in numerous industries. Gcore manages its own global IT infrastructure across six continents, with one of the best network performances in Europe, Africa, and LATAM, due to the average response time of 30 ms worldwide. Gcore's network consists of 150+ points of presence around the world in reliable Tier IV and Tier III data centers, with a total capacity exceeding 110 Tbps.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

About Ampere

Ampere is a modern semiconductor company designing the future of cloud computing with the world's first Cloud Native Processors. Built for the sustainable Cloud with the highest performance and best performance per watt, Ampere processors accelerate the delivery of all cloud computing applications. Ampere Cloud Native Processors provide industry-leading cloud performance, power efficiency, and scalability.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2142885/4265293/GCORE_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Gcore
Gem Security's CDR platform significantly shortens the time to detect, investigate, and contain cloud-native threats  redefining security operations for the cloud era

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Gem Security , the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) company, today announced $23 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital and joined by IBM Ventures, Silicon Valley CISO Investments (SVCI), an array of notable angel investors, and existing investor Team8. This oversubscribed Series A, hot on the heels of Gem's Seed funding round, reflects investor trust based on solid market validation. This round follows the Seed round led by Team8, and brings Gem's total funding to $34 million.

The adoption of cloud infrastructure is rapidly increasing and diversifying the attack surface for organizations. In fact, organizations today maintain, on average, 65% of their infrastructure in the cloud, with 72% leveraging multi-cloud1. This new environment poses unprecedented threats and complexity, requiring novel approaches. As Gartner notes, "Modern malware and data breaches in cloud environments are often fileless and operate either solely in memory without leaving any trace on disk, or via APIs or integrated SaaS offerings, making it increasingly difficult or impossible to properly investigate with traditional forensic methods and tooling."2

Since launching in early 2023, Gem Security has dramatically scaled ARR by helping secure cloud operations for dozens of global organizations in diverse verticals including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and information technology. The company has also been recognized in Gartner research twice this year; in the Cool Vendors for the Modern Security Operations Center report3 as well as a Sample Vendor for Cloud Investigation and Response Automation (CIRA) in the Hype Cycle for Workload and Network Security, 20234.

While legacy approaches to detection and response have existed for some time, these traditional approaches fall short of solving the problem in the cloud era. The proliferation of cloud services across infrastructure, platforms, and software has fragmented the security landscape. Without tooling, security operations teams today struggle to manually collect and correlate the explosion of associated telemetry.

Gem Security delivers a purpose-built Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) platform that significantly shortens the time to detect, investigate, and contain cloud-native threats before it's too late. Moreover, it centralizes real-time visibility into multi-cloud environments, as well as provides cloud-native forensics and automated incident timelining to understand the root causes of a cloud breach.

Gem Security not only supports all major infrastructure platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Kubernetes), but has also successfully collaborated with the AWS and Azure teams to identify and fix vulnerabilities, improving security for millions of users. Gem's platform easily integrates with existing security tools and workflows (SIEM/SOAR, CSPM, etc.), as well as leading platforms like identity providers, ticketing, source code repositories and secrets managers, leveraging the additional data for context analysis too.

"The cloud changes everything for security operations and incident response teams," said Gem Security Co-Founder & CEO Arie Zilberstein. "Traditional detection and response approaches weren't designed to address the dynamic and complex nature of multi-cloud environments, and cloud expertise is in short supply.

"Gem is redefining security operations for the cloud era, empowering teams with a simple, automated, and efficient approach that allows organizations to respond faster and minimize the impact of attacks in the cloud. Over the past year, we have earned the trust of our customers and partners and together we'll keep enabling cloud transformation while minimizing risk."

Gem Security's holistic approach for Cloud Detection and Response bridges the gap between security operations and cloud complexity. The Gem team has years of experience as incident responders working on some of the most sophisticated cloud attacks in the world. Those lessons have been built directly into Gem's comprehensive platform and workflows, enabling organizations to prepare, detect, investigate, and respond effectively.

"With the shift to the cloud, the security operations model needs to evolve," said Oren Yunger, Managing Partner at GGV Capital. "Security teams don't reliably know when they are being attacked, let alone why or how those attacks are occurring. Gem has built a unique platform that allows CISOs and their teams to prepare, detect, respond, and remediate cloud security attacks  with context and fast."

1 2023 State of Cloud Threat Detection and Response Report , Google Cloud.

2 Gartner, Emerging Tech: Security  Cloud Investigation and Response Automation Offers Transformation Opportunities, Lawrence Pingree and Mark Wah. 5 June 2023.

3 Gartner, Cool Vendors for the Modern Security Operations Center, Angel Berrios, Jeremy D'Hoinne, Pete Shoard, Evgeny Mirolyubov, Carlos De Sola Caraballo, 30 August 2023.

4 Gartner, Hype Cycle for Workload and Network Security, 2023, Charlie Winckless & Feng Gao, July 31, 2023

GARTNER, COOL VENDORS and HYPE CYCLE are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Gem Security

Gem Security is a rapidly growing Cloud Detection and Response platform provider that bridges the gap between security operations and cloud complexity. Headquartered in New York, Gem Security was founded by security industry veterans: CEO Arie Zilberstein, CTO Ron Konigsberg, and VP Product Ofir Brukner. Gem is funded by global investors such as GGV Capital, Team8, IBM Ventures, SVCI, and more. For more information, visit gem.security .

Media Contact:

Lazer Cohen

Concrete Media for Gem Security

[email protected]

SOURCE Gem Security
DUBLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Graphene Battery Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global graphene battery market size reached US$ 90.5 Million in 2022. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to reach US$ 373.0 Million by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 24.84% during 2023-2028.

The accelerating graphene battery market is emerging as a key player in future energy storage solutions, driven by the unique properties of graphene, a robust and flexible form of carbon with superior electrical and thermal conductivity. These batteries, including lithium-sulfur, lithium-ion, and lead-acid types, are increasingly favored for their enhanced performance, reduced charging time, and high-capacity energy storage capabilities.

The market is gaining traction across various sectors, including automotive, aerospace, defense, energy, and electronics. Heightened environmental awareness has led to a surge in demand for electric vehicles (EVs), which frequently utilize graphene batteries. The material's attributes also make it an efficient storage platform for renewable energy sources.

Another driving factor is the growing adoption of supercapacitors, which offer longer product life, quick charging, and extended shelf life. These benefits make graphene batteries ideal for portable electronic devices that require greater flexibility and improved communication capabilities. The technology is also increasingly being used in industrial applications.

Government initiatives aimed at reducing environmental impact by promoting cleaner battery solutions are expected to further stimulate market growth. Overall, the market's potential is enormous, fueled by a range of applications from EVs to portable electronics and renewable energy storage.

Key Questions Answered in This Report:

How has the global graphene battery market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years?

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global graphene battery market?

What are the key regional markets?

What is the breakup of the market based on the battery type?

What is the breakup of the market based on the application?

What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry?

What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry?

What is the structure of the global graphene battery market and who are the key players?

What is the degree of competition in the industry?

Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being

Cabot Corporation

Elcora Advanced Materials Corp.

Global Graphene Group

Graphenano s.l.

Graphene Batteries AS

Hybrid Kinetic Group Limited

Nanotech Energy Inc.

XG Sciences Inc.

Key Market Segmentation:



Breakup by Battery Type:

Lithium-ion Graphene Battery

Lithium-Sulphur Graphene Battery

Graphene Supercapacitor

Lead-acid Graphene Battery

Breakup by Application:

Automotive

Electronics

Energy

Aerospace and Defense

Industrial Robotics

Healthcare

Breakup by Region:

North America

United States

Canada

Asia-Pacific

China

Japan

India

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Others

Europe

Germany

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Russia

Others

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Others

Middle East and Africa

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/e32ko8

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

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Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Research and Markets
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Market Innovators (GMI), the largest woman and minority-owned technology company headquartered in Arizona, is pleased to announce the recent addition of Mike Hummel and Charles Layne to its advisory team. As GMI continues to experience significant growth, these new team members reflect the company's commitment to strengthening governance and maintaining its position as an industry trailblazer.

Mike Hummel, the recently retired General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of Salt River Project (SRP) with a distinguished 41-year career at SRP, is welcomed to GMI's Board of Advisors. During his tenure, Hummel oversaw SRP's financial excellence, electric system reliability, and customer service recognition by JD Power.

Hummel and Layne's expertise bolsters GMI's full-service IT platform, prioritizing default security, not add-on services Post this

Hummel's leadership also drove SRP's adoption of renewable energy solutions, solidifying its commitment to sustainability. Hummel's involvement extended to industry and community boards, including the Electric Power Research Institute and the Large Public Power Council.

Charles Layne, a seasoned executive known for driving founder-owned and private equity-backed businesses to unprecedented growth, has joined GMI as a Strategic Advisor. Layne is an expert at helming SaaS, technology services, and software-enabled services and has grown and scaled such businesses time and again. His honors include Arizona Commerce Authority CEO of the Year and multiple ASU Sun Devil 100 awards.

A native of Arizona, Layne received his Bachelor of Science in marketing from Arizona State University and a global leadership certificate from the Thunderbird School of International Management. He also actively contributes to the community, serving on the boards of Lumistry and the non-profit STEPStudent Expedition.

"We are thrilled to welcome Mike Hummel and Charles Layne to our advisory team," said GMI CEO Vicki Mayo. "Their extensive expertise and remarkable achievements in executive leadership roles make them invaluable additions to our company."

About Global Market Innovators (GMI):

Global Market Innovators (GMI) is the largest woman-owned and minority-led technology company headquartered in Arizona. Recognized as best in class, GMI offers a comprehensive range of fully managed IT services, including cybersecurity, compliance, procurement, collaboration, mobility and networking, cloud solutions, and more. Guided by a vision of infusing security into every facet of your business, GMI is your trusted partner with a relentless focus on your success. GMI is also a certified diversity supplier.

SOURCE Global Market Innovators (GMI)
DUBLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Neuromodulation - Global Strategic Business Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global Neuromodulation Market to Reach $11.6 Billion by 2030



The global market for Neuromodulation estimated at US$5.9 Billion in the year 2022, is projected to reach a revised size of US$11.6 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.9% over the analysis period 2022-2030.

The global neuromodulation technology market has witnessed positive trends, building upon a favorable historical review from 2014 to 2021. This market covers various therapeutic applications, including spinal cord stimulation, deep brain stimulation, sacral nerve stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, and other technologies.

One of the analyzed segments, spinal cord stimulation, is projected to achieve a substantial 15.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and reach annual sales of US$ Thousand by the end of the analysis period. Similarly, segments like deep brain stimulation and sacral nerve stimulation are expected to contribute significantly to market growth with notable CAGR figures.

The global neuromodulation market demonstrates strong potential, with an estimated valuation of US$ Thousand in annual sales for 2022, and it is forecasted to expand significantly by 2030, driven by a robust CAGR during the analysis period from 2022 to 2030.

Spinal Cord Stimulation, one of the report's analyzed segments, is projected to achieve an 8.9% CAGR and reach US$5.1 Billion by the end of the analysis period. Growth in the Deep Brain Stimulation segment is estimated at a 9.2% CAGR for the next 8-year period.

In the U.S., the neuromodulation market is estimated to reach annual sales of US$ Thousand in 2022. China, as the world's second-largest economy, is expected to experience substantial growth, with annual sales projected to reach US$ Thousand by 2030, driven by a notable CAGR during the analysis period from 2022 to 2030.

Other noteworthy geographic markets, including Japan and Canada, are also expected to exhibit significant growth. Within Europe, several countries are projected to contribute to the market's expansion, demonstrating promising CAGR figures.

The neuromodulation market in the U.S. is estimated at US$2.8 Billion in 2022. China, the world's second-largest economy, is forecasted to reach a projected market size of US$898.5 Million by 2030, with a CAGR of 10.6% during the analysis period from 2022 to 2030.

Among other notable geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecasted to grow at rates of 8.5% and 9.1%, respectively, over the 2022-2030 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecasted to grow at an approximate CAGR of 8.2%.

We have analyzed 83 select competitors, thereby delivering a holistic overview of the competitive landscape, including

Abbott Laboratories, Inc.

Boston Scientific Corporation

Autonomix Medical

Biegler GmbH

What`s New?

Special discussions on the global economic climate and market sentiment

Coverage on global competitiveness and key competitor percentage market shares

Market presence analysis across multiple geographies - Strong/Active/Niche/Trivial

Online interactive peer-to-peer collaborative bespoke updates

Access to digital archives and trademarked research platform

Complimentary updates for one year

Access to curated YouTube video transcripts of market sentiments shared by CEOs, domain experts and market influencers via interviews, podcasts, press statements and event keynotes

MARKET OVERVIEW

Neuromodulation - Global Key Competitors Percentage Market Share in 2022 (E)

Competitive Market Presence - Strong/Active/Niche/Trivial for Players Worldwide in 2022 (E)

Neurological Disorders

A Prelude to Neuromodulation

Indications for Neuromodulation Therapy

Impact of Covid-19 and a Looming Global Recession

2020 Marked as a Year of Disruption & Transformation

World Economic Growth Projections (Real GDP, Annual % Change) for 2020 through 2022

Global Neuromodulation Market Buckles under COVID-19 Strain

Effects of COVID-19 on the Nervous System Sheds Focus on Neuromodulation Applications

GLOBAL MARKET OVERVIEW

Neuromodulation Market Set for a Robust Growth

Neuromodulation Market by Segment

Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) Represents the Largest Segments

Neuromodulation Devices by Technology

Spinal Cord Stimulation Market (2020): Dollar Market Share of Leading Players in Percentage

Neuromodulation Market by Application

Growing Clinical Applications to Drive Demand

US and Europe Dominate the Market

Asia-Pacific and other Emerging Regions Display Impressive Growth Potential

and other Emerging Regions Display Impressive Growth Potential Competition

Select FDA Approved Neuromodulation Devices in Recent Years

Recent Market Activity

Market Restraints and Challenges

WORLD BRANDS

MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

High Incidence of Neurological Disorders: A Key Market Driver

Annual Incidence of Adult-Onset Neurologic Disorders in the US

Rising Geriatric Population and Subsequent Growth in Prevalence of Neurological Disorders

Global Population Statistics for the 65+ Age Group in Million by Geographic Region for the Years 2019, 2025, 2035 and 2050

Growing Incidence of Neurodegenerative Diseases Propels the Market for Deep Brain Stimulation Devices

Global Alzheimer's Prevalence by Age Group

Diagnosed Prevalence Cases of Parkinson's Disease Across Select Countries

Global DBS Market by Leading Player (2020E): Market Share Breakdown of Revenues for Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Abbott

Select Available Deep Brain Stimulation Devices Available in the Market

Increasing Cases of Epilepsy Drives the Demand for Vagus Nerve Stimulation Devices

Epilepsy Incidence by Type (2019): Percentage Share Breakdown for Idiopathic and Symptomatic Epilepsy

Symptomatic Epilepsy Incidence by Type (2019): Percentage Share Breakdown of Congenital, Degenerative, Infective, Neoplastic, Trauma, and Vascular Epilepsy

Spinal Cord Injuries Propel the Demand for Spinal Cord Stimulation Devices

Recent Developments in Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

TENS (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation devices) Market Witnesses Rapid Growth

Non-Invasiveness of TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) Propelling the adoption of TMS devices

Neuromodulation Technologies to Gain Preference Over Opioids

Tibial Neuromodulation to Impact Overactive Bladder Market

FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS (Total 83 Featured)

Abbott Laboratories, Inc.

Boston Scientific Corporation

Aleva Neurotherapeutics SA

Bioness Inc.

Beijing Pins Medical Co., Ltd.

Axonics Modulation Technologies, Inc.

Biegler GmbH

Cirtec Medical Corporation

Cala Health

BioControl Medical Ltd.

Atlantic Therapeutics Group Limited

Bio-Medical Research Limited

Capitol Pain Institute

Autonomix Medical

Bioinduction

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/bq4w3z

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Research and Markets
BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Along with our reporting mission of witnessing the first-hand success of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Hungary, Serbia and Greece upon the 10th anniversary of the proposal of the joint initiative. The COVID-19 pandemic has been over, and the resulting economic fallout across the world is on the waiting list of the problems that need to be tackled.

Our trip, then, turned out to show that in an era of uncertainty, countries that look to the East are embracing more development opportunities and unleashing economic vitality and development potentials. CEE is becoming the "bridgehead" of the linkage between the East and the West, politically, economically and culturally, through the steady implementation of the BRI.

Development over geopolitics

A Chinese-backed railway between the Hungarian capital of Budapest and the Serbian capital of Belgrade, when completed, is expected to bring enormous economic benefits for the two CEE countries. A steel plant in Serbia, which had run into deep troubles due to poor management has been saved by a Chinese company and become the major contributor to the country's GDP. A Chinese shipping company's investment at the Piraeus Port in Greece, which is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa, has made the port take a leading position in terms of container throughput and become the largest ferry port and the third-largest cruise port in Europe.

From our interviews with local employees hired by Chinese companies that undertake the BRI projects, the buzzword we heard the most was "stability." Locals say Chinese companies brought them job opportunities and a sense of stability. This has nothing to do with geopolitics, but is a natural reflection of the people to seek a better life.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies are learning from past experiences of going global, avoiding previous mistakes while at the same time endeavoring to face challenges. They no longer hesitate to engage with local communities, and they are eager to communicate with media and NGOs. What we sensed from our interviews in the three countries is the maturity and confidence of Chinese companies operating abroad.

Right now, the scale and in-depth of cooperation between China and different CEE countries is not balanced. But the candid cooperation China has had with Hungary, Serbia and Greece and the fruitful results provide absolutely positive models.

Fostering stronger connectivity

Due to collaborative efforts under the BRI, numerous Chinese companies have proactively ventured into this region, bringing investments, job opportunities, and fostering greater mutual understanding and exchanges between these countries and China.

As we journeyed through this landscape, the signs of connectivity were evident, from Chinese-language signs at Budapest Airport in Hungary to casual greetings in Putonghua from pedestrians in Belgrade, and thoughtful Chinese-language signage in shops in Athens. It was a testament to the sense of familiarity and interconnectedness that has developed between these countries and China.

The true significance of this connectivity became palpable when we visited local Chinese companies  the presence of Chinese enterprises is bringing about positive changes to the economic landscape and to the lives of the local population, while forming a closer connectivity between the East and the West.

In a small town near Budapest, a railway construction project is well under way. On the construction site, trucks and excavators tirelessly shuttle back and forth. This undertaking forms an integral part of the Hungarian section of the Hungary-Serbia railway project. The railway line, upon completion, will significantly shorten the traveling time for passenger and cargo between Budapest and Belgrade from the current eight hours to less than three.

Ambrusch Tamas, the construction manager of the Hungary-Serbia railway project (Hungarian section) of China Railway No. 9 Bureau, expressed his desire to witness the completed facilities and personally experience China's high-speed railways. He hoped that the strong friendship between China and Hungary endures, and such cooperation deepens.

At the NIO Power Europe factory in Hungary, workers diligently assembled components sourced from China and other locations, with the final products destined for Hungary and other parts of Europe.

"This is NIO's first production site outside of China, and it's very exciting because what the factory produces is something entirely new here," said Soregi Tibor, the 45-year-old plant manager of NIO Power Europe Ltd. Tibor joined this newly established factory in August 2022 when it had only a few employees, and now there are around 130 people, a reflection of the fast development of the Chinese new-energy vehicle business in the region.

To some people, China's elements have already been integrated into their everyday life. In the streets of Hungary, it's common to see delivery riders on Chinese-made electric bikes. We had a conversation with a delivery rider who was aware that his electric bike was manufactured by a Chinese company named Niu Technologies. He proudly showed us his electric bike, noting its ease of use, which makes it an invaluable tool in his line of work.

In Greece's port of Piraeus, a bustling scene unfolded as a ship docked and got ready for loading. Since China COSCO Shipping Group took over the operations of the Piraeus Port in 2016, they have actively and prudently managed it, expanding their market presence. The investment has proven to be mutually beneficial, as Evangelos Kyriazopoulos, secretary-general for Maritime Affairs and Ports, pointed out to us.

Since 2015, investment from China has surpassed 15 percent of Greece's GDP, and China has become Greece's third-largest trading partner and its largest trading partner outside of the EU.

Vivid examples of Chinese companies transforming the local economy and improving people's lives can also be seen in Serbia. From reviving a struggling steel plant that was on the verge of closure to transforming a small, relatively unknown town into a major mining hub, Chinese enterprises have injected fresh momentum into local industrial development.

As Zhu Qiuping, secretary-general of Serbia Overseas Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, who has been living in Serbia for decades, told us, Chinese companies have stimulated the local economy, and many locals are genuinely appreciative of the benefits these companies have brought to them.

Closer people-to-people bonds

All connectivity comes down to culture and people-to-people exchanges. People in CEE countries like Hungary, Serbia and Greece have a high degree of favor toward China and Chinese culture and they hope to embrace the BRI, as we have noticed while traveling there.

Global Times reporters find that Chinese cultural products such as the Chinese language, tea culture, hanfu, films and TV series as well as esport games, have been main carriers of China's charm and a reliable, admirable and respectable image of China.

Many cultural and educational institutions launched various cultural activities that have attracted local young people, especially generation Z (people born between 1996 and 2010), to get to know and understand the real China. Cultural exchanges have become an important channel to enhance mutual integration, mutual understanding and trust between Chinese and foreign people.

Hungary revolutionary poet Sandor Petofi's poem Liberty and Love is well known to millions of Chinese and even little kids can recite it. The statue of the great poet now still stands in the square of Lu Xun Park in Shanghai. Hungarian music giant, Franz Liszt's famous Faust Symphony, Mephisto Waltz and Hungarian Rhapsodies have been staged in music halls across China.

While in Budapest, signs in Chinese language can be seen in many places and learning Putonghua has been many parents' choices for their kids as well as young people who hope to have a bright career with Chinese enterprises.

Chinese President Xi Jinping encouraged Hungarian youths to learn more about China and become envoys of the China-Hungary friendship in a reply letter earlier 2023.

In his reply to a letter from students of the Hungarian-Chinese bilingual school in Hungary, Xi said he and his wife were glad to hear from the Hungarian students during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit, and he still remembers chatting with teachers and students of the school in 2009.

Xi said he would like to give the students a thumbs-up upon hearing that the students have kept learning Chinese for a long time and are committed to making contributions to the China-Hungary friendship.

The students, Xi said, are welcomed to study in Chinese universities after graduation from high school, hoping that more and more Hungarian youths will love and study the Chinese language.

Before the Spring Festival this year, two students  Varge Bonita and Imre Tamara Lili, whose Chinese names are Hu Lingyue and Song Zhixiao  wrote a letter to Xi and his wife, Professor Peng Liyuan, on behalf of all students in the school, conveying their New Year's greetings. In their letter, they also spoke about what it felt like studying Chinese in the school for 12 years, and expressed their willingness to study in Chinese universities and contribute to the Hungary-China friendship.

The 19-year-old young Hungary woman Varge Bonita has fulfilled the dream of studying in China and now she studies and lives at Capital Normal University.

"My life has changed because of Chinese and become so colorful," she told the Global Times.

For Erdelyi Zsuzsanna, head of Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual School, in the new semester, she is happy to see over 530 students in 12 grades and 20 classes are back to the campus. Most of them are Hungarian kids who study very hard just like Bonita, in the hope of knowing Chinese, China's culture and the country's fast development.

Bonita is not alone. Seventeen-year-old Serbian boy Luka Simic is carefully planning his upcoming exchange student life with Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province.

In Serbia, thousands of young people are studying Chinese and are fond of Chinese culture. Luka and his friends have showed great interest in China's tea culture, the integration of the spirit of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.

Besides, they are also very fond of Chinese martial arts or wushu, as Wang Yanliang, director of the Chinese Cultural Center in Belgrade, said he often sees locals practice martial arts when taking a walk along the Danube River that runs across Europe.

In Athens, a "dialogue" between Confucius and Socrates, the two wisest philosophers, is taking place as they stand together in the center of Greek culture.

If Confucius had the chance to visit Greece, he would "feel happy and honored, as if he were riding the spring wind of building a community with a shared future for mankind. So his clothing was sculpted in a way of xieyi to make it look as if he is lecturing on his concepts," recalled Chinese artist Wu Weishan, who created the iconic xieyi sculpture style as a gift to the Greek people.

Stelios Virvidakis, a professor from University of Athens and also steering chairman of the Center of Chinese and Greek Ancient Civilizations, said his center has received a number of scholars who gave lectures during the summer time and students found them "interesting" and "inspirational." Virvidakis also said he will travel to several Chinese cities as well for cultural exchanges.

People all over the world, in different places, different cultures can "share similar feelings and have similar emotions," and "we can live together with exchanges, peaceful and rich exchanges," he told the Global Times.

"The mutual learning between the Chinese and Greek civilizations has established a model for equal exchange and mutual learning among different civilizations. It represents a significant aspect of promoting people-to-people connectivity within the framework of the BRI. The spiritual strength embedded in the two great civilizations of China and Greece can provide important spiritual guidance for humanity in addressing contemporary challenges and advancing the construction of a shared future for mankind," Chinese Ambassador to Greece Xiao Junzheng told us.

The past, present and future of exchanges between China and Central, Eastern Europe are like the Danube River, running toward the ocean of mutual learning among human civilizations with rich people-to-people exchanges.

SOURCE Global Times
BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Among the hustle and bustle of the container field at the Csepel Port Logistics Park in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, cranes busily lift and transfer containers onto trains bound for other parts of Europe. One can't help but notice the prominent presence of Chinese shipping brands, a testament to the robust business connectivity between this Hungarian park and Chinese ports thousands of miles away.

From a barren expanse to its current sprawling 140,000-square-meter facility, the Csepel Port Logistics Park, invested and developed by a Chinese company, has emerged as a pivotal player in the Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone (CECZ) over the decade. As a key component of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the park not only showcases Chinese products but also serves as a vital nexus for logistics enterprises.

Over the last decade, the logistics park has collaborated with numerous domestic rail platform operators, resulting in the launch of more than 180 China-Europe freight train services.

These routes, including the pioneering China-Europe Land-Sea Express (Haihong Express) and routes like Jinan to Budapest and Urumqi to Budapest, have significantly bolstered Hungary's position as a leading transportation hub in Central and Eastern Europe.

This achievement proved crucial during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as it ensured the stability of supply and industry chain connectivity between the East and West.

From rail to chain

Hitchhiking on the joint construction of the BRI, the logistics park's business has expanded since it was established in 2012, from building up rail services from scratch to the expansion of the complete supply and industry chain in what it stands as the core transportation hub in the region.

Few have witnessed this profound transformation quite like Keiko Tien, cross-border e-commerce logistics department manager of the Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone.

She still remembers the day when the Changsha-Budapest China-Europe train, operated by the logistics park, transported 41 containers with Chinese goods from Russia through Ukraine to Budapest, on June 16, 2017, officially inaugurating the European southern route for China-Europe freight trains.

"In the domain of China-Europe freight train routes, we marked a breakthrough by opening up a new corridor in Europe," Tien told the Global Times.

Although this route was temporarily interrupted following the start of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, its initial opening mitigated the risk of relying solely on one channel for China-Europe trains to enter Europe, opening up new possibilities for future train routes, Tien said.

In the years since, the park has partnered with various domestic rail platforms.

So far, more than 180 China-Europe trains have been launched via the logistics park connecting multiple domestic node cities in China to Budapest and other parts of Europe.

"As more trade has flowed in, we have become a multifaceted interactive platform for Chinese and European enterprises, integrating business display and trade, transportation logistics and warehousing, and industrial investment and cooperation," Tien said.

Moreover, over the last decade, the park has driven and stimulated direct and indirect Chinese exports worth $7.6 billion to Hungary, with products ranging from mechanical and electrical components to textiles, and home furnishings.

In addition to trains, the logistics park has contributed to stabilizing the supply chain through expanding transportation services such as scheduled cargo charter flights.

In the pursuit of a diversified and stable supply chain, the park has provided strong support to numerous Chinese companies, including the new energy vehicle producer BYD, as they invest in Hungary and Europe. This assistance has facilitated the establishment of robust international supply chain routes for these companies in going to the West, as Tien said.

Tien's remarks are not without merit. Hungary is now one of China's most important trading partners in Central and Eastern Europe, with a bilateral trade volume worth $15.52 billion in 2022, an increase of 84 percent from 2013.

Since 2019, the average annual growth rate of bilateral trade between China and Hungary has reached 15 percent, far surpassing that of other EU countries.

The great changes that Chinese investment has brought to the country are beyond trade and investment, as Patyi Kristof, head of business development of the cooperation zone, told the Global Times.

"China is one of the largest investors and a major trading partner for Hungary. This means Chinese companies are providing jobs for local people, and besides the economy, there are strong partnerships in culture and educational exchanges as well," said Kristof.

Personally, because of this job, Kristof has the opportunity to travel to many places and familiarize himself with many different cultures. "These opportunities have allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the importance and significance of China-Hungary economic and trade relations under the BRI," he said.

The logistics park has not only acted as a bridge for Chinese companies expanding their businesses in Europe but has also facilitated Hungarian companies' entry into China. In 2014, Hungary's Ghibli, a local logistics supply chain company, established its presence in the logistics park.

Based on the advanced supply chain network within the park, Ghibli has experienced significant business expansion, as evidenced by the company's industry ranking. It has risen from 11th place at the time it started operations at the park to its current 3rd place position. Moreover, the company's workforce has doubled during this period.

Resilience and growth

The park's resilience is best exemplified by its unwavering strength and expansion amid the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After accepting the urgent task of purchasing and transporting epidemic prevention materials for the Hungarian government, the logistics park mobilized resources from all parties, quickly organized procurement, and chartered flights among other proactive measures. In just 7 days, they completed the purchase, consolidation, chartering, customs clearance, and shipment of the first batch of 70 tons of epidemic prevention materials. When the charter flight transporting the first batch of epidemic prevention and control materials arrived in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban personally welcomed it at the airport.

In addition, during the pandemic, the logistics park leveraged its advantages in the supply chain by providing equipment and material procurement, transportation, factory construction, equipment installation, and production support for the construction of mask and glove production facilities for the Hungarian government.

In recognition of the logistics park's outstanding performance in epidemic prevention and control, the Hungarian government awarded the park the Knight's Cross, one of the country's highest orders of merit.

The achievements do not stop here. Looking ahead, the overarching goal of the logistics park is to move toward green development and the digital economy, which include investing around 70 million euros ($74.86 million) in developing an e-commerce logistics park project, which will include a 30,000-square-meter smart warehouse.

Upon completion, this new project will be the first fully digitized and intelligent warehouse in the Central and Eastern European region tailored specifically for e-commerce companies, according to Tien. Intelligent robots will also be adopted in the park in future operations to facilitate the efficiency and cut costs.

Once the park is completed, it will serve as a training hub for warehousing talent in Hungary. Currently, the project's main construction has reached its pinnacle, with plans for it to commence operations in 2024.

SOURCE Global Times
DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Very Light Jet Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global very light jet market size reached US$ 5.3 Billion in 2022. Looking forward, the market is set to reach US$ 8.2 Billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 7.45% during 2023-2028.

The very light jets market is undergoing a significant transformation, fueled by technological advancements and changing consumer preferences. Traditionally powered by conventional fuel propulsion systems, the adoption of hybrid and electric propulsion technologies is on the rise. These jets offer numerous benefits such as cost-effectiveness and fuel efficiency, making them increasingly popular in various sectors including commercial, civil, and military aviation.

One of the primary factors driving the market is the shift towards private aviation solutions, influenced by rising disposable incomes and an increasing number of high-net-worth individuals. This trend is further supported by the growth in the travel and tourism industry, leading to a surge in demand for non-scheduled charter flights.

Another contributing factor is the growing popularity of air sports, such as aerial acrobatics, and the rising application of very light jets in military reconnaissance activities. These diverse and expanding applications underscore the market's growth potential.

In summary, the very light jets market is experiencing robust growth due to technological innovations, increasing disposable incomes, and a booming travel industry. The market is also seeing expanded applications ranging from military reconnaissance to air sports, indicating a promising future with diverse opportunities for market players.

Key Questions Answered in This Report

How big is the global very light jet market?

What is the expected growth rate of the global very light jet market during 2023-2028?

What are the key factors driving the global very light jet market?

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global very light jet market?

What is the breakup of the global very light jet market based on the aircraft type?

What is the breakup of the global very light jet market based on the material?

What is the breakup of the global very light jet market based on propulsion?

What are the key regions in the global very light jet market?

Who are the key players/companies in the global very light jet market?

Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being

Bombardier Inc.

Cirrus Design Corporation (Aviation Industry Corporation of China )

) Diamond Aircraft Industries (Wanfeng Aviation Industry Co. Ltd.)

Embraer S.A.

Honda Aircraft Company (Honda Motor Company)

Nextant Aerospace

Pilatus Air

Key Market Segmentation:



Breakup by Aircraft Type:

Ultra-Light Aircraft

Light Aircraft

Breakup by Material:

Aluminum

Composites

Others

Breakup by Propulsion:

Electric and Hybrid

Conventional Fuel

Breakup by End Use:

Civil and Commercial

Military

Breakup by Region:

North America

United States

Canada

Asia-Pacific

China

Japan

India

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Others

Europe

Germany

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Russia

Others

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Others

Middle East and Africa

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/lylm5z

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

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Research and Markets

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SOURCE Research and Markets
CINCINNATI and WESTPORT, Conn., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Grand Valley Holdings, LLC, an independent sponsor focused on partnering with family-owned businesses in the Midwest, and an affiliate of Gemspring Capital Management, LLC ("Gemspring"), a middle-market private equity firm, are pleased to announce they have acquired OCI, LLC ("OCI" or the "Company"), a manufacturer of custom-built foundation drilling components primarily for the infrastructure and construction end markets.

The Gemspring investment was made by Gemspring Growth Solutions I, a fund dedicated to providing flexible, non-control capital solutions to middle market businesses. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

OCI serves as a one-stop-shop for geotechnical contractors' needs, offering a wide product suite of foundation drilling components including steel casing, drill string, hammers, bits, augurs, core barrels, and swivels. The Company also provides value-added services such as consulting, project management, equipment rental, and equipment servicing, positioning the business as a turnkey solution for customers.

"In addition to offering a differentiated suite of products and services, OCI has built a reputation for world-class customer service, with the ability to efficiently manage complex, customized, and time-sensitive projects for its contractor and geotechnical service industry customers," said Lachlan McLean, Founder of Grand Valley Holdings. "In partnership with Gemspring and the OCI leadership team, we intend to continue that legacy of unsurpassed customer support," added Andrew Brennan, Partner of Grand Valley Holdings.

"Over the past 26 years, we've built a best-in-class business with customizable, project-critical products," said Mark Kuenning, Co-Founder of OCI. "Grand Valley and Gemspring bring extensive experience partnering with family-owned businesses and we believe they are the ideal partners to support OCI as we look to expand our footprint and service offerings."

Jay Reynolds, Managing Director at Gemspring, added, "OCI has a long history of providing foundational products and expertise-driven services that deliver tremendous value for customers. We are excited to work with Grand Valley and the talented team at OCI to execute on a shared vision and to build on the Company's 26-year track record of success."

About OCI:

OCI is a marketplace leader in manufacturing a wide range of products to geotechnical service companies and foundational drilling contractors including micropile casing, drill string, hammers and bits, augurs, core barrels, swivels, and other customized products. Founded in 1998, the Company is headquartered in Brookville, PA, and has more than 70 employees. For more information, visit www.ocidivision.com.

About Grand Valley Holdings:

Grand Valley Holdings is a Cincinnati-based acquiror of privately-held, family-owned businesses in the Midwest United States. The Partners of Grand Valley Holdings bring over 35 years of experience acquiring, developing, and operating private businesses. For more information, visit www.gvhllc.com.

About Gemspring Capital:

Gemspring Capital, a Westport, Connecticut-based private equity firm with $3.5 billion of capital under management, provides flexible capital solutions to middle market companies. Gemspring partners with talented management teams and takes a partnership approach to helping drive revenue growth, value creation and sustainable competitive advantages. Target companies have up to $500 million in revenue and are in the aerospace & defense, business services, consumer services, financial and insurance services, healthcare services, industrial services, software and tech-enabled services, or specialty manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit www.gemspring.com.

CONTACT: Jay Reynolds, [email protected]

SOURCE Gemspring Capital
Bids Due November 13, 2023; Auction to Be Held November 16, 2023

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hilco Streambank announced it is seeking offers to acquire the intellectual property rights in and to the works of Richard Hambleton. Hambleton was a pioneer of the New York City street art movement of the 1970s and 1980s whose works have been featured internationally in galleries, museums, auctions, exhibitions, a documentary, and books.

Bids are due on or before November 13, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and an auction will be conducted on November 16, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Canadian-born Richard Hambleton was a visionary artist whose work adorned the streets of dozens of cities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. After moving to the Lower East Side of New York in 1979, Hambleton gained popularity for his iconic "Shadowman" pieces. These silhouettes of mysterious figures could be seen on the walls of New York's subway stations, alleyways, and abandoned buildings alongside the work of contemporaries including Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. As his reputation grew, Hambleton began painting Shadowmen in other cities including London, Paris, and Rome. In the 1980s, Hambleton painted dozens of life-size figures on the East and West sides of the Berlin Wall, and his work was featured twice in the Venice Biennale and in two exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art. Hambleton continued to paint prolifically until his passing in 2017.

Hambleton's pieces have appeared in numerous exhibitions worldwide and are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, among others. The Museum of Modern Art has featured his works in a number of exhibitions throughout his career and beyond. Shadowman, a documentary about Hambleton's life, career, and art by director Oren Jacoby, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017. Hambleton's lasting impact is evidenced by the influence seen in the iconic work of Banksy and other modern street artists in addition to his art's continued commercial success, as his pieces can regularly be found in the catalogs of esteemed auction houses.

Richelle Kalnit, Senior Vice President of Hilco Streambank, commented, "The sale represents a unique opportunity to acquire the intellectual property rights to powerful, unforgettable artwork of enduring value." Kalnit continued, "A buyer or buyers have the chance to harness Hambleton's artistry and stature in street art history to preserve for future generations and share with the public in myriad ways at a time when the market is exploding with potential."

Interested parties should click here for additional information or contact Hilco Streambank directly.

The sale will be conducted pursuant to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code by Hilco Streambank as agent for the secured lender. The assets may be subject to existing license agreements in favor of licensees and certain other qualifications. Physical artwork and images of physical artwork are excluded from the sale.

About Hilco Streambank: Hilco Streambank is a market-leading advisory firm specializing in intellectual property disposition and valuation. Having completed numerous transactions, including sales in publicly reported transactions, private transactions, and online sales through IPv4.Global , Hilco Streambank has established itself as the premier intermediary in the consumer brand, internet, and telecom communities. Hilco Streambank is part of Northbrook, Illinois-based Hilco Global , the world's leading authority on maximizing the value of business assets by delivering valuation, monetization, and advisory solutions to an international marketplace. Hilco Global operates more than twenty specialized business units offering services that include asset valuation and appraisal, retail and industrial inventory acquisition and disposition, real estate, and strategic capital equity investments.

SOURCE Hilco Streambank
The First Court of Appeal in Moscow has upheld the sentence against politician Alexei Navalny and the technical director of the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel Daniel Holodny. The defense of the accused intends to appeal the verdict in cassation.

ADVERTISIMENT

This was reported by the Russian media. According to it, Navalny is to be transferred to a strict regime colony.

The politician's lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, said that the text of the verdict was slightly changed. Now Navalny is listed there not as a "particularly dangerous recidivist" but as a "dangerous repeat offender". She also noted that this change does not affect anything.

The politician's defense intends to appeal the verdict in cassation.

"On August 4, the Moscow City Court sentenced Navalny to 19 years in a special regime colony in the 'extremist case' and a 500,000 ruble fine at an offsite meeting in the Penal Colony No. 6 in the Vladimir Region. Holodny to spend eight years in a general regime colony," the sources said.

Navalny was found guilty of calling for extremism, creating an NGO that infringes on the rights of citizens, financing extremism, creating an extremist community, involving minors in dangerous acts and rehabilitating Nazism.

ADVERTISIMENT

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, a Russian court sentenced Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to 19 years in a special regime colony under six articles on "extremism." The decision was made by the Moscow City Court of the terrorist country of Russia at an offsite meeting in the colony IR-6 in the Vladimir region.
MELBOURNE, Australia and LIEGE, Belgium, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited (ASX: TLX, Telix, the Company) has welcomed Her Royal Highness, Princess Astrid, Princess of Belgium to Telix Manufacturing Solutions (TMS), the Company's recently inaugurated production facility, in Brussels South (Seneffe) in the Wallonia region of Belgium.

Located in the heart of Belgium's 'Radiopharma Valley', the 2,800 square metre facility is one of Europe's largest radiopharmaceutical production facilities. With more than 10 million imaging procedures performed in the EU using radiopharmaceutical agents every year,[1] Telix's site provides important infrastructure to meet the growing demand for commercial and clinical imaging and therapeutic agents, for patients in the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and beyond.

The royal visit comes ahead of the Belgian Economic Mission to Australia, which will take place in Melbourne and Sydney from 19 to 28 October 2023. The mission  led by HRH, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Representative of His Majesty the King of Belgium  features events that highlight successful collaboration between Belgium and Australia. Telix is co-hosting a seminar with The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne on the subject of innovation in nuclear medicine.

Raphael Ortiz, Telix EMEA CEO said "Telix was honoured to welcome HRH Princess Astrid, the Ambassador Dirk Wouters, Laurent Michel and the Bourgmestre Benedicte Poll at Telix Manufacturing Solutions, which recently opened in Brussels South. Belgium's 'Radiopharma Valley' is a fundamental part of Telix's innovation success with this latest example of Telix's continued investment in innovation to serve as a hub for research, development and manufacturing for our partners and collaborators across industry, academia and clinical practice. We would like to thank the Princess for her interest in nuclear medicine and radiopharmaceuticals, and look forward to showcasing the Australian side of the business during next month's trade mission."

Pascale Delcomminette, Wallonia Export & Investment Agency (Awex) CEO, added, "TMS is a prime example of the innovative solutions made possible by a strong business partnership between Belgium and Australia. With the trade mission less than a month away, we are pleased that HRH Princess Astrid could see first-hand this facility that has potential to transform care for patients with cancer and rare diseases in Belgium, Europe and worldwide."

About Telix Manufacturing Solutions

Located in the heart of Radiopharma Valley, the 2,800 square metre facility will serve as Telix's primary manufacturing site for radioisotopes and commercial and clinical products for patients in EMEA and beyond.

Download the Telix Manufacturing Solutions fact sheet here.

About Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited

Telix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialisation of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals and associated medical devices. Telix is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with international operations in the United States, Europe (Belgium and Switzerland), and Japan. Telix is developing a portfolio of clinical-stage products that aims to address significant unmet medical needs in oncology and rare diseases. Telix is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: TLX).

Visit www.telixpharma.com for further information about Telix, including details of the latest share price, announcements made to the ASX, investor and analyst presentations, news releases, event details and other publications that may be of interest. You can also follow Telix on LinkedIn.

Telix's lead product, gallium-68 (68Ga) gozetotide (also known as 68Ga PSMA-11) injection, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),[2] by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA),[3] and by Health Canada.[4] Telix is also progressing Marketing Authorisation Applications for 68Ga-PSMA-11 in the United Kingdom and the European Union.[5]

Telix Investor Relations

Ms. Kyahn Williamson

Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited

SVP Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Email: [email protected]

Legal Notices

This announcement is not intended as promotion or advertising directed to any healthcare professional or other audience in any country worldwide (including Australia, United States and the United Kingdom). This announcement may include forward-looking statements that relate to anticipated future events, financial performance, plans, strategies or business developments. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words such as "may", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "outlook", "forecast" and "guidance", or other similar words. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's good-faith assumptions as to the financial, market, regulatory and other risks and considerations that exist and affect the Company's business and operations in the future and there can be no assurance that any of the assumptions will prove to be correct. In the context of Telix's business, forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about: the initiation, timing, progress and results of Telix's preclinical and clinical studies, and Telix's research and development programs; Telix's ability to advance product candidates into, enrol and successfully complete, clinical studies, including multi-national clinical trials; the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals, manufacturing activities and product marketing activities; the commercialisation of Telix's product candidates, if or when they have been approved; estimates of Telix's expenses, future revenues and capital requirements; Telix's financial performance; developments relating to Telix's competitors and industry; and the pricing and reimbursement of Telix's product candidates, if and after they have been approved. Telix's actual results, performance or achievements may be materially different from those which may be expressed or implied by such statements, and the differences may be adverse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Except as required by applicable laws or regulations, Telix does not undertake to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements. Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. Readers should read this announcement together with our material risks, as disclosed in our most recently filed reports with the ASX and on our website.

2023 Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited. The Telix Pharmaceuticals and Illuccix name and logo are trademarks of Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited and its affiliates (all rights reserved).

[1] European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Mario, N., Kolmayer, A., Turquet, G.et al., Study on sustainable and resilient supply of medical radioisotopes in the EU https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/911131 [2] Telix ASX disclosure 20 December 2021. [3] Telix ASX disclosure 2 November 2021. [4] Telix ASX disclosure 14 October 2022. [5] Telix ASX disclosure 3 April 2023.

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SOURCE Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited
BOSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2023, almost every VR device uses LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) to replace the real world with digital content, but a shift might be underway in 2024. Apple's Vision Pro is set to be one of the earliest VR devices to use OLED-on-Si technology, also known as micro-OLED, in a move to shrink headsets down whilst offering extremely high-quality images.

The commercial status of VR display technologies. Today, edge-lit LCDs are in almost every VR headset. Source: IDTechEx

IDTechEx's recent report, "Displays for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality 2024-2034: Forecasts, Technologies, Markets", explores the future of the VR display market in more detail, alongside other head mounted display systems. It predicts the VR display market to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% to 2034, with innovation in display technology driving this growth ahead of the whole VR market. However, the use of emerging display choices like OLED-on-Si could bring almost as many difficulties as benefits, and the long-dominant LCD could prove a tough contender to beat.

The commercial status of VR display technologies. Today, edge-lit LCDs are in almost every VR headset. Source: IDTechEx

Why LCDs have held their own in VR

Today, Sony's PlayStation VR2 stands alone amongst mainstream VR headsets in using AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) panels, commonly found in smartphone displays. Unlike LCDs, AMOLED panels are emissive, offering higher contrast ratios and much deeper blacks. They offer fast refresh rates, wide color gamuts and are well-established in production  at first, AMOLED displays might seem like the perfect fit for VR, and they looked like the winning display technology until about 2019. Why, then, did LCDs displace them as the dominant VR display choice?

Firstly, the capabilities of VR-specific LCDs improved: their manufacturers focused on this emerging market as AMOLEDs began to take over market share in the much larger smartphone industry. A key problem solved was performance at fast refresh rates, which suffered in older LCDs as the pixel response time was too slow, giving the appearance of motion blur as frames transition.

Moving towards faster response liquid crystal materials and innovation in electrode structures formed part of the solution, but backlight strobing stops motion blur completely by turning off the backlight while the display updates. Sharp, Japan Display Inc., and BOE all use this technology. This reduced the advantage of AMOLED displays in this area.

As this problem was solved, VR headset designers saw the other advantages of LCDs, as well as their lower cost. The biggest benefits of LCD vs. OLED are the smaller gaps between pixels, reducing the "screen door effect" (visible gaps between pixels for a display seen up close), and the higher maximum pixel density, increasing immersion without making headsets bulkier. The former is due to the diamond pixel layout that helps contribute to extending the life of the display. The latter is due to limitations in the shadow fine metal mask (FMM)-based shadow mask deposition technology used to pattern OLEDs, which limits pixel density to around 800PPI (pixels per inch), vs. >1200PPI for LCD. Combine these factors with the lower cost of LCDs, and the reason for the transition becomes obvious.

How the dominance of LCDs is being challenged  and how LCDs might keep their place

AMOLED displays are making progress past this PPI limit. A move towards photolithographic patterning of OLEDs offers a step change here whilst solving additional issues like limited substrate size when using FMMs to allow the patterning of more displays on a single piece of glass. Chinese firm Visionox's ViP (Visionox Intelligent Pixelization) will allow RGB AMOLED pixel densities of up to 1700PPI, and the company says it will be ready to manufacture displays through this photolithographic process next year. JDI's competitor process, eLeap, can go as high as 2000PPI, with a strategic alliance with Chinese LCD manufacturer HKC being established in 2023 to establish mass production of OLED displays via eLeap in 2025.

However, OLED-on-Si panels could offer even more advanced capabilities. Most often found in camera viewfinders today, these displays use OLED emitters on a CMOS silicon chip backplane, with color filters for RGB color. This allows them to achieve pixel densities >4000PPI, so extremely small displays can provide high resolutions. This allows the lenses that are used to magnify and focus the displays to shrink down, helping the entire headset become smaller and places the cameras used to pass video of the real-world view to the wearer closer to the position of the eyes, increasing performance in passthrough mixed reality mode.

Sony Semiconductor leads the OLED-on-Si market in terms of revenue and is expected to be Apple's supplier for the Vision Pro, but investment from across the display industry is increasing as demand is expected to grow alongside the spatial computing market. Samsung Display is in the process of acquiring OLED-on-Si pioneer eMagin, which has the technology to directly pattern emitters, so color filters are not required (unlike in Sony's panel designs). BOE, which formerly established a joint venture with US company Kopin to develop OLED-on-Si production, showed off 4K panels intended for VR headsets at SID Display Week 2023, with this demo being one of the best-received of the event. The display industry clearly views this technology as extremely important, and IDTechEx expects OLED-on-Si to be a leading VR display technology by 2034.

The LCD industry is fighting back with the use of mini-LED backlights, which up the contrast ratio of LCDs around 75% by selectively varying backlight power depending on local brightness. However, increased costs and lack of contrast ratio competitiveness with OLED-based displays persist. LCDs' true potential lies in providing immersive VR experiences cost-effectively. While LCDs are expected to remain dominant due to price competition in the near term, their future becomes less certain in a landscape where VR's utility is better demonstrated.

Future developments and further insight

In the years ahead, as price competition wanes and VR's value solidifies, LCDs might face a more uncertain future. As the VR landscape evolves, OLED-on-Si and other emerging technologies, including micro-LED, are expected to reshape the VR display landscape, eventually ending LCDs' current reign.

IDTechEx's new report, "Displays for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality 2024-2034: Forecasts, Technologies, Markets", offers detailed analysis of the spatial computing display landscape including granular ten-year market forecasts and assessments of the potential for success of the technologies covered.

For more information on this report, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/ARVRDisplays, or for the full portfolio of related research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research/WT.

About IDTechEx

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Subscription and Consultancy products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.IDTechEx.com.

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Media Contact:

Lucy Rogers

Sales and Marketing Administrator

[email protected]

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SOURCE IDTechEx
NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Indium Tin Oxide Market size is projected to grow by USD 213.87 million, accelerating at a CAGR of 5.24% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. Increasing dependency on renewable energy sources is notably driving the indium tin oxide market. However, factors such as shortage in indium production may impede market growth. We provide a detailed analysis of 20 companies operating in the indium tin oxide market including Amalgamated Metal Corp. PLC, American Elements, Diamond Coatings Inc., ENAM OPTOELECTRONIC MATERIAL CO. LTD., ENEOS Holdings Inc, Guangxi Crystal Union Photoelectric Materials Co. Ltd., Indium Corp., Knight Optical Ltd., Kurt J Lesker Co., Merck KGaA, Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co. Ltd., NANOGRAFI Co. Inc., Nanoshel LLC, Nitto Denko Corp., NYACOL Nano Technologies Inc., OPCO Laboratory Inc., Otto Chemie Pvt. Ltd., Tosoh Corp., Ulvac Inc., and Umicore SA. Buy the report now for detailed company information

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Indium Tin Oxide Market 2023-2027

Indium Tin Oxide Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis:

Ulvac Inc.: The company offers indium tin oxide products such as NE 5700 and SIV series systems.

Indium Tin Oxide Market 2023-2027: Segmentation:

The market is segmented by Technology (Sputtering, Vacuum evaporation, Chemical vapor deposition, Spray pyrolysis, and Others), Application (Electrochromic displays and LCDs, Touch panels, Photovoltaics, Transparent electrodes, and Others), and Geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa).

The sputtering segment is expected to experience substantial growth during the forecast period. Sputtering is a highly versatile method for depositing ITO thin films on substrates, known for its ability to create high-quality, uniform, and pure films. The quality of films produced through this technique is influenced by various sputtering parameters, including substrate temperature, gas composition, chamber pressure, and sputtering rate.



Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View Free PDF Sample Report

Indium Tin Oxide Market 2023-2027: Market Dynamics:

Driver - The increasing usage of touchscreen devices is a key factor driving market growth.

Trend - Increased deposition of silver nanoparticles on ITO is a major trend in the market.

Challenge - Shortage in indium production is a significant challenge restricting market growth.

For more information on drivers, trends and challenges, download the free sample report here

Indium Tin Oxide Market 2023-2027: Key Highlights

Historic Market Size 2017-2021

CAGR of the market during 2023-2027

Detailed information on factors that will assist indium tin oxide market growth during the next five years

Forecasts on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the indium tin oxide market

Analysis of the competitive landscape and detailed information on companies

Comprehensive details of factors that will impede the growth of indium tin oxide market companies

FAQS

How do the major trends impact the market?

How big is the APAC market?

How do the key drivers and challenges impact the market?

Related Reports:

Indium Phosphide (InP) Wafers Market: The indium phosphide (InP) wafers market is projected to grow by USD 106.9 million with a CAGR of 13.57% during the forecast period 2021 to 2026.

Aluminum Flat-rolled Products (FRP) Market: The aluminum flat-rolled products (FRP) market is estimated to decline at a CAGR of 5.14% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 17.84 billion.

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary Market Landscape Market Sizing Historic Market Sizes Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation by Technology Market Segmentation by Application Market Segmentation by Geography Customer Landscape Geographic Landscape Drivers, Challenges, & Trends Company Landscape Company Analysis Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
FDA Approved IMS CloudVue Platform Integrates with JDMI's RADUCATE Learning Platform to Provide Active Learning Environment for Radiology Professionals Nationwide

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- International Medical Solutions (IMS) announces its partnership with the Joint Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI), enabling one of the world's most prestigious academic medical imaging departments to redefine its commitment to excellence by creating a new standard for learning. RADUCATE, an innovative educational platform developed by JDMI, integrates IMS' DICOM cloud-based viewer to provide courses in various formats for all learners in medical imaging. From early training to the maintenance of certification through CME, radiologists and technologists in all fields of medical imaging will have access to an active, hands-on training environment available on any device in any location they choose instantly.

(Pictured Left) Dr. Carmela Tartaglia (neurology) and (Pictured Right) Dr. Paula Alcaide-Leon (radiology). These doctors are engaging in a training program using RADUCATE, an innovative educational platform developed by JDMI, which integrates IMS' DICOM cloud-based viewer to provide courses in various formats for all learners in medical imaging. IMS and JDMI demonstrate the active and immersive online learning environment developed through their partnership using a "Dementia Report Simulator." Here, neurologists use an FDA-cleared imaging technology that enables them to review genuine patient cases and engage in interactive, web-based assessments on any device using full-fidelity DICOM images.

To demonstrate the active learning environment created through this partnership, the two organizations recently completed a successful proof-of-concept, developing a "Dementia Report Simulator." Using a standardized reporting format that was developed with neurologists, all participants evaluated nine dementia cases in an immersive, online environment replicating radiologists' clinical reporting practice. The FDA-cleared imaging technology enabled radiologists to review a collection of genuine cases and engage in interactive, web-based assessments on any device using full-fidelity DICOM images.

According to neuroradiologist Dr. Paula Alcaide of JDMI, "The RADUCATE Reporting Simulator provides a distinctive training experience tailored for practicing radiologists. It immerses users in a simulated online environment seamlessly combining structured reporting techniques with PACS integration, ensuring a comprehensive and authentic learning experience."

RADUCATE's primary audience includes all learners at JDMI, including those from other departments who rotate through their services. As course offerings expand, JDMI Education co-lead, Dr. Eric Bartlett, hopes that those outside JDMI will also see value in their active learning environment.

"RADUCATE represents the creation of something new in the medical imaging world. Our goal is to have a collection of courses in various formats and to ultimately revolutionize medical imaging education through our active learning format. We have successfully demonstrated our ability to deliver high-value remote training on IMS' FDA-approved viewer without clinicians needing to be in hospitals for these training sessions. I believe our organizations will play a critical role in the future of competency-based assessments worldwide," says Bartlett.

The IMS CloudVue platform was one of several platforms tested over six months before JDMI made a final selection.

"Not only does IMS have the best-in-class technology, but they also have the best-in-class support that allows for customization of their products that fits our needs within our educational environment. IMS understood our vision and provided the support and mentorship needed to make our vision a reality," adds Bartlett.

About International Medical Solutions (IMS)

International Medical Solutions (IMS) designs and implements custom, scalable medical imaging solutions for multi-national modality OEMs, EMR companies, and cloud-based radiology organizations. Founded in 2012, IMS' innovation team has more than 90 years of collective experience developing secure, low bandwidth image distribution platforms with deep learning and artificial intelligence, providing its partners with the latest imaging solutions in the marketplace.

IMS is committed to offering cutting-edge solutions that are cost-effective, scalable, reliable, and secure. Over the years, IMS has partnered with numerous organizations for continuing education including American Society of Emergency Radiology ("ASER"), Envision Healthcare, and the University of Toronto, equally committed to ensuring exceptional care by well-trained radiologists worldwide.

About The Joint Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI)

The Joint Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI) is one of Canada's largest academic medical imaging departments. It is one program run across three organizations: the University Health Network, Sinai Health, and Women's College Hospital. With over 700 staff and 90 specialized radiologists, JDMI provides comprehensive services across seven modalities: general radiography, CT, MRI, ultrasound, molecular imaging, mammography, and interventional radiology. With an annual volume of over 750,000 exams, JDMI defines excellence in medical imaging, shaping the future of the field. In addition to its clinical operations, JDMI is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto and the Michener Institute for Education at UHN.

Media Contact:

Samantha McDermott

International Medical Solutions (IMS)

760-671-0071

SOURCE International Medical Solutions (IMS)
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SC Media, in partnership with its flagship company CyberRisk Alliance (CRA), unveiled the winners of its annual Women in IT Security program  with Invicti' s VP of Engineering and Program Management, Kalpana Tummala, recognized in the Women to Watch category.

Celebrating its tenth year, SC Media's Women in IT Security program highlights the need for workforce diversity and underscores the advantages that women can bring to cybersecurity. Candidates are nominated by their peers and then selected by SC Media's editorial staff, being placed into four categories. In the Women to Watch category, nominees are recognized for positively impacting the community as "drivers of the industry's next wave of growth and innovation," according to SC Media.

"There is a mountain of untapped potential for women in cybersecurity, specifically engineers." Post this

"I am honored to be one of the many experienced nominees recognized in the Women to Watch category," Tummala said. "The gender gap in IT, specifically cybersecurity, has historically sent the message that women are not as capable as men when it comes to big-picture issues and technical problem-solving. In reality, that simply isn't the case, and we're just as capable of shaping the future of IT."

Women represent just 24% of the global cyber workforce, research from Forrester shows, which presents an urgent need for better representation but also ample opportunity for women to succeed in a typically male-dominated industry. With more than 22 years of experience in engineering and leadership, Tummala has seen first-hand the struggles of this underrepresentation for women in IT  and the many ways that they can bring unique perspectives to the table when given an opportunity to thrive.

"There is a mountain of untapped potential for women in cybersecurity, specifically engineers. Women are naturally great problem-solvers and communicators who can think quickly under pressure, which is vital for fast-paced industries," Tummala commented. "In my experience, women are more risk-averse and capable of architecting strategies that protect their teams and their organizations. Those are invaluable skills that we need more of in cybersecurity."

To see the full list of awardees, visit: https://www.scmagazine.com/news/congratulations-to-our-2023-sc-media-women-in-it-security-honorees.

About Invicti Security

Invicti Security  which acquired and combined DAST leaders Acunetix and Netsparker  is on a mission: application security with zero noise. An AppSec leader for more than 15 years, Invicti provides best-in-DAST solutions that enable DevSecOps teams to continuously scan web applications, shifting security both left and right to identify, prioritize, and secure a company's most important assets. Our commitment to accuracy, coverage, automation, and scalability helps mitigate risks and propel the world forward by securing every web application. Invicti is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and has employees in over 11 countries serving more than 4,000 organizations around the world. For more information, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn .

About SC Media

SC Media is the essential resource for cybersecurity professionals  the flagship information brand of CyberRisk Alliance and the gateway to content from Security Weekly, CRA Business Intelligence, Infosec World and SC Events. These resources offer an unparalleled range of foresight, learning and collaboration  news-analysis and enterprise reporting; practitioner-led podcasts and videos; research, data and product reviews; events, conferences and training; and much more. Through these resources and our authoritative network of faculty and contributors, we convene and engage the cyber community, to share insight with, by and for security practitioners and leaders.

About CyberRisk Alliance

CyberRisk Alliance (CRA) is a business intelligence company serving the high growth, rapidly evolving cybersecurity community with a diversified portfolio of services that inform, educate, build community and inspire an efficient marketplace. Our trusted information leverages a unique network of journalists, analysts and influencers, policymakers and practitioners. CRA's brands include SC Media, Security Weekly, InfoSec World, Cybersecurity Collaboration Forum, our research unit CRA Business Intelligence, and the peer-to-peer CISO membership network, Cybersecurity Collaborative. More information is available at http://cyberriskalliance.com/.

Media Contact:

Kate Bachman

Invicti Security

kate.bachman@invicti.com

SOURCE Invicti Security
NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The IVF disposables market is expected to grow by USD 248.53 million from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 7.66% during the forecast period, according to Technavio Research. The market is segmented by end-user (clinics and hospitals), type (petri dishes, tubes, catheters, kits, and others), and geography (North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (ROW)). North America is estimated to contribute 38% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. The main reason for the increased market demand for disposable in vitro fertilization products in the region is the increasing rate of infertility due to delayed pregnancy, lifestyle changes, and health problems. More and more individuals and couples are seeking IVF treatments, leading to the growth of the disposable IVF products market. The presence of a well-developed healthcare infrastructure, including specialist fertility clinics and assisted reproductive technology centers, is also a factor that has a positive impact on the growth of the disposable IVF products market in the region. Additionally, there is high awareness and acceptance of assisted reproductive technologies in the region, with IVF widely recognized as one of the viable and effective solutions to the problem of infertility. Hence, these factors are expected to drive market growth in the region during the forecast period. This report offers an up-to-date analysis of the current market scenario, the latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. Read Free PDF Sample Report

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global IVF Disposables Market 2023-2027

Company Profile:

BIOPSYBELL Srl, Boston IVF, CCD Laboratory, Cook Group Inc., Esco Micro Pte. Ltd., FUJIFILM Corp., Genea Ltd., Hamilton Thorne Ltd., INVO Bioscience Inc., KITAZATO Corp., LabIVF Asia Pte Ltd., Merck KGaA, NidaCon International AB, Progyny Inc., Rocket Medical Plc, Sysmex Corp., Tempest Therapeutics Inc., The Cooper Companies Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., and Vitrolife AB

Boston IVF - The company offers IVF disposables such as PGT-A, and PGT-M.

To gain access to more company profiles available with Technavio, buy the report!

IVF Disposables Market: Segmentation Analysis

The market share growth by the clinics segment will be significant during the forecast period. IVF procedures performed in clinics are leading to demand for disposable IVF products.

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View Free PDF Sample Report

"Besides analyzing the current market scenario, our report examines historic data from 2017 to 2021"- Technavio

IVF Disposables Market: Driver & Trend:

Growing infertility rates

Partnership and collaboration among players

Increasing healthcare expenditure by individuals

The growing detection of infertility is a key factor driving the market growth. The detection of infertility has increased globally due to increasing rates of infertility due to lifestyle changes, delayed pregnancy, and health problems. As a result, there is an increasing demand for fertility treatments for couples, such as IVF, leading to a higher demand for disposable IVF products. In the US, about 6% of married women between the ages of 15 and 49 were unable to get pregnant after a year of trying to conceive in 2020, according to CDC statistics. Additionally, about 14% of married women between the ages of 15 and 49 in the US have difficulty carrying a pregnancy to term, known as fertility failure. This will prompt couples to seek medical help in case of problems conceiving or getting pregnant. Hence, these factors are expected to drive market growth during the forecast period.

Identify key trends, drivers, and challenges in the market. Download Free sample to gain access to this information.

Related Reports:

The companion diagnostics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 22.59% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 11,029.63 million.

The cancer diagnostics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11.3% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 12,626.21 million.

What are the key data covered in this IVF disposables market report?

CAGR of the market during the forecast period

Detailed information on factors that will drive the growth of the IVF disposables market between 2022 and 2027.

Precise estimation of the IVF disposables market size and its contribution to the market in focus on the parent market

Accurate predictions about upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

Growth of the IVF disposables market across North America, Europe, Asia, and ROW

A thorough analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information about companies

Comprehensive analysis of factors that will challenge the growth of the IVF disposables market companies.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by End-User

Market Segmentation by Type

Market Segmentation by Geography

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Drivers, Challenges, & Trends

Company Landscape

Company Analysis

Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com

SOURCE Technavio
The new platform, Aerostream, features an industry-leading multi-product shopping cart functionality that enhances the entire customer journey

ATHENS, Greece and LISBON, Portugal, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- JR Technologies, a pioneer in airline retailing, has launched Aerostream, a new multi-product airline retailing platform, ahead of the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon this week. The new platform is an end-to-end solution enabling airlines to modernize their distribution and retailing strategies and better manage the entire travel experience. It is also one of the first travel retailing platforms to offer a true multi-product shopping cart that allows travelers to purchase and manage their entire trip in one place.

Designed specifically for the airline and travel industries, Aerostream's comprehensive suite of solutions features Offer and Order Management based on New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ONE Order principles, which create a more seamless customer experience that follows e-commerce retailing best practices.

The suite also contains multiple modules, including an Ancillaries Manager that orchestrates the merchandising and distribution of airline and third-party travel products, a white-label customer support portal that enables support teams to assist customers with booking and reservation modifications and a management portal used to configure business rules and analyze performance.

The Power of Multi-channel Retailing and One-Cart Shopping

"As many companies in the market are attempting to implement an Order Management system, we are proud to have Aerostream live with clients in a production environment," said JR Technologies CEO Adarsh Suneja. "Aerostream enables carriers to create new revenue streams, reduce costs and deliver the modern digital retailing experience that customers expect, driving increased sales and greater customer loyalty."

Airlines' legacy technologies and systems can often impede the delivery of an enhanced retail customer experience by limiting agility, innovation, and scalability. These outdated systems often struggle to integrate with modern customer relationship management tools, hindering airlines' ability to personalize services, offer dynamic pricing and efficiently manage inventory. Legacy systems are more vulnerable to security breaches, posing risks to customer data and trust.

Aerostream is a modular and adaptable retailing platform that leverages NDC technology and is ONE Order-ready for third-party integration, enabling airlines to create a convenient, curated travel booking and post-booking experience that models digital retailing best practices with a broader array of ancillaries and more personalization opportunities.

Delivering a Seamless, Passenger-Centric Experience

In addition, the enhanced shopping experience offered by Aerostream makes it easier for loyalty program members to collect and redeem points, enabling airlines to reduce points liability through increased redemption activity.

"Aerostream stands at the forefront of innovation in New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ONE Order technology," said JR Technologies Chief Commercial Officer Theodora Tsinonis. "Our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the airline industry drives us to create solutions that redefine the passenger experience and streamline airline operations. With Aerostream, we're not just embracing the future, we're shaping it."

JR Technologies is exhibiting the Aerostream solution at the 2023 World Aviation Festival in Lisbon on September 26-28 at booth #1-200.

For more information about Aerostream or to speak with company executives from JR Technologies, please get in touch with Evan Whitney at [email protected].

About JR Technologies and Aerostream

JR Technologies designs innovative technology solutions based on NDC and ONE Order principles to support travel companies' initiatives to modernize their operating models. A trusted partner of some of the world's largest airlines and an International Air Transport Association (IATA) strategic partner, JR Technologies is accelerating the transformation of the travel industry's current retail and distribution landscape through true order and offer management. The company created the Aerostream Travel Retailing Platform to help airlines transition to a modern digital retailing model while getting the most out of existing legacy systems. JR Technologies is headquartered in Detroit with offices in Chania, Athens, Orlando, and Boston. Visit www.jrtechnologies.com to learn more.

SOURCE JR Technologies
HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- KBR (NYSE: KBR) recently hosted and co-chaired the sustainable defense support working group, part of the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) Sustainable Support Strategy. The strategy aims to reduce emissions on operations and increase sustainability through technology to tackle climate change. The event, hosted at KBR's Leatherhead campus, brought together more than sixty UK MOD and industry stakeholders from across land, sea and air.

The working group united KBR's defense operations, Sustainable Technology Solutions business unit and Frazer-Nash Consultancy to explore the military self-sufficiency concept. This concept revolves around the idea of a self-sufficient base, where existing and emerging transition technologies are combined to enhance operational performance, decarbonize operations and significantly reduce demand on support chains.

When operational, the self-sufficient base should create significant advantages for deployed forces as well as supporting the UK government's commitment to net-zero by 2050.

The outputs from the workshop will inform future capability development.

KBR's involvement in the working group reinforces our commitment to delivering technological, sustainable solutions to support businesses, governments and communities. Our ambitions are set out in our most recent Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Report, which highlights the work that has been done in all areas of the organization.

About KBR

We deliver science, technology and engineering solutions to governments and companies around the world. KBR employs approximately 33,000 people performing diverse, complex and mission-critical roles in 33 countries.

KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, and long-term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver.

Visit www.kbr.com

Forward Looking Statements

The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding potential technologies and capabilities, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are beyond the company's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions include, but are not limited to, those set forth in the company's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K, any subsequent Form 10-Qs and 8-Ks and other U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which discuss some of the important risks, uncertainties and assumptions that the company has identified that may affect its business, results of operations and financial condition. Due to such risks, uncertainties and assumptions, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

SOURCE KBR, Inc.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kings County Distillery is excited to announce the expansion of its distribution footprint to Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. with a partnership with Lanterna Distributors. The agreement connects Kings County's most significant markets in the Northeast with the rest of the country. With this arrangement, Kings County is now available to retailers, bars, and restaurants throughout the mid-Atlantic, making Kings County's Award-winning whiskeys accessible in 30 states.

"America has become obsessed with bourbon, but so much American whiskey is made on column-stills in a commodity environment. Few distillers are making bourbon like it would have been made in the 1800s, even though branding would tell you otherwise. With this arrangement, Kings County is bringing its pot-stilled, grain-to-glass spirits to an important territory that completes our busiest Northeast corridor marketLanterna is the best partner to see the interest for more authentic spirits and forged this important deal," said Kings County co-founder and distiller Colin Spoelman.

"Lanterna Distributors is honored to partner with Kings County Distillery in the Mid Atlantic," said Portfolio Manager Jack Wells. "We are thrilled to add a distillery of this caliber to our growing selection of incredible spirits producers."

Fresh off its "Distillery of the Year" award from the New Orleans Spirits Competition and Tales of the Cocktail, Kings County is poised to expand its flagship straight, peated, and blended bourbon, as well as more limited offerings like Empire Rye, Barrel Strength Bourbon and Bottled in Bond.

"It's a great time for us to be adding new markets," added Spoelman "Consumers have long been interested in our whiskeys but access has been limited by a 3-tier system that favors global corporations over small businessso we are thrilled to be available in our nation's capital and the surrounding territory. We are a genuinely small batch distillery, in an industry where many make the claim and few can back it upand we believe this is something that should be accessible to everyone. With many distributors stagnating, we're delighted that Lanterna has the values, vision, and credibility to build our mutual long-term business in the mid-Atlantic."

KINGS COUNTY DISTILLERY is New York City's oldest, largest, and premier whiskey distillery. Founded in 2010, Kings County makes handmade bourbon, rye, and other whiskeys out of the 123-year-old Paymaster Building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We use New York grain and traditional distilling equipment to make whiskeys that have been praised by the New York Times, Wine & Spirits Magazine, and Whisky Advocate and is recognized as one of the preeminent craft distilleries in the United States, having been named Distillery of the Year in 2016 from the American Distilling Institute.

For more information, contact Colin Spoelman at [email protected]/347-689-4211 or Taylor Foxman at [email protected] / 609-432-2237

SOURCE Kings County Distillery
By connecting under-invested Hispanic and Latino entrepreneurs with access to an ecosystem of Latino-friendly capital providers, LBAN is bridging the funding gap in venture capital while also providing access to Stanford Graduate School of Business education and mentors for founders.

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- LBAN , the dynamic Silicon Valley-based nonprofit that collaborates with Stanford University to empower Latino entrepreneurship, today announces the launch of the first Startup Accelerator focused on expanding equitable access to funding for Latino founders. The inaugural cohort of this new program supported by JPMorgan Chase matches 40 Latino-founded startups with Latino-friendly capital providers (venture capitalists, bankers, and CDFIs) to help them meet their fundraising goals and receive mentorship from world-class industry experts with vast networks and experience. In addition, these Latino founders will be taught by Stanford professors to guide them through their go-to-market plan, profit model, financial statements, and startup valuation, culminating in a Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Education certificate.

LBAN LBAN

This comes at a time when research shows that Latino-owned startups in the U.S. over-index as owners of technology companies. Even as research shows that Latino startups grow faster and provide more jobs than white-owned business startups, yet they still receive less than 2% of all VC funding. "When it comes to investing, VCs assign an unfair bias towards Latinx founders, when in reality, the data proves Latino-founded companies continue to outperform their white-owned companies. By giving Latino entrepreneurs the network, resources, and access to capital that they have been traditionally closed off from, LBAN and our partners are bringing more equity into the funding landscape," says LBAN CEO, Arturo Cazares .

In just ten years, LBAN has successfully helped thousands of Latino entrepreneurs who faced disproportionated bias to secure funding for their startups, allowing them to scale and create over 50,000 jobs in America while contributing $7.1+ Billion to the U.S. economy. AJ DeLeon , Innovare's CEO, and LBAN alumnus was turned down by over 100 venture funds during his seed raise in 2021 before finding support through LBAN's network of capital providers. "During my cohort, I was introduced to VCs from the LBAN network and, as a result, raised an additional $2M in an oversubscribed round," says AJ DeLeon .

"Investing in our communities translates into a stronger economy for all," said Silvana Montenegro, Global Head of Advancing Hispanics & Latinos. "That's why we are proud to expand our collaboration with LBAN to provide Latino founders who have not had equal opportunity with the access and resources they need to succeed. Supporting founders at all stages is critical to achieve sustainable change for our communities."

JPMorgan Chase became a corporate sponsor earlier this year to support Hispanic and Latino entrepreneurs through LBAN's core pillars of foundational research, transformational education, and empowering ecosystem. Throughout this year, JPMorgan Chase has provided a number of in-person and virtual workshops to Latino entrepreneurs on corporate supplier diversity programs and benefits of minority certificationthe remaining sessions will cover business banking valuations access to credit, and more. The firm's joined LBAN's 8th annual State of Latino Entrepreneurship Summit where JPMorgan Chase's representatives spoke on the importance of access to capital for Latino entrepreneurs and small business owners and the firm's $30 billion Racial Equity Commitment . This collaboration is part of the ongoing efforts led by JPMorgan Chase to drive inclusive economic growth and access to close the wealth gap for those who have been traditionally underserved, including Black and Hispanic and Latino communities

LBAN's Startup Accelerator is currently open for enrollment. It is accepting applications until December 2023 to fulfill its goal of supporting U.S.-based Latino founders who have already raised between $200k and $1.5 million from external sources.

We encourage startup founders to apply here.

About LBAN

LBAN is an independent Silicon Valley-based nonprofit with the mission to grow the American economy by empowering Latino entrepreneurship across the country. LBAN collaborates with Stanford through the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative .

For more information on LBAN, please visit https://www.lban.us .

Media Contact

Marian Garcia Cruz

LBAN Marketing Manager

[email protected]

1-(408)-771-9589

SOURCE LBAN
You need to wash your bedding regularly. The fibers quickly accumulate dirt, sweat, sebum, and other bacteria that can lead to a number of diseases.

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It's not just about skin rashes, as dirty sheets and pillowcases often cause allergic infections and even asthma. Experts told 7 News the ideal frequency of bedding washing.

Dr. Poonam Desai from the United States explained that sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers are a breeding ground for bacteria, fungi, dust mites, and dead skin cells. She advises washing the bedding at least once a week. According to her, feces can even accumulate on the linen.

"Yes, feces, especially if you sleep naked or take pets to bed. A similar situation occurs if you sleep with your babies," said Dr. Desai.

Dust mites, dead skin, bacteria, fungal spores, and fecal germs can lead to exacerbation of asthma, eczema, and skin rashes. The doctor shared this information with reference to a study conducted in the UK: some single men admitted that they changed their sheets no more than once every four months.

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Dr. Karl Krushelnicki offered a simple guide that explains how often basic bedding should be changed. The Australian scientist suggested changing the sheets at least every two weeks, but there are nuances.

"Every day, your skin produces about one and a half grams of dead cells, which are the food of millions of dust mites," said Dr. Karl.

During the warmer months, Dr. Karl advises washing your bedding twice a week, as the body produces more sweat during this period.

Dr. Karl referred to a British study that revealed people's "dirty" habits.

"According to one survey, four percent of Britons wash their bedding once a year. According to statistics, men in relationships wash their sheets once a month, but single men usually do it much less often," the expert said.

If you have pets, especially if you let them sleep in your bed, it is recommended to wash the bedding every three to four days.

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According to the Sleep Foundation, dust mites can cause skin rashes and irritation, and aggravate allergy symptoms.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL told you how to properly wash bedding to keep it clean and fragrant.

Subscribe to OBOZREVATEL'sTelegram and Viber channels to keep up with the latest developments.
RESTON, Va., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE:LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, today announced a collaboration with Sofia Airport in Bulgaria to implement cutting-edge upgrades to its hold baggage screening systems. This innovative initiative is designed to comply with the latest European regulations, reflecting the airport's commitment to passenger safety and efficient operations.

"We are thrilled to work with Sofia Airport and provide advanced screening technology for their hold baggage operations," said Brad Buswell, Senior Vice President and Operations Manager at Leidos. "We expect this collaboration will enable Sofia Airport to meet current and evolving security needs."

Leidos will install three EU Standard 3 certified MV:3D Explosive Detection Systems (EDS). Each is equipped to meet the highest level of threat detection with high degree accuracy and low alarm rates. The company will also install two new transmission X-ray systems as part of the upgrade. In addition, Leidos will provide a comprehensive 10-year service contract for the systems, intended to provide uninterrupted, first-rate performance.

The high-performance MV:3D has a fixed X-ray gantry and uses multiple detector arrays to create high-resolution 2D and 3D images. This advanced screening technology is designed to give Sofia Airport the ability to scan up to 1,800 bags per hour, per system, and drive efficiency into their screening operations.

"We are proud to partner with a global industry leader like Leidos," said Jesus Caballero, CEO of SOF Connect, operator of Sofia Airport. "The equipment installation will make traveling through our airport a faster and more seamless experience for passengers. This is a strategic step to modernize Sofia Airport and operate more efficiently to meet the highest levels of safety standards."

The installation of the new systems is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2024, ahead of next year's summer season.

To learn more about Leidos aviation security solutions, please visit www.leidos.com/security-detection.

About Leidos

Leidos is a Fortune 500 technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, civil, and health markets. The company's 46,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $14.4 billion for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2022. For more information, visit www.leidos.com.

Certain statements in this announcement constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These statements are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. These statements are not guarantees of future results or occurrences. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, the "Risk Factors" set forth in Leidos' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2022, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Leidos does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statements were made.

SOURCE Leidos
Directed by Award-Winning Director, Motivational Brand Film

Encourages Viewers to Embrace Path of Optimism

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Electronics (LG) today highlighted its Life's Good message by introducing a new brand film. Part of the ongoing global brand campaign, the film beautifully communicates the true meaning of LG's Life's Good philosophy and shares the company's powerful message of the importance of being optimistic.

[Image] LG AMPLIFIES LIFES GOOD MESSAGE WITH INSPIRING BRAND FILM [Image] LG AMPLIFIES LIFES GOOD MESSAGE WITH INSPIRING BRAND FILM

Launched in August 2023, the Life's Good campaign aims to inspire people to face challenges with an optimistic attitude during difficult times, as well as highlight the enduring nature of LG's brand philosophy and values, which the company has consistently upheld throughout its entire history.

The newly introduced 90-second film centers on a middle-aged man who chooses optimism in his personal journey, allowing him to overcome obstacles and accomplish something that no one would have believed him capable of. At the outset, the protagonist has a look of apprehension as he struggles to ride a longboard down a suburban street. However, as the film progresses, he becomes more determined and begins to glide gracefully over the asphalt, wearing a happy, confident smile on his face.

The underlying message of this heartwarming story is that there's an optimist inside everyone; it's merely a matter of deciding to embrace it. Using a longboard as a metaphor for life, the film suggests that any goal or dream is attainable if one is brave and optimistic enough to push through their perceived limitations to get there.

LG's brand film was crafted by the creative team at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and headed by Emmy Award-winning director, Nicolai Fuglsig, whose simple, charming storytelling so powerfully illustrates what can happen when one elects to walk the path of optimism.

"LG came to me with the idea of sharing the meaning of its Life's Good philosophy through the lens of choosing optimism, and I was immediately drawn to the project," said Nicolai Fuglsig. "I love the story of an unexpected hero venturing out of his comfort zone and using optimism to overcome challenges. Personally, I feel it's a powerful reminder not to get bogged down by negativity and to live life to the fullest."

As LG transforms its business, it is changing the way it communicates with customers and stakeholders through its recent brand reinvention, ensuring the values and philosophy of Life's Good are delivered at every touchpoint across the customer experience. Thus far, the campaign has graced some of the most iconic landmarks in various cities around the world, including Dubai, London, New York and Seoul.

"Life's Good represents our unwavering commitment to making people's lives better through innovation," said Jeongseok (JS) Lee, senior vice president and head of LG's Global Marketing Center. "In line with our future vision to become a smart life solution company, we will communicate with various customers at every touchpoint in a more dynamic and youthful way."

"With our global campaign, we aim to convey our message of Life's Good, inspiring and encouraging customers to take life with an optimistic attitude," said Kim Hyo-eun, vice president of LG's Global Marketing Center. "We hope that our brand film can uplift customers and create meaningful influence on their lives."

The brand film can be viewed on the LG Global YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/GlobalLG).

About LG Electronics, Inc.

LG Electronics is a global innovator in technology and consumer electronics with a presence in almost every country and an international workforce of more than 74,000. LG's four companies  Home Appliance & Air Solution, Home Entertainment, Vehicle component Solutions and Business Solutions  combined for global revenue of over KRW 80 trillion in 2022. LG is a leading manufacturer of consumer and commercial products ranging from TVs, home appliances, air solutions, monitors, service robots, automotive components and its premium LG SIGNATURE and intelligent LG ThinQ brands are familiar names world over. Visit www.LGnewsroom.com for the latest news.

SOURCE LG Electronics
SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- LivAway Suites , the economy-extended stay hotel brand built "for developers, by developers," has partnered with renowned hospitality customer support brand, Cloud5 Communications , a leading provider of communications and technology solutions for more than 5,000 hotels, MDUs, and commercial facilities across the Americas, to provide general reservations and guest relations support for its growing number of properties.

Supported by 1000+ of the industry's most experienced and tenured agents and staff, Cloud5 Communications helps organizations meet revenue and reputation targets through a full range of Contact Center services, including general reservations, guest relations, group support, loyalty programs, and reputation management. The company is an expert in brand immersion training for its agents, so they can speak in the voice of their clients and provide enhanced support for businesses that have built their brand on the promise of exceptional service. LivAway Suites will work with Cloud5 to assist with guest experiences through voice reservations and guest relations.

"Our partnership with Cloud5 reinforces our tech-forward and guest-first mission in the hospitality and the extended-stay industry," said Kevin Dailey, Chief Operating Officer of LivAway Suites. "Cloud5's guest servicing features align with our values for the guest experience, and we're looking forward to the future of our collaboration."

"Our deep focus on the guest experience and the processes we have put in place to deliver high value, high-quality service across each and every customer interaction makes us an ideal partner to support LivAway Suites," said Jason Reid, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud5 Contact Center. "Our proven Contact Center communication services and expertise in the hospitality industry will enable LivAway Suites to efficiently manage guest inquiries, reservations, and internal communication, leading to a seamless guest service experience."

Since the launch of the brand in early 2023, LivAway Suites has broken ground on the metro area locations of Tennessee, Washington, Utah, and Montana, with over 25 other locations in various stages of development across the country. To learn more about LivAway Suites, visit www.livawaysuites.com

ABOUT LIVAWAY SUITES

LivAway Suites, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a new economy extended-stay hotel brand with a developer-centric business model and hotel design that helps our guests feel more at home while away. The brand is built on understanding the importance of offering guests "everything they need and nothing they don't" with straightforward services and pragmatic amenities that offer livability and comfort at an affordable rate. Built on a foundation of "for developers, by developers," LivAway Suites is poised to disrupt the traditional hotel franchise model through transparent pricing and an improved return on investment.

For more information, visit www.livawaysuites.com .

ABOUT CLOUD5 COMMUNICATIONS

Cloud5 is the leading communications technology and services provider to customer- centric brands across the Americas. The company's fast, reliable Internet solutions and flexible voice systems enhance the guest experience and resident satisfaction at more than 5,000 hotels , MDUs , and commercial facilities. Cloud5's award-winning Contact Center combines innovation with skilled, highly tenured agents to deliver sales and service that add value across any channel. The company's Managed Services Division helps properties manage, support and deliver on IT initiatives through its 24/7 service desk, 3rd party vendor management, IT and infrastructure system management and project management. For more information, visit www.cloud5.com .

SOURCE LivAway Suites
GENEVA, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- At the WTO Public Forum 2023 held in Geneva, Switzerland on September 15, experts from various industries had a passionate discussion on the topic of "how trade and the WTO can help create a greener and more sustainable future". Dennis She, Vice President of LONGi, as a participant representing the clean energy industry, delivered a keynote speech entitled "Energy Equity and Sustainable Development".

Dennis She, Vice President of LONGi  WTO/Tomas Cesalek BAP Services

According to Dennis She, in order to foster greater awareness and participation in PV power generation, LONGi has established the "LONGi Academy" in areas such as North Africa and the Middle East. The Academy offers convenient and customized training programs free of charge for industrial and commercial users as well as ordinary householders in urgent need of energy transition. The courses include technical knowledge, industry key knowledge, online courses and visits to projects.

"In the first half of this year, we began to establish 'LONGi Academy' in some countries in the Middle East. In June, our first event was successfully held in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, attracting nearly 100 participants including representatives from PV installers, EPC contractors and individual installers. LONGi hopes to continuously strengthen the popularization and sharing of PV technology knowledge through such forms, so as to enhance the large-scale application of PV power generation in underdeveloped areas and promote real energy equity around the world." Dennis said at the forum.

The imbalance in global economic development has led to significant disparities in per capita energy consumption across countries, with approximately 80% of the world's energy consumed by the top 20% of economies. At the same time, about 11% of the world's population has no access to electricity, and about 1/3 of the population has no access to clean energy for cooking. Energy poverty directly hinders the local economic development and the improvement of people's quality of life. On the other hand, the uneven distribution and limited affordability of global petrochemical energy resources also restrict the realization of energy equity worldwide.

How can we address global disparities in energy consumption and uncoordinated regional development? Dennis believes that a fairer clean energy supply will become the best choice for promoting global coordinated development. Energy equity lies in the provision of clean, affordable and non-discriminatory energy services for all. Solar energy is more widely and abundantly distributed in the world than traditional fossil fuels, and it is more conducive to underdeveloped countries. With the continuous development of PV technology, the LCOE of PV power drops rapidly. The large-scale development of renewable energy, particularly PV power, can improve energy autonomy on the one hand, enhance global synergy on the other hand, and thus reduce many impacts brought about by the energy crisis.

The establishment of "LONGi Academy" is like a beam of light illuminating more poverty-stricken and energy-deficient areas in the world so that people there can access and use more economical, cleaner and more sustainable PV new energy, and the use of PV new energy will expand the reach of energy equity. The "LONGi Academy" is only one of LONGi's efforts and actions to fully promote global energy equity, and more green public welfare actions from LONGi continue to take place all over the world.

As Dennis said, while the "LONGi Academy" is being established in more regions around the world, especially in underdeveloped areas, ordinary people in more and more poverty-stricken areas will have access to cleaner and more sustainable PV energy, so that they can enjoy higher quality of happy life with equality and dignity and get more opportunities for improvement and development. Embracing the ongoing global energy transition, the global commercial trading system will become greener, more open and more inclusive due to the large-scale application of PV energy in more scenarios, and a fairer clean energy system and a new order for coordinated global development will be established at a faster pace.

About LONGi

Founded in 2000, LONGi is committed to being the world's leading solar technology company, focusing on customer-driven value creation for full scenario energy transformation.

Under its mission of 'making the best of solar energy to build a green world', LONGi has dedicated itself to technology innovation and established five business sectors, covering mono silicon wafers cells and modules, commercial & industrial distributed solar solutions, green energy solutions and hydrogen equipment. The company has honed its capabilities to provide green energy and has more recently, also embraced green hydrogen products and solutions to support global zero carbon development.

SOURCE LONGi
Awarded for the Company's Development of the Innovative Timberline Solar ES, the World's First Nailable Solar Shingle

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Los Angeles Business Council (LABC) honored GAF Energy with its Sustainability Innovation Award at the Council's 17th Annual Sustainability Summit for the company's design and development of Timberline Solar Energy Shingle (ES) , the world's first nailable solar shingle. The City of Los Angeles has an ambitious goal of reaching 100% carbon-free energy by 2035 , and a significant increase in rooftop distributed solar is a key to successfully reaching that target. Timberline Solar offers a new residential solar solution that can aid in the city's effort.

GAF Energy , a Standard Industries company and the leading provider of solar roofing in North America, introduced Timberline Solar in January 2022. The innovative solar roof was developed and is produced at the company's R&D and manufacturing facility in San Jose, California. The LABC recognition adds to the more than 30 prestigious honors and awards received by Timberline Solar since the product's introduction.

"We're grateful for this recognition from the Los Angeles Business Council," said Jason Barrett, Senior Vice President of Sales for GAF Energy. "Los Angeles, along with other leading cities and states across the country, have set ambitious solar targets that require new and innovative products to be successful. We need to dramatically increase the growth curve of clean energy quickly. At GAF Energy, we believe that developing a reliable, durable, and attractive solar roofing solution is the key to unlocking that growth and speeding mass adoption of solar by consumers."

The Timberline Solar ES boasts an industry-defying depth of less than a quarter inch and integrates with traditional shingles to create a sleek and attractive look. It is the first product to have achieved UL's 7103 BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) certification, which certifies that Timberline Solar meets UL's rigorous electrical, building, and safety standards as a roofing product and a solar energy product.

GAF Energy's products are installed by local roofing professionals in the Los Angeles metro area and across the country. Homeowners interested in learning more about Timberline Solar can visit: https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/

About GAF Energy

GAF Energy is transforming the solar and roofing industries to generate energy from every roof. A Standard Industries company, GAF Energy works with North America's largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer, GAF, to offer homeowners elegant, roof-integrated solar options through a national network of roofer partners. The company's leading product, the Timberline Solar roof system, incorporates the world's first nailable solar shingle to create an attractive, durable, and reliable solar roof. GAF Energy develops and assembles its products at its R&D and manufacturing facility in San Jose, California.

About Standard Industries

Standard Industries is a privately-held global industrial company operating in over 80 countries with over 20,000 employees. The Standard ecosystem spans a broad array of holdings, technologies and investmentsincluding both public and private companies from early to late-stageas well as world-class building solutions, performance materials, logistics, real estate and next-generation solar technology. Throughout its history, Standard has leveraged its deep industry expertise and vision to create outsize value across its businesses, which today include operating companies GAF, BMI, Grace, GAF Energy, Siplast, SGI, Schiedel, and Standard Logistics, as well as Standard Investments and Winter Properties. For more information, visit www.standardindustries.com.

SOURCE GAF Energy
Highlights:

95% gold recoveries using whole ore cyanidation on the Cuyes West high-grade composite.

96% gold recoveries using flotation on the Cuyes West high-grade composite.

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV: LR) (OTCQX: LUMIF) (the "Company" or "Luminex") announces positive results from its metallurgical test program at the Los Cuyes deposit. The Cuyes West high-grade area, a portion of the Los Cuyes deposit within Condor North, yielded excellent metallurgical recoveries. Additionally, low-grade material and breccia material from Los Cuyes were tested and also demonstrated strong recoveries.

Marshall Koval, CEO of Luminex stated: "The consistent and high recovery rates with the Los Cuyes materials demonstrated in this test work program represent an important step in advancing the Condor North project and integrating Cuyes West into a future economic study."

Summary of Metallurgical Results

C. H. Plenge & CIA S.A. ("Plenge"), an independent metallurgical testing laboratory based in Lima, Peru, has completed a program of investigative metallurgical work using three representative samples from the Los Cuyes deposit at the Condor project. Head assay results from the three metallurgical samples are summarized below. An equal weight composite of these same samples was also prepared for use in preliminary tests. Approximately 85% of the contained value in the Los Cuyes materials is represented by gold and silver.

Table 1: Summary of Test Sample Feed Grades  Los Cuyes Deposit

Sample Gold Silver Lead Zinc

g/t g/t % % Los Cuyes Low-Grade 0.73 12.0 0.05 0.40 Los Cuyes High-Grade 3.65 41.7 0.22 0.91 Breccia 1.06 11.4 0.02 0.43



Gravity testing was completed using the composite sample and indicated that approximately 15% of the contained gold is potentially recoverable as a high-grade gravity concentrate.

Metallurgical test work indicated that high recoveries for gold and silver using a bulk flotation process are expected at a primary grind of 75 microns, averaging 93.2% gold recovery and 90.1% silver recovery for the three samples tested. The mass recovery in flotation is typically about 12% of the flotation feed mass.

Cyanide leaching of bulk flotation concentrates produced from the flotation test work demonstrated that high extractions of gold and silver are expected; extractions averaged 91.4% and 50.6% gold and silver, respectively. Optimization of the leaching process, specifically, the use of finer particle size distributions in leaching is expected to improve the precious metal recovery in this stage.

Whole ore cyanidation of the three samples indicated that 90.9% and 33.6% of the gold and silver could be extracted using standard leaching conditions. Whole ore cyanidation test work was completed at a primary grind size of 75 microns, comparable to the flotation test work.

Preliminary flotation test work to evaluate the option of recovering lead and zinc values was also completed in this test work program and indicates that zinc could possibly be recovered as a by-product to the process. Additional test work is required to fully evaluate the requirements to recover zinc into a saleable concentrate.

Test Work Description and Results

Two key process options were evaluated in the Plenge test work program: (i) the option of producing a bulk sulphide flotation concentrate for subsequent cyanide leaching to recover precious metals; and (ii) whole ore leaching of the Los Cuyes material for the recovery of precious metals.

Flotation results are summarized below and show that about 12.5% of the mass is expected to be recovered as a rough flotation concentrate. Gold recoveries of approximately 93% are expected from this concentrate. This process option has the potential to reduce the size of the cyanide leaching facility, as well as allow for efficient re-grinding of concentrates for enhanced precious metal recoveries and better management of the impacts of the leaching process.

Table 2: Summary of Flotation Test Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Flotation Concentrate Quality Flotation Recoveries

Mass Au Ag Au Ag

% g/t g/t % % Los Cuyes High-Grade 15.1 26.9 248 95.9 86.8 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 9.8 8.08 118.5 93.4 83.9 Breccia 11.3 9.40 102.3 97.8 95.0 Averages





95.7 88.5



Whole ore cyanidation leach test (CIL) work was completed on the three Cuyes West samples, results of which are shown below. The samples show good gold extractions at a primary grind of 75 microns and precious metal recoveries are shown to be slightly lower than flotation recoveries to a bulk sulphide concentrate. Cyanide consumptions are in-line with expectations given the sulphide mineral content of the Los Cuyes materials and are consistent with the industry average.

Table 3: Summary of Whole Ore Leaching Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Whole Ore Leach Extraction Reagent Consumption

Au Ag NaCN CaO

% % kg/tonne kg/tonne Los Cuyes High-Grade 94.5 32.2 1.93 1.1 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 91.1 34.4 1.25 1.0 Breccia 87.1 34.2 1.56 1.0 Averages 90.9 33.6 1.58 1.0



Leaching of flotation concentrates produced from the three samples was also completed. The results confirm that leaching of a flotation concentrate is a viable option (see summary table below). Additional metallurgical work is recommended to potentially increase the precious metals recoveries when leaching concentrates as it is expected that fine grinding will enhance extractions. Subsequent optimization test work will inform the approach to processing the Cuyes West materials.

Table 4: Summary of Flotation Concentrate Leaching Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Leach Extraction from Concentrate Reagent Consumption

Au Ag NaCN CaO

% % kg/tonne kg/tonne Los Cuyes High-Grade 96.8 42.5 5.5 1.8 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 93.1 42.5 3.1 1.8 Breccia 91.1 41.9 5.6 1.7 Averages 93.7 42.1 4.73 1.8



Luminex is not aware of any factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein.

Quality Assurance

All the samples were assayed by Plenge at its laboratory in Lima, Peru. Head assays and selected tails were also submitted to SGS Peru for QA/QC. Assay results between the two testing facilities were consistent. A good reconciliation was found between the calculated head grades and the assay head grades. Both Plenge and SGS Peru are independent of Luminex.

Qualified Persons

Jeffrey B. Austin, P.Eng., is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). Mr. Austin has previously visited Plenge's laboratory in Lima Peru, and has reviewed, verified and approved the content of this press release, including the data underlying the metallurgical testing.

About Luminex Resources

Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV:LR, OTCQX:LUMIF) is a Vancouver, Canada based precious and base metals exploration and development company focused on gold and copper projects in Ecuador. Luminex's inferred and indicated mineral resources are located at the Condor Gold-Copper project in Zamora-Chinchipe Province, southeast Ecuador. Luminex also holds a large and highly prospective land package in Ecuador.

Further details are available on the Company's website at https://luminexresources.com/.

To receive news releases please sign up at https://www.luminexresources.com/contact/contact-us/.

Follow us on: Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.

LUMINEX RESOURCES CORP.





Signed: "Marshall Koval"





Marshall Koval, CEO and Director





Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to future metal recoveries from the Los Cuyes deposit and future economic studies. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as "expected" or variations of that word and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results are "expected to" be taken, occur or be achieved.

With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, the Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions, the prices of gold and copper, and anticipated costs and expenditures. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive.

Although management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks associated with the business of the Company; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters); risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting mining concessions); risks related to the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 including, but not limited to, its impact on general economic conditions, the ability to obtain financing as required, and causing potential delays to exploration activities and the preparation of an updated NI 43-101 technical report for the Condor project; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in the Company's continuous disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities administrators. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

SOURCE Luminex Resources Corp.
- Lunit's 6 posters unveil new tumor microenvironment insights and the predictive power of Lunit SCOPE across diverse cancer types at SITC 2023

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Lunit (KRX:328130.KQ), a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, today announced the presentation of 6 abstracts featuring its Lunit SCOPE suite at the upcoming SITC 2023 (Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer 2023) Annual Meeting, scheduled to take place from November 1 to November 5, in San Diego, California.

Lunit AI-powered TIL analyzer, Lunit SCOPE IO

This year's posters span a spectrum of research, from predicting treatment outcomes in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to examining immune responses in breast cancer subtypes, utilizing the Lunit SCOPE suite.

The highlighted abstracts for SITC 2023 include:

By analyzing the tumor microenvironment (TME) with Lunit SCOPE IO, one study explores the treatment response of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with EGFR mutations to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) after acquiring resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI).

Lunit investigates the distribution of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtypes and their association with driver mutations, shedding light on the complexities of TNBC treatment response.

Lunit delves into the relationship between methylation and cancer immunogenicity across multiple cancer types.

A study examines the influence of tumor fragmentation index (TFI) and fibroblast infiltration on inflammatory cytokines, and lymphocyte maturation in the tumor microenvironment across various carcinoma cancer types.

Lunit introduces an innovative approach to assess immune phenotype (IP) in tumor tissue using AI-powered analysis of PD-L1 IHC whole-slide images.

An additional presentation provides updated safety and efficacy results for a novel PD-1 (programmed cell death 1) agent, assessed by Lunit SCOPE IO.

"We are truly excited to showcase the capabilities of Lunit SCOPE products in assessing pathology data, improving our ability to identify responsive patients and understand cancer biology," said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. "These study results promise to advance our understanding of the tumor microenvironment, paving the way for increasingly tailored and more effective cancer therapies."

Visit Lunit's booth at SITC 2023 at Booth 227 to learn more about these pioneering studies. To schedule a meeting with the Lunit team, please reach out to [email protected] .

About Lunit

Lunit is a deep learning-based medical AI company on a mission to conquer cancer. Our focus is on developing AI solutions for precision diagnostics and therapeutics, ensuring the right diagnosis, and treatment, at the right cost for each patient. Lunit is devoted to developing advanced medical image analytics and AI-based biomarkers via cutting-edge technology.

Founded in 2013, Lunit has been acknowledged around the world for its advanced, state-of-the-art technology and its application in medical images. As a medical AI company grounded on clinical evidence, the company's findings are presented in major peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and JAMA Network Open, and global conferences, including ASCO and AACR.

After receiving FDA clearance and the CE Mark, our flagship Lunit INSIGHT suite is clinically used in approximately 2,000+ hospitals and medical institutions across 40+ countries. Lunit is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, with offices and representatives worldwide. For more information, please visit lunit.io

About Lunit SCOPE

Lunit SCOPE is a suite of AI-powered software that analyzes tissue slide images for digital pathology and AI biomarker development, aiming to optimize workflow and facilitate more accurate and predictive clinical data for clinicians and researchers.

Lunit SCOPE platform offers multiple AI-powered tissue analysis products and assays that can streamline digital pathology workflow and diagnostics and enhance the drug development process.

Lunit SCOPE IO analyzes the tumor microenvironment (TME) based on H&E analysis and provides AI-based predictive clinical outcome information. In addition, AI-driven Immunohistochemistry (IHC) slide analysis services are offered, through products such as Lunit SCOPE PD-L1, Lunit SCOPE HER2, Lunit SCOPE ER/PR, and others.

SOURCE Lunit
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The luxury massage chair market size is expected to grow by USD 287.2 million from 2022 to 2027, according to Technavio. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will be progressing at a CAGR of 3.41% during the forecast period. APAC is estimated to contribute 32% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Another region showing market growth is Europe. The main revenue contributors to the luxury massage chair market in Europe are Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and Russia. Furthermore, growing customer preference for online retail is the latest trend in the massage chair market in European countries due to increasing Internet and smartphone penetration. Manufacturers and retailers have started selling a full range of massage chair products through their online portals. Therefore, these factors are anticipated to propel market growth in the region during the forecast period. Growing work-related stress and the need for stress-relieving solutions are notably driving the luxury massage chair market. However, factors such as Increasing raw materials prices and complexity in supply chain operations may impede market growth. The market is segmented by distribution channel (Offline and Online), end-user (Residential and Commercial), and geography (Europe, North America, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa). Technavio provides a comprehensive report summary describing the market size and forecast along with research methodology. The FREE sample report is available in PDF format

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Luxury Massage Chair Market 2023-2027

Key Segment Analysis

The market share growth by the offline segment will be significant during the forecast period. To increase sales through offline channels, market participants are directing their sales through local retailers. They also boost sales by executing different marketing strategies. Additionally, major market participants sell their products through specialty stores as it is a convenient retail channel for end users and sellers. Manufacturers rely on these stores and plan their budgets for marketing, advertising, and promotional activities to create product and brand presence among customers. Sales of luxury massage chairs are anticipated to increase at these stores as these stores display a wide range of luxury massage chairs with lowest to highest prices, touch features, categories products, and products of certain brands. Therefore, such factors will drive the growth of the market segment during the forecast period.

To know additional highlights and key points on various market segments and their impact in coming years, View a FREE PDF Sample Report.

Company Insights

The luxury massage chair market is fragmented, and the companies are deploying organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market. The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market companies, including:

body fit Pvt. ltd., Casada International GmbH, Daiwa Massage, Dr.Care International Inc., Family Inada Co. Ltd., FUJI MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS Mfg. Co. Ltd., Human Touch LLC, Infinite Creative Enterprises Inc., iRobo Wellness Pvt. Ltd., Johnson Health Tech Co. Ltd., JSB Wellness, Medical Breakthrough, Ogawa World USA LLC, Online and Ltd., OTA World LLC, Panasonic Holdings Corp., Shanghai Rongtai Health Technology Co. Ltd., V3 Group Ltd., Vitalizer International AG, and Zarifa Corp.

View a FREE PDF Sample Report to find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by companies and their product offerings.

FAQS

How do the major trends impact the market?

How big is the APAC market?

How do the key drivers and challenges impact the market?

Related Reports:

The US - luxury massage chair market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 2.56% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 51.49 million. Furthermore, this US luxury massage chair market report extensively covers market segmentation by distribution channel (offline and online) and end-user (residential and commercial). One of the key factors driving the US luxury massage chair market growth is the rise in the number of geriatric populations in the US.

The automotive seat massage system market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.1% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 119.94 million. Furthermore, this automotive seat massage system market report extensively covers market segmentation by application (passenger cars and commercial vehicles), type (front seat massage systems and back seat massage systems), and geography (Europe, North America, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa). Increasing electrification in vehicles is notably driving the market growth during the forecast period.

Table of Contents:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Historic Market Size

5 Five Forces Analysis

6 Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel

7 Market Segmentation by End-user

8 Customer Landscape

9 Geographic Landscape

10 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

11 Company Landscape

12 Company Analysis

13 Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com

SOURCE Technavio
BERLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Germany is offering support to property owners to install chargers for electric vehicles  applications exhausted the EUR 300 million allocated for 2023 in a single day.

The new assistance program is administered by Germany's development bank, the KfW, and is capped, for the moment, at EUR 500 million. The KfW says that after 33,000 were applications filed within 24 hours, no more requests will be accepted for this year. Homeowners will be able to apply for support from a further EUR 200 million in government funds in 2024.

People eligible can receive up to EUR 10,200 to equip their primary residences with solar powered EV charging solutions: EUR 6,000 for photovoltaic installations, EUR 3,000 for solar electricity batteries and EUR 1,200 for charging station themselves.

Apartment owners are not eligible. To qualify, home owners must have already purchased or ordered an electric vehicle.

As of July 2023, there were some 97,000 EV charging stations in Germany. But the government says that far more public and private stations are needed if the country is to reach its EV targets as part of its legally mandated transition to clean energy.

"The new support program for solar charging stations is the latest in a long line of attractive and sustainable KfW assistance programs," says Thomas Grigoleit, Germany Trade & Invest Director of Energy, Building and Environmental Technologies. "It will no doubt make an important contribution to the expansion of electromobility in Europe's largst economy."

Contact:

Jefferson Chase

Senior Manager, Communications

Germany Trade & Invest

Friedrichstrasse 60

10117 Berlin Germany

+49 1796873724

Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) is the German government agency for international business promotion. It helps international companies set up shop in Germany and German companies do business abroad. It also promotes Germany in general as a business location.

SOURCE Germany Trade & Invest
The launch includes GMP strain-specific full spectrum cannabis oil and inhalation cartridge products to be distributed to patients under the MediPharm Labs Beacon Medical brand.

As of July 2023 , all Australian medical cannabis products must meet strict pharmaceutical GMP standards. MediPharm Labs is one of the few companies already meeting these GMP requirements.

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - MediPharm Labs Corp. (TSX: LABS) (OTCQB: MEDIF) (FSE: MLZ) ("MediPharm", "MediPharm Labs" or the "Company") a pharmaceutical company specialized in precision-based cannabinoids, is pleased to announce that Canadian produced GMP Beacon Medical cannabis oil and inhalation cartridges have now been launched in the Australian medical market.

MediPharm is uniquely positioned to service this expanding medical market as it holds an Australian GMP license from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), complemented by its GMP status from Health Canada (Drug Establishment License) and US FDA. In July 2023, the TGA revised import and medical cannabis regulations, requiring all products to meet cGMP standards. This bans the import of products from non-GMP sources, limiting MediPharm's competition in the manufactured cannabis product segment.

The cannabis oil portfolio is comprised of a high CBD Isolate (THC free) oil; a balanced oil and a THC dominant full spectrum oil made with Beacon's popular medical flower strains.

The inhalation cartridges include flavour-forward options popular with patients in the Canadian market and strain-specific full spectrum cartridges that utilize flower varieties already favored by Beacon Medical patients.

With Beacon Medical's Pink Kush and GSC products now available in flower, oil and inhalation formats, the Company provides physicians and patients with three unique delivery methods to consume the same full spectrum strains. This option uniquely positions the Beacon Medical brand in international medical cannabis markets.

Deliveries of inhalation cartridges to patients began this week, and cannabis oils are scheduled to ship from Canada this week. Beacon Medical Australia looks forward to educating and collecting feedback on these products from physicians and patients with the help of its recently expanded medical scientific liaison field team. This allows MediPharm Labs further access to the Australian medical cannabis market projected to reach nearly $200M USD in 2023, according to Satista.

About Beacon Medical Australia

Established in 2018, Beacon Medical Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of MediPharm Labs. The brand is in the top five of cannabis flower sales by value and has now expanded its portfolio of non-smokable formats.

The team is lead locally by George Polimenakos who is a seasoned veteran in the pharmaceutical and Australian medical cannabis industry. Entering the cannabis industry with Tilray Brands Australia, Mr. Polimenakos has a wealth of experience educating stakeholders on the potential benefits of medical cannabis and expanding medical cannabis business.

MediPharm Labs also distributes Beacon Medical products to patients in Canada and Germany with plans to expand into new international markets in 2024.

About MediPharm Labs

Founded in 2015, MediPharm Labs specializes in the development and manufacture of purified, pharmaceutical-quality cannabis concentrates, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and advanced derivative products utilizing a Good Manufacturing Practices certified facility with ISO standard-built clean rooms. MediPharm Labs has invested in an expert, research driven team, state-of-the-art technology, downstream purification methodologies and purpose-built facilities for delivery of pure, trusted and precision-dosed cannabis products for its customers. MediPharm Labs develops, formulates, processes, packages and distributes cannabis and advanced cannabinoid-based products to domestic and international medical markets.

In 2021, MediPharm Labs received a Pharmaceutical Drug Establishment License from Health Canada, becoming the only company in North America to hold a commercial scale domestic Good Manufacturing License for the extraction of multiple natural cannabinoids. This GMP license was the first step in the Company's current foreign drug manufacturing site registration with the US FDA.

In 2023, MediPharm acquired VIVO Cannabis Inc. which expanded MediPharm's reach to medical patients in Canada via Canna Farms medical ecommerce platform, and in Australia and Germany through Beacon Medical PTY and Beacon Medical GMBH. This acquisition also included Harvest Medical Clinics in Canada which provides medical cannabis patients with Physician consultations for medical cannabis education and prescriptions.

The Company carries out its operations in compliance with all applicable laws in the countries in which it operates.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, MediPharm's access to and unique position in the international medical market, opportunities for revenue synergies, future marketable products, future international commercial products that leverage MPL's unique Pharma expertise, and future international expansion plans. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the inability of MediPharm Labs to obtain adequate financing; the delay or failure to receive regulatory approvals; and other factors discussed in MediPharm Labs' filings, available on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, MediPharm Labs assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change.

SOURCE MediPharm Labs Corp.
Press Release

September 27, 2023 Robin Bill Ensures Better Hajj by Opening Travel Arrangements to Private Travel Agencies To ensure an efficient, organized and safe Hajj pilgrimage for Muslim Filipinos, Sen. Robinhood "Robin" C. Padilla has filed a bill letting travel operators take up some of the tasks currently delegated to the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF). In Senate Bill 2452, Padilla sought to amend parts of Republic Act 9997, mandating the NCMF to administer programs, formulate rules, and coordinate with pertinent offices to ensure the success of the annual Hajj. "The necessity to ensure an efficient, organized and safe Hajj journey for Muslim Filipinos is urgently called for. This bill proposes opening Hajj travel arrangements to private entities, thereby fostering a competitive market to the advantage of our traveler pilgrims," Padilla said. "As a result, travel service providers will continuously endeavor to improve the quality of Hajj services, offer a wide range of flexible travel packages within the average market price range, and reinforce innovative and enhanced strategies in Hajj operations," he added. With this, he said the NCMF is relieved of the "intricate operations" associated with the Hajj as travel service providers are better equipped with comprehensive expertise and trained travel professionals. Under the bill, the NCMF need not promote the development of a Hajj Assistance Fund created from the contributions of Muslim Filipinos for the financial needs of Muslim Filipinos joining the Hajj. The bill also removes the Bureau of Pilgrimage and Endowment from the NCMF. It adds the NCMF shall "no longer perform any powers and functions relative to the administration of Hajj" except to register and accredit sheikhs or private individuals engaged in facilitating, processing and providing guidance for the annual Hajj. It amends the provision of RA 9997 on the Hajj Attache, whose function is limited to coordinating with the Ministry of Hajj of Saudi Arabia where government-to-government action is needed, including certification as to change of pilgrim's name. The Hajj Attache cannot intervene in the administration, conduct, facilitation or processing of Hajj for Muslim Filipinos. Bill ni Robin, Binuksan ang Pribadong Travel Agencies ang Hajj Para sa Mas Ligtas na Paglalakbay Para tiyakin ang mas mabisa, organisado at ligtas na paglalakbay ng Muslim Filipinos sa taunang Hajj, isinulong ni Sen. Robinhood "Robin" C. Padilla ang pagbukas sa pribadong travel operators ang ilang tungkuling kasalukuyang nakatakda sa National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF). Sa Senate Bill 2452, pinapaamyenda ni Padilla ang ilang bahagi ng Republic Act 9997 na nagmamandato sa NCMF na mag-administer ng programa, gumawa ng tuntunin, at pakikipagugnayan sa mga tanggapan para tiyakin ang matagumpay na Hajj. "The necessity to ensure an efficient, organized and safe Hajj journey for Muslim Filipinos is urgently called for. This bill proposes opening Hajj travel arrangements to private entities, thereby fostering a competitive market to the advantage of our traveler pilgrims," ani Padilla. "As a result, travel service providers will continuously endeavor to improve the quality of Hajj services, offer a wide range of flexible travel packages within the average market price range, and reinforce innovative and enhanced strategies in Hajj operations," dagdag ng mambabatas. Giit ni Padilla, hindi na kailangang gampanan ng NCMF ang ilang masalimuot na bagay sa paghahanda para sa Hajj, dahil ang mga travel service providers ang mas may kakayahan at sinanay na travel professionals. Sa panukalang batas, hindi na kailangan ng NCMF na i-promote ang Hajj Assistance Fund galing sa kontribusyon ng Muslim Filipinos para sa pangangailangan ng Muslim Filipino na sasali sa Hajj. Tatanggalin na rin sa NCMF ang Bureau of Pilgrimage and Endowment, kasama ang kapangyarihang may kinalaman sa administrasyon ng Hajj maliban sa pag-register at pag-accredit ng sheikhs, o pribadong tao na gagawa ng pag-facilitate, pagproseso, at pagbigay ng gabay sa Hajj. Aamyendahan din ng panukalang batas ang probisyon ng RA 9997 tungkol sa Hajj Attache, na lilimitahan sa pakikipagugnayan sa Ministry of Hajj ng Saudi Arabia kung saan kailangan ang "government-to-government action," kasama ang certification sa pagbago ng pangalan ng pilgrim. Hindi na kasama sa trabaho ng Hajj Attache ang makialam sa "administration, conduct, facilitation or processing" ng Hajj para sa mga Muslim Filipino.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Sergei Aleynik, criticized the West, saying that it allegedly uses Ukraine and Ukrainians as "pawns" in the war with Russia. According to him, Minsk is not involved, as he cannot imagine a situation in which his country would support a war against Kyiv.

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The Belarusian politician made these cynical statements in an interview with AP. When the diplomat was asked whether he could imagine a situation where Belarus could support the war in Ukraine together with Russia, Aleynik said, "My answer is no."

The journalists noted that the so-called President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, allowed the Russian Federation to use Belarusian territory for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 23, Aleynik briefly touched on the war in Ukraine, saying that it was "very painful to see" Ukrainians, "so close" to Belarusians, suffering for a year and a half.

"Unfortunately, Ukraine and its people have become pawns in the West's great game of maintaining its global hegemony... It is obvious that the West is determined to continue the war to the last Ukrainian by increasing the supply of weapons to this country," the Minsk representative repeated the theses of Moscow's propaganda.

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The Belarusian foreign minister said he did not think that Ukrainians wanted or needed "this war of attrition." Belarus, he assures, has always supported peace in the neighboring country and will continue to "do everything in our power" to achieve it.

In an interview with AP, Aleynik said that no one at the UN knows how long the war will last, but "we all understand that there is no alternative to a political and diplomatic solution to this conflict." He blamed Ukraine and third countries for the failure of the peace talks, but not Russia. Belarus, he cynically stated, "supports" diplomacy.

Aleynik praised his country's cooperation with the Kremlin. He said that they are resisting Western sanctions together.

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Sergei Aleynik took office as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on December 13, 2022. His predecessor, Vladimir Makei, suddenly died at the age of 64.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported:

- On September 17, self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that there would be "no war" on Belarusian territory "under current conditions". The dictator also called Belarusians "the most peaceful nation on earth."

- He also claimed that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin achieved his goals in the "SMO". He said that Ukraine would no longer show such "aggressive" behavior towards Russia.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Newport Healthcare, the nation's leading provider of evidence-based treatment programs for teens and young adults with primary mental health disorders, has partnered with the acclaimed film My Ascension, strengthening suicide prevention efforts during September's National Suicide Prevention Month and beyond. The news comes on the heels of Newport announcing its seventh year as a partner of the suicide prevention organization To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA). With Newport's support, My Ascension is airing over 1,100 times in September on PBS stations across the country and will continue to air on PBS for the next three years.

My Ascension is the story of Emma Benoit who, at 16 years old, attempted to take her own life. For years, Emma quietly struggled with anxiety and depression, too ashamed to share her pain with family or friends. Emma is not alone. On average, one American dies by suicide every 11 minutes, almost 50,000 every year. About 1.7 million attempt it. It's while navigating the challenges of recovery that Emma discovers purpose and passion in helping others who are struggling, as depicted in the inspiring film.

"Emma was a cheerleader with good grades and a loving familyshe had a support system, but she never told anybody that she was struggling because she didn't want to show that she was weak," says Greg Dicharry, the film's director and a mental health advocate who in 2019 received Mental Health America's top honor, the Clifford Beers Award, for his work in youth mental health. "Her story helps break down the stereotypes and the stigma associated with mental health issues."

Newport Healthcare is supporting the film as part of its commitment to advocacy and moving the national discourse on mental health from awareness to action.

"As leaders in the field of mental health treatment for young people, we have a responsibility to ignite conversations about mental health, no matter how uncomfortable they may be," says Newport Healthcare CEO Joe Procopio. "Mental health issues do not discriminate; they affect every family. And as Emma herself says 'silence will never keep you safe.'"

The film's impact is expanding. Over 150 My Ascension screening events have been held nationwide, inspiring and educating over 25,000 attendees. The My Ascension team interviewed hundreds of high school students who had attended a screening to assess the effect the film had on them. Most said that after watching the film, they had more empathy for people who experience mental health issues, would be better able to help a friend who is experiencing suicidal thoughts, and were more likely to ask for help if they were struggling. Importantly, the film provides resources for families to turn to for more information and support.

"I'm so grateful for the work that Newport Healthcare does because I know firsthand the effects of not having quality mental health care as a teen," says Emma. "As I travel the country, I encounter countless teens and their families who are not getting the care and support that they need and deserve. Thankfully Newport Healthcare is filling the need with industry-leading treatment that's transforming the lives of young people and their families."

Newport Healthcare is a dedicated advocate for mental health care accessibility and affordability, and offers free mental health resources, community support groups, expanded treatment services around the nation, and accepts most major insurances. For more information, visit NewportHealthcare.com.

About Newport Healthcare

Newport Healthcare is the nation's leading provider of evidence-based mental health treatment for youth, young adults, and families. Comprised of Newport Academy, Newport Institute, Center for Families, and PrairieCare, its full continuum of care includes psychiatric inpatient services, residential services, partial hospitalization programs (PHP), intensive outpatient programs (IOP), and virtual programs. Newport's family-centered, integrated approach fosters sustainable healing from a foundation of compassionate care, clinical expertise, and unconditional love. With a commitment to advocacy, Newport is creating a movement to shift our mental health culture from awareness to action, with the primary mission to empower lives and restore families.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Newport Healthcare
Smarties Candy Company is on a Roll Toward its 75th Year

UNION, N.J., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As the autumn leaves crunch and we roll into October, Smarties Candy Company is excitedly preparing for the second annual National Smarties Day on October 2nd. National Smarties Day celebrates the iconic candy rolls, a Halloween favorite for nearly 75 years, as well as the heritage and evolution of this family business.

Join the #Smarties Celebration

National Smarties Day is Coming this October 2! Post this National Smarties Day Fan Art

The brand stays connected to its fans through an engaging social media presence with not-to-miss delicious surprises. Those who want to join the fun can follow @Smarties across socials for multiple chances to win a year's supply of candy to celebrate National #Smarties Day.

Last year, the company also gave away massive amounts of candy with their #SmartiesChallenge on TikTok. Their collaboration with creator Michael Ligier resulted in a viral Smarties caviar video racking up over 2 million views across platforms.

Smarties Candy Company: A Women-Run Family Business

Born from founder Edward Dee's American dream, the company's tale now casts a spell of girl power, with fifth-generation candy makers Sarah Dee, Jessica Dee Sawyer and Liz Dee continuing their family's tradition as company co-presidents. Under their leadership, the classic brand is thriving, with over 2 billion Smarties rolls delighting taste buds each year.

"National Smarties Day celebrates more than just our candy rolls; It's about the magic of creating new, sweet memories every day with our family, friends and communities," says Co-President, Sarah Dee.

Empowering Education: Smarties Contributes to Classrooms

The company is serving from a cauldron of generosity with a $25,000 donation to DonorsChoose, supporting classrooms across the nation. The gift is part of the Smarties Think initiative, which has contributed $275,000 to public school classrooms in need of resources. The goal is to give students access to a great education so everyone can be a Smartie.

Why celebrate National Smarties Day?

Because every day deserves a sprinkle of sweetness.

 Smarties Media Kit: https://bit.ly/NationalSmartiesDay2023

 National Day Calendar: National Smarties Day

SOURCE Smarties Candy Company
EL CAJON, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Neighborhood National Bank (NNB) announced today it has received a Business Enterprise Award (BEA) from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Community Development Financial Institution Fund (CDFI Fund) in the amount of $451,025.

NNB, the first nationally chartered CDFI, and only financial institution CDFI in San Diego County, was one of only 184 BEA Award recipients nationwide. NNB received the grant based on providing qualified loans to small businesses in distressed communities in San Diego County. This award follows NNB's parent company, Neighborhood Bancorp receiving a $3.7 million Equitable Recovery Program (ERP) grant in April of this year that was recently funded by the CDFI Fund.

NNB CEO Scott Andrews commented that "Neighborhood is committed to serving small businesses owned by minorities, women and veterans as well as to providing grants to promote business education among minority youth in our communities and in promoting economic growth in areas where help is most needed."

NNB's mission is the provide loans and other financial services to minority-owned, women-owned, and veteran-owned small businesses in low and moderate income communities in San Diego and Southern California. Last year 91% of loans funded by NNB were in qualified distressed communities, and funds from both the BEA and ERP awards will be used to continue lending and charitable giving in communities where the need is greatest.

NNB Chairman Steve Taylor commented that "Neighborhood's long history of support for low income communities in San Diego is remarkable and will continue with these prestigious awards received."

www.mynnb.com

For Further Information Contact:

Scott R. Andrews

President & CEO, Neighborhood Bancorp

[email protected]

619-789-4423

SOURCE Neighborhood National Bank
MIAMI, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Nicklaus Children's Hospital is included within Newsweek's list of World's Best Specialized Hospitals 2024, marking the third consecutive year the hospital has been honored in the ranking. This prestigious award is presented by Newsweek and Statista Inc., a world-leading statistics portal and industry-ranking provider. Nicklaus Children's Hospital is the top-ranked pediatric hospital in South Florida in the Newsweek listing.

Newsweeks list of Worlds Best Specialized Hospitals 2024 Badge

The World's Best Specialized Hospitals 2024 ranking identifies the best hospitals that specialize in cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, endocrinology, gastroenterology, neurology, neurosurgery, obstetrics/gynecology, oncology, orthopedics, pediatrics, pulmonology and urology.

Newsweek and Statista invited experts in the medical field to participate in online surveys prompting them to recommend and assess hospitals within their respective specializations. Also considered in the survey process were accreditations/certifications that reflect a range of structural or quality requirements as well as outcomes measures.

"We are truly honored to be included in the 2024 Newsweek ranking of best specialized hospitals for pediatrics," said Matthew A. Love, President and CEO of Nicklaus Children's Health System. "This recognition is a tribute to our clinical and support teams and their enduring commitment to providing the best possible care to the children and families we are privileged to serve. Indeed, it is one more reason why Nicklaus Children's is the hospital where children matter most."

Newsweek is a premier news magazine and website that has been bringing high-quality journalism to readers around the globe for more than 80 years. Newsweek provides the latest news, in-depth analysis and ideas about international issues, technology, business, culture and politics.

Contact: Rachel Bixby  305-898-9165

About Nicklaus Children's Hospital, Where Children Matter Most

Founded in 1950 by Variety Clubs International, Nicklaus Children's Hospital is South Florida's only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children, with nearly 800 attending physicians and more than 500 pediatric subspecialists. The 309-bed hospital, known as Miami Children's Hospital from 1983 through 2014, is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine with many specialty programs routinely ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report since 2008. The hospital is also home to the largest pediatric teaching program in the southeastern United States and has been designated an American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet facility, the nursing profession's most prestigious institutional honor. For more information, please visit www.nicklauschildrens.org

SOURCE Nicklaus Children's Health System
To support the need for skilled trade workers, DEWALT will award $200,000 in scholarships to up to 40 students across the U.S. and Canada

Scholarships will help support trade education in a variety of fields including construction technology, electrical and plumbing

DEWALT Scholarship Program celebrates its fifth year in helping to address the trade skills gap; to date, 80 students across 30 states and the District of Columbia have benefitted from the program

TOWSON, Md., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DEWALT, a Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK) brand and leader in total jobsite solutions, today announced it is accepting applications for the 2024 DEWALT Trades Scholarship. Now in its fifth year, the DEWALT Trades Scholarship provides financial assistance to those pursuing a trade degree or certificate at a two-year college or vocational-technical school. This year, the program will award $200,000 in scholarships to 40 students across the U.S. and Canada to support trade education.

DEWALT will award $200,000 in scholarships to up to 40 students across the U.S. and Canada Post this Now Open: DEWALT Trades Scholarship Application

The annual scholarship program is part of a larger $30 million commitment from Stanley Black & Decker to grow the trades by 2027. As part of its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy, Stanley Black & Decker has a heightened focus on skilling, reskilling and upskilling tradespeople who embody the company's purpose and are key to society.

"With more than 350,000 current job openings in the construction field1 alone, it is critical that we work to develop a strong pipeline of talent for the skilled trades," said Frank Mannarino, President, Power Tools Group, Stanley Black & Decker. "The DEWALT Trades Scholarship is one way we are working to help address the skilled trade shortage with the goal of bringing educational opportunities to the forefront and cultivating a strong workforce of future pros."

Since its inception, DEWALT has awarded $650,000 in scholarships to 80 students across 30 states and the District of Columbia. Past scholarship recipients pursued education in a variety of fields including building construction technology, welding, plumbing, automotive technology, aviation maintenance, carpentry and HVAC.

Applications are open to high school seniors, high school graduates or current college undergraduate students who plan to enroll in full-time undergraduate study at an accredited two-year college or vocational technical school for the upcoming academic year. A minimum grade point average of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale or its equivalent is required. Qualifying fields include but are not limited to:

Automotive Technology

Aviation Technology

Carpentry

Construction

Diesel Technology

Electrical Technology

Fire Science

Heavy Equipment Operation

HVAC

Machinery

Manufacturing

Pipefitting

Plumbing

Welding

Visit learnmore.scholarsapply.org/dewalttrade to apply. Applications close January 17, 2024. The program is administered through a partnership with Scholarship America.

To learn more about DEWALT, please visit: www.dewalt.com.

About DEWALT

DEWALT, a Stanley Black & Decker brand, is obsessed with how users work in the real world and is relentlessly pursuing total jobsite and landscaping solutions. By incorporating its latest technology and industry innovations, DEWALT is leading the charge for the jobsite of the future and pioneering the next generation of outdoor equipment. DEWALT products. GUARANTEED TOUGH. For more information, visit www.dewalt.com or follow DEWALT on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and LinkedIn .

About Stanley Black & Decker

Headquartered in the USA, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK) is a worldwide leader in tools and outdoor operating manufacturing facilities worldwide. Guided by its purpose  for those who make the world  the company's more than 50,000 diverse and high-performing employees produce innovative, award-winning power tools, hand tools, storage, digital tool solutions, lifestyle products, outdoor products, engineered fasteners and other industrial equipment to support the world's makers, creators, tradespeople and builders. The company's iconic brands include DEWALT, BLACK+DECKER, CRAFTSMAN, STANLEY, CUB CADET, HUSTLER and TROY-BILT. Recognized for its leadership in environmental, social and governance (ESG), Stanley Black & Decker strives to be a force for good in support of its communities, employees, customers and other stakeholders. To learn more visit: www.stanleyblackanddecker.com.

1 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf

SOURCE DEWALT
nShift enables warehouses to automate crucial delivery management processes

LONDON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A third of logistics workers spend more than 50% of their time on manual tasks.[1] Automating many of these could free up time for valuable activity, according to nShift, the global leader in delivery management software.

To help save time and increase efficiency across the logistics process, nShift has identified six processes that ecommerce companies and logistics providers can automate across the supply chain:

Order management  Trexico Logistics recently made order entry 25% more efficient by working with nShift, transforming a highly complex process into something that can be managed through one platform Carrier booking  working with a platform that can automate the carrier booking process leads to significant time savings. To give the business the flexibility it needs, it's crucial that the platform connects to a wide range of carriers, widening the choices available to customers Label printing  creating the correct label, regardless of the carrier requirements, including the bar code or manifest, increases accuracy and speeds up the process Shipping documents customs and other key documents can be automatically generated alongside the shipping label to further streamline the delivery process The picking process  the more diverse a company's products, the more important it will be to print the correct label for each package. Automating this process increases accuracy and efficiency Returns management  automating returns processes makes it easier to check items back in and reduce customer service costs

Mattias Gredenhag, CTO at nShift said, "Many organizations try to make do with managing deliveries manually or using spreadsheets. This often leads to delays and holdups during peak season and other busy periods. Automating delivery management, on the other hand, enables retailers to offer a better customer experience, respond more quickly to spikes in demand, and minimize errors. The right delivery management platform can be the 'beating heart' of high-performance logistics and fulfillment capabilities  delivering efficiencies, stronger loyalty, and increased sales, too.

"nShift is a tried and tested delivery management tool. Businesses all over the world trust us to power their mission-critical shipments. With our range of solutions, ecommerce companies can provide an end-to-end delivery experience from checkout to returns."

Find out more about nShift's work with customers:

https://nshift.com/customer-stories

About nShift

nShift is the global leading provider of cloud delivery management solutions enabling frictionless shipment and return of almost one billion shipments across 190 countries annually. nShift's software is used globally by e-commerce, retail, manufacturing and 3PL shippers. The company is headquartered in London and Oslo. It has over 500 employees across offices in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1782566/nShift_Logo.jpg

[1] https://www.bizagi.com/en/blog/want-a-resilient-supply-chain-time-to-automate-manual-processes

SOURCE nShift
On Sale October 4, Travelers May Choose From More Than 100 New Voyages, with 320 Captivating Ports of Call Across All Eight Ships, Promising Unforgettable Travel Experiences

MIAMI, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Oceania Cruises, the world's leading culinary- and destination-focused cruise line, revealed its 2025 Summer Collection of voyages, featuring an extensive and diverse lineup of more than 100 itineraries, plus nearly 50 Grand Voyages, to alluring corners of the world. Travelers can choose from a selection of perfectly curated Europe voyages, classic Canada and New England cruises, exciting adventures in Alaska, plus blissful South Pacific sailings that visit paradise islands in French Polynesia and beyond aboard Oceania Cruises' eight small, luxurious ships. The itineraries are available to preview online at www.OceaniaCruises.com and open for reservations on October 4.

Credit: Oceania Cruises

The collection of diverse voyages includes more than 70 distinct sailings across the Mediterranean and Northern Europe with Marina splitting her time between the Mediterranean, the western wine countries, and the northern regions of Iceland, Greenland and the Canadian Maritimes; Vista sailing through the capitals of Scandinavia, the Norwegian Fjords and the British Isles; and the maiden Mediterranean season of Allura, Oceania Cruises' newest ship.

"2025 is slated to be our biggest year yet at Oceania Cruises with Allura's maiden season and our first collection featuring all eight boutique ships on sale," said Frank A. Del Rio, President of Oceania Cruises. "With our 2025 Summer Collection, we look forward to continuing to show why Oceania Cruises is acclaimed for its destination-rich itineraries by offering new ports of call and expanded service into highly sought-after regions."

2025 Summer Collection Highlights

More than 100 destination-rich itineraries, plus nearly 50 Grand Voyages

Riviera sails in Alaska for the very first time, offering the ultimate Last Frontier experience

sails in for the very first time, offering the ultimate Last Frontier experience Allura , Vista , Marina , Sirena and Nautica explore Europe with 70+ diverse itinerary options

, , , and explore with 70+ diverse itinerary options Itinerary lengths ranging from 7 to 56 days

100+ overnight stays including Seville , Jerusalem , Istanbul , Bordeaux , Berlin , Antwerp , Montreal , Bora Bora and Papeete, giving guests more time to explore Oceania Cruises' ports of call

, , , , , , , and Papeete, giving guests more time to explore Oceania Cruises' ports of call 10 new ports of call including Cesme, Turkey ; Kemi, Finland ; Lulea, Sweden ; Maniitsoq, Greenland ; Pozzallo ( Sicily ), Italy ; Samos, Greece ; Scrabster, Scotland ; Sibenik, Croatia ; Sundsvall, Sweden ; and Vaasa, Finland .

Alaska

An Oceania Cruises first, the 1,250-guest Riviera will explore the best of Alaska with more than a dozen explorations of the glaciers and wilderness of the Last Frontier. With itineraries ranging from 7 to 12 days, travelers will discover the soaring glaciers, pristine wilderness and unique local culture of the region paired with Riviera's luxurious ambiance and myriad of gourmet culinary experiences, creating unforgettable travel experiences.

Canada & New England

Oceania Cruises' perennially popular fall foliage sailings will bring travelers to unforgettable French-Canadian gems along the St. Lawrence River. These classic 11- to 15-day autumn voyages conveniently depart from New York City, Boston and Montreal and feature overnight stays in Montreal, Quebec City and New York City. During July and August, 16- to 19-day sailings contrast popular Canada and New England harbors with the remote hinterlands and dramatic landscapes of Iceland and Greenland.

Europe

Oceania Cruises will be offering a stunning array of Iceland- and Greenland-intensive itineraries with nine voyages to the region, including two sailings from New York and two sailings from Montreal. Marina and Sirena will both explore the two North Atlantic Island nations at length in July and August. An expansive offering of enchanting Mediterranean voyages is available with sailings from Spain, France and Italy to Greece, Israel and Turkey. Nautica will be dedicated to the region with Marina bookending the North Atlantic summer season with Mediterranean sailings and Vista sailing the region in autumn. An enticing breadth of culture-rich Northern Europe voyages aboard Vista and Sirena is available where travelers will discover the medieval cities and fortresses lining the Baltic, the striking architecture and modern design of Scandinavia, the famous castles of Scotland, the legendary landscapes of Ireland and the historical and iconic attractions of England. Allura will call on iconic cities and lesser-known gems including Cadiz, Olbia, Messina, Palma de Mallorca, Palermo and Cinque Terre and feature overnight stays in Istanbul and Monte Carlo.

The possibilities for adventure become loftier and more inspiring with Oceania Cruises' more than 40 European Grand Voyages. Each of the line's Grand Voyages introduces guests to a dazzling array of diverse and fascinating ports of call across the Mediterranean and Northern Europe and also features a carefully curated selection of extended evening stays and overnights so guests can explore even more deeply.

The South Pacific

Regatta will sail the first summer season of voyages in French Polynesia and Hawaii with an alluring selection of seven new exotic sailings and itineraries ranging from 10 to 18 days that offer a utopia of cultural encounters, memorable adventures and pristine natural surroundings. The new cruises will visit the region during the ideal months of August, September and October with itineraries spanning the gorgeous blue lagoon of Bora Bora, the black sand beaches of Tahiti, the colorful coral reefs of Raiatea, the soaring mountains in the verdant jungles of Nuku Hiva and more. Four of the seven new sailings link French Polynesia with the captivating craters, dramatic canyons and lush waterfalls of the Hawaiian archipelago.

New Boutique Ports

In addition, Oceania Cruises' 2025 Summer Collection reveals a carefully curated selection of 10 new boutique ports across the Mediterranean and Northern Europe promising unforgettable experiences and even more opportunities for seasoned travelers to strike off the beaten path and discover new destinations that reveal even more of Europe's incredibly diverse treasures and wonders. New ports of call include Cesme, Turkey; Kemi, Finland; Lulea, Sweden; Maniitsoq, Greenland; Pozzallo (Sicily), Italy; Samos, Greece; Scrabster, Scotland; Sibenik, Croatia; Sundsvall, Sweden; and Vaasa, Finland.

simply MORE

Oceania Cruises offers travelers simply MORE, with virtually everything included in the voyage fare: free roundtrip airfare; free airport transfers; a generous shore excursion credit of up to $1,600 per stateroom to be spent on tours of their choice; and a comprehensive beverage package available during lunch and dinner at onboard restaurants featuring dozens of vintage Champagnes, premium wines and international beers. Created to elevate the guest experience, simply MORE means travelers receive the greatest value in luxury cruising.

For additional information on Oceania Cruises' small-ship luxury product, exquisitely crafted cuisine and expertly curated travel experiences, visit OceaniaCruises.com, call 855-OCEANIA or speak with a professional travel advisor.

About Oceania Cruises

Oceania Cruises is the world's leading culinary- and destination-focused cruise line. The line's eight small, luxurious ships carry a maximum of 1,250 guests and feature the finest cuisine at sea and destination-rich itineraries that span the globe. Expertly curated travel experiences aboard the designer-inspired, small ships call on more than 600 marquee and boutique ports in more than 100 countries on seven continents on voyages that range from seven to more than 200 days. Oceania Cruises is a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NCLH). To learn more, visit www.nclhltd.com.

SOURCE Oceania Cruises
Company Collaborating with Researchers at the University of Nottingham on Optimization and Evaluation of Novel Small Molecule GPR65 Inhibitors in Preclinical Brain Tumor Models

OXFORD, England, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Pathios Therapeutics Limited ("Pathios"), a biotech company focused on the development of first-in-class therapies for cancer, today announced that the company has been awarded a 567K (~US$727K) grant from Innovate UK, the UK government's innovation agency. The grant funding will enable the company to expand its development of novel small molecule GPR65 inhibitors into the area of a possible treatment of malignant brain tumors. The project is being conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Nottingham and is focused on optimizing small molecule GPR65 inhibitors to penetrate the central nervous system (CNS) and evaluate those optimized compounds in preclinical models of brain cancer.

The treatment of patients with malignant brain tumors remains a high unmet medical need. While chemotherapy has modestly improved survival rates among these patients, the need for truly impactful treatments remains. Immunotherapy has demonstrated some promise in this area, though overcoming the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) remains a key challenge.

Pathios is pursuing a novel immuno-oncology approach to the treatment of cancer focused on counteracting the immunosuppressive polarization of immune cells, including tumor associated macrophages (TAMs), that is triggered by an acidic TME. This is achieved by the design and development of inhibitors of GPR65, an acid sensing G protein-coupled receptor that is exclusively expressed on immune cells and is associated with driving the immunosuppressive immune cell phenotype in the TME that prevents immune-mediated killing of cancer cells. Pathios' internal human genetic analysis demonstrates that reductions in GPR65 function are associated with significantly improved survival across a range of solid tumor types, positioning it as a unique immuno-oncology target for therapeutic intervention.

With this grant, Pathios is utilizing an extensively developed proprietary assay platform to optimize CNS penetration of small molecule GPR65 inhibitors for the treatment of human malignant gliomas. Optimized GPR65 inhibitors are being tested in a human ex vivo co-culture system model of human glioblastoma in collaboration with University of Nottingham researchers, followed by in vivo efficacy evaluation in mouse models.

"Recent research suggests that a portion of glioblastoma patients do not respond to approved immuno-oncology drugs due to the immunosuppression of immune cells in the TME by the acidic microenvironment inherent to all solid tumors, including brain cancers." said Stuart Hughes, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Pathios. "We believe there is promise in applying our novel immuno-oncology approach to cancers of the brain with a CNS-penetrating small molecule GPR65 inhibitor. We are excited to be working alongside the talented team at the University of Nottingham on this important preclinical research, which we hope will pave the way for future clinical studies."

"We are excited to be supporting the research and development of this novel therapy for malignant brain tumours. By working with Pathios we aim to support their preclinical development and expedite the progress of their inhibitors into the clinic," said Alan McIntyre, Associate Professor of Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, at the University of Nottingham. "This is important as malignant brain tumours are difficult to treat. In addition, this approach offers a new avenue to overcome the therapy resistance caused by the acidic microenvironment, frequently found in malignant brain tumours."

About Acidity in the Tumor Microenvironment

The acidic tumor microenvironment, inherent to many cancers, causes a profound immunosuppression of infiltrating immune cells. This environment disarms the anti-cancer immune response and negates the effectiveness of current immunotherapies. This is particularly evident in tumor associated macrophages (TAM), where acidity is sensed by the cell-surface receptor GPR65, leading to an induction of the transcriptional repressor ICER (inducible cAMP early repressor) and the widespread suppression of a host of pro-inflammatory mediators and anti-tumorigenic genes.

About Pathios Therapeutics

Launched in 2017, Pathios is a drug discovery and development company focused on translating innovative science into new medicines. Pathios was founded by a team of experienced biotech and pharmaceutical industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and clinicians. The company is focused on developing small molecule inhibitors of the pH-sensing G protein-coupled receptor GPR65 to counteract the GPR65 mediated immunosuppressive polarization of immune cells, including tumor associated macrophages, that is triggered by an acidic tumour microenvironment present in most cancers. To date, Pathios has raised a total of US$33M in Series A funding from the leading venture capital firms, Canaan Partners and Brandon Capital. Pathios is headquartered at the Innovation Centre on Milton Park, a key science precinct south of Oxford, UK.

For more information, please visit www.pathios.com.

About the University of Nottingham

Ranked in the Top 100 globally and 17th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.

The University is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

The University is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research. We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city's two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.

More news

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation. For more information visit https://www.ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk/

Contacts:

Pathios Therapeutics

Stuart Hughes, Chief Executive Officer

+44 1235 644 960

[email protected]

Vida Strategic Partners (on behalf of Pathios Therapeutics)

Tim Brons

+1 646 319 8981

[email protected]

SOURCE Pathios Therapeutics
In October, the Polish private railway company SKPL will start operating flights from Rava-Ruska to Warsaw. At the same time, the largest private rail passenger carrier in Central Europe, RegioJet (Czech Republic), will launch a Chop-Prague flight in November.

ADVERTISIMENT

This was stated by Yevhen Lyashchenko, CEO of Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ), in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. He clarified that foreign carriers were allowed to operate on the European route because UZ does not have enough rolling stock to carry out passenger transportation of this format.

"The connection (Rava-Ruska - Lviv with the Polish company SKPL - Ed.) will be launched in October this year. This will be the first experience of cooperation between UZ and a European company on the passenger route. RegioJet will not have time to launch by then. They will start operating Chop-Prague flights around November. But this will also happen by the end of 2023. With RegioJet, we have two projects on the way out: Chop-Prague and Przemysl-Berlin-Hanover flights," Lyashchenko said.

The head of the company added that a European passenger company UZ may be created later, as Cargo Polska appeared on the freight market. "But this is a complex and lengthy process. In addition, we need rolling stock: wagons and locomotives. I must admit that this is a matter of many years," he emphasized.

ADVERTISIMENT

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, in October the number of railway tickets on the popular Kharkiv-Przemysl route will double. The updated flight will be launched after repairs at the Przemysl station.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Announcing Art Borowski as new CFO and Richard K. Miller as the Executive Vice President of Investments

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Piatt Companies has announced it has added two new executives to its leadership team. The family-owned company is welcoming Art Borowski as Chief Financial Officer and Richard K. Miller as Executive Vice President of Investments.

"This marks a new chapter for the growth of our company and our culture," said Piatt Companies CEO Lucas Piatt. "We have firm roots in the Western Pennsylvania community and we're excited to bring in new leaders to help mentor and guide our team for the next phases of investment as we continue to expand our diversified company."

Art Borowski comes to Piatt Companies with over 30 years of experience managing large-scale real estate and hotel portfolios in leadership, finance, development, operations and accounting. He most recently served as the CFO for Emerald Hospitality Associates, Inc. of Westlake, Ohio for six years after having the role of Vice President of Finance and Business Development for 13 years with the same firm. During that time, he coordinated over $200 million in creative and traditional debt management, construction, bridge financing, capital raising and eventual dispositions of hotels and other real estate assets.

"We are thrilled to be welcoming Art to the team with his incredible experiences in real estate and hotels," said Piatt. "His hospitality background is important not just because of the Piatt Hotel Group portfolio, but because in all of our projects and the companies we manage, providing a hospitable experience is our top priority. Art has the experience for carry the torch of our success while mentoring the next generation of our top-notch finance and accounting team."

Borowski has over ten years of additional experience in hotel operations with Marriott, Hilton and Starwood Hotels and earned his bachelor's degree in finance.

"I am excited to join this leading organization with a storied history of integrity, stability, vision, and profitability," Borowski said. "I look forward to bringing my experience in hospitality and real estate to continue to inspire and collaborate with Lucas and Marcus Piatt and the great team at Piatt Companies."

Piatt Companies is celebrating the return of Richard K. Miller as Executive Vice President of Investments. From 1997-2007, Miller held several key leadership roles with Piatt Companies, then Millcraft, including Executive Vice President, Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. As a mentee of Piatt Companies' late founder Jack Piatt, he brings a strong business perspective with roots in the culture and vision of the company.

Miller played an integral role on the executive team as the leading developer of Southpointe, Millcraft's transformative 600-acre mixed-use development in Washington County. His leadership was critical to its success. While focusing on development, he was also affiliated with the leadership of Millcraft Products, the manufacturing company specializing in continuous steel casting technology. His history with the company is as diverse as the company itself, but his leadership reflects the experience of Piatt Companies and its vision for the future.

In 2007, Miller continued his commitment to economic development by starting his own firm, SUMMIT Development, where he designed and built nearly 1,000 hotel rooms in eight Hilton and Marriott properties as the sole individual developer.

"We are thrilled to welcome Rich back to the company," Piatt said. "He understands where we've been and where we need to go. He's got a great history of partnerships, relationships and innovative ways to create new ventures and maximize market opportunities. He will be a great leader for our team with his unique understanding of the needs of the market and, more importantly, the needs of those whom the market serves."

"My past experience working directly with Mr. Jack B. Piatt created an invaluable mentoring relationship and unique personal friendship," said Miller. "I truly share the enduring values of the Piatt family and look forward to contributing a nostalgic connection to our vision."

Miller has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and earned his Public Accounting certification.

ABOUT PIATT COMPANIES

Piatt Companies, formerly known as Millcraft Investments, is a family of companies that invests in bringing ideas to live and creating real estate that contributes to the vibrancy, resilience and future of Western Pennsylvania. For over 65 years, the family-run business has delivered high-quality places that the people in the region deserve. Learn more by visiting Piatt.com.

SOURCE Piatt Companies
VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Prospect Ridge Resources Corp. (the "Company" or "Prospect Ridge") (CSE: PRR) (OTC: PRRSF) (FRA: OED) is pleased to announce the discovery of a new mineralized zone named "Leon's Legacy" on the Company's fully owned flagship Knauss Creek property, located 35km northeast of Terrace, British Columbia.

Figure 1: Newly discovered Leons Legacy mineralized zone in relation to other important targets within the Knauss Creek Property. (CNW Group/Prospect Ridge Resources Corp.) Figure 2: Newly discovered Leons Legacy and the Dorreen mine elevation relation. (CNW Group/Prospect Ridge Resources Corp.) Figure 3: Leons Legacy highlight outcrop sample grades. (CNW Group/Prospect Ridge Resources Corp.)

Earlier, prospecting and mapping in the Dorreen mine and surroundings returned a number of high-grade gold values (see news release dated September 14, 2023). While flying there, some quartz veins were observed from the air. Prospecting those led to the discovery of Leon's Legacy (named in honor of Leon Leblond (1930-2013) who prospected the property over a period of more than 25 years). The new discovery is located approximately 900 m west-southwest and higher in elevation than the Dorreen Mine (see Figures 1 and 2). Similar high-grade values of gold, silver and copper were returned from quartz veins hosted in sedimentary to volcano-sedimentary rocks, being similar to the sampled Dorreen Mine.

Key Highlights:

Located approximately 900m west-southwest and 630m above (higher in elevation) the Dorreen mine (see Figure 2), outcrop samples were collected on quartz veins and returned:

14.15 g/t Au, 24.5 g/t Ag and 0.12% Cu (W384811),

(W384811), 19.90 g/t Au, 180.0 g/t Ag and 3.39% Cu (W384813),

(W384813), 20.60 g/t Au, 175.0 g/t Ag and 0.54% Cu (W386150), and

(W386150), and 0.86 g/t Au, 138.0 g/t Ag and 8.00% Cu (W386154).

Further west-southwest at a distance of 1,500m and 875m above the Dorreen mine, other outcropping quartz veins were sampled and returned:

0.07 g/t Au, 36.0 g/t Ag and 8.21% Cu (W386133), and

(W386133), and 0.49 g/t Au, 32.9 g/t Ag and 4.31% Cu (W386135).

Images from samples in link (here).

Prospect Ridge CEO Michael Iverson commented, "We are pleased with the surface exploration work that has first expanded the footprint of the gold and base metal mineralization around the Dorreen mine, and has now expanded mineralization over 1 kilometre away with similar high-grade gold values at the newly discovered Leon's Legacy. This new discovery on the Knauss shows the tremendous potential of this property. The distance from the Dorreen mine, where we suspect a multiple vein system, tells us that this mineralized system could be more important than previously thought. Leon's Legacy contains gold, silver and copper, maintaining the polymetallic signature of the property. This area remains a priority for the Company and a focus for future exploration."

The elevation of the Dorreen mine is around 700 m above sea level, while Leon's Legacy eastern cluster of anomalies starts at an elevation of 1,330m and western cluster at an elevation of 1,575m. Figure 1 illustrates the Dorreen mine location compared to Leon's Legacy, while Figure 2 shows the difference in elevation.

All samples were taken on outcrops. They consist of quartz veins with chalcopyrite, pyrite and malachite. The location of collected samples is illustrated in Figure 3, while the samples details are listed in Table 1.

Sample Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Cu (%) Pb (%) Zn (%) AuEq (g/t) W384691 0.014 38.0 0.01 2.21 0.24 1.363 W384810 0.356 73.4 2.03 0.00 0.01 4.108 W384811 14.150 24.5 0.12 0.00 0.00 14.611 W384812 4.430 58.4 1.89 0.00 0.01 7.797 W384813 19.900 180.0 3.39 0.00 0.01 26.861 W386133 0.071 36.0 8.21 0.00 0.01 12.081 W386134 0.083 9.4 0.92 0.00 0.01 1.498 W386135 0.492 32.9 4.31 0.00 0.01 6.968 W386149 2.100 66.4 1.27 0.03 0.04 4.712 W386150 20.600 175.0 0.54 2.28 0.27 24.386 W386153 3.920 50.5 0.75 0.07 0.01 5.612 W386154 0.857 138.0 8.00 0.00 0.05 13.820 W386155 2.280 50.7 0.51 1.11 0.07 4.035













Table 1: Best Results from the Leon's Legacy sampling

Gold equivalents were calculated with a gold price of $1,750/oz, silver at $21/oz, copper at $3.60/lbs, lead at $0.90/lbs and zinc at $1.00/lbs.

Cautionary statements

Outcrop samples are selective by nature and grades may not be representative of mineralized zones. True thickness or mineralization style and geological models cannot be determined with the information currently available.

Quality control

Rock samples were assayed for gold by standard 50 g fire-assaying with atomic absorption finish (Au-AA24) or gravimetric finish (Au-GRA22) or 1000g metallic screening (Au_SCR24) at ALS Canada in Terrace, British Columbia. The samples were also assayed for 35 metals from an aqua regia digestion with ICP-AES finish (ME-ICP41). For samples with overlimit results in silver, copper, lead and zinc aqua regia with ICP finish was used (OG46 ore grade). A quality assurance/quality control program has been implemented and consists of inserting standards on a regular basis in the samples stream.

Qualified Person

All scientific or technical information included in this news release has been reviewed, verified and approved by Yan Ducharme, P.Geo., President of the Company and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. This news release was written by Yan Ducharme.

About the Knauss Creek property

The fully owned Knauss Creek is about 35 kilometers northeast of the town of Terrace in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It is easily accessible by highway 16 and a network of logging roads. It covers about 32 square kilometers and is contiguous to our optioned Holy Grail property.

Several gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc occurrences were found in the past. The most notable is the Dorreen mine where four adits were developed and, according to historical documents, around 700 tons of ore were mined out at an average grade of at 16.8 g/t Au, 58 g/t Ag, 0.22% Cu, 2.1% Pb and 1.4% Zn from a quartz vein (not 43-101 compliant).

The southern tip of the Golden Triangle arrives just northwest of PRR properties. The Bowser Lake and the Hazelton Groups hosting most of the deposits and mines of this area are also underlying the Knauss Creek and Holy Grail.

About Prospect Ridge Resources Corp.

Prospect Ridge Resources Corp. is a British Columbia based exploration and development company focused on gold exploration. Prospect Ridge's management and technical team cumulate over 100 years of mineral exploration experience and believes the Knauss Creek and the Holy Grail properties to have the potential to extend the boundaries of the Golden Triangle to cover this vast under-explored region.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things, positive exploration results at the Knauss Creek and Holy Grail projects and the Company's use of proceeds from the Private Placement. These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, that future exploration results at the Knauss Creek and Holy Grail projects will not be as anticipated and that the Company will use the proceeds from the Private Placement as anticipated.

In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that future exploration results at the Knauss Creek and Holy Grail projects will be as anticipated and that the Company will use the proceeds from the Private Placement as anticipated.

Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor.

SOURCE Prospect Ridge Resources Corp.
Now in its 5th year with partner Leading Cities, the QBE AcceliCITY challenge seeks to identify and support start-ups that develop solutions to some of the world's most pressing urban resilience challenges.

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- QBE and Leading Cities have announced the 10 finalists for the 2023 QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge main track, as well as the four finalists for the property tech track. In this year's competition, a record-breaking 650 entrepreneurs from 80 countries submitted solutions for driving equity, resilience and sustainability in cities.

In addition to the main track challenge, the 2023 competition also features two auxiliary tracks, a "property tech" track seeking solutions to challenges at the intersection of sustainability and commercial property, and an "agtech" track looking to identify a solution to support America's small- and mid-size farmers.

The following 10 main track finalists will move on to participate in the QBE AcceliCITY Boot Camp and final pitch event with judges from the World Economic Forum, the Earthshot Prize and Code for America, vying for the top prize of $100,000 in pilot project funding.

Aqua Solar Solutions: Cutting-edge technology to generate affordable green electricity as well as fresh water.

Flash: An AI/Deep Learning platform that is changing the way we forecast weather by forecasting lightning hazards for the continental U.S.

GoodMaps: Turn-by-turn navigation that enables anyone to find their way within the built environment regardless of their routing preferences.

itselectric: An urban curbside EV charging network that connects to existing buildings and shares revenue with the host property.

SmartAcqua Solutions: Water Losses are growing globally despite investments; existing solutions are not working, and SmartAcqua AI/ML solution can fix it.

Stratasite: A cloud-based active threat planning portal that allows emergency responders to create and share coordinated response plans.

Sustainaccount: Provides real estate stakeholders with actionable climate intelligence to foster the resilience of buildings.

Syrinx: Leaders in nature-based solutions, sustainable technologies and positive impact models.

UrbanSky: Provides high-resolution, ultra-low-cost, city-wide aerial imagery using zero-emission balloons.

WEO: Creates accessible environmental analytics by harnessing the power space data and AI.

In the proptech track, four finalists - Climasens, Flash, Intelligent AI, and UrbanSky  pitched to a judging panel made up of QBE's property leaders in North America and International, as well as QBE Ventures. Intelligent AI, a global location intelligence solution that helps identify, measure, predict and mitigate property risks in real time, was selected as the winner, receiving $25,000 and business support from QBE. Additionally, the judges made the decision to extend QBE's business support to all participating finalists in recognition of the high quality of the solutions they presented.

"Cities experience unique challenges stemming from and complicated by climate change, population density, cyber risk, and resource scarcity. They are looking for practical solutions that can be implemented to make a difference in their local communities," said Mike Lake, President and CEO of Leading Cities. "AcceliCITY focuses on solutions for real problems and provides support to impact-driven entrepreneurs who are seeking to operationalize their great ideas."

"As a company that helps people and businesses develop resilience and mitigate risk, QBE is proud to play a role in helping our cities and local governments build resiliency and prepare for a range of environmental and economic risks," said Chris Castaldo, Chief Financial Officer at QBE, who also serves as Executive Sponsor of the AcceliCITY Challenge. "Our partnership with Leading Cities, now in its fifth year, puts action behind our values and purpose to enable a more resilient future for our communities, customers, and employees."

About QBE

QBE North America is a global insurance leader helping customers solve unique risks, so they can stay focused on their future. Part of QBE Insurance Group Limited, QBE North America reported Gross Written Premiums in the first half of 2023 of $5 billion. QBE Insurance Group's results can be found at qbe.com. Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, QBE operates out of 27 countries around the globe, with a presence in every key insurance market. The North America division, headquartered in New York, conducts business primarily through its insurance company subsidiaries. The actual terms and conditions of any insurance coverage are subject to the language of the policies as issued. Additional information can be found at qbe.com/us or follow QBE North America on LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Leading Cities

Leading Cities is a non-profit organization that drives action and solutions for a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future through innovation and education for entrepreneurs, governments, and corporations. Leading Cities connects cities across the globe with innovations and insights by delivering advanced research, emerging trends, and new technologies that improve the quality of life in urban centers.

About the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge

QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge, a signature program, leverages the Leading Cities network of forward-thinkers in the public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors to advance innovation in local governments. The program lowers the cost and risk of innovation for startups as well as cities and corporations by streamlining the innovation and sales cycles for Smart City solutions.

SOURCE QBE North America
SEATTLE, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quark Expeditions, the global leader in polar adventures, is excited to celebrate the United Nations' World Tourism Day by announcing its new global membership in the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the world's largest cruise industry trade association.

"We're extremely proud to be a new member of CLIA, an industry association whose values are so closely aligned with ours," said Andrew White, President of Quark Expeditions. "CLIA supports policies and practices that foster a secure, healthy, and sustainable cruise environment, promoting positive travel experiences for guests around the world. That mission mirrors the values that have fuelled the passion and expertise of Quark Expeditions since we took our very first guests to the North Pole in 1991. One of our main drivers at Quark Expeditions is our commitment to 'go beyond,' a philosophy deeply ingrained in the CLIA network of travel professionals."

CLIA represents 95% of the world's ocean-going cruise capacity, as well as 65,000 global travel agents, and 15,000 of the largest travel agencies in the world. The CLIA community includes the world's most prestigious ocean, river, and specialty cruise lines; a highly trained and certified travel agent community; and widespread industry stakeholders, including ports and destinations, ship development, suppliers, and business services.

CLIA President and CEO, Kelly Craighead, said the addition of Quark Expeditions as a global cruise line member helps highlight the growing significance of small-ship expedition cruising within the industry.

"Quark Expeditions has been a pioneer in expedition cruising for more than 30 years, taking guests to the Arctic, Antarctic and other remote destinations," Ms. Craighead said. "Small-ship expedition cruising is one of the most dynamic and exciting areas of cruising's growth, so we're delighted to have Quark Expeditions join our global community at a time when there's so much energy and innovation in the sector."

To learn more about CLIA, click here.

For Quark Expeditions media inquiries: [email protected]

About Quark Expeditions: The global leader in polar adventures for more than 30 years. The most passionate and seasoned team in the industry, taking explorers to the ends of the earth. Going where few ever dream, and walking where few ever will. Delivering extraordinary experiences and enriching lives through travel, Quark Expeditions is a Travelopia specialist company.

About the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA): CLIA is the world's largest cruise industry trade association, providing a unified voice for the industry as the leading authority of the global cruise community. On behalf of its members, affiliates and partners, the organization supports policies and practices that foster a secure, healthy, and sustainable cruise ship environment, promoting positive travel experiences for millions of travelers who cruise annually. This year, CLIA forecasts that the annual number of passengers will reach 31.5 millionsurpassing 2019 levels. The CLIA community includes the world's most prestigious ocean, river, and specialty cruise lines; a widespread network of stakeholders, including port and destinations, ship development, suppliers, and business services; and highly trained and certified travel agent members that represent the largest network of travel professionals specializing in cruise travel. The organization's global headquarters are in Washington, DC, with regional offices located in North and South America, Europe, and Australasia.

For more information, please visit cruising.org or follow CLIA on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube with the handle @CLIAGlobalor on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Quark Expeditions
HAMILTON, ON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Premier Clinical Trial Network (PCTN), a leading clinical research and site management organization, is thrilled to announce the addition of distinguished researcher Dr. Eva Lonn to its team of principal investigators.

Doctor Eva Lonn Headshot

Dr. Lonn is joining PCTN seeking new opportunities to conduct groundbreaking clinical trials and access diverse patient populations. With its comprehensive support services, global trial footprint, and new Centre of Excellence for clinical research across from Hamilton General Hospital, PCTN offers convenience and world-class infrastructure to accelerate her cardiovascular trials.

"I am excited to join PCTN and leverage their capabilities to advance my research," said Dr. Lonn. "Their infrastructure and passion for science aligns with my vision to deliver innovative therapies to patients."

Onboarding an esteemed key opinion leader like Dr. Lonn reinforces PCTN's reputation as the research partner of choice for prominent investigators. Her vast experience leading international clinical trials and esteemed reputation promise to unlock new partnerships and growth opportunities. Dr. Lonn's guidance and perspective will be invaluable as PCTN strives to improve patient outcomes through rigorous, ethical research.

"PCTN is focused on providing a home for emerging and established clinicians who want to advance clinical trials without the administration hassles," said Dr. Richard Tytus, Medical Director at PCTN. "Dr. Lonn intrinsically understands our vision."

Huma Khurrum, Senior Medical Advisor at PCTN, shared her enthusiasm: "We are honoured to welcome Dr. Lonn to our network. Her pioneering research has set the standard for cardiovascular clinical trials. We look forward to supporting Dr. Lonn's next wave of transformative trials."

About Dr. Eva Lonn

Dr. Eva Lonn completed her MD degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, clinical and research training in Toronto and further research training including a Master of Science degree in Hamilton. She is full Professor at McMaster University, has led major international clinical trials, and published over 300 peer reviewed manuscripts. Dr. Lonn has served in leadership roles for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and American College of Cardiology.

About Premier Clinical Trial Network

PCTN operates an international network of advanced clinical research sites, providing end-to-end trial services and operational support to investigators and biopharma partners. PCTN is a subsidiary of HOLE Medical. Learn more at https://premierclinicaltrial.com and https://holemedical.com.

Contact:

Scott Wilson

289-259-8059

365966@email4pr.com

SOURCE Premier Clinical Trial Network
The trusted restoration service provider and top-ranked home service public relations firm announce partnership to elevate brand awareness and drive growth

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Restorerz Emergency Services, the most trusted emergency restoration company in Southern California, has selected Ripley PR as its public relations partner and agency of record.

"At Restorerz, we solve tough problems for clients in challenging circumstances," said Eduard Mirzoian, CEO of Restorerz Emergency Services. "We searched carefully for a public relations partner that provides the same level of service and expertise. Ripley PR has a proven track record of helping commercial and home service companies build their brands and accelerate growth. We're confident we've found the right partner to elevate our presence in the market and support our continuing innovation in the restoration industry."

Restorerz Emergency Services offers technology-driven emergency restoration solutions, including water, fire and mold remediation, and sewage cleanup. The company's certified and highly trained problem solvers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They apply the latest best practices, tools and technology to solve the problems of residential and commercial customers facing the aftermath of catastrophic property damage.

"Our unique experience and expertise allow us to help drive growth and brand awareness for Restorerz Emergency Services while they focus on continuing to deliver meaningful results in their community," said Heather Ripley, CEO and founder of Ripley PR. "Their technology- and client-driven approach makes them stand out in the restoration industry, and we're looking forward to supporting them as they grow and expand their market."

Ripley PR was founded in 2013 with a focus on home services and franchising. The agency, which was named to the Forbes list of America's Best PR Agencies for 2021 and Entrepreneur's Best PR Agencies for Franchises for six consecutive years, offers strategic communications for its clients, including crisis management, media relations and social media strategies. The agency's unique combination of expertise and creativity in public relations helps clients build brand awareness, establish positive reputations and drive franchise prospects to the brand.

For more information about Restorerz Emergency Services, visit https://restorerz.com/.

To learn more about Ripley PR, visit https://www.ripleypr.com or call (865) 977-1973.

About Ripley PR

Ripley PR, Inc. is an elite, global public relations agency specializing in home services, franchising, construction, technology, and manufacturing. Offering a full range of strategic communication services, including crisis management, media relations and social media strategies, Ripley PR uses a blend of strategic business accounting and creative public relations branding to tell compelling stories and deliver measurable results. Ripley PR is a partner in IPREX, the $350 million network of communication agencies, with 1,800 staff and 115 offices worldwide. For more information, visit ripleypr.com or call 865-977-1973.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Heather Ripley

Ripley PR

865-977-1973

[email protected]

SOURCE Ripley PR
SAN FRANCISCO and MUMBAI, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Robosoft Technologies Private Limited with its affiliate Robosoft Technologies Inc., today announced the acquisition of the analytics consulting practice of Cartesian Consulting Pvt. Ltd., with headquarters in Mumbai, India and also its affiliate company, Cartesian DataSciences LLC, located in Dallas, Texas.

Cartesian Consulting was founded in 2009 by Sandeep Mittal and has done analytics projects for more than 100 clients located in 16 countries around the world. Cartesian DataSciences was launched in 2017 by its Americas Director, Jim Griffin, who will be coming onboard to Robosoft Technologies Inc as Sales Director for the global analytics practice. Griffin is also a faculty member at the University of Texas, McCombs School of Business, graduate analytics program.

With this acquisition, Cartesian Consulting Pvt. Ltd. will focus on development and marketing efforts for SOLUS AI, a SaaS solution which acts as a System of Intelligence for Hyper Personalization. The pivot to a SaaS product business from an Analytics Consulting business is something that Cartesian had undertaken over the last 3 years. SOLUS AI has been in market and has seen fantastic acceptance with over 60 implementations as of date.

Robosoft Technologies Inc Chairman and CEO, Ravi Bommireddipalli, remarked: "Many of the technologies we have created already have embedded analytics and insight as part of their design, but the Cartesian acquisition helps to position us for our goal of break-out growth in the area of analytics."

Cartesian Consulting CEO Sandeep Mittal stated: "Our pivot to SOLUS also meant we had to focus our management and engineering efforts full time in support of the product, so we were looking for a company to which we could entrust our rich analytics practice, our legacy. We found in Robosoft an ideal choice and are thrilled to place this valuable business in such good hands."

Sandeep Mittal also announced that he will remain active in an advisory role for Robosoft.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Robosoft Technologies, Inc. is the North American affiliate of Robosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which is headquartered in Udupi, India. Robosoft Technologies is a digital-led business transformation partner for enterprises. Robosoft offers end-to-end solutions in Digital Consulting, Customer Experience Design, Platform Engineering & IT Modernization, Data Science and Analytics, Enterprise Applications Implementation and Cybersecurity. Their expertise includes Design Strategy, UI/UX services, Consumer & Enterprise Application Development, Application Modernization and Testing-as-a-Service to name a few. Robosoft is certified ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, TechnoPro is the parent company of Robosoft. TechnoPro is a global leader in digital technology, employing more than 20,000 engineers and researchers, who serve a client base of over 2,000 customers.

Media contact:

Lakshmipathy Bhat

[email protected]

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223010/Robosoft_Technologies_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Robosoft Technologies
Long-Sought Policy Initiative Formally Enacted; Lauder: "Program strengthens security ties between the US and Israel"

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Reacting to the U.S. government's invitation to the State of Israel to join the Visa Waiver Program, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said:

"I applaud and commend President Biden, Secretary Blinken, Secretary Mayorkas and the entire Biden Administration for its leadership in accomplishing what has long been identified as a major bilateral priority. I also congratulate Israel and commend the successive governments and dedicated civil servants who have worked tirelessly toward Israel's acceptance.

"Two years ago, President Biden publicly pledged that the U.S. would help Israel in "fulfilling the requirements" for entry into the program. Today, U.S. officials announced that Israel will become the 41st country to join this coveted program. By virtue of its entry into the program, VWP is strengthening security ties between the U.S. and Israel. As all Israelis gain access to the program later this year, it will undoubtedly strengthen business ties, expand people-to-people connections and promote cross-cultural understanding.

"Jewish communities across the United States have significant equities at stake, and community leaders nationwide have made their voices heard in support of Israel's bid. As I said back in July, at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding by Ambassadors Michael Herzog and Thomas Nides, our schools, summer camps, sister city relationships and myriad other cross-cultural programs will benefit immeasurably, as will so many families with relatives in both countries.

"Israel's entry into the program also includes commitments for reciprocal privileges and equal treatment for all U.S. passport holders, which is also of vital importance, and I urge others to acknowledge the extent of the commitments and changes Israel has enacted, as the U.S. government has done with its announcement today."

SOURCE Ronald S. Lauder
JINAN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Dazhong Daily report:

On September 25th, the 2023 World Cities Forum and Regional Leaders' Summit was convened in Jinan, Shandong. Guests from over 30 countries and regions were gathered in the province to renew friendship and seek cooperation, writing a new chapter in the development of sister city cooperation.

Lin Wu, Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Zhou Naixiang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and Governor of Shandong Province, Ge Huijun, Chairperson of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Yang Dongqi, Vice Chairman and Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People's Congress, also attended the event.

Paulette Bethel, Ambassador of the Bahamas to China, Yan Dong, Vice President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape of South Africa, Li Jie, Vice President of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kang Byungsam, Mayor of Jeju, the Republic of Korea, and Chen Yuming, Vice President of China Public Diplomacy Association, delivered remarks.

Governor Zhou Naixiang and Premier Alan Winde jointly signed a memorandum of understanding between Shandong and the Western Cape on further strengthening friendly cooperative relations.

At the opening ceremony, 8 outcomes were released, including Initiative on International Science and Innovation Alliance for Green and Low-Carbon Development of Renewable Energy, Initiative for Building a Small Satellite Program for Greenhouse Gas Detection, Initiative on Green and Low-Carbon Urban-Rural Development, Jinan Initiative on Cooperation and Development of Green Transportation, Jinan Initiative on Child-Friendliness, Initiative on Green Development Action, Beacon Action Plan for Green Building, and Hand in Hand for a Shared Future - 20 Years of Shandong Province and the RLS.

The event was sponsored by the People's Government of Shandong Province and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries with the theme of Green Development and Low Carbon Life. It included more than 20 activities, such as the opening ceremony, plenary meeting of Regional Leaders' Summit, world cities forum round-table dialogue, bilateral and multilateral talks, educational and economic events, a tour to Jinan, an exhibition on intangible cultural heritage, and art performance.

SOURCE Dazhong Daily
JINAN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Dazhong Daily report:

On September 25th, the 2023 World Cities Forum and Regional Leaders' Summit was convened in Jinan, Shandong. Guests from over 30 countries and regions were gathered in the province to renew friendship and seek cooperation, writing a new chapter in the development of sister city cooperation.

Photo

Lin Wu, Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Zhou Naixiang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and Governor of Shandong Province, Ge Huijun, Chairperson of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Yang Dongqi, Vice Chairman and Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People's Congress, also attended the event.

Paulette Bethel, Ambassador of the Bahamas to China, Yan Dong, Vice President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape of South Africa, Li Jie, Vice President of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kang Byungsam, Mayor of Jeju, the Republic of Korea, and Chen Yuming, Vice President of China Public Diplomacy Association, delivered remarks.

Governor Zhou Naixiang and Premier Alan Winde jointly signed a memorandum of understanding between Shandong and the Western Cape on further strengthening friendly cooperative relations.

At the opening ceremony, 8 outcomes were released, including Initiative on International Science and Innovation Alliance for Green and Low-Carbon Development of Renewable Energy, Initiative for Building a Small Satellite Program for Greenhouse Gas Detection, Initiative on Green and Low-Carbon Urban-Rural Development, Jinan Initiative on Cooperation and Development of Green Transportation, Jinan Initiative on Child-Friendliness, Initiative on Green Development Action, Beacon Action Plan for Green Building, and Hand in Hand for a Shared Future - 20 Years of Shandong Province and the RLS.

The event was sponsored by the People's Government of Shandong Province and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries with the theme of Green Development and Low Carbon Life. It included more than 20 activities, such as the opening ceremony, plenary meeting of Regional Leaders' Summit, world cities forum round-table dialogue, bilateral and multilateral talks, educational and economic events, a tour to Jinan, an exhibition on intangible cultural heritage, and art performance.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222948/Photo.jpg

SOURCE Dazhong Daily
For some reason, Russians who have not found a place to travel in their country, "where everything is," continue to seek adventure abroad. They need a loophole to avoid being held accountable for the actions of their country, and then wonder why foreigners do not want to welcome them with open arms. And even Russian speakers, who have always found a common language with each other, do not want to show their faces, keeping communication to a minimum.

ADVERTISIMENT

A travel blogger from Russia noticed a strange trend in communication between Russian speakers during her two-week trip to Europe. She claims that now people are not open to conversation. This was reported by Lenta.ru. The girl visited Turkey, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, and Finland.

She shared her observation that Russian speakers cut off communication without trying to continue the conversation. "If you've met someone abroad who speaks Russian before, you just say: "Where are you from?", you would communicate somehow, share your impressions... Nowadays, such dialogues are minimized, they are practically non-existent," the traveler explained.

ADVERTISIMENT

As for foreigners, according to the blogger, locals immediately recall the word "vodka".

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL wrote about how Russians pretending to be Ukrainians travel the world without foreigners being judged.

Only verified information is available on the Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Upon his arrival, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah went on a tour of the National Museum's halls that highlight significant facets of the history and culture of the Sultanate of Oman, including the Renaissance Hall's corner honouring Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur, the Hall of Earth and Man and Maritime History Hall.

His Highness observed several artefacts in the Hall of Earth and Man that represent the long-standing friendship between the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, including a curved sword given in the year 2004 and a model of Qasr Al Hosn in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi given in 1999 by the late, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.



His Highness paused in front of a collection of paintings and sketches by Captain Charles Golding Constable depicting scenes from the Musandam Peninsula and the Arabian Gulf in the nineteenth century.

The Sharjah Ruler toured the exhibits at the Maritime History Hall, which house a collection of manuscripts, models of Omani sea craft, and marine construction equipment.

In the Renaissance Hall, His Highness paid a visit to the statue of Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur and reviewed a collection of royal collectibles, most notably the personal collectibles and presents that heads of friendly and allied nations gave the late Sultan.

During his visit, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah received a souvenir from His Excellency Jamal bin Hassan Al Musawi, Secretary-General of the National Museum, which is a museum publication entitled "The Collection of Marine Science."

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, wrote words in VIP's visitors volume thanking those in charge of the National Museum for the comprehensive explanation and valuable information they provided, and wishing to make a next visit to this valuable museum.

Contact: Hussain Almulla - [email protected] - 00971563980067

Video: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223545/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.mp4

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223538/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223539/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223533/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223537/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223535/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

SOURCE Sharjah Government Media Bureau

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CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ShipBob, the leading global omnifulfillment platform has partnered with TikTok to power 'Fulfilled by TikTok,' a logistics program that makes it easier for brands and merchants using TikTok Shop in the US to sell on the platform. Brands, merchants, and creators selling on TikTok Shop can leverage ShipBob's AI-driven fulfillment engine, network of fulfillment centers, and expertise to unlock nationwide inventory storage, best-in-class order fulfillment, and quick shipping.

When customers place an order with a participating seller on TikTok Shop, the order is picked, packed, and shipped by ShipBob.

"ShipBob is proud to be the one of the US fulfillment partners for 'Fulfilled by TikTok' for the innumerable merchants, brands, and creators that use TikTok Shop to promote and grow their business," said Dhruv Saxena, CEO and co-founder of ShipBob. "TikTok is the most exciting new platform for businesses to sell through in many years. Our teams have worked closely to create a solution that is easy for brands to implement and use, while also creating a delightful post-purchase experience for consumers. We're excited to power fulfillment on TikTok Shop that will help online sellers scale and reach even more customers."

Since the solution was made available for testing earlier this year, ShipBob has already fulfilled hundreds of thousands of orders through its integration with TikTok Shop.

By tapping into "Fulfilled by TikTok" through ShipBob, sellers can achieve:

Free Shipping & Express Shipping Badging: With ShipBob facilitating fast and affordable delivery, sellers can highlight multiple badging options, including free shipping, express shipping, and flash sales to customers for increased conversions.

With ShipBob facilitating fast and affordable delivery, sellers can highlight multiple badging options, including free shipping, express shipping, and flash sales to customers for increased conversions. Nationwide Inventory Distribution: With ShipBob's fulfillment centers in every region throughout the United States , sellers are able to store inventory closer to customers to minimize shipping costs and times.

ShipBob's Fast Onboarding: Once a seller is live on TikTok Shop, they can start selling with "Fulfilled by TikTok" within a day of getting their inventory to ShipBob .

ShipBob Competitive Pricing: Sellers are able to unlock access to highly competitive shipping, fulfillment, and storage rates.

Endless Scale: Merchants can handle increased volume without issues, including sudden peaks in demand caused by flash sales, viral videos, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions through endless capacity and speed of fulfillment.

"Selling on TikTok Shop with 'Fulfilled by TikTok' has been a game changer for my business! They can keep up with our virality on TikTok and surge in orders, and make sure our customers get their sugar free chamoy in a timely manner," said Annie Leal, the CEO and founder of I Love Chamoy. "And I love using ShipBob for the rest of my business. Their customer service and onboarding handholding is unmatched."

Sellers that are interested in partnering with ShipBob and TikTok can find more information at ShipBob.com/FBT.

About ShipBob

ShipBob is the leading global omnifulfillment platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses to provide them access to best-in-class supply chain and fulfillment capabilities. The ShipBob platform provides merchants with a single view of their business and customers across all of their sales channels such as TikTok, Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, Target and more, and enables them to manage products, inventory, orders and shipments, and leverage analytics and reporting to run their business effectively.

Founded in 2014 out of Chicago, ShipBob was launched through Y Combinator by co-founders Dhruv Saxena and Divey Gulati, two entrepreneurs who saw a need for more efficient shipping for ecommerce businesses. Today, the company has raised over $300 million in funding and operates a global logistics network with 50 fulfillment centers across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, and Australia. Learn more by visiting shipbob.com .

SOURCE ShipBob
These are the first in a series of presentations scheduled through the end of the year sharing advances to SK Biopharmaceutical's targeted protein degradation (TPD) pipeline

SEOUL, South Korea and KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SK Biopharmaceuticals, a global biotech focused on the research, development and commercialization of treatments for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) and oncology, and its U.S. R&D subsidiary, Proteovant Therapeutics, today announced they will present data on the discovery and characterization of a selective IKZF2 molecular glue degrader with best-in-class potential, and on MOPED, a novel platform for the discovery of molecular glues, at the 20th Annual Discovery on Target Conference being held in Boston, September 25-28, 2023.

These presentations are the first in a series in which the companies will unveil exciting results from its targeted protein degradation (TPD) studies and MOPEDTM Molecular Glue Screening Platform. TPD harnesses the body's natural protein disposal system and offers the potential to develop new medicines targeting historically difficult-to-drug proteins that play an important role in causing serious diseases. SK Biopharmaceuticals and Proteovant Therapeutics are discovering and developing potential best-in-class and first-in-class degraders to engage previously undruggable targets.

"We are excited to share new data on our IKZF2 molecular glue degrader that demonstrates the potential to combine with immune checkpoint therapies for the treatment of cancer," said Donghoon Lee, President and CEO of SK Biopharmaceuticals and SK Life Science. "We are also pleased to present data showing how our MOPED platform can help find molecular glues with the potential to destroy malfunctioning proteins and kill cancer cells or inhibit their growth."

Discovery on Target Meeting Presentations:

Title: MOPED: A Novel Platform for the Discovery of Molecular Glues

MOPED: A Novel Platform for the Discovery of Molecular Glues Presenter: Corey Strickland, Ph.D.

Corey Strickland, Ph.D.

Date/Time: Wednesday, September 27 ; 9:30 - 10:00 AM

; Title: Discovery and Characterization of an IKZF2 Selective Molecular Glue Degrader with Best-in-Class Potential

Discovery and Characterization of an IKZF2 Selective Molecular Glue Degrader with Best-in-Class Potential Presenter: Courtney G. Havens, Ph.D.

Courtney G. Havens, Ph.D.

Date/Time: Thursday, September 28 ; 2:50 - 3:20 PM

About Proteovant Therapeutics

Proteovant Therapeutics exploits the ubiquitin-protease system (UPS) to discover and develop transformative medicines for the treatment of patients with life-altering diseases. Protein degradation harnesses the human body's innate cellular machinery by way of the UPS to identify and mark disease causing proteins for destruction. This promising approach provides the opportunity to target proteins of interest, many of which were previously considered undruggable. Proteovant integrates its AI enabled target ID platform, degrader drug hunting expertise, and MOPED molecular glue screening platform to advance novel protein degraders. As of August 11, 2023, Proteovant Therapeutics is part of SK Biopharmaceuticals.

About SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.

SK Biopharmaceuticals is a global biotech company focused on the research, development, and commercialization of treatments to help people living with central nervous system (CNS) disorders and change the future of cancer care. Together with its U.S. subsidiary, SK Life Science, Inc., SK Biopharmaceuticals has a pipeline of eight compounds in development. Both companies are part of SK Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Korea and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2023. For more information, please visit www.skbp.com/eng.

SK Biopharmaceuticals' parent company SK Inc. continues to enhance its portfolio value by executing long-term investments with a number of competitive subsidiaries in various business areas, including pharmaceuticals and life science, energy and chemicals, information and telecommunication, and semiconductors. In addition, SK Inc. is focused on reinforcing its growth foundations through profitable and practical management based on financial stability, while raising its enterprise value by investing in new future growth businesses. For more information, please visit www.sk-inc.om/en.

SK Biopharmaceuticals SK Life Science Investor Relations: Hyoungrae Cho Public Relations: H. Park Dina Albanese [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd
The event will celebrate the project's first phase; phase two is scheduled to break ground in late 2023

DAVENPORT, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sovereign Properties and Invest Capital Group have announced the grand opening of Atlantica at Town Center, the first phase of its two-phased development. They are hosting a ribbon cutting event on September 28th at the property to celebrate the completion of its first phase.

Atlantica at Town Center is located at 1121 Loblolly Lane, Davenport, FL. The 360-unit Class A apartment community offers one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 683 square feet to 1,435 square feet, which are some of the largest units in the area.

Atlantica at Town Center is located at 1121 Loblolly Lane, Davenport, FL. The 360-unit Class A apartment community offers one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 683 square feet to 1,435 square feet, which are some of the largest units in the area.

The community was designed to give residents a resort-style feel and boasts a large pool area featuring cabanas, an outdoor kitchen, gas grills, outdoor TVs, and more. Other on-site amenities include a state-of-the-art fitness center, a pet park, dog spa, yoga studio, clubhouse with a game room and coffee station, elevators, valet trash stations, Luxor One package lockers, storage units, ample surface parking, attached and detached garages, and 24/7 on-site security.

"We wanted to build a community where residents felt relaxed, comfortable and safe. Sovereign Properties and Invest Capital Group carefully designed and selected all of the amenities and finishes so that the families living there feel like they can call Atlantica at Town Center home," David Amiel, Investment Manager of Invest Capital Group.

All units have wood-inspired flooring, stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, shaker kitchen cabinets and walk-in closets. Some units have screened balconies and patios and nine-foot-high ceilings.

The 360-unit property is over 60% leased. The 352-unit second phase, situated on land adjacent to phase one, is scheduled for a late 2023 groundbreaking, with completion anticipated by late 2024.

Atlantica at Town Center contracted the Davenport land in 2018 when there was little development in the area. "We believed that this was going to be the focal point for Davenport, and that's what it's become during the past five years," said Katie Clarke, Sovereign Properties' Chief Investment Officer.

Situated near Osceola Polk Line Rd. and Old Lake Wilson Rd., Atlantica at Town Center is close to Interstate 4, within a 15-minute drive from Disney World, Universal Studios, Orlando International Airport and Downtown Orlando. Davenport is also close to technology, trade, transportation and logistics employment hubs.

The property is Sovereign and Invest Capital's second to be built under the Atlantica brand. The first, Atlantica Burleson, was completed in late 2022.

More Atlantica projects are being planned or underway. These include the second phase of apartments in Davenport, Atlantica at Town Center Phase II, as well as Atlantica at Alamo on the west side of San Antonio, TX; and Atlantica at Daytona in Daytona Beach, FL.

Sovereign and Invest Capital Group target growing population and job centers across the Sun Belt market where median incomes are typically higher than the national average, and that offer A-rated school. Most often, the Atlantica brand focuses on locations in secondary markets that are close to larger metropolitan areas.

"Sovereign and Invest Capital Group, have been able to deploy capital and start new construction deals in a very challenging time," Clarke said. She noted that even as multifamily construction has slowed, Sovereign and Invest Capital continue focusing on developments and unit delivery. "We remain very bullish on multifamily," she added.

About Sovereign Properties

Sovereign Properties is a real estate development firm focusing on building quality, affordable multifamily properties that produce stable cash flows, long-term asset appreciation and generational tax benefits for investment partners. Led by founder and CEO Russ Krivor, the company has generated $250 million in equity and sponsored the development of more than 6,000 Class A units in across the country. Experience in construction, lease-up, and ongoing management of apartment communities makes Sovereign Properties qualified to identify, underwrite, and execute quality multifamily investment opportunities.

About Invest Capital Group

ICG is an investment management firm that capitalizes on residential and commercial real estate. The company focuses on capital preservation, risk management and value creation by sourcing, evaluating, and investing in income-generating properties, ground-up developments and repositioning of distressed properties. During the past 25 years, Gabriel Amiel CEO of Invest Capital Group has invested more than $2 billion in multiple asset classes.

SOURCE Sovereign Properties and Invest Capital Group
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The squalene market size is expected to grow by USD 64.75 million from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 7.36% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. Increasing acceptance of UVA/B filters in sunscreens and sun protection cosmetics is notably driving the squalene market. However, factors such as stringent safety regulations on UV sun care products may impede market growth. The market is segmented by End-user (Cosmetic and personal care products, Food supplements, and Pharmaceuticals), Type (Vegetable, Animal, and Biosynthetic), and Geography (Europe, APAC, North America, South America, and Middle East and Africa). We provide a detailed analysis of 20 companies operating in the squalene market including Amyris Inc., ARISTA INDUSTRIES, BOCSCI Inc., Cibus, Croda International Plc, Evonik Industries AG, Gracefruit Ltd., KISHIMOTO SPECIAL LIVER OIL CO. LTD., KURARAY Co. Ltd., LBB Specialties LLC, MacroCare Tech Ltd., Majestic Mountain Sage Inc., Maruha Nichiro Corp., Maypro Group, Micro Capsule Technologies, New Zealand Green Health Ltd., Parchem Fine and Specialty Chemicals Inc., Seadragon, Sophim, and VESTAN. The report offers an up-to-date analysis of the market, and to know the exact growth variance and the Y-O-Y growth rate, Request Free Sample Report.

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Squalene Market 2023-2027

Squalene Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis

Amyris Inc.: The company offers naturally produced sugarcane-derived squalene. This report provides a full list of key companies, their strategies, and the latest developments. Buy Now for detailed company information

Squalene Market 2023-2027: Segmentation

End-user

The cosmetics and personal care products segment is significant during the forecast period. Squalene is used in the segment to manufacture hair products, bath oils, makeup foundations, lipsticks, eye makeup, moisturizing creams, suntan, sunscreen products, nail products, cleansing creams, body powders, and skincare products. Furthermore, skin and hair care products make up a large part of the global cosmetics industry and the demand for premium cosmetics is steadily increasing as consumers increase their spending on quality cosmetics. Hence, such factors drive the cosmetics and personal care products segment of the squalene market during the forecast period.

Geography

Europe will contribute 37% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Countries like Germany, France , the Netherlands , and Sweden drive the growth of the regional squalene market because these countries have a high concentration of elderly populations, and governments are increasing healthcare budgets to expand healthcare infrastructure. Furthermore, in the European facial care market, anti-aging products make up the largest segment. Hence, such factors drive the European squalene market during the forecast period.

will contribute to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Countries like Germany, , , and drive the growth of the regional squalene market because these countries have a high concentration of elderly populations, and governments are increasing healthcare budgets to expand healthcare infrastructure. Furthermore, in the European facial care market, anti-aging products make up the largest segment. Hence, such factors drive the European squalene market during the forecast period. Other regions include North America , APAC, South America , and Middle East and Africa .

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View Free PDF Sample Report

Squalene Market 2023-2027: Key Highlights

Historic Market Size 2017-2021

CAGR of the market during 2023-2027

Detailed information on factors that will assist squalene market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the assist squalene market size and its contribution to the parent market

Forecasts on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the squalene market

Analysis of the competitive landscape and detailed information on companies

Comprehensive details of factors that will impede the growth of squalene market companies

Related Reports:

The cosmetic ingredients market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.08% between 2023 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 4.89 billion.

The Mineral Cosmetics Market size is projected to increase by USD 775.37 million and the market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.83% between 2022 and 2027.

Squalene Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2022 Historic period 2017-2021 Forecast period 2023-2027 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 7.36% Market growth 2023-2027 USD 64.75 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 6.5 Regional analysis Europe, APAC, North America, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution Europe at 37% Key countries US, China, Japan, France, and Germany Competitive landscape Leading Vendors, Market Positioning of Vendors, Competitive Strategies, and Industry Risks Key companies profiled Amyris Inc., ARISTA INDUSTRIES, BOCSCI Inc., Cibus, Croda International Plc, Evonik Industries AG, Gracefruit Ltd., KISHIMOTO SPECIAL LIVER OIL CO. LTD., KURARAY Co. Ltd., LBB Specialties LLC, MacroCare Tech Ltd., Majestic Mountain Sage Inc., Maruha Nichiro Corp., Maypro Group, Micro Capsule Technologies, New Zealand Green Health Ltd., Parchem Fine and Specialty Chemicals Inc., Seadragon, Sophim, and VESTAN Market dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, Market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by End-user

Market Segmentation by Type

Market Segmentation by Geography

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Drivers, Challenges, & Trends

Company Landscape

Company Analysis

Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com

SOURCE Technavio
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Syntax, a leading provider of innovative financial data and technologies, and Mansueto Ventures, the publisher of Fast Company and Inc., have launched the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies Index (the "Index"), a one-of-a-kind index that allows investors to track the performance of the publicly traded honorees from the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies List (the "MIC List").

First introduced in 2008, the annual MIC List has been the definitive source for recognizing the organizations that are transforming industries and shaping society. The list recognizes 540 global companies from 54 distinct industry categories, reflecting innovation across sectors and often capturing emerging technologies and sustainable consumer products and services that are propelling the world forward. The Index is constructed to be investable by selecting securities of companies from the MIC List that meet the minimum liquidity and size criteria and are traded on the recognized global stock exchanges.

Andrei Senyuk, Head of Index Development at Syntax, said, "The Most Innovative Companies Index includes a group of names that are well-positioned to grow and disrupt their respective industries. The companies included in the Index span different sectors and industries but share the important characteristic of developing and delivering cutting edge technologies and products to customers."

The Index is designed to measure the performance of publicly traded entities on the MIC List. The MIC List is curated each year by Fast Company's editorial staff, which assesses the novel significance of the business initiatives of thousands of companies and considers the impact of those efforts on each company's business, its industry and society at large. Ultimately, this group is narrowed down to spotlight the most innovative companies in a given year.

"Innovation can come from anywhere, and at Fast Company, we look for it everywhere," says Brendan Vaughan, Editor in Chief of Fast Company. "Each year, Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list celebrates standout organizations, regardless of size, location or industry. Our team of editors and reporters spend months researching the lists, searching for companies whose innovative work will change the world in demonstrable ways. The MIC Index provides a new lens for tracking the impact of these innovations over time."

Additional details on the Index can be found at www.syntaxdata.com/indices/FCMICX.

About Fast Company

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

About Syntax

Syntax LLC is a financial data and technology company that codifies business models. Syntax operates through three segments: Company Data, Wealth Technology, and Financial Indices. Using its patented FIS technology inspired by systems sciences, the Company Data segment offers the most comprehensive, granular, and accurate product line revenue data available on the market. The Wealth Technology segment then uses this abundance of data to facilitate the instantaneous creation and ongoing management of direct indexing solutions and rules-based equity portfolios through a fully automated platform. The Financial Indices segment enables Syntax to deliver customized and proprietary indices, including core global benchmarks and micro- and macro-thematic, smart beta, defined outcome, and target volatility indices. These indices are foundational for a range of financial products, such as ETFs, UITs, and structured products. Learn more at www.syntaxdata.com.

SOURCE Fast Company
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (NYSE: TMHC) ("Taylor Morrison"), a leading national developer and homebuilder, announced today that it will release its third quarter 2023 results before the market opens on Wednesday, October 25, 2023. Taylor Morrison will hold a conference call to discuss its results the same day at 8:30 a.m. ET.

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on Taylor Morrison's website at www.taylormorrison.com on the Investor Relations portion of the site under the Events & Presentations tab. For call participants, the dial-in number is (833) 470-1428 and conference ID is 524943. The call will be recorded and available for replay on the Company's website.

Taylor Morrison's filings will be available on the Company's website or with the SEC at sec.gov.

About Taylor Morrison

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Taylor Morrison is one of the nation's leading homebuilders and developers. We serve a wide array of consumers from coast to coast, including first-time, move-up, luxury and resort lifestyle homebuyers and renters under our family of brandsincluding Taylor Morrison, Esplanade, Darling Homes Collection by Taylor Morrison and Yardly. From 2016-2023, Taylor Morrison has been recognized as America's Most Trusted Builder by Lifestory Research. Our strong commitment to sustainability, our communities and our team is highlighted in our latest annual Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report.

For more information about Taylor Morrison, please visit www.taylormorrison.com.

CONTACT:

Mackenzie Aron, VP Investor Relations

Taylor Morrison Home Corp.

(480) 734-2060

[email protected]

SOURCE Taylor Morrison
ALLEN, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As mortgage rates soar to a two-decade high and home prices continue their relentless climb, potential homebuyers find themselves grappling with affordability challenges in today's housing market. The dream of owning a home has grown increasingly elusive. As a solution, Competitive Home Lending offers a temporary buydown, providing relief to buyers of existing homes similar to the incentives offered by new home builders, making homeownership more attainable.

Leveraging a wholesale mortgage rate for a temporary buydown provides homebuyers with the ability to secure a property now while waiting for more favorable mortgage rates to prevail. While this approach has proven effective for those interested in newly constructed homes, a significant portion of the market comprises potential buyers eyeing existing homes.

Temporary Buydown 101

The nation's leading retail mortgage lenders offer buyers lower wholesale rates, but astonishingly, fewer than 15% of homebuyers take advantage of the opportunity to save thousands of dollars. Understanding the unique needs of these homebuyers, Competitive Home Lending, a local Texas mortgage broker, has devised a solution that bridges the affordability gap for those seeking to purchase existing homes. By utilizing the difference between retail mortgage rates and wholesale rates, Competitive Home Lending is leveraging a temporary buydown opportunity that allows prospective homeowners to make their purchase today and potentially save hundreds of dollars every month, all while waiting for mortgage rates to stabilize.

Home Loan Shopping Tips

"Competitive Home Lending is committed to transforming the landscape of homeownership by offering solutions that cater to the unique needs of today's homebuyers," said Raul Hernandez, Wholesale Mortgage Broker at Competitive Home Lending. "In today's housing market, where soaring prices and rising mortgage rates have left many prospective homeowners feeling overwhelmed and uncertain, our temporary buydown initiative has the potential to save homeowners hundreds of dollars each month. It's our mission to ease the financial strain and enable them to achieve their homeownership goals with confidence. We believe in empowering our clients with the tools and support they need to make their homeownership dreams a reality."

About Competitive Home Lending NMLS 1047944:

Competitive Home Lending is a leading mortgage broker in Texas and Colorado. With a focus on home affordability, Competitive Home Lending is committed to providing homebuyers with direct access to wholesale mortgage rates from the nation's best mortgage lenders.

SOURCE Competitive Home Lending
HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Plains State Bank expands its portfolio of client services with a new wealth management program, offering clients access to the investment and wealth management services of Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC.

"This new relationship allows us to further broaden and deepen our existing relationships with our clients," said Lori Hilman, PSB president and chief operating officer. "Our decision to align with Raymond James was driven by the firm's profound experience and deep understanding of the banking landscape, from its inherent 'service' culture to its integrated investment platform."

Texas' Plains State Bank grows client offerings with Raymond James wealth management program Post this

The Texas-based bank's wealth management program will operate as Core+ Financial Strategies, which was recently acquired by Plains State Bank.

"It gives me great satisfaction to extend a warm welcome to Plains State Bank and the talented wealth management team at Core+ Financial Strategies," said Tim Killgoar, Raymond James senior vice president. "Our unwavering focus remains centered on delivering comprehensive support to our bank programs and a close working relationship that surpasses traditional brokerage offerings."

Since its inception in 1957, Plains State Bank has grown into one of the Houston Metro Area's largest community banks. It continues to expand its reach throughout the state, maintaining a presence in Central Texas and a branch in West Texas.

Visit the Plains State Bank website or view the press release from Raymond James for more information.

About Plains State Bank

Plains State Bank (PSB) was established in 1957 in Plains, Texas. In 2008, Plains Acquisition Corporation (PAC) was founded and acquired Plains State Bank. Following the acquisition, the bank charter and headquarters were moved to Humble, Texas. Today, Plains State Bank primarily serves the communities throughout the Greater Houston Metro Area and Yoakum County, with approximately $800 million in assets. Plains Acquisition Corporation is traded under the symbol PLQC on the OTC Pink Market.

Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC, and are not insured by bank insurance, the FDIC or any other government agency, are not deposits or obligations of the bank, are not guaranteed by the bank, and are subject to risks, including the possible loss of principal. Core+ Financial Strategies and Plains State Bank are not registered broker/dealers and are independent of Raymond James Financial Services. Investment Advisory Services offered through Raymond James Financial Services Advisors, Inc.

About Raymond James Financial Services

Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. (RJFS), member FINRA/SIPC, is a financial services firm supporting independent financial advisors nationwide. Since 1974, RJFS provides a wide range of investment and wealth planning-related services through its affiliate, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC. Both firms are wholly owned subsidiaries of Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE-RJF), one of the nation's premier diversified financial services companies with approximately 8,700 financial advisors throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. Total client assets are approximately $1.31 trillion as of July 31, 2023. Additional information is available at raymondjames.com.

SOURCE Plains State Bank
Deputy Prime Minister Heads to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to speak at UNWTO,

Secure Major Funding for Family Island Renaissance Project and Discuss Green Investments

RIYADH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Investments & Aviation the Honourable I. Chester Cooper continues his trade mission to West Asia with an official visit to The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The delegation arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday, September 26th.

On Wednesday, the deputy prime minister will sign a major loan agreement with extremely favorable terms from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas for the construction of airport infrastructure in the Family Islands that will advance the tourism sector in The Bahamas and the country's gross domestic product.

This loan is a critical part of the Davis administration's Family Island Airport Renaissance project.

The deputy prime minister and other members of the delegation will also celebrate the commemoration of the 43rd annual World Tourism Day and engage in important talks to advance the relationship between our two countries.

Additionally, he will engage with world leaders on new tourism investment strategies and meet with high-level stakeholders and decision makers from across the tourism and investments sectors to discuss burgeoning opportunities for The Bahamas.

"The relationships this administration has forged on behalf of The Bahamas throughout West Asia since coming to office have resulted in tangible, remarkable results that will move our nation forward," said Deputy Prime Minister Cooper in Riyadh.

"Our partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Fund for Development will help transform our Family Island airport infrastructure in a way that has not been seen before. We have also had very meaningful discussions about further strengthening ties to The Bahamas and the Caribbean by leveraging our small countries' mighty voices and strategic alliances to advance the interests of all involved."

ABOUT THE BAHAMAS

With over 700 islands and cays, and 16 unique island destinations, The Bahamas lies just 50 miles off the coast of Florida, offering an easy flyaway escape that transports travellers away from their everyday. The Islands of The Bahamas have world-class fishing, diving, boating and thousands of miles of the earth's most spectacular water and beaches waiting for families, couples and adventurers. Explore all the islands have to offer at www.bahamas.com or on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram to see why It's Better in The Bahamas.

PRESS INQUIRIES

Anita Johnson-Patty

Director, Global Communications

Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation

[email protected]

SOURCE The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed that American and British intelligence services were involved in the attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Sevastopol. In addition, the "Ukrainian neo-Nazis" allegedly used Western intelligence assets and NATO satellites for this purpose.

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Zakharova shared her "conclusions" during a briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the terrorist state. She added that "the attack was planned in advance" (to watch the video, scroll to the end of the news).

"The attack on Sevastopol was carried out by Kyiv in close coordination with American and British experts," Zakharova said.

As a reminder, on September 22, an explosion occurred at the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Sevastopol. Black smoke rose over the city, the occupation authorities complained about a missile strike on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and the aggressor country's Defense Ministry reported one dead soldier.

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A video of the moment the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol in Crimea was hit was posted online. The building was immediately enveloped in black smoke, and there was no sign of air defense systems.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL:

- The military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars "Atesh" reported that in the temporarily occupied Simferopol, employees of the occupation council of ministers were transferred to remote work. The same measures were taken in many other bodies of the occupation administration on the territory of the Ukrainian peninsula.

- The Russian information space was stirred by the news of the attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol on September 22. Z-bloggers began to criticize the Russian authorities.

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Only verified information on our Telegram channel Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Foundation to invest in organizations that serve veterans recovering from recent Natural disasters in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida

TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) has received a $5 million donation from longtime partner, the Embassy of the State of Qatar. Through December 2024, the Foundation will invest the funds in organizations that are helping Florida veterans rebuild from recent natural disasters, including those who were impacted when Hurricane Ian devastated many parts of the state one year ago this week.

In the final quarter of 2023, a total of $1.26 million will be invested in the following organizations supporting veterans in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida:

Boley Centers, Inc. will improve the stability of at least 80 veteran households in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian by providing financial assistance for transportation, utilities, food, employment, and housing.

will improve the stability of at least 80 veteran households in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian by providing financial assistance for transportation, utilities, food, employment, and housing. Home Base, A Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital Program will provide peer-to-peer community outreach and evidence-based mental health care to improve the mental health and well-being of at least 60 veterans and families who were in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian.

will provide peer-to-peer community outreach and evidence-based mental health care to improve the mental health and well-being of at least 60 veterans and families who were in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian. Homeless Empowerment Program will provide rental assistance and community-based case management to at least 75 veterans in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian to help them obtain and maintain permanent housing. BWF-Qatar funding will also support a fixed-route shuttle service to the C.W. Bill Young Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center for Veterans experiencing homelessness in Pinellas County , providing veterans with timely, reliable access to mental health, substance abuse, and physical health care.

will provide rental assistance and community-based case management to at least 75 veterans in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian to help them obtain and maintain permanent housing. BWF-Qatar funding will also support a fixed-route shuttle service to the C.W. Bill Young Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center for Veterans experiencing homelessness in , providing veterans with timely, reliable access to mental health, substance abuse, and physical health care. Rutgers University Foundation's Vets4Warriors will provide peer support and connection to services for at least 500 veterans and families in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian, improving their quality of life.

will provide peer support and connection to services for at least 500 veterans and families in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian, improving their quality of life. St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) CARES will provide emergency shelter for at least 18 veterans experiencing homelessness in Hillsborough County . This funding will also complement SVdP CARES' federal funding, enabling them to provide transportation, utilities, food, employment, and housing assistance to a minimum of 46 veterans in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian, improving their household stability.

will provide emergency shelter for at least 18 veterans experiencing homelessness in . This funding will also complement SVdP CARES' federal funding, enabling them to provide transportation, utilities, food, employment, and housing assistance to a minimum of 46 veterans in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian, improving their household stability. Volunteers of America of Florida will ensure that at least 100 veterans in counties impacted by Hurricane Ian receive assistance to improve their household stability. VOAFL will reach veterans in Charlotte , Manatee , Highlands , Hillsborough , and Brevard Counties.

In 2024, the Foundation will invest remaining funds from the Embassy of the State of Qatar for natural disaster relief funding in programs and services for veterans across more than 25 counties most heavily impacted by Hurricane Ian in Florida. Nonprofit organizations can apply for funding here: https://bobwoodrufffoundation.org/grants/

"The Bob Woodruff Foundation has been on the forefront of disaster relief for veterans, mobilizing millions in relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey in Houston, the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ian last year," said Anne Marie Dougherty, Chief Executive Officer of the Bob Woodruff Foundation. "In partnership with the Embassy of the State of Qatar, we're committed to continuing this work by supporting long-term hurricane recovery throughout the region and positively impacting those who have honorably served our nation."

"The people of west Florida are resilient, particularly military veterans," said Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the U.S. "The progress toward recovery that has already been made since Hurricane Ian is remarkable. But as those whose lives have been changed dramatically by the storm know all too well, full recovery from a disaster of that magnitude takes time and long-term resources. Qatar is always ready to come to the aid of our American friends in times of need. The Bob Woodruff Foundation, with which we have worked on a range of programs over the years, has extraordinary experience doing the difficult, important work necessary to achieve real, lasting recovery. We are honored to partner with them again, and to support our friends in Florida."

Additionally, in September, the Foundation organized facility improvement activities at the Boley Centers in St. Petersburg and the Homeless Empowerment Program in Clearwater. Projects include painting and installing shelving, flooring, lighting, plumbing and furnishings.

As the nation's leading nonprofit for veterans, BWF has been instrumental in addressing the most pressing issues facing veterans and military families across the country. The Foundation is committed to ensuring long-term support in Florida  home to the third largest veteran population  investing nearly $1 million in 15 partner organizations across the state since 2020. These partners range in the portfolio of services they provide to veterans, service members and their families including emergency financial assistance, legal services and housing support.

About the Bob Woodruff Foundation

The Bob Woodruff Foundation was founded in 2006 after reporter Bob Woodruff was wounded by a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq. Since then, the Bob Woodruff Foundation has raised awareness about the tough challenges veterans and military families are facing, and invested in solutions to help support them in the next chapter of their lives. To date, the Bob Woodruff Foundation has invested over $146 million to ensure that our nation's veterans, service members and their families  those who stood for us  have stable and successful futures. Visit. www.BobWoodruffFoundation.org for more information.

About the Qatar-US Partnership

The United States established diplomatic relations with Qatar in 1972. The relationship has flourished in the subsequent 50 years, and today, the countries cooperate closely on a wide range of regional and global issues and enjoy deep commercial, educational, and cultural ties. In defense, Qatar and the US collaborate financially, politically, and militarily to work toward stability and prosperity for the region, with US President Joe Biden naming Qatar a Major Non-NATO Ally in 2022, one of just 18 countries globally with that designation. Qatar is home to Al-Udeid Air Base, where it has hosted US Central Command Forward Headquarters and a large US military contingent for decades. Qatar has also routinely come to the assistance of Americans in difficult times by donating to U.S. communities to support efforts to recover from natural disasters, including in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey, and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Media Contact:

Nicole Janok

561-543-6043

[email protected]

SOURCE Bob Woodruff Foundation
NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The flexible epoxy resin market is expected to grow by USD 203.55 million from 2022 to 2027. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 6.35% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. Increasing demand for paints and coatings in the automotive industry is notably driving the flexible epoxy resin market. However, factors such as Stringent regulations and policies protecting various substrate surfaces may impede market growth. The market is segmented by application (paints and coatings, adhesives, composites, electrical laminate, and others), end-user (construction, electrical and electronics, military and defense, automotive, and others), and geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa). We provide a detailed analysis of 20 companies operating in the flexible epoxy resin market including 3M Co., Aditya Birla Chemicals, Atul Ltd., Chang Chun Group, Conren Resin Flooring Ltd, DAICEL ChemTech Inc., Daikin Industries Ltd., DuPont de Nemours Inc., Easy Composites Ltd., Hexion Inc., Huntsman International LLC, Kolon Industries Inc., Kukdo Chemical Co. Ltd., Nagase and Co. Ltd., NAMA Chemicals, Olin Corp., Protex International, Shandong Landun New Material Co. Ltd., Solvay SA, and Spolchemie AS. The report offers an up-to-date analysis of the market, and to know the exact growth variance and the Y-O-Y growth rate, Request Free Sample Report.

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Flexible Epoxy Resin Market 2023-2027

Flexible Epoxy Resin Market 2023-2027: Company Analysis

3M Co. - The company offers flexible epoxy resin such as Scotch Weld Epoxy Adhesive 2216NS.

This report provides a full list of key companies, their strategies, and the latest developments. Buy Now for detailed company information

Flexible Epoxy Resin Market 2023-2027: Segmentation

Application

The paints and coatings segment is estimated to witness significant growth during the forecast period. In the construction, shipbuilding, automotive, infrastructure, epoxy, and home appliances industries, flexible resin-based paints and coatings are used to coat structural parts. In addition, they reduce the cost of painting and restoring the structure by improving the strength, durability, and resilience of the structure. Furthermore, they are ideal for use in demanding temperature conditions of commercial and industry because of their strong thermal stability. Additional benefits of flexible epoxy paints and coatings include excellent UV protection properties. Flexible epoxy paints and coatings are used in oil and gas production equipment, heat exchangers, condensers, evaporators, boilers, and wastewater treatment tanks. Additionally, they are widely used in industrial, commercial, electrical, and marine industries. Hence, these factors are expected to drive segment growth during the forecast period.

Geography

APAC is estimated to contribute 66% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Demands for paints and varnishes, adhesives and Sealants, electronic products as well and others are likely to be stimulated by growth in the commercial and residential construction sector along with increased investment in infrastructure development across the region. Furthermore, demand for adhesives and sealants will be fueled by projects such as the Odia Economic Corridor project, M6 Motorway expansion, and Sarawak Sabah Highway link road, which is expected to drive growth in this flexible epoxy resin market. Developing countries such as India , Indonesia , and Thailand are investing significantly in infrastructure, thereby strengthening regional markets. The region is also becoming a center of car manufacturing, which contributes to the growth of the automotive sector and increases its demand for paints and coatings. For example, Indian government initiatives such as Make in India , FDI Promotion Grants, and Loans have encouraged car manufacturers to enter the country. They've established a production facility of their own. Hence, these factors are expected to drive market growth in the region during the forecast period.

Learn about the contribution of each segment summarized in concise infographics and thorough descriptions. View Free PDF Sample Report

Flexible Epoxy Resin Market 2023-2027: Key Highlights

Historic Market Size 2017-2021

CAGR of the market during 2023-2027

Detailed information on factors that will assist flexible epoxy resin market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the flexible epoxy resin market and its contribution to the parent market

Forecasts on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the flexible epoxy resin market

Analysis of the competitive landscape and detailed information on companies

Comprehensive details of factors that will impede the growth of flexible epoxy resin market companies

Related Reports:

The microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 401.24 million.

The glabridin (CAS 59870-68-7) market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.91% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 6,907.95 thousand.

Flexible Epoxy Resin Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2022 Historic period 2017-2021 Forecast period 2023-2027 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6.35% Market growth 2023-2027 USD 203.55 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 4.97 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and the Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution APAC at 66% Key countries US, China, India, Germany, and the UK Competitive landscape Leading Companies, Market Positioning of Companies, Competitive Strategies, and Industry Risks Key companies profiled 3M Co., Aditya Birla Chemicals, Atul Ltd., Chang Chun Group, Conren Resin Flooring Ltd, DAICEL ChemTech Inc., Daikin Industries Ltd., DuPont de Nemours Inc., Easy Composites Ltd., Hexion Inc., Huntsman International LLC, Kolon Industries Inc., Kukdo Chemical Co. Ltd., Nagase and Co. Ltd., NAMA Chemicals, Olin Corp., Protex International, Shandong Landun New Material Co. Ltd., Solvay SA, and Spolchemie AS Market dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, Market condition analysis for the forecast period Customization purview If our report has not included the data you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get customized segments.

ToC:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Historic Market Sizes

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Application

Market Segmentation by End-User

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Drivers, Challenges, & Trends

Company Landscape

Company Analysis

Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com

SOURCE Technavio
ORRVILLE, Ohio, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The J.M. Smucker Co. (NYSE: SJM) announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Sahale Snacks brand to Second Nature Brands, a U.S.-based creator of premium, nutritional and better-for-you snacks and treats. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $34 million, subject to a working capital adjustment. The transaction will include all trademarks and the Company's leased manufacturing facility in Seattle, Washington, including about 100 employees who will transition with the business.

"This divestiture reflects our continued commitment to portfolio and resource optimization to sharpen our focus and support continued growth," said Mark Smucker, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, The J.M. Smucker Co. "The divestiture of the Sahale Snacks brand will support continued growth in our Consumer Foods business with enhanced investment in our Smucker's Uncrustables brand and building on our leadership in spreads. As always, any decision that impacts our employees is only made after careful consideration and I want to thank all who have supported this brand, which has played an important role in our consumer foods portfolio."

The Sahale Snacks business generated net sales of approximately $48 million for the Company's fiscal year ended April 30, 2023, which were primarily reported in its U.S. Retail Consumer Foods segment.

The Company expects the impact of the divestiture to be immaterial to its adjusted earnings per share on a full-year basis. The Company will provide additional information about the transaction's impact on its fiscal year 2024 outlook during the next quarterly earnings call.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the third quarter of the Company's current fiscal year ending April 30, 2024, subject to customary closing conditions. Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP is serving as the Company's legal advisor in connection with the transaction.

About The J.M. Smucker Co.

At The J.M. Smucker Co., it is our privilege to make food people and pets love by offering a diverse family of brands available across North America. We are proud to lead in the coffee, consumer foods, dog snacks and cat food categories by offering brands consumers trust for themselves and their families each day including Folgers, Dunkin', Cafe Bustelo, Jif, Smucker's Uncrustables, Smucker's, Milk-Bone and Meow Mix. Through our unwavering commitment to producing quality products, operating responsibly and ethically and delivering on our Purpose, we will continue to grow our business while making a positive impact on society. For more information, please visit jmsmucker.com.

The J.M. Smucker Co. is the owner of all trademarks referenced herein, except for Dunkin', which is a trademark of DD IP Holder LLC. The Dunkin' brand is licensed to The J.M. Smucker Co. for packaged coffee products sold in retail channels such as grocery stores, mass merchandisers, club stores, e-commerce and drug stores. This information does not pertain to products for sale in Dunkin' restaurants.

The J.M. Smucker Co. Forward Looking Statements

This press release ("Release") includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. The forward-looking statements may include statements concerning our current expectations, estimates, assumptions and beliefs concerning future events, conditions, plans and strategies that are not historical fact. Any statement that is not historical in nature is a forward-looking statement and may be identified by the use of words and phrases such as "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "intend," "will," "plan," "strive" and similar phrases. Federal securities laws provide a safe harbor for forward-looking statements to encourage companies to provide prospective information. We are providing this cautionary statement in connection with the safe harbor provisions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made, when evaluating the information presented in this Release, as such statements are by nature subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements and from our historical results and experience. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following: uncertainties related to the timing of the consummation of the sale of the Sahale Snacks brand to Second Nature Brands (the "Transaction"); the possibility that any or all of the conditions to the consummation of the Transaction may not be satisfied or waived; and risks described under "Risk Factors" in reports and statements filed by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or circumstances.

SOURCE The J.M. Smucker Co.
Executive military leader specializing in organizational planning and operations brings decades of deep experience in managing roles, missions, and capabilities to the ThroughPut Advisory Board

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- ThroughPut Inc ., the Industrial Supply Chain AI pioneer, today announced the addition of retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Max J. Stitzer to its Board of Advisors. Brig. Gen. Stitzer, a well-respected and highly-decorated officer, who most recently served as Deputy to the Director of the Air Staff Headquarters of the United States Air Force; and Principal Deputy Director for Logistics, The Joint Staff at the Pentagon. As part of the role, he coordinated and integrated policy, strategy, resources, processes, and cross-functional issues for the Air Staff. Being the senior Air Force Reserve officer on the staff, General Stitzer represented Air Force Reserve equities in the Air Force's Total Force Continuum effort, and has gathered invaluable expertise across all levels of the Reserve of the Air Force, as well as in the Air Force Reserve Command  a force of over 70,000 reserve airmen who serve in operational missions across the globe.



With ongoing supply chain disruptions and the ensuing shortages in several sectors continuing to present defense capacity challenges, U.S. Department of Defense organizations are evaluating supply chain technologies that accelerate equipment readiness. ThroughPut's AI-driven approach bridges the gap between the base level and enterprise level of maintenance and procurement, in order to make existing materiel more accessible within the extended Department of Defense.

"General Stitzer was the first leader to advocate for our dual-use capabilities within the US Air Force and greater Department of Defense. Over the last two years, his Total Force network has broadened our own understanding of defense supply chains and operations, while we have reciprocated with sharing our know-how in leveraging existing supply chain data to improve Aircraft Availability and Mission Capability Rates. We are honored to be working with Gen. Stitzer towards enabling ThroughPut.ai access to the frontlines, now at an unprecedented scale," stated Ali Raza, CEO of ThroughPut.ai

"I am humbled to have been chosen to be a Member of ThroughPut Inc.'s Board of Advisors," added General Stitzer. "I am very excited to work with ThroughPut's team of AI and supply chain experts in finding solutions to business, logistics, and military challenges as they look to transform bottlenecks into opportunities for increased margin, sustainment and growth. ThroughPut is not only leveraging Artificial Intelligence but also democratizing it across organizations to find solutions to relentless supply chain challenges both today and into the future." he added.

Brigadier General Max Stitzer's distinguished military career included decades of experience spanning across influential government projects, during which time he has won numerous awards, accolades, and decorations. Having graduated in Science and Logistics Management at Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, General Stitzer followed up with a Master's Degree in Aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, complementing his three decades of national service helping him earned promotions every few years. Brigadier General Stitzer has accumulated a vast majority of his experience in logistics and maintenance support, which will prove instrumental in supporting ThroughPut.AI and the next phase of his career growth.

Additional Resources:

PR Contact

Tina Jacobs

[email protected]

About ThroughPut Inc

ThroughPut.ai is a Silicon Valley-based Supply Chain AI leader that extends visibility into actionability by tapping into existing data to accelerate sustainable material flow, free-cash-flow, logistics distribution and higher OTIFs. ThroughPut puts operational improvements on autopilot to optimize costs, reduce CO2 emissions and grow efficiencies across end-to-end value chains. By way of ThroughPut's Supply Chain AI Orchestration software that sits on top of existing data architectures, ThroughPut improves material flow and free-cash-flow across the entire end-to-end value chain more than 5-times faster than leading contemporary solutions. The founding team is led by seasoned serial entrepreneurs with real-world AI, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Transportation and Operational experience, from the shop-floor to the top-floor, at leading Fortune 500 Industrial Companies & pioneering Enterprise Technology companies.

To learn more about ThroughPut Inc, visit www.throughput.ai

SOURCE ThroughPut Inc.
MADISON, Maine, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sales of TimberHP's loose fill insulation to be followed in the coming months by manufacture and market launch of TimberBatt and TimberBoard products

TimberHP is pleased to announce the beginning of sales of its first wood fiber insulation product, TimberFill, on the North American market. TimberFill, a loose fill insulation, can be blown in or dense packed for high performing, affordable, safe, and carbon negative coverage in attics, wall cavities, floors, and ceilings.

TimberHP is pleased to announce the beginning of sales of its first wood fiber insulation product, TimberFill. Post this

"We're thrilled to begin selling these truly game changing insulation products in North America," said TimberHP CEO Joshua Henry. "We believe the market is hungry for insulation that's high performing and makes homes, their inhabitants and the planet safer and healthier."

TimberHP will be selling TimberFill through a variety of channelsincluding Service Partners, General Insulation, IDI, and numerous independent lumber dealers across the Northeastwith trailer truckloads leaving the company's manufacturing plant, a repurposed and renovated former paper mill in Madison, Maine, weekly.

TimberHP recently announced an agreement with Cameron Ashley Building Products to be the wholesale distribution partner for its entire product offeringTimberFill, TimberBatt and TimberBoard. Cameron Ashley will provide TimberHP products to installers and retailers across the United States.

Sales of TimberFill come after more than a year and a half of renovation work inside the mill by Cianbro Corporation and set up and start up by TimberHP's engineering and operations teams.

"We are leaning into our rich forest products heritage with skilled loggers, sawmill operators and truckers providing the raw materials to create our products," said TimberHP co-founder Matthew O'Malia. "Our capable team guides those materials through a high-tech manufacturing process to create insulation that outperforms the competition. An innovative building material, poised to shake up the North American market. The launch of these carbon-storing products could not come at a more critical time."

Later this fall, TimberHP will commission its TimberBatt manufacturing line, with the TimberBoard line scheduled to start up shortly thereafter. All three TimberHP products are true byproducts of Maine's timber industry, and they enter the market embodying the three sets of traits that highlight and underscore TimberHP's mission, vision, and values.

High Performance

TimberHP wood fiber insulation offers superior building envelope, thermal, and acoustic performance. A comprehensive, above-grade product line to create wind-tight, vapor-open assemblies offering stable, long-term R-values, improved temperature stability, and premium sound protectionpriced for mainstream adoption.

Healthy Planet

TimberHP wood fiber insulation is the only recyclable, renewable, non-toxic, and carbon negative insulation on the market. Made from residual wood chips, TimberHP maximizes the use of our renewable forest resource. A high-value insulator with a negative carbon footprint, TimberHP reduces a building's global warming potential on day one and everyday it operates.

Healthy People

TimberHP wood fiber insulation is safe, moisture managing and sound absorbing. Insulation installers benefit from a product that's free of dangerous fibers that harm skin and negatively impact air quality. TimberHP creates safe, quiet, indoor habitats free from airborne toxins and trapped humidity.

SOURCE TimberHP
Independent research shows that the fast-growing National Automotive Styling Center delivers industry-leading performance and outstanding value for franchisees

BOCA RATON, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tint World Automotive Styling Centers , a leading auto accessory and window tinting franchise, ranks among the top 2% of all franchise businesses and is ranked #1 in the automotive sector for franchisee financing creditworthiness based on independent research by leading franchise market intelligence firm FRANdata.

Tint World's 2023 FRANdata FUND score of 885 leads all other automotive franchises. The company's high score reflects Tint World's proven value and financial reliability for franchisees.

With a FRANdata FUND score of 885, Tint World Automotive Styling Centers, a leading auto accessory and window tinting franchise, ranks #1 in the automotive sector for franchisee financing creditworthiness.

The FUND score is a franchise credit score that rates 12 credit risk categories such as franchise business success rates, franchise unit profitability, and franchisee support. Top-scoring brands such as Tint World excel in each of these metrics, making it easy for lenders to do business with them. The FRANdata FUND score is widely regarded as the best predictor of the future performance of a franchise system that publicly available information can provide.

"Our mission at Tint World is to support the success and growth of our franchisees, and this ranking reinforces that message," said Charles J. Bonfiglio, CEO and president of Tint World. "In addition to a world-class franchise system that mitigates risk for our franchisees, we also offer them unique access to a network of top trusted lenders. Ultimately, our track record of outstanding performance means our franchisees can invest with confidence that the Tint World brand will continue growing and building value."

FRANdata is an industry-leading research and consulting firm offering market intelligence that enables clients to grow their business in franchising. The FUND scoring system is embraced by banks of all sizes that collectively represent over $5 trillion in assets. Even regulators have acknowledged the importance of FUND scores as a credit risk monitoring tool for banks.

"The FUND scores provide a quantifiable measure of Tint World's strong foundation, positioning us firmly for future growth and expansion," said Tint World Chief Investment Officer Jonathan Norman. "These scores reflect our commitment to ensuring the continued success of all our franchisees while highlighting our financial stability, operational efficiency, and strategic vision."

FUND Reports quantify for a lender how a franchise system's performance and characteristics affect the likelihood of a loan default. Used in conjunction with an assessment of the franchisee borrower, lenders are able to determine the overall risk profile associated with a loan, set appropriate terms, and establish appropriate loan capital reserves. FRANdata produces hundreds of FUND Scores annually for lenders that represent the majority of SBA franchise financing and supports commercial lending to franchising as well.

"Over four decades, Tint World has consistently produced impressive outcomes," remarked Darrell Johnson, CEO of FRANdata. "This has established them as a coveted franchise option within the automotive sector. They understand the significance of assisting their franchisees in securing financing. Their FUND score attests to the substantial benefits the franchise offers its franchisees, coupled with their unwavering commitment to supporting their future success."

Tint World Automotive Styling Centers offer sales and installation of auto accessories, mobile electronics, audio video equipment, security systems, custom wheels and tire packages, window tinting, vehicle wraps, paint protection films, detailing services, nano ceramic coatings, maintenance and repair services, and more. Tint World is also the leading provider of residential, commercial and marine computerized window tinting and security film services with locations throughout the U.S. and abroad, with franchise opportunities available worldwide.

About Tint World

Founded in 1982, Tint World Automotive Styling Centers is America's largest and fastest-growing automotive accessories and window tinting international franchise, specializing in window tinting, protective films, vehicle wraps, audio and electronics, security systems, car and truck accessories, wheels and tires, detailing and ceramic coating, and installation services.

Tint World Mobile Services include marine, residential, and commercial window tinting films, solar films, decorative films, safety and security films, and protective ceramic coatings. Tint World has locations in the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with master franchise opportunities available worldwide. To find out more, please visit www.TintWorld.com or https://www.tintworld.com/franchise-opportunities .

About FRANdata

FRANdata is an industry-leading research and consulting firm offering market intelligence that enables our clients to grow their business in franchising. FRANdata offers independent, comprehensive market insight focusing on the franchise ecosystem. By leveraging the largest database of proprietary franchise information in the industry, FRANdata harnesses facts and figures into winning strategies that transform mediocre results into highly successful outcomes for our clients. FRANdata is the creator of the FUND (Franchise Credit Scoring) report which is relied upon by lenders with 5 trillion dollars in assets to assess their franchise credit risks. For more information go to www.frandata.com.

TINT WORLD CONTACT:

Charles J. Bonfiglio, CEO

(888) 629-8777

[email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT:

Heather Ripley

Ripley PR

(865) 977-1973

[email protected]

SOURCE Tint World
Exceptionally High Zinc Values in Stream Sediment Samples

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Trilogy Metals Inc. (TSX: TMQ) (NYSE American: TMQ) ("Trilogy" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an exploration update on its 100%-owned projects in northern Alaska. Simple, low-cost fieldwork involving stream sediment and rock sampling has outlined two target areas prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") and shale-hosted zinc deposits at the Helpmejack Project located in the eastern part of the Ambler Schist Belt. Zinc values more than 3,000 ppm in stream sediments are the highest in Trilogy's extensive regional stream sediment database.

The Helpmejack Project is near, but outside of, the area of interest of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects ("UKMP") which host the world-class Arctic VMS deposit and are held by Ambler Metals LLC ("Ambler Metals"), the joint venture operating company owned equally by Trilogy and South32 Limited (ASX, LSE, JSE: S32; ADR: SOUHY) ("South32"). The project is among several exploration projects located along the proposed route of the Ambler access road (the "Ambler Access Road") (see Figure 1).

Helpmejack Project

The Helpmejack claims cover a 12-kilometer strike length of the Ambler Schist Belt between the UKMP and South32's Roosevelt project. Graphitic schists, calcareous shists, and mafic volcanics seen at Helpmejack resemble those seen in the Ambler Sequence in the western part of the belt.

Stream-sediment geochemistry on samples collected by Trilogy verified two historical stream-sediment sample anomalies. Trilogy traced anomalous levels of zinc to several upstream tributaries and found anomalous levels of zinc and copper in an adjacent catchment area. Many of these streams are strongly anomalous in zinc (>500 ppm) and cadmium (>10 ppm), with anomalous levels of other elements characteristic of Besshi-style VMS deposits and shale-hosted zinc deposits.

The anomalous drainages follow the strike of the geology for five to six kilometers through the center of the claim block. Bright orange iron oxide staining along several of these streams is visible from the air and a grab sample from a ferricrete deposit, adjacent to mapped mafic volcanics, assayed 0.8% zinc with anomalous cadmium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, sulfur and antimony (see Figure 2).

South of this trend, a single stream-sediment sample contained 3,100 ppm zinc and 49 ppm cadmium. Two repeat samples collected nearby contained 3,120 and 3,690 ppm zinc and 39 and 63 ppm cadmium, respectively. These represent the highest zinc and cadmium values in Trilogy's stream sediment sample database of more than 2,800 samples collected throughout the Ambler Schist Belt, including streams draining the Company's flagship, Arctic VMS deposit.

Richard Gosse, VP Exploration of Trilogy Metals, said, "The enrichments found in these stream sediments cannot be dismissed as metal scavenging and are thought to reflect the presence of zinc sulphide mineralization. Stream sediment geochemistry is the most cost-effective regional exploration method in the Ambler Schist Belt and was the method that led to the discovery of the Arctic VMS deposit. Recommended follow-up work at Helpmejack includes ridge and spur soil sampling along with mapping and rock sampling, a low-cost program to find and evaluate the source of the zinc in the stream sediments."

Tony Giardini, President and CEO of Trilogy, commented, "These are encouraging early-stage results achieved with a lean budget  highlighting the ingenuity of our exploration team and boots-on-the-ground exploration philosophy. We see upside in the Helpmejack and Malamute claims, which have relatively low holding costs but offer potential to add value for shareholders, in addition to the primary UKMP asset, especially as the United States is looking to secure domestic supplies of critical metals. They are strategically located in Alaska, in vicinity of the UKMP, South32's large Roosevelt land package currently being explored for copper and zinc mineralization, as well as the proposed Ambler Access Road. We will continue to evaluate work programs for Helpmejack and Malamute to build on these early results."

Malamute Project

The Malamute claims cover an eight-kilometer long east-west valley immediately north of the west end of South32's Roosevelt property. The geology of the Malamute claim block is complicated by the lack of outcrop. Government mapping at a 1:250,000 scale shows quartz mica schists and calcareous schists belonging to the Ambler Schist Belt as well as meta-quartzites, phyllites and marble belonging to the Central Belt.

Stream-sediment sampling on the Malamute claims verified anomalous levels of cobalt in historical sediments collected by the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys between 1977 and 1982. Trilogy's samples contain >300 ppm cobalt and up to 240 ppm copper in four adjacent north-south drainages and define a target area that is approximately 2.5 kilometers wide by six kilometers in length that is largely covered by overburden. Follow-up soil samples along ridges and spurs, and geological mapping are recommended.

Trilogy staked the Helpmejack and Malamute claims in 2021 following an extensive target generation study using publicly available geoscientific data from the State of Alaska as well as historical exploration reports (see Trilogy news release dated October 4, 2021). The claims are held by 995 Exploration Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trilogy.

Ambler Schist Belt

The Ambler Schist Belt stretches for over 300 kilometers in an east-west direction along the southern boundary of the Brooks Range (see Figure 1). With the discovery and delineation of the Arctic VMS and Bornite copper-cobalt-germanium deposits, and subsequent exploration in the area, the host stratigraphy of the western part of the belt is well defined. It comprises a 1.0 to 1.5-kilometer thick sequence of metasedimentary and bi-modal metavolcanic rocks known as the Ambler Sequence which hosts economically significant VMS occurrences including the Arctic, Sunshine, Smucker and Sun deposits.

In the eastern part of the belt, particularly in the Survey Pass quadrangle, reconnaissance scale mapping (1:250,000 scale) carried out by the United States Geological Survey ("USGS") did not capture the level of detail needed to differentiate the Ambler Sequence units identified in the west. Exploration was carried out in the eastern part of the belt in the seventies and eighties by several companies, including Anaconda that discovered the Roosevelt VMS occurrence.

QA/QC Program

Stream sediment samples and the single grab sample described in this news release weighed between 0.12 and 0.52 kilograms. Location was recorded using a GPS and a sample tag was inserted into each sample bag. Samples were dried in the field and shipped to ALS Minerals laboratory in Vancouver, Canada. ALS Minerals is an independent laboratory certified under ISO 9001:2008 and accredited under ISO/IEC 17025:2005. ALS Minerals includes its own internal quality control samples comprising certified reference materials, blanks, and pulp duplicates. The samples were sieved using a 180-micron screen prior to completing multi-element analyses by AuME-ST43 analytical code (gold by fire assay and multi-elements by aqua regia digest with ICP finish).

Qualified Person

Richard Gosse, P.Geo., Vice President Exploration for Trilogy Metals Inc., is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and S-K 1300. Mr. Gosse has reviewed the technical information in this news release and approves the disclosure contained herein.

About Trilogy Metals

Trilogy Metals Inc. is a metal exploration and development company which holds a 50 percent interest in Ambler Metals LLC, which has a 100 percent interest in the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in northwestern Alaska. On December 19, 2019, South32, a globally diversified mining and metals company, exercised its option to form a 50/50 joint venture with Trilogy. The UKMP is located within the Ambler Mining District which is one of the richest and most-prospective known copper-dominant districts in the world. It hosts world-class polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") deposits that contain copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver, and carbonate replacement deposits which have been found to host high-grade copper and cobalt mineralization. Exploration efforts have been focused on two deposits in the Ambler Mining District  the Arctic VMS deposit and the Bornite carbonate replacement deposit. Both deposits are located within a land package that spans approximately 190,929 hectares. Ambler Metals has an agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., an Alaska Native Corporation that provides a framework for the exploration and potential development of the Ambler Mining District in cooperation with local communities. Trilogy's vision is to develop the Ambler Mining District into a premier North American copper producer while protecting and respecting subsistence livelihoods.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, perceived merit of properties and claim blocks, outcomes of studies and testwork, and the Company's plans to provide further updates and the timing thereof are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include the uncertainties involving our ability to conserve cash and to raise capital at terms favorable to the Company, or at all and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended November 30, 2022 filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and in other Company reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. The Company's forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

The findings described in this news release are conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration work to estimate a mineral resource. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a mineral resource. The exploration results described in this news release therefore do not represent, and should not be construed to be, an estimate of a mineral resource or mineral reserve.

SOURCE Trilogy Metals Inc.
SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) is excited to announce that the Art Truck will be hitting the road again this school year with a compelling new exhibition by artist and researcher Nina Elder. The exhibition, What Sustains, features intricate large-scale drawings that narrate the complex relationships between humanity and nature. In this roving exhibition, students are encouraged to engage with Elder's thought-provoking artworks and contemplate the impact of mining and deforestation. These altered landscapes represent the enduring footprint of industry and act as both scars on the land as well as reminders of the vital resources that support humanity's needs. What Sustains will be on view through August 1, 2024, as it travels to schools and community events statewide.

The UMOCA Art Truck brings exciting and accessible contemporary artcreated by leading local and national artistsdirectly to schools and community venues across the state free of charge. In the 2022-23 school year, the Art Truck served over 10,000 students throughout Utah and visited 64 schools and community events from Logan to Escalante. Each visit includes the expertise of a trained museum art educator who leads students through a meaningful exploration of the exhibition. Teachers are provided with structured lesson plans to supplement their tour and integrate the Art Truck into their curriculum.

SOURCE Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the United States Commission on Civil Rights releases the report, The Federal Response to Anti-Asian Racism in the United States. Based on extensive research, expert and public testimony, the report assesses the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. from 2019 through 2021, and the federal role in preventing and enforcing federal hate crime laws.

This report examines three main areas: 1) national trends and data regarding the rise of hate incidents and hate crimes against members of Asian communities; 2) local and state law enforcement's prevention and reporting practices regarding hate crimes; and 3) federal efforts and policies that encourage greater participation in reporting hate crime incidents, as well as prosecution and enforcement efforts to prevent hate crimes.

"The report indicates that language barriers are impeding the reporting of incidents and that many incidents that do not meet the legal criteria for hate crimes, such as racial slurs or being spat on, still evoke fear but go unaccounted for in official statistics," said Commission Chair, Rochelle Mercedes Garza. "Ultimately, the absence of adequate performance metrics poses a significant challenge in assessing the federal government's effectiveness in combating the surge in hate crimes against the Asian community. While these barriers continue to exist, the Commission has outlined a holistic strategy to combat anti-Asian hate incidents, ranging from data collection improvements and legal enforcement to community support and education initiatives."

"I am proud to have worked on the United States of America's official, congressionally authorized, report on what's been happening to our community since the dubbing of COVID-19 as the 'China Virus' inflicting people with the 'Kung Flu'. Words matter, as this report shows," said Commissioner Glenn Magpantay.

Agreed upon by a bi-partisan majority of Commissioners, the report contains the following Commission specific findings and recommendations - a first since 2019:

Findings

Data collection & reporting:

A major impediment to understanding the severity and magnitude of hate crimes against persons of Asian descent is the lack of comprehensive data.

The transition to the NIBRS data collection has been slow for some agencies: for 2021, the number of participating agencies within the FBI hate crime database was 11,834, compared to the 15,138 participating agencies for 2020 data, and many of the agencies that have not submitted 2021 data are the largest jurisdictions.

Recommendations

Training & Partnerships:

Prosecutors and law enforcement should vigorously investigate and prosecute hate crimes and harassment against Asian Americans.

First responders should be provided with training aimed at teaching a clear understanding of what constitutes a hate crime in their jurisdiction.

Language access:

Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and victim services need to identify critical deficiencies in Limited English Proficient (LEP) programs for individuals who need language assistance.

As part of the examination, the Commission held a public briefing on March 24, 2023, where Commissioners and Commission staff heard from subject matter experts such as government officials, academics, policy experts, law enforcement professionals, advocates, and impacted persons. The Commission also accepted written materials from the public for consideration in the final report.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is the only independent, bipartisan agency charged with advising the President and Congress on civil rights and reporting annually on federal civil rights enforcement. Our 56 state and territory Advisory Committees offer a broad perspective on civil rights concerns at state and local levels. For more information about the Commission, please visit www.usccr.gov and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Contact: Angelia Rorison

[email protected]

SOURCE U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Iapetus Infrastructure Services (IIS) added to its expanding team of utility industry experts by hiring former Director of the Utility Arborist Association (UAA) Tom Sullivan as a Senior Advisor. Sullivan brings over 40 years of electric utility experience to the fast-growing, Houston-based, infrastructure services firm.

"Tom Sullivan is one of the giants of the vegetation management industry," Iapetus COO Tejpal Singh explains. Post this Industry expert Tom Sullivan joins Iapetus Infrastructure Services as Senior Advisor

A Certified Arborist and Massachusetts Licensed Forester, Sullivan's impressive career has included managing the Transmission Forestry Department at National Grid and serving as Project Management consultant to other northeast U.S. utilities. His significant contributions to the industry were recognized in 2004 when he was presented with UAA's Utility Arborist award.

Sullivan joins a growing list of experienced industry experts brought on by IIS in recent years, including Utility Vegetation Management (UVM) pioneer Phil Charlton and former Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) leader Steve Hallmark. Tej Singh, COO of IIS, sees the addition of Sullivan as a move that will help IIS remain on the cutting edge of the industry as it continues to develop agile new solutions for its clients.

"Tom Sullivan is one of the giants of the vegetation management industry," Singh explains. "We're always looking to add innovators like Tom, who think differently about our industry and seek to challenge the norms. Having trailblazing thought leaders in our corner allows us to provide our clients with strategic, innovative solutions that are setting new standards across the U.S. energy and utility landscape."

About Iapetus Infrastructure Services

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, IIS is an independent, minority- and veteran-owned company that brings a fresh, innovative approach to solving our customers' unique challenges in utility vegetation management. With a deep bench of highly respected operational and thought leaders, IIS offers field and aerial services spanning program design and development, operational oversight (safety, asset, and vegetation inspection), training and mentoring, and technology enablement (e.g., drone/UAS, GIS, UVM work management, and live dashboards). The IIS suite of operating companies includes Atlas Field Services, Gold Coast Utility Specialists, Hyperion Safety Environmental Solutions, Soaring Eagle Technologies, and the Unmanned Aviation Training Institute. IIS is also the proud host of the Trees and Lines podcast. For more information, visit iiservices.com.

Contact: Frank Keenan

[email protected]

281-385-9806

SOURCE Iapetus Holdings
It's unlikely that anything positive awaits our planet - at least, that's what scientists say. Researchers have managed to create a virtual simulation of the future, and the predictions, unfortunately, are not encouraging. Using data on the movement of continents and fluctuations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, scientists have projected a very distant future.

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250 million years ago, reptiles evolved. Different types of mammals emerged. Today, researchers believe that mammals are likely to live for another 250 million years. The New York Times explains what will happen next.

What the future holds for the Earth

The study was led by Alexander Farnsworth, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Bristol. According to him, the Earth will become too hot for all mammals. Neither humans nor animals will be able to live on land.

Three factors will provoke a situation in which the climate will become deadly for almost all living things:

changes in the geography of the continents;

the Sun is too bright;

an increase in carbon dioxide.

Dr. Farnsworth and his colleagues published their study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Three killer factors

Astronomers hypothesize that the Sun will become brighter and brighter, and in 7.6 billion years it will swallow the Earth altogether.

As the Sun "sends" more energy to the planet, the Earth's atmosphere will heat up, causing water to evaporate from the oceans and continents. Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, so it traps even more heat. In two billion years, the Earth's surface may become so hot that the oceans will boil over.

The history of the Earth is also the history of continental movement. The last supercontinent, Pangaea, existed from 330 to 170 million years ago. According to the study, a new supercontinent will form along the equator in 250 million years. It was given a preliminary name - Pangea Ultima. And the new continent will be much hotter than modern continents. The Sun is the main reason. Every 110 million years, the energy released by the Sun increases by 1 percent.

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The formation of a supercontinent will worsen the overall planetary situation. The Earth will heat up faster than the ocean. In fact, the continents will be pushed together into a giant landmass, with a sharp rise in surface temperature.

Pangea Ultima will also affect the climate due to its topography, which will include vast stretches of plain far from the ocean. On today's Earth, rainwater and carbon dioxide react with minerals on the slopes of mountains and hills, which are then carried out to sea and fall to the seabed. The result is that carbon dioxide is steadily removed from the atmosphere. But when Pangea Ultima forms on Earth, this conveyor belt will slow down.

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The supercontinent is likely to be filled with volcanoes that will emit carbon dioxide. Due to the turbulent movements of molten rocks deep in the Earth's interior, volcanoes can release huge bursts of carbon dioxide for thousands of years. Greenhouse gas explosions will lead to a sharp rise in temperature. This, of course, will be another cause of mass extinction.

However, Wolfgang Kiessling, a climate scientist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, emphasized that the model does not take into account a factor that may be of great importance for the survival of mammals: the gradual decline in the amount of heat coming out of the Earth's interior. This decline could lead to fewer volcanic eruptions and less carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL reported that scientists predicted dire consequences of the awakening of zombie bacteria, one of which would be global extinction.

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Subscribe to OBOZREVATEL 'sTelegram and Viberchannels to keep up with the latest developments.
HCM Excellence Awards reward organizations for best practices and initiatives that empower, engage and support employees

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Vena , the Intelligent Complete Planning platform loved by finance and trusted by business, today announced that it received recent recognition from the Brandon Hall Group in its 2023 HCM Excellence Awards. The company received awards in the Leadership Development, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Talent Acquisition categories. This marks the second consecutive win for Vena in the last category, as the company took home honors in Talent Acquisition in 2022.

"We are honored to again receive recognition from the Brandon Hall Group," said Tracey Mikita, Chief People Officer at Vena. "As Vena has grown as a business, we have scaled our people programs to keep pace with our growth into a global organization. This includes focusing in on and strengthening our leadership programs and doubling down on our ability to onboard, retain and engage employees. These investments have become competitive advantages for us as we recruit new employees across Canada, the U.S., U.K. and beyond."

The 2023 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards recognize best practices for initiatives in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, Sales Performance, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and the Future of Work. Vena was recognized for the following initiatives:

Leadership Development, Best Advance in Leadership Development:

Vena received a silver award for Best Advance in Leadership Development for the expansion of its leadership development program into a three-year progressive curriculum. It has grown from one program and involves developing leadership skills at all levels of the organization, increasing retention of high-potential employees (HiPo) and closing identified skill gaps among newly promoted leaders.

The curriculum now comprises four programs: Early Foundations of Leadership to address future leaders (HiPo); Leadership Onboarding for newly promoted or new-to-Vena leaders; a redesigned Leadership Experience mid-level program; and the introduction of a Culture and Purpose program, all of which embody Vena's Leadership Philosophy and CORE values.

Talent Acquisition, Best New Hire Onboarding Program:

The company was recognized with a bronze award for its redesigned onboarding program with an emphasis on providing a collaborative experience to new hires and building rapport even before Day One. This includes a technology platform that automates and measures employee experiences, as well as covers need-to-know new hire information.

The onboarding program maintains a strong focus on Vena's people-centric culture and values, including personalized journeys with just-in-time training that is fully automated and measured at every step to support ongoing evolution and improvement.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Best Use of Employee Resource Groups to Address DE&I:

Vena also received a bronze award for its deployment of a robust Employee Resource Group strategy to support the overall business objective of building and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture in which everyone has the freedom to be themselves.

From one group in 2018Network for Women+an inclusive group of women, gender non-conforming persons and their alliesthe company now supports eight Vena Resource Groups in total:

Vena Cares, which supports the organization's charitable efforts and community service

Melanite, a resource group for Vena's Black employees and their allies

Mental Health, to foster mental health and well-being throughout the company

Spectrum, which serves as a resource group for Vena's 2SLGBTQIA+ members and allies

Va11y, a resource group that is focused on disability and accessibility advocacy

Green Team, the company's sustainability and green initiatives resource group

Families, which fosters a sense of community, support and resources for employees in a family caregiver or ally role

"We're overjoyed to receive this recognition for our efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as our investments in onboarding and developing future leaders," said Vena CEO Hunter Madeley. "At Vena, we believe empowering employees to thrive fuels innovation and drives our success. These awards reflect our commitment to fostering a workplace in which all talent can maximize their potential. We truly appreciate the many individuals and teams across the organization who contribute their time, effort and passion to building and supporting an engaging and inclusive culture at Vena."

About Vena

Vena is the only Intelligent Platform for Complete Planning that's natively integrated with Microsoft 365, empowering teams to plan the way they think. Vena streamlines financial and operational planning, reporting and analysis processes, and provides advanced analytics and modeling capabilities to help business, finance and operations leaders make informed business decisions. With Vena, you can leverage the power of Excel and AI-powered insights in a unified, cloud-based platform that enhances collaboration, scalability and security. Over 1,600 of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit venasolutions.com .

Media Contact

Jonathan Paul

Senior Director, Content & Communications, Vena

[email protected]

SOURCE Vena
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Martini Media, an independent marketing firm connecting luxury brands with affluent and high-net-worth audiences, today announced the promotion of Vincent Krsulich to Chief Executive Officer.

Vincent Krsulich

"Martini Media has grown to a point where I am thrilled to announce the elevation of Vincent Krsulich to Chief Executive Officer," said Aaron Broder, CEO of Evolve Media LLC, Martini Media's parent company. Krsulich joined Martini Media in 2015 as SVP Sales and Marketing and rose to the position of President in 2019. "Martini Media continues to be the leader in digital luxury space thanks to Vincent and his team," added Broder.

"We have such a clean digital approach here at Martini Media. We all collectively think about our clients first, which is the best part of the job," said Vincent Krsulich.

During his time at Martini Media, Krsulich helped solidified the mission of the company. He has driven ad sales revenue along with profitability, added new products, and elevated the Martini Media portfolio.

Krsulich was previously the SVP Sales at Inside Hook and Publisher of Men's Journal. He received a Bachelor's of Science degree from Loyola University of Maryland. He is a member of the board of advisors for the passion-based publishers The Whiskey Wash and Wonderlust.

Established in 2008, Martini Media specializes in connecting luxury brands with premium audiences through proprietary insights, media, and custom content. The company has successfully produced high-impact, cross-platform marketing campaigns for more than 300 premium advertisers. The Company's web site (www.martini.media) contains more information.

SOURCE Martini Media
Fremont -based Washington Hospital Healthcare System and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alexander Sah, MD, performed the first cases ever with the TMINI Miniature Robotic System.





-based Washington Hospital Healthcare System and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alexander Sah, MD, performed the first cases ever with the TMINI Miniature Robotic System. Fremont -based orthopedic robotics innovator, THINK Surgical, developed the TMINI system for total knee replacement.

FREMONT, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington Hospital Healthcare System includes a 415 bed acute-care facility in Fremont that is committed to meeting the needs and challenges of the ever-changing community it serves in the Bay Area of California.

THINK Surgical received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the TMINI Miniature Robotic System in April 2023 and is now progressing with the commercial launch of the product across the United States.

Washington Hospital Healthcare System first to use TMINI Miniature Robotic System from THINK Surgical Post this TMINI Miniature Robotic System

The TMINI system includes a wireless robotic handpiece that assists surgeons in performing total knee replacement. Following a CT based three-dimensional surgical plan, the TMINI robotic handpiece automatically compensates for surgeon hand movement to precisely locate surgical instruments. The TMINI system is easy to use and replaces many of the manual instruments currently used for knee replacement surgery.

THINK Surgical is committed to an open implant library and will continue to add new implant options to the platform. This open implant approach gives surgeons the freedom to choose an implant for each patient unlike existing robotic platforms which can only be used with one brand of implant.

Larry LaBossiere RN, CEN, CNS, MBA, MSN, Vice President and COO at Washington Hospital Healthcare System commented: "THINK Surgical has introduced a system that is unique to the market. Most companies have robots that require utilization of their specific implants. THINK's open implant platform makes it possible for the TMINI system to support implants from different implant manufacturers. Their system is also designed for operating efficiency which benefits patients and providers. We are happy to partner with another Fremont company by allowing them to see this technology in action and support important data collection."

Dr. Alexander Sah, MD, Medical Co-Director  Institute for Joint Restoration, Washington Hospital said: "Handheld technology will be the next great evolution in robotic surgery, especially with new users and in outpatient surgery centers. We are proud to be at the leading edge of innovation, providing our patients with exceptional knee replacement outcomes."

Stuart Simpson, President and Chief Executive Officer said: "We are delighted to be partnering with Dr. Sah and Washington Hospital. This collaboration between a local technology company and a local hospital in Fremont will help bring an important new technology to patients in the community. Together we will make this technology accessible to more surgeons and patients across the United States and around the world."

About THINK Surgical, Inc.

THINK Surgical, Inc., is a privately held U.S.-based technology innovator that develops and markets orthopedic robots. THINK Surgical robots are open platforms providing support for implant brands from multiple manufacturers, enabling the choice of implant to be driven by the surgeon.

THINK Surgical and TMINI are trademarks of THINK Surgical, Inc.

Media Contacts:



THINK Surgical Washington Hospital Healthcare System Nick Margree Jerri Randrup [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE THINK Surgical, Inc.
WGL Energy Services chooses Molecule for modern ETRM capabilities designed for today's energy trading marketplace.

HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Molecule Software, the leader in modern cloud-based trading and risk management software for energy and commodities, announced that they were selected by WGL Energy Services (WGL Energy), as the retail energy supplier's energy trading risk management (ETRM) platform.

WGL Energy is a leader in competitive energy supply and environmentally-friendly energy offerings in the Mid-Atlantic for residential, government, commercial, and industrial customers.

WGL Energy selects Molecule's ETRM/CTRM platform

As a retail electric provider, WGL Energy relies on an ETRM system to manage wholesale hedging for physical and financial gas and power trades, exchange power and gas, FTRs, and renewable energy credits (RECs). WGL Energy began evaluating solutions to replace an incumbent legacy ETRM system, which had been in place since 2006.

"We were looking for a better integration with market data and a system that could help us manage our growing activity in renewable energy products," said Phil Woodyard, Chief Operating Officer at WGL Energy.

The WGL Energy team chose Molecule because it provided the modern functionality that meets the demands of today's volatile and shifting marketplace. The company will also utilize Molecule's Elektra add-on for power and Hive add-on for renewables.

"Molecule provides a powerful platform designed for the products in the market today and flexible access to the data to design reports and outputs to meet our requirements," said Woodyard. "Additionally, they have an implementation process that is efficient without creating a large burden on our internal resources."

"We're truly excited to have WGL Energy onboard with Molecule, and we look forward to assisting the team in navigating the ever-changing energy market," said Sameer Soleja, founder and CEO of Molecule. "We're here to support their mission of delivering dependable energy products and services to their customers."

About Molecule

Molecule is modern, reliable energy and commodities trading risk management software - built in the cloud with an intuitive, easy-to-use experience at its core. Molecule's ETRM/CTRM platform is built for energy and commodity traders, risk managers, and operations teams at hedge funds, IPPs, producers, and world-scale energy and PE firms  in power, gas, crude, refined products, renewables, chemicals, agricultural products, fuel, and cryptocurrencies. Molecule automates routine tasks and complex position, P&L, and risk calculations - getting your ETRM/CTRM out of your way so you can focus on more important things. Learn more about Molecule at www.molecule.io.

About WGL Energy

For over 25 years, WGL Energy has been providing competitive retail electricity, natural gas, renewable energy, and carbon offsets to large enterprises, small businesses, and homeowners across the Mid-Atlantic, including Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.wglenergy.com, or follow us @wglenergy on Twitter, WGL Energy on LinkedIn, as well as Facebook.

SOURCE Molecule Software
WHITE VILLAGE, the first dopo-salone event in partnership with MTV, was a great success with the public.

MILLAN, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the most intense and dynamic editions of WHITE has just concluded, brimming with novelties that filled the schedule from September 22 to 25. Organized with the patronage of the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Milan, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), ICE - Agency for the Promotion of Italian Companies Abroad, and in partnership with Confartigianato Imprese.

WHITE recorded a consistent number of visitors compared to September 2022, with a 5% rise in foreign buyers thanks to the strategy and growth of the EXPO WHITE project. WHITE VILLAGE, the first dopo-salone event in partnership with MTV, was a great success with the public. (PRNewsfoto/WHITE)

From Friday, September 22 to Monday, September 25, the spaces in the Tortona Fashion District were populated by industry professionals and the city's public, all seeking the latest trends for the Spring- Summer 2024 season. It is one of the most relevant and dynamic events during Milan Fashion Week and has managed to attract numerous buyers, press, and industry professionals from around the world since its inception. WHITE reaffirms its position as the leading international reference platform for women's fashion companies and a showcase for new trends. Over 360 brands were presented, with a perfect balance between Italian and foreign companies (50% Italian and 50% foreign).

There was a significant increase in buyers from France, the US, and the Middle East, and a strong presence from China, Japan, and Korea. Among the buyers, we can mention 24s.com (FR), Samaritaine (FR), Lost&Found (US), Neiman Marcus (US), Holt Renfrew (CANADA), Harvey Nichols Doha (Qatar), Galeries Lafayette Dubai (UAE), Level Shoes (UAE), Chaloub Group (UAE), and from Saudi Arabia Westerly, Rubaiyat, Chapter4, and Pattern.

"We experienced an exceptional fashion week with Milan crowded with industry insiders. This demonstrates how important fashion is for the city, with attendees from all over the world. WHITE contributes significantly with its numbers to achieving this result. Among the attendees of this edition, as was the case in February, a distinct increase in foreign participants is evident, showcasing that WHITE's long-standing strategy is yielding results" said Massimiliano Bizzi, Founder of WHITE.

The Secret Rooms project renewed its successful format, featuring five special spaces where international emerging talents unveiled their latest collections.

A selection of ten Spanish designers also participated to the show, thanks to the collaboration with ICEX Espana Exportacion e Inversiones, which began in September 2017 and continues to this day.

WHITE's vision aims for expansion and breaking down barriers, promoting fluid communication between the market and creative realities from around the world through EXPO WHITE. Designers and brands from countries that belong outside the conventional fashion areas, gathered up at the show to present their fashion visions.

At the Visconti Pavilion, EXPO WHITE hosted the Saudi 100 Brands project, the Fashion Commission's program that promotes fashion designers from Saudi Arabia. On the evening of September 20, at Palazzo Serbelloni, the collections of the designers were featured in a fashion show accompanied by the performance of the dancers from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. From September 19 to 28, a selection of Saudi brands were featured at the pop-up shop at the famous luxury concept store 10 Corso Como.

Directly from the first edition of the Yerevan Fashion Week held earlier in the summer, a group of Armenian brands showcased their collections at WHITE.

Fashion Firm SA introduced ten South African designers, promoting their entry into new markets.

The Lounge space was dedicated to the collaboration between WHITE and Scale7, the first fashion and design business incubator founded by the Qatar Development Bank (QDB) in collaboration with M7. In the Basement, avant-garde brands that diverge from mainstream styles and have well-defined brand identities were presented, while in the lofts, well- established names renewed their presence.

From September 22 to 24 in the evening, the Tortona Fashion District was animated by the first edition of WHITE VILLAGE, the first dopo-salone event organized during Milan Fashion Week.

There was also a significant turnout at the MUDEC auditorium for the program "The couture code: The impact of AI on the fashion industry," which saw the participation of numerous partners, including Albini Group, an important Italian textile company, and Mesmerise, a leading artificial intelligence company founded in 2016.

WHITE once again reaffirmed its association with excellence, research, innovation, both established and emerging fashion trends, and sustainability, capable of attracting a diverse industry audience while also ensuring well-deserved visibility for the brands participating and all of its partners.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223078/WHITE.jpg

SOURCE WHITE
Designed in USA

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WILBUR launches its boldly futuristic, advanced automotive-inspired approach to horology into orbit for its latest release: the world-class, avant-garde WILBUR LEO JW1. Combining a truly innovative, one-of-a-kind approach to the classic jumping hour complication with an intricate, sculptural design and visual touches lifted straight from the famous UFO wreckage in Roswell, New Mexico, the LEO collection elevates WILBUR's bold horological vision to greater heights than ever before. The LEO is also the platform for the WILBUR Engine One - the brand's first-ever movement, designed in-house at CEO and Chief Designer Jason Wilbur's Southern California design studio and made in Switzerland. After seven years of development and countless hours of styling and engineering, the LEO is ready for blast off.

Wilbur Watch Co exemplifies the spirit of pioneers by pushing the limits of what's possible. Post this Wilbur Watch Co LEO JW1.1

Combining elements from world-class custom car chassis and sci-fi mechanical structures, the LEO's eight-part modular titanium housing goes far beyond the typical watch case. WILBUR's modular approach gives every angle and facet of this design the utmost attention to detail. WILBUR's intelligent approach to ergonomic design and lightweight construction ensures this watch also fits a wide range of wrists.

Alien hieroglyphs appear to dominate the LEO's complex, multi-layered skeleton dial, spread across a pair of broad overlapping suspended disks Inspired by symbols found on "UFO wreckage" in Roswell, New Mexico, these two sets of angular, striking markings converge at the center of the dial underneath a wild, avant-garde suspended skeleton bridge. In the bridge's central ring the "alien language" is deciphered, and the central jump hour display is revealed.

With a proprietary alloy never before used in a watch movement, The WILBUR Engine One movement appears to float inside the LEO's exoskeleton thanks to WILBUR's signature case suspension system that keeps the movement and dial secure while giving them a bold, almost weightless look inside the case. Each WILBUR LEO's performance is every bit as cutting-edge as its styling. A dependable 50-hour power reserve and a smooth 4 HZ frequency means the LEO isn't just a game-changing design  it's ready for practical use as well.

"Welcome to the new Wild-West. The WILBUR brand exemplifies the spirit of pioneers by pushing the limits of what's possible and never backing down from a challenge  just like our customers."  Jason Wilbur

The WILBUR LEO JW1 ranges from $32,500 to $36,500. WilburWatchCo.com

SOURCE Wilbur Watch Co
These materials are distributed by BCW on behalf of the Environment Agency  Abu Dhabi, and additional information is on file with the Department of Justice.

Environment Agency  Abu Dhabi delegation connects with global stakeholders to advance cross-sectoral collaboration on biodiversity and conservation

NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Women-led discussions and research on climate change were more prominent than ever during the 78th UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC, as the impact becomes even more apparent. Key events and opportunities during the world's largest gathering of global leaders showcased the growing noteworthy female experts and scientists in climate thought leadership and action.

Maitha Al Hameli, Section Head, Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation, Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and Montana Jernigan, Individual Giving Officer, Billion Oyster Project discuss the rehabilitation and restoration of the marine ecosystem in New York Harbor. Terri Carta, Executive Director, Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy and Maitha Al Hameli, Section Head, Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation, Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi exchange ideas about mangrove restoration projects in New York and Abu Dhabi.

"Climate change is a movement led by women. Every opportunity to connect and share knowledge, exchange ideas and work together is a step forward for gender equality, biodiversity and our planet. Everyone has a stake in its success  our projects to restore and rehabilitate seabeds and fisheries not only impact oceans and climate but also help strengthen economies," said Ms. Maitha Al Hameli, Section Head, Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation at the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi.

During her time in New York, Ms. Al Hameli was an invited speaker at two of the most important side events at the UN General Assembly: the Concordia Annual Summit, where she spoke alongside business leaders in finance and technology, and the Leaders on Purpose CEO Summit, where she engaged with key climate and banking experts. Ms. Al Hameli also spoke on the main stage at Climate Week as part of a panel on biodiversity. All three panels featured women leaders in sustainability sharing critical perspectives on climate and the importance of cooperative cross-sector action.

Ms. Al Hameli's field visits included a site tour with the Billion Oyster Project on September 19, which centered around a discussion of similar efforts in Abu Dhabi and the Billion Oyster Project's work to rehabilitate and restore the marine ecosystem in the New York Harbor by adding one billion oysters to this critical marine environment. In Abu Dhabi, EAD's coral nursery project aims to rejuvenate deteriorated reefs along the emirate by identifying, studying and relocating resilient coral species.

"As a rising partner in the ocean conservation space, we look forward to working with Ms. Al Hameli and the Abu Dhabi Government on their ambitious plans for future conservation efforts in the Middle East in advance of COP 28," said Peter Malinowski, Executive Director of Billion Oyster Project.

Ms. Al Hameli also visited the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, where she met with Executive Director Terri Carta to exchange ideas about mangrove restoration projects in both New York and Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Mangrove Initiative launched in February 2022 at Al Jubail Mangrove Park uses cutting-edge drone technology to create planting solutions for mangroves, which are integral to the marine ecosystem and mitigate the effects of climate change. The Environment Agency  Abu Dhabi and the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy are progressing city-level climate change projects centered around restoring critical marine life while focusing on community and people engagement to increase buy-in and stakeholder interest in the environment.

"City-to-city and people-to-people exchanges are critical building blocks of climate action. It was our incredible honor to welcome Ms. Maitha Al Hameli and the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi team to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge at Gateway National Recreation Area to showcase the West Pond Living Shoreline project that aims to protect vulnerable coastline and critical wetland habitat," said Terri Carta, Executive Director of Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy. "We are also eager to learn from experts like Al Hameli, whose experience with climate change adaptation and nature-based solutions can help us increase our impact and offer hope for the future  here in New York City and around the world."

These women exemplify the importance of strong female leadership and the need for collaboration across borders and institutions. Al Hameli added, "The opportunity to speak and participate during key side events at the UN General Assembly and Climate Week as well as meet leading field experts was critical for global collaboration to take action on key Sustainable Development Goals. When we can have these important conversations, all groups are better equipped to lay the foundations for cooperation and solving our global climate crisis."

About the Environment Agency  Abu Dhabi:

Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) is the prime custodian for climate action alignment and coordination in Abu Dhabi and has been leading collaborative efforts with stakeholders including academia, international organizations, conservation organizations, other governments and the private sector to drive science-based, data-backed innovative solutions to a variety of climate issues in line with global, national and Emirate-level goals.

Press Contact:

Shari Smith

917-451-0087

[email protected]

Web Site: https://www.ead.gov.ae/en

SOURCE Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD)
The Awards Recognize Xello's EdTech Innovations to Support Teachers and Students

TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Xello , the award-winning K-12 college and career readiness program, was recognized as the recipient of two 2023 Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence in the Best for Back to School Primary and Best for Back to School Secondary categories.

The Awards of Excellence are based on evaluations by educators using education technology every day to support effective teaching and learning practices. It is Xello's second straight year to be honored in the Primary category and its first in the Secondary category.

"We're thrilled to receive these Awards of Excellence," said Matt McQuillen, CEO and co-founder of Xello. "We strive to create an exceptional student experience at all ages through easy-to-use, dynamic softwareand our turnkey educator tools are designed with teachers, counselors, and administrators in mind as well."

Xello for Elementary and Xello for Middle and High School are used in thousands of schools across North America to help students spark career curiosity and develop connections between academic success and future aspirations.

"We talk about training for college and career, but not many resources on the market support it," wrote the Awards of Excellence judges. "This tool is a great solution to support students in understanding their needs and charting a path to success after graduation."

Through story-driven lessons and activities, Xello for Elementary enhances critical thinking, problem solving, cooperation and communication skills. With age-appropriate content and information, students develop greater self-awareness, the ability to self-reflect and a better understanding of pathways associated with each career. Students are encouraged to produce, upload and store work that can further enrich their experience and that showcases who they are, their future goals and their career ambitions.

Xello for Middle and High School puts students at the heart of their journey of self-discovery through assessments that build self-knowledge and personalized, shareable portfolios to showcase their interests, skills and abilities. Students can also explore college and career options, track higher education applications and use the interactive planning tools to create an actionable roadmap for reaching their goals.

Tech & Learning's Awards of Excellence program, "The Best Tools for Back to School," is designed to help educators find the most impressive products and solutions that will support their work in any learning environment. Eligible products include hardware, software, curriculum, and more.

"With ESSER funding coming to an end, and emerging tech like AI exploding into the market with little guidance as to how best to integrate new technology into the classroom, it's more important than ever to curate the many education products on the market to ensure your investments support innovative teaching and learning," said Christine Weiser, Tech & Learning Content Director. "Our judges chose the products based on their versatility, compatibility, value and ability to help schools solve challenges and support continuous instruction."

A complete list of award recipients can be found here .

About Xello

Xello's mission is to help anyone, anywhere in the world create a successful future through self-knowledge, exploration and planning. With more than 20 years in the education software industry, the team at Xello has helped millions of educators and millions of students become future ready with its suite of online platforms. Based in Toronto, Canada, Xello's award-winning future readiness programs are used globally by nearly eight million students and educators. Learn more about Xello at www.xello.world .

SOURCE Xello Inc.
BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kunshan, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province, held a Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show on Monday to promote cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show marks the 11th edition of such activity since its inception in 2013.

Photo shows the scene of the Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show in Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area. (Provided by Kunshan Converged Media Center/Yuan Xinyu)

It is noted that digital lighting, Augmented Reality (AR) and other technologies have been used in the show to make the activity more interactive.

There are two main lighting areas for the festival, including the Zhouzhuang Light Area and the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area.

The activity in the Zhouzhuang Light Area will last from September 25 to January 1, 2024, while that in the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area will come to an end on October 23 this year.

At the lighting ceremony on Monday, Kunshan Huiju Square was awarded to be a demonstration base for cultural tourism exchanges between Jiangsu and Taiwan within China.

Kunshan is one of the regions with the most intensive Taiwanese investment and business in the Chinese mainland, the most frequent exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the mainland, and the most fruitful cross-straits exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past 30 years, more than 5,800 Taiwan-funded projects have settled in Kunshan, with a cumulative investment of nearly 70 billion U.S. dollars, and nearly 100,000 Taiwanese have lived and worked in Kunshan.

Kunshan will accelerate the high-quality development to deepen cross-strait industrial cooperation, and make effort to provide a good environment for the Taiwanese to study, work and live here, according to Zhou Wei, Party chief of Kunshan City.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/336289.html

SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road
BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- China has beefed up efforts to deepen its international cooperation in the shipping industry and made new achievements.

Major achievements related to open cooperation in the shipping industry, including the release of the Shanghai port-Los Angeles port green shipping corridor implementation plan outline and the launch of the international container transport service platform, were announced during the 2023 North Bund Forum on international shipping and aviation, which kicked off on Friday in Shanghai.

The 2023 Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Center Development Index Report is released at the 2023 North Bund Forum on international shipping and aviation, which kicked off on Friday in Shanghai.

At the forum, Shanghai port together with ports of Hamburg, Dunkirk and Singapore jointly announced that they will further deepen their friendly relations in the future.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the restoration of China's IMO membership, said Kitack Lim, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), adding that as a member of the IMO, China has made outstanding contributions and played a key role in international maritime rules and global maritime governance.

It is learned that Shanghai secured its third position in the international shipping center ranking in the 2023 Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Center Development Index Report.

The index report, which was released at the forum, showed that a new pattern of the global shipping industry has been formed, with Singapore, London, and Shanghai leading the way.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/336246.html

SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road
Ukraine may withdraw the lawsuits it has filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia over their grain embargoes. However, this requires that these countries provide guarantees that they will not restrict trade in the future.

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This was emphasized by Taras Kachka, Ukraine's Trade Representative and Deputy Minister of Economy, during a telethon. At the same time, it is expected that the consideration of Ukraine's appeals will soon take place in Geneva, PAP writes.

"It is very important for us that the Polish side and other states guarantee us that such restrictions will not happen in the future... Only when we receive guarantees, we will formally announce to the whole world that this dispute is over," Kachka said.

He also emphasized that the issue of such guarantees is likely to be "the last to be considered." Therefore, we should not expect the lawsuit to be withdrawn anytime soon.

According to EU sources, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia will be represented in the WTO by the European Commission. However, the EC delegation includes representatives of these countries.

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As reported by OBOZREVATEL, on September 27, Ukraine and Poland held grain talks. However, the Polish government still hints that it may impose an embargo on other products from Ukraine.

Earlier, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called speculation the statements of the authorities of a number of countries, including Poland, about the negative impact of Ukrainian grain on their markets. Moreover, he emphasized that Ukrainian farmers are in a much worse situation.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The ability of the Zero Trust Security Market to change with emerging threats and technology will define it in the future. It will still be a crucial strategy for businesses trying to safeguard their networks, data, and digital assets in a threat environment that is always shifting.

The global Zero Trust Security Market size is projected to grow from USD 31.1 billion in 2023 to USD 67.9 billion by 2028 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.9% during the forecast period, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The expansion of the Zero Trust Security Market is propelled by the relentless evolution of cyber threats, necessitating advanced security measures. The surge in digital transformation and cloud adoption has also created a complex IT landscape, demanding robust security solutions. Moreover, rising regulatory compliance demands are compelling businesses to embrace zero trust security, enhancing overall cybersecurity resilience. Furthermore, the diminishing effectiveness of traditional perimeter security in the face of modern challenges is paving the way for the widespread adoption of zero trust security, further contributing to market growth.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Zero Trust Security Market"

350 - Tables

50 - Figures

300 - Pages

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Scope of the Report

Report Metrics Details Market size available for years 2017-2028 Base year considered 2022 Forecast period 20232028 Forecast units Value (USD Million/USD Billion) Segments Covered Offering, Security Type, Authentication Type, Vertical, and Region Geographies covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America Companies covered Major vendors in the global Zero Trust Security Market include Palo Alto Networks (US), VMware (US), Zscaler (US), Akamai (US), Microsoft (US), Cisco (US), IBM (US), Citrix (US), Check Point (US), Trellix (US), Forcepoint (US), CrowdStrike (US), Cloudflare (US), Fortinet (US), Google (US), Qnext (Canada), Illumio (US), ON2IT (Netherlands), Perimeter 81 (US), ThreatLocker (US), Twingate (US), Appgate (US), Zero Networks (Israel), Zentera (US), Xage (US), and Skyhigh Security (US).

Based on the Security type, the Application security is to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecasted period.

The exponential growth of application security in the Zero Trust Security Market can be attributed to its pivotal role as an organization's most critical asset. Applications house sensitive data, including customer information, intellectual property, and financial data, granting access to vital systems. Zero trust security's foundational principle of never inherently trusting any user or device aligns perfectly with application security. This approach fortifies applications against external threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and insider risks from disgruntled employees. Additionally, it safeguards against supply chain attacks that target third-party vendors. With increasingly complex and distributed applications, zero trust security becomes indispensable in safeguarding them, especially as they migrate to the cloud, accessible globally.

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By offering, Solution accounts for the highest market size during the forecast period.

The solution segment has the largest market share in the Zero Trust Security Market due to its all-encompassing approach, which includes crucial elements such as identity and access management (IAM), multi-factor authentication (MFA), micro-segmentation, and security analytics. This extensive coverage caters to the diverse security requirements of various industries and organizations. Additionally, its remarkable adaptability allows for seamless deployment in on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, effortlessly scaling to meet any organization's needs. Furthermore, its proven effectiveness against a wide range of cyber threats is indisputable. By prioritizing user and device verification regardless of location, zero trust security creates formidable barriers that thwart malicious actors, solidifying its substantial market share.

By region, Asia Pacific is to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region is growing at the highest rate in the Zero Trust Security Market due to several key factors like rapid digital transformation within the region, characterized by the widespread adoption of technologies like cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, has opened new avenues for businesses but also intensified the threat of cyberattacks. With its substantial and expanding internet user base and swiftly developing economies, APAC is an attractive target for cybercriminals, resulting in a surge in cyberattacks. Moreover, government regulations mandating enhanced cybersecurity measures and a growing awareness of the benefits of zero trust security further drive the market's growth in this dynamic region.

Top Key Companies in Zero Trust Security Market:

Palo Alto Networks (US), VMware (US), Zscaler (US), Akamai (US), Microsoft (US), Cisco (US), IBM (US), Citrix (US), Check Point (US), Trellix (US), Forcepoint (US), CrowdStrike (US), Cloudflare (US), Fortinet (US), Google (US), Qnext (Canada), Illumio (US), ON2IT (Netherlands), Perimeter 81 (US), ThreatLocker (US), Twingate (US), Appgate (US), Zero Networks (Israel), Zentera (US), Xage (US), and Skyhigh Security (US). are the key players and other players in the zero-trust security market.

Recent Developments

In August 2023 , Secureworks and Akamai partnered to fortify modern workplace cybersecurity, combining Akamai's zero trust and web security with Secureworks' Taegis XDR for seamless access management and threat response.

, Secureworks and Akamai partnered to fortify modern workplace cybersecurity, combining Akamai's zero trust and web security with Secureworks' Taegis XDR for seamless access management and threat response. In July 2023 , Samsung and Microsoft partnered to bolster mobile device security for enterprises. This partnership enables hardware-backed device attestation via Microsoft Intune on Samsung Galaxy devices, fortifying Zero Trust security and supporting BYOD initiatives.

, Samsung and Microsoft partnered to bolster mobile device security for enterprises. This partnership enables hardware-backed device attestation via Microsoft Intune on Samsung Galaxy devices, fortifying Zero Trust security and supporting BYOD initiatives. In May 2023 , Zscaler forged a strategic partnership with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) to bolster cybersecurity for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments by leveraging the CIS CyberMarket. Through this partnership, Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange brings forth budget-friendly, cutting-edge zero trust solutions aimed at safeguarding against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.

, Zscaler forged a strategic partnership with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) to bolster cybersecurity for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments by leveraging the CIS CyberMarket. Through this partnership, Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange brings forth budget-friendly, cutting-edge zero trust solutions aimed at safeguarding against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats. In April 2023 , Palo Alto Networks and Accenture partnered to bolster cyber resilience with integrated Prisma SASE solutions. This partnership streamlines zero trust network access for enhanced security in distributed work environments.

, Palo Alto Networks and Accenture partnered to bolster cyber resilience with integrated Prisma SASE solutions. This partnership streamlines zero trust network access for enhanced security in distributed work environments. In September 2022 , VMware and Nvidia joined forces to forge an advanced data center platform that seamlessly melds AI capabilities with a robust zero-trust security approach. This strategic collaboration is aimed at elevating the security of workloads by deploying state-of-the-art firewalls on each server, harnessing the power of GPUs for peak performance, and fortifying the zero-trust model.

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Zero Trust Security Market Advantages:

Since attacks can originate from both internal and external sources, zero trust security adopts a proactive approach to cybersecurity. This thorough strategy improves safety in general.

By limiting access to only that which is required for users and devices to carry out their respective tasks, zero trust principles minimise the options for attackers and lower the attack surface.

In order to reduce the danger of unauthorised access, zero trust focuses on identity verification, guaranteeing that only authenticated and authorised individuals or devices can access resources.

Real-time threat identification and response are made possible by ongoing monitoring of user behaviour and device activities, boosting security against ever-evolving threats.

Zero trust security dynamically adjusts access controls in real time based on the context, risk level, and user and device behaviour.

Zero trust places an emphasis on data protection by limiting access to sensitive information to those who are authorised, regardless of their location or network.

Zero trust reduces the danger of insider attacks and credential compromise by closely examining both internal and external entities.

Zero trust security enables secure communication from everywhere and supports remote work by securing access to corporate resources regardless of the user's location.

Zero trust principles help safeguard cloud environments and offer uniform security policies across on-premises and cloud resources when organisations migrate to the cloud.

Report Objectives

To define, describe, and forecast the Zero Trust Security Market based on - offering, security type, authentication type, vertical, and region.

To define, describe, and forecast the Zero Trust Security Market by - offering, security type, authentication type, vertical, and region.

To forecast the market size of five main regions: North America , Europe , Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America

, , (APAC), & (MEA), and To analyze the subsegments of the market concerning individual growth trends, prospects, and contributions to the overall market

To provide detailed information related to the major factors (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges) influencing the growth of the Zero Trust Security Market

To analyze opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying high-growth segments of the Zero Trust Security Market

To profile the key players of the Zero Trust Security Market and comprehensively analyze their market size and core competencies in the market

To track and analyze competitive developments, such as new product launches; mergers and acquisitions; and partnerships, agreements, and collaborations in the global Zero Trust Security Market.

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HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 26th, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Co., Ltd. formally released its action plan on the implementation of the Global Development Initiative (GDI). This unveiling comes shortly after the State Grid Corporation, its parent company, disclosed its own GDI strategy. Notably, the Zhejiang subsidiary is the first entity within the State Grid Corporation's portfolio to issue a plan.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the State Grid Corporation, State Grid Zhejiang Electric consistently emphasizes the priority of establishing electricity infrastructure in advance of an area being fully developed. This proactive approach ensures that development does not outpace the availability of power. Leading the way in building a new provincial power system, the company actively sets benchmarks by ensuring reliable electricity supply, transitioning to green and low-carbon solutions, and refining the business environment through a series of innovative practices.

With the publication of the GDI action plan, State Grid Zhejiang Electric presents its commitment and strategies toward achieving global sustainable development goals. The report delves into pressing global challenges, from sluggish economic resurgence and development disparities to the complexities of sharing developmental successes and the omnipresent threat of climate change. Drawing upon the innovative strategies and pioneering efforts of the State Grid in Zhejiang, the report provides a nuanced interpretation of the Global Development Initiative. In doing so, it both augments the global discourse on sustainable energy development and offers theoretical insights and actionable frameworks for Chinese companies embarking on GDI implementation.

Building upon the foundational tenets of the Global Development Initiative, the report uses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its guiding benchmark. Balancing the triad of political, economic, and social responsibilities, the report delineates four key pillars of value: development, innovation, inclusion, and sustainability. It provides a comprehensive analysis of State Grid Zhejiang Electric's strategies, distinctive approaches, and noteworthy experiences from 2021 to 2023 in championing top-tier energy development in alignment with the GDI. The document underscores State Grid Zhejiang Electric's pioneering endeavors, highlighting its contribution to local economies through electricity-fueled growth, invigorating development via reformative innovations, fostering inclusive growth to ensure shared prosperity, and realizing a symbiotic relationship with the environment through sustainable transitions.

Moving forward, State Grid Zhejiang Electric will execute the strategic directives set by the State Grid Corporation, emphasizing its key role as a leading state-owned enterprise. The company aims to synchronize its growth strategy with both national and international development frameworks. Dedicated to a new depth of engagement, it seeks breadth, depth, and vigor in its contributions to worldwide development collaboration. The company is committed to taking actionable measures to help solve global development issues, respond to overarching challenges on the international stage, and champion a shared economic vision for the future.

SOURCE State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power Company
The Russian occupiers in the Russian-occupied Crimea are preparing for the arrival of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the temporarily occupied peninsula. They are in full swing equipping firing positions, particularly in Yevpatoria.

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Given that new firing positions were discovered by local residents on the city's waterfront, the Russians seem to expect the Ukrainian counteroffensive to begin from Yevpatoria's beaches. Photos from the Crimean city temporarily occupied by Russia were posted on the Telegram channel of the Atesh military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars.

"The occupiers are preparing to defend the beaches of Yevpatoriya from the Ukrainian army's attack. Atesh agents discovered firing positions on the Independence Embankment in Yevpatoria (a very symbolic name). It is reported that 4 firing positions are equipped there. Is this done for money laundering? If so, then let it be," Atesh activists said.

They also showed strange firing positions on the beaches of Yevpatoria in the photo.

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On September 14, the details of a unique special operation by the SSU and the Navy became known: the defenders destroyed a Russian Triumph worth $1.2 billion in Yevpatoria. The installation, which Russian propagandists called "invulnerable," is designed to protect against enemy air strikes. However, Ukrainian soldiers have proven that it is unable to reliably protect even itself.

On September 18, a large-scale fire broke out in Yevpatoria. At that time, Atesh's sources reported arrivals, but the guerrillas said the information needed to be confirmed.

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Retired US General Ben Hodges disagreed with critics of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. He noted that those who, sitting at a distance of 8,000 kilometers, criticize how someone else enters minefields and enemy trenches should be ashamed of themselves.

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The former commander of NATO's Allied Forces Europe emphasized that the Ukrainian Defense Forces are conducting complex operations, inflicting multi-level strikes on the Russian Armed Forces. The military officer said this during a discussion in Washington, D.C., titled "Ukraine Victory: Are Washington Signals Flashing Yellow?" Voice of America quoted Hodges.

He called the statements made by critics of the Ukrainian military counteroffensive "unprofessional and useless."

The retired American general reminded that Ukraine's defenders are fighting without air support. The US, UK or Germany would not have sent their infantry to attack without air support.

"A counteroffensive is not what we see on the battlefield only," Hodges emphasized. For example, Ukraine uses special forces and drone attacks, as well as cyber operations to disable Russian radars, air defense systems, and more.

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According to Hodges, the impressive work of the Defense Forces on the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy is evident. It puts enormous pressure on the Russian General Staff, the military officer noted.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported:

- 26 combat clashes took place in Ukraine over the past day (September 26), the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

- Defense forces repelled enemy attacks in three directions: Avdiivka, Marinka and Zaporizhzhia. At the same time, our soldiers continue to conduct a counteroffensive in the Melitopol and Bakhmut directions.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
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
The breakthrough of the defense forces near the village of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region, where our defenders have densely occupied the settlement, is of tactical value for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now Ukrainian defenders can start destroying enemy resources and the logistics of their supply as reinforcements.

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Vladyslav Selezniov, a military expert and former chief of the press service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said this in a commentary to RBC-Ukraine. He also noted that this breakthrough will not have a significant impact on this area.

"The occupiers have moved the reserves of at least four airborne divisions here, and these forces are trying to attack from the flanks. That is, our army is systematically destroying its artillery, armored vehicles and personnel. What will happen next? I am sure that it is unlikely that we will be able to actively move forward until the units that replaced those who held the defense of the Surovikin line" he explained.

The expert added that the Ukrainian army will be able to focus on destroying the combat potential of the invaders shortly.

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As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, on September 22, the Defense Forces broke into the village of Verbove in the Polohivskyi district. As of September 24, they continued to attack the enemy in the village, using armored vehicles.

Only verified information is available on Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Tripoli, Sep 27 : Deputy President of the Libyan Presidency Council, Musa al-Koni, met with Italian Ambassador Gianluca Alberini in the Libyan capital of Tripoli to discuss bilateral ties and issues of common interest.

The Presidency Council said on Tuesday in a statement that during the meeting, the two officials touched upon bilateral cooperation in oil and gas and the challenges of illegal migration and combating terrorism facing Libya.

Al-Koni expressed hope for promoting cooperation with Italy in developing southern Libya to safeguard the region's stability, Xinhua news agency reported.

For his part, Alberini praised the efforts of the Presidency Council towards achieving stability with national reconciliation and the unification of national institutions, saying that Italy is willing to extend help in this regard, according to the statement.

He also highlighted Italy's continued technical and logistic support for Libya in the aftermath of the recent deadly floods that hit the country's eastern region.
United Nations, Sep 27 : Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, now face a dire situation as aid funding diminishes, a UN spokesman said.

The Rohingya, who have faced repeated climate shocks since their exodus from Myanmar seven years ago, now face hunger, deepening their vulnerabilities, said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on Tuesday.

Dujarric added that the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that cuts in donor funding have forced the agency to reduce its life-saving assistance for the entire Rohingya population in Cox's Bazar. Funding shortfalls have resulted in a cut in the Rohingya's full ration of $12 to $10 per person per month in March and then to $8 in June, Xinhua news agency reported.

The WFP said that with the current cash allowance, the Rohingya have less than 9 cents for each meal and "are being pushed over the edge".

"WFP is urging donors to step up now to support them in restoring full rations and keeping critical humanitarian operations intact until the Rohingya repatriation," the spokesman told a regular press briefing.

"WFP needs another $175 million to provide the Rohingya with a full ration through December 2024."

The UN Population Fund said Cox's Bazar is the largest refugee camp in the world, with a population of nearly one million Rohingya.
Madrid, Sep 27 : The Spanish Congress opened the investiture debate for the leader of the country's Right-wing People's Party (PP), Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who is trying to convince lawmakers to let him form the country's new government.

"I present my candidacy with the support of 172 (votes)," Feijoo said on Tuesday, adding that his party had "won in the municipal elections, in the regional elections and, although some don't want to recognise it, we won the general election of July 23, with 16 deputies more than the second party (Socialist Party)".

Feijoo's PP won 137 votes in the July 23 general election, more than the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), which claimed 121 seats in the 350-seat Congress, Xinhua news agency reported.

"My party won the elections," Feijoo said, although even with the support of the 33 deputies of the extreme right-wing Vox party and a vote each from the regional Navarrese People's Union and Coalicion Canaria. He can only count on 172 votes, four short of the 176 he needs for an overall majority in the vote that will be held on Wednesday.

The PP has tried to make up for this shortfall by asking for support from Socialist deputies unhappy with the prospect of acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez granting an amnesty to Catalan leaders involved in the October 2017 independence referendum, which was ruled illegal by the country's Constitutional Court.

According to local media, there are no signs that any MPs are willing to betray their own party.

After Feijoo makes his pitch to form a government on Tuesday, MPs will debate the proposal and then proceed to an initial vote on Wednesday, followed by another vote on Friday.

If Feijoo fails to win an overall majority on Wednesday, he will have another chance on Friday, when a simple majority (i.e. more votes in favour than against) would be enough to make him Prime Minister.

PSOE spokesman Oscar Puente said on Sanchez's behalf that in a parliamentary democracy, leading the party with the biggest number of votes is not winning an election, while winning is to be able to form a government.

Marta Lois, who spoke for the Left-wing electoral platform Sumar that won 31 seats in July, also doubted whether Feijoo would secure majority support.

She said, "You finished first in the number of votes, but not in parliamentary support."

Sanchez could count on enough support to become Prime Minister, but it appears the price for the votes of the Catalan parties would be an amnesty for the leaders involved in the 2017 referendum.
Ramallah, Sep 27 : The first Saudi Ambassador to Palestine, Naif bin Bandar Al-Sudairi, arrived in the West Bank, media reported.

Leading an official delegation, Al-Sudairi, the non-resident ambassador to Palestine and non-resident consul general in Jerusalem, presented his credentials to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidency headquarters in Ramallah, it said on Tuesday.

Al-Sudairi's arrival comes amid Israel's efforts to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, Xinhua news agency reported.

During their meeting, Abbas welcomed Al-Sudairi and said his visit to Palestine and his appointment as Saudi ambassador to the State of Palestine would contribute to "strengthening the strong fraternal relations that bind the two countries and the two brotherly peoples".

The Saudi Ambassador said he hoped that his visit would be "a successful beginning for strengthening relations in all fields," stressing his country's firm and supportive positions for the Palestinian people and their just cause.

Earlier on Tuesday, Al-Sudairi told reporters in a statement that "the Arab Peace Initiative is the basic point in any upcoming agreement," after being asked about the fate of the initiative in the event of reaching a normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Arab Peace Initiative was launched in 2002 after it was drafted by Saudi Arabia and adopted by the Arab League.

The initiative calls for an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the normalisation of relations between Israel and Arab states, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the areas it gained since 1967 and proper settlement to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians demanded the establishment of an independent state alongside Israel in all of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Saudi ambassador also confirmed that his country intends to open a consulate in East Jerusalem soon.
Lucknow, Sep 27 : The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is all set to implement a slew of measures finalised during Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat's three-day visit that concluded here on Tuesday.

In October, the seven-day 'prathmik shiksha varg' (initial training camps)a - the first interface with Sangh - will be organised across the state.

A RSS functionary said, "There is a special focus on enlisting youths from marginalised sections, including OBCs and Dalits, in these training camps which will run till November. There is a greater focus on expanding the Sanghas reach in 'yet-unreached' areas."

Within the RSS, the focus is on enlisting ideologically aligned youths, who, so far, have known the organisation from afar. Since 2014, when a 'Modi-led' BJP came to power at the Centre, the number of youths showing interest in Sanghas ideology and attending its 'shakhas' has increased, Sangh cadres said and added that ahead of 2025, the Sanghas centenary year, the plan was to ensure 100 per cent shakha coverage.

The Sangh leadership, which has already floated Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM) to build bridges with the most-influential minority and mostly considered sceptical to BJP-RSS, has also tasked the cadres with connecting with them.

"We have been told to visit and accept invites from Muslims. The Sangh leadership is clear that we need not discriminate with them but yes, this approach will be applicable only to nationalists across communities," a Sangh functionary said.

The RSS chief also set an inclusive agenda for cadres and stated that the "Sangh welcomes and connects with all, including critics".

However, he had made it clear that while "critics and criticism" were welcome, the Sangh would ensure that criticism did not harm the Sanghas image.

The RSS is also connecting in a bigger way with nomadic tribes. "Now there is a separate 'pramukh (head)' for them. And even in our training camps, we have started getting youth from such communities," another RSS functionary said.

Rural outreach was also a key part of the Sangh agenda.

Ensuring at least one RSS shakha in every village is part of the Sanghas plan, which automatically entails connecting with farmers.
Ex-student enters school in old uniform to harass minor student. Image Source: IANS News

Lucknow, Sep 27 : A former student, disguised in the school uniform he once wore, walked into his alma mater and subjected a minor female student to a harrowing encounter.

This shocking episode is the second time he has made advances towards the girl.

The accused Mohit Rajput,19, has been arrested and being questioned by cops.

On September 23, the accused allegedly hurled abuses upon the young girl as she exited the school premises after classes.

The girl initially chose to overlook this distressing ordeal.

The second incident was reported on Monday and a case was registered on complaint of the girlas brother.

The accused wore his old uniform, carried a backpack and walked into the school.

The girl, along with her fellow classmates, soon identified the accused and informed the class teacher, who promptly alerted the schoolas principal.

He reached the girlas classroom and when other students saw him, they informed the class teacher and principal.

The school administration asked the peon to lock the main gate and a search was launched for him.

The boy scaled the boundary wall and fled, abandoning his two-wheeler and bag.

The school administration handed over both items to the police and they started investigation.

Banthra station head officer (SHO) Hemant Kumar Raghav said the accused was arrested and was being interrogated.
I-T raids were aimed at damaging my image, says BRS MLA. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Sep 27 : In a major crackdown, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday was conducting search operations at more than 51 locations belonging to the associates of Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs across the nation in Khalistan-gangster nexus case.

The searches were carried out at 13 locations in Rajasthan, 30 locations in Punjab, 10 in Haryana and two in Delhi, and in UP also.

The locations are linked to gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dallaand their associates. Of these three, Bishnoi is in a jail in Rajasthan and Arsh Dalla is living abroad reportedly in Canada.

"The raids are at locations in six states in connection with the three cases related to gangsters-terrorist connection," said an NIA official who didn't wish to be named.

"The search operation is underway at locations belonging to suspects associated with Khalistani terrorists, supporters, and related banned organisations," a source said.

The raids started early Wednesday morning and are currently going on.

As of now the NIA has not officially commented on the matter.

Further details are awaited.
London, Sep 26 : Indian-origin British MP Nadia Whittome has tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons calling the UK to halt its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks with India in the wake of the ethnic violence in Manipur.

The motion, signed by 21 other MPs, also urged the government to raise the issue of human rights violations in Manipur with the Indian government.

"While the Tories are negotiating a free trade agreement with India, minorities face persecution under BJP rule. I tabled a motion highlighting the campaign of violence against the Kuki-Zo people in Manipur," Whittome wrote on X (formerly Twitter) recently.

"FTA talks must be halted while this continues," the Labour MP for Nottingham East added.

The motion tabled earlier this month notes "the ongoing, grave human rights violations in Manipur, India, including acts of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, home destruction, forced displacement, torture and ill-treatment, predominantly targeting the Kuki-Zo people, a tribal community who are largely Christian".

Highlighting that UN experts have raised serious concerns about the slow and inadequate response by India, the motion stated that it "recognises that these human rights violations occur as part of wider attacks on religious and ethnic minorities across India, many of which public officials have been accused of aiding and abetting".

Early day motions are submitted for debate in the House of Commons for which no day is fixed, due to which very few are debated.

However, many attract a great deal of public interest and media coverage.

Whittome's Punjabi Sikh father emigrated to the UK from Banga, Punjab at the age of 21. Her mother is an Anglo-Indian Catholic solicitor and former member of the Labour Party.

On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said efforts are on to ensure there is adequate law-and-order enforcement in Manipur and find a way by which a sense of normalcy returns to the northeastern state.

"...I think one part of the problem in Manipur has been the destabilising impact of migrants who have come," Jaishankar said in response to a question raised on the situation in Manipur at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"But there are also tensions which obviously have a long history which precede that. And today, I think the effort is on the part of the state government and the Union government to find a way by which a sense of normalcy returns, that arms which were seized during that period are recovered, that there is an adequate law-and-order enforcement out there so that incidents of violence don't happen," he said.

Beginning this week, fresh protests erupted in the state after two students, who had gone missing in July were found murdered, with mobile internet services in the state snapped once again.

A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials is reportedly reaching Imphal today to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two students.

At least 175 people have been killed, 1,108 injured and 32 remain unaccounted for since the ethnic violence erupted in Manipur on May 3.

--IANS

mi/ksk
Nearly 30,000 refugees flee to Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh. Image Source: IANS News

Yerevan, Sep 27 : Since Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh last week, nearly 30,000 ethnic Armenians, or a quarter of the population of the disputed region, have fled to Armenia.

On Tuesday, hundreds of cars and buses were trying to reach the Armenian town of Goris across the border, with Azerbaijani border security subjecting the fleeing refugees to rigorous checks, reports the BBC.

On the main town square of Goris, volunteers have handed out some basic food and blankets to the arriving people.

Evacuees were being registered and there was also buses to move people to another town or village.

So far, only one aid delivery of 70 tonnes of food has been allowed through to the conflict-hit region since separatists accepted a ceasefire and agreed to disarm.

Azerbaijan announced that another aid convoy, with 40 tonnes of flour and badly-needed hygiene products, was on its way to the region.

Ethnic Armenian leaders have said thousands are without food or shelter and sleeping in basements, school buildings or outside, the BBC reported.

The Armenian Health Ministry said it was sending helicopters to evacuate patients from the region's strained hospitals.

Azerbaijan also said it had sent medical supplies.

Also on Tuesday, envoys from Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Brussels for European Union-backed talks -- the first time diplomatic negotiations took place between the two nations since the seizure.

Azerbaijan has also started separate negotiations with Karabakh's ethnic Armenian authorities about the region's future.

Nagorno-Karabakh - a mountainous region in the South Caucasus - is recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan, but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians for three decades.

The enclave has been supported by Armenia - but also by their ally, Russia, which has had hundreds of soldiers there for years.

Five Russian peacekeepers were killed - alongside at least 200 ethnic Armenians and dozens of Azerbaijani soldiers - as Azerbaijan's army swept in last week.

On Monday evening, a massive blast at a fue depot killed at least 68 people while they were attempting to leave.

Nearly 300 more were injured and 105 remain unaccounted for, reports the BBC.

It is not yet clear what caused the explosion.
Ukraine continues to negotiate with its Western allies on the transfer of long-range missiles to Ukrainian soldiers. It is possible that they could be in service with the Defense Forces in the near future.

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At the same time, the production of Ukraine's own long-range weapons, both missiles and drones, is gaining momentum. Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said this in a commentary to Channel 24.

He is optimistic about the prospects for the transfer of long-range missiles by Western allies, which will allow more effective destruction of manpower, equipment and weapons of the Russian occupiers.

"Relevant negotiations are underway at various levels. They are extremely intense. The President is personally involved in this. I think that we will have long-range missiles in the near future - partner missiles," Podoliak said.

In addition, the representative of the Presidential Office emphasized, Ukraine's own production of long-range weapons is gaining momentum. Ukraine now produces both drones capable of covering long distances and certain missiles. So far, not enough of them are being produced, as Ukraine needs hundreds of missiles capable of hitting targets throughout the occupied part of Ukraine.

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"Compared to the beginning of the war, we now have a completely re-equipped Ukrainian army. And this process continues," Podolyak emphasized.

Long-range missiles will allow Ukrainian soldiers to significantly reduce the combat capability of the occupation army through devastating attacks on the invaders' rear infrastructure and transportation hubs, which will affect the enemy's ability to bring reserves and resources to the front line.

At the same time, according to the advisor to the head of the Presidential Administration, Bankova Street expects the allies to provide Ukraine with all types of weapons, including long-range missiles in sufficient quantities.

So far, the process has been slow for several reasons. One of them, Podolyak believes, is the West's disbelief that Ukraine will be able to effectively resist the aggressor for 19 months.

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The lack of past cooperation between Ukraine and Western countries in military technology was also a slowing factor. After all, the Ukrainian army used to use mostly old Soviet-made equipment. The transition to NATO standards is only being actively pursued now, in the face of full-scale aggression.

In addition, Podoliak believes that Western partners hesitate for a long time before making decisions on the transfer of certain weapons to the Ukrainian army, mainly because of fears that Ukrainian soldiers will not be able to use them responsibly.

"Conservative thinking is about whether we can guarantee that these weapons will not be used on Russian territory. Of course, we can guarantee this, because we adhere to international norms, conventions, and the type of warfare. We are not Russia," said the advisor to the head of the OP.

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In his opinion, the pace of arms supplies is affected by the "reformatting of the global political space," which, according to Podolyak, is to "put an end to the existence of Russia" in its current form.

He reminded that Russia has been financing certain programs and investing in integrating into the global economy for many years. Not least of all, the Kremlin has allocated funds for information programs and pro-Russian lobby networks in different countries, at different levels and markets. And the process of getting rid of this is complex and lengthy.

Earlier, the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said that Ukraine is testing various weapons, including long-range and high-precision weapons. They noted that when choosing weapons, Ukraine prefers modernity, technology, and the highest accuracy. And the weapons already being used for testing are of very high quality.

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As the Main Directorate of Intelligence ironically noted, the aggressor country "should be pleased that the latest developments will fly to its territory."
Jaipur, Sep 27 : Union Minister Amit Shah and national BJP president J.P. Nadda will arrive here on Wednesday to discuss ticket distribution in the Assembly polls due later this year.

Poll preparations in Rajasthan have intensified after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Monday meeting.

According to party workers, BJP's first list can be released any time. In view of this, party national president Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are reaching here.

Both the leaders will hold meetings with BJP-Sangh leaders on Wednesday evening and Thursday.

The meeting is scheduled to focus on ticket distribution in the Assembly elections. Nadda and Shah are expected to arrive at the Jaipur airport by special plane at around 7 p.m.

Both the leaders will directly reach BJP headquarters from the airport.

The party's core committee meeting will be held here from 8 p.m onwards.

During the meeting, the leaders will deliberate on ticket distribution and political equations of the state.

Feedback received at the recently concluded Parivartan Yatra of BJP will also be discussed in the meeting.

After the meeting, both the leaders will stay the night in Jaipur.

Next morning, they will visit the Sangh office and discuss its role in the upcoming elections with the leaders there.

Veteran Sangh leader Prakash Chand will reportedly discuss his role for the upcoming elections.

It is being assumed that after this visit of the leaders, Prakash Chand may be seen in a new role.
Seoul, Sep 27 : A Seoul court on Wednesday rejected an arrest warrant sought for South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung over corruption charges, a decision that averted the biggest crisis yet for the former presidential candidate.

The Seoul Central District Court made the decision following a hearing attended by Lee, chair of the Democratic Party (DP), reports Yonhap News Agency.

It marked the first time the leader of South Korea's main opposition party has attended an arrest warrant hearing.

"In comprehensive consideration of the degree to which the defendant's right to defense is needed and the extent of concerns about the possible destruction of evidence, it is difficult to see the rationale and need for his arrest to the extent that the principle of investigation without detention should be ruled out," a court judge said.

Soon after the court's rejection, Lee expressed his appreciation to the judiciary for "manifestly proving that it is the last bastion of human rights".

"Again, I am deeply grateful to the judiciary for solidly safeguarding the constitutional order of the Republic of Korea and for its wise judgement," he told reporters as he walked out of a detention facility where he waited for the court's decision.

The decision came days after Lee ended his hunger strike launched on August 31 in protest of what he called the "incompetent and violent" government of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Lee has been accused of breach of trust, bribery and other charges stemming from his time as mayor of Seongnam, south of Seoul, years ago in connection with a scandal-ridden land development project and his alleged involvement in a company's illegal cash remittance to North Korea.

The prosecution has accused him of committing breach of trust worth 20 billion won ($15 million) by giving special treatment to a private developer in the Baekhyeon-dong district apartment project in the city of Seongnam, south of Seoul, between 2014 and 2015, when he was serving as the city's mayor.

The opposition is also suspected of asking Ssangbangwool Group, an underwear maker, to illegally transfer $8 million to North Korea between 2019 and 2020, when he was serving as Gyeonggi province governor, through his deputy to facilitate his visit to the North, and push for a joint smart farm project between his province and Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, he is already standing trial on two other separate cases, involving alleged election law violations during his run for the 2022 presidential election and corruption charges connected to another property development project launched during his term as Seongnam mayor, respectively.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Homegrown quick-grocery delivery provider Dunzo, set to raise $35 million in funding from existing backers like Reliance Industries and Google as well as new investors, is reportedly laying off at least "150-200" more employees amid severe cash crunch.

According to multiple reports, Dunzo is likely to trim its workforce further by around 30-40 per cent.

The company has reportedly informed impacted employees that they would receive their full and final settlements in January.

The employees were officially informed of the latest layoffs in a short meeting. The startup has already sacked nearly 400 employees so far this year in two job cut rounds.

Earlier this month, Dunzo further delayed the salaries of its employees for the months of June and July, this time to November, amid an ongoing fund crunch.

The startup may also vacate its office in Bengaluru to cut costs, according to its co-founder and CEO, Kabeer Biswas.

Biswas reportedly told employees that their pending payouts for June and July will now be cleared in November.

Dunzo earlier delayed salaries to the first week of October after being unable to raise funds.

It had also promised employees to pay an interest of 12 per cent per annum on the salary component that it held back from June.

The company has raised nearly $500 million to date, with approximately $300 million coming in since early 2022.

--IANS

na/ksk
Eight injured in explosion in J&K factory, police rule out terror angle. Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar, Sep 27 : At least eight labourers were injured after an explosion occurred in a factory in South Kashmir's Anantnag district, police said on Wednesday, adding that there was no terror link in the case.

The explosion occurred in a cement mix settling vibration machine in Anantnag.

The police have ruled out any terror link into this case, the officials said.

"An explosion occurred in the cement mix settling vibration machine, adjacent portable generator and tin can of oil being carried with labourers in a load carrier at Larkipora Anantnag," police said.

"Eight labourers injured with burn injuries being treated at hospital."

Police said all the injured are stable and no terrorist angle was observed.

Police have started the investigation.
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 27 : A couple of days after they went missing, the bodies of two youths were dug out from a farm land near Palakkad in Kerala, a police officer said on Wednesday.

According to the officer, bodies of Shijith and Satheesh, who went missing on Monday, were dug out from a farm land belonging to one Ananthan.

"The land owner said that he had set up an electric fence in his farm to ward off wild animals. On seeing two bodies, he got scared and dug a pit in his and buried them," the official said.

"He has been charged for destroying evidence and the probe will continue" he added.

Investigations revealed that on Sunday, Shijith, Satheesh and two other friends got involved in a fight and fearing arrest they went into hiding. With the police strongly on their pursuit, the four friends started to move out early on Monday. In the process, Shijith and Satheesh got trapped in the electric fence and were later found dead by Ananthan.

He decided to bury the bodies discreetly, but on late Tuesday, the news leaked and after the relatives of the deceased identified them, Ananthan was taken into custody.
Dharamsala, Sep 27 : The joint statement issued by Nepal and China in Beijing following the visit by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal institutionally strengthens China's hand on matters relating to Tibet and Tibetans, the International Campaign for Tibet said on Wednesday.

The Campaign's President Tencho Gyatso said: "Nepal is bound by international law to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which precludes states from returning a person to a place where he or she might be tortured or face persecution.

"The principle of non-refoulement is included in several treaties signed and ratified by Nepal, such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Article 3), General Comment No. 20 of the Human Rights Committee and General Comment No. 6 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child."

Of the 13 points in the joint statement, four have direct references to Tibetan affairs and encompass politics, boundary management, health and infrastructural issues.

Politically, the joint statement says: "The Nepali side reiterated that Tibet affairs are China's internal affairs, that it will never allow any separatist activities against China on Nepal's soil."

Although the fundamentals have not changed, this formulation separates Tibet from Taiwan as well as the One China Principle, unlike two earlier joint statements in 2019 (when President Xi Jinping visited Nepal) and 2018 (when then Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli visited China), which said: "The Nepali side reiterated its firm commitment to the one-China policy with Tibet and Taiwan affairs as being China's internal affairs, and the determination on not allowing any anti-China activities on its soil."

The joint statement refers to implementation of an agreement on boundary management, raising concerns not only about the plight of Tibetans who are trying to flee via Nepal, but also the possible deportation of those who have already entered Nepal.

The "agreement between the government of the People's Republic of China and the government of Nepal on the boundary management system",which the joint statement now says the "two sides agreed to bring into forceas soon as possible", provides the Chinese authorities additional avenues to get Tibetans deported from Nepal to Tibet.

According to the text of the agreement that ICT has seen, Articles 26 and 27 of the agreement deal with "persons crossing the border illegally".

Article 26.2 reads: "The boundary representatives or competent authorities of both sides shall investigate the cases of persons found while crossing (the) border illegally, ascertain their identities, cross border facts and reasons as soon as possible and hand them over to the side where they stayed before crossing the border within seven days from the day when they were detained."

In recent years, the number of Tibetans able to escape from Tibet through Nepal has been dwindling due to China's heightened security in border areas, as well as its general clampdown in Tibet.

From the 1980s until 2008, there was a steady flow of 2,500 to 3,500 Tibetans escaping into exile via Nepal annually.

The flow of refugees from Tibet dropped dramatically in the wake of the party's response to the pan-Tibet protests in spring 2008. In 2008, the number of refugees from Tibet dropped to 588 from 2,338 in 2007.

After a gradual climb up to 753 in 2011, the number of refugees dropped by 50 per cent to 375 in 2012, the year Xi assumed leadership.

With the intensive securitization of Tibet, the number of refugees from Tibet trickled down steadily throughout the decade of Xi's rule: the number dwindled to 19 Tibetans in 2019, five in 2020, 10 in 2021, and only five in 2022.

The joint statement also refers to the Lhasa Economic and Technological Development Zone Investment Development Company, which intends to invest in projects in Nepal, but no concrete decision is announced.

Even though the joint statement was issued on September 26, Prime Minister Dahal is scheduled to visit Tibet, possibly on September 29, before returning to Nepal.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : On the occasion of 'World Tourism Day', actress Shubhangi Atre, who is well known for her role as 'Angoori Bhabhi' in sitcom 'Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain', shared her favourite destinations from her hometown Madhya Pradesh, and recommended the must-visit places in the state.

'World Tourism Day' is celebrated to promote and encourage tourism.

Hailing from Indore, MP, Shubhangi said the state is the heart of India and home to a plethora of historic gems, making it a must-visit destination for global tourists.

"The state is renowned for its cleanliness and offers visitors a warm and homely experience. Its remarkable historical attractions are the intricately carved Hindu and Jain temples of Khajuraho, celebrated for their stunning sculptures," she shared.

The 'Kasturi' fame actress said: "Choosing one as my favourite is tough for me. For nature enthusiasts, visiting the eastern Bandhavgarh and Kanha national parks is a must, where you can witness the wonders of wildlife and pristine landscapes."

"I believe incredible Madhya Pradesh continues to exude the essence of medieval majesty, drawing travellers from far and wide," she added.

Meanwhile, in 'Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain', the current track follows Vibhuti (Aasif Sheikh) embarking on a career in the media industry, while Tiwari (Rohitashv Gour) grapples with business challenges. To keep his business afloat, Tiwari enters a partnership with Kedia. However, Vibhuti uncovers Kedia's involvement in smuggling Kaccha Baniyan (raw materials).

Tiwari becomes aware of this and informs Kedia, who sends his henchmen to assault Vibhuti. During the assault on Vibhuti, a saviour emerges in the name of Sheman, who is none other than Saxena (Saanand Verma). Tiwari soon realises that Kedia is not a reputable individual and decides to seek assistance from Vibhuti.

Vibhuti gathers substantial evidence against Kedia and publishes a news story exposing his illegal activities.

'Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain' airs on &TV.
New Delhi: A view of the Supreme Court in New Delhi on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo: Wasim Sarvar/IANS). Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, September 27 : The Delhi government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that senior bureaucrats were not carrying out orders of the elected government while urging for an urgent hearing on its plea against the contentious law giving the Lieutenant Governor's (L-G) an upper hand in matters related to transfers and postings of senior officials in the national capital.

"I cannot express the agony of the administration. Civil servants are not listening or carrying out orders. There is an extreme urgency," submitted senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for the Delhi government.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud declined to pass any order directing urgent listing of the petition filed by the Delhi government challenging the constitutionality of the law brought by the Parliament on control of services.

"There're older Constitution Bench matters which we are listing & two seven judge bench matters coming up in the next two weeks They have been pending for years," CJI Chandrachud told Singhvi.

"Let me take the call. I can also see what Bench is available," he said while granting liberty to mention the matter afresh after four weeks.

The apex court directed that pleadings in the case be completed in the meantime. It also appointed nodal counsel for both sides and directed preparation of the common compilation.

Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Delhi L-G, said that questions for determination will have to be prepared afresh.

At this, CJI Chandrachud said: "Dr. Singhvi and you (Mr. Jain) can sit over a cup of coffee and give us agreed issues."

A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court will hear the Delhi government's plea against the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2023 replacing the ordinance promulgated earlier by the Centre over transfers and postings of senior bureaucrats in the national capital.

The Ordinance, now replaced by a law, was brought after a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had handed over control over services in Delhi, excluding police, public order and land, to the elected government.

Delhi's AAP government had moved the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Ordinance, saying it violates the scheme of federal, democratic governance entrenched for the NCTD in Article 239AA and is manifestly arbitrary, and sought an immediate stay.
Chennai, Sep 27 : The largest workers' union in the banking sector, the All India Bank Employees' Association, has called for a series of strikes across the nation between December 4 and January 20, 2024 demanding staff recruitment.

"There is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government and banks to reduce the number of employees in clerical and subordinate cadres in the banks and to increase the number of supervisory staff. The idea is very clear that they want less workers who are governed by the Industrial Disputes Act," CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) said.

"Similarly we also find that there is a naked attempt to outsource the regular and permanent jobs in the banks on contractual basis with a view to avoid the payment of wages as per our bipartite settlement.

"Because of this, the recruitment of clerical staff in the banks has come down drastically year after year and there is a virtual ban on appointment of subordinate staff and cleaning staff.

"This has resulted in a large number of people being employed on a temporary and casual basis without proper remuneration," he added.

The AIBEA has announced a strike in different nationalised and private banks from December 4-11 and from January 2-6 bankers in different states will strike work.

This will be followed by a two-day all-India bankers strike on January 19-20, 2024.
Jaipur, Sep 27 : Teams of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have reportedly conducted raids in 13 districts in Rajasthan where Khalistani supporters are residing.

The raids have been happening since Wednesday early hours. NIA teams were searching in 13 districts of Rajasthan -- Hanumangarh, Jhunjhunu, Ganganagar, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Sikar, Pali, Jodhpur Rural, Barmer, Kota Rural, Bhilwara and Ajmer.

According to sources, agencies are getting inputs of Khalistan supporters being reactivated.These people are being secretly contacted by Khalistani people sitting in Canada.

Transactions in bank accounts of the people at the places where NIA is raiding are also being investigated.Recently, more than 10 districts of Rajasthan have also been shown in the new "map" of Khalistan.

NIA raided Jodhpur district on Wednesday morning and then reached Pipar city.

In Pipar, the NIA team raided the house of Surjit, son of Pappuram Vishnoi, resident of Kosana Hall at 5 a.m..Surjit was sleeping at that time and the police woke him up and interrogated him.After four hours of interrogation, a summon notice was issued to him by the Delhi NIA office for October 3.

It was due to the money deposited from foreign country in the bank account of 28-year-old Surjeet, that the NIA reached his house and investigated.

Earlier, the NIA team had summoned Arvind Vishnoi, resident of Mandore, Jodhpur, to Delhi.His house was also raided early in the morning after his photos were posted on social media with illegal weapons, and his alleged connection with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

The NIA has not officially reacted so far and further details are awaited.

--IANS,

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During his working visit to Brussels, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Ilia Darchiashvili held a meeting with the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, Oliver Varhelyi. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has disseminated information about this meeting.According to the agency, the meeting placed special emphasis on the implementation of the 12 recommendations issued by the European Commission."The Minister informed the European Commissioner about the progress made by the Georgian side in fulfilling the priorities set during the visit of the High Representative, Joseph Borrell, and reiterated the country's commitment to further advancement in this direction.The European Commissioner welcomed the efforts of the Georgian side, particularly the recent steps taken to implement the recommendations, and expressed readiness to continue close coordination with the Government of Georgia," the information reads.During her visit to Latvia, the President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, met with President Edgars Rinkevics. As mentioned in the statement released by the administration of the President of Latvia, Rinkevics emphasized that in order to attain candidate status, Georgia must adhere to the recommendations issued by the European Commission.He also stated that Georgia should join the common foreign and security policy of the European Union, including supporting sanctions against Russia."Given the expectations of Georgian society and significant support for European integration, political forces of Georgia should do everything to use the historic opportunity, fulfill the recommendations of the European Union, and gain candidate status," Rinkevich said.
The number of deserters in the enemy army in Zaporizhzhia is increasing. The occupants are disguising themselves as civilians to escape from the front line, which is why the invaders have organized raids and are looking for them among civilians.

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At the same time, more and more attempts to escape from the positions end in death for the invaders. This was reported by the mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov.

He noted that the number of deserters in the Russian troops is currently increasing. Sometimes, when they try to escape from the front, they find death at the hands of Russians. Two shot-dead deserters were recently found in a village near Melitopol.

"The enemy has more deserters... Two shot-dead Russian soldiers were found, according to reports from the spot. They were deserters who did not want to fight against the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they were afraid. Deserters have also been searched for en masse in Melitopol in recent days because the enemy military are disguised as civilians and are trying to evade service in this way," Fedorov said.

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He added that the occupiers also scrutinize every car leaving Melitopol: they are also looking for deserters. Russian special services are inspecting houses where the occupiers lived.

At the same time, xenophobia in the enemy army is flourishing. The "military police" recently beat up Russian Armed Forces servicemen, an Ossetian and a Kabardian, with the slogans "Russia for Russians", in the temporarily occupied Tokmak.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin is trying to curb the growth of deserters by "honorary titles."

"We see a tendency that the enemy's morale is falling. Terrorist Putin, for example, awarded the 58th Army, which is fighting in the Zaporizhzhia direction against our Armed Forces of Ukraine, the title of Guards. However, this will not help them and they will have to leave our temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region," Fedorov said, adding that now the occupiers will flee "with an honorary title."

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As a reminder, on the morning of September 27, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine updated the data on Russia's losses in the war against our country. According to the General Staff, the Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated 320 occupants and 101 pieces of their equipment the day before.

Russia's irrecoverable losses in manpower during the full-scale invasion have now reached 276,990 people.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Delhi High Court has quashed a sexual harassment case following a settlement between the parties involved, however, it directed the accused to contribute Rs 25,000 worth of woollen blankets to a shelter home for girls here.

Justice Jyoti Singh granted the accused's request to quash the FIR subject to the petitioner contributing a sum of Rs 25,000/- in the form of woollen blankets, which he shall provide to Kilkari Rainbow Home for Girls, Kashmere Gate, Delhi.

The FIR was registered in 2014 under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including Section 354 (outraging modesty of a woman), 354A (sexual harassment), 354D (stalking), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 509 (word, gesture, or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).

The accused argued that, over time and with the intervention of relatives, common friends, and families, he and the complainant had amicably settled the matter. A settlement deed had been executed between them.

The complainant also expressed no objection to quashing the FIR as the matter had been settled amicably.

The Assistant Public Prosecutor Amit Sahni representing the state also stated that there were no objections to quashing the FIR.

The court was informed that the trial in the case had already concluded, and the case was in the final argument stage before the trial court.

The judge, in the interest of justice and to maintain peace and harmony between the parties, decided to quash the proceedings, stating that continuing them would serve no useful purpose since the parties had mutually resolved their disputes.
Chennai, Sept 27 : Tamil Nadu BJP state president K. Annamalai has postponed the Mettupalayam leg of his 'En Mann, En Makkal' yatra from September 28 to October 4.

According to the BJP state chief, the step has been taken on request of Muslim community with regards to the Eid-e- Milad- Un-Nabi festival procession at Mettupalayam on September 28.

Annamalai in a social media post said, "Our Muslim brothers and sisters will celebrate the Eid-e- Milad-Un-Nabi festival tomorrow (September 28). Considering the Eid-e-Milad-Un-Nabiprocession in Mettupalayam town tomorrow and the traffic congestion caused by En Mann, En Makkal yatra, the yatra which was scheduled to be held in Mettupalayam on September 28 is postponed to October 4".

The BJP Tamil Nadu unit president said that he thanked the party workers in Coimbatore BJP who have accepted the request and extended their support.

The BJP state president of Tamil Nadu is on a sticky wicket after the most prominent alliance partner of the saffron party of the state, the AIADMK has broken its alliance with the BJP and NDA. This, they have announced was due to the arrogance of Annamalai and the insult he has shrouded against Tamil leaders including former Chief Minister's CN Annadurai and J. Jayalalithaa.
Lucknow, Sep 27 : The Uttar Pradesh government will ensure the availability of one crore vaccine doses to control the spread of the lumpy skin disease in cattle.

UP Animal Husbandry Minister Dharmpal Singh has issued directions to this effect.

Additional chief secretary, animal husbandry, Rajneesh Dubey said that, so far, 65 lakh doses of the vaccine against lumpy skin disease have already been administered.

Till Tuesday, 1.18 crore vaccine doses have been distributed to districts.

Cases of lumpy skin disease have been reported from 40 districts till now and 8,825 cattle have been affected.

The official said that only 59 animals have succumbed to the disease till date.

The minister said that at least 3.5 lakh doses of the vaccine should be given each day. He said if the department receives information of any animal fair taking place in the state, which have been banned currently in light of the spread of the disease, then strict action must be taken against the organisers.

"In the 35 unaffected districts of west and central Uttar Pradesh, the rate of vaccination must be increased and goatpox vaccine must be distributed there. Special attention must be given to preventing the disease in Varanasi," the minister said.

The minister said that the capacity of cow shelters must be increased on mission mode to accommodate stray cattle. For this, he said, the animal husbandry department must coordinate with the department of urban development.

The minister also expressed displeasure at the slow pace of artificial insemination and said that the targets set under the programme must be met within the deadlines.
New Delhi: A view of the Supreme Court in New Delhi on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo: Wasim Sarvar/IANS). Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, September 27 : Supreme Court judge Justice S.V.N. Bhatti on Wednesday recused himself from hearing a plea filed by TDP supremo and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu against his arrest by the CID in connection with the alleged Skill Development Corporation scam case.

"My brother (Justice Bhatti) has some reservations about hearing the matter," said a division bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna without disclosing any specific reason.

The bench did not accede to list the matter for hearing on Monday and said that it could only list the matter for hearing in the next week commencing from October 3.

It did not give any specific date in the matter after the court was apprised that the matter will be mentioned again before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud seeking urgent listing.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the TDP chief, went to the courtroom of CJI Chandrachud to mention the plea for urgent hearing by a different bench.

The matter was listed for hearing on Wednesday before a bench comprising Justices Khanna and Bhatti as per the supplementary cause list published on the website of the apex court late on Tuesday.

On Monday, a bench headed by the CJI did not accede to the out-of-turn mentioning made on Naidu's behalf but asked senior advocate Luthra to mention the matter afresh on Tuesday for directions seeking urgent listing.

Naidu has approached the Supreme Court by filing a special leave petition after a single bench of Justice Sreenivas Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on September 22 dismissed his petition to quash the FIR registered against him and to set aside his judicial remand.

--IANS

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New Delhi: A view of the Supreme Court in New Delhi on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo: Wasim Sarvar/IANS). Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Sep 27 : Supreme Court judge Justice SV Bhatti on Wednesday recused himself from hearing a plea filed by Telugu Desam Party supremo and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu against his arrest by the CID in connection with the alleged Skill Development Corporation scam case.

"My brother (Justice Bhatti) has some reservations about hearing the matter," said a Division Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna without disclosing any specific reason.

The Bench did not agree to list the matter for hearing on Monday and said that it could only list the matter for hearing from October 3 onwards.

It did not give any specific date in the matter after the court was informed that the matter would be mentioned again before CJI DY Chandrachud seeking urgent listing.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief, went to the courtroom of the CJI to mention the plea for urgent hearing by a different Bench.

The matter was listed today for hearing before a Bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SV Bhatti as per the supplementary cause list published on the website of the apex court late on September 26.

Earlier on September 25, a Bench headed by the CJI did not accede to the out-of-turn mentioning made on Naidu's behalf but asked senior advocate Luthra to mention the matter afresh on Tuesday for directions seeking urgent listing.

Naidu has approached the Supreme Court by filing a Special Leave Petition after a single Bench of Justice S Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on September 22 dismissed his petition to quash the FIR registered against him and to set aside his judicial remand.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The prominent Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chavithi, is held in honour of the elephant-headed god Ganesha. It takes place on the fourth day of Bhadrapada, a Hindu month that often occurs in August or September.

This year's festival started on September 19. The celebration typically lasts 10 days, coming to an end on Anant Chaturdashi, the fourteenth day of the fortnight.

Mumbai

Since Lord Ganesh is revered as Maharashtra's patron god, more than 6000 idols are created in Mumbai each year. Although it is celebrated all throughout India, Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra experience the most splendor. One of the top destinations included in Maharashtra tour packages is Mumbai. The famous Maratha emperor Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj encouraged the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, which liberation fighter Lokmanya Tilak had revived.

Pune

One of India's top Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations takes place in Pune, Maharashtra. The Peshwas, who revered Ganesha as their patron deity, are credited with spreading Ganesh worship throughout this region. It is currently the most happy occasion in Pune's religious, cultural, and social life. The celebration lasts ten days.

Hyderabad

Hyderabad is one of the well-known locations in India to watch the lavish Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, along with Mumbai and Pune. In Hyderabad, the Ganapathi Navaratri utsavams begin on Vinayaka Chavithi (Ganesh Chaturthi) and conclude with Ganesh Immersion on Anantha Chaturdashi day. There are more than 75,000 Ganesh pandals in Hyderabad. Khairatabad, Balapur, Kamalanagar Chaitanyapuri, Durgam Cheruvu, Old City (Gowlipura), and New Nagole are renowned locations where Ganesha statues are built and fascinatingly ornamented.

Goa

Goans have a particular place in their hearts for the Ganesh festival. It offers a chance for enjoyment and merriment and also makes it easier for family and friends to get together.Different clubs and commercial associations decorate and install deity idols in tastefully designed pandals in varied sizes and shapes. The event is particularly significant in Mapusa, which is home to the well-known Ganeshpuri and Khandola temples. Marcela, which contains a number of Hindu temples, is one of the villages where it is most widely observed.

Ganpatipule

On the Konkan coast of Maharashtra, in the Ratnagiri district, is the little town of Ganpatipule. It includes a number of beaches and lookouts with breathtaking ocean views. The main appeal for hundreds of tourists visiting Ganapatipule each year is the 400-year-old Swayambhu Ganpati Temple on the beach itself. The distinctive Ganapati statue constructed on pule (white sand) is a feature of the Swayambhu Ganapati Temple of Ganapatipule. It is thought to have come into existence all by itself (swayambhu). Paschim Dwar Dewata is the name of one of India's Ashta Ganapati temples.

Chennai

Chennai also celebrates Ganesha Chaturthi with zest and fervor, despite being less extravagant than the festivities in Mumbai. Many religious and cultural organizations participate in the practice by erecting idols of the god throughout the city. The idols frequently reflect particular ideas. For instance, one might have Ganesha as a fisherman and be based on the fishing community. Other materials used to create idols include bamboo and panchamritham, a substance produced from ghee, liquid jaggery, milk, honey, and yogurt.

(IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday greeted 32 students of Delhi's Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School for clearing the NDA exam.

"Delighted to share that 32 students from Delhi's Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School have cleared the NDA exam, one of the highest number from any school across the country," he posted on X.

"In just one year Delhias Armed Force Preparatory school has shown excellent results. I am sure that more and more students from Delhi will now clear the NDA exam and make our country proud as future officers. Delhi will always be ready to serve the nation," his posted further read.
Chandigarh, Sep 27 : Born on September 28, 1907, in Punjab's Banga town, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the legendary revolutionary continues to inspire the young in India.

Bhagat Singh was hanged in the Lahore Central Jail, now in Pakistan, on March 23, 1931, along with his associates Rajguru and Sukhdev.

His death had inspired thousands of people to join the freedom movement. In his autobiography, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru writes about Bhagat Singh: "It is well to appreciate this, for only so can we have some understanding of subsequent events, of the phenomenon of Bhagat Singh, and of his sudden and amazing popularity...

"He became a symbol; the act was forgotten, the symbol remained, and within few months each town and village of Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumerable songs grew up about him, and the popularity that the man achieved was something amazing."

His famous slogan -- "Inquilab Zindabad" or "Long live the revolution" still echoes in Punjab.

Today, a museum in his memory at the entrance of his native Khatkar Kalan village, 80 km from Chandigarh on the highway to Jalandhar in Nawanshahr district, speaks about his valour.

During his visit on the freedom fighter's martyrdom day in 2003, former President late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said he was indeed delighted to visit the home of one of the most inspiring and revolutionary freedom fighters of Mother India.

"It is indeed like a pilgrimage for me to have come to this village of Khatkar Kalan which has produced one of the greatest sons of the Indian soil, Shaheed Bhagat Singh."

It is said on March 3, 1931, Bhagat Singh's parents and other relatives came to visit him. It was their last meeting. The last person to meet him was his mother.

His mother told him: "Son, don't abandon your stand. One day, everybody has to die. But the best death is one which is remembered by the whole world. I am happy that my son is making the sacrifice for a good and noble cause. My only desire is that my son should shout the slogan, 'Inquilab Zindabad' standing on the gallows. My son's weight should increase, not decrease.

"What a great mother this land has given to us. The mother had brave tears. We always cherish this martyrdom by Shaheed Bhagat Singh and also his parents. Today, Punjab has enriched soil and above all high thinking," Kalam had said.

It is indeed ironical that almost every family from Khatkar Kalan, now prosperous, has gone abroad.

The village with a population of some 2,000-odd, which has made a mark in history, is currently one of the most modern and developed ones thanks to the philanthropic spirit of well-heeled NRIs.

The ancestral maternal house of the revolutionary, where he came a few times, is a national monument. No one from his family has lived in the village for the last many decades.

The village has a memorial-cum-museum, a centrally funded Rs 26 crore project, with true-to-life recreations of moments from the freedom fighter's short but significant life.

In 2015, social activist Anna Hazare, the face of a watershed moment in Indian politics in 2011 to root out corruption from the country which led to the emergence of the Kejriwal-led AAP as a political force, visited Khatkar Kalan to pay tributes to the Shaheed-e-Azam and said some traitors have forgotten the people who sacrificed their lives for the country.

Punjab Congress leaders, led by then Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, on September 28, 2020 launched a sit-in agitation against the Central government's three contentious agricultural laws, now repealed, from the birthplace of Bhagat Singh.

The Chief Minister sat on a sit-in protest against the "draconian" laws after paying tributes to Bhagat Singh at his 'Samadhi Sthal' on his 113th birth anniversary.

Bhagat Singh's younger brother Kulbir Singh, who was born in 1914 and was the Jan Sangh MLA from Ferozepur, passed away in 1983.

Incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann (of the Aam Aadmi Party), who dons Bhagat Singh's trademark 'basanti' (yellow) turban and invokes the martyrs with the revolutionary slogan 'Inquilab Zindabad' that enables the youth to raise their arms and clench their fists, took oath in Bhagat Singh's ancestral village Khatkar Kalan, and not at Raj Bhavan, on March 16, 2022.

On his order, no government office carries a photograph of the chief minister. Instead, photos of Bhagat Singh and BR Ambedkar will be put on the walls in government offices.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : Bowing to the wishes of the Opposition and Muslim groups, the Maharashtra government has decided to push back the Eid Milad-un-Nabi by a day to Friday, September 29.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde made the announcement to the effect this evening, and was welcomed by state Congress Working President M. Arif Naseem Khan and others.

Earlier, the official state holiday for Anant Chaturdashi marking the immersion ceremonies and Eid Milad-un-Nabi were falling on the same day, September 28.

Since huge processions are taken out for both festivals, it could have resulted in problems and difficult for the police to manage the huge crowds.

Keeping in view the solemnity of both the festivals, the Congress' Khan, Samajwadi Partyas state President Abu Asim Azmi, MLA Raees Shaikh, ruling Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale, representatives of All India Khilafat Committee and others met the CM recently and submitted a proposal.

In early-September, all Muslim organisations in the city and state had unanimously decided that in order to avoid any disturbances or clashes, the processions to be taken out in honour of Prophet Mohammed celebrations would be postponed to Friday, September 29.

Last week, Khan had also written to the CM explaining the situation and sought the Eid Milad-un-Nabi holiday be postponed from Thursday to Friday.

The CMas announcement today was greeted warmly by the Muslim community and would now pave the way for smooth celebrations of both the festivals over the next two days. "The arrival of Lord Ganesha created an atmosphere of rejoicing for the last ten days. There are festivals like Eid Milad as well as the upcoming Navratri, Dassehra and Diwali in the next two months. We want that everyone should celebrate these festivals with unity and devotion and make the traditions of the state brighter," said Shinde.

The CM also took the opportunity to wish the Muslims on Eid Milad-un-Nabi and expressed hope that the festival will usher in harmony, love and affection among all people. "Prophet Mohammad gave the world a message of sacrifice and love. His life is a great message. Let's take inspiration from it and try to increase mutual respect and love," said the CM.
Bengaluru, Sep 27 : Karnataka Minister for Large and Medium Industries, M.B. Patil held a series of meetings with senior management representatives of Boeing Co, GE Group companies, USISPF, and deputy managing director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath, and discussed various investment aspects and partnerships in the state, an official release said on Wednesday.

As part of their 12-day US visit to attract investment into the state that kicked off on Monday, the Minister along with senior officials of the industries department also discussed strategies to anticipate and address imbalances in the skilled labor force with the IMF.

The minister also discussed possibilities of potential collaboration in the upskilling of the workforce in AI/ML with GE Healthcare.

M.B. Patil had a meeting with Gita Gopinath to discuss potential partnership and investment opportunities in the state. During his meeting with Boeing Co, the Minister discussed the companyas ongoing involvement in end-assembly manufacturing, and R and D within the state.

The delegation also explored options for potential investments in logistics centres, P2F (passenger-to-freight) conversions, and pilot and crew training centres near Karnatakaas airports. Government assessment of the high aviation fuel tax in Karnataka to maintain a favourable aerospace ecosystem was also on the table for discussion.

Boeing Co was represented by Greta Lundeberg, Vice President of International Operations and Policy, Government Operations, and Nicole Porreca, Director of International Operations and Policy, Government Operations. The airplane maker is globally renowned for its design, manufacture, and sale of its aircraft, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles.

Meetings with GE Healthcare and GE Vernova led to recommendations for New Industrial Policy regarding policy scope, eligibility criteria, and incentive disbursement structure and exploring investment opportunities for pump storage projects to allow storage of excess solar, wind, or other sources for periods of high demand, respectively.

The Minister along with the team of senior officials also discussed at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) on investor interest in the upcoming health tech park near the new Bengaluru airport and strategies to boost medical tourism in the state.

Both sides explored potential partnerships for leveraging blockchain technology to address certain e-governance or municipal challenges, along with discussions on training curricula for Industry 4.0skills.

M.B. Patil is leading the delegation in the USA along with senior officials of his department, S Selvakumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Commerce and Industries, and Gunjan Krishna, Commissioner for Industrial Development and Director, Industries and Commerce.
In the Liman-Kupyansk sector, Russian occupation forces have taken an "operational pause" but do not stop artillery and air strikes on Ukrainian positions. Almost 600 attacks and 14 air attacks were registered in this sector over the past day.

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At the same time, Ukrainian troops continue to destroy enemy personnel, equipment and weapons, and four ammunition depots were destroyed over the last day. This was stated by Ilya Yevlash, head of the press service of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during a telethon.

According to him, the Russian invaders have temporarily stopped ground attacks in the Liman-Kupyansk sector.

"The enemy has taken an operational pause in this section of the frontline with regard to ground offensives. There are no combat engagements there. However, we cannot say that it is completely quiet there. He fired 579 times at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and used aviation 14 times," emphasized Yevlash.

He added that the occupants are firing at the positions of Ukrainian soldiers from all available artillery systems - both cannon and rocket launchers.

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"The enemy focused on Spirne, Torske, Rozdolivka, Nevske, Dibrova, Kreminna and Karamzynivka... In our turn, we also struck at the enemy, destroying one tank, seven vehicles used by the invaders to transport personnel and provisions, six drones and four field ammunition depots," said Yevlash.

"The enemy also suffered losses in manpower: 64 occupants were killed in the Liman-Kupyansk sector over the last day.

As a reminder, on the morning of September 27, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine updated the data on Russia's losses in the war against our country. The day before, according to the General Staff, the Armed Forces of Ukraine "canceled" 320 occupants and 101 pieces of their equipment.

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Russia's irrecoverable losses in manpower during the full-scale invasion have now reached 276,990 people.
San Francisco, Sep 27 : A number of masked people barged into an Apple store in US's Philadelphia, and fled with the latest products, including iPhone 15 devices, iPads, and others.

Videos of the incident, which have gone viral, show police officers attempting to apprehend looters dressed in Halloween masks as they ransack the stores.

According to the Daily Mail, the Apple Store was attacked around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, and police chased looters while recovering dropped iPhones and a "pile of iPads" at one location.

Footage showed Apple devices ripped from display stands amid the looting.

The masked looters, which were over a hundred in number, also attacked other stores before the police showed up, the report said.

About 20 arrests have been made so far, the police said.

According to the report, one of the looters, a woman, even livestreamed the chaos. The woman, identified as Dayjia Blackwell, was posting footage of the looting on Instagram. Police later arrested her as well.

Several other videos on social media showed masked individuals running out of a Lululemon store, while police officers tackled them to the ground.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : As the vibrant streets of Maharashtra prepare to bid a heartfelt adieu to Lord Ganesha during the Visarjan ceremony, Sneha Wagh from 'Neerja... Ek Nayi Pehchaan', and the dynamic trio Ankur Verma, Tanvi Dogra, and Anchal Sahu from 'Parineetii' recently paid a visit to a Ganpati pandal, here to seek Bappa's blessings.

The spirit of Ganesh Chaturthi continues to resonate with undying fervour among the actors too.

The actors not only expressed their gratitude to the Lord Ganesha, but also interacted with the fans of the shows at the pandal.

Talking about her visit to Bappa, Sneha said: "My faith in Bappa has never wavered and today I thank him for all the love 'Neerja' has received. Interacting with the fans who have seen the show and embraced me in the role of Protima was very gratifying. I'm very happy that our efforts have fructified."

Sharing her thoughts about the darshan, Anchal commented: "Along with Ankur and Tanvi, I visited the Ganpati pandal to not just seek blessings for our show but also to connect with the viewers who watch us on television every day. Our journey has been incredible so far on the show and we pray that the show and our characters continue to receive love from the audience."

Ankur expressed gratitude, and said: "I am truly overwhelmed by the immense love and support that we have got from the viewers for our show 'Parineetii'. Being on this show has been very rewarding and the milestone of completing 500 episodes recently is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our entire team. Visiting Bappa and seeking his blessings just reminded me of the magic that faith brings to our lives."

Tanvi expressed her excitement to visit Bappa with her co-actors, and shared: "Our show, Parineetii is not just a story, it's a reflection of the complexities and beauty of relationships. Parineet, Neeti, and Sanju a.k.a Rajeev have become a part of our lives, and we are thrilled to see the audience embrace them wholeheartedly. It was uplifting to have got the darshan of Bappa."

In the current track of 'Parineetii', Neeti leaves no stone unturned to kill Parineet, and Sanju a.k.a Rajeev does his best to stop Parineet from leaving the Bajwa house. Will Neeti continue to plot against Parineet?

Whereas in the ongoing storyline of 'Neerja Ek Nayi Pehchaan', Neerja is determined to work towards a better life outside of Sonagachi, despite Protima's shocking revelation. How will she escape the perils of Sonagachi?

The show airs on COLORS.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : Actress Sukhmani Sadana, who is known for 'Manmarziyaan', 'Sacred Games' and 'Tandav', has landed in Kashmir to begin shooting for the second season of the streaming series, 'Tanaav'.

She will be seen reprising her role of Nusrat Farooqui in the second season of the show which is the official Indian adaptation of the acclaimed Israeli show aFaudaa.

Nusrat is a character of profound complexity, shrouded in sombre and 'grey' shades, adding layers of intrigue to the show's landscape.

In the first season, Sukhmani's portrayal of Nusrat Farooqui drew accolades for its depth and authenticity, elevating the character into the heart of the series.

The show also stars Sahiba Bali, Arsalan Goni, Amit Gaur and Satyadeep Misra.

aTanaava season 2 promises to deliver an even more intense and captivating storyline.

As the cameras roll, anticipation in the air is palpable, and the fans of the show are in for an unforgettable ride as the makers have promised that the show will further push the envelope.
Toronto, Sep 27 : A friend of pro-Khalistan terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in the parking lot of a gurdwara in Surrey in British Columbia on June 18, has said that the slain leader was being tracked before his killing.

CTV has quoted Moninder Singh, a spokesperson for the British Columbia Gurdwaras Council, as saying, "A couple of weeks before his death, he had come home to say there was a tracking device on the bottom wheel well of his vehicle."

He said, "When he was at a mechanic shop, it (the vehicle) was raised and they found it."

Recalling the events of the day when Nijjar was killed in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Mohinder Singh said, "The first call was made to me by the person who opened the door and saw him inside. He called and told me to get there right away."

He said video footage from the area captured the suspects' car as "it followed him (Nijjar) through the parking lot, cut him off through the back exit where he was going to exit out and slowed down and led him to almost a stop to where shooters emerged to shoot him. It was very well coordinated".

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had last week spoken in the House of Commons about India's alleged involvement in the killing of the separatist leader, who was spearheading the Khalistani campaign in Canada.

India has denied the allegation, accusing Canada of harbouring terrorists on its soil.

In a tit-for-tat, Canada and India expelled one diplomat from each country.
The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi on Sept 1, 2014. The government Monday told the Supreme Court that they stood by its verdict holding allocation of coal blocks since 1993 as illegal, and was ready to auction these blocks if they are cancelled . Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the order granting bail to the Bhima Koregaon-Elgaar Parishad conspiracy case accused Mahesh Raut will not be given effect for another week.

A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi extended, till October 5, the stay already granted by the Bombay High Court as it heard the plea filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

"Leave granted. List on October 5. The stay already granted by Bombay High Court on operation of judgment and order shall continue until the next date of hearing," the bench said.

On September 21, a division bench of Justice AS Gadkari and Justice Sharmila Deshmukh of the High Court had granted bail to Raut, who has been in jail since June 6, 2018 for his alleged links with Maoists.

However, the High Court deferred implementation of its order for a week after the anti-terror agency sought a stay for filing a special leave petition in the Supreme Court.

In July, the top court had granted bail to two other accused -- Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, who were in jail since August 2018.

The case pertains to inciting people and giving provocative speeches during the Elgar Parishad organised by the activists of Kabir Kala Manch at Shaniwarwada in Maharashtra's Pune on December 31, 2017, which allegedly promoted enmity between various caste groups and led to violence resulting in loss of life and property and a state-wide agitation in Maharashtra.
Chandigarh, Sep 27 : Chandigarh Smart City was on Wednesday adjudicated the best Union Territory and the best e-Governance Project, the best Mobility Project and the third-best Sanitation Project. The awards were given during the India Smart Cities Conclave 2023 in Indore by President Droupadi Murmu.

The city bagged the third position in Sanitation Category for Revolutionising Waste Management in the city by Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri.

The President felicitated the winners of the fourth edition of the India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC) 2022 that was organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Anindita Mitra, Chief Executive Officer, Chandigarh Smart City Ltd, along with NP Sharma, Chief General Manager, Chandigarh Smart City, and DV Manohar, Chairman SmartBike, received the awards for Mobility and e-Governance services.

Anup Gupta, Mayor of Chandigarh, Nitin Kumar Yadav Home Secretary, besides Mitra received the award for Best UT and for being third in the sanitation category.

Talking to the media, Yadav said Chandigarh's commendable achievements could be attributed to ground-breaking initiatives aimed at creating a greener and more sustainable city.

Chandigarh's exceptional efforts in providing safe and convenient non-motorised transport facilities have fulfilled the city's commitment to promote sustainable transportation and reduce carbon emissions.

Mayor Gupta expressed pride and dedicated the awards to the citizens of Chandigarh.

Anindita Mitra said that Chandigarh Smart City's recognition at the National Smart Cities Award reaffirms its commitment to transforming Chandigarh into a model smart city, focusing on sustainable development, citizen-centric services, and continuous innovation.
Amaravati, Sep 27 : Though TDP supremo and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was taken into custody in the Skill Development project case 19 days ago, not even a single evidence has been produced in the case till now, his wife Nara Bhuvaneswari said on Wednesday.

Participating in a protest demonstration at Seethanagaram of Rajanagaram Assembly segment in East Godavari district against the "illegal" arrest of Chandrababu Naidu, Bhuvaneswari said that though allegations are being made that Rs 371 crore have been diverted but no one could prove till now to where these funds were diverted.

Stating that in any case before arresting anyone, evidence will be produced on the involvement of the person concerned, she said it was strange that in the Skill Development case, the arrest has been made without any evidence and now inquiry is being conducted to where the funds have been diverted.

"Probably this is for the first time anyone is experiencing such wonder," she said, adding that Naidu did not loot public money but still he was sent to jail. Thanking people for coming out onto the roads in support of Naidu, she said that no one could prove in these 19 days that he had committed any mistake.

"The CID officials could not answer Mr Chandrababu Naidu's queries," Bhuvaneswai stated.

Observing that several cases have been filed against her husband in the past 45 years, she said not even a single case could be proved. She claimed that Chandrababu Naidu always struggled for the progress of the state and the people. He was always pondering over what industry should be set up in the state to provide employment to the youth, she said.

Over two lakh youth got trained through the Skill Development Centres and those who got employment after getting trained are now earning lakhs of rupees per month while some have risen to the level of Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bhuvaneswari said and pointed out that these centres were set up even in tribal areas like Paderu.

"Though I studied only up to BA, the Heritage company was handed over to me and I have grown within three months to run that company successfully," Bhuvaneswari added.

Stating that she is feeling proud that women, who always remained indoors are now coming onto the roads in support of Naidu, she recalled that he used to call the officials concerned immediately if he found that even the streetlights were not working. Later, he used to monitor through the app whether these streetlights are functioning.

"If such a responsible person is sent to jail what kind of evil pleasure they are getting they only know. TDP activists are like his children and if their family head is harassed, will they remain silent," she asked.

Pointing out that cases under attempt to murder are being registered against those who are protesting against the illegal arrest of Naidu, she said that even women are not spared.

"Do the people have no right to protest," she asked.

Stating that the TDP national General Secretary, Nara Lokesh launched the Yuva Galam for the future of the youth, Bhuvaneswari said that the government created all kinds of obstructions to his padayatra and is trying to stifle his voice. She made it clear that despite such hurdles, the Yuva Galam will continue and called upon the people to join hands to express their solidarity with Chandrababu Naidu.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : Debutant actress Paloma Dhillon, who plays the female lead in the film 'Dono', has gone Behind-The-Scenes of the film and said that for the movie's track 'Aag Lagdi' she had to improvise at the last minute.

Talking about the shooting of the song, the actress said: aDuring aAgg Lagdia our choreographer Vijay Ganguly and our director Avnish said all they wanted for me is to really enjoy the song and steps so Vijay sir said I can just have fun, it was a last minute improvisation we did in the van and it turned out so organically on set."

During the promotions for aDonoa, Paloma detailed her whole experience and opened up about some of the challenges she faced on-set.

Detailing her experience, she added: aAlthough youare doing scenes where youare bearing the weight of heavy jewellery, shooting in the scorching heat, walking on pebbles, or working long hours outdoors with crowds all around with an audience keenly watching you, what truly matters is the work."

The actress said: aIt's about showing up, doing what you're supposed to do, and bringing your absolute best to the table. When you're on set, it's the passion for your craft that drives you, and it doesn't matter between action and cut."

The trailer, which set the ball rolling for the wedding season, had featured Paloma donning some exquisite wedding attire as well as offering a glimpse of her wedding wardrobe style.

aDonoa will mark the debut of Paloma as an actress where she will share the big screen with Rajveer Deol.

Also marking the debut of director Avnish S Barjatya, aDonoa is slated to hit theatres on October 5, 2023.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Haryana's Ahirwal region strong BJP leader and former minister Jagdish Yadav on Wednesday joined the Congress at a programme organised under the leadership of two-time Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

At the event, national President of Congress Backward Classes, Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda, among other senior party leaders, were present.

Expressing gratitude to the Congress, Yadav said every section of the state is fed up with the policies of the BJP-JJP government.

"People are eagerly waiting for the elections. It is certain that the Congress will form the government in Haryana this time," he said.

Along with Yadav, many BJP leaders joined the Congress.

State party chief Chaudhary Udaibhan welcomed the new leaders and assured them of full respect. He said the Congress clan is continuously expanding and the party is getting strengthened by new leaders giving strength to the party every day.

He said opponents are stunned to see this wave of support for the Congress going on across Haryana.

Hooda said Yadav joining the Congress would further strengthen the party in the Ahirwal region. He said more than 30 former MLAs and ministers have left other parties and joined the Congress till now and the Congress outreach programmes are getting record breaking public support everywhere.

"The BJP-JJP have accepted defeat even before the elections. All these developments are pointing towards the Congress getting a huge majority in Haryana," he said.

He called upon all new and old Congressmen to reach out to the public as public servants from now on. The former Chief Minister said it was the duty of every Congressman to fulfill the expectations of the people and live up to their aspirations.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : The Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'Jawan' is still going immensely strong in theatres after 20 days of its release. Congratulating director Atlee on his big success, Tamil cinema's big star Vijay ahead of the release of his film 'Leo' has congratulated his longtime partner.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), the actor wrote: "Congratulations on the blockbuster @iamsrk, @Atlee_dir and the entire #Jawan team! Love you too @iamsrk sir".

Atlee, thanking Vijay wrote: "Love you na".

SRK had also taken to his X to thank the actor for his well wishes and written: "Thank u for your wishes.Looking forward to Thalapathy's next!!! I love Vijay sir."

Vijay's next film 'Leo' will be an action-thriller which will release in theatres on October 19, 2023.

Internationally too, the movie has left its mark as the movie's songs have exploded in countries such as Germany and South Korea, with audiences dancing to songs such as 'Zinda Banda' and 'Not Ramaiyaa Vastavaiyaa'.

The Anirudh Ravichander soundtrack has gone down well not just with Indian audiences, but also abroad as audiences could be seen standing outside in front of a neon-light club and dancing to a full on blasting version of 'Zinda Banda'.

Before that, audiences could also be seen in South Korea dancing to 'Not Ramaiyaa Vastavaiyaa' and imitating the song's dance moves. In addition, audiences in Mexico and Peru were also seen dancing to the movie's soundtrack and having a blast.

'Jawan' fever does not seem to be dying down anytime soon because on its 20th day, the movie has currently earned Rs 4 crore with a total Indian gross figure of Rs 683 crore and an overseas gross of Rs 1,017.66 crore.

Some of the film's biggest markets outside of India include the US, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, South Korea, the UAE, the UK, Singapore and Germany.

In addition, the movie has also earned a good sum from markets in Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Italy.
On the night of September 27, Russian terrorist forces shelled the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region with heavy artillery. As a result of the attack, two civilians were injured. These are men aged 44 and 68.

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This was reported by the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration Serhiy Lysak on Telegram. According to him, both victims are currently in hospital in moderate condition.

The Myrivska community and Nikopol itself came under fire. Russian shelling caused a fire in a two-story building. Rescuers managed to quickly extinguish it.

As a result of the attack, a private enterprise and 4 outbuildings were damaged, and one was destroyed. 6 private houses, cars, gas pipelines and a power line were also damaged.

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As a reminder, the day before, the occupiers shelled the Kherson region and the city of Kherson. In particular, the villages of Kyselivka and Olhivka were hit. At least four people were injured as a result of the shelling.

Korabelny district in the regional center came under fire. One of the occupants' shells hit the yard of a house. As a result, a 48-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man sustained minor injuries.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported:

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- Last night, Russia launched another massive attack with Shahed-136/131 kamikaze drones in the Odesa region. Most of the drones were destroyed in the air, but there were also hits: the port infrastructure was destroyed, trucks were burned and drivers were injured.

- Cherkasy region was also attacked by the Shahed drones on the night of September 26. One of the enemy drones hit an infrastructure facility.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Mumbai, Sep 27 : Actress Raveena Tandon, who is known for 'Mohra', 'K.G.F', 'Andaz Apna Apna', and others, has accused the media of the 1990s of practising "yellow journalism" and said that the media back then had no accountability.

During a recent conversation, the aAranyaka actress said: aThe media of the 1990s was terrible, it was yellow journalism at its peak. They had no morals, no scruples and no integrity. Luckily, today you have social media where you can put out your case right away in front of your fans. Your statement matters today."

Raveena told Lehren: aThere are different mediums and platforms today, where you can be one on one with your fans. Earlier, we were at the mercy of the editors, who had their own camps whom they were close to as they would write only good things about them, not even waiting to find out the truth. Even if they had to issue an apology, it would be a very small line, very obscure in the inside pages."

The actress went on to say that she had the worst articles written about her.

aSome of those women editors today play the feminist card but I know how nasty they were back then. These are the very people who slut-shammed, body shamed, called me names and pet names. I was called so many things like aAmazoniana, aThunder Thighsa and aMiss arroganta," the actress concluded.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a notorious criminal, who had escaped from the custody Uttar Pradesh Police three months ago while he was brought to AIIMS in the national capital for the treatment, an official said, adding that with his arrest they have averted a killing of a person in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar.

The accused, identified as Mohd. Shahnawaz (28), was arrested along with his associate Javed (23).

The official said that Shahnawaz has been previously involved in seven criminal cases, including robbery, gangster act, arms act, assault, escape from police custody, theft, and cheating, among others, in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

According to police, there was information about the movement of absconder Shahnawaz in the South Delhi area, mainly in Saket.

"On Tuesday, specific input was received that Shahnawaz and his associate Javed would come near Saket metro station between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. to meet one of their associates. Subsequently, a trap was laid around Saket metro station and the duo was apprehended," said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) H.G.S. Dhaliwal.

One semi-automatic of .32 bore pistol with four live cartridges and one single-shot pistol of .12 bore with two bullets were recovered from Shahnawaz and Javed respectively.

The official further said that Shahnawaz was absconding after escaping from the custody of Uttar Pradesh Police during his visit to AIIMS Delhi on June 14, when he was brought there by a team of Moradabad police from Meerut Medical College, for better treatment.

"In view of his tendency to commit crime in the area regularly, gangster act was slapped on him in 2022 by the Uttar Pradesh Police," he said.

During interrogation, Shahnawaz disclosed that his mother had separated from his father and is now living with another man, and he was planning to kill that person. "The accused further disclosed that he met a criminal, namely Mota, in Moradabad jail in 2022, and at his instance, he conspired to extort Rs. one crore from a businessman in Uttar Pradesh. He had also planned to kill the target in case he refuses to pay the money. He had also procured firearms to execute the plan," the Special CP added.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla along with Hardeep Singh Nijjar was providing details of targets, arranging weapons, sending terror funds through various Money Transfer Service Scheme (MTSS) channels and also raising funds through extortion to strengthen the terror activities of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), the NIA's investigation has revealed.

Khalistani extremist and KTF chief Nijjar, was killed outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Canada's British Columbia on June 18 this year.

"Arshdeep Singh in association with Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who also is a designated terrorist, was facilitating the members of the terror gang by providing details of targets, arranging weapons, sending terror funds through various MTSS channels and also raising funds through extortion to strengthen the terror activities of the KTF. The investigation has further revealed that a major part of the money extorted from victims was sent to Arsh in Canada through hawala operators," the NIA stated in its chargesheet.

The NIA added that the recruits, who were nabbed by security agencies last year, were part of a deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by Nijjar and Arsh to kidnap and subsequently kill people of other faiths to further the KTF's terror agenda.

"The conspiracy was to threaten the unity, integrity and security (including economic security) and sovereignty of India by generating terror funds through extortion in the country and transfer them through hawala channels to Canada. A majority of these funds were used for the KTF's terror activities," read the chargesheet.

According to NIA sources, Arsh Dalla -- who is known to have connections with Canadian gangster Goldy Brar and the gangster Sukhdool Singh who was killed in a gang war -- was deeply involved in a series of criminal activities.

Dalla's activities that came to light in 2020, primarily focused on funding, organising terror networks, coordinating the smuggling of weapons across the border, and orchestrating targeted assassinations in Punjab.

He and Nijjar reportedly formed a three-member KTF module responsible for the assassination of Tejinder, also known as Pinka, the owner of the Sunshine Clothes Store in Moga in 2021.

In 2022, they collaborated once again to establish a four-person KTF module with the intention of carrying out grenade attacks.

Dalla's name also emerged in the context of the murder of Manohar Lal, a follower of Dera Sacha Sauda. Additionally, he partnered with gangsters Bikram Brar and Goldy Brar for the smuggling of pistols and magazines.

The security agencies have identified a group of 11 individuals, comprising gangsters and terrorists, currently residing in Canada, the United States, and Pakistan from where they are running their nexus.

Of these, eight are suspected to be operating from within Canada, including individuals such as Lakhbir Singh, also known as 'Landa' and Dalla among others.

According to sources, Harinder Sandhu alias Rinda is suspected to be in Pakistan, while Satwinder Singh alias Goldy Brar is hiding in either the US or Canada.

"Landa, Arsh Dalla, Satveer Singh Warring alias Raman Judge, Charnjit Singh alias Rinku Bihla, Sanawer Dhillon and Gurpinder Singh a.k.a Baba Dalla, are suspected to be in Canada while Gaurav Patyal a.k.a Lucky, Anmol Bishnoi are suspected to be in US," said the sources.

(Shekhar Singh can be reached at shekhar.s@ians.in)
New Delhi : PM Modi interacts with ground level functionaries of G20 Summit at Bharat Mandapam. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Sep 27 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit poll-bound Telangana on October 1 and 3, official sources said.

He may also visit Madhya Pradesh on October 2 and 5, they added.

Modi is expected to participate in various public meetings and government related functions during his visit to the southern state, sources added.

The Prime Minister is also likely to address a public rally in Hyderabad.

In Madhya Pradesh also, Modi is expected to hold a series of public meetings, sources said.

Earlier this week too, the Prime Minister had visited Bhopal, where he had addressed BJP party workers.

Prior to that, earlier this month, during his visit to Madhya Pradesh, Modi had laid the foundation stone for projects worth over Rs 50,700 crore.

This included the initiation of two IT parks in Indore, the establishment of six new industrial parks across the state, the commencement of a petrochemical complex at Bina refinery, the launch of the 'Power and Renewable Energy Manufacturing Zone' in Narmadapuram, and the inception of a mega industrial park in Ratlam.

Both Madhya Pradesh and Telangana are expected to go to polls in December this year.
Patna, Sep 27 : Lok Janshakti Party Ram Vilas (LJPR) president Chirag Paswan slammed the government of Bihar on Wednesday over the Khusrupur urination incident involving a Dalit woman.

While interacting with media persons at Patna airport, Chirag Paswan said that the leaders of the Mahagathbandhan had double standards. While they were creating a hue and cry over the Manipur incident they were silent on the Khusrupur incident in Patna.

"They are hiding the crimes in their own states but pointing out incidents in NDA-ruled states. This shows the double standards of the INDIA Opposition bloc which is absolutely wrong," Paswan said.

MoS Home Nityanand Rai also attacked the Nitish-Tejashwi government and said that women were not safe in Bihar. He also raised concern over the silence of the JD(U)-RJD combine government.

"It is a matter of concern where a Dalit woman was stripped, beaten and urinated upon. We are committed to get justice for her," Rai said.

"The law and order situation in Bihar is at an all-time low. No one is secure here. Criminals have dominance and Bihar is heading towards Jungle Raj. The incident of Khusrupur is a prime example of it," he said.

On September 23 a Dalit woman of Mosimpur village under Khusrupur police station was kidnapped by the main accused in the case Pramod Singh. As per the victim, Pramod Singh took her to his house and his men stripped her and assaulted her.

She also claimed that Pramod Singh's son Anshu Singh urinated in her mouth.

She somehow escaped and reached home and her relatives alerted the police.

The victim had borrowed Rs 1,500 on interest from Pramod Singh a few months ago and as per her, she had returned the money with interest. The accused was demanding more interest from her, which she refused to give.

As Pramod was harassing her and threatening to parade her naked in public, she lodged a complaint at Khusrupur police station.

Following her complaint, the cops asked Pramod Singh to join the probe in the police station and he went there for questioning on Saturday.

The accused, after returning home, reached the house of the victim late in the night and kidnapped her with the help of his men.

Patna police managed to arrest the main accused Pramod Singh in this connection but the remaining five accused including his son Anshu Singh are still on the run.
Bengaluru, Sep 27 : Karnataka Forest Department and retired Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests M.N. Jayakumar will jointly organise an exhibition titled "Encounters in the Wild 2.0" to commemorate 50 years of Project Tiger.

Minister for Forests Eshwar Khandre will inaugurate the exhibition on Thursday at Chitrakala Parishat in Bengaluru.

The exhibition, eagerly awaited by nature lovers, will showcase captivating visual journey across the jungles of India, Southeast Asia, Africa, and America.

Besides commemorating the Golden Jubilee of Project Tiger, the wildlife photography exhibition will also celebrate the diversity of wildlife and nature from across the globe.

The exhibition by Jayakumar in partnership with the Karnataka Forest Department, will feature 231 photographs.

In addition to the photo exhibition, there will be free talks and presentations every evening (5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.) by experts in the fields of wildlife conservation, photography, and filmmaking who will share their experiences with the audience.

Entry at the 11-day exhibition is free for all.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka Forest Department conducted a state-wide photography competition with 'Biodiversity of Karnataka' as the theme. Of all the entries received, 40 of the best images will be displayed in Chitrakala Parishath's D Devaraj Urs gallery during the exhibition period.

Jayakumar says: "Through Encounters in the Wild 2.0, we aim to transport visitors into the heart of the wild, showcasing the beauty of our natural world while paying homage to the invaluable legacy of Project Tiger. Visitors can scan the QR code for each photo and get more information about the photo, including some fun facts. For those who are visually impaired or would prefer to listen to the information, they can plug in their headphones for an audio narration. This exhibition is not just a celebration but a call to action, urging us to be stewards of our planet's biodiversity and protect our apex predators and their habitats."

Rajiv Ranjan, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force said: "The Karnataka Forest Department has always been proactive in involving all stakeholders for creating awareness about conservation of forest of the state. 'Project Tiger' has been a grand success in Karnataka and now the state is bestowed with 563 tigers, which is the second highest in the country. Karnataka is at the forefront of the preservation and conservation of the critical wildlife habitat of Western Ghats, which is a Biodiversity Hotspot."
Kolkata, Sep 27 : Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, on Wednesday, ordered the transfer of a special CBI court judge for intervening in a High Court order.

Justice Gangopadhyay has taken exception to an earlier order of the special CBI court judge, Arpan Chattopadhyay for involving Kolkata Police in the central agency investigation on the allegation by expelled youth Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh accusing the central agencies of putting pressure on him to name Trinamool Congress' national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal.

Justice Gangopadhyay observed that when the central agency probe in the matter was being conducted following an order of the Calcutta High Court, the judge of the special CBI court had no authority to intervene in that matter.

Justice Gangopadhyay also directed the authorities concerned to complete the process of transfer of the judge of the special CBI court in Kolkata by October 4.

On Wednesday, the chief of CBI's special investigation team probing the school job case in West Bengal, Ashwini Senvi appeared in front of Justice Gangopadhyay's bench and accused the local police administration of harassing the central agency sleuths and thus creating hindrances in the process of smooth investigation.

Reacting to Senvi's complaints, Justice Gangopadhyay observed that the task of Kolkata Police and West Bengal Police are to maintain law and order situation in the state and under no circumstance they can intervene in a central agency probe which has been ordered by the Calcutta High Court.

"I do not want to comment on the level of efficiency of Kolkata Police and State Police. But they cannot intervene in an investigation by the central agency, which is being conducted following a high court order. The members of the SIT of CBI should not be touched at all. There should be no compromise on the issue of corruption," Justice Gangopadhyay observed.

With regards to the transfer of the special CBI court judge, Justice Gangopadhyay also summoned the state law minister Malay Ghatak within the next 30 minutes. The minister arrived and assured Justice Gangopadhyay that he will clear the file regarding the transfer of the same judge at the earliest.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Centre on Wednesday issued notification on appointment of 11 permanent judges in the Punjab & Haryana High Court, acting on the recommendations made by the CJI D.Y. Chandrachud-led Supreme Court Collegium on September 14.

"In exercise of the power conferred by clause (1) of Article 217 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint (i) Ms. Justice Nidhi Gupta, S/Shri Justices (ii) Sanjay Vashisth, (iii) Tribhuvan Dahiya, (iv) NamitKumar (v) Harkesh Manuja, (vi) Aman Chaudhary, (vii) Naresh Singh, (viii) Harsh Bunger, (ix) Jagmohan Bansal, (x) Deepak Manchanda and (xi) Alok Jain, Additional Judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court, to be Judges of that High Court with effect from the date they assume charge of their respective offices," said a notification issued by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice.

The Supreme Court Collegium recommended their appointment after the Collegium of the Punjab & Haryana High Court had unanimously forwarded its recommendation for these names on May 20.

The SC Collegium said that it has consulted other Judges of the Supreme Court who are conversant with the affairs of the Punjab & Haryana High Court in terms of the Memorandum of Procedure.

"The Committee of two judges of the Supreme Court constituted by the Chief Justice of India in terms of the Resolution dated 26 October 2017 of the Supreme Court Collegium has assessed the judgments of the Additional Judges," it had noted.

It said that it has scrutinised the material placed on record including the opinion of the consultee-judges and the report of the Judgment Evaluation Committee, to assess the merit and suitability of these additional judges for appointment as permanent judges of the Punjab & Haryana High Court. The SC Collegium said that these 11 additional judges are fit and suitable for being appointed as permanent judges against the existing vacancies. "The Chief Ministers and Governors of the State of Punjab and Haryana have concurred with the recommendation," said the statement uploaded on the website of the apex court.
Vijayawada, Sep 27 : A day after Andhra Pradesh Police's CID named him as an accused in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) General Secretary Nara Lokesh approached the High Court for anticipatory bail.

The CID had Tuesday filed a memo in Vijayawada ACB Court on Tuesday, naming Lokesh as an accused in the case.

Lokesh, who is son of TDP supremo and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, has been named as 14th accused in the case.

Naidu is currently under judicial custody in the Skill Development Corporation scam. The CID has already named Naidu as an accused in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case and AP FiberNet case and filed Prisoner Transit (PT) warrant petitions against him in Vijayawada ACB Court.

Naidu has already filed petitions in the High Court for anticipatory bail in both the cases.

In May 2022, the CID had registered an FIR against Naidu, former Municipal Administration Minister Dr P. Narayana, Heritage Foods Ltd, and others, for alleged irregularities in the construction of an internal ring road in Amaravati.

The FIR was filed based on a complaint from YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) Mangalgiri MLA A. Rama Krishna Reddy. It was alleged that certain illegal and corrupt activities were committed by highly placed government officials between 2014 and 2019 with regard to the design of master plan for the Andhra Pradesh capital and alignment of the ring road to cause wrongful gain to certain individuals.

Heritage Foods is a company owned by Chandrababu Naiduas family. The ruling party had accused Naidu of large scale irregularities in land acquisition and other aspects in development of the state capital Amaravati. The CID has already stated that it is probing Lokeshas role in all three scams. The scams allegedly took place when Naidu was the Chief Minister and Lokesh was a minister in his cabinet.

Meanwhile, Lokesh, who has been campaigning in Delhi for the last few days, is returning to Andhra Pradesh. He plans to resume his Yuva Glam padyatra from September 29. Following the arrest of Naidu on September 9, Lokesh had stopped his padyatra in East Godavari district. The TDP General Secretary had launched a 4,000 km padyatra on January 27 to reach out to people. The foot march is scheduled to end in Srikakulam after covering 100 Assembly constituencies in the state.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference (IPACC) organised by the Indian army with the US Army as the co-host concluded on Wednesday with the 30 participating countries agreeing "to work towards a collaborative effort to address the challenges faced in the region." The three-day event took place in the backdrop of increased muscle flexing by China in the Indo-Pacific region.

'The Army Chiefs and Heads of Delegations had free and frank discussions on the need for an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region that follows a rules based world order. They highlighted that Indo-Pacific has diversity at many levels and all agreed to work towards a collaborative effort to address the challenges faced in the region,'' according to an official statement issued on Wednesday.

The event achieved the envisaged outcomes such as evolving a shared vision for military cooperation, fostering a sense of collective responsibility, sharing best practices, appreciating areas and communities vulnerable to climate change, synergising approach to disaster relief, increasing military exchange endeavours, progressing defence diplomacy initiatives and reinforcing the importance of open and sustained dialogue to jointly address issues that impact the Indo-Pacific countries, the statement added.

The event provided an opportunity for the delegates to exchange ideas and views on security and other contemporary issues of mutual interest, with core efforts directed to promote 'peace and stability' in the Indo-Pacific region.

The event commenced with a call-on by General Randy George, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, to General Manoj Pande, Chief of the Army Staff, Indian Army, on September 25. Both Chiefs discussed issues of mutual interest and shared views on contemporary issues.

General Pande also held bilateral meetings with chiefs of the armies of the participating countries. These included one-to-one discussions with General Morishita Yasunori (Japan), Lieutenant General Simon Stuart (Australia), Lieutenant General Mguyen Doan Anh (Vietnam), Major General John Boswell (New Zealand) and General Sir Patrick Sanders (UK).

Sessions of the Indo-Pacific armies management seminar (IPAMS) were conducted in the plenary sessions on three themes.

The first theme was "Partnering for Sustainable Peace and Security in the Indo-Pacific". Second theme was "Cooperation to Enhance Interoperability" and the final theme was "Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)- Evolving Mechanisms for Crises Response".

It emerged during the discussions that the nations need to work together to strengthen the collective responses.This collaborative effort is not built overnight and therefore IPAMS provided the platform to build a connect, confidence and commitment for the future, the official statement said.

The senior enlisted leaders forum (SELF) was conducted in three sessions on the themes, "Interoperability Amongst Indo-Pacific Armies", "Grooming Junior Leaders for Modern Battlefield" and "Beyond the Barracks- Addressing Senior Enlisted Leaders' Concerns". It was a unique forum where junior leaders at the functional level exchanged their views and ideas.

The event culminated with the closing ceremony at the Manekshaw Centre in Delhi on Wednesday.

The conference came to an end with a flag handing over ceremony, as IPACC and IPAMS flags were handed over by the Indian Army to the US Army.
The United Nations has counted 9,701 dead and 17,748 wounded in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. It is noted that most people were killed or injured in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.

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This is stated in the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for September 25. It is this agency that is engaged in the relevant calculations.

Thus, the UN reports that 7,550 people were killed and 14,638 others were injured in the government-controlled areas. Of these, 4287 were killed and 6324 wounded in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 3,263 were killed and 8,314 wounded in the other two regions.

In the territory temporarily occupied by Russia, there are 2151 dead and 3110 wounded. Of these, 805 were killed and 2815 wounded in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 1346 were killed and 295 wounded in the other three regions.

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Among the dead, 4521 were men, 2707 women, 289 boys and 237 girls. At the same time, the sex of 29 children and 1918 adults who died has not yet been determined.

The UN emphasizes that the true number of civilian casualties in Ukraine is much higher. The reason for this is that it is currently impossible to obtain information from some places where intense fighting is taking place. In addition, many reports, including those concerning Mariupol in the Donetsk region, Lysychansk, Popasna and Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region, where numerous civilian casualties were reported, need to be verified and confirmed.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, a UN investigation says that Russian invaders tortured some Ukrainian prisoners to death and raped women in the temporarily occupied territories. The victims of sexual violence were women aged 19 to 83.

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Only verified information is available on our Telegram Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
New Delhi, Sep 27 : In a brazen daylight heist, three armed men targeted a jewellery store in north Delhi on Wednesday, making off with around 480 grams of gold, valued at nearly Rs 30 lakh.

The robbers, wearing helmets, arrived on a motorcycle at Shriram Jewellery shop in Samaypur Badli area, where they brandished their firearms and threatened the staff before escaping with their loot.

According to police, the incident occurred around 1.30 p.m.

"A police team was dispatched for the spot after they received information regarding the incident," said a senior police official.

The CCTV footage captured the culprits fleeing on the motorcycle, even firing shots into the air.

"Police teams have been formed to crack the case and further teams are scanning CCTV cameras in the area to trace and identify the accused. We are hopeful that the case will be solved soon," said the official.

This incident follows closely on the heels of a daring theft at a jewellery store in Jangpura in south Delhi, where thieves made off with ornaments estimated to be worth Rs 20-25 crore. The criminals gained entry through the building's terrace and ultimately accessed the strongroom on the ground floor, where the jewellery was stored, by boring a hole through its wall. They not only made away with these items but also seized the pieces displayed in the showroom.
Imphal, Sep 27 : Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said on Wednesday that Union Home Minister Amit Shah has assured him that the case of the murder of two young students will be dealt with seriously and the perpetrators will be punished appropriately.

Singh said he spoke to Shah on Tuesday to discuss the prevailing situation in Manipur, including the murder of Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17), whose photographs surfaced on social media on Monday after they went missing since July 6.

"The Centre and the state governments are very serious about punishing the murderers," the Chief Minister told the media, adding that a special CBI team led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar along with five officers have already arrived in Manipur and visited Bishnupur district, from where the deceased hailed.

"The CBI team has already found some clues, but I cannot disclose them at the moment," Singh said, adding that the state government and the Centre condem the act in the strongest terms.

He said the government will not spare the perpetrators and all-out efforts are being made to bring the culprits to book.

Singh also informed that 25 companies of central forces and two companies of Rapid Action Force have been deployed at 23 locations in Churachandpur district.

He said the government is aware of the fact that a large number of people, including students, have taken to the streets in different parts of the state out of anger after seeing the viral photographs of the two deceased students.

"I have instructed the security forces to show restraint while controlling the mob. Action will be initiated if security personnel use excessive force against the public, especially the students," the Chief Minister said.

Manipur has been witnessing massive students' agitations for the past two days in protest against the killing of the two students, including a girl.

At least 100 students, including girls, have been injured during the agitations over the past two days after they clashed with the security forces, who prevented them from marching towards the Chief Minister's bungalow.

The security forces used tear gas shells and smoke bombs to disperse the agitating students.

In view of the prevailing situation, the state government on Tuesday re-imposed the ban on mobile internet services till 7.45 p.m. of October 1 to prevent the spread of misinformation and rumours.

The state government has also shut all schools in the state till September 29.
New Delhi, September 27 : After completing the New York leg of his US visit, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will visit Washington D.C. from September 27 to September 30 for bilateral meetings.

His programme includes discussions with his counterpart Antony Blinken, senior members of the US administration, US business leaders and think tanks.

Jaishankar had last met Blinken in Jakarta in July during the Foreign Ministersa meeting under the ASEAN framework. Both the leaders then had discussed issues like Ukraine, Myanmar and Indo-Pacific.

However, with the India-Canada diplomatic row being playing out and the US having said that Canadaas investigation into Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjaras killing must proceed and the perpetrators should be brought to justice, the development is likely to feature during Jaishankaras interaction with Blinken in Washington.

After Canada had alleged last week that Indian authorities were behind Nijjaras killing on its soil, diplomatic relations between India and Canada have worsened, as New Delhi has vehemently denied the allegations.

"We are deeply concerned by the allegations referenced by (Canadian) prime minister (Justin) Trudeau. We remain in close contact with our Canadian partners," US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller had told reporters at his daily news conference on Tuesday.

"We believe it's critical that Canada's investigation proceeds and that the perpetrators be brought to justice. And we have publicly - and privately - urged the Indian government to cooperate in the Canadian investigation," Miller had said in response to a question.
Los Angeles, Sep 27 : Amid their ongoing tumultuous divorce battle, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner's second daughter's name has been revealed, which until now was a secret.

According to custody filings, the one-year old is named Delphine.

The exes, who also share 3-year-old daughter Willa, have shared very little details about the little one since her birth in July 2022.

The moniker was included in recent court documents in which Turner asked a judge to put her divorce from Jonas on hold until they figure out the custody of their children, Page Six reported.

After Joe filed for divorce this month to end his four-year marriage to Sophie, the 'X-Men: Apocalypse' actress sued him for allegedly withholding their kids' passports and not letting her take their kids to relocate to the UK with her permanently as they agreed upon.

Responding to the lawsuit, Joe slammed Sophie's "misleading" claims that he has "abducted" his own children. He argued that "the Florida Court has already entered an order that restricts both parents from relocating the children" and accused her of "a serious abuse of the legal system at worst" by using language like "abduction" when it's not the case.

The court documents were filed just a few days before the estranged couple agreed to have their daughters remain in New York while they work out their divorce and custody proceedings.

On September 25, the former couple signed an interim consent order which prohibits either of them from taking their children out of the state. They are expected to appear for a pretrial conference next week.

Joe Jonas had filed for divorce from Turner on September 5, claiming their marriage was "irretrievably broken."

The following day, the pair released a joint statement, calling their split a "a united decision."

"After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually decided to amicably end our marriage," the estranged couple shared on Instagram.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cancelled the licence of the Kapol Co-operative Bank Limited, Mumbai.

Consequently, the bank ceases to carry on banking business, with effect from the close of business on September 25, 2023.

The Additional Secretary & Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Ministry of Cooperation, Government of India has also been requested to issue an order for winding up the bank and appoint a liquidator for the bank.

The Reserve Bank of India cancelled the licence of the bank as the bank does not have adequate capital and earning prospects. As such, it does not comply with the provisions of Section 11(1) and Section 22 (3) (d) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.

The bank has failed to comply with the requirements of Sections 22(3) (a), 22(3) (b), 22(3)(c), 22(3)(d) and 22(3)(e) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.

The continuance of the bank is prejudicial to the interests of its depositors.

The bank with its present financial position would be unable to pay its present depositors in full; and public interest would be adversely affected if the bank is allowed to carry on its banking business any further.

Consequent to the cancellation of its licence: "The Kapol Co-operative Bank Limited, Mumbai, Maharashtra." is prohibited from conducting the business of 'banking' which includes, among other things, acceptance of deposits and repayment of deposits as defined in Section 5 (b) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 with immediate effect."

On liquidation, every depositor would be entitled to receive deposit insurance claim amount of his/her deposits up to a monetary ceiling of Rs 5 lakh from Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) subject to the provisions of DICGC Act, 1961.

As per the data submitted by the bank, 96.09 per cent of the depositors are entitled to receive full amount of their deposits from DICGC.

As on July 24, 2023, DICGC has already paid Rs 230.16 crore of the total insured deposits under the provisions of Section 18A of the DICGC Act, 1961 based on the willingness received from the concerned depositors of the bank.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Edtech major Byju's has rolled out a new social media policy for its employees, prohibiting them from communicating with any media outlet else "face appropriate disciplinary and legal action", as it gears up for a massive business restructuring exercise.

According to reports, the company has sent the new social media policy, fearing that some people who didn't have full information about what is going on within the company would leak it out to the media, harming its reputation.

"You are not allowed to speak directly with any media house or provide the company's information, including pictures, videos and screenshots, among others," read the new social media policy.

"Any violation of this will be taken up by the company seriously and may result in appropriate disciplinary and legal action against you," according to the policy.

The new social media policy is a part of the companyas strategy for a major business restructuring, being undertaken by Arjun Mohan, who was recently elevated as CEO of its India business, replacing Mrinal Mohit.

Byju's is also planning to rebrand its coding platform WhiteHat Jr as 'Byju's Future School' with an expanded offline presence, according to reports.

The new developments come as the edtech major Byju's is going to lay off 4,000-5,000 employees in a "business restructuring exercise" in the coming weeks.

"We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise to simplify operating structures, reduce the cost base and better cash flow management," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

"Byju's new India CEO, Arjun Mohan, will be completing this process in the next few weeks and will steer a revamped and sustainable operation ahead," the spokesperson added.

The rejig at the top level came as Byju's is mulling to sell at least two of its subsidiaries, Epic and Great Learning, to raise between $800 million and $1 billion, amid reports that the company has formulated a proposal to repay its outstanding $1.2 billion Term Loan B (TLB).
Gurugram, Sep 27 : A special investigation team (SIT) of the Gurugram police has arrested five people, including a Haryana Police Assistant Sub-Inspector and a contractual worker of Delhi's Tehsil office, for usurping an NRI's land in Gurugram worth Rs 40 crore, police said on Wednesday.

The accused, in a planned manner, had taken over the land of the NRI in their name by pretending to buy the land worth about Rs 40 crore for Rs 6.6 crore, police said.

The land of more than 1.5 acres was located at Bagumpur Khatola village on the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) and was usurped using fake documents, investigations revealed.

Based on a complaint by NRI Puran Manchanda, the SIT investigated the case and arrested the suspects a" Subhash Chand, advocate Toni Yadav, Sanjay Goswami - a contractual record keeper at Delhi's Kalkaji Tehsil office, Bheem Singh Rathi, who had forged the land documents, and ASI Pradeep, posted at Economic Office Wing of the Gurugram police, who had allegedly taken a bribe from the suspects.

The investigation team has registered a separate case of corruption against the ASI during the probe, the police said.

A case was registered against the suspects under Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468, and 471 of the IPC at the Badshahpur police station.

According to the police, complainant Manchanda filed a complaint against all the suspects on March 1, 2022, for allegedly forging the land documents to grab his land. During the investigation, the police found that the suspects had forged the original General Power of Attorney (GPA) record of the land and prepared fake GPA and other documents with the help of Goswami, who took Rs 5 lakh for changing the land record.

Following this, the accused grabbed the land and got the land registered fraudulently based on those documents in the name of Vinod. For preparing fake documents of the GPA, the suspects also made fake witnesses including Major P.K. Mehta, who had died in a helicopter crash in the year 2001 and advocate Sandeep, whose signature on the GPA was faked by Tony Yadav, police said.

Thereafter, based on the fake GPA, the accused transferred the 15 Kanal 02 Marla land of the complainant in the name of Vinod which was mentioned by Rathi, Shail Narang and Aum Bhati.

During the investigation, it was also found that ASI Pradeep, posted in the EOW branch, was found to be taking money from the accused to benefit them.

The accused have been produced before a court and sent to judicial custody.

"Gurugram police works on the policy of zero tolerance in corruption. Therefore, if any police officer is found involved in any manner in any kind of matters, strict action will be taken against him promptly," Police Commissioner Vikas Kumar Arora said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Congress on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "showing his back to the people of Manipur" which criticising him over the killing of two students in the strife-torn state which has sparked protests.

The Congress also slammed the Prime Minister for not visiting Manipur and demanded sending an all-party delegation to the northeastern state, while also demanding the resignation of Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, Congress' Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi questioned PM Modi "how long will it take him to awake up to the crisis in the troubled state?"

"The Chief Minister repeatedly says that he has spoken to Home Minister Amit Shah. So we want to know from the Prime Minister what he is doing? Why has the country made you Prime Minister, just for publicity, just to flag off trains? When a part of the country is burning, isn't it your responsibility? Is that not your job? So we would like to know from the Prime Minister how many times he himself talked to the Chief Minister of Manipur in the last five months?" Gogoi questioned.

He also criticised the Prime Minister "for showing his back to the people of Manipur and the country".

He said that even after five months, "the Prime Minister has not bothered to visit Manipur".

"Our opinion is clear... Prime Minister Modi, please stop turning your back on Manipur and the country and face this challenge. We are moving forward the proposal of sending an all-party delegation. There are about 4,000 sophisticated weapons in the hands of people even today, and there is an atmosphere of tension. It is our collective responsibility to end this," he said.

He also said the Manipur Chief Minister should be removed before anything else as "he has completely failed".
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Central government for the first time will sell 50-year bonds to meet the demand for longer dated securities from the country's life insurance and pension fund segments.

This comes as a major development in the country's financial sector as a fast-growing middle-class looks for long-term financial security and retirement planning through such investments.

The new 50-year bonds, revealed in the borrowing plan released by the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday, will add to the 30-year and 40-year tenor bonds that are being offered currently.

"Investor demand has been strong, supported by the expansion of the formal sector, with households allocating a higher share of financial savings in life insurance, pensions and provident funds," Gaura Sen Gupta, economist at IDFC FIRST Bank wrote in a note.

The government plans to sell Rs 30,000 crore worth of 50-year bonds in the October to February period.

The Centre is sticking to its plan of borrowing Rs 6.55 lakh crore for the second half of the current financial year -- or 42.45 per cent of its gross market borrowing of Rs 15.43 lakh crore for the full year.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The investigation into the sensational heist at a south Delhi jewellery shop is on full throttle, with nearly twenty teams from various branches of the Delhi Police working to swiftly solve the case, officials said on Wednesday.

Senior officials said teams from the Delhi Police's Special Cell, Crime Branch, Counter Intelligence Unit, in collaboration with district police and special staff, have joined forces in the probe.

Police has also obtained some initial leads and are actively pursuing them to uncover the culprits behind one of the city's most significant heists.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Southeast, Rajesh Deo said that multiple teams have been assembled to identify and apprehend the people responsible.

"Preliminary leads are being diligently pursued, combining ground intelligence and technical investigation," he said.

Sources told IANS that the meticulous execution of this robbery hints at the involvement of a ''specialised gang'' in this mega heist.

"During the course of the investigation, it has come to light that one of the jewellery shop's employees had been absent for the past two weeks, raising suspicions of potential involvement in the major heist," a source said.

As owners of Umrao Jewellers opened it on Tuesday, they found dust all around - and were shocked to see a hole in the wall of the strongroom and jewellery worth over Rs 20 crore stolen, making it one of the biggest robberies reported in the national capital recently.

Owner Sanjay Jain of Umrao Jewellers in Bhogal market of the Jangpura area said that the shop remains closed on every Monday and he suspected that thieves had managed to make their way in from the terrace.

"The burglars even disconnected the six CCTV cameras installed in the shop during the commission of the crime," a source said.

Deo said that a police control room call was received at Nizamuddin police station regarding burglary in a jewellery shop at Bhogal market, Jangpura, and a police team reached the spot. During the initial probe, it was found that the shop closed at 8 p.m on September 24 (Sunday) and remained closed the next day (Monday). On Tuesday, when the owners opened the shop at around 10.30 a.m, they found that the concrete wall of the safe room of the shop had been damaged in the break-in, the DCP said, adding the owners have reported theft of 30 kg of gold jewellery and Rs five lakhs in cash.

--IANS

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These drones are known to be used by the Russian army against the Ukrainian people, launching them to destroy civilian and other infrastructure. As stated in the 47-page document, in just three months, the Russian Federation fired at Ukraine more than 600 times.

"Among the proposals for Ukraine's Western allies - which they are likely to refuse - are missile strikes on the factories producing these UAVs in Iran, Syria, and a potential production site in the Russian Federation," the publication writes.

At the same time, Western journalists noted that the Ukrainian Defense Forces could take all such actions on their own. However, for this, they need long-range missiles.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL, the Iranian-designed Shahed-131, which Russia uses to strike Ukraine, is assembled using more than fifty elements from Western countries. Kyiv informed its partners that 52 electrical components from Western companies were found in the latest UAVs launched by the occupiers.

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Meanwhile, Iran itself boasted of a modified model of the Shahed, which it intends to supply to Russia for strikes on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. Now the modernized drone can fly silently.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Indo-Pacific region is not only a cauldron of cultures, histories, resources and opportunities but also a theatre of complexities and challenges, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Manoj Pande said during Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference (IPACC) that culminated here on Wednesday.

The three-day long event -- IPACC, Indo-Pacific Armies Management Seminar (IPAMS), Senior Enlisted Leaders Forum (SELF) -- was organised by the Indian Army with the US Army as the co-host. The event witnessed participation from 30 countries.

US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George highlighted the role of land power and said that it not only contributes to the shared security of the region but land power is also the decisive force in dealing with crises.

As many as 18 countries were represented by Chiefs of their respective Armies and 12 countries were represented by heads of delegations.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh delivered the inaugural address while the closing address was delivered by Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt.

According to Defence Ministry, the event provided an opportunity for the delegates to exchange ideas and views on security and other contemporary issues of mutual interest, with core efforts directed to promote 'Peace and Stability' in the Indo-Pacific region.

As part of 13th IPACC, a Chief's Round Table Conference was held on the theme "Together for Peace: Sustaining Peace and Stability in the Indo-Pacific Region". All Chiefs echoed the theme and reflected the sentiments of all the nations in the area, a Defence Ministry official said.

The COAS also held bilateral meetings with Chiefs of the armies of the participating countries.

Sessions of 47th IPAMS were conducted in the plenary sessions on three themes. The first theme was "Partnering for Sustainable Peace and Security in the Indo-Pacific"; second theme was "Cooperation to Enhance Interoperability"; and final theme was "Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) - Evolving Mechanisms for Crises Response".

A special plenary for the spouses was also conducted on the theme "Beyond the Barracks: Roles and Challenges in Fostering Military Communities and Sharing Best Practices". The session commenced with the opening address by Archana Pande, President, Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) and Patty George, spouse of the COS of the US Army.

The spouses also visited the National War Memorial and paid their tributes.
Guwahati, Sep 27 : Three teenage boys have been arrested from Assam's Cachar district for smuggling a significant quantity of heroin. According to the police, the shipment came from a neighbouring state and was headed towards Maharashtra.

The market value of the seized drugs is around Rs 7 crore, the police said on Wednesday.

According to Subrata Sen, Additional Superintendent of Police (HQ) for Cachar district, a police team began a search operation in the Sonai region in Kabuganj late on Tuesday after receiving a specific tip-off.

Sen said that during the operation, the police seized drugs hidden inside a truck coming from a neighbouring state. The officer said that 1.15 kg heroin was seized from inside 88 soap boxes.

"We arrested three drug peddlers, all believed to be residents of Cachar district, from areas close to the Mizoram border" he added.

The accused have been identified as Baharul (18), Rohit (19) and Rahul Laskar (18).

"The three boys are suspected to drug transporters. We are questioning them to find the heads of the drug supply racket," an officer said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : In view of the serious allegations against him and finding out that there was no medical emergency in the family, a Delhi court has denied interim bail to Saddam Malik, an alleged member of the Nasir gang, and charged under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Malik, who was declared a proclaimed offender, was formally arrested in April 2021, and a pistol and five bullets were recovered from his possession.

A businessman and taxpayer with no prior criminal record, Malik was arrested by the Delhi Police's Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS).

The Crime Branch has arrested seven individuals in the case, while eight remain absconding.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, hearing the case, pointed out the seriousness of the charges against Malik and noted that the doctor's report indicated no medical emergency in the family.

The plea for two-month bail was filed based on the medical condition of Malik's wife, who was reportedly suffering from psychiatric ailments.

The court also considered a verified report from the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, which stated that Malik's wife had been discharged after treatment and was scheduled for a follow-up in two weeks.

The judge also said that Malik had three brothers who could take responsibility for the family.

The Investigating Officer filed a reply to the bail plea, describing the Nasir gang as one of the most notorious and active crime syndicates, expanding widely in different parts of Delhi. The IO highlighted the seriousness of the crimes committed by the gang, including firing in a courtroom during proceedings.

He stated that Malik was a childhood friend of gang leader Abdul Nasir and acted as a facilitator for the gang.

The interim bail application was strongly opposed, citing concerns that he might jump bail, influence or threaten witnesses, facilitate the absconding accused, and hamper the investigation.

Malik's counsel argued that his incarceration had taken a toll on his wife's mental health, and the completion of the trial would be lengthy.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday addressed the YouTuber community during the YouTube Fanfest India 2023.

The Prime Minister also completed 15 years on YouTube and shared his experience of creating a global impact through the medium.

Addressing the YouTuber community, Modi expressed delight in completing his 15-year YouTube journey and said that he is here today as a "fellow YouTuber".

"For 15 years, I have also been connected to the country and the world through my YouTube channel. I also have subscribers in decent numbers," he said.

Acknowledging the presence of a huge community of 5,000 creators and aspiring creators, the Prime Minster mentioned creators from gaming, technology, food blogging, travel bloggers and lifestyle influencers.

Observing the impact of content creators on the people of India, Modi highlighted the opportunity to make this impact more effective, saying, "Together, we can bring transformation in the lives of a vast population in our country."

He mentioned empowering and strengthening many more individuals by easily teaching and making crores of people understand important matters.

"We can connect them with us," he said.

Noting that there are thousands of videos on his YouTube channel, the Prime Minister said that the videos where he spoke to lakhs of students in the country through YouTube on subjects like exam stress, expectation management and productivity are the most satisfying for him.

NATIONAL Army chief underlines complexities, challenges in Indo-Pacific region (Ld)
Washington, Sep 27 : Republican presidential hopefuls from Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis to former UN ambassador Nikki Haley to Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will get a second shot to target former President Donald Trump, still the front running candidate, at the 2nd GOP debate in California.

The most awaited 2nd debate will open on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California.

Republican presidential candidates get another chance Wednesday to do something many of them have been reluctant to try -- attacking Donald Trump, media reports said.

Going after the frontrunner is a time-honoured tradition in presidential races, but most of the GOP candidates in California have seen hopefuls generally soft-pedalling criticism of the former president.

One of the main reasons -- challengers do not like alienating voters who have backed Trump in the past.

Voters they will need if they are determined to eliminate Trump from the 2024 race and somehow wrest the GOP presidential nomination.

"You don't go after Trump frontally to appeal to those people," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

So most of the Republican debaters at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, are expected to continue going after him sideways a" arguing Trump represents the Republican Party's past, without mentioning that he faces as many as four criminal trials in 2024, USA today noted.

Trump will be absent again at the 2nd debate in California as he skipped the first one at Milwaukee last month saying he won't allow his opponents to take pot shots at him.

He will try to divert attention by travelling to Michigan to speak with his supporters in a battleground state, nowthe epicenter of the ongoing United Auto Workers strike, against three of US' largest automakers -- Ford , GM and Stellantis.

There is no reason why the GOP presidential candidates won't go after Trump during Wednesday's debate, because only targeting him will give them any traction with the potential voters if they want to catch up with him in the polls, poll analysts reasoned.

The man to watch would be former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who did not approve of Trump's actions in the last two years in his debate at Milwaukee.

"I'm the only one who will take Trump on," Christie said on X.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence,South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are the candidates in the debate. Asa Huttichison could ot make it because of his low rankings.

Former Vice President Pence has criticized Trump for pressuring him to overturn their 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Pence has questioned Trump-style "populism", calling for a more traditional conservative platform linked to GOP icons, such as former President Ronald Reagan.

Wednesday's debate is likely to boil down to what Republican political consultant Liz Mair called a "delicate dance" for the GOP challengers.
Guwahati, Sep 27 : The Assam government has donated Rs 10 crore to Himachal Pradesh to combat after-effects of the recent natural calamities that impacted the hill state, an official said on Wednesday.

"Following the devastating floods that caused massive loss of life, property and infrastructure in Himachal Pradesh this year, the government of Assam led decided to contribute an amount Rs 10 crore towards the 'Aapda Rahat Kosh 2023' set up by Himachal Pradesh government for relief and rehabilitation of flood affected people," a statement noted.

In this regard, Assam Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary handed over a cheque of Rs 10 crore to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu at the latter's office in Shimla.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also wrote a letter to his Himachal counterpart.

"We fully empathise with the people of Himachal Pradesh, as Assam is also severely hit by floods almost every year. We stand in solidarity with the people of Himachal Pradesh during this difficult time," Sarma mentioned in his letter.

Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu expressed his gratitude to the Assam government and thanked Himanta Biswa Sarma.

He said that this contribution was invaluable in his government's continuous efforts to aid those affected by the recent monsoon disasters in Himachal Pradesh.
Mumbai, Sep 27 : A week after he was refused medical checkups by family doctors and home-cooked meals, Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal on Wednesday told a special PMLA court here that he is getting weaker by the day in judicial custody, which has been extended by another seven days till October 4.

Taking cognisance of Goyalas grievances, the Special PMLA Judge has ordered the Arthur Road Central Jail chief medical officer to submit a status report on his health status since his remand to the jail, by Saturday.

Appearing in the court via video-conferencing, Goyal, 74, contended that he was facing several health issues but the jail health authorities were not considering his medical issues nor submitting a report to the court.

He said he was not getting proper food or on time owing to which his body was becoming weaker day by day, he suffered from severe spinal pains, joints, shoulders, neck, knees and ear aches, and imbalance while walking.

In view of his failing health and medical conditions, he sought to be permitted home-cooked food on a daily basis while in the ARCJ, in a plea filed through his legal team of Abad Ponda and Ameet Naik.

Goyal was arrested on September 1 by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money-laundering case arising from a fraud of Rs 538 crore at the Canara Bank.

Following a plea by the Special Public Prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves, Special Judge M. G. Deshpande extended Goyalas judicial custody till next Wednesday.

At the previous hearing, Goyalas plea for daily medical checkup by his family doctor and home-cooked food was declined, after the ARCJ authorities informed that he was being looked after well and outside food was not permitted in the jail since 2000.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : A 26-year-old mentally challenged man was tied to a pole and beaten to death in northeast Delhi by some boys after they suspected him of being a thief, an official said on Wednesday, adding that the police have apprehended seven individuals, including a minor in connection with the incident.

The deceased was identified as Isar, a resident of Sunder Nagri, while the accused were identified as Kamal (23), Manoj (19), Yunus (20), Kishan (19), Pappu (24), Lucky (19) and a juvenile (17).

The official said that the accused have disclosed that at about 5 a.m. on Tuesday and they caught Isar "lurking" in the area. "They thought that he was a thief and started questioning him but he was unable to reply properly. They then tied him up to an electric pole and had thrashed him," said the official.

According to police, a call was received on Tuesday at 10:46 p.m. in which Abdul Wajid, a fruit seller, told the police that when he reached home at about 6:30 p.m., he saw his son Isar, lying outside the house.

"There were injury marks all over Isar's body and he was in pain. Isar told Wajid that on Tuesday morning, some boys caught him near G-4 Block, Sunder Nagri. They thought that he is a thief and tied him to a pole," said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) Joy Tirkey.

"They thrashed him using sticks... Assailants were identified as some boys who live near G-4 Block in Sunder Nagri area. Israr was brought home by his neighbour Aamir in a rickshaw," said the DCP.

"At about 7.00 p.m., on Tuesday, Isar succumbed to his injuries at his house. Wajid called the PCR and informed the police about the incident. Following which, the body was shifted to the GTB Hospital," the DCP added.

"Postmortem was conducted at the Hospital on Wednesday. The doctors found blunt force injuries all over his body including back, arms and legs. Cause of death is shock and haemorrhage," the DCP said.

The National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) condemned the incident, saying: "Incidents of abuse, physical attacks and killings of disabled people are being reported at regular intervals.However, this has acquired a much more dangerous dimension with disabled people being targeted for their religious identity."

The NPRD cited media reports that claimed Israr was beaten to death for allegedly consuming prasad at a temple in the area.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : A Delhi court has refused to grant bail to Nitin Bhatnagar, one of the key accused in the money laundering case relating to Moser Baer India Ltd.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested Bhatnagar on August 22.

Special Judge Raghubir Singh of Rouse Avenue Court said that no grounds were met for grant of bail and dimissed the application.

Bhatnagar's counsel argued that his arrest was not legal, as there was no permission to further investigate the case. It was argued that Bhatnagar was neither named in the FIR nor in the ECIR of the ED case, and his name did not appear in the prosecution complaints.

It was further mentioned that Bhatnagar had cooperated with the investigation, attending 25 consecutive investigative sessions from January 2020.

The ED had even officially removed the LOC (Lookout Circular) issued against him in 2022, the court was apprised.

However, the LOC was revived on August 14 and Bhatnagar was arrested at the airport on August 22, as he was about to board a flight to return home.

Bhatnagar's counsel expressed concerns about the timing and intent behind the ED's actions despite his full cooperation.

On the other hand, the ED opposed the bail plea, citing ongoing investigations and the potential for Bhatnagar to tamper with evidence and influence witnesses. Concerns about his status as a foreign national and the possibility of him fleeing from justice were also stated.

Bhatnagar is reportedly a private banker and founder of Ellington Properties. He has been accused of doing hawala transactions for the co-accused.

Earlier, sources had said that he was trying to flee abroad when they arrested him from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Bhatnagar is said to be having connections with Ratul Puri and Rajiv Saxena.

"In the narration of the application in hand, it appears that in 2012, a bank account in the name of Pristine River Investments Ltd, was opened with Bank of Singapore and Nitin Bhatnagar facilitated the same being the Relationship Manager. The said company was owned by the Savannah Trust of which Ratul Puri (one of the co-accused) was the settler while John Docherty and Milan Morjaria were the protectors. Therein were received from M/s UHY Saxena, M/s Mercon Como & M/s Midas Metals which were managed and controlled by Rajiv Saxena (one of the co-accused)," said the order copy accessed by IANS earlier.

It further read that those amounts have been said to be alleged proceeds of crime in the hands of co-accused Rajiv Saxena, and the bank account in the name of Pristine River Investments Ltd, has allegedly been used for the layering of proceeds of crime and Bhatnagar knowingly assisted in doing so for Puri.
Guwahati, Sep 27 : The Assam Education Department has decided to record the digital attendance of students and teachers in all government schools across the state on a dedicated application, an official said on Wednesday.

The state education department has prepared a mobile application named 'Shiksha Setu' to record the digital attendance of students and teachers in schools.

Beginning October 1, the teachers have to record their attendance in the 'Shiksha Setu' app.

An official notification mentioned: "Department of school education has introduced daily attendance tracking in schools through the 'Shiksha Setu' App. As per the direction of Education Minister, the daily attendance of teachers and students through the 'Shiksha Setu' App should be mandatory from 1st October, 2023."

The notification also mentioned that a total of 2,10,512 teachers have completed the one-time registration out of 2,36,377, while for students, a total of 42,79,039 out of 49,36,509 have completed the process till September 21.

Earlier, the Assam government has distributed at least 52,000 tablets to each government school for the smooth functioning of the mobile application.
After Azerbaijan launched an anti-terrorist operation in unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh last week, nearly a third of the region's population fled to Armenia. As of September 27, more than 47,000 people have left for Armenia.

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These IDPs do not want to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh after it came under the control of Azerbaijan. This was stated by the Armenian authorities, according to Radio Azatutyun .

According to Nazeli Baghdasaryan, a spokeswoman for the Armenian Prime Minister, 42,502 people entered Armenia from Karabakh at 8 a.m., and by 12 p.m. their number had risen to 47,115.

According to the 2015 census, about 145,000 people lived in the region, almost all of them ethnic Armenians. Thus, a third of the total population left Karabakh in those three days.

People arrive in the Armenian border town of Kornidzor, then they are sent to one of two registration centers and allocated to temporary housing.

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However, according to the spokeswoman, only 10% of IDPs have taken advantage of this government support. Most people are looking for accommodation on their own.

As a reminder, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an address to the nation on September 24 that there is a threat of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. He promised that his country was ready to accept the Armenian population, but called the situation difficult.

On September 26, the Armenian government launched special centers in all regions of the country to support IDPs from Karabakh and announced its readiness to accept all citizens who want to leave Karabakh.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL:

Anti-government demonstrations do not stop in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The opposition is demanding Pashinyan's resignation because of his decision on Nagorno-Karabakh.

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On September 19, Azerbaijan announced the start of an anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the largest escalation since 2020.

On September 20, at 1 p.m., the parties agreed to a ceasefire and hostilities, which is essentially assessed by some experts as the surrender of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Only verified information on our Telegram channel Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 27 : Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Wednesday made a strong pitch for adoption of sustainable and inclusive models in tourism as it is abundantly clear that future of the sector depends entirely on preserving nature and culture from the ravages of environmental destruction and climate change.

He said this while inaugurating the first edition of South India's prestigious travel expo Global Travel Market (GTM 2023) here, which saw the participation of tourism sector stakeholders from various areas.

"It is a great relief to see that nations are accelerating climate action by adopting sustainable and inclusive models. The idea of sustainability and inclusivity has been reinforced by the recent G-20 leadership summit, which emphasised the key role of tourism in advancing social and economic development," said Khan.

"The travellers of today are keen observers and conscious about their ethical and ecological concerns and they look at tourism as an experience that provides an authentic feel of the nature, people and cultures of places they visit. The respect for nature and the interest in preserving the environment have been part of our culture since time immemorial," added Khan.

GTM 2023, an annual B2B travel and trade exhibition, is organised by South Kerala Hoteliers Forum (SKHF), Trivandrum Chamber of Commerce and Industries (TCCI), Tavaz Ventures, Metro Media and Citrine Hospitality Ventures.

Goa Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai inaugurated the seminar sessions which will deliberate on various topics on the theme 'Experience the Essence of South India: Where Culture Meets Nature'.
Patna, Sep 28 : Amid the "Thakur row", the RJD on Wednesday came out in support of its Rajya Sabha member Manoj K. Jha, saying that he has pointed out domination and totalitarianism that often took place in the past in his poetry.

RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav said: "Manoj Jha was pointing out the domination and totalitarianism that often takes place in the past through his poetry. How can a person connect Thakur with any caste? Socialist leader Karpoori Thakur was also a Thakur. Our Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav is looking after this."

He also said that party MLA Chetan Anand has misinterpreted the statement of Jha, made during the recently-held special session of the Parliament.

Reacting on the statement of BJP leader Neeraj Kumar Bablu who had said that if such a statement against Thakurs was made in front of him, he would "broken the mouth" of the person concerned, Yadav said that Bablu should stay within his limit.

The entire controversy started after RJD MLA Chetan Anand, in a Facebook post, attacked Jha's statement as against Thakurs and extolled the community's contributions.
Patna, Sep 28 : Bihar Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar on Wednesday expressed deep concern over the Khusrupur urination case where a Dalit woman was stripped, and brutally beaten, and one of the accused also allegedly urinated in her mouth.

Arlekar met DGP RS Bhatti and Divisional Commissioner Kumar Ravi and directed them to ensure adequate compensation to the victim.

Earlier, the National Human Right Commission and the National Commission for Women issued notices to Bihar DGP and state government and asked them to submit action taken reports.

Meanwhile Patna police have arrested the main accused Pramod Singh in this connection while five other accused, including his son Anshu Singh, who allegedly urinated on the mouth of victim, are on the run.

SP, Patna Rural, Syed Imran Masood claimed that a SIT was formed in the case and the remaining accused will be arrested soon.

The incident occurred on September 23 when the Dalit woman of Mosimpur village under Khusrupur police station was kidnapped by Pramod Singh and taken her to his house where she was stripped and beaten and Anshu Singh had urinated into her mouth. She somehow escaped from the house of the accused and reached home and her relatives alerted the police officers who had rescued the woman.

The victim had borrowed Rs 1500 on the interest from Pramod Singh a few months ago and returned the money with interest. However, he was demanding more interest from her which she refused.

As Pramod Singh was harassing and threatening to parade her naked in public, she lodged a complaint with Khusrupur police station. Following her complaint, the cops asked Pramod Singh to join the probe and went to the police station on Saturday for questioning. However, after returning home, he reached the house of the victim in the night and kidnapped her with the help of his supporters.
New Delhi, Sep 28 : The Delhi High Court said on Wednesday that it will decide on October 3 on the potential modification of its interim direction to continue the services of professionals engaged as fellows with the Delhi Assembly Research Centre (DARC).

This comes on an application submitted by the legislative assembly secretariat and other relevant authorities, which sought to vacate the earlier interim order issued on September 21 directing that the services of professionals engaged as fellows with the DARC, whose contracts were terminated by the assembly secretariat, shall continue in their positions until December 6, and stipends shall be paid to them.

Justice Subramonium Prasad, presiding over the case, said: "List for order on October 3. Let me think over it."

The respondent authorities argued that the previous order could not be sustained because there was no sanction for the posts by the lieutenant governor, and there was an ongoing matter in the Supreme Court concerning control of services.

Counsel for the petitioners countered the application by stating that the scope of the current petition did not overlap with the matter pending before the Supreme Court.

They argued that the petitioners were caught between two behemoths and expressed concerns about a breach of the principle of separation of powers between the legislature and the executive.

The court expressed concerns about "propriety" and suggested that the petitioners seek clarification from the Supreme Court regarding the continuation of the petition in the high court.

Seventeen fellows have challenged the termination of their contracts.

Justice Prasad, on September 21, had sought explanations from the Delhi legislative assembly secretariat, services, and finance departments regarding the termination of the fellows' contracts.

The court had noted that the Assembly Speaker had previously stated that the reasons for termination did not apply to the petitioners' services and sought clarification on the change in the stand.

The petitioners had contended that their services were terminated prematurely, arbitrarily, and illegally after a letter issued by the services department on July 5, and they were not paid their stipends.

They argued that this violated their fundamental rights and the doctrine of separation of powers, as they were engaged at the Delhi Assembly Research Centre, which operates under the legislative assembly and the Speaker's authority.

The court had directed that the services of the petitioners be maintained until the next date of hearing on December 6 and that replies be filed within two weeks.
Los Angeles, Sep 28 : Model Hailey Bieber got into another controversy with her parking habit.

In a viral TikTok video, the model could be seen getting yelled at by a restaurant employee for parking her car in the wrong spot in Paris, reports aceshowbiz.com.

The clip saw Hailey, wife of Justin Bieber getting out of her car, which was parked in a handicap spot during a night outing.

Followed by a bodyguard, the 26-year-old supermodel could be seen making her way when someone was heard calling out the star.

"Go ahead, I'll call the cops right away. You shouldn't do this," the employee said in French.

"Even the President of France doesn't do this. No, no, no, it's not classy. What is this mess."

Despite that, the Rhode Skin founder appeared to ignore the employee.

Upon watching the video, fans were quick to criticise Hailey.

"The entitlement is insane for those saying they should get mad at the driver, that driver driving her around is on her payroll so she definitely has a say and responsibility of the driver," one internet user said.

"Mean girl behaviour as usual," another added.

Someone else criticised, "Are we surprised? She parks in spots for people with disabilities with Kendall while they go for yoga. Being in Paris does not mean you have decorum."

One other noted, "This woman have no sense at all. All she want is attention, so sad to see this."

Another comment read, "Hailey Bieber has been copying people and doing whatever she wants to for years and she thinks the world belongs to her."

This wasn't the first time Hailey faced backlash for her bad habit of parking.

Back in February 2022, Hailey and her fellow model Kendall Jenner caught heat when they parked their expensive cars in handicap spots at Pilates.
Jaipur, Sep 28 : BJP National President J.P. Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have reached Jaipur to discuss significant issues like ticket distribution for the upcoming Assembly polls in poll-bound Rajasthan, BJP sources said.

According to party sources, BJP's parliamentary board meeting will be held in New Delhi on October 5 and therefore comes this meeting to discuss crucial issues like candidate selection so that the final names can be discussed in the October 5 meeting and thereafter the first list could be announced.

Shah and Nadda reached Hotel Lalit directly from the Jaipur airport where both of them held a meeting with Rajasthan BJP leaders till late Wednesday night.

Rajasthan BJP's core committee members, including the State President C.P. Joshi, Opposition leader Rajendra Rathore, Former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union Ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kailash Chaudhary, State BJP Election In-charges Pralhad Joshi and Arun Singh, State BJP Co-Election Incharge Vijaya Rahatkar, Deputy Opposition leader Satish Poonia and MP Rajyavardhan Rathore were present in the meeting.

Nadda and Shah also expressed their displeasure on many issues like lesser public gathering and local leaders not participating in the party's 'Parivartan Yatra'.

After the meeting concluded at the BJP office on Wednesday, The BJP National President and the Union Home Minister will stay in Jaipur.

On Thursday morning, both the top BJP leaders will go to the RSS union office and will discuss the role of the Sangh in the upcoming elections with local party leaders.

A discussion is underway about giving a major responsibility to Prakash Chand, a senior RSS campaigner for a long time, for the upcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan. Nadda and Shah will discuss this with several RSS leaders.

It is being speculated that after this visit of both the BJP leaders, Prakash Chand may be seen in a new role.
Jaipur, Sep 28 : BJP National President J.P. Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have reached Jaipur to discuss significant issues like ticket distribution for the upcoming Assembly polls in poll-bound Rajasthan, BJP sources said.

According to party sources, BJP's parliamentary board meeting will be held in New Delhi on October 5.

Therefore, this meeting is being held to discuss crucial issues like candidate selection so that the final names can be discussed on October 5 and thereafter the first candidate list for Rajasthan Assembly polls could be announced.

Shah and Nadda reached Hotel Lalit directly from the Jaipur airport where both of them held a meeting with Rajasthan BJP leaders till late Wednesday night.

Rajasthan BJP's core committee members, including the State President C.P. Joshi, Opposition leader Rajendra Rathore, Former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union Ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kailash Chaudhary, State BJP Election In-charges Pralhad Joshi and Arun Singh, State BJP Co-Election Incharge Vijaya Rahatkar, Deputy Opposition leader Satish Poonia and MP Rajyavardhan Rathore were present in the meeting.

Nadda and Shah also expressed their displeasure on many issues like lesser public gathering and local leaders not participating in the party's 'Parivartan Yatra'.

After the meeting concluded at the BJP office on Wednesday, the BJP National President and the Union Home Minister will stay in Jaipur.

On Thursday morning, both the top BJP leaders will go to the RSS office and will discuss the role of the Sangh in the upcoming elections with local party leaders in Rajasthan.

A discussion is underway about giving a major responsibility to Prakash Chand, a senior RSS campaigner for a long time, for the upcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan. Nadda and Shah will discuss this with several RSS leaders.

It is being speculated that after this visit of both the BJP leaders, Prakash Chand may be seen in a new role.
Limehome signs the 5.000th apartment in seven European countries just in time for their fifth anniversary. The company celebrates signing a lease for its 5,000th apartment in Stuttgart.

The companys third location in Stuttgart will offer more than 130 apartments in Zuffenhausen, close to the origi...

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Russia is trying to return to the UN Human Rights Council, from which it was expelled in April 2022 because of its full-scale aggression against Ukraine. Moscow justifies its claim to one of the two vacant seats for Eastern European states by seeking to "prevent the growing trend of the Human Rights Council becoming an instrument that serves the political will of one group of countries that punish disloyal governments for their independent domestic and foreign policies."

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The election of members of the UN Human Rights Council for 2024-2026 will take place in October, CNN reports. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has already responded to the attempts of the terrorist state to return to this body despite the crime of aggression and the murder of Ukrainians.

According to CNN, Russia is now trying to return to the UN Human Rights Council: the international organization's website lists it as a candidate for election and claims one of the two seats reserved for Eastern European states on the Council on the basis of equitable geographical distribution. In addition to Russia, Albania and Bulgaria have so far announced their candidacies.

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The two states that will be elected to the Council will replace Ukraine and the Czech Republic, which will leave the body at the end of 2023.

The journalists also got acquainted with a position paper that Russia sends to UN members to increase support. In it, the representatives of the aggressor state assure that they allegedly consider the Human Rights Council "a key body in the United Nations system" and claim that the Russian Federation "considers it important to prevent the growing trend of turning the Human Rights Council into an instrument that serves the political will of one group of countries that punish disloyal governments for their independent domestic and foreign policies."

"If elected, the Russian Federation will focus on this issue. We will firmly promote the principles of cooperation and strengthening of constructive, mutually respectful dialogue in the Council in order to find adequate solutions to human rights issues," the newspaper quoted the Russian document as saying.

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has already responded to the attempts of the terrorist state to return to the Human Rights Council in the midst of the aggressive war against Ukraine.

"Russia is promoting its candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council. Let me remind you that last year it was stripped of its membership rights in response to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With this step, Russia is trying to prove that it can continue to grossly violate human rights, commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with impunity. Ukraine's position is clear: Russia should not be allowed to return to one of the key UN bodies until it is held accountable for all its crimes. The place of Russian war criminals is in the benches of the tribunal, not in the UN Human Rights Council," emphasized Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko.

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Earlier, the UN confirmed the deaths of almost 10,000 Ukrainian civilians as a result of Russian aggression. Most of them, according to the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, died in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian government.

The UN also found that Russians tortured Ukrainian prisoners to death and raped women in the occupied territories , and did so on a massive and systematic scale. This is stated in the investigation of the Commission of Inquiry into the events in Ukraine.
Andy Hughes, senior v-p and director of production and design at the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Altie Karper, managing editor for Pantheon and Schocken and editorial director of Schocken, will retire in December.

During his 44 year career (which, in addition to his Knopf Doubleday duties, includes his second job and 15-year stint as v-p, manufacturing for Random House Audio), Hughes "has elevated bookmaking into an artform and brought thousands of beautiful objectsour booksto life," Maya Mavjee, president and publisher of KDPG wrote to employees in a memo.

Among the many projects Hughes worked on all four volumes of Robert A. Caros The Years of Lyndon Johnson; President Bill Clintons My Life; and all of Art Spiegelmans books. The Book Industry Guild of New York awarding Hughes first place at the New York Book Show three times for producing Building Stories by Chris Ware, The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski, and MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman.

Karper started her career at KDPG in 1989, under Andre Schiffrin, as managing editor of Pantheon and Schocken. Authors Karper has worked with include Noam Chomsky, Marguerite Duras, Marjane Satrapi, Spiegelman, Studs Terkel, Elie Wiesel, and Charles Yu. As editorial director of Schocken for 23 years, Karper led the imprint to 17 National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists.

"Altie and I have spent one-half of our respective lives as near siblings, knowing for decades that we could count on each other being in the office on Sundaysshe after her Shabbat observances, I after(none of your business)," said Erroll McDonald, v-p and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. "She has been at once my relentless goad (a dependable source of annoyance) and my dependable friend (a relentless source of comfort). I have no intention of missing her, as she will perforce always be a part of my life."

A search for an editorial director to succeed Karper at Schocken has begun. Vimi Santokhi is joining Pantheon/Schocken as managing editor.
On Tuesday, September 26, the spokesperson for the lower house of the Canadian parliament, the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, announced his resignation. This follows a scandal over the invitation of 98-year-old SS Galicia Division veteran Yaroslav Hunko to a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

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Rota said this at a parliamentary meeting, according to media reports. In his brief statement, he thanked the parliamentarians for the trust by electing him Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada in both the previous and current convocations.

"It is with a heavy heart that I inform MPs of my resignation as Speaker of the House of Commons," Rota said without specifying the reasons for his decision.

The speaker was called on to resign by his colleagues and government officials after the scandal of inviting 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunko to parliament during President Zelensky's visit to Canada last week. Rota introduced Mr. Hunko as a World War II veteran who participated in battles against Soviet forces.

Later, journalists found out that Hunko served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, which was a volunteer unit composed mostly of ethnic Ukrainians and commanded by the Nazis.

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The SS Division Galicia was formed by the German Armed Forces from among Ukrainians in 1943 to fight against the Red Army. Despite the Nuremberg trials and the creation of the so-called Deschene Commission in Canada in the 1980s, which did not confirm the division's participation in war crimes, the SS Galicia still faces accusations of carrying out Wehrmacht punitive operations against Poles and Jews.

The invitation of Yarosav Hunko to the Canadian Parliament caused outrage among Jewish organizations in Canada and Poland, which demanded explanations. The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons then apologized for what happened but refused to resign.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Canada has declared its long-term support for Ukraine. Over the next three years, Ottawa will provide Kyiv with 50 armored vehicles - combat and evacuation - and will train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

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Only verified information on our Telegram Obozrevatel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
A timeline of events focusing on federal authorities pursuit of alleged Biden family corruption. This resource will be updated as warranted.

Summary

(Click links just below to jump to desired section.)

Nov. 2018-June 2020 : Hunter Biden Probe Begins; President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information; Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins

: Hunter Biden Probe Begins; President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information; Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins June 2020-Dec. 2021 : Evidence of Influence-Peddling With Nexus to Joe Biden Grows; Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies

: Evidence of Influence-Peddling With Nexus to Joe Biden Grows; Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies Jan. 2022-Jan. 2023 : Prosecution Sought and Denied; IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by What They Characterize as U.S. Attorney David Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority

: Prosecution Sought and Denied; IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by What They Characterize as U.S. Attorney David Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority Feb. 2023-May 2023 : Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head; IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill; Plea Deal Develops

: Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head; IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill; Plea Deal Develops June 2023 : FBI Stonewalls Congress Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes; Trump Indictments Grow; Plea Deal Emerges; Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With Attorney General Merrick Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority

: FBI Stonewalls Congress Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes; Trump Indictments Grow; Plea Deal Emerges; Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With Attorney General Merrick Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority July 2023 : Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released; Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly; Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court

: Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released; Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly; Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court Aug. 2023-Present: Another Trump Indictment; Weiss Gets Special Counsel Authority He Wasnt Supposed To Need; Biden Impeachment Inquiry Opens; Hunter Hit With Gun Indictment

Timeline in Detail

The IRS whistleblowers prepare to testify under penalty of perjury.

Nov. 2018-June 2020:

Hunter Biden Probe Begins;

President Trump Impeached While Pursuing Biden-Ukraine Information;

Alleged Justice Department Undermining of Probe Begins

Nov. 2018: The Internal Revenue Services Washington D.C. office opens investigation into Hunter Biden, code name Sportsman, as an offshoot of a probe into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.

According to IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, the case agent who will later turn whistleblower, evidence will emerge Biden paid prostitutes to cross state lines  potential Mann Act violations. It is not clear whether the Justice Department pursues.

Jan. 2019: According to Special Agent Ziegler, the Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office and FBI open a separate Hunter Biden investigation.

March/April 2019: Ziegler develops criminal charging material approved by IRS superiors and sent to Justice Departments tax division for review. The two entities will work jointly on the case, as is customary. The Washington, D.C. and Delaware investigations will be merged.

April 25, 2019: Joe Biden announces his candidacy for president.

Viktor Shokin: The Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired, Joe Biden boasted, after the Vice President threatened to withhold U.S. aid.

Aug. 15, 2019: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) commences what will become a multi-year investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Bidens brother James and their financial connections to foreign governments and questionable foreign nationals.

Sept. 24, 2019: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) opens impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump alleging Trump withheld Ukrainian aid to pressure officials to investigate the activities of Hunter and Joe Biden vis-a-vis the firing of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. In 2016, Biden leveraged $1 billion in U.S. aid to force Shokins firing. Shokin had been investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden had sat. Prosecutors will scrutinize Hunter over alleged tax crimes stemming from the hundreds of thousands of dollars Burisma paid him annually.

Oct. 2019: FBI learns that a Delaware computer repair shop obtained Hunter Bidens abandoned laptop, and the following month verifies its authenticity.

Dec. 2019: FBI takes possession of the laptop and notifies IRS it likely contained evidence of tax crimes, according to IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley. Shapley, Zieglers colleague, will lead his investigatory team and also turn whistleblower.

Dec. 8, 2019: In an interview, Joe Biden says I dont know what he was doing regarding Hunter Bidens Burisma work.

Dec. 18, 2019: House votes to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Jan. 27, 2020: Email evidence indicates that Hunter Biden has meeting with impeachment lawyers in Trump-Ukraine proceedings.

Feb. 5, 2020: Senate acquits Trump on a party-line vote, concluding first impeachment.

March 6-April 1, 2020: Shapleys team prepares physical search warrants in Hunter Biden case. Having established probable cause for the warrants, IRS plans to conduct about 15 contemporaneous interviews. Shapley claims career DOJ officials halt IRS actions.

April 8, 2020: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) drops out of Democrat presidential primary, making Joe Biden the presumptive nominee.

June 16, 2020: Shapley tells IRS superiors DOJ Tax has made a concerted effort to drag their feet concerning conducting search warrants and interviewing key witnesses in an effort to push those actions to a timeframe where they can invoke the Department of Justice rule of thumb concerning [ceasing activities] affecting elections. Shapley alleges superiors took no action.

Hesitant prosecutor Lesley Wolf: She fretted over the "optics" of a Biden search warrant, according to testimony.

June 2020-Dec. 2021:

Evidence of Influence-Peddling with Nexus to Joe Biden Grows;

Alleged Sabotage of Hunter Biden Probe Intensifies

June 30, 2020: FBI informant tells handler that Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky told him he had been coerced into paying Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million apiece in exchange for help getting Shokin fired. This is memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 form. Shapleys team will not see the document until years later, after being thrown off the case.

Mykola Zlochevsky: Burisma boss and alleged briber of Bidens.

Aug.-Sept. 2020: IRS agents obtain WhatsApp messages between an executive from Chinese energy company CEFC and Hunter Biden from summer 2017, in which Biden says, I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled, regarding a deal with the company. Biden threatens that should the deal not be resolved with the Chinese government-connected companys executives  I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows  you will regret not following my direction.

Investigators believe Biden was staying at the familys Delaware beach guest house at this time. They seek location data for messages to corroborate in part whether Joe was with Hunter.

The now-infamous WhatsApp message obtained by IRS agents.

Sept. 3, 2020: Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf shoots down plan to nail down the Bidens location during the China call. According to Shapley, Wolf says while a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house  there is no way we will get that approved. Wolf cites optics as a driving factor in the decision.

Shapley also recalls prosecutors did not want investigators reviewing CEFC communications, irrespective of any potential national security implications.

Wolf also indicates that a search warrant for emails from Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-tied firm that lobbied for Burisma, in Shapleys words, would likely not get approved. The agent adds, This was a significant blow to the Foreign Agents Registration Act piece of the investigation  that is, whether Hunter Biden lobbied for foreign individuals and entities as an unregistered foreign agent, a felony.

Sept. 4, 2020: Justice Department issues cease and desist of investigative activities in Hunter Biden case in run-up to the presidential election.

Sen. Charles Grassley: Flagged millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions." Sen. Charles Grassley: Flagged millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions."

Sept. 23, 2020: Sen. Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) release report revealing millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden and his associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of Moscow and individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Oct. 14, 2020: New York Post breaks the story of the abandoned Hunter Biden laptop. Among the papers revelations: Hunter introduced then-Vice President Biden to a top Burisma executive in April 2015, months before the vice president would help get Shokin fired. This is at odds with the Democrat presidential nominees claim he had never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. Twitter and Facebook suppress the story.

Oct. 19, 2020: Politico publishes letter signed by 51 prominent intelligence community officials indicating the New York Posts story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.

Oct. 20, 2020: Investigators seek to do a walk by to confirm the location of and security around Hunter Bidens California residence in preparation for an interview. DOJ Tax objects.

Oct. 22, 2020: Shapley raises concern to prosecutors that his team has not been granted access to Hunter Bidens laptop. Assistant U.S. Attorney Wolf confirms prosecutors kept it from investigators, which Shapley calls unprecedented.

Wolf also indicates prosecutors would not permit a physical search warrant on Hunter Biden.

Sen. Ron Johnson: Pushed GOP Senate inquiries along with Grassley.

During the final presidential debate that evening, Biden rebuts claims about his familys business dealings, citing the intelligence community letter. Biden also says, My son has not made money, in terms of this thing about  China  The only guy that made money from China is this guy [Trump]  nobody else has made money from China. Biden also states unequivocally, I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.

Oct. 23, 2020: Justice Department and FBI Special Agents from the Pittsburgh field office brief Wolf, among others, on contents of FD-1023 alleged Burisma-Biden bribes. Its later learned that the Pittsburgh office believed that the allegations seemed credible, was partially corroborated, and merited investigation.

Nov. 3-Nov. 7, 2020: The 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden wins and elected as the 46th U.S. president.

Nov. 9, 2020: Sen. Grassley sends letter to then-Attorney General William Barr calling on Justice Department to review evidence that Hunter Biden and James Biden may have violated the Foreign Agent Registrations Act based on their dealings with CEFC.

Nov. 18, 2020: Sens. Grassley and Johnson release a supplement to their report on potential conflicts of interest stemming from the Biden familys foreign business, including additional CEFC findings.

Kevin Morris, Hollywood lawyer: He loaned Hunter a bundle to pay off delinquent taxes.

Dec. 3, 2020: Investigators prepare for a Dec. 8 day of action, to consist of document requests and some 12 interviews, including of Hunter Biden. As investigators meet with prosecution team at Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office, Lesley Wolf allegedly indicates she does not want them asking questions of subjects pertaining to Joe Biden.

Dec. 7, 2020: Investigators plan to notify Hunter Biden and his Secret Service protection on the morning of Dec. 8 that he will be approached that day for an interview as part of an official investigation.

Deviating from the plan, FBI headquarters notifies Secret Service headquarters and President-elect Bidens transition team of coming interview, in Shapleys words essentially tipp[ing] off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden, and giving this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses.

Dec. 8, 2020: Hunter Bidens attorneys call Shapley and his FBI counterpart, indicating Hunter will not participate in an interview. Investigators secure only one substantive interview on day of action, from Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker. During that interview, skirting Wolfs instructions, investigators briefly pursue a line of questioning wherein Walker discusses Joes involvement in Hunters business.

Dec. 9, 2020: News of Hunter probe becomes public, with reporting suggesting investigation extends beyond Hunters taxes to potential money laundering and financial ties to foreign figures and businesses. Hunter releases a statement: I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.

Dec. 10-14, 2020: From the day of action, investigators find that documents concerning one of Hunters business entities, Owasco, were archived in a northern Virginia storage unit. Investigators prepare to search it. Wolf, according to Shapley, tips off Hunters defense counsel to the planned search, possibly thwarting a potential investigative coup.

Feb. 5, 2021: President Biden-appointed assistant attorneys general call for and receive a briefing from the Delaware U.S. Attorney's on the Hunter Biden criminal investigation.

March 2, 2021: In a Shapley-convened briefing, investigators mention possibility of blowing whistle on the Justice Departments handling of the case.

May 3, 2021: In memo to superiors, Shapley indicates probe has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling. Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations ... Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation.

Aug. 18, 2021-Oct. 21, 2021: Wolf suggests DOJ Tax will not approve another set of desired interviews. According to Shapley, Wolf indicates that the investigative team would get into hot water specifically if it pursued planned interviews of the presidents grandchildren over charges made with Hunter Bidens credit card possibly by his kids.

Sept. 7, 2021: Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), then ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, begins probe into sales of Hunter Bidens paintings after he turns to art as a career. The sales raise ethical and national security concerns, in the view of House Republicans, given the lack of clarity about who the buyers are. The parties pursued will largely ignore requests while Republicans are in minority. The White House waves off ethics concerns.

Oct. 13, 2021: Hunter Bidens friend Kevin Morris loans him $1.4 million to settle outstanding taxes. Subsequent reporting suggests that all told, Morris will pay off well over $2 million in delinquent taxes on behalf of the presidents son.

Delaware U.S. Attorney (and now special counsel) David C. Weiss: Was he the one "in charge"?

Jan. 2022-Jan. 2023:

Prosecution Sought and Denied;

IRS Whistleblowers Blindsided by Weiss Apparent Lack of Authority

Jan. 27, 2022: IRS recommends charging Hunter Biden for felony tax evasion and filing of false tax returns in 2014, 2018, and 2019, and misdemeanor failure to file or pay taxes for 2015-2019. Such charges each have a six-year statute of limitations.

Feb. 25, 2022: IRS sends report outlining charges to Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office. Wolf and, according to Shapley, her DOJ Tax counterpart support the IRS recommendations. DOJ Tax prepares memo recommending prosecution, the IRS whistleblowers learn. They will not see the memo.

Matthew M. Graves: Declined to prosecute in the District of Columbia, according to IRS whistleblower testimony.

March 2022: DOJ Tax presents prosecution memo to U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia laying out alleged offenses chargeable in that venue. Prosecutors aim to charge Hunter Biden criminally over foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon, Devon Archer, as well as potential FARA issues. Shapley learns the Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, reviews the memo but refuses to partner with his Delaware counterpart. We in the IRS didnt realize at the time that meant there was no ability to charge there  that is, that without Graves buy-in, Weiss as Delaware U.S. Attorney could not bring his case in Washington, D.C.  Shapley testifies.

During this period, DOJ requests of IRS and FBI all management-level emails and documents on this case. Whistleblowers indicate that typically such materials are collected at sub-management level in advance of discovery in connection with an impending case. Shapley provides sensitive case reports and memorandums documenting DOJs continued unethical conduct, which he had been providing superiors for several years.

Facing impending charges, and with statutes of limitation set to lapse on 2014 and 2015 tax offenses, Hunters defense counsel reportedly calls for prosecutors not to charge, indicating willingness to sign statute of limitation extensions. Prosecutors and Bidens counsel will agree to multiple extensions.

March 14, 2022: Prosecutors have first taxpayer conference with defense counsel, allowing target to dispute charges.

March 28-29, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson release financial records corroborating prior reports on Hunter and James Bidens business with Chinese nationals connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

Merrick Garland: Attorney General on the defensive.

April 26, 2022: Attorney General Merrick Garland defends Hunter Biden investigation before Senate Appropriations Committee, indicating There will not be interference of any political or improper kind in the probe, that it will be free of any influence from the White House, and that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the Trump appointee overseeing the case is in charge.

The same day, according to Special Agent Zieglers deposition, prosecutors have second taxpayer conference with Hunter Bidens defense counsel. During that conference, Politico later reports, Bidens lawyers present a 100-page presentation to dissuade DOJ from charging him. Lawyers focus on casting the prosecution as political  driven from start by Trump  and suggest that to carry it out would damage DOJs reputation.

May 9, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson send letter to Weiss asking whether he possesses financial records to the Bidens China dealings, including those the senators had publicized. Weiss does not answer, with the Justice Department interceding.

July 25, 2022: Sen. Grassley writes to AG Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray alleging whistleblowers disclosed to his office that in fall 2020, the FBI obtained information about Hunter Bidens alleged criminal financial and related activity, only to bury and halt investigation of it by claiming it was disinformation.

Aug. 12, 2022: IRS whistleblowers learn that Chris Clark, Hunter Bidens counsel, warns prosecutors that if they charge Hunter, they will be committing career suicide.

Late Aug.-Early Sept. 2022: In meeting with investigators, Weiss indicates he agrees with IRS team regarding charging 2014-15 tax years, but says DOJ Tax has doubts about case. When asked when Weiss will charge, he says, according to Special Agent Ziegler, hopefully end of September. It was kind of up in the air.

E. Martin Estrada: Declined to prosecute in California, according to IRS whistleblower testimony.

Mid-Sept. 2022: E. Martin Estrada is appointed U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, the proper venue for charging tax offenses from 2016-19 based on Hunters residence there. Prosecutors present charges to Estradas office the week he is confirmed.

Sept. 22, 2022: Wolf tells investigators that prosecutors will not take action until after midterm elections, despite DOJs Public Integrity Section never issuing such an order.

Oct. 6, 2022: The Washington Post publishes article indicating there is sufficient evidence to charge Hunter with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase. Chris Clark accuses investigators of leaking information and calls on Justice Department to pursue leakers.

Oct. 7, 2022: In a meeting, Weiss tells colleagues at IRS and FBI that, according to a direct quote recounted by Shapley, Im not the deciding official on whether charges are filed. Weiss also states that D.C. U.S. Attorney Graves will not allow him to bring charges there. The FBI special agent in charge of the FBIs Baltimore office, overseeing the investigation and present at the meeting, will later reportedly challenge these claims. Weiss also indicates he had asked for special counsel authority from DOJ after Graves declined the charges and was denied. Weiss says he will not be bringing charges against Hunter for the 2014-15 tax years, the statute of limitations for which are to expire in Nov. 2022. Everyone in that meeting seemed shellshocked  I felt misled regarding Weiss apparent lack of authority, Shapley testified.

Oct. 12, 2022: IRS criminal investigation team conducts final interview.

Oct. 13, 2022: Sen. Grassley delivers letter to AG Garland, FBI Director Wray, and Weiss indicating that based on protected whistleblower disclosures to his office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden. Letter calls into question whether authorities have pursued the leads whistleblowers detailed to Grassley concerning an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving CEFC and potential criminal conduct involving Hunters business with and its owner Zlochevsky.

Oct. 17, 2022: Last meeting in which prosecutors include Shapleys IRS criminal investigations team.

Oct. 24, 2022: Prosecutors ask IRS for Shapleys records, in which he had documented alleged prosecutorial misconduct during pendency of case. Shapley and Ziegler will both testify that requesting management communications is highly unusual. The agents indicate that subsequently, the IRS team will be phased out of case.

Oct. 26, 2022: Sens. Grassley and Johnson send letter to Weiss stating that in light of DOJs failure to respond to oversight requests concerning their congressional investigation, they are delivering more than 200 pages of records relating to the Biden familys connections to the Chinese regime and persons connected to its military and intelligence elements.

Oct. 31, 2022: In a letter to Weiss, Clark threatens to put President Biden on the stand should the DOJ charge Hunter criminally.

Nov. 2022: After previously agreeing to multiple statute of limitation extensions regarding the 2014 and 2015 tax offenses with Hunters counsel concerning Burisma, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation expire  despite willingness of Biden team to continue extending, according to Shapley.

Nov. 2, 2022: President Biden's lawyers find classified documents from his time as vice president at the Washington, D.C.-based Penn Biden Center just prior to the midterm elections.

Nov. 15, 2022: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for president.

Late 2022: The New York Times reports that by this time, Weiss had found some evidence but determined that he did not have sufficient grounds to indict [Hunter] Biden for major felonies. It adds that one source indicated Weiss preferred not to bring any charges, even misdemeanors, though another denied it.

Dec. 20, 2022: President Biden's lawyers find a second set of classified documents from his time as vice president at his Delaware residence.

Jan. 2023: Shapley learns U.S. Attorney Estrada declines to bring charges in the Central District of California.

During this month, Clark will reportedly travel to Delaware and plead his case to Weiss to end the investigation into Hunter, indicating that how he handles the decision could have reputational consequences.

Jan. 9, 2023: It is first revealed publicly that President Biden's lawyers had found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center.

Jan. 12, 2023: AG Garland appoints Robert K. Hur special counsel to investigate President Biden's potential unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center and his Delaware home.

Christopher J. Clark, Hunter Bidens counsel, warned prosecutors that charging Hunter would be career suicide.

Feb. 2023-May 2023:

Hunters Counsel Pleads Case Over Weiss Head;

IRS Whistleblowers Emerge  and Face a Chill;

Plea Deal Develops

Feb. 1, 2023: Clark contacts multiple officials at Main Justice seeking contacts to whom he can appeal should Weiss charge Hunter.

March 1, 2023: Under questioning from Sen. Grassley during a Judiciary Committee hearing, the attorney general testifies that Weiss has full authority to make  referrals  or to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that. He has been advised that he should get anything he needs. I have not heard anything from that office that suggests they are not able to do anything that the U.S. Attorney wants them to do. Garland adds, I promised to leave the matter of Hunter Biden in the hands of [Weiss and]  I have pledged not to interfere with that investigation  I have carried through on my pledge.

James Biden: Money allegedly flowed to him, Hunter and other Bidens.

March 16, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases records showing $1.3 million in payments from 2015-2017 flowing from Biden family associate Rob Walker to Hunter and James Biden, Joes late son Beaus widow Hallie, and a fourth Biden. The bulk of the funds appear to come from Chinese energy company State Energy HK Limited.

March 18, 2023: Donald Trump says he will be indicted in New York.

April 4, 2023: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicts Trump on falsified business record charges pertaining to a $130,000 nondisclosure payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels.

April 19, 2023: Attorney on behalf of Shapley sends letter to relevant congressional committees indicating Shapleys desire to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress. Letter leaks to Wall Street Journal.

April 24-25, 2023: Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer contacts Shapleys counsel asking him for a call in light of Wall Street Journal reporting, and the two parties speak. The Daily Mail will later report that Shapleys counsel felt Weinsheimer seemed concerned and keen to investigate, and promised he would get Shapleys team legal permission to share all the details of his allegations.

April 26, 2023: Chris Clark finally lands sought-after meeting with Main DOJ, sitting down with Weinsheimer, alongside Weiss.

Danny Werfel, IRS commissioner: His "no retaliation" vow is called into doubt.

April 27, 2023: Under questioning in a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel testifies that there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or called into a whistleblower hotline.

May 3, 2023: Ranking Senate Budget Committee Member Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), submit letter to Garland and Wray indicating whistleblowers have disclosed the FBI possesses an FD-1023 alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national. The congressmen indicate that it is unclear what steps, if any, were taken to investigate the matter, and that therefore they will be reviewing the matter. Comer issues subpoena calling on FBI to produce FD-1023 forms aimed at capturing the alleged Burisma-Biden bribe document.

May 10, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases bank records memo revealing Biden family business deals in Romania and China.

May 11, 2023: Weinsheimer thanks Clark for meeting, indicates Hunter Biden investigation is reaching end, and prosecutors are prepared to make a deal.

May 15, 2023: Shapley learns his team has been removed from the Hunter Biden case at DOJs request, which his counsel reports to relevant House committees.

That same day, Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Wolf calls Clark, proposing a deal whereby Hunter will not have to plead guilty through use of a deferred prosecution agreement  satisfying Clarks reported core demand of prosecutors. Clark indicates defense will draft a proposed agreement accordingly.

May 16, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) requests briefing from IRS Commissioner regarding perceived retaliation against IRS whistleblower.

That same day, Weinsheimer speaks with Shapleys counsel. In an apparent change in tone, Weinsheimer indicates that DOJ headquarters will not be involved in the whistleblowers case. All issues are to run through Weiss. Shapley lawyer Mark Lytle will later say that Weinsheimer, after making earlier promises and assurances  seemed no longer interested. His co-counsel, Tristan Leavitt, says he believes that Weinsheimer wanted intel from Gary [Shapley] before his Hill testimony, which would come weeks later.

Rep. Jim Jordan: Seeks the paper trail on IRS whistleblowers' removal from the Hunter Biden case.

May 18, 2023: IRS Ziegler sends letter to IRS leadership recounting criticism over its lack of action in connection with concerns he and colleagues raised during Hunter Biden case, and expressing disappointment over Ziegler and his team having been removed from it.

That day, Hunter Bidens lawyers send two Delaware prosecutors, including Wolf, the first draft of a proposed deal under which Hunter will not have to plead guilty. The deal would give Biden immunity from other potential offenses authorities had investigated  which would include Foreign Agent Registration Act charges  should he pay taxes owed, among other conditions. Delaware U.S. Attorneys office, sympathetic to proposal, shares its own suggested terms that do not require Biden to plead guilty.

May 19, 2023: Two superiors respond to Special Agent Zieglers email with a reminder that you need to follow your chain of command. They insinuate he may have made unauthorized disclosures by including potential grand jury material, and including recipients unable to receive such material.

That same day, Hunter Bidens lawyers prepare a draft pretrial diversion agreement covering tax and gun issues, guaranteeing immunity from prosecution of offenses previously investigated, and stating that DOJ will dismiss charges if Biden upholds his end of deal  no guilty plea necessary.

May 22, 2023: Shapleys counsel sends another letter to relevant House committees indicating the IRS is taking additional retaliatory measures aimed at intimidating whistleblowers into silence.

May 23, 2023: In a major reversal, Wolf tells Hunter Bidens counsel that Weiss now wants Biden to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes.

May 24, 2023: In a CBS News interview, Shapley goes public with allegations DOJ slow-walked Hunter Biden probe.

May 25, 2023: IRS sends mass email to personnel instructing them as to proper protocol for reporting wrongdoing like that alleged in the Biden case. The email omits that such employees may bring their concerns to Congress.

Also that day, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sends oversight letter to AG Garland requesting documents in connection with IRS whistleblowers removal from the Hunter Biden case.

May 26, 2023: Shapley testifies behind closed doors before House Ways and Means Committee to make protected whistleblower disclosures.

Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

June 2023:

FBI Stonewalls Over Alleged Burisma-Biden Bribes;

Trump Indictments Grow;

Plea Deal Emerges;

Weiss Strains To Harmonize His Story With AG Garland About His Claimed Ultimate Authority

June 1, 2023: Ziegler testifies behind closed doors before the House Ways and Means Committee to make protected whistleblower disclosures.

June 2, 2023: After DOJ reportedly communicates to Hunter Bidens counsel that he would need to plead guilty to tax charges, and counsel agrees he will do so for two misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to pay taxes  but not gun charge  Bidens counsel expresses in email to Wolf that immunity is critical. Parties move forward on two-part deal consisting of plea agreement for tax charges and pretrial diversion agreement covering gun charge.

June 6, 2023: Sen. Grassley delivers speech linking July 25, 2022, allegation FBI had sat on and buried evidence of Hunter Bidens alleged criminal financial activity in 2020 on grounds it was disinformation, to FD-1023 alleging Burisma-Biden bribes. He asks whether allegation was dismissed by being falsely labeled disinformation.

June 7, 2023: Following a series of correspondences and meetings in which the FBI refuses to turn over the FD-1023, or even acknowledge its existence, FBI relents in permitting Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in camera reviews of redacted version of document. Reviewers can neither retain nor take notes on document. With FBI resisting calls to produce document to full committee, Chairman Comer releases resolution and report recommending FBI Director Wray be held in contempt of Congress.

The same day, Wolf proposes plea deal to Hunter Bidens counsel including global immunity provision. The deal also includes a protective measure whereby Justice Department can only prosecute Hunter Biden for gun charge if he breaks deal  as determined by presiding judge, not DOJ, providing protection from a future Republican administration.

Also that day, Weiss responds on behalf of DOJ to Chairman Jordans May 25 letter to AG Garland. In response, Weiss says I want to make clear that, as the Attorney General has stated, I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter [the Hunter Biden case], including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution.

June 8, 2023: Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

The same day, prosecutors send Hunter Biden plea agreement to presiding Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika.

June 9, 2023: Former Attorney General Bill Barr says FD-1023 alleging Burisma-Biden bribes was provided to the ongoing investigation in Delaware to follow up on and to check out via the Pittsburgh U.S. Attorneys Office, which served as a clearinghouse for evidence to be received and vetted in connection with the case.

June 12, 2023: Shapley submits affidavit to Congress indicating neither he, his team, nor the FBI agents working with it were ever provided the information contained in the FD-1023. In a June 19 letter, Ziegler will indicate the same.

June 13, 2023: Donald Trump is arraigned in the classified documents case, pleading not guilty.

Unbeknownst to the public, prosecutors had planned to file the Hunter Biden plea deal documents in Delaware federal court that day. They postpone.

June 20, 2023: Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office announces it has reached plea deal with Hunter Biden charging him with two misdemeanor tax offenses covering tax years 2017 and 2018, and entered into a pre-trial diversion agreement regarding a firearm charge. Absent from the charges are those stemming from Hunters Burisma work, or any charges relating to FARA.

Republicans pan the pact as a sweetheart plea deal illustrative of a two-tier justice system, with some indicating it violates DOJ standards. Hunter Bidens attorney declares, It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved. Weiss office claims the investigation remains ongoing, according to the New York Times, at the time taking Mr. Biden and officials at Justice Department headquarters by surprise.

Around this time, the Times reports, Wolfs role shrinks. Leo Wise, a senior prosecutor from the Baltimore U.S. attorneys office, is detailed to Delaware. He will ultimately sign off on and defend the plea agreement in court.

June 22, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee releases transcripts of Shapley and Ziegler interviews.

Chairman Jordan sends oversight letter to Weiss reiterating prior request for material regarding DOJs alleged retaliation against Shapley, and inquiring about the unusual nature of Weiss June 7 response on behalf of AG Garland to Jordans May 25 oversight request.

June 28, 2023: Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-N.C.) sends letter to Weiss asking for information regarding, among other allegations, that he had requested and was denied special counsel authority.

June 29, 2023: Three House Committee chairmen send letter to Garland requesting that he make 11 Justice Department officials pivotal to the Hunter Biden case, including Weiss, Wolf, U.S. Attorney Graves, and U.S. Attorney Estrada, available for transcribed interviews.

June 30, 2023: Weiss responds to Jordans June 22 letter indicating DOJ did not retaliate against the IRS team, and that he stands by his June 7 letter indicating he has been granted total authority of the Hunter Biden case, including where, when and whether to file charges. Weiss adds, however, that my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district [Delaware], and that if another U.S. Attorneys Office with venue for a case declines to partner on a case, he may request Special Attorney Status from the Attorney General. Weiss claims he has been assured that, if necessary  he would be granted such authority.

From the FBI "FD-1023" form alleging foreign bribery of Joe and Hunter Biden.

July 2023:

Burisma-Biden Bribes Document Released;

Whistleblowers Testify About Obstructed Case Publicly;

Hunter Bidens Plea Deal Collapses in Court

July 5, 2023: A bicameral group of Republican chairmen and ranking members send letter to Special Counsel Henry Kerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel, calling for an investigation into alleged retaliation against the IRS whistleblowers. The Office of Special Counsel is responsible in particular for protecting federal employees from reprisal for whistleblowing.

July 9, 2023: Sen. Grassley sends letter to Weiss inquiring as to whether Wolf and others had investigated FD-1023 alleging Biden bribes.

July 10, 2023: Weiss responds to letter from Sen. Lindsey Graham indicating he had not requested special counsel authority with DOJ officials, but rather had discussions with Departmental officials regarding  potential special attorney authorities, which would have permitted him to charge in venues other than Delaware. I was assured that I would be granted this authority if it proved necessary prior to the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting, Weiss writes.

July 19, 2023: Shapley and Ziegler testify publicly before House Oversight Committee, recounting key claims expressed during their closed-door depositions regarding allegations of slow-walking, obfuscation, and obstruction in the Hunter Biden case.

The same day, Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office emails final deal to Judge Noreika.

July 20, 2023: Sen. Grassley releases FD-1023 alleging $5 million bribes from Zlochevsky to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for firing of Shokin, indicating Zlochevsky has text messages and recordings suggesting he was coerced into making such payments.

Hunter's artwork: Biden-connected buyers paid big.

July 24, 2023: The Federalist reports that the Pittsburgh FBI office that had originally received the FD-1023 had corroborated multiple facts included in the document, and briefed the Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office accordingly, per a source.

The same day, DOJ offers to make Weiss available for a public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as Sept. 27.

July 24, 2023: Buyers of Hunter Bidens art, totaling $1.4 million in sales, are revealed to include Hunter financial backer Kevin Morris and California Democrat donor Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali. In July 2022, eight months after Hunters first art opening, President Biden announced Naftali was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of Americas Heritage Abroad. It is not clear whether the sale occurred before or after the appointment. Reports also indicate Naftali visited the White House at least 13 times after December 2021.

Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali: She bought Hunter art and got a plum post.

July 26, 2023: Hunter Bidens plea deal collapses under questioning from federal Judge Noreika, with prosecutors and Hunter Bidens lawyers sparring over scope of immunity provision in pretrial diversion agreement. When asked if government could bring charges under FARA with plea agreement in place, prosecutors say Yes. Bidens counsel disagrees. This ultimately leads Biden to withdraw his guilty plea. DOJ acknowledges aspects of the deal are unprecedented in terms of structure and substance.

Shortly after hearing, prosecutors and defense counsel will confer, with Bidens lawyers suggesting changes to the deal.

July 27, 2023: Special Counsel Smith issues superseding indictment in Trump Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

July 29, 2023: Chairman Comer issues oversight request letters to Naftali and the White House counsel in furtherance of probe of Hunters art sales. There is no indication federal investigators pursued the sales.

Devon Archer: Testifies to selling the Biden "brand."

July 31, 2023: Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer testifies before House Oversight Committee for transcribed interview. He alleges Hunter Bidens business was selling the Biden brand, headlined by his father, and that he had witnessed Joe joining Hunter Biden and his business associates in person or by phone upwards of 20 times.

The same day, prosecutors reject Hunter Biden counsels proposed deal revisions and suggest their own.

Also that day, relevant House committee chairmen send letter to Garland inquiring about the unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements offered Hunter Biden, in light of whistleblower allegations the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden.

Judge Maryellen Norieka: Hunter Bidens plea deal collapses under her questioning.

Aug. 2023-Present:

Another Trump Indictment; Weiss Gets Special Counsel Authority He Wasnt Supposed to Need; Biden Impeachment Inquiry Opens; Hunter Hit With Gun Indictment

Aug. 1, 2023: Special Counsel Smith indicts Donald Trump on charges pertaining to his contesting of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Aug. 7, 2023: Hunter Bidens defense counsel rejects prosecutors proposed changes to the plea bargain, which according to an email Chris Clark sent to prosecutors, without explanation, completely delet[ed] the immunity provision.

Aug. 8, 2023: Weiss requests special counsel authority.

Aug. 9, 2023: House Oversight Committee releases bank records memo detailing millions in payments from foreign sources to Bidens and their associates from Russian, Ukrainian, and Kazakhstani individuals during Joe Bidens vice presidency  individuals who Vice President Biden met.

Aug. 11, 2023: Garland names Weiss special counsel, asserting he will continue to have the authority and responsibility that he has exercised previously to oversee the investigation and decide where, when, and whether to file charges. Weiss retains his position as U.S. Attorney for Delaware despite rules calling for special counselors to come from outside the United States government, and for any special counsel to be independent. The New York Times later reports that Weiss was motivated by a [special counsel] requirement to produce a report that would allow him to answer critics, according to people with knowledge of the situation  an accounting that could become public before the 2024 election.

The same day, the Justice Department files motions to dismiss the Hunter Biden tax case so charges can be brought in proper venue  either the Central District of California, or Washington, D.C.  an authority Weiss will have as special counsel. Biden had waived any venue challenge enabling the original deal to be cut in Delaware, despite venue for the offenses lying elsewhere.

Aug. 14, 2023: Chairman Comer releases transcript of interview with FBI official corroborating Shapleys testimony that FBI headquarters had tipped off Secret Service headquarters and President Bidens transition team about investigators planned Dec. 8, 2020, Hunter Biden interview.

The same day, Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis indicts Donald Trump and 18 others in RICO case regarding Trumps contesting of the 2020 election.

Aug. 17, 2023: Hunter Biden tax case dismissed in Delaware.

Aug. 19, 2023: Politico and the New York Times publish detailed accounts on collapse of Biden plea agreement based in part on leaked correspondence between Weiss office and Hunter Bidens lawyers.

Aug. 21, 2023: House committees subpoena IRS and FBI officials present at Oct. 7, 2022, meeting in which Weiss allegedly claimed he did not have final charging authority in Hunter Biden case.

Aug. 28, 2023: House Committee chairmen send oversight request letter to AG Garland regarding his decision to appoint Weiss special counsel.

The same day, The Federalist reports on emails obtained via FOIA indicating DOJ intervened on behalf of Weiss office on multiple occasions to respond to congressional inquiries  seen as further evidence of Weiss and DOJ officials in Washington seeking to align their stories on who had what authority in Hunter Biden case.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Sept. 12: It's impeachment time.

Sept. 6, 2023: Weiss office indicates intent to indict Hunter Biden on gun charges in Delaware before Sept. 29 in court filing.

That same day, House Committee chairmen send letter to Hunter Bidens counsel calling for it to produce documents and communications previously leaked to Politico and the New York Times regarding negotiations surrounding the failed Hunter Biden plea agreement.

Sept. 12, 2023: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announces House will open impeachment inquiry into President Biden concerning allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption. The American people deserve to know that public offices are not for sale and that the federal government is not being used to cover up the actions of a politically-connected family, he writes.

House committees open joint inquiry into alleged attempts by Hunter Biden legal team to encourage DOJ to retaliate against IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler.

Also that day, Washington Post publishes report based on leaked transcript from House Judiciary Committee interview with Baltimore FBI special agent in charge Thomas Sobocinski challenging IRS whistleblowers claims about what Weiss said about his authority during Oct. 7, 2022, meeting.

Sept. 13, 2023: Shapleys lawyers respond with the IRS agents contemporaneous handwritten notes to rebut Sobocinskis claims.

Sept. 14, 2023: Weiss indicts Hunter Biden on felony gun charges in Delaware federal court.

Sept. 18, 2023: Hunter Biden sues the IRS over Shapley and Zieglers whistleblower disclosures.

Sept. 20, 2023: AG Garland testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. Under questioning from Chairman Jordan, he defends prior comments about Weiss' authority, stating "no one had the authority to turn him [Weiss] down" in terms of bringing charges, but that "they could refuse to partner with him." Garland says the two are "not the same under well-known Justice Department practices." He will also testifies that a U.S. Attorney in one district "does not have the authority to deny another U.S. attorney the ability to go forward" with a case.

Sept. 26, 2023: On the same day. Hunter sues Rudy Giuliani and attorney Robert Costello over sharing of Hunters laptop data in alleged violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Also that day, House Oversight Committee reveals that Hunter Biden received two wire payments totaling over $250,000 during 2019 from Chinese sources, at least one of which was linked to the Chinese investment concern BHR Partners, including its CEO. Hunters attorney George Mesires would state that same year that the presidents son had served as a board member at the company in an unpaid position. While Hunter Biden was listed as the beneficiary for the funds, the Delaware home of Joe Biden was listed as the beneficiary address.

Sept. 27, 2023: House Ways and Means Committee releases trove of documents on eve of first impeachment inquiry hearing that it argues demonstrates links between Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden's business dealings, and that the Biden administration  including top Justice Department officials  covered up the Biden family's dealings to protect the president and his family.

Sept. 28, 2023: House Oversight Committee to hold first impeachment inquiry hearing.

Also that day, the New York Times reports that Special Counsel Hur has interviewed numerous top aides in connection with the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents after his vice presidency.

Oct. 3, 2023: Hunter Biden is arraigned in Delaware federal court in gun charge case. He pleads not guilty to all charges.

That same day, President Biden announces his intent to nominate Hampton Dellinger to replace the term-limited Office of Special Counsel head Henry Kerner, who Republican congressmen had directed to investigate the IRS whistleblowers' claims they were retaliated against. Dellinger had previously worked at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner on its Crisis Management and Government Response team. His time at the firm overlapped with Hunter Biden. In 2014, Biden referred Burisma to Dellinger's team, and worked closely with the team's lawyers. It is unclear if Dellinger did any work in connection with the Ukrainian energy company, but he and Hunter met for lunch and attended a firm party that year.

Also that day, The Federalist reports that per emails obtained via FOIA, then-U.S. Attorney Weiss' June 7 response to Chairman Jordan's letter  which had been addressed not to Weiss but AG Garland  appeared to violate an explicit Justice Department policy that only its Office of Legislative Affairs was to respond to inquiries from the legislative branch.

Oct. 18, 2023: Special Counsel Weiss to testify before House Judiciary Committee.
FUNDRAISER IN TEXAS FOR SUPPRESSOR RIGHTS ACROSS THE LAND

Are you in or near Austin, Texas? Do you love suppressors and/or giving money to charity? The American Suppressor Association Foundation will be holding a big fundraising banquet on Thursday, November 30th!

Tickets arent cheap, but they go to the great cause of supporting suppressor rights for Americans across the nation.

Single tickets start at $500 per person for dinner and drinks, but for $1,500 you get dinner, drinks, and your choice of a product off their giveaway list. Getting dinner, drinks, and a Beretta A300 or Bergara B-14 Ridge, or a Gemtech suppressor, isnt a bad way to spend an evening!

The product lists are broken into three tiers; each tier is pretty impressive, but the best stuff is on level 3.

To unlock those, youll need to get a Gold Table for $15,000, but it comes with 8 tickets and 5 products (2 level 1, 2 level 2, and 1 level 3).

Packages top out at $30,000 donations for 8 tickets, 4 level 1 products, 4 level 2, and 3 level 3.

If youre going for the swag, there are cheaper ways of getting these great guns and suppressors. But then you wouldnt be supporting a great cause and making a tax-deductible donation!

The American Suppressor Association Foundation (ASA-F) is thrilled to announce the inaugural Silent Night Banquet. Taking place at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas on Thursday, November 30th, the Silent Night Banquet will include an open bar, a delicious dinner, a silent auction, a live auction, a raffle, and a keynote address from Captain Chad Fleming from Team Never Quit. In addition, every table package sold will come with the buyer's choice of amazing products, including the best suppressors, rifles, pistols, shotguns, and optics. As the 501c3 wing of the American Suppressor Association, the ASA Foundation is leading the charge through active litigation to make suppressors legal in all 50 states. ASA-F has already filed Anderson v. Raoul in partnership with Silencer Shop, challenging the constitutionality of the suppressor ban in Illinois. The Silent Night Banquet will help ASA-F raise essential funds to continue the litigation in Illinois and file lawsuits in other states like California and New Jersey. If successful, suppressors will become legal in all 50 states for the first time in over 100 years Help us reach our goal of raising $250,000 for the ASA Foundation by buying a ticket or a table today, said Knox Williams, Executive Director of ASA. Not only will your purchase help fund our pro-suppressor lawsuits and educational initiatives, at the Banquet youll have access to an open bar, a delicious dinner, a silent auction, a live auction, and a raffle filled with products and experiences you simply cant buy.
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A crowd of students from Clarke Central High School, members of the Athens Justice and Memory Project, local political figures, camera crews and more gathered to witness the street renaming ceremony of a portion of South Finley Street on Sept. 1. The street lies between Cloverhurst Avenue and Baxter Street and was renamed Linnentown Lane.
IndiGos size should be compared with global carriers, and not other domestic airlines, chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said on Tuesday, adding that such benchmarking will help India transform its airports into aviation hubs.

Photograph: ANI Photo

Elbers flagged the tendency to scrutinise domestic competition, assess fares on domestic routes, and determine if they are high.

But if we want to build some hubs, we should have a broader look, he said during a panel discussion at a convention organised by All India Management Association (AIMA).

The executive, with over 30 years of aviation experience, said India needed to train sights on international competition and realise how the majority of flights between Europe and India were not operated by Indian carriers.

Rather than having a discussion on how much competition there is between Mumbai and Guwahati, we should focus on how come there are so few direct flights between Delhi and Rome.

"That is the part of the discussion we should be having, he added.

Indias international passenger market is dominated by foreign airlines.

About 85 per cent of the domestic market, meanwhile, is divided between IndiGo and the Air India (A-I) group of airlines.

This comes amid SpiceJets financial troubles, Go Firsts insolvency proceedings, and Akasa Air reducing flights due to a pilot shortage and has led to concerns regarding high airfares.

The A-I group of airlines includes Air India, Air India Express, AirAsia India, and Vistara.

IndiGo holds 60 per cent of Indias skies on its own, however, its share in the international passenger market is about 18 per cent, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

When asked if IndiGo has any competition, Elbers replied: Of course, we have competition. India is one of the most competitive markets in the world.

"When you speak about competition, there is a tendency to look very much at India itself...I think we should sometimes look a little broader and ask: How come on international travel (to and from India), the Indian carriers have a smaller share than the international carriers," he said.

It is crucial for Indian carriers to expand their network, improve positioning, and enhance connectivity systems, he said.

The Indian government has been actively encouraging Indian airports (especially Delhi) to transform into aviation hubs similar to Dubai or Doha airports, which boast extensive flight networks connecting destinations worldwide.

If we want to compete, and if we have the ambition to become global players, we have to be a certain size, Elbers said.

Rather than comparing the size of IndiGo or Air India with some other Indian carriers, I think we should also start comparing ourselves to some of the global players.

"If we have to compete with the likes of Singapore Airlines and make sure India is a connecting place, then that should be our point of reference rather than purely looking at domestic competitive points, he added.

About Air India's acquisition by the Tata group, he expressed that this represents a natural progression in a maturing market.

In other parts of the world, as aviation markets mature, consolidation has historically been observed.

"The fact that the markets are consolidating that you go to a certain stage of larger airlines and larger airline groups.

"We have seen that in Europe, the US, China, etc, and we are seeing it now in India, he noted.

Elbers pointed out that when travellers go abroad and purchase tickets in the United States or Europe, they can readily discern the remarkable competitiveness of the Indian market when comparing domestic prices.

So, yes, there is a lot of competition (within India), he added.

Our USP has remained very stable right from the start.

"Three points: affordable fares, on-time performance and hassle-free and courteous service.
Fiscal pressure for the Indian economy is gradually rising, suggested analysts at Jefferies in a recent note, as oil prices (Brent)  which are close to the $100 a barrel mark  continue to climb ahead of a busy election calendar.

They added that the sharp rally in the equity markets during the last few months has made valuations costly.

As a result, Jefferies expects the Indian markets to remain choppy in the near term.

Nifty above 20,000 with one-year forward price-earnings (PE) of 19.3x at +1 standard deviation and 12 per cent above 10-year average; our preferred yield-gap parameter (10-year bond yields less 1/Nifty PE), at 200 basis points (bps) is + 58 bps since March lows and +69 bps above average, pointing towards valuation discomfort, wrote Mahesh Nandurkar, managing director (MD) at Jefferies, in co-authored note with Abhinav Sinha and Nishant Poddar.

As a stock strategy, they have shifted consumer staples to underweight, and moved weight (bought into) to Bharti Airtel in their model portfolio.

We would buy the dips, as the medium term appears bright with the ongoing capital expenditure (capex) cycle recovery, Nandurkar said.

Surging oil prices

Rising oil prices, coupled with a busy election calendar in the months ahead, may exert pressure on the fiscal situation, said the Jefferies note. From around $83 a barrel on August 21, oil prices have surged nearly 14.5 per cent as Russia and Saudi Arabia cut production.

With Brent crude oil price above $90 a barrel, the headroom for a fuel price cut around Diwali (Q4 of CY23) is gone.

"The reverse may happen, though with diesel prices, implying losses for public sector oil companies.

"Rising oil prices have adverse implications for the rupee as well, with every $10 a barrel swing implying a 0.4 percentage point (ppt) change in the current account deficit (CAD), Nandurkar wrote.

The political schedule will be a busy one during the next few months as five states  Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Manipur  go to polls.

These polls, experts suggest, will be an indicator of BJPs performance in the general elections, scheduled for 2024.

In 2018, the BJP lost power in the three states of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the Congress. Jefferies said the busy election calendar is likely to exert pressure on the government for increasing social spending.

The spending may include schemes to boost annual transfers to farmers, expanding health insurance and interest subsidy on home loans.

State freebies, they said, have already started in a big way. Nandurkar believes that a sharp rally in public sector undertaking (PSU) stocks may prompt the government to push for divestment in some companies.

Senior ministers and bureaucrats suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is likely to build on the G20 momentum, with this weeks new Parliament inauguration being a part of the mega projects completed under the Modi-2 government.

We also sense that up-fronting the national election to December 2023 (currently scheduled for April 2024) is unlikely, partly because of the weather (winter in hill states) and partly because of the Ram Temple opening on January 24, Nandurkar said.

A Jefferies note suggested in August that markets feel Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a 70 per cent chance of returning to power.

From a long-term perspective, such a scenario bodes well for property and capex-related plays, including cement, infrastructure, capital goods, large banks, small and mid caps, it said.
Under Urjit Patel, the then RBI Governor, the central bank had a habit of making complete about-turns on various issues, including electoral bonds and digital payments, former finance secretary Subash Chandra Garg said in his book titled 'We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.'

Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Citing some instances of about-turns by the then RBI Governor Patel, Garg in his book said, RBI had done so on the electoral bond issue and it had so in case of setting up of Payments Regulatory Board (PRB).

RBI also made unilateral decisions like ordering complete data localization for participation in the payment system, Garg wrote in the book which will hit the stands on October 1.

"We humbly pointed out to RBI that the report (on PRB) was unanimous.

"If there was any dissent, it should have been made before the report was finalised.

"We would have gladly included the dissent note as part of the report and provided a rejoinder to the points raised by RBI," the book read.

However, claiming inaccurately that its representative had submitted a dissent note on certain recommendations of the committee, RBI posted a dissent note on its website by way of a press release on 19 October 2018, it said.

The 2007 PSS law remains unamended. The government has still not notified the PRB as created by the Finance Act 2017.

"The government did not take any action on the recommendations of the inter-ministerial group that I headed.

"These recommendations had the potential to transform the payment architecture, infrastructure and institutional arrangements in the country.

"Though RBI is acting upon some of the recommendations made, India still has not institutionalized a good experimental regulatory sandbox," it said.

Recently, in a paper issued by RBI, it said, it proposed opening up the payment space to NBFCs and other private entities.

Patel's reluctance to part ways with reserves of the central bank for transfering it to the government of India prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to compare him with a 'snake who sits over a hoard of money'.

Garg, who served as economic affairs secretary between June 21, 2017 and July 25, 2019, also served as the finance secretary to the government of India, dealt with the politics of deciding the minimum support price (MSP) to farmers, introducing electoral bonds, recapitalizing banks and monetizing six airports, among others.

However, the most contentious and talked about issue during his tenure was relationship between the Mint Street and North Block which houses the finance ministry.

According to the book, the prime minister had convened a meeting to review the state of the economy amid a difficult economic situation in September 2018.

During the meeting, a considerable strain between the government and the Reserve Bank of India was witnessed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost his cool on Patel and compared him to a "snake who sits over a hoard of money", as per the book.

"I saw him in such an angry mood for the first time.

"He was scathing in his attack on RBI's stance on the resolution of non-performing assets (NPAs) and its intransigent, impractical and inflexible attitude to finding solutions.

"He criticised Governor Patel for proposing the withdrawal of the LTCG tax, which had since stabilized with hardly anyone objecting to it, and asking for fiscal deficits to be cut down further in the middle of the financial year," Garg said in his memoir.

He (Modi) compared Patel to the snake who sits over a hoard of money, for being unreceptive to putting RBI's accumulated reserves to any use, it said, adding, Prime Minister Modi had also been briefed about the reluctance of Governor Urjit Patel to convene a special meeting of the Central Board despite agreeing to do so in the last meeting of the board held on August 8, 2018.

The governor had agreed to convene this special meeting on 30 or 31 August subject to 'all directors attending it', the memoir published by Harper Collins said.

"RBI had also sought the convenience of the directors by writing letters the following week. However, Governor Patel had developed second thoughts and had not convened the meeting.

"The PM was critical of the governor for not calling this special meeting to discuss burning issues and take decisions.

"When we were leaving after the meeting, I asked Urjit Patel, tongue-in-cheek, whether he would convene the special meeting of the Central Board.

"Sticking to his intransigent stance, he responded without batting an eyelid: I will not," it said.

Pointing out that the unexpected happened on December 10, 2018, Garg narrated "I was chairing a meeting in the committee room close to my chamber in North Block from 5 pm onward.

"Around 6 pm as I entered my room, I saw the news flashing on the television channels: RBI Governor Urjit Patel had resigned."

Urjit Patel resigned in a most unusual manner as he put his resignation letter on RBI website.

He did not send in his resignation to the government as required under the rules and established procedure.

"After posting his resignation letter on RBI website, he simply went home.

"He referred to 'personal reasons' for his decision to step down.

"He recalled his association with RBI in various capacities over the years and attributed the considerable accomplishments of the bank to its staff, officers and management," it said.

He also expressed his gratitude to his colleagues and directors of RBI, it said, adding, there was something very conspicuous by its absence  there was no reference to the government, PM and finance minister in the resignation letter.

"I called Arun Jaitley who confirmed that he had no prior knowledge of the resignation.

"However, he said he intended to accept his resignation forthwith and not ask for any reconsideration," he said.
Deteriorating ties between India and Canada could have a bearing on flows into the domestic capital markets. At present, Canada is the seventh largest country for foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows into India.

According to the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL), the assets under custody (AUC) of FPIs domiciled in Canada stood at nearly Rs 1.8 trillion ($21 billion) at the end of August.

Almost 85 per cent of these investments are in listed equity, while the remaining in debt and hybrid instruments.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), one of the worlds largest retirement funds, is among the biggest FPIs investing in the domestic market. CPPIB has large exposure to domestic companies, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and infrastructure projects.

Among its key India investments are a 2.68 per cent stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank, valued at over Rs 9,500 crore ($1.1 billion), and $205 million infusion into IndoSpaces real estate fund. It also has investments in Byjus.

CPPIB also holds stakes in new-age companies Paytm, Delhivery and Nykaa.

After setting up an office in Mumbai in 2015, the Canadian pension body has stepped up its investment in India.

Market players dont rule out a slowdown in capital flows from Canada until the relationship between the two nations improves.

However, they ruled out large-scale redemptions from India.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.

IMAGE: AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, third from right, chairs a meeting of the party's chief club secretaries, district club secretaries, club parliamentarians and assembly members in Chennai after which the AIADMK declared it would break away from the BJP. Photographs: ANI Photo

On the face it, the AIADMK formalising the break in its tie-up with the ruling BJP at the Centre should affect the former in ways that the nation has come to see as 'vindictive politics' of the latter.

On paper, the BJP's credibility, if not 'winnability', under the Modi-Shah regime has taken a bigger hit than may be acknowledged immediately.

After the Akali Dal in northern Punjab, ideological-brother Shiv Sena in western Maharashtra, and the love-hate break with the ruling Janata Dal-United of Bihar, the party has lost the only recognisable ally, that too in the South, from where the BJP had hoped to make up at least a part of the supposedly anticipated yet unavoidable losses elsewhere in the Lok Sabha polls next year, both for the party and the party-led National Democratic Alliance.

Yet, the fact is that not just the two Tamil Nadu allies but the ruling DMK and the latter's electoral combine, which includes the Congress leader of the Opposition INDIA at the national-level, may suffer losses, beginning with the possible reconstitution of the existing alliances and the possible formation of a third one under the BJP.

Such a possibility brings back to mind memories of the 2014 scenario, when the ruling AIADMK dumped the BJP, the Opposition DMK would not touch the party, leaving it to force-form a third alliance, yielding to DMDK's actor-politician Vijaykanth's unsustainable last-minute demands, starting with seat-share, and accommodating the PMK with its proven vote-share, almost half-heartedly.

In the re-constituted NDA that was a last-minute job, the BJP contested seven of 39 Lok Sabha seats from Tamil Nadu, preceded by the DMDK (14) and the PMK (8).

The alliance did poll close to a fifth of the vote-share, or 18.5 per cent to be precise, but bagged only two seats -- one each for the BJP (Kanyakumari: Pon Radhakrishnan) and the PMK (Dharmapuri: Dr Anbumani Ramadoss).

Contesting almost alone with a few minor parties fielding their candidates under the party's Two Leaves symbol, the AIADMK swept the poll with the remaining 37 seats and 44.92 per cent vote-share.

The DMK-led Democratic People's Alliance (DPA) bagged 26.8 per cent vote-share, but could not win a single seat.

Contesting alone after the break-up with the DMK post-2011 assembly polls that the alliance had lost owing to what the leader saw as the wasted seats that the national ally forced out of it even while they were in the power in the state, the Congress too drew a blank and could manage only 4.3 per cent vote.

The worst was reserved for the two Communist parties, which had all along piggy-backed, initially on the DMK early on, and alternating with the breakaway AIADMK since its formation in 1972.

The Communists would not touch the 'corrupt' DMK or Congress, AIADMK boss and then chief minister J Jayalalithaa was determined to 'expose' their electoral weakness even while getting away with their ideological baggage through the past decades.

Elections 2014 showed that the two Communist parties together had polled only one per cent vote-share across the state, while Independents had polled 2.1 per cent, and NOTA, 1.4 per cent.

What did the trick in 2014, that too when the rest of the nation was visibly gravitating towards the BJP under a new face, then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi?

The ruling party having decided to go it alone, Amma's catchy challenge, 'Modi-ya, indha Lady-ya?' captured the imagination of the state's mostly 'secular' voters, especially the minorities, who had gone wholesale with the DMK rival in the previous decade after Jaya partnered with the 'communal' BJP -- as she herself ended up acknowledging without condemning the party -- as only the DMK-Congress-Communists combine had been saying then, and saying since after her time.

IMAGE: Palaniswami blesses a beneficiary during the distribution of welfare assistance in Chennai, May 17, 2023.

Today, AIADMK boss and former chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) may not be as charismatic and tough-faced as Jaya was, but he too has proved to be equally decisive.

He has proved to be a Machiavelli in intra-party faction politics through past years, but recognises that unlike Jaya who wielded power from the top, he derived his only from the cadres and voters, upwards.

It thus meant that when the cadres had had enough of the BJP alliance, after the successive defeats in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 assembly polls showed, and more than enough of the current state BJP boss, K Annamalai, symbolised especially by the latter wantonly and repeatedly 'denigrating' their Amma and Dravidian politico-electoral fountain-head C N Annadurai, without feeling remorse or apologetic, EPS did not have a choice.

Learning from the AIADMK ally, and also the DMK rival, which aped the former, the BJP seems to have been expecting/demanding more seats for fielding candidates under its 'Lotus' symbol, even if only for statistical purposes.

According to reports, the issue had come up when EPS met the BJP's chief strategist and Union Home Minister Amit A Shah a fortnight ago -- and politely declined the proposal, purportedly made officially.

Even without, EPS had clarified the position months ago, when he said that the AIADMK would be the one to distribute seats to all allies.

He implied that the BJP was only one of them and was not a more-than-equal ally compared to the rest.

In the past couple of elections, including the 2019 one that the combine lost miserably, a host of minor allies had contested on the AIADMK's symbol.

If they won, their numbers would be added to the party that owned the symbol -- and defection under the law was just out of the question.

In allotting more seats to the BJP, more so to allies that the party wanted to contest on 'Lotus' symbol, the AIADMK faces multiple issues.

IMAGE: Senior AIADMK leaders, MPs and MLAs at the party's meeting in Chennai, September 25, 2023, after which the AIADMK broke away from the BJP.

Unlike the DMK rival, which was ever ready to compromise on its own share of the seats as long as the alliance worked and hoped to win the maximum number of seats -- whatever the final results -- Jayalalithaa, unlike party founder and mentor MGR, has left behind the image of a tough and uncompromising negotiator.

EPS can be seen as compromising on that image only by risking cadre-support across the board and in constituencies that he would have to 'gift away' to the BJP-led sub-alliance.

Two, and more importantly, despite Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's larger-than-life image elsewhere in the country, the BJP continues to remain an electoral burden in Tamil Nadu.

As is often recalled, even the self-proclaimed DMK owner of the Dravidian ideology under the late M Karunanidhi, had aligned with the BJP, led by the Vajpayee-Advani duo for the 1999 Lok Sabha polls.

While the combine did win 26 of 39 seats, thanks also to the five-plus 'Vajpayee vote', just as the rival AIADMK had done in the previous 1998 elections, the ruling party lost the subsequent assembly polls in 2001.

The DMK's internal analysis at the time showed that the party had lost the minorities vote so very completely, especially after the AIADMK had teamed up with the 'secular' Tamil Maanila Congress, a party that had broken away from the Congress parent, and also other identifiable 'secular' forces.

The DMK-led Dravidian group, which included the PMK and the MDMK, quietly quit the Vajpayee government and the NDA, to shake hands with the Congress-UPA, which was still in the formative stage.

Despite being in power, Jaya herself faced the 'secular' music in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, when the AIADMK-BJP combine lost 39-0, to the DMK-Congress combine, and by huge margins.

Her recovery in the assembly elections two years hence was modest as the AIADMK ended up losing power.

It was possibly then that Jaya decided to move away from the BJP -- and for good -- and more so after Modi with memories of the Gujarat riots (2002) became the party's prime ministerial candidate in 2014.

IMAGE: Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai welcomes BJP Chief Election Strategist Amit A Shah in Vellore, June 11, 2023.

The AIADMK's persistent problem is that with more seats going for the BJP symbol, the negative impact for the combine may outdo the 'anti-incumbency' piling up against the ruling DMK in the state.

There is general acceptance that Chief Minister M K Stalin is not as efficient as his late father Karunanidhi and definitely not as tough as eternal rival Jayalalithaa.

Yet, there is equal acknowledgement that he is still seen as a 'sincere leader'.

It is into this scenario that the AIADMK-BJP combine had to make fresh inroads, in what the former sees as a make-or-break election next year.

More the number of candidates with the Lotus symbol, greater exposure would the BJP get, including in constituencies where neither the BJP nor its internal-alliance candidates have any credible electoral presence.

Or, so goes the AIADMK's calculations. Under the party's scheme, their cadres who would have to toil at the grassroots-level would not feel enthused to do so, with the result the alliance may lose more seats than otherwise.

As a party, the AIADMK's vote share would show a deep downward trend, and that of the BJP an upward swing, encouraging the latter to demand unacceptably more seats in the assembly elections two years hence in 2026, citing statistics from the previous poll.

IMAGE: Annamalai and the BJP's state in-charge C T Ravi meet Palaniswami in happier times.

Not all is lost for the BJP, either.

Because the EPS-led AIADMK had refused to accommodate the OPS, T T V Dhinakaran and Sasikala factions of the party one way or the other, with a possible combine vote share of five-plus percentage, especially in the BJP's southern stronghold, the BJP could rope them into the NDA, however its 'incorruptible image' may suffer at the national level.

This, coupled with a split in the minorities and the anti-incumbency votes of the DMK could help the BJP combine to increase the vote-share for Lotus elsewhere, too.

However, there is a problem for the BJP and the AIADMK.

Minus the alliance, they may end up giving electoral space to the DMK alliance in their combined western stronghold, an impenetrable citadel of the party from the MGR days, barring the all-lost elections of 1996, 2004 and 2019.

Whether or not actor Kamal Hassan's Makkal Needhi Maiyam joins the DMK combine -- if not, the AIADMK rival -- contesting alone, even though only against the 'communal' BJP is not an option for him.

Contesting in 180 of 234 assembly seats in 2021, the party polled 2.91 per cent votes, down from 3.72 per cent in Lok Sabha 2019 -- though it is not clear if it could retain the vote in another round, or 'transfer' it to an ally.

IMAGE: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin arrives to pay tribute to social activist E V Ramaswamy Naicker 'Periyar' on his birth anniversary in Vellore, September 17, 2023.

How then can the AIADMK-BJP break-up affect the DMK-led alliance?

From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls.

Two, some allies in the DMK front may have more purchasing power in one of the two rivals of the party if the AIADMK and the BJP fail to patch up in time.

There is then the PMK, for instance, which has a proven five-plus per cent vote-share consistently over three decades, that will now have three alliances to choose from if it decides not to go on its own in the LS polls.

Likewise, actor Seeman's NTK with an introductory 1.06 per cent vote share in 2016 assembly elections to 3.91 per cent in LS 2019 to a 'decisive' 6.89 per cent in 2021, will have options to choose from if he concludes that they have reached a saturation-point as DMDK's Vijaykanth did in the Lok Sabha polls of 2009, with 10.3 per cent votes (no seats), up from a maiden 8.5-per cent vote share and one seat.

From within the DMK alliance, especially, parties like the Dalit-centric VCK and one or both the Communist parties will have another 'secular' option in the AIADMK.

If they are convinced that the AIADMK and the BJP will not patch up for the 2024 polls, one or more of them could begin targeting the state government on what the political Opposition now dubs as 'corruption, collection, commission' raj.

Even some leaders of the Congress ally in the state would start taking potshots at the DMK, with or without the high command intervening.

So would some Muslim parties now in the DMK's alliance.

Right now what does it all mean for the BJP?

To be fair, Annamalai was going down the right electoral path when he targeted the ruling party with his 'DMK Files I & II', the first one more popular than the other -- backed as he was with the unending ED/IT/CBI raids on state ministers, their kith and kin.

The raid and arrest of Minister Senthil Balaji was an early embarrassment for the DMK, yes, but the national leadership deflected the process with the Sanatana Dharma controversy involving DMK Minister and party youth wing leader Udhayanidhi Stalin.

More importantly, the constant raids of the kind have now caused the voter's eyebrows to rise, with a twitch at the end of his lips.

If anything, a section of social media first and pulp media later on, was convinced that the AIADMK, especially the EPS leadership and some of his former ministerial colleagues, would not have the stomach to stand up against the ED/IT/CBI combo, even if they did not care about the BJP as a party, the Modi-Shah strategic team, and the slow yet low incremental electoral advantage accruing to the ally in some parts of the state -- but not all.

Though some individual leaders in the AIADMK were concerned, they could not stop the overwhelming mood of the cadre, which alone forced Team EPS to act.

The argument was twin-faced.

One, whoever was guilty of a crime, let him or her face the law.

The interest, confidence and concerns of the party could not be compromised.

This became more pronounced after a failed unilateral patch-up by a couple of ex-ministers planning a Delhi trip last week, to which EPS uncannily added a couple of more.

Even more than the raids and arrests, the AIADMK should be concerned about the 'freezing' of the party's lucky mascot in the Two Leaves symbol -- but not anymore, it would seem.

But the leadership too does not seem to be too concerned, and also wanted to send out a message to the BJP that they are not afraid.

With the courts deciding that EPS's is the real AIADMK, the EC will now find it difficult to freeze the symbol.

Even if frozen, there is no way the Election Commission or any other authority could allot it to any of the other factions, which the courts have ruled are not the real AIADMK.

If frozen, it means the EPS AIADMK is ready to contest under a new symbol, after all -- and possibly begin a new innings or a new era in the post-MGR, post-Jaya AIADMK.

IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party supremo Narendra D Modi with Palaniswami at the National Democratic Alliance meeting in New Delhi, July 18, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Two, and equally significant, is the increasing general perception that the BJP at the Centre as is corrupt as any other, only that the early euphoria over the 'Modi magic' had shut everyone's eyes to the reality.

The much-touted CAG reports, based on the kinds of which the BJP had targeted the DMK over the 2G scam earlier, is on Tamil social media.

Stalin too promptly issued a long statement, citing the CAG reports and calling the BJP corrupt.

Does it mean that Tamil voters will condone corruption, or are condoning corruption, already?

The answer to the tricky question seems to be that they do not approve of corruption but he who throws the stone should not be a sinner.

Thus, when MGR with his 'Mr Clean image' called Karunanidhi corrupt, they accepted it, but not when Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa called each other corrupt, later on.

It was thus that contesting the 2021 assembly polls from four constituencies across the state, pending her appeal against her jail-term in the 'TANSI land deal case', Jaya won in all four of them.

The Supreme Court first ruled that the high court stay of the trial court order applied only to her sentence and not to the conviction part, and she then had to quit the lone Andipatti seat that she had retained to become chief minister.

However, Jaya returned after CM a few months later, after the Supreme Court acquitted her in the TANSI case, though after an 11-month delay in delivering the judgment.

She went back to her Andipatti seat, which her political mentor MGR had won even without even campaigning.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
'We will likely never know why Xi decided not to travel to New Delhi. One possible explanation could be his desire to avoid a meeting with US President Joe Biden.'

IMAGE: Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photograph: Pool New/Reuters

Alfredo Montufar-Helu is based in Beijing, where he heads the China Center for Economics and Business at the global business think-tank, The Conference Board.

In India for a conference, he shares his views on China's future business and geopolitical trajectories with Aditi Phadnis/Business Standard.

President Xi Jinping did not attend the Group of Twenty (G20), and many have said this is a setback for relations between India and China. How do you see relations developing?

We should not overinterpret President Xi's decision to not attend the G20 as a reflection of the China-India relationship.

President Xi recently met with Prime Minister Narendra D Modi at the BRICS Summit; if he had not wanted to meet, he would not have gone to this meeting.

Instead of attending personally, he designated Premier Li Qiang, who serves as his second-in-command and holds a prominent role in the Chinese government as the leader of the State Council.

This choice highlights President Xi's trust in Premier Li. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, holding a high-ranking position within the party.

Why did President Xi not attend himself?

We will likely never know why President Xi decided not to travel to New Delhi, leaving us to only speculate.

One possible explanation could be his desire to avoid a meeting with US President Joe Biden.

Despite recent progress in reopening communication channels between China and the US, tensions persist, as indicated by media headlines.

Therefore, it appears that the timing may not have been conducive for a China-US meeting.

I believe his decision had nothing to do with avoiding a meeting with Prime Minister Modi.

The relationship between India and China has always been complex.

These two countries are among the world's largest economies and are both expanding their nuclear, military, and geopolitical capabilities.

Sharing a lengthy border in the same region naturally leads to occasional clashes and even kinetic actions.

However, both governments have been able to prevent these tensions from escalating into a catastrophe.

In recent times, businesses have often found themselves caught in the crossfire of policy and regulatory actions.

Chinese investments in India, particularly in technology and information technology sectors, had to exit the Indian market due to decisions made by Indian authorities.

Likewise, not only Indian but also other foreign companies operating in China have faced disruptions due to sudden policy shifts and regulatory changes, particularly concerning data handling activities.

But that is not to say both countries don't want to do business with the world.

On the geopolitical front, both India and China share the perspective that the current international order does not adequately represent their voice.

This sentiment is also echoed by other major developing nations such as Brazil, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

What the recent BRICS Summit tells us is that India and China accept that they need to engage with each other.

The Chinese government acknowledges India's significance as a regional power and, therefore, prefers India not to align too closely with the US, especially when it comes to efforts to contain China's rise.

A multipolar world better serves China's strategic interests.

What are President Xi's new economic and political priorities, the economic challenges China is facing, and the role of One Belt One Road (OBOR) in this context?

I think the answer is simple. President Xi wants a stronger China and aspires to become a world leader in every aspect, ranging from economic prowess and people's prosperity to technological innovation and military might.

However, against the backdrop of economic vulnerabilities, global instability, and increasing antagonism from the West, China is increasingly prioritising its pursuit of national interests, bolstering its security, and emphasising self-reliance.

Consequently, the Communist party has reinforced its authority in designing and executing policies in crucial strategic areas, such as advancing technological self-sufficiency, upholding financial stability, and enhancing control over data management.

Notably, China has also exhibited greater assertiveness on the regional military front.

Economic development cannot be disentangled from national security goals. But to be fair, this is the same with the US as with India.

Given the mounting economic and geopolitical complexities, it's unsurprising that the government is tightening its grip, including by expanding the regulatory framework and bolstering enforcement in critical sectors.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Xi Jinping attend a meeting during the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, August 24, 2023. Photograph: Marco Longari/Pool via Reuters

And OBOR?

The Chinese government is actively pursuing its international interests through a series of initiatives aimed at connecting China with the Global South.

One prominent example of this strategy is the OBOR initiative.

When OBOR was initially launched, it lacked a clear and precise definition.

However, over time, it has undergone significant refinements.

In its early stages, a lot of the Chinese state capital was deployed in uninvestable projects.

Some of these ventures also had negative repercussions on the reputation of OBOR and China.

As it became evident that many of these projects were not bankable, China changed tack.

The blame does not fall on China alone; it takes two to tango.

Host governments play a crucial role in bringing projects to the market and should conduct thorough feasibility assessments to mitigate financial risks.

Projects motivated by political considerations oftentimes end up as white elephants.

One of the most attention-grabbing instances was the Hambantota port project in Sri Lanka, which raised significant concerns about the potential for a debt trap.

Interestingly, China was in the process of deleveraging its economy during this time, making it less sensible to invest heavily in projects with a high likelihood of failure.

During the second Belt and Road Forum in 2019, China introduced a new approach: emphasising the importance of respecting environmental, social, and governance standards, acknowledging local customs, and making projects attractive to international capital.

This marked the transition to what can be termed as Belt and Road 2.0.

Then came the pandemic. Infrastructure investments plummeted as top international capital providers took their capital home.

In Africa and Latin America, countries abruptly found their financial and fiscal capacities strained.

Naturally, this had a profound impact on infrastructure development, and even today, there remains a widening infrastructure investment gap in many developing markets.

OBOR has continued evolving. China's current emphasis is on economic stability and the mitigation of potential financial risks arising from its substantial debt levels.

Consequently, the allocation of capital for OBOR projects is expected to decrease significantly compared to previous levels.

Priority will be accorded to projects aligned with the government's strategic objectives.

This entails securing essential raw materials to bolster the advancement of high-technology sectors and reinforcing bilateral ties with major Global South economies, countering perceived efforts from the Western world to 'contain' China's ascent.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
'I am the senior most Congress party leader from Kerala, and I don't know why I am sidelined.'

IMAGE: Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala, right, with Chandy Oommen, who won the Puthupally by-election. Photograph: Kind courtesy Ramesh Chennithala/Twitter

After Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge announced the reconstitution of the Congress Working Committee, a few senior Congressmen were unhappy. Among them was Ramesh Chennithala, the senior most Congress leader in Kerala.

Chennithala was expected to be chief minister had the United Democratic Front won the 2021 assembly election, but groupism within the Congress party helped Pinarayi Vijayan come back as chief minister.

Chennithala's disappointment was understandable as he had supported Kharge in the election for party president and not Shashi Tharoor.

But Kharge inducted Tharoor in the CWC and not Chennithala who continued to remain a permanent invitee to the CWC even after 19 years.

Soon after the Puthupally by-election necessitated by Oommen Chandy's death, he expressed his disappointment before going to attend the reconstituted CWC meeting in Hyderabad on the 20th of September. Soon after that, he flew to the US.

Ramesh Chennithala tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier from the US why he feels let down by the party.

"I will be the last person to quit the Congress party," says Chennithala. "But I will definitely appraise the leadership of my agony and pain."

After the CWC was reconstituted, you said you were hurt and upset. Is that why you decided to take a break from politics and be in the US?

No. I came here to attend the marriage of my very close friend who is also from my constituency. He insisted that I attended the wedding.

Yes, I was upset. I was made a permanent invitee of the CWC 19 years ago. Even after 19 years, I am holding the same position. So, I was a little upset.

I kept quiet because the party was very important to me.

The Puthupally by-election campaigning was going on when the CWC reconstitution happened. When I called you, you didn't want to talk about it.

Was it because you didn't want to rock the boat during the campaign?

Yes, that's why I didn't want to express my feelings. The by-election was very important.

Oommen Chandy and I were together for more than 20 years, and we worked in tandem even though there were differences between us.

When his son was contesting from the same constituency, I felt I should not create any problems at that time.

But when I disclosed my feelings to my friends, they also felt that whatever I had to say, I should tell my leaders in Delhi.

So, once I am back in India, I will talk to the party high command and convey my pain and agony.

IMAGE: Ramesh Chennithala, second from left, with the Kerala contingent before the Congress Working Committee meeting in Hyderabad. Also present, Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, A K Antony, K C Venugopal and others. Photograph: Ramesh Chennithala/Twitter

To Sonia Gandhi?

Yes, to Soniaji.

See, after Oommen Chandy's death, I am the senior-most leader in the Congress party in Kerala.

I was the national president of the Youth Congress. For the last 19 years, I have been working as a special invitee to the CWC at the insistence of Sonia Gandhi.

It was Soniaji who nominated me as the permanent invitee.

I was in charge of almost all the states in the country. I was sent as the KPCC (Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee) president when Mr Karunakaran left the party.

Then I was the leader of the Oopposition in the Kerala assembly.

Even after all this, if I have to continue as a permanent invitee at the CWC, I have genuine grievance about it. I will definitely tell this to the high command.

Why do you think you were ignored when you have been with the party for more than four decades?

I started my political career with KSU (Kerala Students Union) as the school union secretary.

In 1982, I was appointed by Indira Gandhi as president of the National Students Union of India. I was 24 then.

I have been very loyal to the party and the leadership all the time.

I don't know the reason behind this decision. When I go to Delhi, I will discuss with them.

Didn't you talk to Sonia Gandhi till now about your disappointment?

I spent 20 days campaigning for the by-election at Puthupally, and we came out successful.

Soon after the by-election, the working committee meeting happened in Hyderabad.

IMAGE: Ramesh Chennithala campaigns for Chandy Oommen during the Puthupally by-election. Photograph: Ramesh Chennithala/Facebook

At the CWC meeting, didn't you express your feelings?

It was not fair to talk about my personal feelings at the Hyderabad meeting as it was held to discuss about the preparations to be done for the 2024 parliamentary elections.

I was of the opinion that as a loyal party worker, I should not raise personal issues at a public meeting.

That's why I decided to speak to my leadership in private in Delhi.

If you find the response from the high command not satisfactory, will you quit the party like so many other senior leaders?

No. I will be the last person to quit the Congress party. I will remain in the party because I believe in the principles of the Congress party.

I will remain in the party irrespective of any position or power.

But I will definitely appraise the leadership of my agony and pain. It is not my feelings alone. The entire Kerala sympathises with me.

When I was removed from the CLP (Congress Legislative Party) leadership after the defeat in the last assembly elections, I accepted the decision without any resentment though I was enjoying the support of the majority of the MLAs.

I didn't create any problem though I could have done it. But I am not like that. I am a very sincere party worker to whom party comes first.

Do you think the leadership is taking such loyal leaders for granted?

I feel they have full confidence in me that I will not create any problem for the party. But it should not continue. They should not do like this always.

I was one person who did not sign the letter written by G-23 though I was asked to, because I was a committed party worker.

Now, all the G-23 people were accommodated (in the CWC), and I was left out! This is not good.

IMAGE: Ramesh Chennithala, left, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and others during the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Kayamkulam in Alappuzha. Photograph: ANI Photo

Were you more disappointed because Shashi Tharoor was inducted in the CWC, and you were not though you supported Kharge in the party president election?

I have nothing against A K Antony or Shashi Tharoor or K C Venugopal. A K Antony, who has retired from politics and has settled down in Kerala, was included.

Shashi Tharoor is much junior to me, and you know that when he came here from the UN, I was the KPCC president. It was I who asked him to contest from Kerala.

I have no problem with Shashi Tharoor. I am happy that he is a member of the CWC.

I am not asking for any position, but the party leadership should understand my point of view.

I am the senior most Congress party leader from Kerala, and I don't know why I am sidelined.

But even if I have no position, I will work for the party.

During the last assembly elections, it was said that you would be the chief minister if the UDF were to win the election.

But groupism within the party let the party down...

It was not just that. I was working as the leader of the Opposition. One fine morning, they made a committee with Oommen Chandy as the head.

It created a lot of confusion among party workers, but I continued to work hard.

I am not the only person who is responsible for the defeat of the UDF, but only I was punished and nobody else.

As a disciplined party leader, I accepted the party's decision to remove me as the leader of the Opposition.

Now I have been sidelined again. That's why it pains me.

IMAGE: Ramesh Chennithala IMAGE: Ramesh Chennithala

You said the preparations needed for the 2024 elections were discussed at the CWC meet in Hyderabad.

Do you think the Congress party or the INDIA alliance has a chance?

In Kerala, there is no INDIA alliance as we fight against the CPI-M here.

Still, if everybody works together in a united manner, there is a chance for the INDIA alliance to come to power.

But the parties have to be sincere as far as the alliance is concerned. I raised this in the Hyderabad meeting also.

Do you think after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, there is a difference in the way people perceive Rahul Gandhi as a person and a leader?

His image that has been tarnished by the BJP, did undergo a great change after the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Though a different perception was created by the BJP and some media wilfully, now people understood the real Rahul Gandhi.

The other day, a CPI leader said that Rahul Gandhi should not contest from Wayanad. What is your opinion?

Rahul Gandhi will contest from Wayanad, and we have requested him also.

CPI is our opponent in Wayanad, that's why they made such demands. They are afraid of Rahul Gandhi's presence in Kerala.

If he contests from Kerala, the result will be 20/20 in our favour.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda started discussions with the party's Rajasthan leadership on Wednesday on the upcoming state Assembly polls, amid a buzz that two central ministers might be asked to contest.

IMAGE: Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda greet as they arrive at the Jaipur airport. Photograph: ANI Photo

The speculation follows the party's decision to name three Union ministers and four other MPs in its second list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, also due by the year-end.

Shah and Nadda arrived in Jaipur on a special plane on Wednesday evening and headed to a hotel near the airport where the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) core committee meeting started.

"The meeting of the core committee is continuing at the hotel," sources in the party said.

Union minister and the BJP's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, the party's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh, state president C P Joshi, Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kailash Chaudhary, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Rajendra Rathore, Deputy Leader of Opposition and former state president Satish Poonia and other leaders were present at the meeting, which is likely to continue till late, the sources said.

They added that Union Jal Shakti Minister Shekhawat and Law Minister Meghwal might be fielded in the Assembly polls due in months, along with some other MPs.

BJP leaders said ticket distribution and other poll-related issues are being discussed at the meeting.

"They would also discuss the feedback received from the four parivartan yatras held in the state by the party," one of them said.

Nadda and Shah are scheduled to meet local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders on Thursday morning, the sources said.

BJP's national general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh is also in Jaipur.

Earlier, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, Joshi and other leaders welcomed Shah and Nadda at the Jaipur airport.

The visit by Shah and Nadda follows a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi near Jaipur on Monday to mark the completion of the yatras that touched all 200 Assembly constituencies in the state.

The BJP is now planning events focusing on youngsters, farmers and women.

Hours before the visit, a group of people from the Ajmer South constituency staged a protest at the BJP office here against MLA Anita Bhadel.

"There is resentment among the party workers against the MLA and she should not be given a ticket for the polls," Shravan Kumar, a protester, told reporters.
Canada's envoy to the United Nations, Robert Rae, during his address to world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday raised the issue of 'foreign interference' adding that the rules of state-to-state relations, cannot be bent for 'political expediency'.

IMAGE: Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York Robert Rae addresses the UN General Assembly. Photograph: ANI on X

Addressing the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Rae said, "Like many people in your countries, I can assure you that Canadians are also worried about the cost of living, Artificial Intelligence, foreign interference, misinformation and disinformation. Canadians are also experiencing climate and environmental crisis."

The Canadian diplomat didn't directly address his country's concern over the killing of Nijjar, but obliquely underscored some key talking points.

Notably, his remarks come at a time when Canadian PM Justin Trudeau alleged India's role behind the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The statement was a way to steer clear of the diplomatic ties between the two nations.

"We also have to uphold the values of free and democratic societies...we cannot bend the rules of state-to-state relations for political expediency," he said.

Rae added, "Because we've seen and continue to see the extent to which democracies are under threat through various means of foreign interference."

He also spoke about unity and diversity, adding that countries can succeed only if they come together.

"Before coming here, I had the opportunity to visit the Indigenous Council of Leaders in North Ontario, Canada. They had an effective slogan, which was quite simple. They talked about the power of unity and dignity of differenceSometimes people talk about the failure of the United Nations. I point out to them, that it is actually the divided nations that are failing. When we are united we succeed, when we are divided we failwe only succeed if we come together," he said.

The Canadian envoy further spoke about foreign diaspora in Canada, and said that admitting more people made the country a 'better place'.

"In Canada, we decided to admit more people into our country than ever before, because we have found that immigration has made us a better country, and has also made us a better place to live," Rae added.

Earlier, during the UN Session on Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that 'political convenience' should not be countenanced in determining responses to terrorism and extremism in an apparent reference to Canada amid a diplomatic standoff between the two countries.

"The power of markets should not be utilized to steer food and energy from the needy to the wealthy. Nor must we countenance that political convenience determines responses to terrorism, extremism and violence," he said.

On September 18, Trudeau said his country's national security officials had reasons to believe that 'agents of the Indian government' carried out the killing of the Canadian citizen, who also served as the president of Surrey's Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara.

India denied Trudeau's allegations calling them 'absurd' and 'motivated'.

This has also triggered a diplomatic standoff between the two countries, with both nations expelling a senior diplomat of each other and New Delhi also suspending the visa service in Canada.

Nijjar, the chief of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) -a Sikh extremist organisation banned by India -and a 'designated terrorist' was gunned down in Canada's Surrey on June 18.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has tasked its Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Bidhuri, in the eye of a storm for his derogatory comments against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali in Lok Sabha, with poll responsibility in Tonk district of Rajasthan, party sources said on Wednesday.

IMAGE: BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri, left, attends a coordination meeting for the Tonk district in Rajasthan. Photograph: @rameshbidhuri/X

With the Gurjar community present in large numbers in the district, which has four assembly seats including the one held by senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot, the BJP believes Bidhuri can help it swing the votes as he is also from the same caste.

Pilot is also from the Gurjar community.

Bidhuri's responsibility will be akin to the party's poll in-charge of the district, sources said.

Party leaders said Meenas and Muslims are the two other largest communities in the district.

Pilot was elected from the Tonk assembly seat in 2018.

Bidhuri also posted on X that he attended a coordination meeting for the Tonk district held in Jaipur. State BJP president C P Joshi chaired the meeting.

The BJP MP from South Delhi had been issued a show cause notice by the party after his derogatory words targeting Ali in Lok Sabha last week sparked massive outrage with the opposition demanding his suspension from the House.

Bidhuri is among the grassroots BJP leaders from the national capital and enjoys considerable influence in his constituency.

BJP leaders noted that the party has routinely deployed its MPs in assembly polls in different states, and Bidhuri has been used in several previous elections.

Opposition leaders, meanwhile, took a swipe at the BJP for giving Bidhuri the poll responsibility.



In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, "Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas'yeh sab hai inka bakwaas."



TMC MP Mahua Moitra also slammed the BJP and said Bidhuri had been "rewarded" for his remarks against a Muslim MP.



"How does a showcaused person be given new role by @BJP4India? @narendramodi ji - is this your Sneha Yatra for minorities, your love outreach?" she said on X.

Opposition parties have rallied around Ali and targeted the BJP on its MP's remarks.



Several members of the Congress, TMC and NCP among others have written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking strictest action against Bidhuri.
A Central Bureau of Investigation team led by Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar reached Imphal Wednesday afternoon to investigate the "kidnapping and killing" of two students days after they went missing, sources said.

IMAGE: Joint Delhi Tribal Student's Forum member holds a placard stage a protest against 140-days of injustice in Manipur, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Photograph: Ishant/ANI Photo

Photos of the bodies of the two students -- Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) -- who were missing since July 6, were shared widely on social media on Monday, sparking fresh rounds of protests in the state.

The focus of the agency will be identifying the scene of crime, retrieve the bodies besides and nail the perpetrators, the sources said.

The team will meet senior police and government officials and go through local intelligence about the tragic incident, they said.

The state government in consultation with the home ministry referred the matter to the CBI which immediately dispatched a team of officials led by agency's second in command Bhatanagar to probe the crime.

Another senior officer, Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is camping in Imphal, also joined the team on arrival, the sources said.

The team comprises officers who have expertise in special crime, crime scene recreation, interrogation and technical surveillance. It will also have experts from the CBI's elite Central Forensic Science Laboratory, the sources said.

One of the two photos purportedly showed the students with two armed men and the other was of two bodies.

Police had previously said the whereabouts of the two were not known and their mobile phones were found switched off.

The last location of their mobile phones was traced to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district, police had said.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured him that those who had kidnapped and killed the two Manipuri youths will be arrested and punished.

The chief minister told reporters: "The central and state governments are very serious about this case. Union Home Minister Amit Shah-ji called me up yesterday evening and told me that he is sending a CBI team on a special flight to investigate the particular case."

Singh quoted Shah as stating that this case has to be dealt with very seriously and those responsible have to be booked as per the law of the land and assured that no one will be spared.

After landing in Imphal, they (CBI) have started their investigation, the chief minister said without disclosing the place where the CBI team has gone.

Singh had announced on Tuesday night that CBI officials would be reaching the state on Wednesday to probe into the kidnapping and killing of the two youths.

Speaking on the nature of injuries suffered by demonstrators, Singh said, "If security forces had fired bullets or anything lethal, the government will not tolerate it and disciplinary actions will be taken against them. In case of major injuries, investigations would be carried out to give them justice."

"If our children get unjustified treatment even from our own forces, disciplinary actions will be taken," he assured.

The chief minister said that he has information that "objects made of iron were thrown at the security forces by miscreants who were among the demonstrating students," adding a number of police personnel were also injured.

He pointed out that agitations need to be peaceful and should not be held in hyper-sensitive zones of offices of the Governor and the chief minister.

He said the real issue is to protect the state and its indigenous people from "illegal immigrants and drug mafia."

Security personnel have been put on alert and additional measures taken to prevent any incident following the photos of the deceased students going viral, a senior officer said.

The government has assured people that "swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi".

More than 175 people have been killed and several hundreds injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.
Is Chandrababu Naidu being in jail an opportunity?

How will the TDP capitalise on it?

Or will it implode with nothing more than a sigh?

IMAGE: Telugu Desam Party President Nara Chandrababu Naidu addresses supporters in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh. Photograph: Telugu Desam Party/Twitter

At Rajamahendravaram central prison, he's just A/37 -- that's how Nara Chandrababu Naidu is known after he was arrested on corruption charges and lodged in Rajahmundry jail.

The biggest issue before the Telugu Desam Party now is: Who's going to run things? And are they ready for a leadership transition?

Transition, because the leadership record of Nara Lokesh, Mr Naidu's son, does not inspire confidence.

There is support for Mr Naidu across the board -- with Akhilesh Yadav at one end of the spectrum to D Purandeswari at the other -- all protesting at the way he was jailed.

Mr Yadav is predictable in his response, given that he is opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies.

But Ms Purandeswari (in addition to being Mr Naidu's sister-in-law) was recently appointed BJP state unit chief of Andhra Pradesh.

Despite the BJP's unwritten support to Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister who has put Mr Naidu in jail, for Ms Purandeswari to criticise, albeit mildly, the manner in which Mr Naidu was arrested, means something.

Others who have rallied in support of Mr Naidu are only a few.

Pawan Kalyan of the Jana Sena was at the gates of the prison where Mr Naidu has been lodged within minutes of his arrest. This is also mildly surprising.

Just weeks ago, Mr Kalyan was at the meeting of the National Democratic Alliance, trying to persuade the BJP to tie up with the TDP and junk the YSR Congress as its favoured partner in the state.

He found no takers for Mr Naidu in the NDA. Mr Naidu's offer to the BJP on a three-party tie-up in the state met with a tepid response after he met Union Home Minister Amit A Shah in June.

Read with Ms Purandeswari's defence of Mr Naidu, it would suggest some kind of covert alliance.

The only problem with such deals is that they never remain covert for long.

How did things come to this? Without going into the merits or otherwise of the case against Mr Naidu, it is important to note that the politics of vendetta and vengeance is innate in the politics of Andhra Pradesh, given the feudal nature of its elite.

Mr Reddy has already decimated all but the core of the TDP's elected leadership. Many district-level TDP leaders and MLAs have joined the YSR Congress.

Arresting Mr Naidu is like sending a signal to other TDP leaders -- that they could meet the same fate. Meanwhile, anxiety is gnawing at the TDP.

Mr Naidu managed all the affairs of the party and had designated no one except his son to oversee things. Who would now handle the organisation?

One door closes and another opens. Unknown to the mainstream media, Mr Lokesh has done a padayatra across the state.

Faced with Mr Naidu's incarceration, this could be Mr Naidu's N T Rama Rao moment -- the collapse of his government, the images of NTR sleeping exhausted, stretched across benches at Hyderabad airport after returning from an open heart surgery to find his government had been dismissed by Governor Ram Lal ...

If Mr Naidu remains in prison longer, Mr Lokesh will have no option but to take the reins of the party and force it to respond to his signals.

There is no doubt that current events have demoralised the TDP.

Even with the bracing effect of Pawan Kalyan, it will take time for the cadres to bounce back (the Jana Sena and TDP will fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections together).

Mr Reddy, meanwhile, is moving in a slow, almost meditative manner. He was abroad when the arrest took place.

So voters in Andhra Pradesh can decide whether he had anything to do with it, or it was just the law taking its own course.

He is readying to act against Mr Lokesh as well in the same case as his father.

If Mr Lokesh too is sent to prison, the TDP will have to be managed by Atchen Naidu, the president of the party's Andhra Pradesh unit, and former education minister G Srinivasa Rao.

It does make you wonder. Mr Naidu was the raja of undivided Andhra Pradesh and he's the one who transformed the state.

During the first phase of his chief ministership (1995-2004), Microsoft Chief Mentor Bill Gates invested heavily in Hyderabad.

Tony Blair and Bill Clinton had both visited him in Hyderabad.

TIME magazine named him 'South Asian of the year'; the governor of Illinois created a Naidu Day in his honour; and he only had to ask for money and he got it -- from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the British government.

His greatest regret was that Hyderabad was passed over for Formula One racing when a track was to have been laid in India.

From that to this? The only question now is: Is his being in jail a threat? Or an opportunity? How will the TDP capitalise on it? Or will it succumb, imploding with nothing more than a sigh?

It could also be that the voters in Andhra Pradesh (which is due for assembly polls in a few months) transfer their sympathies to Mr Naidu in the same way they did to Jagan Mohan Reddy after he was put behind bars.

Either way, politics in Andhra Pradesh is a reminder that in Indian politics, you never can tell.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Xinhua News Agency: It was reported that two members of Bahrains army were killed and many injured in a drone attack on the Saudi-led coalition force near Saudi Arabias southern border by Yemens Houthis. Whats Chinas comment?

Wang Wenbin: China opposes actions that escalate tensions and calls on relevant parties to work in the same direction towards a political settlement through dialogue and restore peace and stability at an early date.

Reuters: According to the Philippine government, the Philippine Coast Guard on Monday removed a floating barrier installed by China at Huangyan Dao on Sunday. The Philippine government added that China Coast Guard has removed remnants of the floating barrier. So my question is, did China remove remnants of the floating barrier? Has Chinas position on its sovereign claim over Huangyan Dao changed? Will China continue to install the floating barrier going forward?

Wang Wenbin: Yesterday, I made clear Chinas position on the issue, and you may refer to that.

I would like to reiterate that Huangyan Dao has always been Chinas territory. What the Philippines did looks like nothing more than self-amusement. China will continue to safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests over Huangyan Dao.

CRI: On September 26, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that it added three China-based companies to an entity list as a result of Xinjiang-related forced labor enforcement. Whats Chinas response?

Wang Wenbin: China has made clear time and again that the allegation of forced labor in Xinjiang is nothing but an enormous lie propagated by people against China to smear our countrys image. It is the very opposite of the fact that the rights and interests of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are effectively protected.

The US uses that lie as a basis to enforce the so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, blacklist Chinese entities and go after more Chinese companies. The move is actually aimed at undermining Xinjiangs prosperity and stability and containing Chinas development. The move also tears at international trade rules and market order. We firmly oppose this.

We urge the US to immediately stop smearing China and stop meddling in Chinas internal affairs under the pretext of human rights. We will continue to resolutely safeguard Chinese companies legitimate and lawful rights and interests.

Kyodo News: According to reports, the Chinese government is monitoring the marine radioactivity of waters under its jurisdiction. When can we expect the data to be released?

Wang Wenbin: Monitoring of the level of radiation in the ocean, emergency measures on aquatic imports from Japan and risk monitoring of nuclear-contamination of aquatic products are all legitimate, reasonable steps to respond to Japans discharge of nuclear-contaminated water and protect our national interests and public welfare.

The discharge will last decades. Great uncertainty remains as to whether the contaminated water will be up to standard after treatment. Let me stress that the Chinese government has the ability and resolve to do everything necessary to protect our national interests and peoples health and protect the sound growth of the oceanic fishing sector.

AFP: An individual of a well-known Chinese developer has been placed under police control, according to Bloomberg. Can you confirm the report? And if so, what is the reason?

Wang Wenbin: Im not aware of that.

Reuters: Can the foreign ministry provide the dates for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation?

Wang Wenbin: We have announced that China will hold the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing in October. On your specific question, we will release information in due course.

CCTV: The sixth China-Arab States Expo and the 2023 Euro-Asia Economic Forum concluded last week in Yinchuan, Ningxia and Xian, Shaanxi respectively. Participants contributed insights on Belt and Road cooperation. Can you share more about Chinas Belt and Road cooperation with Arab and Central Asian countries?

Wang Wenbin: This year marks the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinpings announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past decade, Chinas Belt and Road cooperation with the Arab countries and Central Asian countries has produced solid and tangible progress.

Arab countries were historically an important part of the ancient Silk Road, which makes them natural partners for Belt and Road cooperation. Over the past decade, Arab states have widely welcomed and taken an active part in Belt and Road cooperation. China and Arab states have launched over 200 large cooperation projects in such fields as energy and infrastructure, which have benefited nearly 2 billion people. Thanks to Belt and Road cooperation, Egypt now hosts Africas tallest building in the central business district of its new administrative capital, signifying promising prospect for Egypt Vision 2030. The Saudi Red Sea New City energy storage project, the biggest of its kind globally, is well underway and will provide clean energy to numerous households. The East-West Highway project in Algeria has turned a half-finished project into a 1,216-km highway propelling local prosperity. Chinas BeiDou Navigation Satellite System provides high-quality services for Arab states, bringing convenience to local people in transportation, precision agriculture, land survey, environmental monitoring and other fields.

Central Asia is where the BRI was first announced and a priority region for connectivity cooperation. Over the past decade, under the strategic guidance of President Xi Jinping and the heads of state of five Central Asian countries, China and Central Asian countries have jointly implemented a number of major projects to the benefit of people region-wide. The completion of the China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center and the China-Kazakhstan Logistics Base in Lianyungang opened the gateway to the Pacific for Central Asian countries. After Chinese companies finished building the tunnel of the Angren-Pap railway linethe longest tunnel in Central Asia, local residents no longer had to travel up and down the mountains or go around them via neighboring countries. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) highway has become an important transportation artery that runs smoothly through the regions mountainous terrain. Four-fifths of the China-Europe Railway Express trains run through Central Asia. They are hailed as a steel caravan on the Eurasian continent. Last year, total trade between China and Central Asian countries hit a record high of USD 70 billion.

The Belt and Road has become a belt of development for China and partner countries and a road to happiness for the people. The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will provide another opportunity for us to work with Arab and Central Asian countries as well as other partners to further advance Belt and Road cooperation and jointly write a new chapter of benefiting the world through the BRI.

News 1 Korea: You mentioned yesterday that China has not been notified through diplomatic channels by the DPRK on the reopening of its borders. Is there any update on this matter?

Wang Wenbin: I shared comments on that yesterday and have nothing else to add.

Kyodo News: Can you tell us the exact dates in October for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation?

Wang Wenbin: We will release information in due course.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he does not have a house in his name, but his government turned lakhs of daughters in the country house-owners.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the crowds in Bodeli, Chhotaudepur, Gujarat, September 27, 2023. Photograph: Courtesy, PMO/X

PM Modi, who has been on a two-day visit to Gujarat starting Tuesday, was speaking at the launch of various development projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore, including projects worth Rs 4,500 crore related to education sector, in Bodeli town of tribal-dominated Chhotaudepur district of Gujarat.

"Since I spent significant time with you, I know the issues faced by the poor people and I have always tried to solve those issues. Today I am satisfied because my government has built four crore houses for the people across the country. Unlike previous governments, a house for the poor is not just a number for us. We work to provide dignity to the poor by building houses for them," he said.

"We are building houses as per the needs of the poor, that too without the presence of any middlemen. Lakhs of houses were built and registered in the names of our women. Though I don't have a house in my name, my government made lakhs of daughters house-owners,' he said.

Modi also noted that World Bank president Ajay Banga was so impressed with the Gujarat education department's command and control centre in Gandhinagar, called as 'Vidya Samiksha Kendra', that he urged him to start such centres across the country.

"The World Bank president (Ajay Banga) recently visited the Vidya Samiksha Kendra (in Gandhinagar). During out meeting, he urged me to start such centres in all districts of India and said the World Bank is ready to be a part of that project," he said.

The PM said the new National Education Policy (NEP), which was left in limbo for three decades, was finally introduced by his government.

Without mentioning any names, PM Modi also attacked the opposition saying "they indulged in politics of reservation".

"But until I became chief minister, no science school was functional in tribal areas of Gujarat...How will you get admission in medical and engineering colleges if you do not have science schools," he said.
India is considering importing cheetahs from northern Africa due to concerns that these big cats from Namibia and South Africa have developed a winter coat in the Indian summer, officials said on Wednesday.

According to the officials, one of the significant challenges faced during the first year of managing cheetahs in India was the unexpected development of winter coats by some cheetahs during the Indian summer and monsoon, in anticipation of the African winter (June to September).

Even African experts did not anticipate this, a senior forest official said.

The winter coat, combined with high humidity and temperatures, caused itching, leading the animals to scratch their necks on tree trunks or the ground. This scratching resulted in bruises and exposed skin, where flies laid their eggs, leading to maggot infestations and, ultimately, bacterial infections and septicemia, resulting in the deaths of three cheetahs, the official explained.

"Considering that cheetahs in northern and northeastern Africa, which are in the northern hemisphere, might be better suited to Indian conditions, this idea is under consideration. However, we are yet to examine the status of cheetahs in this part of Africa, including their populations, health conditions, breeding cycles, etc.," said an official associated with the cheetah project on condition of anonymity.

Several international experts, including those in the UK and the US, have imported cheetahs from northern Africa and have recommended that India do the same, the official added.

SP Yadav, the head of Project Cheetah and Additional Director General (Forests) in the Environment Ministry, said, "The idea of importing cheetahs from northern Africa in the future has been discussed, but the next batch will come from South Africa."

He said that India intends to import cheetahs that do not develop thicker winter coats, as this is a primary factor behind severe infections in some cheetahs and the deaths of three of them.

This issue had prompted authorities to capture and bring all the cheetahs back to the enclosures for treatment.

A third official said the idea of importing cheetahs from countries other than Namibia and South Africa is at a nascent stage and requires a lot of deliberation and work.

He added that all the cheetahs in Kuno are currently in larger enclosures and will be released in the wild soon.

Historically, cheetahs were found in parts of northern Africa, but their populations in this region have significantly declined, and they are now considered extinct or nearly extinct in many northern African countries.

Currently, the few remaining cheetahs in northern Africa are primarily found in small and isolated populations, mainly in protected areas and national parks. Some of the countries where cheetahs are still found, though in smaller numbers, include Algeria, Egypt, Niger, and Mali.

Project Cheetah, India's ambitious initiative to reintroduce cheetahs after their extinction in the country, marks its first anniversary on September 17.

The initiative began last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a group of cheetahs brought from Namibia into an enclosure at Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park. Since then, the project has been closely watched by conservationists and experts worldwide.

Twenty cheetahs were imported from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno in two batches - one in September last year and the second in February.

Since March, six of these adult cheetahs have died due to various reasons. In May, three of the four cubs born to a female Namibian cheetah succumbed to extreme heat. The remaining cub is being raised under human care for future wilding.

Despite initial setbacks and difficulties that prompted a decision to recapture the animals and bring them to the bomas, officials emphasised that these experiences are being used to reassess strategies before the cheetahs are released in the wild once again.
The National Investigative Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted raids at 51 locations in six states in connection with the crackdown on a terror-gangster network operating in India and Canada, officials said.

Image used only for representation. Photograph: ANI Photo

"The NIA is conducting raids at 51 locations across 6 states in 3 cases related to associates of Lawrence, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs," an official of the NIA said.

An associate of the Arsh Dalla gang has been detained during the raids, the official said.

While Lawrence Bishnoi is in jail, gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla is based in Canada and Davinder Bambiha was killed in an encounter with Punjab Police in 2016.
Violent protests continued to rock Manipur's capital for the second consecutive day on Wednesday as Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured Chief Minister N Biren Singh of quick action in dealing with the culprits responsible for kidnapping and killing two youths.

IMAGE: Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel fire tear gas to disperse the students who are protesting against the deaths of two youths in violence-hit Manipur. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA was extended by another six months in Manipur on Wednesday barring 19 police stations falling under the Imphal valley and an area that shares its boundary with neighbouring Assam.

Curfew was also re-imposed in two districts of East and West Imphal as the Biren Singh government combatted violent protests which saw 65 demonstrators being injured over two days.

A CBI team flew in, in a special aircraft to help with the probe as Shah dialled Singh and assured him that those who had kidnapped and killed the two Manipuri youths would be arrested and punished.

Singh quoted Shah as stating that this case has to be dealt with very seriously and those responsible have to be booked as per the law of the land and assured that no one will be spared.

The chief minister told reporters: "The central and state governments are very serious about this case. Union Home Minister Amit Shah-ji called me up yesterday evening and told me that he is sending a CBI team on a special flight to investigate the particular case."

A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, has reached Manipur during the day.

After landing in Imphal, they (CBI) have started their investigation, the chief minister said without disclosing the place where the CBI team has gone.

The case began on July 6 with the disappearance of the two youths and it was handed over to the central agency on August 28.

Photos of their bodies surfaced on social media on Monday and went viral, leading to protests by students in the state.

IMAGE: Police and Paramilitary personnel stand guard during a protest in Imphal. Photograph: ANI Photo

Speaking on the nature of injuries suffered by demonstrators, Singh said, "If security forces had fired bullets or anything lethal, the government will not tolerate it and disciplinary actions will be taken against them. In case of major injuries, investigations would be carried out to give them justice."

"If our children get unjustified treatment even from our own forces, disciplinary actions will be taken," he assured.

The chief minister said that he had information that "objects made of iron were thrown at the security forces by miscreants who were among the demonstrating students," adding a number of police personnel were also injured.

He pointed out that agitations need to be peaceful and should not be held in hyper-sensitive zones of offices of the Governor and the chief minister.

On the extension of the AFSPA, a government notification said, "Now, therefore in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act... the Governor of Manipur hereby declare the entire state of Manipur excluding the areas falling under the jurisdiction of 19 police stations...as disturbed Area for a period of six months with effect from October 1, 2023."

Significantly, the areas that have been kept out of the purview of AFSPA are dominated by the majority Meitei community which includes Jiribam, adjacent to Silchar valley of Assam.

With the extension of AFSPA, the Army and Assam Rifles cannot operate inside the areas under the 19 police stations without the consent of the state police.

Security officials have been advocating bringing the entire state under AFSPA.

The Joint Students' Body: Lamka, a federation of various hill-based organisations, demanded reimposition of AFSPA in the valley districts.

"The complete breakdown of law and order in Imphal and the valley districts alone should be the reason for the reimposition of AFSPA," the organisation said in a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The security agencies have been warning that banned terror groups have been forming their base in the Imphal valley of the state.

They have also been warning about the possibility of these terrorists mingling with crowds during any protest to stoke tensions in restive Manipur, the sources said.

Manipur Police said a mob tried to attack the house of a political leader but the security forces stopped them. The crowd also burnt a police vehicle, while assaulting a policeman and snatching his weapon.

The identity of the politician was not disclosed.

Combing operations are being carried out for recovery of arms and catching miscreants, the police said on X.

More than 180 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic violence broke out in Manipur on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will not restrain the trial court from dealing with a plea seeking police custody of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu as it announced a new bench will hear his petition for quashing the FIR in the alleged Rs 371 crore scam in the state's Skill Development Corporation on October 3.

IMAGE: Security forces deployed outside the Rajahmundry Central Prison where former Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu is lodged in connection with the alleged skill development scam. Photograph: ANI Photo

The plea by Naidu, who was arrested in the case on September 9, came up before two benches in the top court but without any effective hearing.

It initially it came up before the designated bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti, but the latter recused himself from hearing the matter.

Justice Khanna said, "My brother has little difficulty in hearing this matter. We are directing it to be listed before another bench next week."

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the TDP leader, then rushed to the bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud for urgent hearing on Naidu's plea keeping in mind the upcoming holiday.

The top court, which is closing on September 28, will resume functioning on October 3.

We have some unorthodox requests to make as Justice Bhatti recused from hearing. I did not disturb this bench as it was in the midst of a hearing, Luthra said while mentioning the case before the CJI-led bench in the evening.

We will list it before an appropriate bench on October 3, Justice Chandrachud said.

The senior lawyer told the court the investigating agency is pressing for police custody of the former chief minister and requested the bench to prevent it from doing so.

He also contended police custody cannot be sought after the first 15 days of arrest, according to a provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

"We will not restrain the trial judge from dealing with this, the CJI said during a brief hearing.

Luthra said since the matter was listed before the top court, the counsel for Naidu did not press his bail application before the trial court.

Now that Justice Bhatti has recused himself from hearing, we are in a predicament as the CID will, in the meanwhile, press its application for custody.

Luthra said the FIR against Naidu cannot be sustained in the eyes of law as no prior sanction, as provided for under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, was obtained by the investigators.

"From September 8, this man is in custody after he was picked up illegally...They are roping him in FIR after the FIR only because the 2024 election is coming up, he said, adding that Naidu was travelling across Andhra Pradesh to mobilise political support when he was picked up.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Andhra Pradesh, opposed Naidu's plea, saying the case pertained to a scam worth crores of rupees and the alleged offence took place before the 2018 amendment that introduced Section 17A in the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

Earlier in the day, after Justice Bhatti recused himself from hearing the case, Justice Khanna said the bench cannot direct listing it on a specific date but may order its listing next week.

"Subject to orders of the Chief Justice, the present special leave petition be placed before a bench of which one of us (Justice Bhatti) is not a member, the bench of Justices Khanna and Bhatti said.

Luthra then mentioned the matter before the CJI-led bench.

Naidu was arrested on September 9 for allegedly misappropriating funds from the Skill Development Corporation when he was the chief minister in 2015, causing a purported loss of Rs 371 crore crore to the state exchequer. His judicial remand has been extended by the trial court till October 5.

The CID in its remand report alleged that Naidu indulged in a criminal conspiracy with the intention of fraudulent misappropriation or otherwise conversion of government funds for his own use, disposal of property which was under the control of a public servant, besides engaging in cheating, forging documents and destroying evidence.

Naidu, the Telugu Desam Party chief, had moved the top court on September 23 challenging the Andhra Pradesh high court order dismissing his petition for quashing the FIR against him in connection with the alleged scam. The high court had rejected his plea last Friday.

On September 25, the top court had asked Naidu's lawyer to mention his petition for urgent listing on Tuesday.

While dismissing his petition for quashing of the FIR, the high court had noted it was devoid of merit and said the court was not inclined to interfere at this stage when the investigation was still going on.

The high court had observed that police have the statutory right and duty under the relevant provisions of the CrPC to investigate a cognisable offence.

It had also said the power of quashing an FIR should be exercised sparingly with circumspection.

Noting that criminal proceedings ought not to be scuttled at the initial stage, the high court had said quashing an FIR should be an exception rather than the rule.

The former AP CM said in his plea the video recording of his questioning by the CID was leaked to media channels associated with the state administration with a mala fide intention to defame and humiliate him,

To malign the petitioner's image further, the CID chief of Andhra Pradesh and its lawyer/s gave press conference/s at different places making false allegations with the mala fide intent to defame the petitioner and humiliate him in the eyes of the public, Naidu's petition said.
The United States has said there ought to be a full and fair investigation into Canada's allegations that the Indian government was involved in the killing of a separatist Sikh leader in British Columbia earlier this year.

IMAGE: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said this at a news conference Washington, DC on Tuesday.

"They are such concerning allegations that we think there ought to be a full and fair investigation," Miller said, adding, "Canada has said it is committed to doing that, and we believe the Indian government should cooperate with it."

The official was responding to a question on a row between Canada and India after the conclusion of the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

Canada has accused India of being involved in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. India has termed the allegations 'baseless' and said Canada has become a safe haven for terrorists.

"We are obviously quite concerned about the situation in Canada. We have cooperated closely with our Canadian counterparts, and we have urged India to cooperate in that investigation and we'll continue to do so," Miller said.

India remains an important partner of the United States, the official added.
In the wake of Canada's allegations about India's "potential" involvement in the killing of a Khalistani separatist on its soil, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that New Delhi conveyed to Ottawa that it is not the Government of India's policy and it is open to looking at "specific" and "relevant" information in the case.

IMAGE: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar speaks at the 'Discussion at Council on Foreign Relations' in New York, September 26, 2023. Photograph: ANI on X

Jaishankar made the comments in a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Tuesday after addressing the UN General Assembly session.

"Yes, I do have a comment. I'll share with you very frankly what we told the Canadians," Jaishankar said when asked if he had any comment on recent allegations by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that "agents of the Government of India are linked to the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil on June 18.

"One, we told the Canadians that this is not the Government of India's policy," Jaishankar said.

"Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said while responding to a question from former US ambassador to India and CFR Distinguished Fellow Kenneth Juster, in his first public comments on the issue.

Jaishankar asserted that one must also understand the context because the picture is not complete without the context of it.

You also have to appreciate that in the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence, extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up, he said.

He said India has been talking about specifics and information.

We have actually been badgering the Canadians, we have given them a lot of information about organised crime leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders who have been identified, he said, adding that one has to understand that there is an "environment out there."

"That is important in a way to factor in if you have to understand what is going on out there. And our concern is that it's really been very permissive because of political reasons. So, we have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made about there's interference in our politics'. And, a lot of this is often justified as saying, well, that's how democracies work, Jaishankar said.

When asked by Juster whether the Government of India will cooperate with Canada if there are specific pieces of evidence provided to it, Jaishankar said, If somebody gives me something specific, it doesn't have to be restricted to Canada, but if there is any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government I would look at it. Of course, I would look at it.

Tensions flared between India and Canada following Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

Jaishankar was asked about reports that intelligence about the killing was shared amongst the Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and that the FBI is telling Sikh leaders in the US that there are credible threats to them.

I'm not part of the Five Eyes. I'm certainly not part of the FBI. You are asking the wrong person, Jaishankar said in response to another question from a journalist.

He was then asked about Canadians providing documents to India that purported to show evidence that Indian officials in Canada were aware of the attack on Nijjar.

Are you saying the Canadians gave us documents? Jaishankar asked.

I have said that if somebody gives us specific or relevant information, we are prepared to look at it, he added.

When asked again if he had not received those intercepted communications from Canada, Jaishankar replied, If I had, would I not be looking at it.

On Tuesday, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar asked the UN member states not to allow "political convenience" to determine responses to terrorism, extremism and violence, in a veiled attack on Canada amidst the diplomatic standoff over the killing of Nijjar.

Meanwhile, Canadian media reported that the country's ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae has said that his Indian counterpart Ruchira Kamboj approached him after he addressed the UN Tuesday and thanked him.

"She pulled me aside to say it's important that we keep working together as the governments try to work out the situation that has to be worked on," Rae told CBC News.

"I took some comfort from that. I think there is room for diplomacy and I think we're going to see more room as we go forward."

"I think it is important for people to know that every effort has to be made to find an approach that will deal with the problem and deal with the issue that we've raised because it is extremely important," Rae said.

He added that Canadians need "to understand that there's a lot of connecting that we need to do and a lot of mutual respect that we need to achieve in order to get to a better place."

There was no immediate comment from the Indian mission on Rae's remarks.

Trudeau on Friday said that Canada shared with India "many weeks ago" evidence on the killing of Nijjar and wants New Delhi to commit constructively with Ottawa to establish the facts in the "very serious matter."

When asked about Canada sharing any information in the case with India, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) in New Delhi said: "No specific information has been shared by Canada on this case, either then or before or after. We have, you know, as we have said, or I think we have made very clear, we are willing to look at any specific information."

Canada's Defence Minister Bill Blair on Sunday voiced concern over the measures taken by India including the suspension of visa services for Canadians and urged New Delhi to cooperate fully in the investigation of the killing of Nijjar to uncover the truth and work together to resolve it appropriately.
Work is still continuing on the issue of simultaneous polls and no timeline has been given for finalising a report on it, Law Commission Chairman Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi said on Wednesday.

He also said the reports on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and online FIRs have been finalised and sent to the law ministry.

"Still some work is going on on simultaneous elections. We have not finalised the report. There is no timeline for finalising it," Justice (retired) Awasthi, who was the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court, told reporters in New Delhi.

According to the procedure, all reports of the law panel are submitted to the Union law ministry, which then forwards those to the ministries concerned.

The issue of simultaneous polls is pending with the law panel for years.

The previous Law Commission had suggested three options to hold simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, but said several points remained to be addressed.

In a public appeal issued along with its draft report on holding the mammoth exercise, it had said though many impediments in achieving synchronisation of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections have been addressed, some of the points would "still remain to be pondered upon".

It had asked all the stakeholders to suggest whether holding simultaneous elections, by any means, would tinker with democracy, the basic structure of the Constitution or the federal polity of the country.

It had said various committees and commissions have made suggestions to deal with the situation of a hung Parliament or Assembly, where no political party has the majority to form a government.

These panels have proposed that the prime minister or a chief minister may be appointed or selected in the manner in which a speaker of the House is elected.

Now, the present law panel has started working further on the subject.

The Law Commission's report on the POCSO Act deals with the issue of age of consent.

Over the years, the POCSO Act, which defines a child as a person aged below 18 years, has often come in conflict with the role of consent in determining the nature of relationships between adolescents.

Last year, the Delhi high court said the intention behind the Act was to protect children from sexual exploitation and that it was never meant to criminalise consensual romantic relationships between young adults.

The court made the observation while granting bail to a boy who married a 17-year-old girl and was apprehended under the law that was enacted in 2012.

The Law Commission, which is constituted every three years, advises the government on complex legal issues.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

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Tonight

Mostly clear. Low near 25F. Winds light and variable.
"We've developed a new patient survey for this year," said James Pepper, chairman of the Cannabis Control Board, at a board meeting last week. "It's got some really important questions in there that we'd love to get people's feedback on."
One of several air filters placed around Bellows Falls Union High School in Westminster to help with the PCB levels.
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Zeng Yuxuan's sentence for 'sedition' sends a warning message to other mainland Chinese living in the city.

Zeng Yuxuan (R), a doctoral student from mainland China, takes part in a March 2023 commemoration of the death of Leung Kin-fai, who committed suicide after nonfatally stabbing a Hong Kong police officer on July 1, 2021.

Zeng Yuxuan, a doctoral student from mainland China found in possession of posters depicting the "Pillar of Shame" sculpture commemorating the Tiananmen massacre, was recently handed a six-month jail term under colonial-era sedition laws.

Zeng's Sept. 12 sentencing came after she was convicted of conspiring with U.S.-based democracy activist Zhou Fengsuo to "commit acts with seditious intent" ahead of the June 4 massacre anniversary, and has sent shockwaves through the growing community of mainland Chinese who have made Hong Kong their home.

Zeng is the first mainland Chinese person to be convicted of sedition under an ongoing crackdown on public dissent that has seen senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from "collusion with a foreign power" to "subversion."

Since the 2019 protest movement, police have made more than 1,000 arrests under a draconian national security law, with thousands of protest movement supporters also targeted under colonial-era public order and sedition laws.

Like many defendants keen to avoid months or even years of pretrial detention with no bail, Zeng pleaded guilty to "attempting to commit or preparing to commit one or more acts with seditious intent."

Before her arrest, Zeng had taken part in the "white paper" protests against the stringent restrictions of the zero-COVID policy in November 2022.

But the action that prompted her prosecution by the Hong Kong authorities was her public commemoration of the death of Leung Kin-fai, who committed suicide after non-fatally stabbing a police officer outside the Sogo Department Store on July 1, 2021 in an attack described as "terrorism" by police at the time.

Not the only one

Zeng isn't the only person to be prosecuted for supporting Leung in public.

On Sept. 11, four former University of Hong Kong students pleaded guilty to "incitement to wound with intent" after they publicly praised Leung's action, according to Hong Kong court reporting service The Witness. They had earlier been accused of "glorifying terrorism," but the terrorism-related charges were dropped.

Kinson Cheung, Charles Kwok, Chris Todorovski and Anthony Yung, who are aged between 21 and 22, were arrested in 2021 after they took part in a student union meeting that passed a motion of sympathy for Leung, a move that was denounced in the pro-China press and by then leader Carrie Lam.

A police officer takes photos at the site where Leung Kin-fai stabbed a police officer in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, July 1, 2021. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Zeng was released on bail following her January arrest, but then rearrested on June 1 after she was found carrying the "Pillar of Shame" posters.

In an interview recorded before her second arrest, Zeng told Radio Free Asia that she was inspired by her first glimpse of the 2019 protests, which came when her law lecturer at a mainland Chinese university used a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of government censorship and show the class live footage of protesters occupying Hong Kong's Legislative Council chamber on July 1, 2019.

She later applied to study in Hong Kong, and started keeping up with political developments there, as well as doing some in-depth reading on overseas websites about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre that ended weeks of student-led democracy protests in Beijing and other major cities.

"The outcome was tragic, but there was something quite glorious about the fact that this has now entered into the collective memory of our generation, of several generations -- it's a shared memory," Zeng said.

Zeng arrived in Hong Kong as Peng Lifa was staging his explosive banner protest on Beijing's Sitong Bridge, ahead of the party congress.

Zeng eagerly embraced the "white paper" movement that followed, she said, adding that she felt a "duty" to protest.

"It feels like most people in mainland China dont actually care about [politics or social justice]," she said. "But I still think it's my duty  it's everyone's duty."

Fearless at her trial

Mainlanders turned out in Hong Kong's Central business district, the working class district of Mong Kok and on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to hold up blank sheets of A4 in solidarity with "white paper" protesters in mainland Chinese cities.

Yet many had their ID cards photographed by police, leading to fears that their participation could lead to repercussions for loved ones back home.

By New Year's Day 2023, Zeng had been arrested for taking part in a public commemoration of Leung Kin-fai, and the police in China were already in touch with her parents.

"My feeling is that my parents and I are individuals, and independent of each other," Zeng said. "If they target my parents, then the responsibility falls on them, not on my parents."

Students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong take part in a white paper protest in 2022. Credit: Provided by Zeng Yuxuan

A fellow Hong Kong-based mainlander who gave only the nickname Sandy for fear of reprisals, said Zeng had seemed fearless at her trial, appearing in a sweatshirt with a Winnie-the-Pooh motif, in an apparent sideswipe at ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, who is said to resemble the fictional bear.

"A lot of our friends and classmates in mainland China lack the courage to stand up, but they are grateful to those who do," Sandy said. "It's also heartbreaking, because she didn't have to do this."

Another mainlander who once met Zeng as a student in Hong Kong said Zeng's actions had tested the government's vaguely defined "red lines" under the national security crackdown, and that she admires her bravery.

She believes Zeng's sentence was handed down to act as a warning to other mainlanders in Hong Kong who might sympathize with the pro-democracy movement.

"[It's now clear that] the national security law and the [attempted] police assassination attempt are off-limits," the woman, who gave only the nickname Lily for fear of reprisals, said, adding that the space inside the governments "red lines" appears to be narrowing all the time.

"It's pretty scary whether you're a Hong Konger or a mainlander," Lily said. "I didn't think it would give rise to so many criminal charges."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Tech company's interaction is part of Chinas broader Belt and Road investment and infrastructure program

Students walk on the campus of the Del Institute of Technology in Toba, a regency in North Sumatra, Indonesia, July 27, 2023.

Lush green hills and a majestic lake surround a private university here that is training tomorrows elite Indonesian digital workers with help from a Chinese technological powerhouse viewed with distrust by the U.S. government.

The Del Institute of Technology, or IT Del, founded by a key aide to Indonesias president, has been collaborating since 2013 with Huawei, Chinas leading tech company.

Through the partnership, faculty members and students have access to cutting-edge training, certification and research opportunities in fields such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and cyber security.

Its a win-win situation for Huawei and us, Humasak Simanjuntak, IT Dels deputy president, told BenarNews, a news network affiliated with Radio Free Asia. One of the ways they achieve success is by supporting education in Indonesia.

Indonesia has welcomed Chinese investment to develop its digital ecosystem. IT Del was founded by Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister for investment and maritime affairs, and its top official coordinating cooperation with China.

Huaweis interaction with Indonesia is part of Chinas broader strategy of expanding its economic and political influence across Asia and beyond through its Belt and Road Initiative  a global infrastructure, technology and investment program launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping 10 years ago.

That includes developing digital systems, which Jakarta views as key to future prosperity. Indonesias internet economy is projected to reach US$124 billion by 2025, according to a 2020 report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.

But Huaweis dominance has raised alarm among experts who spoke to BenarNews amid warnings from the U.S. and other Western countries that the Chinese firm engages in espionage and sabotage activities, which it denies.

Workers use a crane to unload a Chinese-made high-speed passenger train car for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway from a cargo ship at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Sept. 2, 2022. Credit: Dita Alangkara/AP file photo





Ardi Sutedja, chairman of the Indonesia Cybersecurity Forum and a former government consultant, said Huawei is deeply embedded in the national telecommunications infrastructure, from the core network to the end-user devices.

Its going to be so difficult for us to transition to another company because from upstream to downstream, our 3G and 4G infrastructure is already being managed by Huawei, he told RFA.

Technology can colonize them

Huawei has been providing its products and services to Indonesia since 2000, according to its website..

It has established partnerships with more than 100 local companies and more than 30 universities, and created more than 20,000 jobs directly and indirectly, according to the companys website. It also has an agreement on cybersecurity cooperation with Indonesias National Cyber and Crypto Agency, or BSSN.

Ardi warned of the potential dangers of Indonesia relying on one foreign company, especially for cybersecurity. He noted that people enjoy the wave of new technology without realizing that technology can also colonize them.

Alfons Tanujaya, another cybersecurity expert, said Indonesia needs to be careful about allowing outsiders controlling its networks -- not only China but also the United States.

When we talk about spying, without 5G we can already be spied on, he said. All our hardware is from China, we use modems, CCTV cameras, and everything from China.

Customers shop at a retail store displaying Chinese-made mobile accessories, in a mall in Bandung, Indonesia, July 15, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Photo

The United States has voiced increasing concern over Huawei. It has banned Huawei from its 5G networks and put pressure on its allies to do the same.

In 2020, Robert OBrien, then the U.S. national security adviser, said the United States had evidence that Huawei could access sensitive and personal information in the systems it maintains around the world. He contended that Huawei is influenced by the Chinese government and must comply with directives of the Chinese Communist Party.

Huawei has repeatedly denied these allegations, saying it is an independent company and that no government has ever asked it to compromise its products or customers data.

BenarNews repeatedly requested an interview with Huawei for this story, but the requests were declined.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a Roundtable Summit Phase One session of the Belt and Road Forum, at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake in Beijing, May 15, 2017. Credit: Lintao Zhang/Pool/Reuters file photo

Provider of choice

Huawei devices and networks are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia.

Last year, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, said that Huawei has positioned itself as Indonesias cybersecurity provider of choice through its vast cybersecurity and other training programs for groups ranging from senior government officials to rural students.

Luhut, the minister who leads Jakartas cooperation with Beijing, summed up the approach in 2021  under which China provides hardware and training, and Indonesians install, maintain and use the networks.

Why do I get along with China? China is very generous in sharing its technology with us, he said then. They have always been willing to give us whatever we ask for. This helps us to keep up with technological advancements.

Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment (left), meets with then-Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, April 12, 2018. Credit: Naohiko Hatta/Pool via Reuters file photo



Some Western tech companies, such as Ericsson, Nokia and Google, also cooperate with the Indonesian government and its educational institutions, but not as extensively as with Huawei, according to experts.

They said Huawei had dominated Indonesias telecommunications infrastructure by offering low prices, credit from Chinese banks, and training for locals.

Huawei equipment is mainly used in the Palapa Ring project, a 35,000-kilometer (22,000-mile) national fiber-optic network that covers more than 500 regions and cities in the Indonesian archipelago, the first phase of which was carried out by Huawei Marine.

We welcome Huaweis support for developing digital talents in Indonesia and around the world, said Wayan Toni Supriyanto, the director general of international cooperation at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Hurdles for Huawei

With an average rate of 4 U.S. cents per gigabyte, Indonesia has some of the lowest cellular data costs in the Asia-Pacific, according to the Indonesian Telematics Society, a forum for stakeholders in the Indonesian digital industry.

The Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association says internet penetration in Indonesia has reached 78%, or 215.6 million users -- although there is still a significant gap between urban and rural areas. The government said around 7,000 small and remote villages are still underserved by internet providers.

Smart watches made by Chinese tech giant Huawei are displayed at a retail shop in Bandung, Indonesia, July 15, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Photo





Against this backdrop, Huawei still faces headwinds in building its business.

It confronts legal challenges in several countries over its alleged theft of trade secrets, violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, fraud, racketeering and patent infringement. Huawei has denied or contested these charges as well.

It faces restrictions or bans on its equipment or services in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

These moves have hampered Huaweis global expansion and market share, especially in the 5G sector.

Huawei has also faced supply-chain disruptions due to the U.S. sanctions that prevent it from accessing key components and technologies from American suppliers. This has affected its ability to produce and sell its products, such as smartphones and network equipment.

Huawei has sought to develop its own alternatives, such as its HarmonyOS operating system and its HiSilicon chips. It has also been seeking new markets and partners in other regions, such as in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Huawei has also been lobbying and suing to defend its rights and reputation, as well as engaging in P.R. campaigns to win over public opinion and trust.

Career boost

Among tech-savvy Indonesians, the cachet of Huawei appears high.

Muhammad Ihsan Fawzi, a lecturer at South Tangerang Institute of Technology near Jakarta, said he had received several job offers and speaking invitations after obtaining a Huawei certification for mobile development. He learned how to create applications for Huawei devices and platforms, and to include features such as location, analytics, push notifications, in-app purchases, and cloud functions.

After I received the certification and published it on my LinkedIn, several companies contacted me and offered me a job position as a mobile developer or a project manager, he said.

He didnt take up those offers as he did not want to leave his present job.

The Indonesian name for the Del Institute of Technology is seen on a sign at the campus in Toba, a regency in North Sumatra, Indonesia, July 27, 2023. Credit: Ahmad Syamsudin/BenarNews





Istas Manalu, a lecturer from IT Del who participated in a summer camp organized by Huawei in China in June, said the camp offered leadership sessions and further training in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and IT governance.

He said it was an opportunity for both lecturers and students to familiarize ourselves with the development of 5G technology, cyber security, cloud computing, and AI, as they have a strong base in those areas.

Onno W. Purbo, a computer engineering lecturer and a proponent of open-source tech, warned however that digital colonization by China was now a reality in Indonesia.

We are really dependent on them because we dont have the capacity, said Purbo, a deputy rector at the South Tangerang Institute of Technology.

But he likened it to Indonesia being colonized by Japan through the domination of Japanese car and motorcycle brands.

Simanjuntak of IT Del, however, dismissed concerns about Huawei.

He said that his institutions partnership with the company was purely technical and practical. He noted that his institution also collaborates with Western companies, including Cisco and Google.

We are not discriminating against specific companies, but its free competition, let it be free. When we partner with someone, there should be mutual benefits, he said.

BenarNews and Radio Free Asia collaborated on this special report.
The PLA has been upping the ante with abnormal and out of control drills, say Taiwan defense officials.

This undated handout photo released by the Taiwan Defense Ministry on September 13, 2023 shows Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong (L) while being monitored by a Taiwanese Keelung class warship at sea.

Taiwans minister of national defense and military analysts are calling recent Chinese military drills abnormal and out of control amid reports that civilian ferries are being harnessed to carry out beach landing drills on the Chinese side of the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan is concerned that Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is using increasingly provocative tactics to habituate Taiwan  and its immediate de facto allies, the United States and Japan  into a militarily fractious routine.

On Friday last week, Taiwan Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng told reporters at the legislature in Taipei that Chinese military movements around Taiwan were abnormal.

Our initial analysis is that they are doing joint drills in September, including land, sea, air and amphibious, Chiu said, responding to questions about a rise in Chinese military activity around the nation involving dozens of warplanes, drones, bombers and warships.

Chieh Chung, a military researcher at Taiwan's National Policy Foundation think tank, concurred, telling Radio Free Asia, From September 11-15, the PLA mobilized three major fleets in the Western Pacific, with a total of 17 surface ships (including the Shandong aircraft carrier strike group) to conduct large-scale confrontational exercises.

Thats not like previous exercises in past years. Its indeed unusual, Chieh said.

A fighter takes off during the combat readiness patrol and military exercises around Taiwan carried out by the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army from Nanjing in eastern China on April 8, 2023. Credit: Xinhua via AP

Meanwhile, the English-language Taiwan News reported civilian ferries were carrying out undetermined, but likely non-commercial operations along Chinas east coast.

The six roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ferries associated with the PLA were seen on Sunday conducting drills on Chinese beaches in the Taiwan Strait, at Xiamen, a city in Fujian Province directly opposite Taiwan, the report said, drawing on a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The source, Tom Shugart, is an adjunct senior fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.

Attempts by RFA to reach Shugart were not successful, but sources said his information was normally reliable.

Analyst Chieh Chung said he couldnt verify Shugarts claims, but added that in exercises conducted at Dacheng Bay, Fujian, last year and the year before, China mobilized civilian semi-submersible ships and RoRo cargo ships for dock-less unloading drills.

Dacheng Bay is the PLA's amphibious landing training base, Chieh said. Every year from July to September, many PLA units conduct exercises there. But he added: The Eight Transport Group (Strategic Sea Transport 8th Squadron) mentioned in the news [Shugarts tweets] does indeed exist and is indeed part of the Bo Hai Ferry Group, he said.

Ben Lewis, an independent defense analyst based in Washington D.C., said Multiple Bo Hai ferries have been pulled off their normal routes, but I think the only thing about the recent drills that is unnormal is the fact that the PLA hasnt bragged about them through its propaganda outlets.

New normal

Michael Mazza, a non-resident Asia-Pacific defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), describes the new normal of PLA operations around Taiwan, which can arguably be dated to the Pelosi visit, as one of high numbers, high frequency and high intensity.

Then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi incurred Chinas wrath in Aug. 2022 by visiting Taiwan, which China claims as sovereign territory.

He added, The new normal also seems to be one in which there is no accepted status quo and no obvious limiting principle. China will ramp up and ramp down as it wishes.

But Mazza also said that he does not think the recent exercises suggest an imminent use of force against Taiwan.

Rather, he said, it seems more likely that the PLA is speeding up training and shaping operations ahead of Xi Jinpings 2027 readiness deadline.

Chinas President Xi Jinping has announced publicly that he wants China to be ready, should Taiwan not come to the table, to invade the de facto nation fortress by 2027, despite repeated U.S. statements that such a move would be unacceptable.

A missile from the rocket force of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army takes part in operations during the combat readiness patrol and military exercises around Taiwan, April 7, 2023. Credit: Xinhua via AP

Washington-based Lewis is similarly unconcerned that China is planning an imminent move on Taiwan.

August-October is one of the PLAs training seasons, so Im not concerned that they are doing anything out of the ordinary. Different, maybe, but not out of control.

However, he added, while the PRC is generally risk-averse  the more they increase their military activity region-wide, the higher the risk of a miscalculation.

Says Mazza, on the question of possible red lines the PLA might inadvertently cross in its increasing adventurism, Chinas installation of a barrier at Scarborough Shoal last week may have been such a red line in the South China Sea  a seemingly minor escalation that was too much for the Philippines to bear.

Lewis said, The PRC is generally risk-averse, but the more they increase their military activity region-wide, the higher the risk of a miscalculation, referring to the Peoples Republic of China, the official name of China.

Beijing uses this risk as a weapon in its engagements with other countries, including Taiwan. I also think, however, that the PRC is highly aware of the red-lines of its targets, specifically Washington and Tokyo.

As much as they may escalate a situation, I think they want to avoid an escalation spiral as much as anyone else.

Speaking on the Scarborough Shoal incident and the reaction of the Philippines, Mazza said, It is difficult to predict what an equivalent would be in the Taiwan Strait, but the lesson is this: China is far too confident that it can control escalation and that it can count on the restraint of its rivals and adversaries.

That confidence may be misplaced, Mazza says.

Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
S Korea says the Norths assertions are illogical and exactly why drills with the US are needed.

The two Koreas traded barbs at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, with the North threatening a potential nuclear catastrophe in the Korean Peninsula and the South asserting that its military exercises with the U.S. will continue to take place.

North Koreas ambassador to the U.N., Kim Song, initiated the verbal attack as he declared that the Korean Peninsula is at an imminent risk of nuclear war. The ambassador vowed to further amplify his countrys self-defense capabilities in light of what he described as an escalation of reckless military adventurism of hostile forces.

The DPRK is urgently required to further speed up the advancing of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably, the North Korean diplomat said, referring to the Norths formal name. The more the reckless military moves and provocations of the hostile forces are intensified threatening the sovereignty and security interests of our state, the more our endeavors to enhance national defense capabilities would increase in direct proportion.

Kim Song described the Korean Peninsula as being in a state of imminent danger of nuclear war at any moment, arguing that the U.S. and its colony South Korea were solely responsible for the escalation of the regional tension. The ambassador also lambasted the U.S.- South Korea-Japan security cooperation, which he equated with an Asian version of NATO that has ushered in a new Cold War in Northeast Asia.

Kim Songs attack incited a strong and immediate rebuttal from the South Korean Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Kim Sang-jin, who dismissed the Norths assertions as illogical.

North Korea is the only country to conduct a nuclear test in the 21st century, and it has been also escalating tensions by testing an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] this year, the South Korean representative said. Does anyone find credibility in North Koreas accusations that South Korea, a fully democratized, economically prosperous nation adhering to the rule of law, is attempting to start a nuclear war in collusion with the United States?

U.S. soldiers from 2nd Infantry Division, participate in a UFS/TIGER Combined Urban Operations plan as part of Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, Aug. 23, 2023 on Paju in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Credit: EPA via AP, Pool

The South Korean diplomat also defended his countrys military exercises with the U.S., suggesting that they will continue to take place, regardless of Pyongyangs protest. The joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea are long-standing and are conducted with defensive intentions.

The U.S. and South Korea initiated their three-day joint naval exercises in the waters that divide the Koreas and Japan on Monday, encompassing anti-submarine warfare and naval firing drills.

The exercise is to bolster joint operational capabilities and interoperability amid the rising nuclear and missile threats emanating from North Korea, according to a South Korea Navy statement. The threats have been accentuated by North Koreas recent launch of a purported space launch vehicle and the introduction of a new submarine.

North Korea labels such joint drills as invasion practices, viewing it as a significant threat to its regimes security.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
Travis Kings release will have little impact on North Korea-US relations or inter-Korean ties, says expert.

A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea on Aug. 16, 2023.

UPDATED AT 2:25 p.m. EDT on Sept. 27, 2023.

Travis King, the American soldier who suddenly sprinted into North Korea from a border area in South Korea, is on his way home and appears to be in good health and spirits, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said King was met on Chinas border with North Korea by U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns after being expelled by Pyongyang after two months in the country. He was then transferred to the Osan Air Force base in South Korea.

King, who fled into North Korea on July 18, was en route back to the United States on Wednesday afternoon, Miller said. He thanked Sweden, which represents the United States in Pyongyang, for their assistance in negotiating Kings release with the North Koreans.

We thank Sweden and the People's Republic of China for their assistance in facilitating that transfer, he said. He is now on his way to the United States and we expect him to arrive in the coming hours.

Miller declined to comment on any possible punishment for King.

King was on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea in Panmunjom when he suddenly ran into North Korea. Another person on the tour told CBS News at the time that he said a "loud 'ha ha ha' and then ran between some buildings.

Prior to the official announcement of Kings release by Pyongyang on Wednesday, White House officials speaking on condition of anonymity said no concessions were made to Pyongyang to secure his release.

Beijing played a very constructive role in allowing his passage into China, one of the officials said, before noting China did not mediate any negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

Another official said King appears to be in good health and good spirits and was very happy to be on his way home, but declined to say whether King explained why he had crossed into North Korea.

He is very much looking forward to being reunited with his family, they said. That is the sentiment that is pervading all else right now.

A spokesperson for Travis Kings mother, Claudine Gates, released a statement thanking the U.S. Army for getting her son back, but said the family did not plan to do any media interviews in the near future.

Ms Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done, the spokesperson said.

Expelled

North Korea had earlier Wednesday announced Kings expulsion.

The relevant organs of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea have decided to deport U.S. soldier Travis King in accordance with the laws for illegally entering the territory of the republic, North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency said late Wednesday.

The investigation into U.S. soldier Travis King has been concluded, KCNA continued, claiming that mistreatment he received from the United States was his primary motive for crossing the border.

Travis King confessed that he illegally entered the territory of the DPRK due to inhuman treatment in the U.S. military, antipathy to racism, and disillusionment with the unequal U.S. society, it said.

The authenticity of the statements by King  the first American held in nearly five years  couldnt be independently confirmed.

The announcement, made at 6 a.m. EST, appeared to signal Pyongyang had trouble exploiting their capture of the American citizen, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul who had advised the South Korean government.

If the decision was unilateral, it suggests that North Korea found King to be of no use, Yang said. As a U.S. soldier facing disciplinary action and fleeing to North Korea, King presented a challenging figure for North Korea to leverage for propaganda purposes.

Given the current tense relations between the U.S. and North Korea, a corresponding deal seems improbable, he added. Consequently, the influence on existing U.S.-North Korea, or inter-Korean relations appears to be minimal.

King was the sole known U.S. national detained in North Korea, and his case represents the first known detention of a U.S. citizen since that of Bruce Byron Lowrance in November 2018.

The 23-year-old Private King trespassed into North Korean land via the inter-Korean Joint Security Area in Panmunjom on July 18. Pyongyang later announced that the U.S. soldier has been under investigation since his detention.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
North Koreas new submarine, No. 841, named the Hero Kim Kun Ok, is unveiled at an undisclosed location in North Korea in this picture taken on Sept. 6, 2023 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sept. 8.

Kim Jong Un has submarine envy, so every North Korean attached to diplomatic missions abroad has been ordered to donate US$100 to a new fund that will go toward the construction of cutting-edge submarines and other warships, sources in China told Radio Free Asia.

The donation mandate was the first order of business after Kim returned from his summit in Russia with President Vladimir Putin, where the two countries agreed to strengthen ties.

During that trip, Kim toured military facilities including a naval base for Russias Pacific Fleet and was shocked by Moscows high-tech weaponry, especially submarines, the sources told RFA.

Yesterday, Pyongyang sent an order to the North Korean Embassy here in China to raise the necessary funds to build new submarines and warships, a source in Beijing who is familiar with the situation, told RFA Korean Sept. 23 on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The instructions state that the members of all overseas diplomatic missions must donate $100 each before Party Foundation Day on Oct. 10, he said, adding that the ambassador in Beijing had sent the same order to North Korean consulates in Shenyang and Dandong. Personnel working in overseas companies are also considered part of the mission.

The order states that the construction of new warships and submarines is a top priority that can no longer be postponed, considering the current situation, the source said. The members at the embassy all gave $100 as soon as they received the instructions. Most of them seem to understand that the leader gave this order after being quite shocked by Russias advanced weapons.

Not cheap

Even though the stated purpose is to raise money for warships and submarines, the source said that the order is also a test of loyalty, and likely that future instructions will continue to ask for funding.

Some of the people responded to the order by saying New submarines and warships are high-tech, and require expensive materials and equipment. They are not childrens toys. I dont understand how it will be possible to build them by saving just $100 per person.

Indeed, submarines are not cheap, and such donations would seem to hardly make a dent in the overall cost.

Construction costs for the type of nuclear-powered submarine North Korea could build, such as the French-designed Barracuda-class, run about $1.19 billion each.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un [right] watches a cruise missile being launched from a warship in the East Sea, in this undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 21, 2023. Credit: AFP/KCNA via KNS

When the orders reached the consulates in the northeastern cities of Shenyang and Dandong and the former British colony Hong Kong, the officials there looked dejected, a source in Shenyang told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety.

Companies there are used to getting orders to donate a specific amount of money from their revenue, but this order appealed to them to exhibit a high level of loyalty in response to the Marshall's instructions to build submarines and new warships, the Shenyang source said. In official communications, Kim is often referred to by his military rank.

Companies did not force the workers to donate, he said. Instead, they anticipate that some of the workers will demonstrate their loyalty with a large donation, and then the pressure will be on for the rest of the workers to better or match that amount.

The workers could not hide their sense of dejection at the instructions, the Shenyang source said. The workers are saying, We have been tightening our belts to develop nuclear weapons for decades as we were preparing for war. Now we are building new submarines and warships.

It was foolish of us to expect that [the government] would finally address the countrys food problems.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
The anti-regime groups are using unmanned aircraft more widely to attack military forces.

Members of Cloud Wings, a drone unit formed in south eastern Myanmars Kayin state in March 2023, prepare a drone in an undisclosed location, Aug. 30, 2023.

Resistance fighters in Myanmar are increasingly relying on drones to attack Myanmar military forces now that they have cracked the juntas anti-drone jammers, rebel groups and drone operation groups said.

The performance of the drones has also improved significantly, said Ko Nyein, who is in charge of a rebel drone force called Cloud Wings in Kayin state, in eastern Myanmar.

Our drones can now carry heavier payloads, fly higher and further, and penetrate the juntas jammers, he said. We now can use our drones widely in many military columns across Myanmar.

Rebel forces conducted about 642 drone attacks on junta soldiers in 2022, according to three drone forces in Kayin and Kayah states and in Sagaing and Magway regions.

The use of drones has increased this year, militia groups operating under the shadow National Unity Government said, but could not provide details, citing security concerns or sensitivity regarding their military matters.

None of the groups has yet issued figures for the number of drone attacks this year, however.

Peoples Defense Forces, or PDFs  bands of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the military following the 2021 military coup  and ethnic militias have turned to modern-day warfare technology to battle junta soldiers who have installed machine guns and anti-drone defense equipment at important military bases, drone operation personnel said.

At first, the rebel fighters relied on handmade weapons, including hunting rifles called tumees, launchers and bombs against the national military.

They are using more attack drones that can drop bombs now that they have overcome the juntas anti-drone defense system, PDF personnel said.

The shadow National Unity Government, made up of former civilian leaders and anti-junta activists, has distributed more than 400 attack drones to loosely controlled militia groups, said Maung Maung Swe, deputy secretary of the NUGs Ministry of Defense.

We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their [the juntas] drones and can now take them down, he told RFA. Because we know the frequency of their jammers, it is no longer difficult for us at all to penetrate them across the country.

Cost of bombs

The Cloud Wings drone force formed in Kayin state in March has conducted more than 100 anti-junta drone operations, said Ko Nyein.

But the high cost of various bombs attached to the drones has been a challenge, Ko Nyein said.

If we talk about the main difficulty we face, it is the cost of the bombs, he said.

On Sept. 1 and 2, the Cloud Wings drone unit twice attacked the police station and the municipal hall in the city of Kyainseigyi, dropping 107-mm bombs.

Members of the anti-junta drone militia group Federal Wings listen to instructions from their commander in an undisclosed location in Myanmar, Sept. 4, 2023. Credit: Federal Wings

The next day, the Federal Wingsanother resistance group that uses drones to attack junta troops and facilitiesbombed the police station in Kayins Myawaddy city, killing five people, including the Myawaddy district administrator and the acting commander of the juntas Light Infantry Regiment No. 175, and injuring an unknown number of others.

These drone attacks have become so strategic as to threaten the junta, said Capt. Kaung Thu Win, who joined the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement of individuals who quit their government-related jobs to protest the junta.

In the past, the military troops were terrified by the landmine attacks when they set out for battles, he said. At the moment, the weapons that scare them the most are our drones because they are used in defensive as well as surprise attacks day or night.

The bombs dropped by our drones significantly hurt the military troops, though they cant wipe out an entire enemy unit, he added.

Attack from a distance

The juntas anti-drone equipment called Drone Guard is limited and many soldiers at bases do not know how to use it, Kaung Thu Win said.

On Sept. 11, junta troops stationed near Sagaing regions Nat Yay Kan village in Chaung-U township were attacked by fixed-wing drones of the Civilian Defense and Security Organization of Myaung, another resistance group. They successfully penetrated military jammers that can cut off radio waves and stop drone control.

RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on how the military is handling drone attacks by the People's Defense Forces.

As far as the drone threats are concerned, they can attack our troops from a distance that we cant see, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank composed of former army officers.

Its sometimes hard to detect them, he said. We can be hurt because they can drop bombs in surprise, but if we can apply our defense systems precisely, we will be safe from these attacks.

Military and political analyst Than Soe Naing said he believes that drones play only a partial role in successful battles, however.

The morale and fighting spirit of the soldiers on both sides of the battle play a more important role in determining a victory or loss, he said. A superb military strategy that includes weapons and ammunition, including drones, is important as well. Drones are only about one-third important in winning a battle."

Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
Critics say registering with an ID card leaves users open to surveillance.

Myanmars junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications is threatening mobile phone service sellers and users with six months in prison if they dont register, or fraudulently register, SIM cards, state controlled newspapers said Wednesday.

A ministry statement carried by the media, citing Section 72 of the telecommunications law, told users they needed to submit their personal information to register the cards.

One Yangon resident told Radio Free Asia he had mixed feelings about the announcement.

This kind of systematic registration is good under normal circumstances but security has become a concern following the [Feb. 2021] military coup, said the person, who declined to give his name for security reasons.

A technology expert who also requested anonymity said the junta could use artificial intelligence to eavesdrop on calls and texts in order to spot anti-junta conversations.

Just over a year ago, the Department of Post and Telecommunications under the juntas Ministry of Transport and Communications said it would cancel all SIM cards that hadnt been registered with a national ID card and confiscate any remaining balance on the cards.

The ministry said all SIM cards must be registered by Jan. 31, 2023.

Although the practice is common in many countries, critics say Myanmar's military intends to use identity registration as a way to crack down on pro-democracy activists and the Peoples Defense Forces.

In July 2021, the junta reportedly told major mobile operators to track the devices of dissidents and report on their behavior. The move prompted Norways Telenor to abandon its Myanmar operations a few months later.

A company named Shwe Byine Phyu, with reported ties to top junta leaders, stepped in to provide telecom services in Telenors place under the Atom brand.

Last year, Qatar-based telecom operator Oredoo, which is the third most popular brand in Myanmar, sold its investments for US$576 million to Singapores Nine Communications, reportedly owned by a Myanmar national close to the military.

The other two operators have even closer military ties.

Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) came entirely under the juntas control following the 2021 coup.

Mytel is a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Vietnams Ministry of Defense.

Aung Pyae Sone, son of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, holds Mytel shares.

According to the list of telecommunications operators in 2021, there were 20 million Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT) SIM users, 18 million Atom users, 15 million Ooredoo users and 10 million Mytel users.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
Hundreds of party members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) gather in Yangon for its second national congress, June 23, 2018.

Myanmars military regime has arrested and jailed nearly 2,000 members of the deposed National League for Democracy, or NLD, since seizing power in a coup detat, the party said Wednesday in a statement to mark the 35th anniversary of its founding.

The NLD became Myanmars ruling party in 2015, following a landslide victory at the polls, but the military claimed the ballot was fixed and carried out a putsch on Feb. 1, 2021, arresting de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other top officials.

Since then, junta authorities have arrested 1,910 NLD members  at least 1,269 of whom are still in detention, the NLDs Human Rights Documentation Team said in a report. The detainees include 1,077 men and 192 women, and 73 are elected members of parliament, the report said.

Khin Saung, a member of the NLDs Central Executive Committee, told RFA Burmese that the military has dashed the dreams of the people of Myanmar, who overwhelmingly elected his party eight years ago.

The military junta has continued to illegally arrest and imprison the top leaders of the National League for Democracy, arbitrarily seal or destroy party offices, and viciously assassinate party members, he said. It is clear that the junta is trying to systematically destroy the NLD.

Junta authorities have raided NLD party offices throughout the country at least 160 times, destroyed 390 NLD-owned houses and plots of land, and seized the assets of 373 party members  including the homes of 182 members of parliament, 64 business properties, and 16 vehicles, the report said.

Security personnel have killed at least 100 NLD party members  including three lawmakers  it said.

The military regime has remained silent about the targeting of the NLD and attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun about the partys allegations went unanswered Wednesday.

According to Thailands Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), the junta has killed at least 4,124 democracy activists and civilians throughout the country since the coup. At least 19,272 people remained in junta detention as of Wednesday, the group said.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare gestures during a press conference at Honiara International Airport on Sept. 27, 2023 after returning from the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who declined to attend a United States-Pacific islands summit earlier this week, said Washington should show respect to the regions leaders rather than lecturing them.

The summit in Washington, the second in a year between President Joe Biden and leaders of Pacific island nations, was part of U.S. efforts to counter Chinas inroads in the region that include a burgeoning relationship with the Solomon Islands.

They must respect Pacific leaders and change their strategies of meeting with Pacific leaders, Sogavare said Wednesday after returning to the Solomon Islands from New York, where he spoke last week at the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Sogavare, who often echoes Beijings talking points, said he returned to the Solomon Islands rather than attending the Washington event so he could give attention to pressing domestic issues.

The island nation of some 700,000 people was represented at the two day summit, which ended Tuesday, by Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele and Colin Beck, permanent secretary of the foreign affairs ministry.

At least we have our representatives there. We were always given three minutes to talk and we will be sitting down only to listen to them lecturing us of how good they are, Sogavare told reporters at a press conference at Honiaras international airport.

A Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition they werent named, had said it was disappointing that Sogavare did not attend the summit, Reuters reported.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (center left) walks across the tarmac at Honiara International Airport on Sept. 27, 2023 after returning from New York where he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly. Credit: Charley Piringi/BenarNews

At the summit, Biden called on Congress to approve an additional U.S. $200 million of assistance for Pacific island nations, the latest move in his administrations push to counter Chinese influence in a region crucial to U.S. defense.

U.S. interest in Pacific island nations was galvanized in early 2022 after Beijing and the Solomon Islands signed a security pact that the U.S. and allies such as Australia fear could lead to a Chinese military presence in the region.

Since then the U.S. has agreed to increase its financial and economic assistance for Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau  three North Pacific countries that delegate their defense to Washington under longstanding compacts of free association. Subject to budget appropriations, the three nations would receive more than U.S. $7 billion over 20 years.

The first Pacific Islands-U.S. summit in September last year announced plans for more than U.S. $800 million in assistance to island nations over a decade. The figure included nearly tripling the payments tied to a tuna fishing treaty with Pacific nations to a total of U.S. $600 million between 2023-33.

Sogavare said his Cabinet will meet from Thursday to determine what bills to submit to parliament during the remainder of its sessions this year.

I have a commitment and dedication to tackling domestic matters, especially with approximately 10 weeks remaining in the parliamentary calendar, he said.

Under Sogavare, the Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019. His government has capitalized on the U.S.-China rivalry by securing more development assistance for a country that grapples with lack of roads, hospitals and jobs.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
The Philippine Coast Guards BRP Malapascua sails near the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era ship used by Manila as a military outpost at the Ayungin Shoal in the disputed South China Sea, April 23, 2023.

Updated on Sept. 27, 2023, at 6:20 p.m. ET

The Philippines is in the process of crafting a more assertive strategy for waters it claims in the disputed South China Sea, a Navy commander said on Wednesday.

Philippine Western Command chief Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos comment came days after Manila accused China Coast Guard ships of installing a floating barrier  removed later by the Philippines  at the seas disputed Scarborough Shoal, which China on Monday reiterated was its territory.

Manila, which also claims the shoal, was in the midst of forming a national strategy with a stronger assertion of rights in the sea, Carlos said, referring to waters within the Philippines jurisdiction.

Carlos command is in Palawan, the countrys western frontier facing the West Philippine Sea  Manilas name for the South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone.

For the military alone, our line of efforts include the effective occupation of the islands that we already occupied and also establishing a stronger naval presence in our area, he said.

The strategy would allow the military to know what is happening in our area, precisely where they are, where are all the vessels of interest, the militia vessels, the Chinese Coast Guard, Carlos said.

A United Nations tribunal in 2016 dismissed Chinas sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing has refused to recognize the ruling.

Instead of seeking to enforce the ruling, then-President Rodrigo Duterte sought to ingratiate himself with China in exchange for pledges of investments.

In contrast, his successor as president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has been firm on the Philippines position and has sought stronger defense alliances with the United States and other western countries including Australia and Britain.

China reacts

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday maintained his nations hardline stance on the shoal.

What the Philippines did looks like nothing more than self-amusement, he told reporters.

China will continue to safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests over Huangyan Dao, he said, using the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal.

Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos speaks to reporters at the Western Command headquarters in Palawan, Philippines, Aug. 10, 2023. [Eloisa Lopez/Pool via AP]

Carlos rejected the Chinese stance on the barrier at the shoal, which the Philippines calls Bajo de Masinloc.

We are not stirring [up] any trouble. We are just asserting our rights in the area, he said.

Our duty is to defend and protect our sovereignty and sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. We are just doing our job, we are doing our job as far as asserting our jurisdiction over our exclusive economic zone.

China has disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan over the South China Sea and has become more aggressive in the region.

In addition to the floating barrier, Chinese ships have harassed military resupply missions to troops on the Philippine-occupied Ayungin Shoal in recent months.

The troops are stationed on a World War II-era ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, that was grounded at the shoal in 1999 to serve as a military outpost. The China Coast Guard has fired water cannons and taken steps to harass Philippine Coast Guard ships escorting missions to the BRP Sierra Madre.

The Philippine Western Command chief said Marcos directive was to ensure that BRP Sierra Madre remains where it is and strong enough to be able to fly the Philippine flag.

We intend to comply with that order, Carlos said.

More training

Meanwhile, the Philippines and the United States navies are set to launch joint exercises in the South China Sea next month, said Lt. Col. Enrico Gil Ileto, military public affairs chief.

More than 600 U.S. Navy personnel are expected to attend the 12-day drills dubbed Sama-Sama. Representatives from Britain, France, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand are scheduled to attend as observers.

Ileto said the annual exercise aims to further strengthen international defense cooperation and advance a rules-based international order.

He said the Philippine Navys guided missile frigate BRP Antonio Luna will be joined by the USS Dewey, a guided missile destroyer, and the USNS Wally Schirra cargo ship.

The exercises are part of the Mutual Defense Treaty signed in 1951, which calls on both countries to aid each other in times of aggression by an external power.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Rinoza in Manila contributed to this report.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This story has been updated to clarify the comments from the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman.
He was sentenced to 2 years in a prison in Chinas Sichuan province.

A monk holds up a picture of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in his room in Labrang Monastery in Xiahe county, western China's Gansu province, in 2012.

Chinese authorities have arrested a Tibetan man for a second time for being in possession of a photo of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, sources with knowledge of the situation said.

Possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, who has resided in northern India since 1959, is considered an act of separatism and has been a punishable offense in Tibetan-populated areas of China for decades.

Tibetan sources recently told RFA that authorities arrested Tsultrim, a Tibetan from Tsaruma township in Ngabas Kyungchu county, in February 2023 after they discovered pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama on his mobile phone.

He was detained until April, they said, when he was sentenced to two years in prison by the People's Court of Ngaba, a Tibetan region in southwestern Chinas Sichuan province, also known as Aba in Chinese.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity. Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.

Authorities in China maintain a tight lockdown on the flow of information in and out of the countrys Tibetan regions, and it can often take weeks to learn of arrests and other incidents through the exile community.

Tsultrim, whose age is unknown, is serving his sentence in Yaknga Prison, and none of his family and friends are allowed to see him, said a Tibetan who lives in exile.

After graduating from Northwestern Minzu University in 2016, Tsultrim worked as a self-employed businessman, said the source who declined to be named so he could speak freely.

He has always been an intelligent young Tibetan and has advocated for preservation of the Tibetan language, the source said.

Prior to this incident, Chinese authorities summoned and interrogated Tsultrim in July 2022 for sharing a picture of the 14th Dalai Lama on social media and saving the photo on his mobile phone, said a Tibetan from inside the western region.

Authorities examined his phone and detained him for two months until September when he was released, said the source who also declined to be named.

However, during his detention, he was beaten and had gone through such a tough time that he wished death upon himself, the source told RFA.

In May, authorities also sentenced two Tibetan monks in Sershul county, or Shiqu in Chinese, on separatism charges for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama on their phones, giving one three years and six months in jail, and the other three years, RFA reported earlier.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.


When the Taliban seized power, it soon launched a purge of Afghanistan's universities in a bid to promote its radical Islamic values.

Now, facing a severe shortage of qualified university teachers, the hard-line Islamist group is trying to convince exiled educators to return to their homeland.

The Taliban's education minister, Neda Mohammad Nadim, announced this week that the group had "sent different delegations to various countries so those who are good instructors and are living abroad return."

But professors who left when the Taliban seized power over two years ago say there is little to come back to.

"Being a professor at a university is not only about income and career, what is important is independence, critical thinking, and freedom of expression," Sami Rasakh, an educator who left Afghanistan for an undisclosed country, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

"We do not have these rights under such a government [the Taliban]," Rasakh said, concluding that "professors who went to more advanced countries will not return."

Despite the Taliban's recruitment effort, educators remain subject to significant restrictions on what they can teach and to whom. The denial of higher education to girls and women, which forced many women teachers out of their profession or led them to leave the country, is a major sticking point.

Obaidullah Wardak, a former mathematics professor at Kabul University, says the Taliban must first provide girls and women the right to attend universities before the group can expect to convince professors to return. "Professors should not be expected to teach like machines," Wardak told Radio Azadi, saying the right to education for all must be protected.

"The professors want to see if there are [improvements] in place," said Wardak, who resigned from his position and moved abroad. "As a first step, we demand that the gates of the universities be opened again for girls."

The Taliban has fired scores of university professors, particularly women, replacing them with Taliban clerics. Dozens of other professors have resigned from their positions to protest the group's severe restrictions on education.

Another hitch in the re-recruitment drive is the Taliban's continuing purge of universities as it tries to impose its hard-line values on all aspects of Afghan life.

The Taliban has vowed to root out all forms of the modern, secular education that thrived in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban's first regime. Since regaining power, the militants have converted scores of secular schools, public universities, and vocational training centers into Islamic seminaries, leading to a surge in the number of madrasahs in the country.

Multiple professors told Radio Azadi that the very same Education Ministry that wants them to return to the classroom had ordered the institutions where they taught to replace them with unqualified members of the Taliban government.

"On the one hand, it is ordered that I be removed, on the other, I will be invited [to return]?" Noorullah Shad, a former professor of Pashto literature at Kabul's Sheikh Zahid University, told Radio Azadi from abroad.

"If a professor returns, what guarantees are there that no one will be imprisoned again, my human rights will be protected, my dignity will be protected? Shad asked.

Who Believes Taliban's Promises?

Upon seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban gave assurances that it would not return to the infamously brutal rule it employed while first in power from 1996 to 2001.

In an effort to reverse the damage from the loss of government bureaucrats, military personnel, doctors, and other professionals, the Taliban called on Afghans to return to their former positions to help rebuild the country.

As a carrot, the Taliban pledged to respect girls' and women's right to education and offered amnesty for soldiers and police who worked for the previous Afghan government.

But rights groups have recorded scores of cases in which former military and police personnel were targeted and killed, while the global community has expressed outrage at the Taliban's refusal to live up to its promises when it comes to the rights of girls and women.

Some university professors, meanwhile, have been imprisoned for criticizing the Taliban's restrictions on girls and women attending university. In December, the Taliban doubled down by barring girls and women from campuses entirely.

The end result, according to the United Nations mission to Afghanistan, is that the Taliban has established "the most repressive country in the world regarding women's rights."

The Taliban's education minister, Nadim, nevertheless has claimed that some professors have returned to resume teaching in Afghanistan.

Rasakh, the exiled university professor, conceded in his interview with Radio Azadi that "professors who are down on their luck in [neighboring] Iran and Pakistan would maybe accept the Taliban's pitch out of necessity."

Multiple professors who have returned and spoke to Radio Azadi supported Rasakh's argument, saying they had to come back after experiencing financial problems and difficulties in obtaining legal documents to stay abroad.

Written by Michael Scollon based on reporting by Khujasta Kabiri of RFE/RL's Radio Azadi
Thousands of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have flooded into the border town of Goris after enduring an arduous journey out of the the crisis-hit region. RFE/RL spoke with refugees in Armenia who said they left everything behind and hadn't eaten in days.
Pakistan on November 1 began rounding up undocumented foreigners, the vast majority of them Afghans, hours ahead of the deadline for them to evacuate the country.

The country's Interior Ministry said in a statement before the midnight deadline that "a process to arrest the foreigners...for deportation" had begun, but that voluntary return would still be encouraged.



The undocumented foreigners were reportedly being transferred to transit centers.



Officials in the southwestern port city of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and capital of Sindh Province, said that up to 40 people without proper documents had been moved to one of the transit centers.

WATCH: Pakistani authorities have cracked down on undocumented foreigners, mostly Afghans, ahead of a deadline to leave the country or face deportation. In Karachi, Afghan men and boys on November 1 were put on buses and taken to a temporary detention center.



Pakistan announced in early October that it would expel an estimated 1.7 million undocumented immigrants who remained in the country after November 1. As the deadline approached, tens of thousands of Afghans -- some who have been in Pakistan for decades -- made their way back to Afghanistan with their families and belongings.



In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan, officials said on November 1 that more than 100,000 Afghan nationals had returned to their homeland via the Torkham border crossing in the past two weeks.

WATCH: Authorities in Islamabad demolished mud houses belonging to Afghan refugees on October 31, a day ahead of a deadline for them to leave Pakistan. An estimated 1.7 million Afghans living illegally in Pakistan have been told to return to their country or face detention and deportation.

An undetermined number of Afghans have returned to Afghanistan by way of the Chaman border crossing in the southwestern Balochistan Province.



Overall, more than 140,000 people had voluntarily left Pakistan following the government's October 3 order, according to Pakistan's Interior Ministry.



Pakistan's move to remove undocumented foreigners is seen as part of an anti-immigrant crackdown that has been criticized by human rights groups and the United Nations.

On October 31, the chair of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Hina Jilani, wrote the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warning that Islamabad's move to expel Afghans could "trigger a humanitarian crisis."

"The decision amounts to forced repatriation, which is not recognized under international customary law, and will invariably affect vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, which include women, children, the elderly, persons living with disabilities, persons from low-income groups, and Afghans at risk because of their professions -- many of whom fled Afghanistan after the Afghan Taliban took over the government in August 2021," Jilani wrote.

Ahmad Afghan, an Afghan national who lives in Islamabad, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi that he and his family left Afghanistan after the Taliban regained power in Kabul. He said his visa has since expired and he has been unable to extend it as he and his family await documents to move to a third country.



"We are very worried. We cannot go back to Afghanistan," Afghan said. "If we go back to Afghanistan, [the Taliban] will kill us -- 100 percent."



Pakistan has been a popular refuge for Afghans for decades, beginning during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Others fled fighting during the ensuing Afghan civil war and the Taliban's first stint in power from 1996 to 2001. Millions of Afghans returned to their homeland following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban from power.



Some 3.7 million Afghans fleeing war, poverty, and political upheaval in their homeland currently reside in Pakistan, according to the United Nations, with Islamabad putting the number as high as 4.4 million.



Officials in Islamabad have said that about 1.4 million Afghans possess documents allowing them to legally stay in Pakistan and that the order for undocumented immigrants to leave affects 1.7 million people.



Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has previously criticized the move to remove undocumented Afghans from Pakistan, saying they are being punished for tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.



On November 1, the Taliban called on the Pakistani government to give undocumented Afghans more time to leave as large numbers of evacuees created bottlenecks at the Pakistan-Afghan border.



While thanking Pakistan and other countries that have harbored Afghans over years of conflict in Afghanistan, the Taliban asked Islamabad "to not forcibly deport Afghans with little notice, but give them time to prepare."



Mohammad Zaman, an Afghan national who spoke to Radio Azadi at the Torkham border crossing on November 1, said the large group his family traveled with struggled to prepare for the evacuation.



"More than 30 families came with us. They are people who had left their country due to poverty. They are people who could not find a loaf of bread, so they left the country and came [to Pakistan]," Zaman said. "Instead of supporting us, Pakistan gave us a very short deadline. The deadline was so short that we couldn't even wrap up our businesses."



An Afghan national who spoke to Radio Azadi on condition of anonymity following his arrival in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar Province expressed hope that he and his children would be treated fairly by the Taliban.



"I swear by God, I have neither a place to live in nor a piece of land," the man said, adding that he and his family had moved to Pakistan in search of work. "I ask the Taliban to provide us with shelter, at least a tent to live in.... Here, we may die of hunger."



On November 1, Afghanistan's state news agency, Bakhtar, which is under Taliban control, said the Taliban government had dedicated 2 billion Afghanis (about $27 million) to provide returnees "with basic needs."

With reporting by Reuters
The National Election Authority (NEA) announced on Monday that voting in the 2024 presidential election in Egypt will take place 10-12 December 2023, with Egyptians abroad casting their votes 1-3 December 2023.

In a press conference in Cairo, NEA Head Walid Hamza announced the timetable for the election process, which will stretch from 5 October and 18 December, when the final result is set to be announced in case of no run-offs.

The NEA will receive requests for candidacy between 5-14 October, disqualifying incomplete applications and announcing the initial list of candidates by 16 October.

Presidential candidates must secure endorsements from 20 MPs or 25,000 registered voters across at least 15 governorates, with a minimum of 1,000 endorsements from each governorate.

The NEA will announce the reason for any disqualifications on 22 October.

The final candidates list will be issued on 9 November.

Electoral silence will begin on 8 December in Egypt and on 29 November abroad.

The public electoral commission will finish counting ballots by 13 December.

The NEA will receive appeals against the decisions of the electoral commission on 14 December and rule on them on 15 and 16 December.

The ENA will announce the final result on 18 December if no run-off is required.

Run-off scenario

In case no candidate manages to obtain an absolute majority of valid votes, the two leading candidates will run for a second round of voting on 8-10 January 2024 nationwide and on 5-7 January abroad.

The winner of the run-off will be announced on 16 January.

In such a case, electoral campaigning will be allowed from 19 December 2023 till 4 January 2024 within the country and 7 January abroad.

The public electoral commission will finalize counting ballots by 11 January, with the NEA to receive the appeals on 12 January and rule on them on 13 and 14 January.

Polling stations nationwide will open their doors for voters from 9am to 9pm local time.

Expats will vote at Egyptian embassies and consulates from 9am to 9pm local time.

The election will be held under full judicial supervision.

According to Hamza, the timetable was determined in order to hold the election process before the end of the judicial supervision mandate, which is set to expire by 17 January 2024 as per the constitution.

Possible candidates

This will be the fourth presidential election since the 25 January uprising. The latest presidential election was held in 2018, resulting in Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi assuming office for a second term.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whose term ends in 2024, has not officially announced his intent to run for a third term, although several political parties have urged him to do so.

So far, seven political figures, including a woman, have revealed their plans to compete in the upcoming elections.

Last week, Gameela Ismail, chairwoman of the liberal Dostour (Constitution) Party, and Farid Zahran, chairman of the leftist Egyptian Social Democratic Party, announced their intentions to run.

The others are Abdel-Sanad Yamama, head of the Wafd Party; Fouad Badrawi, a former MP and member of the Wafd Party's Higher Council; Hazem Omar, head of the People's Republican Party; Ahmed El-Fadaly, chairman of the Democratic Peace Party; and Ahmed Tantawi, a former MP and former head of the leftist Al-Karama (Dignity) Party.

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Egypts Minister of Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates' Affairs Soha Gendy has urged all Egyptians living abroad to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election.

The Egyptian expats represent "a major pillar" in the coming election, Gendy said in a statement on Tuesday.

"I call upon all Egyptians living abroad who have the right to vote to participate in the upcoming presidential elections, as it is a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed to them by the constitution and the law," the statement cited the minister as saying.

The election process will stretch from 5 October to 18 December in case of no run-offs, the National Election Authority announced Monday.

Overseas voting is scheduled for 1-3 December, while voting at home is scheduled for 10-12 December.

Online voting is not allowed, Minister Gendy said, adding that the expats eligible to vote should head to polling stations in the Egyptian embassies and consulates to cast ballots.

The winner will be announced on 18 December if no run-off is required.

In case no candidate secures an absolute majority of valid votes, the two leading candidates will run for a second round of voting on 5-7 January abroad and on 8-10 January 2024 nationwide.

The winner of the run-off will be announced on 16 January.

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For Representative Purpose Only

Tamanna Gupta sought release on bail for 60 days to participate in her engagement & marriage ceremonies, citing fixed dates for these events

AHMEDABAD: The Special NIA court in Gujarat turned down the request for temporary bail made by Tamanna Gupta, a crucial accused in a high-profile Rs 500 crore heroin smuggling case. The plea was made to enable her participation in her engagement and impending marriage ceremonies. Tamanna Gupta, a resident of Amritsar, was transferred from Punjab to a Gujarat jail in March 2022 in connection with the said case. The accused has been detained for nearly three years in relation to the charges.

Tamanna Gupta's lawyer presented an affidavit from both her mother and fiance, asserting the need for her temporary release for the wedding events. The defense emphasized that she had been falsely implicated and that the National Investigation Agency had already filed a charge sheet in August 2022, suggesting that there was no further investigation pending. However, the prosecution countered by arguing that the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the CrPC do not allow for interim bail.

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Special Judge K D Dave, presiding over the case, stated, Interim bail is granted to the accused only on exigent grounds like death or medical emergency, whereas in the present case the applicant-accused has sought interim bail for engagement. The court upheld the serious nature of the charges against Gupta as a critical factor in the decision.

Notably, The heroin smuggling case implicates eight individuals, including Tamanna Gupta, who were charged last year. The drugs were discovered on a Pakistani boat named Al Madina off the coast of Jakhau in May 2021. Notably, in a previous case in 2020, Tamanna Gupta was convicted for her involvement in a drug seizure case in Punjab, further complicating her current legal predicament.
EGYPTS National Election Authority (NEA) held a press conference on Monday to announce the timetable for presidential elections, the third to be held in Egypt since the 25 January 2011 Revolution.

Elections will start on 1 December abroad and 10 December locally. Each will run for three days and be held under full judicial supervision, according to NEA head Walid Hamza.

Candidacy applications may be submitted from 5-14 October. Incomplete submissions will be disqualified, and an initial list of candidates announced by 16 October.

Presidential candidates are required to obtain endorsements from either 20 MPs or 25,000 registered voters across at least 15 governorates, with a minimum of 1,000 endorsements from each governorate.

A final list of candidates will be released on 9 November.

Local voting in the presidential elections will take place from 10-12 December. Egyptians abroad will be able to cast votes from 1-3 December. Campaigning will end abroad on 29 November, and on 8 December in Egypt.

Polling stations across the country will be open to voters from 9am to 9pm local time.

Expatriates can vote at Egyptian embassies and consulates from 9am to 9pm local time.

The Electoral Commission will complete the vote count by 13 December.

Appeals against Electoral Commission decisions will be accepted by the NEA on 14 December, with rulings issued on 15 and 16 December.

Should no candidate secure an absolute majority of valid votes, a runoff election will be held.

The top two candidates will participate in a second round of voting from 8-10 January in Egypt, and from 5-7 January abroad.

Runoff campaigning will be permitted from 19 December to 4 January 2024 in Egypt, and until 7 January abroad.

The Electoral Commission will complete the count of runoff ballots by 11 January, with the winner announced no later than 16 January.

President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisis term ends on 2 April 2024. He has not yet announced his candidacy for a third six-year term.

So far, seven political figures, including one woman, have declared their intentions to stand. They are Gamila Ismail, chair of Dostour Party; Farid Zahran, chair of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party; Abdel-Sanad Yamama, head of the Wafd Party; Fouad Badrawi, a former MP and member of the Wafd Partys Higher Council; Hazem Omar, head of the Peoples Republican Party; Ahmed Al-Fadali, chair of the Democratic Peace Party, and Ahmed Tantawi, a former MP and former head of the Karama Party.

The NEA, established in accordance with the 2014 constitution, is the independent body responsible for organising and overseeing elections. In June 2022, President Al-Sisi appointed veteran judge Walid Hamza to lead the NEA.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 September, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The Judgment follows a 2018 incident where the police discovered a significant quantity of heroin during a routine vehicle check

LUDHIANA: In a decisive legal ruling, the Ludhiana Additional Sessions Judge, Shivmohan Garg, has delivered a stern sentence of twenty years in prison to a couple found guilty of drug trafficking. The case dates back to November 26, 2018, when the police received a tip-off regarding a suspicious vehicle in the vicinity.

Responding swiftly, a police team intercepted the said vehicle during routine checks. Inside the vehicle were a man and a woman, whom the police subjected to thorough inspection. The ensuing search of the car led to the alarming discovery of 10 kg and 250 grams of heroin, a substantial quantity of illegal narcotics.

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Promptly, the police registered a case at the Motinagar police station and arrested the individuals. They identified themselves as Mohammad Arabi and Jamila Begum, residents of Jalalabad in Jammu and Kashmir, and were confirmed to be a married couple.

Notably, The court's verdict marks a decisive stance against drug trafficking, highlighting the severity of such offenses and underlining the need to combat the illegal drug trade effectively.
Massive Fire

Immediate Response Efforts Underway as Local Authorities and Health Teams Mobilize to Contain the Blaze

KURALI: A Devastating fire engulfed a chemical factory situated at the focal point of Kurali in the Mohali district, leaving eight individuals with severe burn injuries. The alarming incident has prompted a swift response from local authorities and healthcare teams to manage the situation and provide necessary medical aid.

As the fire broke out, it quickly spread, resulting in eight individuals sustaining significant burns. Among them, three victims with critical injuries were immediately referred to Mohali for urgent medical attention. The remaining five individuals were admitted to the nearby Kurali hospital for further treatment and care.

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In response to the emergency, healthcare teams from Ropar were dispatched to the site, joining forces with local authorities to combat the raging inferno. The blaze emitted dense plumes of smoke, casting a pall over the entire sky and raising concerns for the safety of the surrounding areas.

At present, a substantial force of 24 fire brigade vehicles is actively engaged in efforts to extinguish the fire. The chemical factory has become a source of worry due to its proximity to other industrial units, heightening the risk of a potential major accident if the fire were to spread.




Specialist insurer Hiscox Ltd (HSX.L), said on Wednesday that it has entered into an agreement to sell its motor insurance unit DirectAsia operating in Singapore and Thailand to Ignite Thailand Holdings Ltd, the parent of the Roojai group of companies.

The financial details of the transaction have not been divulged

The deal is expected to close by the end of 2023.

Currently, shares of Hiscox are trading at 1035 pence, down 0.10% on the London Stock Exchange.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Indian shares reversed early losses to end modestly higher on Wednesday, tracking gains in European and higher U.S. stock futures.

While concerns about a resurgent U.S. dollar and elevated bond yields served to keep underlying sentiment cautious, investors cheered data showing that industrial profits unexpectedly surged in top consumer China in August.

Also, China is expected to achieve economic growth of slightly more than 5 percent this year and there is no basis for the feared 'Japanification', an adviser to the central bank told an Economic Forum.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex ended the session up 173.22 points, or 0.26 percent, at 66,118.69 while the broader NSE Nifty index settled up 51.75 points, or 0.26 percent, at 19,716.45.

IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki India, Sun Pharma, ITC and Larsen & Toubro rallied 1-2 percent in the Sensex pack, while SBI and Titan Company both fell around 1 percent.

REC jumped 6.3 percent after it signed a pact with Punjab National Bank to fund power sector and infrastructure & logistics projects - possibly amounting to Rs 55,000 crore. PNB shares surged 2.8 percent.

Gravita India shares hit a record high on the back of heavy volumes before closing over 15 percent higher at Rs. 928.20.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Austria's manufacturing activity deteriorated at an accelerated pace in September as new orders declined the most in more than two years, data produced by S&P Global showed on Wednesday.

The UniCredit Bank Austria Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index dropped to 39.6 in August from 40.6 in the previous month. Any score below 50 indicates contraction in the sector.

Output fell for the sixteenth successive month in September, and the rate of contraction was quicker than the average over the current sequence of decline.

Lower production was mainly attributed to a sustained downturn in demand, with new orders falling at the sharpest rate since May 2020. The latest fall in new was linked to customer hesitancy, declining construction activity and a general economic slowdown.

Foreign demand also witnessed a sharp drop in September, especially weaker new work from Germany.

In September, backlogs of work in Austria's manufacturing industry decreased to their lowest level in nearly three and a half years.

There was a sharp decrease in factory employment as workloads fell and businesses became more pessimistic about the future. The pace of job shedding was the quickest since May 2020.

Goods producers also reduced their purchasing activity, a similar kind of decline last seen in the initial COVID wave in early 2020.

On the price front, input costs decreased further as firms reported negotiating improved terms with suppliers. Competition for new work also led to a further drop in average factory gate charges.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
President Joe Biden has said that the members of the United Auto Workers union who are on strike against three auto giants deserve the 40 percent pay hike that they are demanding.

He made this remark while joining the picket line in Wayne County, Michigan, on Tuesday.

Replying to a question after brief remarks to the workers who are on strike for a second week, Biden said, "Yes, I think they should be able to bargain for that."

Earlier, addressing the picketing workers, the pro-working class president said, "You saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble".

"You deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits," he added.

Thousands of UAW members at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis walked out on September 15, marking the beginning of a Stand Up Strike.

Their main demands include pay increases and cost of living adjustments, the end of a two-tiered wage structure, defined benefit pension plans for all, and a four-day workweek and more time off.

The UAW, which represents about 146,000 workers at the three major automobile manufacturing companies, proposed 40 percent hourly pay increases over the next four years.

The President's visit to the striking workers at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne is seen as part of an attempt to ensure the support of the labor union in Michigan, seen as a key presidential election battleground state.

It comes a day before former President Donald Trump's announced visit to Detroit to address union members, including from the UAW.

Biden's visit is described as "historic" as he is the first U.S. president to join strikers on a picket line.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Professor Justin Jonas and Professor Sizwe Mabizela with the Wild Plum Tree

By Anelisa Centani

Rhodes University recently celebrated its retiring staff members during a memorable tree-planting tradition held on campus. Among them was Professor Justin Jonas, referred to by Dr Bernie Faranoff as the spiritual guru of the SKA. Prof Jonas first enrolled as a student at Rhodes University in 1976.

Mr Schalk van der Merwe, the Human Resources Manager for Learning and Development, extended his well wishes for a healthy and enjoyable retirement to all the retirees.

Professor Sizwe Mabizela, the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University, expressed gratitude to the retirees for their many years of dedicated service to the University. Thank you all for serving Rhodes University with great honour for so long. You have seen this university change over time and, in the process, made your own unique contribution to make this university great, he said. Concluding his heartfelt speech, Prof Mabizela stated, "We will continue to lead your knowledge and expertise to mentor young staff members. As you begin this chapter of your lives, please remain in touch with our university, and you'll always be one of us.

Prof Jonas had the privilege of unveiling the Wild Plum Tree plaque in recognition of his remarkable 43-year tenure, the longest among all the retirees. On behalf of the other retirees, in his emotional speech, he thanked the Vice-Chancellor and the University for celebrating collective years of partnership. "We hope that we have made a positive and lasting contribution to the University through diverse employee roles. Although it is said that no person is irreplaceable, we hope that our unique personal qualities and attributes will be missed by our colleagues and the University as a whole," he said.

This years retirees are:
The highest contributor to 500cc+ motorcycles sales for the month of August 2023, was Royal Enfield with 85% market share

Big bike sales are one of the lowest in India. This segment includes 500cc+ motorcycles that usually cost a lot. However, Royal Enfields 650cc platform plays the affordability card very well and absolutely dominates this segment. Royal Enfield enjoyed an impressive 85% market share in this segment in August 2023.

500cc+ Motorcycles Sales  Super Meteor 650 tops the charts!

Royal Enfields newest Super Meteor 650 has topped last months charts with 1,104 units sold. It commands a 56.59% market share. Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 used to dominate this space. With the launch of Super Meteor 650 with slightly premium componentry, 650 Twins saw just 550 takers.

Compared to 1,388 units sold in August 2022, 650 Twins registered a 60.37% YoY decline, losing 828 units in volume. 650 Twins now hold just 28.19% market share. After the affordable big bikes, Triumph Street Triple has seen the highest sales with 166 units sold last month.

As opposed to just 17 units sold last year, Speed Triple saw 876.47% YoY growth, the highest in this list. Speed Triple gained 149 units in volume YoY. Kawasaki sold 30 units of Ninja 650 and Z900 last month. Where Ninja 650 doubled its numbers YoY with 100% growth, Z900s numbers went down by 26.83% YoY.

Kawasaki Versys 650 is the last motorcycle in this list to have double digit sales. With 19 units sold, Kawasaki Versys becomes the highest-selling ADV in this list. As opposed to 23 units sold a year ago, Versys 650 saw a 17.39% YoY decline. Harley-Davidson Fat Boy 114 is the best-seller for the iconic American brand in India.

Motorcycles with single digit sales

Fat Boy 114 sold 7 units and saw 40% YoY growth as it gained 2 units in volume YoY. Triumph Speed Twin 900 and Kawasaki Versys 1000 sold 5 units each. Where Versys 1000 maintained its numbers YoY, Speed Twin saw a 16.67% YoY decline. Kawasaki Vulcan S, Z H2 and Triumph Rocket III all sold 4 units each last month.

There was no positive growth to report with all three motorcycles. Triumph Speed Twin 1200 is the only motorcycle on this list to sell 3 units. It registered a 66.67% YoY decline. Triumph Trident 660, Kawasaki Z900 RS, Harley-Davidson Sportster S, Fat Bob and Heritage Classic sold 2 units each. Only Heritage Classic showed positive growth of 100% YoY, with 1 unit gained in volume.

Kawasaki Z650 RS, Triumph Street Scrambler, Bonneville Bobber, Bonneville T120, Bonneville Speedmaster, Harley-Davidson Pan America, Nightster, Road Glide, Road King, Street Glide all sold 1 unit each.

Suzuki Hayabusa, V-Strom 650, Katana, Honda CBR 650R, Goldwing, Triumph Tiger 660, Tiger 900, Tiger 1200, Bonneville T100, Speed Triple, Harley-Davidson 883 Iron, Street Bob, Standard and Kawasaki Z650 didnt manage to sell last month.

In total, 500cc+ motorcycle sales accounted for 1,951 units. As opposed to 1,680 units sodl in August 2022, this segment registered 16.13% YoY growth and saw 271 units gained in volume YoY. Royal Enfield was the highest contributor to this space and bike bike juggernauts like Honda and Suzuki didnt see any sales at all.
Mahindra Scorpio did not have any airbags installed  Claims owner of the SUV

In a significant development, an FIR (First Information Report) has been filed against Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra Group, along with 12 other individuals in Kanpur. The filing comes in the wake of allegations pertaining to false assurances regarding the safety features of Mahindra vehicles. The complainant, Rajesh Mishra, is the father of the late Dr. Apoorv Mishra, who lost his life in a tragic car accident involving a Mahindra Scorpio.

Scorpio Owner Files FIR Against Anand Mahindra

Rajesh Mishras grievance, as detailed in the FIR, revolves around his purchase of a black Mahindra Scorpio valued at approximately Rs 17.40 lakh. He made this purchase in good faith, trusting the companys extensive claims regarding the cars features and safety, as conveyed through advertising and social media promotions by none other than Anand Mahindra himself. The vehicle was intended as a gift for his only son, Apoorv Mishra.

The unfortunate accident occurred on January 14, 2022, as Dr. Apoorv and his companions were returning to Kanpur from Lucknow. Despite all occupants diligently fastening their seat belts, the car collided with a divider due to reduced visibility caused by thick fog. Subsequently, the vehicle overturned multiple times, resulting in the tragic loss of Apoorv Mishras life right at the accident scene.

In his FIR, Rajesh Mishra contends that, had it not been for the assurances provided by the car dealership and the company in their advertisements, he would never have made the purchase. The complaint further alleges that, despite everyone wearing seat belts, the cars airbags failed to deploy, directly contributing to the devastating loss of his sons life. The FIR also claims that Mishra subsequently learned, through undisclosed sources, that the vehicle did not, in fact, possess the airbags as claimed.

Taking legal recourse, Mishra approached a local court, which has led to the registration of the FIR against Mahindra Chairman Anand Gopal Mahindra and 12 others. The charges encompass several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including Section 420 (cheating), 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery), 304-A (causing death by negligence), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 102-B (criminal intimidation).

Mahindra Responds  Update

Mahindra has issued an official statement in response to an FIR (First Information Report) filed on September 23, 2023, which pertains to a car accident incident dating back to January 2022. The case centers on allegations that a Mahindra Scorpio had no airbags, leading to a fatality. The companys spokesperson provided clarification regarding the incident and the subsequent legal proceedings.

In their official statement, Mahindra emphasized that the incident in question is over 18 months old, having occurred in January 2022. The company acknowledged the allegations concerning the absence of airbags in the vehicle but sought to categorically reaffirm that the Scorpio S9 variant manufactured in 2020 did, in fact, include airbags as part of its safety features. Furthermore, the company stated that their internal investigation had found no evidence of airbag malfunction, and they pointed out that in rollover cases like the one mentioned, the frontal airbags typically do not deploy as per design standards.

Mahindra shared that they had undertaken a detailed technical investigation, completed by their expert teams in October 2022, to comprehensively examine the incident and the functionality of the vehicles safety systems. The statement noted that the matter is presently sub judice, indicating that it is currently before the courts for adjudication. Mahindra expressed their unwavering commitment to fully cooperate with the authorities for any further investigations that may be required. The company also conveyed their deepest condolences to the grieving family, demonstrating empathy for their loss.
Written By

Managing Editor

she/her | Bridget is the Messengers managing editor. She oversees the newsroom and covers the Maple Run Unified School District and education at large. She also pays attention to recreation, food and the arts and is an avid cyclist and skier.

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Kenan Pala, 13, of Rancho Bernardo with some of the Christmas stockings stuffed with donated toys and personal items Sunday by volunteers with his nonprofit group Kids 4 Community.

As the son of successful entrepreneurs, 13-year-old Kenan Pala was born with a head for creative problem-solving. Fortunately for San Diegos homeless community, his head has been focused for the past few years on making their lives better.

Pala is the founder of Kids 4 Community, a youth-focused volunteer organization that meets regularly to provide meal service and assemble hygiene kits, care packages and, this month, Christmas stockings for the needy. In May, he was one of 10 youth volunteers in America to receive the 2017 Prudential Spirit of Community Award.

K.P. is an amazing kid, said Greg Anglea, CEO of Interfaith Community Services in Escondido. I joke that hes going to take over the world someday. Its a good thing hes on the side of good.

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Kenan, an 8th-grader at Francis Parker School in San Diego, is the eldest son of Serhat Pala and Zeynep Ilgaz, who immigrated from their native Turkey in 1998. The couple earned their MBAs together at San Diego State University, then Serhat started several entrepreneurial businesses before he and his wife co-founded Confirm Biosciences in Scripps Ranch in 2008. Ilgaz said giving back to their adopted country has always been a priority for her family.

Were your typical immigrant story. We came here with no money, got our degrees together and then worked hard like anybody else, she said. We got a lot of help along the way, especially from the San Diego community, and always felt like if there was a way we could give back, we would do that, and our children would do the same.

Since he was in kindergarten, Kenan said hes been volunteering alongside his parents serving dinners to the homeless at local shelters.

Its been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, he said. Seeing those people at the shelters made me really grateful for the great life I have. It was also a call to action for me to volunteer more and help these people get out of their situation.

Kenan Pala, 13, of Rancho Bernardo sorts through Christmas stocking-stuffer donations at a Kids 4 Community event on Dec. 3 in Scripps Ranch. (Nancee E. Lewis / San Diego Union-Tribune )

Kenan and his brother Arden, a third-grader, set aside 10 percent of their weekly allowance for charity. His parents do the same with their salaries, and they donate 5 percent of their company sales to SDSU and other schools.

But it was an experience on a day trip last year that spurred Kenan to dramatically ramp up his homeless outreach. That day, he saw a large crowd trying to rescue a seal pup on the beach. But on his car ride home, he saw people walking by a homeless man, ignoring his pleas for help.

I sat in the car thinking about why a sick baby seal was surrounded by concerned citizens while a hungry homeless man was receiving no help, he said.

With his parents help, he started Kids 4 Community and has since enlisted the help of friends, family and his classmates at Francis Parker. On campus last year, he led a drive that collected 6,000 boxes of cereal for local soup kitchens. The students assembled 4,000 empty cereal boxes on the schools gymnasium floor, a feat that set the Guinness World Record as the largest cardboard box mosaic.

Kevin Dunn, director of community engagement at Francis Parker School, said Kenan is a natural leader and an articulate speaker whos always front and center at the events he organizes.

The students all respect him and look to him as an expert in the field, Dunn said. This school does a great job of developing young leaders, but they get it from their parents and Kenans mom and dad are great role models.

Kenan said his family keeps a calendar by the dinner table to keep track of the events they plan, and he and his parents use multiple computers to plan logistics, secure donations for supplies and do outreach for volunteers.

Using social media to plan events, they gather 200 to 300 volunteers every month or two at the Confirm Biosciences offices to pack items for the needy. Over the past year, theyve raised more than $5,000 in cash donations, assembled more than 5,000 hygiene kits, sent 2,500 care packages to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and Mexico, made more than 3,000 brown-bag lunches for local homeless shelters and adopted more than 100 families to help with basic needs.

This past Sunday , several hundred volunteers filled 2,000 stockings with donated toys and personal items for families assisted by Interfaith Community Services. Kenan also leads a group of volunteers who serve dinners at Interfaiths homeless shelter, Haven House.

Hes very down to earth and enjoys getting to interact with people directly, said Anglea with Interfaith. I think he appreciates the opportunity to help people face to face, not just provide a warm meal, but also a friendly smile. Hes just a remarkable young man.

In November, Anglea presented Kenan with one of the North County Philanthropy Councils Volunteer of the Year awards.

When hes not doing charity work, Kenan said he enjoys running triathlons and playing guitar. Hes also the founder of an entrepreneurship club at his school. After high school, he said hed like to attend Stanford University and start his own company where he can use his profits to one day end homelessness and other social problems.

It may seem an unrealistic goal but Dunn, at Francis Parker School, said the sky could be the limit for Kenan.

If he doesnt become a humanitarian, hell dedicate a lot of his life and his companys proceeds to those causes, Dunn said. Hes going to have a lot of doors open up for him and will stay centered and honor the values his family has instilled in him.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Chinese, European firms' expansion of cooperation key to stabilizing global supply chain

Xinhua) 08:18, September 27, 2023

FRANKFURT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- "We made the right option to partner with a Chinese company, which guarantees trustworthy quality and prompt supply!" said Jacob Borgesius, CEO of Dutch company Alp Lift, when receiving goods from his Chinese supplier Chenli.

"After Chenli's CEO came to the Netherlands to meet us last year and inked a deal, we have now received five order deliveries," said Borgesius. "So I'm really happy with the flexibility in production, and with the timing of our Chinese partners."

Numerous companies have partaken in trade delegations to Europe organized by Chinese provinces and cities to explore business opportunities.

The open and positive mindset of these trade delegations has boosted European companies' confidence in their development in China. Several multinational companies are actively transitioning from a "in China for China" approach to a more global perspective.

This photo taken on June 12, 2023 shows a worker assembling vehicles at the general assembly line of FAW-Volkswagen in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province. (Xinhua/Yan Linyun)

ORDERS FROM OVERSEAS

Since the end of last year, several Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade delegations to Europe to draw investment and expand markets in the face of obstacles posed by slow global economic development and weak demand.

Along with government personnel, many business leaders participated in these trade delegations with a strong desire to engage with their international partners and gain insights into the global business landscape.

"We must adopt a proactive approach and seek business opportunities abroad because opportunities rarely come knocking if we merely stay passive at home," said Li Chendao, chairman of Foshan Juyang New Energy Co., Ltd. This sentiment resonates with many other Chinese enterprises.

After Foshan Juyang's representatives visited its overseas customers as part of a business delegation last November, the company delivered three orders to its Polish customers and two orders to its German customers.

"The trust between us and our customers has deepened, and some customers will pay tens of thousands of dollars in advance as a deposit to confirm their intention to cooperate," Li said.

After nearly three years of online meetings, Borgesius eventually met Chenli's CEO Liu Aijun in person when Liu traveled in December to Europe as a member of a delegation from Jiangsu Province.

"Talking face to face allows for better communication and understanding of the other person," Borgesius said, adding that the meeting made him more confident about working with Chenli. "We hit it off right away at the meeting and signed a 530,000-U.S.-dollar order on the spot."

Borgesius is also planning a trip to China as he wants to "go to China to see the production, to meet the people and to further strengthen the cooperative relationship."

People visit the booth of ZF during the 2023 International Motor Show, officially known as the IAA MOBILITY 2023, in Munich, Germany, Sept. 5, 2023. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

DRAWING PROJECTS TO CHINA

Numerous Chinese trade delegations have engaged in discussions with local chambers of commerce and companies, with the aim of enhancing and endorsing the local business environment as well as attracting high-caliber projects for China.

An example is the partnership between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and China's Chengdu city led to the establishment of Airbus' first aircraft lifecycle service facility outside Europe.

The service center, which will commence operations early next year, is described as a key milestone in Airbus' cooperation with China as its footprint in the country has been expanded to cover the entire industrial chain and strengthen the local aviation industry in aftermarket services, noted the manufacturer's press release.

"Expanding our presence in the Chinese market provides us with the opportunity to discover additional avenues for growth," said Brian Agnew, general manager of Airbus Lifecycle Services, adding that the Chengdu project is driving Airbus to expedite the development of localized services, benefiting not only Chinese customers but also global clients.

Bosch, a leading German engineering and technology company, received a delegation from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province last December.

"The positive signal sent by the Wuxi delegation to Europe further enhanced our confidence in investment and long-term development in China," the company told Xinhua.

Following the meeting in Europe, Bosch representatives also came to China to continue exploring cooperation opportunities. In March, Bosch signed a strategic agreement with Wuxi to promote the development of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles.

Nowadays, components manufactured at Bosch's Wuxi facility are being utilized in the production of fuel-cell power modules in China and actively contributed to the low-carbon development of the local automotive industry.

Luo Hongxing (L), the overseas marketing director of Foshan Juyang New Energy Co., Ltd., discusses business with overseas customers during a trade delegation's visit to Europe, on Nov. 24, 2022. (Xinhua)

"IN CHINA FOR THE GLOBAL"

Several international firms are leveraging the favorable Chinese market conditions and fostering development in China, which has contributed to stabilization of the global supply chain and the expansion of cooperation.

"What does it mean to 'rely on China'? Let's look at the market size of China and you will want to have a certain share," said Holger Klein, CEO of German auto parts and components supplier ZF Group, noting that the company has launched several new projects in five Chinese cities this year.

Faced with global economic and industrial transformations, ZF China collaborated with the global team to ensure stability in the supply chain and operations, Klein noted.

More German companies are opting to relocate their industries to China after the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the continued reliability of the Chinese market and supply chain, said Jens Hildebrandt, executive director and board member of the German Chamber of Commerce in China -- North China.

Currently, an increasing number of multinational corporations are intensifying their efforts to localize research and development activities in China, transitioning from the "in China for China" approach to the "in China for the global" strategy.

As a pacemaker in the technology sector, China shows what will happen in the next 10 years around the world, which represents "a big opportunity, especially with our strong connection with our Chinese partners," said Oliver Blume, chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group.

Cooperation with China means more opportunities than threats, boosts Volkswagen's business across the world and makes the company even stronger, Blume added.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
AAoM has built a world-class team of experienced advocates and professionals to support people on the autism spectrum and identify pathways and bring light to the challenges they face.

The Mobile Health Unit made stops in Houghton, Allouez, and Marquette.

Jaime Zavier, AAoM outreach manager.

The Autism Alliance of Michigan (AAoM) team traveled to Michigans western Upper Peninsula to provide free trainings and health care services.

Robin Meneguzzo, executive director, Keweenaw Area Community Foundation

Autism-informed staff provided community members t flu shots and health screenings.

Belinda Lee, AAoM outreach and engagement specialist.
Home-based early childhood educators are essential to Michigan's childcare and preschool landscape.

Jametta Lilly, president and CEO, Detroit Parent Network.

Trisha Dart reads a story to a child in her home-based preschool.

It doesn't matter that we are in our homes ... We're educators and vital to early childhood education." Trisha Dart

This is our opportunity to make sure that we create a system that is equitable for our youngest children." Jametta Lilly
Agricultural biological specialist Plant Health Care reported a slight growth in overall first-half revenue of 1% on Wednesday, to $5.6m.

The AIM-traded company noted significant growth in Brazil, with a 48% increase in revenue, attributed to heightened in-market demands for H2Copla, which saw a 29% increase, and Saori, which went up 38%.

Mexico also showcased a positive trajectory with a 12% uptick in revenue, while European sales remained constant.

In the US, a strategy by distributors to lower inventories in a declining market led to a postponement of purchases for all agricultural products during the period.

That resulted in a 56% decrease in US sales.

Nonetheless, the resulting low inventory indicated a potential boost in sales for the second half.

Additionally, direct customer sales in the agricultural fields showed positive momentum, with Employ sales growing by 35% and FASTAND by 9%.

Operational expenses for the company rose 33% to $2.8m, down to higher trade receivables and a dip in accounts payable, although there was a noted improvement in inventory.

Historically, the company's operational costs in the first half of the year exceed those of the second half.

The group successfully raised $3.3m after expenses in June.

As of 30 June, cash in hand totalled $5.7m, a slight drop from $6.3m in 2022.

Plant Health Care anticipated a robust second half, with significant revenue growth expected.

The company said it expected to align with market expectations by the end of the year and was also on course to achieve a revenue benchmark of $30m by 2025.

That ambitious target was fuelled by the continued success of HarpinaB and the introduction of innovative peptides.

Market conditions in the first half have been very challenging for traditional agricultural input businesses, with most large companies reporting a significant revenue reduction, said chief executive officer Jeff Tweedy.

The US has been particularly difficult, with all distributors sharply reducing inventory to reduce the impact of price volatility and slow demand.

Most agribusiness companies saw a significant revenue decline in the first half of 2023 compared to last year.

In that context, Tweedy said growth outside the US allowed the group to grow revenue marginally, adding that profit margins were importantly maintained.

Strong on-ground sales growth in our core markets gives us confidence in robust revenue growth in the second half.

The group's first-half performance was driven by the growing demand for HarpinaB and Saori in Brazil.

The Brazilian market for Saori is significant, with potential for $10m in revenue.

Tweedy said the company expected a solid second-half revenue performance, underpinning the group's target to deliver $30m in revenue in 2025.

The group continues to register new products - we received the first PREtec approval from the US EPA, with the product being marketed under the brand name OBRONA.

With the launch of PREzym and OBRONA, we now market PREtec on three continents, which is a significant accomplishment.

We plan to launch new PREtec products for the next three years; our strategy of expanding relationships with major global distribution partners is on track.

Jeff Tweedy also noted that during the year's first half, the firm signed a new agreement with Novozymes in India and a new commercial deal for OBRONA with Wilbur-Ellis.

There continues to be strong demand and interest in our products; the world has an ever-increasing need for more food, with sustainable agriculture at the heart of meeting this need.

Farmers face many challenges, including the impacts of climate change such as drought, to ensure food security.

Plant Health Care helps farmers solve these problems.

At 1050 BST, shares in Plant Health Care were down 14.76% at 7.39p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
Biotherapeutics company PureTech Health , which develops medicines to treat serious diseases, has appointed the boss of Arix Bioscience as its new chief portfolio officer.

Robert Lyne, who has a decade of experience in international life science deals and portfolio management, along with governance and executive team leadership experience, will join the company in January 2024.

"We are excited to welcome Rob to our management team and pleased to add a dedicated presence representing our senior leadership team in the UK as we work to deliver impactful new treatments for patients," said Daphne Zohar, PureTech's founder and chief executive.

Lyne joins the group from Arix Bioscience, a venture capital firm that invests in innovative biotech companies, where he served as general council and chief operating officer before becoming chief executive in 2021. He began his career as a lawyer.

Zohar said: "[Lyne's] extensive legal, operational and UK listed IP commercialization experience is complementary to PureTech's own hub-and-spoke business model. We are looking forward to working together closely as we realize the full potential of both our Wholly Owned Programs and Founded Entity stakes and royalties."
The US Department of Justice has reportedly stepped up its probe into Credit Suisse and UBS over suspected compliance failures that allowed Russian clients to evade sanctions.

Bloomberg cited people familiar with the situation as saying that what began as a series of subpoenas sent to a range of banks early this year has developed into a full-scale investigation focusing on Credit Suisse.

It was understood that the DOJ has briefed US-based lawyers for UBS about Credit Suisses alleged exposure to sanctions violations since UBS acquired its smaller rival in June.

The DOJ is also looking into possible compliance failures at UBS, one source told Bloomberg.

The probe is still at an early stage and may not result in charges or a settlement.

The DOJ has reportedly asked for information about how the banks handled the accounts of sanctioned clients over the past several years but has not requested interviews with executives or staff yet. The probe covers both restrictions imposed after Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and previous rounds put in place following its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The government has approved the development of Rosebank, the UKs largest untapped oil field, sending shares in its operators higher.

The development of the field, 130km north west of Shetland in the North Sea, is opposed by environmentalists.

Last month a cross-party group of MPs and peers wrote to then energy secretary Grant Shapps, urging him to block the move. They claimed Rosebank could produce 200m tonnes of carbon dioxide, with taxpayers shouldering much of the development costs.

But announcing the governments decision on Wednesday, new energy secretary Claire Coutinho said it "makes sense" to use oil and gas from North Sea fields such as Rosebank.

She continued: "We will continue to back the UKs oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy."

London-listed Ithaca Energy - which owns a 20% working interest in the field - said it and majority operator Equinor, the Oslo-based energy firm, would initially invest $3.8bn in the development.

The project is expected to create around 1,600 jobs during the construction phase, and 450 positions long term.

Recoverable resources are estimated at around 300m barrels of oil from phase 1 and phase 2, with phase 1 targeting 245m barrels of oil.

Ithaca said that in total, the project is expected to lead to around 8.1bn of total direct investment.

Gilad Myerson, executive chair, said: "We are now poised to embark on a journey that will not only provide critically important domestic energy but also ignite substantial economic impact.

"The Rosebank project will create thousands of jobs and contribute significantly to securing the UKs energy needs for many years to come."

However, Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, called the decision "the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime".

She continued: "This is morally obscene. It wont improve energy security or lower bills, but it will shatter our climate commitments and demolish global leadership."

As at 0930 BST, shares in Ithaca were trading 8% higher at 177p, while Norway-listed Equinor was ahead 1%.

Production is expected to begin in 2026/27.
Bid target Pendragon on Wednesday reported an 10% increase in underlying first-half profits as it received yet another takeover offer  this time from US car retail giant AutoNation.

The company just two weeks ago agreed a 250m sale of its UK car dealerships to US group Lithia Motors, after which it would formerly rebrand as Pinewood Technologies, a listed company focused exclusively on dealer management software. It also signed a partnership with Lithia to accelerate Pinewood's growth across North America.

Since then, it has received unsolicited proposals from a number of parties to counter that deal: firstly, Hedin Mobility and Penske jointly offered 28p per share, which was swiftly increased to 32p after being rejected by the board; then late on Tuesday, AutoNation matched that offer. The offers value Pendragon's entire business at 447m.

Adding more complexity to the story, Pendragon's chief executive Bill Berman spent over two decades at AutoNation, most recently as president and chief operating officer (until 2017).

Meanwhile, Hedin had previously offered 400m to take over the whole business last year but the deal collapsed in December 2022 after the buyer cited "challenging market conditions".

Pendragon's board said it is still considering both new proposals and will consult with shareholders.

In the six months to 30 June, the company delivered sales of 2.09bn, up 13.2% year-on-year, with "broad-based growth" across all divisions. Underlying pre-tax profit rose 9.6% to 36.7m.

The Pinewood division, which currently only accounts of a small fraction of the Pendragon business, saw revenues jump 16.9% to 14.5m, as total users rose 7% to 32,800 and recurring revenue per user rose 7%.

Pendragon's stock was up 10% at 32.73p by 0830 BST, having risen by 72% over the past month alone.
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The captains of the Indian industry want the USA to expedite the issuance of visas to businessmen who want to visit America to explore opportunities for trade and investments. The request was made by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce national president Lalit Bhasin at a flagship event held to promote trade and investment between the two countries in Delhi. The US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, was the chief guest at the event.

Bhasin said that Indian businessmen who want to visit the US for trade and investment opportunities were facing huge delays in getting visas and requested Ambassador Garcetti to help in ensuring quicker action in the matter. Addressing the 20th Indo-US Economic Summit, Garcetti acknowledged that Indo-US economic ties had strengthened over the years and there was a two-way flow of both trade and investments between the two countries from which both were benefiting in terms of more job creation and incomes.

Underlining the importance of Indian companies investing in the US, Garcetti pointed out that at a recent conference organized in the US for promoting foreign investment , the Indian business delegation turned out to be the largest, with as many as 210 private companies coming to participate. The US Ambassador said that India and the US should set the goal of having a frictionless relationship that will add to the prosperity, not only of the two countries but the world as a whole.

He enunciated the need for the 4Ps that were required to make a better world and that countries should strive for. The first is peace all around. The second was prosperity which will come through strengthening economic ties, which would create a bigger pie that could be distributed among the people. The third was a planet for which there was a need to fight climate change so that a better future could be secured for our children and grandchildren.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If youre looking to fulfill your daily dose of Vitamin C, dont count on finding it at Starbucks. A new class-action lawsuit claims there is actually no fruit in the coffee giants popular Refresher drinks and accuses the company of misleading consumers with the promise of strawberry, acai, mango, dragonfruit and more.

According to Food & Wine magazine, a judge recently gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit alleging that six of the dozen Refreshers on the Starbucks menu dont actually contain the fruits that are promised  or at least referenced  in their name.

Plaintiffs Joan Kominis and Jason McAllister claim they ordered a Strawberry Acai Lemonade Refresher and a Strawberry Acai Refresher, respectively, and were distressed to learn that the drinks did not contain any actual acai, the publication noted. In their legal filing, the couple also alleges that the chains Mango Dragonfruit-based Refreshers dont include any mango, and the Pineapple Passionfruit Refreshers are passionfruit-free.

Instead, the drinks are allegedly a blend of the other named fruits, along with water, grape juice concentrate and sugar.

These missing fruit juices are important to consumers, because they are premium ingredients, and consumers value them over the less nutritious and cheaper grape juice concentrate found in the products, the legal filing stated.

Starbucks has argued that the names of its Refreshers accurately describe the flavors, as opposed to the ingredients of the products, Food & Wine noted. The company also said that if customers were confused or had questions, they could get all the fruit-related facts from its baristas.

But U.S. District Judge John Cronan disagreed and has allowed nine of the 11 claims in the lawsuit to go forward. [The] Court ultimately determines that a significant portion of reasonable consumers could find it misleading, Cronan stated in a legal document last week.

The two plaintiffs are seeking damages in excess of $5 million. In a statement to Reuters, Starbucks decried the allegations as inaccurate and without merit, adding that the company looked forward to defending ourselves against these claims.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Hot or iced? It doesnt really matter, especially if its free. And on Friday, in honor of National Coffee Day, cups of sweet, aromatic caffeine are on the house at many of the nations top beverage chains. Want to capitalize on this offer? Heres a look at where you can snap up the freebies and discounted goods right here on Staten Island:

Dunkin: DD Perks members can get a free medium hot or iced coffee with any purchase. Just scan your Loyalty ID at checkout. And in case you miss this deal on Friday, Dunkin customers can also score a free medium hot or iced coffee every Monday in September and October as part of the chains Free Coffee Mondays promotion.

Krispy Kreme: On Friday, all guests can receive a free medium hot or iced coffee at Krispy Kreme, no purchase necessary. The chain is sweetening the deal by offering guests a $2 Original Glazed Dozen with the purchase of any dozen.

Tim Hortons: This chain is not giving away free coffee on Friday, but it is launching a limited-edition line of merch. The Coffee Crews collection, which features clothing inspired by five of the most iconic coffee orders from Tims -- Black Coffee, Double Double, Iced Capp, Latte and Cold Brew  will only be available for purchase on National Coffee Day via the Tim Hortons app.

McDonalds: Any size iced coffee or premium roast will be 99 cents when you download the offer in the McDonalds app. Some rewards members will find an offer for a free coffee with a minimum $2 purchase.

Wendys: The burger chain is offering 99-cent hot or cold small coffee all day on Friday. Redeem the deal in the the Offers section in the app Rewards Store or on the website.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A U.S. Air National Guard member accused of killing his girlfriend and the two children they shared in 2019 in their South Beach home pled guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George Tuesday.

Shane Walker pled guilty to three counts of murder in the 2nd degree for the killings of United States Air National Guard Airman 1st Class Alla Ausheva, 3-year-old Ella and 2-year-old Ivan. Walker faces a sentence of 40 years to life in prison when sentenced on Oct. 25.

In 2019, Walker, who had violated an order of protection that barred him from going near Elia and Ivan, started a fire inside the couples Palisade Street home when he knew that Ausheva and the children were inside.

Ausheva was later found on her bed with severe head trauma and the bodies of her drowned children lying nearby.

Today we are proud to announce closure of one of the Islands most tragic murder cases and justice for the mother and her two little children whose lives were so brutally cut short, said D.A. Michael E. McMahon. On June 22, 2019, Shane Walker savagely murdered United States Air National Guard Airman 1st Class Alla Ausheva and the two children they shared, 3-year-old Ella and 2-year-old Ivan, inside their home.

He will spend the next 40 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder in the second degree. Walkers unthinkable, monstrous, and depraved actions on that day robbed three innocent Staten Islanders of their future and left family, friends and neighbors stricken with unimaginable grief, both here and in Allas hometown in Russia, from where she emigrated to pursue the American dream and join our nations armed forces.

McMahon went on to praise the unrelenting investigative work by the NYPD and passionate, diligent and professional preparation of the case by Assistant District Attorneys Lisa Davis and Antonia Assenso.

It is our sincere hope that Walker has spent his last day as a free man, and that this four-decade-plus sentence brings some semblance of peace to Allas parents, Anatolii and Marina. and all who loved her, Ivan, and Ella, McMahon said. May the victims in this case now, finally, rest in peace.
Libya's eastern-based government announced Wednesday the creation of a fund for the reconstruction of Derna, weeks after it was hit by a devastating flood that swept thousands out to sea.

Although not recognized internationally, the eastern government also confirmed in a statement that it would host an "international conference" on October 10 to aid the port city's reconstruction.

It had initially called on the entire "international community" to participate, but on Wednesday it said the conference would "open the door for international companies to present the best-suited projects for the city's nature and terrain".

In its statement, the eastern administration said it had "approved the creation of a reconstruction fund for the city of Derna" and other areas affected by the September 10 flooding.

It did not indicate how the new fund would be financed, but Libya's House of Representatives, also based in the east, has already allocated 10 million dinars ($2 million) for reconstruction.

According to the latest toll announced by the eastern authorities on Tuesday, at least 3,893 people died in the disaster. International aid groups have said 10,000 or more people may be missing.

Libya has been wracked by division since a NATO-backed uprising toppled then killed veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

The North African country is now divided between an internationally recognized Tripoli-based administration in the west, and the one in the flood-stricken east backed by military General Khalifa Haftar.

Despite a wave of nationwide solidarity since the flood, there has been no show of support for the proposed conference from the Tripoli-based government of interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, said that "institutionally" the eastern government "does not exist because it is not internationally recognized".

It is therefore "unlikely that countries will give money to the east", he said, adding that "in all likelihood, the money must go through Tripoli".

He suggested that Dbeibah may seek to take advantage of the tragedy to unblock Libya's foreign assets and investments that have been frozen by the United Nations for over a decade to prevent their theft following the uprising.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  An individual allegedly assaulted a bank worker after his transaction was denied in Stapleton on Tuesday afternoon.

Police are investigating whether the individual fled in a stolen car, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

The incident occurred around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday at 577 Bay St., according to a spokesman for the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

Citibank is located at the address supplied by police.

The victim is a 52-year-old woman, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

An individual entered the bank to cash a check but allegedly became irate after he was told that he could not deposit more than $5,000 at one time, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

The individual allegedly struck the victim in her left hand, causing pain and redness, according to the police spokesman.

Police described the individual sought for questioning as a male standing about 55 tall and weighing about 180 pounds who fled in a vehicle, possibly a blue BMW that previously was reported stolen on Sept. 25.

A police spokesman on Wednesday was unable to provide any information about the alleged theft of the vehicle.

Emergency radio communications indicated that the car was tracked crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge on Tuesday. Police were searching for the car on the Staten Island Expressway, the West Shore Expressway and near all of the bridges on our borough in the afternoon.

No arrests have been made and the incident remains under investigation, according to the police spokesman.

Police responded to a report of an alleged assault at a Citibank at 577 Bay St. in Stapleton on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 26, 2023. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)

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OTHER STATEN ISLAND NEWS:

>> NYPD: Raid nets drugs at Staten Island home of felon previously convicted in narcotics ring

>> Cops release photos of cars theyre looking for in connection with shots fired on Staten Island

>> NYPD touts gun arrest at fight involving teens on Staten Island

>> New drug treatment touts dramatic reduction in overdoses on Staten Island

>> NYPD: Man, 21, arrested in fatal shooting of store owner during attempted robbery on Staten Island

>> NYPD detective arrested in domestic dispute on Staten Island

>> NYPD investigating threats in letters targeting Staten Island school: Sources

>> NYPD officer injured by vehicle fleeing from car stop on Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Police raided a home in Dongan Hills and allege they seized heroin and cocaine from a 55-year-old man who previously served time in federal prison as part of a narcotics-trafficking ring on Staten Island.

Officers armed with a search warrant swarmed the home of Michael Calabria on Evergreen Avenue on Sept. 14 at about 7:20 a.m., according to the criminal complaint, which was based on an investigation by Narcotics Borough Staten Island.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Target will close nine retail locations across the U.S., citing retail thefts hurting business and safety concerns for its employees.

In New York, the companys East Harlem location is set to close next month, along with stores in San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

In making the announcement Tuesday, Targets chief executive, Brian Cornell, said that the company continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime, the New York Times reported.

He added that in the first five months of the year, thefts in its stores that involved violence or threats of violence rose 120%.

Executives with Macys and Dicks Sporting Goods, meanwhile, have been warning Wall Street about the impact theft is having on their business.

In New York City, officials said in May that retail theft complaints had nearly doubled over the past five years, the Advance/SILive.com reported.

Mayor Eric Adams at the time announced a new crackdown to combat the trend.

On the enforcement side, the city announced it would in part develop a program aimed at better tracking repeat offenders, establish a neighborhood retail watch for businesses in close proximity to one another and advocate at the state and federal level for new online sale verification procedures.

In terms of prevention, officials cited diversion programs for non-violent offenders to potentially avoid prosecution or incarceration through services to help address underlying factors that lead to shoplifting.
A moose that was discovered strolling down the tracks of the Stockholm subway and causing chaos was shot dead by a wildlife ranger Wednesday afternoon after a busy part of the train line had to be suspended for several hours, the Associated Press is reporting.

The moose somehow entered an area surrounding the tracks and managed to get on to part of whats known as the Red Line  a series of above-ground train stations. Seven stations had to be closed, the report said.

Swedish news agency TT reported that the moose entered the area around 11 a.m. and was wandering around for several hours.

After several failed attempts to catch the moose or shoo it from the area, the moose reportedly ran in the opposite direction before ultimately being shot, according to the report.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The New York Foundling, an organization that provides community support services to families throughout the five boroughs, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new Staten Island offices this week, introducing residents to a new and expanded array of impactful community assistance.

This new space allows us to bring every one of our programs under one roof, said Melanie Hartzog, New York Foundlings CEO and president. Everything is on site, and that makes a world of difference to the families who we serve.

The Foundlings Day Habilitation programs for people with developmental disabilities provide participants an opportunity to connect with others in their community through social, volunteer and work-related activities. (Staten Island Advance/Jessica Jones-Gorman)

The non-profits new offices, which occupy two floors at 1 Edgewater Plaza in Clifton, include dedicated space for many Foundling programs, including foster care and preventive services, as well as the Healthy Families and Developmental Disabilities divisions.

Our Day Habilitation services are a joy, Hartzog said, detailing the Foundlings programs for people with developmental disabilities that provide participants an opportunity to connect with others in their community through social, volunteer, and work-related activities. This is a growing service in the Staten Island community, and we are proud to expand upon it.

Ebony Nielsen, Cautious Jefferson and Ashley Gibbs, who work together in The New York Foundling's Day Habilitation Division, pose in the organization's new office space. (Staten Island Advance/Jessica Jones-Gorman)

The Foundlings new office space also includes a center for pediatric health care and mental health services, as well as room for other programs supporting well-being. Child welfare programs for both parents and children are also offered, with an aim to keep families safe, supported and together. Academic programs that eliminate barriers and open the door to opportunity are also a part of the Staten Island curriculum of services.

Artwork created by some of The New York Foundling's Day Habilitation participants is displayed in the new space. (Staten Island Advance/Jessica Jones-Gorman)

A food pantry, operated by the Staten Island Community Partnership, was temporarily set up at the location on Tuesday, providing free food, toiletries, cleaning supplies and more to high-need Staten Island residents. Its a program the organization would like to make a permanent fixture somewhere.

The food pantry operated as a mobile pop-up during the summer, visiting eight key locations in the borough, noted Delila Nadal, director of the Staten Island Community Partnership, detailing how the service was born during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and now feeds more than 100 families weekly.

A food pantry, operated by the Staten Island Community Partnership, is temporarily set up at the new office space. (Staten Island Advance/Jessica Jones-Gorman)

Now that the fall is here, we need a permanent indoor space, Nadal continued. Our goal is to partner with someone in the community and find a brick-and-mortar home for this critical service soon.

The New York Foundling hosted a Staten Island jobs fair to celebrate the launch of its new borough location and also provided a vaccine clinic where flu and COVID shots were available for participants. A giveaway of school supplies, backpacks and books was also conducted on site.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  For Joseph C., surviving the day was his only purpose.

There was no future, there was no thoughts of Friday, said Joseph, a South Bronx native who was only identified by his first name and the initial of his last name for confidentiality reasons. I was going to get what I needed by tomorrow.

The noxious thoughts that occupied his mind have now changed dramatically.

He is one of the clients of the Hotspotting the Overdose Epidemic Program. The effort, driven by artificial intelligence, helps predict which individuals are at greatest risk for an overdose and connects them with resources to reduce adverse outcomes.

Joseph was connected with a Community Health Action of Staten Island (CHASI) app-based initiative that encourages consistency in the battle against addiction, giving small rewards and reminders to patients. He said the support has changed his life.

My first initial thought was, Oh, I gotta do three hours a day? Im not doing it. And then I didnt realize the impact the program had on me, Joseph said.

CHASI offered him a job, he became more health-conscious and is now giving back his time to help others who were in the shoes he once wore.

A panel of experts and advocates speaking at Staten Island University Hospitals Regina McGinn Education Center in Ocean Breeze about the Hotspotting the Overdose Epidemic Program. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk

EARLY SUCCESS AND A NEED FOR FUNDING

His story, while anecdotal, is reflective of the Hotspotting the Overdose Epidemic Programs success, which recorded an 81% reduction in non-fatal overdoses for enrolled individuals. Two overdose-related deaths occurred in the active group, compared to 11 overdose deaths in the non-engaged group, officials said.

A panel of experts and advocates speaking at Staten Island University Hospitals Regina McGinn Education Center in Ocean Breeze said those results warrant funding for the effort, which will pay dividends in the long-term for a country ravaged by the opioid epidemic by identifying problems before they occur.

We are very good at doing what we call rescue medicine. We have the best rescue system in the world. We know when people fall into the river, we know how to get them out very quickly, said Dr. Ram Raju, a senior health advisor to Borough President Vito Fossella. But we have to make sure that people dont fall into the river in the first place.

Spending money on evidence-informed preventative measures offers maximum returns, but borough officials have had to scratch-and-claw to receive funding from the Opioid Settlement Fund  a massive source of dollars that could fund the latest initiative.

That funding is needed, said Raju, so that programs like Hotspotting dont just die because of a lack of funding.

Dr. Brahim Ardolic, executive director of SIUH, said the principle of the Hotspotting program is not new within medicine.

Identifying risk factors and using those factors to inform clinical decisions has been a centerpiece of health care for decades, but moving from the typical handful of risk factors to a model that scans for more than 100 risk factors, including medication prescriptions, diagnoses and even ZIP codes, entirely changes the calculus.

I really believe at some point we will be hotspotting, said Ardolic. Itd be really great if we use this amazing opportunity to take all this money that came in to use that as a flashpoint to start it in a real way.

Dr. Ram Raju, a senior health advisor to Borough President Vito Fossella. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)

A NATIONWIDE EPIDEMIC

The call for monetary support comes at a critical time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released data indicating that over 111,000 Americans, including nearly 7,000 New Yorkers, died by overdose in the 12-month period ending April 2023.

The city Health Department on Monday said 3,026 New York City residents died of an overdose in 2022, increasing starkly among Black New Yorkers. Staten Island had the second-highest overdose rate in the five boroughs, trailing only the Bronx.

Tuesday Muller-Mondi, the executive in charge for the Special Victims Division of the Richmond County District Attorneys Office, said 850 Staten Islanders have overdosed since 2016  a sobering statistic mostly fueled by the presence of fentanyl  while hundreds of others were saved only because of naloxone, the overdose-reversal treatment.

The overdose crisis is a five-alarm fire that has been raging for too long, Muller-Mondi said.

The Hotspotting program is another tool in the arsenal for officials to utilize and leverages artificial intelligence and human-to-human interaction through the use of integral peer mentors to maximize the chance those in need consistently use the program, according to Muller-Mondi.

More than eight in 10 people contacted by the Richmond County District Attorneys Office to participate in the Hotspotting program are actively engaged, she said, underscoring the effectiveness of the robust support provided by the effort.

Rob Kent, who formerly served as counsel to New Yorks Office of Addiction Services and Supports and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, stressed that programs like Hotspotting are exactly what we need to be doing.

The drugs are so lethal. It takes one time, said Kent. If we engage somebody and dont keep them connected ... they will die. Its just as simple as that.

Without adjusting strategies, Kent said more than 100,000 people will continue to die annually to overdoses, calling that total totally unacceptable.

Max Rose, a former congressman and current current senior advisor for The Secure Future Project, a private foundation. (Staten Island Advance/Joseph Ostapiuk)

ISNT ROCKET SCIENCE

The Staten Island Performing Provider System (SI PPS) and Northwell Health, the parent company of SIUH provided $1.5 million of the funding for the Hotspotting the Overdose Epidemic Program. Another $3 million in the form of a grant was given by The Secure Future Project.

Max Rose, Staten Islands former congressman and current senior advisor for The Secure Future Project, a private foundation, credited Staten Islands leadership in the boroughs war against the opioid epidemic.

It shows us not what the strategy can and should be in this country for yesterday, but for tomorrow  how we can deploy not just technology and database systems, but also really truly person-centered care that leads people where they are as led by individuals who have walked in the shoes of those that they are trying to help, said Rose.

That approach, Rose said, isnt rocket science but instead uses the most impactful elements of overdose prevention care and putting them together, serving as a model for what could be rolled out across the country.

Dr. Joseph Conte, director of SI PPS, said the need for change in the nations strategy is immense. For every one overdose death, it likely that at least 30 other overdoses occur.

This is not the kind of trajectory that we can sustain, he said.

There is just simply not enough resources to provide care for everyone. We need to focus on those who are most at risk, those who are at the greatest cusp of an overdose, said Conte. And I think thats why this work is so important.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Alan S. Bernikow, a visionary, philanthropist, mentor and creative entrepreneur who came from humble beginnings and dedicated his life to making a difference, died Tuesday evening in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, after a valiant battle with leukemia. He was 82.

The Joan and Alan Bernikow Jewish Community Center in Sea View is named for the highly revered businessman and his wife Joan. He was a driving force in the development of the new JCC on Manor Road and one of a number of community leaders who made the dream come true.

He was a passionate proponent of myriad not-for-profits, making a difference through charity with a sincere desire to make the world a better place. Bernikow demonstrated unparalleled support of the JCC, and worked tirelessly on behalf of causes related to the UJA Federation of New York with a generosity of spirit that knew no bounds.

A retired deputy chief executive officer at the firm of Deloitte, Bernikows primary responsibilities included assisting the chairman and CEO and managing partner on special projects, including firm mergers and acquisitions, partner affairs, and litigation matters.

He leaves behind a legacy of leadership, strong business acumen and a fervent commitment to the community of Staten Island and beyond.

In hearing of Bernikows passing, Borough President Vito Fossella offered the following comments:

The passing of Alan Bernikow leaves a deep void on Staten Island, as he was a one of a kind leader of business and philanthropist. His legacy is visible all throughout our Island.

I got the pleasure of getting to know Alan when I worked at Deloitte, which was my first job out of college, where he was a partner. We developed a relationship, professional and personal, that lasted 36 years.

He was a gracious, good guy. He was well respected, not only for his business mind, but also for his willingness to give back to the island that he loved. As one of the founders of the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island, his generous support throughout the years for its programs and many other organizations across the Island, have made a positive impact on the lives of thousands of our residents.

Mary Pat and I offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Alan Bernikow. He will be greatly missed.

Bernikow is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, the former Joan Freedman.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Menorah Chapels in New Springville.

A complete obituary will follow in the Advance and on SILive.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The NYPD is seeking the publics assistance in identifying an individual sought for questioning in connection to an alleged assault in Stapleton.

On Saturday, June 3, at approximately 6:40 p.m. in the vicinity of Cedar Street and Broad Street, it was reported that the individual allegedly approached a 19-year-old victim and displayed a firearm. The individual then allegedly discharged the firearm, striking the victim in the lower back and left leg.

The individual then allegedly fled on foot westbound on Cedar Street, while the victim was transported to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, in stable condition.

The individual is described as a male with a dark complexion last seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black sneakers.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, on Twitter @NYPDTips.

All calls are strictly confidential.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Staten Islanders took a victory lap Tuesday after a judge decided to shutter a migrant shelter at the former St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar, but their celebration may have been a bit premature.

Shortly after New York Supreme Court Judge Wayne Ozzi reached his decision granting a preliminary injunction against the site, Mayor Eric Adams administration notified the court of their intention to appeal, and cited a portion of state law that prevents Ozzi ruling from being enforced.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  In honor of those who have died, here is a compilation of obituaries posted on SILive.com. Viewing times and guest books can be seen here.

Dr. Jose Luis Rementeria, 91, died June 14, 2023 in Murcia, Spain. Born in Pamplona, Spain, he moved to the U.S. at 1 year old. Dr. Rementeria was raised in Manhattan and later moved to Staten Island. He attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, St. Peters College in Jersey City, and the Jersey College of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. Upon graduation from medical school, Dr. Rementeria did his residency in pediatrics at St. Vincents Hospital in Manhattan, completing his fellowship in neonatology at the New Jersey College of Medicine. He was a volunteer physician for two years at the Missionary Medicine for the Catholic Medical Mission Board, serving local communities in Guatemala and Peru. A devoted doctor and teacher, Dr. Rementeria worked at Fordham & Misericordia Hospitals, Brooklyn-Cumberland Medical Center and Staten Island University Hospital, from where he retired in 1996. Additionally, he was a clinical instructor at NYU Medical School-Bellevue Medical Center and assistant professor of pediatrics (clinical) at Downstate Medical College. For the full obituary, click here.

YESTERDAYS OBITUARIES:

Dorothy Carol Starlin, 75, died Sept. 20, 2023. She was a graduate of SIU, St. Vincents School of Nursing and TCNJ. She worked as an alcohol detox administrator at Bayley Seton Hospital. For the full obituary, click here.

Roseanne Doria, died Sept. 22, 2023. In 1997, she relocated from Brooklyn to Staten Island to be near her family. She cherished family gatherings and holiday cooking. She adored doo-wop music and attending live shows, particularly The Fireflies. For the full obituary, click here.
If you had a hole in your roof, would you fix the hole or complain every time it rained and ruined your stuff?

We all admit our immigration system is broken. We can either fix it or complain.

The growing backlog of asylum cases is just one symptom of our broken immigration system. The backlog had more than doubled during the Trump Administration and continues to increase.

There are those who say that we should close our southern border to prevent migrants from requesting asylum. Since Mexico is our biggest trading partner, closing the border would result in Americans being laid off when factories cant get parts, and food prices spiking. Next time you are in the grocery store, check out all the produce that comes from Mexico.

Trump considered closing the border, but decided against it when he saw the adverse impact it would have on the U.S. economy.

It is not possible, as some demand, to build a wall on the southern border. The border between Mexico and Texas is the Rio Grande. You cant build a wall in the middle of the Rio Grande. Once someone crosses to the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, they can, according to U.S. law, request asylum.

Instead of holding press conferences and passing partisan legislation, our elected officials in Washington need to pass comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform.

(Richard A. Reichard is a West Brighton resident.)
Whenever a major issue harms Staten Island, the topic of secession from New York City is always raised. While some think it is a malevolent idea, most agree that it is a fundamentally great idea. Based upon economic logic and professional governance principles, it is my opinion that secession would be more of a benefit than a detriment. It is understandable that some might think our taxes would skyrocket and our tax base would have to e figured out, but I believe that solution is right in front of us so we do not experience skyrocketing taxes.

Lets conquer the major issue that the critics say about secession  skyrocketing taxes. The property taxes may be a temporary increase but a significant portion of our property taxes do not get allocated to us, rather they are allocated to other boroughs, especially with the social programs. We would still have people using those programs here, but there are not a lot. For example, the housing issue only demonstrates that less than 2% of the population (9,020 people) live in public housing and 33% of their income is allocated to rent; and there are 302 Section 8 Households. Moreover, we would be able to fund our police, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers and government employees and the city would be legally forced to honor their pensions, anyway. Then, you have the Parks Department, Cultural Affairs Department, Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Protection, which can be consolidated into the Department of Life Affairs. We can consolidate departments and once there are retirements, we can have interdisciplinary jobs to start.

As for the tax base, we would have more freedom to build a stronger tax base. We can increase tourism here by transforming our boardwalk into a nice resort community (add a theme park or two, as well) like they had in the old days. We can build a North Shore Monorail Line and West Shore Monorail Line to build a tax revenue from the private sector with a project like this, which would benefit commuters, local businesses and tourists alike. We could allocate our own marketing dollars to getting people to come straight from the airport to stay on Staten Island. We can work with big tech manufacturers like Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft and others to turn us into an East Coast Silicon Valley we have enough land to make those ideas a reality. We wont have to deal with the bureaucracy and the revenue pick-pocketing of the New York City Parks Department.

Finally, lets focus on having more control. We will be able to restore qualified immunity for our law enforcement officers and keep our citizens safe from the vile criminal behaviors. We wont have to worry about a corrupt New York City Sheriff planting evidence against restaurant owners and small businesses. We will be the Isle of Freedom, a Home Court for Creativity and an Engine for Economic Opportunity with a lot less city government red tape. So, to the cynics who want us to stay part of New York City, I say to them that the majority of us never identified as New York City residents when asked. We say with pride, Were Staten Islanders and we do love our community very much!

(Joseph Pidoriano is a New Dorp resident.)
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Six months on from the state election, and after a global search, the NSW Liberals have finally settled on a new state director, with Luke Dixon picked by a three-person selection panel, pending ratification by the executive on Friday.

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That name elicited a few raised eyebrows, and whispers of who? around the party this week.

Not only is Dixon, who is head of real estate research at AMP Capital, a relatively unknown quantity, hes also a Victorian. Were not sure whether that deeply troubled division is where the NSW Liberals should be looking for answers, but here we are.

By Wednesday, a 2008 article from The Age documenting how Dixon quit the Liberal Party after admitting to writing emails critical of then-Victorian leader Ted Baillieu was doing the rounds.
Hints of danger lurk beneath the controlled cut of Christopher Esbers dresses as they careen along the female form. Cut-outs carved through technical fabrics, interwoven strips and vertiginous slits threaten to shock as they awe.

This considered tease has kept Esbers local fans gripping their front-row seats since his first Australian Fashion Week solo show in 2010. This afternoon Esber is ready to provoke an exclusive audience at Paris Fashion Week, with his first show on the official schedule.

Christopher Esber and model Anna in Paris before his runway debut in the fashion capital. Credit: Antoine Doyen

I wanted to come and do my thing like Ive been doing it, but in a heightened way, Esber, 36, says from the back of a taxi, rushing from venue inspections to model bookings. Its reiterating what the brand is and what were known for. This is the billboard moment.

Since graduating alongside Dion Lee from Sydneys Fashion Design School at TAFE in 2008 and staging a joint presentation with Kym Ellery at New York Fashion Week in 2012, Esber has been the tortoise while his peers raced towards fashion fame.
Fear not, Claire Edmonds (C8), you have the backing of the C8 cadre, to the extent that Rosamund Turkington of Rockdale is considering issuing an invitation to the Guerrilla Grammarians (Est. 2008). Laurie Le Claire of Epping has stepped up too: In a queue recently, a nearby teenager said This is moving slow. I responded slowly  its an adverb. Her mother thanked me.

Like Claire and George Zivkovic, Evan Bailey of Glebe would also like to punctuate some council signs, such as: Falling Rocks Do Not Stop. This sign opens up perplexing questions about Newtonian laws, and could leave me pondering verities, immobile in the dangerous rock impact zone!

David Atherfold of Avalon Beach has noted: Toilets Lower Deck (Manly Ferry), Koalas Cross Here (Avalon) and No Chewing Gum in Urinal (RNS Hospital).

Some decisive FNQ sleuthing here from Stein Boddington of St Clair in reply to Caz Willis: Ive never been to Dimbulah (C8), in Queensland, so I thought Id just ring someone, and the friendly and helpful barmaid at the Junction Hotel assured me it was pronounced Dim- BYOO-la. The name was originally spelled like the Victorian town, but they changed it for reasons unknown. It is the local Aboriginal word for long waterhole.

Joy Heads (C8), we may have started a new craze among ladies of a certain age, as I too have a rose tattoo on my forearm, with the words Made in England, says Rosemary Seam of Kempsey. Mine was copied from a senior friend, so there are at least three of us at large.
In the years since Courtney Topic was shot by police, her family has despaired at each death involving a person in mental health crisis. Despite feeling the bullet in the heart again and again, the family is struggling to gain the ear of politicians.

Now dozens of prominent lawyers, legal experts and academics will petition the state government to get mental health clinicians on the front lines with police.

Courtney Topic was shot dead by police while in the grip of a mental health crisis in 2015. Credit: Courtesy of the Topic family

Its been horrendous, Courtneys mother, Leesa, told the Herald on Wednesday, reflecting on four deaths in four months  Krista Kach near Newcastle, Jesse Deacon in Glebe, Steve Pampalian in North Willoughby and Clare Nowland in Cooma.

Courtney didnt deserve it, we didnt deserve it, these other people didnt deserve it either, Leesa said.
Anger over the state governments potential axing of a $7 million extension to a popular seacliff walking track in Sydneys south has spread from local and state politicians to federal parliament.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison, who is the member for Cook, has accused the NSW Labor government of playing rough politics over the long-awaited plan to continue the popular Esplanade path around the south Cronulla peninsula, and says Labor would be turning its back on years of planning and consultation if it curtailed the project.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison, the member for Cook, has thrown his support behind a local campaign to stop the potential axing of a proposed extension to a clifftop walking track at Cronulla. Credit: Rhett Wyman

This was not just an idea, but a great project that was ready to go. All the hard work has been done, and for the community to now be denied at this final hurdle is very disappointing, Morrison said.

Morrisons intervention into the debate over the boardwalk  which has long had local bipartisan support  sets the stage for a showdown between Sutherland Shire Council and local politicians, and the Minns government, over the future of the prized waterfront site.
A man who allegedly punched and kicked Sydney activist Danny Lim at a train station in Sydneys inner west has been charged with assault.

Lim, who is known for his sandwich board signs, was campaigning for the Yes vote in the upcoming Voice referendum when he was allegedly attacked at Strathfield Station last Friday.

The 79-year-old was treated by paramedics before being taken to Concord Hospital, and has since been released.

Police arrested a 66-year-old man at his home in Homebush West on Wednesday morning, and charged him with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
For police, the release of Reverend Ian Wilkinson  one of only two survivors of the fatal Leongatha mushroom lunch  from hospital on the weekend is a breakthrough, but not the breakthrough.

In an induced coma for weeks, the trusted and respected member of his local community in regional south-east Victoria, Wilkinson would have woken to the news that his wife, Heather, and in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, had died following a lunch at a private house in Leongatha.

Poisoning victims Heather and Ian Wilkinson and the house where Erin Patterson, who prepared the deadly lunch, lives. Credit: Marta Pascual Juanola; Supplied

The only other survivor of the July 29 lunch, Erin Patterson  ex-wife of the Pattersons son, Simon  has been described as a suspect by homicide investigators.

Erin Patterson admits that when first questioned by police she lied about disposing of a dehydrator, then exercised her right to refuse to answer further questions. Much later, her lawyer prepared a statement for police that  much to the frustration of investigators  was shared with the media.
Pesutto framed Andrews as a habitual liar who had trashed Victorias reputation for good governance. Walsh said Andrews was always abandoning regional Victorians. But they were bullets fired into the air  the target was already gone.

Its not just his comrades who are having to adjust. There was a poignancy to Opposition Leader John Pesutto and National Party leader Peter Walshs Tuesday afternoon press conference after Andrews resignation.

Will the new premier, Jacinta Allan , and his other former colleagues have a clue about how to run a Dan-free cabinet, a Dan-free communications strategy? Will they be able to get on with each other without him there to keep them all just a little bit frightened?

All those feelings that Daniel Andrews attracted and provoked  the loathing, the devotion  where do they go now? Victorians will have to learn how to live without him.

Everyone will have to move on and come up with new stories, new attack lines. Yes, the job of politics will go on, the sun will continue to rise each day. But Andrews was one of those leaders who used up most of the oxygen in the room. For all intents and purposes, he was the government.

As he sails off, its worth asking just how serious he was with his pre-election promise last year to serve out the full term if re-elected. Few in the media believed it. Retirement is a wicked problem for leaders. The last premier to openly talk about handing over was Jeff Kennett, who spoke in dynastic terms before the 1999 election about training up his ministers to see who could succeed him. He went on to lose the election.

And its not as though Victorian voters have shown a willingness to embrace governments headed by midterm replacement leaders. You have to go back 50 years, when the Liberals under Dick Hamer, who had succeeded Henry Bolte the previous year, won the 1973 election comfortably, to find an electorally successful handover. Since then, Lindsay Thompson, Joan Kirner, John Brumby and Denis Napthine all suffered election defeats soon after taking over the reins.

How much of the Labor vote last year was built on Andrews assurance that he wouldnt be going anywhere? Its hard to believe it counted for nothing. For some wavering Labor voters, the prospect of continuity under Andrews might well have been decisive in keeping them in the Labor column. Will they now punish the government because Andrews has let them down?
The University of Western Australia has dropped 12 spots in one of the worlds most prestigious university rankings list, in a trend followed by all Australian universities sitting in the top 200.

UWA sits at equal 143rd in the world for 2024 according to Times Higher Education, and is the eighth-highest ranked university in Australia.

Curtin University is sitting between 201 and 250 globally, and 12th in Australia, while ECU and Murdoch are both in the 351 to 400 benchmark.

Murdoch University has climbed up the rankings significantly, sitting in the 401 to 500 benchmark in last years rankings list, while ECU and Curtin remained in the same brackets.
Almost 1000 defence force personnel will be shifted from southern to northern Australia in the biggest army overhaul in more than a decade, a move designed to prepare the nations military for a possible conflict in nearby Indo-Pacific islands.

The Albanese government will on Thursday also announce the creation of a new army brigade focused on long-range strike and missile defence and to be based in Adelaide, which is otherwise the major loser in the restructure.

Army personnel will be shifted from southern to northern Australia in the biggest overhaul since 2011.

Three new littoral lift groups, designed to transport weapons and personnel from ocean to land, will be created in Queensland and the Northern Territory, reflecting the defence strategic reviews finding that the army must focus on amphibious operations in Australias immediate region rather than land wars in the Middle East.

The defence strategic review, released in April, found the defence force was no longer fit for purpose and singled out the army as the military branch most in need of transformation to confront rising geostrategic tensions between the United States and China in Indo-Pacific.
Australians have been promised a peace dividend from the Indigenous Voice in a crucial pitch from Yes campaigner Noel Pearson to convince voters to back the change and reject what he called a confected war from the No side.

Pearson said the defeat of the Voice would lead to years of continued culture war from the No camp, while a positive vote would ease the animosities of the past and set up a practical way to address problems in the future.

Noel Pearson during his address to the National Press Club. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Providing an example of how the Voice would help, the Indigenous leader said an advisory committee like the Voice could have urged governments to take stronger action on rheumatic heart disease, a condition that kills Indigenous people but has been mostly eradicated among other Australians.

The passionate address to the National Press Club, ahead of early voting opening next week for the October 14 referendum, rejected a key claim from the No side that the change would divide Australia by race and noted that the proposition was to recognise the first occupants of the land.
Washington: One of the most high-profile AUKUS allies in the US Congress is facing a growing stampede of Democrat colleagues urging him to resign after he pleaded not guilty over an alleged scheme that involved taking bribes in exchange for helping the Egyptian government with military aid.

Days after federal prosecutors revealed the explosive allegations against Senator Bob Menendez, more than half of the Senates Democrats are now demanding he step down amid fears the case could undercut their attack against Donald Trumps criminal charges ahead of next years election.

Bob Menendez has pleaded not guilty over corruption charges Credit: AP

The most damning shift came from party whip Dick Durban, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the chamber, who had initially declined to say Menendez should leave office but changed course on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) saying it was clear his colleague could no longer serve.

But despite facing calls from at least 30 of the 51 Democrats in the Senate, Menendez remained defiant as he and his wife, Nadine, pleaded not guilty to a bribery scheme that allegedly involved receiving gold bars, a luxury car and cash.
Washington: Hunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Giulianis former lawyer, Bob Costello, charging that the two men misused his personal computer data  the latest counter-attack by the presidents son against his GOP critics.

For the past many months and even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen, the lawsuit charges. It alleges that the duos actions violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Information found on Hunter Bidens laptop computer has sparked a new round of controversy. Credit: Nathan Perri

In 2020, Giuliani and other advocates of Donald Trumps reelection bid touted data they had received from a laptop that Biden apparently left at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware.

As Giulianis lawyer, Costello received a copy of the data, which Giuliani then publicised, according to published accounts.
Communities of the Dutch Caribbean are consistently complaining about the utility bills and therefore a simplified explanation is necessary. Colombian educated Certified Risk Analyst Terence Jandroep illustrates the utility bills using layman terms after conducting a historical research:

The operating costs of the GEBE (SXM), WEB (Aruba, Bonaire) STUCO (Statia), SEC (Saba) or AQUALECTRA (Curacao) consists of payroll costs, Consumption and Waste of production. Fact is that most of these utility companies are not the Energy or Water producers but the distributors that are governed by a consumption parameters contract with the Energy & Water providing Body. Meaning the energy and water consumption of the entire country are preset, and therefore actual consumption or over-consumption are not relevant, based upon the hedging trading principle by the consumption fluctuations.

Example: the utility company signs a contact with the Distributor for 100 million gallons of water with an increase of 5% per year. The real consumption is 80 million, but the Distribution Company is obliged to pay the 100 million gallons. The 20 million is an amount that has to be paid and is not consumed which refers directly to Waste not Production Costs while on the utility bills this phenomenon is rephrased as Fuel Clause to the consumer. This action has been taking place for over 3 decades in the entire Dutch Caribbean in which Distributing companies pay unconsumed production and is forced into a fuel clause decoration to the consumer.

Questions and Answers

The question that arises is why the Fuel Clause is higher than the consumption? The Answer relies on that the actual consumption does not meet the preset contract parameters, and therefore the waste has to be allocated as fuel clause.

Utility bills influenced by Government Immigration policies

In order to reduce the Fuel Clause significantly, consumption of water and light must be promoted, meaning growth of the population with aligned housing projects are necessary, under the existing circumstances. The immigration policies with anti-immigrant objectives have an adverse reaction on the utility bills if the current population is reduced significantly and financially devastating for the small man that remains hanging on the last rings of the food chain.

These are factors that are forgotten by Governments that lack understanding of the financial dynamics in the utility areas and the reluctance to allow Risk Analysts to secure the community against inconvenient financial impact.

Fact is that by reducing the Population significantly in any form, the waste of the production will systematically increase with an uncontainable direct impact on the Fuel Clause that should cover the Preset Waste. Is the Ministry of Justice aware of this event when applying anti-immigrants policies?

The Financial Vicious Cycle

The problem in the vicious cycle is, that should the utility company build storage tanks to avoid waste, the Production plant remains with an increasing fee per m3 per year and the consumption remains low, there is no financial leverage placing the burden on the remaining utility consumers in the Dutch Caribbean resulting in higher utility bills.

Governments have failed?

The introduction of fuel clauses is considered an easy way to cover-up mismanagement due to lack of planning and vision. The question that arise is who is responsible for this catastrophe within the Dutch Caribbean or is it a legal and quick way to pickpocket consumers without resistance because of a created monopoly position of the utility companies in the Dutch Caribbean Kingdom with the intend to reduce the National Deficit with the dividends or advances on these to the Governments. This is a very interesting subject that any Government should have an understanding of the financial dynamics to help their constituency in hard times.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in a Central Committee meeting on September 27, 2023.

The Central Committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 14.00 hrs. in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg. The Hon. Minister of Finance will be in attendance.

The agenda point is:

Detailed outline of the ongoing ENNIA situation, the proposed ENNIA loan mentioned in the media by State Secretary Van Huffelen, the impact to the national budget, and Governments intentions towards the situation in light of the September 30, 2023, deadline (IS/025/2023-2024 dated September 20, 2023)

This meeting was requested by MP M.D. Gumbs, MP. R.A. Peterson and MP L.N.L. de Weever

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.

All persons visiting the House of Parliament must adhere to the house rules.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary sessions will be carried live on TV 15, Soualiga Headlines, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the internet www.sxmparliament.org, www.pearlfmradio.sx and www.youtube.com/c/SintMaartenParliament
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Ministry of Finance would like to provide a comprehensive overview of the ongoing situation with ENNIA and the proposed solutions to address the critical financial issues facing the company. This update comes in response to previous communications to Parliament from the Minister of Finance, including letters dated August 28, 2023, and September 11, 2023, as well as the Prime Minister's presentation to the Committee of General Affairs on September 13, 2023.

The core issue at hand is the substantial capital shortage at ENNIA, which poses a significant threat to the financial well-being of approximately 30,000 policyholders. Without a viable solution, these policyholders would face substantial reductions in their pensions, which could have far-reaching social and economic consequences.

Key Points:

1. Multi-Country Collaboration: It is essential to emphasize that any potential solution requires the agreement of Curacao, Sint Maarten, the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten and the Netherlands. The policyholders are residents of Curacao and Sint Maarten, and the Netherlands has expressed its willingness to provide a capital injection, contingent upon approval by the Dutch Second and First Chambers. Should any of the involved countries fail to agree, a solution for the ENNIA situation becomes unattainable.

2. Negotiations and Technical Committee: Substantial negotiations have taken place on a technical level involving Curacao, Sint Maarten, the Technical Committee ENNIA, the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Dutch Central Bank, and the Ministry of Finance of the Netherlands. The Technical Committee ENNIA comprises of representatives from the CBCS, as well as reputable external legal and financial advisors from Curacao and the Netherlands.

3. Acknowledged Intervention: Based on these negotiations, it is widely recognized that intervention is necessary due to the significant capital shortfall at ENNIA. Without a capital injection, the 30,000 policyholders would face substantial pension reductions, leading to severe social and economic consequences.

4. Agreement Reached on Technical Level: At the technical level, Curacao and Sint Maarten, along with the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten, have reached an outline agreement. This agreement stipulates that ENNIA will undergo a solvent restart with a substantial capital injection. Experts consider this solution financially sound and realistic.

5. Confirmation Required: However, it's important to note that the agreement still requires confirmation at the Ministerial level, subject to Parliament's approval of the 2024 budget.

6. Debt Concerns for Curacao: A significant challenge at present is the potential increase in debt and debt-to-GDP ratio for Curacao. This increase may lead to a violation of the Kingdom Act Financial Supervision for Curacao and Sint Maarten (the Rft) due to the exceeded interest burden norm.

7. Cft Advice: The Board of Financial Supervision (the Cft) has expressed above mentioned concerns in a letter dated August 21, 2023, and negotiations are underway with Curacao to address this situation.

The Proposed ENNIA Loan Mentioned by State Secretary Van Huffelen: The refinancing offer made to Sint Maarten is favorable, including full refinancing, interest-only terms, and a spread repayment profile. However, this offer is contingent upon the resolution of the ENNIA situation, and term sheets must be signed by all parties before October 15, 2023, subject to budget approvals.

Impact on National Budget: While the exact impact on the national budget can be determined after loan agreements are finalized, it's estimated that Sint Maarten for its part of the loan will on-lend the received loan from the Netherlands  through a capital injection  to ENNIA. The loan will in principle be mirrored from the Netherlands to Sint Maarten and from Sint Maarten to ENNIA, meaning that the interest Sint Maarten must pay to the Netherlands will in principle be the same interest ENNIA has to pay to Sint Maarten.

However, the Cft, will add the ENNIA loan to the interest burden of the Rft, which will become approximately Naf 26.6 million and as such under the current interest burden norm of Naf 32.7 million.

Government's Intentions and Deadline: The Government's intentions are clear: the refinancing offer hinges on the resolution of the ENNIA situation, with term sheets requiring all parties' signatures before the recently extended date of October 15 2023. These agreements remain subject to parliamentary approval. The Ministry of Finance is actively engaged in negotiations to find a mutually agreeable solution to the ENNIA situation, understanding the significant impact it has on policyholders and the broader community. Collaboration between Curacao, Sint Maarten, and the Netherlands is essential to reaching a resolution that safeguards the interests of all stakeholders.
Willemstad, Curacao:--- In a moment of significance for regional diplomacy and institutional cooperation, the Social and Economic Council (SER) of Curacao has been entrusted with the presidency of the Network of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions of Latin America and the Caribbean (CESISALC). The appointment was announced at the conclusion of the Third Intercoonecta Program Meeting, an event co-sponsored by the Spanish Cooperation and the Economic and Social Council of Spain, held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on September 20, 2023. The biennial, rotating presidency will continue through September 20, 2025.

Before this pivotal appointment, the interim presidency was held by the Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Guatemala. Curacao's SER pledges to carry forward the established legacy of effective leadership and commitment.

The selection of Curacao's SER is not only an accolade for its accomplished track record but also an affirmation of its potential to contribute substantively to the region's well-being and sustainable advancementa responsibility the council undertakes with marked seriousness.

The installation ceremony included high-ranking representatives from economic and social councils across Latin America and the Caribbean, including Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and the ESC of Rio Cuartos, Argentina.

Assuming its presidential role, Curacao's SER aims to actively engage additional national and subnational economic and social councils as participating members of CESISALC. This initiative seeks to invigorate the network's diversity and foster inclusive discussions on matters crucial to the region.

Operational leadership will be centered in Willemstad, the capital city of Curacao, marking a significant milestone for this Caribbean Island nation. Curacao, a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, thus becomes one of the smallest states to hold a leadership position of this caliber in the sphere of regional dialogue and institutional cooperation.

The announcement arrives at a critical period for the broader Latin American and Caribbean region, confronting an array of socio-economic challenges. Curacao's SER presidency in CESISALC is anticipated to be a vital step in building consensus and shaping policies that will positively affect sustainable development and governance.



For more information, visit CESISALC's official website: www.cesisalc.org.


WILLEMSTAD:--- Work in Curacao is on the eve of a profound transformation. The Social and Economic Council (SER) of Curacao is organizing an indispensable conference on October 16, 2023. It will take place from 14:00 to 18:00 in the auditorium of the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten (CBCS). The meeting highlights pressing issues surrounding the future of work on the island.

The goal of the conference is more than an academic exercise; it is an action-oriented dialogue that offers evidence-based insights into the changing labor landscapes. The themes, ranging from ICT and artificial intelligence to labor migration, have been carefully chosen to facilitate in-depth discussions. This event provides a unique opportunity for high-quality networking with influential professionals and entrepreneurs, especially those seeking up-to-date data and innovative, data-driven solutions for employment and resource allocation.

The conference also serves as a platform to understand how technological developments and migration not only pose challenges but also provide opportunities for addressing social issues such as an aging population. The language of the presentations is English, but interventions and questions in both Papiamentu and Dutch are welcome, respecting the linguistic diversity of our community. Due to the limited number of seats available, it is advisable to reserve your spot through the official SER website. This is not just another conference; it is a call to action and dialogue for everyone involved in shaping the future labor market in Curacao.

More information can be found at www.ser.cw.
WILLEMSTAD:--- On Monday, the 15th of May 2023 at about 8:45 p.m., an armed robbery took place on a cash runner on Fort Oranjestraat in St. Eustatius. Two masked men surprised a security guard who was depositing the daily proceeds from a supermarket at an ATM. Both men were armed with firearms and violently robbed the security guard of the money in his possession. The victim was struck on the head with a firearm, leaving him injured. A substantial amount of money was taken in the robbery.

Due to the seriousness and impact of this crime, the Public Prosecutor's Office is offering a 5,000-dollar reward for information leading to the resolution of this case.

If you have any information about this armed robbery or saw anything on the evening in question please contact the police via the phone number +5999 524 9734 or via the anonymous tip line 9310.

KPNC Press Release.
Italy wants to return to nuclear power

For example, the Italian government intends to draw up a roadmap for a possible return to nuclear energy within the next seven months.

Since July 1, 1990, the last nuclear power plants in Italy have ceased operation. Referendums were held after the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. At the time, the overwhelming majority opposed the use of nuclear energy. Now the Minister of Infrastructure is saying \Italy must not lose any time.\ A return to the production of clean and safe energy is necessary. Particular attention is being paid to small modular reactors and fourth-generation AMR reactors. For the past 30 years, Italy has been getting its energy from oil, natural gas, hydropower and other renewable sources. At the same time, the country is dependent on electricity imports, with most of it coming from France, i.e., nuclear energy. In fact, Italy relies on imported energy for about 75 percent of its total energy needs. The Italians experienced a blackout once in 2003, when the entire country was without power, in some cases for up to 18 hours. The reason was probably a grid problem in Switzerland.

The biggest blackouts were in India in 2012, caused by states that had drawn more electricity than allowed. In Pakistan, rebels blew up a pylon in 2015, cutting off electricity to 80 percent of the population. The USA was not spared in 2012, where a hurricane was the villain. In order to supply the world with sufficient energy and to do so in the face of increasing energy demand, nuclear power is a clean solution. Companies such as American Future Fuel and Uranium Energy have the necessary uranium in the ground.

American Future Fuel owns a 100% interest in the Cebolleta uranium project in New Mexico, USA. It is located in the Grants Mineral Belt. This mineral belt accounts for around 37 percent of the uranium produced in the USA.

In the USA, there is no getting around Uranium Energy  https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/uranium-energy-corp/ . With ISR projects, some of them operational, in the USA, as well as further projects in Canada and uranium interests, the company is very well positioned.

Current corporate information and press releases from Uranium Energy (- https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/companies/uranium-energy-corp/ A -).

In accordance with A34 WpHG I would like to point out that partners, authors and employees may hold shares in the respective companies addressed and thus a possible conflict of interest exists. No guarantee for the translation into English. Only the German version of this news is valid.

Disclaimer: The information provided does not represent any form of recommendation or advice. Express reference is made to the risks in securities trading. No liability can be accepted for any damage arising from the use of this blog. I would like to point out that shares and especially warrant investments are always associated with risk. The total loss of the invested capital cannot be excluded. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the correctness of all contents. Despite the greatest care, I expressly reserve the right to make errors, especially with regard to figures and prices. The information contained herein is taken from sources believed to be reliable, but in no way claims to be accurate or complete. Due to court decisions, the contents of linked external sites are also co-responsible (e.g. Landgericht Hamburg, in the decision of 12.05.1998  312 O 85/98), as long as there is no explicit dissociation from them. Despite careful control of the content, I do not assume liability for the content of linked external pages. The respective operators are exclusively responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG also applies: https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/disclaimer/
The second round of the recently revived trilateral negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) concluded on Sunday in Addis Ababa. No substantial progress was made, according to a statement issued by the Egyptian cabinet.

The talks highlighted Ethiopias tendency to backtrack on agreements previously reached between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan within the framework of the negotiation process. Addis Ababa rejected all the compromises and technical arrangements proposed internationally, though they met Ethiopias interests without encroaching on the rights and interests of the downstream countries, said Irrigation Ministry Spokesperson Mohamed Ghanim.

Ethiopia concluded the negotiations by accusing Egypt of undermining the agreement on the Declaration of Principles (DoP).

It is regrettable that Egypts continued insistence on maintaining an exclusionary colonial-era-based treaty, monopolistic utilisation and self-claimed water quota has prevented substantive progress in the negotiation, read the statement issued by the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry one day after the talks ended.

Nader Noureddin, professor of land and water resources at Cairo University, described the statement as neither legal, nor objective.

It is Ethiopia that undermined the DoP by ignoring Article 5 which states that national experts from the three countries must agree on the rules for the filling and operation of GERD, said Noureddin. Addis Ababa has also dragged its feet on establishing compensation mechanisms in the case of GERD causing harm to downstream states, and overlooked the article which calls all issues on which the delegations fail to agree to be referred to the three countries heads of state.

Cairo is asking for its acquired, not colonial, quota, the water that has been reaching Egypt for thousands of years via the natural flow of the river. It wants Ethiopia to agree to a minimum amount of water to reach Egypt each year. But Ethiopia has set its sights on monopolising Nile water, ignoring the fact that it is an international river, said Noureddin.

Speaking during the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday in New York, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri reiterated Egypts rejection of Ethiopias unilateral actions on filling GERD. He told delegates there was no room for the mistaken belief that Ethiopia can impose a fait accompli when it comes to the lives of over 100 million Egyptians.

The first round of the recently revived trilateral negotiations was held in Cairo last month. Following the talks Ethiopia announced it had completed the fourth filling of the GERD reservoir. At the time, Minister of Irrigation Hani Sewilam said the announcement had cast a shadow over the ongoing negotiations and posed a threat to their success.

Ethiopia stored 24 billion m3 (bcm) this year, equivalent to half the Blue Niles flow in an average year and more than Sudans annual quota.

Abbas Sharaki, professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University, pins little hope on the negotiations given that Addis Ababa wants non-binding guidelines rather than a legally binding agreement.

Ethiopia refuses to recognise Egypts water share, and negotiations seem to be going in a completely different direction when it comes to water sharing. Addis Ababa has said it wants to invite all Nile Basin countries to discuss their shares of water, which means negotiations could last forever, said Sharaki.

Talks were revived following the meeting of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on the sidelines of Sudans Neighbouring Countries Summit in Cairo in July. During the meeting, both leaders agreed to finalise an agreement on the filling and operation of GERD within four months.

The talks are the first since negotiations sponsored by the African Union collapsed in April 2021 and a third round of negotiations is scheduled to be held in October in Cairo.

Although Noureddin pins little hope on the talks, it is essential, he says, to hammer out an agreement on future filling. Addis Ababa declared a few days ago that it will fill the dam with 22 bcm next year and it has already disclosed that it will start building another dam in 2027, something likely to cause further tension in the talks.

Sharaki argues Egypt should take the file to the Security Council for a third time, not as a water issue but as an existential threat to millions of Egyptians.

Egypt referred the dispute to the United Nations Security Council in 2020 and 2021. In September 2021, the Security Council issued a statement calling for a resumption of negotiations led by the African Union to reach a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 September, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Commentary

By Jagdeesh Mann

In 2018, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi royal family, had come to collect some documentation pertaining to his marital status. Once inside the consulate, he would be drugged, strangled and dismembered by killers tasked by the Saudi government. The CIA, in a subsequent report, said the order came from the top, Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto head of the Saudi royal family.

The murder of Khashoggi was a savage act of violence that shocked the world.

The audacity of the Saudi regime to order an extrajudicial execution of a national  especially in a foreign country  is, however, now seemingly being challenged by what once would have been an unlikely competitor, India.

The country that gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, and that led the Non-Aligned Movement in the post-colonial era, has been accused by Ottawa of orchestrating the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen killed on Canadian soil.

If the accusations are true, its a sharp falloff for a country that has already been downgraded from a democracy to an elected autocracy, according to Sweden-based V-Dem Institute. The Hardeep Nijjar assassination may be the milestone that marks Indias permanent departure from its ideals as an open and secular society to one more in the company of despotic regimes like Russia, Iran and China.

It would be a new low for Indias government, a democracy with a dismal human rights record, particularly against its own religious minorities.

Putting out contracts against former Indian citizens living abroad would mark the opening of a new, even darker chapter in the attenuated Khalistan narrative  one in which the source of violence would now be, rather than holed-up extremists, a hyper-aggressive Indian state ignoring international law to send agents to foreign countries to terminate their own Jamal Khashoggis, albeit with firearms instead of bone-saws.

The former premier of British Columbia, Ujjal Dosanjh, knows the violence of Khalistani secessionists as well as anyone. As a longtime critic of the Khalistan movement, he was the victim of a vicious beating at the hands of pro-Khalistan extremists in the mid-1980s, when the movement was at its apex.

Its not a secret that he does not support the formation of an independent Sikh state in India. Its a view he actually shares with most Sikhs living in the Indian state of Punjab where, since the insurgency and violence ended two decades ago, the matter has become a nonstarter. Dosanjh, in a CBC interview this week, also expressed dismay, like his former political peers, at the possibility the Indian state is the prime suspect in the gunning down of pro-Khalistan supporter Hardeep Nijjar.

If it is true, it is very very troubling and it changes the perception of India as a country.

That contrast between its preferred brand image as the worlds biggest democracy with a hug-happy PM in Narendra Modi leading the way versus its alter ego as a thuggish murdering regime closer in functional reality to the House of Saud comes into even sharper relief when peering more closely into the life of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Unlike Jamal Khashoggi, who was a prominent Washington Post journalist with an international following and a regular panelist on major media platforms, Nijjar was an ordinary citizen by most measures. Whereas Khashoggi could nudge the needle of public opinion on Saudi Arabia, a country desperate to remake itself in the rapidly coming post-oil future, Nijjar could not. He neither possessed a mass media following nor any political cachet in India.

Punjab-based journalists interviewed by the New York Times this week were stumped as to who Nijjar was. Jagtar Singh, for example, a reporter who has covered Punjab politics for decades said, Nijjar was and is totally unknown here, and that he had never heard of or about him.

A plumber by trade, Nijjar was like many other Canadian immigrants from Punjab, a man with a family and children who, when not working, could be found volunteering at his local Sikh gurdwara. In his case, he served on the temple executive as its president. And yes, he was also an outspoken advocate of Khalistan, as well as a supporter of the recent (non-binding and non-official) Khalistan referendum. To the consternation of the Indian government, thousands turned out to vote and rally for the cause at the Surrey Guru Nanak Temple.

Conceiving someone like Nijjar to be any kind of serious security threat to a major power halfway around the globe seems far-fetched in the most generous terms.

For context, Indian authorities have claimed Nijjar to be the head of a listed terror group, the Khalistan Tiger Force. He denied those allegations and has been described by Canadian Sikh groups as an activist.

The political advocacy and human rights campaigns of Khalistan supporters living abroad can be an irritant for India but in terms of magnitude, its on the scale of the mosquito circling an elephant. By any risk-reward measure, there would seem to be little to gain  and a great deal to lose in terms of a permanently tarnished public image  for the Indian state to assassinate a Canadian citizen who was exercising his free speech rights in his own country.

At this stage, its only possible to speculate whether this was potentially an underreach on the part of the Indian government in targeting someone of such a minor profile, or an overreach as in the same vein as China setting up police stations in Canada, to monitor and harass former nationals.

Yet either way and with a national election looming on the horizon in spring 2024, Indias possible involvement in Nijjars murder is being either vigorously defended or played up as a heroic act on social platforms by many in the countrys compliant media and jingoistic online mobs, which are regularly deployed to control the media narrative. In a mere three decades, India, thanks in large part to its current highly communalized politics, has spiralled from exhorting mobs to smash mosques to projecting a Bollywoodized chest-thumping faux-machismo that leads its vast online mobs to attack anyone questioning the countrys trajectory.

India  along with China, Iran and Russia  has already been implicated as possibly meddling in Canadas elections. And as a part of its new muscular self-image, it is inevitable, and justifiable, that the country will project its strength across the globe as it emerges as an Asian counterweight to China. The question at this point is will India continue down the ramp as a downgraded democracy or will it rise to the ideals of its secular constitution.

The country is clearly at a fork in the road.

And its decision will ultimately determine if its coming governments treat its Hardeep Singh Nijjars  abroad or at home  as allies to be heard or enemies to be permanently silenced.

Jagdeesh Mann, is a freelance journalist based in Vancouver.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage to kick off the tech giants Connect developer conference Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Menlo Park, Calif. The company, which renamed itself Meta two years ago, is expected to unveil the next version of its virtual reality headset, the Quest 3 and possibly discuss AI chatbots and other tools and features designed to keep users interested in Facebook and Instagram as competition with TikTok continues.(AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)

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Celebrating his countrys independence day in Cairo, Tajikistans Ambassador to Egypt Zarobiddin Kosimi said that the 30 years of bilateral ties have strengthened friendship and cooperation in various fields.

The 32nd anniversary of the independence of Tajikistan and the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Egypt was celebrated on 25 September at the Conrad hotel in Cairo.

The two historical countries and peoples are connected not only by these 30 years of diplomatic relations but also by the very long-standing relations within the framework of the Silk Road and the Le Zufard Road, Kosimi said.

Even today, trade and mutual investment between Tajikistan and Egypt continue to grow, he said.

He pointed out that the process was accelerated after President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon visited Cairo in March 2022 and Sharm El-Sheikh in November.

Economic and trade relations



Kosimi expressed his confidence that economic and investment cooperation between the two countries would bear fruit in the near future.

He pointed to the large number of Egyptian businessmen and investors who are expected to attend the International Investment Forum, which will be held in Tajikistans capital of Dushanbe 29-30 September.

In fact, 32 years is a very short period of time to establish, develop, and strengthen the independent state from a historical perspective. However, it should be emphasized that the Tajik people have a long history of six thousand years and a rich and diverse culture, said Ambassador Kosimi.

It is a rich cultural, literary experience and historical memory of the Tajik nation, which gave birth to noble sons such as Abu Ali Ibn Sina, Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni, Jalal al-Din al-Balkhi al-Rumi and hundreds of other great men, that gave us the opportunity to establish the state in this short historical period.

International leadership



Ambassador Kosimi affirmed that Tajikistan is internationally recognized for its pioneering efforts to solve global problems related to water and climate.

It is a matter of pride for the Tajik people that five initiatives of Tajikistan so far have received support and assistance from the international community, that is the United Nations, [and] are being implemented on a global scale, Kosimi said.

He pointed out that the international water agenda is called the Dushanbe Process.

Tajikistan is a country of pure water and the source of more than 60 percent of the water resources in Central Asia, which stem from 13,000 glaciers, rivers, and beautiful mountain springs. By having an incredible amount of water resources and stunning nature, Tajikistan is one of the leading and exemplary countries in the world in the modern process of development of green economy and green energy.

This makes Tajikistan one of the most attractive countries in the world for tourists and foreign investors, he added.

Kosimi concluded by expressing his wish for the continued friendship between Egypt and Tajikistan.

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 Weighing your coffee beans will help you achieve the same great brew every time. If too much coffee is used, the brew may be under-extracted and it will taste sour but, if you dont add enough coffee, the result will be flat and watery.
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Nor is there an option for the AI assistant to interact with your documents, as Microsoft originally promised. You cant drag Word documents or PDFs into the AI assistant and ask questions about them, as the early promo video showed. Nor can it read your email or even write a new email for you, without you having to cut and paste the suggested text into the email yourself. Microsoft is seemingly saving those features for paying customers (see next section).
Korea marks the 70th anniversary of Korea's Armed Forces Day on Monday. Commemorating soldiers' service and sacrifice, the main event of the day takes place at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul in the evening.

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Taking place at night for the first time, the event will also feature performances by K-pop stars like Psy.


Merchants have felt forced into purchasing more services from Amazon than necessary, including advertising packages, the suit alleges. Compelling merchants to enroll in logistics and advertising programs, "Amazon now takes one of every $2 that a seller makes," Lina Khan, the FTC chair, said Tuesday in a news briefing.

The lawsuit says that Amazon crossed the line by punishing sellers with anti-discounting measures if they sold their products for less on other platforms. The FTC also said sellers have had no option but to pay for the company's logistics service if they want their products to show up in Amazon Prime, the subscription service that boasts expedited shipping and video streaming.

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on Tuesday, accusing the e-commerce giant of operating an illegal monopoly, thereby overcharging for goods and locking merchants into predatory agreements.

Amazon has denied the accusations. "Today's suit makes clear the FTC's focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition," Amazon's general counsel, David Zapolsky, said in a statement.

"The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon's store," he said. Zapolsky went on to say the suit is wrong on the facts and the law.

 Amazon Tries to Get Khan Recused

When Khan was in law school in 2017, she wrote a paper for the Yale Law Journal on Amazon's dominance in e-commerce. The Associated Press reports that in 2021, Amazon sought to have Khan recused from agency investigations of the company because of her earlier criticism.

The sprawling lawsuit represents one of the most significant legal challenges Amazon has come up against in its 30-year history. According to CBS News, Khan dodged questions over whether the FTC will try to force the site's breakup. "At this stage, the focus is more on liability," she said.

 Most Sellers Independent

More than 60 percent of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers -- most of which are small and medium-sized businesses, according to the retail giant's official data. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, the company is worth $1.3 trillion.
Column: I'm new here, but your votes are not
Lydia Edwards and Bob Cunningham exchange the flag sent by her husband, Scott, who is currently serving overseas.
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Alliance for Tourism firmly disapproves FPTR proposal to introduce a tax on holidays taken abroad

The Alliance for Tourism (APT), a platform that brings together 24 professional, employer and associative organizations in the field of tourism, firmly disapproves of the proposal made by an employers' federation in this field regarding the introduction of a tax on holidays taken abroad by Romanian citizens, told Agerpres.

"Today, on World Tourism Day, a field built on trust and freedom of travel, we consider that the solutions for the development of Romanian tourism lie in increasing the quality of the services offered, developing the infrastructure and especially investing in promoting the image. According to statistical data, tourism brought in 2019, before the pandemic, approximately 9 billion euros to Romania's GDP, a percentage that can and must increase if the above premises are met. Outdated legislation that no longer takes into account the digital realities we live in, the practice of tourism in black or gray, the lack of a National Destination Management Organization that can develop multi-annual projects with clear budgets, independent of political movements, are just as many elements that hinder the development of Romanian tourism," it is shown in a press release sent by the organization on Wednesday.

According to the quoted source, the unity of the tourism industry is a key factor for the cohesion of proposals and actions for the promotion and development of tourism.

In this context, the association of all the organizations active in tourism with the proposal of a single federation is unfair and does not correspond to reality.

"The Alliance for Tourism will continue the work and dialogue with the authorities so that tourism truly becomes a national priority", the APT press release states.

The Federation of Patronages from Romanian Tourism (FPTR) transmitted, on Tuesday, in a press release posted on the organization's official Facebook page, that the tourist promotion tax levied on Romanian citizens traveling abroad would be collected by travel agencies, booking platforms and other similar intermediaries, being later transferred to the account of the national OMD, in a similar way to the collection of the special promotion tax, known as "resort tax" or "city tax".

In response, the first deputy chairman of the National Association of Tourism Agencies (ANAT), Alin Burcea, stated that the FPTR proposal to impose a tax on Romanian tourists traveling abroad, under the pretext of promoting Romania, is "absurd" and has tourist model of North Korea, Afghanistan or communist Romania.

At the same time, the Federation of Romanian Hospitality Industry Employers (FPIOR) announced, on Wednesday, that it firmly dissociates itself from the proposal of the Federation of Romanian Tourism Employers (FPTR), to impose a tourism promotion tax in Romania, for Romanian tourists traveling in outside our country.

In turn, Corina Martin, general secretary of FPIOR, emphasized that the Romanian tourist should not be penalized for the state's inefficiency in attracting tourists to our country.
Constitutional Court's Enache: There is an opening to dialogue between CCR and CJEU

The President of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), Marian Enache, on Tuesday met Professor Peter L. Lindseth, from the Faculty of Law of the University of Connecticut, United States of America, in which context he affirmed that there is an openness to dialogue between the CCR and the CJEU, told Agerpres.

According to a press release of the CCR, Marian Enache presented a brief history of the constitutionality control in Romania, which dates back to 1912, when the American model was adopted through judicial channels. He specified that the normative regulation of constitutionality control was implemented by the Constitution of 1923, also according to the American model, which lasted until 1947. The President of the CCR made a brief presentation of the Romanian institution of constitutional jurisdiction, mentioning the procedure for appointing to the judges, the powers and effects of the Court's decisions and emphasizing that all referrals are judged in plenary, as there is no filter committee for referrals.

The President of the CCR mentioned the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the interpretation of European law and the mechanism of preliminary questions as a way of judicial dialogue between the European court and the national courts of the member states. He also showed that there is an openness towards a dialogue between the Constitutional Court of Romania and the CJEU, as well as the fact that the existence of constitutional courts represents a guarantee of the rule of law whose essence refers to the defense of the rights and freedoms of citizens, the CCR said in a statement.

Professor Peter L. Lindseth emphasized his training as a specialist in administrative law and that, from this perspective, he considers that European integration is essential for the development of the state. As a researcher, he specified that the EU still has a strong administrative dimension, since cooperation with the member states is essential to ensure its financial resources.

"The constitutional dimension can be achieved by a structure like that of the EU only to the extent that it can autonomously secure its financial resources, through its own will, which means that a political decision of the member states is necessary," informs CCR, showing that Peter L. Lindseth emphasized that the legitimacy of the EU still rests on the constitutional pillar of the member states.

The CCR specifies that, at the end of the meeting, it was concluded that any decision of a constitutional court is both an act of jurisdiction and an act of democracy in consideration of the prerogatives it has.

Prof. univ. dr. also participated in the meeting. Bogdan Iancu, from the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bucharest, and, on behalf of the Court, Benke Karoly, first-assistant magistrate, Cristina Titirisca, assistant-magistrate, and Oana Raican, advisor in the Department of external relations, relations with the press and protocol.
Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu declared, on Wednesday, for the private broadcaster Digi24, that he wants the new pension law to be promulgated by January 1, and that all procedures regarding special pensions should be completed by November 1.

He mentioned that, together with the World Bank and the European Commission, it was decided to follow the option that closes the inequities within the pension law, agerpres reports.

"I'll take the first scenario that I agreed with the Commission, the one in which the inequities are greatly reduced. For example, there are people who have worked for 30 years and have a pension from (former Agricultural Production Cooperative, ed. n.) CAP of 1,000 RON, 1,500 RON. There was no (agricultural pension, ed. n.) contribution during Ceausescu's time. Shall I dig him out of the grave to scold him? That's what he thought then. That was the communist system. (...) There are some inequities. This is the first option," explained the prime minister, adding that, after the adoption of the new law, pensions will increase by 5%, the large ones, but also by 20, 40%, the smaller ones.

According to the prime minister, negotiations are still underway with the European Commission regarding special pensions."The last negotiations we have, there are still three things to negotiate, are where we fit with the calculation, which months are taken into account when the magistrates' pension is calculated. You know very well that it was on a single month, the last month. Do you remember a prosecutor general who came out with 120,000 (RON), that he put all his income in one month? A PG of Romania, to do a trick to put all their income in the last month, to retire with 120,000 (RON). Their is no greater insult one can do in front of an entire people, after you were a prosecutor, meaning that you were delivering justice in Romania. It's this negotiation, the last draft was sent by the Ministry of Justice 48 hours ago. We are waiting for the Commission's response, where is the red line, where we can fit in, so that we can make the amendments, pass them through the Parliament," said Ciolacu."We must have the entire parliamentary process closed by November 1, including the decision of the Constitutional Court (in case the law will be contested at the CCR, ed. n.). We are a little pressed for time. If we do not close this milestone, we will submit without closing this milestone, and Romania will lose 1.4 billion euros," Marcel Ciolacu concluded.
Immigration officers issue return decisions for about 3,000 immigrants eight months into 2023

In the first eight months of 2023, Romania's immigration officers carried out about 800 specific checks, following which return decisions were issued for 3,028 people with a deadline for voluntary departure from Romania, while 930 were removed under escort, told Agerpres.

"Between January 1 and August 31, 2023 the immigration police conducted 793 specific checks nationwide related to the prevention and combat of illegal stay and undocumented employment of foreigners, with their own staff and in collaboration with other public order officers and specialists of local labour inspectorates," the General Immigration Inspectorate (IGI) reported on Wednesday.

As a result of the actions and checks carried out, 3,765 foreigners were found in illegal situations.

For the reported violations, 810 fines were applied to foreigners and employers for violation of the legal provisions regarding foreigners and their gainful employment.
South Korea's constitutional court ruled on Tuesday the ban on sending propaganda leaflets to North Korea was unconstitutional, striking down a law passed in 2020 by the liberal party of then-President Moon Jae-in, who sought better ties with Pyongyang.

The law, which subjects violators to up to three years in prison or $22,210 in fines, had come under intense criticism from rights activists and conservative lawmakers as a violation of free speech rights.

The 7-2 found that a clause in the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act banning the distribution of leaflets excessively limited freedom of speech, the Court said in a summary of the ruling.

The clause characterized the sending of leaflets as a potential cause of danger and serious harm to South Korean citizens, especially those who live near the border in the event North Korea retaliated by force.

The court's decision to nullify the law takes effect immediately.
Over 80,000 people entered Romania on Tuesday, of which approximately 9,500 were Ukrainians

The General Inspectorate of the Border Police (IGPR) informs that on Tuesday, 80,113 people, of which 9,551 Ukrainian citizens, entered Romania through the border points, told Agerpres.

According to a press release sent on Wednesday by AGERPRES, approximately 166,000 people, Romanian and foreign citizens, with approximately 46,800 means of transport, completed the control formalities at the border points throughout the country, both inbound and outbound.

Starting with February 10, 2022 (pre-conflict period), 6,187,132 Ukrainian citizens entered Romania.

In the areas of competence, the crossing points and the "green border", the police found 68 illegal acts (37 crimes and 31 misdemeanors) committed by both Romanian and foreign citizens, and the amount of contravention fines applied amounts to 27,800 RON.

Assets worth approximately 120,000 RON were seized for confiscation.

On Tuesday, 26 foreign citizens who did not meet the conditions provided for by law were not allowed to enter the country and ten Romanian citizens were not allowed to leave for various legal reasons.
The leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) senators, Lucian Romascanu, believes that the final ECHR decision on the protection and legal recognition of LGBT families in Romania will have to be analyzed by the Government, explained to society, and at European level to understand that there are important cultural differences between member states.

"Romania has undertaken to recognize same-sex marriages in the European Union, so that there can be a right of residence in Romania of those who have concluded such marriages in other EU member states. Regarding this decision, it will have to be discussed at Government level and see what the next steps are. There is obviously this direction, which we accept, we are members of the EU. At the same time, these things must be done carefully, in time, and with a sufficiently clear explanation to society of what this means, because we must understand and it must be understood at European level that there are important cultural differences between member states," Romascanu said on Wednesday at the Senate, agerpres reports.

"We'll see how this ECHR decision will be interpreted at the level of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Justice, the Government (...) The European Union and membership in the European Union have brought us many benefits, of course, there are also things that do not always suit us, but we must take them into account. The decisions or directives of the European Union must always be updated legislatively in each EU member country," Romascanu added.

"Given the cultural differences I talked about, there will certainly be a negotiation process at the European Union on terms. We do not discuss the obligation, because, as I said, EU membership also implies obligations, but the timetable, the way of adoption will have to be discussed at the level of the Government and then at the level of Parliament," Romascanu said.The College of Judges of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR rejected the challenge made by the Romanian Government against the decision handed down in May by the European Court of Human Rights obliging the Romanian state to adopt legislation for the recognition of same-sex couples.In August, the Romanian state appealed to the Grand Chamber the ECHR decision of May 23 that obliges Romania to recognize by law and protect the rights of same-sex couples who want to officially become a family. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the institution that exercises, on behalf of the Government, the prerogatives of government agent before the ECHR.
Romania's Court of Auditors to hold closing conference for modernisation project

Romania's Court of Auditors (CCR) is holding today a closing conference for the CCR-Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) project for citizens, a project co-funded from the European Social Fund under operational programme administrative capacity 2014-2020 designed to modernise CCR, told Agerpres.

"In 2019, the Court of Auditors started an extensive process of institutional consolidation in order to stay relevant and respond as best as possible to the needs and interests of the citizen. Among the main achievements in these four years are the new audit methodologies developed in accordance with the international auditing standards, working on CCR organisational culture to support a new approach, as well as a new institutional development strategy for 2023-2027," CCR reports.

At the closing conference, the objectives and results of the project will be presented, with emphasis on the sustainability of a significant organisational transformation, both within the court and in the relationship with its key stakeholders.

According to organisers, attending the event will be Chairman of the Romanian Court of Auditors Mihai Busuioc; Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu; Senate Deputy Chair Virgil Guran; interim Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Alfred Simonis, and World Bank's Practice Manager for Governance, Public Sector and Financial Management in the Europe and Central Asia region Fabian Seiderer.

Also attending will be Finance Minister Marcel Bolos; Deputy Chair of the Dutch Court of Auditors Barbara Joziasse; World Bank senior financial management specialist Arun Manuja, and First Chairman of the French Cort of Auditors Pierre Moscovic.
Senate President Nicolae Ciuca announces on Wednesday, on Facebook, that he will attend the European Conference of presidents of Parliament from the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, which takes place on Thursday and Friday in Dublin.

"The three key issues for the public agenda of each European country that I will address together with the 400 conference participants are: the consequences of the Russian Federation's war of aggression against Ukraine and the role of national parliaments in Ukraine's reconstruction, the challenges to representative democracy in unstable times and, last but not least, equality and diversity in public representation - young people, women and minority representatives as members of parliaments," Ciuca says, agerpres reports.

He stresses that "the unprovoked and unjustified military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine has brought about profound transformations in European geopolitics, but especially in the economic, energy and trade areas".

"The Black Sea has become an area of increased interest for the major powers, and Romania is in the strategic position of being the only EU and NATO member country that shares both land and sea borders with Ukraine," adds the Senate president.According to him, the effects of the war are also being felt in the rise of populist speech in European politics."People's distrust in the democratic process is induced by extremist parties, which turn it into hatred through the use of toxic speech. The very solidity of democracy and civil rights is thus being threatened. It is important to constantly promote the benefits of democracy as the only option that guarantees the rights and freedoms of all citizens," concludes Nicolae Ciuca.
Telecom authority head: 5G technology to be majority in Romania at 2026-end

Telecommunications operators give us hope that, sometime by the end of 2026, 5G technology will be the majority in Romania, but the transition will not be simple, president of the National Authority for Communications Administration and Regulation (ANCOM) Valeriu Zgonea told a specialist debate on Wednesday.

"We are talking about smart communities. Unfortunately, there are several approaches in Romania. As always, when we make a transition towards a certain type of society, we choose this concept of decentralisation instead of thinking about a common strategy, an action plan, some generally valid principles and follow this process. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of decentralisation outweigh the benefits of decentralisation. At this point, if we are talking about smart solutions to all these problems that we find in a community with technology and connectivity closer to the citizen, easier for them to use, I think 4G technology offers enough tools to support communities, if they have the financial resources and have the capacity. Smart specialisation is not very simple for communities. If we talk about technical issues, then we can say this: at the end of last year we had about 3% 5G in Romania, around 720 - 730,000 SIM cards. If we look at the data reported by the operators, somewhere at the end of August there were about 750 5G stations, about 5,000 cells in urban communities. If we are not careful and don't have a plan to discuss with mobile operators we might find that this technology will be the majority in Romania after 2027. The dialogue we have today with the operators gives us hope that, somewhere at the end of 2026, it will be a majority technology in Romania. The transition is not simple," Zgonea said.

The ANCOM chief pointed out that Romania's digital transition cannot take place without a joint effort of public institutions and the private sector.

He added that the local administration must be helped to find the financial resources to build smart projects.

"The role of the local government is important, but the local government, without support from the private sector and without support from the state, will find it very difficult to find the financial resources to build a project. They don't have technical support, they don't have enough resources to apply for such a solution. The technology will reach Romania and will be implemented. First in urban centres, where we are talking about the wide economy, where there are a lot of solutions that we need to support, and then in rural communities. ANCOM has come up with two elements in recent years in support of this concept. Firstly, it has made a model regulation for electronic communications providers who want to access the properties of the TAUs, how they should do this and secondly it has launched a Guide that is constantly changing on all the smart radio solutions and radio equipment that we use for smart communities, so that they are very careful what they select, how they select when they want to implement such solutions in their communities," said Valeriu Zgonea.

Representatives of the authorities, together with companies, consultants and financial institutions, are participating on Wednesday in the 8th edition of the Smart Transformation Forum - 2023 edition.
MILWAUKEE  Some people seeking the newest COVID-19 vaccine are running into high demand, insurance headaches and supply delays coast to coast.

Millions of the newly formulated vaccines have shipped out since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on them last week for ages 6 months and up. Cases started rising again in late summer, and experts hope that the new shots will help protect people during the upcoming fall respiratory virus season.

But some people have had to cancel appointments because their insurance hasn't updated the billing codes to cover the vaccines. Others signed up for an appointment, only to have it canceled due to supply issues. And in some places, there are no available nearby vaccines: A search in Juneau, Alaska, through the federal government's website shows no available appointments within 100 miles.

Some pharmacies have a limited supply of the shots, Alaska Department of Health spokesperson Alex Huseman said, but order backlogs and slow shipments have prevented the vaccines from being widely available. Private health care providers hopefully can get them as early as next week, she said.

"This rollout has been a little bumpier than anticipated, but we do not believe there will be any significant delay in vaccine availability," Huseman said.

This is the first time that the vaccines are reaching most Americans through the commercial market, bringing public and private health insurers back in the mix. Previously, the federal government bought and distributed COVID-19 vaccines for free since they became available.

CVS Pharmacy spokesperson Matt Blanchette said some insurers are still in the process of updating their billing systems to cover the vaccines. For others, the shots were covered by insurance without issue, but appointments were canceled by their pharmacy due to supply delays.

Walgreens and CVS confirmed that delivery delays to some stores across the country had led to canceled appointments.

"We are aware of isolated incidences at a small number of locations where appointments had to be rescheduled due to delays in supply," a Walgreens spokesperson said, noting most stores "have supply to support existing patient appointments."

Moderna and Pfizer representatives said they have enough supply. Pfizer spokespeople said it is not experiencing any shortages and has "shipped and delivered several million doses of its 20232024 COVID-19 vaccine." Moderna had six million available as of Thursday, vice president of communications Chris Ridley said.

Marwa Bakr, the owner of a small, private pharmacy on Milwaukee's southwest side, said she put in a preorder for Pfizer and Moderna's new vaccines a month ago. She got a call from Moderna this week telling her she should get the vaccines in the next two weeks, and Pfizer has said the shots could come by the end of next week.

She used to order the vaccines through the federal government, and said the return to the commercial process is "taking longer."

"I receive a lot of phone calls every day from people asking when the vaccine will be available," Bakr said.

Still, the supply issues aren't deterring people from looking for the vaccine.

Karen Ramos of Temecula, California, made an appointment at her local CVS as soon as she heard that the vaccines were approved. The 57-year-old insurance underwriter has never had COVID-19  at least, as far as she is aware. She wanted to keep it that way ahead of a scheduled Caribbean cruise on Oct. 1.

She had scheduled an appointment last Saturday, but the day before, she got a text from the pharmacy saying the new vaccine was not available and her appointment had been canceled. She set a new appointment for Tuesday, which also was canceled "due to unforeseen circumstances."

Ramos started searching for appointments at any CVS between her home and office in San Diego. By expanding her search to Walgreens, she was able to snag an appointment in Temecula on Tuesday.

"It was frustrating, because I was excited to get it two weeks in advance (of the cruise), and then having to scramble to reschedule," she said.
Bloody Island almost ruined city's river trade

It was just another island formed by the ever-changing Mississippi River. Rising as a sand bar in about 1800, it soon grew to nearly one mile in length.

Separated from both riverbanks and thus of uncertain legal jurisdiction, it was a convenient place to indulge in early America's foolhardy taste for duels of honor. Thus its grim name.

As a landform, Bloody Island nearly wrecked St. Louis as a river town.

By the 1820s, the channel between the island and the Illinois bank was widening. To its west, the river was getting shallower. Left to itself, the entire Mississippi might shift to the east and away from the city's busy steamboat landing.

Lee

In 1838, Capt. Robert E. Lee, an Army engineer, supervised construction of a rock-and-timber barrier between the head of Bloody Island and the Illinois riverbank. It shifted the main current to the west, deepening the channel in front of the city.

Bloody Island eventually fused with Illinois, its flat expanse becoming home to railyards and industries in and near East St. Louis. Known later simply as the Island, the area was devastated by a massive tornado in 1896.
ST. LOUIS  Federal authorities have subpoenaed a city agency for records related to developers Vic Alston and Sid Chakraverty  the brothers behind Lux Living, STL Citywide and Asprient Properties.

The request for records was sent to the St. Louis Development Corporation, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Its unclear exactly what records federal investigators sought from SLDC or when the subpoena was delivered.

But Alston and Chakravertys companies have obtained property tax abatement and other development incentives from the office for numerous projects over the years.

The brothers attorney, Ira Berkowitz, couldnt immediately be reached for comment regarding the subpoena, nor could Alston.

But Chakraverty said Wednesday: Talk to Ira, I dont know anything about it.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys office declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Lux Living, along with Alston and Chakravertys other companies, own hundreds of apartment units across the region and are one of the largest and most active multifamily developers in St. Louis. The brothers are currently building apartments in University City and eyeing projects in Crestwood, St. Charles and Kansas City.

But tenants at the brothers properties have complained for years about unresponsive management and deferred maintenance at their properties. Last year, the landlords settled a class-action lawsuit over a failure to refund security deposits.

And, after the brothers sold a tax-abated DeBaliviere Place apartment building for a windfall, city officials instituted new provisions in 2020 to claw back some tax incentives.

As the brothers grew larger, so did the controversies. They used a defunct neighborhood association in DeBaliviere Place to sue a competing developer, delaying that project by months while they opened their own multifamily building across the street and began leasing it. They subpoenaed a tenant who spoke to the Post-Dispatch about problems in his building.

They control the condo board at the downtown Ely Walker Lofts, which condo owners and residents say has been allowed to fall into disrepair and was tagged as a nuisance by city officials after a high-profile shooting last year.

And last summer, a former Lux employee, Chris Stritzel, said they had considered rigging the buildings they own on South Kingshighway to collapse so that they could get around city ordinances protecting historic structures from demolition. Attorneys for the brothers vehemently denied the accusation.

Stritzel last month said in an online post that indictments were near in the development world.

He told the Post-Dispatch that FBI agents showed up at his house this year, interviewed him and asked whether he saw anything wrong going on besides what the Post reported about Kingshighway. He never heard from the agents again, he said, but he is aware that other former employees were questioned.

Elkin Kistner, an attorney who represents condo owners in their long-running lawsuit against the Ely Walker Lofts condo board and the Alston company that controls it, said he has heard from people close to the case that a federal investigation is underway.

He said he had also heard about the existence of the subpoena to the city.

Alston and Chakraverty grew up in St. Louis County and their family has owned real estate in the region for years. Before Alston launched Lux Living with Chakraverty, he worked at California-based computer network provider Ixia, becoming its CEO in 2012.

But he resigned a year later after an internal investigation found that he misstated his age, early employment history and academic credentials, falsely claiming bachelors and masters degrees in computer science from Stanford University.

Later, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation determined Alston misled Ixia investors by directing company employees to recognize sales revenues earlier than allowed under accounting standards. Alston concealed the activity from the companys auditors, the SEC found.

In 2017, Alston, without admitting or denying the SECs findings, agreed to a $100,000 penalty and a five-year ban from serving as an officer or director of public companies.

Last month, the brothers put their downtown properties up for sale.

Austin Huguelet of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
BELLEVILLE  The Ruler Foods grocery store here remained closed Wednesday afternoon as structural engineers continued to monitor the mine subsidence that is occurring under the building.

Subsidence happens when the earth sinks and shifts as a result of underground voids left from mines collapsing. Over 800,000 acres have been mined for coal in Illinois, leaving numerous structures at risk.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources was notified of the Belleville subsidence Sunday morning. The area is about 300 feet in diameter and the department considers it an active subsidence event, a spokesperson said.

Youll usually have a certain amount of movement after the fact, Belleville building commissioner Steven Thouvenot said outside of the Ruler Foods store, 1703 North Belt West, Wednesday afternoon.

Thouvenot pointed out the uneven pavement and buckled asphalt around the buildings foundation and said it was one of the larger cases hes seen in his three years with the city.

As for the Ruler Foods, Thouvenot said it will be up to the structural engineers evaluation to see if and when the store can reopen to the public.

Ruler Foods posted on social media Sunday morning that a water main break caused the store to shut down. On Wednesday, signs marked the store as temporarily closed and caution tape strewn between upturned grocery carts blocked some of the parking lots entrances.

Ruler Foods could not be reached for comment.

Belleville fire department chief Stephanie Mills confirmed the mine subsidence Tuesday.

DNR will be monitoring the Ruler Foods site throughout the next few weeks, in response to this subsidence. Ruler Foods will be temporarily closed, as the monitoring continues, the city wrote on Facebook.

Nearby residents have been told they are safe to stay in their homes. Thouvenot said he noticed cracked brick on the exterior of one of the neighboring residences, though he hasnt been asked to assess the interiors of any homes.

Its nothing too extensive, he said. Only a small section of Queensway Drive remains closed to traffic.

Last year, Thouvenot assessed a mine subsidence that occurred in a residential loop about half a mile northeast of Ruler Foods. He said that it did not cause much damage and is still monitored for movement.
Elnur Enveroglu

We are in Konya with the special support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and, the capital of the ancient Seljuk state, the land of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi and many other divines, friends of Allah  the country that raises the flag of Islam on its soil. This city, which has preserved its antiquity, gives a person the feeling of living in the 10th-12th centuries at the very first sight.

Behind us, this building stands out for its simple but magnificent style and comforting appearance. Small graves can be seen along the side walls of the mosque from the courtyard to the entrance. These graves at least preserve a history of more than seven centuries and also show that Konya is the land of Sufis.

Since the Seljuk state was founded in 1037, the sultans who led the state have constantly started to carry out strong reforms in the direction of developing science and Islamic culture. Today's Turkiye, which would once become the cradle of the Islamic culture, and its ancient capital, Konya, invited scholars from the east to the country.

Maulana, whose real name is Jalaluddin Muhammed, was born on September 30, 1207, in the city of Balkh in what is now northern Afghanistan. He then left Balkh due to some political events and the Mongol invasion. Having lived in Mecca, Medina, Damascus, and various cities of Anatolia, Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi and his family came to Konya upon the invitation of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultan Alaaddin Keykubat. He started teaching religious sciences in Konya in 1240. His paths crossed with Dervish ?ams Tabrizi in 1244 in Konya and ?ams was to only one he had conversations with for some time. There is more to talk about these two famous Sufis who then captivated many hearts in the worlds fascinating place by destroying all stereotypes about the religion of Islam. It is indeed, the religion about truth and is an adverse enemy of terrorism and discrimination.

On a visit to the mosque of Maulana Jalauddin Rumi, our tour guide Mehmet Donmez shared some interesting historical facts exclusively with Azernews.

Our visit to Konya just coincided with the anniversary of a great scholar who has become a symbol of love, peace, brotherhood, and tolerance. Starting the trip by visiting Maulana is a must as this magnificent city is blessed with his holy and uplifting spirit. Behind this wonderful spiritual secret is the heavenly knowledge of Sufism and the unity of the human soul between the earth and the sky, which means also a celestial world. It is not for nothing that Konya is also a city of whirling dervishes who have been specially trained for more than a couple of years to perform this ritual properly. This is not a matter of physical ability but the human perception of the heavenly power and most importantly to be able to create a connection between earth and heaven.

During the trip, we visited a variety of places that once functioned as dervish schools, but now have been turned into museums. Note that Konyas municipality and Culture Ministry have given much love to make museums attractive and rich in information about the past millennium.

Another museum in Konya was IRFA (Irfan Civilization Research and Culture Center). The place we visited completely reflected the silhouette of the life of people who lived about eight centuries ago during Seljuks and the most useful information was provided by our tour leader Mehmet Donmez again sharing his historical knowledge with us.

To recall, from September 16 to October 23, a large-scale project called "Turkiye Culture Route Festivals" covering five cities of the country is being implemented under the organization of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The project, which was founded for the first time in 2021 with the "Beyo?lu Culture Route Festival" in Istanbul, and held in Ankara, Canakkale, Diyarbak?r, Konya and Nev?ehir in 2022, was organized in a particularly large format this year on the occasion of the 100th year of the Republic of Turkiye.

The aim of the project is to introduce and promote Turkiye's rich cultural heritage, art, unique cuisine in each region, and historical monuments - in short, a colorful cultural and tourism palette to the world. This time, "Turkiye Culture Route Festivals" is expanding covering five cities, including Istanbul, Ankara, Canakkale, Konya, and Diyarbak?r, and hundreds of events are planned to be held as well.

In fact, this year, the route plan of the "Turkiye Culture Route Festivals" should have covered a total of 11 city provinces, including Gaziantep, which is known for its rich culinary culture and has been included in the UNESCO list. However, the country-wide consequences of the earthquake and disaster that occurred on February 6 and caused great loss and destruction in Gaziantep province changed the project's routes and time-space program. And events were organized within the framework of the project in several previously planned cities (including Trabzon and Nev?ehir in August).

As regards the events in Konya, this is not the end of our trip - there are still charming music festivals waiting for us and interesting moments that keep thousands of historical secrets of Konya like a treasure.

So to explore more together just stay with us

Exclusive by Elnur Enveroglu from Konya, Turkiye
South Korea held a full-scale military parade in downtown Seoul on Tuesday ahead of the 75th Armed Forces Day, which falls on Sunday. It was the first time in a decade that a parade on such a large scale, featuring the country's homegrown missiles and other state-of-the-art equipment and weaponry, has been held.

President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee salute at a military air base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday during a ceremony ahead of Armed Forces Day. /Newsis

The parade, attended by President Yoon Suk-yeol, started in the morning with a ceremony at a military air base in Seongnam, Gyeongi Province, followed by massive displays of key weapons in Gwanghwamun, the heart of the capital, in the afternoon.

President Yoon Suk-yeol (right) inspects troops at a military air base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday from a vehicle during a ceremony ahead of Armed Forces Day. /Newsis

The parade aimed to showcase South Korea's defense alliance with the U.S. and its military capability in the face of growing threats posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles.

People watch a military parade in Seoul on Tuesday. /News1

The military mobilized some 3,700 soldiers, showcasing about 170 pieces of cutting-edge weaponry including homegrown missiles like the Hyunmu, battle tanks, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles. Some 300 U.S. troops also took part in the parade in a demonstration of the bilateral alliance, but an aerial show by the Air Force's Black Eagles aerobatic team was canceled due to the rain.
Tony Messenger Metro columnist Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

HIGH RIDGE  Maria Smith is an old-school bill payer. She writes checks twice a month.

Smith, 78, and her husband, James, 70, are retired. They live on retirement income and Social Security. James worked at the old Chrysler plant in Fenton for 34 years. He was a union official. After he retired, he drove a bus for a while. Then in 2014, he had some medical issues.

Thats what this column is about: hospital bills. Well, not just hospital bills, but all bills these days.

Whether its the hospital, phone company or bank, theres always some fee tacked on that doesnt make sense, Maria says. It often involves encouraging people to pay their bills the way the company wants: online, with a credit card.

Thats not how the Smiths do things. As a retired school secretary, Maria is incredibly organized. She knows how the hospital bill game works. First, you get the doctors bill, then one from the anesthesiologist, and then one from the hospital. They try to get you to pay upfront, on a credit card. She refuses and waits for the bills to make their way through the insurance company. Eventually, she gets the bills that show what she actually owes.

And twice a month, after the various retirement deposits have cleared, she writes her checks to pay the bills. We always pay our bills, she says proudly.

And so it was this time, after James latest medical procedure. It was May 5 and she wrote three checks to the various providers. She showed me the register in her balanced and meticulously kept checkbook.

Not long after she paid, she received a note from the SSM Health system. The note said she owed an additional $12.07. Thats because she didnt pay the bill early and the price included a prompt pay discount. She didnt qualify for the discount, the letter said, so she owed more money.

She and James told their kids about the bill. They suggested the couple pay it. Maria said no. Shes drawing a line in the sand.

On the day I visited, she had a notice from her cellphone company, AT&T. Its one of the few bills that she pays by credit card because she gets a $10 discount for automatic payment. Now, the company wants to switch it to her checking account. The Smiths are worried about identity theft, so they dont use their checking account online. Because she wont make the change, the discount is dropping from $10 to $5.

Theres so many things wrong with how the billing system works these days, Maria says. They dont care. Its not just us. Its not just the older generation.

Indeed, the problem is getting attention from the White House and Congress. President Joe Biden earlier this year instructed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to write a rule that would save up to $1 billion in late fees from banks and other companies that prey on consumers. Hes also urged Congress to pass the Junk Fee Prevention Act to make it harder for companies to add unnecessary fees. Congress, meanwhile, is considering a series of bipartisan bills to bring more transparency to hospital billing.

For the Smiths, the situation is simple.

You shouldnt be penalized if you cant pay online or instantly, Maria says. We dont have money instantly. Were not part of the 10% on the top.

When she received the bill for $12.07, she tried unsuccessfully to get a live person on the phone to discuss it. Eventually, the bill was sent to a Massachusetts company to collect. She talked to them. She let them know she wasnt paying it. The hospital and its collection company have probably spent more than $12.07 trying to collect a bill that never should have been issued, the Smiths believe.

Maria could just write a check and be done with it. Instead, shes taking a stand.

I refuse, she says. Im not going to pay it.
UPDATED with age of victim

ST. LOUIS  A man was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon in the city's Dutchtown neighborhood.

Officers were called to the 2600 block of Osage Street just after 4 p.m. and found the man in the front yard of a home. He had been shot in the head.

Police said they victim was 18 years old. His name has not been released.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
ST. LOUIS  Police on Wednesday identified the pedestrian who was hit and killed by a motorcycle early Saturday in the city's Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

The crash was reported just after 2 a.m. in the 4700 block of South Broadway. Police said the motorcyclist was in the bike lane with the front wheel of the motorcycle in the air, commonly called a "wheelie."

Louise Rice, 60, stepped into the street between two parked vehicles and was hit by the motorcycle.

Rice was pronounced dead at a hospital. The 21-year-old motorcycle driver was also taken to a local hospital and was listed in serious condition.

Police said Rice lived in the 5000 block of South Broadway, just a few blocks from where the crash happened.
JEFFERSON CITY  The state and homeless advocates clashed at the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday over a law cracking down on homeless encampments.

The 2022 legislation bars unauthorized camping on state land and allows the attorney general to sue cities that dont enforce the ban.

Opponents argued to the high court that lawmakers didnt follow the constitution when approving the measure, while the Missouri attorney generals office argued the law was within legal bounds.

In addition to homelessness, the law also touches on a variety of other issues, including county coroners, county financial statements, neighborhood improvement districts and more.

Homeless advocates argued the law alters the legislations original purpose and deals with more than one subject, in violation of the state constitution.

The title of the bill is changing laws regarding political subdivisions.

Adina Rosenbaum, attorney for three housing advocates, said that no one looking at the title of the bill would think, for example, that it criminalized individual behavior.

The law says that anyone found camping on state land would, after one warning, face a Class C misdemeanor, punishable with up to a $750 fine and 15 days in jail.

But Clayton Weems, representing the state, urged the court to examine the law as a whole and not provisions in isolation.

In this particular case, the involvement of political subdivisions is a necessary prerequisite at every juncture, Weems said.

He said the court needed to examine the state land camping prohibition in conjunction with another provision, which requires political subdivisions to not turn a blind eye  to not encourage  the use of state lands in order to address homelessness on a local level.

The high court issued no decision on the case Wednesday. The Cole County Circuit Court had previously upheld the law.

If the law is upheld, major changes in how the state is addressing homelessness will be affirmed.

Springfield-based The Gathering Tree, doing business as Eden Village, which helps provide housing to people, said last year the new law would cause it to lose out on state funds for which it had been eligible.

The legislation prioritizes providing short-term shelter for homeless people, reversing a popular housing-first strategy to get people into permanent homes.

Eden Village had offered permanent housing, including individual housing units that sleep up to three people. Residents were allowed to live in the units longer than two years, putting the group at odds with the new state law, attorneys said.

Edens lawyers said under the law Eden Village couldnt use taxpayer funds to house homeless people in individual shelters for more than two years.

Eden Village also said it operates five campgrounds for chronically homeless individuals but that the new law limits which encampments may receive state funds.

Eligible encampments, under the new law, must provide a mental health and substance abuse evaluation for individuals.

Also suing the state over the law are three individual taxpayers, Johnathan Byrd, Jessica Honeycutt and Allison Miles.

The Missouri Budget Project, Arch City Defenders, the National Homelessness Law Center and other groups filed briefs in the case in support of those challenging the law.

In other cases, the court also took under advisement on Wednesday arguments in the city of St. Louis challenge to a 2021 state law boosting protections for police officers under investigation for misconduct.

The city argued the measure created an unconstitutional unfunded mandate and that it dealt with too many topics unrelated to the primary subject of the legislation.

But the attorney generals office argued each provision in the targeted bill related in some way to public safety and that the law was valid.
ST. LOUIS  A descendant of Dred Scott has installed a towering memorial at Scotts grave in Calvary Cemetery honoring the former slave who, along with his wife, was denied freedom by the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the most infamous judicial rulings in the countrys history.

The new monument, paid with private donations, is in place now and will be officially dedicated on Saturday. Nine feet tall and engraved with a portrait of Scott, biblical passages, and information about the Scotts legal fight, the monument replaced a 2-foot-tall headstone that was installed in 1957.

The monument is intended to be a more fitting remembrance of the Scotts and their impact on U.S. history, said Lynne M. Jackson, Scotts great-great-granddaughter who led the effort to install the new memorial.

Its about making sure that his legacy is available to people, that it is accurate, that it is honorable and that it is worthy of the struggle that he went through, said Jackson, a Florissant resident and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. And it is a memorial worthy of someone who made the journey out there to visit and learn more about him.

The Supreme Courts 1857 decision to deny Scott freedom upheld slavery in the U.S. territories and denied citizenship to Black Americans, hastening the start of the Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery.

Jackson, a descendant of the Scotts through her father, started The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation in 2006 to help prepare a 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in 2007. In 2012, the foundation installed a statue of Dred and Harriet Scott outside the historic Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, the scene where their historic court case began.

Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in 1846 upon moving here  Missouri was a slave state  from Illinois, a free state, and the Wisconsin Territory, a free territory where they had lived with their enslaver. At the time, many slaves who had lived in states or territories where slavery was outlawed sued for their freedom, arguing their residencies had freed them from bondage.

In 1857, after a long legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Scotts should remain enslaved, finding they had no right to sue because free African-Americans were not U.S. citizens. The court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in northern states and territories, was unconstitutional because Congress had no authority to ban slavery in federal territories.

After the verdict, the Scotts were bought and then freed by Taylor Blow, a son of the enslavers who had first owned the Scotts. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis the next year, in 1858, and was buried at the former Wesleyan Cemetery, near the site of what is now St. Louis University. After Wesleyan closed in 1874, Blow paid to move Scotts grave to Calvary Cemetery.

Scotts grave remained unmarked until it was rediscovered by the Rev. Edward Dowling, a genealogist, and a headstone was installed in 1957. In 1992, the African Historical and Genealogical Research Society donated a plaque that read: In memory of a simple man who wanted to be free  Dred Scott.

For decades afterward, Scotts grave was among the most frequently visited at Calvary, which is also the final resting place for famous St. Louisans such as city co-founder Auguste Chouteau, Union Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, novelist Kate Chopin and playwright Tennessee Williams.

But visitors would often struggle to find Scotts grave because it was easy to overlook the former headstone, which wasnt clearly visible from the cemetery road, Jackson said.

You could drive right by it and not see it, Jackson said.

And the headstone and plaque were brief in their descriptions of Scotts legacy, she said.

It did not tell people enough about who he was or what he did or why he was important, Jackson.

Jackson started fundraising for the new memorial for Scott in late 2020, ultimately raising more than $25,000 in contributions from the Mellon Foundation and more than 370 individual donors. The new monument, engraved by the St. Louis-based Rosenblum Monument Co., was installed earlier this month. A ceremony was initially planned for Sept. 17, the 165th anniversary of Scotts death, but was pushed back to this weekend after storms damaged the cemetery.

Jackson plans to display Dred Scotts former headstone at the Heritage Foundation center, along with other historical records, photographs and memorabilia, next year after relocating from Chesterfield Mall in Chesterfield, she said.

The dedication ceremony for Scotts new grave memorial is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the cemetery, 5239 West Florissant Avenue. For more information, visit www.thedredscottfoundation.org.
CLAYTON  The killing of a 16-year-old boy at the hands of his older high school classmate stemmed from a confrontation about a gun outside a Normandy home, a trial Wednesday showed.

A jury found Korrie D. Black Jr., 23, guilty of second-degree murder and armed criminal action Wednesday in the 2018 killing of Gerrian Jerrod Green Jr. The two had been friends and classmates at McCluer South-Berkeley High School, where Gerrian was a junior and Black, 18 at the time of the shooting, was a senior.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ashley Bailey-Smith argued the older teen borrowed a gun from Gerrian, refused to return it, then shot Gerrian when the 16-year-old angrily confronted him asking for the gun back.

I think some of the hardest things about this case is its senselessness, Bailey-Smith told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday. She argued Black was attempting to impress his friends and girlfriend when Gerrian confronted him.

The defendant wanted to be the cool guy, the tough guy on the street, she argued.

Blacks defense attorney Raphael Morris admitted that Black shot the 16-year-old twice during the argument, but said he acted in self-defense after Gerrian threatened to fight him and lunged for the gun he was holding.

Korrie had no choice but to defend himself, Morris said.

The shooting happened about 1:30 p.m. Nov. 24, 2018, when Black arrived at a home in the 5800 block of Bermuda Drive to find Gerrian and Gerrians younger sister there waiting for him.

Bailey-Smith argued Black then went into the home, came back outside and grabbed a gun from his friends jacket.

Neither of them should have had a gun, she said. She admitted that Gerrian was angry and asking Black questions like: Want to go?

Angry doesnt mean you get to be shot and killed, she said.

Gerrians younger sister was 15 when she witnessed her brothers killing. She testified during the trial and denied that her brother lunged for the gun before he was shot. She acted out the distance of the killing in front of the jury. A witness from the St. Louis County Medical Examiners Office testified that Gerrians wounds showed he was at least 3 feet from Black when he was shot.

Black testified in his own defense, claiming he was scared for his life when Gerrian threatened him. He acted out that the younger teen was about a foot away from him before he stepped back and shot.

After Gerrian was shot, he ran away and died on a nearby driveway. Black fled the scene, prompting Normandy police to distribute his photo to local media and search for him. He was arrested and charged a few days later. Police never found the murder weapon.

Black was originally charged with first-degree murder in the case, but the jury convicted him of the lesser offense of second-degree murder. The more serious charge requires prosecutors to prove a killing stemmed from deliberation and cool reflection.

Gerrians mother, Talisa Townsend, told the Post-Dispatch in 2018 that Black had referred to her son as his brother and called her Ma.

Why did you shoot my baby and keep shooting him? she asked during a vigil after the death. He loved you.
ATLANTA  Randal Quran Reid was driving to his mother's home the day after Thanksgiving last year when police pulled him over and arrested him on the side of a busy Georgia interstate.

He was wanted for crimes in Louisiana, they told him, before taking him to jail. Reid, who prefers to be identified as Quran, spent the next several days locked up, trying to figure out how he could be a suspect in a state he said he never visited.

A lawsuit filed this month blames the misuse of facial recognition technology by a sheriff's detective in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, for his ordeal.

I was confused and I was angry because I didnt know what was going on, Quran said. They couldn't give me any information outside of, Youve got to wait for Louisiana to come take you,' and there was no timeline on that.

Quran, 29, is among at least five Black plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits against law enforcement in recent years, saying they were misidentified by facial recognition technology and then wrongly arrested. Three of those lawsuits, including one by a woman who was eight months pregnant and accused of a carjacking, are against Detroit police.

The technology allows law enforcement agencies to feed images from video surveillance into software that can search government databases or social media for a possible match.

Critics say it results in a higher rate of misidentification of people of color than of white people. Supporters say it has been vital in catching drug dealers, solving killings and missing persons cases and identifying and rescuing human trafficking victims. They also contend the vast majority of images that are scoured are criminal mugshots, not drivers license photos or random pictures of individuals.

Still, some states and cities have limited its use.

The use of this technology by law enforcement, even if standards and protocols are in place, has grave civil liberty and privacy concerns," said Sam Starks, a senior attorney with The Cochran Firm in Atlanta, which is representing Quran. "And thats to say nothing about the reliability of the technology itself.

Quran's lawsuit was filed Sept. 8 in federal court in Atlanta. It names Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto and detective Andrew Bartholomew as defendants.

Bartholomew, using surveillance video, relied solely on a match generated by facial recognition technology to seek an arrest warrant for Reid after a stolen credit card was used to buy two purses for more than $8,000 from a consignment store outside New Orleans in June 2022, the lawsuit said.

Bartholomew did not conduct even a basic search into Mr. Reid, which would have revealed that Mr. Reid was in Georgia when the theft occurred, the lawsuit said.

Reached by phone, Bartholomew said he had no comment. A spokesman for the sheriff's office, Capt. Jason Rivarde, said the office does not comment on pending litigation.

In an affidavit seeking the warrant, Bartholomew cited still photographs from the surveillance footage, but did not mention the use of facial recognition technology, according to Quran's lawsuit.

The detective said he was advised by a credible source that one of the suspects in the video was Quran. A Department of Motor Vehicles photograph of Quran appeared to match the description of the suspect from the surveillance video, Bartholomew said.

Starks believes the source Bartholomew cited was facial recognition technology, making the affidavit at best misleading," he said. A January email from Jefferson Parish Deputy Chief Dax Russo to the sheriff is further evidence of that, according to Starks.

The email explaining the events that led to Quran's arrest said members of the force were told again that they need additional evidence or leads when using facial recognition technology for an arrest warrant, according to the lawsuit.

The suit accuses Bartholomew of false arrest, malicious prosecution and negligence. Lopinto failed to implement adequate policies around the use of facial recognition technology, so he, too, should be liable, the lawsuit contends. It seeks unspecified damages.

As Quran sat in jail, his family hired an attorney in Louisiana who presented photos and videos of Quran to the sheriff's office. The person in the surveillance footage was considerably heavier and did not have a mole like Qurans, according to his lawsuit.

The sheriff's office asked a judge to withdraw the warrant. Six days after his arrest, sheriff's officials in Georgia's DeKalb County released Quran.

His car had been towed, and the food at the jail had made him sick, he said. Quran, who works in transportation logistics, also missed work.

Nearly a year later, the experience still haunts him. He wonders what would have happened had he not had money to hire an attorney. And he still thinks about that police stop on a Georgia interstate.

Every time I see police in my rearview mirror, he said, "it just flashes back my mind to what could have happened even though I hadnt done anything.
ST. LOUIS  As Republican-led states have rushed to ban gender-affirming for minors, some families with transgender children found a bit of solace: At least they lived in states that would allow those already receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to continue.

But in some places, including Missouri and North Dakota, the care has abruptly been halted because medical providers are wary of harsh liability provisions in those same laws  one of multiple reasons that advocates say care has become harder to access even where it remains legal.

It was a completely crushing blow, said Becky Hormuth, whose 16-year-old son was receiving treatment from the Washington University Gender Center at St. Louis Childrens Hospital until it stopped the care for minors this month. Hormuth cried. Her son cried, too.

There was some anger there, not towards the doctors, not toward Wash U. Our anger is towards the politicians, she said. They dont see our children. They say the health care is harmful. They dont know how much it helps my child.

Since last year, conservative lawmakers and governors have prioritized restricting access to transgender care under the name of protecting children. At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Most of the bans face legal challenges and enforcement on some of them has been put on hold by courts.

All the laws ban gender-affirming surgery for minors, although it is rare, with fewer than 3,700 performed in the U.S. on patients ages 12 to 18 from 2016 through 2019, according to a study published last month. Its not clear how many of those patients were 18 when they received the surgeries.

Theres more variation, though, in how states handle puberty-blockers and hormone treatments under the new bans. Georgias law does not ban starting puberty blockers for minors. The others do. Some states, including North Carolina and Utah, allow young people who already are getting either kind of treatment to continue, as does Georgia with hormones. Others require the treatments to be phased out over time.

These treatments are accepted by major medical groups as evidence-based care that transgender people should be able to access.

For its part, the center said in a statement that it was disheartened to have to stop the care. Its decision followed a similar one from University of Missouri Health Care, where the treatment for minors stopped Aug. 28, the same day the law took effect.

Both blamed a section of the law that increased the liability for providers. Under it, patients can sue for injury from the treatment until they turn 36, or even longer if the harm continues past then. The law gives the health care provider the burden of proving that the harm was not the result of hormones or puberty-blocking drugs. And the minimum damages awarded in such cases would be $500,000.

In North Dakota, the law allows treatment to continue for minors who were receiving care before the law took effect in April. But it does not allow a doctor to switch the patient to a different gender dysphoria-related medication. And it allows patients to sue over injuries from treatment until they turn 48.

Providers there have simply stopped gender-affirming care, said Brittany Stewart, a lawyer at Gender Justice, which is suing the state. To protect themselves from criminal liability, theyve just decided to not even risk it because that vague law doesnt give them enough detail to understand exactly what they can and cannot do, Stewart said.

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, the executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, said its not just liability clauses that have caused providers to stop treatment.

Across the South, where most states have adopted bans on gender-affirming care for minors, she said shes heard of psychologists who wrongly believe the ban applies to them and pharmacists who stop filling orders for hormones for minors, even in places where the laws are on hold because of court orders.

Its hard to overstate the level of kind of chaos and stress and confusion its causing on the ground, she said, particularly  for people who live in more rural communities or places where even before a law went into effect, it still took quite a bit of effort to get this care.

Her organization is providing grants and navigation services to help children get treatment in states where its legal and available. That system is similar to networks that are helping women in states where abortion is not banned get care.

But theres one key difference: gender-affirming care is ongoing.

Hormuths son is on the waiting list for a clinic in Chicago, at least a five-hour drive away, but is looking at other options, too. Hormuth, a teacher, has asked also her principal to write a recommendation in case the family decides to move to another state.

Should we have to leave? she asked. No one should have to have a plan to move out of state just because their kid needs to get the health care they need.

In the meantime, the family did what many have: saving leftover testosterone from vials. They have enough doses stockpiled to last a year.

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
WASHINGTON  Congress remains starkly divided over very different paths to preventing a federal shutdown  the Senate charging ahead with a bipartisan package to temporarily fund the government but the House slogging through a longshot effort with no real chance of finishing by Saturdays deadline.

With days remaining before a federal closure, the stakes are rising with no resolution at hand.

A shutdown would furlough millions of federal employees, leave the military without pay, disrupt air travel and cut off vital safety net services, and it would be politically punishing to lawmakers whose job it is to fund government.

President Joe Biden, who earlier this year reached a budget deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy that became law, believes its up to the House Republicans to deliver.

A deal is a deal, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. This is for them to fix.

Late Tuesday, the Senate pushed ahead in sweeping bipartisan fashion to break the stalemate, advancing a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep government running through Nov. 17. It would maintain funding at current levels with a $6 billion boost for Ukraine and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief, among other provisions.

Its on track for Senate approval later this week but faces long odds in the House.

The Republican McCarthy, pushed by a hard-right flank that rejects the deal he made with Biden and is demanding steep spending cuts, showed no interest in the Senates bipartisan effort  or the additional money for Ukraine.

I think their priorities are bad, he said about the Senate effort.

Instead, McCarthy is reviving plans for the House Republicans own stopgap funding measure that would slash federal spending by 8% for many agencies and attach a hardline border security measure that conservatives are demanding. But Biden, Democrats and even some Republicans have said it is too extreme.

McCarthy is trying to goad Biden into negotiations over the border package, highlighting the record numbers of migrants crossing the Southern border with Mexico, but the speaker has little leverage at this point and the White House has downplayed the prospect of talks.

But first, McCarthy is expected to spend much of this week trying to pass some of the bills needed to fund government agencies  Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State and Foreign Operations.

Its a daunting task ahead. The House Republicans advanced those bills late Tuesday after a days of setbacks and disarray, but it is not at all clear McCarthy has the votes from his hard-right flank to actually pass the four bills this week.

One of the key right-flank holdouts, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is fighting for more cuts and opposes the funds for Ukraine, said she voted against advancing the package because the bills are headed toward defeat anyway.

Im trying to save everybody from wasting time, she said.

The 79-page Senate bill would fund the government at current levels and would include the Ukraine and U.S. disaster aid that has been in jeopardy. It also includes an extension of Federal Aviation Administration provisions expiring Saturday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate bill shows bipartisanship can triumph over extremism.

Schumer said, We all know together that a government shutdown will be devastating, devastating to this country.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared on board with the bipartisan Senate plan, saying, Government shutdowns are bad news.

The hard-right House Republicans are being egged on by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who has urged them to stand firm in the fight or shut it down.

It is setting up a split-screen later this week as House Republicans hold their first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing probing the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. It also comes as former Trump officials are floating their own plans to slash government and the federal workforce if the former president retakes the White House.

McCarthy, who said he spoke to McConnell on Tuesday, brushed off Trumps influence as just a negotiating tactic, even as the far-right members keep torpedoing his plans.

While their numbers are just a handful, the hard-right Republican faction holds sway because the House majority is narrow and McCarthy needs almost every vote from his side for partisan bills without Democratic support.

The speaker has given the holdouts many of their demands, but it still has not been enough as they press for more  including gutting funding for Ukraine, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Washington last week is vital to winning the war against Russia.

The hard-line Republicans want McCarthy to drop the deal he made with Biden and stick to earlier promises for spending cuts he made to them in January to win their votes for the speakers gavel, citing the nations rising debt load.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a key Trump ally leading the right flank, said on Fox News Channel that a shutdown is not optimal but its better than continuing on the current path that we are to Americas financial ruin.

Gaetz, who has also threatened to call a vote to oust McCarthy from his job, wants Congress to do what it rarely does anymore: debate and approve each of the 12 annual bills needed to fund the various departments of government  typically a process that takes weeks, if not months.

Even if the House is able to complete its work this week on some of those bills, which is highly uncertain, they would still need to be merged with similar legislation from the Senate, another lengthy process.
SEOUL, South Korea  The U.S. soldier who sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas two months ago was released into American custody Wednesday, according to two officials.

Earlier, North Korea said it would expel Pvt. Travis King  an announcement that surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

King's expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

And there remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place. His fate also remains uncertain, having been declared AWOL by the U.S. government. That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

King was transferred to American custody in China, according to one of the officials. The two U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss King's status ahead of an announcement.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored "ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination" within the U.S. Army and was "disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society."

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, King's mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had reason to want to come home.

"I just can't see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home," she said.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about King's well-being, citing the North's harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world's most cloistered societies.

North Korea's decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the country's standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the North's growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States' expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasn't worth keeping, possibly because of the cost of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute.

Captive Americans have been flown to China previously. In other cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

Photos: Kim Jong Un's public appearances through the years
Agnieszka Holland has been compared to both Stalin and Hitler, though some have also said that she serves the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. She has been accused of hating her country, betraying it and insulting her compatriots. She has come under fierce criticism from members of the government and also from demonstrators, in some street protests. This has been so bad that Holland, who resides in France, was forced to cut short her recent trip to her homeland of Poland and hire an escort for the duration of her stay. Nothing like this has ever happened in a democratic country. I am a filmmaker, she says on the telephone. Her profession is the cause of her ordeal, after the release of her latest film, Green Border.

A shameful, repulsive and disgusting piece of work, said Jarosaw Kaczynski, president of the ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, who has xenophobic leanings and is the de facto leader of the Polish government, before the films premiere in the country. However, Green Border won the Special Jury Prize at the recent Venice Film Festival. It has also recorded the best opening in the countrys cinemas for a Polish film in 2023: some 137,000 admissions, according to the specialized website Deadline. In a way, theyve given me publicity. Its not a commercial film that could expect a huge attendance. I doubted if it could affect anyone or create debates, something that only happens with series and their bubble, hardly ever with cinema. My film is difficult. So all this is important, even if it comes at a cost, explains the director.

As Holland brings to the screen the atrocious human suffering that still plagues hundreds of Syrians or Afghans, Belarus allows them to cross into Poland. However, from the other side, they are pushed back. And so on, until the back and forth becomes a limbo, or kind of hell, for those who die there, amidst the cold, hunger, and dehydration. The black and white cinematography, the ambitious approach of using several perspectives (from the refugees, the soldiers, the activists, the neighbors), the impressive directing and the humanitarian nature of Green Border were some of the highlights of the film at the Venice Film Festival.

One of the movies uncomfortable reflections is that as a dictator like Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko uses migrants as a weapon to exert pressure on Europe, it seems that the old and supposedly welcoming continent is acting like a tyrant by getting rid of them. After the turmoil in Poland, the issues multiply. It turns out that, in the peaceful and democratic EU, an admired veteran film director may fear for her personal safety and feel compelled to hire a security guard because of a feature film she made.

It was a precaution. If the prime minister, the president, the head of Justice, the party leader and whoever else make such terrible accusations, you can expect anything, says Holland from France in a telephone interview with EL PAIS. However, the director prefers to highlight the publics response: the unexpectedly high attendance, the spectators who stand up to applaud in the cinemas, the letters she has received. So much so that she says she is overwhelmed.

However, she does not conceal the other side of the story. The authorities have started a pogrom, she says. The daughter of opposers of the communist regime, who was arrested during the 1968 protests, criticized for films such as Europa, Europa, and forced to flee Poland because of her work, believes she has never faced anything like this before: Those of today are more united and more shameless.

A still from Agniezska Hollands Green Border.'

Jarosaw Kaczynski, in particular, also vilified moviegoers and anyone who has dared to defend the film. Meanwhile, border soldiers have restored the slogan only pigs sit in the cinema, which criticized those who went to cinemas during the Nazi occupation of Poland. President Andrzej Duda said last Wednesday that he was not surprised, since Green Border insults them. Holland herself also returns to that period, but for an opposing insinuation: The invasion of Ukraine has been compared to the Civil War in Spain. What I dont know for certain is whether we are more in 1936 or 1938.

The fact is that the film has arrived in Polish cinemas in an extremely tense and polarized electoral environment. Kaczynski linked it to two of the central issues of his campaign: immigration and security. Since 2021, Putins crony Lukashenko has been using immigration to destabilize the EU and NATO countries with which Russia shares a border: Poland and, to a lesser extent, Lithuania and Latvia. As the crisis reached its worst, the Polish government decreed a state of emergency at the border to deny access to activists and journalists. Holland portrays what was going on while no one could see. She also depicts it in the run-up to the October 15 elections, where the ultra-PiS government hopes to secure a third consecutive term in office. If they win, it will be the end of democracy, says the film director.

In the film, Holland introduces true facts gathered from dozens of interviews, such as an episode in which a border guard breaks the inside of a thermos and then passes it to a refugee, who is cut by the glass as he drinks. Adam Bodnar, Ombudsman between 2015 and 2021, with the ruling PiS, who knows the work of activists and medical assistance teams and the human rights violations at the border well, believes the film is almost like a documentary.

In these images, the government sees an unfair attack that harms Polish institutions and law enforcement agencies and has decided to issue an announcement in cinemas before the screening of the film with its version of the context of the hybrid operation, the Interior Ministry announced. Several movie theaters have refused to show the film. For Bodnar, a renowned lawyer and academic specializing in human rights  who is running for the Senate on the lists of Civic Coalition, a group of liberal parties  the governments reaction is an attack on freedom of expression. It is not a government concerned with protecting rights, especially political and civic rights, he recalls, before denouncing the instrumentalization and use of the film as a political weapon by the government.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland arrives for the screening of 'Green Border' during the 80th annual Venice International Film Festival. ETTORE FERRARI (EFE)

In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films depicting Poles as outlaws and murderers. Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that, said Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, on the social network X (formerly Twitter), when the film was screened in Venice, without having seen it. Holland explains that she is in the process of finalizing the lawsuit against the politician: she does not want to add more fuel, so she decided to focus her legal response only on Ziobro, as a symbolic gesture. She also believes it to be anti-Semitic and offensive to her Jewish origins.

Polish public television, controlled by the government, has also launched a campaign against the film and its director. Mentions of Green Border reached 77 million in the 24 hours prior to last Fridays premiere, according to the daily Rzeczpospolita. On X, many users call the screenwriter Leni Holland, in reference to the Nazi director and propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. It remains to be seen whether such an uproar led to another setback for Green Border on Monday: the Polish Film Academy chose to send DK Welchman and Hugh Welchmans The Peasants as its national Oscar nominee. However, judging by the reviews of the animated work, there seem to be strong artistic reasons to defend this decision.

In addition, the premiere coincides with the emergence of another border scandal for the government. Poland has once again come under the scrutiny of Brussels, which is demanding more information for allegedly allowing 250,000 migrants to obtain valid work visas to move throughout the EU and for being complicit in a system of bribery in embassies and consulates. In any event, the ultra-conservative party has run two election ads on the immigration issue with references to the film.

One of them is directly targeted at Holland and features the minister of justice and mixes images of Hitler and Stalin. The narrative that many citizens who will not see the film believe thanks to propaganda is the one being spread by the government, starting with Kaczynski. Those who make that kind of film, those who support them, those who welcome them, are simply Putins soldiers: we have to say this plainly, says the politician.

Conversely, the director is not sure what effect, if any, her film will have on the electoral campaign. It may be that it will serve the government to mobilize its voters, with hatred, rage, xenophobia. Or it may contribute to the debate against it. Yet, she is not intending to participate too much at the same time: I dont make films to fight for the elections. The role of culture is not to advocate for one party or another, but to raise awareness of the existence of an issue and its moral dimension. Seeing refugees with human faces, instead of numbers. When you hear the ideas of some governments it seems like a losing battle. But we have to keep going. She has ultimately poured her life and her films into it.

So much so that in Venice she called for a minutes silence for all the people who died betrayed by Europe along its borders. She also blamed the EU for not being willing to help but being able to. It is pursuing a policy of burying its head in the sand. This is an issue that is impossible to solve easily. But so much fear from the rise of populism and of the far right does not work. Just look at what is happening in Italy [the mass landings these days in Lampedusa], because Tunisia releases all those who, in theory, it receives money for holding. We become sensitive to the blackmail from any dictator, she now explains.

At the end of Green Border, a message reminds us that the number of dead bodies lying on the ground probably increased while the audience was watching the film. Holland maintains that one of the comments she is receiving reads: After the film, we can no longer pretend we havent seen it. Certainly, her film leaves a mark, something that even the Polish government would agree on.

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Sen. Russell Long said, Dont tax you, dont tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!

Taxes are more complicated than anyone can imagine. As a CPA and tax preparer, Ive seen my share of stupid tax laws and smart tax laws. And the new Missouri law allowing counties to freeze property taxes for seniors falls into the first category.

To recap, the new law allows counties in Missouri to freeze property taxes at levels when the homeowner reach age 62, and keep them frozen for decades, since most people reaching that age will live into their 80s. (From the way the law was written, it could be argued that an 82-year-old homeowner could have their property taxes reduced to what they were 20 years ago.)

On the surface, this law sounds like a good thing, as senior citizens often are homeowners with fixed incomes. Property taxes have risen recently, and some seniors certainly could use relief.

But the big thing that Missouri legislators missed was including income limitations on this freeze.

Many of my clients in Illinois take advantage of the states senior property tax freeze, which is limited to households below a certain income level (currently $65,000). Illinois residents apply for the freeze annually, and have to report all of their income. Senior citizens who are still working full time, or who live off of generous pensions and large retirement accounts, generally dont need any assistance with paying their property taxes, and many of them sit on the most valuable real estate in their areas.

No one knows what kind of financial hit the counties could suffer from this property tax freeze. Services like fire, police, and education would likely face cuts, or else those under 62 will have to shoulder more of the burden. Millennials are currently struggling to even afford houses in the current market, and they could be just as deserving of a tax abatement as seniors. This entire law stinks of politicians catering to tax-cut fever without looking at the repercussions down the line.

Now each county is facing intense pressure to go along with this tax cut, and no one seems to be asking the important questions. How do we pay for all of this? Is this fair to homeowners and renters alike? How much difference will it make?

Tax policy is full of thorny questions. The goal for any governmental body is to collect taxes in the least painful way and disburse that money where it will do the most good for the citizens. Hopefully we can all at least agree that fire, police, schools, parks, libraries, and roads are valuable local resources that deserve to be funded. The tricky question is how, and how to make it fair and the least destructive. Letting rich homeowners off the hook fails that test.

There are plenty of tax questions that need to be looked at these days. Is it fair that drivers of electric cars dont pay any gasoline taxes to maintain the roads that they drive on? Why should St. Louis city and county residents be the only ones paying into the zoo/museum district that the entire region enjoys?

Should people who work from home for a St. Louis company be required to pay the 1% earnings tax? Can anyone explain why Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax in the U.S. by far while the data is indisputable on how bad cigarettes are for public health? How is it that investment income, considered passive and unearned by the tax code, gets taxed a lower rate than earned wages, which are the thing that keeps America working?

All of these questions require complicated trade-offs and serious discussion, which is not something I expect anymore from Jefferson City or Washington, D.C. We the people need to raise our expectations of our elected leaders and realize that there never has been a free lunch. You get what you pay for and you reap what you sow.

The St. Louis County Council was wise to hold off on deciding to go along with this bad idea. But they, and most other counties in the state, will be under a lot of pressure to do it anyway. Nobody wants to see vulnerable seniors lose their homes, but nobody wants to see police or schools cut services either. There has to be some intelligent, thoughtful discussion and planning here, and St. Louis city and county can lead the way for the rest of the state.

Dan Connors is a CPA and freelance writer in St. Louis County. He can be reached at Dan@authordanconnors.com.
Then there were seven. The second Republican presidential debate will proceed Wednesday minus former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who didnt make the cut in polling this time. That Hutchinson was arguably the least craven, most dignified candidate on stage during the first debate in August speaks volumes about todays GOP. Dignity gets you nowhere.

Whats left is a collection of bench players who allegedly are running to deny the nomination to Donald Trump  though for the most part, you wouldnt know it. Most of them continue to rhetorically tip-toe around the repeatedly indicted, increasingly irrational ex-president as if hes a terrifying specter from a Harry Potter film: They dont even want to say his name.

The exceptions are entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is very obviously auditioning to be Trumps running mate by demonstrating what an obnoxious MAGA lickspittle he can be; and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose only goal in the race appears to be reclaiming some sliver of the soul he sold to Trump in 2016 by attacking him now at every turn.

At least someone is doing it.

For the second time, Trump has opted not to give Republican voters the opportunity to see him lined up on stage with his opponents, taking questions from a moderator. For this continuing display of cowardice, Republican voters have rewarded Trump with a seemingly insurmountable lead in primary polls.

To Ramaswamy, Christie and the others who will debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California  North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott  here are a few questions we hope the moderator will ask (though we dont expect it, given that its being moderated by Fox News):

 During the debate, Trump will be in Michigan, trying to sidle up to striking auto workers. Yet as the president who signed a 2017 Republican tax cut package that will add some $2 trillion to the federal debt, mostly to profit the wealthy, Trump has effectively helped widen the appalling gap between skyrocketing CEO salaries and stagnant worker wages.

Is any single one of you willing to call out Trump on this hypocrisy?

 Trump made news in South Carolina this week by visiting a gun shop and expressing interest in buying a gun  something he couldnt legally do under federal law because he is facing indictment for multiple felonies.

A two-fold question, candidates:

One, in a nation reeling with some of the worst gun violence in the world, are you willing to say that its the height of irresponsibility for a serious presidential contender to stoke divisions over firearms with this reckless stunt?

And, two, are you at all embarrassed for yourselves and your party that each of you is polling far behind a man who literally cannot legally buy a gun because of his criminal legal issues?

 Trump this week demonstrated yet again  not once, but twice  that he is a wannabe autocrat who is itching to abuse the power of the presidency in deeply frightening ways.

He suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley should be executed for communicating with his counterparts in China (which is part of his job).

Trump also suggested that as president, he will investigate Comcast, parent company for NBC and MSNBC, for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Meaning, we guess, that the First Amendment is in part what Trump had in mind when he called last year for the termination of the U.S. Constitution.

Candidates, will any one of you (other than probably Christie) address the fact that the presidential frontrunner of your party now so openly speaks the language of early 20th century dictators that his potential return to the White House clearly qualifies as an existential threat to American democracy?

We dont expect any of the candidates to be asked any of these questions. And if they are, we dont expect any of them (with the possible exception of Christie) to directly answer them. Faced with an opponent who has more baggage than an airliner cargo hold, they will mostly skirt any issue that might anger or even annoy him.

Which brings us to our final question for these candidates:

 Do any of you actually want this nomination? Because you sure arent acting like it.
New autos have been in high demand and supplies have been limited, which has fueled the profits of the auto manufacturers. Consequently, executive pay relative to corporate performance has skyrocketed to eye-popping levels. Thats a problem from a fairness standpoint with its United Auto Workers members, and thats understandable.

But two wrongs as always wont make a right. The total cash outlay of all executive pay doesnt represent the equivalent of a rounding error to the balance sheet of those companies. On the other hand, even a modest pay and benefits increase to the 400,000 UAW members represents a significant impact to those corporations' bottom line.

The UAW workers are entitled to a fair increase in pay, but its equally important that the UAWs demands dont put the companies in a financial hole or at a competitive disadvantage like they had done in the past. If that happens either the manufacturers will move more auto assembly out of the country to locations like Mexico, or the companies will slowly dissolve into bankruptcy again, or both. Excessive executive pay should be addressed but shouldnt be used as an excuse to do irreparable harm to the domestic auto industry.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Big Tree Carbon Inc. (the "Company" or "Big Tree") (TSXV:BIGT) is pleased to announce that, further to its press release of June 6, 2023, R&B Cormier Inc. ("Cormier") has prepared two reports with an effective date of September 14, 2023 with the first entitled "Assessment for Generating Carbon Credits in Ontario's Ogoki Crown Forest" (the "Assessment Report") and the second entitled "Opportunities: Green Energy & Non-Timber Forest Products in Ontario's Ogoki Crown Forest" (the "Opportunities Report"). The Assessment Report provides an assessment of carbon sequestration potential of the Ogoki Crown Forest Management Unit for purposes of generating carbon offsets in both compliance and voluntary market scenarios.

Based on the author's goals of maximizing quality carbon credits and environmental stewardship in the long-term, the Assessment Report provides four possible scenarios for the development of carbon credits whereby the Ogoki Crown Forest Management Unit could generate between $6.6 million and $9.4 million per year in revenues based upon 2023 market prices for carbon credits. The Assessment Report recommends the following two scenarios, each taken from a conservative standpoint for estimation and cognizant of existing wood supply agreements:

Federal (ECCC) draft Improved Forest Management protocol ("IFM"):

~204,000 net Carbon Dioxide Equivalent credits ("CO2e") /year - Compliance market based upon an estimated selling price of $45.50/metric tonne("MT") (being a 30% discount from the current Canadian regulated price on carbon of $65/MT) for $9.3 million in revenue less expenses for a net of $8.5 million per year Verra / Verified Carbon Standard ("VCS") Canadian IFM protocol:

~540,000 net CO2e credits/year - Voluntary market based on an estimated selling price of $15.00/MT for $8.1 million in revenue less expenses for a net of $7.3 million per year

Big Tree's wholly-owned subsidiary, Big Tree Carbon Corp., has partnered with Agoke Development Limited Partnership ("ADLP") to develop the carbon credit potential of the Ogoki Crown Forest. ADLP is a limited partnership managed by Agoke Development Corporation ("ADC"), the limited partners of which comprise the Aroland First Nation, the Eabametoong First Nation and the Marten Falls First Nation (collectively, the "ADLP First Nations") within whose traditional territories the Ogoki Crown Forest is located. The benefits derived by the ADLP First Nations from the monetization of the carbon credits, net of expenses, will be split as to 75% to ADLP and 25% to Big Tree for a 5-10 year term from the date the first emission reduction benefits available for sale are generated by the project (reference is made to the press release dated November 8, 2021).

The Assessment Report recommends pursuing co-benefit certification of any developed project to ensure that generated Verified Carbon Units ("VCU") achieve a rigorous "quality" standard which would attract a purchase premium at auction. The Assessment Report has identified forest stands best suited to generation of carbon offsets, delivered project development estimations of costs for registering offsets in both compliance and voluntary market scenarios, and delivered project operation costs and audit/verification costs on an annual basis. The Assessment Report baseline conditions included current conditions within the Ogoki Crown Forest, including planned harvest blocks and fibre commitments during the 2023-28 plan period.

ADC signed a ground-breaking forestry agreement with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNR&F) to take on forest management of the Ogoki Forest's Sustainable Forestry License (SFL). (See www.agokedevcorp.ca). The Ogoki Forest is one of 42 Crown Forest management units in Ontario, and one of 18 in Northwestern Ontario.

In June 2018, ADC signed a joint venture agreement with the Nakina Sawmill, with the sawmill being a principal consumer of fibre from the Ogoki Forest Management Unit. Big Tree acknowledges that this relationship is very significant to ADC and the partner First Nations, and is reflected in the methodology for the Assessment Report.

Big Tree acknowledges that the Province of Ontario does not have a policy to guide the consideration of carbon offset projects involving Crown resources, nor has it proposed to develop an offset policy in the short term. While this is currently the most significant impairment to realizing the revenue from this project, there are, however, precedents in other provincial jurisdictions in Canada that can represent a win-win for the ADLP First Nations, the Crown, Big Tree and emitters that have need of high-quality carbon offset credits.

Big Tree and the Crown have an obligation under clause 92 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (the "TRC Report") and particularly clause 92.ii. of the TRC Report to ensure "that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects." Chris Angeconeb, President and CEO of Big Tree stated: "Big Tree and ADLP will be consulting with the Ontario Government to establish protocols to facilitate this project. This project offers a perfect opportunity to provide the ADLP First Nations with long-term sustainable benefits. With the cooperation of the Ontario Government, the substantial revenue generated from this project could be split equitably between the Crown, ADLP and Big Tree".

Please note that the project is contingent upon and cannot proceed until agreement is reached with the Government of Ontario

The Assessment Report and the Opportunities Report are available on the Company's website at www.bigtreecarbon.ca.

ABOUT R&B CORMIER INC.

R&B Cormier Inc. is a Natural Resource Contracting and Consulting firm based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. The Contracting division supplies satellite, radar and airborne imagery, operational field services, and three dimensional land mapping. The Consulting division specializes in wood supply and biomass analysis, including timber and non-timber product research. (See www.rbcormier.com)

ABOUT BIG TREE CARBON INC.

Big Tree Carbon Inc. is an indigenous led publicly-traded natural asset development company based in Ontario, Canada. The Company maintains several legacy mineral exploration properties in Northwestern Ontario as active exploration holdings, including the Ranger Lake, Richardson Lake, and Bridget Lake properties. The Company is currently developing two First Nations forest carbon offset project development partnerships for the Lac Seul First Nation "Lac Seul Community Forest Project" and the Ogoki Forest. Subsidiary corporation Wiigwaasaatig Energy Inc. is a contributor to the Company's sustainable forest optimization approach, focusing on renewable electrical generation and biofuel processing in partnership with proximal indigenous communities.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Big Tree Carbon Inc.

Christopher Angeconeb

President and C.E.O.

[email protected]

Ian Brodie-Brown

Director of Business Development

[email protected]

Forward Looking Statement:

Some of the statements contained herein may be forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and resources, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of the Company are forward looking statements that involve various risks. The following are important factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements: changes in the world-wide price of mineral commodities, general market conditions, risks inherent in mineral exploration, risks associated with development, construction and mining operations, the uncertainty of future profitability and the uncertainty of access to additional capital. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events may differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Big Tree undertakes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Big Tree Carbon Inc.

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Author and anti-hate activist Tony McAleer and filmmaker Peter Hutchison of Eat the Moon Films are proud to announce the launch of THE CURE FOR HATE, a nationwide educational and social impact campaign designed to combat the rising national hate crimes crisis this fall.

Tony McAleer

Tony McAleer in 'The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz,' directed by Peter Hutchison

"Several years in the making - from the U.S. to Poland to Canada - we're thrilled to begin sharing 'The Cure for Hate' and our social impact program with high schools and communities across America," said Hutchison. "Stories like these are a powerful tool, and can play a crucial role in helping to turn the tide of racism and intolerance."

The program will debut in Pittsburgh on Sept. 27 with Dismantling Conspiracy Theories and Holocaust Denial: a film screening and panel discussion hosted by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. The Cure for Hate team, former neo-Nazi turned anti-hate activist Tony McAleer and filmmaker Peter Hutchison (the upcoming "The Invisible Doctrine. The Secret History of Neoliberalism," "Healing from Hate," "Requiem for the American Dream") will also visit area secondary schools to engage with students, screen the film, and deliver the curriculum. THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ will screen at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. The program will also host a Teen Screen event with Film Pittsburgh in late September.

The engagements in Pittsburgh mark the first stop in an extensive screening tour targeting secondary schools and select communities across the country with stops in Oregon with Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Idaho with the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, Houston with TAPS Academy as part of its Anti-Hate Week, Tennessee with TN Holocaust Commission, and more to be announced shortly.

"I am really excited to share my journey and the history of the Holocaust with young people in a way that teaches important lessons to ensure it never happens again," said McAleer.

In the Jewish tradition, tshuvah means "return" and describes the return to God and our fellow human beings that is made possible through repentance for our wrongs.

THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ follows Tony McAleer, a former Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, who went on to become a founding member of the anti-hate activist group Life After Hate. Profoundly aware and deeply ashamed of the lineage of hate he'd once promoted, McAleer had long-contemplated traveling to Auschwitz in the spirit of tshuvah - to bear witness to the inconceivable ravages of the Holocaust and deepen his personal work against the rise of extremist politics.

This project documents his profoundly personal journey of atonement to Auschwitz/Birkenau - exploring the conditions that allowed for the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe; shedding a unique light upon how men get into, and out of, violent extremist groups; and serving as a cautionary tale for our time that underscores the dangers in allowing hate to be left unchecked.

"The Cure for Hate brings the lessons of Auschwitz into the present, as living history - at this crucial moment, with hate and intolerance on the rise and continuing to dominate the headlines," said Hutchison. "Tony's journey stands as a remarkable example of what is possible. After all, if a hardened neo-Nazi can find his way back from hate, then what lessons can it hold for the rest of us?"

Thanks to a grant from The Center for Prevention Programs & Partnerships "Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Program," THE CURE FOR HATE: BEARING WITNESS TO AUSCHWITZ aims to use the film and the lived experiences of author and subject Tony McAleer to counter the rising tide of intolerance and violent extremism. The impact program was created to engage vulnerable youth and select communities and - through the use of experiential learning exercises and the exploration of history - enhance resilience to indoctrination and radicalization.

"In this time of rising anti-Semitism, this film serves as both a memory and a warning of what hate can lead to if left unchecked," said McAleer.

Contact Information:

Scott Motisko

Publicist

[email protected]

570-335-1305

Related Video:

https://vimeo.com/318139001

SOURCE: Eat the Moon Films

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U.S. Bank brings financial education to the next generation

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / U.S. Bank

U.S. Bank is offering a fresh take on financial education resources available within the U.S. Bank Student Scholarship Program and on Financial IQ.

Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog

Participants in this year's U.S. Bank Student Scholarship Program were among the first to experience the company's new approach to personal finance education that delivers bite-size content on topics ranging from investing basics to paying for college - all through an app.

More than 30,000 college and college-bound students participated in the scholarship program this spring, completing a series of free, online modules covering a range of personal finance topics, in order to be entered into a sweepstakes to win up to $20,000 in scholarship funds. In addition, students can earn rewards as they complete modules that can be redeemed for small amount gift certificates at popular retailers.

"From social media stories to reels, the way the world receives information and engages with technology continues to evolve," said Kaori Yamada, senior vice president, financial education strategy. "We know that to reach younger generations, we have to meet them where they are at and deliver an experience that is both familiar and impactful."

U.S. Bank worked with Zogo, a financial technology company founded in 2018, that partners with over 200 financial institutions to provide new financial education modules within the U.S. Bank Scholarship program via a mobile app. The lessons are not only short and digestible, but feature a gamified element to encourage students to complete more modules to earn rewards. Additionally, the more modules students complete, the more scholarship funds they are eligible for via the sweepstakes.

"We know that to reach younger generations, we have to meet them where they are at and deliver an experience that is both familiar and impactful." - Kaori Yamada, senior vice president, financial education strategy

Thomas DeWitt is one of this year's entry period one scholarship winners, completing more than 100 modules. While DeWitt grew up learning about finances from his own family, the scholarship program was the first exposure he had to any form of professional financial education content.

"I was a big fan of it& I appreciated that it was a series of short individual lessons" DeWitt said about his experience with the program content. "I was really interested in insurance, medical bills and the stock market, because I know those are things I will be dealing with in the future."

In fact, DeWitt has kept the program app on his phone so he can look up financial lingo and terms he's unfamiliar with as he continues to pursue his college degree at University of Minnesota.

In an effort to make financial education available to all, U.S. Bank utilized this same collaboration to develop a new financial wellness hub on the U.S. Bank Financial IQ website. The site is accessible to both U.S. Bank clients and non-clients, offering games and quizzes to enhance, reinforce and boost financial understanding and confidence. Topics range from taxes and insurance to saving and budgeting.

"Making financial education accessible to all continues to be a priority in how we serve both our customers and our communities," said Yamada. "We continue to hear how important it is to have knowledge and support in building up savings to get through emergencies, finding ways to track expenses to live within a budget, and achieving dreams of homeownership."

Throughout the year, U.S. Bank delivers financial education to clients and the community through philanthropy, volunteerism and programs. In 2022 alone, the company reached more than 1.5 million people with important financial education training.

For more information on financial wellness, visit Financial IQ . For more information on scholarships, visit the U.S. Bank Scholarship Program page .

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from U.S. Bank on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: U.S. Bank

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/us-bank

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: U.S. Bank

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CHEYENNE, WY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Mighty Fire Breaker's "Get Proactive Tour" lands this week in the San Bernardino Mountain Range, which is at High Risk of Wildfire. While this populated region has been dodging catastrophic wildfires in recent years, the current risk has heightened dramatically and is now being significantly impacted by the current Fire Insurance Crisis in California.

On Sept. 28 th , MFB will begin at the Big Bear Fire Department Headquarters and conduct live fire demonstrations. MFB representatives will show how MFB-31-CitroTech can be sprayed in trees and high-risk, dry vegetation to reduce a fire's ability to advance. Later in the day, these MFB representatives will drive across the mountain range to the town of Rim Forest. There, at the Rim Forest Elks Club, they will meet many of the Contractors in the mountain range to discuss the MFB technology and teach them how to install their Wildfire Defense Sprinkler Systems. At these events, MFB's representatives expect to meet with local insurance agents and realtors that are interested in MFB's Wildfire Risk Reduction Program.

MFB was assisted in creating and promoting these two tour events by one of its Independent Advisors, retired Fire Marshal Peter Brierty, who knows a great many people in that mountain community. Chief Brierty has taken his years of experience with fires and loss in this region, to now promoting MFB's proactive wildfire defense. He is doing so because of MFB-31-Citrotech's accreditations, formulation and performance, and he has stated that, "I think it is the safest and best fire-retardant chemistry that I have ever seen."

MFB recently held a "Get Proactive Tour" event in San Diego with the San Diego Rescue Foundation and the San Diego Fire Department. After the event, the San Diego Deputy Chief/Fire Marshal, Tony Tosca commented. "I wanted just to say thank you for participating in the Wildfire Preparedness Fair in San Diego at the Hilton Mission Valley. It was a very successful event! Your demonstrations were a highlight and topic of discussion for the firefighters, fire marshals, insurance underwriters and other agency attendees."

MFB -31- CitroTech is the only fire retardant to have received the EPA Safer Choice designation, and Mighty Fire Breaker is out to raise the bar on all fire retardants which make claims about being safe and environmentally friendly. There have been many news stories about toxic substances causing cancer and killing fish. In addition, it was recently reported that they do not meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act (CWA). MFB has spent significant time and resources to support all of its claims, so that Insurance Underwriters can feel comfortable about recommending the use of MFB Products around homes, children and pets in proactive wildfire risk reduction.

For more information, please visit www.mightyfirebreaker.com

For technical product information: [email protected]

Contact Information

Twitter@GEVIOfficial

Website: https://generalenterpriseventures.com/

Forward Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words 'believe,' 'may,' 'estimate,' 'continue,' 'anticipate,' 'intend,' 'should,' 'plan,' 'could,' 'target,' 'potential,' 'is likely,' 'will,' 'expect' and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The Company has based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Some or all of the results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not be achieved. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

SOURCE: GENERAL ENTERPRISE VENTURES, INC. ("GEVI")

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Release Highlights:

Drilling at Drudrusavu has discovered a new epithermal vein system two kilometers east of the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits clearly associated with a prominent CSAMT high resistivity anomaly.

Drudrusavu mineralization is associated with at least two stages of epithermal mineralization, characterized by the presence of quartz sulfide veinlets and hydrothermal alteration, that have been documented over three intervals totaling 87.1 meters in KGD-2023-08 and 65.0 meters in KDG-2023-09.

Drilling at Mouta Prospect intersected two styles of mineralization primarily consisting of a broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite with some caldera margin related shear-style mineralization.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / KALO GOLD CORP. ("Kalo", "Kalo Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the exploration program at Vatu Aurum Gold Project ("Vatu Aurum" or the "Project"), Republic of Fiji. Kalo has completed four diamond drill holes in the 2023 exploration program: two at Drudrusavu ("Drudrusavu") located within the Qiriyaga Hill Prospect ("Qiriyaga") and two at Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") for a total of 432.0 meters ("m").

Mr. Terry L Tucker, P.Geo, President and CEO of Kalo Gold, commented "The two drill holes at Drudrusavu successfully confirmed the Controlled-Source Audio-frequency Magnetotellurics ("CSAMT") geophysical survey has identified zones of hydrothermal alteration and silicification. Both holes drilled had between 65 and 87 m of silicification and hydrothermal alteration and that included one interval that returned 4 meters averaging 1.23 g/t Au and 1 metre averaging 4.17 g/t Au . Given the shallow level of erosion that has been interpreted this indicates there is excellent potential for mineralization at depth at Drudrusavu. The positive correlation between the CSAMT and the drilling at Drudrusavu will give us the confidence to expand exploration at Qiriyaga. Previous drill results at Qiriyaga intersected thick, near-surface, high-grade gold mineralization, particularly drill hole KCD-17 that returned 8.75 metres at 36.02 g/t Au (61.25 to 70 m) and 10 m at 27.18 g/t Au (76-86 m) including 120 g/t Au between 81 to 82 m."

Drudrusavu

Two holes, KGD-2023-08 (232.50m) and KGD-2023-09 (169.50m) were drilled at Drudrusavu which is located 2 km east of Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits. The drainage through Drudrusavu contained a "very strong gold anomaly" with gold in the stream sediment samples returning up to 580 parts per billion ("ppb") gold. Drudrusavu was originally defined by a 750 m long multi element soil and rock geochemical anomaly that was subsequently drilled in 1986 by Placer Dome. Drill holes KGD-2023-08 and KGD-2023-09 successfully tested the down dip extent of mineralized outcrop on Drudrusavu Creek, the soil geochemical anomaly, historical drilling and a prominent resistivity anomaly defined by a recently completed CSAMT survey (Target 5 in the previous release). The resistivity anomaly is believed to correspond to a ring fault around the edge of a caldera, a potential fertile corridor for precious metals mineralization (Figures 1 and 2).

KGD-2023-08 intersected three mineralized zones from 50.4 to 85.5m, 115.5 to 157.5m and 206.1 to 216.1m composed of millimetre wide quartz veinlets with anhedral and open-space (comb) textures hosted in silica-chlorite altered polymictic breccia and dacite. Gold mineralization was intersected over a 4m zone averaging 1.23 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold, including a meter sample grading 4.17 g/t gold (see Table 1 and Photos 1 to 4).

KGD-2023-09 was drilled 100m to the southeast of KGD-2023-09 along the same CSAMT resistivity anomaly. It intersected three mineralized zones from 41.2 to 59.8m, 72.2 to 105.0m and 114.9 to 128.4m consisting of mm-wide quartz veinlets with comb texture associated with fine pyrite and chalcopyrite hosted in the same rock and alteration suite as KGD-2023-09.

Table 1: Drudrusavu Drill Results

The gold mineralization at Drudrusavu as shown in these two drill holes is associated with at least two stages of quartz veinlets.

Early-stage quartz veinlets and breccia filling with anhedral texture and a homogeneous appearance and an absence of banding, open-space, or similar features. This type of quartz generally infills the space between clasts of brecciated dacite. No other sulfides except pyrite have been documented with it.

A later-stage event with quartz veinlets-pyrite-chalcopyrite (centerline), was observed to cut the early quartz and is characterized by a cockscomb, open-space texture.

The relatively shallow oxidation level (~10m) at Drudrusavu suggests that the mineralization in the area will generally be primary. The results of the Drudrusavu drilling in addition to confirming gold mineralization in that area has extended the extent of the Qiriyaga Prospect a total of 2 km. The mineralization remains open along strike to the northeast and southeast and importantly at depth and correlates well with the CSAMT resistivity anomaly 5 as illustrated in Figure 3.

Mouta Prospect

Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") is located approximately 9 km northwest of Qiriyaga Hill Prospect on the outer edge of the Mouta Caldera. Two holes, KMD-2023-01 (151.5m) and KMD-2023-02 (280.5m) were drilled at Mouta to test a 330m long NE-trending soil anomaly characterized by coincident Au-Ag-As-Sb-Hg-Cu-Pb-Zn and a strong Induced Polarization ("IP") signature (see Figure 4).

Two styles of mineralization were intersected, the first is the shear-style mineralized zone and the second is the broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite. The mineralization is interpreted to be related to shallowly eroded phreatomagmatic eruption setting like the other Prospects on the Property.

KMD-2023-01 intersected the shear style mineralization from 31.0 to 51.0m hosted in a dark gray dacite breccia. It is gougy and strongly silicified in some sections with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and zinc sulfides (marmatite and sphalerite) up to 10% volume occurring as veinlets and disseminations. This zone is the downdip expression of the mineralized outcrop observed at the surface.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 51.0 to 69.0m in an intensely clay altered, felsic dacite breccia. The frequency of these veinlets is generally 5 to 10 per m and total sulfides are estimated between 5% to 7% volume. This zone was disrupted by an 8.40m, barren dark grey colored andesite dike from 68.2 to 76.6m but continued again until 94.0m. Mineralization tapered off from 94.0m downwards until a barren dacite flow (country rock) was hit at 117.80m.

KMD-2023-02 intersected the shear style mineralization from 30.55 to 45.30m within a highly oxidized zone that extends down to a depth of 59.40m. It intersected several 2m copper-bearing zones grading between 0.27% - 0.39% Cu with up to 3.56% Zn.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 129.5 to 178.0m. This zone is hosted within a silica - clay - chlorite altered dacite breccia from 129.50 m to 151.0m, and intense clay alteration from 151.0 to 178.0m. The sulfides identified within this zone are pyrite, zinc sulfides, and chalcopyrite and estimated to be up to 10%. KMD-2023-02 is mineralized from 178.0 m down to the end of hole at 280.5 m, but only pyrite was identified occurring both as fracture filling and disseminations in an intensely clay-altered dacite breccia. It returned 4 m averaging 0.59% from 167-171m.

Table 2: Mouta Drill Results

Mouta Prospect - Surface Channel Sample Results

Surface mapping has identified zones of silica, silica-clay, and clay alteration and the host rock of gold mineralization is a clay altered pumiceous dacite breccia. Argillic alteration can be intense locally and the main minerals are pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and barite. The presence of gold-silver-copper mineralization at Mouta Prospect, including: 6.2g/t Au, 645g/t Ag and 3.12% Cu from rock chip outcrop sampling and 3.06g/t Au, 819g/t Ag and 1.63% Cu from a stockpile grab sample have been received in addition to recently completed surface channel sampling of the mineralized outcrop. The table below summarizes the gold results from the channel sampling:

Table 3: Mouta Surface Channel Sample Results

The results of the work so far done in Mouta, including the two recently completed drill holes, has demonstrated that Mouta offers an opportunity for a gold or a gold-copper-zinc discovery. The Company will continue to evaluate the results for an effective follow up exploration program.

Sampling, Analysis and QAQC

The drill core was sampled at 1m intervals and cut into half with an electric core saw at the at the Company's exploration camp. The core samples were submitted to ALS Minerals laboratory in Brisbane, Australia ("ALS") for sample preparation and analysis. The gold was analyzed using Au-AA24 method (50g split). Multi-element analysis was also carried out using ME-ICP61m method. Kalo's Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QAQC) protocol for drill core samples includes: 1) field measurement of half core sample weights, 2) insertion of certified reference materials at 1 in 20 frequencies, 3) insertion of blank sample at 1 in 40 frequencies, and 3) insertion of duplicate core samples. ALS has internal QAQC protocols that include analysis and results monitoring for certified reference materials, blank samples, and duplicate core samples.

ABOUT KALO GOLD CORP.

Kalo Gold Corp, a gold exploration company, is focused on exploration for low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of the Vatu Aurum Gold Project on the island of Vanua Levu (North Island) in the Republic of Fiji. Kalo holds a 100% interest in two Special Prospecting Licenses, covering 367 km2 that hosts a minimum of seven volcanic arc related calderas ranging between 1 to 10km in diameter in a geological setting that could be analogous to the alkaline related low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of both the neighbouring Vatukoula Gold Mine and the Lion One Metals' Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project. Historical exploration work concentrated on the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits and resulted in the identification of over fourteen priority epithermal gold exploration targets.

Both Viti Levu, (South Island), and Vanua Levu are on the prolific Pacific "Ring of Fire", a trend that has produced numerous large deposits, including Porgera, Lihir and Grasberg and on Viti Levu, the exceptional Vatukoula Gold Mine. The Vatukoula Gold Mine has produced more than 7 million ounces of gold since 1937. The island of Viti Levu also hosts the fully permitted Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, where Lion One Metals is fast tracking a high-grade underground gold mining operation.

Qualified Person

The technical disclosure in this news release has been approved by Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Kalo Gold Corp.

Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo

President and Chief Executive Officer

and

Kevin Ma, CPA, CA

Executive Vice President, Capital Markets and Director

For more information, please write to [email protected].

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Forward Looking Statements Disclaimer

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which are statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements relating to the Company's proposed drilling timeline and the proposed expansion of the exploration program, and the Company's plans for future exploration on the Vatu Aurum Gold Project. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements included in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to raise the necessary capital to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's filing statement dated February 9, 2021 and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking statements herein may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect, and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Figure 1: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta and Qiriyaga Hill Prospects.

Figure 2: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Qiriyaga Hill Prospect.

Figure 3: Qiriyiga Hill Prospect - CSAMT 1D Inversion at 200 meters with six key target zones identified.

Figure 4: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta Prospect.

Photo 1: KGD-2023-08: Intense quartz - pyrite infill from 53.0 to 54.0m. Assays returned 4m at 1.23 g/t Au from 53 to 57m with 1m at 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m.

Photo 2: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the interval which returned 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m. Note the abundant quartz veining with open-space texture.

Photo 3: KGD-2023-08: Banded, 5cm quartz-py-cpy veinlet; note the hydrothermal brecciation of the host rock. Assays returned 1m at 1.58% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

Photo 4: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the banded, 5cm qz-py-cpy veinlet at 74.45. Assays returned 1m at 1.54% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

SOURCE: Kalo Gold Corp.

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Pelangio Exploration Inc. (TSXV:PX)(OTC PINK:PGXPF) ("Pelangio" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has closed the first tranche of a non-brokered private placement of up to $500,000 announced on September 11, 2023 (the "Private Placement"). The first tranche raised gross proceeds of $209,100 from the issuance of 6,970,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.03 per Unit.

Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a "Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.05 until September 27, 2028.

The Company paid finder's fees to Leede Jones Gable Inc. and GloRes Securities Inc. totaling $7,200 in cash and it issued 240,000 broker warrants ("Broker Warrant") on gross proceeds raised by eligible arm's length parties. Each Broker Warrant is exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of $0.05 per warrant on the same terms noted above. All finder's fees are subject to compliance with applicable securities legislation and TSX Venture Exchange policies.

All securities issued in this closing of the Private Placement are subject to statutory four month hold periods expiring on January 28, 2024. The Private Placement remains subject to obtaining final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Certain insiders of the Company participated in the Offering for an aggregate total of $113,100 in Private Placement. The participation by such insiders constituted a "related party transaction" as such term is defined by Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company was exempt from the MI 61 101 valuation and minority approval requirements for related party transactions in connection with the Offering under sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction, insofar as it involves the Related Parties, exceeds 25% of the Company's market capitalization (as determined under MI 61-101).

The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdictions in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Any offering made will be pursuant to available prospectus exemptions and restricted to persons to whom the securities may be sold in accordance with the laws of such jurisdictions, and by persons permitted to sell the securities in accordance with the laws of such jurisdictions.

Change of Transfer Agent

In other news, Pelangio announces the appointment of Odyssey Trust Company as the Company's registrar and transfer agent, effective immediately. Shareholders do not need to take any action with respect to the change in registrar and transfer agent services.

All inquiries and correspondence relating to the shareholder records, transfer of shares, lost certificates or change of address should now be directed to Odyssey Trust Company rather than Computershare Trust Company of Canada, which has resigned at the Company's request.

About Pelangio

Pelangio acquires and explores world-class land packages on strategic gold belts in Ghana, West Africa and Canada. In Ghana, the Company is exploring its two 100% owned, camp-sized properties: the 100 km2 Manfo property, the site of seven near-surface gold discoveries, and the 284 km2 Obuasi property, located four km on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti's prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine, as well as its Dankran property located adjacent to its Obuasi property. In Canada, the Company is currently focused in Ontario at its newly acquired gold, silver, zinc polymetallic Kenogaming project, located 63 km southwest of Timmins, its Dome West property, situated some 800 meters from the Dome Mine in Timmins; and at its Gowan polymetallic project, located 16 km east of the Kidd Creek Mine. See www.pelangio.com for further detail on all Pelangio's properties.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.pelangio.com, or contact:

Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO

Tel: 905-336-3828 / Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 / Email: [email protected]

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements herein may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements or information appear in a number of places and can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information include statements regarding the Offering generally, the proceeds that may be raised in connection with the Offering, the proposed use of proceeds and the Company's exploration plans. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, we have made numerous assumptions, including assumptions about our ability to close additional tranches of the Offering in a timely manner, if at all, and the state of the equity markets. Such forward-looking statements and information are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Such risks include the ability of the Company to meet the conditions of closing, our ability to conduct our exploration programs as planned, changes in equity markets, share price volatility, volatility of global and local economic climate, gold price volatility, political developments in Ghana, increases in costs, exchange rate fluctuations, speculative nature of gold exploration and other risks involved in the gold exploration industry. See the Company's annual and quarterly financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statement and information. There can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Also, many of the factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. All forward-looking statements and information herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Pelangio Exploration Inc.

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Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota looks on during Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada September 25, 2023. REUTERS/Blair Gable

The speaker of Canadas House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.

Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your speaker, Rota said in Parliament. I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskiy.

That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world, in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions, he added.

Rota stepped down after meeting with the House of Commons party leaders later Tuesday. All main opposition parties called for Rota to step down, and government House leader Karina Gould said that lawmakers had lost confidence in Rota.

This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of Parliament and indeed all Canadians. The speaker did the honorable thing in resigning, Government Liberal House leader Karina Gould said.

Gould said she is of Jewish origin and a descendant of a Holocaust survivor. This incident hurt me personally, as it hurt all members of this House and all Canadians, she said.

Gould earlier said Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine. Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland had called the incident incredibly embarrassing.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a statement that the incident has left a stain on our countrys venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.

This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament and has also handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine. It has also caused great pain to Canadas Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and other victims of the Nazi regime.

In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speakers office said Monday it was Rotas son who contacted Hunkas local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyys speech.

Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka unaware of the details of who he was.

The prime ministers office said it was unaware that Hunka was invited until after the address. The speakers office also confirmed it did not share its invite list with any other party or group. The vetting process for visitors to the gallery is for physical security threats, not reputational threats, the speakers office said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said it was outrageous that Hunka received a standing ovation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as neo-Nazis, although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Its highly unfortunate and the only winner here is the Putin regime, which is already spinning what happened on Friday to justify its ongoing military actions in Ukraine, said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal,

The opposition Conservatives in Canada have blamed Trudeau, but Beland noted that the speakers role in Canada is as an officer of Parliament who does not participate in partisan caucus meetings and is not a member of the Cabinet.

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Compensation management is a complex task that often leaves HR professionals struggling to convey the true value of employee compensation beyond the basic salary figure. Pequity's forthcoming release aims to simplify this process and provide a comprehensive total compensation statement for employees.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Pequity, a leading innovator in compensation planning solutions, is excited to unveil its latest offerings designed to revolutionize the way organizations manage and communicate employee compensation. In recent months, Pequity has been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge HR solutions, and now, it is set to introduce the Employee Total Compensation Overview and a brand-new Employee Portal.

Pequity's Total Compensation Overview & Employee Portal

Key Features of Pequity's Total Compensation Overview and Employee Portal:

Empowering Employee Portal-The portal will enable employees to access their personalized compensation overview by simply signing up for a Pequity account. This user-friendly interface makes it effortless for employees to gain insights into their total compensation package.

Clear Equity Display- Pequity eliminates the confusion surrounding equity compensation by presenting it at the grant level. This approach simplifies understanding and offers a real-time view of an employee's current equity status, enhancing transparency.

Comprehensive Admin View- Administrators will have access to a comprehensive view of all components of an employee's total compensation. This includes a breakdown of equity and vesting schedules, providing a holistic understanding of compensation elements.

This information is invaluable as it offers both administrators and employees a snapshot of their current standing and future earning potential as vested shares accumulate.

Equity compensation has become increasingly vital in today's workforce. However, it remains a complex concept that is often poorly understood. Pequity's Total Compensation Overview provides a detailed snapshot of critical equity statistics, including total granted, vested, and unvested shares, as well as estimated values for each.

The new employee portal takes transparency to the next level by offering a comprehensive breakdown of every compensation component. This empowers employees with unprecedented resources for negotiating raises, better financial planning, and ensuring they receive a comprehensive total compensation statement.

The compensation overview also serves as a powerful tool for administrators and managers. It breaks down salary, equity, and bonuses, making compensation discussions more accessible and transparent. Administrators can also customize the displayed employee data to suit their needs.

Pequity's Employee Compensation Overview and Employee Portal are set to launch in mid-October, marking a significant milestone in the realm of compensation management. To stay informed about the release and for early access, sign up for notifications.

About Pequity:

Pequity is a leading provider of compensation management solutions designed to simplify the complexities of employee compensation. With a commitment to transparency and innovation, Pequity empowers organizations to make informed compensation decisions, driving employee engagement and organizational success. Learn more at pequity.com.

Contact Information

Cherish Grimm

Marketing Lead

[email protected]

5732206126

SOURCE: Pequity

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ST. MARIES, ID / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) administers Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), which represent a cooperative relationship to encourage excellence in worksite-based safety and health. VPP sets performance-based criteria for a facility's safety and health system, and after a site applies for admission to the program, OSHA assesses the facility against these criteria. This is above and beyond normal safety standards and results in a thorough on-site evaluation by a team of OSHA safety and health professionals.

Sites can have three levels under VPP, with Star being the highest standard. VPP recognizes teams that demonstrate exemplary achievement in the prevention and control of occupational safety and health hazards and the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of their safety and health management system.

The St. Maries, Idaho lumber and plywood complex has set an exceptional standard for safety and has been a VPP Star site since 2000 - there are only 13 VPP Star sites in Idaho. To qualify for VPP, St. Maries has demonstrated an effective and ongoing safety and health program, including performance-based criteria. In addition, team members are required to demonstrate cooperation and participation to ensure continuous improvement, including participation in audits across facilities to cross-pollinate ideas. Results are expected to reflect the effectiveness of the program with injury and illness rates at or below the national industry average. Star participants are reevaluated every three to five years.

The last re-evaluation was in 2019, during which the auditors highlighted our redesigned lockout / tagout procedures as an exemplary practice. The next on-site evaluation is to take place in 2024.

The St. Maries complex has focused on an employee-engaged workforce giving Team Members several opportunities to be involved in the safety processes throughout the year, including recognizing hazards, using SLAM cards, monthly training retention activities, reporting near misses, safety committees, new hire training, and reviewing Job Hazard Analysis.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "ongoing," "continuous," "expected," "projected," and similar expressions and references to achievement of objectives in the future are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's views of future events based on estimates and assumptions and are therefore subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, and are not guarantees of future conduct, results, or policies. Please view the Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information on page 134 of PotlatchDeltic's 2022 ESG Report.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from PotlatchDeltic on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: PotlatchDeltic

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/potlatchdeltic

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: PotlatchDeltic

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Early Bird registration is available through October 6

CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / SHPE (The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers), a national organization representing Hispanic professionals and students in STEM, will host its 47th National Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Salt Palace Convention Center, November 1 through 5, 2023. The largest gathering of Hispanic STEM talent in the nation, the event is expected to be attended by 10,000 students, professionals, academia, and industry leaders. Early bird registration is available now through October 6: 2023 SHPE National Convention.

2023 SHPE National Convention

November 1-5, 2023

According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of U.S. Hispanics believe having role models in STEM can encourage young Hispanics to pursue careers in these fields, while only 8% of STEM jobs are filled by Hispanic professionals, and only 2% hold jobs in tech. SHPE exists to narrow and eventually close this gap by raising awareness and increasing access. In addition to connecting members with many of the top organizations in STEM, the Convention is also one of the most powerful tools to prepare Hispanic students and professionals to be top talent and leaders in their field.

"SHPE has been making dreams come true for decades, by connecting people with jobs in STEM, while also helping them secure and advance their careers," says Miguel Alemay, CEO of SHPE. "We are supporting STEM's future leaders who will make a positive impact on the world."

The four-day gathering will offer attendees professional and leadership development through sessions and workshops, speakers, networking, competitions, and award ceremonies. The event will include training, leadership, and professional development for participants as well as interaction with nearly 300 exhibitors actively recruiting new talent.

Additionally, there will be a two-day Career Fair & Graduate School Expo where thousands of jobs will be offered by companies like Cummins, Google, Apple, Northrop Grumman, Bank of America, 3M, Lockheed Martin, and over 250 other leading companies in STEM.

The SHPE National Convention will also include the presentation of the STAR Awards, which recognizes key individuals, corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions that have contributed significantly to support Hispanics in STEM.

The Visionary sponsor of SHPE's 2023 National Convention is Cummins Inc.

About SHPE:

SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) is a nonprofit organization serving and advancing Hispanics in STEM. With more than 14,000 student and professional members, SHPE's mission is to change lives by empowering the Hispanic community to realize its fullest potential and to impact the world through STEM awareness, access, support, and development. For more information, please visit https://www.shpe.org/.

Contact Information

Alyssa Sullivan

Publicist, SHPE

[email protected]

617-899-8631

SOURCE: SHPE

View source version on accesswire.com:
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / International Paper Company

Originally published in International Paper's 2022 Sustainability Report

As a manufacturer of sustainable fiber products, we're committed not only to relying on a renewable resource, but also to minimizing climate impact in our manufacturing process. This includes reducing energy and water consumption both within our facilities and across our value chain.

Our progress toward Vision 2030

Goal: Improve our climate impact and advance water stewardship

Target: Reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 35%

Aligned with the best available climate science, we're committed to reducing our absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 35% by 2030 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3.

2022 Impact:

In 2022, we faced significant challenges in our facilities with respect to operational decarbonization. While we made progress in reducing our Scope 1 emissions at several mills, those reductions were offset by increases in fossil fuel used at other facilities due to reduced biomass fuel. We are proud of the emissions reductions we achieved at our containerboard mill in Rome, Georgia- the result of a capital project that was included in our decarbonization plan.

For Scope 2 emissions, we saw reductions associated with grid greening and an overall increase due to the sale of renewable energy certificates (RECs). This does not amount to a change in actual emissions, but rather, sales of environmental attributes from our renewable power generation. REC sales will continue in the short term, but will eventually be retired in support of our Vision 2030 target.

We are committed to advancing our decarbonization plan and are optimistic about emission reductions from key energy efficiency investments and other projects in the coming years. For more information see our TCFD report. As one of the first North American pulp and paper producers to have our GHG emissions reduction target approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2021, we continue to assess and incorporate developments in emissions accounting, including the GHG Protocol, the ScienceBased Targets initiative (SBTi) and CDP. We are engaged directly in working groups focused on relevant forest sector topics.

Spotlight:

Two mills, two GHG reduction projects

Our Rome, Georgia containerboard mill has demonstrated a 39% reduction in total Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions since the baseline year of 2019 after switching the mill's power boiler from primarily coal to natural gas as a fuel source.

Our Red River, Louisiana containerboard mill replaced five refiners on their paper machine. The refiners were replaced with updated energy efficient refiners, saving an average of 24% of the energy use on this equipment and an estimated 7% reduction in Scope 2 GHG footprint for the mill.

Our Approach

Our Sustainable Operations approach addresses some of our most important environmental impacts and reflects our commitment to improving our footprint across our businesses, operations and value chain.

Improving our climate impact

Having a positive climate impact begins with reducing carbon emissions. Rather than rely on carbon offsets, International Paper focuses on reducing energy consumption as well as relative GHG emissions across our mills and manufacturing facilities. Between 2019 and 2022, we reduced 3% of Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions but show an increase of 9% due to Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) sales.

We're expanding our use of renewable energy, including generating our own renewable energy source via carbon-neutral biomass derived from our manufacturing processes.

Enhanced tracking and reporting

Approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, our GHG emissions reduction target aligns with the Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global temperature rise to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Working with strategic partners, we track and report on our global GHG emissions by participating in ESG reporting programs, including:

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)

Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mandatory Reporting Rule

European Union Emissions Trading System

Multiple state, regional and national reporting programs

Global Reporting Index

70% of our mill energy is derived from carbon-neutral biomass residuals.

We reduced our GHG emissions by about 20% between 2010 and 2022, while cutting our use of coal and fuel oil in half.

Improving our climate impact

Scope-by-scope reductions

We have a track record of reducing Scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions at our operations. As part of our Vision 2030 goals, we're also working to track, report and ultimately reduce our Scope 3 emissions across our value chain. Specifically:

Scope 1: We're committed to making capital investments to substantially reduce Scope 1 GHG emissions in our facilities over the next decade. We're evaluating and pursuing investments in energy efficiency and fuel-switching for lower-carbon thermal energy sources in our operations. These initiatives often result in both cost savings and GHG emission reductions by optimizing processes, upgrading equipment and advancing energy conservation measures.

Scope 2: To reduce Scope 2 GHG emissions, we're participating in renewable power development.

Scope 3: To mitigate GHG impacts outside our direct operations, we team up with our suppliers and customers to effect meaningful change. We assess our supply chain to identify areas of impact, and we engage our suppliers and customers to reduce emissions. This work is closely tied to our goals for Renewable Solutions, which focus on how customers use and dispose of our products.

Reducing our operational GHG emissions is just one of the actions we're taking to improve the climate. Our efforts extend across our entire value chain and through to our sustainable forestry and renewable products initiatives. We continue to make progress toward our Vision 2030 target through renewable power participation, capital investments and collaboration with forest landowners to improve forest management for carbon sequestration.

Improving our climate impact

Looking ahead

We are renewing our focus on supplier engagement to reduce value chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2023 and 2024. As we continue our efforts to reduce GHG emissions and address climate change, we recognize the need to explore new and emerging technologies for decarbonization. We will continue to drive forward with renewable power participation initiatives, such as renewable energy procurement and investments in on-site renewable energy systems.

In addition, we will look to take advantage of supportive legislation, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the U.S., to accelerate our efforts in reducing GHG emissions.

To achieve our sustainability goals, we will also focus on engaging with our suppliers and customers to better understand where our gaps are and drive Scope 3 reductions. By working collaboratively with stakeholders across our supply chain, we can identify opportunities to reduce GHG emissions and achieve a more sustainable future.

We are actively looking for ways to invest in capital projects at our facilities in order to build and operate equipment that has a direct result in reducing our GHG emissions.

Spotlight:

GHG reductions at Cedar River Mill

We are investing $103 million to build and operate two natural gas power boilers to generate steam for its containerboard mill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Construction is set to begin in 2023, and the mill is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2025. The Cedar River mill's GHG emissions will be directly reduced by 25% as a result of the replacement of coal-based steam generators in the project.

About International Paper

International Paper (NYSE: IP) is a global producer of planet-friendly packaging, pulp and other fiber-based products, and one of North America's largest recyclers. Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., we employ approximately 39,000 colleagues globally who are committed to creating what's next. We serve customers worldwide, with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, North Africa and Europe. Net sales for 2022 were $21.2 billion. Additional information can be found by visiting InternationalPaper.com.

Read more

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from International Paper Company on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: International Paper Company

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/international-paper-company

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE: International Paper Company

View source version on accesswire.com:
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Tsodilo Resources Limited ("Tsodilo" or the "Company") (TSX-V:TSD)(OTCQB: TSDRF)(FSE:TZO) announces that the High Court of Botswana has today rendered an order that interdicts and restrains Minister of Mines and Energy, through the

Department of Mines or any other Department from receiving, considering or assessing the renewal applications in relation to Prospecting Licenses PL's 021024/2018 pending the delivery of the judgement in the Applicant's review application with respect to Prospecting License PL021/2018.

James M. Bruchs, Chairman and CEO, commented "The issue is relatively straight forward, pursuant to Section 19 of the Mines and Minerals Act (Act), contiguous prospecting licences covering the same period and the same mineral or minerals, the Minister shall, for the purposes of the elimination (reduction) of part of any of the areas thereof, permit the areas covered thereby to be deemed to be one area, the subject of one such prospecting licence. The Xaudum Iron Formation (XIF) project extends for a known length of some 40 kilometers and traverses most if not all of the licenses set forth below. The effect of granting some of the PL's at one time and not all of the contiguous licenses that form the project effectively diminishes the value or potential of the project as it impacts the evaluation and exploration activities. We believe the Act makes it clear that it is the discretion of the license holder to determine which areas to retain and which areas to relinquish as it protects the license holder from instances where one would be required to relinquish the prospective area and keep the non-prospective area. Given that one of our prayers for relief in our PL020/2018 review application is to re-align the 5 licenses so that their durations remain coherent with one another, we felt it timely that any actions with respect to PL's 021-024/2018 be stayed as the date for the renewal applications was imminent".

PL No. Grant Date Area km2 1st Renewal Filing Date 1st Renewal Grant Date Area km2 020/2018 10/01/18 570.0 6/30/2021 Pending 447.7 021/2018 10/01/18 964.9 6/30/2021 1/01/2022 572.5 022/2018 10/01/18 317.1 6/30/2021 1/01/2022 160.4 023/2018 10/01/18 978.6 6/30/2021 1/01/2022 491.2 024/2018 10/01/18 807.3 6/30/2021 1/01/2022 781.7 025/2018 10/01/18 454.5 DNR* -- 026/2018 10/01/18 828.1 DNR* -- Total 4,920.50 Total 2,453.50 Relinquished 50.14% *DNR - did not renew Renewed 49.86%

To be fully transparent and meet the volume of requests, the Company has established landing page(s) regularly updated to include all records related to the litigation. See, Botswana Litigation for litigation documents and Tsodilo Resources Ltd. - MMGE for related documents.

XAUDUM IRON FORMATION (XIF)

About the XIF Project

The project is located in the North-West District of Botswana and is proximate to the Namibian border and lies twenty-two (22) miles from the town of Divundu in Namibia. The Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor (previously known as the Trans-Caprivi) line linking Zambia and Namibia is planned to pass through Divundu, providing access to Walvis Bay, Namibia's deep-sea port. The project is also located within forty-three (43) miles of the proposed Mucusso line to Angola's Namibe Port.

Preliminary work on the Xaudum Iron project has defined a CIM compliant Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 441 million tonnes (Mt) with an average grade of 29.4% Fe, 41.0% SiO2, 6.1% Al2O3 and 0.3% P for the Block 1 magnetite XIF.

Block 1 is a fraction of the potential XIF magnetite resource. An extrapolated exploration target has defined the XIF to be in the order of 5 to 7 billion tonnes at 15 - 40% Fe. This exploration target was generated by inversion modelling of ground magnetic geophysical data which was compared and moderated to volumes from drilling data within Block 1 and its potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature. To date, there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource other than in Block 1 and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource. See, Press Release of 6/02/2014 on the Company's website for further details.

on the Company's website for further details. Metallurgical magnetic separation results (Davis Tube Recovery) show that an average concentrate of 67.2% Fe, 4.2% SiO2, 0.5% Al2O3, 0.07% P is obtained at P80 grind size of 80 microns, although higher grades are possible at finer P80's. See, Press Release of 12/17/2013 on the Company's website.

on the Company's website. Further exploration will be focused on Block 2a where the Company expects an increase in the resource.

Additional informational of the project can be found on the Company's website at https://tsodiloresources.com/s/Metals.asp.html and further technical information can be found in a report prepared by SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd. for Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Ltd. titled "Mineral Resource Estimate for the Xaudum Iron Project (Block 1), Republic of Botswana" with an effective date of August 29, 2014, and filed on SEDAR under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.

About Tsodilo Resources Limited

Tsodilo Resources Limited is an international resource exploration company engaged in the search for economic metal and diamond deposits at its Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Limited ("Gcwihaba") and Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. ("Bosoto) projects in Botswana. The Company has a 100% stake in its Gcwihaba project area consisting of five metal (base, precious, platinum group, and rare earth) prospecting licenses all located in the North-West district of Botswana. The Company has a 100% stake in Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. which holds the BK16 kimberlite project in the Orapa Kimberlite Field (OKF) in Botswana. Tsodilo manages the exploration of the Gcwihaba and Bosoto projects. Overall supervision of the Company's exploration program is the responsibility of McDonald Kahari (Pr. Sci. Nat.) a "qualified person" as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

James M. Bruchs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer [email protected] Head Office Telephone +1 416 572 2033 Facsimile + 1 416 987 4369 Website http://www.TsodiloResources.com

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements pertaining to the use of proceeds, the impact of strategic partnerships and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals) are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward- looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, changes in equity markets, changes in general economic conditions, market volatility, political developments in Botswana and surrounding countries, changes to regulations affecting the Company's activities, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, exploration and development risks, the uncertainties involved in interpreting exploration results and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration business. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and, even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, uncertainties relating to availability and cost of funds, timing and content of work programs, results of exploration activities, interpretation of drilling results and other geological data, risks relating to variations in the diamond grade and kimberlite lithologies; variations in rates of recovery and breakage; estimates of grade and quality of diamonds, variations in diamond valuations and future diamond prices; the state of world diamond markets, reliability of mineral property titles, changes to regulations affecting the Company's activities, delays in obtaining or failure to obtain required project approvals, operational and infrastructure risk and other risks involved in the diamond exploration and development business. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to their inherent uncertainty.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release may contain assumptions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and are subject to factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

SOURCE: Tsodilo Resources Limited

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SUGAR LAND, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The API Group, Inc. and Accredo Packaging, a manufacturer of sustainable packaging solutions in the food and consumer products markets, welcome Treijon (Trei) Johnson as Director of Sustainability. Leveraging a rich background in developing sustainable packaging solutions, he will focus on refining and implementing a robust strategy building upon the existing foundation of sustainability success at Accredo Packaging. Trei will also drive sustainability for the API Group company Advanced Polybag.

"I'm confident Trei will be instrumental in delivering unmatched value to the communities in which we operate, supply chain partners, and, importantly, our customers while advancing towards aggressive sustainability targets. We believe his fresh perspectives and proven expertise will be critical in expanding and maintaining our foundational culture of sustainability," shared Jonathan Quinn, Vice President of Marketing and Sustainability for the API Group.

Accredo Packaging, Inc. is North America's first and only flexible packaging manufacturing facility with LEED Silver certification and is 100% wind-powered.

Before joining Accredo, Johnson demonstrated his skill in driving sustainability initiatives at Mars Wrigley as a packaging engineer and at Unilever Global as a supply chain analyst for two years before becoming a packaging engineer. In these positions, he played a crucial role in propelling these brands towards 2025 sustainability objectives.

Johnson is an alumnus of Cornell University, where he graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Sustainability. At Cornell, he was an active Der Hexenkreis Senior Honor Society member and held a prominent position in the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Johnson is a distinguished participant in the 2018 Yale School of Management's Emerging Leaders Program.

About Accredo Packaging

Accredo Packaging, a member of the API GROUP, offers sustainable flexible packaging solutions for various products, from snack foods and confectionery items to frozen foods and pet treats in retail grocers. They produce overwraps for paper towels, shrink bundle film for bottled water, and are leaders in recyclable and compostable stand-up pouches, having introduced the first reverse printed and laminated all-recyclable pouch and the first ASTM-certified compostable stand-up pouch. Learn more at www.accredopackaging.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927104605/en/

Christine Wetzler

[email protected]

+1-312-612-0683 x700

Source: Accredo Packaging
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AECOM (NYSE: ACM), the worlds trusted infrastructure consulting firm, today announced that a joint venture between AECOM and Black & Veatch (AECOM-B&V Lakes and Rivers JV) has been selected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide architectural and engineering services for infrastructure projects for the 17 states within the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, and nationwide. The multiple-award contract has a five-year term and is funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Were proud to continue our 100-year partnership with the USACE delivering infrastructure solutions that protect communities and the environment, said Karl Jensen, executive vice president of AECOMs National Governments business. This important work ties directly to our firmwide environmental, social, and governance objectives, which are rooted in our commitment to delivering a better world, and we look forward to teaming with Black & Veatch on this transformative program.

The program will focus on renovating and modernizing infrastructure, mitigating flood risks, and restoring ecosystems. Projects under this contract are expected to include sustainable design, renovation, and modernization of critical infrastructure, including dams, locks, levees, flood walls, pump stations, bridges, roadways, and canals, as well as stand-alone buildings and ecosystem restoration.

As the USACE seeks to reduce disaster risks and energize local economies, were proud to bring comprehensive expertise in sustainability and resiliency that meets its programs complex technical needs, said Matt Crane, chief executive of AECOMs U.S. West region. Our team is excited by the opportunity to design innovative solutions that improve critical infrastructure and strengthen resilience for generations to come.

The scope of work may include master planning; feasibility studies; site assessments; permitting; environmental compliance; and design for design-bid-build and design-build projects. Through an integrated design approach and an emphasis on environmental stewardship, sustainable design efforts may include energy and water conservation, use of recovered and recycled materials, use of alternative energy, and waste reduction measures.

Black & Veatchs civil works solutions have supported federal and military clients for more than a century and continue to expand globally, said Rick Kaiser, Federal Agencies Segment Leader and President of BV Special Projects Corp. for Black & Veatch. The joint venture will deliver sustainable, critical infrastructure that plays a crucial role in protecting the environment and improving lives in surrounding communities.

About AECOM

AECOM (NYSE: ACM) is the worlds trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle  from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy, and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $13.1 billion in fiscal year 2022. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

About Black & Veatch

Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2022 were US$4.3 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this communication other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements for purposes of federal and state securities laws, including any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives for future operations, profitability, strategic value creation, risk profile and investment strategies, and any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance, and the expected financial and operational results of AECOM. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, actual results could differ materially from those projected or assumed in any of our forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results, performance and achievements, or industry results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: our business is cyclical and vulnerable to economic downturns and client spending reductions; limited control over operations that run through our joint venture entities; liability for misconduct by our employees or consultants; failure to comply with laws or regulations applicable to our business; maintaining adequate surety and financial capacity; potential high leverage and inability to service our debt and guarantees; ability to continue payment of dividends; exposure to political and economic risks in different countries, including tariffs; currency exchange rate and interest fluctuations; retaining and recruiting key technical and management personnel; legal claims; inadequate insurance coverage; environmental law compliance and adequate nuclear indemnification; unexpected adjustments and cancellations related to our backlog; partners and third parties who may fail to satisfy their legal obligations; AECOM Capital real estate development projects; managing pension cost; cybersecurity issues, IT outages and data privacy; risks associated with the expected benefits and costs of the sale of our Management Services and self-perform at-risk civil infrastructure, power construction and oil and gas construction businesses, including the risk that any contingent purchase price adjustments from those transactions could be unfavorable and result in lower aggregate cash proceeds and any future proceeds owed to us under those transactions could be lower than we expect; as well as other additional risks and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements set forth in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any forward-looking statement.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927502438/en/

Media:

Brendan Ranson-Walsh

Senior Vice President, Global Communications

1.213.996.2367

[email protected]



Investors:

Will Gabrielski

Senior Vice President, Finance, Treasurer

1.213.593.8208

[email protected]

Source: AECOM
Regions head of Consumer Banking named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regions Bank on Wednesday announced Kate Danella, head of Regions Consumer Banking Group, has again been honored by American Banker magazine as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927318703/en/

2023 marks the fifth consecutive year American Banker has included Regions Banks Kate Danella in the magazines various rankings of the industrys most influential and top-performing women leaders. (Photo: Business Wire)

Since Kate joined Regions in 2015, her commitment to innovation and her focus on delivering a superior customer experience have had a meaningful impact on our customers, said John Turner, President and CEO of Regions Financial Corp.

Under her leadership, our Consumer Banking Group has helped people improve their financial wellbeing through tools such as Regions Early Pay and the Regions Protection Line of Credit, as well as Regions Overdraft Grace, Turner added. Our teams have worked to broaden access to homeownership, and weve expanded the use of Regions Greenprint personalized financial planning tools to support even more individual and small-business customers.

This is the fifth consecutive year American Banker has included Danella in its various rankings of the industrys most influential and top-performing women leaders. This years honorees are featured in the Bankers October 2023 issue.

Danella became head of Consumer Banking at Regions in May 2022 after serving as Chief Strategy and Client Experience Officer. She joined the company as Wealth Strategy and Effectiveness Executive, later leading Private Wealth Management and serving as head of Strategic Planning and Consumer Bank Products and Origination Partnerships.

Before Regions, Danella held leadership roles for 13 years in sales, strategy, client services, and marketing for Capital Group Companies.

By keeping customers at the center of every decision, Kate and her teams are building solid relationships and deeper trust between the bank and our customers, Turner concluded. She is a thoughtful, strategic leader who guides and inspires her team to constantly envision how we can raise the bar. And it is rewarding to once again see American Banker recognize and honor her commitment.

See American Bankers website for the full list of this years honorees and to read the magazines profile of Danella.

About Regions Financial Corporation

Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF), with $156 billion in assets, is a member of the S&P 500 Index and is one of the nations largest full-service providers of consumer and commercial banking, wealth management, and mortgage products and services. Regions serves customers across the South, Midwest and Texas, and through its subsidiary, Regions Bank, operates approximately 1,250 banking offices and more than 2,000 ATMs. Regions Bank is an Equal Housing Lender and Member FDIC. Additional information about Regions and its full line of products and services can be found at www.regions.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927318703/en/

Jeremy D. King

Regions Bank

205-264-4551

Regions News Online: regions.doingmoretoday.com

Regions News on Twitter: @Regions News

Source: Regions Financial Corporation
South Australian not-for-profit reduces integration times by 30 per cent with Boomis award-winning integration platform. Boomi replaces Microsoft Azure Integration Services as AnglicareSA works towards single customer view across 62,500 constituents

AnglicareSA joins approximately 20,000 organisations around the world in selecting Boomis category-leading integration platform as a service (iPaaS) for better business outcomes

SYDNEY--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Boomi, the intelligent connectivity and automation leader, today announced not-for-profit (NFP) AnglicareSA has chosen the Boomi Platform to pave the way to improve personalised services by centralising its data to better understand the needs of the 62,500 constituents it supports.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230918877272/en/

AnglicareSA Creates Foundation for Personalised Services With Boomi (Graphic: Business Wire)

AnglicareSA has provided a diverse range of programs  including housing, National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) services, Aboriginal services, aged care, foster care, emergency assistance, and financial counselling  to South Australians for more than 150 years. This required managing and running dozens of systems and applications, with disconnected data across cloud and on-premises environments. After evaluating several options, AnglicareSA selected the Boomi Platform to integrate its technology investments and ensure information is available to its 1,800 employees and volunteers when they need it.

Delivering diverse services requires us to have diverse systems  systems that werent designed to communicate with one another. This left us with data inconsistencies and made it difficult to understand the constituents who rely on us, said Brett Rowe, Manager for Application Support at AnglicareSA. Boomi serves as the stable foundation we need to ensure reliable system integration so we can continue to improve our services, and tailor them around the unique needs of South Australians.

AnglicareSA uses Boomis integration platform as a service (iPaaS) to connect business-critical applications, including TechnologyOne enterprise resource planning (ERP), Salesforce Lumary, Rapid Global workforce management software, ELMOs human resources (HR) software, and Microsoft ActiveDirectory and SQL databases. Having upskilled through Boomis training program, AnglicareSAs application team developed and now manages integrations internally, which has generated significant cost savings.

AnglicareSA selected Boomi to replace Microsoft Azure integration services, and in the process eliminated complex point-to-point integrations, which were proving difficult to maintain and support.

The low-code architecture of the Boomi Platform has made integration at least 30 per cent faster and will allow us to quickly and easily scale our integration capabilities as more cloud applications enter the business, said Rowe. Some projects that previously took more than a month are now completed in one week.

Additionally, the maturity of the Boomi Platform gives us richer capabilities, and handling integrations internally means funds that would previously have been spent on support can be reinjected into our community services. Since we introduced Boomi in early 2023, we are more agile, responding to requests from the business and employees rapidly, sparing the team from manual data entry and resolving complex integration issues, added Rowe.

In a sector where every detail matters, care programs staff need to trust that the digital systems underpinning their businesses can accurately serve rich information, said Nathan Gower, Director, Australia and New Zealand at Boomi. Switching to Boomi has helped AnglicareSA better understand the needs of its constituents and afforded its IT team the ability to move fast and leave complex integration behind.

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About Boomi

Boomi aims to make the world a better place by connecting everyone to everything, anywhere. The pioneer of cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and now a category-leading, global software as a service (SaaS) company, Boomi touts the largest customer base among integration platform vendors and a worldwide network of approximately 800 partners  including Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, SAP, and Snowflake. Global organizations turn to Boomis award-winning platform to discover, manage, and orchestrate data, while connecting applications, processes, and people for better, faster outcomes. For more information, visit http://boomi.com.

 2023 Boomi, LP. Boomi, the B logo, and Boomiverse are trademarks of Boomi, LP or its subsidiaries or affiliates. All rights reserved. Other names or marks may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230918877272/en/

Media:

Jasmine Ee

Head of Media and Analyst Relations, APJ

[email protected]

Source: Boomi
This press release is for U.S. audiences only

MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J. & OXFORD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Blue Earth Diagnostics, a Bracco company and recognized leader in the development and commercialization of innovative PET radiopharmaceuticals, today announced presentations on POSLUMA (flotufolastat F 18) injection (formerly known as 18F-rhPSMA-7.3) at the upcoming American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) 2023 Annual Meeting, to be held in San Diego, Calif., from October 1 to 4, 2023. POSLUMA is indicated for positron emission tomography (PET) of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positive lesions in men with prostate cancer with suspected metastasis who are candidates for initial definitive therapy or with suspected recurrence based on elevated serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level.

PET imaging with POSLUMA reveals clinical information crucial to decision-making for men with prostate cancer, and we are excited to share further information with the radiation oncology community at ASTRO 2023, said David E. Gauden, D.Phil., Chief Executive Officer of Blue Earth Diagnostics. Phase 3 results from the SPOTLIGHT trial demonstrated the ability of POSLUMA to detect recurrent disease even at low prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels, and Dr. Ashesh Janis oral presentation will detail further information about its diagnostic performance at PSA levels

Details of selected oral and poster presentations by Blue Earth Diagnostics and its collaborators are listed below.

HIGHLIGHTED SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATIONS

Monday, October 2, 2023

Oral presentation Title: Detection Rate of 18F-rhPSMA-7.3 PET in Patients with Suspected Prostate Cancer Recurrence at PSA Levels Presenter: Ashesh B. Jani, MD, FASTRO, Department of Radiation Oncology, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., for the SPOTLIGHT Study Group Session Type: Oral Session Title: SS11 - GU 3 Novel Prognostication Techniques for Prostate Cancer Presentation Time: 3:30  3:37 PM PT Location: Room 6 D/E Presentation No.: 160

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Poster presentation Title: Diagnostic Performance of 18F-rhPSMA-7.3 PET in Men with Newly Diagnosed High-risk Prostate Cancer and Negative Conventional Imaging Presenter: Phillip H. Kuo, MD, Ph.D., Departments of Medical Imaging, Medicine, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., on behalf of Gary A. Ulaner, MD, Ph.D., Hoag Family Cancer Institute, Irvine, Calif. and University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., for the LIGHTHOUSE Study Group Session Title: PQ 06  Poster Q&A 06  Session 06  Genitourinary Cancer, Patient Safety and Nursing Presentation Time: 2:30  3:45 PM PT Location: Hall B1 Presentation No.: 2972

Blue Earth Diagnostics invites participants at the 2023 ASTRO Annual Meeting to attend the presentations above and visit the company at Exhibit Booth 2223. Blue Earth Diagnostics is hosting an Industry-Expert Theater event, POSLUMA: Precision PET Imaging that is Truly Revealing, with invited speaker Dr. Nicholas Zouain, Radiation Oncologist, Medical Director of West Florida Radiation Therapy, US Oncology Network, Clearwater, Fla. The event will be held on Sunday, October 1, 2023, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM PT, in Theater 1 of the San Diego Convention Center. For full session details and scientific presentation listings, please see the ASTRO online program here.

Indication and Important Safety Information About POSLUMA

INDICATION

POSLUMA (flotufolastat F 18) injection is indicated for positron emission tomography (PET) of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positive lesions in men with prostate cancer

with suspected metastasis who are candidates for initial definitive therapy

with suspected recurrence based on elevated serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

Image interpretation errors can occur with POSLUMA PET. A negative image does not rule out the presence of prostate cancer and a positive image does not confirm the presence of prostate cancer. The performance of POSLUMA for imaging metastatic pelvic lymph nodes in patients prior to initial definitive therapy seems to be affected by serum PSA levels and risk grouping. The performance of POSLUMA for imaging patients with biochemical evidence of recurrence of prostate cancer seems to be affected by serum PSA levels. Flotufolastat F 18 uptake is not specific for prostate cancer and may occur in other types of cancer, in non-malignant processes, and in normal tissues. Clinical correlation, which may include histopathological evaluation, is recommended.

The performance of POSLUMA for imaging patients with biochemical evidence of recurrence of prostate cancer seems to be affected by serum PSA levels. Flotufolastat F 18 uptake is not specific for prostate cancer and may occur in other types of cancer, in non-malignant processes, and in normal tissues. Clinical correlation, which may include histopathological evaluation, is recommended. Risk of Image Misinterpretation in Patients with Suspected Prostate Cancer Recurrence: The interpretation of POSLUMA PET may differ depending on imaging readers, particularly in the prostate/prostate bed region. Because of the associated risk of false positive interpretation, consider multidisciplinary consultation and histopathological confirmation when clinical decision-making hinges on flotufolastat F 18 uptake only in the prostate/prostate bed region or only on uptake interpreted as borderline.

POSLUMA use contributes to a patients overall long-term cumulative radiation exposure. Long-term cumulative radiation exposure is associated with an increased risk for cancer. Advise patients to hydrate before and after administration and to void frequently after administration. Ensure safe handling to minimize radiation exposure to the patient and health care providers.

The adverse reactions reported in 0.4% of patients in clinical studies were diarrhea, blood pressure increase and injection site pain.

Drug Interactions: androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and other therapies targeting the androgen pathway, such as androgen receptor antagonists, may result in changes in uptake of flotufolastat F 18 in prostate cancer. The effect of these therapies on performance of POSLUMA PET has not been established.

To report suspected adverse reactions to POSLUMA, call 1-844-POSLUMA (1-844-767-5862) or contact FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or www.fda.gov/medwatch.

Full POSLUMA prescribing information is available at www.posluma.com/prescribing-information.pdf.

About Blue Earth Diagnostics

Blue Earth Diagnostics, an indirect subsidiary of Bracco Imaging S.p.A., is a growing international molecular imaging company focused on delivering innovative, well-differentiated diagnostic solutions that inform patient care. Formed in 2014, the Companys success is driven by its management expertise and supported by a demonstrated track record of rapid development and commercialization of positron emission tomography (PET) radiopharmaceuticals. Blue Earth Diagnostics expanding oncology portfolio encompasses a variety of disease states, including prostate cancer and neuro-oncology. Blue Earth Diagnostics is committed to the timely development and commercialization of precision radiopharmaceuticals for potential use in imaging and therapy. For more information, please visit: www.blueearthdiagnostics.com.

About Bracco Imaging

Bracco Imaging S.p.A., part of the Bracco Group, is a world-leading diagnostic imaging provider. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Bracco Imaging develops, manufactures and markets diagnostic imaging agents and solutions. It offers a product and solution portfolio for all key diagnostic imaging modalities: X-ray imaging (including Computed Tomography-CT, Interventional Radiology, and Cardiac Catheterization), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound (CEUS), and Nuclear Medicine through radioactive tracers and novel PET imaging agents to inform clinical management and guide care for cancer patients in areas of unmet medical need. Our continually evolving portfolio is completed by a range of medical devices, advanced administration systems and dose-management software. In 2019 Bracco Imaging also enriched its product portfolio by expanding the range of oncology nuclear imaging solutions in the urology segment and other specialties with the acquisition of Blue Earth Diagnostics. Visit: www.braccoimaging.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927770010/en/

For Blue Earth Diagnostics (U.S.)

Priscilla Harlan

Vice President, Corporate Communications

(M) (781) 799-7917

[email protected]

For Blue Earth Diagnostics (UK)

Clare Gidley

Associate Director Marketing and Communications

+44 (0)1865 784186

[email protected]

Media

Sam Brown Inc.

Mike Beyer

(M) (312) 961-2502

[email protected]

Source: Blue Earth Diagnostics
Lopez Obrador at the signing of the lithium nationalization decree in Bacadehuachi (Sonora) on February 18. Presidencia

The Mexican government has redoubled its commitment to gain control of lithium, a strategic mineral considered to be new white gold. The General Directorate of Mines has canceled nine lithium concessions that were previously held by the Chinese firm Ganfeng Lithium, under the argument that the mining company failed to meet the minimum investment requirements.

These annulled concessions cover the largest projected deposit of this mineral so far identified in Mexico. They are located in the municipality of Bacadehuachi, in the state of Sonora. The Chinese company  the largest producer of lithium batteries in the world  has already informed its investors that the termination of the permits is arbitrary, violating both national and international rights. They have already filed appeals for review with the Secretariat of Economy.

At the end of 2021, Ganfeng Lithium bought the largest lithium clay deposit in Mexico from Bacanora Lithium, a British firm. The transaction  valued at more than $260 million  gave them the power to exploit the rights to nine mining concessions, until between 2060 and 2065. The acquisition made complete sense when considering the projected reserves in this deposit in Sonora: 8.82 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), according to Ganfengs most recent annual report. Globally, lithium has become a strategic mineral, as its crucial in the manufacture of batteries.

The sale was carried out despite the fact that, months earlier, in April of 2021, the Mexican government began the process of reforming its mining laws. This involved vetoing new lithium concessions from being granted to private parties, while also granting the Mexican state the exclusive rights to lithium exploration, production and commercialization, given that its classified as a strategic mineral. At the time, however, Ganfeng assumed that the modifications to the laws wouldnt have repercussions on concessions that had already been granted. However, years later, this confidence has begun to fade.

In its most recent report to investors, the mining company emphasized that its projects in Sonora wouldnt be affected by the planned reforms, as the mining rights were granted before the legislative modifications. As recently as this past May, the firm also presented evidence that it had met the minimum investment requirements. Despite this, the company protests, nine of its concessions have been canceled by the General Directorate of Mines. The resolutions that cancelled the concessions violate Mexican law and international law they are arbitrary and unfounded. The company and the Mexican subsidiaries have filed administrative review appeals with the [Secretariat] of Economy, Ganfeng Lithium notes, in a message to investors.

Amidst the lithium fever thats gripping Latin America, Mexico doesnt want to be left behind. Currently, the countries that extract the most lithium from their subsoil are Australia, Chile and China. The Lopez Obrador administration  working towards its goal of nationalizing the mineral  has created Litio Mx, a decentralized public body that, to date, doesnt have its own budget. According to the mandate of the state company, its resources will come from allocations in the federal budget and from its own activities surrounding lithium. However, this income still seems to be far off, as theres no planned extraction of the mineral.

Rigoberto Garcia  an academic and researcher who specializes in the mining sector  emphasizes that the potential of the mineral in Mexico is still in its infancy, because, to date, not a single gram of lithium has been extracted in the state of Sonora. I believe that the potential that lithium has as a mineral for technological development has been exaggerated. Nothing guarantees that lithium will be an indispensable mineral for batteries, due to ongoing technological developments. And I think that public-private partnerships are preferable for this type of project but theres still a lot of uncertainty about the potential, he affirms. The academic also insists that the global battle for strategic minerals shouldnt be ruled out in the geopolitical context  especially considering that it was a Chinese company that was set to exploit lithium in Mexico.

So far, neither the Secretariat of Economy nor Litio Mx have issued statements or taken a firm position on the issue. Meanwhile, Ganfeng Lithium has indicated that its still too early to know the economic impact that this measure will have on its operations.

According to the United States Geological Survey, Mexico has 1.7 million tons of lithium reserves in total. The most recent report released by the Mexican Mining Chamber of Commerce (Camimex) reported that, of the thousand mining projects across the national territory, 24 are focused on the extraction of lithium.

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CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- aequum LLC, serving more than 400 self-insured health plans and their participants, today announced that its founder and CEO, Christine Cooper, is named a finalist as Woman of the Year in the healthcare category of the 20th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Cooper says, It is a distinct honor to be selected from among so many deserving and accomplished women nominated for this prestigious award. I am immensely proud of the aequum team, what we have achieved together and our collective capabilities to impact stakeholders in the self-insured industry. By leveling the playing field for those challenged by the complexities of medical billing, we are truly expanding opportunities to manage costs and gain potential savings in order to sustain affordable health coverage as a benefit.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees and the companies they run  worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the worlds premier business awards.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced during a gala event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Friday, November 10. Nominated women executives and entrepreneurs from around the world are expected to attend. The event will be broadcast on Livestream.

Coopers leadership and reputation in the employee healthcare ecosystem is attributed to her dedication to creating a competitive financial advantage for plan sponsors and improving the health and wealth status of plan participants. Market receptivity for aequum is palpable. This type of support had not been readily available to the self-insured community  which is growing rapidly among US companies of all sizes. As a trailblazer and innovator in this space, Coopers work is critically important to a large segment of American workers who are financially fragile unprepared for unexpected medical expenses and struggle with health plan cost sharing, contributions and out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 200 business professionals around the world, working on six juries. Their scores will also determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements that will be revealed at the 20th annual awards dinner and presentations in New York.

About aequum, LLC

Founded in 2020, aequum LLC serves third-party administrators, medical cost management companies, stop-loss carriers, employer-sponsored health plans and brokers nationwide to protect plan participants, improve employee satisfaction with their health care plans, and generate plan and participant cost savings. aequum LLC helps patients defend medical balance bills and brings savings to employer-sponsored health plans by providing administrative and other services to its partners. In addition, its sister organization, Koehler Fitzgerald LLC, provides legal advocacy to plan participants. Visit aequumhealth.com.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. A ninth program, the Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence, will debut in 2024. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 nominations each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927111654/en/

Brittany Tedesco

[email protected]

201.641.1911 x 14

Source: aequum LLC
New Release Offers MacOS Gamers Unparalleled Access to Top AAA Rated Windows Games

SAINT PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CodeWeavers, the software development company behind CrossOver, today announced its release of CrossOver 23.5 for macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS. CrossOver 23.5 offers Mac gamers significantly improved and simplified gameplay access to the most Windows games on Mac in CodeWeavers company history!

A key highlight of CodeWeavers new release is the integration of the Apple Game Porting Toolkit. This release offers an alternate way to run DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games through CrossOver using its toolkit components. Enabling this new D3DMetal option improves quality, compatibility, and performance for many games on Macs with the M1 chip or later.

The growing list of games improved with CrossOver 23.5 builds on a very long list of popular Windows games that ran on older versions of CrossOver Mac. With the new release, gamers can play top tier AAA rated games, including Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Mortal Kombat 1, Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory, Monster Hunter Rise, God of War, and Batman: Arkham Knight.

CrossOver 23.5 marks a significant milestone in gaming for our users," says CodeWeavers CEO James Ramey. "CrossOver has always been the go-to solution for gaming on macOS. With this latest release, we now support even more games. This release truly embodies the progress and advancements we've made in game support over the past five years of development.

Ahead of the official roll-out, CrossOver 23.5 was well received by beta testers. Committed to its ongoing mission of providing the best possible macOS gaming experience, CodeWeavers offers a dedicated support staff to ensure gamers quickly get games installed and running.

CrossOver 23.5 is the first CrossOver release with support for macOS Sonoma with optimizations from thorough compatibility testing. It also boasts better compatibility for various Linux distros, including Debian 13, openSUSE Leap 15.1, and the upcoming Ubuntu 23.10 release. Finally, CrossOver 23.5 includes a handful of fixes, including special characters not rendering in certain apps and components not loading with MetaTrader 4.

All valued customers with active support entitlements will receive prompt notifications for their CrossOver 23.5 upgrade. The latest version is available for immediate download. Users new to CrossOver, can get a free two-week trial of CrossOver 23.5 for immediate download at: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/download.

For further assistance, customers can contact a dedicated support team at [email protected].

About CodeWeavers

We're rebels. We're misfits. But mostly, we're software liberators. And we're very, very good at what we do. We have to be. Lots of developers work with open source, but only a tiny fraction are good enough to get software that was designed for one platform to work on another one. We invented CrossOver software - a unique approach to cross-platform compatibility that does not require dual-boot or another OS license. We launched PortJump to help game and app developers broaden their market beyond Windows users. And we launched ExecMode to help organizations solve really ugly technical challenges.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927409876/en/

Heidi Murphy, Padilla

312-248-8856

[email protected]

Source: CodeWeavers
Industry pioneer Custom Truck One Source unveils cutting-edge electric and hybrid equipment solutions, underscoring its dedication to addressing industry demand

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Custom Truck One Source, Inc. (NYSE: CTOS) continues to help solve regulatory and emissions challenges for its customers with Lightning PTO, part of the Companys latest electric and hybrid-electric chassis and equipment under its Load King banner, unveiled here during The Utility Expo show at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

In support of Custom Truck customers pressing concerns about emissions compliance, Load Kings Lightning PTO is an electric PTO designed to power hydraulics, offering customers a hybrid solution compatible with standard 110AC outlets that can charge simultaneously during diesel chassis usage.

Visitors to Custom Trucks booth at The Utility Expo can experience this ePTOs integration on several types of equipment for the utility and forestry segments that Load King offers on both new-unit orders and retrofits.

Benefits of Lightning PTO include:

Significant diesel fuel savings.

CO2 emissions reduction.

Dramatic maintenance-cost savings.

Less hydraulic oil movement wear and tear.

85% noise reduction promotes safer job sites.

Moreover, a cutting-edge telematics and reporting dashboard accompanies the ePTO, empowering users with data on fuel savings, CO2 emission reductions, and maintenance savings.

"Our latest offerings underscore our unwavering commitment to innovation and sustainability, said Custom Truck Founder, Fred Ross. The launch is not just about products, but solutions that echo our philosophy--listening and solving the challenges of our industry."

Custom Truck CEO, Ryan McMonagle, said: "In the midst of evolving emission regulations, and the global push for sustainability, Custom Truck is proud to lead with our new electric and hybrid equipment offerings. This isn't just about technology; it's about foresight, commitment, and an unwavering pledge to our customers to stay at the forefront of innovative solutions. Our partnership with Peterbilt and Battle Motors, coupled with the revolutionary Lightning PTO, epitomizes our dedication to a greener, efficient, and cost-effective future."

Chassis manufacturers Peterbilt and Battle Motors are showcasing the following electric chassis options at Custom Trucks booth:

Peterbilt Model 220EV Chassis with a Versalift VST-52 aerial : This game-changing fully electric chassis couples with the Load King e-PTO solution, ensuring an all-electric hydraulic operation.

: This game-changing fully electric chassis couples with the Load King e-PTO solution, ensuring an all-electric hydraulic operation. Battle Motors with Terex C4047 Digger Derrick: The equipment in this partnership combines the electrifying efficiency of an advanced Battle Motors EV Truck with the Herculean capabilities of the Terex C4047 Digger Derrick.

ABOUT CUSTOM TRUCK ONE SOURCE

Custom Truck One Source is one of the largest providers of specialty equipment, parts, tools, accessories and services to the electric utility transmission and distribution, telecommunications and rail markets in North America, with a differentiated one-stop-shop business model. CTOS offers its specialized equipment to a diverse customer base for the maintenance, repair, upgrade and installation of critical infrastructure assets, including electric lines, telecommunications networks and rail systems. The Company's coast-to-coast rental fleet of more than 10,200 units includes aerial devices, boom trucks, cranes, digger derricks, pressure drills, stringing gear, Hi-rail equipment, repair parts, tools and accessories. For more information, please visit customtruck.com.

ABOUT LOAD KING

For decades Load King has been producing first-class heavy equipment. Cutting-edge innovation and engineering excellence make us the market leader. Load King is a vital part of the Custom Truck One Source family of brands, offering standard and custom trailers, vocational equipment, and a full line of boom trucks and truck cranes. For more information, please visit Load Kings website: loadkingmfg.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927176048/en/

Heather Bristow

Director, Content Marketing

[email protected]

Source: Custom Truck One Source, Inc.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Emerald Holding, Inc. (NYSE: EEX) (Emerald or the Company), today announced that the Company is scheduled to present at the following investor conferences:

Deutsche Banks 31st Annual Leveraged Finance Conference on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 in Scottsdale, AZ at 5:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. (2:55 p.m. Mountain Standard Time)

Maxim Groups 2023 Virtual Tech Conference on Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Interested investors and other parties can access a live webcast and replay of the Companys presentation at Deutsche Banks Leveraged Finance Conference by visiting the Investors section of Emeralds website at https://investor.emeraldx.com. Management will also be available in-person for one-on-one meetings with investors.

Interested investors can access a live webcast of the Companys presentation at Maxim Groups 2023 Virtual Tech Conference by registering at Maxim Groups conference website at www.m-vest.com.

About Emerald

Emeralds talented and experienced team grows our customers businesses 365 days a year through connections, content, and commerce. We expand connections that drive new business opportunities, product discovery, and relationships with over 140 annual events, matchmaking, and lead-gen services. We create content to ensure that our customers are on the cutting edge of their industries and are continually developing their skills. And we power commerce through efficient year-round buying and selling. We do all this by seamlessly integrating in-person and digital platforms and channels. Emerald is immersed in the industries we serve and committed to supporting the communities in which we operate. As true partners, we create experiences that inspire, amaze, and deliver breakthrough results. For more: http://www.emeraldx.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926493058/en/

Emerald Holding, Inc.

Investor Relations

[email protected]

1-866-339-4688 (866EEXINVT)

Source: Emerald Holding, Inc.
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Entravision (NYSE: EVC), a leading global advertising solutions, media and technology company, today announced Chris Young, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, will present at the Deutsche Bank 31st Annual Leveraged Finance Conference to be held October 2-4, 2023, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Management is scheduled to present on Wednesday, October 4th at 10:00 a.m. PT and will participate in meetings with investors throughout the day.

The presentation will be webcast live over the Internet, and links to the live webcast and replay will be available on Entravisions Investor Relations website at investor.entravision.com.

About Entravision Communications Corporation

Entravision is a global advertising solutions, media and technology company. Over the past three decades, we have strategically evolved into a digital powerhouse, expertly connecting brands to consumers in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Our digital segment, the companys largest by revenue, offers a full suite of end-to-end advertising services in 40 countries. We have commercial partnerships with Meta, X Corp. (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok, and Spotify, and marketers can use our Smadex and other platforms to deliver targeted advertising to audiences around the globe. In the U.S., we maintain a diversified portfolio of television and radio stations that target Hispanic audiences and complement our global digital services. Entravision remains the largest affiliate group of the Univision and UniMas television networks. Shares of Entravision Class A Common Stock trade on the NYSE under ticker: EVC. Learn more about our offerings at entravision.com or connect with us on LinkedIn and Facebook.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927961250/en/

Christopher T. Young

Chief Financial Officer

Entravision

310-447-3870

Kimberly Orlando

Addo Investor Relations

310-829-5400

[email protected]

Source: Entravision Communications Corporation
WOKINGHAM, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ferguson plc (NYSE: FERG, LSE: FERG) (the Company) announces today that it purchased a total of 86,574 of its ordinary shares in the period from September 18, 2023, up to and including September 22, 2023, in connection with its $3.0 billion share repurchase program.

Aggregated information about the purchases carried out during this period

Trading day Aggregate daily volume (in number of shares) Daily weighted average purchase price of the shares Trading venue September 18, 2023 1,144 12,393.7463 BATE September 18, 2023 14,386 12,393.7463 XLON September 19, 2023 42 12,406.5001 XLON September 21, 2023 8,716 12,220.0000 BATE September 21, 2023 5,803 12,220.0000 CHIX September 21, 2023 20,576 12,220.0000 XLON September 22, 2023 8,821 12,224.2052 BATE September 22, 2023 6,161 12,224.2052 CHIX September 22, 2023 20,925 12,224.2052 XLON

The Company intends to hold these shares in treasury. Following the purchase of these shares (including those purchased but not yet settled), the number of shares held by the Company in treasury will be 28,293,599.

Following the purchase of these shares, the remaining number of ordinary shares in issue will be 203,877,583. The figure of 203,877,583 may be used by shareholders (and others with notification obligations) as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation), as it forms part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052, detailed information about the individual purchases can be found at Ferguson - Investors - Shareholder Center - Share Buy-Back Details - 2023 Share Buy-Back.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927222459/en/

For further information please contact:

Brian Lantz, Vice President IR and Communications +1 224 285 2410

Pete Kennedy, Director of Investor Relations +1 757 603 0111

Source: Ferguson plc
FitXR will offer the first ever immersive Zumba experience to expand accessible and inclusive fitness offerings.

Together, the brands amplify the joys of working out on a wider scale and lower barriers to entry that often include distance from gyms or workout studios, and the intimidation of traditional fitness.

FitXRs Zumba studio provides a total of 32 classes that include a variety of music tracks and level options spanning from beginner to expert, as well as a Mixed Reality version in addition to VR, allowing users to move about their space more freely.

NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FitXR, the leading VR workout platform offering the most diverse range of fitness classes, today announced its partnership with Zumba , the worlds largest branded dance fitness company. With this partnership, FitXR will provide the first ever immersive Zumba experience through virtual and mixed reality.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927665381/en/

FitXR Presents Zumba (Graphic: Business Wire)

Aligned with FitXRs goal of creating accessible and inclusive workouts for everyone, Zumba is the ultimate workout class for people who dont want to compromise on fun while meeting their fitness goals. Together, the brands amplify the joys of working out on a wider scale and lower barriers to entry that often include distance from gyms or workout studios, and the intimidation of traditional fitness. The partnership came to fruition stemming from the desires of both companies customers  in a qualitative survey by FitXR, results showed that users wanted more dance class offerings while Zumba had been receiving requests for VR product offerings.

By teaming up with FitXR, we were able to find the right partner that could capture the brand presence, music and energy that you find in an in-person Zumba class with the avatar and community technology to really bring the studio to life, said Alberto Perlman, Zumba CEO. Were excited to make Zumba even more accessible now in a virtual, immersive format.

In order to ensure the classes would appeal to a range of fitness levels, FitXR built the studio with level options spanning from beginner to expert and several features to help users develop confidence as they workout. An expert trainer leads each class to make players feel more supported with each new move. Also, in the corner of the screen, theres a movement preview system to show what moves are coming next to make users feel more prepared. As dancers take more classes, they can earn high scores, unlock goals and understand their progress through the app.

Partnering with Zumba is a game changer for those that might have anxiety around taking in-person classes, dont have access to a gym or studio, or those that want to participate in the Zumba program at home. Weve worked closely with Zumba to make sure that the virtual experience is as energetic and lively as it is in-person, said Sam Cole, FitXR CEO. Its great to see a well-established brand like Zumba expanding into the virtual world  with their brand value of making fitness fun, they are a perfect partner.

When developing FitXRs Zumba studio, it was crucial to both companies to ensure that users still feel the community aspect Zumba is known for while providing the flexibility to take classes when convenient for them, whether thats at home or when traveling. The global Zumba community will recognize a few of their favorite instructors such as Jeimy Bueno and Dahrio Wonder in avatar form, while FitXR members will be excited to see their favorite Dance trainer Sarah Eika Burke joining the crew. The Zumba studio provides a total of 32 classes that include a variety of music tracks and a Mixed Reality version in addition to VR, allowing users to move about their space more freely.

The immersive Zumba experience will be available to FitXR users on November 2, 2023. You can learn more about the studio here.

About Zumba Fitness, LLC

Founded in 2001, Zumba is the largest branded dance fitness company in the world  reporting more than 15 million weekly participants, in 200,000 locations, across 185 countries. Zumba blends world rhythms with easy-to-follow choreography for an effective workout that empowers participants to become their best selves - mind, body and soul. In addition to its original Zumba program, the company offers 10 Zumba specialty classes  from aquatic-based to those specifically designed for active older adults and children. In 2016, Zumba launched its first non-dance, HIIT workout STRONG Nation, where music acts as the main motivator. In 2023, Zumba launched CIRCL Mobility, a revolutionary new program designed to unlock the body's full potential through flexibility, breathwork, and mobility exercises. The Zumba lifestyle is rounded out by the company's many consumer product offerings, including the Zumba 6 Week Transformation Program, video games, original music, activewear and footwear, and interactive Fitness-Concert events. For more information about Zumba's programs and products, or to find a live class, visit zumba.com. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

About FitXR

FitXR merges immersive VR with total body workouts designed by top fitness experts. Dedicated to making fitness more fun and accessible for everyone, FitXR offers classes within five distinct workout studios - Box, Dance, HIIT, Sculpt and Combat. FitXR provides a truly engaging, multiplayer experience along with constantly refreshed classes, environments and music. FitXR is available on Meta Quest and Pico XR headsets. For more information, head to FitXR.com and follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

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Mighty PR for FitXR

[email protected]

Source: FitXR
Smart Pavement Features New Antenna System that Supports In-Road Wireless Communications

BEDFORD, Mass. & KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc. (FRACTAL) and Integrated Roadways, Inc. announce they are deploying the first generation of digital transportation infrastructure  Smart Roads  while enabling next generation wireless communications through a new antenna system hidden inside modular precast concrete pavement slabs.

Building upon decades of experience with materials and conformal systems, FRACTAL devised a fractal-based wideband antenna (patent 6,985,122 and pat.pending) for installation into Integrated Roadways Smart Pavement, which is designed to host and hide antennas that provide wireless connectivity for vehicles, devices, and the surrounding area.

Prior demonstrations of smart road technologies have shown the ability to charge electric vehicles as they drive, and embedded sensors to count, weigh, measure, and position vehicles, but there has yet to be a system to successfully enable advanced, modern telecommunications connectivity to the pavement.

Prior attempts to use antennas in concrete, for example, have come up short. By teaming up with Integrated Roadways, we are able to successfully transmit signals with our antenna systems embedded in the concrete, to allow for connectivity to other wireless devices which can include cell phones or cars. Thats a game changer, says Dr. Nathan Cohen, Founder, CEO and CTO of FRACTAL.

Difficulties in deploying ubiquitous small-cell antennas has slowed the adoption of standalone 5G to a crawl in the USA. Embedding advanced antenna systems in the roads will allow smart roads to replace much of the equipment affixed to vertical infrastructure, such as cell towers, buildings, street lights that are extensively used and becoming an eye sore and costly permit-granting challenge in most cities.

Attaching antennas and other telecom equipment to vertical infrastructure is a last-generation macro-cell architecture that doesnt reflect the requirements of modern small-cell distributed antenna systems that enable API based SD-ORAN networks-of-networks, says Tim Sylvester, CEO and Founder of Integrated Roadways. With key telecom components embedded in the roadways, citizens and communities can benefit from digital infrastructure that provides immediate wireless connectivity that is invisible, seamless, hyperlocal, and hyperintegrated. This approach is the future of autonomy, telecom, and community-oriented municipal infrastructure.

FRACTAL and Integrated Roadways will be deploying the new antenna technology starting with Lenexa City Center in Lenexa, KS. The new antenna system will be exclusive to Integrated Roadways for smart road applications, and Integrated Roadways will be exclusively using Fractal products for these implementations.

About FRACTAL

Fractal Antenna Systems provides off-the-shelf and custom antenna and electromagnetic cutting edge solutions to a wide range of end markets and applications. FRACTALs antennas and solutions are an integral part of wireless enablement for public safety, telecom, aviation, IoT, medical, and government/military applications, among others. For questions about FRACTALs capabilities, products, or custom solutions  visit FRACTALs website at www.fractenna.com or contact directly at [email protected].

About Integrated Roadways

Integrated Roadways is a digital infrastructure company with a mission to transform traditional roadways into self-sustaining, digital infrastructure systems that improve public safety, mobility, and communications. Our Smart Pavement System consists of factory-built precast concrete sections embedded with technology to transform ordinary roads into a managed services platform for next-generation mobility and cities. To discover more, visit www.integratedroadways.com or follow us on LinkedIn, X/Twitter and YouTube.

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[email protected]

Source: Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc.
Trailblazing fintech reiterates its support of the bills passage

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Green Check (GC), the leading fintech connector and technology and insights provider in the emerging cannabis market, today released the following statement from Kevin Hart, its founder and CEO, on the SAFER Banking Act.

This is the first time weve been optimistic about the passage of the SAFER Act. Its encouraging that the bill is originating in the Senate, where its antecedents were unsuccessful.

While the proposed language in the legislation is far from perfect, it would represent real progress if it is adopted. Im confident that, if approved, the bill will serve as a catalyst for more banks and credit unions to serve the legal cannabis industry. The language provides more solid guidance on the requirements for a wider range of financial services, including payments.

We know the markup is merely the next step but with each hint of action out of Congress, more financial institutions recognize that federal legislation will eventually be adopted and that they can serve the cannabis industry today.

Green Check is available to discuss the measure and industry at large further. To arrange an interview with Green Check, please contact Caliber Corporate Advisers at [email protected].

About Green Check

Green Check (GC) is modernizing the way cannabis businesses and financial institutions work together. Founded in 2017 by a team of technology, banking, and regulatory experts, GC provides industry-leading technology and advisory services to more than 140 financial institutions and over 7,000 cannabis-related businesses. Green Check was included in the 2023 Forbes Cannabis 42.0 and named one of 50 game-changers in the cannabis industry in the 4th annual The Cannabis 50. It has been repeatedly recognized as Top Compliance Company and Top Compliance Leader at the PBC Awards, the premier cannabis industry honors. In addition, it has been recognized as the Top Financial Technology by the Green Market Report, and was also named as one of top Best Places to Work in Fintech in 2022 and 2023 by American Banker. To learn more about Green Check, visit www.greencheckverified.com and follow it on LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927919736/en/

Media Contact

Christina Levin

Caliber Corporate Advisers

[email protected]

Source: Green Check
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Stationary battery manufacturer Hithium has officially signed an After-sales Service Cooperation Authorization Agreement with Clean Energy Services (CES), a renowned provider of Operation & Maintenance services for the renewable energy industry. The agreement adds a new servicing element to the existing cooperation between the two parties, focusing on energy storage products in the U.S.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926700414/en/

Signing ceremony between Ahmad Atwan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of CES, Hithium's Director of After-Sales Ben Bian and Head of Global Business MiZhi Zhang (from left to right) (Photo: Business Wire)

Hithiums Director of After-Sales Ben Bian said: This is a significant step for Hithium in establishing a foothold in the American energy storage market and advancing our range of services for our U.S. customers. We look forward to the deeper collaboration with CES and the opportunity to demonstrate our customer-centric focus and technological expertise.

Nancy Zakhour, Chief Commercial Officer at CES, expressed her enthusiasm about the partnership: This alliance with Hithium is a testament to CES unwavering commitment to delivering best in class renewable energy servicing support. Our seasoned expertise in the battery energy storage sector uniquely positions us to bolster Hithiums expansion in the USA market. Through this collaborative endeavor, we aim to further the reach and impact of clean, reliable, and efficient energy solutions.

The manufacturer is expanding its production capacity to 70 GWh by the end of this year and has already shipped 11 GWh of battery products since its founding in 2019.

About Hithium

Founded in 2019, Hithium is a leading manufacturer of top-quality stationary energy storage products for utility-scale as well as commercial and industrial applications. With four distinct R&D centers and multiple intelligent production facilities, Hithiums innovations include groundbreaking safety improvements to its lithium-ion batteries as well as increases in lifecycle. With decades of cumulative experience in the field among its founders and senior executives, Hithium leverages its specialization in BESS to deliver partners and customers unique advances in energy storage. The company is based in Xiamen, China, with further locations in Shenzhen, Chongqing, Munich, and California. Hithium has shipped 11 GWh of battery capacity, 5 GWh in 2022 alone, and is expanding its current 45 GWh of production capacity to 70 GWh by the end of 2023.

About CES

Clean Energy Services (CES) was established with the aim of delivering top-notch operations and maintenance (O&M) services to the renewable energy sector. Boasting over 25 years of experience in nurturing successful energy enterprises and channeling billions of dollars into various energy projects, CES has positioned itself as a comprehensive renewable energy services firm with a core focus on Storage, Solar, and Wind energy. The firm offers an extensive array of services including construction advisory/owner's representation, commissioning, as well as O&M services (encompassing preventive, corrective, and predictive maintenance). Additionally, CES provides augmentation, repowering, and technology-driven analytics through its Remote Operations Center, solidifying its stance as a full lifecycle service provider in the renewable energy domain.

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[email protected]

Source: Hithium
The U.S. government wants Ukraine to undertake a series of very specific strict anti-corruption measures in exchange for aid to help the Eastern European country fight the Russian invasion. According to the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda, which leaked U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Mike Pyles missive to the Donor Coordination Platform, the White House is demanding specific reforms to the courts, the Ministry of Defense and the agencies that regulate state-owned enterprises, among other demands. These actions are to be carried out within various timeframes that range from three months (for the most urgent concerns) to a year and a half for the most complicated issues.

According to Pravda, the draft of the letterwhich is still subject to changes and revisionshas come to light after a series of corruption scandals in Ukraine. In addition, the missive has appeared amid increasing reluctance among the Republican base and legislators from the partys far-right wing to continue supporting Ukraine indefinitely, when the war has been going on for over a year and a half and has no end in sight. Among other things, these hardline legislators demand greater transparency and accountability in the use of these funds. The United States has given Kyiv over $75 billion (70 billion) in military, economic and humanitarian aid.

The document, entitled Reforms Linked to Conditions on U.S. Aid, comes as the U.S. Congress must approve a budget measure, which includes a $24 billion (22.7 billion) appropriation for Ukraine, by September 30. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskiy met with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill to ask the members of Congress to continue to support assistance for his country. Otherwise, the Ukrainian leader warned, Western democracy and its values will be at risk.

During that visit, Zelenskiy also met with U.S. President Joe Biden, who announced a new military assistance package of $325 million.

Led by the White House, Democrats and the Republican Partys more moderate wing insist on the need to continue support for Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. But the U.S. government also points out that it wants to make sure there is accountability for how that aid is spent, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday at his daily press briefing.

Supporters of such assistance argue that abandoning Ukraine would leave the field open to Russia at Europes doorstep, and no country would be safe. They also note that China is watching what is happening in Ukraine with great interest and could interpret the withdrawal of U.S. support for Kiev as a preview of what could happen with Taiwan in the event of a conflict in the Pacific.

Disclosure of public officials assets

The publicized conditions that the White House has imposed are more precise than the ones that the European Commission has set for opening negotiations about Ukraines accession to the EU. For example, the U.S. government demands that the law be reformed within three months to require public officials to disclose their assets. This requirement accords with Zelinskiys September 12 veto of a law to postpone the deputies obligation to declare their assets.

The Ukrainian leader has hastened to make improvements in the judicial system and in the fight against corruption. He wants to have already done his homework by the time he arrives at next Decembers European Council summit, when talks to incorporate Ukraine into the EU officially begin.

Despite the rush, there is still a long way to go. According to Transparency International, Ukraine ranks 116th (out of 180 countries) in terms of perceived corruption. Of the seven commitments that Kyiv must fulfill to start EU accession negotiations, currently it only meets two of them. Two of the conditions with which the country does not comply are reforms to reduce corruption rates and to ensure the independence of the judiciary, although Brussels has acknowledged that Ukraine has made improvements.

In Ukraine, corruption scandals are a common occurrence, as are Zelenskiys dismissals of persons accused of malfeasance. The U.S. letter demanding that corruption be addressed specifically mentions some of those cases: the White House insists that, within one year, the Ministry of Defense must adapt to NATO standards for transparency and accountability. This September, Oleksii Reznikov was dismissed from his position as minister of defense following two episodes of alleged corruption in procuring food and clothing for troops at prices well above market rates.

Zelenskiy has also dismissed numerous high-ranking officials from the State Border Service amid repeated accusations of corruption. The letter from Washington emphasizes the need for reforms to this agency, which reports to the Ministry of the Interior. The Ukrainian president has gone as far as proposing a legal reform that would equate wartime crimes of corruption with treason.

Western financial and military support keeps the Ukrainian state afloat. In addition, the countrys economy is growing again this quarter, after it collapsed by 30% GDP in 2022, the first year of the war. Europe and the United States are Ukraines primary donors of aid. According to the Kiev Institute for Global Economys estimates, the EU has committed about 140 billion ($148,029,000,000) in assistanceincluding military aidwhile the US has given $70 billion. Delegations from the European Commission, the governments of EU member countries and the U.S. regularly make official visits to supervise the disbursement of the aid they provide. In addition to these trips, representatives from these governments also monitor the use of economic and military aid from the field, away from the Ukrainian authorities, as EL PAIS has confirmed.

In its letter to the Ukrainian president, Washington demands greater controls over the disbursement of these funds, especially the monies intended for the countrys future reconstruction. Like the EU, the U.S. also calls for more pluralistic supervisory bodies for state enterprises and tougher rules to end the oligarchs monopolies, the large fortunes acquired following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Donor Coordination Platform was launched in January this year to support Ukraines reconstruction. It involves representatives of Kiev, the U.S., the EU, G-7 countries and international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank.

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NEW YORK CITY & BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The International Data Corporation (IDC), a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology market, has dedicated its latest Spotlight report to Anonos, data privacy and security innovator, for its leadership in performant privacy-based data controls.

Authored by Stewart Bond, Vice President of Data Intelligence and Integration Software at IDC, the report emphasizes the importance of intelligent enterprises and underscores the key role of performant privacy-based controls in leveraging data in these entities. Findings from the report suggest that by focusing on privacy mitigated economic value, enterprises can achieve a 3-4x improvement in their intelligence capabilities.

The foundation of enterprise intelligence is data, and a common thread that runs through enterprise intelligence capabilities is effective, timely use and sharing of data, says Stewart Bond.

However, while blending internal and external data offers monetization benefits, evolving privacy regulations often prevent enterprises from fully exploiting their data's potential. Traditional data control methods, such as encryption, tokenization, and masking, are becoming outdated in modern data environments as they protect data at rest and in transit, but not while data is being processed.

Performant privacy-based controls, which maintain the original data's speed and accuracy while enhancing privacy, are crucial. These controls ensure data protection and utility, facilitating faster decision-making, business value enhancement, and potential new revenue streams from data.

According to Bond, Anonos stands out with its unique approach, leveraging performant privacy-based controls. Anonos' flagship offering, the Data Embassy software, provides businesses with centralized control over decentralized processing, making it possible to access protected data sets instantly. It also offers Variant Twins - use-case specific digital twins with embedded controls that cater to diverse requirements like generating synthetic data for testing, redacting personal information, de-identifying data for model production use, and more.

Performant privacy-based controls can help organizations overcome privacy hurdles, share and utilize more data, and improve the economic value realized from data. Anonos' implementation is differentiating, and to the extent that it can address the challenges described in this paper, the company has a significant opportunity for success, concludes Bond.

Access the full IDC Spotlight report here.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights.

About Anonos

Anonos is a data privacy and security innovator, providing enterprise software that mitigates risk and maximizes data utility and value. Its globally patented, award-winning Data Embassy platform uses a unique combination of state-of-the-art data privacy tools to transform sensitive assets into Variant Twins: non-identifiable, up to 100% accurate variations of source data engineered for specific use cases to support the desired business outcomes. Because precise technical controls are embedded within them and continuously enforced, Variant Twins can travel anywhere  across departments, outside the enterprise, and around the globe. With Data Embassy, organizations have full-spectrum, universal data protection to increase cloud utilization, improve cybersecurity, and power lawful analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data sharing initiatives for faster speed to insights. Anonos. Data without the drama. Learn more by visiting anonos.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

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Media Contact

[email protected]

Source: Anonos
Trusted IDT next generation sequencing solutions are now compatible for Ultima Genomics platforms

CORALVILLE, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- With a mission to accelerate the pace of genomics, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), a leading provider of differentiated next generation sequencing (NGS) solutions, announces the availability of xGen NGS products designed exclusively for the Ultima Genomics UG 100 platform. The suite of new xGen NGS tools comprised of adapters, primers, and universal blockers can support a wide range of applications, including DNA, RNA and methylation sequencing workflows, as well as IDTs proven hybridization capture chemistry. The products are designed to minimize sequence errors from PCR or sequencing that might impact demultiplexing. Orders can be placed here.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927019594/en/

We are honored that Ultima Genomics has chosen IDT as its trusted partner to develop quality solutions for its revolutionary platform, said Steve Wowk, Vice President, Business Unit & General Management, NGS at IDT. With the emergence of new sequencers, IDT is proud to be a first mover in commercializing platform-agnostic solutions that cater to the needs of researchers advancing important genomic discoveries, for the platform of their choosing.

IDT is the first company to offer the following stocked products for Ultima Genomics platforms:

xGen PCR-Free Adapters for Ultima Genomicsfull-length adapters for performing WGS, using TA-ligation for incorporating sample indexing during the ligation step of library preparation. Available as single-use plates containing either 16 or 96 indexes, for multiplexing up to 192 samples.

xGen Indexing Primers for Ultima Genomicspremixed primers used for sample indexing by PCR. Available as single-use plates containing either 16 or 96 primer pairs, for multiplexing up to 384 samples.

xGen HybCap Adapters for Ultima Genomicsfull-length adapters for library construction prior to hybridization capture, using TA-ligation workflows for incorporating sample indexing during the ligation step. Available as single-use plates containing either 16 or 96 indexes, for multiplexing up to 384 samples.

xGen Universal Blocking Oligos for Ultima Genomicsproprietary blockers designed specifically for the platforms native adapters, to reduce non-specific adapter interaction during probe hybridization and increase on-target capture performance. Available in 16 or 96 reaction sizes.

xGen HybCap Lib Amp Primers for Ultima Genomicspremixed PCR primers used to increase yield for sequencing libraries post-hybridization capture. Available in 16 or 96 reaction sizes.

IDTs differentiated chemistry and demonstrated track record of delivering high-quality NGS solutions are among the many reasons why we have selected IDT as our partner to enable key NGS applications on Ultima Genomics platforms, said Gilad Almogy, CEO at Ultima Genomics. Together with IDT, we are pleased to be able to deliver high-quality NGS library preparation kits and adapters to enable our mutual customers and fuel their scientific research.

IDT is a leader in gene reading, writing, and editing, and delivers innovative, high-performing NGS solutions to enable research and discovery. IDTs comprehensive xGen NGS offerings feature customization, complexity and scalability that break down barriers for scientists and provide them with confidence in their results.

Ultima Genomics, Inc., a developer of a revolutionary new ultra-high throughput sequencing architecture, is also a member of the IDT Collab Network, a program aimed at uniting researchers and industry partners under a single, impactful research network to foster learning, collaboration, and future technology development. For more information about Ultima Genomics sequencing platforms, click here.

About IDT

For more than 35 years, Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc. (IDT) has been empowering genomics laboratories with an oligonucleotide manufacturing process unlike anyone else in the industry, with the most advanced synthesis, modification, purification, and quality control capabilities available. Since its founding in 1987, IDT has progressed from a leading oligo manufacturer to a genomics solutions provider supporting key application areas such as next generation sequencing, CRISPR genome editing, synthetic biology, digital PCR, and RNA interference. Through its GMP* services, IDT manufactures products used by scientists researching many forms of cancer and most inherited and infectious diseases.

As the company seeks to fulfill its mission of accelerating the pace of genomics, the important acquisition of Archer NGS Research Assays was completed in Dec. 2022. When combined with its existing solutions, the expanded portfolio helps realize the shared vision of enabling researchers to rapidly move from the lab to life-changing advances.

IDTs infrastructure supports customers around the globe with its manufacturing headquarters situated in Coralville, Iowa, USA, with additional manufacturing sites in San Diego, California, USA; Boulder, Colorado, USA; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA; Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Leuven, Belgium; and Singapore. For more information, visit www.idtdna.com and follow the company on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

Disclaimer: RUO  For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures. Unless otherwise agreed to in writing, IDT does not intend these products to be used in clinical applications and does not warrant their fitness or suitability for any clinical diagnostic use.

*GMP refers to products manufactured under ISO 13485: 2016 QMS. Purchaser is solely responsible for all decisions regarding the use of these products and any associated regulatory or legal obligations.

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Kristina Sarenas

Manager of PR

800-328-2661 (USA & Canada)

+1 319-626-8400 (outside USA)

[email protected]

Source: Integrated DNA Technologies
DOWNERS GROVE, III.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- InvenTrust Properties Corp. (InvenTrust or the Company) (NYSE: IVT) today announced that it will report its third quarter 2023 earnings results on November 1, 2023, after the market closes. The Companys earnings release and any supplemental information will be posted on the Investor Relations section of the Companys website  www.inventrustproperties.com/investor-relations/. InvenTrust will host an earnings conference call to discuss the Companys results and business highlights on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. ET. An archive of the webcast will be available on the Companys website.

Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call Date: Thursday, November 2, 2023 Time: 10:00 a.m. ET Dial-In Number: 833-470-1428 Access Code: 566010 Webcast & Replay Link: https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/746162837

About InvenTrust Properties Corp.

InvenTrust Properties Corp. (we, the Company, our, us, "IVT" or "InvenTrust") is a premier Sun Belt, multi-tenant essential retail REIT that owns, leases, redevelops, acquires and manages grocery-anchored neighborhood and community centers as well as high-quality power centers that often have a grocery component. We pursue our business strategy by acquiring retail properties in Sun Belt markets, opportunistically disposing of retail properties, maintaining a flexible capital structure, and enhancing environmental, social and governance ("ESG") practices and standards. A trusted, local operator bringing real estate expertise to its tenant relationships, IVT has built a strong reputation with market participants across its portfolio. IVT is committed to leadership in ESG practices and has been a Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) member since 2013.

Availability of Information on InvenTrust Properties Corp.'s Website and Social Media Channels

Investors and others should note that InvenTrust routinely announces material information to investors and the marketplace using U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, press releases, public conference calls, webcasts and the InvenTrust investor relations website. The Company uses these channels as well as social media channels (e.g., the InvenTrust Twitter account (twitter.com/inventrustprop); and the InvenTrust LinkedIn account (linkedin.com/company/inventrustproperties) as a means of disclosing information about the Company's business to our colleagues, investors, and the public. While not all of the information that the Company posts to the InvenTrust investor relations website or on the Companys social media channels is of a material nature, some information could be deemed to be material. Accordingly, the Company encourages investors, the media and others interested in InvenTrust to review the information that it shares on www.inventrustproperties.com/investor-relations and on the Companys social media channels.

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Dan Lombardo

Vice President of Investor Relations

630-570-0605

[email protected]

Source: InvenTrust Properties Corp.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- KBRA releases topical and timely commentary on credit markets, compiled from our weekly podcast, 3 Things in Credit, hosted by our Chief Strategist, Van Hesser. Among the wide-ranging topics Van has addressed over the past month are what to expect at the end of the hiking cycle, global economic divergence, and what Macys earnings tell us about the U.S. consumer.

Each week, we dig into and provide perspective on issues credit-market participants care about. Tune in every Friday to Vans podcast for the latest. And look for our monthly published recap to catch up on what you might have missed.

Click here to view the report.

About KBRA

KBRA is a full-service credit rating agency registered in the U.S., the EU, and the UK, and is designated to provide structured finance ratings in Canada. KBRAs ratings can be used by investors for regulatory capital purposes in multiple jurisdictions.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927070454/en/

Van B. Hesser, Senior Managing Director and Chief Strategist

+1 646-731-2305

[email protected]

Source: KBRA
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Know Labs, Inc. (NYSE American: KNW) (the Company), an emerging developer of non-invasive medical diagnostic technology, today announced the pricing of a firm commitment underwritten public offering of 28,000,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $0.25 per share (the "Offering"). The aggregate gross proceeds from the Offering are expected to total $7 million before deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated Offering expenses payable by Know Labs.

The Offering is expected to close on or about September 29, 2023, subject to customary closing conditions. In addition, the Company has granted to the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase, in the aggregate, up to 4,200,000 additional shares of its common stock to cover over-allotments at the $0.25 per share public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for product development, clinical studies, general and administrative expenses, intellectual property and working capital.

The Benchmark Company, LLC and Boustead Securities, LLC are acting as Joint Bookrunning Managers for the offering.

The registration statement, as amended (File No. 333-274350), relating to the Offering was filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), and was declared effective on September 26, 2022. The Offering may be made only by means of a prospectus. A final prospectus relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available at no cost on the SECs website at http://www.sec.gov or can be obtained from The Benchmark Company, LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 150 East 58th Street, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10155, or by email at [email protected], or by calling +1 (212)-312-6700, or from

Boustead Securities, LLC, via email: [email protected] or by calling +1 (949) 502-4408 or standard mail at Boustead Securities, LLC, Attn: Equity Capital Markets, 6 Venture, Suite 395, Irvine, CA 92618.

Before you invest, you should read the prospectus and other documents the Company has filed or will file with the SEC for more complete information about the Company and the offering.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About Know Labs, Inc.

Know Labs, Inc. is a public company whose shares trade on the NYSE American Exchange under the stock symbol KNW. The Companys technology uses spectroscopy to direct electromagnetic energy through a substance or material to capture a unique molecular signature. The Company refers to its technology as Bio-RFID. The Bio-RFID technology can be integrated into a variety of wearable, mobile or bench-top form factors. This patented and patent-pending technology makes it possible to effectively identify and monitor analytes that could only previously be performed by invasive and/or expensive and time-consuming lab-based tests. The first application of our Bio-RFID technology will be in a product marketed as a non-invasive glucose monitor. The device will provide the user with accessible and affordable real-time information on blood glucose levels. This product will require U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance prior to its introduction to the market.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements appear in a number of places in this release and include all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Know Labs, Inc., its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) financing plans; (ii) trends affecting its financial condition or results of operations; (iii) growth strategy and operating strategy; and (iv) performance of products. You can identify these statements by the use of the words may, will, could, should, would, plans, expects, anticipates, continue, estimate, project, intend, likely, forecast, probable, potential, and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Know Labs, Inc.s ability to control, and actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2022, Forms 10-Q and 8-K, and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Relations section of our website at www.knowlabs.co. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927752928/en/

For Underwriter Inquiries:

The Benchmark Company, LLC

Michael Jacobs, Head of Equity Capital Markets

[email protected]

Ph. 212-312-6722

Boustead Securities, LLC

Keith Moore, CEO

[email protected]

Ph. 949-502-4408

For Know Labs Media Inquiries:

Matter Health

Laura Bastardi

[email protected]

Ph. (603) 494-6667

Know Labs, Inc.:

Jordyn Hujar

[email protected]

Ph. (206) 629-6414

Source: Know Labs, Inc.
LIVONIA, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Masco Corporation (NYSE: MAS) announced today that it will hold a conference call regarding 2023 third quarter results on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. ET. The conference call will be hosted by Masco President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Allman. Participants in the call are asked to register five to ten minutes prior to the scheduled start time by dialing 888-259-6580 and from outside the U.S. at 416-764-8624. Please use the conference identification number 40185476.

The 2023 third quarter results and supplemental material will be distributed at 7:00 a.m. ET on October 26, 2023 and will be available on the Companys website at www.masco.com.

The conference call will be webcast simultaneously and in its entirety through the Masco Corporation website. Shareholders, media representatives and others interested in Masco may participate in the webcast by registering through the Investor Relations section on the Companys website.

A replay of the call will be available on Mascos website or by phone by dialing 877-674-7070 and from outside the U.S. at 416-764-8692. Please use the playback passcode 185476#. The telephone replay will be available approximately two hours after the end of the call and continue through November 26, 2023.

Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, Masco Corporation is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of branded home improvement and building products. Our portfolio of industry-leading brands includes Behr paint; Delta and hansgrohe faucets, bath and shower fixtures; Kichler decorative and outdoor lighting; and HotSpring spas. We leverage our powerful brands across product categories, sales channels and geographies to create value for our customers and shareholders. For more information about Masco Corporation, visit www.masco.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927554963/en/

Investor Contact

David Chaika

Interim Chief Financial Officer

313.792.5500

[email protected]

Source: Masco Corporation
Madison nurse receives prestigious honor for life-enriching care of patients

COLUMBIA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Barbara Buttchen has been named National Caregiver of the Year by Maxim Healthcare Services (Maxim), a national provider of home healthcare, personal and behavioral care. Buttchen, a nurse in Maxims Madison, Wisconsin office was presented with the John Doc Langley National Caregiver of the Year award alongside colleagues and fellow nominees during a ceremony in Baltimore, Maryland on September 19.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927653262/en/

Barbara Buttchen, a nurse from Madison, WI., named National Caregiver of the Year by Maxim Healthcare Services. (Photo: Business Wire)

Barbara makes such a difference in the lives of her patients and their families every day, said Maxims Chief Executive Officer, Jarrod DePriest. We deeply admire Barbaras dedication to providing quality compassionate in-home care and we are thrilled to present her with this much-deserved recognition.

Selected by a panel of judges for her impactful contributions to the home healthcare community, Buttchen has worked as a nurse for more than 50 years. Described by her colleagues as one of the most selfless, caring, kind, and hard-working individuals, Buttchen prioritizes others well-being more than her own. She currently lives with lymphoma but keeps a positive attitude and is always looking for ways to serve others. She extends caregiving to her personal life with activities such as delivering Meals on Wheels to individuals in need, providing care to a friend that has Alzheimer's, and also lending her expertise to a friends husband that is wheelchair bound while they travel, so that the vacation can be safe and enjoyable.

During the ceremony Barbara shared, I wanted to be like Florence Nightingale. Thats how I want to be known and live my life. Before I lay my head down on the pillow, I want to make rounds one more time, with the lantern, to see if theres someone that needs my care. Thank you so much for this honor.

Maxims Caregiver of the Year Award Program, which is celebrated annually, recognizes the nurses, home healthcare aides and behavioral direct care workers who all play a vital role in providing compassionate, holistic care for patients who are both medically fragile and who require behavioral and community support. Learn more about Buttchens story, here.

In addition to honoring Buttchen, Maxim also celebrates another significant milestone this year  providing 35 years of compassionate, holistic home healthcare for patients. DePriest, who has been with Maxim since 1998 and first started with the company as a healthcare recruiter, lauds the Maxim team for this accomplishment.

The healthcare industry has continued to rapidly grow and evolve, and likewise so has Maxim, said DePriest. As a mission-driven company, we are passionate about our work and improving the lives of our patients, their families and the communities we serve nationwide. I want to thank our exceptional team for their commitment and service, and to our patients and their families that have welcomed us into their homes.

About Maxim Healthcare Services

For 35 years, weve been making a difference in patients lives by providing excellent service and compassionate care. We offer skilled nursing, personal care, respite care, behavioral care and physical rehabilitation for individuals with chronic and acute illnesses and disabilities. Visit maximhealthcare.com for more information.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927653262/en/

Christina Kiefer

[email protected]

Source: Maxim Healthcare Services
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- New Found Gold Corp. (New Found or the Company) (TSX-V: NFG, NYSE-A: NFGC) is pleased to announce the results from 11 diamond drill holes that were completed as part of a drill program designed to test the newly discovered Keats West Zone, a low-angle thrust fault that dips gently to the south-southwest and is located on the west side of the highly prospective Appleton Fault Zone (AFZ). New Founds 100%-owned Queensway project comprises a 1,662km2 area, accessible via the Trans-Canada Highway, 15km west of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927865662/en/

Figure 1: Photo of mineralization at ~124.5m in NFGC-23-1091 ^Note that this photo is not intended to be representative of gold mineralization in NFGC-23-1091. (Photo: Business Wire)

Keats West Highlights:

Hole No. From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) Zone NFGC-22-10041 36.10 51.50 15.40 2.38 Keats W Including 41.00 41.65 0.65 13.42 NFGC-23-10912 23.50 60.80 37.30 2.19 Keats W And 98.00 122.00 24.00 1.73 NFGC-23-11291 14.95 57.30 42.35 3.29 Keats W Including 31.15 32.00 0.85 11.35 Including 34.00 35.00 1.00 11.10 NFGC-23-11931 78.30 91.25 12.95 2.03 Keats W

Table 1: Keats West Drilling Highlights

Note that the host structures are interpreted to be steeply dipping and true widths are generally estimated to be 170% to 95% and 240% to 70% of reported intervals. Infill veining in secondary structures with multiple orientations crosscutting the primary host structures are commonly observed in drill core which could result in additional uncertainty in true width. Composite intervals reported carry a minimum weighted average of 1 g/t Au diluted over a minimum core length of 2m with a maximum of 4m consecutive dilution when above 200m vertical depth and 2m consecutive dilution when below 200m vertical depth. Included high-grade intercepts are reported as any consecutive interval with grades greater than 10 g/t Au. Grades have not been capped in the averaging and intervals are reported as drill thickness.

3.29 g/t Au over 42.35m in NFGC-23-1129 as well as 2.19 g/t Au over 37.30m and 1.73 g/t Au over 24.00m in NFGC-23-1091 occur just 30m from surface and 80m along strike from previously reported 42.6 g/t Au over 32.00m in NFGC-22-960 (November 2022) at Keats West. These holes were designed to fill significant gaps in the main portion of the Keats West Zone.

Keats West has a known footprint spanning 305m long by 315m wide and starts at surface with all intercepts drilled to date occurring above 130m vertical depth. The zone has a cumulative average thickness of 30m (Figures 2-5).

Todays highlight intervals are interpreted to be close to true width, occur near surface, and demonstrate that the gold mineralization can span cumulative widths greater than 60m in places. Drilling to date has identified several locations within the Keats West structure where this occurs with one such example being the aggregate interval of 1.94 g/t Au over 79.75m in NFGC-22-833 reported March 21, 2023.

Melissa Render, VP of Exploration of New Found, stated: Exactly one year ago today, we announced the discovery of Keats West (September 27, 2022). At that time, there was little understanding about the prospectivity of the west side of the Appleton Fault. Through aggressive drilling in just 12 short months, Keats West has transformed into one of our most significant zones, spanning 305m long by 315m wide. This discovery has proven pivotal for New Found, changing our perspective on the west side of the AFZ and leading to the discovery of several additional gold zones in this domain such as K2 and Monte Carlo.

Drillhole Details

Hole No. From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) Zone NFGC-22-9291 74.65 77.80 3.15 1.27 Keats W NFGC-22-10041 19.75 25.00 5.25 1.78 Keats W And1 36.10 51.50 15.40 2.38 Including 41.00 41.65 0.65 13.42 And1 59.00 61.35 2.35 4.32 NFGC-23-10912 23.50 60.80 37.30 2.19 Keats W And2 98.00 122.00 24.00 1.73 NFGC-23-1102 No Significant Values Keats W NFGC-23-11191 13.15 15.55 2.40 2.79 Keats W And1 38.15 46.80 8.65 1.16 NFGC-23-11291 14.95 57.30 42.35 3.29 Keats W Including 31.15 32.00 0.85 11.35 Including 34.00 35.00 1.00 11.10 And1 68.00 71.75 3.75 1.60 And1 81.45 84.05 2.60 2.46 And2 100.55 105.00 4.45 1.04 NFGC-23-11931 42.60 50.35 7.75 1.41 Keats W And1 66.80 68.80 2.00 1.78 And1 78.30 91.25 12.95 2.03 NFGC-23-12444 12.30 19.40 7.10 1.42 Keats W NFGC-23-1485 No Significant Values AFZ W Grid NFGC-23-1508 No Significant Values AFZ W Grid NFGC-23-1524 No Significant Values AFZ W Grid

Table 2: Summary of composite results reported in this press release for Keats West and the AFZ West Grid.

Note that the host structures are interpreted to be steeply dipping and true widths are generally estimated to be 170% to 95%, 240% to 70%, and 310% to 40% of reported intervals. 4True widths are unknown at this time. Infill veining in secondary structures with multiple orientations crosscutting the primary host structures are commonly observed in drill core which could result in additional uncertainty in true width. Composite intervals reported carry a minimum weighted average of 1 g/t Au diluted over a minimum core length of 2m with a maximum of 4m consecutive dilution when above 200m vertical depth and 2m consecutive dilution when below 200m vertical depth. Included high-grade intercepts are reported as any consecutive interval with grades greater than 10 g/t Au. Grades have not been capped in the averaging and intervals are reported as drill thickness. *Previously reported interval.

Hole No. Azimuth () Dip () Length (m) UTM E UTM N Prospect NFGC-22-929 60 -45 173 657991 5428056 Keats West NFGC-22-1004 35 -45 105 658075 5428004 Keats West NFGC-23-1091 120 -45 296 658005 5427991 Keats West NFGC-23-1102 15 -63 152 657828 5428035 Keats West NFGC-23-1119 15 -63 146 657907 5427989 Keats West NFGC-23-1129 357 -45 170 657989 5427885 Keats West NFGC-23-1193 42 -50 350 658048 5427940 Keats West NFGC-23-1244 120 -45 320 657972 5428183 Keats West NFGC-23-1485 345 -60 257 657673 5428009 Keats West NFGC-23-1508 73 -45 250 657537 5427973 Keats West NFGC-23-1524 345 -60 269 657535 5427975 Keats West

Table 3: Details of drill holes reported in this press release

Queensway 500,000m Drill Program Update

The Company is currently undertaking a 500,000m drill program at Queensway and approximately 37,500m of core is currently pending assay results.

Sampling, Sub-sampling, and Laboratory

All drilling recovers HQ core. Drill core is split in half using a diamond saw or a hydraulic splitter for rare intersections with incompetent core.

A geologist examines the drill core and marks out the intervals to be sampled and the cutting line. Sample lengths are mostly 1.0 metre and adjusted to respect lithological and/or mineralogical contacts and isolate narrow (

Technicians saw the core along the defined cutting line. One-half of the core is kept as a witness sample and the other half is submitted for analysis. Individual sample bags are sealed and placed into totes, which are then sealed and marked with the contents.

New Found has submitted samples for gold determination by fire assay to ALS Canada Ltd. (ALS) and by photon assay to MSALABS (MSA) since June 2022. ALS and MSA operate under a commercial contract with New Found.

Drill core samples are shipped to ALS for sample preparation in Sudbury, Ontario, Thunder Bay, Ontario, or Moncton, New Brunswick. ALS is an ISO-17025 accredited laboratory for the fire assay method.

Drill core samples are also submitted to MSA in Val-dOr, Quebec. MSA operates numerous laboratories worldwide and maintains ISO-17025 accreditation for many metal determination methods. Accreditation of the photon assay method at the MSA Val DOr laboratory is in progress.

At ALS, the entire sample is crushed to approximately 70% passing 2mm. A 3,000-g split is pulverized. Routine samples do not have visible gold (VG) identified and are not within a mineralized zone. Routine samples are assayed for gold by 30-g fire assay with an inductively-couple plasma spectrometry (ICP) finish. If the initial 30-g fire assay gold result is over 1 g/t, the remainder of the 3,000-g split is screened at 106 microns for screened metallics assay. For the screened metallics assay, the entire coarse fraction (sized greater than 106 microns) is fire assayed and two splits of the fine fraction (sized less than 106 microns) are fire assayed. The three assays are combined on a weight-averaged basis. Samples that have VG identified or fall within a mineralized interval are automatically submitted for screened metallic assay for gold.

At MSA, the entire sample is crushed to approximately 70% passing 2mm. For routine samples that do not have VG identified and are not within a mineralized zone, the samples are riffle split to fill two 450g jars for photon assay. The assays reported from both jars are combined on a weight-averaged basis. If one of the jars assays greater than 1 g/t, the remaining crushed material is weighed into multiple jars and are submitted for photon assay.

For samples that have VG identified or are within a mineralized zone, the entire crushed sample is weighed into multiple jars and are submitted for photon assay. The assays from all jars are combined on a weight-averaged basis.

All samples prepared at ALS or MSA are also analyzed for a multi-element ICP package (ALS method code ME-ICP61) at ALS Vancouver.

Drill program design, Quality Assurance/Quality Control and interpretation of results are performed by qualified persons employing a rigorous Quality Assurance/Quality Control program consistent with industry best practices. Standards and blanks account for a minimum of 10% of the samples in addition to the laboratorys internal quality assurance programs.

Quality Control data are evaluated on receipt from the laboratories for failures. Appropriate action is taken if assay results for standards and blanks fall outside allowed tolerances. All results stated have passed New Founds quality control protocols.

New Founds quality control program also includes submission of the second half of the core for approximately 2% of the drilled intervals. In addition, approximately 1% of sample pulps for mineralized samples are submitted for re-analysis to a second ISO-accredited laboratory for check assays.

The Company does not recognize any factors of drilling, sampling or recovery that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the assay data disclosed.

The assay data disclosed in this press release have been verified by the Companys Qualified Person against the original assay certificates.

The Company notes that it has not completed any economic evaluations of its Queensway Project and that the Queensway Project does not have any resources or reserves.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information disclosed in this press release was reviewed and approved by Greg Matheson, P. Geo., Chief Operating Officer, and a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Matheson consents to the publication of this press release dated September 27, 2023, by New Found. Mr. Matheson certifies that this press release fairly and accurately represents the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this press release.

About New Found Gold Corp.

New Found holds a 100% interest in the Queensway Project, located 15km west of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, and just 18km from Gander International Airport. The project is intersected by the Trans-Canada Highway and has logging roads crosscutting the project, high voltage electric power lines running through the project area, and easy access to a highly skilled workforce. The Company is currently undertaking a 500,000m drill program at Queensway and is well funded for this program with cash and marketable securities of approximately $39.5 million as of September 2023.

Please see the Companys website at www.newfoundgold.ca and the Companys SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca.

Acknowledgements

New Found acknowledges the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program, Department of Natural Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Contact

To contact the Company, please visit the Companys website, www.newfoundgold.ca and make your request through our investor inquiry form. Our management has a pledge to be in touch with any investor inquiries within 24 hours.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statement Cautions

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, relating to exploration, drilling and mineralization on the Companys Queensway gold project in Newfoundland and Labrador; assay results; the interpretation of drilling and assay results, the results of the drilling program, mineralization and the discovery of zones of high-grade gold mineralization; plans for future exploration and drilling and the timing of same; the merits of the Queensway project; future press releases by the Company; and funding of the drilling program. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always identified by the words expects, plans, anticipates, believes, interpreted, intends, estimates, projects, aims, suggests, indicate, often, target, future, likely, pending, potential, goal, objective, prospective, possibly, preliminary, and similar expressions, or that events or conditions will, would, may, can, could or should occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made, and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include risks associated with possible accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration operations, the risk that the Company will encounter unanticipated geological factors, risks associated with the interpretation of assay results and the drilling program, the possibility that the Company may not be able to secure permitting and other governmental clearances necessary to carry out the Company's exploration plans, the risk that the Company will not be able to raise sufficient funds to carry out its business plans, and the risk of political uncertainties and regulatory or legal changes that might interfere with the Company's business and prospects. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's Annual Information Form and Managements discussion and Analysis, publicly available at SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), the Canadian Securities Administrators' national system that all market participants use for filings and disclosure, for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927865662/en/

New Found Gold Corp.

Per: Collin Kettell

Collin Kettell, Chief Executive Officer

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 (845) 535-1486

Source: New Found Gold Corp.
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Faire, the worlds leading B2B retail marketplace, announced today a new global partnership with Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) that establishes Faire as the recommended wholesale marketplace for Shopify, which powers millions of merchants around the world. This partnership brings together two world-class category leaders in retail and commerce to expand Shopifys B2B offerings and help drive growth for the brands and independent retailers the two companies serve. As part of the deal, Shopify will also become a Faire shareholder, demonstrating the global commerce leaders long-term commitment to the partnership.

At Faire we have long admired Shopifys like-minded approach to building tools that empower retail entrepreneurs to run their businesses as efficiently as possible, said Max Rhodes, co-founder and CEO of Faire. By decreasing barriers to B2B selling and building deeper connections between our customer communities, we can unlock opportunities for small business growth on a much larger scale.

The partnership establishes Shopify Point of Sale (POS) as the preferred provider for Faires independent retail community, enabling unified commerce across in-person and online selling. This builds upon an existing inventory, product, and order integration on Faire that has driven an increase in efficiency and volume for Faire customers since 2021. Thousands of Faire retailers use Shopify today, and many more merchants on Shopify can now benefit from deeper access to Faire, empowering retail entrepreneurs to run their businesses more effectively at a pivotal time economically worldwide.

Through our strategic partnership with Faire, we are doubling down on our strategy to enhance B2B commerce by making it easy for Shopify merchants to find new wholesale buyers via Faires wholesale marketplace, and enable retailers to source products seamlessly from Faires extensive network of brands, said Aneeqa Khan, Director of Product at Shopify. Were thrilled to join forces to make commerce better for independent businesses.

As part of the partnership, Faire and Shopify will introduce new ways for businesses to grow and manage their B2B offerings across the two platforms. They can expect to see the following features in the coming months:

Merchants on Shopify will be able to conveniently reorder best-sellers from nearly 10 million products available on Faire via a fully-integrated Faire buyer app. Additionally, products and inventory from Faire will be seamlessly synced to their Shopify POS system for in-person selling.

New merchants who join Shopify may also benefit from discovering Faire through easy access during onboarding, helping them immediately source and secure the inventory they need from over 100,000 brands on Faire.

Brands on Shopify will be able to simplify their wholesale distribution to hundreds of thousands of independent retailers in one place via a fully-integrated Faire seller channel.

Brands on Shopify will be able to also enable a free Faire-powered Stockist Map on their ecommerce websites to help consumers shop their products locally.

This partnership will deepen Shopifys one-stop commerce offerings to make B2B selling even easier and extend the Faire marketplace and value props to Shopify merchants, diversifying and strengthening the entrepreneurs and small business communities they serve.

Customers can download Faires new Shopify wholesale apps today by visiting the Faire app listings in the Shopify App Store (Faire Seller Channel, Faire Buyer App). For additional information on the partnership integrations, visit here.

About Faire:

Faire is the largest online wholesale marketplace used by independent retailers to discover, source, and sell unique products from around the corner and around the world. Faires data-driven approach levels the playing field for independent retailers by offering net 60 payment terms and free returns on opening orders, eliminating inventory risk and providing access to capitalkey offerings previously only available to the largest retail chains. For brands, the platform provides powerful sales, marketing, and analytics tools, so sellers can simplify their wholesale business and focus on making great products. To date, Faire has facilitated nearly 7M new connections between brands and retailers on the platform. For more information, visit www.faire.com.

About Shopify:

Shopify is the leading global commerce company that provides essential internet infrastructure for commerce, offering trusted tools to start, scale, market, and run a retail business of any size. Shopify makes commerce better for everyone with a platform and services that are engineered for speed, customization, reliability, and security, while delivering a better shopping experience for consumers online, in store and everywhere in between. Shopify powers millions of businesses in more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Mattel, Gymshark, Heinz, FTD, Netflix, Kylie Cosmetics, SKIMS, Supreme, and many more. For more information, visit www.shopify.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927600260/en/

Julia Waneka

Head of Communications

[email protected]

Source: Faire
New collaboration delivers locally relevant information, content, and weather alerts to neighbors across the country

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nextdoor (NYSE: KIND) today announced they will share vital, hyper-local weather alerts from The Weather Channel, the flagship consumer brand of The Weather Company, with their audience. With The Weather Channel as its exclusive weather provider, neighbors on Nextdoor will be served forecast content and weather warning alerts relevant to their neighborhoods, empowering communities to be resilient, prepared and connected.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927284867/en/

Nextdoor To Connect Neighbors Nationwide with Localized Weather Alerts from The Weather Channel (Photo: Business Wire)

Rolling out now, neighbors on Nextdoor will receive on-platform weather alerts powered by the worlds most accurate weather forecaster1, The Weather Channel. These alerts will provide the crucial details and severity of an emerging weather event, the date and time of the alert, and a link to the weather.com forecast page associated with their location. Receiving near real-time alerts within the Nextdoor platform can help neighbors to quickly connect within their communities and prepare for severe weather at a time when every moment counts. Nextdoor neighbors will receive these severe weather alerts via push notification and email, providing a recognized signal from The Weather Channel, one of the most trusted U.S. brands2, to organize together so they can take stock of needs, help and resources in their immediate area.

External research3 following Houston's Hurricane Harvey in 2017 showed that communities connected on Nextdoor were more likely to receive help from one another and as a result, recovered more quickly. Across historic hurricanes, wildfires and extreme weather, neighbors have turned to the platform to mobilize, share critical information and resources and in some cases, help save lives, said Sarah Friar, Chief Executive Officer at Nextdoor. Through this joint effort with The Weather Channel, neighbors on Nextdoor can access vital local weather alerts on a platform where they can directly connect with others in their neighborhood, and pursue the support they need before, during and after a crisis.

Reliable weather information can be critical to people in the path of a storm, and weather has never been more impactful as weather events become more intense due to our changing climate, said Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company, an IBM Business. We work with brands such as Nextdoor to reach consumers at a hyper-local level as we continue to strive to deliver proactive alerts when it matters to help keep people safe and informed in the face of weather so they better understand when they may be at risk.

Earlier this month for Septembers National Preparedness Month, Nextdoor also launched a resource for anyone seeking information and resources during a weather event. Neighbors can visit nextdoor.com/crisis to learn more and join Nextdoor or invite others to the platform.

About Nextdoor

Nextdoor (NYSE: KIND) is the neighborhood network. Neighbors, businesses of all sizes, and public agencies in more than 310,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries turn to Nextdoor to connect to the neighborhoods that matter to them so that they can thrive. As a purpose-driven company, Nextdoor leverages innovative technology to cultivate a kinder world where everyone has a neighborhood they can rely on  both online and in the real world. Download the app or join the neighborhood at nexdoor.com. For more information and assets, visit nextdoor.com/newsroom.

1 ForecastWatch, Global and Regional Weather Forecast Accuracy Overview, 2017-2020, https://www.forecastwatch.com/AccuracyOverview2017-2020, commissioned by IBM.

2 According to a Morning Consult, May 2023: https://pro.morningconsult.com/analyst-reports/most-trusted-brands-2023 The Weather Channel brand was the #9 most trusted brand in the US. The surveys were conducted from 3/3/2023 through 4/3/2023, among a nationally representative sample of 799 to 8,434 U.S. adults.

3 Courtney Page-Tan, An analysis of social media use and neighbor-assisted debris removal in Houston following Hurricane Harvey, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 63, 2021, 102450, ISSN 2212-4209, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102450.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927284867/en/

[email protected]

Source: Nextdoor Holdings, Inc.
Passers-by on a Bangalore street. Andrea Rizzi

At first glance, the scene is just one of countless images of Indias contrasts. A child walks naked down a dusty street near a group of huts with corrugated iron roofs, a family sits there in a way that doesnt look like enjoying the free time, but rather wasting time that could be used differently, while modern high-rise towers of more than 20 floors stand in the background. Yet, the situation in this territory transcends the local issue of inequality  a struggle with a global implication is underway here.

Shantytowns and high-rise blocks tower above in the area between the airport and the center of Bangalore. The city is the most booming technological center of a country that is struggling to take full advantage of the Wests eagerness to reduce its dependence on Chinese manufacturing by pushing for new production hubs in other countries and new supply chains. In this area, there are already numerous business ans industrial zones, while others are in development. Truckloads of laborers and tools to build infrastructure churn up clouds of dust, and the sprawling city spill buries dozens of the areas hundreds of natural lakes. Here, the Indian state government of Karnataka is working to ensure that the Taiwanese company Foxconn builds a new plant to assemble the latest generation of iPhones.

Passers-by on a street in the north of Bangalore. Andrea Rizzi

Historically, the vast majority of Apple products have been manufactured in China by Foxconn and selected other contractors. But the U.S. company is now accelerating a progressive diversification process that responds to the need to protect itself from the risks associated with geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, among other things. Foxconn already operates plants in India, but they are small in comparison to its operations in China. Until recently, it only assembled outdated or marginal products in the South Asian powerhouse, but now it wishes to manufacture advanced items as well.

If completed, the Bangalore plant would have a symbolic global value at a time when many countries are jockeying for position, with Vietnam emerging as one of the strongest, in what is a competition on a global scale. In this race, India boasts a geopolitical asset, as it is such a powerful country that Westerners would like to have on their side as a counterbalance to the rise of China. The current reluctance of many democratic leaders to express clear support for Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced serious indications of the Indian governments involvement in the murder of a Sikh leader on its territory highlights the importance that many attach to maintaining a healthy relationship with New Delhi.

Priyank Kharge, minister of information technology of the government of Karnataka, the state of which Bangalore is the capital, told this newspaper in an interview that the deal is done and that the land has already been allocated, though he avoided giving specific details. They will come, he insists, referring to Foxconn, a strategic manufacturing juggernaut. Nevertheless, the company maintains discretion on the matter  consulted twice, it did not respond.

Bangalore, a megalopolis with an estimated population of 12 million, is an environment that showcases both Indias global potential and its remaining challenges, ranging from poor infrastructure to internal political tensions. In Karnataka, the party of the Prime Minister, Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, experienced a heavy defeat in May, and the national level opposition Congress Party is now governing.

From call center to worldwide player

The city has evolved from the worlds call center, as some say, to a thriving hub for the information technology industry and other sectors, such as the spatial one. The successful mission that landed a robotic vehicle on the hostile south pole of the moon in August was coordinated from this location. In addition to its intrinsic value, this exploit demonstrated the countrys technological capabilities in the eyes of global public opinion.

India possesses great assets to attract investment and catch up with China. It has a distinct demographic edge with its huge and inexpensive young talent pool of both skilled and unskilled workers, many of whom speak English, says Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a think tank believed to be the most influential in the country according to a University of Pennsylvania evaluation.

29-year-old Mohammed Muzammil is one of them. His personal story is symbolic of the collective narrative. He speaks good English, and years ago he worked in one of those call centers that, in the words of Minister Kharge, turned Bangalore into the back office of the world. In 2016, with the help of a friend, he started learning how to use SAP software. He then found a job with this specialization, first with Schneider Electric, then Deloitte. Although he has now been out of work for three or four months, he feels completely at ease. He and his wife are expecting a baby  adding to Indias mighty population boom  and as a result, Mohammed is looking for something that will allow him to work remotely. He says this is the only reason why he has not yet found a job, as for someone like him, there is plenty of work.

Mohammed Muzil, in Bangalore. Andrea Rizzi

Geopolitics and the workforce are not the only assets in the major global manufacturing upswing. A growing middle class will soon transform India into the third-largest domestic consumer market, explains Saran. Establishing production here initially is a way to compete in a growing domestic market, which is also characterized by protectionist measures to promote domestic industry. The Make in India initiative promoted by the Modi government incentivizes domestic production while discouraging importation.

India has improved the ease of doing business  it has climbed from 142nd in 2015 to 63rd in 2020 according to the World Banks index in this area  its GDP is growing at the fastest pace among the leading economies (6% expected this year). It is integrating further into the global economy through bilateral free trade agreements given the state of multilateral trade. Companies (and countries) do not want all their eggs in the China basket anymore. They want to create safer interdependencies where the threat of weaponisation and disruption is minimal, through what is being called friend shoring. Indias likemindedness and close relations with most countries, along with improved operating conditions, make it a neat fit Saran points out.

India has missed the industrial revolution, it has missed the agricultural revolution, but I think we are in the right place at the right time for the spatial revolution, to lead it, says Shaju Stephen, president and CEO of Aadyah, a space sector company established in 2016 that serves global clients. Next to him, a room with about thirty young engineers, all under the age of 40, a third of them women, showcases Indias assets (in total, the company has 85 employees, 30 of them women). Its space sector is a testament to this.

If anyone wants to reduce risks in dependence on China, in Bangalore, the state of Karnataka, we are your first choice. We lead Indias innovation index, we have a plethora of skilled white-collar and blue-collar workers, we are agile, says Kharge.

Unpaved road

However, the road to becoming a fully developed country and a manufacturing center capable of being a serious alternative to China, if not a competitor, is far from paved.

Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, foresees political and socio-economic problems that pose a threat to the countrys upward trajectory. India certainly has the potential, it has the tailwinds. But I see risks. I fear that there could be turbulence, conflict in India in the future, she says. I am concerned that the current leadership of the country does not properly embrace all the different Indians out there. I think that this and an uneven distribution of the prosperity that is being generated may lead to unrest and conflict. Although it may seem that Modi has it all won, I dont think so. The degree of resentment is huge, even within Hinduism, in its most leftist and intellectual sectors. There are therefore two potentially explosive problems, which go hand in hand, because the biggest inequality is indeed in the Muslim communities, Garcia-Herrero believes.

India is probably the most diverse country in the world. Two things unite us: being Indian and the Constitution. If these things are separated, things become complicated. When those in power are not very inclined to abide by the Constitution, then the situation becomes unnerving, says Kharge, from the opposition  on a national level  Congress Party. Economic inequality is widespread, but here in the last decade it has expanded, continues the minister. The current government is unable to close the gap. Many probably attribute this to nepotism, or too many pro-rich policies. That is cause for concern. Inequality brings social unrest.

Priyank Kharge, minister of information technology for the Indian state of Karnataka, in Bangalore this month. Andrea Rizzi

There are further challenges, like infrastructure. From Bangalore, India has admirably and smoothly reached the Moon, but getting from the city center to the Aadyah headquarters in the northeast of the city on any given September morning can involve a 70-minute ride in a cab with no straight roads for more than 100 meters, no public transportation in sight, and a strong stomach and sheer patience. In the summer of 2022, the city experienced severe flooding, partly due to inadequate urban development.

Bangalore is a symbol of Indias tumultuous growth. Ashish Verma, professor of Transportation Systems Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, explains that the city has no urban master plan and that, despite being similar in size and population to London or Paris, it only has about 60 km of operational subway  compared to 400 km and more than 200 km, respectively. Needless to say, construction work is underway to make improvements. The national government is also striving to promote new infrastructures. But the situation remains very problematic, and the road ahead is challenging.

Infrastructure problems

There are works to expand the subway network here, but they are progressing slowly. The government is prioritizing roads. There are different reasons for this, explains the professor. On the one hand, to satisfy the aspirational side of growth, the economy is expanding, people aspire to own cars, and construction work is being done to make it easier for them to move around. This is complicated, because today India has some 20/25 cars owned per 1,000 inhabitants, and we know from the experience of other economies that when you go from our income levels, about $2,600 per capita, to developed country levels, car ownership shoots up to 600/800 per 1,000. On the other hand, the priority given to highways also has to do with corruption. Their management is more immediate and local with respect to subway lines.

Verma stresses that, at the national level, a significant effort has been made to modernize the trains. But he points out that, if the proportion of freight and passenger transport was 80% by rail and 20% by road at the time of independence, now it is the other way around. He also says that the expansion of the high-speed rail system is way behind schedule.

This is a key issue. Adequate infrastructure and transportation, from ports and airports to subway lines and railroads, are needed to reach global manufacturing prominence. The new terminal at Bangalore airport is a symbol of the push for improvement and is one of the reasons why a company like Foxconn is considering locating nearby.

Accusations against Adani group

The challenges facing India are not only political and infrastructural. The Adani case is a perfect example. Gautam Adani is the chairman of a large business conglomerate that has recently been accused of gross market manipulation and fraud. Although the group denies the allegations, they have had ample credibility to knock tens of billions of dollars off the groups stock market value. Adani is a close associate of Prime Minister Modi. The issue at stake in the inquiries is confidence in the integrity of the Indian market and its regulatory bodies.

Another challenge, Stephen points out, is the raw materials issue. In my opinion, this is a bigger challenge than infrastructure. For years, China has developed a network for accessing, extracting and refining strategic raw materials, and India is heavily dependent in this sector.

The macroeconomic picture is also somewhat mixed. Along with GDP growth, and after managing to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades, there are also signs that exports are advancing. In the smartphone sector, in the 2021 fiscal year they amounted to about $5 billion. In 2022, to more than $11 billion, according to data compiled by S&P.

Employees at a Foxconn cell phone factory in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, in 2019. Karen Dias (Bloomberg)

Overall, according to the consulting firm BAIN, manufacturing exports totaled $418 billion in 2022, representing an annual growth rate of 15%. In that year, China exported goods worth more than $3 trillion. However, foreign direct investment, which peaked in the 2021/22 fiscal year at about $83 billion, dropped the following year to approximately $71 billion. Though GDP is growing steadily and in a few years the country will be the third-largest economy on the planet, GDP per capita is still $2,600. This compares with Indonesias $5,000, Chinas $13,700 and Spains $31,200.

Based on these assets and liabilities, India is competing in the great global manufacturing contest. Its future will impact the balances of the new world order. The wastelands around Bangalore will reveal how the outcome will play out. In any case, Mohammed Muzammil and those like him seem confident of a better future.

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Achieves TCO reduction of up to 30% and reduces power consumption by up to 50%

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NTT DOCOMO, INC. announced today its brand-new service lineup of OREX RAN, OREX SMO, and OREX Services, part of its commitment to becoming an Open RAN service provider for international telecom operators. Through this announcement, the company aims to provide clarity and mutual understanding among international telecom operators regarding the services offered by OREX, thereby facilitating its further expansion.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926843087/en/

Open RAN services provided by OREX (OREX Packages) (Graphic: Business Wire)

OREX is DOCOMOs Open RAN service brand, developed in collaboration with multiple global vendors. It can be customized to address the unique challenges of each customer. The introduction of OREX Open RAN services is expected to reduce clients total cost of ownership by up to 30% when the costs of initial setup and ongoing maintenance are taken into account. It can also reduce the time required for network design by up to 50%. Additionally, OREX reduces power consumption at base stations by up to 50%.

In the OREX RAN offering, OREX leverages the features of Open RAN, allowing the combination of various vendor products to provide base stations that are highly cost-effective. Leveraging the knowledge gained from DOCOMOs unique experience in building mobile networks with multiple equipment vendors since the 4G era, OREX integrates the strengths of its 13 OREX PARTNERS to offer an extensive range of virtualized radio base networks (vRANs) and radio units (RUs) compatible with the range of different frequencies in use in various countries. With the addition of seven new RU vendors, OREX is poised to meet the demands of an even larger customer base.

With OREX SMO, OREX provides software developed by NTT Corporation to facilitate the efficient design, configuration and monitoring of wireless access networks, enabling autonomous and optimized device operation. Adoption of OREX SMO allows the automatic optimization of network design, reducing design workload by up to 50%, particularly in complex cases that would normally take several weeks. It also reduces operational workload by automating tasks such as the adjustment of the antenna angle of base stations, which is critical for securing the coverage area. OREX SMO is compliant with the standard specifications defined by the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

OREX Services provide the procurement and system integration required for the adoption of OREX RAN and OREX SMO, as well as post-implementation operational support and maintenance.

On September 22, DOCOMO initiated the deployment and operation of OREX RAN and OREX SMO in its domestic 5G network, incorporating base station software from Fujitsu Limited, cloud platform from Wind River, hardware accelerator from NVIDIA, and COTS server with Intel processors. Building on the operational experience they have accumulated within DOCOMOs network, these companies plan to enhance OREX Open RAN services and expand their product combinations, striving to offer improved cost-effectiveness and reliability.

Going forward, DOCOMO will continue to support global telecom operators in their adoption of Open RAN with its new OREX offerings, strengthening its cooperation with global partners to make Open RAN a reality. In addition, DOCOMO will leverage the technology by applying the All-Photonics Network to transport network in Open RAN, following the concept of the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) promoted by the NTT Group. It will also utilize low-power servers equipped with photonics-electronics convergence technology and integrate OREX SMO with IOWNs Cognitive Foundation.

OREX is a trademark of NTT DOCOMO, INC.

For more detailed information, please refer to the full press release available at www.docomo.ne.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/

About NTT DOCOMO

NTT DOCOMO, Japan's leading mobile operator with over 87 million subscriptions, is one of the world's foremost contributors to 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network technologies. Beyond core communications services, DOCOMO is challenging new frontiers in collaboration with a growing number of entities ("+d" partners), creating exciting and convenient value-added services that change the way people live and work. Under a medium-term plan toward 2020 and beyond, DOCOMO is pioneering a leading-edge 5G network to facilitate innovative services that will amaze and inspire customers beyond their expectations.

https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926843087/en/

For further information, please contact:

NTT DOCOMO

Mr. Koinumaru or Mr. Yoshioka

Brand Communication Department

Tel: +81 (0)3 5156 1366

Fax: +81 (0)3 5501 3408

www.docomo.ne.jp/english/

Source: NTT DOCOMO, INC.
umob, a Mobility as a Service platform, sees faster rider onboarding and 90% reduction in manual work

AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Onfido, the global leader in automated identity verification, today announced the results of its partnership with umob, a revolutionary Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform that is transforming the shared mobility and public transportation experience. Since integrating Onfidos award-winning technology, umob can verify new users in under five minutes while significantly reducing manual identity verification checks by 90%, as detailed in the case study.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, umob stands at the forefront of the MaaS industry. Driven by their mission to foster sustainable urban environments, umobs integrated platform allows individuals to easily choose alternative transportation options, reducing reliance on private or passenger-owned vehicles.

As fraud poses a substantial challenge within the shared mobility sector, umob required a rider verification solution that provides rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, while maintaining a frictionless user experience, and managing a diverse global user network.

By leveraging Onfido's adaptable Real Identity Platform, umob has been able to prevent fraudulent activities and ensure a seamless onboarding experience for riders, thereby maintaining a high level of trust among its users. Onfido's rapid integration of document capture, facial comparison, liveness detection, and fraud prevention has enabled umob to promptly respond to emerging fraud tactics, ensuring continuous security while creating a fast and frictionless customer onboarding experience. Onfido Studio empowers umob to make real-time adjustments to verification criteria.

umob users can sign up by simply taking a photo of their government-issued identity document (ID) and a selfie. Onfido first checks that the ID is genuine and not fraudulent, and then matches it to the users face. This ensures the person presenting the identity is its legitimate owner and is physically present. Users are able to start their digital journey anywhere, anytime, through a simple and user-friendly online experience that meets regulatory requirements.

umob has big plans, aiming to onboard 450,000 recurring users by the end of 2024. Onfido aligns with these goals, supporting us as we continue to expand market presence while upholding robust identity verification measures, said Raymon Pouwels, Co-founder & CCO of umob. Onfido has been instrumental in reshaping the way we approach identity verification in the shared mobility sector. The main benefits being ease of use for the customer while being secure and easy for us to manage.

This partnership exemplifies how a dynamic partnership can address critical challenges within the industries requiring KYC such as financial services and shared mobility industry, said Nello Franco, Chief Customer Officer at Onfido. Onfido's solutions not only simplify identity verification but also enable businesses to focus on their core objectives while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.

Onfido's solutions have already made a significant impact in the Netherlands, with prominent clients such as challenger bank bunq and LeasePlan Bank benefitting from the company's digital identity verification expertise.

About Onfido

Onfido makes digital identity simple. The Onfido Real Identity Platform allows businesses to tailor verification methods to individual needs in a no-code orchestration layer, combining document and biometric verification, data sources, and passive fraud signals. Onfido Atlas AI powers the platform's fully-automated, end-to-end identity verification. Developed in-house for over 10 years, its how Onfido ensures its analysis is fair, fast and accurate.

Recognised as a global leader in AI for identity verification and authentication, Onfido is backed by TPG Growth, Idinvest Partners, Crane Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, M12 (Microsoft) and others. They partner with over 1000 businesses globally to help millions access services every week  from billion dollar institutions to hypergrowth start-ups.

About umob

umob is a MaaS platform that combines all mobility providers through full integrations into one app and puts the traveler first. We combat traffic jams, congestion, emissions and an abundance of parked cars by providing an uncomplicated alternative to owning a vehicle. Because we integrate all carriers, you always have a means of transportation at your disposal within walking distance.

umob has been active in the Netherlands since August 2023, headquartered in Rotterdam, and offers access to public transport, cab and shared transport, including shared scooters, (electric) bikes and cars, through a single account. umob's ambition is to grow into a European MaaS platform and become the link between governments and providers to overcome the challenges of mobility in cities.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927814029/en/

[email protected]

[email protected]

Source: Onfido
Court issues ruling denying Republics motion for a new trial, finding no basis for revisiting claims

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- RAW (BBK/HBI), the independent global brand of high-quality rolling papers and smoking innovations, today issued a statement about the most recent ruling by the federal District Court of the Northern District of Illinois denying Republic Tobaccos motion for a new trial in its seven-year court battle against HBI International, the company that owns the RAW brand.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927791523/en/

(Photo: Business Wire)

Weve long believed that our industry benefits when people in this space are truly familiar with the products and consumers, said Josh Kesselman, founder and president of RAW. We look forward to competition in the marketplace, based on innovation and quality. Were hopeful that Republic now realizes that their litigation assault was both a waste of time and money and we can all do better by helping our industry during this time of transition, including those who were the pioneers in cannabis that are struggling to compete in the legal marketplace.

In its ruling on Sept 22, 2023, denying Republics motion for a new trial, the judge rejected Republics argument that the jury could have found that consumers had been misled. The court ruled that there was no good basis for re-visiting Republics claims, finding that Republic did not provide evidence at trial outside of the opinions of its own founder and corporate officer that a single consumer (whether end user or distributor) was misled.

A jury previously found that Republic had willfully infringed on RAWs trademark and copyright. This followed a seven-year litigation assault that Republic brought against RAW. The trial in this matter resulted in an award of damages to HBI of more than $1 million and, coupled with a prejudgment interest award, nearly $1.5 million in compensation to HBI. Read more about the June ruling here.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927791523/en/

DKC News

[email protected]

Source: RAW
Co-founder, Gilly Regev, to lead Strategy and Innovation at SaNOtize

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- SaNOtize Research and Development Corp. (SaNOtize), a Canadian anti-infective-focused therapeutics company, today announced that the company has appointed Steven Basta, an experienced biopharma and medical device commercial leader, as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Co-Founder Gilly Regev, PhD, will transition from her role as CEO to Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at SaNOtize and will remain a member of its Board of Directors.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230925232677/en/

Steven Basta, Chief Executive Officer (Photo: Business Wire)

For more than 20 years, Basta has led publicly and privately held companies, demonstrating a strong track record of product development, commercialization, partnering, and private and public financings of these companies.

I am honored to be appointed CEO of SaNOtize, a company that has done groundbreaking work in nitric oxide therapeutics, said Basta. In many indications, there is a significant need for effective and accessible antimicrobial solutions. SaNOtize has led the charge with its antiviral nasal spray, approved in certain markets for Covid-19 treatment, and is well positioned to advance and commercialize its suite of nitric-oxide-based therapeutics to treat common viral, bacterial, and fungal infections.

Bastas appointment comes on the heels of Dr. Regevs decision to step down as CEO after almost seven years at the helm. I believe SaNOtize is ready for its next phase of leadership, said Dr. Regev. In the search for my successor, we aimed to find someone with a passion for bringing lifesaving therapies to market  and we certainly found this in Steve. With more than three decades of strategic and operational experience in therapeutics and medical technology, Steve was a natural choice. His experience, exuberance, and drive will undoubtedly make him a fierce advocate and leader of the SaNOtize family.

We are so excited to welcome Steve to the company and thrilled Gilly will continue to be involved in its future, said SaNOtize Chairperson Elaine Campbell. SaNOtize has great things in store and remains committed to our mission to bring safe and effective antimicrobial therapeutics to people around the world.

About Basta

Prior to joining SaNOtize, Basta led several development stage and commercial therapeutics and medical device companies including Mahana Therapeutics, Menlo Therapeutics, AlterG, Merz Aesthetics, and BioForm Medical. Basta holds an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA in Biomedical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University.

About SaNOtize

SaNOtize Research & Development Corp. is a pharmaceutical company based in Vancouver, BC, commercializing the multi-faceted antimicrobial properties of a liquid producing nitric oxide. The company has developed and patented a Nitric Oxide Releasing Solution platform technology (NORS) to treat and prevent upper respiratory and topical infections. For more information, visit www.SaNOtize.com. Follow us on social: LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230925232677/en/

Media:

Gilly Regev

[email protected]

Source: SaNOtize Research and Development Corp.
WESTLAKE, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Charles Schwab Corporation announced today that it has scheduled a Fall Business Update for institutional investors on Monday, October 16th. This Update, which will be held via live public webcast, is part of an ongoing series designed to help the investment community keep abreast of recent developments and managements strategic focus. The program is scheduled to run from 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. CT, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. ET. Participants will include Walt Bettinger, Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rick Wurster, President, and Peter Crawford, Chief Financial Officer.

The Update will be accessible at https://schwabevents.com/corporation.

About Charles Schwab

The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) is a leading provider of financial services, with 34.4 million active brokerage accounts, 2.5 million corporate retirement plan participants, 1.8 million banking accounts, and $8.09 trillion in client assets as of August 31, 2023. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company provides a full range of wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services to individual investors and independent investment advisors. Its broker-dealer subsidiaries, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., TD Ameritrade, Inc., and TD Ameritrade Clearing, Inc., (members SIPC, https://www.sipc.org), and their affiliates offer a complete range of investment services and products including an extensive selection of mutual funds; financial planning and investment advice; retirement plan and equity compensation plan services; referrals to independent, fee-based investment advisors; and custodial, operational and trading support for independent, fee-based investment advisors through Schwab Advisor Services. Its primary banking subsidiary, Charles Schwab Bank, SSB (member FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender), provides banking and lending services and products. More information is available at https://www.aboutschwab.com.

TD Ameritrade, Inc. and TD Ameritrade Clearing, Inc. are separate but affiliated companies and subsidiaries of TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation. TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corporation. TD Ameritrade is a trademark jointly owned by TD Ameritrade IP Company, Inc. and The Toronto-Dominion Bank.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927855514/en/

MEDIA:

Mayura Hooper

Charles Schwab

Phone: 415-667-1525



INVESTORS/ANALYSTS:

Jeff Edwards

Charles Schwab

Phone: 415-667-1524

Source: The Charles Schwab Corporation
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seritage Growth Properties (NYSE: SRG) (the Company), a national owner and developer of retail, residential and mixed-use properties, today announced that on September 26, 2023, the Company made a voluntary prepayment of $80 million toward its $1.6 billion term loan facility provided by Berkshire Hathaway Life Insurance Company of Nebraska (Berkshire Hathaway).

With the prepayment, the Company has now repaid a total of $1.2 billion since December 2021 and $400 million of the term loan facility remains outstanding. The current prepayment will reduce Seritages total annual interest expense related to the term loan facility by approximately $5.6 million. The cumulative repayments since December 2021 have reduced Seritages total annual interest expense related to the term loan facility by approximately $84.0 million.

About Seritage Growth Properties

Seritage is principally engaged in the ownership, development, redevelopment, management and leasing of diversified and mixed-use properties throughout the United States. As of June 30, 2023, the Companys portfolio consisted of interests in 50 properties comprised of approximately 6.8 million square feet of gross leaseable area (GLA) or build-to-suit leased area, approximately 157 acres held for or under development until time of sale and approximately 3.6 million square feet of GLA or approximately 303 acres to be disposed of in its current state. The portfolio consists of approximately 5.2 million square feet of GLA held by 38 wholly owned properties and 1.7 million square feet of GLA held by 12 unconsolidated entities.

Forward-Looking Statements

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to expectations, beliefs, projections, future plans and strategies, anticipated events or trends and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology such as may, should, expects, intends, plans, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, or potential or the negative of these words and phrases or similar words or phrases that are predictions of or indicate future events or trends and that do not relate solely to historical matters. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and contingencies, many of which are beyond the Companys control, which may cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed in any forward-looking statement. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: declines in retail, real estate and general economic conditions; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business of the Companys tenants and business, income, cash flow, results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, ability to service the Companys debt obligations and ability to pay dividends and other distributions to shareholders, risks relating to redevelopment activities; contingencies to the commencement of rent under leases; the terms of the Companys indebtedness and other legal requirements to which the Company is subject; failure to achieve expected occupancy and/or rent levels within the projected time frame or at all; the impact of ongoing negative operating cash flow on the Companys ability to fund operations and ongoing development; the Companys ability to access or obtain sufficient sources of financing to fund the Companys liquidity needs; the Companys relatively limited history as an operating company; and environmental, health, safety and land use laws and regulations. For additional discussion of these and other applicable risks, assumptions and uncertainties, see the Risk Factors and forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Companys annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and any subsequent Form 10-Qs. While the Company believes that its forecasts and assumptions are reasonable, the Company cautions that actual results may differ materially. The Company intends the forward-looking statements to speak only as of the time made and do not undertake to update or revise them as more information becomes available, except as required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926894519/en/

Seritage Growth Properties

John Garilli

Interim Chief Financial Officer

(212) 355-7800

[email protected]

Source: Seritage Growth Properties
Renowned Fresh Mex Brand Introduces Experienced Executive Lineup

ALPHARETTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Surcheros Fresh Mex is investing in seasoned talent as the premium Fresh Mex brand forges ahead with resilient growth plans. Led by Founder and CEO Luke Christian, Surcheros is poised for aggressive expansion as it develops its franchising program and taps into new markets throughout the Southeast.

"Led by our accomplished executive team, we are amplifying our growth trajectory and solidifying our brand identity," said Luke Christian, Founder & CEO of Surcheros. "With their collective wealth of expertise and commitment to new store openings, I'm looking forward to our rapid expansion and shaping our presence in current and new markets."

The Surcheros leadership team now features the following:

Jake Philpotts: Vice President of Business Development & Franchise Relations

Joining Surcheros in 2019, Philpotts quickly ascended to the role of Vice President of Business Development & Franchise Relations by October 2020, driving new partnerships and market opportunities. Philpotts holds over a decade of experience with brands including Chick-Fil-A and Aldi and works closely with Surcheros franchisees to align with their objectives.

Jami Horowitz: Vice President of Marketing

With over 15 years in restaurants and retail, Horowitz joined Surcheros in April 2023, playing a pivotal role in repositioning the brand. She has worked with proven winners in the food & beverage space such as The Coca-Cola Company, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Church's Chicken, and Focus Brands.

Brendan Wiederhold: Vice President of Operations & Construction

With 15 years of experience, Wiederhold drives operational success as Surcheros' Vice President of Operations & Construction since 2021. His leadership optimizes performance, talent, and accountability for success.

Jamie Hurley: Vice President of Finance

As Surcheros' Vice President of Finance, Hurley drives strategic growth and planning. He guides his team in corporate goal-setting, finance, and accounting. With over 25 years industry experience he notably spent 12 years working with Inspire Brands.

Ellen Rockwell: Vice President of People & Development

Rockwell, a standout human resources professional with 20 years in the restaurant industry, leads Surcheros holistic talent efforts, including human resources, total rewards, recruiting and training, and people development.

Bryan Williams: Vice President of Shared Services & Technology

Williams, a strategic leader with 30 years of operations and shared services experience, syncs shared services and technology with Surcheros' vision. His mix of leadership, operations, technology skills, and strategy fortifies the brand in a growing market.

In 2017, Surcheros inaugurated its franchising program, propelling expansion across Georgia and Florida. In April 2023, the company celebrated two of its largest multi-unit agreements in history. The company is now exploring more additional markets throughout the Southeast as guests seek to bring Surcheros to their local communities.

For more information about Surcheros, visit www.surcheros.com.

About Surcheros Fresh Mex

Surcheros Fresh Mex is the soul of founder and CEO Luke Christian. Surcheros, loosely broken down as Southern Friends, brings together communities with its premium Tex-Mex flavor and welcoming environment. Its inviting, modern, and sleek concept is rooted in Luke Christians Southern hospitality of his youth, where guests are warmly welcomed like family every visit. This has been the core of the business since its start in 2007 and contributes to its success as a community favorite.

In 2017, Luke and his wife, Nicole, opened their business for others to share in their vision for growth and love of community. Franchising launched across South Georgia and into Florida as the re-branded Surcheros continues to expand its presence today as the best-kept secret.

Surcheros offers bold, high-quality flavors where guests may build burritos, tacos, quesadillas, salads, and more by choosing from perfectly grilled meats to a wide selection of toppings and signature sauces. No matter where you are, Friendly Tex-Mex, Fresh Every Day is what you will find at Surcheros.

Interested in joining the Surcheros family? Learn more at www.surcheros.com/franchising.

Headshots

Facebook: @surcheros

X: @surcheros

Instagram: @surcheros

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927630595/en/

Media Contact:

Kelyn Theus

[email protected]

305.631.2283

Source: Surcheros
MINNETONKA, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Milla Pharmaceutical Inc., a subsidiary of the Alter Pharma Group, is now becoming an A.forall company - The Alter Pharma Group, a group of generic and pharmacy sales companies, is rebranding all its brands and businesses into A.forall. This change, starting 27 September, represents an important milestone in A. foralls pursuit of a world where patients can access high-quality, safe and innovative medicines at an affordable price. The move strengthens A.foralls commitment to #MakingAffordableMedicinesAvailableToAll, offering new synergies and ways to leverage the skills and capacities of its 144 employees around the world. Milla Pharmaceuticals, now an A.forall company, is proud to be part of this transition.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927472871/en/

Alter Pharma started pharmacy sales in 2006. In 2010, it became the Alter Pharma Group after the consolidation of several entities and last year, the group reached an important milestone with its first major acquisition. Its generics business currently markets more than 30 in-house developed added value products that are being sold in more than 60 countries around the globe including US, whereas A.foralls Benelux Pharmacy House provides medicine shortage services through hospital and retail pharmacies. In 2022 alone, by helping pharmacists to source medicines in shortage, the group managed to bring relief to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients and to supply more than 650,000 months of missing treatments to patients that would otherwise be lacking their medication.

Throughout this journey, the Alter Pharma Group and its brands have always been focused on delivering secure access to high-quality, affordable medicines. The current rebranding will unify businesses and commercial brands of the group*, countless stories and talents, while continuing to make sure that no one is left behind in the pursuit of better health and well-being.

The Alter Pharma Group has been going through a period of incredible evolution and innovation over the past years. We could not be more excited about the next step: our rebranding to A.forall. Were coming together better and stronger than ever in order to deliver on our mission of Making Affordable Medicines Available To All.

-Filip Van de Vliet, Chief Executive Officer

A.forall stands for each of the key motivations behind our mission. It stands for Accessible  fostering patient access to superior healthcare solutions that are affordable and available for everyone. It stands for Assurance  an unwavering commitment to ensure the utmost reliability, trust, and adherence to the highest quality and safety standards. And it stands for All  our entire team is unified by a single mission of delivering high-quality and affordable healthcare solutions to all. By all, to all, for all.

For the full press release and more information on the rebranding, check out the full communication on our website or directly in this article.

www.aforallpharma.com

Note to editors:

A.forall, previously known as Alter Pharma or the Alter Pharma Group, is a Belgian group of pharmaceutical companies with headquarters in Anderlecht (Belgium) and offices in Ireland and the United States. Employing in total over 144 employees, the company distributes a wide range of pharmaceutical products to pharmacies, wholesalers, hospitals, and retirement homes. At the same time, A.forall is a global player on the generics market, with 30+ molecules on the European and US market and a fully stocked pipeline of niche, complex and added value products.

Milla Pharmaceuticals Inc., an A.forall company and wholly-owned subsidiary of the group, is engaged in the development, licensing, acquisition, and commercialization of generic prescription drugs for the US market focused on niche injectable and solution products for hospitals and clinics

*A.forall was formerly known as: Active Pharma, Accure Pharma, Alter Pharma, Eco.Pharma.Supply, GPI, GSP, Impexeco, Medi Group, Milla Pharmaceuticals, Neogen

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927472871/en/

Alter Pharma Group NV

Marisa Veloso

[email protected]

ESG & Communications Officer

+32 470 45 07 15

Erik Lazarich

[email protected]

President US

+ 1 952 449 5154

Source: Milla Pharmaceuticals Inc.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Cannabist Company Holdings Inc. (NEO: CBST) (OTCQX: CBSTF) (FSE: 3LP) (The Cannabist Company or the Company), one of the largest and most experienced cultivators, manufacturers and retailers of cannabis products in the U.S., announced today that its common shares, previously trading on the OTC Market under the ticker symbol CCHWF, will begin trading on the OTC Market under the ticker symbol CBSTF effective today, Tuesday, September 26, 2023.

The change in symbol on OTC Market aligns with the recently announced name change from Columbia Care Inc. to The Cannabist Company, as well as the change in ticker symbol on the Cboe Canada to CBST, which was effective as of Thursday, September 21, 2023. No action is required by shareholders with respect to the ticker symbol changes.

About The Cannabist Company (f/k/a Columbia Care)

The Cannabist Company, formerly known as Columbia Care, is one of the largest and most experienced cultivators, manufacturers and providers of cannabis products and related services, with licenses in 16 U.S. jurisdictions. The Company operates 125 facilities including 94 dispensaries and 31 cultivation and manufacturing facilities, including those under development. Columbia Care, now The Cannabist Company, is one of the original multi-state providers of cannabis in the U.S. and now delivers industry-leading products and services to both the medical and adult-use markets. In 2021, the Company launched Cannabist, its retail brand, creating a national dispensary network that leverages proprietary technology platforms. The company offers products spanning flower, edibles, oils and tablets, and manufactures popular brands including Seed & Strain, Triple Seven, Hedy, gLeaf, Classix, Press, and Amber. For more information, please visit www.cannabistcompany.com.

Caution Concerning Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements that constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws and reflect the Companys current expectations regarding future events. Forward-looking statements or information contained in this release include, but are not limited to, statements or information with respect to the Companys rebranding, including timing of the rebranding and the filing of the articles of amendment in connection with the rebranding, and on its ability to execute on retail, wholesale, brand and product initiatives. These forward-looking statements or information, which although considered reasonable by the Company, may prove to be incorrect and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking information. In addition, securityholders should review the risk factors discussed under Risk Factors in Columbia Cares Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, as, filed with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities and described from time to time in subsequent documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926415143/en/

Investor Contact

Lee Ann Evans

SVP, Capital Markets

[email protected]

Media Contact

Lindsay Wilson

SVP, Communications

[email protected]

Source: The Cannabist Company Holdings Inc.
 SCHOTT announces a three-point action plan to address the chip industry's needs for glass-substrate based advanced chip packaging.

 The action plan accelerates product development, optimization, and investments to meet increasing demand.

RYE BROOK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- SCHOTT, the international technology group whose founder Otto Schott invented specialty glass, is taking steps to support the integrated circuit (IC) industry in advancing the pace of Moore's Law with new materials. This development is needed for more powerful computing intended for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI). As uncompromised, high-quality glass substrates are crucial for enabling advanced packaging in the upcoming decade, SCHOTT is proactively setting the course to enable the industry to innovate even further.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927430641/en/

SCHOTT offers a diverse variety of panel glass and carrier wafers for advanced semiconductor packaging and processing. (Credit: SCHOTT)

The future of chip packaging starts with glass. SCHOTT CEO Dr. Frank Heinricht underlines the company's commitment to the IC industry, while highlighting the steps already taken to handle increasing demand. Today, we are announcing a three-point action plan to tackle the increasing demand for glass substrates for advanced packaging. Our action plan is broken up into three points of focus: researching, upgrading, and investing, says Dr. Heinricht. As we have been in a constant exchange with industry leaders, we are now accelerating our product development and have already established a leading position to immediately supply high-quality substrates the chip industry's R&D teams need."

The action plan addresses the following glass substrate-related areas that have a direct impact on chip packaging designs and markets:

Product innovations: Major SCHOTT material innovations for a diverse range of applications targeting the IC industry are already available to customers today. Additionally, unique substrates that are tailor-made for diverse applications in advanced chip packaging have entered the final stage of market-readiness. Upgrading of existing substrates: Over the past years, glass substrate innovations targeting the IC industry have undergone constant optimization and development, e.g., by regularly improving geometric tolerances, securing exceptional flatness, and adding maximum versatility in format, thickness range, and material development on various characteristics. SCHOTT will continue this orientation to be ready for the industry requirements. Expansion of melting and processing capacities and capabilities: With increasing demand, large-scale level capacities are needed to supply seamlessly. SCHOTT has already decided to expand its infrastructure to brace the rise of the industry. For example, capacities and capabilities of SCHOTTs facilities in Europe and Asia will be continuously extended.

"Major steps in advanced packaging can be realized based on material innovations. As glass offers numerous attributes that have clear benefits for semiconductor manufacturing, specialty glass has the potential to bring advanced packaging to the next level," says Stefan Hergott, head of SCHOTT's Special Flat Glass & Wafer unit.

Unique properties of glass, such as thermal, mechanical properties, or an ultra-low flatness in geometrical property, are trailblazing innovation and new products in semiconductor packaging. Therefore, these attributes enable semicon experts to create high-end packaging with a much higher performance and more flexibility.

SCHOTT already offers a broad range of products for specific applications in advanced packaging. This includes glass panels for semiconductor packaging (e.g., D263 T eco, BOROFLOAT 33 or AF 32 eco) or glass as a consumable carrier wafer (e.g. made of AF 35 G or BOROFLOAT) in semiconductor production.

Beyond substrates  SCHOTT has been enabling computer chip manufacturing for decades

Besides the most recent innovations in the field of glass substrates tailored for the semiconductor industry, SCHOTT's products have been a key part of the chip manufacturing industry for decades as well. The near-zero expansion material ZERODUR, for example, is a crucial component of leading lithography machines worldwide. Within these lithography machines, silicon wafers and exposure masks must be positioned precisely to produce the finest structures for the most potent microchips. SCHOTT products, including flexible light guides, ensure that the highest precision is maintained during the process. Since these machines are used in all chip foundries and IDMs around the world, nearly all computer chips on earth encounter specialty glass from SCHOTT.

Links: www.schott.com/

Pioneering  responsibly  together.

These attributes characterize SCHOTT as a manufacturer of high-tech materials based on specialty glass. Founder Otto Schott is considered its inventor and became the pioneer of an entire industry.

Always opening up new markets and applications with a pioneering spirit and passion  this is what has driven the #glasslovers at SCHOTT for more than 130 years. Represented in 34 countries, the company is a highly skilled partner for high-tech industries: Healthcare, Home Appliances & Living, Consumer Electronics, Semiconductors & Datacom, Optics, Industry & Energy, Automotive, Astronomy & Aerospace. In the fiscal year 2021, its 17,300 employees generated sales of 2.5 billion euros. SCHOTT AG is owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, one of the oldest foundations in Germany. It uses the Group's dividends to promote science. As a foundation company, SCHOTT has anchored responsibility for employees, society and the environment deeply in its DNA. The goal is to become a climate-neutral company by 2030.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927430641/en/

Press:

Michael Muller

Head of Innovation PR & Storytelling

Corporate Marketing & Communications

SCHOTT AG

Tel: 06131-66-4088

[email protected]

Source: SCHOTT
The seven teenagers kidnapped in Zacatecas, in images shared on social networks.

The youngest is only 14 years old, the oldest had just turned 18. The seven Mexican teenagers were friends and family. On Saturday night, the group got together to have dinner with more relatives and enjoy the weekend. But at 4 a.m. on Sunday, several vehicles loaded with armed men broke into the ranch where they were staying, El Potrerito, in the community of Malpaso, in Zacatecas. The seven teenagers were kidnapped. Three days later, there is no news of their whereabouts.

The kidnapping of seven teenagers has once again struck fear into Zacatecas, a state accustomed to violence and disappearances. Nobody knows where the youngsters are, and the first days are key to finding them alive. Mexican authorities have launched a search operation made up of 300 soldiers from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the National Guard and police officers from the different communities of Villanueva, the municipality where the crime took place.

But so far, there are many more questions than certainties. It is not known why the teenagers were kidnapped, nor how many armed men took part in the crime. Around 4 a.m. they began to notice the presence of a criminal group, people who arrived in vehicles, they took them out and took them away, said Zacatecas prosecutor Francisco Murillo, who said police are still working to find the teenagers. Local media in Zacatecas suggested that the operation has managed to locate the alleged vehicle in which the youths were abducted; however, neither the Attorney Generals Office nor authorities have confirmed the discovery.

In its last official communication, the Attorney Generals Office announced that it had spoken to the victims relatives, who blocked the Zacatecas-Malpaso highway, near the Regional Security Unit (Unirse) on Tuesday to pressure authorities to take more action to find the teenagers.

I want my son, I want my sons, cried one of the mothers of the kidnapping victims at the road block. We want them alive. I am not part of the government. If I were, Id be in a helicopter, said the woman, who also criticized the governor of Zacatecas, David Monreal, for not daring to show his face.

Meanwhile, the community is holding its breath and praying that the teenagers return alive. The young men who were kidnapped are:

Jorge Alberto Ocon Acevedo, 14. When he was kidnapped, he was wearing a gold jacket, blue pants and black sneakers.

Hector Alejandro Saucedo Acevedo, 17. On the day of the kidnapping, he was wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue pants and white sneakers. According to the police description, he has a scar on his eyebrow and wears braces.

Sergio Acevedo Rodriguez, 18. He was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt, black T-shirt and pants, and white sneakers. He has straight black hair and a tattoo on his right calf.

Gumaro Santacruz Carrillo, 18. He was wearing Vans brand sneakers, a T-shirt with black and gray prints, and blue pants.

Jesus Manuel Rodriguez Robles, 18. When he was kidnapped, he was wearing a gold chain, a diamond earring, a black fabric belt and a beanie.

Diego Rodriguez Vidales, 17. He has tattoos on his left arm, right forearm and right calf.

Jesus Manuel Rodriguez Robles, 18. He is the tallest of the group, at 1.78 meters.

According to official data, of the 111,648 missing people in Mexico, 3,650 are from Zacatecas. Like much of the rest of the country, the state is disputed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC) and the Sinaloa Cartel. The two criminal organizations are fighting one another for control of the area and its drug trafficking routes. In 2021, Zacatecas was the state with the highest number of people who had been forced to flee from violence, according to a January report by the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights.

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 ENTYVIO Is the Only FDA-Approved Ulcerative Colitis Biologic That Offers the Choice of Intravenous or Subcutaneous Maintenance Therapy

OSAKA, Japan & CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Takeda (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a subcutaneous (SC) administration of ENTYVIO (vedolizumab) for maintenance therapy in adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) after induction therapy with ENTYVIO intravenous (IV).1 ENTYVIO SC is expected to be available in the U.S. as a single-dose pre-filled pen (ENTYVIO Pen) by the end of October. Additionally, a Biologics License Application for an investigational SC administration of ENTYVIO for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active Crohns disease is currently under review by the FDA.

With the FDA approval of subcutaneous ENTYVIO, patients and physicians who want ENTYVIOs clinical profile along with flexibility of administration now have two choices for maintenance treatment for adults with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, said Brandon Monk, senior vice president, head, U.S. Gastroenterology Business Unit, Takeda. Takeda is committed to meeting the varied medical needs, circumstances and personal preferences of people living with UC as they progress in their lifelong journey with the disease. ENTYVIO is the only FDA-approved biologic for maintenance therapy in ulcerative colitis offering the option of either intravenous or subcutaneous administration.

The approval of this new route of administration for ENTYVIO is based on the VISIBLE 1 study (SC UC Trial). VISIBLE 1 was a Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that assessed the safety and efficacy of an SC formulation of ENTYVIO as maintenance therapy in adult patients with moderately to severely active UC who achieved clinical response* at Week 6 following two doses of open-label vedolizumab intravenous therapy at Weeks 0 and 2.1 A total of 162 patients were randomized at Week 6 in a double-blind fashion (2:1) to one of the following regimens: ENTYVIO SC 108 mg or placebo by subcutaneous injection every 2 weeks. Eligible patients included patients who had demonstrated an inadequate response to, loss of response to, or intolerance to at least one 12-week regimen of azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine, induction with a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blocker, or corticosteroids. The primary endpoint was clinical remission at Week 52, which was defined as a total Mayo score of 2 and no individual subscore >1.

The VISIBLE 1 trial demonstrated that ENTYVIO SC can provide physicians with an additional administration option for achieving remission in their moderate to severe ulcerative colitis patients. Since its approval in 2014, ENTYVIO has continued to build a robust safety and efficacy profile. I appreciate now having a subcutaneous administration option that provides a clinical profile consistent with ENTYVIO IV while also giving me and my appropriate UC patients a choice of how they receive their maintenance therapy, said Bruce Sands, M.D., M.S., Chief of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Sands is a paid consultant of Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. He has not been compensated for media work.

A statistically significant proportion of patients receiving ENTYVIO SC 108 mg maintenance therapy administered every 2 weeks achieved clinical remission** compared to patients receiving placebo (46% vs. 14%; p

*Clinical response is defined as a reduction in complete Mayo score of 3 points and 30% from baseline with an accompanying decrease in rectal bleeding subscore of 1 point or absolute rectal bleeding subscore of 1 point.1

**Clinical remission is defined as a complete Mayo score of 2 points and no individual subscore >1 point at Week 52.1

Takeda does not expect a material impact on the full year consolidated reported forecast for the year ending March 31, 2024 (Fiscal Year 2023), as a result of this approval.

About ENTYVIO (vedolizumab)

Vedolizumab is a biologic therapy and is approved for intravenous (IV) and subcutaneous (SC) administration (approvals vary by market).1,2 Vedolizumab SC has been granted marketing authorization in the United States, European Union and more than 50 countries (vedolizumab SC is not currently approved for Crohn's disease in the U.S.). Vedolizumab IV has been granted marketing authorization in more than 70 countries, including the United States and European Union. Globally, vedolizumab IV and SC have more than one million patient years of exposure to date.3 Vedolizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody designed to specifically antagonize the alpha4beta7 integrin, inhibiting the binding of alpha4beta7 integrin to intestinal mucosal addressin cell adhesion molecule 1 (MAdCAM-1), but not vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1).4 MAdCAM-1 is preferentially expressed on blood vessels and lymph nodes of the gastrointestinal tract.5 The alpha4beta7 integrin is expressed on a subset of circulating white blood cells.4 These cells have been shown to play a role in mediating the inflammatory process in ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease.4,6,7 By inhibiting alpha4beta7 integrin, vedolizumab may limit the ability of certain white blood cells to infiltrate gut tissues.4

INDICATIONS

For adult patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohns disease (CD) when other therapies have not worked well enough or cannot be tolerated.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

CONTRAINDICATIONS

ENTYVIO is contraindicated in patients who have had a known serious or severe hypersensitivity reaction to ENTYVIO or any of its excipients.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS

Infusion-Related and Hypersensitivity Reactions: Infusion-related reactions and hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylaxis, dyspnea, bronchospasm, urticaria, flushing, rash, and increased blood pressure and heart rate have been reported. These reactions may occur with the first or subsequent infusions and may vary in their time of onset from during infusion or up to several hours post-infusion. If anaphylaxis or other serious infusion-related or hypersensitivity reactions occur, discontinue administration of ENTYVIO immediately and initiate appropriate treatment.

Infections: Patients treated with ENTYVIO are at increased risk for developing infections. Serious infections have been reported in patients treated with ENTYVIO, including anal abscess, sepsis (some fatal), tuberculosis, salmonella sepsis, Listeria meningitis, giardiasis, and cytomegaloviral colitis. ENTYVIO is not recommended in patients with active, severe infections until the infections are controlled. Consider withholding ENTYVIO in patients who develop a severe infection while on treatment with ENTYVIO. Exercise caution in patients with a history of recurring severe infections. Consider screening for tuberculosis (TB) according to the local practice.

Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML): PML, a rare and often fatal opportunistic infection of the central nervous system (CNS), has been reported with systemic immunosuppressants, including another integrin receptor antagonist. PML typically only occurs in patients who are immunocompromised. One case of PML in an ENTYVIO-treated patient with multiple contributory factors has been reported. Although unlikely, a risk of PML cannot be ruled out. Monitor patients for any new or worsening neurological signs or symptoms that may include progressive weakness on one side of the body or clumsiness of limbs, disturbance of vision, and changes in thinking, memory, and orientation leading to confusion and personality changes. If PML is suspected, withhold dosing with ENTYVIO and refer to neurologist; if confirmed, discontinue ENTYVIO dosing permanently.

Liver Injury: There have been reports of elevations of transaminase and/or bilirubin in patients receiving ENTYVIO. ENTYVIO should be discontinued in patients with jaundice or other evidence of significant liver injury.

Live and Oral Vaccines: Prior to initiating treatment with ENTYVIO, all patients should be brought up to date with all immunizations according to current immunization guidelines. Patients receiving ENTYVIO may receive non-live vaccines and may receive live vaccines if the benefits outweigh the risks.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

The most common adverse reactions (incidence 3% and 1% higher than placebo) were: nasopharyngitis, headache, arthralgia, nausea, pyrexia, upper respiratory tract infection, fatigue, cough, bronchitis, influenza, back pain, rash, pruritus, sinusitis, oropharyngeal pain, pain in extremities, and injection site reactions with subcutaneous administration.

DRUG INTERACTIONS

Because of the potential for increased risk of PML and other infections, avoid the concomitant use of ENTYVIO with natalizumab products and with TNF blockers.

INDICATIONS

Adult Ulcerative Colitis (UC):

ENTYVIO is indicated in adults for the treatment of moderately to severely active UC.

Adult Crohns Disease (CD):

ENTYVIO is indicated in adults for the treatment of moderately to severely active CD.

DOSAGE FORMS & STRENGTHS:

ENTYVIO Intravenous (IV) Infusion: 300 mg vedolizumab

ENTYVIO Subcutaneous (SC) Injection: 108 mg vedolizumab

Please click for Full U.S. Prescribing Information.

About Ulcerative Colitis and Crohns Disease

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohns disease (CD) are two of the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).8 Both UC and CD are chronic, relapsing, remitting, inflammatory conditions of the gastrointestinal tract.9,10 UC only involves the large intestine as opposed to CD, which can affect any part of the GI tract from mouth to anus.11,12 CD can also affect the entire thickness of the bowel wall, while UC only involves the innermost lining of the large intestine.11,12 UC can present with symptoms of abdominal discomfort or loose bowel movements, including blood.11,13 CD can present with symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, and weight loss.12 The cause of UC or CD is not fully understood; however, research suggests that an interplay between environmental factors, genetics, and intestinal microbiota may contribute to the development of UC or CD.11,14,9

Takedas Commitment to Gastroenterology

With this latest milestone, Takeda continues to demonstrate a commitment to meeting the very real needs of those living with gastrointestinal (GI) diseases. We believe that GI and liver diseases are life-disrupting conditions. Beyond a fundamental need for effective treatment options, we understand that improving patients lives also depends on their needs being recognized. With nearly 30 years of experience in gastroenterology, Takeda has made significant strides in addressing patient needs with treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), acid-related diseases, short bowel syndrome (SBS) and motility disorders. We are making significant strides toward closing the gap on new areas of unmet need. Together with researchers, patient groups and more, we are working to advance scientific research and clinical medicine in GI.

About Takeda

Takeda is focused on creating better health for people and a brighter future for the world. We aim to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments in our core therapeutic and business areas, including gastrointestinal and inflammation, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology, neuroscience, and vaccines. Together with our partners, we aim to improve the patient experience and advance a new frontier of treatment options through our dynamic and diverse pipeline. As a leading values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan, we are guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Our employees in approximately 80 countries and regions are driven by our purpose and are grounded in the values that have defined us for more than two centuries. For more information, visit www.takeda.com.

Important Notice

For the purposes of this notice, press release means this document, any oral presentation, any question-and-answer session and any written or oral material discussed or distributed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Takeda) regarding this release. This press release (including any oral briefing and any question-and-answer in connection with it) is not intended to, and does not constitute, represent or form part of any offer, invitation or solicitation of any offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, exchange, sell or otherwise dispose of, any securities or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction. No shares or other securities are being offered to the public by means of this press release. No offering of securities shall be made in the United States except pursuant to registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom. This press release is being given (together with any further information which may be provided to the recipient) on the condition that it is for use by the recipient for information purposes only (and not for the evaluation of any investment, acquisition, disposal or any other transaction). Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of applicable securities laws. The companies in which Takeda directly and indirectly owns investments are separate entities. In this press release, Takeda is sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Takeda and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words we, us and our are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release and any materials distributed in connection with this press release may contain forward-looking statements, beliefs or opinions regarding Takedas future business, future position and results of operations, including estimates, forecasts, targets and plans for Takeda. Without limitation, forward-looking statements often include words such as targets, plans, believes, hopes, continues, expects, aims, intends, ensures, will, may, should, would, could, anticipates, estimates, projects or similar expressions or the negative thereof. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions about many important factors, including the following, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements: the economic circumstances surrounding Takedas global business, including general economic conditions in Japan and the United States; competitive pressures and developments; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; challenges inherent in new product development, including uncertainty of clinical success and decisions of regulatory authorities and the timing thereof; uncertainty of commercial success for new and existing products; manufacturing difficulties or delays; fluctuations in interest and currency exchange rates; claims or concerns regarding the safety or efficacy of marketed products or product candidates; the impact of health crises, like the novel coronavirus pandemic, on Takeda and its customers and suppliers, including foreign governments in countries in which Takeda operates, or on other facets of its business; the timing and impact of post-merger integration efforts with acquired companies; the ability to divest assets that are not core to Takedas operations and the timing of any such divestment(s); and other factors identified in Takedas most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and Takedas other reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, available on Takedas website at: https://www.takeda.com/investors/sec-filings/ or at www.sec.gov. Takeda does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or any other forward-looking statements it may make, except as required by law or stock exchange rule. Past performance is not an indicator of future results and the results or statements of Takeda in this press release may not be indicative of, and are not an estimate, forecast, guarantee or projection of Takedas future results.

Medical Information

This press release contains information about products that may not be available in all countries, or may be available under different trademarks, for different indications, in different dosages, or in different strengths. Nothing contained herein should be considered a solicitation, promotion or advertisement for any prescription drugs including the ones under development.

References

1 ENTYVIO (vedolizumab) Prescribing Information. Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.

2 ENTYVIO Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC). Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/entyvio-epar-product-information_en.pdf. Last updated: April 2023. Last accessed: August 2023.

3 Data on file. Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

4 Soler D, Chapman T, Yang LL, et al. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2009;330(3):864-875.

5 Briskin M, Winsor-Hines D, Shyjan A, et al. Am J Pathol. 1997;151:97110.

6 Eksteen B, Liaskou E, Adams DH. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2008;14:12981312.

7 Wyant T, Fedyk E, Abhyankar B. J Crohns Colitis. 2016;10(12):1437-1444. doi:10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjw092.

8 Baumgart DC, Carding SR. Lancet. 2007;369:1627-1640.

9 Torres J, Mehandru S, Colombel JF, Peyrin-Biroulet L. Lancet. 2017; 389(10080):1741-1755.

10 Krugliak N, Torres J, Rubin DT. Gastroenterology. 2022;162:1396-1408.

11 Ordas I, Eckmann L, Talamini M, et al. Lancet. 2012;380:1606-1619.

12 Feuerstein JD, Cheifetz AS. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92:1088-1103.

13 Sands BE. Gastroenterology. 2004;126:1518-1532.

14 Kobayashi T, Siegmund B, Le Berre C, et al. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2020;6(74).

US-VED-2011v1.0 09/23

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Media Contacts:

Japanese Media

Jun Saito

[email protected]

+81 3-3278-2325



U.S. and International Media

Amy McCarthy

[email protected]

+1 781-496-7761

Source: Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Veena Nayak joined a panel of industry leaders and innovators to discuss building data management capabilities

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- University of Phoenix is pleased to share that Veena Nayak, vice president of data strategy and solutions for the University, was a panel speaker at the CDO Magazine Summit, held September 12, 2023, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Nayak's participation at this prestigious event underscores her exceptional contributions to the field of data and advanced analytics, and her dedication to advocating for data-driven decision-making. The summit featured more than 100 industry experts speaking in 30 breakout sessions and three keynote presentations, making it a hallmark event for data thought leadership.

"I am truly honored to speak at the CDO Magazine Summit and have the opportunity to share insights and experiences from leading teams to build future state data and analytics programs, Nayak shares. This event provides an excellent opportunity to emphasize the critical role of data in shaping our future and empowering individuals and organizations to make informed decisions in pursuit of data-driven excellence."

Nayaks panel discussion, titled Crawl, Walk, Run  Building Data Management Capabilities, focused on the roles and expectations of CDOs and data leaders and how those roles continue to undergo transformation across industries. The panel discussion explored methods for proving data management value through focused initiatives that incrementally build out programs.

In addition to speaking at the event, earlier this year Nayak was named to The Global Data Power Women List 2023, joining an impressive list of 50 leaders in the field, all of whom hold expertise in domains such as data strategy, data governance, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, data ethics, and emerging technologies.

Nayaks career spans 25 plus years of leading high performing teams in developing, executing and supporting complex enterprise software. In her role as vice president of data strategy and solutions at University of Phoenix, she leads the enterprise data strategy and data products family, developing innovative solutions in data management, governance and analytics using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Nayaks expertise spans a range of areas, including data and product strategy, data management and governance, AI/machine learning, and software engineering.

Throughout her career, Nayak has been passionate about leveraging data and advanced analytics to solve complex business challenges and drive innovation. She has successfully created a business vision that links strategy and execution to build sustainable, scalable, and cohesive solutions that bring the best of data/tech to unlock business value. As a thought leader in the space, she is committed to staying at the forefront of emerging trends and technologies and leveraging learnings to create informed and intelligent solutions. Veena holds an MBA from W P Carey School of Business and dual degrees in Physics and Computer Technology from University of Mumbai.

About University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix innovates to help working adults enhance their careers and develop skills in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses, interactive learning, skills-mapped curriculum for our bachelors and masters degree programs and a Career Services for Life commitment help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. For more information, visit phoenix.edu.

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Michele Mitchum

University of Phoenix

[email protected]

Source: University of Phoenix
NEW HAVEN, Conn--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Yale Divinity School (YDS) will break ground on Wednesday, Oct. 11, on a building that is unprecedented in American higher education: a living-building residence hall that will house students in a way that gives back to the environment more than it takes.

The Living Village is designed to meet the exacting standards of the Living Building Challenge (LBC), an international certification system that promotes sustainable design and construction. The project aims to make a moral and theological statement about the need for constructing buildings that are in harmony with nature in a time of climate crisis. The facility is scheduled to open in August 2025, with additional units planned in a second phase of construction.

A key component of Yales Planetary Solutions Project, the Living Village will be a landmark in environmental design on a university campus and set an example for schools around the world, Yale President Peter Salovey said. For the next generation to have the opportunity to thrive on a healthy planet, institutions like Yale must take bold steps, of which the Living Village is one.

The project will provide much-needed affordable housing for students and provide a valuable learning experience showing students a different way of building and living, Divinity School Dean Greg Sterling said.

It has never been more obvious that the status quo is unsustainable, Sterling said. Rather than impeding a sustainable future, American religion can and must be a force for environmental responsibility and progress, as exemplified by Yale Divinity Schools Living Village project and related curricular and programmatic expansions at YDS.

Sterling called the project an expression of the Divinity Schools academic, theological, and moral vision, which in addition to the Living Village includes an accelerating shift to sustainability in curricula, teaching, and operations  all designed to educate students to become apostles of the environment.

Among the buildings unique features are:

Net positive carbon, energy, and water footprint

Construction that uses recycled and environmentally benign materials

Holistic architectural design that will connect with the schools existing quadrangle (opened in 1932) in a united living and learning environment

The Living Village is being constructed on the Divinity Schools current parking lot. In a reverse of the famous Joni Mitchell lyric, Sterling said, We are un-paving a parking lot and putting up paradise.

When it opens in 2025, the Living Village will be the largest LBC living-certified building on a university campus. Among other firsts, it will also be the first LBC living certified project in the Ivy League and the first at any college or university in Connecticut.

Bruner/Cott Architects leads the Living Village design team. Also contributing are Howeler + Yoon Architecture, Andropogon Associates, and several other firms, as well as Yales Office of Facilities.

Yale continues to lead in campus sustainability and is accelerating its climate action plans in response to the rapidly changing planet, said J. Mike Bellamy, Yales vice president for facilities, campus development, and sustainability.

We are transforming the way the university generates and uses energy across campus to achieve its climate goals of being net zero emissions by 2035 and to produce zero actual emissions by 2050, Bellamy said. Using the Living Village as a case study will help inform future projects at Yale and beyond.

Living Building Challenge founder Jason F. McLennan is a consultant to the project. The beauty and power of a project like this, McLennan said, is how it will change the students who come through the Divinity School, who will go out and teach, preach, and inspire their communities. They will not unlearn their experience living in a building like this.

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VLF Media & Promotions

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Source: Yale Divinity School
Coherent Corp. (NYSE: COHR) and Kinetic by Windstream today announced that their existing partnership to enable 400G services has been extended to enable 100G services at the edge of the network, leveraging the industrys first 100G QSFP28 0 dBm digital coherent optics (DCO) transceiver.

The rapid growth of data traffic driven by enterprise and cloud networks, including the exponential growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, is driving demand for next-generation transmission technology that enables service providers to efficiently expand the capacity of the transport network. With the new high-power 100G transceivers from Coherent, Kinetic will be able to optically connect routers directly to access, metro, and regional transport networks without additional intermediary interfaces, eliminating an entire layer of optical equipment.

The 100G QSFP28 DCO transceiver with 0 dBm output power is the industrys first, and it enables Kinetic to deploy 100 Gbps coherent transceiver technology in the access aggregation networks efficiently and sustainably, said Matthias Berger, Vice President, Coherent Technology, Coherent Corp. These benefits are achieved thanks to the transceivers unique features, including Coherents Steelerton DSP optimized for 100G, cost-efficient silicon photonics technology, high-power indium phosphide semiconductor tunable lasers, and Flextune technology.

We are pleased to expand our partnership with Coherent, which has been vital in accelerating the scale of our network in a sustainable way as we continue to deliver on our commitment to bring fiber connectivity to businesses and homes across rural America, said Jeff Austin, Chief Technology Officer at Kinetic. Coherents high transmit power 0 dBm 100G QSFP28 DCO transceivers will add to the existing 0 dBm 400G QSFP-DD DCO transceivers to enable Kinetic to deploy greatly simplified network architectures. This will further accelerate the revolution in IP-over-DWDM networks to achieve efficiency and scale across our 18-state network, affording Kinetic a highly competitive operational model.

Kinetic validated the new 100G transceiver technology through a live network trial consisting of 820 km transmission over 14 cascaded ROADM nodes. The live trial was achieved over a production link at 75% channel capacity carrying a mix of 10G, 100G, and 400G signals from multiple technology generations. The 100G transceivers operated flawlessly end-to-end over the network, exceeding optical performance requirements and validating the IEEE electrical interface standard.

Coherent will demonstrate the 100G QSFP28 0 dBm transceiver at ECOC 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 2-4, Stand #406. At the conference, Coherent will showcase the most recent additions to its broad portfolio of differentiated solutions for telecom and datacom optical networks.
Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA) today announced a collaboration with Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) focused on the discovery of RNA-based drug candidates. In the collaboration, Pfizer will leverage Ginkgo's proprietary RNA technology to advance the discovery and development of novel RNA molecules across priority research areas. Ginkgo will receive an upfront payment and is eligible to receive research fees and development and commercial milestone payments, up to an aggregate total of $331 million across three programs. Ginkgo is entitled to potential further downstream value in the form of royalties on sales.

RNA therapeutics that encode proteins with the potential to treat or cure diseases represent an exciting new approach in medicine with the possibility of far-reaching application. Ginkgo's RNA technology combines high-throughput screening of the behavior of RNA constructs with a multi-parameter design framework to identify novel natural and synthetic elements optimal for a particular application. Ginkgo will deploy these capabilities with the goal of achieving efficient production, circularization, improved stability, and enhanced translation of each RNA construct.

"RNA therapeutics are proving to be an important platform to advance the world of scientific innovation, and with progress in synthetic biology we have the potential to create new RNA treatments that may benefit patients worldwide," said Will Somers , PH.D., Head, Biomedicine Design, Pfizer. "Access to Ginkgo's proprietary platform will help enable Pfizer to search for novel and exciting RNA constructs with improved stability and expression that could lead to more effective treatments."

"Billions of patients around the world have already benefited from advances in RNA-based technologies. We're thrilled to be able to help enable the discovery and development of novel drugs using this powerful modality by applying our platform technologies, which are designed to program RNA for maximum therapeutic effect," said Jason Kelly , CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Ginkgo's approach enables and accelerates discovery across different disease areas and modalities for our partners, who bring deep expertise in drug development. We can't wait to leverage our broad and deep RNA Codebase and deploy our Foundry to enable the era of programmable medicines with the Pfizer team."

To learn more about Ginkgo's RNA Therapeutics offering, visit our webpage or email us at [email protected].

About Ginkgo Bioworks

Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty chemicals. Ginkgo's biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, is building global infrastructure for biosecurity to empower governments, communities, and public health leaders to prevent, detect and respond to a wide variety of biological threats. For more information, visit ginkgobioworks.com and concentricbyginkgo.com , read our blog , or follow us on social media channels such as X (formerly known as Twitter) (@ Ginkgo and @ ConcentricByGBW ), Instagram (@ GinkgoBioworks and @ ConcentricByGinkgo ), Threads (@ GinkgoBioworks ) or LinkedIn .

About Pfizer: Breakthroughs That Change Patients' Lives

At Pfizer, we apply science and our global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. We strive to set the standard for quality, safety and value in the discovery, development and manufacture of health care products, including innovative medicines and vaccines. Every day, Pfizer colleagues work across developed and emerging markets to advance wellness, prevention, treatments and cures that challenge the most feared diseases of our time. Consistent with our responsibility as one of the world's premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, we collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world. For more than 170 years, we have worked to make a difference for all who rely on us. We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website at www.Pfizer.com . In addition, to learn more, please visit us on www.Pfizer.com and follow us on Twitter at @Pfizer and @Pfizer News, LinkedIn, YouTube and like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Pfizer .

Forward-Looking Statements of Ginkgo Bioworks

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding the capabilities and potential success of the partnership and Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can," "project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities due to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo operates and plans to operate, variations in performance across competitors, and changes in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business, (ii) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and to identify and realize additional business opportunities, (iii) the risk of downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology, (iv) the uncertainty regarding the demand for passive monitoring programs and biosecurity services, (v) changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry demands, standards and regulations, (vi) our ability to realize the expected benefits of merger and acquisition transactions, (vii) the outcome of any legal proceedings against Ginkgo, including as a result of recent acquisitions, (viii) our ability to realize the expected benefits from and the success of our Foundry platform programs, (ix) our ability to successfully develop engineered cells, bioprocesses, data packages or other deliverables, and (x) the product development or commercialization success of our customers. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of Ginkgo's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on August 9, 2023 and other documents filed by Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.

Pfizer Disclosure Notice



The information contained in this release is as of September 27, 2023 . Pfizer assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this release as the result of new information or future events or developments.

This release contains forward-looking information about a collaboration between Pfizer and Ginkgo Bioworks focused on the discovery of RNA based drug candidates, including its potential benefits, that involves substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development; whether the collaboration between Pfizer and Ginkgo Bioworks will be successful; uncertainties regarding the impact of COVID-19; and competitive developments.

A further description of risks and uncertainties can be found in Pfizer's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 , and in its subsequent reports on Form 10-Q, including in the sections thereof captioned "Risk Factors" and "Forward-Looking Information and Factors That May Affect Future Results", as well as in its subsequent reports on Form 8-K, all of which are filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov and www.pfizer.com .

PFIZER CONTACT:

[email protected]

+1 (212) 733-1226

GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR CONTACT:

[email protected]

GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA CONTACT:

[email protected]

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SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks
IAMGOLD Corporation (NYSE: IAG) is pleased to announce that Mr. Bruno Lemelin has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Officer effective immediately.

"On behalf of the Board and the entire executive management team, I would like to express our excitement for the promotion of Bruno to the role of Chief Operating Officer," said Renaud Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Bruno's extensive experience in managing complex mining operations throughout his career, coupled with his strong leadership skills, make him the ideal candidate to lead our operational efforts. With Cote Gold on track for production early next year, this is a company that is well positioned to differentiate itself amongst its industry peers and become a leading, high-margin gold producer."

A well-respected executive leader with over 20 years of operational expertise, Mr. Lemelin joined IAMGOLD in 2014 as Mine Manager at Essakane, whereafter he served as General Manager at Essakane from 2016 to 2018 and as Regional Vice President - Americas in 2019. Mr. Lemelin was subsequently named Senior Vice President  Operations and Projects in March 2020. Before joining IAMGOLD, Mr. Lemelin developed his mining expertise with different international mining companies, including SNC-Lavalin as Vice-President, Sustainable Mining, from 2011 to 2014, and for Xstrata (now Glencore) in Sudbury, Ontario, from 2001 to 2003 and at the Raglan Mine, Nunavik, Quebec, from 2003 to 2011, as head of Mining Engineering and as Manager, Strategy, Risks and Communications.

Mr. Lemelin studied at Universite Laval and holds a master's and Doctorate in Mineral Economics, as well as bachelor degrees in Mining Engineering and Business Administration. Mr. Lemelin is a member of the Ordre des ingenieurs du Quebec and the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
Takeda (NYSE: ATAK) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a subcutaneous (SC) administration of ENTYVIO (vedolizumab) for maintenance therapy in adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) after induction therapy with ENTYVIO intravenous (IV).1 ENTYVIO SC is expected to be available in the U.S. as a single-dose pre-filled pen (ENTYVIO Pen) by the end of October. Additionally, a Biologics License Application for an investigational SC administration of ENTYVIO for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active Crohns disease is currently under review by the FDA.

With the FDA approval of subcutaneous ENTYVIO, patients and physicians who want ENTYVIOs clinical profile along with flexibility of administration now have two choices for maintenance treatment for adults with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, said Brandon Monk, senior vice president, head, U.S. Gastroenterology Business Unit, Takeda. Takeda is committed to meeting the varied medical needs, circumstances and personal preferences of people living with UC as they progress in their lifelong journey with the disease. ENTYVIO is the only FDA-approved biologic for maintenance therapy in ulcerative colitis offering the option of either intravenous or subcutaneous administration.

The approval of this new route of administration for ENTYVIO is based on the VISIBLE 1 study (SC UC Trial). VISIBLE 1 was a Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that assessed the safety and efficacy of an SC formulation of ENTYVIO as maintenance therapy in adult patients with moderately to severely active UC who achieved clinical response* at Week 6 following two doses of open-label vedolizumab intravenous therapy at Weeks 0 and 2.1 A total of 162 patients were randomized at Week 6 in a double-blind fashion (2:1) to one of the following regimens: ENTYVIO SC 108 mg or placebo by subcutaneous injection every 2 weeks. Eligible patients included patients who had demonstrated an inadequate response to, loss of response to, or intolerance to at least one 12-week regimen of azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine, induction with a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blocker, or corticosteroids. The primary endpoint was clinical remission at Week 52, which was defined as a total Mayo score of 2 and no individual subscore >1.

The VISIBLE 1 trial demonstrated that ENTYVIO SC can provide physicians with an additional administration option for achieving remission in their moderate to severe ulcerative colitis patients. Since its approval in 2014, ENTYVIO has continued to build a robust safety and efficacy profile. I appreciate now having a subcutaneous administration option that provides a clinical profile consistent with ENTYVIO IV while also giving me and my appropriate UC patients a choice of how they receive their maintenance therapy, said Bruce Sands, M.D., M.S., Chief of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Sands is a paid consultant of Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. He has not been compensated for media work.

A statistically significant proportion of patients receiving ENTYVIO SC 108 mg maintenance therapy administered every 2 weeks achieved clinical remission** compared to patients receiving placebo (46% vs. 14%; p<0.001) at Week 52.1 In clinical studies, the ENTYVIO SC safety profile was generally consistent with the known safety profile of ENTYVIO IV, with the addition of injection site reactions (including injection site erythema, rash, swelling, bruising and hematoma) as an adverse reaction for ENTYVIO SC. The most common adverse reactions reported with ENTYVIO IV (incidence 3% and 1% higher than placebo) were nasopharyngitis, headache, arthralgia, nausea, pyrexia, upper respiratory tract infection, fatigue, cough, bronchitis, influenza, back pain, rash, pruritus, sinusitis, oropharyngeal pain, and pain in extremities.

*Clinical response is defined as a reduction in complete Mayo score of 3 points and 30% from baseline with an accompanying decrease in rectal bleeding subscore of 1 point or absolute rectal bleeding subscore of 1 point.1

**Clinical remission is defined as a complete Mayo score of 2 points and no individual subscore >1 point at Week 52.1

Takeda does not expect a material impact on the full year consolidated reported forecast for the year ending March 31, 2024 (Fiscal Year 2023), as a result of this approval.
Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) today announced that Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah will join the company as Chief Financial Officer on November 13, 2023.

Mr. Mahendra-Rajah is currently Chief Financial Officer of Analog Devices (ADI). At ADI, he set financial strategy and oversaw the companys global finance organization, with responsibility for financial management, planning, controls, and reporting. Prior to joining ADI, he was Chief Financial Officer of WABCO Holdings Inc., a global supplier of commercial vehicle technologies. He previously served as Division CFO and in other financial leadership roles at Applied Materials, Visa, and United Technologies.

Mr. Mahendra-Rajah holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and an M.B.A. from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. He also serves on the board of directors of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

Prashanth is an incredibly skilled and dynamic finance executive, with decades of experience across a variety of complex industries, said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO. Im confident hell be able to help us deliver even more innovation and efficiency as we continue this next phase of profitable growth.

Im delighted to join Uber, one of the worlds most iconic technology companies, at such a promising moment in its journey, said Mr. Mahendra-Rajah. I couldnt be more excited for the road ahead.
First quarter sales of $550 million, up 23% over the prior year

Parts Supply sales up 40% over the prior year

First quarter GAAP diluted loss per share from continuing operations of $0.02, which includes pension settlement and Russian legal charges of $0.70, compared to $0.62 in Q1 FY2023

Record first quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.78, up 28% from $0.61 in Q1 FY2023

WOOD DALE, Ill., Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AAR CORP. (NYSE: AIR), a leading provider of aviation services to commercial and government operators, MROs, and OEMs, today reported first quarter fiscal year 2024 consolidated sales of $549.7 million and loss from continuing operations of $0.6 million, or $0.02 per diluted share. For the first quarter of the prior year, the Company reported sales of $446.3 million and income from continuing operations of $22.3 million, or $0.62 per diluted share.

Our adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 were $0.78, compared to $0.61 in the first quarter of the prior year. Current quarter results included net pretax adjustments of $42.5 million, or $0.80 per share, primarily due to the previously disclosed pension settlement and Russian legal charges. We strongly disagree with the Russian court judgment based on the facts of the case and believe the judgment is a result of a hostile business and legal environment in Russia. For those reasons, we believe it is highly unlikely the full judgment will ultimately be paid.

Consolidated first quarter sales increased 23.2% over the prior year quarter. Our consolidated sales to commercial customers increased 34% over the prior year quarter, primarily due to strong demand for our new and used parts offerings, while our consolidated sales to government customers increased 3%. Sales to commercial customers were 71% of consolidated sales, compared to 66% in the prior year quarter.

During the quarter, we drove meaningful growth across all our commercial activities. In particular, Parts Supply revenue grew 40% due to investments we made in prior quarters in anticipation of strong demand. Additionally, in Repair & Engineering our hangars were largely full throughout the summer and flight hours continue to recover globally which drove growth in Integrated Solutions, said John M. Holmes, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of AAR CORP.

Gross profit margin of 18.4% was consistent across the current and prior year quarters. Adjusted gross profit margin increased from 18.1% to 18.4%, primarily due to the favorable impact of our operating efficiency on increased sales volumes.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $74.7 million in the quarter, which included increased investments in the business, $2.8 million related to Trax acquisition and amortization expenses as well as $11.2 million for the Russian legal charge. As a percentage of sales, selling, general, and administrative expenses were 13.6% for the quarter, compared to 11.2% last year. Excluding the Trax acquisition and amortization expenses and the Russian legal charge, selling, general, and administrative expenses as a percent of sales decreased from 11.2% of sales to 11.0% of sales.

Operating margins were 4.6% in the current quarter, compared to 7.0% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted operating margin increased from 6.9% to 7.3%, primarily as a result of the growth in commercial sales. Sequentially, our adjusted operating margin decreased from 7.8% to 7.3%, driven by a shift in the mix of products and services sold.

During and subsequent to the quarter, we announced multiple new contract awards, including:

Two multi-year commercial agreements with Moog Inc. with one agreement covering our distribution of their products applicable to mature aircraft platforms and the other agreement establishing reciprocal component repair services

Exclusive multi-year foreign military distribution agreement with Pall Corporation for their highly engineered filtration products and solutions

Net interest expense for the quarter was $5.4 million, compared to $1.0 million last year. Average diluted share count decreased from 35.4 million in the prior year quarter to 35.1 million in the current year quarter. We did not repurchase any shares during the quarter and have $57.6 million remaining on the program. We will continue to evaluate share repurchases along with other opportunities to deploy our capital.

Cash flow used in operating activities from continuing operations was $18.5 million during the current quarter reflecting attractive inventory investments to support both USM demand and the continuing ramp-up of recently signed distribution agreements. Excluding our accounts receivable financing program, our cash flow used in operating activities from continuing operations was $19.4 million in the current quarter. As of August 31, 2023, our net debt was $236.7 million and our net leverage was 1.18x.

Holmes concluded, We are proud to have delivered another quarter of year over year sales growth and record first quarter adjusted earnings. Our commercial businesses are capitalizing on the favorable aftermarket trends and we expect that to continue in the quarters to come. We are also pleased with the progress we have made on the integration of Trax and its performance to date. We believe our pipeline of commercial and government opportunities, our strong balance sheet, and our ability to execute quickly will drive further growth across our parts and services offerings.

Conference call information

On Tuesday, September 26, 2023, at 3:45 p.m. Central time, AAR will hold a conference call to discuss the results. The conference call can be accessed by registering at https://register.vevent.com/register/BI1cfbb6b1cadd40e8b5668ba9b353d440. Once registered, participants will receive a dial-in number and a unique PIN that will allow them to access the call.

A replay of the conference call will be available for on-demand listening shortly after the completion of the call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/h98mp8ej and will remain available for approximately one year.

About AAR

AAR is a global aerospace and defense aftermarket solutions company with operations in over 20 countries. Headquartered in the Chicago area, AAR supports commercial and government customers through four operating segments: Parts Supply, Repair & Engineering, Integrated Solutions, and Expeditionary Services. Additional information can be found at aarcorp.com.

Contact: Dylan Wolin  Vice President, Strategic & Corporate Development and Treasurer | +1-630-227-2017 | [email protected]



This press release contains certain statements relating to future results, which are forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which reflect managements expectations about future conditions, including but not limited to the strength of the commercial and government aviation markets, opportunities for and the execution and success of growth investments and related business initiatives, successful integration of Trax, continuing demand for our parts and services, expected activities and benefits under commercial and distribution agreements, and challenges and uncertainties related to the outcome of the Russian litigation.

Forward-looking statements often address our expected future operating and financial performance and financial condition, or sustainability targets, goals, commitments, and other business plans, and often may also be identified because they contain words such as anticipate, believe, continue, could, estimate, expect, intend, likely, may, might, plan, potential, predict, project, seek, should, target, will, would, or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms.

These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of Company management, as well as assumptions and estimates based on information available to the Company as of the dates such assumptions and estimates are made, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated, depending on a variety of factors, including: (i) factors that adversely affect the commercial aviation industry; (ii) the impact of pandemics and other disease outbreaks, such as COVID-19, and similar public health threats on air travel, worldwide commercial activity and our and our customers ability to source parts and components; (iii) a reduction in the level of sales to the branches, agencies and departments of the U.S. government and their contractors; (iv) cost overruns and losses on fixed-price contracts; (v) nonperformance by subcontractors or suppliers; (vi) changes in or non-compliance with laws and regulations that may affect certain of our aviation and government and defense related activities that are subject to licensing, certification and other regulatory requirements imposed by the FAA, the U.S. State Department and other regulatory agencies, both domestic and foreign; (vii) a reduction in outsourcing of maintenance activity by airlines; (viii) a shortage of the skilled personnel on whom we depend to operate our business, or work stoppages; (ix) competition from other companies, including original equipment manufacturers, some of which have greater financial resources than we do; (x) financial and operational risks arising as a result of operating internationally; (xi) inability to integrate acquisitions effectively and execute our operational and financial plan related to the acquisitions; (xii) failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition of Trax USA Corp. (Trax) and difficulties integrating Traxs operations; (xiii) inability to recover our costs due to fluctuations in market values for aviation products and equipment caused by various factors, including reductions in air travel, airline bankruptcies, consolidations and fleet reductions; (xiv) asset impairment charges we may be required to recognize to reflect the non-recoverability of our assets or lowered expectations regarding businesses we have acquired; (xv) threats to our systems technology from equipment failures, cyber or other security threats or other disruptions; (xvi) a need to make significant capital expenditures to keep pace with technological developments in our industry; (xvii) a need to reduce the carrying value of our assets; (xviii) inability to fully execute our stock repurchase program and return capital to our stockholders; (xix) restrictions on paying, or failure to maintain or pay dividends; (xx) limitations on our ability to access the debt and equity capital markets or to draw down funds under loan agreements; (xxi) non-compliance with restrictive and financial covenants contained in certain of our loan agreements; (xxii) non-compliance with laws and regulations relating to the formation, administration and performance of our U.S. government contracts; (xxiii) exposure to product liability and property claims that may be in excess of our liability insurance coverage; (xxiv) impacts from stakeholder and market focus on environmental, social and governance matters; and (xxv) the costs of compliance, and liability for non-compliance, with environmental regulations, including future requirements regarding climate change and environmental, social and governance matters. Should one or more of those risks or uncertainties materialize adversely, or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described. Those events and uncertainties are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many are beyond our control.

For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, refer to our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors and our other filings from time to time with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission. These events and uncertainties are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many are beyond the Companys control. The risks described in these reports are not the only risks we face, as additional risks and uncertainties are not currently known or foreseeable or impossible to predict accurately or risks that are beyond the Companys control or deemed immaterial may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations in future periods. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.



AAR CORP. and subsidiaries

Condensed consolidated statements of operations

(In millions except per share data - unaudited)

Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Sales $ 549.7 $ 446.3 Cost and expenses: Cost of sales 448.4 364.4 Gross profit 101.3 81.9 Provision for credit losses 0.4  Selling, general and administrative 74.7 50.1 Loss from joint ventures (0.9 ) (0.6 ) Operating income 25.3 31.2 Pension settlement charge (26.7 )  Losses related to sale and exit of business (0.7 )  Interest expense, net (5.4 ) (1.0 ) Other income, net  0.2 Income (Loss) from continuing operations before income taxes (7.5 ) 30.4 Income tax expense (benefit) (6.9 ) 8.1 Income (Loss) from continuing operations (0.6 ) 22.3 Income from discontinued operations  0.4 Net income (loss) $ (0.6 ) $ 22.7 Earnings (Loss) per share  Basic: Earnings (Loss) from continuing operations $ (0.02 ) $ 0.63 Earnings from discontinued operations  0.01 Earnings (Loss) per share  Basic $ (0.02 ) $ 0.64 Earnings (Loss) per share  Diluted: Earnings (Loss) from continuing operations $ (0.02 ) $ 0.62 Earnings from discontinued operations  0.01 Earnings (Loss) per share  Diluted $ (0.02 ) $ 0.63 Share data: Weighted average shares outstanding  Basic 34.7 34.9 Weighted average shares outstanding  Diluted 35.1 35.4



AAR CORP. and subsidiaries

Condensed consolidated balance sheets

(In millions) August 31,

2023 May 31,

2023 (unaudited) ASSETS Cash and cash equivalents $ 70.3 $ 68.4 Restricted cash 19.9 13.4 Accounts receivable, net 280.6 241.3 Contract assets 99.3 86.9 Inventories, net 614.2 574.1 Rotable assets and equipment on or available for lease 51.7 50.6 Assets of discontinued operations 12.6 13.5 Other current assets 58.6 49.7 Total current assets 1,207.2 1,097.9 Property, plant, and equipment, net 131.0 126.1 Operating lease right-of-use assets, net 67.3 63.7 Goodwill and intangible assets, net 240.0 239.5 Rotable assets supporting long-term programs 176.8 178.1 Other non-current assets 132.1 127.8 Total assets $ 1,954.4 $ 1,833.1 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 381.1 $ 338.1 Liabilities of discontinued operations 12.4 13.4 Total current liabilities 393.5 351.5 Long-term debt 304.8 269.7 Operating lease liabilities 51.5 48.2 Other liabilities 82.7 64.6 Total liabilities 832.5 734.0 Equity 1,121.9 1,099.1 Total liabilities and equity $ 1,954.4 $ 1,833.1



AAR CORP. and subsidiaries

Condensed consolidated statements of cash flows

(In millions  unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Cash flows provided by (used in) operating activities: Net income (loss) $ (0.6 ) $ 22.7 Income from discontinued operations  (0.4 ) Income (loss) from continuing operations (0.6 ) 22.3 Adjustments to reconcile income (loss) from continuing operations to net cash provided

by (used in) operating activities Depreciation and amortization 8.4 6.8 Stock-based compensation expense 4.3 4.1 Pension settlement charge 26.7  Changes in certain assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable (40.5 ) (7.7 ) Contract assets (12.3 ) (14.2 ) Inventories (39.8 ) (26.0 ) Prepaid expenses and other current assets (8.8 ) 6.6 Rotable assets supporting long-term programs (1.0 ) (3.1 ) Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 54.2 11.2 Deferred revenue on long-term programs (4.3 ) 6.5 Other (4.8 ) 0.5 Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities  continuing operations (18.5 ) 7.0 Net cash used in operating activities  discontinued operations (0.2 ) (0.2 ) Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities (18.7 ) 6.8 Cash flows used in investing activities: Property, plant, and equipment expenditures (9.1 ) (6.7 ) Other (2.5 ) (4.0 ) Net cash used in investing activities (11.6 ) (10.7 ) Cash flows provided by (used in) financing activities: Short-term borrowings (repayments) on Revolving Credit Facility, net 35.0 15.0 Purchase of treasury stock  (21.9 ) Other 3.7 0.4 Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 38.7 (6.5 ) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash  (0.1 ) Increase (Decrease) in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash 8.4 (10.5 ) Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at beginning of period 81.8 58.9 Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at end of period $ 90.2 $ 48.4



AAR CORP. and subsidiaries

Third-party sales by operating segment

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023

2022 Parts supply $ 236.8 $ 168.6 Repair & engineering 137.5 127.6 Integrated solutions 156.3 127.8 Expeditionary services 19.1 22.3 $ 549.7 $ 446.3





Operating income by operating segment

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Parts supply $ 15.1 $ 18.3 Repair & engineering 9.1 7.4 Integrated solutions 7.7 8.3 Expeditionary services 1.3 2.3 33.2

36.3 Corporate and other (7.9 ) (5.1 ) $ 25.3 $ 31.2

Adjusted income from continuing operations, adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations, adjusted sales, adjusted cost of sales, adjusted gross profit margin, adjusted operating margin, adjusted cash provided by (used in) operating activities from continuing operations, adjusted EBITDA, net debt, and net debt to adjusted EBITDA (net leverage) are non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act). We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are relevant and useful for investors as they illustrate our core operating performance, cash flows and leverage unaffected by the impact of certain items that management does not believe are indicative of our ongoing and core operating activities. When reviewed in conjunction with our GAAP results and the accompanying reconciliations, we believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide additional information that is useful to gain an understanding of the factors and trends affecting our business and provide a means by which to compare our operating performance and leverage against that of other companies in the industries we compete. These non-GAAP measures should be considered as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for, or superior to, the corresponding measures calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Our non-GAAP financial measures reflect adjustments for certain items including, but not limited to, the following:

Investigation and remediation compliance costs comprised of legal and professional fees related to addressing potential violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which we self-reported to the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies.

Contract termination/restructuring costs comprised of gains and losses that are recognized at the time of modifying, terminating, or restructuring certain customer and vendor contracts, including adjustments for forward loss provisions on long-term contracts.

Customer bankruptcy and credit charges (recoveries) reflecting the impact of bankruptcies and other credit charges primarily resulting from the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the commercial aviation industry.

Costs related to strategic projects consisting of professional fees for significant projects related to strategic financings and acquisitions, including due diligence costs.

Losses related to the sale and exit from our Composites manufacturing business including legal fees for the performance guarantee associated with the Composites A220 aircraft contract.

Expenses associated with our Trax acquisition including professional fees for legal, due diligence, and other acquisition activities, intangible asset amortization, and compensation expense related to contingent consideration and retention agreements.

Pension settlement charges associated with the planned termination of our frozen defined benefit pension plan.

Legal judgments related to or impacted by the Russian/Ukraine conflict.

Adjusted EBITDA is income from continuing operations before interest income (expense), other income (expense), income taxes, depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation, and items of an unusual nature including but not limited to business divestitures and acquisitions, workforce actions, subsidies and costs, impairment and exit charges, facility consolidation and repositioning costs, investigation and remediation compliance costs, purchase accounting and legal settlements, strategic project costs, equity investment gains and losses, pension settlement charges, legal judgements, Trax acquisition and amortization expenses, and significant customer events such as early terminations, contract restructurings, forward loss provisions and bankruptcies.

Pursuant to the requirements of Regulation G of the Exchange Act, we are providing the following tables that reconcile the above-mentioned non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures:

Adjusted income from continuing operations

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Income (Loss) from continuing operations $ (0.6 ) $ 22.3 Investigation and remediation compliance costs 1.1 0.8 Pension settlement charge 26.7  Russian bankruptcy court judgment 11.2 

Losses related to sale and exit of business 0.7 

Trax acquisition and amortization expenses 2.8  Government COVID-related subsidies  (0.7 ) Contract termination/restructuring costs, net  (0.3 ) Costs related to strategic projects  (0.2 ) Severance charges  0.1 Tax effect on adjustments(a) (14.6 ) 0.1

Adjusted income from continuing operations $ 27.3 $ 22.1

(a) Calculation uses estimated statutory tax rates on non-GAAP adjustments except for the tax effect of the pension settlement charge which includes income taxes previously recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss.





Adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations

(unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Diluted earnings (loss) per share from continuing operations $ (0.02 ) $ 0.62 Investigation and remediation compliance costs 0.03 0.02 Pension settlement charge

0.76 

Russian bankruptcy court judgment 0.32

 Losses related to sale and exit of business 0.02 

Trax acquisition and amortization expenses 0.08  Government COVID-related subsidies  (0.02 ) Contract termination/restructuring costs, net  (0.01 ) Tax effect on adjustments(a)

(0.41 ) 

Adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations $ 0.78 $ 0.61

(a) Calculation uses estimated statutory tax rates on non-GAAP adjustments except for the tax effect of the pension settlement charge which includes income taxes previously recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss.





Adjusted gross profit margin

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31,

2023 May 31,

2023 August 31,

2022 Sales $ 549.7 $ 553.3 $ 446.3 Contract termination/restructuring costs, net   0.1 Adjusted sales $ 549.7 $ 553.3 $ 446.4 Cost of sales $ 448.4 $ 445.2 $ 364.4 Contract termination/restructuring costs, net  

0.4 Government COVID-related subsidies   0.7 Adjusted cost of sales $ 448.4 $ 445.2 $ 365.5 Adjusted gross profit margin 18.4 % 19.5 % 18.1 %





Adjusted operating margin

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31,

2023 May 31,

2023 August 31,

2022 Adjusted sales $ 549.7 $ 553.3 $ 446.4 Operating income $ 25.3 $ 36.3 $ 31.2 Russian bankruptcy court judgment 11.2  

Investigation and remediation costs 1.1 1.6 0.8 Trax acquisition and amortization expenses 2.8 5.1

 Government COVID-related subsidies  

(0.7 ) Contract termination/restructuring costs, net  

(0.3 ) Costs related to strategic projects   (0.2 ) Severance charges  

0.1 Adjusted operating income $ 40.4 $ 43.0 $ 30.9 Adjusted operating margin 7.3 % 7.8 % 6.9 %





Adjusted cash provided by (used in) operating activities from continuing operations

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, 2023 2022 Cash provided by (used in) operating activities from continuing operations $ (18.5 ) $ 7.0 Amounts outstanding on accounts receivable financing program: Beginning of period 12.8 15.0 End of period (13.7 ) (14.9 ) Adjusted cash provided by (used in) operating activities from continuing operations

$ (19.4 ) $ 7.1





Adjusted EBITDA

(In millions - unaudited) Three months ended

August 31, Year ended

May 31, 2023 2022 2023 Net income (loss) $ (0.6 ) $ 22.7 $ 90.2 Income from discontinued operations  (0.4 ) (0.4 ) Income tax expense (benefit) (6.9 ) 8.1 31.4 Other expense (income), net 

(0.2 ) 0.8 Interest expense, net 5.4 1.0 11.2 Depreciation and amortization 8.4 6.8 27.9 Investigation and remediation compliance costs 1.1 0.8 4.7 Pension settlement charge 26.7 

 Russian bankruptcy court judgment 11.2



1.8

Losses related to sale and exit of business 0.7 

0.7 Trax acquisition-related expenses 1.8



6.2

Government COVID-related subsidies, net  (0.7 ) (1.6 ) Customer bankruptcy and credit charges   1.5 Contract termination/restructuring costs and loss provisions, net  (0.3 ) 2.0 Costs related to strategic projects  (0.2 ) (0.2 ) Severance charges  0.1 0.1 Stock-based compensation 4.3 4.1 13.5 Adjusted EBITDA $ 52.1 $ 41.8 $ 189.8





Net debt

(In millions - unaudited) August 31,

2023 August 31,

2022 Total debt $ 307.0 $ 115.0 Less: Cash and cash equivalents (70.3 ) (44.3 ) Net debt $ 236.7 $ 70.7





Net debt to adjusted EBITDA

(In millions - unaudited) Adjusted EBITDA for the year ended May 31, 2023 $ 189.8 Less: Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended August 31, 2022 (41.8 ) Plus: Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended August 31, 2023 52.1 Adjusted EBITDA for the twelve months ended August 31, 2023 $ 200.1 Net debt at August 31, 2023 $ 236.7 Net debt to Adjusted EBITDA

1.18




New York, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The news of the arrest by Azerbaijani authorities of prominent Armenian philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, who repatriated to Nagorno-Karabakh after the war in 2020 and briefly served as its state minister, should come as a loud and ominous warning bell to the international community that Azerbaijan is serious about its intentions to wage a retribution campaign on any and all Armenians who have ever participated in the peaceful governance and defense of Nagorno-Karabakh. This high-profile aggression is but one example of countless detentions and crimes against humanity on the ground perpetrated by Azerbaijan."This showcase arrest sends a clear message that Azerbaijan is following the same genocidal playbook as its Turkish partner in crime. In effect, nothing has changed since 1915 and we are back to ground zero for the first genocide of the 20th century. International players must take a stand to ensure that all citizens who are forced out of their ancestral homeland leave with dignity, stated AGBU President Berge Setrakian upon hearing the alarming news of Vardanyan's arrest. AGBU calls upon every member of the United Nations Security Council, all heads of state and foreign ministries of the free world to stand up in resounding solidarity to act without delay. The world is watching to see if the levers of the international order are functioning to stop Azerbaijan in its tracks. Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh must be allowed unimpeded exit from the area. For world powers to demand anything less would be an act of complicity with Azerbaijan to destroy multiple generations of Armenians in a matter of days. Actions speak louder than words. All practical pressures must be applied now for the immediate release of Ruben Vardanyan and all detainees. The time is now for those nations that promote human rights and peace to intervene on behalf of thousands of Armenians whose lives are in imminent danger. The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) is the worlds largest non-profit organization devoted to upholding the Armenian heritage through educational, cultural and humanitarian programs. Each year, AGBU is committed to making a difference in the lives of 500,000 people across Armenia, Artsakh and the Armenian diaspora. Since 1906, AGBU has remained true to one overarching goal: to create a foundation for the prosperity of all Armenians. To learn more visit www.agbu.org.

Armenian General Benevolent Union 516-457-5187 [email protected]

Source: Armenian General Benevolent Union
The second report of the presidential commission investigating the Ayotzinapa case in Mexico has ignored the main request of the families of the 43 victims: access to dozens of military intelligence documents which, they claim, would contain information about the attack. The Ayotzinapa case refers to the brutal attack against a group of rural students in Iguala in the State of Guerrero, on September 26 and 27, 2014, and the disappearance of 43 of them. The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights dispatched to Mexico, has investigated the case, along with a special unit of the Attorney Generals Office, and the presidential commission, headed by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Alejandro Encinas.

The GIEI previously indicated that the Mexican Army spied on the communications of Guerreros Unidos, the criminal group that attacked the students almost a decade ago. It also asserts that crucial information about the fate of the 43 students appears in those exchanges uncovered by the military.

On Wednesday, Encinas officially presented the second report on the commissions findings. The document, to which EL PAIS has had access, does not include any mention of those exchanges. It does, however, suggest nine areas near Iguala as possible places where the victims were buried.

The 133-page report also references in a veiled manner the content of the screenshots that appeared in the first report, which was presented in August last year. The screenshots  which were dismissed by the GIEI as unverifiable  contained messages allegedly exchanged between alleged members of Guerros Unidos, their family members and their network of allies in government institutions.

The second report from the commission was released just hours after the Mexican government shared a similar  but much shorter  document called: Ayotzinapa. Narrative of the Facts According to the Investigation.

Sources close to Encinda said the document, which was posted on the Interior Ministrys website, is part of the second report from the presidential commission. But while the two texts look similar, there are notable differences. For example, the document on the Interior Ministrys website does not include the logos or the name of the commission.

The confusion caused by the near-simultaneous release of the two documents is reminiscent of what happened when the first report was published. After it was presented in August 2022, the Mexican government tried to address criticism that the investigation had made no new findings. It held a second presentation days later and qualified some of the data included in the report. Encinas said that an Army general had ordered six of the 43 student-teachers to be killed days after the attack. The problem was that this information came from the unverifiable chats in the report, which were later dismissed.

Just like last year, the chaos has been going on for days. Last week, Encinas presented the second report to the families of the 43 in a private meeting. At the time, the families accepted the contents of the document. A person who was at the presentation told EL PAIS: It is a more professional work that gives a good account of the whole process, including the facts and the issue of historical truth. Encinas barely mentioned the unverifiable screenshots.

But since the presentation last Tuesday, everything has changed. The families and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met on Wednesday at the National Palace. The meeting was tense. The families insisted that the government hand over military intelligence documents, claiming that they include conversations from the criminal network in Iguala that took place on September 26, 2014, when the fate of at least 17 student-teachers was decided.

The families, who are aware of the GIEIs investigations, argue that the existence of these military intelligence documents suggests that there could be many more, hundreds in fact. The GIEI claims that these unknown documents could include new intercepted conversations and therefore more information on the attack and what happened to the students. Last Wednesday, they asked the government to hand over dozens of military documents created between April and October 2014. But the president looked the other way, and repeated the same argument made by the Army: these documents do not exist.

The dispute was to be resolved on Monday. Lopez Obrador summoned the families again to the National Palace, while he bought time to prepare his next step. It was believed that he would make a last-ditched attempt to call on the Secretary of Defense to find the documents. But this did not happen. Nor did he meet with the families. In his absence, Encinas and other Cabinet members sat down with them and read them a report, according to one person present at the meeting. That report was Ayotzinapa. Narrative of the Facts According to the Investigation, the same one posted by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday.

This new narrative  seemingly whipped up between last Tuesday and Monday  has enraged the families of the Ayotzinapa victims. Vidulfo Rosales, the lawyer representing the families, criticized the new version of events when he left the National Palace on Monday. Encinas said that the students had been infiltrated, that there was a dispute between organized crime groups, reducing the responsibility to organized crime, leaving out the role of Army and the authorities, he said.

Rosales also pointed out that the document gave much more importance to the chat screenshots, even though they had been dismissed as unverified. The report on the Interior Ministry website makes clear references to these conversations, including an exchange in which the wife of an alleged Guerreros Unidos member known as El Chino talks to the daughter of the mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca. The daughter says that her father is very angry and has ordered that the merchandise be recovered and those involved punished. The merchandise likely refers to drug shipments sent by Guerreros Unidos shipments to the north. Abarca  who has been linked to the criminal group since the start of the probe  would have ordered the attack, according to the unverified message.

The differences do not end there. In addition to being 100 pages shorter than the official report, the Interior Ministry document makes constant accusations against Gildardo Lopez Astudillo, alias El Gil, one of the leaders of Guerreros Unidos at the time. This is particularly true of the section of the document that discusses the moment when the criminal group disappeared the students. El Gil, who became a protected witness for the Attorney Generals Office (FGR) in 2019, has accused the military of being involved in the attack against the students. He even went so far as to say that Army members took one group to a barracks in Iguala before handing them back to Guerreros Unidos.

Places

Over 10 pages, the second report discusses the possible places where the 43 students were taken. According to the text, its certain that the victims were divided into at least three groups.

Some of the students were taken by the criminals and Iguala and Cocula police to a northwest area of Iguala, the site of the attack. This took place after they went through a police facility, known in the area as barandilla. Not much more is known about the other victims.

But beyond that, everything is pure hypotheses. The second report includes testimonies from protected witnesses, police offices, alleged criminals and statements obtained by the former team sent by the National Human Rights Commission.

This evidence points to several possible places. One testimony argues that the victims were taken to a colony on the outskirts of Iguala, known as Pueblo Viejo. Another that they were brought to Loma de Coyotes, a place a little south of Pueblo Viejo.

Another spot mentioned is Huitzuco and the road leading to that municipality. In recent years, investigators have found links between Huitzuco police with the Guerreros Unidos. Officers from that municipality reportedly took a group of students from the other scene of the attack, the Palace of Justice in Iguala.

The report also talks about Los Tilos Ranch, a Guerreros Unidos cells with a strong presence in Iguala and Huitzuco. The ranch in question operated on the northern exit of Iguala. According to testimonies compiled by the commission, this cell used acid to dissolve the bodies of their victims.

Also listed is La Carniceria ravine, a spot in Cocula, south of Iguala, where, in 2020 and 2021, investigators found the remains of two of the 43 missing students: Jhosivani Guerrero and Christian Rodriguez. The commission does not explain how their remains could have got there. None of the hypotheses link the ravine with other sites listed.

As it did in its first report, the commission discards the hypothesis that the students were burned in a garbage dump in Cocula, the main theory of the Enrique Pena Nieto administration (2012-2018), which investigators now consider to be a cover-up.

Chat screenshots

Both the second report from the commission and the document on the Interior Ministry website make reference to the unverified chat screenshots that had been dismissed from the first report.

The second report says that it asked Meta if the screenshots were compatible with the WhatAapp design available in Mexico between September 2014 and September 2015, for the Android operating system. The company replied, It is not impossible, through screenshots any other way, to validate the existence or not of communications.

Despite this, the report continues: That is, it is not possible to ensure that the screenshot messages are true or false. While this means they cannot be prosecuted, by cross-checking and validating them with information from different sources, we were able to open new lines of investigation.

The document adds that in November 2022, the commission delivered to the Prosecutors Office a detailed analysis of the contents, characters and locations of the messages, including 154 relevant events that were supported by other evidence. The goal was to see whether they could be verified or not. In 99 of these instances, there is at least one mention of them in police files and other sources consulted.

In other words, although the report does not directly mention the contents of the screenshot conversation, it includes them indirectly. For example, on page 28, it speaks about an alleged conversation between Army Captain Jose Martinez Crespo, who is accused of the forced disappearance of the 43 victims and a member of Guerreros Unidos. In this exchange, they say that they had revised the trucks thoroughly and not discovered anyone. The message would be alluding to the police facility know as barandillas, which did receive a visit from Crespo that night. The problem is the message cannot be verified.

The report also mentions an alleged exchange between El Chinos wife and her cousin, in November 2014, in which they talk about the Guerreros Unidos cleanup operation, which, apparently, was trying to erase all traces of the attack against the students. In the conversation, its said that an engineer had been kidnapped to dig up and move the bodies.

Once again, while the exchange may have taken place, it cant be verified. In its new report, the commission incorporates these messages when they confirm some part of the account of what happened, which is pointed out in other evidence. However, far from underpinning known versions, these messages  which have been obtained in recent years  could be used to try to tilt the investigation in one way or another. In this way, they could control the outcome of the investigation.

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Detroit, Michigan, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions, Inc., (the Company) ( OTCPK:AITX ), a global leader in AI-driven security and productivity solutions for enterprise clients along with its wholly owned subsidiary, Robotic Assistance Devices, Inc. (RAD), today announced the imminent completion of the deployment of 12 RIO 360 solar-powered security towers at a leading auto manufacturer headquartered near Detroit, Michigan.



The client is a Fortune 50 ranked global leader in automobile manufacturing with operations in over 100 countries around the world. The majority of these deployments were facilitated through one of RADs largest authorized dealers.

This remarkable client reached out to us in July of this year, inquiring about RIO as a security option at many of their manufacturing facilities, said Troy McCanna, Chief Security Officer at RAD. We were hosting Police Day on July 13th, and fortunately had a few RIOs at the REX. The client sent several from their security department to meet with us. As expected, they were impressed, and just a few months later weve got 12 devices deployed.

McCanna added that the clients deployment of RIO units has the capacity of exceeding 40 units.

This is such a great deployment for the Company, said Mark Folmer, CPP, PSP, FSyI, President of RAD. The client and the dealer thats supporting them are 2 of the biggest household names. The fact that theyve already deployed 12 RIO 360s marks a significant uptick in recurring monthly revenue (RMR) for the Company. This is validation of years of effort in driving the Company to this point and gives us a significant foothold in the local auto industry.

The positive word on RIO seems to be spreading, added McCanna. Just this Monday another auto manufacturer reached out to us for solutions that are available for rapid delivery and deployment.

Our funding efforts to date are allowing us to procure materials and parts as needed to satisfy this increased demand, added Steve Reinharz, CEO of AITX and RAD. We can now build and deploy RAD solutions faster than ever. This allows us to rapidly grow revenue as we work towards the objective of becoming cash flow positive.

RIO 360 is a versatile solar-powered security tower configured with dual ROSA devices. RIO 360 offers the marketplace two valuable benefits. The first is the unmatched performance of the dual ROSA devices that sit atop the units mast. There is no device in the market that can perform ROSAs extensive list of autonomous detection and responsive actions. ROSA is RADs best-selling and a multiple award-winning device. The second critical differentiator is RIOs value pricing. RIOs pricing competes favorably against other solar tower manufacturers. RIO 180 utilizes much of the same hardware and software platform as RIO 360, but ships with a single ROSA device and fewer solar panels.

RMR is money earned from customers who pay for a subscription to a service or product. RADs solutions are generally offered as a recurring monthly subscription, typically with a minimum 12-month subscription contract.

As stated, sitting atop a standard RIO 360 configuration are dual ROSA units. ROSA is a multiple award-winning, compact, self-contained, portable, security and communication solution that can be installed and activated in about 15 minutes. ROSAs AI-driven security analytics include human, firearm, vehicle detection, license plate recognition, responsive digital signage and audio messaging, and complete integration with RADs software suite notification and autonomous response library. Two-way communication is optimized for cellular, including live video from ROSAs high-resolution, full-color, always-on cameras. RAD has published four Case Studies detailing how ROSA has helped eliminate instances of theft, trespassing and loitering at multi-family communities, car rental locations and construction sites across the country.

AITX, through its subsidiary, Robotic Assistance Devices , Inc. (RAD), is redefining the $25 billion (US) security and guarding services industry through its broad lineup of innovative, AI-driven Solutions-as-a-Service business model. RAD solutions are specifically designed to provide cost savings to businesses of between 35%-80% when compared to the industrys existing and costly manned security guarding and monitoring model. RAD delivers these tremendous cost savings via a suite of stationary and mobile robotic solutions that complement, and at times, directly replace the need for human personnel in environments better suited for machines. All RAD technologies, AI-based analytics and software platforms are developed in-house.

RAD has a prospective sales pipeline of over 35 Fortune 500 companies and numerous other client opportunities. RAD expects to continue to attract new business as it converts its existing sales opportunities into deployed clients generating a recurring revenue stream. Each Fortune 500 client has the potential of making numerous reorders over time.

About Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions (AITX)

AITX is an innovator in the delivery of artificial intelligence-based solutions that empower organizations to gain new insight, solve complex challenges and fuel new business ideas. Through its next-generation robotic product offerings, AITXs RAD, RAD-M and RAD-G companies help organizations streamline operations, increase ROI, and strengthen business. AITX technology improves the simplicity and economics of patrolling and guard services and allows experienced personnel to focus on more strategic tasks. Customers augment the capabilities of existing staff and gain higher levels of situational awareness, all at drastically reduced cost. AITX solutions are well suited for use in multiple industries such as enterprises, government, transportation, critical infrastructure, education, and healthcare. To learn more, visit www.aitx.ai , www.radsecurity.com , www.stevereinharz.com , www.radgroup.ai , www.raddog.ai , and www.radlightmyway.com , or follow Steve Reinharz on Twitter @SteveReinharz .

CAUTIONARY DISCLOSURE ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

The information contained in this publication does not constitute an offer to sell or solicit an offer to buy securities of Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions, Inc. (the Company). This publication contains forward-looking statements, which are not guarantees of future performance and may involve subjective judgment and analysis. As such, there are no assurances that the Company will meet its expectations with respect to its future sales volume or becoming cash flow positive. The information provided herein is believed to be accurate and reliable, however the Company makes no representations or warranties, expressed or implied, as to its accuracy or completeness. The Company has no obligation to provide the recipient with additional updated information. No information in this publication should be interpreted as any indication whatsoever of the Companys future revenues, results of operations, or stock price.

###
OTTAWA, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Calian Group Ltd. (TSX: CGY), a diverse solutions company, providing innovative healthcare, communications, learning and cybersecurity products and services, has won two contracts with Shared Services Canada (SSC) with a total estimated cost of $17.57 millionwith options for a potential value up to $43.75 million.

SSC delivers modern, secure and reliable IT and digital services to Government of Canada organizations who provide services to Canadians. Under the scope of each contract, SSC has engaged Calian to source talent for five critical categories of Informatics professional services.

We are excited to assist SSC in their mission to deliver crucial support to the federal organizations that serve Canadians every day, says Kevin Ford, Calian CEO. Our expertise in this area will ensure that SSC receives the right talent, at the right time, to drive these important initiatives across their organization.

Calian will support critical branches of SSC, including Networks and Security Services (NSS) and Digital Services (DS). Efforts will also assist in the establishment of the next generation of Government of Canada Secret Infrastructure (GCSI)an SSC managed service security solution. Calian will help to expand the capabilities of GCSI and support new and ongoing projects and systems with a high degree of complexity and spanning many disciplines.

These contracts demonstrate the value that Calian continues to bring to the Government of Canada, adds Greg Beauchamp, VP Operations IT and Cyber Solutions. SSC is the architect and provider of many common IT and Enterprise solutions, and were excited to support them with our industry-leading experience and expertise.

Calian is committed to using industry-leading best practices to assist SSC as they move forward in better serving Government of Canada institutions and Canadians.

Learn more about Calian IT and Cyber Solutions.

About Calian

We keep the world moving forward. Calian helps people communicate, innovate, learn, and lead safe and healthy lives. Every day, our employees live our values of customer commitment, integrity, innovation, and teamwork to engineer reliable solutions that solve complex problems. Thats Confidence. Engineered. A global company with more than 40 years of steady growth, we have offices and projects spanning North American, European, and international markets.

Visit calian.com to learn about innovative healthcare, communications, learning and cybersecurity solutions.

Media inquiries:[email protected]613-599-8600 x 2298

Investor Relations inquiries:[email protected]

DISCLAIMER

Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Such statements are generally accompanied by words such as intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect or similar statements. Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the impact of price competition; scarce number of qualified professionals; the impact of rapid technological and market change; loss of business or credit risk with major customers; technical risks on fixed price projects; general industry and market conditions and growth rates; international growth and global economic conditions, and including currency exchange rate fluctuations; and the impact of consolidations in the business services industry. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, please see the Companys most recent annual report and other reports filed by Calian with the Ontario Securities Commission. Calian disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. No assurance can be given that actual results, performance or achievement expressed in, or implied by, forward-looking statements within this disclosure will occur, or if they do, that any benefits may be derived from them.

Calian  Head Office  770 Palladium Drive  Ottawa  Ontario  Canada  K2V 1C8Tel: 613.599.8600  Fax: 613-592-3664  General info email: [email protected]

Source: Calian Group Ltd.
Canadas national nuclear laboratories launches new intake for collaborative research program designed to spur the development and deployment of advanced reactors in Canada

CHALK RIVER, Ontario, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is pleased to announce that it has issued a call for proposals for the next round of its collaborative research program, the Canadian Nuclear Research Initiative (CNRI). Designed to accelerate the development and deployment of small modular reactor (SMRs) and advanced reactor designs, including next-generation on-grid reactors and fusion technologies, the highly successful program has facilitated ambitious research projects with vendors all around the world since it was launched in 2019.



CNRI allows participants to optimize resources, share technical knowledge and gain access to CNLs expertise and the unique capabilities of Atomic Energy of Canada Limiteds (AECL) Chalk River Laboratories to advance the deployment of SMR and advanced reactor technologies in Canada. This year, CNL will accept project proposals that fall within focus areas which include advanced nuclear fuels, advanced materials and chemistry, reactor safety and application of nuclear capabilities to emerging technologies. The deadline for this intake is December 15, 2023, and projects will be selected in the spring of 2023.

CNRI has been one of CNLs most successful programs these past five years, drawing interest from reactor vendors all over the world, and advancing much-needed research into next-generation nuclear technologies, commented Dr. Jeff Griffin, CNLs Vice-President of Science & Technology. In addition to accelerating reactor development through a cost-shared model, the program enables CNL to develop its own in-house capabilities at a time when renewed interest in nuclear power continues to grow in Canada. It also positions CNL to serve as a national hub for reactor development, and I have no doubt that this intake will prove just as successful as previous years.

Since the CNRI program was launched, CNL has received applications from many of the worlds leading reactor vendors, and has gone on to participate in collaborative research projects with companies that include General Fusion, Terrestrial Energy, ARC Clean Energy, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, and Moltex. These projects have enabled CNL to use it unique capabilities to fulfill the growing needs of the Canadian nuclear industry, while continuing to advance its own capabilities in a number of key areas, including advanced fuels, nuclear safeguards, and tritium management.

AECL, a Crown corporation with its vision to realize benefits to Canadians by driving nuclear innovation in Canada, supports the CNRI program as part of its efforts to foster collaboration and advance the development and deployment of clean energy solutions to help the Government of Canada in the fight against climate change.

The launch of the next CNRI intake comes as governments across Canada have announced numerous new nuclear energy projects and related funding commitments, demonstrating growing interest in nuclear power in provinces that include Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick. While CNL anticipates interest from the Canadian and international nuclear industry, it also believes that the CNRI program could also benefit public sector organizations who are evaluating the viability of new nuclear energy systems within a particular region, or who may be interested in broader energy assessments to understand how nuclear could fit in their jurisdiction.

There is obviously a lot of testing that must be completed before we can bring these reactors online, but there is also an opportunity to better evaluate the economics of these technologies and how they can work in tandem with other clean energy solutions, commented Denys Elliot, Director of Business Development at CNL. And thats really what the CNRI program is all about  helping to create the necessary conditions to enable a new era of clean, nuclear energy here in Canada, in order to fight climate change and help Canada achieve net-zero emissions.

To learn more about CNL and its advanced reactor program, please visit www.cnl.ca/smr. For more information on the CNRI program, including application details, please visit www.cnl.ca/cnri.

About CNL

As Canadas premier nuclear science and technology laboratory, and working under the direction of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), CNL is a world leader in the development of innovative nuclear science and technology products and services. Guided by an ambitious corporate strategy known as Vision 2030, CNL fulfills three strategic priorities of national importance  restoring and protecting the environment, advancing clean energy technologies, and contributing to the health of Canadians.

By leveraging the assets owned by AECL, CNL also serves as the nexus between government, the nuclear industry, the broader private sector and the academic community. CNL works in collaboration with these sectors to advance innovative Canadian products and services towards real-world use, including carbon-free energy, cancer treatments and other therapies, non-proliferation technologies and waste management solutions.

To learn more about CNL, please visit www.cnl.ca.

About AECL

AECL drives nuclear innovation to deliver clean energy technologies and improve the quality of life of Canadians while caring for the land.

As a federal Crown corporation, AECLs mandate is to enable nuclear science and technology, derive optimal value for Canada from AECLs CANDU intellectual property and to protect the environment by fulfilling the Government of Canadas radioactive waste and decommissioning responsibilities.

AECL delivers its mandate through a Government-owned, Contractor-operated model, whereby a private-sector organization, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, is responsible for managing and operating AECLs sites.

Under the Government-owned, Contractor-operated model, AECL owns the sites, facilities, assets, intellectual property and responsibility for nuclear science and technology, environmental remediation and radioactive waste management. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is responsible for the day-to-day management and operations of the sites.

To learn more about AECL, please visit www.aecl.ca.

CNL Contact:

Philip Kompass

Director, Corporate Communications

1-866-886-2325

[email protected]

AECL Contact

Director of Communications and Government Reporting

Jeremy Latta

Phone: 343-303-5448

Email: [email protected]

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/83aefb0c-dd47-4f70-8a6b-a035693c180a
BOISE, Idaho, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Correlate Energy Corp. (OTCQB: CIPI) (Correlate or the Company), a growth-oriented distributed energy company, is excited to announce a significant microgrid project outside of the Los Angeles metro area. The project will be developed for a customer representing one of California's largest privately-owned oil and gas corporations with an immense energy demand. The clients operation has a 100MW load spread across multiple locations that seek to reach net zero. This is equivalent to the electricity consumption of approximately 75,000 households.

Upon successfully completing underwriting and final permitting, Correlate Energy is forecasted to deploy up to 40MW of solar and storage capacity across twenty sites with an initial phase projected to exceed $23 million. In addition to lower energy costs, the on-site microgrids will lower emissions for the customer's oil and gas operations, which helps them comply with the California AB 32 Cap and Trade requirements. The client can also benefit from added low-carbon fuel standard credits (LCFS) for the associated projects. The microgrids will provide the client with significantly cheaper, fixed-priced power while bolstering resilience to grid outages. Correlate Energys targeted entry into the oil & gas segment serves as a blueprint for collaboration with other companies in California and beyond, demonstrating the potential for industries to work together for both an environmental impact and a defined economic opportunity.

"This Microgrid portfolio is a long-awaited milestone that we expect to be the first of many for our company. Having built up our team over the past year to fulfill such a project, we are extremely pleased to be in a position to complete our first Microgrid project and achieve this stated 2023 goal, which we communicated to our shareholders and financiers, said Todd Michaels, the CEO of Correlate Energy. "This project not only marks our material entry into the oil and gas sector but also doubles our largest contract size to date. We look forward to delivering our unique expertise and integrated technology solution to support our customers' diverse needs while helping them meet their business and compliance goals."

To share recent exciting developments with our shareholders, Correlate Energy will be hosting a live investor summit webcast. Our executives, including our CEO Todd Michaels, will discuss the company's growth strategy and recent achievements during this live event. Notably, Bill Shevlin, a distinguished figure in the industry and a recent addition to Correlate Energys team, will also be a featured speaker. The investor summit webcast is scheduled for Oct 5th, 2023, at 2 p.m. EDT. Click here to register for the live webinar event.

About Correlate Energy Corp.

Correlate Energy Corp. (OTCQB: CIPI) is a publicly traded company strategically positioned to capitalize on Americas unstoppable trend toward decentralized energy generation. The company employs a three-pronged strategy to create stockholder value from this multi-trillion-dollar trend. First, Correlate seeks to finance, develop, and profitably sell localized clean energy solutions and microgrids to industrial, commercial, and residential customers. Secondly, Correlate plans to retain ownership of some of these energy systems and thereby realize ongoing, reliable cash flow. Third, Correlate seeks to acquire proven renewable energy companies in order to exponentially grow earnings per share for investors. Correlates management and board consist of industry experts who, during their careers, have successfully financed, developed, and installed over two billion dollars of clean energy projects for their clients. To learn more, go to: https://www.correlate.energy/investors.

General inquiries:Correlate Energy Corp.www.correlate.energy(855) 264-4060[email protected]

Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release may include forward-looking statements regarding Correlate Energy Corp., its subsidiaries, business and project plans. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor created by such sections. Where Correlate Energy Corp. expresses or implies an expectation or belief about future events or results, such expectation or belief is believed to have a reasonable basis. However, forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by such forward-looking statements. Correlate Energy Corp. does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

Source: Correlate Energy Corp.
FARMINGDALE, N.Y., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DepYmed, Inc. (DepYmed or the Company) is a preclinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing transformative treatments for rare diseases and oncology that target the protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) family of enzymes. Today the Company announces that management will be meeting with investors at the BioFuture Conference in New York City October 4-6, 2023 at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel at 455 Madison Avenue.



Interested qualified investors can register free of charge for the conference here and arrange meetings either through the conference portal or directly with the Company via email at [email protected].

About BioFuture

BioFuture is where relentless therapeutic pioneers, innovators, and investors gather to assess and shape the future of healthcare and digital health. Participate in candid, unfiltered discussions. At this years summit, attendees will explore the exciting convergence between rapidly evolving fields including biopharma, digital medicine, big data, AI, healthcare systems, payors, and more. The coming decade will dramatically accelerate the transformation of the healthcare ecosystem. For more information, please visit www.biofuture.com.

About DepYmed, Inc.

DepYmed Inc., is a New York based rare disease and cancer therapeutic development company that was founded to capitalize on the scientific discoveries of the Tonks lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the physiological function of PTP1B and ways to modulate its role in various human diseases. DepYmed is currently developing a new class of potent, orally bioavailable small molecule inhibitors of the enzyme PTP1B as novel therapeutics for Rett Syndrome and different types of cancer. In addition, DepYmed has also discovered a novel class of small molecules with copper chelating properties that it is developing as potential therapeutic agents for such diseases as Wilson disease and various cancers. The company is actively developing a deep pipeline of novel compounds with broad therapeutic potential in these emerging drug classes in collaboration with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. For more information, please visit the Companys website at: www.depymed.com.

For Media Inquiries please contact:

Jules Abraham

JQA Partners, Inc.

[email protected]

917-885-7378

DepYmed:

[email protected]
Vinergy Developing and Investing in the Next Generation of A.I. Driven Health Care

An Emerging Markets Sponsored Commentary



ORLANDO, Fla, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Health care is always changing, evolving, endeavoring to be better for the patient and to be more profitable for the providers. In a perfect world, these separate needs align.

Rarely do they.

Todays featured Company, Vinergy Capital Inc. (the "Company" or "Vinergy") (CSE:VIN, OTCQB:VNNYF, FSE:1V7), has a plan for and is aggressively investing in what could be the next generation of ultra personalized and profitable health care designed to be a win/win for all involved.

Lets start with the recognition that the health care experience for many Americans is wholly unsatisfying. Complaints range from misdiagnosis to horrible wait times. It can literally add insult to injury.

And the reality is that many patients are willing to pay a premium for better, more efficient care. Using concierge doctors or paying cash to see a preferred specialist out of your insurances plan are common choices. The market appetite is clear.

Enter into the equation the power of Artificial Intelligence which can dramatically enhance margins and the health care experience. Thats Vinergys core mission and the AI Healthcare market isnt just clear, its enormous.

One recent research report by a firm completely unrelated to Vinergy projects that the Worldwide Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market Size is expected to reach USD 280.77 Billion by 2032. (source link.)

To this end, earlier this month Vinergy announced that it has a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) to acquire a 4% interest in a health care AI Platform (AIP) that has developed a cutting edge FDA and HIPAA compliant data and analysis platform specifically for drug development and laboratory applications. Better yet, the AIP is already generating revenue from its intellectual property and products with blue chip customers, which for us inspires some real confidence.

If the Company is already earning, then the tech is proven in the marketplace. If its proven by blue chip customers, well then, thats an order of magnitude more confidence inspiring.

Too often we see great ideas sold as earners that are still in a nascent, beta, or concept state especially in white-hot markets like A.I.

Not here.

And it doesnt hurt that we had all this explained to us by a veteran health care executive and Yale lecturer who has come on board at Vinergy and has been appointed to the investment committee of the Company and will act as its Chair.

If the LOI consummates, and its a reasonable expectation that it will, it will add to a compelling AI/Health Care portfolio that recently added another A.I. significant piece vis-a-vis purchasing nearly half of Healthcare Accretion Group which was founded by a diverse assemblage of professionals with backgrounds that include elite institutions like Yale/New Haven Hospital, Harvard, Cornell and more. This team has come together in this unique time to lever the quickly burgeoning potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to healthcare services market.

Again, Vinergy and its shareholders own 49% of the Company now.

We intend to publish more going forward about the Companys plans to use AI to change outcomes for patients and providers as more develops.

But right now we wanted to make a first introduction to a Company full of smart minds looking to put smart money into one of the deepest verticals on the planet.

About The Emerging Markets Report:

The Emerging Markets Report is owned and operated by Emerging Markets Consulting (EMC), a syndicate of investor relations consultants representing decades of experience. Our network consists of stockbrokers, investment bankers, fund managers, and institutions that actively seek opportunities in the micro and small-cap equity markets.

For more informative reports such as this, please sign up at: https://emergingmarketsconsulting.com/

Must Read OTC Markets/SEC policy on stock promotion and investor protection

Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 requires that any person that uses the mails to publish, give publicity to, or circulate any publication or communication that describes a security in return for consideration received or to be received directly or indirectly from an issuer, underwriter, or dealer, must fully disclose the type of consideration (i.e. cash, free trading stock, restricted stock, stock options, stock warrants) and the specific amount of the consideration. In connection therewith, EMC has received the following compensation and/or has an agreement to receive in the future certain compensation, as described below.

EMC has been paid $90,000 by Vinergy Capital, Inc. EMC does not independently verify any of the content linked-to from this editorial. | Please read our full disclaimer.
SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Jiangxi Xingtai Technology Inc., also known as SEEKINK, a leader in the E-paper module industry, announces its latest innovation: the highly efficient and eco-friendly 13.3-inch outdoor bus stop signs. This product offers exceptional flexibility while delivering impressive features, including low power consumption, eco-friendliness, and high practicality. It is excellent for outdoor applications such as bus stops, subway stations, and high-speed rail indicators.

Low Power Consumption, Eco-Friendly, Carbon ReductionThe most notable technical highlight of this product is the adoption of a low-power E-paper display screen. Compared with the traditional LCD screen, it minimizes power usage when switching pages. It usually requires very little energy to maintain the information display, resulting in remarkable energy savings.

Additionally, the product is equipped with a high-capacity 54Wh lithium battery, ensuring continuous operation on a single charge, perfectly meeting the demands of extended outdoor usage. Whats even more ingenious is that the bus stop sign is equipped with solar panels for dual power sources, ideal for remote areas with limited electricity access.

Excellent Visibility and Weatherproof PerformanceThe 13.3-inch e-paper screen of this product provides outstanding visibility in all lighting situations, ensuring the content is seen clearly, while its non-reflective design helps reading. Furthermore, the bus stop sign is IP65-rated, ensuring stable functioning in harsh weather and providing dependable assurance for outdoor applications.

Wireless Technology for Smart TransportationFurthermore, its intelligent wireless design eliminates traditional wiring issues while efficiently delivering information, reducing power dependency. This technology has a significant impact on IoT and smart transportation. It not only enhances the connection between devices and synergy, but also improves the intelligence of transport systems, greatly enhancing city sustainability and citizens' quality of life.

About SEEKINKSEEKINK has been committed to providing high-quality and eco-friendly IoT solutions with its cutting-edge e-paper technology since founded in 2015. With over 100 patents, SEEKINK now possesses the industry's top e-paper display module-related core technology and has contributed to the formation of several standards for the e-paper industry. SEEKINK's commitment to excellence earned the trust of over 100 global partners.

Media Contact:Company Name: Jiangxi Xingtai Technology Inc. Address: 802, Tianlong Mobile Building, Nanshan District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, ChinaTelephone: +86 755 3639 1512Email: [email protected]Website: www.seekink.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4210f473-b7a9-4f92-ba76-d39de03431d8

SEEKINK Enhancing Commuter Experience: Introducing SEEKINK's 13-Inch ePaper Bus Stop Signage for Compact Transit Stops

Source: SEEKINK
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Erdene Resource Development Corp. (TSX:ERD; MSE:ERDN) ("Erdene" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that further to its announcement of an updated independent Feasibility Study (FS) for the high-grade, open-pit Bayan Khundii Gold Project (BK or "Project) in southwest Mongolia, on August 15, 2023, the Company has now filed the Technical Report entitled Bayan Khundii Gold Project, Feasibility Study Update, NI 43-101 Technical Report" with an effective date of August 15, 2023, signed September 25, 2023 (the "Technical Report" or "FS").

The updated FS has been prepared by a consortium of International and Mongolian firms with significant experience operating in Mongolia and internationally, led by O2 Mining Ltd and Roma Group Ltd. The FS was prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and incorporates updated mineral resources and reserves, including maiden resources and reserves from the high-grade Dark Horse Mane deposit, as well as current capital and operating cost estimates and metals prices.

For additional information and the most current technical information, please refer to the Technical Report available on the Erdene website (www.erdene.com) and filed on SEDAR+ under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca.

Qualified Person

Peter Dalton, P.Geo. (Nova Scotia), Senior Geologist for Erdene, is the Qualified Person as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release.

About Erdene

Erdene Resource Development Corp. is a Canada-based resource company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of precious and base metals in underexplored and highly prospective Mongolia. The Company has interests in three mining licenses and an exploration license in Southwest Mongolia, where exploration success has led to the discovery and definition of the Khundii Minerals District. Erdene Resource Development Corp. is listed on the Toronto and the Mongolian stock exchanges. Further information is available at www.erdene.com. Important information may be disseminated exclusively via the website; investors should consult the site to access this information.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information regarding Erdene contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements may include estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Although Erdene believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Erdene cautions that actual performance will be affected by a number of factors, most of which are beyond its control, and that future events and results may vary substantially from what Erdene currently foresees. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include the ability to obtain required third party approvals, market prices, exploitation and exploration results, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. The forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The information contained herein is stated as of the current date and is subject to change after that date. The Company does not assume the obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

NO REGULATORY AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENTS OF THIS RELEASE

Erdene Contact Information Peter C. Akerley, President and CEO, orRobert Jenkins, CFO

Source: Erdene Resource Development Corporation
Washington, DC, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) today announced grants totaling $1,341,000 to Sesame Workshop and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for initiatives to fight the opioid and overdose crisis that is devastating Americas youth. The announcement was made at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC during National Recovery Month, where FORE outlined its broad agenda to expand its focus on children, youth, and families.

Since its founding five years ago in 2018, FORE has now given 100 grants, totaling $39,219,374 to 88 organizations across the country working on solutions to the opioid and overdose crisis that is gripping our nation.

Drug overdose deaths among US adolescents and young adults have significantly increased in recent years, largely due to fentanyl, xylazine, and other adulterated substances. An estimated 8.7 million children ages 17 or younger live in households with at least one parent who has a substance use disorder, said Karen A. Scott, MD, MPH, president of FORE. This is tragic and unsustainable. FORE is partnering with Sesame Workshop, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other organizations across the country to develop programs that will engage and empower vulnerable families and communities to prevent youth opioid use disorder and overdose.

For young children who live in households with a parent who has a substance use disorder there can be significant ramifications on factors important for development, such as a sense of security, emotional support, and predictable routines. When in the throes of addiction, parents can face incredible guilt and shame because they are unable to offer the nurturing connections necessary for children's well-being. Sesame Workshop, the global impact non-profit behind Sesame Street, is receiving a FORE grant of $841,000 to leverage existing tools, create new resources, and develop professional training to improve nurturing connections between parents, caregivers, and young children, leading to family resilience. The funding will enable Sesame Workshop to expand its library of Parental Addiction resources, which include free, bilingual storybooks, videos, and interactive digital activities featuring the Muppet, Karli, and designed to help children impacted by parental substance misuse. Sesame Workshop will collaborate with two other FORE grantees, the Morgan County Partnership in West Virginia and Denver Health, as well as All Rise (formerly the National Association of Drug Court Professionals), to develop tools that strengthen connections between adults and children throughout a parent's recovery.

"When a parent struggles with addiction, the whole family struggles," said Jeanette Betancourt, Ed.D., senior vice president of U.S. Social Impact, Sesame Workshop. With this generous support from FORE, we aim to equip caring adults with tools to comfort and guide young children through these difficult moments. Together, we can help families heal, reestablish trust, and find their path to recovery."

Pediatricians, including adolescent medicine physicians, are on the front lines of the opioid crisis affecting children and young adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is receiving a FORE grant of $500,000 to improve the prevention, early identification, and treatment of substance use among adolescents and young adults by strengthening the capacity of pediatricians and pediatric health care providers to care for them and their families. As part of the project, the AAP will create a Pathways to Resilience Toolkit offering practical strategies for having conversations with youth about opioid use disorder and the risks of overdose from experimental or incidental drug use, with a particular emphasis on the current risks of fentanyl exposure. It will also offer clinicians guidance on age-appropriate prevention, harm reduction, and treatment strategies, and how to eliminate stigma that can impede open discussions about substance use. As the largest pediatric professional organization in the country, with over 67,000 members, the AAP is uniquely positioned to play a key role in addressing the youth opioid and overdose crisis.

As pediatricians, our primary concern is the health and well-being of our adolescent and young adult patients, said Debra Waldron, MD, MPH, FAAP, senior vice president of Healthy Resilient Children, Youth & Families at the AAP. We recognize the urgency of tackling the youth opioid and overdose crisis, especially in the context of the growing fentanyl crisis, and are pleased to partner with FORE to create new resources for pediatricians. This funding will help AAP create an array of resources to empower our pediatricians to have honest and constructive conversations with youth and their families.

(ACCESS MEDIA KIT HERE)

Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE)FORE was founded in 2018 as a private 501(c)(3) national, grant-making foundation focused on addressing the nations opioid crisis. FORE is committed to funding a diversity of projects contributing solutions to the crisis at national, state, and community levels. FOREs mission is to support partners advancing patient-centered, innovative, evidence-based solutions impacting people experiencing opioid use disorder, their families, and their communities. Through convening, grantmaking and developing informational resources, FORE seeks to bring about long-term change. To date, FORE has awarded 100 grants to 88 organizations, totaling $39,219,374 million. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sesame Workshop Sesame Workshop is the global impact nonprofit behind Sesame Street and so much more. For over 50 years, we have worked at the intersection of education, media, and research, creating joyful experiences that enrich minds and expand hearts, all in service of empowering each generation to build a better world. Our beloved characters, iconic shows, outreach in communities, and more bring playful early learning to families in more than 150 countries and advance our mission to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Learn more at www.sesameworkshop.org and follow Sesame Workshop on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

The American Academy of Pediatrics The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. Learn more at AAP.org and follow AAP on social media @AmerAcadPeds.

Attachment

Myrna Manners Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts 718-986-7255 [email protected]

Source: Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts
Oculi Receives $1 Million in Investment; Five Additional Companies Secure Follow-on Investments

Applications Now Being Accepted for Round 7 of the Optics, Photonics, and Imaging Competition until January 8, 2024

NYS Investment Complements "Finger Lakes Forward"  the Region's Comprehensive Strategy to Revitalize Communities and Grow the Economy

Photo and Video of Luminate NY Competitors Available Here

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Governor Kathy Hochul today announced Oculi as the winner of Round Six of the Luminate NY optics, photonics, and imaging startup accelerator competition. Baltimore, Maryland-based Oculi received the "Company of the Year" Award at Luminate Finals 2023, which was held live at Innovation Square in downtown Rochester, and online. The company will receive $1 million in investment from New York State through the Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative. Oculi will use the follow-on funding to move its headquarters to Rochester, and to scale operations for mass production, expanding sales, and for developing advanced versions of its products. Luminate NY, which is administered by NextCorps, is the world's largest business accelerator for emerging companies that have technologies enabled by optics, photonics, and imaging. The Finals event marks the completion of the sixth year of the cohort-based program, which now has over 50 companies in its portfolio. As required by the award, all winners of the competition will commit to establishing operations in the region for at least the next 18 months.

Thanks to Luminate NY, our state will continue to lead the nation on cutting-edge technological research, Governor Hochul said. "The winners of the competitions Round Six represent some of worlds most innovative businesses that are bringing transformative products in optics, photonics, and the imaging supply chain to market. I congratulate this years winners, and remain committed to supporting the fast-growing, high-tech businesses and industries that will move New York forward.

Oculi is redefining computer and machine vision with the worlds first smart programmable vision sensor, the Oculi SPU (Sensing and Processing Unit). It combines the efficiency of biologymore specifically the human eyeand the speed of machines to make computer vision faster and more efficient. By embedding intelligence in the sensor at the pixel level, the innovative chip has the power to transform smart devices across homes, offices, and vehicles. Oculis SPU is ideal for visual intelligence at the edge, such as gesture tracking, facial recognition, and low latency eye tracking.

CEO of Oculi Charbel Rizk said, The Luminate program, team, and the region surpassed my expectations. I learned so much about the beautiful Finger Lakes region and the relevant ecosystem that exists here. Had I known that earlier on, it would have been my company's home from day one."

Washington, DC-based Digiteyez was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Award and $400,000 in follow-on investment. The company is digitizing the vision industry by delivering eyecare on demand with Clear, a quick and easy online eye test that customers can take anywhere, from any device.

Three companies tied for the Distinguished Graduate Award, with each receiving $200,000 in follow-on funding. They include Chicago, Illinois-based NanoPattern Technologies, which is transforming display manufacturing with its patented chemistry and quantum dot ink; Berlin, Germany-based Quantune Technologies, which is commercializing the worlds first chip-sized laser spectrometer; and Swave Photonics from Leuven, Belgium, which is transforming how augmented and virtual reality are experienced through its Holographic eXtended Reality (HXR) technology.

Honorable Achievement and $50,000 went to Photonect Interconnect Solutions, a Rochester-based startup that is reshaping the future of optical fiber to photonic chip connections by using laser technology instead of traditional glue.

Investments today were presented after a panel of judges from the optics, photonics, and imaging (OPI) industry and venture capitalist community scored the participating companies based on their business pitches and due diligence completed during the six-month accelerator program.

Since its inception, Luminate NY has invested $18 million in 63 startups. The companies in the portfolio now share a net worth of more than $650 million. In addition to providing an estimated 1.5 to 2 times return on investment, many of the companies are establishing U.S. operations or some aspect of research and manufacturing in the Rochester region, which has resulted in 164 jobs. Last year's Company of the Year winner, Lidrotec Technologies, has established a New York office, and is working on setting up a prototype system in New York.

Luminate NY Managing Director Dr. Sujatha Ramanujan said, Early-stage companies developing deep tech require support that is specific to their needs. With the rich OPI resources that are available in the Finger Lakes, were able to match them to the expertise, partners, and investors that can help them speed the trajectory of their technology and business. We are grateful to Governor Hochul for the program's continuation, which is bringing the best emerging companies to our region."

The Luminate NY accelerator is based in Rochester and selects 10 to 12 promising companies each year to participate in its hybrid, six-month program. During this time, companies are provided with more than 200 hours of instruction, along with the resources to advance their technologies and businesses. Applications are now being accepted for Round Seven through January 8, 2024. Teams will receive $100,000 in funding upon program start in April 2024, with the expectation that $50,000 will be used to engage resources in the Finger Lakes region. Teams are expected to come to Rochester for select weeks and to also participate virtually during their time in the accelerator.

The Finger Lakes Region is home to an incredibly rich ecosystem of forward-thinking entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their business. Rochester offers the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics' Test, Assembly, and Packaging facility at Eastman Business Park, the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and more than 150 local OPI companies which employ over 17,000 employees.

Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Hope Knight, said, Congratulations to Oculi and to all finalists who took part in Round Six of the innovative Luminate NY competition. Luminates laser focus on accelerating innovation and investment in New York's world-renowned optics, photonics, and imaging industries has further established the Finger Lakes as an OPI hub, and we are excited about the growth and impact that these forward-thinking companies will bring to the region."

State Senator Jeremy Cooney said, Our region has been an innovator and leader in emerging technologies for generations. Congratulations to Oculi, and all finalists who took part in Round Six of the innovative Luminate NY competition. I am looking forward to the future growth and impact these companies will bring to the Finger Lakes Region as we continue to expand our world-renowned optics, photonics, and imaging industries.

Assemblymember Harry Bronson said, Congratulations to Oculi for winning Round Six of the Luminate NY Competition! Oculi and all the finalists represent the type of dynamic innovations that will accelerate our tech sectors now to prepare us for the future. Their ingenuity and creativity will continue to bring job opportunities and investments to our region. We must meet their vision and successes with equitable workforce development programs that not only support emerging and expanding industries, but also provide career pathways for all members of our community.

Monroe County Executive Adam Bello said, The Luminate NY accelerator program keeps driving entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth in Monroe County. Congratulations to Oculi and all Round Six finalists, who will undoubtedly advance cutting-edge technology in our region and continue to bring high-tech optics, photonics and imaging job opportunities and investment to Monroe County. Thank you to Empire State Development, Finger Lakes Forward and Gov. Kathy Hochul for making these crucial investments and helping shape the future of our regions technology landscape.

Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said, Rochesters history is full of creative thinkers, risk takers, and problem solvers whose work changed the worldand that tradition is proudly embraced by our visionary state and local leaders, said Mayor Malik D. Evans. They have worked tirelessly to encourage and grow our citys pre-eminence in photonics, optics, and imaging. Congratulations to Oculi and all the finalists, with best wishes for your future successbecause your success is our success.

For additional information about Luminate NY, visit: https://luminate.org/.

For additional information about NextCorps, visit: https://nextcorps.org/.

Accelerating Finger Lakes Forward Todays announcement complements Finger Lakes Forward, the regions comprehensive strategy to generate robust economic growth and community development. The regionally designed plan focuses on investing in key industries including photonics, agriculture and food production, and advanced manufacturing. More information is available here.

About Empire State DevelopmentEmpire State Development (ESD) is New Yorks chief economic development agency (www.esd.ny.gov). The mission of ESD is to promote a vigorous and growing economy, encourage the creation of new job and economic opportunities, increase revenues to the State and its municipalities, and achieve stable and diversified local economies. Through the use of loans, grants, tax credits and other forms of financial assistance, ESD strives to enhance private business investment and growth to spur job creation and support prosperous communities across New York State. ESD is also the primary administrative agency overseeing the Regional Economic Development Councils and the marketing of I LOVE NY", the States iconic tourism brand. For more information on Regional Councils and Empire State Development, visit www.regionalcouncils.ny.gov and www.esd.ny.gov. Media Contacts:Shari Voorhees-Vincent | [email protected] | (585) 399-7055Press Office | [email protected] | (800) 260-7313Shannon Wojcik | Luminate | [email protected] | (585) 831-6267

Additional news available at www.governor.ny.govNew York State | Executive Chamber |[email protected] | 518.474.8418

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b9f57bbf-c78f-4430-9b73-29ed0d99c901

Oculi Wins Company of the Year at Luminate Finals 2023 Charbel Rizk, CEO of Oculi, wins $1 million at Luminate Finals 2023

Source: Luminate
Michael Corleones line about his enemies in The Godfather Part IIIJust when I thought I was out, they pull me back inseems to apply to Boris Johnson as well. But in the former British prime ministers case, usually he just jumps back into the pool on his own, generally because of scandals as uninspiring as the battle he and his wife Carrie are currently waging against their ex-nanny.

In recent weeks, Johnson, who is always eager to return to the political frontlines and to take revenge on Rishi Sunak, whom he still considers to be the main cause of his downfall had taken a stand against the two main political issues in the UK public debate: the current Prime Ministers backtracking on his promises to tackle climate change and the planned cuts to the high-speed rail plans in the north of the country, Johnsons major project. But all the British tabloids are talking about is nannygate, the battle Theresa Dawes, 59, is waging against the Johnsons. The nanny alleges that she was arbitrarily and unfairly fired just two weeks after she was hired to take care of little Frank Alfred Odysseus, the couples third child who was born on July 5.

Dawes says that, after just three days on the job, Carrie Johnson returned home from the hospital, called an Uber, and told her she had 15 minutes to pack her bag and leave the house. The former nanny shared the story with The Sunday Mirror and asserted that her firing was a rude awakening. On the day the little boy was born, Johnson returned home euphoric and invited the nanny to wet the head of the newborn. It was a lovely, hot day and when Boris got home he went out on to the terrace and opened a bottle of wine, Dawes told the tabloid. He asked me to join him, to toast baby Frank and to give me a report on Carrie and the baby, how they were doing, when they were coming home, that sort of thing, the Johnsons former employee explained.

But Carries mother saw the two of them enjoying that wine and allegedly told her daughter. The next day, when the former Conservative Party communications adviser returned home from the hospital, looking distinctly irritated, she walked past without so much as saying hello to Dawes and asked where her mother was, before heading to the childrens room.

The former nanny says that she was gobsmacked when Johnsons wife told her to leave. There was something twisted about Carries reason. According to Dawes, she was still upset because the same nanny had told her, two weeks earlier during the job interview, that the couple she had worked for previously had celebrated Johnsons resignation over the Partygate scandal, the banned parties held at Downing Street during quarantine. I went to find Boris in the kitchen. I said, Im so sorry if I offended you. He didnt know what to do. He said, I dont know what to say, shes hormonal, shes just had a baby, its out of my control. Dawes claims that Carries reason was simply an excuse, and that what really irritated her was the idea that her husband was already having a drink alone with the new nanny.

The couple, who were married in a surprise wedding in May 2021, have denied all of Dawess allegations through a spokesman. They accuse the nanny of trying to squeeze more money out of the firing. The contract was for three months, Dawes says, and she has threatened them with legal action to claim full payment for that period plus damages. It is disappointing to see someone who sought a position of trust abuse it to create a completely false story for financial gain, the Johnsons said.

Like all other Brits, Dawes is aware that, after leaving Downing Street, Johnson has earned hundreds of thousands of pounds simply for giving speeches. And it is striking that the new scandal has hit the press at a time when the former prime minister is once again coming out to lambast the Sunak government. But his decades of wandering and adventures mean that, regardless of any possible political maneuvering in this new row, nobody doubts that the former prime ministers comments to his ex-nanny in the kitchen sound 100 percent like Johnson.

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Atlanta, GA, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A driving factor in the development and success of the Georgia Research Alliance over a tenure that has spanned more than two decades, President and CEO Susan Shows today announced her retirement from the Alliance at the fall meeting of GRAs Board of Trustees.

Since joining GRA in 2001 as vice president, Shows was instrumental in shaping each of the organizations areas of operation. She worked closely with member universities to bring top scientific talent to their campuses, playing an active role in the recruitment of most of GRAs 78-member Academy of Scientists. She also partnered with university leaders to identify best investments in high-tech lab equipment and core research facilities to make Georgias institutions more competitive in winning lucrative research grants and contracts.

And 20 years ago, she served as chief architect of GRAs venture development program, a multi-faceted enterprise that has helped launch 240 high-potential startups with operations in Georgia, and all based on inventions made by university scientists in Georgia.

While serving in the senior vice president role, Shows placed collaboration and impact at the center of these and other activities. She often brokered working partnerships among scientists, universities and between academia and industry. And she developed the statistical framework for providing funders with an accountability of GRAs performance and its return on the state's investment in GRA programs.

Since being named president and CEO of GRA in September 2020, Shows has continued to grow GRAs talent, infrastructure and entrepreneurship programs while also launching several initiatives that leverage university research strengths to address areas of priority for the state.

GRA owes so much of its success to Susan, and it would not be the organization it is today without her, says GRA Board Chair David Ratcliffe. Her early work in GRAs program areas was both foundational and durable. As president and CEO, she has brought a new level of agility to the Alliance by creating and seizing opportunities to make an impact in agricultural technology, artificial intelligence, Sickle Cell Disease and workforce development. And the taxpayers of Georgia should be pleased to know that GRAs return on investment grew to $13 billion this year.

Shows will continue to serve in an advisory role until the end of GRAs fiscal year next June. In reflecting on her tenure with the Alliance, Shows said: GRA works in so many different ways for the single purpose of growing Georgias economy. It has been a great privilege to have been a part of this unique organization, and to have worked on teams of true professionals in government, industry and academia, all to benefit Georgias excellent universities and the state as a whole.

About GRA

The Georgia Research Alliance helps Georgias universities conduct more research and create more companies  all to grow the states economy. GRA recruits star research talent to Georgias universities; provides sophisticated tools and core facilities to help researchers win more competitive grants; and seeds and shapes startup companies around university inventions. The Alliances cumulative 32-year ROI is over $13 billion (a 19-to-1 return on Georgias investment). GRAs eight partner universities are: Augusta University, Clark Atlanta University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Mercer University, Morehouse School of Medicine and The University of Georgia. More: GRA.org

Attachment

Amanda Schroeder Georgia Research Alliance 404-808-5407 [email protected]

Source: Georgia Research Alliance
La Mirada, California, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greenfield Global Inc., the leading producer, manufacturer and distributor of high purity and specialty alcohols, solvents, and custom solutions, has partnered with REMET Alcohols, Inc. to address the growing demand in California and the Western US for bulk and packaged high-purity alcohol and denatured alcohol. With todays announcement, Greenfield extends its bulk manufacturing and distribution capability and footprint westward, enhancing supply for the industrial, food, fragrance, pharmaceutical, personal care, and beverage industries in California, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.

After an extensive search for the right partner to expand our operations west of the Mississippi, REMET Alcohols was the clear choice, said Howard Field, President and CEO, Greenfield Global. REMET Alcohols has an amazing team and years of experience meeting the quality and service needs of customers on the West Coast. Their deep expertise in logistics, rail connections and bulk tankage will allow us to satisfy the growing demand in the Western United States. Greenfield will continue to directly supply its customers, while REMET will procure Greenfield ethanol and manage their own clients, simplifying the process for all parties involved.

Under the agreement, the partnership offers unmatched supply security, distribution capabilities in fast-growing markets, and enhanced efficiency to both REMET Alcohols and Greenfield customers by:

Adding the Greater Los Angeles area to Greenfields Connecticut and Kentucky manufacturing portfolio.

Combining REMET Alcohols, onsite storage, rail, and manufacturing capabilities with Greenfields efficient, and reliable end-to-end supply chain oversight for premium ethanol products.

Providing REMET Alcohols customers with industry-leading high purity alcohols directly from Greenfields distilleries, giving them the confidence in security of supply and quality.

This announcement follows Greenfields recent expansion in high-purity alcohol production, boosting its annual output to over 70 million gallons per year across three distilleries.

This is certainly a win-win because REMET Alcohols tried and true bulk and packaged blending and distribution service will be complimented by Greenfields gold standard quality in ethanol production, and visa versa. said John S. Paraszczak, President and CEO at REMET Corporation. REMET owes some of its success to long-term relationships and superior customer satisfaction - and we are committed to maintaining these qualities and results in this new partnership with Greenfield.

-30-

About Greenfield Global Inc.

Since 1989, Greenfield Global has been the leading supplier of high-purity alcohols, specialty solvents, custom blended solutions and fuel ethanol to businesses worldwide, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to sole proprietorships.

Greenfields primary markets are renewable fuels, beverage alcohols, life science, food, flavor, fragrance, personal care and industrials. Annually, the company fulfills over 35,000 orders in more than 50 countries through its extensive global supply chain, which includes 5 alcohol distilleries, 5 blending and packaging facilities, and 8 warehouses allowing Greenfield to deliver within 1-3 days. The company also operates one of the largest anaerobic digestion facilities in North America, converting more than 120,000 MT of source-separated organics every year to produce renewable natural gas.

Greenfields low-carbon ethanol helps industry decarbonize and meet net-zero targets, while its team of researchers and engineers continue to innovate and produce other sustainable fuels and chemicals such as green hydrogen, green methanol, sustainable aviation fuel and renewable natural gas.

The companys mission statement is to unlock the potential of people, partnerships and nature to accelerate sustainable solutions for the health of the planet.

Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Greenfield Global is family owned and operated and has been awarded Canadas Best Managed Companies Platinum-level designation since 2015.

For more information, please visit www.greenfield.com

About REMET Alcohols, Inc.

Founded in 1985 REMET Alcohols, Inc., has been distributing the highest quality Pure Ethyl Alcohol and blending all TTB approved Specially Denatured Alcohol formulations, for the food, flavors, personal care, vinegar, and pharmaceutical industries.

REMET Alcohols is dedicated to their customers success, by providing a personalized service, providing quality products, building long-term relationships and superior overall customer satisfaction.

REMET Alcohols has an ongoing commitment to maintain high standard and ethics making them the partner of choice in the Ethanol Industry.

Headquartered in La Mirada, CA, REMET Alcohols is a wholly owned subsidiary of REMET Corporation.

For more information, please visit www.remetalcohol.com

Attachments

Valerie Picher Greenfield Global Inc. (647) 289-5873 [email protected] Matt Day REMET Corporation +44 (0) 1634 226 240 [email protected]

Source: Greenfield Global
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HII shared today (NYSE: HII) that its Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division has reached a significant milestone in the construction of Virginia-class submarine Arkansas (SSN 800).



Arkansas (SSN 800) is now pressure hull complete, meaning that all of the hull sections were joined to form a single, watertight unit.

Its exciting to reach pressure hull complete, because its a visible sign that construction has progressed to the point where Arkansas really starts to take its final shape, said Jason Ward, NNS vice president of Virginia-class submarine construction. We absolutely understand the important mission ahead for Arkansas and are working with urgency to get this powerful national security asset to the Navy as soon as possible.

NNS is one of only two shipyards capable of designing and building nuclear-powered submarines. The advanced capabilities of Virginia-class submarines increase firepower, maneuverability and stealth.

This milestone comes following the christening of Massachusetts (SSN 798) and keel authentication of Oklahoma (SSN 802) at NNS so far in 2023.





Photos accompanying this release are available at: https://hii.com/news/hii-arkansas-ssn-800-newport-news-shipbuilding-pressure-hull-2023.

Arkansas is the Navys 27thVirginia-class fast attack submarine. The ships sponsors are the six women of the historic group known as the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to attend all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, during desegregation. NNS honored all nine members, including the three men, during the November 2022 keel authentication ceremony.

About HII

HII is a global, all-domain defense provider. HIIs mission is to deliver the worlds most powerful ships and all-domain solutions in service of the nation, creating the advantage for our customers to protect peace and freedom around the world.

As the nations largest military shipbuilder, and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII delivers critical capabilities extending from ships to unmanned systems, cyber, ISR, AI/ML and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HIIs workforce is 43,000 strong. For more information, visit:

HII on the web: https://www.HII.com/

HII on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamHII

HII on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/WeAreHII

HII on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WeAreHII

Contact:



Todd Corillo

[email protected]

(757) 688-3220

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fdc2ddf7-6452-42e4-8ee1-8026befdd69d
The Silver City Project uses Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) technology and represents a game changing outcome for mining in Broken Hill

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hydrostor, a global long duration energy storage (LDES) developer and operator, and Perilya, a developer and operator of global mining projects, have entered into a binding agreement to leverage the existing mining assets at Perilyas Potosi Mine in Broken Hill to support the construction of the Silver City Energy Storage (SCES) Project.

Perilya Broken Hill Limited and Hydrostor have been working together since 2020 to evaluate the potential of a large-scale long duration energy storage project adjacent to the Potosi Mine northeast of Broken Hill, NSW, which will continue to operate as normal.

The Silver City Project uses Hydrostors Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) technology and will leverage several unique features of the Perilya Potosi Mine Site, including:

Very hard and impermeable metamorphic rock at the mine site;

Existing underground mine development, providing access to construct the underground cavern at optimal depth of approximately 600m below ground;

Existing mine support infrastructure, facilitating the construction of the project.

Martin Becker, Hydrostors Vice President of Business Development and Origination in Australia said Hydrostor is excited to partner with Perilya on this unique and critical infrastructure project. Silver City is our first Australian project and will be a showcase for A-CAES technology in the future.

The agreement includes access to property transactions and existing mine infrastructure, provision of construction support services, and supports the continued and longer-term operation of the Potosi Mine during and after the Project is being constructed.

Bruce Byrne, Chief Operating Officer of Perilya Broken Hill Limited said The project will realise additional value to an important asset, well after the current developed stopes are completely mined.

Paul Rasmussen, Hydrostors Vice-President of Integration said By leveraging the existing mine investment and infrastructure, this partnership enables us to improve project delivery timeframe, since we can build the underground air storage cavern much faster, with reduced setup costs and a better understanding of the geology at site.

This is a unique agreement in the Mining and Energy sectors and supports an important multiple land use outcome, allowing the Potosi Mine and the SCES Project to co-exist and benefit from each other.

The SCES Project represents a game changing outcome for mining in Broken Hill and the wider region. It leverages and enhances mining investment, both during and beyond the life of the mine, and as a post closure mining land use, it is currently unmatched in its value, contribution and benefit to the region and state.

The range of benefits to the local region include:

Significant employment, skills, and training opportunities including 750 direct and indirect jobs during construction and 70 ongoing jobs in operation.

A contribution of over AUD$1B to the regional economy.

Opportunities for local suppliers, contractors, and service providers.

The SCES Project has been selected by Transgrid as the preferred solution to provide backup power for Broken Hill and the Far West region of NSW. The Project will provide reliable backup power for both the town and existing or new mining activities in the region.

The Project is supported by the NSW Government under the Emerging Energy Program and by the Federal Government via a grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

About Silver City Energy Storage

The Silver City Energy Storage (Silver City) Project is an Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage project capable of 200 MW generation for 8 hours duration (1600MWh). Reserve capacity of 250MWh is set aside to provide backup power during network outages. The project is located adjacent the Perilya Potosi Mine in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia.

Silver City will operate as a large energy storage asset, connected to the NSW grid and able to trade large quantities of energy on a daily basis. It will also act as an emission-free long-term grid reliability solution for Broken Hill and the wider region, supporting existing and new renewable energy generation, and serving communities and mining loads in the most cost-effective manner.

This Project received development funding from the NSW Government under the Emerging Energy Opportunities Program and project funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of ARENAs Advancing Renewables Program. To learn more, visit https://www.silvercityenergystorage.com/

About Perilya Broken Hill Limited.

Perilya is an Australian base and precious metals mining and exploration company, which owns and operates the iconic Broken Hill zinc, lead, silver mine in NSW Australia and Cerro de Maimon copper, gold & silver mine in the Dominican Republic.

The Companys operations at Broken Hill have a life of mine plan extending approximately 10 years. In addition to its mining operations, the Company has an active exploration and development program which includes exploration and development programs in the Broken Hill region NSW Australia and in the Flinders region of South Australia in the vicinity of its Beltana zinc silicate project.

The Company also has extensive exploration programs underway in the Dominican Republic with highly prospective copper, gold & silver targets near its Cerro de Maimon mine. Perilya is owned by Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Nonfemet Co. Ltd, one of Chinas largest zinc producer.

About Hydrostor Inc.

Hydrostor is a leading developer and operator of long-duration energy storage systems. Hydrostor leverages a proven technology solution for delivering long-duration energy storage (eight hours or more) to power grids around the world. Hydrostors technology uses compressed air and water to store energy. This patented technology allows grid operators to draw on clean energy, even when there is no sun to fuel solar panels and no wind to generate energy from turbines.

Hydrostor has a successful utility scale facility commercially contracted to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) located in Goderich, Ontario, and two advanced projects under development in Kern County, California and New South Wales, Australia. Hydrostor has an extensive early-stage pipeline of projects in North America, Australia and Europe.

Founded in 2010 and with headquarters in Toronto, Canada and offices in Melbourne, Australia and Sacramento, USA, Hydrostor is backed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and other forward-thinking institutional investors, providing financial security to commit to top-tier energy projects.

Follow us @Hydrostor on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn

To learn more, visit https://www.hydrostor.ca/

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TICINO, Switzerland, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TICINO, Switzerland, September 27, 2023: Interroll, a global market leader in material handling solutions, today introduced an expansion to the light conveyor platform (LCP) designed to facilitate the handling of lightweight goods with autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). This innovative offering combines Interrolls decades of experience in traditional conveyor systems with leading-edge AMR technology from Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), empowering customers worldwide to streamline internal logistics while serving as a flexible bridge between fixed conveyor systems and production lines.

MiRs AMRs are versatile robot platforms capable of accommodating myriad top modules and other accessories to enhance their functionality. Interrolls LCP AMR top module is the newest certified application in the MIR Go partner program, the largest ecosystem of AMR applications with more than 160 top modules that seamlessly connect to the mobile robots.

Our customers seek proven solutions with the same quality of our robots to easily integrate into their core production processes, and thats surely what a respective leader like Interroll offers, said Rasmus Smet Jensen, VP of Marketing & Strategy, MiR. This compact robot and connected conveyor solution will undoubtedly enhance material handling processes worldwide, even under highly dynamic conditions.

New solution optimizes operations across multiple floors at Interroll facility

As part of its rigorous testing process, Interroll implemented the new LCP AMR top module with a MiR250 robot in its Center of Excellence in Sant Antonino, Switzerland. Specializing in the production of techno-polymer injection-molded parts, the facility spans two floors, presenting a unique logistical challenge. Previously, material handling from production to the logistics area required manual labor because no other logistics solution could offer the flexibility required for multi-floor operations. MiRs AMRs effortlessly navigate this multi-floor environment, autonomously using elevators to move between floors.

Selecting MiR as a partner for the LCP AMR top module was a strategic choice, said Jens Struwing, Executive Vice President Product & Technology of the Interroll Group Like Interoll, MiR is a global market leader in material handling. After testing the MiR robots in our own facility, we are confident in their ability to optimize our internal processes. The seamless compatibility of MiRs AMRs with our production logistics, precise navigation capabilities in dynamic environments, the adaptability to layout changes and workflows along with enhanced workplace safety makes them an ideal fit for us.

Streamlines processes and boosts ROI through full shift operations

To further optimize processes, Interroll utilizes MiR Insights, MiRs cloud-based software that visualizes key performance indicators such as distance driven, completed missions and robot utilization rates. This software provides insights into high-traffic areas, enabling Interroll to enhance robot workflows and throughput. Since the introduction of MiR Insights in June 2023, the MiR250 operates an average of 22.3 hours per day, covering 106 km (65 miles) within the factory premises.

The combination of the MiR250 with the LCP AMR top module has significantly reduced manual handling and transportation times, allowing Interrolls skilled workforce to focus on tasks requiring human expertise, creativity and decision-making. The company anticipates a positive ROI due to increased efficiency and reduced labor costs.

The LCP AMR top module is showcased at MiRs virtual AMR Expo today: https://mirworld.mobile-industrial-robots.com/mirgoexpo

See the full case story: https://www.mobile-industrial-robots.com/case-studies/mir-250-interroll/

About Interroll

The Interroll Group is the world's leading provider of material handling solutions. The company was founded in 1959 and has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 1997. Interroll supplies system integrators and plant engineers with a comprehensive range of platform-based products and services in the categories "Rollers" (conveyor rollers), "Drives" (motors and drives for conveyor systems), "Conveyors & Sorters" (conveyors and sorters) and "Pallet Handling" (pallet conveying and storage). Interroll solutions are used in express and postal services, e-commerce, airports, food & beverage, fashion, automotive and other industries. The company counts leading brands such as Amazon, Bosch, Coca-Cola, DHL, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Walmart and Zalando among its users. Headquartered in Switzerland, Interroll has a global network of 35 companies with sales of CHF 664.4 million and 2,500 employees (2022). For more information, visit: https://interroll.com/

About Mobile Industrial Robots

MiR develops and manufactures one of the industrys most advanced range of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), which can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively automate internal logistics and optimize material handling. MiR offers one of the most advanced fleets of mobile robots used by both large enterprises and small and medium customers in a range of industries from manufacturing to logistics to healthcare. Founded in Denmark 2013 MiR has grown to a global leader with nearly 220 distributors and certified system integrators in 60 countries. MiR was acquired by Teradyne in 2018 and in 2022 Teradyne combined AutoGuide Mobile Robots into MiR to deliver a broad AMR product line from low to heavy payload. MiRs headquarters is in Odense, Denmark, with regional offices in Holbrook, New York; San Diego; North Reading, Massachusetts; Novi, Michigan; Georgetown, Kentucky; Singapore, San Jose, Costa Rica; Frankfurt, Barcelona, Yokohama; Seoul and Shanghai. For more information, visit www.mobile-industrial-robots.com

Press contact:Kelly WanlassHCI Marketing and Communications, Inc.[email protected]801-602-4723

Denise Innocenti Mobile Industrial Robots [email protected]

Source: Mobile Industrial Robots
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- K92 Mining Inc. (K92 or the Company) (TSX: KNT; OTCQX: KNTNF) announces that it will release its 2023 third quarter financial results before the North American trading markets open on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.



Conference Call and Webcast to Present Results

K92 will host a conference call and webcast to present the 2023 third quarter financial results at 8:30 am (EST) on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.

Listeners may access the conference call by dialing toll-free to 1-800-319-4610 within North America or +1-604-638-5340 from international locations.



The conference call will also be broadcast live (webcast) and may be accessed via the following link: https://services.choruscall.ca/links/k92mining2023q3.html

About K92

K92 Mining Inc. is engaged in the production of gold, copper and silver at the Kainantu Gold Mine in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea, as well as exploration and development of mineral deposits in the immediate vicinity of the mine. The Company declared commercial production from Kainantu in February 2018, is in a strong financial position. A maiden resource estimate on the Blue Lake porphyry project was completed in August 2022. K92 is operated by a team of mining company professionals with extensive international mine-building and operational experience.

On Behalf of the Company,

John Lewins, Chief Executive Officer and Director

For further information, please contact David Medilek, P.Eng., CFA, President at +1-604-416-4445

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation (forward-looking statements), including, but not limited to, the impact of global supply chain and financial market disruptions; projections of future financial and operational performance; statements with respect to future events or future performance; production estimates; anticipated operating and production costs and revenue; estimates of capital expenditures; future demand for and prices of commodities and currencies; estimated mine life of our mine; estimated closure and reclamation costs and statements regarding anticipated exploration, development, construction, production, permitting and other activities on the Companys properties, including: expected gold, silver and copper production and the Stage 3 Expansion and Stage 4 Expansion. Estimates of mineral reserves and mineral resources are also forward-looking statements because they constitute projections, based on certain estimates and assumptions, regarding the amount of minerals that may be encountered in the future and/or the anticipated economics of production. All statements in this Annual Information Form that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as expect, plan, anticipate, project, target, potential, schedule, forecast, budget, estimate, intend or believe and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions will, would, may, could, should or might occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our ability to control, that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, without limitation, Public Health Crises, including the COVID-19 Pandemic; changes in the price of gold, silver, copper and other metals in the world markets; fluctuations in the price and availability of infrastructure and energy and other commodities; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; volatility in price of our common shares; inherent risks associated with the mining industry, including problems related to weather and climate in remote areas in which certain of the Companys operations are located; failure to achieve production, cost and other estimates; risks and uncertainties associated with exploration and development; uncertainties relating to estimates of mineral resources including uncertainty that mineral resources may never be converted into mineral reserves; the Companys ability to carry on current and future operations, including development and exploration activities; the timing, extent, duration and economic viability of such operations, including any mineral resources or reserves identified thereby; the accuracy and reliability of estimates, projections, forecasts, studies and assessments; the Companys ability to meet or achieve estimates, projections and forecasts; the availability and cost of inputs; the availability and costs of achieving the Stage 3 Expansion or the Stage 4 Expansion; the ability of the Company to achieve the inputs the price and market for outputs, including gold, silver and copper; inability of the Company to identify appropriate acquisition targets or complete desirable acquisitions; failures of information systems or information security threats; political, economic and other risks associated with the Companys foreign operations; geopolitical events and other uncertainties, such as the conflict in Ukraine; compliance with various laws and regulatory requirements to which the Company is subject to, including taxation; the ability to obtain timely financing on reasonable terms when required; the current and future social, economic and political conditions, including relationship with the communities in Papua New Guinea and other jurisdictions it operates; other assumptions and factors generally associated with the mining industry; and the risks, uncertainties and other factors referred to in the Companys Annual Information Form under the heading Risk Factors.

Estimates of mineral resources are also forward-looking statements because they constitute projections, based on certain estimates and assumptions, regarding the amount of minerals that may be encountered in the future and/or the anticipated economics of production. The estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves is inherently uncertain and involves subjective judgments about many relevant factors. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The accuracy of any such estimates is a function of the quantity and quality of available data, and of the assumptions made and judgments used in engineering and geological interpretation, Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results and future events could materially differ from those anticipated in such statements. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actual results to differ materially from those that are anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nuance Communications recently announced that it became aware of a data breach on May 31, 2023, that impacted the personal information of approximately 1.2 million individuals. The information potentially impacted in the data breach includes individuals names, dates of birth, and demographic information, as well as health information, such as medical record numbers, health insurance numbers, medication information, diagnoses, and dates of service.

Lynch Carpenter, LLP is investigating claims against Nuance Communications related to this data breach. If you received a data breach notification from Nuance Communications, you may be entitled to compensation.

If you have received a notification from Nuance Communications that your information was impacted, please call Patrick Donathen at (412) 322-9243, email him at [email protected], or fill out our contact form at www.lynchcarpenter.com/contact.

About Lynch Carpenter

Lynch Carpenter is a national class action law firm with offices in Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois. Our firm has represented millions of clients in data privacy matters for more than a decade and has earned national acclaim for complex litigation for plaintiffs across the country. To learn more, please visit www.lynchcarpenter.com.

CONTACT Jennifer Schlieper COMPANY Lynch Carpenter LLP PHONE (412) 387-7002 EMAIL [email protected] WEB lynchcarpenter.com

Source: Lynch Carpenter
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Morien Resources Corp. ("Morien" or the "Company") (TSX-V: MOX), today provides an update on the Donkin Coal Mine (Donkin or the Mine) in Nova Scotia, owned and operated by Kameron Collieries LLC (Kameron), upon which Morien has a 2% to 4% royalty interest.

On September 27, 2023, the Nova Scotia Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration (DOL), the provinces regulator for the Mine, announced that an independent engineer has been contracted by DOL, via a 30-day contract, to complete a technical review of the Donkin Mine. This review is actively underway.

Morien welcomes this effort by DOL to bring resolution to a 75-day Stop Work Order at Donkin for a roof fall incident that occurred on July 15, 2023, that was subsequently ameliorated by Kameron on July 27 and where no workers were injured, nor any equipment damaged.

As detailed in prior Morien news releases, a roof fall occurred in one of Donkins two access tunnels. The access tunnels were installed at Donkin in the late 1980s by DEVCO, a former federal Crown corporation. In keeping with Kamerons safety protocols, it made a proactive decision to implement a comprehensive remediation program which included extensive roof bolting over the full length of the 3.5-kilometre-long access tunnel in order to safeguard against future falls. That program commenced on July 19 and ended on July 27.

Morien will provide more information as it becomes available.

About Morien

Morien is a Canada based, mining development company that holds royalty interests in two tidewater accessed projects. The Donkin Coal Mine re-commenced production during the third quarter of 2022 and royalties to Morien have commenced. The Black Point Aggregate Project is permitted, and although production has not begun, Morien is receiving advanced minimum royalty payments on a quarterly basis. Moriens management team exercises ruthless discipline in managing both the assets and liabilities of the Company. The Companys management and its Board of Directors consider shareholder returns to be paramount over corporate size, number or scale of assets and industry recognition. The Company has 51,292,000 issued and outstanding common shares and a fully diluted position of 54,192,000. Further information is available at www.MorienRes.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable securities laws. These statements reflect Morien's current expectations of future revenues and business prospects and opportunities and are based on information currently available to Morien. Morien cautions that actual performance will be affected by a number of factors, many of which are beyond its control, and that future events and results may vary substantially from what Morien currently foresees. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties described in documents filed by Morien with the Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) from time to time. Morien cautions that its royalty revenue will be based on production by third party property owners and operators who will be responsible for determining the manner and timing for the properties forming part of Moriens royalty portfolio. These third party owners and operators are also subject to risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted herein including: volatility in financial markets or general economic conditions; capital requirements and the need for additional financing; fluctuations in the rates of exchange for the currencies of Canada and the United States; prices for commodities including coal and aggregate; unanticipated changes in production, mineral reserves and mineral resources, metallurgical recoveries and/or exploration results; changes in regulations and unpredictable political or economic developments; loss of key personnel; labour disputes; and ineffective title to mineral claims or property. There are other business risks and hazards associated with mineral exploration, development and mining. Although Morien believes that the forward-looking information contained herein is based on reasonable assumptions (including assumptions relating to economic, market and political conditions, the Companys working capital requirements and the accuracy of information supplied by the operators of the properties in which the Company has a royalty interest), readers cannot be assured that actual results will be consistent with such statements. Morien expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information in this news release, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All dollar values discussed herein are in Canadian dollars. Any financial outlook or future-oriented financial information in this news release, as defined by applicable securities laws, has been approved by management of Morien as of the date of this news release. Such financial outlook or future-oriented financial information is provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that such outlook or information should not be used for purposes other than for which it is disclosed in this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For more information, please contact:

Dawson Brisco, President & CEOPhone: (902) 403-3149[email protected]orJohn P.A. Budreski, Executive ChairmanPhone: (416) 930-0914 www.MorienRes.com

Source: Morien Resources Corp.
HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MRC Global Inc. (NYSE: MRC) announced that its subsidiary, MRC Global (US) Inc. has extended its Enterprise Framework Agreement with Shell plc. until 2028.

Under this global agreement, MRC Global will remain a key supplier of Shells pipe, valves and fittings as well as ad-hoc valve actuation services for its upstream, midstream and downstream assets. This includes both maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) as well as projects. Noteworthy projects that MRC Global currently supports include Shells Holland Hydrogen 1 project, which will be Europes largest green hydrogen plant, and the Red II Green project, which includes amongst others a biofuels facility, both based in The Netherlands.

I appreciate Shells confidence in MRC Global as a strategic supplier, Rob Saltiel, MRC Global President & CEO, said. We are committed to driving supply chain standardization and proud to support Shells Powering Progress strategy as they forge a path to Net Zero.

About MRC Global Inc.Headquartered in Houston, Texas, MRC Global (NYSE: MRC) is the leading global distributor of pipe, valves, fittings (PVF) and other infrastructure products and services to diversified end-markets including the gas utilities, downstream, industrial and energy transition, and production and transmission infrastructure sectors. With over 100 years of experience, MRC Global has provided customers with innovative supply chain solutions, technical product expertise and a robust digital platform from a worldwide network of 216 locations including valve and engineering centers. The companys unmatched quality assurance program offers over 250,000 SKUs from over 9,000 suppliers, simplifying the supply chain for approximately 10,000 customers. Find out more at www.mrcglobal.com

Contact:

Monica BroughtonVP, Investor Relations & TreasuryMRC Global Inc. [email protected]832-308-2847

Source: MRC Global
In accordance with a resolution for the Nominating Committee made by the 2011 Annual General Meeting, and which applies until further notice, the Chairman of the Board is assigned the task of contacting four shareholders from among the largest registered shareholders in terms of votes in Euroclear Sweden AB's printout of the shareholder register as per the last business day in August, who each appoints one representative who is not a director on the Company's board, to form together with the Chairman of the Board a Nominating Committee for the time until a new Nominating Committee has been appointed. The Nominating Committee appoints a committee chair from among its members. The composition of the Nominating Committee shall be made public not later than six months before the next Annual General Meeting. No fee is payable for work on the Nominating Committee.

Accordingly, the Nominating Committee has the following composition: Bo Selling, L E Lundbergforetagen, Hakan Sandberg, Jan Wallanders and Tom Hedelius Foundation and others, Jan Svedjebrant, SCA Pension Foundations and others, Mikael Schmidt, Essity Pension Foundations and others, and Fredrik Lundberg, Chairman of the Board of Industrivarden.

If a member leaves the Nominating Committee before its work has been completed, and if the Nominating Committee is of the opinion that there is a need to replace the said member, the Nominating Committee shall appoint a new member. Any change in the Nominating Committee's composition shall be announced immediately.

Shareholders who would like to submit proposals to the Nominating Committee can contact the Nominating Committee by e-mail to [email protected], or by ordinary mail to AB Industrivarden, Attn: Nominating Committee, Box 5403, SE-114 84 Stockholm, Sweden. In order for the Nominating Committee to be able to consider proposals these should be submitted by December 31, 2023, at the latest.

Industrivardens Annual General Meeting will be held on April 11, 2024 in Stockholm.





Stockholm, September 27, 2023

AB INDUSTRIVARDEN (publ)





For further information, please contact:

Fredrik Lundberg, Convening member of Nominating Committee, tel. +48-8-463 06 00.





The information was submitted for publication by the Head of Corporate Communications, Sverker Sivall (tel. +46-8-666 64 00), at 10:00 a.m. CEST on September 27, 2023.

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Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the leader of Spains center-right Popular Party (PP), on Wednesday failed to secure enough endorsement in parliament to form a government following the national election of July 23, which gave the PP the most seats in the parliaments 350-member lower chamber, but left the party shy of an absolute majority.

As expected, at the investiture vote on Wednesday he came up four votes short of the necessary majority of 176 votes in his favor. Nunez Feijoo obtained 172 votes 137 from his own party, 33 from the far-right Vox and one each from small regional parties from Navarre (UPN) and the Canary Islands (Coalicion Canaria). Another 178 lawmakers voted against the candidate, including the main governing Socialist Party (PSOE), the left-wing group Sumar, and nationalist parties from the regions of Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country.

After this first failure, which had been widely expected, the conservative leader will go to a second vote on Friday, when he will only need more yes than no votes. If he again fails to secure enough approval, acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will get a chance to try. If no new head of government emerges by November 27, parliament will be dissolved and new elections called for January 14.

Following the vote, PSOE spokesman Patxi Lopez said that the PP candidate leaves the debate the same way he entered, as leader of the opposition. One of the most relevant takeaways from the investiture debate is that a new era of cordial relations has opened up between the PP and Vox. This was evidenced by Nunez Feijoo, who on two occasions defined himself up as the representative of 11 million voters, the sum of his own party and Vox.

Another conclusion is that the PP leaders chances of attracting support from nationalist parties at the second vote on Friday are slimmer than ever. This is particularly true of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), whose spokesman Aitor Esteban underscored that they had made it very clear from the beginning that they would not support him. On the one hand, because of his pacts with Vox and on the other, because of the PPs own rhetoric: Is it appropriate for a national party to launch harangues against half the country? Esteban asked.

An unusual debate

At the debate on Tuesday, Nunez Feijoo did not act as the formal candidate tapped by King Felipe VI to try to form a government, following established procedure. Instead, the veteran conservative politician immediately launched into an attack of the alleged amnesty talks between the acting government of Pedro Sanchez, of the Socialist Party (PSOE), and Catalan separatists who supported the failed secession attempt of 2017.

Nunez Feijoo, 62, is trying to use opposition to the possible amnesty to boost his seemingly non-existent chances of becoming the next prime minister of Spain. He started his speech by accusing Sanchez of being willing to bend to the demands of the separatists, who include fugitives such as Catalonias former regional leader Carles Puigdemont. The latter fled Spain six years ago to avoid prosecution, but his Junts per Catalunya party could prove critical to appointing the countrys next leader.

I have within my reach the votes that I need to become prime minister, Feijoo said to laughs from some of his left-wing rivals. But I am not ready to accept the price I was asked to pay for them.

It took almost 40 minutes  the speech stretched to 100  for Nunez Feijoo to mention any specific governing proposals. Before that, he repeatedly warned about the danger to Spanish democracy of a hypothetical amnesty. It would be a direct attack on essential democratic values. Outside the Constitution, there is no democracy. Nunez Feijoo also proposed that, if made prime minister, he would push for a new law to punish constitutional disloyalty.

PSOE lawmaker Oscar Puente replying to Alberto Nunez Feijoo in Congress. Claudio Alvarez

Meanwhile, acting PM Sanchez did not take the podium to give a speech of his own, instead delegating that task to Socialist lawmaker Oscar Puente, who struck an aggressive tone against Nunez Feijoo. You know that you wont be able to govern, and you have known it since election night, he said. You have turned this procedure into a farce. Sanchezs decision to say nothing prompted shouts of coward by some conservative lawmakers, and Speaker Francina Armengol had to ask them to be quiet several times.

It was one of the most unlikely investiture sessions ever to be held inside the Congress of Deputies. The lawmaker Aitor Esteban, of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), summed it up thus: This feels more like a no-confidence vote against an acting government than an investiture.

Sanchezs chances

Even with backing from the 33 lawmakers representing the far-right Vox, and two more from small conservative parties representing Navarre and the Canary Islands, Nunez Feijoo is still four votes short of the majority he needs. And other potential backers such as the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) have already warned that they will not consider supporting the PP candidate unless Vox is left out of the equation. The far-right party is essentially acting as a repellent for regional nationalist parties, among other things because of its defense of a highly centralized Spain that would take powers away from regional governments. Despite this, on Tuesday Nunez Feijoo made a point of thanking Vox leader Santiago Abascal for his generous and responsible support, even as he sought to portray himself as the leader of a reunited right.

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez walking into the Congress of Deputies on Tuesday. Claudio Alvarez

One of the acting governments main fears regarding the complicated maneuver to achieve the investiture is that it might get ruined by the political struggle between two Catalan separatist parties, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Junts per Catalunya. The support of both pro-independence groups (17 votes) is necessary for a successful bid by Sanchez. On Tuesday, the Catalan premier and national coordinator of ERC, Pere Aragones, explicitly said that a condition to vote yes to the Socialist leader would be the latters commitment to a legal referendum on independence in Catalonia.

Although attention has focused largely on a potential amnesty for individuals facing criminal charges over the secessionist bid of 2017 (Sanchez pardoned nine jailed leaders in 2021), the real elephant in the room has always been the so-called right to self-determination. This is the big red line that the Sanchez government has always refused to cross, considering that it is outside the Constitution.

A failure by Feijoo to form a government would automatically start a two-month period in which Sanchez could try to form a new government. If he also fails, parliament would be dissolved on November 27 and a new election would be called. It would not be the first time: there was a repeat election in November 2019 after no government emerged from the vote held in April. A repeat election was also held in June 2016 after failure to form a stable government following the December 2015 election.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NorthWest Copper Corp. (TSXV: NWST) (OTCQX: NWCCF) (NorthWest or the Company) wishes to announce the results of its Annual Meeting held earlier today.

A total of 155,185,868 common shares were voted in person or by proxy at the meeting representing 81.60% of the votes attached to all outstanding shares. The following table sets out the votes received by the directors elected at the Annual Meeting:

Director Votes For Percentage of Voted Shares Maryantonett Flumian 84,901,601 54.71% Braam Jonker 84,901,601 54.71% Adam Manna 84,901,601 54.71% David Moore 151,855,002 97.85% Grant Sawiak 84,901,601 54.71% Jim Steel 84,901,601 54.71% John Theobald 84,901,601 54.71%

At the Annual Meeting, shareholders also approved: (i) the setting of the number of directors at seven; (ii) the appointment of the auditor and authorization of the directors to fix the auditors remuneration; and (iii) to approve the Companys equity compensation plan.

Following the meeting, David Moore tendered his resignation from the Board but will continue as Interim President and CEO. The Company would like to thank the outgoing directors for their service.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of NorthWest Copper Corp.Lauren McDougallCFO

For further information, please contact:

Peter Lekich, Director Investor RelationsTel: 778-389-2446Email: [email protected]

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussion with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often, but not always using phrases such as plans, expects, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates, or believes or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to statements with respect to the plans and intentions of the Company.

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, constitutes forward-looking information. Although NorthWest believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information since NorthWest can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information, including the risks, uncertainties and other factors identified in NorthWests periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking information are subject to business and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results of operations to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from NorthWests expectations include risks associated with the business of NorthWest; risks related to reliance on technical information provided by NorthWest; risks related to exploration and potential development of the Companys mineral properties; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; fluctuations in commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; the need for cooperation of government agencies and First Nation groups in the exploration and development of properties and the issuance of required permits; the need to obtain additional financing to develop properties and uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing; the possibility of delay in exploration or development programs and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time and additional risks identified in NorthWests filings with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR+ in Canada (available at www.sedarplus.com ).

Forward-looking information is based on estimates and opinions of management at the date the information are made. NorthWest does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking information except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Source: NorthWest Copper Corp.
MONTREAL, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- There should be oversight of the governments use of nudges, according to a study released by the Montreal Economic Institute this morning.

At the moment, Canada has no structure in place for the oversight of the use of behavioural science by governments to direct the choices of citizens, explains Nathalie Elgrably-Levy, senior economist at the MEI and author of the study. Nudges, as governance tools, must be circumscribed in order to protect the population from potential excesses and abuses.

Nudges are uses of behavioural science to prompt individuals, without their knowledge, to make choices considered desirable by those who introduce them, without prohibiting access to other options.

A typical example of a nudge is to place healthful foods at eye level in the grocery store, and to place junk food on a lower level.

In Canada, the Privy Council Office notably equipped itself with a unit of behavioural science experts to propose nudges in order to prompt the population to adopt behaviours considered desirable by the federal government.

The MEI opposes, among other things, the fact that nudges avoid the usual legislative process, the opacity of the implementation process, and ethical issues stemming from their use for political purposes.

The author recommends the following oversight measures:

Restrict the use of default choices in order to counter the status quo bias;

Extend the political process to nudges, forcing their instigators to defend their initiatives publicly;

Create an independent ombudsman position in order to monitor the use and the legitimacy of nudges;

Give each nudge an expiration date so that they will be regularly re-evaluated and debated.

Nudges allow governments to subtly but effectively direct our individual choices for the better without us being fully aware of it, explains Ms. Elgrably-Levy. Thats why overseeing and limiting their use is absolutely essential to preserve the integrity and the freedom of choice of individuals.

The MEI study is available here: https://www.iedm.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/note132023_en.pdf.

The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policy-makers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

Interview requestsCelia Pinto MoreiraCommunications AdvisorCell: 514 703-0502[email protected]@CeliaPinto22

To follow the MEIs work, subscribe to our Twitter account @iedm_montreal.

Source: Montreal Economic Institute
WINNEMUCCA, Nev., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. (NYSE American: PZG) (Paramount or the Company) is pleased to announce that its Annual General Meeting (AGM or the meeting) of the stockholders will be held on December 12, 2023 at 11:00 AM eastern standard time. The meeting will be held virtually over the Internet. Proxy materials will be available on or about October 30th, the mail date, at www.edocumentview.com/PZG and on the Companys website.



The Board of Directors has fixed the close of business on Monday, October 16, 2023 as the record date for the determination of the stockholders entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the AGM.

The Company also advised that it filed its annual audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023 on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 26, 2023. The audit report of the Companys independent registered accounting firm included a going concern qualification. Release of this information is required by Section 610(b) of the NYSE American Company Guide. It does not represent any change or amendment to any of the Companys filings for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023.

To stay informed of future press releases, subscribe to our E-Alerts Program and to learn more about our projects visit the projects section of our website.

About Paramount Gold Nevada Corp.

Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. is a U.S. based precious metals exploration and development company. Paramounts strategy is to create shareholder value through exploring and developing its mineral properties and to realize this value for its shareholders in three ways: by selling its assets to established producers; entering joint ventures with producers for construction and operation; or constructing and operating mines for its own account.

Paramount holds a 100% interest in four gold projects: Grassy Mountain; Frost; Sleeper and Bald Peak.

The Grassy Mountain Gold Project consists of approximately 8,200 acres located on private and BLM land in Malheur County, Oregon. The Grassy Mountain Gold Project contains a gold-silver deposit (100% located on private land) for which results of a positive Feasibility Study have been released and key permitting milestones accomplished.

Frost is comprised of 84 unpatented lode claims covering approximately 1,730 acres located 12 miles southwest of the Companys proposed high-grade, underground Grassy Mountain gold mine in Malheur County, Oregon (Grassy).

The Sleeper Gold Project is located in Northern Nevada, the worlds premier mining jurisdiction. The Sleeper Gold Project, which includes the former producing Sleeper mine, totals 2,474 unpatented mining claims (approximately 44,917 acres).

The drill ready, Bald Peak Project in Nevada, consists of approximately 2,260 acres.

Paramount Gold Nevada Corp.

Christos Theodossiou, Director of Corporate Communications

844-488-2233

Twitter: @ParamountNV
Malvern, Pennsylvania (USA), Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rajant Corporation, the pioneer of Kinetic Mesh wireless networks, will host the fourth annual Rajant World Music Benefit on behalf of Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The star-studded event features The Mavericks, The No Name Pops, Tequila Rock Revolution, and James Valenti. Tickets are now available for the fundraiser at Philadelphias World Cafe Live on October 26th from 6 PM to 10 PM ET.

From groundbreaking cures for chronic diseases to community services for the most vulnerable populations, philanthropy fuels discovery and transforms the lives of our patients today and for generations to come. Funding from this event will aid our patients with life-threatening heart and lung problems, supporting our ECMO Center at CHOP, aligning to our mission in providing innovative treatment and care, shares Felicia Tarantino, Director of Community Fundraising for CHOP.

This year's proceeds and donations support CHOPs commitment to pediatric care benefiting children worldwide. The goal is to raise $100K for patients with life-threatening heart and lung problems, with donations going to the ECMO Center at CHOP. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, is an advanced life support technique providing patients with long-term breathing and heart support when all the standard treatments have been tried.

Making this possible are Rajants fellow Rajant World Music Benefit sponsors. They are Philadelphia Magazine, Steel City Displays, FastSigns, Sentinel Consulting, Connectronics, Crossover Distribution, BlankRome, IGM Creative Group, Bear Icebox Communications, Lanikai Ukuleles, H. Jimenez Instruments, Hercules Stands, and Hohner Harmonics & Accordions. Adds Paul Meyer, Connectronics Managing Director, The Rajant World Music Benefit is an exemplary cause, and Connectronics is grateful for the opportunity to support the initiative. We feel strongly about improving the quality of life for the communities we serve, both through increased wireless connectivity and strong corporate citizenship. We applaud the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and Rajant for directly impacting the lives of these families in such a positive manner.

The ticket purchase price includes access to exclusive silent auction items, world-class live musical performances, and the ability to make a difference for the children in CHOPs care. The 2023 event will shine light and celebrate CHOPs work as a world-class hospital that relies on philanthropic gifts to fund vital breakthroughs needed for children worldwide. Through the assistance of Rajant, musicians, sponsors, and silent auction contributors, CHOP can transform the patient-family experience, forge discoveries, bolster training and education programs, and advocate for children everywhere.

Buy your tickets today to build on the contributions of the sponsors and talent.

####

About Rajant CorporationRajant Corporation is the broadband communications technology company that invented Kinetic Mesh networking, BreadCrumb wireless nodes, and InstaMesh networking software. With Rajant, customers can rapidly deploy a highly adaptable and scalable network that leverages the power of real-time data to deliver on-demand, mission-critical business intelligence. A low-latency, high-throughput, and secure solution for a variety of data, voice, video, and autonomous applications, Rajants Kinetic Mesh networks provide industrial customers with full mobility, allowing them to take their private network applications and data anywhere. With successful deployments in more than 80 countries for customers in military, mining, ports, rail, oil & gas, petrochemical plants, municipalities, and agriculture. Rajant is headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with additional facilities and offices in Arizona and Kentucky. For more information, visit Rajant.com or follow Rajant on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Attachment

Alice DiSanto Rajant Corporation 914-582-8464 [email protected]

Source: Rajant Corporation
TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On September 5th 2023, RAMM Pharma Corp. (including its wholly owned subsidiaries, the Company or "RAMM") (CSE: RAMM), announced its intention to complete a non-brokered private placement of up to 20,000,000 units (the Units) of the Company at a price of $0.05 per Unit for total gross proceeds of up to $1,000,000 (the Offering). Each Unit would have been comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a Common Share), and one Common Share purchase warrant (each a Warrant), with each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to acquire one Common Share at a price of $0.05 for a perio d of 36 months following the closing date of the Offering. The proceeds f rom the Offering were expected to be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. The Offering was expected to close on or about September 26, 2023.

Ramm also announced its intention to commence a normal course issuer bid (the NCIB), under which it could have purchased up to 5% of the current number of issued and outstanding Common Shares. The NCIB would have commenced on or about September 5, 2023 and expired on the 12-month anniversary of the effective date of the NCIB.

Further reference to the proposed non-brokered private placement and the NCIB can be found on the Companys announcement released on September 5th 2023.

The Company intends to proceed with the private placement previously announced on September 5th, 2023, however the CSEs application of its Policy 4.6(2)(iv) would require that the private placement as proposed be subject to shareholder approval. The Company does not believe that this is required in the circumstances. The Company is seeking advice regarding the CSEs application of the policy to determine how it will proceed.

About RAMM Pharma Corp.RAMM Pharma is a leader in the f ield of cannabinoid pharmacology and product formulation for cannabis- based pharmaceuticals and other hemp-based products with a unique and diversified international production and sales platform. The Company operates an established pharmaceutical and medical product business in Uruguay that has developed several medically registered and approved plant -derived cannabinoid pharmaceutical products that have been authorized for sale and/or compassionate use in several Latin American countries. RAMM also has a pipeline of new products, including registered hemp- based nutrition and specialized veterinary products, in various stages of approval and development, which are produced at the company's state-of-the-art, good-manufacturing-practice-certified formulation facility in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Europe, RAMM's vertically integrated operations are based in Ragusa, Italy and Elblag, Poland (60 kilometres east of Gdansk), and include large extraction and processing facilities. RAMM Pharma includes wholly owned subsidiaries Canapar Corp., HemPoland S.p.a. Z.o.o., Medic Plast SA, Yurelan SA, Glediser SA and RAMM Pharma Holdings Corp.

Additional information about the Company is available at www.wearerammpharma.com.

For further information, please contact:

Jose Roldan Interim CFO+598 2513 99 58[email protected]

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as expects, or does not expect, is expected, anticipates or does not anticipate, plans, budget, scheduled, forecasts, estimates, believes or intends or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results may or could, would, might or wi ll be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward looking statements relate, among other things, the Companys strategies and objectives, and future expansion plans.

These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward -looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: future growth potential of the Company; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; expectations regarding the size of the Uruguayan, Latin American, European and international medical and recreational cannabis markets and changing consumer habits; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives; plans for expansion; political and social uncertainties; inability to obtain adequate insu rance to cover risks and hazards; and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on cultivation, production, distribution and sale of cannabis and cannabis related products in Uruguay or internationally; and employee relations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward -looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward -looking statements and information contained in this news release. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward- looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Source: RAMM Pharma Corp.
VAUGHAN, Ontario, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes is teaming up with the Skilled Trades College of Canada (STC) to launch the second year of the Future Builders Scholarship Powered by Scottie Barnes, which will give Black and Indigenous students a chance to begin a career in the skilled trades. Applications are open until October 31, 2023, with winners being chosen by Barnes and the admissions team at STC by November 2023.

It is amazing to look at last years recipients of the Future Builders Scholarship and see how successful they have been as theyve entered the workforce, said Barnes. This scholarship was built to create life-changing opportunities and I cant wait to see what year two has in store.

STC and Barnes have plans to award four scholarships annually over the next three years; a combined value of $250,000. Students who are awarded scholarships will be eligible to become an apprentice in their trade of choice and their scholarship will cover not only their full tuition, but all learning materials including tools and textbooks, and safety workwear.

The need for skilled trades workers is at all-time high, and young people have realized that this is a meaningful career  a new sense of pride and respect, said Ralph Cerasuolo, President and Founder of STC. Scottie has a commitment to his craft and his want to help those in his city, to provide career options that are available in the trades, and the Future Builders Scholarship that he pays for is amazing.

Barnes has made a quick impact with the Toronto Raptors in his rookie season, winning the Rookie of the Year in the 2021-2022 season, and the scholarship reflects his motivation to be just as impactful off the court.

The STC has five campuses across the Greater Toronto Area offering industry-renowned, 12-week training programs for skilled trades including electrical, plumbing, and home renovation.

Media Inquiries:Michelle MorelliSkilled Trades College[email protected]905-264-1412 x 201

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3ae86d80-a479-4094-a38e-4554e7b2e38e

The Future Builders Scholarship Winners - Year 1 From left to right: Alden P., Abrahan B., Toronto Raptor Forward Scottie Barnes, Mailk D., and Serjenka P.

Source: Skilled Trades College
Washington, D.C., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- While bravely battling the Securities and Exchange Commission for nearly seven-and-a-half long years, NCLA client Michelle Cochran turned her administrative enforcement ordeal into a nightmare for the agency. Now her ordeal will be officially over, but the SECs woes are just beginning. The New Civil Liberties Alliance has secured a stipulation from the SEC under which NCLA will dismiss its federal district court action against the agency in exchange for SECs promise that it has ended its long-running enforcement case targeting her and  will not bring a future administrative proceeding against Cochran[.] NCLA celebrates this major victory with our client, whose valiant fight against Administrative State overreach achieved watershed reform at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In April 2023, Ms. Cochran unanimously won her argument at the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that she could bring fundamental, even existential constitutional challenges in federal court before enduring administrative adjudication. This landmark ruling freed Americans trapped in interminable regulatory purgatory to seek relief in federal court from these ersatz proceedings where the agency is prosecutor, judge, jury and first court of appealor as the High Court put it, where agencies, as currently structured, are unconstitutional in much of their work.

But before Ms. Cochran could renew her challenge in the wake of the decision finding district court jurisdiction to hear her constitutional claims against the agency, SEC announced the unprecedented dismissal of 42 pending enforcement cases. These June 2, 2023, dismissals included NCLA clients Ms. Cochran and Marian Young and former client Christopher Gibson. That order followed a disturbing court filing over a year earlier, in April 2022, while Ms. Cochrans case was pending at the Supreme Court. In that filing, SEC revealed that members of its enforcement staff had for years illegally downloaded and gained access to privileged adjudicative documents.

The agency downplayed its deliberate pilfering of electronic files as a control deficiency. But the June 2 mass dismissal of its open cases divulged that this breach occurred in dozens more cases than originally reported and had been known to the SEC for years. The order self-servingly provided dismissal relief only to open casesthe very defendants who could now challenge SEC in courtwhile irrationally denying such relief in closed or settled cases where tainted adjudication damage is equally likely and now rendered permanent and possibly irremediable.

SEC had aggressively pursued Ms. Cochran in administrative proceedings since 2016, falsely accusing her of aiding and abetting alleged federal accounting paperwork violations by a small Texas accounting firm where she had not worked since 2013. SEC forced her into multiple, years-long administrative enforcement proceedings adjudicated by agency-appointed Administrative Law Judges, who were unconstitutionally appointed and shielded from presidential removal. Once the court accepts it, this stipulation ends SECs attack on Ms. Cochran.

NCLA also filed a mandamus petition in April on behalf of Ms. Young and her company, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to issue an order compelling the SEC Commissioners in In re Marian P. Young and Saving2Retire, LLC to either dismiss the case or else promptly decide the appeal in the agencys eight-year-old case. Rather than await the Fifth Circuits ruling on NCLAs mandamus petition, SEC abandoned its administrative case against Ms. Young as well.

In April 2023, Christopher Gibson accepted the Supreme Courts invitation in its Cochran decision to challenge his seven-years-long biased and unconstitutional adjudication. He sued SEC for trying him before an unconstitutional ALJ exercising improper judicial power and violating his Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. SEC dismissed Mr. Gibsons administrative charges rather than subject its proceedings to constitutional scrutiny in a federal court.

NCLA released the following statements:

The reason SEC gave for its mass dismissal of every open case affected by this disturbing internal data breach is an obvious pretext. SEC is manipulating court dockets to avoid judicial review of its rigged agency adjudication scheme because it is afraid of what a court will discover behind the curtainnamely, biased trials that deny targets their rights to due process, and access to a real court with a jury, in a separate branch of government, as promised in our Constitution. Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

The full scope of NCLAs Supreme Court victory in Cochran was not apparent until SEC dismissed 42 pending enforcement casesincluding some legitimate cases the agency had no business dismissing. This unprecedented action naturally raises the question: What is the SEC so afraid of? By taking its ball and going home, SEC seeks to avoid accountability for both its unlawful internal data practices and its unconstitutional internal adjudication scheme. Unfortunately for the SEC, NCLA does not plan to let it off the hook so easily. Michelle Cochrans battle is over and won, but the war against SECs disdain for constitutional due process is just beginning. Mark Chenoweth, President and General Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page here or watch the case video here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights.

###

Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 [email protected]

Source: New Civil Liberties Alliance
SAN FRANCISCO and BERLIN, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- T-knife Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing T cell receptor-based immunotherapies that deliver transformational benefits to cancer patients, today announced four poster presentations at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting which will take place November 1-5, 2023 in San Diego, CA.



We are excited to share the breadth of our platform technologies in four poster presentations at SITC, stated Peggy Sotiropoulou, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of T-knife. T-knife is unveiling newly identified, next generation PRAME T-cell receptor therapy (TCR-T) candidates, combining high-affinity T-cell receptors with CD8 co-receptor and switch receptor constructs. We are also excited to share novel data from our toolbox of next-generation technologies, including tailored CD8 co-receptors and switch receptors designed to enhance T cell function and potency. Finally, we are presenting new data further validating our platform as a powerful tool for the identification of immunogenic epitopes for tumor associated antigens and the discovery of TCRs with best-in-class potential.

Poster Presentations:

Title: T-knifes MyT platform for unbiased discovery of most abundant and immunogenic T-cell epitopes Abstract No: 367 Date/Time: Friday, November 3 from 9:00 a.m.  7:00 p.m. PT Title: Enhanced anti-tumor activity and T-cell fitness of 2nd-generation MAGE-A1 TCR T-cells incorporating distinct CD8 co-receptor designs Abstract No: 375 Date/Time: Friday, November 3 from 9:00 a.m.  7:00 p.m. PT Title: High-affinity PRAME TCRs synergize with tailored CD8 co-receptor and switch receptors to generate potential best-in-class PRAME-targeting TCR-T therapy Abstract No: 394 Date/Time: Saturday, November 4 from 9:00 a.m.  8:30 p.m. PT Title: Counteracting TCR-T cell dysfunction in solid tumors through combination of FAS-based switch receptors and CD8-coreceptor Abstract No: 368 Date/Time: Saturday, November 4 from 9:00 a.m.  8:30 p.m. PT

About T-knife Therapeutics

T-knife is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing T cell receptor-based immunotherapies that deliver transformational benefits to cancer patients. Focused on T cell receptor (TCR) engineered T cell therapies (TCR-Ts), the companys unique approach leverages its proprietary MyTTM platform and a suite of technologies to enable the advancement of next-generation TCR-Ts for solid tumor cancers.

T-knife is advancing a portfolio of TCR-T product candidates against targets with high unmet medical need, including cancer testis antigens and commonly shared tumor-driving neoantigens. The companys lead program targeting MAGE-A1 positive solid tumors is in a Phase 1/2 clinical study. T-knife was founded by leading T cell and immunology experts utilizing technology developed at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine together with the Charite  Universitatsmedizin Berlin, and is supported by a leading group of international investors, including Andera Partners, EQT Life Sciences, RA Capital Management and Versant Ventures. For additional information, please visit the companys website at www.t-knife.com.
Columbus, OH, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tim Lamb, President of the Tim Lamb Group, the largest auto dealership sales and acquisitions firm in North America, has brokered the sale of Victory Honda of Sandusky, previously owned by Victory Automotive Group, to Firelands Auto Group. Firelands Auto Group, operated by Patrick OBrien, has added Firelands Honda, located at 2301 Hayes Ave., in Sandusky, to their growing group of Ohio based stores.

Lamb who has worked closely with both auto groups over the years, closed the deal on Monday, September 18, 2023. We have used Tim Lamb on multiple transactions, and we consider him not only a trusted advisor, but an expert in his field, stated OBrien. Lamb stated, The relationship that I have with both Victory Automotive and Firelands Auto provided both groups with reassurance that this would be a fair and smooth transaction. Lamb continued with, Its about finding the right fit for both the buyer and seller and engaging a buyer that shows the ability and urgency to pull all the necessary parties together and swiftly navigate the manufacturer approval process.

When OBrien purchased his first store in Norwalk, OH back in 2017 he hoped to encompass a larger footprint of brands with multiple stores throughout Northern Ohio. Now owning five stores, Firelands Auto Group offers customers a broad selection of new and used vehicles at their Firelands Chevrolet Buick Dealership & Collision Center in Norwalk, Firelands Chevrolet of Vermilion, Firelands Toyota, Firelands Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, and now Firelands Honda in the greater Sandusky area.

By adding more brands, we can make what we own into a true automotive campus, and thats what I plan to create at Strub Road and U.S. 250 in Sandusky, stated OBrien. OBrien who currently owns Firelands Toyota on Strub Road and Firelands Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram on Cleveland Road will be debuting a new location for Firelands Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in the upcoming weeks which will be located adjacent to the Toyota store on the Strub campus. OBrien plans to invest in the current Honda location and in the near future begin construction of a brand-new Honda facility on the Strub Road campus.

We were excited to purchase the Honda dealership for multiple reasons; one being that our customers often come in looking for Honda vehicles, another being that Honda is such a huge supporter of jobs and manufacturing needs in Ohio, stated OBrien. Honda, who became the first Japanese automaker to produce cars in the US back in 1982, started their journey at a production plant in Marysville Ohio. Honda who has hired more than 15,000 Ohio residents, is now working to transform their Marysville Auto, East Liberty Auto, and Anna Engine plants, all approximately 100 miles from Sandusky, OH into electric plants. Im excited to showcase the technical advances and features that Honda is offering, including high quality products and soon-to-be electric vehicles to our customers.

For more information on Tim Lamb Group visit, https://timlambgroup.com/

About Tim Lamb GroupSince 2006, Tim Lamb Group has been the number one choice for dealers looking to sell, or purchase, a new vehicle dealership. Fifteen regional directors handle billions of dollars per year in transactions for multiple dealer operators in every part of the United States and Canada. The Group has leveraged their factory management experience and retail dealership background to become the largest auto dealership sales and acquisitions firm in North America. For more information and dealerships for sale, visit www.timlambgroup.com.

Dawn Kelley Expand Marketing Group 734-765-1429 [email protected] Katrina Luts Expand Marketing Group 586-747-7418 [email protected]

Source: Tim Lamb Group
QUEBEC CITY, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UgoWork, a Canadian lithium-ion energy solutions provider specialized in the material handling industry, is proud to introduce UgoPilot, an innovative energy and battery intelligence management platform designed exclusively for industrial vehicle fleets. With a focus on real-time insights and data-driven decision-making, UgoPilot heralds a new era in energy management, empowering organizations to maximize fleet efficiency while prioritizing performance, safety, and sustainability.

"We've cultivated intelligence and harnessed our energy expertise through meticulous data collection from our cloud-connected batteries since Day 1," said Philippe Beauchamp, president and CEO of UgoWork. "Today's industry is shifting towards high performance products to meet safety, productivity and sustainability goals. The UgoPilot software suite is all about providing clarity. It generates the data-driven insights operations managers need to maximize the use of their fleets and enter into a new era of energy management that truly reduces carbon footprint and costs. Thanks to UgoPilot, batteries are not just black boxes anymore."

Pioneering fleet management transformationCapitalizing on proven field results, UgoPilot will unlock multiple opportunities that include:

Secure: Safe and efficient equipment operation through real-time data

Safe and efficient equipment operation through real-time data Reduce : Comprehensive fleet data to confidently eliminate underused equipment

: Comprehensive fleet data to confidently eliminate underused equipment Optimize : Predictive analytics to maximize fleet throughput and asset life

: Predictive analytics to maximize fleet throughput and asset life Support: Instant access to energy experts dedicated to helping you boost operational performance and achieve your mission-critical KPIs

A better battery is just the startBeta testers are already praising UgoPilot as a game-changer for the industry. An early adopter of UgoWork solutions and beta tester operating one of the largest 3PL operations in Canada shared, "UgoPilot's analysis of raw data provides insight that translates into action. Its prioritized features such as real-time fleet status, instant notifications, and personalized reporting have revolutionized our operations. UgoWork's Energy Experts provide unparalleled support, helping us reach our fleet reduction and productivity goals."

UgoPilot is set to reshape industries such as food and beverage, third-party logistics (3PL), warehousing and manufacturing. Designed for companies operating medium to large sized fleets, with each truck logging over 2,000 operational hours annually, UgoPilot stands as a beacon for businesses seeking enhanced fleet visibility, optimized performance, and significant energy savings.

Elevating industrial battery managementUgoPilot redefines energy management and battery intelligence for industrial trucks. With a phased rollout to select existing customers that started in the summer, the platform is now globally available, providing organizations the tools to harness actionable insights for unparalleled fleet performance.

Companies interested in transitioning to lithium-ion batteries, optimizing fleet performance, or seeking comprehensive energy management solutions can connect with UgoWork's energy experts to explore UgoPilot's detailed feature list and pricing.

About UgoWork

UgoWork develops, manufactures, and offers energy expertise and innovative lithium-ion power solutions that unlock the possibilities of Energy as a Service for the material handling industry. The company provides a flexible and cost-efficient consumption model that guarantees uptime and peace of mind. Its cloud-based approach to fleet optimization, pay-per-use program, energy insight, continuous field service, uptime guarantee, and end-of-life management enable fleet managers to execute their energy transition seamlessly. UgoWorks products and energy solutions cater to industrial trucks operating in the food and beverage, manufacturing, transportation, and distribution sectors.

Based in Quebec, Canada, the company offers its advanced, cost-efficient, and proven energy management programs across North America to many fortune 500 companies. Visit ugowork.com.

ugowork.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/505a12a8-aa6d-4ecd-8fee-76a04d186c3c

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f36ce3d0-0674-4368-9952-94010a7a5291

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d3514984-5f9d-4f1e-80e8-24a240e21e19

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/20754cd8-aeb1-4031-b1ad-834c36c92429

MEDIA INQUIRIES Jean-Francois Marchand Marketing and Communications Director [email protected]

UgoWork introduces UgoPilot: The smarter way to manage industrial batteries UgoPilot opens the gateway to UgoWork's energy solutions that enable you to improve your bottom line. Empower your fleet management with UgoPilot's data-driven intelligence UgoPilot by UgoWork is perfect for medium to large sized fleets, 2,000+ hours per truck, battery challenges, and a need for visibility and energy savings. UgoPilot by UgoWork logo UgoPilot | The smarter way to manage industrial batteries Discover the power of UgoPilot UgoPilot empowers you to gain real-time insights and make informed decisions tailored to your fleet's needs, propelling your fleet performance to its optimum potential.

Source: UgoWork
YARAT Contemporary Art Space is hosting a solo exhibition project by Maxim Tatarintsev.

"MONO"  derived from the ancient Greek word "?????" (monos, translates to "alone, solitary, or lonely"), Azernews reports.

The exhibition MONO talks about a man alienated in the absurd, making sense of a rapidly changing reality as a mirror to his time.

Obviously, the instability of human experience has become more common. Todays increasing geopolitical conflicts and immigrations, as well as natural disasters, have deeply affected peoples lives on a personal level. At the same time, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies is progressing in parallel with these events. This exhibition incorporates the author's reflections brought by the sense of meaninglessness and absurdity of the post-immigration period, reflecting the artist's subjective reality by means of artificial intelligence. While the exhibition is a completely personal monologue of the artist, throughout the exposition, there is a constant dialogue with artificial intelligence. In this dialectic, artificial intelligence plays the role of a guide, serving as a kind of solution provider, accompanying the author in their search for meaning and raising questions within the absurd. Artificial intelligence dictates the author through all of their steps. Despite the often-irrational nature of these instructions, the fact that the author follows them points to how external forces and circumstances affects their perception and life, even to the extent of control. In the exhibition, the artist proposes a critical question: should one surrender to events beyond their control or resist against them?

By establishing a mutual relationship with artificial intelligence, Tatarintsev examines the possibilities and limitations of the interaction and explores the potential consequences of AIs rapid development. Thus, the exhibition raises questions related to ethics and responsibility and emphasizing how it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from surreal, original from counterfeit. Note that the exhibition is curated by Zahra Mammadova.

Maxim Tatarintsev (b.1991, Ukraine) is an artist, works in genres of video, installation, public-art and painting. The main plot to his work is the social environment, as the main source of personality development.

He graduated from the "Environmental Design" faculty in Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts named after S. Stroganov in 2014. In 2018, he graduated from ICA. Solo exhibtions of the artist include "By my side" solo exhibition ("DORDOR" gallery, New York, 2021); "Timekeeping" ("PRO ART`S" gallery, Kaluga, Russia, 2020). He also participated in numerous exhibitions and projects: SafeZone (ARTIM Project Space, Baku, 2022), "Things" ("ART4" Museum, Moscow, Russia, 2022), Fisura International Experimental Film and Video Festival ( Mexico, 2021), "COSMOSCOW" Art Fair (Moscow, 2020), International Biennale of Young Art (2018, 2016; Moscow) and etc. His works have been awarded a number of prizes.

Opening: September 28th, 19:00

Venue: ARTIM Project Space

Exhibition Duration: September 28th December 30th

Address: Icherisheher (Old City), Kichik Qala Street, 5

Exhibition Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00 PM  8:00 PM
Senior man doing a self test for COVID-19 at home. Basilico Studio Stock (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

During the summer, the distribution of free Covid-19 tests through the United States Postal Service (USPS) stopped due to a decline in demand and reduced orders via COVIDTests.gov. However, with the U.S. gearing up for holiday travel and gatherings with loved ones, The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and USPS are now reinstating ordering. This will provide households in the United States with another chance to request tests for free home delivery.

The tests (also referred to as self-tests or over-the-counter tests) are rapid antigen tests, not PCR tests. They can be taken at home or other locations and will give results within 30 minutes. They dont require analysis in a lab and can be taken by anyone, whether they have Covid-19 symptoms or not. All tests require you to use a compatible, Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, as well as download and install an app from the App Store (for iOS) or Google Play (for Android).

Orders will ship for free starting the week of October 2, 2023, so anyone who ordered tests should receive them a few days after that.

It is recommended to take an at-home test if you begin experiencing Covid-19 symptoms like fever, sore throat, or loss of taste or smell. Its also advisable to take it at least five days after having known close contact with someone with the virus or when youre going to gather with a group of people, especially those who are at risk of severe infection or havent been vaccinated.

How to order at-home Covid-19 tests

Tests can be ordered through COVIDTests.gov. All you need to place an order is a name and residential address. No identification, credit card, or health insurance information is necessary. You can also provide an email address to receive order updates.

For those encountering difficulties accessing the internet or needing additional assistance with ordering, support can be obtained by dialing 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489) between 8 AM and Midnight ET, seven days a week, with assistance available in English, Spanish, and over 150 other languages.

People with disabilities can contact the Disability Information and Access Line (DIAL) at 1-888-677-1199 between 9 AM and 8 PM ET, Monday to Friday, or by emailing DIAL@usaginganddisability.org.

Inquiries related to eligibility, the online ordering process, shipping, or delivery can be directed to the USPS Help Desk at 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777).

Who can order tests?

Tests are available for every residential address in all U.S. states and territories, including overseas military and diplomatic addresses. You may request tests to be sent to a PO Box if its registered as a residential PO Box. Americans who live outside of the U.S. or its territories cant place orders.

How many tests can I order?

Each household is eligible to receive one order of four free at-home tests.

What do I do if I need more tests?

There are other options to get tested for free, including free community-based testing sites, pharmacies across the country, and the US Department of Health and Human Services distributing free at-home tests to schools, nursing homes, food banks, and other locations.

You can also contact an HRSA health center, Test to Treat site, or ICATT location near you to learn how to access low- or no-cost Covid-19 tests.

Can I choose what brand of test I get?

No. However, all tests are FDA-authorized at-home rapid antigen tests.

What should I do if my Covid-19 Home Test has expired?

According to the tests website, most Covid-19 home tests have received expiration extensions from the FDA. To see if a Covid-19 test has an expiration extension, you can check the List of Authorized At-Home OTC Covid-19 Diagnostic Tests.

How are the tests delivered?

Tests are delivered through the U.S. Postal Service. Orders within the continental U.S. will be sent through USPS Ground Advantage. Shipments to other states and territories will be sent through Priority Mail.

People can provide an email address to receive notifications with shipping updates. Once the order is shipped, they will receive an email with an estimated delivery date and a tracking number for USPS. The tests cant be picked up somewhere other than a home address.

Do I have to pay for shipping?

No. Those who order free tests wont have to pay for shipping, and theyll never be asked for a credit card or a bank account number. The official website warns that anyone who asks for more information than a name and a shipping address is a scammer. No one will call, text, or email you from the federal government to ask for your information to help you order free kits.

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Steered by a dynamic team of professionals from diverse backgrounds, WLTHX is an ambitious crypto utility token designed to drive "Financial Inclusion through Education."

New York, NY, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WeaLTH eXchange (WLTHX), a pioneering force in financial inclusion, is set to launch a gamified trading platform. WLTHX aims to bridge traditional investment and Web 3.0 technology by offering innovative solutions.

The team behind WLTHX brings a wealth of expertise from Wall Street and a drive to redefine norms. With the upcoming launch, users can expect an engaging trading experience with rewards. The project will also feature financial education tools and B2B partnerships.

Revolutionizing Digital Asset Management

WLTHX is a beacon of innovation in the Web3 world. The token design features are unique, with a focus on protecting holders. A reserve pool of stablecoins and digital assets guarantees a transparent, irrevocable floor price. As more assets join the pool, the floor price escalates.

The token's utility transcends typical boundaries. Trading becomes a rewarding, gamified experience. Cashbacks are a perk for users' trading endeavors. Token holders also gain privileged access to underwritten project tokens. They find assurance in investing only in the finest.

Exclusivity is a hallmark of being a WLTHX holder. Priority invitations to special events are a given. The networks of esteemed B2B partners become accessible. The revolutionary tokenization-as-a-service program is a standout. It is changing how enterprises unlock value, distributing unmatched utility benefits to the token community.

Bridging Traditional Investment and Web 3.0

WLTHX stands at the crossroads of traditional investment and Web 3.0. Their roadmap reveals an ambitious plan to extend their reach across the globe. The team is a blend of accomplished professionals hailing from esteemed backgrounds. Their journey merges resilience, innovation, and a boundary-breaking force.

The founder, Viru Raparthi, is an embodiment of tenacity. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), he's powered through and thrived in diverse and challenging landscapes, such as the Texas Gulf Coast and Brazil in the mid-90s. His contributions to risk management are still recognized globally.

Raparthi is not just a successful entrepreneur; he is also a visionary. He's been an integral part of President Bill Clinton's trade delegation, earned an MBA from The Wharton School, and developed exceptional expertise and insight through decades on Wall Street. Today, he envisages WLTHX as a bridge between Wall Street and the emerging world of Web3.

As a team member eloquently - stated, "Innovation is not about creating something new; it's about reimagining the old with the wisdom of the present." This vision drives their ambition to make finance accessible and inclusive. The idea behind the initiative is to create a world where everyone can stake a claim in their financial future.

About WeaLTH eXchange (WLTHX)

WLTHX (WeaLTH eXchange) is a new crypto token with a mission to promote financial inclusion in emerging economies. It offers a gamified rewards experience and tools for financial education and trading.

The WLTHX token supports AI-driven financial education, robo-trading, loyalty projects, and B2B partnerships. With its innovative platform, WLTHX aims to bridge the gap between traditional banking and the under-banked population in emerging economies.

Wall Street and Web3 experts make up the WLTHX team, working to create a financial ecosystem empowering individuals and communities.

The launch of WLTHX's gamified trading platform intends to transform digital asset management. The team intends to propose advanced features such as a reserve pool of stablecoins and digital assets.

WLTHX holders enjoy exclusive benefits, including priority invitations to special events and access to underwritten project tokens. They also have the opportunity to participate in the innovative tokenization-as-a-service program.

Anyone wishing to discover WLTHX and its mission to revolutionize finance can visit its website for updates and information. Furthermore, the social media pages below can provide additional insights into this new Web3 initiative.
Eloro Resources (TSX: ELO) (OTCQX: ELRRF) (FSE: P2QM), an exploration and mining company focused on developing its potential world-class Iska Iska silver-tin polymetallic property located in southern Bolivia, recently released updated assay results derived from its ongoing reconnaissance drilling. Recent drilling work across 16 holes, spread across Eloros Mina Casiterita Property, Santa Barbara deposit and Porco-Mine 1 area, uncovered an array of well-mineralized intersections. Moreover and with tin mineralization at Casiterita revealed in deposits up to 2km southwest of the Santa Barbara deposit, findings suggest that Iska Iskas cumulative mineral deposits may be far more extensive than previously anticipated, a recent article reads. The global march toward Net Zero, an ambition predicated on the world achieving a balance between global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and those being removed from the atmosphere by 2050, has now emerged as the biggest long-term demand driver of tin However, the commodity faces an increasingly tenuous supply backdrop Eloro Resources ongoing efforts to play a role in bridging the widening supply gap within the global tin supply chain looks positively poised, particularly post the companys recent positive drilling results.

To view the full article, visit https://ibn.fm/2TeDn

About Eloro Resources Ltd.

Eloro is an exploration and mine development company with a portfolio of gold and base-metal properties in Bolivia, Peru and Quebec. Eloro has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the highly prospective Iska Iska Property, which can be classified as a polymetallic epithermal-porphyry complex, a significant mineral deposit type in the Potosi Department in southern Bolivia. A recent NI 43-101 Technical Report on Iska Iska, which was completed by Micon International Limited, is available on Eloros website and under its filings on SEDAR. Iska Iska is a road-accessible, royalty-free property. Eloro also owns an 82% interest in the La Victoria Gold/Silver Project, located in the North-Central Mineral Belt of Peru some 50 km south of Barricks Lagunas Norte Gold Mine and Pan American Silvers La Arena Gold Mine.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to ELRRF are available in the companys newsroom at https://ibn.fm/ELRRF

About MiningNewsWire

MiningNewsWire (MNW) is a specialized communications platform with a focus on developments and opportunities in the Global Mining and Resources sectors. It is one of 60+ brands within the Dynamic Brand Portfolio @ IBN that delivers: (1) access to a vast network of wire solutions via InvestorWire to efficiently and effectively reach a myriad of target markets, demographics and diverse industries; (2) article and editorial syndication to 5,000+ outlets; (3) enhanced press release enhancement to ensure maximum impact; (4) social media distribution via IBN to millions of social media followers; and (5) a full array of tailored corporate communications solutions. With broad reach and a seasoned team of contributing journalists and writers, MNW is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies that want to reach a wide audience of investors, influencers, consumers, journalists and the general public. By cutting through the overload of information in todays market, MNW brings its clients unparalleled recognition and brand awareness.

MNW is where breaking news, insightful content and actionable information converge.

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FILE PHOTO: The Apple Inc logo is seen at the entrance to the Apple store in Brussels, Belgium November 28, 2022. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Apple was ordered on Wednesday to face a private antitrust lawsuit by payment card issuers accusing the company of thwarting competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said the plaintiffs could try to prove that Apple violated the federal Sherman antitrust law by enforcing a 100% monopoly over the domestic market for tap-and-pay wallets for iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.

The Oakland, California-based judge also dismissed a "tying" claim, which accused Apple of requiring purchasers of iOS devices to buy Apple Pay or forego purchases of competing wallets.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"We are happy with this ruling," Steve Berman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an email. "There are billions at stake so getting by the motion (to dismiss) largely intact was huge for the class."

The proposed class action is led by Illinois' Consumers Co-op Credit Union, and Iowa's Affinity Credit Union and GreenState Credit Union.

They said Apple "coerces" people who use its smartphones, tablets and smart watches into using its own wallet for tap-and-pay transactions, unlike makers of Android-based devices that let people choose wallets such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

According to the complaint, Apple's conduct forces more than 4,000 banks and credit unions that use Apple Pay to pay at least $1 billion of excess fees, and harms consumers by minimizing the incentive to make Apple Pay safer and easier to use.

White said the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that Apple allow alternatives to Apple Pay, and that more competition would spur innovation and reduce prices.

In seeking a dismissal, Apple said it charged "nominal" fees to even smaller card issuers, and that the plaintiffs ignored the "competitive reality" that consumers could still pay with cash, credit and debit cards, and other means.

European Union antitrust regulators accused Apple in May 2022 of abusing its dominance in iOS devices and mobile wallets. The regulators have since continued their investigation.

The case is Affinity Credit Union et al v Apple Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 22-04174.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Gregorio)
Perth, Western Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - In accordance with ASX Listing Rule 3.10A, Besra Gold Inc (ASX: BEZ) (ARBN 141 335 686) (Besra or the Company) advises that 53,127,907 CDIs are due to be released from mandatory escrow on 8 October 2023.

The CDIs have been subject to ASX imposed escrow since the time the Company was admitted to the Official List.

As required by ASX Listing Rule 2.8.5, Besra will apply for a quotation of the 53,127,907 CDIs within five business days after the end of the escrow date.

The CDIs were issued as follows:

32,500,000 to Gladioli Enterprises Sdn Bhd (12,500,000 CDIs) and Pangaea Resources Ltd (Pangaea) (20,000,000 CDIs) under the Variation of the Sale and Purchase of Shares Agreement.

691,693 to Jon Morda (136,045 CDIs) and an entity associated with John Seton in their capacity as unsecured noteholders under the Noteholder Offer and

19,936,214 issued to Pangaea as a secured creditor under the Restructure.

This announcement was authorised for release by Mr. John Seton, Executive Director of Besra Gold Inc.

Michael Higginson

Company Secretary

Besra Gold Inc

North America

James Hamilton

Investor Relations

Besra Gold Inc.

M: 416-471-4494

E: [email protected]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182087
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Couloir Capital is pleased to announce it has hired veteran junior resource broker Dan Stuart. Mr. Stuart will be raising capital for mineral exploration projects in BC's Golden Triangle and other areas. Dan has over 25 years of investment industry experience in numerous firms including Yorkton Securities, Blackmont Capital, and Canaccord Genuity raising in excess of $100 million. He has developed a following within the resource and investment communities, including over 25,000 LinkedIn followers. He is registered as a Dealing Representative (broker) at Couloir Securities and is licensed to serve clients in BC and Ontario.

About Couloir Capital Ltd.

Couloir Capital Ltd. is an investment research firm comprised of a team of experienced investment professionals dedicated to providing opportunities in the natural resource exploration and development sectors. Our research reports are disseminated through Bloomberg, FactSet, Capital IQ, Reuters, and many more, as well as through our social media and large email distribution list. To subscribe please visit: https://www.couloircapital.com/research-portal.

All investors are encouraged to sign up for a subscription to receive research reports and other valuable information. It is free and always will be.

Our affiliated firm, Couloir Securities, is approved by the BC and Ontario Securities Commission to serve clients as a private placement dealer (Exempt Market Dealer) in the provinces, mentioned above. Investment opportunities include non-brokered private placements primarily in the resource sector. Tax-advantaged flow-through share offerings are frequently available.

Resource companies are invited to contact us to discuss your financing and equity research plans.

Deal-oriented brokers are invited to contact us to discuss employment opportunities.

For further information, please contact:

Rob Stitt, Managing Director, Couloir Capital Ltd.

Email: [email protected]

www.couloircapital.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181990
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Currie Rose Resources Inc. (TSXV: CUI) ("Currie Rose" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the "infill" large diameter (100 mm) core drilling program at the Cambridge Vanadium Deposit1 has been completed successfully and also advises that the Company has engaged specialist environmental consultancy, Epic Environmental Pty Ltd ("Epic Environmental"), to commence environmental baseline assessments at the Company's 100%-owned North Queensland Vanadium Project ("NQVP") located about 450 km west of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, in the Julia Creek-Richmond critical mineral zone.

Highlights:

Ten (10) large diameter (100 mm) 4C core drill holes completed

Downhole Gamma and Density geophysics completed on all drill holes

All core dispatched to Mitra PTS Laboratory for processing

Desktop ecological study underway

Flora and water studies initiated

Simon Coyle, Currie Rose's President and CEO, commented:

"Completion of our first drill program at the Cambridge Deposit is another milestone for the Company. This work will provide the platform for several workstreams over the wet season, but most importantly, we have a good quantity of sample for metallurgical test covering the bulk of the Cambridge deposit."

"We are also pleased to have started our first environmental studies at the NQVP. Investing in the environmental baseline data in the early planning stages of the Project will facilitate timely and science-based approvals necessary for the subsequent development stages. Starting the work now ensures we are on track for production success in the near term."

NQVP covers over300 km2 of the outcropping Toolebuc Formation (vanadium host rock) within approximately 1,250 km2 of granted 100%-owned tenure in northwest Queensland. The centrally located Cambridge Vanadium Deposit hosts NI 43-101 compliant Indicated Mineral Resource2 of 61.33 Mt @ 0.34% V 2 O 5 and Inferred Mineral Resource of 144.87 Mt @ 0.33% V 2 O 5 .



Figure 1 - North Queensland Vanadium Project Location

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2005/182002_a0377e17b421d979_001full.jpg

Drilling Program

A total of ten (10) drill large diameter 4C core (100 mm) drill holes, totaling 333 metres, have been completed from within the Cambridge Deposit (Table 1). Downhole Gamma and Density geophysics was also completed on all drill holes for stratigraphic analysis and to assist with planned metallurgical studies.

Two holes (NQVP23-004 and NQVP23-007) have been conditioned for water monitoring purposes and part of the ground water studies conducted by Epic Environmental.

Core has been dispatched to Mitra PTS in Gladstone, Queensland for processing, and all data collected from the program is now being collated. The Company will provide further updates on the drill program data as they come to hand.

Photo 1 - NQVP23_005 - Typical Oxide Zone - Cambridge Deposit

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2005/182002_a0377e17b421d979_002full.jpg

Environmental Studies

Epic Environmental Pty Ltd is a highly experienced environmental group with extensive experience in the Richmond-Julia Creek region of Queensland. Their engagement at this stage in the Project is to ensure that there are no delays to the development of the Project due to baseline data collection for potential development of the project.

The scope of work includes an initial desktop ecological assessment, collating all the public data for the area, and first pass "on-ground" flora and fauna observations. In addition, studies have also included surface water, groundwater, and air quality monitoring. These studies are long term, and the Company will provide further updates as available.

Hole ID Core Type Easting_X Northing_Y Depth (m) NQV23_001 4C Core 692239 7734776 30 NQV23_002 4C Core 692122 7733776 31 NQV23_003 4C Core 693171 7734158 37 NQV23_004 4C Core 693047 7733163 36 NQV23_005 4C Core 694351 7735523 37 NQV23_006 4C Core 694201 7734286 25 NQV23_007 4C Core 695095 7733418 36 NQV23_008 4C Core 695221 7734412 26 NQV23_009 4C Core 692334 7735515 20 NQV23_010 4C Core 693297 7735149 55 Total 333 EPSG:7854 - GDA2020 / MGA zone 54

Table 1 - 4C Core Holes Location

About Currie Rose Resources Inc.

Currie Rose is a publicly traded battery metals exploration and development company identifying high-value assets in resource and research-friendly jurisdictions. The Company's immediate focus is the advanced NQV Project in Queensland, Australia. The NQV Project hosts the Cambridge Deposit with an Indicated Mineral Resource of 61.33 Mt @ 0.34% V 2 O 5 and 234.6 ppm MoO 3 along with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 144.87 Mt @ 0.33% V 2 O 5 and 241.9 ppm MoO 3 (Dufresne et al., 2022). The Company additionally owns Kotai Energy and the option to acquire 100% of the intellectual property rights associated with the Solid-State Hydrogen Storage Project from Curtin University in Western Australia. Please visit our website at www.currierose.com.

For additional information, please contact:

Iryna Zheliasko, Investor Relations - Canada

Office: (+1) 647-249-9298

Email: [email protected]

Andrew Rowell, Investor Relations - Australia

M: +61 400 466 226

Email: [email protected]

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and reviewed and approved on behalf of Currie Rose Resources by Michael Griffiths, FAusIMM, VP Exploration and Director for Currie Rose Resources, a Qualified Person.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, timing, assumptions or expectations of future performance, including without limitation, statements regarding the Company's plans regarding the NQV Project. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on certain material assumptions and analysis made by the Company and the opinions and estimates of management as of the date of this press release, including that the Company will receive the required corporate and regulatory approvals, including TSXV's final approval, that that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner and assumptions regarding political and regulatory stability in financial and capital markets.

These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary, include, without limitation, that the Company will not be able to proceed with the NQV Project as intended, or that the Company does not receive the required regulatory approvals, including the TSXV's final approval, recent market volatility and potentially negative capital raising conditions, the conflict in Eastern Europe, the Company's ability to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies and other risks and factors that the Company is unaware of at this time. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended.

There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

1 Refer to TSXV Announcement dated 22 August 2023 - Currie Rose Commences Core Drilling at the North Queensland Vanadium Project in Australia

2 Refer to TSXV Announcement dated 1 November 2022 - Currie Rose Announces Updated Mineral Resource Estimate at its North Queensland Vanadium Project

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182002
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - This press release is being disseminated as required by National Instrument 62-103 - The Early Warning System and Related Take Over Bids and Insider Reporting Issues ("62-103") in connection with the filing of an early warning report by Zachary Goldenberg in connection with a certain transaction involving the common shares ("Common Shares") of Tiidal Gaming Group Corp. (CSE: TIDL) (the "Issuer"), with its head office located at 365 Bay Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario M5H 2V1.

On September 26, 2023 (the "Transaction Date"), Goldenberg acquired an aggregate of 73,500 Common Shares through the facilities of the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") at an average price of $0.10 per share for aggregate consideration of $7,350 (the "Transaction"). This Transaction resulted in Mr. Goldenberg acquiring over 2% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares (on a partially diluted basis) since his last report and triggered the requirement to file this report.

Set out below is certain disclosure required to be made in connection with the completion of the Transactions pursuant to Part 3 of National Instrument 62-103.

All percentages set out in this press release are based on 87,603,908 Common Shares being outstanding as of the date hereof.

Prior to the Transaction, Mr. Goldenberg owned and controlled 10,842,460 Common Shares, representing approximately 12.38% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis).

Following the completion of the Transaction, Mr. Goldenberg owns and controls 10,915,960 Common Shares, representing approximately 12.46% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis).

In addition to Common Shares, Mr. Goldenberg owns and controls warrants (the "Warrants") exercisable to acquire an aggregate of 1,132,499 Common Shares. Assuming the exercise of all outstanding Warrants (and assuming no further issuances of Common Shares by the Issuer), Mr. Goldenberg would own and control 12,048,459 Common Shares representing approximately 13.75% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares (on a fully diluted basis). The Transaction resulted in a change in Mr. Goldenberg's holdings in the Common Shares from 11.50% to 13.58% (on a partially diluted basis) since Mr. Goldenberg's prior report.

All securities of the Issuer owned or controlled by Mr. Goldenberg are held for investment purposes and Mr. Goldenberg has no present intention to dispose of or acquire further Common Shares. In the future, Mr. Goldenberg may, from time to time, increase or decrease its ownership, control or direction over securities of the Issuer held by it through market transactions, private agreements or otherwise, depending on market conditions, the business and prospects of the Issuer, and other relevant factors.

A copy of the early warning report filed by Mr. Goldenberg in connection with the completion of the Transaction may be obtained from Mr. Goldenberg by contacting the Issuer (telephone #: 416-560-0528; Attention: Thomas Hearne, Chief Executive Officer) and will be available under Issuer's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

The head office of Mr. Goldenberg is located at 365 Bay Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2V1.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182042
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2023) - Hillcrest Energy Technologies (CSE: HEAT) (FSE: 7HI) ("Hillcrest" or the "Company") announces revised terms of its previously announced non-brokered private placement and termination of brokered listed issuer financing exemption ("LIFE") private placement.

The Company is revising the terms of its previously announced non-brokered private placement. The Company will now be offering up to 10,500,000 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of $0.40 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $4,200,000 (the "Private Placement"). Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company (a "Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.50 for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance. However, the Warrants will be subject to an accelerated expiry upon 30 business days' notice from the Company in the event the Common Shares trade for ten (10) consecutive trading days any time after four (4) months from closing of the Private Placement at a volume-weighted average price of at least $0.60 on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE").

The Company currently has commitments exceeding $1,500,000 for the Private Placement and anticipates closing the first tranche in approximately five business days.

All securities issued in connection with the Private Placement will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months and one day following the date of issuance in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. The Company may pay a finder's fee in connection with the Private Placement to eligible arm's length finders in accordance with the policies of the CSE.

The Company will use the net proceeds of the Private Placement for technology and product development, commercialization, and general working capital.

It is the belief of management, based on a review of the trading activity since announcement of the previously announced brokered LIFE private placement, that the announcement of a financing of free-trading securities created pressure on the price of the listed securities of the Company, which ultimately resulted in the LIFE offering being unmarketable. Thus, the Company and Canaccord Genuity Corp. have terminated their engagement letter and the Company will not be proceeding with the brokered LIFE private placement as previously announced on September 11, 2023.

About Hillcrest Energy Technologies

Hillcrest Energy Technologies is a clean technology company developing high value, high performance power conversion technologies and digital control systems for next-generation powertrains and grid-connected renewable energy systems. From concept to commercialization, Hillcrest is investing in the development of energy solutions that will power a more sustainable and electrified future. Hillcrest is publicly traded on the CSE under the symbol "HEAT," on the OTCQB Venture Market as "HLRTF" and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as "7HI." For more information, please visit: https://hillcrestenergy.tech/.

Contact Information

Don Currie

Chief Executive Officer and Director

[email protected]

O: +1-604-609-0006

Toll-free: 1-855-609-0006

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

The securities of the Company referred to in this news release have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws. Accordingly, the securities of the Company may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements relating to the Private Placement and the use of proceeds therefrom. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. The forward-looking statements contained herein are also subject generally to assumptions and risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the Company's public securities filings with the Canadian securities commissions. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181954
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Izotropic Corporation(CSE:IZO) (OTCQB:IZOZF) (FSE:1R3) ("Izotropic" or the "Company"), a medical device company commercializing IzoView, a CT (computed tomography) imaging system, that produces images of anatomy for non-invasive tissue characterization with the first application in breast imaging, announced today it has confirmed a pre-submission meeting date with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scheduled for October 25, 2023.

Further to its news release on September 6, 2023, Izotropic completed a pre-submission application to the FDA to solidify its plans to pursue market clearance for IzoView as a Class II device through a 510(k) pre-market notification submission.

The purpose of the upcoming meeting is to discuss the application, obtain feedback, and confirm next steps. The meeting will take place in Rockville, Maryland, and will be attended by Izotropic's management, technical and engineering team members, and its FDA consultant, Matrix Medical Devices.

The Company will issue a news release in due course after the meeting to report on its progress.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Mr. Robert Thast, CEO

Cell: 604-220-5031

Contact:

Email: [email protected]

Toll Free: 1-833-IZOCORP ext.1

About Izotropic

More information about Izotropic Corporation can be found on its website at izocorp.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain statements that are "Forward-Looking Statements," which are based upon the current estimates, assumptions, projections, and expectations of the Company's management, business, and its knowledge of the relevant market and economic environment in which it operates. The Company has tried, where possible, to identify such information and statements by using words such as "anticipate," "believe," "envision," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "project," "target," "potential," "will," "would," "could," "should," "continue," "contemplate" and other similar expressions and derivations thereof in connection with any discussion of future events, trends or prospects or future operating or financial performance, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words.

These statements are not guarantees of performance and involve risks, including those related to capital requirements and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict, and as such, they may cause future results of the Company's activity to differ significantly from the content and implications of such statements. Forward-Looking Statements are pertinent only as of the date on which they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any Forward-Looking Statements to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances unless otherwise required to do so by law. Neither the Company nor its shareholders, officers, and consultants shall be liable for any action and the results of any action taken by any person based on the information contained herein, including, without limitation, the purchase or sale of Company securities. Nothing in this document should be deemed to be medical or other advice of any kind. All images are for illustrative purposes only. IzoView is not yet approved for sale.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181959
NAKA introduces a new decentralized approach to finances, built upon a pioneering blockchain-based payment scheme and a payment card that links to the wallet managed by MetaMask and can be read by any POS terminal worldwide.

Ljubljana, Slovenia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - NAKA has developed a new technology that bridges the gap between the traditional payment industry and the blockchain world. It encompasses a unique payment scheme running fully on smart contracts and a self-custodial payment card that is available to anyone without any bank intermediaries. The NAKA payment scheme and card are fully compatible with the EMV standard, an acronym representing Europay, Mastercard, and Visa. This allows compatibility with virtually any point-of-sale (POS) system on a global scale.

NAKA Launching the First Self-Custodial Payment Card/Scheme Working on POS Terminals Worldwide



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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The initial testing phase for NAKA's card and scheme will take place in two strategically selected locations: Switzerland and El Salvador. These regions have established robust infrastructure for accepting Bitcoin payments at POS terminals, making them ideal for testing NAKA's cryptocurrency and card payments. NAKA's payment acceptance system will seamlessly support Bitcoin on the Lightning Network (LN) and the stablecoin USDt on the Polygon, Tron, and Ethereum networks, augmenting its versatility and usability.

What is NAKA card?

NAKA designed a self-custodial payment card that can be obtained by any user. The card connects to a non-custodial wallet and enables its user to manage his funds at his discretion. The new NAKA card is opening the door to decentralized financial services, benefiting unbanked individuals and those who lost trust in centralized financial institutions.

The card is backed by the NAKA payment scheme, a blockchain-based payment network that executes transactions and settlements by relying on smart contracts.

What makes NAKA unique?

NAKA card can be used with the existing payment acceptance infrastructure.

Compatible with the legacy payment industry standards, the NAKA scheme and card have the potential to be used on any conventional POS device.

During its test phase, the NAKA card will be supported at all NAKA point-of-sale locations across Switzerland and El Salvador launching in October and November this year.

NAKA card is self-custodial.

NAKA cardholders use the NAKA decentralized application (dApp) to connect their NAKA cards to a wallet, managed by MetaMask and fund their cards with their MetaMask assets (USDt on Polygon supported) or top them up directly with USDt on the Polygon network.

Anyone can issue the NAKA card without obtaining additional licenses.

The NAKA card can be issued by any legitimate company either as a so-called primary issuer, where the issuing of cards is communicated directly with NAKA, or through a NAKA sponsoring issuer.

For more information about becoming a NAKA issuer, visit thePartners webpage.

Where can NAKA be used?

The NAKA card will officially launch at the Plan B Forum in Lugano, Switzerland, on October 20th and 21st, 2023. NAKA's CEO, Dejan Roljic, will perform the first-ever transaction with the NAKA card during his live speech in Villa Ciani. During the two-day event, the selected few will become the first cardholders of NAKA and will be able to try out card payments with USDt across the venue and the entire Lugano region.

NAKA powers three Bitcoin Cities

After the official launch, NAKA will be supported in three Bitcoin Cities across the globe: Lugano, Switzerland; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Ljubljana, Slovenia. After the initial phase, NAKA will expand to other markets as well.

Visit NAKA website to learn more about the products and services.

About NAKA

NAKA is a FinTech company developing a comprehensive suite of financial products and services, including a dedicated self-custody payment card, a blockchain payment scheme, and a holistic point-of-sale payment solution, offering a complete payment ecosystem. Built on the foundation of GoCrypto's success story, NAKA's blockchain-powered financial ecosystem bridges traditional and decentralized finance, committed to decentralizing finances and achieving financial inclusion for all. Its vision is to pioneer decentralized technology solutions that empower individuals, transcending boundaries to provide universal access to financial freedom for everyone.

NAKA - Money Unlocked

Contact:

Nuaa Sterniaa

Head of PR, GoCrypto

[email protected]

www.naka.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182034
Four of the seven candidates who will take part in the second Republican debate in Simi Valley. Starting at top left: Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis. BRIAN SNYDER (REUTERS)

Four indictments and a historic mug shot have only served to increase Donald Trumps lead in the race to win the Republican Partys 2024 presidential nomination. Just as he skipped the first primary debate, the controversial former U.S. president has announced that he will also not attend the second debate, to be held Wednesday 18.00 PT at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is a distant second in the polls, will try to recover ground. But the field remains crowded: seven presidential hopefuls will be fighting on stage to chip away at Trumps 40-plus point lead.

The debate, however, will include fewer candidates than the first event in August. Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, took part in the primary debate in Milwaukee, but did not meet the threshold for the second. The Republican National Committee raised the bar in an effort to narrow the field. To appear on the stage in Simi Valley, a city 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, the candidates needed at least 3% of support in two qualifying national surveys and to show they have at least 50,000 unique donors, including at least 200 donors each from 20 states or territories.

Donald Trump far exceeds these two requirements, but was not on the invite list. This is presumably because he refused to sign pledges to the party committee stating that he would support the winner of the primaries. But he doesnt need to be on the invite list. According to surveys, he is now polling above 50% among Republicans in California. Indeed, his closest rivals have preferred to campaign in other states, where the competition is closer. Trump will visit the city of Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles, on Friday for a fundraising event.

More information Trump plans to support strikers in Detroit on the day of the second primary debate

The seven candidates who cleared the threshold for Wednesdays debate are former vice president Mike Pence; Florida Governor DeSantis; Trumps former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley; South Carolina Senator Tim Scott; former New Jersey governor Chris Christie; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who stole the limelight from DeSantis at the first debate and became the star of the night.

The second debate will give the candidates another chance to close the gap with Trump. While the event is taking place, the former president will be in Detroit with the striking autoworkers. In the first debate, the former president was, on average, about 35 points ahead of DeSantis. That margin has grown to 40. In an NBC poll, the Florida governor has lost six points in three months (polling at 16% in September), while Nikki Haley has gone from 4% to 7% in the same period. A poll last week by Fox Business, the debate organizers, put Trump at 46%, DeSantis at 15%; Haley at 11% and Ramaswamy at 7%. The Washington Post and ABC, however, said the 38-year-old businessman was polling at 3%.

Haley, the only woman in the race, is coming into the California debate stronger. The former South Carolina governor has rebounded in the polls among conservative voters. She also saw a boost in support after the first debate in Milwaukee, where she quoted Margaret Thatcher. Her team said that in the three days following the first debate, the campaign raised $1 million, a milestone in her path to the primaries.

The second debate will be broadcast on Fox Business Network and Univision, a U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network. But the exclusive online livestream will take place on Rumble, a controversial social network linked to the far right. The Republican National Committee has been criticized for its decision to partner with the video-sharing platform. The committee chose Rumble in a bid to distance themselves from the big tech companies, which are targeted by the party. Founded in 2013, Rumble has been involved in several scandals due to its lax moderation policy, which allows extremist, racist and conspiracy theory videos, including those linked to QAnon, to be posted to the site.

The economy will be the main topic of Wednesdays debate, according to organizers. This discussion will take place against the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against Detroits Big Three. But its taken for granted that the guide is just a formality. There will be space for the candidates to discuss other concerns of conservative voters in the hopes of winning over Trump supporters.

A lot is at stake. Some 169 delegates will be up for grabs in California at the March 5 primary vote, known as Super Tuesday. One of the issues expected to come up in Wednesdays debate is border control. In August, the United States recorded the highest number of illegal family crossings in the last four years, a figure that gives ammunition to the GOP presidential hopefuls, who propose sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and using military force against the drug cartels.

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Ottawa, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Northern Graphite Corporation (TSXV: NGC) (OTCQB: NGPHF) (FSE: 0NG) (XSTU: 0NG) (the "Company" or "Northern") announces that it has sold an additional 0.5% gross revenue royalty ("GRR") on its Bissett Creek Project to Electric Royalties Ltd. ("ELEC") for cash consideration of CAD $950,000. ELEC had previously purchased a 1.0% GRR from the Company in 2020 such that it now holds a total 1.5% GRR on the Bissett Creek Project.

In connection with the sale of the additional GRR, Northern and ELEC have entered into an amended and restated royalty agreement governing ELEC's GRR on the Bissett Creek Project. Pursuant to the terms of the amended agreement, in addition to the GRR on future production, Northern will make a separate fixed royalty payment to ELEC in the total amount of CAD $200,000, payable in eight quarterly payments of $25,000 for the next two years.

"The sale of this additional Bissett Creek royalty is one of a number of initiatives the Company is pursuing to raise financing for our development programs in a non-dilutive manner during very challenging market conditions," said Northern Chief Executive Officer Hugues Jacquemin. "We are very pleased with the continued support of ELEC as we move steadily forward toward our goal of becoming a fully integrated, mine-to-battery producer of natural graphite supplying North America's EV revolution and the widescale energy transition," he added.

Brendan Yurik, CEO of Electric Royalties, stated, "The Bissett Creek Project stands out from its North American counterparts because it possesses a high proportion of large/XL flake, making it well-suited for lucrative markets such as micronized graphite, expandable graphite, and high-purity flake graphite, which command premium prices. Additionally, project operator Northern Graphite is working hard to establish the capability to manufacture anode material for the rapidly growing lithium-ion battery market, primarily driven by the surge in electric vehicles. In contrast to many other graphite deposits, virtually all production from Bissett Creek will meet the standards for 'battery grade'."

The Bissett Creek project is located between North Bay and Ottawa, Ontario and is 15 kilometres from the Trans-Canada highway. It has ready access to labor, supplies and natural gas and is five hours from the port of Montreal. It has one of the highest percentages of large/XL flake in the industry, which is particularly important to the hydrogen economy as it is used in the bipolar plates in fuel cells. First-phase production is projected at 44,000 tonnes per year ("tpy") of graphite concentrate and permitting is well-advanced. The Company intends to undertake a Preliminary Economic Assessment to assess expanding production in a second phase.

Graphite from Bissett Creek, together with the Company's Lac des Iles mine in Quebec, will supply Northern's planned 200,000-tpy Battery Anode Material plant in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, which is contemplated to enter first-phase production in 2026.

About Northern Graphite

Northern is a Canadian, TSX Venture Exchange listed company that is focused on becoming a world leader in producing natural graphite and upgrading it into high value products critical to the green economy, including anode material for lithium-ion batteries/EVs, fuel cells and graphene, as well as advanced industrial technologies.

Northern is the only significant graphite producing company in North America and will become the third largest producer outside of China when its Namibian operations come back online. The Company operates the Lac des Iles mine in Quebec and has two large scale development projects, Bissett Creek in Ontario, and Okanjande in Namibia, which is due to restart operations in 2024 subject to financing. All projects have "battery quality" graphite and are located close to infrastructure in politically stable jurisdictions.

For media inquiries, contact

Pav Jordan, VP of Communications

Email: [email protected]

For further information contact

Guillaume Jacq, CFO

Telephone: (613) 271-2124

Email: [email protected]

Qualified Person

Gregory Bowes, B.Sc. MBA P.Geo, the Chairman of Northern, is a "qualified person" as defined under National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the content of this news release.

For additional information

Please visit the Company's website at http://www.northerngraphite.com/investors/presentation/, the Company's profile on www.sedarplus.caour Social Channels listed below or contact the Company at (613) 271-2124.

LinkedIn

YouTube

Twitter

Facebook

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward- looking statements and information are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "potential", "possible" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "will", "could", or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements regarding, among others, the Company's obligations with respect to the GRR and its intentions to advance its development projects to production and develop the capacity to manufacture value added products. All such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by management based on their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors they believe are appropriate in the circumstances. However, these statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected including, but not limited to unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of other parties to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; unexpected failure or inadequacy of infrastructure and the failure of ongoing and contemplated studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued studies, development or operations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based on what management believes are reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with them. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/182040
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2023) - Q2 Metals Corp. (TSXV: QTWO) (OTCQB: QUEXF) (FSE: 458) ("Q2" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has completed its surface mapping and rock sampling activities at the Mia Lithium Property (the "Property") located in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory of Quebec. Initial field work was completed on September 15 and the Company intends to begin its inaugural drill program in mid-October at the Mia Zone.

Two (2) new spodumene occurrences have been discovered, in addition to the previous four (4) spodumene occurrences which were announced on September 13, 2023. With the previously known occurrences at Mia and Carte, there are now a total of nine (9) separate spodumene pegmatite zones within the Mia Exploration Trend.

A total of 192 individual pegmatite outcrops have been mapped along the Mia Exploration Trend (see Figure 1). Rock samples have been collected at these sites to confirm the presence of lithium or indicator elements which may suggest the presence of lithium nearby. The majority of the pegmatite outcrops along the Mia Exploration Trend exhibit a similar mineralogy and texture compared with the outcrops that have confirmed spodumene.

To date, 219 rock samples have been collected on the Property since re-mobilization and have been received by the SGS Canada preparation laboratory located in Val-d'Or, QC. The results will be reported as they are received by the Company.

Q2 will return to the Property mid-October to begin its drill program starting at the Mia Zone. It is anticipated that drilling will continue until weather conditions become unfavorable, and then return once again during frozen ground conditions in January 2024.

"The recent work program achieved our best case-scenario result of defining several spodumene-bearing pegmatites along the Mia Trend," said Neil McCallum, VP Exploration for Q2 Metals. "The next step of drill-testing the Mia Zone is something that we are all incredibly eager to start."





Figure 1



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Qualified Person

Neil McCallum, B.Sc., P.Geol, is a registered permit holder with the Ordre des Gologues du Quebec and Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has reviewed the technical information in this news release. Mr. McCallum is a director and VP Exploration of Q2.

About Q2 Metals Corp

Q2 Metals Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company currently advancing exploration of its 8,668-ha flagship Mia Lithium Property in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay Territory of Quebec, Canada which is host to the Mia Li-1 and Mia Li-2 lithium occurrences. The Company also owns the Stellar Lithium Property with 77 claims totaling 3,972-ha, located approximately six kilometres north of its Mia Lithium Property.

Q2 is also exploring the highly prospective Big Hill and Titan gold projects covering approximately 110 km in the Talgai Goldfields of the broader Warwick-Texas District of Queensland, Australia, hosting 54 high-grade historical gold mines.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Alicia Milne

President & CEO

[email protected]

Jason McBride

Corporate Communications

[email protected]

Telephone: 1 (800) 482-7560

E-mail: [email protected]

Follow the Company: Twitter,LinkedIn, Facebook,and Instagram

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian legislation. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", "would", "will", "potential", "scheduled" or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Accordingly, all statements in this news release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations and orientations regarding the future including, without limitation, any statements or plans regard the geological prospects of the Company's properties and the future exploration endeavors of the Company. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain necessary approvals, unsuccessful exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, risks associated with regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, uninsured risks, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same. Readers are cautioned that mineral exploration and development of mines is an inherently risky business and accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional risk factors are discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for its recently completed fiscal period, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/181940
Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation.

Eden, located in Woodstock, GA, launches a new line of 100% natural energy-boosting smoothies. Featuring unique blends like "Chai Chill" and "Strawberry Bliss," the beverages promise rejuvenation without ice dilution. Eden's introduction aims to offer healthier energy alternatives to the active Woodstock community.



Eden Debuts Revitalizing Smoothies to Energize the Woodstock, Georgia Community

After those long, draining days that life often throws our way, Eden steps up to offer Woodstock residents the perfect pick-me-up: a new line of energy-boosting smoothies.



Proudly rooted in the heart of Woodstock, Eden has always been a pioneer in serving up nutritious and delectable delights. This new collection of smoothies is crafted with the same commitment to quality that Eden is renowned for. Each concoction is a blend of 100% natural fruits and veggies without the dilution of ice, ensuring a pure, thick, and flavor-packed sip every time.



"Our community in Woodstock is active, and we recognize the need for a natural boost, especially after a long day," said Chris Beck, one of Eden's owners. "These smoothies are not just beverages; they blend health, taste, and pure rejuvenation."



The delicious 100% natural energy-boosting smoothie lineup includes:



1. CHAI CHILL SMOOTHIE: A rich blend of banana, almond butter, coconut milk, spicy chai, and pink Himalayan sea salt.

2. STRAWBERRY BLISS SMOOTHIE: A harmonious combination of banana, goji berry, strawberry, almond butter, almond milk, agave, cinnamon, and pink Himalayan sea salt.

3. PARADISE SMOOTHIE: An invigorating tropical fusion of apple juice, mango, pitaya (dragon fruit), and strawberry.



With a growing emphasis on health and wellness, Eden's timely introduction of these energy-boosting smoothies is a testament to their dedication to serving the community's needs. As residents look for healthier alternatives to caffeine and artificial energy boosters, Eden's all-natural smoothies are poised to be the go-to choice.



Residents and visitors in Woodstock are invited to swing by Eden to experience this invigorating new lineup. Every sip promises not just energy but a journey of flavors, proving once again that at Eden, rejuvenation is always on the menu.

Located in the heart of Woodstock, GA, Eden has been a beacon of health and flavor for the community. Committed to using only 100% natural ingredients, Eden ensures that every product, whether a smoothie or a snack, is a blend of taste, nutrition, and authenticity.



About Us: Eden, a smoothie bowl and juice shop, is a popular local destination for delicious, healthy smoothies, smoothie bowls, and beverages. Located in Woodstock, Georgia, Eden offers a variety of smoothies, smoothie bowls, protein balls, healthy snacks, soups, coffee beverages, wellness shots, and chia pudding made from fresh, whole ingredients. Our menu is carefully crafted to provide our customers with nutritious options that taste great and energize and satisfy them. In addition to our food offerings, we now also offer juice cleanses and bottled juices that can be enjoyed at home or on the go. At Eden, we believe that healthy eating should be delicious and convenient, and we strive to make it easy for our customers to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Visit us at 470 Chambers St., Woodstock, GA 30188 or check our website for more information.

Contact Info:

Name: Chris Beck

Email: Send Email

Organization: Eden

Address: 470 Chambers St., Woodstock, GA 30188

Phone: (770) 672-7273

Website: https://edensmoothies.com/



Release ID: 89108605

Should any problems, inaccuracies, or doubts arise from the content contained within this press release, we kindly request that you inform us immediately by contacting [email protected]. Our dedicated team will promptly address your concerns within 8 hours, taking necessary steps to rectify identified issues or assist with the removal process. Providing accurate and dependable information is at the core of our commitment to our readers.
Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation.

The Grand Royale, located in Gladstone's heart, provides senior residents access to the city's prime outdoor attractions. Emphasizing both nature and culture, this premier senior living community integrates Gladstone's essence into everyday life, offering a rich blend of amenities, events, and dining experiences.



The Grand Royale: Integrating Gladstone's Prime Outdoors into Senior Living

The Grand Royale, Gladstones premier senior living community, is excited to highlight its unique position that allows residents unparalleled access to the best outdoor activities and spaces that the city has to offer. Located in the heart of the Kansas City metropolitan area, Grand Royale ensures its residents are never far from nature's embrace or the cultural heartbeat of the community.



Nestled amidst Gladstone's scenic wonders, the Grand Royale ensures that destinations like Happy Rock Park and Oak Grove Park are easily accessible, ensuring residents can indulge in leisurely strolls, nature observations, or simply find a peaceful spot to reflect.



For those inclined towards a touch of history combined with recreational activities, the proximity to Atkins-Johnson Farm and Museum is a boon. The serene pond offers fishing opportunities, and the historical setting provides an atmosphere that's both relaxing and enriching.



The vibrant Linden Square, known for its dynamic outdoor concerts, is a cultural hotspot, giving residents a chance to immerse themselves in music and festivities. Moreover, the community-centric Gladfest ensures that the spirit of Gladstone is always celebrated, offering seniors a mix of traditional events and modern festivities.



"Living at the Grand Royale is not merely about finding a residence. It's about embedding oneself in the rich tapestry of Gladstone, with nature, culture, and community at your fingertips," said Laura Mullennix, Marketing Director at Grand Royale. "We're more than a senior living community; we're a gateway to Gladstone's outdoor treasures."



At the Grand Royale, they pride themselves on elevating the experience for every resident and guest who dines with them. Serving delectable meals with gracious service, they foster enduring relationships to cater to each resident's unique tastes.



Independent Seniors and Assisted Living residents have access to a comprehensive array of amenities, complemented by the beauty of nearby outdoor attractions in Gladstone. The Grand Royale pampers its residents with a soothing manicure or pedicure. Residents can delight in a film at their state-of-the-art theater or venture out to explore the local sights with newfound friends.



The Grand Royale's resident-centered care, emphasis on wellness, exquisite dining options, and rich calendar of activities echo their desires for all residents. To discover more about life at the Grand Royale and its embrace of Gladstone's outdoor wonders, interested parties are invited to visit https://www.grandroyalekc.com



The Grand Royale is Gladstone's leading senior living community, committed to offering its residents a holistic experience that combines luxury living with the city's natural and cultural offerings. With a focus on community, well-being, and engagement, the Grand Royale redefines seniors living in Gladstone.

About Us: Nestled in the heart of Gladstone, MO, just moments away from the dynamic Kansas City, Grand Royale is a beacon of luxury and comfort for senior living. This premier community offers a comprehensive spectrum of living solutions  from the freedom of Independent Living to the supportive environment of Assisted Living and the specialized attention of Short Term Rehabilitation. At Grand Royale, residents bask in an ambiance that feels like an extended vacation, free from daily chores and filled with vibrant activities. The resident-centric approach ensures that everyone feels right at home, enjoying gourmet dining experiences, a plethora of amenities, and an unwavering commitment to health and well-being. At Grand Royale, it's not just about livingit's about thriving.

Contact Info:

Name: Laura Mullennix

Email: Send Email

Organization: The Grand Royale

Address: 2900 NE Kendallwood Pkwy, Gladstone, MO 64119, United States

Phone: (816) 249-1650

Website: https://www.grandroyalekc.com



Release ID: 89108602

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2024 honorees described as 'the advisors you want to send into battle'

HOUSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hicks Thomas LLP is pleased to announce that Lawdragon has named 12 firm partners to its list of 500 Leading Litigators in America, a listing of the country's top legal talent.

In its second year, the Leading Litigators listing recognizes "the advisors you want to send into battle." Honorees represent corporations and other entities in cases involving antitrust, financial and securities litigation, intellectual property, commercial, real estate, M&A and chancery, cybersecurity and data privacy, and white collar and investigations.

Hicks Thomas partners honored by Lawdragon for their commercial litigation work include:

Mr. Grant has also been recognized for excellence in intellectual property litigation.

"This listing is special in that it goes to the heart of what we do  try cases," said Hicks Thomas partner John B. Thomas . "It is nice to see so many of our firm partners recognized for the hard work they put in for our clients each and every day."

Lawdragon honorees are selected based on the publication's journalistic research, an open nomination process and a rigorous vetting process from a team with decades of experience in legal reporting and analysis. View the complete Lawdragon list of 500 Leading Litigators in America here.

Founded in 1997, Texas -based Hicks Thomas LLP is a premier litigation firm representing plaintiffs and defendants across the nation. With offices in Houston , Austin , Beaumont , Amarillo , and Sacramento, Calif. , the firm provides in-depth experience in cases involving oil and gas, environmental, complex commercial, toxic tort, construction, products liability, corporate governance, securities, banking, insurance coverage, transportation, trade secrets and business litigation. Visit the firm at http://www.hicks-thomas.com.

Media Contact:

April Arias

800-559-4534

[email protected]

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SOURCE Hicks Thomas LLP
Aircapture's DAC units will initially provide up to 500 tons of CO 2 per year for mineralization by 44.01 with plans to increase after initial pilot testing

per year for mineralization by 44.01 with plans to increase after initial pilot testing This will be the world's largest peridotite mineralization project and a significant scale up in the deployment of 44.01 and Aircapture's technologies

NEW YORK , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 44.01, a developer of innovative carbon mineralization technologies, and Aircapture, a leading Direct Air Capture technology company, have joined forces on a Direct Air Capture (DAC) + Mineralization project in Oman . The project, which will begin operations in Oman's Hajar mountains in late 2024, significantly scales up the use of peridotite mineralization technology to eliminate atmospheric CO 2 .

Aircapture will provide modular DAC units capable of delivering up to 500 tons of high-grade liquid CO 2 per year, with plans to increase deployment significantly after initial pilot testing.

44.01 will mineralize the captured atmospheric CO 2 in peridotite using their award-winning technology. Peridotite, an ultramafic rock found in abundance across the world, mineralizes CO 2 naturally in a process that usually takes decades. 44.01's technology accelerates this process, offering a safe, permanent, and scalable way of eliminating CO 2 in less than a year. The project will take place at a site in Oman where 44.01 has already completed successful pilots, and will also see 44.01 mineralize thousands of tons of CO 2 from industrial and biogenic sources.

"The capture and removal of atmospheric CO 2 is critical to avoid the existential threat of climate change and reach global net zero goals," said Matt Atwood , Founder and CEO of Aircapture. "Aircapture's Direct Air Capture process combined with 44.01's mineralization capabilities enable us to demonstrate permanent CO 2 removal that, at scale, could transform the climate crisis."

Talal Hasan , Founder and CEO of 44.01, said, "We see Direct Air Capture companies as critical partners as we work to provide the highest quality, most permanent form of carbon removal. We are pleased to be working with Aircapture to demonstrate the huge potential DAC + Mineralization offers to eliminate CO 2 around the world."

About 44.01

44.01 eliminates CO 2 by turning it into rock. The company's pioneering technology accelerates the natural process of CO 2 mineralization to remove captured CO 2 permanently in less than twelve months. 44.01 takes CO 2 captured directly from the air, or from hard-to-abate industrial processes, helping decarbonize vital industries and ultimately return the atmosphere to sustainable levels of CO 2 . 44.01 began operations in Oman in 2020 and entered the UAE in 2023. Peridotite is also found in the USA , Europe , Africa , Japan , Australia and elsewhere. Once deployed at scale, 44.01's technology has the potential to eliminate billions of tons of CO 2 internationally. The process is safe, scalable and lasts forever.

About Aircapture

Based in Berkeley, CA , Aircapture supplies commercial and industrial customers with clean CO 2 captured from the atmosphere and point-source emissions. Their modular direct air capture (DAC) technology allows for the direct, on-site application into customers' production processes and for large-scale sequestration. Aircapture, in partnership, has been awarded over $30 million in federal grants for their pioneering CO 2 sequestration to help avert the existential threat of climate change and create decarbonized products from atmospheric CO 2 . Founded in 2019, Aircapture is a growing, dynamic team of engineers, chemists, and entrepreneurs passionate about creating and scaling a circular carbon economy.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/44-01-and-aircapture-announce-dac--mineralization-collaboration-in-oman-301941033.html

SOURCE Aircapture
WASHINGTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Small Business Association (NSBA) is urging lawmakers to avoid the political theatrics behind a government shutdown which could spell disaster for America's smallest businesses. Millions of small businesses do business directly with the federal government and a shutdown would mean they won't get paidregardless of what services and goods they've already supplied. Furthermore, government shutdowns have historically succeeded in only two things: weakening the U.S. economy and confidence in our elected officials.

Below is a statement from NSBA President and CEO Todd McCracken .

"While Members of Congress and their staff will, in all likelihood, continue to get paid, millions of small-business federal contractors and subcontractors will be impacted by contract delays, stoppages and cancellations. The trickle-down effects cannot be understated: every business in their supply chain, their employees and their families WILL feel the pinch of a government shutdown  they always do.

"If lawmakers fail to keep the government running, they should, at a minimum, support measures similar to those extended to federal employees to 'make whole' any federal contractor impacted by a shutdown.

"Small-business programs, such as those under the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), particularly their lending programs, will begin to experience long delays due to the absence of staff and inevitable backlog of approvals.

"These backlogs and delays have real-world implications: forcing capital-strapped small-business owners to choose between hiring an employee or providing health insurance; or forcing the smallest of businesses to spend money they don't have on accountants to provide the assistance typically provided by the IRS.

"A small handful of elected officials are manufacturing a crisis out of partisan discord with a focus solely on grandstanding. This is unfair, unreasonable and unacceptable."

Please click here to read NSBA's letter to Congressional leaders.

Celebrating more than 85 years in operation, NSBA is a member-driven nonpartisan organization advocating on behalf of America's entrepreneurs. NSBA's 65,000 members represent every state and every industry in the U.S. , and we are proud to be the nation's first small-business advocacy organization. Please visit www.nsba.biz and follow us at @NSBAAdvocate.

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SOURCE National Small Business Association
MUMBAI, India , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) awarded 9 years contract to ACES India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Communications and Electronics Systems Company (ACES) Saudi Arabia for providing Mobile Infrastructure Services including 4G and 5G services.

ACES will equip India's longest underground metro line with State of Art mobile telecom infrastructure with 4G and 5G technologies and will cover the entire stretch of 33.5 Kilometers line, which includes 27 stations, platforms, concours, and tunnels. Thus, providing Metro's 1.6 million passengers per day with seamless coverage and enhance mobile data speeds.

Dr. Akram Aburas , CEO of ACES expressed his pride association with this prestigious project and explained ACES future vision as International Neutral Digital Infrastructure Company. He also confirmed that the contract aims to create a modern and intelligent environment for Metro's passengers, travelers and its employees a seamless highspeed mobile service experience.

MMRC Management expressed happiness in partnering with ACES, which aims to equip its longest underground Metro Line-3 with a state of art 4G and 5G Mobile Infrastructure for an exclusive period of 9 years and will neutrally cater 600 million Passengers annually.

The award process was led by Ms. Ashwini Bhide - Managing Director, Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR), Mr. Swetal D. Kanwalu - Deputy General Manager (Town Planning) and Ms. Farha Irani - Assistant General Manager (Town Planning) and others from MMRC.

Mr. R. Ramana - Director (Planning & Real-estate dev./ NFBR) expressed happiness for the annual premium offered by ACES being the highest in the country. This endeavor will strongly support Metro Line-3 operations and enhance user experience.

The LoA was received on 26-September-2023 by Dr. Akram Aburas - CEO of ACES, Mr. Mohammed N. Mazher - Managing Director of ACES India Pvt. Ltd., along with other management team members from ACES.

ACES India Private Limited based in India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Company ACES. ACES is one of the leading International Digital Infrastructure company in Middle East , South East Asia and Europe . Several important projects have already been implemented, most notably the expansion of the Holy-Mosque in Makkah , Riyadh Metro , Jeddah Airport , Riyadh Airport , MASAR and international projects like Bangalore Airport , Surat Diamond Bourse, Taj Hotel and others. https://www.aces-co.com/

Mumbai Metro Line - 3 (MML - 3) is one of such key projects to improve the transportation scenario in the financial capital of India i.e. Mumbai . MML-3 project - a 33.5 km. long corridor running along Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ, envisages to decongest the traffic situation in Greater Mumbai . Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) is the nodal agency responsible for the implementation of Mumbai Metro Line3 (MML-3) project. It has been constituted as a JV of the Govt. of India (GoI) and the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) on 50:50 sharing basis. https://mmrcl.com/

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223194/Director_and_CEO_of_ACES.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223196/LoA_Ceremony_held_at_MMRC_office.jpg

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SOURCE ACES
AUSTIN, Texas , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As highlighted by the Department of Defense (DoD) ACMI Federal, an affiliate of the American Center for Manufacturing and Innovation (ACMI), today announces that it has been awarded a $75 million contract through a competitive process.

The project, approved by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience (IBR) through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) Directorate, will establish a state-of-the-art munitions campus and harmonize collaboration between DoD and private companies specializing in munitions, hypersonic systems, and critical chemicals.

Using a public-private partnership framework, the initiative will bolster the United States' manufacturing capabilities in areas vital for national defense. This pilot constitutes a core component of MCEIP's five-year roadmap designed to secure supply chain resiliency and fortify the defense industrial base.

"ACMI Federal is privileged to lead this critical endeavor," said John Burer , Founder of ACMI. "By leveraging market forces, this innovative project will expedite development and production of domestically manufactured munitions, and thereby strengthen America's defense industrial base and our national security."

The Munitions Campus will support companies by providing a range of key resources necessary for munitions development and production, such as non-destructive inspection, explosives storage and transportation, prototype testing, and munitions manufacturing tools.

"This ground-breaking model accelerates innovation by bringing together companies with complementary capabilities and by providing shared resources to drive cost-efficiency," said Pam Clark , ACMI Federal's Ecosystem Manager for the project and the former Division Chief for Army Research Lab overseeing regional ecosystems. "The munitions campus will reduce the capital investment required for individual companies to play in this space and enable smaller companies and innovators to grow and scale up more efficiently."

Acting as a catalyst between government and the private sector, ACMI Federal identifies critical supply chain needs for the Department of Defense and additional agencies, including state, county, and municipality support. The organization brings together private capital and government investment to fulfill needs, fostering industrial hubs through targeted financial and logistical support to facilitate rapid growth. Creating specialized shared-infrastructure industrial campuses around market needs, such as munitions and energetics, is a proven strategy for growing domestic capabilities in an industry.

Robert Wardle has been appointed Chief Architect for the Munitions Campus. Wardle, a former defense industry executive, has led the design and construction of multiple energetic materials plants during his 30-year career. "This campus will be a nexus and accelerant for innovation, lowering barriers for technology transition, and bringing together traditional prime contractors and emerging companies in the munitions industry to advance our national defense capabilities," said Wardle.

The ACMI-led project will be executed by multiple stakeholders, including Energetics Technology Center , Purdue Energetics Research Center, Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center (OMIC R&D), CREAN Inc., Athena Manufacturing LP, Champion Aeromotive and several other organizations as prototyping contract performers.

Development of the campus, managed by ACMI Properties, is slated to commence later this year. For tenancy inquiries, visit ACMI Properties' official website.

About ACMI

The American Center for Manufacturing Innovation (ACMI) is committed to revitalizing the United States' industrial base through strategic investments in emerging businesses in critical sectors. ACMI's three-division approach, through its affiliates ACMI Federal, ACMI Capital, and ACMI Properties, aims to consolidate funding, resources and expertise to close gaps in the US industrial base, enhance supply chain resiliency, and accelerate innovation.

For more information contact:

Dan Palumbo

[email protected]

301.875.2356

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SOURCE ACMI Federal
KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 12:19 | All, Japan

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML Holding N.V. said Tuesday it is considering setting up a support center in Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido in 2024 to work with recently-established Japanese chip producer Rapidus Corp.

An ASML official said the company plans to send some 40 to 50 engineers to work in the city of Chitose where they will be tasked with supporting Rapidus.

ASML is one of the leading manufacturers of lithography machines which are essential to the chip-making process. It is also the only maker of extreme ultraviolet lithography tools used in the manufacturing of advanced chips and carries out maintenance work for customers who use its products, according to the company.

Rapidus was set up last year by eight major Japanese companies, including Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Group Corp., to provide a domestic source of next-generation semiconductors.

The venture is receiving the full support of the Japanese government, which sees it as crucial for the pursuit of supply chain and economic security.

Rapidus, which aims to produce state-of-the-art 2-nanometer chips, held a groundbreaking ceremony for its factory in Chitose earlier this month. It plans to start test production in April 2025.

Related coverage:

Global chipmakers eager to invest in Japan with gov't support

Japan to give Rapidus 260 bil. yen subsidy for new Hokkaido plant

Japan to restrict export of advanced chip-making equipment to China
Under Federal and State Law, Incarcerated People Cannot Legally Consent to Sex With Prison Guards

Los Angeles Office of Slater Slater Schulman LLP Represents the Largest Number of Prison Abuse Survivors in California , With Approximately 430 State and 90 Federal Prison Clients

SACRAMENTO, Calif. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The State of California ("The State") is being named in a civil action filed this week alleging that at least 29 individuals were sexually assaulted by the same correctional officer  Israel Trevino, Jr.  at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla (" Chowchilla ") while in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, by attorneys at Slater Slater Schulman LLP, a national law firm focused on representing survivors of catastrophic and traumatic events. Slater Slater Schulman attorneys currently represent more than 400 sexual abuse and assault survivors who were formerly incarcerated at Chowchilla , 20 survivors who were incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Chino , and 10 women survivors who were incarcerated at Valley State Prison . These cases are being brought in a Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding No. 5276 in Sacramento County .

Separately, the United States of America Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") and State of California are being named in a series of civil actions collectively alleging that inmates were sexually assaulted while in the custody of the BOP while housed at the Federal Correctional Institution Dublin ("FCI Dublin"). To date, 10 complaints have been filed by Slater Slater Schulman LLP under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which was enacted in 2003 to establish national standards for preventing and responding to sexual abuse of federal inmates. In total, at least 20 different perpetrators have been identified by at least 92 former female detainees at FCI Dublin who are represented by Slater Slater Schulman LLP.

"People who are incarcerated cannot legally consent to sex," said Adam Slater , Founding and Managing Partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP. "That's because the detainee-guard relationship is one of the most severe power imbalances that exists today. Incarcerated people are dependent upon correctional staff for everything  their safety, privileges, quality of life, contact with the outside world, and even their eventual liberty. Risking everything, these brave women have stepped forward to share their harrowing experiences while in the custody of notorious state and federal prisons. No individual, irrespective of their status or circumstances, should ever endure such trauma, especially within the walls of an institution that should ensure their safety and prioritize their rehabilitation."

As detailed in the Chowchilla complaint, the State of California failed to prevent a disturbing pattern of abuse and neglect against women detainees by Israel Trevino , Jr., a longtime correctional officer. Trevino, who died in 2021, used his position to gain access to at least 29 plaintiffs and many others, and sexually abused and assaulted them in numerous ways. In instances detailed in the complaint, Trevino would even threaten to extend a victim's period of incarceration if they reported the abuse. The survivors' accounts taken together suggest a deeply rooted culture of exploitation and abuse of power, emphasizing the need for urgent reforms to protect inmates' rights and well-being.

In 2005, California's State Assembly passed AB 550, known as the "Sexual Abuse in Detention Elimination Act." The bill's purpose is to protect all inmates and wards from sexual abuse while held in institutions operated by the CA Departments of Corrections and Youth Authority, to make the prevention of sexual abuse in detention a top priority in all state detention institutions, and to ensure that the Departments of Corrections and Youth Authority develop and implement protocols and procedures designed to effectively respond to sexual abuse in detention while protecting the safety of victims.

Separately, the BOP lawsuits identify FCI Dublin, a low-security federal correctional institution for women, as a place of rampant sexual abuse. The sexual assaults detailed in the complaints occurred on numerous occasions between approximately 2019 and 2022. As detailed in the complaints, the fact that the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons failed to respond to an environment of rampant and unchecked sexual assault and harassment of incarcerated women by correctional staff has been recognized and documented throughout state and federal corrections systems.

U.S. Congress enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act ("PREA") in 2003, to establish national standards for preventing sexual abuse of federal inmates and responding to sexual abuse of federal inmates. The United States Department of Justice finalized these mandated standards in May 2021 . PREA requires the BOP to have a strict "written policy mandating zero tolerance toward all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment outlining approach to preventing, detecting, and responding to such conduct," which the BOP has adopted. PREA, adopted by DOJ and binding on BOP, require periodic PREA audits of all federal correctional facilities to ensure compliance.

In December, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, released a detailed report entitled "Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates in Federal Prisons." The report concluded that between 2012 and 2022, there were 5,415 cases of reported inmate sexual abuse by BOP employees, 586 of which were substantiated. The report found that FCI Dublin failed to detect the culture of BOP employees sexually abusing female detainees at those facilities before, during, and after abuse occurred. The Senate subcommittee also found that BOP does not systematically analyze complaint data to detect potentially problematic employees or institutions.

Survivors of sexual abuse need to understand that the sexual abuse was not their fault. Many survivors are forced to live with a lifetime of shame, embarrassment, and severe emotional distress and mental pain and suffering. Help is available.

NOTE: Individuals seeking to be linked to resources for sexual assault survivors can call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. The National Sexual Assault Hotline operated by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) provides confidential support from trained staff members and can assist with finding local healthcare resources, help talk through what happened, and offer referrals for long-term support.

About Slater Slater Schulman LLP

Slater Slater Schulman LLP is a leading, full-service law firm with decades of experience representing survivors of traumatic and catastrophic events. Our dedicated attorneys are committed to ensuring the best results for our clients through persistence and compassionate representation. With 10 offices in 9 states, Slater Slater Schulman has achieved successful resolutions in some of the most challenging cases in the nation. We have considerable experience with complex, historical sexual abuse cases involving massive institutions, including academic, religious, and youth organizations. Our firm also represents clients in litigation involving pharmaceutical drugs, product liability, environmental law, employment and labor law, medical malpractice, and personal injury, and has proudly represented thousands of World Trade Center survivors. Learn more at sssfirm.com.

Media Contact:

Joan Vollero & Michael Milazzo / ICR, inc.

[email protected]

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/approximately-250-survivors-of-sexual-assault-file-lawsuits-against-us-federal-bureau-of-prisons-and-state-of-california-for-being-sexually-assaulted-by-correctional-staff-while-incarcerated-301940534.html

SOURCE Slater Slater Schulman LLP
TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V): LIT

Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE): OAY3

OTCQB Venture Market (OTC): PNXLF

VANCOUVER, BC , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp. (TSXV: LIT) (FSE: OAY3) (OTC: PNXLF), ("Argentina Lithium" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement (the "Investment Agreement") on September 26, 2023 , for the ARS$ equivalent of a US$90 million 1 investment in Argentina Litio y Energia S.A. ("ALE"), by Stellantis (defined below) (the "Transaction"), one of the world's leading automakers and mobility providers with iconic brands including Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, RAM, Vauxhall , Free2Move and Leasys.

Pursuant to the Transaction, Peugeot Citroen Argentina S.A., a subsidiary of Stellantis N.V. ("Stellantis"), has agreed to invest the ARS$ equivalent of US$90 million 1 in Argentina to acquire shares of ALE (the "ALE Shares"). Further, the Company has granted Stellantis the Exchange Right (as defined below) to exchange all of the ALE Shares for up to 19.9% of the outstanding common shares of Argentina Lithium (on an undiluted basis) ("Common Shares") in the future, subject to certain conditions. The proceeds of the Transaction will be used to advance development of the Company's lithium projects held through its wholly owned subsidiary in Argentina , and for general corporate purposes.

As a result of the Transaction, Stellantis will own 19.9% of the issued and outstanding ALE Shares and Argentina Lithium will own 80.1%.

Argentina Lithium President & Chief Executive Officer Nikolaos Cacos said: "We are delighted to have Stellantis as a partner in the future development of our lithium projects in Argentina . Together, we share a vision to build a sustainable lithium mining operation for the future. We look forward to a strong and successful relationship with Stellantis and we are committed to delivering a sustainable lithium product that will contribute to the electrification of transportation and the protection of our atmosphere."

At closing of the Transaction, Argentina Lithium and Stellantis will enter into an exchange agreement (the "Exchange Agreement"). Under the Exchange Agreement, Argentina Lithium will grant Stellantis an irrevocable right (the "Exchange Right") to exchange all of the ALE Shares then held by Stellantis for such number of Common Shares equaling 24.844% of (i) the outstanding Common Shares (on an undiluted basis) as of the date of the Exchange Agreement and (ii) Common Shares issued by Argentina Lithium (between the date of the Exchange Agreement and the date Stellantis exercises the Exchange Right) upon the exercise of warrants, stock options or other securities convertible or exchangeable into Common Shares existing as of the date of the Exchange Agreement (together, the "Exchange Shares"), subject to certain exchange conditions. Following the issuance of Exchange Shares, Stellantis will own at most 19.9% of the Common Shares (on an undiluted basis). In addition, Argentina Lithium will grant Stellantis an irrevocable right (the "Top-Up Right") to subscribe for additional Common Shares (the "Additional Shares") if necessary for Stellantis to achieve a 19.9% interest in the Common Shares (on an undiluted basis). Any Additional Shares Stellantis elects to purchase pursuant to the Top-Up Right will be issued at the maximum discounted market price permitted under the rules and policies of the TSXV, unless the Top-Up Right is exercised after an acquisition of Argentina Lithium, in which case the subscription price under the Top-Up Right will be the pre-announcement market price of shares of Argentina Lithium. Any issuance of Additional Shares will be subject to the prior approval of the TSXV. Stellantis will not have the right under the Exchange Right and the Top-Up Right to acquire more than 19.9% of the outstanding Common Shares following the issuance of Exchange Shares and Additional Shares, if any. The Exchange Agreement also provides Stellantis with observer rights to attend board meetings of Argentina Lithium for as long as Stellantis owns at least 10% of the issued and outstanding ALE Shares. As of the date hereof, the Company has 130,065,319 Common Shares, 11,341,000 stock options and 71,836,067 warrants issued and outstanding. Accordingly, subject to any adjustments under the Exchange Agreement, the maximum number of "Exchange Shares" that will be issued to Stellantis as consideration for its indirect investment in Argentina Lithium will be 53,011,137 Common Shares.

Argentina Lithium and Stellantis will enter into a Lithium Offtake Agreement (the "Offtake Agreement"). Under the Offtake Agreement, ALE has agreed to sell to Stellantis, and Stellantis has agreed to purchase from ALE up to 15,000 tonnes per annum of lithium produced by ALE over a seven-year period (the "Supply Obligation") subject to the terms and conditions set out in the Offtake Agreement. After the initial seven-year term, the Offtake Agreement may be extended by mutual agreement for an additional number of years. The price of lithium products sold by ALE under the Offtake Agreement will be based on an agreed market-based price formula at the time of each shipment. The commencement of the Supply Obligation of ALE is conditional on the successful start of commercial production at one or more of its projects. The Offtake Agreement also contains certain product qualification, certification and reporting requirements and provides Stellantis with a right to acquire any production prior to the commencement of the Supply Obligation and a right of first refusal on the sale to third parties of any lithium products (in excess of the Supply Obligation) after the commencement of commercial production.

Argentina Lithium, ALE and Stellantis will enter into a Shareholders' Agreement (the "Shareholders' Agreement") relating to ALE and Stellantis' ownership of ALE Shares and provides for the following principal terms:

right of Stellantis to nominate one director to the board of directors of ALE (" Stellantis Director ") for as long as Stellantis has an ownership position of not less than 10% of the issued and outstanding ALE Shares;

to nominate one director to the board of directors of ALE (" ") for as long as has an ownership position of not less than 10% of the issued and outstanding ALE Shares; certain corporate decisions of ALE may not be undertaken without the affirmative vote the Stellantis Director or the approval by shareholders holding more than 90% of the issued and outstanding ALE Shares;

right of each shareholder to maintain its ownership percentage in any equity offerings by ALE;

transfer restrictions including, rights of first refusal, drag-along and tag-along rights;

right of first offer for Stellantis to provide project financing and any other borrowing by ALE; and

to provide project financing and any other borrowing by ALE; and other terms and conditions consistent with a transaction of this nature.

In addition, upon exercise of the Exchange Right, Argentina Lithium will enter into an Investor Rights Agreement with Stellantis (the "Stellantis IRA"). The Stellantis IRA provides for the following principal terms in favour of Stellantis:

a right to nominate one director to the board of directors of Argentina Lithium for as long as Stellantis has an ownership position of not less than 10% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares;

has an ownership position of not less than 10% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares; pre-emptive right to maintain ownership percentage in certain follow-on issuances of Common Shares or securities convertible into Common Shares; and

other terms and conditions consistent with a transaction of this nature.

Transaction Conditions and Timing

Closing of the Transaction is subject to Argentina Lithium obtaining TSXV approval, ALE completing certain corporate actions relating to the Transaction and other closing conditions set out in the Investment Agreement.

The Transaction is anticipated to close on or about October 4, 2023 .

Advisors and Fairness Opinions

PI Financial Corp. is acting as financial advisor to Argentina Lithium in connection with the Transaction. The Board of Directors of Argentina Lithium has received a fairness opinion from PI Financial Corp, stating that, as of the date of such opinion, and based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications stated in such opinion, the consideration to be received by the Company pursuant to the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to Argentina Lithium shareholders. Blakes, Cassels & Graydon LLP acted as Canadian legal counsel and Alfaro-Abogados SC acted as Argentinian legal counsel to Argentina Lithium in connection with the Transaction.

About Stellantis

Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA / Euronext Milan: STLAM / Euronext Paris: STLAP) is one of the world's leading automakers and a mobility provider. Its storied and iconic brands embody the passion of their visionary founders and today's customers in their innovative products and services, including Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep  , Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, RAM, Vauxhall , Free2Move and Leasys. Powered by their diversity, Stellantis leads the way the world moves  aspiring to become the greatest sustainable mobility tech company, not the biggest, while creating added value for all stakeholders as well as the communities in which it operates. For more information, visit www.stellantis.com.

About Argentina Lithium

Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp is focused on acquiring high quality lithium projects in Argentina and advancing them toward production in order to meet the growing global demand from the battery sector. The management group has a long history of success in the resource sector of Argentina and has assembled a first-rate team of experts to acquire and advance the best lithium properties in the "Lithium Triangle". The Company is a member of the Grosso Group, a resource management group that has pioneered exploration in Argentina since 1993.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Nikolaos Cacos"

_______________________________

Nikolaos Cacos , President, CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, without limitation, the Transaction; the use of proceeds; the strengths, characteristics and potential of the Transaction; Argentina Lithium's plans for, and the future prospects of, its mineral properties; entering into the Exchange Agreement; the exercise of the Exchange Right or the Top-Up Right by Stellantis; entering into the Offtake Agreement; production of lithium products and the successful start of commercial production at Argentina Lithium's mineral properties; entering into the Shareholders' Agreement and the Stellantis IRA; consummation and timing of the Transaction; and satisfaction of the conditions precedents are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and, even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things: failure to receive TSXV approval; failure to satisfy the condition precedents, the potential that the Transaction could be terminated under certain circumstances; the impact of COVID-19; risks and uncertainties related to the ability to obtain, amend, or maintain licenses, permits, or surface rights; risks associated with technical difficulties in connection with mining activities; and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Company's public disclosure documents for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, unless required pursuant to applicable laws. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on our properties.



___________________________

1 As per the official exchange rate of Argentina Central Bank

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SOURCE Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp.
MONTREAL , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Bell Canada (Bell) announced today that it has amended its existing Cdn $2.3 billion securitization program to add sustainability-linked pricing. These amendments underscore Bell's continued focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities and our purpose to advance how Canadians connect with each other and the world. These amendments follow the announcement of BCE's Sustainable Financing Framework in April 2021 , Bell's inaugural Cdn $500 million Sustainability Bond offering in May 2021 with proceeds allocated to eligible green and social investments, the conversion of Bell's Cdn $3.5 billion committed credit facilities to a sustainability-linked loan in November 2022 , and execution of its first sustainability-linked derivatives in May 2023 .

"We are pleased to announce the closing of amendments to our securitization program to add sustainability-linked pricing. These amendments align with our ESG strategy and objective to make a positive impact and contribute to a better future through our Bell for Better initiatives, while working to create a thriving and more prosperous world."

- Eleanor Marshall, SVP & Treasurer, BCE and Bell

The amendments introduce an annual pricing adjustment that reduces or increases the financing cost based on Bell's performance of two key annual sustainability performance targets (SPTs) related to the following Bell science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) targets1:

Reducing absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 58% by 2030 from a 2020 base year; and

Reaching 64% of our suppliers by spend, covering purchased goods and services, having science-based targets by 2026.

Bell selected these two targets as they collectively cover the vast majority of Bell's total carbon footprint. The annual SPTs are aligned with our science-based targets for GHG emissions reduction and supplier engagement, and link our cost of financing with performance.

Bell's environmental strategy includes seeking to reduce environmental impacts with initiatives throughout our value chain. Our focus on energy management and the reduction of our carbon footprint is in line with our strategic imperative to engage and invest in our people and create a sustainable future.

Bell's ESG strategy complements our financial performance by working at the intersection of environmental, economic and social systems, with the objective to create long-term value for the company and for society.

TD Securities and Scotiabank are committed lenders in the sustainability-linked securitization program.

__________________________________

1 The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved our targets in 2022, prior to the recalculation to reflect restated GHG emissions for our 2020 base year. The recalculated targets will be submitted to the SBTi later in 2023 for approval. Our science-based targets may need to be further adjusted in the future because the SBTi requires that targets be recalculated (following the most recent applicable SBTi criteria and recommendations) at a minimum every five years, or more often if significant changes occur (e.g. business acquisitions/divestitures).

Environmental, social and governance objectives

Bell's ESG objectives seek to create social and environmental benefits by helping to build a better world, better communities and a better workplace. Our approach focuses on enhancing our environmental strategy, seeking to create a workplace focused on diversity, equality and inclusion, and employee well-being, lead in mental health through Bell Let's Talk and demonstrate best-in-class governance.

In 2023, Bell has been recognized by Canada's Top 100 Employers as one of Canada's Greenest Employers for the seventh consecutive year. Canada's Greenest Employers is an editorial competition organized by Mediacorp Canada Inc., a publisher of employment periodicals. The designation recognizes the employers that lead the nation in creating a culture of environmental awareness in their organizations.

Bell has also received an A- score in the 2022 CDP annual ranking, demonstrating our leadership in climate transparency and action. Bell's 2022 score places us in the leadership band for the 7th consecutive year, ranking significantly higher than the North American and Global average scores (C) and tied for the highest spot among Canadian telecommunication companies.

Information about Bell's environmental initiatives and the benefits we strive to deliver to our customers, team and communities, including our Bell for Bette r investments in mental health, energy efficiency and an inclusive workplace are available in our Integrated Annual Report .

A copy of BCE's Sustainable Financing Framework and further information on our sustainability strategy can be found at BCE.ca.

About Bell

Bell is Canada's largest communications company2, providing advanced broadband wireless, TV, Internet, media and business communication services throughout the country. Founded in Montreal in 1880, Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca.

Through Bell for Better, we are investing to create a better today and a better tomorrow by supporting the social and economic prosperity of our communities with a commitment to the highest environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. This includes the Bell Let's Talk initiative, which promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let's Talk Day and significant Bell funding of community care and access, research and workplace leadership initiatives throughout the country. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk .

________________________________ 2 Based on total revenue and total combined customer connections



Media inquiries

Ellen Murphy

[email protected]

Investor inquiries

Richard Bengian

[email protected]

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this news release are forward-looking statements, including statements relating to our ESG objectives and commitments including, without limitation, our goal to achieve our science-based targets and annual SPTs for GHG emissions reduction and supplier engagement, our business objectives, plans and strategic priorities, and other statements that are not historical facts. All such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of applicable Canadian securities laws and of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are based on several assumptions which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from our expectations. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events, and we caution you against relying on any of these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release describe our expectations at the date of this news release and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this news release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Our ESG objectives and commitments, and the benefits expected to result therefrom, are subject to risks and, accordingly, there can be no assurance that our ESG objectives and commitments will be achieved or that the benefits expected to result therefrom will be realized. In addition, forward-looking statements for periods beyond 2023 involve longer-term assumptions and estimates than forward-looking statements for 2023 and are consequently subject to greater uncertainty. In particular, our GHG emissions reduction and supplier engagement targets are based on a number of assumptions including, without limitation, the following principal assumptions: implementation of various corporate and business initiatives to reduce our electricity and fuel consumption, as well as reduce other direct and indirect GHG emissions enablers; no new corporate initiatives, business acquisitions, business divestitures or technologies that would materially change our anticipated levels of GHG emissions; our ability to purchase sufficient credible carbon credits and renewable energy certificates to offset or further reduce our GHG emissions; no negative impact on the calculation of our GHG emissions from refinements in or modifications to international standards or the methodology we use for the calculation of such GHG emissions; no required changes to our science-based targets pursuant to the Science Based Targets initiative methodology that would make the achievement of our updated science-based targets more onerous or unachievable in light of business requirements; and sufficient supplier engagement and collaboration in setting their own science-based targets, no significant change in the allocation of our spend by supplier and sufficient collaboration with partners in reducing their own GHG emissions. For additional information on assumptions and risks underlying certain of our forward-looking statements made in this news release, please consult BCE Inc.'s (BCE) 2022 Annual MD&A dated March 2, 2023 , BCE's 2023 First and Second Quarter MD&As dated May 3, 2023 and August 2, 2023 , respectively, and BCE's news release dated August 3, 2023 announcing its financial results for the second quarter of 2023, filed by BCE with the Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities (available at Sedarplus.ca) and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (available at SEC.gov). These documents are also available at BCE.ca.

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The collaboration continues BCBSTX's statewide expansion of Special Beginnings to improve maternal and infant health outcomes in Texas

RICHARDSON, Texas , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Health equity researchers at Bracane have begun hosting listening sessions to include community voices and experiences into Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas' (BCBSTX) expanded Special Beginnings initiative aimed at improving maternal and infant health outcomes across the state.

Bracane's in-person and virtual listening sessions will continue into the fall and are engaging mothers of all backgrounds and experiences, including pregnant women. The sessions begin with guided questions that allow for open sharing and perspectives.

As well, Bracane is also conducting focus groups with health care providers as part of BCBSTX's work to identify ways to reduce maternal morbidities, mortalities and health disparities.

"The feedback we've already received from women and providers validates the importance of hosting these sessions. We're hearing, in real-time, actionable recommendations to inform our discussions as we seek to improve health care access and outcomes," said Tiffany Davis , BCBSTX executive director of health equity. "It's important for us to be in the community so that women feel seen and heard. It's about building trust."

Multiple listening sessions have taken place in Dallas , Houston . Upcoming sessions are scheduled for:

Sept. 28 in Dallas

in Oct. 5 in Austin

in Oct. 25 in El Paso

in Nov. 2 in Hidalgo (Spanish-language options available in El Paso and Hidalgo )

Women and providers interested in participating can RSVP online here, call 430-247-5366 or email [email protected].

"I started Bracane as a way to reduce barriers and increase access to health care. Giving women the opportunity to express their experiences  particularly Black and brown women  shows how far we've come," said Pamela Nelson , CEO and founder of Bracane. "Having a voice makes a huge impact. If all women aren't included in the research, they can't share their experiences and affect change."

Bracane's research grant is part of BCBSTX's statewide expanded Special Beginnings maternal and infant health initiative, with a focus on the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Houston , RGV & Austin regions, to improve health outcomes for Texas moms and babies, following data that showed nine out of 10 maternal deaths in Texas were preventable.

BCBSTX's Special Beginnings expansion was guided by recommendations in the 2022 Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee and Department of State Health Services Joint Biennial Report , and the initiative is focusing on:

Implementing quality-based maternal health programs that demonstrate a reduction in preterm/low birth weight babies and obstetric and postpartum emergencies;

Expanding access to comprehensive health services including behavioral health care during the preconception, prenatal, and postpartum periods; and

Increasing public awareness and community engagement to reduce maternal morbidity, mortality, and health disparities including the expansion of a culturally-aligned maternal health workforce.

BCBSTX continues to build on long-standing maternal and infant care programs as well as relationships with trusted local community organizations, health care providers and thought leaders to leverage their knowledge, experience and talents to increase access to care, reduce care gaps and educate and engage Texans at a local level.

As recently announced, BCBSTX is also collaborating with Huston-Tillotson University, a historically Black college and university in Austin , to train doulas, midwives and support maternal health education in Central Texas . A BCBSTX-funded March of Dimes Mom & Baby Mobile Health Center will increase access to maternal and infant care in Houston , the March of Dimes' sixth unit and first in Texas .

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX)  the only statewide, customer-owned health insurer in Texas  is the largest provider of health benefits in the state, working with more than 140,000 physicians and health care practitioners, and 520 hospitals to serve more than 7 million members in all 254 counties. BCBSTX is a Division of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) (which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Texas , Illinois , Montana , Oklahoma and New Mexico ). Health Care Service Corporation is a Mutual Legal Reserve Company and an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

BCBSTX.com | Twitter.com/BCBSTX | Facebook.com/BlueCrossBlueShieldOfTexas | YouTube.com/BCBSTX | BCBSTX Community Highlights

About Bracane

Bracane Company, Inc. is a research organization that specializes in clinical research and program management in underserved communities. Founded in 2002, our purpose is to dispel the myths about clinical research in minority populations as well as to address health disparities in these communities and make healthcare accessible to all. Bracane's global capabilities include health literacy, research and program management with a variety of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and insurance companies, as well as government agencies. Discover more at https://bracaneco.com/about-us.

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SOURCE Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas
THE EXPERIENCED BOARD TEAM REPRESENTS A DIVERSE ECOSYSTEM OF HIGH-PROFILE SENIOR LEADERS ACROSS THE SOFTWARE AND INVESTMENT COMMUNITY

LONDON , Sept. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Boardwave, the impact-led networking community for European software founders and CEOs, has today announced that it has appointed its first board of directors, assembling a line-up of industry heavyweights to help deliver on its mission across Europe . Today it announces Jonathan McKay , Leo Apotheker and Elona Mortimer-Zhika as new board members. They join Phill Robinson , founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Boardwave, along with Kath Easthope as chief operating officer (COO), and are supported by an advisory committee and team of high calibre founding patrons.

Each of the board directors bring a wealth of experience, leading companies through every stage of business growth, from start-up to established global sector leader. This latest announcement from Boardwave comes as the established community reaches a significant milestone of over 1,000 members since its inception in April 2022 .

Boardwave is a fast-growing network which brings together software entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs from across Europe and enables them to network, share ideas, experience and best practice, as well as make use of valuable mentorship in order to help accelerate their business growth. Through this approach, Boardwave aims to help build world-beating software companies, with the goal of enabling the European software industry to become a global leader and rival Silicon Valley .

Phill Robinson , founder and CEO of Boardwave, commented: "This is an important and significant milestone in Boardwave's continued development and expansion. Elona, Jonathan and Leo represent a team of industry heavyweights of the highest calibre across the software sector and are each strongly aligned with our mission at Boardwave. Their combined energy and experience provide exceptional support for our growth objectives for the organisation. This best-in-class team demonstrates the weight of senior industry support behind the need to create an active ecosystem of software leaders across Europe ."

Boardwave board members announced today:

Jonathan McKay is the new Boardwave chairperson. Jonathan has a distinguished career as an investor, board member and chair of a number of early to mid-stage businesses. Amongst other roles, he is chair of Forward Partners , a leading publicly listed venture capital (VC) firm. Jonathan will represent the interests of members who are founder-led and smaller VC-backed businesses.

is the new Boardwave chairperson. Jonathan has a distinguished career as an investor, board member and chair of a number of early to mid-stage businesses. Amongst other roles, he is chair of , a leading publicly listed venture capital (VC) firm. Jonathan will represent the interests of members who are founder-led and smaller VC-backed businesses. Leo Apotheker takes a role as non-exec director (NED) after joining the Boardwave community very early on as a founding patron. He brings world-leading expertise, having previously been the CEO of SAP and Hewlett Packard. At SAP, Leo led its emergence as a global leading software company. He is also currently the chair at Syncron, Harvest and Eudonet, fast-growing enterprise software organisations. Since joining Boardwave, Leo has been advising and guiding pre-Series A and Series A start-up founders and CEOs. His guidance will be highly relevant to those members who are potential global champions with the goal of going public.

Elona Mortimer-Zhika also joins Boardwave as NED. Elona is CEO of IRIS Software , one of the UK's most successful PE-backed software companies. Elona has been a patron of Boardwave since it was founded and represents mid to large European software companies that are PE owned. Under her leadership, IRIS has acquired 30+ businesses and delivered double-digit growth organically, entered the US market successfully, transitioned to a cloud platform business and has been recognised as a Great Place to Work . Prior to joining IRIS, Elona held several senior leadership roles in Big Four and PE-backed businesses, including Mavenir, Acision , Arthur Andersen and Deloitte.

also joins Boardwave as NED. Elona is CEO of , one of the most successful PE-backed software companies. Elona has been a patron of Boardwave since it was founded and represents mid to large European software companies that are PE owned. Under her leadership, IRIS has acquired 30+ businesses and delivered double-digit growth organically, entered the US market successfully, transitioned to a cloud platform business and has been recognised as a . Prior to joining IRIS, Elona held several senior leadership roles in Big Four and PE-backed businesses, including Mavenir, , and Deloitte. Phill Robinson is CEO and founder at Boardwave. Phill has 35 years' leadership experience in the software industry. He served in the management teams of a number of international software firms in both the US and Europe . He was CMO of Salesforce, before returning to the UK to lead PE-backed software businesses, including IRIS Software ( UK ), Exact (NL). Both had successful exits under his leadership. He remains a board director of Exact. He is also currently the chair of the software advisory board for Livingbridge, a UK private equity firm, strategic advisor and director to Upliift, and a member of the development board of Cure Parkinson's.

is CEO and founder at Boardwave. Phill has 35 years' leadership experience in the software industry. He served in the management teams of a number of international software firms in both the US and . He was CMO of Salesforce, before returning to the to lead PE-backed software businesses, including ( ), Exact (NL). Both had successful exits under his leadership. He remains a board director of Exact. He is also currently the chair of the software advisory board for Livingbridge, a private equity firm, strategic advisor and director to Upliift, and a member of the development board of Cure Parkinson's. Kath Easthope joins the Boardwave board as a director, in her role as chief operating officer of Boardwave, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Boardwave community. She is also the lead for Boardwave's diversity equity and inclusion ( DEI ) strategy. Kath joined Boardwave at the start of 2023, having most recently been CMO at a leading AI-marketing business which successful exited in 2022. She has a communications agency background and has run some of the UK & Europe's most successful public relations firms focused on the technology sector.

Phill Robinson concluded: "The work we can do together will accelerate the software industry as a whole and create an incredible platform to support our founder and CEO community, as well as the incredible team of investors and advisors we have within our membership network."

About Boardwave

Boardwave is an impact-driven community of 1,000 European software founders and CEOs designed to help members accelerate their business growth, and to improve the overall position of Europe as a home for global software companies. Boardwave offers a programme of events, peer-to-peer mentoring and inspiration, as well as an online platform that connects European software CEOs for advice, insights, expertise and access to capital. It is also a campaigner for change across special interest areas including AI, Government engagement and DE&I.

Software leaders, CEOs and Chairs can access the programme and platform at no cost. The Boardwave community is generously supported and funded by a network of Partners from across the software investor and advisory ecosystem.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222137/Boardwave_Logo.jpg

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SOURCE Boardwave
BOSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bulbs.com, the online authority in LED Lighting continues to expand its rebate distribution partnerships with utility companies across the United States .

Bulbs.com announces its newly approved distributor partnership with Jersey Central Power & Light in New Jersey , a FirstEnergy Company involved in the development and management of energy-related services. Eligible Jersey Central Power & Light commercial customers can now receive instant rebates on a large assortment of LED lamps and fixtures when purchasing from Bulbs.com. A couple of items to note:

Bulbs.com is the first e-commerce distributor approved for this program, helping to make LED purchases easier for JCP&L commercial customers.

is the first e-commerce distributor approved for this program, helping to make LED purchases easier for JCP&L commercial customers. Bulbs.com is currently an approved distributor in 20 states across the United States .

is currently an approved distributor in 20 states across . Instant rebates are available on an assortment of LED lamps and fixtures.

JCP&L customers could spend as little as $1 per product with instant rebates.

per product with instant rebates. Rebates include Energy Star and DLC approved linear (T8), ceiling panels, high bay and low bay fixtures, and reflector lamps.

Bulbs.com has been an approved distributor with PSE&G in New Jersey since 2021, and has assisted more than 1,000 commercial locations in updating their buildings to energy efficient lighting while taking advantage of the incentives available to PSE&G customers. The new partnership with JCP&L will allow Bulbs.com to expand its reach to rebate-eligible businesses across the state of New Jersey .

Utility rebates can be a big boost for helping businesses reduce the cost of lighting projects. Customers can save up to 85% on the initial cost of the bulbs and fixtures and then continue saving up to 75% on their lighting energy costs during the lifetime of the bulbs or fixtures. Other benefits from LEDs include:

HVAC cost savings due to lower heat emissions from LED lighting

Lower maintenance and replacement costs from the longer life of LEDs

Higher worker productivity from improved quality of lighting

Safety and security benefits from improved quality of lighting

Bulbs.com works closely with many utility companies including Duke Energy, MassSave, conEdison and CPS Energy, throughout the United States everyday as an approved distribution partner. In fact no other e-commerce lighting distributor works with as many utility companies across as many states as Bulbs.com. Eligible commercial and industrial customers can now receive instant rebates on their LED lighting purchases from 30+ utility companies across the following states:

Arkansas

Colorado

Connecticut

Hawaii

Indiana

Illinois

Kentucky

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

North Carolina

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Texas

Washington

Commercial and Industrial customers can also benefit from Bulbs.com's exclusive "Buy n Try" program. Customers can try out a few LED lamps risk free before committing to a larger purchase, insuring they make the right selection every time. Bulbs.com is committed to deliver the highest level of service to its customers, helping it earn the highest customer satisfaction scores in the industry.

Learn more:

To learn more about utility rebate incentives visit bulbs.com/rebates or call a Certified Lighting Specialist at 888.455.2800 . Certified Lighting Specialists and utility rebate professionals can provide more information about the best way to transition to energy efficient LED lighting.

About Bulbs.com:

Bulbs.com is headquartered in Worcester, MA and is a leading online supplier of LED lighting products. Established in August 1999 , Bulbs.com provides lighting products to over 200,000 commercial customers operating across 300,000 global locations in the hospitality, retail, property management, healthcare, manufacturing, government, education, industrial and municipal sectors. For more information visit bulbs.com.

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SOURCE Bulbs.com
MEXICO CITY , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Comision Federal de Electricidad ("CFE" or the "Company"), a productive state enterprise of the Federal Government of the United Mexican States (" Mexico "), announced today the final tender results of its previously announced tender offer to purchase for cash the outstanding notes of the series set forth in the table below (all such notes, collectively, the "Notes" and each a "series" of Notes), for an aggregate purchase price, excluding accrued and unpaid interest, of up to US$1,000,000,000 , upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase dated August 28, 2023 (as amended or supplemented, the "Offer to Purchase") and subject to (1) the acceptance priority level of each series of Notes, and (2) possible proration, each as described herein and in the Offer to Purchase (the "Offer").

The Offer expired at 5:00 p.m. ( New York City time) on September 26, 2023 (the "Expiration Date").

The following table summarizes the final results of the Offer, including the principal amount of Notes that were tendered after the Early Tender Date (as defined herein) and prior to the Expiration Date and that CFE has accepted for purchase in the Offer:

Title of

Security CUSIPs ISINs Principal

Amount

Outstanding(1) Acceptance

Priority

Level Late Tender

Consideration(2) Principal Amount

Tendered after the

Early Tender Date

and prior to the

Expiration Date

and Accepted in

the Offer Principal Amount

Tendered and

Accepted in the

Offer(3) 4.875% Notes

due 2024 200447 AD2;

P30179 AM0 US200447AD28;

USP30179AM09 US$869,688,000 1 US$947.69 US$2,920,000 US$482,623,000 4.750% Notes

due 2027 200447 AF7; P29595 AB4 US200447AF75; USP29595AB42 US$814,968,000 2 US$921.96 US$800,000 US$325,714,000 6.125% Notes

due 2045 200447 AE0; P30179 AR9 US200447AE01; USP30179AR95 US$618,308,000 3 US$815.92 - US$15,971,000 5.750% Notes

due 2042 200447 AC4; P30179 AK4 US200447AC45; USP30179AK43 US$563,710,000 4 US$801.47 - US$53,179,000























(1) As of the commencement date of the Offer. (2) Per each US$1,000 principal amount of Notes. Holders whose Notes have been accepted for purchase will also receive accrued and unpaid interest ("Accrued Interest") up to, but excluding, the Final Settlement Date (as defined herein). CFE has agreed, subject to specified exceptions and limitations, to pay additional interest to participants in the Offer to cover Mexican withholding taxes on interest payments. (3) Includes Notes tendered on or prior to the Early Tender Date and accepted in the Offer, which were purchased by CFE on September 14, 2023 , the early settlement date.

CFE has accepted for purchase all of the Notes validly tendered in the Offer after 5:00 p.m. ( New York City time) on September 11, 2023 (the "Early Tender Date") and prior to the Expiration Date. The final settlement date on which CFE will pay for Notes tendered after the Early Tender Date and prior to the Expiration Date and accepted in the Offer is expected to be September 28, 2023 (the "Final Settlement Date").

Holders who validly tendered their Notes after the Early Tender Date but prior to the Expiration Date and whose Notes have been accepted for purchase are eligible to receive the applicable late tender consideration set forth in the table above as well as Accrued Interest on their accepted Notes up to, but excluding, the Final Settlement Date.

Notes that have been validly tendered after the Early Tender Date and prior to the Expiration Date cannot be withdrawn, except as may be required by applicable law.

All conditions described in the Offer to Purchase have been satisfied on or prior to the Expiration Date.

* * *

CFE has retained BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. to act as dealer managers in connection with the Offer (the "Dealer Managers"). Any questions or requests for assistance regarding the Offer may be directed to the Dealer Managers at their contact information set forth below.

BNP Paribas Securities Corp.

787 Seventh Avenue

New York, New York 10019

United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Toll Free: +1 888-210-4358 Collect: +1 212-841-3059 Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

388 Greenwich Street , Trading 4th Floor

New York, New York 10013

United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Toll-Free: +1 800-558-3745 Collect: +1 212-723-6106



Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC 1585 Broadway , 6th Floor New York, New York 10019 United States of America Attn: Global Debt Advisory Group Toll-Free: +1 800-624-1808 Collect: +1 212-761-1057 SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc

277 Park Avenue New York, New York 10172

United States of America Email: [email protected] Attn: Debt Capital Markets  Liability Management Toll-Free: +1 888-284-9760 Collect: +1 212-224-5163

Copies of the Offer to Purchase may be obtained from Global Bondholder Services Corporation, the tender agent (the "Tender Agent") and the information agent (the "Information Agent") for the Offer, at +1 (855) 654-2015 (toll-free) or +1 (212) 430-3774 (collect).

Disclaimer

This press release must be read in conjunction with the Offer to Purchase.

The Offer to Purchase has not been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, nor has it been filed with or reviewed by any federal or state securities commission or regulatory authority of any country. No authority has passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the Offer to Purchase, and it is unlawful and may be a criminal offense to make any representation to the contrary.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN AND IN THE OFFER TO PURCHASE IS EXCLUSIVELY CFE'S RESPONSIBILITY AND HAS NOT BEEN REVIEWED OR AUTHORIZED BY THE MEXICAN NATIONAL BANKING AND SECURITIES COMMISSION (COMISION NACIONAL BANCARIA Y DE VALORES, OR THE "CNBV"). CFE HAS NOT FILED AND WILL NOT FILE WITH THE CNBV A REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION OF THE OFFER. THE OFFER DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A PUBLIC OFFERING (OFERTA PUBLICA) OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING AN OFERTA PUBLICA DE ADQUISICION) IN MEXICO AND IT MAY NOT BE PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED IN MEXICO . THE OFFER MAY ONLY BE MADE AVAILABLE IN MEXICO TO INVESTORS THAT QUALIFY AS INSTITUTIONAL OR ACCREDITED INVESTORS (INVERSIONISTAS INSTITUCIONALES OR INVERSIONISTAS CALIFICADOS), SOLELY PURSUANT TO THE PRIVATE OFFERING EXEMPTION SET FORTH IN NUMERAL I. OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE MEXICAN SECURITIES MARKET LAW (LEY DEL MERCADO DE VALORES ). IN MAKING A DECISION AS TO WHETHER TO TENDER ANY OF THEIR NOTES, ALL HOLDERS MUST RELY ON THEIR OWN REVIEW AND EXAMINATION OF THE TERMS OF THE OFFER. CFE WILL NOTIFY THE CNBV OF THE RESULTS OF THE OFFER FOR INFORMATIONAL AND STATISTICAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND THE FILING OR RECEIPT OF SUCH NOTICE BY THE CNBV DOES NOT IMPLY ANY CERTIFICATION AS TO THE INVESTMENT QUALITY OF THE NOTES, CFE'S SOLVENCY, LIQUIDITY OR CREDIT QUALITY OR THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE INFORMATION SET FORTH HEREIN.

The Offer was made solely on the terms and conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase. Under no circumstances shall this press release constitute an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell the Notes or any other securities of the Company or any of its subsidiaries. The Offer was not made to, nor will the Company accept tenders of Notes from, holders in any jurisdiction in which the Offer or the acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities or blue sky laws of such jurisdiction.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are information of a non-historical nature or which relate to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. No assurance can be given that the transactions described herein will be consummated or as to the ultimate terms of any such transactions. CFE undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events or for any other reason.

Media Contact: Carlos Guevara Vega +52 55 5705 3279 [email protected]

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cfe-announces-final-tender-results-for-its-previously-announced-cash-tender-offer-301939705.html

SOURCE Comision Federal de Electricidad
~ Virginia is first in nation to submit all required BEAD plans ~



RICHMOND, Va. , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development announced today the submission of the Initial Proposal Volume 2 to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which includes the adoption of public comment. The submission of the plans and initial proposals are the final step for Virginia to access its $1.48 billion federal allocation to deploy high-speed internet networks to areas without broadband.

" Virginia maintains its position as a leader in affordable broadband connectivity and remains committed to bridging the digital gap," said Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick . " Virginia stands as a beacon of national leadership in bridging the digital divide, with an unwavering commitment to making broadband accessible to every Virginian."

"In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, high-speed broadband access is not a luxury. It is an essential component of daily life," said DHCD Director and Chief Broadband Advisor Bryan Horn . "We are delighted to announce that the Commonwealth is at the forefront in the nation to reach statewide universal broadband coverage and crafting effective strategies to bridge the digital divide, leaving no Virginian behind."

The Commonwealth is now the first state in the nation to submit its 5-Year-Plan, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the Initial Proposal which outline Virginia's plans for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program under the federal Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act. These funds will be prioritized to reach the estimated 162,000 remaining unserved homes, businesses and community anchors in the Commonwealth that are not yet in a broadband deployment project area.

The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion nationwide program to expand high-speed internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment, affordability and adoption programs. The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will administer the Commonwealth's $1.48 billion BEAD allocation to build upon the work of the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI) to reach the remaining unserved regions of the Commonwealth. Once funding for universal broadband access is delivered, DHCD will focus on leveraging these investments through promoting affordability and improving adoption of this critical service.

The next step in the BEAD program involves a challenge process that confirms that all locations lacking access to high-speed internet, and not part of an existing deployment project, are included in this initiative. The challenge process offers an opportunity for local governments, nonprofit organizations and broadband providers to thoroughly review the preliminary list, which currently identifies 162,000 homes, businesses and community anchor institutions without broadband access.

"Broadband is indispensable in today's digital world," said Dr. Tamarah Holmes , Director of Broadband for DHCD. "We encourage our broadband partners to take part in the challenge process to certify no Virginian is left behind in this digital world."

Following the challenge process, DHCD will initiate the application phase. During this phase, broadband providers will have the opportunity to submit proposals to extend their services to these unconnected regions.

For more information about Virginia's broadband efforts, visit dhcd.virginia.gov/vati.

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SOURCE Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Dover (NYSE: DOV) today announced that the Company will feature multiple brands at the National Association of Convenience Stores Trade Show ("NACS Show") and Petroleum Equipment Institute Convention ("PEI Convention")  the leading industry event of the year and the largest of its kind in the U.S.  in Atlanta, GA , on October 3-6, 2023 .

Convenience retail is a large, growing, and evolving industry that serves 160 million customers daily. It is a key market for Dover, with multiple avenues for growth including clean energy, retail fueling, software solutions, foodservice and vehicle wash.

Dover's operating companies participating in the 2023 show include Dover Fueling Solutions ("DFS") and OPW.

Dover Fueling Solutions: DFS, a leading global provider of advanced customer-focused technologies, services and solutions in the fuel and convenience retail industry, will display a wide range of products and solutions representing the company's portfolio brands, including Wayne Fueling Systems, Tokheim, OPW Fuel Management Systems, ClearView, ProGauge, Fairbanks, LIQAL and AvaLAN. Further details below:

DFS will release its second annual Future of Fueling Report: Innovation at the Pump at NACS. The report provides insights on what consumers are looking for in their fueling experiences, such as convenience, service, technology, amenities and customization. Industry experts will be available to discuss these findings and assist retailers in implementing insights to improve their customers' experiences and increase profit margins.

DFS will spotlight its recently launched DX Market  powered by GRUBBRR  solution within the DFS Anthem UX  platform on the Wayne Ovation  fuel dispenser. DX Market  is a self-ordering solution revolutionizing retail. It empowers retailers to offer customized promotions and upsells using dynamic videos and static content, meeting the demand for automated fueling stations with enhanced self-checkout options.

powered by GRUBBRR solution within the DFS Anthem UX platform on the Wayne Ovation fuel dispenser. DX Market is a self-ordering solution revolutionizing retail. It empowers retailers to offer customized promotions and upsells using dynamic videos and static content, meeting the demand for automated fueling stations with enhanced self-checkout options. DFS will display its DX Promote Auto service for the DFS Anthem UX  platform, an on-dispenser media management service. Designed to offer retailers the necessary time to prioritize the supervision of daily operations, DX Promote Auto oversees the management, creation and presentation of retailer promotional videos, infotainment and national promotions while also increasing in-store spending and enhancing the customer experience at the pump.

platform, an on-dispenser media management service. Designed to offer retailers the necessary time to prioritize the supervision of daily operations, DX Promote Auto oversees the management, creation and presentation of retailer promotional videos, infotainment and national promotions while also increasing in-store spending and enhancing the customer experience at the pump. DFS will showcase its DFS Anthem UX  platform, including the DFS AX12 (12" color touchscreen display) and DFS AX7 (7" color touchscreen display) models. The Anthem UX platforms, partnered with DX Promote, create scheduled media that drives revenue at the dispenser, freeing site owners to focus on managing their business.

platform, including the DFS AX12 (12" color touchscreen display) and DFS AX7 (7" color touchscreen display) models. The Anthem UX platforms, partnered with DX Promote, create scheduled media that drives revenue at the dispenser, freeing site owners to focus on managing their business. DFS will highlight two of its cutting-edge fuel site controllers, the Synergy Fleet Site Controller and the Synergy Wayne iX Fleet Controller. Each of these controllers offers on-site fleet fueling control and management, providing retailers enhanced security and control with access to the DFS DX Cloud set of solutions where applicable.

DFS will display its comprehensive line of Automatic Tank Gauging (ATG) solutions, from innovative tank gauges and cutting-edge probes to smart sensors, all of which are taking the industry by storm. The ProGauge MagLink LX Plus is certified, scalable, precise and powerful. It has a brilliant 7" color display with intelligent "touch and swipe" technology and supports EPA -certified Static Leak Detection and Continuous Statistical Leak Detection, as well as the option to enable Pressure Line Leak Detection.

OPW: OPW is a global leader in providing equipment and solutions designed to enhance safety, reliability, efficiency and business performance for the retail fueling, vehicle wash, clean energy and fuel transport industries. OPW will feature several industry-leading solutions from its portfolio of brands, including OPW Retail Fueling, OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions and OPW Fluid Transport Solutions. Further details below:

OPW Retail Fueling will be showcasing its complete family of clean fueling nozzles. The OPW 14 Series Nozzles, including the newest member 14HC  for high-speed diesel and truck stop applications, are designed to deliver a cleaner fueling experience. These innovative nozzles feature dripless spouts and diesel capture technology that helps keep gasoline and diesel off your hands, the nozzle, dispensing equipment and most importantly, the environment. In addition to cleaner traditional fueling, OPW will also unveil a hydrogen nozzle and receptacle for 350-bar H 2 refueling applications.

refueling applications. OPW Retail Fueling will feature key products from its portfolio of underground solutions, such as the new fiberglass TSE Tank Sump, which, along with the DSE Dispenser Sump, completes the E-Series family of value priced, high quality fiberglass sumps. OPW's products are the industry's first fiberglass sumps manufactured using a Sheet Molded Compound (SMC) process. OPW will also showcase the new DSE pre-plumbed sump designed to reduce installation time and cost. The dispenser sump is assembled and tested at the factory, making it ready to "plug and play" at the job site.

OPW Retail Fueling has also expanded its Flexworks product line of fuel delivery piping and will introduce a flexible vent pipe system. The new V20 OPW Vent Pipe is UL/ULc listed for UST system vent and vapor applications with all fuel types and alcohol blends.

OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will feature its PDQ LaserWash  360  PLUS that now offers the LaserGlow Arch, giving this touchless in-bay automatic wash one of the most advanced lighting options available to the industry today. In addition to improving driver navigation and throughput rates, the eye-catching lighting of the LaserGlow Arch system can be used to attract potential customers from the street or parking lot. With a multitude of color and lighting patterns, the LaserGlow Arch is a reliable 24/7 marketing tool for one of the industry's leading touchless in-bay automatic wash systems.

360 PLUS that now offers the LaserGlow Arch, giving this touchless in-bay automatic wash one of the most advanced lighting options available to the industry today. In addition to improving driver navigation and throughput rates, the eye-catching lighting of the LaserGlow Arch system can be used to attract potential customers from the street or parking lot. With a multitude of color and lighting patterns, the LaserGlow Arch is a reliable 24/7 marketing tool for one of the industry's leading touchless in-bay automatic wash systems. OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will also highlight the Belanger FreeStyler  soft-touch in-bay automatic vehicle wash. This in-bay automatic improves loading times for increased throughput rates thanks to its five-brush overhead gantry design that creates a more open, less intimidating wash bay for customers.

soft-touch in-bay automatic vehicle wash. This in-bay automatic improves loading times for increased throughput rates thanks to its five-brush overhead gantry design that creates a more open, less intimidating wash bay for customers. OPW Vehicle Wash Solutions will debut the SmartStart Pro payment terminal from Innovative Control Systems (ICS). The SmartStart Pro is one of the most affordable payment terminals on the market. Powered by ICS WashConnect management software, the 10.4" touchscreen and multiple cashless payment options help securely speed customers through the purchase process to increase throughput.

(ICS). The SmartStart Pro is one of the most affordable payment terminals on the market. Powered by ICS WashConnect management software, the 10.4" touchscreen and multiple cashless payment options help securely speed customers through the purchase process to increase throughput. OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions will feature the innovative CivaCommand Smart Tank System from Civacon. The CivaCommand integrates all cargo tank loading and unloading components, including overfill protection, cross-drop prevention, air controls, security and productivity, into a seamless, password-protected touchscreen interface.

About Dover Fueling Solutions:

Dover Fueling Solutions (DFS) is part of Dover Corporation and a leading provider of advanced energy dispensing equipment, electronic automation and payment systems, automatic tank gauging and subscription solutions to fueling and convenience retail customers worldwide. Comprised of brands Wayne Fueling Systems, Tokheim, OPW Fuel Management Systems, ClearView, ProGauge, Fairbanks, AvaLAN Networks and LIQAL, DFS is dedicated to offering a broad range of solutions that power vehicles, including conventional fuel and clean energy products that support gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel and ethanol as well as LNG, H2, LPG, CNG and EV chargers. Headquartered in Austin, TX , DFS has a strong global manufacturing and technology development presence, including facilities in Brazil , China , India , Italy , Poland , Belgium , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom and the United States . For more information about DFS, visit doverfuelingsolutions.com.

About OPW:

OPW is defining what's next through innovations designed to enhance safety, reliability, efficiency and business performance for the clean energy, retail fueling, fluid-handling and vehicle wash industries. Specifically, OPW makes aboveground and below ground products for both conventional, vapor-recovery and clean energy applications in the retail and commercial markets. Additionally, OPW supplies loading arms, valves and dry-break couplings, tank-truck equipment, railcar valves and equipment, and vehicle wash systems. OPW has manufacturing operations in North America , Europe , Latin America and Asia Pacific , with sales offices around the world. OPW is part of Dover Corporation. To learn more about how OPW is defining what's next in each of its markets, visit opwglobal.com.

About Dover:

Dover is a diversified global manufacturer and solutions provider with annual revenue of over $8 billion . We deliver innovative equipment and components, consumable supplies, aftermarket parts, software and digital solutions, and support services through five operating segments: Engineered Products, Clean Energy & Fueling, Imaging & Identification, Pumps & Process Solutions and Climate & Sustainability Technologies. Dover combines global scale with operational agility to lead the markets we serve. Recognized for our entrepreneurial approach for over 65 years, our team of over 25,000 employees takes an ownership mindset, collaborating with customers to redefine what's possible. Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois , Dover trades on the New York Stock Exchange under "DOV." Additional information is available at dovercorporation.com .

Dover Fueling Solutions Contact:

Amy Cearley

(512) 484-4259

[email protected]

OPW Contact:

Lisa Moloney

(513) 870-3119

[email protected]

Dover Media Contact:

Adrian Sakowicz, VP, Communications

(630) 743-5039

[email protected]

Dover Investor Contact:

Jack Dickens , Senior Director, Investor Relations

(630) 743-2566

[email protected]

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SOURCE Dover
KIRKLAND, Wash. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Evergreen Impact Housing Fund (EIHF), developer Inland Group, and Microsoft are pleased to announce the full financing of the Polaris at Totem Lake affordable housing development in Kirkland, WA. Polaris is slated for completion in 2026.

Polaris will create more than 440 apartments that are affordable to people with different levels of income. This will include 260 affordable housing units for households earning 50-60% of the area median income (AMI), and 40 units for very low-income families earning 30-50% AMI. Designed with wrap-around services for those who had been experiencing homelessness, families living in the new development will have access to public transportation and resources through the nonprofit Hopelink, including onsite behavioral health providers to support their transition.

"Access to affordable, stable housing is especially important at a time of economic uncertainty. More and more working families throughout Washington State are facing rising housing costs and growing threats of displacement," said Kris Hermanns , fund manager of EIHF at Seattle Foundation. "In partnership with local investors and developers, EIHF helps to bridge funding gaps that stall large-scale housing projects with family-sized units. EIHF's patient, low-interest financing helps ensure the folks who make our communities thriveour health workers, teachers, store clerks, laborers, and firefighterscan call this region home."

Microsoft has invested in EIHF since the Fund's inception and is providing support for various stages of the Polaris project through several programs: land acquisition through the Washington State Housing and Finance Commission (WSHFC), direct construction financing, and permanent financing through EIHF, making it possible for this project to be realized.

"It will take bold leadership, partnership and ingenuity across our community to address the region's housing and affordability crisis," said Jane Broom , Senior Director, Microsoft Philanthropies. "EIHF is a great example of how the private, public, and nonprofit sectors can work together to find new solutions that advance affordable housing development. We are pleased to provide much-needed capital to move Polaris forward."

This is the second collaboration between EIHF and the developer Inland Group, whose portfolio includes 17 affordable apartment home communities across the western United States . "It is challenging to build large-scale affordable housing in Washington State , but working with EIHF and its investors allows projects like Polaris to happen. We're thrilled that EIHF and Microsoft have stepped up to fill financing gaps," said John Fisher , Developer at the Inland Group. "Helping working families get access to affordable apartments is truly a group effort and takes creative partnerships."

WSHFC coordinated the resources for the Polaris project, including the allocation of bond cap and tax credits. WSHFC administers the Expanded Land Acquisition Program (ELAP), a collaboration between the Commission and Microsoft that enables developers to purchase land and improved real property in east King County for affordable rental housing or single-family homes.

The full financing of the Polaris project is a testament to the power of collaboration and the urgent need to address the affordable housing crisis. It stands as an example of how public and private entities can come together to create positive, sustainable change in Washington State .

ABOUT EIHF:

Evergreen Impact Housing Fund (EIHF) provides catalytic impact capital to build more affordable apartments in Washington State . EIHF's investments are designed to ensure financial feasibility of projects, counteract market distortions, complement established financing for affordable housing, and advance positive outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

EIHF is managed by the Seattle Foundation Impact Funds Manager and partners with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission to identify and invest in 200+-unit projects. EIHF is closely aligned with Seattle Foundation's aims to advance racial justice and economic equity in our region through transformative capital. Learn more at https://evergreenimpact.org/.

Contact:

Caroline Hall

(206)-819-8749

[email protected]

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SOURCE Seattle Foundation
KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 09:32 | All, World, Japan

North Korea renewed its criticism of Japan over the releasing of "nuclear-contaminated" water into the sea from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in a speech Tuesday during a U.N. General Assembly session.

Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the world body, said in his address that Japan discharged the water in defiance of strong protests and criticism from the international community, "causing irrevocable damage to the safety of humanity and marine ecological environment."

Japan began releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi complex into the Pacific last month. The water was used to keep the plant's nuclear fuels cool after the facility was devastated by the major earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Tokyo said the concentrations of tritium in the water have been kept lower than one-fortieth of the level specified by the country's safety standards, while the discharge plan is backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. But China and North Korea have lashed out at the decision.

Kim also expressed his displeasure at recent discussions at the U.N. Security Council, saying it has taken up the issues of his country's human rights situation and launching of a satellite, but maintained "silence" over the Fukushima water discharge by Japan.

The envoy defended Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, saying North Korea "is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably."

The United States, Japan, South Korea and other U.N. members have urged North Korea to suspend the nuclear and missile programs banned in past Security Council resolutions.

Related coverage:

No tritium found in fish 1 month after Fukushima water release

Japan's PM Kishida vows to begin outlining new economic steps next week

400,000 nuisance calls made to Japan embassy in China over Fukushima
PERRYSBURG, Ohio , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Toledo Solar Inc. (Toledo Solar) announces that First Solar, Inc. (First Solar) and Toledo Solar have reached a mutually agreeable settlement of First Solar's lawsuit against Toledo Solar. The terms of the settlement will remain confidential.

On behalf of Toledo Solar, newly elected Chairman Sean Fontenot stated, "We appreciate First Solar's understanding and quick resolution of this matter stemming from the unfortunate actions taken by the company's prior management team. The Company is now operating well under new management. We look forward to continuing to work alongside First Solar as the anchor manufacturers of the US-MAC and CTAC consortia to strengthen U.S. leadership in strategic domestic manufacturing of Cadmium Telluride-based solar panels."

In addition, Fontenot noted that Toledo Solar is changing its strategic direction to focus on technologies to hardened solar panels for geographies with the most significant heat and humidity and harsh weather environments such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and hail. The company will also accelerate its efforts to develop technology in the creation of high-powered semi-transparent solar panels for use as windows in buildings, greenhouses, and semi-transparent canopies for agricultural fields.

About Toledo Solar

Toledo Solar is an early-stage manufacturer of state-of-the-art American Made Cadmium Telluride solar modules for the residential, commercial, and industrial markets. Inquires can be sent to [email protected] and will be responded to as soon as possible.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-solar-and-toledo-solar-settle-lawsuit-301941003.html

SOURCE Toledo Solar Inc
Global branded food company and its leading turkey brand continue to advance renewable energy projects at their Montevideo, Minn. , plant

MONTEVIDEO, Minn. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a Fortune 500 global branded food company known for its commitment to green power, celebrated the completion of an 8-acre solar field during a ribbon-cutting event Tuesday, Sept. 26 at its Jennie-O plant location in Montevideo, Minn.

The project is projected to generate 3.2 million kilowatt hours (kWh) per year between the community solar and onsite solar projects. The onsite solar portion of the project will supply approximately 10% of the plant's annual electricity, while the community solar portion of the project will provide Jennie-O team members, community members and businesses the opportunity to support green power and receive discounts on their energy bills.

"We are inspired to do our part to make the world a better place with the completion of this project," said Tom Raymond , director of environmental sustainability at Hormel Foods. "We know the importance of advancing renewable energy initiatives and this project demonstrates our commitment to environmental stewardship, including how we source the energy we need."

The new solar array will help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 2,265 metric tons per year, equivalent to taking 504 average gasoline powered passenger vehicles off of the road for one year.

Hormel Foods has been a leader in supporting a variety of other renewable energy initiatives, including its solar projects in Kansas and California and its Virtual Power Purchase Agreements for the Western Trails and Haystack wind projects, respectively located in northern Texas and eastern Nebraska .

As a company, Hormel Foods has a goal to achieve 100% green power worldwide by 2030. Over the past year, it has increased its procurement of domestic renewable electricity from less than 10% to 100% through Virtual Power Purchase Agreements that generate over 936 million kWh hours annually. For these efforts, the company has received awards from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Resource Solutions. Additionally, Hormel Foods is an anchor-tenant in community solar projects in Illinois and now rural central Minnesota .

For more information about the company's 20 By 30 Challenge and environmental stewardship efforts, please visit the 2022 global impact report here.

About Jennie-O Turkey Store

For over 80 years, the Jennie-O brand has been helping consumers live well by eating well. As the category leader, Jennie-O turkey is the trusted brand for quality turkey and a source of expertise. We provide a full portfolio of delicious, nutritious turkey proteins and inspiration for everyday meals or special occasions. Known for our bright green awning evoking the nostalgia of a local farmer stand, our round logo with a touch of yellow and our distinct name from our founders' daughter Jennifer, the Jennie-O turkey brand has the right amount of small-town friendliness paired with leading company expertise and quality.

About Hormel Foods  Inspired People. Inspired Food.

Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a global branded food company with over $12 billion in annual revenue across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include Planters, Skippy, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate , Justin's, Wholly, Hormel Black Label, Columbus , Jennie-O and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named on the "Global 2000 World's Best Employers" list by Forbes magazine for three years, is one of Fortune magazine's most admired companies, has appeared on the "100 Best Corporate Citizens" list by 3BL Media 13 times, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. The company lives by its purpose statement  Inspired People. Inspired Food.  to bring some of the world's most trusted and iconic brands to tables across the globe. For more information, visit hormelfoods.com and csr.hormelfoods.com.

Contact: Media Relations

Hormel Foods

[email protected]

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SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation
ZURICH and LENZBURG, Switzerland , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SDX, the world's first fully regulated financial market infrastructure for digital assets, welcomes Hypothekarbank Lenzburg as a new member on its Central Securities Depository (CSD).

SDX, licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), operates a stock exchange and CSD using distributed ledger technology (DLT). With its fully integrated blockchain-based platform, SDX offers a secure and reliable ecosystem for the issuance, trading, settling, and custody of digital securities.

Joining SDX's CSD marks a milestone for Hypothekarbank Lenzburg on its path to becoming a major player in the Swiss market for tokenized digital assets and bringing native digital securities onto the platform. With SDX's comprehensive infrastructure for various digital securities types, including Digital Bonds and Digital Equities, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg gains access to a single, reliable, and trusted DLT-based platform that fulfils the regulatory requirements.

"The SDX membership marks a significant step in advancing our bank's presence in digital assets. Beyond token issuance and custody, our offering should include the possibility of listing digital value rights on a trusted trading venue. SDX's ecosystem aligns seamlessly with our goals, and we eagerly anticipate this cooperation," says Marianne Wildi , CEO of Hypothekarbank Lenzburg.

"We firmly believe that a strategic alliance with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg facilitates our mission to provide institutional clients with innovative, trusted, and efficient financial markets infrastructure and services for digital assets," adds David Newns , Head of SIX Digital Exchange.

Hypothekarbank Lenzburg is the sixth bank to join SDX and is among the existing members Berner Kantonalbank, CM-Equity, Credit Suisse, Kaiser Partner Privatbank, SIX SIS, UBS and Zurcher Kantonalbank.

About SDX

SIX Digital Exchange AG (SDX) is the first fully regulated financial market infrastructure (FMI) for the issuance, trading, settlement, and custody of digital assets. SDX is licensed by Switzerland's financial market regulator, FINMA, to operate as a stock exchange (via SDX Trading AG) and central security depository (CSD) on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

About Hypothekarbank Lenzburg

Hypothekarbank Lenzburg is a listed Swiss universal bank founded in 1868. The bank is active in retail banking, mortgage lending, private banking and SME business. In its banking-as-service business, it provides banking services to third-party financial service providers. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg offers professional asset management through its HBL Asset Management brand. With Finstar, the bank develops, distributes and operates a core banking system with an open API architecture.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hypothekarbank-lenzburg-ag-joins-six-digital-exchange-strengthening-the-digital-asset-ecosystem-in-switzerland-301939327.html

SOURCE SIX Digital Exchange
STOCKHOLM , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 28, 2023 , Sandvik will arrange its Capital Markets Day at one of Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions` largest sites, located in Tampere, Finland . The event will commence with a mingle the evening before, on November 27 .

The Capital Markets Day provides an opportunity for institutional investors, financial analysts and financial media to get an update on Sandvik's strategy and key achievements.

Presentations will be held by Stefan Widing , President and CEO and Cecilia Felton , CFO as well as by business area experts and management. Sandvik will also take the opportunity to show its leading-edge technology and innovations from all business areas through guided tours.

Use the link below to register no later than October 1, 2023 . The number of seats is limited, and institutional investors, analysts, financial media and other key stakeholders will be prioritized. Your participation is not confirmed until you have received an e-mail confirming your participation and a link to complete your registration.

Read more and register here: https://www.home.sandvik/en/investors/capital-markets-day/

There will be no live webcast of the event. Recordings of the presentations and the corresponding slides will be available on Sandvik's website no later than November 29 .

Stockholm , September 27, 2023

Sandvik AB

For further information, contact Louise Tjeder , VP Investor relations, phone: +46 (0) 70782 6374 or Sofia Wiklund , Investor relations, phone: +46 (0) 70616 2023.

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/208/3843209/2322548.pdf Invitation Sandvik Capital Markets Day November 28, 2023

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SOURCE Sandvik
Highlights:

95% gold recoveries using whole ore cyanidation on the Cuyes West high-grade composite.

96% gold recoveries using flotation on the Cuyes West high-grade composite.

VANCOUVER, BC , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV: LR) (OTCQX: LUMIF) (the "Company" or "Luminex") announces positive results from its metallurgical test program at the Los Cuyes deposit. The Cuyes West high-grade area, a portion of the Los Cuyes deposit within Condor North, yielded excellent metallurgical recoveries. Additionally, low-grade material and breccia material from Los Cuyes were tested and also demonstrated strong recoveries.

Marshall Koval , CEO of Luminex stated: "The consistent and high recovery rates with the Los Cuyes materials demonstrated in this test work program represent an important step in advancing the Condor North project and integrating Cuyes West into a future economic study."

Summary of Metallurgical Results

C. H. Plenge & CIA S.A. ("Plenge"), an independent metallurgical testing laboratory based in Lima, Peru , has completed a program of investigative metallurgical work using three representative samples from the Los Cuyes deposit at the Condor project. Head assay results from the three metallurgical samples are summarized below. An equal weight composite of these same samples was also prepared for use in preliminary tests. Approximately 85% of the contained value in the Los Cuyes materials is represented by gold and silver.

Table 1: Summary of Test Sample Feed Grades  Los Cuyes Deposit

Sample Gold Silver Lead Zinc

g/t g/t % % Los Cuyes Low-Grade 0.73 12.0 0.05 0.40 Los Cuyes High-Grade 3.65 41.7 0.22 0.91 Breccia 1.06 11.4 0.02 0.43



Gravity testing was completed using the composite sample and indicated that approximately 15% of the contained gold is potentially recoverable as a high-grade gravity concentrate.

Metallurgical test work indicated that high recoveries for gold and silver using a bulk flotation process are expected at a primary grind of 75 microns, averaging 93.2% gold recovery and 90.1% silver recovery for the three samples tested. The mass recovery in flotation is typically about 12% of the flotation feed mass.

Cyanide leaching of bulk flotation concentrates produced from the flotation test work demonstrated that high extractions of gold and silver are expected; extractions averaged 91.4% and 50.6% gold and silver, respectively. Optimization of the leaching process, specifically, the use of finer particle size distributions in leaching is expected to improve the precious metal recovery in this stage.

Whole ore cyanidation of the three samples indicated that 90.9% and 33.6% of the gold and silver could be extracted using standard leaching conditions. Whole ore cyanidation test work was completed at a primary grind size of 75 microns, comparable to the flotation test work.

Preliminary flotation test work to evaluate the option of recovering lead and zinc values was also completed in this test work program and indicates that zinc could possibly be recovered as a by-product to the process. Additional test work is required to fully evaluate the requirements to recover zinc into a saleable concentrate.

Test Work Description and Results

Two key process options were evaluated in the Plenge test work program: (i) the option of producing a bulk sulphide flotation concentrate for subsequent cyanide leaching to recover precious metals; and (ii) whole ore leaching of the Los Cuyes material for the recovery of precious metals.

Flotation results are summarized below and show that about 12.5% of the mass is expected to be recovered as a rough flotation concentrate. Gold recoveries of approximately 93% are expected from this concentrate. This process option has the potential to reduce the size of the cyanide leaching facility, as well as allow for efficient re-grinding of concentrates for enhanced precious metal recoveries and better management of the impacts of the leaching process.

Table 2: Summary of Flotation Test Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Flotation Concentrate Quality Flotation Recoveries

Mass Au Ag Au Ag

% g/t g/t % % Los Cuyes High-Grade 15.1 26.9 248 95.9 86.8 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 9.8 8.08 118.5 93.4 83.9 Breccia 11.3 9.40 102.3 97.8 95.0 Averages





95.7 88.5



Whole ore cyanidation leach test (CIL) work was completed on the three Cuyes West samples, results of which are shown below. The samples show good gold extractions at a primary grind of 75 microns and precious metal recoveries are shown to be slightly lower than flotation recoveries to a bulk sulphide concentrate. Cyanide consumptions are in-line with expectations given the sulphide mineral content of the Los Cuyes materials and are consistent with the industry average.

Table 3: Summary of Whole Ore Leaching Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Whole Ore Leach Extraction Reagent Consumption

Au Ag NaCN CaO

% % kg/tonne kg/tonne Los Cuyes High-Grade 94.5 32.2 1.93 1.1 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 91.1 34.4 1.25 1.0 Breccia 87.1 34.2 1.56 1.0 Averages 90.9 33.6 1.58 1.0



Leaching of flotation concentrates produced from the three samples was also completed. The results confirm that leaching of a flotation concentrate is a viable option (see summary table below). Additional metallurgical work is recommended to potentially increase the precious metals recoveries when leaching concentrates as it is expected that fine grinding will enhance extractions. Subsequent optimization test work will inform the approach to processing the Cuyes West materials.

Table 4: Summary of Flotation Concentrate Leaching Results  Los Cuyes Deposit



Leach Extraction from Concentrate Reagent Consumption

Au Ag NaCN CaO

% % kg/tonne kg/tonne Los Cuyes High-Grade 96.8 42.5 5.5 1.8 Los Cuyes Low-Grade 93.1 42.5 3.1 1.8 Breccia 91.1 41.9 5.6 1.7 Averages 93.7 42.1 4.73 1.8



Luminex is not aware of any factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein.

Quality Assurance

All the samples were assayed by Plenge at its laboratory in Lima, Peru . Head assays and selected tails were also submitted to SGS Peru for QA/QC. Assay results between the two testing facilities were consistent. A good reconciliation was found between the calculated head grades and the assay head grades. Both Plenge and SGS Peru are independent of Luminex.

Qualified Persons

Jeffrey B. Austin , P.Eng ., is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). Mr. Austin has previously visited Plenge's laboratory in Lima Peru , and has reviewed, verified and approved the content of this press release, including the data underlying the metallurgical testing.

About Luminex Resources

Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV:LR, OTCQX: LUMIF) is a Vancouver, Canada based precious and base metals exploration and development company focused on gold and copper projects in Ecuador . Luminex's inferred and indicated mineral resources are located at the Condor Gold-Copper project in Zamora-Chinchipe Province , southeast Ecuador . Luminex also holds a large and highly prospective land package in Ecuador .

Further details are available on the Company's website at https://luminexresources.com/.

To receive news releases please sign up at https://www.luminexresources.com/contact/contact-us/.

Follow us on: Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.

LUMINEX RESOURCES CORP.





Signed: "Marshall Koval"





Marshall Koval , CEO and Director





Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to future metal recoveries from the Los Cuyes deposit and future economic studies. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as "expected" or variations of that word and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results are "expected to" be taken, occur or be achieved.

With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, the Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions, the prices of gold and copper, and anticipated costs and expenditures. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive.

Although management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks associated with the business of the Company; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters); risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting mining concessions); risks related to the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 including, but not limited to, its impact on general economic conditions, the ability to obtain financing as required, and causing potential delays to exploration activities and the preparation of an updated NI 43-101 technical report for the Condor project; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in the Company's continuous disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities administrators. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

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SOURCE Luminex Resources Corp.
DENVER , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MDC), one of the nation's leading homebuilders, will release its 2023 third quarter earnings before the market opens on Thursday, October 26, 2023 . MDC will host a teleconference the same day at 12:30 pm ET . The live teleconference will be available by calling 844-757-5733 and requesting to join the M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. conference call. A replay of the teleconference will be available through November 2, 2023 , by calling 877-344-7529 and entering Access Code # 9085693.

A webcast of the teleconference will be available live at www.mdcholdings.com, and beginning two hours after the call, a replay of the webcast will be available on the website.

About MDC

M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1972. MDC's homebuilding subsidiaries, which operate under the name Richmond American Homes, have helped more than 240,000 homebuyers achieve the American Dream since 1977. One of the largest homebuilders in the nation, MDC is committed to quality and value that is reflected in each home its subsidiaries build. The Richmond American companies have operations in Alabama , Arizona , California , Colorado , Florida , Idaho , Maryland , Nevada , New Mexico , Oregon, Pennsylvania , Tennessee , Texas , Utah , Virginia and Washington . Mortgage lending, insurance and title services are offered by the following MDC subsidiaries, respectively: HomeAmerican Mortgage Corporation, American Home Insurance Agency, Inc. and American Home Title and Escrow Company. M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MDC." For more information, visit www.mdcholdings.com.

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SOURCE M.D.C. Holdings, Inc.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Newport Healthcare, the nation's leading provider of evidence-based treatment programs for teens and young adults with primary mental health disorders, has partnered with the acclaimed film My Ascension, strengthening suicide prevention efforts during September's National Suicide Prevention Month and beyond. The news comes on the heels of Newport announcing its seventh year as a partner of the suicide prevention organization To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA). With Newport's support, My Ascension is airing over 1,100 times in September on PBS stations across the country and will continue to air on PBS for the next three years.

My Ascension is the story of Emma Benoit who, at 16 years old, attempted to take her own life. For years, Emma quietly struggled with anxiety and depression, too ashamed to share her pain with family or friends. Emma is not alone. On average, one American dies by suicide every 11 minutes, almost 50,000 every year. About 1.7 million attempt it. It's while navigating the challenges of recovery that Emma discovers purpose and passion in helping others who are struggling, as depicted in the inspiring film.

"Emma was a cheerleader with good grades and a loving familyshe had a support system, but she never told anybody that she was struggling because she didn't want to show that she was weak," says Greg Dicharry , the film's director and a mental health advocate who in 2019 received Mental Health America's top honor, the Clifford Beers Award, for his work in youth mental health. "Her story helps break down the stereotypes and the stigma associated with mental health issues."

Newport Healthcare is supporting the film as part of its commitment to advocacy and moving the national discourse on mental health from awareness to action.

"As leaders in the field of mental health treatment for young people, we have a responsibility to ignite conversations about mental health, no matter how uncomfortable they may be," says Newport Healthcare CEO Joe Procopio . "Mental health issues do not discriminate; they affect every family. And as Emma herself says 'silence will never keep you safe.'"

The film's impact is expanding. Over 150 My Ascension screening events have been held nationwide, inspiring and educating over 25,000 attendees. The My Ascension team interviewed hundreds of high school students who had attended a screening to assess the effect the film had on them. Most said that after watching the film, they had more empathy for people who experience mental health issues, would be better able to help a friend who is experiencing suicidal thoughts, and were more likely to ask for help if they were struggling. Importantly, the film provides resources for families to turn to for more information and support.

"I'm so grateful for the work that Newport Healthcare does because I know firsthand the effects of not having quality mental health care as a teen," says Emma. "As I travel the country, I encounter countless teens and their families who are not getting the care and support that they need and deserve. Thankfully Newport Healthcare is filling the need with industry-leading treatment that's transforming the lives of young people and their families."

Newport Healthcare is a dedicated advocate for mental health care accessibility and affordability, and offers free mental health resources, community support groups, expanded treatment services around the nation, and accepts most major insurances. For more information, visit NewportHealthcare.com.

About Newport Healthcare

Newport Healthcare is the nation's leading provider of evidence-based mental health treatment for youth, young adults, and families. Comprised of Newport Academy, Newport Institute, Center for Families, and PrairieCare, its full continuum of care includes psychiatric inpatient services, residential services, partial hospitalization programs (PHP), intensive outpatient programs (IOP), and virtual programs. Newport's family-centered, integrated approach fosters sustainable healing from a foundation of compassionate care, clinical expertise, and unconditional love. With a commitment to advocacy, Newport is creating a movement to shift our mental health culture from awareness to action, with the primary mission to empower lives and restore families.

Contact: [email protected]

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SOURCE Newport Healthcare
Oracle opens new region in Monterrey in partnership with Telefonos de Mexico (TELMEX-Triara) and continues expanding its global cloud region footprint with 46th region

Organizations benefit from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's high performance and security, powerful data and analytics, and distributed cloud capabilities

TELMEX-Triara is the new region's host partner and will deliver Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services to organizations across Mexico

AUSTIN, Texas and MEXICO CITY , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle today announced the opening of a second Oracle Cloud Region in Mexico in partnership with Telefonos de Mexico (TELMEX-Triara), becoming the first hyperscaler to have two cloud regions in the country to broaden access and provide greater resiliency. TELMEX-Triara is the host partner for the new Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region , and through its partnership with Oracle it becomes one of the first telecommunications operators to offer Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) services to organizations across Mexico .

"Becoming the first hyperscale cloud provider to open two regions in Mexico is a testament to Oracle's commitment to delivering innovative cloud infrastructure services across the country," said Maribel Dos Santos , senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Mexico. "By extending our strategic alliance with TELMEX-Triara, we will be able to jointly help public and private organizations leverage the high performance, flexibility, and scalability of OCI. As a result, customers across the region will be able to harness the value of technologies such as generative AI and machine learning to grow their businesses."

Part of Oracle's distributed cloud strategy, the new region is Oracle's 46th worldwide and will offer Oracle Cloud's full capabilities, including more than 100 OCI services and cloud applications to migrate, modernize, and innovate, including Oracle Autonomous Database, MySQL HeatWave Database Service, Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, and AI infrastructure.

"Our partnership with Oracle enables TELMEX-Triara to expand our cloud service offerings and continue to strengthen our strategic position, offering a broad range of innovative, process-focused solutions and world-class infrastructure to help companies make the most of their technology investments on the path to digital transformation," said Mauricio Alcocer Sola , director of business and IT solutions, TELMEX. "TELMEX-Triara makes significant investments to develop a highly robust technology platform, integrated by more than 550,000 kilometers of fiber optic, combined with redundant connectivity and high-capacity bandwidth to ensure the availability and support of solutions and applications anytime and anywhere."

Strategic Alliance to Help Accelerate Cloud Adoption Across Mexico

Located in TELMEX-Triara's data center in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, the Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region gives organizations access to a wide range of cloud services to modernize their applications, innovate with data and analytics, and migrate mission-critical workloads from their data centers to OCI. The TELMEX-Triara data center provides state-of-the-art infrastructure to support the scalability, redundancy, and workload distribution demands of Oracle and TELMEX-Triara joint customers.

With the Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region , Oracle and TELMEX-Triara will be able to help organizations strengthen business continuity while addressing Mexico's data residency and data sovereignty requirements by providing redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities across the two cloud regions located in Mexico .

In addition to providing OCI services to organizations across Mexico , TELMEX-Triara offers a broad portfolio of value-added services to joint customers. The services include cloud resource deployment and management, application management, and first- and second-level support to help extend the value of customers' cloud investments.

OCI's Extensive Global Ecosystem Helps Ease and Accelerate Cloud Adoption

OCI's extensive network of more than 85 global and regional OCI FastConnect partners offers organizations dedicated connectivity to Oracle Cloud Regions and OCI services. FastConnect provides an easy, flexible, and cost-effective way to create a dedicated, private network connection with higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more consistent performance versus public, Internet-based connections. TELMEX is the host partner for the new Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region's FastConnect location. FastConnect partners available at launch include Arelion, MCM Telecom, and TELMEX.

Customers and Analysts Welcome the New Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region

"It's encouraging to see the growth in cloud infrastructure in our country, as this will help financial services institutions continue on an efficient and consistent path to digital transformation," said Jose Luis Nunez, chief information officer, FINCOMUN. "By providing agile, stable, and secure access to information and data, Oracle's new cloud region will help us develop products focused on covering the specific needs across the different segments of our client portfolio."

"OCI is a great ally to our company, as it gives us security, agility, and ease of use to help accelerate the implementation of Andrea's strategies," said Guillermo Carlin, information technology infrastructure and production manager, Fabricas de Calzado Andrea .

"Within the complex healthcare landscape, managing a wide range of patient care data is a critical challenge, and Oracle provides outstanding solutions for scalability," said John Angel Montalvo Garcia , chief information officer, CHRISTUS MUGUERZA . "Oracle has proven to be our critical partner in the path to digital transformation, enabling us to successfully address this challenge and help make healthcare more agile and secure."

"Leveraging the cloud allows us greater flexibility in terms of infrastructure growth and enterprise growth in other countries," said Pedro Gil , CEO, Copayment. "Oracle's new cloud region delivers the technology and support we need to help enable digital payment transformation, while helping simplify compliance with regulatory requirements."

"Nearshoring provides an essential competitive advantage for organizations across Mexico . Industrial real estate companies operating in the region need access to state-of-the-art technologies that help enable and drive digital transformation, which helps them deliver secure, scalable, and fast services to their customers," said Ivan Saavedra Maufras , IT research and development director, Corporacion Inmobiliaria Vesta. "OCI's second region in Mexico is a clear sign of Oracle's commitment to the country's development."

"Cloud services are revolutionizing the way we work and how we invest in technology infrastructure and communications in enterprises," said Miguel Ruvalcaba Galindo , CEO, Convergencia Tecnologica de Occidente . "By opening new regions to deliver cloud services across our country, Oracle is helping more companies to add SaaS and IaaS services. Oracle's cloud solutions are flexible, secure, robust, and user-friendly, enabling us to keep expanding the services we provide to our customers."

"OCI offers significant value in helping Konesh establish a platform that meets growth and business expectations," said Gonzalo Yanez Cavazos, chief marketing officer, Konesh Solutions. "Oracle's new cloud region will help us comply with data residency regulations in Mexico as an authorized certification provider of digital signatures for invoices, as well as accelerate our growth in cloud services and continue to innovate so we can remain competitive and relevant in the large SME market in Mexico ."

"Oracle's cloud provides virtually unlimited access to storage, processing, and resources for innovation, similar to an infinite library of information and cloud capabilities with high availability," said Hector Martinez Arnaud , chief technology officer, Financiera Maestra. "With the opening of Oracle's new cloud region in Monterrey, Mexico -based financial services companies gain the opportunity to strengthen business capabilities for digital transformation."

"By expanding its cloud infrastructure in our country, we are confident that Oracle will have a positive impact on Mexico's technology innovation ecosystem," said Javier Barrios , director of innovation and technology strategy, Quicklearning. "The new cloud region offers a wide range of capabilities to help customers develop new business solutions that leverage the latest technologies."

"For EFISYS and customers using our solutions, it is very important to have two Oracle cloud regions available in our country," said Alejandro Martinez , CEO, EFISYS. "Many of our customers are regulated and supervised by CNBV, and within the existing legal framework, accessibility to data in the national territory is critical."

"With the huge footprint and sales capabilities of TELMEX, Mexico's largest telecom operator and part of Latin America's largest telecommunications group, OCI services can be delivered to more customers  in addition to becoming more deeply integrated with the carrier's portfolio of services and connectivity," said Ari Lopes , senior research manager, Americas , OMDIA. "Additionally, Oracle can now help provide stronger redundancy and disaster recovery for its customers in their data centers in Queretaro and Monterrey."

Oracle Cloud's Rapidly Growing Global Footprint

Oracle provides a broad and consistent set of cloud services across 46 commercial and government cloud regions in 23 countries to serve its growing global customer base. OCI's distributed cloud offers customers the benefits of cloud with greater control over data residency, locality, and authority, even across multiple clouds. It delivers more than 100 services across its 46 public cloud regions, including the new Oracle Cloud Monterrey Region ; Oracle Cloud for Government regions in the U.S. , U.K. , and Australia ; OCI Dedicated Regions at customer-controlled sites; partner-enabled Oracle Alloy regions; and Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud. OCI's distributed cloud offerings can assist with applications where data proximity and low latency in specific locations are of critical importance.

Currently available Oracle Cloud Regions:

Asia Pacific : Tokyo ( Japan ), Osaka ( Japan ), Seoul ( South Korea ), Chuncheon ( South Korea ), Mumbai ( India ), Hyderabad ( India ), Sydney ( Australia ), Melbourne ( Australia ), Singapore ( Singapore )

Tokyo ( ), ( ), ( ), Chuncheon ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ) Americas : San Jose ( United States ), Phoenix ( United States ), Ashburn ( United States ), Chicago ( United States ), Toronto (Canada) , Montreal (Canada) , Sao Paolo (Brazil) , Vinhedo (Brazil), Santiago ( Chile ), Queretaro ( Mexico ), Monterrey ( Mexico )

San Jose ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), , , Sao , Vinhedo (Brazil), ( ), Queretaro ( ), Monterrey ( ) Europe : Frankfurt ( Germany ), London ( United Kingdom ), Newport, Wales (United Kingdom ), Zurich (Switzerland ), Amsterdam ( The Netherlands ), Marseille (France), Stockholm ( Sweden ), Milan ( Italy ), La Courneuve, Paris (France) , Madrid ( Spain ), Jovanovac ( Serbia ), and two EU Sovereign Cloud regions ( Frankfurt and Madrid )

Frankfurt ( ), ( ), Newport, ), ), ( ), (France), ( ), ( ), La Courneuve, , ( ), Jovanovac ( ), and two EU Sovereign Cloud regions ( and ) Middle East : Jeddah ( Saudi Arabia ), Abu Dhabi and Dubai ( U.A.E ), Jerusalem ( Israel )

Jeddah ( ), and ( ), ( ) Africa : Johannesburg ( South Africa )

Johannesburg ( ) Government: Two general U.S. Government regions, three U.S. Department of Defense specific Government regions, several U.S. National Security regions, and two United Kingdom Government regions ( London and Newport, Wales ), and one Australian Government region ( Canberra )

Additional Resources

Learn more about the Oracle Cloud Regions

Learn more about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

About Oracle

Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle, Java, MySQL and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud companyushering in the new era of cloud computing.

About TELMEX-Triara

Telefonos de Mexico (TELMEX-Triara) have made significant investments to develop the country's most robust, extensive and avant-garde technology platform, ensuring a leading position in telecommunications and IT services in Mexico . This strategy enables you to deliver the broadest range of innovative and world-class solutions focused on infrastructure and processes, helping customers make the most of their technology investment.

Triara, the TELMEX Data Centers division, provides comprehensive services that ensure business continuity by providing cloud solutions, connectivity, storage, IT service management and application management. In addition, it has the highest quality standards and international certifications. For more information, visit www.telmex.com.

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SOURCE Oracle
Company Collaborating with Researchers at the University of Nottingham on Optimization and Evaluation of Novel Small Molecule GPR65 Inhibitors in Preclinical Brain Tumor Models

OXFORD, England , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Pathios Therapeutics Limited ("Pathios"), a biotech company focused on the development of first-in-class therapies for cancer, today announced that the company has been awarded a 567K ( ~US$727K ) grant from Innovate UK , the UK government's innovation agency. The grant funding will enable the company to expand its development of novel small molecule GPR65 inhibitors into the area of a possible treatment of malignant brain tumors. The project is being conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Nottingham and is focused on optimizing small molecule GPR65 inhibitors to penetrate the central nervous system (CNS) and evaluate those optimized compounds in preclinical models of brain cancer.

The treatment of patients with malignant brain tumors remains a high unmet medical need. While chemotherapy has modestly improved survival rates among these patients, the need for truly impactful treatments remains. Immunotherapy has demonstrated some promise in this area, though overcoming the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) remains a key challenge.

Pathios is pursuing a novel immuno-oncology approach to the treatment of cancer focused on counteracting the immunosuppressive polarization of immune cells, including tumor associated macrophages (TAMs), that is triggered by an acidic TME. This is achieved by the design and development of inhibitors of GPR65, an acid sensing G protein-coupled receptor that is exclusively expressed on immune cells and is associated with driving the immunosuppressive immune cell phenotype in the TME that prevents immune-mediated killing of cancer cells. Pathios' internal human genetic analysis demonstrates that reductions in GPR65 function are associated with significantly improved survival across a range of solid tumor types, positioning it as a unique immuno-oncology target for therapeutic intervention.

With this grant, Pathios is utilizing an extensively developed proprietary assay platform to optimize CNS penetration of small molecule GPR65 inhibitors for the treatment of human malignant gliomas. Optimized GPR65 inhibitors are being tested in a human ex vivo co-culture system model of human glioblastoma in collaboration with University of Nottingham researchers, followed by in vivo efficacy evaluation in mouse models.

"Recent research suggests that a portion of glioblastoma patients do not respond to approved immuno-oncology drugs due to the immunosuppression of immune cells in the TME by the acidic microenvironment inherent to all solid tumors, including brain cancers." said Stuart Hughes , Ph.D., chief executive officer of Pathios. "We believe there is promise in applying our novel immuno-oncology approach to cancers of the brain with a CNS-penetrating small molecule GPR65 inhibitor. We are excited to be working alongside the talented team at the University of Nottingham on this important preclinical research, which we hope will pave the way for future clinical studies."

"We are excited to be supporting the research and development of this novel therapy for malignant brain tumours. By working with Pathios we aim to support their preclinical development and expedite the progress of their inhibitors into the clinic," said Alan McIntyre , Associate Professor of Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, at the University of Nottingham. "This is important as malignant brain tumours are difficult to treat. In addition, this approach offers a new avenue to overcome the therapy resistance caused by the acidic microenvironment, frequently found in malignant brain tumours."

About Acidity in the Tumor Microenvironment

The acidic tumor microenvironment, inherent to many cancers, causes a profound immunosuppression of infiltrating immune cells. This environment disarms the anti-cancer immune response and negates the effectiveness of current immunotherapies. This is particularly evident in tumor associated macrophages (TAM), where acidity is sensed by the cell-surface receptor GPR65, leading to an induction of the transcriptional repressor ICER (inducible cAMP early repressor) and the widespread suppression of a host of pro-inflammatory mediators and anti-tumorigenic genes.

About Pathios Therapeutics

Launched in 2017, Pathios is a drug discovery and development company focused on translating innovative science into new medicines. Pathios was founded by a team of experienced biotech and pharmaceutical industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and clinicians. The company is focused on developing small molecule inhibitors of the pH-sensing G protein-coupled receptor GPR65 to counteract the GPR65 mediated immunosuppressive polarization of immune cells, including tumor associated macrophages, that is triggered by an acidic tumour microenvironment present in most cancers. To date, Pathios has raised a total of US$33M in Series A funding from the leading venture capital firms, Canaan Partners and Brandon Capital. Pathios is headquartered at the Innovation Centre on Milton Park , a key science precinct south of Oxford, UK .

For more information, please visit www.pathios.com.

About the University of Nottingham

Ranked in the Top 100 globally and 17th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot , which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.

The University is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

The University is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research. We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city's two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.

More news

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation. For more information visit https://www.ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk/

Contacts:

Pathios Therapeutics

Stuart Hughes , Chief Executive Officer

+44 1235 644 960

[email protected]

Vida Strategic Partners (on behalf of Pathios Therapeutics)

Tim Brons

+1 646 319 8981

[email protected]

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SOURCE Pathios Therapeutics
ATLANTA , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Peach State Health Plan , a care management organization that helps Georgians live healthier lives through innovative healthcare solutions, and the Georgia Primary Care Association (GPCA) today awarded five Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) grants in support of school-based health centers (SBHC) in Georgia . These awards were made possible by a $1.1 million donation announced earlier this year from Peach State Health Plan and the Centene Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC).

The five School Based Health Centers awarded grants from the Georgia Primary Care Association include:

Albany Area Primary Health Care (Albany)

Medcura ( Atlanta )

Family Health Center of Georgia ( McDonough )

Curtis V. Cooper Healthcare ( Savannah )

Community Health Centers Systems ( Twiggs and Johnson County )

"Peach State Health Plan remains committed to ensuring that all Georgians have access to high-quality healthcare," said Peach State Health Plan President and Chief Executive Officer, Wade Rakes . "We are proud of the work being done by the GPCA in awarding these grants to five deserving FQHCs. These first grants are an excellent first step in improving the healthcare access and quality that our state provides to students and families."

Funding from these grants will be used to support a variety of projects, ranging from structural improvements to the purchase of new and specialized medical equipment. The projects from each SBHC in this round of grants totals $300,000 . The Georgia Primary Care Association will use remaining funding to distribute additional grants to FQHCs for their SBHCs in subsequent years.

"The GPCA is thrilled to work with Peach State Health Plan to provide grants to these five SBHC," said Georgia Primary Care Association Executive Director, Duane Kavka . "These grants will improve the capabilities and impact that these health centers will have on the students they serve. This grant program is off to a great start, and we are looking forward to seeing this funding in action."

SBHCs offer healthcare services in schools that focus on prevention and early detection of many treatable health conditions. Of the nearly 2,200 public schools in Georgia, only 114 have a health center on campus. Local SBHCs bridge a critical gap for students and families who may rely on their local school to identify and treat medical issues.

Earlier this year, Peach State Health Plan and the Centene Foundation's donation to the Georgia Primary Care Association established a multiyear program that would provide a series of grants to FQHCs that would go directly toward improvements to the SBHCs they oversee. The program was developed alongside Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's $125 million allocation of state funding for SBHCs that serve rural communities and Title I schools in underserved areas in 2021.

The recipients will be formally recognized and presented with their grant awards at the Georgia Primary Care Association's 2023 Annual Conference in Savannah on September 27 .

About Peach State Health Plan

Peach State Health Plan is a Care Management Organization that serves the needs of Georgians through a range of health insurance solutions. Peach State Health Plan serves the Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids population in partnership with Georgia Families. The organization also focuses on under-insured and uninsured individuals through its federal insurance marketplace plan, Ambetter, and its Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plan. Peach State Health Plan is a wholly owned subsidiary of Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC), a leading healthcare enterprise committed to helping people live healthier lives. For more information visit www.pshp.com .

About the Centene Foundation

The Centene Foundation (the "Foundation"), a private nonprofit focused on investing in economically challenged communities, is the philanthropic arm of Centene Corporation ("Centene"). The Foundation supports projects and initiatives strategically aligned with Centene's mission-driven culture and enhances the work Centene is doing to remove the barriers to wellness underserved and low-income populations face. The Foundation is committed to addressing social determinants of health and improving health equity in three distinct areas of focus: healthcare access, social services and education. To learn more, visit the Centene Foundation's website.

Georgia Primary Care Association

The Georgia Primary Care Association (GPCA) is a statewide membership organization designed to support and promote the development and success of Georgia's FQHCs. Since 1977 the GPCA Association (GPCA) has been designated as the state Primary Care Association (PCA) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). As the state's PCA, we are a knowledgeable resource for the rules and regulations governing FQHCs, Section 330 organizations and LALs (Look-Alikes). The Georgia Primary Care Association is active in the development of operational models for FQHCs. In addition, we provide direction and leadership for required community development activities related to new as well as existing community health centers. Much of our success can be attributed to our collaborative approach. We not only work closely with our members, but also with other healthcare organizations including the Georgia Rural Health Association, the Georgia Hospital Association as well as elected government officials, and many other establishments and individuals. For more information visit www.georgiapca.org

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SOURCE Peach State Health Plan
KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 19:25 | All, Japan, World

The governor of Japan's Okinawa on Wednesday rejected the central government's demand to approve its modified plan on landfill work for the relocation of a key U.S. base within the southern island prefecture.

In a letter addressed to the government, Gov. Denny Tamaki said it was "difficult to approve" the modified plan to reinforce soft ground at a designated construction site by the Wednesday deadline.

Tamaki's decision is likely to prompt Tokyo to adopt a stricter approach and move forward with a procedure that allows the land minister, rather than the governor, to approve the plan, officials said.

Land minister Tetsuo Saito placed the demand as Tamaki did not respond to the Supreme Court's decision earlier this month that turned down an appeal by Okinawa, confirming Tokyo's authority to instruct the local government to approve the modified plan.

Tokyo and Okinawa have long remained at odds over relocating U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the residential district of Ginowan to the less densely populated Henoko coastal area in Nago.

In 1996, Tokyo and Washington agreed on a relocation plan that involved returning the land occupied by the airfield. Tokyo selected Henoko as the relocation site in 1999.

But residents of Okinawa continue to strongly oppose the relocation within the prefecture, which hosts the majority of U.S. military facilities in Japan.

As next steps, the Japanese government is expected to order the Okinawa governor to accept the modified landfill plan by early October and bring the case to the Fukuoka High Court's Naha branch if Tamaki does not comply, the officials said.

If the central government wins the case and the Okinawa governor still does not approve the plan, the land minister could endorse it and initiate the landfill work, the officials said.

Related coverage:

Okinawa governor tells U.N. that U.S. military base threatens peace

Okinawa loses legal battle with central government over U.S. base landfill
OSLO, Norway , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Photocure, The Bladder Cancer Company, announces changes to the composition of its Board of Directors. Reference is made to the stock exchange notice on 9 August 2023 and that Jan H. Egberts, M.D. has decided to step down from his position as Chairperson of the Company's Board of Directors. Dr. Egberts has now resigned from the Board of Directors of Photocure ASA.

The current board members of Photocure will constitute the Board of Directors after Dr. Egberts' resignation until the general meeting elects a new Board of Directors. Further, the members of the Board of Directors have, after consultation with the nomination committee, resolved that current board member Dylan Hallerberg will take the position as interim Chairperson of the Board of Directors until such election is made.

The nomination committee has initiated a search for a new Chairperson, and it is expected that the committee will present its recommendations to the annual general meeting in 2024 at the latest.

For further information, please contact:

Erik Dahl

Chief Financial Officer

Email: [email protected]

About Photocure ASA

Photocure: The Bladder Cancer Company delivers transformative solutions to improve the lives of bladder cancer patients. Our unique technology, making cancer cells glow bright pink, has led to better health outcomes for patients worldwide. Photocure is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: PHO). For more information, please visit us at www.photocure.com, www.hexvix.com, www.cysview.com

The following files are available for download:

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SOURCE Photocure
World's Largest Pulmonary Fibrosis Conference Highlights Groundbreaking Research and Patient Support

CHICAGO , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) will present its biennial PFF Summit 2023 from Nov. 9-11 in Orlando, Fla. The three-day international conference, focused on pulmonary fibrosis (PF) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) research and education, will be held at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes . The PFF Summit welcomes patients, caregivers, healthcare providers and researchers to discuss the latest information on treatment options and how to live well with PF and ILD.

"We are eager to connect patients with one another and with physicians and researchers at the PFF Summit 2023," said Dr. Franck Rahaghi , President, CEO and CMO of the PFF. "Our focus on innovation and care in the PF space presents many opportunities to learn about hopeful advances in areas ranging from clinical trials to advocacy."

Dr. Banu Karimi-Shah , Deputy Director of the Division of Pulmonology, Allergy and Critical Care in the Office of New Drugs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is the keynote speaker for the plenary session, "It takes a Village: The Critical Role of Federal Agencies in PF Research and Care," on Friday, Nov. 10 . Dr. Karimi-Shah will highlight regulatory considerations in drug development for pulmonary fibrosis, key safety considerations for PF programs, and the importance of the patient experience and the need for targeted evaluations of how a patient feels and functions.

Dr. D. Clark Files , a pulmonary and critical care trained physician-scientist from Wake Forest University School of Medicine will deliver the keynote address on Saturday, Nov. 11 , in the plenary session, "Clinical Trials: Accelerating Finding a Cure." Dr. Files will draw from his experience as a co-principal investigator of the I-SPY COVID trial, which was a Phase II, open label, adaptive platform trial conducted in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

The PFF Summit 2023 features sessions tailored to each group's experience with PF. Sessions for patients and caregivers feature topics such as understanding the difference between palliative and hospice care, the future of clinical trials, using supplemental oxygen and building resilience.

Conference tracks include continuing medical education (CME) and maintenance of certification (MOC) for physicians, and continuing education (CE) programs for nurses, respiratory therapists, and pharmacists.

Program highlights include:

Welcome Reception and Poster Presentation, Thursday, Nov.9  Attendees can browse nearly 70 scientific posters and meet the researchers who created them.

 Attendees can browse nearly 70 scientific posters and meet the researchers who created them. Networking Dinner, Friday, Nov. 10  A buffet dinner provides an ideal setting for attendees to visit and enjoy meeting new friends.

 A buffet dinner provides an ideal setting for attendees to visit and enjoy meeting new friends. Exhibit Hall, Thursday, Nov. 9  Saturday, Nov. 11  An array of booths staffed by knowledgeable representatives feature the latest products and services for people living with PF.

The PFF Summit 2023 is made possible by the generous support of Boehringer Ingelheim, the Hales Family Foundation, and other individual and corporate donors.

To register and for more information, visit pffregistry.org.

About the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation

The mission of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation is to accelerate the development of new treatments and ultimately a cure for pulmonary fibrosis. Until this goal is achieved, the PFF is committed to advancing improved care of patients with PF and providing unequaled support and education resources for patients, caregivers, family members, and health care providers. The PFF has a three-star rating from Charity Navigator and is an accredited charity by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance. The Foundation has met all of the requirements of the National Health Council Standards of Excellence Certification Program and has earned the Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency. For more information, visit pulmonaryfibrosis.org or call 844.TalkPFF (844.825.5733).

Contact: Dorothy Coyle , 773-332-6201

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SOURCE The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation
ViaVii Plus, supported by QSTP's Tech Venture Fund, Promotes Creator Economy for Tour Guides and Experience-Creators in MENA Region

DOHA, Qatar , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) announces the launch of ViaVii Plus , a comprehensive Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform designed for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region's travel experience creators, workshop providers, tour guides, and tourism companies offering unique activities to travelers and locals.

ViaVii Plus, developed by QSTP-incubated startup ViaVii , offers a seamless and intuitive booking management system and zero-code website builder, empowering service providers to manage and sell top-notch experiences in the region.

The platform  available in both English and Arabic  helps simplify the complexity and cost of developing and maintaining tours and activities websites and provides access to marketing and advertising tools, thus allowing a broader market reach and increased revenue for vendors.

Initially, ViaVii.com started off as an online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts offering authentic experiences at their destination. According to the startup's founder and Chief Executive Officer, Rola Fayyad , after having served over 10,000 travelers and digitized over 500 hosts from around the world, that concept has now evolved with ViaVii Plus.

ViaVii Plus supports vendors by allowing them to subscribe to the platform and promote their tours and activities. This gives them control over their brand image and how their services are presented. The platform supports a creator economy as any host can enlist within five minutes and open their own e-store without any prior technical experience.

To facilitate customer payments, vendors can opt to use ViaVii Plus' payment services, or seamlessly connect their own payment gateway to ViaVii Plus through the dashboard, as the platform supports localized payment gateways.

The startup first received seed investment from QSTP's Tech Venture Fund (TVF) in 2020, and then again in early 2023 as part of an institutional financing round to help develop and deploy ViaVii Plus.

Fayyad says the guidance from QSTP's TVF team was instrumental in the startup's growth: "It's QSTP's team that sets them apart from other technology parks or institutional investors. They believed in us and our venture from the beginning when they first invested in our startup during the pandemic."

"To this day, we receive strategic guidance from the TVF team on a monthly basis on aspects like improving the product, as well as understanding and penetrating our market better. We're very grateful for QSTP's support throughout our journey."

As part of the platform's development, the team is now increasing its user-base and forming value-adding partnerships, such as that with Experience Qatar , a destination management company, specializing in personalized and custom-made tours in Qatar .

Other notable partnerships include Jordan Tourism Board and Royal Jordanian (RJ), the country's flag-carrier airline, to re-distribute ViaVii Plus' authentic experiences on the partner platforms. Karim Makhlouf , Chief Commercial Officer, RJ, said: "Together, we're not just promoting tourism, but weaving a tale of authentic experiences and local traditions. With RJ's expansive reach and ViaVii Plus' commitment to creating digital bridges for travelers, we envision a future where every visitor leaves with a piece of Jordan in their heart."

In 2021, ViaVii was the winner of the category Prosperity  Opportunities for Growth in the United Nations World Tourism Organization's (UNWTO) Global Rural Tourism Startup Competition , and was the only Arab startup to bring that title to the MENA region.

Natalia Bayona , Executive Director, UNWTO, said: "ViaVii's remarkable growth is a clear testament to their innovative and technological approach, aligning with UNWTO's commitment to fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in tourism. Their noteworthy recognition as winners of the UNWTO Global Rural Tourism Startup Competition not only highlights their demonstrated approach to harnessing technology, but also showcases the impactful role of female entrepreneurship in driving positive change. This underscores their pivotal position in shaping the future landscape of travel in the region and fortifying the sectors dedication to innovation and technology."

This month, ViaVii was selected as one of the top 12 finalists of the Women in Tech Startup Competition Middle East out of over 150 applications. The startup is currently in the process of raising pre-Series A financing as part of its continued efforts to grow the business.

Learn more about QSTP  a member of Qatar Foundation  and apply for the Venture Fund via Tech Venture Fund - Qatar Science and Technology Park (qstp.org.qa)

Qatar Science & Technology Park

Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), part of Qatar Foundation, is a Free Zone , accelerator and incubator for tech-product development in Qatar . The park fosters an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Qatar that works to accelerate commercialization of market-ready technologies to realize Qatar's national diversification drive.

QSTP's focus ranges across four overarching themes, comprising Energy, Environment, Health Sciences and Information & Communication Technologies (ICT), in line with the Qatar National Research Strategy announced in 2012.

Located in Qatar Foundation's Education City, QSTP has access to the vital resources of a cluster of leading research universities. Members of QSTP's Free Zone include Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), international corporations and research institutions. They are collectively committed to investing in new technology development programs, creating intellectual property, enhancing technology management skills and developing innovative new products.

QSTP supports QF's economic and human development objectives for Qatar and is increasingly recognized as an international hub for applied research, innovation, incubation, and entrepreneurship.

For more information, please visit the QSTP website at www.qstp.org.qa

Qatar Foundation  Unlocking Human Potential

Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) is a non-profit organization that supports Qatar on its journey to becoming a diversified and sustainable economy. QF strives to serve the people of Qatar and beyond by providing specialized programs across its innovation-focused ecosystem of education, research and development, and community development.

QF was founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani , the Father Amir, and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser , who shared the vision to provide Qatar with quality education. Today, QF's world-class education system offers lifelong learning opportunities to community members as young as six months through to doctoral level, enabling graduates to thrive in a global environment and contribute to the nation's development.

QF is also creating a multidisciplinary innovation hub in Qatar , where homegrown researchers are working to address local and global challenges. By promoting a culture of lifelong learning and fostering social engagement through programs that embody Qatari culture, QF is committed to empowering the local community and contributing to a better world for all.

For a complete list of QF's initiatives and projects, please visit: www.qf.org.qa

To stay up to date on our social media activities, follow our accounts on: Instagram , Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn .

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SOURCE Qatar Science & Technology Park
SAN FRANCISCO and MUMBAI, India , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Robosoft Technologies Private Limited with its affiliate Robosoft Technologies Inc., today announced the acquisition of the analytics consulting practice of Cartesian Consulting Pvt. Ltd., with headquarters in Mumbai, India and also its affiliate company, Cartesian DataSciences LLC, located in Dallas, Texas .

Cartesian Consulting was founded in 2009 by Sandeep Mittal and has done analytics projects for more than 100 clients located in 16 countries around the world. Cartesian DataSciences was launched in 2017 by its Americas Director, Jim Griffin , who will be coming onboard to Robosoft Technologies Inc as Sales Director for the global analytics practice. Griffin is also a faculty member at the University of Texas, McCombs School of Business, graduate analytics program.

With this acquisition, Cartesian Consulting Pvt. Ltd. will focus on development and marketing efforts for SOLUS AI, a SaaS solution which acts as a System of Intelligence for Hyper Personalization. The pivot to a SaaS product business from an Analytics Consulting business is something that Cartesian had undertaken over the last 3 years. SOLUS AI has been in market and has seen fantastic acceptance with over 60 implementations as of date.

Robosoft Technologies Inc Chairman and CEO, Ravi Bommireddipalli , remarked: "Many of the technologies we have created already have embedded analytics and insight as part of their design, but the Cartesian acquisition helps to position us for our goal of break-out growth in the area of analytics."

Cartesian Consulting CEO Sandeep Mittal stated: "Our pivot to SOLUS also meant we had to focus our management and engineering efforts full time in support of the product, so we were looking for a company to which we could entrust our rich analytics practice, our legacy. We found in Robosoft an ideal choice and are thrilled to place this valuable business in such good hands."

Sandeep Mittal also announced that he will remain active in an advisory role for Robosoft.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California , Robosoft Technologies, Inc. is the North American affiliate of Robosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which is headquartered in Udupi, India . Robosoft Technologies is a digital-led business transformation partner for enterprises. Robosoft offers end-to-end solutions in Digital Consulting, Customer Experience Design, Platform Engineering & IT Modernization, Data Science and Analytics, Enterprise Applications Implementation and Cybersecurity. Their expertise includes Design Strategy, UI/UX services, Consumer & Enterprise Application Development, Application Modernization and Testing-as-a-Service to name a few. Robosoft is certified ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan , TechnoPro is the parent company of Robosoft. TechnoPro is a global leader in digital technology, employing more than 20,000 engineers and researchers, who serve a client base of over 2,000 customers.

Media contact:

Lakshmipathy Bhat

[email protected]

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SOURCE Robosoft Technologies
MUSCAT, Oman , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi , Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah accompanied by Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi , Deputy Ruler of Sharjah , visited on Wednesday morning the National Museum of Oman.

Upon his arrival, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah went on a tour of the National Museum's halls that highlight significant facets of the history and culture of the Sultanate of Oman , including the Renaissance Hall's corner honouring Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur, the Hall of Earth and Man and Maritime History Hall.

His Highness observed several artefacts in the Hall of Earth and Man that represent the long-standing friendship between the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates , including a curved sword given in the year 2004 and a model of Qasr Al Hosn in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi given in 1999 by the late, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan .



His Highness paused in front of a collection of paintings and sketches by Captain Charles Golding Constable depicting scenes from the Musandam Peninsula and the Arabian Gulf in the nineteenth century.

The Sharjah Ruler toured the exhibits at the Maritime History Hall, which house a collection of manuscripts, models of Omani sea craft, and marine construction equipment.

In the Renaissance Hall, His Highness paid a visit to the statue of Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur and reviewed a collection of royal collectibles, most notably the personal collectibles and presents that heads of friendly and allied nations gave the late Sultan.

During his visit, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah received a souvenir from His Excellency Jamal bin Hassan Al Musawi , Secretary-General of the National Museum, which is a museum publication entitled "The Collection of Marine Science."

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi , Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah , wrote words in VIP's visitors volume thanking those in charge of the National Museum for the comprehensive explanation and valuable information they provided, and wishing to make a next visit to this valuable museum.

Contact: Hussain Almulla - [email protected] - 00971563980067

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SOURCE Sharjah Government Media Bureau
DENVER , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Startek (NYSE: SRT), a global customer experience (CX) solutions provider, is honored to announce its recognition among India's Best Workplaces for Women 2023 (Large): Top 10 by Great Place To Work, a global authority on workplace culture.

This marks the second consecutive year that Startek India has achieved this prestigious accolade, following its initial recognition in 2021. This accomplishment underscores the Startek commitment to fostering an inclusive and empowering work environment for women.

In addition to this commendation, Startek India has also been certified by Great Place To Work for the year 2023. The Great Place To Work Certification is widely regarded as the definitive employer-of-choice recognition, a distinction that organizations worldwide strive to attain. This certification holds international acclaim and is acknowledged as the gold standard for identifying and celebrating outstanding workplace cultures.

The certification process involved a comprehensive HR practice audit, along with interviews and opinion surveys conducted among associates, all evaluated against a robust framework. Startek India's performance was measured using the Trust Index survey and Culture Audit, focusing on key parameters that directly influence an employee's perception of a great workplace.

"We are immensely proud to be recognized as one of India's Best Workplaces for Women for the second consecutive year," said S. M. Gupta , Chief People Officer , Startek. "Within our team, every individual brings a unique blend of skills, strengths and creativity, all contributing to remarkable business achievements. Our steadfast commitment to closing gender gaps, ensuring women's presence at every organizational level and recognizing the invaluable contribution of all team members within our inclusive work environment makes Startek an employer of choice. This accolade reaffirms Startek India's commitment to fostering a conscientious culture that propels our team members' careers, advocates for work-life balance and champions inclusivity for everyone."

For more information about Startek and its commitment to workplace excellence, visit www.startek.com.

About Great Place To Work

Backed by 30 years of data, Great Place To Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Through its proprietary For All Model and Trust Index Survey, it gives organizations the recognition and tools to create a consistently positive employee experience. Its mission is to help every place become a great place to work for all, driving business growth, improving lives, and empowering communities. Through globally recognized and coveted Great Place To Work Certification and highly competitive Best Workplaces Lists, Great Place To Work enables employers to attract and retain talent, benchmark company culture, and increase revenue. Its platform enables leaders to truly capture, analyze and understand the experience of every employee, and compare outcomes with data collected from more than 100 million employees in 150 countries worldwide.

About Startek

For more than 35 years, Startek has delivered customer experience (CX) excellence for the world's leading brands. Spread across 12 countries, our 38,000 associates create memorable, personalized experiences in both voice and non-voice channels. Our clients span from fortune 500s to fast-growing startups in a diverse range of industries including cable, media and telecom; travel and hospitality; retail and e-commerce and banking and financial services.

By creating closer connections, Startek delivers value for our clients, opportunity for our people and sustainable growth for our shareholders.

To learn more visit www.startek.com and follow us on LinkedIn@Startek.

Media relations

Neha Iyer

Startek

[email protected]

Investor relations

Cody Cree

Gateway Group, Inc.

[email protected]

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SOURCE Startek
Beloved baked-from-scratch bakery teams up with the world's leading breast cancer organization for limited-edition desserts that give back

LOS ANGELES , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, SusieCakes, the beloved bakery known for its baked-from-scratch desserts, today announced a partnership with Susan G. Komen, the world's leading breast cancer organization. The SusieCakes x Susan G. Komen Collection includes limited-edition desserts created to raise awareness and support its shared vision of a world without breast cancer. As a woman-founded and led company employing a workforce that is 80 percent female and deeply connected to the lives of its customers, SusieCakes is joining forces with Komen this October to help double down on efforts towards finding a cure and funding life-saving research, treatment and education about breast cancer.

"Since our founding in 2006, breast cancer has touched the lives of countless individuals within our SusieCakes community, including our cherished friends, families, team members, and guests," said Susan Sarich , SusieCakes founder and CEO. "Our partnership with Komen embodies our commitment to creating a recipe for change and making brighter days for those affected by this disease. For me, supporting Komen is more than a charitable endeavorit's a personal mission."

From October 1, 2023 , to October 31, 2023 , SusieCakes will donate $1 from every Komen Cupcake and $5 from every Komen Cake sold to Komen, with a guaranteed minimum donation of $17,500 to benefit the organization and its mission. The limited-edition SusieCakes x Susan G. Komen Collection includes:

Komen Cake ($104)Layers of vanilla cake filled & frosted with pink vanilla frosting and iced with an inspirational message of your choice, such as "I'm Celebrating No More Chemo" or "You've got this!", available for purchase online for nationwide shipping. This price includes next day shipping.

($104)Layers of vanilla cake filled & frosted with pink vanilla frosting and iced with an inspirational message of your choice, such as "I'm Celebrating No More Chemo" or "You've got this!", available for purchase online for nationwide shipping. This price includes next day shipping. Komen Cupcakes ( $4.75 each)Frosted with pink vanilla frosting and sprinkled with hot pink sugar, available in all 25 SusieCakes bakeries throughout California and Texas .

each)Frosted with pink vanilla frosting and sprinkled with hot pink sugar, available in all 25 SusieCakes bakeries throughout and . Komen Ribbon Cupcakes ( $23 for a 4-box)Two vanilla and two chocolate cupcakes with pink vanilla buttercream frosting, pink ribbon motif and bordered with hot pink sugar, available to order online for local delivery or pickup at all SusieCakes locations throughout California and Texas .

for a 4-box)Two vanilla and two chocolate cupcakes with pink vanilla buttercream frosting, pink ribbon motif and bordered with hot pink sugar, available to order online for local delivery or pickup at all SusieCakes locations throughout and . Komen Ribbon Flourless Cupcakes ( $25 for a 4-box)Four flourless chocolate cupcakes with pink buttercream, decorated ribbon stencil and bordered with hot pink sugar.

"We are honored to partner with SusieCakes during Breast Cancer Awareness Month," says Megan Klink , vice president of West Region for Susan G. Komen . "Together, we can raise awareness and funds that are crucial to our mission of eradicating breast cancer. This partnership is a testament to the power of community and compassion."

Breast cancer journeys are deeply personal, and everyone has a different story  whether you are supporting someone, celebrating a special occasion, or honoring a loved one. Sarich adds, "Every individual has the power to inspire and uplift, and we want to celebrate these incredible journeys with delicious treats that give back and support our community, bringing us one step closer to a world without breast cancer."

Throughout the month of October, SusieCakes invites patrons to share their personal stories on Instagram or TikTok using the hashtag #cakesforthecure, or online at https://susiecakes.com/cakes-for-the-cure-stories. The company will send treats from the SusieCakes x Susan G. Komen Collection to select guests who generously share their stories.

For more information, head to susiecakes.com/breast-cancer-awareness/.

About SusieCakes

SusieCakes is a classic all-American bakery concept with twenty-five locations in California and Texas . SusieCakes' promise is to bake the best-tasting, timeless versions of your most-loved treats. All locations are company owned and founder led.

SusieCakes' founder, Susan Sarich , grew up in Chicago , where she was called Susie by her two beloved grandmothers, Mildred and Madeline. Every day Susie would come home from school to enjoy her grandmothers' company over a glass of milk and a fresh-baked treat. This daily baking ritual and special time together in the kitchen left a lasting impression. When Susie grew up and moved to the West Coast , she brought along her grandmothers' carefully recorded recipes on handwritten 3x5 cards. This pure and simple connection to those recipes inspired Susan to create SusieCakes bakeries, and to share her childhood experience with others.

Through SusieCakes, Susan honors her grandmothers: both in her dedication to their baking traditions and her commitment to providing women with progressive careers in the food & hospitality industry. Today, SusieCakes is proud to share that women account for over 80 percent of the SusieCakes team.

About Susan G. Komen

Susan G. Komen is the world's leading breast cancer organization, dedicated to saving lives and meeting the most critical needs in our communities and investing in breakthrough research to prevent and cure breast cancer. Komen has an unmatched, comprehensive 360-degree approach to fighting this disease across all fronts and supporting millions of people in the U.S. and in countries worldwide. We advocate for patients, drive research breakthroughs, improve access to high-quality care, offer direct patient support and empower people with trustworthy information. Founded by Nancy G. Brinker , who promised her sister, Susan G. Komen , that she would end the disease that claimed Suzy's life, Komen remains committed to supporting those affected by breast cancer today, while tirelessly searching for tomorrow's cures. Visit komen.org or call 1-877 GO KOMEN. Connect with us on social at www.komen.org/contact-us/follow-us/.

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SOURCE SusieCakes
New Tampa Medical and Research District Advisory Committee Will Seek Partnerships, Attract Talent and Promote Tampa Bay as a Global Destination for World-Class Health Care.

TAMPA, Fla. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tampa General Hospital (TGH), University of South Florida (USF) and the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council (EDC) announced the establishment of the Tampa Medical and Research District Advisory Committee, which consists of leaders in health care, education, technology, energy and real estate. The members, who met formally for the first time today, will focus on guiding and implementing the long-term strategy of the Tampa Medical and Research District.

"The Tampa Medical and Research District is gaining a global reputation, drawing new businesses, recruiting world-class talent, fostering innovation and bringing a significant economic benefit to our region," said John Couris , president and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. "By forming this advisory committee, we're bringing together leaders from across industries to inform our overall strategy, facilitate collaboration and align opportunities with solutions."

"We're honored to have this stellar lineup of business leaders on the advisory committee," said Craig Richard , president and CEO of the Tampa Bay EDC. "With their leadership and expertise guiding the strategic direction of the Tampa Medical and Research District, Tampa will soon be recognized globally as a destination for world-class health care and medical innovation."

The advisory committee will serve as a catalyst for and facilitator of collaboration and coordination between the health care, education, research, policy, and biotech organizations of the region. Members will advise on industry trends, best practices, and strategies for long-term collaboration between district organizations. In addition, members and related organizations will promote the meaningful career opportunities and support recruitment of talent to fill the growing demands of the life sciences and health care sector in Tampa .

Members of the committee include:

John Couris , President and CEO | TGH

, President and CEO | TGH Craig Richard , President & CEO | Tampa Bay EDC

, President & CEO | Tampa Bay EDC Archie Collins , President and CEO | Tampa Electric

, President and CEO | Eric Eisenberg , SVP of University-Community Partnerships | University of South Florida

, SVP of University-Community Partnerships | Dr. Paul Greenwood , Ph.D. | University of Tampa

, Ph.D. | David Pizzo , West Florida Market President | Florida Blue

, West Florida Market President | Florida Blue Gary Sasso , President & CEO | Carlton Fields

, President & CEO | Lee Schaffler , Chief Portfolio Officer| Strategic Property Partners

, Chief Portfolio Officer| Daryl Shaw , CEO | Casa Ybor

, CEO | Casa Ybor Lakshmi Shenoy , CEO | Embarc Collective

The Tampa Medical and Research District houses a growing hub of world-class clinical care, academics, research, and biotechnology, anchored by one of the largest academic health institutions in the nation  Tampa General Hospital and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

In January, TGH and USF Health announced a partnership with the Tampa Bay EDC to attract businesses and professional talent to the region and promote the benefits of the district, which is inspired by renowned medical districts in some of the nation's greatest cities. Based on a study by the Washington Economics Group, the district is expected to ultimately generate more than $8.3 billion in economic impact to the state of Florida every year and support more than 57,900 jobs.

The health care industry is Hillsborough County's fastest-growing employment sector, adding more than 17,000 jobs since 2018. In the past decade, Hillsborough County's life sciences sector has transformed with the addition of global giants Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Amgen and Pfizer, as well as innovative younger companies such as Axogen, Vycellix, Morphogenesis and Versea Health. More than 80 colleges, universities, and specialized training providers in West Central Florida ensure a plentiful supply of talent in the pipeline to power the industry's growth.

Today's meeting of the advisory committee is just the start of the conversation. The Tampa Medical and Research District Advisory Committee will meet on a regular basis to guide the long-term strategy of the district.

ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL

Tampa General Hospital, a 1,040-bed, not-for-profit, academic health system, is one of the largest hospitals in America and delivers world-class care as the region's only center for Level l trauma and comprehensive burn care. Tampa General Hospital is the highest-ranked hospital in the market in U.S. News and World Report's 2023-24 Best Hospitals, with six specialties ranking among the top 50 best hospital programs in the United States . Tampa General Hospital has been designated as a model of excellence by the 2022 Fortune/Merative 100 Top Hospitals list. The academic health system's commitment to growing and developing its team members is recognized by two prestigious Forbes magazine rankings  in the top 100 nationally in the 2023 America's Best Employers for Women and top 25 in Florida in the 2023 America's Best Employers by State. Tampa General is the safety net hospital for the region, caring for everyone regardless of their ability to pay, and in fiscal year 2021, provided a net community benefit worth more than $224.5 million in the form of health care for underinsured patients, community education, and financial support to community health organizations in Tampa Bay . It is one of the nation's busiest adult solid organ transplant centers and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. With six medical helicopters, Tampa General Hospital transports critically injured or ill patients from 23 surrounding counties to receive the advanced care they need. Tampa General houses a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center, and its 32-bed Neuroscience, Intensive Care Unit is the largest on the West Coast of Florida . It also is home to the Jennifer Leigh Muma 82-bed neonatal intensive care unit, and a nationally accredited rehabilitation center. Tampa General Hospital's footprint includes 17 Tampa General Medical Group Primary Care offices, TGH Family Care Center Kennedy, TGH Outpatient Center, TGH Virtual Health, and 21 TGH Imaging outpatient radiology centers throughout Hillsborough , Pasco , Pinellas and Palm Beach counties. Tampa Bay area residents also receive world-class care from the TGH Urgent Care powered by Fast Track network of clinics. To see a medical care professional live anytime, anywhere on a smartphone, tablet or computer, visit Virtual Health | Tampa General Hospital (tgh.org). As one of the largest hospitals in the country, Tampa General Hospital is the first in Florida to partner with GE Healthcare and open a clinical command center that provides real-time situational awareness to improve and better coordinate patient care at a lower cost. For more information, go to www.tgh.org.

ABOUT THE TAMPA BAY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

The Tampa Bay Economic Development Council is the lead designated economic development agency for Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace. Established in 2009 as a partnership between the public sector and private corporate investors, the EDC works to advance a diversified local economy that is beneficial to all by attracting, expanding and retaining quality employers, a talented workforce and investment, focusing within targeted industry sectors, including Corporate Headquarters, Financial and Professional Services, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Defense and Security, Distribution and Logistics, and Manufacturing. The EDC exists because of the generous support of more than 100 corporations, Hillsborough County, and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace.

Media Contact: Beth Hardy , APR Media Contact: Michelle Bauer , CEcD, APR Senior Communications Specialist Chief Operating Officer (727) 510-6363 (cell) (727) 510-2524 (cell) [email protected] [email protected]

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SOURCE Tampa General Hospital
Legislation Critical for Guaranteeing Occupational Safety for Cannabis Workers

WASHINGTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Teamsters Union commends the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs for passing S. 2860, the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, earlier today.

The SAFER Banking Act would provide safer working conditions for cannabis workers by amending federal laws to allow their employers more access to traditional financial services. Most legitimate cannabis proprietors are forced to work entirely in cash, which puts their staff and customers at risk of violent theft and robbery.

"As Congress works to establish the necessary guardrails around cannabis legalization, the labor and safety interests of workers must be paramount," said Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien in a letter to the committee. "Passing SAFER banking is a necessary part of this process and can help improve working conditions while easing operational burdens for employers across the country."

"This is a perfect example of the Teamsters working with responsible, ethical employers in the cannabis industry on mutually beneficial public policy," said Peter Finn , Teamsters Western Region International Vice President and Director of the Teamsters Food Processing Division. "Everyone in the cannabis industry  workers, consumers, and business  supports the SAFER Banking Act. It puts rank-and-file cannabis workers one step closer to securing sustainable, middle-class union jobs. Congress needs to act on this commonsense bipartisan legislation as quickly as possible."

The legislation will be scheduled for a floor vote at a later date.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.2 million hardworking people in the U.S. , Canada , and Puerto Rico . Visit Teamster.org to learn more. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Matt McQuaid, (202) 624-6877

[email protected]

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SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters
ALLEN, Texas , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As mortgage rates soar to a two-decade high and home prices continue their relentless climb, potential homebuyers find themselves grappling with affordability challenges in today's housing market. The dream of owning a home has grown increasingly elusive. As a solution, Competitive Home Lending offers a temporary buydown, providing relief to buyers of existing homes similar to the incentives offered by new home builders, making homeownership more attainable.

Leveraging a wholesale mortgage rate for a temporary buydown provides homebuyers with the ability to secure a property now while waiting for more favorable mortgage rates to prevail. While this approach has proven effective for those interested in newly constructed homes, a significant portion of the market comprises potential buyers eyeing existing homes.

Temporary Buydown 101

The nation's leading retail mortgage lenders offer buyers lower wholesale rates, but astonishingly, fewer than 15% of homebuyers take advantage of the opportunity to save thousands of dollars. Understanding the unique needs of these homebuyers, Competitive Home Lending, a local Texas mortgage broker, has devised a solution that bridges the affordability gap for those seeking to purchase existing homes. By utilizing the difference between retail mortgage rates and wholesale rates, Competitive Home Lending is leveraging a temporary buydown opportunity that allows prospective homeowners to make their purchase today and potentially save hundreds of dollars every month, all while waiting for mortgage rates to stabilize.

Home Loan Shopping Tips

"Competitive Home Lending is committed to transforming the landscape of homeownership by offering solutions that cater to the unique needs of today's homebuyers," said Raul Hernandez , Wholesale Mortgage Broker at Competitive Home Lending. "In today's housing market, where soaring prices and rising mortgage rates have left many prospective homeowners feeling overwhelmed and uncertain, our temporary buydown initiative has the potential to save homeowners hundreds of dollars each month. It's our mission to ease the financial strain and enable them to achieve their homeownership goals with confidence. We believe in empowering our clients with the tools and support they need to make their homeownership dreams a reality."

About Competitive Home Lending NMLS 1047944:

Competitive Home Lending is a leading mortgage broker in Texas and Colorado . With a focus on home affordability, Competitive Home Lending is committed to providing homebuyers with direct access to wholesale mortgage rates from the nation's best mortgage lenders.

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SOURCE Competitive Home Lending
KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 21:46 | All, Japan

A 73-year-old man fatally stabbed his wife and daughter who were staying in a neurology hospital in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, on Wednesday before apparently taking his own life, police said.

The police received an emergency call at around 2:20 p.m. about patients being attacked by the man, who was later identified as Kenichi Saito, at the hospital in Fujinomiya.

Saito's wife Chizuko, 72, and daughter Seiko, 40, had been hospitalized in separate rooms on the same floor.

The father was found with a knife protruding from his body in his wife's room by a nurse responding to an alarm, about 15 minutes after he had entered the hospital.

According to a family relative who lived near the Saito residence in Fuji, also in Shizuoka, the daughter became ill about 20 years ago. Her parents had been visiting her in the hospital frequently.

But the father began looking depressed after his wife was also admitted to the hospital around six months ago, the relative said.

The hospital, which opened in 1980, has conducted over 500 surgeries a year to treat brain hemorrhage, brain tumors and other neurological disorders, according to its website.

Related coverage:

14-yr-old girl arrested for fatally stabbing mother in central Japan

Man arrested for stabbing, slashing staff at Tokyo convenience store
FRISCO, Texas , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Prominently featured in The Inner Circle , Maurice Moragne is acknowledged as a Pinnacle Life Member for his contributions as a Corporate Executive and Chief Sales Officer .

Mr. Moragne pursued higher education at the historic Edinboro University in Pennsylvania where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science. He is an expert in identifying larger business insights and optimizing business growth for both new and established enterprises.

Mr. Moragne has more than 30 years of experience in the field which includes his work as a marketing and sales expert at Farmers Coffee. He explained that as a strategist he collaborates closely with business owners and investors, leveraging his expertise to identify and implement strategies that drive exponential growth.

A leader in his field, Mr. Moragne is a professional member of many organizations including the National Restaurant Association and the Convenience Store Association. These affiliations have contributed to his position as an expert in the field, equipped with the knowledge and insights required to thrive in these highly competitive sectors.

Alongside his professional pursuits, Mr. Moragne is an author of several written works including featured articles in food and beverage publications that encompass a broad range of fields, including business, hospitality, and related industries.

Looking towards the future, he plans to offer expert guidance and unwavering support for businesses seeking exponential growth; to secure advisory board seats, championing fair and ethical labor practices; and cultivating meaningful professional relationships by networking and sharing ideas with fellow passionate industry professionals.

When considering his extraordinary accomplishments, Mr. Moragne says the keys to his success are that you don't have to be the smartest person in the room, just one that listens well. Also, hectic childhood as his mother worked for the U.S. Department of State and they lived all over the world, like El Salvador amid their civil war and Port-au-Prince, Haiti .

The business professional has been happily married to his beloved wife for a remarkable 34 years. He asserts that their enduring partnership is a testament to their unwavering commitment to one another and the strong bond they have forged over the years. Together, they have raised two wonderful children, who have undoubtedly inherited their parents' exceptional qualities and values. They are also proud grandparents of two adorable grandsons.

Contact: Katherine Green , 516-825-5634, editorial@continentalwhoswho.com

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BOSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Shopify Plus platform service partners Tomorrow and Half Helix today announced a merger of the two companies that creates the largest independent pure play Shopify service partner in the world. Together the business supports over 70+ brands on the Shopify platform and has a delivery footprint spanning the US, Canada and Europe . BV Investment Partners (BV), a middle-market private equity firm with deep expertise in the IT services sector is the financial sponsor partnering with the existing executive team to support this next chapter of growth and expansion. The combined business will be rebranded at a later date.

Half Helix ( www.halfhelix.com ) was started in 2015 to build, grow and guide the next generation of e-commerce companies on the Shopify Plus platform. Earlier this year, Half Helix acquired Able Sense to extend its full-service e-commerce offering to include emerging direct-to-consumer brands. Half Helix's enterprise clients include Creed, Laura Mercier , bareMinerals, Ultimate Ears (a Logitech brand), Timex and Rothy's.

Founded in 2019, Tomorrow ( www.tomorrowagency.com ) is a digital transformation partner that brings enterprise experience to the Shopify Plus ecosystem. The company provides creative, technology and strategy solutions to its clients. Tomorrow enterprise clients include Benchmade, Arhaus, Tuckernuck, Melissa & Doug and NoBull.

Joe Tatarski , Co-Founder of Tomorrow, commented, "This combination creates a uniquely scaled organization focused entirely on helping clients get the most out of their investments in Shopify's platform." Peter Humphrey , Founder and CEO of Half Helix, added, "Our comprehensive suite of services and technology helps clients build a digital commerce strategy that enhances revenue and brand recognition. Our new partnership with BV will not only help us grow but will help Shopify and their merchants solve complex omnichannel problems."

Matt Kinsey , Managing Partner of BV, said, "Both Half Helix and Tomorrow are leaders that drive value to Shopify, their merchants and brands." Patrick Fabrizio , Vice President of BV, added, "We're excited to help the combined team continue to drive growth organically and via acquisitions within this attractive technology ecosystem."

Canaccord Genuity served as the exclusive financial advisor to Tomorrow on this transaction.

About BV Investment Partners

BV Investment Partners is one of the oldest and most experienced sector-focused private equity firms in North America . Since its founding in 1983, the firm has invested approximately $5.0 billion , actively targeting investments in the tech-enabled business services, software, and IT services industries. The firm is investing out of its 11th private equity fund, which closed in September 2023 with $1.75 billion in capital commitments. BV was ranked in Inc. magazine's 2022 list of Founder-Friendly Investors. For more information, visit www.bvlp.com .

Contact: Chris Tofalli

Chris Tofalli Public Relations, LLC

914-834-4334

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SOURCE BV Investment Partners
TrustCloud Business Intelligence helps GRC and Security professionals track and share how their trust program adds efficiency, reduces financial liability and risk, improves security, and drives revenue growthproving to business leaders that GRC is a profit center

BOSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TrustCloud , the Trust Assurance platform that uses AI to upgrade GRC into a profit center, announced today the launch of TrustCloud Business Intelligence, a suite of dashboards and reports that equip GRC and Security leaders to track and share the business, risk, and financial impact of their trust programs.

TrustCloud Business Intelligence pulls in real-time data from TrustCloud's compliance readiness, risk management, and security review applications and quantifies status and outcomes in easily digestible and shareable dashboards, so GRC and Security professionals can monitor the health of their GRC program, see their impact on revenue, and quickly align leaders when making a case for new budget requests. This suite of real-time business intelligence analytics and dashboards is available to all TrustCloud customers today.

CISOs face a number of challenges when trying to demonstrate their business impact and request budget: connecting their team's activities to metrics leadership cares about like revenue, collecting relevant data from direct reports and colleagues on other teams, and unifying disparate projects and systems into a cohesive status update. For these reasons, GRC and InfoSec functions are often misunderstood and assumed to be cost centers. TrustCloud Business Intelligence is thoughtfully designed to meet the reporting needs of CISOs, and bridge the gap between practitioners and executives by tying GRC outcomes to their business and revenue impact.

TrustCloud Business Intelligence helps CISOs & GRC leaders:

Build alignment with their board of directors: TrustCloud BI translates risks to financial impact so CISOs can clearly present data to justify the business case for new or additional budget requests to address, manage, or mitigate risks and liability. KPIs to reduce financial liability: Residual financial impact over time Financial impact vs. budget Risk severity and financials by category and groups

TrustCloud BI translates risks to financial impact so CISOs can clearly present data to justify the business case for new or additional budget requests to address, manage, or mitigate risks and liability. Prove their impact on revenue: A strong GRC and Security program should be a revenue enabler for its organization. Now CISOs can prove the impact their work has on the acquisition process. KPIs to prove revenue impact: Revenue and opportunities accelerated Traffic and interactions within the company trust portal Most frequently viewed artifacts Security review turnaround time over time

A strong GRC and Security program should be a revenue enabler for its organization. Now CISOs can prove the impact their work has on the acquisition process. Track the health and progress of Governance and Compliance programs:

CISOs have to have a grasp on the current state of their programs to make a strategic plan that will meet the needs of their business throughout its growth journey. BI gives CISOs what they need to understand their current state and see the gaps keeping them from their desired future. Governance and Compliance KPIs: Control, policy, and system status Program gaps and recommended actions Prioritized tasks Audit readiness and gaps toward additional frameworks Governance by group

CISOs BI CISOs

"Everyone wants a secure environment that thoroughly protects their company and customers, but showing how to get there and why it requires investment isn't always straightforward," said Myke Lyons , CISO at Snyk. "Now, with TrustCloud Business Intelligence, it is. In a single click, I can see the health of our programs, understand where we need to take action, and actually show leadership our business impact in their favorite language: revenue. TrustCloud Business Intelligence helps CISOs justify the investments we make into GRC and showcase how our teams create value for Snyk's business."

"TrustCloud is empowering GRC leaders to upgrade GRC into a profit center through AI and applications designed to maximize operational efficiency, accelerate revenue and security reviews, and minimize financial liability," said Sravish Sridhar, CEO and Founder of TrustCloud. "Now, TrustCloud Business Intelligence will equip these champions of trust to tell their story and prove impact to colleagues, leadership and board members. I'm so proud to usher in an era where GRC and GRC leaders will be recognized for their value and positive impact to their organizations."

To learn more about the TrustCloud platform and request a demo of the Business Intelligence Suite, visit https://www.trustcloud.ai/ .

About TrustCloud

TrustCloud ( https://www.trustcloud.ai ) empowers businesses to grow with predictive, programmatic GRC that earns customer trust. Predictive intelligence and programmatic verification ensure that companies meet their customer, audit, and governance commitments so they can stay secure and grow their business. With the fastest, most cost-effective way to get audit-ready, answer security questionnaires and manage risk, TrustCloud turns GRC into a profit center.

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SOURCE TrustCloud
SALT LAKE CITY , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) is excited to announce that the Art Truck will be hitting the road again this school year with a compelling new exhibition by artist and researcher Nina Elder . The exhibition, What Sustains, features intricate large-scale drawings that narrate the complex relationships between humanity and nature. In this roving exhibition, students are encouraged to engage with Elder's thought-provoking artworks and contemplate the impact of mining and deforestation. These altered landscapes represent the enduring footprint of industry and act as both scars on the land as well as reminders of the vital resources that support humanity's needs. What Sustains will be on view through August 1, 2024 , as it travels to schools and community events statewide.

The UMOCA Art Truck brings exciting and accessible contemporary artcreated by leading local and national artistsdirectly to schools and community venues across the state free of charge. In the 2022-23 school year, the Art Truck served over 10,000 students throughout Utah and visited 64 schools and community events from Logan to Escalante . Each visit includes the expertise of a trained museum art educator who leads students through a meaningful exploration of the exhibition. Teachers are provided with structured lesson plans to supplement their tour and integrate the Art Truck into their curriculum.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/umocas-new-mobile-art-exhibition-explores-the-complex-interplay-between-humanitys-needs-and-environmental-impact-301939296.html

SOURCE Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
WGL Energy Services chooses Molecule for modern ETRM capabilities designed for today's energy trading marketplace.

HOUSTON , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Molecule Software, the leader in modern cloud-based trading and risk management software for energy and commodities, announced that they were selected by WGL Energy Services (WGL Energy), as the retail energy supplier's energy trading risk management (ETRM) platform.

WGL Energy is a leader in competitive energy supply and environmentally-friendly energy offerings in the Mid-Atlantic for residential, government, commercial, and industrial customers.

As a retail electric provider, WGL Energy relies on an ETRM system to manage wholesale hedging for physical and financial gas and power trades, exchange power and gas, FTRs, and renewable energy credits (RECs). WGL Energy began evaluating solutions to replace an incumbent legacy ETRM system, which had been in place since 2006.

"We were looking for a better integration with market data and a system that could help us manage our growing activity in renewable energy products," said Phil Woodyard , Chief Operating Officer at WGL Energy.

The WGL Energy team chose Molecule because it provided the modern functionality that meets the demands of today's volatile and shifting marketplace. The company will also utilize Molecule's Elektra add-on for power and Hive add-on for renewables.

"Molecule provides a powerful platform designed for the products in the market today and flexible access to the data to design reports and outputs to meet our requirements," said Woodyard. "Additionally, they have an implementation process that is efficient without creating a large burden on our internal resources."

"We're truly excited to have WGL Energy onboard with Molecule, and we look forward to assisting the team in navigating the ever-changing energy market," said Sameer Soleja, founder and CEO of Molecule. "We're here to support their mission of delivering dependable energy products and services to their customers."

About Molecule

Molecule is modern, reliable energy and commodities trading risk management software - built in the cloud with an intuitive, easy-to-use experience at its core. Molecule's ETRM/CTRM platform is built for energy and commodity traders, risk managers, and operations teams at hedge funds, IPPs, producers, and world-scale energy and PE firms  in power, gas, crude, refined products, renewables, chemicals, agricultural products, fuel, and cryptocurrencies. Molecule automates routine tasks and complex position, P&L, and risk calculations - getting your ETRM/CTRM out of your way so you can focus on more important things. Learn more about Molecule at www.molecule.io.

About WGL Energy

For over 25 years, WGL Energy has been providing competitive retail electricity, natural gas, renewable energy, and carbon offsets to large enterprises, small businesses, and homeowners across the Mid-Atlantic, including Delaware , Maryland , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Virginia , and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.wglenergy.com, or follow us @wglenergy on Twitter, WGL Energy on LinkedIn, as well as Facebook.

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SOURCE Molecule Software
VANCOUVER, BC , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Wondershare FamiSafe is excited to introduce its latest version, V7.0, as the leading parental control app. FamiSafe V7.0 leverages Artificial Intelligence and enhanced features to provide comprehensive parental control solutions in the digital age, ensuring the safety and well-being of children online.

With FamiSafe V7.0, parents gain the ability to establish a secure online environment for their children. The app empowers parents to block inappropriate content like pornography and violence, safeguarding their children from harmful online material. Additionally, the newly integrated AI assistant monitors and analyzes children's device search history, issuing early warnings to parents regarding unsuitable content.

Key Features of FamiSafe V7.0

Intelligent AI Assistant: FamiSafe V7.0 introduces an advanced AI assistant that actively monitors children's online behavior, particularly on search engines. It promptly alerts parents to any detected inappropriate content and provides responses to their queries. For added engagement and enjoyment, children also have access to a new AI companion.

Screen Time Limits: Managing screen time is made effortless with FamiSafe V7.0. Parents can easily set screen time limits, encouraging healthy digital habits and preventing excessive device usage. This feature ensures children strike a balance between their online activities and other aspects of their lives.

Real-Time Location Tracking: FamiSafe V7.0 enhances location tracking capabilities with real-time GPS tracking. Parents can monitor their child's whereabouts and receive alerts when they enter or leave predefined safe zones. This feature offers parents peace of mind by allowing them to keep a constant watch over their child's location.

App & Web Content Filtering: The app enables parents to block access to harmful websites, apps, and inappropriate content, ensuring age-appropriate online use. FamiSafe V7.0 supports content monitoring across 14 social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Discord, and more. It provides early warnings about inappropriate content, fostering a secure online environment for children.

Multi-language Sensitive Words Support: FamiSafe V7.0 now includes sensitive word support in six additional languages: Traditional Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Malay, and Indonesian. These languages complement the existing eight languages (English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese), totaling support for 14 languages.

"At Wondershare, we hold the safety and well-being of children in the highest regard. Our mission is to protect children from inappropriate content, and we view this as an ongoing journey that we embark upon alongside parents who deeply care about fostering a clean and safe digital environment for the betterment of their children." - Iris Liu , Head of Brand Marketing.

Compatibility and Pricing

FamiSafe V7.0 is compatible with both iOS and Android devices. To cater to the diverse needs of families, FamiSafe offers flexible pricing plans, including a monthly plan for USD $9.99 , a quarter plan for USD $19.99 , and an annual plan for USD $59.99 . These affordable options provide exceptional value for the comprehensive features offered. To learn more about FamiSafe, please visit the official website at https://famisafe.wondershare.com/ . Also, you now have chances to get free license of FamiSsafe, please visit at https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxC2kTLSV0y/.

About Wondershare

Wondershare is a globally recognized AI-powered software company committed to delivering innovative solutions for personal and professional use. As a leader in creativity and productivity products, Wondershare has Proudly received awards from notable organizations such as CNN, The Shorty Awards, G2, and GetApp. With over 100 million users across 150 countries, users can access a wide range of software solutions for video editing, PDF editing, data recovery, diagram and graphics, and more. United by a shared vision, Wondershare strives to provide high-quality, user-friendly software, enabling individuals and businesses to bring creative ideas to life and setting a new standard for the future of AI-powered software development.

For further enquiries, please contact Iris Liu , [email protected]

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SOURCE Wondershare
BEIJING , Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kunshan, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province , held a Mid- Autumn Festival lantern show on Monday to promote cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait .

This year's Mid- Autumn Festival lantern show marks the 11th edition of such activity since its inception in 2013.

It is noted that digital lighting, Augmented Reality (AR) and other technologies have been used in the show to make the activity more interactive.

There are two main lighting areas for the festival, including the Zhouzhuang Light Area and the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area .

The activity in the Zhouzhuang Light Area will last from September 25 to January 1, 2024 , while that in the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area will come to an end on October 23 this year.

At the lighting ceremony on Monday, Kunshan Huiju Square was awarded to be a demonstration base for cultural tourism exchanges between Jiangsu and Taiwan within China.

Kunshan is one of the regions with the most intensive Taiwanese investment and business in the Chinese mainland, the most frequent exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the mainland, and the most fruitful cross-straits exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past 30 years, more than 5,800 Taiwan -funded projects have settled in Kunshan, with a cumulative investment of nearly 70 billion U.S. dollars , and nearly 100,000 Taiwanese have lived and worked in Kunshan.

Kunshan will accelerate the high-quality development to deepen cross-strait industrial cooperation, and make effort to provide a good environment for the Taiwanese to study, work and live here, according to Zhou Wei , Party chief of Kunshan City.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/336289.html

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Five members of an Arab family were shot dead in their home in Israel, police said on Wednesday, in the latest in a wave of crime-related killings in Israel's Arab communities that has reached a new peak this year.

The shooting of the five, including a woman and two teenagers, in the northern town of Basmat Tab'un followed a separate incident in which a 50-year-old man was killed earlier on Wednesday.

More than 180 Arab citizens in Israel have been killed in crime-related violence since January - a seven-year high - in a spate of killings that have continued unchecked, drawing accusations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's religious-nationalist government was ignoring the bloodshed.

"Israel has the abilities, the Israeli government understands what needs to be done, everybody understands what needs to be done, there simply is no will and no leadership," said Mansour Abbas, leader of one of the parties that represent Israel's Arab minority.

Arab mayors have accused the government and police of deliberately neglecting their communities and of enabling criminals to act with impunity. They have refused to work with the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has past convictions of support for terrorism and anti-Arab incitement, and have demanded that Netanyahu intervene instead.

With Israel facing its worst political crisis in decades, over Netanyahu's drive to push through divisive changes to the judiciary, Arab citizens say the collapse of personal safety in their communities must receive more government attention.

Ben-Gvir, who did not immediately comment on Wednesday's incident, has rejected accusations of inaction. He has said fighting crime is high on his agenda and that police have stepped up crime-busting activity, including the seizure of weapons and funds from criminal groups.

"As police, we will do everything to get to the killers," police spokesman Eli Levi told reporters at the scene of Wednesday's crime.

Arab citizens, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who remained in Israel during the mass exodus of refugees in the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, make up about a fifth of the country's population.

They have for decades faced high poverty rates, poorly funded schools and overcrowded towns lacking services and say they are treated as second-class citizens compared with Jewish Israelis.

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by James Mackenzie and William Maclean)
Father David, an Armenian priest from Goris town, stands on the roadside as refugees flee Nagorno-Karabakh region and arrive in the border village of Kornidzor, Armenia, September 27, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze

By Felix Light

KORNIDZOR, Armenia (Reuters) - Father David fears for Nagorno-Karabakh's ancient Christian heritage following the defeat of the region's ethnic Armenian breakaway enclave by Azerbaijani forces.

The 33-year-old Armenian priest has come to Kornidzor, a village on the border with mainly Muslim Azerbaijan, to provide spiritual support to tens of thousands of his compatriots now fleeing their ancestral home in Karabakh.

"This is one of the darkest pages of Armenian history. The whole of Armenian history is full of hardships... The blow we are receiving now is one of the heaviest," Father David told Reuters, his black robes billowing in the wind.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who have run their own state there - the self-styled Republic of Artsakh - since the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive last week to retake the whole region, prompting a mass Armenian exodus.

More than 50,000 people had crossed the border into Armenia by early Wednesday afternoon, nearly half of Karabakh's estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan has promised to protect their rights, but refugees crossing the border told Reuters they preferred exile to life under Baku's rule.

Prior to last week's offensive, the Karabakh Armenians had lived under an effective 10-month Azerbaijani blockade which had led to chronic shortages of food, fuel and medicines. At least 200 people were killed in Azerbaijan's offensive, Karabakh authorities said, while Baku said 192 of its soldiers died.

Father David said Nagorno-Karabakh was home to about 400 Armenian holy sites but he said some of these were desecrated or destroyed after Azerbaijani forces retook territory in and around the region during a 44-day war in 2020.

"The monasteries are under threat of destruction," he said. "We had cases of this in the 44-day war."

Reuters could not independently verify his claim, though there were reports at the time of damage to Armenian religious sites, including a church being struck by Azeri missiles in the Karabakh town of Shusha.

ANCIENT CHRISTIAN LAND

Conflict in the region between Armenians and Azeris goes back more than a century.

From 1988-1994 about 30,000 people were killed and more than a million people, mostly ethnic Azeris, were driven from their homes as the Armenians threw off nominal Azerbaijani control in what is now known as the First Karabakh War.

Azerbaijan regained territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in the 44-day war in 2020, in which at least 6,500 people died. It ended with a Moscow-brokered peace deal and the deployment of a contingent of Russian peacekeepers.

Although most of its neighbours today are Muslim, Armenia ranks as the world's oldest officially Christian country, traditionally dating its conversion back to 301 AD.

Armenia's Apostolic Church is distinct from both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and is closely related to the Ethiopian and Egyptian Coptic churches. It is central to the identity of Armenia, which is peppered with historic monastery complexes.

Father David said he expected Azerbaijan now to claim that many monasteries in Karabakh are not Armenian but belong in fact to an earlier Christian civilisation known as Caucasian Albania, of which little is known.

There are churches in Azerbaijan which the authorities say are Caucasian Albanian rather than Armenians, something Armenians strongly dispute.

"Probably they will try to distort history, to say there is no Armenian trace here," he said, adding that he believed Baku would allow the larger monasteries to continue because of their tourism potential.

Azerbaijan has said Armenians who stay in Karabakh will be free to practise their religion, but many fear discrimination and worse by Azeris, a Turkic people with close linguistic and cultural ties to Turkey.

For its part, Azerbaijan, which also claims deep historical ties to the region, accused Armenia of damaging or destroying places of Azeri cultural heritage following the 1990s conflict.

Father David said the enmity between Armenians and Azeris was not primarily religious, noting that Armenia has strong ties with neighbouring Iran, which shares a Shi'ite Islamic faith with Azerbaijan.

Instead, he said, it is a political and ethnic conflict that parallels the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One. Armenia, backed by many historians and the parliaments of numerous countries, say they amounted to a genocide, a charge strongly denied by Turkey.

"This isn't a war of faiths, or a war against Christianity. It is a typical continuation of the genocidal policies that Turkey once pursued," he said.

(Writing by Gareth Jones, Editing by William Maclean)
By Naohiro Yoshida, KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 11:35 | Feature, Japan, All, World

Japanese universities are scrambling to raise funds for Ukrainian students taking refuge in Japan following Russia's protracted invasion of their country, providing financial assistance through crowdfunding and setting them up with support from various companies and groups.

Since many Ukrainian students in Japan struggle to make ends meet, those auditing classes or earning credits face the prospect of being unable to obtain their diplomas due to insufficient funds, despite the assistance they are receiving to cover some of their expenses.

At Meiji University's Nakano campus in Tokyo, Dana Boieva, 21, and Mariia Chemerys, 20, both earning credits in the School of Global Japanese Studies, listened intently to a lecture in English for their Japanese Social Systems course in July.

Having fled the invasion and traveled to Japan, leaving their families behind, they are working hard on their studies while receiving financial support for their tuition, dormitory fees and some other expenses.

"It's a great chance for me to get an education that I can't get now in Ukraine because of the current situation," said Chemerys.

Since the invasion began last February, Meiji University has accepted seven "credited course students" from Ukraine, but their living expenses and other costs are only partially covered by the various companies and organizations.

According to support groups, many Ukrainians interested in Japanese culture, including anime and manga, have sought refuge in Japan.

As of Aug. 23, 82 national, public and private schools had accepted a total of 371 students from Ukraine, according to the Education Ministry, but about 70 percent of those students have little hope of graduating.

At the International Christian University, five Ukrainian students passed a campus-held exam and are now enrolled as undergraduate and graduate students.

Although the university covers their tuition and dormitory costs, it is estimated that roughly 26 million yen ($175,000) will still be needed in support before they graduate. Since April, about 10.7 million yen has been raised for them through crowdfunding.

"They are not sufficiently funded to cover their expenses, but we want to support all of the students until they graduate," said an ICU official.

Businesses are also reaching out to provide help. Leading Japanese cosmetic company Shiseido Co. has donated nearly 200 million yen, collected mostly from among its employees, to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many students who evacuated from the war-torn country with nothing but the clothes on their backs have also been provided with skin care products from the company, free of charge.

Meanwhile, the Japanese subsidiary of German software firm SAP has been providing assistance by covering refugees' travel and lodging expenses.

The nonprofit Nippon Foundation provides a yearly living allowance of 1 million yen per person for displaced Ukrainians who have a relative or guarantor in Japan. When grant recipients, including students, were asked about their situations, roughly 80 percent said they struggle with everyday conversation in Japanese.

On Sept. 19, the national government, local municipalities and the private sector announced a proposal stating the need to work together to boost educational opportunities in the Japanese language, which will lead to greater economic independence.

"I just want to improve my Japanese skills. I want to work in Japan," Boieva said.

Norimasa Orii, the representative director of Pathways Japan, an organization that supports refugees, said, "The invasion of Ukraine being prolonged further is inevitable, and we need to responsibly support them until they learn Japanese and become able to work."

Related coverage:

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - The foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey held a telephone conversation and discussed the situation in the region on Wednesday, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.

Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan, whose forces retook the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive last week that has prompted tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee to neighbouring Armenia.

(Writing by Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Gareth Jones)
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 10, 2023. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger/ File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will host European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel on Oct. 20, just before a deadline to resolve a bilateral dispute over steel tariffs.

The United States previously agreed to suspend tariffs on EU steel and aluminium imposed by then-President Donald Trump, with an end-October deadline to reach a deal to promote green production and tackle overcapacity, with a particular eye on China.

Without a deal, the metal tariffs and retaliatory EU duties could be reimposed.

A senior EU official said that the aim of the meeting was to reinforce the transatlantic partnership, with a strong message on Ukraine likely and discussions on enforcement of sanctions on Russia and ways to prevent circumvention.

The leaders were also likely to address green subsidies in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and the metal tariffs issue.

"We have very good discussions, but we are coming from different ends and different positions. So it's not an easy one," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"I think there is willingness on both sides at least to reach an agreement."

Differences include the extent to which tariffs or quantitative restrictions on imports are retained, particularly for third countries, as well as the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, that will require importers to purchase credits for carbon-intensive goods they bring in.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop)
FILE PHOTO: Brazil's flag is reflected on a broken window, after the supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro participated in an anti-democratic riot at Planalto Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino / File P

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's federal police said on Wednesday they were carrying out fresh raids and arrests as part of an investigation into the Jan. 8 riots in Brasilia, in which supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings.

Police, according to a statement, were serving three arrest warrants and 10 search-and-seizure warrants ordered by the Supreme Court in four states - Sao Paulo, Parana, Minas Gerais and Goias.

The raids represent the 17th phase of an operation launched in mid-January to identify people who participated in, funded or fostered the riots, in which a crowd invaded and ransacked the Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court.

In January, supporters of far-right Bolsonaro invaded and vandalized the government buildings a week after leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office, protesting his victory in the October election and calling for a military coup.

Police did not disclose the names on Wednesday of those targeted in the raids, but said they were being investigated for crimes of "violent abolition of the rule of law, coup d'etat, qualified damage, criminal association, incitement, destruction and damage of specially protected property."

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court voted to convict the first three people to stand trial for the riots, sentencing them each to at least 14 years in prison.

Bolsonaro himself has faced a congressional inquiry surrounding the Jan. 8 insurrection and multiple police probes overseen by the Supreme Court.

Brazil's top electoral court in June barred him from public office until 2030 for his conduct during last year's fraught election, when he summoned ambassadors to vent unfounded claims about the country's electronic voting system.

(Reporting by Gabriel AraujoEditing by Bernadette Baum)
By Andrew MacAskill

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's first official supervised drug consumption room was approved on Wednesday to reduce infectious diseases and overdoses in Scotland, which suffers from the highest level of drug deaths in Europe.

Following similar projects in Europe, Canada and Australia, Glasgow City Council, which runs the largest city in Scotland, approved plans for the facility that will allow people to legally take illicit drugs under the supervision of trained professionals and will provide them with clean equipment.

While opponents of these facilities say they end up as a magnet for drug abuse, supporters say they reduce overdose deaths caused by increasingly potent street drugs, decrease public injecting and connect people to treatment services.

Glasgow City Council approved the plans for the facility on Wednesday morning, according to a spokesperson.

This follows years of disagreement about whether a facility would be legal. The British government, which sets national drug policy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, does not support the plans, but the idea was approved after Scotland's senior law officer said users would not be prosecuted for possessing drugs while at the facility.

Scotland's drug deaths remain three times higher on a per capita basis than anywhere else in Europe, despite the country recording its largest fall in fatalities in 2022.

Last year, Scotland had 248 drug deaths per million people aged between 15 and 65, compared with 79 in Finland, the second-worst country in Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Scotland has been dealing with a drug crisis for decades and its government wants to take a new approach to helping its residents with drug-addiction issues. However, officials say it has been hindered by Britains drug laws.

Scotland announced in July plans to decriminalise the possession of all drugs for personal use but said the British government in London is opposed to those plans.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to media outside his office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada September 25, 2023. REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday formally apologized after the speaker of the House of Commons praised a Nazi veteran in the chamber while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was present.

Trudeau also said Ottawa had already reached out to Kyiv and Zelenskiy through diplomatic channels to apologize.

Anthony Rota, who publicly acknowledged veteran Yaroslav Hunka in the House last Friday and called him a hero, quit as speaker of the chamber on Tuesday and said he bore sole responsibility for what happened. Hunka, 98, was a Polish-born Ukrainian who served in one of Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS units during World War Two. He later emigrated to Canada.

Russia says the incident backs up its assertion that the war in Ukraine aims to "denazify" the country, a charge Kyiv and Western allies say is baseless.

"On behalf of all of us in this House, I would like to present unreserved apologies for what took place on Friday and to President Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian delegation for the position they were put in," Trudeau told the House on Wednesday.

"For all of us who were present to have unknowingly recognized this individual was a terrible mistake and a violation of the memory of those who suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazi regime."

The Kremlin earlier in the day said the whole Canadian parliament should publicly condemn Nazism.

"It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicized by Russia and its supporters to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for," Trudeau said in earlier remarks to reporters.

Hunka lives in Rota's parliamentary constituency. Trudeau said the Liberal government had no responsibility for vetting who the speaker had invited.

The official opposition Conservatives say Trudeau was ultimately responsible for what happened, given he had invited Zelenskiy to address the Canadian parliament, and accused him of negligence.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alison Williams and Paul Simao)
FILE PHOTO-Fan Yifei, vice governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), attends a news conference during the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

BEIJING (Reuters) - Authorities have charged China's former deputy central bank governor, Fan Yifei, with bribery, China's state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Fan, 59, is the highest-ranking official at the People's Bank of China to be prosecuted under President Xi Jinping's anti-graft drive over the past decade, in a campaign aimed at weeding out corrupt officials in the financial sector.

Fan abused his positions at China Construction Bank , China Investment Corp., and the central bank to benefit others in exchange for a "particularly large amount" of bribes, Xinhua reported, without elaborating.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Fan for comment.

In June, Fan was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his central bank post for serious violations of discipline and the law, state media reported.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom and Kevin Yao; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Bernadette Baum)
NICOSIA (Reuters) - EU member Cyprus wants Brussels to offer financial and technical aid to Lebanon to help it cope with an influx of Syrian refugees and keep them from reaching the island, its interior minister said on Wednesday.

Constantinos Ioannou also said Nicosia had offered to donate speedboats and conduct joint patrols with Lebanon after recent arrivals by sea suggested trafficker routes had shifted away from Turkey and towards the Lebanese coast.

"Its estimated that there are about 2.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon so you can imagine the scale of the problem Lebanon itself faces, with a population of 5-6 million and which isn't even receiving technical or financial aid from the EU," Ioannou told Cyprus state radio.

"That is something we are seeking," he added.

The latest initiative is one of several undertaken by the east Mediterranean island in recent months to stem a surge in irregular migration which started around 2017.

Arrivals are down so far this year compared to 2022, but authorities say they expect new inflows based on interviews with Syrians who arrived recently from Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities have recently intercepted several ships with migrants heading from the Lebanese coast towards Europe. Such perilous journeys have been on the rise since Lebanon's economy began to unravel four years ago.

Some 800,000 Syrians are registered with the UNHCR in Lebanon. Lebanese authorities say the real number of Syrian refugees in their country is 2 million.

Cyprus is offering six speedboats - two by the end of 2023 and another four next year - for joint patrols on the Lebanese coast and to train Lebanese service personnel engaged in preventing irregular migration, the Phileleftheros daily reported.

According to the UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee agency, Cyprus received 6,481 new asylum applications in the seven months to July 2023, as opposed to 21,565 applications for the whole of 2022.

Part of the drop is because of a fall in the number of arrivals from sub-Saharan Africa via breakaway north Cyprus after Cypriot authorities tightened controls over a porous ceasefire line splitting the island in two.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Additional reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Editing by Peter Graff)
FILE PHOTO: Policemen prepare for an anti-gang patrol following a year-long state of emergency against gangs, in Soyapango, El Salvador March 24, 2023. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

By Sarah Kinosian and Nelson Renteria

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - A confidential intelligence document from El Salvador's National Civil Police shows that after a year and a half of a gang crackdown, police believe nearly 43,000 people allegedly connected to gangs have yet to be detained.

The 19-page document, first reported by InSight Crime and independently obtained by Reuters and confirmed authentic by police, is dated Sept. 1, 2023 and titled "State of Gangs in the Context of the State of Exception."

It shows police believe 42,826 people, or 36% of those they say are tied to gangs, remain free. Of those, more than 20,000 are considered to be active gang members.

Rights organizations say the report raises questions, though, about how long the government plans to keep the crackdown going, its calculations on how many Salvadorans are tied to criminal groups, and how closely the more than 70,000 people jailed are connected to those groups.

"The state is playing two narratives," said Noah Bullock, executive director of Salvadoran rights group Cristosal.

"They want to say they've defeated the gangs but they also want to justify continuing mass human rights violations."

In March last year, President Nayib Bukele asked the country's congress to declare a "state of exception" to suspend several constitutional rights in the effort to capture alleged criminals. Security forces have since arrested more than 72,000 suspected gang members and associates, giving the country the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The leaked police report provides rare state information about the policy. The presidency declined to comment.

The state of exception has been very popular among Salvadorans tired of decades of gang violence, and proponents of the crackdown point to a significant drop in homicides and crimes such as extortion and drug dealing, while security analysts agree it has dealt a blow to criminal structures.

Rights organizations, however, say the crackdown has led to widespread abuses such as torture, deaths in custody and arbitrary detentions, particularly of young men in poorer neighborhoods.

The police press department declined to comment in response to a request for further information.

"They are weakened, but there are cliques that can carry out murders as ordered," the report said about the gangs' current strength.

The report also raises questions about the rank of those detained, rights organizations said. Authorities put alleged gang members into three categories: active members, aspiring members and collaborators, defined as people who assist the gang but are not members.

Of those arrested, 1,230 are considered to be gang leaders of some kind, the document showed, while the more ambiguous "collaborators" category was registered at 41,673, or 54% of those detained.

Marvin Reyes, General Secretary of the Police Workers Movement, said the report was consistent with his group's assessment of the security situation - that those who have been arrested are not gang leaders.

"Those detained are more part of the lower and middle structure of the gangs," Reyes said. "They aren't the leaders and their lieutenants."

Bullock questioned the report's specificity, saying it could indicate the collateral damage is much greater than the government admits. The report documents, down to region and precise number, how many people are in each category.

"If they have such sophisticated police intelligence, why do they need to detain people for years while they investigate them to prove they are in gangs?" he said. "Why are they doing thousands of arbitrary detentions of innocent people with no previous evidence or warrants?"

So far the government has released 7,000 people it has detained that they have determined are innocent. For the more than 70,000 still jailed, the government has said it will hold mass trials of up to 900 people at a time in coming months, drawing criticism from rights groups over due process.

(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian in Mexico City and Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Tom Hogue)
By Yantoultra Ngui and Phuong Nguyen

SINGAPORE/HANOI (Reuters) - Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC is among investors vying to buy up to 20% stake in grocer Bach Hoa Xanh from Vietnam's retail giant Mobile World Investment, in a deal that could value the grocery chain at up to $1.7 billion, two sources said.

GIC declined to comment. Other bidders include companies from Thailand, the sources added, declining to be named as the matter is private. The identity of the potential buyers has not been reported previously.

"The deal is nearing to the finalising stage and expected to close soon," one of the sources with knowledge of the matter said, adding that a deal could be sealed as early as the first quarter of next year if negotiations are successful.

In a statement to Reuters, Mobile World said it would announce the information once the deal was concluded. "We are still in a private placement and have signed an agreement not to disclose information with interested bidders," it said.

The potential deal would intensify competition in Vietnam's retail market. Drawn by the rapid urbanization in a country of 100 million people, domestic and foreign retailers are seeking to expand or gain a foothold. The sources said the deal could value Bach Hoa Xanh, Vietnam's third largest grocery chain, at around $1.5-$1.7 billion.

Vietnam has attracted strong investor interest as companies look to reconfigure global supply chains as a result of geopolitical tensions between China and the United States. Founded in 2015, Bach Hoa Xanh, backed by Vietnam's retail giant Mobile World Investment, is running more than 1,700 stores in Vietnam's southern and south-central provinces.

Mobile World decided in recent months to go ahead with the planned sale after putting it on hold earlier this year due to unfavorable market conditions, the sources said. The Ho Chi Minh City-headquartered company had first planned the sale of a stake of up to 20% in Bach Hoa Xanh last year.

Bach Hoa Xanh was expected to be profitable from next year, its managing director told investors last month.

Its net loss in the first half of this year shrank to $26.98 million from a full-year loss of $123.03 million in 2022.

Revenue in the first half rose 7% on-year to $557.72 million.

One of the world's biggest investors, GIC has stakes in Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup's medical unit, Vinmec and major lender Vietcombank among other investments in the country. ($1 = 24,385 dong)

(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi; Additional reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok; Editing by Kane Wu & Simon Cameron-Moore)
KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2023 - 12:17 | All

Episode 13: Ninja bear

It was stealthy, smart and cunning

Three Kyodo News journalists  Yamaguchi-san, Toma and Horiuchi-san  talk about a brown bear dubbed "ninja bear" in Hokkaido that evaded traps for four years while attacking local cattle. Listen as they discuss their own experiences with bear encounters, and go off on a tangent about Ghibli films.

Article mentioned in the podcast:

Hokkaido's elusive cattle-attacking "ninja" bear shot by hunter

Kyodo News presents a bilingual podcast for English learners about the ins and outs of news writing and how to translate tricky Japanese phrases into English. Have fun listening to journalists discuss recent articles as they occasionally go off on unrelated tangents.

More podcast episodes:

Podcast [English World] Episode 12: Centenarian beauty adviser

Podcast [English World] Episode 11: Barbenheimer

Podcast [English World] Episode 10: Summer spending
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a speech, as a pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses appear on screen, during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 27, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

(Reuters) - Meta Platforms unveiled artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, a new mixed reality headset and Ray-Ban smart glasses at its annual products conference in Menlo Park, California.

Here are the key announcements at the event:

QUEST 3

Meta released the Quest 3, which the company said was its first mainstream headset built for mixed reality. Quest 3, with double the graphic processing power of Quest 2, is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 platform.

The latest headset will get over 100 new and upgraded game titles this year, and many will incorporate mixed reality experiences. Meta said Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming will come to the Quest platform in December, allowing access to Halo Infinite and Minecraft Legends, among other titles.

Quest 3's price starts at $499.99 and will start shipping Oct. 10.

AI CHATBOTS, STICKERS

Meta unveiled more than two dozen chatbots that will work within its social media applications.

The company announced Meta AI, a conversational assistant available on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, that will deliver real-time information and generate photo-realistic images from users' text prompts.

Meta has partnered with Microsoft's Bing search to deliver information off the internet.

Meta will add 28 more AI chatbots that will have personalities of celebrities such as Bear Grylls, Chloe Kim and Josh Richards, among others.

The company announced Meta AI Studio, a platform for developers to build custom AI chatbots. These bots will have profiles on Instagram and Facebook, and users will also be able to chat with them in WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.

The chatbots and the AI Studio will launch in beta in the United States starting Wednesday.

Meta also rolled out a tool to generate AI stickers using Llama 2 and the company's image generation model called Emu, based on user prompts. The feature will roll out to select English-language users over the next month in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Facebook Stories.

RAY-BAN SMART GLASSES

Meta announced new generation Ray-Ban smart glasses, priced at $299. They will start shipping on Oct. 17.

Users can livestream directly from the glasses to followers on Facebook and Instagram. The smart glasses will also have Meta AI built in, with the ability to give information on the item a user is looking at.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
FILE PHOTO: A tram passes outside the headquarters of Credit Suisse before a news conference of Swiss bank UBS in Zurich Switzerland, August 30, 2023. Picture taken with a long exposure. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Mathieu Rosemain and Noele Illien

PARIS (Reuters) -France's top court will rule on Nov. 15 on an appeal by UBS against its conviction in a tax evasion case which drew a 1.8 billion-euro ($1.90 billion) penalty, the Swiss bank's lawyer Patrice Spinosi said on Wednesday.

UBS' appeal to the country's highest judicial court represents its last chance to overturn part or all of a 2021 ruling, which upheld that the bank was guilty of both promoting illegal banking services and money laundering in the country.

The bank, which took over Credit Suisse in a hastily-arranged match in March, is involved in a host of other disputes and regulatory proceedings.

UBS reported in its half-year results that it has put aside over $6 billion in provisions for litigation and regulatory matters, including for Credit Suisse. It estimated that the financial implications from the French case only would come to 1.1 billion euros.

Earlier on Wednesday, its shares slumped 8% after Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had widened its probe into alleged compliance failures at the two banks that helped Russian clients to evade sanctions.

The 1.8 billion-euro fine ordered two years ago against UBS in France was less than half an initial overall penalty of 4.5 billion imposed on the bank after a first trial in 2019.

The bank, which was found guilty of soliciting clients illegally at sporting events and parties in France and for laundering the proceeds of tax evasion, had at the time hoped to see the charges thrown out by the Paris appeals court.

France's top court will review whether the Paris appeals court ruling complies with the law, not the facts that underpinned its decision.

If it overthrows part or all of the charges against UBS, a new trial will have to take place.

($1 = 0.9488 euros)

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain and ; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
By Rachel More and Alexander Ratz

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany will introduce new border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic this week, the German interior minister announced on Wednesday, saying that more should be done to protect the European Union's fragile system of open borders.

Germany saw its first-time asylum requests rise by 78% in the first seven months of 2023, according to official data. In August, registered illegal border crossings to Germany reached 14,701, up 66% on the same month last year, police data shows.

"If we do not succeed in better protecting the external borders ..., then the open borders within the EU are in danger," Nancy Faeser told reporters in Berlin.

She said the focus of the new measures would be people smugglers, which she said facilitated the passage of a quarter of the migrants entering Germany.

"We want to prevent evasive movements of smugglers through flexible and mobile controls at changing locations," she said, adding that the measures would be initiated in concert with Poland and the Czech Republic.

Czech police have increased random checks on the Slovak border as well as on highways to Germany, Czech police president Martin Vondrasek said.

Migration features high on the agenda in Germany ahead of a string of state elections in which the far right is hoping to boost its sway, starting with polls in Bavaria and Hesse on Oct. 8.

Municipalities have called for more funding to cope with arrivals, pointing to stretched accommodation and services reminiscent of 2015, when Germany took in over 1 million refugees fleeing war in the Middle East.

LAMPEDUSA CRISIS

As well as the increase in illegal border crossings, Germany has also taken in around 1 million Ukrainian refugees over the past year. They are not included in the asylum request figures, because it is automatically granted if it is requested.

Ahead of the election in his state, Bavaria's conservative premier Markus Soeder suggested an upper limit on asylum seekers of 200,000 annually - a proposal rejected by Faeser.

The minister is also fighting an election campaign in her home state Hesse, where she is the Social Democrats' top candidate.

She did not give details on the measures, adding that this information could play into the hands of criminal networks.

Previously, there have been random police checks on the borders and Germany has maintained stationary controls on the Bavarian border with Austria since 2015.

The latest increase in numbers comes as thousands of migrants travelling on boats from North Africa have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Two weeks ago, Germany said it would suspend an agreement with Italy to take in some of its arrivals, arguing that Rome was not sticking to long-contested rules dictating that asylum applications should be processed in the EU country of first arrival.

Faeser withdrew that decision within days in light of the unfolding crisis on Lampedusa.

The surge in arrivals has also led to tensions with Germany's neighbour Poland, which said it may introduce border checks.

"Today's decision by Germany is the result of activity on the Balkan migration route. The Polish government believes that it is necessary to strengthen Europe's southern borders to prevent such a situation. The issue of sealing borders in southern Europe needs to be solved," Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told Reuters.

Warsaw on Tuesday, weeks ahead of its own national election, began conducting checks on some vehicles crossing the Slovak border, suspecting they could be carrying illegal migrants.

(Reporting by Alexander Ratz, Sarah Marsh, Alan Charlish, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Jan Lopatka; Writing by Rachel More; Editing by Kirsti Knolle and Alison Williams)
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock speaks during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Antony after their meeting at the State Department in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

BERLIN (Reuters) - German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called on Azerbaijan on Wednesday to allow international observers to enter the defeated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijan launched a lightning operation to take over Karabakh last week. Thousands of ethnic Armenians are fleeing their homes as a result.

"I have decided to significantly increase our humanitarian aid once again and to increase our additional funding for the International Committee of the Red Cross from 2 to 5 million euros ($5.28 million)," Baerbock added.

($1 = 0.9471 euros)

(Reporting by Friederike Heine; Editing by Kim Coghill)
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators from Amnesty International hold placards outside the Egyptian embassy in support of Giulio Regeni, who was found murdered in Cairo two years ago, in London, Britain, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's top court ruled on Wednesday that the trial of four Egyptian security officials over the disappearance and murder of an Italian student could go ahead, despite concerns the defendants did not know they had been charged.

The trial of the four men opened in 2021 but was swiftly suspended after the judge ruled in favour of court-appointed defence lawyers, who had argued that the proceedings would be void if there was no evidence the Egyptians knew about the case.

Reviewing the issue, Italy's top court said in a statement that the legal code relating to this question was unconstitutional given the lack of cooperation from the suspects' home state, opening the way for the trial to resume.

"There is obviously great satisfaction in the possibility of holding a trial according to our constitutional principles, which remain the guiding light of our work," chief Rome prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said in a statement.

Giulio Regeni, a postgraduate student at Britain's Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016. His body was found almost a week later and a post-mortem examination showed he had been brutally tortured before his death.

Italian and Egyptian prosecutors investigated the case together, but the two sides later fell out and came to very different conclusions.

The Italian prosecutors say Major Magdi Sharif, from Egypt's General Intelligence, Major General Tarek Sabir, the former head of state security, police Colonel Hisham Helmy and Colonel Ather Kamal, a former head of investigations in Cairo city, were responsible for the "aggravated kidnapping" of Regeni.

Sharif has also been accused of "conspiracy to commit aggravated murder".

The suspects have never responded publicly to the accusations and Egyptian police and officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Regeni's disappearance and killing.

An Italian prosecutor told the court in 2021 that Italy had tried on around 30 occasions, through diplomatic and government channels, to obtain the addresses of the suspects, but had never received any answer.

Italy's legal system is notoriously slow and there was no immediate indication of when the trial might resume.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Marco Carta; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
FILE PHOTO: Robert Fico, leader of the SMER-SSD party, Michal Simecka, leader of Progressive Slovakia party, and Peter Pellegrini, leader of HLAS party await for the televised debate to begin at TV TA3, prior to the Slovak early parliamentary election, in

By Jan Lopatka

(Reuters) - Slovakia's three-time prime minister Robert Fico has a chance to return to power in a closely fought early election on Saturday, raising the prospect the central European country may drop its staunch support of neighbouring Ukraine.

Fico's SMER-SSD party has a narrow lead over liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS), which has pledged to stay the course on foreign policy, in two out of four final opinion polls.

Late voter shifts put PS a whisker ahead in the other two polls.

A government led by Fico's party could forge an alliance with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who has been an outlier on Ukraine and spars with the EU over the rule of law.

Such an alliance may be reinforced if Poland's conservative PiS wins another term in October, although PiS has a hawkish view on Russia.

The leading Slovak party is expected to get the first chance from liberal President Zuzana Caputova to form a cabinet. But who succeeds will depend on the results of half a dozen smaller parties as SMER-SSD and PS will fall short of a majority and need several allies in the 150-seat parliament.

The third-largest party and possible kingmaker is the moderate-left Hlas (Voice) of Peter Pellegrini, a former member of SMER-SSD and prime minister in 2018-20. He has kept his options open but is seen closer to Fico.

Fico, 59, resigned in 2018 after protests against corruption following the murder of an investigative journalist.

He adopted more pro-Russian views, amplified by disinformation on social networks, in opposition to a centre-right coalition that ruled the country from 2020.

That coalition fell apart last year and was replaced by a caretaker cabinet.

** Click here for an interactive graphic:

UKRAINE IN FOCUS

Fico has pledged to end military aid to Ukraine, a sharp U-turn from Slovakia's current position as a supplier of heavy equipment to its eastern neighbour.

"We refuse statements and positions that state that the current Russia-Ukraine conflict is our conflict as well," Fico told Reuters in an email.

Political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov said that, despite fiery rhetoric, Fico had a record of avoiding unnecessary clashes with Brussels or NATO allies, but having Orban as an ally would embolden him.

"Orban has managed to at least complicate adopting (Russia) sanctions packages...Fico will be doing the same," he said. "They will support each other."

"He will stop the weapons (for Ukraine), that is what he gains support on."

Fico has criticised migrants being allowed through Slovakia, and said in a Tuesday television debate he would immediately impose controls on the border with Hungary.

Fico's policies would depend on what coalition SMER-SSD could form. Potential partners range from Hlas to the far-right Republika, which foreign diplomats said would be a red line for Slovakia's allies.

** Click here for an interactive graphic:

PS WITH MOMENTUM

Centrist liberal voters have flocked to the non-parliamentary PS, led by Oxford political science graduate and European Parliament Vice-Chairman Michal Simecka, 39.

PS has ruled out working with extremists or with Fico.

The party has run a strongly pro-European campaign and would be closer within central Europe to the Czech Republic.

It is open to working with small conservative parties, though any such alliance could be unstable due to ideological differences.

Fico faced criminal charges in 2022 of using sensitive information on political opponents. The charges, which he denied, have been dropped, though the investigation continues.

Fico has sought the removal of the country's special prosecutor dealing with high-level corruption cases.

Any such steps would be closely watched by Brussels, which could withhold EU subsidies - as it has in rows with Poland and Hungary - if it deems they go against rule of law, an EU diplomat told Reuters.

** Click here for an interactive graphic:

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague; editing by Christina Fincher)
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks during the unveiling of her portrait, at the State Department in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2023. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/ File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) - After Hillary Clinton sought to needle President Vladimir Putin over NATO enlargement, the Kremlin on Wednesday hit back by reminding her of her gaffe when she sought to "reset" relations with Russia with a button mislabelled as "overload".

Returning to the State Department for the unveiling of her official portrait, Clinton said of NATO enlargement: "Too bad, Vladimir. You brought it on yourself."

Asked about her remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Clinton was known in Russia for her attempts to turn everything upside down, but most of all for her 2009 gaffe when a symbolic button designed to mark a "reset" of U.S.-Russia ties, was instead labelled "overload" in Russian.

"It is clear that this was probably not a deliberate mistake, but very telling," Peskov said.

At the time of Clinton's gaffe, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told her the Russian verb the United States had used was incorrect but said the button would be put on his desk.

"It is probably necessary to remind Mrs Clinton of the numerous waves of NATO expansion and the approach of the alliance's military infrastructure to our borders," Peskov said.

NATO, created in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union, enlarged after the 1991 collapse of the Union with the inclusion of former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries.

Launching the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin listed his key aims as halting NATO's eastward enlargement and ending what he called the "genocide" of Russian-speaking people by "nationalists and neo-Nazis" in Ukraine since Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Putin's actions spurred Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, to join NATO. Sweden also aims to join.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of LG Chem is seen at its office building in Seoul, South Korea, October 16, 2020. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) -South Korea's LG Chem Ltd said on Wednesday it would sell its polariser businesses to Chinese firms for about 1.1 trillion won ($815.6 million) to help improve its competitiveness.

The South Korean petrochemicals maker plans to sell its polariser business to Shanjin Optoelectronics (Suzhou) for 270 billion won and its polariser material business to Hefei Xinmei Materials Technology for 830 billion won, it said in a regulatory filing.

LG Chem said the sale of the polariser businesses, which make optical filters used in electronic devices and autos, would help the firm better use its resources.

The company has previously said it is counting on its battery materials, sustainability business and innovative drugs to power its growth. Those businesses are expected to make up 57% of the company's total sales in 2030.

The business and assets Shanjin Optoelectronics and its wholly owned unit will buy from LG Chem are based in mainland China, South Korea and Vietnam, Ningbo Shanshan, the parent company of Shanjin Optoelectronics said on Wednesday.

In a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange, Ningbo Shanshan said it has initial plans to relocate the South Korea-based production lines in the acquisition package to China.

The package entails polariser products for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, and polariser products for liquid-crystal display (LCD) targeting automobiles and Apple products, Ningbo Shanshan said.

LG Chem holds a 15% stake in Shanjin Optoelectronics, which Ningbo Shanshan intends to acquire by October, said the Chinese company.

Reuters could not immediately reach Hefei Xinmei Materials Technology for further details on the assets and businesses it is purchasing.

LG Chem said on Sunday it had entered a partnership with China's Huayou Group's subsidiary Youshan to build a joint electric vehicle battery material plant in Morocco in an effort to diversify its portfolio.

LG Chem also announced an investment plan with Huayou Cobalt to build a lithium conversion plant in Morocco, adding that it also planned to build two other facilities in Indonesia with Huayou Cobalt.

($1 = 1,348.6800 won)

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Roxanne Liu; Editing by Jamie Freed and Philippa Fletcher)
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) delivers remarks, after he and his wife Nadine Menendez were indicted on bribery offenses in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen, in Union City, New Jersey, U.S., September 25, 2

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Charges that Senator Bob Menendez accepted bribes in exchange for wielding his influence to aid the Egyptian government prompted calls in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday for the Biden administration to rethink $235 million in military aid to Cairo.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Middle East subcommittee, said he hoped the committee would investigate the allegations and Egypt's involvement.

U.S. prosecutors announced an indictment on Friday accusing Menendez of accepting gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for wielding his influence to aid the Egyptian government.

"I would hope that our committee would consider using any ability it has to put a pause on those dollars, pending an inquiry into what Egypt was doing," Murphy told reporters.

"I have not talked to colleagues about this yet, but obviously this raises pretty serious questions about Egypt, Egypt's conduct," he said.

The indictment against Menendez also says he had close relationships with members of Egypt's intelligence services and held meetings to discuss U.S. military aid.

Menendez has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. He has stepped down temporarily from his role as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senate Democratic rules require a member charged with a felony to give up any leadership position.

President Joe Biden's administration decided this month to allow much of U.S. foreign military aid to Egypt to go ahead, saying the country was vital to national security interests despite what critics have said about human rights abuses.

Murphy was among lawmakers who criticized the decision.

Representative Don Beyer, a Democratic House of Representative member and co-founder of the congressional Egypt Human Rights Caucus, said Egypt "is conducting an espionage operation within the U.S. Senate" and Washington should respond.

"I think that calls for a much stronger response from the Biden administration, and the straightforward one is to withhold (the military funds)," Beyer said on CNN.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Tom Hogue)
FILE PHOTO: Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is seen on smartphone in front of displayed logo of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus in this illustration picture taken October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

By Katie Paul and Anna Tong

MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) - Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday rolled out new AI products for consumers, including bots that create photo-realistic images and smart glasses that answer questions, as well as an updated virtual-reality headset.

Zuckerberg described the products as bringing together virtual and real worlds, and underscored that part of what Meta offered was low cost or free AI that could integrate into daily routine. Meta's Quest is the bestseller in the nascent VR space and the company's executives described it as the best value in the industry, a nod to the impending release of a much more expensive headset from Apple.

Speaking from a central courtyard on Meta's sprawling Silicon Valley campus, Zuckerberg said a new generation of Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses would start shipping on Oct. 17, priced at $299. The device will incorporate a new Meta AI assistant and be capable of livestreaming broadcasts of what a user is seeing directly to Facebook and Instagram, an advancement over the previous generation's ability to snap photos.

Zuckerberg spoke at the Meta Connect conference, the social media company's biggest event of the year as well as its first in-person conference since the start of the pandemic.

He also said the latest Quest mixed-reality headset would start shipping on Oct. 10 and introduced the company's first consumer-facing generative AI products. The latter includes a chatbot called Meta AI that can generate both text responses and photo-realistic images.

"Sometimes we innovate by releasing something that's never been seen before," Zuckerberg said. "But sometimes we innovate by taking something that is awesome, but super expensive, and making it so it can be affordable for everyone or even free."

Meta AI will be built in to the smart glasses as an assistant, starting with a beta rollout in the United States. A software update planned for next year will give the assistant the ability to identify places and objects that people are seeing, as well as to perform language translation.

Meta made Meta AI using a custom model based on the powerful Llama 2 large language model that the company released for public commercial use in July. The chatbot will have access to real-time information via a partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine, Zuckerberg said.

In an interview with Reuters, Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg said the company had taken steps to filter private details from the data used to train the model and also imposed restrictions on what the tool could generate, like a ban on the creation of realistic images of public figures.

"We've tried to exclude datasets that have a heavy preponderance of personal information," Clegg said, citing LinkedIn as an example of a website whose content was deliberately not used.

CUSTOM AI BOTS

Meta also announced that it was building a platform that developers and ordinary people alike may use to create custom AI bots of their own, which will have profiles on Instagram and Facebook and eventually appear as avatars in the metaverse.

To demonstrate the tool's capabilities, Meta created a set of 28 chatbots with different personalities styled in the voices of celebrities like Charli D'Amelio, Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady, according to a company blog post.

The features appeared to be aimed at sprucing up existing apps and devices rather than developing new ad surfaces or other sources of revenue.

"I don't see monetization of AI products happening for Meta for quite some time and I think it will end up being more indirect. They seem much more interested in helping develop a platform that other developers will use," said Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.

Zuckerberg also said on Wednesday that Xbox cloud gaming is coming to Quest in December.

Meta first announced the Quest 3 headset over the summer, around the time Apple debuted its Vision Pro headset, a high-end product with a price of $3,500.

Starting at $500, the Quest 3 boasts the same mixed-reality technology that premiered in Meta's more expensive Quest Pro device launched last year, which shows wearers a video feed of the real world around them.

The day's announcements reflect how Zuckerberg plans to navigate the shift this year of investor fervor to artificial intelligence from augmented and virtual reality technologies.

Stakes for the event were high as investors last year slammed the parent company of Facebook and Instagram for spending extensively on the metaverse, prompting Zuckerberg to lay off tens of thousands of staff to continue funding his vision.

Developers were watching to assess what apps they might create for Meta's latest hardware devices. Investors, meanwhile, looked for signs of whether a gamble that has lost the company more than $40 billion since 2021 may pay off.

(Reporting by Katie Paul and Anna Tong in Menlo Park, California; Additional reporting by Yuvraj Malik, Pushkala Aripaka and Shashwat Awashti in Bengaluru; Editing by Kenneth Li, Peter Henderson and Matthew Lewis)
Diakabana Ngoma Andre, a farmer from the Republic of Congo, owes his thanks to the Chinese melons expert as he managed to buy his first TV after he harvested watermelons with the knowledge he learned from his Chinese teacher.

For years, the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) has been inviting batches of learners from Africa to China to study agricultural technologies, and sending experts to Africa to provide knowledge and training.

In 2007, the China-aid Agriculture Technology Demonstration Center (ATDC) in the Republic of Congo was approved for construction. Since then, the CATAS has sent over 20 experts to work on selecting tropical crop varieties suitable for local cultivation, and provide agricultural and poultry farming demonstrations.

Provided by Xinhua Global Service
By Valentine Hilaire

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico will not be able under the law to cancel concessions for China's Ganfeng Lithium in the government's bid to tighten control over its potentially lucrative lithium reserves, the president of Mexico's mining chamber said on Wednesday.

Lithium giant Ganfeng said in a late August filing that Mexico's mining authorities had issued a notice to its local subsidiaries indicating nine of its concessions had been canceled.

Last year, the Mexican government enacted a sweeping lithium nationalization aiming to ensure the country profits from surging demand for the ultra-light metal, coveted by rechargeable battery makers across the globe.

"I do not belief it is possible to cancel concessions under the law," said mining chamber head Jaime Gutierrez.

Concessions granted before the lithium nationalization should not be altered, as the law is not retroactive, he added.

Mexico does not yet produce any lithium despite indications it could hold rich deposits of the metal.

One of the concessions canceled is for an open-pit project in the state of Sonora, the company said, containing an estimated 8.82 million metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

Mexico put Ganfeng's concessions under review and requested evidence that its local subsidiaries had complied with investment obligations from 2017 to 2021, the company said in the filing.

The evidence was submitted in May, but authorities still decided to cancel the concessions, Ganfeng added.

Mexico's economy ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the canceled concessions.

Since he took office in late 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has refused to offer any new mining concessions, arguing that too many had been granted by previous governments.

Lopez Obrador last year created a national lithium company to kick off projects, whose head, Pablo Taddei, said it could partner up with private companies for developments as long as the government holds the majority stake.

Mexico's proposed 2024 budget, currently being discussed by lawmakers, gives 9.8 million pesos ($552,352.29) to the company, an amount deemed "short" by Gutierrez.

($1 = 17.7423 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Kylie Madry and Marguerita Choy)
A person holds a transgender pride flag and a flower during a Black Trans Liberation protest in New York, United States, May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

By Daniel Trotta and Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - A Montana judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of the state's recently enacted ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, marking the latest ruling nationally in battles over state restrictions on treatments for transgender youth.

Missoula County District Judge Jason Marks ruled that the law likely discriminated based on minors' transgender status and infringed on their privacy rights in violation of Montana's constitution.

The law, known as Senate Bill 99, bans treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender people under 18.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law while a lawsuit by three families with transgender children and two medical providers challenging it moves forward, saying that "barring access to gender-affirming care would negatively impact gender dysphoric minors mental and physical health."

"We are gratified the judge understood the danger of denying transgender Montana youth access to gender-affirming care as the challenge to this cruel and discriminatory law proceeds, said Kell Olson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs with Lambda Legal.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, is defending the law in court. His spokesperson, Emilee Cantrell, promised an appeal, citing the "irreversible and immediate harms that the procedures have on children."

Debate over the law brought national attention to the Montana statehouse in April when the Republican majority sanctioned Democratic transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr for breaking decorum with her comment that lawmakers would have "blood on your hands" if they passed the law.

Zephyr was removed from the floor in the final days of the legislative session.

Montana is one of 20 states that have passed restrictions on transgender youth care, defying the medical consensus that gender-affirming care is the best course of treatment for gender dysphoria, the stress caused by the conflict between transgender people's sex assigned at birth and their gender identity.

Federal lawsuits challenging the bans have been met with mixed results. A federal appeals court last month reinstated such a ban in Alabama, and a separate appeals court is expected to rule by Saturday on whether to uphold injunctions blocking bans in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other states bans have been struck down.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Nate Raymond; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, William Maclean)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Private Travis T. King (wearing a black shirt and black cap) is seen in this picture taken during a tour of the tightly controlled Joint Security Area (JSA) on the border between the two Koreas, at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Ko

By Phil Stewart, Trevor Hunnicutt and Hyonhee Shin

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - Private Travis King, the U.S. soldier who ran into North Korea in July, is in U.S. custody and heading home after being expelled by North Korea into China, the United States said on Wednesday.

While details about the diplomacy that led to King's transfer remained scarce, the development was a rare example of cooperation between the United States, North Korea and China. The State Department said King was expected to return to the United States later on Wednesday.

King, 23, made a sudden dash into North Korea from the South on July 18 while on a civilian tour of their heavily fortified border and was immediately taken into North Korean custody.

Washington declined to declare him a prisoner of war despite heated debate within the government. For its part, North Korea appears to have treated his case as one of illegal immigration.

North Korea's KCNA state news agency said King told Pyongyang he entered North Korea illegally because he was disillusioned about unequal U.S. society."

North Korea's decision to expel King, published by KCNA, detailed the final results of an investigation into his border crossing. Last month, it said that he wanted refuge in North Korea or elsewhere because of maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army.

KING IN 'GOOD HEALTH'

The Swedish government, which represents U.S. interests in North Korea because Washington has no diplomatic presence in the country, retrieved King in North Korea and brought him to China.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that King was met by the U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, in Dandong, China, a river city bordering North Korea. Miller said King flew from there to Shenyang, China, then to Osan Air Force Base in South Korea.

Expressing gratitude to Sweden and China, U.S. officials, citing U.S. diplomatic representatives who saw King, told reporters he appeared in good health and was very happy to be on his way home. He was able to speak with his family after his release from North Korea.

His release followed months of intense diplomacy, the U.S. officials said, adding that no concessions were made to the North in exchange for King.

"This incident, to our minds, demonstrates that keeping lines of communication open even when ties are strained is a really important thing to do and can deliver results," one senior administration official said.

"We, again, stand by ready for any further diplomacy (with North Korea) that might be possible."

Miller said he did not view King's return as a sign of a wider breakthrough with North Korea and that China had not served as a mediator in the matter, but rather as a transit point for the soldier.

China's embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

South Korea's foreign ministry welcomed King's release from North Korea and said it had been briefed by Washington on developments, without elaborating.

DISCIPLINE FOR KING POSSIBLE

Jonathan Franks, spokesperson for King's mother, Claudine Gates, said: "Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done."

King's uncle, Myron Gates, told ABC News in August that his nephew, who is Black, experienced racism during his military deployment, and that after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he did not sound like himself.

King, who joined the U.S. army in January 2021, faced two allegations of assault in South Korea. He pleaded guilty to one instance of assault and destroying public property for damaging a police car during a profanity-laced tirade against Koreans, according to court documents. He had been due to face more disciplinary measures when he arrived back in the United States.

King had finished serving military detention and was at the airport awaiting U.S. military transport to his home unit in the United States. Instead, he left the airport and joined a tour of the border area, where he ran across despite attempts by South Korean and U.S. guards to stop him.

One U.S. official said the military would consider administrative actions against King after he was evaluated, taken through a reintegration process and reunited with his family in the United States. The official declined to answer directly whether King would face a court martial.

A different U.S. official said King was heading to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, which is located at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. It is the same base that treated basketball star Brittney Griner in December last year after a prisoner swap with Russia ended her 10 months in Russian detention.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Soo-hyang Choi in Seoul and Phil Stewart, Susan Heavey, Trevor Hunnicutt, Doina Chiacu, Idrees Ali, Daphne Psaledakis Michael Martina, Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom in Washington, Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Sharon Singleton, Bill Berkrot, Don Durfee, Daniel Wallis, William Maclean and Cynthia Osterman)
Former police officer Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier (not pictured), leader of the 'G9' coalition, is accompanied by Security during a march against Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti September 19, 2023. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol/File

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - More than 10,000 people have fled their homes in parts of Haiti's central department, the United Nations' migration agency said on Wednesday, after a series of gang attacks in recent days including in a hospital north of the capital.

Under-resourced police have struggled with heavily armed gangs who gained territory and massively expanded their influence over the past year, forming powerful alliances notably in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Fighting has expanded in recent months, spiking in regions such as Artibonite and the Central Department.

Early on Tuesday, armed men attacked the University Hospital of Mirebalais, one of the country's main health centers. Days earlier, suspected gang members attacked a police station in nearby Saut-d'Eau.

Haiti's top private healthcare provider Zanmi Lasante issued a statement shared by local media condemning the "brutal attack which violates the moral treaty which considers hospitals as neutral sites, leaving patients and medical personnel deeply traumatized."

No people were immediately reported killed or injured from the attack, but unverified videos on social media showed chaotic scenes with broken windows and hospital walls riddled with bullet holes.

Violence has spiked since last week, when the leader of the powerful G9 gang alliance Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier said he would overthrow the government by force and called a broader truce of metropolitan area gangs through a new alliance called "Living Together."

The announcement sparked internal feuds. Late on Tuesday the leader of a G9 alliance gang was killed by other alliance members near Fontaine Hospital in the capital, according to local media reports.

Hospital director Gheriane Ulysse said the government had asked what resources the hospital had at their disposal.

"We're anticipating the worst," she said as the hospital braced for counter-attacks from the local gang. "We don't know what they're prepared to do in retaliation."

Last week, Cherizier expressed support for a canal off a river straddling the border with the Dominican Republic. Its construction prompted Haiti's neighbor to completely shut down its border, driving Haitian migrants back into areas of conflict and calling into question access to humanitarian aid.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac, Octavio Jones and Sarah Morland; Editing by David Gregorio)
PwC sign is seen in the lobby of their offices in Barangaroo, Australia June 22, 2023. REUTERS/Lewis Jackson/File photo

By Lewis Jackson

SYDNEY (Reuters) -PwC Australia gave multiple clients confidential information leaked from Australian government tax briefings, the company said on Wednesday, the first admission that clients other than Google received leaked government tax plans.

A former partner at the "big four" firm in 2015 gave two clients confidential information about the start date of a new tax law targeting multinational companies, PwC Australia said on Wednesday.

"Various other updates we can chat about if you get a moment," the former partner wrote in an email to an unnamed multinational client.

Reuters in July revealed one of the clients PwC Australia shared confidential information with was Google but the company declined to name any clients in the report, citing confidentiality. The firm says clients were not told the information was confidential.

The revelations are part of a "statement of facts" published by the firm in response to a national scandal first triggered by the revelation a former partner had leaked confidential tax documents to colleagues to drum up work with global companies.

However, the 17-page document reveals a series of previously unreported leaks by other partners, many who remain unnamed, from government consultations on topics including the taxation of digital currencies and the "black economy."

In 2017, a former partner leaked a confidential Treasury paper on a tax instrument of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to colleagues and an unnamed client.

First revealed in January by tax regulators and stoked since by a drip-feed of new information, the scandal has forced out 12 partners, including the chief executive, prompted public and private sector clients to freeze ties and entangled clients other than Google, including Uber and Facebook.

NO QUESTIONS RAISED

Confidential information was also shared with PwC staff outside of Australia as shown in a cache of 144 pages of PwC emails publicly released in May, including a 2016 mail mentioning a "north American project" aimed at large U.S. technology firms.

On Wednesday, the global PwC network published a short statement saying that a review by law firm Linklaters found no staff outside Australia used any confidential information for commercial gain and that most staff outside of Australia did not know the information provided was confidential.

However, six individuals, who were not named and whose roles were not given, "should have raised questions" about whether the information was confidential.

PwC said it had taken "appropriate action" against those individuals "to the extent" that they are still with the firm, without elaborating.

GOVERNANCE OVERHAUL

The statement of facts was released along with PwC Australia's announcement on Wednesday of a major governance overhaul after an external review found a "whatever it takes" approach to making money made it harder for staff to call out misbehavior.

The governance review, commissioned by the firm in May, identified poor practices "uncorrected for many years", including a board stacked with longstanding PwC partners and a powerful CEO "not perceived to be accountable to the board".

The partnership's "overly collegial" culture made staff reluctant to call out misbehavior, especially from "rainmakers" who were described as "untouchables" to whom "the rules don't always apply", the review also found.

"The AU partnership operates largely from a profit seeking perspective, sometimes at the expense of ethics and doing what's right. I do not believe this aligns with our values," a staff member is quoted as saying in a 2021 survey included in the review.

PwC Australia said on Wednesday it would adopt, and in some cases already had, the report's 23 recommendations, which include appointing an external chief risk officer, revamping firm culture, and linking partner pay to ethical behaviour.

(Reporting by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Sonali Paul and Christian Schmollinger)
Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at United States Court in New York City, New York, U.S., June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed former cryptocurrency billionaire known for his casual appearance, can dress up for his forthcoming fraud trial.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday ordered U.S. marshals and Brooklyn jail officials to provide Bankman-Fried with three suit jackets and pairs of slacks, four dress shirts, three ties, one belt, four pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes and "appropriate undergarments" to wear in the courtroom.

Bankman-Fried's trial is due to begin on Oct. 3 and could last six weeks. His lawyers had requested the clothing in a Tuesday night court filing.

Jailed inmates do not have access to their own clothing.

Judges often let them wear business attire in court, to avoid possible juror bias if they wore prison garb.

Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to stealing billions of dollars in customer deposits from FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange he founded in 2019.

As he rode a boom in bitcoin and other digital assets to an estimated $26 billion fortune, Bankman-Fried was known for his unkempt mop of curly hair and wearing rumpled shorts, T-shirts and sneakers even when entertaining the likes of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried's $250 million bail on Aug. 11 and remanded him to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after finding he likely tampered with witnesses.

At most court appearances since his Dec. 2022 arrest, Bankman-Fried has worn suits. He wore a beige-colored prison uniform at an August hearing following his jailing.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers have asked for him to be released from jail during the trial, so he can better assist with building his defense case. Kaplan will hold a hearing on that request on Thursday.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
FILE PHOTO: The "PMC Wagner Centre", associated with the founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is seen with its logo and sign removed, in Saint Petersburg, Russia July 1, 2023. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov/File Photo

KYIV (Reuters) - Several hundred members of Russia's Wagner private mercenary group have returned to eastern Ukraine to fight but are not having a significant impact on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Wagner fighters played an important role in Russia's capture of the eastern city of Bakhmut in May after one of the longest and fiercest battles of Moscow's 19-month war in Ukraine.

They left Bakhmut after the battle and some went to Belarus under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by Wagner in June, during which it took control of a Russian military headquarters and marched on Moscow.

Since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed on Aug. 23 when a private jet in which he was traveling crashed in unexplained circumstances, the Kremlin has sought to bring the group under tighter state control. Russian military bloggers have reported that some Wagner fighters have been returning to Ukraine.

"We have recorded the presence of a maximum of several hundred fighters of the former Wagner PMC (private military company)," Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command, said.

He added that Wagner fighters were scattered in different places, were not part of a single unit, and had had no significant impact.

"They do not constitute any integral, systematic, organized force," Cherevatyi said. "As they say - game over. These are pathetic remnants, nothing good awaits them here."

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Wagner no longer existed.

"Today, there are only former militants of the terrorist group who have scattered in all directions," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said some had gone to Africa, some were dispersed through Russia, and some had contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry and were fighting in the Bakhmut sector.

Reports of their return were intended to drown out news of Ukraine's recapture of two villages near Bakhmut, he said.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Timothy Heritage and David Holmes)
(Reuters) -Chinese regional lender Shengjing Bank said on Wednesday it has agreed to sell a portfolio of assets, including certain loans and investments, among others, for 176 billion yuan ($24.07 billion) to Liaoning Asset Management.

Liaoning Asset will fund the purchase of assets by issuing special-purpose notes to the bank, the lender said.

The bank, based in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, expects an unaudited provision for impairment of about 7.7 billion yuan, it said, adding that the deal will improve its asset quality and lower non-performing loan ratio.

Over 70% of the assets to be disposed are loans and the remainer include asset management plans, corporate bonds and deposits with banks, Shengjing bank said.

Liaoning Asset, which focuses on transactions of non-performing assets of financial institutions, is a unit of Liaoning Financial Holding owned by the finance authority in the Chinese province of Liaoning, where Shengjing Bank is based.

Last month, Shengjing Bank reported a 21.8% drop in its net profit attributable for half-year to 737.9 million yuan. Its net interest income for six months slipped 1.3% to 15.32 billion yuan.

The non-performing loan ratio was 3.17% as of end June.

The bank's net interest margin - a key gauge of profitability - stood at 1.22% in the Jan-June period, versus 1.30% a year ago, according to its half-yearly report.

($1 = 7.3105 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Echha Jain in Bengaluru and Roxanne Liu in Beijing; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Alexandra Hudson)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Shopify is seen outside its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, September 28, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - E-commerce giant Shopify is investing in wholesale platform Faire, the companies said on Wednesday, in a global deal that would see the start-up adopt Shopify technology for its clients.

Faire, founded in 2017 and valued at $12.59 billion, would become the recommended wholesale marketplace for Shopify merchants. The companies declined to disclose the value of the deal or how big a stake Shopify was taking.

Shopify's director of product Aneeqa Khan said the partnership would make it easy for Shopify merchants to find wholesale buyers, and enable retailers to source from Faire's network of brands.

"This is an endorsement from one of the leaders in the industry," Faire CEO Max Rhodes said.

Faire, which focuses on independent businesses, says brands that previously only sold directly to consumers are switching to a wholesale model as they seek to curb their running costs.

Small retailers, too, are trying to stand out amid intense competition on the high street and online. Faire said the most popular search filter on its platform is "Not on Amazon", as retailers look to source less widely available products.

Faire's biggest market is the United States, but Europe is its fastest-growing, Rhodes said, since launching in 15 European countries in 2021.

For Shopify, which sells tools to create and manage online store-fronts, this is the latest in a series of deals.

The company last year invested in U.S. marketing automation company Klaviyo, which made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange last week, and it also has a partnership with Dutch payments firm Adyen.

(Reporting by Helen Reid; eDITING BY aURORA eLLIS)
BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- China is expected to see an average of 1.58 million daily inbound and outbound passenger trips during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, a roughly 3-fold increase year on year, according to the National Immigration Administration (NIA) forecast on Wednesday.

Passenger flows at major airports will witness a steady increase. Inbound and outbound trips at the Beijing Capital International Airport, the Shanghai Pudong International Airport and the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport are expected to see a daily average of 27,000, 70,000 and 38,000, respectively.

Concerning exit-entry passengers traveling between Guangdong Province and Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, the ports of Gongbei, Luohu and Futian are expected to handle a daily average of 320,000, 190,000 and 180,000 trips, respectively, according to the NIA.

The administration has asked border inspection agencies across the country to release information about passenger flows in a timely manner for travelers' reference and open sufficient inspection channels to ensure safe, smooth and orderly operation at points of entry.

The Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday period, which will last from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6 this year, is a peak travel and tourism season in China. 
Spain's opposition People's Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo looks on in parliament on the day of the investiture debate in Madrid, Spain, September 27, 2023. REUTERS/Susana Vera

MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish conservative leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo failed on Wednesday to secure enough votes in the lower house to become prime minister.

Feijoo, whose People's Party had won the most seats in an inconclusive election in July, failed to convince enough legislators from other parties to back him to win an absolute majority.

Feijoo received 172 votes in favour with 178 against and no abstentions. Spanish law allows Feijoo a second attempt on Friday, when a simple majority would be enough for him to be elected prime minister.

While Feijoo was given the first stab at forming a government, it is Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who has a more realistic  albeit difficult  chance of persuading lawmakers in parliament to support him in another term.

Feijoo told reporters after the vote: "It is clear that we have done everything we can, and that Spain can rest assured, because we are going to continue to work for it."

Should Feijoo fail on Friday, Sanchez will need to negotiate with Catalan pro-independence parties, who are demanding a controversial and unpopular amnesty for leaders and activists involved in the 2017 attempt to separate the region from Spain as a condition for their support.

Sanchez would have two months to negotiate an agreement before fresh elections are called if he also fails.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Belen Carreno and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Aislinn Laing, William Maclean)
ZURICH (Reuters) - Germany has welcomed a decision by neutral Switzerland to open the way to sell back some of its German-made Leopard II tanks to help rebuild stocks depleted by aid to Ukraine.

Germany had asked Switzerland in February to sell back some of the 96 Leopard II tanks it has in storage to manufacturer Rheinmetall AG.

To comply with Swiss neutrality laws, Berlin has assured Bern the weapons would not go to Kyiv, but remain in Germany or with a NATO or European Union ally.

"We are very happy and grateful for this decision," Michel Fluegger, Germany's ambassador to Switzerland told Swiss TV. "We need these tanks, they will fill gaps with us and our European partners."

He was speaking after the Swiss parliament on Tuesday approved the decommissioning of 25 Leopard II tanks, paving the way for them to be resold to Germany.

Swiss public opinion has been deeply divided on the issue of supplying weapons to Ukraine and the country's blocking of re-exports has angered some nations.

Requests from Germany, Denmark and Spain to allow Swiss-made weaponry they have previously bought to go to Ukraine have been blocked by Bern citing Swiss neutrality, which prevents weapons being sent directly or indirectly to combatants in a war.

Buying Swiss weapons could become difficult unless Bern adjusts its law on war materials, German ambassador Fluegger said.

"We have purchased a lot of weapons, systems or components or ammunition from Switzerland, including our NATO partners, and we would now like to give some of these systems to Ukraine."

The Swiss cabinet now has to formally support the export of the Leopard IIs to Germany, but this is expected to be a formality after Defence Minister Viola Amherd said the supply of the tanks to Germany complied with Swiss neutrality law and was also in the country's interest.

"In this way we can also contribute to security in Europe and thus directly to the security of our country," Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd told Swiss broadcaster SRF.

(Reporting by John Revill; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
FILE PHOTO: German Umana Mendoza, Colombia's minister of trade, industry and tourism attends a meeting of businessmen from Colombia and Venezuela, in the framework of the 'Border Agreement' in Cucuta, Colombia August 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramir

CARACAS (Reuters) - Trade between Colombia and Venezuela could hit between $800 million and $1 billion this year, Colombia's Trade Minister German Umana said in Caracas on Wednesday.

Trade between the neighboring countries has increased gradually since the end of last year, following the reopening of the border after Colombia's President Gustavo Petro took steps to renew relations with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

"This year we estimate trade between $800 million and $1 billion and in 2024 we will be at no less than $1.8 billion dollars," Umana told journalists during a business conference.

In 2006 and 2007 trade between the two countries was worth some $6 billion. It declined due to political tensions between Bogota and Caracas, as Venezuela also fell into economic crisis.

Total trade between Colombia and Venezuela from January to July 2023 was about $441 million, representing just over 15% growth versus the year-earlier period, according to data from the Colombian National Foreign Trade Association.

Colombian businesses are interested in building strategic alliances in certain industries in Venezuela, including steel, tourism, and construction, said the minister.

"The idea is not to buy companies, but to make strategic alliances," Umana said.

Diplomatic and trade relations began a process of retuning to normalcy in September 2022 following Petro's inauguration. Colombia's president campaign included promises to restore relations with Maduro's government.

Caracas broke off relations with Bogota in 2019 after Venezuelan opposition activists tried to send aid trucks from Colombia. Maduro's government said it was a front for an attempted coup.

Previous governments in Bogota have accused Maduro of harboring Colombian rebel groups and criminals, accusations he has denied.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Josie Kao)
FILE PHOTO: Ambassador-at-Large of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anton Korynevych, Director General for International Law of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oksana Zolotaryova and Russian Ambassador to Netherlands, Alexander Vasili

By Stephanie van den Berg

THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Ukraine on Wednesday urged judges at the United Nations' highest court to dismiss Russia's objections and hear in full Kyiv's claim that Moscow abused international law by saying the 2022 invasion was done to stop an alleged genocide.

"Your jurisdiction to resolve the dispute is clear. Your judgment remains urgently needed," Ukraine's representative Oksana Zolotaryova said.

She said Ukraine needed the court's protection because Russia was not respecting international law as laid out in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Last week Russia urged the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to throw out the case, saying Kyiv's legal arguments were flawed.

Ukraine brought the case before the ICJ days after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 last year.

Kyiv argues Russia is abusing international law by saying the invasion was justified to stop an alleged genocide in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine says there was no risk of genocide in eastern Ukraine, where it had been fighting Russian-backed forces since 2014.

"Here in The Hague Russia paints itself as a victim. In Ukraine, Russia has continued to show its true colours," Zolotaryova said, listing alleged Russian attacks on civil infrastructure and grain supplies.

Russia has so far ignored a preliminary ruling by the ICJ in March last year which ordered Moscow to stop its military actions and the court has no way of enforcing its decisions. Experts say a full ruling in favour of Ukraine can pave the way for compensation payments.

The court adjourned on Wednesday to deliberate and is expected to rule in several months if the case can be heard on the merits.

Cases before the ICJ usually take several years before there is a final ruling.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alison Williams)
FILE PHOTO: Wheat grains are seen inside a storage of a farm that was damaged last year by Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near a frontline in the village of Velykomykhailivka in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine August 15, 2023. RE

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON (Reuters) - Ukraine's move to create a shipping channel for grain exports is a positive step for global food security, although efforts continue to reach a new agreement over a broader Black Sea corridor, the top U.N. trade official said on Wednesday.

Russia in July quit a U.N.-backed deal which had enabled exports from Ukraine to sail from three approved ports.

Since then, Kyiv has launched what it calls a temporary humanitarian corridor in an effort to break Russia's de facto blockade. Two ships have sailed in recent days from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk using the channel, which hugs the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts.

"We see the alternatives that are being explored to export in a very positive light because the important thing is to get the grain to global markets," Rebeca Grynspan, who leads the implementation of the U.N. deal with Russia, told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. event in London.

Grynspan said while the new corridor that Ukraine is trying to open is among very important efforts, she added that "the risks are higher".

"The only thing that will take the risk away and stabilise ... the situation is an agreement that will be backed by all partners," she said, adding she was unable to provide any timeframe for a deal.

Elsewhere Lloyd's of London is in talks with the U.N. over providing insurance cover for Ukrainian grain shipments if a new Black Sea corridor deal can be reached, its CEO John Neal told Reuters this month.

Grynspan said "options are being discussed", adding that "insurance is a big part of the solution".

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sept. 23 that while Moscow does not reject U.N. efforts to revive the Black Sea grain deal, a recent proposal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was unrealistic.

Grynspan said the U.N. did not agree with this assessment.

"We are convinced that we put forward real solutions to the issues that Russia has raised. We want to have the possibility to still explain why we think that these are real solutions," she said.

Grynspan told Reuters in May that the U.N. was working with the African Export-Import Bank to create a platform to help process transactions for Russian exports of grain and fertilizer to Africa.

She said on Wednesday that even for Russian banks that had not been cut off from the SWIFT international payments system or had sanctions imposed, "due diligence is a problem".

"We are putting forward platforms and solutions for these problems - that are problems of procedure, risk aversion in the private sector that we need to solve."

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by David Holmes)
(Reuters) - Ukrainian troops held off determined attacks on Wednesday by Russian forces trying to regain lost positions on the eastern front, military officials said, while analysts suggested Kyiv's forces were also making progress in the southern theatre.

The Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive in June intending to recoup ground in the east and in the past two weeks announced the capture of two key villages, Andriivka and Klishchiivka, near the shattered city of Bakhmut.

Its forces are also trying to advance southward to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge established by Russia between the annexed Crimean Peninsula and positions it holds in the east.

Ilia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern group of forces, told national television: "We continue to repel intense enemy attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.

"The enemy is still storming these positions with the hope of recapturing lost positions, but without success."

There had been 544 Russian shelling incidents in the past 24 hours in the area, seven combat clashes and four air attacks, Yevlash said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy referred briefly in a post on the Telegram messaging app to "our advance in the Donetsk sector" in the east, but provided no details.

Ukraine's General Staff reported air strikes on four localities in the area and said 15 towns and villages had come under artillery and mortar attack.

In its account of military activity, Russia's Defence Ministry also reported heavy fighting in the area, saying its forces had beaten back 10 attacks by Ukrainian troops near Klishchiivka and further south, near the village of Nevelske.

Ukrainian officials have spoken of gains in the drive southward, with General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of forces in the south, telling CNN last week of a "breakthrough", while noting that progress was slower than had been hoped.

Zelenskiy and other officials have said the counteroffensive will take time and have dismissed Western critics who said the advance has been too slow and beset by strategic errors.

Tarnavskyi referred to the village of Verbove, which other officials have said Ukrainian forces are poised to seize. Ukrainian forces are targeting several other villages as they progress through Zaporizhzhia region towards the major town of Tokmak.

"There have been three or four days of painstaking hard work by our assault group and commanders conducting tactical tasks in this area which have led to very serious problems for the Russians," military analyst Roman Svitan told NV Radio.

"I would not speak of a breakthrough until we reach Tokmak."

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Maria Starkov; Editing by Jamie Freed)
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - When it comes to organ transplants, every second counts.

That is why Brazilian firefighters said they took a helicopter to the top of a mountain in the southeastern state of Rio de Janeiro this month to tell Ricardo Medeiros de Oliveira they had found him a much-awaited new kidney.

Oliveira, a 48-year-old tourist guide who has been waiting for a transplant for nine years, was hiking in a remote mountain area when he received a notification informing him that there was a compatible organ for him.

But without immediate communication with Oliveira, firefighters decided to pick him up directly.

"He would have lost this organ if he had not gotten to the hospital in time," firefighter spokesperson Major Fabio Contreiras said.

Oliveira was able to arrive in time to the hospital and his surgery succeeded.

"It was a huge mix of emotions, I didn't know whether to laugh, whether to cry, whether to believe," Oliveira said.

"(That was) the greatest adventure of my life."

(Reporting by Sergio Queiroz; Writing by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Jamie Freed)
Azerbaijan doesn't compel anyone to leave Karabakh, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan - Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev told DW, Azernews reports.

According to him, leaving Karabakh is a personal and individual decision of the residents.

The official went on to say that during the most recent anti-terrorist activities, neither Karabakh's civilian population nor its infrastructure were targeted.

In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war], to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and Azerbaijan's military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been conducted in the region.

Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh, received through the Russian peacekeeping contingent [temporarily stationed in Azerbaijan under the trilateral statement], an agreement was reached on the suspension of anti-terrorist activities of local nature on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) under the following conditions:

The Armenian armed forces formations and Armenian illegal armed formations located in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region shall lay down their weapons, leave their combat positions and military posts, and fully disarm. The units of the armed forces of Armenia shall leave the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian illegal armed formations shall be disbanded.

In parallel, all weapons and heavy equipment are surrendered.

The implementation of the above-mentioned processes is ensured in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Tanzania held a reception Tuesday night to celebrate the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which falls on Oct. 1.

Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Chen Mingjian expressed her gratitude to all the friends who have been consistent contributors to the friendship between China and Tanzania.

China has remained Tanzania's largest trading partner for seven consecutive years, with bilateral trade reaching 8.31 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, Chen said, noting that China is also the largest source of foreign investment in Tanzania.

"This day marks a significant milestone in the history of China and its people, as well as in the relations between our two great nations," said Tanzanian Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Minister January Makamba.

"Over the years, China's rapid economic growth has made a tremendous contribution to global prosperity, economic stability, and recovery," he told current and retired government officials, ambassadors, high commissioners, and heads of international organizations gathered at the Chinese embassy in Dar es Salaam.

"Tanzania reiterates its commitment to continue supporting the (Belt and Road) Initiative and participate in its relevant activities," said Tanzania's top diplomat. 
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power speaks to the media as she visits the aid centre for refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh region in the border village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 26, 2023. REUTERS/I

By Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Biden administration officials arrived in Azerbaijan on Wednesday amid a humanitarian crisis and an exodus of tens of thousands of people after Azerbaijan took back control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive last week.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power, joined by U.S. State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim, will raise the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and the importance of Azerbaijan following through with its commitments in a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev.

Power "will also address the prospects for a durable and dignified peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, based on mutual respect for each others territorial integrity and sovereignty," USAID said in a statement.

The trip to Azerbaijan follows a visit to Armenia earlier this week, where Power said Washington would stand in solidarity with Armenia and that it was essential the international community gained access to Karabakh, amid reports of unknown numbers of people being injured and requiring evacuation, or lacking food and other essentials.

The Armenians of Karabakh - part of Azerbaijan that had been beyond Baku's control since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union - began fleeing this week after their forces were routed in the operation by Azerbaijan's military.

The Armenians are not accepting Azerbaijan's promise to guarantee their rights as the region is integrated. The Nagorno-Karabakh leadership told Reuters the region's 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing.

Aliyev has pledged to guarantee the safety of Karabakh's Armenians but said his "iron fist" had consigned the idea of the region's independence to history.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Holmes)
FILE PHOTO: An Airbus A321 aircraft of Bamboo Airways taxis at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi, Vietnam January 16, 2019. REUTERS/Kham/File Photo

HANOI (Reuters) -Vietnam's Bamboo Airways will embark on restructuring its aircraft fleet from next month to increase efficiency and optimize operating costs, the company said on Wednesday.

"The restructuring process aims to stabilize Bamboo Airways' operations and further growth opportunities," it said in a statement sent to Reuters, adding that it aims to "increase the uniformity of aircraft types in the long run", without elaborating.

The company also said it had agreed to adjust a cooperation agreement with an unidentified leasing company, adding this was a temporary step.

It did not say what type of aircraft were involved or how many. Dozens of airlines have rescheduled deliveries or adjusted fleet plans since the pandemic, from which Asian airlines have staged a partial recovery.

Bamboo's fleet comprises 30 planes, according to specialist websites Airfleets.net and Planespotters.net, including Airbus A320, Airbus A321, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Embraer ERJ-190 jets.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu; editing by Francesco Guarascio and David Gregorio)
The seal of the United States Department of Justice is seen on the building exterior of the United States Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., August 17, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

By Sarah N. Lynch

(Reuters) -Washington Trust Bank, the largest community bank in the country, will pay $9 million to settle civil rights charges that it discriminated against primarily Black and Hispanic mortgage applicants in Rhode Island, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

The department's complaint against the bank alleges that from 2016 through 2021, it engaged in a practice known as redlining by failing to provide lending services to residents in primarily Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island.

Top department officials said that despite expanding across the state, it never opened a branch in a Black or Hispanic neighborhood, and that it relied on mortgage loan officers working out of majority-white areas as the primary source for generating new lending applications.

"Through this agreement, we are sending a strong message to the financial industry that we will not stand for discriminatory and unlawful barriers in residential mortgage lending," said Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, at a press conference on Wednesday.

A Washington Trust official said Rhode Island has been home to the bank for 223 years. "We believe we have been fully compliant with the letter and spirit of fair lending laws, and the agreement will further strengthen our focus on an area that has always been important to us," Edward O. Handy, Washington Trust's chairman and chief executive, said in a release.

Redlining refers to racial discrimination in lending practices by banks and other financial institutions, a practice that has harmed Black and Hispanic communities for decades.

In September 2021, research from the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis concluded that residents in redlined neighborhoods across the country could not afford to buy homes or pay for their upkeep and as a result could not accumulate wealth at the rates other groups did.

A month later, the Justice Department launched a coordinated enforcement effort to crack down on redlining. Since then, it has brought nine redlining cases and secured $98 million in relief.

Under the terms of the settlement with Washington Trust, which must still be approved by a federal court, the bank has agreed to take certain steps.

These include a plan to invest at least $7 million in a loan subsidy fund to increase access to home mortgages, home improvements, home refinance and home equity loans and lines of credit for residents who live in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Rhode Island.

The bank will also spend an additional $2 million on community partnerships and for advertising and consumer outreach in Black and Hispanic communities.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Mark Porter, Timothy Gardner and Kat Stafford)
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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 OR 15(d) of The Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported):

WestRock Company

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware 001-38736 37-1880617 (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation) (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer Identification Number)

1000 Abernathy Road , Atlanta , GA 30328 (Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

Registrants telephone number, including area code: ( 770 ) 448-2193

Not Applicable

(Former name or former address, if changed since last report)

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:

 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)  Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)  Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))  Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each class Trading

Symbol(s) Name of each exchange on which registered Common Stock, $0.01 par value, per share WRK New York Stock Exchange

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (230.405 of this chapter) or Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (240.12b-2 of this chapter).

Emerging growth company 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. 

Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement.

On September 27, 2023, WestRock Company (WestRock) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary WRKCo Inc. (the Issuer) completed its previously announced consent solicitation (the Consent Solicitation) pursuant to which it solicited consents (Consents) from registered holders (Holders) of its outstanding: (i) $600,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 3.750% Senior Notes due 2025 (the 2025 Notes); (ii) $750,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 4.650% Senior Notes due 2026 (the 2026 Notes); (iii) $500,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 3.375% Senior Notes due 2027 (the 2027 Notes); (iv) $600,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 4.000% Senior Notes due 2028 (the 2028 Notes) and (v) $750,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 4.900% Senior Notes due 2029 (the 2029 Notes, and together with the 2025 Notes, the 2026 Notes, the 2027 Notes and the 2028 Notes, the Notes) to amend certain terms of the indentures governing the respective Notes (each, an Indenture and together, the Indentures). The terms and conditions of the Consent Solicitation were set forth in a consent solicitation statement dated as of September 20, 2023. Adoption of the proposed amendments with respect to the applicable Indenture for each series of Notes required the Consent of the Holders of at least a majority in aggregate principal amount of the then outstanding Notes of such series (the Required Consents), which were received for each series of the Notes.

The purpose of the Consent Solicitation was to obtain Consents from the Holders to (i) amend the definition of Change of Control applicable for the relevant series of the Notes under the Indentures to add an exception for the previously disclosed proposed business combination of WestRock and the Smurfit Kappa group announced by WestRock on September 12, 2023, pursuant to the transaction agreement entered into on September 12, 2023, by and among, inter alios, Smurfit Kappa Group plc, a public limited company incorporated in Ireland, and WestRock; and (ii) make any other changes of a technical or conforming nature to the Indentures necessary or desirable for the implementation of the proposed amendment above.

In connection with the receipt of the Required Consents, on September 26, 2023, the Issuer entered into (i) the Fifth Supplemental Indenture by and between the Issuer and The Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company, N.A., as trustee (the Trustee), relating to the 2025 Notes, the 2027 Notes and the 2028 Notes and (ii) the Fourth Supplemental Indenture by and among the Issuer, WestRock Company, WestRock MWV, LLC and WestRock RKT, LLC, as guarantors, and the Trustee relating to the 2026 Notes and the 2029 Notes.

Item 3.03 Material Modification to Rights of Security Holders.

The disclosure in Item 1.01 is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 8.01 Other Events.

On September 27, 2023, WestRock issued a press release announcing that the Issuer had received the Required Consents in connection with the Consent Solicitation. A copy of the press release announcing the receipt of the Required Consents is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.1 and incorporated by reference herein.

Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits.

(d) Exhibits

Exhibit No. Description 99.1 Press release dated September 27, 2023 issued by WestRock Company. 104 Cover Page Interactive Data File (embedded within the Inline XBRL document)

SIGNATURE

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

WESTROCK COMPANY By: /s/ Alexander W. Pease Name: Alexander W. Pease Title: Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Date: September 27, 2023

ATTACHMENTS / EXHIBITS

EXHIBIT 99.1

XBRL SCHEMA FILE

XBRL LABEL FILE

XBRL PRESENTATION FILE

IDEA: R1.htm

IDEA: eh230404675_8k_htm.xml

IDEA: Financial_Report.xlsx

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

SCHEDULE 13D/A

(Amendment No. 10)*

Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

The9 Limited

(Name of Issuer)

Class A ordinary shares, par value US$0.01 per share

(Title of Class of Securities)

88337K302**

(CUSIP Number)

Jun Zhu Incsight Limited c/o 17 Floor, No. 130 Wu Song Road Hong Kou District, Shanghai 200080 Peoples Republic of China

(Name, Address and Telephone Number of Person Authorized to

Receive Notices and Communications)

September 7, 2023

(Date of Event Which Requires Filing of this Statement)

If the filing person has previously filed a statement on Schedule 13G to report the acquisition that is the subject of this Schedule 13D, and is filing this schedule because of 240.13d-1(e), 240.13d-1(f) or 240.13d-1(g), check the following box. 

Note : Schedules filed in paper format shall include a signed original and five copies of the schedule, including all exhibits. See 240.13d-7 for other parties to whom copies are to be sent.

* The remainder of this cover page shall be filled out for a reporting persons initial filing on this form with respect to the subject class of securities, and for any subsequent amendment containing information which would alter disclosures provided in a prior cover page.

** This CUSIP applies to the American Depositary Shares, evidenced by American Depositary Receipts, each representing thirty Class A ordinary shares of The9 Limited.

The information required on the remainder of this cover page shall not be deemed to be filed for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ( Act ) or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section of the Act but shall be subject to all other provisions of the Act (however, see the Notes).

CUSIP No. 88337K302

1 NAMES OF REPORTING PERSONS Jun Zhu 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS (See Instructions) PF, OO 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEMS 2(d) or 2(e)  6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION Republic of Singapore NUMBER OF

SHARES

BENEFICIALLY

OWNED BY EACH

REPORTING

PERSON

WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER 245,124,658 ordinary shares(1) 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 0 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER 245,124,658 ordinary shares(1) 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 0 11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 245,124,658 ordinary shares(1) 12 CHECK IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES (See Instructions)  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 20.2% (2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON (See Instructions) IN

(1) Consists of (i) 6,107,334 Class B ordinary shares and 912,094 Class A ordinary shares represented by American depositary shares (ADSs) held by Incsight Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that is wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Jun Zhu, and (ii) 7,500,000 Class B ordinary shares, 225,300,000 Class A ordinary shares and 5,305,230 Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs held by Mr. Jun Zhu, among which 114,000,000 Class A ordinary shares are subject to lock-up period and restrictions that will be removed in installments, provided that certain pre-agreed performance target of the Issuer are met. Each Class B ordinary share is convertible at the option of the holder into one Class A ordinary share, whereas Class A ordinary shares are not convertible into Class B ordinary shares under any circumstances.

(2) Based on 1,210,757,527 outstanding ordinary shares as a single class, being the sum of 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares and 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023 .

CUSIP No. 88337K302

1 NAMES OF REPORTING PERSONS Incsight Limited 2 CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (a)  (b)  3 SEC USE ONLY 4 SOURCE OF FUNDS (See Instructions) WC, OO 5 CHECK BOX IF DISCLOSURE OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IS REQUIRED PURSUANT TO ITEMS 2(d) or 2(e)  6 CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION British Virgin Islands NUMBER OF

SHARES

BENEFICIALLY

OWNED BY EACH

REPORTING

PERSON

WITH 7 SOLE VOTING POWER 7,019,428 ordinary shares(1) 8 SHARED VOTING POWER 0 9 SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER 7,019,428 ordinary shares(1) 10 SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER 0 11 AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON 7,019,428 ordinary shares(1) 12 CHECK IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (11) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES (See Instructions)  13 PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (11) 0.58% (2) 14 TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON (See Instructions) CO

(1) Consists of 6,107,334 Class B ordinary shares and 912,094 Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs held by Incsight Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that is wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Jun Zhu. Each Class B ordinary share is convertible at the option of the holder into one Class A ordinary share, whereas Class A ordinary shares are not convertible into Class B ordinary shares under any circumstances.

(2) Based on 1,210,757,527 outstanding ordinary shares as a single class, being the sum of 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares and 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

This Amendment No. 10 (the  Amendment ) amends the Statement on Schedule 13D initially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the  SEC ) on December 24, 2015, as amended by the Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2, Amendment No. 3, Amendment No. 4, Amendment No. 5, Amendment No. 6, Amendment No. 7, Amendment No. 8 and Amendment No. 9 to the Schedule 13D filed with the SEC on March 29, 2016, January 9, 2017, July 27, 2017, October 9, 2018, February 4, 2019, July 1, 2019, June 23, 2020, April 15, 2021 and September 17, 2021, respectively (the  Schedule 13D ), by Mr. Jun Zhu and Incsight Limited (the  Reporting Persons , and each, a  Reporting Person ) with respect to the Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares, par value US$0.01 per share, of The9 Limited (the  Issuer ). Capitalized terms used herein but not otherwise defined herein have the meanings given to them in the Schedule 13D. This Amendment is being filed to report a material change in beneficial ownership by the Reporting Persons, and amends Items 2, 3 and 5 of the Schedule 13D. Except as provided herein, all other information in the Schedule 13D remains the same.

Item 2. Identity and Background.

Item 2 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended by the following.

(a)(c), (f) This Schedule 13D is being filed jointly by Jun Zhu ( Mr. Zhu ) and Incsight Limited, a company with limited liability incorporated under the laws of the British Virgin Islands (Incsight, together with Mr. Zhu, the  Reporting Persons , and each, a  Reporting Person ).

Mr. Zhu is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the Issuer. Mr. Zhu is a citizen of the Republic of Singapore. The principal business address of Mr. Zhu is c/o 17 Floor, No. 130 Wu Song Road, Hong Kou District, Shanghai 200080, Peoples Republic of China.

Incsight is principally an investment holding vehicle and is wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Zhu. The principal business address of Incsight is c/o 17 Floor, No. 130 Wu Song Road, Hong Kou District, Shanghai 200080, Peoples Republic of China.

(d), (e) During the past five years, none of any Reporting Person or (a) any partner, executive officer or director of any Reporting Person, (b) any person controlling any Reporting Person or (c) any partner, executive officer or director of any person ultimately in control of any Reporting Person has been convicted in a criminal proceeding (excluding traffic violations or similar misdemeanors) has been a party to a civil proceeding of a judicial or administrative body of competent jurisdiction and as a result of such proceeding was or is subject to a judgment, decree or final order enjoining future violations of, or prohibiting or mandating activities subject to, federal or state securities laws or finding any violation with respect to such laws.

Item 3. Source and Amount of Funds or Other Consideration.

Item 3 of the Schedule 13D is hereby supplemented by the following.

On September 7, 2023, as approved and authorized by the Board of Directors of the Issuer and its Compensation Committee and Audit Committee, the Issuer issued an aggregate number of 174,000,000 Class A ordinary shares to Mr. Jun Zhu in the form of restricted shares pursuant to the Tenth Amended and Restated 2004 Stock Option Plan of the Issuer. Those restricted shares are subject to a three-year lock-up period and restrictions that will be removed in installments, provided that certain pre-agreed performance target of the Issuer are met, except that the lock-up restrictions on 60,000,000 Class A ordinary shares were removed immediately after the date of share issuance. Those restricted shares or any portion thereof can only be freely transferable upon the removal of the lock-up restrictions.

Item 5. Interest in Securities of the Issuer.

The first paragraph under Item 5(a)(b) of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and restated as follows.

(a)(b) The following information with respect to the ownership of the ordinary shares beneficially owned by the Reporting Persons filing this statement on Schedule 13D/A is provided as of September 7, 202 3.

For Mr. Jun Zhu

Class A

ordinary shares Class B

ordinary shares Total ordinary

shares on the as-

converted basis Percentage of

Aggregate

Voting Power (a) Amount beneficially owned 231,517,324 (1) 13,607,334 (1) 245,124,658 (1)  (b) Percent of class: 19.3 %(2) 100.0 %(3) 20.2 %(4) 62.2 %(5) (c) Number of shares as to which the person has: (i) Sole power to vote or to direct the vote 231,517,324 (1) 13,607,334 (1) 245,124,658 (1)  (ii) Shared power to vote or to direct the vote 0 0 0  (iii) Sole power to dispose or to direct the disposition of 231,517,324 (1) 13,607,334 (1) 245,124,658 (1)  (iv) Shared power to dispose or to direct the disposition of 0 0 0 

Notes:

(1) Includes (i) 6,107,334 Class B ordinary shares and 912,094 Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs held by Incsight Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that is wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Jun Zhu, and (ii) 7,500,000 Class B ordinary shares, 225,300,000 Class A ordinary shares and 5,305,230 Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs held by Mr. Jun Zhu, among which 114,000,000 Class A ordinary shares are subject to lock-up period and restrictions that will be removed in installments, provided that certain pre-agreed performance target of the Issuer are met. Each Class B ordinary share is convertible at the option of the holder into one Class A ordinary share, whereas Class A ordinary shares are not convertible into Class B ordinary shares under any circumstances.

(2) Based on 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023.

(3) Based on 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 202 3.

(4) The percentage of the class of securities beneficially owned by the Reporting Person is based on 1,210,757,527 outstanding ordinary shares as a single class, being the sum of 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares and 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023.

(5) For each Reporting Person, percentage of aggregate voting power is calculated by dividing the voting power beneficially owned by such Reporting Person by the voting power of all of the Issuers Class A and Class B ordinary shares as a single class. Each holder of Class A ordinary shares is entitled to one vote per share and each holder of Class B ordinary shares is entitled to one hundred votes per share on all matters submitted to them for a vote.

For Incsight Limited

Class A

ordinary shares Class B

ordinary shares Total ordinary

shares on the as-

converted basis Percentage of

Aggregate

Voting Power (a) Amount beneficially owned 912,094 (1) 6,107,334 (1) 7,019,428 (1)  (b) Percent of class: 0.1 %(2) 44.9 %(3) 0.6 %(4) 23.9 %(5) (c) Number of shares as to which the person has: (i) Sole power to vote or to direct the vote 912,094 (1) 6,107,334 (1) 7,019,428 (1)  (ii) Shared power to vote or to direct the vote 0 0 0  (iii) Sole power to dispose or to direct the disposition of 912,094 (1) 6,107,334 (1) 7,019,428 (1)  (iv) Shared power to dispose or to direct the disposition of 0 0 0 

Notes:

(1) Includes 6,107,334 Class B ordinary shares and 912,094 Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs held by Incsight Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that is wholly owned and controlled by Mr. Jun Zhu.

(2) Based on 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023.

(3) Based on 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 202 3.

(4) The percentage of the class of securities beneficially owned by the Reporting Person is based on 1,210,757,527 outstanding ordinary shares as a single class, being the sum of 1,197,150,193 Class A ordinary shares and 13,607,334 Class B ordinary shares outstanding as of September 7, 2023.

(5) For each Reporting Person, percentage of aggregate voting power is calculated by dividing the voting power beneficially owned by such Reporting Person by the voting power of all of the Issuers Class A and Class B ordinary shares as a single class. Each holder of Class A ordinary shares is entitled to one vote per share and each holder of Class B ordinary shares is entitled to one hundred votes per share on all matters submitted to them for a vote.

SIGNATURE

After reasonable inquiry and to the best of my knowledge and belief, I certify that the information set forth in this statement is true, complete and correct.

Date: September 27, 202 3
Senior Airman Christopher Rocha died earlier this month after being injured in a car crash in August near Ramstein Air Base, Germany. (U.S. Air Force)

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany  Colleagues of Senior Airman Christopher Lee Rocha who spoke at his memorial service Tuesday recalled him as a man who demonstrated an uncanny compassion for others, whether he knew them or not.

An alarm monitor for the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron at Vogelweh Air Station, Rocha died Sept. 4 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, where he had been transferred after a head-on collision Aug. 18 near Ramstein Air Base.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, officials with the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein said Tuesday.

The 24-year-old from El Paso, Texas, had been selected for promotion to staff sergeant. The hourlong service, which was held at the Vogelweh chapel, was livestreamed for his family in the U.S.

Airman 1st Class Cameron Thompson recounted a story from a night he and Rocha were working the gate in family housing at Vogelweh. They noticed a man stumbling from a taxi up the access road.

Although it was Thompsons turn to scan IDs, Rocha came with him to make sure everything was OK, he said. Rocha took the time to ask the man how his night was going and learned that he was going through a divorce.

Air Force and German security forces personnel gather outside the Vogelweh chapel in Kaiserslautern, Germany, on Sept. 26, 2023, for a memorial service for Senior Airman Christopher Rocha. The 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron member died earlier this month from injuries in an August car crash near Ramstein Air Base. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Airmen with the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron stand at attention during a memorial service Sept. 26, 2023, for colleague Senior Airman Christopher Rocha, who died earlier this month. Rocha was injured in a head-on collision Aug. 18 near Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The crash is still under investigation. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Airmen sit in the pews holding a program for Senior Airman Christopher Rochas memorial service on Sept. 26, 2023, at the Vogelweh chapel in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Rocha, a member of the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron, died earlier this month after being injured in a car crash in August near Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The crash is under investigation. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Senior Airman Mathew Sayer receives a hug during a memorial service for his friend and fellow security forces member Senior Airman Christopher Rocha. Rocha, part of the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron died in a military hospital in Maryland after a serious car crash near Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in August. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes) Airmen with the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron Delta Flight stand for a final guard mount during a memorial service for Senior Airman Christopher Rocha on Sept. 26, 2023. When Rochas name was called during the roll call, the airmen stood in silence. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)

He assured him that it was going to be all right and offered words of comfort, Thompson said.

If you think there is someone who needs help, like that man did that night, be like Rocha, he said.

Senior Airman Mathew Sayer said Rocha was the first person he grew close to when he arrived at Ramstein. Rocha often cheered him up during those tough early months, when Sayer said he hated his room, the area, even Ikea.

Were going to miss the smile, the adventures, the goofy personality, he said.

Base defenders from the 569th and 86th Security Forces Squadron, as well as German police who work with base security personnel, filled the rows of pews in the Vogelweh Chapel to pay tribute. Rocha was honored with a 21-gun salute and a moment of silence.

Lt. Col. Brian Gilliam, the 569th commander, described Rocha as a caring soul.

In addition to his capacity for empathy, Rocha was praised for the dedication he showed to his craft and his co-workers.

He shined a positive light on myself and our entire flight, Thompson said. No matter what he was going through ... he never, ever failed to come to work without a huge smile and ready to attack the night.

Rocha is survived by his parents, his wife, a grandmother and four brothers.
Alex Miller, left and Jay Hudson, both of the Zama Killer Katanas, do The Time Warp during a Rocky Horror-themed roller derby competition at the Samurai Fitness Center on Yokota Air Base, Japan, Sept. 24, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan  Roller derby teams from the Tokyo area recently did the time warp, dancing in costumes and skates for a Rocky Horror-themed roller derby match at this airlift hub in western Tokyo.

The Fuji Horror Roller Derby Show drew nearly three dozen skaters to the Samurai Fitness Center for an hourlong competition Sunday afternoon. The event took inspiration from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a cult classic musical-horror-comedy film released in 1975. It marked its 48th anniversary on Tuesday.

It makes you feel more comfortable when the teams are dressed up and expressing themselves, Jay Hudson, of the Zama Killer Katanas, said at the event. I like to see people genuinely be interested in going all out and enjoying themselves while theyre doing something competitive like this.

Members of teams from area U.S. military  the Katanas from Camp Zama; the Fuji Flatliners from Yokota; and the Sushi Rollers from Yokosuka Naval Base  broke up to form two squads, the Black and the White, for the event. They were joined by local Japanese teams the Samurai Cats and the Samurai Warriors.

Some competitors dressed as characters from Rocky Horror, just as aficionados of the film still dress up and perform at midnight showings of the film.

Jay Hudson, center, of the Zama Killer Katanas, blocks opposing players during a Rocky Horror-themed roller derby matchup at the Samurai Fitness Center on Yokota Air Base, Japan, Sept. 24, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes) Brittney Oquendo refeeres a "Rocky Horror"-themed roller derby matchup at the Samurai Fitness Center on Yokota Air Base, Japan, Sept. 24, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes) Brittney Oquendo of the Yokosuka Sushi Rollers competes in a "Rocky Horror"-themed roller derby match at the Samurai Fitness Center on Yokota Air Base, Japan, Sept. 24, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

Adrianna Seda of the Fuji Flatliners  derby name Booking Betty  said her team came up with the theme.

Since October is going to be so busy and we cant really do Halloween, we decided to hold the Fuji horror derby show, she said. It just worked. Several of us are really big fans of the production.

Rocky Horror debuted in 1973 as a stage production at The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London. The film debuted two years later. A flop at first, it was relaunched three years later as a midnight movie in New York City.

During these showings, audience members dressed up as characters from the film and acted out the scenes in theaters as the movie played. Audiences shouted call-backs, popular responses to scenes in the movie, and sang and danced in the aisles to well-worn musical numbers, including The Time Warp.

Rocky Horror remains the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

On Sunday, Diana Ulloa-Montes, from the Zama team, dressed in a maid outfit as Magenta, played in the movie by Patricia Quinn.

This event was the first event that I was like, I absolutely need to dress up for this, she said.

Ulloa-Montes  derby name Bend and Snap  frequented midnight Rocky Horror showings in college.

It was rated R because you had a man who had relations with a man and a woman, she said. If released today, I dont think it would receive an R rating, though today there is still a lot of stigmas against queer people. And I think Rocky Horror Picture Show has a cult following because it allows people to be seen.
An artist's rendering of Bechtel Elementary, a Department of Defense Education Activity school on Okinawa that's receiving a $125 million facelift. (DODEA)

CAMP MCTUREOUS, Okinawa  A Tokyo construction firm won a $125 million contract last month to update a Defense Department school on Okinawa based on a state-of-the-art design.

Nishimatsu Construction Co. Ltd. will start renovations and new construction for Bechtel Elementary on Marine Corps base Camp McTureous sometime this fall, Miranda Ferguson, spokeswoman for Department of Defense Education Activity-Pacific, said by email Tuesday.

The project, expected to take three years, will make Bechtel the islands fifth 21st Century school, after Bob Hope and Kadena elementary schools on Kadena Air Base and Killin and Zukeran schools on Camp Foster, she said.

As part of a decade-old building campaign, DODEA has built and renovated schools according to the same concept at several other bases in the Pacific and Europe.

The refurbished Bechtel will feature collaborative common areas and new furnishings, hallmarks of the 21st Century initiative, as well as playground equipment upgrades.

The 21st Century school design is meant to prepare students for the tech-focused jobs of the future. They feature classrooms without walls called neighborhoods, collaborative teaching and data-driven instruction.

The reconstruction and re-imagining of Bechtel Elementary School shows a steadfast commitment to the development and well-being of our military families here on Okinawa, Maj. Gen. Stephen Liszewski, commander of Marine Corps Installations Pacific, said in a DODEA news release Sept. 8. This is more than a construction project; its a symbol of our dedication to building a brighter future for the generations that will follow in our footsteps.

Nishimatsu received the contract Aug. 30 for approximately 81,000 square feet of new construction and to renovate 68,094 square feet of existing space, according to the release. Artist renderings show a modern facade, colorful assembly areas and warm, open classrooms, marked by carpets and comfortable furniture.

DODEA opted for a partial demolition and renovation instead of a complete overhaul of the school to meet budget and time constraints, Ferguson said.

Completely demolishing the school would have added a year to the project.

Bechtel, founded in 1987, serves approximately 400 students from kindergarten through fifth grade and provides preschool services for children with disabilities, Ferguson said. The students come from Camps Courtney and McTureous and nearby off-base residences.

Students in grades one through five have been attending class at Ryukyu Middle School on Kadena since the school year began in August, Ferguson said. Kindergarteners, preschoolers with disabilities and Sure Start students are attending Kadena Elementary.
BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has recently delivered instructions on advancing the development of pilot free trade zones (FTZs). He pointed out that building pilot FTZs is an important strategic move of the CPC Central Committee to promote reform and opening up in the new era. Over the past decade, each pilot FTZ has followed the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, emancipated mind, upheld fundamental principles and broken new ground in launching a large number of fundamental and pioneering reform and opening-up measures, making many iconic and groundbreaking achievements in institutional innovation. They have effectively played their role as a comprehensive experimental platform for reform and opening up.

Xi stressed that on the new journey, it is necessary to implement the strategy of improving pilot FTZs on the basis of comprehensively summarizing the 10-year experience on their development. He called for being a pioneer to forge ahead and overcome difficulties, explore in a wider field and at a deeper level, and strive to build higher-level pilot FTZs. To enable pilot FTZs to better play an exemplary role, it is essential for them to uphold overall Party leadership, pursue high-level opening up as the guidance and institutional innovation as the core, coordinate development and security, align domestic rules with international economic and trade rules by high standards, further promote institutional opening-up, strengthen overall planning and systematic integration of reform, and promote innovative development of the entire industrial chain.

A seminar was held in Beijing on Sept. 26 to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China's first pilot FTZ. He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice premier, read out Xi's important instructions and delivered a speech. He said that it is imperative to study and thoroughly understand General Secretary Xi's important instructions, comprehensively summarize the experience gained from the development of pilot FTZs, and implement the strategy to upgrade the standards of them. He emphasized the need to continuously update thinking, intensify guarantees, and coordinate development and security. He added that new breakthroughs should be made in institutional innovation, the opening up policy should be expanded to new areas, and new progress should be made in making plans for development, so as to build higher-level pilot FTZs.

At the seminar, a leading official of the Ministry of Commerce reported on the development of pilot FTZs in the past 10 years, and those who delivered speeches include officials from the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, the General Administration of Customs, and Shanghai and Tianjin municipalities, Fujian, Liaoning and Sichuan provinces, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Leading officials of relevant central Party and government departments and those from the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities where the 21 pilot FTZs are located attended the seminar. 
Joint Task Force-Red Hill communications directorate personnel climb a ladder in the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, Halawa, Hawaii, on Sept. 14, 2023. (Kyler Chatman/U.S. Army)

(Tribune News Service)  Honolulu Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau said he had raised concerns with Wade and other leaders about how a potential shutdown might disrupt the effort.

The top officer in charge of defueling the Navys underground Red Hill fuel storage facility says a possible federal government shutdown would not affect the operation.

The facility holds 104 million gallons of fuel and sits just 100 feet above a critical aquifer that most of Hawaii relies on for water. In September 2022 the military created the Joint Task Force Red Hill under Vice Adm. John Wade to make repairs to the aging World War II-era facility in order to safely and expeditiously remove the fuel.

The secretary of defense has exempted all personnel supporting the defueling of Red Hill from furlough, and all contracts will remain in place,  Wade said in a video released late Monday night. This means that the mission is deemed critical, and well continue to work even if theres a shutdown. Bottom line, we remain on plan, and well keep the community informed if anything changes.

The news came as a relief to Honolulu Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau, who said he had raised concerns with Wade and other leaders about how a potential shutdown might disrupt the effort. A federal shutdown could start Sunday if the House of Representatives does not a reach a budget deal.

Its really important to actually do the defueling,  Lau said. Theres many different moving pieces to coordinate, like the tankers coming in, all the efforts of the whole team and the Joint Task Force, with the regulators, ensuring that safe defueling is achieved.

The facility has long been a concern for the Board of Water Supply and others who have contended since a 2014 leak at a Red Hill tank that it posed a threat to Oahus water supply.

The Navy for years insisted the facility was safe and argued that it was critical to supporting the Pacific Fleets vast regional operations. But in November 2021, fuel from the facility tainted the Navys Oahu water system, which serves 93, 000 people, including military families and local civilians living in former military housing areas.

Subsequently, the military has acknowledged that the aging facility and the pipes connecting them to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam had fallen into deep disrepair and would require extensive repairs to safely remove the fuel without further endangering the aquifer.

Joint Task Force-Red Hill Commander, Vice Adm. John Wade meets with Senate Appropriations Committee staff delegates at JTF-RH Headquarters, Ford Island, Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 8, 2023. (Nicholas Brown/U.S. Air Force )

When JTF Red Hill started operations, the slated completion target for making the repairs and defueling the tanks was July 2024, but Wade stressed at the time that he was looking for ways to expedite the process. Now JTF Red Hill says those repairs are complete and defueling is set to begin Oct. 15, with most of the fuel expected to be safely removed by the end of January.

Lau, who has been a fierce critic of the militarys handling of the crisis, said he was impressed by what JTF Red Hill has managed to do.

I think once they created that group and they really had a single focus in mind, a single objective to defuel the tanks and the pipes, that was positive,  said Lau. Prior to that there was this uncertainty and who would be the single point of responsibility for this effort.

But in the video release Monday, Wade also said JTF Red Hill is waiting for approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health to move forward with the plan.

This is an important part of the oversight process because they hold us to federal and state standards, ensuring that we execute the mission safely,  he said.

EPA spokesman Michael Brogan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the agency is reviewing the Navys responses to a list of questions about the defueling operation.

Under the federal consent order, the Navy and JTF Red Hill must submit a Defueling Preparedness Report  stating that they have completed all obligations as required under the order prior to defueling, and the EPA needs to approve it.

We expect to complete that process this week,  said Brogan. We do not have any concerns about the operations and expect to issue the approval prior to scheduled defueling.

State Department of Health officials said in a statement that they are reviewing JTF Red Hills responses to its comments on the defueling operational plans submitted Friday and that the DOH remains on track to approve defueling by Oct. 11, 2023, as specified in the JTFs Defueling Integrated Master Schedule (IMS ), which DOH conditionally approved on June 23, 2023.

JTF Red Hills mission will end after it removes the 104 million gallons of fuel in the tanks, but the Navys long-term remediation and shutdown of the facility is expected to take years.

Lau said that while he would have preferred that the fuel was removed earlier, hes cautiously optimistic JTF Red Hill will be successful.

I think its really important to remember this effort in our prayers, to hope that theres no mishap or other spills or releases to our aquifer, and hopefully that they will do an efficient, quick and safe job of defueling the tanks and pipelines,  said Lau.

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The Italian frigate ITS Virginio Fasan moored in the Port of Naples on Sept. 22, 2023. The ship was in Naples for public tours before upcoming deployments with two U.S. Navy carrier strike groups this fall in the Mediterranea Sea, according to Italian navy officials. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

NAPLES, Italy  One of Italys stealthiest and most powerful warships is preparing to deploy this fall with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Mediterranean Sea, Italian navy officials said.

The Carlo Bergamini-class frigate ITS Virginio Fasan first will join the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group already on patrol in the Mediterranean in the next couple of weeks, Cmdr. Alessandro Consoli, commanding officer of Fasan, said Friday.

The frigate will then deploy with the Eisenhower group when it arrives in the region, said Consoli, who did not indicate exactly when that would occur.

The U.S. Navy hasnt formally announced what carrier would relieve the Ford, which has been on duty mostly in the Mediterranean in the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility since May.

The Italian frigate ITS Virginio Fasan moored in the Port of Naples on Sept. 22, 2023. The ship, one of seven Carlo Bergamini-class frigates in the Italian navy, is slated to deploy with two U.S. carrier strike groups this fall in the Mediterranea Sea. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

Such deployments typically range from six to nine months. Sixth Fleet received but did not answer questions Tuesday about Eisenhowers potential deployment.

But Fasan joined Eisenhower in a 24-day training exercise to certify the carrier for deployment, the Navy said in a July 25 statement.

Last month, Eisenhower trained as if it were off the coast of Italy during Large Scale Exercise, global drills that included 25,000 sailors and Marines, Breaking Defense reported at the time.

If deployed to 6th Fleet, Eisenhower would be the fourth carrier sent to the region since December 2021, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered USS Harry S. Truman to remain in the Mediterranean as Russia massed troops and advanced weaponry along the eastern, northern and southern borders of Ukraine.

Austin extended that directive in April 2022, following Russias full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 of that year. The aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush relieved Truman the following August.

The bridge of the stealth Italian frigate ITS Virginio Fasan as seen Sept. 22, 2023. The ship's armament includes two anti-surface and anti-air guns, two machine guns, an anti-air missile system with Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles and two torpedo launchers. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

Fasan also has operated with Bush during its deployment in the Mediterranean, the Navy said in its July statement.

The frigate, which has a crew of about 141 and can embark two helicopters, operated in Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 from February to March 2021, according to an Italian navy handout.

Fasan is the first of its class designed with stealth capabilities that greatly reduce its infrared and radar presence. The ship also carries a multifunctional active radar, passive and active sonar scanners and a towed radar system, according to the handout.

Its armament includes two anti-surface and anti-air guns, two machine guns, an anti-air missile system with Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles and two torpedo launchers.

In all, the Italian navy has seven of the frigates, which were designed in collaboration with France. Some of the frigates, like the Fasan, are anti-submarine warfare variants.

Two F/A-18E Super Hornets and a Hawker Hunter fly near the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Atlantic Ocean on July 14, 2023. The Italian frigate ITS Virginio Fasan will deploy with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Mediterranean Sea this fall, according to Italian officials. (Paige Westoby/U.S. Navy)

The ships were made by the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, a division of which also is building the Navys Constellation-class frigates.

Construction on the first of those ships, the $1.3 billion Constellation, started in August 2022.
(U.S. Space Command)

(Tribune News Service)  The House Armed Services Committee expects to hear some of the nations top military leaders discuss their involvement in President Joe Bidens decision to make Colorado the U.S. Space Commands permanent home. That White House decision came instead of moving the headquarters to Huntsville, which ranked highest in the Pentagons official base comparison.

The hearings stated purpose is to receive testimony from government witnesses regarding irregularity in the strategic basing process for the U.S. Space Command. It begins at 10 a.m.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III is scheduled to testify along with Space Command commander Gen. James H. Dickinson and Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of operations of the U.S. Space Force.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers R-Ala., chair of the Armed Services Committee, called the hearing. Rogers has called Bidens decision egregious meddling in our national security and driven by far-left politics, not national security.

Colorado is a blue state, Alabama is a red state and Biden faces a re-election campaign in 2024. Losing a blue state could hurt the presidents re-election chances; red state Alabama doesnt factor in his plan to win another term. But the White House says the president believes putting the base to work in a permanent home is important for American security in a world where communications, mapping and monitoring satellites are critical and growing in number.

U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, R-Huntsville, has said, The way the Biden administration and Department of Defense leadership has handled the Space Command situation is something that should worry every state.

Allowing the Air Force to conduct an expensive and long basing process, only to undermine it when its decision time, threatens the credibility of the DOD and sets a dangerous precent for all future military decisions, Strong said. Ive certainly got a lot of questions Im ready to ask.

Dickinson reportedly supported the Colorado decision although U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Alabama) and Strong said in June that Dickinson had confirmed and assured them the headquarters should be on Redstone Arsenal. That happened at a meeting with the Alabama congressional delegation, the lawmakers said.

The Washington Post first reported Bidens decision to leave the command in Colorado July 31 saying a headquarters move at this point would be too disruptive to military readiness. The Post also said the commands estimated 1,400 jobs would have an almost $1 billion annual impact on Colorados economy.

Kendall had recommended to Biden that the move to Alabama go forward, the story said.

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Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, gives remarks Sept. 27, 2023, at a security forum hosted by the Center for European Policy Analysis at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium. (X/Center for European Policy Analysis)

The war in Ukraine is showing how small investments in cheap drones can have an outsized effect on the battlefield, the top U.S. military commander in Europe said Wednesday.

Ukrainian forces have added a new dimension to their fighting with first person and one-way attack drones that have delivered huge results on the battlefield, U.S. European Commands Gen. Christopher Cavoli said from his headquarters in Belgium, where he serves in his role as NATO supreme allied commander.

One of the biggest results (a simple drone) is it gives people a feeling of insecurity on the other side, Cavoli said. Its not just that you got hit with the drone, its that you kind of didnt hear it coming. And every time you hear a buzzing sound in the air, it fills you with dread.

The result is a paralytic effect on the adversary, he said.

Cavolis comments came during a discussion at a security forum hosted by the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Numerous allied teams have been assembled to learn from Russias full-scale invasion, which was launched in February 2022.

The U.S. training of Ukrainian forces at various bases in Europe also works in reverse, with American personnel learning firsthand from the combatants themselves, Cavoli said.

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, talks with Catherine Sendak of the Center for European Policy Analysis on Sept. 27, 2023. Speaking from his headquarters in Belgium, Cavoli shared lessons that the Russia-Ukraine war has taught allies. He highlighted Ukraine's innovative use of drones. (X/Center for European Policy Analysis)

Electronic warfare is an area where Cavoli said allies are gaining new insights, but he declined to go into detail for security reasons.

There are disruptive technologies out there, and were studying those closely, and we hope to adopt some of them ourselves, he said.

The grinding trench warfare not seen in Europe for many decades has left both Russia and Ukraine looking to friendly nations to supply them with weapons such as artillery shells and ammunition.

U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, have acknowledged that the enormous amount of military aid to Ukraine has strained weapons stocks, highlighting the need to strengthen the industrial base.

As soon as you get past the first couple of months of a war and it begins to protract, it becomes a competition of production, Cavoli said. So, the industrial bases of our nations are something that were all studying even harder.

Meanwhile, a key development in NATO is the establishment of a new generation of regional defense plans, agreed to by member countries at the alliances July summit in Vilnius.

The next step will be building the necessary force structure to fully implement the strategy, Cavoli said.

Common during the Cold War, territorial defense plans fell by the wayside in the years that followed. But Russias unprovoked invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 refocused NATO on its original purpose of territorial defense.

Itll be a challenge to build out that force structure, Cavoli said. But nevertheless, at least we have the blueprint.
Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander, Adm. Viktor Sokolov is seen during a graduation ceremony at the Nakhimov Black Sea Higher Naval School on June 18, 2023. (Sergei Malgavko/TASS/Zuma Press/TNS)

(Tribune News Service)  A Russian admiral Ukrainian forces listed among the 33 officers killed in an attack on a Black Sea navy base over the weekend showed up on a video conference call attended by Russias top military brass.

But still and brief footage of Adm. Viktor Sokolov, seemingly seated with a pillow behind his head, is prompting discussion over whether Ukrainian officials exaggerated the success of their strike  or Russia is pulling a Weekend at Bernies.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday an attack on their heavily fortified base in Crimea caused damage, but didnt address claims Sokolov was dead, according to NBC News. Footage of a military meeting on Russian state television clearly featured a small image of the admiral on a large screen. He was motionless and didnt speak.

Politico later reported Sokolov appeared alive and well in subsequent images that seem to further make that case.

The Daily Beast reported the admiral was propped up against a pillow and that his eyes appeared closed behind his glasses. The publication also said images later released showed Sokolov with his eyes open, but suggested the pillow showed he might be in a hospital bed somewhere.

Its unclear when the video or photos making the rounds in recent days were taken.

The Kremlin is famously loose with facts when it comes to advancing its interests. Ukraine has also been accused of favoring information beneficial to its cause.

Ukrainian officials clarified Tuesday they hadnt confirmed Sokolov was killed in their missile strike on Russian naval officers.

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AIN YABROOD, West Bank  Moeen al-Kateebs mother lives 21 miles from Israels Ben Gurion Airport, about 45 minutes in light traffic. He has visited her dozens of times from his home in the United States but has never gone through that airport.

Instead, he flies to neighboring Jordan to reach the occupied West Bank, adding hundreds of dollars and a day to the trip. Unlike most U.S. citizens, Kateeb and thousands of Palestinian Americans have been barred for decades from flying into Ben Gurion.

[Israeli officials] dont see me as an American, just as a Palestinian, said Kateeb, who grew up north of Atlanta in a family that has been in the United States for three generations. The last time he tried to fly into Tel Aviv, when he was 16, he was kept overnight in a basement holding room and put on a plane out the next morning.

But times are changing. The U.S. government announced Wednesday that Israel will be added to a list of 40 friendly countries whose citizens do not have to apply in advance for a visa to visit the United States.

In return, Israel will have to lift many of the restrictions on Palestinian Americans, potentially softening the profiling, intrusive questioning and delays that have characterized their trips since Israel began tightening rules in the 1970s amid a string of terrorist attacks.

The deal, fulfilling a longtime Israeli goal of easing travel to the United States, will benefit only a sliver of Palestinians: dual citizens who are U.S. passport holders and are also registered by Israel as having family connections to Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza.

Between 100,000 and 200,000 people could benefit from the program, including more than 10,000 who live permanently in the Palestinian territories, according to unofficial estimates in Israeli and Arab media.

The new rules are meant to apply to American Palestinians living abroad and to those in the Palestinian territories, potentially offering a new degree of freedom to full-time West Bank residents and more limited mobility to those in Gaza.

Its not a full two-state solution, no, said former U.S. ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, who negotiated much of the agreement with Israel. But for the first time in decades, Palestinian Americans are going to be treated like any other American.

The new rules leave conditions unchanged for most of the 5 million Arabs living in the Palestinian territories, highlighting the disparities of a system in which Palestinians are treated differently by Israel depending on where they live and where they were born.

The Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming the new policies endorse discrimination, representing a separate and unequal system [that] has no place in a U.S. program, the group said in a statement.

During a weeks-long trial of the new program, tens of thousands of Palestinian Americans have landed at Ben Gurion, according to U.S. officials. In a first, they were given the same B2 tourist visa as other arriving Americans, allowing them not only to visit family in the West Bank but to travel around Israel for up to 90 days.

Sami Almalfouh, a Gaza-born electrical engineer from California, flew in Saturday simply to test the new system. He passed the flight questioning whether he would get in at all.

I spent 14 hours wondering if I was just going to have to fly 14 hours back, he said. That has happened to a lot of Palestinians.

At passport control, Almalfouh, who has a PhD from Georgia Tech and has worked in Silicon Valley since 2011, was told to wait for an hour and five minutes without explanation while others passed through.

What was different about me than the guy from Utah who was behind me? Almalfouh wondered. They didnt say.

But when he was handed a visa and the electric gate swung open: That was very emotional. I have been waiting for that for many years.

Almalfouh, who left Gaza when he was 17, joined other Palestinian Americans touring sites that have been off limits to them for years, including al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the ancient port cities of Jaffa and Haifa.

A number of American passport holders in the West Bank crossed into Jordan and back just to acquire the new B2 visa. Many have driven into Israel repeatedly to explore; some have seen the Mediterranean for the first time in decades.

It was nice to be able to say to my friends, Hey guys, lets go to the beach, said al-Kateeb, who was visiting his mother when the trial program began. Most of the crossings have been smooth, he said, but some soldiers blocked him temporarily, seemingly unaware of the new rules.

Every time I approach a checkpoint, my heart speeds up, he said.

For those with roots in Gaza, the rules are stricter and harder to navigate.

Almalfouh compiled a dizzying flow chart of the regulations governing a visit to Gaza, which includes more than a dozen variables that affect individual outcomes.

Its still very confusing, and the Gazans are getting the shortest end of the stick, he said.

Maha al-Banna, 49, who moved back to Gaza after 12 years in the United States, hopes the changes will make it easier to visit her children stateside.

She currently has to apply for permission from the Israeli military, then board a bus that is not allowed to stop until it reaches the Jordanian border. An official holds all the passports, and no one is allowed to carry hard bags, wheeled luggage, laptops or toiletries.

Every time I travel, I have to re-buy everything, al-Banna said.

Exiting through Ben Gurion would be a huge improvement, but she too finds the new rules baffling and said they have changed more than once during the trial period. They require her to apply for permission from the Israeli army at least 45 days in advance.

Im not really optimistic its going to work for Gazans, she said.

Israeli tourists, tech companies and ultra-Orthodox citizens with business and family ties to the United States have long pressed their government to gain access to the visa waiver program. The effort picked up momentum in 2021 under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and has been a priority for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israelis were shocked when U.S. negotiators laid out how they expected Israel to treat all arriving Americans the same, even those with Palestinian IDs, according to officials from both countries familiar with the talks.

At first it was, Are you out of your mind, but they really wanted the [agreement] to go through, Nides said.

The experience could hold lessons for a potential normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, in which Israel would be asked to make concessions to the Palestinians, he said.

When its important to them, the Israelis can make big changes happen, Nides said.

Not every Israeli official thinks the trade-off is worth it. This will oblige us to allow the entry of unwanted parties, Palestinians, who will travel in the country, Tourism Minister Haim Katz, a member of Netanyahus Likud party, said to an Israeli broadcaster. Who needs this?

Hazem Balousha in Gaza contributed to this report.
BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- In an effort to accelerate the development of China studies in the new era, some 40 experts and scholars have gathered in Beijing for a three-day seminar lasting until Wednesday.

Revolving around the theme of highlighting Chinese cultural characteristics and accelerating the development of China studies in the new era, the event saw in-depth discussions covering a wide range of subjects, from the global significance of local knowledge to the enhancement of cultural soft power.

Discussions also focused on the historical characteristics and contemporary features of Tibetology, as well as the historical development and contemporary value of Qilu culture, or traditional culture in ancient China's Qi and Lu states and today's Shandong Province.

The event, organized by the Center for Cultural Development and Promotion of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, provided a platform for experts and scholars from research institutions and universities to present their extensive regional studies that contribute to the accelerated development of China studies in the new era.

Participants at the seminar acknowledged that local studies, as a part of China studies, provide abundant materials for the development of China studies in the new era. It is believed that Chinese culture has provided sources of vitality and momentum for the prosperous development of China studies in the new era. 
The Biden familys dog, Commander, bit a Secret Service officer at the White House on Sept. 26, 2023. (commanderfirstdog/Instagram)

The Biden familys dog, Commander, bit a Secret Service officer at the White House on Monday  at least the 11th aggressive incident that has prompted questions about the German shepherds behavior and the safety of those who interact with him.

Yesterday around 8 p.m., a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer came in contact with a First Family pet and was bitten, Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said Tuesday in a statement. The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex.

Commander, who came to the White House as a puppy in 2021, previously bit at least seven people between late 2022 and early 2023, according to records obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch. There are other known incidents in which the dog has run at people or barked aggressively.

Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for first lady Jill Biden, on Wednesday reiterated her statement from July that the Bidens are working to address the issue. She declined to specify what steps the family has taken.

As weve noted before, the White House can be a stressful environment for family pets, and the First Family continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds, Alexander said in a statement. The President and First Lady are incredibly grateful to the Secret Service and Executive Residence staff for all they do to keep them, their family, and the country safe.

One of the most serious previously documented incidents came in November, when Commander bit a Secret Service officer, unprovoked, on the upper right arm and thigh, according to the records. The officer used a steel cart to try to protect themself from further attacks and required hospitalization for their wounds.

Feels like I was in a dog fight lol, the agent later told a colleague in an email.

The Bidens older German shepherd, Major, had his own biting incidents, including two in March 2021. He went to President Bidens home in Delaware for a short period after the first incident. The Bidens then sent Major to live with family friends around the time Commander came to the White House in December 2021.

Commander was a gift from the presidents brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law Sara Biden. The first family also has a cat named Willow. The Bidens had a third German shepherd, named Champ, who died in 2021 at age 13.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reacts to a question in January 2021 during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing. (EJ Hersom/DOD)

WASHINGTON  House Republicans on Wednesday agreed to slash Defense Secretary Lloyd Austins salary to no more than $1 after berating the top civilian military leader for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the militarys recruitment struggles.

The measure nearly eliminates Austins annual $221,000 salary and followed similar salary reductions for Defense Department positions involved in diversity programs. The pay cuts are likely doomed in the Democrat-led Senate but showed the hostility some Republicans have for military leaders appointed by President Joe Biden and the progressive social policies that they support.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., introduced the amendment targeting Austin, the nations first Black defense secretary, during ongoing debate over the Pentagons 2024 budget. It was approved in a voice vote and Democrats did not ask for a follow-up roll call vote that might have prevented adoption of the amendment.

Secretary Austin has not fulfilled his job duties. As a matter of fact, hes destroying our military, Greene said. Many Americans agree we do not want the United States military led by failure causing us to be weak.

Greene blasted Austin for recruitment numbers that are at crisis levels, continued aid for the war in Ukraine that is leading us undoubtedly to World War III and the discharge of more than 8,000 service members for refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine.

Greene is a far-right conservative who earlier this year was expelled from the House Freedom Caucus, a group of other hard-right Republicans, after insulting one of their members.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., offered his support for Greenes amendment, pointing to high suicide rates among service members and veterans and the death of 13 troops during the militarys evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.

[Austin] is directly responsible for abandoning thousands of American citizens and our allies to terrorists in Afghanistan, said Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL who deployed to the country.

Democrats dismissed the attack on Austin as a political stunt. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., defended Austins performance as defense secretary and said he has been instrumental to helping Ukraine fend off Russias invasion and strengthening defense partnerships around the world.

You may disagree with the administrations policies, as we all have done over our careers with different administrations, but Secretary Austin has done nothing to merit this amendment, McCollum said. Theres no need for us to make such a personal, drastic attack by eliminating his pay.

A spokesperson for the Pentagon said it would be inappropriate for the Defense Department to comment on pending legislation.

The House is expected to vote on the full defense appropriations bill later this week. The White House threatened to veto it earlier this month over controversial provisions that would overturn the Pentagons abortion access policy for troops and restrict health care for transgender service members.

The Houses adoption of the defense bill will not help stave off a government shutdown set to begin Saturday. Hard-right conservatives in the lower chamber, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, remain resistant to passing a stopgap funding measure before the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., at left in foreground, heads to the Senate Chamber on Sept. 21, 2023, the day before the Justice Department announced an indictment against Menendez who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)

(Tribune News Service)  Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., facing federal bribery charges for the second time in less than a decade, appeared in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

Menendez, 69, wearing a slate gray pinstripe suit with a paisley blue tie, appeared at court with his wife, Nadine, who is also charged and pleaded not guilty.

The Democratic senator, buffeted by a blast of Democratic calls for his resignation, said little in court and waived a reading of his indictment.

He pleaded not guilty through his lawyer, and uttered three words  yes, your honor, when Manhattan Magistrate Judge Ona Wang asked him if he understood his rights.

His bond was set at $100,000. The bond for Nadine was set at $250,000.

Menendez, previously charged with corruption in a separate case that ended in a mistrial nearly six year ago, now stands accused of accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for favors to three New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government.

A three-count indictment, filed by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office last Thursday, accused the Democratic senator of indirectly leaking highly sensitive information to Egypts government and secretly editing a letter on its behalf in an effort to unlock U.S. funding to the authoritarian nation.

Menendez, one of 13 U.S. senators in history to be indicted, served for a decade as the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He stepped down from the role after the indictment was unsealed Friday.

On Tuesday, Wael Hana, a 40-year-old halal entrepreneur from Egypt who is accused of playing a key role in the bribery scheme, was arrested at Kennedy Airport and appeared in court in Manhattan, pleading not guilty.

Federal agents who searched Menendezs home last year found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and more than more than $480,000 in cash stashed in often odd places, like clothing and closets, according to charging papers.

Another $70,000 turned up in his wifes safe deposit box, the U.S. attorneys office charged.

Menendez and his wife face counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion. If convicted, they could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

The three businessmen  Hana; Jose Uribe, who works in trucking and insurance; and Fred Daibes, a real estate developer and bank founder  each face a maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted. Uribe and Daibes pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

Menendez pressured a U.S. Agriculture Department official to protect an arrangement giving Hanas company an exclusive monopoly on halal exports from the U.S. to Egypt, despite Hana having no experience with halal certification, the U.S. attorneys office alleged.

Most of the Senates Democratic caucus, including New Jerseys Cory Booker, has called on Menendez to resign, issuing a deafening drumbeat of statements across Tuesday. Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who could install a replacement for Menendez, has also urged him to step down.

But the majority leader, Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn, has not publicly told Menendez to go. Menendez has vowed not to resign.

I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator, he told reporters Monday.

The embattled New Jersey senator arrived at court shortly after 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He had no comment as he entered.

Under bail terms set Wednesday, he must surrender his personal passports but not his official passports, and can only travel abroad for official business

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The wartime diary of Marine Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott arrived at the home of his daughter, Patti McDermott Dorschied, in Fairhaven, Mass., on Aug. 8, 2023, 81 years after Marines of the 1st Division went ashore on Guadalcanal. (Patti McDermott Dorschied)

The diary of a Marine who recorded his first eight months of World War II in the Pacific before fighting in some of its bloodiest battles is back with his family after it surfaced 81 years later.

Charlie Kitts, 70, of Acworth, Ga., was going through his late uncles personal effects in 2021 when he discovered the worn, government-issued book, he said by phone Sept. 5.

Petty Officer 1st Class Vincent Kitts served in the Navy during WWII, survived the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, and the sinking of the USS Astoria off Guadalcanal eight months later.

His nephew knew he had a treasure on his hands, but was dismayed to see someone elses name, Leo McDermott, scrawled on the inside cover. The discovery started Charlie Kitts on a two-year quest to find McDermotts family and give his diary to them.

The final entry in the wartime diary of Marine Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott was written Aug. 7, 1942, the same day Marines of the 1st Division landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. (Patti McDermott Dorschied) The wartime diary of Marine Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott arrived at the home of his daughter, Patti McDermott Dorschied, in Fairhaven, Mass., on Aug. 8, 2023, 81 years after Marines of the 1st Division went ashore on Guadalcanal. (Patti McDermott Dorschied) The final entry in the wartime diary of Marine Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott was written Aug. 7, 1942, the same day Marines of the 1st Division landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. (Patti McDermott Dorschied)

The book arrived Aug. 8 at the home of McDermotts daughter, Patti McDermott Dorschied, in Fairhaven, Mass., 81 years and a day after the Marines went ashore on Guadalcanal.

I tell you, the way it came together, it was kind of like Leo was involved to make it happen, Kitts said.

Vincent Kitts moved to St. Louis after the war and became a union millwright maintaining factory equipment, his nephew said. He died in 1997 at age 77.

His personal papers bounced around between family members before finally landing with his nephew in 2018. It took three years for Charlie Kitts to peer into the box collecting dust in the garage.

When I saw the diary, my first thought was, Oh, Uncle Vincent left the diary, and then, of course, I opened it, he said. There was a level of disappointment, but at the same time it was, I wonder how he got it. I wonder who Leo was. 

The wartime diary of Marine Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott sits on the mantel of his daughters home in Fairhaven, Mass., Aug. 8, 2023. (Patti McDermott Dorschied)

Bloody engagements

Sgt. Leo Bull McDermott served with K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, of the storied 1st Marine Division, known as The Old Breed, Dorschied, 68, said by phone Sept. 6.

She said her father survived one bloody engagement after another, from the Battle of the Tenaru on Guadalcanal, where he received multiple shrapnel wounds, to Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa.

McDermott returned home to Fairhaven and worked for the U.S. Postal Service, Dorschied said. He died in 1999 at age 76.

Their descendants said they dont know how Leo and Vincent crossed paths or if they even knew each other. Vincent may have picked up the small leatherbound book after landing on Guadalcanal or he may have found it on one of the Navy transport ships.

The diary begins Jan. 5, 1942, nearly a month after the Pearl Harbor attack, and ends just before McDermotts division landed on Guadalcanal. He described leaving to join the Marines, boot camp and boarding a transport ship. Some of the diarys 32 inscribed pages are difficult to read.

Arrived Parris Island 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, says the entry for Jan. 7. Got one shot today. Blood tests and vaccinations. One guy passed out at the sight of blood.

On July 7, McDermott described sleeping on the unnamed ships deck, a common practice for surviving a nighttime torpedo attack.

Cold as all hell today, he wrote. Damn near froze to death. Didnt sleep a wink. Too dumb to give in.

On Aug. 6, the eve of the Guadalcanal landing, the Marine described receiving ammunition.

160 rounds. Plenty heavy, he wrote. Sang all night. Look out [Japanese]. Here we come!

His final entry came the next day.

Cant take my diary with me, he wrote. If I dont get back, so long folks!

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Vincent Kitts survived the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, along with the sinking of the USS Astoria off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands eight months later. (Charlie Kitts)

Incredible gift

Charlie Kitts found McDermotts family by calling Brad Fish, a former Marine and veterans service officer in Fairhaven.

Someone in Fishs office remembered the McDermott family, so Fish took a drive, he said by phone Sept. 6. A few minutes later, he was face-to-face with Dorschied.

He gave me Charlies number in case I wanted to get in touch with him, which I did after sitting here for a half an hour, shaking, Dorschied recalled.

Kitts mailed the diary that day, he said. It now sits on Dorschieds mantel next to a picture of her father.

She is planning to donate it and another diary her father kept, along with photos of Vincent and Leo, to the Fort Taber-Fort Rodman Military Museum in New Bedford, Mass.

Dorschied said she still talks to her new friend Charlie Kitts often. She is thankful to the man she calls Uncle Vincent for rescuing her fathers diary and preserving it all these years.

Its an incredible gift, she said. My dads come home again to me.
Flags placed for Memorial Day at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon, Calif. (Daniel Peterson/U.S. Air Force)

WASHINGTON  Rep. Mike Waltz introduced legislation on Tuesday calling on the Pentagon to cover costs to transport the remains of troops from hometown memorial services to national cemeteries.

As a combat veteran, I think we can agree that the Gold Star families of our fallen must be cared for by providing them the lifelong benefits worthy of their sacrifice upon the altar of freedom, Waltz, R-Fla., said in a statement. The intent of this benefit is to provide grieving families, friends and communities the dignity to honor their fallen heroes with a memorial service in their hometowns, before going to their final place of rest at a national cemetery.

The bill, which is called the Abbey Gate Gold Star Families Dignified Transport Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Cory Mills, R-Fla., builds on previous legislation by Waltz and Moulton. Prior to 2020, the Pentagon would only pay to transport remains to one location. If a family wanted to have a service in their hometown, the family would have to pay the transport costs for the burial at Arlington National Cemetery, Va.

The provision from Waltz and Moulton ended up in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that specifies the Defense Departments budget and expenditures. However, the law states families would be assisted with costs via reimbursement from the Pentagon.

The new legislation clarifies the intent of Congress by having the Defense Department cover the costs at the outset, to Arlington or another national cemetery, and reduce stress on the grieving families. Waltz, who served in the Army and National Guard, became aware of this issue after hearing about it directly from some of the Abbey Gate families, according to his staff.

The name of the bill recognizes the 13 service men and women who were killed in the Abbey Gate bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The withdrawal, which ended Aug. 31, 2021, concluded 20 years of war in Afghanistan for the United States.

Every U.S. service member signs a blank check, payable with their lives. When tragedy strikes and a service member does not return home, no grieving family should ever be saddled with a bill for a hometown memorial service, even if it will be later reimbursed, Moulton, a Marine veteran, said in a statement. The very least we can do for new members of the Gold Star community is to remove the initial stress of having to cover up-front costs. At an extremely difficult time, families deserve to focus only on saying goodbye.

Mills, an Army combat veteran, was elected to Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

The bill has been referred to the House Armed Services Committee.
Pakistan has received its first shipment of liquified petroleum gas from Russia, Moscows embassy in Islamabad said on Tuesday, marking Islamabads second major Russian energy purchase.

The shipment, which the embassy said was delivered with Iranian help, comes after Pakistan received its first-ever delivery of Russian crude under a deal struck between the two countries earlier this year.

Pakistan Gasport seeks countrys first spot LNG cargo in over a year

Russia delivered 100,000 metric tons to Pakistan through Irans Sarakhs Special Economic Zone, the Russian embassy said in a post on social media.

The embassy said consultations on a second shipment were under way. It did not provide details on Irans involvement, and it was not immediately clear how much the LPG cost or if it was discounted.

Second cargo carrying Russian crude oil arrives in Pakistan

Pakistan has said it had paid for the Russian crude in Chinese currency but the value of the deal was never disclosed.

Energy imports make up the majority of Pakistans external payments and discounted imports from Russia offer a respite as Islamabad faces an economic crisis with an acute balance of payments problem, risking a default on its external debt.
The caretaker government on Tuesday said under the constitution and prevalent electoral laws, all political parties had the equal right to participate in the general elections.

He categorically stated that the remarks of the caretaker prime minister during a recent interview to foreign media had been misunderstood and misreported.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in its official statement issued the original text from national news agency to clarify that Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar was plain speaking to suggest that whereas participating in the elections was a right, but retribution for crimes was legally warranted.

The ministry lamented that the interview had been twisted by some outlets to give the impression that someone will not be allowed to take part in the general elections.

The ministry drew attention to the following text of Prime Ministers interview:

We are not pursuing anyone on a personal vendetta, Kakar said. But yes, we will ensure that the law is appropriate. Anyone, be it Imran Khan or any other politician who violates, in terms of their political behavior, the laws of the country, then the restoration of the law has to be ensured. We cannot equate that with  political discrimination.

Kakar said fair elections can take place without Khan or hundreds of members of his party who are jailed because they engaged in unlawful activities including vandalism and arson, a reference to the violence that rocked the country following Khans initial arrest in May.

The caretaker prime minister added that the thousands of people in Khans party who didnt engage in unlawful activities, will be running the political process, they will be participating in the elections.

The Information Ministry reiterated in its statement that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its leaders are free to participate in the elections like any other party. It has been clarified that there is no impediment to contesting elections by any leader of PTI or the party as a whole.

The statement further added that every citizen is equal before law and the law will take its course with respect to any person currently facing legal charges. The courts are free and independent and the caretaker government has neither authority nor intention to influence the courts at any level.

It was further clarified that any person aggrieved by any order or ruling of a statutory or judicial forum has a constitutionally guaranteed right to approach the next forum in judicial hierarchy for relief.

The caretaker government is committed to holding free and fair elections.
In a significant step towards upcoming polls, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday published the lists of preliminary delimitation of constituencies.

Under the original delimitation schedule issued by the ECP on Aug 17  ten days after the notification of census results  the initial delimitation exercise was to be completed on Oct 7 and preliminary proposals for delimitation along with the report were to be published on Oct 9.

However, on Sept 1, the ECP had announced squeezing timelines of the delimitation exercise by 14 days to complete the process on Nov 30, instead of the scheduled Dec 14.

The completion of the delimitation brings ECP closer to holding polls by the last week of January, as planned by the body. A specific date for the elections is yet to be announced.

In a press release issued today, the ECP said the report of preliminary delimitation, along with the lists (Form 5), has been uploaded on the commissions website and can be accessed by the public. Maps of the initial delimitation are also available on the website.

The publication of the preliminary constituencies will continue for 30 days from Sept 27 to Oct 26, it said, highlighting that objections (representations) to the preliminary constituencies can be made by the voters of the concerned constituency.

The representations, the ECP stated, should be addressed to the commissions secretary and be submitted to the ECP Secretariat in Islamabad by Oct 27.

The ECP will take decisions on these representations from Oct 28 to Nov 26 after hearing the positions of from the respective parties, the press release said.

Listing the procedure of submitting the representations, the commission said it should be submitted by a voter of the concerned constituency in the form of a memorandum and entail the signatures of the voter. It said eight copies of the representations and constituency maps were required to be submitted.

It said the district maps can be obtained from the ECP for a small fee.

Representations by courier, post and fax etc. will not be accepted, the commission added.

Preliminary report of delimitation

Based on the initial delimitation, the population distribution in the National Assembly constituencies is as follows: Balochistan has 930,900 voters, followed by 913,052 voters in Sindh, 907,913 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 905,595 in Punjab, and 787,954 in Islamabad.

The National Assembly consists of 266 general seats and 60 seats reserved for women. Ten seats have also been reserved for non-Muslims.

In the provincial assembly constituencies, the figures show Punjab leads with a total population of 429,929, followed by Sindh with 428,432, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 355,270, and Balochistan with 292,047.

As per the report of delimitation, the share of seats in the national and provincial assemblies have been worked out on the basis of the final results of the 2023 census.

The population of the province/area has been divided by the total number of general seats and the average population or quota per National Assembly seat was obtained. Similarly, the population of a province was divided by the total number of general seats allocated to the provincial assembly to obtain a quota per seat.

In calculating the total number of seats, a fraction of 0.5 and above was generally taken as one seat and a fraction below 0.5 was ignored. Due to the peculiar situation in Balochistan, more than one district has been clubbed. Similarly, few clubbings have also been made in other provinces where necessary, it said.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that they have arrested five members of an Iran-backed cell who attempted to assassinate Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency said in a press release that the five suspects, including three Palestinians and two Arab-Israeli citizens, are in custody.

The five suspects acted "under directions and instructions" of an Iranian agent who lived in Jordan, according to the Shin Bet.

They carried out several attacks against Israeli property, including the torching of cars in the coastal city of Haifa in June and assisted in smuggling weapons into Israel, it added.

They also collected information about the security arrangements surrounding Ben-Gvir and Yehuda Glick, a former lawmaker and ultranationalist settler leader.

The five suspects have been indicted by the Haifa District Attorney and face a series of security charges. 
To read about this after their deaths has hurt me so much that I will never recover from it, Darren Coleman told the hearing.

Darren Coleman, husband of the late Nicola Keane, with Michelle Keane and her husband, James McKenzie

The tragic deaths of a mother and her baby boy could have been avoided if the concerns of medical staff about her mental health had been shared with her husband, an inquest has heard.

Darren Coleman told a sitting of Dublin District Coroners Court that he had endured a three-year wait as the only member of my family alive to speak to voice his concerns about the care his wife had received for post-natal depression and the lack of information he was given by her doctors about her condition.

The body of Mr Colemans wife, Nicola Keane  a 34-year-old paediatric nurse from Ballina, Co Mayo, was found off the M50 Westlink bridge in the early hours of October 22, 2020.

When Mr Coleman was woken a short time later by gardai who called to the couples home at Shackleton Way, Lucan, Co Dublin, he discovered their seven-month-old son, Henry, in an unresponsive state in a spare bedroom.

The baby boy was pronounced dead shortly after being brought to Childrens Health Ireland at Crumlin.

A jury of six females and one male returned a majority 6-1 verdict of medical misadventure in relation to Ms Keanes death.

The jury separately returned a unanimous narrative verdict in relation to baby Henry who they said had died from ingesting drugs which he had not been prescribed.

The jurors recommended that a post-natal depression programme should be built into ante-natal courses for both parents.

They also recommended the provision of mother and baby in-patient units in hospitals, if they were not already available.

Evidence was heard earlier that Ms Keane told doctors that she was concerned that she might do something because of her sons irritability and her fears they were not bonding, although she repeatedly denied any intention of suicide or harming her son.

On the second day of the inquest on Tuesday, Mr Coleman told the coroner, Crona Gallagher, that he had placed complete and utter trust in the professionals treating his wife.

He said it must have broken his wifes heart when doctors told the couple that he should not leave her alone with their son.

It completely hurt me to have to monitor the person I had been in a relationship with since I was 17 but I trusted the professionals, he observed.

Mr Coleman believed he should have been informed that his wifes medication had been increased twice around a month before her death as well as about any possible side-effects and that doctors had noted that she had delusional beliefs and depressive episodes.

To read about this after their deaths has hurt me so much that I will never recover from it, said Mr Coleman.

Darren Coleman, husband of the late Nicola Keane Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

The inquest heard Ms Keane had also gone almost two months without a clinical assessment shortly before her death.

Mr Coleman told the inquest that there were 12 days when his wife received no communication from her care team.

He believed he should have been informed that she had not answered her phone on three occasions during this period.

If I had been told even one piece of the information being withheld from me, I believe Henry and Nicola would not have died, he added.

Mr Coleman said he would have immediately taken leave from his teaching job and as hard as it would have been would have taken any necessary steps to have his wife admitted to hospital.

Henry was my focus and his safety was my priority. Nicola had a mental illness and should have been in a psychiatric hospital, he remarked.

Mr Coleman also observed: They allowed me to go to work every day knowing that she has been left alone with my child.

He pointed out that his wife was never asked during six meetings with medical carers before he returned to work if she had any suicidal thoughts or intention of harming their son.

However, Mr Coleman said she was asked that question during seven out of eight contacts after he had gone back teaching and he questioned why there was such an alarming shift.

Mr Coleman said he discovered the meaning of his life on the day his son was born.

It was just so special. I loved it and I loved him more than a person can describe, he told the inquest.

Mr Coleman said he was an extremely private person who had waited for the inquest to have his opinion heard and listened to.

Today is for me. Today is for Henry. Today is for Nicola, said Mr Coleman.

He said he cried for the first time on July 7, 2020 when he feared his son might be taken from them after Ms Keane told a psychiatrist about a lack of a bond with her baby.

He recalled that she also stated that she would be happy if she didnt wake up.

However, he said they were reassured by the psychiatrist, Elena Perez, that 1 in 4 women suffered from post-natal depression.

Mr Coleman said he was really annoyed at the meeting when it was suggested to him that he must start doing more.

He described how he was told during a home visit by a mental health nurse three days later that he should not leave his wife alone with the baby.

As a result, Mr Coleman said he would stand outside the bathroom when she would be giving their son a bath.

He recalled stressing to doctors at another appointment in August 2020 that he was returning to his teaching job in two weeks but that they never mentioned any worries about this.

Darren Coleman, husband of the late Nicola Keane, with Michelle Keane and her husband, James McKenzie

He also expressed surprise that his wifes medication was being increased at a time when an improvement had been noticed in her condition.

Mr Coleman said the only time his wife was upset and annoyed was when she was given an information sheet on helpful thinking styles in September 2020 as she could not understand how that was the way of helping her.

He recalled how the weeks before the death of his wife and son were all about the future with plans for Henrys christening and booking a short family holiday and looking forward to Christmas.

A paediatric psychologist at CHI Crumlin, Aoife Twohig, told the inquest that she had arranged an urgent psychiatric review of Ms Keane in July 2020 because of her concerns about Ms Keanes mental health.

In other evidence, Dr Perez said she assessed the risk with Ms Keane on the last occasion she saw her about a fortnight before her death as extremely low as she was improving.

Asked by counsel for Mr Coleman, Sara Antoniotti SC, why Ms Keane was not referred to perinatal mental health services, Dr Perez said the deceased had been responding to treatment.

We felt we were on the right pathway and doing what we needed to do, she replied.

The psychiatrist, who broke down after leaving the witness box, confirmed that Ms Keane had never asked her not to pass information to her husband.

She could not recall if she had ever considered contacting Mr Coleman herself about him returning to work.

Asked by Dr Gallagher if it was possible that increasing Ms Keanes dosage of an anti-depressant with serious side-effects had increased the risk of suicide or harming her son, Dr Perez replied: I dont think so.

Assistant State Pathologist, Margot Bolster, said a postmortem showed that Ms Keane suffered multiple fractures which were injuries consistent with a fall from a height, while death would have been instantaneous.

Dr Bolster said alcohol and drugs had played no role in her death.

The pathologist said the lack of drugs in Ms Keanes body meant she had not taken her prescribed medication for up to 20 hours before her death.

Dr Bolster said an autopsy on the baby revealed he had a lethal level for adults of an anti-psychotic drug (that had been prescribed for Ms Keane) which in combination with a sedative had caused his death.

She said it was impossible to say if the baby had been given an intentional overdose.

The inquest heard CCTV footage captured Ms Keane driving her Ford Fiesta across the M50 toll bridge as far as the Red Cow junction and returning back over the bridge and doubling back again.

Detective Inspector Brian Hanley said a text message was sent by Ms Keane to her husband around the first time she drove over the bridge at 3.12am.

The coroner said the message contained Ms Keanes worry that she had harmed her son even before he was born and that he deserved a better life but it was too late as there was nothing to be done.

Dr Gallagher said it was clear that the deceased had a very hopeless state of mind.

Det Insp Hanley said most of the message had been composed over five weeks earlier.

He said gardai believed there had been a deliberate act to give drugs to the baby but he could not say what Ms Keane intended in doing so.

In a closing submission, Ms Antoniotti said Ms Keanes son would not have died if she had received treatment in a hospital, while his death was also linked to the failure of doctors to discuss the risk to the baby with her husband.

Ms Antoniotti said Ms Keane was clearly mentally unwell with fixed false beliefs.

At the conclusion of the inquest solicitor for the HSE and CHI Crumlin, Simon Mills SC, said a number of verdicts were possible but not medical misadventure as suggested by Ms Antoniotti.

At the conclusion, solicitor for the HSE and CHI Crumlin, David Hickey, expressed sincere and heartfelt condolences to the Coleman and Keane families.

 If you are affected by any issue in this article, please contact Pieta House on 1800-247247 or the Samaritans can be contacted 24/7 on freephone 116 123 or e-mail jo@samaritans.ie
Martin Pearce Ward was handed a six-month prison sentence and was banned from driving for two years

A Belfast man with over 100 previous convictions for motoring offences was jailed yesterday for getting behind the wheel whilst banned.

Martin Pearce Ward appeared at Belfast Crown Court where he was sentenced for two motoring offences and a drugs charge.

The 45-year old, from Crumlin Road in the north of the city, was handed a six-month prison sentence and was banned from driving for two years.

Before he imposed the sentence, Judge Mark Reel was told by Crown barrister Rosemary Walsh that the offences occurred on May 30, 2022.

Ms Walsh said on that date, Ward arrived at the Belfast home of a friend, having driven there in a Ford Transit van.

Whilst in his friend's house, he dropped a small quantity of cannabis on her floor.

When Ward left her home in the early hours, she contacted the PSNI and he was subsequently arrested.

Ms Walsh said it wasn't known where he went after leaving the property - but said he had been driving the van when he was disqualified from driving.

She told Judge Reel that Ward had a 10-year driving ban imposed in June 2017 and the aggravating factor in the May 2022 case was his extensive criminal record.

Defence barrister Stephen Toal described Ward as an isolated man with no family support.

The barrister revealed that Ward was awarded a compensation pay-out when he was 18 and as he was "not capable" of dealing with that amount of money he was "taken advantage of" and "became involved with drink and drugs, and that has never really stopped."

Regarding last May's offending, Mr Toal said Ward had been drinking and taking drugs to try and deal with an incident in his life.

He added the offending was "spur of moment, when a person with severe mental health difficulties is not thinking rationally and makes a foolish mistake."

Ward subsequently pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified, driving with no insurance and possessing cannabis.

As he sentenced Ward, Judge Reel told him: "I have no doubt you were aware you were disqualified when you carried out this offence and you knew what the result of that would be.

"You should be aware that if you go back out and drive whilst disqualified again, the likelihood is that you will find increasing periods of imprisonment each time."
Paul Beirnes (51) is accused of assaulting and injuring the man in an incident on Dublins quays

A man suffered head injuries that would have been potentially life-threatening had he not received medical treatment after a street attack, it is alleged.

Paul Beirnes (51) is accused of assaulting and injuring the man in an incident on Dublins quays.

He was granted bail and the case was adjourned when he appeared in Dublin District Court.

Mr Beirnes, with an address at a city centre hostel, is charged with assault causing harm to a man at Custom House Quay on September 23.

Objecting to bail, a garda said it was a serious incident and the alleged victim suffered deep lacerations to the back of his head. The injuries required medical attention and he was treated at the Mater Hospital.

They were potentially life threatening at one stage, the garda said, adding that only for medical care the outcome could have been different.

It was expected there would be further charges.

Applying for bail, defence solicitor Luke Staines said the accused would be staying in a hotel close to Store Street garda station and could sign on there.

Judge Bryan Smyth set bail to include an independent surety of 600, half of which must be lodged in cash or 400 cash in lieu.

Mr Beirnes must sign on daily at Store Street station, have no contact with the alleged victim and stay away from Custom House Quay and the Liffey boardwalk.

The accused was on jobseekers allowance and his surety had no access to cash yet, Mr Staines said.

Judge Smyth remanded Mr Beirnes in custody with consent to bail to appear in Cloverhill District Court on Thursday.
Depending on the purity of the suspected drugs, this has the potential to be one of the biggest ever drug seizures in the history of the State

It is suspected a haul of well over 100m worth of cocaine was hidden on a cargo ship which was raided in dramatic fashion off the Irish coast yesterday.

It is believed the Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel acted as the mother ship that supplied a trawler that ran aground off Co Wexford on Sunday.

The ship arrived in Cork Port last night and gardai should have an exact figure on the amount of drugs on board later today after an examination is carried out by them and customs officers.

Depending on the purity of the suspected drugs, this has the potential to be one of the biggest ever drug seizures in the history of the State  100m might be an undervaluation, a source said last night.

The suspected mother ship  the MV Matthew which originated in South America  will now have its interior hold dismantled by garda forensic and technical experts to determine if it had carried cocaine across the Atlantic and into Irish waters.

Last night three men  aged 60, 50 and 31  were in garda custody in Wexford.

One of the suspects was arrested on the mother ship, according to sources, and he was the only crew member arrested during yesterdays early-morning raid off the south-east coast.

The dramatic operation involved the Army Ranger Wing, members of the Irish Navy, armed gardai and customs officers.

Military personnel onboard the MV Matthew as it was escorted into Cobh. Photo: PA

The vessel was attempting to leave Irish waters when it was intercepted.

It is understood that a Naval Service vessel had to fire warning shots to stop the ship, and it was eventually boarded by an armed party from the elite Army Ranger Wing before an arrest was made.

A number of other crew members onboard were not arrested as they are not thought to have had any knowledge of the suspected drug-smuggling and distribution racket.

The 22-year-old Panamanian freighter left the Caribbean on August 18.

It is understood the 28,000-tonne ship was operating for a time in South America under a different name, MV Honmon.

On August 18, the ship left waters off Venezuela and was last reported at Willemstad, the capital of Curacao.

The MV Matthew is escorted into Cobh. Photo: PA

The freighter crossed the Atlantic and then spent over a week in waters near the Canary Islands.

It then skirted Spain and France before heading towards Ireland and the UK, finally entering Irish waters off the Cork coast.

The ship issued an emergency alert to the Irish authorities indicating that its captain had been injured in a serious fall onboard and required medical attention.

Bizarrely, over the past 48 hours it signalled it was also having engine trouble and required maintenance work in Cork Port.

Members of the Irish Army Ranger Wing as the MV Matthew is escorted to Cobh. Photo: PA

However, the vessel then abruptly headed towards international waters at high speed on Monday before it was intercepted by the Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing members in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The dramatic raid on the mother ship happened just over 24 hours after a trawler which had been the focus of a special operation targeting cocaine distribution was discovered off the coast of Blackwater, Co Wexford.

The container ship appears to be the supply vessel for the trawler that ran aground in Co Wexford on Sunday, a source said.

Two male suspects who have been described as incompetent sailors spent almost 24 hours on a sandbank off the Co Wexford coast while their trawler was battered by rough seas.

Gardai believe that the time spent before emergency services arrived could have given the pair ample time to discard any suspected cocaine they had in their vessel which is being described as very badly damaged and almost completely broken up.

No trace of any drugs has been found despite two days of a major search operation involving gardai, the Naval Service, Revenue and Customs, the Irish Coast Guard and the Air Corps in the Irish Sea near Blackwater.

Sea conditions were very bad and they are lucky to be alive

The State security agencies now face a major race against time to retrieve any potential cocaine bales off Co Wexford  with the operation set to be hampered by the imminent arrival of Storm Agnes, which is to be particularly forceful in the south-east, with gusts of up to 130kmh forecast.

The two men were arrested under anti-gangland legislation and at least one of them was treated in a hospital in the south-east yesterday where he was monitored by armed gardai.

It is understood that last night he was back in garda custody.

They were stuck on that sandbank for up to 24 hours and both are not in great health because of this  sea conditions were very bad and they are lucky to be alive, a source told the Irish Independent last night.

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter hovers above a stranded boat off the coast of Blackwater, Wexford. Photo: PA

The boat they were travelling in had been the focus of a joint surveillance operation for at least two days before it got wedged on the sandbank on Sunday, and it is important to emphasise that the purpose of this was to establish what was on board the vessel.

The suspects, who can be held in garda custody for up to a week once they are medically fit to be interviewed by officers, are a UK national and an Eastern European man who is understood to have been living in England.

The boat they were travelling in had been tracked by the Irish navy before it became stricken.

One of them looked like he had never been on a boat before

Weather conditions so far have made it impossible to access the boat, land a search team on it or tow the trawler to shore.

Security officials have described a scene of utter chaos and incompetence on board the trawler before it ran aground.

Authorities became aware at 11.30pm on Sunday that the trawler  which had been purchased in Castletownbere in west Cork just days earlier  ran onto a sandbank off Blackwater, Co Wexford, but it had been stuck there for many hours before this.

The stranded trawler off the coast of Blackwater, Wexford. Photo: PA

It has now emerged that the men identified themselves as fishermen in west Cork when purchasing an old trawler which had been in dock and for sale for some time.

However, as locals watched the men prepare to take the trawler to sea on Friday, their suspicions were piqued.

They certainly didnt look like fishermen as they handled the boat  it looked as if they hadnt a notion what they were doing, one local said.

One of them looked like he had never been on a boat before.
We exposed William Gracey for the first time back in May

A remorseless heroin dealer - once shot by the Provos 30 years ago for drugs  has been smacked with ten more months on top of a ten-year jail sentence this week.

Antrim drug pusher William Gracey is already languishing in a prison in Liverpool after he was sentenced earlier this year to ten-and-a-half years for dealing huge amounts of heroin.

We exposed him for the first time back in May after it emerged he was a leading member of a massive Scouse drugs gang.

Now we can reveal while he was awaiting trial for being caught with ten kilos of deadly smack in Merseyside he was also facing a trial for dealing smack and cocaine in Co Antrim.

The 45-year-old appeared at Antrim Crown Court on Tuesday by videolnk from HMP Garth, just outside Preston, where Judge Alistair Devlin told Gracey he had to serve his sentence consecutive to the stretch hes already doing.

He told Gracey that was because he had committed the offences in Liverpool while on bail for drug offences in Northern Ireland.

Gracey, from Altmore Close in Antrim, had earlier entered guilty pleas to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin, both class A drugs, simple possession of cannabis and possessing class C drugs bromazolam and diazepam.

Prosecuting counsel Suzanne Gallagher told the court how those offences arose on 29 August last year when cops saw a white Mercedes van at the Nutts Corner roundabout.

The van pulled into a lay-by and when Gracey got out of the passenger seat, cops saw him throw a package over his shoulder into the field behind him.

She outlined how he told cops he had kicked a package of cannabis under the van and when officer retrieved the package from the field, it was found to contain three wraps of heroin and cocaine.

Gracey was searched and he was found to have 1,000 in his pocket and Ms Gallagher told the court when his home was searched, cops found boxes of prescription drugs and five empty deal bags containing traces of cocaine but also Graceys DNA.

The package from the field was also found to have Graceys DNA on it but the court heard that the supply offences were made out from text messages and social media private messages found on two of Graceys mobile phones seized from his home.

William Gracey relocated to Liverpool from Antrim

Arrested and interviewed Gracey refused to answer police questions and he was freed on bail but it was while on bail the dealer relocated himself to Liverpool and cops scooped him for having a whopping ten kilos of heroin.

Merseyside Police told the Sunday World back in May a huge stash of heroin was found in a cupboard in Graceys Liverpool flat in February.

They told us: At around 1am on Wednesday 8th February 2023, a warrant was executed on a flat on Tithebarn Street in Liverpool city centre.

Officers conducted a search of the address and found 10 kilograms of heroin hidden in a cupboard.

William Gracey, 45 years, of Altmore Close, Antrim, Northern Ireland was charged with possession with intent to supply Class A (heroin and diamorphine) and B drugs (cannabis). He was remanded into custody.

He pleaded guilty at a court hearing at Liverpool Crown Court and on Monday 24th April Gracey was sentenced to 10 years and six months years in prison.

But we can reveal Gracey has form for working with Liverpool drug gangs and had been living between Antrim and Liverpool for over a decade.

He was convicted and jailed in 2015 at Belfast Crown Court after he was part of a plot to smuggle huge quantities of cocaine into Northern Ireland from England.

The shameless dealer was caught in 2013 with 100,000 worth of cocaine but the case stood out after it emerged a female drug mule had concealed half of the massive stash in her body.

The court was told the woman, who had travelled to Belfast on the Liverpool ferry with the drugs stashed inside her, was lucky to have survived as the package of coke had burst inside her.

Gracey was arrested and charged along with two other men and a woman after police swooped on a house in the town's Greystone area in 2013.

Apart from Gracey, all of the other suspects were from Liverpool and they all travelled on the ferry before Gracey took them to an address in Antrim, where the drugs were discovered.

The court heard that one package was discovered in the property and a second hidden inside the 42-year-old woman.

Prosecution counsel said: "When hospital staff removed the drugs from her the package was literally about to open and she could have been in some danger."

Gracey was the mastermind behind the smuggling operation according to police.

We revealed how Gracey was once shot by the IRA in the early 90s for dealing drugs.

Sources in Antrim who knew him well said he told everyone he was shot in the leg because he was a Protestant and he was seeing a Catholic from the nationalist north Belfast area, Ardoyne.

Truth was he was shot for dealing drugs back in the 90s, said a source. He was a low-level dealer back then but hes clearly climbed up the ladder to have got ten years in England.

The Provos shot him in the leg and warned him not to be dealing drugs in nationalist areas again.

But despite a number of convictions for dealing drugs Gracey has continued to ply his trade selling deadly illegal drugs and specialised in trafficking heroin and cocaine.

Sources told the Sunday World Gracey was believed to be one of Merseysides biggest heroin smugglers.

The Merseyside Police have been after Gracey for years and couldnt believe their luck when they found 10k of smack in his flat, said a source.

He was caught bang-to-rights. They only found the heroin three months ago and hes already held his hands up and started a lengthy jail term but no doubt he wont learn his lesson this time either.

They are delighted to have him off the streets of Liverpool. He deserves to be locked up for a long, long time.

Steven.moore@sundayworld.com

Ends.
Philip Kirk entered guilty pleas to 12 charges of possessing indecent photographs of children.

One of the youngest ever defendants to be classified as a dangerous pervert was handed an extended custodial sentence today - his second in less than a year.

Imposing a one year jail sentence and an extension period of 18 months on licence, Judge Alastair Devlin told Philip Kirk that given the catalogue of sex offences he had committed since the age of 16, its hardly surprising the probation board have assessed you as a dangerous offender.

The Antrim Crown Court judge said the downloading and possessing of images should not be regarded by you or anyone else as a victimless crime.

If not for the market of appalling material, a market in which you and others participate in, vulnerable children both here and across the world would simply not be subjected to exploitation and sexual degradation, the judge told Kirk.

At an earlier hearing Kirk, originally from Broughshane but now with an address at a probation run hostel in Belfast, entered guilty pleas to 12 charges of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Before the case was called Kirk, who appeared by videolink from Hydebank YOC, was seen smiling, laughing and joking as he waited for his case to be called but as Judge Devlin rehearsing the facts of his offending, he became less animated.

The judge outlined that on 14 August 2020 and on foot of information that an email address linked to him had uploaded an indecent image, police searched Kirks home and seized a mobile phone.

When that phone was examined, officers uncovered 258 indecent images of children including 32 category A images which, according to legal guidelines, depict children involved in penetrative sexual acts including rape.

The examination also uncovered however that Kirk had 23 category C images of a girl who police were able to identify and take a statement from, establishing that she was just 12-years-old at the time.

Arrested and interviewed, Kirk made admissions to having sent and received photos to the identified victim, claiming they were in a relationship at the time prior to the phone being seized but when police probed this he made "No comment" answers to further questions.

Turning to Kirks criminal record Judge Devlin recounted that despite being only 21-years-old, he had already amassed 26 convictions all of which were sex offences with his first coming when he was just 16.

The pre-sentence report recounts that despite a range of increasingly severe sanctions from the courts, along external controls such as licence conditions, sexual offences prevention orders and probation orders, his risk has not been reduced or effectively managed.

One of those sanctions came at the same courthouse last November when Kirk was jailed for two years and given an extra three years on licence for a total of nine sex offences including two counts of breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, three of having indecent images of a child and single offences of sexual communication with a child, inciting child sexual activity and intentionally encouraging or assisting in the distribution of a indecent image of a child, all committed over two days on 1 and 2 June 2021.

In that case, Kirk exchanged more than 200 snapchat messages with a 13-year-old disabled girl where he started by asking her for images of herself but developed into the creep instructing her to perform sex acts on herself, to video it and to send him the recordings.

The court heard then that Kirk was first accused of engaging in sexually harmful behaviour at school by a 14-year-old pupil and although unsubstantiated, that had lead to Kirk being tutored for two hours a day, constantly under supervision, leaving him spending lots of time in his bedroom, alone, listening to music or going online and watching pornography.

In 2017, a 15-year-old girl accused Kirk of sexually assaulting her and although that was not proceeded with, investigators discovered indecent images of children.

Chillingly, a further investigation uncovered that Kirk had gained access to a Snapchat group of primary school children, asking three girls aged eight-13 for naked photos.

While undergoing therapeutic intervention, the authorities discovered that Kirk had infiltrated the group a second time and was again preying on one of the same young schoolgirls, asking her for photos and videos of herself.

When Kirk was 17 he was convicted of inciting child sexual activity and having indecent images of a child and it was those convictions which lead to the SOPO.

According to a report from a consultant psychiatrist, Kirk maintained that he has no sexual interest in children but rather is an impulsive person, rejects authority and isnt going to be told what he could or should do.

In court today Judge Devlin said while he had not been provided with a victim impact statement from the girl who had been identified, cases involving indecent images of children undoubtedly cause harm.

In addition to the jail sentence and extended period on licence, the judge also ordered Kirk to sign the police sex offenders register for the rest of his life and imposed a seven year sexual offences prevention order.
A US woman charged with importing cannabis worth 450,000 on a flight from Los Angeles to Dublin Airport deferred her bail application today and has remains in prison.

Mother of one, Adrianne St Clair (30) of Denker Avenue, Los Angeles, was arrested on Friday after 22.5 kilos of suspected cannabis was discovered at Terminal 2 when revenue officers and detector dog, Blue, stopped and searched the baggage.

Ms St Clair was held in custody on Saturday and appeared at Dublin District Court today.

She has been charged with unlawful importation and possession of cannabis and having it with intent to supply, contrary to the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Defence solicitor Paddy McGarry told Judge Treasa Kelly that his client has decided to defer her bail application for two weeks.

Judge Kelly remanded her in prison to appear again on October 11.

The court had heard she made "no reply" when charged and was reserving her position on bail but is keen to move this matter on.

She faces a Garda objection to bail.

Ms St Clair has been granted legal aid after the court she has no means in this country. The woman has yet to indicate a plea, and gardai must obtain directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions.
She was held in custody following her unsuccessful bail application at Dublin District Court on Saturday.

A WOMAN accused of spraying an unknown chemical substance to "temporarily blind" a Dublin garda has been further remanded in custody pending possible extra charges.

Frances Harrison, 31, with an address at College Hill, Terenure, Dublin, was charged with assaulting the officer at Basin Street flats in the south inner city during the incident on the night of September 21.

She is also accused of a connected offence of being a passenger in a stolen rental GoCar car on the same date.

She was held in custody following her unsuccessful bail application at Dublin District Court on Saturday.

The accused faced her second court appearance today when Judge Treasa Kelly noted that potential further charges were pending.

Ms Harrison's solicitor, Eddie O'Connor, said her client contested to a four-week adjournment.

Judge Kelly remanded her in continuing custody to appear again on October 25 for directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Earlier, Garda Sergeant Hugh O'Carroll alleged the incident happened at 9.45 p.m. after GoCar notified gardai that a tracking device had been removed from one of their cars.

Two gardai observed it at Basin Street flats "driven at speed with no lights," and the tracking device was on the side of the road.

The sergeant alleged the accused was identified at the scene by the officers and from mobile phone footage circulated on social media.

The sergeant said there was also CCTV footage from the area. He alleged she had been a passenger in the car before it stopped.

The sergeant said the two officers were trying to arrest the driver when the accused allegedly "sprayed an unknown chemical substance".

The court heard both gardai were injured, one "temporarily blind" after the chemical was sprayed into his eyes.

He must go to a follow-up appointment with an eye specialist.

The contested bail hearing was told, "a number of locals came out to intimidate gardai", and the driver escaped. More gardai arrived after an urgent call for assistance.

The sergeant accepted that she had not rented the vehicle and did not drive the car.

The defence said Ms Harrison, who has been allowed free legal aid, maintains her innocence and "says she had obviously nothing to do with it, that there were other people there, and it was not her involved in this incident".

Gardai are to recommend to the DPP that the case should be dealt with on indictment at a higher level with greater sentencing powers.
Detectives are now investigating if Kinahan Cartel or their European Super-Cartel allies were involved in the drugs shipment.

The cargo vessel MV Matthew is escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish navy (Niall Carson/PA)

Military personnel onboard the MV Matthew as it was escorted into Cobh. Photo: PA

The value of the huge cocaine haul seized off a vessel off the coast of Ireland is now estimated to be 157 million, the Sunday World can reveal.

The ship arrived in Cork Port last night as gardai continue their investigation into one of the biggest drugs hauls in the history of the State.

The Sunday World can reveal that the cocaine was discovered hidden on a life raft on the Panamanian-registered bulk cargo vessel.

It is believed there was an attempt to dump the drugs as members of the Irish Army Ranger Wing boarded the vessel.

Initially, gardai believed the haul was worth close to 100 million but that has now been revised upwards due to the purity of the haul.

The cargo vessel MV Matthew is escorted into Cobh in Cork by the Irish navy (Niall Carson/PA)

Speaking to the media at an operational briefing, Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly described the action as hugely significant.

Mr Kelly, from the Organised and Serious Crime Unit, said: It shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks, which are determined to bring drugs into our country.

These groups are transnational groups. They are working all across the world and, because of that, we need to work with our international partners.

We can also reveal that detectives are now investigating if Kinahan Cartel or their European Super-Cartel allies were involved in the drugs shipment.

The Kinahan mob have a long-standing alliances gangs across Europe, dubbed the Super-Cartel, and they regularly pool their resources to buy cocaine in bulk.

Three men  aged 60, 50 and 31  remain in custody this morning as garda forensic and technical experts continue to dismantle the interior of the vessel.

Daniel Kinahan

It appears, at this stage, the Mothership had no other cargo and was described as empty.

Commander Tony Geraghty, fleet operations officer of the Irish Naval Service, said: There was an extremely complex joint operation involving the Naval Service, the Air Corps, the Army Ranger Wing and Defense Force headquarters.

And then it was even more complex by environmentals that we had no control over. The weather was extremely poor.

And also we were trying to predict the the actions of the number of crime gangs and how that would impact on us.

It was very successful from a Defense Force point of view, it showed the ability we have to operate in the joint environment.

Commander Geraghty said warning shots were fired at the cargo vessel prior to the boarding operation.

The merchant ship refused to follow the instructions of our own ship.

So this was prior to the insertion of the Army Ranger Wing.

There was an escalated use of force used to compel the vessel to follow the instructions of the ships captain, he said.

Asked if they believed any cocaine had left the ship before the insertion, Assistant Commissioner Kelly said he was not able to comment on that as three people were in custody.

One of the arrested men, who was taken into custody on the Mother Ship is from the Middle East, while a Ukrainian and a UK national are also in garda custody.

The dramatic operation involved the Army Ranger Wing, members of the Irish Navy, armed gardai and customs officers.

The vessel was attempting to leave Irish waters when it was intercepted.

It is understood that a Naval Service vessel had to fire warning shots to stop the ship, and it was eventually boarded by an armed party from the elite Army Ranger Wing before an arrest was made.

A number of other crew members onboard were not arrested as they are not thought to have had any knowledge of the suspected drug-smuggling and distribution racket.

The 22-year-old Panamanian freighter left the Caribbean on August 18.

It is understood the 28,000-tonne ship was operating for a time in South America under a different name, MV Honmon.

On August 18, the ship left waters off Venezuela and was last reported at Willemstad, the capital of Curacao.

The freighter crossed the Atlantic and then spent over a week in waters near the Canary Islands.

It then skirted Spain and France before heading towards Ireland and the UK, finally entering Irish waters off the Cork coast.

Army Rangers rappel from helicopter onto suspected drugs 'mothership'

The ship issued an emergency alert to the Irish authorities indicating that its captain had been injured in a serious fall onboard and required medical attention.

Bizarrely, over the past 48 hours it signalled it was also having engine trouble and required maintenance work in Cork Port.

However, the vessel then abruptly headed towards international waters at high speed on Monday before it was intercepted by the Naval Service and Army Ranger Wing members in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The dramatic raid on the mother ship happened just over 24 hours after a trawler which had been the focus of a special operation targeting cocaine distribution was discovered off the coast of Blackwater, Co Wexford.

The container ship appears to be the supply vessel for the trawler that ran aground in Co Wexford on Sunday, a source said.

Two male suspects who have been described as incompetent sailors spent almost 24 hours on a sandbank off the Co Wexford coast while their trawler was battered by rough seas.

Gardai believe that the time spent before emergency services arrived could have given the pair ample time to discard any suspected cocaine they had in their vessel which is being described as very badly damaged and almost completely broken up.

No trace of any drugs has been found despite two days of a major search operation involving gardai, the Naval Service, Revenue and Customs, the Irish Coast Guard and the Air Corps in the Irish Sea near Blackwater.

The State security agencies now face a major race against time to retrieve any potential cocaine bales off Co Wexford  with the operation set to be hampered by the imminent arrival of Storm Agnes, which is to be particularly forceful in the south-east, with gusts of up to 130kmh forecast.
John McCartin has endured a horrific campaign of intimidation and threats in the wake of Quinn losing control of his companies

One of two former Quinn executives who Sean Quinn said he would rather see beaten up has confirmed he and his fellow directors are assisting gardai as they probe the former billionaires comments.

John McCartin, who has endured a horrific campaign of intimidation and threats in the wake of Quinn losing control of his companies, told us: We have faith in the gardai.

And we will help in any way we can.

The garda investigation into the comments made by Quinn on Newstalk last week is focused on establishing if his words crossed the threshold of incitement to violence, a source said.

The inquiry was launched after Quinn, in an interview with Kieran Cuddihy, said he would have rather see two other directors at his former company beaten up instead of Kevin Lunney, who was abducted and tortured in 2019.

In the interview with The Hard Shoulder, Mr Quinn denied that he was involved in the kidnapping and torture of Kevin Lunney in 2019.

He said if he was involved, he would not have chosen to abduct Kevin Lunney.

Certainly, if Sean Quinn wanted somebody to be kidnapped in Derrylin  and its something that would never, ever cross my mind, or anybody that belonged to me  the Quinns are not that type of people, he said.

But if we did feel that somebody should be beaten up or whatever it might be, it certainly wouldnt be Kevin Lunney.

Itd be people at a higher level than Kevin Lunney.

If youre asking me if I would rather see Liam McCaffrey or John McCartin beaten up, the answer is yes.

Former exec John McCartin

Gardai in Cavan and Monaghan later launched a probe into the comments to examine whether they could be construed as inciting violence against the men by Quinn supporters.

As part of the probe, both Mr McCartin and Mr McCaffrey were interviewed by members of a specialist team based in Cavan and Monaghan who are involved in an ongoing investigation to identify the so-called paymaster behind the abduction and torture of Kevin Lunney.

Mr Lunney and his fellow former Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) colleagues, Mr McCaffrey and Mr McCartin, are currently senior executives in Mannok Holdings, a company under which a number of the former Quinn businesses now operate.

The violent campaign was organised by the now-deceased criminal Cyril Dublin Jimmy McGuinness.

Kevin Lunney was held and tortured

Gardai believe he organised the abduction of Mr Lunney close to his home in Derrylin, south Fermanagh, in 2019.

Mr Lunney was tortured before being released with very serious injuries, but survived.

A number of men were later convicted for their roles in the abduction but the Mannok executives have always believed a more senior figure, dubbed The Paymaster, had effectively orchestrated or funded the campaign of intimidation and violence.

The two Mannok directors named by Mr Quinn in the Newstalk interview, along with Kevin Lunney, his brother Tony and Dara OReilly, are still classified by police as being at risk of attack from individuals determined to restore the former billionaire to his throne.

Sean Quinn has denied he is the paymaster and, in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph published on Monday, said he doesnt believe such a person even exists.

There is no paymaster, he said. I dont know where this idea came from, I genuinely dont, he said.
SHENZHEN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- China has the second largest number of nuclear power units in operation or under construction in the world, according to the China Nuclear Energy Association.

The Chinese mainland has 55 nuclear power units in operation with a combined installed capacity of 57 GW, and 24 units under construction with a total installed capacity of 27.8 GW, Wang Binghua, an official with the association, told a meeting in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, earlier this week.

The Chinese mainland has approved 21 new nuclear power units since 2021, said Wang, adding that six to eight nuclear power units are expected to be greenlighted annually within the forseeable future.

Nuclear power is expected to contribute about 10 percent of the power generation in the Chinese mainland by 2035 and the proportion is expected to rise to 18 percent by 2060, with a total generation capacity of 400 GW, as the country strives to meet its carbon neutrality goal, Wang said. 
Harrowing cases of missing children are pushed back under spotlight by film

The Lost Boys documentary will be shown in Belfast and Dublin in the coming days

Ed Stobart (left) and Des Henderson, the makers of the Lost Boys documentary

William McGrath was jailed in 1981 for abusing boys at Kincora Boys Home

Kincora Boys' Home in east Belfast, where dozens of boys were abused over three decades, has been demolished. At least 29 boys were abused at the site on the Newtownards Road from the 1950s to the 1980s.

VICTIMS: Brian McDermott (centre) was killed, while (from left) Thomas Spence, John Rodgers, David Leckey and Jonathan Aven were never found

Kincora Boys Home in east Belfast  where at least 29 boys were abused  was demolished last year

Brian McDermott (centre) was killed, while (from left) Thomas Spence, John Rodgers, David Leckey and Jonathan Aven were never found.

Time is running out to uncover the full horror of the child abuse which happened at the Kincora boys home in Belfast.

That's the stark warning from the makers of a new documentary which links the forgotten disappearance of four young boys to a paedophile ring which operated from the notorious care home.

Lost Boys: Belfasts Missing Children explores the mystery behind the boys disappearance in the 1960s and 1970s.

Evidence revealed in the documentary suggests they were abducted by members of the Kincora paedophile ring  many of whom are now dead.

Kincora Boys Home in east Belfast  where at least 29 boys were abused  was demolished last year

At least 29 boys were abused at the east Belfast home  which was demolished last year  from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Three members of staff at Kincora  William McGrath, Raymond Semple and Joseph Mains  were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys.

However, it is believed the full truth of the horrific crimes committed within the home  and by those associated with it  has still to be told.

Earlier this year, in an interview with the Sunday World, former Kincora resident Arthur Smyth claimed he was sexually abused in the home in 1977 when he was just 11. He said the perpetrator was the Queens cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten.

It is alleged British intelligence services protected those involved in the abuse at Kincora because some were MI5 agents.

William McGrath was jailed in 1981 for abusing boys at Kincora Boys Home

Des Henderson, the writer and director of the Lost Boys documentary, is now working on another film into the Kincora scandal.

Kincora is a much bigger story and deserves a feature length documentary of its own, he said.

I would say we have around 300 hours of interviews and witness statements from people who are no longer with us.

He is hoping the Lost Boys documentary will help uncover more evidence.

I am already seeing comments from the trailer on Facebook from people who potentially might have new information so I am hoping when people see this film, new information might come out, even 50 years later.

It is very hard to penetrate this kind of stuff, but this might just spark a memory for someone.

I think it is really important we get these testimonies before people die.

Ed Stobart (left) and Des Henderson, the makers of the Lost Boys documentary

The Lost Boys documentary, which will be premiered in Dublin and Belfast in the coming days, sheds new light on one of the darkest chapters of Northern Irelands recent history.

Friends Thomas Spence, 11, and John Rodgers, 13, were last seen together at a bus stop on the Falls Road in Belfast on November 26, 1974. Five years earlier, in the east of the city, friends David Leckey, 12, and Jonathan Aven, 14, disappeared.

There have been no traces of the boys since  but they are all believed to have been abducted for a sexual motive and then killed, according to a criminologist who studied the cases for the new documentary.

Their disappearances have also been linked to the murder of 11-year-old Brian McDermott in Belfast in 1973. Brians burnt and mutilated body was found in a sack in the River Lagan.

In 2001, extensive searches were carried out at two houses in Rodney Drive in west Belfast in connection with the disappearance of Thomas and John.

However, nothing was found and no-one has ever been charged in connection with the disappearance of any of the boys or Brian McDermotts murder.

Between 1969 and 1974, more than 1,000 people were killed in the Troubles. In the midst of this horror, the boys disappearance received little media attention.

Henderson said the boys and their families had been failed by the state.

Even now, if you go on the PSNIs missing persons website, none of the boys are listed. They have been completely forgotten about, he said.

The boys families were scratching around in the dirt looking for any kinds of leads and I felt if we could get the film funded, we could put some resources behind this and try to figure out what happened.

VICTIMS: Brian McDermott (centre) was killed, while (from left) Thomas Spence, John Rodgers, David Leckey and Jonathan Aven were never found

The investigation carried out by those involved in the documentary, which was co-produced by investigative journalist Chris Moore, soon led down a dark path. The film looks at the evidence and the various theories surrounding the missing boys  and it all leads to one place.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind the disappearance of the boys is linked to Kincora, said Henderson.

Kincora was dealt with by the state in 1981 when they locked up three people. The only reason they did that was because it was brought to light in the Irish Independent.

What we have uncovered and what the evidence proves is that the police, MI5 and the state knew what was happening at Kincora from the mid-60s.

But they would not allow individual intelligence officers who came across it to investigate because William McGrath and others were state agents. 

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI) was set up to investigate child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

The inquiry concluded the abuse at Kincora was limited to the actions of the three convicted staff members and did not take place with the collusion of the state or intelligence services.

However, contributors to the new documentary argue the HIAIs powers were not far-reaching enough to get to the truth.

We have amassed hundreds of pages of documents that prove the links between the people who were convicted for Kincora and others involved in the paedophile ring, said Ed Stobart, producer of the documentary.

The Lost Boys documentary will be shown in Belfast and Dublin in the coming days

Lost Boys: Belfasts Missing Children will be shown at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin and at the Odeon Cinema in Belfast.
Public warned of possible flooding, difficult travel conditions, power outages and fallen trees as storm due to make landfall by late morning

Storm Agnes caused traffic chaos around Ireland this morning with fallen trees, flooded roads and reduced visibility due to torrential rainfall and high winds.

In Youghal, Co Cork, dramatic footage showed the roof being ripped off a building by the wind.

As expected, the south has so far experienced the worst of the first major autumn storm with Storm Agnes set to peak between 10am and 3pm.

Because the Atlantic storm is travelling over Ireland during daytime, its dangers are increased because of heavy road usage.

Parts of Cork, Kerry and Waterford are expected to receive almost 40mm of rainfall in less than 24 hours with flooding likely, particularly in coastal areas.

A Status Orange wind warning is in place for counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Waterford from 9am to 5pm today, while an Orange rain warning is in place for Cork, Kerry and Waterford from 9am to 3pm.

There are also less severe Status Yellow wind warnings for Munster, Leinster and Co Galway from 7am until midnight, while a Yellow rain warning is in place for Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Waterford.

What the south-east of the country can expect on Wednesday as Storm Agnes hits

Thousands of customers are now without electricity as fallen trees and flying debris have damaged power lines.

The most powerful gusts recorded so far were 110kmh at Sherkin Island in west Cork with gusts of over 100kmh around Cork city.

Power supplies have been worst hit in Cork with interruptions in Kanturk, Ballincollig/Ovens, Ballyvourney, Macroom, Blarney and Dunmanway-Clonakilty.

In Youghal, video showed the roof being torn off a building by high winds.

ESB Networks warned that while repair crews were on standby for Storm Agnes, reconnections will only begin when it is safe to commence repair work.

They apologised to all customers impacted for the inconvenience caused.

Cork Airport issued an appeal for any passengers intending to travel to the airport to exercise caution.

A number of flights have been delayed at Cork Airport due to the storm.

Travellers have been warned that ports and airports could experience delays because of the impact of Storm Agnes.

A spokesperson for Dublin Airport said it is open and operating as normal today.

7 Day Weather Forecast: September 25 - October 1st

"Passengers intending to travel today are advised to check the status of specific flights directly with their airline and to allow sufficient time for their journey to the airport," they said.

A number of major outdoor attractions have closed given the Status Orange alerts.

Fota Wildlife Park said it decided to close for the entirety of September 27 as a precautionary measure.

"We are currently contacting bookings for this date, if you booked to visit the park for this date please stand by for a direct contact update on your booking, they said.

"We apologise for the inconvenience caused. This decision is for the safety of our visitors as well as our animals and staff. We thank you for your patience and understanding."

Mallow Castle and its playground are closed due to the storm.

In Cobh, the ferry was seen braving the conditions.

Met Eireann forecaster Brandon Creagh said Status Yellow counties can expect some potentially dangerous impacts as well.

Difficult travelling conditions and some localised flooding are possible in plenty of places, some downed trees are possible with the severe winds but its Cork, Kerry and Waterford  especially along the coasts  which are going to get the strongest impacts, he said.

I would certainly take care with any downed trees that could be about, possible flooding and downed power lines are certainly possible as well, with Status Orange level winds.

Mr Creagh said the three counties under Orange warnings can expect gusts of up to 130kmh and warned that counties under lower warnings and even those not under a warning can expect strong winds, with gale warnings in place along coastal areas across the country.

Spells of heavy and occasionally intense rain are expected in the counties under Orange warnings, along with very strong and gusty southerly winds.

Rain is seen here battering a residential property in West Cork.

The heavy rain will result in difficult travel conditions, localised flooding and poor visibility, while strong winds and some severe, damaging gusts could lead to coastal flooding, power outages and fallen trees.

Agnes is expected to track northwards over Ireland and cause disruption in affected areas before clearing towards Scotland on tonight.

There is a Status Yellow wind warning in place for Northern Ireland from midday, lasting overnight, while there is also an Orange storm warning in place until 7pm for the south-east with a Yellow gale warning for the rest of Irish coastal waters.

Cork County Council was among those to issue advice to members of the public ahead of the storms arrival.

A multi-vehicle collision in Cork city has been blamed on weather and road conditions.

A number of trees have already fallen in Cork due to high winds.

Met Eireann warned that fallen trees pose a particular risk given that many are already in full leaf and have reduced ability to cope with such high winds.

Fallen trees have already been reported around Cork at Fivemile, Bantry, Clonakilty and Fermoy.

Kerry has also experienced a number of fallen trees and flooded roads.

Flooding has already been reported in Cork on the Banduff Road, Rochestown Road, Ballyhooly Road and North Ring as well as in Ballincollig.

Some floods are sufficiently serious that roads have been rendered impassable.

The council is asking members of the public to exercise extreme caution as driving conditions may be hazardous, with surface and flash flooding possible, a spokesperson said.

A car driving through floodwater in Cork (Niall Carson/PA)

Motorists are advised to avoid driving through flowing or standing water and to exercise caution during heavy rain. Motorists are also asked to be conscious of vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.

Members of the public are advised to stay high, stay dry and stay away from the coast, rivers and lakes.

With strong gusts and high waves predicted, people are urged to refrain from visiting coastal areas.

Cork County Councils Severe Weather Assessment Team met ahead of Storm Agnes arrival.

"Met Eireann has advised that rainfall will continue in Cork after the Status Orange warning period has expired, with up to 35mm of rain expected in a 24 hour period, a spokesperson said.

"A tidal surge is expected, which may cause localised road flooding in some low-lying quay areas of the city, including Morrisons Island, South Terrace, Union Quay, Lavitts Quay and Wandesford Quay at high tide.

"Tidal flooding is expected to be restricted to the road carriageways only with limited, if any, other flooding."

Sandbags and pumping arrangements have been put in place in problem areas, and inlets and gullies were cleared ahead of the storm.

Council crews are also on standby in Co Kerry, where Kerry County Council has advised members of the public to prepare for severe weather and ensure that items vulnerable to high winds are stored away safely.
The Good Glow podcaster penned an emotional Instagram post on Wednesday following her dauhgters birth.

Influencer Georgie Crawford has welcomed her second child with her husband Jamie via surrogate.

The Good Glow podcaster penned an emotional Instagram post on Wednesday, telling her followers that her second daughter Tahlie was born two days earlier.

She travelled to Georgia with Jamie, their daughter Pia, and her mum to meet the newborn, who was born with the help of a surrogate.

Sharing some sweet snaps from the hospital, Georgie said that Tahlie was the greatest gift of our lives as she explained the meaning behind her name.

Just before lunchtime on Monday, Tahlie Crawford made her entrance into the world. All 5 pounds 7 ounces of her! the 38-year-old began.

Her name meaning leaping water representing the many trips to many countries she made as a tiny embryo.

To hold our surrogate mothers hand with Tahlie between us & knowing we will be forever connected has changed me forever. She has given us the greatest gift of our lives.

We are so grateful to the kindness and love we have received in Georgia and we cannot wait to come home as a family of 5 (not forgetting Piper).

Tahlie, though teeny tiny, has already taught me a lifetime of lessonspatience, trust and hopeshe is finally here, our miracle baby.

Georgie was inundated with congratulatory messages from pals in the comments section, with Rosanna Davison, who welcomed daughter Sophia via gestational surrogate in 2019, writing: Oh Georgie, huge congratulations to you, @jamiecrawford11 and your families! Sending you all lots of love.

Fellow influencer and expectant mum Louise Cooney said: So happy for you all. What a beautiful name enjoy every second of the love bubble.

Rosie Connolly added: Couldnt be happier for you all... welcome to the world baby girl. Congratulations.

And Holly Carpenter chimed in: What a beautiful post and gorgeous photos. Im so happy for you guys.

Georgie and Jamie announced that they were expecting their second child back in April with a joint Instagram Reel which included a series of clips of the pair embracing after learning they were set to become parents again.

They also shared some of the new babys scans as well as an adorable video of them telling Pia that she was going to be a big sister this year.

The video was accompanied by Ellie Gouldings song How Long Will I Love You.

In an emotional caption, Georgie admitted that her journey to motherhood the second time round hasnt been an easy road as she shared her delightful news with her followers.

I think its finally starting to sink inour surrogate mother is pregnant!! she wrote.

After what feels like forever, our precious baby is on its way to us. In a million years I could never describe the emotions we have felt this year, our baby is due after the summer.

We are so grateful to the brave man who rescued our embryos from Ukraine back in February, 2022. But most of all we owe everything to the incredible lady who is carrying our baby for us, an earth angel, words cannot describe our gratitude.

I have so much love in my heart writing these words. It hasnt been an easy road for us, so much so, that its hard to believe its real.
The former James Bond star married Keely Shaye Smith back in 2001.

Pierce Brosnan pulled out all the stops for his wife Keely Shaye Smiths 60th birthday.

The former James Bond star married the journalist, his second wife, back in 2001 at Ballintubber Abbey in Ireland after meeting in Mexico seven years earlier.

The couple share two sons together, Paris and Dylan, and primarily live in Malibu, California.

Keely celebrated her 60th birthday on Monday and her husband was keen to mark the occasion with a romantic gesture.

Sharing a sweet photo of the pair on Instagram, the actor revealed that he had bought 60 red roses for his wife as he gushed about how lucky he is to have her.

Sixty roses for my brown eyed girl on her 60th birthday. Forever happy and blessed was I to be sitting there when you walked around the corner early one morning in Cabo San Lucas, Pierce wrote.

Their son Paris commented: Happy birthday, adding a red heart emoji for his mum.

Meanwhile, fans passed on their birthday wishes and doted over the happy couple.

I really love couples who are still loyal and love each so much despite the passage of time! Sending birthday wishes to your lovely wife! one person wrote.

Another said: Happy birthday, Keely! May God shower you with blessings! Best wishes and good health! A big hug!

While someone else added: Happy Birthday you she looks amazing and very surprised hope you have many many more.

And a fourth chimed in: If only all couples were this dedicated to each other. A fantastic example to your children and to us all.

Keely marked Pierces 70th birthday back in May with a commemorative Instagram post.

The snap showed him standing in a field of wildflowers, which she captioned: Happy Birthday my darling @piercebrosnanofficial," she wrote with a clinking glasses emoji. "Wishing you a blessed, bountiful and adventurous new trip around the sun. Its not how old you are  its how bold you are in life. I love you with all my heart."
Working alongside personnel from around the world as part of the United Nations longest-running peacekeeping mission, has been a rewarding challenge for two New Zealand women.

The United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation is now in its 75th year. It operates in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Israel to help preserve peace between the Middle Eastern neighbours.

Palmerston North local Captain Zarra Houpapa, and Dunedin-born Major Catherine Dymock, are among the latest in a long line of Military Observers sent to UNTSO by New Zealand since the early 1950s.

The New Zealand Defence Force deploys personnel to patrol and monitor ceasefires and military activity in Israels Golan Heights, Lebanon and Syria.

Born in Wellington, 28-year-old Captain Houpapa joined the New Zealand Army aged 19.

I wanted to travel. Travelling was a big thing for me, to get out and see the world, and meet new people, she says.

Life in the Army has taken her as far afield as Iraq and now the Israeli city of Tiberias, where she leads a team of UN Military Observers from the likes of Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and India.

Alongside two Australian Defence Force personnel, Captain Houpapa is part of the first all-female UNTSO leadership team in the Tiberias outstation.

United Nations Military Observer, Captain Zarra Houpapa (centre) with her fellow members of the first all-female UNTSO leadership team in the Tiberias outstation, Captain Liz Daly and Captain Anita Price from the Australian Army.

She says having females in charge has been a change for some observers from different cultural backgrounds, but it has been a great experience.

And because the three of us happen to be from Australia and New Zealand, weve had that Anzac camaraderie as well.

Summer temperatures have made for sweltering conditions as observers carry out patrols, or monitor activity from posts along the Area of Separation between Israel and Syria.

Their job is to ensure limitations on equipment and military personnel are adhered to, and report on any violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.

The blend of nations in Captain Houpapas team helped maintain neutrality and eliminate bias; in order to report on a violation, it must be seen by two UN Military Observers from different nations.

Working with people from other countries brings some difficulties, but also means Captain Houpapa now had friends from all over the world.

The challenges and rewards of a multinational environment is a sentiment echoed by Major Dymock, who recently completed her deployment as Senior National Officer leading the NZDF contingent.

Major Catherine Dymock at commemorations in Beirut, marking 75 years of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation.

The former Dunstan High School student says she found immense enjoyment working with people from other backgrounds, while based in Lebanon.

Everyone has their own culture, language, history and work ethic and it was wonderfully challenging balancing all those aspects.

This was also the most rewarding as well, as we came together for the good of the mission and the mandate, and the diversity of our team was also its strength.

For Major Dymock, it was an honour to represent New Zealand at 75th anniversary ceremonies held at UNTSO headquarters in Jerusalem and in Beirut, acknowledging the service of previous military observers and commemorating fallen peacekeepers.

She says while the NZDF only deploys up to eight personnel at a time, their robust training, skills and experiences saw them add a lot of value to the peacekeeping efforts.

The friendly nature of the Kiwis, and our flexibility and strong work ethic means that we can have a positive impact on the mission and the people in the region.

Being able to live in the community, go out on patrol and talk to locals, either unofficially in coffee shops or formally during Key Leader Engagements, was very rewarding.

As unarmed observers theyre not encumbered by weapons, but Captain Houpapa says its still been stinking hot with their uniforms and body armour on. Then come winter, the mountainous Golan Heights will be blanketed in snow.

She has learnt a lot about the history of the area, and is aware of not saying anything that might offend someone or cause tensions.

Generally people are pretty receptive towards the UN, so personally I havent felt any kind of danger or anything like that. But Im also not naive to the fact it could change.

Junior, one of two resident felines at a UN Military Observer outpost in Israel.

Captain Houpapa has found her time with UNTSO an eye-opening experience.

Its experiences like this where you realise how lucky we are to be Kiwis, she says.

An unexpected delight was the cats which made themselves at home amongst the observers.

There are cats everywhere in the country but we have outpost cats, which is great because they hunt down all the creepy crawlies that we dont like. We get snakes and spiders and things up in the Golan, said Captain Houpapa.

Her outpost is currently home to two felines, Snowy and 15-year-old Junior.

Its a running joke that Juniors the longest-serving UN Military Observer in the mission.
A dozen of Aotearoa New Zealands leading primary, community, and telehealth care organisations are coming together, calling on political parties to commit to pay parity for their nursing and health care workers.

"Collectively we represent services that support New Zealanders from cradle to grave," says Whanau Awhina Plunket chief executive, Fiona Kingsford.

"Weve come together for the first time because we fear communities are missing out on critical health care."

"While the group wholeheartedly endorse the recent historic pay equity settlement for Te Whatu Ora nurses and healthcare workers, it has created a stark pay gap with those working in primary, community, and telehealth care, estimated at between 15 and 35 per cent," says a Family Planning spokesperson.

"The impact that the pay gap has on recruitment and retention, and subsequently the delivery of essential health services, has reached crisis point and can no longer be ignored," says Fiona.

"We fear we will no longer be there to meet our combined mission of assisting New Zealanders to start well, live well, and die well."

The primary, community, and telehealth care workforce complete the same education, undertake additional training and skills development as Te Whatu Ora staff, and provide vital care and support to thousands of people every day. There is no justification for them not being remunerated equally.

The combined picture is bleak, with workforce shortages crippling service delivery.

"Whanau Awhina Plunket has 35 nurse vacancies, potentially impacting 140 Well Child Tamariki Ora core contacts to pepi and tamariki every day; in an unprecedented situation, Family Planning had 64 days of closures across its clinics during August due to a lack of nursing staff; more than 1,000 aged care beds have closed permanently; and a number of hospices have reduced their inpatient beds," says the Family Planning spokesperson.

"A rapid data collection run in September attracted responses from 246 general practices, with 43 per cent of respondents reporting they had closed or restricted services due to a nursing workforce shortage.

"This is impacting things such as immunisations, cervical screening, diabetic annual reviews, cardiovascular risk assessments and opening hours. While only a snapshot, the survey results correlate strongly with research carried out by GenPro in August which showed 54 per cent of responding member practices had reduced services in the last six months.

"GenPro results also showed 43 per cent had nursing vacancies with an average of two nurses per practice having quit in the last six months."

"Our community, primary care, and telehealth nurses and health workers care for and treat millions of New Zealanders, including our most vulnerable elderly, hapu mama, pepi and tamariki, and those who are dying," says Fiona.

"When our services begin to crumple, these people are forced into an already overrun hospital system that is also at its breaking point," says president of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Samantha Murton.

The significant pay gap and resulting recruitment and retention issues are forcing hospices to make some tough decisions.

"The options are reducing services to fit with available staff or use their finite reserves to increase salaries to match Te Whatu Ora, which is unsustainable even in the short term," says Hospice chief executive Wayne Naylor.

"Hospice care cannot keep relying on the generosity of communities through charitable giving and selling second-hand goods to pay for essential health care staff and services."

Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond says young people are particularly impacted by closures across its network of clinics.

"About 1 in 6 of the young people, 16 to 19 years old, we see dont have another regular health provider and 1 in 5 of them dont know where else to go to get contraception. When we are forced to close clinics because we dont have staff to open them, it is these young people that are at most risk of unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection," Ms Edmond says.

National and international research has long since proven that primary and community care is essential to a well-functioning health system. The implications of the loss of care, early intervention, and prevention delivered in the community is catastrophic.

The group wrote to political parties, seeking a position and timeframe for action on closing the pay gap. Disappointingly, just one political party had responded by the 20 September deadline.

"The incoming government must address nurse pay parity urgently. We require 100 per cent pay parity with Te Whatu Ora employed nurses and healthcare workers if we are to keep providing essential services in our communities. We cannot afford to pay more, and it is putting services at risk," emphasises Mrs Kingsford.

Despite the challenges, the group reiterate that care is still available, although it may be provided differently as organisations design ways to navigate their staffing shortages.

"We know weve painted a sombre picture, but we urge people never to delay seeking care. If you or someone close to you needs medical assistance, please contact your provider as you would usually or call Healthline on 0800 611 116," says Dr Murton.
This photo taken with a mobile phone on Sept. 27, 2023 shows civil defense and security force members working at the fire site in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh. Up to 114 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a huge wedding hall fire in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Governor of Nineveh Najm al-Jubouri told reporters on Wednesday.

The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the Iraqi Civil Defense as saying earlier. (Xinhua)

BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Up to 114 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a huge wedding hall fire in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Governor of Nineveh Najm al-Jubouri told reporters on Wednesday.

The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the Iraqi Civil Defense as saying earlier.

It said that initial reports indicated that fireworks were used during the celebration, which may have caused the fire.

The building was covered with highly flammable materials, which accelerated the fire that led to the collapse of part of the building, the INA said, adding that an investigation was launched into the incident.

The Health Ministry spokesman Sayf al-Badr said that the situation is under control and that the health ministry is following the incident closely.

The INA reported that the health minister issued instructions to the health departments in the neighboring provinces of Kirkuk and Salahudin to send ambulances to help evacuate the victims.

A statement by his media office said that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani made a phone call to the Nineveh governor to learn about the situation and ordered the interior and health ministers to support the affected people.

"We are following the tragic developments in the town of al-Hamdaniya following the painful accident that caused a number of victims and injuries," Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi said in a tweet. 

This photo taken with a mobile phone on Sept. 27, 2023 shows the fire site in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh. Up to 114 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a huge wedding hall fire in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Governor of Nineveh Najm al-Jubouri told reporters on Wednesday.

The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the Iraqi Civil Defense as saying earlier. (Xinhua)

This photo taken with a mobile phone on Sept. 27, 2023 shows civil defense and security force members working at the fire site in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh. Up to 114 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a huge wedding hall fire in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Governor of Nineveh Najm al-Jubouri told reporters on Wednesday.

The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the Iraqi Civil Defense as saying earlier. (Xinhua)
Carmen Alcaraz Malaga Compartir Copiar enlace

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Among the famous phrases on the internet, is one, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, which asserts that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. On a more earthly level, Spain is a country with a great beer tradition, demonstrated by the average annual consumption of 58 litres per person and a production that reached 41.1 million hectolitres last year, an increase of 7.9% compared to 2021,and only surpassed in Europe by Germany.

Although this beer culture is still dominated by large industrial brands, there has been a noticeable, albeit sporadic, evolution of craft beers in Spain over the past decade. Unlike the US, the mecca of craft beer, where very specific parameters are established to determine what is meant by craft beer, in Spain, this concept remains somewhat fluid.

The Royal Decree 678/2016 defines artisanal manufacturing as a process that takes place entirely within the same facility, with personal involvement being the predominant factor, under the direction of a master brewer. It emphasises that the human factor should take precedence over mechanical processes, resulting in a personalised final product that is not produced in large quantities.

On the other hand, the Spanish Association of Craft Brewers (AECAI) admits as members breweries whose product is made in facilities they own and are not directly or indirectly controlled by companies producing more than five million litres annually.

By widespread consensus rather than a strict standard, some characteristics attributed to craft beer include being made from entirely natural ingredients, without artificial additives or preservatives, with each master brewer having their own unique recipes, and a more manual production and filtration process (although this is changing to improve profitability). Thanks to these factors, craft beer tends to have a fuller body, flavour, and aroma.

Another important aspect is variety, a trend that both craft and industrial breweries have embraced, introducing styles of beer that were relatively unknown a few years ago, such as IPAs (India Pale Ales, including American Pale Ales and numerous subcategories), sour beers, and high-fermentation dark beers, which have become more specific with designations like Porter or Stout. However, the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Programme) guide recognises over a hundred different styles of beer, reflecting the diversity and creativity in the world of brewing.

In Malaga, there has been a boom, then a setback, and now a resurgence of craft beer. Although it is no longer in production, Murex is considered the first craft brewery in Malaga. Its success prompted a number of microbreweries to start up, but due to various factors like a lack of structure and efficient financial planning, many of them had relatively short lifespans. The pandemic also didnt help, leading to the closure of many that didnt have the resources to weather the situation.

Today, there are still craft breweries in Malaga like Cervezas Gaitanejo (Ardales), Cerveza Trinidad (Alhaurin el Grande), or 3Monos (Malaga) that have resumed production. Some breweries like Bonvivant (Malaga) and La Catarina CraftBeer (Estepona) have adopted a business model that combines microbrewing with a restaurant enriched with a programme of live performances and music.

To promote the sector, various fairs are held throughout the year. The next one will be Malabirra 2023, a beer festival (although not exclusively for craft beers) that will take place at Autocine Malaga on October 7 and 8.

But for those who don't want to wait, here we recommend some essential beer temples in Malaga city.

Birras Deluxe

From the central Plaza de la Merced, Birras Deluxe offers more than 300 different beers. The establishment run by Francisco Soto and his family has 16 rotating taps, bottles and cans of various styles. It also has a food menu and some more commercial references for the less experienced.

Plaza de la Merced, 5, 29012 Malaga. Telephone: 620 21 87 65. www.birrasdeluxe.com

La Botica de la Cerveza

This establishment is a mecca in Malaga city. Miguel Arrabal leads a project with which he has managed to turn his passion into a profession. From his 'tavern' on Victoria Street he not only offers a wide variety of proposals for his taps and refrigerators, but also expert and unique advice.

Calle Victoria, 13, 29012 Malaga. Telephone: 951 99 10 31. www.instagram.com/laboticadelacerveza

El Rincon del Cervecero

Perfect for any beer fan or anyone looking to get started in this world, El Rincon del Cervecero has a wide selection of imported and craft beers both to taste on the premises accompanied by something to snack on or take away. They also have their own beer, La Reina del Soho.

Calle Casas de Campos, 5, 29001 Malaga. Telephone: 624 20 58 56. www.instagram.com/elrincondelcervecero

Hop Scotch Craft Beer & Whiskey

Outside the city centre, this reference brewery for craft beer lovers is equipped with eight rotating taps, weekly new releases in cans or bottles and a unique and original atmosphere. Inside or on the terrace area, Javier and Ana will act as perfect guides for amateurs and experts, with proposals that they select with professionalism and care.

Calle Correo de Andalucia, 6, 29004 Malaga. Telephone: 627 08 35 24. www.hopscotch.beer

Central Beers Craft Beer

With bars in the city centre and in the Teatinos district, Central Beers has extensive experience in the sector, with popular reference beers and something for all tastes.

They have 15 rotating taps and more than 150 beers in bottles from all over the world, with special attention to Malaga craft beers, and a complementary food menu.

Calle Carcer, 6, 29008 Malaga. Telephone: 636 82 97 00. www.centralbeers.com

La Madriguera

The concept of this establishment by brothers Ramon and Manu Blanco has been evolving since its opening. Currently it is a 'gastrobeer' that, in addition to a catalogue of tap and packaged beers, has a menu that mixes "reinventions of typical Malaga dishes, Mediterranean touches and some beer classics."

Calle Carreteria, 73, 29008 Malaga. Telephone: 744 61 34 93. www.lamadriguerabar.com
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It was last December when the Association of Friends of the Museum of Tourism, chaired by Luis Utrilla, organised an exhibition at the Tourism Interpretation Centre in Torremolinos with 1,500 objects which will form part of Spain's long-awaited National Museum of Tourism. Utrilla considered that the Costa del Sol has to be where this project is based and urged the relevant administrations and the government to work on it.

Malaga City Hall has now taken the first step to host this museum. It has done so by signing a general agreement of action for the study and development of the project to create the National Museum of Tourism. This confirms support for the initiative that would depend on the Ministry of Culture.

The purpose of this document, signed by the Mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, accompanied by the councillor for tourism, Jacobo Florido, and the President of the Association of Friends of the National Museum of Tourism "is to develop ways of study that can facilitate cooperation between both parties to establish a framework for collaboration with the common purpose of promoting, establishing, developing and managing activities that contribute to the promotion and knowledge of tourism, as well as to establish the basis for the development of the project to create the National Museum of Tourism in the city of Malaga".

The Association of Friends of the National Museum of Tourism wants to create this facility as an international centre of knowledge for the tourism industry, with the aim of disseminating the social, economic, cultural and anthropological values that the tourism industry provides, as well as serving as a dynamic and transforming element of the tourism industry, through knowledge, research and innovation.
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Followers of Specsavers Opticas social media accounts have voted on photographs submitted from the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol and Mallorca that they think best reflects and captures the essence of Spain in summer. Kristine Aghasyan was selected as the winner, with the largest number of likes and comments across the company's Instagram and Facebook pages. Kristines beautiful image depicts what she describes as a romantic sunset, seen through the rocks at La Mata in Torrevieja.

This striking and well-composed image encapsulates the rugged beauty of the Spanish coastal areas and the importance of the sea to the communities along the countrys almost 5,000 kilometres of coastline. It was a firm favourite among the jury and the voting public, receiving more than 300 likes and more than 100 comments to win a landslide victory.

The talented photographer visited Specsavers Opticas in Torrevieja to collect her prize. She won a 100 Amazon voucher and a pair of designer sunglasses choosng a stylish pair of Aurora sunglasses, with upswept eyes for a subtle cat-eye look.

The winning image of a "romantic sunset". Kristine Aghasyan

Kristine said: Many thanks to the organisers of the competition and the people who voted for my picture. I am very happy that I won and that although the competition featured images from all along the Costa Blanca, Costa de Sol and Mallorca, in the end my picture and my home of Torrevieja won.

This picture took a lot of effort to achieve. In my opinion, this picture really depicts the essence of Spain, because when you look at the picture, you see the hot summer evenings and colourful sunsets of Spain, the sea with its wonderful waves, gentle winds, and of course, the beautiful view, which you can endlessly admire and wish to be there.

Lisa James from Specsavers Opticas in Guardamar was one of the three store directors to shortlist the top entries. She said: I was very impressed with the high standard of entries we received for this years competition. There were 58 pictures submitted for us to judge and we thought they were so good, that we could only get the shortlist down to eight entries, before handing over to our followers to have their say and select the winner.

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted an entry and for everyone who took the time to vote. Kristine is a worthy winner and I would like to congratulate her on behalf of all of the team!

You can see the shortlisted entries on Specsavers Opticas via social media: @SpecsaversOpticas on Facebook and @specsaversspain on Instagram. Find out more about the business and book an eye test in your nearest store via their website www.specsavers.es
The original proposal for the Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI) was first presented by the European Commission in September 2022. Following long and intense discussions, the file has now entered the trialogue negotiations.

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise endorses the general objective of the SMEI in keeping borders open and upholding the free movement of goods, services and people in times of crisis. However, along with Business Europe and other European business organisations, Swedish Enterprise has been highly critical to the wide scope of the instrument, the proposed shift of powers from the Council to the Commission and the potential for interference with companies strategic reserves, orders and supply chains.

However, the Confederation remains optimistic over the outcome of the autumn trialogue negations during, as the amendments made by the Council and the European Parliament will make the instrument much more reasonable.

First, on the subject matter (Article 1); here, the Council as well as the European Parliament have deleted the original reference to supply chains, narrowing it down to a specific emergency instrument. This is a welcome change. The deletion of all references to supply chains was one of the main arguments on the part of European industry. The freedom to choose the best supply chain is a fundamental aspect of running a business, and should not be part of any emergency instrument.

Second, the Article on the strategic reserves to be held by Member States and companies (Article 12) was deleted by the Council and rephrased by the European Parliament (new Article 8a). It now encourages, rather than forces, Member States to enhance their efforts to maintain sufficient stocks of goods of critical importance  a much more realistic approach. Here, Swedish enterprise supports the Council; stockholding in companies is part of their business strategy and competitiveness, hence it is not something that should be forced upon them. Likewise national stockholding s a matter of national security based on domestic finances. Here, Member States should keep the mandate to choose the best solution for themselves.

Third, the free movement Articles (Article 16 and 17) have been improved both by the Council and the European Parliament, reducing the potential derogations for Member States to close borders in crisis situations. Swedish Enterprise prefers the leaner texts from the Council, which makes for better legislation, but appreciates the intention in the wording by the European Parliament. This maintains strong pressure on the Member States to keep their borders open and places an obligation on Member States to keep business informed over planned measures.

Fourth, the information requirements imposed on companies have, in principle, been revised by the Council and the European Parliament. This means that previously mandatory requirements are now, in principle, voluntary. Clearly, companies will provide the information needed to avoid a crisis or reduce its impact. However, any information requirement placed on businesses when there is a crisis will create an extra burden at a time when their focus should be on maintaining business continuity and supporting their employees. Therefore it can only cover voluntary requirements.

However, some serious concerns still remain. The Article giving the Commission a mandate to decide on priority-rated orders within companies (Article 27) was deleted by the Council, but was passed in the European Parliament. Here, the legislators have apparently failed to understand the negative impact that such a clause may have on European companies competitiveness on the international market. Despite making the requirements voluntary and stating the right for appropriate compensation, the wording in the Article undermines the faith in European companies ability to solve a crisis. IN addition, the proposed fines for operators failing to comply with the priority-rated orders (Article 28) are unacceptable.

Swedish Enterprise will continue to follow the development of the SMEI and to promote an instrument that focuses on the free movements of the Single Market and safeguards the competitiveness of European companies.
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Pallbearers carry the casket of former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano during a state funeral in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 26, 2023. (Quirinale Presidential Palace of Italy/Handout via Xinhua)

ROME, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The state funeral of Italy's longest-serving President Giorgio Napolitano, held on Tuesday in the country's Parliament, was attended by dignitaries from around the world.

Napolitano, who was in office between May 2006 and January 2015, died on Friday at the age of 98.

Flags on government buildings and Italian embassies abroad flew at half-mast on Tuesday, which was declared a national day of mourning. Parliament was closed for the day, and non-essential state business was halted.

Those present at the funeral included French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Sergio Mattarella, who succeeded Napolitano as Italy's head of state. All extended their condolences to Napolitano's widow, Clio Maria Bittoni, who was married to the former president for more than 60 years.

In remarks at the funeral, Napolitano was honored for a long and varied political career that began when he was elected to the lower house of the Italy's Parliament in 1953.

Napolitano was Italy's 11th president and the first to serve a second seven-year term. He stepped down two years into his second mandate citing his advanced age and declining health. He was also Italy's first president who had been a member of the Italian Communist Party.

In his most important role as president, Napolitano helped shepherd Italy through the 2011 financial crisis, persuading former European Commissioner Mario Monti to head a technocratic government following the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister. Monti was able to negotiate support for Italy's government debt from the European Central Bank, preventing what would have been an unprecedented loan default.

"As head of state, he led the nation, embodying the values that are the foundations of our constitution," Italy's Senate President Ignazio La Russa said in remarks during the funeral.

Lorenzo Fontana, speaker of the lower house of Parliament, said Napolitano "was among the most important figures in the history of the republic."

Napolitano will be buried in Rome's Non-Catholic Cemetery. 

Pallbearers carry the casket of former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano during a state funeral in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 26, 2023. (Quirinale Presidential Palace of Italy/Handout via Xinhua)

People attend former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano's state funeral in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 26, 2023. (Quirinale Presidential Palace of Italy/Handout via Xinhua)

Italian President Sergio Mattarella (C) attends former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano's state funeral in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 26, 2023. (Quirinale Presidential Palace of Italy/Handout via Xinhua)
David Muir gets new 20/20 co-anchor

Syracuse native David Muir has a new co-anchor on 20/20. Deborah Roberts, whos contributed to the series for 28 years, will be promoted to co-anchor while continuing her job as senior national affairs correspondent. Roberts is a Peabody Award-winning reporter whose credits include Nightline, Good Morning America, The View and World News Tonight with David Muir. Roberts, who is married to SUNY Oswego alumnus and Today show weatherman Al Roker, will replace Amy Robach after her departure when it was revealed she was having an affair with GMA 3 co-anchor T.J. Holmes.

I am thrilled and humbled to step into the role as co-anchor @abc2020 alongside my friend and colleague @davidmuirabc. We are proud to carry on the tradition of in-depth reporting on this venerable newsmagazine, which has revealed truths and opened hearts and minds for 46 years, beginning with the great Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs, Roberts wrote on Instagram.

Moonlighting finally comes to streaming

The acclaimed 80s TV series Moonlighting is finally coming to streaming for the first time. ET reports all five seasons of the detective comedy, which starred Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd as David Addison and Maddie Hayes, will be released on Hulu starting Oct. 10. Moonlighting aired on ABC from 1985 to 1989 and won six Emmy Awards, including lead actor for Willis before he found big screen success as an action star in Die Hard. Itll give fans a new chance to see one of the most memorable roles from Willis, who retired from acting last year after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia.

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Syracuse, N.Y. -- A Syracuse after-school program for children and teens has closed with short notice, leaving some kids without meals or a safe place to go.

Syracuse Community Connections announced last Tuesday that the program at the Southwest Community Center on South Avenue would end this past Friday, according to a letter sent to parents.
Stories My Father Told Me, an exhibition at the ArtRage Gallery, pairs giclee prints of Helen Zughaibs lush gouache paintings with text written by her father, Elia Zughaib.

The show reflects on her fathers experiences growing up in Syria and Lebanon during the 1930s and 1940s, in a Christian family. He recalls playing cards with his grandmother, celebrating Palm Sunday, watching women make kibbeh on a Sunday morning. (Thats ground meat mixed with crushed wheat and onions.) And he remembers relatives telling stories with an ethical twist.

However, the exhibit doesnt end 80 years ago. Ultimately, the father emigrated to the United States, received a doctorate from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Political Science at Syracuse University, and worked as a diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service.

The exhibit accesses not only his journey but the larger theme of migration, tying into Helen Zughaibs larger body of work. In a career spanning more than 40 years, she has often delved into migration, refugees, the circumstances of people uprooted from community life.

Stories My Father Told Me displays 25 prints, each accompanied by her fathers reminiscence. The works are richly detailed, visually and verbally. When Elia Zughaib discusses playing basra, a card game, with his grandmother, he notes that she always let the children win a couple of games. In talking about his birthday celebration, he mentions that it didnt take place on his birthdate. Rather, the feast day happened on his saints day.

In addition, the exhibit provides ample exposure for Helen Zughaibs artistic style. She works with a palette of colors, often orange and red, fully utilizing the medium of gouache. She also integrates patterns such as stripes, diamonds and squares into her works. This isnt repetitive; she keeps on improvising, adapting to each visual context.

In A Walk to the Water Foundation, she references an evening ritual in a village where there was one source of water. At sunset, young women would go to the communal fountain to get water. In the painting, she depicts eight women, each in a garment decorated with vertical stripes, each in a different color.

And in My Fathers Story, Zughaib portrays a living-room scene where she and her dad discuss one of his stories. She enlivens the room with red and orange stripes on a wall, with three chairs decorated with stripes, and a chunky cat covered with black-and-gray stripes.

Thats just one example of her attention to detail. In When A Child Is Born, she emphasizes a checkerboard pattern. The Show Box (Sanduk al-Firji), meanwhile, captures multiple figures including an itinerant entertainer and his device, children watching the performance, and vendors selling food.

A third painting, Charity & Compassion, depicts a scene in the countryside where a man rides a horse. A trees branches seem to flow; they are portrayed with a flourish.

The artworks at ArtRage are part of a specific project, one that culminated in a book published by Cune, a press based in Seattle, in 2020.

Zughaib has pursued other projects, one being the Syrian Migration Series which she began after a civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for their lives. In one painting, a crowd of people moves forward toward doorways marked Turkey, France and Germany. The artwork poses a fundamental question: where do refugees go?

Zughaib also developed Crossing Borders, an exhibit of wood tiles decorated with patterns from many nations. This summer, that show appeared in the Hall of Nations, within the John F. Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.

In The Places Theyll Go, the artist has assembled a set of 24 childrens shoes, each decorated with acrylic gouache.

All those projects reflect Zughaibs focus on women and children impacted by war, famine and repression. Her artworks explore the universal desire for home, for security. Indeed, she has said that my work is ultimately about creating empathy and a shared space for introspection and dialogue. I want the viewer to see through someone elses eyes, to walk in anothers shoes.

The ArtRage show presents both her artworks and Elia Zughaibs words, communicating a strong sense of family heritage. And Helen has had her own life experiences. As a child, she lived mostly in Europe and the Middle East, as her father completed various diplomatic assignments. When she was 16, her family left Lebanon because of the onset of a civil war, a time of kidnappings and bombings.

In the United States, she completed her secondary education and attended Syracuse University where she received a BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. After working as a senior designer for Syracuse China for a couple of years, she moved to Washington, D.C. to work full-time as an artist.

Since then, shes had her work displayed both in the United States and abroad and has served as a Cultural Envoy to Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Palestine. Her paintings are in collections at the White House, Library of Congress and the Arab American National Museum, Detroit, Michigan.

She will discuss her artworks during an artist talks scheduled for Wednesday, October 4, starting at 7:00 p.m.

Stories My Father Told Me is on display through October 28 at ArtRage, 505 Hawley Ave. The gallery, which is open to the public and has no admission charge, is open from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

For more information, call 315-218-5711 or access www.artragegallery.org.

Carl Mellor covered visual arts for the Syracuse New Times from 1994 to 2016. He continues to write about artists and exhibitions in the Syracuse area.
Spectacular fall foliage in Upstate New York can be easy to find, but two beautiful destinations have made a national list of must-see autumn getaways.

Watkins Glen State Park and Mohonk Preserve have both ranked on USA Todays 10Best list of best destinations for fall foliage.

Spanning almost opposite ends of Upstate New York, Watkins Glen offers deep gorge waterfalls and Mohonk is filled with rocky summit 360-degree vistas.

USA Today notes that the Mohonk Preserve in the #8 slot is a top destination for rock climbing in the Hudson Valley. For those less inclined to scale a crag, head to Mohonk Mountain Houses Sky Top Tower for a spectacular lookout over Ulster County.

With the Hudson Valley also being named a top place to visit in 2023, its a bucket list Upstate NY vacation spot.

Ranked #9 on the list, Watkins Glen State Park is credited as being one of the many cant-miss attractions in the Finger Lakes. Hailed as the best park in New York, its the most bang for your buck with 19 waterfalls in just two miles.

The Gorge Trail, which is open seasonally, winds over and under the plunging cascades of Glen Creek, while being surrounded by 200-foot cliffs. There are lots of stairs and the spray from the falls can make the rocky pathways wet, so make sure to wear good footwear for the hike.

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Syracuse, N.Y.  A shop in the heart of the Marshall Street business district near Syracuse University will host a growers showcase offering legal marijuana for sale this fall.

The showcase will be upstairs from the J. Michaels Shoes clothing shop at 171 Marshall St. It starts at 4:20 p.m. Friday (Sept. 29), and will run through Dec. 31. Hours are still being worked out, but it could be open daily through the end of the year.

It will offer legal and lab-tested marijuana products, ranging from flower, to pre-rolls, edibles, vapes and drinks, from a variety of New York state-licensed growers and processors who will have space in the shop.

The opening of the showcase comes just a week after the city of Syracuse shut down two other businesses on Marshall Street that had been cited by the state for violating the law by selling marijuana without the proper licenses.

The showcase is a partnership between J. Michaels owner John Michael Vavalo and Mike Flynn, owner of Flynnstoned Cannabis Co. in Armory Square.

Vavalo is also owner of Central Processors NY, a state-licensed marijuana cultivator with a greenhouses in Cicero and a processing facility near Hancock Airport. Its products are sold wholesale under the High Peaks Cannabis brand.

Flynns Armory Square shop is the Syracuse areas first legal marijuana retail shop, or dispensary. It opened in June.

The states Cannabis Control Board this summer authorized the growers showcases as a way to get legal marijuana products to market as the statewide roll-out of legal marijuana continues to be hampered by delays. The most recent delay came through a temporary court injunction prohibiting the opening of new shops. There are currently just 23 dispensaries operating across New York state.

Our hope is to cycle through a lot of different cultivators, giving them a chance to sell high quality products, said Vavalo, who has experienced the limited market for his own products.

We have greenhouse high-quality flower, the best flower on the market, I think, Vavalo said. This is an opportunity for us and other cultivators and processors to show what we have.

Legal marijuana will be sold this fall at a licensed growers showcase above J. Michael's Shoes at 171 Marshall St. near Syracuse University. (Screen shot from Google maps)

This is Flynns second growers showcase. He also operated a temporary showcase just down State Fair Boulevard from the state fairgrounds during the run of the 2023 fair.

Products sold at the growers showcases are inspected and tested just as those sold at legal dispensaries. They are also subject to the same state taxes.

Prices for the various products will be the same as at the Flynnstoned shop at 219 Walton St., Flynn said. When it opened, Flynnstoned was selling marijuana flower for up to $50 for 1/8 of an ounce (3.5 grams)

Vavalo, the J. Michael of the shoe stores name, is excited to bring something new to Marshall Street. His family opened the shoe store in 1983, one year after he was born.

Who would have thought when we opened 40 years ago that we would now be selling cannabis above J. Michaels? he said.

Vavalo, who is also on the board of the University area business district, said he also applauds the state and city for its actions to shut down the shops selling illicit weed.

Its great for us as processors, and for the retailers, that the city is taking this action, he said. It really highlights the need for the high quality, tested products that we have.

Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
Join NY Cannabis Insider for our next full-day conference on Nov. 16 at the Sonesta White Plains.

The head of New Yorks Cannabis Advisory Board said the group needs a staff and budget to function properly, and noted the board hasnt been as involved with the states legal weed rollout as the cannabis law prescribes.

Board Chair Joseph Belluck said at the start of the Tuesday meeting that the Cannabis Control Board hasnt yet reached out to him or other members, and noted that the CCB recently passed a slate of regulations without consulting or seeking advice from the advisory board.

We come to these meetings, we get very thorough updates, but our ability to make recommendations and to fulfill our role in the statute has not come to fruition, Belluck said. We have a much broader role thats in the statute.

The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act tasks Cannabis Advisory Board members with deciding how the state spends much of the tax revenue from its legal weed industry. Under the MRTA, 40% of the revenue from cannabis taxes and fees will pay for revitalization projects in communities most harmed by the War on Drugs.



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In addition to advising OCM and CCB on policy, advisory members will decide how to spend this reinvestment fund.

On Tuesday, Belluck pointed out that the advisory board hasnt been consulted on issues including the number of licenses the OCM will dole out or aspects of social equity programs  both of which the MRTA says the CAB shall provide advice on.

When you see the word shall in the statute, its a directive to do something, its not an option, Belluck said.

OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander acknowledged regulators havent done much to loop in CAB members. He said the OCM is planning to assign a dedicated staffer to process grants for the states community reinvestment fund  which will be bankrolled via taxes on cannabis products.

I absolutely agree, theres so much more that this body can and should be doing; and thats on us, Alexander said.

Alexander and members of OCMs leadership spent much of the meeting updating advisory board members on the agencys progress on multiple fronts, and addressing their concerns.

The executive director also said he expects the CCB to issue more than 1,000 licenses in the coming application period.

This is the largest rollout of licenses to date, in any cannabis market, Alexander said.

OCM Director of Policy John Kagia told advisory board members that the states total legal sales have reached $66 million so far this year, with $34.1 million of that purchased in July and August.

Kagia also delved into the Cannabis Grower Showcases, which are approved events at which Adult-Use Conditional Cultivators and Adult-Use Conditional Processors may sell their products. The OCM has approved 26 of these events across the state, Kagia said, adding that the program has generated customer interest and boosted sales.

Related: NYs Cannabis Growers Showcases making a dent  but theyre not a total fix-it

The Cannabis Grower Showcases have presented an incredible opportunity for consumers to access legal, regulated cannabis at non-standard storefront locations, Kagia said. It also provides a really unique opportunity for cultivators, in particular, to connect with consumers.

Advisory board member Marc Ramirez brought up concerns hes heard about medical cannabis Registered Organizations being able to expand into adult-use retail earlier than the OCM initially planned. Alexander said the change was born out of necessity and the realization that keeping ROs out of retail wouldnt do much to protect small business.

Related: With regulations finalized and cannabis applications opening soon, tears and pleadings at Cannabis Control Board meeting

When the OCM presented its first draft of regulations for New Yorks adult-use market, they proposed requiring ROs  most of which are large multi-state companies  to wait at least three years to open recreational dispensaries. However, final regulations the CCB approved this month allow ROs to expand into adult-use sales immediately.

Alexander said on Tuesday that the OCM wanted to keep ROs out of adult-use retail for a significant amount of time so that small and mid-sized weed retailers had time to establish their businesses. But the states retail rollout has taken longer than expected, and right now the state needs more dispensaries so that licensed growers have more places to possibly sell their products.

Our retail rollout was moving slowly and we needed some opportunities to ensure that the supply chain that we had begun with our small farmers was able to have enough retail outlets, Alexander said.

Additionally, the intent of creating the space and the runway to guard against market domination by the largest players wasnt actually going to be protected by that three-year delay.

Alexander said ROs will be able to apply for adult-use expansion on Oct. 4, the same day OCM plans to start the application process for cannabis business license types including cultivator, processor, distributor, microbusiness and retail dispensary.

OCM Chief Equity Officer Damian Fagon previewed four programs the agency will launch over the next six months. They include a program that will help people fill out license applications, a program to help distressed farmers transition to the legal market, an incubator program to help licensees plan their businesses, and an investor outreach program to connect financiers with weed companies.

Related: Lets keep New York cannabis jobs, profits, and innovation in New York (Guest Column)

In a subcommittee meeting before the full board met, advisory board member Allan Gandelman highlighted the issue of out-of-state brands being sold at legal New York dispensaries. The brands are using local cultivators to produce these branded products in-state  a setup known as white-labeling. However, Gandelman said, some of these brands are also being sold at illegal shops.

If the legal brands are to follow those rules, we will have to address the brands on the legal shelves who are not following those rules on the illicit side, Gandelman said. It will create a disadvantage to the small brands who are based in New York, and do not have an out-of-state supply chain that they can sell to the illicit shops.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A project to convert a former school in the Eastwood neighborhood of Syracuse into apartments is among the big winners in a new round of housing grants announced this week by Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon.

The county executive came to the old Taft School building, which for many years has been home to the American Legion Post 1276, to announce grants under the $10 million Onondaga County Housing Initiative Program launched last winter. That included $140,000 for the Eastwood project called The Taft.

Developer Stephen Skinner has been working on the project at the school building at Nichols Avenue and James Street for more than a year. He plans to create 28 market-rate apartments in a project with an estimated price tag of $5 million to $6 million.

In a Facebook post following the announcement, Skinner said the project will be coming online in the next one to two years. The Legion is planning to move to a different nearby property that better fits its current needs.

That grant was one of 11 new projects announced Monday. Along with three others announced during McMahons State of the County address in March, the county program now has awarded a combined $1.78 million so far for projects that promise to create 393 units of new housing. The county legislature last year approved the programs funding, which came from the countys budget surplus.

McMahon said there is already an unmet need for quality housing and that will grow as the Micron microchip manufacturing campus in Clay gets built out, bringing thousands of new residents to the area. He said OCHIP is aiming to help projects targeting all levels of affordability.

The primary goal is to ensure that we took a holistic approach to address the housing demand, but just as important, investing in a diversity of housing options to accommodate the current and future demand, he said. Especially right now, because of the lack of inventory, rents are increasing at rapid rates. While growth is good, we do need to create levels of affordability.

Market housing rental rates in the Syracuse metropolitan area increased 5% in July, according to Zillow, reaching an average of $1,469 per month.

Heres a roundup of the OCHIP grants announced so far:

City reporter Jeremy Boyer can be reached at jboyer@syracuse.com, (315) 657-5673, Twitter or Facebook.
By Raga Justin | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  Gov. Kathy Hochul said the upcoming years state budget will likely include a substantial amount of funding for managing the influx of new migrants into the state, a crisis for which New York already has committed more than $1.7 billion in state funding.

During a news conference following a meeting with other senior state officials Tuesday, Hochul estimated that the state is shoulding about 45 percent of migrant housing costs for New York City. She specifically cited the costs for state-run facilities like the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens that has been converted into a large-scale migrant housing center.

She also pointed to funding the state has made available for legal service providers who often proffer crucial front-line legal support for migrants  including helping them file asylum claims  as well as a state Department of Labor portal that will soon connect eligible migrants with open jobs across the state.

We know that well have to hit at least a baseline of what weve done before, Hochul said. Were estimating those estimates right now. Itll be substantial.

In an August memo to the White House, Hochul estimated the situation will cost the state over $4 billion in the upcoming year and she urged the federal government to cover at least some of those costs.

This week she hinted at some level of austerity during the next state budget cycle, following two years of federal cash infusions after the COVID-19 pandemic. Newly appointed budget director Blake Washington recently sent a memo to state agencies informing them to keep their budgets flat this year.

They knew then and were enforcing now that thats not the path were continuing on, Hochul said, referring to record levels of state spending increases in previous budgets.

She has said that she does not anticipate budget cuts that could materially impact any agency services.

Meanwhile, the influx of immigrants into New York does not appear to be slowing down.

A looming federal government shutdown could also hinder the work of federal agencies that are already at risk of being clogged by an influx of paperwork related to migrants, further complicating efforts to get people out of shelters and into better living conditions  a major goal for both Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Separately, Adams administration on Tuesday announced that the city would provide low-income and homeless city residents with housing vouchers that could be used for paying the rent in housing units across the state. Hochul later commended the move and said the policy is intended to relieve the overwhelmed shelter system, which has in recent months seen a sharp uptick in migrant residents.

Its not sending people against their will all across the state in buses, Hochul said. This is just one more opportunity to try and, as we talked about, open the back door to get more people out of the shelters and into apartments.

Hochul acknowledged that the housing supply, even upstate, has been constrained. She tied the voucher plan to a push for increased housing development statewide, long a pet project of her administration: I want more housing built and a lot more housing thats affordable built, and I wont stop until we do more.

Earlier this week, Hochul said the National Guard would deploy an additional 150 members in the state, freeing up over 200 National Guard personnel to assist with casework for the migrants currently living in New York Citys shelter system. The aim is to transition them out of city shelters as soon as possible. The state is paying the cost for over 2,000 National Guard personnel working with migrants.

Many of those migrants are eligible for work authorization permits after President Joe Biden announced the Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the United States before July 31 will be classified as having temporary protective status, which allows them to skirt some of the bureaucratic hurdles associated with obtaining work permits.

Both Hochul and Adams have called on the White House to expedite the work authorization process, with Hochul on Tuesday highlighting that over 400,000 jobs are open in New Yorks labor market.

___

(c)2023 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)

Visit the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) at www.timesunion.com
By Joshua Solomon | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  The New York Department of State has suspended business licenses for two security companies that were hired by DocGo, a private medical services company, to oversee activities at upstate hotels that have been transformed into migrant shelters under the companys contract with New York City.

The companies, Wawanda Investigations and Security Company and Trace Assets Protection Service, have been in charge of security in the Capital Region and Buffalo area for DocGo  the publicly traded mobile health care company that was awarded a $432 million, no-bid emergency contract to coordinate sheltering and other services for thousands of migrants.

The department is committed to ensuring the publics safety and holding companies accountable if they are not fully compliant with the law, Department of State spokeswoman Michelle Rosales said in a statement.

The companies were notified of the license suspensions on Sept. 20 by the Department of State, following allegations that some of their security guards lacked required credentials.

Security at the hotels in the Albany area has appeared to be scaled down in recent days.

The suspension of the companies licenses will remain in effect until a final ruling in an administrative hearing. Wawanda, working for DocGo in the Albany area, has a hearing scheduled for Nov. 7; Trace Assets, working for DocGo in the Buffalo area, has a hearing scheduled for Nov. 22.

The regulatory action comes three weeks after state officials notified the two security companies, and DocGo, that at least 50 security guards were working without proper licensing. State officials described those apparent violations as significant.

The issues uncovered by the states investigation included a series of problems involving one unregistered security guard in the Capital Region.

After being told by the state that the guard was not properly licensed, Wawanda said the person was working in an administrative capacity, according to the complaint in the case. But the person, according to the Department of State, was seen wearing a security uniform and carrying a statement that indicated he completed his licensing requirements under state law.

By reason of (Wawanda)s false and misleading statements with respect to the security guard, the company failed to cooperate with a departmental investigation, according to the complaint.

New York City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, have maintained their support for DocGo, despite the myriad of reported issues, including lies made by the companys now-departed CEO, Anthony Capone.

Senior city officials testified to City Council members last week that it selected DocGo to run point on the relocating migrants upstate because they said the company has expertise in logistics, setting up operations in new areas quickly and hiring people to do the work.

The upstate program was about moving into communities weve never been in. We have no footprint there. We have no infrastructure there, George Sarkessian, chief of staff of New York Citys housing agency, said. But we have hotels there and we have opportunity there to advance the decompression strategy down here. So this is what DocGo does, right?

Sarkessian did indicate the city has terminated one contract with a different company since the beginning of the migrant crisis.

Here are your picks for the Best of the Capital Region 2023

We tallied the votes from this years Best of the Capital Region contest in 100 categories.

We had issues with that particular security vendor so weve terminated that contract in particular, Sarkessian said at a City Council hearing on Thursday.

Asked immediately after the hearing which company had its contract terminated, city officials did not elaborate. At the hearing, a different city commissioner chastised council members for misrepresenting facts or relying on inaccurate information from reporters; City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, D-Manhattan, responded that elected officials are often left with limited information based on what city agencies provide them.

On Tuesday afternoon, after a reporter notified them about the suspensions from the Department of State, a spokeswoman for the city continued to decline to identify the security company that had its contract terminated. Its unclear if that company may be Wawanda.

The enforcement action by state officials adds to a series of issues that undermine the justifications by city officials for why they hired and have stuck with DocGo. News reports have previously detailed how security guards have sought to restrict the ability of migrants to speak to reporters. State Attorney General Letitia James office previously told DocGo to cease any limitations on the freedom of movement or speech by the migrants at the hotels.

DocGo, at the direction of the city, is supposed to provide security to assist hotel staff at any shelter or hotel that has at least 50 people staying there, according to DocGos contract with New York Citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

The contract details that DocGo, at the direction of the city agency, is to pay security guards $50 an hour, and to have them on site 24 hours a day  which amounts to $1,200 per day, per guard.

___

(c)2023 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)

Visit the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) at www.timesunion.com
The screenshot taken from C-SPAN's web streaming shows U.S. President Joe Biden speaking in front of a picket line outside a General Motors parts distribution center in Wayne County, U.S. state of Michigan, on Sept. 26, 2023. (Xinhua)

Nationwide, UAW autoworkers at 41 Ford Motor Co, GM and Stellantis NV facilities are on strike, asking for higher wages, pensions for all workers and the elimination of a two-tier pay scale.

CHICAGO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday visited a picket line outside a General Motors parts distribution center in Wayne County, U.S. state of Michigan, to show his support to autoworkers who are on the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against the Big Three U.S. automakers.

"You made a lot of sacrifice. You gave up a lot when the companies were in trouble. Now, they're doing incredibly well... You should be doing incredibly well, too," Biden said amid the applause from the striking workers. "You deserve a significant raise you need and other benefits... It's time for them to step up for us."

"Wall Street didn't build the country," Biden said. "The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Let's keep it going."

This is the first time in at least a century for a sitting president visiting a labor union's picket line, at the invitation of UAW President Shawn Fain, The Detroit News quoted the White House on Tuesday.

Fain joined Biden at the picket line. He thanked Biden for coming, saying the president "will do right by the working class."

U.S. former President Donald Trump is set to make an address Wednesday at an auto supplier in Macomb County, Michigan, showing his support to the autoworkers.

The UAW went on strike on Sept. 15 at select facilities of Ford, GM and Stellantis, and expanded it to 38 GM and Stellantis facilities on Sept. 22. Nationwide, UAW autoworkers at 41 Ford Motor Co, GM and Stellantis NV facilities are on strike, asking for higher wages, pensions for all workers and the elimination of a two-tier pay scale. 
Washington  News publishers are escalating their push for a bill in Congress that would force big tech companies to compensate local news organizations for content posted on platforms like Google and Facebook.

More than 80 news publishers and their representatives plan to visit members of Congress at their Capitol Hill offices today as part of a lobbying blitz for the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act.

The bill would give news organizations a temporary anti-trust exemption to negotiate with digital platforms and come up with fair compensation for content produced by their journalists.

The legislation could provide a financial boost to struggling local news organizations, which compete with the technology firms for digital advertising revenue.

The tech platforms take as much as 70% of the digital ad revenue generated in the United States, according to the News Media Alliance, a trade group of about 2,000 news organizations.

The shrinking revenue for local news publishers has contributed to the closing of about 2,500 local newspapers since 2005, or about a quarter of the nations newspapers according to a Northwestern University study.

The bipartisan legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., would grant news operations with fewer than 1,500 full-time employees the exemption from state and federal anti-trust laws.

The bill would require online platforms with at least 50 million U.S.-based users or subscribers and net annual sales or market capitalization of more than $550 billion to negotiate with eligible news organizations.

The digital journalism providers would be allowed to take part in joint negotiations and arbitration with the online platforms, and jointly withhold their news content during those negotiations.

The legislation would apply to all digital news organizations and local broadcast news operations. Network broadcast companies would not be eligible. The bill was first introduced in 2018.

Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, said the new push from local publishers comes at an important time for local journalism and democracy.

Some communities are now considered news deserts because sources of local news have closed amid financial strains.

We want to remind everyone of the importance of quality news across the country, Coffey told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.

In general, what were reminding lawmakers about is the quality of our content, Coffey said. No other entity is providing that source of information in a vetted, fact-based way, the way we have done for more than a hundred years. Were reminding everyone that the Fourth Estate is an important part of our democracy.

Among the bills supporters are New Yorks two U.S. senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats.

Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the legislation is a priority because newspapers are closing, dedicated reporters are being forced to leave the industry they love, and communities across New York are turning into news deserts without access to local reporting.

I travel every one of New Yorks 62 counties every year and the decline in local media I have seen breaks my heart, Schumer said.

He said the bipartisan legislation will ensure that media outlets in New York and across the country can band together and negotiate for fair compensation from the online platforms that have come to dominate news distribution and digital advertising.

Republicans co-sponsoring the bill include Sens. Steve Daines of Montana, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Roger Wicker of Missouri.

The news industry is also pushing for Congress to pass a bill that would help support local news operations through tax credits.

The Community News and Small Business Support Act introduced by Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-Canandaigua, and Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash, would provide a refundable payroll tax credit for local newspapers.

The bill also would provide a non-refundable tax credit for small businesses with less than 50 employees who advertise with local newspapers and broadcast outlets.

The companies that could benefit from the legislation include Advance Local, which operates al.com, cleveland.com, lehighvalleylive.com, MassLive.com, MLive.com, NJ.com, OregonLive.com, PennLive.com, SILive.com, syracuse.com and other local digital properties.

Tim Kennedy, president of Advance Media New York, which publishes syracuse.com and The Post-Standard, is among the news executives who traveled to Washington to advocate for the bills.

The journalism competition bill is opposed by tech giants Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

Andy Stone, Metas communications director, warned in December that Facebook would consider banning news from its platform if Congress passes the bill.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also opposes the bill, which it said unfairly moves beyond granting news publishers immunity from antitrust regulations.

The legislation requires compensation for merely coming across content as part of the technical process of crawling or determining what information exists online, the Chamber wrote in a June 23 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This basic function of the internet should not trigger compensation.

Facebook also made threats to withhold news content from its platforms when Canada passed a similar bill last year. Canadas Online News Act requires the big online platforms to compensate news publishers for their content. The law is due to become effective by Dec. 19.

Australia passed its own legislation requiring the tech companies to compensate local news publishers in 2021.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
A private Catholic school in Manlius is ready to pay for a town police officer to work full-time at its school.

Immaculate Conception Elementary School, which serves about 220 kids in pre-K through sixth grade, wants a retired Manlius police officer to serve as an armed school resource officer inside the school.

IC Principal Nancy Ferrarone said the March 2023 shooting at a Nashville parochial school, which killed six people, made the desire for security more urgent.

We would pick up 100 percent of the cost, no cost to taxpayers, she said. We want to keep our students as safe as possible just as other schools have done.

But, for now, the town of Manlius says no. Its hands are tied.

The town supervisor says New York municipal law and an Attorney General opinion from 1974 prohibit the town from contracting with a private school for police protection, even if the school is willing to pick up the tab.

Plus, doing so would violate state constitutional rules that say a town cant give a loan or a gift to a private entity, such as a private school, according to town Supervisor John Deer.

Yet others have found a way. A town cop works at a Catholic school in Broome County, according to the Syracuse diocese. And in nearby DeWitt, town officials have given their blessing for Holy Cross to hire a town cop to work on its campus. Thats because DeWitt officials are interpreting those same state laws differently from Manlius leaders.

So far, Immaculate Conception and Holy Cross are the first parish schools in Onondaga County to request town police protection, according to diocese spokeswoman Danielle Cummings. Its up to the school community to request it, and Cummings said the diocese will be interested in seeing what happens in Manlius.

The diocese and Immaculate Conception say a town police officer is the only answer.

The dioceses insurance company will only cover security provided by police officers, not private security, Cummings said. Other schools in Manlius only use town police inside schools. Currently, theres no agreement between any Manlius school and the Onondaga County Sheriffs Office, who also provides SROs throughout the county, to put sworn officers in the towns schools.

Deer, whos met with Immaculate Conception officials, told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard he doesnt see any wiggle room in the state laws. In my opinion we cant do this legally, Deer said.

Part of Deers position relies on the 1974 opinion from then-Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz. It states, A town police department may not provide extra police services to private persons or organizations on a contract basis. The opinion goes on to say the AG knows of no statutory authority allowing a town to provide police services on contract for private persons or organizations.

The opinion, however, is an informal opinion, which according to the attorney generals website are issued to local governments at the request of the municipality. With these opinions, the ultimate responsibility to provide legal advice rests with the town attorney, according to the AGs website.

When contacted by syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, the AGs office said some of its earlier opinions are still relevant and some arent. The AGs office could not comment on this specific opinion.

DeWitt police Chief Chase Bilodeau does see a way to put a town cop onto Holy Crosss payroll.

Bilodeau acknowledges that state municipal law designates SROs to patrol public, rather than private, entities.

To get around that, the DeWitt cop working at Holy Cross would be a peace officer, a security official with similar but limited authority compared with a police officer.

DeWitt also sees the constitutional language on gifts differently. Bilodeau said hes not giving the private school a gift or loan from the town. Rather, protecting the students and staff is a benefit to the overall town and costs taxpayers nothing, he said.

Jonathan Karp, a Cicero town councilor and lawyer whose three children attend IC, said hes frustrated and doesnt agree with the towns arguments. Hes been involved with trying to convince town officials to let the school pay for a Manlius police officer.

It is extremely disappointing that the town of Manlius will not take these very simple steps  at no cost to the taxpayers  to provide the same safety and security for our children that their neighbors in Dewitt are providing to the children at Holy Cross, he said.

Deer hasnt completely shut the door, he told syracuse.com. He said he would contact the state Attorney Generals office for more guidance.

The subject is on the Manlius Town Board agenda again tonight at its 6:30 p.m. meeting.

DeWitt is ready to move ahead. The town is expected to create the new post for Holy Cross soon. The new constable could start as soon as mid-October, Bilodeau said. The school will pay that persons wages.

I believe we are on solid footing, Bilodeau said.

Elizabeth Doran covers education, suburban government and development, breaking news and more. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact her anytime 315-470-3012 or email edoran@syracuse.com
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  North Korea said Wednesday that it would expel a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country two months ago through the heavily armed border separating the Koreas.

The announcement of Pvt. Travis Kings release came relatively quickly and surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities have finished their questioning of King but did not say when officials plan to expel him or where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the state news agency said that King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, the state news agency said, using the initials of North Koreas formal name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

The White House, the State Department and the Pentagon did not have any immediate comment on the report.

U.S. officials have said that King has been declared AWOL, which can be punished by time in the brig, forfeiture of pay or dishonorable discharge, with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained King, 23, and was investigating the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

North Koreas decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the countrys standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the Norths growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasnt worth keeping, possibly because the costs of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Koreas Sejong Institute.

It wasnt immediately clear how King might be expelled. In some prior cases, captive Americans have been flown to Beijing. In others, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

Bill Richardson  who up until his death served many presidential administrations as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter  traveled to North Korea in 2007 to recover the remains of servicemembers killed in the Korea War.
On September 21, 2023, Russia announced that it would temporarily ban exports of diesel and gasoline, to lower the prices of these products for Russian consumers. As global oil prices increased, exports have become more profitable for Russian refiners, raising domestic prices and reducing availability of diesel and gasoline.

The export ban goes into effect immediately but exempts exports to Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, as well as exports for humanitarian help, exports under intergovernmental agreements and for Russian military in foreign countries. It is unclear what will happen to existing sales that have not been loaded yet, we assume they will be shipped.

This week we will take a look at Russias exports and the potential impact of this ban.

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WELLINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has launched the final policy consultation on the review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 (IPSA).

This omnibus consultation sets out a full set of proposals for amending the legislation. It is based on feedback from earlier consultations and is the final policy consultation for the IPSA review.

RBNZ Deputy Governor Christian Hawkesby said the Reserve Bank's prudential supervision of insurance promotes a sound and efficient insurance sector in New Zealand and promotes public confidence in the sector.

"The proposed changes will support the Reserve Bank's evolution from light touch supervision toward a more proactive and intensive approach that is more closely aligned with international best practices," Hawkesby said.

The proposals will give us an expanded set of supervisory and enforcement tools, which will enable a more graduated and proportionate set of responses, ranging from remedial action to address risks through to robust enforcement measures for serious breaches, he said.

"We will be able to set out clearer and more enforceable rules in areas such as governance and risk management, making us better equipped to address emerging issues such as cybersecurity and climate," Hawkesby said.

Once the policy is finalized, the RBNZ will consult on an exposure draft of an IPSA Amendment Bill, which is likely to commence in early 2025, he said. 
27 September 2023

Type Event Proceeding



Teagasc in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) hosted an information webinar on Tuesday, 26 September to promote the exciting forest creation opportunities that are available in the new Forestry Programme 2023 - 2027.



The webinar was chaired by John Spink, Head of Environment, Crops and Land Use Programme in Teagasc.

Minister of State Pippa Hackett delivered a keynote address on the New Forestry Programme 2023 - 2027 and the opportunities that it will provide for new woodland creation.

Professor Frank O'Mara, Teagasc Director outlined the importance of afforestation to Irish agriculture and how Teagasc is supporting the new programme.

Tom Houlihan, Forestry Specialist with Teagasc and Robert Windle, Forestry Inspector with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine highlighted some of the key elements within the programme and outline opportunities for tree planting at farm level.

A questions and answers session took place at the end of the webinar which was facilitated by Liam Kelly, Teagasc Forestry Advisor.

Watch webinar recording below

Find advice from the Teagasc Forestry team here


X, formerly Twitter, has the biggest proportion of disinformation of six big social networks, a European Commission study has suggested. It examined over 6,000 unique social media posts across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube. The study analysed content in three countries deemed particularly at risk to disinformation  Spain, Poland and Slovakia. The BBC has approached X for comment. My message for [X] is: you have to comply with the hard law. Well be watching what youre doing, the EUs Values and Transparency Commissioner Vera Jourova warned. BBC

Meta has surrendered the lease on one of its London offices as tech firms continue efforts to slash costs. The parent firm of Facebook and Instagram let the space at 1 Triton Square from British Land, the FTSE 250 commercial property company, in 2021 but never moved in. Meta paid 149m to break the lease, which was understood by analysts at BNP Paribas to have 18 years left to run. British Land said that despite the payment, the companys exit would reduce its earnings per share by 0.6% over the six months to next March. Sky News

If you just bought a swanky new iPhone 15 Pro, maybe be careful about using it for strenuous activities like filming 4K videos. Thats because reports are flooding in online accusing the new flagship (which otherwise seems excellent) of becoming hot to the point of physical discomfort. People like Ian Zelbo of 9to5Mac have reported the phenomenon, which seems to be a very real thing. However, customer testimonials on Twitter arent enough data. Thankfully, the folks over at Android Authority ran detailed tests with a temperature gun and found that its not an illusion. Mashable

Jeeez my iPhone 15 Pro Max is almost too hot to touch while fast charging rn  Ian Zelbo (@ianzelbo) September 25, 2023

The Federal Trade Commission, along with the attorneys general from 17 states, have accused Amazon in a major antitrust lawsuit of illegally shutting out competition to become one of the worlds most powerful companies. The landmark case presents a significant threat to Amazons dominance in the online retail industry, and a major test of antitrust law and the FTCs power. At the core of the case is whether Amazon used its immense power in the online retail industry to illegally disadvantage rivals. Guardian



A Nissan-led autonomous driving project will target the UKs residential and single-track rural roads in a push to make the country more equipped to introduce self-driving vehicles. Launched today, the evolvAD project will test a fleet of adapted Nissan Leafs over the next 21 months to assess if self-driving vehicles can be used outside of cities and in less-connected areas. Fitted with Nissans advanced autonomous tech, the electric cars will utilise infrastructure such as CCTV in residential areas to improve situational awareness. Autocar

A French billionaire has put further pressure on Rishi Sunaks artificial intelligence (AI) summit after announcing plans for a rival conference in Paris just a fortnight later. Xavier Niel, the telecoms mogul and co-owner of French paper Le Monde, has launched a bid to woo AI companies to France with what he has dubbed Europes leading AI conference.The billionaires Iliad Group will host a gathering of AI professionals sponsored by chipmaker Nvidia on Nov 17 in Paris, 15 days after the UK hosts tech leaders at Bletchley Park to discuss the risks posed by the new technology. Telegraph

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In a nutshell: After a four-year investigation, the FTC has decided to file an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. The US regulator claims the company has harmed the public and businesses through anticompetitive policies and conduct, including favoring itself in search results and charging sellers more unless they agree to sell exclusively with Amazon. These practices led to higher prices for consumers, the Commission contends.

On Tuesday, the FTC filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the online retail platform exerts monopolistic power to create unfair methods of competition. It claims the company uses policies and procedures to prevent "rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing."

The FTC insists the lawsuit has nothing to do with Amazon being too big. It claims the company has broken the law by engaging in "exclusionary conduct," preventing existing competition from growing and blocking new competitors from entering the market.

"By stifling competition on price, product selection, quality, and by preventing its current or future rivals from attracting a critical mass of shoppers and sellers, Amazon ensures that no current or future rival can threaten its dominance [sic]," the FTC said in a press release.

Specifically, the FTC claims that Amazon punishes sellers for discounting products outside the Amazon marketplace. It claims the retail giant does this by burying a seller's search results. It also alleges that the company uses its Prime program to "coerce" retailers from competing with Amazon by making Prime status on products more expensive if the seller has an external store.

FTC v. Amazon Antitrust Lawsuit via Scribd

Amazon believes the lawsuit is "wrong on the facts and the law." David Zapolsky, Amazon's senior vice president of global public policy and general counsel, said the lawsuit would hurt consumers rather than protect them.

"Today's suit makes clear the FTC's focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition," Zapolsky told The Washington Post. "If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses  the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do."

Others see the suit as a witchhunt initiated by FTC Chair Lina Khan. Although the FTC started investigating Amazon in 2019, its scrutiny was expanded when Khan took the lead in 2021. Khan has a perceived long-standing beef with Amazon, having written a paper during law school titled Amazon's Antitrust Paradox, which delved into the idea that Amazon constituted a monopoly.

"FTC Chair Lina Khan has engaged in a long-standing and highly-public reputational smear campaign against one of America's most popular companies, and this latest case is no different," Chandler Smith Costello, a spokeswoman for the Don't Break What Works campaign, said of the lawsuit. "From jeopardizing guaranteed two-day delivery to breaking a service that Americans love because it provides goods quickly and at a low cost, the FTC is attempting to bring harm to and raise prices for American consumers, which runs counter to the foundational principles on which the FTC is built."

Costello and others view the lawsuit as part of Khan's personal vendetta against Amazon based on her ideology rather than facts. The company petitioned that Khan recuse herself from the then-ongoing investigation, citing her bias against the company. Khan and the FTC rejected the motion.

The FTC seeks an injunction against all anticompetitive practices as outlined in the dispute.

Image credit: Quote Catalog
What just happened? Why did Apple make Google the default search engine on iPhones? According to senior vice president of services Eddy Cue, who is testifying in the antitrust trial against Google, the decision was made simply because there "wasn't a valid alternative."

Speaking in federal court, Cue shed some light on the estimated $19 billion per year that Google is believed to be paying Apple under the agreement to keep its search engine the default option in Apple's products.

"When we're picking search engines, we pick the best one and we let the customer easily change them," Cue said. He added that Apple does offer alternatives, but they have some that "customers have never heard of," which can make them wary of making a perceived wrong choice.

The Information Services Agreement (ISA) between the two tech giants, which had been in place since 2002, was renegotiated in 2016. Cue hoped to convince CEO Sundar Pichai to increase Apple's share of the revenue Google made from advertising via searches carried out on Apple devices, writes The Verge.

Cue said that asking for an increase was "the right thing" as Apple had built the technology and "deserved" a higher revenue share. Pichai wanted to keep the share unchanged, and they ultimately compromised on an undisclosed number.

"There certainly wasn't a valid alternative we would have gone to at the time," Cue said. "I don't know what we would have done if the deal had collapsed."

Cue confirmed that the agreement also included a provision that Apple and Google would support and defend the deal against government scrutiny. Google had requested it while under investigation in Europe.

The question being raised is whether Google used its power and money to crush rivals and push its way onto Apple's devices, or if its search product was the best option for consumers.

Cue said Apple had no reason to develop its own search tool as Google's is clearly the best one available. That contrasts with other areas where the two companies compete, such as mapping software.

Meagan Bellshaw, a Justice Department lawyer, asked Cue why the iPhone setup process didn't let users choose their default search engine. Cue acknowledged that ISA didn't allow users this choice, but argued that "We try to get people up and running as fast as possible [...] Setup is just critical stuff." He also said showing people a bunch of search engines they'd never heard of would be a bad experience for users.

"We make Google be the default search engine," Cue explained, "because we've always thought it was the best. We pick the best one and let users easily change it." The executive also said Apple doesn't track how many people make the change to search engines that are not from Google due to privacy concerns.

According to Statcounter, Google holds a nearly 92% share of the global search engine market. It's followed in second place by Bing, which has a 3% share, then Yandex (1.49%) and Yahoo (1.17%). Apple also has agreements with other search engines, Cue said. The company generates money from these if users change their defaults to them.

Part of Cue's testimony yesterday was closed to the public because it involved confidential information that Apple and Google don't want exposed.
What just happened? The European Union has identified X, formerly Twitter, as the social media platform with the highest ratio of misinformation/disinformation posts. The news came just as X disabled a feature that allows users to report misinformation related to elections.

On Tuesday, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova, gave a speech discussing the progress made under the EU's strengthened 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation. She singled out X as being rife with mis/disinformation.

X was assessed in a pilot phase in three of the EU's member states to evaluate a new testing methodology for discovering how easy it is to find disinformation content, how much engagement such content receives, and indicators about sources.

"These indicators  developed by the signatories - constitute an unprecedented and novel insight into disinformation on online platforms. Such insight is crucial to understand how effective platforms efforts are to fight this threat even more efficiently," said Jourova.

It was found that X, which is no longer under the voluntary Code, is the worst social media platform when it comes to this practice. It was also discovered that those spreading disinformation had a lot more followers than those who did not and they tend to have joined the platform more recently.

The Code has 44 signatories, including Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Musk's platform pulled out of the Code in May, a move that followed EU warnings that a lack of moderation could be inadvertently helping Vladimir Putin as Russian propaganda relating to the war in Ukraine isn't being removed.

"Disinformation is not new, nor does it happen only on online platforms," said Jourova. "But with increasing digitalization, malicious actors have gained new ways to try to undermine our democracies."

"The Russian state has engaged in the war of ideas to pollute our information space with half-truth and lies to create a false image that democracy is no better than autocracy," she said.

Google said that between January and April this year, it removed more than 400 channels from YouTube that were involved in coordinated influence operations linked to the Russian-state-sponsored Internet Research Agency (IRA). Meta, TikTok, and Microsoft have also been pushing back against Russian propaganda.

"The Kremlin fights with bombs in Ukraine, but with words everywhere else, including in the EU," said Jourova.

X now uses Community Notes, in which users collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts. Contributors can leave notes on any post and if enough contributors "from different points of view" rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a post.

Not helping X's reputation is today's announcement by a research organization revealing that the platform has disabled a feature allowing users to report misinformation about elections. Reset.Tech Australia said that in the past week, the "politics" category has been removed from the drop-down menu that allows users to report posts they consider misleading. The only jurisdiction where it is still present is the European Union.

Last week's Climate of Misinformation report by Climate Action Against Disinformation ranked X the worst platform for climate change misinformation, awarding it a score of just 1 out of 21.
In a nutshell: Net neutrality rules state that internet service providers must treat all internet communications equally, without prioritizing any traffic or filtering specific types of content. The rule was repealed in the US in 2017, but a Democratic-led FCC is currently working to reinstate them soon.

The US implemented net neutrality rules at the national level during the Obama Administration in 2015. These rules classified internet broadband as "telecommunication services" under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, which regulated ISPs as common carriers or utilities. This classification required internet providers to offer a non-discriminatory service to their customers.

However, net neutrality rules were repealed in 2017 when Ajit Pai, who was appointed as FCC chairman by President Trump, decided to reclassify ISPs as "information services" under Title I of the Communications Act. Information services have no obligations to adhere to business practices that align with net neutrality principles.

The net neutrality repeal was celebrated as a major victory by the telecom industry. However, individual US states opted to enact their own local net neutrality rules shortly after the FCC's decision. In 2018, Washington, Oregon, and California passed new net neutrality laws, as did Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, and Vermont. Meanwhile, other states supported net neutrality through executive orders.

Fast forward to 2023, and the FCC is now under the leadership of Biden-appointed Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. With a 3-2 majority favoring the Democrats, Rosenworcel has confirmed her plan to reinstate net neutrality rules at the federal level. She recently stated that the decision by the Trump administration to repeal net neutrality was a mistake, as it positioned the agency "on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the public."

Repealing net neutrality repeal made no sense back then, Rosenworcel said, and it makes even less sense now. The Cvoid-19 pandemic underscored that internet infrastructure is an essential component of modern life, necessitating proper oversight to prevent potential discrimination and abuse by telecom corporations.

Rosenworcel further explained that the net neutrality repeal eliminated "enforceable, bright-line rules to prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization." Additionally, it stripped the agency of any substantial oversight in markets served by a single provider. Without the Title II classification, the agency cannot prohibit telcos from selling their customers' location data.

Rosenworcel is preparing to release the complete text of the new net neutrality rules, and the FCC will once again seek public input before reinstating the Title II classification. The agency aims to reintroduce policies that "prevent broadband providers from engaging in blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization." Providers will also be required to adhere to a "general conduct rule" that prohibits them from "interfering" with or "disadvantaging" consumers' ability to access the online content and services of their choice.

The non-profit digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), welcomed the new net neutrality rules, citing their positive impact on US internet users and as an example for the world. The Center for Democracy & Technology group also expressed its appreciation for the FCC decision. Opponents of the new rules include Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who issued a press release expressing dismay at the reinstatement of the "failed Obama-era net neutrality rules." He argued that these rules treat the internet as a public utility "controlled by the federal government."
YANGON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar authorities have seized 12.55 million stimulant tablets worth over 18.8 billion kyats (over 8.95 million U.S. dollars) in the central region of Mandalay, according to the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) late Tuesday.

Acting on a tip-off, anti-narcotic police searched a vehicle in Patheingyi township of Mandalay region last Thursday and confiscated the drugs.

Three suspects were arrested for the case, the committee said.

The suspects were charged under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, and further investigations were underway, it added. 
The TRAPPIST-1 system is a hot astronomy subject that amazes many scientists globally. This ultra-cool dwarf is reportedly 40 light-years away from Earth.

Recently, a group of researchers discovered that another TRAPPIST-1 planet differs from the other exoplanets. Based on their findings, the team said that no atmosphere is present in it.

Probing TRAPPIST-1 b and c

Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope or JWST, the researchers learned that the TRAPPISt-1 b and TRAPPIST-1 c are unsuitable for life. It became even more evident when they found strange features in their atmospheres.

According to IFL Science, the astronomers are surprised that TRAPPIST-1 b has no signs of any atmospheric features. With this, the group assumed that TRAPPIST-1 b only has high-altitude clouds.

Another possibility they ruled out is that it's just a barren, rocky world. On top of that, its small atmosphere is likely heavily occupied by carbon dioxide.

Related Article: Exploring Beyond Earth: AI-Powered Method Unveiled for Detecting Life Beyond Earth

The Dominance of the Star

Surprisingly, the star itself significantly influences the observations of TRAPPIST-1 b. The star's radiant light has a substantial impact on the measurements.

According to Ryan MacDonald from the University of Michigan, the recent finding challenged the whole team to the point that its atmosphere was too small to detect.

"But what we do see is that the star is absolutely the biggest effect dominating our observations, and this will do the exact same thing to other planets in the system," MacDonald added.

Challenges with Stellar Contamination

Astronomers face the challenge of differentiating the exoplanet's spectrum from the star's interference.

TRAPPIST-1 is an active star featuring dark spots and bright faculae, creating spectral distortions. Additionally, the star occasionally experiences flares, causing sudden increases in brightness.

As Olivia Lim from the University of Montreal explains, if they don't solve how to deal with this star, it will be more difficult to assess other planets in the habitable zone. These include the TRAPPIST-1 d, e, and f.

Radiation and Atmospheric Clues

TRAPPIST-1 b receives approximately four times more radiation from its star than Earth does from the Sun. If it possessed a substantial atmosphere, this would be readily detectable. However, the absence of a notable atmosphere aligns with previous JWST observations and findings.

As the team gathers more information about the exoplanets and their compositions, the JWST and other telescopes will continue to explore the depth of the space.

To view the study titled "Atmospheric Reconnaissance of TRAPPIST-1 b with JWST/NIRISS: Evidence for Strong Stellar Contamination in the Transmission Spectra," visit The Astrophysical Journal Letters for more information.

In other news, Tech Times reports that there are reminders you need to remember if you want to see the full harvest moon this week. According to the experts, this will be the last supermoon of 2023.

Read Also: Alien Life Beyond Carbon-Based Organisms Could Thrive on Other Planets: Study

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US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm revealed the Biden administration's 10-year plan to build a commercial nuclear fusion reactor. Employing fusion to supply power to homes and businesses without carbon is part of President Biden's clean energy strategy.

Nuclear fusion, a cutting-edge technology, uses extreme pressure to fuse hydrogen atoms into helium and release heat and energy. Traditional nuclear processes produce radioactive waste, while fusion does not.

Proponents of nuclear fusion seek to replace fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources, but it will take decades to power US homes and businesses with carbon-free electricity.

Moreover, Granholm noted that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) plays an important role "to ensuring that nuclear energy is used for good and not misused." The US official complimented the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog's vital role in ensuring governments comply with international law.

The IAEA certifies peaceful nuclear energy production with over 170 nations by inspecting their nuclear operations and materials.

The Challenge of Radioactive Waste

The Biden administration's goals to create a carbon-pollution-free power sector by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050 heavily rely on nuclear energy.

Regarding the difficulty in obtaining locations for storing radioactive waste, Secretary Granholm said that the United States has started a procedure to find localities ready to house temporary storage facilities. Most spent nuclear fuel is stored in nuclear reactors nationwide.

The energy chief noted that they have identified "12 organizations" that will engage with communities nationwide to gauge their interest in hosting interim storage sites.

France recycles spent nuclear fuel to make new fuel, but critics say it's inefficient and might encourage nuclear proliferation.

Read Also: Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's CZI Aims to Eradicate Diseases with AI by 2100

In December, scientists at the US National Ignition Laboratory (NIF), the world's largest nuclear fusion lab, accomplished ignition. Fusion experts worldwide are excited about this achievement, which might lead to nuclear fusion as a potentially endless renewable energy source.

Deputy Director for Fundamental Weapons Physics at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Mark Herrmann, praised the ignition achievement, which came after years of rigorous study across several domains, according to Scientific American.

Intended initially to accomplish ignition in 2012, NIF, which served as the experimental branch of the US Department of Energy's nuclear weapons program, ran into delays and financial difficulties.

US Hydrogen Hub Program Details to be Disclosed Soon

On other issues, Granholm said that the Biden administration may unveil details on an $8 billion hydrogen hub program in October, per NBC News. The bipartisan infrastructure law funds this energy project.

A hydrogen hub would include clean hydrogen producers, hydrogen-using businesses like heavy transportation, and pipelines and filling stations. Many states and corporations have developed these US hydrogen hub concepts.

However, environmental groups worry about hydrogen's climatic and environmental impacts. Hydrogen emissions raise methane and other greenhouse gas levels.

Granholm said they are seeking clean hydrogen to cost "$1 per kilogram" in 10 years.

Related Article: NASA, US Air Force Receive First Electric Air Taxi From Joby Aviation

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
An interesting research reveals the surprising impact of "underground climate change" on civil infrastructure.

The study was brought by a team of scientists led by Alessandro Rotta Loria, Northwestern University's assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.

We might not notice this silent threat, but this phenomenon could open more doors to the extent of its effect on public health and the environment.

The Alarming Temperature Discrepancy

Rotta Loria's research has revealed a startling fact: air temperatures in human-made underground structures can soar to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) higher than the "undisturbed" ground temperature.

This disparity presents a unique result, distinct from the global warming crisis. However, it share similarities in its potential to wreak havoc on public health and critical infrastructure.

According to a report by NBC News on Tuesday, Sept. 26, the research says that "underground climate change" is caused by the trapped heat beneath the surface of the Earth.

This event threatens major cities such as Chicago, New York, and London. Unlike atmospheric climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions, this underground climate change results from the direct heat emissions of subways and buildings into the ground's sublayers.

As this heat permeates the ground, it triggers deformations, potentially causing structural damage to city buildings and infrastructure.

Related Article: Governments, Big Tech Harness AI Against Climate-Driven Wildfires

Human Presence to Be Blamed For Underground Climate Change

Rotta Loria points out that the growing underground heat issue is "the direct consequence of human presence on Earth and a direct consequence of building our structures."

As more heat becomes trapped in the ground, the repercussions will be felt in various aspects, including public health, building integrity, and public transportation.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has recognized the significance of addressing this underground resilience issue within the broader climate agenda.

To mitigate its effect, the Biden administration is seeking help from municipalities to take action by launching federal-supported programs. These are important to inform people about infrastructure projects and their impacts.

Rising Temperatures Below the Surface

In Rotta Loria's laboratory, data from the temperature sensors are transformed into a revealing heat map. The map vividly illustrates the rapid spread and escalation of underground heat associated with buildings and parking garages over recent decades. Astonishingly, the rise in underground temperatures outpaces global surface temperature increases.

When it comes to mitigation measures, alleviating the impact of underground heat is feasible, although costly. One approach involves the installation of thermal insulation below ground and its incorporation into new structures to prevent waste heat from escaping into the Earth.

Alternatively, scientists propose capturing this excess heat and using it as geothermal energy for heating and cooling buildings. This strategy addresses the problem and promises an estimated return on investment in approximately six years.

As cities grapple with this silent hazard, solutions prioritizing sustainability and resilience are essential to ensure a safer and more sustainable future.

Elsewhere, a Nigerian professor is promoting the use of digital technology that will address the vulnerability of farmers in coping with climate change, per Tech Times.

Read Also: Saildrone, RPS Collaborate to Protect Marine Life from Offshore Wind Noise by Deploying Sailing Drones

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A remarkable tale of survival exists in the freezing expanse of the Arctic, where the cold bites and the land seems barren and inhospitable.

It is the story of the Svalbard reindeer. This species has defied the odds, adapting to its harsh environment despite facing one of nature's most challenging problems: low genetic diversity.

A Genetic Paradox

Despite having the highest levels of inbreeding and the lowest genetic diversity among northern reindeer and caribou subspecies, the Svalbard reindeer thrives in the Arctic wilderness.

This is precisely the mystery that researchers at NTNU's Department of Natural History have been unraveling; we learn more in a report shared by Phys.org.

Nicolas Dussex, a postdoc at the department, explained, "Of all the subspecies of reindeer found in the high north, the Svalbard reindeer has the most inbreeding and the lowest genetic diversity."

Only 7,000-8,000 years ago, the first reindeer made their arduous journey to the Svalbard islands, likely from Russia via Novaya Zemlya and the islands of Franz Josef Land.

There might have been just a handful of these beats at that time. As evolutionary theory dictates, inbreeding should have been a recipe for disaster, leading to the accumulation of harmful mutations and genetic variants followed by disease and death.

Read Also: Invasive New Zealand Mud Snail Sparks Alarm as it Invades US' Lake Tahoe

Remarkable Adaptations

Yet, against all odds, the Svalbard reindeer have not just survived but thrived.

"Despite the low genetic diversity, they have managed to develop a number of adaptations to life in the High Arctic," Dussex revealed.

These adaptations include smaller size, shorter legs, the ability to digest mosses when lichens are scarce, and the remarkable capability to adjust their circadian rhythm to the extreme seasonal variations on Svalbard.

Population Bottleneck

The survival story of the Svalbard reindeer took an interesting twist in the early 1900s when they teetered on the brink of extinction due to excessive hunting.

This period of near-extinction, where only a few individuals with unique genetic variants survived, is known as a "bottleneck" in population biology.

Astonishingly, this bottleneck and their inbreeding did not spell doom for the Svalbard reindeer.

"In this case, we are dealing with a population that suffers from a high degree of inbreeding, which is usually bad news for a small population," said Michael D. Martin, a professor at NTNU's Department of Natural History.

But inbreeding can also help a population to get rid of harmful mutations, a phenomenon technically called 'purging,'" Martin added.

What Lies Ahead for the Svalbard Reindeer?

While the Svalbard reindeer's ability to adapt and thrive in extreme conditions is a testament to nature's resilience, there is a looming question: can they withstand the rapid changes brought about by climate change?

According to a study, the Arctic has warmed roughly four times faster than the rest of the world in the last 43 years. This suggests that the Arctic is about 3C warmer than in 1980.

As the Arctic warms at an alarming rate, the adaptations that allowed the Svalbard reindeer to flourish in the frigid north may fall short.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: Biological Annihilation Era: Study Reveals Human Activities Speed Up Extinction of Animal Species

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Nothing's promise of affordable tech with improved experiences is here, brought by its sub-brand, CMF by Nothing, which unveiled its latest Buds Pro, Watch Pro, and the Power 65W GaN. These three devices are centering on being accessible technology that is compatible with many devices, but are the top accessories meant for the Nothing Phone (2).

The renowned company from Carl Pei has evolved into more than delivering smartphones and wireless earbuds, now looking to share massive experiences for all.

CMF by Nothing Introduces Watch Pro, Buds Pro, 65W Power Brick

(Photo : Nothing)

CMF by Nothing introduced its first set of products now available to the world, featuring three in its release including the Watch Pro, Buds Pro, and the Power 65W GaN adapter.

First off, the Buds Pro and Watch Pro come in three colors, offering White, Black, and Orange (its special color). While the Power brick is only available in orange and black.

The Buds Pro is not transparent, but it features the same in-ear design which offers 45dB Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation, Ultra Bass technology, 11 hours of music playback, and 39 hours with the charging case.

Watch Pro is a square-faced smartwatch from the CMF sub-brand that offers a 1.96" AMOLED screen, complete with Bluetooth calling, AI noise reduction, and multi-system GPS.

Lastly, CMF by Nothing also introduces a highly adaptable Power 65W GaN power brick to charge devices with its 2 USB-C ports and one USB-A.

Read Also: Nothing Phone 2 Upgrades Confirmed by CEO Carl Pei - Here's Everything You Need to Know

CMF by Nothing's New Products: Where is it Available

One of the main features of these devices is their price point, as the Watch Pro is only available for $69 and the Buds Pro for $49 for both its Grey colors. CMF by Nothing has not yet revealed the pricing for its Orange colorways.

On the other hand, the Power 65W GaN charger is available for $39 for both the Orange and Dark Grey colors.

According to the announcement, the Nothing Store Soho would have a limited drop by Saturday, September 30 at 12 p.m. (noon) for its new tech.

Nothing's Technology and Offers

Carl Pei's Nothing has brought iconic features to the world already, and it centered on its flagship smartphone, the Nothing Phone which already introduced version 2. The iconic thing with Nothing Phone (2) is that this was made available to the United States already, a device that was released last July 11 after initially opting out of the American market in its debut device.

There was also the Nothing Ear (2) which brought a partnering True Wireless Earbuds that feature compatibility with the device, along with other smartphones that have Bluetooth connections available. It offers better sound latency, optimized adaptive ANC (active noise control), an LHDC codec, a bigger body, an IP54 rating for the earbuds case, and more.

However, the latest decision by the company to bring more accessible devices to the public branches out to CMF by Nothing which was first released in India, but is now coming to wider availability. One of the most significant features of the device are its cost-effectiveness, especially as it leverages the Watch Pro for only $69 or roughly one-fifths of the price of smartwatches from other brands.

Related Article: Nothing Unveils 'CMF' Brand to Center on Earbuds, Smartwatches-to Pair with Smartphone?

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The current electrical grid in the United States is ill-prepared to meet the growing demands for renewable energy sources and faces mounting challenges posed by extreme weather events and cybersecurity threats.

(Photo : PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

The sun sets behind electric power lines as the California Independent System Operator announced a statewide electricity Flex Alert urging conservation to avoid blackouts in Redondo Beach, California on August 31, 2022. Facing Challenges Amid Rising Demand for Renewable Energy

Energy security organization SAFE Grid Security Project has identified a surge in problems like power outages and supply deficits, indicating a growing concern.

Engadget reported that SAFE emphasizes that without substantial revisions to both policy and infrastructure, these challenges are expected to intensify in the future.

SAFE draws attention to notable incidents such as the devastating power crisis in Texas in 2021, which left millions without electricity during a winter storm, and a substation shooting in North Carolina in 2022, resulting in outages for over 40,000 individuals.

What were once considered rare occurrences are now regrettably becoming more commonplace.

Additionally, the report underscores the threat of sophisticated cyberattacks, as demonstrated by the historic breach of Ukraine's power grid in 2015, serving as a potential challenge that the US grid may confront.

The escalating frequency of extreme weather events, cyber espionage, and domestic acts of terror has shifted sporadic power disruptions into distressingly recurrent incidents within cities across the United States.

Thomas Coleman, the Executive Director of SAFE's Grid Security Project stated these are combined with the increasing burden on aging infrastructure.

Failing to Adopt

As we undergo a swift shift away from fossil fuels, the pressure on the electrical grid is set to intensify. Electric vehicles have witnessed a remarkable surge in adoption.

Yet, the existing infrastructure is struggling to efficiently channel energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar to densely populated regions.

This lack of capacity means that the current grid may struggle to consistently meet the escalating demands of energy generation and transmission.

SAFE asserts that the infrastructure, which has evolved from that relied upon by our great-grandparents, is progressively ill-suited to underpin today's modern economy. In simpler terms, the grid is in dire need of rapid and comprehensive updates.

Also Read: New 'Snow-Free Solar' Tech Aims to Keep Solar Panels Free of Snow Buildup, Functioning Through Winter Months



Effectively managing the transition to sustainable energy, minimizing disruptions, enhancing security, and ensuring affordable access to clean energy for households and businesses are crucial steps for the successful electrification of our economy and transportation systems.

Achieving this necessitates a well-coordinated effort between public regulators and private sector providers. Abundant, affordable, clean, and dependable energy is the key to the United States' ability to maintain its status as the world's leading economy, as per CEO Robbie Diamond on their official press release.

However, current federal and state policies do not adequately address the known risks to the nation's electrical grid. To overcome this impasse, it is imperative for the government and industry to initiate a new dialogue grounded in an honest assessment of the challenges and prospects ahead.

Related Article: Biden Administration Unveils Plan to Build a Commercial Nuclear Fusion Facility Within 10 Years

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Arguably the most famous internet company and search engine in the world is Google, and it has already reached 25 years in the industry and is still going strong. Now, the renowned Big Tech company from Mountain View is celebrating its 25th birthday since it was first launched in 1998, bringing a new Google Doodle that brings the world through the different logos it had in the past.

Google Doodle has been a central way of celebrating various events in the world, from different people, places, historical events, and more, but also for the Google brand.

Google at 25: New Doodle Brings All Logos Through the Years

(Photo : Google Doodle)

Google's first logo.

Google Inc. from Sergey Brin and Larry Page who met each other at Stanford University was founded last September 27, 1998, with the company now celebrating its 25th birthday.

In its commemoration of this milestone, the company released a new Google Doodle which takes users from the early days of the company by showcasing its logo and its changes through the years.

From the 3D version which looked like it was taken straight from Microsoft Office, down to its iconic colors and Bakersville font, and the modern Material You theme which the world is seeing now. The company's influence is massive, and it was so famous that its name was then a proper noun and was previously added as a verb that means to use a search engine or look for information online.

Read Also: Taylor Swift Puzzle on Google Reveals '1989 (Taylor's Version)' Vault Tracks-Here's How to Play It

Google's 25th Silver Anniversary Celebration

(Photo : Google Doodle)

Google's latest logo.

Google's celebration detailed the start of the company in 1998 when Brin and Page formed the company from a rented garage, now known for its iconic Googleplex and various Google campuses around the world. Its 25 years in the industry did not only bring the search engine and a more accessible internet, but also a slur of apps, games, experiences, and more that still live on or see developments from the company now.

Google's Tech and Innovation

Among the countless things that Google brought to the world is its technology, and how the company shaped the industry towards advancements and innovation, centering on the internet. From its search engine which brought massive results for almost all topics, down to a web browser app with Chrome, the company was not shy to bring its experience to the world.

Google is also famous for delivering the open-access smartphone operating system, Android, an ecosystem that is widely used now and has also taken various forms and looks for all.

While Google is the company that brought the world accessible internet, the people behind it are not forgotten. From the renowned data centers of the company, Brazilian engineer Luiz Andre Barroso has given the world cloud computing that shaped what Google is now.

The many products and experiences over at Google make it one of the most important companies in the almost past three decades, as well as a significant name in the future.

Google is now celebrating its 25th birthday since it was started by Brin and Page from a rented garage in 1998, now a world-celebrated company that still is the top name for everything regarding the internet and more.

Related Article: Google Focuses on 'Everyday' AI Features to Compete with ChatGPT and Bing: Generative AI Assistance

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GPUs have a vulnerability now, as discovered by researchers with the infamous "Pixel-stealing" attack that is present among six major graphics card brands around the globe. This attack can access sensitive information on web browsers through pixels, and rendering this stolen information could retrieve data including usernames, passwords, and other possible figures.

This vulnerability is massive, with the threat actors using a cross-origin attack from a malicious website from one domain, allowing them to read pixels that could be rendered to steal information from unknowing users.

GPU Vulnerability: Sensitive Information Access Discovered

(Photo : Nana Dua from Unsplash)

According to a release from researchers, there is now a vulnerability called "GPU.zip," one capable of accessing sensitive information via modern GPUs with an exploit that centers on graphical data compression.

"GPU.zip is a new type of side channel that exposes visual data processed on the graphics processing unit (GPU)," said the researchers.

With GPU.zip, threat actors may obtain information from a malicious webpage that would leak pixels from another webpage in various browsers, including Chrome or Edge. It violates the browser's security model.

The paper is now available in its preprint, with researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign working together to discover this.

Read Also: Looking For GPUs? Avoid These 5 Graphics Cards at All Costs-Here's Why

'Pixel-Stealing Attack': GPU Brands Affected

The GPU brands affected by this vulnerability include AMD, Apple, Arm, Intel, Qualcomm, and one discrete GPU from NVIDIA.

According to the team, most circumstances would not expose users to this vulnerability, but access websites that enable embedded cross-origin like Wikipedia could potentially have their information obtained when another malicious page is open.

GPUs and their Security

Despite being hardware, graphics processing units (GPUs) are still vulnerable to attacks and hacks from the many threat actors and malicious elements in the world. Major brands have also been affected before, with NVIDIA sharing a previous attack done by the LAPSU$ group from South America which targeted its Ada Lovelace RTX 4000s.

Another company is AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), best known for their Radeon GPU series, as the company faced ransomware attacks from infamous groups.

Another incident with NVIDIA was seen in 2021, where the company advised the public to update their drivers for Windows 10 PCs that were discovered to be vulnerable to attacks before.

While it may be hard to believe that hardware can also be subjected to attacks despite no direct or local contacts, it is a problem that most companies face. In a recent study, GPUs are yet again vulnerable to access, with the pixel-stealing attack looking to copy what a user does on the internet from another malicious domain, capable of obtaining personal or sensitive information from the public.

Related Article: Minisforum Mini-ITX PC Packs a GPU Mount on Top for Customized Gaming Experience

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The picket lines of the Writers Guild of America disbanded, marking a pivotal moment in their ongoing negotiations with the AMPTP.

(Photo : Mario Tama/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 26: A WGA support sign rests near SAG-AFTRA members picketing outside Warner Bros. Studio as the actors strike continues on September 26, 2023 in Burbank, California.

Revamping How Hollywood Works

With the strike officially paused, The Verge reported that the union members are now shifting their focus to a thorough review of the recently negotiated contract.

This agreement, recently summarized by the WGA, carries historical significance, with key victories centering on wage boosts and the incorporation of artificial intelligence.

These pay hikes span a wide spectrum, including substantial increases for productions falling under the category of "high budget subscription video on demand," a nod to major platforms like Netflix.

WGA has outlined that writers involved in streaming film projects, particularly those with budgets exceeding $30 million, are set to receive a minimum compensation boost of 18 percent.

Additionally, a substantial 26 percent increase in the residual base is on the horizon for these writers.

AI in Hollywood

In the realm of artificial intelligence, the Writers Guild of America has achieved a significant victory, securing what it has long advocated for.

The contract summary specifies that AI will be prohibited from independently creating or altering literary content, and any material generated by AI will not be eligible for use as source material.

This means that executives won't have the authority to commission AI like ChatGPT to generate a story and then task human writers with transforming it into a script that they can claim ownership of.

Furthermore, Variety reported that WGA has maintained the option to declare that using writers' content for AI training goes against the Masters of the Bargain Agreement (MBA) or other applicable laws.

This provision allows the WGA to raise concerns if legal regulations evolve or if the use of materials for AI training becomes a matter of dispute among guild members.

It is possibly linked to potential legislation in California aimed at regulating the utilization of materials in AI training processes.

Also Read: AI Versus Human: WGA Strike Sparks Debate on the Future of Writing



Power of Streaming

LA Times reported earlier this week that the world of streaming data has long remained shrouded in mystery. This opacity surrounding project performance in Hollywood has presented a quandary, as remuneration for these projects relies heavily on their success.

Under the new agreement, studios will be obligated to furnish the WGA with concrete data, specifically the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high-budget streaming programs.

This provision means that streaming giants like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon won't have the leeway to concoct obscure metrics or self-serving rankings for the WGA.

While the numbers may be subject to NDAs, keeping them from public view, the WGA will retain the capacity to release aggregated data. This promises a more comprehensive and enlightening insight into the streaming industry than what was previously available.

Related Article: Netflix's AI Goals Finds Compromise Between Innovation, Industry Concerns

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made significant progress in achieving its scientific objectives, delving into the atmosphere of the planet TRAPPIST-1 b, one of the exoplanets orbiting a star 40 light years away from Earth.

This observation provides crucial insights into how the star's characteristics influence observations of exoplanets situated in the habitable zone.

NASA: Atmospheric Signals Around TRAPPIST-1 b?

Ryan MacDonald, a NASA Sagan Fellow and University of Michigan astronomer, emphasized that while their observations did not detect signs of an atmosphere around TRAPPIST-1 b, it could imply various scenarios, including the planet being a rocky surface, possessing high-altitude clouds, or an atmosphere dominated by a dense molecule like carbon dioxide.

He stressed that the star exerted the most significant influence on their observations, a phenomenon applicable to other planets.

"If we don't figure out how to deal with the star now, it's going to make it much, much harder when we look at the planets in the habitable zone-TRAPPIST-1 d, e and f-to see any atmospheric signals," MacDonald said in a statement.

The study, led by Olivia Lim of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the University of Montreal, employed a technique called transmission spectroscopy.

This method examines the central star's light after it passes through the exoplanet's atmosphere during transit, enabling astronomers to discern the unique chemical signature left by the molecules and atoms present.

A key revelation from the study was the substantial impact of stellar activity and contamination when attempting to analyze an exoplanet's nature.

Stellar contamination, arising from the star's features like dark spots and bright faculae, significantly affects measurements of the exoplanet's atmosphere, according to the team.

Read Also: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Captures Evidence of Carbon Dioxide, Methane on Larger-Than-Earth Exoplanet

Stellar Contamination

The research highlighted the critical role of accounting for stellar contamination in deciphering the properties of exoplanets. Particularly in systems like TRAPPIST-1, centered around a red dwarf star known for its activity, this consideration is paramount.

TRAPPIST-1 b, being closest to its star, faces harsher conditions than its planetary counterparts. It receives four times Earth's radiation from the sun and boasts a surface temperature ranging from 120 to 220 degrees Celsius.

Detecting an atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1 b would be immensely valuable, as it is the closest planet to its star, generating a more robust signal during transits.

The observations conducted by Lim and her team explored a spectrum of atmospheric models for TRAPPIST-1 b. They found that cloud-free, hydrogen-rich atmospheres could be ruled out conclusively.

While the data didn't decisively eliminate thinner atmospheres like those comprised of water, carbon dioxide, or methane, nor an atmosphere akin to Saturn's moon Titan, it did offer valuable information on the incompatible atmospheric types.

These findings will guide future observations using JWST and other telescopes, hoping to advance our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres and their potential habitability.

The findings of the team were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Related Article: Ring Nebula Comes Into Focus: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Unveils Remains of a Dying Star in Stunning Detail

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Azernews reports.

During the telephone conversation, they exchanged their opinions on the present situation in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan following the anti-terror measures against the Armenian armed forces.

The head of state said that military facilities only had been targeted during the anti-terror measures, which lasted less than 24 hours, and civilians had not been harmed.

The American side was informed that there is an ongoing process of disarming illegal Armenian armed forces and their withdrawing from the territory of Azerbaijan. It was underlined that hundreds pieces of military equipment, weapons, military supplies as well as ammunition had been confiscated for the last five days.

The head of state noted that military representatives of foreign countries accredited in Azerbaijan and representative of the UN Resident Coordinator Office examined the seized weapons and military equipment.

President Ilham Aliyev underlined that respective activities are underway to ensure the rights of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region as well as other ethnic minorities residing in Azerbaijan within the framework of the legislation of the country and international obligations.

The head of state pointed out that the dialogue on reintegration issues is going on between representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenian residents with Azerbaijan sending humanitarian assistance to the Armenian residents and infrastructure being restored in the territory.

The Azerbaijani leader underlined that there is ongoing cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide aid to the Armenian residents, and outlined Azerbaijans readiness to arrange the trip of the UN Resident Coordinator Office accredited in the country shortly to the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern over the current situation and found the need to ensure stability in the region and dialogue with local Armenians.
TRIPOLI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned a drone attack on troops stationed on Saudi Arabia's southern border with Yemen, which killed two Bahraini military personnel and injured several others.

The attack on Monday killed an officer and a member of the Bahrain Defense Force who were taking part in the Operations Decisive Storm and Restoring Hope launched by the Saudi-led coalition, the ministry said in a statement.

"This is a dangerous development that undermines efforts to bring peace and threatens settlement efforts in brotherly Yemen. The ministry expresses deep condolences for the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain and wishes speedy recovery for the injured," the statement said.

Houthi rebels carried out the drone attack on Monday when Bahraini troops were patrolling the border, according to a statement published by the official Bahrain news agency.

Yemen has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since 2014. The Saudi-led coalition began to intervene in the conflict in support of the Yemeni government in 2015.

Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, joined the coalition in 2015 and has suffered several military casualties in the past years. 
Apple's Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, defended the company's decision to designate Google as the default search engine on Apple iPhones and Macs in a testimony during the ongoing antitrust trial.

According to the Associated Press, Cue emphasized Tuesday that in the realm of internet searches, no viable alternative matched the proficiency offered by Google.

Testifying in the antitrust case against Google, Cue noted that no alternative search engine was "as good" as Google in helping phone and computer users search the internet.

Antitrust Case Against Google

The US Department of Justice argued that by securing its search engine as the default option through financial agreements with tech giants like Apple and Verizon, Google has stifled competition and bolstered its dominance in the market.

In response, Google asserted that its preeminence stemmed from the superior quality of its search engine and maintained that users have the freedom to switch to alternative search engines with minimal effort.

This antitrust case marks a watershed event, paralleling the Justice Department's pursuit of Microsoft's control over internet browsers a quarter-century ago. The lawsuit, initiated in 2020, is unfolding in the US District Court in Washington DC, with a ruling anticipated early next year.

If Google is found culpable, subsequent proceedings will ascertain measures to curtail its market influence, potentially including the cessation of financial arrangements with Apple and other companies for preferential search engine status.

Read Also: Not Updating Your iPhone 15 to iOS 17.0.2 May Prevent Data Transfer from Another Device: Here's How to Avoid It

Color-Changing Apple iPhones

In related news, Apple has hinted at a potential technological innovation wherein iPhones could change color upon direct contact with skin. While not yet a realized feature, Apple suggests that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max may exhibit this behavior, especially concerning materials with color-transferring properties.

This phenomenon primarily pertains to the "advanced texture matte" on the back glass or camera area. However, it's important to note that this color alteration is not an intentional feature but rather a potential consequence of direct contact with certain materials.

Apple advises users to exercise caution, particularly by using protective cases to mitigate any unintended discoloration. Apple's official guidance on iPhone maintenance acknowledges that the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are susceptible to color changes upon contact with various external elements like oils, denim, and other items in pockets or bags.

This effect is particularly noticeable on the advanced texture matte surfaces. It is worth mentioning that despite its non-glossy finish, the iPhone 15 series is not entirely resistant to fingerprints.

Apple assured users that any discoloration is temporary and can be rectified by promptly cleaning the affected areas. The recommended cleaning process involves a soft, slightly damp, lint-free cloth.

The company does not explicitly endorse its proprietary Apple Cloth for this purpose. Moreover, Apple advises against using cleaning products that may damage the device. The use of compressed air is also discouraged.

Related Article: In Pursuit of Apple Watch: Michigan Woman Gets Stuck Inside Outhouse Toilet While Trying to Retrieve Lost Gadget

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The European Union (EU) has sounded the alarm about the potential dangers of generative AI tools in the context of democratic processes.

AI-Generated Disinformation

According to TechCrunch, Vera Jourova, the EU's values and transparency commissioner, has highlighted AI-generated disinformation as a potential threat to the European Parliament election next year. During a speech, Jourova addressed concerns over AI-generated disinformation and its impact on upcoming elections.

While acknowledging the initial steps made by several mainstream platforms to address these AI risks by implementing safeguards by informing users about the "synthetic origin of content posted online," Jourova emphasized the need for further action.

"These efforts need to continue and intensify considering the high potential of such realistic AI products for creating and disseminating disinformation. The risks are particularly high in the context of elections," she cautioned. "I therefore urge platforms to be vigilant and provide efficient safeguards for this in the context of elections."

Jourova also disclosed a forthcoming meeting with representatives from OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to discuss this pressing issue.

The commissioner stressed the pivotal role upcoming national and EU elections will play in testing the effectiveness of the Code of Practice, urging platforms to uphold their responsibilities in light of the binding Digital Services Act.

She highlighted the transformation of the Code of Practice into a Code of Conduct as part of a co-regulatory framework to combat disinformation risks.

An essential development under the Code is the release of structural indicators, revealing insights into the accessibility and engagement levels of disinformation content. This unprecedented data offers crucial insights into platform efforts to combat this threat.

The pilot phase, conducted in three Member States, showcased notable disparities between disinformation actors and their non-disinformation counterparts in terms of followers and platform tenure, according to the EU commissioner.

Read Also: News Organizations Globally Believe Generative AI Presents New Opportunities for Journalism, Survey Reveals

Disinformation in the Russia-Ukraine War

Furthermore, the commissioner emphasized the need for platforms to monitor disinformation surrounding the Russian war in Ukraine.

Google reported the termination of over 400 channels associated with coordinated influence operations linked to the Russian-state-sponsored Internet Research Agency, along with the removal of ads from nearly 300 sites connected to state-funded propaganda, according to Jourova.

Meta expanded its fact-checking partnerships to cover 26 partners across 22 EU languages, including Czech and Slovak. TikTok's fact-checking endeavors encompassed Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and 17 European languages, with 832 videos related to the war undergoing scrutiny, resulting in the removal of 211.

Thus, Jourova also stressed the need for heightened efforts in combatting Russian propaganda and disinformation. The commissioner commended major platforms for initiating measures to inform users about the synthetic origin of AI-generated content.

She urged these platforms to persist and strengthen these efforts, given the significant potential of realistic AI products in spreading disinformation, particularly in election contexts.

Jourova outlined critical areas of focus for platforms, including consistent moderation, increased investment in fact-checking (especially in smaller Member States and languages), and enhanced accessibility to data for researchers to contribute to necessary transparency efforts.

Related Article: EU's Digital Services Act Names Tech Companies That Must Follow its Latest Rules; Violators To Be Fined

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LG Electronics has achieved a significant milestone in the field of telecommunications by successfully transmitting and receiving 6G terahertz (THz) data over a record-breaking distance of 500 meters.

This accomplishment, which took place at the LG Sciencepark in Magok, Seoul, in collaboration with LG U+, marks the longest distance ever recorded in any 6G test conducted in an outdoor urban setting.

LG Wireless 6G Data Transmission

This achievement builds on LG's previous success in 2022, when the company demonstrated wireless 6G THz data transmission and reception over a distance of 320 meters outdoors at the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany.

Through a collaborative effort with Fraunhofer, LG developed essential 6G transmission and reception equipment, including a multi-channel power amplifier and a receiver low-noise amplifier. According to the company, this collaborative effort improved performance, boosting output by over 50 percent.

The recent test at LG Sciencepark holds particular significance because it extended the wireless transmission and reception range to 500 meters - the standard distance for high-powered base stations in urban areas - and validated the practical usability of 6G in several real-world communication scenarios.

These scenarios included building-to-building, building-to-ground terminal, and ground-to-ground terminal, bringing LG one step closer to the eventual commercialization of 6G THz communications.

Read Also: 6G Connectivity To Arrive Around 2028! South Korea as First Country To Commercialize It as Mobile Services

From 5G to 6G

The transition from 5G to 6G telecommunications promises substantially elevated data speeds, extremely low latency, highly dependable data transmission, and the seamless integration of communication with AI and sensory technologies.

Alongside facilitating immersive multimedia experiences, the advanced capabilities of 6G will be pivotal in a range of forward-looking sectors for LG. That includes autonomous driving, the metaverse, intelligent homes, and advanced manufacturing facilities.

In 2019, LG, in partnership with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), inaugurated the LG Electronics-KAIST 6G Research Center, marking it as Korea's inaugural industry-academic cooperative research establishment.

The company maintains an ongoing commitment to fortifying its foundational 6G technologies through collaborative efforts with universities worldwide.

Furthermore, LG has entered into research and development alliances with institutions such as Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), and Keysight Technologies to propel advancements in 6G core technology.

It is also worth noting that LG stands as the solitary Korean entity to occupy the chair position within the Next G Alliance, a wireless technology consortium spearheaded by the American Telecommunications Industry Association (ATIS).

Come October, LG is set to present its accomplishments in 6G technology progression at the "LG 6G Tech Festa," an event co-hosted by LG U+.

"We will continue to cooperate with research institutions and tech companies, and conduct our own advanced R&D, to dominate 6G standard technology and solidify our technological leadership in this important field," Dr. Kim Byoung-hoon, CTO and executive vice president of LG Electronics, said in a press statement.

Related Article: Samsung is Testing 6G Connectivity with Terahertz for Smartphones, Amidst Introduction of 5G in the Market

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Indonesia is the latest country to impose e-commerce regulations on social media platforms. The Southeast Asian nation is now banning purchases on TikTok and other sites.

The Ministry of Trade has clarified in the recent announcement that promotions are still allowed on social media. However, it still won't allow transactions.

No Transactions on Social Media

According to News18, the move effectively means that the people of Indonesia are restricted from buying or selling products and services on platforms like TikTok and Facebook.

The government's goal is to segregate social media and e-commerce realms to prevent potential misuse of public data and safeguard user privacy.

With this, Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan articulated this policy during a recent media conference, emphasizing the importance of separating social media from e-commerce to avoid complete control by a single algorithm.

This separation, he argued, helps in preventing the use of personal data for commercial purposes, thereby safeguarding user privacy.

Related Article: Is TikTok Shop Outpacing Shopee, Lazada in Southeast Asia?

Equating Overseas Goods to Domestic Products

In addition to these developments, Indonesia plans to regulate the sale of overseas goods. These products will receive the same treatment as domestic offline goods, leveling the playing field.

The motivation behind this move lies in the increasing accessibility of foreign goods through social media platforms.

President Joko Widodo's call for social media regulations adds weight to these decisions. He cited the impact of these platforms on local businesses and the broader economy.

Indonesia's regulations are poised to affect TikTok's e-commerce endeavors significantly.

Challenging Times for TikTok

Reuters reports that Indonesia is TikTok's second-largest market, hosting a staggering 113 million users, just behind the United States with 116.5 million TikTok users. The data came from DataReportal.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew had previously expressed ambitious investments in Indonesia and Southeast Asia in June, positioning the region as a critical market.

The video-sharing platform underlined the purpose of social commerce, highlighting its role in solving real-world challenges faced by local traditional small sellers. This concept involves connecting them with local creators who can amplify their online businesses by driving traffic.

TikTok expressed its respect for local laws and regulations while highlighting the impact on millions of sellers and affiliate creators who rely on TikTok Shop.

Implications on the E-Commerce Landscape

Citi, in a recent report, asserted that these regulations could offer an advantage to competitors like Shopee, the e-commerce arm of Sea Limited, and domestic players within Indonesia.

Citi viewed these developments as a positive step for traditional e-commerce in Indonesia, especially Sea Ltd., given the intense competition between TikTok and Shopee.

Depending on the transition process, any disruptions experienced by TikTok sellers during this shift are expected to favor Shopee and other established e-commerce platforms in the coming months.

Read Also: ByteDance Entices Social Media Influencers to This New App Before Launch

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Apple is noticeably absent from the list of app shops that the Chinese government has published as adhering to new regulations governing the operation of app stores, following a new law requiring app store owners to provide detailed company information to China.

Other significant app store players submitted the necessary papers in compliance with the China app store law. There are 26 firms on the list, including six well-known ones like Ant Group, Baidu, Huawei, Tencent, Samsung, and Xiaomi, according to Apple Insider.

In less than a year, firms must provide their information to the Chinese government. In August 2023, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) stated that companies have until March 2024 to comply.

Why Apple Has Not Complied?

The Chinese government regulation mandates that app creators must also have a Chinese firm or work with a regional publisher in addition to app stores.

New Chinese restrictions also encompass any firm that provides internet information services through applications in news, publishing, education, cinema, television, and religion.

Uncertainty surrounds how Apple intends to comply with the China app store law. The investigation by AppInChina revealed that, as of Monday, Apple had not begun monitoring the status of software submissions for compliance with these rules. The iPhone manufacturer is still silent on the subject.

Apple routinely emphasizes its dedication to abiding by the laws and regulations of the countries where it conducts business, even if they are controversial.

Read Also: Hackers Steal $200 Million Worth of Cryptocurrency From Hong Kong-based Firm Mixin

To adhere to Chinese law, Apple kept local customers' iCloud data in a Chinese data center in 2017. Apple claims that it holds the encryption keys and that user data is encrypted, according to 9 to 5 Mac. These claims are unlikely since Chinese law and government control can require user data access by court, unlike many other nations.

China Imposing Strict Regulations on Tech Industry

Major platforms like Facebook and Instagram are prohibited, and the Chinese government continues to exercise strong control over which applications are available within its borders.

Additionally, China has outlawed whole software categories, such as VPNs and generative AI programs, and mobile gaming applications are required to have separate licenses to address gambling risks.

Recently, China has reaffirmed that there are no legal restrictions on importing and using foreign-brand cell phones, including Apple's, in its socialist economy. The Foreign Ministry stressed China's openness to foreign companies and its market-oriented, law-based international business climate. Apple's mobile device security has garnered government scrutiny.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stressed that China is dedicated to transparency, preserving foreign investors' legal rights, and creating a market-focused, law-governed, and international-standard business environment, per Anadolu.

She noted that China has an "open attitude toward foreign enterprises" and welcomes them to "share the fruits" of its economic progress.

Due to cybersecurity concerns, Chinese officials banned government employees from using foreign-branded smartphones like iPhones in September. China is one of Apple's major markets, generating a lot of income.

These developments in China correspond with US officials' restrictions on Chinese devices, particularly Huawei ones, and federal and state regulation of TikTok.

Related Article: EU Industry Chief Tells Apple: 'Open Up' Ecosystem to Competitors

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The accuracy of predictions and the timing of weather events can mean the distinction between a delightful, sunlit day and the onset of a catastrophic storm.

While traditional weather prediction techniques have historically leaned on intricate physics-based models, a new era is on the horizon as Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes inroads into the forecasting world, especially concerning natural disasters, such as hurricanes.

Tech Giants Step Up to Create AI-Based Weather Models

Recently, chipmaker Nvidia, tech giant Huawei, and Google's DeepMind collaborated to develop a new generation of AI-based weather models. These AI models are transforming how meteorologists predict hurricanes' path and intensity.

For instance, Hurricane Lee, initially situated far from land, posed challenges for meteorologists. The AI models from these tech companies, devoid of traditional physics-based principles, successfully forecasted that Hurricane Lee would make landfall somewhere between Rhode Island and Nova Scotia, according to Wired.

While this prediction was on the edge of the traditional forecast, it demonstrated AI's potential to compete with existing models.

Related Article: 55% of AI Failures in Business Attributed to Poor Use of Third-Party AI Tools

Impressive Speed of AI Weather Models

One of AI's prominent advantages is its speed. AI weather models generate predictions within minutes, while traditional methods require hours of supercomputing time.

These models produce multiple projections efficiently, enabling meteorologists to provide probabilistic forecasts more rapidly.

For example, traditional ensemble models take hours to create, but AI models like Nvidia's FourCastNet can complete the task in just 40 seconds.

According to Mark DeMaria, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, the arrival of AI models in the field of weather forecasting seems "sudden" and "unexpected."

At first, DeMaria doubted if the FourCastNet model of Nvidia would work with real-time storm data. Since then, he has been amazed by the power of AI predictions and how much a hurricane can damage an area.

Challenges and Limitations of AI Predictions

AI-powered forecasts, however, come with limitations. These models do not account for uncertainty within the model itself, making them less comprehensive than traditional ensemble forecasts.

Additionally, the "black box" nature of AI systems, which lack explanations for their predictions, poses challenges for meteorologists who rely on understanding the model's confidence levels.

Despite these limitations, AI holds promise for weather forecasting. It offers the potential to democratize accurate weather predictions, making them more accessible. However, AI's widespread implementation still faces challenges related to data gathering, intellectual property, and national security concerns.

Large forecasting centers are expected to continue testing AI models before integrating them into official forecasts. One interesting study about it is posted on Nature.com, which focuses on "nowcasting."

Meteorologists, while cautious due to the high stakes involved, recognize the potential of AI in improving forecasting accuracy.

While traditional physics-based models won't disappear, AI will likely play a more significant role in official forecasts in the near future, potentially transforming how we predict and prepare for hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Read Also: AI Race: Amazon to Invest $4 Billion into OpenAI Rival Anthropic

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TEHRAN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Wednesday extended his condolences to Iraqi government and people over a deadly wedding hall fire.

In a statement published on the ministry's website, Kanaani said Iran's health sector was ready to offer help to those injured in the fire that broke out in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh.

Up to 114 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the fire that broke out on Tuesday night in the al-Haytham Wedding Hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya, 35 km southeast of the provincial capital Mosul, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The INA said that initial reports indicated that fireworks were used during the celebration, which may have caused the fire.

The hall was covered with highly flammable materials, which accelerated the fire that led to the collapse of part of the hall, the INA said, adding an investigation has been launched into the incident. 
Rogelio Enriquez: "It seems that all famous chefs are men, but in the kitchens of Madrid there are a lot of women who do not appear in the photos and we want to bring them to light"
MOSCOW, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Moscow will closely monitor U.S. steps to deploy weapons systems previously banned by the arms-control Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday.

"We are closely monitoring any U.S. steps to implement destabilizing plans that involve the deployment of these weapons," Zakharova said during her weekly press briefing.

She noted that this was particularly significant, considering Russia's moratorium on deploying intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles.

"I would like to remind you that the viability of the Russian moratorium is directly linked to the emergence of (these) American missiles ... in the relevant regions," Zakharova said.

Zakharova clarified that the weapon system under discussion was the containerized MK-70 launcher. The system, not only used for SM-6 missiles, has been adapted and can be used to fire long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

She said that Washington has begun preparing to transfer these missile systems, previously prohibited under the INF treaty, to Europe.

In 2019, the United States officially announced its withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

The United States and the former Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty in 1987, which prohibited possessing, developing and testing ground-launched missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km. 
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A Kansas youth pastor charged with stabbing his wife and five children after setting their home on fire told police he carried out the frenzied attack because his family was about to be evicted, court documents show.

Matthew Lee Richards, 41, called himself a monster as he described how he allegedly set fire to the basement of the family home in Shawnee early on 16 September before going room to room slashing his family members, according to a newly-unsealed affidavit obtained by the Kansas City Star.

Mr Richards said in a police interview last week that his family had been due to be evicted on the day of the alleged attack, and he thought that it would be better if they all died rather than for his kids to have to deal with the trauma, the documents state.

His wife and two of his children suffered serious stab wounds, while a 19-year-old son and two minor children were treated in hospital and released the same day, according to The Star.

Mr Richards has been charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated arson with risk of bodily harm.

Emergency services were called at about 3.45am on 16 September to reports of a fire and disturbance at the family home in Goode Drive, Shawnee, southwest of Kansas City.

According to the affidavit obtained by The Star, one of Mr Richards younger children had called 911 to say he had seen his mother being stabbed and was then chased through the garage by his father.

Police arrived to find three stab victims outside, and smoke billowing from the property. An explosion occurred which blew out the garage windows, according to police.

Matthew Richards tried to burn down his home and stabbed his wife and five children after facing eviction from his home in Shawnee, Kansas, authorities say (Google Maps)

One of Mr Richards children told detectives that the family were all in bed when dad came around stabbing everyone and they all ran outside, according to the affidavit obtained by Law and Crime.

The affidavit stated that Mr Richards wife remained in a critical condition in hospital last week.

One of his sons suffered a slash wound across his neck, while another had stab wounds to his right chest and abdomen that left his internal organs exposed. A third son suffered stab wounds to his colon, liver, neck and back, while his daughter was stabbed in the arm.

Mr Richards was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation before being charged.

I stabbed my family, he told police, according to the affidavit.

Mr Richards told police he decided to burn down the home and stab his family as he had not been honest with his wife regarding their financial situation and the fact that they were supposed to be evicted that very day, according to Law and Crime.

They had not packed anything and no one in the family knew they were being evicted.

Mr Richards is a former youth pastor at the Crossroads Christian Church in Shawnee.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the church said it was shocked, sickened, and saddened by the incident.

This is a tragedy beyond what any of us could have imagined, the church said.

Mr Richards is being held on $5m bond in the Johnson County jail.
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An Ohio woman killed her mother by beating her with a frying pan before stabbing her 30 times after she discovered her daughter had been kicked out of university.

Sydney Powell, 23, was found guilty by a jury in Summit County of murdering Brenda Powell in March 2020

Powell, who was 19 at the time of the attack, had pleaded not guilty by insanity and is set to be sentenced on Thursday, reported News 5 Cleveland.

She could receive a maximum of life behind bars with parole after 15 years and additional jail time for an evidence tampering conviction.

In March of 2020, Sydney Powell struck Brenda Powell in the head with an iron skillet, then stabbed her nearly 30 times in the neck, said Summit County Prosecutors Office, in a release.

She broke down in tears as she was convicted of the killing, which a jury was told she carried out because she did not want her mother to find out she had been kicked out of Mount Union University.

The court was told that she was attacked while on the phone with officials from the university, who called the police to the home.

Brenda Powell, who was a child life specialist at Akron Childrens Hospital for 30 years, died from her injuries in hospital.

Powell initially lied about the attack and claimed there had been a break-in at their home (News 5 Cleveland)

Sydney Powell was diagnosed with schizophrenia by three defence experts who evaluated her.

A clinical psychologist for the prosecution told the court that Powell had mental health issues but was not suffering a psychotic breakdown during the killing.

Investigators say that she initially lied about the incident saying that there had been a break-in and smashed a window to stage the crime scene.
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Former President Donald Trump may not have been present at the second Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but plenty of the Republican candidates took swipes at the former president as much as they attacked each other on the debate stage.

Despite the sunny disposition of the librarys namesake, the debate often devolved into a slugfest, with the candidates talking over each other with very little that could be heard. Similarly, since the debate moderators could not question Mr Trump, the candidates often attacked each other on their records.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump holds what might be an insurmountable lead in the polls as he held a rally in Detroit instead of joining the other candidates onstage.

Here are our winners and losers:

Winner: Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

For the past few months, the Florida governor has been plagued by attacks from the former president, who has taken to calling him DeSanctimonious. But right out the gate, Mr DeSantis took a swipe at his former political benefactor and was able to double-barrel an attack on President Joe Biden as well.

Donald Trump is missing an action, he said. He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record, where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt that set the stage for the inflation that we have.

Similarly, Mr DeSantis was able to tout his record as governor, which was the whole reason that many Republican donors fell in love with him to begin with. He earned large applause lines throughout the debate.

Neutral: Sen Tim Scott

US entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina senator Tim Scott and former Vice President Mike Pence arrive on stage prior to the GOP FOX Business Presidential Debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, USA, 27 September 2023 (EPA)

For the duration of his tenure in politics, the South Carolina Republican has largely been a happy warrior. That has earned him praise from donors, conservative activists and fellow senators, but to improve his station in the polls, he needed to develop some sharper elbows.

But that meant he engaged in a shouting match with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, criticising him for saying that the other candidates were bought and paid for and accusing him of being in league with the Chinese Communist Party and associates of Hunter Biden. That aggressive approach often came off as contrived and his message got muddled.

Their exchange in turn came off as petty and prevented a more substantive discussion that could have elevated Mr Scott. What he hoped would be a knock-out punch turned into a slugfest that knocked out a few of his teeth.

At the same time, he used a question to rebut Mr DeSantiss curriculum in Florida, saying there were no redeeming qualities in slavery. He also discussed his experiences as a Black man who has faced discrimination while reassuring conservatives that America is not a racist country, while also criticising government assistance to the poor in the library of the president who perpetuated the idea of welfare queens in political dialogue. That earned him cheers.

Loser: Chris Christie

Chris Christie (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Debates have often been the former New Jersey governors strong suit. He notoriously sank Senator Marco Rubios bid for the White House in 2016 during one such exchange. While his poll numbers have increased in recent months, he continues to be far behind Mr Trump. In the last debate, he regularly attacked Mr Trumps alleged violations of the rule of law with the most tact.

But his success may have gone to his head this go around. At one point, he directly addressed Mr Trump, saying Donald, I know youre watching. You cant help yourself before mocking him for avoiding the debate. It would have been a pitch-perfect line had it not been for what came next when he said, if you keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. They will call you Donald Duck. The line was corny, contrived and all too canned for someone who usually delivers wise guy cracks.

But his true below-the-belt moment came when he took an attack on teachers unions, his longtime enemy since he was New Jersey governor, and tried to toggle the attack toward Mr Biden. But instead, he took it to the gutter by attacking Mr Bidens wife, Dr Jill Biden, a professor at a community college, by saying, When you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away.

Winner: Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The former South Carolina governor has surged in the polls in recent months. That has given her the opportunity to earn money from donors and support from activists, even though she still faces a long shot to bear Mr Trump (she still trails him even in her home state).

And indeed, throughout much of the debate, she did not engage in the mudslinging from the men on the stage. Similarly, she took many well-earned swipes against Mr Ramaswamy, whom she seems to have a special level of contempt for. Specifically, she told the political neophyte, Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.

As Mr DeSantiss poll numbers continue to decline, anti-Trump Republicansor at least Republicans who think he would lose the presidencywill inevitably look for a new hope and this performance will certainly inspire confidence.

Neutral: Vivek Ramaswamy

Last go-around, the businessman-turned-presidential-candidate faced the business end of most attacks from his opponents. That earned him a few weeks of attention before he slowly started to fade into the background.

But  to borrow from the rapper whose songs he likes to cover  Wednesday meant it was back to reality. He faced occasional attacks from former vice president Mike Pence and Ms Haley, which once again highlighted his lack of experience and grasp on policy.

At the same time, he did what he mastered in the last debate: planting himself deeply beneath the skin of his opponents. He got the better of Mr Scott in their exchange when he said Thank you for speaking while Im interrupting.

Still, this performance will likely not raise or decrease his standing.

Loser: Mike Pence

Most Republican primary voters will likely never forgive the former vice president for his refusal to go along with Mr Trumps scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

That being said, throughout the night, he did himself no favours, often coming off as stiff and stilted. In response to Mr Christies nasty quip about Mr Biden and his wife, Mr Pence said, Ive got to admit Ive been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years. Full disclosure. It elicited nervous laughter.

In addition, he likely hoped for soaring applause when he called for an expedited death penalty for mass shooters, but got zero response. Furthermore, when he tried to shift the question from moderator Dana Perino about Obamacare to his preferred topic, she asked bluntly, Does that mean Obamacare is here to stay?

Honorary winners: Ilia Calderon and Dana Perino

Throughout the debate, Ms Perino, a former White House press secretary in the George W Bush White House, not only asked some of the most pointed questions, but also helped wrangle the multi-candidate field back to the main topics. When Gov Doug Burgum wanted to blurt out a response when it wasnt his turn, she said simply No, Gov Haley.

Similarly, fellow moderator Ilia Calderon, a journalist for Univision, asked some of the most incisive questions about Floridas curriculum around slavery, which elicited Mr Scotts best response. She also pointedly that 73 per cent of Latinos think Republicans dont think you care about them, which forced the GOP to reckon with the fact they will need to win over a large swath of these voters should they want to take back the White House.
YANGON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Skills development program under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Special Fund (LMCSF) 2021 helped production workers greatly improve skills and capabilities in Myanmar, local media reported on Wednesday.

With the skills-oriented uplifting nature, the LMC-initiated projects are welcomed in Myanmar since they promote competitive advantages of the country in the related sectors in the region, said participants in a skills development seminar for the manufacturing sector under the LMCSF 2021, which was held in Yangon.

"Having skillful laborers is a key for the employment competitiveness in the region. Without skills and without high productivity, the manufacturing expenditures will be costly. Then, we won't have a competitive advantage," Myint Soe, chairman of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA) told the state-owned newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar.

A total of 1,000 laborers have upgraded their skills and half of them successfully secured jobs through the LMCSF 2021, the newspaper reported.

During the seminar, Myint Soe urged stakeholders to continue supporting Myanmar via the LMC projects, sending Chinese technicians to train the locals in related sectors.

Since the beginning of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, over 100 projects have been implemented in Myanmar including various manufacturing industries, such as garment, footwear and leather bag production, textile manufacturing, food processing, milk and dairy products, and ceramic earthenware production.

China-initiated LMCSF was officially launched in September 2016 to support small and medium-sized cooperation projects and to deliver tangible benefits for the people of the six LMC countries, namely China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand. 
Baton Rouge Police Dept. Deputy Chief Troy Lawrence, Sr. speaks at a press conference on Monday, Nov. 23, 2020, in which he and other law enforcement and city-parish officials addressed the recent violence that included five shooting fatalities last Friday in four separate shootings, all coming during robberies or home invasions. East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome is at left, and Jonny Dunnam, executive director of Greater Baton Rouge Crime Stoppers, is at right.
During a tour of the West Jefferson High School with coronavirus precautions it can be seen that each desk in the classroom has a grey or red sticker on the top corner in Harvey, La. Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020. Each period, students will be asked to alternate their use of desks and to clean them off after each class. The school is scheduled to open on August 26. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A rocket launcher's shell exploded in a house in a village in Pakistan's southern Sindh province on Wednesday, killing at least eight people while injuring three others, police officials said.

Five children and two women are among the people killed in the incident that happened in Kandhkot city of the province, Kandhkot Senior Superintendent of Police Rohail Khoso told media.

He said the unexploded shell of the rocket launcher was found by the children in the nearby fields which they brought home, adding that all the deceased and injured belonged to the same family.

Following the incident, police and rescue teams reached the spot and transferred the injured to a nearby hospital, where at least one person is in critical condition, according to hospital sources.

A full-fledged inquiry has been launched into the matter to investigate the presence of shells in the agricultural land of the city and apprehend the culprits behind it.

Police have recently launched an operation against robbers and criminals in Kandhkot city believed to be armed with sophisticated weapons including rocket launchers and hand grenades, according to police officials. 
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Melbourne is in the final throes of winter when I meet Angourie Rice on a rain-soaked footpath outside the MTCs headquarters in Southbank. Weve both arrived 10 minutes early, and I have already read enough about this hardworking and ambitious young veteran of film and TV to know that her punctuality is not entirely surprising. At 22, Rice has been acting for 14 years, podcasting for four and is about to add published author to her CV. There is, it seems, no time to waste. When I ask her later why shes so driven, she laughs and suggests that her star sign is to blame: Google the list of Capricorn traits and youll see where shes coming from. Were here to talk about her upcoming appearance in the MTC premiere of My Sister Jill, the latest project from playwright Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee. Theres also a novel co-written with her mother, Kate, and The Community Library podcast to discuss, but any mention of her film and TV projects  either previous or upcoming  is off-limits in the midst of the SAG strike. Suffice to say that theres a long roll-call of reasons why Rice made Varietys list of actors to watch in 2021. Theres no Hollywood-style hubris, though, as we await instructions on where our interview will take place; Rice shows me a photo of her whippet/kelpie cross and chats about how much shes loving being back in Melbourne, after years (barring lockdowns) of travelling between LA and home. It was just one of the reasons she signed on for the part of Christine in My Sister Jill. Angourie Rice plays Christine in the MTC premiere of My Sister Jill. Credit: Justin McManus I wanted to do more theatre work, and so I began receiving more theatre scripts to read, she says. This one really stood out because its exceptionally well written. I loved the family dynamics in it, I loved that it was a true ensemble piece; each person gets their own story line, their own arc. Practically, for me, it felt safer and easier to start doing theatre again with something that felt very much like a group. The play, based on Cornelius semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, takes place over several years, in a family caught between the shadow of World War II and the looming threat of the Vietnam draft. Father Jack, an ex-POW suffering PTSD, is haunted by his experiences and ill-equipped for family life. Christine, the youngest of his five children, clings doggedly to her belief that Jack is a war hero, not the alcoholic bully that her siblings fear and loathe.

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At the start of the play, in her role as narrator, she tells the audience: Look at him, would you? Would you look? Hes huge, hes mighty, hes magnificent. Hes about eight-foot tall, he can crush stone with his bare hands, he can lift a car off the ground, he can pull a tree out by the roots. He can. I know, its hard to believe but thats the truth. And hes brave. Incredibly brave. Hes a survivor, mum says, a survivor. He lasted. He did. He came out the other side. Hes a remarkable man. Look at him. What a man my dad is. What a man. Cornelius father, Leo, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war and was on a Japanese ship transporting POWs to Japan when it was torpedoed by a US submarine. He spent six days drifting on a liferaft, watching his comrades die, and came home from the war a damaged man. Susie Dee, left, and Patricia Cornelius: their long-running collaboration has delivered some of the most compelling moments in Australian theatre. Credit: Joe Armao The impact on my family was enormous, as I think it was on any family, Cornelius says. Someone has gone to war a young, fresh man and returned a totally different man, a very damaged one  thats definitely my father. One of the central themes of the play is the yearning for parental love, expressed most poignantly in the thwarted endeavours of oldest boy Johnnie, who is rebuffed by Jack at every turn. We all yearned, and yearn still, some of us, for the love of our parents, Cornelius says. As corny as that sounds on some level, there is something that hits you in the guts about that and its so simple and so universally recognised: this yearning to just be loved.

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For Rices Christine, the yearning manifests as a desire to be just like Jack. Her imaginary play evokes the derring-do of the battlefield: she has lives to save, messages to pass on, dangerous journeys to make. She wants to be like him when she grows up, she wants to be a hero, she wants to fight in battles, says Rice. She doesnt want to realise the real battle thats happening around her. On this domestic battlefront, Jacks main combatant is his oldest child, the smart and steely Jill, who steers her siblings  Johnnie, Christine and twins Mouse and Door  away from his line of fire. Angourie Rice in My Sister Jill. Credit: Sarah Walker A month out from opening, the family dynamics are playing out inside a large rehearsal room scattered with props: beds are lined up at the rear, makeshift walls conjure a working-class home, and costume drawings decorate a corner of the room. Dee, whose long-running creative partnership with Cornelius has delivered some of Australian theatres most powerful moments, joins her seven actors  the children are all played by adults  in a circle, as they limber up with physical and vocal exercises, tossing an imaginary ball to one another and reciting, with increasing speed, a passage that is filled with tongue-tripping words: Trinidad, Mississippi, Lake Titicaca. Director Susie Dee and Angourie Rice during rehearsals for My Sister Jill. Credit: Charlie Kinross In a run-through of the opening scene, Ian Bliss, as Jack, is playful but menacing, holding a bucket of water, and calling, Come out, come out, wherever you are! as the children scatter. His wife, Martha, played by Maude Davey, is described in the script notes as mid to late 40s. Worn out. Full of sighs. Dealing with a traumatised, abusive husband and the impact on her children has hollowed her out. When her boisterous youngest child climbs into her lap, begging to be held, she snaps: Christine, youre too old for this ... give me a break.

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When we chat later, Dee agrees that even at this early stage, theres a sense that something special is unfolding inside the rehearsal room. I think all the actors in the room feel that this is a special new work, she says. Its close to a writers heart and head  Shes so lean, Patricia, because she knows the world so well. It could have been a much longer play, but she cuts to the quick, takes no prisoners  Theres a vitality in the work, which is so great for actors and for a director. I feel really blessed. Angourie Rice, centre, with her onstage siblings in My Sister Jill. Credit: Sarah Walker For Rice, her mainstage debut has brought its surprises, from the courage of her fellow cast members  everyone just jumped into it with no fear or inhibitions  to the sheer physicality required. I knew that I would have to work on my breathing and my voice, she says. I didnt fully think that I would be sore after the first day of rehearsals. Christine is a really physical character, shes constantly moving, running, jumping, rolling around  shes really active and I want to embody that fully. I feel very connected to the character and the story when you feel it in every part of your body. She doesnt want to realise the real battle thats happening around her. Angourie Rice The stage, for Rice, represents something of a homecoming; both her parents are involved in the theatre, Jeremy as a director and Kate as a writer.

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I was constantly in theatres as a kid, she recalls. My dad worked at a theatre company right next to my primary school, so I would go there after school and I would sit in on rehearsals ... my sister and I would just sit in the corner and colour in or draw. And because my dad mainly works in theatre for young people, we were often the test audiences, so we would sit there and give suggestions, or say no, we didnt like that, it wasnt funny, or yes, that was funny, keep that in. This connection to family is a recurring theme in Rices screen work, particularly the relationship between mothers and daughters. While her characters often chafe against the maternal bond, her own relationship with her mother is such that, even during the process of writing a novel together, not a single door was slammed. Kate and Angourie Rice have written an updated version of Pride and Prejudice: What was really fun is that we had something to talk about that was shared, says Angourie. Credit: Walker Books The result, Stuck Up & Stupid, updates one of Rices favourite books, Pride and Prejudice. After re-reading the Jane Austen classic during COVID lockdowns, she asked her mother to write a modern retelling of the story. Kate, whod had the same idea years earlier, suggested they write it together. Loading She dug up her old idea from, I think, 2008, and came up with a whole table and chart of the chapters in the original book and how we were going to write it, character comparisons, and all that kind of stuff, Rice recalls. In the summer of 2020-21, we wrote the first draft by hand over a month or six weeks ... what was really fun is that we had something to talk about that was shared  something that we did together. There was never any fighting  We disagreed on some things but were both willing to a) listen to what the other person says and b) back up our ideas. If we disagreed it was never a hard fight.

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Record growth in solar energy and electric car sales since 2021 has left open a narrow path in the energy sector to net zero emissions, the International Energy Agency has found, but a tripling of renewable capacity is needed in the coming decade to remain on track.

Should the world achieve the goal, fossil fuel demand would be driven down by 25 per cent by 2030, lowering emissions by 35 per cent, compared with the all-time high recorded in 2022. By 2050, fossil fuel demand would fall by 80 per cent.

The global surge in renewables will need to increase to keep the path to net-zero open. Credit: Bloomberg

Keeping alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees requires the world to come together quickly, said IEA executive director Fatih Birol on Tuesday, launching an update to the organisations landmark 2023 net zero road map.

But we also have a very clear message: strong international co-operation is crucial to

success. Governments need to separate climate from geopolitics, given the scale of the challenge at

hand.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo undermined Australias highest-ranking public servants as they scrambled to manage former prime minister Scott Morrisons contentious proposal to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital. Encrypted messages Pezzullo sent to Morrisons confidant and Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs in November 2018 reveal the senior public servant tried to covertly shape the major foreign policy decision and described the bureaucrats warning against Morrisons plan as useless. The messages make clear Pezzullo sought to impress upon Briggs that he, as an ostensibly apolitical and independent departmental chief, was the only one committed to advancing the prime ministers Israel agenda. Pezzullo also shared his assessment of the Christchurch terror attack and other sensitive material with Briggs, as the Home Affairs chief sought to ingratiate himself with a powerbroker he knew had a direct line to Morrison. The latest revelations in the Pezzullo scandal will open up a new avenue of inquiry for the Australian Public Service Commissioners investigation into the Home Affairs secretary. That inquiry is already probing dozens of other messages Pezzullo sent Briggs over five years. The publication of some of those messages on Sunday evening by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes forced the Albanese government to stand down Pezzullo and task the public service commissioner with investigating him.

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Two sources close to Pezzullo told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the embattled department chief has signalled he will never return to his post or government. A contentious plan In October 2018, Morrison flagged the high-stakes and historic proposal for Australia to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The promise came in the lead-up to the Wentworth byelection, and mirrored former US president Donald Trumps decision for the US to do the same in the face of international condemnation. Both the Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital city, an argument thats considered one of the most contentious in the decades long conflict and one thats likely to be one of the last problems to be solved in any negotiated settlement. Morrison made the call without consulting the Department of Foreign Affairs. Former prime minister Scott Morrison announced his plans for the Australian embassy in Israel in October 2018. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen After Morrisons comments sparked a backlash, the then prime minister sought the views of an expert and supposedly apolitical and independent panel of departmental secretaries, including Pezzullo, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary, Frances Adamson, and the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Martin Parkinson. Leaked messages show that Pezzullo went outside the confidentiality of the panel discussions by leaking its deliberations to Briggs and pushing himself forward as its sole member committed to advancing Morrisons policy.

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The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes are not suggesting any of the exchanges are corrupt or illegal, only that they were inappropriate for a senior public servant. In one message during the panel consultations, Pezzullo told Briggs he doubted Parkinson and Adamson have their heart in the proposed policy. The public service code of conduct requires bureaucrats to be apolitical, which Pezzullo has said in a major speech involves avoiding raw politics and maintaining the boundary between the political and the administrative. The Jerusalem revelations suggest Pezzullo politicised a public service panel in one of the most sensitive aspects of Australias foreign policy. The sticking point On November 21, 2018, a month after Morrison made the Israel announcement, Pezzullo messaged Briggs using an encrypted messaging app asking: Very privately: where does PM want to land on Jerusalem? Briggs answered that he had been bunkered down with Morrisons inner circle and that the then prime minister wanted to look at whether we can formally recognise Jerusalem as capital  although I got the sense he believes the advice will be we cant do that. Pezzullo responded: Got it. The bureaucracy will be useless on this. Will condescendingly tell the PM how he slipped up!

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Briggs then told Pezzullo that Morrison was facing widespread criticism over the move, but said that philosophically he doesnt want to resile from it and believes it is a good thing to do. Pezzullo, whose job was to run Australias internal security, and whose minister at the time was Peter Dutton, appeared to curry favour, telling Briggs that he understood Morrisons predicament, but that his fellow secretaries would likely be cautious. Martin [Parkinson] and Frances [Adamson] will be hard to get over the line, Pezzullo texted. Recognition [of Jerusalem as capital] is the sticking point within the group but I am holding the line. On December 1, Pezzullo again messaged Briggs to complain about the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: We can do recognition immediately in my view but DFAT lawyers are holding out. I doubt that Parkinson and Adamson have their heart in it. Briggs responded by saying that Morrison would be pleased with his efforts: Okay. He will be glad that there is a pathway. He will push Parkinson. The pm [Scott Morrison] suspects the same thing re Parkinson and Adamson.

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In subsequent messages, Pezzullo continued to complain about DFATs resistance. Use of Present Tense will be important. I want to recognise West J [Jerusalem] as functioning capital of State of Israel in present tense. DFAT resisting, he wrote in one message. In another, Pezzullo lashed out at former diplomats who were opposing the historic shift in foreign policy. The guild of retired diplomats will fall about in hysteria, he wrote. Ultimately, in December, Australia became one of a handful of countries to recognise that West Jerusalem was Israels capital, but said it would not move its embassy from Tel Aviv until a peace settlement was reached. Morrison also announced Australia would establish a defence and trade office in Jerusalem and start looking for an embassy site. Sources close to the government at the time, speaking anonymously to relay private conversations, said this was the compromise that the expert committee had agreed to. Labor reversed that position last October, returning Australia to the status quo, with the embassy remaining in Tel Aviv until a lasting peace is achieved.

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Melbourne University has held its spot in the worlds top 50 universities, but all Australian universities in the top 200 have slipped in the latest rankings.

The drop follows an overhaul of the methodology used to determine the rankings, but experts say it could also be due to student-to-staff ratios, under-investment in research and a need for Australian universities to stay competitive to attract international talent.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 rates 1904 universities and has increased from 13 performance indicators to 18, including research, teaching, research quality, research environment, international outlook and industry. The rankings have been produced for 20 years.

Melbourne University dropped three places to 37 from last year, while Monash University, the second-highest ranked in Australia, dropped out of the top 50, falling 10 places since last year to 54.
Qantas chairman Richard Goyder is digging in his heels against mounting pressure to resign from the airline and defended the record of former chief Alan Joyce as he and new boss Vanessa Hudson denied discussing Qatar Airways failed bid for more Australian flights with the government.

In a withering parliamentary hearing into the aviation sector, featuring top executives of the three major airlines, Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed concern about the strip-searching of women at Doha Airport when discussing Qatars application.

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder is standing his ground despite calls for his resignation. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Facing three hours of questions from a hostile committee, chaired by Coalition transport spokesperson Bridget McKenzie and Labors Qantas hawk Tony Sheldon, Goyder publicly apologised for the illegal sacking of 1700 workers during the pandemic but asserted it was done for sound commercial reasons and insisted he had key shareholders support to stay on.

Ive navigated the company through the global financial crisis, chaired Qantas through the most existential crisis weve ever had as an airline. And right now, the major shareholders and the board feel that Im the best person to chair the board to navigate us through the current situation weve got, he said.
The West Gate Tunnel, pictured under construction last month, is among several big ticket projects billions of dollars over budget. Credit: Clay Lucas With Treasurer Tim Pallas remaining in place, a change of direction is unlikely despite the leadership shift. Allans other priorities will be steering through the enormous housing plan bequeathed to her by Andrews, reforms to Victorias integrity watchdog, and Indigenous issues  whatever the outcome of the Voice referendum. Zareh Ghazarian, from Monash University, said Allans communication style would be key to whether she had cut-through with voters. There is work to be done to reposition the government as more approachable, he says. Jacinta Allan, pictured in August at early works for the Suburban Rail Loop project. Credit: Jason South

Its not hard to guess which way Opposition Leader John Pesutto lands on Allans infrastructure record, estimating she has overseen nearly $30 billion of infrastructure cost blowouts. Its a figure of some exaggeration, but its easy to arrive at $20 billion over budget in a cursory scan of projects Allan has been directly involved in. As premier, she needs to provide an urgent update on these and other projects including the Metro Tunnel and come clean with Victorians about the status of these projects and their true cost to taxpayers, Pesutto says. Its an easy jibe for Pesutto to make  the blowouts are indeed enormous  but some will see it as a bit rich. Pesutto served as an adviser to Denis Napthine, whose main infrastructure project, the never-built East West Link, was a debacle from start to finish. Loading And unlike Napthine and Ted Baillieu before him, Allan has got things done, overseeing an absolutely enormous portfolio that was, before the pandemic came along, the main game in Victorian politics: building new transport infrastructure.

Despite the massive cost overruns, that will in time fade into a distant memory, she and Andrews will be remembered for enormous toll road projects such as the West Gate Tunnel and North East Link, along with the railway Metro Tunnel, first conceived in the early 2000s but too hard for any government before they came along. Its undeniable that under Allan and Andrews, an enormous amount of new and much-needed transport infrastructure has been built at a frenetic pace in Victoria since 2014. In her inaugural speech to the Victorian parliament in 1999, Allan noted some of the firsts she had already achieved in Victorian politics: first Labor member to represent the electorate of Bendigo East and the first woman to represent Bendigo in any Australian parliament. When she became a minister at age 29 a few years later, she was the youngest in the states history. Now Australias longest-serving female minister, Allan turned 50 last week. She is expert at donning a hardhat and high-vis and batting off complaints that projects are costing billions of dollars more than the government initially said they would.

Loading The daughter of an electricity linesman, and granddaughter of a long-standing president of the Bendigo Trades Hall, the pandemic had many challenges for Allan. She was acting premier in late 2020 and early 2021 when Victoria took the dramatic step of shutting its border with NSW on New Years Eve. This is not an easy choice, Allan said of a closure that upended the summer breaks of 60,000 Victorians and led to massive traffic jams as motorists frantically tried to cross the border to avoid 14 days of home quarantine. About 4000 Victorians were unable to cross the Murray before the 11.59 cut-off that night, and found themselves trapped on the wrong side of the river. Allan has two children with unionist, former ministerial adviser in the Brumby government and Victorian Fisheries Authority board member Yorick Piper. She was elected in the pro-Labor regional swing of 1999 and increased her margin over the Liberal Party to more than 14 per cent at last years election.

It will be fascinating to see the degree to which Allan faces the sort of sexism experienced by her predecessor, Joan Kirner, and former transport minister Lynne Kosky. New Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said the states first female leader the late Joan Kirner, pictured, was a mentor to her. Credit: Mike Bowers Asked about being the second woman to lead the state, Allan acknowledged Kirner as a wonderful mentor and support to many of us. Its not lost on me that I am only the second woman to lead this state  that comes with some emotion, she said, holding back tears. I hope it says to young women, older women, women from across different backgrounds of all parts of the state that leadership takes on all shapes and sizes. I hope it sends a message to younger women. Hopefully, they can learn from some of the slings and arrows and not have them repeated.
SARI PUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Police have discovered arms and ammunition in north Afghanistan's Sari Pul province, provincial police spokesman Din Mohammad Nazari said on Wednesday.

The weapons cache was discovered in two houses located in Kohistanat district, including a U.S.-made M16 assault rifle, an RPG-7 rocket, and thousands of bullets and cartridges, the official added.

In similar operations, police recovered arms and ammunition, including three pieces of AKM-type assault rifles in east Afghanistan's Paktia province a couple of days ago.

Seven persons were taken into custody on charge of involvement in criminal activities such as selling drugs and robbery in the eastern Kapisa province on Tuesday.

The Afghan caretaker government, which has recovered thousands of light and heavy weaponry, including battle tanks over the past two years, has vowed to recover arms and ammunition from anyone living outside security organs as part of its efforts to ensure law and order in the country. 
Chinese Ambassador to Jordan Chen Chuandong speaks at a reception to mark the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Amman, Jordan, on Sept. 26, 2023. The Chinese Embassy in Jordan on Tuesday evening hosted the reception here to mark the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which falls on Oct. 1. (Photo by Mohammad Abu Ghosh/Xinhua)

AMMAN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Jordan on Tuesday evening hosted a reception in the Jordanian capital Amman to mark the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which falls on Oct. 1.

The event was attended by representatives of the Jordanian government and parliament, delegates from foreign missions, and overseas Chinese residing in the kingdom.

Addressing the reception, Chinese Ambassador to Jordan Chen Chuandong spoke highly of the friendship between China and Jordan, noting that China and Jordan had broad consensus on international and regional issues and carried out robust and thriving economic, trade and investment cooperation.

China firmly supports Jordan's efforts in exploring a path to modernization in line with its own national conditions and cultural traditions, and wishes to be a close partner on the journey to Jordan's modernization, he said.

He praised Jordan's positive efforts for promoting peace and stability in the region and its generosity to host refugees.

China will always be a builder of peace in the Middle East and a good partner for development, he added. 
DHAKA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing-headquartered Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will provide 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in loan to Bangladesh mainly on climate-related projects in the next five years.

The assurance came at the eighth annual meeting of the AIIB that took place on Sept. 25 and 26 at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, Bangladesh's Ministry of Finance said in a press release on Tuesday.

The loan will also help finance various infrastructure projects in the country, said the ministry.

The AIIB has so far provided a total of 3.27 billion dollars in loans for 18 projects in the South Asian country. 
WUHAN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A promotion event, designed to boost economic and trade cooperation and exchanges between China's Hubei Province and Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) as well as Portuguese-speaking countries, was held on Wednesday in Hubei provincial capital Wuhan.

The Wuhan branch of the pavilion for import products from China's Macao SAR and Portuguese-speaking countries and regions was also inaugurated Wednesday. It will provide services for Portuguese-speaking countries and regions in carrying out product promotion, exhibitions and business negotiations, among others, in central China cities.

Zhang Xiaomei, head of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Hubei Provincial People's Government, noted that the Portuguese-speaking countries have a huge market of nearly 300 million people, rich resources and global geographical advantages.

Zhang added that Hubei, a major Chinese province in terms of economy, science and education, ecological conservation and agriculture, boasts advantages in such sectors as new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, life sciences and health, high-end equipment and the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

Macao has the unique advantage of being bilingual in both Chinese and Portuguese, and thus acts as an important bridge between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, Zhang said.

The event was jointly hosted by the Foreign Affairs Office of the Hubei Provincial People's Government, the Permanent Secretariat of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao), and the Hubei Sub-Council of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Enditem.
From left to right, Angel Smith, Grant Ray, Odysseus Smith. Ray shows off the fish he caught at the TeachKids2Fish "Catch N Clean" event in 2020.
Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa (L) shakes hands with Chen Mingjian, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, at the China Tanzania Investment Forum Zhejiang (Jinhua) -Tanzania Trade and Investment Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Sept. 25, 2023. (Photo by Emmanuel Herman/Xinhua)

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Monday that the country has opened its doors wide to more Chinese investors to support the East African nation's industrialization drive.

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Monday that the country has opened its doors wide to more Chinese investors to support the East African nation's industrialization drive.

"Tanzania is ready to do business with you; our doors are wide open," Majaliwa assured the Chinese investors as he closed a one-day China Tanzania Investment Forum Zhejiang (Jinhua)-Tanzania Trade and Investment Conference held on Monday in the port city of Dar es Salaam.

He added that Tanzania has a conducive business environment, politically sound economic policies, macroeconomic stability, abundant natural resources, a relatively educated labor force, and a sizeable market because of the country's unique geographical location.

The forum attracted more than 100 economic and trade representatives led by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Zhejiang Provincial Committee and the Jinhua Municipal People's Government in east China's Zhejiang Province.

Kitila Mkumbo, minister of state in the President's Office responsible for planning and investment, urged local investors to team up with their Chinese counterparts to create a strong and robust industrial base in Tanzania.

Mkumbo said Tanzania's industrialization agenda could be realized by inviting and attracting large-scale investors from across the globe, especially China.

The file photo, taken on June 12, 2023, shows two workers inspecting a reservoir in Buswelu of Mwanza Region, Tanzania. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)

Chen Mingjian, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, said Tanzania, as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, has made attracting investment and foreign capital a crucial economic policy goal.

Chen said Chinese companies view Tanzania as a place for mutual development and growth, adding that many Chinese companies have established Tanzania as an essential production base, exporting products to various African countries, and creating over 150,000 jobs in Tanzania.

The Chinese delegation came with areas of interest in investment, including pharmaceuticals, food production, agricultural machinery, agricultural products, logistics, building machinery and materials, aluminum and copper raw materials, hardware tools, mining machinery, machinery products, and industrial and domestic boilers. 
Rena Murshud

The Rabbinical Center of Europe sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemning the campaign of demonization launched by Armenia against Azerbaijan, Azernews reports.

As rabbis of Jewish communities across the European continent, we write to you following interviews given by senior Armenian government officials to international media on issues related to the conflict with Azerbaijan. These statements use language and comparisons that are appropriate solely to describe the deliberate, systematic, and largest genocide inflicted on the Jewish people in human history - the Holocaust.

During World War II, the Jewish people were persecuted, killed, burned, tortured, drowned, and buried alive. The Holocaust was not limited to any locality but occurred across almost the entire European continent and with the cooperation of a large number of countries.

The use of terms such as ghetto, genocide, and Holocaust, belittles the terrible suffering experienced by the victims of the Holocaust and by the entire Jewish people, who still feel the indescribable pain of the greatest tragedy ever experienced by a single group.

We call on you to make it clear to the government of Armenia and all other countries that they must recognize and respect the terrible human suffering endured by the Jews. We urge you to bring to their attention that the practice of minimizing and downplaying the suffering of the Jewish people to further a political agenda through the continued use of Holocaust-related slogans must cease immediately and completely,"- the letter says.
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A South Korean court on Wednesday rejected a warrant to arrest Lee Jae-myung, chief of the main opposition Democratic Party.

The Seoul Central District Court dismissed the arrest warrant, which the prosecution requested against Lee last week over charges including breach of trust and bribery.

The Lee side completely denied the charges as no clear evidence had been found to support them despite hundreds of raids.

It was the first time in the country's modern history that a main opposition party chief appeared in a court hearing for an arrest warrant.

The country's parliament voted for the arrest of Lee last week with 149 in favor and 136 against.

By law, incumbent lawmakers are exempt from arrest while the National Assembly is in session and can be detained only when peer lawmakers consent to it. The Democratic Party controls a majority in the 298-member assembly.

Lee has been under medical treatment for recovery after ending his hunger strike last Saturday. 
Canada soft peddling Khalistani extremists operating from its soil





NEW DELHI,

PRO-KHALISTAN elements have been operating freely from Canadian soil for nearly 50 years now in the garb of notions like freedom of expression and political advocacy but the country maintains complete silence on intimidation, violence, drug trafficking by these extremists, sources said on Tuesday. The bombing of Air India plane Kanishka was perpetuated by Khalistani extremists way back in 1985 and it was one of the biggest terror attacks in the world in the pre-9/11 era. However, due to the apparent lackadaisical approach of Canadian agencies, key accused Talwinder Singh Parmar and his bunch of Khalistani extremists got away scot-free, the sources said.

Ironically, Parmar is now a hero of pro-Khalistan extremists in Canada with banned group Sikhs For Justice naming its campaign centre after him. Over the years, Khalistani extremists were further emboldened and started operating with impunity from Canada. In the last decade, links of Canada-based Khalistani extremists have emerged in more than half of the terror cases reported from Punjab, according to sources. The multiple targeted killings of Sikhs, Hindus and Christians in Punjab after 2016 were the handiwork of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose killing has led to a row between India and Canada.

But Canadian agencies allegedly never launched any inquiry or investigation against Nijjar and his friends Bhagat Singh Brar, Parry Dulai, Arsh Dalla, Lakbir Landa and many others, the sources said, adding that for Canada, they remain political activists despite the increasing body count in Punjab. Punjab today suffers heavily because of extortion rackets run from Canada and gangsters based in the North American country bring drugs from Pakistan through drones and sell them across Punjab, they said. A part of this money goes back to Khalistani extremists in Canada. Even in Canada, many pro-Khalistan extremists are part of the drug trade. Inter-gang rivalries among gangsters from Punjab are common in Canada now.
Irreversible blunder - Nagpurs fate ??





By Kaushik Bhattacharya

THE havoc created by the flash floods on September 23 has laid bare many claims and faults engineered by the civic administration and the political leadership in the name of beautification and development. Questions are being raised over the monsoon preparedness and flood management even as the city counts a heavy price of the disaster, clearly aided by man-made factors. Being a Peoples Paper, The Hitavada probed the reasons behind the flash floods and the mitigation measures, if any. The investigation has revealed multiple factors that conclude that the blunders caused by poor planning are irreversible. It has led to a pricking query -- is this the fate of the city of Nagpur? Faulty designs, bad urban planning and a lethargic civic administration have emerged as the prime reasons behind the flood havoc. Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis also agreed to the fact when, during a visit to the flood-affected areas, he stated, We could have minimised the damage if some measures were taken earlier. The Hitavada investigation brought to fore many loopholes near the Ambazari Lake, the citys largest water body, whose boundaries were breached last Saturday due to heavy rains. The faults could have been addressed not only by the administration but also by the structural engineers to avoid a flood-like situation. However, precious little was done as apathy took over the decision-making process.

When this reporter spoke to city-based structural engineers, hydrologists, geological scientists and architects as part of the investigation, all of them raised serious concerns over the ongoing haphazard development by ignoring citys hydrology. It was a man-made disaster which is irreversible. The way we are ignoring the hydrology of the city in the name of development, such floods will happen in future also, Paramjit Singh Ahuja, eminent Practising Architect, PSA Design Studio, told The Hitavada. Every development in the city is without any hydraulic map. Even the ambitious Nagpur Metro project is implemented without hydraulic study. The contour map is essential for any structural design to study the water evacuation in case of rains like these. Unfortunately, Nagpur city has no such plan, claimed Ahuja. You cant rely on storm-water drains when you already encouraged the traditional sources of water evacuation and percolation in city. For example, there is no need to construct storm-water drains on the slope of University Campus where the water can automatically find its way to low-lying areas, said Ahuja. Every dam must have open space for water evacuation. But the Vivekanand Memorial at the overflow side of Ambazari Lake is posing threat as it is obstructing the water flow during a flood-like situation, he added. Sandeep Shirkhedkar, eminent Structural Engineer and Hydrology Consultant of Nagpur, said, The recent flood took place due to heavy rains in the catchment area of Ambazari lake. The flow of excess water crossed the overflow point of the lake and moved further to Naag River.
Bhopalites enjoy IAFs drill ahead of Air Show





Staff Reporter

The Indian Air Forces air show drills by a fleet of military aircraft over the Upper Lake were witnessed in the skies of State capital on Tuesday as a part of rehearsal for the aerobatics display that is being held by the IAF to mark its 91st anniversary. The precise and synchronised rehearsal saw a magnificent fleet consisting of fighter planes, including Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, Sukhoi, Jaguar and other aircraft. The US-made Chinook choppers, which are used for transporting troops, artillery etc, were also part of the air show drill. Locals of Bhopal in large numbers were spotted on their terraces who were enthralled by the impressive aerial drill and recorded the drill movements on their smartphones.

Fighter aircraft that will be part of the air show are conducting touch-and-go manoeuvres from the airport runway. The event, scheduled for September 30, promises to be a spectacle that will have aviation enthusiasts of all ages on the edge of their seats. As the aircraft soared over Bhopal, the roaring engines and precision manoeuvres captivated the citys residents who gathered on rooftops to witness the breathtaking performances. Director of Raja Bhoj Airport Ramji Awasthi said that 40 planes have arrived in the State capital for the flypast which is scheduled for September 30 to celebrate the 91st anniversary of the Air Force.

Of these, 25 aircraft have been parked at Rajabhoj Airport and the remaining three at the EME Centre. All necessary preparations have been made for this event. The full dress rehearsal is set for September 28, while practice sessions for the show will be conducted on September 26 and 27. The main event will be organised on September 30. For this, regular flights of Raja Bhoj Airport have also been rescheduled. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is not attending the programme. Governor Mangubhai Patel will be the chief guest. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will also participate in the air show.
HC rejects Sontus pre-arrest bail, police to arrest soon





Staff Reporter

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has denied interim pre-arrest bail to on-line gaming fraudster Sontu alias Ananth Navratan Jain from Gondia. Sontu is accused of engineering a massive gaming fraud and duping a Nagpur resident tof Rs 58 crore. Justice M W Chandwani presided over the proceedings and cited the immense scope of the case as a crucial factor in rejecting Sontus pre-arrest bail application. The High Court determined that Sontus immediate arrest was necessary for evidence collection and information gathering by the investigation agency. During the hearing, Sontu's legal team requested an extension of the interim bail to approach the Supreme Court. However, this plea was also denied by the High Court.

This decision comes after the High Court had reserved judgment on the bail application following a thorough examination of arguments presented by all parties involved. Sontu had initially been granted interim pre-arrest bail on September 5, with orders to appear before the police on every alternate day. However, on Tuesday, Sontu failed to make the scheduled appearance before the police. Investigating Officer (IO) and Police Inspector Shubhangi Deshmukh brought this matter to the Courts attention.

Sontus fraud came to fore after the Nagpur Police raided his Gondia house on July 22, and seized Rs 17 crore in cash, 14 kg of gold, and 294 kg of silver with a combined worth of Rs 27 crore. On August 2, Rs 85 lakh cash and gold worth over Rs 4.5 crore were found in the bank lockers of Sontu and his family members. The investigation into this on-line gaming fraud case started when a Nagpur-based businessman approached the police, claiming to have been duped of Rs 58 crore by Sontus gaming platform. He alleged that the results were manipulated, leading to substantial financial losses. Adv Shrirang Bhandarkar appeared for the complainant while Adv Devendra Chavan represented the accused.
Mah CM postpones UK, Germany tour







MUMBAI,

MAHARASHTRA Chief Minister Eknath Shindes visit to the United Kingdom and Germany, scheduled from October 1 to 8, has been postponed, an official from the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) said on Tuesday. The new dates are being worked out now, the official said. No reason has been given for the tour postponement. Shinde was to lead a delegation of representatives from the industries and other departments for investment conferences and signing of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between cities of Maharashtra and Germany. Also, an MoU was to be signed to bring back the wagh nakh (tiger claws), an iron weapon shaped like tiger claws that was used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, from the UK.

The CMO official said details of the tour programme were being worked out. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray said, The illegal cm has planned a week long foreign trip. While I have no objection to foreign trips that bring investment or recognition to our nation or state, it cannot be like his Davos trip where the govt spent almost Rs 40 crore on a 28 hour holiday. There were no meeting schedules, no photos, no outcomes from Davos. Not even a day long schedule was released. And the Govt still hides the real figure of the expense of the Davos trip, the MLA claimed. Now, the CMO must release his schedule of this 10 day trip before they fly, and tweet his meetings and photos like we did for our Davos trip, with outcomes, while he is there, Thackeray said.
Modi to address public meet in Bastar on Oct 3





Our Correspondent

JAGDALPUR,

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Bastar on October 3 to address a massive public meeting at Lalbagh Maidan in Jagdalpur. Preparations for his visit were inspected by BJP State In-charge Om Prakash Mathur, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, State General Secretary of the Organisation Pawan Sai and Bastar Division in-charge Santosh Pandey, who reached there via special plane. As per the information, the public meeting, to be addressed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is set to commence at 11 am on October 3 at Lalbagh Maidan. During their visit, Mathur and Mandaviya spent approximately half an hour at Lalbagh ground, closely examining the venues layout and discussing arrangements with local administration and police officials. They inquired about the stage set-up, seating arrangements for the public and the logistics for the event.

Mathur urged BJP office-bearers to expedite all preparations for the meeting. Meanwhile, Mathur and Mandaviya held a divisionlevel meeting at the BJP district office to discuss preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit. Attendees included BJP district presidents, district in-charges, assembly in-charges and state office-bearers from seven districts under the Bastar division. The meeting began with a tribute to Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, on his birth anniversary. During the hour-long meeting, district leaders were instructed to make preparations for the Prime Minister Narendra Modis public meeting seriously, ensure timely completion of all arrangements at the venue, and maintain a high standard of city decoration. Mathur emphasised that the Prime Ministers visit would invigorate the people and party workers,highlighting the nations progress under Modis leadership over the past nine years.

Union Minister Mandaviya stated that Prime Minister Modi enjoys popularity not only in India but also worldwide. He is a leader of the nation, working with unwavering dedication to the countrys progress. His visit to Bastar is of great significance, and all preparations and publicity for the general meeting should be completed promptly to reach the general public. Prominent attendees at the meeting included BJP National Vice-President Lata Usendi, BJP Organisation General Secretary Pawan Sai, Bastar Division Incharge Santosh Pandey, BJP State General Secretary Kedar Kashyap, besides many other district level party office bearers and leaders.
MP Rakesh Singh confident in securing all Assembly seats in polls





Staff Reporter

Member of Parliament, Rakesh Singh expressed confidence of securing victory on all Assembly seats of Jabalpur. He arrived in the city on Tuesday afternoon and visited the banks of river Narmada in Gwarighat after the party announced him candidate from the West Assembly for the ensuring Assembly elections. Singh extended his gratitude to the central leadership for entrusting him with this responsibility. He stated that it is the duty of a dedicated party worker to fulfill any role assigned by the leadership. He said the ensuing election in Jabalpur would be focused on development issues.

He said the city has made significant strides in development and the election will revolve around these achievements. He said people from all sections of the society has benefitted from the BJP government's welfare schemes. As a BJP worker, he stressed his responsibility to accept decisions and work towards the progress of the country and the State.
Nadda evacuated from Ganesh pandal in Pune after fire breaks out





PUNE,

A FIRE broke out at a Lord Ganesh pandal in Pune where BJP President J P Nadda was offering prayers along with the partys Maharashtra unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Tuesday evening,. Visuals from the scene showed Nadda being safely escorted out of the venue even as the fire engulfed the top portion of the makeshift pandal in the Lokmanya Nagar area in the heart of the city. No casualty was reported in the incident. A fire brigade official said the blaze may have been caused by fireworks at the pandal set up by the Sane Guruji Ganesh Mitra Mandal. Pune city BJP President Dhiraj Ghare and security personnel were seen taking Nadda safely out of the pandal, a replica of Ujjains famous Mahakaleshwar Temple.

As soon as the fire broke out, rains started in the area which helped douse the flames. Nadda visited the famed Lalbaugcha Raja for a darshan of the imposing Lord Ganesh idol there on his trip to Mumbai and Pune for the ongoing Ganeshotsav festival. Accompanied by State Party President Chandrashekhar Bawankule, city chief Ashish Shelar, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and others, Nadda went to the Lalbaug, performed aarti and offered prayers.
Now 12 cheetahs to come only from SA, not Namibia





By Ankita Garg

The cheetah re-introduction project flagged off on September 17, 2022, with eight cheetahs from Namibia by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi will continue with arrival of more cheetahs, but only from South Africa. In second batch, 12 cheetahs were brought from South Africa in February 2023. So far, 14 of those 20 cheetahs and a female cub have survived in Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. The project witnessed many ups and down due to poor health and criticism of the management after casualties. Talking about the plan for Cheetah Project, authorities said that they are planning to bring 12 more cheetahs from South Africa after careful selection and taking care of health parameters and adaptability in the Indian habitat. They said that Kuno needs at least 50 cheetahs before wild cat population stabilises.

Officials said that they have planned to bring cheetahs only from South Africa and not from Namibia. They said that selection of cheetahs will be made very carefully as some of the cheetahs did not grow winter coat and thereby saved

themselves from infection that caused deaths of some of the cats. Two cheetahs, Suraj and Tejas, died of septicaemia in July. The condition was caused by the wet condition in rain and humidity that caused infection among the cats. SP Yadav, Additional Director General of Forest at Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change says, The next batch of cheetahs would likely not have the ability to grow winter coat.

We would focus on to bring more fertile female cheetahs for better breeding. He further said that there are many supermoms cheetahs in African countries that raised more than ten cubs. However, casualty rate in cheetah cub is higher but the cubs born in Indian soil will be able to adapt better to Indian weather conditions. He further said that new batch of cheetahs will be released to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh in 12 to 14 count. The site is being ready and almost 80 per cent work is done. Target is set to prepare the sanctuary for cheetah by December and bring the new batch of cats by end of December or first week of January 2024.
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A New York judge on Tuesday ruled former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons liable for fraud, saying they provided false financial statements for nearly a decade.

Judge Arthur Engoron found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.

He ordered that some of Trump's business licenses be rescinded as punishment.

In the lawsuit, New York's Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Trump, three of his children and his companies submitted "grossly inflated" numbers to banks and insurers. She is seeking 250 million U.S. Dollars in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York state.

Engoron is expected to hold a non-jury trial starting Oct. 2 before deciding on the claims and any punishments he may impose.

Trump has long insisted he did nothing wrong, and his lawyers had asked the New York judge to throw out the case ahead of the trial.

The ruling by the judge is a setback for Trump who is a frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 
Nupur Returns





THE unexpected appearance of Ms. Nupur Sharma, the firebrand (but suspended) spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the pre-release screening of the film The Vaccine War signals an important spot in the countrys current political affairs map. After staying in some unknown place for more than one year, Ms. Nupur Sharma appears to have chosen to surface in public, probably assured that the threat from Islamic fundamentalists to her safety and security has reduced at least a bit. Or, seen from the other end, she may have decided to come out of hiding because she must become a symbol of a fight for rationalism in the dogmatic politics woven around religion. The word Dogmatic may lead to raised eye-brows, of course. But when a political community builds utter nonsense around what is described as religion as part of a narrative unaltered for decades on end after Independence, then it must be called dogma. The Nupur Sharma episode arose out of that dogma -- of a few fundamentalists of a religious faith unwilling to listen to voice of reason. Those were the people who pushed Ms. Nupur Sharma into a corner during a television debate and raised a ruckus when she posed a couple of honest questions. Then came a barrage of threats that included even her rape. Horrible! Just horrible, that whole thing was! What followed was a wave of threats and a couple of killings of innocent people who dared to support what Ms. Nupur Sharma had talked about. That triggered a terrible chain-reaction which the nation watched in sheer shock.

For, as a first and immature response, the Bharatiya Janata Party suspended Ms. Nupur Sharma as spokesperson (under the inexplicable pretext of probably saving her from further attacks, as some BJP leaders had said then). In that chaotic atmosphere, it felt only natural that Ms. Nupur Sharma vanished into some hideout and stayed marooned there for all these long months. That had the larger Indian society feel worried about the trajectory of a so-called democratic polity in which the Constitution vows to protect everybodys right of free speech. In this episode, Ms. Nupur Sharmas right to free speech was severely compromised -- though the Government chose not to take a stringent action against those who threatened her and anybody who dared to support her. Fortunately, however, Ms. Nupur Sharma has now emerged in public, in the process reducing a sense of unease countless Indian people had felt with her disappearance. And as she was called to the dais at the screening of The Vaccine War, she chose to say nothing but Bharat Mata Ki Jay. The message from her, thus, was loud and clear -- that she did not want to make any compromises with her stand. So, Bharat Mata Ki Jay!

At this stage, we make an ardent appeal to every segment of the larger Indian society to understand the complications of the Nupur Sharma issue and desist from taking uncalled for extreme stand to complicate matters all the more. What the Indian society needs now is a sense of accommodation of every shade of opinion and efforts to understand the points of differences that are so integral to democratic polity. Ms. Nupur Sharma had said actually nothing to have triggered such a hostility in certain segments of the larger Indian society. In fact, those who pushed her to the wall were more at fault of having dishonoured religious susceptibility of the Hindu segment. The law will take care of all that, as we can logically expect to happen. But meanwhile, Ms. Nupur Sharmas return must be welcomed by one and all.
Paddy, maize procurement on MSP from Nov 1





Staff Reporter

RAIPUR,

Chhattisgarh Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, has decided to procure paddy and maize on support price from November 1 in the Kharif marketing year 2023-24. Talking to mediapersons at his official residence in State Capital after the cabinet meeting, Forest Minister Mohammad Akbar said that the policy for procurement and custom milling of paddy and maize at support price in the Kharif marketing year 2023-24 was decided in the cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Paddy and maize will be procured as per the support price declared by the Government of India. Kharif paddy will be purchased from farmers in cash and linking at support price from November 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024. Similarly, Kharif maize will be procured from November 1, 2023 to February 28, 2024.

As per the announcement of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, the purchase of paddy from farmers will be maximum 20 quintals per acre and maize 10 quintals per acre, he added. The Cabinet decided to extend the validity of the government guarantee (amount of Rs 14,700 crore) to Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited for paddy procurement by one year till October 31, 2024 for the Kharif marketing year 2023-24. The Cabinet has given its nod to supply Fortified Rice Kernel (FRK) for the fortification of the resulting rice obtained from custom milling of paddy procured in the Kharif marketing year 2023-24 through Indian National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED). The Cabinet approved the decision of the Chief Minister to provide 15 per cent discount to journalists on purchasing houses in Urban Development Scheme No 4 Kaushalya Mata Vihar. In the first stage estimate, 309 journalists will get benefitted. Rs 6,37,20,450 has been approved to Raipur Development Authority, said Akbar. The Cabinet decided to cancel the previous approved 8 layouts of New Swagat Vihar project. Considering New Swagat Vihar Colony as an unauthorized colony, action for regularization should be taken. In Kaushalya Mata Vihar Nagar Vikas Yojana, it was decided to de-notify some lands of the builders to separate them from the scheme so that plots can be provided to the affected people, said the Forest Minister. The regularization of the unauthorized colony located in Dunda, Sejbahar and Boriyakala villages in Raipur district will be done by Raipur Municipal Corporation and Sub Divisional Officer (Revenue), he added.

The Cabinet has decided to allot lands to traders at Rs 540 per square foot instead of Rs 945 per square foot in the proposed wholesale commercial market in Nava Raipur Atal Nagar. Due to this, the total amount of loss caused to Nava Raipur Authority of Rs 117.86 crore will be reimbursed by the State government. Approval was given to relax the minimum qualifying service of 5 years by 4 months for promotion from the post of Scientific Officer (Physics Gazetted, Second Class) to Senior Scientific Officer (Physics Gazetted First Class) under State Forensic Science Laboratory, Raipur. The Cabinet approved the proposal for creation of three new posts of Additional Director in Department of Public Relations, Government of Chhattisgarh. It was decided to allot the land of Rajgami Estate Rajnandgaon for Widener Memorial School. The Cabinet decided to allot government land on concession rate to Ratneshwar Kurmi Kshatriya Seva Sansthan Ratanpur, Chhattisgarh Halba Tribal Society, Bhilai-Durg, Gond community district-Surguja, Rajwar Samaj Surajpur, Dilliwar Kurmi Kshatriya Samaj Rajnandgaon, Tehsil Sahu Sangh Churia, Rajnandgaon for the construction of community building, Hardiya Sahu Samaj Raipur and Sahu Samaj Durg. In the cabinet meeting, tt was decided to provide land ownership rights to the occupants of Manendragarh urban area before 1959.

The draft of amendment in Revenue Book Circular Volume 6 Number 4 was approved. The Cabinet decided to provide relaxation in the prescribed criteria for making Gram Panchayat Ghumka of Rajnandgaon district as a Nagar Panchayat and Gram Panchayat Portha of Sakti district as a Nagar Panchayat. The Cabinet decided to appoint Sudeep Thakur as Director of Chhattisgarh State Hindi Granth Academy on contractual basis. It was decided to provide 100 percent grant to Shri Rameshwar Gahira Guru Prachya Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, Shri Kot in Balrampur-Ramanujganj district under the provision of Chhattisgarh NonGovernment Colleges and Institutions (Establishment and Regulation) Act 2006, Akbar added.
Delhi Bureau & Agencies

NEW DELHI,

WAHEEDA Rehman, who made her debut 68 years ago and went on to act in cult classics such as Pyaasa and Guide, was on Tuesday named recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Governments highest recognition in the field of cinema. Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Anurag Thakur made the announcement on X.

I feel an immense sense of happiness and honour in announcing that Waheeda Rehman ji is being bestowed with the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime Achievement Award this year for her stellar contribution to Indian Cinema,

Thakur wrote on the microblogging site.

The award for the year 2021 will be presented during the 69th National Film awards ceremony. The five-member jury comprised Rehmans close friend and last years Dadasaheb award winner Asha Parekh, actors Chiranjeevi, Paresh

Rawal and Prosenjit Chatterjee as well as filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. Regarded as one of the finest actors of the country, Rehman, also an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer, made her debut in Hindi cinema with Guru Dutts CID opposite Dev Anand. After that dazzling beginning came a string of arthouse and mainstream films, the actor comfortably straddling the twin worlds of Kaagaz ke Phool and Ram aur Shyam.

The remarkable career spanning more than six decades and 90 films in different languages saw her segue from black and white to colour, and from lead roles to character cameos. Some of her most memorable performances were with Guru Dutt -- Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam and Chaudhvin Ka Chand. With Dev Anand came the much loved Guide and Prem Pujari.
Why is Trudeau so desperate to solve Nijjar killing case?





BY Nantoo Banerjee

While Trudeaus deep concern for the June 18 killing of Canada-based Hardeep Singh Nijjar, known to be a top leader of Khalistan Tiger Force, is understandable, it is not clear why he wants Indias official cooperation in his Government probe. As of now, there is nothing to establish that there was an Indian Government hand in the Nijjar killing. It is possible that Trudeau may have little faith in the investigation capability of his own Government agencies, which took nearly two decades to close the case of the mid-air bombing of a Air Indias Boeing 747 flight from Toronto to Bombay by Khalistani terror groups on June 23, 1985, killing 329 passengers, of which 280 were Canadian citizens. Why is Trudeau so desperate to solve the Nijjar killing case, involving only a single Canadian citizen?

HAD Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, father of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, been alive today, he would have probably been a little embarrassed, if not distressed, to see his beloved country has become a home of small migrant Sikh terrorist groups hopelessly engineering to separate the Indian State of Punjab, almost 11,500 kms away, to make it an independent State of Khalistan. Pierre Trudeau himself spearheaded the role in decisively defeating the Quebec separatist movement of the 1970s and 1980s. A charismatic and controversial figure, Pierre Trudeau was arguably Canadas best-known politician, both at home and abroad. Unfortunately, Pierre Trudeau did little to restrain illegal entry of Khalistani Sikh terrorists into his county even after they bomb-raked a fully loaded Air-India passenger flight in the mid-1980s. He also failed to take an exemplary action to nab and punish those Canada-based Sikh terrorists and their organisations involved in bombing the international passenger aircraft. He followed one principle to get the Quebec separatist movement demolished and another one to support the anti-India Khalistani movement by a small group of terrorists operating out of his beloved homeland, Canada. Justine Trudeau appears to be like father, like son. The Khalistani Sikh terrorist groups continue to prosper in Canada, despite violent inter-group rivalries, killings and attacks on non-sikh Indian settlers and students in the country. Without exception, all killings deserve strong condemnation and speedy investigation. While Trudeaus deep concern for the June 18 killing of Canada-based Hardeep Singh Nijjar, known to be a top leader of Khalistan Tiger Force, is understandable, it is not clear why he wants Indias official cooperation in his Government probe. As of now, there is nothing to establish that there was an Indian Government hand in the Nijjar killing.

It is possible that Trudeau may have little faith in the investigation capability of his own Government agencies, which took nearly two decades to close the case of the mid-air bombing of a Air Indias Boeing 747 flight from Toronto to Bombay by Khalistani terror groups on June 23, 1985, killing 329 passengers, including 22 crew members, on board. This was despite the fact that of those killed, 280 were Canadian citizens. Why is Trudeau so desperate to solve the Nijjar killing case, involving only a single Canadian citizen, so quickly? For reasons unknown to Indias 22-million strong Sikh community, known for both their gallantry and strong business acumen, Canada has been the most important operating ground for groups of Sikh terror outfits wildly dreaming to convert Punjab into Khalistan. Sikhs combine as one of Indias top nationalist communities. It is believed that Guru Nanak, the teacher of the faith, promoted the religion to protect Hindus against Moslem insurgencies in the 15th century. The Indian Armys Sikh regiment is the countrys highest decorated infantry regiment boasting over 80 gallantry awards since 1947. Over 95 per cent of Indias Sikh population consider themselves as proud Indians. Punjab, sharing borders with Pakistan along with other Indian States such as Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Gujarat, is also one of Indias wealthiest State economies. Punjab is a major producer of wheat, rice, and other crops, and its agricultural prowess has played a significant role in the States economic growth. Overall, the community has nothing to do with the Canada-based Khalistan movement.

Thus, Canadas support for and protection of the Sikh separatist groups is inexplicable. The countrys lethargic investigation into the Air-India bombing case in the 1980s and 1990s and the current fast forward probe into the Khalistani terrorist murder incident are contradictory and inexplicable if not with a mischievous intent. Although a handful of people were arrested and tried in the Air India bombing case, the only person convicted was Inderjit Singh Reyat, a dual British-Canadian national, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter. The Air India bombing is considered the worst mass murder in Canadian history. The subsequent investigation and prosecution lasted nearly 20 years, making it the most expensive in Canadian history at nearly $130 million. Under the circumstances, Trudeaus personal initiative in the Nijjar killing investigation seeking Indias cooperation may look somewhat unnatural if not purely politically motivated and dubious. It is true that Canadas 770,000-plus Sikh citizens form a strong political force in the country. Canada is home to nearly 1.4 million people of Indian ethnic or cultural origin, making up about 3.7 per cent of the nations total population. Furthermore, a large number of individuals identify their religion as Sikhism, accounting for roughly two per cent of Canadas inhabitants.

The centre-left to Left Wing New Democratic Party, led by Jagmeet Singh, is Canadas fourth largest political party having 25 MPs in the 338-member Canadian Parliament. The party is running almost neck and neck with Yves-Francois Blanchet-led third placed Bloc Quebecois (32 MPs), championing the cause of Quebecs sovereignty, social democracy and regionalism. Trudeaus Liberal Party (158 MPs) is the largest, followed by the right wing Conservative Party (117 MPs). Two ministers in Justin Trudeaus cabinet are turbinated Sikhs  Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains and Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan (formerly Defence Minister). The strong presence of a generally wealthy Indian Diaspora could be a reason behind Trudeaus somewhat disjointed political reaction to the Nijjar killing investigation. It is rather surprising that Trudeau ignored the diplomatic and economic consequences of trying to implicate India in the Nijjar murder case without a prima facie evidence. Flaring India-Canada tension threatens to impact the multi-billion dollar trade between the two countries.
BRASILIA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday launched a strategy that seeks to encourage the national production of priority items for the public health system with an investment of 42 billion reals (8.45 billion U.S. dollars).

Lula signed the decree that established the National Strategy for the Development of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex during a ceremony at Planalto Palace.

"This is the realization of a dream that we have had in mind for a long time. Brazil needs to make the decision to become a great country. We will be a great country when we define a sovereign country by the quality of life of its people," he was quoted as saying in the local press.

Prior to the event, he spoke about the strategy on the weekly program "Conversation with the President," where he said that the health sector imports products worth about 20 billion U.S. dollars.

"If we have an industry actively producing, and our consumption capacity is extraordinary due to the SUS (Unified Health System), we will develop Brazil, develop the industry, generate quality employment and meet domestic demand," he stressed.

In the same program, Health Minister Nisia Trindade stressed that the objective of the strategy is to reduce the country's dependence on imports of medicines, supplies and vaccines.

The program aims to quadruple the national production of vaccines by investing in what already exists in the national vaccination policy and by seeking innovation. 
Chesley Taft & Associates LLC acquired a new stake in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF (BATS:INDA  Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 9,400 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $411,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in INDA. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 10.3% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 13,008,323 shares of the companys stock valued at $512,008,000 after purchasing an additional 1,217,734 shares in the last quarter. OLD Mission Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF in the 1st quarter valued at about $41,274,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 110.8% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,895,713 shares of the companys stock valued at $84,493,000 after purchasing an additional 996,561 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 68.5% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,770,771 shares of the companys stock valued at $69,698,000 after purchasing an additional 720,032 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ensign Peak Advisors Inc raised its holdings in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 46.9% in the 1st quarter. Ensign Peak Advisors Inc now owns 2,024,401 shares of the companys stock valued at $79,680,000 after purchasing an additional 646,437 shares in the last quarter.

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iShares MSCI India ETF Stock Performance

BATS:INDA opened at $44.33 on Wednesday. iShares MSCI India ETF has a one year low of $30.57 and a one year high of $38.21. The firm has a market cap of $5.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.86 and a beta of 0.68. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $44.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $42.35.

iShares MSCI India ETF Company Profile

The iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI India index, a market-cap-weighted index of the top 85% of firms in the Indian securities market. INDA was launched on Feb 2, 2012 and is managed by BlackRock.

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Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. raised its position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG  Free Report) by 11.7% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 2,996 shares of the restaurant operators stock after buying an additional 315 shares during the period. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD.s holdings in Chipotle Mexican Grill were worth $6,409,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CMG. Panagora Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill by 79.5% during the 1st quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 948 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $1,500,000 after purchasing an additional 420 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. boosted its position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill by 15.5% in the 1st quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 171 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $271,000 after purchasing an additional 23 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board boosted its position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill by 7.3% in the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 3,032 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $4,796,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill by 6.1% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 777 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $1,229,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the period. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill by 38.9% in the 1st quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 218 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $345,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the period. 91.19% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on CMG shares. Truist Financial increased their price target on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,230.00 to $2,280.00 in a research report on Wednesday, September 20th. Argus increased their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,200.00 to $2,400.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 1st. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,075.00 to $1,981.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $1,950.00 to $1,925.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, Guggenheim increased their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $1,550.00 to $1,950.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, July 14th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Chipotle Mexican Grill currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $2,153.78.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CMG opened at $1,847.85 on Wednesday. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $1,931.44 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $1,929.40. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $1,344.05 and a fifty-two week high of $2,175.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $50.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.30.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG  Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 26th. The restaurant operator reported $12.65 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $12.25 by $0.40. Chipotle Mexican Grill had a return on equity of 45.85% and a net margin of 12.00%. The firm had revenue of $2.51 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.53 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $9.30 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. will post 43.21 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Chipotle Mexican Grill news, CEO Brian R. Niccol sold 1,063 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $1,949.84, for a total value of $2,072,679.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 23,347 shares of the companys stock, valued at $45,522,914.48. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO Brian R. Niccol sold 1,086 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, July 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $2,138.00, for a total transaction of $2,321,868.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 23,347 shares of the companys stock, valued at $49,915,886. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Brian R. Niccol sold 1,063 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,949.84, for a total value of $2,072,679.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 23,347 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,522,914.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 3,207 shares of company stock valued at $6,434,541. 0.96% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Chipotle Mexican Grill

(Free Report)

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. It offers burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas, tacos, and salads. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California.

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BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland is committed to working with all walks of life in Kinmen to facilitate a plan to link Xiamen and Kinmen with a bridge, a mainland spokesperson said Wednesday.

"We have heard the voices of the Kinmen residents expressing their desire for the Xiamen-Kinmen bridge," Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, told a press conference.

It is reported that within two weeks of soliciting public opinion in Kinmen regarding the construction of the Xiamen-Kinmen bridge, 734 signed petitions were received in favor of the project.

Over the years, the mainland has rolled out measures to improve the well-being of people in Kinmen, Zhu said, noting that the mainland started to supply water to Kinmen in 2018 and the preliminary technical preparations for sending electricity and gas to Kinmen as well as for the construction of the bridge had been basically completed.

The spokesperson highlighted that a recent circular on establishing a demonstration zone for integrated development across the Taiwan Strait has pledged efforts to explore a model for Xiamen-Kinmen joint infrastructure development. 
That release could not be found.
The Chairman of Arewa Economic Forum (AEF), Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, has drummed support for the Acting Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, over his notable commitment to enhance border security and trade facilitation in the North.

Dandakata made this known on Tuesday, 26 September, shortly after they met with the Ag. CGC at the Customs Headquarters, Abuja  emphasizing that his commitment to implement policies that will improve the region is one hundred percent absolute.

The Chairman, who eulogized the Former Comptroller-General of Customs, Late Dikko Inde, for bringing numerous dividends to the region, expressed optimism that the current administration of Ag. CGC Adewale Adeniyi will exceed what the previous CGCs have done, we raised an issue, and Mr Adeniyi quickly swung into action on the matter, and we had a great response. he added.

He said, We are talking about fiscal policies and entrenchment of a regime that will create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive in Northern Nigeria, most especially in the agricultural sector; therefore, what CGC Adeniyi is doing will be sustainable and far-reaching.

During the meeting at the CGC's office, the Chairman appreciated the Customs boss for taking progressive steps to make things better in the North, highlighting that Nigeria now has a very responsive government, and AEF is proud to have a very responsive CGC.

According to him, the idea behind visiting the Ag. CGC was to bring new ideas that will help his administration to succeed, adding that the Forum is looking forward to witnessing the enhancement of cross-border trade in Ilela, considering its magnitude in boosting the region's economy.

He, however, pleaded with the Ag. CGC to look into the conditions of Inland Dry Ports in the North, which, according to him, are essential in carrying out businesses in the region - and as it stands, they're not functioning.

The Chairman also used the opportunity to invite the Ag. CGC for an Economic Summit slated to take place before the end of the year, assuring that the summit will revolve around creating awareness for people to invest in the North.

While responding, the Ag. Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, said his administration is up and doing to enhance trade in the North, considering its importance in boosting Nigeria's economy and prosperity.

The Ag. CGC, who spoke about the current situation in the Niger Republic and how it affects trade in Nigeria, also said that considering the significance of trade in Northern Nigeria, the Nigeria Customs Service finds it interesting to engage in trade talks, but can be achieved when there's absolute peace in the area.

He assured the entourage of Customs' commitment to look into the matter of Inland Ports and consult the Federal Government to fast-track the process, adding that Customs is willing to support the situation.

As regards the Forum's forthcoming Summit, the Ag. CGC said that NCS will watch out for the Economic Summit to attend, adding that there's so much economic potential in the North, which, if revamped, will contribute to the development of the country's economy.
NANCHANG, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Fahad Kabeer flattened a dough portion akin to a ping-pong ball into a wooden mold, and gently tapped the mold up and down on the worktop, effortlessly shaping the dough into a mooncake. The mold artfully imprinted the Chinese character "Fu" onto the mooncake.

"A Fu! In Chinese, it means happiness, good luck and good wishes," he exclaimed as he picked up the mooncake.

This is the first time for Fahad Kabeer, a Pakistani student in east China's Jiangxi Province, to take part in such a cultural experience. What made it even more special was that he imprinted the handwriting of a renowned Chinese painter onto a mooncake, a traditional pastry for the Mid-Autumn Festival which will be celebrated on Friday this year.

The Fu was selected from a piece of calligraphy by Zhu Da, also known as Bada Shanren, a Chinese ink wash painter born in the 1620s in the provincial capital Nanchang.

Besides the character, Fahad Kabeer also crafted mooncakes with the motifs of a distinctive angular rabbit, a deer and a sleeping cat, all works of Bada Shanren. The bakery class was organized as part of a Mid-Autumn culture experience trip.

These mooncakes, featuring Chinese calligraphy and paintings, are the result of a collaborative effort between the Bada Shanren Memorial Hall and a local bakery enterprise in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The unique initiative comes amid the growing popularity of creative cultural products in the country, particularly among young people.

Every Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese families get together to enjoy the full moon and eat mooncakes. "In my country Pakistan, we don't have the Mid-Autumn Festival, but we have festivals like the Eid al-Fitr, also a family reunion festival," said Fahad Kabeer, who has been studying at the Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine for the last seven years.

Following his mooncake-making workshop and a visit to view a collection of antique wooden cake molds, Fahad Kabeer concluded his trip with a visit to the Bada Shanren Memorial Hall. His curiosity led him to examine how closely the motifs on the mooncakes resembled the paintings.

"Exactly the same. Even the whiskers are exactly the same," he said while scanning the exhibition room, his gaze alternating between the rabbit depicted in a painting by Bada Shanren on the wall and the green and pink mooncakes held in his hand. The rabbit, a symbol of longevity, peace and prosperity in Chinese culture, often finds a place in the artworks of many artists.

The series of mooncakes featuring the works of Bada Shanren has been well received since its launch and nearly 2,000 boxes have been sold.

"In terms of the color of the motifs on the mooncakes, we chose the macaron colors favored by the young instead of black, white and gray used in Chinese ink wash paintings, in the hope that more young people will learn about Bada Shanren's art," said Zhou Xiaojian, curator of the memorial hall.

In recent years, many creative cultural products infused with traditional Chinese culture have gained rapid popularity, reflecting the growing trend of spiritual and cultural consumption among the Chinese people. "The mooncakes help bring traditional culture to thousands of families with Mid-Autumn Festival blessings," Zhou said. 
The Department of State Services (DSS) has reportedly arrested the former spokesman for the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), also known as the Shiite, Ibrahim Musa.

Reports have it that Musa, the Editor of Almizan Hausa Newspaper, was arrested on Wednesday while he was on his way to Medina, Saudi Arabia.

A source said: His arrest by the secret police coincides with his birthday.

Ibrahim Musa was arrested today by the Tinubu regime via the Nigerian secret police (DSS) on his way to Medina, Saudi Arabia, to visit the Messenger of God (sa) on his birthday #Maulud.

We call on the tyrannical Tinubu regime to immediately release the activist. This corrupt, brutal and inhuman regime has plundered millions of people into the extreme poverty bracket in just over 100 days in power.

InshaAllah, we will keep our brothers and sisters posted on the illegal arrest of Brother Ibrahim Musa.
YAOUNDE, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cameroonian Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji on Tuesday expressed anger over "serious and repeated" crimes committed by motorbike taxi drivers in the capital of Yaounde.

Moto-taxi drivers, locally known as "benskin," are increasingly attacking men, women and children, and specializing in armed robbery, Nji said during a meeting in Yaounde to strategize on combined efforts to fight growing insecurity.

"In August and September, more than 700 cases of assault, 300 cases of rape, 900 cases of serious accidents, some of whose victims are disabled for life, were reported," Nji said. "That is why today we have invited the motorbike taxi unions to face up to their responsibilities by telling them clearly that enough is enough."

Identification of all moto-taxi drivers and their motorcycles is obligatory, and those who fail to respect rules and regulations will face the law, he said.

Motorcycles are a major means of transportation in Yaounde, where passengers constantly struggle to beat traffic congestion. 
15 police who fled dinner party murder face charges

BANGKOK: Fifteen police officers who fled when a gunman shot their colleague dead at Kamnan Noks dinner party in Nakhon Pathom will be charged this week with dereliction of duty, Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) commissioner Jirabhop Bhuridej said yesterday (Sept 26).

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By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 27 September 2023 10:01 AM

Central Investigation Bureau commissioner Jirabhop Bhuridej updates reporters on the the investigation into the fatal shooting at Praween Kamnan Nok Chankhlais dinner party in Nakhon Pathom on Sept 6. Photo: supplied/ Wassayos Ngamkham

He was briefing reporters on progress in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Pol Maj Siwakorn Saibua, a 32-year-old highway police inspector, at influential local businessman Praween Kamnan Nok Chankhlais house in Muang district on the night of Sept 6, report the Bangkok Post.

Pol Lt Col Wasin Panpee was also wounded in the attack by gunman Thananchai Mamnak, who was a close aide of Mr Praween. The gunman was later shot dead by police in Kanchanaburi.

Both victims worked for Highway Police sub-division 2.

Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said investigators had met several times to consider taking action against police for dereliction of duty over the shooting. Investigators had examined security camera footage, witness statements and other evidence and agreed there were 29 police officers in attendance at the dinner party.

They divided the officers into four groups. The first comprised the dead and injured officers, the second consisted of six officers whose actions amounted to dereliction of duty and concealment of evidence. They are the six officers were earlier arrested and dismissed from the force.

The third group was six other officers who helped the dead and injured officers.

The fourth group comprised the 15 other officers, who would also be charged with dereliction of duty, Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said.

Investigators would formally press charges against the 15 officers this week, the CIB chief said. Charges of giving false statements were still being investigated, he added.

The meetings agreed on charges of violating Section 157 of the Criminal Code. If you are a police officer and see a crime, you are duty-bound to arrest the wrongdoers unless there is a good reason not to, such as helping the injured.

The facts are that only six officers helped the dead and injured officers. Therefore these 15 officers must also be prosecuted, the CIB chief said.

According to earlier reports, Pol Maj Siwakorn rejected Mr Praweens request during the party for the promotion of his nephew, a highway policeman. Then a gunman walked in and fired multiple shots at Pol Maj Siwakorn, also hitting Pol Lt Col Wasin.

The murder triggered widespread outrage because the other policemen at the party did not even try to arrest the killer or Mr Praween, and instead let them flee the scene.

The gunman was later shot dead. Mr Praween turned himself in. Authorities have since been examining his business affairs.

Asked about Pol Col Vachira Yaothaisong, commander of Highway Police Sub-division 2, who was present at the dinner and later shot himself dead at his house in Pathum Thani province. Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said evidence and witness accounts confirmed that Pol Col Vachira had been among those who helped the two shot officers.

Pol Col Vachira was the immediate supervisor of Pol Maj Siwakorn, who was slain, and blamed himself for inviting the man to the dinner party.

Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said there were 15 security cameras installed at Mr Praweens house. Two of them were not working, 12 of them had recorded files. One of the cameras recorded the incident at the party and another had stopped recording at 10.16am, before the dinner party started, he said.

The CIB chief said existing evidence was sufficient to prosecute Mr Praween.

Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop was also insistent that the CIB had no involvement in the raid on deputy national police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparns house in Bangkok on Monday.

He was responding to reports police commandos were involved in the raid.

He said the police commando unit was under the CIB, but mostly reported directly to the Royal Thai Police Office. On Monday, he believed the order came directly from the RTPO. It was not from the CIB.
Supreme Administrative Court rules against Rawai Mayor, Eva Beach

PHUKET: The Supreme Administrative Court has ruled the office of the Rawai Mayor and a committee that performed the environment impact studies for the Eva Beach project in Rawai as acting unlawfully and negligently in performing duties as required by law.

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By The Phuket News

Wednesday 27 September 2023 04:46 PM

Rawai Mayor Aroon Solos (2nd from right) was present when court officials inspected the Eva Beach project in 2015. Photo: The Phuket News / file

The court handed down its decision on Sept 15, after a month of hearing the case against Rawai Mayor Aroon solos and the construction of the Eva Beach project, which was to originally comprise 22 two- and three-storey beachfront villas that 10 years ago were priced from B32.6 million up to B46.7mn each.

However, at the time the first formal complaints against the project were filed, more than 10 years ago, construction was stopped at 16 units in two- and four-storey beachfront buildings.

The Supreme Court decision supported the ruling handed down by the regional Administrative Court in Nakhon Sri Thammarat in 2017.

The judgement stands, said the court in its 39-page report of the hearing.

The Administrative Court of First Instance ruled that the 1st respondent [Mayor Aroon] should perform his duties according to the Building Control Act, B.E. 2522 (1979), as well as other related laws, and must be completed within 90 days from the date the case becomes final, the court judgement read.

The Supreme Court verdict marked the exhaustion of any avenue of appeals against the ruling by the regional Administrative Court in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, the supreme Court also noted in its judgement.

After the regional court ruling was handed down in 2017, Mayor Aroon told The Phuket News, I am waiting for the judgement details to be sent this week. Only then will I order public works officials to issue an order for the offending structures to be removed, which will then be handed to Property Phuket Eva Group Co Ltd.

After the notice is issued, the developer will have 30 days to remove the offending structures, he said at the time.

If they delay in doing that, we will have the choice of either removing the structures ourselves or have a court order issued to have them do it, he said.

We have to uphold our responsibility, if we dont not we might face complaints about us not performing our duties, Mayor Aroon noted at the time.

However, despite the Supreme Court ruling now being handed down nearly two weeks ago, Mayor Aroon and Rawai Municipality have yet to announce any action to be taken against the project or its developer, the Eva Group, which at the time was overseen by Managing Director Authanop Pankamnerd.

Mr Authanop back in 2012, when the complaints against the project were initially filed, steadfastly denied that any part of the Eva Beach had been built illegally.

However, the Supreme Administrative Court has now upheld the ruling that the buildings exceeded height limits allowed within the distance from the water on the Chalong Bay beachfront. The buildings are in Zone 1, which allows structures no taller than six metres within the first 50 metres of the water line.

Also deemed illegal is a walkway constructed at the site, and landscaping along the beachfront, including the installation of swimming pools, on land that the group does not own. The land is deemed to be public land.

The Supreme Court also ruled that some of the building permits had been issued illegally as the environmental impact assessment committee that inspected and reviewed the building permit applications had not properly conducted their assessments.

Further, Eva Group was found to have exceeded even the illegally issued building permits, with the buildings not even five metres apart, as required by law.
ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) killed a senior member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in a cross-border operation in northern Iraq, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported Wednesday.

Mazlum Ozturk, codenamed Berxwedan Ciyager, was "neutralized" in an operation in the rural regions of Iraq's Sulaymaniyah province, Anadolu quoted anonymous security sources as saying.

Turkish authorities often use the term "neutralize" in their statements to imply the "terrorists" in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

Ozturk allegedly traveled from Turkiye to Europe in August 2022 and was involved in various activities associated with the European Kurdistan Democratic Societies Congress there.

He allegedly joined the PKK's rural ranks in France in January 2023, received assassination training, and was involved in armed activities.

MIT has intensified cross-border operations in Iraq since last year and killed several other senior PKK members over the past months.

In a separate cross-border operation, the Turkish army "neutralized" two PKK members in the "Operation Claw-Lock" zone in northern Iraq, Turkiye's Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

Turkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to fight against the PKK members in the northern Iraq region near the Turkish border, where many hideouts and bases of PKK militants are based.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States, and the European Union, has rebelled against the Turkish government for more than three decades. 
ISTANBUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police detained at least 12 suspected members of the Islamic Stated (IS) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Istanbul, local media reported on Wednesday.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said the suspects have allegedly carried out activities in Istanbul on behalf of the IS and HTS.

Following technical and physical surveillance, Turkish anti-terror teams detected the suspects' identities and launched simultaneous raids on 14 addresses across the city Wednesday, it added.

The teams detained 12 people at the addresses and continued their search for two more suspects, according to the report.

Turkiye considered the IS and the HTS, the umbrella group of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, as terrorist organizations.

The IS has carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkiye since 2015, while the country's counter-terrorism forces have been carrying out operations against members of the group in the country. 
UAVs in Manipurs ethnic clash

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Khunjamayum Nirbason Singh

Drones are changing the way we fight wars today. Still, it is also about the future, the age of artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous weapons, and the complex moral dilemmas we may all have to resolve. Whether you refer to them as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, they are older than you might realize. The development of the modern drones that we are looking at today truly began at the turn of the millennium, which is mainly because this is the time when many new technologies emerged.

I remember when these remote-control toys first appeared about a decade ago. At the time, a man was selling a parrot quadcopter in the mall. As a self-proclaimed Radio-controlled (RC) enthusiast, I was immediately impressed by how quickly and accurately he controlled the electric quadcopter. Now that they are well-tested battlefield weapons, it astounds me. One example is the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Drones have become increasingly common on battlefields like the one in Ukraine. Their military benefits are clear, and they are particularly effective at taking on more conventionally powerful adversaries. However, as this technology becomes more sophisticated, it raises ethical concerns about when AI and autonomous weapons will be widely used and what those concerns might be.

Why Manipur ?

Just like Ukraine, Manipur is currently facing a new mode of warfare. Although we are not that advanced to use AI and autonomous weapons, such new upgrades can still harm the people of the State. As we all know, the misery of a significant ethnic conflict has returned to Manipur; the clashes between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo communities have killed hundreds of people, left tens of thousands displaced and shocked the entire country. Families and civilians have been caught up in the bloodshed with its locally made bombs and sophisticated weapons.

In this ongoing ethnic clash, there is concrete evidence of the use of drones as a mechanism to drop artificial bombs and to conduct aerial surveillance; the use of technology in such a manner can only create adverse outcomes like civilians caught in the wrong place at the bad time. The incident of 5th September, where an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) suspected to have been dropped from a drone by Kuki-Zo militants, was found at Oksongbung Makha Leikai near Hotel Elegance under Moirang Police Station in Bishnupur district. This incident is just the beginning stage. The problem that we must be concerned about is that this clash has taken a turn, which can become more problematic and threatening for the Government and, more importantly, the people of Manipur.

At the beginning of this clash, no one believed that it would rise to such a catastrophic level where both sides would be using technologies in such a manner to gain an advantage over one another. Yet, the Government did not take concrete steps to reduce and minimize the use of sophisticated weapons and technologies. The incident of Oksongbung Makha Leikai is very new to our State, and many are unaware of its threats.

Why can it be threatening to the Government and the people ?

Let me explain with the help of some examples; as we all know, the direct displacement between two places is much less than the actual on-road distance. If we talk about Khamenlok, one of the infamous areas well known for an incident in which nine Meitei volunteers were killed and nearly a dozen injured after miscreants opened fire and the Manipur Secretariat North Block, where all the essential buildings of Manipur Government are situated, the road distance between the two places in 25 km and the actual line distance between the two places in just 20 km. If we talk about the line distance between Singda Dam and Kangla is around 16.47 km, and Bishnupur district to Imphal is around 25 km.

So, what if such an area of Imphal becomes a target and the Government disregards this situation ? If they do, they must be much more cautious because it is better to stop something before it happens instead of having to repair it or deal with its consequences after it already is. Why am I mentioning all the distances and giving awareness to the Government and the people ? This is because drones currently available in the market and which are legal to purchase by anyone can cover the distances mentioned above with no difficulty.

For example, DJI Air 3 have a maximum flight distance of up to 32 km and a maximum flight time of 46 minutes, DJI Mavic 3 Classic have a maximum flight distance of up to 30 km and a maximum flight time of 46 minutes, and DJI Mavic3 Pro have a maximum flight distance of up to 28 km and a maximum flight time of 43 minutes. These drones have a payload capacity of about 1 kilogram. A high-payload drone, however, is employed for more complicated jobs as well. Mainly, hybrid drones feature a gas and electric power supply that allows them to carry up to 9.07 kilogram of payload and remain in the air for around 2.5 to 2 hours.

To safeguard peoples safety and well-being, living in places vulnerable to drone attacks can be worrying. As a citizen, I can only urge the current administration to develop some guidelines. While it is crucial to abide by the rules and recommendations of local authorities, here are some general safety measures that people in such locations may want to think about:

Stay Informed: Keep up with the most recent news, security advice, and alerts from administrative authorities. Be alert to any potential dangers or regions designated as high-risk locations.

Take Cover: If a drone attack alert is issued, take cover immediately in a firm structure or an underground area. Till the all-clear signal is given, stay away from windows and outside walls, and make sure you are in a protected area.

Be Alert: Stay alert and alert the authorities to suspicious behavior or objects. Keep an eye out for any strange drone activity or aircraft nearby.

Avoid Crowded Areas: Refrain from congregating in crowded areas or prominent places that could be used as drone targets. Develop an evacuation plan. Be aware of the closest safe locations if you move your home immediately.



The write is a postgraduate in Geography from the Delhi School of Economic (DSE), University of Delhi. He can be reached at khunjamayum-nirbason @gmail.com
ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 42,875 people, who entered Turkiye irregularly, were deported between June 1 and Sept. 22, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

The Turkish authorities caught a total of 97,363 irregular migrants in the period, the minister was quoted as saying by the state-run TRT broadcaster on Wednesday.

The irregular migrants are mainly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Iran, he added.

The Turkish police have tightened the crackdown on undocumented migrants recently, particularly in Istanbul, Turkiye's most populous province.

The Turkish government said the country is hosting four million refugees, including over 3.5 million Syrians who fled the civil war to seek asylum. It added that many of these refugees are unregistered, and the exact number remains unclear. 
Calcutta High Courts single-judge bench of Justice Jay Sengupta on Tuesday dismissed the Kolkata Polices denial for permission to a protest rally in front of the office of Trinamul Congresss national general secretary and party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee on Camac Street in central Kolkata.

The rally is to be held by the government employees on Wednesday against the non-payment of enhanced dearness allowance to the West Bengal government employees.

After being denied the permission, the organizers of the rally, who are the state government employees in Group- D category, approached Justice Senguptas bench for the

permission.

On Tuesday while hearing on the matter, the counsels for the petitioner Kaustav Bagchi and Priti Kar, argued that while denying the permission for marching of the rally through Camac Street, the police have sited the reason of inconvenience for the school children commuting through that busy stretch of road in central Kolkata.

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Originally the rally was planned in the Kalighat area. But my clients changed the route following an appeal from the city police on this count. Then my clients planned the rally through the alternate route of Camac Street. Now the police are even opposing that using the problem of school children as an excuse. Is that objection of the administration because the office of a particular person is located on that stretch of road? My clients will conduct the rally peacefully, Bagchi argued.

Finally, Justice Sengupta dismissed the denial of permission from the administration and ruled that the rally can be cond ucted through Camac Street only.

While passing the order, Justice Sengupta also observed that since there is no school on that stretch of road, the reason for inconvenience for school children, as cited by the administration, was not tenable.

So the rally can be held through that road without causing inconvenience for the school children. If nec- essary the rally can pass through a special channel through that road. The rally should move on without taking any halt on that road, Justice Sengupta ord
West Bengal Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday slammed the Khalistani supporters of Canada and urged the Indian government to take all necessary measures against those anti-India terrorists.

Without mincing any word I do strongly condemn the heinous act of Khalistani elements in Canada who even dared kicking a cardboard figure of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and burnt down an Indian flag. Indian government should take all necessary measures against those anti-India terrorists, he said in a post on, X.

Dozens of Khalistan supporters on Monday outside the Indian Consulate in Vancouver held a protest against the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar amid Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus allegations that the Indian government was behind his slaying.

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Protesters waved Khalistan flags, played music and shouted slogans. Some of them burnt Indias flag in a garbage can outside the Indian Consulate. Similar protests were held in Toronto as well.

Protesters called Nijjars killing an assassination and called for a public inquiry into the case, Canada-based CTV News reported. The protest was one of several planned by Khalistan supporters in cities across Canada.

Ties between India and Canada have been strained after Justin Trudeau on September 18 alleged Indias involvement in the fatal shooting of Khalistan Tiger Force chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Nijjar, who was a designated terrorist in India, was killed outside a Gurdwara in Canadas Surrey, British Columbia on June 18. India, however, rejected the allegations, terming them absurd and motivated.

We have seen and rejected the statement of the Canadian Prime Minister in their Parliament, as also the statement by their Foreign Minister, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

Allegations of Government of Indias involvement in any act of violence in Canada are absurd and motivated, the MEA added in its statement.
The Bombay high court allowed the crisis-hit Akasa Air to proceed with its case seeking contractual damages from pilots who exited the company allegedly without serving a notice period, on Wednesday. The airlines operator, SNV Aviation Pvt Ltd, had approached the high court against a few pilots who had abruptly resigned without serving the mandatory notice period as required by their contracts.

According to the airlines norms, pilots who are first officers are required to serve a notice period of six months and captains for one year.

Responding to the move, former Akasa Air pilots challenged the maintainability of lawsuits filed against them before the Bombay HC. They argued that since the contracts were not executed in Mumbai, the Bombay high court was not the right court to proceed with the dispute.

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Akasa has argued that its employment contract with the pilots grants exclusive jurisdiction to the Mumbai courts. In such a case, the Bombay high court has the jurisdiction to move ahead with the suits.

The high court posted the matter for consideration of grant of relief to Akasa Air on October 4.

It is to be noted that Akasa is seeking significant compensation, reaching crores of rupees, from pilots who quit the airline before completing a mandatory notice period. In its lawsuit, it has cited operational losses and damage to the airlines reputation due to the flight cancellations resulting from the pilots abrupt resignations.
A mega national event named SHAKTI-2023 (Sthree in HVACR& Architecture and Key in Transforming the Industry) was organized by Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air conditioning Engineers(ISHRAE), Kalpakkam Chapter and Indian Women Scientistss Association (IWSA), Kalpakkam Branch. The event was held in association with Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research(IGCAR), Kalpakkam on 26th September 2023 at IGCAR, Kalpakkam, under the theme on Women in Technological Advances and Social Upliftment.

Dr B. Venkatraman, scientist and director, IGCAR presided over the function. In his presidential address, he emphasised on achieving cleaner India by fruitful collaboration among forums of scientists, engineers and academia towards the research and development of green technologies.

Yogesh Thakkar, National president ISHRAE, in his address mentioned about ISHRAEs contribution in achieving net zero emission by 2070 through decarbonisation.

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Dr K. Rajalakshmi Menon, Scientist & Director, Centre for Air Borne Systems, DRDO inaugurated the function. In her inaugural address she highlighted the indigenous development of Airborne Surveillance Systems and implementation of efficient thermal management.

Dr Kalpana Balakrishnan, Dean (Research), Dept. of Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, in her keynote address stressed upon the importance of monitoring and controlling household air pollution in rural India and its mitigation.

Dr Jayanthasri Balakrishnan, Motivational speaker and Scholar from Coimbatore, in her special address pointed out the duty of empowered women to conduct the outreach programs to pave a way for social upliftment.

300 delegates participated in SHAKTI-2023.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal said here on Wednesday that the sharp increase in the drug menace in Punjab was due to the shelter being provided to the drug mafia by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators.

Addressing a party rally in Ferozepur, the Akali leader alleged that AAP legislators were extending protection to the drug traffickers. He said the hands of the police had been tied by the AAP legislators because they were receiving monthlies from the mafia kingpins.

This is why no effort is being made to arrest the kingpins and only lowly peddlers are targeted, Badal said, pointing out that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) seized drugs from 66 liquor vends of Ludhiana after the chief minister refused to take action on information provided by the Governor on the sale of drugs from the vends.

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The vends were, however, reopened within a months time which points to the control the drug mafia has over the AAP Government, the SAD leader added.

Badal held the AAP Government squarely responsible for turning large parts of this region into a lake in July and is now running away from its responsibility to compensate farmers for the destruction caused to their paddy crop.

He said the devastation caused in this region was not man-made as AAPs Member of Parliament got all 38 gates of the Harike barrage opened in one go despite opposition from the Irrigation Department engineers.

Badal said that even as the paddy crop in the area had been destroyed farmers were in no position to sow the forthcoming wheat crop because either gullies had been made in fields or tonnes of sand had been deposited in them. With farmers not being allowed to clear the fields of the sand by the State government, another crisis is in the offing, he added.

Accusing Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of not holding any flood protection meeting prior to the monsoons, he said former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal used to not only hold such meetings but also conduct extensive flood protection works including cleaning of drains. This was not done by the AAP Government which resulted in extensive damage not only to standing crops but to residential houses also, he added.
The Surrey division of Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP has denied the report claiming delay in initial response to the shooting incident in which Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed, saying the first officers to respond reached the spot within four minutes.

According to a report published in The Washington Post, at least six people and two vehicles were involved in the murder of Nijjar. The Khalistani terrorist was shot by two masked gunmen in the parking lot of a Gurudwara in Surrey on June 18.

Citing eyewitnesses, the report claimed that it took the Canadian police between 12 to 20 minutes to reach the spot after the gunshots were first fired.

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the first information of the incident came at 8.27 pm and the first officers to respond reached the spot in under four minutes with more joining them soon after.

The RCMP also rejected claims that after reaching the spot, there was a conflict between Surrey Police and RCMP Surrey on who will lead the investigation.

It was suggested that there was a conflict regarding which police agency would head the investigation, however as the police of jurisdiction, Surrey RCMP is responsible for all police investigations in Surrey. There is nothing to indicate this investigation was delayed in any way, either in the initial response or in subsequent investigative steps, the police statement added.

The killing, according to reports, was a result of a conflict between a Gurudwara association members. However, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged Indias role but provided no evidence to back his claims. India said that allegations were absurd and politically driven.

Trudeaus allegations resulted in a massive diplomatic row between India and Canada and both countries expelled each others intelligence agencies country heads. India has also suspended visa services for Canadian citizens in view of security threats to its High Commission and Consulate offices in Canada.
After a brief lull, violence has resurfaced in Manipur following the tragic kidnapping and killing of two students. On Wednesday, the Congress party strongly criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modis handling of the crisis and called for the immediate removal of the Biren Singh-led state government.

Congress expressed deep concern over the recent murder of two students who had gone missing in early July, describing it as a shocking incident that has deeply affected the entire nation. The party also directed its criticism towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting that Manipur has been grappling with violence for nearly 150 days, yet the PM appears preoccupied with election campaigns.

The situation in the state is not showing signs of improvement. In light of this, the BJP-led state government should be dismissed promptly. It is evident that PM Modis priorities lie elsewhere, and he seems more focused on his image and election campaigns, Congress stated in a tweet on X (formerly Twitter).

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Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, in a separate tweet, criticized the prime minister for not visiting the violence-affected state and recommended the removal of Chief Minister N Biren Singh as the first step towards restoring order.

The distressing images of students becoming targets in this violence have once again deeply shocked the entire nation. It is now evident that violence against women and children has been weaponized in this conflict, Kharge emphasized on X.

Disturbing images of the Manipur students had gone viral on social media on Tuesday. One image depicted the missing students seated in a grassy area with two armed individuals standing behind them, while another image showed their lifeless bodies.

In response to the incident, mobile internet services have been temporarily suspended in Manipur, and Chief Minister Singh has assured that strict action will be taken against the perpetrators.
Union External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar has restated Indias official position regarding Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus allegations connecting New Delhi to the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Dr. Jaishankar emphasized that Indian government did not endorse such a policy, and urged Ottawa to provide concrete evidence to support its claims.

We told the Canadians that this is not the government of Indias policy. Secondly, we said if you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at itThe picture is not complete without the context in a way, stated Jaishankar during a discussion at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York.

When questioned about the intelligence that prompted Trudeaus allegations of a extra judicial killing by India, Dr. Jaishankar clarified that he lacked the authority to address such matters, as he is neither affiliated with the Five Eyes alliance nor the FBI.

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Im not part of The Five Eyes, Im certainly not part of the FBI. So I think youre asking the wrong person, he remarked.

A prominent US envoy reported that intelligence agencies from Canada, the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, collectively known as the Five Eyes consortium, shared information about Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing.

Canadian PM Trudeaus allegations significantly deteriorated diplomatic relations between India and Canada, which has seen strain for several months. Both nations expelled the heads of each others intelligence agencies. New Delhi also called on Ottawa to maintain diplomatic parity, citing interference in Indias internal affairs. India further suspended visa services for Canadian nationals due to security concerns at its High Commission and Consulate offices in Canada.
On Tuesday, S. Somnath, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), announced Indias forthcoming mission to Venus, the sunniest planet in our solar system. Following the successful launch of the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission in August, preparations for the Venus mission have progressed, marking a significant advancement in Indias space exploration endeavors.

Speaking at the Indian National Science Academy in Delhi, Somnath mentioned that several missions are in the conceptual stage, and planning for the Venus mission is already underway, with payloads already prepared.

He described Venus as an intriguing planet, highlighting that research on this planet could yield insights into various unresolved questions in space science.

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Venus is an incredibly fascinating planet. It also has a vibe about it. It has a very dense atmosphere. Acids abound in the atmosphere, which has a pressure 100 times greater than that of Earth. You are unable to go beneath the surface. You are unsure of how hard the surface is. Why are we attempting to comprehend everything here? One day, Earth might resemble Venus. Im not sure. Perhaps 10,000 years from now, Earth will have changed. This has never existed on Earth. Long ago, it was uninhabitable, Somnath stated.

While the European Space Agencys Venus Express project concluded in 2016, Japans Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter has been orbiting Venus since 2016, conducting missions to study the planet.

NASA has also been actively involved in Venus missions, conducting flyby missions and other projects. In 2022, NASA announced that one of its spacecraft had captured the first visible light images of Venus during a flyby mission in 2021.

Following the success of Chandrayaan-3, ISRO launched the Aditya L1 spacecraft on September 2, 2023, marking Indias first space-based mission to study the Sun. Aditya L1 is positioned in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, serving as Indias inaugural space observatory for solar research.
SHANGHAI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- An international research team led by Chinese scientists has unveiled a recurring cycle in the precessing motion of an oscillating jet of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the distant galaxy M87, providing compelling observation evidence for the black hole spin.

The new finding helps prove that the black hole inside M87 is actually spinning. The latest research result of the black hole was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (Beijing Time).

The researchers found the jet expelled from the black hole swinging up and down with an amplitude of about 10 degrees, suggesting a recurring 11-year cycle. The research is based on extensive analyses of data recorded from 2000 to 2022 by various international networks of radio telescopes, said Cui Yuzhu, the first author and corresponding author of the paper.

The black hole of the M87 galaxy sits about 55 million light-years from Earth, with a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. In 2019, scientists captured the first-ever image of such a black hole, offering the first direct visual evidence of an unseeable cosmic object and its shadow. Since then, the researchers have been observing and studying the black hole.

Such a supermassive black hole at the center of an active galaxy is among the most enigmatic and formidable entities in the universe. Its immense gravitational pull enables it to "gobble up" a large amount of matter through the accretion disk while "spitting out" matter close to the speed of light to thousands of light years away.

The research team also combined their observation data with theoretical simulations using a supercomputer. They proved that the rotation axis of the accretion disk misaligns with the black hole's spin axis, leading to the precessing jet, as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Over 20 telescopes globally also contributed to their study in the period.

The black hole spin represents a fundamental hypothesis in black hole theories. However, there was no previous direct observation evidence. The new discovery can provide a pivotal element for further unraveling the mystery of black holes, said Lin Weikang, associate research professor from the South-Western Institute For Astronomy Research of Yunnan University. 
A serious allegation of bribery has been made against the personal staff of Kerala Health Minister Veena George, including Akhil Mathew and Akhil Sajeev, former office secretary at CITU Pathanamthitta. They have been accused of accepting bribes from a person for offering a medical officers post.

According to a complaint, the ministers staff member and associate demanded a bribe of Rs 15 lakh for the appointment of a medical officer.

The complaint, filed by Haridasan Kummali, a native of Malappuram, alleged that Akhil Mathew and Akhil Sajeev, acting as a mediator, demanded a bribe in exchange for the appointment of a Homeo Medical Officer at the Ayush Kendra,

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Haridasan disclosed to the media that he paid Rs 1 lakh to Mathew and Rs 75,000 to Akhil Sajeev. These payments were intended to secure a temporary job for his daughter-in-law, Dr. Nitha Raj, at Ayush Kendra.

The state health minister, however, strongly defended her personal staff. Speaking to media persons here on Wednesday, she dismissed the allegations as fake. She said the complaint was received on September 13. After examining the facts, it was determined that the allegation was baseless.

The complaint was forwarded to the police. The police were asked to investigate if there was an attempt to falsely implicate the staff member. The personnel staff member has also lodged a complaint with the police, she said.

Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition VD Satheesan called the complaint against the health ministers staff serious.

This is a state with a chief minister who said if the village assistant is taking bribes, the village officer will know about it. So, should not the minister know how the PA works? Does the minister not know anything that goes on in the office?, Satheesan asked
The National Investigation Agency raided a number of locations in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday in a crackdown on the Khalistani gangster nexus. During its raid, the NIA detained gangster-turned-terrorist Arsh Dalas aide, Sunder alias Jora, from Punjabs Ferozepur. Theyre going to interrogate Jora in Chandigarh. The raids were launched at a total of over 50 locations in those countries, as detailed below.

The development comes at a time when India and Canada are already on the brink of a diplomatic showdown after Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused potential Indian agents of being involved in the assassination of a prominent Khalistani extremist in British Columbia on June 18. New Delhi dismissed the allegation as absurd and motivated.

NIA sources said, Khalistani and gangsters based in overseas countries are financing overground workers in India through the use of hawala for drugs and arms. According to sources, the NIA has also received information on the nexus between the Khalistani, the Information and Information Technology (IIT) and the gangsters. The sources said that the information collected from the gangsters and the Khalistanis so far arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) indicates that the nexus deals with financing terrorism, supplying weapons and carrying out anti-state activities from abroad.

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The raids were carried out on Wednesday at 30 locations across Punjab, Rajasthan (13 locations), Haryana (4 locations), Uttarakhand (2 locations), Delhi (1 location) and Uttar Pradesh (1 location). In the context of the ongoing diplomatic dispute, India on Wednesday imposed a visa suspension on Canadian citizens and requested Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence.
Madhya Pradesh Police have begun a probe after a minor girl was found raped and lying in an unconscious state in a pool of her blood in Madhya Pradeshs Ujjain district.

A case has been registered under Mahakal police station in the district against unknown people in which rape incident has come to light and it has been confirmed in a medical examination, said Sachin Sharma, Superintendent of Police (SP) Ujjain on Wednesday.

The minor was found in an unconscious state in Murlipura area under Mahakal police station limits in the district, according to police.

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Seeing her soaked in blood, locals informed police, which reached the spot and took the girl to the hospital where a medical examination confirmed she was raped.

In this case, due to the critical condition of the girl, she was referred to Indore. A policeman also donated blood as she had lost a lot of blood, said Sachin Sharma, Superintendent of Police (SP, Ujjain).

A SIT (Special Investigation Team) has been formed and an investigation is underway, the police official said.

The SP also made an appeal to the public to inform the police if they have information about the incident.

The girl did not give any specific details about where she is from, but through her language and dialect it seems likely she hails from Prayagraj, Sharma said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday, revealed that central ministers did not extend their cooperation during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, which he initiated in 2003 during his first term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. PM Modi asserted that foreign investors faced threats to deter them from investing in Gujarat, yet the summit continued to thrive despite these challenges.

Reflecting on the 20-year journey of the investor summit, PM Modi highlighted that Vibrant Gujarat achieved success despite obstacles from the then UPA government at the Center.

The central ministers used to tell me that they would definitely come. Pata nahi peeche se danda chalta tha, vo mana kar dete the. They never cooperated, they used to create roadblocks, PM Modi disclosed.

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He further mentioned that investors were subjected to threats, but their unwavering commitment to the principles of good governance, fair governance, equitable growth distribution, and transparency brought them to Gujarat.

PM Modi also recalled the year 2009 when global recession loomed large, and many advised against hosting Vibrant Gujarat. However, he firmly stood by the event, emphasizing its importance in maintaining continuity and resilience in the face of adversity.

The Prime Minister underlined his belief that Gujarats development was intertwined with the nations progress. He expressed disappointment that the UPA government viewed the summit through a political lens rather than appreciating its economic significance.

PM Modi went on to highlight Gujarats transformation into an agricultural, financial, industrial, and manufacturing hub in the 21st century, breaking away from its traditional identity as a trading state.

The Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, initiated by Narendra Modi in 2003, was designed to attract foreign investments to the state. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the summit, and the Gujarat government plans to commemorate this milestone.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled four books celebrating Indias successful G20 presidency during the G20 University Connect Finale. These books are now accessible on the G20India website and as e-books via their application.

One of the books, titled Showcasing Indian Culture at G-20, vividly portrays the vast and diverse tapestry of Indian culture that was presented to G20 delegates from across the globe.

Indias G20 Presidency Twitter account, X, enthusiastically shared the news, stating, The four publications released by PM @narendramodi at the #G20 University Connect Finale are available at the #G20India website and app in ebook format!

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During Indias G20 presidency, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) team, led by Joint Secretary MEA and Deputy Director General ICCR Abhay Kumar, orchestrated over 300 cultural programs featuring more than 17,000 artists in 60 different locations throughout the nation. This extensive effort showcased Indias rich cultural heritage and reinforced its image as a premier tourism destination.

For the first time in history, G20 events were hosted in every state and union territory in India, affording each region the opportunity to showcase its unique cultural heritage. India utilized its G20 presidency to spotlight a wide spectrum of its cultural diversity, encompassing performing and visual arts, heritage sites, and culinary traditions, fostering cross-cultural understanding among member nations.

Indias G20 presidency not only projected its cultural influence but also highlighted its economic potential in the cultural and tourism sectors, instilling a sense of national pride.

Throughout the past ten months, a captivating array of classical, folk, and tribal dances and music performances spanned the length and breadth of India. From Kashmir to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and from the Rann of Kutchh to Kohima, these presentations showcased the nations vibrant artistic legacy, each performance offering a unique flavor and narrative.

Additionally, the G20 University Connect initiative aimed to educate Indias youth about Indias G20 Presidency and increase their involvement in various G20 events.

The Prime Minister also introduced three other publications during the event: The Grand Success of G20 Bharat Presidency: Visionary Leadership, Inclusive Approach, Indias G20 Presidency: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, and Compendium of G20 University Connect Programme.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday tagged with an earlier matter, a petition by a Delhi-based lawyer seeking registration of an FIR against Tamil Nadu Minister and DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin, parliament members A. Raja and Tholkappiyan Thirumavalavan for their remarks calling for the eradication of Sanatana Dharma.

Tagging with the already pending matter, Justice Aniruddha Bose heading a bench also comprising Justice Bela M. Trivedi, however, did not issue notice on the plea.

We have not issued a notice. Let it be tagged. We will see on that day, the bench said.

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The Additional Advocate General o(AAG) of the Tamil Nadu government opposed the plea saying these petitions are publicity interest litigations.

There are 40 writ petitions filed across the country in different High Courts for publicity, it makes it incredibly difficult for the State, AAG told the bench.

Everyone filing PILs for publicity, they will go to the media and circulate these, the bench said.

The Supreme Court on September 22, on a petition by a Chennai-based lawyer, had issued notice to Dayanidhi Stalin and others. The court had sought their reply on the plea seeking action against them for their remarks calling for the eradication of the Sanatan Dharma.

The notice was also issued to the Union Home Secretary.

In the instant case, an advocate Vineet Jindal in an application, has sought registration of an FIR against Stalin and Rajya Sabha MP A Raja for their act of outraging religious feelings, insulting the followers of the Hindu religion and instigating enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion.

The lawyer said he is a follower of Sanatan Dharma and had seen the video recording of Stalins statement and news reports relating to Stalins speech at an event called Sanatana Abolition Conference.

The applicant, being a Hindu and Sanatan Dharma follower, his religious sentiments are hurt by statements made by Udhayanidhi Stalin calling for eradicating Sanatan Dharma and further comparing Sanatan with mosquitoes, dengue, corona, and malaria. His words show his hate towards Sanatan Dharma, says advocate Jindal in his application.

The application further says, He is an MLA and a Minister in the Tamil Nadu government and has taken oath to work as per the constitution of our country and must respect all the regions but he intentionally made a provocative and defamatory statement for the Sanatan Dharma with the intent to promote enmity between groups on the grounds of religion.

Jindal has already made a complaint to Delhi police for the registration of FIR under sections 153A & B, 295A, 298, and 505 but the police are yet to register the FIR though the Supreme Court in its April 28, order has directed all States and Union Territories UTs to register suo motu FIRs in hate speech offences without any complaint being filed.

Action be taken irrespective of the religion of the maker of the speech so that the secular character of India as envisaged by the Preamble is preserved, states the application..

On September 5, 262 eminent citizens including former High Court judges and bureaucrats written to the Chief Justice of India, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud urging him to take note of Stalins hate speech calling for the eradication of Sanatana Dharma.

They stated that the Supreme Court had directed the governments and the police authorities to take suo motu action in hate speech cases without waiting for the lodging of formal complaints.
Several people have been detained after massive National Investigation Agency or NIA raids on the Khalistani terrorists-gangsters nexus in six states, according to reports. The NIA has also seized a large amount of arms and ammunition during the raids.

The raids were conducted on as many as 50 locations spanning across six states  Punjab, Haryana, Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Earlier in the day, the NIA detained gangster-turned-terrorist Arsh Dalas aide, Sunder alias Jora, from Punjabs Ferozepur.

According to NIA sources, the agency received inputs that Khalistani terrorists based in Canada and Pakistan are financing over-ground workers in India through the use of hawala for drugs and arms. The nexus between crime syndicates in India and Khalistani terrorists are indulged in terror financing and anti-state activities.

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The development has come amid a massive diplomatic row between India and Canada over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus allegations of New Delhis involvement in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Trudeaus allegations significantly deteriorated diplomatic relations between India and Canada, which has seen strain for several months.

Both nations expelled the heads of each others intelligence agencies. New Delhi also called on Ottawa to maintain diplomatic parity, citing interference in Indias internal affairs.

India further suspended visa services for Canadian nationals due to security concerns at its High Commission and Consulate offices in Canada.

A prominent US envoy revealed that intelligence agencies from Canada, the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, collectively known as the Five Eyes consortium, shared information about Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing.

Terming Trudeaus allegations absurd and politically motivated, India demanded specific evidence to back the claims. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also accused Canada of providing safe haven to Khalistani terrorists. Canada has, so far, not shared any information backing Trudeaus claims.
Those who know Canada as a prosperous, democratic country and a land of opportunities may find it difficult to reconcile this with the fact that an officially appointed commission has referred to its record of serious human rights violations against its own indigenous people as cultural genocide. Four years later, the word genocide was repeated by another officially appointed commission (2019), this time more specifically in the context of indigenous women. The allegation of cultural genocide has been accepted by the government which has apologized to its indigenous people.

An apology, however, may be easier than actual action. Repeated admission of guilt has not led to the kind of basic changes needed in Canadian society and authorities.

In year 1996 the Royal Commission of Aboriginal People had alerted the people to the urgency of remedying the shocking injustices to the indigenous people of the country. In 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada apologized to the indigenous people of Canada. However the follow-up action was not encouraging at all, as was revealed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC) which submitted its final report in 2015.

Then in 2019 the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women said, What connects all these deaths is colonial violence, racism and oppression. In 2021, after all these efforts at awakening, Pal Palmater writing in Macleans journal stated, Reconciliation has not just not gone off the rails; many indigenous people think it is dead. With each broken promise, there is less collective faith that the Trudeau government, like many governments before it, has any intention of making good on its promise At every turn, Canada chooses the path of injustice towards indigenous people.

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The TRCC Report stated very clearly, For over a century the central goals of Canadas Aboriginal Policy were to eliminate aboriginal governments, ignore Aboriginal rights, terminate the treaties and through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal people to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and opera- tion of residential schools was a central element of this policy, which can best be described as cultural genocide.

In fact it is these so-called residential schools that were at the centre of the inquiries made by this Commission which examined about 6,000 witnesses. On the basis of extensive study and the innumerable statements made before it and the extensive record examined by it, the TRCC stated, Canadas Residential School System for Aboriginal Children was an education system in name only. These residential schools were created for the purpose of separating aboriginal children from their families, in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages Many children here were abused physically and sexually. They died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world, the TRCC Report said.

The Human Rights Watch Report of 2021 stated in a note on the situation in Canada, From May to July hundreds of unmarked graves were found at government-funded and church-run residential schools in the provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Approximately 150,000 children were removed from their families and communities and placed in residential schools, where they were forbidden to speak their own lan- guages or practice their culture. Many also suffered physical and sexual abuse at residential schools which operated until the 1990s. In several cases these children were taken away forcibly from their families.

The TRCC Report was emphatic in emphasizing the cultural genocide aspect of the injustice against indigenous people. This report first defined what constitutes cultural genocide and then went on to say, In its dealing with aboriginal people Canada did all these things.

Regarding the motives behind this the TRCC Report said without mincing any words that the Canadian government pursued this policy because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources.

These policies of many-sided injustice have also led to a situation in which the indigenous people are being driven more and more to prisons. While the indigenous people comprise only about 5 per cent of the population, they comprise about 30 per cent of those who are in incarceration. In the case of indigenous women, they comprise about 42 per cent of the incarcerated women. This data is for federal prisons. In the case of provincial prisons this share of indigenous people is often even higher and in some extreme cases can be as high as 70 per cent. Indigenous people have often faced more problems in getting bail.

According to a report of the Department of Justice, Colonization has led to cultural alienation, territorial dispossession, intergenerational trauma, systemic discrimination and socio-economic marginalization which together continue to have profoundly negative impacts on the lives of many indigenous people. At the same time when the indigenous people have suffered so much injustice, some government authorities have spent millions of dollars in legal cases that may impede the flow of benefits or compensation to indigenous peo- ple who have suffered so much.

Clearly this situation must change in significant and sustained ways. The Canadian authorities and society have to give much more attention to ensuring justice in the true sense to the indigenous people. This is not just a matter of initiating a programme or two, but of more basic changes. As the TRCC Report said virtually all aspects of Canadian soci- ety need to be reconsidered.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.)
The term Amrit Kaal, a Vedic astrological term, was first used in context of Indias economic and social development by PM Modi, in his Independence Day speech, on 15 August 2021. Mr Modi said: The goal of Amrit Kaal is to ascend to new heights of prosperity for India and the citizens of India. The PM went on to define the other goals of Amrit Kaal as creation of an India where villages had the same facilities as cities, where the government did not unnecessarily interfere in lives of citizens, and which had the most modern infrastructure. According to the PM, after twenty-five years of Amrit Kaal, in the one hundredth year of Indias independence, we will realise our ultimate goal of becoming a developed country.

The concept of Amrit Kaal was picked up by everyone in the Government, with FM Nirmala Sitharaman aligning Union Budgets 2022 and 2023 with the goals of Amrit Kaal. Later on, PM Modi renamed Amrit Kaal as Kartavya Kaal a time to labour for achieving the goals of Amrit Kaal. Much effort is definitely required for becoming a developed country in the conventional sense, because by definition, a developed country has a nominal per capita GDP exceeding $22,000, while our current per capita GDP is barely $2,000. For comparison, China with a comparable population and an economy six times of ours has a nominal per capita GDP of only $12,000.

Ranked according to per capita income by purchasing power parity (PPP), two countries at the top are Ireland ($145,196) and Luxembourg ($142,490) both tax havens, with the Irish economy almost totally dependent on ill-gotten revenues from MAMAA (Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet). Next on the list is Singapore, with its advanced financial markets. Then comes oil exporting Qatar, followed by Macao SAR of casino infamy.

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USA, with a per capita income of $80,035, occupies the ninth spot. Significantly, the first eight spots are all taken up by small countries, mostly specialising in a single product. Though India is ranked at fifth place by total GDP, the GDP per capita (according to purchasing power parity) of India is $9,073, placing India at the 129th position out of about 200 countries.

Thus, looking at countries at the top of the per capita GDP table convinces one that per capita GDP is not the true measure of development. A better indicator of development could be the Human Development Index (HDI), a composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. The Human Development Index, launched by UNDP in 1990, was developed by Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Pakistani economist Mahbub-ul-Haq.

According to UNDP: HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should

be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth

alone. Proceeding on this premise, HDI is computed by taking the logarithm of per capita

income, reducing the significance of per capita income in the Index. Switzerland tops HDI

rankings, while Ireland, the leader in per capita GDP is placed sixth; Luxembourg is at rank seventeen, Singapore is at rank twelve and Qatar is at rank forty-two. India is at 132nd spot in the Human Development Index while China is at the 72nd spot according to per capita GDP, and at 79th place in HDI.

Even UNDP does not claim that the Human Development Index is a perfect measure of development. According to UNDP, HDI is not a comprehensive measure of human development and that the Index is slow to reflect recent policy changes and improvements to the lives of a nations citizens. Economists have criticised HDI for its data requirements, difficulty of interpretation and trade-offs between indicators.

For example, even major improvements in per capita income, which may be game changers for a developing country, will not improve that countrys HDI ranking, because the difference between the logarithms of old and new income would be negligible. At a more fundamental level, not everyone is happy with the choice of indicators, nor the way they are aggregated.

According to per capita GDP, and also HDI, developed economies broadly comprise Northern America and Europe, Israel, Japan and the Republic of Korea, as also Australia and New

Zealand. No doubt, all these countries have excellent infrastructure and advanced systems, but Western Europe and to some extent the US, have an unmis- takeable air of decadence, with most of the population not interested in honest work. Immigrants, even illegal ones, are a necessity to keep these countries running. There is great inequality, with a handful of people being super rich and the rest barely getting along.

On the positive side, all developed countries have a well-functioning social security net that takes care of citizens from cradle to grave. Government spending is humongous, funded by high taxes on goods, services and income, which drive up prices to astronomical levels, and which is a significant factor behind the high nominal GDP of many Western countries. A major reason for not endorsing the Western model of development is its non-sustainability; almost all Western countries have a negative population growth rate, therefore, embracing the Western model fully could result in extinction of the human race!

Thus, defining our own goals for the well-being and development of our country in Amrit Kaal, would be more appropriate. At the outset, we may acknowledge that prosperity beyond a point is meaningless and longevity, without good health, is a burden for the affected individual, as well as society.

Therefore, two major indicators used in computation of HDI, may need modification. Rather, considering the fact that Indians, unlike Westerners, are sociable people, there could be a goal for achieving social harmony by eradicating caste and creed-based discrimination. Given the inequalities in Indian society, economic and social equality, could be the next goal.

We also have to realise that natural disasters, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss brought about by climate change can prove disastrous, diminishing the supply of nutritious food and safe water, and which may also lead to disease outbreaks, which would destroy the health care, and education systems we need to survive and thrive. Thus, protecting our environment by controlling over-population, pollution, deforestation, and desisting from burning fossil fuels, could be another goal. Apart from preventing climate change, nurturing the environment would benefit everyone immensely by preventing soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water.

Indian agriculture, that provides sustenance to 140 crore Indians and many others in foreign countries, is unable to provide a decent livelihood to more than 60 crore farmers toiling day and night in their fields. India, cannot become a developed country till far-reaching reforms that would increase agricultural productivity are carried out. The land released from agricultural operations could then be used for growing more fruits, vegetables and other high-value crops, to raise farmer incomes without degrading the soil and using less water, and in ways that do not harm the environment.

Finally, as pointed out by PM Modi, public infrastructure has to be improved to international standards. A related goal would be to improve the abysmal civic amenities of towns and villages, throughout the country. Much of the heavy lifting for achieving these objectives has to be done by the Government, but a lot depends on citizens who have to develop a respect for law, civic sense, and a feeling of nationhood and brotherhood.

We can draw inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi: European civilization is no doubt suited for the Europeans but it will mean ruin for India, if we endeavour to copy it. This is not to say that we may not adopt and assimilate whatever may be good and capable of assimilation by us as it does not also mean that even the Europeans will not have to part with whatever evil might have crept into it.

The incessant search for ma-terial comforts and their multi- plication is such an evil  the Europeans themselves will have to remodel their outlook, if they are not to perish under the weight of the comforts to which they are becoming slaves Let us engrave in our hearts the motto of a Western philosopher, plain living and high thinking. Today it is certain that the millions cannot have high living and we the few who profess to do the thinking for the masses run the risk, in a vain search after high living, of missing high thinking. (India of My Dreams: Young India, 30-4-31).

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)
A glimmer of hope in global diplomacy emerges as Chinese President Xi Jinping considers visiting South Korea for a summit. This new development, made public over the weekend, opens a window of opportunity for improved relations between these two nations and raises hope of addressing the complex web of geopolitical tensions in East Asia. President Xis willingness to visit South Korea represents a significant departure from the status quo. His last visit to South Korea was in 2014, and since then, the dynamics in the region have evolved substantially. The possible summit holds the promise of constructive dialogue and cooperation, so vital for maintaining peace and security on the Korean Peninsula a geopolitical hotspot. North Koreas actions often cause tension and uncertainty in the region.

A China-South Korea summit could serve as a platform to discuss and potentially influence North Koreas behaviour. China, being a key ally and benefactor of North Korea, can play a pivotal role in facilitating dialogue and working towards denuclearization and stability. However, this willingness to engage in a summit should be viewed in the broader context of Chinas ambitions in East Asia. Chinas expansionist policies in the South China Sea have raised concern among its neighbours, including US allies such as South Korea and Japan. The delicate balance between engaging in productive dialogue with China and safeguarding regional interests is a challenge that Seoul must navigate carefully.

Furthermore, the geopolitical dynamics in the region have been complicated by North Koreas recent interactions with Russia, particularly the speculated arms supply agreement with President Vladimir Putin. These developments have left South Korea and Japan seeking to bolster their security ties with the United States. The potential summit and the suggestion of a strategic partnership voiced by President Xi offer a glimmer of hope amid these complexities. It signals willingness on both sides to engage in diplomacy and find common ground. President Xis visit could pave the way for strengthened economic ties as China is a critical trading partner of South Korea.

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The strategic implications of such a summit extend beyond immediate diplomatic relations. It could herald an era of increased cooperation, potentially impacting trade, economic partnerships, and regional stability. South Korea heavily relies on China for trade and a renewed commitment to deepening these economicties could have significant implications for both nations. Additionally, it could be an avenue for bridging differences and fostering regional stability. While the path to such a summit is fraught with challenges, it reflects the shared interest of these nations in maintaining peace and prosperity in East Asia. If the summit materialises, it will be a noteworthy development in regional diplomacy. It offers an opportunity for constructive dialogue and cooperation, essential for addressing the complex geopolitical tensions in East Asia. While challenges remain, the prospect of such a summit should be embraced as a step towards building bridges and maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the wider region.
Former Serbian Foreign Minister, Chairman of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly, Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Vuk Jeremi? has sent a letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Azernews reports.

The letter reads:

"His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Your Excellency,

I write to congratulate you on the consolidation of Azerbaijans sovereignty and territorial integrity.

I salute Azerbaijans pledge to establish an environment on the ground that will enable the ethnic-Armenians who remain in your country to make informed decisions about their future in safety and security and those who have departed the territory to freely exercise their right of return.

I also remain deeply grateful for Azerbaijans principled and consistent support of Serbia on the Kosovo and Metohija issue.

Lately, I wish you success in ongoing efforts to complete the peace process with neighboring Armenia. This will go a long way towards unlocking the full strategic potential of the South Caucasus and, indeed, of all Eurasia, in this time of tumultuous geopolitical transformation.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Vuk Jeremic

Former Foreign Minister of Serbia

President of the 67th Session of UN General Assembly

Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center"




UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- While UN peacekeepers withdraw from Mali, UN humanitarians express deep concern over escalating clashes in northern and eastern parts of the country.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Wednesday that it was concerned about escalating tensions and clashes in Timbuktu, Gao, and Menaka regions.

The humanitarian office said agencies this year assisted 1.2 million people across the country. But they are only a fraction of the 9 million people in need. Aid agencies need safe and unimpeded access to affected communities to maintain operations and scale up the humanitarian response.

"They also urgently need additional resources to ensure critical enabling services are in place for humanitarian action, including logistics and mine action activities," OCHA said.

Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said peacekeepers will continue drawdown and withdrawal by year-end in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2690.

"The peacekeepers in Mali are continuing to draw down and withdraw from the country in an extremely challenging security environment, to say the least," he said.

Citing reports from colleagues in Mali, Dujarric said clashes in recent weeks in Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu regions are impacting the mission's drawdown and withdrawal plan.

However, he said contingency plans are also in place in case the security situation continues to deteriorate as it executes the next phase of the drawdown and withdrawal plan.

"Up until now ... Ogossagou, Ber, Gundam, and Menaka have been vacated and handed over to the competent Malian authorities," he said. "From Oct. 1 onwards, the mission will use its remaining capacities to focus on its safe and orderly drawdown and withdrawal."

In line with the Security Council resolution, the spokesman said the mission will no longer be authorized, nor will it have the means and capacities to respond to imminent threats of violence against the civilian population or to contribute to the safe civilian-led delivery of humanitarian goods and services.

Dujarric said the 2023 humanitarian response plan for Mali, which requests 752 million U.S. dollars, is only 22 percent funded, with critical sectors facing even more significant funding gaps. For example, food security is 18 percent funded; health 17 percent funded; water, sanitation and hygiene only 14 percent funded.

"We need more cash," said the spokesman. 
Samsung is geared up to launch Galaxy S23 FE in India early next month ahead of the upcoming festive season.

Industry sources told IANS on Wednesday that Galaxy S23 FE will be one of Samsungs biggest bet for festive sales, with the smartphone set for a global debut in the country.

Galaxy S23 FE is likely to come in refreshing colour finishes.

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In terms of features, the device is set to come with Nightography or Night Mode that enables users to take highly-optimised photos, even in the dark.

Galaxy S23 FE is tipped to get IP68 certification and Gorilla Glass 5 protection for enhanced durability and is likely to be powered by flagship processor for great gaming experience.

Samsungs latest premium segment play is likely to be launched early next month, said sources.

The FE or Fan Edition was first launched in 2020 as a premium flagship smartphone at an accessible price point.

Galaxy S23 FE will likely carry forward the legacy of the Galaxy S23 series.

Over the years, the FE series has done very well in the Indian market and analysts expect strong demand for Galaxy S23 FE too.

The launch of Galaxy S23 FE is likely to help Samsung consolidate its market share in the premium segment in India and.
Brandon Stanton, the visionary behind the acclaimed Humans of New York project, has broken his silence regarding the India-based storytelling platform, Humans of Bombay (HoB). Stantons statement, shared on X (formerly Twitter), acknowledges the appropriation of his work by HoB while underscoring the significance of the stories they disseminate. His decision to speak out has ignited a conversation about the evolution of storytelling in the digital age.

Born on March 1, 1984, in Marietta, Georgia, Brandon Stanton is a multifaceted American author, photographer, and blogger. He gained international acclaim through his brainchild, Humans of New York  a captivating fusion of photography and narrative. This pioneering photoblog and book have resonated with audiences worldwide.

Stantons journey commenced in 2010, when he embarked on a mission to capture the essence of New York Citys diverse inhabitants. Armed with his camera, he ventured into the citys bustling streets, documenting the lives and stories of its residents through striking portraits and snippets of their conversations.

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Not confined to the boundaries of the United States, Stantons lens has traversed more than 20 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Mexico. His work transcends borders, illuminating the universal human experiences that unite us all.

Stantons trajectory from a bond trader in Chicago to a celebrated photographer in New York City is a testament to his unwavering commitment to his craft. His journey began with the purchase of a camera, followed by weekends spent capturing the essence of Chicago. After a job loss, Stanton pivoted, opting to pursue photography full-time.

In New York City, he set an audacious goal: photographing 10,000 New Yorkers and mapping their portraits across the city. This endeavor, funded by unemployment checks and the support of friends and family, ultimately gave birth to the Humans of New York Facebook page in November 2010. Stantons portraits evolved from mere images to poignant narratives, with captions and quotes gradually morphing into full-fledged interviews.

Recently, Stanton addressed the issue of creative appropriation by Humans of Bombay, a storytelling platform based in India. While they borrowed his ideas, monetizing the concept he pioneered, Stanton opted to remain silent until now. His decision to finally speak out has sparked a vital conversation about the ethical dimensions of digital storytelling and the importance of crediting and preserving original creative endeavors.
Indian students pursuing higher education in Canada find themselves in a state of significant uncertainty amid the growing tensions between India and Canada.

Canada hosts a substantial number of Indian residents, with the Ministry of External Affairs reporting 962,670 Persons of Indian origin (as per the 2006 Census). Among this group, 50% identify as Sikhs, 39% as Hindus, while the rest follow Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism, and other faiths. The majority of Persons of Indian origin reside in major urban centers such as the Greater Toronto Area, Greater Vancouver Area, Montreal, and Calgary. (Unofficial estimates put the current number of Persons of Indian origin in Canada at 1.2 million). In addition, there are nine Indo-Canadian Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, one in the Senate, two Persons of Indian origin MPs serving as Ministers of State in the federal government, and one Persons of Indian origin MP as Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Minister. Notable Indo-Canadian organizations include the Canada India Business Council (CIBC), Canada India Foundation (CIF), and several local chambers and associations.

The parents of these students are equally concerned, especially since many Indian colleges have already closed their admission processes. Students are left with few options if they are unable to travel due to any imposed restrictions.

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Saba Moosa, a student at Sheridan College in Oakville, expressed her thoughts to The Statesman, saying, Ive been closely following the recent developments between India and Canada. I came to Canada to pursue my education and career and have always felt welcomed and respected here. While Oakville remains peaceful, Ive been receiving calls from worried parents and relatives in India. I sincerely hope that the two governments can peacefully and diplomatically resolve their differences, restoring trust and friendship. This is crucial for me as an international student and for many others like me.

Another student, Shaarav Dhingra at Concordia University, shared his perspective: Canada has always been my dream destination for higher education and research, as it is one of the best in the world. Ive been preparing for my journey to Montreal, Canada, for several weeks now. However, the current situation has left me and my family in a state of deep uncertainty. With only a few weeks until my departure, I hope that tensions between India and Canada do not escalate.

After completing their 12th standard, many students decide to pursue higher education at foreign universities, which are typically private and come with higher tuition fees.

Vaibhav Gupta, representing iSchoolConnect, a private agency that assists students in their journey to Canada, stated, Canada is the second most popular destination for Indian students studying abroad. In 2022, over 1.8 lakh Indians pursued their studies in Canada, according to figures from the Ministry of External Affairs.

Numerous agencies help students navigate their way to Canada and advise them to stay away from areas of unrest. They recommend that students keep a close eye on local news, avoid traveling alone until tensions deescalate, explore the possibility of attending virtual classes through their respective universities, register with the High Commission of India in Ottawa or the Consulate General of India in Toronto and Vancouver through the respective websites or the MADAD portal (madad.gov.in), and maintain regular contact with friends and family in India for added security.
A few days after publicly praising a former Nazi soldier in Parliament, the speaker of Canadas House of Commons lower chamber announced on Tuesday that he would step down. Russia claimed that this incident helped to legitimize its invasion of Ukraine.

When he invited 98-year-old ex-soldier Yaroslav Hunka to last Fridays House session commemorating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Anthony Rota admitted to lawmakers that he had erred. Rota praised Hunka as a hero in front of the public.

After it was revealed that Hunka, who received two standing ovations from MPs, had served in one of Adolf Hitlers Waffen SS regiments during World War Two, the speakers position quickly became unsustainable. The incident was deemed outrageous in Russia.

The Jewish community in Canada and around the world, among others, have suffered because of such public acknowledgment. Rota, a member of the governing Liberal party, said he accepted full responsibility for his actions and would quit on Wednesday. A deputy speaker will preside during the interim.

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The incident supported the narrative advanced by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he put his army into Ukraine last year in order to demilitarize and denazify the nation, a claim denied by Kyiv and its Western allies.

Zelenskiys visit was marred by the controversy, and during his speech, he praised Canada for the billions of dollars in aid and weapons it had given Russia since their invasion in February 2022.

Prior to that, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly urged Rota to step down, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged him to consider his options.

The scandal overshadowed Zelenskiys visit, and in his speech, he complimented Canada for providing Russia with billions of dollars worth of supplies and weapons since their invasion in February 2022.

Prior to that, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly both pleaded with Rota to weigh his choices and resign.
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City's homeless numbers a "societal failure": Langevin

Joel Ceausu / By Joel Ceausu The Suburban Ollivier says the city is doing what it can within its jurisdictional limits, but without a long-term plan, says Langevin, the most vulnerable pay the price.

Montreal has more than half of Quebecs homeless population, says Benoit Langevin, so how is it we dont have a long-term plan?

Last week it was reported that 10,000 people experienced homelessness in Quebec last year, said the Bois-de-Liesse councillor. In Montreal, the increase was 49% from 2018 to 4,690, Langevin dubbing it a real societal failure, and just the tip of the iceberg, only reflecting visible homelessness.

The opposition critic pressed the Plante administration to act, to commit to finally proposing a plan adapted to Montreals new reality, that aims for zero homelessness and has real indicators to measure efforts Theres no way now to see any evolution of an action plan from A to B. Thats not his take he says, referring to the citys 2021 auditor-general report noting needs are not presented explicitly in Montreals action plan, nor do its success indicators demonstrate progress or regress for comparison.

Langevin says the recent municipal housing summit included municipal and provincial actors together in the same room and we can never say it enough: homelessness is a shared jurisdiction between municipalities and Quebec, lauding Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand who didnt wait for the province and adopted a vision with a very ambitious objective of eradicating homelessness while taking on a unifying leadership role.

Executive committee chair Dominique Ollivier says the problem is multifaceted and causes much suffering, but theres no single solution. The crisis we are experiencing is due to the lack of housing, but it is also because we have never seen so many opioid crises, so many mental health problems. Its not the city that builds housing or has doctors, she says, but we are doing our part. That means doubling its budget to fight homelessness and creating the EMMIS mobile social mediation and intervention team, and we need to work on social cohabitation, maintaining goodwill and keeping the spirit of openness of our fellow citizens in the face of these major vulnerabilities.

Langevin agrees social mediation is important for citizens but says outreach programs need funding. Community groups are exhausted, and the status quo is not an option. It has been six years, and we are still opening shelters in February. Six years of no coordination. If we set up all the piecemeal announcements the Plante administration made over the last six years, not in an action plan, that they are responsible for, it ultimately ends up a pamphlet, political posturing. Without a long-term plan, its always the most vulnerable paying the price.

Ollivier insists Montreal has shown leadership, Mayor Valerie Plante rallying community, private and government sectors to go further, while supporting organizations. We didnt wait for a crisis to be able to act. Im surprised the opposition still points the finger at the city, when everyone recognizes that we are doing what we are able to do, within the limits of our jurisdiction.

Shelters and other organizations need to plan early for winter when there are less survival strategies for the most vulnerable, says Langevin. Its almost October and we still have no idea where that $15 million from Quebec will be deployed. Everything is last minute. How is it we dont have a plan with actual targets and initiatives to demonstrate every year? Why did we wait since 2018 to know the population increase? Im not asking the city to take on the provinces responsibility but stop passing the ball to Quebec. These people live on our territory and its our responsibility.
GAZA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is planning to send an official request to the Palestinian Authority to hold municipal elections in Gaza for the first time in 18 years, a Palestinian official said on Wednesday.

Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said in a press statement that the group had agreed with all other Palestinian factions to send a message to the government in Ramallah demanding to hold municipal elections in Gaza.

Qassem's remarks came after a meeting between Palestinian factions, including Hamas, and a delegation from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) to discuss the possibility of holding elections in Gaza.

"We agreed with all other factions that we have reached the appropriate level to hold local elections to allow our people to choose their legislative representatives," the spokesman said.

Hisham Khalil, executive director of the CEC, told journalists that the commission had been informed of the full agreement of the Palestinian factions to hold local elections in Gaza as soon as possible.

He said the delegation would convey the "positive attitude" to the Palestinian government in Ramallah to set a date soon for holding local elections in Gaza.

In August, Hamas announced for the first time its efforts to hold municipal elections in Gaza, receiving no comment from the Palestinian government.

Meanwhile, Munther al-Hayek, Fatah spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement that his party was ready to hold municipal elections in Gaza, just as those held in the West Bank.

The last local elections in the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2.3 million people, were held in 2005. 
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ludger Schuknecht, the vice president and corporate secretary of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), has said that the AIIB, which features high standards and strong governance, is committed to promoting connectivity and sustainable development.

Schuknecht said more and more countries wanted to do business with the AIIB, a "well-accepted member" of the global community. "They want to be our members and to be part of this community," the vice president said Tuesday in an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the AIIB's two-day eighth annual meeting, which kicked off in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on Monday.

He noted that the AIIB is committed to supporting its members' sustainable development, adding that, in today's more challenging world, multilateral solutions based on global cooperation are more needed than ever for achieving sustainable growth.

The vice president described Egypt, the host nation of this year's AIIB annual meeting, also one of the bank's earliest members, as the bridge between Asia and Africa, saying it represents the mission and vision of the bank, which is to enhance connectivity across borders and promote sustainable infrastructure development.

"Besides promoting connectivity, climate financing to support green transition is another important priority in our corporate strategy," he added, referring to the bank's Climate Action Plan (CAP) launched on the opening day of its annual meeting.

"The CAP maps out our vision in this regard, including giving play to the private sector and mobilizing the private capital to help the world better adapt to climate change and mitigate its impact while protecting nature and biodiversity," Schuknecht added.

Designed to guide AIIB's climate ambition from 2024 to 2030, the CAP brings together the principles governing the bank's climate financing while identifying crucial action areas that will steer AIIB's investments in support of its members.

The 2023 AIIB Annual Meeting is widely considered a landmark event as it marks the bank's return to in-person gatherings since 2019 and its first-ever annual meeting on the African continent, indicating its growing commitment to co-financing sustainable infrastructure projects in Africa with peer multilateral development banks as well as extending the positive impact of building the infrastructure for sustainability beyond Asia.

The AIIB is a multilateral development bank whose mission is to finance infrastructure projects that prioritize sustainability. It began operations in Beijing in January 2016 and has since grown to 109 approved members worldwide, three of whom were newly approved at this year's annual meeting. 
HARARE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Zimbabwean government is formulating a new national industrial development policy to drive industrialization and achieve its goal of becoming an upper middle income economy by 2030, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

The Zimbabwe National Industrial Development Policy 2024-2030 will build upon the achievements of the current policy for the 2019-2023 period, Mavis Sibanda, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, said at a consultative meeting on the draft policy.

She said the current policy made considerable strides in strengthening the country's industrial sector, addressing key challenges and leveraging emerging opportunities.

The manufacturing sector is third after mining and agriculture in terms of contribution to the country's GDP, according to Sibanda.

"Going forward, the Zimbabwe National Industrial Development Policy 2024-2030 is aiming to drive structural transformation and build a strong industry, with linkages to the agriculture and mining sectors," Sibanda said.

It will also foster rural industrialization and advance the uptake of green industry initiatives, she added.

"In order to successfully implement and monitor this policy, we firmly believe that a private sector-led approach is essential. The government's role will be that of an enabler, working closely with industry experts and stakeholders to create an environment of trust, collaboration and shared responsibility," Sibanda said.

She added that the ministry will also seek industrial financing from cooperating partners to drive the agenda. 
A digital business card serves as an enhanced, digital counterpart to the traditional physical business card. It functions as an online profile encompassing a wide array of information, including your contact details, images, videos, links to social media profiles, web URLs, and interactive buttons.

For individuals committed to effective networking, a digital business card is an indispensable tool in their arsenal. Its seamless contact-sharing capabilities empower users to forge meaningful connections, generate leads, and drive sales in the modern networking landscape.

However, the pivotal first step in utilizing a digital business card is selecting the most suitable platform. To assist you in this decision, here's a compilation of the top seven digital business card solutions designed for enterprises.

List of Digital Business Cards for Mid to Large Enterprises and Teams

When you're new to the world of digital business cards, selecting the ideal solution can indeed be a daunting task. With a multitude of promising options to choose from, it can be challenging to determine which one will best serve your needs.

To simplify this decision-making process, here's a curated list of the top seven digital business card providers tailored for enterprise users. These platforms have been selected to help you find the most effective solution for your networking and business needs.

1. QRCodeChimp

QRCodeChimps Digital Business Card , boasting an impressive 4.9/5 rating on G2, stands out as the leading and pocket friendly digital business card platform in the market. This platform offers a comprehensive suite of features, including unmatched customization, sharing capabilities, branding options, robust security measures, and efficient card management tools, making it a top choice for users seeking a powerful digital business card solution.

Creating a digital business card on QRCodeChimp is notably user-friendly and straightforward compared to many other platforms. The process involves signing up, selecting a template from a collection of 20+ customizable options, inputting your information, personalizing the card to your preferences, and saving the final result. Additionally, the platform allows the inclusion of a profile image, brand logo,social media and even background images or videos to enhance the visual appeal of the digital business card.

For users who require bulk creation and management of digital cards, QRCodeChimp offers a robust module specifically designed for this purpose. Moreover, users can opt to white-label their digital business cards, replacing the default page URL with their company URL for a more branded experience.

QRCodeChimp goes beyond basic features by providing advanced management tools, such as folders and subaccounts. These features enhance organization and facilitate collaboration among users.

Lastly, QRCodeChimp takes security seriously by implementing enterprise-grade measures. The platform is compliant with SOC-2 and GDPR standards and adheres to best security practices, ensuring that users can network securely and with peace of mind.

Key features:

 Easy to use with a user-friendly interface

 Various customizable digital business card templates

 Bulk creation for generating digital business at scale

 White labeling and logo addition

 Folders management and sub-accounts for access control

 Enterprise-grade security

 Share digital business cards with QR codes and NFC

Pricing: 10 free digital business cards for life. Paid plans start at $6.99 per month for up to 50 digital business cards.

2. Popl

Popl digital business card platform allows you to share contact details and manage connections. You get a convenient boarding experience; just sign up, add your details, and create your digital card.

Popl has a preset, editable digital business card template. That said, you dont get multiple templates to choose from. Thus, the customization options are limited.

However, you get all the important information fields, like contact details, multimedia files, and clickable links, so thats a good thing.

Overall, Popl has a basic digital business card for digital contact sharing. You get all the essential features, but thats pretty much it. The customization and management features are limited.

On the positive side, Popl sells NFC cards and other custom accessories, which you can link to your digital business card.

Key features:

 Buy digital business cards with NFC accessories

 Create customizable digital business cards

 Easy-to-use platform

 Helpful contact management features

Pricing: Starting at $6.49 per month for 3 digital business cards.

3. HiHello

HiHello , just like QRCodeChimp, is one of the oldest players in the digital business card space. It allows you to create digital business cards and share them with QR codes.

However, the lack of updates and feature development has limited HiHellos usage to individual users and small teams.

That said, HiHello is still a decent tool to create and manage digital business cards. It offers good customization options and all the essential management capabilities like folder management and white labeling.

Key features:

 Customizable digital business card templates

 Logo, branding, and white labeling

 Sharing with QR code, NFC tags, and Apple Watch

 Card tracking and analytics

Pricing: Starting at $6 per month; free plan available

4. Linq

Linq contact management platform allows you to create and share digital business cards.

The digital business card  known as the Linq Profile  contains your contact information and social media links for convenient contact sharing. Like other platforms, Linq supports custom CTAs to increase engagement and actionability.

With Linq, you can share your contact details with a tap and build connections. Besides, you can view personalized analytics, including page views and clicks.

However, theres not much scope for customization. Only the basic customization options are available, such as adding images and choosing colors.

Linq, like Popl, sells physical cards and accessories like badges, mobile covers, and wearables.

Key features:

 Create customized digital business cards

 Real-time tracking and analytics

 Integration with CRM

 Bulk updates with templates

 Buy digital business cards with NFC accessories

Pricing: Starting at $11.99 per card, including the physical card

5. Blinq

Blinq is another digital business card platform that allows you to create virtual business cards and share them on the go. You can create a digital business card in a few minutes and share it with your contacts using QR codes and NFC.

Digital business cards by Blinq allow you to share all the essential contact information, like your professional info, contact details, and social links. You can also customize your digital business card by changing the color palette and adding your photos.

Additionally, Blinq sells physical NFC cards that you can link to your digital business cards and share your contact details with a tap.

Key features:

 Digital business cards with customization options

 Buy NFC cards with integrated digital business cards

 Tracking and analytics

 Sharing with QR codes

Pricing: Free plan available. $2.99 per month for 5 cards;

6. Beaconstac Digital Business Cards

Beaconstac QR code generator also offers a digital business card solution. The platform is easy to navigate and use. To get started, you need to enter your name and email address. Then, select a digital business card template, add all the information, customize the design, and save your digital business card.

The customization options with Beaconstac are limited. You get a few templates and not a lot of design flexibility. However, the platform makes it up with impressive management features, like folders, subaccounts, and white labeling.

Beaconstac offers all the essential features needed in a digital business card platform. However, factors like a lack of security practices, limited customization, and expensive plans make Beaconstac a solution suitable for only a few.

Key features:

 Customizable digital business card templates

 Lead generation and management

 Logo and branding features

 Integrations with other tools

 Folders and access control features

Pricing: $6 per month per user, free trial available

7. Knowee

Lets end this list with Knowee , which helps you create and share digital credentials. With Knowee, you can create your digitalized contact and share it online.

Creating a digital credential with Knowee is easy. You just need to sign up, add your details, and save the digital business card.

You get some customization options with Knowee, such as adding your brands logo and changing the color palette.

Lastly, Knowee has effective security practices in place, allowing you to create and manage digital business cards securely.

Key features:

 Digital ID credential for online contact sharing

 Share cards online across channels

 Free individual credential

 Logo and customization options

 Various customizable templates

Pricing: Starting at $1 per month per user; free plan available

Why use digital business cards?

If youre wondering why you should use digital business cards, here are some of their advantages you should know.

Instant, digital contact sharing

Digital business cards allow you to share contact details instantly with QR codes, NFC tags, or direct link sharing. Unlike physical cards that require manual information entry, digital business cards expedite the entire process and make it user-friendly.

Effortless information editing

Once you print something on a physical business card, you cant change it. The only option is to reprint the card, which is costly and time-consuming. Thats not the case with digital business cards. You can edit the information on your digital business cards anytime without reprinting the QR code, NFC tag, or page URL.

In-depth information sharing

Physical business cards have limited space, and thus, you can share limited information. With digital business cards, theres no limitation on how many details you can share. Include text, photos, videos, social links, web URLs, and much more to help your connections know everything about you.

Marketing and branding

Digital business cards can do wonders for your marketing and branding strategy. You can add a logo and other branded elements to your digital business cards to increase brand awareness and recall. White labeling your digital business cards is a cherry on top that can take your branding to the next level.

Besides, a digital business card can be a powerful marketing tool. You can use it to promote your business, products, and services and generate conversions.

Analytics and retargeting

You can view the analytics of your digital business cards, including the number of visits and their location. This helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your networking campaigns and make informed decisions.

Additionally, most digital business card platforms support retargeting. You can add a Google Analytics ID or Facebook Pixel tag to the HTML code of your digital business card and retarget users who visit your page.

Conclusion

Digital business cards have emerged as the most potent networking tool in the past few years. With everything going digital, organizations and individuals need to go beyond conventional business cards.

Digital business cards are an excellent upgrade to physical cards because of their digital contact-sharing capabilities.

If youre planning to adopt digital business cards, its vital to select the right digital business card platform. The above list will act as a starting point to help you choose the right solution for your digital business card requirements.
The education landscape in India is dynamic and evolving quickly.

As the Industrial Revolution 4.0 gathers pace  driven by rapid advancements in AI and automation  higher education in India is poised to capitalise on new opportunities and lead the way on the international stage.

Working closely with its partners, India is prioritising the needs of its workforce and economy. Responding to emerging demands, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has charted an ambitious path for the internationalisation of higher education.

Australia, a longstanding ally, has proven itself as a reliable provider of global standards of education, skilling, research and knowledge resource support.

In recent years, this relationship has continued to strengthen, and India is now undoubtedly one of the most significant partners for Australia on the world stage  geopolitically and economically.

Forging deeper bonds through education

The relationship between our nations continues to demonstrate shared interests and priorities across education, regional stability and security, energy and resources and trade and investment.

Over the next decade, we have an exciting opportunity in the international context to work together in making our economies robust and sustainable while being responsive to ongoing changes and increasing global competition. A crucial component of this roadmap is education, as it truly underlines the Australia  India story.

The NEP 2020 supports building these connections and collaborations across the education sector. Australia lends valuable support by marking education as a flagship sector in the India Economic Strategy Report. With the NEPs emphatic call to open wide the doors of international education, Deakin welcomes the opportunity to further strengthen its education linkages and strategic partnerships with Indian institutions. It will continue to leverage its deep engagement in India to spearhead innovative and contemporary approaches to knowledge sharing.

Deakin In India

Deakin University, Australia was the first international university to establish offices in India in 1994 and has an immensely productive record of engagement across academia, industry and government.

Through meaningful partnerships with Indian universities and academic institutions, and a thorough understanding of the needs and challenges of the local context, Deakin has always sought to develop a future-ready workforce for India. At Deakin, 35% of the international student cohort are Indian nationals. The University has highly regarded expertise in promoting knowledge exchange and mobility, and creating shared research and development outcomes. It currently has active partnerships with 60 countries, and is now adding new dimensions to its India engagement.

Deakin and Symbiosis International (Deemed University) - Building on a strong partnership

Taking our partnership of over two decades forward, we shall continue to achieve our goals of education beyond borders and mutually beneficial collaborations, which form the cornerstone of bilateral linkages between Australia and India.

Deakin and Symbiosis have established a productive partnership and upheld their commitment to foster global learning and growth outcomes, as well as excellence in research that drives positive impact for international communities.

This collaboration includes a Deakin HUB successfully operating at SIU. Their partnership has achieved significant goals for internationalisation of curriculum, hybrid models of engagement, offering student support and mobility between campuses and facilitating critical in-country support for student mobility, internships and industry interface. Additionally, both organisations have developed consultancy initiatives in research, innovation and skills development, thereby strengthening university-industry-government cohesion.

In keeping with the Deakin value of upholding gender equity and inclusion, Deakin University also works with Symbiosis through the Women Entrepreneurship Research Alliance (WERA). It is a one-of-a-kind centre in India that works through research, training, and policy advocacy to bridge the gender disparities in entrepreneurship.

In all these endeavours Deakin has made consistent efforts to work more effectively with partner institutions in India, collaborating closely with industry. It aims to improve the adaptability of innovation and research to generate future-focused, entrepreneurial solutions.

With Symbiosis, Deakin will be improving the access to an internationalised educational experience for Indian students through a dual degree and accelerated masters program. The partnership agreement will lead better student mobility outcomes, opening up global academic and career opportunities for Indian students.

In India: a crucial role for the future

Each year, Deakin teaches more than 3,000 students from the Indian sub-continent and India, and the region is certainly a priority partner in education with benefits that flow both ways.

In the coming years, Deakin is well positioned to balance capability in both discovery and application of ideas to create products and services that will benefit communities and partners. It will work in alignment with Australia and Indias policy framework to achieve socio-economic progress with its institutional partners. This will be the main focus of its research and innovation.

Originating from a popular choice among students heading to Australia for higher studies, Deakin looks at bringing a global classroom to India and ensuring diversification of learning and mobility to create an environment of sharing through culture, knowledge, living and understanding.

By Prof Iain Martin, President & Vice Chancellor, Deakin University - Professor Martin commenced as Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University on 1 July 2019. He grew up in the UK and completed his medical degree, a doctorate, and a Master of Education at the University of Leeds. Professor Martins move from a clinical academic career to wider university leadership roles was driven through his passionate belief in the importance of universities and the transformational power of higher education for individuals and communities.

Discover more about Deakins engagement in India right here .
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is examining a proposal by National Stock Exchange (NSE) to increase trading hours in the equity derivatives segment.

The NSE is planning a session from 6 pm to 9 pm after a break from the closure of the regular session from 9.15 am to 3.30 pm in a bid to protect traders from the overnight risk arising from global information flow.

In India, the equity and equity derivatives market close at 3.30 pm when most of the European equity markets would have just opened for trading, while the US equity markets would be closed.

Indian investors, particularly the small ones, do not have access to markets in global jurisdictions. Such investors are not able to act when information or events take place outside the regular trading hours, which affect the Indian asset prices, particularly equity indices.

The longer trading hours in the offshore markets provide an opportunity to incorporate such information when onshore markets are closed. This would help in onshore price discovery of Indian assets, and investors will get the opportunity to execute their views along with foreign investors when there is any news having an impact on any sector/industry or overall economy.

According to Reuters, the regulator is yet to take a final call on the proposal. It is examining if such an extension will lead to settlement issues in the segment which usually witnesses high trading volumes.

"For smooth settlements, both the NSE and BSE and their respective clearing corporations need their systems to be prepared to handle extended trading hours," Reuters quoted a source as saying.

Transactions in the evening session will be in effect included in the trading session on the next business day, Sriram Krishnan, chief business development officer of NSE, had earlier told news agency PTI.

To begin with, only index derivatives in phase 1 would be available followed by single stock options and others.

Once the exchange receives clearance from Sebi, preparations will have to be carried out by all stakeholders such as process re-engineering, streamlining of various timelines, etc, before extending trading hours in the Futures & Options (F&O) segment.

NSE carried out consultations with various trading members serving different categories of investors across regions, industry associations, and other stakeholders on the proposal for more than nine months.

With PTI inputs
He says the opposition will bring down the BJP in the next elections
It is time to look at the watchlist for this week. Streaming platforms have a long lineup of movies and shows this week, ranging from crime dramas to psychological thrillers and rom-coms.

Here is a quick look at what's arriving on Netflix, Disney plus Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video.

Kumari Srimathi: Amazon Prime Video

Release date: September 28

The Telugu comedy drama featuring Nithya Menen revolves around the life of a 30-year-old single woman who decides to open a bar and restaurant in her village. Directed by Gomtesh Upadhye, the seven-episode series, will also stream with dubs in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: Netflix

Release date: September 27

An adaptation of Roald Dahl's book, the short film is directed by Wes Anderson. Featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead, the film revolves around a rich man who sets out to master the ability to see through objects to cheat at gambling.

Hostel Daze season 4: Amazon Prime Video

Release date: September 27

The coming-of-age comedy series that revolves around four friends is back with its fourth and final season. The gang prepares for placement year as they bid adieu to their eventful hostel lives. The six-episode series directed by Abhinav Anand, features Utsav Sarkar, Luv Shubham Gaur, Nikhil Vijay and Ahsaas Channa.

Choona: Netflix

Release date: September 29

In the heist comedy series, a team of underdogs come together to settle the score against a politician essayed by Jimmy Shergill. Written and directed by Pushpendra Nath Mishra, the series also features Aashim Gulati, Vikram Kochhar, Chandan Roy, Namit Das, Gyanendra Tripathi, Atul Srivastav among others.

Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley: SonyLIV

Release date: September 27

An adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel, the Vishal Bharadwajhelmed mystery thriller revolves around a woman who heads to Solang Valley in Himachal Pradesh after her fiance gets charged with the murder of his uncle. Featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Gulshan Grover and Wamiqa Gabbi, the series follows around the murder mystery and family secrets that are unravelled over the course of the investigation.
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has revolutionised the treatment of aortic stenosis by providing a safer and less invasive alternative to traditional open-heart surgery. With its expanding applications and high success rates, TAVI has transformed cardiac care and significantly improved outcomes for patients worldwide.

In an interview with The Week, Dr. Anjan Siotia, Director of the Cardiology Department at the BM Birla Heart Research Centre in Kolkata, discussed the significant impact of TAVI on the field of cardiology.

What is aortic stenosis, and why is it more commonly observed in elderly patients?

Aortic stenosis is a condition when one of the heart valves called the aortic valve becomes tight and does not open properly. It is usually seen in elderly patients for as we grow old the valve degenerates and calcium is deposited on it. This causes the valve not to open fully. There is no medical treatment for this condition and if the valve becomes tight enough to cause symptoms, the only treatment available is to replace the valve. The valve replacement has traditionally been done surgically, which means with an open-heart surgery when the surgeon cuts open the chest, opens the heart and takes the diseased valve out, and puts a new artificial valve in.

What are the challenges associated with the traditional approach for treating aortic stenosis?

Open heart surgery has been the standard treatment for patients with aortic stenosis over the course of time. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, this condition is more prevalent in elderly patients who have a lot of comorbidities. As a result of these comorbidities sometimes these patients are not suitable for surgery, and they are rejected by surgeons on account of their high risk. In the Western world, many patients were denied aortic valve surgery because of high risk and hence this idea of replacing the aortic valve without opening the chest came about. Further, the procedure called TAVI (transcatheter aortic valve implantation) was invented whereby cardiologists started replacing the aortic valve from the leg just like an angioplasty.

Could you explain how transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) revolutionized the treatment of aortic stenosis, and what makes it an attractive alternative to open heart surgery?

This procedure has now expanded is performed on lakhs of patients all over the world, every year. Patients who are not fit for open heart surgery have benefitted. But even in those who are fit for surgery, this procedure is found to be safer than open heart surgery. It is a much simpler procedure whereby we put a tube in the right leg and through that tube pass catheters all the way to the heart and that catheter contains an artificial valve which is implanted in place. At BM Birla, we have done multiple such procedures with very high success rates during the last five years.

How has the adoption of TAVI evolved over the years, and what types of patients benefit from this procedure?

The adoption of TAVI has evolved significantly over the years. Initially, TAVI was primarily reserved for patients deemed high-risk or inoperable for traditional open-heart surgery. However, as technology improved and experience grew, its application expanded to include intermediate and even low-risk patients. The evolution of TAVI has led to a more inclusive approach, making this procedure accessible to a wider range of patients with aortic valve disease. However, patient selection remains crucial, and decisions are typically made through a multidisciplinary heart team approach considering individual patient characteristics and preferences.

Can you share a specific case study or success story involving a TAVI procedure, highlighting the patient's condition, the procedure's outcome, and any notable improvements?

One such case was done earlier this year in January on a 58-year-old patient who had severe aortic stenosis. He wasn't very old, but the ejection fraction (the amount of blood the heart pumps every time it beats) of the heart was only 18%. He was considered extremely high risk for any open-heart surgery and so he underwent TAVI. The procedure was done by my team and me. Immediately in the postoperative period, the patient had some complications with the electrical rhythm of the heart, but he was discharged three or four days after the TAVI procedure, and I have been following up with the patient since then. When he was last seen for his regular check-up, his echocardiogram showed that his heart function had improved from 18% to completely normal, which is quite exceptional and rare. TAVI has led to a significant improvement in his left ventricular (LV) function. (a failure of the LV can impact all other organs of the body)

How does TAVI work, what its shortcomings and is it unsuitable for some patients?

TAVI is a way to fix a heart valve without open-heart surgery.

How it works: Doctors use a thin tube to put a new valve inside your old one. The new valve starts working right away. It helps blood flow better, which is good for your heart.

Shortcomings: TAVI is great for many people, but it's not perfect. Sometimes, the new valve can leak, or it might not fit well. Also, it might not last as long as a valve from open-heart surgery.

Unsuitable for some patients: TAVI might not be the best choice for everyone. It depends on your health and the condition of your heart. Doctors will decide if its right for you. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask your doctor.

It is also a less expensive way to treat heart valve problems.

What is the difference between TAVI and stenting?

TAVI and stenting are both procedures done through thin tubes (catheters), but they're used for different reasons in the heart.

TAVI is mainly for fixing a damaged aortic valve, which controls blood flow out of the heart. In TAVI, a new valve is placed inside the old one to make it work better. It's often used in older people who can't have open-heart surgery.

Stenting is used to clear blocked blood vessels. A stent is a tiny metal tube that's placed in a blocked artery to keep it open. It's used when there's a problem with the blood vessels themselves, not the heart valves.

So, the key difference is what they're used for: TAVI is for heart valve problems, while stenting is for blocked blood vessels.
Ahead of the Assembly elections, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday began an extensive outreach exercise, embarking on a 'Mission 2030 Jansampark' Yatra as part of which he will visit 18 districts and hold interactions with people to seek their views for his government's Mission 2030 scheme.

The Yatra, another in the series of Gehlot's outreach efforts in the run-up to the elections, will be conducted over nine days in which 3,108 km will be covered and public meetings and interactions will be held in the districts of Jaipur, Sikar, Churu, Nagaur, Hanumangarh, Sriganganagar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur, Pali, Sirohi, Jalore, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and Chittorgarh.

Speaking at the launch of the yatra in Jaipur, Gehlot emphasised that his government has taken care of all, be it the poor or the middle class. I have often said, 'you will tire of asking, but I will not get tired of giving'. He also said that when it is said that the Congress can retain power, people respond by insisting that the Congress will win.

He took potshots at the ruling dispensation in Delhi, saying everybody, from the vice president to the prime minister to ministers, was making frequent trips of Rajasthan. The vice president is going to five places in Rajasthan today. In the last one month, he has visited the state at least on five occasions, he said.

He said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes to Rajasthan next, he should declare before the people that he will not discontinue any scheme or law brought in by the Congress government.

The Mission 2030 programme was launched by Gehlot in August with the aim of collecting feedback from the people on the government's schemes and their inputs for the Mission 2030 document that would contain a blueprint for making Rajasthan the most developed state by 2030.

Around 74 lakh suggestions have been received so far from 45 lakh citizens on the Jan Kalyan App launched by the government to collect inputs for Mission 2030. Doorstep surveys have also been conducted by Rajiv Gandhi Yuva Mitras and Mahatma Gandhi Seva Preraks, a toll-free phone number.

The yatra will be conducted over nine days, taking a break of two days on October 1 and 2 on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. The chief minister is scheduled to hold 16 public meetings, 11 townhall meetings, five road shows, ten small meetings, eight meetings with the youth, and four meetings with women.

Gehlot began the yatra with an interaction with jewellers, gem traders and astrologers at the Birla Auditorium in Jaipur. At the end of the yatra, Gehlot is set to launch the Mission 2030 document.

With the Mission 2030 exercise that culminates with his yatra, Gehlot is aiming to conduct a massive public outreach in which feedback can be collected from the people on the government's schemes and an assessment can be made about where the ruling establishment can course-correct.

Over the past several months, Gehlot has made a concerted effort to build an image of a leader who cares for the welfare of the people. The government's welfare schemes are his main election plank for the coming polls. His imprint on the campaign is unmistakable, with the publicity material meant for the outreach bearing only his photo.
TRIPOLI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamed Dbeibah on Tuesday instructed the education ministry to launch maintenance work on schools that were damaged by the devastating floods.

Dbeibah issued the instruction during his meeting with Minister of Education Musa al-Maqrif.

"The prime minister ordered the education ministry to immediately begin comprehensive maintenance work on schools affected by the floods in eastern Libya, tasking the government's educational facilities department in the area with responsibility for carrying out the maintenance work, under the approved standards within a specific timetable," said a government statement.

The education minister was also ordered to provide mobile school classrooms for urgent use in the affected areas until the maintenance work is completed, the statement added.

On Sept. 10, Mediterranean storm Daniel triggered the largest and worst floods that Libya has seen in decades, resulting in the death of thousands of people and the displacement of tens of thousands.

It also caused widespread damage to 70 percent of the region's infrastructure, including 114 schools in 15 flood-hit cities and towns. 
Former prime minister and JDS patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda on Wednesday defended his partys decision to form an alliance with the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, saying he took the decision to save his party.

This is the pain and desperation to save a regional party for which I toiled hard for 40 years ever since Morarji (Desai) gave me the reins of the party. It is not greed. I have taken the decision (on alliance) to save the party, said Deve Gowda at a press meet in Bengaluru, where he also questioned the secular credentials of the Congress.

I will give you hundreds of instances where the Congress, for political gains and to help one family retain political control, fooled the people. Congress has tried to destroy the JDS, Gowda said as he alleged that some senior Congress leaders had a role in the collapse of the JDS-Congress coalition in 2019.

In fact, the Congress has tried to destroy secular forces in different states, he said.

The Congress had questioned the JDSs decision to join hands with the communal BJP and dubbed it as a B-team of the saffron party. Reacting to it, Gowda said: We had put up our candidate B.M. Farooq for Rajya Sabha. But who got him defeated? They are big (Congress) leaders and I will not take their names. Why was Farooq Abdulla forced to go with the BJP (in Jammu and Kashmir)? Who removed Farooq Abdullas government? Was it the BJP or the Congress? Congress has committed blunder after blunder and they talk of secular democracy.

Is there is any political party that can claim to have had no relationship with the BJP?, Gowda further asked and claimed even some Left-wing leaders had joined hands with the saffron party in West Bengal to defeat Mamata Banerjee.

Asked whether a tie up with BJP will hurt the regional party, Gowda said they had held only preliminary discussions on the alliance.

I permitted (former chief minister and JDS leader) Kumaraswamy to go ahead with the alliance after consulting all our 19 MLAs and 8 MLCs and other party leaders. But it has not been discussed with the prime minister. After consultations with the elected members, I had suggested that the proposal be discussed with each of our elected representatives. The (Union) home minister had called me and I said I had little information about the proposal and suggested that perhaps Kumaraswamy talk to our MLAs, informed Gowda.

To a question on Muslim leaders in the JDS opposing the alliance and offering to quit the party, Gowda said that his party had always stood for minorities protection.

An ordinary leader like me could create a situation where Farooq Abdulla could return from London and contest elections, win and become the chief minister. Are we going to protect the minorities now is the question. When Kumaraswamy formed the coalition with Yediyurappa in 2006, two Muslim leaders had been killed in coastal Karnataka. The accused were arrested and they also got a life sentence. Let me remind you, Kumaraswamy was the CM and the home minister was from the BJP and yet the minorities were not let down by us. They will never feel let down by us, asserted Gowda.

The JDS veteran further said that his party members had been taken into confidence before the decision to ally with the saffron party. He, however, made it clear that no seat sharing formula has been discussed between the JDS and the BJP.

We have not yet discussed the seat sharing formula. I have not yet spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The home minister (Amit Shah) has studied the political situation in Karnataka. I have spoken to him on the phone. He asked me not to decide anything in a hurry and suggested that our parliamentary board meet and clear any confusion, he said.

JDS is not power-hungry: HDK

Former chief minister and JDS leader H.D. Kumaraswamy recalled the circumstances under which the JDS formed the coalition with the Congress party and how the Congress had allegedly plotted to finish the regional party.

In 2018, Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ashok Gehlot had met Deve Gowda in Hotel Ashoka and sought to form a coalition in the presence of K.C. Venugopal and state leaders Siddaramaiah, D.K. Shivakumar, G. Parameshwara and Mallikarjun Kharge. Deve Gowda had refused the CMs post for the JDS and my health was not good. He asked the Congress to pick anyone from their party to be the CM. We did not align with the Congress for power. But the central Congress leaders insisted that I be made the CM. The same day afternoon, I had received a call from Amit Shah. If JDS was indeed the B-team of the BJP, I would have joined hands with the BJP and become the chief minister for five years, said Kumaraswamy, adding that despite Rahul Gandhi making an election speech in Hassan calling JDS the B-team of the BJP, he chose to go with the Congress as he did not want a blot on his fathers name.

The former chief minister claimed that a minority leader and minister in the JDS-Congress coalition government had told him that if he tried to prevent five MLAs from quitting, they (Congress) would send five others to the BJP to pull down his government.

As Deve Gowda has just mentioned, the Congress has tried to destroy secular forces in different states. In 2004, the people had rejected the Congress party, but the Congress formed the government with us. But they tried to finish off the JDS from day one. The history is before us for everyone to see. Did JDS expel Siddaramaiah from the JDS? I know they had booked four air tickets to go to Chennai and meet Venkaiah Naidu (to join the BJP). This is Siddaramaiahs ideology. They defeated BM Farooq in Rajya Sabha polls and lured away eight of our MLAs and talk of ideology and minority protection. Nobody except Deve Gowda and JDS has given prominence and protection to the minority community. I have discussed all issues with the minority leaders of my party including our party president CM Ibrahim, said Kumaraswamy.
Former Chief Minister and MP Farooq Abdullah has scheduled a meeting of opposition leaders in Jammu on October 3.

The meeting, organised by the chief spokesperson of the Abdullah-led Gupkar alliance, M Y Tarigami, seeks to address the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir. The gathering will take place at 2:30 pm at Abdullah's residence in Jammu.

It assumes importance in light of the impending decision on the Article 370 petition by the Supreme Court, expected by mid-October.

The hearing on petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 commenced on August 2nd and concluded on September 6th.

Following arguments from both sides, the five-judge bench, led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, has reserved judgment.

One of the five judges is set to retire in December, prompting the early announcement of the judgment.

The opposition's meeting occurs amid reports of the postponement of grassroots polls, including municipal, panchayat, urban local bodies, and block development councils, until the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are held.

These reports about the postponement of the polls emerged following a two-day meeting of BJP leaders held on September 26th in Delhi, addressing northern states, including Jammu and Kashmir, regarding preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The meeting was attended by senior BJP leaders JP Nadda, Amit Shah, and Dr Jitendra Singh and senior party leaders from Jammu and Kashmir, including Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.

Discussions during the meeting centred on the security situation, particularly in light of the Kokernag incident, which resulted in the loss of two army officers, one J&K police officer, and a soldier, marking a significant operation lasting seven days, the longest in over a decade in Kashmir.

While there is no official confirmation regarding the postponement of local elections, rumours suggesting delays in all elections, including assembly polls, until after the Lok Sabha elections, have raised concerns among opposition parties.

Jammu and Kashmir has been under Central rule since June 2018 following the collapse of the BJP-PDP coalition government. In December 2018, the Centre imposed President's rule in Jammu and Kashmir.

In August 2019, the BJP revoked Article 370, leading to the division of the former state into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The Centre has linked the restoration of statehood to the completion of delimitation and subsequent elections. Delimitation has already been completed, while elections have been long overdue.
Even as the diplomatic row between India and Canada over the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar continues unabated, a section media reports on Wednesday pointed fingers at the alleged involvement of Pakistans Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) in the Sikh separatists murder. Nijjar was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Canadas British Columbia while he was inside his car in June.

According to Indian government sources, the ISI may have wanted to eliminate Nijjar to put India on the back foot, reported CNN-News18.

As per the report, Rahat Rao and Tariq Kiyani are the two ISI plants in Canada and the duo may have been involved in the task of killing Nijjar. The report further quoted sources as saying that getting in close proximity to Nijjar was impossible without someone known to him since he was very cautious and guarded.

Rao and Kiyani might wanted to finish off Nijjar so that they could directly control the drug and immigration business. Nijjars proximity with Pakistan-based group leaders like Wadhawa Singh and Ranjeet Singh Neeta were also a problem for the ISI because these people were unable to carry out major tasks, the sources were quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Nijjar's son Balraj Singh claimed that his father was in regular touch with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and had met senior officials six days before he was killed. Balraj said Nijjar was scheduled to meet some of the CSIS officials two days after he was killed.

The meetings had started in February and had increased in frequency in the following three or four months, Balraj told Canadas National Observer newspaper. The 21-year-old also said that his father was advised to "stay at home owing to security threats.

His statement has prompted Indian agencies to question why protection was not given to Nijjar if Canada had specific intelligence against Indian agents.

The relationship between Ottawa and New Delhi hit a new low last week over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus allegation of a potential Indian link to the killing of Nijjar. India reacted sharply to Trudeaus claims, calling them absurd and politically driven. New Delhi also expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa's expulsion of an Indian official over the case.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, however, said on Wednesday that India was willing to look into the case if Canada provides relevant information on the killing of the Sikh separatist leader.

"One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy. Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, you know, let us know - we are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said.

New Delhi claims that Canada has yet to provide any evidence to support the claim about the slaying of Nijjar.

Nijjar is wanted in India on charges of terrorism
The National Investigation Agency conducted raids at 51 locations across six states as part of its crackdown on the Khalistani terrorists-gangsters-smuggler nexus, on Wednesday. The locations of the aides of gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla were raided.

"The NIA is conducting raids at 51 locations across 6 states in 3 cases related to associates of Lawrence, Bambiha and Arsh Dalla gangs," an official of the National Investigative Agency (NIA) said.



The raids are being conducted in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.



The house of a liquor contractor in Moga district of Punjab was raided after reports emerged that the contracted was paying ransom to gangster Arsh Dala. An associate of the Arsh Dalla gang has been detained during the raids, the official said.



The raids in Uttarakhand focused on a gun house in the Bajpur police station area of Udham Singh Nagar Dehradun district of Uttarakhand.



While Lawrence Bishnoi is in jail, gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla is based in Canada and Davinder Bambiha was killed in an encounter with Punjab Police in 2016.



The NIA had released the details of 43 terrorists as part of its crackdown on terrorist-gangster nexus, some of them with Canada and Khalistan links. The agency also asked the public to share details of their properties and assets which can be taken over by the central government.



It has also asked to share details of their business partners, workers, employees and collection agents. The NIA in its post issued pictures of Lawrence Bishnoi, Jasdeep Singh, Kala Jatheri alias Sandeep, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana and Joginder Singh along with their names.



Before that, the NIA had confiscated properties owned by designated Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in Chandigarh and Amritsar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. A property confiscation notice was seen pasted outside Pannun's residence at Sector 15 in Chandigarh.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that India will be one of the top three economies of the world a few years from now. He was speaking at a programme organised at Science City, Ahmedabad, to celebrate 20 years of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

The next edition of the biennial summit which sees the participation of business houses, businessmen and decision-makers from India and abroad will be held from January 10 to 12, 2024 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar. The event is organised by the Gujarat Government.



"When the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit completes 40 years, India will be near centenary celebrations," Modi remarked, adding that the next 20 years are more crucial. "This is the time that India will have to prepare a roadmap that will enable India to become a developed nation by 2047."



"It is Modis guarantee. India will be in the top three economies of the world in a few years," the Prime Minister said.



Modi said he had then envisaged Gujarat becoming the growth engine of India during his stint as the chief minister of the state. "In 2014, I got an opportunity to serve the Nation. The vision expanded and now I want to see India becoming a growth engine for the world," he said.



He also remembered the "difficult times" in which the Gujarat Global Vibrant Summits were being held. Without naming the UPA, he said the government tried to create hurdles and foreign investors were threatened against coming to Gujarat. "Despite all this, the investors came," Modi said, pointing out that they "werent given any special incentives but it is the policy and governance transparency that brought them to Gujarat."



Modi became emotional as he recalled his tenure as the chief minister. "I had become a first-time MLA and had no experience of governance," he said. "What began in 2003 from Tagore Hall in Ahmedabad with about 300 delegates now has participation from over 135 countries, over 2000 exhibitors and 40,000 delegates from India and the world over."



"In 2001, thousands of people lost their lives in the earthquake and lakhs were affected and had to leave their homes. There was a financial crisis as the Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank had collapsed then and as a result, 133 other banks were also affected," the PM said.



The PM also mentioned the Godhra carnage of 2002 and the riots that ensued thereafter. He mentioned that in 2009, even his officers had advised him to cancel the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit as the world was facing recession. "Many believed that the youth will go away from Gujarat, the industries will be affected and Gujarat will become a burden on the nation," he said. "I had unflinching faith in Gujarat and its people," the Prime Minister said, adding that he had vowed to take Gujarat out of this situation.



Modi also has engagements in Central Gujarat.


The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday detained several suspects during its multi-state raid in a major crackdown on the criminal syndicates who have links with Khalistani terrorists based in Pakistan and Canada.

The agency informed that several pistols, ammunition and large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raid in 51 locations in six statesPunjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

The NIA crackdown on the terrorist-gangster-drug smuggler nexus, connected with listed terrorist Arsh Dalla and many other dreaded gangsters came amid a raging diplomatic row between India and Canada over the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. While Ottawa alleged potential involvement of Indian agencies in the murder, New Delhi hit back, saying the allegations are absurd and politically driven.

Besides Dalla, other gangsters under the NIA scanner in Wednesdays raids were Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri and Deepak Tinu.

NIA has registered five cases since August 2022 related to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits and extortion by the gangsters. Many of the accused are lodged in various jails or are operating from various foreign countries, including Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, Portugal and Australia.

The focus of todays raids, aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-drug smuggler nexus, was on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs and their operatives. These gangs are working with drug smugglers and terrorists based out of other countries, including Pakistan, UAE, Canada, Portugal, an NIA official was quoted as saying by IANS.

The NIA had earlier released details of 43 terrorists as part of its crackdown on terrorist-gangster nexus, some of them with Canada and Khalistan links. The agency also asked the public to share details of their properties and assets which can be taken over by the central government.

The NIA has also issued pictures of Lawrence Bishnoi, Jasdeep Singh, Kala Jatheri alias Sandeep, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana and Joginder Singh along with their names.

Last week, in an unprecedented move, the NIA confiscated properties owned by designated Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in Chandigarh and Amritsar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The recent endeavours by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to reactivate the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3 mission have encountered formidable challenges. Both the lander and the rover entered a state of dormancy for two weeks during the lunar night. The lunar surface, particularly the south polar region where Vikram and Pragyan are stationed, experiences extreme temperature variations. During lunar nights, temperatures can plummet to a bone-chilling -200 degrees Celsius. Such frigid conditions pose a significant threat to the survival of materials, electronic components, and power systems. These circumstances necessitate advanced thermal management solutions to safeguard the spacecraft.



Both the lander and the rover were originally engineered for a 14-day lunar mission. Their systems were optimized to operate seamlessly within this limited time-frame. Extending their operational duration in the harsh lunar environment requires innovative strategies and the ability to adapt to extreme conditions.



For a spacecraft to awaken after a prolonged dormancy, maintaining an operational battery is paramount. ISRO has carefully managed the power systems to ensure the battery remains charged during the lunar nights, while vital instruments have been placed in sleep mode to conserve energy. The reactivation process hinges on the successful utilization of this stored energy. Despite these challenges, there remains a glimmer of hope. ISRO may have implemented cutting-edge thermal insulation and power management techniques. If successful, these efforts could result in a miraculous revival of Vikram and Pragyan, defying the harshest lunar conditions, said Srimathy Kesan, founder and CEO of Space Kidz India, which is into design, fabrication and launch of small satellites, spacecraft and ground systems.



The Chandrayaan-3 mission's primary objective is to detect the presence of water on the moon's surface. Previous experiments have hinted at water through remote sensing, but conclusive physical evidence is still needed. The ability to identify hydrogen, a fundamental component of water, would provide irrefutable proof of lunar water, unlocking new possibilities for lunar science and exploration.



The challenges faced in reviving Vikram and Pragyan underscore the audacious nature of space exploration. Success in this endeavour would not only extend the mission's scientific contributions but also set a precedent for future lunar missions. The lessons learned from this mission will shape the trajectory of India's lunar exploration efforts. The ongoing efforts to awaken the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover are a testament to ISRO's unwavering commitment to lunar exploration. While the technical hurdles are substantial, the potential rewards in terms of scientific discovery and future missions make this endeavour both noble and visionary, added Kesan.



The missions original plan was for it to operate for a single lunar day, which equates to approximately 14 earth days. The concept behind this design was that the lander and rover could potentially reawaken once they received sufficient sunlight as the sun ascended near their location at the lunar south pole. ISROs scientists expressed confidence that the spacecraft could endure the harsh conditions and reawaken on September 22. This date marked the point when the rover and landers location would have been bathed in sunlight, providing them with the chance to replenish their batteries. However, the space agency has been unsuccessful in establishing communication with the mission and there is a diminishing sense of optimism. ISRO has stated their commitment to persist in contact attempts with the spacecraft until September 30, coinciding with the coming lunar sunset, remarked space expert Girish Linganna.



Before placing the lander and rover in sleep mode, scientists at ISRO emphasised that the Chandrayaan-3 mission had achieved its primary objectives and considered it a significant success. Even if Vikram and Pragyan did not awaken, they would remain on the moon as Indias lunar ambassadors. Chandrayaan-3 established India as the first country to reach the lunar south pole and the fourth to land on the moon, bolstering its status as a global space exploration leader.



During its week-long lunar surface exploration, the Pragyan rover was assigned the mission of uncovering lunar secrets, covering a distance of 100 metres and relaying images and data to Earth. It successfully confirmed the existence of such elements as sulphur, iron, oxygen and others on the moon.



Experts point out that there could be multiple causes for the unsuccessful revival attempts. A lunar night, lasting approximately 14 earth days, exposes spacecraft to temperatures as low as -253C. To combat this extreme cold, many moon missions rely on radioisotope heater units (RHUs) to maintain operational temperatures. These RHUs produce both heat and electricity through the controlled radioactive decay of specific elements. For instance, the Soviet Lunokhod 1 rover, active on the moon for 10 months during the 1970s, employed polonium-210 as a heat source. The Chinese Chang'e 3 lander and its Yutu rovers, which successfully landed on the moon in 2013 and 2019, too, employed similar technology to endure the lunar night. ISRO has not disclosed the reasons for the absence of radioisotope heater units (RHUs) aboard Chandrayaan-3, explained Linganna.



Linganna said there was optimism that as sunlight once more illuminated the solar panels, the spacecraft would re-energize and come back to life. However, this optimism proved unfounded. Both Vikram and Pragyan were not engineered to endure an extended, harsh lunar night where temperatures plummet to more than a 100C below zero, far surpassing the tolerance level of their electronic components. While it was technically feasible for the spacecraft designers to incorporate heaters or utilize more resilient components, such choices would have entailed additional expenses, increased weight and heightened complexity, added Linganna.



He pointed out that many additional factors need to be considered which may be posing a challenge to reviving the lander and rover. How effectively both the lander and the rover can endure the temperature fluctuations on the moon and the resulting thermal stress and mechanical shock; to what extent can they shield their delicate components from the lunar cold and radiation, ensuring their protection in these challenging conditions; and how effectively can they close off their openings to safeguard against lunar dust and the vacuum of space, addressing this crucial aspect of lunar conditions. Considering lunar conditions, it is crucial to assess the strength of both the lander and the rover's signal transmissions and the alignment of their antennas when communicating with the Indian space agency. Additionally, the clarity of their frequencies and available bandwidths becomes a vital consideration. Moreover, evaluating the compatibility of their communication protocols and data formats in the lunar environment is of utmost importance, Linganna told THE WEEK.
A raging fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing at least 100 people and injuring 150 others as authorities warned Wednesday the death toll could still rise.



Authorities said that flammable building materials also contributed to the latest disaster to hit Iraq's dwindling Christian minority. The fire happened in the Hamdaniya area of Iraq's Nineveh province, authorities said.

That's a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometres (205 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

There was no official word on the cause of the blaze, but the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw aired footage showing fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame.

In the blaze's aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene of the fire, the only light coming from television cameras and the lights of onlookers' mobile phones.

Survivors arrived at local hospitals in bandages, receiving oxygen, as their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organised more oxygen cylinders.

Some of those burned included children. Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the fire as paramedics brought out the injured.

Other footage shown on other local television networks appeared to show the bride and groom on the dance floor when the fire began Tuesday night, stunned by the sight of the burning debris. It wasn't immediately clear if they were among those hurt.

There were about to do a slow dance and then they lit up this thing for the dance which caught fire," one injured woman told Rudaw from a hospital gurney.

Another man injured in the fire at the hospital similarly told Rudaw that the blaze started as the couple prepared for their slow dance.

They lit up fireworks," he said. "It hit the ceiling, which caught fire.

He added: "The entire hall was on fire in seconds.

Health officials in Nineveh province raised the death toll to 114, though federal officials did not immediately update their figure of at least 100 killed.

Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr put the number of injured at 150 in that earlier statement carried by the state-run Iraqi News Agency.

All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident, al-Badr said.

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, told Rudaw that many of those injured suffered serious burns.

The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60 per cent of their bodies burned," Dubardani said. This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the country's Interior and Health officials to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals.

He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.

Hamdaniya is on Iraq's Nineveh Plains and under the control of its central government, though it is close to and claimed by Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish regional government.

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdish region, ordered hospitals there to also help those hurt in the blaze.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

It could be a mistake by the event organizers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error, Khoury told The Associated Press. It was a disaster in every sense of the word.

Civil defense officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall's exterior as decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country.

The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when the fire breaks out, civil defense said.

It wasn't immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren't designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze.

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Over the past two decades, Iraq's Christian minority has been violently targeted by extremists first from al-Qaeda and then the Islamic State militant group.

Although the Nineveh Plains, the historic homeland, was wrested back from the Islamic State group six years ago, some towns are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.

The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Iraq's total population is more than 40 million.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India was willing to look into it if Canada provides relevant information on the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The EAM cleared New Delhi's stance on the recent issue at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York on Tuesday.

"One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy," he said. "Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, you know, let us know - we are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said when queried about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegations that India had orchestrated the killing of Nijjar in Canadian soil.



New Delhi claims that Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.



He added that India had been badgering the Canadians about the organised criminals based there, making "a large number of extradition requests."



"The picture is not complete without the context," he added. "In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organized crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism. Theyre all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information. We have given them a lot of information about organised crime and leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders, who have been identified," he said.



Jaishankar also mentioned the threats to Indian diplomats and attacks on Indian consulates, stating that these are "very permissive" because of political reasons.



"Our concern is that its really been very permissive, because of political reasons. So we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attackedA lot of this is often justified, as saying thats how democracies work. If somebody gives me something specific, it doesnt have to be restricted to Canada. But if theres any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it," Jaishankar added.



On whether the Five Eyes alliance shared intelligence on the killing of Nijjar, Jaishankar reiterated that India did not receive any specific information. Replying to the question of a journalist on whether the FBI has told US Sikh leaders that there are threats, Jaishankar said, "I am not part of the Five Eyes. I am not certainly part of the FBI. So you are asking the wrong person."


At least nine people, including five children, of the same family were killed on Wednesday when a rocket launcher's shell exploded at a house when the kids were playing with the ammunition in Pakistan's Sindh province, police said.



Kashmore-Kandhkot Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rohil Khosa said children found a rocket shell while playing on the ground and brought it home where it exploded, killing nine people, including five children, two women, and two men, of the same family.

He said besides the casualties five others were injured in the explosion and rushed to hospital.

This is an area on the riverine belt and the rocket shell must have been left there by dacoits who hide out deep into the riverine belt areas, Khoso said.

The SSP said the police had reached the site and further investigation was underway and an emergency had been declared at the Kandhkot Civil Hospital.

Pakistan Peoples Party's Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in a tweet that the riverine areas of Sindh and Punjab had become a safe haven to many criminal gangs and urged the government to clear the region from such elements.

Sindh Chief Minister Justice Maqbool Baqar has sought a report from the provincial inspector general on how a rocket launcher reached the Zangi Subzwai Goth village in Kashmore district's Kandhkot tehsil of the province, Dawn News reported.

Was any stock of weapons being smuggled to the Kutcha areas? Are there enablers of the dacoits present in the goth (village)?, he asked.

Expressing his grief over the incident, Baqar directed the inspector general to submit a "detailed report" into the incident.
KHARTOUM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Concerns are rising over Sudan's worsening health situation amid a surge in seasonal epidemics, coupled with the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The Sudanese Ministry of Health has acknowledged the emergence of dengue fever, malaria, and cholera cases across various regions of the country.

In a statement published on its Facebook page Tuesday evening, the ministry reported 21 cholera-related deaths in Khartoum and Gedaref states.

According to the ministry, "265 suspected cases of cholera were reported in Gedaref State, with 18 fatalities, while Khartoum State recorded 13 cholera cases, including 3 deaths."

Sudan Tribune, an independent news outlet, reported on Wednesday that dengue fever cases in Gedaref State have risen to at least 700, including 8 fatalities, citing Sudan's Acting Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim.

"The dengue fever epidemic is spreading in 8 states, including the Red Sea, Kassala, Gedaref, Gezira, Sinnar, North Kordofan, South Kordofan, and North Darfur," the minister said, attributing the spread of the disease to the increasing breeding of mosquitoes amid the continuous rainfall.

He noted that the ministry launched a campaign to combat mosquitoes and other disease vectors in Gedaref State two weeks ago with support from the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the federal support team in Gedaref State.

The Sudanese minister also mentioned that Gedaref had received essential supplies from WHO and the federal health ministry, including intravenous solutions and blood transfusion bags.

In North Darfur State, malaria cases have surged to approximately 80,000, according to Sudan Tribune. Ahmed Mohamed Al-Doma, deputy director general of the Ministry of Health in North Darfur State, also reported 25 cases of dengue fever in the state, with no fatalities.

On Tuesday, WHO reported outbreaks of cholera and dengue fever in eastern Sudan, with 162 suspected cholera cases admitted to hospitals in Gedaref and other border areas near Ethiopia.

Previously, Sudan's health ministry reported that the RSF had seized control of the country's primary medical supplies warehouse, resulting in the loss of medicines and medical equipment worth 500 million U.S. dollars, along with a 70-percent loss of specialized center equipment in Khartoum.

Last week, the United Nations revealed that approximately 1,200 children under the age of 5 in nine refugee camps in Sudan had died over the past four months due to a suspected measles outbreak and malnutrition, particularly in the White Nile State.

Sudanese epidemiologist and community medicine specialist, Hamza Awadalla, expressed concerns about a potential widespread epidemic due to the deteriorating health sector's inability to address the crisis.

"The ongoing war has affected the health sector's ability to decisively respond to epidemics as nearly 100 hospitals have become out of service amid restrictions on movement for doctors and medical staff," Awadalla told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Sudan has been witnessing deadly clashes between the SAF and the RSF in Khartoum and other areas since April 15, resulting in at least 3,000 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries, according to figures released by the Sudanese Health Ministry. 
North Korea said Wednesday that it will expel a US soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed border between the Koreas in July.



The North's official Korean Central News Agency said that authorities have finished their questioning of Pvt Travis King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harboured ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

Verifying the authenticity of the comments attributed to King is impossible.

The agency did not say when authorities plan to expel King or to where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he joined the civilian tour and crossed the border, he was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained King and was questioning the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.
Kolkata, Sep 27 (PTI) Balmer Lawrie & Company will engage a consultant to study the feasibility of entering new business areas, such as the production of ethanol and green hydrogen, to expand its revenue streams, a top official of the firm said on Wednesday.

The diversified PSU, under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, currently has eight strategic business units with industrial packaging and logistics services being the key revenue generators of the company.

The Kolkata-headquartered company recorded an annual turnover of Rs 2,380 crore in the last financial year.

"We are in the process of engaging a consultant to study the feasibility of entering new areas of businesses like manufacturing of ethanol and green hydrogen and doing third-party logistics (3PL).

"The company has ambitious targets and growth plans. The study will find out whether we have the capability and bandwidth to enter these new lines of businesses", Balmer Lawrie Chairman and Managing Director Adika Ratna Sekhar told reporters after the company's AGM here.

The company aims at garnering a revenue of Rs 3,000-4,000 crore in the next two years, and Rs 5,000 crore in the next three to four years, he said, adding that there is a need to increase the revenue streams to meet these targets.

According to him, the study would take almost six months to be completed from the engagement of consultants.

To a query on capital expenditure to be made by the company for entering new business areas, he said Balmer Lawrie has reserves of nearly Rs 1,180 crore.

"If required, loans will be taken," he added.

The company has warehousing facilities, which are now used for storing purposes, he said.

"We are thinking of providing last-mile delivery in the B2B (business to business) segment targeting the e-commerce firms," he said.

The company is also looking for land in the metropolis to set up a temperature-controlled warehouse, Sekhar said, adding that such facilities will be set up in Tier II and III cities.

Balmer Lawrie has already signed an MoU with the central warehousing corporation for a similar facility at Vijayawada.

For the grease and lubricants business, the company plans to do contract manufacturing for oil marketing companies (OMCs) to strengthen its retail presence.
MUMBAI, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mochi Shoes, from the house of Metro Brands Limited, is synonymous with quality and style. Their latest Autumn Winter 2023 collection, 'It's always a good time in Mochi,' pays homage to the vibrant spirit of today's youth, particularly teens and Gen Z, who are characterized by their spontaneity and enthusiasm for living life to the fullest. This collection reflects Mochi's commitment to offering versatile fashion-forward styles for all occasions. Whether one is dressing up for a special college event, attending a party, or simply enjoying leisure time at a park, Mochi's diverse collection of stylish footwear is tailored to complement every mood and lifestyle. With Mochi, the message is clear: be ready to step out and seize the moment, because it's always a good time, anytime.



In the realm of fashion-forward style for teens and Gen Z, Mochi positions itself as the ultimate destination. Their collection caters to a wide spectrum of moods and occasions, seamlessly adapting to the diverse lifestyles of today's youth. Whether one is preparing for a college event, heading to a vibrant party, or enjoying leisure time at the park, Mochi's latest collection offers a versatile range of stylish footwear choices. Mochi understands and resonates with the always-ready attitude of the youth, who are eager to seize every moment with style and confidence. With Mochi, it's not just about fashion; it's a guarantee that every moment will be a good time, anytime, with fashion as the trusted ally in making each moment memorable.



With Mochi, you are always ready to step out and seize the moment, ensuring that good times can happen anytime. Mochi Shoes acknowledges this vibrant spirit and aligns with the idea that life should be a continuous celebration and understands the youth's desire to mark even the tiniest victories and embrace every fleeting moment. The modern generation is known for its spontaneity - from making impromptu plans to approaching work with an innovative and open mindset.



From stylish sneakers to elegant formal wear, festive heels, and standout party wear options, Mochi Shoes offers a diverse range of styles that cater to the various facets of a young individual's life. The brand embodies the philosophy of seizing opportunities and celebrating even the smallest victories with a flair that only the youth possess.



About the collection, Deepika Deepti, Vice President-Marketing Metro Brands India said, "Mochi Shoes encapsulates the essence of spontaneity and living in the moment. Every pair in the collection is designed to accompany the youth on their adventures. We believe in empowering the youth to live life to the fullest and embrace the joy in the everyday." She adds, "With Mochi, you don't need to wait for the right moment. Whether it's a casual get-together or a milestone achievement, this collection has a wide range of styles to offer the young generation to accompany them in their adventures."



Mochi understands that a great pair of shoes is more than just an accessory, it's a reflection of one's personality and readiness to take on the world. Each pair is crafted with attention to detail and a commitment to comfort, making them the perfect companion for the youth who are always ready to seize the moment.



The new AW'23 collection will be available across 218 Mochi Stores and online on https://www.mochishoes.com/



About Metro Brands Limited (BSE: 543426; NSE: METROBRAND)



Metro Brands is one of the largest Indian footwear specialty retailers and is amongst the aspirational Indian brands in the footwear category. The Company opened its first store under the Metro brand in Mumbai in 1955 and has since evolved into a onestop shop for all footwear needs, by retailing a wide range of branded products for the entire family including men, women, unisex and kids, and for every occasion including casual and formal events. In addition to men's, women's, and kid's footwear, it also has a wide range of handbags, belts, wallets, etc.



Metro Brands retail footwear under its own brands of Metro, Mochi, Walkway, Da Vinchi and J. Fontini, as well as certain thirdparty brands such as Crocs, Fitflop, Fila, Skechers, Clarks, Puma and Adidas which complement its inhouse brands. The Metro footwear range is specially curated based on the regional sensitivity to cater to the needs of different regions.



As of June 30, 2023, the Company operated 766 Stores across 182 cities spread across 31 states and union territories in India.



For more information, please visit www.metrobrands.com



Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222823/Mochi_AW23.jpg



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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 27: The Designers Class, India's pioneering online design education platform is thrilled to announce its groundbreaking collaboration with the International Institute of Gemology (IIG), a distinguished institution renowned for excellence in gems & Jewellery education. Together, they are set to introduce a series of comprehensive and accessible online gems, diamond, and jewellery design courses that will reshape the landscape of the industry.





This landmark partnership represents a commitment to democratizing jewellery design education, making it available to enthusiasts, aspiring designers, and professionals alike. The courses offered through this collaboration promise to provide students with the skills, knowledge, and expertise required to thrive in the dynamic field of jewellery design.



The first set of certified courses covers essential facets of jewellery design and diamond grading, including "Jewellery Design by Hand", "Retail Merchandising for Jewellery" and "Diamond Graduate Program". Commencing on October 16, these 90-day courses will blend live interactive classes with pre-recorded video content, downloadable workbooks, and assessments. The students will also receive certification upon completion of the courses.



According to Mr. Rahul Desai, CEO and Managing Director of IIG, "Whether you are a budding designer or a seasoned professional, The Designer's Class and the IIG Team provide valuable insights for all. In today's digital age, accessible and flexible learning is paramount. This platform allows you to embark on your design journey from anywhere in the world, at your own pace, with the support of a vibrant online community".



Mr. Adeesh Nahar, Co-founder of The Designers Class, added, "Through this strategic alliance, we aim to break down the barriers to quality design education. Our meticulously designed curriculum will enable learners to acquire extensive knowledge and develop a global perspective on jewellery design".



These courses are attractively priced, starting at INR 30,000, making them accessible to a broad spectrum of learners. Prospective students are encouraged to secure their slots by pre-booking on The Designers Class website which starts from 1st October, 2023. This timely initiative by The Designers Class and IIG aspires to instil greater structure and professionalism within the jewellery design field through skill development and education.



About The Designer's Class



The Designer's Class is an online platform dedicated to providing premium design education across various disciplines. With a wide range of expert-curated courses in fashion, jewellery, interior design, photography, and beauty/makeup, The Designer's Class aims to democratize design education. The platform offers certification upon completion, internship opportunities, live classes with industry experts, and personalized support to enhance the learning experience.



For more information, please visit: https://www.thedesignersclass.com/



About International Institute of Gemology (IIG)



The International Institute of Gemology (IIG) proudly marks 58 years of excellence in the field of Gems and Jewelry education. Established in 1965 by visionary Mr. Kantilal B. Desai and carried forward by his dedicated son, Mr. Rahul Desai, IIG stands as a global beacon of knowledge, innovation, and progress.



Having trained over 100,000 professionals worldwide, IIG has not only produced exceptional talents but has also left an indelible mark on national and international jewellery markets. IIG's commitment to world-class education and groundbreaking research, coupled with a culture of intellectual curiosity, sets it apart.



IIG's legacy is defined by numerous milestones, unwavering academic rigor, and a spirit of intellectual vitality. The institute's esteemed faculty, diverse student body, and accomplished alumni continually push the boundaries of knowledge and innovation, contributing significantly to academia, research, and society.



IIG's global significance is underscored by its international collaborations with institutions such as the De Beers Institute of Diamonds, Gem-A, and Gemewizard. Adapting to contemporary challenges, IIG remains a source of inspiration, education, and innovation in the world of Gems and Jewellery education.



For more information, please visit: https://iigindia.com/



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Ahmedabad, Sep 27 (PTI) The Centre is in touch with US-based electric vehicle maker Tesla to consider setting up a manufacturing facility in India and Gujarat will approach the company at an appropriate time to ensure the state has a significant role in the future plans, a senior state government official said.

Gujarat's Additional Chief Secretary (Industries and Mines Department) S J Haider said that the state is in touch with all likely investors.

The world's largest electric car producer Tesla Inc's chief Elon Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June in New York.

When asked whether Tesla is in touch with the state authorities, he said: Not with us, but with the central government. But we have also been trying. We have been in touch with the central government also and we would be reaching out to them also with the support of the central government.

He said that for the ensuing Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024, the state would send delegations to different countries and one of the delegations would also be going to the US.

The three-day summit is scheduled from January 10 next year in Gandhinagar.

So we would be establishing contacts with them at an appropriate point of time  At an appropriate point of time, we would also try to ensure that we have some significant role to play, Haider told reporters here.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently said that Tesla is looking to source components worth around USD 1.9 billion from India this year against USD 1 billion last year.

Musk, after meeting the Prime Minister, said he plans to visit India in 2024.

When asked if some more semiconductor firms have shown interest, Haider said that 2-3 different countries have expressed interest in the sector after Micron.

Tata Projects last week announced its collaboration with Micron Technology to construct an advanced semiconductor assembly and test plant in Sanand, Gujarat.
Abuja (Nigeria), Sep 27 (AP) The French troops withdrawing from Niger were seen as a key line of defence for about a decade in Western efforts against jihadi violence in Africa's Sahel region, the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert.

As the US keeps pushing for a diplomatic solution to resolve Niger's political crisis, analysts say the country's junta might struggle to sustain its relative peace with no external support.

French President Emmanuel Macron has agreed to withdraw France's ambassador and troops from Niger after the July coup that deposed its elected president and triggered anti-French sentiment in the former colony.

In response, the junta welcomed the end of imperialist and neo-colonialist forces" and said Monday that the withdrawal must follow a negotiated framework and mutual agreement.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Kenya on Monday that Washington's desire is for Niger's political crisis to be resolved through diplomatic means and that the United States will continue to evaluate for any future steps that would prioritise both our democratic and our security goals.

Niger's political crisis threatens those ambitions in regard to counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel, analysts say.

The region accounted for more than 40 per cent of extremist deaths in the world in 2022, according to the Global Terrorism Index.

Many of the attacks in the region occurred in Niger's neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, and the relative peace it enjoyed as well as the line of defence it hosted  through Western support  could be further endangered, analysts say.

The departure of the French means that the burden for providing security will more clearly rest with the government of Niger itself, said Nate Allen, an associate professor at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.

If the track record of military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso are any indication, the main beneficiaries of military governments are the jihadists.

In a region where democracies are fast eroding, Niger was seen as the last remaining Western partner in the decade-long fight against jihadi groups that over the years have seized territories, massacred civilians and battled foreign armies in the Sahel.

The coup has also raised questions about whether the country would seek the help of the Russian private mercenary group Wagner, which already operates in some African countries, including Mali, where human rights groups have accused its forces of deadly abuses.

France has 1,500 military personnel in Niger, which had been envisioned as the base for counterterrorism operations in the region after anti-French sentiment grew in Mali and Burkina Faso, both run by juntas that have also forced French troops out.

For the US, Niger hosted 1,100 of its military personnel in regional outposts for wide-ranging patrols by armed drones and other counterterrorism operations against Islamic extremist movements.

While Washington has "remained less visible in the management of Niger's internal policies, France has interfered, said Insa Garba Saidou, a local activist who assists Niger's new military rulers with their communications.

Saidou said the request for the French to leave was because of three reasons: France's failure in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel; France's interference in issues of Niger's internal policies (and) the idea that France, through the CFA franc (used as the local currency in many of France's former colonies), is the basis of underdevelopment in Africa and Niger in particular."

French troops aren't expected to pull out of Niger until the end of the year, but Western counterterrorism efforts have effectively been stalled since the coup.

While the US military only recently resumed missions out of its bases in Niger, its reluctance to declare the events in Niger a coup or take significant actions is seen as proof of the importance Niger plays in counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel and East Africa.

A senior US diplomat was also sent to Niger days after the military seized power.

A lot will depend moving forward on what type of relationship the US has with the junta (as) ... the US will at some point likely admit that this is a coup, said James Barnett, a researcher specialising in West Africa at the US-based Hudson Institute.

Much would also depend on whether the junta decides to sustain ousted President Mohamed Bazoum's security strategy, Barnett said, pointing out that Niger's relative security success compared to its neighbours was a result of its strategy of taking a more calibrated approach to counterinsurgency during Bazoum's presidency.

With a different security mission in Niger, the US won't likely seek to fill the gap left by France, analysts say.

Washington's continued presence in Niger alone serves a mutual interest, according to Nathaniel Powell, Africa analyst at the Oxford Analytica geopolitical intelligence firm.

For the US, it helps it continue to gather intelligence in Libya and regionally on armed groups, and for Niger, the government's local military capacity to fight jihadis would be bolstered, Powell added.

But he warned that the US needs to watch out for how the situation unfolds under the junta.

They are more vulnerable now since the sustainability of their presence depends on a cooperative junta whose future is unclear and whose stance towards foreign intervenors could change according to circumstances," Powell said of the US

They also, depending on the extent of their cooperation, risk becoming indirectly complicit in the junta's crimes if the latter decides to take a more aggressive and ethnically targeted approach to fighting jihadists as the Malian junta has done.

Niger has signed a security collaboration pact with Burkina Faso and Mali, both of which have struggled under military governments to fight jihadi violence in their countries. The agreement, though, was more to aid Niger to defend against any possible regional military intervention to reverse the coup, analysts say.

The rhetoric of all the juntas (in the Sahel) is focused on national sovereignty and self-reliance, said Oxford Analytica's Powell. Wagner can't offer the same kind of capacity improvements and force multiplier effect that France could." (AP) FZH
Islamabad, Sep 27 (PTI) Underscoring the inevitable role of the army in Pakistan, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has admitted that the countrys military will continue its hold in politics unless civic delivery institutions are strengthened in the coup-prone country.

The powerful Army, which has ruled coup-prone Pakistan for more than half of its 75-plus years of existence, has hitherto wielded considerable power in matters of security and foreign policy.

Kakar was speaking during an interview with the news channel TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster, on Tuesday, when he spoke about the Pakistani militarys major role in politics.

Pragmatically, realistically and honestly ... affirmative, yes, was his answer when the interviewer asked if the disciplined military would continue to stay for a foreseeable future in Pakistans polity.

Kakar was replying to a question about the undue influence, whether suspected or real, of the military establishment of Pakistan and its role.

He was asked: Can Pakistan work as a democracy when most Pakistanis believe their leadership is beholden to the almost nefarious relationship with the military?

As far as the civil-military relationship and its imbalance is concerned, I personally view it as a pure government structure. Pakistani politicians, all the political leadership, have had a marital alliance with this military institution for their own specific interests, the caretaker prime minister said.

And once they are out of power, it is one of their favourite mantras to criticise and shift the onus of their own failures in terms of governance and pinpoint the reason behind that failure as an imbalance between the civil and military relationship, he pointed out.

Unfortunately, in our case, the civilian institutions who (sic) are responsible for the service delivery at the behest of the government or state, are performing quite poorly in last three-to-four decades .... be it in our health services, be it in our education services, be it our disaster management, be it our tax revenue collection, he said, adding, So, when there is poor governance challenge, the only institution which has the organizational capability left with us is military.

So anyone who is leading the government has to rely on the day-to-day basis on the challenges of government and engage them to do that delivery part, the leader from the Balochistan region said.

He also offered a remedial measure: If somebody is genuinely interested that the military should not meddle in the affairs of the state structure, then we need to enhance the capability of these civilian institutions.

The question about the militarys influence had earlier stemmed from another question about the alleged US involvement in former prime minister Imran Khans ouster.

Kakar promptly dismissed it as a conspiracy theory that is common in all kinds of political cultures. Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after losing a no-confidence vote, which he had then alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China, and Afghanistan.

Khan is also facing more than 140 cases across the country and faces charges like terrorism, violence, blasphemy, corruption, and murder.

Observing that they (Khans party) themselves had retreated and they retrieved that allegation themselves in a couple of months, Kakar said, How would I, or anyone else, believe in such a conspiracy when people who brought it to public domain backtracked from it (sic).

Kakar said his government, even if a caretaker dispensation, has ensured that no one, whether it is the USA or any other power, meddles in our domestic affairs. We are a sovereign country, we are a sovereign nation. We do things according to our own interests. Whether that was a good decision or a bad decision to oust Imran Khans government, but all we know is for the last many, many, many years, that was the only way and time that he was ousted constitutionally. There was no military coup. That was all constitutional and lawful, Kakar asserted.
Madrid, Sep 27 (AP) The leader of Spain's conservatives failed Wednesday in his long-shot first bid to become the country's next prime minister when he fell short of the votes he needed in the Spanish parliament to form a government.

As expected, Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo came up four votes shy of the necessary absolute majority of 176 votes in his favour.

Feijoo will try again on Friday when the bar is lowered and he needs only more yes than no votes from parliament's 350 lawmakers.

The Popular Party holds 137 seats in the Madrid-based Congress of the Deputies, the most of any party. But even with backing from the far-right Vox's 33 lawmakers and two from small conservative parties representing Navarra and the Canary Islands, Feijoo only reached 172 votes in his favour to 178 against him.

Spain's July 23 national election left the parliament highly fragmented with its legislators spread between 11 different parties, setting the stage for a difficult path to power for any party.

If Feijoo fails to win approval on his second attempt, acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would get a shot at staying in the Moncloa Palace. The centre-left Socialist leader would have to round up enough support of lawmakers from a group of competing leftist, regionalist and separatist parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country.

The parliament debated Feijoo's bid to become prime minister for several hours on Tuesday and on Wednesday morning before the vote.

The debate, however, was dominated by the possibility that Sanchez is considering accepting demands from Catalan separatist parties that Spain grant an amnesty for hundreds, possibly thousands, of people who participated in a failed 2017 secession bid by northeast Catalonia.

Sanchez, who has pardoned several high-level Catalan separatists, has kept quiet on the possibility of an amnesty, and only said that he wants to continue normalising relations with the northeast region where tensions have decreased in recent years.

But leading Catalan separatists have said that the amnesty is a real possibility, while also upping the ante by saying that an authorised referendum on independence should be granted by Sanchez if he wants to maintain their support during a theoretical new term.

Nobody knows what is going to happen in this country if my bid to become prime minister fails, Feijoo told lawmakers. Therefore it seems reasonable, given that we are in a democracy, that the government not hide its deals. But they don't even want to talk about them. Transparency and this government are incompatible.

Feijoo's path to power has been complicated by his party's alliances with Vox, which denies climate change and rails against feminism, in several regional governments. Vox's views on recentralising power from regions to Madrid makes it anathema to many smaller parties representing regions.

Feijoo had claimed on Tuesday that he was close to becoming prime minister, but that he was not willing to pay the political price of an amnesty that the Catalan separatists wanted in exchange for their support.

But on Wednesday, the spokesman for the conservative Basque party PNV, Aitor Esteban, reminded Feijoo that if wanted their backing, Feijoo would have to start with ditching the 33 votes of Vox. Esteban added that his party would prefer supporting a possible amnesty for the Catalan separatists, if it came to that, than a likely right-wing coalition of the Popular Party and Vox at the national level.

There is a whale in the swimming pool, Esteban told Feijoo. The 33 votes of Vox are absolutely necessary for you and they would be for your entire mandate. That whale is so big it is impossible to hide.

If no government is formed before Nov 27, the parliament will be dissolved and a new election called for Jan 14. (AP) SCY

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Seoul, Sep 27 (AP) The American soldier who crossed into North Korea two months ago is in American custody, two US officials said Wednesday.

One official said that Pvt Travis King was transferred to US custody in China. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss King's status ahead of the US announcement.

Earlier, North Korea said it would expel King. That announcement surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities have finished their questioning of King but did not say when officials plan to expel him or where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the state news agency said that King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the US Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, the state news agency said, using the initials of North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

US officials have said that King has been declared AWOL, which can be punished by time in the brig, forfeiture of pay or dishonourable discharge, with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained King, 23, and was investigating the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, King's mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just can't see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. US officials had expressed concern about King's well-being, citing the North's harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Unauthorised crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world's most cloistered societies.

North Korea's decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the country's standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the North's growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States' expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasn't worth keeping, possibly because the costs of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of US military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute.

It wasn't immediately clear how King might be expelled. In some prior cases, captive Americans have been flown to Beijing. In others, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

Bill Richardson  who up until his death served many presidential administrations as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter  travelled to North Korea in 2007 to recover the remains of servicemembers killed in the Korea War. (AP) SCY

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Washington, Sep 27 (AP) The Biden administration is admitting Israel into a select group of countries whose citizens are allowed to travel to the United States without getting a visa in advance.

The decision announced Wednesday comes despite Washington's concerns about the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian Americans and marks a major accomplishment for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sparred frequently with the Biden administration.

Under the waiver programme, Israelis will be able to travel to the US for business or leisure purposes for up to 90 days without a visa simply by registering with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation. But even if they are authorised to travel under that system, US officials at the airport can still bar them from entering the country.

Israel had been facing a Saturday deadline, the end of the US government's budget year, to gain admission to the programme without having to requalify for eligibility next year.

The Department of Homeland Security administers the programme, which currently allows citizens of 40 mostly European and Asian countries to travel to the US for three months without visas.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the agreement, after more than a decade of work, will enhance our two nations' collaboration on counterterrorism, law enforcement and our other common priorities and make the allies more secure.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a joint statement with Majorkas, cited enhanced "freedom of movement for US citizens, including those living in the Palestinian Territories or travelling to and from them.

Israel's admission has been a priority for successive Israeli leaders. It comes as Netanyahu is facing months of mass protests against his proposed remake of Israel's judicial system that critics say will make the country less democratic.

Countries that want to take part in the visa programme have to meet three critical benchmarks.

Israel met two of those benchmarks over the past two years: a low percentage of Israelis who applied for visas and were rejected and a low percentage of Israelis who have overstayed their visas. Israel had struggled to meet the third, for reciprocity that essentially means all US citizens, including Palestinian Americans, must be treated equally when travelling to or through Israel.

Claiming national security reasons, Israel has long had separate entry requirements and screening processes for Palestinian Americans. Many complained that the procedures were onerous and discriminatory. Americans with Palestinian residency documents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were largely barred from using Israel's international airport.

Instead, like other Palestinians, they were forced to travel through either Jordan or Egypt to reach their destinations.

US officials have stressed that Israel's status in the programme will be constantly monitored and if it is seen to fall out of compliance, the special visa waiver status can be revoked. (AP) SCY

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PHNOM PENH, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's senior minister Ouch Borith has called for global actions to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Borith made the remarks at the High-Level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in New York, the United States, on Sept. 26, according to a statement of his speech released to the media on Wednesday.

He stressed the urgent need for all nations, including the nuclear weapon states (NWS), to engage in meaningful dialogue and demonstrate genuine commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty NPT.

"We must redouble our efforts towards our shared objective: a world free of nuclear weapons," Borith said.

"As a peace-loving nation, Cambodia along with fellow ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states, firmly commits to the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) and its plan of action," he added.

Borith concluded his remarks by expressing Cambodia's deep appreciation for the United Nations Secretary-General's policy brief on "A New Agenda for Peace" released in July 2023.

He said this brief sets the course for the international community to further strengthen multilateral efforts in maintaining international peace and security underpinned by international law. 
Islamabad, Sep 27 (PTI) Pakistan on Wednesday inched closer to the holding of the much-awaited general elections as the country's chief election body published the lists of preliminary delimitation of constituencies.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced it would hold the election in the last week of January after finalising the setting up of electoral districts in the light of the data of the census, which was held earlier this year.

In a press release, the ECP said that the report of preliminary delimitation has been uploaded on the commission's website and can be accessed by the public, where maps of the delimitation are also available.

"The publication of the preliminary constituencies will continue for 30 days from Sept 27 to Oct 26, it said, highlighting that objections to the preliminary constituencies can be made by the voters of the concerned constituency.

The through representations would be in the form of representations addressed to the commission's secretary and be submitted to the ECP Secretariat in Islamabad by October 27.

"The ECP will take decisions on these representations from Oct 28 to Nov 26 after hearing the positions of the respective parties," the release said.

The final list of constituencies would be published on November 30, followed by issuance of the elections schedule and polling.

The completion of the delimitation brings ECP closer to holding polls by the last week of January, as planned by the body. A specific date for the elections is yet to be announced.

The ECP earlier stated 54 days were required to let the candidate file nominations, their scrutiny and final approval as well as time for election campaign. That is why it said that the elections would be held in the last week of January.

The initial listing of electoral districts is the first major step to fulfill the commitment to hold polls by the end of January.

The National Assembly was dissolved on August 9 and constitutionally, the elections should be held within 90 days but the process was delayed by the ECP due to the delimitation exercise which became mandatory in the wake of the new census held this year.

The previous government just days before the end of its term endorsed the results of the census which obligated the ECP to set up a new electoral district on the basis of the latest population.

The move led to fears that the polls meant to be held within 90 days may be delayed till next year as the delimitation process would take about four months to complete.

The National Assembly consists of 266 general seats and 60 seats reserved for women. Ten seats have also been reserved for non-Muslims.
Mumbai, Sep 27 (PTI) BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has approached the Mumbai Police after he received another e-mail threatening to expose videos of "leaders like him", an official said on Wednesday.

Notably, police registered an FIR after Somaiya's office received an e-mail demanding Rs 50 lakh from the BJP leader for not releasing his "explicit videos". This mail was received on September 24, police had said.

The second mail was received on September 25 in which the sender claimed that he possessed clips of other leaders like Somaiya. "I will expose those as well, all of which are related to your political party," the official said quoting the e-mail.

He said Somaiya lodged a complaint with the police in the second mail.

Further investigation is underway, the official added.
Indore, Sep 27 (PTI) Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said modern public transport facilities like metro rail can not be offered to people for free.

Metro rail and electric bus projects are capital-intensive and have to be economically feasible, he told reporters during the India Smart Cities Conclave 2023 here.

"....the philosophy of some political parties is that all such services should be made free for citizens," Puri said, without naming any party.

If you want public transport facilities equipped with modern technology, then you cannot say that these services should be provided free, the minister added.

Metro rail projects have not failed anywhere in the country, and in every city the project was given the government's approval only after adequate study, he said.

Metro rail came to the country when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister and now 27 big cities have metro projects, Puri said, adding that 870 km of metro network has been laid across the country while the construction of another 936 km is underway.

The Union government is also working on a plan to run 10,000 electric buses across the country and out of these, 500 buses will start running in the next few months, he said.

After the success of the Smart City project, a message is being sent across the country that the innovative work being done under the project will not be limited to only 100 cities, the minister said.

"Some state governments are building smart cities and smart districts on their own without the help of the centre," he said.
Ahmedabad, Sep 27 (PTI) Senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil on Wednesday said it's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's misconception that Gujarat became a developed state when he was the chief minister "because the region and its people were developed since the era of Harappan civilisation".

The Gujarat Congress president said development is in the DNA of the Gujarati people. "If someone claims that the state was developed because of him only, it is an insult to the state," he added.

Addressing a press conference, Gohil rejected the PM's claim that foreign investors wanting to invest in Gujarat were being threatened by the then Central government (of UPA) when he was the chief minister.

"The PM claimed that Gujarat became a developed state due to his efforts and initiatives, especially the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. I urge the PM to have a look at the history of Harappan civilisation, including Dholavira and Lothal in Gujarat, which existed thousands of years ago.

"You will find that Gujarat region and its people were far more developed than any other civilisations even thousands of years ago, because development is in the DNA of Gujarati people. In that background, if someone now claims that Gujarat achieved development because of him only, it is an insult to Gujarat," Gohil said.

He was referring to Modi's speech earlier in the day to mark 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit wherein the prime minister took potshots at the previous Congress-led UPA government over its "indifferent" attitude towards the then Gujarat's development.

The investor gathering was first organised in 2003 when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat.

Gohil said the prime minister made only political observations during the speech and claimed that whatever Gujarat has achieved so far was only because of him (Modi).

"We were expecting that he would talk about the devastation caused by the flood in Bharuch district due to the water released suddenly from the dam on his birthday and scold the BJP government for its approach. However, he did not say anything about it," the Congress leader said.

He claimed Gujarat was number one in attracting real investment across the country when Congress was in power in the state (before 1995).

"I am talking about real investment, not about those MoUs signed during Vibrant Summits and remain on paper only," said Gohil, who was a minister in the previous Congress government.

On Modi's charge about facing hurdles in organising Vibrant Summits when he was the CM, Gohil sought to know the current rank of Gujarat when BJP is in power in the state and Centre.

It was under Congress rule that two large privately-held refineries were established in Jamnagar and General Motors established its car manufacturing plant at Halol in Panchmahal, Gohil said.

"Entire industrial corridor from Vadodara to Navsari came up when Congress was in power. We demand that a white paper be issued by the government about the actual investment against the figures declared by various companies while signing MoUs during previous Vibrant Gujarat Summits," Gohil said.

He termed the Vibrant Gujarat Summit as a platform to indulge in corruption without any fear.

"If we corroborate the figures of investment declared during Vibrant Summits with the generation of employment, no youth will be left without a job in Gujarat," claimed Gohil.

If Modi's claim that foreign investors wanting to invest in Gujarat were being threatened by the then Central government (of UPA), then why no BJP leader elected from Gujarat to Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, including LK Advani, ever raised that issue if it was true? he asked.
Imphal, Sep 27 (PTI) Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said that the CBI director along with a specialised team will arrive in Imphal on Wednesday to investigate the killing of two youths who had been missing since July 6.

Photos of the bodies of the two missing youths went viral on social media, leading to protests by students in the state.

Altogether 45 students, many of them girls, were injured in Imphal Valley on Tuesday as the police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged protesters demonstrating against the killing of two youths who were allegedly kidnapped in July, officials said.

The photos surfaced on social media on Monday.

Singh posted on X: "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators."

"To further expedite this crucial investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director, along with a specialised team, will be arriving in Imphal tomorrow morning in a special flight. Their presence underscores the commitment of our authorities to swiftly resolve this matter," Singh said.

The CM further said he has been in constant touch with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to find the perpetrators of the killings.

The state government earlier said the case has already been handed over to the CBI.

More than 175 people have been killed and several hundreds injured since ethnic clashes broke out in the northeastern state on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts.
Imphal, Sep 27 (PTI) Violent protests continued to rock Manipurs capital for the second consecutive day on Wednesday as Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured Chief Minister N Biren Singh of quick action in dealing with the culprits responsible for kidnapping and killing two youths.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA was extended by another six months in Manipur on Wednesday barring 19 police stations falling under the Imphal valley and an area that shares its boundary with neighbouring Assam.

Curfew was also re-imposed in two districts of East and West Imphal as the Biren Singh government combatted violent protests which saw 65 demonstrators being injured over two days.

A CBI team flew in, in a special aircraft to help with the probe as Shah dialled Singh and assured him that those who had kidnapped and killed the two Manipuri youths would be arrested and punished.

Singh quoted Shah as stating that this case has to be dealt with very seriously and those responsible have to be booked as per the law of the land and assured that no one will be spared.

The chief minister told reporters: "The central and state governments are very serious about this case. Union Home Minister Amit Shah-ji called me up yesterday evening and told me that he is sending a CBI team on a special flight to investigate the particular case."

A team of CBI officials, led by the agency's Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar, has reached Manipur during the day.

After landing in Imphal, they (CBI) have started their investigation, the chief minister said without disclosing the place where the CBI team has gone.

The case began on July 6 with the disappearance of the two youths and it was handed over to the central agency on August 28.

Photos of their bodies surfaced on social media on Monday and went viral, leading to protests by students in the state.

Speaking on the nature of injuries suffered by demonstrators, Singh said, "If security forces had fired bullets or anything lethal, the government will not tolerate it and disciplinary actions will be taken against them. In case of major injuries, investigations would be carried out to give them justice."

"If our children get unjustified treatment even from our own forces, disciplinary actions will be taken," he assured.

The chief minister said that he had information that "objects made of iron were thrown at the security forces by miscreants who were among the demonstrating students," adding a number of police personnel were also injured.

He pointed out that agitations need to be peaceful and should not be held in hyper-sensitive zones of offices of the Governor and the chief minister.

On the extension of the AFSPA, a government notification said, "Now, therefore in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act... the Governor of Manipur hereby declare the entire state of Manipur excluding the areas falling under the jurisdiction of 19 police stations...as disturbed Area for a period of six months with effect from October 1, 2023."

Significantly, the areas that have been kept out of the purview of AFSPA are dominated by the majority Meitei community which includes Jiribam, adjacent to Silchar valley of Assam.

With the extension of AFSPA, the Army and Assam Rifles cannot operate inside the areas under the 19 police stations without the consent of the state police.

Security officials have been advocating bringing the entire state under AFSPA.

The Joint Students' Body: Lamka, a federation of various hill-based organisations, demanded reimposition of AFSPA in the valley districts.

"The complete breakdown of law and order in Imphal and the valley districts alone should be the reason for the reimposition of AFSPA," the organisation said in a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The security agencies have been warning that banned terror groups have been forming their base in the Imphal valley of the state.

They have also been warning about the possibility of these terrorists mingling with crowds during any protest to stoke tensions in restive Manipur, the sources said.

Manipur Police said a mob tried to attack the house of a political leader but the security forces stopped them. The crowd also burnt a police vehicle, while assaulting a policeman and snatching his weapon.



The identity of the politician was not disclosed.

Combing operations are being carried out for recovery of arms and catching miscreants, the police said on X.

More than 180 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic violence broke out in Manipur on May 3, when a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley, while tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, constitute 40 per cent and reside mostly in the hill districts. PTI COR MNB SKL ZMN NN JRC NN
Kohima, Sep 27 (PTI) Nagaland on Wednesday celebrated World Tourism Day with a stress on community participation in preserving and conserving the biodiversity and the rich flora and fauna for sustainable tourism in the state.

The state-level celebration was organised by the Tourism Department on the theme Tourism & Green Investment in Tseminyu district.

"Nagaland attained statehood 60 years back and reached an 80 per cent literacy rate. But with modernisation and industrialisation, Nagas have destroyed the state's rich flora and fauna," Tourism Minister Temjen Imna Along said.

If some measures are not taken, a day will come when people will start fighting for potable water and forests, he said highlighting the need for green investment.

Minister Along appreciated Khonoma Village of Kohima district for their efforts in becoming the greenest village in Asia and also for preserving the wildlife.

Calling upon all to follow the Khonoma model, he said, Community participation and commitment is a must to preserve the rich flora and fauna and also develop tourism circuits in the state.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) The National Investigation Agency Wednesday detained several suspects during a massive multi-state crackdown on a nexus of terrorists, gangsters and drug-smugglers, an official said.

The raids related to cases against the associates of Arsh Dalla, a listed terrorist, and many dreaded gangsters, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The respective state police force provided necessary support to the daylong raids carried out at 53 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh, a spokesperson of the federal agency said, the official said.

The official said pistols, ammunition, a large number of digital devices and incriminating material were seized during the raids aimed at dismantling the terror-gangster-smuggler nexus.

The action focused on weapon suppliers, financiers and logistics providers associated with various hardcore gangs working with drug-smugglers and terror outfits based in Pakistan, the UAE, Canada, Portugal and other countries, he said.

Some of the locations where raids were conducted included Amritsar, Moga, Fazilka , Ludhiana, Mohali, Faridkot, Barnala, Bhatinda, Ferozepur, SAS Naga and Jalandhar districts of Punjab; Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Faridabad districts of Haryana; Sri Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Hanumangarh and Jodhpur districts of Rajasthan; Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh; Dehradun and Udhamsingh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand, the spokesperson said.

Raids were also carried out in the southeast district of Delhi-NCR and Chandigarh, he said.

Besides Dalla, others under the NIA scanner in these raids were notorious gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Sukha Duneke, Harry Maur, Narender alias Lali, Kala Jatheri and Deepak Tinu, the spokesperson said.

The raids were the seventh in the series of such crackdowns launched by the NIA following the registration of five cases since August 2022, including the two new registered against organised criminal gangs in July this year.

The cases relate to conspiracies of targeted killings, terror funding of pro-Khalistan outfits and extortion by gangsters many of whom are lodged in jails or are operating from various foreign countries, the spokesperson said.

Investigations have revealed that these conspiracies were being hatched in jails in various states and were being executed by an organised network of foreign-based operatives.

These conspiracies included the sensational killing of Maharashtra builder Sanjay Biyani, mining trader Mehal Singh and international Kabaddi player Sandeep Nangal Ambia in Punjab last year, the spokesperson said.

The official said many of the criminals and gangsters who were earlier leading gangs in India have fled abroad in recent years and are now carrying out terror and violence-related activities from there.

"These criminals have been engaged in planning and commissioning serious crimes, including contract and revenge killings, in association with criminals lodged in jails across India. These groups have been carrying out targeted killings and raising funds for attacks and other nefarious activities through smuggling of drugs and weapons, hawala and extortions," the spokesperson said.

The official said the spotlight on these gangs got sharper after reports of several prisons becoming havens of the deadly nexus and hubs of gang wars which recently resulted in violence and murder inside Goindwal Jail.

The NIA had earlier conducted similar raids at over 370 locations, leading to seizure of 38 arms, including four lethal weapons, along with 1,129 rounds of ammunition.

The agency has so far frozen 87 bank accounts and attached 13 properties, besides seizing 331 digital devices, 418 documents and two vehicles.

Also, two absconders have been declared designated individual terrorists, and 15 accused as Proclaimed Offenders and Red Corner Notices (RCNs) issued against nine others as a result of NIA's efforts to destroy and dismantle the deadly nexus between terrorists like Dalla and dreaded gangsters and drug smugglers, the spokesperson said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday greeted citizens on the eve of Milad-un-Nabi, celebrated to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, and said that his teachings inspire all to live with harmony and brotherhood.

"Prophet Muhammad has given the message of peace and love to the world. His teachings inspire us to live with harmony and brotherhood. Let us remember his ideals and work together for the welfare of humanity," Murmu said in her message.

She extended her greetings to all fellow citizens, especially Muslims, on the occasion of Milad-un-Nabi.
Jammu, Sep 27 (PTI) Northern Army commander Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi has reviewed infrastructure development projects, which will enhance the operational capabilities of forces in Ladakh.

The general officer commanding in chief (GoC-In-C) visited Shyok valley in Ladakh on Tuesday, the Northern Command said on X.

He reviewed the infrastructural development projects, which will enhance the operational and logistic capabilities of the Indian Army, it said.

The Army commander was briefed by officials of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) on the ongoing Himank and Vijayak projects related to construction of critical road infrastructure in Ladakh.

The Army commander also lauded the troops for their relentless efforts.
A student participates in a Chinese language competition organized by Kabul University in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 27, 2023. The Chinese Language and Literature Department of Kabul University marked the "Confucius Institute Day" in Kabul on Wednesday by organizing a competition among Chinese learners.

Themed "Chinese Language and Me," the competition attracts some 120 guests from inside and outside the university. Competitors in their speeches revealed how and from when they began learning the Chinese language, their experience in China, and their memories during the Chinese language courses. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)

KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Language and Literature Department of Kabul University marked the "Confucius Institute Day" in Kabul on Wednesday by organizing a competition among Chinese learners.

"Five teams competed in the public speaking competition of Chinese language today, which was hosted by Kabul University and 17 persons found their way to the final," lecturer of the department Hamid Ghulami told Xinhua.

Themed "Chinese Language and Me," the competition attracts some 120 guests from inside and outside the university. Competitors in their speeches revealed how and from when they began learning the Chinese language, their experience in China, and their memories during the Chinese language courses.

The Chinese Language and Literature Department of Kabul University gives admission to some 50 students each year, Ghulami said, adding that currently, some 80 students are learning the Chinese language in the department.

Noor Rahman Ahmadi from Kabul University won the first place in the speech competition. 

A student participates in a Chinese language competition organized by Kabul University in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 27, 2023. The Chinese Language and Literature Department of Kabul University marked the "Confucius Institute Day" in Kabul on Wednesday by organizing a competition among Chinese learners.

Themed "Chinese Language and Me," the competition attracts some 120 guests from inside and outside the university. Competitors in their speeches revealed how and from when they began learning the Chinese language, their experience in China, and their memories during the Chinese language courses. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)
Srinagar, Sep 27 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir State Investigation Agency on Wednesday carried out raids at multiple locations in the valley in connection with the killing of a bank guard earlier this year, officials said.

The raids are being conducted in the south Kashmir districts of Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian, they said.

According to the officials, the raids are a part of the central agency's investigations into the killing of bank ATM guard Sanjay Sharma.

Sharma was gunned down by terrorists in Achan area of Pulwama in February this year.
Lucknow, Sep 27 (PTI) Surgeries were being performed at Amethi's Sanjay Gandhi Hospital though it did not have a licence, the Uttar Pradesh government told the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday, defending its action against the hospital run by a trust headed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.

The Lucknow Bench of the High Court was hearing a petition filed by the hospital challenging the suspension of its licence after the death of a patient earlier this month.

Also on Tuesday, the Congress and other constituents of the INDIA opposition bloc decided to temporarily call off their dharna over the issue outside the office of Chief Medical Officer (CMO) on Wednesday evening.

But employees of the hospital said they would continue their protest till the hospital is allowed to resume its work.

The licence of the hospital was suspended on September 17 and the facility was sealed after a woman who was admitted there for a minor operation died on September 14. Her husband has alleged that she died due to an overdose of anaesthesia.

A bench comprising Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manish Kumar, which was hearing a writ petition filed by the hospital's chief operation officer Avadhesh Sharma, sought details of the probe into the death of the patient.

For the petitioner, senior counsel JN Mathur argued that the suspension order was not sustainable because the authority that passed the order did not have the power to do so.

The petitioner's counsel alleged that the suspension order was passed due to "ulterior reasons".

Opposing the plea, additional chief standing counsel Rahul Shukla said that the hospital has no licence to conduct surgeries but even then it was doing so and hence the incident occurred in which a woman died during a minor surgery.

The licence has rightly been suspended and the inquiry is going on before passing the final order, he added.

The court asked the government counsel to seek instructions from the state on when the probe will be completed.

The court posted the matter for hearing on October 3.

Congress leader Deepak Singh and employees of the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital were holding protests separately against the suspension of the hospital's licence.

Pradeep Singhal, District Congress president, said, "Following discussions with the district officials, it was decided to temporarily call off the protest at CMO's office. Representatives of Samajwadi Party and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have also been informed about it."

Sonia Gandhi's representative in her Rae Bareli constituency Kishori Lal Sharma had joined the protest Wednesday at the request of the Amethi district party leaders, said Singhal.

Over 400 employees, who had started an indefinite demonstration at the hospital gate on Tuesday, have decided to continue with their agitation.

"We will continue with the protest till the hospital is allowed to resume its functioning," hospital employees union leader Sanjay Singh said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) Several teams are working to nab the accused in a jewellery showroom burglary in southeast Delhi's Bhogal area where unidentified people broke into the shop, made a hole in strong room and decamped with ornaments worth more than Rs 20 crore, police said on Wednesday.

The police said they have some clues and they are working on it to crack one of the biggest heist of the city.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast) Rajesh Deo said, "Multiple teams have been formed to identify and arrest the accused persons. So far, there are some preliminary leads, which are being worked upon. Ground intelligence and technical investigation is being done."

Another officer said the CCTV footage of the area are being checked to ascertain more details about the incident.

Other than local police, the Crime Branch and Special Cell units of the department are also working on the case.

The officer further stated that they are checking whether any specific gang, having similar modus operandi, was behind the incident. The investigators are also checking that whether the accused persons used an SUV car in the burglary.

At least three unidentified people were involved in the burglary, one of the biggest to have been reported in the national capital.

The shop, Umrao Singh Jewellers, had several CCTV cameras but they were damaged around midnight on Sunday, police said.

The owner closed the shop on Sunday around 8 pm and when he opened it on Tuesday around 10.30 am, he got to know about the incident. There is a safe locker situated on the ground floor in the shop having a heavy metallic gate and walls on three sides. The dealing with customers takes place on the ground floor of the showroom while its upper three floors are used for stock and repair works, police said.

When the owner opened the shop, he found that the concrete wall of the safe room has been damaged. The accused made a whole on one side of the wall having dimension of around one to one-and-half foot, they said.

The shop owner has reported a theft of 30 kg gold jewellery and Rs 5 lakh cash.

The shop remains closed on Monday and the owner got to know about the burglary on Tuesday morning when they opened the showroom.

Meanwhile, three bike-borne men wearing helmets robbed a jewellery store of ornaments worth Rs 28 lakh in north Delhi's Samaypur Badli on Wednesday, police said.

According to the police, the incident took place around 1.30 pm.

The suspects barged into the store and robbed around 480 grams of jewellery worth around Rs 28 lakh, they said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) A 49-year-old suspended teacher was arrested for allegedly threatening a deputy director in the education department who initiated a departmental inquiry against him, the Delhi Police said on Wednesday.

The accused has been identified as Sunil Kumar, a resident of Najafgarh, they said.

On Sunday, the complainant, deputy director in education department, had reached the Najafgarh police station. He alleged that Sunil came to his home with a pistol to threaten him, but he was not present there, a senior police officer said.

A departmental inquiry was initiated against Kumar on the complaint of the director. His tenant met Sunil whom he showed a pistol and threatened that his life was ruined due to him and he will kill him as and when he comes in front of him, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) M Harsha Vardhan said.

Police raided the house of Kumar and nabbed him when he was trying to flee out of Delhi. One pistol was recovered from his possession, the DCP said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) Several teams have been formed to probe the heist at a jewellery shop in south Delhi, a senior police official said on Wednesday.

At least three unidentified people broke into the showroom in Bhogal area after drilling a hole in a strong room and decamped with gold ornaments worth over Rs 20 crore on Tuesday, in one of the biggest burglaries reported in the national capital.

"We are holding meetings of the teams and have directed them to investigate the matter thoroughly. The teams will work under the guidance of senior police officials. We are also scanning all the CCTV camera footage for important leads," said the senior Delhi Police official.

"The teams are probing every angle and the culprits will be arrested soon," the official added.

The incident is expected to have occurred between Sunday night and Monday, police said, adding the shop, Umrao Singh Jewellers, remains closed on Monday.

The shop had several CCTV cameras but they were damaged around midnight on Sunday, police said.

"The owner closed the shop on Sunday around 8 pm and when he opened it on Tuesday around 10.30 am, he got to know about the incident. There is a safe situated on the ground floor in the shop having a heavy metallic gate and walls on three sides," a police official said on Tuesday.

"When the owner opened the shop, he found that the concrete wall of the safe room was damaged. The accused made a hole on one side of the wall having dimensions of around one to one-and-half feet. Forensic team was called at the spot," he said.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) A Delhi court has denied bail to a Maltese citizen in an alleged Rs 354 crore bank fraud-linked money laundering case also involving Ratul Puri, the businessman nephew of senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath.

Special Judge Raghubir Singh dismissed the bail application filed by Nitin Bhatnagar, a citizen of Malta and a former relationship manager of the Bank of Singapore, noting that the investigation regarding him was still going on and the Supplementary Complaint (EDs equivalent of charge sheet) showing the gist of the crime was yet to be filed.

No ground for grant of bail is made out and application in hand stands disposed of as dismissed, the judge said.

In the order passed on September 22, the judge also noted the alleged role of Bhatnagar in the crime and the amount of laundered money while denying him the relief.

The nature of the offence alleged, the magnitude of the allegedly laundered amount, the role of the accused/applicant as deciphered in the reply to the application in hand and also the fact that the Complaint qua him is yet to be filed, he having been arrested just a month ago, are also the factors which also impel the court not to lean in favour of the accused/applicant at this juncture, the judge said.

The money laundering case stems from a 2019 FIR registered by the CBI where it was alleged that Moser Baer India Ltd (MBIL) and its promoters allegedly cheated and defrauded the Central Bank of India, from which they had secured loan, to the tune of Rs 354.51 crore.

The case was registered after the bank sent a complaint to the CBI.

Both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate had booked Ratul Puri, his father Deepak Puri, mother Nita (Kamal Nath's sister) and some others. Ratul Puri was arrested by the ED in this case in 2019 and he is now out on bail.

The CBI and the ED have accused the Puri family and individuals like Sanjay Jain and Vineet Sharma of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and corruption.

Ratul Puri was booked in this case in his capacity as the then executive director of MBIL, a firm promoted by his father Deepak Puri.

The company was involved in manufacturing optical storage media like compact discs, DVDs, and solid state storage devices.

Ratul Puri had resigned from the post of executive director in 2012, while his parents continue to be on the board, the bank had said in a statement and complaint to the CBI.

The company (Moser Baer) was taking loans from various banks since 2009 and went for debt restructuring a number of times, the bank alleged in the complaint.

When it was unable to pay the debt, a forensic audit was done and the account was declared as "fraud" by the Central Bank of India on April 20, 2019, the CBI alleged.

Bhatnagar, the ED told the court, "facilitated" opening of a bank account for a company called Pristine River Investments Ltd (a Dubai-based investment holding company) in the Bank of Singapore, as he was its relationship manager.

This bank account was opened in April, 2011 "on the direction of Ratul Puri", it claimed.

The company was owned by Savannah Trust of which Ratul Puri was the "settler", the ED said.

It alleged Pristine River Investments Ltd was used for "layering" the proceeds of crime and Bhatnagar "knowingly assisted in doing so for the main accused Ratul Puri".

The company (Pristine River) "received the proceeds of crime amounting to USD 14.18 million (over Rs 118 crore) from companies like UHY Saxena, Mercon Commodities and Midas Metals International that were managed and controlled by Rajiv Saxena," the ED said in a statement.

Saxena, also an alleged middleman in the VVIP choppers deal corruption case, was based in Dubai and was deported to India from the UAE on January 31, 2019. He was arrested by both the ED and the CBI.

The ED termed Saxena "a hawala operator and an accommodation entry provider who runs an accommodation entry business in Dubai, who has laundered proceeds of crime for MBIL".

"He has created structures for laundering the proceeds of crime generated by Ratul Puri and his family members," it alleged.

The ED claimed before the court that Bhatnagar was instrumental in doing certain other acts which have a bearing on the present case.

Ratul Puri is facing investigation by the ED, CBI and the income tax department.
New Delhi, Sep 27 (PTI) The Chhattisgarh government on Wednesday withdrew from the Supreme Court its plea challenging on the ground of jurisdiction the Enforcement Directorate's action against state government officials in a money laundering case.

The money laundering case lodged in 2022 stems from an FIR registered on a complaint by the Income Tax department over allegations of illegal collection of levy on coal as well as attempts to influence public servants through corrupt means in Chhattisgarh.

The federal anti-money laundering agency claimed a massive scam took place between 2019 and 2021 in coal transportation in Chhattisgarh as part of which a cartel of politicians, officers and others was allegedly running a parallel system of extorting illegal levy.

In its plea, the Chhattisgarh government claimed the ED, on the basis of the FIR lodged in Bengaluru, registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in Raipur on September 29, 2022 and started an investigation against state government officials.

Chhattisgarh standing counsel Sumeer Sodhi told a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti on Wednesday he has instructions to withdraw the plea.

The bench allowed the state government to withdraw the petition and recorded Sodhi's submission.

The petition prayed the court to declare the ED's action illegal, without jurisdiction and unconstitutional.

The Chhattisgarh government, apart from seeking quashing of the ECIR, also urged the apex court to declare all subsequent actions by the ED with regard to the probe arbitrary and unconstitutional as they interfered with the functions of the state police.

The Chhattisgarh government alleged the investigation by the ED resulted in indiscriminate surveys and raids at various departments and offices of the state government, and arrest of state officials.

The state government had earlier this year filed a suit challenging the constitutional validity of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) alleging that central investigating agencies are being misused to "intimidate, harass and disturb" the normal functioning of the non-BJP state government.

The Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government filed the original suit challenging the law under Article 131 of the Constitution which empowers a state to move the Supreme Court directly in matters of dispute with the Centre or any other state.

Chhattisgarh became the first state to challenge the money laundering act. Earlier, private individuals and parties challenged the law on various grounds but its validity was upheld by a three-judge bench of the apex court last year.




Israeli Tourism Minister Chaim Katz (Likud) landed on Tuesday in Riyadh to participate in a conference of the United Nations Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Katz is the first Israeli minister to head an official delegation in Saudi Arabia.

During the visit, which will last two days, Minister Katz will participate in a number of events and professional discussions and will hold meetings with his counterparts, with an emphasis on ministers from the Middle East.

Additionally, according to Israeli media reports on Tuesday, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud) and Likud MK David Bitan, chairman of the Knessets Economic Affairs Committee, are flying to the Kingdom next week for a four-day visit to attend the Exceptional Posts Conference.

The visits are taking place on the background of a possible breakthrough in achieving a Saudi-Israei normalization deal.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)




A judge dismissed all charges, including a murder count, against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver who had a knife, agreeing with defense lawyers who said the officer could have feared for his life.

The municipal judge ruled after a courtroom packed with police and relatives of Eddie Irizarry watched about 20 minutes of harrowing video of the brief traffic stop that led to the death of 27-year-old. The defense argued that Officer Mark Dial acted in self-defense when he fired his weapon at close range through the rolled-up drivers side window of Irizarrys sedan on Aug. 14.

Dials partner, Officer Michael Morris, testified that he saw the driver holding a knife with a black metal handle that could have looked like a gun. He said Irizarry was holding the knife against his leg and started to raise it as Dial approached the car, which had stopped the wrong way on a one-way residential street.

I screamed that he had a knife, Morris testified.

Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle urged Judge Wendy Pew to drop all charges, which included manslaughter, official oppression and four other counts.

He is firing while trying to take cover, McMonagle said in court Tuesday, adding that the charges never should have been filed by District Attorney Larry Krasner.

I agree with you 100%, the judge replied as she threw out the case for a lack of evidence. Krasners office vowed to appeal to try to reinstate the charges, including the murder charge.

Irizarrys relatives appeared stunned and distraught by Pews ruling.

We are going to continue to fight for justice, because that was wrong, said Aracelis Brown, 28, the victims cousin.

Morris said the officers started following Irizarry after he sped past them in a bike lane and rounded a corner. They did not put their lights and sirens on, but sent in information about the vehicle. Morris said he was not sure if they received any information back for police radio.

Police bodycam footage shows Dial shot Irizarry about seven seconds after getting out of a police SUV and walking over to his car. He fired a total of six rounds.

Sitting at the defense table, Dial dabbed his eyes with a tissue as prosecutors played video of the fatal shooting from the officers body-worn camera. Krasner had called bodycam videos from Morris and Dial crucial evidence in the case, saying they speak for themselves.

The police department had to backtrack from initial statements that said Dial shot the driver outside the vehicle after he lunged at police with a knife. Dial, a five-year member of the force, had been suspended with the intent to dismiss after officials said he refused to cooperate with investigators.

Youre sitting here telling me that he was trying to lunge at you. He was not. He was locked in the car. So there was no way that he could get to you guys, and yet you still felt threatened and shot at him, said Brown, the cousin, who ascribed the judges ruling to favoritism toward police.

Defense lawyers noted that even the detective who had sought a warrant for Dials arrest asked that the top charge be voluntary manslaughter, not murder.

Dials bail had been revoked this month after prosecutors argued the charges made him ineligible for release. He was expected to be released sometime Tuesday.

(AP)




House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Tuesday unveiled financial transactions linked to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, involving substantial amounts originating from Beijing  including ones sent to an address listed as being Joe Bidens home.

According to records obtained by the committee, two wire transfers linked to Beijing-based BHR Partners were directed to Hunter Biden during the summer of 2019. BHR Partners is a joint venture that includes Hunter Bidens Rosemont Seneca and Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital, which is backed by the Bank of China Limited. Hunter Biden had been affiliated with the board of directors of BHR Partners.

One of the wire transfers, dated July 26, 2019, came from an individual named Ms. Wang Xin for $10,000. Interestingly, a person by the same name is found listed on BHR Partners website. The second, dated August 2, 2019, amounted to $250,000 and was sent by Li Xiang Sheng, also known as Jonathan Li, the CEO of BHR Partners, and Ms. Tan Ling. The committee is currently working to identify Lings role in the transaction.

Of note, the beneficiary address for these transactions was listed as 1209 Barley Mill Rd. in Wilmington, Delaware, known to be the residence of President Biden. It remains uncertain who provided this address in the transaction details and whether Hunter Biden resided there during this time.

These transactions took place shortly after then-Vice President Joe Biden declared his candidacy for the 2020 presidential race. Although Joe Biden has previously stated that he never discussed business matters with his son, other details suggest possible interactions between the former Vice President and BHR CEO Jonathan Li.

Evidence provided by Devon Archer, Hunter Bidens ex-business associate, indicated that Joe Biden had met with Li in Beijing and even penned a college recommendation letter for Lis daughter to Georgetown.

Comer commented on the revelations, stating, Joe Bidens abuse of public office for his familys financial gain threatens our national security. He emphasized the need for clarity on the transactions from Beijing and accountability for any improprieties.

In a contrasting statement from October 2019, George Mesires, Hunter Bidens then-attorney, clarified that Hunters role at BHR was unpaid and primarily revolved around his interest in seeking ways to bring Chinese capital to international markets. Mesires also highlighted Hunters commitment to invest about $420,000 to acquire a 10% equity position in BHR, emphasizing that he hasnt received any return on this investment. Hunter Biden resigned from BHRs board in October 2019.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
PHNOM PENH, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia recorded some 3.5 million international tourists in the first eight months of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 250.8 percent, the country's Prime Minister Hun Manet said Wednesday.

He released the figures in a message to mark the World Tourism Day 2023 under the theme "Tourism and Green Investments".

"With our Visit Cambodia Year 2023 campaign, Cambodia is projected to receive approximately 5 million foreign tourists in 2023, an expected rise of 120 percent (from 2.27 million in 2022)," Hun Manet said.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, the number of international visitors to the Southeast Asian country is predicted to reach 7 million in 2025, surpassing the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level of 6.6 million in 2019.

Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting Cambodia's economy, in addition to garment, footwear and travel goods export, agriculture, and construction and real estate.

The country has four world heritage sites, namely the Angkor Archaeological Park in the northwestern Siem Reap province, the Sambor Prei Kuk Archaeological Site in the central Kampong Thom province, and the Preah Vihear Temple and the Koh Ker Archaeological Site, both in the northwestern Preah Vihear province.

Besides, Cambodia boasts a 450-km pristine coastline stretching across four southwestern provinces of Sihanoukville, Kampot, Kep and Koh Kong. 




North Korea said Wednesday that it will expel a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country through the heavily armed border between the Koreas in July.

The Norths official Korean Central News Agency said that authorities have finished their questioning of Pvt. Travis King. It did not say when officials plan to expel him or to where.

King, who had served in South Korea, sprinted into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

On Wednesday, the state news agency said that King confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible.

The relevant organ of the DPRK decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, the state news agency said, using the initials of North Koreas formal name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

The White House, the State Department and the Pentagon did not have any immediate comment on the report.

Following weeks of silence, North Korea confirmed in August that it had detained King, 23, and was investigating the circumstances surrounding his border crossing.

King was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had so many reasons to want to come home.

I just cant see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home, she said.

Unauthorized crossings across the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas are extremely rare. The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

It wasnt immediately clear how King might be expelled. In some prior cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve captive Americans. That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

In December 1994, Bill Richardson  who up until his death earlier this month served for many presidential administrations as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter  traveled to North Korea in 2007 to recover the remains of servicemembers killed in the Korea War.

U.S. officials have said that King has been declared AWOL, which can be punished by time in the brig, forfeiture of pay or dishonorable discharge with the severity based on the amount of time away and whether the service member was apprehended or returned on their own.

(AP)




A shocking new revelation from Semafor has implicated a Pentagon official, Dr. Ariane Tabatabai, as part of a covert Iranian communications operation dubbed the Iran Experts Initiative. Despite the report, the Pentagon has insisted that Tabatabai was properly vetted prior to her security clearance.

The investigation by Semafor focused on emails from Iranian top brass, exposing the initiatives links to Tehrans hardline regime. These correspondences allegedly tie Dr. Tabatabai and various overseas scholars to Irans foreign ministry, suggesting a potential influence over American policies.

Tabatabai wasnt the only name on the list; others included aides to Robert Malley, a Biden administration envoy to Iran who faced a previous suspension for purportedly mishandling classified information. It remains uncertain if Malleys earlier issues were connected to the aforementioned influence network.

The State Departments Matthew Miller deflected concerns by referencing the age of the info, alluding to its near decade-old origin. The Pentagon, on the other hand, hasnt clarified if they were privy to this alleged connection before the public disclosure.

In a recent CNN appearance, White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, sidestepped inquiries about the validity of these claims, stating theyre still processing the reports.

The Iran Experts Initiative reportedly had a free pass to Western policymaking, especially evident during the Obama administrations 2015 nuclear deal negotiations. Semafors citation of a 2014 email revealed discussions between Iranian dignitaries regarding a select group of influential Iranian-descendants, including Dr. Tabatabai.

With previous allegations by Iranian dissident groups and Republican legislators against Tabatabai in 2021, the administration dismissed them as unfounded and racially biased. Yet, the current expose has reignited these concerns, with numerous Republican leaders demanding an immediate review of Dr. Tabatabais clearance.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




The U.S. soldier who sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas two months ago was released into American custody, the White House announced Wednesday.

Earlier, North Korea had said it would expel Pvt. Travis King  though some had expected the North to drag out his detention in hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the two countries.

U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. We appreciate the dedication of the interagency team that has worked tirelessly out of concern for Private Kings wellbeing.

Officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to expel King, but said they suspected that Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information. One official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity, said the North Koreans may have decided that King was more trouble to keep than to simply release him.

Swedish officials took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by the U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China, and at least one U.S. Defense Department official. Biden administration officials insisted they provided no concessions to North Korea to secure the soldiers release.

We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King, Sullivan added.

King was being flown to a U.S. military base in South Korea before being returned to the U.S.

Kings expulsion almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

And there remain unanswered questions about the episode, including why King went to North Korea in the first place. His fate also remains uncertain, having been declared AWOL by the U.S. government. That can mean punishment by time in military jail, forfeiture of pay or a dishonorable discharge.

In the near term, officials said that their focus would be on helping King reintegrate into U.S. society upon his return, including helping him address mental and emotional concerns, according to a senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on the transfer.

The soldier was in good spirits and good health upon his release, according to one senior administration official. He was to be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and was expected to arrive overnight, officials said.

King, who had served in South Korea, ran into North Korea while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18, becoming the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

Sweden was the chief interlocutor with North Korea on the transfer, while China helped facilitate his transfer, administration officials said.

Biden administration officials expressed gratitude for Chinas assistance with the transfer but underscored that Beijing did not play a mediating role in securing Kings release. The U.S. first learned through Swedish officials earlier this month that North Korea was looking to expel King. That information accelerated the effort to release King with Sweden acting on the United States behalf in its talks with the North, an official said.

On Wednesday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency reported that authorities had finished their questioning of King. It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army and was disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.

It has attributed similar comments to King before, and verifying their authenticity is impossible. Some previous foreign detainees have said after their releases that their declarations of guilt while in North Korean custody were made under coercion.

The White House did not address the North Korean state media reports that King fled because of his dismay about racial discrimination and inequality in the military and U.S. society. One senior administration official said that King was very happy to be on his way back to the United States.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, Kings mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had reason to want to come home. She thanked the U.S. government on Wednesday for securing her sons release.

Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done, Jonathan Franks, spokesperson for Gates, said in a statement. For the foreseeable future, the family asks for privacy and Ms. Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

King, who is from Wisconsin, was among about 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. U.S. officials had expressed concern about Kings well-being, citing the Norths harsh treatment of some American detainees in the past.

Both Koreas ban anyone from crossing their heavily fortified shared border without special permissions. The Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the worlds most cloistered societies.

North Koreas decision to release King after 71 days appears relatively quick by the countrys standards, especially considering the tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the Norths growing nuclear weapons and missile program and the United States expanding military exercises with South Korea. Some had speculated that North Korea might treat King as a propaganda asset or bargaining chip.

The U.S. has also publicly accused North Korea of providing munitions to Russia for its war with Ukraine and says that Moscow is pushing Pyongyang to provide even more military aid. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met for talks in Russias Far East earlier this month.

Biden administration officials on Wednesday downplayed any idea that the release could augur a broader shift by Kim, but reiterated that the U.S. remains ready to engage the North with diplomatic talks.

In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasnt worth keeping, possibly because of the cost of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Koreas Sejong Institute.

Captive Americans have been flown to China previously. In other cases, an envoy has been sent to retrieve them.

That happened in 2017 when North Korea deported Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma at the time of his release and later died.

(AP)




Nearly all the worlds on stage, and all the men and but 20 women merely players. Thats what a less-inspired Shakespeare might have written about this years U.N. General Assembly meeting of leaders, which concluded Tuesday.

Over six days, a cavalcade of world leaders addressed the U.N. General Assembly against a literal backdrop of marbled green and a more figurative one of diplomatic rows, reignited tensions and a litany of world crises.

Now, the speeches have been spoken, the right of reply has been duly exercised, and the worlds stage  or at least its spotlight  has been effectively dismantled until next year, although the work of the United Nations continues year-round.

There were too many things happening to count at the United Nations this past week. Nevertheless, we tried.

UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSIONS: 78

September marks the opening of the 78th session, presided over by Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago. Each session runs for a year.

DAYS OF GENERAL DEBATE: 6

As in recent years, the General Debate stretched over six days  but ended a day later than usual. Running from Tuesday, Sept. 19, through Tuesday, Sept. 26, the speeches paused for Sunday  as is typical  and Monday, to mark Yom Kippur.

SPEAKERS: 194

This count includes U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who opened proceedings, and Francis, who gave opening and closing speeches (he is only counted once). It also includes the three permanent observers  Palestine, the Holy See and the European Union  who are invited to address the General Assembly alongside the 193 U.N. member states.

But wait, you might ask after some basic math, shouldnt there be 198 speakers? Who was missing?

ABSENCES: 4

Afghanistan, Myanmar, Niger and Madagascar were each absent from the rostrum. This is the third year in a row where Afghanistan and Myanmar have been silent, following the respective takeovers by the Taliban and military junta, and subsequent credentialing dispute. Niger underwent a coup this year, too, and its junta accused Guterres of trying to appease France and its allies by denying its preferred envoy the chance to speak.

As for Madagascar, its absence is less clear, especially after the countrys foreign minister met with Guterres on Monday. A spokesperson for the president of the General Assembly told The Associated Press that Madagascar  which was on a provisional list of speakers  chose not to speak, but that no reason was given. An email address and phone numbers listed for Madagascars mission to the U.N. were not operational and the AP could not immediately reach the government for additional comment.

FIRST SPEECH: Brazil

LAST SPEECH: Morocco

Brazil spoke first, per tradition. Morocco spoke last, which is not per tradition (last year, that spot went to Nauru). The order of speakers is generally determined by who a country sends, their preference and availability and geography. Which brings us to

TYPE OF SPEAKERS

Presidents: 85

Prime ministers: 41

Kings: 2

Princes: 2

Emirs: 1

Ministers, of some sort: 47

Vice presidents: 6

Transitional or interim leaders: 2

Permanent representatives: 6

There were more presidents in New York this year than last, but fewer prime ministers. Overall, the United Nations touted attendance as a return to form after the coronavirus pandemic. At a briefing Tuesday, the U.N. revealed it issued General Assembly passes to more than 10,800 delegates (up from 6,755 last year) and 2,255 media representatives (up from 1,141). It also issued more than three times the number of special event tickets this year, at about 40,000 (compared to 12,000 last year).

I think it showed that this is a place where we all have to come to discuss these global issues, said Guterres spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.

The tally of speakers delineates the heads of government, heads of state, ministers and other representatives who spoke. Five royals took the rostrum  the kings of Jordan and Eswatini, the emir of Qatar, the prince of Monaco and a prince of Saudi Arabia, who is also that countrys foreign minister (the list above only counts him in the prince column).

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy Sees secretary of relations with states, functions as the Vaticans foreign minister and is counted in the ministerial tally.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan is Sudans transitional leader, and returned to the rostrum for the second year. Speaking for Pakistan was its caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, ahead of planned elections early next year.

GENDER OF SPEAKERS

Male: 174

Female: 21

The number of women speaking at the General Assembly has historically been few: in 2021, it was 18, last year, 22. The lack of womens representation was noted by several speakers, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Where are the women of the world? he asked on the first day of the General Debate.

Only 10 of the women who spoke were actually heads of state or government.

In his speech at the opening of the second-ever Platform of Women Leaders, Francis noted that the U.N. has never had a female secretary-general (something Gloria Steinem told the AP last week she wants to change) and only four women have served as president of the General Assembly.

LANGUAGES USED TO DELIVER SPEECHES: 23

English: 107

French: 21

Spanish: 20

Arabic: 18

Portuguese: 8

Korean: 2

Russian: 2

While some speeches featured sprinklings of another language (or in Luxembourg and Canadas case, a healthy heaping of French), we counted based on the bulk of the speech.

Once again, the only official U.N. language in which just one speech was delivered was Chinese. The other languages deployed just once: Bengali, Catalan, Croatian, Farsi, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tajik, Turkish, Uzbek, Vietnamese. The U.N. has a language unto itself, slipped into many an address.

AVERAGE LENGTH OF SPEECHES: Around 19 minutes

While the first day of speeches was notably long  nearly every speech that day flagrantly fouled the strongly recommended 15-minute time limit  it eventually evened out on track with last years average. If you were inclined to watch every speech, back to back, it would take about 3,728 minutes  or 2 1/2 days.

SHORTEST SPEECH: Libya, at about 7 minutes and 10 seconds

Fathallah al-Zani, Libyas youth minister and temporary foreign minister, told the U.N. his country was weighed down with sadness after devastating floods killed thousands. Libya has a divided government; al-Zani belongs to the Tripoli government, in the west.

LONGEST SPEECH: Burkina Faso, at about 37 minutes and 46 seconds

Bassolma Bazie, Burkina Fasos minister of state, delivered a polemic that, among other topics, addressed conflict in the Sahel, discussed imperialism and trade and condemned homosexuality.

EXERCISES OF THE RIGHT OF REPLY: 23

After speeches close for the day, countries can choose to exercise their right of reply  a rebuttal, in essence. While its timebound and still stately  theres no interrupting the largely pre-written statements usually delivered by a low-level diplomat  its still generally the spiciest the General Debate gets.

This year, Japan exercised it thrice, the most of all countries. Its statements rebutted concerns over the discharge of radioactive wastewater. Algeria and Morocco traded heated statements over matters in the Western Sahara twice each, as did Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Guatemala and Iran also used their right twice, though not at each other. India, Pakistan, South Korea, North Korea, China, Guyana, Belize, and the United Arab Emirates each went once.

(AP)




Rabbanim and politicians excoriated the leftists in Tel Aviv and elsewhere who prevented tefillos from taking place on Yom Kippur in the name of liberal values.

Senior Dati Leumi Rav, HaRav Shmuel Eliyahu, wrote: Whoever saw all the Democrats violently forcing their values on the religious and traditional public understands that these are violent people who are using the word democracy to forcibly impose their values on the majority.

This is not their defense against our supposed coercion. They force us to daven according to their progressive values. No one is forcing them to daven together or individually. No one forced them to fast or eat kosher. But what do we want from them? They have the backing of the court. The next time you are told that the Supreme Court protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, ask who it protected in this delusional ruling! In light of this ruling, people in Haifa were prevented from davening in shuls in tents. According to them, these shuls are public spaces and its forbidden to daven separately. Dont say we didnt tell you  tomorrow the liberals with their progressive judges will ban us from davening in regular shuls as well.

After them will come petitioners who will appeal against the right of parents to circumcise their children. And what they failed to do over a thousand years of galus, theyll succeed in doing in the name of freedom and equality.'

Does it seem delusionary to you? A petition has already been submitted to the Supreme Court to ban parents from circumcising their sons. What will prevent them from banning Bris Milah in the name of progress and liberal values? All the politicians who support these violent people today will explain to you tomorrow that banning Bris Milah is legal and legitimate.

I am looking for a center-left person who dares to raise his voice against this secular coercion. against the violent protesters. Someone who understands that the court is bringing us into a religious war like weve never seen before. We fought for our freedom of religion for 2,000 years. We will not give it up now in the State of Israel.

Chief Rabbi of Israel HaRav Dovid Lau stated: I heard with great sadness about the events that happened around the tefillah on the most kodesh day for Am Yisrael. The most special day of the year turned into a sad day due to the wild incitement of elements who hate religion. There are those who forgot the essence of the day and continued the waves of seething hatred.

The resident of Tel Aviv came to the tefillos and wanted to daven according to halacha without imposing anything on anyone but only for those who were interested. And then we saw that under the guise of freedom, a very broad public is prevented from davening according to their minhagim. The events remind us of difficult days in Jewish history. The State of Israel which was established as a home for the Jewish people must serve as a place where one can live as Judaism requires. All those who claim that the State of Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, please remember that being Jewish is no less important than being democratic.

As a native of Tel Aviv, I have no doubt that the majority of Tel Aviv residents abhor the disturbances and protests against Yom Kippur tefillos on the streets of a city and I call on those who continue to inflame tensions to stop  stop before its too late.

Eid 2023: Over 100 Muslims pray in Charles Clore public park in Tel Aviv, left in peace by secular residents. Yom Kippur 2023: Jews are attacked by secular residents for praying in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv. This is not about public prayer. pic.twitter.com/zRCu2x4gIi  Chaya   (@chayarivka) September 25, 2023

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)




The Shin Bet thwarted an Iranian attempt to carry out terror attacks in Israel and assassinate senior political figures, the security organization revealed on Wednesday.

Five terrorists involved in the alleged plot were arrested, including three Palestinians  Murad Kamamaja, a 47-year-old resident of Kefar Daan, Hassan Mujarimah, a 34-year-old resident of Jenin, and Ziad Shanti, a 45-year-old resident of Jenin  and two Israeli Arabs from northern Israel.

The Shin Bet investigation revealed that Kamamaja and Mujarimah acted under the guidance of an agent living in Jordan, who was working on behalf of Iranian security officials.

The two were asked to assist in smuggling weapons into Israel and gathering intelligence about senior Israeli public figures, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and former Likud MK Yehuda Glick. An attempt to harm Ben-Gvir failed thanks to his heavy security detail.

Kamamaja and Mujarimah were also instructed to carry out attacks inside Israel, including setting Israeli vehicles on fire. The two recruited Shanti to assist in the attacks.

Later, Shanti recruited the two Israeli-Arab suspects, who set fire to Israeli cars in Haifa in June and filmed the incidents. According to the Shin Bet, the incidents were a test for their Iranian handlers and much more serious attacks would have been carried out if the plot wasnt thwarted.

All five men were indicted for grave security violations in military court and in the Haifa District Court.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)
Britain has given the go-ahead for Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea.

Equinor, which holds a majority stake in Rosebank, one of the biggest undeveloped oil and gas fields on the British continental shelf, will invest $3.8billion, or around 3.1billion, alongside London-listed partner Ithica Energy to develop the field.

The move is likely to provoke fresh criticism from environmental campaigners, including Greta Thunberg, who had voiced strong opposition to the development.

The announcement is also likely to reignite the debate around Britain's climate change strategy after Rishi Sunak last week watered down the country's interim plans to hit the 2050 net zero target.

The Rosebank field, which lies north-west of Shetland, is currently one of the largest untapped discoveries in UK waters.

Going ahead: Britain has given the go-ahead for Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea

Environmental campaigners had urged the Conservative government to halt the Rosebank development, arguing it contravened the plan for a net-zero economy.

But Sunak threw his weight behind the North Sea in July, saying Britain needed new domestic fossil fuels to improve energy security.

The field is expected to produce 300million barrels of oil in its lifetime. First production is expected in 2026-27.

Rosebank could produce 69,000 barrels of oil per day, about 8 per cent of the UKs projected daily output between 2026 and 2030, and could also produce 44million cubic feet of gas every day, according to Equinor.

'We have today approved the Rosebank Field Development Plan which allows the owners to proceed with their project,' the North Sea Transition Authority said.

It added: 'The FDP is awarded in accordance with our published guidance and taking net zero considerations into account throughout the projects lifecycle.'

Targets: Rishi Sunak watered down the country's interim plans to hit the 2050 net zero target last week

Oslo-listed energy company Equinor will be operator of the field alongside the FTSE 250's Ithaca Energy.

The Rosebank development is expected to lead to 8.1 billion of total direct investment, 78 per cent of which is likely to be invested in UK-based businesses, Ithaca said.

It is expected to support around 1,600 jobs during the height of the construction phase of the project, and will, Ithaca claimed, continue to support around 450 UK-based jobs during the lifetime of the field.

Gilad Myerson, executive chairman of Ithaca Energy, said: 'We are delighted to announce the decision to move forward with the Rosebank development alongside Equinor.

'Rosebank stands as the largest undeveloped field in the UK, and with the receipt of development consent from the NSTA, we are now poised to embark on a journey that will not only provide critically important domestic energy but also ignite substantial economic impact.

'The Rosebank project will create thousands of jobs and contribute significantly to securing the UK's energy needs for many years to come.'

Ithica Energy shares soared 8.5 per cent to 177p in early trading on Wednesday.

The UK Government welcomed the decision and said it has been subject to extensive scrutiny by the regulators, including undergoing a detailed environmental impact assessment process and a period of public consultation before approval was granted.

It said that all new projects, including Rosebank, will be in line with the natural decline of the North Sea basin.

Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho said: 'We are investing in our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognise, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank.

'The jobs and billions of pounds this is worth to our economy will enable us to have greater energy independence, making us more secure against tyrants like (Vladimir) Putin.

'We will continue to back the UKs oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.'

But, Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Philip Evans claimed the move proves the Prime Minister 'puts the profits of oil companies above everyday people'.

He added: 'We know that relying on fossil fuels is terrible for our energy security, the cost of living, and the climate. Our sky-high bills and recent extreme weather have shown us that.

'The ugly truth is that Sunak is pandering to vested interests, demonstrating the stranglehold the fossil fuel lobby has on Government decision making. And its bill payers and the climate that will suffer because of it.

'Why else would he make such a reckless decision?'
Specialist insurer Hiscox has reached a deal to offload its operations in Asia for an undisclosed amount.

Ignite Thailand Holdings, the parent company of online insurer Roojai, has agreed to purchase DirectAsia, which provides motor and travel insurance to customers across Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

DirectAsia became Hiscox's first Asian business when it was bought nine years ago for $55million (32.8million) from Whittington Group in order to expand the firm's direct-to-consumer offering.

Deal: Hiscox said the decision to sell DirectAsia follows a recent strategic review to focus on core markets 'where it sees the greatest opportunities to maximise value for shareholders'

Last year, the division wrote $52.5million in gross premiums, a 12.2 per cent increase at constant currency levels on the previous year, as loosening travel restrictions led to a resurgence in motor-related sales.

Hiscox said the decision to sell DirectAsia follows a recent strategic review to focus on core markets 'where it sees the greatest opportunities to maximise value for shareholders'.

The group employs more than 3,000 people across 14 countries, and sells cover to individuals and companies for a range of risks, including kidnap and ransom, hacking, and natural catastrophes.

Completion of the transaction is expected to happen sometime before the end of the year.

The announcement comes a month after the London-listed group revealed pre-tax profits skyrocketed more than tenfold to $264.8million in the first half of this year.

Earnings growth was driven by higher underwriting profits as the volume of written premiums received boosts from rising property rates in its Hiscox Re and London market segments.

Profitability was further boosted by an uptick in bond reinvestment yields producing a positive investment result of $121.8million, compared to a $214.1million loss the prior year.

Aki Hussain, chief executive of Hiscox, said the firm was 'well-positioned to deliver high-quality growth in revenue and earnings, as we continue to drive disciplined growth in positive market conditions across our big-ticket segments'.

Hiscox shares were 1.45 per cent, or 15p, lower at 10.21 on early Wednesday afternoon and remain significantly down on pre-pandemic levels.

Due to the global Covid-19 health crisis, Hiscox was forced to hand over hundreds of millions of pounds to firms who had tried to make claims for event cancellations and business interruption policies.

Its former chief executive, Bronek Masojada, admitted the company had suffered 'some brand damage' related to disputes over payouts to customers.
Campaigners say BT has quietly raised the age from when you can delay it to 75

BT is ditching a pledge to ensure phone users aged over 70 can keep their landlines and will not be forced on to controversial new digital lines for 12 months - and is signing them up straight away.

The telecoms giant was made to shelve its initial rollout last year after an investigation by our sister newspaper The Mail on Sunday alerted the industry watchdog Ofcom to operational flaws, including how customers cannot use their phone lines in a power cut.

It was only restarted after an advisory group agreed to allow elderly homeowners the chance to delay installation by 12 months so they could get to grips with the new technology and not feel forced by the move.

Among those involved in this Digital Voice Advisory Group was campaigning organisation for the elderly, Silver Voices.

Aaron Comber of Steyning, Sussex, fears his 75-year-old mother will be isolated if forced to switch over

The change to traditional copper landlines will be rolled out across the UK at different times over the next year

But it now feels tricked - as after agreeing to the deal BT is quietly raising the age from when you can delay installation to 75.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, says: 'We were part of that advisory group and agreed not to oppose the resumed rollout as long as those aged 70 were looked after during the change. We have been hoodwinked and BT has broken this pledge.'

Although BT is alerting homes of the change - with cards and letters sent through the post, emails and texts - it is leaving it up to customers to put it on hold.

The new digital phones must be plugged into an electric socket and require a broadband connection to work - using so-called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology rather than analogue signals on copper lines.

Six million adults do not own a mobile phone and 1.5 million homes do not use the internet.

Digital Voice requires customers to use a new handset - or adapter for old phones - that plugs into an internet and electricity socket.

If you do not use the internet, BT says it will send out engineers to adapt phone lines for free - and provide a new digital handset and adapter for free.

BT charges 85 for power-pack batteries for those who fear they may be stuck in a power cut - but for vulnerable customers it should provide these for free. Phone users should not notice a change in sound quality.

Over the next two years BT wants to switch 10 million customers to digital. Nationwide, the Government wants all 29 million homes to embrace digital technology.

BT initially agreed it would allow everyone aged 70 or older a chance to delay switching for a year to give customers time to adapt to the technology.

Digital Voice is being rollout out region by region. Some two million homes have already switched over.

In July, it focused on the East Midlands and in August started contacting those in Yorkshire and Humberside, giving them a four-week warning they were next to connect. Northern Ireland is also being targeted.

Homes in the North-West and London are to be contacted this autumn. Customers are initially targeted with emails and texts, along with cards posted through the letterbox. BT is holding regional town hall meetings.

BT has announced the next phase of its Digital Voice switchover - which will see the old copper network scrapped in favour of broadband phone calls

BT memorably used Maureen Lipman as 'Beattie' (pictured) to promote landline services in the 1980s

Jackie Carlton, 70, of Kilham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was told she and husband Allan, 71, would be switching in the summer - but were not given any information about how they could delay the switch because Jackie could be classified as vulnerable, as she has cancer.

The retired librarian says: 'The hospital tried to call to book an appointment, but the landline had been switched to digital voice without my knowledge - so nothing got through. We live in a rural area with power cuts and terrible mobile reception so I rarely use a mobile phone. My experience shows how this switchover puts people's lives at risk.'

BT says it 'won't be proactively switching' vulnerable homes, but admits the onus is on the customer to ask for the telecoms giant to give them a 12-month reprieve.

Q&A: WHAT IS THE SWITCHOVER AND WILL IT AFFECT ME? Will I need a fast connection? Internet speeds of just one megabit per second (Mbps) should be enough for a good digital phone service. And every UK household has the right to demand a download speed of at least 10 Mbps. Will my bills rise? Customers will have to pay for the internet to use their home phone. But experts have said providers are likely to offer cheap, basic deals similar to landline-only contracts. It is not known if customers with older phones will need to buy a new handset or if they will get one for free. What if the internet goes down? If the internet crashes or there is a power cut, digital phone lines will stop working. Those who are vulnerable or do not have a mobile phone should be offered a back-up such as a battery pack, emergency phone line or mobile phone so they can still call 999 in an emergency. What do I need to do? Nothing yet. Those on landline-only deals or without the internet will hear from their providers later on.

Ruth Comber, 75, of Steyning in West Sussex, says: 'As a widow I am totally reliant on my landline. I have a mobile phone, but the reception is so bad where I live it would be quicker to use pigeon post for communication. This switchover fills me with dread.'

Her son Aaron, 53, a former pub landlord says: 'Anyone in a rural area with no mobile reception will be left totally isolated in a power cut.'

After the switch, old phone lines simply go dead - and those unaware of the change-over may not realise what has happened until calls stop or they cannot dial out.

Others affected include those wearing health pendants or with a home alarm system connected to the local fire service, as these will also usually stop working.

Neville Withers, 84, of Acton in West London, says: 'There are many like me with mobility problems. I have a button attached to my wrist I can press in an emergency. It is routed through a traditional landline to a care centre. If the button fails, it could be a matter of life and death.'

Other telecoms providers involved in the digital rollout include Virgin Media. It has five million customers, including retired mental health nurse Trevor Bailey.

The 73-year-old says: 'I am having a perfectly good landline being changed to a system I do not want. I cannot get hold of Virgin on the phone without it trying to connect me to an 'expert chatbot' computer - so I'm struggling to get hold of a real person to explain my desire not to switch.'

Virgin says it can provide phones for vulnerable customers in case of power cuts with eight hours back-up time. It also claims that it will offer technical support up to six months ahead of the change - with engineer visits.

BT says: 'We are trialling the rollout of Digital Voice to a limited number of broadband customers aged over 70 who live in urban areas and are ready to switch. Early results show 98 pc of customers between the ages of 70 and 74 chose to switch.'

It said the upgrade to 'future proof landlines' was essential because existing technology 'is fast becoming obsolete'.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people were injured on Wednesday after a massive fire broke out at a chemical factory in the northern Indian state of Punjab, police said.

The fire broke out at the factory on Kurali-Chanalon road in the Mohali district, about 30 km west of Chandigarh, the capital city of Punjab.

"Eight people, mostly workers, were injured in the blaze and they were immediately rushed to the nearest hospital," a police officer said. "The condition of four workers is said to be serious."

The firefighters had "a tough time" to contain the fire and explosions were heard, said the police officer.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Police have registered a case and ordered an investigation into the incident. 
StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE:HT  Free Report) in a research report report published on Sunday. The firm issued a sell rating on the real estate investment trusts stock.

Several other analysts also recently issued reports on the company. B. Riley downgraded Hersha Hospitality Trust from a buy rating to a neutral rating and upped their price objective for the company from $9.00 to $10.00 in a research report on Friday, September 1st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Hersha Hospitality Trust from $6.50 to $7.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 12th. Oppenheimer downgraded Hersha Hospitality Trust from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $10.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Hersha Hospitality Trust from a buy rating to a hold rating and increased their target price for the stock from $8.75 to $10.00 in a research report on Monday, August 28th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Hersha Hospitality Trust from $7.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and ten have assigned a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $9.63.

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Hersha Hospitality Trust Price Performance

Hersha Hospitality Trust Announces Dividend

HT opened at $9.86 on Friday. The businesss fifty day moving average is $8.25 and its two-hundred day moving average is $6.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.71 and a current ratio of 1.71. The company has a market cap of $395.19 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.18 and a beta of 1.86. Hersha Hospitality Trust has a one year low of $5.64 and a one year high of $10.31.

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 29th will be paid a $0.05 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 28th. This represents a $0.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.03%. Hersha Hospitality Trusts dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 6.45%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new position in Hersha Hospitality Trust in the second quarter valued at about $30,000. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky purchased a new position in Hersha Hospitality Trust in the third quarter valued at about $36,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Hersha Hospitality Trust in the fourth quarter valued at about $43,000. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in Hersha Hospitality Trust by 114.2% in the first quarter. Quarry LP now owns 5,226 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 2,786 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG boosted its holdings in Hersha Hospitality Trust by 206.2% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 5,621 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $45,000 after purchasing an additional 3,785 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 56.96% of the companys stock.

About Hersha Hospitality Trust

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Hersha Hospitality Trust (HT) is a self-advised real estate investment trust in the hospitality sector, which owns and operates luxury and lifestyle hotels in coastal gateway and resort markets. The Company's 25 hotels totaling 3,811 rooms are located in New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, South Florida, and California.

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Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. provides investor communications and technology-driven solutions for the financial services industry. The company's Investor Communication Solutions segment processes and distributes proxy materials to investors in equity securities and mutual funds, as well as facilitates related vote processing services; and distributes regulatory reports, class action, and corporate action/reorganization event information, as well as tax reporting solutions. It also offers ProxyEdge, an electronic proxy delivery and voting solution; data-driven solutions and an end-to-end platform for content management, composition, and omni-channel distribution of regulatory, marketing, and transactional information, as well as mutual fund trade processing services; solutions for public corporations and mutual funds; data and analytics solutions; SEC filing and capital markets transaction services; registrar, stock transfer, and record-keeping services; and omni-channel customer communications solutions, as well as operates Broadridge Communications Cloud platform that creates, delivers, and manages communications and customer engagement activities. Its Global Technology and Operations segment provides solutions that automate the front-to-back transaction lifecycle of equity, mutual fund, fixed income, foreign exchange and exchange-traded derivatives, order capture and execution, trade confirmation, margin, cash management, clearing and settlement, reference data management, reconciliations, securities financing and collateral management, asset servicing, compliance and regulatory reporting, portfolio accounting, and custody-related services. This segment also offers business process outsourcing services; technology solutions, such portfolio management, compliance, fee billing, and operational support solutions; and capital market and wealth and investment management solutions. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Lake Success, New York.
Synovus Financial Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Synovus Bank that provides commercial and consumer banking products and services. It operates through four segments: Community Banking, Wholesale Banking, Consumer Banking, and Financial Management Services. The company's commercial banking services include treasury and asset management, capital market, and institutional trust services, as well as commercial, financial, and real estate loans. Its consumer banking services comprise accepting customary types of demand and savings deposits accounts; mortgage, installment, and other consumer loans; investment and brokerage services; safe deposit services; automated banking services; automated fund transfers; internet-based banking services; and bank credit and debit card services. The company also offers various other financial services, including portfolio management for fixed-income securities, investment banking, execution of securities transactions as a broker/dealer, and trust and financial planning services, as well as provides individual investment advice on equity and other securities. The company was founded in 1888 and is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia.
Mativ Holdings, Inc. operates as a performance materials company. The company operates through two segments, Advanced Technical Materials and Fiber-Based Solutions. The Advanced Technical Materials segment manufactures and sells polymer, resin and fiber-based substrates, nets, films, adhesive tapes, and other nonwovens. This segment serves filtration, protective solutions, release liners, healthcare, and industrials end-markets. The Fiber-Based Solutions segment provides packaging, printing, and specialty papers; and various paper-based products for the consumer channel, such as bright papers, cardstock, stationery paper, envelopes, journals, and planners. It also offers combustibles products comprising conventional papers and filter wraps, low-ignition propensity papers wrappers for small cigars, and hemp-based alternatives; noncombustibles; and lightweight papers. This segment serves cigarette and cigar manufacturers, and commercial print and combustibles end-markets. The company sells its products in the United States, Europe and the former Commonwealth of Independent States, the Asia Pacific, the Americas, and internationally. The company was formerly known as Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. and changed its name to Mativ Holdings, Inc. in July 2022. Mativ Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.
Unum Group, together with its subsidiaries, provides financial protection benefit solutions primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, and internationally. It operates through Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, and Closed Block and Corporate segments. The company offers group long-term and short-term disability, group life, and accidental death and dismemberment products; supplemental and voluntary products, such as individual disability, voluntary benefits, and dental and vision products; and accident, sickness, disability, life, and cancer and critical illness products. It also provides group pension, individual life and corporate-owned life insurance, reinsurance pools and management operations, and other miscellaneous products. The company sells its products primarily to employers for the benefit of employees. Unum Group sells its products through field sales personnel, independent brokers, consultants, and independent contractor agency sales force. Unum Group was founded in 1848 and is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Carrier Global Corporation provides heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC), refrigeration, fire, security, and building automation technologies worldwide. It operates through three segments: HVAC, Refrigeration, and Fire & Security. The HVAC segment provides products, controls, services, and solutions to meet the heating, cooling, and ventilation needs of residential and commercial customers. Its products include air conditioners, heating systems, controls, and aftermarket components, as well as aftermarket repair and maintenance services and building automation solutions. The Refrigeration segment offers transport refrigeration and monitoring products and services, as well as digital solutions for trucks, trailers, shipping containers, intermodal applications, food retail, and warehouse cooling; and commercial refrigeration solutions, such as refrigerated cabinets, freezers, systems, and controls. The Fire & Security segment provides various residential, commercial, and industrial technologies, including fire, flame, gas, smoke, and carbon monoxide detection; portable fire extinguishers; fire suppression systems; intruder alarms; access control systems; video management systems; and electronic controls. Its other fire and security service offerings comprise audit, design, installation, and system integration, as well as aftermarket maintenance and repair and monitoring services. The company offers its products under the Autronica, Det-Tronics, Edwards, Aritech, Fireye, GST, Kidde, LenelS2, Marioff, Onity, and Supra; Carrier, Toshiba, Automated Logic, Bryant, CIAT, Day & Night, Heil, NORESCO, and Riello; and Carrier Commercial Refrigeration, Carrier Transicold, and Sensitech brands. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Eli Lilly and Company is a US-based multinational pharmaceutical company. It is the 12th largest pharmaceutical company by revenue and has offices in 16 countries. Its medicines are sold in at least 125 countries including its 8 blockbuster drugs. The company is a member of the S&P 500 and S&P 100 indices, it brought in roughly $5.5 billion in revenue for 2021 and employs more than 35,000 people across its network of research and production facilities.

Eli Lilly and Company was founded in 1876 by Colonel Eli Lilly. The colonel, a veteran of the Civil War, had recently dissolved an unsatisfactory partnership and set on his own to produce and develop medicinal chemicals. Colonel Lilly remained as president until his death in 1898. His charge to his family, company and coworkers was to take what you find here and make it better and better. The company is well-known for many drugs, including the first mass-marketing of quinine to treat malaria.

The company brought in $4,470 in its first year and saw that figure grow 10X over the next 3. Among the many innovations during this time period is the addition of gelation coatings for pills which helped set the company up for rapid expansion. The company was incorporated in 1881 as Eli Lilly and Company issuing stock to family and friends. The 1900s brought about more change for the company, change in the form of expansion which included international markets.

Advancements during the war years included increases in efficiency due to increased automation and the development of precision technologies. Among the technologies was pill manufacturing which included injecting medicines directly into a gelation capsule. This method allowed for more exact dosing, setting the standard for modern production. The company produced capsules for itself and sold excess capacity to competitors. Other major advancements include fruit flavorings in medicine, straight-line manufacturing and a method of blueprinting manufacturing tickets to prevent errors.

The modern period saw the company grow and discover new, world-class pharmaceuticals. Today, the company is engaged in the discovery, development and marketing of human pharmaceuticals. It offers a wide range of treatments, including Prozac but is perhaps most noteworthy for its work with insulin. The company is the first to mass produce insulin and has made numerous advances in treating diabetes in the time since. While other drugs are more widely known, its diabetic drugs Basaglar, Jardience, Trulicity, Humalog and Humulin are its top-sellers and contribute the bulk of revenue and cash flow.

Along with Diabetic research, the company also focuses on Alzheimer's, Oncology, Immunology, Obesity and Pain care. At the end of 2022, the company pipeline had 23 compounds in Phase 3 clinical trials and 1 in review. There were another 18 in Phase 2 trials and more than 2 dozen in Phase 1 trials. The average cost to discover a new drug was running at $2.6 billion with a 10-year discovery-to-patient timeline.
Turkiye extended condolences Wednesday for a deadly fuel depot explosion and fire in the Garabagh region of Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency.

"We extend our condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this tragic incident and wish a speedy recovery to the injured," said the Foreign Ministry. "If needed, Turkiye is ready to provide the necessary assistance."

According to the received information, dozens were killed and more than 200 were injured in the explosion at a fuel storage facility.

The facility is near Khankendi, where Azerbaijan started counterterrorism activities last Tuesday.

That was after two people were killed when a truck belonging to an Azerbaijani government institution hit a mine on the Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway in the Jabrayil region last week. Four police officers responding to the scene were also killed when their vehicle struck another mine.

Later, Azerbaijan said it launched "counter-terrorism" measures in its Garabagh region to uphold provisions outlined in a trilateral peace agreement with Russia and Armenia to end a 2020 conflict.

Azerbaijans Defense Ministry said last Wednesday that under an agreement achieved with the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the region, it decided to halt counter-terrorism activities.
TOKYO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese research team conducted an aerial experiment dispersing a pollen-inhibiting agent in forests of the eastern Japanese prefecture of Tochigi to assess its effectiveness in alleviating cedar pollen allergies that afflict millions of Japanese citizens annually.

The team led by Professor Kaihei Koshio from Tokyo University of Agriculture used helicopters to disperse agents with varying concentrations over approximately 6 hectares of cedar forest in the town of Shioya on Wednesday, multiple local media outlets reported.

The primary component of these agents was sorbitan trioleate, a common food emulsifier and cosmetic humectant known for its minimal ecological impact.

As per Japan's environment ministry, sorbitan trioleate acts as a plant growth regulator, functioning by reducing the production of ethylene, a hormone associated with stamen development and pollen generation in plants. This mechanism effectively induces stamen necrosis, inhibiting pollen production in cedar trees.

Koshio said their future research will involve regular monitoring of stamen conditions and pollen dispersion patterns to validate the effectiveness of the approach.

Cedar pollen allergies, referred to as "kafunsho" in Japan, have been a long-standing seasonal concern. Cedar trees, primarily Cryptomeria japonica, release copious amounts of pollen during the spring months, leading to allergic reactions and respiratory issues in many people.

Japan's cedar forests encompass approximately 4.4 million hectares, roughly 12 percent of the country's land area. The prevalence of cedar trees corresponds to a high incidence of cedar pollen allergies.

Statistics from 2019 revealed a staggering 38.8 percent prevalence rate for cedar pollen allergies in Japan, meaning that approximately one in three individuals suffered from this condition. The direct and indirect medical costs associated with cedar pollen allergies in the country amounted to nearly 2 billion U.S. dollars annually.

The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries is actively promoting the gradual replacement of current cedar species with low-pollen-producing cedar varieties and other tree species.

However, based on ministry data, a complete transition from existing cedar forests to low-pollen cedar trees would take more than 1,100 years at the current pace. 
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (ECO) have significantly improved employment, education, medical care, and drinking water conditions in Pakistan during the last 10 years, said Chairman of Pakistani Senate Sadiq Sanjrani.

Sanjrani held a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong here on Tuesday and acknowledged the transformative impact of the CPEC projects for development and prosperity, according to a statement from the chairman's office.

The chairman said the progress achieved under the CPEC benefited from China's concept of building a community with a shared future for humankind.

Sanjrani said Pakistan has always regarded China as its closest friend and most reliable partner, and is willing to further strengthen friendly exchanges and pragmatic cooperation with China in various fields.

During the meeting, Jiang said China is ready to work with Pakistan to fully implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and accelerate the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future. 
SYDNEY, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on Wednesday called on the United States to show more respect to Pacific leaders at the U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit, according to Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation.

The summit held last year did not bring the expected outcomes as promised, Sogavare said during a press conference, adding that the U.S. strategies "need to be changed and respect Pacific leaders by giving them more time to discuss matters of concern and interest during such summits."

Sogavare defended his decision to not sit in at this year's summit, believing that domestic affairs are more important for him as the prime minister.

"There are only 10 weeks left before parliament dissolves, and we have many bills before parliament. These are issues that are more important to me as the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands than attending the summit," he said.

The second U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit was held on Monday at the White House. Instead of staying in the United States to participate in the summit, Sogavare returned to his country after attending the 78th United Nations General Assembly session in New York. 
[September 26, 2023] China Information Technology Development Limited (CITD) Announces Strategic Appointment of Expert Advisers to Accelerate Growth and Expand Industry Network Following HKD$100M Acquisition Tweet

HONG KONG, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- China Information Technology Development Limited (CITD) (HKEX: 8178), a leading technology company specializing in AI, Blockchain, and Digital Ownership Tokens (DOTs), is pleased to announce significant developments in its leadership and strategic advisory team to reinforce CITD's commitment to innovation and excellence while expanding its industry network through key associations. Effective from 1 October, the company will engage with the following distinguished team of expert advisers who will work with the Company and its Board and play a pivotal role in supervising and monitoring CITD's progress, bringing a wealth of knowledge, experience, and valuable connections to the table. Their combined expertise will further elevate CITD's position in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. In particular, the board of advisers will be interested in the progress that CITD will be making in the commercialisation and practical and responsible application and implementation of their AI and Web3 technologies to enhance and improve existing industries. The team of advisers includes: 1. Julian So - Head of the Board of Advisers : A legal expert qualified in three jurisdictions and possessing extensive experience in the finance industry, Mr. Julian So currently serves as the Group CEO of XBE and Chairman at GIANT (Global Industry Alliance for Native Token). As Head of the Board of Advisers, Mr. Julian So will play a pivotal role in overseeing CITD's progress and ensuring that the company's innovations are effectively harnessed for the commercialization and practical application across various industries. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to guide CITD's endeavours in the dynamic AI and Web3 landscape while ensuring strategic alignment and effective governance. Notably, Mr. So has voluntarily opted for a symbolic compensation of USD1 per year for his role as Head of the Board of Advisers. This decision underscores his deep commitment to CITD's mission and is a clear a testament to his dedication towards driving responsible technological advancements. 2. Getty Goh - Strategic Adviser : A seasoned strategist wit a proven track record, Mr. Getty Goh will provide invaluable insights to shape CITD's strategic direction and enhance its competitive positioning in the market.



3. Joshua Chu - Risk Adviser : Mr. Joshua Chu, a distinguished risk management specialist, will contribute his expertise to help CITD identify, assess, and manage risks effectively, ensuring the company's long-term stability and resilience. He also holds the esteemed position of co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association (HKW3A), enhancing CITD's connections in this burgeoning sector. 4. Gerald Gn - Partnerships Adviser : With a wealth of experience in forging strategic alliances, Mr. Gerald Gn will play a pivotal role in identifying and nurturing partnerships that align with CITD's growth objectives.

5. Kevin Tan - Brand Adviser : Serving as Brand Adviser, Mr. Kevin Tan will focus on enhancing CITD's brand presence and reputation, ensuring it remains a trusted and recognized name in the industry. 6. Rachel Lim - Communications Adviser : As the Communications Adviser, Ms. Rachel Lim will lead efforts to strengthen CITD's communication strategies, fostering transparency and engagement with stakeholders and the public. Mr. Daniel Wong, Chief Executive Officer of CITD, expressed his confidence in these professional experts , stating, "These expert advisers bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to CITD. Their collective insights will be invaluable as we navigate our path forward. We are committed to leveraging their guidance to drive CITD's success in the dynamic technology landscape." In a statement, Mr. So shared his perspective on this appointment, saying, "I am honoured to take on this role with CITD, a company at the forefront of AI and Web3 technologies. Our focus will be on the responsible implementation and enhancement of these technologies to drive positive change across industries. I look forward to contributing to CITD's mission and helping shape the future of technology." Mr. Julian So's leadership, along with the expertise of the entire team of advisers and the Company, will be instrumental in guiding CITD as it continues to leverage AI and Web3 technologies to enhance and improve existing industries, fostering innovation and responsible technological advancement. For more information about CITD and its latest developments, please visit www.citd.com.hk. For media inquiries, please contact:

China Information Technology Development Limited

Email: [email protected] About China Information Technology Development Limited (CITD - 8178.HK) China Information Technology (CITD - 8178.HK) is a company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and wholly owns two subsidiaries - DataCube and Macro Systems. The business of the group is mainly providing integrated marketing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, big data analytics, cloud technology, system integration services and data storage to clients across different industries in Asia. To learn more about CITD, please visit www.CITD.com.hk View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/china-information-technology-development-limited-citd-announces-strategic-appointment-of-expert-advisers-to-accelerate-growth-and-expand-industry-network-following-hkd100m-acquisition-301938975.html SOURCE China Information Technology Development Limited

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[September 26, 2023] JULIUS MEINL PARTNERS WITH SAWA WORLD TO HELP ENRICH LIVELIHOODS OF COFFEE FARMERS Tweet

VIENNA, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- This World Coffee Day, Viennese coffee roaster Julius Meinl is launching an initiative as part of its The Originals line to help empower coffee farmers in Uganda. The initiative which builds on the success of its Generations Program, aims to help coffee farmers enrich productivity, invest in growing greater quality beans, and spot opportunities to diversify their incomes. Since 2018, it has been fundamental to Julius Meinl achieving its ambition of providing training that is designed to enact on-the-ground change and improve the lives of the farmers it works with in Colombia. Now the premium coffee roaster is supporting 100 more farmers, this time in Uganda's Lwengo District. This is in addition to the 200 Colombian farmers who are already in line for support btween now and 2025 - focusing on regenerative agriculture and low carbon production.



To ensure the farmers' individual training needs are met, Julius Meinl has partnered with Ugandan non-profit organisation, Sawa World. The programme will entail a needs assessment to identify which skills will add the most value, followed by a series of workshops focusing on sensitization, marketing, business management and how to secure start-up capital. With the initiative seeking to "make a difference, one cup at a time," Julius Meinl is donating 10 extra hours of training on behalf of every partner serving Generations Program blends.

Carina Needham, Julius Meinl's Director of Sustainability, said: "Our goal is not only to create delicious, memorable coffee moments, but to do our bit to protect the planet and act responsibly for future generations. "With Sawa World, we can create transformative community-level projects and make a difference to the livelihoods of coffee farmers. Supporting coffee-growing communities is essential, especially given the social, economic and environmental challenges they may face, from unpredictable incomes to climate crisis." Sheila Ampumuza, Country Director at Sawa World, added: "We are delighted to be working with Julius Meinl in supporting their efforts to cultivate sustainable growth. The Generations Program is a fantastic initiative which is already making an impact on the livelihoods of coffee farmers elsewhere." With World Coffee Day being celebrated on 1st October 2023, the initiative will run throughout September and until 31st October, where Julius Meinl will be offering a sting of promotions for partners who choose The Originals blends. www.juliusmeinl.com/sustainability View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/julius-meinl-partners-with-sawa-world-to-help-enrich-livelihoods-of-coffee-farmers-301939483.html SOURCE Julius Meinl

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[September 26, 2023] World's Deepest Mining Site Trusted Oizom's Real-Time Air Quality Monitors for Maintaining Occupational Health & Safety Tweet

AHMEDABAD, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In a pivotal move to elevate occupational health, safety, and environmental standards, Oizom has successfully deployed its real-time air quality monitor - Dustroid - at the world's deepest gold undermine South Africa. Oizom is a leading global company in environmental monitoring solutions with over 2000 devices installed to cater to various industries. The gold mine, distinguished by its Guinness World Record for staggering depth, has daily operations that see over 4000 miners excavating more than 5400 metric tonnes of rock. Such an expansive operation inevitably leads to massive dust generation. When combined with the mine's notably high temperatures, this dust can severely compromise the air quality, posing respiratory hazards to the miners. This could impact their long-term helth, diminishing their quality of life.



Ensuring the air miners breathe is of the best quality isn't just good practiceit's essential. Remember when miners used Canary birds to know the air quality on mining sites? Thankfully, those days are behind us.

With Oizom's Dustroid, we are not just talking about an upgrade; it's a game-changer. Imagine a device that doesn't falter, even with particulate matter concentrations of up to 30,000 ug/m3 or when temperatures rise above 40C. Dustroid offers more than just readings, it gives us a clear picture by breaking down the various gases detected within the dust. With automated dust suppression systems, you can automate sprinklers or other techniques to take quick actions and avoid potential hazards. With the accurate data insights offered by our dust monitoring system , the mine has been able to implement preventive measures, reducing potential health risks for the miners. Reflecting on this landmark collaboration, Jainam Mehta, CBO of Oizom, commented, "We are immensely proud to see Dustroid making such a profound impact in one of the world's most challenging mining environments. Our mission has always been to create safer, more sustainable workspaces, and this partnership reiterates the capabilities and commitment of Oizom's solutions." In an industry where atmospheric conditions directly impact operational efficiency and safety, Oizom stands out as the beacon of transformative change by providing accurate real-time air quality monitoring in mines . For media inquiries and further information, please contact:

Jainam Mehta - CBO at Oizom

hello@oizom.com SOURCE Oizom Instruments Pvt. Ltd.

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[September 26, 2023] SHIFT4 PAYMENTS SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Shift4 Payments, Inc. - FOUR Tweet

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until October 19, 2023 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Shift4 Payments, Inc. (NYSE: FOUR), if they purchased the Companys securities between November 10, 2021 and April 18, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Get Help Shift4 investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-four/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Shift4 and certain of its executives are chargedwith failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.



On April 19, 2023, Blue Orca Capital reported that Shift4 [is], in reality, a roll-up of low-tech POS systems and payment processors which is substantially less profitable, generates far less cash, and is materially more levered than investors are led to believe, and that in 2022, the Company engaged in a string of highly questionable and hyper-aggressive accounting maneuvers seemingly designed to keep the stock afloat, from cash flow manipulation to inexplicable distributor acquisitions that enabled it to capitalize a major component of COGS [cost of goods sold]. On this news, shares of Shift4 fell $5.95 per share, or 8.68%, to close at $62.59 per share on April 19, 2023.

The case is O'Meara v. Shift4 Payments, Inc., et al., No. 23-cv-03206. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.



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[September 26, 2023] HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. - HE Tweet

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until October 23, 2023 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE: HE), if they purchased the Companys securities between February 28, 2019 and August 16, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Get Help Hawaiian Electric investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-he/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Hawaiian Electric and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.



The alleged false and misleading statements and omissions include, but are not limited to, that: (i) the Companys wildfire prevention and safety protocols and procedures were inadequate to meet the challenges for which they were ostensibly designed; (ii) accordingly, despite knowing the degree of risk that wildfires posed to Maui, the Companys inadequate safety protocols and procedures placed Maui at a heightened risk of devastating wildfires; and (iii) as a result, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. The case is Bhangal v. Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc., et al., No. 23-cv-04332.

About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.



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[September 26, 2023] UIPATH SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against UiPath Inc. - PATH Tweet

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until November 6, 2023 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against UiPath Inc. (NYSE: PATH), if they purchased the Companys shares between April 21, 2021 and March 30, 2022, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Get Help UiPath investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-path or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit UiPath and certain of its exectives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.



On March 30, 2022, the Company, a global provider of robotic process automation software, announced its financial results for the quarter and year ended January 31, 2022, disclosing disappointing earned revenues results as well as guidance for ARR (annualized renewal run-rate, an important indicator of the Companys success) and revenue that were substantially below consensus analysts expectations, indicating that the declining growth trends adversely impacting the Company were expected to continue. On this news, shares of UiPath fell $7.45, or more than 25%, to close at $21.59 per share on March 31, 2022.

The case is Gera v. UiPath, Inc., et al., No. 23-cv-7908. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com .



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YANGON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and at least 15 others injured in an explosion at a petrol station in Myanmar's eastern Shan state on Wednesday, an official said.

The explosion took place at DENKO petrol station, located in Lashio township of the state at around 5:00 p.m. local time, said U Kyaing from a rescue organization.

At least three of the injured were in critical condition, he added. 
[September 26, 2023] CS DISCO SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against CS Disco, Inc. - LAW Tweet

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until November 20, 2023 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against CS Disco, Inc. (NYSE: LAW), if they purchased the Companys shares between July 21, 2021, and August 11, 2022, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Get Help CS Disco investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-law/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit CS Disco and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.



On August 11, 2022, the Company released disappointing financial results for the second quarter of 2022, disclosing that revenue growth had decelerated drastically over past quarters and that it would no longer be including in its guidance any revenues attributable to its largest customers for the entire year, shocking investors and analysts alike. On this news, shares of CS Disco plummeted $15.53 between August 11, 2022 and August 12, 2022, a drop of more than 53%.

The case is Gambrill v. CS Disco, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-08270. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.



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[September 26, 2023] Moomoo Canada Is Bringing Pro-Level Tools, Data, And Affordable Stock Trading to Canadian Investors Tweet

HONG KONG, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- From September 21st, Moomoo Financial Canada Inc. ("moomoo CA", [1]) allows Canadian investors to trade US stocks using moomoo, a global stock trading platform that was officially introduced to Canada in August. "As a global investment and trading platform at the forefront of US stock trading, we are thrilled to introduce our new US stock trading feature to Canadian investors," said Steve Zeng, moomoo's Head of Global Strategy. "In addition to the pro-level analytical tools, free Level 2 data, and exceptional services offered by moomoo, we are now offering Canadian investors an easy and affordable way to trade US stocks." Moomoo empowers investors with affordable trading fees, charging a minimum of $1.99 per order, making it a highly competitive option for Canadian individual investors [2]. As of August 26th, comparative data shows that some other Canadian brokerages may charge their clients between $4.95 and $9.99 per trade for US stocks and ETFs [2]. Additionally, moomoo offers an appealing currency conversion fee of 0.09% for CAD to USD transactions for amounts less than $100,000. In contrast, some other brokerages may charge 1% or higher for each transaction [2]. Trade like a pro using moomoo's tech-driven trading platform Moomoo, founded in Palo Alto, California five years ago, is dedicated to transforming investment experience through technological innovation. Supported by a robust research and development team, moomoo remains committed t supporting investors of all backgrounds with simplified access to professional-grade investment resources and education.



This year marks a significant milestone as Moomoo's Research & Development affiliate has successfully obtained a patent, duly authorized by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for an innovative method that enables investors to create and personalize charts within the moomoo app. The patented tools include technical analysis tools, including Gann Fans and Fibonacci retracements, commonly utilized by professional traders. These represent just a portion of the comprehensive toolkit, comprising of 45 drawing tools, including 10 tools that were newly released last week, and more than 100 investment indicators, all of which are freely available to Canadian investors.

In response to the discerning needs of individual investors seeking professional-grade information, moomoo offers a range of comprehensive, highly visualized company insights directly from the moomoo platform. These insights reveal vital company financial data and trade overviews, potentially helping investors to stay up on the market trends. Furthermore, moomoo offers an array of innovative and advanced tools, including Heat Maps, Paper Trading, Stock Screener, Institutional Tracking, Industrial Chains, and so much more. With real-time data updates occurring as short as every 0.03 seconds, moomoo empowers investors with the information needed to make more informed investment decisions. Join a real social trading platform in Canada, meet like-minded investors worldwide Moomoo's global investor community enables investors from multiple regions to come together and share their stories, experiences, and advice. In collaboration with its sister brand, moomoo's community has grown to over 20 million users as of May 2023, through regular community events and free online investor education courses. "Being a real social trading platform in Canada, we cultivate a unique ecosystem helping our users grow. As of the end of the second quarter, the click-through rates for Moo Learn's front-page content surged by 21%, while course completion rates witnessed a remarkable 44% increase compared to the previous quarter," Steve added. "The world is eager to hear the voice of Canadian individual investors, and we look forward to more contributions from Canadian investors in our moo community." Several days before Moomoo CA's launch of stock trading, its sister company Moomoo Japan also launched their US stock trading functionality. Through the moomoo platform, Japanese investors gained access to approximately 7,000 tradable US stocks and ETFs. This trading function launch establishes a new pinnacle in the Japanese online brokerage industry, providing access to the highest number of tradable US shares available. Impressively, it surpasses the second-highest competitor in the Japanese industry by nearly 30% [3]. [1] ln Canada, investment products and service available through the moomoo app are offered by Moomoo Financial Canada Inc., a broker-dealer member of Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). [2] The rates provided are for informational purposes only and may not represent the complete range of available rates. It is possible that you may discover rates that are more favorable than those presented in this comparison. (For information on moomoo CA's Rates and Pricing, please visit:https://www.moomoo.com/ca/pricing) [3] https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/moomoo-japan-launches-online-brokerage-business-offering-about-7-000-tradable-us-stocks-301933736.html View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/moomoo-canada-is-bringing-pro-level-tools-data-and-affordable-stock-trading-to-canadian-investors-301938755.html SOURCE Futu Holdings

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[September 26, 2023] Hithium and CES Expand ESS Partnership With After-sales Cooperation Tweet

Stationary battery manufacturer Hithium has officially signed an After-sales Service Cooperation Authorization Agreement with Clean Energy Services (CES), a renowned provider of Operation & Maintenance services for the renewable energy industry. The agreement adds a new servicing element to the existing cooperation between the two parties, focusing on energy storage products in the U.S. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926700414/en/ Signing ceremony between Ahmad Atwan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of CES, Hithium's Director of After-Sales Ben Bian and Head of Global Business MiZhi Zhang (from left to right) (Photo: Business Wire) Hithium's Director of After-Sales Ben Bian said: "This is a significant step for Hithium in establishing a foothold in the American energy storage market and advancing our range of services for our U.S. custoers. We look forward to the deeper collaboration with CES and the opportunity to demonstrate our customer-centric focus and technological expertise."



Nancy Zakhour, Chief Commercial Officer at CES, expressed her enthusiasm about the partnership: "This alliance with Hithium is a testament to CES' unwavering commitment to delivering best in class renewable energy servicing support. Our seasoned expertise in the battery energy storage sector uniquely positions us to bolster Hithium's expansion in the USA market. Through this collaborative endeavor, we aim to further the reach and impact of clean, reliable, and efficient energy solutions." The manufacturer is expanding its production capacity to 70 GWh by the end of this year and has already shipped 11 GWh of battery products since its founding in 2019.

About Hithium Founded in 2019, Hithium is a leading manufacturer of top-quality stationary energy storage products for utility-scale as well as commercial and industrial applications. With four distinct R&D centers and multiple "intelligent" production facilities, Hithium's innovations include groundbreaking safety improvements to its lithium-ion batteries as well as increases in lifecycle. With decades of cumulative experience in the field among its founders and senior executives, Hithium leverages its specialization in BESS to deliver partners and customers unique advances in energy storage. The company is based in Xiamen, China, with further locations in Shenzhen, Chongqing, Munich, and California. Hithium has shipped 11 GWh of battery capacity, 5 GWh in 2022 alone, and is expanding its current 45 GWh of production capacity to 70 GWh by the end of 2023. About CES Clean Energy Services (CES) was established with the aim of delivering top-notch operations and maintenance (O&M) services to the renewable energy sector. Boasting over 25 years of experience in nurturing successful energy enterprises and channeling billions of dollars into various energy projects, CES has positioned itself as a comprehensive renewable energy services firm with a core focus on Storage, Solar, and Wind energy. The firm offers an extensive array of services including construction advisory/owner's representation, commissioning, as well as O&M services (encompassing preventive, corrective, and predictive maintenance). Additionally, CES provides augmentation, repowering, and technology-driven analytics through its Remote Operations Center, solidifying its stance as a full lifecycle service provider in the renewable energy domain. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926700414/en/

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[September 26, 2023] Configure Price And Quote (CPQ) Software Market to grow by USD 3.18 billion between 2022 - 2027 | Growth Driven by Increasing need for higher productivity - Technavio Tweet

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Configure Price And Quote (CPQ) Software Market report has been added to Technavio's offering. With ISO 9001:2015 certification, Technavio has proudly partnered with more than 100 Fortune 500 companies for over 16 years. The potential growth difference for the configure price and quote (CPQ) software market between 2022 and 2027 is USD 3.18 billion. The rising need for higher productivity is one of the key factors driving growth in the configure price and quote (CPQ) software market. CPQ software aids sales management personnel in boosting productivity by reducing their dependence on paperwork and documentation. It accelerates pricing and configuration processes, leading to cost reduction for organizations. Moreover, cloud-based CPQ software enables time savings. Additionally, it facilitates legacy system integration, addresses management hurdles, and eliminates inconsistencies in pricing data. Get deeper insights into the market size, current market scenario, future growth opportunities, major growth driving factors, the latest trends, and much more. Buy the full report here Market Challenge - The lack of coordination among business units will be a significant challenge restricting market growth. The effective implementation of CPQ software requires the involvement and collaboration of multiple business units within the enterprise. Moreover, when sales teams implement CPQ software without proper consultation with other departments such as IT, product management, and finance, it can result in the failure of the implementation process. For example, decisions related to product pricing, including discounts, should be made in consultation with the finance team before the software rollout. The low success rates observed during the implementation process greatly affect the adoption of CPQ software by companies, resulting in decreased sales. Hence, these factors are expected to restrict market growth during the forecast period. Learn about additional key drivers, trends, and challenges available with Technavio. Read Free Sample PDF Report Now The configure price and quote (CPQ) software market is segmented by Deployment (Cloud-based and On-premise), End-user (IT and telecom, BFSI, Automobile, and Retail and others), and Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa). The cloud-based segment will be significant during the forecast period. Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, and Cincom are some examples of cloud-based CPQ software vendors. Companies that must share updated information such as product classification as it gives access to real-time data to all authorized parties consider CPQ software as an ideal platform. Furthermore, cloud-based social media management solutions are deployed over public, private, and hybrid cloud computing models. Hence, such factors drive the growth of the cloud-based segment of the CPQ software market during the forecast period.

will be significant during the forecast period. Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, and Cincom are some examples of cloud-based CPQ software vendors. Companies that must share updated information such as product classification as it gives access to real-time data to all authorized parties consider CPQ software as an ideal platform. Furthermore, cloud-based social media management solutions are deployed over public, private, and hybrid cloud computing models. Hence, such factors drive the growth of the cloud-based segment of the CPQ software market during the forecast period. North America will contribute 39% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. View Free Sample Report for insights into the contribution of all the segments and regional opportunities in the report. Key Companies in the configure price and quote (CPQ) software market: Accenture Plc, Apttus Corp., Aspire Technologies, Cincom Systems Inc., CloudSense Ltd., ConnectWise LLC, Experlogix LLC, Hansen Technologies Ltd., International Business Machines Corp., Koch Industries Inc., Model N Inc., Oracle Corp., Pros Holdings Inc., Revalize Inc., Salesforce Inc., SAP SE, Tacton Systems AB, Vendavo Inc., Yagna iQ Inc., Zuora Inc. Related Reports: The Digital Manufacturing Software Market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 15.9% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 35,320.04 million. The Software Market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 8.47% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 27.86 billion.







Configure Price And Quote (CPQ) Software Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2022 Historic period 2017-2021 Forecast period 2023-2027 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 20.2% Market growth 2023-2027 USD 3.18 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 18.71 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution North America at 39% Key countries US, China, Japan, Germany, and France Competitive landscape Leading Vendors, Market Positioning of Vendors, Competitive Strategies, and Industry Risks Key companies profiled Accenture Plc, Apttus Corp., Aspire Technologies, Cincom Systems Inc., CloudSense Ltd., ConnectWise LLC, Experlogix LLC, Hansen Technologies Ltd., International Business Machines Corp., Koch Industries Inc., Model N Inc., Oracle Corp., Pros Holdings Inc., Revalize Inc., Salesforce Inc., SAP SE, Tacton Systems AB, Vendavo Inc., Yagna iQ Inc., and Zuora Inc. Market dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, Market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

ToC: Executive Summary Market Landscape Market Sizing Historic Market Sizes Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation by Deployment Market Segmentation by End-user Market Segmentation by Geography Customer Landscape Geographic Landscape Drivers, Challenges, & Trends Company Landscape Company Analysis Appendix About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contacts Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

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[September 27, 2023] TUV SUD South Asia launches Academy e-store Tweet

Advanced trainings and courses on a broad range of themes PUNE, India, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TUV SUD South Asia, a leading certification, testing, auditing, inspection, and training company and the wholly owned subsidiary of TUV SUD Group, Germany, announced the launch of academy e-store. The e-commerce platform vouches for an exciting online experience for the customers to enroll on a host of training programmes available in multiple learning modes - classroom, virtual, blended and e-learning across quality, safety, compliance, security, and sustainability spaces. Over the last two decades, as a trusted training partner, TUV SUD in South Asia has delivered classroom, virtual, blended and e-learning training solutions to various sectors such as Automotive, IT, Food, Textile, Medical Heath Devices, Electronical and Electronics to name a few in compliance, quality, safety, security, and sustainability spaces. The launch of e-store is step toards providing individuals and companies an option to buy and learn online. Announced with a specific range of trainings with the most asked topics, the store will soon sell entire range of training and personal certification programmes. To know more about TUV SUD South Asia's Academy e-store, visit https://www.tuvsud.com/en-in/store/academy-in.



"We are thrilled to introduce the new e-store for the Academy division of TUV SUD in South Asia," said Mr. Vishal Nerurkar, Senior Vice President - Business Assurance Division, TUV SUD South Asia. "Our core objective is to meet today's rapidly growing upskilling and reskilling requirements with limited turnaround time for facilitating both individuals and organisations. To this end, the South Asia e-store offers some of the best trainings on wide-ranging topics in which the participants can book their slot anytime and anywhere. The aim to progressively add the entire range of trainings to be bought online while continuing to give the flexibility of in house-training and corporate programmes." The Academy Division of TUV SUD South Asia has been catering to the learning needs of professionals in India, Bangladesh, and other English-speaking countries for over two decades. With more than 200 training topics. these trainings are designed and developed by industry experts with an objective to equip the learner with the latest information, technology and use cases and hone their ability to apply their knowledge in the dynamic business environment.

About TUV SUD Founded in 1866 as a steam boiler inspection association, the TUV SUD Group has evolved into a global enterprise. More than 26,000 employees work at over 1.000 locations in about 50 countries to continually improve technology, systems, and expertise. They contribute significantly to making technical innovations such as Industry 4.0, autonomous driving, and renewable energy safe and reliable. www.tuvsud.com. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1362118/3675803/TUV_SUD_South_Asia_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/tuv-sud-south-asia-launches-academy-e-store-301938315.html

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[September 27, 2023] JR Technologies Launches Next Generation Platform for Airline Retailing, Setting New Standards for Passenger-Centric Service Tweet

The new platform, Aerostream, features an industry-leading multi-product shopping cart functionality that enhances the entire customer journey ATHENS, Greece and LISBON, Portugal, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ -- JR Technologies, a pioneer in airline retailing, has launched Aerostream, a new multi-product airline retailing platform, ahead of the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon this week. The new platform is an end-to-end solution enabling airlines to modernize their distribution and retailing strategies and better manage the entire travel experience. It is also one of the first travel retailing platforms to offer a true multi-product shopping cart that allows travelers to purchase and manage their entire trip in one place. Designed specifically for the airline and travel industries, Aerostream's comprehensive suite of solutions features Offer and Order Management based on New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ONE Order principles, which create a more seamless customer experience that follows e-commerce retailing best practices. The suite also contains multiple modules, including an Ancillaries Manager that orchestrates the merchandising and distribution of airline and third-party travel products, a white-label customer support portal that enables support teams to assist customers with booking and reservation modifications and a management portal used to configure business rules and analyze performance. The Power of Multi-channel Retailing and One-Cart Shopping "As many companies in the market are attempting to implement an Order Management system, we are proud to have Aerostream live with clients in a production environment," said JR Technologies CEO Adarsh Suneja. "Aerostream enables carriers to create new revenue streams, reduce costs and deliver the mdern digital retailing experience that customers expect, driving increased sales and greater customer loyalty."



Airlines' legacy technologies and systems can often impede the delivery of an enhanced retail customer experience by limiting agility, innovation, and scalability. These outdated systems often struggle to integrate with modern customer relationship management tools, hindering airlines' ability to personalize services, offer dynamic pricing and efficiently manage inventory. Legacy systems are more vulnerable to security breaches, posing risks to customer data and trust. Aerostream is a modular and adaptable retailing platform that leverages NDC technology and is ONE Order-ready for third-party integration, enabling airlines to create a convenient, curated travel booking and post-booking experience that models digital retailing best practices with a broader array of ancillaries and more personalization opportunities.

Delivering a Seamless, Passenger-Centric Experience In addition, the enhanced shopping experience offered by Aerostream makes it easier for loyalty program members to collect and redeem points, enabling airlines to reduce points liability through increased redemption activity. "Aerostream stands at the forefront of innovation in New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ONE Order technology," said JR Technologies Chief Commercial Officer Theodora Tsinonis. "Our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the airline industry drives us to create solutions that redefine the passenger experience and streamline airline operations. With Aerostream, we're not just embracing the future, we're shaping it." JR Technologies is exhibiting the Aerostream solution at the 2023 World Aviation Festival in Lisbon on September 26-28 at booth #1-200. For more information about Aerostream or to speak with company executives from JR Technologies, please get in touch with Evan Whitney at [email protected]. About JR Technologies and Aerostream

JR Technologies designs innovative technology solutions based on NDC and ONE Order principles to support travel companies' initiatives to modernize their operating models. A trusted partner of some of the world's largest airlines and an International Air Transport Association (IATA) strategic partner, JR Technologies is accelerating the transformation of the travel industry's current retail and distribution landscape through true order and offer management. The company created the Aerostream Travel Retailing Platform to help airlines transition to a modern digital retailing model while getting the most out of existing legacy systems. JR Technologies is headquartered in Detroit with offices in Chania, Athens, Orlando, and Boston. Visit www.jrtechnologies.com to learn more. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jr-technologies-launches-next-generation-platform-for-airline-retailing-setting-new-standards-for-passenger-centric-service-301939967.html SOURCE JR Technologies

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[September 27, 2023] Wind River Delivers Wind River Studio for NTT DOCOMO's Commercial Deployment of 5G vRAN Base Stations in Japan Tweet

Wind River, a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent systems, today announced that Wind River Studio is being used by NTT DOCOMO for its 5G virtualized network, which started commercial deployment this month in Japan. For the launch of NTT DOCOMO's first vRAN commercial service, Wind River Studio Cloud Platform was integrated with Fujitsu's virtualized central unit (vCU) and virtualized distributed unit (vDU) with the latest NVIDIA-converged accelerator. Studio Cloud Platform provides a fully cloud-native, Kubernetes- and container-based architecture, based on open source software, for the development, deployment, operations, and servicing of distributed edge networks at scale. "The industry is increasingly moving toward vRAN and Open RAN, given compelling benefits such as network flexibility and scalability and reduced deployment and maintenance costs. By working with proven experts such as Wind River, Fujitsu, and NVIDIA, we are observing commercial-level feature support and quality and can help transform the industry and accelerate innovation to meet the needs of an evolving telecom landscape," said Sadayuki Abeta, global head of Open RAN Solutions, NTT DOCOMO. "Distributed cloud networks are highly complex. It will be essential to innovate to ease deployment and increase levels of automation and operational efficiency so that service providers can successfully support new 5G use cases," said Paul Miller, chief technology officer, Wind River. "Working closely with leaders such as NTT DOCOMO, Fujitsu, and NVIDIA, Wind River can continue to deliver proven technology based on Studio that is live with operators in global deployments." "Fujitsu is delivering fully virtualized 5G base station software that can help customers achieve ultra-low latency services nd highly optimized TCO. We look forward to continuing our work with NTT DOCOMO, Wind River, and NVIDIA to grow innovation for next-generation networks," said Masaki Taniguchi, senior vice president, head of Mobile Systems Business Unit, Fujitsu.



"By working with industry leaders NTT DOCOMO, Wind River, and Fujitsu, NVIDIA is helping to deliver high-performance, power-efficient, software-defined 5G vRAN and AI applications in an all-in-one, commercial off-the-shelf, NVIDIA-accelerated system," said Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of Telecoms at NVIDIA. "This technology can help enable innovative new use cases for a spectrally efficient 5G network." Wind River provides both its Studio Cloud Platform and Studio Analytics capabilities to NTT DOCOMO. Studio Cloud Platform, based on the open source StarlingX project, delivers a foundation for a geographically distributed, managed solution able to simplify Day 1 and Day 2 operations by providing single-pane-of-glass, zero-touch, automated management of thousands of nodes, no matter their physical location. Studio Analytics can be used to monitor the status of geographically distributed far edge clouds. Studio addresses the complex challenges service providers face in deploying and managing geographically distributed, ultra-low latency infrastructure and enables large-scale deployment of 5G virtualized base stations.

A leader in the 5G landscape, Wind River has played key roles in the world's first successful 5G data session; in building commercial vRAN/O-RAN programs, including one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world; and launching the first fully automated edge data center for commercial service. About NTT DOCOMO NTT DOCOMO, Japan's leading mobile operator with over 86 million subscriptions, is one of the world's foremost contributors to 3G, 4G, and 5G mobile network technologies. Beyond core communications services, DOCOMO is challenging new frontiers in collaboration with a growing number of entities ("+d" partners), creating exciting and convenient value-added services that change the way people live and work. DOCOMO is pioneering a leading-edge 5G network to facilitate innovative services that will amaze and inspire customers beyond their expectations.

https://www.docomo.ne.jp/english/ About Wind River Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent systems. For more than four decades, the company has been an innovator and pioneer, powering billions of devices and systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability. Wind River software and expertise are accelerating digital transformation across industries, including automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio supported by world-class global professional services and support and a broad partner ecosystem. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com. Wind River is a trademark or registered trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc., and its affiliates. Other names may be the trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927436975/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Holibob adds industry veteran and Desert Adventures CEO Peter Peyet to Advisory Board Tweet

Peyet builds on the company's growing presence in the Middle East, where Holibob is helping tourism agencies and operators digitize the experiential economy LONDON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Holibob, an innovative travel technology company solving the difficult challenge of curating, distributing, and selling tours and attractions online, today announced it has added Peter Peyet, CEO of Desert Adventures, to its Advisory Board. The addition comes just months after the company hired industry veteran Jasmine Beresford as Strategic Partnerships Manager for the Middle East  cementing its presence in a region that has shown significant interest in Holibob's ability to digitize the experiential economy. "Having spent the past couple years speaking with tourism leaders across the Middle East, it's clear they are hyper focused on innovation and delivering exceptional experiences to attract travellers from around the world," said Craig Everett, founder and CEO of Holibob. "This forward-looking mindset is closely aligned with Holibob's approach to facilitating the personalized discovery and booking of experiences, and we're excited to have Peter and Jasmine onboard to expand our efforts in the region." Peyet joins the Advisory Board at a time when Holibob is deepening its xisting relationships with innovative tourism boards across the region and adding new operator partners who see the company's innovative technology as a fast-track to growing visitation and revenue. That includes a partnership with Desert Adventures, which has partnered with Holibob to digitize their go to market strategy.



"Holibob's innovative technology uniquely positions them to help companies like Desert Adventures and agencies throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council to deliver the right product to the right traveller at the right time," noted Peyet. "By doing so, Holibob can transform the Experiences industry in the Middle East and beyond to the benefit of companies, tourism boards, and travellers alike, and I look forward to helping them on that journey." As a sign of its commitment to the region, Holibob has also recently hired Jasmine Bresford, based in Dubai, to guide their strategic partnerships in the region. Jasmine has a deep understanding of the region and its visitors from her years of experience with VisitBritain and Flight Centre. Her hire demonstrates Holibob's clear commitment to facilitating the rapid development of the region's tourism infrastructure through innovative approaches to digitizing its experiential economy.

Holibob already counts multiple Middle East operators among it's 30+ worldwide partners, including Desert Adventures. The company is also working closely with one of the region's most notable 'Giga' projects to deliver intelligent, consumer-friendly solutions that will inspire visitation and facilitate memorable holidays through the seamless, personalized discovery and booking of experiences. About Holibob

Holibob makes it easy for any brand, destination, or individual to sell experiences online by getting the right product in front of the right person at the right time. Our goal is to enrich the lives of people everywhere and transform the industries we serve by enabling deeper and more valuable consumer relationships in addition to increased revenue opportunities. We do this by pioneering technology that enables the personalized delivery of curated things to do across any online property, allowing people to work with their chosen airline, travel, and lifestyle brands to co-create unique and immersive travel experiences. www.holibob.tech Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222516/holibob_logo_colour_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/holibob-adds-industry-veteran-and-desert-adventures-ceo-peter-peyet-to-advisory-board-301939764.html

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[September 27, 2023] IGEM 2023 TO FEATURE OVER 10 CONFERENCES ON RACE TO NET ZERO Tweet

Final Call for Participants to Register KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With aspirations to open minds, inspire actions and encourage conversations, the International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM) 2023 will host over 10 conferences from 4th to 6th October 2023 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on high-impact topics such low-carbon cities, hydrogen economy, waste management, circular economy, water conservation, energy efficiency and more, all aligned to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. Key conferences include the AtoZero ASEAN Summit, the 1st National Conference on Energy Efficiency, Malaysia Carbon Market Forum 2023, Green Logistics Partnership Conference 2023: Driving Sustainability in Transport & Logistics, Driving Canadian-Malaysian Partnerships in Clean Energy & Sustainability and the Symposium on Environment Quality Act 1974, to name just a few. IGEM 2023, organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRECC) and co-organised by the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC), is themed Race Towards Net Zero: Leadership for Climate Action with the conferences being led and participated by top representatives from companies including Business Finland, Business Sweden, Akademi Sains Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia as well as eminent dignitaries from countries such as Sweden, Austria and Canada. The Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said, "IGEM consistenly continues to bring together the brightest minds in green technology and climate change. Given the urgency of taking leadership in climate action, this year's conferences have been curated to specifically address the region's focus on fast-growing sectors such as electric mobility and energy transition."



"Offering insightful presentations and panel discussions on pertinent and pressing topics, IGEM 2023's conferences will convene thousands of international and Malaysian experts from across the related fields to shape and inspire impactful global green thinking and action," he added. One of the much-awaited conferences will be Green Logistics Partnership Conference (GLPC), which is a collaboration between the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) and the ASEAN-Japan Transport Partnership (AJTP), providing a platform to share best practices to improve green logistics practices in the country.

Themed Driving Sustainability in Transport & Logistics, GLPC will be jointly organised by the MoT, NRECC, MGTC and Business Sweden, with support from technical partners i.e., the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research and VOLVO. The central attraction of IGEM, the exhibition floor, will be laid out this year based on the sub-themes of Empowering Cities, Electrifying Mobility, Decarbonising Energy, Accelerating Circularity and Conserving Biodiversity. Some international participants include Arctech Solar (China), Phoenix Green Energy (Austria), International Science Council (France), and Saxon Renewable Pte Ltd (Singapore). IGEM 2023, presented in collaboration with PETRONAS, has secured a stellar line-up of sponsors including: Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Leader Energy Holdings Berhad, UOB Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Solarvest Holdings Berhad, Samaiden Group Berhad, Cypark Resources Berhad, Polymateria Ltd, Cenergi SEA Bhd, Bio Eneco, Canadian Solar and Lenovo. To add further momentum to the green economy, IGEM 2023 will feature the much-in-demand business networking sessions organised by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) and MGTC. To participate in the eye-opening conferences as we Race Towards Net Zero, register now by emailing [email protected] . For further details on IGEM 2023, please visit www.igem.my . About Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC) MGTC is an agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment, and Climate Change (NRECC) mandated to accelerate green growth, advance climate actions, and foster green lifestyles within the community. Guided by the National Green Technology Policy (NGTP), National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), Green Technology Master Plan 2017-2030 (GTMP), and the 12th Malaysia Plan, MGTC carries out various programmes and initiatives to support stakeholders at all levels. Heading towards 2030, and through a range of implemented programs and initiatives, MGTC aims to invest up to RM100 billion in green initiatives, create around 230,000 green job opportunities, and assist Malaysia in achieving net-zero GHG emissions by as early as 2050. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/igem-2023-to-feature-over-10-conferences-on-race-to-net-zero-301939975.html SOURCE Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation

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[September 27, 2023] Delta Electronics Thailand Wins 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll Award Tweet

BANGKOK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL. was voted first for the "Most Outstanding Company in Thailand  Technology Hardware & Equipment Sector" category in the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll. Ms. Nipaporn Jiarajareevong, Delta Thailand Chief Financial Officer, received the award on behalf of the company at an awards ceremony held in Singapore. "Delta is honored to be voted as a top Thailand company in the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll. As a company committed to sustainable growth, we appreciate this recognition from the financial sector that acknowledges Delta's excellence in areas such as Financial Performance, Management Team Excellence, Investor Relations, and CSR Activities," Ms. Nipaporn said. In the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll, 1,225 fund managers, analysts, bankers and ratings agencies took part in the voting which concluded on 14 July. In total, 7,653 votes were received for publicly listed companies across 13markets in Asia. The results recognize 194 companies as being the most outstanding for their sectors and in their market.



Established in 1989, Asiamoney is a leading print and digital capital markets publication combining hard-hitting editorial, high-profile interviews and market-defining awards for the banking and corporate sectors. The Asia's Outstanding Companies poll is designed to acknowledge listed companies that have excelled in areas such as financial performance, management team excellence, IR activities and CSR initiatives. Delta Thailand is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and is committed to sustainable growth and ESG performance that benefits all stakeholders. The top vote in its category in Thailand from regional investors confirms the success of the company's business fundamentals, strategy and ongoing engagement with shareholders and the finance community.

About Delta Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited Founded in 1988, Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL. is a global producer of power and thermal management products and solutions. The company is a subsidiary of Delta Electronics, Inc. with the mission statement, "To provide innovative, clean and energy-efficient solutions for a better tomorrow," which reflects the company's strong belief in sustainable development especially with issues related to the environment. As an energy-saving solutions provider with core competencies in power electronics and innovative research and development, Delta's business categories include Power Electronics, Automation, and Infrastructure. The company's global presence is supported by its sales offices in key regions around the world; manufacturing facilities in India, Slovakia and Thailand; and several R&D centers located in Thailand, India, Germany and other countries. Delta continues to earn numerous recognitions for its achievements in the region and domestically. Some awards won include the prestigious ASEAN Business Award, Stock Exchange of Thailand's Best Company Performance Award and the coveted Prime Minister's Best Industry Award. For detailed information about Delta Thailand, please visit: www.deltathailand.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/delta-electronics-thailand-wins-2023-asiamoney-asias-outstanding-companies-poll-award-301940023.html SOURCE Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL

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This photo taken on Sept. 25, 2023 shows a three-month-old red panda in the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece. A red panda born three months ago in Greece is waiting to be named.

The Attica Zoological Park, in a suburb of Greece's capital, launched a poll on social media on Tuesday, asking the public to pick a name for her, Antonis Balas, head keeper of mammals, told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Animal lovers have until Sept. 29 to vote for one of the suggested names: Mai, Aiko Nami or Ban.

The red panda, native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China, is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Fewer than 10,000 red pandas are estimated to remain in the wild.

This is why the Greek zoo was very happy with the success of the breeding attempt. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

ATHENS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A red panda born three months ago in Greece is waiting to be named.

The Attica Zoological Park, in a suburb of Greece's capital, launched a poll on social media on Tuesday, asking the public to pick a name for her, Antonis Balas, head keeper of mammals, told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Animal lovers have until Sept. 29 to vote for one of the suggested names: Mai, Aiko Nami or Ban.

Her parents arrived at the zoo about 18 months ago from two French zoological parks, Balas said.

The red panda, native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China, is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Fewer than 10,000 red pandas are estimated to remain in the wild.

This is why the Greek zoo was very happy with the success of the breeding attempt.

The Attica Zoological Park opened to the public in 2000. On 20 hectares, it currently hosts 2,200 animals of over 280 species.

The park has been running breeding programs for several years now and all the animals hosted there were born in captivity, Jean Jacques Lesuaeur, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Attica Thematic Park S.A., which manages the zoological park, told Xinhua.

The main goal is not to entertain visitors, but educate them and help preserve endangered species, he said. 

This photo taken on Sept. 25, 2023 shows a three-month-old red panda in the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece. A red panda born three months ago in Greece is waiting to be named.

The Attica Zoological Park, in a suburb of Greece's capital, launched a poll on social media on Tuesday, asking the public to pick a name for her, Antonis Balas, head keeper of mammals, told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Animal lovers have until Sept. 29 to vote for one of the suggested names: Mai, Aiko Nami or Ban.

The red panda, native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China, is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Fewer than 10,000 red pandas are estimated to remain in the wild.

This is why the Greek zoo was very happy with the success of the breeding attempt. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)
[September 27, 2023] Hypothekarbank Lenzburg AG Joins SIX Digital Exchange, Strengthening the Digital Asset Ecosystem in Switzerland Tweet

ZURICH and LENZBURG, Switzerland, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SDX, the world's first fully regulated financial market infrastructure for digital assets, welcomes Hypothekarbank Lenzburg as a new member on its Central Securities Depository (CSD). SDX, licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), operates a stock exchange and CSD using distributed ledger technology (DLT). With its fully integrated blockchain-based platform, SDX offers a secure and reliable ecosystem for the issuance, trading, settling, and custody of digital securities. Joining SDX's CSD marks a milestone for Hypothekarbank Lenzburg on its path to becoming a major player in the Swiss market for tokenized digital assets and bringing native digital securities onto the platform. With SDX's comprehensive infrastructure for various digital securities types, including Digital Bonds and Digital Equities, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg gains access to a single, reliable, and trusted DLT-based platform that fulfils the regulatory requirements. "The SDX membership marks a significant step in advancing our bank's presence indigital assets. Beyond token issuance and custody, our offering should include the possibility of listing digital value rights on a trusted trading venue. SDX's ecosystem aligns seamlessly with our goals, and we eagerly anticipate this cooperation," says Marianne Wildi, CEO of Hypothekarbank Lenzburg.



"We firmly believe that a strategic alliance with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg facilitates our mission to provide institutional clients with innovative, trusted, and efficient financial markets infrastructure and services for digital assets," adds David Newns, Head of SIX Digital Exchange. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg is the sixth bank to join SDX and is among the existing members Berner Kantonalbank, CM-Equity, Credit Suisse, Kaiser Partner Privatbank, SIX SIS, UBS and Zurcher Kantonalbank.

About SDX SIX Digital Exchange AG (SDX) is the first fully regulated financial market infrastructure (FMI) for the issuance, trading, settlement, and custody of digital assets. SDX is licensed by Switzerland's financial market regulator, FINMA, to operate as a stock exchange (via SDX Trading AG) and central security depository (CSD) on distributed ledger technology (DLT). About Hypothekarbank Lenzburg Hypothekarbank Lenzburg is a listed Swiss universal bank founded in 1868. The bank is active in retail banking, mortgage lending, private banking and SME business. In its banking-as-service business, it provides banking services to third-party financial service providers. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg offers professional asset management through its HBL Asset Management brand. With Finstar, the bank develops, distributes and operates a core banking system with an open API architecture. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hypothekarbank-lenzburg-ag-joins-six-digital-exchange-strengthening-the-digital-asset-ecosystem-in-switzerland-301939327.html SOURCE SIX Digital Exchange

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Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Names Pascal Carrer as Head of Casualty in Switzerland

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) today announced that Pascal Carrer has joined the company as Head of Casualty in Switzerland.

"I am excited to welcome Pascal to our leadership team in Switzerland," said Leander Metzger, Country Manager in Switzerland, BHSI. "Together, we will continue to bring BHSI's underwriting excellence, CLAIMS IS OUR PRODUCT philosophy, and financial strength to customers and brokers throughout the country."

Pascal comes to BHSI with nearly 30 years of insurance underwriting and risk management experience. He was most recently Head of Corporate Risk & Insurance Management at Hoerbiger Holding AG. Pascal is based in Zurich and can be reached at [email protected].

BHSI has been steadily growing its team in Zurich, while expanding its local underwriting, which crrently includes property, casualty, and executive & professional lines.







In Switzerland, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) trades under Berkshire Hathaway International Insurance Limited (BHIIL). BHIIL is an incorporated England and Wales limited liability company, Registration Number 3230337 and Registered Office at 8 Fenchurch Place, 4th Floor, London EC3M 4AJ, United Kingdom. BHIIL is an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company (BHSIC), a Nebraska USA domiciled corporation, which provides commercial property, casualty, healthcare professional liability, executive and professional lines, transactional liability, surety, marine, travel, programs, accident and health, medical stop loss, homeowners, and multinational insurance. BHSIC and BHIIL are subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway's National Indemnity group of insurance companies, which hold financial strength ratings of A++ from AM Best and AA+ from Standard & Poor's. Based in Boston, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbia, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Irvine, Los Angeles, New York, Plymouth Meeting, San Francisco, San Ramon, Seattle, Stevens Point, Adelaide, Auckland, Barcelona, Brisbane, Brussels, Cologne, Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London, Lyon, Macau, Madrid, Manchester, Melbourne, Munich, Paris, Perth, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and Zurich.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927684396/en/
[September 27, 2023] DyeCoo and CleanDye CO2 Dyeing Technology Slashes Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 58 Percent Compared to Conventional Dyeing Tweet

Adidas ordered independent report to evaluate new technology NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- DyeCoo's waterless dyeing technology, operated by CleanDye's factory in Vietnam, generated 58 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional textile dyeing vendors, an independent lifecycle assessment (LCA) commissioned by Adidas shows. The LCA was commissioned as part of a program with Adidas to identify and certify low carbon textile coloration technologies. As brands like Adidas reshape the apparel industry to address climate concerns, technologies such as DyeCoo's supercritical CO 2 dyeing that reduce both carbon emissions and water pollution are essential for sustainable fashion. Based on these results, Adidas will be incorporating CO 2 dyeing into its supply chain. The LCA was conducted by Sphera, a third-party consultant with a proven track record of producing reliable sustainability reports across several industries. Sphera compared CleanDye and DyeCoo's waterless dyeing process to three of Adidas' conventional fabric vendors and found that CleanDye and DyeCoo generated a 58 percent smaller carbon footprint versus conventional fabric dyeing technology. This report coincides with increasing interest in DyeCoo's technology from firms all over the world, including manufacturers in Turkey, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and Central America and large international brands and retailers that seek to reduce their carbon footprint over the coming years. DyeCoo received enthusiastic feedback at ITMA  the world's largest international textile and garment technologyexhibition, which was held in Italy in June. During the exhibition, DyeCoo introduced a range of new CO2 dyeing solutions, including a smaller fully electric CO2 dyeing machine suitable for sampling and small-scale production, as well as an advanced lab system for R&D purposes.



"We are thrilled about this report  and that CO2 dyeing is gaining momentum in textile manufacturing," said Kasper Nossent, commercial director at DyeCoo. "We look forward to expanding our technology beyond our current customers to other factories around the world in collaboration with our brand partners." Besides the significant sustainable impact, DyeCoo's CO2 dyeing technology also provides a full color gamut and a very high batch-to-batch consistency in bulk production, without compromising on quality and cost.

Simon Weston, CleanDye's chief executive officer, said, "The LCA is also a testament to our Vietnam facility, where we use DyeCoo technology to deliver high-quality, sustainably manufactured fabric at competitive prices." CleanDye has already produced fabrics for brands such as Decathlon, Tom Tailor, s.Oliver, Marco Polo, and Bonprix, and many other global apparel and footwear brands are in discussions to incorporate DyeCoo and CleanDye into their supply chains. "After analyzing the LCA, CleanDye has made further improvements to our process, and we are confident that our carbon emissions are even lower than the already impressive LCA figures," added Weston. "We already knew that CO2 dyeing technology dramatically reduces water pollution from textile manufacturing," said Kenneth Katz, managing director & head of Asia at TAU Investment Management, a New York- and Hong Kong-based private equity firm that holds a controlling interest in CleanDye and a significant interest in DyeCoo. "Innovation like this is critical. Twenty percent of industrial water waste comes from textile dyeing. But this report is especially exciting since it demonstrates that DyeCoo's patented technology and CleanDye's purpose-built dyeing facility in Vietnam also dramatically reduce carbon emissions. "We look forward to expanding the impact of DyeCoo and CleanDye's innovation in the sustainable transformation of the fashion industry," Katz said. About DyeCoo DyeCoo Textile Systems B.V. is a Dutch company that successfully developed and commercialized supercritical CO2 fabric and yarn dyeing and offers CO2 dyeing solutions from lab scale to bulk production. DyeCoo's supercritical CO2 dyeing technology completely eliminates the use of water and chemicals in the polyester dyeing process and significantly reduces its carbon and water footprint. DyeCoo technology operates in the textile supply chains of global apparel and footwear brands and retailers, and the automotive supply chain. About CleanDye In 2019, CleanDye opened the first factory in the world dedicated to using 100% water- and chemical-free textile dyeing technology. CleanDye's factory in Vietnam exclusively uses supercritical CO 2 technology to dye fabrics and yarns for global customers, making its factory is safer, cleaner and more energy efficient than traditional dyehouses. CleanDye is staffed by a team of global industry veterans with offices in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands. About TAU Investment Management TAU is a New York- and Hong Kong-based investment and advisory firm that enables leaders to make critical decisions at every connection point in the global apparel supply chain. TAU originates, executes and manages proprietary private equity investments through funds, single deal vehicles, co-investments, and offers separately managed accounts. TAU advisory services provides actionable advice in areas including organic growth strategy, M&A, responsible manufacturing technology, sustainability strategy, market entry, and worker safety allowing businesses to seize opportunities in a rapidly changing environment. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dyecoo-and-cleandye-co2-dyeing-technology-slashes-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-58-percent-compared-to-conventional-dyeing-301940135.html SOURCE Cleandye Vietnam Company Limited

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[September 27, 2023] Centre for Arts and Technology Reveals Inaugural Create Your Future Scholarship Recipients: Four Exceptional Winners Tweet

Centre for Arts and Technology (CAT), a PTIB designated college with 20 years of history in Kelowna, is pleased to announce four winners have been selected for the Centre's inaugural Create Your Future Scholarship. This scholarship offers a unique opportunity for high school students to vie for a full tuition award that can be applied toward one of four programs at the college. After submitting a portfolio and personal video statement, the four top applicants were chosen by a panel made up of instructional staff from the Centre and working professionals from the local community. The top applicant, Sani Supinen was awarded the full scholarship and will be taking the 18 month Professional Filmmaking program at the Centre starting this October. Three additional winners were also selected and will each receive a $5,000 scholarship towards tuition at the Centre. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927669694/en/ Professional Filmmaking Department Head Victor Poirier presents a full scholarship award to grand prize winner Sani upinen. (Photo: Business Wire)



CAT looks forward to offering this scholarship annually, and CAT President, Jeremy Sabell, had this to share:

"For over 20 years in Kelowna and over 40 years in BC, Centre for Arts and Technology has been proud to work with countless gifted artists and creators from across Western Canada, helping them achieve their career aspirations. With this year's launch of our Create Your Future scholarship we should have known what to expect, but we were still pleasantly surprised by the quality and diversity of the submissions. It is truly uplifting and inspiring to know that there is so much passion and talent in the creative arts throughout Canada, and we feel privileged that we can provide a learning environment in which that talent can develop, not just for the scholarship applicants but for all students who choose to start their career journeys with us. Congratulations to the winners! We'll see you very soon." Congratulations go to the top recipient, Sani Supinen. Her unique portfolio and personal statement captivated the judges, edging out other close competition. Sani had this to say when asked about her accomplishment, "I am so beyond grateful to have received such an incredible, life-changing award. A big thanks to the team at CAT for making the application process as smooth as possible with my video submissions, it means the world!" Further congratulations go to the three $5000 scholarship recipients: Julian Lamprecht (2D Animation & Digital Art), Emmalee Klettke (2D Animation & Digital Art), and Connor Robertson (Professional Filmmaking). Those interested in learning more about the scholarship can do so at digitalartschool.com/cyfscholarship About Centre for Arts and Technology Centre for Arts and Technology delivers fully designated diploma programs across a variety of arts and technology disciplines. The campus in Kelowna is a hub of creative learning, home to our dedicated and highly knowledgeable staff and instructors, who connect with and empower our students in a variety of industry-specific learning spaces. The campus features two contemporary audio recording studios, animation and digital media labs, along with three photo and film production studios. With over 1000 grads making their mark in creative and technology-driven industries, Centre for Arts and Technology is where you make passion your profession. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927669694/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Workhuman-Gallup Research Finds Recognition at Work Bolsters Engagement and Shields Employees from Burnout Tweet

Workhuman and Gallup released a new report today, Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition, which examines the significance of recognition in the workplace as both a foundational element and a catalyst for organizational culture. Employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their organization's culture are 3.7 times as likely to be engaged, 3.8 times as likely to feel connected to their culture, and half as likely to experience frequent burnout than those who do not. In the wake of pandemic-era workplace shifts and the Great Resignation, and amidst recent mass layoffs, the research highlights crucial considerations for leadership in reinforcing strong organizational cultures. Employees who strongly agree they are connected to their organization's culture are over three times as likely to be engaged at work. They also are over five times as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great place to work and 55% less likely to be actively or passively seeking new job opportunities. "This new research serves to illustrate the choice that lay ahead for company leaders: to either invest in culture and define it for themselves, or risk it being defined for them," says KeyAnna Schmiedl, Workhuman Chief Human Experience Officer. "Our analysis found that when engaged employees describe their company's culture, they're using words such as caring, innovative, and inclusive. Meanwhile, actively disengaged employees are more likely to use words such as toxic, disorganized, and chaotic. It's up to leaders to decide which of those cultures they want associated with their companies, keeping in mind this isn't just about their employee satisfaction scores or the tone of the office, it's a choice that determines if their business is future-proof or not." The report finds that only 34% of employees say that their employer has a recognition program in place. And of those who do have one, just 13% of employees rate it as excellent. Employers are missing out on a simple way to reinforce the other cultural elements that an organization views as important. Employees who say their recognition program is aligned with the values of their organization are 4.9 times as likely to strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work compared with employees who indicate their recognition program is not aligned withthe values of their organization.



"Giving great recognition is an effective way for leaders to communicate the values and behaviors they most want to see from their employees," said Gallup Global Practice Leader, Ed O'Boyle. "It also sets the example for establishing a culture of recognition and inspires employees at all levels to receive and give recognition that is authentic and meaningful, and to do so often." Workhuman and Gallup have identified four steps to create or improve a recognition program, outlined below:

Step 1: Establish Your Workplace Culture Goals and Values in Alignment with Business Strategy Define the values, behaviors, rituals, and routines that will best support your business strategy so that you are cognizant of where to aim recognition. Just two in 10 U.S. employees strongly agree they are connected to their organization's culture - clearly defining culture can solve for this. Step 2: Use Recognition to Reflect Your Workplace Culture Goals and Values Strategically recognize employees who are exemplifying the culture goals and values established in step 1. This promotes employee understanding and connectedness - among employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their culture, seven in 10 strongly agree that they feel connected to their organization's culture. Step 3: Continuously Evaluate and Refine Your Recognition Strategy Frequently evaluate your recognition program to ensure it is accurately promoting the workplace culture you have set out to achieve. The research shows that employees who receive great recognition are 20 times as likely to be engaged as employees who receive poor recognition. Step 4: Promote Quality Recognition Across Your Organization So Your Culture Can Flourish Ensure recognition is frequent, consistent, and genuine, and is being embraced by individuals across all tiers of the organization for all accomplishments. Among employees who have great recognition experiences, 72% say that performance for little things is commonly recognized at their organization, compared with 16% of employees with poor recognition experiences. To read the full report and learn more about the impact of recognition on culture visit, please visit https://www.gallup.com/analytics/472658/workplace-recognition-research.aspx. To learn more about how Workhuman's employee recognition solution can help improve engagement and connectedness, and promote a stronger culture, please visit: www.workhuman.com/solutions/social-recognition. About Workhuman Workhuman is helping companies meet today's biggest human capital challenges - including unprecedented turnover, employee engagement, hybrid work environments and DEI - through the Workhuman Cloud, a secure SaaS platform that provides the industry's best-in-class Social Recognition solution. As the leading global provider of technology solutions, analytics, expertise and services helping organizations of all sizes build and foster workplace cultures powered by employee recognition and crowdsourced feedback, Workhuman is revolutionizing the way employees celebrate, connect with, and appreciate each other in the workplace. Combined with unmatched data through Workhuman iQ, we empower HR (Human Resources) and business leaders with proactive insight to understand issues as they develop and tools to help them make the right decisions to align business objectives and culture to deliver immediate impact. And, with world-class award redemption from our proprietary global network, Workhuman is committed to building more connected human-centered workplaces that recognize the value and potential of each and every employee. For more than 20 years, Workhuman has been pioneering the human workplace by disrupting legacy and obsolete HR approaches to improve the employee experience at work, with solutions that engage with approx. seven million customer employees in 30+ languages, in 180 countries, generating 100 million instances of human connection. With dual headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and Framingham, Massachusetts, Workhuman deploys solutions and services at scale and is committed to helping companies improve returns on their most important investment - their people. For more information, please visit www.workhuman.com. About Gallup Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens than any other organization in the world. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927929696/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Prontopia Unveils Groundbreaking AI-Powered Business Video Solution, Simplifying Video Creation Cost-Effectively Tweet

DENVER, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Prontopia , a visionary in the field of AI-driven technology, announces the official launch of its cutting-edge Software as a Service (SaaS) platform designed to revolutionize video production for businesses. Leveraging the capabilities of artificial intelligence, Prontopia empowers users to create engaging videos in under 60 seconds for $50 or less per video. No other video creation platform on the market matches Prontopia's distinctive features, all powered by proprietary AI technology. Prontopia's integrated suite of features streamlines video creation, promoting efficiency and cost-effectiveness. By providing businesses with the tools to effortlessly transform ideas into captivating, professional-grade videos and commercials within minutes, Prontopia equips companies to optimize their marketing efforts and foster meaningful connections with customers through tailored and custom content. Co-founded by Sherry Akhtar, Ash Shehryar, and Will Feldman, Prontopia was born out of the recognition that businesses often grapple with the challenges of video productiondifficulties, expenses, and time constraints. And yet, in today's fast-paced digital landscape, where people's attention spans are shorter than ever and there is so much competition, it is imperative for businesses to look for ways to engage their audience effectively in order to thrive. Using video content is a strategy that has emerged as an instrumental tool for marketing and communications teams to engage and stay connected with their customer bases. The demand for video creation tools is surging. Global internet traffic is projected to reach 1.8 trillion gigabytes per month this year, with video accounting for 82% of that traffic, according to a study by Cisco . Factors such as high-speed internet, mobile devices, and social media are further fueling the growth of the video creator tool market. According to a recent report , a staggering 96% of marketers consider video an essential component of their marketing strategy.



"Our mission at Prontopia is to empower businesses to shape the future through the art of video storytelling. Its impact is far-reaching and all-encompassing because it's a versatile tool, applicable to any industry and business, resulting in tangible benefits," says Sherry Akhtar, Co-founder and CEO. "Our AI-powered platform revolutionizes the video creation process, simplifying intricate productions into effortless stories," adds Ash Shehryar, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer. Prontopia offers unmatched value by seamlessly integrating existing content into new videos using advanced algorithms, thereby automating video efforts across all marketing engagements in a matter of minutes. Thus, it empowers users to efficiently manage their video campaigns.

Its unique features, including a proprietary video engine (IP), aspect ratio conversion, digital asset management and auto analysis for information labeling will transform content creation. Prontopia is also designed for seamless API compatibility, facilitating effortless integration with other platforms (Video as a Service / VaaS), and was designed with security in mind, providing top-tier data protection and compliance. Prontopia is the sole video generator platform that offers a robust localization feature, which allows unlimited customizations of videos based on address, demographics, or other relevant factors. Whether local franchises, regional stores, automotive dealerships, or any business with the need to localize content, Prontopia can customize videos for multiple locations with just a click, which not only saves a lot of time and effort, but also ensures that the content resonates with targeted audiences effectively. Will Feldman, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, says, "Prontopia is committed to delivering high-quality video at a fraction of the cost. I'm particularly excited about our proprietary customization feature for localized video content because localization is a logistical nightmare in traditional video production, plus it takes an inordinate amount of time." During its beta stage, Prontopia garnered numerous accolades and prestigious recognitions. Notably, the company was awarded a $250,000 advanced industries grant by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Prontopia was also a finalist in both the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Colorado Companies to Watch competition and was the winner of the WE Global & Antares Capital & Patron Society Fellowship Program. Additionally, Prontopia is integrated within both the Google and Microsoft ecosystems, underscoring its advanced technological capabilities and seamless integration potential. For more information about Prontopia and its game-changing video production platform for businesses, please visit www.prontopia.com About Prontopia:

Prontopia is an innovative SaaS technology platform that harnesses the power of AI to simplify and streamline video production for businesses. With a commitment to delivering high-quality video at an affordable cost, Prontopia empowers businesses to bring their creative potential to life and connect with audiences through the art of video storytelling. Founded by Sherry Akhtar, Ash Shehryar, and Will Feldman, Prontopia is revolutionizing the way businesses approach video content creation. Media Contact:

Rachel Albert

HVM Communications

508-523-2050

366017@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prontopia-unveils-groundbreaking-ai-powered-business-video-solution-simplifying-video-creation-cost-effectively-301940325.html SOURCE Prontopia

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[September 27, 2023] 3D Systems Partners with Klarity to Expand Access to Patient-Matched Radiotherapy Innovations Tweet

Klarity now offers Klarity Prints Powered by 3D Systems, and adds VSP  Bolus to its comprehensive range of radiotherapy solutions



Bolus to its comprehensive range of radiotherapy solutions Klarity Prints is easy solution for radiotherapy clinics in United States and Canada to embrace 3D printing technology without investing in costly, time-consuming software ROCK HILL, S.C., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced it has entered into a partnership with Klarity, a world leader in solutions for radiation therapy, to expand the distribution of its FDA-cleared VSP Bolus solution. Klarity will offer VSP Bolus within its new line of high-quality patient-specific 3D printed products called Klarity Prints. Klarity Prints, powered by 3D Systems, is a service-based line of 3D-printed radiotherapy accessories such as VSP Bolus, which does not require specialized software or hardware, allowing radiotherapy providers to focus on patient care. 3D Systems developed VSP Bolus to deliver 3D-printed, biocompatible, patient-specific boluses that can improve therapy modulation, decrease technician time, and enhance patient comfort. Through the distribution agreement with Klarity, this innovative 3D-printed solution is now available to radiotherapy clinics across the United States and Canada. Klaritys team of experts is renowned in the radiation oncology market for providing exceptional customer service with a focus on delivering solutions to medical professionals that improve cancer treatment. Once interested clinics contact their Klarity Account Manager, orders can be initiated quickly, and the patient-specific bolus is delivered within a few days. The established workflow leveraging patient treatment plans created by radiotherapy professionals frees clinicians from the time-consuming task of manipulating objects in specialized software and fabricating the accessory themselves. The Klarity Prints VSP Bolus product is 3D printed to the exact treatment plan bolus dimensions from a soft, biocompatible, material that contours to the patients anatomy for an improved treatment experience for providers and patients. This collaboration aligns perfectly with Klaritys ongoing commitment to improving the quality of care provided by our customers, said Peter Larson, CEO, Klarity. As a North American distributor of 3D Systems 3D-printed biocompatible bolus products, we will be at the forefront of advancing personalized care and improving the patient expeience.



Menno Ellis, 3D Systems EVP, Healthcare Solutions added, Klarity has a strong reputation in the radiation oncology sector for delivering superior products and service. The companys commitment to improving patient care through treatment personalization aligns with 3D Systems market-leading service model for delivering high-quality 3D-printed, patient-specific medical devices for over two decades. Were pleased to partner with Klarity to provide next-generation radiotherapy accessories to patients undergoing treatment across the U.S. and Canada. 3D Systems and Klarity will both participate in the 2023 ASTRO Annual Meeting to be held October 1-4 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Attendees interested in learning more are invited to stop by 3D Systems booth #2353 or Klaritys booth #2317. For more information, please visit the 3D Systems or Klarity websites.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this release that are not statements of historical or current facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from historical results or from any future results or projections expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In many cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "may," "will," "estimates," "intends," "anticipates" or "plans" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are based upon managements beliefs, assumptions, and current expectations and may include comments as to the companys beliefs and expectations as to future events and trends affecting its business and are necessarily subject to uncertainties, many of which are outside the control of the company. The factors described under the headings "Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the companys periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other factors, could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected or predicted in forward-looking statements. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not, and should not be relied upon as a guarantee of future performance or results, nor will they necessarily prove to be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results will be achieved. The forward-looking statements included are made only as of the date of the statement. 3D Systems undertakes no obligation to update or review any forward-looking statements made by management or on its behalf, whether as a result of future developments, subsequent events or circumstances or otherwise, except as required by law. About 3D Systems

More than 35 years ago, 3D Systems brought the innovation of 3D printing to the manufacturing industry. Today, as the leading additive manufacturing solutions partner, we bring innovation, performance, and reliability to every interaction - empowering our customers to create products and business models never before possible. Thanks to our unique offering of hardware, software, materials, and services, each application-specific solution is powered by the expertise of our application engineers who collaborate with customers to transform how they deliver their products and services. 3D Systems solutions address a variety of advanced applications in healthcare and industrial markets such as medical and dental, aerospace & defense, automotive, and durable goods. More information on the company is available at https://www.3dsystems.com. About Klarity

Klarity is at the forefront of radiotherapy technology and innovation. Klaritys superior products and personalized service have established the company as a worldwide leader, providing clinics with improved solutions for patient positioning, treatment planning, brachytherapy, and custom devices. https://www.klaritymedical.com. Investor Contact: [email protected] Media Contact: [email protected] A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/406733ae-d8b2-48e8-a5fb-acc69b4c9034



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[September 27, 2023] Kriya Announces Exclusive License and Collaboration Agreement with Everads to Advance Gene Therapies for Prevalent Diseases in Ophthalmology Including Geographic Atrophy Tweet

 Everads' next generation suprachoroidal delivery technology enables targeted drug delivery to the retina, which Kriya intends to use for multiple ophthalmology gene therapy product candidates   Kriya is developing a one-time gene therapy designed to block complement C3 and C5, which are clinically validated substrates targeted by FDA approved therapies, to delay the progression of geographic atrophy   Kriya anticipates advancing its geographic atrophy gene therapy candidate into the clinic in 2H 2024  PALO ALTO, Calif. and RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kriya Therapeutics, Inc. ("Kriya"), a biopharmaceutical company developing gene therapies for conditions affecting millions of people around the world, has entered into an exclusive license, collaboration and supply agreement with Everads Therapy, Ltd (Everads) to advance Kriyas portfolio of gene therapies for retinal diseases using Everads' suprachoroidal delivery device. Everads is a private biotech company that has developed a novel technology enabling targeted delivery of therapies to the retina via the suprachoroidal space, an anatomical compartment located between the sclera and choroid that traverses the circumference of the posterior segment of the eye. Suprachoroidal delivery is an emerging, non-surgical route of administration in ophthalmology. Specifically in delivery of gene therapy, this route of administration offers the potential to enhance the efficiency of gene therapy delivery to the retina while minimizing intraocular inflammation. The transaction enables Kriyas access to Everads suprachoroidal delivery technology to deliver multiple prespecified gene therapy product candidates for several ophthalmic diseases, including those involving the complement cascade. Dysregulation of the complement system has been implicated in the pathogenesis and progression of geographic atrophy. Kriyas approach is a one-time adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy that drives the expression of a CR2-CR1 (complement receptor 2-complement receptor 1) fusion protein that is designed to inhibit complement C3 and C5. These are also targeted by the first two FDA-approved treatments for geographic atrophy which require monthly or bi-monthly intraocular injections. We are excited about the potential to advance a gene therapy that blocks both complement C3 and C5, which are validated biological targets for the treatment of geographic atrophy, said Shankar Ramaswamy, M.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Kriya. Our collaboration with Everads aligns with our vision to implement next generation delivery technologies that can optimize AAV delivery to the eye via one-time administration, which has the potential to substantially reduce patient burden associated with repeated intravitreal injections or subretinal surgical approaches. We believe that our suprachoroidal delivery technology provides a potential leap forwad for novel eye care therapies. Our proprietary, geometrically-optimized non-sharp tissue separator opens a path into the suprachoroidal space, enabling a more convenient tangential injection that can support rapid and extensive drug distribution, said Moshe Weinstein, Executive Chair & CEO of Everads. We are excited to partner with Kriya to enable delivery of cutting-edge gene therapy via the suprachoroidal space that may ultimately improve the quality of life for patients with geographic atrophy.



Kriya's gene therapy candidate for geographic atrophy has the following potential benefits: One-time AAV administration may substantially lower the patient burden imposed by currently approved treatments for geographic atrophy that require monthly or bimonthly intraocular injections  while also delivering multiyear efficacy in the setting of a progressive degenerative disease;

Continuous expression of the CR2-CR1 fusion protein results in potent inhibition of the complement cascade by the CR1 domain designed to block C3 and C5, while also through the action of the CR2 domain, targeting this inhibition to the site of complement fragment deposition on damaged cell surfaces; and

Administration via the suprachoroidal space has the potential to maximize transduction of retinal cells while minimizing inflammation that can be associated with intravitreal and other routes of administration.

Geographic atrophy causes a debilitating loss of vision that can dramatically impact the lives of patientswe are in dire need of effective and conveniently administered therapies that slow or halt the progression of this disease, said Quan Dong Nguyen, M.D., M.Sc., FARVO, FASRS, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Byers Eye Institute, and Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. I am quite optimistic and convinced that innovative therapies will continue to improve the lives of people with geographic atrophy and other serious ophthalmic diseases. A gene therapy targeting the C3 and C5 pathways delivered by a suprachoroidal injection may be a significant improvement in the treatment of geographic atrophy.

About Geographic Atrophy (GA)

Geographic Atrophy is an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD) and affects approximately 1 million people in the United States. It is caused by the growth of lesions, which destroy the retinal cells responsible for vision, resulting in progressive and irreversible vision loss. People suffering from geographic atrophy experience blind spots, impaired facial recognition, decreased reading and low light driving ability, severely impairing their independence and quality of life. Geographic atrophy accounts for 20% of cases of legal blindness in North America. (Sources: Rudnicka. Ophthalmol. 2012; Wong. Lancet Glob Health. 2014; Patel. Clin Opthalmol. 2020.) About Kriya Therapeutics

Our mission is to revolutionize medicine, with the ultimate goal of eliminating human suffering and enabling people to live without the burden of disease. Kriya is a biopharmaceutical company developing gene therapies to address diseases affecting millions of people around the world. With operations in Palo Alto, California and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Kriya has raised over $600 million in committed capital, which will be used to advance a broad pipeline of gene therapies for ophthalmology, neurology and metabolic disease. For more information, please visit www.kriyatx.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter). About Everads Therapy

Everads Therapy is a biotech company focused on optimizing treatment of retinal diseases using its proprietary suprachoroidal delivery technology. With the aim of overcoming challenges in current treatment methodologies for retinal and macular diseases, Everads' delivery platform offers the promise of improving the efficacy and safety of existing and potential drug therapies via suprachoroidal delivery. Everads has a number of collaborations in the areas of gene therapy, cell therapy, small molecule formulations and other modalities. Everads was spun out of DALI Medical Devices, a company specializing in development of injectable drug delivery technologies, and established within RAD Biomed, a leading biotech incubator in Israel. Everads underlying technologies were licensed from the Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center/Sheba Impact. For more information, please visit www.everads-therapy.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Kriya Media Contact: Kelli Perkins [email protected]

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[September 27, 2023] Worldwide UC&C Revenues Grew 6.9% in Q2 2023 While the CPaaS Market Grew 13.2%, According to the IDC Unified Communications and Collaboration Tracker Tweet

Worldwide revenues in the Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) market grew 6.9% year over year and 2.4% sequentially to $15.9 billion in the second quarter of 2023 (2Q23), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Unified Communications and Collaboration Tracker. For the full year 2023, worldwide UC&C revenue is forecast to grow 8.6% year over year to $64.7 billion. This represents an upward revision of roughly $500 million from the previous quarter's forecast. In volume terms (units/lines/licenses/seats), the worldwide UC&C market grew 11.4% year over year and 2.9% sequentially in 2Q23 to 620.7 million. Compared to the previous quarter, the gap between value and volume growth rates expanded further, indicating continued downward pricing pressure per unit sale. "Remote collaboration needs continue to grow and evolve with the changing dynamics led by the return to work, coupled with new innovation from vendors, especially on the AI front," said Jitesh Gera, research manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration at IDC. "Moreover, public cloud Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions integrated with telephony continue to be in strong demand as businesses increasingly look to unify their employee and customer communication channels with a strong foundation in voice. The hardware market is currently in flux, as vendors look to develop innovative meeting room equipment to offset the sharp declines in IP telephones and enterprise videoconferencing systems." Meanwhile, worldwide revenues in the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market grew 13.2% year over year and 4.6% sequentially to $3.8 billion in 2Q23, recovering from a sequential decline during the previous quarter. "This segment is evolving as buyers focus on tangible benefits as well as automation across a diverse range of channels," said Courtney Munroe, research vice president, Worldwide Telecommunications Research at IDC. Although it is a challenging segment for CPaaS providers, Messaging continues to account for the bulk of the CPaaS market, sustaining its 67% share in 2Q23. For the full year 2023, CPaaS revenues are expected to grow 12.4% year over year to $15.6 billion a downward revision of $127 million from the 1Q23 forecast.



UC&C Company Highlights Microsoft's UC&C revenues rose 20% year over year to $6.8 billion in 2Q23, accounting for a 42.8% share of the market, up 40 basis points from 1Q23.

UC&C revenues rose 20% year over year to $6.8 billion in 2Q23, accounting for a 42.8% share of the market, up 40 basis points from 1Q23. Zoom's UC&C revenue grew 2.5% year over year in 2Q23 to $1.1 billion. It accounted for a 6.8% market share, staying relatively flat compared to 1Q23.

UC&C revenue grew 2.5% year over year in 2Q23 to $1.1 billion. It accounted for a 6.8% market share, staying relatively flat compared to 1Q23. Cisco's UC&C revenue fell 19.3% year over year in 2Q23 to $951 million, but its market share grew, albeit just 11 basis points over 1Q23, to 6%. CPaaS Company Highlights

Twilio continues to lead the worldwide CPaaS market with a 24.1% market share, up 68 basis points from 1Q23. Its revenues surpassed $913 million in 2Q23, growing 15.8% year over year.

continues to lead the worldwide CPaaS market with a 24.1% market share, up 68 basis points from 1Q23. Its revenues surpassed $913 million in 2Q23, growing 15.8% year over year. Sinch followed in second place with 15.8% market share, down 49 basis points from 1Q23. Its revenue grew 0.8% year over year to $600 million in 2Q23. The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Unified Communications and Collaboration Tracker provides total market size and vendor market share data in an easy-to-use Excel pivot table format that includes IP Telephony/UC Systems (IP Phones, IP PBX/UC Systems), Enterprise Videoconferencing Systems (Videoconferencing Room Endpoints, Huddle Room Endpoints, Videoconferencing Infrastructure), UC Collaboration, and Managed/Hosted Voice/UCaas (Hosted Voice/Public Cloud UCaaS, Managed Voice/Private Cloud UCaaS). Measurement for the UC&C Tracker is provided in vendor revenue and unit/line/license/seat shipments. Additionally, the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market is covered as an optional add-on. About IDC Trackers IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC's Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly Excel deliverables and on-line query tools. Click here to learn about IDC's full suite of data products and how you can leverage them to grow your business. About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights. All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927592261/en/

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[September 27, 2023] DC BLOX Purchases Land and Secures Power in Berkeley County, South Carolina Tweet

DC BLOX, a leading provider of data centers, dark fiber, cable landing stations and connectivity solutions that deliver the essential infrastructure to power today's digital businesses in the Southeast US, recently completed the purchase from Santee Cooper of 27.5 acres in Berkeley County, South Carolina, with plans to construct a data center at the site. The facility in the Camp Hall commerce park will be the third data center the company has committed to building in South Carolina. The preliminary plan for the site includes four buildings totaling approximately 200,000 square feet of space and 45 MW of planned power, with build-to-suit options available. Berkeley County is an attractive location for data centers given the available power from Santee Cooper, its proximity to Charleston and to Google's data center in Moncks Corner, and connectivity to the new DC BLOX Cable Landing Station (CLS) in Myrtle Beach. The CLS has so far been confirmed as the landing station for Google's Firmina and Nuveem subsea cables and Edge Holdings' (subsidiary of Meta) Anjana subsea cable. "Camp Hall is proving to be a prime location for industrial development and investment in our County," said Berkeley County Supervisor Johnny Cribb. "As the need for digital infrastructure becomes increasingly paramount in today's world, we are happy to welcome DC BLOX to our area. We are confident this company's new data center will serve as a critical asset for the information technology sector in our County, region, and beyond." In addition to new data centers, DC BLOX is also building a new high-capacity dark fiber route between its Myrtle Beach CLS and Atlanta that runs through Berkeley County, enabling an express route o the connectivity and data center hubs in Atlanta.



"DC BLOX has quickly positioned itself to serve the rapidly growing needs for digital infrastructure in the Southeast," said Jeff Uphues, DC BLOX CEO. "Our new Camp Hall location will be an attractive data center location for hyperscalers who have an immediate need for space and power to support AI/ML and other fast-growing applications. In addition, the facility will offer access to high-capacity fiber to service their customers within the region as well as globally." Camp Hall, located in Berkeley County, South Carolina, is unique among industrial parks because of its focus on the environment, workforce and technology. The commerce park is designed with growth in mind with the infrastructure, permits and entitlements in place. Camp Hall is being developed by Santee Cooper, South Carolina's state-owned electric and water utility.

"Camp Hall is a strategic location for DC BLOX, which will encourage and support technology-driven industries and quality jobs in the Berkeley County and greater Charleston area," said Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper President and CEO. "We are happy to welcome DC BLOX to Camp Hall and the Santee Cooper family." DC BLOX operates other South Carolina data centers in Greenville and its new cable landing station in Myrtle Beach. Additional locations available for expansion include Atlanta; Birmingham and Huntsville, Alabama; and Chattanooga, Tennessee. To learn more about DC BLOX, please visit www.dcblox.com. About DC BLOX DC BLOX owns and operates interconnected multi-tenant data centers and dark fiber solutions that deliver the infrastructure and connectivity essential to power today's digital business. DC BLOX's private network fabric and robust connectivity ecosystem enable access to built-in carriers, Internet exchanges, public cloud providers, and DC BLOX data centers to businesses across the Southeast. DC BLOX's data centers are located in Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; Huntsville, AL; Chattanooga, TN; Greenville, SC, and a cable landing station in Myrtle Beach, SC. For more information, please visit www.dcblox.com, or call +1. 877.590.1684, and connect with DC BLOX on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. About Santee Cooper Santee Cooper, South Carolina's largest power provider, is the ultimate source of electricity for 2 million people across the state. Through its low-cost, reliable, and environmentally responsible electricity and water services, and through innovative partnerships and initiatives that attract and retain industry and jobs, Santee Cooper helps power South Carolina. To learn more, visit www.santeecooper.com and follow #PoweringSC on social media. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927227806/en/

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GENEVA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Some so-called serious Western press are more insidious than the yellow press because what they are actually doing is just to spread hostile prejudice and intentions, a distinguished Irish scholar has said.

The reason behind this is to manage public opinion to create public acquiescence in the huge expenditure in military and quasi-military confrontations with so-called foreign powers, said Anthony Carty, a professor of International Law, in a recent interview with Xinhua in Geneva during the ongoing 54th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council.

Carty served as a professor at the University of Derby, University of Westminster, University of Aberdeen and the University of Hong Kong. He continues to be the editor-in-chief of the Online Oxford Bibliographies in International Law. He is an emeritus professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology School of Law and will be a visiting researcher at Peking University in the Spring of 2024.

"The question is whether these papers are part of a government strategy, how far they are linked to the intelligence communities and the military communities, and the higher political leadership of the countries," he said.

He cited the example of a "disgraceful article" on Taiwan recently published by a leading Swiss newspaper, which speculatively exaggerated "China's military threat to Taiwan." A photo of Chinese warships was included in the article.

The newspaper made no attempt to give a history of all the legal issues concerning Chinese mainland, Taiwan and the South China Sea, he said, adding that "all the legal issues are erased and not presented, while some detailed reporting is provided. So this kind of newspaper is more insidious."

He also cited the example of a British researcher who dedicated his life to learning Chinese, lived in China and then went back to work for the British parliament, then was slandered by a leading "quality" British newspaper that he may be under some direction from Chinese authorities to spy on the British parliament.

Another example he mentioned is that when the Chinese port city of Qingdao wanted to reach a partnership agreement with the German city of Kiel, one of the top German language newspapers said that Qingdao just wanted to steal German naval intelligence, as Qingdao is a big hub for the Chinese navy.

The expert also talked about human rights in China.

"My impression of China very much is of a society where the people do not live in a state of anxiety. They are not disturbed or afraid of being taken away in the middle of the night by the police," he said, adding that the picture of China's human rights situation in his mind is quite different from what one gets from some Western media.

He said that he was in Hong Kong in 2019 and witnessed the extreme violence of the demonstrations, but was surprised that the British press only reported that Hong Kong pan-democrats were being persecuted by the police.

Then the same double standard played out again in the implementation of the new national security law in Hong Kong, which is not analyzed in any objective way by Western media, he said.

"I would expect this from the yellow press, but not from the Guardian, not from the BBC, but this is the case unfortunately," said the scholar.

As a practicing Christian, Carty said that in Beijing, churches are open to anybody who wants to practice their religion without any restriction, but "you will find the point made hysterically in the West that there is huge oppression of religious freedom in China."

"A lot more research needs to be done before one is to make serious accusations that there are widespread human rights violations. It's a crucial area because that's the main stick that the Western government uses to make their populations actively hostile to China," he said.

Some Western politicians like to deny development and poverty relief as major human rights, while China has always insisted that development and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, he said.

"I think China shouldn't let itself be entangled in such debates. They are not in good faith," he said. 
[September 27, 2023] Empire Access Begins Broadband Construction in Scranton Tweet

Empire Access, a fiber internet service provider declared the fastest internet in the Northeast, recently broke ground on its 86-mile fiber optic expansion into Scranton, Pennsylvania. The first 86 mile buildout will be completed by the end of 2023, and the second 90 miles will be completed in 2024. Empire Access' expansion into Scranton continues its buildout strategy in New York's Southern Tier and Northern Pennsylvania. Headquartered in Prattsburgh, NY, Empire Access provides high-speed internet, streaming, phone plans, security solutions, and more to businesses and residents across its service area. Empire Access is rated the fastest internet in the Northeast by PCMag and provides affordable plans and reliable internet otherwise not available in the small towns and cities it serves. "Scranton is an exceptional community which we will strive to continuously support," states Jim Baase, CEO at Empire Access. "First and foremost, Empire Access is a service provider of the people, meaning we come from communities like yours. Our 24/7/365 customer serviceteams are based in the towns and cities in which we operate. We set ourselves apart from our competitors because we understand what it means to be in your communities, and aim to serve accordingly."



Empire Access pairs its high-speed fiber optic internet with a complete array of telecommunication and security services: Streaming TV delivering crystal clear, 100% HD picture quality, restart TV, Whole Home DVR, and much more

Home and business phone plans covering all your favorite features such as toll-free numbers, voicemail, hosted phone systems, and more

IoT security, home automation and 24/7 video monitoring with the ability to remotely lock and unlock doors, control appliances, climate control, security management, and more right from your computer or smart device

Advanced business services including enterprise Wi-Fi, high-security fire walls, business emails, audio and video conferencing, dark fiber, and metro-Ethernet Sign up to receive emails when fiber optic service is available by clicking here!

Check Empire Access' availability in your area by visiting: https://www.empireaccess.com/service-area/, calling (800) 338-3300, or emailing [email protected]. About Empire Access:

Founded in 1896 with a single telephone line in Prattsburgh, NY, Empire Access has grown significantly as a local communications provider serving large areas of Upstate New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Empire Access offers a wide range of products and services from scalable high-speed fiber optic internet, TV, phone, and advanced security solutions. Responding to a variety of business and consumer needs, Empire Access continues to expand into new areas while retaining a strong focus on local and personalized customer service. In 2017, 2018, and 2021, Empire Access was awarded Best Internet Service Provider in the Southern Tier region of New York. Empire Access has been named as the fastest Internet Service Provider in the Northeastern United States for two consecutive years by PC Mag. In January of 2023, Empire Access closed on a majority investment from funds controlled by Antin Infrastructure Partners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927180369/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Cogeco's Third Annual 1Cogeco Community Involvement Day Supports 17 Communities Across North America Tweet

MONTREAL, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - Over the past weekend and in the coming weeks, 350 Cogeco employees will set out to clean up trails and shorelines in 17 communities as part of the annual 1Cogeco Community Involvement Day. This initiative, now in its third year, is an important component of Cogeco's ongoing commitment to community engagement and sustainability practices that include supporting our employees, our customers and the communities where they live and use our services. "The 1Cogeco Community Involvement Day is an integral part of our sustainability strategy and supports our commitments centered on reducing our environmental footprint and making a positive impact on our communities. Moreover, this employee-led initiative is an opportunity to gather as colleagues, along with our families, to support local initiatives that are driving a more sustainable future," said Philippe Jette, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco. As part of these cleanup efforts to rid the environment of waste and plastic pollution, Cogeco is supporting 14 non-profit organizations in areas served by the company, including PurNat, Conservation Halton, Friends of Oleta River State Park, Columbus Recreation and Parks Foundation and Aiken County Parks, Recreation and Tourism. These organizations demonstrate a deep commitment to environmental stewardship in our communities across Canada and the United States.



To learn more about our 1Cogeco Community Involvement Day and our other initiatives, visit our website. ABOUT COGECO INC.

Rooted in the communities it serves, Cogeco Inc. is a growing competitive force in the North American telecommunications sector, serving 1.6 million residential and business customers. Its Cogeco Communications Inc. subsidiary provides Internet, video and phone services in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario as well as in thirteen states in the United States through its business units Cogeco Connexion and Breezeline. Through Cogeco Media, it owns and operates 21 radio stations primarily in the province of Quebec as well as a news agency. Cogeco's subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CGO). The subordinate voting shares of Cogeco Communications Inc. are also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CCA).

INFORMATION:

Youann Blouin

Director, Media Relations & Strategic Communications

Cogeco Communications Inc.

Tel.: (514) 297-2853

youann.blouin@cogeco.com SOURCE Cogeco Inc.

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[September 27, 2023] Senser Launches with $9.5M to Disrupt Legacy Observability Technology Tweet

AIOps platform leverages eBPF to deliver zero-instrumentation insights into cloud and IT environments TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Senser , the pioneer of zero-instrumentation production intelligence, emerged from stealth with $9.5 million in seed funding to launch an AIOps platform that leverages Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) technology to provide enterprises with deep insights into their complex cloud and IT environments. The seed round was led by Eclipse with participation by Amdocs and other private investors. Harnessing the power of groundbreaking eBPF technology, Senser's platform enables dynamic, non-intrusive data collection with zero instrumentation or configuration required. The platform also leverages machine learning (ML) to deliver automated insights into root cause and business impact when issues like outages or service degradations arise. Senser's AI-powered chatbot enables users from a variety of technical backgrounds to quickly answer critical questions about their production environment using only natural language prompts. As adoption of cloud computing, microservices, and APIs has grown, cloud environments have become highly complex and interconnected, businesses have increasingly turned to the observability sector to monitor these distributed service webs. But traditional observability technology places a massive burden on organizations to implement, configure, and manage these tools  and decode what a flood of alerts means for their bottom line. That's because legacy observability tools were designed to look at specific parts of a company's environment (e.g., infrastructure, applications, or networks) in isolation  without an overall view of business or user flows. As a result, getting a complete picture of how services behave atop the environment requires tedious manual instrumentation or extensive configuration of modules an dashboards. And understanding the root cause and business impact of a system issue requires lengthy manual analysis, often while the clock is ticking on a critical failure.



"Industrial 4.0 apps  such as warehouse automation or robotics  and outdoor mapping apps like drones must run reliably on both clients and edge locations in order to power the foundation of physical industries," said Lior Susan, founding partner of Eclipse. "Through the underlying use of eBPF and machine learning, Senser is ensuring these apps are performing at the highest levels, while solving problems  like the staggering cost of configuration and maintenance, and the lack of useful insights  in a unique way." Traditional application and performance monitoring (APM) and observability technology costs enterprises an average of 20-30% of overall infrastructure costs . This does not include the expense of dedicated engineering resources to configure, customize, analyze, and maintain observability technology as a company's cloud environment evolves.

"Downtime costs enterprises an average of $1 million per hour and a long-term loss of customer trust," said Amir Krayden, Co-Founder and CEO of Senser. "We built Senser to make it easy for SRE and DevOps leaders to go past alerts and dashboards and solve issues quickly. The average Senser customer reduces mean time to detect (MTTD) by 83%  an outcome made possible because eBPF enables immediate visibility across production systems with no overhead, and ML delivers answers, rather than alert floods." In addition to identifying service degradations, Senser's technology helps companies manage the health and performance of their production environment more broadly. This includes identifying hidden drivers of cloud computing costs and leakage of potentially sensitive assets. "Senser enables us to gain control over our environment with its unique zero-instrumentation approach," said Ohad Noam, director of site reliability engineering at blockchain company Consensys. "It takes minutes to deploy and automatically discover our complex environment. Senser uncovers blind spots that we were not necessarily monitoring, saving precious time in identifying, analyzing, and resolving service degradation issues." Before launching Senser in 2021, Krayden and Co-Founders, Or Sadeh and Yuval Lev, honed their skills as tech leaders at DriveNets, a leader in cloud-native networking solutions. The company was selected for Intel Ignite's startup accelerator in 2022. For more information, visit https://senser.tech/ . About Senser Senser is the AIOps platform that delivers immediate intelligence into an enterprise's production environment, with zero instrumentation or configuration required. The platform harnesses the power of eBPF for deep, non-intrusive data collection across distributed systems  and uses machine learning (ML) to automatically identify the root cause and business impact of outages and service degradations, accelerating time to detect and remediate issues. Enterprises across industries rely on Senser to massively reduce the cost of observability and maintain the health and reliability of mission-critical production systems. Media Contact

Sena McGrand

(917) 941-4975

[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/senser-launches-with-9-5m-to-disrupt-legacy-observability-technology-301939886.html SOURCE Senser

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[September 27, 2023] Advanced Health Partners with Unite Us to Address Chronic Health Disparities and Improve Communication Throughout Oregon Tweet

COOS BAY, Ore., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite Us , the nation's leading software company enabling cross-sector collaboration to improve people's health and well-being, and Advanced Health , the local coordinated care organization focusing on improving all individuals' health, are partnering to address drivers of health (DOH) in Coos and Curry counties. Advanced Health and Unite Us will address the unmet needs of people and families throughout these communities. Advanced Health's mission is to advance and ensure quality healthcare is available for Oregonians in a transformative manner. Throughout the state, Unite Us connects people to much-needed resources and services, such as assistance with food, housing, and finding healthcare and mental health providers. Through this partnership, Advanced Health and Unite Us will securely connect people in need with community-based resources that can be difficult to navigate otherwise. "At Advanced Health, our community members come first," said Sam Baugh, Community Engagement Manager for Advanced Health. "Sometimes, people need that extra help to get them the resources they need to be amazing. This tool is what we have been looking for." The Connect Oregon network provides a central point of contact where health and social services providers can securely access and refer people to needed services while monitoring progress and measuring outcomes through Unite Us' HITRUST-certified, HIPAA-compliant platform. Scott Cooper, Executive Director at Alternative Youth Activities, a community organization that supports youth and their families in Coos Bay, Oregon.



Unite Us is a software company bringing sectors together through technology to meet people's needs. Unite Us has active networks in 44 states and has supported statewide, closed-loop networks in several states, including Arizona and North Carolina. Unite Us has invested in Oregon by building a team from the communities it serves that will work closely with Advanced Health to impact individual and community health. "The need for collaboration across healthcare and social services has never been greater," said Celia Higueras, Oregon Community and Customer Success Director at Unite Us. "We are grateful to partner with Advanced Health to better establish a holistic level of care when it comes to providing for their patients. Unite Us and Advanced Health will redefine the quality, impact, and intersection of health and wellness across communities."

Nonprofits, community-based organizations, and other providers who want to connect their clients and patients to services within Unite Us' network can reach out to uniteus.com/contact/ . About Advanced Health

Advanced Health is a locally owned and operated Coordinated Care Organization (CCO). We serve all communities in Coos and Curry Counties. We proudly connect members to high-quality Medical, Dental, Behavioral Health, and Substance Use Treatment through local collaboration and innovation. We are dedicated to making a difference in the health and well-being of our members and all communities served. About Unite Us

Unite Us is the nation's leading software company enabling collaboration across sectors to improve the health and well-being of communities. Unite Us' secure solutions establish a new standard of care that identifies social care needs, helps connect people to services, and leverages meaningful outcomes data to drive community investment further. Through Unite Us' national network and software, community-based organizations, government agencies, health plans, and healthcare providers are all connected to better collaborate and meet the needs of the individuals in their communities. Follow Unite Us on LinkedIn , Twitter , Instagram , and Facebook . Advanced Health Media Contact

[email protected] Unite Us Media Contact

[email protected]

(808) 485-9086 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/advanced-health-partners-with-unite-us-to-address-chronic-health-disparities-and-improve-communication-throughout-oregon-301939400.html SOURCE Unite Us

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[September 27, 2023] Traveloka Impact Study by PwC: SEA's leading travel platform propels global exposure and growth for Indonesia's tourism ecosystem Tweet

PwC research reveals Traveloka, Indonesia's tech success story, aided post-pandemic recovery by contributing approximately USD10 billion to Indonesia's GDP SINGAPORE, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A socio-economic impact study released by PwC Indonesia today reveals Traveloka, Southeast Asia's leading travel platform, is making significant social, environmental, and economic contributions to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, its core areas of operations. While Traveloka's primary economic contribution is within the tourism sector, its activities also extend to other sectors such as agriculture and energy, indicating a broader economic involvement. The study highlights Traveloka's role in stimulating an increase in Indonesia's Gross Value Added (GVA) across a four-year period, accounting for approximately USD10 billion between 2019 and 2022. Of this amount, the tourism sector accounted for more than USD4.5 billion, contributing 2.7 per cent to the sector's GDP. This contribution played an important role in aiding the post-pandemic recovery of the travel and tourism sector in the region. "Traveloka's impact is far-reaching, and we generate significant real-world value. We engage with millions of travellers daily, and this PwC Indonesia study quantifies for the first time our sizable contribution to Indonesia's economy through powering innovation, driving growth for local businesses, and job creation," said Caesar Indra, President, Traveloka. "As we continue to grow our presence around the region and the world, we remain committed to serving our customers, and delivering positive and sustainable impact in Indonesia for the long-term." "This study measures the ripple effect that Traveloka's operations have on various sectors in the region," said Julian Smith, Director, PwC Indonesia. "The result illustrates a symbiotic relationship between Traveloka and the wider economy, fostering growth and innovation in a period where resilience and adaptability are more vital than ever. It is encouraging to witness a tech unicorn not only thrive but also catalyse positie change in the Southeast Asia region."



Tangible business impact The study by PwC Indonesia highlights Traveloka's impact as it enables its partners in Indonesia to unlock access to new global audiences and innovate to diversify revenue streams. 86 per cent of businesses who participated in the study agreed that Traveloka has helped to accelerate their business growth in the Travel & Tourism, Food & Beverages and Lifestyle Sectors. Respondents reported an average of 50 to 75 per cent growth in sales after partnering with Traveloka.

Further, 67 per cent of businesses based in off-the-beaten-track destinations reported experiencing positive trends in visits to their businesses after partnering with Traveloka, with 77 per cent agreeing that Traveloka has helped them promote domestic tourism. In addition, 62 per cent agreed that Traveloka has helped increase their competitiveness against businesses in other destinations. Among women-owned businesses, 85 per cent agreed that Traveloka has helped them promote their products and services, reach more customers, and obtain higher revenue from online sales. The study mirrors Traveloka's Southeast Asia growth The multi-national Traveloka impact reflects the geographical expansion from Indonesia to the region. With growing demand, Traveloka established more direct, sustainable partnerships with suppliers in Southeast Asia and fostered more profound relationships with travel partners. This resulted in better service quality for Traveloka's consumers and the impact measured in the PwC Indonesia study. Promoting sustainability The positive impact Traveloka has had in the region is set to continue as Traveloka seeks to become the most sustainable technology company in Southeast Asia, with the highest ESG rating from Sustainalytics and MSCI in its category by 2024. To accomplish this, the platform is committed to conducting its business responsibly and ethically to reduce its direct and indirect environmental footprintboth internally and externally. According to a user survey on sustainability products, it was found that 88 per cent of the users surveyed in Indonesia value the option of offsetting their carbon footprint while booking a flight on the Traveloka app. In addition, 80 per cent of the respondents said they would be more likely to choose an accommodation with sustainability practices. Thus, Traveloka incorporated a filtering option labelled "Sustainable Tourism'' within the application. Users can now select the Carbon Offset Checkout on their flights and accommodation options certified by the Global Sustainable Tourism Councils (GSTC). For more information, full study here . About PwC

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We're a network of firms in 152 countries with nearly 328,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.  2023 PwC. All rights reserved. About Traveloka

Traveloka, Southeast Asia's leading travel platform, enables consumers to access, discover and purchase a wide range of travel, local services, and financial services products. Traveloka's comprehensive product portfolio includes transport booking services such as flight tickets, bus, trains, car rental, airport transfer. It also offers access to the largest accommodation inventory in Southeast Asia, including hotels, apartments, guest houses, homestays, resorts, and villas. Traveloka is a key player offering local services (currently specific to certain markets), and reservations for a wide range of local attractions, activities, as well as wellness and beauty clinics. Traveloka also offers financing, payment, and insurance products to help Southeast Asian consumers fulfill their aspirations. Traveloka provides 24/7 customer service in local languages as well as more than 30 different local payment methods. The Traveloka app has been downloaded more than 127 million times, making it the most popular travel platform in Southeast Asia. For more information, please visit: https://www.traveloka.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/traveloka-impact-study-by-pwc-seas-leading-travel-platform-propels-global-exposure-and-growth-for-indonesias-tourism-ecosystem-301940395.html SOURCE Traveloka

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[September 27, 2023] SRM Announces Addition of Banking and Fintech Executive Eva Trouin to Its International Advisory Board Tweet

SRM (Strategic Resource Management), a trusted advisory firm serving financial institutions across North America and Europe, announced that Swedish fintech executive Eva Trouin joined the company's International Advisory Board. Trouin brings retail banking and fintech experience to this role, and her appointment continues SRM's streak of adding global and diverse perspectives to the advisory board, allowing the company to elevate client service in North America, the UK, and Europe. "Eva Trouin brings a combination of strategic and operational leadership to our advisory board that's difficult to find," said Brad Downs, SRM's Chief Executive Officer. "We're at a unique crossroads for traditional banking services and fintech collaboration, and Eva understands this space better than most. It's an honor to have her join SRM's diverse group of advisors at this juncture in our growth journey." Trouin is the former CEO of Stockholm, Sweden-based Moank Fintech Group, an investment company driving digitization and growth in Eropean finance and payment markets. She has also served as the Head of Customer Experience and the Head of Sweden's Private Market at Swedbank, as well as leading pan-Nordic digital bank Nordnet Bank AB, as its Sweden Country Manager, where she oversaw operations and strategic initiatives. Trouin is passionate about workforce diversity and is a board member at Feminvest, Sweden's largest network for female entrepreneurs and investors.



"SRM has forged a reputation on putting its clients' needs first and leveraging innovation and creative thinking to serve the industry as a whole," noted Trouin. "The company's impressive track record and long-term vision compelled me to accept this invitation, and I look forward to being a member of SRM's International Advisory Board." About SRM

SRM (Strategic Resource Management) has helped 1,000+ financial institutions add more than $5 billion of value to their bottom line in areas such as payments, digital transformation, core processing, artificial intelligence, digital assets, and overall operating efficiency. SRM has lowered costs, created revenue opportunities, increased productivity, and provided a competitive edge for clients in an environment of constant and accelerating change. Visit www.srmcorp.com for more information, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for timely and relevant insights. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927516984/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Bilibili Unveils 68 Chinese Animation Titles, Bolstering Original Content and Global Ambitions Tweet

The 68 titles were announced during the ANIME MADE BY BILIBILI 2023-2024 event, offering a wide breadth of content that reflects the platform's leading position at the forefront of the industry.

Bilibili also announced a partnership with Shanghai Animation Film Studio and Shanghai Film Infinity to develop a new season and a film adaption of Chinese animation series Yao-Chinese Folktales .

. Bilibili continues to embrace its "MADE FOR GLOBAL" vision through a new partnership inked with leading Japanese TV Network Fuji Television to establish "B8station", a channel dedicated to broadcasting Bilibili-produced Chinese animation. SHANGHAI, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bilibili Inc. ("Bilibili" or the "Company"), an iconic brand and leading video community for the younger generation in China, unveiled a total of 68 upcoming Chinese animation titles during its signature ANIME MADE BY BILIBILI 2023-2024 event. This exciting lineup underscores Bilibili's leading position in the Chinese animation industry, its continuing efforts to empower homegrown animation creators, as well as the company's vision to introduce Chinese animation to global audiences. 68 Animation Titles Reflect Rising Influence of Chinese Animation During the event Bilibili presented a diverse lineup of highly anticipated titles, encompassing a wide range of styles and narratives, from traditional tales to modern anime-inspired stories. Among the highlights was Yao-Chinese Folktales, an original animation co-produced by Bilibili and Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which has been a hit among Chinese viewers for its imaginative adaptations of Chinese traditional stories with an elegant Chinese aesthetic. The series has accumulated 290 million views and sparked over 18,000 fan creations on Bilibili. Joining hands with Shanghai Animation Film Studio and Shanghai Film Infinity, Bilibili announced at the event that it will produce a second season of this beloved series, alongside a film adaptation focusing on a protagonist from the first season, a wild boar whose story resonated deeply with younger viewers in China. Other highly anticipated titles include: Link Click Special Season  Link Click is one of the most popular Chinese animations among international audiences. An English dubbed version of Link Click Season 1 was launched on Crunchyroll in 2022, followed by Japanese and Korean dubbed versions on local TV channels. The series received an impressive rating of 8.73/10 on MyAnimeList, with a peak ranking of No.18.

 is one of the most popular Chinese animations among international audiences. An English dubbed version of was launched on Crunchyroll in 2022, followed by Japanese and Korean dubbed versions on local TV channels. The series received an impressive rating of 8.73/10 on MyAnimeList, with a peak ranking of No.18. My Three-Body Season 4  Originally a fan-made animation adaptation of The Three-Body Problem uploaded on Bilibili, My Three-Body 's high-quality production attracted Bilibili and The Three-Body Universe, the rightsholder of the Three-Body IP, to initiate development and production of the series.

 Originally a fan-made animation adaptation of uploaded on Bilibili, 's high-quality production attracted Bilibili and The Three-Body Universe, the rightsholder of the Three-Body IP, to initiate development and production of the series. To Be Hero X  Co-produced by Bilibili and Sony's animation studio Aniplex, the series undertakes a unique art style that combines 2D and 3D animation. Its trailer received over 100,000 likes on Twitter when it was first released.



Bilibili has become the online home for anime, comics and games (ACG) culture in China, and Chinese animation has proven increasingly popular on the platform. Bilibili has launched nearly 600 Chinese animation titles, including 181 titles featured from the beginning of 2022 to date.

Since 2018, the number of monthly active Chinese animation viewers on Bilibili has seen a remarkable six-fold increase. In the past year, 62% of ACG fans on Bilibili regularly watch Chinese anime titles, making it a primary draw on the platform. Bilibili users collectively spend over 700 million hours annually watching Chinese animations, with each viewer completing 10 series annually on average. Total interactions around Chinese animation on Bilibili topped 5 billion over the past year. Over 57% of the platform's Chinese animation viewers are under the age of 23. These remarkable metrics showcase the rising prominence of Chinese animation enabled by Bilibili's platform and its vibrant community. Bilibili's Commitment to Nurturing Talent and Creativity Bilibili is committed to continuously investing in Chinese animation series to support industry talents and the production of high-quality content. "Bilibili believes in the immense potential and value of Chinese animation, and remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, prioritizing quality and surpassing user expectations," said Carly Lee, vice chairwoman of the board of directors and chief operating officer of Bilibili. "Furthermore, we remain dedicated to investing in and producing original content, providing a platform for aspiring animators to collaborate with Bilibili and nurture their talents." Bilibili launched Light Catcher Initiative in 2021 to support animators, students and anime aficionados. This year, the company has supported over 50 rising stars in the industry and received over 300 original animations from passionate animators. Light Catcher also worked with 11 top animation universities in China to provide funding and resources for over 100 student-made animations. The event also announced a project supported by Bilibili, Capsules Season 2, which invites animation talents, both domestic and international, to create a series of short animation videos. Tomato Kitchen, an episode from Capsules Season 1, won Best International Short Film during the 2023 International Animation Festival Chilemonos. The Global Adventure of Chinese Animation With a "MADE FOR GLOBAL" vision, Bilibili continues to strengthen its global animation production capacity and strives to share more Chinese animations with fans worldwide. During the event, Bilibili inked a partnership with Fuji Television Network to launch a dedicated channel B8station for Bilibili-produced Chinese animation. The two sides will also collaborate on the Japanese TV series adaptation of Link Click. As of 2023, Bilibili has distributed nearly 70 Chinese animation titles internationally through partnerships with global mainstream platforms including Crunchyroll, Netflix, Rakuten VIKI, Astro, and more. The MADEBYBILIBILI YouTube channel has featured 135 Chinese animation titles. Bilibili also actively explores collaboration with international production partners, including Aniplex and Red Dog on the production of leading Chinese anime titles such as Link Click and Fairies Albums. "Bilibili is born from animation and holds a deep faith in it," Lee added. "Back in 2018, when we went public, our vision was to make Chinese animation globally beloved. We will continue working alongside Chinese animators to turn this aspiration into reality, step-by-step." Watch ANIME MADE BY BILIBILI 2023-2024 here. ABOUT BILIBILI INC Bilibili is an iconic brand and a leading video community with a mission to enrich the everyday life of young generations in China. Bilibili offers a wide array of video-based content with All the Videos You Like as its value proposition. Bilibili builds its community around aspiring users, high-quality content, talented content creators, and the intense emotional bond among them. Bilibili pioneered the "bullet chatting" feature, a live commenting function that has transformed the viewing experience by displaying the thoughts and feelings of other audiences viewing the same video. It has now become the welcoming home of diverse interests for young generations in China and the frontier to promote Chinese culture worldwide. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bilibili-unveils-68-chinese-animation-titles-bolstering-original-content-and-global-ambitions-301940438.html SOURCE BILIBILI

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[September 27, 2023] Amber Group, Thoughtworks, and Web3 Security Leaders Release White Paper on Digital Asset Security, Compliance, and Risk Management Tweet

SINGAPORE, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Amber Group , a leading provider of digital wealth management and crypto native liquidity solutions, has partnered with Thoughtworks, SlowMist, BlockSec, RigSec, AnChain.AI, and Ankura to release a joint white paper titled " Digital Asset Security, Compliance, and Risk Management ." The paper provides expert insights into the challenges and opportunities facing the digital asset industry while charting illustrative paths towards greater security and compliance in alignment with Hong Kong's new regulatory regime for digital assets. Digital assets and their underlying blockchain technology are driving innovation and growth in the digital economy, but they also present unprecedented challenges such as liquidity issues, price volatility, and security threats. A SlowMist report reveals that vulnerabilities like reentrancy and access control issues have led to $30B in stolen crypto as of July 2023, highlighting the urgnt need for greater security measures and compliance in the digital asset industry.



The white paper offers an in-depth analysis of the common risks and challenges facing digital asset organizations and investors, providing valuable practical case studies that serve as a reference for enhancing their digital asset security, compliance, and risk management capabilities. It also explores the vital aspect of regulatory compliance in the digital asset industry, highlighting the evolution of global regulatory frameworks and offering practical guidance on cultivating internal skills to adapt to different regulatory requirements. With 10 regulatory licenses and registrations globally, Amber Group is committed to advocating and embracing regulatory compliance based on best practices, enabling digital asset organizations to expand globally in a compliant manner. Dr. Chiachih Wu, Partner and Head of Web3 Security Team at Amber Group, said: "As digital assets continue to gain in popularity and usage, it is essential that we prioritize security, compliance, and risk management. The launch of this white paper is the culmination of our partnership with Thoughtworks and other industry leaders, and we're proud to offer expert insights to help organizations navigate these complex challenges. At Amber Group, we're committed to helping build a trusted, sustainable digital economy, and the recommendations outlined in this report will help establish a new paradigm of digital trust."

To download the report, please visit https://www.ambergroup.io/security/dawhitepaper23 . For any further questions or concerns regarding the white paper, contact as at [email protected] . Amber Group, Thoughtworks, and other industry leaders are available for discussion. About Amber Group Amber Group is a leading digital finance services provider, specializing in digital wealth management and crypto-native liquidity solutions. The firm offers a comprehensive range of digital asset services, spanning liquidity provisioning, trading, financing, and investing. It is backed by prominent investors including Fenbushi Capital US, Sequoia, Paradigm, Tiger Global, Dragonfly, Pantera, Coinbase Ventures, and Blockchain.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amber-group-thoughtworks-and-web3-security-leaders-release-white-paper-on-digital-asset-security-compliance-and-risk-management-301940318.html SOURCE Amber Group

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[September 27, 2023] altafiber, City of Franklin Open Field Operations Facility as Part of Company's Growth and Investment in Miami Valley Tweet

altafiber and City of Franklin leadership are pleased to celebrate the opening of altafiber's new field operations facility that will support the technology company's ongoing expansion and fiber investment in Clinton County, Greene County, Montgomery County, and Warren County. altafiber began operating out of its new 60,000-square-foot facility at 400 Shotwell Drive in the Franklin Business Park in February 2022, and recently completed its initial planned upgrades. The facility serves as the home office for approximately 100 altafiber field technicians who support customers across the Miami Valley as the company delivers on its mission to provide individuals and businesses with the fastest, most reliable, future-proof fiber network. "Franklin is excited that altafiber chose to base their operations in our burgeoning community," said Jonathan Westendorf, Franklin's City Manager. "Technology leverages speed, productivity, and convenience, which explains why altafiber's presence in Franklin is so welcomed. Our partnership will foster future economic development opportunities for our reidents as well as existing and future businesses partners."



"altafiber is excited to be part of the Miami Valley's growth, and we appreciate our partnership with the City of Franklin," said Jason Praeter, President - Consumer & Small Business at altafiber. "We are also thrilled to have a new home for our growing team of field technicians who are serving customers throughout the Miami Valley as we continue expanding beyond Greater Cincinnati." As the leading supplier of fiber-based services in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, altafiber has invested more than $1.5 billion into its fiber network to date, which reaches approximately 85 percent of addresses in Greater Cincinnati.

About altafiber Cincinnati Bell is now doing business as "altafiber" in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The Company delivers integrated communications solutions to residential and business customers over its fiber-optic network including high-speed internet, video, voice and data. The Company also provides service in Hawai'i under the brand Hawaiian Telcom. In addition, the Company's enterprise customers across the United States and Canada rely on CBTS and OnX, Cincinnati Bell's wholly-owned subsidiaries, for efficient, scalable office communications systems and end-to-end IT solutions. For more information, please visit www.altafiber.com. The information on the Company's website is not incorporated by reference in this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927717818/en/

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[September 27, 2023] AmeriHealth Caritas Launches First of Three Investments to Support Innovative Community-Based Programs for Vulnerable Pennsylvanians Tweet

AmeriHealth Caritas, a national leader in Medicaid managed care and other health care solutions for those most in need, is demonstrating its commitment to long-term services and supports by launching a series of investments in community-based solutions to support vulnerable Pennsylvanians. The first of three planned investments will provide at-risk older adults with access to housing-related legal assistance. Through the AmeriHealth Caritas' Community HealthChoices (CHC) health plans, the plans of choice for eligible Pennsylvanians, $200,000 has been granted to SeniorLAW Center to fund this new initiative. "We are committed to supporting Pennsylvanians with complex health care needs in innovative and efficient ways, with an overriding goal to promote independent living and participant satisfaction," said Stephan Roker, Senior Vice President, Community HealthChoices for AmeriHealth Caritas. "For many older people, this assistance begins with understanding both their options and their legal rights related to housing, which this program will address." Through this grant to SeniorLAW Center, up to 750 participants, age 60 and above, enrolled with AmeriHealth Caritas' CHC health plans will have access to housing-related legal assistance focused on mitigating the risk of eviction and promoting continued independence through community-based living. According to the U.S. Census Bureau Househod Pulse Survey, more than 1 in 5 older adults say they are either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to have to leave home due to eviction in the next two months. In Pennsylvania, 33% of "extremely low-income renter households" are headed by seniors, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.



"Our team is excited to work with AmeriHealth Caritas to address the vital connection between health, safe shelter, independence, and access to justice," said Karen Buck, Esq., Executive Director of SeniorLAW Center. "Legal services are an essential tool in addressing housing insecurity, notably because the law impacts our lives in dramatic ways, particularly low-income older people. This grant will help prevent eviction, foreclosure, illegal lockouts, uninhabitable conditions, utility shutoffs, contractor fraud, and other crises which make the difference between safe housing and homelessness. We are privileged to serve those upon whose shoulders we all stand." AmeriHealth Caritas will make additional investments in community-based programs in the coming months. These will seek to address workforce training and close the digital divide.

About AmeriHealth Caritas

AmeriHealth Caritas is one of the nation's leaders in health care solutions for those most in need. Operating in 13 states and the District of Columbia, AmeriHealth Caritas serves approximately 5 million Medicaid, Medicare, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Health Insurance Marketplace members through its integrated managed care products, pharmaceutical benefit management and specialty pharmacy services, and behavioral health services. Headquartered in Pennsylvania, AmeriHealth Caritas is a mission-driven organization with more than 40 years of experience serving low-income and chronically ill populations. For more information, visit www.amerihealthcaritas.com. About SeniorLAW Center

With over 45 years of experience and a diverse nonprofit staff of attorneys and advocates, SeniorLAW Center seeks justice for older people using the power of the law, educating the community and advocating on local, state and national levels. Through its expert teams providing an array of legal services, unique statewide SeniorLAW HelpLine, pro bono partnerships, court-based access to justice projects, and national and statewide advocacy and leadership, SeniorLAW Center serves over 10,000 older Pennsylvanians each year, focusing on those in the greatest economic and social need. The Center is the only nonprofit in Pennsylvania wholly dedicated to the legal rights of older people and one of few in the nation. For more information, visit seniorlawcenter.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927986120/en/

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by Xinhua writer Zhong Ya

TOKYO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition about historic ties between China and France to be held early next year by the Versailles Palace and the Forbidden City will contribute to mutual understanding and friendship, Catherine Pegard, president of the Versailles Palace has told Xinhua.

"When you exchange masterpieces, when you talk about style, when you talk about art, it is a way to be closer to each other," Pegard said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Tuesday at Ginza in central western Tokyo, where she was attending a photo show about the Versailles Palace.

At the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, in China's capital Beijing, the exhibition entitled "The Palace of Versailles and the Forbidden City: French-Chinese Relations in the 18th Century" will run from April 1 to June 30, 2024, which marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"We are very proud of it because that means we are two countries of very old culture and the exchange of culture has been very important since the early beginning of the Versailles Palace with King Louis XIV when he decided to send people to discover China," Pegard said.

In 1685, French Jesuits were dispatched by King Louis XIV to China to serve at the Chinese court as mathematicians to the Chinese Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and they were followed by many more serving the Chinese court for a long time, according to the Versailles Palace chair.

Bilateral communication then was not only about culture or arts, it was also about astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, medicine among other areas, Pegard noted, adding "I think it was very far to ever explore each country... It was a sort of mutual curiosity between the two courts. And even with many many differences they wanted to know each other better and I think it was very important for them."

According to Pegard, the Versailles Palace will present masterpieces showing the influence of Chinese style on France and on the court at Versailles, for example, Chinese porcelain, pieces of furniture and some paintings.

"I think it would be attractive for Chinese people to understand how China could influence France at that time," she said, citing the example of Queen Marie Leszczynska, wife of King Louis XV, who was so keen on Chinese style that she used to have her own portrait painted by artists in Chinese style.

Another highlight of the exhibition, Pegard said, is that the viewers will be able to see pieces from the Chinese collections shown for the first time in the Forbidden City.

"Our colleagues of the Forbidden City want to present some presents given by French kings to Chinese emperors," which will mark their debut to the public, she said.

"Please visit this exhibition and then come and see the real Versailles Palace in France," Pegard noted.

Recalling her night tour at the Forbidden City together with French President Emmanuel Macron last April, Pegard said that she was impressed by the immense scale of the palace as well as the marvel of the night view, noting the exhibition next year will be attractive and successful. 
[September 27, 2023] Fairview Microwave Launches Ultra-Broadband, PIN-Diode Switches Tweet

New PIN-Diode Switches Cover Broadband Frequencies up to 75 GHz IRVINE, Calif. , Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Fairview Microwave, an Infinite Electronics brand and a leading provider of on-demand RF, microwave and millimeter-wave components, has announced 10 new models of ultra-broadband, PIN-diode switches. These innovative switches come with expanded capabilities that cover ultra-broadband frequencies ranging from 1 MHz up to 75 GHz. The new release includes SP2T, SP4T and SP8T configurations, all integrated with TTL drivers, that extend into popular market bands such as UHF, VHF, L, S, C, X, Ku, K, Ka, Q, U and V. To meet varying application requirements, Fairview offers both reflective and absorptive designs, with the latter maintaining a low VSWR performance. The rugged, compact, MIL-grade, coaxial packaged designs come with SMA, 2.92 mm, 2.4 mm, or 1.8 mm RF connectors and are RoHS-compliant. Engineered for high reliability, these robust Hi-REL assemblies have an operational temperature range of -40C to +85C (-40 F to +185F). They aredesigned to withstand a series of environmental test conditions including altitude, vibration, humidity and shock, making them ideal for use in challenging environments.



PIN-diode switches are key components for high-frequency signal direction through transmission. They are characterized by low insertion loss, high isolation, a low bias voltage requirement and a high-speed switching response in nanoseconds. The newly launched models deliver superior input power handling up to 30 dBm. "With their ultra-broadband frequency coverage and robust construction, these switches are designed to meet the diverse needs of our customers in sectors like radar, wireless infrastructure, 5G communication and more," said Product Line Manager Kevin Hietpas. "They show our focus on quality, durability and swift delivery."

Fairview's new ultra-broadband, PIN-diode switches are in stock and available for same-day shipping. For inquiries, please call +1 (949) 261-1920. About Fairview Microwave: A leading supplier of on-demand RF and microwave products since 1992, Fairview offers immediate delivery of RF components including attenuators, adapters, coaxial cable assemblies, connectors, terminations and much more. All products are shipped same-day from the company's ISO 9001:2015-certified production facilities in Lewisville, Texas. Fairview Microwave is an Infinite Electronics brand. About Infinite Electronics: Based in Irvine, Calif., Infinite Electronics offers a broad range of components, assemblies and wired/wireless connectivity solutions to the aerospace/defense, industrial, government, consumer electronics, instrumentation, medical and telecommunications markets. Its brands include Pasternack, Fairview Microwave, L-com, MilesTek, ShowMeCables, NavePoint, INC Installs, Integra Optics, PolyPhaser, Transtector, KP Performance Antennas, RadioWaves and Aiconics. Infinite serves its customers with deep technical expertise and support. Its broad inventory is available for immediate shipment, fulfilling unplanned demand for engineers and technical buyers. Infinite is a Warburg Pincus portfolio company. Press Contact:

Peter McNeil

Fairview Microwave

17792 Fitch

Irvine, Calif. 92614

+1 (978) 682-6936 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fairview-microwave-launches-ultra-broadband-pin-diode-switches-301936197.html SOURCE Fairview Microwave Inc.

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[September 27, 2023]

Utility Veteran Tom Sullivan Joins Iapetus Infrastructure Services as Senior Advisor

HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Iapetus Infrastructure Services (IIS) added to its expanding team of utility industry experts by hiring former Director of the Utility Arborist Association (UAA) Tom Sullivan as a Senior Advisor. Sullivan brings over 40 years of electric utility experience to the fast-growing, Houston-based, infrastructure services firm.

" Tom Sullivan is one of the giants of the vegetation management industry," Iapetus COO Tejpal Singh explains.

A Certified Arborist and Massachusetts Licensed Forester, Sullivan's impressive career has included managing the Transmission Forestry Department at National Grid and serving as Project Management consultant to other northeast U.S. utilities. His significant contributions to the industry were recognized in 2004 when he was presented with UAA's Utility Arborist award.

Sullivan joins a growing list of experienced industry experts brought on by IIS n recent years, including Utility Vegetation Management (UVM) pioneer Phil Charlton and former Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) leader Steve Hallmark. Tej Singh, COO of IIS, sees the addition of Sullivan as a move that will help IIS remain on the cutting edge of the industry as it continues to develop agile new solutions for its clients.







"Tom Sullivan is one of the giants of the vegetation management industry," Singh explains. "We're always looking to add innovators like Tom, who think differently about our industry and seek to challenge the norms. Having trailblazing thought leaders in our corner allows us to provide our clients with strategic, innovative solutions that are setting new standards across the U.S. energy and utility landscape."

About Iapetus Infrastructure Services

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, IIS is an independent, minority- and veteran-owned company that brings a fresh, innovative approach to solving our customers' unique challenges in utility vegetation management. With a deep bench of highly respected operational and thought leaders, IIS offers field and aerial services spanning program design and development, operational oversight (safety, asset, and vegetation inspection), training and mentoring, and technology enablement (e.g., drone/UAS, GIS, UVM work management, and live dashboards). The IIS suite of operating companies includes Atlas Field Services, Gold Coast Utility Specialists, Hyperion Safety Environmental Solutions, Soaring Eagle Technologies, and the Unmanned Aviation Training Institute. IIS is also the proud host of the Trees and Lines podcast. For more information, visit iiservices.com.

Contact: Frank Keenan

[email protected]

281-385-9806

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/utility-veteran-tom-sullivan-joins-iapetus-infrastructure-services-as-senior-advisor-301940489.html

SOURCE Iapetus Holdings
[September 27, 2023] Enhancing Commuter Experience: Introducing SEEKINK's 13-Inch ePaper Bus Stop Signage for Compact Transit Stops Tweet

SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Jiangxi Xingtai Technology Inc., also known as SEEKINK, a leader in the E-paper module industry, announces its latest innovation: the highly efficient and eco-friendly 13.3-inch outdoor bus stop signs. This product offers exceptional flexibility while delivering impressive features, including low power consumption, eco-friendliness, and high practicality. It is excellent for outdoor applications such as bus stops, subway stations, and high-speed rail indicators.

Low Power Consumption, Eco-Friendly, Carbon Reduction

The most notable technical highlight of this product is the adoption of a low-power E-paper display screen. Compared with the traditional LCD screen, it minimizes power usage when switching pages. It usually requires very little energy to maintain the information display, resulting in remarkable energy savings. Additionally, the roduct is equipped with a high-capacity 54Wh lithium battery, ensuring continuous operation on a single charge, perfectly meeting the demands of extended outdoor usage. Whats even more ingenious is that the bus stop sign is equipped with solar panels for dual power sources, ideal for remote areas with limited electricity access.



Excellent Visibility and Weatherproof Performance

The 13.3-inch e-paper screen of this product provides outstanding visibility in all lighting situations, ensuring the content is seen clearly, while its non-reflective design helps reading. Furthermore, the bus stop sign is IP65-rated, ensuring stable functioning in harsh weather and providing dependable assurance for outdoor applications. Wireless Technology for Smart Transportation

Furthermore, its intelligent wireless design eliminates traditional wiring issues while efficiently delivering information, reducing power dependency. This technology has a significant impact on IoT and smart transportation. It not only enhances the connection between devices and synergy, but also improves the intelligence of transport systems, greatly enhancing city sustainability and citizens' quality of life.

About SEEKINK

SEEKINK has been committed to providing high-quality and eco-friendly IoT solutions with its cutting-edge e-paper technology since founded in 2015. With over 100 patents, SEEKINK now possesses the industry's top e-paper display module-related core technology and has contributed to the formation of several standards for the e-paper industry. SEEKINK's commitment to excellence earned the trust of over 100 global partners. Media Contact:

Company Name: Jiangxi Xingtai Technology Inc.

Address: 802, Tianlong Mobile Building, Nanshan District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China

Telephone: +86 755 3639 1512

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.seekink.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4210f473-b7a9-4f92-ba76-d39de03431d8



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[September 27, 2023] Shandong kicks off the 2023 World Cities Forum and Regional Leaders' Summit Tweet

JINAN, China, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Dazhong Daily report: On September 25th, the 2023 World Cities Forum and Regional Leaders' Summit was convened in Jinan, Shandong. Guests from over 30 countries and regions were gathered in the province to renew friendship and seek cooperation, writing a new chapter in the development of sister city cooperation. Lin Wu, Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. Zhou Naixiang, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and Governor of Shandong Province, Ge Huijun, Chairperson of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Yang Dongqi, Vice Chairman and Party Secretary of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People's Congress, also attended the event. Paulette Bethel, Ambassador of the Bahamas to China, Yan Dong, Vice President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape of South Africa, Li Jie, Vice President of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kang Byungsam, Mayor of Jeju, the Republic of Korea, and Chen Yuming, Vice President of China Public Diplomacy Association, delivered remarks.



Governor Zhou Naixiang and Premier Alan Winde jointly signed a memorandum of understanding between Shandong and the Western Cape on further strengthening friendly cooperative relations. At the opening ceremony, 8 outcomes were released, including Initiative on International Science and Innovation Alliance for Green and Low-Carbon Development of Renewable Energy, Initiative for Building a Small Satellite Program for Greenhouse Gas Detection, Initiative on Green and Low-Carbon Urban-Rural Development, Jinan Initiative on Cooperation and Development of Green Transportation, Jinan Initiative on Child-Friendliness, Initiative on Green Development Action, Beacon Action Plan for Green Building, and Hand in Hand for a Shared Future - 20 Years of Shandong Province and the RLS.

The event was sponsored by the People's Government of Shandong Province and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries with the theme of Green Development and Low Carbon Life. It included more than 20 activities, such as the opening ceremony, plenary meeting of Regional Leaders' Summit, world cities forum round-table dialogue, bilateral and multilateral talks, educational and economic events, a tour to Jinan, an exhibition on intangible cultural heritage, and art performance. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shandong-kicks-off-the-2023-world-cities-forum-and-regional-leaders-summit-301940541.html SOURCE Dazhong Daily

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[September 27, 2023] Mercante Technologies to Launch AI-Powered Customer Support Platform Tweet

London, UK, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The team at Mercante Technologies are currently deep into the development phase of its groundbreaking AI-powered customer support solution. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies and AI algorithms, Mercante is crafting a platform designed to redefine the paradigms of business communications. Mercante is in the final stages of refining all aspects of the solution to ensure peak performance and user-friendly interactions upon release. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is expected to launch in Q4, 2023, and will provide businesses with a transformative tool to greatly elevate their customer support experience. Solutions, Tools, and Benefits

The Mercante platform will offer a broad range of automated solutions and tools that will benefit online businesses, including: Email Broadcast and Response Service: This tool can answer questions and respond to inquiries about business products instantly, converting potential leads into customers. AI-backed Customer Service Experience: With Mercante's AI, businesses can ensure swift, precise, and tailored interactions, mirroring the depth and nuance of human interactions. Seamless Integration: Transcending traditional email outreach, Mercante integrates wth modern platforms, offering features like embedded online chats, Telegram compatibility, and more to come. Live AI chatbot: This tool converts website visitors into leads and paying customers by simplifying their cognitive workload. Marketing Campaign Analytics: Mercante can also manage more complicated needs such as email marketing campaigns and help track important statistical insights from the site's intuitive dashboard.



Viktor Rozenko, Head of Product at Mercante Technologies stated: "We want users to be able to focus solely on running their businesses, while we handle the correspondence. The launch of our AI-backed solution is an open invitation for businesses globally to focus on their primary vision, leaving the complexities of customer interaction to our team of trusted experts.

Competitive Cost Structure

Pricing transparency is a hallmark of Mercante's ethos, and businesses will be guaranteed a highly competitive value. For comprehensive details and potential updates on the pricing structure, interested parties can visit this page . Affiliate Marketing Campaign

In addition to its primary offerings, Mercante is thrilled to launch its affiliate marketing campaign. Champions of the brand can earn a rewarding 8% commission for each successful deal that they broker. Anyone interested in learning more about Mercantes business solutions can send an email to [email protected] or visit their official website

Disclaimer: Mercante Technologies is the source of this content. This Press Release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.



Media Contact Details Contact Name: Melissa Rae Contact Email: sales-at-mercante.ai

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[September 27, 2023] Thomson Reuters Third-Quarter 2023 Earnings Announcement and Webcast Scheduled for November 1, 2023 Tweet

Conference call and webcast scheduled for 9:00 a.m. EDT TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ -- Thomson Reuters (NYSE, TSX: TRI) announced today its third-quarter 2023 earnings will be issued via news release on Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Steve Hasker, president and chief executive officer, and Mike Eastwood, chief financial officer, will host a conference call and simultaneous webcast that morning at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Discussions may include forward-looking information. The webcast can be accessed by visiting the "Investor Relations" section of the Thomson Reuters website. Registration for the webcast is now open. Additionally, an archive of the webcast will be available following the presentation. Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters (NYSE / TSX: TRI) ("TR") informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. The company serves professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Its products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. For more information, visit tr.com. CONTACTS







MEDIA Andrew Green Senior Director, Communications +1 323 219 1511 [email protected] INVESTORS Gary E. Bisbee, CFA Head of Investor Relations +1 646 540 3249 [email protected]

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thomson-reuters-third-quarter-2023-earnings-announcement-and-webcast-scheduled-for-november-1-2023-301939381.html SOURCE Thomson Reuters

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[September 27, 2023] CoreStack Unveils New Cloud Assessment Product for MSPs Tweet

CoreStack, a global multi-cloud governance provider, today announced the release of CoreStack Assessments, a product that simplifies and streamlines multi-cloud assessments for managed services providers and their enterprise customers. CoreStack Assessments equips MSPs and SIs to run multi-cloud assessments at scale against cloud-native Well-Architected Frameworks as well as custom frameworks, enabling them to quickly and easily identify and resolve issues across security and compliance, cost, and operations. "As organizations progress their cloud transformation, it's imperative that they continue to operate in an optimized and well-architected manner," said Cyril Belikoff, GM of Azure and Industry GTM at Microsoft. "CoreStack Assessments hits the mark by empowering single and multi-cloud customers with a comprehensive evaluation of architectural alignment with industry best practices." "We are thrilled to introduce CoreStack Assessments to our partners - and to simplify delivery of cloud assessments," said Saba Arumugam, CoreStack's Chief Technology Officer. "Armed with these powerful assessment capabilities, our partners will be able to capitalize more quickly on the opportunities that matter and help their customers realize the full potential of their cloud investments. This solution provides our partners a robust, flexible, and streamlined assessment experience so they can help customers embrace cloud best practices in the most efficient way possible." Purpose-built for partners, CoreStack Assessments provides out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Azure, AWS, and GCP frameworks. Partners can also import existing custom frameworks, create custom assessment frameworks based on hyperscaler frameworks, or create new frameworks from scratch. With multi-level hierarchy and identity isolation, a clear and centralized workflow, and highly automated issue detection and recommendations, CoreStack Assessments provides MSPs new levels of assessment flexibility and scalability. The solution also provides powerful collaboratio, evidence tracking, and reporting features.



"For Cloudelligent, CoreStack Assessments has been a game changer," said Dwayne Lyle, Chief Revenue Officer at Cloudelligent. "It has reduced the internal costs to deliver a Well-Architected Review and automated many of our manual activities, accelerating delivery of these assessments by 50% and helping us ensure our customers are always well-architected. Ultimately it has improved the customer experience and differentiated us from other AWS Well-Architected Partners who deliver reviews in a more traditional way." CoreStack Assessments is offered alongside CoreStack NextGen Cloud Governance, a powerful set of solutions that leverage AI to provide continuous and autonomous governance for FinOps, SecOps, and CloudOps through one unified dashboard. CoreStack NextGen Cloud Governance is designed to help customers leverage best-of-breed cloud platforms with the least friction possible, boosting top-line revenues and bottom-line efficiencies whether they're running AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, OCI, or a combination of cloud providers.

CoreStack was recently named one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., ranking 835th on the Inc. 5000 List for 2023. CoreStack's inclusion on this prestigious list underscores its striking growth and transformative influence within the cloud industry. CoreStack comes in 120th in the Software category and is the 10th best performing company in the Seattle area and 12th in Washington State. CoreStack has also been recognized by Frost & Sullivan, Forrester, Gartner, S&P Global, and IDC as an innovator and leader in cloud management. For more information about CoreStack Assessments, visit corestack.io/assessments. About CoreStack CoreStack provides a NextGen Cloud Governance platform that empowers enterprises to predictably increase top-line revenues, improve bottom-line efficiencies, and gain a competitive edge through AI-powered real-time cloud governance on autopilot. CoreStack's FinOps, SecOps, and CloudOps solutions embrace, enhance, and extend native-cloud capabilities, enabling reporting, recommendation, and remediation and providing single pane-of-glass governance across multi-cloud. Through executive dashboards for comprehensive real-time insights, CoreStack delivers transformative value such as 40% increase in operational efficiencies, 50% decrease in cloud costs, and 100% security assurance and compliance. CoreStack helps 750+ global enterprises govern $2+ billion in annual cloud consumption, and $300 million in cloud cost savings. Frost & Sullivan, Forrester, Gartner, S&P Global, and IDC have recognized CoreStack as an innovator and leader in cloud management. CoreStack is backed by strategic advisors, including the ex-CEO of Wipro and ex-CIO of Microsoft. The company is a Microsoft Azure (Legacy) Gold Partner, Amazon AWS Technology Partner with Cloud Operations Competency, Oracle Cloud Build Partner, and Google Cloud Build Partner. To learn more, visit www.corestack.io View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927955061/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Brooklyn Brewery and Yolele Collaborate to Release 'Fonio Rising' Beer Worldwide, Celebrating Culinary Heritage and Illuminating the Super-Grain's High Potential in both Sustainability and Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Africa Tweet

Today, global craft beer innovator Brooklyn Brewery announces the launch of Fonio Rising a distinctive and delicious craft beer made with the climate-resistant, ancient West African grain fonio, meticulously brewed in collaboration with purpose-driven food business Yolele, whose mission is to bring underutilized African ingredients like fonio to global tables. Led by the visionary and James Beard Award-winning Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery has been working with fonio - which has long been a source of income for the most rural of African communities - since 2019, paving the way for this remarkable creation. Fonio Rising Double Pilsner (6.4% ABV) is an invigorating golden lager that exudes a robust and crisp profile, featuring vibrant tropical fruit notes. The beer will be available at Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S. starting early October, and in Brooklyn Brewery's Williamsburg-based Tasting Room. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927126413/en/



From left to right: Pierre Thiam of Yolele, Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery (Photo: Business Wire)

Known as the "seed of the universe," fonio - a grain in the millet family, which has thrived in West Africa for over 5,000 years - has gained significant attention recently for its exceptional nutritional profile and culinary versatility, and even recognized as part of the UN's declaration that 2023 is "the year of the millet." In 2019, Garrett Oliver reached out to the esteemed Senegalese Chef Pierre Thiam, whose pioneering food company Yolele has played a pivotal role in introducing fonio to the Western world. Inspired by Chef Thiam's insightful TED talk, Oliver swiftly recognized the immense potential of this ancient grain, embarking on a mission to craft a beer that pays homage to its extraordinary heritage while supporting the smallholder farms in West Africa. Since then, Garrett Oliver has emerged as the foremost authority on utilizing fonio in the brewing process. Prior to the creation of Fonio Rising, fonio has been featured in a number of limited releases. Last year, Brooklyn Brewery and Yolele's first partnership, Brooklyn Brewery x Yolele Fonio White Beer, was released regionally in the U.S., as was the Brewery's collaboration with Run The Jewels, a beer dubbed 36" Chain. Additionally, in 2021, fonio was used in Seed, Stalk And Root, a dark lager brewed in partnership with U.S. based Cajun Fire Brewing Co. And most recently, in the UK, Brooklyn Brewery teamed up for a fonio session IPA release with renowned impact beer brand Brewgooder. Garrett Oliver explains: "No fertilizers, no irrigation, no pesticides, no insecticides, no fungicides - nothing. Whether you look at it from an environmental perspective, a social benefit perspective for the farming communities, or from a brewing perspective, fonio is so good that it seems like someone must have just made it up. But fonio is real, and Africa grows 700,000 tons of it every year. Fonio is easy to brew with and gives beautiful flavors to beer. This is very exciting stuff, and I can easily envision a future where fonio is widely used as an everyday brewing ingredient, bringing vast benefits to brewers, beer drinkers, farmers and the planet." What sets fonio apart is its ability to flourish in areas where other crops struggle. In arid regions near the Sahel Desert, this highly nutritious and gluten-free grain thrives in nutrient-poor soil without the need for fertilizers or pesticides. Remarkably drought-resistant, fonio helps regenerate the soil within a short two-month growing period, resulting in bountiful harvests and providing a vital source of income for rural communities in fonio-farming countries. Fonio can play a key role in our efforts to forge a sustainable, biodiverse food system that addresses the effects of climate change. Fonio Rising epitomizes Brooklyn Brewery's unwavering commitment to bringing new ideas and flavors to its communities at home and across the globe. Working in conjunction with Yolele, Brooklyn Brewery has created an exceptional beer that harmoniously blends innovation and tradition, drawing inspiration from Africa's rich, thousands year-old beer heritage. Simultaneously, it pays homage to and financially rewards the relentless efforts of predominantly female-led smallholder farms in West Africa, who persevere in cultivating fonio to safeguard its legacy for future generations. Fonio Rising stands as a testament to Brooklyn Brewery's dedication to excellence, diversity, and celebrating the vibrant cultural tapestry that unites beer enthusiasts worldwide. DISTRIBUTION: Fonio Rising will be sold in a 4PK of 16oz cans, available at Whole Foods Markets across the United States starting in October. For updates and more information on Fonio Rising, please click here. ABOUT BROOKLYN BREWERY: Brooklyn Brewery is a leading global independent craft brewer and a pioneer of the American craft beer revolution. From our home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we draw inspiration from our local community of innovators and those always in the making to spread the culture and creativity of craft beer to over 30 states and more than 30 countries on 5 continents. Learn more at brooklynbrewery.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927126413/en/

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Evergreen Innovations Manages All-Domain Network at Northern Strike Exercise

Evergreen Innovations LLC ("Evergreen"), a tactical communications integrator, announced today that it successfully managed the All-Domain Network (ADN) during the Northern Strike 23-2 reserve component readiness exercise held July-August at the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, in Michigan.

Northern Strike 23-2, conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Defense's National Guard Bureau, brought together more than 7,000 participants from across the United States-plus international partners-to train in expeditionary fighting, command and control, sustainment, and joint integrated fires.

And it was Evergreen's ADN (called the Michigan All-Domain Network by its Michigan National Guard operators) that provided the communications backbone for the exercise.

"We were very excited to, once again, participate in Northern Strike," said Chris Wallower, CEO of Evergreen Innovations. "Our ADN solution ties together third-party mobile ad hoc networking radios and fixed antennas, advanced integration software, and government common operating picture software, enabling geographically dispersed units to conduct complex operations."

ADN was first implemented as the Michigan All-Domain Netwok in 2021, to provide units with real-time situational awareness, voice, and video. The following year, Evergreen Innovations was asked by its National Guard customer to incorporate commercial satellite communications, cellular backbones, and various common operating pictures into the network.







Since then, Evergreen has continued to expand the network's capabilities.

During this most recent Northern Strike exercise, the ADN enabled Guardsmen and international partners to train with cloud-based AI for object recognition and satellite connectivity for Digitally Aided Close Air Support. At the same time, senior staff participated in a live telemedicine demonstration with remote medical support from across the state.

"Next year we'll do even more," said Wallower.

Additionally, the Air National Guard's 2023-2024 Domestic Capability Priorities Book lists getting Domestic Operations All-Domain Networks fielded to the states and territories as a critical priority. This will translate into increased demand for Evergreen's ADN.

"We're excited to begin this journey with the Air Guard," said Wallower. "ADN will empower the warfighter and save lives on the battlefield."

About Evergreen Innovations LLC

Evergreen Innovations LLC specializes in C4ISR, networked communications and cloud-based services. Evergreen serves government customers, including the U.S. Department of Defense, National Guard Bureau and Federal Agencies, as well as a variety of customers in the commercial and international markets. For more information about Evergreen Innovations and its solutions, please visit www.evergreeninnovationsllc.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927233650/en/
[September 27, 2023] Music4Life Reports Annual Productivity Tweet

Music4Life reports delivering 258 full-sized ready-to-play musical instruments during the 2022-23 school year to its 11 participating public school districts. The instruments are free-of-charge and intended for use by the students of families in-need. Also provided were 1,375 recorders (the little flute-like instrument that sticks straight out of the mouth) for use by third- and fourth-graders in the Link-Up program with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The youngsters get their recorders in the fall, learn to play them and are then invited to Benaroya Hall to play the instruments with the Seattle Symphony. "The total value of instruments provided is $126,923 as determined by our independent vendor/repair experts," says Music4Life C-Founder & CEO David Endicott. "Need" is often demonstrated by a family's participation in free-or-reduced lunch programs and determined t the teacher level, he adds.



Research shows that students who participate in school instrumental music activities do better in math, science, history, literature, international languages, reading and writing, even in computer science, in addition to what it teaches in terms of teamwork and self-discipline. Not all children want to participate in instrumental music activities, of course. "But for those who do and whose families cannot afford a musical instrument," Endicott says, "they are effectively barred from getting the full basic education guaranteed to them by the Washington State Constitution. And the sad fact is that, in today's pandemic-recovering economy, many families cannot even afford to rent a musical instrument. So Music4Life is just as much an education program as it is an instrumental music program."

During this fiscal school year, Music4Life delivered ready-to-play musical instruments to Auburn, Bremerton, Edmonds, Everett, Highline, Kent, Marysville, Northshore, Riverview, Seattle and Shoreline Public Schools. Several new public school districts are being considered and others are welcome to apply. Ready-to-play musical instruments are provided to qualified students in these as long as they stay enrolled in that public school district. "We figure that the more they use the instruments, the better they'll get," Endicott says. "If they leave the school district for any reason, such as graduation or the family moves, the instrument needs to be returned to the school district so another student of a family in-need can benefit from its use." Each instrument has a remaining useful life of three-to-15 years, meaning that multiple students may benefit from its use. "Local enthusiasts who share our values of service to 'kids,' 'instrumental music' or 'education' are welcome to join one of our local Chapters," Endicott says. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926634779/en/

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CHICAGO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Negotiations between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Big Three U.S. automakers continued Tuesday, as U.S. President Joe Biden visited a picket line outside a General Motors parts distribution center in the U.S. state of Michigan and Republican Donald Trump announced a visit to the state Wednesday to show his support to autoworkers.

Each 2024 presidential candidate, tied in the polls over a year out from the election, is seeking to win over blue-collar voters and their dueling trips have ensured that the strike will now become a political battleground, reports said.

"You made a lot of sacrifice. You gave up a lot when the companies were in trouble. Now, they're doing incredibly well... You should be doing incredibly well, too," Biden said on the 12th day of the union's strike, amid the applause from the striking workers. "You deserve a significant raise you need and other benefits... It's time for them to step up for us."

"Wall Street didn't build the country," Biden said. "The middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Let's keep it going."

This is the first time in at least a century for a sitting president to visit a labor union's picket line, at the invitation of UAW President Shawn Fain, The Detroit News quoted the White House as saying on Tuesday.

"The White House has been toeing a careful line during the strike, voicing support for the workers and a pay increase but declining to specifically endorse the union demands," CNN reported on Tuesday.

Fain joined Biden at the picket line. He thanked Biden for coming, saying the president "will do right by the working class."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to make an address Wednesday at an auto supplier in Macomb County, Michigan, to show his support to the autoworkers.

Trump's support among union members has increased as Biden's has fallen in recent months, according to Michigan polling company EPICMRA. Trump led Biden 46 percent to 43 percent among union members in an August survey, after Biden led Trump 51 percent to 42 percent in June, according to Bernie Porn, president of EPICMRA. 
[September 27, 2023] Tai Software's Best-in-Class Automation and Ai Tools Revolutionizing Freight Broker Processes Tweet

-Tais industry-leading Ai tools save brokers an average of 11 hours per week while securing their networks and improving data quality-

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As freight brokers continue to search for ways to streamline operations and increase win rates, Tai Software (Tai) , a fully integrated broker TMS platform for freight management and transportation, has implemented machine-learning and automation tools to remove redundant manual entries and processes. Through Tai TMS, freight brokers are able to access artificial intelligence tools to empower their carrier representatives and alleviate the burden of manual operations so these agents can focus on winning more deals and locking in better rates for their customers. The market has just recently stepped into the era of automation and artificial intelligence, embracing machine-learning technologies to amplify day-to-day workloads. However, Tais automation isnt simply a part of this trend. The company has been developing their Ai tools - including automated email capabilities, Tai Document Processor and Tais 500+ partner integration network - and implementing them across their freight broker customers for the last three years. As a result, brokers who choose Tai are able to save their representatives an average of 11 hours per week, per rep. A lot of freight brokers still struggle to implement the right technologies to advance with the industry, said Walter Mitchell, CEO, Tai. What a lot of pople think is that their jobs will be replaced by Ai or automation, but thats not the case. What will happen though is late-adopters will begin losing deals and traction to the humans that are able to leverage automation and Ai most effectively. By building Ai into our TMS, brokers dont have to invest in outside automation just to say they have it. Now, they have growth-focused technology built into the core of their business so they can remain competitive and evolve as the industry changes.



Tai Document Processor is able to remove the need for an individual to scan documents, like invoices and bills of lading. Rather, machine-learning algorithms automatically scan the documents and extract key points that are then translated into Tais email automation engine. Leveraging Tais integration with Google Bard, Tais email automation then composes a message that is ready to be sent to the end shipping customer to confirm rates. As a result, nearly 20% of a brokers inbox is automatically processed, quoted and handled, resulting in substantial time savings and enhanced reliability, facilitating stronger customer partnerships. Wouldnt it be great if you could remove 20% of your inbox and have another entity handle those tasks entirely, asked Mitchell. Reps are now able to focus on booking more loads and building long-lasting partnerships with their carriers and shipping customers, bringing together the entirety of the supply chain.

Tais deep integration network - currently at 500+ partners - also implements automation to provide brokerages with the best user experience and time savings. Correlating data into a single platform from a number of technologies like tracking and tracing tools (Trucker Tools), rate engines (Greenscreens.ai & FreightWaves SONAR), carrier vetting platforms and more simplifies the data journey for broker representatives. Everything, everywhere, all at once; thats what using Tai provides the broker, concluded Mitchell. The automation and cloud-based system weve built not only strengthens a brokerage's bottom line and data health, it fortifies their overall system security as well. About Tai

Tai TMS is an all-in-one domestic freight management system for full truckload and LTL shipments. Tai gives your team unmatched speed and scalability with automation implanted into every phase, along with direct integrations to carriers, load boards, and capacity tools. Tai Software's core group of developers and freight industry experts has helped freight brokers scale growth for over 20 years. We are dedicated to introducing unique, envelope-pushing, instantly accessible products to the transportation management industry. We believe in perfecting our existing products and expanding only when we can meet our own highest standards. Our lean organization allows us to focus on continuous innovation to ensure our customers are always empowered with the most cutting-edge software. Media Contact: Tyler Thornton LeadCoverage [email protected]



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[September 27, 2023] UNITE HERE Releases Real Estate Runaround: How Brookfield's Insurance Venture Offers Reward for Investors, Risk for Retirees Tweet

UNITE HERE released a research report today unveiling billions of dollars of Brookfield Corporation (NYSE:BN) related-party investments made by American National Insurance Company in the year after Brookfield bought the Galveston, TX-based insurance company, most of which are listed on American National's sworn Annual statement as "unaffiliated," and over $1.2 billion of which are Brookfield-related real estate securities. So far this year, Brookfield ventures have defaulted on over $1 billion of commercial real estate loans, with over $5 billion more of office and real estate loans having been identified by analysts or lenders as distressed. The report, Real Estate Runaround: How Brookfield's Insurance Venture Offers Reward for Investors, Risk for Retirees, examines the dramatic changes in American National's investment portfolio since the Brookfield takeover, including over $4.7 billion (book value) of investments in securities originated, structured, or collateralized by Brookfield's non-insurance affiliates and joint ventures. Over $1.2 billion of those related-party securities are related to Brookfield's real estate holdings. These investments include bonds issued by affiliates of Brookfield Office Properties and Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) sponsored by Brookfield-owned office buildings and shopping malls. "It is not entirely clear when exactly all these securities were issued, for what purposes, or whether they have been sold to any non-Brookfield-affiliated investors," the report argues. Nevertheless, "Brookfield has significant exposure to the distressed office real estate market, and we know from press reports that the firm has defaulted on over $1 billion of office loans in 2023 alone. However, the opacity of Brookfield's corporate structure makes it difficult to determine the impact of the 'office real estat apocalypse' on the health of the firm."



Additionally, the report identifies dozens of newly-created Brookfield-managed private funds that issued asset-backed securities and that appear to have sold most, if not all, of those securities to American National. "Why not just sell the insurer the underlying assets themselves? Why go to the trouble of securitizing them?" the report asks. "Brookfield has not explained(but) statutory accounting rules allow insurers to hold most bonds - including real estate-related debt and asset-backed securities at book value (or cost less depreciation) indefinitely." Brookfield's strategy for American National is further obscured by the lack of explanation for why so many of these related-party transactions are listed as "unaffiliated." UNITE HERE reports that public information requests to the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) revealed that TDI approved, with certain conditions, a "disclaimer of affiliation" filed by Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) requesting that BAM and American National's parent company be considered unaffiliated. TDI has declined to provide the document, Brookfield's rationale for filing it, or TDI's rationale for approving it.

The UNITE HERE report quotes from a recent analyst call in which BAM President Connor Teskey revealed that insurance capital and related-party investments are key to Brookfield's future business plans. Teskey told analysts that BAM plans to allocate approximately 40 percent of its insurance assets into Brookfield's own managed credit funds or originated private loans, and aims to more than triple its fee bearing capital by doing so. "Brookfield's candor with analysts and investors about its plan," the report argues, "makes regulators' devotion to secrecy all the more perplexing." UNITE HERE released the report online at PrivateEquityRetirementWatch.org/RealEstateRunaround, and mailed copies to key stakeholders, including state insurance commissioners, key insurance legislators, regulatory policy experts, and pension plan administrators. Insurance experts weigh in on UNITE HERE's report: Edward Stone, Executive Director of Retirees for Justice: "As a retiree advocate, I find the lack of transparency and accountability with respect to American National and its affiliated transactions with Brookfield to be shocking," said Edward Stone. "The thought that American National could be responsible for the safety and security of retiree pensions gives real cause for concern. The stated purpose behind state regulation of the business of insurance is not to let private equity funds pull a fast one on state insurance departments - and let policyholders and retirees twist in the wind. Affiliate transactions require scrutiny for a reason - and that reason is to protect policyholders from the risks of financial alchemy and self-dealing." Thomas Gober, Certified Fraud Examiner and Forensic Accountant: "A disclaimer of affiliation guts the intended transparency and protection of policyholders. One of the core principles of statutory accounting, as reflected in SSAP 25 is: 'Related party transactions are subject to abuse because reporting entities may be induced to enter transactions that may not reflect economic realities or may not be fair and reasonable to the reporting entity or its policyholders. As such, related party transactions require specialized accounting rules and increased regulatory scrutiny.' Transparency is foundational to statutory accounting. The regulators shouldn't need a new rule to require transparency in reporting related party investments by insurers." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927477573/en/

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[September 27, 2023] Laser Light and Inligo Networks Sign $175 Million USD Reciprocal Services Agreement to Increase Access to Asia-Pacific Data Capacity Tweet

15 Year Reciprocal Master Services Agreement between Laser Light Companies and Inligo Networks to Deliver Regional Shared Fibre Cable Capacity and Support Services Both Companies Intend to Contract for Reciprocal Global Connectivity Across Each Firm's Network Infrastructure Spanning Subsea, Terrestrial, and Space Domains $175 Million USD Partnership Will Create a Next-Generation Redundant and Resilient Optical Network Above, Below, and Across the Pacific RESTON, Va. and SINGAPORE, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Laser Light Companies and Inligo Networks, have signed a fifteen-year $175 million (USD) Reciprocal Master Services Agreement for optical service capacity throughout the Asia-Pacific Region. As part of the terms, Laser Light intends to purchase optical transport capacity from Inligo on its terrestrial and subsea cables in and around Southeast Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific US. In turn, Inligo intends to purchase from Laser Light its redundant, resilient global connectivity to meet the needs of its customers overhead and beyond its current network footprint via Laser Light's next-generation data service platform. $175 Million (USD) Reciprocal Master Services Agreement Inligo Networks will provide additional regional connectivity to Laser Light's planned network hubs, effectively meshing many of its optical satellite ground stations and points of presence across Asia and the Pacific, including Australia's Northern Territory. The solution provides Laser Light with significant redundant network capacity via terrestrial, and subsea cable infrastructures, complementing its optical satellite capacity. The agreement also allows Laser Light to leverage a range of Inligo's low latency routes between the USA, Pacific and Asia and the development of the technology in Australasia where the demand for connectivity remands high. Working with Laser Light, Inligo gains access to the Laser Light next-generation global optical network to provide the lowest latency, highly redundant communications platform for their customers beyond its existing customer footprint. Additionall, in the event of an outage or service failure on the Inligo subsea network, the optical satellite capabilities will provide equivalent, restoration services for Inligo' s customers.



"The opportunity to partner with Laser Light as a foundational customer on our ACC-1 and Unite networks, along with being able to supplement these networks with Laser Light's capabilities, global reach and unique service portfolio, adds significant opportunities for our customers. The alignment of two disruptive, innovative high-tech organisations will generate truly meaningful benefits for our customers and shareholders as well as driving efficiencies for our respective organisations," said Simon Zettl, Commercial Director and Chief Revenue Officer at Inligo Networks. "The demand for connectivity options across the Pacific is immense, and we are honored to have Inligo Networks as one of our founding launch customers. Given their secure infrastructure, high-speed, low latency, and reliable telecommunications solutions, Inligo is an ideal partner to expand and accelerate the reach of the Laser Light' advanced data services platform throughout Asia Pacific," said Bob Brumley, Chairman and CEO of Laser Light Companies.

These reciprocal services will commence upon initial operations of the Laser Light platform expected to begin at the end of 2023 with Australia being in the first phase of its Beta Program roll-out in partnership with Nokia announced in June. Exact deployment and contract value details will be announced in the coming months. About Inligo Formed in 2020, Inligo Networks is a privately owned telecommunications infrastructure company in the final stages of commencing construction of the foundational Asia Connect Cable (ACC-1) system. ACC-1 is a new subsea fibre optic system stretching 18,000 klms between Singapore and Los Angeles, to be installed through the Java Sea. With committed landings in Singapore, Batam, Jakarta, Makassar, Dili, Darwin, Manado, Davao, Guam and Los Angeles, the system is perfectly positioned to support Laser Light's satellite network through the region. Inligo is also building a terrestrial system, known as Unite, between Darwin, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, which will provide seamless connectivity between the Australian capitals onto the ACC-1 system via Darwin, This will provide some of the lowest latency, high-capacity connectivity into southeast Asia. Laser Light will leverage both the Unite and ACC-1 systems to provide fibre backhaul and redundancy for its growing global satellite communications system. About Laser Light Companies Laser Light Companies is a consortium of regional entities serving as the owner/operator of a next-generation data services platform  a network of networks  which will transform the way high volume data services is distributed, and managed  globally, regionally, and at the Edge. Using a hybrid management approach converging terrestrial, sub-sea, and space domains, an end-to-end software architecture, a commitment to a "best route, best latency" service; and a unique business model which emphasizes efficiency and operational simplicity, the Laser Light all-optical global data platform will connect companies, countries, and continents at high speed, more flexibly, securely and economically than ever before. Laser Light Companies will do for networking what Cloud did for computing. For more information, please visit www.laserlightcomms.com . Laser Light Holdings has retained DelMorgan & Co., an internationally recognized investment banking firm, to lead an equity and debt raise on behalf of the company to accelerate and scale its global deployment of optical infrastructure. For transaction inquiries, please contact [email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/laser-light-and-inligo-networks-sign-175-million-usd-reciprocal-services-agreement-to-increase-access-to-asia-pacific-data-capacity-301940703.html SOURCE Laser Light Communications, LLC

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[September 27, 2023]

Retained Employees Critically Need HR and Management Support Post-Layoff, Advises McLean & Company

The global HR research and advisory firm suggests that HR and management each have unique responsibilities in ensuring a trusting, resilient, and engaged workforce post-layoff.

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - As organizations across all industries continue to navigate an uncertain economic climate, they are also reconsidering every dollar spent to meet financial viability needs. Though redeploying and upskilling employees should be the primary focus ahead of resorting to layoffs, when the economy is negatively influenced by factors beyond any organization's control, layoffs become a very real possibility or even a likelihood. While layoffs are a challenging and life-changing experience for those who part ways with an organization, often forgotten in the aftermath are the employees who remain. To address the need for support for remaining employees, McLean & Company has released its new resource, HR Guide for Supporting Retained Employees After a Layoff.

"Managers often have the inaccurate perception that relief or gratitude is the primary emotion experienced by retained employees," explains Kelly Berte, director of HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company. "In reality, all employees experience a unique set of emotions during thistransitional time, requiring acknowledgement and support from both HR and managers."







In the new guide, McLean & Company explains that when HR and managers work together, retained employees receive accurate information, emotional support, and a clear understanding of what to expect following a layoff.

The firm has identified several key responsibilities for HR and managers in the post-layoff environment, as outlined below:

HR responsibilities:

Train and support managers to care for retained employees.

Keep retained employees well informed with open and honest communications.

Adapt HR programs to better support retained employees in the post-layoff environment, where necessary.

Provide retained employees with professional development opportunities to close skills gaps.

Manager responsibilities

Practice active listening in conversations with retained employees.

Redistribute workload and mitigate the risk of burnout.

Develop retained employees to close skills gaps.

Connect retained employees' work to organizational purpose.

Answer questions where possible.

McLean & Company reminds organizational leaders that HR and managers are also retained employees and must not be overlooked in the process. While they are working to support the organization's retained employees, HR and managers are also navigating their own emotions and are at risk of burnout and increased stress. As a result, they must prioritize taking care of their own needs in order to provide meaningful support to other retained employees.

To review the full guide, which includes guidance on how to communicate with retained employees following the layoff in accordance with the required transparency level of the organization, download HR Guide for Supporting Retained Employees After a Layoff.

Media interested in connecting with McLean & Company analysts for exclusive, data-backed insights and commentary on navigating layoffs, generative AI in HR, the future of work, and more can reach out to Kelsey King at [email protected].

Signature 2023 Conference

For HR leaders as well as C-suite and VP-level executives who are responsible for enabling, streamlining, and future-proofing their organizations' HR functions, Signature, the highly anticipated HR industry conference from McLean & Company, is returning November 5-7, 2023, in Orlando, Florida.

Register for Signature 2023 or learn more here.

About McLean & Company

Through data-driven insights and proven best-practice methodologies, McLean & Company offers comprehensive resources and full-service assessments, action plans, and training to position organizations to meet today's needs and prepare for the future.

McLean & Company is a division of Info-Tech Research Group.

Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and over 200 industry analysts through the firm's Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact [email protected].

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/retained-employees-critically-need-hr-and-management-support-post-layoff-advises-mclean--company-301940709.html

SOURCE McLean & Company
[September 27, 2023] Hillsdale College Announces Commencement Speaker: Pat Sajak Tweet

Hillsdale College is pleased to announce that Pat Sajak will address the class of 2024 at the College's 172nd spring commencement ceremony. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927846193/en/ Pat Sajak, well-known television game show host and chairman of the Hillsdale College board of trustees, will address the Hillsdale College class of 2024 at their spring commencement ceremony. (Photo: Hillsdale College) "Pat Sajak gave a wonderful convocation speech some ears ago," said Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn. "He has done long and excellent service for our College, and he has a serious understanding of and commitment to it. I expect his remarks will be worthy of the occasion."



Sajak has been the host of Wheel of Fortune longer than anyone has hosted any program in the history of American television. He joined the show in 1981 and has been at the helm for more than 7,000 episodes. He began his broadcasting career as a radio announcer in Chicago in 1967, while attending Columbia College. He left school to join the Army in 1968 and served as the morning disc jockey on the American Forces Vietnam Network in Saigon. Following his military service, his career took him to Washington, D.C., Kentucky, Tennessee, and, in 1977, to Los Angeles. Less than five years later, he was named the host of Wheel of Fortune. He previously served as a board member at the Claremont Institute in California when it was headed by Dr. Arnn. Sajak has served on Hillsdale's Board of Trustees since 2002. He was the vice chairman from 2003 to 2019 and was named chairman in 2019. He and his wife Lesly have two grown children and split their time between California and Maryland. For photos of Sajak, click here: https://bit.ly/hc-sajak

About Hillsdale College Hillsdale College is an independent, nonsectarian, Christian liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 6.4 million. For more information, visit hillsdale.edu View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927846193/en/

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Ah, South Florida. A great place for singles, couples and families to vacation and take in the sun on various beaches that stretch from Fort Lauderdale and Miami down to the Florida Keys.

Unfortunately, it is also becoming a prime destination for cyberattacks.

In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russian hackers attempted to breach the computer systems of at least five Florida county elections offices. These targeted counties included Hillsborough, Pasco, Citrus, Clay and Volusia. The hackers employed phishing emails as their primary tactic, sending deceptive messages with attachments that, if opened, could potentially have allowed them to take control of the election officials' computers. This incident raised significant concerns about the security of the U.S. electoral system and the potential for foreign interference in the democratic process.







Then, in 2019, Riviera Beach and Lake City fell prey to ransomware attacks that crippled their computer systems. These attacks were initiated through phishing emails that, once clicked, allowed cybercriminals access to critical city data. In a bid to regain control of their systems, Riviera Beach paid a ransom of $600,000 in Bitcoin, while Lake City paid $460,000. Although paying ransoms is generally discouraged, these cities felt compelled to do so to recover essential data and restore disrupted services.

Meanwhile, in 2019 as well, Naples encountered a different type of fraud where scammers posed as legitimate vendors, convincing the city to make payments totaling $700,000 for services that were never delivered. Additionally, Key Biscayne reported a "data security event," although the specifics of this incident were not provided.

Fast-forward to 2022, Pembroke Pines was involved in a ransomware attack that targeted the citys computer systems. The attack affected the citys ability to access certain computer systems but did not compromise any personal information of residents or employees. The city also said that the police and fire services remained operational. The city launched an investigation into the attack, notified law enforcement, and worked with specialists to restore their systems. However, the details of the attack, such as the identity of the attackers, the amount of the ransom, and the extent of the data theft, were not disclosed by the city.

Well, South Florida, here we go again. Scammers recently managed to seize $1.2 million in taxpayer funds from the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The city made a payment September 14 under the belief that they were settling a legitimate bill from Moss Construction. Detective Ali Adamson, spokesperson for Fort Lauderdale police, revealed that the city had initially deemed the payment request as genuine, only to later uncover its fraudulent nature.

Fort Lauderdale City Manager Greg Chavarria informed city staff through email that an individual submitted a request for an ACH payment while posing as Moss Construction. The perpetrator completed the necessary documentation and included an unsigned check. The Accounts Payable department then conducted a verification process and found that the names on the request aligned with the company's official records.

In that email, Chavarria did note to city staff that they are working with the citys bank to get the funds back.

Moss Construction also responded to the situation acknowledging that individuals with malicious intent exploited their reputable name and readily accessible information to perpetrate a scam. They characterized the incident as a fraudulent scheme currently under thorough investigation by the city of Fort Lauderdale authorities and the police. The company directed all inquiries related to the matter to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

Phishing scams prey on unsuspecting recipients by sending emails that convincingly mimic reputable sources, often soliciting payments. Victims, genuinely convinced of the email's authenticity, unwittingly transfer funds to the scammers or divulge personal identifying information, granting the fraudsters the means to open new accounts or infiltrate existing ones.

Municipalities are attractive targets of phishing scams due to their reliance on technology and the potential for financial gain through ransomware attacks or fraud. As a result, many local governments are working to improve their cybersecurity posture to mitigate the risks associated with these types of threats.

To avoid being a victim of a phishing scam, organizations and municipalities are recommended by the Federal Trade Commission to back up data, keep all security up to date, deploy a safety net and keep staff informed of what to look out for.

Another step is to stay educated on the state of cybersecurity. One way to do this is to attend ITEXPO 2024 taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, February 13-15, 2024, part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW. Since 1999, ITEXPO (News - Alert) has combined educational conference programming with a robust exhibit hall, networking events and other activities, bringing together buyers and providers of business technology products and services that drive business success.

At the #TECHSUPERSHOW (which also includes MSP Expo, IoT Evolution Expo, Future of Work Expo, Generative AI Expo and more), attendees have a chance to hear from keynoters and panels of experts covering topics that include cybersecurity and the steps needed to take with the current strategies deployed by bad actors. This is also a chance to build connections with cybersecurity experts to potentially bring in innovative solutions to your organization.

Edited by Alex Passett
This week's crackdown against a controversial local lawman who has more than his share of supporters & detractors . . . Check-it:



Levi Weaver has been removed as the mayor of Greenwood, Missouri, after the city's board of aldermen voted Tuesday to impeach him.



The violations included blocking citizens from the city's Facebook page, violating the city's enforcement of business licenses and allegedly pulling a gun on Greenwood Alderman Kyron McClure.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .
Kansas City's top ranking politico joined the auto worker picket line today.

Here's the basics of his talk . . .



Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas was in attendance, showing his support for the working class.



"We are going to stand for every worker -- not just in Kansas City, not just in the Midwest, but in all of America -- to get what they are owed," Lucas said.



"And what you are owed is justice, what you are owed is fair pay, what you are owed are benefits, what you are owed is healthcare, and what you are owed is just a little bit of what the CEO gets."



The strikes have already made a major impact on the U.S. economy, resulting in more than $1 billion in loses so far.



Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

KC-area UAW members rally as strike continues against automakers Kansas City-area autoworkers are showing their support for the thousands of United Auto Workers union members on strike across the country.

'This is what democracy looks like': Kansas City rally supports laid off union autoworkers - Kansas Reflector The UAW Local 31 hosted a "red shirt rally" and food drive in support of local auto workers who have been laid off because of the national strike against major car makers.

Kansas UAW workers rally for deal with automakers Workers and local politicians rallied for an end to contract negotiations between the UAW and the big three: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

https://kansasreflector.com/2023/09/27/this-is-what-democracy-looks-like-kansas-city-rally-supports-laid-off-union-autoworkers/

Developing . . .
Today more pharmacists are joining the fight against corporate bosses . . . Check the basics:



"These walkouts are expected to continue Wednesday across the country, including locations in Kansas City, Columbia, Jefferson City, Burbank, CA, and multiple stores in Oklahoma, according to an employee who has worked for CVS for 15 years."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . .

CVS employees protesting 'brutal work environment' with walkouts across Missouri; another planned for Wednesday - ABC17NEWS COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ) CVS Pharmacy employees across Missouri are protesting what they are calling "poor working conditions and sub-par Regional leadership". ABC 17 News spoke with six employees of CVS, four of which work at a Mid-Missouri CVS locations. All six wished to remain anonymous due to the possibility of retaliation.

'Impossible': CVS pharmacists demand more staff to meet need for COVID vaccines, prescriptions The COVID-19 booster rollout might be a bumpy one as local pharmacy employees are planning another walkout this week.

Update . . .

Another round of CVS pharmacist walkouts hits KC's Northland Some CVS pharmacy services in Kansas City's Northland were hobbled Wednesday after another round of walkouts from pharmacists.

CVS customer reacts to rumors of walkouts, staffing shortages slowing prescription orders and vaccinations A rumored pharmacist walkout may be the reason CVS pharmacies are slow to fill prescriptions and administer vaccinations.

Fast Company: In Kansas City, pharmacists protesting against years of understaffing have forced over a dozen locations to close. Could the rest of the country be next?



Developing . . .
Kansas City Mayor Q offers a bit of promo along with afternoon efforts to redirect criticism away from his ongoing fights with the cops.

The cover story . . .

KANSAS CITY CUTS TAX LEVY RATE AMID RISING JACKSON COUNTY PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENTS!!!



Take a look . . .



Here's his recent tweets on the topic . . .

A closer look . . .

Important persepctive from a Jackson County tax fighter . . .

Developing . . .
OTTAWA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 potential gravesites of children have been discovered near a former residential school in Yukon, a northwestern territory of Canada, local researchers announced on Tuesday.

At a press conference, the group of researchers said that the gravesites were discovered near the former Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, south of Whitehorse, the capital city of Yukon.

Judy Gingell, chair of the Yukon Residential School and Missing Children Project which leads the investigation, told local media this was long awaited news.

"We don't want to just go out and just start pointing fingers, start blaming. We need the truth and we found it. It's here with us today," she said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the research group said they were nowhere close to the truth yet. "These are still early days. There is still much work to be done to bring answers for families and justice for these children, however, we believe these reports bring us a step closer," the statement said.

The discovery is the latest in a series of potential graves discovered around Canada's residential schools, where 4,100 indigenous children were confirmed and more than 6,000 were estimated to have died from abuse, negligence, lack of medical care, and suicide, according to a 2015 report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The accurate number of victims, however, may never be revealed, said the report.

Earlier this month, a total of 93 potential unmarked childrens' and infants' graves were uncovered at the former Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in central Canada.

In September 2022, the remains of 215 indigenous children were found in Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia Province, smashing the nation's hypocritical facade and stunning the world.

In June 2021, at least 751 unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of a former residential school for Indigenous children in Saskatchewan.

Various reports suggest that over 150,000 indigenous children belonging to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities in Canada were forced to leave their families to attend residential schools between the 1870s and 1997. 
Q We have five grandchildren, two of whom are three, one who is four and the oldest is five years old.

The issue is we want to have an early Christmas with them at our home before we leave for Arizona for the winter season. We have asked for the last three years but our daughters-in-law have said no to the idea.

Wed like to give our grandchildren their holiday gifts in our home, with our Christmas tree and a nice lunch, etc. We really would love to share the happiness and fun that being with them would bring.

Flying back to Canada is something we have considered, but as travelling at Christmas is so stressful, we cant do that partly due to health issues.

The issue is my daughters-in-law think the children will get confused by having Christmas in early November. They both think the kids are too young to understand that Santa will come again on Dec. 25.

Since they were born, weve always given generous gifts for the parents to pass along to them on Christmas Day, explaining they are from us. But we do not get to experience the joy of the kids opening them. Yes, we get promises of video and Zoom calls, etc., but that doesnt happen in all the excitement of Christmas Day. Besides that, its just not the same as being with them.

Also, as the other sets of grandparents are there on Christmas Day, they get gifts from our adult children  but we dont because we are not physically there. Its not that we need anything, it just seems a bit unfair.

Other than this issue, we have a terrific and very healthy relationship with our adult children and the grandkids. My main question is this: at what age do you think kids get the idea that Santa can visit them twice?

Grandparents wanting Christmas cheer!

A To answer your main question, I did some research. The general consensus is that by age 10, children start to question the existence of Santa and his ability to fly around the world visiting every single home in one night. That same consensus was unanimous that children between the ages of two and six believe wholeheartedly in Santa and will accept anything you tell them about who he is and what he does.

So in your case, if ever, now is the time to have Santa visit your grandkids twice. And really only the five-year-old may wonder why Santa made an early trip, but his/her parents could get on board and together you could come up with a fantastic story.

Your daughters-in-law are being selfish and not generous of spirit, which actually goes against Christmas. I would explain the situation to them again, expressing your desire to shower your grandchildren with love around the holidays, and your medical reasons for not being able to return.

As far as the gifts youre not receiving, perhaps you could make a plan for the pre-December Christmas you create, and exchange gifts among the adults that day as well. Talk to your sons. The non-religious part of Christmas is all about family, food, fun and the spirit of giving.

Readers Commentary: Regarding the feedback about women dining with husbands who arent their own (Aug. 23/July 10):

As a woman working in a male-dominated field, I have had dinners with many, many men without their wives. Whether I know them or not, I respect their wives. Thats why I never mention that they have nothing to worry about as Im not attracted to their husbands; it might insult their choice.

Chill out, sisters. Trust other women.

FEEDBACK Regarding the father-in-law who doesnt speak to his daughter-in-law (Aug. 21):

Reader: The column didnt state the age of the father-in-law, but it sounds as if he is 60 to 65 years old; and although he might have a long history of grumpiness, if he has some health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., he is more likely to have underlying brain problems such as small subclinical strokes or early dementia.

His daughter should contact his physician and voice her concerns so that the next time her father visits his physician, the latter can be aware of these problems and assess/investigate as needed.

The Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) ensures that a patients medical history is private, so a doctor cannot divulge a patients medical history to relatives unless the patient is incompetent and has given over power of attorney for health care. But the family doctor can listen to relatives observations and concerns.

Retired physician

Ellie Tesher and Lisi Tesher are advice columnists for the Star and based in Toronto. Send your relationship questions via email: ellie@thestar.ca or lisi@thestar.ca.
Two Toronto firefighters were hurt hours apart while battling separate fires, one in North York and the other in downtown Toronto.

Fire crews were called to a three-storey building at 697 Queen St. W. near Bathurst Street at 1:37 a.m. Wednesday and were met with heavy flames and smoke coming from the roof when they arrived.

Toronto Fire Services Capt. Bill Papakonstantinou said the fire spread to neighbouring addresses, noting "at one point, we had three aerials in operation extinguishing this fire along with our normal handlines."

More than 30 fire trucks were dispatched to the four-alarm blaze.

A Toronto Paramedic Services spokesperson said a resident, a man in his 20s, was taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. A firefighter was also taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, she said.

Papakonstantinou said the firefighter was hurt "during the course of firefighting operations"

Another firefighter was hurt several hours earlier while battling a three-alarm blaze at an unoccupied house under construction in North York.

The house fire broke out at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday on Wedgewood Drive near Willowdale and Cummer avenues.

Papakonstantinou said a firefighter was injured after he fell off a set of stairs outside the home.

The firefighter, in his 50s, was taken to a trauma centre with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, according to Toronto Paramedic Services. The Ministry of Labour, the fire marshal's office and Toronto Fire Services fire investigators are on scene investigating, Papakonstantinou said.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Joe Biden administration said Wednesday that it will grant Israeli citizens the privilege of traveling to the United States without a visa.

According to a joint statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of State, Israel's admission into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) will take effect on Nov. 30.

Citizens of countries enrolling in the VWP, which is managed by the DHS, are allowed to enter the United States visa-free for tourism and business purposes and stay for up to 90 days.

As a reciprocal step, U.S. citizens may apply to enter Israel for tourism, business or transit without a visa and stay in the country for up to 90 days.

In the case of Israel, a key concern for the United States before designating that Israel is eligible for the VWP is Israel's entry policies toward Palestinian-Americans.

The DHS monitored Israel's compliance with the VWP requirement to extend reciprocal privileges to all U.S. citizens "and engaged with Palestinian-Americans both living in the West Bank and living in the United States, who now have the ability to enter Israel visa free," read the joint statement.

A group of 15 Democratic senators wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 8 to express their opposition to Israel's VWP designation.

Citing Israeli authorities' restrictive entry policies to U.S. passport holders with Gaza IDs, the senators said "it is clear that Israel is not in compliance with" reciprocal treatment for all U.S. citizens that the VWP requires.

"As is the process with all VWP countries, the U.S. government will continue to engage with the government of Israel while monitoring its continued implementation of all program requirements, including the reciprocity commitments," the joint statement said. 
Who was responsible for the procurement of twenty wooden ladders for the Fire Service? It's 
AZAL pilots have depicted the Kharibulbul flower in the sky, Azernews reports citing air company's Facebook post.

The flower is a symbol of the martyrs, who heroically sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Azerbaijan's territories.

"The pilots of AZAL drew the contour of the Kharibulbul flower, a symbol of the dear memory of our soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the lands of Azerbaijan.

This magnificent Kharibulbul image was created by the Lachin Airbus A320neo aircraft of Azerbaijan Airlines. We bow before the souls of all our martyrs and pray for God's mercy on them!" the post said.

To recall, 27 September is marked as the Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan in accordance with the decree of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, signed on December 2, 2020.

Remembrance Day is a public day in Azerbaijan for honoring the military personnel who have been martyred in the Patriotic War in 2020.

On the morning of September 27, 2020, the Armenian Armed Forces initiated a large-scale sabotage and intensively fired at the civilian settlements and military positions located near the front line. In order to prevent the military activity of the Armenian army and ensure the safety of the civilian population, Azerbaijan conducted a rapid counter-attack operation. As a result of the counter-offensive operation, most of the territories that Armenia kept under occupation for 30 years were liberated.
The Indian film industry's hub, Bollywood, is renowned for its wide variety of films that delight viewers around the world. The movie "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" was one of these, winning over audiences with its oddball humour and original plot. It's interesting to note that the name of this movie at its debut was "Dolly Lahore Mein." In this piece, we'll delve into the evolution of the name and examine the trajectory of this delightful Bollywood smash, which won over both critics and audiences.

The movie was initially planned with the working title "Dolly Lahore Mein" before it became "Happy Bhaag Jayegi." Director Mudassar Aziz came up with the concept for the movie, intending to make a lighthearted romantic comedy with a twist. The movie, which was made by Aanand L. Rai's production company, Colour Yellow Productions, promised to be distinctive in its storytelling.

Dolly, who was to be the main character of the story, was hinted at in the film's original title, "Dolly Lahore Mein," which alluded to a connection to the Pakistani city of Lahore. The storyline and title were changed after the filmmakers decided to go in a different artistic direction from the original concept, which focused on Dolly's adventures in Lahore.

Mudassar Aziz and his team decided to change the movie's emphasis as the script was being written, moving it away from Dolly and Lahore. Instead, they made the decision to focus the narrative on another character, Happy, who was portrayed by the accomplished actress Diana Penty. Happy was now the main character, and when she unexpectedly finds herself in Pakistan, her adventures take a hilarious turn.

A novel and engaging plot developed as a result of this change in course. Young Happy runs away from her own wedding to avoid being forced into an arranged marriage, but by a stroke of luck, she lands in Lahore, Pakistan, rather than Amritsar, India. The main plot of the movie revolves around this unexpected journey, and as Happy tries to get back to India, she finds herself in a number of amusing situations.

The directors chose to rename the movie in order to more accurately capture its core because of the change in focus and plot. They selected the name "Happy Bhaag Jayegi," which is an English translation of the Hindi phrase "Happy Will Run Away." This new name perfectly encapsulated the movie's spirit, highlighting Happy's misadventures and her will to defy social conventions.

The word "Bhaag" in the title captures the theme of flight, which is essential to the storyline of the movie. Additionally, it adds a humorous element because Happy's adventures are full of amusing slip-ups and miscommunications. The title change wasn't just a simple tweak; it was a calculated move to improve the movie's marketing and highlight its main message.

In August 2016, "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" was released, and both critics and viewers gave it favourable reviews. A surprise hit of the year, the movie won over audiences with its sharp humour, endearing performances, and original plot.

The supporting cast, which included Abhay Deol, Jimmy Sheirgill, Ali Fazal, and Piyush Mishra, gave outstanding performances that gave the characters depth. Diana Penty's portrayal of Happy was praised for its innocence and comic timing. The audience connected with the cross-border theme of the movie, which explored the Indo-Pak dynamic in a humorous way.

The movie's success was largely attributed to its deft handling of humour and social commentary. In order to tackle the complex social and political issues that surround India and Pakistan, "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" used humour. It addressed issues like cross-border tensions, cultural misunderstandings, and the tenacity of human connections.

The movie's humour was not just slapstick; it also included sharp dialogue and situational humour that kept the audience interested the entire time. There were plenty of funny moments as a result of the characters' interactions and responses to the commotion caused by Happy's arrival in Lahore.

Additionally, the movie's subtle yet potent cultural commentary. It demonstrated how humanity knows no boundaries by showing the friendliness of the Pakistani people and highlighting the shared cultural traits between India and Pakistan. This strategy struck a chord with viewers and helped the movie receive favourable reviews.

The song "Dolly Lahore Mein" changed dramatically to become the song "Happy Bhaag Jayegi." This shift in title and emphasis is a prime example of the fluidity of Bollywood filmmaking, wherein artistic choices can determine the course of a movie. "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" is still a beloved movie because of its original plot, lovable characters, and the laughter it inspires in viewers. It is a testament to the effectiveness of humour and cultural commentary in Indian cinema. The transformation from "Dolly Lahore Mein" to "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" is proof of Bollywood's magic and its capacity to astound and delight viewers with its constantly evolving narratives.

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Ukraine has developed a procedure for verifying the export of four agricultural crops in accordance with the decision of the European Commission (EC). The country now does not export agricultural products to the five border countries without their approval.

Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi announced this at a meeting of agriculture ministers of the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary), Ukrinform reports citing Ukraines Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food.

"We are introducing an internal procedure for verifying exports of four crops (corn, rapeseed, sunflower, and wheat) to five EU countries. This procedure provides for the issuance of a license from the Ukrainian government within 30 days of receipt of the export application. The relevant government resolution has already been adopted, and therefore exports to the five countries are no longer possible without their approval. During these 30 days, Ukraine informs the EC and the respective country of the receipt of the export application," Solskyi emphasized.

He stressed that the mechanism when exports are not allowed without the approval of the neighboring country is as constructive and clear as possible and considers the interests of all parties.

Solskyi also noted that Ukraine has sent proposals to its neighbors on how such a mechanism would work and is awaiting responses and possible solutions. To date, an official response has been received from Romania.

The Ukrainian minister thanked each country for their understanding, willingness, and desire to communicate to resolve the situation with agri-exports.

"I am grateful to Bulgaria for withstanding such tremendous pressure, for its willingness to negotiate and find constructive solutions. I thank Romania for its understanding and maximum support. We are grateful to Hungary and Slovakia for listening to our proposals and being ready to discuss them further. We would also like to thank Poland for the maximum support it has always provided. And for starting a conversation on our proposal last week. Our productive negotiations are the key to a successful resolution of the situation and stability in the agri-sector of each country," Ukraine's agrarian minister said.

Read also: International lawyers drafting dossier to accuse Russia of using hunger as weapon of war

As reported, on September 15, the EC did not extend the temporary restrictions on exports of Ukrainian agri-products to five EU countries. Following this decision, Ukraine worked out proposals to reach a compromise within 72 hours. On September 17, the proposals were sent to the EC and neighboring countries. On September 18, they were discussed at the EU-Ukraine coordination platform.
Customs routine for Ukrainian grain going in transit via Poland to third countries, should soon be transferred from the Ukrainian-Polish border to the ports of Lithuania, and eventually, possibly, to the ports of Germany.

Polish Minister of Agriculture Robert Telus spoke of this on Wednesday during a press conference in Warsaw after video conference talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Solskyi, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We raised the issue of transit to help (Ukraine - ed.). We are at the final stretch to reach an agreement with Lithuania to transfer this control routine from the Ukrainian-Polish border to Lithuanian ports. This inspection will lead to the grain leaving the EU," Telus said.

He added that the negotiations between Warsaw and Vilnius in this regard "are at the finish line as technical issues remain to be resolved." According to him, early next week, a meeting will be held with the Lithuanian side regarding the transit of Ukrainian grain through Poland to Lithuania.

As the Polish minister noted, Solskyi also proposed that such control be transferred to Germany as well, so that the inspection takes place not at the Ukrainian-Polish border, but in German ports.

"I promised that we will consider the issue as we need to discuss it with the relevant control agencies. If there is such a legal possibility and a guarantee that this grain will not return to Poland, we will go in the direction of helping Ukraine," Telus stated.

According to the Polish minister, the parties also discussed the possibility of lifting the embargo on the export of Ukrainian grain to the Polish market and introducing the so-called licensing.

"The Ukrainian side stated: if Poland declares that it does not need this grain by the end of the year, then they will not issue licenses. We will consider this offer. But at first glance, it seems that this is a good one," Telus said.

Read also: International lawyers drafting dossier to accuse Russia of using hunger as weapon of war

He added that in order for Warsaw to agree to such a move, appropriate regulations must be worked out in Poland.

"It is Poland that will decide until when Ukrainian grain will not enter the Polish market," he said.

The minister emphasized that it is necessary to prepare appropriate mechanisms for the export of Ukrainian agricultural products in the future with the view of Ukraine's future membership in the EU.

As reported, the so-called grain crisis continues in relations between Ukraine and Poland. Since September 16, Poland unilaterally, contrary to the position of the European Commission, indefinitely blocked the import of Ukrainian grain (wheat, corn, sunflower, and rapeseed) to the domestic market, while maintaining the transit of these crops through the country's territory.

In response, Ukraine filed a complaint with the WTO against Poland, as well as Hungary, which had acted in a similar manner.

Photo: cfts.org.ua
Kyiv and the North Atlantic Alliance are working to determine the parameters and action plan of the newly created Ukraine-NATO Council to implement the decisions of the Vilnius Summit by the end of this year.

"Currently, we, together with the [NATO] Secretariat, are working to develop the structure and action plan of the Ukraine-NATO Council: how, when this Council will be convened, at what levels. What we have now are the modalities approved at the Vilnius Summit. It is clearly defined that the Council meets at the level of ambassadors (permanent representatives), at the level of ministers of foreign affairs..., ministers of defense  twice a year, heads of general staff  once a year, military representatives  twice a year," Head of the Mission of Ukraine to NATO, Ambassador Natalia Halibarenko told Ukrainian journalists at a meeting in Brussels, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

In addition to scheduled meetings, the diplomat noted, the Ukraine-NATO Council may be used as a crisis consultation mechanism. The Ambassador explained: if Ukraine has urgent issues related to national security, it has the right to convene a Council meeting at any time. Kyiv used this right once and convened a Council meeting after Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and its threats, Halibarenko recalled.

According to her, to ensure the Councils efficient work, the parties create specialized committees and working groups which will also have their own plans and will be involved in the development of the most important decisions within the Council.

"A big advantage, but also a big challenge for us, is that this is no longer a 31+Ukraine format  we already work in 32 format. This means that it is about our institutional capacity to participate as equals in meetings, in discussions, and in the development of draft documents. Committees within the Ukraine-NATO Council will cover the competence of the entire Alliance as we prepare for accession. But this work will also cover many state institutions in Ukraine, those ministries that already have to participate in these meetings and sessions at the NATO level," Halibarenko noted.

According to her, the parties are determined to come to a consolidated version of the Ukraine-NATO Council action plan in the near future and to approve it together with the adapted Annual National Programme.

"At the end of the year, we will be able to say that we have already put most of the Vilnius Summit solutions into operation. That is, the adapted Annual National Programme will be launched, the Council will be launched, and all this will work already," the diplomat said.

As reported, during the Vilnius Summit in July, the leaders of NATO states and governments decided to create a new format for relations with Ukraine and launched the Ukraine-NATO Council. Its difference from the Ukraine-NATO Commission is that during the Council, Allies and Ukraine meet as equal partners, can discuss and make joint decisions concerning bilateral relations and security.

The first meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council at the highest level took place during the Vilnius Summit with the participation of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received credentials from the Ambassadors of Estonia, France, Slovenia, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union.

The relevant statement was made by the Head of State on Telegram, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

I received credentials from the Ambassadors of Estonia, France, Slovenia, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union. Spoke to each of them individually about our relations, support, common challenges and opportunities. The world stands with Ukraine, Zelensky wrote.

The President of Ukraine expressed gratitude to the Ambassadors of the above countries for their support and urged them to work together for victory and to enhance strong partnership between the countries.

Video: Office of the President of Ukraine
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk will pay a working visit to Ireland and take part in the Conference of the Speakers of the EU Parliaments (EUSC) in Dublin.

The relevant statement was made by Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

In the coming days, I will be working in Dublin, where I will take part in the Conference of the Speakers of the EU Parliaments (EUSC). This conference is bringing together the heads of Parliaments from 46 Member States of the Council of Europe, interparliamentary assemblies and partner countries, Stefanchuk wrote.

Additionally, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is planning to hold bilateral meetings with many of his colleagues.

According to Stefanchuk, the main purpose of his visit is to consolidate efforts in support of Ukraine amid the full-scale war unleashed by Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received the letters of credence from the newly appointed Ambassador of the Estonian Republic to Ukraine Annely Kolk, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to Ukraine Mateja Prevolsek, Ambassador of Hungary to Ukraine Antal Heizer, and EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova.

The relevant statement was made by the Office of the President of Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

During a meeting with the Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia at the St. Sophia of Kyiv National Conservation Area, President Zelensky thanked Estonia for its unwavering and substantive support of Ukraine during the full-scale Russian aggression.

In her turn, Ambassador Annely Kolk noted that she was honored to work in Ukraine and to be among Ukrainians today, and that she had dreamed of it.

Speaking with Ambassador of Slovenia Mateja Prevolsek, the President of Ukraine noted the significant assistance provided by Slovenia, namely 10 defense support packages, as well as humanitarian aid provided since the beginning of the Russian full-scale aggression.

We thank Slovenia for supporting our sovereignty and territorial integrity, for all your support at the EU level, Zelensky stressed.

In the course of the meeting, the parties noted that Slovenia, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2024, would make every effort to bring a lasting and just peace closer to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, at the meeting with Ambassador of Hungary Antal Heizer, President Zelensky expressed hope that the Hungarian leadership would participate in the second International Summit on Food Security.

The Head of State separately touched upon the issue of exports of Ukrainian agricultural products. He emphasized the need to reach a mutually acceptable solution following the negotiations between the relevant agencies of the two countries.

The parties discussed cooperation in the context of Ukraines European integration.

Congratulating Katarina Mathernova on her appointment as the new EU Ambassador to Ukraine, the Head of State noted that European integration was one of the key priorities for Ukraine and was very important for the entire Ukrainian society, both civilians and the military.

We are facing a challenge, yet a very pleasant one for us  to start negotiations on future EU membership, Zelensky mentioned.

A reminder that earlier today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received the letters of credence from the newly appointed Ambassador of the French Republic to Ukraine Gael Veyssiere, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ukraine Martin Harris, and Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine Natalka Cmoc.

Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
As many as 1.068 million asylum seekers from Ukraine are officially registered in Germany.

German Interior Ministry spokesman Maximilian Kall said this at a briefing in Berlin on Monday, September 25, Ukrinform reports.

"As of December 31, 2022, there were 1,045,815 people in Germany who fled to Germany from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. At the beginning of September this year, we were at the level of 1.086 million," he said.

These people are registered in the Central Register of Foreigners, Kall said.

At the same time, 200,000 people who left Germany have been excluded from the register in recent months.

Kall recalled that Russia's war against Ukraine had caused the largest flow of refugees in Europe after World War II in a short period. At its peak, in March-April last year, 15,000-16,000 Ukrainians were recorded at the Berlin railway station every day.

The spokesman also recalled that the terms of protection for Ukrainians have been extended several times and are to be extended again in the coming days.
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Published September 27, 2023

CAPTION: Two ULM Health Studies students, Sohalia Schoen (left) and Mikala Weems (right), participated in research programs over the summer.

MONROE, LA  In the summer of 2023, two ULM Health Studies students, Sohalia Schoen and Mikala Weems, attended two summer research programs offered through the Louisiana State University Health campus in Shreveport and New Orleans.

Schoen secured a spot in the immersive eight-week summer research program in cardiovascular disease known as the CURIOUS program. Weems participated in the Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPECP) summer program Building Health Teams.

During the CURIOUS program, Schoen explored various topics that are typically beyond the reach of undergraduate students. The CURIOUS program teaches a wide range of techniques including the operation of a qPCR machine, immunofluorescent staining, flow cytometry straining, microscope usage, centrifuging, RNA isolation and synthesis of cDNA.

Schoen conducted hands-on experiments with high-quality laboratory equipment and worked alongside graduate students, PhD students, post-doctoral researchers and professors. Schoens research focused on using hi-PSC-derived cardiomyocytes as a potential tool to study chemotherapy drug-induced cardiotoxicity.

I learned how to culture and reprogram blood cells into stem cells, differentiating them into cardiomyocytes to examine the impact of the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin on the heart, Schoen said.

Schoen presented a final poster presentation on her research and won first place in the CURIOUS program.

Schoen said this platform could help assess chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity by obtaining samples from patients and treating the cardiomyocytes with various chemotherapy drugs to evaluate their effect on their biological function. This research could potentially contribute to the development of personalized medicine for patients affected by cardiotoxicity.

Schoen attributes her success in the CURIOUS program to the crucial role the ULM Health Studies program played.

With the guidance from the Health Studies Program Director, Dr. Dolecheck, I learned how to maintain a professional appearance when applying for the program and in the workplace, Schoen said. As a student in Health Studies, you are encouraged and supported through your undergraduate journey with classes that enrich your mind and help you discover your true interests.

In Weems virtual summer research program, she met with other students for four weeks to discuss topics related to interprofessional leadership, collaboration, problem-solving strategies, public health, critical thinking tactics and effective communication. The group met twice every week, one with the entire class and another with smaller teams assigned to complete a final project focused on four different healthcare roles.

One of the most engaging aspects of the program was the open discussions. Each week, we explored different topics and it was fascinating to interact with healthcare professionals from various roles and discuss their responsibilities, Weems said.

Similar to Schoen, Weems felt confident in sharing concepts discussed because of the ULM Health Studies department. Weems most memorable moment in the IPECP program was explaining the concept of social determinants of health (SDH).

As the sole ULM student among LSU students, I have gained a comprehensive understanding of SDH through my Health Studies major. When the topic came up, I was the only student who could confidently provide an answer, Weems said. Without the foundation provided by the Health Studies program, I wouldnt be anywhere near the well-rounded young professional that I am now.
| By Laura Lee

The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law recently announced the launch of the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law. The center, named in honor of Maryland Carey Law professors and civil rights pioneers Larry Gibson, LLB, and Taunya Lovell Banks, JD, will advance racial justice through education, advocacy, and research. The announcement was made at the schools fifth Black Law Alumni Reunion, which has taken place every five years since 2003.

(l-r) Professor Larry Gibson, Dean Renee Hutchins, Professor Taunya Lovell Banks, Professor Michael Pinard.

The overarching aim of the center will be to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities impacted by historical and modern-day racial oppression in a wide range of areas, including the criminal legal system, economic justice, employment, education, housing, health, and other emerging issues.

The center will engage in these efforts in partnership with a diverse array of stakeholders in Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and throughout the United States, including individuals and communities directly impacted by inequality, as well as organizations committed to racial and economic justice.

The Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law is a vital addition to our law school and to the community, said Dean Renee M. Hutchins, JD. The center will provide a critical space for scholarship, engagement, and action on issues of race and the law. It will also serve as a resource for students, lawyers, and community members who are working to advance racial justice. The beauty of this center is that it will be a convener of all the relevant voices so we can get to the best solutions.

The Gibson-Banks Center will be led by Michael Pinard, JD, the Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law. Pinard is a nationally recognized expert on issues related to race and the criminal legal system and will serve as the centers inaugural faculty director.

I am honored to direct the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, said Pinard. The centers overall focus and vision is to work with community stakeholders to improve the lives of those harmed by historical and modern-day racial and intersectional oppression. We look forward to engaging the issues thoroughly, expansively, and tenaciously.

The Gibson-Banks Center will offer a variety of programs and initiatives, including:

Education and Engagement: The center will offer courses, workshops, and community conversations on race and the law to Maryland Carey Law students, University System of Maryland institutions, and the public.





The center will offer courses, workshops, and community conversations on race and the law to Maryland Carey Law students, Advocacy: The centers advocacy work will include litigation in state and federal courts and agencies; promoting policy and legislative change at the local, state, and federal levels; and authoring amicus briefs in cases of local, state, and national importance.





Research: The centers research arm will include legal scholarship focused on race and intersectionality as well as policy and evidence-based research that will provide insights and data related to racial and intersectional marginalization. Maryland Carey Law School faculty, affiliated faculty, and center fellows will conduct the expansive research.

Maryland Carey Law alumnus, the Hon. William H. Billy Murphy, JD '69, has made a $1 million commitment to help build a solid foundation for the center.

We are so grateful to Billy for supporting the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, said Dean Hutchins. Maryland Carey Law played an important role in preparing his family to become civil rights advocates and now, with his support, we have the opportunity to make a profound impact in advancing racial justice in Baltimore, Maryland, and beyond.

The Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law is a critical step in Maryland Carey Laws commitment to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. The center will build and reflect on the legacy of Maryland Carey Law, a once segregated institution that was desegregated through litigation led by Thurgood Marshall on behalf of Donald Gaines Murray, LLB 38. Today, Maryland Carey Law routinely enrolls one of the highest percentages of Black students in incoming classes of any top law school.

About Larry Gibson and Taunya Lovell Banks

Larry Gibson, the Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law, is a legal historian who has written one of the definitive biographies of Justice Thurgood Marshall and will soon release a second book about the justice. Gibson teaches a range of courses at the law school and has curated several exhibits on the history of Black lawyers in Maryland. On the faculty since 1974, Gibson has demonstrated strong leadership both within and outside of the law school.

Taunya Lovell Banks, the Jacob A. France Professor Emeritus of Equality Jurisprudence, taught her final class at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in fall 2021. The legendary critical race theory scholar and first tenured Black woman on the law school faculty retired after an illustrious career in which she trained her sharp scholarship on exposing systemic sexism and racism and inspired generations of students and colleagues to dedicate their legal careers to the fight for social justice.

About University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

The University of Maryland School of Law was authorized by the Maryland legislature in 1813 and began regular instruction in 1824. It is the third oldest law school in the nation, but its innovative programs make it one of the liveliest and most dynamic today. Maryland Carey Law stands among five other professional schools on the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus. It has taken advantage of this location to become an integral part of the Baltimore-Washington legal and business community.

Media Contact:

Laura Lee, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Mobile: 410-382-9214

Email: laura.lee@umaryland.edu
Williams believes that Logan Sargeants driving has steadily improved over the course of the 2023 season, but its also a fact that the young Americans multiple crashes have taken the shine off his progress.

Sargeant suffered a few mishaps and off-track excursions in the first part of his rookie season with Williams as he learned the ropes of F1.

But after the summer break, things got worse for the 22-year-old. At Zandvoort, Sargeant had done a remarkable job to haul himself into Q3 for the very first time in qualifying, only to crash on his first flyer in the segment.

On race day, a hydraulic issue also led to the Williams driver ending his day in the barrier.

In Japan last weekend, he again crashed in qualifying, severely damaging his FW45 to the extent that Williams was forced to build up a new car for Sundays event which forced Sargeant to start his race from the pitlane and with a 10-second penalty.

Alas, on lap 7, the American collided with Alfa Romeos Valtteri Bottas at Suzukas Turn 11 hairpin, an incident that eventually yielded a DNF for both drivers.

Dave Robson, Williams head of vehicle performance believed that Sargeants progress of late has been genuine, as his diminished gap to Albon in qualifying at Suzuka showed. But the crashes have inevitably tarnished his advancements.

"I guess inevitably, they catch the headlines, don't they?," Robson said ahead of last weekends race in Japan quoted by Motorsport.com.

"I think it has kind of masked his steady performance and this weekend was actually going really well.

It is such a difficult circuit to come to and he went about it really well on Friday, built on that on Saturday, and then lost it in the very last corner of the first lap ... and really, it was quite a minor mistake.

"It's just at that corner once you touch the grass, you're in a whole heap of trouble and it was a real shame.

"But yeah, I think it is fair that the crashes since Zandvoort have masked what otherwise has clearly been some steady improvement."

One insidious problem creeping up on Sargeant is that any additional crash damage might jeopardize his access to new-spec elements, not to mention the potential impact this could have on Williams 2024 development budget, although Robson was confident this would not be the case.

"To some extent, you end up having to drop back on specs, because for all of the long lead items and then having to ship them around the world, it's already too late to make more new ones, really, even if you had the money and the time to do it.

"It probably won't affect next year too much, because I think we've got enough parts.

"It just becomes a bit of a logistical exercise. How many do we want to actually ship out at the circuit? What do we send on to the next? What do we send back to the UK?

"And so I don't think there's too much panic. We'll need to get that chassis repaired, which will consume a little bit of time at the factory.

But otherwise, we've got enough bits around this that we can carry on."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
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Everyone who reaches the milestone of retirement reacts to it a bit differently. Some retirees may continue good money habits they developed prior to retirement, carefully budgeting and saving. Others may see this as an opportunity to celebrate by investing in lavish purchases theyve been wanting to make for a long time.

Learn More: 5 Actions You Must Take If Your Retirement Savings Fall Below $50,000

Related: The Simple, Effective Way To Fortify Your Retirement Mix

As much as you may want to treat yourself to something wildly over the top, a splurge might wind up setting you back financially and lack a return on your investment. Think twice before making these splurges in retirement.

New Car

New cars are common retirement splurges, especially for baby boomers dreaming of traveling cross country or zipping around the neighborhood in a new set of wheels.

Before you think about visiting a dealership, Khwan Hathai, CFP and founder of Epiphany Financial Therapy, cautions against splurging on such a depreciating asset. Putting a significant portion of your retirement funds toward a new car may not align with reaching the goal of sustainable financial freedom.

Im a Retirement Planning Expert: Here Are 4 Reasons You Shouldnt Retire in Florida If You Have a Budget of Over $5K a Month

While the prospect of driving a brand-new car off the lot may offer an immediate emotional high, Hathai said, it clashes with the essence of a financially prudent money mindset.

Douglas Goldstein, CFP at Profile Investment Services, Ltd., recommends retirees continue keeping a reliable car or look into other affordable transportation options.

Dream Home

Boomers who didnt get the chance to own their dream homes before retirement may be tempted to buy them when they retire.

Many dream homes tend to be bigger, which presents an immediate expensive problem to retirees. According to Hathai, upkeep costs such as maintenance, property taxes and utilities can strain retirement finances.

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If your retirement money mindset is focused on long-term financial stability, Hathai said the inclusion of these hidden expenses can throw a wrench into a carefully planned budget.

Instead of moving to a larger home, Goldstein said boomers may consider downsizing. This can help create a more manageable, cost-effective living arrangement during retirement years and free up money to pay for other needs like healthcare or travel.

Timeshare

Retirees are recommended to proceed with caution when considering any timeshare investments.

While marketed as a luxury purchase, timeshares often come with high maintenance fees and limited flexibility, Goldstein said. Boomers should carefully consider the financial implications before investing.

Pro Tip: Have a Solid Retirement Plan

Before indulging in splurge purchases, even smaller splurges you can treat yourself with, Goldstein recommends boomers focus on ensuring they have covered their basic needs first. These include healthcare, housing and daily expenses.

Each one of these needs should be covered in your retirement plan. This plan, Goldstein said, considers future expenses and unexpected events, which can ultimately make it impossible or impractical to enjoy impulse splurges.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 3 Splurges Boomers Should Never Make in Retirement
Automera unlocks the full potential of autophagy-based targeted protein degradation for oncology and other indications

SEATTLE & SINGAPORE, September 27, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accelerator Life Science Partners (ALSP), an early-stage life science accelerator and investment firm that creates and builds next-generation biotechnology companies centered on innovative science, today announced the Series A financing of Automera, a new biotechnology company that focuses on the development of autophagy-targeting chimera small molecules (AUTACs). Augmented with quantum chemistry and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled drug discovery tools, Automeras AUTACs have the broad potential to rapidly generate novel therapeutic leads for a range of diseases. Automera will initially focus its product development efforts to treat cancer. The company was established by co-founders Associate Professor Michael Lazarou, Loong Wang, and Taiyang Zhang at Talo Labs Pte Ltd. in collaboration with ALSP. Automera has secured $16M in Series A funding, a co-led endeavor by ALSP and ClavystBio, with participation from Singapore-based global investor EDBI, Xora Innovation, and other undisclosed investors. Joining the Board of Directors are Loong Wang, from Automera, Dr. Alice Chen and Thong Q. Le, from ALSP, and Dr. Wen Qi Ho, from ClavystBio.

"ALSP has long been interested in helping to drive biopharma innovation emerging in Singapore," said Alice Chen, Executive Vice President at ALSP and Automera board member. "As our first investment in Singapore, Automera exemplifies the innovative scientific and translational research ongoing in the region. We plan to leverage ALSPs unique company-building capabilities in Singapore, and we look forward to working with the broader Singapore community to enhance the platform technologies and early-stage therapeutic programs that Automera will develop. We are honored to co-lead Automeras Series A financing with our partners at ClavystBio and are excited about expanding Automeras operations in the months ahead."

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Automeras AUTAC platform is a next-generation approach to realizing the potential of targeted protein degradation (TPD) as a therapeutic modality. TPD, an emerging field of novel therapeutics, catalyzes the degradation of disease-related proteins while retaining the benefits of small molecules. Automeras AUTAC platform is designed to generate novel therapies that degrade not only disease-related proteins but also protein aggregates, organelles, and pathogens. AUTACs have the potential to provide a more flexible approach to protein degradation than existing approaches such as proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) to trigger protein degradation.

"Automera was founded on the premise that improving health outcomes for people with serious diseases requires new technologies that make it easier, faster, and less expensive to develop safe and effective medicines," said Loong Wang, co-founder of Automera. "We believe that our AUTAC platform is one such technology, with broad potential across multiple disease indications that are difficult to treat with current therapeutic approaches. We greatly value the business and financial support that ALSP provides and are proud that leading healthcare investors are participating in Automeras Series A financing. With these resources, Automera is well positioned to deploy our AUTAC platform toward the development of potentially transformative therapies."

Automera has assembled a distinguished scientific advisory group that includes Associate Professor Michael Lazarou, Automera's Scientific Co-Founder at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) and the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Dr. Nicholas Ktistakis from Babraham Institute, Dr. Gene Yeo from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Dr. Kendall Mohler from ALSP.

"ClavystBio is excited to be building new ventures in Singapore through partnerships with young entrepreneurs like Loong Wang and his team at Automera, and smart capital investors like ALSP," said Wen Qi Ho, Therapeutics Lead at ClavystBio. "Our mission is to accelerate the commercialization of breakthrough innovations like the AUTAC platform for health impact, and we welcome Automera and ALSP to Singapores growing life sciences translational community."

About Automera

Automera is an early-stage company focused on the development of a novel therapeutic approach via autophagy-based targeted protein degradation. Automera aims to leverage its unique understanding of autophagy, drug development capabilities, and access to quantum chemistry and generative AI-enabled insights to enhance its drug development programs. Automeras AUTAC platform has broad potential across cancer and other disease areas, with oncology being the initial lead program. The company was founded by co-founders Associate Professor Michael Lazarou, Loong Wang, and Taiyang Zhang at Talo Labs Pte Ltd. For more information, visit www.automeratx.com.

About Accelerator Life Science Partners

Accelerator Life Science Partners (ALSP) is an early-stage life science accelerator and investment firm that creates and builds next generation biotechnology companies centered on innovative science. ALSP catalyzes the development and commercialization of breakthrough biotechnology innovations by providing a holistic toolkit and leveraging its network and entrepreneurial expertise to accelerate the establishment and operation of early-stage biotechnology companies. ALSPs portfolio companies are backed by renowned life science investors and are comprised of industry-leading, transformative companies, including KayoThera, Inc., Lodo Therapeutics (acquired by Zymergen, now Ginkgo BioWorks), Petra Pharma (acquired by a global pharmaceutical company), Proniras Corporation, and Rodeo Therapeutics (acquired by Amgen Inc.). For more information, please visit www.acceleratorlsp.com.

About ClavystBio

ClavystBios mission is to accelerate the commercialization of life science breakthroughs into health impact. We invest and partner with innovators, entrepreneurs, and founders to launch and grow global companies in Singapore. We foster partnerships among academics, industry, and investors, and convene life sciences communities at our collaborative innovation space Node 1. Together, we advance Singapore as a global life sciences translational hub.

ClavystBio was conceived and launched by Temasek to be a venture builder, trusted partner, and keystone to catalyze global health solutions from Singapore. Since our inception in 2022, ClavystBio has committed over US$220m to biotech, diagnostics, and digital health companies, as well as early-stage VC funds. For more information on ClavystBio, please visit www.clavystbio.com.

About EDBI

Investing since 1991, EDBI is a Singapore-based global investor in select high growth technology sectors ranging from Information & Communication Technology (ICT), Emerging Technology (ET), Healthcare (HC) and promising Singapore SMEs in strategic industries. As a value-creating investor, EDBI assists companies achieve their ambitious goals by leveraging our broad network, resources, and expertise. With our growth capital, EDBI supports companies seeking to grow in Asia and globally through Singapore. For more information, visit https://www.edbi.com.

About Xora Innovation

Xora Innovation invests in disruptive, world-changing ventures forged by ambitious founders and powered by compelling scientific breakthroughs. Headquartered in Singapore, Xora is an early-stage deep tech investing platform of Temasek. For more information, visit https://xora.vc.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230926466395/en/

Contacts

Jessica Burback

Email: jburback@acceleratorlsp.com

Phone: 206-957-7302
USM, Hyperion Technology Group Collaborate on Recent NOAA Grant

Wed, 09/27/2023 - 08:33am | By: Van Arnold

The University of Southern Mississippis (USM) partnership with Mississippi-based Hyperion Technology Group is expected to yield significant dividends as the two research and technology titans collaborate to develop a Data Assembly Hub for Uncrewed Systems. The collaboration is the product of a $2.5 million grant awarded recently to USM by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

NOAA officials reached out to USM in 2020 seeking new ideas to handle the rapidly growing data produced by the agencys Uncrewed Systems, which are autonomous or remotely operated vehicles that collect environmental data. That inquiry led to a successful pilot project which provided the foundation for the grant.

Dr. Henry Jones, Director of Research Development and Scientific Entrepreneurship at USM, notes that Hyperion played an important role from the beginning. Jones served as Principal Investigator for the NOAA grant.

When we were first getting our heads around the enormous data sizes NOAA would be handling, we looked for lessons already learned elsewhere, said Jones. We were aware that the Department of Defense had tackled similar data challenges in the global war on terror, and fortunately we identified Hyperion Technology Group, who could bring in that expertise.

Based in Tupelo, Miss., Hyperion Technology Group got its start in 2009 at the Renasant Center for IDEAs. Since that time, the company has collaborated with mission partners across all sensor-driven industries to research, develop, and deliver advanced sensor engineering and signal processing solutions.

The company currently has 72 employees  57 in Tupelo; 13 in Dayton, Ohio, and two in Charlotte, N.C. In addition to USM, Hyperion works with other universities, including the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University.

Hyperion founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer Geoff Carter describes the collaboration with USM as a critical part of the companys mission.

We rely on our university partners to cover the basic research part of our efforts while Hyperion focuses on the applied engineering, said Carter. We take great pride in the fact that we have worked with many universities, both domestically and internationally, and have developed many great relationships through these partnerships and we continue to collaborate with all of our university partners in efforts to bring more work to both the university and Hyperion.

Carter explains that Hyperion features a multi-faceted disciplinary team with knowledge, skills, and experience supporting NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) mission.

Specifically, in partnership with The University of Southern Mississippi, Hyperion brings to bear the success of past research efforts for NOAAs Aquatic Video Information Enhancement Workplace (AQUA VIEW), he said. Together, with USM, we will create a Data Assembly Hub that will bring together federated data sources across NOAA and other existing public domain data sources to provide users with a singular platform to search, access, and review the available data.

Dr. Joshua Hill, Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, Forensic Science and Security at USM, has worked closely with Hyperion over the past four years. He served as Co-Principal Investigator for the NOAA grant. Hill points out that Hyperions unique set of skills will provide a tremendous asset to the grant project.

Hyperion has essential skills in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as in general computing, said Hill. We have used all of these areas of expertise across the project, both for understanding how to better prepare data for analysis in next generation applications as well as designing the architecture weve implemented so far.

Hill emphasizes that the benefits of USMs collaboration with Hyperion cannot be overstated.

In addition to their Mississippi location, working with Hyperion has allowed us to interact with the leading edge of AI/ML development, as the commercial space, in many ways, surpassed academia in these areas, said Hill. Additionally, having their previous experience in the area of big-data integration available to us has been invaluable for the development of the project.

Added Jones, Everyone on the team believes that we are building long-term solutions for long-term problems  the quest for data is only accelerating. This NOAA project aligns with our strategy to be an integral part of the blue economy future.
The Wyoming Community Navigator Program (CNP) has received the Wyoming Economic Development Innovation Award from the Wyoming Economic Development Association (WEDA).

The award, presented during WEDAs annual Wyoming Working Together Conference in Lander Sept. 22, recognizes an innovative project significantly impacting Wyoming and its citizens. The purpose of the award is to celebrate partnerships, innovative programmatic aspects and economic development impact.

The Wyoming CNP received this award for its use of creative funding mechanisms; efforts to create efficiencies and reduce costs; unique partnership models; and techniques to enhance the economy across the state.

The Wyoming CNP, through the Wyoming Small Business Development Center Network at the University of Wyoming, provides small-business resources and assistance for traditionally underserved entrepreneurs throughout Wyoming.

Im proud of the work the hub and spokes have done over the last two years, says Nicholas Giraldo, Wyoming CNP program manager. It shows that when a small group of Wyoming entrepreneurial support partners come together, pool resources, share knowledge and collaborate, big things can be accomplished.

Through its first two years, the Wyoming CNP helped Wyoming entrepreneurs launch 55 new businesses and create over 200 jobs. Additionally, funding partners within the program helped entrepreneurs access over $14.5 million in loans, with half of the money going to women- and minority-owned businesses.

The Wyoming CNP has served nearly 400 clients, providing them with over 2,000 hours of assistance and training. The program has a direct focus on reaching traditionally underserved entrepreneurs, including women, veterans, rural residents, and cultural and ethnic minorities. The Wyoming CNPs client base is considerably more diverse by percentage than the overall Wyoming population.

The Wyoming CNP includes partnerships with The Local Crowd, Wyoming Womens Business Center, UW Extension, Laramie County Library Systems Library to Business Program, Wind River Development Fund and Wyoming Smart Capital Network.

To learn more about the Wyoming CNP, visit www.wyomingcommunitynavigator.org/.

For more information on the Wyoming Economic Development Innovation Award, visit www.wyomingeda.org.
Vietnam Briefing has developed into a premium source for insight on doing business in Vietnam. It publishes business news concerning foreign direct investment into Vietnam, including the most important tax, legal and accounting issues. The Vietnam Briefing Magazine was first published in 2009, and is contributed to by investment professionals based in Vietnam.
The Eagle Pass area in Texas continues to experience an influx of migrants  the majority from Venezuela, the largest displacement in the Western Hemisphere and the second-largest globally, trailing only behind the Syrian refugee crisis, per the U.N. refugee agency.

U.S. border authorities told VOA they have seen this before and are managing the situation.



We have a plan, we are executing that plan, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told VOA on background  a method often used by U.S. officials to share information with reporters without being identified.



But the noticeable rise in migrant arrivals in Eagle Pass has strained local resources and overwhelmed already crowded facilities.



Last week, between 500 and 800 migrants, most from Venezuela, were waiting to be processed by Border Patrol officials under the Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras International Bridge, one of two bridges in Eagle Pass. The bridge remains closed for vehicles but open for pedestrians.



On Saturday, CBP released a statement saying they will maximize consequences against those without a legal basis to remain in the United States.



CBP took immediate action in response to an increase in encounters in the Eagle Pass area, surging all available resources and swiftly and safely vetting and processing migrants, according to the statement.



After the increased number of unauthorized crossings, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr. signed an emergency declaration Sept. 20. In recent years, the region has become accustomed to regulating migration as it became a heavily used point for newcomers to cross into the U.S.



The emergency declaration grants us the ability to request financial resources to provide additional services caused by the influx of undocumented immigrants, Salinas wrote in last week's emergency declaration.

Eagle Pass is about 233 kilometers southwest of San Antonio,one of the major cities where, according to migrant advocates in the area, migrants can hope to work and blend in.



According to local news outlets, Salinas estimated that about 3,000 migrants crossed the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass last week. On Friday alone, between 800 and 1,000 migrants were apprehended, Salinas said. CBP has not confirmed these numbers to VOA.



But the agency released its August enforcement numbers on Friday, showing total encounters along the Southwest border in August were 232,972. About 11% of those had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months. In July, that number was 183,494.



The U.N. reports that a staggering 7 million Venezuelans have left their country due to political instability, and they travel through countries including Peru and Columbia to get to the United States.

More than 7.7 million people have left Venezuela in search of protection and a better life. The majority  more than 6.5 million people  have been hosted in Latin American and Caribbean countries, the U.N. said.
Anti-Muslim hate speech incidents in India averaged more than one a day in the first half of 2023 and were seen most in states with upcoming

elections, according to a report by Hindutva Watch, a Washington-based group monitoring attacks on minorities.

There were 255 documented incidents of hate speech gatherings targeting Muslims in the first half of 2023, the report found. There was no comparative data for prior years.

It used the United Nations' definition of hate speech as "any form of communication... that employs prejudiced or discriminatory language towards an individual or group based on attributes such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender, or other identity factors."

About 70% of the incidents took place in states scheduled to hold elections in 2023 and 2024, according to the report.

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat witnessed the highest number of hate speech gatherings, with Maharashtra accounting for 29% of such incidents, the report found. The majority of the hate speech events mentioned

conspiracy theories and calls for violence and socio-economic boycotts against Muslims.

About 80% of those events took place in areas governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is widely expected to win the general elections in 2024.

Hindutva Watch said it tracked online activity of Hindu nationalist groups, verified videos of hate speeches posted on social media and compiled data of isolated incidents reported by media.

Modi's government denies the presence of minority abuse. The Indian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Rights groups allege mistreatment of Muslims under Modi, who became prime minister in 2014.

They point to a 2019 citizenship law described as "fundamentally discriminatory" by the United Nations human rights office for excluding Muslim migrants; an anti-conversion

legislation challenging the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief, and the 2019 revoking of Muslim-majority Kashmir's special status.

There has also been demolition of Muslim properties in the name of removing illegal construction and a ban on wearing the hijab in classrooms in Karnataka when the BJP was in power in that state.
Azerbaijan on Wednesday arrested the former head of Nagorno-Karabakhs separatist government as he tried to flee into Armenia following Azerbaijans military offensive in the region.

Azerbaijans border guard service announced the arrest of Ruben Vardanyan, showing the nation's intention to firmly maintain control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region after Azerbaijans military seized the region from ethnic Armenian control.

Vardanyan was escorted to Azerbaijans capital, Baku, and handed over to relevant state bodies, where his fate will be decided, according to Azerbaijans State Border Service.

Vardanyan made his fortune in Russia as the owner of a major investment bank. He moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as the region's head of government until he stepped down earlier this year.

Vardanyans had sought to join the thousands of ethnic Armenians leaving the Nagorno-Karabakh region this week. Armenian officials report that upwards of 47,000 of the region's 120,000 Armenians have left for Armenia.

Watch Heather Murdock's report:

The exodus is driven by fears of retaliation by Azerbaijan after its military forced leaders of the enclave to lay down their weapons and discuss reintegration into Azerbaijan.

"We are leaving because Azerbaijanis have come to drive us from our homeland," said Grigory Sarkisyan, who lost his son in the fighting.

The Azerbaijan military offensive has been a bloody one, as Azerbaijan's Health Ministry reported a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops and one civilian killed and 511 wounded.

Nagorno-Karabakh officials had said earlier that at least 200 people, including 10 civilians, were killed, and more than 400 were wounded in the fighting.

The primarily Muslim country of Azerbaijan has said it wants to peacefully reintegrate the Armenians and will guarantee their civic rights, including to practice their Christian religion.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday expressed "unreserved apologies" on behalf of all of Canada after a 98-year-old veteran who served in a Nazi SS unit was honored Friday in the country's parliament.

Yaroslav Hunka was invited to the legislature by Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada's House of Commons, who resigned Tuesday over the incident.

Trudeau said he had reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Canada at the time, in the fallout of the controversy. Both Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and Trudeau were present for the incident.

Zelenskyy had delivered remarks before Friday's joint legislative session when Rota described Hunka as "a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero." Rota pointed him out in the audience, giving way to two rounds of applause from the lawmakers and politicians who were in attendance to show support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.

Hunka, who is now a Canadian citizen, once fought in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, an SS unit that declared loyalty to Hitler and battled the Soviet Army for Ukrainian independence.

Rota said that he "subsequently became aware of more information" regarding Hunka's past and apologized to his fellow members of Parliament.

Rota stepped down after unflinching pressure from activist groups.

Rota didn't give advance notice to Trudeau or Zelenskyy that Hunka would be invited.

Karina Gould, Canada's house leader, told The New York Times that had she known of Hunka's Nazi ties she would "have never in a million years stood and applauded."
Deeply entrenched gender norms, biases and perceptions are affecting the ability of girls and young women to use the internet, influencing their online activity and hurting their access to information and work, a new report has found.

A survey of more than 10,000 users aged 14-21, and their parents, in over half a dozen countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and India, found that girls are constantly being monitored and told they are vulnerable and not competent online, "creating a crisis of confidence."

"This is resulting in girls setting up more protections and behaving more conservatively when connecting with others and sharing personal information online," said the report by nonprofit Girl Effect, the Malala Fund, the United Nations' children's agency UNICEF and the Vodafone Americas Foundation.

"These attitudes are not just impacting girls' access and usage, they are influencing their self-confidence and shaping their own perceptions of their ability to use these tools to pursue their social, educational, and intellectual interests," said the report.

The gender digital divide has persisted despite efforts by governments worldwide. A UNICEF study earlier this year showed that in 54 countries, the median gender parity ratio is 71, meaning that for every 100 adolescent boys and young men who use the internet, only 71 adolescent girls and young women do.

At the same time, women experience more online abuse, and harassment is driving girls to quit social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, recent studies have found.

Among digitally connected youth, 12% more girls than boys said that they feel self-conscious while using social media and are 11% less likely to post photos or comments online compared to boys of the same age, the report by Girl Effect found.

Vicious cycle

As girls' exposure to the internet is restricted by biases and fear of abuse, they do not see themselves as tech-savvy, and do not see the internet as something that is for them, the report from Girl Effect said.

"This creates a vicious cycle whereby girls avoid tech because they don't think it's for them, and then tech is seen as 'not for them' because they have been avoiding it," it said.

As teenagers who scrutinize, regulate and limit their behavior online, women "often carry these traits to their workplace, where they face difficulties in demonstrating their skills and building strategic connections," said Mitali Nikore, a gender policy specialist at research group Nikore Associates.

"This negatively affects women's behavior at workplaces, constraining their labor market opportunities and professional advancement ... and their access to potential sources of revenue-generating activities," Nikore told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Besides better smartphone access for girls and young women, digital literacy programs and an end to discrimination based on gender norms are needed, said Nikore.

Girls must also be involved in creating digital products for their needs, said a spokesperson for Girl Effect.

For example, Girl Effect developed artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots in South Africa and India  Big Sis and Bol Behen ("tell me, sister")  with girls, as a source of accurate information on general health and sexual wellbeing for girls.

While new laws such as Britain's Online Safety Act and the proposed Kids Online Safety Act in the United States can help protect children somewhat, "regulations can only go so far, and often lag behind technological advances," the spokesperson for Girl Effect said.

"Adolescent girls and young women want to be involved in co-creating solutions; they have clear ideas for the functions, experiences, and strategies that could be applied to make the internet a safer, more accessible place."
More than 150 people representing businesses from across Wisconsin gathered Tuesday at Marquette University for recognition of Deloitte's Wisconsin 75 list of the state's largest privately-owned and closely-held companies.

Artificial intelligence is poised to change the way people work, from the executive suites to shop floors and call centers, Nitin Mittal, a principal with Deloitte Consulting, told a gathering of the leaders of the state's largest businesses Tuesday.

The changes, he said, aren't about replacing people with machines, but about freeing workers from routine tasks, allowing them to do what people do best: think, create and connect dots, he said.

"What we're starting to kind of see is it becoming, perhaps the greatest aid, and it's becoming, perhaps, the greatest means of supplementing what we do  not replacing, but aiding and supplementing, not substituting," he said.

"And that is what is driving massive increases in productivity when we start figuring out how to use generative AI, in conjunction, or as a co pilot or as an aide."

Mittal advises organizations on the application of AI and the implications of emerging technologies. He was the keynote speaker Tuesday at a Deloitte's gathering at O'Brien Hall, the home of Marquette University's college of business administration, to mark the annual release of its Wisconsin 75 list of the state's largest privately owned and closely held companies.

Mittal, who has worked with more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, compared the change that generative AI will bring to the revolution that followed the invention of the steam engine more than 300 years ago.

The steam engine ushered in the industrial revolution by replacing grunt labor performed by people and animals, AI will change the relationship to work by moving employees from roles related to programming, development and technological integration to "a management function for the technology."

"It essentially changes the purpose and our role," he said. "Our role is not so much anymore around progressing the technology, our role is around being the party that actually governs the technology, puts in the controls, manages the technology, and consequently, are there to essentially verify the output and the quality."

Story continues

The result of widespread adoption of AI by businesses, he said, will be 30% to 40% gains in efficiency and 40% to 50% reductions in costs.

More: Deloitte ranks Wisconsin's 75 largest privately-owned and closely-held companies

During a question and answer period, Mittal was asked about the potential for negative and nefarious uses of AI. He said those dangers are real, and government and companies need to work together to regulate AI to limit the dissemination of false information, to protect privacy and to protect other social goods, but not to the extent that it hinders innovation.

AI, he said, is not a fad and is not going away, and it's incumbent on all parties to have a role in managing that change.

"There is absolutely no way  no way  you can put the genie back in the bottle," he said. "All you can do is dance with the genie, manage the genie and control it to your best ability."

More than 150 people attended the gathering, which was held at Marquette in part to show off the business school's new building to the statewide business community.

The Wisconsin 75 companies employ more than 319,000 people and have a combined revenue of $233 billion, according to Deloitte's survey of the companies. The companies' combined revenue was up 14% year over year.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: AI promises great gains for businesses that manage it correctly, expert says
President Joe Biden on Tuesday became the first sitting U.S. president to join a labor strike, standing with workers in the Detroit suburbs as they entered the second week of their strike seeking higher pay, a shorter workweek and other changes from the nations top three automakers.

Folks, stick with it, because you deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits, Biden said during his short stop to visit marching workers. Let's get back what we lost, OK? We stepped up for them. Now its time they stepped up for us."

Workers seek a 40% pay rise, a 32-hour workweek and more, and cite companies ballooning profits as justification. On Tuesday, members of UAW Local 174 chanted, What do we want? Contracts! When do we want them? Now!

Biden has been careful to not say publicly which of their specific demands he supports or to what extent, only that he supports workers right to strike.

But when asked by reporters on Tuesday if he believed workers should get a 40% increase, he said, Yes. I think they should be able to bargain for that.

The president of the powerful United Auto Workers union  which endorsed Bidens presidential run in 2020 but hasnt yet done the same for his 2024 bid  thanked him.

Thank you, Mr. President, for coming, said UAW President Shawn Fain, to workers cheers. Thank you for coming to stand up with us in our generation's defining moment. And we know the president will do right by the working class. And when we do right by the working class, you can leave the rest to us, because we're going to take care of this business. Get social justice for all of our members."

General Motors, the largest of the Big Three automakers, avoided any direct comment on Bidens appearance but issued a statement saying, Our focus is not on politics but continues to be on bargaining in good faith with the UAW leadership to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.

The union claims more than 400,000 members. Many point to the sharp rise in company profits and CEO pay but also to the much smaller rise in worker pay.

At a march last week, one worker said this strike is about much more than terms: Its about how Americans think about work and corporate compensation.

I want the levels to be balanced, said UAW member Yolanda Downs. I want everyone to make a good living and a fair living. If Im working on one side of the line and Im making $30, and the person across from me is making $15 an hour, how is that fair?

Biden seemed to agree, saying that the automakers are doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too. Its a simple proposition.

Susan Kang, an associate professor in political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said Bidens decision to stand with workers is significant. But can he tip the balance of negotiations?

Probably not, she said. Because there's a lot of things going on in the specifics of the negotiations, but he can shift the political support. We already have an overwhelming amount of support from the public for the strike. And I think this is going to further legitimize the position of the striking workers.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump plans to rally at a nonunion plant near Detroit on Wednesday instead of participating in the second Republican presidential primary debate that day.

In a statement, he dismissed Bidens Detroit trip.

This is nothing more than a PR stunt from Crooked Joe Biden to distract and gaslight the American people from his disastrous Bidenomics policies that have led to so much economic misery across the country, he said.

The White House refutes that claim, arguing that since Biden took office, the U.S. economy has added 235,000 auto jobs  over four times as many auto jobs per month (and over five times as many auto manufacturing jobs per month) as under the previous administration, pre-Covid.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with a number of former Trump administration officials on its team, argues that the workers demands are exorbitant.

These demands are unsustainable in the globally competitive economy of 2023, Rachel Greszler, who researches U.S. economic issues, wrote on September 22.

She added that if the automakers  General Motors, Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) and Ford Motor Company  capitulate, that simply will mean more shuttered U.S. plants and fewer jobs for UAW members.

Kang, of John Jay College, said many older politicians may be missing a broader movement among millennial workers.

I think that there's a wave, a tide, towards greater intolerance of deep socioeconomic inequality that really has sort of characterized my lifetime, she said.
Iran has sentenced four people to death for selling contaminated bootleg alcohol that killed 17 people and sent dozens more to hospitals in June, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

The sale and consumption of alcohol has been banned in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, giving rise to a huge illicit trade in smuggled or bootleg alcohol, some of it adulterated with poisonous methanol.

In June, at least 17 people died and 191 were admitted to hospitals with symptoms of methanol poisoning after drinking adulterated alcohol.

Judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said 11 defendants had been charged with the capital offense of corruption on earth over the distribution of the toxic liquor in Alborz province, west of Tehran.

Of the 11, four were sentenced to death while the rest received prison sentences of one to five years, Setayeshi said, adding that the convicts could appeal to the Supreme Court.

In June, authorities said they had raided a cosmetics factory where they had seized more than 6,000 liters (1,585 gallons) of bootleg alcohol, preventing its distribution.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, at least 210 Iranians died after drinking bootleg alcohol, falsely believing it to be a remedy for the virus.

Only members of Iran's Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities are exempt from the alcohol ban. Foreigners are required to respect it.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday called on President Joe Biden to agree to tight border restrictions in order to prevent wide swaths of the U.S. government from shutting down for the fourth time in a decade.

Republican McCarthy's proposal is not likely to resolve a high stakes spending battle that could idle hundreds of thousands of federal workers on Sunday, as Biden and his fellow Democrats who control the Senate have already rejected Republican border plans.

With only five days to spare, the two chambers were taking sharply divergent paths.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, announced in a Senate speech that bipartisan negotiators were on the verge of unveiling a bill that would avert a government shutdown on Sunday with a stopgap funding bill.

Both he and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said they were pushing for extending current funding levels for a short period while work continues on full-year funding bills.

The bill, Schumer said, "will continue to fund the government at present levels while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine's security and humanitarian needs, while also ensuring those impacted by federal disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need."

A first procedural vote on this bill was set for late Tuesday afternoon.

Hardline House Republicans have voiced opposition to such a measure. McCarthy pushes for border wall

McCarthy, meanwhile, is readying a stopgap spending bill that would restart construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, a signature policy of former President Donald Trump and tighten immigration policies.

Those policies are certain to be rejected by Biden and the Senate. But on Tuesday, McCarthy called on the president and Democrats to reconsider.

"To keep the government open, if the president was willing to change part of his plan along this border, we can fund this government going forward," McCarthy told reporters.

"Let's do something on the border, keep the government open and show this nation that we can do it right, and solve the rest of our problems as we go."

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed and a wide range of services  from economic data releases to nutrition benefits  will be suspended beginning on Sunday if the two sides do not reach agreement. In Washington, the National Zoo says it would have to curtail its farewell party for three giant pandas before they return to China.

The standoff has caused concern at credit rating agency Moody's, though it is unclear whether it will hurt U.S. creditworthiness, as past shutdowns have not had a significant impact on the world's largest economy.

It is also factoring into the 2024 presidential election, with Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, cheering on the shutdown talk. Lawmakers demand $120 billion in cuts

Biden and McCarthy had aimed to head off a shutdown this year when they agreed in May, at the end of a standoff over the federal debt ceiling, to discretionary spending of $1.59 trillion for the fiscal year beginning October 1.

Lawmakers on McCarthy's right flank have since rejected that number, demanding $120 billion in cuts, even as more moderate members of their party including top Senate Republicans voiced support for the agreed-on plan.

That only accounts for a fraction of the total U.S. budget, which will come to $6.4 trillion for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to grow dramatically as the population ages.

Biden himself has called on House Republicans to honor McCarthy's deal.

Bowing to their concerns, McCarthy has teed up a procedural vote on Tuesday evening to take up four spending bills for the coming fiscal year that reflect conservative priorities and stand no chance of becoming law.

If Tuesday's vote succeeds, lawmakers would try to pass the four measures out of the House later in the week. They would not fund the full government or prevent a shutdown.

Republicans control the House by a narrow 221-212 majority and have few votes to spare, particularly since some Republican hardliners have threatened to move to oust McCarthy from his leadership role if he relies on Democratic votes to pass legislation.

That could complicate any effort to pass a stopgap spending bill and avert a shutdown.
New Delhis bid to expand its economic and diplomatic clout beyond Asia received a major boost with the announcement at this months G20 summit of ambitious plans to develop a new trade route running from India through the Middle East to Europe.

The so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, is backed by the United States and is widely seen as a challenge to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, which has already developed major infrastructure projects in some of the same countries.

But the proposal, involving a network of new shipping and rail lines, stands to shake up the existing order in other ways as well, not least by establishing new direct trade routes between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

For India, analysts say, the program offers a capstone to a yearslong effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to boost trade and forge ties with the Gulf states, the source of much of its oil and gas, and home to a large Indian diaspora.

This concerted effort has gained momentum over the past several years, said John Calabrese, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

India's vigorous efforts to strengthen economic cooperation with the Middle East have been met with open arms and reciprocation, Calabrese added in an interview. The Gulf states, in particular, view India as a rising power with great market and human capital potential.

Trade already growing

Trade between India and the Arab world has seen sustained growth, already surpassing $240 billion a year. Bilateral trade between India and the United Arab Emirates alone amounted to $84 billion as of the end of March 2023, while trade with Saudi Arabia topped $53 billion. The region supplies approximately 60% of India's total crude oil imports.

Calabrese sees the IMEC project as having strategic as well as economic value for India, carrying its strategic rivalry with China into new territory while offering countries in the Middle East an alternative to relying on China or the United States.

India's importance to the Gulf countries has risen as they chart a course for diversifying and balancing their relations with the world's major powers, he said.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, agreed that India can make significant diplomatic gains if it can navigate the hurdles posed in the Middle East by regional conflicts, historical animosities and competition from other global powers.

India has already strengthened its ties with some of the most significant players in the region, from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to Israel, he told VOA.

Whats also notable is that while Indias relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel have really taken off, New Delhis ties with their respective longstanding rivals, Iran and the Palestinians, have not become fraught, even though theyve become less robust, he said.

'Nothing short of historic'

India can also expect to establish closer links in Europe, where officials are enthusiastic about IMEC, which would establish new shipping routes between India and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a freight rail system traversing the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. From there, goods could be transported to European countries.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the venture as "nothing short of historic," emphasizing that it would slash transit time between India and Europe by 40%. She underlined that IMEC represents the most direct link thus far connecting India, the Gulf and Europe.

Saudi Arabia's Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih went further in his endorsement, likening IMEC to the Silk Route and Spice Road. The initiative is projected to incorporate essential infrastructure elements such as electricity cables and pipelines for clean hydrogen.

The goal is, of course, to strengthen Indias economy by facilitating more trade in more markets, Kugelman said. But also about deepening important partnerships and scaling up Indian investment in a region that New Delhi views as highly strategic  because of its location, its large Indian diaspora and high energy trade with India.

Kugelman sees the initiative as a natural extension of the growing strategic relationship between the United States and India, marked by new alliances, including the Quad, which also draws in Japan and Australia.

Their interests in the [Middle East] align, in terms of support for connectivity and commercial projects. And so, India's engagement there allows the U.S. and India to cooperate in a region outside the Indo-Pacific, he said. I do think that India's deepening footprint in the Middle East will introduce a new phase of great power competition.

Meanwhile, the Middle East could become a new battleground for India-China competition, Kugelman said.

Beijing has become a bigger player in the region in recent years, as seen by its strategic agreement with Iran and its brokering of the Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement deal, he said. India, working with the U.S. and its European partners, will want to push back against all that.
The Pentagon says an American soldier who illegally crossed into North Korea in July is now in U.S. custody.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters that King was transferred out of the DPRK and crossed the border to China with the help of the government of Sweden. The official said the U.S. received him in China and transferred him home.

DPRK is an acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the Peoples Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement Wednesday.

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder praised "the hard work of personnel in the Army, United States Forces Korea, and across the Department of Defense to bring Private King home."

There were no concessions given to North Korea for this exchange, a senior administration official told VOA during a briefing to reporters Wednesday.

"We're going to focus for the next several weeks for as long as it takes to get private King on good  on solid footing. And then we'll address any administrative actions that may follow after the reintegration process," the official said.

A statement Wednesday from a representative of Claudine Gates, King's mother, said, "Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done."

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea said it was expelling King after wrapping up its final investigation of him. He was taken by North Korean soldiers in July after dashing through the Koreas' heavily militarized border.

King was facing pending administrative separation from the U.S. Army when he returned to his base in Fort Bliss, Texas, after spending time in a South Korean jail on assault charges. He was about to board a plane to the United States on July 17 when he snuck out of the airport and made it onto a civilian tour of the border complex between North and South Korea one day later.

King was taken by North Korean soldiers on duty at the Joint Security Area, KCNA reported, when the plain-clothed soldier "deliberately intruded into the area of the DPRK side between the room for the DPRK-U.S. military contacts and the restroom of security officers along the Military Demarcation Line."

The Norths official news agency, KCNA, said Wednesday that King had harbored ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army. It added that North Korea's interim findings were that King wanted refuge in North Korea or elsewhere because of that same reason.

The Military Demarcation Line is the official border separating the two Koreas, put in place by an armistice that paused the 1950-1953 Korean War, which remains without a formal end and peace treaty.

VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara and Eunice Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
On a hot and humid Friday earlier this month in Shahdara Town, a congested neighborhood in Pakistans second most populous city Lahore, mosques began blaring calls for Muslims to demolish an Ahmadi place of worship.

Hours earlier, some local clerics had called the police demanding action against the building because it resembled a traditional mosque. Within hours, laborers were hammering away at the arch and minarets of the minority worship place while police stood guard.



It was such a painful moment for us, said a member of the minority group who was present inside the building during the demolition. He asked that VOA identify him as Ahmad as he feared for his safety.



Pakistani Ahmadis, who are barred from calling themselves Muslims, say they are bracing for a wave of attacks this Friday when the country celebrates the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.



The minority group has recorded nearly three dozen attacks on its places of worship this year, including break-ins and vandalism. Representatives say it is the highest number of such incidents since 1984, when a law was enacted prohibiting them from indirectly or directly posing as Muslims.



Legalized persecution

On September 7, 1974, Pakistans parliament added the 2nd Amendment to the countrys constitution, declaring Ahmadis non-Muslims after months of agitation from religious political parties.

The Ahmadi movement was founded in1890s in the Indian subcontinent. Its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, claimed to be Islam's awaited Messiah and prophet. However, mainstream Muslims believe prophethood ended with Muhammad.

A decade later, the parliament passed what is commonly known as Ordinance XX. The law prohibited the community from a host of activities including performing any rituals or using any symbols associated with Islam.



As arches and minarets are a common feature of mosques around the world, many in Pakistan interpret Ordinance XX to prohibit Ahmadis from using such features on their places of worship, which they are also not allowed to call mosques.



While the community has faced persecution and lethal attacks in Pakistan for decades, human rights activists blame the increased targeting of Ahmadi places of worship on an environment of impunity.



The persecution of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan is almost wholly legalized, said Saroop Ijaz of the Human Rights Watch advocacy group.



The lack of consequences for these attacks has resulted in emboldening those who seek to attack them, Ijaz told VOA.



Right-wing pressure



Ahmadi community representatives blame Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, or TLP, a far-right religious political party founded in 2015, for the spike in attacks on places of worship.



There are examples of them publicly threatening that this [demolition of minarets or arches] must be done by a specific date, said Amir Mahmood, a spokesperson for the Ahmadi community.



Mahmood said the party has issued a deadline for law enforcement authorities in some cities of Punjab to demolish minarets of Ahmadi places of worship by Friday, when Muslims will celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Punjab, the most populous Pakistani province, has seen the bulk of anti-Ahmadi activity this year.



Speaking to VOA, TLP spokesperson Yaseen Malik denied the party was issuing any threats. However, he called Ahmadis blasphemers. In Pakistan, blasphemy is a crime punishable by death.



TLP leaders routinely use offensive anti-Ahmadi language in rallies and gatherings and call for the killing of blasphemers. Since its founding, the party has staged several protests of actions it perceived as blasphemous or pro-Ahmadi.

The party's message of "defending Prophet Muhammad's honor" has mass appeal in Pakistan. TLP's street-power has enabled it to force the countrys government to negotiate with it and in some instances comply with its demands. Fearing violence, local law enforcement authorities tend to placate the partys supporters as well.

Police role



The Ahmadi community accuses the police of capitulating to the demands of extremist forces.



The police in the name of maintaining law and order is forcing  members of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya to tear down the minarets of their places of worship, said community spokesperson Mahmood.



Ahmad, a witness of the demolition in Shahdara Town, told VOA the laborers who tore down the arch and minarets were called by the police.



Speaking to VOA, a senior area police officer who did not want his name to be used because of the sensitivity of the issue rejected the charge, though he admitted the police worried about possible mob violence.



We have to maintain law and order, and we try to resolve the issue as well as prevent any incident that could cause unrest at the national or local level, said the officer, who maintained that police were present on the scene to ensure the security of the Ahmadi residents.



In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan accused law enforcement and the religious far right of systematically and deliberately shrinking the space for Ahmadis after the Shahdara Town incident. The rights watchdog found police complicit in similar incidents last year.



In a written statement to VOA, Punjab police rejected the allegation.



Contempt of court



A decision of the Lahore High Court in August said the 1984 prohibition on building Ahmadi places of worship did not allow authorities to destroy or alter structures built before then.



When our people show that order to police, requesting them to respect it, sadly, the police does not consider it, lamented Mahmood, saying the demolitions amounted to contempt of court.



DIG Muhammad Waqas Nazir, Punjab police information officer, told VOA in written comments that his force acts within the ambit of the law when handling complaints lodged under the 1984 prohibition.

As Ahmadis brace for a possible wave of attacks on their places of worship this Friday, Human Rights Watchs Ijaz said the persistent violation of Ahmadis civil rights, does not reflect well on the writ of the state or the seriousness to protect law and order.



Ahmad, who must pray in a damaged building after the attack earlier this month, told VOA that despite fear, he wants to remain hopeful for a better future.
Seven U.S. Republican presidential candidates sparred sharply at a debate Wednesday night, each trying to break from the pack to become the main challenger to former President Donald Trump, who holds a commanding lead for the partys 2024 presidential nomination, even as he faces four criminal indictments.

Trump, as he did last month, snubbed the party-sponsored debate, which immediately drew a rebuke from two of his opponents.

"Donald Trump is missing in action," said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trumps closest challenger, but still a distant second in national polling. "He should be on this stage to answer why he added $7.8 trillion" to the national debt.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie jibed that if the former president keeps avoiding the Republican presidential debates, "Were not going to call you Donald Trump, were going to call you Donald Duck."

While his opponents appeared at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Trump staged a political rally in Michigan, a Midwestern political battleground state where autoworkers are striking against the countrys three biggest auto manufacturers.

To cheers from supporters, the former president mostly attacked Democratic President Joe Biden and ignored the Republicans debating to overtake him in the chase for the partys nomination. He accused "crooked Joe of shipping millions of jobs to China" and said Biden was pushing Americans to buy electric vehicles that are too expensive for most U.S. households.

Back on the debate stage, the other Republicans fired verbal lasers at each other, hoping to land a knockout punch that might give them an edge and leave them standing to fight another day against Trump. The result at times was a lot of cross-talk as moderators attempted, often in vain, to regain control of the debate, hosted by Fox Business News and Univision.

Trump strategically figured he had nothing to gain by appearing on the same debate stage as his opponents when national polling compiled by RealClearPolitics shows him with 56% support among Republican voters for the nomination and a 42-point lead over DeSantis. The other Republicans are even further behind the former president.

At one point, DeSantis addressed his poor showing against Trump, saying, "Polls dont elect presidents. Voters elect presidents."

After business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said he used the Chinese-owned TikTok social media site to reach a younger generation of Americans, Nikki Haley, Trumps former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, rebuked Ramaswamy, saying, "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say."

Haley, a former South Carolina governor, also aggressively attacked her home-state senator, Tim Scott, assailing his performance in U.S. Senate, while he defended his service.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was Trumps second-in-command, asserted his conservative credentials and said he was most qualified through years in Congress and as a former governor in Indiana to become president. A long-shot candidate, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, cited his business acumen.

After the first, indecisive debate among the Trump opponents, nationwide polling showed Trump actually widening his edge, even as he faces the prospect of spending weeks in courtrooms in the first half of 2024 on charges that he illegally tried to upend his 2020 reelection loss to President Joe Biden and illegally retained highly classified national security documents when he left office in early 2021.

With Trumps majority support among the Republican base, his opponents have been hard-pressed to convince voters they are a better choice to run against Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection.

Among the debaters, only Christie has pointedly assailed Trump for the criminal charges he is facing, as he did again Wednesday.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, one other Republican contender who has attacked Trump and said he should drop out of the presidential nominating contest, failed to meet the criteria set by the Republican National Committee to be on the debate stage.

The requirements included having at least 3% support in two national opinion polls, or 3% in one national and two polls from states holding their nomination contest early in the process  Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Candidates also needed at least 50,000 unique financial donors and to sign a pledge saying they will support the person who emerges as the Republican nominee.

University of Michigan debate coach Aaron Kall told VOA that Wednesdays seven candidates had to "directly take the fight to Trump  despite his absence, or else they risk simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, even if they continue to deliver solid performances. There is no hope for anyone to make up ground against Trump unless they engage him more directly."

Throughout the debate, though, the hopefuls aimed as much, or more, of their vitriol at Biden, as if they were in a general election campaign, including attacking him for showing up Tuesday on the picket line, supporting auto workers.

Scott said, "Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the southern border" with Mexico to stop illegal migrants from entering the U.S. Others attacked Bidens handling of the U.S. economy; high inflation during his White House tenure has left millions of U.S. households feeling financially squeezed.

Wednesdays debate occurred 3 months before the first Republican voting  party caucuses in the Midwestern state of Iowa to be followed quickly by contests in other states.

One key political date is March 5, when party primary elections are scheduled in more than a dozen states, one day after Trumps trial on election interference charges is set to start in Washington  a courtroom legal battle that could easily last for several weeks. A second trial, on the national security document allegations, is set to start May 20 in Florida.

Republicans will formally choose their presidential candidate at a national convention in July.
Russia Wednesday accused the United States and Britain of helping Ukraine carry out an attack last week against the headquarters Russian Black Sea fleet in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the attack was planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets, and reconnaissance planes.

Zakharova also said U.S. and British intelligence helped coordinate the missile strike.

While the U.S. and other Western partners have provided military equipment and training to Ukraine, U.S. officials have previously denied playing a direct role in Ukraines defense against the Russian invasion.

When Russia accused the United States of being involved in a May drone attack on the Kremlin, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the claim ludicrous.

A television channel run by Russias Defense Ministry broadcast undated video Wednesday showing Adm. Viktor Sokolov, the leader of Russias Black Sea fleet, saying the fleet was performing successfully.

It was the second consecutive day in which video of Sokolov appeared on Russian television, following a Ukrainian claim that he was killed in the Crimea missile strike.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
While remaining noncommittal about who will represent China at a coming economic gathering, Beijing is hinting that Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance  and thus a possible summit with U.S. President Joe Biden  depends on Washington's creating the right environment.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November should promote cooperation rather than provoke confrontation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Tuesday during a news briefing, in response to a question about Xi's participation.

His comments echoed those of other Chinese officials. "To truly realize 'from Bali to San Francisco,' the United States needs to show enough sincerity," the Ministry of State Security said in a post on its WeChat social media page earlier this month. The Bali reference was to the leaders' last meeting on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia last November.

Urging Washington to "create better conditions" for the meeting, Wang repeated his criticism of "democracy versus autocracy." The term is a signature phrase that Biden has often used, especially in the first two years of his term, to describe what he sees as the defining struggle of our times. Beijing sees it as Washington imposing its values on others.

As American and Chinese officials continue laying the groundwork for a potential Biden-Xi meeting, Washington appears to be working toward such conditions, including by toning down language following months of harsh public comments between the two capitals.

The overarching approach has always been to minimize rhetoric that would veer the relationship toward conflict, a senior administration official told VOA Tuesday. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as is the norm when discussing national security strategy, said there has been no "downshift in tone" in recent weeks and "no strategic conversations to that effect" within the administration.

Biden himself has struck a more conciliatory tone. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, the president underscored his desire to responsibly manage competition and avoid conflict, reiterating the message that his administration is "for de-risking, not decoupling with China."

In a visit to Hanoi earlier this month, even as he upgraded bilateral relations with Vietnam  a communist country in Beijing's backyard  Biden repeatedly declared that his efforts to strengthen ties with countries in the region are not designed to "contain" China.

Such messaging is needed to bring down the temperature following months of harsh exchanges. During a campaign fundraiser in June, Biden called Xi a dictator out of touch in decision-making and dismissed China as having "real economic difficulties." Weeks later, he described the country as "a ticking time bomb."

The heated rhetoric added to tensions already elevated from an incident in early February, when the U.S. military shot down a Chinese balloon carrying electronic equipment. Chinese officials deny the aircraft, which had traveled from Alaska to South Carolina, was used for spying.

The two powers have navigated turbulent years as they have been locked in increasingly intense geopolitical rivalry, including in trade and technology. Washington slams China for its "economic coercion" and military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, while Beijing criticizes what it calls "Western hegemony."

The APEC meeting is widely seen as an opportunity for the two leaders to stabilize ties. But many irritants are still unresolved, including the exclusion of the leader of Hong Kong, an APEC member. John Lee, chief executive of the Chinese territory, has been banned from entering the U.S. since 2020 for his role in enforcing a national security law that has targeted pro-democracy activists.

More positive tone

Bonnie S. Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, noted a change in attitude on both sides.

"In my conversations about U.S.-China relations with Chinese scholars, I detect a more positive tone and expressions of interest in seizing the opportunity to stabilize the bilateral relationship," she told VOA.

Whether or not Xi attends, Wang Yi said that China is willing to "play a constructive role" in the success of this year's event involving the 21 Pacific Rim member economies. He gave no guarantee that Xi would attend.

Earlier this month, with no official explanation, Xi skipped the G20 summit of the world's largest economies, held in New Delhi.

Xi "has his hands full," Biden commented on his counterpart's absence.

"He has overwhelming unemployment with his youth. One of the major economic tenets of his plan isn't working at all right now," Biden said during a news conference in response to VOA's question on why he has not met with Xi since Bali.

"Nobody likes having celebrated international meetings if you don't know what you want at the meeting, if you don't have a game plan," Biden added. "He may have a game plan; he just hasn't shared it with me."

Beijing's reluctance

Biden was referring to Beijing's reluctance to confirm the San Francisco meeting, said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

"The Chinese are not yet sure what they can get out of the meeting, and also what concessions they can get ahead of the meeting, which is also important for them," she told VOA.

The White House has not provided further details but has stepped up bilateral engagements. In mid-September, national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a two-day meeting with Wang, part of ongoing efforts to "maintain open lines of communication."

Washington and Beijing have also created working groups, to be overseen by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her Chinese counterpart Vice Premier He Lifeng, to promote healthier economic competition.

Beijing, which has also been more restrained in its U.S. rhetoric, said Yellen's recent visit had brought "positive expectations for bilateral relations."

Anita Powell and Fang Bing contributed to this report.
Slovakia is due to hold parliamentary elections Saturday amid fears in Kyiv and Western capitals that the result could jeopardize unity on support for Ukraine following Russias full-scale invasion last year.

Robert Fico

The populist Smer, or Direction, party, led by former prime minister Robert Fico, is leading the polls with around 18% of the vote. He has campaigned on a platform of ending military support for Ukraine and blocking the countrys path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia.

Speaking at a campaign rally September 6 in the town of Michalovce, close to the Ukrainian border, Fico called for an end to Western weapons supplies for Kyiv.

Peace is the only solution. I refuse to get criticized and labeled as a warmonger just for talking about peace, whereas those who support war and killing are being called peace activists. We have it all messed up in our heads. We will not send a single bullet to Ukraine from the state stocks, Fico told cheering supporters.

Military aid

Slovakia has until now been a strong supporter of Ukraine, donating its fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets and an S-300 air defense system.

Fico pledged to reverse such policies. Why for Gods sake dont we go negotiate peace? Why do we only talk about how much ammunition we are going to send to Ukraine, what tanks are we going to send, how many billions are we going to spend on more armaments? he said.

Why don't we force the warring parties, use the weight of the EU and the U.S. to make them sit down and find some sort of compromise that would guarantee security for Ukraine, Fico told The Associated Press in a recent interview, adding that he would oppose European Union sanctions on Moscow and block any application by Ukraine to join NATO.

Ficos Smer party looks set to fall well short of a parliamentary majority and would need to form a coalition government, giving a potentially crucial role to Slovakias numerous smaller political parties.

Political chaos

Fico served as Slovakias prime minister between 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018.

He was forced to resign after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, in 2018 prompted mass protests. Kuciak had been investigating alleged tax fraud among top Slovakian business leaders with close links to politicians.

Since then, Slovakia has undergone a period of political turmoil, with four prime ministers in five years. Fico appears to have regained his support, partly on the back of his calls to end support for Ukraine, according to Dominika Hajdu, an analyst with the Bartislava-based policy group GLOBSEC.

Pro-Russian sentiments

These kind of anti-Ukraine or even pro-Russian narratives resonate among Slovaks. One factor is definitely that Slovakia has historically had quite a large portion of the society with pro-Russian sentiments, Hajdu told VOA.

A recent survey by GLOBSEC showed that just over half of Slovaks believe the West or Kyiv are responsible for the war following Russias February 2022 invasion. Similarly, half of respondents saw the United States as posing a security threat for Slovakia, up from 39% in 2022.

Politicians have sought to exploit those sentiments, Hajdu said. Political representatives have been utilizing the war in Ukraine to spread nationalist populism. So, they put the issue of the war in Ukraine into the contrast with being pro-Slovak, he said.

Just to give you an example: By providing military support to Ukraine, we are taking security guarantees from Slovakia. By providing financial support to Ukraine, we're taking money from Slovaks who need it more. So, they were able to create an assumption that by being pro-Ukrainian, youre anti-Slovak, Hajdu told VOA.

Hungarian ally

Until now, Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been the sole NATO and EU member to openly question Western support for Ukraine. Fico sees Orban as a future ally, says Grigorij Meseznikov of the Slovak Institute for Public Affairs.

I think [Fico] is not brave enough to become a single dissident. But now that hes got Orban, hes got a solid point to adhere to. So, he will join Orban. He has become very authentically pro-Russian and spreads Russian narratives, Meseznikov told The Associated Press.

Domino effect

In several other Western countries, populist parties skeptical of the Wests military aid to Ukraine enjoy significant public support, Hajdu said.

I'm afraid it might cause a bit of a domino effect, especially in countries that are awaiting elections. We're already seeing in Poland that the issue of support for Ukraine is being brought up, Hajdu said. Poland is due to hold elections October 15.

The Progressive Slovakia party, led by the current vice president of the European Parliament, Michal Simecka, is polling just behind Ficos Smer party. Simecka is strongly pro-Western and supports military aid for Ukraine.

Analysts say that coalition negotiations will be difficult for any party and that the elections are unlikely to end Slovakias political turmoil.
(Bloomberg) -- About once a week, Bernie Thompson gets a take action email from Amazon.com Inc. Online sellers like Thompson dread these messages because it means the e-commerce giant has discovered one of their products is selling for a lower price on a competing website. Unless he adjusts the price, Thompson says, Amazon could make his merchandise virtually invisible to shoppers.

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Such emails are at the heart of the antitrust lawsuit the US Federal Trade Commission filed on Tuesday. The agency alleges that Amazon uses its online dominance to prevent would-be competitors from luring customers away with discounts  indirectly pushing up prices for consumers. In the complaint, the FTC says the company buries products in search results unless merchants comply with its take action demands.

Amazon has vowed to challenge the FTC lawsuit in court, adding that it radically departs from the agencys mission of protecting consumers.

Earlier this month, Thompson received an email alerting him that his company, Plugable Technologies, was offering a multiport USB adapter for $39.95 somewhere online when the price on Amazon was a nickel more. The five-cent discrepancy was enough to trigger the email, a jargon-filled missive that would baffle most people.

Below is a list of product(s) in your catalog that are not currently eligible to be the Featured Offer because they are not priced competitively compared to prices for those products from retailers outside Amazon, states the email, which provides a link Thompson can click to change his price on Amazon. If youd like to restore Featured Offer eligibility visit Pricing Health within the Pricing section of Seller Central to lower your price on Amazon.

Story continues

In this instance, Thompson lowered his price on Amazon by a nickel. In other cases, he either raises his price on competing sites or just lets his inventory sell out without replenishing it so Amazon no longer detects a price difference.

In its complaint, the FTC says Amazon monitors prices across the web with such vigilance that competitors never have a chance to emerge. Even if competing businesses charge merchants less to sell on their platforms, Amazons actions discourage sellers from passing along the savings to shoppers. These anti-discounting tactics upend the normal give-and-take process of competition, the agency says. The FTC isnt the first to take aim at such practices. California sued Amazon last year alleging its policies led to artificially high prices for consumers.

Influencing prices on other sites is one of several ways Amazon stifles competition and hurts consumers, according to the FTC. Other practices include selling the most prominent placement on the web store to the highest bidders in advertised slots and giving preferential treatment to merchants who pay Amazon additional fees for warehouse storage, packing and delivery services. Those practices all degrade the experience for shoppers, the agency says.

In a blog post, General Counsel David Zapolsky said the agencys allegation that the companys pricing policy leads to higher prices is wrong and backwards. If they were successful in this lawsuit, he wrote, the result would be anticompetitive and anti-consumer because wed have to stop many of the things we do to offer and highlight low prices  a perverse result that would be directly opposed to the goals of antitrust law.

Longstanding Complaints

Merchants have complained for years that Amazon forces them to increase their prices on other websites, a practice Bloomberg first reported in 2019. Several sellers provided detailed evidence to federal investigators in the hopes that the government would crack down. In the meantime, they simply did what Amazon asked.

Chuck Gregorich, a Wisconsin businessman who sells fire pits and outdoor furniture on Amazon, said he receives pricing alerts from Amazon regularly. Its often related to a coupon on some other marketplace he wasnt even aware of, so hell call the competing outlet and get them to raise their price to restore his Amazon sales. He could afford to sell his products for less on competing sites, but deliberately keeps prices standard across the web in part to honor Amazons pricing policies.

Gregorich also uses Amazons logistics services for hundreds of his products even though there are lower cost alternatives elsewhere. In its complaint the FTC alleges that if sellers like Gregorich dont use Amazons warehousing and delivery services, the company will make it harder to find their products on its site.

Gregorich isnt optimistic that the agency will influence Amazons behavior. Im not expecting anything to change as a result of the FTC case, he said. Consumers are conditioned to buy when they see the Amazon Prime badge and I dont see the government changing consumer behavior.

Still, some merchants believe years of pressure from the FTC and other government agencies, as well as stepped up competition, have already made Amazon more seller friendly. Andrew Morgans, who has sold apparel, pet supplements and a variety of other products on Amazon for the past 12 years, said Amazons practices are common throughout the retail industry.

Im sure theres things happening behind the scenes that give Amazon some kind of preference, but all businesses do that, said Morgans, who also runs Marknology, a Kansas City-based consulting firm that helps 50 clients sell on the site.

The FTC action against Amazon doesnt cite specific remedies but calls for the company to end what it calls illegal conduct. Thompson, once lionized by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a letter to shareholders as an example of a small business the company has helped prosper, said ending the current pricing practices would encourage competition by letting rival marketplaces differentiate themselves with discounts.

Nobody has a shot to take on Amazon while Amazon uses its market leverage to arm twist all the brands and suppliers to always have their lowest prices on Amazon, Thompson said. Price is the heart of Amazons customer flywheel, and theyre willing to push hard to maintain that.

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The United States will be admitting Israel into its Visa Waiver Program, or VWP, which will allow the entry of Israeli citizens into the country without a visa for up to 90 days, beginning November 30.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has been tested recently by Washington's vocal opposition to Israel's judiciary overhaul plan and its policy toward Palestinians. This decision, however, is seen as a step forward for the Biden administrations relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The designation of Israel into the Visa Waiver Program is an important recognition of our shared security interests and the close cooperation between our two countries, Mayorkas said in a statement.

This designation, which represents over a decade of work and coordination between the United States and Israel, will enhance our two nations collaboration on counterterrorism, law enforcement, and our other common priorities. Israels entry into the Visa Waiver Program, and the stringent requirements it entails, will make both of our nations more secure.

The decision also allows U.S. travelers to enter Israel for 90 days without first obtaining a visa.

To be admitted into the VWP, the United States requires countries to meet requirements on issues such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security and border management. Countries must also treat all U.S. travelers equally, regardless of other passports they hold.

This means U.S. citizens who also hold Palestinian passports would need to be granted free passage at Ben Gurion Airport.

This important achievement will enhance freedom of movement for U.S. citizens, including those living in the Palestinian Territories or traveling to and from them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the joint statement with Mayorkas.

Granting Israel access to the VWP has been met with backlash from some Palestinians who claim Israel has discriminated against and harassed Arab Americans at the border.

Some Democratic lawmakers have also spoken out against Israel's admission into the program, alleging the country has failed to meet the requirement to treat all American citizens equally, regardless of other passports held.

Adherence to this important American tenet of reciprocity and equal treatment of all U.S. citizens is critical to the integrity of the Visa Waiver Program, and we are deeply concerned with the administrations decision to move forward in violation of that principle, said Senators Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz, Jeff Merkley and Peter Welch in a joint statement.

We will carefully monitor the situation to determine whether Americans continue to face discrimination based on their ethnicity, national origin, or religion.

J Street, the Washington-based liberal Jewish advocacy group, called Wednesdays move a step in the right direction but expressed concern that Israel does not meet the criteria for entry that every other country must meet.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed with Israel in July does not require it to fully implement one system that all U.S. citizen visitors, including those who Israel deems residents of the West Bank, can use for purposes of visa waiver travel until May 1, 2024, J Street said in a statement.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday to halt Israel's acceptance into the program. The motion to file suit was denied by a U.S. judge in Detroit, as proper notice of a lawsuit was not given to the Department of Homeland Security.
Three Chinese textile manufacturers have been banned from exporting their goods to the United States over suspicions they may be using forced labor in their production lines.

International watchdogs have accused the Chinese government of setting up internment camps in the northwestern city of Xinjiang to extract forced labor from Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.

U.S. intelligence now believes the three Xinjiang-based companies are collaborating with the Chinese government to enslave and further persecute Muslim minorities in the region.

"We do not tolerate companies that use forced labor, that abuse the human rights of individuals in order to make a profit," Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said of the decision to place the three companies on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, or UFLPA.

The State Department issued an injunction Tuesday, warning of China's "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and the evidence of widespread use of forced labor there."

Beijing denies the accusations.

With the latest additions, the number of blacklisted businesses on the UFLPA has grown to 27. But critics say that number is far too small.

"There are potentially thousands of China-based companies and entities complicit in slave labor," said Senator Marco Rubio, who helped sign the UFLPA into law in 2021. "The slow pace [of U.S. sanctions] emboldens those profiting from slave labor."

Tuesday's bans come a month after the U.S. added two other China-based corporations to the UFLPA.

Companies on the UFLPA can only be removed from the list if they can prove that they are not using forced labor.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
The United States and Germany added to calls for international observers to be allowed into the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Azerbaijan said Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers were killed in an operation to retake the area from ethnic Armenian separatists.

The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in a phone call to assure people in Nagorno-Karabakh their rights will be protected and to allow for humanitarian access to the region.

The secretary urged President Aliyev to commit to broad amnesty and allow an international observer mission into Nagorno-Karabakh, and noted the Presidents public commitments to help build a future for all those in Nagorno-Karabakh based on peace, mutual understanding, and mutual respect, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Aliyevs office said he told Blinken that respective activities are underway to ensure the rights of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region and that Azerbaijans forces targeted only military facilities in the 24-hour operation last week.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Wednesday that allowing monitors into the region would be proof of confidence that Azerbaijan is serious about its commitments on the security and the wellbeing of people in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baerbock also announced Germany would more than double the humanitarian aid it is providing through the International Red Cross, boosting the funding to more than $5 million.

Azerbaijans offensive has pushed thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee Nagorno-Karabakh, which is entirely within Azerbaijan but had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994, until parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan during a war in 2020.

More than 43,000 people had arrived in Armenia by early Wednesday.

Separatist officials said the casualties on their side included more than 200 dead and 400 injured.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.


Countries up and down the Western Hemisphere are looking to eliminate weaknesses in their cyber infrastructure that could give potential adversaries, including China and Russia, the ability to do extensive damage by exploiting a single vulnerability.

The United States and 20 partner countries from across the Americas will meet at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington Wednesday and Thursday for what U.S. officials are calling a first-of-its-kind summit designed to strengthen their individual and collective cyber defenses.

"We need to partner with one another to strengthen the cybersecurity of the region, as well as the individual countries," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters Tuesday, adding that many countries are still in the "formative stages" when it comes to developing and deploying cyber defenses.

Already, at least a handful of Latin American countries have been victimized by cyberattacks.

Just last month, Ecuadorian officials said cyberattacks targeted voting systems used by Ecuadorians while voting overseas in China, India and Bangladesh. And in 2022, Costa Rica was beset by a series of cyberattacks attributed to the Russian-based Conti ransomware gang, which resulted in a state of emergency.

"We were attacked, affecting the backbone of the functioning of the state," Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles told an audience in Washington last month.

"Our tax system, our customs system, electricity, even meteorological services.  Our health system was attacked," he said. "It was ugly."

Already, the U.S. has pledged $25 million to Costa Rica to help the country create an operation center to better detect and mitigate attacks. But officials, like Mayorkas, warn that more dangers are lurking.

"We are seeing an only increasing exploitation of infrastructure," the Homeland Security secretary said, pointing specifically to China.

"What we are seeing is an assertive PRC [People's Republic of China] seeking to gain an increasing foothold in certain Latin American countries' infrastructure," Mayorkas said, in response to a question from VOA.

"That creates a greater level of vulnerability rather than a source of cybersecurity strength," he added. "For countries that pride themselves on their democracy, on their independence, on their sovereignty, they have to maintain the independence and freedom of their [cyber] infrastructure."

Chinese officials have repeatedly dismissed such concerns, saying claims in August by the commander of U.S. Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, were nothing more than "lies and rumors  and slander."

But Richardson warned that China's efforts to build critical infrastructure across Latin America, including high-speed, 5G mobile phone networks, has put China in Washington's "red zone" as a potential threat.

In addition to the U.S., Ecuador, Costa Rica and the OAS, officials from Peru, the Dominican Republic, Canada, the Bahamas, Panama, El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are expected to participate in the summit.

U.S. officials say one of the topics that will be up for discussion during the two-day summit is the possible creation of a regional cybersecurity hub to facilitate best practices and share threat warnings.

Panels are also expected to focus on protecting critical cyber systems, and the transportation and banking sectors.

Other panels will focus on building the capacity of law enforcement agencies to go after cyber criminals.

And U.S. officials said they also expect some discussion of Chinese and Russian influence campaigns that sometimes accompany cyberattacks by actors linked to both nations.
Iran must take "de-escalatory steps" on its nuclear program if it wants to make space for diplomacy with the United States, starting by cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday.

The comments by spokesperson Matt Miller at a briefing was the second time in recent days that the United States has criticized Iran for its decision to bar multiple IAEA inspectors assigned to the country, hindering the U.N. nuclear watchdog's oversight of Tehran's atomic activities.

The United States and many of its Western allies fear Iran's nuclear program may be a cover for developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies having such ambitions.

"Iran must take de-escalatory steps if it wants to reduce tensions and create a space for diplomacy," Miller said.

"Just in the last few weeks, we've seen Iran take steps to undermine the International Atomic Energy Agency's ability to do its work," Miller said. "So if Iran really is serious about taking de-escalatory steps, the first thing it (could) do would be to cooperate with the IAEA."

Miller said the steps he was talking about as a potential prelude to renewed U.S.-Iran talks, whether direct or indirect, had to do with the Iranian nuclear program, though he did not provide further details.

However, asked if he was saying Iran must take all such steps sought by the United States before Washington would agree to direct or indirect talks with Tehran, he replied: "I am not saying that."

The IAEA was responsible for verifying Iran's compliance with the defunct 2015 Iran nuclear deal, under which Tehran curbed its nuclear program in return for the easing of U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions.

Attempts to revive that deal, abandoned by then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018, collapsed about a year ago, and Washington has been searching for a new way to get Tehran to restrain its program.
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessman, as calls for his resignation from his fellow Democrats escalated.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week accused Menendez, 69, and his wife of accepting gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for the senator using his influence to aid Egypt's government and interfere with law enforcement investigations of the businessmen.

Menendez entered the plea at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in Manhattan.

His wife, Nadine Menendez, 56, and businessmen Jose Uribe, 56, and Fred Daibes, 66, also pleaded not guilty. A third businessman, Wael Hana, 40, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

Menendez, one of two senators representing New Jersey, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as required under his party's rules. But on Monday he said he would stay in the Senate and fight the charges.

More than half of all U.S. Democratic senators  including Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey  have called on Menendez, a powerful voice on foreign policy who has at times bucked his own party, to resign since the charges were unveiled on Friday.

Democrats narrowly control the Senate with 51 seats, including three independents who normally vote with them, to the Republicans' 49. Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who would appoint a temporary replacement should Menendez step aside, has also called for him to resign.

The indictment contained images of gold bars and cash that investigators seized from Menendez's home. Prosecutors say Hana arranged meetings between the senator and Egyptian officials  who pressed him to sign off on military aid  and in return put his wife on the payroll of a company he controlled.

The probe marks the third time Menendez has been under investigation by federal prosecutors. He has never been convicted.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday once again upheld a lower court decision mandating that the southern state of Alabama create a second congressional district in which Black voters are the majority.

It's the third time since June that federal courts have ruled that Alabama's congressional districts must accord with demographic data from the most recent census.

Alabama's Republican-controlled legislature repeatedly tried to bypass those orders with lawyers for the state arguing that their "2023 Plan applies the communities of interest principle fully and fairly to remedy  their challenge to the 2021 Plan."

The latest ruling upholds parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act in a state where more than 26% of voters are African American but only one of the state's seven congressional districts has a majority of Black voters. That one seat has a Black representative from the Democratic Party. The other six seats have white representatives from the Republican Party.

"Alabama is showing it feels it's OK continuing to operate in a system of racism and oppression," Travis Smith, a college professor in Chambers County, Alabama, told VOA. "They're supposed to be representing all of its residents, but lawmakers here have a long history of suppressing the voice of Black voters to give Republicans an advantage in elections."

Smith is hopeful the Supreme Court decision will have lasting effects on the lives of Black voters in Alabama.

"We can talk about how a lot of Black residents here don't have equitable access to medical care because Alabama's representatives to Congress don't support our interests," he said, "or we can talk about how our state has the most historically Black colleges or universities in the country but that they remain underfunded because our representatives don't advocate for resources. But, thanks to this decision by the judicial system, I think we will finally have access to power that will allow us to choose our representatives and to advocate for the needs of our communities and families."

Government interference or racial motives?

Republican voters say congressional redistricting has nothing to do with limiting the influence of Black voters. Rather, they say, it is the state legislature's job to create voting districts that best protect the interests of all communities in the state.

"Democrats are trying to make this all about skin color," Republican voter Tammy Robertson from Mobile, Alabama, told VOA, "but I don't think what we're asking for is racism. It's about saying the federal government and Supreme Court shouldn't be able to come in and tell us how to draw our own maps."

"I think it's crazy to think they understand the nuances of our state better than local legislators do," she added.

Following June's Supreme Court ruling, Alabama's legislature proposed creating a second district where 40% of voters were black. That was not good enough.

"The courts have ruled again and again that Black residents should be able to have a second representative of their choosing," said Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney for the Voting Rights Project. "The state's map does not do that. And, to be frank, it's surprising any time a party doesn't follow the clear order of a federal court. Especially when it's stopping people from choosing their representatives."

Republican consultant Jay Williams says it was worth challenging the Supreme Court decision even though it failed.

"The worst-case scenario is the Alabama GOP will lose a seat," Williams told VOA, "But that would happen if they didn't challenge the decision, too. So why not try to test the resolve of the courts and see if someone changes their mind?"

University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock, however, says this gamble could prove far more damaging to Alabama Republicans.

"If Republicans would have followed the court's order from the beginning, they would have been allowed to redraw the map in a way that followed the mandate but also was most beneficial to them," Bullock explained.

"They would have lost a seat, but they could have created a map that pushed out one of their more junior representatives who doesn't have an important committee assignment," he continued. "But when the legislature didn't follow the court's mandate, the court hired a third-party special master to create the new maps."

Now, Bullock told VOA, that special master can create a map without regard to the preference of the Republican-controlled state legislature. The result will likely be a less friendly map than they could have drawn on their own.

Implications for 2024 election

With the 2024 election just over one year away, the decision could affect which party controls the House of Representatives.

"It's not likely to end with one seat in Alabama either," Bullock said. "There are similar battles taking place in Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and South Carolina. Democrats only have to flip five seats next year to gain control of the House, so if redistricting helps them in these states, it would be a huge advantage."

Collins Pettaway, a Black resident of Selma, Alabama, and the current chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party, is hopeful that what appears to be a victory in Alabama is the start of something bigger nationwide.

"I think Alabama is simply a microcosm of a larger ideological shift where people are fed up with racism, white supremacy and the silencing of Black voices," he said to VOA.

"For years Black voters in Alabama and in many southern states were left with the feeling their votes didn't matter. I think what's happening here proves that our voice is growing just in time for the next election."

A three-judge panel has scheduled a hearing for October 3 to choose from one of the three Alabama redistricting plans proposed by the independent special master.
The World Health Organization is calling on schools to protect children from the harmful health impacts of tobacco use by creating nicotine- and tobacco-free zones on their campuses.

Tobacco kills more than 8 million people every year, most in low- and middle-income countries, which account for about 80% of the worlds 1.3 billion tobacco users.

The United Nations health agency reports that roughly half of the worlds children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke and that about 51,000 children die each year from illnesses related to secondhand smoke.

Young people are not only threatened by secondhand smoke, said Kerstin Schotte, medical officer at WHO, they are also aggressively targeted by the tobacco and related industries and their deadly products.

As more than half of all smokers die prematurely, and in a bid to keep profits high, she said, the tobacco industry tries to replace all the customers they lose by recruiting new users.

Given that an overwhelming 90% of smokers pick up the habit before turning 18, teenagers become prime targets, Schotte said.

She said one tactic employed by the tobacco industry to entice young people to become new users is through marketing addictive, sweet and fruity flavored nicotine products. She said, These products are sold near schools, online and in vending machines, where age verification can be circumvented.

She said the industry also has made its product more affordable for young people through the sale of single-use vape sticks, as they are called. They usually do not bear any health warnings, and children often do not know that they contain nicotine and are dangerous.

Ruediger Krech, WHO director of health promotion, said this is a problem throughout the world, in rich and poor countries alike. He noted that last month the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned 15 online retailers to stop selling illegal e-cigarettes that are packaged to appeal to young people.

He said these dangerous products are being sold in class, at bus stops  everywhere young people congregate. We must protect young people from deadly secondhand smoke and toxic e-cigarette emissions, as well as ads promoting these products, he said.

E-cigarettes are marketed by the tobacco industry as products that help adult smokers quit the habit. However, medical officer Schotte said this isnt proven science.

We think there is not enough evidence to say for sure that these products can help smokers to quit, she said. If anything, we see another double use. The majority of smokers who try to quit smoking with these devices do not quit all products. But they just switch to these products.

And our definition of quitting is not that you switch to another addictive product, she said.

To counter this, the World Health Organization has launched a new guide and toolkit for school administrators and teachers about how to create tobacco- and nicotine-free schools. The guides provide best-practice examples of what countries, cities and schools have done to become tobacco and nicotine free.

Schools are in a unique position to create this healthy tobacco- and nicotine-free environment because children spend a third of their waking time in schools, Schotte said.

This is the place where children encounter a lot of this peer pressure about using these products, and this is why it is important that schools provide this safe and healthy environment for children, she said.

The WHO guide highlights four ways to promote a nicotine- and tobacco-free environment for young people. They include banning nicotine and tobacco products on school campuses, prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes and other toxic commodities near schools, and banning the advertisement and promotion of tobacco products near schools. The guide also calls on schools to refuse sponsorships or engagement with tobacco and nicotine industries.

We want children to be in a safe place, Schotte said, so schools should be completely smoke and nicotine free indoors.

She noted that 149 countries already have put legislation in place prohibiting smoking inside educational facilities. She said the WHO guide also recommends turning the entire school campus  indoors and outdoors  into a smoke-free zone.

We want to de-normalize the act of smoking in public places, she said.
Six young people from Portugal will argue that governments across Europe aren't doing enough to protect people from the harms of climate change at the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday, in the latest and largest instance of activists taking governments to court to force climate action.

The lawyers representing the young adults and children claim that the 32 European governments they're suing have failed to adequately address global warming and therefore violated some of their fundamental rights.

Weve put forward evidence to show that its within the power of states to do vastly more to adjust their emissions, and they are choosing not do it, lawyer Gerry Liston told The Associated Press at the start of the day-long hearing.

Although there have been successful climate cases at national and regional levels  young environmentalists recently won a similar case in Montana  the activists legal team said that because national jurisdictions did not go far enough to protect their rights, the group felt compelled to take the matter to the Strasbourg-based court.

Arguing that their rights to life, to privacy and family life, and to be free from discrimination are being violated, they hope a favorable ruling will force the 27 EU member countries, as well as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey, to accelerate their climate efforts such as building renewable infrastructure and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

The courts rulings are legally binding on member countries, and failure to comply makes authorities liable for hefty fines decided by the court.

This judgement would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts, Liston said. In legal terms, it would be a gamechanger.

Liston said a ruling in favor of the group would also help future climate cases taken at domestic level by providing guidance to national courts.

But the plaintiffs  who are between 11 and 24 years of age and are not seeking financial compensation  will need to convince judges that they have been sufficiently affected to be considered as victims. The group will also need to prove to the courts that governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.



We have put forward evidence before the court that all of the respondents state climate policies are aligned to 3 degrees (Celsius) of warming within the lifetime of the applicants, or in the case of some states, worse than that," Liston said. ""No state has put forward evidence to counter that position."

Science is on the activists' side.

The world is way off track on limiting warming to 1.5 C, scientists say, with global average temperatures projected to rise by 2 to 4 degrees C by 2100 on current trajectories of warming and emissions reductions plans.

As the world warms, climate scientists predict more frequent and more extreme weather events, from heavier flooding and rainfall to prolonged droughts and heat waves and increasingly intense storms.

The activists said climate change affects their daily lives and their studies, and damages both their physical and psychological well-being.

They started judicial action in the wake of a series of deadly wildfires in central Portugal in 2017, where four of them live.

Its 43 degrees one day, and the next its hail, and thats dangerous because we cant predict whats going to happen, said 15-year-old Andre Oliveira, adding that the heat wave that hit Portugal in May hindered his schoolwork.

I had exams and I tried to study for them, but its hard to concentrate, Andre said. And it's not just the physical effects, he said. The climate crisis affects our mental health because it makes us worried about our future. How could we not be scared?

Andres sister, Sofia, said her brother suffers from asthma and couldn't go outside without feeling suffocated when temperatures hit an unusually warm 30 C in winter this year.

Governments around the world have the power to stop this, and Europes governments are choosing not to stop this, said 23-year-old Catarina dos Santos Mota, another member of the group. Since we started our action, we have felt the impact of the climate crisis getting worse and worse. In 2023, July was the hottest month on record. It is terrifying to think this is just the beginning.

It's the first climate case to be filed with the court. Two other climate cases  one by an association of senior women against Switzerland, the other by a French lawmaker against France  have been brought before the court since.

Members of the association of elderly people traveled to Strasbourg in support of the young Portuguese. They stood in front of the courthouse before the hearing, alongside a few dozens of other supporters.

I wish them a future, because they are very young. When they saw everything burning around them, all the catastrophes, they realized they would not have a future, said Anne Mahrer, the group's co-president. We probably won't be there to see it, but if we win, everybody wins.

A decision is not expected for several months. It's still unclear whether the court will deliver its ruling on all three climate cases at the same time.
Renowned Zimbabwean author, novelist and screenwriter, Tsitsi Dangarembgwa, is expected to receive the Africa Freedom Prize in what the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom says is in recognition of her unwavering resilience and commitment to political reforms and freedom in the southern African nation.

In a statement, the Foundation said,  Dangarembgwas recent arrest for staging a peaceful protest demanding political reform in Zimbabwe served as a stark reminder of the challenges faced by those advocating for change in the country. Despite the adversity she faced, Tsitsi Dangarembga continued to be a symbol of courage and determination.

Dangarembgwa was arrested when she staged a protest in Zimbabwe denouncing authorities of cracking down on opponents.

The Foundation said, The significance of an internationally renowned author being tried in her own homeland cannot be overstated. This case has garnered significant attention worldwide, shedding light on the challenges faced by activists, writers, and advocates for political reform in Zimbabwe, where such trials are sadly a daily occurrence.

The Africa Freedom Prize is awarded to individuals who have shown remarkable courage and dedication to advancing the cause of freedom, democracy, and human rights on the African continent.

The Foundation said, Tsitsi Dangarembga's unwavering commitment to these principles makes her a deserving recipient of this prestigious award.

Previous receipients of the award include Mmusi Maimane, former leader of the opposition in South Africa, Gareth Cliff (radio personality), Bobi Wine (Ugandan opposition leader), Hakainde Hichilema (Zambian President), Chimamanda Ngzozi Adichie (Nigerian novelist) and former Guinean president Cellou Dalein Dialloe.
Ashmore Group (LON:ASHM) Full Year 2023 Results

Key Financial Results

Revenue: UK191.0m (down 24% from FY 2022).

Net income: UK83.3m (down 5.9% from FY 2022).

Profit margin: 44% (up from 35% in FY 2022). The increase in margin was driven by lower expenses.

EPS: UK0.12 (down from UK0.13 in FY 2022).

All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period

Ashmore Group EPS Misses Expectations

Revenue was in line with analyst estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 4.6%.

The primary driver behind last 12 months revenue was the United Kingdom and Ireland segment contributing a total revenue of UK142.3m (75% of total revenue). Explore how ASHM's revenue and expenses shape its earnings.

Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 2.3% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, while revenues in the Capital Markets industry in the United Kingdom are expected to remain flat.

Performance of the British Capital Markets industry.

The company's shares are down 1.9% from a week ago.

Risk Analysis

Don't forget that there may still be risks. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Ashmore Group that you should be aware of.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, who is also the Southern African Development Community Troika chairperson, convened a virtual meeting today which discussed Zimbabwes disputed harmonized elections that were condemned by regional and international observers.

The virtual summit, attended by Namibian President Hage Geingob, the leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo Felix Tshisikedi and Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu, also discussed the security situation in DRC.

In a statement issued by Zambias Foreign Affairs Ministry, the leaders tabled the SADC Electoral Observation Mission report on Zimbabwes harmonised elections as well as other impending elections in the SADC region.

Zambias Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, The values and principles that underpin the promotion of democracy and good governance are also the foundation of Zambias foreign policy.

The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change led by Nelson Chamisa has rejected the outcome of the general elections, which were also condemned by SADC, the African Union and European Union.

According to SADC, AU and EU, the polls fell short of regional and international standards.

But President Emmerson Mnangagwa told the United Nations General Assembly last week that the elections were free, fair, credible and transparent.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced that Mnangagwa got 52.6 percent of the vote.
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Some Zimbabweans have attacked President Emmerson Mnangagwa for claiming that Zimbabwe conducted free, fair and credible elections. He made these remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. SADC, African Union and European Union observers condemned the poll.
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South Korea held its largest-scale military parade in downtown Seoul, the first such event in 10 years, to commemorate its upcoming Armed Forces Day. The parade comes amid heightened tensions between the two Koreas. State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more from Seoul.
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Long-established in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC (NASDAQ:AY) has enjoyed a stellar reputation. However, it has recently witnessed a daily loss of 2.94%, juxtaposed with a three-month change of -14.03%. Fresh insights from the GF Score hint at potential headwinds. Notably, its diminished rankings in financial strength, growth, and valuation suggest that the company might not live up to its historical performance. Join us as we dive deep into these pivotal metrics to unravel the evolving narrative of Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC.

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC (AY): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Metrics

Understanding the GF Score

The GF Score is a stock performance ranking system developed by GuruFocus using five aspects of valuation, which has been found to be closely correlated to the long-term performances of stocks by backtesting from 2006 to 2021. The stocks with a higher GF Score generally generate higher returns than those with a lower GF Score. Therefore, when picking stocks, investors should invest in companies with high GF Scores. The GF Score ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 as the highest rank.

Based on the above method, GuruFocus assigned Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC the GF Score of 66 out of 100, which signals poor future outperformance potential.

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC: A Snapshot

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC owns, manages, and acquires renewable energy, conventional power, electric transmission lines, and water assets. It is focused on North America (the United States and Mexico), South America (Peru, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay), and EMEA (Spain, Algeria, and South Africa). The company's segments include North America, South America, and Europe, Middle East, and Africa. The renewable energy sector includes the company's activities related to the production of electricity from solar power and wind plants. Atlantica derives most of its revenues from EMEA, followed by South America and North America.

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Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC (AY): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Metrics

Financial Strength Analysis

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC's financial strength indicators present some concerning insights about the company's balance sheet health. The company's interest coverage ratio of 0.83 positions it worse than 87.97% of 316 companies in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry. This ratio highlights potential challenges the company might face when handling its interest expenses on outstanding debt. It's worth noting that the esteemed investor Benjamin Graham typically favored companies with an interest coverage ratio of at least five.

The company's Altman Z-Score is just 0.45, which is below the distress zone of 1.81. This suggests that the company may face financial distress over the next few years. Additionally, the company's low cash-to-debt ratio at 0.12 indicates a struggle in handling existing debt levels. The company's debt-to-equity ratio is 3.64, which is worse than 90.45% of 377 companies in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry. A high debt-to-equity ratio suggests over-reliance on borrowing and vulnerability to market fluctuations.

Additionally, the company's debt-to-Ebitda ratio is 6.98, which is above Joel Tillinghast's warning level of 4 and is worse than 63.17% of 315 companies in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry. Tillinghast said in his book Big Money Think's Small: Biases, Blind Spots, and Smarter Investing that a high debt-to-Ebitda ratio can be a red flag unless tangible assets cover the debt.

Profitability Analysis

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC's low Profitability rank can also raise warning signals. Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC's Operating Margin has declined over the past five years ((-50.31%)), as shown by the following data: 2018: 46.74; 2019: 46.05; 2020: 32.82; 2021: 28.06; 2022: 23.23. Additionally, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC's Gross Margin has also declined over the past five years, as evidenced by the data: 2018: 82.52; 2019: 85.02; 2020: 85.53; 2021: 78.09; 2022: 80.10. This trend underscores the company's struggles to convert its revenue into profits.

Growth Prospects

A lack of significant growth is another area where Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC seems to falter, as evidenced by the company's low Growth rank. The company's revenue has declined by -2.4 per year over the past three years, which underperforms worse than 78.79% of 363 companies in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry. Stagnating revenues may pose concerns in a fast-evolving market.

Over the past five years, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC has witnessed a decline in its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). The three-year growth rate is recorded at -5.6, while the five-year growth rate is at -3.4. These figures underscore potential challenges in the company's profitability. Lastly, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC predictability rank is just one star out of five, adding to investor uncertainty regarding revenue and earnings consistency.

Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC (AY): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Metrics

Conclusion

Given Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure PLC's financial strength, profitability, and growth metrics, the GF Score highlights the firm's unparalleled position for potential underperformance. While the company has a rich history in the Utilities - Independent Power Producers industry, its recent performance and future prospects raise concerns. Investors should tread carefully and consider these factors when making investment decisions.

GuruFocus Premium members can find more companies with strong GF Scores using the following screener link: GF Score Screen

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Chief Operating Officer Recognized for Contributions in Health Care Innovation and Community Leadership

PHOENIX, September 27, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Banner|Aetna, a joint venture health plan owned by Banner Health and Aetna, a CVS Health company, proudly celebrates Joanne Mizell, chief operating officer, as one of the Most Influential Women in Arizona selected by AZ Big Media. Mizell was chosen from a pool of over 1,900 candidates for her outstanding leadership and contributions to the community.

Mizell has been forging change in the health care industry for more than 30 years. In her role as chief operating officer at Banner|Aetna, Mizell has delivered innovative solutions like an industry-first frictionless billing initiative that makes complicated medical bills consumer friendly, and a novel diabetes reversal program to help members achieve normal blood sugar without medication.

In addition to her work at Banner|Aetna, Mizell is actively involved with the local Arizona community. She serves on the board of the Family Promise of Greater Phoenix and devotes her time to humanitarian and animal advocacy nonprofits.

"Joannes commitment to Banner|Aetnas mission of making high-quality health care easy and accessible for everyone is inspiring," said Banner|Aetna CEO Tom Grote. "She is a force for change, and on behalf of Banner|Aetna, I want to congratulate her on this well-deserved recognition."

Mizell and others named to this years list of most influential women in Arizona were recognized at a recent awards dinner in Phoenix. Banner|Aetna extends its gratitude to Mizell for her dedication and leadership and congratulates all 2023 honorees for their achievements.

About Banner|Aetna

Banner|Aetna is a health insurance company focusing on bettering member outcomes at a lower cost, all while improving the overall member experience for employers and consumers in Arizona. The collaboration combines Banner Healths high-quality, local providers and delivery systems with Aetnas health-plan experience, care management and health information technology. Banner|Aetna is the brand name used for products and services provided by Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company and Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc. For more information about Banner|Aetna, visit banneraetna.com.

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About Banner Health

Banner Health is one of the largest, secular nonprofit health care systems in the country. In addition to 33 hospitals, Banner also operates an academic medicine division, Banner  University Medicine, and Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, a partnership with one of the worlds leading cancer programs, MD Anderson Cancer Center. Banners array of services includes a health insurance division, employed physician groups, outpatient surgery centers, urgent care locations, home care and hospice services, retail pharmacies, stand-alone imaging centers, physical therapy and rehabilitation, behavioral health services, a research division and a nursing registry. To make health care easier, 100% of Banner-employed doctors are available for virtual visits, and Banner operates a free 24/7 nurse line for health questions or concerns. Patients may also reserve spots at Banner Urgent Care locations and can book appointments online with many Banner-employed doctors. Headquartered in Arizona, Banner Health also has locations in California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. For more information, visit bannerhealth.com.

About CVS Health

CVS Health is the leading health solutions company, delivering care like no one else can. We reach more people and improve the health of communities across America through our local presence, digital channels and over 300,000 dedicated colleagues  including more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners. Wherever and whenever people need us, we help them with their health  whether thats managing chronic diseases, staying compliant with their medications or accessing affordable health and wellness services in the most convenient ways. We help people navigate the health care system  and their personal health care  by improving access, lowering costs and being a trusted partner for every meaningful moment of health. And we do it all with heart, each and every day. Follow @CVSHealth on social media.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927490761/en/

Contacts

Sarah McLeod

Activate Health

smcleod@activatehealth.com

480.352.1044
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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was imprisoned in 2022 for his role in a multi-billion dollar graft scandal known as 1MDB. Several cases against him are still grinding through the courts. How they play out will be a test for Malaysias current premier, Anwar Ibrahim. While Anwar has vowed to combat corruption, he is in a delicate spot as his party lacks a majority in parliament and relies on support from Najibs Barisan Nasional coalition to remain in power.

1. Who is Najib?

Najib was prime minister from 2009 and chairman of the political movement that controlled the government for sixty years until his defeat in 2018. His father and his uncle had both served as Malaysian premier in the 1970s. The British-educated Najib rose to power at a time when the Barisan Nasional coalitions grip on the nation was beginning to slip. Despite doling out billions of ringgit in handouts to the needy and overseeing the worlds longest bull market at the time, Najib was unable to reverse Barisan Nasionals decline. His final years in office were tainted by the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, which contributed to the alliances first-ever general election loss.

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2. What happened with 1MDB?

1MDB was a national strategic development company that took shape in 2009 under Najib, who led its advisory board as prime minister and finance minister. Its early initiatives included buying privately owned power plants and planning a new financial district in Malaysias capital, Kuala Lumpur. It raised more than $8 billion via bond sales to do so, partly with the help of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In 2015, news broke that about $700 million may have moved through government agencies and state-linked companies to accounts bearing Najibs name. Najib denied the allegations, fired several critics and pushed back against his detractors. That didnt stop the groundswell of anger. After he lost the 2018 election, the finance ministry took over 1MDBs assets.

3. How much money was involved?

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The money trail is complicated as much of the cash went through international banks before finding its way to Najib. Swiss investigators have said about $7 billion of 1MDB funds passed into the global financial system from 2009 to 2015. A total of 2.28 billion ringgit, rerouted through various countries, eventually flowed to Najibs accounts between 2011-2014, prosecution witness Adam Ariff Mohd Roslan of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) said in testimony. Malaysian police seized about 1.1 billion ringgit worth of items in raids linked to Najib amid investigations into the troubled state fund. During the court hearings, revelations emerged of lavish spending by Najib and his wife.

4. Whats the status of Najibs cases?

 SRC International (Case 1):

 Najib was charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of abuse of power over the transfer of 42 million ringgit from 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd to his personal account between 2014 and 2015. Najib is serving a 12-year jail sentence after the Federal Court upheld his conviction in 2022. The 70-year-old has exhausted all appeals and only a royal pardon could quash the conviction.

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 SRC International (Case 2):

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 Najib was charged with three counts of money laundering breaches related to former 1MDB unit SRC International Sdn. The case has been postponed several times since 2019, and Najib has filed a letter of representation to the attorney generals chambers to review the case.

 1MDB Audit Report:

 Najib was charged in 2018 with abusing his position to order amendments to the governments audit report of 1MBD to protect himself from legal or regulatory action. He was acquitted in March 2023, and the prosecution missed a deadline to file an appeal.

 1MDB-Tanore:

 Najib was hit with 21 counts of money laundering and four counts of corruption involving about 2 billion ringgit that appeared in his personal bank accounts. The charges were linked to his alleged role in 1MDB deals including a $2 billion joint venture with PetroSaudi International Ltd. and a 10.6-billion ringgit bid for Tanjong Energy Holdings Sdn. That trial continues.

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 International Petroleum Investment Company:

 Najib was charged with six counts of criminal breach of trust involving 6.6 billion ringgit in funds linked to payments to the company, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. That trial is scheduled to begin in June 2024.

5. If Najib is already in jail, why does it matter?

After Najib left office, he turned to social media to rehabilitate his image while fighting the court cases, and gained traction among followers by poking fun at the new government. That helped him to remain influential even after his imprisonment in 2022. His Facebook page is still active, while Barisan Nasional  now part of the government once again  pushes for him to be pardoned by Malaysias king. Najibs court cases present a dilemma for current premier Anwar, who decided to welcome Barisan Nasional as an ally while its leaders were still facing graft charges. The move gave him the parliamentary backing he needed to govern effectively. But any suspicion that the government is meddling in the judicial process to help Najib would go down badly with many of Anwars longtime supporters. Anwar has repeatedly denied intervening in the courts and the work of the attorney general, and said the king has sole discretion to issue a pardon.

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6. Wheres the 1MDB money now?

Some has been recovered, but much remains scattered around the world. Under a July 2020 settlement, Malaysia dropped all criminal charges against Goldman over its role in the scandal in exchange for a $2.5 billion cash payment and for the bank to guarantee the return of $1.4 billion of seized 1MDB assets. (Goldman made $593 million working on three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013  far more than what banks typically make from such deals.) The Malaysian government is still seeking further compensation from Goldman. In 2020, the US Justice Department  which has been at the forefront of the investigation  struck a deal with Jho Low, a fugitive businessman whos wanted in the 1MDB scandal, to recoup almost $1 billion worth of assets, including a Beverly Hills hotel and real estate in New York and London.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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A coup by any other name would smell as foul. Nonetheless, the US still refuses to call the military takeover  mutiny, putsch, overthrow, take your pick  that took place two months ago in Niger a coup. Thats because this label would legally require America to halt military cooperation with a strategically located country in Africas Sahel region, a notorious playground for jihadist terrorists and Russian mercenaries, among other unsavory characters.

How much longer can Washington keep up this linguistic squirming? More importantly, should the US cut off relations with Nigers new regime in Niamey? Yes, the junta ousted a democratically elected leader and former darling of US diplomacy, Mohamed Bazoum, whos now under house arrest. But there are ulterior considerations of American statecraft.

These questions confronting US President Joe Biden became more urgent this week, after his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, announced on television that he will pull out the roughly 1,500 French troops stationed in Niger, as well as the French ambassador. France, as the regions former colonial power, has long played the lead for Team West in the Sahel, with the US in the unaccustomed role of understudy. So the US, you might think, should take the hint.

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Viewed from Washington, however, the French withdrawal is instead an opportunity to clarify three aspects of American grand strategy.

First, despite appearances in this time of geopolitical confrontation between democracies and autocracies, the West isnt really a thing. France and the US are separate actors with different interests and means. And France is widely hated in the Sahel, whereas the US is merely distrusted. So the Americans neednt feel obliged to follow anything the French do.

Since 1960, when a group of West African countries including Niger gained independence, Paris has often behaved like an imperious and arrogant neo-colonial overlord. It still dominates the regions currencies, economies and resources  in Niger, for example, it has grabbed local uranium for French nuclear power plants in a way thats cut locals out of the profits. Many of the leaders ousted in the regions coups  most recently, Gabons in August  were seen by locals as French puppets. This anti-French loathing has allowed the usurping juntas, from Burkina Faso and Mali to Niger, to pose as anti-colonial freedom fighters.

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Cynically, Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group are re-broadcasting that narrative as they infiltrate the region, betting that Africans will overlook Moscows own neo-imperialist war of aggression against Ukraine. In a simplified plotline, the geopolitical effect of coups in the Sahel is to get the French out and the Russians in, while leaving the terrorists to celebrate the chaos.

This set of circumstances highlights a second point about US foreign policy today, and international relations generally, which is that realism is ascendant over idealism. The Biden administration started out boldly idealist, claiming to lead the free world against the tyrants. Since Russias attack on Ukraine in 2022, however, its discovered that this pitch isnt working for countries in the so-called Global South, including Africa. As talking points, power and order work better.

Hence Bidens Plan B, which represents a reversion to the historical mean of power politics. This shift to realpolitik explains, for example, why Biden is contemplating security guarantees for Saudi Arabia, an autocratic monarchy. The goal is to keep the Chinese and Russians out, the Israelis onside, and Iranians, Saudis and others tractable.

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In the cauldron of human misery that is the Sahel, admittedly, imposing even a minimum of order will be a challenge. In Niger, the US has just over 1,000 troops on the ground and a state-of-the-art drone base. Its anybodys guess whether those forces can keep the local branches of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in check, and Wagner mercenaries at bay.

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But it may be worth a try. And that touches on the third element of American grand strategy at stake in Niger. Its encapsulated in the debate in Washington between internationalists, who believe that the US should keep playing the role of benevolent hegemon in world affairs, and neo-isolationists, who think America should retrench. The engagers would stay in Niger, the restrainers would leave.

I happen to be in the hegemonic engagement camp, but I admit the decision in each case is hard. That, however, points to a different problem with American foreign policy: the damage that ensues from the naive messianism that drives daft provisions such as Section 7008 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which proscribes financial assistance to regimes that seized power in a coup.

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Congress does the US and the world a disservice by legislating foreign policy in such Manichean terms. All that does is to force the executive branch to torture the thesaurus in search of euphemisms and then resort to hypocrisy. A decade ago, when a junta overthrew the government of Egypt, another important African country, the administration of Barack Obama also wriggled out of using the word coup, to keep working with Cairo.

Forgive me, but theres a better way. Be honest in the language you use, and also in the trade-offs and dilemmas youre trying to solve. What transpired in Niamey was obviously a coup, duh. Nonetheless, the US has global responsibilities that require it to stay in Niger.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

 Europes Arsenal of Democracy Needs an Upgrade: Editorial

 Out of Africa, a New World War?: Andreas Kluth

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 Poland And Ukraine Are Falling For Putins Ploy: Marc Champion and Javier Blas

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Nations discuss restarting meetings

08:29, September 27, 2023 By ZHOU JIN ( Chinadaily.com.cn

China, Japan and South Korea are in communication on restarting a meeting among their leaders at the earliest convenient time, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Nong Rong, Japan's Senior Deputy Foreign Minister Takehiro Funakoshi and South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Chung Byung-won met in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss the resumption of trilateral cooperation.

The trilateral leaders' meeting was first held in 2008. Along with the high-level officials' meeting, which was first held in 2007, and the foreign ministers' meeting, they have become part of the cooperation mechanism among the nations.

However, the meetings have been put on hold since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and strained relations between South Korea and Japan over a wartime labor dispute.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at the daily briefing that the three neighbors agreed at the high-level officials' meeting to hold the foreign ministers' meeting "in the following several months".

He said the three countries also agreed to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in areas including cultural exchanges, trade, scientific innovation and sustainable development.

According to Wang, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met with the three officials on Monday.

In a statement issued by the South Korean Foreign Ministry, Park stressed that cooperation among the three countries "plays a significant role not only in Northeast Asia but also in the peace, stability and prosperity of the world".

On Tuesday, a plenary meeting of the Central American Parliament approved a special agreement on the acceptance of the National People's Congress of China as a permanent observer.

The approval came three days after the visit to China by the parliament's President Amado Cerrud, during which he met with Zhao Leji, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

The parliament in August revoked the permanent observer status of the so-called "legislative yuan" of the Taiwan region.

China highly commends this move, which reflects the Central American Parliament's firm resolve to develop ties with China, said Wang, the spokesman.

It again shows that the one-China principle represents the consensus of the international community and an unstoppable trend of the times, he said.

China stands ready to further develop and consolidate friendly cooperation with the parliament and Central American countries on the basis of one-China principle, he added.

The Central American Parliament is a six-nation parliament that groups Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Panama, serving as the political institution and parliamentary body of the Central American Integration System.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
Leading real estate advisory Chestertons Mena is on the move, with the opening of additional offices in Dubai to reflect the companys continued growth in the UAE and wider Middle East region.

Chestertons has more than doubled its office occupancy at Dubais Marina Plaza in response to a significant uptick in the number of clients, workforce and real estate transactions, driven by the continued success and growth of Dubais real estate sector.

Nick Witty, CEO, Chestertons Mena, said: Chestertons Mena is proud to be at the forefront of all things real estate in Dubai and, increasingly, the wider UAE and Middle East region. With our aggressive recruitment drive across all service lines in full swing, an ever-expanding client base and a team of experts that is second to none, we have outgrown our existing offices and taken up additional, Grade A space to further drive our business.

Expansion to Ras Al Khaimah

Chestertons Mena currently operates across the region, with offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Riyadh, with an imminent expansion into Ras Al Khaimah. The company currently employs just under 100 people, with a target of recruiting another 30 before the end of 2023.

Chestertons Mena offers the full range of real estate advisory services, including Commercial and Residential Sales and Leasing; Building Consultancy and Project Management; Property Management; Short Term Leasing/Holiday Homes, Consulting and Research and Valuation services, with a dedicated, expert team for each function.-- TradeArabia News Service
LAKELAND, Fla., Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Polytechnic University announced a new name for its state-of-the-art research building: the Barnett Applied Research Center. The name honors the Barnett family and its longstanding support and generosity for the University.

Pictured are Barnett family members Nick Barnett (left), Barney Barnett and Wesley Barnett. Florida Polytechnic Universitys cutting-edge research building will be named the Barnett Applied Research Center in honor of the familys generosity and support for the University.

The Florida Poly Board of Trustees approved the naming during its meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The request honors and recognizes the Barnetts' significant contributions to the University, which exceed $10 million and support student success.

"We are exceptionally enthusiastic about our partnership with Florida Poly and its role in propelling Central Florida to national prominence as a technology hub over the next half-century," said Wesley Barnett, a founding partner at TampaBay.Ventures and a longtime community advocate. "We firmly believe that the Barnett Applied Research Center will be an engine for innovation, a beacon for top-tier talent, and a driving force in the region's development."

The Barnett family includes brothers Wesley and Nick Barnett and their father, Barney Barnett. Carol Jenkins Barnett, the family matriarch and a well-known philanthropist, passed away in 2021. She was the daughter of Publix Super Markets founder George Jenkins. The family has supported Florida Poly since the early years of its creation.

"Florida Poly is fortunate to have such a strong partnership with the Barnett family and we're honored to have their support," said Kathy Bowman, vice president for advancement at Florida Poly. "It is befitting that a campus jewel such as the Applied Research Center gets to bear the name of this incredibly generous family."

Wesley Barnett said his family's support of Florida Poly over the years has been anchored by their unwavering dedication to seeing the Polk County community and the entire Central Florida region thrive with growth in industry, knowledge, and opportunity.

Story continues

"We envision the University as an epicenter of innovation, producing top talent and pioneering research that will create progress and attract strong companies," Barnett said. "Our continuous support of the University is driven by the belief that Florida Poly's innovative spirit and strategic location within the technology corridor will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education, research, and economic development in the region."

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SOURCE Florida Poly
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About 20 Americans have been detained by North Korea since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, including the US soldier who in July ran across the border in the truce village set up to help forge the armistice. There has never been an easy way for Washington to win their return. The two countries have no direct diplomatic ties and have been adversaries for decades. Pyongyang often uses detained Americans  the last case was about five years ago  as political pawns and seeks maximum concessions for their release. In this case, however, it looks like he will be quickly expelled.

1. Who is the US soldier detained in North Korea?

The Army identified him as Private Second Class Travis King, 23, a cavalry scout from Wisconsin whod been in the Army since January 2021. Hed been jailed for nearly two months in South Korea for assault and was set to fly to Texas, where he faced expulsion from the military. But instead he left the airport, joined a tour to the Joint Security Area in the Panmunjom truce village. Thats the only place on the peninsula where military personnel from the US and North Korea regularly can stand face-to-face on their respective side of the border  a concrete slab about as tall as a cigarette lighter. A person on the tour said the man gave a loud laugh and ran between some buildings that straddle the border. Kings mother, Claudine Gates, told ABC News that she spoke with her son a few days prior, when he told her he was returning to Fort Bliss in Texas, saying she could not imagine that her son would cross into North Korea.

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2. Has this ever happened before?

This type of crossing is rare. Many of the other Americans detained in North Korea had either already been in the country as part of a tour for some sort of work assignment. Unauthorized crossings have almost all started in China, which shares a long border with North Korea that is far less heavily patrolled than the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, where hundreds of thousands of troops are positioned on either side of a razor-wire barricade. The most similar incident was nearly 60 years ago when then Army Sergeant Charles Jenkins said he drank about 10 beers and fled his post in 1965 to go across into North Korea so he wouldnt have to serve in the Vietnam War. He was in North Korea for about 40 years and soon after he made the crossing, he realized he made a terrible mistake, according to his 2017 obituary in the New York Times.

3. Who else from the US has been detained?

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They include devout Christians who went there for what they saw as humanitarian reasons, university students on tours, a pair of reporters on a story and some people described by their relatives as troubled individuals. North Korea held American national Bruce Byron Lowrance for about a month in 2018, accusing him of illegal entry from China. On the other hand, thousands of Americans have been to North Korea without incident on trips where they are closely watched by minders and limited as to the places they can visit. The country is now off-limits to Americans unless permission is given at a high-level, with the State Department telling nationals not to go there due to the continuing serious risk of arrest and long-term detention of U.S. nationals.

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4. What happens in detention?

Americans have been held in places ranging from decrepit shacks to hotel rooms. They are typically questioned for hours and pushed to their mental breaking points. Kenneth Bae, a US missionary, was arrested in November 2012 in the northeastern city of Rason and sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp for what the North Koreans called plans to overthrow the regime. He was forced to break rocks and dig for coal. His detention of about two years was the longest for an American. Jeffrey Fowle, a tourist detained for about six months for leaving a Bible in a sailors club in 2014, was held in guest houses. Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student on a group tour in January 2016, was seized by North Korean authorities and accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster. He was initially sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, but was returned to the US in June 2017 in a comatose state  brain dead, blind and deaf. He died days later.

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5. How are they released?

North Korea often holds a show trial for foreigners it arrests and sentences them to several years of hard labor. But most of the Americans it has detained were in custody for a year or less. The state has sought the dispatch of high-level envoys from the US including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to take the captives out of the country, usually allowing releases that will score points at home for its leader.

6. What happens now to King?

The official Korean Central News Agency said on Sept. 27 that he would be expelled, but gave no details on when or how in a short, 120-word dispatch. Almost all Western diplomats have left the country since the pandemic, leaving the US with few partners on the ground. The US has some times used a back channel through the North Korean mission to the United Nations, but Pyongyang this year rejected offers from the Biden administration to talk.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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The former presidents son is the first member of his family to be called as a witness by New York Attorney General Letitia Jamess office in the fraud case against the family and the company.
The forecast of a hot summer thanks to the onset of the El Nino weather event is being seen as the trigger needed for managers to lure staff back to air-conditioned offices without having to impose harsh return-to-work mandates.

Already new data is showing that occupancy rates are on an upward trajectory, the first time since the start of the global pandemic. The most recent bout of unseasonable hot weather in Sydney saw more people come back to the cooler office towers.

More workers are tipped to come back to the office to escape the summer heat.

CBREs latest Australia CBD Office Occupancy Brief show that most CBD offices are in a strong leasing position with elevated city vacancy rates being driven by a few assets.

As at the end of June when the data was collected, 62 per cent of Australian CBD office properties had occupancy rates of greater than 90 per cent, while 15 per cent of properties in the capital cities had occupancy rates between 80 per cent and 90 per cent.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The morning after Daniel Andrews was first elected Victorian premier, he swiped through the door at No.1 Treasury Place and got down to work. Although journalists were invited there to record the moment, it wasnt just for show. Since that day and nearly every day in office, Andrews governed at a breathless, unrelenting pace. The evidence of his nine years in power is there for everyone to see: the enormous tunnels and sky rails and freeway expansions; the immense changes to social policy; the electoral marginalisation of the opposition parties; debt on a scale beyond anything previously racked up by a state government in Australia. Yet, when Andrews finishes as premier at 5pm on Wednesday, one of his most profound legacies will be largely hidden from public view. To govern as he did, Andrews forced a radical alteration to the way the Victorian government operates. He did not merely lead his government  he bent it to his will. Andrews operated like the executive chairman of the state, with a huge capacity to consume and command the detail of diverse issues, said Chris Eccles, the man chosen by Andrews to run, reshape and oversee the Victorian Public Service to deliver his governments agenda. There was an enormous breadth in the reform landscape, with very few areas of economic and social policy untouched. There was a lot of stuff going out the door and when you run that hot with that bias towards action, there are real consequences for how you govern. Eccles is in a unique position to reflect on the Andrews government. He joined the state government after running the public service in both NSW and South Australia. Before he resigned as Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary in late 2020, he had become one of the premiers closest political confidants.

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Since he retired, he has considered at length what the Andrews government did well and where it was challenged, particularly in the heady days of its reform-heavy first term in office. On the day Andrews announced his retirement from politics, Eccles agreed to share his reflections with this masthead. Loading He described an exponential increase in the volume of activity and pace and cadence of government, which began as soon as Andrews began work on that Sunday after the 2014 election. That pace never slowed to ordinary levels. Andrews, in announcing his retirement, admitted he was worse than a workaholic and consumed by the job. There are two types of people, he explained. There are people who fixate on these things. They dont tend to build a legacy, they are all about themselves. Ive always been about the work. Work hard, then work harder again, and the results will speak for themselves. Numbers provided by Eccles show how the premiers mantra was reflected in the legislation passed and money spent by the government under his watch. The government worked hard, then worked harder again. It spent big, then spent bigger again. Throughout the comparatively plodding four years of the Baillieu and Napthine governments, the average annual funding for new initiatives was $5.2 billion, an average of $5.5 billion was invested in infrastructure, and total government expenses were running at $42.8 billion. In the first term of the Andrews government, average annual funding on new initiatives reached $8.8 billion, infrastructure spending topped $10 billion, and total government expenses totalled $78.6 billion. At the same time, the volume of legislation increased from 2500 pages in 2014-15 to 6000 pages by 2017-18.

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To push through this extraordinary volume of work, Andrews changed how government decisions were made, how the public service was structured and how the state budget was accounted for. Instead of cabinet being a place where prospective policy was subjected to robust debate, Andrews preferred for policies to be developed elsewhere and presented to cabinet for approval. The engine room of the Andrews government was not the cabinet room. Instead, Andrews established a series of subcommittees, which he chaired, to do the governments heavy lifting on policy development. The other members of cabinet quickly came to understand that every major policy presented to them already had the support of the premier. What the premier wanted, Victoria invariably got. Daniel Andrews at the press conference announcing he is stepping down as premier. Credit: Jason South The furious pace that Andrews demanded of government stretched the capacity of usual budget processes to keep up. In 2015-16, only 1.5 per cent of new funding initiatives were not included in that years state budget. By 2017-18, 18 per cent of new funding was booked outside the annual budget. At the same time, the Victorian Public Service started to resemble a surge workforce, with a dramatic increase in the number of new bureaucrats brought in on one-year and two-year contracts and a doubling of the money spent on consultants. Throughout the first term, nearly $1 billion was spent on consultants commissioned for infrastructure projects. Before the first COVID-19 case emerged in Wuhan, the Victorian government was already operating at something akin to an emergency setting. Andrews knew five years ago that this wasnt sustainable. Eccles said a sliding-doors moment came after the government was returned with a thumping majority at the 2018 election. Recognising frustrations around his own cabinet table and the need to rein in government spending, Andrews loosened cabinet discussions and authorised a series of internal government reviews, overseen by senior Department of Premier and Cabinet and Treasury officials, designed to reduce expenditure.

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Loading Before the product of those reviews could be implemented, Victoria was engulfed in flames and then plagued by COVID-19. There was a comprehensive whole-of-government review of expenditure in 2019, to be followed by planned rationalisation and adjustment for the 2020-21 budget, Eccles said. Then came the bushfires and the pandemic. It would have been fascinating to see the outcome if the approach had been implemented without the intervention of the pandemic. A government already red-lining was plunged headlong into the worst public health crisis in a century. Eccles said the effect was to supercharge the defining characteristics of the Andrews government. The COVID crisis was a sliding-doors moment for the government. Credit: Wayne Taylor Everything was heightened and taken to an extreme, he said. It exaggerated all the features of what, I think, was a highly successful government, including effective cabinet governance, the dominance of the principal and the speed to policy and program outcome.

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An Analysis of BJWTF's Dividend History, Yield, Growth, and Sustainability

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd (BJWTF) recently announced a dividend of $0.07 per share, payable on 2023-10-19, with the ex-dividend date set for 2023-09-27. As investors look forward to this upcoming payment, the spotlight also shines on the company's dividend history, yield, and growth rates. Using the data from GuruFocus, let's deep dive into Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's dividend performance and assess its sustainability.

Understanding Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's Business

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd is a provider of waste treatment services in China. The company's business segments are Sewage and reclaimed water treatment and construction services, Water distribution services, and Technical and consultancy services and sales of machineries. Majority of the revenue is derived from the Sewage and reclaimed water treatment and construction services segment.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd: A Deep Dive Into Its Dividend Performance

Tracing Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's Dividend History

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd has maintained a consistent dividend payment record since 2012. Dividends are currently distributed on a bi-annually basis. Below is a chart showing annual Dividends Per Share for tracking historical trends.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd: A Deep Dive Into Its Dividend Performance

Assessing Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's Dividend Yield and Growth

As of today, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd currently has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 9.25% and a 12-month forward dividend yield of 9.26%, suggesting an expectation of increased dividend payments over the next 12 months.

Over the past three years, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's annual dividend growth rate was -10.30%. Extended to a five-year horizon, this rate increased to 11.90% per year. And over the past decade, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's annual dividends per share growth rate stands at an impressive 15.00%.

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Based on Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's dividend yield and five-year growth rate, the 5-year yield on cost of Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd stock as of today is approximately 16.23%.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd: A Deep Dive Into Its Dividend Performance

Is Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's Dividend Sustainable?

To assess the sustainability of the dividend, one needs to evaluate the company's payout ratio. The dividend payout ratio provides insights into the portion of earnings the company distributes as dividends. A lower ratio suggests that the company retains a significant part of its earnings, thereby ensuring the availability of funds for future growth and unexpected downturns. As of 2023-06-30, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's dividend payout ratio is 0.72, which may suggest that the company's dividend may not be sustainable.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's profitability rank, offers an understanding of the company's earnings prowess relative to its peers. GuruFocus ranks Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's profitability 7 out of 10 as of 2023-06-30, suggesting good profitability prospects. The company has reported positive net income for each of year over the past decade, further solidifying its high profitability.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's Growth Metrics

To ensure the sustainability of dividends, a company must have robust growth metrics. Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's growth rank of 7 out of 10 suggests that the company's growth trajectory is good relative to its competitors.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any company, and Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's revenue per share, combined with the 3-year revenue growth rate, indicates a strong revenue model. Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's revenue has increased by approximately -4.10% per year on average, a rate that underperforms approximately 90.12% of global competitors.

The company's 3-year EPS growth rate showcases its capability to grow its earnings, a critical component for sustaining dividends in the long run. During the past three years, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's earnings increased by approximately -35.40% per year on average, a rate that underperforms approximately 92.36% of global competitors.

Lastly, the company's 5-year EBITDA growth rate of -16.50%, underperforms approximately 90.86% of global competitors.

Conclusion

While Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd's dividend payments and growth rate are impressive, the sustainability of these dividends is a concern due to the high payout ratio. Additionally, the company's profitability and growth metrics, although solid, underperform a significant percentage of global competitors. Therefore, investors should carefully consider these factors before making investment decisions. GuruFocus Premium users can screen for high-dividend yield stocks using the High Dividend Yield Screener.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Mosul, Iraq: A raging fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing at least 100 people and injuring 150 others on Wednesday.

Authorities said that flammable building materials also contributed to the latest disaster to hit Iraqs dwindling Christian minority. They said the toll could rise.

The fire happened in Iraqs Nineveh province in its Hamdaniya area  a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometres north-west of the capital, Baghdad.

There was no official word on the cause of the fire, but the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw aired footage showing fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier ablaze.
Jersey Mike's Subs indeed started in Point Pleasant, N.J., way back in 1956, but it's still spreading in popularity and locations on Delmarva and around the world.

And now the latest store is opening in Berlin, and you can support Stephen Decatur High School when you visit this week. The Berlin Jersey Mikes Subs will open at 11347 Samuel Bowen Blvd. on Sept. 27.

Franchise owner Robert Bradley will hold a grand opening and fundraiser from Wednesday, Sept. 27, to Sunday, Oct. 1, to support Stephen Decatur. Customers who receive a special fundraising coupon distributed through a grassroots effort prior to the opening can make a minimum $3 contribution to Stephen Decatur High School in exchange for a regular sub. Customers must have a coupon to be eligible.

A sign for Jersey Mike's Subs was displayed at 28662 Dupont Boulevard as of Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019.

We are thrilled to bring the first Jersey Mikes to Worcester County, said Bradley. The Jersey Mikes dedication to community involvement and charitable giving while delivering the very best sub on the planet aligns perfectly with our operating philosophy. We are excited to have partnered with Stephen Decatur High School for our grand opening charitable partner and look forward to seeing you all in our new store and in town very soon!

DELMARVA BUSINESS NEWS: Berlin area getting Giant as Ocean City, Rehoboth lose beloved spots | What's Going There

Jersey Mike's is hiring now for new Berlin location

Jersey Mikes is looking for employees at the new Berlin location, and candidates are invited to apply to Subs@berlinjm.com.

The restaurants hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. Call 443-856-2326.

FORGOTTEN 50 Forgotten 50 Distillery brings small batch distilling to Berlin, Maryland with local touch

Jersey Mike's locations now all around Delmarva

As the chain continues to grow nationally, it's not slowing down on Delmarva either.

Salisbury now has two locations, at 1405 S. Salisbury Blvd. and 2420 N. Salisbury Blvd. In lower Delaware, locations include 18598 Coastal Highway in Rehoboth Beach and two locations in Milford, 28662 Dupont Blvd. and 641 North Dupont Highway.

Story continues

Visit the Jersey Mike's site for a full list of locations on Delmarva and nationwide.

OCEANS CALLING FESTIVAL: Oceans Calling Festival 2023: All to know, from music schedule to tickets to traffic

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Jersey Mike's comes to Berlin on Wednesday, all to know
"A Milestone in European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing": Besins Healthcare Debuts Pioneering Plant to Address Soaring Global Demand for Hormones and to Fortify Europe's Medical Sovereignty

MONACO, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Besins Healthcare, a global lead in Women's and Men's Reproductive Health, today unveiled its novel hormone production facility in Muel, situated near Zaragoza, Spain. This event represents a significant moment in European pharmaceutical history.

Besins Healthcare Unveils State-of-the-Art Hormone Factory in Muel, Spain, Amplifying Global Production Capabilities by 30% (PRNewsfoto/Besins Healthcare)

Built in an astounding time frame since its foundation in mid-2022, this avant-garde facility adheres to the highest quality complying with the highest environmental standards. The plant fortifies Besins Healthcare's commitment to scale up production capacities within Europe, boosting their output by an impressive 30%.

Championing European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Following its strategic acquisition of a hormone production site in Drogenbos, Belgium, in 2022, Besins Healthcare continues to reinforce its commitment to the European Union's initiative to mitigate drug shortages and establish pharmaceutical sovereignty (1). "Being deeply rooted in Europe, it was a natural decision for us to invest here," said Nicolas & Alexandre Besins, CEOs, elaborating that the new facility will help "satisfy the surging global demand for hormone treatments related to menopause and fertility."

Meeting the Escalating Global Demand

The new facility is a timely response to an upsurge in demand for Hormonal Replacement Therapies (HRT). As demographics shift, an increasing number of women reach menopause, requiring female hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) supplementation. In parallel, the average age for first-time pregnancies is climbing, leading to complex fertility scenarios that often necessitate Progesterone support.

Future-Ready Products and Collaborations

Dr. Pedro N. Barri, President of Dexeus Mujer, Barcelona, heralded the opening as "remarkable news in the therapeutic area," and particularly shared his anticipation: 'I look forward to manufacturing new dosages of natural Progesterone (300 and 400 mg)(2) to serve better our patients' needs'.

Story continues

(1) Factsheet: A European Health Union: A Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, 25 November 2020.  European Union.

(2) Marketing authorization in process in Europe

About Besins Healthcare

Besins Healthcare is a family-owned company, headquartered in Monaco, dedicated to Women and Men's Reproductive Health. It has over 100 years of expertise and is a pioneer on the invention of the topical gel administration route for Estrogen and Testosterone. The group operates over 80 markets, (including the US under the name Ascend) with 22 direct affiliates. The company develops, manufactures, and markets a wide range of products for the treatment of menopausal symptoms and other women's health conditions, as well as testosterone supplementation for men. Besins Healthcare is committed to providing both women and men with the information and support they need to live healthy, active lives.

www.besins-healthcare.com

For media inquiries, please contact:

Thomas Retur, Global Marketing Director, tretur@besins-healthcare.com

Christophe Pelletier, Head of Global Marketing, cpelletier@besins-healthcare.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222022/Besins_Healthcare_1.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2222020/Besins_Healthcare_Logo.jpg

Besins Healthcare Logo (PRNewsfoto/Besins Healthcare)

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SOURCE Besins Healthcare
WSUs top automotive program inspires student to move across country

September 27, 2023

OGDEN, Utah  When Tyler Brown graduated high school in Louisville, Kentucky, he was on a quest to enroll in a premier automotive program. His search led him to Weber State University, whose automotive technology program is recognized as one of the top 10 in the nation.

I wasnt sure I was ready to move across the country, away from my friends and family, Brown said. But, once I got here, I was immediately treated like family by the professors and students, and that really made the decision easy.

After high school, Brown attended a community college in Kentucky and started searching for automotive programs, but found that most were only two-year programs.

Weber State stood out because of its four-year program focused on training students extensively before sending them out to the real world, he said.

Brown said the program has allowed him to interact with professionals and get hands-on experience working on all types of vehicles, including electric.

I thought there would be so many students in the program, but that wasnt the case, he said. Its so easy to interact with our instructors and get valuable feedback from them because they arent overwhelmed with tons of students.

Brown is focused on his future and plans to graduate in 2025. He aims to use the skills hes gaining at WSU to pursue a career in the automotive field.
"A Milestone in European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing": Besins Healthcare Debuts Pioneering Plant to Address Soaring Global Demand for Hormones and to Fortify Europe's Medical Sovereignty

MONACO, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Besins Healthcare, a global lead in Women's and Men's Reproductive Health, today unveiled its novel hormone production facility in Muel, situated near Zaragoza, Spain. This event represents a significant moment in European pharmaceutical history.

Besins Healthcare Unveils State-of-the-Art Hormone Factory in Muel, Spain, Amplifying Global Production Capabilities by 30%

Built in an astounding time frame since its foundation in mid-2022, this avant-garde facility adheres to the highest quality complying with the highest environmental standards. The plant fortifies Besins Healthcare's commitment to scale up production capacities within Europe, boosting their output by an impressive 30%.

Championing European Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Following its strategic acquisition of a hormone production site in Drogenbos, Belgium, in 2022, Besins Healthcare continues to reinforce its commitment to the European Union's initiative to mitigate drug shortages and establish pharmaceutical sovereignty (1). "Being deeply rooted in Europe, it was a natural decision for us to invest here," said Nicolas & Alexandre Besins, CEOs, elaborating that the new facility will help "satisfy the surging global demand for hormone treatments related to menopause and fertility."

Meeting the Escalating Global Demand

The new facility is a timely response to an upsurge in demand for Hormonal Replacement Therapies (HRT). As demographics shift, an increasing number of women reach menopause, requiring female hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) supplementation. In parallel, the average age for first-time pregnancies is climbing, leading to complex fertility scenarios that often necessitate Progesterone support.

Future-Ready Products and Collaborations

Dr. Pedro N. Barri, President of Dexeus Mujer, Barcelona, heralded the opening as "remarkable news in the therapeutic area," and particularly shared his anticipation: 'I look forward to manufacturing new dosages of natural Progesterone (300 and 400 mg)(2) to serve better our patients' needs'.

Story continues

(1) Factsheet: A European Health Union: A Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, 25 November 2020.  European Union.

(2) Marketing authorization in process in Europe

About Besins Healthcare

Besins Healthcare is a family-owned company, headquartered in Monaco, dedicated to Women and Men's Reproductive Health. It has over 100 years of expertise and is a pioneer on the invention of the topical gel administration route for Estrogen and Testosterone. The group operates over 80 markets, (including the US under the name Ascend) with 22 direct affiliates. The company develops, manufactures, and markets a wide range of products for the treatment of menopausal symptoms and other women's health conditions, as well as testosterone supplementation for men. Besins Healthcare is committed to providing both women and men with the information and support they need to live healthy, active lives.

www.besins-healthcare.com

For media inquiries, please contact:

Thomas Retur, Global Marketing Director, tretur@besins-healthcare.com

Christophe Pelletier, Head of Global Marketing, cpelletier@besins-healthcare.com

Besins Healthcare Logo

SOURCE Besins Healthcare
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Turning out mostly clear and cold with diminishing winds; a hard freeze is likely, a killing freeze that will end the growing season..

Tonight

Turning out mostly clear and cold with diminishing winds; a hard freeze is likely, a killing freeze that will end the growing season.
MOSUL, Iraq (AP)  As they watched the bride and groom start their slow dance, Faten Youssef imagined the future wedding of her son, seated next to her at a reception table. Within moments, however, disaster struck when an inferno erupted that would leave nearly 100 dead in the northern Iraqi wedding hall.

As the dance began, a ring of pyrotechnics machines on the floor released fountains of sparks into the air. As the music played, ceiling panels above the machines burst into flames.

The around 250 panicked guests in the the Haitham Royal Wedding Hall in the predominantly Christian Hamdaniya area stampeded for the exits as flaming decorations and pieces of ceiling rained down on them.

Authorities on Wednesday said around 100 people were killed, with the toll expected to rise with at least 100 injured, including many critically burned. Authorities said highly flammable building materials contributed to the disaster. The tragedy Tuesday night was the latest to hit Iraqs Christian minority, which has dwindled to a fraction of its former size over the past decade in the face of militant attacks.

There was no official word on the cause of the blaze. But Kurdish television news channel Rudaw aired footage of the flames erupt from the ceiling over a chandelier as the spark machines jetted fireworks below.

Flames started falling on us. Youssef told The Associated Press. Things were falling down and blocked the way to the exit.

The guests, seated at long tables for the reception meal, rushed to the exits and the electricity went out. Youssefs son tried to pull her to safety as she held her daughters hand. Youssef fell over onto the floor, right next to an elderly woman sprawled helplessly.

Youssefs son tried to kick open a jammed exit door but couldnt, she said. In the turmoil, her husband was missing. They managed to escape out another door, and once outside she found her husband had gotten out through the kitchen.

Its like we were brought back to life, I still dont know how we survived, Youssef said.

Another guest, Nabil Ibrahim, happened to be outside with one of his sons getting fresh air when the fire broke out. His wife, daughter and other son were still inside. He and his son rushed in, and I saw people burning and screaming, he recalled.

He and others tried to help people get out. He saw one unconscious woman being carried out, but later learned she died of suffocation. He eventually escaped through the kitchen and found the rest of his family outside.

With many trapped inside, someone brought a bulldozer and knocked a hole in the wedding hall wall, survivors said.

But by that time, most of the people inside had died, Ibrahim said. Fortunately, many of the guests children were outside playing in a nearby playground when the fire erupted. If theyd all been inside, they would have died, he said.

It wasnt immediately clear if the bride and groom were among those hurt.

Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the fire. Survivors arrived at local hospitals in bandages as staff worked to organize more oxygen cylinders. The hall was left scattered with torn clothes, children shoes and baby bottles, according to images on Rudaw and social media.

A Health Ministry official, speaking to the AP at midday Wednesday, put the death toll at 94 with around 100 people still receiving medical treatment. The death toll is expected to rise as some are in critical condition, he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari earlier put the toll at 93 dead.

The official said 30 bodies have been identified by relatives, but the rest are too badly burned and will require DNA identification.

The disaster stunned Hamdaniya, a region of small towns with a mixture of Christians, Muslims and small minority religions in the Nineveh Plains outside the northern city of Mosul.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said It was a disaster in every sense of the word.

The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Iraqs total population is more than 40 million.

Over the past two decades, Iraqs Christian minority has been violently targeted by extremists first from al-Qaida and then the Islamic State militant group. Although the Nineveh Plains, their historic homeland, was wrested back from the Islamic State group six years ago, some towns are still mostly rubble and lack basic services, and many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.

Iraqs prime minister ordered an investigation into the blaze. Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said the primary forensic report described a lack of safety and security measures at the venue. Iraqi security forces arrested nine workers at the venue, said Abdullah Al-Jabouri, a security official who heads the Nineveh Operations Command.

One of the owners of the venue, Chonny Suleiman Naboo, blamed the fire on an electrical fault in the ceiling. Speaking to the AP, he insisted the venue had all the officials approvals and that his brother and the halls supervisor would turn themselves in to authorities.

We were attacked by residents and our cars were damaged because of what happened, and were worried that our homes could be attacked too, Naboo said.

Civil defense officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency said the wedding halls exterior was covered with a highly flammable, low-cost type of sandwich panel cladding that is illegal in the country. The materials collapse within minutes when the fire breaks out, civil defense said.

Experts say cheaper sandwich panels dont always meet stricter safety standards, and are especially dangerous on buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze. That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Similar panels have been blamed in several previous fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by sandwich panels.

Later Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered in a Christian cemetery in the area to attend funerals of some of the fires victims. Coffins draped in white cloth, some decorated with flowers, were carried one after another into the cemetery. Mourners wept and waved portraits of the dead..

Sadness has prevailed the town, its as if there was a curfew imposed, Youssef said. The town has transformed from happiness to grief and morning.

She said her family vows never again to attend wedding parties.

My son told me that if he gets married, he will never have an event like this - just a church ceremony, she said.

Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb and Bassem Mroue in Beirut; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.
NEW YORK (AP)  Target said Tuesday that it will close nine stores in four states, including one in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood, and three in the San Francisco Bay Area, saying that theft and organized retail crime have threatened the safety of its workers and customers.

The closings, which will be effective Oct. 21, also include three stores in Portland, Oregon, and two in Seattle. Target said that it still will have a combined 150 stores open in the markets where the closures are taking place. It said it will offer affected workers the opportunity to transfer to other stores.

The Minneapolis retailer said the decision to close the stores was difficult.

We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all," Target said in a statement.

Target said it has invested heavily in strategies to prevent theft, such as adding more security workers, using third-party guard services and installing theft-deterrent tools, like locking up merchandise. It also has trained store leaders and security-team members to protect themselves and de-escalate potential safety issues.

But it noted that it still faced fundamental challenges to operate the stores safely  and the business performance at the locations slated for closure was unsustainable.

While the store closings account for just a fraction of the 1,900 stores Target operates nationwide, the move underscores the challenges retailers face in reducing theft in stores, protecting their workers and customers, and maintaining locations in areas that might have few shopping alternatives.

For example, the Target store in East Harlem is one of the few choices residents have nearby to buy good quality healthy foods. In San Francisco, the store slated to close is located at 13th Street and Folsom under a busy overpass with homeless tents in a largely commercial neighborhood with auto shops. The other two Bay Area stores being closed are in Oakland and Pittsburg. In Seattle, one of the stores is located on a busy avenue near the University of Washington.

Target CEO Brian Cornell has been one of a handful of retail CEOs flagging what they described as rising theft over the past year or so. Cornell had held steadfast he didn't want to resort to closing stores despite mounting losses. Target said in May that theft was cutting into its bottom line and it expected related losses could be $500 million more than last year, when losses from theft were estimated to be anywhere from $700 million to $800 million. So that means losses could top $1.2 billion this fiscal year.

Moreover, Cornell told analysts in August that violent incidents against workers at Target stores increased 120% for the first five months of the year compared with the same period a year ago.

Our team continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime, Cornell told analysts. Unfortunately, safety incidents associated with theft are moving in the wrong direction.

The announcement also comes as Target is still reeling from being targeted for its LGBTQ+ support, in particular its displays of Pride Month merchandise. In late May, ahead of Pride Month, Target pulled some items in particular regions and made other changes after encountering hostility from customers who confronted workers and tipped over displays. Target said the moves were made to protect workers in the stores.

Its unclear how much money retailers broadly are losing due to organized retail crime  or if the problem has substantially increased. But the issue has received more notice in the past few years as high-profile smash-and-grab retail thefts and flash mob robberies have garnered national media attention. Over the past few quarters, an increasing number of retailers including Dick's Sporting Goods and Ulta Beauty have been calling out rising theft, citing it a factor in shrinking profits.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC in December that theft was on the rise at stores. In August, he told analysts that in some jurisdictions in the U.S., there needs to be action taken to help protect people from crime, including theft.

The National Retail Federation, the nations largest retail trade group, said its latest security survey of roughly 177 retailers found that inventory loss  called shrink  clocked in at an average rate of 1.6 % last year, representing $112.1 billion in losses. That's up from 1.4% the previous year.

The greatest portion of shrink  65%  came from external theft, including products taken during organized shoplifting incidents, the trade group said Tuesday. More than two-thirds of respondents said they were seeing even more violence and aggression from perpetrators of organized retail crime compared with a year ago.

The NRF said that even though retailers continue to improve their loss-prevention measures, sometimes more drastic action must be taken. Nearly 30% of retailers surveyed reported being forced to close a specific store location, and 45% said they needed to reduce operating hours. Roughly 30% said they needed to change or reduce product selection in stores as a direct result of retail crime.

Late last year, Congress passed a bill, called the INFORM ACT, that seeks to combat sales of counterfeit goods and dangerous products by compelling online marketplaces to verify different types of information  including bank account, tax ID and contact details  for sellers who make at least 200 unique sales and earn a minimum of $5,000 in a given year.

Target said Tuesday that it's making significant investments in cyber defense to combat retail theft and fraud and has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations division to combat retail theft.

Follow Anne DInnocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

This story has been updated to correct that only one store is being closed in San Francisco, not three. A total of three are being closed in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Berks County-based American Red Cross employee Adrian Grieve wears a shirt with the words "Rebuild Lahaina," the part of Maui impacted by massive wildfires over the summer, leaving behind a trail of devastation.

"There's a big push to rebuild the town of Lahaina," Grieve said. "That's their home. They really want to see that rebuilt."

Grieve just arrived back from Maui where he worked as the mass fatality lead.

"It was working with the families of those who lost loved ones in the fire and also with those that were hospitalized," said Grieve.

He continues to help families virtually. While in Hawaii, he said he worked alongside people from other agencies, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Salvation Army, providing support. On top of losing loved ones, people  many who were living in Lahaina  lost their homes and jobs, Grieve said.

"It's almost a triple tragedy," said Grieve.

He says there is one thing that struck him more than anything.

"It almost brought me to tears on several occasions...I'm sitting across from a family who again has lost a loved one  maybe even lost their business, lost their home, but certainly lost a loved one  and they're asking me how I'm doing," said Grieve.

He is encouraging to keep pushing as recovery efforts continue.

"Just really, really amazingly resilient and strong people so," Grieve said. "They have that Maui spirit. They have the Hawaiian spirit."
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Police in Allentown say a 15-year-old student possessed a loaded handgun while he was in William Allen High School.

William Allen High School security personnel found several juvenile students smoking in the school lavatory during school hours on Monday around 9 a.m., according to a news release from the Allentown Police Department.

Police say security personnel conducted an immediate search of the involved juvenile students. Based on the subsequent response and investigation by the School Resource Officer, a loaded handgun and marijuana were found in the possession of one of the involved students, a 15-year-old boy, according to police.

The boy was arrested and charged with carrying a firearm without a license, a felony. He also faces charges of possession of a firearm by a minor, possession of a weapon on school property, possession of a small amount of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia, all misdemeanors, city police said.

The boy is a William Allen High School student.

Police say school officials along with members of the Allentown Police Department worked quickly and collaboratively to resolve the situation and ensure the safety of the school community.

The district issued a statement Wednesday:

The District is committed to ensuring a safe learning environment for every member of our learning community. The safety of our community is a collaborative responsibility between all of our stakeholders. We want to commend our administration, safety officers, and School Resource Officer for their vigilance, quick response and adherence to our safety procedures & protocols. It is a testament to the training our staff has received that this incident was handled promptly and appropriately. We want to remind our community that when we work together to prioritize safety we can prevent harm and protect staff and students. It is going to take the collective community to ensure that we can create a safer environment in the Allentown School District.

We continue to strengthen safety measures and yesterday, met with Mayor Tuerk and Chief Roca to review and outline future collaborative action steps. We have planned a community forum and a survey is being sent to families today to enlist their feedback on overall safety and consideration for installing metal detectors.
EASTON, Pa. - Police are investigating a shooting in Easton Tuesday night and are asking for camera footage from the area to help.

Crews were called to the 800 block of Jackson Street just before 10:15 p.m.

A media release says that police found a 32-year-old man inside the house where the incident took place, suffering from a gunshot wound.

The victim was taken to the hospital with survivable injuries.

Officials say a search warrant for the home was obtained and executed. Police found ballistic evidence and two handguns inside.

Authorities said in a media release that at this time the individuals being questioned are not being cooperative.

At this time there is not a clear suspect description, but police do believe the victim was targeted.

Police are asking anybody in the area with any surveillance cameras or information to contact Det. Domenique Price at 610-250-6637 or the EPD tipline at 610-250-6635.
EASTON, Pa.  The theme for next year's Pennsylvania Farm Show will be "Connecting Our Communities."

State Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding made the announcement Wednesday while visiting a mobile food market outside Paxinosa Elementary School in Easton.

Officials saif agriculture unites people from many different communities, from farmlands to big cities.

"You won't look at any dinner table and not have agriculture there. You won't look at any group of people and not have someone who's directly tied to agriculture," said Sharon Myers, executive director of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center.

The farm show will feature livestock shows, cooking competitions, and the 1,000-pound butter sculpture.

It will run from Jan. 6 through Jan. 13 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg.
CHESTER HEIGHTS, Pa.  Wawa is making a big move into Kentucky, where the chain plans to open about 40 convenience stores over the next eight to 10 years.

The first stores will open by mid-2025, according to the Pennsylvania-based chain. Wawa said it already has 15 Kentucky sites under contract and continues to look for locations across the Bluegrass State.

The Delaware County-based company said its goal is to open as many as 10 stores in 2025 and then five annually during the Kentucky expansion.

"We encourage everyone to come see what Wawa is all about," Mayor Craig Greenberg, (D) Louisville, said in a statement provided by Wawa. The mayor said multiple locations will open in Louisville.

Wawa provided samples of its hoagies, coffee and other offerings at Community Partnership Day events in Kentucky.

The convenience-store chain recent underwent an expansion in Berks County, where it now operates a dozen stores.

The company's Lehigh Valley expansion continues, including stores in the works in Bethlehem, Bethlehem Township, Hanover Township, and Allen Township, all in Northampton County.

The chain's "Cheers to Classrooms" September coffee giveaway continues through Sept. 30. Teachers and school administrators in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., can get free hot coffee every day through the end of this month.

Wawa started in 1803 as an iron foundry and later became a dairy business. The first Wawa Food Market opened in 1964. There are now more than 1,000 across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
BELVIDERE, N.J. - It's been more than seven months since civil and matrimonial cases have been heard in Warren, Hunterdon, and Somerset counties. People waiting on their trials are fed up.

"If you want a divorce trial, you can't have it," said Kelly Shelton, the president of the Warren County Bar Association. "Civil trials, like personal injury actions or contract matters, are also on hold.

"Even if you close the doors partially to a courthouse, it denies people justice."

First, it was a lack of judges halting civil and matrimonial trials, but now, candidates have been nominated and there's still no movement.

"The vicinage has roughly 500,000 residents who are supposed to have three branches of government working for them, and unfortunately, because two of them can't seem to get their act together, we don't seem to be able to have the third one available, which is the judiciary," said state Sen. Doug Steinhardt.

"That affects real people with real concerns," said Shelton.

Gov. Phil Murphy's Office says he's put forth 18 Superior Court nominations that still need to be considered by the state Senate.

Among them is John Abromitis of Hackettstown. He was nominated for the Warren County seat and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee in May.

"I was able to vet judicial candidates, I did my job signing off on three of them, as a matter of fact, two in Somerset County, one in Warren County," said Steinhardt. "As we sit here today, in the end of September, we still don't have seats filled."

Steinhardt says that's because the Senate Judiciary Committee has not met and doesn't have any meetings on the horizon.

"Why are they not meeting?" asked 69 News Reporter Priscilla Liguori.

"Because government bureaucracy and Trenton just runs remarkably slowly," said Steinhardt. "The Judiciary Committee simply hasn't convened to do its job. The burden rests with them to take the next step."

The Governor's Office said since Murphy took office in 2018, 134 judges have been nominated and confirmed. Deputy press secretary Natalie Hamilton said, "Governor Murphy will continue to nominate additional candidates in the coming months, and he hopes the Senate will swiftly confirm the judicial nominees that are pending.

"People are just being denied the ability to move forward with their cases, and it denies them ability to move forward with their lives," said Shelton.

69 News reached out to the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee for an interview Tuesday and did not hear back.
The second Republican presidential debate is drawing near with a smaller onstage lineup than the first event last month.

The Republican National Convention confirmed seven candidates will be on the Simi Valley debate stage. The party set a number of markers that candidates needed to meet to qualify, including achieving benchmarks in polling and donor numbers, as well as signing a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.

Here is how you can watch the second Republican debate, including what channel it's on, when it starts and who will be there. We also have our live blog coverage throughout the day.

What time is the Republican debate?

The two-hour debate will start at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Its being moderated by Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney and Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, as well as Univision anchor Ilia Calderon.

What channel is the Republican debate on?

The event will air on Fox News Channel and Fox Business, as well as on the network's website and other streaming and digital platforms. There's also a Spanish-language feed airing on Univision.

As with last month's debate, the Republican National Committee has partnered with Rumble  a video-sharing platform popular with some conservatives  to livestream this one, in lieu of the networks YouTube channel. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said earlier this year this was a decision aimed toward getting away from Big Tech.

Where is the Republican debate?

The setting for the second GOP debate is Ronald Reagan's presidential library in Simi Valley, California.

Many of the Republican hopefuls have made recent trips to the library for its A Time for Choosing speaking series, named for Reagan's pivotal 1964 speech on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Some in the field also make references on the stump to the 40th president, who for decades has loomed large over Republican politics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has framed himself as a possible Reagan-esque figure, aiming to oust what he characterized as a weak and unpopular Democratic incumbent in President Joe Biden. Former Vice President Mike Pence often talks of how he joined the Reagan revolution and never looked back," and took his oath with his hand on the Reagan family Bible.

In the first debate, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called himself the only candidate in this race, young or old, black or white, to bring all of those voters along to deliver a Reagan 1980 Revolution.

Who are the Republican candidates at the second debate?

Those who qualified for the debate are DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who took part in last month's debate, missed making the cut.

Trump will miss his second debate in a row, deciding there is little upside in joining his lower-polling rivals on stage given his commanding early lead in polls. Instead, he will meet with current and former union workers in Michigan, where thousands of autoworkers have been on strike as part of a labor dispute involving Detroits Big Three and the United Auto Workers union.

In lieu of last month's debate, Trump participated in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a pre-taped sit-down that aired on social media just as eight of his rivals took the stage in Wisconsin.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
Long-established in the Utilities - Regulated industry, Brookfield Infrastructure Corp (NYSE:BIPC) has enjoyed a stellar reputation. However, it has recently witnessed a daily loss of 4.14%, juxtaposed with a three-month change of -18.76%. Fresh insights from the GF Score hint at potential headwinds. Notably, its diminished rankings in financial strength, growth, and valuation suggest that the company might not live up to its historical performance. Join us as we dive deep into these pivotal metrics to unravel the evolving narrative of Brookfield Infrastructure Corp.

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp (BIPC): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Potential

Understanding the GF Score

The GF Score is a stock performance ranking system developed by GuruFocus using five aspects of valuation, which has been found to be closely correlated to the long-term performances of stocks by backtesting from 2006 to 2021. The stocks with a higher GF Score generally generate higher returns than those with a lower GF Score. Therefore, when picking stocks, investors should invest in companies with high GF Scores. The GF Score ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 as the highest rank.

Based on the above method, GuruFocus assigned Brookfield Infrastructure Corp the GF Score of 68 out of 100, which signals poor future outperformance potential.

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp: A Snapshot

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp is an indirect subsidiary of the partnership of the diversified infrastructure owner and operators. Its business is comprised of a U.K. regulated distribution operation, a Brazilian regulated natural gas transmission operation and an Australian regulated utility. With a market cap of $3.98 billion and sales of $1.98 billion, the company has an operating margin of 67.78%.

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp (BIPC): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Potential

Financial Strength Analysis

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp's financial strength indicators present some concerning insights about the company's balance sheet health. The company has an interest coverage ratio of 2.19, which positions it worse than 75.93% of 432 companies in the Utilities - Regulated industry. This ratio highlights potential challenges the company might face when handling its interest expenses on outstanding debt. It's worth noting that the esteemed investor Benjamin Graham typically favored companies with an interest coverage ratio of at least five.

Story continues

The company's Altman Z-Scoreis just 0.55, which is below the distress zone of 1.81. This suggests that the company may face financial distress over the next few years. Additionally, the company's low cash-to-debt ratio at 0.07 indicates a struggle in handling existing debt levels.

Growth Prospects

A lack of significant growth is another area where Brookfield Infrastructure Corp seems to falter, as evidenced by the company's low Growth rank. The company's revenue has declined by -8.8 per year over the past three years, which underperforms worse than 94.03% of 486 companies in the Utilities - Regulated industry. Stagnating revenues may pose concerns in a fast-evolving market.

Brookfield Infrastructure Corp (BIPC): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Potential

Conclusion

Given Brookfield Infrastructure Corp's financial strength, profitability, and growth metrics, the GF Score highlights the firm's unparalleled position for potential underperformance. While the company has a strong history in the Utilities - Regulated industry, its current financial and growth indicators suggest that it may struggle to maintain its performance in the future. Investors should consider these factors when making investment decisions.

GuruFocus Premium members can find more companies with strong GF Scores using the following screener link: GF Score Screen

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


The seven candidates on stage for Wednesday night's second presidential debate went after President Joe Biden, one another and the absent GOP front-runner.

The at-times chaotic event featured staple questions about immigration, economics and abortion but also spawned a new nickname for Donald Trump, included some cringey sexual references and kept our fact-checkers busy.

Here's what to know

 An overview of tonights debate, where candidates went after Biden  and Trump.  Christie calls Trump Donald Duck, DeSantis knocks former president and other debate highlights.  Trump again skipped the debate. Heres what he was doing instead.  See more of our 2024 coverage.

Who would you vote off the GOP island?

As the debate neared its end, moderator Dana Perino asked the candidates to write down which of their on-stage competitors should be voted off the 2024 GOP island.

But they didnt bite. With all due respect, I think that thats disrespectful, DeSantis said in response to the Survivor-style question.

Christie said Trump should be booted given his decision to skip the debate, and he accused him of dividing the country.

Ramaswamy slipped in the last word, praising Trumps legacy but saying he was the better candidate to push forward an America first agenda.

And with that, the second Republican primary debate was over.

Ramaswamy levels criticism toward Ukraine

Ramaswamy is leveling criticism toward Ukraine in answer to a question about continuing U.S. support for the country.

Just because Putin is an evil dictator does not mean Ukraine is good, Ramaswamy says.

He also says China, not Russia, is the United States real enemy, and argues that the hard U.S. line toward Russia is driving Russia further into Chinas arms.

DeSantis rejects idea that anti-abortion stance costs GOP elections

DeSantis is rejecting the idea that Republicans have been losing elections because of their opposition to abortion, and he says his reelection as Florida governor last year is proof hes right.

Democrats have leaned into the debate over abortion rights since a conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Voters have repeatedly supported abortion rights, and Democrats and even Trump have said its a big reason for the partys better-than-expected performance in the midterms and in other elections since then.

DeSantis signed into law a ban on abortions at six weeks of pregnancy, before some women know theyre pregnant. He signed the ban after winning reelection.

Asked about the possibility that swing state Arizona will have an abortion question on its ballot next year, making it tougher for Republicans to win there, DeSantis dismissed the idea. He also called out Trump, who said it was a terrible mistake for DeSantis to sign the ban.

DeSantis said Republicans must go on the offensive and hit Democrats for their extremism on the issue.

Scott's job goals would be extremely difficult to meet

Scott floated some ambitiously lofty job goals at the GOP debate, suggesting his policies could create 10 million jobs in a year and drive growth at 5%.

That would be an unusually large and unlikely set of hiring. More than 7 million jobs were created in 2021 under President Joe Biden, as the economy recovered from the pandemic. But deficit spending and inflation accompanied those gains  both points of attack by the Republican candidate.

Scott said he could create 3.5 million jobs if we unleashed all our energy resources. That would be impressive as oil and gas extraction account for just 118,700 jobs right now, according to the Labor Department.

Secondly, Scott said he could create jobs by bringing back factory jobs. Manufacturing work has rebounded under Biden to nearly 13 million jobs, the most since 2008. But few economists see manufacturing work as returning to its 1979 peak of more than 19 million jobs.

South Carolina family feud

Theyve long had an intertwined political history, and even shared political consultants, but Haley and Scotts differences took center stage on Wednesday.

The two South Carolinians sparred on stage after being asked why one should be elected president over the other.

Scott touted his work on 2017 tax cuts legislation, said hed love to have an opportunity to have this country pass a balanced budget amendment and promoted his plans to bring jobs back to America.

I appreciate Tim, weve known each other a long time, Haley said, but hes been there 12 years and he hasnt done any of that.

Scott shot back, pointing out that Haley - who has called for an end to the federal gas tax as part of her campaign - actually asked for a gas tax increase in South Carolina.

Weve waited, and nothing has happened, Haley said, turning back to her critique of Scotts time in the Senate. It was Haley as governor in 2012 who appointed Scott to the seat in the first place.

Haley pivots debate conversation to China again and again

Warning about the threats she perceived are posed by China is key to Haleys stump, and its on full display in the debate.

Several times, Haley has pivoted her part in the conversation by noting that some U.S. supplies of amoxicillin come from China. Several times, she has pointed to Ramaswamys ties to the country, from business deals to his presence on TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

Haley also went after Trumps China policy, saying that she feels the former president was too focused on the U.S.-China trade relationship and did too little about possible threats from the country.

Haley defends sendi

ng special ops to deal with Mexican cartels

Mexico has been a critical partner on border enforcement with the Trump and Biden administrations, but Haley defends sending special operations to deal with Mexican drug cartels, a common position among those on the debate stage.

Its a nonstarter for Mexicos leaders.

Mexico has deployed thousands of troops to its southern border to stop U.S.-bound migrants.

In January, it agreed to take back people from Cuban, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela if they enter the United States illegally, a major concession to deal with populations that are difficult to deport.

Going against medical professionals, Ramaswamy calls being transgender a mental health disorder

Ramaswamy called being transgender a mental health disorder and confusion in response to a question about parental notification about their childrens gender identities. That's in direct contrast to guidance from the American Psychiatric Association, which says diverse gender expressions  are not indications of a mental disorder.

To make his point, Ramaswamy noted that he recently met two young women who later regretted their gender-affirming surgeries.

While its possible, regret after a gender transition is rare. In a review of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret.

Haley tells Ramaswamy: We cant trust you'

For a moment, it was Haley vs. Ramaswamy, round two.

As they did in last months debut debate, Haley and Ramaswamy had a split-screen sparring back-and-forth in which Haley went after the political newcomer for inexperience and, she alleged, dangerous ideas.

Asked about his recent conversation with a TikTok influencer, Ramaswamy defended his use of the platform.

Im the new guy here, and so I know I have to earn your trust, Ramaswamy said. Im here to tell you, no, I dont know at all. I will listen. Interjecting by calling TikTok dangerous, Haley went on to address Ramaswamy directly  and personally.

Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say, Haley said. We cant trust you.

Ramaswamy responded by saying that I think we would be better served as a Republican Party if were not sitting here hurling personal insults, before the moderators moved on to another topic.

Moderator threatens to cut Burgum's mic

The debate is getting chaotic at times, with candidates shouting over one another and the moderators scolding them for not waiting their turns.

At one point, moderator Dana Perino warned Burgum, who was trying to interrupt the questioning, that they would have to cut off his microphone if he didnt stop interjecting. I dont want to do that, she said, pleadingly I dont.

Moderators also told candidates multiple times that the cross-talking meant they would get fewer questions.

Scott says there is no redeeming quality in slavery

The topic of education also led to the issue of teaching about racism in public schools. Under DeSantis, Florida approved a controversial curriculum that suggests some enslaved people learned useful skills while they were in bondage.

Scott, the only Black candidate on stage Wednesday night, reiterated his criticism of the curriculum under DeSantis by saying, There is not a redeeming quality in slavery.

He also suggested that the United States had turned the page on its history.

We are the greatest nation on earth because we faced our demons in the mirror, Scott said. He added that, America is not a racist country.

Debate brings the cringe

A question about education took two uncomfortable and unexpected turns at Wednesday night's presidential debate.

Saying that Americas public schools are run by the teachers unions in this country, Christie said U.S. schools would continue to struggle because, in his view, the Biden administration is too close to the unions.

When you have the president that states sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you can take the stranglehold away from the teachers union every day, Christie said.

In a later question, Pence chimed in, saying that he had been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years  but noting that his wife, Karen, is not a union member.

No new ground broken on immigration at debate

Candidates have devoted significant time to discussing the border but said nothing significantly new. Their policy prescriptions were largely in line with each other and with Trump, who made it a signature issue.

Pence, ignoring a question about what he would do to protect immigrants who came to the country as young children, spoke about a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings and cracking down on asylum. Ramaswamy spoke about repealing a constitutional right to birthright citizenship, a position that Trump has entertained.

Candidates spoke as if the influx of asylum-seekers began under Bidens watch, but it began years earlier. By 2017, the United States became the worlds most popular destination for asylum-seekers, a position it has held ever since, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Migration has unquestionably grown sharply under Biden. Border arrests topped 2.2 million at the Mexican border in the 2022 fiscal year, which runs from October to September, the highest on record and more than twice the peak year of 852,000 under Trump in 2019. Arrests topped 400,000 during Obamas last full year in office.

People arriving in families with children under 18 are again behind surging numbers, reaching 93,108 arrests in August, surpassing the previous high of 84,486 under Trumps watch in May 2019.

So far, no talk of funding for Ukraine

The debates more than halfway done, but there has been no mention so far of the big political issue that is threatening a government shutdown as soon as this weekend  funding for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

Much discussion in the candidates first debate on Ukraine funding.

Youngest candidate says teens should avoid addictive social media

Hes the only GOP presidential candidate on TikTok, but Ramaswamy is talking about teens staying away from addictive social media.

In a question about security, Ramaswamy pivoted to a discussion of border security, talking about teens turning to social media like Snapchat to procure pharmaceuticals.

If youre 16 years old or under, you should not be using an addictive social media product, period, he said.

Ramaswamy, who at 38 is the youngest candidate on stage, has referred to TikTok as digital fentanyl but earlier this month joined the platform, with his campaign saying he was angling to appeal to younger voters.

The platform has been met with bipartisan criticism that it is a potential spy mechanism for China.

Border wall won't stop fentanyl from coming across border

DeSantis raises the possibility of military intervention in Mexico when asked about fentanyl. Ramaswamy calls for more border wall when asked about fentanyl. Both ignore some critical facts about how the drug gets into the country.

Fentanyl seizures occurred predominantly at official land crossings, where commuters and visitors smuggle drugs on their bodies or in their vehicles. From September through August, 11.4 tons of the 12.8 tons of fentanyl seized at the border Mexico were discovered at land crossings, while the remaining 1.4 tons were in between border crossings, where people enter the country illegally.

At a hearing July 12, James Mandryck, a Customs and Border Protection deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being done by Mexican citizens.

Trump gets a nickname of his own: Donald Duck

Christie has a new name for Trump  Donald Duck.

A former ally who broke with Trump over his election denial, Christie awarded the moniker to the absent Republican front-runner for skipping the debate.

Speaking into the camera, Christie said, I know youre watching because you cant help yourself. And he accused Trump of being absent because youre afraid of being on this stage and defending your record.

No one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. Were going to call you Donald Duck.

Pence reminds voters of his time as VP

Pence is using his time onstage to remind viewers hes a White House alumnus.

Twice asked a question about working to protect immigrants from deportation if they came with their parents as young children, Pence ignored it and emphasized his resume instead.

The former vice president recalled how during the Trump administration, he had negotiated the policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S.

This is no time for on the job training, Pence said. Im going to be ready on Day 1.

Scott accuses Ramaswamy of being in business with CCP

Scott briefly shed his Mr. Nice Guy reputation to flame Ramaswamy for being in business with the Chinese Communist Party.

The attack line, a reference to Ramaswamys former career as an entrepreneur, fulfilled a promise from Scotts campaign that the South Carolina senator would be more aggressive after being overshadowed in the first debate.

Ramaswamy responded angrily, leading to a long stretch of crosstalk that the moderators struggled to rein in.

When you all speak at the same time, no can understand you, said Univision anchor Ilia Calderon.

Some of DeSantis' ideas for China match Biden's actions

DeSantis says the United States needs a totally new approach to China.

Part of what he calls for Biden is already doing. That includes strengthening U.S. hard power in the Indo-Pacific. DeSantis does call for decoupling the U.S. economy from China.

Biden is trying to wean the U.S. supply chain off China but denies seeking to decouple the two economies.

Burgum not waiting for his turn

Burgum is looking for more talking time  and hes not being shy about it.

The North Dakota governor interjected a couple of times in the first 20 minutes of Wednesday nights debate, talking over moderators and his fellow hopefuls, in one response interjecting, Nobody answered the question after others were asked about child care.

We will get you some questions, said moderator Dana Perino. But you will have to let us move on.

There have already been several moments where the moderators struggled to get candidates to stop talking among themselves and focus on the question at hand.

Candidates agree US economic future should be powered by gas

GOP presidential candidates started their second debate by mostly agreeing that the U.S. economic future should be powered by gasoline.

In lockstep, they all demonized the Biden administrations support for electric vehicles. Its a shift that is meant to limit the damages of climate change, but presidential candidates say it would hurt the U.S. auto sector and enrich China. The unanimity reflected the challenge candidates face to stand out on policy issues.

Joe Bidens Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit, Pence said.

Burgum said unionized autoworkers are striking because their employers need two-thirds less workers to build an electric car.

Ramaswamy went to his refrain that he would unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear energy.

DeSantis takes early swing at Trump in debate

After taking criticism for going soft on Trump, DeSantis took a swing at him early in the debate.

And you know who is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action, DeSantis said, blasting the former president for skipping the debate.

The criticism came shortly after a similar attack from Christie, who said Trump hides behind the walls of his golf clubs instead of answering questions.

DeSantis swipe at Trump marks a definite shift for the Florida governor, who largely avoided pointed criticism of the former president in the first debate.

Scott angling to be more of the conversation

Scott didnt have much talking time during the first GOP debate, but he started to make up for that as soon as Wednesday nights gathering got underway.

The first question went to Scott, who caught criticism for saying you strike, youre fired about the United Auto Workers dispute. Scott quipped that Biden should not be on the picket line, he should be on the southern border, turning the rest of his answer to concerns about border security.

Scott also was asked to respond after Pence said Biden belongs on the unemployment line, saying he disagreed with Scott.

Theres no doubt that Joe Biden needs to be fired, Scott said. Thats why Im running for president.

Republicans turn questions about autoworkers strike into Biden attack

The debate started with questions about the United Auto Workers strike, but the Republicans kept the focus squarely on Biden.

Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the southern border, said Scott, who got the first question.

Next up was Ramaswamy, who said the workers should go picket in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., because thats really where the protest needs to be.

Pence took a swing at it next. Joe Biden doesnt belong on the picket line. He belongs on the unemployment line.

Trump's mug shot appears in debate intro

Trump skipped the Fox Business-Univision debate but appeared briefly in its introduction - or at least his mug shot did.

The debate at the Reagan library started with a montage of the former president followed by clips of the seven candidates who are appearing on stage.

Trumps mug shot  from one of the criminal cases against him, filed in Georgia  flashed on screen as a voiceover questioned: Would Reagan even recognize the country today?
Value-focused investors are always on the hunt for stocks that are priced below their intrinsic value. One such stock that merits attention is Ceridian HCM Holding Inc (NYSE:CDAY). The stock, which is currently priced at 66.22, recorded a gain of 1.91% in a day and a 3-month increase of 3.03%. The stock's fair valuation is $117.54, as indicated by its GF Value.

Understanding the GF Value

The GF Value represents the current intrinsic value of a stock derived from GuruFocus's exclusive method. The GF Value Line on the summary page gives an overview of the fair value that the stock should be traded at. It is calculated based on three factors: historical multiples, GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth, and future estimates of the business performance.

We believe the GF Value Line is the fair value that the stock should be traded at. If the stock price is significantly above the GF Value Line, it is overvalued and its future return is likely to be poor. On the other hand, if it is significantly below the GF Value Line, its future return will likely be higher.

Is Ceridian HCM Holding (CDAY) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Considering the Risks

However, investors need to consider a more in-depth analysis before making an investment decision. Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, certain risk factors associated with Ceridian HCM Holding should not be ignored. These risks are primarily reflected through its low Altman Z-score of 1.24. These indicators suggest that Ceridian HCM Holding, despite its apparent undervaluation, might be a potential value trap. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making.

Understanding the Altman Z-score

Before delving into the details, let's understand what the Altman Z-score entails. Invented by New York University Professor Edward I. Altman in 1968, the Z-Score is a financial model that predicts the probability of a company entering bankruptcy within a two-year time frame. The Altman Z-Score combines five different financial ratios, each weighted to create a final score. A score below 1.8 suggests a high likelihood of financial distress, while a score above 3 indicates a low risk.

Story continues

Company Overview

Ceridian HCM provides payroll and human capital management solutions targeting clients with 100-100,000 employees. Following the 2012 acquisition of Dayforce, Ceridian pivoted away from its legacy on-premises Bureau business to become a cloud HCM provider. As of fiscal 2022, about 80% of group revenue was derived from the flagship Dayforce platform geared toward enterprise clients. The remaining revenue is about evenly split between cloud platform Powerpay, targeting small businesses in Canada, and legacy Bureau products.

Is Ceridian HCM Holding (CDAY) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Exploring Ceridian HCM Holding's Low Altman Z-Score

A dissection of Ceridian HCM Holding's Altman Z-score reveals Ceridian HCM Holding's financial health may be weak, suggesting possible financial distress:

Operational Efficiency and Asset Turnover

When it comes to operational efficiency, a vital indicator for Ceridian HCM Holding is its asset turnover. The data: 2021: 0.14; 2022: 0.13; 2023: 0.16 from the past three years suggests a recent decline following an initial increase in this ratio. The asset turnover ratio reflects how effectively a company is using its assets to generate sales. Therefore, a drop in this ratio can signify reduced operational efficiency, potentially due to underutilization of assets or decreased market demand for the company's products or services. This shift in Ceridian HCM Holding's asset turnover underlines the need for the company to reassess its operational strategies to optimize asset usage and boost sales.

Conclusion

Despite its attractive valuation, Ceridian HCM Holding (NYSE:CDAY) may be a potential value trap due to its low Altman Z-score and declining asset turnover. Therefore, it is crucial for investors to conduct thorough due diligence before making an investment decision. GuruFocus Premium members can find stocks with high Altman Z-Score using the following Screener: Walter Schloss Screen .

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


'It was a really good reality check': Ford's CEO admits EV charging was 'challenging' during road trip in F-150 Lightning  here are 3 big long-distance issues electric drivers face

Owning an electric vehicle (EV) isn't the stuff road trip dreams are made of, as Ford's CEO Jim Farley realized recently when he took the company's electric F-150 Lightning on a road trip from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas.

He admitted in a video posted Aug. 13 to his account on X (formerly Twitter) that charging has been pretty challenging.

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In the video, during which hes seen at the wheel of a vehicle, he says that he had just been to a charging site along Interstate 5 in California, where he waited 40 minutes to get a 40% charge on his truck.

"It was a really good reality check of the challenges that our customers go through," he said.

The video was posted after a story came out Aug. 10 that a Canadian man abandoned his own F-150 Lightning he claimed failed to charge at two separate stations during a family road trip from Winnipeg to Chicago. He completed the journey in a gas-powered rental vehicle.

"Shifting from fueling stations to charging stations requires new behaviors and opens new possibilities," Farley wrote in a LinkedIn post on Aug. 7 before embarking on his cross-country journey.

Unfortunately, it seems those new behaviors may include learning greater patience and new possibilities may include catching up on your reading while you wait roadside for a full charge. Here are three of the biggest issues facing EV drivers when it comes to charging up for long trips.

Lack of charging infrastructure

Unless you use your vehicle only for short-distance trips, you'll need somewhere to recharge other than your home. But EV charging stations can be few and far between.

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According to a recent study by Coast, a company that provides payment tools for vehicle-fleet owners, there are only 22 EV charging stations per 1,000 road miles in the U.S.; thats compared to 104 gas pumps per 1,000 road miles. In many states, you won't even be able to find one charging station per 100 square miles. Moreover, many states have more registered EVs than they do charging ports. For example, the Coast study shows that Nevada has 49% more EVs than the national average but 19% fewer charging ports per square mile.

This doesn't account for the possibility that any number of these stations could be out of order, as the Canadian traveler mentioned above claimed happened to him during his trip.

Read more: Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now use $100 to cash in on prime real estate  without the headache of being a landlord. Here's how

Long charging times

The amount of time potentially wasted in looking for an EV charging station  and then waiting in line for your turn at the port  is only exacerbated by how long some chargers take. A fast-charging, direct-current station can charge an EV battery from empty to 80% in 20 minutes to an hour, according to the Department of Transportation. But that's still significantly longer than it takes to fill a tank with gas.

The lower-performance chargers are even worse. On a Level 2 AC charger, a step below the fastest chargers, it takes four to 10 hours to charge an EV battery to 80% from empty.

Farley posted a follow-up video to X from a fast-charging station in Baker, Calif., which he described as "quick and easy" compared to the previous one.

Range anxiety

Naturally, any EV owner taking a long trip will have to keep an eye on battery power and take note of charging stations in range, which can add anxiety while driving. It can be an even bigger concern in colder months, which can cut an EV's range due to increased power consumption. Consumer Reports found that cold weather cut the average range by about 25% when driving at 70 miles per hour. The effect of cold is even more pronounced if you're making short trips with frequent stops: in that situation, you could lose 50% of your range.

So if you do attempt a road trip with an EV, make sure you have all your charging stops mapped out and bring a good book because you could be in for a long wait.

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Jeff Bezos and Oprah Winfrey invest in this asset to keep their wealth safe  you may want to do the same in 2023

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Deaf film and arts festival marks 25 years of deaf education

Korean artists 'Handspeak' and South African artists will perform at a festival showcasing Deaf culture as part of celebrations at Wits.

The Centre for Deaf Studies at Wits University is celebrating 25 years of leading deaf education in the country. The Centre introduced the first professional teacher training programme for teachers of the Deaf in the early 2000s, paving the way for quality deaf education in South Africa.

Beyond teaching and research, the Centre has been a key contributor towards building an inclusive society. It is the go-to partner for families of deaf and hard-of-hearing babies, which through the Hi Hopes programme, provides psycho-social and language support to families across six provinces. This reach is increasing. In addition, the Centre has a dedicated SafeSpace programme to support Deaf victims of gender-based violence (GBV).

The Centre is marking its jubilee with a programme of activities that include panel discussions, workshops and social events.

A programme highlight is the Film and Arts Festival on Friday, 29 September 2023 starting at 17:00. This event features Handspeak, a group of Deaf Korean performers, as well as South African Deaf artists including Rainbow Warriors, Tamatie, Ismael Mansoor and the SA Theatre Group LWuD, who will perform excerpts from the play Pink Tax with a professional performance SASL Interpreter; and offer films by Deaf artists. Tickets are available via Quickets.

All who are interested in learning more about Deaf culture and South African Sign Language are invited to attend the two-day cultural programme, which ends on Saturday, 30 September with a family fun day. The fun day is free and open to all. All events take place at the Wits Parktown Education campus.

Associate Professor Claudine Storbeck at the Centre says that the 25th anniversary is a significant milestone and an opportunity to reflect on successes and foster greater integration.

We are excited about the upcoming festival which is a partnership between the Centre and SociGO, a non-profit company run by Deaf young people. Our goal is to showcase deaf talent and build bridges. We are thrilled that the Korean Ambassador to South Africa has come on board by expanding the cultural experience through providing authentic Korean food and drinks before the show.

The arts are widely recognised for their power to unite people and traverse societal boundaries.

Artistic Director at LWuD Theatre, Noxolo Bhengu, whose play Pink Tax has been adapted for the festival on Friday, says she is proud of the experimental piece, which incorporates an interpreter who is specialised in performance interpreting using South African Sign Language.

Uniting deaf and hearing communities in artistic spaces will help to break down stereotypes and challenge misconceptions, says Bhengu. As theatre makers, artists, and people responsible for facilitating platforms for creative expression and involvement, it is important for us to consciously move towards inclusion and anti-ableism within our industry by recognising that talent and creativity should be accessible to everyone. Including deaf artists in mainstream productions is a vital step towards a more inclusive representation of the diverse world that we live in.

Pink Tax delves into the harrowing reality of human trafficking by pulling back the curtain to the dark underbelly of this modern-day slavery.

In line with developing Deaf culture, the Wits Centre houses the largest single collection of art by Deaf artists in Africa, including art by the 81-year-old South African DeafBlind artist, author and pastor, Cyril Axelrod.
Three factors driving SA's destructive storms

A series of powerful tidal surges battered coastal areas in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces over the weekend of 16 September 2023.

One person died; cars, homes and businesses were damaged. The Conversation Africa asked Jasper Knight, a geoscientist who researches coastal processes, to explain what happened.

What drove the flooding?

A critical combination of three factors resulted in this significant flooding. First, a storm surge associated with low-pressure weather systems coming onshore. These happen very commonly but often dont result in high amounts of flooding by themselves.

Second, low-pressure cells often result in strong onshore winds, and these can whip up the sea surface and create big waves which can potentially run further inland, especially when the sea surface is raised.

Third, the coincidence of the storm with the period of high tide (a monthly event) and equinoctial high-high tide (a seasonal event). It is this combination that is the cause here, not these individual factors in isolation.

What is a storm surge?

This is where the level of the sea surface near the coast is temporarily raised up and results in flooding along that coastal stretch. Storm surges are caused by a low-pressure (cyclone) weather system approaching the coastline from the ocean. Low pressure causes the sea surface to bulge upwards below the centre or eye of the cyclone, and the magnitude of this disturbance is related to the severity of the low pressure system  the deeper the low-pressure cell, the higher the elevation of the sea surface. This is usually on the order of tens of centimetres to one metre or so.

As the cyclone approaches land, the water surface along the coast rises.

What is a spring tide?

Despite their name, spring tides are regular occurrences throughout the year. They take place when the sun, Earth and moon are in alignment, and this happens once every (lunar) month. In addition, there are also times of the year, around the equinoxes, where spring tides are higher than average.

We are very near the spring (vernal) equinox in the southern hemisphere (which is on or about 22 September). This is a period when the sun is aligned overhead of Earths equator and so exerts a bigger tidal force on the oceans. This may have been a contributing factor to the higher water levels around the coast.

Were people sufficiently warned?

Tidal patterns are highly predictable and this data is widely available for ports or harbours along the coast. In this case, the South African Weather Service issued a warning. This information is particularly useful for boaters, fishermen and other coastal users. Weather patterns are also fairly predictable, which is what weather forecasting is all about, so we know when a big storm may be approaching.

However, the net result of all of these factors in combination is less predictable: although low-lying coastal areas are vulnerable to flooding, forecasters may not know exactly when or how high.

The other issue here is not just areas being covered by water but also the speed at which the water waves are moving, which is a factor in their destructiveness.

What kind of emergency measures could be put in place?

Local communities need to be warned more clearly and effectively if there is a threat of a storm surge and of coastal flooding. People and assets (like cars, anything that is moveable) should be moved from the area or kept inside. People tend to want to go to the sea to watch the waves but this puts them at more risk. Roads should be closed off where possible to keep people safe and away from the area. Floodwater management through using sandbags and similar actions should be undertaken.

Exactly the same measures used in places like Florida in the US for reducing hurricane risk should be used in South Africa, such as boarding up windows, keeping assets indoors, evacuating people from high risk areas, and moving furniture in houses to the first floor to reduce flood impacts.

Storm surges  and sea levels rising in future  are not going to go away so we need to be prepared for them.

Jasper Knight, Professor of Physical Geography, University of the Witwatersrand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Integrated Investment Consultants LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express (NYSE:AXP  Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund bought 1,911 shares of the payment services companys stock, valued at approximately $333,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AXP. Chelsea Counsel Co. bought a new stake in shares of American Express during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Steward Financial Group LLC raised its position in shares of American Express by 104.9% during the 1st quarter. Steward Financial Group LLC now owns 211 shares of the payment services companys stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 108 shares during the last quarter. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express during the 2nd quarter valued at $35,000. Lakewood Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express during the 4th quarter valued at $37,000. Finally, Focused Wealth Management Inc raised its position in shares of American Express by 1,400.0% during the 1st quarter. Focused Wealth Management Inc now owns 225 shares of the payment services companys stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 210 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 83.08% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on AXP. Piper Sandler cut shares of American Express from a neutral rating to an underweight rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $172.00 to $149.00 in a research report on Monday, July 24th. 22nd Century Group restated a reiterates rating on shares of American Express in a research report on Friday, June 30th. StockNews.com cut shares of American Express from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 20th. Stephens restated an underweight rating and issued a $146.00 price objective on shares of American Express in a research report on Tuesday, July 18th. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of American Express from $180.00 to $193.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 18th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $173.06.

American Express Trading Down 1.4 %

American Express stock opened at $151.12 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $162.03 and a 200-day moving average of $162.70. American Express has a one year low of $130.65 and a one year high of $182.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 1.59 and a quick ratio of 1.59. The company has a market cap of $111.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.37, a P/E/G ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.19.

American Express (NYSE:AXP  Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, July 21st. The payment services company reported $2.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.08. American Express had a net margin of 12.99% and a return on equity of 29.26%. The business had revenue of $15.05 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.41 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.57 EPS. American Expresss revenue was up 12.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that American Express will post 11.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

American Express Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 10th. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th will be paid a $0.60 dividend. This represents a $2.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.59%. American Expresss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.42%.

American Express Profile

(Free Report)

American Express Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides charge and credit payment card products, and travel-related services worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Global Consumer Services Group, Global Commercial Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services. Its products and services include payment and financing products; network services; accounts payable expense management products and services; and travel and lifestyle services.

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Shares of Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:AMRX  Get Free Report) have earned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the five research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $4.60.

AMRX has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Barclays boosted their price target on Amneal Pharmaceuticals from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, August 4th. TheStreet raised Amneal Pharmaceuticals from a d+ rating to a c- rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 15th. Truist Financial reissued a buy rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of Amneal Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Wednesday, September 6th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Amneal Pharmaceuticals from $3.00 to $5.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on Amneal Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. They set a buy rating on the stock.

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View Our Latest Report on Amneal Pharmaceuticals

Amneal Pharmaceuticals Stock Performance

NYSE AMRX opened at $4.29 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.83, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 17.18. The businesss 50 day moving average is $3.86 and its two-hundred day moving average is $2.78. Amneal Pharmaceuticals has a 12-month low of $1.24 and a 12-month high of $4.74.

Amneal Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:AMRX  Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Friday, August 4th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.08 by $0.08. Amneal Pharmaceuticals had a positive return on equity of 101.26% and a negative net margin of 0.09%. The company had revenue of $599.05 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $562.49 million. As a group, analysts expect that Amneal Pharmaceuticals will post 0.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Amneal Pharmaceuticals

In other Amneal Pharmaceuticals news, EVP Andrew S. Boyer sold 29,302 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.13, for a total transaction of $121,017.26. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 244,739 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,010,772.07. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 26.78% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Amneal Pharmaceuticals

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Nuveen Asset Management LLC raised its position in Amneal Pharmaceuticals by 235.5% in the second quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 998,218 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,094,000 after purchasing an additional 700,648 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN increased its stake in Amneal Pharmaceuticals by 155.8% during the 2nd quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 56,506 shares of the companys stock worth $175,000 after buying an additional 34,416 shares during the period. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new position in Amneal Pharmaceuticals in the 2nd quarter worth $38,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Amneal Pharmaceuticals by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 618,172 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,916,000 after buying an additional 17,770 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada grew its stake in shares of Amneal Pharmaceuticals by 13.7% during the second quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 49,579 shares of the companys stock valued at $153,000 after acquiring an additional 5,993 shares in the last quarter. 31.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Amneal Pharmaceuticals

(Get Free Report

Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generics, injectables, biosimilars, and specialty branded pharmaceutical products worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Generics, Specialty, and AvKARE. The Generics segment offers immediate and extended release oral solid, powder, liquid, sterile injectable, nasal spray, inhalation and respiratory, biosimilar, ophthalmic, film, transdermal patch, and topical products.

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ARS Wealth Advisors Group LLC lowered its position in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (BATS:USMV  Free Report) by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 483,126 shares of the companys stock after selling 15,112 shares during the quarter. iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF accounts for 5.7% of ARS Wealth Advisors Group LLCs holdings, making the stock its 3rd biggest holding. ARS Wealth Advisors Group LLCs holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF were worth $35,911,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in USMV. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 7.8% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 8,253 shares of the companys stock worth $646,000 after acquiring an additional 594 shares in the last quarter. Blair William & Co. IL raised its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 95,612 shares of the companys stock worth $7,417,000 after acquiring an additional 1,612 shares in the last quarter. AJ Wealth Strategies LLC raised its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. AJ Wealth Strategies LLC now owns 1,348,690 shares of the companys stock worth $104,618,000 after acquiring an additional 57,434 shares in the last quarter. Founders Financial Securities LLC raised its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 27.0% in the 1st quarter. Founders Financial Securities LLC now owns 88,779 shares of the companys stock worth $6,887,000 after acquiring an additional 18,853 shares in the last quarter. Finally, West Michigan Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 6.1% in the 1st quarter. West Michigan Advisors LLC now owns 12,575 shares of the companys stock worth $975,000 after acquiring an additional 719 shares in the last quarter.

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iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF Stock Down 1.2 %

Shares of BATS:USMV traded down $0.88 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $72.91. The stock had a trading volume of 7,668,345 shares. iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF has a 12 month low of $47.44 and a 12 month high of $55.45. The company has a market capitalization of $27.97 billion, a PE ratio of 20.17 and a beta of 0.75. The firms fifty day moving average is $74.79 and its 200 day moving average is $73.51.

iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF Profile

The iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (USMV) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI USA Minimum Volatility (USD) index. The fund tracks an index of US-listed firms selected and weighted to create a low-volatility portfolio subject to various constraints. USMV was launched on Oct 18, 2011 and is managed by BlackRock.

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Atwood & Palmer Inc. trimmed its holdings in shares of Lockheed Martin Co. (NYSE:LMT  Free Report) by 7.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 69,827 shares of the aerospace companys stock after selling 5,800 shares during the period. Lockheed Martin comprises approximately 2.9% of Atwood & Palmer Inc.s holdings, making the stock its 6th biggest holding. Atwood & Palmer Inc.s holdings in Lockheed Martin were worth $32,147,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Mcdonald Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Lockheed Martin by 1.1% in the first quarter. Mcdonald Partners LLC now owns 1,865 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $882,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in Lockheed Martin by 2.6% in the 1st quarter. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 815 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $385,000 after purchasing an additional 21 shares during the last quarter. Alhambra Investment Partners LLC raised its stake in Lockheed Martin by 4.8% in the 1st quarter. Alhambra Investment Partners LLC now owns 476 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $225,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares during the last quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Lockheed Martin by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,262 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $1,502,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Connecticut Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Lockheed Martin by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Connecticut Wealth Management LLC now owns 498 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $235,000 after purchasing an additional 23 shares during the last quarter. 74.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on LMT shares. Morgan Stanley reissued an equal weight rating and set a $532.00 price objective on shares of Lockheed Martin in a research note on Wednesday, July 19th. Citigroup decreased their price objective on Lockheed Martin from $579.00 to $555.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 19th. Susquehanna lowered their price objective on Lockheed Martin from $575.00 to $550.00 and set a positive rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Lockheed Martin from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $440.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Lockheed Martin in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. They set a buy rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $499.43.

Insider Transactions at Lockheed Martin

In related news, Director John Donovan bought 548 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 19th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $457.07 per share, for a total transaction of $250,474.36. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 3,378 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,543,982.46. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 0.17% of the companys stock.

Lockheed Martin Trading Down 0.2 %

LMT stock traded down $1.02 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $407.73. 188,977 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,193,483. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.16. Lockheed Martin Co. has a fifty-two week low of $381.55 and a fifty-two week high of $508.10. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $441.55 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $457.07. The company has a market capitalization of $102.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.95, a PEG ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 0.65.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT  Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 18th. The aerospace company reported $6.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.45 by $0.28. Lockheed Martin had a net margin of 10.48% and a return on equity of 71.67%. The business had revenue of $16.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.92 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $6.32 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 8.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Lockheed Martin Co. will post 27.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Lockheed Martin Profile

(Free Report)

Lockheed Martin Corporation, a security and aerospace company, engages in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of technology systems, products, and services worldwide. It operates through four segments: Aeronautics, Missiles and Fire Control, Rotary and Mission Systems, and Space.

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Louisiana State Employees Retirement System lessened its position in shares of The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI  Free Report) by 5.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 18,300 shares of the health services providers stock after selling 1,100 shares during the period. Louisiana State Employees Retirement Systems holdings in The Cigna Group were worth $5,135,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CI. Axiom Financial Strategies LLC bought a new stake in The Cigna Group during the first quarter worth $212,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. bought a new stake in shares of The Cigna Group during the 1st quarter worth $40,000. Cibc World Market Inc. boosted its stake in The Cigna Group by 52.6% in the first quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 18,975 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $4,547,000 after buying an additional 6,538 shares in the last quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. grew its position in The Cigna Group by 6.5% in the first quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 9,212 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $2,265,000 after acquiring an additional 566 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its stake in The Cigna Group by 36.5% during the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,283 shares of the health services providers stock worth $307,000 after acquiring an additional 343 shares in the last quarter. 85.32% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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The Cigna Group Price Performance

CI stock opened at $288.41 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.72 and a quick ratio of 0.72. The companys 50-day moving average is $286.28 and its 200-day moving average is $271.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $85.36 billion, a PE ratio of 13.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 0.66. The Cigna Group has a 1 year low of $240.50 and a 1 year high of $340.11.

The Cigna Group Announces Dividend

The Cigna Group ( NYSE:CI Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The health services provider reported $6.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $5.98 by $0.15. The Cigna Group had a return on equity of 12.32% and a net margin of 3.57%. The firm had revenue of $48.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $47.24 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $6.22 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that The Cigna Group will post 24.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 21st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 6th were issued a dividend of $1.23 per share. This represents a $4.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.71%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 5th. The Cigna Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 22.40%.

Insider Transactions at The Cigna Group

In other The Cigna Group news, EVP Cynthia Ryan sold 3,768 shares of The Cigna Group stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.22, for a total transaction of $1,063,404.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 5,503 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,553,056.66. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other The Cigna Group news, EVP Everett Neville sold 466 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.61, for a total value of $129,366.26. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 4,937 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,370,560.57. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Cynthia Ryan sold 3,768 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.22, for a total value of $1,063,404.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 5,503 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,553,056.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 39,767 shares of company stock valued at $11,498,468 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.60% of the companys stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on CI. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on The Cigna Group from $356.00 to $341.00 in a report on Friday, July 7th. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of The Cigna Group in a report on Thursday, August 17th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Truist Financial cut their price target on shares of The Cigna Group from $375.00 to $365.00 in a report on Tuesday, June 20th. Raymond James raised their target price on The Cigna Group from $310.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research report on Monday, August 7th. Finally, Edward Jones lowered The Cigna Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $339.11.

Check Out Our Latest Report on CI

The Cigna Group Profile

(Free Report)

The Cigna Group, together with its subsidiaries, provides insurance and related products and services in the United States. Its Evernorth Health Services segment provides a range of coordinated and point solution health services, including pharmacy benefits, home delivery pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, distribution, and care delivery and management solutions to health plans, employers, government organizations, and health care providers.

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Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY lifted its stake in Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 250,410 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 655 shares during the period. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NYs holdings in Wells Fargo & Company were worth $10,687,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in WFC. Defender Capital LLC. bought a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the first quarter worth $246,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. bought a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the first quarter worth $124,000. Dakota Wealth Management bought a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the first quarter worth $222,000. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. lifted its stake in Wells Fargo & Company by 0.3% during the first quarter. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. now owns 273,936 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $13,274,000 after purchasing an additional 770 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Zions Bancorporation N.A. lifted its stake in Wells Fargo & Company by 24.5% during the first quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 9,630 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $467,000 after purchasing an additional 1,895 shares during the last quarter. 72.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a buy rating and set a $44.00 target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a research note on Friday, September 22nd. Citigroup increased their price target on Wells Fargo & Company from $50.00 to $52.00 in a research note on Sunday, July 16th. Raymond James increased their price target on Wells Fargo & Company from $48.00 to $51.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 3rd. HSBC initiated coverage on Wells Fargo & Company in a research note on Thursday, September 7th. They issued a hold rating and a $45.00 price target for the company. Finally, VNET Group reiterated a maintains rating on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a research note on Monday, June 26th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $48.02.

Wells Fargo & Company Stock Performance

Shares of Wells Fargo & Company stock opened at $40.66 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $43.21 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $41.32. Wells Fargo & Company has a 1-year low of $35.25 and a 1-year high of $48.84. The company has a market cap of $148.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.16, a PEG ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.14.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC  Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 14th. The financial services provider reported $1.25 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.16 by $0.09. Wells Fargo & Company had a return on equity of 11.15% and a net margin of 16.18%. The firm had revenue of $20.53 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $20.11 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.74 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Wells Fargo & Company will post 4.84 EPS for the current year.

Wells Fargo & Company Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $0.35 per share. This is an increase from Wells Fargo & Companys previous quarterly dividend of $0.30. This represents a $1.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.44%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 3rd. Wells Fargo & Companys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 35.00%.

About Wells Fargo & Company

(Free Report)

Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management.

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Members Capital Advisors Inc. lessened its holdings in Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR  Free Report) by 33.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 12,915 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 6,394 shares during the period. Members Capital Advisors Inc.s holdings in Equity Residential were worth $852,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Allworth Financial LP boosted its position in Equity Residential by 220.0% in the 2nd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 400 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 275 shares during the period. Trust Co. of Vermont boosted its position in Equity Residential by 340.0% in the 1st quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 440 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 340 shares during the period. OLD Mission Capital LLC purchased a new position in Equity Residential in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV boosted its position in Equity Residential by 133.5% in the 1st quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 474 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 271 shares during the period. Finally, Money Concepts Capital Corp purchased a new position in Equity Residential in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.79% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling at Equity Residential

In other Equity Residential news, COO Michael L. Manelis sold 2,500 shares of Equity Residential stock in a transaction on Friday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.04, for a total value of $165,100.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 22,844 shares in the company, valued at $1,508,617.76. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 1.69% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Equity Residential Stock Performance

Equity Residential Dividend Announcement

NYSE EQR traded up $0.09 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $58.72. The companys stock had a trading volume of 457,543 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,871,753. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.19 and a current ratio of 0.19. The firm has a market cap of $23.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.56, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 0.82. Equity Residential has a twelve month low of $54.60 and a twelve month high of $69.45. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $64.36 and its 200-day moving average price is $63.05.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 13th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 26th will be paid a $0.6625 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 25th. This represents a $2.65 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.51%. Equity Residentials dividend payout ratio is presently 119.91%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on EQR shares. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Equity Residential from $71.00 to $77.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, August 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Equity Residential from $72.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, August 21st. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Equity Residential in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They set a hold rating for the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Equity Residential from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Equity Residential from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $62.00 to $69.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $69.59.

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Equity Residential Company Profile

(Free Report)

Equity Residential is committed to creating communities where people thrive. The Company, a member of the S&P 500, is focused on the acquisition, development and management of residential properties located in and around dynamic cities that attract affluent long-term renters. Equity Residential owns or has investments in 304 properties consisting of 80,212 apartment units, with an established presence in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco and Southern California, and an expanding presence in Denver, Atlanta, Dallas/Ft.

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Riverwater Partners LLC lowered its position in Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF (CBOE:AAAU  Free Report) by 9.9% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 35,544 shares of the companys stock after selling 3,907 shares during the period. Riverwater Partners LLC owned 0.11% of Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF worth $677,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AAAU. Marks Group Wealth Management Inc boosted its stake in Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF by 6.2% during the first quarter. Marks Group Wealth Management Inc now owns 813,935 shares of the companys stock worth $15,912,000 after acquiring an additional 47,231 shares in the last quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF by 14.4% in the 2nd quarter. AE Wealth Management LLC now owns 726,533 shares of the companys stock worth $13,830,000 after buying an additional 91,414 shares during the last quarter. Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group increased its position in Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF by 27.5% during the 4th quarter. Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group now owns 595,442 shares of the companys stock valued at $10,772,000 after buying an additional 128,546 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC raised its stake in Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF by 16.4% during the first quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 509,222 shares of the companys stock valued at $9,955,000 after buying an additional 71,865 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC bought a new stake in Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF in the third quarter worth $6,517,000.

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Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF Price Performance

CBOE AAAU opened at $18.83 on Wednesday. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $19.10 and its 200-day moving average price is $19.37. Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF has a 12 month low of $16.06 and a 12 month high of $20.43.

Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF Company Profile

The Goldman Sachs Physical Gold ETF (AAAU) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the LBMA Gold Price index. The fund tracks the gold spot price, less expenses and liabilities, using gold bars held in a vault in Perth, Australia. Investors can redeem their shares for gold coins and small bars. AAAU was launched on Jul 26, 2018 and is managed by Goldman Sachs.

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Virtue Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in The Bank of New York Mellon Co. (NYSE:BK  Free Report) by 11.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,375 shares of the banks stock after acquiring an additional 1,423 shares during the period. Virtue Capital Management LLCs holdings in Bank of New York Mellon were worth $639,000 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 the business. Kowal Investment Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Bank of New York Mellon in the 2nd quarter worth about $334,000. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. raised its position in shares of Bank of New York Mellon by 23.3% in the 2nd quarter. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. now owns 21,984 shares of the banks stock worth $979,000 after acquiring an additional 4,158 shares in the last quarter. KCS Wealth Advisory increased its position in Bank of New York Mellon by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. KCS Wealth Advisory now owns 42,436 shares of the banks stock valued at $1,889,000 after buying an additional 1,727 shares in the last quarter. Patriot Financial Group Insurance Agency LLC increased its position in Bank of New York Mellon by 18.6% in the 2nd quarter. Patriot Financial Group Insurance Agency LLC now owns 8,225 shares of the banks stock valued at $366,000 after buying an additional 1,291 shares in the last quarter. Finally, New Mexico Educational Retirement Board increased its position in Bank of New York Mellon by 5.0% in the 2nd quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board now owns 35,760 shares of the banks stock valued at $1,592,000 after buying an additional 1,700 shares in the last quarter. 81.29% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Insider Transactions at Bank of New York Mellon

In other news, insider Kurtis R. Kurimsky sold 14,045 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.64, for a total value of $641,013.80. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 23,816 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,086,962.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, insider Kurtis R. Kurimsky sold 14,045 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.64, for a total value of $641,013.80. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 23,816 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,086,962.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP J Kevin Mccarthy sold 35,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $46.33, for a total value of $1,621,550.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 98,102 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,545,065.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.10% of the companys stock.

Bank of New York Mellon Price Performance

BK stock opened at $42.26 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $32.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.72 and a current ratio of 0.72. The Bank of New York Mellon Co. has a 52-week low of $36.22 and a 52-week high of $52.26. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $44.72 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $43.82.

Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK  Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 18th. The bank reported $1.38 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.22 by $0.16. Bank of New York Mellon had a return on equity of 11.88% and a net margin of 10.95%. The firm had revenue of $4.45 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.37 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.15 EPS. The companys revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that The Bank of New York Mellon Co. will post 4.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Bank of New York Mellon Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 28th were paid a $0.42 dividend. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 27th. This is an increase from Bank of New York Mellons previous quarterly dividend of $0.37. Bank of New York Mellons payout ratio is presently 48.98%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently commented on BK. Citigroup decreased their target price on Bank of New York Mellon from $58.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. StockNews.com began coverage on Bank of New York Mellon in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on Bank of New York Mellon from $43.00 to $44.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Bank of New York Mellon from $49.00 to $48.00 and set an underweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 15th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $53.00.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Bank of New York Mellon

Bank of New York Mellon Profile

(Free Report)

The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation provides a range of financial products and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Securities Services, Market and Wealth Services, Investment and Wealth Management, and other segments. The Securities Services segment offers custody, trust and depositary, accounting, exchange-traded funds, middle-office solutions, transfer agency, services for private equity and real estate funds, foreign exchange, securities lending, liquidity/lending services, and data analytics.

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StockNews.com cut shares of WPP (NYSE:WPP  Free Report) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Sunday morning.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of WPP from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, August 8th. Bank of America cut their target price on shares of WPP to $46.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 20th. Finally, BNP Paribas cut shares of WPP from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, September 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, WPP has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $813.33.

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Check Out Our Latest Research Report on WPP

WPP Stock Down 1.8 %

WPP Cuts Dividend

Shares of WPP stock opened at $44.04 on Friday. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $49.19 and its 200-day simple moving average is $52.97. WPP has a 12 month low of $39.67 and a 12 month high of $64.07. The company has a quick ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.07.

The company also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 13th will be given a $0.9536 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 12th. This represents a yield of 4.9%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On WPP

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. M&T Bank Corp boosted its position in shares of WPP by 169.5% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 26,025 shares of the business services providers stock worth $1,798,000 after purchasing an additional 16,370 shares in the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC boosted its position in shares of WPP by 51.9% during the 1st quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 2,471 shares of the business services providers stock worth $147,000 after purchasing an additional 844 shares in the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management boosted its position in shares of WPP by 27.0% during the 1st quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 9,267 shares of the business services providers stock worth $552,000 after purchasing an additional 1,972 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of WPP by 12.6% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC now owns 14,494 shares of the business services providers stock worth $863,000 after purchasing an additional 1,621 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of WPP during the 1st quarter worth $200,000. 4.34% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About WPP

(Get Free Report)

WPP plc, a creative transformation company, provides communications, experience, commerce, and technology services in North America, the United Kingdom, Western Continental Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. The company operates through three segments: Global Integrated Agencies, Public Relations, and Specialist Agencies.

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Nestle has partnered with Saudi Arabias SME General Authority, Monsha'at, to bolster the expertise and operations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the flourishing food and beverage industry in Saudi Arabia.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will see Nestle Professional, a Nestle business that focuses on out of home offerings and services, enhancing the skills of entrepreneurs nominated by Monsha'at. This will be done through training, consultations, and mentorship to support creativity within Saudi restaurants, cafes, chefs, and baristas.

Robert Helou, General Manager, Nestle KSA, Bahrain, and Oman, said: At Nestle, we recognise the vital role SMEs play in our industry, Vision 2030, and Saudi Arabia's economy. Our collaboration with Monsha'at is a commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia's future, fostering innovation, and driving economic growth.

Elevating food service sector

Joe Aouad, Nestle Professional Business Executive Officer  Middle East and North Africa, added: Nestle Professional is dedicated to elevating the food service sector with cutting-edge coffee and culinary solutions. Through this partnership, we aim to empower SMEs and emerging businesses with our knowledge, expertise, and facilities to unlock opportunities and realise their full potential.

Monsha'at will leverage Nestle Professional's Customer Engagement Center, including its kitchen, for training and mentorship as well as extend assistance to entrepreneurs and SMEs in the restaurant and cafe sector.

As part of the agreement, Nestle Professional will transfer coffee and culinary expertise and knowledge to entrepreneurial pioneers through guidance provided by certified chefs and baristas. This will include developing beverage menus and recipes.--TradeArabia News Service
Hong Guizhen, an inheritor of hangluo craftsmanship, shows students the weaving technique. [Photo/China Daily]

Silk production involves the cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding and care of silkworms, which produce cocoons from which silk filaments are unwound. It is one of the things that, even today, remains firmly archaic  continuing to exist in a time when patience was not a scarce resource. People have been weaving silk, which is known as si in Chinese, into fabric for more than 5,000 years.

The sericulture and silk craftsmanship of China was listed in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009.

Fabrics such as ling, luo, chou and duan represent the evolving techniques of textile production throughout different periods. Originating from silkworms and refined through looms, the varying weaving methods ultimately result in differences in shape and tactility.

The luo weaving technique stands out, particularly for its demanding level of craftsmanship.

Characterized by its openwork patterns, luo fabrics offer enhanced breathability. The technique originated sometime during the Spring and Autumn (770-476 BC) or Warring States (475-221 BC) periods, and gained popularity during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), mostly due to the attire required for official rituals and the impressive plain-woven silk textiles produced in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, which are called hangluo.

The China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province , hosts a costume festival in April. [Photo/China Daily]

The value of hangluo is derived from two main aspects. First, its exceptional raw materials. The climate in the region is mild, making it an ideal place for mulberry cultivation. Second, the technique is incredibly refined.

Mulberry silk nourished by the soil and water of the Qiantang area has to go through a series of steps  including soaking, reeling, warping, threading the heddles and reeds, waxing, and shaking the warp  before it can be woven on the machine. The rough fabric then undergoes a fine-tuning process and dyeing to become the exquisite hangluo gauze.

In an era of mechanical production, inheriting a traditional craft is not easy, said Zhang Chunqing, 44, head of the Hangluo Conservation Organization in Hangzhou.

Due to the complexity of the process, the weaving technique of hangluo was almost lost. Yet, inheritors, like Zhang, Shao Guanxing and Hong Guizhen, are striving to keep the craft alive.

In the 1980s, Shao and his wife, Hong, fourth-generation representative inheritors of hangluo craftsmanship, managed to restore and improve the ancient manual loom technique.

Clothes made of hangluo gauze, one of the most sought-after silk fabrics in the country. [Photo/China Daily]

It once took a skilled craftsman eight hours to handweave approximately 80 centimeters to one meter of gauze. After the duo's improvements, around eight meters of fabric can be woven in the same amount of time.

Shao, who was born in 1954 into a family of craftsmen in Hangzhou, grew up in a weaving workshop. Since his grandfather learned the weaving technique at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the family has been practicing the craft for over 150 years. In 1984, he expanded his family's small workshop into the Fuxing Silk Factory.

Before meeting Zhang, who used to study finance as his major, Shao's business wasn't profitable and sometimes even ran at a loss.

Originally from Beijing, Zhang had never come into contact with the craft before moving to Hangzhou. He still remembers the first time he stepped into Shao's factory, it was dark, damp, and had a peculiar smell.

Zhang suggested halting the production and switching to other, more economically viable, silk types. Shao decided to make him a set of hangluo clothes, which completely blew Zhang's mind.

[Photo/China Daily]

"The outfit was light and breathable. I couldn't help but marvel at the existence of such an extraordinary fabric," Zhang recalls.

He never mentioned closing down the factory again. Instead, he followed Shao to the factory every day, humbly learning the various production processes of the gauze.

Continuous innovation, including enriching the colors of the fabric, has been effective in helping to evolve hangluo in recent times.

In order to change the impression that hangluo is a luxury beyond the reach of many, Zhang plans to introduce it into ordinary households through brand building and product development.

"We will cooperate with companies from different fields and use modern media communication methods to enable everyone to see the charm of hangluo," Zhang says.

[Photo/China Daily]

(Source: China Daily)
BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua)  Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to build higher-level pilot free trade zones (FTZs), urging FTZs to take the lead in breaking new ground and tackling tough challenges.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a recent instruction on advancing the construction of pilot FTZs.

FTZ construction has been a key strategic move of the CPC Central Committee to promote reform and opening-up in the new era, he said.

Over the past decade, FTZs have served as comprehensive test platforms for reform and opening-up by ushering in a large number of fundamental and trailblazing related policies and achieving many landmark and leading institutional innovation results, Xi said.

He highlighted strategies to upgrade FTZs on the country's new journey, based on a decade of experience, saying they should take the lead in breaking new ground, tackling tough challenges and undertaking broad and deep explorations.

He said FTZs can play further exemplary roles by committing to high-level opening-up, centering on institutional innovation, coordinating development and security, aligning with global economic and trade rules, promoting institutional opening-up, and promoting the innovative development of the whole industrial chain, among others.

Xi's instruction was conveyed by Vice Premier He Lifeng at a meeting held in Beijing on Tuesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China's first FTZ.

Vice Premier He Lifeng, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, conveys Xi Jinping's instruction on advancing the construction of pilot free trade zones (FTZs) and delivers a speech at a meeting marking the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China's first FTZ in Beijing, capital of China on Sept. 26, 2023. [Xinhua/Yin Bogu]

(Source: Xinhua)
The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), in collaboration with the Good Neighborliness, Friendship, Cooperation Commission (GNFCC) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the People's Government of Fujian Province, hosted the China-Central Asia Women's Development Forum in Xiamen, a city in Southeast China's Fujian Province, on September 9-10. The forum was themed "Women and Sustainable Development." Shen Yueyue, Vice-Chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, President of the ACWF, and President of the GNFCC SCO, attended the forum and addressed the keynote speech.

Shen said Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to the 10th China-Central Asia Cooperation Forum, giving great motivation to develop stable and enduring relations between China and Central Asian countries, which will surely lead to fruitful results in friendly cooperation among women of China and Central Asia. In May, President Xi chaired the China-Central Asia Summit, reached consensus with State leaders from five Central Asian countries to develop China-Central Asia relations and deepen cooperation in all fields, which marked embarking on a new journey of building a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future. Shen noted hosting the women's development forum was an act to implement the spirit conveyed in Xi's congratulatory message and the spirit of the China-Central Asia Summit. It is significant that women from China and Central Asian countries express  via such a forum  their expectations for sustainable development.

Given the importance attached by and the firm leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), with Comrade Xi at its core, Chinese women's undertakings have achieved historic progress during the first decade of the new era. The 20th CPC National Congress (held in 2022) drew a magnificent blueprint for advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, which opened a promising future for the advancement of women's all-round development, Shen added.

Shen stressed that transformations of the world unseen in a century are unfolding at a faster pace, and working in solidarity is the only way to deal with and tide over various difficulties and reach win-win results. China and Central Asian countries are facing similar problems and challenges in women's development. Shen said she sincerely hoped Chinese women will make joint efforts with sisters from other countries to implement earnestly the important consensus reached by State leaders of China and the five Central Asian countries. The women in the six countries will actively implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and they will uphold solidarity and mutual trust and help promote people-to-people connectivity.

Shen also hoped women's strength will be pooled to advance common development, strengthen international cooperation, to advance the progress of women's undertakings, and contribute women's wisdom and power to deepen cooperation in the building of the Belt and Road Initiative, to boost regional peace, stability, development and prosperity, and to build a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

Distinguished speakers who addressed the forum included: Zulaykho Makhkamova, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan; Akjemal Durdyyeva, Chairperson of the Women's Union of Turkmenistan; Firuza Giyasova, First Vice-Chairperson of the Committee on Women and Family Affairs of Tajikistan; Zamira Akbagysheva, President of the Congress of Women of Kyrgyzstan; and, Shakhrat Nuryshev, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to China. Ozoda Parpibaeva, Chairperson of the Committee for Family and Women of Uzbekistan, and several other experts delivered thematic speeches on "Women and Sustainable Development."

Xi's congratulatory message aroused warm feedback. Many of the forum's attendees said women will make contributions to advance China-Central Asia cooperation, and they expressed their willingness to deepen people-to-people exchanges with China, enhance mutual learning and sharing of good practices, and build a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future. The China-Central Asia Women's Development Forum (Xiamen) Initiative (the forum's outcome document) was adopted unanimously.

Zhao Long, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee and Governor of Fujian Province, and Zhang Ming, Secretary-General of the SCO, delivered speeches. Lin Yi, Vice-President and Member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, presided over the forum and read the outcome document.

The women's development forum was an important side event within the framework of the 10th China-Central Asia Cooperation Forum. More than 120 participants, including women leaders from five Central Asian countries, heads of women's institutions or organizations, experts and scholars, diplomats from the SCO Secretariat, the five Central Asian countries' and SCO members' embassies in China, women international students in Xiamen, and representatives from relevant departments, women's federations and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, attended. The participants also visited an exhibition highlighting China-Central Asia women's friendly exchanges.

(Source: Liaison Department of the All-China Women's Federation)
Dredging operations to build an underwater sill on the Mississippi River, with the city of New Orleans in the background, in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will step up anti-corruption efforts in state-owned companies and the financial sector to increase their economic contributions, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday, citing a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.

The remarks from the politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, come a day after party inspection teams concluded investigations into dozens of state-owned enterprises.

"(We) need to...promote those who do not dare to, cannot and do not want to (engage in) in corruption," the Xinhua readout of the politburo meeting said.

"The meeting emphasised that (we) should continuously enhance the...core competitiveness of state-owned enterprises, and...increase the efforts of financial enterprises to serve the real economy and national strategy."

The Chinese government has experienced a turbulent time with the disappearance of former foreign minister Qin Gang and defence minister Li Shangfu.

The vanishing of officials in China is often followed by the announcement of investigations into suspected disciplinary infractions but Beijing has yet to explain why Qin and Li remain out of public sight.

Qin has been missing for three months and Li for one month.

With tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and over U.S. export controls that target the Chinese military and advanced tech sector, Xi's rule has been marked by a focus on national security risks within the party, government, and large industries.

"It is necessary to...establish a mentality of red lines and (willingness) to be extreme, take effective measures to prevent and resolve major risks, and firmly maintain the bottom line of safety," the politburo was quoted as saying.

(Reporting by Ella Cao and Liz Lee; editing by Barbara Lewis)
Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota speaks on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on September 25. Rota resigned his post on September 26.
Authorities say Kevin Mason was mistakenly released from an adult detention center in Indiana's Marion County on September 13.
US soldier who crossed into North Korea 2 months ago is in American custody, US officials say
Jenny, the former wife of a Kinchela boy, Manuel, said she was not surprised by the news that unmarked graves had been located at the site of the facility. A lot of things happened there that people dont know about, she said.

Jenny (third from left) and family members outside the Kinchela Boys' Home site,

It needs to be written about. The whole story needs to get out there. People dont want to believe what happened.

Jenny lives in the western-Sydney suburb of Mt Druitt, which is home to many Aboriginal working-class families. When she and some members of her extended family went to the Kinchela site last year, they were concerned to find no memorial or even sign identifying the location.

There were no signs. Nothing to say even that the boys home was there. It needs to be put back into the hands of the descendants of the boys. I think there are about 60 of the KBH [Kinchela Boys Home] mob left alive.

Jenny said a photo of herself and family members outside the unmarked site was a statement in itself of how what happened at Kinchela was still being buried.

There should be a further investigation into the deaths at Kinchela. Things have been swept under the rug.

Jenny said the Kinchela boys, including Manuel, used to be chained to a tree for alleged misbehaviour. They used to have to milk cows at 4 a.m. with no shoes on. It was a terrible place. My husband never used to talk about it.

Boys as young as six were treated brutally, she said, causing misery that was intended to break them down and force them to abandon their culture and languages.

One boy was bashed seriously after he ran away. Some of the men in charge were ex-British army. There were trained to be brutal. If a boy did not do what he was told, he would have to walk down the line, with all the other kids hitting him. If they didnt, they would get hit themselves.

Jenny described other cruel methods of punishment. Boys would be ordered to clean the concrete with a toothbrush. There were bashings and sexual assaults.

The conditions were soul-destroying. Their food was flour, sugar and other rations. They only had gubby blankets [government-supplied blankets] to sleep with. Every morning their huts were inspected to see if they had cleaned them enough, even though they were over-crowded, she said.

Kinchela was part of an entire New South Wales (NSW) state government-run regime that lasted 90 years. Boys were sent to Kinchela around the age of six or seven after being earlier kept at a babies facility at Bomaderry, on the states south coast (see: Horrific abuse of children at Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home).

The map above traces the locations of the kidnappings between 1924 and 1969. Each dot represents a boy and where he was taken from. It is based on the Kinchela Boys Home Admission Records which were incomplete. The location of at least 21 children is not accounted for. [Photo by Map courtsey of Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation

Manuels sisters were sent to a similar state government home at Cootamundra in the states south, hundreds of kilometres away from Kinchela, which is in the states mid-north coast region.

This has affected me and my family for many years, Jenny explained and added, It was all swept under the carpet. It was not until the 1990s that people started speaking out. That is inter-generational trauma.

Jenny said she did not know how many boys could have died at Kinchela but she knew many had died after leaving the place. Often they had difficulty locating their families or getting back into life. Some of them felt they had to get into alcohol or drugs. They were angry all the time. This affected our kids too. Our lives were crazy, she said.

Jenny said the official parliamentary apology made by the Rudd Labor government in 2008 to the stolen generations of children forcibly removed from their families had made no difference.

She said one of her friends had high hopes of change when the Rudd government took office in 2007 but things never changed and Labor had also continued the police-military intervention in the Northern Territory to keep people down.

Governments never listened. We still have the stolen generations trying to find their way. They have no sense of belonging. And there are more kids being removed today than in the past, she continued.

Jenny said she had wanted to support a Yes vote in the current Labor governments Voice referendum to entrench an indigenous advisory body in the Australian Constitution, because of the past history of indigenous families being confined to reserves and missions.

Yet she had little confidence that anything would improve. We are still being treated as low-caste people. But the white people around here are feeling the pinch too. The rich are just getting richer, she said.

Note: Under conditions of compulsory voting, which makes it a crime to urge a boycott of the vote itself, the SEP calls on workers and youth to register their opposition by casting informal ballots and join our active boycott campaign in the lead-up to October 14, that goes well beyond the individual act of voting.

Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Stolen Generations children raising their hands at Kinchela. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

The Guardian recently published a distressing account of the maltreatment suffered by hundreds of children at the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home. The revelations, which included the possibility of secret graves on site, are just one of the many hidden crimes of the dark and violent history of Australian capitalism against Aboriginal people.

The Kinchela boys home in the state of New South Wales (NSW) was a government-controlled body, just one of numerous institutions established during the Stolen Generations era, when assimilation policies forcibly separated Aboriginal children from their families. Thousands of girls and boys, including infants, were placed in government-institutions, some managed by churches and other welfare agencies. The children were to be trained and exploited as a source of cheap labour, employed as domestic servants and farm labourers. Additionally, other children were adopted into non-Aboriginal families.

From 1924 to 1970, it is estimated that nearly 600 Aboriginal boys, some as young as five years old, were removed from their families and incarcerated at Kinchela. Many of them suffered horrific physical, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of those in authority.

Presently, only 56 survivors of the home are still alive. Although precise government records were not maintained, it is believed that throughout Australia, as many as 100,000 Aboriginal children were separated from their families, during the period spanning from 1910 to 1969. Many were never re-united with their families suffering life-long trauma (see: Kinchela family member condemns the brutality inflicted on Aboriginal boys removed from their parents).

Kinchela boys in vegetable garden outside manager's house in the early to mid-1950s. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

The Kinchela boys home was located on the site of an Aboriginal reserve used for crops, a dairy herd, horses, chickens and pigs. The boys worked long hours on the farm, housed in large tin shed dormitories. Education was minimal. Some children were told their parents no longer wanted them, others that their parents had died.

In the Guardian interviews, the Aboriginal survivors describe the shocking conditions in the boys home as like living in a concentration camp, a hell hole with continuous and harsh punishments meted out.

When children arrived at the home their clothes and shoes were incinerated, their bodies covered with flea powder and all their hair shaved off. Shoes were only worn if government authorities visited. Each child was given a number to dehumanise and destroy their individual identity. If a child used a given name instead of the mandated number, they were punished. The practice was so deeply ingrained, that survivors still recall each others numbers to this day.

Uncle Bobby Young explained: We had animals in there and they had priority over us. They all had names. One horse we used to call Sue and they had three German shepherd dogs. One was called Prince and if you didnt call him by the name, they would cane you. It was a concentration camp

Punishments happened daily, were violent and inflicted for the most minor issue. Many of the staff were ex-military and implemented some of its most sadistic practices.

In 1937, complaints of cruelty and abuse were filed against the manager, A.J. McQuiggin, who was accused of sadistic behaviour, whipping boys with hosepipes and a stock whip, and withholding food. He was reprimanded and transferred to another mission, where his cruelty led to a walk-out by Aboriginal residents.

The survivors are still haunted by the shocking punishments. One involved being chained to a tree at the rear of the property overnight, sometimes for longer periods. The penalty was imposed for the most minor transgressions, such as bedwetting.

Uncle Roger Jarrett recounted the experience. There was a fig tree with a six-foot chain. If a boy did something trivial, they would cut the sleeves and neck out of an old sugar bag, make him wear it, soak it in water, and then be taken out to the tree, where they would chain you up, padlock the restraints, and leave you exposed. Throughout the night, a bucket of water would be tossed over the child, even during the coldest winter nights. Traces of the chains can still be seen on the tree.

Aboriginal boys lined up outside the manager's home in 1958. [Photo by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation]

Other punishments included the degrading and cruel practice known as being sent down the line. This aimed to desensitise the children by forcing them to inflict pain on others, even upon their own siblings.

Survivors vividly remember, being arranged in line, often with 30 or more on each side. The boy singled out for punishment was then sent down the line and punched by everyone. If the punches were deemed insufficiently forceful, a staff member struck with a cane to administer further punishment. The punishment for not striking hard enough was to be sent down the line as well.

One survivor explained, they made us hate each other and hate ourselves. When I left the home, I was in such a state. What they taught us, these ex-army people, was how to hurt a person. We thought it was a natural thing to do because an adult taught us.

In 1995, Kinchela survivors raised their concerns as part of a submission to the Bringing Them Home inquiry, the first national investigation into the Stolen Generations. The Kinchela submission recommended that an area at the home be investigated because of strong suspicions that some children may have met foul play.

Survivors wondered about the sudden disappearance of children. Had they been adopted out, thrown into the river or buried somewhere? All knew that male staff had sexually abused many boys, raising the horrific possibility that boys had died at the hands of the abusers. No-one dared ask out of fear. No investigation was carried out.

Reunion of surviving former members of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home in 2002. [Photo by Sarah Barker/Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation Portrait Project

In 2008, after Prime Minister Kevin Rudds cynical apology to the Stolen Generations, the son of a Kinchela survivor reported that his father had been traumatised for life after being forced to bury other boys who had been bashed to death by drunken supervisors. Again, nothing was done.

It was not until 2016 that the NSW government agreed to work with survivor organisations to locate the remains of any Aboriginal children. A further six years elapsed before a ground-penetrating radar survey took place. Its report to the state government earlier this year highlighted high priority anomalies in the ground showing signal patterns that in other contexts has to be human burials.

In 2022, the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation released a two-part video retelling the history of the home titled, We Were Just Little Boys.

The video powerfully explains the terrifying moment when the boys were taken from their families, the crimes perpetrated at Kinchela and the ongoing trauma once they were released. Some boys unsuccessfully attempted to rejoin their families, others turned to alcohol and drank themselves to an early death, others ended up in prison. In many cases, their trauma impacted their families, contributing to family violence, self-harm, and suicides.

In response to the report, the NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has agreed to further investigations and evacuation of the Kinchela site. Linda Burney, the federal Labor governments Indigenous Affairs minister endorsed the call for an investigation, declaring that the claims of secret burials were deeply disturbing.

Such comments from state and federal Labor politicians are utterly hollow and contemptible. Why is Burney suddenly deeply disturbed when the information in the Bringing Them Home report was available 28 years ago. Why has no government acted on the survivors requests or implemented other recommendations from that inquiry?

The very belated expressions of concern take place amid the federal Labor governments campaign of a Yes vote in the October 14 referendum to insert a Voice, an indigenous advisory body to government and parliament, in the constitution.

The Voice is being presented as the means for redressing past crimes as well as the appalling conditions that continue to face most Aboriginal people. In reality, the federal Labor government is using the campaign for the Voice as a means of putting a progressive face on its regressive program of war and austerity.

Those who are justifiably shocked by the revelations about the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys training home and are considering voting Yes should recall the long history of similarly disingenuous exercises that have done nothing to improve the lot of indigenous peopleone of the most oppressed layers of the working class.

Over many decades there have been multiple government inquests, Royal Commissions, public apologies, promises and lists of recommendations to supposedly address the crimes against the Aboriginal population. Yet the conditions facing most Aboriginal workers and youthalong with the working class as a wholehave only worsened as governments, including the current Labor government, have imposed their austerity agenda.

The only beneficiaries have been a privileged Aboriginal elite of businesspeople, academics, media personalities and self-appointed representatives who are promoting the Voice as a means of further advancing their privileges and wealth.

The official opposition to the Voicethe No campaignled by the federal Liberal-National Coalition offers no progressive alternative and is as responsible as the Labor Party for the continuing oppression of Aboriginal people.

That is why the Socialist Equity Party is campaigning for an active boycott of the Voice referendum. It is the only vehicle for workers, indigenous or non-indigenous, to take an independent stand and build a unified movement to abolish the capitalist system which is responsible for the crimes against the indigenous population.

The horrific treatment of children at Kinchela is not an aberration. The Guardian has published similar stories from Western Australia where it is thought hundreds of Aboriginal children may be secretly buried in unmarked graves at former religious and government institutions.

Nor are the crimes against indigenous populations as capitalism expanded globally limited to Australia. Similar policies were implemented in Canada where it is estimated that as many as one in three children in the first half of the 20th century were captives of the government enforced church-run residential system. Indigenous children suffered severe neglect and abuse and thousands died from disease.

We call on workers and youth to join our campaign for an active boycott and the fight for a socialist future as the only means for addressing these crimes and providing decent conditions for the working class as a whole.

Note: Under conditions of compulsory voting, which makes it a crime to urge a boycott of the vote itself, the SEP calls on workers and youth to register their opposition by casting informal ballots and join our active boycott campaign in the lead-up to October 14, that goes well beyond the individual act of voting.

Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.
In this Thursday April 16, 2020 file photo, The Amazon logo is seen in Douai, northern France. [AP Photo/Michel Spingler]

Workers at Amazons ONT8 fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, California, will soon vote on whether to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). A union election has been scheduled for the facility, but the date has not been made public. The ONT8 fulfillment center employs about 2,300 workers.

The ONT8 facility is in the Inland Empire, a large region in southern California that is of great importance to Amazons business. Situated east of Los Angeles, the region encompasses parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. It provides Amazon with access to major highways and rail lines and is near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are among the biggest in the United States. Nearly one third of all cargo coming into the country passes through these ports. These factors would give an organized movement of Amazon workers in the region significant leverage in a fight against the company.

The area is also an important center of the opposition of Amazon workers worldwide. At Amazons KSBD air hub nearby, workers have been carrying out a series of walkouts and pickets outside the facility to demand an increase in pay to $25 per hour.

But regardless of the election result at ONT8, Amazon workers will still have to organize their independent strength through structures which they genuinely control. They will not find in the leadership of the upstart Amazon Labor Union a means through which they will be able to organize a struggle. Ontario Amazon workers must organize rank-and-file committees to seize the initiative, link up with workers at Amazon and other logistics companies around the world and develop an independent strategy to win their demands.

Around the world, the trade unions are controlled by unaccountable bureaucracies which sell out the workers they claim to represent in order to develop corrupt ties with management and the two big business parties. The bureaucracy is terrified of the prospect of a movement from below, which would threaten to upend their privileges and six-figure salaries drawn from workers dues money, and direct all of their efforts towards preventing this.

The leadership of the upstart ALU, while not yet controlling the billions of dollars of the more established unions, is oriented towards the bureaucracy and the pro-corporate Democratic Party, not to rank-and-file workers, and has integrated itself with them as their junior partners. After the ALUs victory in a unionization vote at Amazons JFK8 facility in Staten Island, New York in April of 2022, the ALU leaders leveraged the publicity which the victory produced into rubbing elbows with anti-worker politicians like President Biden, who went to Congress last year to ban a rail strike, and corrupt union officials such as Teamsters General President Sean OBrien, who bought Biden the time he needed to ban the rail strike.

Earlier this year, the Teamsters then blocked a strike at UPS and rammed through a sellout contract which did not meet any of workers demands. ALU accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and office space from bureaucrats who hoped to use their support for the supposedly militant ALU as a smokescreen for their own betrayals.

This has produced a disaster for rank-and-file workers who voted for ALU to organize a fight against the brutal, low-wage employer. At JFK8, ALU still does not have a contract and Amazon refuses to negotiate with it. Wages, benefits and working conditions have not improved, and the JFK8 workers are no closer to achieving their first contract than they were before the election. The ALU officials and staffers are totally distant from workers at the facility, who now view the ALU with deep skepticism and contempt. It has not even held a leadership election, leaving workers without even a minimal, formal way of influencing the work of the organization.

Subsequent campaigns at other facilities have ended in disaster. The upcoming election will not be the first that was attempted at ONT8. In October 2022, workers gathered 800 signatures at the fulfillment center and filed a petition for a union election. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) confirmed that the signatures indicated sufficient interest to hold an election. But less than two weeks later, the petition was withdrawn without explanation. Chris Smalls, president of the ALU, minimized the importance of this retreat and said that the petition would be refiled in a few weeks.

The withdrawal of the petition was the latest in a series of setbacks for the ALU. It occurred mere days after workers at the ALB1 warehouse in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York, voted by a two-to-one margin against joining the union. The defeat at ALB1 followed another defeat at the LDJ5 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, located across the street from JFK8. To date, the only facility where the ALU has won an election is the JFK8 warehouse.

The ALU blames these defeats on the opposition of Amazon, but the reality is that the ALU was completely unwilling to raise any demands among workers and did not even establish significant contact with workers in these facilities. Instead, the elections were driven entirely by support from Democrats and high ranking union officials.

A mass membership meeting that the ALU held on August 19 at JFK8 drew more union bureaucrats and Democratic officials than Amazon workers, even though it was held across the street from the facility during a shift change. Speakers included Democratic politicians such as New York State Senator Jessica Ramos and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner. Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, also addressed the small gathering. Gates is hated among Chicago teachers for forcing teachers and students back to school during surges of the pandemic in 2021 and 2022.

Workers at the ONT8 hub and facilities around the world want to organize a fight against Amazon, which has become synonymous with low wage, high tech exploitation. There is enormous potential, given that Amazon employs 1.5 million people around the globe and occupies a central role in world supply chains, to build a powerful movement attracting the support of workers around the world. But to do this, Amazon workers must take the initiative into their own hands.

Amazon workers real allies are workers around the world who are beginning to fight back against the corrupt union apparatus through building rank-and-file committees. This includes workers at UPS, where a rank-and-file committee is fighting against a new contract with starting wages imposed by the Teamsters union which are little better than at Amazon, in the auto industry, where the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Network is fighting against the United Auto Workers sabotage of a national auto strike by limiting it to a handful of facilities, the Postal Workers Committee, which is fighting against the Amazon-style restructuring of the US Postal Service, and many others around the world. These committees are united in a single organization, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, which provides the forum for collaboration and joint action based on a common strategy.

These are the examples that workers at ONT8 and every other Amazon facility must follow. Waging a serious fight against the trillion-dollar company will require workers to establish their independence from the trade unions and the capitalist parties. Rank-and-file committees will enable workers to share information, formulate demands, develop the strategy for their fight and strengthen their position by reaching out to other workers for support.
Aided by the corporate media, Canadas political establishment is trying to claim that parliaments honouring last Friday of the 98-year-old Nazi Waffen SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka was the result of an unfortunate gaffea gaffe for which the House of Commons Speaker, Anthony Rota, is exclusively responsible.

The World Socialist Web Site has already exposed this false narrative at length.

Here we are republishing an article that first appeared on the WSWS on July 29, 2019. It discusses how and why Ottawa threw open its doors to Hunka and some 2,000 Ukrainian SS veterans. As the article explains, this was part of a broader policy of providing a safe haven to the Nazis Ukrainian fascist allies, so as to use them to advance Canadian imperialisms interests at home and abroad.

Working in concert with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), which had been founded at the governments behest at the beginning of World War II, Ottawa used the Ukrainian fascists to combat left-wing influence among Canadas large Ukrainian worker-farmer population and the labour movement more generally. The government also worked with the UCC to foment a rabidly anticommunist, virulently anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism in collaboration with the CIA and British intelligence.

In recent decades, as Canadas government under Liberals and Conservatives alike has worked with Washington and its NATO partners to harness Ukraine to NATO and the European Union, Ottawas alliance with the UCC and the Ukrainian far right has become an ever more important element of Canadian foreign policy.

A more extensive examination of the alliance between Canadian imperialism and the Ukrainian far right can be found in the May 2022 WSWS series Canadian imperialisms fascist friends, including its fourth part: How Ottawa provided the Ukrainian fascists refuge and incubated and promoted far-right Ukrainian nationalism.

* * *

Earlier this month, Canada hosted the third Ukraine Reform Conference, a gathering of diplomats and officials from over 100 countries aimed at bringing Kiev even more directly under the geopolitical and economic domination of the Western imperialist powers.

After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the conference sidelines, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to stand with Ukraine against Russian interference and aggression and to support it in the struggle to end Russias illegal annexation of Crimea.

Trudeaus portrayal of Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine and Eastern Europe turns reality on its head. It conceals the fact that Canada played a major supporting role in the US-orchestrated, fascist-spearheaded February 2014 coup that chased Ukraines elected president from power and brought a far-right, pro-Western regime to power in Kiev; and that the 2014 coup was the continuation of a longstanding US-led, Canadian-backed drive to expand NATO to Russias borders and harness Ukraine to the West.

Moreover, Canadian imperialism has been playing a leading role in the subsequent US-NATO war drive against Russia. This includes supporting Washingtons withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia; taking command and providing the bulk of the troops for one of NATOs four new forward deployed battalions in Poland and the three Baltic states; and deploying 200 Canadian Armed Forces personnel to Ukraine since 2015 to help prepare its army and National Guard to, in Trudeaus words, liberate Ukrainian territory.

But Canadas intimate alliance with far-right Ukrainian nationalists did not begin in 2014 or even in December 1991, when Canada became the first Western country to recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state. In the decades following World War II, Canada became a haven for far-right Ukrainian nationalists, many of whom had collaborated with the Nazis both in their drive to find lebensraum (living space) through the conquest of the Soviet Union and their genocidal final solution to the Jewish problem.

Under conditions of the postwar US-led military-strategic offensive against the Soviet Unionwhat euphemistically came to be known as the Cold Warthese ultra-reactionary political forces came to be seen as useful allies due to their virulent anticommunism and hostility to anything and anyone associated with the Soviet Union.

In the immediate postwar period, Canadas then Liberal government, working in close cahoots with US and British intelligence, opened Canadas doors to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. These included members of the infamous 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS, also known as the Galicia Division.

Yaroslav Hunka (front center) among Nazi Waffen-SS Galicia Division troops. [Photo: Ivan Katchanovski/Twitter or X]

Among the beneficiaries of this policy was Mikhail Chomiak, the grandfather of current Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. During the war, Chomiak served as editor of a pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist newspaper, Krakivski Visti, which used publishing equipment commandeered by the Nazis from a Jewish newspaper they had shut down. Chomiak emigrated to northern Alberta after fleeing to Vienna in late 1944 in the face of the advancing Red Army (See: Canadian media denounces exposure of foreign ministers grandfather as Nazi collaborator).

A recruitment poster for the Waffen SS Galacia division. It includes an image of Krakivski Visti, which campaigned for its creation. Freeland's maternal grandfather was Krakivski Visti's business manager.

The scale of the influx of Nazi collaborators only became public knowledge in the 1980s. A comprehensive study carried out by Alti Rodal on behalf of the federal government-appointed Deschenes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada uncovered records proving that US intelligence agents in Europe had funneled Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe through the Canadian immigration system using false papers. Rodal revealed that large numbers of identically typed applications were received by Canadas immigration department from one address in West Germany. On closer inspection, this address turned out to be a US military base.

The Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney established the Deschenes Commission in 1985, in response to a mounting public outcry over exposures of Nazis and Nazi accomplices who had found a safe haven in Canada and tasked the inquiry with identifying Nazi war criminals residing in the country.

Around the same time, the Simon Wiesenthal Center estimated that upwards of 2,000 Nazis and Nazi collaborators emigrated to Canada in the years after the war. A quarter-century later, in 2011, it would give Canada an F minus in its annual report ranking countries on their efforts to prosecute war criminals. This placed Canada on a par with Ukraine and the former Baltic republics, i.e., countries where the right-wing, nationalist regimes that have emerged since the Stalinist bureaucracys dissolution of the Soviet Union openly venerate the ultranationalists who aligned with the Nazis when they invaded the USSR.

War criminals in Canada

A significant number of those who made their way to Canada were members of the Nazi SSs Galicia Division, which was made up of Ukrainian nationalist volunteers who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht against the Red Army during the Nazis war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. This preplanned onslaughtlaunched in June 1941 when a 3 million-strong force comprised of German troops, their Axis allies and fascist volunteers invaded the Soviet Unionled to the deaths of 27 million Soviet citizens and the Holocaust.

In waging war, suppressing the population, and pursuing the annihilation of the Jews, across Eastern Europe and above all in the USSR, Hitlers Wehrmacht and SS shock troops relied on the loyal collaboration of ultraright-wing, anti-Semitic forces. Among the Ukrainian nationalists, in both occupied Poland and the USSR, the Nazis found eager collaborators. The Galicia Division was formed in 1943 out of volunteers recruited from the fascist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), both of whose factionsthe OUN (Melnyk) and the OUN (Bandera)had welcomed the launching of Hitlers war on the Soviet Union, actively participated in the mass extermination of Jews (the Holocaust) and continued to fight with the Nazis against the Red Army into 1945.

Massacres perpetrated by the division against Polish and Jewish civilians have been well documented, including at Huta Pieniacka, Podkamien and Palikrowy. At Podkamien, 100 Polish civilians were massacred in a hilltop monastery, and at least a further 500 in surrounding villages as the Red Army approached the German-occupied area in March 1944.

Members of the Galicia Division were initially prohibited from entering Canada due to their membership in the SS. But in 1950, Britain made an appeal to the Commonwealth for volunteers to accept a total of 9,000 division members who were at that time residing in the UK after being disarmed by British troops at the wars end.

When Canadas External Affairs Department, prompted by complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), raised concerns about the divisions ties to the Nazis and role in Nazi atrocities, the British government insisted that it had carried out background checks. While in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and neither then nor subsequently has any evidence been brought to light which would suggest that any of them fought against the Western Allies or engaged in crimes against humanity, claimed the British Foreign Office. Their behaviour since they came to this country, added London, has been good, and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with any trace of Nazi ideology.

With this letter serving as political cover, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and his cabinet declared that Galicia Division members would be permitted to immigrate to Canada unless it could be proved that they had personally committed atrocities against civilian populations based on race, religion or national origins. Simply having been a Galicia Division member would not be considered a valid reason to prevent entry, even though the postwar Nuremburg Trials had foundgiven the organizations leading role in the Holocaust, other atrocities and the bloody repression of civiliansall Waffen-SS members to have been complicit in war crimes.

The immigration of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals continued for more than a decade after the war and was a significant factor in Canadas emergence during the Cold War as a political-ideological centre of far-right Ukrainian nationalism.

Speaking to a CBS 60 Minutes programme in 1997, Canadian historian Irving Abella, who is currently Professor for Canadian Jewish history at York University, bluntly summed up the political climate of the time. One way of getting into postwar Canada, he said was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist.

Ottawa carried out this policy in close collaboration with US authorities, who similarly permitted ex-Nazis to settle in the US and recruited hundreds to act as spies against the Soviet Union and the Soviet-allied regimes in Eastern Europe. According to investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau, up to 1,000 former Nazis were made use of by the CIA in Europe, within the US itself, the Middle East and in Latin America.

The open door policy towards Nazi collaborators stood in stark contrast to the cold shoulder given by Canada to Jews desperately fleeing persecution. Abella coauthored a well-known book, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, which was published in 1983 just prior to the establishment of the Deschenes Commission. Abella and Harold Troper detailed how Canada accepted a mere 5,000 Jewish refugees between 1936 and 1945. Most infamously, Canada was among the countries to refuse to provide asylum to the 900 Jewish refugees on the ship the MS St Louis, which sailed from Hamburg for the Americas in April 1939. Canadas refusal to accept any of the refugees forced the St. Louis to return to Europe, where over 200 of its passengers later died in the Holocaust.

Exoneration of the Galicia Division

Due to the continued high-level protection members of the Galicia Division enjoyed from the government and other establishment circles, the Deschenes commission granted the Brotherhood of Veterans of the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Galicia Division) special intervener status in its hearings. This meant it was able to cross-examine testimony from witnesses, as well as make use of the standard right to submit legal documents and provide its own testimony.

The Nazi War Criminals commission also refused Soviet offers to gather testimony in the USSR, on the purported grounds that Moscow had refused to allow Canadian officials to interrogate witnesses in accordance with Canadian rules of evidence.

Outrageously, the Deschenes commission exonerated the Galicia Division of any wrongdoing in its December 1986 final report. Its most important findings in this connection read: The Galicia Division (14 Waffengrenadierdivision der SS [gal. Nr. 1]) should not be indicted as a group, and Charges of war crimes against members of the Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission.

The commission also summarily dismissed the charge that hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals had immigrated to Canada, declaring these figures to be grossly exaggerated.

Another Ukrainian nationalist outfit given special representation rights before the Deschenes commission was the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC), which has since renamed itself the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. In 1950, the UCC had successfully campaigned for the lifting of the ban on Galicia Division veterans entering the country.

The UCC continues to uphold the legacy of the Galicia Division. On Remembrance Day in 2010, the organisation saluted Ukrainian veterans of the Waffen SS as fighters for freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland. The press release came from Paul Grod, the current head of the UCC. Grod has accompanied both Trudeau and his predecessor, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on their trips to the Ukraine.

The case of Vladimir Katriuk

Nobody should believe that the Canadian ruling elites defence of pro-Nazi war criminals is a thing of the past.

In 2015, Vladimir Katriuk, a Ukrainian and member of the SS during World War II, died in Quebec at the age of 93. His personal fate exemplifies how the Canadian state actively connived to ensure Nazi war criminals escaped justice.

Katriuk, who came to Canada under a false name in 1951, was accused of war crimes, the most documented of which was his participation in the Khatyn massacre, carried out in what is now Belarus in early 1943. In the last years of Katriuks life, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre placed his name near the top of its list of the 10 most-wanted war criminals.

Katriuks case first came to prominence in 1999, when a federal court ruled that he had gained Canadian citizenship on false pretenses, because he had neglected to inform Canadian immigration officials about his Nazi past. After a lengthy period of deliberation, the Conservative government decided in 2007 that it would not revoke Katriuks citizenship and claimed there was insufficient evidence for him to be charged with war crimes.

Katriuk, who later joined the SS, was identified by multiple sources as being a machine gunner at the Khatyn massacre, which occurred on 22 March 1943. A total of 149 villagers were either burnt alive or shot by members of Battalion 118, a volunteer auxiliary police battalion of which Katriuk was a member, with the support of a Waffen SS unit. Evidence of his participation in other lesser known crimes has also been documented, as mentioned in a 2012 article by Swedish academic Per Anders Rudling.

Even in the last weeks of his life, when a Russian extradition request was submitted for the Ukrainian-born Katriuk, a spokeswoman for the Conservative government justified Canadas refusal to allow Katriuks extradition to face trial on the basis of the political situation in Russia and its alleged aggression against Ukraine. While I cannot comment on any specific extradition request, to be clear, we will never accept or recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea or the illegal occupation of any sovereign Ukrainian territory, a spokeswoman for then Justice Minister Peter McKay declared.

Nothing has changed under Justin Trudeaus Liberals. Anxious to cover up the ultraright-wing character of the forces Ottawa and Washington have allied with in their drive to harness Ukraine to Western imperialism and these forces ties to the Ukrainian nationalist collaborators with the Nazis, Foreign Minister Freeland has denounced the revelations of her grandfathers ties to the Nazis as Russian-orchestrated disinformation.

When Trudeau visited Ukraine in 2016, he was accompanied by a strong UCC delegation and members of the Army SOS group, set up to procure military equipment for the pro-Kiev volunteer militias, which are drawn overwhelmingly from far-right, fascistic groups.
This weekend, former shipping executive and Goldman Sachs trader Stefanos Kasselakis was elected leader of Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece, replacing Alexis Tsipras.

Kasselakis won nearly 57 percent of the vote of 133,600 party membersa turnout of more than 70 percent. He had no known links with Syriza before 2023 and lived in the United States until a few months ago, where, besides running shipping businesses and working for Goldman Sachs, he volunteered for Joe Bidens 2008 presidential primary campaign and worked at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Stefanos Kasselakis, newly elected leader of main opposition party Syriza, speaks to supporters outside the party's headquarters in Athens, Greece, September 25, 2023. [AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis]

In a glossy campaign light on any concrete policy, three comments stand out.

Firstly, in an opinion piece published in July, that his sudden participation in Greek politics was a brief interlude between two chapters in my business career.

Secondly, that he is better placed to defeat Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis because of his better English and finance and business knowledge.

Thirdly, that Syriza should just copy the US formula as soon as possible by building a big-tent Democrats-style party.

Among those congratulating the new leader was Greeces right-wing New Democracy (ND) government, with spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis cheering a serious and credible opposition, with Syriza taking a more realistic path.

Former ND member of parliament Evangelos Antonaros, who ran for Syriza in this years May elections at Tsiprass request, commented, We support Kasselakis because he wants to move the party towards the centre, the ground that Syriza lost in the last election.

Kasselakiss election is another damning exposure of those who endorsed Syrizas left posturing when running for its first term in office in the 2014-15 election. It is a confirmation of the World Socialist Web Sites characterisation of Syriza as a pseudo-left party, representing layers of the affluent middle class, and serving the interests of finance capital and the imperialist powers.

Syriza was elected in 2015 on the back of its promises to fight the austerity demands of the Troikathe European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. In a referendum organised by the party later that year, 60 percent of voters rejected the devastating restructuring of the Greek economy and public sector demanded by the European banks and governments.

Syriza trashed these mandates, going on to enforce unprecedented austerity in Greece for the next four years, in coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks, while fiercely repressing working-class opposition. At the same time, military spending was increased in real terms.

The social consequences were horrific, plunging workers into desperate hardship which set the tone for a wave of spending cuts and wage suppression across Europe. When Kasselakis states, I honour Alexis Tsipras, I am here to keep his legacy alive, this is a threat directed against the working class.

As someone affiliated to the CSISone of American imperialisms leading think tanks, with origins in the Cold Warhe will also solidify Syrizas commitment to NATO and the war against Russia in Ukraine.

Greece remained a member of the NATO military alliance throughout Syrizas term in office, facilitating its operations in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and playing a key role in the accession of North Macedonia. In 2018, the year before the party left office, Greek military spending was 2.4 percent, in second place per capita among NATO membersbehind the United States. While in opposition last year, Syriza voted in favour of accepting Finland and Swedens applications to join the alliance.

With the war in Ukraine intensifying, Kasselakis has been parachuted into Greek politics, with the active intervention of Washington, to ensure this policy is deepened and a pro-NATO front maintained across Greeces largest partiesagainst widespread hostility to the alliance in the population.

He takes control of a thoroughly discredited organisation. Syriza has been shedding support since it first came to power. In 2019, it was replaced in government by New Democracy. Its time in opposition did nothing to reverse its fortunes. Between January 2015 and the most recent elections in June 2023, Syrizas share of the vote halved to less than 18 percent.

Party leader Tsipras resigned after the June rout, beginning the elections for a new leader that have crowned Kasselakis. With the popular support garnered eight years ago now evaporated, the partys political essence is coming to the surface. From a party serving bankers, Syriza has turned into a party directly led by a banker.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), basing itself on a Marxist analysis of class forces, warned ahead of its election of the reactionary role which Syriza would play in office. An article published on the WSWS on January 24, 2015, immediately ahead of the elections which brought the party to power, explained:

After five years of brutal austerity measures dictated by the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country is at rock bottom economically and socially. The traditional parties are so hated that Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, has a major chance of winning the election and taking over the government. But for working people, a Syriza government would not represent a way out of the crisis; on the contrary, it would represent an enormous danger. Despite its left-wing facade, Syriza is a bourgeois party that rests on affluent layers of the middle class. Its policies are determined by union bureaucrats, academics, professionals and parliamentary functionaries who seek to defend their privileges by preserving the social order. While its leader, Alexis Tsipras, promises the voters a (very small) lessening of the terrible austerity in Greece, he never tires of promising the representatives of the banks and governments abroad that they have nothing to fear from a Syriza government.

This is the social milieu which backed Kasselakis and whose leading representative for the past decade, Tsipras, is heading off to enjoy, from the point of view of Greek and European capitalism, a well-deserved retirement. He will join his former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who leads a very comfortable life, with a declared income of roughly 200,000 a year, on the idyllic island of Aeginawhile formally leading the MeRA25 party (a Syriza Mark Two).

The ICFIs analysis was published in defiance of a campaign waged by the pseudo-left internationally to drum up support for Syriza and excuse its betrayals. Indicting these organisations, a November 15, 2015, statement summarising the events in Greece explained:

Syriza relied on the services of an entire layer of political tendencies that built up illusions that it would resist the dictates of Greek and international finance capital. This broad swath of pseudo-left parties stands exposed as reactionary tools of finance capital.

Kasselakiss election formalises this relationship and underscores the ICFIs conclusion advanced at the start:
Abrams battle tanks stand on rail cars in Lithuania, near the Russian border, in 2019. [AP Photo]

M1 Abrams tanks from the United States have arrived in Ukraine, the Pentagon confirmed Monday, in the latest escalation of US involvement in the war against Russia.

The United States promised to send nearly three dozen Abrams tanks to Ukraine in January. At the time, delivery of the weapons was not expected until next year, but the Pentagon announced in March that the plan would be accelerated.

It is the first tranche of Abrams that has arrived, said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.

Singh confirmed a statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Monday that The Abrams is already in Ukraine and is preparing to strengthen our brigades.

Each M1 Abrams tank costs $15 million. Despite the deployment of hundreds of Western tanks and armored vehicles, Ukraines spring offensive has failed to achieve any significant breakthroughs. Dozens of these advanced vehicles sent by NATO have been destroyed over the summer. In the face of this disaster, the United States is removing the last remaining limits on its involvement in the conflict.

Last week, US media outlets confirmed that US President Joe Biden told Zelensky that the United States will provide the ATACMS long-range missile to Ukraine, capable of striking hundreds of miles behind the Russian front.

The announcement of the Abrams tanks took place at approximately the same time that the US, Germany, France and the UK announced that they would send other tanks and fighting vehicles, such as the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and the Leopard 2 main battle tank.

Unlike these vehicles, however, the Abrams is powered by a jet turbine and operates on jet fuel, requiring a dedicated supply chain and technicians and experts knowledgeable in how to service its extremely complicated propulsion system.

The deployment of these vehicles raises questions about how they will be maintained and serviced. The US Army, the only branch of the US armed forces that fields the Abrams, relies on a global team of civilian contractors to maintain them. In January, four-star General Barry McCaffrey, appearing on MSNBC, declared, Of course the Ukrainians, with civilian contractor support, can maintain these Abrams.

At the time, the World Socialist Web Site asked, Who are these civilian contractors if they are not Ukrainians?

In an ominous development, just days before the arrival of US Abrams tanks in Ukraine, RIA Novosty, the state-owned Russian news source, carried a report alleging that reconnaissance officers from the Russian Armed Forces had destroyed a Leopard tank supplied to Ukraine with an all-German crew consisting of German Armed Forces.

In response, the German Ministry of Defense gave a blanket denial to Deutsche Welle, declaring, There are no German tank crews in Ukraine.

The deployment of Abrams tanks to Ukraine comes amid growing demands in the American media for the direct deployment of American boots on the ground in Ukraine.

On Friday, Foreign Affairs published an article entitled, Why America Should Send Military Advisers to Ukraine.

The article, among whose authors is an active-duty American lieutenant colonel, argues, Washington should, therefore, lift the strict restrictions on the number of US government personnel allowed in Ukraine and begin stationing military advisers within the country and across its defense apparatus.

It continues, US advisers could, of course, still come under attack: no one in Ukraine is truly safe from Russia.

In July, the Pentagon approved hazard pay for American troops serving in Ukraine. Last November, US Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged the fact that Pentagon troops are already deployed inside Ukraine.

Even as the United States continues to surge military assets into Ukraine to support its flagging ground offensive, Ukraine is increasingly using NATO-provided weapons to strike at Russias naval facilities in Crimea.

On September 13, the missiles were used to destroy a Russian amphibious landing ship and a submarine that were in dry dock at the port of Sevastopol. Just over a week later, on Friday, Ukraine launched a massive strike on the headquarters of the Russian Navy in Crimea.

Ukrainian officials claimed that 35 high-ranking officers were killed during the latest strike, including Viktor Sokolov, commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet. While Russian officials have disputed that Sokolov was killed, the strike clearly constituted a major attack on a leadership center of the Russian armed forces, using NATO weapons and coordinated with US logistical support.

In response to these events, the UK Ministry of Defense issued a statement gloating about the use of weapons it provided in direct strikes on military targets inside Russian-claimed territories.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) has suffered a series of major attacks in recent weeks, culminating in strikes on its headquarters on 20 and 22 September 2023, the Ministry of Defense said. These attacks have been more damaging and more coordinated than thus far in the war.

It continued, The physical damage to the BSF is almost certainly severe, adding, It also likely has a degraded ability to defend its assets in port.

The Ministry of Defense concluded, Dynamic, deep strike battle is underway in the Black Sea. This is likely forcing Russia into a reactive posture while demonstrating that Ukraines military can undermine the Kremlins symbolic and strategic power projection from its warm water port in occupied Sevastopol.

These statements mirror an article in The Economist entitled War has arrived in Crimea, which declares, Ukraine has significantly degraded Russias naval power ratio, an operational measure it uses to take account of drones, radar, shore-based artillery and so forth, as well as warships. Though it is still a long way from parity. At the start of the war its navy put that ratio at 12:1. Today it stands at 4:1.

The exceptional focus of Ukraine and the NATO powers on Russian naval assets in the Black Sea cannot be understood simply within the stated aims of Ukraines current offensive. Rather, these developments raise the prospect that the United States and NATO may intervene directly into the conflict, including an attempted naval blockade or direct attack on Crimea itself.

Russian military doctrine allows the use of nuclear weapons to defend territory claimed by Russia, including Crimea.
On Friday, international rock music artist Roger Waters reported via a video on social media that he had been banned from participating on campus in a Palestinian literature and cultural festival at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) scheduled for later that day.

In the video, which was recorded while he was traveling in a car from Philadelphia International Airport to the Irvine Arena at UPenn, Waters explained he was supposed to be taking part in a panel in a couple of hours time this afternoon. But Ive been told that Im not allowed into the Irvine Arena because they had made arrangements for me to attend the panel by Zoom.

Roger Waters in May 2023 [Photo: Roger Waters]

The founding member of the iconic progressive rock band Pink Floyd said he was not going to be allowed into the event even though he came all the way here to be present, because I care deeply about the issues being discussed. Waters said he was traveling to the UPenn campus for a quick look around and would then return to the airport where he would try and be part of the panel.

The panel which Waters would then participate remotely in was entitled, The Cost, Reward and Urgency of Friendship, and included former editor-at-large of The Guardian, Gary Younge, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Vietnamese American professor and novelist from the University of Southern California.

The panel discussion was described in the conference schedule as being about what it means to live ethically as writers, scholars, or creatives in the midst of empire. This panel of non-Palestinian distinguished personalities, all of whom have publicly expressed solidarity with Palestinian liberation, will talk about what that friendship has meant in their professional and personal lives.

Roger Waters, 80, has been a consistent and outspoken opponent of attacks on the basic democratic rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories of Israel. Through his music, live concert performances and interviews, Waters has exposed the Israeli regimes violence and apartheid repression directed at Palestinians as a violation of fundamental human rights.

While Waters efforts have won considerable public support, defenders of the Israeli government have responded by launching a slander campaign against the rock musician, falsely accusing him of antisemitism. This has consisted mostly of identifying all opposition to Zionism and the brutal treatment of Palestinians with hatred for Jews.

At one point during Roger Waters This Is Not a Drill concert tour in Germany, the US State Department weighed in with its own well-worn variety of imperialist lying by condemning him for a long track record of using antisemitic tropes and backing the claims that his show contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people  This was referring to his performance of the song In the Flesh from the 1980 theatrical Pink Floyd album The Wall.

The campaign to get Roger Waters banned from the UPenn event, and thereby also undermine the entire Palestine Writes conference, was begun weeks ago when various news outlets began denouncing the organizers and the university for hosting it in the first place.

A particularly disgusting example of this kind of reporting was published on September 15 by the Jewish Chronicle based in London with the headline, Outrage over antisemitic Pennsylvania University event with Roger Waters on eve of Yom Kippur.

The author Orlando Radice is unable to point to any widespread outrage over the Palestine Writes festival and quotes instead comments from Twitter activist Noa Tishby, who also happens to be Israels former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism.

Tishby smears the festival, saying it has been hijacked by a bunch of racists, and a significant portion of the speakers [have]  a clear obsession against the Jewish state. She then adds, This festival has Roger Waters as a speaker for crying out loud. What does Roger Waters have to do with Palestinian literature? This entire event is an antisemitic dog whistle.

Tishby, of course, is incapable of producing any evidence to back up her lies, because none exist.

The UPenn administration issued a perfunctory statement saying it unequivocallyand emphaticallycondemn[s] antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values, adding that we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.

This statement did not stop the university from enforcing the ban on Waters direct participation in the panel for which he was advertised as being present for.

According to a report in the Philadelphia City Life, a representative of UPenn claimed that the university did not ban Waters from appearing on campus. Ron Ozio told City Life that organizers of the Palestine Writes event told the school time and time again that Waters would be participating remotely.

Ozio then claimed that the organizers suddenly changed their minds 48 hours before the start of the event. He said this would have required significant changes to event coordination along with additional campus safety and security resources that were unavailable on such short notice. However, festival organizer Susan Abulhawa disputed Ozios account, saying she had informed UPenn of the change to in-person closer to 72 hours in advance and that she even raised more money to cover the costs of added security.

During his nine-minute video, Waters defends himself against the accusation of antisemitismas he has done dozens of timesspeaking in the third person that he knows Roger Waters is not an antisemite, I know hes not. Shall I tell you how I know? I am Roger Waters, and this is my heart, and it doesnt have even the slightest flicker of antisemitism in it anywhere. What it does have in it is a great love for my brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality. So that includes all the people who live in Israel: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and atheists.

Waters also makes an important point about the campaign against him, which was also featured on the front page of the UPenn student newspaper on Friday calling it a campus-wide controversy. Waters says it is clear that all this we wont let him come into Irvine Plaza because we care deeply about antisemitism is a diversionary tactic to make it the big news story.

He points out, They want to play down the fact that there is a literary festival happening over the next two days, and it is about Palestinian literature, and Palestinian culture, and Palestinian people and Palestinian human rights. And if they can get you thinking and talking about antisemitism, then you wont be thinking about the fact that Palestinians have no human rights in the occupied territories. And that is what should be center and foremost in everybodys consciousness and mind.
Mega chicken processors Tyson Foods and Perdue are under investigation for child-labor law violations in their Parksley, Virginia plants after a report in the New York Times Magazine last week revealed that migrant children were working the midnight shift cleaning and sanitizing the chicken processing equipment. The investigation is the most recent revelation of the exploitation of migrant children and trampling of child-labor laws by major, multinational corporations in the United States.

The allegations of child-labor law violations against Tyson and Perdue are only the most recent levied against meat processing companies this year in the United States. As the World Socialist Web Site reported last February, JBS Foods, Tyson, and Cargill were among companies staffed by Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) based in southwestern Wisconsin is one of a number of staffing agencies funneling underage children into the darkest recesses of the food production supply chain.

Four Photos of the rendering basement at Tyson Foods in Joslin, Illinois, July, 2022 [Photo by Tyson workers]

While PSSI was fined $1.5 million for employing 102 children at 13 US meatpacking plants where they cleaned the facility on the overnight shift, the companies that profited from the childrens labor were not investigated.

According to OSHA, workers who clean slaughterhouses and meat packing plants face hazards that include floors that are slippery with blood, and other animal waste, powerful machinery used for cutting through flesh and bone, and caustic chemicals and high pressure hoses used to clean and sanitize the equipment and floors.

Workers suffer musculoskeletal injuries, chemical burns and are exposed to biological agents such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Poultry workers face increased risk of lung cancer, thought to be the result of inhaled chemicals and viruses.

The Department of Labor has extended its investigation to the contractors hired by Perdue and Tyson in Virginia to clean the plants. Fayette Industrial, which works with Perdue, and QSI, which works with Tyson, say they were not aware of the federal investigations. Both companies stated they have policies against child labor.

The exploitation of child labor in meat processing plants is widely known by government agencies. Unlike the Department of Labor which cannot monitor all of the workplaces under its jurisdiction, the Department of Agriculture has inspectors in meat plants every day. The New York Times reported that it was common knowledge among food safety inspectors that there are children working in meat processing plants, but they felt it was not their responsibility to report child-labor law violations.

According to the Times expose, Tyson and Perdue, which together process a third of the chicken consumed in the US, succumbed to the allure of migrant child labor because turnover in their processing plants was so high; up to 50-percent annually. These children, who often have crossed into the United States alone, are desperate for work in order to pay their debt to migrant smugglers, pay room and board to their sponsors, and to send money home to sustain their families in Central America. Often only 13 or 14 years old, they are able to obtain documents stating that they are of working age, which hiring contractors for the corporations conveniently do not scrutinize.

In recent years, masses of migrant children have been sent to the United States to earn money to send home to their families in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, which continue to suffer the devastating economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008 allows unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) to cross into the United States while they undergo screening by the Department of Homeland Security rather than risk the dangerous border towns where adult migrants must wait. This cutout in immigration law has allowed the number of unaccompanied minors crossing into the United States to explode.

In 2019, the number of unaccompanied migrant children apprehended at the border reached a record 79,000. In 2021, the first year of the pandemic, apprehensions reached 112,192. Since 2021, 300,000 UACs have entered the United States.

As reported by the World Socialist Web Site in May, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is charged with the supervision of unaccompanied migrant children once they are screened and released to their sponsors, is overwhelmed by the number of UACs in recent years.

Early in the Biden administration, as shelters overflowed and children were housed in jail-like settings, HHS began to expedite the release of UACs to their sponsors. Admittedly, the agency loses track of over 40 percent of migrant children soon after their initial check-in with their sponsors.

While the families of unaccompanied minors arrange for parents, relatives or, less frequently, family friends in the United States to sponsor their children, according to the New York Times, 90 percent of the UACs in Parksley, Virginia are sponsored by adults who are not a parent.

Last spring, a number of Republican controlled state legislatures rolled back restrictions on child labor in response to the tight labor market, which has made it difficult for businesses to fill low wage jobs. Children as young as 14 and 15 can now do the menial work in restaurants and on construction sites in several states.

It is no surprise then that government agencies have turned a blind eye to the plight of immigrant children working some of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote last April in regard to the resurgence of child labor in the United States:

A basic litmus test for whether a society is moving forward or backward is its treatment of the most vulnerable, including the youth. What emerges in the US, therefore, is a picture of a country moving rapidly in reverse, driven by a deep and intractable economic, political and social crisis.

Only the intervention of the working class mobilized on the basis of a socialist program can stem the descent into barbarism and forge a new social order based on ensuring the needs and well being of all mankind.
Amid massive protests in Niger against French imperialism, French President Macron announced the withdrawal of the French ambassador to Niamey on Sunday. The withdrawal of French troops from Niger is to occur by the end of the year. After leaving Mali and then Burkina Faso, the French military is now slated to leave a third country in the Sahel.

French soldiers disembark from a U.S. Air Force C130 cargo plane at Niamey, Niger base, on June 9, 2021. [AP Photo]

After a decade of devastating counterterrorism military operations in the Sahel since it launched a war in Mali, France now has only 1,000 troops stationed in the region. They are concentrated in Chad, on Nigers eastern border.

After coming to power via a coup on July 26, the Nigerien junta led by General Abdurahmane Tiani canceled security cooperation agreements between Paris and Niamey. It also ordered the withdrawal of French troops from Niger by the end of August.

Macron initially refused to evacuate French troops or to recognize the Nigerien junta. He accused them of ruling Niger illegally. At the same time, France encouraged ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries to prepare military action against Niger. Nigers military regime accused France of deploying troops and military equipment for a war of aggression against it in alliance with the ECOWAS countries of Nigeria, Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

French imperialisms war plans in Africa are now inseparably bound up with the escalating NATO war with Russia in Ukraine. Niger has signed a military self-defense alliance with Mali and Burkina Faso, which has sought out ties with the Russian military. This creates conditions for the war in Ukraine to rapidly escalate to a war involving large swathes of West Africa.

On Sunday, as he announced the withdrawal of French troops, Macron nonetheless hailed the French war in Mali, praising the success of the Barkhane military operation  Without it, most of these countries would have already been taken by territorial caliphates and jihadists.

Macrons attempt to justify Frances wars in the Sahel as an anti-terrorist struggle is a cynical fraud. France and NATO countries waged a war of aggression against Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, arming jihadists linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network as their principal proxy forces in Libya. The fighting then spread across the Sahara into Mali, which provided a pretext for Frances military intervention in Mali.

Last year, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop sent a letter to the UN Security Council accusing France of aiding the jihadists. Diop alleged that Malis airspace has been breached more than 50 times this year, mostly by French forces using drones, military helicopters, and fighter jets. These flagrant violations of Malian airspace were used by France to collect information for terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and to drop arms and ammunition to them.

Macron tried to rewrite history, alleging that the African military juntas, not French imperialism, were to blame for the fighting across the Sahel. He said, We are not here to be hostages of the putschists. ... The putschists are the friends of disorder.

Due to growing social anger and mass protests against French troop deployments in the Sahel and West Africa, however, Macron has been forced to agree to the putschists demands that he withdraw his troops. It marks a setback for French imperialisms strategy of plundering resources from its former colonial empire in Africa.

The junta in Niger has banned all French aircraft from flying over its airspace since Saturday evening. It announced that the airspace would be open to all national and international commercial flights except those chartered by France, including French Airlines and Air France.

Macron made clear, however, that French imperialism is leaving Niger only as part of a plan to buy time and reestablish its political domination over the region. He stressed that France will continue to work with West African governments. This shows that even with the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, France is not ready to give up its economic and strategic positions in the geographical heart of West Africa.

The French withdrawal from Niger has also highlighted growing tensions between Paris and Washington in the region. While France was pressuring ECOWAS to intervene militarily to restore Nigerien President Mohamed Bassum, who was ousted by the currently ruling military junta, Washington made efforts to pacify the ECOWAS countries.

RFI reported: At the UN, the Americans try in vain to change the position of ECOWAS countries on Niger. In New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the United States tried to convince the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to soften their position on respect for the putschists in Niger. It was this Friday morning during a meeting organized by American Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But clearly, the maneuver was not successful.

RFI added that Blinken hosted several West African leaders, such as Nigerias Bola Tinubu and Senegals Macky Sall.

As French troops withdraw from Niger, the US will review all actions regarding its military presence, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austen announced Monday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. While giving diplomacy a chance, we will also continue to consider any future measures that will prioritize both our diplomatic and security objectives, he told journalists at a news conference in Nairobi.

While worker and youth struggles against imperialism mount across West Africa, the Nigerien junta does not oppose imperialism or the NATO alliance. It is ready to work with US imperialism, which is now waging a devastating war against Russia in Ukraine, while taking measures to expel French troopsfor now, at least. The dubious maneuvers of the Nigerian junta with Washington expose its anti-imperialist fraud.

Two weeks ago, the junta authorized US forces to operate from Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger. Currently, 1,100 US troops are stationed in Niger and the US has resumed drone and warplane operations from this airbase against the jihadists. Also, the US has stationed troops near Nigers strategic uranium mines.

Relations between France and the United States have undoubtedly been strained by the coup in Niger. As such, Nigers ruling circles and the Nigerien military seek to maximize the political advantages they can gain by pitting the great powers against each other.

Ultimately, however, even the withdrawal of French troops from Niger cannot ultimately free the workers and youth in Niger and the Sahel from the grip of imperialism. Exploiting their control of global financial flows and military power, the imperialist countries will use the most ruthless policies to return French and NATO troops to the region. Already, France is working closely with the ECOWAS governments to strangle Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso with economic sanctions.

The critical question is to unify the African workers and youth across the artificial national borders established by European imperialism, in a common struggle against imperialism and war with their class brothers and sisters in Europe and across the world.
FILE - A workers cleans solar panels that provide partial electrical power to Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. The urgency for Southeast Asian nations to switch to clean energy to combat climate change is reinvigorating a 20-year-old plan for the region to share power. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)

Hanoi, VIETNAM (AP)  The urgency for Southeast Asian nations to switch to clean energy to combat climate change is reinvigorating a 20-year-old plan for the region to share power.

Malaysia and Indonesia inked a deal in Bali, Indonesia last month to study 18 potential locations where cross-border transmission lines can be set up.

Those links could eventually generate power roughly equivalent to what 33 nuclear power plants would produce in a year. They are economically and technically feasible, and now are supported by regional governments, said Beni Suryadi a power expert at the ASEAN Centre for Energy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN is a political and economic gathering of 10 countries across a vast region, from tiny Brunei and Singapore to military-controlled Myanmar and fast-rising economic power Vietnam.

Experts describe imports by Singapore of hydroelectric-generated power from Laos via transmissions through Thailand and Malaysia as a pathfinder project, marking the first time that four countries in the region have agreed to trade electricity.

Cross-border power purchases accounted for just 2.7% of the region's capacity in 2017, according to the Global Interconnection Journal. But those were between two countries, such as Thailand and Laos. Now, more countries are looking at power sharing as a way to wean their economies off coal and other fossil fuels. Vietnam would like a regional grid so it could sell clean energy, such as from offshore wind, to its neighbors while the Malaysian province of Sarawak is looking to sell its hydropower to neighboring Indonesia.

The plan for a regional grid between the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was conceived two decades ago, but progress has been stalled by various problems including technical barriers and political mistrust.

The region now recognizes it must move faster. Climate change could reduce the regions economic potential by more than a third by the middle of the century, according to a report presented at the 2021 U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Demand for electricity is rising, and governments have realized the transition away from fossil fuels requires an interconnected grid, Suryad said.

Story continues

It has become a crucial need for every country, he said.

In the past, countries in the region were focused more on energy security, relying heavily on fossil fuels and often building more capacity than they needed. But renewable energy costs are falling, making hydroelectric, solar and wind power more affordable. And all ASEAN countries apart from the Philippines have pledged to stop adding carbon to the atmosphere by 2050.

So, arguments in favor of an interconnected grid appear to be prevailing.

Tiny, landlocked Laos, with a population of only 7 million, has built more than 50 dams in the past 15 years, relying on its status as the battery of Southeast Asia to profit from sales of power to Thailand, Vietnam, and China.

It still has surplus power it needs to sell to others in the region.

Singapore  a small city-state of 6 million with nearly no natural resources  must import clean energy to meet its renewable energy goals.

Regional grids can help bridge gaps between where power is needed and where it can be generated, helping countries adjust to outside shocks like big jumps in oil prices. They also can help cut costs: In 2021, for instance, Europe saved $36 billion by trading power, European regulators have estimated.

Interconnected grids can also deliver reliable electricity to communities in remote regions like West Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. A life punctuated by rolling blackouts that forced shops to shutter and people to use diesel generators was the norm until a 170-kilometer (105-mile) long cross-border power line coming from neighboring Malaysias Sarawak province changed that in 2016.

This is a no-brainer way to do it ... because its been done elsewhere and the benefits are obvious, said Rena Kuwahata, an energy analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

But issues remain.

One of ASEAN's core policies is non-interference, which means members tend to shy away from joint projects. Domestic energy priorities are sometimes at odds with the potential benefits of an interconnected grid. Nadhilah Shani, another expert at the ASEAN Center for Energy said that this creates a dilemma for countries: they could sell clean energy to neighbors for the region to wean itself off fossil fuels, or they could use those resources towards meeting their own climate targets.

Malaysia gets only 1% of its electricity annually from clean sources. It banned the export of renewables in 2021 to try and develop a domestic clean energy industry. That ban was lifted this year but an Indonesian ban on clean energy exports imposed last year remains in effect.

The region's lack of a regulatory framework for such things as installing submarine power cables is another stumbling block.

Not all the technical problems have been ironed out. Voltages used by each country can vary, as do the capacities of their grids. Even countries whose grids span borders, like Thailand, need to upgrade them, Harald Link, owner of B.Grimm Power and president of Thailands Association of Private Power Producers, said in an interview.

Projections of where power will be needed must be factored in, for example, plans for power-hungry data centers.

You need a huge amount of electricity and they want it green. And where do you get it from? For some countries, it is more difficult to make it green, Link said.

Costs are high: at a minimum some $280 billion in power sector investments are required, according to the ASEAN Center for Energy.

China's involvement in building much of the region's energy infrastructure via its Belt and Road Initiative could also be a concern. In 2021, Laos, under pressure from its mounting debts, granted a 25-year concession to operate its power grid to a majority Chinese-owned company.

But despite intermittent tensions between China and some of its neighbors over territorial disputes and other issues, generally Beijing and ASEAN are working on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, said Nadhilah Shani, another expert at the ASEAN Center for Energy.

Given how expensive it is to build power grids, the private financing needed to build it can influence how and where projects are built, said Shani. Still, she said, national priorities play a bigger role than Chinese investments in how electricity is transmitted.

We are in good place in ASEAN to have this kind of collaboration in terms of trading and we have reached a common understanding, she said.

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Milko reported from Nusa Dua, Indonesia. Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Thailand, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receive support from several private foundations. See more about APs climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A sample of the asteroid 101955 Bennu was returned to Earth on Sunday by NASAs Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. It marks the latest in a series of ambitious sample return missions conducted by a number of countries, which have as their goal to collect material from asteroids and other bodies in our Solar System and return them to Earth for careful study.

The sample return capsule from NASAs OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. [Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber]

OSIRIS-REx was launched on September 8, 2016, five years after the project was selected by NASA to be the agencys third mission of its New Frontiers program, beating out a sample return mission to the far side of the moon and a Venus lander. It spent two years cruising to Bennu, including two weeks in February 2017 during which the team used the spacecrafts MapCam instrument to search for near-Earth asteroids.

While no new asteroids were found, the techniques developed were used to avoid potential hazards when OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu in December 2018. Throughout the month, the spacecraft was used for a detailed survey of Bennu, which has a diameter of only half a kilometer. The spacecraft then descended from an orbit of 19 kilometers to an orbit of 1 kilometer, beating the previous record set by the Rosetta spacecraft, which orbited comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 7 kilometers.

A year later, NASA announced it had selected its primary and backup landing sites from which to retrieve a sample of the asteroid. Then in April and August of 2020, amid the first and second wave of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, OSIRIS-REx was used in two rehearsal landings, which took the spacecraft to 65 meters and 40 meters, respectively, above the surface of the asteroid.

The rehearsals were critical. At the time, Bennu was more than 320 million kilometers from Earth, more than the average distance between Earth and Mars, and two-way communication between OSIRIS-REx and its operators took more than 35 minutes. Given that gap, the entire landing and sample retrieval had to be pre-programmed and executed without direct human intervention. The rehearsals paid off and OSIRIS-REx collected an estimated 250 grams (about 8.8 ounces) of the asteroid as it tagged Bennus surface for five seconds before springing off, using essentially a highly sophisticated pogo stick.

That material is now safely back on Earth and remains ensconced in a capsule containing only nitrogen, to prevent contamination with material from Earth. The samples will ultimately be curated by NASAs Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science directorate (ARES) and at Japans Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center.

Moreover, the spacecrafts mission is ongoing. Rather than wastefully end its life in a crash landing into Earth or other body, OSIRIS-REx is now on a trajectory to rendezvous the asteroid 99942 Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid that will make a close pass to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will spend 18 months orbiting the asteroid and is slated to use its thrusters to kick up material from Apophis surface to study what lies beneath.

Bennu was selected as the target of OSIRIS-REx because it has undergone almost no geological evolution since the formation of the Solar System. It is made up primarily of compounds containing carbon, one of the key elements of organic life, and thought to have existed before the formation of Earth. It is possible that complex carbon-based molecules were collected, including amino acids, which are the building blocks of all known life.

Asteroids and comets are carefully studied largely for these reasons. Unlike Earth, the other planets and even several moons, asteroids are largely unchanged over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. Comets are similarly preserved when they are not close enough to the Sun to have their tails. Each is a definite piece in the puzzle of the Solar Systems formation and provides further insight into how the entire complex of star, planets and lesser bodies, and its living inhabitants, developed.

One of the many other reasons that spacecraft are sent to study asteroids is to compare the in situ data to that collected from the Earth. While there are numerous observations of asteroids from telescopes, the distance and atmosphere makes the light reflected far more difficult to interpret. By studying Bennu up close, measurements from OSIRIS-REx can be compared with those from ground-based telescopes and used to better understand similar observations of other asteroids.

Data from OSIRIS-REx was also used to study the Yarkovsky effect, which is a force that acts on small asteroids as a result of uneven thermal emissions from the body. While the effect is very small, it has a definite impact on the orbit of bodies around Bennus size. This is especially important for asteroids that cross Earths orbit; the gravitational influence of other bodies on these relatively small objects is well known, but the influence of forces like the Yarkovsky effect is far less so. Understanding this mechanism helps track objects that might be on a collision course with Earth and, if need be, deflect them.

There have been several other sample return missions. The most famous are of course the manned Apollo landings, which brought back several hundred kilograms of rocks and lunar regolith (the Moons soil). Those samples have been intensely studied since they were first brought back in the late 1960s. A renewed effort was launched in 2019 when lunar samples from that era that had been sealed away were opened for study, allowing the more advanced scientific instruments of the modern era to undertake investigations that technology from 50 years ago simply couldnt.

The first robotic sample return mission was in 1970 when the Soviet mission Luna 16 returned 101 grams of lunar soil. The achievement was followed up in 1974 by Luna 20, which returned 55 grams, and in 1976 by Luna 24, which returned 170 grams. While they returned far less lunar material than the Apollo program, the Luna missions paved the way for further robotic sample return missions.

Despite their scientific value, there were no sample return missions in the 1980s. Only one was conducted in the 1990s, when the Soviet-launched Mir space station used an aerogel to capture interplanetary dust in low Earth orbit. In 2004, the Genesis spacecraft returned particles from the solar wind and in 2006, the Stardust spacecraft returned dust samples from the tails of the comet 81P/Wild.

The modern sample return missions began when the Hayabusa probe from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) brought back a small number of particles from asteroid 25143 Itokawa, despite the failure of the sampling device. Hayabusa was followed by Hayabusa2, which deployed two small rovers on the surface of asteroid 162173 Ryugu and returned a sample of Ryugu to Earth in December 2020. Both missions were the first successful sample returns from an asteroid.

Several future sample return missions are planned. JAXA is slated to launch its MMX mission to Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, in 2024 and return a sample from Phobos that will reach Earth in 2029. China has sample return missions planned for the Moon, Mars and the asteroid Ceres throughout the 2020s and 2030s. Russia has a new Luna-Glob mission which will bring back new samples from the Moon in 2027. And NASA and the European Space Agency are planning on retrieving the samples collected by the Perseverance Mars rover in the late 2020s.

In a rational world, these missions would be universally celebrated. Under capitalism, however, they are seen by the ruling elite as further instances of geopolitical rivalry. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson focused on the fact that the mission was the first American asteroid sample return in history, as if space exploration does not build on itself in an inherently international process.

Nor was any mention made of the paltry sums spent on the project, about $1 billion so far, compared to the nearly $1,000 billion squandered at the Department of Defense every year, including $30 billion to the Space Force. One can only imagine what will be achieved and discovered when such vast sums are spent for exploration instead of destruction, a future well worth fighting for.
Sign up for text message updates on the auto contract fight by texting AUTO to (866) 847-1086. Join the next online meeting of the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network to discuss uniting workers in the US and Canada for an all-out strike across the auto industry. Register here to attend.

The revelation that the Unifor bureaucracy violated its own constitution by declaring its sellout contract with Ford Canada ratified despite the opposition of skilled trades workers is a further glaring demonstration that the entire five-day ratification process was fraudulent. It underscores that autoworkers must urgently seize control of their contract struggle from the union apparatus.

The bureaucracy has committed a flagrant attack on the democratic rights of all 18,000 Unifor members at the Detroit Big Three, as well as the almost 300,000 other Unifor members in fields as diverse as manufacturing, retail and transportation.

Sundays sham ratification of a three-year agreement containing real-terms wage freezes, buyouts to secure the retirement of the highest paid workers and the perpetuation of the hated multitier wage system must be repudiated.

The legal and political case for a revote is irrefutable. Unifor has violated the will of the membership every step of the way, and appears to have perpetrated multiple violations of its own rules:

Lana Payne and the bureaucracy trampled on workers right to strike by arbitrarily extending the previous contract by 24 hours when it expired at 11:59 p.m. on September 18.

They announced a historic agreement on September 19 but kept its contents entirely hidden from the rank and file for over three days.

The details of the agreement were presented at a single Zoom meeting controlled by the bureaucracy, after which workers had less than 24 hours to vote online.

Many workers were excluded from the vote due to email issues.

Numerous irregularities were reported by workers in the ratification process, including former workers and retirees being eligible to vote.

Workers allege that mass emails were sent on the order of Unifor officials to temporary part-time workers late Saturday urging them to register to vote and dangling the bribe of a $4,000 bonus from Ford if the contract was ratified, although the eligible voters list had previously been closed.

Unifor refused to publish the vote totals after announcing the contracts ratification. Only after outrage erupted on social media, did it acknowledge that just 54 percent had voted in favour.

The union bureaucracy is still refusing to provide details about how many workers participated, how skilled trades voted and the vote breakdown by plant.

A skilled trades worker from the Oakville Assembly Plant subsequently reported to the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter that John Breslin, Unifors skilled trades national director, told an in-person meeting of skilled trades workers Monday that they had rejected the contract. Sundays ratification therefore amounts to a violation of Unifors constitution, which stipulates that collective agreements must be passed by skilled trades before they can be ratified.

The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter urges all Unifor members at Ford Canada operations to repudiate the sham contract, which by rights should be declared null and void. Emergency meetings of Local 707 and Local 200 should be called in Oakville and Windsor to pass resolutions demanding the removal of the bargaining committee for organizing this anti-democratic farce, the publication of the results in full to reveal Unifors skullduggery in its entirety and the holding of a revote under the supervision of trusted rank-and-file workers.

Such a revote should take place under the control of rank-and-file workers, but only after all workers have had at least a week to review and discuss the contract in full.

All of Unifors 310,000 members should support these demands, which are crucial for the defence of the democratic rights of all workers. US autoworkers confront a similar conspiracy by the UAW bureaucracy, which pulled a similar move in 2015, when it declared a contract with GM ratified despite the opposition of skilled trades. They should support their Canadian colleagues.

The struggle against the Unifor bureaucracys criminality must not be confined to a legal dispute. Breaking the pattern that Lana Payne and the Unifor leadership set at Ford Canada by means of fraud and antidemocratic scheming depends upon the mobilization of autoworkers across the Big Threes operations in Canada and the United States in a North America-wide strike. To fight for this strategy, workers must build rank-and-file committees at every plant to take the conduct of the contract struggle into their own hands and place power where it belongs, on the shop floor.

A key task of these committees will be holding Unifor bureaucrats to account. Documenting and publicly exposing Unifors dirty tricks will be decisive in preventing similar treacherous betrayals during the upcoming negotiations at GM and Stellantis. The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter encourages all workers with evidence of irregularities during the ratification to share them anonymously.

The Unifor bureaucracys treachery is the product of its nationalist and pro-corporate agenda. The union leadership is integrated with the auto bosses and government ministers through various tripartite corporatist bodies that have planned the transition to electric vehicle production at the expense of autoworkers. This could include the loss of up to 40 percent of all auto jobs. Ramming through such a pro-corporate agenda is possible only through the violation of workers democratic rights.

Unifor and its Canadian Auto Workers predecessor, together with their colleagues in the UAW bureaucracy south of the border, have proven themselves over the past four decades to be experts in the destruction of jobs, slashing of wages and gutting of workers rights. Their promotion of Canadian and American nationalism has divided autoworkers along national lines, pitting them against each other in a race to the bottom in the face of the automakers global onslaught to slash labour costs and boost corporate profits.

To reject the nationalism and corporatism underpinning the Unifor bureaucracys shredding of workers democratic rights, autoworkers must unify their struggles across North America. The fight to revoke the sham contract at Ford Canada and hold the bureaucracy to account necessitates the construction of independent committees as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC). The IWA-RFC fights to unite Canadian, American and Mexican autoworkers in struggle against the auto bosses and their union accomplices, and for decent-paying secure jobs for all.
The crypto industry is making a big push in Washington to lobby lawmakers to pass new rules to regulate the currency.

The movement, which organizers are calling "Stand with Crypto," has been led by the crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and more than 50 founders of crypto companies. They took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to warn lawmakers that without new industry-friendly regulation, they would lose jobs overseas.

This is going to be kind of like our 5G or semiconductor moment where in five years, we'll be thinking, how do we get this back onshore if we don't do something now, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told Yahoo Finance Live in an exclusive interview.

"We don't have clear rules on the books like 83% of the rest of the G-20 countries for how crypto should be regulated, consumers should be protected, and how this innovation can happen here in the US," he said.

One option that Coinbase and others have pushed for is legislation that passed the House Financial Services Committee this summer on a bipartisan basis. That legislation seeks to create clarity around gaps between the rules of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while also outlining what criteria would cause a crypto token to be classified as a commodity or as a security.

Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Coinbase, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 2, 2022 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

It also tries to direct what firms need to do to register with the SEC and requires the SEC to write new rules that are customized to govern crypto. That legislation is expected to pass through the House this fall, though lawmakers have been grappling with other priorities of late  namely, a looming government shutdown, as well as the must-pass Farm Bill and National Defense Authorization Act.

In any case, analysts dont expect the crypto legislation to go anywhere in the Senate.

We do not see a path forward for this through the end of 2024. Democrats object to giving the CFTC authority over so much of the crypto universe as it has no experience with retail investor protections, said TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg. "By contrast, crypto wants to diminish the role of the SEC and boost the power of the CFTC.

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But Armstrong says he thinks there's a reasonable set of places where new rules could land and that lawmakers tell him they are all attuned at a high level to the risks of not doing so. He hopes the House bill will converge with legislative efforts by Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who have put forth sprawling, comprehensive legislation to regulate the crypto industry in the upper chamber.

I'm OK with any of them, Armstrong told Yahoo Finance. I just want there to be clear rules because in the absence of that the SEC has just been on this path of regulation by enforcement or harassment, if you will, where every startup in the space gets a subpoena or a Wells notice and that's not sustainable, he added.

Armstrong warned if Congress doesnt pass legislation, then the legal system will be forced to decide.

Right now, the SEC has  won zero of the last three court rulings. So the courts are repudiating the approach that they're taking, Armstrong said. Eventually, if this ends up in the Supreme Court, that's not going to be good for many of what these lawmakers want.

Heads of smaller crypto firms were also part of the broader push on Capitol Hill, as they attempted to show lawmakers that the industry can help boost the economy.

It's really important that everybody understands that blockchain technology is used across multiple different industries  from supply chain, financial services, to retail, communications, and security, said Nina Blankenship, co-CEO of Crypto Tutors LLC, a Black- and minority-women-owned business based in Orlando, Fla., that offers Web3 and blockchain education.

'Fraud, manipulation, and scams'

While Armstrong and crypto small business heads were on Capitol Hill, SEC Chair Gary Gensler testified Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, reiterating his view that the crypto industry is rife with fraud, manipulation, and scams.

The American public is still getting hurt by the noncompliance in this field, Gensler said. Unfortunately ... we brought numerous cases in this field to try to protect the American public and be a cop on the beat with regard to so many of these schemes.

But Coinbase and much of the crypto industry feel the SEC's approach to regulating crypto has become hostile.

Everybody deserves equal treatment under the law, and the SEC cannot continue to punish crypto even if they wish that it was something else, he said.
Exploring the Dividend History, Yield, and Growth of ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP)

ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) recently announced a dividend of $0.6 per share, payable on 2023-10-16, with the ex-dividend date set for 2023-09-27. As investors look forward to this upcoming payment, the spotlight also shines on the company's dividend history, yield, and growth rates. Using the data from GuruFocus, let's deep dive into ConocoPhillips's dividend performance and assess its sustainability.

What Does ConocoPhillips Do?

ConocoPhillips is a U.S.-based independent exploration and production firm. In 2022, it produced 1.2 million barrels per day of oil and natural gas liquids and 3.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas, primarily from Alaska and the Lower 48 in the United States and Norway in Europe and several countries in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Proven reserves at year-end 2022 were 6.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

ConocoPhillips (COP): A Deep Dive into Its Dividend Performance and Sustainability

A Glimpse at ConocoPhillips's Dividend History

ConocoPhillips has maintained a consistent dividend payment record since 1986. Dividends are currently distributed on a quarterly basis. Below is a chart showing annual Dividends Per Share for tracking historical trends.

ConocoPhillips (COP): A Deep Dive into Its Dividend Performance and Sustainability

Breaking Down ConocoPhillips's Dividend Yield and Growth

As of today, ConocoPhillips currently has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.86% and a 12-month forward dividend yield of 2.00%. This suggests an expectation of increased dividend payments over the next 12 months.

Over the past three years, ConocoPhillips's annual dividend growth rate was 39.10%. Extended to a five-year horizon, this rate decreased to 25.30% per year. And over the past decade, ConocoPhillips's annual dividends per share growth rate stands at -2.50%.

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Based on ConocoPhillips's dividend yield and five-year growth rate, the 5-year yield on cost of ConocoPhillips stock as of today is approximately 5.74%.

ConocoPhillips (COP): A Deep Dive into Its Dividend Performance and Sustainability

The Sustainability Question: Payout Ratio and Profitability

To assess the sustainability of the dividend, one needs to evaluate the company's payout ratio. The dividend payout ratio provides insights into the portion of earnings the company distributes as dividends. A lower ratio suggests that the company retains a significant part of its earnings, thereby ensuring the availability of funds for future growth and unexpected downturns. As of 2023-06-30, ConocoPhillips's dividend payout ratio is 0.37.

ConocoPhillips's profitability rank, offers an understanding of the company's earnings prowess relative to its peers. GuruFocus ranks ConocoPhillips's profitability 7 out of 10 as of 2023-06-30, suggesting good profitability prospects. The company has reported net profit in 6 years out of past 10 years.

Growth Metrics: The Future Outlook

To ensure the sustainability of dividends, a company must have robust growth metrics. ConocoPhillips's growth rank of 7 out of 10 suggests that the company's growth trajectory is good relative to its competitors.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any company, and ConocoPhillips's revenue per share, combined with the 3-year revenue growth rate, indicates a strong revenue model. ConocoPhillips's revenue has increased by approximately 28.40% per year on average, a rate that outperforms approximately 82.13% of global competitors.

The company's 3-year EPS growth rate showcases its capability to grow its earnings, a critical component for sustaining dividends in the long run. During the past three years, ConocoPhillips's earnings increased by approximately 31.60% per year on average, a rate that outperforms approximately 60.92% of global competitors.

Next Steps

Given ConocoPhillips's consistent dividend payments, impressive growth rate, sustainable payout ratio, and strong profitability and growth metrics, it presents an attractive proposition for dividend-focused investors. However, like any investment, it is crucial to conduct thorough research and consider the company's overall financial health before making a decision. With a strong track record and promising prospects, ConocoPhillips offers a compelling case for consideration.

GuruFocus Premium users can screen for high-dividend yield stocks using the High Dividend Yield Screener.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


El Paso County officials hope the cargo truck bottlenecks plaguing the important El Paso-Juarez cross-border trade corridor will keep the Tornillo port of entry in rural, far East El Paso County in the limelight.

The 7-year-old port, built with millions of dollars of county and federal funds, has gone from a hardly-used bridge for commercial trucks to a busy one in a matter of days, with about 300 northbound trucks crossing daily since late last week.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials last week temporarily closed the Bridge of Americas port in South-Central El Paso to cargo trucks so customs agents can process the recent influx of immigrants. Its daily traffic of about 500 northbound trucks shifted to the El Paso area's three other ports, including Tornillo.

That allowed the county to "showcase what can happen at this incredible (Tornillo) bridge," County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said at a Tuesday news conference at the port.

Trucks wait in line for Texas Department of Public Safety inspections Sept. 26 outside the Tornillo port of entry in far East El Paso County.

He and other county officials touted what he called the most technologically advanced port in this area. It could bring the county millions of dollars in tolls annually if the flow of trucks remains.

However, the Texas Department of Public Safety is spoiling the county's heyday.

Texas DPS inspections stall crossings

The DPS recently began enhanced safety inspections of every truck crossing the Tornillo port, bringing its truck traffic to a standstill at times. One truck driver in a long truck line Tuesday afternoon told the El Paso Times that he'd been waiting hours for his truck to be inspected by the DPS outside the Tornillo port.

The DPS checks come after trucks have already passed through the CBP's high-tech inspections at the port.

County Commissioner David Stout said DPS officers were sitting in their vehicles early Tuesday afternoon just outside the Tornillo port, with a long line of trucks behind them, "doing absolutely nothing except for ruining our opportunity."

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After almost three hours of little movement, the El Paso Times observed DPS agents finally conducting inspections on a handful of trucks outside the Tornillo port just before 2 p.m., Tuesday.

A Texas Department of Public Safety officer motions for trucks to stop for safety inspections Sept. 26 outside the Tornillo port of entry in far East El Paso County.

The DPS also recently renewed enhanced truck inspections at the El Paso Lower Valley's Ysleta-Zaragoza port, which has seen northbound truck crossings decline from about 2,500 trucks per day to about 600 trucks per day since the DPS inspections began, CBP data show.

At the same time, northbound truck crossings at the tiny Santa Teresa, New Mexico port, near El Paso's west city limits, have skyrocketed from 700 trucks daily to about 1,250 trucks daily.

More: Taiwan company supplying Tesla finalizes plan for Santa Teresa factory with 350 workers

Samaniego said he knows of no immigrants or drugs being found in truck trailers inspected by the DPS.

"It's a political, very aggressive move against what we are trying to accomplish," Samaniego said of the DPS inspections.

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego touts the merits of the Tornillo port of entry at a Sept. 26 news conference at the international crossing in far East El Paso County.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is hurting the Texas economy by allowing the DPS inspections to slow cross-border trade, Samaniego said.

Juarez factories halt production because of shipping woes

He pointed to the recent temporary production shutdowns at three Juarez factories as further signs that the truck bottlenecks are hurting this area's economy.

Canada-based BRP Inc., manufacturer of recreational land and water vehicles, suspended production Monday and Tuesday at its three Juarez factories because of a significant reduction in the number of recreational vehicles it can export daily from the plants, according to a company statement.

The two-day production suspension was designed "to allow our exports to stabilize and relieve the capacity of our shipyards," the statement reads. "We will continue to monitor the situation."

BRP's three factories employ about 9,000 people, who continued to be paid during the suspension, a spokesperson said in an email.

A Texas Department of Public Safety officer inspects a truck Sept. 26 outside the Tornillo port of entry in far East El Paso County.

Jose Guzman, regional director for Aries Worldwide Logistics, said the company's warehouse near the El Paso airport and its newest one in Santa Teresa are full because of the truck crossing problems. That makes the company money, "but sooner or later we won't be able to bring in more trailers" with products from Juarez factories and raw materials to be shipped to the Mexico factories, he said.

"It's a nightmare right now," Guzman said Monday afternoon. "I receive calls every day from maquilas (Juarez factories), and they are struggling a lot."

Aries, which coordinates truck shipping for Juarez plants, began sending some trucks to Tornillo, but it's not been a good option because it's a long way to Juarez factories and its El Paso and Santa Teresa warehouses, he said. The long distance has kept companies from using the port, county officials said.

El Paso County to get traffic study, Tornillo plan

Trucks have to travel in Mexico from Juarez to the Tornillo port on a road that's not in good condition, but Mexican officials are looking at building a new one, County Commissioner Iliana Holguin said. Mexico recently opened the Samalayuca toll road connecting the Tornillo port to northern Chihuahua state.

CBP reopened the Tornillo port in early August to commercial traffic after the Mexican toll road was completed. It suspended truck inspections at the port in 2017 because of little traffic.

The county has commissioned a transportation study in hopes of proving the Tornillo port is cost competitive with other ports, a county official said. It also plans to have a master plan done next year of the mostly agricultural area around the port to try to draw development and make the port more attractive for truck shipping, Holguin said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso County touts Tornillo port of entry amid border traffic snarls
Key companies covered in craft beer market are D.G. Yuengling& Son, Inc. (Pennsylvania, U.S.), Heineken N.V.(Amsterdam, Netherlands), The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (Massachusetts, U.S.), Constellation Brands, Inc. (New York, U.S.), Anheuser-Busch InBev (Leuven, Belgium), New Belgium Brewing Co. (Colorado, U.S.), Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (California, U.S.), DuvelMoortgat NV (Puurs, Belgium), Bell's Brewery, Inc. (Michigan, U.S.), Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Inc. (Delaware, U.S.) and more players profiled.

Craft Beer Market

Craft Beer Market Size

Pune,India, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global craft beer market size is projected to reach USD 210.78 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.83% during the forecast period. The evolving consumer lifestyle and growing consumer preferences towards CBD are likely to fuel market progress. Fortune Business Insights mentions this information in its report titled "Craft Beer Market, 2021-2028." The market size stood at USD 95.23 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 102.59 billion in 2021.

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Leading Players Featured in the Craft Beer Market Research Report:

G. Yuengling& Son, Inc. (Pennsylvania, U.S.)

Heineken N.V.(Amsterdam, Netherlands)

The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (Massachusetts, U.S.)

Constellation Brands, Inc. (New York, U.S.)

Anheuser-Busch InBev (Leuven, Belgium)

New Belgium Brewing Co. (Colorado, U.S.)

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (California, U.S.)

DuvelMoortgat NV (Puurs, Belgium)

Bell's Brewery, Inc. (Michigan, U.S.)

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Inc. (Delaware, U.S.)

Report Scope & Segmentation:

Report Attribute Details Forecast Period 2021-2028 Forecast CAGR 10.83% 2028 Value Projection USD 210.78 Billion Craft Beer Market Size in 2021 USD 102.59 Billion Historical Data 2017-2019 No. of Pages 130 Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Company Profiles, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors and Latest Trends Segments Covered By Type

By Geography Regions Covered North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East and Africa Craft Beer Market Drivers Emergence of Flavorful and Strong Beers to Augment Industry Growth Rising Number of Craft and Microbreweries to Aid Growth

Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/craft-beer-market-100736

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Segments

By type, the market is segmented into pilsner, lager, ale, and others. By distributional channel, it is classified into off-trade and on-trade. Geographically, it is clubbed into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and the Middle East & Africa.

Highlights of the Report

The report provides a detailed analysis of the top segments and the latest trends in the market. It comprehensively discusses the driving and restraining factors and the impact of COVID-19 on the market. Additionally, it examines the regional developments and the strategies undertaken by the market's key players.

Drivers and Restraints

Emergence of Strong Beers and Incorporation of Flavors to Facilitate Market Progress

Rising popularity regarding strong beers and the adoption of flavors is expected to boost the drink's adoption. Manufacturers focus on incorporating several flavors such as malty & sweet, tart & funky, sour, fruit & spice, and others are expected to attract consumer demand. The rising socialization among the population is expected to boost the product's demand. Further, the emergence of several breweries is expected to boost the production of beers and enhance sales. Breweries focus on boosting their production to solve supply chain problems and cater to consumer's needs. As per the Brewers Association, independent and small brewers in the U.S. produced approximately 26.3 million barrels of beer in 2019. These factors are likely to drive the craft beer market growth.

However, the availability of alternative drinks such as whiskey, rum, wine, and gin is expected to hinder market progress.

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Regional Insights

Rapid Urbanization and Increasing Disposable Incomes to Boost Market Growth in Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific is projected to dominate the craft beer market share because of rapid urbanization and rising disposable income among the population. The Asia Pacific market stood at USD 39.78 Billion in 2020 and is expected to grow positively during the upcoming years. Evolving consumer lifestyles and rising per-capita income may propel market progress. These factors are likely to propel market progress.

In North America, the expansion of several breweries in the U.S. is expected to boost craft beer's adoption. Further, increasing socialization trends and the rising popularity of beers are expected to boost industry progress.

In Europe, a sudden spike in craft ale's consumption and strong demand for premium beers are likely to boost craft ale's demand. These factors are likely to fuel industry progress.

COVID-19 Impact

Sudden Decline in Sales to Negatively Affect Market Growth

This market is expected to be negatively affected by the market growth because of the halt on production activities and lack of resources required for the production of craft beer. The rising COVID-19 patients have led to the imposition of stringent lockdown regulations, which, in turn, may negatively affect the product's sales. As per the study published by the Brewers Association, U.S. brewery sales slumped to 30.5% in May in comparison with the previous year. However, post lockdown relaxations lead to the adoption of reduced capacities and technologically advanced production techniques. This factor is likely to fuel market growth.

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Competitive Landscape

Prominent Companies operating in the Market Announce Novel Products to Boost Brand Image

The prominent companies operating in the market launch novel products to satisfy consumer demand and boost their brand image. For example, B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd. launched their limited edition craft beers under their Bira91 brand in April 2021 to satisfy consumers' demand for exquisite and bold flavors. This strategy may enable companies to boost their brand image. Further, the adoption of technologically advanced production technologies may enable companies to reduce labor costs, boost productivity, enhance operational efficiency, and satisfy organizational goals.

Detailed Table of Contents:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Emerging Trends

Key Insights Overview on the Global Alcoholic Beverages Market Market Dynamics of the Global Beer Market Overview on Emergence of Small Breweries and its Impact on the Market Supply Chain & Regulatory Analysis Recent Industry Developments - Policies, Mergers & Acquisitions, and New Product Launches Market Analysis and Insights (in Relation with COVID-19) Impact of COVID-19 on the Market Supply Chain Challenges due to the Pandemic Potential Opportunities to Support the Sales during the Calamity

Global Craft Beer Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecast By Type (Value) Ale Lager Pilsner Others (Wheat Beer, Specialty Beer) By Distribution Channel (Value) On-Trade Off-Trade By Region (Value) North America Europe Asia Pacific South America Middle East & Africa

North America Craft Beer Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecast By Type (Value) Ale Lager Pilsner Others (Wheat Beer, Specialty Beer) By Distribution Channel (Value) On-Trade Off-Trade By Country (Value) U.S By Type (Value) Ale Lager Pilsner Others (Wheat Beer, Specialty Beer) Canada By Type (Value) Ale Lager Pilsner Others (Wheat Beer, Specialty Beer) Mexico By Type (Value) Ale Lager Pilsner Others (Wheat Beer, Specialty Beer)



TOC Continued...!

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Industry Development

February 2020: B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd. launched 3 beers under its brand Bira91 in the U.K. The company aims to augment its market reach with this launch.

Read Related Insights:

$989.48 Billion, Beer Market Projected to Reach by 2028 | With a CAGR of 3.68%

Non-alcoholic Beverages Market Size to Hit USD 1,257.77 Billion by 2027 | With 8.20% of CAGR

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During its animation-focused Drop 01" livestream event, Netflix unveiled a first look at Blue Eye Samurai, a brand new series from Michael Green (A Haunting in Venice), his co-writer/wife Amber Noizumi, and supervising director Jane Wu (Interview With a Vampire).



Set in 1633 Japan during the Edo period, the series stars Maya Erskine as Mizu, a hardened fighter whose biracial status is made clear by the blue eyes she inherited from her white father. Looking to put a blade through his stomach for assaulting her mother, Mizu carves a very bloody path through the land in her quest for revenge, all the while trying to conceal her identity. Along the way, she crosses paths with a number of characters, including a noodle chef named Ringo (Masi Oka) who decides to tag along with her and the blacksmith who taught her how to fight (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).

Read more

Image: Netflix (Other)

Other"/>





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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For nearly two decades, Las Cruces Sun-News subscribers enjoyed flipping to the political cartoon in the Sunday print edition and seeing what event in the past week artist Bob Diven decided to satirize.

After 17 years putting ink to paper, Diven decided it was time to cap his pen.

Bob Diven, former cartoonist for the Las Cruces Sun-News, poses for a portrait by one of his murals on Wednesday, August 23, 2023.

Bob Diven, Las Cruces Renaissance man

Diven is a local artist who over the years has become entrenched with the very culture of Las Cruces. Every day, people pass by his murals, paintings and logos.

He is the man behind the barn flag mural painted on an adobe barn in Mesilla, the guitar mural over Hubbards Music and the recent restoration of the Mesilla mural depicting New Mexicos infamous Billy the Kid at the entrance of the Billy the Kid Gift Shop.

Diven has painted numerous portraits. He spent Saturday mornings drawing chalk murals during the Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. He was the Rat Catcher during the Renaissance ArtsFaire and the maker of the faires Magellan the Dragon who appeared in Young Parks pond every November.

But his most steady work has been the appearance of his trademark rabbits telling the story of Las Cruces ups and downs in a printed square once a week.

I felt like I was the right person at the time to kind of speak up for the community, Diven said.

Bob Given worked as the Las Cruces Sun-News editorial cartoonist for 17 years, sharing opinion through his cartoon rabbit each Sunday.

Finding his way as an artist

Diven moved to Las Cruces with his family when he was 5 years old.

It was supposed to be a sabbatical (for my dad) but we stayed, Diven said.

He graduated from Las Cruces High School and attended New Mexico State University for a year to figure out just what career he wanted to pursue. While at NMSU, he drew editorial cartoons for The Round Up student newspaper.

He said he aspired to become a filmmaker but also had fine arts and vocal singing talent. His options were many, but Diven said he didnt know which avenue to follow.

He wound up joining the U.S. Coast Guard.

Diven was sent to San Francisco where he happened to meet Chet Paulson, a Washington D.C. commercial artist. He took a look at samples of Divens work and encouraged him to find an art school that taught figure drawing and anatomy.

Off Diven went to an art school in Denver where he learned the visual language. He then returned to New Mexico.

His work has varied over the years but includes partnering with various local businesses as an illustrator, working as an art director for the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, graphic designing for an advertising agency and working as an art director for a publishing company.

I just learned on the job, he said.

Artist Bob Diven and the original Magellan the Dragon, used annually in the Young Park Pond during the Dona Ana Arts Council Renaissance ArtsFaire beginning in the 1990s.

He volunteered in Europe as a graphic designer for a time before making his way back to Las Cruces once again.

That's when I really began to paint, Diven said. And then it's just been this series of sort of taking all these natural talents I was born with and, one after the other, kind of running them to the ground. Kind of exploring what they were and then building them into abilities."

His Renaissance man reputation led him to such experiences as working with Tony Award-winning playwright Mark Meddoff on set designing and playwriting.

But one area he was interested in  cartoons  was still out of reach. He said the newspaper wasnt interested when he first returned from art school.

One day I was dropping off an illustration (at the newspaper) someone hired me to do for a Christmas ad special and (Jim Lawitz) asked me if I was interested to do a Sunday cartoon, and I was thrilled to say yes, he said.

Divens first political cartoon appeared in the Sun-News in January 2006 and nearly every Sunday following up to the summer of 2023.

Living in Las Cruces editorial cartoons

Once a week for 17 years, Diven graced the inside page of the Sun-News with a witty take on that weeks goings-on in Las Cruces. From the change of the weather to the actions of elected officials, people could count on Divens cartoon rabbit having an opinion to share.

Bob Diven cartoon for Sunday, July 9, 2023.

It was a challenge every week to find the subject. Some weeks were harder than others. Some were easy. Sometimes cartoons were fun, about things everyone can relate to, Diven said. What I didn't like about it is sort of like being on jury duty. When I was a juror once, it was very uncomfortable to sit in judgment of other people ... I'm a sensitive guy and it's hard to (realize) that if you take a stand or have a point of view, necessarily, somebody is not going to like it.

Diven said he decided to step away from the cartoon for several reasons  weariness of the freelance art hustle, physical tiredness and the development of carpal tunnel in his wrist, the increased difficulty of not repeating cartoons and the shrinking of local news coverage.

When I started doing the cartoons, people would tell me ideas or want me to do national things on it, he said. No, I'm the cartoonist for the Las Cruces Sun-News. I can only deal with subjects that the readers of the paper see, so my fuel is what's in the paper.

Diven's last cartoon appeared in the Aug. 20 print edition.

Bob Diven editorial cartoon for Aug. 20, 2023.

For now, Diven said he does not have plans for the next chapter of his artistic life, but rest is essential. He explained that he is working on treating his carpal tunnel and recently dove into a new hobby of repairing typewriters.

I think I just have to give myself some time to sort of decompress and recover from being an artist for 40-some years, Diven said.

While he recoups and explores, Diven added he enjoys hearing from viewers of his work via mail. He can be reached at P.O. Box 2781 Las Cruces, NM 88004.

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 X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Editorial cartoonist Bob Diven parts with Sun-News after 17 years
Captain Lee has some questions about why Lindsay Hubbard traveled to the Bahamas following her split from Carl Radke.

"They are going through a tough time  Lindsay and Carl. It is hard to watch. But I guess she is going through with her bachelorette party, but I don't know if you would call it a bachelorette party right now," Lee, 73, said during the Wednesday, September 27, episode of his "Salty With Captain Lee" podcast. "I guess they had it in the Bahamas and everyone was dressed in black."

The Bravo star's cohost Sam DeCavalcanti defended Hubbard's decision to enjoy herself.

"Maybe she's mourning a relationship with her friends," DeCavalcanti noted. "I've been to many bachelorette parties where we wear black and the bride wears white. But maybe she is mourning this relationship. She went on to acknowledge that she's trying to face the end of this relationship  and the end of her best friend of eight years. So I can't imagine that she's all that happy about this, so maybe she does need to get away."

Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radkes Relationship Timeline: From Summer House Costars to Dating and Beyond

Lee, however, didn't understand the purpose of Hubbard, 37, going on a trip meant to celebrate her nuptials, adding, "I don't think that getting away ... if you are trying to get away from something, you do it by going to a party with people who do nothing but remind you of what you are doing there?  Well I hope it works out for the both of them."

The Below Deck alum  who was meant to be the wedding officiant  has weighed in on Radke's personal life since his split made headlines. After Us Weekly confirmed that Radke, 38, and Hubbard called it quits while filming season 8 of Summer House, Lee admitted he was shocked by how the situation unfolded.

Chris Haston/NBC

"This came really out of the blue for me. I just got a text from [Carl] that I haven't read yet. But I had no clue because we are supposed to be at the wedding in November  two days after my birthday," the captain, who bonded with Radke over sobriety, said on his podcast earlier this month. "They already had the venue and a special block of rooms at the hotel for all of their guests that were flying in. [Lindsay] already had her bachelorette party planned and her hair and makeup run-through was done."

Celebrity Couples Who Called Off Their Engagements: John Cena and Nikki Bella, More

Days later, Radke sent out a message to his and Hubbard's invited guests to officially confirm the news.

"Words cannot possibly express how difficult the last two weeks have been for Lindsay and I," he wrote in a letter to attendees. "We are so incredibly sorry to all of our guests for the confusion and lack of communication. We were left trying to figure out how this all exactly happened before we could even have the opportunity to determine the path forward amongst ourselves."

Radke added: "There have been a lot of false narratives and misunderstandings that have made this all the more painful but sadly at this time we are not moving forward with the wedding. The fact of the matter is Lindsay is devastated and I'm crushed with how all this transpired. I graciously ask for some patience and grace to heal and recover while we navigate this extremely difficult time."

Summer House Casts Dating History: Inside Lindsay Hubbard, Kyle Cooke, Paige DeSorbo and More Stars Love Lives

Hubbard, meanwhile, made it clear that she wasn't onboard with Radke's choice to pull the plug in her own public statement. She has since also praised her friends for supporting her amid the major life change.

"I didnt know this amount of love could exist in one photo. I feel completely overwhelmed by my best friends, and their friendship, love, and strength," she wrote via Instagram on Monday, September 25, alongside photos from her trip to the Bahamas. "The way these girls have rallied around me the last 3 weeks, held my hand, sat in showers and cried with me, picked me up, never left my side, never let me feel alone, and then took me on a trip  that was originally planned for completely different reasons  and yet still carried on with this trip because it became more important. Im beyond blessed and thankful for every single one of these girls. This is a story about sisterhood, and I could not do life without them."
27-year-old Eddie Irizarry was fatally shot after being stopped by Mark Dial and his partner on August 14

Charges were refiled against a former Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot a civilian in August hours after a judge dismissed the case during a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Mark Dial was charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, official oppression, and possession of an instrument of crime after an encounter with 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry.

Related: Wisconsin Woman Sentenced to Life Without Parole for Killing, Dismembering Lover After BDSM Sex

According to a press release from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, during the encounter on Aug. 14, Irizarry "turned onto the street at a slow rate of speed going in the wrong direction."

Dial and his partner approached Irizarry's vehicle and saw him "holding a small, open folding knife against his thigh." After Irizarry rolled up the driver's side window, the district attorney's office claims that Dial discharged into the vehicle six times, and body cam footage showed Irizarry was hit at close range.

After being pulled out of the vehicle, Irizarry was transported to Temple Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. A medical examination found his cause of death to be "multiple gunshot wounds." The manner of death was listed as homicide.

Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP

Related: Mich. Mom Gets Prison for Intoxicated Crash that Killed Her 3 Kids: 'I Hate Myself So Much'

During a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Judge Wendy L. Pew threw out the case citing a "lack of evidence," per CBS News Philadelphia.

Dial's defense attorney, Brian McMonagle, told the outlet regarding Tuesday's ruling, "We have said from the beginning -- this is a tragedy, not a crime. This should've never been charged as a crime. And we're elated Mark's coming home to his family."

PEOPLE has reached out to Dial's defense attorney for additional comment.

According to a criminal docket reviewed by PEOPLE, the district attorney's office refiled charges against Dial after Tuesday's hearing. His next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 25.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

The Associated Press reports that Irizarry's family "appeared stunned and distraught" after the decision to dismiss charges was made during Tuesday's hearing. "We are going to continue to fight for justice because that was wrong," Irizarrys cousin Aracelis Brown told the AP after the hearing.

"We're going to continue to fight, we're going to appeal the case and continue to fight," Zoraida Garcia, Irizarry's aunt, told FOX-29. "He committed a crime and he needs to pay for the crime he committed."

Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal and Senator Sharif Street held a press conference on Tuesday evening, asking for the public to "stay calm" after the charges were dismissed, reports FOX-29.

"All I'm saying today until the process is done is to please remain calm, peaceful protest is what we do - it's in our DNA - and until the process is done," Sheriff Bilal said. "Please remain calm so that we can move forward and make sure the process continues on."



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PEOPLE spoke with Lauren Laliberte, whose Airbnb host canceled their wedding weekend stay because of fiance Steve Bohns service dog

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

While Boston couple Lauren Laliberte and Steve Bohn were busy preparing for their Cape Cod wedding, they were looking forward to celebrating alongside Bohns service dog  a yellow labrador named Orion. The plan was simple: They would make the trek from Boston to the Cape, and stay in an Airbnb the nights before and after their big day.

Orion helps Bohn, a veteran, with everyday tasks after he survived a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan in 2008. He was subject to several spinal surgeries, and Orion is trained to help him pick up objects off the ground, and to do other small chores. Laliberte, a NICU nurse, tells PEOPLE that aside from being a working dog, Orion is a big, gentle giant who plays with their 15-month-old and is best friends with the couples French bulldog.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

He gets along great with everyone, she says. He's a sweetheart.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

Related: Volunteer Pilots Rush to Help Puppies in Training Take the Next Step to Becoming Service Dogs

And while most warmly welcome Orion, the host of their Airbnb did not. Not only did the host cancel their stay days before the wedding, right after Laliberte informed her that Orion would be coming, but even after offering to leave Orion home, the Airbnb host wouldnt budge.

"The safety of my family will always come first," the host told Laliberte at the time.

They did mention allergies when they originally messaged me back, Laliberte says. And that's when we said, Okay, we're going to make arrangements for Orion to stay home. Then, the next morning he messaged me back and said that I should still find somewhere else to stay. The most confusing part was even though we had somebody to watch Orion for the weekend, we still weren't able to stay there.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

It just made it seem like, Do you screen for people who have pets, or no? she says. I don't know.

PEOPLE obtained a statement from Airbnb on their service pet policy, which reads:

We have policies in place protecting the rights of guests with service animals, and our specialized support team has launched an investigation into this matter. We've immediately rebooked our guests into a new listing free of charge, and we thank them for bringing this issue to our attention.

Laliberte was grateful that Airbnb was able to fix them up with a last-minute free stay elsewhere.

They comped our stay, which was amazing, she says. They came through, for sure.

Airbnb, however, did not give an update on the host.

That is something we should probably follow up on, just to make sure [regarding] education or anything on service dogs going forward, Laliberte says.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

Related: Shea the Puppy Is Bringing Smiles to the New York Mets While Training to Become a Service Dog

After the story initially broke, through ABC Networks Boston affiliate, WCVB, the couple received an outpouring of support from locals, who were offering their place for Laliberte, Bohn, and Orion to stay that weekend. Laliberte says that the support has really meant a lot.

Honestly, it's super emotional. Really, it's been a rollercoaster of emotions. Just anxiety at the beginning with not really knowing what we were going to do, and then to see everybody just so willing to help us out and go above and beyond has really meant a lot, she says.

You see people do some maybe not so great things, like pulling away from our rental, but then to see a lot of people come through and help us out just makes it that much better and really just restores your faith in humanity, she adds. It's definitely nice.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

The support that everyone has shown us is unbelievable," Bohn told PEOPLE via email. "I wouldve never imagined that people across the country would reach out to support us. We are truly appreciative for their kind words and support. My hope is to educate the public on the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] law."

Laliberte also hopes this will be a teaching moment for the public on service dogs  why theyre so important, and what they mean for people who need them.

Stephen Bohn and Lauren LaLiberte

Honestly, they're invaluable  for physical reasons, people need them. Then, there's the emotional and connection side too, she says. I know he's helped out Steve so much in ways that I don't really know that people could. I think having a greater understanding of what they do for people on a daily basis would just be helpful, and maybe I think awareness about their needs throughout the day would be amazing for everyone.

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Do Dick Brauer, the namesake of the Brauer Museum at Valparaiso University and its first curator, and Philipp Brockington, a retired university law professor who is one of the museums benefactors, have legal standing to stop the sale of the museums most valuable artwork so the proceeds can be used to fund dorm renovations?

Thats now in the hands of Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Thode.

After a 45-minute hearing Wednesday in his Portage courtroom, Thode said he would take under advisement whether to dismiss the lawsuit Brauer and Brockington have filed against the university to halt the sale because it would be a violation of the Percy H. Sloan Trust, which provided directly or indirectly for the three renowned paintings.

Ill give it my due thought and good consideration, Thode said.

Brauer and Brockington filed the lawsuit in late April against Valparaiso University President Jose Padilla, the university and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita . In turn, Padilla, the university and Rokitas office asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, claiming that Brauer and Brockington dont have standing in the case to file the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argues that Brauer and Brockington have standing to challenge the sale because of Brauers longtime association with the museum and personal stake in it, and because of an endowment for the museum established by Brockington to acquire, restore, and preserve works of art and artifacts for the museum.

Padilla first announced the possible sale of three renowned works of art to fund the dorm renovations in early February. The paintings are considered cornerstones of the museums collection and have an estimated worth of millions of dollars. They are Rust Red Hills by Georgia OKeeffe; Childe Hassams The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate; and Frederic Edwin Churchs Mountain Landscape.

The OKeeffe and Hassam paintings were purchased through the Percy Sloan Trust; Churchs work was a direct gift from Sloan. Collectively, the paintings are estimated to be worth millions of dollars.

The projected cost of renovating Brandt Hall and Wehrenberg Hall for first-year students is approximately $8 million, a university spokesman has said.

In mid-September, Padilla announced that, given the court case, the paintings had been removed to a safe, secure location for the time being.

In light of this heightened activity, and in accordance with the Universitys responsibility to safeguard these works, they have been relocated to a secure off-site location out of an abundance of caution. The off-site location is not that of an art broker, Padilla said in a statement to campus, adding that a final decision about the possible sale of the paintings had not been made.

Brauers name on the museum is honorary and can be removed at any time, Colby Barkes, the attorney representing the university, said in court Wednesday.

While the museum is named for Brauer, he has no connection to the trust, Barkes said, adding Brockingtons own endowment to the university also is not a connection to the Percy H. Sloan Trust.

Brauer and Brockington also claim reputational injury if the sale of the paintings moves forward, which Barkes also refuted, noting they have no special interest in the case and any reputational harm would be speculative.

Were not here to determine the merits of the case, but if we can determine standing, Barkes said. Were going to win this case.

Attorney Patrick McEuen, who represents Brauer and Brockington, both of whom attended the hearing, said he was aware when he filed the lawsuit that standing was going to be an issue for his clients.

Still, in addition to Brauers name being on the museum, he oversaw the accession of two of the three works in question as the museums curator at the time and a member of its board. Brockington, meanwhile, established his endowment for the maintenance and betterment of artwork at the museum.

The announcement of the sale, he said, drew criticism from museum associations that pointed out selling artwork from a trust and using the funds for something other than their intended purpose wasnt the way to go about deaccessioning the artwork.

The announcement, first reported in the Post-Tribune, set off a firestorm of criticism from students, alumni, faculty and the art world and included a wide range of concerns, from possible sanctions against the museum by the nations art museum associations to the loss of donations for fear that the university would not respect donors wishes, as well as the violation of the trust that provided for the artwork to begin with.

The inability to borrow or loan out its artwork  a possible sanction from the art world if the sale proceeds  jeopardizes the future of the museum, McEuen said, and Brockingtons contribution to it.

Were challenging whether the Percy Sloan Trust allows the sale of artwork for capital improvements, and we dont see that, McEuen said.

Barkes also said that the Indiana Attorney Generals Office is the proper forum for determining whether the artwork from the trust can be sold.

In court filings, that office has backed up Valparaiso Universitys contention that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs who filed the suit dont have standing to do so.

In this particular case, the Attorney Generals Office has not made any particular decision of what theyre going to do with the trust, Barkes said, adding the lawsuit was an attempt to usurp that.

Indiana Code lays out that her office is the enforcement authority if a trust is breached, and its not to be named as a defendant, Kari Morrigan, an attorney in Rokitas office, said.

McEuen, though, said he doesnt see why that office is the only one that can oversee a public charitable trust. Somebody has to afford judicial review, he said, rather than the Attorney Generals Office saying this one time, the tenets of a public trust could be violated.

The Attorney Generals Office must make sure a trust is not misused, Morrigan said, and the university is not doing that. Her office has been working on the matter, and the process has been stalled by the court filings.

Nothing has been done. The process is not complete. If anything, theyve jumped the gun, she said of Brauer and Brockington, adding she disagreed with claims by McEuen that the office was somehow compliant with the university or unwilling to enforce the terms of the trust.

alavalley@chicagotribune.com
Dan Harmon has addressed the assault and domestic violence allegations leveled against his fellow Rick and Morty creator, Justin Roiland.

Adult Swim severed ties with Roiland in January following reports that he was facing felony domestic violence charges in connection with a 2020 incident in Orange County, Calif. While the case was dismissed in March, numerous other allegations of toxic workplace behavior have since emerged. Now, Harmon  who co-created, wrote, and produced the show with Roiland  says he is "frustrated, ashamed, and heartbroken" over the situation.

"The easiest thing for me to say about Justin has been nothing," Harmon said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "Easy because he isolated so well and easy because I'm nobody's first choice as a judge of anything or anyone."

He continued, "This is where I'd love to change the subject to myself, to what a piece of crap I've been my whole public life. I would feel so safe and comfortable making this about me, but that trick is worthless here and dangerous to others. It's other people's safety and comfort that got damaged while I obsessed over a cartoon's quality."

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, Ricky and Morty

Michael Buckner/WireImage; Adult Swim 'Ricky and Morty' co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon; 'Rick and Morty'

Harmon also noted that the trust of the Rick and Morty fanbase has been "violated," adding, "I'm frustrated, ashamed, and heartbroken that a lot of hard work, joy, and passion can be leveraged to exploit and harm strangers."

Earlier in the conversation, Harmon revealed that he had not spoken to Roiland since 2019, after a final conversation that left him in tears.

"He said things that he'd never said before about being unhappy," Harmon recalled. "I remember saying to him the last time we spoke in person, like, 'I am worried about you, and I don't know what to do about that except to give you all the string and also just say I'm scared that you're not going to come back.' But then this conversation became unprecedentedly confrontational."

He chose to stop there. "I think that's as far as I get to take the story," he said. "At that point, we're no longer both there for it, and it starts to become not only unfair for me to continue but totally uncomfortable because, from there, a friendship goes away, and I still don't fully understand why."

Roiland was charged in May 2020 with one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, and/or deceit following a criminal complaint by an anonymous woman who said she was dating Roiland at the time, NBC News reported in January. The Orange County district attorney's office dismissed the charges two months later "as a result of having insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt."

In a public statement, Roiland said he was "thankful" of the outcome, adding, "I'm still deeply shaken by the horrible lies that were reported about me during this process."

The first new episodes of Rick and Morty since Roiland's exit are set to premiere this fall, featuring two new voice actors replacing Roiland in the titular roles.

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Daniel Robinson's father shared an update on the investigation into the his son's disappearance more than two years after the geologist went missing.

Speaking during a panel at CrimeCon 2023, David Robinson revealed that someone was likely in Daniel's Tempe, Arizona apartment after he disappeared from a work site on June 23, 2021. He hasn't been seen or heard from since,

The Robinson family grew concerned after they hadnt heard from the 24-year-old, which was unusual, prompting them to file a missing persons report. But authorities suggested that Daniel had willingly gone missing and declined to pursue an investigation.

As days passed by without contact from Daniel, David hired a personal investigator and gained access to the Tempe apartment, which was relatively clean. The bedroom, however, was really messy, David shared with attendees.

RELATED: Gabby Petito's Parents Lobby For Lethality Assessments To Tackle IPV Homicide In Utah

Daniel Robinson's Apartment Searched

A photo of Daniel Robinson

Daniel Robinson

Though David assumed that Daniel had failed to clean his room, the private investigator told him that it looked more like somebody digging and looking for something.

They couldnt confirm that Daniel hadnt made the mess himself, so David continued to pressure law enforcement to take the case more seriously and process the scene. He even met with the mayor of Tempe, as well as the chief of police. My team and I [were] able to convince them to do the forensics on everything, all of the electronics that my son owned, from the gaming system to his personal computers, David shared.

David has since received the results of the testing, which showed that someone was in there searching on his computer, going through his files after Daniel had already gone missing.

Evidence Found Near Jeep

The Robinson family hopes that authorities will agree to process other evidence found in and around Daniels Jeep, which was located in July 2021. The vehicle was found a few miles from the work site where Daniel was last seen, having apparently been driven into a ravine. The airbags were deployed and the sunroof was kicked out, while Daniels clothing, wallet, keys, and laptop were found outside the vehicle.

David is personally footing the bill to keep the evidence preserved, even though it wouldn't be admissible in court because the chain of custody has been broken. I'm holding it begging, pleading for help to get those things processed, David said.

The Gabby Petito Foundation Brings Awareness

A selfie of Daniel Robinson

Daniel Robinson

The Gabby Petito Foundation invited David, as well as missing man Dylan Rounds mother Candice Cooley, to speak at their panel about the disproportionate amount of media coverage that missing white women get compared to men. The foundation hopes to level the playing field and bring attention to cases like Dylan and Daniels.

Today is particularly hard for us but if you can, please take a moment and share a #missingpersons story to help bring them home safe, Joseph Petito wrote a day after it was revealed that Gabby's remains had been recovered. Every story deserves the same attention.

Anyone with any information on the case is urged to call a police tip line at 623-349-6411.
Violinist David Park is joined by pianists Melissa Ballard and Alex Marshall as they pose for photos at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The three will be performing together at Carnegie Hall in New York. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Before David Park (violin), Melissa Garff Ballard (piano) and Alex Marshall (piano) bring Utah to Carnegie Hall, the trio plans on bringing Carnegie Hall to Utah.

The three musicians will be joined by soprano Marina Poplavskaya for a performance at the famed New York concert venue on Oct. 13, but before they go, theyre performing at Libby Gardner Concert Hall with soprano soloist Michelle Dean.

Carnegie Hall attracts the top international musical talent  to perform, you have to apply. Park applied for the opportunity and invited Ballard and Marshall to join him.

Were excited that weve got a prime time on a Friday night, Park said of the opportunity. He mentioned the group has received support from Carnegie Hall and were given an introduction in their advertisement. Ninety percent of the time, they dont, he said.

The trio will join a group of elite performers like Tchaikovsky, The Beatles, Bill Withers and musicians across all genres in having secured a performance slot at one of the worlds most exclusive music venues.

This is a really unique opportunity for Utahns to be the focal point of this concert because most of the time in Carnegie, you have people from all over the world that collaborate together, Ballard told me.

Related

Park, Ballard and Marshall each have strong ties to Utah. Though Parks career has taken him around the globe as a first-class soloist, he has a relationship of around three decades with the Utah Symphony and has taught at the University of Utah.

Violinist David Park and pianist Melissa Ballard play for the media at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. The pair and Alex Marshall will be performing together at Carnegie Hall in New York. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Ballard represents District 20 in the Utah House of Representatives, is a graduate of the University of Utah and is an accomplished pianist. Marshall performs with the Utah Symphony and is the music director in the theater department at the university.

Before the trio treks to New York City, they are performing the same concert in Utah. With composers like Bach and Mozart on the set list, the concert is slated to feature some of the classics from the best-known classical music artists.

If I had a wish, it would be for Utahns and those in our valley across the Wasatch Front and beyond to know if you cant make it to Carnegie Hall on Oct. 13, then you need to come for a New York experience here at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah on Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m., Ballard said.

Playing at Carnegie Hall is like the Olympics for music, she said. I am probably the only legislator in all the history of Utah to ever perform in Carnegie Hall. Playing for Carnegie Hall for the first time is an emotional experience for Ballard.

Its a time for her to represent the arts in Utah, she said. Im looking forward to having the opportunity to perform there, but also to represent Utah legislators and the diverse occupations we have. In the House, Ballard said shes the sole professional musician and legislators have a bevy of other careers.

While Ballard is looking forward to her first time playing at Carnegie Hall, Park is excited to return to where he debuted in New York in 1993.

I just recalled recently that last time I performed there was 30 years ago. I was a little kid. I was a prodigy, Park said. I played Vivaldis Four Seasons with orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Related

Violinist David Park does a television interview as he is joined by pianists Melissa Ballard and Alex Marshall at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The three will be performing together at Carnegie Hall in New York. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

As Park talked about his enthusiasm for returning to the Big Apple, he held the violin hes using for the concert: a 1692 Falmouth Antonio Stradivarius  one of the finest violins in the world.

It was named after a previous owner, the Earl of Falmouth. It was made in Cremona, Italy, which had a little ice age from the mid-17th century to mid-18th century, Park said. The trees in the area grew slowly and then, therefore, the wood was very dense. The wood from this period cannot be duplicated and sets this violin apart.

An anonymous donor lent Park the violin after watching a viral video. A violin maker was polishing the instrument when he invited Park to play music on it before he returned it. The violin maker asked Park if he could video him for Instagram and then, the video went viral.

The owner of the violin saw the video and wanted to meet Park. After meeting Park, he decided to lend him the instrument, which he has now been playing for over a year.

Park sees himself as a guardian of this violin, because if an intermediate student were to play on it, the violin itself can get worse, he explained. For the collectors to have it played by somebody they respect, I think that its also important.

The violin produces graceful, dulcet tones that swell across the hall as Park rehearses. The sounds vibration beseeches the listener to be enchanted into a rich experience. Its the kind of experience where every faculty is engaged.

Its a unique sound: a different one than music on the radio that can be more of a straight-forward metronomic creation, Ballard said.

Theres something amazing about live music. You often will hear digitized, synthesized music on the radio or even classical music thats been synthesized, but to have musicians playing it live is a very personal experience, Ballard remarked.

The personal experience with music is also an emotional one, Ballard said. As an example, she talked about Erbarme dich, mein Gott (Have mercy, my God) from Bachs St. Matthew Passion, which they will play after the intermission. Its an aria about Peters despondency after he denied Jesus Christ three times.

And you can feel in this, as the three of us are playing together, you feel the tragedy and the yearning for mercy from God, Ballard said. Immediately after that, we play a Strauss piece called Morgen! which is this ethereal, heavenly experience of tomorrow. ... It takes you from this agony to this heavenly peace.

The group will also play Mozarts Violin Sonata in E Minor and other songs. The encores will be a surprise.

Tickets to their concert on Oct. 2 at the Libby Gardner Concert Hall (University of Utah) are available on Arts Tickets and for their concert on Oct. 13 at Carnegie Hall are available on the Carnegie Hall website.

Violinist David Park and pianist Alex Marshall play for the media at Libby Gardner Hall at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The pair and Melissa Ballard will perform together at Carnegie Hall in New York. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
MILAN  Donatella Versace slammed the Italian government for what she described as anti-gay policies in a heartfelt and personal speech that referenced her late brother, Gianni Versace, while receiving a fashion award this weekend.

Our government is trying to take away peoples rights to live as they wish, Versace said in a speech at the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards Sunday night, citing in particular a government policy that allows only the biological parent in same-sex couples to be officially recognized as the parent. They are restricting our freedoms, she said.

We must all fight for freedom, in a time that still sees trans people suffering terrible violence, a time when children of same-sex couples are not considered their children, a time when minority voices are attacked by new laws,' Versace said.

Versace, who has been creative director of the fashion house founded by her brother since his 1997 murder, was accompanied to the awards by Alessandro Zan, the Democratic Party lawmaker who drafted legislation expanding anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community. The legislation was stalled even before the Meloni government took office.

Donatella Versace spoke out about Italy's anti-gay policies at the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards.

In a touching moment, Versace also recalled the day her brother Gianni came out to her.

I was 11 years old when my brother Gianni told me he was gay. For me it changed nothing. I loved him and I didnt care who he loved, she told the crowd.

The speech received a standing ovation from a fashion crowd, where Versace received a humanitarian award.

Gay rights activists praised her for clearly challenging the governments actions, but called on the entire fashion community to do more.

Donatella Versace was the first person in Italy to be so clear and explicit in the face of the governments homophobic politics, said Franco Grillini, a longtime gay rights activist. She is one of the most important names in fashion, and I invite others to follow her example.

Donatella Versace arrives to the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards with Alessandro Zan, the Democratic Party lawmaker who drafted legislation expanding anti-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community.

Besides blocking recognition of children of same-sex couples, Premier Giorgia Melonis right-wing government is pushing through legislation that would ban seeking a surrogate abroad, making it punishable with prison terms and stiff penalties. A 2004 law already banned surrogacy within Italy.

Italys Gay Party also praised Versaces support and called on her to back their campaign to get a referendum on gay marriage on the Italian ballot.

'We're all overcompensating': Why so many LGBTQ community members struggle with body dysmorphia

Donatella Versaces declaration is important (...) She made clear how this government is diminishing freedoms and rights for the LGBTQ community, said Fabrizio Marrazzo, spokesman for the Gay Party and the referendum for egalitarian marriage. We ask her to support us, in particular the campaign to make marriage for lesbians, gays and trans people the same as for everyone else.

They hope to begin gathering signatures in January, aware that this parliamentary majority does not want to give us rights. Italy approved same-sex civil unions in 2016, the last major Western country to do so.

Gay, lesbian, trans, LGBTQ people and why coming out isn't going away

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donatella Versace calls for change amid Italy's anti-LGBTQ legislation
In Wes Andersons Asteroid City (streaming now on Peacock), a group of students and parents arrive at the titular fictional city for an astronomy convention. During an awards ceremony near the meteor fragment for which the city derives its name, a tentative-looking space alien arrives and steals the meteor right in front of the gathered crowd. The close encounter sets off a series of events which will redefine the lives of everyone in town.

All of that from one little asteroid chunk in one small town. And here, in the real world, we have an entire Asteroid Autumn happening right now. Thats the unofficial name surrounding the next couple of months of NASAs space exploration activities, much of which is focused around exploring and understanding asteroids in our solar system. If you want a few more asteroids in your life, these are the missions to keep an eye on.

OSIRIS-REx Returns Asteroid Sample to Earth

The sample return capsule from NASAs OSIRIS-REx mission touches down in the desert.

The sample return capsule from NASAs OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber

OSIRIS-REx launched nearly a decade ago in September of 2016. It spent years in space, first traveling to the asteroid Bennu, then orbiting and mapping its surface. After two years spying Bennu from a short distance, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft slowly descended to the asteroids surface and scooped up a sample in a return canister.

RELATED: NASA First Ever Asteroid Sample Return Mission Successfully Lands in Utah

Then it had the long return trip back to Earth with its precious cargo in tow. On September 24, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft got close enough to Earth to release the return capsule before heading back out into space for the next part of its mission. The capsule went on to enter the atmosphere and land safely at the Department of Defenses Utah Test and Training Range in Utahs West Desert.

On Monday, September 25, the sample canister was loaded onto a U.S. Air Force C-17 and transported to Ellington Field, before being moved to its final home at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

There, scientists have crafted a custom-made clean room and spent months practicing the procedures for opening the canister and investigating its contents. The sample contains an estimated 8.8 ounces or 250 grams of untarnished asteroid material as old as the solar system, offering us a unique window into our own past.

NASAs Psyche Mission Prepares for Launch

Illustration of Psyche

This illustration depicts the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

NASAs Psyche mission plans to tour a planetesimal asteroid called 16 Psyche, potentially giving us a view into the center of our own planet. Planetesimals are the bits leftover from the creation of the solar system. As dust interacts and sticks together in a protoplanetary system, it forms into increasingly larger rocks until those rocks or collections of rocks are massive enough to hold together under the force of their own gravity.

Some of those planetesimals will continue to grow, becoming planets or moons. Others get ejected from the system or else settle into wide orbits in the asteroid belt or out beyond Neptune. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to be the leftover core of a failed planet, made almost totally of valuable metals like iron, nickel, and gold. If we could bring it home, it would have an estimated value of $10 quintillion, outstripping the total global economy by 5 orders of magnitude.

RELATED: NASA Prepares for Launch to Golden Asteroid Worth $10 Quintillion

The Psyche spacecraft recently completed fueling and testing on the ground and is now preparing for blast off. At the time of writing, launch is planned for the morning of October 5, from launch pad 39A at Cape Canaveral. After getting into orbit, Psyche will begin its six-year, 3.6 billion kilometer (2.2 billion mile) journey to Psyche, the crown jewel of the solar system.

NASAs Lucy Spacecraft Approaches Asteroid Dinkinesh

Lucy Spacecraft

Art depicting the Lucy spacecraft passing one of its many target asteroids. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

OSIRIS-REx was focused on the asteroid Bennu for close to a decade. Now, having successfully delivered a sample to Earth, its turning its sights toward the asteroid Apophis. Psyche will focus on the single asteroid which bears its name. By contrast, the Lucy mission plans to visit at least nine asteroids over the course of the next 12 years.

RELATED: Lucys Wild Ride to Jupiters Orbit But Not to Jupiter

Based on the original mission plan, Lucy wouldnt have had its first close encounter until 2025, but plans have changed and Lucy will have its first brush with an asteroid on November 1. There are millions of asteroids in the main asteroid belt. I selected 500,000 asteroids with well-defined orbits to see if Lucy might be traveling close enough to get a good look at any of them, even from a distance. This asteroid really stood out. Lucys trajectory as originally designed will take it within 40,000 miles of the asteroid, at least three times closer than the next closest asteroid, said Raphael Marschall, Lucy collaborator of the Nice Observatory in France, in a statement.

The asteroid in question has since been named Dinkinesh and is only about half a mile in diameter. Once it was identified, mission controllers sent instructions for Psyche to make a course adjustment on May 9. The short burn shifted its velocity by about 7.7 miles per hour. Between May and November, that small change shifted Lucys position by roughly 40,000 miles, allowing it to pass within 265 miles of Dinkinesh.

DARTs One-Year Anniversary of Punching an Asteroid

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy art_dart

Artwork showing the DART mission moments before it impacts Dimorphos, the small moon of the asteroid Didymos. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

Who among us isnt at least a little bit worried that an asteroid might show up and pull the curtain on humanity? If its good enough for the dinosaurs, its good enough for us. Fortunately, astronomers who spend a lot of time studying near-Earth objects arent all that worried.

We know where most of the big asteroids are, and weve calculated their orbits out hundreds of years. Weve crunched the numbers and we know the probabilities; were in the clear for the foreseeable future. But scientists arent resting on their laurels. Just in case, theyre busy developing methods of knocking an overzealous asteroid out of the sky.

RELATED: BOOM! DART Changed the Orbit of Asteroid Dimorphos Even More Than Wed Hoped

Short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, NASAs DART mission flew 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) and smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos at incredible speed. That impact happened a year ago today, on September 26, 2022. The hope was that DART might impact with enough force to shorten the orbit by a little more than a minute. When the dust settled and astronomers took a look, they found that Dimorphos orbit had shortened by roughly 32 minutes. The mission served as a successful proof of concept that we could change an asteroids trajectory in a measurable way if we needed to.

With enough advanced warning we could move even a very large object out of the way before it hit us. We dont know about you, but just knowing that helps us sleep a little easier.

If youre still hungry for asteroids, catch Wes Andersons Asteroid City, streaming now on Peacock.
Trona is set to open at 1812 E 12th Street in October.

Modern Japan and traditional Oaxaca will collide in a secretive bar coming to East 12th Street in October.

Trona is the brainchild of Dreamers & Doers Hospitality Group, a new Austin-based company from local restauranteur Tatanka Guererro. In addition to Trona, DDH manages established spots such as El Tigre Coffee Roasters, Arbor Food Park and Camp East.

According to a press release, Trona will take guests "to a layered five-part experience... to offer aesthetic dichotomy where futuristic meets ancient within the 49-person space" at 1812 E 12th St. A full bar will offer cocktails, wine and rare Japanese whiskey.

More: Female Hispanic-owned Island Getaway Rum ready to conquer the world

How to make a reservation?

Perhaps the new bar's most unique feature is how guests gain access. The Trona team said that "patrons must text a secret phone number to request a table prior to arrival," and this phone number is spread through word-of-mouth. After securing a reservation, they can "enter through the remodeled alley-made entrance."

For those worried they won't catch wind of the elusive phone number, DDH said there's no need to fret.

"There will be other opportunities to gain access to the highly intimate bar, although details are to be shared closer to the grand opening this fall," the team said in a press release.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: New Austin bar requires you to text a secret phone number to enter
Pontine Theatre hosts Chef and Author, James Haller

James Haller

PORTSMOUTH  Join chef & author James Haller at the Pontine Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 7 and Sunday, Oct. 8 at 2 p.m., as he reads from his book, At the End of Ceres Street: A Chef's Salute to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Over 50 years ago, chef and author James Haller found his way to Portsmouth, N.H. In 1970 he and two partners opened Blue Strawbery restaurant and for 16 years Haller was founder, co-owner, and executive chef at the renowned restaurant. The charm of this town and its inhabitants grew into an affection tender and wise, which Haller celebrates in this love letter to the city and to the remarkable individuals he had the good fortune to come to know. Includes illustrations and about a dozen of Chef Haller's recipes. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Admission is free but reservations are required. To reserve a seat send an email to: info@pontine.org or call 603-436-6660. Pontine is located at #1 Plains Avenue in Portsmouth, N.H.

'Movement for the Stage' workshops with Pontine Theatre

Marguerite Mathews

PORTSMOUTH  Join Pontine Artistic Co-Director, Marguerite Mathews, for a three-session workshop exploring dramatic expression through movement. No experience necessary. For those who perform onstage and/or offstage.

Mathews studied with French actor, Etienne Decroux, at his LEcole du Mime Corporeal in Paris and with his protege, Thomas Leabhart, at the University of Arkansas and at the Valley Studio in Spring Green Wisconsin before founding Pontine Theatre in Portsmouth NH in 1977.

Workshop sessions are offered on consecutive Wednesdays, Oct. 4, 11 and 18, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuition is by donation. To reserve a place contact Pontine at info@pontine.org or call 603-436-6660. Pontine is located at #1 Plains Avenue in Portsmouth, N.H.

Stratham Antiques Roadshow coming

Stratham Historical Society

STRATHAM  On Sunday, Oct. 15, the Stratham Historical Society will hold their Annual Fall Appraisal Day, (affectionately known to its members as The Stratham Antiques Roadshow) from 1 to 3 p.m.

Family heirlooms and treasures, what are they worth? Works of art, jewelry, china, glass, military memorabilia, photographs and small furniture items? Join us for an evaluation. Fee: $5 for one item, $8 for two, $12 for three and $15 for four, (maximum five items please). All proceeds to benefit the Stratham Historical Society and will go toward maintaining the Societys collections and other related expenses.

Qualified appraisers will be on hand to provide verbal appraisals and valuable information on items brought in.

The event will be held at the Stratham Fire Station, Morgera Room, corner of Winnicutt Road and Portsmouth Avenue, Stratham. Entrance at the rear of the building. For more info or to reconfirm the date, call: 603-778-0434 or visit us on Facebook.

The New Hampshire Art Association presents 'Greece: A Visual Diary of Nine Photographers'

The Monk a photograph by Dean Sheldon

PORTSMOUTH  See the creative beauty of Greece through multiple lenses in Greece: A Visual Diary of Nine Photographers, in October at the State Street Gallery.

Throughout history, Greece has been a magnetic force for artists such as poet Lord Byron, dancer Isadora Duncan, and photographer Edward Steichen. In modern times, contemporary artists are drawn to the country by its ancient Greek art, infusing its timeless themes, techniques, and motifs into their own creations.

In November 2022, nine photographers from New Hampshire embarked on a photographic pilgrimage to Greece, each capturing their unique perspectives on the countryboth visually and symbolically. Their collective journey led them from Thessaloniki to the Island of Corfu and culminated in Athens. This exhibition allows us to share their individual impressions of Greece and rekindle the excitement of being in this extraordinary country.

Featured photographers in the exhibition include Beverly Conway, Ammara Kahn Born, Syed Jafri, Douglas Prince, Carol Van Loon, Claudia Rippee, Gary Samson, Effie Malley, and Dean Sheldon.

The exhibition will be held in the East Gallery of the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery at 136 State St. Portsmouth, from Oct. 4 to Oct. 29. The NHAA is hosting a reception on Friday, Oct. 5 from 5 to 8 p.m. as part of the Art Around Town First Friday art walk in Portsmouth. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Visit www.nhartassociation.org or call 603-431-4230 for more information.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exhibits, galleries, theater and more: Seacoast arts and culture news
FILE - Customers walk to a CVS Pharmacy, Friday, Nov 4, 2022, in Boston. CVS made a move Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, to make frustrated pharmacists in the Kansas City-area to call off a walkout. It promised to boost hiring to ease overwhelming workloads that sometimes make it hard to take a bathroom break. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, FIle)

CVS found the right prescription on Wednesday to keep its stores open in the Kansas City area and avoid a repeat of a work stoppage last week by pharmacists: It promised to boost hiring to ease workloads that sometimes make it hard to take a bathroom break.

But it wont be easy to resolve the problems that have been growing as pharmacists at CVS and other drug stores in the U.S. took on more duties in recent years and are gearing up to deliver this years latest flu and COVID-19 vaccines.

It all relates to not enough dollars going in to hire the appropriate staff to be able to deliver the services, said Ron Fitzwater, CEO of the Missouri Pharmacy Association.

Pharmacists in at least a dozen Kansas City-area CVS pharmacies did not show up for work last Thursday and Friday and planned to be out again this Wednesday until the company sent its chief pharmacy officer with promises to fill open positions and increase staffing levels.

It was one of the latest examples nationwide of workers fed up enough to take action. But unlike in the ongoing strikes at the automakers or in Hollywood, the pharmacists weren't demanding raises or more vacation, but more workers to help them.

CVS spokeswoman Amy Thibault said the company is focused on addressing the concerns raised by our pharmacists so we can continue to deliver the high-quality care our patients depend on.

Chief Pharmacy Officer Prem Shah apologized for not addressing concerns sooner in a memo to Kansas City-area staff that was obtained by USA Today. He promised to remain in the city until the problems are addressed and come back regularly to check on the progress.

We want you, our valued pharmacy teams, to be in a position to succeed. We are working hard to support you and are here to help and create sustainable solutions, Shah said as he encouraged the pharmacists to continue to share their concerns even anonymously.

It's unclear why workload concerns that are common industrywide led to a work stoppage in Kansas City. The pharmacists involved are not in a union and haven't spoken publicly, so it's not entirely clear how satisfied they are with the company's response.

Story continues

Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager for Gabelli Funds, said theres a nationwide shortage of pharmacy workers, prompting companies to push long work hours with few bathroom and lunch breaks. At the same time, the industry is not really unionized, so I wouldnt expect a big, coordinated action to be inspired by the Kansas City demonstration, he said.

At stores with only one pharmacist on duty, the pharmacy has to shut down every time that person leaves the area because a pharmacist must be present to supervise technicians in their work.

The American Pharmacists Association said in a statement that it supports the stand the Kansas City pharmacists took.

Pharmacists who find themselves in situations where the welfare of others is in question should always pause, evaluate the situation, and take the steps necessary to ensure safe, optimal patient care, the group said.

CVS Health has about 300,000 employees and runs prescription drug plans through one of the nations largest pharmacy benefits managers. Its Aetna insurance arm covers more than 25 million people, and the company has nearly 10,000 drugstores.

The company said last month that operating income at its drugstores fell 17% as reimbursement rates from patient's insurance providers for drugs remained tight. CVS eliminated about 5,000 jobs, but company officials said none of those involved dealing with customers.

Bled Tanoe, a hospital pharmacist in Oklahoma who previously worked for Walgreens, runs a social media campaign called Pizza Is Not Working aimed at raising awareness about the industry's working conditions. Its name comes from the pizzas that are routinely given to overwhelmed medical workers to raise morale. Tanoe said she was wowed by the CVS demonstration.

They pretty much risk their reputation, their livelihood to take a stand because serving the patients is so important to them, Tanoe said.

Amanda Applegate with the Kansas Pharmacists Association said pharmacists have always had a lot on their plate.

When we are not valued as health care professionals, it doesnt allow the job that needs to be done to be done," she said. "And thats keeping you know, patients safe  right drug, right patient, right time, right dose.

___

Associated Press reporter Heather Hollingsworth contributed to this report from Mission, Kan., and Summer Ballentine contributed from Columbia, Mo.
This article contains spoilers for Season 3 of "Reservation Dogs," including the finale.

This week brings us to the end of FX on Hulus beautiful Reservation Dogs, a comedy about Native American life that is checking out on its own terms after three seasons. Its teenage protagonists  Bear (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor)  drove the show, but it became increasingly the picture of a community in which the elders, sometimes unrespectable but always respected, counted for as much: a rare idea in American television.

Co-created and executive produced by Sterlin Harjo (a member of the Seminole nation with Muscogee ancestry) and Taika Waititi (Maori on his fathers side), it showcased not only brilliant Indigenous actors but writers and directors as well  including Jacobs, who wrote the series superb penultimate episode, a two-hander in which Elora finally meets her father, played by Ethan Hawke. Lets hope its not the last we see of them  that this is a beginning, not an end.

L.A. Times TV critics Lorraine Ali and Robert Lloyd shared some thoughts about a show they both loved.

Lorraine Ali: Flaming Flamers. Canned tuna bingo at the Indian Health Center. Socially challenged spirits offering unsolicited advice to the living. I will miss Reservation Dogs, and how the show was able to wrap an Indigenous drama inside a dry comedy as it captured life on and around a rural Oklahoma reservation through the eyes of the folks who live there. Over its three seasons, the series did so many things well, from satirizing colonialist tropes about Indians, to honoring Native American traditions to illuminating the struggles and joys of life on the rez.

The Reservation Dogs quest to leave for California after the suicide of their friend Daniel opened the first season, but it was clear there was far more to this show than just the desire to get away. They wanted to figure out who they were, with centuries of history and culture in tow. Do you go modern, or keep it tradish? They did a lot of both.

Read more: For two directors, 'Reservation Dogs' has been an incredible experience: 'There's so much humanity'

Robert Lloyd: There are so many things I cherish about this show; even before we got to know the characters, we got to know the place  the lovely east Oklahoma landscape, perhaps never photographed for television, and what people built on it, with neighborhoods and buildings that would be considered too ordinary, or distressed, or blandly institutional by the usual standards of the medium. That its a series shot where it takes place  Harjo grew up nearby  rather than, say, some vaguely similar stretch of Canada  is invaluable. The show opens ones eyes  assuming youre not already from there, or familiar with it  to new sorts of beauty, and this is as true of the actors as of the land.

That grounding also allows for some well-integrated magic realism, and of the introduction of a spirit world that lives close by and looks and sounds and acts a lot like ours. The paranormal and mythological phenomena believed in by tribal police officer Big (Zahn McClarnon, who at least will be staying in view as the lead in AMCs Dark Winds), and for which hes initially mocked, turn out to be true  Bigfoots real, as is Deer Lady (Kaniehtiio Horn), who gives Bear a ride as hes trying to make his way back home from the coast.

Ali: Season 3's Deer Lady episode was phenomenal. In exploring her origin story, they brought in the brutal legacy of Native American boarding schools. Indigenous kids were ripped from their families and thrown into these abusive, often deadly schools that sought to assimilate them. But Reservation Dogs" reversed Hollywoods idea of the other by showing it from the Native perspective, so viewers understood what the brown kids were saying while their white captors spoke gibberish. Its a masterful moment, made possible by representation behind and in front of the camera.

The cast and creators also did a stellar job poking fun at the usual sanctimonious portrayals of Indigenous traditions and culture. I laughed out loud when the ghost of an ancestor appeared to a depressed Hokti (Lily Gladstone), Daniel's mother and Willie Jack's aunt, whos serving time in prison. Your vibe sucks, says the spirit. I walked the Trail of Tears and I smiled more than you. The star of all visitations, buckskin-clad, foulmouthed William "Spirit" Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth), should be celebrated in the annals of television history as a singularly fantastic comedic character.

I also love how the series goes off on these seemingly random tangents, storywise and stylistically (one episode borrows from the film Dazed and Confused, another from Oceans 11), but eventually bring it all together, showing how everything, and everyone, is connected.

Read more: From Native American surf rock to the Rolling Stones: How 'Reservation Dogs' got its DIY sound

Lloyd: Reservation Dogs'' reminded me of another great FX show, Atlanta, in that respect, in the way it moved from what seemed like a traditionally focused narrative into stories that followed individual characters, and not just the four kids, but their parents and uncles and aunties, related by blood or community. (A word of praise here for soulful Sarah Podemski as Bears mother, Rita.) The respect paid to older characters  from Cheese letting an old woman with dementia believe hes her grandson in Season 1 to Willie Jacks apprenticeship this season to medicine man Fixico (Richard Ray Whitman), and not ignoring that generations own checkered past, really is remarkable and gratifying. Not to mention that it brought together a supergroup of older-generation Indigenous actors (including Gary Farmer, 70, Wes Studi, 75, and at last this season the great Graham Greene, 71) in one place  and even in the same shot. And it was exciting on some extra-textual level to watch them working with the younger actors  whose emotional truth can't be understated  as a mirror of the community theyre embodying.

Its a mosaic approach that intimates that any persons story is part of something bigger, that the world extends beyond what sliver of it were shown onscreen  even as the characters own worlds opened up. And like Atlanta, with which Reservation Dogs also shared an exquisite sense of place, the creators called time on a series that could certainly have continued, if critical respect and a devoted audience are anything to go by. I do have to say, as sad as I am to see these people go, I applaud the choice  the three-season arc seems right to me, as the series moved from concentrating on the Rez Dogs and their initial quest to a wider view, then bringing every character of note back for the finale, as the question of whether to leave home becomes a matter of determination, not desperation.

Read more: How the actors of 'Reservation Dogs' find themselves in their characters

Ali: I also respect Reservation Dogs for ending the show on its own timeline and terms. What else should we have expected from a show that was so uniquely independent in vision and execution? And the finale was the perfect sendoff. It centered on the death and burial of an elder, where everyone in the community showed up to send him off. Youth and elders argued about where to position the grave, aunties and nieces joked around in the kitchen. They were saying goodbye but theyd always be connected, no matter where their journeys might take them next, on or off the rez.

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Felix Herrera Garcia was reportedly seen leaving the back of the daycare with bags authorities believe to have contained drugs just minutes before first responders arrived

Gofundme Nicholas Feliz Dominici

Felix Herrera Garcia, the husband of the woman who owned a daycare in the Bronx where a toddler recently died as a result of suspected fentanyl exposure, was taken into custody in Mexico, law enforcement sources told The New York Post, CNN and CBS New York.

Pursuant to an ongoing investigation, a POI was taken into custody in Mexico," a New York Police Department spokesperson told PEOPLE Tuesday.

Related: Nashville Mom Charged with Murder after Her Toddler Dies of Fentanyl Intoxication

Herrera Garcia, the husband of Grei Mendez, was found by authorities while on a bus headed to Sinaloa, the Post reports. The U.S. Marshals Service reportedly tracked Herrera Garcia to Texas after first receiving a tip about him allegedly hiding in Mexico, sources told the Post.

According to allegations made by federal prosecutors, Mendez called Herrera Garcia twice back-to-back after finding several children unresponsive at the Divino Nino  or Divine Child  daycare on Morris Avenue in the Bronx on Sept. 15 before calling 911.

Google Maps Bronx daycare

Herrera Garcia, who is believed to be a co-conspirator, was reportedly captured on surveillance video exiting the back of the daycare in question just minutes before first responders arrived.

CNN reports that in the surveillance footage, Herrera Garcia was allegedly holding plastic bags that investigators believed contained fentanyl after the children became unconscious.

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A 1-year-old, Nicholas Feliz Dominici, died at Divino Nino and three other young children were immediately hospitalized.

During a press conference with NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated that four children at the daycare appeared to have come in contact with an opioid that led to hospitalization for three of the children, and one child is DOA  died  from this interaction.

Theodore Parisienne for NY Daily News via Getty Grei Mendez (center), a suspect in the Bronx daycare death of 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici

Mendez, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38, were arrested as part of the alleged conspiracy, CNN reports. They and Herrera Garcia are believed to be mid-level drug distributors, a federal law enforcement officer previously told CNN.

A trapdoor leading to narcotics was also found after Nicholas death, police said on Sept. 21.

As part of an ongoing overdose fatality investigation in a Bronx daycare center on 9/15/23, a search warrant was conducted by @NYPDDetectives. A large quantity of Fentanyl, other narcotics, & drug paraphernalia was recovered in a trap floor in the play area at the daycare center. https://t.co/VycTB9hzpx pic.twitter.com/ZwaeukUHqS  NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 21, 2023

As part of an ongoing overdose fatality investigation in a Bronx daycare center on 9/15/23, a search warrant was conducted by @NYPDDetectives, a tweet from the department stated last week. A large quantity of Fentanyl, other narcotics, & drug paraphernalia was recovered in a trap floor in the play area at the daycare center."

Its horrible that drugs were found in a place where children are cared for, Nicholass father, Otoniel Feliz told The New York Times. He added, "[How] does it make sense that youre going to mix narcotics with children?

Related: Death of 2-Year-Old Maryland Girl Ruled Homicide by Fentanyl Intoxication

The commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, said that the home-based childcare site, which opened in January, had no violations.

Gofundme Nicholas Feliz Dominici

Last week, a New York City grand jury voted to indict Mendez and Brito, CNN said.

Mendez and Brito were also charged in state court with murder, manslaughter, assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to court documents.

On Monday, Parra Paredes was charged in federal court in Manhattan with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.

PEOPLE was unable to immediately reach Mendezs attorney for comment.

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Read the original article on People.
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has launched an impassioned appeal for production designer Leila Naghdipari to be released from jail following her recent arrest during demonstrations marking the one year anniversary of Mahsa Aminis death.

Naghdipari was one of hundreds of Iranians arrested on Sept. 16 during widespread protests marking the anniversary of Aminis death while being detained for allegedly violating the countrys hijab law that mandates covered hair.

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Today, Iranian independent cinema is more that ever struggling to breathe under the boots of the security forces, Panahi said in his appeal.

Panahi added that its been more than 10 days since the arrest of Naghdipari, who was the production designer on his 2018 film Three Faces, a road trip through the repressive territory of patriarchal rural Iran. Panahi shot the film, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival, in violation of his 20-year filmmaking ban.

All the efforts of her husband Majid Barzegar, filmmaker and producer, as well as other personalities from Iranian cinema, have been to no avail, Panahi went on to note. He underlined that Leila has asthma and an autoimmune disease that requires her to take medication every day, which she has not been allowed to receive for a week.

Im worried about Leila and Im worried about Iranian cinema, the revered Iranian auteur concluded.

According to Radio Free Europe, Naghdipari is being held in the notoriously infernal Qarchak Varamin prison for women outside Tehran where health conditions are known to be very poor.

Panahi, who is considered one of Iranian cinemas greatest living masters, is known globally for prizewinning works such as The Circle, Offside, This Is Not a Film, Taxi, and No Bears.

He was released from Tehrans Evin prison in February after going on a hunger strike to protest the illegal and inhumane behaviour of Irans judiciary. Panahi had been arrested in July 2022 in Tehran in the wake of the countrys current conservative government crackdown.

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Kanye West doesnt always want to be seen in public these days, which caused him some legal trouble in Italy. The 46-year-old artist was recently accused of breaking anti-terror laws for wearing a mask in the country.

The Daily Mail reported Yeezys legal woes on Sunday (Sept. 24). It is forbidden to use any article which will hamper an individuals identification, in a public place or in a place that is open to the public, with a justifiable motive, it says in Italys anti-terror and public order legislation. This policy, Article 533 of Italian law, was conceived in 1977 to eliminate the threat of public terrorism.

After a string of Islamic-fueled attacks, they ramped up the law to include crash helmets and full face coverings. The only exception to this rule is for religious purposes, but a person has to procure written permission from local authorities before they are permitted to freely wear face coverings. Wests crime is punishable by a fine of 1,000 up to a maximum of 2,000, according to The Daily Mail.

Drama has followed Kanye West and his wife throughout their time in Italy. Bianca Censori faced backlash in August for walking around virtually naked and forcing Italian locals to notify authorities. Soon after this, pictures and footage of them seemingly engaging in fellatio while on a boat in Venice surfaced online.

Though the act could not be confirmed, the photos show Ye with his pants below his waist and his buttocks exposed while Censori had her head in his lap in such a way that made people believe they were engaged oral sex. The couple was ultimately handed a lifetime ban from the boat rental company and authorities investigated the matter.

There are standards of public decorum that have to be followed by tourists and locals alike and any breaches are severely punished, a Venice police source said. The images of West with his trousers down while in a taxi as he and his partner crossed the lagoon were seen all over the globe [] You could clearly see his trousers were half down and we have received complaints from people who witnessed it. Now we have identified the driver of the boat and we will be asking him what he saw as well. Check out their controversial boat ride below.

Kanye and Bianca on a boat ride in Italy ?? pic.twitter.com/iNLFKwvsw0  yzyupdates (@yzyupdates) August 28, 2023

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Even before joining the British royal family as the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle had already established herself as a major advocate for womens rights. So, of course, its no wonder that she continues to use her voice, and her now much larger platforms, to raise awareness and advocate for beloved causes.



Most recently, Markle and her husband Prince Harrys foundation, The Archewell Foundation, did just that as they announced their latest project. As students around the world returned to school this month, The Archewell Foundation supported girls education and health by sending school supplies and menstrual products to young scholars in Nigeria with The GEANCO Foundation, the Foundation wrote in their release.

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The release continued, praising their partner Foundation which provides full tuition, medical care, and social and emotional support to young female victims of terrorism and gender inequality in Nigeria.



Afam Onyema, CEO of GEANCO, joined the Archewell staff to help fill backpacks with supplies and menstrual products, the release continued. AWFs support will also provide menstrual health education for 2,500 girls in the region GEANCO serves, supporting the health and well-being of girls pursuing their education.

Click here to read the full article.



In the pictures attached to the release, young girls can be seen opening their cream-colored backpacks, filling them with school supplies and celebrating their new presents.



Since the news went live, eagle-eyed fans noticed that the backpacks are from the brand Beis, a travel gear brand by none other than Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell. And, as many loyal fans from Markle will remember, Markle and Mitchell met many years ago when they attended the DirecTV Beach Bowl in 2014.

Hannah Davis, Nina Agdal, Serena Williams, Meghan Markle and Shay Mitchell participate in the DirecTV Beach Bowl at Pier 40 on February 1, 2014. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for DirecTV)



A girls girl, wrote one X user about this sweet pre-royal connection. Love these full-circle moments. Sisterhood, women supporting each other , wrote another user.



In addition to potentially being friends themselves through the years, Markle and Mitchells connection goes even further. For this one, bear with us: Mitchell starred in Pretty Little Liars alongside Troian Belissario, Belissario is married to actor Patrick J. Adams, who just happened to be Markles co-star and love interest in Suits. Got it? Everything comes around full circle, wrote another user who made this long-winded connection. I love it!



So although we dont have the full story one how Markle and Mitchell began working together on this project together, its heartwarming to see the Duchess still has some of her pre-royal connections.

Before you go, click here to see every single time the royal family shaded Meghan Markle and Prince Harry since they stepped down as royals.



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Michael Bibi is temporarily out of the hospital amid his ongoing cancer treatment, the British producer announced Tuesday (Sept. 26) on social media.

When I first came into hospital I was barely able to walk, Bibi wrote on Instagram along with a photo of himself standing outside the hospital smiling. Today I walk out with a smile having completed my main treatment. Tired but happyMy fight against cancer is not overbut for now a break & some extra time to enjoy life.

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In June, Bibis management agency announced that the producer was undergoing treatment for CNS Lymphoma, a rare form of cancer, and that he wouldnt be playing any shows for the foreseeable future. At the time, hed been in the midst of his Solid Grooves residency at Ibizas DC10, with a flurry of other European festival dates on his schedule.

In the months since announcing his cancer diagnosis, Bibi has given intermittent updates on his treatment progress. In June, he posted that his first round of treatment was complete and his tumor size was reduced by 40%. On July 18, he wrote that after 10 weeks in a hospital bed, Ive been released for a short break as my treatment is continuing to go well. Thank you for all of your love, it really has given me strength. I have good days & I have bad daysToday is a good day. A post from Aug. 30 states Fk you cancer, you picked the wrong one.

Bibis latest update has received a wave of support in the comments section from fellow DJs/producers including Felix Da Housecat, Fatboy Slim, Amelie Lens, The Martinez Brothers, Mochakk, Fisher, Black Coffee, Carlita, Gordo and many more. The profile section of Bibis Instagram page provides an email, cancersupport@michaelbibi.com, for those that might have info that can help Michaels situation.

According to Cancer.gov, primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma is a disease in which malignant [cancer] cells form in the lymph tissue of the brain and/or spinal cord. The lymph system is part of the immune system, which is made up of lymph, lymph vessels, lymph nodes, the spleen, thymus, tonsils and bone marrow.

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Owing to the immense success and popularity of the first two films, viewers are excitedly anticipating the release date of Paddington 3 (AKA Paddington in Peru). The third film follows Paddington as he visits his Aunty Lucy, accompanied by the Brown Family. Chaos ensues after they are pulled into a mysterious incident through the Amazon rainforest up to the Peru mountains.

Heres all the Paddington 3 release date information we know so far, and all the details on when it is coming out.

Is there a Paddington 3 release date?

Theres finally some good news for the fans of the Paddington franchise. The third film was in development in early 2021 and received its final title  Paddington in Peru  in June 2022. As per The Digital Fix, the film was supposed to be released in early 2024, but it was delayed due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. But fans can rest assured that they will be getting Paddington 3 sometime in 2024.

The most recent update about Paddington 3 was reported by Screen Daily in August 2023. It stated that Rachel Zegler, who joined the cast in June 2023, wont be available to film for Paddington 3 as she is one of the members of the SAG-AFTRA strikes. Apparently filming has almost finished with the available cast.

In September 2023, a post on X (formerly Twitter) by scooper Daniel Richtman confirmed that the Paddington 3 was wrapping filming in two weeks and Rachel Zeglers role was being recast due to the ongoing strikes. Considering that filming is almost done, viewers can expect the threequel to be released in early to mid 2024. However, if previous release patterns at to be followed, it can also be released at the end of next year. Fans will have to wait for more official updates but can rejoice in the fact that Paddington 3 is coming in 2024.

This date is an estimation based on the information we have at the time of this writing.

Many stars will return to voice the characters, including Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, and Imelda Staunton. New additions to the cast include Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas, and Emily Mortimer.

Where is Paddington 3 coming out?

Paddington 3 is anticipated to come out in theaters sometime in 2024.

The official synopsis for Paddington 3 reads:

PADDINGTON IN PERU brings Paddingtons story to Peru as he returns to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.

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Director Lindsey Anderson Beer was a preteen when she first read Stephen King's terrifying 1983 novel Pet Sematary. The filmmaker remembers being "a super big nerd" around the age of 9 or 10. "I loved to go to libraries. I remember seeing it on the shelf," she recalls. "I'm like, 'Pets!'" While the book is far from being a kid-friendly animal story, Beer was entranced by King's terrifying tale of pets  and people  coming back from the dead after being buried in a particular patch of ground outside the fictional town of Ludlow, Maine. "I became very addicted to reading Stephen King," she says.

That addiction would ultimately lead Beer to direct Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (out Oct. 6), a prequel to the 2019 box-office hit Pet Sematary. Set in 1969, the film stars Jackson White as a young version of Jud Crandell, the character played by John Lithgow in the earlier film (and by Fred Gwynne in the original 1989 adaptation). In Beer's prequel, Jud starts to believe that something is terribly wrong with his childhood friend Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern), a soldier recently returned from serving in Vietnam. "Timmy is a boy who comes back from the war not exactly himself," says Beer, who also co-wrote the film's script. "That is because his father buried him in the 'sour ground' that is famous in Pet Sematary lore."

Natalie Alyn Lind stars in PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES

PARAMOUNT+ Natalie Alyn Lind in 'Pet Sematary: Bloodlines'

Beer explains that Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is an origin story. "This is where we get to see what tied Jud to the town and how he became the guardian of the woods," she says. "The film gives a lot more mythology in terms of how Ludlow was founded and this evil that's plaguing [the town]." In fact, a section of the film takes place way back in 1674 and documents how settlers got their first taste of the area's horrors. "That was some of my favorite stuff to shoot," says Beer, who filmed the movie in Montreal. "It was all outdoors in a beautiful woods, and it was like making a mini movie within the movie. I thought it was really important. It's one thing to hear that there's a lot of history to the town but another thing to see it."

Mulhern's costars include Henry Thomas and Samantha Manthis as Jud's parents, and David Duchovny as Timmy Baterman's father Bill. "David is so generous," Beer says. "There's a flashback scene that you see in the movie with him and young Timmy. He must have played catch with that kid for two hours off set." The director cast screen legend Pam Grier as another member of Ludlow's increasingly concerned citizenry. Beer notes the Jackie Brown actress "exceeded my expectations in terms of what a legend she is," saying, "She was up for anything, carrying a double barrel shotgun with absolutely no problem." Grier is also "the kind of person who, between takes, has people in a headlock," the filmmaker adds, laughing.

Henry Thomas, left, and Jackson White star in PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES

PARAMOUNT+ Henry Thomas and Jackson White in 'Pet Sematary: Bloodlines'

Of course, you need at least one pet in a film called Pet Sematary. Where the 2019 movie featured a zombie cat, Beer's tale boasts an undead dog, played in real life by a canine called Jellybean. "He's actually deaf, which posed a logistical challenge," Beer says of her four-legged thespian. "It's hard enough to shoot around an animal trainer, but the trainer always had to be within a direct line of sight, because they couldn't just call out a command. But Jellybean was really good at looking creepy and walking weird."

Although Beer's film is a prequel to the 2019 film, the two movies are both adapted from King's original novel, with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines based on a remembrance by Jud of some horrifying events from decades before. "It's an untold story from Pet Sematary itself," Beer says. "In the novel, Timmy Baterman went off to World War II. We moved up the timeline to Vietnam."

Jackson White, left, and Forrest Goodluck star in PET SEMATARY: BLOODLINES

PARAMOUNT+ Jackson White and Forrest Goodluck in 'Pet Sematary: Bloodlines'

King himself recently gave a thumbs up to the movie, writing on social media that "the screenplay takes a few liberties, but it's a fine story. David Duchovny is excellent. The secret, as always, is caring about the characters."

BLOODLINES: In the book, this is the story Jud Crandall tells Louis Creed to try and dissuade him from using the Pet Sematary. The screenplay takes a few liberties, but it's a fine story. David Duchovny is excellent.

The secret, as always, is caring about the characters.  Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 12, 2023

Between the 2019 film and this prequel, King's novel has now been thoroughly stripped of narrative meat. Beer believes that, like the dead people who are buried in the franchise's sour ground, the franchise could live on if audiences dig her movie.

"There's certainly other chapters that you could explore," she says. "You could take any section of history because this has existed for so long."

Best not to put away that shovel just yet.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines premieres on Paramount+ Oct. 6.

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From left: Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Lane Factor in <i>Reservation Dogs</i. Credit - Shane BrownFX

This article discusses the series finale of Reservation Dogs .

In the series finale of FX's Reservation Dogs, a teenager visits her aunt in prison. Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) buys an armful of snacks for Hokti (Lily Gladstone) and delivers the sad news that the medicine man she's been shadowing, Fixico (Richard Ray Whitman), has died. Using a bag of Flamin' Flamers chips as a visual aid, Hokti consoles her by pointing out that Fixico isn't exactly gone. She places a chip on each of the other snacks to represent what he taught each person he knew and notes that those people will, in turn, share his knowledge with others. "It's how community works," Hokti says. "It's sprawling. It spreads. What do you think they came for when they tried to get rid of us? Our community. You break that, and you break the individual."

It's an apt summation of the groundbreaking, profound, and utterly original series that showrunner Sterlin Harjo , who co-created Reservation Dogs with Taika Waititi, has made. What began as a dark comedy about four Indigenous teens on an Oklahoma reservation scheming and stealing to realize their dead friend Daniel's (Dalton Cramer) dream of moving to California, has evolved over the course of three seasons to become a celebration of the community that raised them. Rez life isn't easy. Daniel died by suicide. Hokti, who is also Daniel's mother, has been forcibly separated from her kin by the colonizers' state. Poverty runs rampant, and opportunities are limited. But, as conceived by Harjo and his team of Native actors, writers, and directors, it's also a place where familial bonds transcend traditional definitions of family.

Paulina Alexis and Richard Ray Whitman in Reservation Dogs Shane BrownFX

The show opened, just two years ago, with a spectacularly inept heist. Willie Jack and her three best friends, Elora (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), and Cheese (Lane Factor) steal a delivery truck and sell it to the sketchy local scrap yard. (The finale's prison scene closes the loop on some imagery from the premiere: the truck is full of Flamin' Flamers.) Dubbed the Reservation Dogs by a wandering pair of twin wannabe rappers, Mose (Lil Mike) and Mekko (FunnyBone), the group is also unwittingly drawn into a vendetta with another teen mini-gang, who (despite the presence of a kid known as White Steve) call themselves the NDN Mafia.

But the crime-comedy premise quickly fades into the background, along with the titular Quentin Tarantino references. The Rez Dogs aren't gangsters; they're kids desperate for money, adventure, and an end to their grief. (In fact, as we learn much later, they only got away with jacking the chip truck because their elders decided to look the other way.) Elora, the oldest, angriest, and most restless of the friends, eventually forms a bond with NDN Mafia's leader, Jackie (Elva Guerra), and takes off with her on an abortive West Coast road trip. As they all keep living side-by-side, the rivalry between kids who have so much in common is eroded.

D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Devery Jacobs in Reservation Dogs Shane BrownFX

Meanwhile, the Rez Dogs grow up. Bear, who once idolized his absentee rapper father, Punkin (Sten Joddi), learns to be a better man. Elora discovers that going to college might be a more constructive way to leave the reservation than running away. Willie Jack, by contrast, finds her purpose on the reservation, uniting friends who've been scattered by their sadness over Daniel and apprenticing for Fixico. The baby of the bunch, Cheesea sweet kid who never fails to identify his pronouns when introducing himselfhas, in the wake of his custodial uncle's arrest and a short, sad stint in a group home, found a home with a loving grandmother (Casey Camp-Horinek) who is not actually his blood relative.

He's not the only Rez Dog who has, in a sense, been raised by the community. Orphaned at a young age by her mother Cookie (JaNae Collins) and unaware until this season that her father (Ethan Hawke's Rick) is even alive, Elora grew up under the stern eye of her biological grandmother, Mabel (Geraldine Keams). Working with a crew of roofers that includes Daniel's dad, Danny (Michael Spears), Bear is treated to the fatherly guidanceand the lighthearted hazingPunkin wasn't around to give him. He also feels a kinship with Maximus (the wonderful Graham Greene), a mentally ill desert dweller who turns out to be Fixico's estranged cousin.

These kids are the perfect window into the community because they need so much from it. In absorbing the knowledge and carebut also learning from the mistakesof their loving, flawed elders, they discover what's special about a place they'd previously dismissed as just their dead-end hometown. When they finally make it to California, at the end of Season 2, there's a sublime moment of well-earned catharsis on the beach. But they also, in their naivete, get their car and money stolen; by the time Elora's aunt Teenie (Tamara Podemski) arrives to escort them back to Oklahoma, no one is serious about sticking around in L.A. As viewers who, for the most part, went into the show with limited knowledge of Native American cultures and reservation life, we got to go along with them on this coming-of-age journey.

From left: Paulina Alexis, Brandon Boyd as White Jesus, Lane Factor, D'Pharaoh Woo-A-Tai, and Devery Jacobs in Reservation Dogs Shane BrownFX

In just 28 episodes, without a weak one in the bunch, Harjo fleshed out three generations' worth of characters in the fictional town of Okern. One Season 2 episode left the Rez Dogs behind to follow Bear's overworked mom, Rita (Sarah Podemski), and her pals to the annual Indian Health Service conference, where they seize the rare opportunity to cut loose. Single in their 30s, these women have nonetheless been tied down for half their lives with kids and other responsibilities too often shirked by their male counterparts. A few episodes later, Bigfoot-obsessed rez cop Big (Zahn McClarnon) goes on an accidental acid trip, finds a cabal of powerful white men performing a lewd rite on Native land, and relives the shameful day he failed to save Cookie from her deadly motorcycle crash. A standout Season 3 episode (that reminded me of Dazed and Confused) flashes back to the grandparents' generation's last day of high school in '70s.

As Willie Jack and Hokti's conversation suggests, community in Okern extends beyond the living. Not only do the dead persist in characters' memories; they also resurface on Earth to support their corporeal kin. During an earlier prison visit, Willie Jack and Hokti pray together, surrounded by a legion of ancestral healers. An emotional episode from the current season finds Cookie returning to help Rita decide whether to take a promotion that will mean moving to Oklahoma City. In the series finale, Bear bids farewell to the spiritWilliam Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth), a warrior who suffered an absurd death at Little Bighornwho first appeared to him after he got jumped by the NDN Mafia in the premiere. Like Bear's honorary uncles, the spirit has taught him how to be a part of this community: I learned that I don't need to be the only leader.

Deeper into the supernatural realm, a mythical hoofed Deer Lady (Kaniehtiio Horn) stalks the American roadways, slaughtering bad men and helping good ones. Left behind at bus stop en route home from California, Bear runs into her at a roadside diner. She drives him back to Okern, in the midst of a mission to exact vengeance on a guard who abused children at one of the brutal Indian boarding schools used by the U.S. government and Christian missionaries, well into the 20th century, to force Native Americans to abandon their own cultures and assimilate into mainstream society.

Sarah Podemski, left, and JaNae Collins in Reservation Dogs Shane BrownFX

Reservation Dogs was an astounding feat of compression. In his keen awareness of how rare it is to see any Native stories on TV, let alone ones afforded such creative freedom, Harjo squeezed every last drop of representation out of the series' 14-ish hours of screen time. Most shows that attempted what Rez Dogs accomplished would've felt overcrowded, between the dozens-strong cast of characters and the historical underpinnings and the spiritual resonances and the variety of genres sampled, from heist to hangout comedy to the penultimate episode's bittersweet tete-a-tete between Jacobs and Hawke (whose dialogue-heavy script nodded to Hawke's Before trilogy). But Harjo understood how to let each story breathe within its tiny, half-hour box, how to deploy lightnessboth humor and lightness in the sense that Italo Calvino meant it, a dextrous style characterized by precision and determinationin service of heavy subject matter.

Death may be the weightiest topic of all, and it suffused this show that was also, paradoxically, about the infinite possibilities of youth. Daniel's suicide cast a shadow over the first two seasons, until the Rez Dogs reaffirmed their love for each other on the beach in L.A., where his spirit joined them in a final hug. When it was Mabel's time to go, Elora's home filled up with aunties and uncles and friends, there to shepherd her to the next life. Cookie's accident left her daughter aggrieved and Big guilt-ridden. But each death brought the community together, too. It makes sense: every story about Native Americans in the 21st century is a story of resilience.

Zahn McClarnon, left, and Lane Factor in Reservation Dogs Shane BrownFX

So it's fitting that the finalea low-key episode by the show's standardsalso centers around a funeral. As Fixico's protegee, Willie Jack oversees his burial. Once again, Okern unites around a beloved elder. The women cook a meal to share, the young men dig the grave, and the grandparents sit around busting everyone's chops, as is their right. Teenie, who barely knew Elora before returning to Mabel's deathbed, is welcomed back into the fold. So are Kenny Boy (Kirk Fox) and Ansel (Matty Cardarople), the so-called meth heads from the scrapyard, who want desperately to be part of the rez family. Harjo, who co-wrote (with Chad Charlie) and directed the episode, doesn't place blame on Teenie or Rita, who takes the Oklahoma City job, or Elora, who gets into college, for leaving Okern. Unlike, say, the unrepentantly selfish Punkin, they either always knew or have come to see that they'll be part of this community forever.

As Hokti explains to Willie Jack: "The thing about community is, you gotta take care of it. You have to play your part." By listening to elders and passing on their wisdom to the next generation, says Hokti, "we keep going." By depicting its characters' world, without compromise, Reservation Dogs also honored and preserved the embattled communities it represents. Although its remarkable run has come to an end, I have no doubt that it, too, will keep going.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
Viewers of Ride with Norman Reedus Season 6 are wondering how many episodes are in the series and when each new episode comes out. In this television series, Walking Dead star Norman Reedus takes epic road trips across the world. Every episode features Reedus along with a new riding companion as they embark on a new adventure to explore local culture.

Heres how many episodes are in Ride with Norman Reedus season 1 and what day new episodes come out.

How many episodes are in Ride with Norman Reedus Season 6?

Ride with Norman Reedus Season 6 has 6 episodes.

The episode list is as follows:

Episode 1: The Utah Desert with Keanu Reeves

Episode 2: Northern Italy with Josh Holloway

Episode 3: The Eternal City with Johnny Knoxville

Episode 4: Portugal: A Journey from Lisbon to Porto

Episode 5: TBA

Episode 6: TBA

Season 6 premiered on September 10, 2023, with new episodes released every week. The producers of this show include Ken Druckerman, Geoff OBrien, Elizabeth Ashe, Anneka Jones, Norman Reedus, and Banks Tarver.

Norman Reedus is the lead star and host of this television series. The guests of Ride with Norman Reedus include Keanu Reeves, Josh Holloway, Johnny Knoxville, and Adri Law.

When do new Ride with Norman Reedus episodes come out?

New episodes of Ride with Norman Reedus Season 6 typically come out every Sunday.

The official synopsis for the series reads:

The Walking Dead star and motorcycle enthusiast Norman Reedus hits the open road to explore local biker culture and celebrate the best and brightest collectors, mechanics, and craftsmen around the country. Each episode features Reedus and a riding companion  a fellow actor, musician, friend or local chopper fanatic  as they journey to custom bike shops, tattoo parlors, collectors warehouses, or a roadside smokehouse with plenty of time for unplanned detours and tire changes.

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Safeen Group, part of AD Ports Group, a leading facilitator of global trade, has marked the arrival of the SSF Ania vessel at Shuwaikh Port, Kuwait, following the launch of a new Ro-Ro service from Abu Dhabi's Khalifa Port.

The new service offering is designed to eliminate the need for long-haul road journeys, reducing risks associated with road travel, and cutting down on carbon emissions.

Truck drivers will receive accommodation on board, allowing them to focus solely on the first and last mile of delivery, enhancing their safety and well-being.

Optimising logistics efficiency

Committed to optimising logistics efficiency, Safeen Groups new Ro-Ro service directly connects the UAE and Kuwait, eliminating the need for transit through additional borders. This results in a substantial reduction in transit time, enabling swift and efficient operations.

The new Ro-Ro service utilises the SSF Ania, a vessel fully controlled by Safeen Group, which will be tailored to meet the specific needs of customers. It will employ a combination of trucks and trailers, as well as trailers-only transport, for cargo transportation between the UAE and Kuwait with a load capacity of 160 trucks plus 46 cars and a lane capacity of 2,062 metres. In addition to its unique design for Ro-Ro service, the SSF Ania boasts a capacity to carry various other Ro-Ro cargo, including cars, project cargo, as well as high and heavy equipment.

Additionally, while road transport allows a maximum of 25 tonnes on a trailer, the SSF Ania can accommodate up to 50 tonnes per trailer. This substantial increase in cargo capacity not only saves time but also reduces the number of trailers required, contributing to sustainability goals.

Dynamic shift

Captain Ammar Al Shaiba, CEO of Maritime Cluster, AD Ports Group, said: This signals a dynamic shift in sustainable and efficient logistics services. Moreover, with the arrival of this vessel, Safeen Group ushers in a new era of efficient, secure, and sustainable maritime business between the UAE and Kuwait. Together we are setting a course towards a greener and more connected future.

Safeen Group's Ro-Ro service to Kuwait provides an end-to-end logistics solution for the market, and represents a step towards sustainable, efficient, and secure logistics solutions that prioritises the well-being of truck drivers, minimises transit time, and supports a greener future for the industry.

The launch of the new service is preceded by the introduction of a new weekly container shipping service from Khalifa Port to Shuwaikh Port earlier this year.-- TradeArabia News Service
FILE - U.S. military personnel work near F-35 fighter jets of the Vermont Air National Guard, parked in the military base at Skopje Airport, North Macedonia, on Friday, June 17, 2022. The Czech government on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023 approved a Defense Ministry plan to acquire 24 U.S. F-35 fighter jets in a deal worth some 150 billion Czech crowns ($6.5 billion). (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski, file) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

PRAGUE (AP)  The Czech Republic's government on Wednesday approved a Defense Ministry plan to acquire two dozen U.S. F-35 fighter jets in a deal worth around 150 billion Czech koruna ($6.5 billion).

Prime Minister Petr Fiala said that the F-35s will solve the future of our tactical air forces for dozens of years to come.

Fiala said the purchase for the Czech military sends a message to our allies that we take the defense of our country seriously and that they can rely on us.

The first of the 24 fighter jets should be delivered in 2031, with the rest by 2035, Fiala said. The American aircraft will replace the 14 JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden that are currently used by the Czech army.

The Czechs will pay almost $5 billion to the U.S. for the aircraft, training of pilots, ammunition and other costs, Defense Minister Jana Cernochova said. The remaining money will be used to finance an upgrade of the Caslav air force base in central Czech Republic, fuel and training of staff, Cernochova said.

The chief of the general staff, Lt. Gen. Karel Rehka, said that the new jets would ensure that in the case of need, we'll manage to effectively defend ourselves against aggression, together with our allies.

The ministry has been negotiating a deal with the U.S. for about a year amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Wednesday's announcement came after the government decided in May to acquire 246 CV90 armored combat vehicles from Sweden as part of a major modernization of the military amid Russia's war.
Menendez will reportedly be released on a $100,000 bond after surrendering his personal passport

Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Sen. Bob Menendez leads a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on July 26, 2023

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, both pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to federal bribery, extortion and fraud charges, Politico reports.

According to New York Law Journal reporter Jane Wester, Menendez will be released on a $100,000 bond after surrendering his personal passport.

Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted last week along with his wife following an investigation into their business dealings with three men who have ties to Egypt's government.

Related: Sen. Bob Menendez, Wife Charged with Bribery After Allegedly Accepting 'Cash, Gold, a Luxury Vehicle' and More

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian Menendez arrive at a White House reception on May 16, 2022

The 39-page indictment alleges that the senator, 69, and Nadine, 56, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in exchange for protecting the three businessmen  Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes  and to "benefit" the government of Egypt. Some of those bribes, prosecutors say, came in the form of envelopes stuffed with cash.

"Over $480,000 in cash  much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe  was discovered in the home, along with over $70,000 in Nadine Menendez's safe deposit box," the indictment alleges.

Menendez, who was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time of the indictment, has since told reporters the cash came from his "personal savings."

Related: John Fetterman Says He'll Return Campaign Donation from Bob Menendez as He Calls on Indicted Senator to Resign

The indictment further alleges that the senator "provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt," and "improperly advised and pressured an official at the United States Department of Agriculture for the purpose of protecting a business monopoly" granted to one of the businessmen, Hana, by the country of Egypt.

The couple are charged with three counts: conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.

Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Nadine and Bob Menendez arrive at a White House state dinner on June 22, 2023

Menendez has served as a senator since 2006. Prior to that, he was a U.S. Representative, state senator, state representative, and the mayor of Union City, New Jersey.



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Lawmakers on either side of the aisle, including fellow Democrats, have since called on Menendez to step down, though the lawmaker has said he has no intention of doing so.

Menendez, who is up for reelection in 2024, now faces a primary challenger  U.S. Rep. Andy Kim  who announced that he would run against the Democrat just days after the indictment was unsealed.



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Elophia Mengestu commutes from NYC to Chicago by plane for grad school classes.

She posted a TikTok about her unconventional commute, receiving a mixed response.

This is the story of why Mengestu stands by her choices, as told to Charissa Cheong.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 25-year-old Elophia Mengestu, who is based in New York City, and it has been edited for length and clarity.

Earlier this year, I began an accounting course as part of the process of getting my Masters of Business Administration. I was accepted to my dream school, at Northwestern University in Illinois, but moving to Chicago wasn't an option.

I also work as an influencer marketing manager in New York City, which involves going into the office a minimum of three days per week and attending a number of work events on top of that, so I decided the best solution was to commute between both cities.

Thankfully, everybody in my program works a full-time job, and the program is really flexible for full-time professionals, allowing me to schedule out my life so my classes are on Saturdays.

Monday through Friday I'm in New York, and I take a plane to Chicago early on Saturday morning, go to class, then fly back to get home by Saturday evening, and then ideally have Sunday to do all my errands before I start the new week.

I posted a TikTok about what my commute looks like in August, and people were shocked by my lifestyle, but I find that a lot of people who take the weekend courses are also commuting, some within driving distance, and some also fly.

For me, it makes sense  I'm at my dream school, and I'm really grateful to also have my dream job, so I didn't want to give either up. But flying to college every week isn't without its challenges.

There are some sacrifices I have to make, but they're worth it

On a typical commuting day, I wake up anywhere between 3 and 3.30 a.m., and then call my Uber to the airport. I usually hop on a 6 or 6.30 a.m. flight to Chicago.

I'm in class by 9 a.m. and am there until noon, when I usually grab lunch, catch up with classmates, and then head back to the airport to go home.

I think the most major expenses involved in doing this are the flights which, on average, I probably spend about $500 on per round trip. I also pay for Ubers I take on the day in New York, but we get given some vouchers from school for traveling to and from campus, which I spend on Ubers in Chicago.

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I think the biggest impact of these expenses has been that I definitely have way less money to leisurely spend on things like outings, shopping, or Uber Eats.

However, I feel so fulfilled by what I'm doing in my school and my job, and I've just always enjoyed being in the classroom, so it actually doesn't bother me as much as I anticipated it might.

I'm a really big fan of maximizing the time you already have, so I study on my flights into class because I want the information fresh in my brain but also because it's time when I'm already going to be awake and will have limited access to WiFi or distractions. I also study at night after work if extra time is needed.

I don't really do that many social outings anymore, but if I do, I'll try to schedule my friends in for dinner right after work as I'll already be commuting at those times, and then I'll try to use Sundays to catch up on rest.

To me, it's worth it because this lifestyle is supporting my dreams  Northwestern is where I wanted to continue my education. At the same time, my day job allows me to be creative, strategic, and to practice a multitude of my skills, plus I get to work with various creators and brands and attend incredible events. I didn't want to give any of this up.

While it's challenging, I am just as eager to grow in my profession as I am in my education, which is why I am intentional about managing both.

When my video went viral, some people made snap judgments about my background

I have actually posted a few TikTok videos explaining what my commute looks like, but one in particular blew up.

Some commenters commended me for pursuing both things, and some people who were familiar with my college understood why I made sacrifices to be able to attend the institution and do this job.

However, the most overwhelming type of comment for me was people thinking I'm either a trust fund baby or that my parents financially support my lifestyle, that I'm spoon-fed and grew up really rich  things like that.

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Never did I expect people to look at my life or my videos and think that I grew up as a child of rich parents. That's not at all my life. I definitely didn't grow up poor by any means, but I didn't grow up rich either.

My parents are both Ethiopian and immigrated to the US when they were around 19. My dad's retired and living in Ethiopia now, but he was a public school teacher. My mom and stepdad work at intellectual property firms in docketing. They've built impressive lives for themselves, but I'm not a trust fund baby, and I financially support myself.

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I have pretty tough skin and I know that people are going to have opinions regardless. At the end of the day, I live a privileged life, so I can also understand, from an outside point of view, some of these comments. But I don't think that they're necessarily warranted, especially those suggesting my set-up is unnecessary.

I am a big believer in making whatever choices make you happy or whatever fits your circumstances, and I posted follow-up explanations about my commute for commenters who were genuinely interested in understanding why I do what I do to show that I think it's OK to be fearless with your ambitions and your goals and to pursue them as much as you can.

You can love two things and pursue two things if that's what you're passionate about, and it's in line with the vision of who you are and where you need to be in your future.

Correction: September 28, 2023  An earlier version of this story misstated the extent of Elophia Mengestu's studies at Northwestern. She is currently studying there but did not attend there for her undergraduate degree.

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.

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The Toledo Zoo Reveals Twin Siberian Tigers Are Both Girls  and Fans Can Help Pick Their Names

"The cat's out of the bag," the Toledo Zoo said

The Toledo Zoo had one spooky sex reveal!

Nearly a week after announcing that their Siberian tiger, Talya, had welcomed twin cubs, the Ohio-based attraction broke the news on Wednesday that both of them are girls by using two pink jack-o'-lantern pumpkins carved with faces of the newborns to make the proclamation.

Michael Frushour, the Toledo Zoo's curator of mammals, shared the images and the happy news live on the Today show. He explained to the NBC morning show's Savannah Guthrie, Craig Melvin, Sheinelle Jones, Al Roker and Jacob Soboroff that twin tigers themselves are "incredibly rare."

"There's only 5,000 tigers left in the wild. This particular subspecies, there's less than 500 in the wild," he said. "So, this is really special for us to have, especially two girls. It's a really exciting day."

Talya birthed the cubs on July 20. She and dad Titan previously welcomed another pair of twins in 2021.

Officials at Ohio's @ToledoZoo have double the reason to celebrate after welcoming twin Siberian tigers 



Take a look at the gender reveal of the cubs and vote to help name them here: https://t.co/5NNXpH08iF pic.twitter.com/AeDGckiaUG  TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 27, 2023

Asked how mom and the cubs are doing, Frushour revealed that all are doing "absolutely great."

"We've done two check-ups on them and they were 14 and 15 pounds each,' he said. "So, they're doing great with mom. Just like they would be in the wild, they'd be with mom in a dense space."

Those hoping to see the tiger twins in person will have to stay tuned for a bit, as they're not yet on exhibit.

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Courtesy of Toledo Zoo Toledo Zoo's twin tiger cubs

In the meantime, zoo officials are asking the public to help vote on possible names of the cubs.

Options for the Siberian tigers, which are also known as Amur tigers, were picked by the staff who takes care of them. The choices are:

Calida (Fiery)

Kima (Butterfly)

Valentina (Strong)

Kamilla (Calming)

Ember (Spark)

Ash (Dream)

Maya (Dream)

Nadya (Hope)

Participating will cost fans $1 to vote for two names. All donations received through the tiger cub naming contest will go towards the care for and protection of the Amur tigers, both at the Toledo Zoo and globally.

The two names with the most votes will be used, though zookeepers will choose which cub gets which name.



Related: Panda in French Zoo Gives Birth to Female Twin Cubs

This isn't the first time the Toledo Zoo has done a public naming contest for their newborn animals.

Last November, twin polar bears were born at the animal attraction to a 24-year-old female bear named Crystal and an 18-year-old male bear named Nuka. After a vote, the bears were named Kallik and Kallu.



Additionally on Wednesday, the Toledo Zoo posted a video showing more details of the tiger cubs sex reveal.

"We've got roar-some news..." they wrote, joking that "the cat's out of the bag."



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Indie animation studio Baobab Studios has brought in Oscar-nominated producer Osnat Shurer (Moana) to serve as Co-Chief Creative Officer alongside CCO Eric Darnell (Madagascar).

Boasting 30+ years of experience in animation, Shurer comes to the company from Walt Disney Feature Animation, where she served as VP of Development, having simultaneously held a role as the executive producer of the short films group at Pixar. Going forward, shell be part of a creative brain trust which includes Darnell and Kane Lee (Chief Content Officer), and such advisors and investors as Ed Catmull (Pixar Co-Founder and former President, Disney Feature Animation) and Oscar-winning filmmaker Glen Keane (Director, Over the Moon), among others.

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Among the first projects Shurer will work on at Baobab are the Momoguro multiplatform franchise, which includes a digital collectibles game, an upcoming Roblox game, and a TV series in development, and two falling under a TV development deal with Disney+. The first for the streamer is Intercats, an animated cat workplace comedy, based on the fast-tracked Baobab graphic novel series by the same name with First Second Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers. The second announced thus far is an animated event series called The Witchverse, an epic fantasy action-adventure universe for Disney+ based on the companys three-time Emmy-winning short film and VR experience, Baba Yaga. The latter is set to star Kate Winslet, Jennifer Hudson, Daisy Ridley and Glenn Close.

Perhaps best known for producing the Academy Award-nominated Disney hits Raya and the Last Dragon and Moana, which grossed over $700 million and continues to be one of the topmost streamed kids movie ever, Shurer with the latter birthed a wildly successful franchise that continues to grow with a new sequel series in the works, a Dwayne Johnson-produced live-action remake, ice-shows, toys, and games. Sharing that ability is CCO Darnell, who helmed DreamWorks first-ever movie, Antz, and all four Madagascar films, which led to three TV series and TV specials, eight video games, three theme park attractions, and multiple live-stage shows.

Of particular note with regard to Shurers time at Pixar are the Oscar-nominated shorts she either produced or exec produced for the studio, including Lifted, One Man Band and Boundin.

We are thrilled to welcome Osnat to Baobab, said the companys CEO and Co-Founder, Maureen Fan. She has a gift for launching franchises with beloved characters that resonate across ages and cultures. Osnats extensive background brings invaluable expertise to our growing story franchises across film, television, games, and books.

On the subject of Baobabs new hire, CCO Darnell stated, Im excited to partner with Osnat to build out our slate and shepherd new projects into production. She has already hit the ground running at Baobab, proving that she has the creativity, experience, leadership skills, and collaborative instincts to get things done.

Added Shurer, Im honored to join Baobab Studios. Throughout my career, Ive been at the forefront of shaping stories with fresh, nuanced, powerful female protagonists. You can imagine why I was immediately drawn to Baobab and this fantastic group of mavericks and the opportunity to explore the very cutting-edge of technology and games in service of telling great stories.

The winner of nine Emmys and three Annie Awards, Baobab Studios has, since its 2015 founding, established a track record of building franchisable family IP and interactive worlds. Boasting a specialty in IP development through VR, its universes are being turned into films for the likes of Disney, and series for premium streamers like Disney+ and Max, as well as books (Penguin Random House, MacMillan) and games (Roblox, web3, Oculus). The companys recent release, Namoo, from Oscar-nominated director Erick Oh, was shortlisted for the Oscars, won the 2022 Annie Award for Best Special Production, and is now streaming on HBO Max. Other notable projects from the company include Crow: The Legend, Baba Yaga, Invasion!, Asteroids!, Jack, Bonfire, and Paper Birds.

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Tamia Taylor went missing after coming to Memphis to celebrate her birthday with friends on Sept. 9, police said

Tamia Taylor/Facebook Tamia Taylor.

The body of a 21-year-old woman who went missing along the Mississippi River while on a riverboat birthday cruise earlier this month has been discovered, according to police.

Tamia Taylor vanished after coming to Memphis to celebrate her birthday with friends on Sept. 9, the Memphis Police Department said in their initial news release.

"Miss Taylor boarded the Island Queen Booze Cruise at approximately 11:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, September 9, 2023, but was not seen by her companions after the boat returned to the dock and everyone offloaded," police wrote in the Sept. 12 release. "There were two exits on the boat for patrons to offload at the conclusion of the ride."

"Early Sunday morning, Miss Taylor's mother drove to Memphis to file a missing person report after several unsuccessful attempts were made to contact her by phone," police added.

Related: Search Suspended for Man Who Disappeared from Cruise Ship While Celebrating Dad's 60th Birthday

The Memphis Police Department said in a release on Saturday that police were "assisting the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department in the investigation of a body that was recovered on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River."

On Wednesday, the department confirmed to PEOPLE that the 21-year-old's body had been found and positively identified.

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Police said Wednesday that they are awaiting autopsy results, but ABC affiliate WATN-TV and Fox affiliate WHBQ-TV reported that the Crittenden County coroner confirmed her death was due to drowning.

Related: Remains Found amid Search for N.J. Father Who Disappeared in Louisiana Forest on Geocaching Trip

What preceded Taylor entering the water remains unclear at this time. PEOPLE could not immediately reach the Crittenden County Sheriffs Office for comment.

In a previous statement, Memphis Riverboats said they had "no reason to believe she could have gone overboard."

"We can confirm from video footage circling around that she was last seen on the boat as the boat was pulling into the Harbor, where we dock our boats," they wrote. "We hope she is found safe and returns home."

Related: Wife Speaks Out After Husband and Son Disappeared While Kayaking on Spring Break Trip: 'They Died Together'

The Dock Ellis Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the families of missing minority women, said on Facebook on Tuesday that it was "truly heartbroken" by the tragic discovery.

"Debra Taylor and her family are truly [grateful] for your thoughts and prayers," the foundation added. "Dock Ellis Foundation is asking everyone to please allow the family time to heal. We will all carry Tamia Taylor in our hearts."

"Tamia Taylor your life we honour, your departure we accept, your memory we cherish," the organization continued. "And although there is grief today as we say goodbye, there is gratitude for your life."

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X has axed four team members who were tracking election disinformation from an office in Ireland, including the teams leader, The Information reported Wednesday, citing three employees it did not identify.

Late last week X executives told the team, based in Dublin, that having elections integrity employees based in Europe wasnt necessary, according to the report. The elections-integrity team had about two dozen employees before Elon Musk bought the platform last year, and is now down to less than half of that, with most now in North America.

Notably, on Wednesday, the Financial Times quoted Linda Yaccarino saying that X was expanding its safety and election teams globally. The cuts have raised concerns among regulators calling on the platform to comply with rules on censoring lies about elections.

Aaron Rodericks, the team leader in the platforms Dublin office, has previously expressed his frustration with the network on LinkedIn, according to The Information. He wrote last month: If you have a passion for protecting the integrity of elections and civic events, X is certainly at the center of the conversation with more than 70 elections coming up worldwide.

Since purchasing Twitter last year, Musk has rebranded as X and cut more than 80 percent of its staff. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest cuts.

The post X Cuts 4 Employees Tracking Election Disinformation From Europe (Report) appeared first on TheWrap.
House Republicans on Thursday, in their first impeachment inquiry hearing, are set to reexamine information they say they've gathered so far in their investigations into President Joe Biden and his family's business dealings.

"House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden's conduct," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said when ordering the inquiry earlier this month. "These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption."

Among their claims, which have yet to be supported by direct evidence, is that President Biden was involved in or personally profited from his family's foreign business dealings, or that he improperly influenced policy based on them during his time as vice president.

Here's a closer look at some of the specific allegations levied against President Biden that are likely to be discussed during Thursday's hearing, and what Biden himself has said about his son's business dealings and the impeachment inquiry.

Allegation: Biden lied about his family's business dealings

Speaker McCarthy and other top Republicans have claimed Biden lied to the public about his knowledge of his family's business deals.

They highlight specific statements from Biden that he "never discussed" with his son or brother anything involving their businesses, and that his son never made money in China.

Biden's statement in regard to China is not true. Hunter Biden has testified in open court that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Chinese business interests.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden hosts a summit with Pacific Island nation leaders at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 25, 2023. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

MORE: House Republicans to hold 1st Biden impeachment inquiry hearing

Whether he "never discussed" business with his son is less clear. Hunter Biden's former business partner Devon Archer testified that Joe Biden attended at least two dinners with Hunter Biden's foreign business associates, and frequently spoke with his son over the phone while his son was in the presence of foreign business associates.

But Archer also testified that business never came up during those interactions. Those discussions were often about the weather and other benign subjects, he said. Archer, notably, testified that he never witnessed Joe Biden engage in any wrongdoing.

Hunter Biden also acknowledged at least one instance in which Joe Biden addressed his appointment to the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma: "Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do,'" Hunter Biden told the New Yorker.

MORE: What to know about the Hunter Biden investigations

Allegation: Biden joined phone calls, meetings about Hunter's business

"Eyewitnesses have testified that the president joined on multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions  dinners, resulted in cars and millions of dollars into his son's and his son's business partners," McCarthy said when launching the impeachment inquiry.

Such statements appear largely based on Archer's testimony.

Archer testified that as many as 20 times, he saw Hunter put his father on speakerphone when Hunter was with business associates. But he said those conversations often stemmed from Hunter speaking to his father "every day" and that he never witnessed Hunter talking with his dad about the substance of Hunter's business.

Archer also testified about two different dinners that Joe Biden attended, but never indicated that Hunter's business was discussed.

The first was "a birthday dinner" with Hunter, Joe Biden and some foreign businesspeople: "I don't remember the conversation. I just remember that [Joe Biden] came to dinner, and we ate and kind of talked about the world, I guess, and the weather, and then everybody left," Archer said. The second dinner involved Joe Biden, Hunter, one of Hunter's Burisma colleagues, a Greek orthodox priest, and someone from the World Food Programme: "I think we were supposed to talk about the World Food Programme. So, there was some talk about that," Archer testified.

As for a Porsche Archer said Hunter Biden received, it was bought for him by "a prominent businessman in Kazakhstan," according to Archer. Archer testified that he didn't know why the businessman bought the car for Hunter Biden.

Many of these findings not new. A 2020 Senate report detailed some of these business endeavors and payments. The report, penned by Biden critics, GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, found that Hunter Biden's overseas business ventures were "awkward" and at times "problematic" for U.S. officials but provided no evidence and found no instance of government policy being altered as a result.

MORE: Personal and political pain collide for Joe and Hunter Biden: ANALYSIS

Allegation: FBI informant alleged million-dollar bribe to Bidens

"A highly credible FBI source alleges that Joe Biden received $5 million in exchange for pressuring for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the Ukrainian natural gas firm that Hunter Biden was on the board of, Burisma," Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said earlier this month.

Grassley in July released a confidential FBI informant's unverified claim that, years ago, the Biden family "pushed" a Ukrainian oligarch to pay them $10 million. The FD-1023 form cites an unnamed source who recounts a series of interactions in 2015 and 2016 with Mykola Zlochevsky, the chief executive of Burisma. The source recalled Zlochevsky claiming that he was "forced" to pay Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each, apparently in exchange for firing a Ukrainian prosecutor named Viktor Shokin who was purportedly investigating Burisma at the time.

There is no evidence aside from the unverified FD-1023 that Joe Biden accepted a bribe to influence U.S. policy in Ukraine. Democrats have accused accusing Grassley of selectively highlighting uncorroborated information to hurt a political opponent.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has said that in 2020, the Trump-appointed Justice Department interviewed the source, investigated the source's claims and then closed the investigation.

Allegation: Joe Biden used pseudonyms on emails

"Joe Biden used at least three pseudonyms on over 5,000 emails. We know one of these, his son was copied on, in a pseudonym, that pertained to Ukraine," Comer said earlier this month.

PHOTO: Rep. James Comer presides during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19, 2023. (Shutterstock)

It is common for high-profile government officials, including presidents, to use pseudonyms for their email. It's been publicly reported that Barack Obama did it. And that Bill Barr did it.

The email Hunter Biden was copied on included Joe Biden's official schedule. The email included the normal list of the vice president's daily workload, but also included a reference to an overnight stay at the "Lake House." A source close to the Biden family said Biden copied his son because it was the weekend of the anniversary of Beau Biden's death, and the vice president wanted Hunter Biden to be there with the family.

Allegation: Biden as vice president coordinated Hunter's role in Burisma

"Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden's business partners about Hunter's role in Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company," McCarthy said when ordering the inquiry.

This allegation refers to a December 2015 email exchange between Hunter Biden's office and the White House. In the exchange, according to Comer, Hunter Biden's business partner Eric Schwerin and the vice president's then-communications staffer Kate Bedingfield collaborate on a response to questions from the media about Hunter Biden's appointment to the board of Burisma.

Bedingfield writes, "VP signed off on this"  and presents Schwerin with a statement she "will give to both reporters in my name shortly." The statement said that Hunter Biden "is a private citizen," and that Joe Biden "does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."

In a tweet on Sept. 6, White House spokesperson Ian Sams wrote: "More lies by @JamesComer. As Comer tells it, then-VP Biden 'colluded' with this business by ... saying he doesn't endorse it and wasn't involved with it? Total nonsense."

Allegation: DOJ is letting Bidens off the hook

"The president's family has been offered special treatment by Biden's own administration. Treatment that they would not have otherwise received if they were not related to the president," McCarthy has claimed.

This allegation rests heavily on the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers who accused senior Justice Department officials of slow-walking their investigation, stymying investigators' efforts to pursue leads, and failing to prosecute Hunter Biden to the fullest extent of the law.

PHOTO: In this July 26, 2023, file photo, Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, departs federal court after a plea hearing on two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes in Wilmington, Delaware. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters, FILE)

But Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel David Weiss have both denied the allegations made by those whistleblowers. Other witnesses have shared testimony with Congress that undercuts some of the IRS agents' core claims.

Allegation: Biden family received $20 million through 20 shell companies

"Detailed banking records show that the Biden family and their business associates received $20 million in payments from foreign actors in places like Russia, China, Ukraine, and Romania, including payments during Joe Biden's time as vice president," Rep. Elise Stefanik said earlier this month.

Hunter Biden has acknowledged receiving millions of dollars from overseas business endeavors, often into companies with multiple partners. The structure of those companies and the beneficiaries are opaque -- perhaps deliberately. But it is not uncommon for business entities to use shell companies for strategic and tax-related reasons -- which is legal. And none of the money received by Hunter Biden has been linked to Joe Biden himself.

Allegation: Banks flagged 150-plus suspicious activities from Bidens

"The Treasury Department alone has more than 150 transactions involving the Biden family and other business associates that were flagged as suspicious activity by U.S. banks," McCarthy has said.

Suspicious Activities Reports, or SARs, are reports filed by financial institutions to flag questionable banking transactions to the Treasury Department, but do not amount to allegations of crimes. These are essentially notices of unusual activity that investigators can use as tips or leads -- not actual allegations of wrongdoing or criminal activity, and banks are required to file them to help the U.S. government monitor possible money laundering activities.

These are essentially notices of unusual activity that investigators can use as tips or leads -- not actual allegations of wrongdoing or criminal activity.

What Biden has said

When Republican scrutiny into Hunter Biden grew during the 2020 campaign, Biden began to be asked about his son's actions.

"I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," Biden said during a stop in Iowa in July 2019. Later, during a Democratic debate in October 2019, Biden said his son had done nothing wrong.

"Look, my son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong," he said on stage. "I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine. And that's what we should be focusing on. And what I wanted to make a point about -- and my son's statement speaks for itself. He spoke about it today. My son's statement speaks for itself."

After the federal investigation into Hunter Biden became public last December, President Biden said is "proud" of his son and "confident" he did nothing wrong.

On the impeachment inquiry, Biden has brushed it off as a distraction.

"Now, best I can tell they want to impeach me because they want shutdown the government," he told a group of donors behind closed doors the day after the inquiry was launched. "Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day not focused on impeachment, I've got job to do. I've got to deal with issues that affect the American people every single solitary day."

"Lots of luck," he later said when asked about the inquiry.

What to know about Republican allegations, evidence in the Biden impeachment inquiry originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Tim Scott's bachelorhood puts spotlight on how few US presidents have been single

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is one of the relatively few people who has ever run for president of the United States. If elected, he would join an even more elite club -- as one of only three White House occupants to never be married at the time he took office.

Scott's bachelorhood isn't directly on the ballot in the same way his policies on the economy and abortion are.

But it's become a headline-making topic on the campaign trail and, historians and experts told ABC News, it reflects the political ramifications of having a partner even as society's attitudes around relationships have shifted through the years.

Scott, a Republican, has a standard answer for the curious or the chatty, including anonymous sources who claimed to the news website Axios that the matter was affecting potential donors.

"I'm dating a lovely Christian girl," Scott enthusiastically said in Iowa at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's fall banquet earlier this month when state Attorney General Brenna Bird asked him in an interview, "Other than your mama, is there any special lady in your life?"

That echoes what he told Fox News earlier in September -- "God has blessed me with a smart, Christian woman" -- and what he told The Washington Post in an interview also this month, when he said a friend at church connected them.

MORE: 'Nice doesn't mean that you're not strong': On the trail as Tim Scott tries to woo voters

Denise Gitsham, a former administration staffer for President George W. Bush and a "good friend" of Scott's, said in a recent podcast appearance that Scott's past girlfriends have included a beauty queen and that his current girlfriend is the screensaver on his phone.

Scott said on Fox News that he intends to introduce the woman he is dating "at some point." (His campaign, asked to comment for this story, referred ABC News to his interview with the Post.)

"I have been very protective of my family and my loved ones," he told the paper. "I signed up for this. If we make it, she will be signing up for it as well, but at least then she'll know what she's getting into."

The country has only elected two single presidents, and neither in modern history: James Buchanan in 1856 and Grover Cleveland in 1884.

Cleveland actually got married in the White House -- the only president to do so -- while Buchanan never married and ultimately transferred most of the first lady's duties to his niece, a then 26-year-old named Harriet Lane.

But their personal lives were likely not seen by the public in the same way as today. For example, for about 40 years before Buchanan's time in office, there had been a string of widowers in the White House.

PHOTO: James Buchanan, on Sept. 28, 1859, by artist George Peter Alexander Healy. ((Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

"Public perceptions around marriage, and particularly our politicians who were unmarried, have changed," Dr. Thomas Balcerski, author of "Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King" and an associate professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, told ABC News.

One could argue that having a first lady is actually more of a modern concept, Balcerski said.

"What's occurred is that the presidential couple has emerged as a really important unit for a politician," he said. "And without that presidential spouse, without the modern first lady at his side, a president is weakened."

The role of presidential spouse is entirely ceremonial -- not prescribed by the U.S. Constitution or the country's other founding documents. Still, first ladies have traditionally served as chief hostesses at state functions; as diplomatically important counterparts in forging relationships with other world leader couples; and as informal but influential advisers to their husbands, the president.

South Carolina's other Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, ran for president in 2016 and his single status was, as with Scott, a topic that followed his candidacy. He proposed that there would be a "rotating first lady" role shared by his sister and some of his friends.

Eleanor Roosevelt "was the eyes and ears of the White House" while her husband was in office, according to Kate Anderson Brower, author of "First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies."

She would go out and encourage then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who grew up wealthy, to take up issues that were affecting people who were more disadvantaged, Brower said. Decades later, Nancy Reagan served as something like husband Ronald Reagan's "human resources department," determining who was going to be given access to the president.

PHOTO: Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan dances with former First Lady Nancy Reagan in this undated file photo. (Photo courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidental Library/Getty Images)

More recently, then-first lady Hillary Clinton used her role to advocate for major domestic policies in husband Bill Clinton's administration, including a failed health care reform proposal.

President Joe Biden's wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is the first first lady to also keep her job -- as a college English teacher -- outside the White House.

There are benefits in having someone share the immense stress and that comes with being in the Oval Office, experts said. Representatives from the historic site that marks Cleveland's birthplace in New Jersey told ABC News that according to Allan Nevins' book of Cleveland's collected letters, "Cleveland experienced some pangs of loneliness in his first year at the White House."

On Sept. 15, 1885, a few months into his first term, Cleveland wrote to Wilson Bissell, a politician from New York: "If I did not keep one of the waiters here I should be absolutely alone in the upper part of the house."

In modern times, Brower said, "Michelle and Barack Obama are a great example of a first lady who really helped the president get to where he was." Brower, however, notes that Michelle Obama gave "not only ... the emotional support, but also raising their children and taking this kind of backseat in her own career for him."

Brower believes that a highly visible spouse may not be needed to win a presidential election going forward. She cited the tiny role that Melania Trump has so far played in Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. (He recently said his wife is a "private person" but "she'll be out there.")

Balcerski, the author and professor, said a president's family around the White House can bring its own complications. He pointed to Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's younger son, who is facing firearm charges that he denies and has been dogged by controversy over his past business dealings. Other presidents have also had to deal with relatives and children involved in scandal.

"There's always gonna be the baggage that comes with having a wife and kids and maybe hopefully someday a husband and kids," Balcerski told ABC News.

PHOTO: Committee ranking member Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) arrives for a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Sept. 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

At the Iowa banquet this month, Scott said his approach to relationships was shaped by his upbringing. "As a guy who was raised in a single parent household, mired in poverty, I understand the devastation when a family breaks up. I live with the consequences of a father who was not there," he said. "I made a commitment to make sure that never happened in my life."

Sue Ewalt from Mason City, Iowa, told ABC News of Scott's bachelorhood that she didn't "really think it's a big issue myself. I heard about it the other day and it just shouldn't be an issue. It's his personal thing."

America is increasingly a single country -- about 46% of people are unmarried, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau -- and Balcerski believes voters are "ready" to elect another single president.

"We're ready, again, is how I would say it. We've been ready, we were ready, we will be ready," he said. "We will adapt to the changing family structure, to the changing social world of our times."

Tim Scott's bachelorhood puts spotlight on how few US presidents have been single originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
There are 55 late nights or overnights for extended excursions.

Courtesy of Azamara

If you're looking to visit all seven new wonders of the world, this Azamara world cruise is the itinerary for you. Departing on Jan. 6, 2026, the 155-day cruise will include either late nights or overnights at Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, the Taj Mahal in India, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Colosseum in Italy, the Great Wall of China, and Petra in Jordan.

Of course, those aren't the only stops on this voyage: the ship visits 36 countries with a total of 55 late nights or overnights at ports of call. The adventure begins in Miami, taking guests south through the Panama Canal before cruising along South America's west coast. Then it's time to tackle the Pacific, heading to Easter Island and French Polynesia before continuing even further south to New Zealand and Australia.

Next up is Asia, including Vietnam and Thailand, followed by India en route to the Middle East. Sailing through the Suez Canal, the ship begins its final leg in the Mediterranean, visiting countries like Greece, Italy, and Monaco. Finally, the trip concludes in Barcelona.

While the sailing can be booked in segments  there are 10 in all  if you book the full world cruise, you receive extra benefits valued at $22,000. Some of those perks include a $3,000 credit for shore excursions, a premium beverage package for two, and weekly laundry service.

"We are thrilled to welcome our world cruisers on this journey of a lifetime," Carol Cabezas, president of Azamara, said in a statement provided to Travel + Leisure. "Our 2026 World Cruise offers our guests the unique opportunity to uncover a new perspective on a wide variety of cultures and visit all seven wonders of the world, while enjoying some of the most exclusive and specially curated events throughout this exciting itinerary."

Rates start at $38,999 per person and you can book now at azamara.com.

For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered what they believe to be the remains of an Ancient Greek courtesan.

The cremated remains of a young woman were found in a burial cave alongside a perfectly preserved bronze box mirror on a rocky slope close to Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, not far from Jerusalem.

The tomb is believed to date back to some time between the late 4th century and early 3rd century BCE, according to a joint study carried out by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

Guy Stiebel, from the department of archeology and the Ancient Near East at Tel Aviv University, told CNN in a phone interview that the find is very significant.

The high-quality mirror was found to be perfectly preserved. - Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority

Its almost like bringing back to life a woman who passed away 2,300 years ago, he said of the research, which he compared to a jigsaw puzzle or riddle.

He and his team believe this could be the first discovery of the remains of a hetaira, as courtesans were known in Ancient Greece.

If we are correct with our interpretation, it appears that this burial points to the very unique circumstances of what we call a hetaira, a Greek lady who accompanied one of the Hellenistic government officials, or more likely a high general, he said.

In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, the Hellenistic age refers to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30 BCE. Stiebel told CNN that he and his team believe the woman would have been among the first Greeks to arrive in the region.

Liat Oz, the director of the excavation on behalf of the IAA, described the mirror found in the tomb alongside the remains.

This is only the second mirror of this type that has been discovered to date in Israel, and in total, only 63 mirrors of this type are known around the Hellenistic world, she said in a news release about the discovery.

Researchers say the mirror is incredibly rare, with just 63 discovered in the Hellenistic world. - Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority

The quality of the production of the mirror is so high that it was preserved in excellent condition, and it looked as if it was made yesterday.

Folding box mirrors such as this were documented in tombs and temples in the Greco-Hellenistic world, the researchers noted. They were usually decorated with engravings or reliefs of idealized female figures or goddesses.

Stiebel said a woman of high status might have received such a mirror as part of a dowry, but this was unlikely to have been the case in this instance as married women rarely left their homes in Greece.

Alternatively, he said, she might have been a courtesan, as they often received gifts from men. Likening the hetairai to Japanese geishas, Stiebel explained that the women were regarded as muses.

He said: Women in society were breaking glass ceilings in very strict and male-oriented Greek society and we do know that they served not only as sexual escorts, but were similar to geishas and provided an element of culture. For that they were given gifts and part of the economy of gifts in Ancient Greece had to do with mirrors.

The fact the remains were cremated also hinted at the womans origins, Stiebel said.

Cremation is alien to this country and the religion, he said, explaining that cremation is not only forbidden in Judaism but would not have been practiced by the Persian empire either, which occupied the region at that time.

The tomb was found in the middle of nowhere, not near any village or farm or settlement, which suggests that she would have been connected with one of the military campaigns and dated to the time of Alexandra the Great or slightly later.

We are suggesting that maybe she was with one of the generals.

Stiebel went on to explain the significance of four iron nails found with the mirror and remains.

Nails were used to protect the deceased and also to protect the living people from the dead. The bodies were literally nailed down to ensure they will not come back to the world of the living, he said.

Stiebel told CNN that the team are continuing with further research in order to zoom in on the finer details of the mirror.

He said: We hope to shed more light on the origin of the production of the art and maybe shed more light on the history of the owner of the mirror, the general who bought it or where she came from.

The research will be presented for the first time at an Israeli archaeology conference next month.

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Declines In Women, Minorities & Internationals For Virginia Darden's MBA Class Of 2025

Virginia Dardens MBA, EMBA, and other students arrived on campus in August. Darden photo

In August, welcoming 352 new MBA students to the campus of the University of Virginia for the first time, Darden School of Business Interim Dean Jeanne Liedtka welcomed them to what she called an extraordinary place, where faculty and staff are somewhat obsessed with ensuring they have a great experience.

Most importantly, Liedtka said, Darden students are obsessed with that, too. Its a place, she said, where students go out of their way to take care of each other.

We care deeply, she said. Hopefully, you feel that this week; you will definitely see it in the days and weeks ahead.

VIRGINIA DARDEN MBA CLASSES 2021-2023

Data 2023 2022 2021 Applications 2,834 2,952 3,058 Class Size 352 349 351 Average GMAT 716 720 715 Average GRE 321 319 321 Average Undergrad GPA 3.51 3.51 3.52 US Minorities 14% 20% 21% Women 37% 37% 40% International 41% 43% 40% Countries Represented 33 48 40 First-Gen Students 21% 16% 15% LGBTQ+ Students 7% 8% NA Veterans 14% 9% 7% Advanced Degrees 17% 18.9% 16.8% Prior Industries Financial Services 22%, Government 13%, Consulting 13%, Tech 12% Financial Services 20%, Consulting 16%, Tech 11% NA Work Experience 5.9 years 5.8 years 5 years

WOMEN, MINORITIES & INTERNATIONALS DECLINE IN NEW CLASS

Declines In Women, Minorities & Internationals For Virginia Darden's MBA Class Of 2025

Darden Interim Dean Jeanne Liedtka to new Darden MBA students: Each of you will play an integral part in shaping the experience of your fellow students

Dardens MBA Class of 2025 is around the same size as past years, up three seats from the previous class, which is notable in a time of wide fluctuation in class sizes at other top MBA programs. Women comprise 37% of the class, same as last year, but down from the 40% of the Class of 2023 that graduated in the spring.

While women were stable, the proportion of international students in the new class slipped to 41% from 43%, and the number of countries represented in the class tumbled to 33 from 48. Among them are several Latin American countries: Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico; and a handful of countries in Africa: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Sixty-seven languages are spoken in the class.

Story continues

Fourteen percent of the class are U.S. minorities, down from 20% last year; 27 members of the class, or about 7.7%, are members of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management; 7% identify as LGBTQ+; and 14% are military service members or veterans. Twenty-one percent  a Darden School record  are the first in their families to attend college.

Darden, like many of its U.S. B-school peers (see stories linked below), saw a decline in applications for this MBA class. Apps were down year-to-year about 4% in the 2022-2023 cycle, and are down more than 7% in two years.

CLASS GMAT AVERAGE SLIPS 4 POINTS

Domestic U.S. students undergraduate GPA ranged from 3.08 to 3.88 (middle 80%), with the average landing at 3.51  same as last year. Median GPA of the class is 3.55. The class hails from 238 undergraduate schools.

Graduate Record Exam average inched upward to 321 from 319, with an 80% middle range of 309-333, while Graduate Management Admission Test averaged 716, down from a school record 720 last year, with a middle range of 680-750.

Dardens new MBA class boasts 285 unique employers in their background, and represents 33 industries. The top industry again this year is financial services at 22% of the class, up from 20% last year, followed by consulting (13%), government/military (13%), and tech 12%. The class work experience range (middle 80%) is 3.4 to 9.2 years, with an average of 5.9 years  on the high side compared to Dardens peer schools (see links below)  and a median of 5.3 years.

Seventeen percent of the new class has already earned an advanced degree, while 27% has studied abroad. Six percent are dual-degree students at the University of Virginia.

EACH OF YOU WILL PLAY AN INTEGRAL PART

Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Dawna Clarke also spoke to Dardens new MBA students in August and noted the virtues evident in each students application: years of hard work, personal accomplishment, and strong character. She congratulated them on joining the community.

Darden is so well known for its community and its concerted efforts to optimize that, so that everyone feels a sense of belonging, Clarke said. Imagine the opportunity that you all have to form friendships with people across the country and around the world. I encourage you to make a pledge today to contribute to that sense of belonging by fully embracing each other over the next two years.

Dean Jeanne Liedtka encouraged students to forge meaningful connections and help strengthen a community of kindness and respect.

Each of you will play an integral part in shaping the experience of your fellow students, Liedtka said.

DONT MISS THE TOP MASTER IN MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES and ANOTHER BIG CLASS, ANOTHER BIG WELCOME

AND SEE POETS&QUANTS COVERAGE OF OTHER LEADING B-SCHOOLS MBA CLASSES OF 2025:

HARVARD

WHARTON

KELLOGG

DARTMOUTH TUCK

YALE SOM

DUKE FUQUA

CORNELL JOHNSON

UCLA ANDERSON

USC MARSHALL

The post MBA Apps Down 4% For Virginia Dardens MBA Class Of 2025 appeared first on Poets&Quants.
Lauren Chan may be a rookie in the 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue, but the Canadian model is an expert when it comes to the fashion industry. Having worked as a fashion features editor at Glamour, Chan has experience both writing about the industry and walking the walkliterallydown runways for Christian Siriano and others.

Shes also the founder and CEO of Henning, a luxury brand of womenswear that was acquired by Universal Standard this spring. Chan now serves as the companys head of brand partnerships.

As for her SI Swimsuit photoshoot in the Dominican Republic, Chan described feeling at home while on location with the team in the Caribbean. She also noted that she was proud to be featured in a publication that promotes size diversity and inclusion in an industry that often does not.

Weve evolved so much and I think that in fashion right now, we can kind of see a little bit of a slide back away from size inclusion, she stated. Its important to remember to keep doing what we do because its up to us to keep that top of mind, keep pushing for inclusion, to keep reminding people that theyre not what they look like, so that we dont get back there because theres the very real potential to end up that way.

Chan, who is currently represented by JAG Models and P1M Artist and Talent Management, wore a number of incredible bikinis and one-piece swimsuits for her rookie feature. While we cant pick just one favorite, below were throwing it back to a few incredible pieces of swimwear the model rocked in the Dominican Republic.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Cleonie Swim. Earrings by Ettika.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Beach Riot.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Initial S Paris. Earrings by ome.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Beach Riot.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Bromelia Swimwear.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by Good American.

James Macari/Sports Illustrated Lauren Chan was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic. Swimsuit by BANANHOT.

Make sure to follow SI Swimsuit on YouTube!
Dotdash Meredith and Yahoo Inc. may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below.

These slow cookers are perfect for bringing warm queso to the tailgate or cooking dinner with fewer leftovers.

Southern Living / Jaclyn Mastropasqua

When youre cooking for yourself and dont want extras languishing in your fridge, having a mini slow cooker is ideal. With it, youre able to reap the flavor benefits of slow cooking and get other things done while it simmers in the background. Plus, it wont take up as much space in your kitchen compared to a regular slow cooker.

I enjoy using mini slow cookers because they cook food gradually, enhance flavors, and tenderize the meat, says Reginald Massey, professional chef and owner of Let It Marinate Catering in Atlanta. There is less of a chance you will scorch the food that tends to stick to the bottom of the pan or get burned in the oven.

To find the best mini slow cookers, we tested 16 options and evaluated them on capacity, material, and features. In addition to Massey, we spoke to Lynne Just, Consumer Test Kitchen Chef at Hamilton Beach Brands in Richmond, Virginia.

Best Overall: Brentwood 1.5-Quart Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Wayfair.com

Whats Great About It

It heated everything evenly, and its the perfect size for dips and small meals.

What Could Be Better

The exterior can get very hot, and it only comes in white.

We put this slow cooker at the top of our list because its a sturdy and super compact option. Plus, it holds just 1.5 quarts, so its the perfect size for making dips or meals for one to two people. Not to mention, its extremely affordable.

Be aware that its size can be limiting, so you might not cook exactly what you want. But, there are ways around it. Can you roast an entire chicken inside it? Of course not. A few drumsticks? Youre good to go. It features low, high, and warm settings, which youll typically find in most slow cookers, but has no extra features. The warm setting works just as wed hopeit kept food at the right temperature for serving without overheating it. Cleaning this slow cooker is also a breeze, as the ceramic pot and glass lid are both dishwasher safe. We noticed that the exterior can get extremely hot to the touch, so be sure to handle it with oven mitts. And it would have been nice if this slow cooker had more color optionsit only comes in white, which tends to show food stains.

Price at the time of publish: $30

Capacity: 1.5 quarts | Dimensions: 9 x 8 x 7.8 inches | Weight: 4.4 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Ceramic

Southern Living / Jaclyn Mastropasqua

Best Budget: Mainstays 2 Quart Slow Cooker

Buy at Walmart.com

Whats Great About It

It has a similar size and functionality to much higher priced models.

What Could Be Better

The low setting wasnt as consistent as the high setting.

In the case of the Mainstays slow cooker, the price was no indication of quality. The temperature controls consist of the usual low, high, and warm settings, the latter of which held our dip for a two-hour period without any scorching or separating. Compared to larger slow cookers, which usually hold around 5-6 quarts, this slow cooker holds just 2 quarts. Expect to make meals for around one to two people depending on whats inside. You might get more out of it if youre making a dip. We cooked a pot of rice and a delicious nacho dip. Our dip was enough for five (yay), and we managed to get three portions of rice.

On the downside, we were not satisfied with our food on low settings: The rice was soft and mushy when it was done. But we had no issue when using it on the high setting. Its easy to clean, and the inner pot is dishwasher safe. Overall, we think this slow cooker would be most useful for making party dips, sauces, and meatballs, and for the price, its hard to say no.

Price at the time of publish: $10

Capacity: 2 quarts | Dimensions: 8.2 x 9.6 x 8.5 inches | Weight: 6 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Stoneware

Southern Living / Chantia Murphy

Best Programmable: Hamilton Beach 4 Quart Programmable Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Wayfair.com

Whats Great About It

It has a built-in timer that switches the slow cooker to warm when the time is up.

What Could Be Better

It was a little too powerful for cooking dips, even on the lowest setting.

The secret to mouth-watering Southern specialties like jambalaya and barbecue ribs is to simmer them low and slow, which was why we were excited to test out this 4-quart programmable slow cooker from Hamilton Beach that is just the right size for serving two to four people. Not only can you choose from standard low, warm, and high settings, but you can also set a timer from two to 10 hours that automatically switches to warm when the time is up.

To check out its performance, we used it to cook chicken breasts and spinach dip. We didnt have any issues with the settings when it came to the chicken. But, the slow cookers low setting was still too powerful for cooking dips. The cream cheese in our spinach dip winded up curdling right at the beginning and even scorched a little at the end. However, there were zero issues when it came to leaks and drips, which made us fairly confident that there wouldn't be a big mess on the counter to clean when it was done. And both the stoneware pot and glass lid are dishwasher safe.

Price at the time of publish: $47

Capacity: 4 quarts | Dimensions: 15.2 x 9.8 x 9.1 inches | Weight: 8.3 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Stoneware

Southern Living / Damla Heard

Best Multi-Cooker: Cuisinart 3-in-1 Cook Central 4-Quart Multi-Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Wayfair.com

Whats Great About It

You can use it to steam, saute, and slow cook in the same pot.

What Could Be Better

Even with the saute function, it didnt produce very crispy skin on roast chicken.

This multifunctional appliance makes food more flavorful because you can use it to steam veggies, plus saute herbs and brown meat before you stew it down. We took full advantage of this feature and made everything from taco fillings to breakfast casseroles to rich and hearty soups. For many of the dishes, we left it on for up to six hours and still ended up with perfectly cooked food with no sign of burning. Our only disappointment was our attempts to roast a chicken. Although it cooked all the way through and was juicy, it lacked the crispiness you would get if you baked it in an oven.

It also comes with a timer and a keep warm function. And because the inner pot sits flush against the outer wall, we saw that there were no gaps for food to fall into if it bubbled over. The glass lid, nonstick aluminum pot, and steaming rack are all dishwasher safe.

Price at the time of publish: $130

Capacity: 4 quarts | Dimensions: 10.5 x 16.5 x 8.7 inches | Weight: 14.2 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Nonstick aluminum

Southern Living / Taylor Fox

Best Basic: Crock-Pot Mini 1.5-Quart Round Manual Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Wayfair.com

Whats Great About It

The plug-and-go design makes it easy for first-time users, as well as preparing simple dips, condiments, and appetizers.

What Could Be Better

It doesnt have any controls, such as heat settings or a timer.

Labeling this slow cooker as basic is accurate, considering its designed with no settings. In fact, it doesnt have any knobs, dials, or lightsonce you plug it in, its on. But we cooked up a storm with this slow cooker and, surprisingly, it cooked all our meals to perfection. We made a spinach-artichoke dip; buttery broth with bacon, sage, and white wine for our grilled clams; and even baked potatoes (which came out great and may have been the best-baked potatoes we ever had). The only issue we had with the slow cooker was that we had to tailor our recipes (including the ones we found on the Crock-Pot website) to the slow cookers tiny size. But, we were still able to serve two to three people with the amount we cooked.

Although having fewer settings is supposed to make cooking easy, the lack of control did initially make us jumpy, because we never knew how our food would turn out. However, once the food was in the pot, we left it alone to do its thing, except for stirring it once in a while to prevent the food from scorching. We found that it retained heat well, and kept our food warm for a long time.

Price at the time of publish: $30

Capacity: 1.5 quarts | Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.5 x 7.3 inches | Weight: 4.3 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Stoneware

Southern Living / Sara Luckey

Best Portable: Crock-Pot Small 3.5-Quart Casserole Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Walmart.com

Whats Great About It

It has a locking lid that prevents accidents while transporting, and the shallow design makes it ideal for casseroles and dips.

What Could Be Better

The shallow design doesnt allow for cooking some traditional slow cooker meals like pot roasts and stews.

While traditional round slow cookers are best for making tantalizing stews, they might not be suitable for casseroles or lasagne which need a flatter, longer shape. This sleek, 3.5-quart Crock-Pot slow cooker is probably a way better option for that.

At 13 x 9 inches, its just right for making and carrying casseroles to the potluck. For the most part, we were able to set it and forget, except when it came to making dips which needed extra attention from us. We found that if the setting wasnt right, it was possible for them to easily burn, unless we were making large quantities. On the flipside, the shallow design does make it better suited for dipping chips. The stoneware vessel is also oven safe, so you can finish your meal off in the oven if youre pressed for time (or if you just want to brown your mac and cheese).

This Crock-Pot comes with high, low, and warm settings. Its also easy to clean, and the lid and stoneware are dishwasher safe. We especially like that it has oversized handles and a lockable lid, so you can easily bring it with you in your car without it spilling.

Price at the time of publish: $70

Capacity: 3.5 quarts | Dimensions: 13 x 9 x 5 inches | Weight: 13.5 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Stoneware

Southern Living / Cara Milhaven

Best Buffet-Style: Elite Gourmet EWMST-325R Maxi-Matic Triple Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Whats Great About It

Each pot has an individual temperature control, so you can prepare recipes with varying temperature requirements.

What Could Be Better

The lids dont have locking latches.

Instead of buying three separate slow cookers, the Elite Gourmet Triple Slow Cooker makes it convenient by combining them so you can make three dishes at once. We were impressed with this slow cookers potential and saw the benefit of owning one, especially for hosting dinner or tailgate parties. Each pot holds 2.5 quarts, which is ideal for cooking different types of dips, desserts, and meat. However, its small size is more appropriate to use for small gatherings rather than a big crowd.

Whats more, each pot has an individual temperature control, so you can prepare recipes with varying temperature requirements. It had no problems keeping our food warm; our cheese dip remained hot for over two hours. Another big selling point is that the slow cooker features a special lid holder right on the body, making it easy to cover and uncover the food whenever you want. It also means that you dont have to set the lid down on the table. The one thing is that it doesn't have a lid latch to keep food tightly sealed. So, please take care when carrying or traveling with it.

Price at the time of publishing: $70

Capacity: 2.5 quarts (3) | Dimensions: 26 x 11 x 8 inches | Weight: 22.6 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Ceramic

Southern Living / Chad Sparks

Best for Dips: Crock Pot 2.5-Quart Mini Casserole Slow Cooker

Buy at Amazon.com

Buy at Walmart.com

Whats Great About It

Its just the right shape and size for making and serving warm dips, and the stoneware is oven safe.

What Could Be Better

The oblong shape can take up more storage space.

You can use this slow cooker to cook your meal, and when its done it turns into an attractive serving dish for dips, sauces, and more. Plus, the stoneware is oven safe, so you can always put it in the oven for the finishing touches on a cheesy crab dip or baked spinach dip.

Although we had no issues cooking meat in this slow cooker (we actually cooked chicken breasts for a casserole we were making), we found that it was better suited for making appetizers, small casseroles, side dishes, and dips. All the settings worked effectively and did not burn or scorch our food in any way. We were also satisfied with how warm it kept our foods when it was in warming mode. If you plan on traveling with your dip to a potluck, we like that the lid features a secure latch, so there is no chance it will make a mess in your car.

Price at the time of publish: $50

Capacity: 2.5 quarts | Dimensions: 13.5 x 13.4 x 7.3 inches | Weight: 7.2 pounds | Inner Pot Material: Stoneware

Southern Living / Taylor Gilkison

The Bottom Line

We highly recommend the Brentwood 1.5-Quart Slow Cooker because its the perfect option for cooking small quantities, and it heats very evenly. If youre looking for a mini slow cooker thats the ultimate bargain, this Mainstays 2-Quart Slow Cooker is the cheapest of them all. While it cooks practically everything for under $10, it has no extra features besides basic temperature settings.

Our Testing Process

We tested 16 mini slow cookers over the course of a month and evaluated each based on ease of use, design, performance, ease of cleaning, and value. At least once during the testing period, we used each slow cooker to prepare a dip, such as queso or spinach-artichoke dip, and held it at a low temperature for two hours, noting whether the dip began to burn or separate. Otherwise, we incorporated the slow cookers into our regular cooking routine using the high, low, and keep warm settings. The slow cookers were used to make soups, beans, even cooked collards to see how they could handle traditional meals. We also cleaned each slow cooker according to the manufacturers instructions, noting whether there were any issues with dripping or buildup between the inner and outer chambers of the slow cooker.

Southern Living / Chantia Murphy

More Slow Cookers to Consider

Imusa 1.5-Quart Slow Cooker: For anyone concerned with wasting food, this Imusa 1.5-quart mini slow cooker is ideal. While its best to use it to cook for one to two people, you might be able to squeeze enough food out of it for a family of four with no extras. (We made beef stew for four people which was pushing it, to say the least.) As it cooked, we saw no signs of build-up or liquid seeping out. We also liked that food stains were easily wiped off by hand or the dishwasher. However, it only comes in a bright teal, which may not suit all kitchen color schemes.

Hamilton Beach 4-Quart Slow Cooker: We thought this 4-quart slow cooker did a pretty good job of cooking our queso dip and Korean ribs (galbi). While we got about eight servings of dip, it only made enough ribs for two people. Just keep in mind the outside of the pot can get really hot when youre cooking a meal, and it did scorch our dip a bit during the two-hour hold time.

Southern Living / Jill Di Donato

Tips for Choosing the Right Slow Cooker

Capacity

Mini slow cookers are typically categorized as a capacity below 4 quarts, says Lynne Just, Consumer Test Kitchen Chef at Hamilton Beach Brands. For small kitchens with tight spaces, the most beneficial attribute is their condensed size. However, some other reasons you might reach for a mini slow cooker instead of a full-size option include cooking meals for one to two people, cooking small cuts of meat or small batches of soups or stews, using it as a fondue pot, cooking with no leftovers. The mini slow cookers on our list range in size from 1 to 4 quarts. Those in the 1- to 1.5-quart category are great when cooking for one or making dips, while 2.5 quarts and larger is best for cooking for two to three or those who prefer leftovers.

Material

Like regular slow cookers, mini slow cookers have an exterior shell that holds the electrical elements and an inner chamber made from stoneware, ceramic, stainless steel, or other similar materials, says Reginald Massey, owner of Let It Marinate Catering. Although the outer electrical part can only be hand washed, the lids and inner pots are usually dishwasher safe.

Features

The number one feature of a mini slow cooker is that they are small and compact, which makes it a good option when youre tight on space or dont want a lot of leftovers. But there are other features that may interest you as well. Almost all mini slow cookers have basic temperature control functions that let you switch between high, low, or warm settings. Some models, like the Cuisinart 4-Quart 3-in-1 Cook Central Multicooker, come with built-in timers, allowing you to set how long you want your meal to cook for. They will automatically shut off or hold the food at temperature when the timer is up.

If youre looking for something that is portable, look for a slow cooker that features a latch lock on the lid, like Crock-Pot Small 3.5-Quart Casserole Slow Cooker. The locking function allows you to secure the lid, so it wont open accidentally and spill while youre transporting it.

Questions and Answers

What can you make in a mini slow cooker?

The experts say it best. With a mini slow cooker, you can make everything from chili to dip, or a delicious pot roast to oxtails, says Massey. Its great for group functions and gatherings, especially when you want to please different taste buds.

Just adds, Almost anything made in a large slow cooker can be made in a mini slow cooker on a smaller scale like soups, stews, side dishes, dips, smaller cuts of meat, fondue, oatmeal, small breakfast casseroles, or cinnamon rolls.

Is it worth buying a mini slow cooker?

If youre living alone, or have limited kitchen or countertop space, having a mini slow cooker is beneficial. Its compact size makes it ideal for individuals or small households, providing perfectly portioned meals without the need for excess leftovers, says Just.

Mini slow cookers are also great in terms of portability, too. Just adds, Mini slow cookers are a hit for game days, and potlucks when transporting your food needs to be taken into consideration.

Why Trust Southern Living?

NorAdila Hepburn is a writer based in North Carolina who specializes in writing buying guides in the home, lifestyle, and travel niches. To determine the best mini slow cookers, we tested 16 options and evaluated them on capacity, material, and features. NorAdila also spoke to Reginald Massey, owner of Let It Marinate Catering in Atlanta and Lynne Just, Consumer Test Kitchen Chef at Hamilton Beach Brands in Richmond, Virginia.



Related: We Tested 17 Slow CookersAnd These 9 Are The Best For Low-Fuss Meals

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Here's how to use your tried-and-true classic red wine to find a new high-value favorite.

The wines of Spain offer a fantastic range of expressions from regions across the country, from the ripe fruit and crunchy minerality of reds from Priorat, to the fresh and subtly aromatic whites from Rias Baixasand plenty more in between.

But given that its often the red wines from this part of the world that tend to get the most attention, we have to wonder: Are there bottles from Spain that will appeal to fans of classic Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Sonoma County Pinot Noir?

Liudmila Chernetska / Getty Images

With that in mind, I set to tasting. The answer became clear very quickly: Yes! Whether its a well-aged Rioja or a structured Ribera del Duero, Spain offers what used to be called an embarrassment of riches for Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot loverseven with wines not made from those grape varieties. Here are eight of my favorites.

2017 Abadia Retuerta Seleccion Especial Vinedos Proprios Sardon de Duero

Taut and with terrific posture, this is a toasty wine for the cellar that will also show beautifully right now with an hour in the decanter. Sandalwood and incense inform notes of crushed blackberries, brandied cherries, star anise, scorched earth, and crunchy minerality before a notably peppery finish. The blend of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot is particularly successful here.

Related: 41 Cabernet Sauvignons Worth Splurging On

2019 Beronia III AC

Pre-phylloxera grapes  a rarity  have been transformed into a deeply concentrated and mineral wine thats also full of life and energy. Tea-like tannins frame blackberries, black cherries, candied violets, hoisin sauce, and orange peel-flecked dark chocolate ganache. This will age for 15 to 20 years with ease.

2020 Bodegas Volver Single Vineyard Tempranillo

Crafted entirely from Tempranillo grown outside of Las Mesas in the region of La Mancha, this is a full-throttle expression of the variety. Its ripe and dripping with cassis and cafe mocha, and while the grilled vanilla-kissed oak spice is still being absorbed, its already an excellent, well-structured option for a thick piece of steak or a bacon cheeseburger: Think Stags Leap District by way of Spain.

Related: 45 American Pinot Noirs We Love to Open on Special Occasions

2016 Castillo de Sajazarra Rioja Reserva

This wine spent two full years in a combination of French and American oak barrels prior to bottling, and the result is a creamy wine that still has enough peppery verve to remain fresh. Flavors of red plums and dried oregano linger through the savory, iron-flecked finish.

2017 Familia Torres Mas La Plana Penedes

A Cabernet Sauvignon that embodies how well the variety can do in Penedes, each sip rolls along with wild berry fruit, cocoa powder, bergamot, olives, and toasty vanilla pod. Its the first vintage that incorporates 40% used barrels for the aging (higher than previous vintages), a shorter maceration time, and lower fermentation temperature, all to highlight the inherent vibrancy of the fruit. The team at Torres has succeeded deliciously, as this wine will continue to evolve in wonderful ways for another 15 years or more.

2018 Finca Museum Reserva Cigales

Old-vine Tempranillo, grown in pebbly soils, have produced a wine whose power is balanced by remarkable finesse. Cola spice and purple berry fruit mingle with dried sage and oregano before a black-olive finish that lingers with serious savoriness. Fans of mineral mountain Cab will find a lot to love texturally, and Russian River Valley Pinot drinkers will enjoy the black licorice and sarsaparilla notes.

2016 La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Rioja Reserva

The phenomenal, soaring aromatics of venison with cherry coulis, toasted fennel and coriander seeds, and blood oranges tee up a palate of equally impressive depth. Flavors of kirsch, dried bitter-orange peels, lavender, pepper-crusted bacon, and cherries pulse throughout. This still has time, but its really fantastic right now.

2015 Ramon Bilbao Mirto Rioja

Crafted entirely from Tempranillo, this is a thoroughly modern wine whose velvety texture, chocolate-covered black raspberries, and balsamic lift will appeal to fans of full-throttle Napa Cab. Yet its also very much its own wine, with enough cherries, mineral, and cedar coursing throughout to lend it a deliciously distinct character all its own.



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Madrid, the capital of Spain, is a charming and colorful city. The popular tourist destination attracts over 6 million tourists each year, according to Statista. An old city with a rich heritage dating back centuries, Madrid has continued to be a melting pot of culture, cuisine, and traditions in Europe.

The next time youre in the Spanish capital, check out these eight tips to ensure you have the ultimate Black travel experience in Madrid.

Savor The Flavors Of Madrid

Photo credit: Denys Gromov

Madrid is a melting pot of cuisinesa place where travelers can dine like kings. Its full of Michelin-star restaurants like the theatrical tablao Corral de la Moreria and Asian-inspired eatery DinerXO. However, there are plenty of local markets for tourists to experience real Madrid street food.

Explore The Streets Of Lavapies

Photo credit: Julia Davila Lampe/Getty Images

Lavapies is a neighborhood in Madrid with the highest number of immigrants. With many being from Africa, the vibrant neighborhood has grown as a hub for Black culture. While the area looks much like the rest of Madrid, travelers will find different restaurants and shops inspired by the immigrants who live there. Theyll also find the El Rastro open-air market near the neighborhood where artisans sell unique goods and trinkets to take home.

Visit El Museo Africano

Photo credit: Wonderlane/Unsplash

The African Museum, or El Museo Africano, is described as the bridge connecting Africa to Europe. This is an easy way to learn a little more about African culture in Spain and see real-life artifacts detailing the history. The museum opened in 1985 and features collections showcasing ancient and modern African art, musical instruments, daily life, traditional masks, and more.

Tour The Royal Palace

Photo credit: Emreturanphoto

The Royal Palace of Madrid is full of historical secrets, royal treasures, and ancient art. The palace used to be the home of the royal family. They dont live there anymore. However, over 2 million visitors tour the palace every year to experience the beauty of the 33,418-room structure and the artifacts stored there.

Go Mushroom Picking In The Mountains

Photo credit: Egor Kamelev

Foraging can be fun and rewarding, especially for the nature-loving traveler. Madrid is an excellent destination for mushroom hunting and you can walk away with a hefty harvest. Not all areas allow mushroom foraging. Its at the discretion of the property owner if they allow free foraging on their land. However, there are a few spots perfect for finding safe, edible mushrooms. For oyster mushrooms, false champignons, and saffron milk caps, take some time to forage around Puerto de Canencia in North Madrid. Youll also catch some great mountain views here.

Run Through The Trees In The Beech Forest

Photo credit: Dmitri Sotnikov

If youre visiting Madrid during the Fall, a walk through Hayedo de Montejo is a must. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is full of natural beauty. It comes alive during the Autumn season when the Fall hues take over the forest. The forest is also near a few small villages like Horcajuelo de la Sierra and Pradena del Rincon which you can explore once youre done spending time with nature.

Experience Real Flamenco Culture

Photo credit: Luis Quintero

Flamenco culture originated in Spain and travelers to Madrid have a chance to experience the art form live in person. Different flamenco shows can be seen at tablaos, establishments that host flamenco performances, throughout the city. A folkloric tradition in Spanish culture, flamenco performances combine music, art, and dance to tell stories of the past. You can catch performances at destinations like Tablao Flamenco 1911, Teatro Flamenco Madrid, and Tablao de la Villa.

Support Madrids Black-Owned Restaurant Scene

Photo credit: Craig Adderley

Madrid has a growing Black business scene and that includes incredible restaurants. These establishments are masters of spice and flavor; merging traditional Black cuisine with aromatics and preparations from all over the world. A few Black-owned restaurants to try while in Madrid are Bar Coleres and El Mandela.
Travelers and locals alike look forward to New England's lobster season all winter long, eager to get their fill of steamed dinners and lobster rolls before the seafood season quickly vanishes. While steamy lobster dinners are an iconic portrayal of the region's cuisine, lobster rolls are far easier to devour, and just as special. Made with 3 or so ounces of hearty tail and claw meat, lobster rolls pack all the best bits into one toasty bun with no tools required. The signature sandwich is a labor-free way to enjoy lobster when dining out, but it's only complete with traditional sides, one of which is potato chips.

There's a reason chips are the go-to side for lobster rolls. That salty, crunchy bite perfectly complements the buttery, rich flavors of a lobster roll. However, the best way to incorporate that crunch into every mouthful isn't by alternating between bites, it's by tossing the chips right on top of the roll. Adding potato chips directly to a lobster roll might seem unconventional at first, maybe even blasphemous, but tender lobster and crispy potatoes truly belong together. The savory elements play well with each other, but it's the added texture that makes the sandwich come alive.

Read more: Restaurant Foods That Always Taste Better Than What You Make At Home

The New England Favorite Has A Long History, Replete With Potatoes

Lobster rolls and chips - Foodio/Shutterstock

Maine is known for its scrumptious seafood, particularly lobster, but nearby coastal towns reap all the same benefits. Connecticut has a notable lobster reputation, and allegedly that's where the world-famous lobster roll debuted in 1929. A customer was craving a hot lobster dinner but had to hit the road, so he was served lobster on white bread from Perry's in Milford and suddenly, the lobster roll was created. To this day, lobster rolls in Connecticut are prepared hot with butter, whereas Maine lobster rolls are typically tossed with mayo and served chilled. Despite the different approaches, potato chips are almost always delivered on the side, but they should be delivered right on the roll.

Considering lobster and chips go together so seamlessly, why wouldn't they be combined into one golden creation? Before jumping at the thought of tainting precious, decadent lobster with something as mundane as a potato chip, think again. In order to find interesting new flavor combinations, it's important to let judgments go. The lobster was once seen as a low-class cuisine and was even fed to prisoners, after all. A classic plain potato chip is the assumed choice, but lobster rolls don't need to be simple. Experiment with different savory chip varieties, from sweet potato to sea salt and vinegar or even spicy jalapeno. The added flavor will present a unique twist on the classic sandwich, and the crunch will always deliver.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.
All you need to do is answer some questions and decide who your plus one is.

The flag carrier of Panama is ready to whisk you and a friend off on an unforgettable trip thanks to a new contest.

Copa Airlines' Final Destination Panama contest is giving 10 winners the chance to snag two round-trip tickets for themselves and a very lucky plus-one to Panama for a three-night trip. And yes, your hotel stay is included.

Would-be travelers have until Oct. 6 to enter for their chance to win the tickets.

L. Toshio Kishiyama/Getty Images

To do so, all they need to do is head to destinopanamacopa.com. There, youll be asked to fill out your basic information, and then the tricky part  answering 10 questions about Panama as quickly as possible. Those who answer the most questions correctly the fastest will be put up for the tickets. Need some hints? One of the questions is all about a very special coffee bean, which was mentioned in a story for T+L in 2022. You may also want to brush up on fun facts, like how Volcan Baru is the only place on Earth where you can see both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at once. (You're welcome.)

We are happy to share this opportunity with our followers and provide them with a chance to experience everything our beautiful country of Panama has to offer. With Final Destination Panama, we hope travelers from all around the continent enjoy the easy connections offered by Copa Airlines in Panama, home of the Hub of the Americas, Marco Ocando, senior director of marketing, communications, and frequent flyer program for Copa Airlines, shared in a statement provided to Travel + Leisure.

Related: Panama City's Newest Hotel Feels Like a Private Island Resort  Even in the Heart of the UNESCO-protected Old Town

Participants must also follow the airlines U.S. Instagram page @CopaairlinesUSA, click like on the official contest post, and either visit the link available in the bio of the official Instagram page or visit the contest link above.

For some fine print, the contest is only open to those living in the U.S. and in locations where Copa Airlines operates.

The winners will be announced on both Instagram and the contest website soon thereafter.



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It's one tasty journey.

David Bokuchava / Getty Images

Growing up, my mom implemented just two major rules: no motorcycles and no tattoos. Until the age of 29, I had obeyed both of these boundaries, but the motorcycle one seemed like a deal-breaker at this point. After all, I had just landed in Vietnam, and as Bourdain famously said, the only way to experience Hanoi is on a scooter.

While I was going to Saigon, not Hanoi, I felt that his point was still valid. Regardless, whenever I asked anyone for suggestions on what a tourist should do while there, one thing came up again and again: XO Tours, a motorbike tour through the city involving stops for street food along the way.

But as my trip approached, my itinerary was sparse, and I became increasingly nervous. How would I eat what locals eat? Sure, Id be getting pho and banh mi, but where were the best snails, and bottom line, could someone please, for the love of god, show me foods that I never knew existed? XO Tours turned out to be my ticket to all of that and more.

Related: Fusion Pioneer Helene An Takes Vietnamese Food to the Tasting-Menu Stratosphere

I felt that familiar rush of excitement the moment my guide, a young woman named Han, greeted me with a wave outside my hotel, the Ramada Encore by Wyndham in District One. She told me to get on the back of her white Vespa, and as we cannonballed through traffic, I held onto the back for dear life but couldnt help grinning. It seemed like being on a scooter in the city unlocked a whole other dimension (and this may be true in all cities, though I havent tried scootering them all yet). I was able to appreciate the sights  whole families piled on scooters, packages dangling dangerously from the back, helmet fashion, and even dogs balancing by their owners feet.

Huy Nguyen / Getty Images

It started out with soup, importantly, not pho. Instead, we had Bun Bo Hue. The bowl was massive, and even though we had at least three more food stops, I slurped down the entire mixture of spicy rice noodles and sliced beef, savoring each refreshing bite as the added lemongrass hit my tastebuds.

Before I could properly wipe my mouth, we sped off again, this time to a market in Chinatown, one of the largest wet markets in the country. Everything was out on the street, there were carts filled with fruits, blankets covered with fish, and live animals being sold to be slaughtered. Our next stop was appropriately for a barbecue.

Tableside, we grilled up goat breast while the very same goat hung from the rafters at the end of our table, being picked apart by the in-restaurant butcher. This was, I was told, to prove that it was a goat (a more expensive animal) and not a pig. Dipped in a garlic sauce, the goat tasted more or less like beef, and the spring onions and peanuts we gobbled down in between waiting for pieces to come off the charcoal paired perfectly with the (unlimited) beer.

Next was a seafood stop, where we saw scallops shucked and then grilled before being smothered in nuts and sizzling scallion oil. Crab legs were cracked open at the table, and there was even an embryonic duck egg, which I was instructed to eat like a soft-boiled egg, cracking it at the top, then scooping out the innards. I dont look at it when I eat it, my guide said, but I couldnt help but stare.

Filipe Lopes / Getty Images

Through it all, I white-knuckled the back of the scooter around twists and turns, roundabouts and alleyways, as we sped past neon signs and billows of smoke from carts filled with delicacies. There was, ever so thankfully, unlimited beer (included), which I slugged in order to keep up with the beads of sweat dripping from my chin to my thighs, thanks to the combination of the 100% humidity and full belly.

Altogether, the tour was a magical one. It didnt even really feel like a tour. Maybe all tours should be on the back of scooters. And if youre still worried about my mom, dont be. I sent her a video of me on the scooter with a text that read, Dont worry, Im wearing a helmet.



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As the summer heat fades, the vibrant colors of fall foliage take over the landscape. The US turns into a brilliant canvas of red, orange and yellow. Across the country, autumn offers some of the most captivating views that one must experience at least once in a lifetime. Here are some of the best places to marvel at stunning fall foliage in the United States.

Maine

Maine is highly regarded as one of the best destinations to take in fall colors in the US. The state offers expansive forests, rugged coastlines and peaceful lakes, allowing for a range of locations to view fall foliage. One prime spot to take in autumn scenery is Acadia National Park, with its iconic drive around Park Loop Road. Offering stunning views of the ocean and surrounding hills, Mount Desert Island is another great choice. Driving the Rangeley Lakes Scenic Byway or traveling through Grafton-Notch State Park also guarantees amazing views as you explore Maines fall foliage.

Tennessee

Tennessees Great Smoky Mountains National Park is another fantastic destination to visit when you want to witness beautiful fall foliage. The national park has over 800 miles of hiking trails to explore that keep visitors away from the crowds and provide opportunities to see the magnificent colors in a truly picturesque setting. The park hosts a Fall Foliage Prediction Map that helps determine the peak times during which to enjoy the transformation. The town of Gatlinburg is also worth a visit. Here, you can explore the park on foot or by bicycle. Or, opt for a nice drive to take in the brilliant hues of autumn all around you. This time of the year, the town also hosts various autumn events and festivals. The Smoky Mountain Harvest Festival and the Bear-varian Fall Festival are two popular ones.

Colorado

Colorado is widely renowned as a top fall foliage destination in the US. The state produces a diverse range of colors, spanning from the glittering yellows of Aspen trees to the rich oranges of the oak trees. The mountains are beautiful throughout the year, but the autumn colors add a special charm. There are several astounding routes to explore in Colorado, including the San Juan Skyway, the Million Dollar Highway and the Trail Ridge Road. Breckenridge, nestled in the heart of Summit County, also offers stunning autumn scenery. Visitors can explore the mountain town, indulging in outdoor activities like hiking, mountain biking and scenic drives around the region.

Vermont

Each fall, the Green Mountains of Vermont come alive with fiery hues as the leaves transition. From late September to mid-October, visitors can embark on charming drives along routes like the acclaimed Route 100. When visiting, explore the lovely towns of Stowe, Burlington and Woodstock, all of which are surrounded by breathtaking foliage. The mix of maple, birch and beech trees creates a symphony of colors against the backdrop of quaint villages, covered bridges and rolling hills, making Vermont an idyllic destination to experience the magic of fall.

New York

Boasting some of the most spectacular fall foliage displays in the country, upstate New York is a great destination for those who want to observe the beauty of the changing seasons. During this time, the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains are transformed into a breathtaking tapestry of vibrant hues. The region offers a multitude of incredible drives. The mesmerizing Adirondack Northway and the legendary Route 20 both wind through picturesque landscapes dotted with charming towns and historic sites. The Finger Lakes region, with its rolling hills and serene lakes, is another popular destination for leaf peepers. From hiking through the Adirondack Park to exploring the charming small towns along the Hudson River Valley, there are endless ways to enjoy the wealth of autumn beauty upstate NY offers.
Hemp has solid roots in the denim world. The fibers were used in the earliest jeans, including the first Levi Strauss jeans that launched the workwear staple. However, in recent history, cotton has been the cellulosic power player in the industry.

Increasingly, the industry is cottoning on to the possibilities with hemp. And one of the companies supplying brands like Levis is Frances Marmara Hemp. On the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Denis Druon, CEO of The Flax Company and Marmara Hemp, chatted with Lenzings Tuncay Kilickan about hemp in denim.

More from Sourcing Journal

Read more on Carved in Blue.

This article is one of a series on Rivet from Lenzings Carved in Blue denim blog. From conversations with the experts behind the mills that make some of the worlds most-wanted denim to the global brands bringing novel denim made with TENCEL Lyocell and Modal to the market, Carved in Blue shares the stories of those whose roots run deep with denim. Visit www.carvedinblue.tencel.com.

Click here to read the full article.
BANGKOK, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL. was voted first for the "Most Outstanding Company in Thailand  Technology Hardware & Equipment Sector" category in the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll.

Delta Electronics Thailand Wins 2023 Asiamoney Asias Outstanding Companies Poll Award

Ms. Nipaporn Jiarajareevong, Delta Thailand Chief Financial Officer, received the award on behalf of the company at an awards ceremony held in Singapore. "Delta is honored to be voted as a top Thailand company in the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll. As a company committed to sustainable growth, we appreciate this recognition from the financial sector that acknowledges Delta's excellence in areas such as Financial Performance, Management Team Excellence, Investor Relations, and CSR Activities," Ms. Nipaporn said.

In the 2023 Asiamoney Asia's Outstanding Companies Poll, 1,225 fund managers, analysts, bankers and ratings agencies took part in the voting which concluded on 14 July. In total, 7,653 votes were received for publicly listed companies across 13 markets in Asia. The results recognize 194 companies as being the most outstanding for their sectors and in their market.

Established in 1989, Asiamoney is a leading print and digital capital markets publication combining hard-hitting editorial, high-profile interviews and market-defining awards for the banking and corporate sectors. The Asia's Outstanding Companies poll is designed to acknowledge listed companies that have excelled in areas such as financial performance, management team excellence, IR activities and CSR initiatives.

Delta Thailand is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and is committed to sustainable growth and ESG performance that benefits all stakeholders. The top vote in its category in Thailand from regional investors confirms the success of the company's business fundamentals, strategy and ongoing engagement with shareholders and the finance community.

Story continues

About Delta Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited

Founded in 1988, Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL. is a global producer of power and thermal management products and solutions. The company is a subsidiary of Delta Electronics, Inc. with the mission statement, "To provide innovative, clean and energy-efficient solutions for a better tomorrow," which reflects the company's strong belief in sustainable development especially with issues related to the environment.

As an energy-saving solutions provider with core competencies in power electronics and innovative research and development, Delta's business categories include Power Electronics, Automation, and Infrastructure. The company's global presence is supported by its sales offices in key regions around the world; manufacturing facilities in India, Slovakia and Thailand; and several R&D centers located in Thailand, India, Germany and other countries.

Delta continues to earn numerous recognitions for its achievements in the region and domestically. Some awards won include the prestigious ASEAN Business Award, Stock Exchange of Thailand's Best Company Performance Award and the coveted Prime Minister's Best Industry Award.

For detailed information about Delta Thailand, please visit: www.deltathailand.com

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/delta-electronics-thailand-wins-2023-asiamoney-asias-outstanding-companies-poll-award-301940023.html

SOURCE Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL
We owe this one to Cody Lockwood, Creature's safari hat-wearing world traveler. We've heard of Thailand's bounty of spots for years from the likes of Kenny Reed, Patrik Wallner and Walker Ryan. Look no further than the Preduce homies for proof of heavenly spots.

But here Cody has taken a solo trip to Southeast Asia and scored plenty of clips. That's the proper way to take advantage of a pro skating career. Watch him shine.

"Cody Lockwood took a solo Skatecation to Thailand and ended up helping build a DIY and return with a grip of footy. Check out his Thailand adventure here!" Cody poured some 'crete for a new skatepark out there too. What a legend!

You see Cody ripping it up in Estonia last week at Simple Session? You should have!

Subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of skateboarding.

We're always on the lookout for amusing, interesting and engaging skate-related videos to feature on our channels. Whether you're a professional or just having fun, 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 skateboarding.com and our social channels. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more quality skate content.
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Fashion designers, models, style icons, and celebrities all flocked to Italy for Milan's Fashion Week, which ran from September 19 through the 25. While a lot of the runway shows were impressive, there was one very tiny surprise that stole the spotlight the entire week.

Fashion magazine Marie Claire, known on TikTok as @marieclairemagazine, posted a clip of Demi Moore in the front row seat during one of the runway shows. Although the actress looked great, it was actually her tiny Chihuahua that captured our hearts.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

O.M.G. This is the kind of fashion news we love to see! Of course, all the latest fashion trends are cool to see as well, but we'd take a fur baby over trends any day of the week. Sorry, not sorry! Maybe someone needs to start a dog-friendly fashion show. Now, that is something we can get behind!

Related: Chris Evans Celebrates National Dog Day with Adorable Shelter Pups

Oh, how we want more than anything to be reincarnated as a celebrity pet. LOL! They live the life. Who else can say they've been to a fashion show during Milan Fashion Week? Definitely not anyone we know!

According to Vogue, Moore's Chihuahua dog Pilaf attended the Versace show. To us, that's a huge deal, but this dog has already done it all. The article continued on and stated Pilaf went to Stockholm earlier in the summer for a Max Mara resort show, getting his own Max Mara sling. Dior's menswear director even created Pilaf a custom pink and white pinstriped bow. Uhh, not fair! Soon enough Pilaf is going to be the Blair Waldorf of the fashion world and we're here for it!

Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips.
When Ludovica Sannazzaro Natta introduces herself to new people, she always leads with the key facts:

Shes 21, about to turn 22. Shes Italian. Shes a very proud Scorpio. She studied musical theater in Los Angeles and New York.

Then, shell add an unexpected extra detail into the mix:

I live in a castle full time.

Growing up in a castle

Castle Sannazzaro is located in northern Italy. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

Sannazzaro Natta moved into the 45-roomed, turreted, fairytale Castle Sannazzaro when she was four years old.

Sannazzaro Natta is descended from Italian nobility and her father is a count. This medieval fortress, located in picturesque countryside near Giarole, northern Italy, has been in her family for 28 generations.

The previous generation used Castle Sannazzaro primarily as a summer home, but in 2006, Sannazzaro Nattas parents decided to move from Milan and make the castle their full time residence, taking their young daughter with them.

When I moved here, it was just so normal for me, she tells CNN Travel today. It was just my home and where I was going to live for the rest of my life.

While the castle was normal for young Sannazzaro Natta, she still recalls the thrill of discovering the abundance of rooms in the castle  there are 18 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, as well as sitting rooms, a library, a balloom and a dining room, not to mention the moat, a chapel and secret passageways. Her parents soon realized that in a castle, games of hide and seek can last a long time.

I would just run around the castle, Sannazzaro Natta recalls. My parents couldnt find me sometimes because I thought it was so funny to hide inside closets.

The interiors of the spectacular ballroom date back to the 1800s. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

Sannazzaro Natta has an older brother, but hes 14 years her senior, so Sannazzaro Natta spent her childhood exploring the castle with her gang of friends. The kids would spend long days inventing tales of princesses, witches and wizards amid extremely appropriate surroundings. The castle, says Sannazzaro Natta, was a very creative place to spend her formative years.

I grew up with Harry Potter and Narnia and all those things, she recalls. Of course, the castle was absolutely great to recreate those kinds of atmospheres and fantasy worlds  so it would be our own Harry Potter in my castle.

As a teenager, Sannazzaro Natta attended boarding school elsewhere in Italy. With that distance, and her growing maturity, Sannazzaro Natta developed more conflicted feelings about her palatial childhood home.

The castle is a treasure trove of family heirlooms. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

I didnt really know how to tell people about living in a castle, she says.

She became aware that this particular thing about myself can change their view about me, their opinion on me and found herself holding back the information until she felt shed developed a good rapport with a potential friend.

I live in a castle. Thats so not normal, she realized. Thats very unique and special.

While Sannazzaro Natta began reckoning with that privilege and what it meant, she also became fascinated by Castle Sannazaros history and how it intertwines with her own family legacy.

Its almost 900 years of history, between this place and between my family, she says.

She helped her father sift through old family letters. She shadowed paranormal investigators who came to investigate potential ghostly goings on. She researched her family tree to understand how the castle came to be built in the first place.

Seeing the castle through a new lens

After graduating high school, Sannazzaro Natta moved to the US to study musical theater. Her new American friends were even more dumbfounded than her Italian schoolmates when she lifted the curtain on her family home. But, by then, Sannazzaro Natta was more comfortable in herself and felt able to own her story.

Im not going to hide a part of me just because Im scared of what theyre going to think, she decided. If they really want to know me, theyre going to know me with this specific thing, because it is part of me.

Then, midway through Sannazzaro Nattas US studies, Covid hit. Like many pandemic-era college students, she found herself decamping to her parents house  only, of course, her parents house was a castle.

Sannazzaro Natta saw the fortress through fresh eyes after her time away.

I was like, Oh, I just love this place. Sometimes I dont appreciate it as much as I should. Probably because its my home. And its so normal for me. But I truly, truly love this place.

With this newfound appreciation of the castle came the birth of Sannazzaro Nattas social media account, The Castle Diary. In between her studies, Sannazzaro Natta passed the time posting videos on TikTok and Instagram summing up what lifes really like in a medieval castle. Yes, its beautiful, she explained, but theres also poor Wi-Fi, a lot of rooms to clean and drafts aplenty.

Ludovica Sannzzaro Natta started posting videos to social media about her life in the castle. In the videos, she often wears "Bridgerton"-inspired ballgowns. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

It was March 2021 and her videos provided some well-timed pandemic escapism. Plus, everyone was talking about the Netflix series Bridgerton, and Sannazzaro Natta seemed to be living some real life version of that. Her TikTok account quickly gained traction.

As her following grew, Sannazzaro Natta leaned into the period drama of it all, enlisting her mother to sew her gowns that would look more at place in the 1800s than the 2020s.

Today, Sannazzaro Natta rarely appears in modern clothing in her videos and fully embraces the princess aesthetic on social media.

At the same time, shes still committed to showcasing the reality of castle life. She still makes videos about the castles unexpected quirks from its multiple old toilets to the frustration of forgetting your keys and ascending several flights of spiral staircases to track them down.

And to be clear, Sannazzaro Natta isnt actually a princess although she does stand to inherit her fathers title and become a countess one day, which is pretty Bridgerton-esque, although the title has no real meaning in republican Italy.

Experience a slice of castle life

A few rooms in Castle Sannazzaro are available as a vacation rental. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

Sannazzaro Nattas social media presence has become a family affair  her mother helps with her outfits, while her father often pops up in front of the camera and her brother helps with the administrative and financial side of Sannazzaro Nattas social media fame.

The Sannazzaro Natta family have been pleasantly surprised by the widespread interest in the videos  not least because its provided a boost to the on-site bed and breakfast they run at the castle.

Thats right  if you want to live like Sannazzaro Natta for the day, you can  six of the eighteen bedrooms in the castle are available for vacationers to rent. More rooms are available to rent for weddings or other large events.

The castle is around an hour away from Milan, Turin and Genoa, and 650 meters from Giarole Train Station.

This area is very famous for its landscapes, Sannazzaro Natta says. Its full of these little towns. Theres beautiful hills, she says. Of course, the food is amazing. And the area is very well known also for wine. So there are tons of different wineries.

Sharing the experience

Sannazzaro Natta wants to open the doors to the castle as much as possible and is looking to organize a ball next year. - Ludovica Uberta Sannazzaro Natta

Sannazzaro Natta says she loves nothing better than when the castle is full of guests and pulsating with energy  whether thats thanks to visits from her disbelieving, delighted American friends (whose reactions to the castle she often documents on social media) or via tourists.

That, for Sannazzaro Natta, is when her home comes alive, so if her social media boosts visitors, all the better.

The reason why my dad opened the bed and breakfast was because he wanted the castle to be lived in. He wanted people to see and breathe this reality. she says. And I want the exact same thing.

Inspired by the success of her social media aesthetic, Sannazzaro Natta is planning upcoming public events that embrace what she calls the fantasy of the castle. First up, she hopes to organize a historical-themed ball in 2025.

Now that shes an adult, Sannazzaro Natta is increasingly aware of the costs and upkeep associated with castle living. Expanding into hosting balls and historical events could also be a way to ensure the longevity of the castle  something she has a vested interest in, as she, alongside her brother, will inherit the property one day.

Sannazzaro Natta says she is also still pursuing musical theater and is currently fantasizing about playing one of the six wives of Henry VIII featured in the musical comedy Six, all of whom knew a thing or two about castles. Shed love to host a performance at Castle Sannazzaro.

Sannazzaro Natta says ultimate goal is to share the atmosphere of this beautiful place with everyone she can  whether via social media or in person.

I have something so unique and special that I want to share with people, she says. Because I dont think that a lot of people know about this reality. They dont even think that it exists unless its in movies.

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It will soon be faster to clear customs and security for millions of travelers in the United States.



The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced a brand new smartphone app that will help speed up the security process. The app is now available for the more than 12 million members of the Global Entry program, who can download it from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store according to a statement from the CBP.



For years, Global Entry has been a speedy shortcut as travelers returning to the United States from destinations abroad. The service uses kiosks to scan biometrics from a traveler to verify their identity. Now, the new app will verify the identity of the traveler from their smartphone,



To use the app, travelers take a selfie from their phone while waiting in the security line, instead of taking the photo at the kiosk. The image is matched with those on file to verify the travelers identity.



The new Global Entry mobile application leverages the latest technologies, in order to enhance security while further improving the travel experience for CBPs trusted travelers, CBPs Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner Troy A. Miller said in the statement.



The service will be initially available at several airports around the United States including: Houstons George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Miami International Airport, Orlando International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and Washington Dulles International Airport.

CBP noted they will evaluate the current launch of the program to make decisions on future airport launches.



Travelers need to be registered with the Global Entry program in order to utilize the new smartphone app. The program provides access to expedited entry and no paperwork during the customs process. Global Entry costs $100 for five years of access to the program, and requires an application and interview with a CBP agent. The service also provides eligibility for TSA PreCheck, so travelers may find it more convenient to sign up for Global Entry instead of TSA PreCheck separately.



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Succession may be done playing out on our screens, but its certainly not done playing out in real life, at least when it comes to the family of Pierre Cardin .

The French fashion designer, who died in 2020, failed to outline what would happen to his company once he passed away, and now 22 of his family members are fighting for control, The New York Times reported on Monday. The battle is currently playing out in court, and includes charges of elder abuse, forgery, theft, and more.

More from Robb Report

Its sad that such a storied house come to this, Louis Cardin-Edwards, a great-nephew of Cardin, told the Times. So inelegant.

In one corner is Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, the grandson of one of Cardins older brothers. He worked for Cardin for more than 20 years, and hes currently the general manager of the holding company Pierre Cardin Evolution and the artistic director of the Pierre Cardin brand. Basilicati-Cardin claims that hes the rightful heir, and he wants to keep the company and remain on as its head of business. Both Basilicati-Cardins brother and sister support him on this.

On the other side are 19 cousins from among the Cardin family tree who want to sell the company. Four of them have sued Basilicati-Cardin for various crimes, which he has denied. The Paris prosecutors office opened an investigation earlier this year, The New York Times noted.

At the heart of that matter is a will that Basilicati-Cardin says he found after Cardins death, in which it is outlined that Basilicati-Cardin should be the sole heir. While the will is dated and initialed, its unsigned and was never registered with the French authorities. The four sisters who are suing say that makes it invalid, and a judge agreed in March. However, Basilicati-Cardin has appealed that decision, and a Paris court of appeals is expected to hand down a ruling by the end of the year.

There are two possibilities of resolution, Jean-Louis Riviere, the sisters lawyer, told the Times. The Basilicati-Cardin will is canceled and my clients and their cousins are legitimized as heirs, or it is confirmed and he gets control of everything.

Whether the company ends up being sold (Riviere said big companies have been lining up to buy the Cardin group, and last year one offered 800 million euros) remains in the balance. As does any semblance of peace within the Cardin family.

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ASHEVILLE - An award-winning Mid-Atlantic brewpub is coming to Western North Carolina, further elevating Ashevilles Beer City USA moniker.

Voodoo Brewing Co. is projected to open in mid- to late-October at 3578 Sweeten Creek Road in Arden.

Bill Osborne, franchise owner and local resident, strategically selected the city and the South Asheville neighborhood for the new venture.

Asheville resident Bill Osborne is bringing a Pennsylvania-based brewpub to Arden.

Theres enough beer in Asheville, but what areas could use a little bit more beer without having to travel as much? Osborne said.

Osborne said he desired to break away from a 26-year career in the electrical manufacturing industry, and beer was the way to go. Voodoo Brewings product quality is to complement Ashevilles established beer industry. And the brewpub model that incorporates an in-house restaurant was another draw.

In 2005, Voodoo Brewing Co. was founded in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 15 years later, the craft beer brewery began to expand and now has more than a dozen corporate-owned and franchised locations across Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The former 12 Bones Brewery location is under renovation to reopen as Voodoo Brewing Co.

In August, a brewpub debuted in Cincinnati.

The Arden location will be the first in North Carolina.

Voodoo Brewing renovations

The nearly 3,500 square feet commercial building offered an existing kitchen-taproom layout, as its the former home of 12 Bones Smokehouse.

Renovations are to revitalize the building and customize the space to fit Voodoo Brewings quirky and eclectic vibe, Osborne said.

Voodoo Brewing Co., a new brewpub, is undergoing renovations on Sweeten Creek Road.

A wall was knocked out to construct a new 30-foot concrete-top bar that goes the length of the back of the building. The kitchen was opened to increase space and improve flow.

The pet-friendly back patio and smaller front patio will be set up with picnic tables for plenty of outdoor seating and activities, like cornhole.

The brewpub has a parking lot, too.

Details for the grand opening and ribbon-cutting events will be announced.

Voodoo Brewing Co.'s Scnitzengiggle, a traditional Oktoberfest beer.

Pub grub

Voodoo Brewing locations have similar dining menus but with a local flair, tweaks and ingredients, Osborne said.

Voodoo Brewings hours are not set but will include lunch and dinner service, daily.

The menu will feature items such as 12-inch pizzas, nachos, pretzels, sandwiches, mussels and burgers with a vegetarian mushroom patty substitution option.

Kids menu will be available, too, as the brewpub is open to all ages.

Whats on tap

Voodoos flagship beers include Good Vibes West Coast IPA, Where Our Secrets Go Imperial Stout and Oh Mama  a traditional golden American lager that was brewed in collaboration with the rock band, Styx.

Voodoo Brewing's Oh Mama lager is a collaboration with the band Styx.

Once the Arden Voodoo Brewing opens, the beer will be available for retail sale in area stores and in the taproom.

In addition to Voodoo Brewings flagship and seasonal craft beers, the bar will stock wine and nonalcoholic beverages.

Voodoo will make hard seltzer cocktails, though the brewpub will not have a full bar with spirits.

Job openings

Voodoo Brewing is hiring for positions including head bartender and line cook. The staff will total 15-20 employees, Osborne said.

Open positions are posted on major job boards, including Indeed, listed under the company name GoMo LLC.

Brew news you may have missed:

Voodoo Brewing Co.

Where: 3578 Sweeten Creek Road, Arden.

Opening: Tentatively mid- to late-October 2023.

Info: For more, visit voodoobrewery.com and facebook.com/voodooasheville and follow on Instagram at @voodooasheville.

Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Voodoo Brewing Co. expanding to Arden. Here's what to know.
Lauren Chan lives by the idea that your work should serve youand not the other way around. The 2023 SI Swimsuit rookie, who was photographed by James Macari in the Dominican Republic for this years magazine, has worn several hats and pivoted through multiple careers that all aligned with the same goal.

The model was a plus-size fashion writer before entering a lead role as an editor at Glamour magazine. She launched her luxury clothing brand Henning, catered to sizes 12 to 26, in 2018, and the company was acquired by Universal Standard this spring.

While [my previous roles] seem quite different on paper, they have all evolved into one another and they have all made sense to me because they have all fed the same goal, Chan explains. And that goal is to make folks who have felt left out of fashionand therefore our culturefeel included and capable and powerful.

She adds that she doesnt know exactly what her future career will look like, or if it will even be a drastic change, but one things for sureChan will continue to fuel her passions.

I dont know what roles I will hold next, and after that and after that, but I do know that they will follow that same North star, the Canada native says. I think thats how I make sense of my career evolution.

Time management, prioritization and finding balance

Throughout her career, Chan has constantly reminded herself that no situation is permanent, and she is in control of her own life.

[That mindset] has helped me get through months and years straight of hustle, and then also be able to fully relax when Im in a time where I dont need to work as hard, she shares. I think that the old me tended to feel when I was working 12-hour days and going from meeting to office to event and doing it all again the next day, that that was going to be forever, and that can get really heavy.

Chan adds that she would tell her younger self, or anyone looking to pursue multiple passions, to really go for the things that you have a true passion for because that is what will keep you going when the days are long and when the work is hard and you have to put your blood, sweat and tears on the table.

Shes open about the fact that there is not always a strategy, its just f------ hard work. There have been points in her career where she hasnt had the luxury of deciding when her day ends. But now, on the other side of the journalism and corporate industries, she has a few intentional practices that are solely for her mental health and personal peace.

Setting boundaries

The New York City resident explains that she does her best to not think about work or start it before 9:30 a.m., and if she can help it, ends around 4:30 p.m.

Just taking that little bit of time back in the morning to walk the dog, have a coffee, get up slowly and not in a rushed way, and in the afternoon, still get some sunshine, walk the dog again, have a breath of fresh air before I start cleaning or making dinner or working out really helps me, Chan explains.

She adds that she has learned to rely on team members and colleagues, and know that not everything has to be perfect, or the exact way that I might have done it.

Focusing on modeling

Chan, who serves as the head of brand partnerships at Universal Standard, is in her modeling era right now. She just wrapped up an iconic New York Fashion Week and attended events with Proenza Schouler, Instagram and Lacoste, and walked the runway for Christian Sirianos 15th anniversary show.

Im in a role right now where its just not as urgent as running a business or being a journalist. Im in a season of my life [where] Im really relishing in the non-urgency of my job, she notes. I will genuinely follow a prioritization of tasks where if somethings not on fire at the moment, I will handle it in a few hours or a few days, or when the time comes for it to be urgent.

Chan mentions that the healthy practices she has picked up over the years is a reflection of the peaceful mindset she is in, and proof that she has found a better work-life balancewhich was a longtime goal.

Since Henning was acquired, I am relishing not being in charge of everything. When you run a business, you are everything from the intern to the CEO and everything is your problem to fix, she continues. I think that being in this chapter where Im focusing on modeling and podcasting and broadcast, I am enjoying the parts of work that I like the best, like speaking and connecting and social [media] and the art of fashion. Running a business is very tiring, so Im happy to be a cog in the wheel in a lot of ways.

Recognizing when its time to pivot

Chan says everything sort of fell into (or out of) place when she left her role as an editorit was a leap of faith, for sure, but it was a decision that made a lot of sense at the time.

We can get so heads down in this insanely intense hustle culture that we dont take time to pull the camera back and recognize whats going on around uswhether thats whats happening in the market, whats happening within your specific company, whats happening on your team and whats happening with yourself, she shares. So when, for example, I left my job as a magazine editor, I used to joke that the universe was basically hitting me upside the head by the end by all [the] signs that it was time to go.

Whats next

When Chan was asked about what her next move or career pivot could be at the time of the magazines launch, she had no idea and she liked it that way.

I [was] trying to be present and for once in my life, not have my next goal or move written across my mirror, so to speak. Now that were a few months out from that I can say that didnt last long, she says. Im working on projects like podcasting and TV and in-person events and ambassadorships. Most of the things Im excited about these days are conversation and connection based.

The former fashion features editor describes her next chapter as a semi return to her journalism roots with lots of interviewing, reporting and getting a chance to flex the muscles she strengthened in and out of various newsrooms.

Her year as an SI Swimsuit rookie

As she wraps up a fabulous and history-making rookie year with SI SwimsuitChan came out to the world as gay through a personal essay along with her magazine debutshe reflects on some of the defining moments of her start with the brand.

The whole experience has been incredible, Chan gushes. I really just cant believe I got to be around so many game-changing peoplefrom the people who run the institution to the people who are featured in it and the people who have showed up to the events. Were all in support of the same mission and [SI Swimsuit] is one of the most impactful institutions in our culture and it just feels like magic to be included. A highlight for me for sure was going on stage with Kim Petras in Miami. Of course, my shoot was the most memorable experience of it all. I really loved the Swim Week runway as well, specifically the finale where we all got to walk together and dance and celebrate the roster as one.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Runway Show During Miami Swim Week At W South Beach. John Parra/Getty Images

What is a quote that you live by?

What makes you different makes you great.

Whats your favorite thing to do to escape from work?

Get a massage.

What is a book that dramatically changed your perspective?

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza or Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Whats your current hype song?

Speed Drive by Charli XCX from the Barbie movie.

What is a podcast you have been loving recently?

Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Whats your favorite everyday purse?

Right now Im using my vintage Guess purse from high school.

Make sure to follow SI Lifestyle in Google News!
Leonard A. Lauder, chairman emeritus of The Estee Lauder Companies, will receive the Retail Excellence Award for his outstanding contributions to the retail and beauty sectors, along with his philanthropic endeavors in academia, medicine and art.

The award is being given by the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Retail Leaders Circle. Lauder will receive the award at an Oct. 16 dinner in his honor to be held at the Rainbow Room in New York City.

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Leonard Lauders remarkable influence and achievements in the industry are matched only by his generosity as a philanthropist, Thomas S. Robertson, Joshua J. Harris professor and professor of marketing at the Wharton School, said in a statement. His business acumen, global vision and innovative ideas are legendary.

Lauder is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School and has provided philanthropic support for various Penn programs throughout the years, impacting campus life as well as the research and teaching missions for faculty and students. He also holds various positions at Penn, including emeritus trustee, and is a founding member of the board of governors at the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies.

As we celebrate excellence in retail, Leonard Lauder stands out as an industry visionary whose legacy and leadership have profoundly shaped both the beauty and broader retail landscapes, said Panos Linardos, chairman of the Retail Leaders Circle. Mr. Lauders unparalleled impact aligns with the core values of the Retail Leaders Circle, and his lasting achievements underscore the profound influence that legendary leadership can have in shaping the trajectory of the retail industry.

Lauder is also cofounder of the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation, which provides funding for clinical trials on a global scale. He had also contributed to New Yorks Whitney Museum and he has pledged his renowned collection of Cubist art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The award is timely given Lauders announcement last August that he would step down from the board of directors of the Estee Lauder Cos. in November this year, when his current term expires, as previously reported. Lauder, who turned 90 this year, will retain the title of chairman emeritus of the firm, which was founded by his parents, Estee and Joseph Lauder, in 1946. He will also continue his role as chief teacher officer, and be involved in key initiatives around employee engagement and brand symposiums.

Youll still see me out and about, and perhaps at your desk, your retail store or at a company event, Lauder wrote in an internal memo to company employees.

Lauders career spanned many decades at the helm of The Estee Lauder Companies, which he joined in 1958. During his tenure, he initiated the establishment of the companys first R&D laboratory and spearheaded strategic acquisitions that included renowned brands like MAC, Bobbi Brown and Aveda. He stepped down as CEO in 1999.

The Jay H. Baker Retailing Center is an interdisciplinary industry research center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The center influences research and encourages discussion on trending retail topics through programs and resources with faculty, students and industry leaders.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1881 as the worlds first collegiate business school to educate future business leaders. Wharton has 235 professors and 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA and doctoral students.

Retail Leaders Circle, powered by the New York Institute of Management, promotes discussion and debate on retailing between CEOs, industry innovators and influencers who convene at different locations in the U.S., Middle East and Asia.

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Click here to read the full article.
By buying an index fund, you can roughly match the market return with ease. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. Just take a look at The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK), which is up 25%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 20% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 12% in the last year , including dividends .

While the stock has fallen 4.2% this week, it's worth focusing on the longer term and seeing if the stocks historical returns have been driven by the underlying fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for Bank of New York Mellon

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect 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.

During the three years of share price growth, Bank of New York Mellon actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) drop 8.7% per year.

So we doubt that the market is looking to EPS for its main judge of the company's value. Therefore, we think it's worth considering other metrics as well.

Do you think that shareholders are buying for the 1.7% per annum revenue growth trend? We don't. While we don't have an obvious theory to explain the share price rise, a closer look at the data might be enlightening.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Bank of New York Mellon is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. So we recommend checking out this free report showing consensus forecasts

What About Dividends?

As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Bank of New York Mellon, it has a TSR of 37% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

Story continues

A Different Perspective

Bank of New York Mellon shareholders gained a total return of 12% during the year. But that was short of the market average. But at least that's still a gain! Over five years the TSR has been a reduction of 1.1% per year, over five years. So this might be a sign the business has turned its fortunes around. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Bank of New York Mellon better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Bank of New York Mellon that you should be aware of.

Of course Bank of New York Mellon 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 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.
A behind-the-scenes look at my life sailing around the world with my husband, a cruise ship performer.

Vanessa Armstrong/Travel + Leisure

My husband might be the only magician who has ever stepped onto the stage of a 1,000-seat theater and received a standing ovation for a trick done with dental floss. The performance in question was his 14th of the cruise we were on  an unprecedented and unexpected number due to extraordinary circumstances  and it captured the ethos of what it means to be a cruise ship entertainer: No matter what happens, the show must go on.

I have a confession to make: For most of my life, I never wanted to go on a cruise. The idea of residing on a large vessel as it sailed across an exponentially larger ocean paradoxically felt too claustrophobic and vast to me. Wouldnt it be better to keep my feet on solid ground?

But then I went to the Magic Castle in Hollywood and met a magician named Jon at the bar. Fast-forward 10 years, and Im now married to that magician. And in the past decade, Ive been lucky enough to travel with him across the globe as he worked as an entertainer on several cruise lines, including Viking, Seabourn, Oceania, Crystal, Azamara, and Disney. Ive also sampled the waffles on every one of these cruises and can tell you which line makes the best batch.

Vanessa Armstrong/Travel + Leisure

Being a guest entertainer on a cruise ship is one of the myriad ways magicians make money. Unlike the wonderful crew who stays on a ship for months at a time, guest entertainers often board a vessel for only a week or two before disembarking to their next destination. Jon and I have traveled all over the world thanks to his work, from Antarctica to the Panama Canal, and have had more than a few trips to the Caribbean and Alaska. And while entertainers are by and large treated like other guests  we stay in the same cabin type and dine in the restaurants that passengers do  there are some notable differences from the typical cruise experience.

The big difference guest entertainers face (other than working on a cruise ship rather than having a relaxing vacation, of course) is they dont usually embark and disembark with the same passengers. Almost every cruise Ive been on has had us board in the middle of one trip, and either leave halfway through another, so they can perform for two different sets of guests, or before the voyage is complete, so passengers get to see more shows from more acts.

Midshipping, as its called, sometimes requires us to travel to far-to-reach places to catch a ship. One time, when we were joining a world cruise, we had to fly from Los Angeles to Santiago, Chile, and then hop on a shuttle that took us on a multiple-hour bus ride to the ship. Thirty-six hours after we left our home (and had our last shower), we arrived at the port, where we waited another hour to pass through customs as there was confusion as to what manifest we fell under: crew or guest. (If youre curious, the answer is guest, though trying to explain that Jon was an entertainer working on the ship, but not listed as crew, earned us understandably baffled looks.)

My designation  the guest of a guest entertainer  is even more confusing to people. It's also blessed with the added complexity of making sure I dont violate a 100-plus-year-old law. In 1886, Congress passed the Passenger Vessel Services Act, which mandates that no guest can embark and disembark from a cruise in U.S. ports if the ship hasnt docked in any distant foreign ports in between. Why does this law still exist? Thats another story, but the good news is regular guests arent impacted much since cruise companies make sure their itineraries are compliant. But when you midship on, say, an Alaska cruise, theres a good chance you could violate that rule. Luckily for Jon and the cruise lines, this stipulation only applies to me when traveling, and it's thrown a wrinkle in our travel plans more than once  sometimes after my flights were already purchased.

Once we make it on board, however, any travails we may have had blissfully fade into memories. Each voyage becomes a community of its own, and until Jons first show, we blend in with everyone else. Following his opening performance, though, we become mini celebrities. Jon loves doing a quick card trick for passengers who come up to him as long as hes not eating or, in more recent years, chasing after our toddler.

Vanessa Armstrong/Travel + Leisure

In all our trips together, there are some experiences that stand out. In 2018, for example, we got to go on a cruise to Antarctica, earning Jon the right to say he has performed on all seven continents.

The cruise where Jon got that standing ovation for doing a trick with dental floss was like no other we've been on before. It was March 2020, and we were sailing through the Panama Canal. The cruise had embarked from New Orleans, and Jon and I were supposed to get off the ship and fly home when we docked in Bolivia, right before it went through the channel. But the world shut down in the days after we departed New Orleans, including the ports. No one was allowed off the ship or on it. That also meant no new entertainers made it on board. The ship still had several days at sea, however, and there was a desire to keep people in good spirits. Jon usually does three performances on a cruise: one stage show, one adult show in a smaller theater, and one workshop. On that cruise, he did three stage shows, four close-up shows, three adult shows, and four workshops. By the 14th performance, his supply of props had grown a bit thin. Hence, the dental floss.

Jon is now back on cruise ships, though Ive gone on fewer trips (and eaten a lot less waffles) with him since our daughter was born. Our almost three-year-old has been on five cruises already, and there will likely be many more in her future. Our trips are naturally different now, but theres nothing like watching her see Jon perform in the theater. We stay in the back, and when the audience stands to applaud at the end, she's right there with them, shouting, Daddy did it!

And if you're wondering which line has the best waffles: Its Viking, though the Mickey-shaped ones on Disney have their own charm as well.

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Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
As the second Republican debate kicks off this evening, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is once again participating. It's not his first rodeo on the campaign circuit, as he ran in 2016, so his wife Mary Pat Christie is no stranger to the spotlight. "This is a team sport, running for president," she said in 2016. "There's nothing I'd rather do than help my husband."

Boston Globe - Getty Images

Here are five things to know about Chris Christie's wife Mary Pat:

1. She has nine siblings.

Born Mary Pat Foster on September 15, 1963, she is the ninth of 10 children. She grew up in Paoli, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of Delaware. At college, she met her future husband when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore. After she graduated in 1985, she got a MBA at Seton Hall University.

2. Mary Pat and Chris married in 1986.

They have four children: Andrew (b. 1993), Sarah (b. 1996), Patrick (b. 2000), and Bridget (b. 2003). She's private on Instagram, but her bio reads, "Lucky Wife of Chris and Lucky mother of Andrew Sarah Patrick and Bridget. Working hard to make a difference and get Chris on debate stage."

3. She worked near the World Trade Center on 9/11.

On the day of the September 11 attacks, she was working blocks away from the World Trade Center, and was unable to get in touch with her family. Chris later recalled he feared for her life, thinking, "What am I going to do without my best friend? What kind of single dad am I going to be?"

4. She stopped working as in finance in 2015.

She worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and Angelo, Gordon & Co., among other firms. In 2015, she left her job, with a spokesperson for Christie saying, "Mrs. Christie has decided to take a hiatus from her work in the finance world to spend more time with her family and young children."

As First Lady of New Jersey, she chaired the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, fundraising to help relief.

5. Mary Pat now is a partner at Christie 55 Solutions.

Her official bio notes, "Mary Pat currently serves on the boards of Carrier Clinic, a substance abuse rehabilitation facility in Skillman New Jersey; Seton Hall University Board of Regents, Orexo, a specialty pharmaceutical company headquartered in Uppsala Sweden; and Accelerate 360, a media and distribution company."



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Tissues out, folks.

After spending nearly 10 years at a Florida animal shelter, an 11-year-old dog is finally home.

A black lab mix named Bean was the longest resident at Animal Refuge Center (ARC) in Fort Myers before Larry Denmark decided to give her a forever foster home.

ARC celebrated the news on Facebook Monday, explaining that Denmark saw Beans photo on the website and started coming to the shelter to spend time with her and the pair became fast friends.

Animal Refuge Center

Wow, is she happy, the shelter wrote alongside photos of Bean snuggled up in bed, taking a dip in a pool, and otherwise loving life in her new home.

Thank you to the staff and volunteers that spent so much time getting Bean ready for this opportunity, ARC wrote. We will miss her [but] couldn't be more excited to see Bean living her best life.

Beans profile on the shelters website describes her as an extremely loving, affectionate and intelligent girl who takes a little time to warm up to new people. If she loves you though, she loves you forever, her description notes.

However, a few quirks, like her dislike for children and other dogs, made finding her forever family a challenge.

But shelter staff never gave up on Bean. ARC featured her on their Facebook numerous times over the years in an effort to find her the perfect home. A post from 2020 tugs particularly hard at our heart strings.

We promised her that her ideal home is out there, somewhere, the shelter wrote beside photos of Bean and her graying muzzle. And well never give up that search.

It might have taken three more years, but they kept that promise.

Welcome home, Bean!



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Read the original article on Southern Living.
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Get ready for your daily dose of cuteness overload, because today the Indianapolis Zoo in Indianapolis, Indiana shared a video of the first time their brand new elephant ventured outside with his proud mama following him.

That baby was born over Labor Day weekend to the zoo's African Elephant named Zahara.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

The video posted on the TikTok account page for The Indianapolis Zoo @Indianapoliszoo explains, "Our brand new baby elephant took his first steps outside today! While staying close to his mom Zahara, he was very curious of his new surroundings & was excited to explore! And after 20 minutes of exploring with mom, he was ready for a nap." Awwww, twenty minutes is a lot of time for a baby elephant to get exhausted!

TikTok viewers are adoring this precious baby and @Doug comments, "Looks like mom is smiling and so proud to introduce him."@Brittany replies, "Anyone else think it looks like at times moms straight up smiling?" @Deb adds, "So excited! Everything is new. Mom, whats this? Mom, whats that? Mom, whats this stuff? You drink it? How? Cute x10!" @Pheur comments, "Those tiny big ears, I cant believe hell ever get that big!"

On their Facebook page the zoo announced that next week the public will have the chance to help name the baby elephant. Zahara is a first time mom and her baby is the seventh calf to be born at the zoo. At birth, this lady baby weighed a scant 262 pounds!

We just can't wait to see this little guy grow up! He's just too cute.

Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips.
President Joe Biden is under scrutiny after his dog, Commander, recently bit a US Secret Service agent at the White House. The 2-year-old German Shepherd has a history of biting. According to CNN, this is the 11th known biting incident involving Commander.

Joe Bidens dog bites Secret Service Agent

Around 8 p.m. on Monday, Commander bit a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer. The officer received treatment from a medical professional on site, the USSS chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi told CNN in a statement.

The officer is doing OK, according to Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Alfonso M. Dyson Sr.

Unfortunately, this kind of behavior isnt unusual for Commander. The dog has a history of biting people at both the White House and in Delaware. One incident resulted in the hospitalization of an officer after Commander clamped down on their arms and thighs, CNN reports.

Bidens dog received training

Back in July, after one such biting incident, White House officials told the public that Commander was receiving training and learning leashing protocols.

However, in a vague response to the increasingly concerning situation, Elizabeth Alexander, communications director for the first lady, said in a statement that the First Family continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds.

Ironically, Commander arrived at the White House in 2021 after the Bidens other German Shepherd, Major, was also involved in biting incidents.

Biting is a workplace safety issue for White House employees

Secret Service agents do not handle the Bidens dogs, but they often come into contact with first family pets.

This isnt a Secret Service thing. This is a this is a workplace safety issue, former USSS agent Jonathan Wackrow told CNN.

He continued: Theres uniqueness here where its the residence of the president of the United States, but its also the workplace for hundreds, thousands of people. And you cant bring a hazard into the workplace. And thats what is essentially happening with this dog. One time you can say its an accident, but now multiple incidents, its a serious issue.

While it surely isnt Bidens fault that his dogs have biting issues, it is his responsibility as a pet parent to prevent future incidents.

As Wackrow told CNN, Im sure that the Bidens love the dog. Im sure that its a member of the family like every dog is, but youre creating a significant hazard to those who support you  support the office of the president.

What Biden needs to do about Commander

(Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty Images)

Biden has an opportunity to demonstrate responsible dog parenthood. Heres what he needs to do regarding Commander:

Immediately remove Commander from triggering situations

Biden should promptly remove Commander from any situation or environment where the dog may become aggressive. If certain people, places, or activities consistently trigger the dogs aggression, it is crucial to avoid these situations whenever possible.

Limit interactions

In cases where a dog is in a high-stress environment, such as the White House, it may be advisable to limit the dogs interactions with employees or visitors who may provoke aggressive behavior. The safety of both the dog and those around it should always be a top priority.

Work with dog experts

Biden should work closely with professionals to assess the dogs behavior and determine whether it is suitable to continue living in its current environment. If necessary, rehoming the dog to a more suitable and less stressful setting may be the best course of action to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone involved.

Be a role model

Public figures should set a responsible example when it comes to dog parenthood, prioritizing the safety of their pets and those they interact with. This may involve making difficult decisions for the sake of everyones safety.

How to address biting in dogs

(Photo Credit: imantsu / Getty Images)

Having a dog that bites can be distressing for both the dog parent and their pup. Heres how a responsible pet parent should respond to a dog that bites:

Educate yourself about dog behavior

Biting is often a sign of distress, fear, or frustration. The more you understand the reasons behind dog biting, the more effective your response will be.

Seek professional help

If your dog has a biting issue, consult a professional dog trainer or a certified behaviorist. They can assess the dogs behavior, identify triggers, and create a customized training plan.

Start obedience training

Training commands like sit, stay, and leave it can help manage a dogs behavior and reduce aggression.

Encourage socialization

Dogs that are well-socialized from a young age tend to exhibit fewer aggressive behaviors. Expose your pets to various people, animals, and situations to build confidence.

Identify triggers

Identify specific triggers that lead to biting incidents. These could include situations, people, or even physical discomfort. Avoiding or managing these triggers can be key to preventing biting.

Use positive reinforcement

Use positive reinforcement techniques, such as rewarding good behavior with treats or praise. This can help reinforce desirable actions and discourage negative ones.

Consider behavior modification techniques

Behavior modification techniques may be necessary in cases of severe aggression. This can involve desensitization and counter-conditioning exercises to change a dogs response to certain stimuli.

Obey the law

It is crucial for dog parents to know and abide by local laws and regulations regarding dog behavior, especially involving aggression. Some jurisdictions may require certain actions, such as muzzling or restraint, if a dog has a history of biting.

Visit the vet

Consult your veterinarian to rule out any underlying medical issues that could be contributing to aggressive behavior. Pain or discomfort can sometimes trigger aggression.

Supervise your dog

If your dog has a history of biting, always supervise them especially around children or vulnerable individuals. Use a leash and secure your yard with a fence to help prevent accidents.

Be consistent and patient

Dog training takes time and patience. Consistency in training methods and routines is essential for long-term success.

The post President Bidens Dog Commander Bites Another Secret Service Agent (Heres How a Responsible Dog Parent Should Respond) appeared first on DogTime.
Words from a "lost" language spoken more than 3,000 years ago have been discovered on an ancient clay tablet unearthed in Turkey.

Archaeologists discovered the tablet earlier this year during excavations at Bogazkoy-Hattusa in north-central Turkey, the site of Hattusha, the Hittite capital from about 1600 B.C. until about 1200 B.C. and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Annual expeditions to the site led by Andreas Schachner , an archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, have unearthed thousands of clay tablets written in cuneiform  perhaps the most ancient written script, created by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago.

The tablets are "mainly found in clusters connected to half a dozen buildings," sometimes described as archives or libraries, Schachner told Live Science. "But we find text all over the [site] that are moved around by erosion."

Most of the tablets unearthed at Bogazkoy-Hattusa are written in the language of the Hittites, but a few include words from other languages  apparently because the Hittites were interested in foreign religious rituals.

Related: What's the world's oldest civilization?

The words in the previously unknown language appear to be from such a ritual, which was recorded on a single clay tablet along with writing in Hittite explaining what it was.

"The introduction is in Hittite," Schachner said in an email. "It is clear that it is a ritual text."

Large rocks on a Turkish hillside along with an archaeological site of Hittite ruins.

Lost language

The clay tablet was one of several sent to Germany to be analyzed, where it was studied by Daniel Schwemer , a professor and chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wurzburg. From the Hittite introduction, he identified it as the language of Kalasma, a region on the north-western edge of the Hittite heartland near the modern Turkish city of Bolu.

The scholars don't know what it says yet, and they're not releasing any photographs of the tablet until it has been fully studied.

But they've determined that it belongs to the Anatolian group of the Indo-European family of languages, which the Hittite language also belonged to; other ancient languages in the region, including Akkadian, Hebrew and Aramaic, belong to the Semitic family of languages.

An aerial view of ruins near the Turkish town of Bogazkoyury.

Schwemer said in a statement that "the Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages." Extracts of rituals in other foreign languages have also been found in the tablets from Bogazkoy-Hattusa, including in the Indo-European languages Luwian and Palaic and a non-Indo-European language known as Hattic.

Such ritual texts were written by Hittite scribes and reflected various Anatolian, Syrian and Mesopotamian traditions and linguistic milieus.

"The rituals provide valuable glimpses into the little-known linguistic landscapes of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, where not just Hittite was spoken," Schwemer said.

A large stone entry way with animal statues.

Hittite Empire

For centuries, the Hittites, who ruled over most of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and Syria, were among the most powerful empires in the ancient world. In 1274 B.C., the Hittites fought the Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptians for control of Canaan  what's now southern Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

The battle may be the earliest military action ever recorded . It seems to have been a defeat for the Hittites; although they kept control of the city of Kadesh, the Egyptians kept control of Canaan.

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Hattusha became the Hittite capital in about 1600 B.C.; and more than 100 years of archaeological excavations at the site have revealed a vast ancient city there.

But it was abandoned in about 1200 B.C. during the cataclysmic " Late Bronze Age collapse " that suddenly ended or damaged many ancient states in the eastern Mediterranean; the collapse has been ascribed to invasions by migrants called the "Sea Peoples" , sudden climate changes, and disruptive new technologies like iron  but historians and archaeologists debate the causes.

Schachner said it wasn't possible to foresee if any other writings in the "lost" language would be found, or if extracts from still other ancient languages would be found in the tablets from Bogazkoy-Hattusa.
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Robb Report may receive an affiliate commission.

Welcome to Robb Recommends, a regular series in which our editors and contributors endorse something theyve tried and lovedand think will change your life for the better.

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Ive tried a lot of creams, serums, prescriptions, and lasers on my way to better skin. And in trying so many products, its often difficult to parse out which ones are moving the needle most. Maybe its the new tretinoin I snagged in Brazil or the Vitamin C serum Im testing and loving (shout out Allies of Skin). But I do believe Ive pinpointed something that has delivered some of the most noticeable results in my decade of writing about skincare: The Lyma Laser.

It cant be a coincidence that in the four months since I started using this FDA-cleared cold-laser wand, friends, strangers, colleagues, and people in Zoom meetings (including my lawyer?!) have commented on how good my skin looks. And because these great skin days started a couple of weeks after I introduced the Lyma to my routineand I cant really pinpoint any other new products that I introduced and used dailyits easy to conclude that this was the secret weapon. The primary structural changes are starting to kick in now, toothose take around three months, though Ive been using the laser a bit less than recommended each day (more on that below).

Buy Now on Lyma:

Price: $2,695

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Heres how Lymas laser device works: Its a low-level treatment and a cold laser, the latter of which makes it non-invasive in terms of impact on skin. (In the U.S. and Canada, youll get a red laser. In the E.U., a blue one.) Other lasers work by using a stress-damage response, but this one is designed to influence a different kind of cellular behavior. The makers of the LYMA Laser and similar devices claim that regular use tells our skin cells to make more of a compound called adenosine triphosphate. This influx is supposed to recharge the mitochondria (the energy powerhouse of the cells), and in turn, boosts cellular turnover, fights collagen degradation, and produces suppler and firmer skin as a result.

Low-level laser therapy is also what we use on the scalp for hair retention, and its frequently used for pain management. It is more powerful than LED light, too. LLLT is incredibly anti-inflammatory and also boosts blood flow to the skin, which yields more nutrient delivery to the cells there. And remember, you can use the device anywhere, not just on your faceso in theory you could also use the Lyma to target looser or wrinkled skin elsewhere.

Heres the main downside of using this device, though: It takes a long time. Its light source is a bit larger than a U.S. quarter, so you can spend a lot of time gliding it across the facethe brand suggests as much as 45 minutes per day to get those results in three months time. And I have to admit, that put me off a bit. Thats a lot of time; I wish this was just a face mask I could wear for five or 10 minutes and be done. Still, I asked its creators how to prioritize certain areas, like the corners of my eyes and my forehead. Their suggestion was to keep the wand fixed on the corners of the eyes (for a couple of minutes on each side), and then spend about 10 minutes focusing the rest of the treatment on the forehead. So, I carved out about 15 minutes each day to do this, and while it felt like a bit of a chore, it also felt like the right amount of time. Plus, considering I have a beard covering the lower half of my face, there wasnt much gliding possible for that area.

Im proud to say I did use it for 15 minutes a day, and probably on about 90 percent of the days, too. When I traveled with it, its battery lasted a week or more on each charge with this duration. Im not suggesting that you cut corners like me, but if youre put off by the time factor, theres still a way to get the skin-firming benefits by targeting those problem areas; for me, it was the spots Im experiencing wrinkles most. But even in the short term, within a couple of weeks of starting, I had natural radiance like Ive rarely seenonly the kind I might get from a top-shelf Vitamin C serum and a face oil. And thats what Ill most associate with this device.

To get the best results, wash your face and spritz on the brands mist, a stabilized oxygen spray thats supposed to allow for better light penetration into the skin. Then apply some of its glycerin-hyaluronic acid glide which helps moisturize the skin and allows for easy zooming of the wand across the surface of your mug. If youre just spot-targeting areas of the face (rather than gliding), you can stick with the mist. LYMA also just launched a geneticist-engineered skincare duo that the company claims can magnify your age-reversing results. But with great results in just 15 minutes a day, you might want to start with the wand and see how far it takes you.

Buy Now on Lyma:

Price: $2,695

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Adam Hurly is a South Dakota native with a New York drivers license (and state of mind). He has resided in Berlin since 2018. Adam writes about grooming and travel for numerous publications; in addition to Robb Report, hes written for GQ, Mens Journal, Byrdie, Gear Patrol and more.

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A woman from Toronto was hospitalised on a trip to France after eating at a Bordeaux wine bar.

Jubilee Pridham, 33, fell ill after dining at a wine bar in Bordeauxs tourism district, and is reportedly recovering from botulism caused by sardines she ate there, per CTV News Toronto.

A GoFundMe account that has been set up to help with Pridhams expenses says she ate the sardines on the first day of her trip; from France, Pridham was supposed to travel to Spain before returning to Canada, the Toronto Star reported.

Jubilee was infected with a rare botulism toxin during her first meal of house-made preserved sardines at a popular restaurant, the page says. She woke up to double vision, difficulty breathing and swallowing the next morning.

Her health quickly deteriorated and she eventually lost the ability to speak, see, or move and was taken to a hospital. Her respiratory distress was so severe that she was placed on a ventilator as she could no longer breathe independently. She was admitted to the ICU with only the faint movement of her fingers and toes due to severe paralysis, the GoFundMe says.

The sardines reportedly made several people ill, including a woman Pridham was travelling with named Gabby Chartier, though her case wasnt as severe as Pridhams. A 32-year-old woman in France reportedly died from illness caused by the sardines, per CTV News Toronto.

French health authorities have put out an alert warning anyone who dined at Tchin Tchin wine bar between Monday 4 and Sunday September 10, 2023, should consult a doctor urgently.

Botulism is often the result of bacteria found in food; they thrive in home-canned food, especially, per the Mayo Clinic. Oftentimes, botulism results from homemade food that hasnt been stored properly. It can also occur when a wound is exposed to bacteria.

Foodborne botulism causes symptoms like dry mouth, difficulty speaking or swallowing, weakness on both sides of ones face, double vision, blurred vision, trouble breathing, drooping eyelids, vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, and paralysis; wound botulism causes some  but not all  of those symptoms.

While the symptoms of wound botulism may not show up for 10 days after a wound has been exposed to bacteria, the warning signs of foodborne botulism usually begin within 12 to 36 hours after eating the food.

Its important to seek medical care if you think you have botulism, since it can be life-threatening. The condition affects ones ability to control their muscles, so it can cause complications that take a long time to heal, including shortness of breath and lasting weakness.

Usually, if a doctor suspects botulism, theyll ask what kinds of foods youve recently eaten. To confirm the diagnosis, they may check for paralysis or muscle weakness or drooping eyelids. They may also request a sample of ones blood, vomit, or stool to check for the toxin that causes the illness.

When Ms Pridham fell ill, her family left Canada to go be with her, according to the GoFundMe. This severe health crisis has thrust her into a fight to regain her life, the GoFundMe says. Her health insurance has covered the cost of her hospital stay thus far; it does not, however, extend to the unknowable cost and timeline of her recovery and rehabilitation.

Ms Pridham, a general manager at a restaurant in Toronto, wont be able to report to work for the foreseeable future, the GoFundMe states. In addition to her recovery costs, she also has everyday financial responsibilities, the page says. At this time, we are uncertain as to the financial burden this will have on her and her family.

Her partner, Lowell Sostomi, told CTV News Toronto that her recovery wont be quick. Were seeing improvements, but its small steps everyday.

Part of the money raised through her GoFundMe will be used to help Ms Pridhams partner and family travel so they can continue to be with her until shes well enough to return home. Theyll also help cover the cost of wages lost during this time.

Jubilees life has been an example of kindness and generosity, the page says. She is the person who consistently looks out for everyone in her circle and the community beyond She feeds you, listens to you, checks in with you and treats you with empathy, intention and care In light of the immense impact shes had on the lives of those around her, we would greatly appreciate any assistance from those who can contribute to her care and recovery.
High angle view of two women's feet lying in bed together. Couple wearing socks to bed. One woman is wearing rainbow flag's socks. They are sleeping together.

Though some of us insist on tucking in barefoot, wearing socks to bed might have its benefits when it comes to frisky activities. Yes, folks, apparently the key to a successful orgasm starts in your toes before it crinkles your nose. (Though the best sex toys will also do the trick.)

Couples are always looking for ways to get to the grand finale quicker and want to make it more explosive when they do, even though sexologists insist orgasms don't make or break an intimate experience. But nevertheless, since they are sought-after anyway, might as well make the sensation a little strongerespecially considering all you need is a pair of socks.

Does wearing socks to bed help your chances of orgasming?

According to researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, wearing socks to bed*clean* sockscan help in the sex department. It's all about circulation. If you keep your toesies nice and toasty while you snooze, your blood flow won't be reduced, and *that* could put a damper on the O. When you decide to hit the hay and bundle up, you'll wake up knowing morning sex is on the table...before the pancakes.

Per the study, 80% of couples who wore socks to bed were able to achieve orgasm as compared to 50% of couples who struggled to do so after not wearing socks. Temperature is a simple factor that can make all the difference, so it shouldn't be overlooked.

"[It] will help regulate the warm temperature in your feet as well as relax the blood vessels which tend to constrict when youre cold," Charlotte Johnson, sex expert at Mega Pleasure previously told us. "It has been suggested that socks can also enhance an orgasm because when blood circulation increases, it can play a part in increasing the chances of an orgasm."

As for the taboo of wearing socks during sex? We'll leave that up to you. And while we're on the topic of temperature, read up on sexperts' best winter sex tips that will keep things hot and steamy even when things outside feel frigid.

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Investors who take an interest in Motorcar Parts of America, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPAA) should definitely note that the Director, Douglas Trussler, recently paid US$7.50 per share to buy US$375k worth of the stock. That certainly has us anticipating the best, especially since they thusly increased their own holding by 100%, potentially signalling some real optimism.

Check out our latest analysis for Motorcar Parts of America

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Motorcar Parts of America

In fact, the recent purchase by Douglas Trussler was the biggest purchase of Motorcar Parts of America shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price of US$7.85. That means they have been optimistic about the company in the past, though they may have changed their mind. While we always like to see insider buying, it's less meaningful if the purchases were made at much lower prices, as the opportunity they saw may have passed. The good news for Motorcar Parts of America share holders is that insiders were buying at near the current price.

In the last twelve months insiders purchased 106.80k shares for US$779k. On the other hand they divested 8.83k shares, for US$99k. In total, Motorcar Parts of America insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

Motorcar Parts of America is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Insider Ownership

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. From our data, it seems that Motorcar Parts of America insiders own 4.9% of the company, worth about US$7.5m. Overall, this level of ownership isn't that impressive, but it's certainly better than nothing!

Story continues

So What Do The Motorcar Parts of America 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 Motorcar Parts of America insiders are expecting a bright future. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. To help with this, we've discovered 2 warning signs (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you ought to be aware of before buying any shares in Motorcar Parts of America.

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 of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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.
WASHINGTON (NewsNation)  The Pentagon is failing to provide sufficient oversight over complaints of bedbugs, mold and sewage at U.S. military base barracks, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The report accuses to U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) of not providing reliable assessments of barrack conditions, especially in instances where the conditions are substandard. In its report, the GAO found conditions that could pose serious health and safety risks.

Servicemembers in one discussion group with the GAO said tap water in their barracks is often brown and fear it is not safe to drink. Servicemembers in six of the twelve discussion groups told the GAO of pest issues including bedbugs, rodents, cockroaches and wasps.

Save Americas Treasures: Oklahoma gets grant to preserve Ft. Gibson barracks

In one of the more shocking claims by servicemembers, the GAOs report found that, at one installation, servicemembers are responsible for cleaning biological waste that may remain in a barracks room after a suicide.

At another installation that was visited by the GAO in October 2022, legionella bacteria was found in the building plumbing systems, something that officials described as challenging to remediate.

In every one of the 12 installations visited by the GAO, servicemembers said that their living conditions affected their mental health. Among the complaints were anxiety and panic attacks because of the conditions and one servicemember likened the conditions to that of a dark box. In three of 12 discussion groups, servicemembers said the conditions were contributing to substance abuse, with one group noting that a barracks resident was recently hospitalized due to a drug overdose. Servicemembers or first sergeants at three installations mentioned thoughts of suicide.

Thousands of veterans disability claims delayed, some for years

The 100-page report also commonly observed filthy conditions. We observed or heard about challenges related to cleanliness in barracks at multiple installations, including issues with sewage, water quality, and pests, among others, according to the report. In one installation, GAO noticed a foul odor throughout the barracks. Installation officials said the smell was due to methane gas leaking out of aging plumbing with sewage. The officials acknowledged that exposure to methane gas is a health risk.

Amid a national recruitment shortage, the GAOs report found that no military service has complied with the DODs requirements to evaluate the effects of barracks conditions on service members reenlistment.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
While heroes fall out of the spotlight for a number of reasons, Bayard Rustin , the civil rights leader who organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, never fully emerged from the shadows. During his lifetime, Mr. March on Washington, as he was nicknamed by labor titan A. Philip Randolph , advised some of the countrys most influential thinkers on nonviolence and the power of mass protest. But this year, which marks the 60th anniversary of the march, is the first in recent memory that the work of the openly gay activist, who died in 1987, has captured the popular imagination of the American public.

At the time that he died, he had sort of fallen out of the headlines. I wouldnt say he was obscure; he was certainly known to the movements that he worked on, but not so much the general public. And then, suddenly, this kind of magical moment has appeared, Walter Naegle , Rustins former partner and a contributor to a new essay collection on his legacy, said of the new book and a film debuting this year.

The collection, Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics, features 19 essays that explore the highs and lows of the activists life and career and his impact on American society in the past century. Edited by Michael G. Long, the new book is part of a wave of analysis thats emerged in anticipation of the marchs 60th anniversary and the release of Rustin, a buzzy Netflix biopic starring Coleman Domingo, releasing in November.

The book cover for

Books can be released into a vacuum or they can be released into a perfect storm. Its really a perfect storm for releasing this book, Long said, referring to the years notable Rustin-related events, as well as decades of scholarship that form the building blocks for the collection.

In addition to his works on figures like Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Phyllis Fry, Long has edited and authored several others on Rustin. (One of them, Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington, was co-authored with Naegle.) But, he said, with the recent collection his aim was to step back and assess Rustins legacy, rather than just describe it.

To that end, Long brought together an array of academics, activists and authors whose essays touch on how Rustins upbringing and identity shaped him, as well as how he, in turn, shaped generations of protest movements in the U.S.

Yes, he was Mr. March on Washington, and it makes perfect sense to celebrate that. But its also important for us to celebrate and criticize and consider his work in all these other fields as well  from gay rights to his anti-war campaigns to his anti-nuclear campaigns to his work for refugees, Long said. Looking at Rustins work is a way for us to explore the major social movements of the 20th century.

Rustin, who was raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, by his Quaker grandparents, began his professional career as an activist in the early 1940s. Early on, he served as an organizer for influential racial justice and anti-war campaigns  work that was interrupted by his imprisonment as a conscientious objector from 1944 to 1946. As his reputation grew, he fought for a place among the leaders of the modern civil rights movement that emerged out of World War II. And while he had supporters in figures like civil rights activist Ella Baker and Randolph, who shared his belief in the power of mass demonstration, he had detractors in various wings of the movement, including the influential NAACP leader Roy Wilkins. And his sexuality, as well as his early involvement in the Young Communist League, made him an easy target for slander and blackmail.

Although the crowning achievements of his career were organizing the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington and schooling Martin Luther King Jr. in the principles of nonviolence, his interests and influence extended beyond racial equality, as he spent decades protesting American war efforts, nuclear expansion, the treatment of political refugees and economic inequality.

These problems are still with us. In terms of race relations, weve made a lot of progress, but in terms of economic inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor, its only grown. And until we really confront those issues in this country, were not going to make tremendous progress, Naegle said, referring to the collections place in the current social discourse. Its not just ancient history, if you will.

While the approximately 200-page collection undoubtedly celebrates Rustins visionary approach and his influence on American protest culture  which can be seen, as Long points out, in recent movements like Black Lives Matter  it also attempts to turn a critical eye to his policies and career progression.

Following the March on Washington, for example, Rustin advocated for a turn from protest to politics and urged the major civil rights organizations to align with Democratic Party allies, a strategy that many saw as detrimental to the movement. As part of his new passion for coalition building and his budding relationship with the Johnson administration, the lifelong pacifist also became reluctant to speak out against the Vietnam War, as one essayist describes. And, as Long points out in his introduction, although Rustin was openly gay, it would take almost two decades after the Stonewall Uprising before he would become a visible activist in the movement.

Speaking to the importance of the collections comprehensive approach, Naegle  whose essay is entitled The Legacy of Grandmother Julia Rustin  referred to the weight that Rustin placed on transparency and truth because of his defining relationship with the woman who raised him.

Going back to his training and values, Quakerism really is about authenticity, openness, transparency and a search for the truth, which is something that we never really find in an absolute sense, but its an ideal that you reach for, Naegle said of his deceased partners Quaker upbringing in Pennsylvania. As Bayard himself would say, You dont get there, you dont get to the truth without looking at all of the different pieces, all the different issues.

With the range of perspectives he brings together in the new book, Long does seem to get much closer to the truth of Rustin than some other recent depictions, which impart him with an almost saint-like quality. Though, the editors chief aim  making Rustin accessible and appealing to the masses in the way that he was during his lifetime  is perhaps slightly less lofty than the pursuit of absolute truth.

We often put our heroes on pedestals, and we do that for good reason: Theyve done heroic things, Long said. Rustin certainly is a hero in the sense that he pushed our country in ways that it hadnt been pushed before. He inspired millions of people, and he did it with dignity and grace. He also did it in the face of fierce opposition, especially from homophobes at the time.

However, Long added, The problem with putting our heroes on a pedestal is that they become unreachable. Its important to look at somebody in their full humanity  not only their strengths but also their weaknesses, not only their incredible vision but also those blind spots.

Blind spots and all, Rustin and his legacy have found a particularly enthusiastic audience more than three decades after his death, in an era when struggles for racial, social and economic justice have been reignited and a record number of anti-LGBTQ state bills have been introduced across the country.

Theres been no community that has rallied around Rustin more so than the LGBTQ community, Long said. Heres somebody who faced violent homophobia, homophobia that kept him in the shadows for many years. Heres a man who overcame that to assume the podium at the March on Washington, during the largest nonviolent campaign in U.S. history up to that point  a man who strode out of the shadows of Lincoln and made demands of the U.S. government and society.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The Smokehouse at Monkey Junction officially opens at 5120 S. College Road, Wilmington, N.C. on Oct. 3, 2023.

For the past several months, Troy Knight has been looking to add a third location for this brisket-and-barbecue restaurant. The first was Southport Smokehouse, and then he added a Leland location in 2020.

He said he was looking in the Shallotte and Bolivia areas for another. Instead, he and his wife are opening their first in New Hanover County. Smokehouse moved into the space of the recently closed Dickeys Barbecue Pit at 5120 S. College Road in the shopping center near the Monkey Junction Walmart on Oct. 3.

It was meant to be, Knight said.

They used the same kind of smoker we do, just smaller, he said. And the restaurant already looks like one of ours."

The Monkey Junction eatery will seat about 50 people and have a focus on take-out.

Thats a good part of our business in Southport, he said. "We love that interaction with people. We love for them to come up to the counter and see what were doing.

The Smokehouse at Monkey Junction officially opens at 5120 S. College Road, Wilmington, N.C. on Oct. 3, 2023.

More: A cut above: Wilmington butcher to use meat-cutting skills in national competition

It will be a similar menu to the other locations, with the possibility of one or two fewer sides and desserts.

Itll be 95% the same menu, he said.

For those who havent tried Smokehouse yet, Knight said their brisket is a specialty.

Im from Texas, so thats what I know. Think high-end central Texas brisket, like Franklin or Truth or Goldees, he said. We use a dry rub, so nothing comes with sauce. But we do have seven sauces you can add.

They also offer pulled pork, smoked sausages and chicken, ribs, wings, and house-made sides like the potato salad, coleslaw and baked beans. Many of the recipes come from his wifes grandmother.

In addition to being a restaurateur, Knight is a full-time pastor, so he relies on his talented managers and staff before he commits to opening a new location. But he does have his eye on future expansion.

Its hard to say when. Were not a corporation, he said. Lets get this one up and running first.

STAY CONNECTED: Keep up with the areas latest food news by signing up for the Port City Foodies newsletter and following us on Facebook and Instagram.

Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her at aballard@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Smokehouse brisket and barbecue restaurant opens soon in Wilmington
A pedestal is being installed outside the Stark County Courthouse that will hold a bronze statue of President William McKinley. The Timken Foundation of Canton, which purchased and relocated the statue from California, and the Stark County commissioners, who own the courthouse property, plan to unveil the statue at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

CANTON The bronze statue of President William McKinley is almost ready to take its place outside the Stark County Courthouse.

A pedestal for the statue of the late Canton resident, who served as the nations 25th president, is being installed by Coon Restoration & Sealants at Tuscarawas Street and Market Avenue.

The Timken Foundation of Canton, which purchased and relocated the statue from California, and the Stark County commissioners, who own the courthouse property, plan to unveil the statue at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 21. The ceremony also will recognize the formal donation of the statue to the commissioners.

Here's what to know about the statue before it makes its Stark County debut:

President McKinley statue survived the San Francisco earthquake

Robert R. "Bob" Timken, president of the Timken Foundation of Canton, said the foundation's board of trustees was intrigued by the statues 117-year history.

Its just amazing that this piece has survived as long as it has and we were frankly thrilled with the opportunity to bring it to Ohio, Timken said.

California rancher George Zehnder, who met President McKinley following one of his speeches in California, commissioned the statue after McKinley's assassination in 1901. He hired Haig Patigian, then not well known but whose work later would be displayed in the White House and Congress, to create the bronze sculpture.

According to published reports, the statue was being forged in a San Franciscan foundry during the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire that killed hundreds of people and left the city in ruins. Officials believed the sculpture had been ruined, but were later surprised to learn that workers from an adjoining business pulled the heavy piece to safety. Zehnder then donated it to the city of Arcata where it was dedicated in 1906.

In 2018, Arcata City Council decided to remove the statue after decades of dispute surrounding the statue and McKinley's imperialist reputation.

Statues journey to Canton stretched more than 2,500 miles and four years

In February 2019, the Timken Foundation purchased the statue for $15,000 from Arcata, California, and transported it to McKay Lodge in Oberlin, which repaired years of environmental deterioration and vandalism that had left the bronze discolored.

Roughly a month ago, it was moved to Coons office near Louisville to be fitted with a metal base that will attach to the pedestal.

Timken and his parents, Ward J. "Jack" and Joy Timken, told the Stark County commissioners in July 2022 that the foundations six-person board of trustees chose to locate the statue at the courthouse due to its proximity to the Saxton House, McKinley's law offices in the First National Bank building and the president's Methodist church.

"It just seemed to be such a natural place to locate him downtown," Joy Timken said at the time.

Drawings by Motter & Meadows Architects shows how the President McKinley statue will look once it is installed outside the Stark County Courthouse. The Timken Foundation of Canton, which purchased and relocated the statue from California, and the Stark County commissioners, who own the courthouse property, plan to unveil the statue at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

President McKinley will stand 16 feet tall in Canton

The 8-foot-tall statue, which will be monitored by security cameras, will stand upon a 1-foot polished granite cap with beveled edges that will be similar in color to the floating ball fountain on Canton's central plaza. Its 6-foot-6-inch base consists of flamed granite and has an 8-inch concrete foundation, according to drawings by David Patterson with Motter & Meadows Architects.

A plaque will be mounted to each side of the base. Timken said the plaques will display the history of the statue and commemorate its dedication on the site.

The Timken Foundation has covered the design and installation costs for a statue base.

Reach Repository staff writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.

A pedestal is being installed outside the Stark County Courthouse that will hold a bronze statue of President William McKinley. The Timken Foundation of Canton, which purchased and relocated the statue from California, and the Stark County commissioners, who own the courthouse property, plan to unveil the statue at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

A pedestal is being installed outside the Stark County Courthouse that will hold a bronze statue of President William McKinley. The Timken Foundation of Canton, which purchased and relocated the statue from California, and the Stark County commissioners, who own the courthouse property, plan to unveil the statue at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: President William McKinley statue to be unveiled in October
Donato A. Bianco Jr. is the vice president and New England regional manager of the Laborers International Union of North America.

As always, September is back to school across Rhode Island. From elementary schools to the campuses of higher education, there is excitement and also a little angst that summer is ending. In many cases, this transition also represents the debut of many new school buildings and investments across local districts and college campuses after the busy summer construction season.

To the students, teachers, professors and the general public, many of this construction activity goes unnoticed until its time to walk through the doors and learn. But there is certainly a good story to tell about what these investments not only mean to our education system but to our local communities. Investments that are an engine for family-supporting construction careers.

More: Brown is preparing to open its brand new performing arts center. Here's a look inside

In November 2022, Brown University, a longstanding incubator for jobs and investment into our local economy, took a historic step. The Rhode Island Building & Construction Trades Council (RIBCTC), representing 16 construction craft unions and over 10,000 skilled members in Rhode Island, entered into a landmark five-year agreement with Brown, to commit to employing all-union labor for all campus construction projects over $25 million. Project labor agreements, like the one utilized by Brown University, include provisions for uniform work and schedule conditions to maximize labor related job efficiencies, no labor related delays or work stoppages,and access to highly skilled labor. The University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and Providence College have all used project labor agreements as owners and users of construction services.

Workers on the construction site of the new performing arts center at Brown University.

For decades, the skilled men and women of the RIBCTC have built Browns campus, helping to deliver historic capital investments safely, on time and on budget. Brown Universitys capital program infuses hundreds of millions of dollars each year into the local economy. These investments have led to research and job growth, private investment in and around the campus area, and direct local economic spending aiding small business.

Brown doubled-down on their long-term relationship with the building trades by reaffirming a 2012 commitment to guarantee that at least 15% of labor hours worked on these projects are performed by graduates of the Building Futures program. Building Futures is a leading, local non-profit pre-apprenticeship program for members of disadvantaged communities to have the opportunity to earn a pathway to apprenticeships in the union building trades. Apprenticeships are now more important than ever and lead to lifelong careers in the construction industry with family-supporting wages and benefits.

More: Leaders call for developing biotech industry in RI. Here's what they propose

Browns commitment to the RIBCTC, Building Futures, and the Ocean State is an exemplar model of a public-private-academic partnership, vital for driving economic growth. And Providence Mayor Brett Smileys newly negotiated PILOT agreements with the colleges, including Brown, will drive further investments into the capital city, creating jobs.

From the facilities and capital management team to the leadership of President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Samuel M. Mencoff, Brown University is committed to academic innovation with a responsibility to serve and foster our local community. On behalf of the skilled, hard-working men and women of the building trades, we thank them for their partnership along with the leadership of LIUNA General Secretary-Treasurer and RIBCTC President Michael F. Sabitoni. This leading and prestigious academic institution shares our vision that a robust local economy means ladders of opportunity for all, building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Much of the construction activity at colleges and universities goes unnoticed until its time to walk through the doors and learn.
A Columbia-area apartment complex was going up in smoke. Residents were being evacuated. But as firefighters prepared to battle the blaze, they encountered a problem.

A nearby fire hydrant wasnt supplying water, while other nearby hydrants werent supplying water with enough pressure. The problems with the fire hydrants led to a delay in putting out the fire, leading to more damage to the apartments, a lawsuit filed against the city of Columbia claims.

Westchester Surplus Lines Insurance Company is suing the city of Columbia for $4.9 million, alleging the city was negligent during a September 2021 fire in the Seven Oaks area. The lawsuit claims Columbia was negligent in inspecting and maintaining the fire hydrants near the Peachtree Place apartment complex at 200 Berryhill Road.

Earlier this year, the Professional Fire Fighters Association of South Carolina made a similar accusation after another destructive apartment fire, saying a fire hydrant near the Tropical Ridge apartments in the St. Andrews area was not functioning when crews arrived to battle an apartment fire May 26. Irmo firefighter James Muller died while fighting that blaze, and several other firefighters were hospitalized.

The circumstances of the Tropical Ridge fire are under investigation by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates cases in which a firefighter dies.

In regard to the 2021 fire, the city of Columbia knew or should have known that its complete failure to service, maintain, repair, replace and inspect all fire hydrants ... would result in harm, the lawsuit filed by the insurance company alleges.

The city declined to make anyone available to comment on the lawsuit or to elaborate on the procedures for inspecting fire hydrants.

The City of Columbia does not comment on matters related to pending litigation, city spokesperson Leshia Utsey said via email.

In an answer to the lawsuit, however, the city broadly denies the negligence claim but does note that it is without sufficient information to admit or deny the allegations regarding the dead and low-flow hydrants.

Lawsuit details

Westchester Surplus Lines provided property insurance for the 13-building apartment complex called Peachtree Place at 200 Berryhill Road on the border of Lexington and Richland counties. The apartment is in Lexington County, but Columbia Water maintains the fire hydrants and water utility lines in the area.

A fire broke out in one of the buildings around noon Sept. 11, 2021, and residents were evacuated. Irmo, Columbia, West Columbia and Lexington County fire departments all responded to the fire, the suit adds.

Irmo Fire Chief Michael Sonefeld, previously said the department received the call around noon that day, but it took until around 4 p.m. until the fire was considered under control.

Several firefighters also reported minor injuries while battling the 2021 blaze.

The fire was severe and caused structural collapses, a smoke explosion and a mayday, which is called when a firefighter is in peril. As emergency crews were attempting to control the blaze, Irmo Fire encountered a dead-hydrant and several low-flow hydrants, according to the lawsuit, filed Sept. 1.

Irmo Fire called the city of Columbia to ask for an increase in water pressure and requested three additional water tanker trucks to supplement the water supply, according to the lawsuit.

The dead hydrants and other low-flow hydrants delayed the ability of emergency services to suppress the fire, the lawsuit claims.

The fire caused almost $5 million worth of damage, the suit claims. The insurance company claims the city of Columbia should be the one to pay the bill. Now, it wants a jury to decide.

Charlotte-based attorney Zachary Renegar is representing the insurance company. Renegar was not immediately reached by The State.

An attorney for the city, William Hemlepp, responded to the suit Sept. 14 with a general denial of the negligence claim. Hemlepp wrote that if the city of Columbia was negligent, which is denied, then the property owner was likewise negligent or grossly negligent. The citys response cites third-party negligence and potential third-party criminal acts among its defenses as well, saying the city is not liable for what a third-party may have done.

The suit was originally filed in Richland County. The case has now been moved to Lexington County because that is the location of the Peachtree Place apartments.

A low-flow area

Sonefeld, the Irmo Fire chief, told The State that because of aging infrastructure in parts of the Columbia Water system, his department has come to expect low-flow hydrants in some areas.

Its just a low-flow area down there, he said of where the Peachtree Place apartments are located, which is in the Seven Oaks area near the Interstate 20 and Interstate 26 interchange. (The Irmo Fire Department is not a party in the lawsuit.)

Sonefeld said its not common to encounter dead hydrants without knowing about them beforehand. Columbia Water typically sends a weekly report to update the fire department on the status of the hydrants in its area.

Irmo Fires jurisdiction encompasses about 1,400-1,600 hydrants, Sonefeld estimated.

If I have eight out of service and I know it, I can work around it, he said.

If they get called to a low-flow area, theyll know to bring more water tankers along, for example.

But, If you get there and it just goes wrong, youre going to have delays, Sonefeld added.
A statewide crackdown on massive Medicaid fraud has resulted in job loss, a new wave of homelessness, and some people not getting the treatment for substance use disorder that they need, some critics say.

"No one is condoning bad actors, nobody," said Andre Miller, a pastor, mayoral candidate and behavioral health provider from Mesa who, on Tuesday, organized a small protest outside the Arizona Department of Health Services.

"You have people in the streets now who are relapsing, which is counter to what the state should want. They should want to help and not harm. ... And you have good people who want to help and serve and they are not being allowed to at this point."

Between 15 people and 20 people gathered in front of the state health department to protest what they say is an overzealous punishment system against Arizona outpatient clinics that offer rehabilitation for substance use disorder and other behavioral health problems. Miller said the group plans to protest outside of the states Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, at a future date.

Several providers spoke about being forced to fire employees because payments from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System were either suspended or delayed because of extra checks and balances the agency put in place to prevent more fraud.

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Investigators have said the scam primarily targeted indigenous Arizonans through the AHCCCS American Indian Health program, which allows providers to bill AHCCCS directly as fee-for-service rather than to managed care organizations, which is how most of the agency's billing is handled.

State health department officials said Tuesday that they were aware of a peaceful protest in front of their building.

"While we can't speak directly to the AHCCCS provider suspensions, we are very engaged on the issue and we have been working with our partners at AHCCCS, tribal Leadership, and the Governor's Office on solutions over the last several months and will continue to do so," department spokesperson Jesse Lewis wrote in an email.

AHCCCS is the agency that was allegedly bilked for "hundreds of millions of dollars," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced at a multi-agency news conference in May led by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs. The scam was a "stunning failure of government," Mayes said at the time, describing a system of fake clinics that were billing AHCCCS for services they never provided.

Mayes' office on Tuesday declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation into the fraud.

Marlo Watkins, a provider with Health & Harmony, attends a rally outside the Arizona Department of Health Services in Phoenix on Sept. 26, 2023.

In some cases, clinics in the Valley were using white vans to kidnap people from indigenous reservations and take them to bogus treatment facilities, sometimes holding them against their will, investigators have said.

Hobbs office said in a statement Tuesday that her administration "has worked relentlessly to crack down on fraud, protect taxpayer dollars and end the humanitarian crisis created by fraudulent sober living homes that have endangered some of Arizona's most vulnerable."

The statement emailed by Hobbs spokesperson Christian Slater says the administration has been working to get resources for those affected, "providing 13,700 nights of temporary lodging and transportation for over 750 people affected, and directly serving over 4,000 individuals."

AHCCCS suspended 102 providers associated with the case when it announced the fraud. Other providers have since been added to a statewide list of providers suspended by the agency based on preliminary findings that show credible accusations of fraud, though it's unclear how many of the providers added to the list since May are associated with the massive scam.

Many of the providers at the protest operate supportive housing as well as outpatient behavioral health services that primarily serve indigenous Arizonans but it's the state reimbursements for outpatient treatment services that are a problem, they said. The supportive housing the organizations offer is funded privately, though frequently dependent on the outpatient care they provide through clinics with AHCCCS funding.

Rhonda Adams attends a rally outside the Arizona Department of Health Services in Phoenix on Sept. 26, 2023.

Miller operates Fosters House, a behavioral health organization that closed last Friday. He said reimbursements from AHCCCS for outpatient care are so slow that he's had to lay off 12 employees.

"It is not only affecting the people who are being serviced, but the people doing the servicing," Miller said. "There are good people, good clinics who are being put out of business by the state."

Newfound Hope Wellness & Detox Center in Tempe, which serves primarily indigenous patients, was suspended from AHCCCS payments in February because of suspected fraud, said center leader Bill Nazur, who attended the protest. Nazur says the fraud accusations are false and he's had to lay off 54 employees and 26 subcontractors.

"We've had several raids over time accusing us of kidnapping, holding people against their will," Nazur said. "There's no due diligence, no due process. ... We shut down our clinics probably 30 or 40 days ago. I don't know, it's all just one big nightmare."

Street medicine is important: Phoenix groups prioritize access to skin care for unhoused folks

Some of the media portrayals about the scam "have been inaccurate at best, defamatory at worst," Nazur said.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared the fraud a humanitarian crisis on June 20 on the Operation Rainbow Bridge Facebook page. The fraud reportedly spread to tribes in other states, including Montana, where the Blackfeet Nation in August declared an emergency over the scam, the Associated Press reported.

The Navajo Nation launched Operation Rainbow Bridge to help people who were caught up in the scams get home or find the services they need.

As AHCCCS continues to investigate and suspend behavioral health providers for credible allegations of fraudulent billing, the agency's top priority is the health and safety of enrolled members, a statement from agency spokesperson Heidi Capriotti says.

"While housing is currently not a covered Medicaid service, AHCCCS and its network of health plans, behavioral health providers, tribal partnerships, and other state agencies mobilized resources to coordinate care for affected members and connect them with resources," Capriotti wrote in an email.

Among the AHCCCS resources for people who have been displaced by the fraud crackdown, according to Capriotti:

A dedicated hotline at 2-1-1 (press 7) for individuals who have been impacted by the closure of a sober living home or residential facility. More resources, including a Member Guide for American Indian Health Program enrollees, are posted on www.211Arizona.org/MMIP. As of August 22, 2023, the 2-1-1 hotline fielded more than 11,700 calls, Capriotti wrote.

Mobile crisis teams who are ready to deploy when members need hands-on, immediate behavioral health services.

Coordination of temporary lodging, transportation, and behavioral health services to continue a members care treatment plan if their provider closes. As of Aug. 22, 2023, Solari and Community Bridges provided more than 13,700 nights of temporary lodging and provided transportation to more than 750 individuals, AHCCCS officials said.

Reach health-care reporter Stephanie Innes at stephanie.innes@gannett.com or at 480-313-3775. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter @stephanieinnes.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's crackdown on Medicaid fraud led to homelessness, critics say
New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is facing a rapidly growing number of calls from his Democratic colleagues to resign from office following a damning indictment on charges of corruption and bribery.

On Wednesday, Menendez pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment in Manhattan court.

The indictment, which was made public on Friday, was initially met with widespread silence from Senate Democrats, save for Pennsylvanias John Fetterman, who on Saturday called for Menendezs resignation. Senator Menendez should resign, he wrote. Hes entitled to the presumption of innocence, but he cannot continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations.

But the floodgates opened after Menendez said on Monday that he has no intention of resigning, and as of Wednesday at least 29 senators (all Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders ) have called for their colleague to step down:

Multiple House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have also said Menendez should resign.

On Friday, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Menendez and his wife Nadie with various criminal counts related to conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion. The pair were accused of having engaged in a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey associates and businessmen, who were also indicted. Menendez is further accused of having exploited his position as Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to corruptly push through policies that were favorable to the government of Egypt.

Shortly after the charges against him were announced, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that Menendez had chosen to step down from his position as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, but that would remain in office. Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey, Schumer said. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.

Menendez held a press conference addressing the allegations against him, proclaiming his innocence as well as his intention to continue serving in office. That afternoon, Sens. Sherrod Brown and Peter Welch called for his resignation.

Senator Menendez has broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate, Brown wrote in a statement. Welch wrote that while Menendez is entitled to the presumption of innocence, the shocking and specific allegations against Senator Menendez have wholly compromised his capacity to serve the people of New Jersey.

Early on Tuesday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jon Tester (D-Mt.), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) issued their own calls for Menendez to step down. So too did Menendezs colleague in New Jersey, Sen. Cory Booker. Stepping down is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgement that holding public office often demands tremendous sacrifices at great personal cost, Booker wrote.

My statement on Senator Robert Menendez. pic.twitter.com/h7WY9EWwUz  Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) September 26, 2023

When asked by The Boston Globe if she felt Menendez should leave office, Warren replied Yes. These are serious charges, and its time for Sen. Menendez to step away from the Senate and concentrate on his legal defense.

Ive read the detailed charges against Senator Menendez and find them deeply disturbing. While he deserves a fair trial like every other American, I believe Senator Menendez should resign for the sake of the publics faith in the U.S. Senate, Tester wrote.

Senator Baldwin echoed the affirmation of Menendezs presumption of innocence, writing that the indictment spells out deeply troubling allegations against Senator Menendez that breach the American peoples trust and compromise his ability to effectively represent his constituents.

Sen. Casey issued a brief statement asserting that though Menendez is entitled to the presumption of innocence serving in public office is a privilege that demands a higher standard of conduct. Senator Menendez should resign.

Sens. Heinrich, Klobuchar, Kelly, Bennet, Markey, Gillibrand, Hirono, Hassan, Warnock, Sanders, Peters, Murphy, Duckworth, Stabenow, Ossoff, Blumenthal, and Hickenlooper released statements calling for Menendezs resignation later on Tuesday. Sen. Sanders wrote in his statement that if Menendez refuses to step down, a Senate Ethics Committee investigation must go forward immediately.

On Wednesday, Sens. Murray, Durbin, and Van Hollen joined the chorus.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  A federal trial that could upend one of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis  significant political victories began Tuesday with one of his top aides spending hours on the witness stand defending the legality of a congressional map that dismantled the North Florida district once held by a Black Democrat.

Voting and civil rights groups contend the map muscled through the Republican-controlled Legislature last year is discriminatory and unconstitutional, a charge denied by DeSantis and his administration. A three-judge panel is considering the case and could ultimately rule that the map needs to be changed.

The trial, scheduled to stretch over the next week or so, kicked off with a back and forth with Alex Kelly, the acting chief of staff for DeSantis who was the chief mapmaker who drew up the plan that ultimately netted the GOP four seats and helped them win back the U.S. House during the 2022 elections.

During his lengthy testimony, Kelly faulted past rulings by the Florida Supreme Court related to redistricting, questioned how the Legislature handled redistricting at times and made comments that appeared at odds with statements he made in his own depositions.

Kelly also insisted that the map that DeSantis has recently touted on the campaign trail as helping Republicans win the House last year was not drawn for partisan reasons or to help any incumbents  factors that are not allowed under Floridas voter-approved anti-gerrymandering standards.

In one notable exchange, Kelly also insisted to one of the lead lawyers questioning him that he had no idea that he was bolstering the percentage of white voters in four districts by splitting up the seat that had been held by Rep. Al Lawson.

I had no reason to look at racial and ethnic data in North Florida, Kelly testified.

The ongoing federal trial is separate from a different legal challenge in state court, although both primarily focus on Lawsons dismantled seat. In the state case, a Florida circuit judge ruled earlier this month that the redrawn district violates the states Constitution and ordered the GOP-led Legislature to create a new map. That ruling has been appealed and will be taken up by a state appeals court later this fall.

The scope of the state lawsuit was narrowed right before trial and was confined to a single day of legal arguments and no witness testimony.

Lawyers representing the groups and individuals suing in federal court  which includes the democracy advocacy organization Common Cause and NAACP  plan to bring in experts to talk about Floridas history and whether it can be shown that what the governor did was discriminatory, although there wont be much direct evidence that delves into the behind-the-scenes machinations.

Instead, the legal battle is focusing on DeSantis unusual decision to insert himself into the redistricting process by offering up his own maps and then vetoing the initial proposal by the Republican-dominated Legislature that would have preserved a Jacksonville-based district where Black voters would have remained a substantial minority. DeSantis general counsel at the time contended that this district diluted Black voting power too much.

Kelly on Tuesday was asked about DeSantis motivations for pushing the map despite the initial reluctance of the Legislature. DeSantis had argued that Lawsons old district  which stretched roughly 200 miles from Jacksonville to just west of Tallahassee  violated the U.S. Constitutions equal protection clause.

U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, pressed Kelly to cite a court ruling that backed up DeSantis argument that Lawsons former district was unconstitutional. Kelly acknowledged that he didnt know.

When it was pointed out by the plaintiffs' attorneys that the Florida Supreme Court had established Lawsons district in 2015 by determining the Legislature back then violated the state's Fair Districts amendment, Kelly responded at least two times that the Florida Supreme Court got it wrong.

Kelly made this assertion even though, in a June deposition he gave in the state case, he said that he had not read the 2015 Florida Supreme Court decision that resulted in the creation of the seat. When asked about this outside the courtroom, Kelly responded that reading the entire ruling is different than understanding that the result was wrong.

Kelly also said there were times that he did think the Legislatures initial analysis about redistricting was not reasonable and he was not pleased with how lawmakers treated an expert who was brought in to defend the governors proposal at a legislative hearing.

Kathay Feng, Common Cause vice president for programs who was on hand for the trial, contended that Kellys testimony showed that the DeSantis administration was struggling to explain their actions.

Theres a lot of twisting and turning, theres a lot of fabrication, theres a lot of denial of history, Feng said.
Detroit City Council on Tuesday approved a $5 million expansion of the use of license plate readers across the city, using federal pandemic relief funds.

It's the latest City Council vote on surveillance technology that has ignited debate in the community. Other surveillance tools Detroit police utilize include ShotSpotter  City Council last year OK'd spending $8.5 million on the gunshot detection technology amid fierce support and opposition  Project Green Light video surveillance and facial recognition technology.

More: Detroit alters facial recognition tech policy after lawsuit filed by pregnant woman

Two City Council members voted against the license plate reader spending: Gabriela Santiago-Romero and Latisha Johnson.

Detroit police have used license plate readers since 2018. But with the city's new contract with Motorola Solutions, an additional 100 cameras will be set up at 25 intersections, according to Detroit police. There are currently 83 cameras set up at intersections, in addition to over 100 mobile cameras.

More: Detroit City Council approves $7M to expand ShotSpotter

The vast majority of community members who tuned in to Tuesday's council vote urged their city leaders to approve the $5 million dollar contract in hopes that it could address speeding on Detroit's roads  but using license plate readers for traffic and civil infractions goes against Detroit police policy.

According to Detroit Police Department policy, license plate readers are used in investigations involving auto theft  which Detroit has seen more of in the past year  and violent crimes such as homicides and sexual assaults.

A screen inside the cruiser of a Macomb County Sheriff's deputy displays the the results of an automatic license plate reader scan in this October 2013 file photo. Detroit police adopted the use of mobile and stationary license plate readers in 2018, and on Sept. 26, 2023, approved a $5 million expansion that will add an 100 more cameras at 25 intersections.

The cameras are focused on the rear of vehicles and photos are taken of license plates, Deputy Chief Franklin Hayes said during an hourlong debate prior to Tuesday's vote. The cameras do not capture the faces of drivers and are not used to identify them, he said. Officials in other cities, like Louisville, Kentucky, have reported otherwise, stating license plate readers can be used to capture faces.

Data retrieved from Detroit's license plate readers is saved for 90 days, Hayes said.

Police Chief James White described license plate readers as "one of the most useful and powerful tools that we have" during Tuesday's debate.

He noted the technology was used to locate Rashad Trice, the man charged in the killing of 2-year-old Wynter Cole-Smith  the child was kidnapped in Lansing and later found dead in Detroit, and Trice, the prime suspect, was located in St. Clair Shores.

More: 'Staggering' evidence: Rashad Maleek Trice to face trial in Wynter Cole-Smith kidnapping

"Certainly we don't want anyone to abuse this tool," White added.

Many community members have opposed using more license plate readers. They spoke of civil liberty and privacy concerns amid growing reliance on surveillance technology, questioned the technology's effectiveness and questioned who owns the data, and how it's protected.

One major concern involves potential harm the technology could cause in Detroit's immigrant communities. White said it's against department policy to share data with government agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S Customs and Border Protection.

Sean Rositano, who works with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and is a member of the Detroit Immigration Task Force, said representatives of the task force met with Detroit police and aren't convinced the department's policies provide enough protection for immigrant communities.

"Cities nationwide have fought to limit license plate readers because researchers have shown ICE and Custom and Border Protection regularly purchase access to Motorolas license plate databases," Rositano said on Monday during the City Council's public health and safety committee meeting.

"We do not want Detroit immigrant families separated, detained or deported because their license plate was stored in a database that immigration enforcement agencies can access. (Detroit police) would need to make amendments to its policies and contract with Motorola to ensure that safety of immigrants comes first."

More: Detroit sees drop in violent crime this summer, 20 fewer homicides this year

Rositano suggested Detroit police limit agencies it shares data with, strengthen its oversight and provide transparent reporting to ensure ICE and CBP do not have access to Detroits data.

A spokesperson for the Detroit Police Department said the department owns the data collected by its license plate readers.

Santiago-Romero shared Rositano's concern over potential harm against immigrants in Detroit.

And she, among others, also questioned the technology's effectiveness compared with its cost.

Santiago-Romero noted that, according to Detroit police data, the technology conducted nearly 25 million license plate readings in the last 90 days, leading to only 64 arrests.

But White pushed back: Among the 64 people arrested, 16 are suspected of murder, he said.

"Sixteen murderers. That's the cost," White said.

Detroit city hall reporter Dana Afana contributed to this report.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at 313-264-0442, asahouri@freepress.com or on Twitter @andreamsahouri.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit OKs $5 million expansion of license plate reader technology
For the fifth straight year, the Muscogee County School District outperformed the Georgia and United States average scores on the SAT college entrance exam.

According to the Georgia Department of Educations compilation of SAT scores for 2023 graduates from the states public high schools, MCSDs average composite score of 1082 is a 23-point increase compared to last year.

That improvement is especially notable while the state average decreased by 7 points to 1045 and the national average decreased by 25 points to 1003.

I am pleased that our districts scores surpassed the state and national averages in all three categories (reading/writing, math and composite) while testing roughly the same number of students as last year, MCSD superintendent David Lewis said in a news release. These results represent our districts second-highest performance to date, other than those in 2021, when fewer students participated due to the pandemic.

The number of MCSD students in the senior class who took the SAT dipped from 696 in 2022 to 685 in 2023 after rising from 438 in 2021.

I am grateful for the hard-working educators, students and engaged parents who help our students reach their full potential, Lewis said. We will continue to guide our students to complete the recommended coursework and provide opportunities for students to prepare for the exam through SAT Prep classes provided at each high school and during the Summer Learning Experience.

Among MCSDs nine high schools, only two have composite SAT scores better than the state and national averages: Columbus (1236) and Rainey-McCullers (1061), which are magnet schools that enroll students from throughout the district. Northside (1042) surpassed the national average.

Five of MCSDs nine high schools (Carver, Columbus, Hardaway, Kendrick and Spencer) improved their composite SAT scores compared to last year, led by Kendricks 74-point increase. Shaws 23-point drop was the largest decrease in the district.

Harris County

Harris County High Schools composite SAT score remained at 1079  still the second-highest in the Columbus area  but the number of students in the senior class who took the test continued to increase, rising from 98 in 2021 to 145 in 2022 and 175 in 2023.

Roger Couch, the Harris County School District superintendent, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email that he is pleased HCHS maintained its composite score above the state average.

There is always room for improvement, he said. We did not see the increase in scores that we would like to have seen. We continue to support our students with rigorous academic standards and by providing test prep opportunities.

Couch added, Georgias public-school students achieved a mean score that was 42 points higher than the national average, but Harris County High Schools students mean score was actually 76 points higher than the national average and 34 points higher than the state average. We continue to be proud of our students, teachers, and their achievements.

Chattahoochee County

Chattahoochee Countys composite SAT score increased by 39 points to 943 in 2023.

ChattCos number of students in the class of 2023 who took the SAT also increased, from 29 to 43.

The Ledger-Enquirer didnt reach Chattahoochee County School District superintendent Kristie Brooks for comment before publication.

Comparing SAT scores for Columbus area public high schools

The years in this chart represent the average scores of the students in the graduating class of that school or group, not necessarily when they took the test. They are ranked here in order of their Class of 2023 scores.

SCHOOL/GROUP 2022 2023 +/- Columbus 1211 1236 +25 MCSD 1059 1082 +23 Harris County 1079 1079 0 Rainey-McCullers 1062 1061 -1 Georgia 1052 1045 -7 Northside 1054 1042 -12 Nation 1028 1003 -25 Hardaway 931 985 +54 ChattCo 904 943 +39 Carver 924 930 +6 Jordan 939 930 -9 Kendrick 854 928 +74 Spencer 901 924 +23 Shaw 943 920 -23
Elevated migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border arent likely to come down for months, a new normal fueled by the ongoing internal collapse of Venezuela and the solidification of the migrant-smuggling trade.

With tens of thousands of people on the move from Panama to Mexico, the Biden administration is bracing both for the political fallout from the right and for the logistical challenges of keeping the border manned.

Last month, U.S. officials encountered 232,972 people at the border: 51,913 at ports of entry, and 181,059 who crossed the border between those ports of entry.

Those numbers, the highest since December, confirmed the end of a summer lull, when a change in border policy  dropping the Trump administrations controversial Title 42 measure  forced migrant smugglers to regroup and reassess U.S. policy.

Smugglers, like drug traffickers, they evolve pretty quickly, said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute.

That evolution is taking place throughout Mexico and Central America, whether to maximize the number of migrants crossing the border on a daily basis, to bribe local officials or bypass checkpoints, or to more quickly navigate Panamas Darien Gap.

To overcome those obstacles, different groups of migrants use smugglers in unique ways, according to Selee.

People traveling intercontinentally are more likely to use the services of a single organization from beginning to end, while groups from the Americas can end up hiring diverse organizations to traverse each bottleneck.

Most Venezuelans are coming with a la carte smuggling. Most Guatemalans, theyre not doing a la carte, but theyre hiring the local smuggler in their town, whos then handing them off to someone else, whos handing them off to someone else, whos handing them off to someone else, right? Theyre networked, Selee said.

Smuggling networks are large and hard to pin down in part because they have a vast client base.

Though migration from Central America and Mexico kicked up in August, Venezuela has been leading the Americas in emigration for years, even as conditions in several countries continue to push people out.

Venezuela, their economy is now bottoming out again. Nicaragua has become more repressive, but nothing dramatically  except perhaps Ecuador, no other country has undergone a real dramatic shock in the last year or two. But theyve not recovered from the pandemic, said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight for the Washington Office on Latin America.

Because much of the migration is driven by structural deficiencies, there are few short-term ways to reduce the flow of people.

And the Biden administration is constrained in how much it can do to change the equation, barring congressional action.

House Republicans are vowing to direct immigration policy through the power of the purse, with elements of their H.R. 2 proposal making it into Speaker Kevin McCarthys (R-Calif.) stopgap government funding bill.

Though that bill is unlikely to clear Senate opposition even if it passes the House, it aims to break the Biden administrations carrot-and-stick approach to immigration by reducing the federal governments ability to parole foreign nationals into the country.

That ability has led to some policy successes for the Department of Homeland Security.

In August, the nearly 10,000 Haitian nationals encountered at the border presented themselves at ports of entry, with zero detected by the Border Patrol crossing at unauthorized places.

In large part, thats due to the administrations processes to admit people from Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba using parole  the carrot in the equation.

But many advocates find the stick unpalatable.

They had to get there though by wielding a really horrible stick. They had to send 25,000 Haitians to that country. Thats almost like a new Somalia. God knows what happened to some of those people when they got sent back, Isacson said.

So that was a carrot and stick, and its great that they expanded the carrot. But sending people to Haiti under the control of gangs is  you have to find ways to sleep at night when you do that that massively.

The Haitian experience has showcased a sophisticated network of migration advice on social media and messaging apps.

While that network exists virtually for all nationalities, Haitians have showed particular prowess in organizing as a group to minimize their risk when crossing the border.

The administration is looking for ways to change the tone of messages sent back home by migrants without falling into the same legal issues that hounded the Trump administrations hard-line border policies.

The Trump team made repeated attempts to quash the intersection of asylum law and family protection regulations, a tack thats impossible for the Biden administration.

But I do think theyre aware that they need to be able to hold families while theyre determining  [families] who have crossed between ports of entry  to determine whether theyre eligible for asylum, Selee said.

The administration faces a host of challenges, political and technical, to thread the needle between not violating the legal and human rights of minors while not releasing asylum seekers with weaker claims into the interior of the country.

The Biden administration is also pushing Mexico to enforce its own immigration laws more aggressively, depressurizing northern cities by repatriating foreign migrants.

The Biden administration may come up with a new way to make it harsher and push the numbers down for a little while. Probably whatever they do will involve harshness toward families in the remain-in-Texas or the arrangement with Mexico to take more deportees, said Isacson.

But he warned those measures might prove only temporarily successful.

This is the normal number, and you can make people really miserable and push it down for a while, but its just going to keep popping up to this number. The question is, will it get much higher than a quarter-million people a month?

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Fetterman says he will return a $5,000 campaign donation "in envelopes stuffed with $100 bills"  nodding to the money that investigators found stashed away in Menendez 's things, according to new indictment on federal bribery charges

Nathan Posner/Shutterstock; Kevin Dietsch/Getty John Fetterman Bob Menendez

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman says he will return a $5,000 campaign donation he received from New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez  a fellow Democrat  and that he'll do so "in envelopes stuffed with $100 bills," a nod to the lawmaker's recent indictment on federal bribery charges.

Last week, Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were indicted following an investigation into their business dealings with three men who have ties to Egypt's government.

The 39-page indictment alleges that Menendez, 69, and his wife, 56, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in exchange for protecting the three businessmen  Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes  and to "benefit" the government of Egypt. Some of those bribes, prosecutors say, came in the form of envelopes stuffed with cash.

"Over $480,000 in cash  much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe  was discovered in the home, along with over $70,000 in Nadine Menendez's safe deposit box," the indictment alleges. Menendez, who was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time of the indictment, has since told reporters the cash came from his "personal savings."

Related: Sen. Bob Menendez, Wife Charged with Bribery After Allegedly Accepting 'Cash, Gold, a Luxury Vehicle' and More

Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Nadine and Bob Menendez

Speaking to NBC News, Fetterman's spokesperson said of Menendez's earlier donation: We are in the process of returning the money in envelopes stuffed with $100 bills.



Fetterman was among the first in a growing chorus of lawmakers calling on Menendez to step down in light of the indictment.

Related: John Fetterman Defeats Dr. Oz in Critical Pennsylvania Senate Race, Huge Win for Democrats

Other Democrats  junior New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Vermont Sen. Peter Welch  have since also called on Menendez to step down.

Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Democrat Cory Booker has called on his fellow New Jersey senator, Bob Menendez, to step down in light of new federal bribery charges

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued a statement last week calling on Menendez to resign and saying the allegations against him were "deeply disturbing."

"These are serious charges that implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system," Murphy said. "Under our legal system, Senator Menendez and the other defendants have not been found guilty and will have the ability to present evidence disputing these charges, and we must respect the process. However, the alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state. Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation."

Never miss a story  sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.

Calls for his resignation come as Menendez is up for reelection in 2024. He's said he has no plans to step down.



Menendez now faces a primary challenger  U.S. Rep. Andy Kim  who announced that he would run against the Democrat just days after the indictment was unsealed.

"After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said 'I am not going anywhere.' As a result, I feel compelled to run against him. Not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity," Kim wrote on X.



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Record numbers of children are being reported missing from Ohio cities, the NY Post states. More than 1,000 accounts were filed between January and September, according to the attorney generals missing children website.

The alarmingly large numbers of unaccounted for minors have come in waves. More than two dozen children were reported missing in northern Ohio in the first two weeks of May. In August, more than 35 minors were reported as missing in the area and the number jumped with an additional 45 minors reported missing in September.

Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, who is also president of Cleveland Missing, spoke about the issue with Fox News back in May, saying that in his 33-year career, he has never seen such high numbers. Majoy stated, For some reason, in 2023, weve seen a lot more than we normally see, which is troubling in part because we dont know whats going on with some of these kids  whether theyre being trafficked, or whether theyre involved in gang activity or drugs.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told News 5 Cleveland that while the figures are alarming, there may be some inaccuracies in the numbers due to inconsistencies in updating reports. He continued, Now, what we know is when we look behind the numbers, some of those represent repeated runaways and local police have talked about that.

In his statement, he also mentioned that Cleveland authorities have admitted to errors regarding updating missing person reports in the past and the state is dealing with a shortage of trained officers, which could be exacerbating the issue. Yost said, All of these things have localized reporting problems that, again, are a function of local conditions. We do our best to encourage compliance and improve assistance to remove barriers, but at the end of the day, we have to rely on our local partners that we dont control.

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The Duchess of Edinburgh likely sported the headset for a practical reason

Marco Iacobucci/IPA via ZUMA Press Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, attends the non-religious state funeral of Giorgio Napolitano on Sept. 26

Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh traveled to Italy for a somber reason.

On Tuesday, Prince Edwards wife attended the non-religious state funeral for Giorgio Napolitano in Rome. The former president of Italy died on Sept. 22 at age 98.

Sophie stepped out solo at the Palazzo Montecitorio, and Couture and Royals posted photos on X of her wearing headphones during the service. The Duchess of Edinburgh, 58, was likely listening to a translation of what was being said.

The Duchess of Edinburgh is seated in first row with Heads of State and members of the Napolitano Family. It has been said that Sophie is representing King Charles III and is the only Royal present, the fan blog wrote.

King Charles sister-in-law was just a few seats away from French President Emmanuel Macron, who welcomed the King and Queen Camilla to France for a three-day state visit from Sept. 20 to Sept. 22. Highlights of the trip included a glamorous state banquet at the Palace of Versailles plus stops at iconic Parisian landmarks like Elysee Palace and Notre Dame.

Serrano/AGF/Shutterstock Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, attends the non-religious state funeral of Giorgio Napolitano on Sept. 26

Related: Who Is Prince Edward's Wife? All About Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh

While Sophies trip to the funeral was not listed in the royal familys Royal Diary or Court Circular, it is customary for senior British royals to send relatives or close friends and aides to funerals on their behalf. Queen Elizabeth only rarely attended funerals, and King Charles and Prince William appear to be following the same custom by having family members represent them instead.

In January, Princess Anne represented King Charles at the funeral of King Constantine of Greece while Lady Gabriella Windsor went in Prince Williams stead. Lady Gabriella, 41, is the only daughter of Prince Michael of Kent, who is first cousins with Queen Elizabeth, and Baroness Marie Christine von Reibnitz, who goes by Princess Michael. It was a poignant choice for Prince William to ask Gabriella to represent him at King Constantine's funeral as the late monarch was a godfather to them both.

Sophie and Prince Edward have stepped up into elevated royal roles during the last few years of change for the royal family, from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back from their working royal roles in 2020 and Prince Andrew giving up public life in the wake of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in 2022 and most significantly, Queen Elizabeths death last September.

Related: King Charles and Queen Camilla Announce Next State Visit  Find Out Which Nation They'll Host at Buckingham Palace

Jane Barlow - Pool/Getty Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh and Prince Edward in Edinburgh, Scotland in March 2023

In March, coinciding with Prince Edward's 59th birthday, King Charles named his youngest sibling as the Duke of Edinburgh, a title that previously belonged to their father, Prince Philip. In the same sweep, Sophie became the Duchess of Edinburgh  a title last held by the late Queen Elizabeth before her accession, which doubled as a thoughtful tie to her mother-in-law, who she was famously close to.

Sophie and Edward visited Edinburgh for the first time with their new titles in March, with Edward calling it a "very special and slightly overwhelming day." He then referred to Sophie as "my wife and Duchess," prompting laughs from the crowd. The couple tied the knot in 1999 and are parents to Lady Louise Windsor, 19, and James, Earl of Wessex, 15.

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh visits Gul Outdoor Therapy and Activity Centre on Sept. 14

It had been Prince Philips wish that his youngest son would receive the Duke of Edinburgh title after his death. Towards the end of his life, Prince Edward  alongside Sophie  represented Philip at award ceremonies for the Duke of Edinburgh volunteering program for young people, which Queen Elizabeth's husband of 73 years established in 1956.

Following a brief summer break during the month of August (a tradition Queen Elizabeth observed during her record reign, which King Charles continued), Sophie was out and about on Sept. 14 visits to Gul Outdoor Therapy and Activity Centre and Stable and Wick Bakery and Farm Shop in Salisbury, England.

Meanwhile, Prince Edward is currently visiting Turkey, paying a visit to meet with

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss defense and trade relations between Turkey and the U.K., Bloomberg reported.

Mehmet Murat Onel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, meets with talks with students and teachers as he visiting Kabatas Boys High School in Istanbul, Turkey on Sept. 25

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Surveillance footage caught the husband carrying bags out the back alley behind the day care building in the Bronx (U.S. Southern District of New York)

The husband of a Bronx daycare owner who fled after a baby at the facility died of fentanyl exposure almost two weeks ago has been caught in Mexico.

Police said the man was arrested while travelling on a bus heading to Sinaloa by Mexican police and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as US Marshals.

The husband, whose name has not been officially released, is married to Grei Mendez, the owner of the Divino Nino daycare centre for children from six months to 12 years old.

A one-year-old boy was found dead at the daycare centre on 15 September after being exposed to fentanyl, police say.

Ms Mendez, 36, and her tenant living in the apartment where the daycare was operated out of, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, were arrested on charges including murder, manslaughter and assault. They have also been charged with narcotics possession with intent to distribute resulting in death and conspiracy to distribute narcotics at the federal level, officials said in a statement.

Phone logs showed that Ms Mendez called her husband before calling 911. Police recovered video footage of her husband removing bags from the basement before EMS arrived.

However, the husband of Ms Mendez fled the scene before he could be taken into custody.

He travelled from New York to Texas and authorities started to track him from the border, NBC News reported.

Ray Donovan, a retired chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told CBS that his journey to Sinaola is particularly significant, as a large-scale drug cartel operates out of there.

"That cartel is the largest producer, manufacturer and trafficker of fentanyl to the US," Mr Donovan said. "It tells me he was going there for protection. So it made sense for him to take a bus to lay under the radar and go directly into Culiacan to lay low for a period of time."

Police found large amounts of drugs and paraphernalia underneath a trap door in the daycare (NYPD/AP)

Three other children were also exposed to fentanyl and hospitalised, but Nicholas tragically died from the lethal drug, which was being stored underneath a trapdoor under a mat where the children had been napping, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

Investigators believe that the children inhaled fentanyl particles throughout the day before they were found unconscious and unresponsive.

When EMS first responders arrived they found two children in cardiac arrest and called the FDNY for backup after administering Narcan, used to reverse the effects of opioids.

A day before Ms Mendezs fleeing husband was arrested in Mexico, a fourth person was also taken into custody, a suspected drug dealer, in connection with the fentanyl exposure in the daycare.

Renny Paredes, 38, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.

According to the criminal complaint, it is alleged that Mr Paredes conspired with Ms Mendez and Ms Brito among others to store and distribute the fentanyl from the daycare.

Under the trap door concealed by the childrens mat, large amounts of fentanyl, other narcotics and drug paraphernalia were found, according to police.

Similar items were found in Mr Paredes apartment when it was searched.

"We have evidence to show that it was more than just a daycare centre. Its clear that there was a drug operation that was happening there," Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said.

One kilogram of the drug, which is worth around several thousand dollars, was also found in a closet next to the childrens mats.

Both Ms Mendez and Ms Brito are at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn. Ms Mendez reportedly maintains that he had no knowledge of fentanyl being stored in her daycare.

The Divino Nino daycare started operating in January out of Ms Mendezs apartment in Kingsbridge.

It had passed all inspections without any violations, including passing a surprise visit by city authorities on 6 September.
Calls mount for DeSantis to visit New Hampshire more amid wavering support

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has barnstormed Iowa in recent months, making the Hawkeye State, the first to vote in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, the focus of his campaign.

But his commitment to Iowa, where he plans to visit all 99 counties by the end of the fall, has meant spending less time in another key state, New Hampshire, which votes second and where experts and allies of the governor suggest his decreased time on the ground is hurting his chances there.

Some polling indicates DeSantis has seen a steep drop in his support among Granite Staters in recent months. He was the first choice of 10% of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire, a drop of 13 points since July, according to a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released last week.

He closely trailed three primary opponents -- entrepreneur and commentator Vivek Ramaswamy (13%), former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (12%) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (11%) -- and was 29 points behind former President Donald Trump, who remains the primary front-runner.

Other polls show DeSantis barely outpacing his non-Trump rivals in New Hampshire but still far behind the former president.

DeSantis last campaigned in New Hampshire on Aug. 19, appearing as a "special guest" of the super PAC supporting his campaign.

Overall, he has spent at least eight days campaigning in the state since he launched his presidential run in late May, according to an ABC News calculation of public candidate events -- less than Ramaswamy's 16 and Haley's 13 in the same span.

"Gov. DeSantis needs to spend more time in New Hampshire," Greg Moore, the New Hampshire director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative grassroots group which has not yet endorsed a candidate for president, told ABC News.

"He has a solid infrastructure here of supporters, but his visits have been too infrequent to keep him from developing the type of traction he could be. Granite Staters have always rewarded the folks who show up and we're just not seeing a lot of DeSantis in-state," Moore added.

The underlying message from New Hampshire voters, according to experts who spoke with ABC News: Show up.

"Gov. DeSantis has only made a handful of visits to New Hampshire. With fewer candidates running in 2024 than in previous cycles, voters are eager to engage with candidates. If DeSantis wants to regain his footing after an underwhelming start to his campaign, he needs to be taking more active steps to meet, speak with and listen to voters," Chris Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, told ABC News.

Andrew Dow, a 58-year-old independent voter from Farmington who plans to vote in the Republican primary but is undecided, said, "If you want to win in New Hampshire, you have got to come to New Hampshire, and I haven't seen him in a long time.

"New Hampshire voters are temperamental and if you aren't here pounding the pavement, you get forgotten," he added.

Even some of DeSantis' own allies in New Hampshire say they want to see the governor more often.

"I wish he was here in New Hampshire more," Rockingham County Commissioner Brian Chirichiello, who has publicly endorsed DeSantis, told ABC News.

"I get what he's doing. He's trying to get to every county in Iowa," he added. "It's just too bad."

State Rep. Mike Harrington, another DeSantis endorser, said the governor's lack of time in New Hampshire "is the part that's hurting him" but added, "I expect to see a lot more of him up here and I think that will help change things, because then people really start to be concentrated on this."

DeSantis's campaign dismissed concerns about the governor's schedule and pledged he would return to New Hampshire in the coming weeks.

"Ron DeSantis has maintained the most aggressive campaign schedule of anyone in the field and we are excited to be returning to New Hampshire soon," campaign communication director Andrew Romeo told ABC News in a statement.

DeSantis is scheduled to attend events in New Hampshire the weekend of Oct. 13, and supporters have indicated that the governor will be freer to visit other states after he achieves his goal of visiting the Hawkeye State's 99 counties.

"I think, fundamentally, we've just spent a lot of time [in Iowa] because we committed to doing 99 counties, and we're at 58 and by next month, we should be nearing 80, if not a little higher. And once we get there, that's going to just free up our ability in November and December and January to go wherever the heck we want," a source familiar with his strategy told ABC News.

"We're going to be back very soon and pretty aggressively next month," the source added.

DeSantis said on the "Ruthless" podcast in August that he's on track to complete all 99 counties in Iowa by the end of October.

According to Jason Osborne, the New Hampshire House Majority Leader who has endorsed DeSantis, that leaves more than enough time for the governor to regain ground.

"There are still three or four months before the New Hampshire primary, plenty of time to make the rounds. While other candidates may be putting their eggs in the New Hampshire basket, Governor DeSantis is the one candidate setting the stage to go the full distance all the way to the White House," he told ABC News.

An official with Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, stressed that New Hampshire "is not one that Ron has to win," unlike, the official said, its importance to Haley, Ramaswamy and Christie.

"New Hampshire is a live or die state" for those three, the official argued.

A spokesperson for Christie, presented with the official's comments, told ABC News, "Sounds like he's giving up on New Hampshire to me. The last time an Iowa caucus winner became the GOP nominee was 23 years ago." (In 2000, George W. Bush finished first in Iowa before winning the nomination -- the last time a Republican candidate achieved both in a competitive election year.)

Spokespeople for Haley and Ramaswamy did not respond to requests for comment.

Never Back Down has spent at least $520,000 on paid media in New Hampshire, according to Federal Election Commission filings, and has organized several events there for DeSantis. The political action committee has also knocked on 250,000 doors in the state, hitting all of its targeted voters at least once, according to a spokesperson.

The group has four offices in New Hampshire. It employs nine political staff there and boasts 150 volunteers, while the DeSantis campaign has more than 100 additional ones.

The governor has been endorsed by 63 state legislators, according to the campaign.

Dan Eberhart, a DeSantis donor and fierce supporter of the governor's campaign, told ABC News that Iowa is where DeSantis "needs to be focused because it's going to be the first real challenge of his candidacy."

"If he doesn't perform well there, he's in real trouble," he added. "He needs to focus on connecting with voters, and Iowa voters specifically, and that's what he's doing. New Hampshire only matters if he survives Iowa."

Calls mount for DeSantis to visit New Hampshire more amid wavering support originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
CAIRO (AP)  Egypt is seeking to double the number of visitors to the country in the next five years, its top tourism official told The Associated Press.

Egypt is aiming at reaching 30 million visitors by 2028, as its once-thriving tourism sector recovers from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the grinding war in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa said Tuesday.

Were seeing unparalleled demand, unprecedented demand for travel into Egypt, Issa said in an interview.

He said Egypt had received 10 million tourists in the first eight months of 2023, and was well on track to achieve around 15 million this year, which is going to be a record year for the tourism industry.

The sector is a major source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Last year, tourism revenues surged to $10.7 billion, up from around $5 billion in 2021, according to the Egyptian central bank.

The governments plan focuses on what he calls the supply side, which includes increasing the number of hotel rooms in the country and seats on flights to Egypt by more than 30% annually, as well as encouraging more private investment in the tourism sector.

Issa said they would add 25,000 hotel rooms to Egypts current capacity of about 210,000. Such an increase, he said, would help the government achieve its target of 18 million tourist visits in 2024.

That will be the fastest growth in (hotel) rooms in Egypt over the past 20 years, he said.

Egypt has made a years-long effort to revive its battered tourism industry. The sector was badly hit during and after the popular uprising in 2011 that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and the ensuring unrest. The country received over 14 million tourists in 2010.

The coronavirus, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, dealt another blow, just as the sector was getting back on its feet.

In recent years, the government has touted its ancient history as a major selling point. It has publicized pharaonic discoveries, building and renovating museums and tourist sites across the country.

Story continues

Issa spoke to the AP from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a neoclassical structure built in the late 19th century and the first purpose-built museum in the Middle East and North Africa.

The museum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cairo, drawing an average of 10,000 visitors a day, said museum director Ali Abdel-Halim. It holds tens of thousands of antiquities in its collection, some of which have never been exhibited.

In recent years, the government has embarked on renovating the museum, in cooperation with five major institutions in Europe, including the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris, Abdel-Halim said.

The four-phase project, which is partly financed by the European Union, includes a renovation of the entire building, which was designed by the famed French architect Marcel Dourgnon.

For decades, the museum in central Cairo was the main facility housing Egyptian heritage treasures. But in recent years, the the government transferred many artifacts  such as the prized royal mummies  to the newly opened National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega-project which has been under construction for well over a decade near the famed Giza Pyramids.

Issa said they were working to finish construction and complete the installation by the end of the year, and the museum would be ready for its opening ceremony very soon.

He said they are working to set a date for the ceremony when many world leaders can attend.

Its going to be a magnificent day for ... the entire humanity that is interested in history and culture and archaeology and heritage, he said.
PROVIDENCE  The groundhog day headlines  "Efforts underway to avert government shutdown"  are by now so familiar that no one in Rhode Island state or federal government is pulling the panic cord  yet.

But with a deadline looming in less than a week and no deal yet in sight, the members of Rhode Island's all-Democrat congressional delegation do not sound overly optimistic.

Its basic governing to pass a temporary, short-term funding bill to prevent a government shutdown so Congress can complete negotiations on full-year funding bills," Rhode Island's senior U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said in a recent statement. "Yet, House Republicans have so far shown that they are unwilling, uninterested or incapable of accomplishing this simple task.

"I hope reasonable Republicans will start working across the aisle to avoid a shutdown."

A file photo from the 2019 government shutdown when Sachuest Wildlife Refuge's visitor center in Middletown was closed.

How would a government shutdown affect Rhode Island?

The implications of a shutdown are potentially far-reaching:

Tens of thousands of federal employees nationwide  including federal law enforcement; active-duty military; Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, officers; and air traffic controllers  could be forced to work without pay until funds are appropriated.

Social Security checks, mail and funds for Ukraine would still be delivered, according to reports. But nearly 7 million pregnant and postpartum recipients of supplemental food aid and their children, including 18,000 residents of Rhode Island, could lose access to the Women, Infants and Children program. And that's just one example.

"Thousands of children," Reed said, "[could] lose access to Head Start programs; FEMAs Disaster Relief Fund could be depleted, complicating disaster relief efforts; and employers cant access the governments E-Verify system to assure that they are hiring legal residents."

U.S. District Court Clerk Frank Perry estimated that "the Federal Judiciary would be able to sustain paid operations for approximately two-three weeks. The funding is sufficient to cover employee salary and critical operating costs of the judiciary."

Should the shutdown extend to the point when furloughs would be necessary, Perry said the court would "determine what excepted activities are necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial power and activities necessary for the safety of human life and the protection of property."

Asked the potential impact on R.I. campgrounds and parks, Department of Environmental Management spokesman Michael Healey said: "No impacts to either. In the case of campgrounds, the fees that DEM charge for camping go straight into general revenues.

"And practically speaking, the status of campgrounds is Burlingame, the biggest campground, closes Columbus Day; George Washington is currently closed because of the risk of EEE; and Fishermens Memorial (Narragansett) and Charlestown Breachway close Oct. 31."

Is a government shutdown coming? Why Republican lawmakers are split on whether to brace for impact

As the country inches closer to the Sept. 30, 2023, deadline to fund the government, the only path forward to avert a shutdown is to pass a short-term funding measure to buy lawmakers more time to negotiate a longer-term deal.

Is there a plan for a government shutdown?

A spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Department of Administration told The Journal: "Were a shutdown to occur, no immediate impact on state government programs is expected, although some federally funded programs and employees could be affected if a prolonged shutdown takes place."

For now, she said: "The State of Rhode Island is reviewing contingency plans and will be updating its instructions to state agencies once more federal guidance is available."

She noted that "federal programs providing essential support to Rhode Islanders [were] exempted during past shutdowns."

But at The Journal's request, she provided a copy of a memo titled "Agency Actions in response to partial federal government shutdown" that then-Administration Director Michael DiBiase sent out on Dec. 22, 2018.

It required each agency to identify "those programs, functions and employees that are funded with federal dollars and when such federal funds are expected to run out." It put contracting and hiring for federally funded goods, services and jobs on hold and warned that "layoffs may be necessary to avoid incurring costs that may not be reimbursed."

Reed: Tuberville blockade of military promotions hurts families, makes us vulnerable

Late Monday, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, told The Journal via email:

It would be a shame for Rhode Islanders to have to go through another painful but preventable shutdown because House Republicans cant get their act together. A prolonged shutdown would keep servicemembers from collecting their paychecks, delay development of critical defense technologies being built in state, and threaten nutrition assistance for the nearly 18,000 Rhode Islanders who rely on it.

"While the MAGA Chaos Caucus in the House clamors for a shutdown, the Senate is urgently working on a bipartisan solution to stave one off.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner plans to hold a press conference on Tuesday to draw attention to other potentially "devastating" impacts of what he calls a "manufactured crisis," ginned up by GOP extremists, he said, "despite the fact that both parties in Congress and President Biden already agreed to a deal on government spending levels for the coming year.

"The decision of House Republicans to back out of the deal they agreed to [earlier]," he stated, "is jeopardizing services and pay for thousands of working Rhode Islanders."

Q+A with Rep. Seth Magaziner on the shutdown

The Journal reached out to Rep. Magaziner with questions about a potential government shutdown. Here's how he responded:

How confident are you that there will be a shutdown or, conversely, that there will not be one?

Magaziner: Unfortunately, Republican leadership has refused to work with House Democrats to pass a budget and are only listening to their extremist members, some of whom have said they want a shutdown, making this manufactured crisis more likely to occur.

The only path forward is for Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy to work with Democrats on a bipartisan budget, instead of bowing to pressure from the most extreme members of the Republican caucus.

If there is one, what is the potential impact on Rhode Islanders? What will or will not be open? Who will not get paid?

Magaziner: A government shutdown would have devastating consequences for Rhode Islanders. Rhode Islanders working for the federal government, including active-duty military service members, air traffic controllers and TSA officers would be forced to work without pay.

A shutdown could also delay the processing of Social Security benefits for new retirees. Nearly 18,000 Rhode Islanders who depend on food assistance from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)  including 9,897 children and 3,970 infants  will lose this assistance once federal funding is exhausted.

A government shutdown would also endanger the safety of Rhode Islanders: OSHA would be forced to limit workplace inspections, the FDA could be forced to delay food safety inspections and most EPA-led inspections at hazardous waste sites, as well as drinking water and chemical facilities, would stop  threatening clean air, water and public heath in our state.

What would you advise the state to do in preparation for something that may or may not happen next weekend?

Magaziner: We expect that the administration will offer specific guidance to states and municipalities soon, but in the meantime, we advise the state and local nonprofits to prepare for an increased volume of Rhode Islanders seeking assistance for housing, food and other basic services as a result of having to go without federal pay or benefits.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Would a government shutdown affect Rhode Islanders? Here's what might happen
Kernsville Dam in Pa. on May 21, 2018, the DEP has plans to remove the dam. Credit - Susan L. AngstadtMediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images

The collapse of two Libyan dams earlier this month is likely to herald a grim new dam era, in which the decline of dam building accelerates and deadly dam failures become more and more common. The consequences could be catastrophic for millions of people.

Triggered by intense rainfall from a climate-change-supercharged Mediterranean cyclone, the Libyan dam collapses released floodwater that deposited a portion of the city of Derna in the Mediterranean Sea, drowned thousands of people, displaced tens of thousands more, and has left nearly 300,000 children at increased risk of disease and malnutrition. Just as unprecedented fires, floods, and storms this year have introduced many people to the dangers of climate change, the immensity of the Derna tragedy has focused attention on the unappreciated risks that dams pose.

Read More: How to Help Libya's Flood Victims

The dam-building industry was already in decline long before the Derna disaster. Peak dams, the moment when dam-building began to ebb, is now believed to have occurred at least a decade ago. There will not be another dam revolution to match the scale of the high-intensity dam construction experienced in the early to middle 20th century, proclaimed a 2021 United Nations University study. It found that global construction of large dams fell from about 1,500 a year in the late 1970s to about 50 a year in 2020. In Africa, the continent with the highest remaining hydropower potential, a study published in Science last month concluded that the decreasing cost of wind and solar energy will make hydroelectric dams non-competitive by 2030.

The increasing danger of dams stems in part from a simple fact: they are aging. Most of the worlds dams were built before 1985 and are either approaching or have passed the point when they need substantial repair, which is about 50 years old. Yet few are being repaired. In the U.S., where the average dam is 65 years old, the dangers have been well-documented for decades yet barely heeded. In 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued an infrastructure report card on which U.S. dams were given a grade of D the same grade dams have received in every ASCE report card since the first in 1998.

Libya's eastern city of Derna on Sept. 18, 2023, following deadly flash floods. Mahmud TurkiaAFP/Getty Images

A February 2023 study by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimated that rehabilitating 65,000 of the U.S.s large- and medium-sized dams would cost $157.5 billiona price tag that will continue to mount as repair work is deferred. And a 2022 Associated Press analysis identified 2,200 U.S. dams that need repairs and would threaten downstream populations if they fail. State and federal funding for repairs has been increasing but nowhere near the amount needed to ensure safety. Politicians once took delight in a new dams ribbon-cutting, but they have always shown far less interest in providing funding for the un-sexy job of dam maintenance.

In other countries, where government budgets are far more strained than in the U.S., the situation is much worse. In Libya, the failing dams weaknesses were well-known. A study of the two dams published last year presciently warned that immediate measures must be taken for regular maintenance because in the event of a huge flood, the result will be disastrous for downstream residents. One reason repairs didnt take place is that Libya is still reeling from the 2014-2020 civil war and is plagued by two rival administrations. In fact, according to a report last week in Foreign Policy, more than $2 million was allocated for maintenance of the two dams in 2012 and 2013, but no work ever took place. Libya is one of dozens of countries where dysfunction stymies dam maintenance.

Climate change also makes dam collapse more likely. The design of virtually all the worlds large dams was based on hydrological records that were often insufficient to begin with and certainly didnt take climate change into account. Now, not only are those records out-of-date, but the huge variability that climate change has introduced into precipitation levels complicates all dam planning. By making both extended droughts and unprecedented floods more frequent, climate change has forced reductions and even stoppages of hydropower generation of some dams, while also subjecting many to floods bigger than they were designed to withstand. Floods presumed to occur once in 1,000 years may now happen once or twice a decade. On top of all this, as climate change intensifies, it will generate even bigger storms and floods.

A tilted car sits above debris in Libya's eastern city of Derna on Sept. 18, 2023. Mahmud TurkiaAFP/Getty Images

The risk that dams pose to humans can be partially offset by more carefully monitoring weather forecasts, releasing water behind dams if necessary, and installing warning systems that alert imperiled people of the need to evacuate.

But the best way to eliminate the danger is to remove dams entirely. This is especially true for older dams, whose reservoirs become filled with sediment that displaces water and reduces their effectiveness as electricity generators and water storersand removal often costs less than repairs. Yet dam removal is still in its infancy. Out of the U.S.s several million dams of all sizes, about 2,000 mostly small dams have been dismantled. Still, the movement is gaining momentum in the U.S. and Europe.

Read More: The Bombing of Ukraines Kakhovka Dam Affects All of Us

Removals greatest benefit is environmental: in returning rivers to free-flowing conditions, it reunites rivers with their floodplains, restores riparian habitat, improves water quality, and re-enables circulation of migrating fish.

Removal also reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The idea that dams are clean is a widespread misconception, still endlessly promoted by international dam builders and sometimes cited erroneously even by environmentalists. But reservoirsparticularly in tropical and sub-tropical regionsemit methane, sometimes copiously, mostly as a byproduct of decomposing plants and other organic matter near reservoir bottoms. A 2021 study in Global Biochemical Cycles found that the worlds reservoirs emit every year the equivalent of more than a gigaton of carbon dioxidemore greenhouse gas than Germany, the worlds sixth largest emitter.

As dams immense environmental damage has surfaced in recent decades, it has become apparent that dams and fossil fuels share many of the same attributes. For a time both delivered a bounty that transformed the world, while their environmental liabilities were hidden. Theyre poster children for the seductive allures of technology and its transienceof top-down, growth-at-all-costs economic development and the illusion that humans are exempt from natures dominion. Now we measure their costs in bodies swept out to sea.

Contact us at letters@time.com.
House Republicans say they have uncovered bank wires obtained by subpoena that allegedly reveal Hunter Biden received payments originating from Beijing that listed President Joe Biden 's Delaware residence as the beneficiary address, an announcement Hunter Biden's attorney denounced as "lies to support a premise."

In a statement Tuesday, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee wrote, "What did the Bidens do with this money from Beijing?"

Rep. James Comer said the alleged bank wires to the president's son included more than $250,000 in payments from three individuals in the summer of 2019. Comer asserted the Delaware address on the wire transfers compounded questions about what Joe Biden may have known about his son's overseas business dealings. And he said any past Biden financial entanglements in China heightened national security concerns.

"Americans demand and deserve accountability for President Biden and the First Family's corruption," Comer said, adding that his probe will continue.

President Biden has long maintained he had no involvement in his adult son's business dealings. And Tuesday, Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell told CBS News that the announcement from congressional Republicans was just the latest example of a finding of purported wrongdoing "that evaporates in thin air the moment facts come out."

In his statement, Lowell said the bank transfers resulted from loans Hunter Biden received from a private individual, and they referenced his father's Delaware address because it was on his personal driver's license at the time.

Lowell said Hunter Biden borrowed the funds while making "a substantial investment" in a partnership called BHR Partners.

"We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda," Lowell said in his statement.

The White House called Comer's statement "half-baked innuendo and conspiracy theories."

White House spokesman Ian Sams said the findings "show no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, just more discredited personal attacks on him and his family."

House Oversight and Accountability Committee investigators initially requested records from Hunter Biden, including documents, financial statements and communications in February, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into whether President Biden had any role in foreign and domestic businesses brokered by the Biden family.

Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani, attorney Robert Costello for "hacking" laptop data

At the time, Lowell said the probe lacked "a legitimate legislative purpose," and he said he proposed a meeting with committee members to further discuss the request but received no response.

This latest subpoena comes ahead of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee's first hearing of impeachment inquiry into President Biden, scheduled for Thursday, focusing on the alleged "constitutional and legal questions surrounding the President's involvement in corruption and abuse of public office," according to a committee spokesperson.

Hunter Biden's foreign business affairs have been a central focus of the investigations led by congressional Republicans. Comer released a series of memos earlier this year alleging bank records suggested millions in payments received by Hunter Biden and his associates from foreign entities during and after Joe Biden's vice-presidency. Comer went further, claiming the president was aware of his son's business dealings and "allowed himself to be 'the brand' sold to enrich the Biden family."

The latest disclosures are for wire transfers that occurred in 2019, during the time period when Mr. Biden was not in office but was campaigning for the White House.

In closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee in July, Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business associate who served with Biden on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company said Hunter Biden sought to use the Biden brand for leverage in his business dealings, but he said he had no knowledge of President Biden having any direct involvement with Burisma. Archer testified that Hunter Biden placed President Joe Biden on a speaker phone call during a dinner with an associate in Beijing, but Joe Biden did not discuss business.

Earlier, Sams called the pending impeachment inquiry "extreme, partisan politics" and said congressional Republicans were "wasting time attacking President Biden with debunked conspiracies instead of trying to avoid the calamitous consequences of the House Republican government shutdown."

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WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden s dog Commander has bitten another U.S. Secret Service employee.

A uniformed division officer was bitten by the dog around 8 p.m. Monday at the White House and was treated on-site by medical personnel, said USSS chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi. The officer is doing just fine, he said.

Elizabeth Alexander, communications director for first lady Jill Biden , said the White House can be a stressful environment for family pets, and the first family continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds.

President Joe Biden's dog Commander, a German shepherd, is walked outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington on April 29, 2023. Commander has bitten another U.S. Secret Service employee. A uniformed division officer was bitten by the dog around 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at the White House, and was treated on-site by medical personnel, said USSS chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi. The officer is doing just fine, he said.

She said the Bidens are incredibly grateful to the Secret Service and Executive Residence staff for all they do to keep them, their family, and the country safe.

The German shepherd purebred has bit or otherwise attacked Secret Service personnel at least 10 other times between October 2022 and January, including one incident that required a hospital visit by the injured law enforcement officer, according to records from the Department of Homeland Security.

Commander is the second dog of Bidens to behave aggressively, including biting Secret Service personnel and White House staff. They eventually sent the first dog, a German shepherd named Major, to live with friends in Delaware after those incidents.

The Secret Service provides security protection for the president and his family, and scores of its officers are posted around the executive mansion and its sprawling grounds.

Biden received Commander in December 2021 as a gift from his brother James. The family also has a cat, Willow.

President Joe Biden's pets

Why is Bidens' dog Major biting people at the White House? A trainer offers insight

Major training: Biden dog gets help adjusting to White House after biting incidents

Good boy! Presidential pooch fetches $200,000 for Delaware Humane Association

First kitty: Willow Biden, White House cat, hails from Volant, Pennsylvania, farm

Joe Biden suffers hairline fractures after twisting his ankle playing with dog, his doctor says

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Commander Biden bites another Secret Service employee at White House
The judge overseeing the federal governments criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump over his actions to subvert the 2020 presidential election has turned down Trumps attempt to get her off the case.

In a 20-page ruling issued Wednesday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trumps arguments that her comments in other Jan. 6-related cases raised doubts about her fairness. In 2021 and 2022, while sentencing rioters convicted of crimes connected to the breach of the Capitol, Chutkan alluded to the fact that Trump had not yet been charged with any crimes and had motivated his followers to go to the Capitol that day.

The setback for Trump came just hours before his Republican primary opponents were set to debate on a stage without him. The ruling offered a vivid reminder of his legal vulnerability even as he continues to dominate the GOP contest.

In denying Trumps request that she step aside, Chutkan wrote that Trumps hypersensitive defense had exaggerated her previous statements and had wrongly claimed that they were informed by news reports or other sources. She maintained that her comments had responded to specific legal arguments of individual defendants who had tried to mitigate their culpability by pointing at Trump.

A reasonable person  aware of the statutory requirement that the court address the defendants arguments and state its reasons for its sentence  would understand that in making the statements contested here, the court was not issuing vague declarations about third parties potential guilt in a hypothetical future case, Chutkan wrote. Instead, it was fulfilling its duty to expressly evaluate the defendants arguments that their sentences should be reduced because other individuals whom they believed were associated with the events of January 6 had not been prosecuted.

Chutkans decision clears away, for now, the most pressing issue facing Trumps prosecution related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election. The judge is also weighing a demand by prosecutors for a gag order to prevent Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and the judge herself. Trump is also expected to file a barrage of motions to delay his trial (which is currently set for March), to transfer it to another district and to have the case thrown out altogether by claiming hes immune from prosecution.

In her ruling, Chutkan also noted that legal precedents generally discourage judges from making comments based on news reports or their own personal investigation, but in-court remarks based on evidence before the court are generally fair game, even if the evidence comes from a prior, related case.

Trumps attorneys sought to overcome that hurdle by arguing that Chutkan must have been considering information she obtained outside court, but she insisted that wasnt the case.

The statements at issue here were based on intrajudicial sources, Chukan wrote. They arose not, as the defense speculates, from watching the news, but from the sentencing proceedings. The statements directly reflected facts proffered and arguments made by those defendants.

Chutkan, a Washington-based appointee of President Barack Obama, also noted that Trumps attorneys at times sought to characterize her comments about unnamed instigators of the Jan. 6 attack as being specifically about Trump.

The court expressly declined to state who, if anyone, it thought should still face charges, she wrote. It is the defense, not the court, who has assumed that the defendant belongs in that undefined group.

The judge also noted that she was, in her view, legally required to confront the arguments that Jan. 6 defendants made about Trump. In considering the sentences of the two prior defendants cited by Trumps lawyers  Robert Palmer and Christine Priola  Chutkan pointed out that they sought reductions in their sentences by arguing that they bore less culpability than Trump and his enablers.

At Palmers sentencing in December 2021, Chutkan stated: Mr. Palmer  you have made a very good point, one that has been made before  that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged.  The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I dont have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant.

And at Priolas sentencing last October, Chutkan did seem to unambiguously refer to Trump.

The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man  not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy, Chutkan declared then. Its a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.

Chutkan acknowledged the accuracy of those remarks, but said they were appropriate and necessary given the arguments the defendants were making.

The court did state that the former president was free at the time of Priolas sentence  an undisputed fact upon which Priola had relied for her mitigation argument  but it went no further, she wrote in her ruling Wednesday. To extrapolate an announcement of defendants guilt from the courts silence is to adopt hypersensitive, cynical, and suspicious perspective rather than a reasonable one.

An attorney for Trump, Todd Blanche, declined to comment Wednesday on whether the former president plans to ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to step in and wrest the case away from Chutkan. The case is one of two criminal prosecutions brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith.

But Chutkan noted that the appeals court has declined to order a judges recusal in far more pointed circumstances than the ones alleged by Trump and his lawyers.
MADISON  Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is one of the most prominent and powerful Republicans in Wisconsin, from organizing lawmakers on conservative priorities to determining committee assignments. Here's what to know about the Republican from Rochester.

Who is Robin Vos?

Robin Vos is the speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, the lower house in the state Legislature. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2004.

Vos is from Burlington and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he served as a student representative to the UW Board of Regents. Before being elected to the Assembly, he worked as a legislative assistant, was a district director for a congressman and served on the Racine County Board.

Vos recently returned as the president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that provides research and assistance to state lawmakers and their staff.

What businesses does Robin Vos own?

Vos owns several small businesses, according to his legislative biography. Those include a popcorn factory in Burlington, which has expanded into a food packaging company. He also owns a car wash in Union Grove and rental properties in Whitewater. He previously owned Knights Popcorn in Milwaukee.

More: Businesses tied to Speaker Robin Vos and other lawmakers could see taxes cut after they took PPP loans

What district does Robin Vos represent in Wisconsin?

Vos represents the 63rd Assembly District, which takes up most of the southern part of Racine County. The district includes the communities of Rochester, Burlington, Yorkville, Dover, Union Grove, Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant.

What is the role of the Assembly Speaker?

As speaker, Vos guides the Assembly's activities, including determining what bills are taken up during floor sessions, assigning lawmakers to certain committees, and making staffing and budget decisions for the chamber.

Vos is also the presiding officer of the Assembly, meaning he addresses lawmakers on the floor and members must direct their speeches to him.

Vos is the longest-serving Assembly speaker in state history. He was first chosen by Assembly members for the role in 2013, making him the 75th person to hold the position.

The Assembly speaker is the only lawmaker who receives more than the $57,408 salary each member earns, plus per diem expenses. Vos receives an additional stipend of $25 per month, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Does Robin Vos plan to run for another office?

Vos, 55, has said he does not plan to seek another office, such as running for governor or a seat in Congress. When interviewed by POLITICO for a 2021 profile, he said he was "at peace" with saying his current seat is the last elected position he would hold.

Vos' former counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau, clinched a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 2020. Fitzgerald's leadership role in the state Senate is now filled by Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg.

Vos has won his Assembly seat  which is up every two years  by large margins. Last November, he won with 73% of the vote, despite facing a primary, and later write-in, challenger. In 2020 and 2018, he won by 17 percentage points and 22 percentage points.

What is Robin Vos relationship with Gov. Tony Evers?

Vos and other Republican leaders' relationship with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has long been strained, from making decisions about spending federal government aid during the COVID-19 pandemic to addressing the state's workforce and child care challenges.

Vos  along other GOP leaders  and Evers frequently say they go weeks or months without talking to each other.

More: Republican leaders secretly recorded by Gov. Tony Evers' staff, infuriating GOP lawmakers

Still, Vos and his GOP colleagues have found some areas of compromise with the governor, especially when they want to avoid vetoes of major legislation.

This summer, the Republican-controlled Legislature approved a deal to avoid a fiscal crisis in Milwaukee and boost shared revenue for other counties and municipalities. In turn, Evers signed funding boosts for private voucher schools into law.

What has Donald Trump said about Robin Vos?

Former President Donald Trump and his supporters who falsely assert that he won Wisconsin's presidential contest in 2020 previously criticized Vos for not doing more to investigate their claims of voter fraud.

"Don't fall for their lies! These REPUBLICAN 'leaders' need to step up and support the people who elected them by providing them a full forensic investigation," Trump said of Vos and state Senate leaders.

Vos said Trump was misinformed and quickly announced he had hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to perform a taxpayer-funded review of the election. He flew in a private plane with Trump to an Alabama rally two months later and said he shared details about the investigation with the former president.

More: Wisconsin Republican leader Robin Vos is caught in the middle over the election probe as he faces criticism from the left and right

Vos fired Gableman about a year later, and his investigation turned up no evidence of significant fraud  the same conclusion from recounts, court rulings and an audit from a conservative group. The review's nearly $2.5 million cost includes legal fees associated with ongoing lawsuits to release records from the investigation.

Has Robin Vos ever faced a primary challenge?

In 2022, Vos narrowly survived a primary challenge backed by Trump, which symbolized tensions within the state Republican base over false election claims. Some in the state party called on him to resign from his leadership position after he disciplined former Rep. Timothy Ramthun, at the time one of the Legislature's most vocal election deniers.

In his statement endorsing Vos' challenger Adam Steen, Trump called Vos a "RINO"  a term used by conservatives to admonish a "Republican in name only."

In the primary, Vos won by fewer than 300 votes over Steen. In the general election, Steen received 2,112 write-in votes  about 9%, compared to Vos' 73%.

More: 'Sore loser' bill bars candidates who falter in primaries to run write-in campaigns

What issues is Vos focused on?

With Gableman and false election claims largely in his rearview, Vos' focus has been pushing GOP tax cut proposals, probing grounds for impeaching new liberal state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz and backing a Republican effort to implement nonpartisan redistricting after opposing the idea for years.

One of Vos' top priorities this summer was curbing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, especially in the state's higher education system. He is poised to block pay raises for 41,000 UW System employees if his demands to dismantle the offices are not met.

More: Speaker Robin Vos says he's 'embarrassed' to be a UW System alumnus because of campus diversity programs

Vos has a powerful role within his party's caucus and can build consensus on issues like medical marijuana, which he has said more Republicans are beginning to support.

What has Robin Vos said about impeaching Janet Protasiewicz?

Shortly after Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in August Vos warned that she could face impeachment proceedings if she didn't recuse herself from lawsuits challenging the state's legislative boundaries. Republicans say comments she made during her election campaign that the election maps are "rigged" indicated she had "prejudged" the issue.

Vos later softened his tone on impeachment when he released a bill to change the redistricting process in Wisconsin. After Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signaled his opposition to the bill, Vos responded that he was consulting with former state Supreme Court justices on the idea of impeaching Protasiewicz.

More: Justice Janet Protasiewicz is under pressure to step away from a case. What to know about impeachment and recusal

How do I contact Robin Vos?

The phone number for Vos' legislative office is (608) 237-9163 and his email is Rep.Vos@legis.wisconsin.gov.

Vos' official Twitter handle is @SpeakerVos and his personal account is @repvos.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about Robin Vos, longest-serving Wisconsin Speaker
[Source]

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are looking to boost Taiwan as an alternative to China-funded Confucius Institutes for language programs at universities and colleges in the United States.

Key details: Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Ed Markey s (D-MA) offices confirmed to Axios that they are set to introduce a resolution urging American universities and colleges to strengthen their educational links with Taiwan on Tuesday.

The move is in support of the U.S.-Taiwan Education Initiative launched in December 2020. The initiative aims to offer Americans opportunities to learn Mandarin from Taiwanese teachers, while American teachers would help Taiwan become a bilingual society by 2023.

Why the decision: The Confucius Institute, which became a hot topic that ignited a debate during a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on Sept. 19, has reportedly been on a decline since 2017, from over 100 operational programs that year to just six today after the seventh classroom reportedly closed in June.

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Showing support: In a statement, Blackburn noted that students can still be taught about Chinese culture, history and language while being free from China's grasp.

Meanwhile, Markey said in a statement to Axios that to continue building relationship with Taiwan, we need to support foreign language exchange between our two nations.

Not the first: Blackburn led a group of Republican lawmakers in urging the U.S. Department of Education to consider tapping into Taiwan to replace the dwindling numbers of Confucius Institute for its Mandarin language programs in a letter sent on March 18, 2021.

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LABCENTRAL, BIOLABS, MBC BIOLABS PARTNER WITH EVOTEC TO SUPPORT BIOTECH INNOVATORS THROUGH CRITICAL INFLECTION POINTS

AGREEMENT LEVERAGES EVOTEC'S INTEGRATED END-TO-END SHARED R&D PLATFORM TO ENABLE GREATER ACCESS TO INDUSTRY-GRADE CAPABILITIES AND DRUG HUNTING EXPERTISE FOR LIFE SCIENCES AND BIOTECH STARTUPS ACROSS THE GLOBAL LABCENTRAL / BIOLABS / MBC BIOLABS NETWORK

ALL PARTIES PLAY SYNERGISTIC ROLES IN SUPPORTING AND FOSTERING THE SHARED R&D ECONOMY INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

HAMBURG, GERMANY and CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange:EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809; NASDAQ:EVO), LabCentral, a launchpad for high-potential life science and biotech start-ups, BioLabs, an international membership based network of shared lab and office facilities, and MBC BioLabs, premier providers of co-working laboratory space, today announced an agreement to boost early-stage innovations through access to Evotec's leading shared end-to-end R&D platform.

Evotec SE

The agreement will empower LabCentral / BioLabs / MBC BioLabs's network of promising early-stage life science and biotech companies by enhanced access to Evotec's industry-leading, innovative end-to-end platform and latest technologies for successful drug discovery and development to translate innovative life science research into new, improved ways to treat patients. Through this partnership, Evotec's team of scientists, business builders and experts will have regular presence on-site across the LabCentral / BioLabs / MBC BioLabs network in the form of hosted educational events and office hours - parts of the efforts towards the joint goal of enhancing success rates of the early-stage companies in the ecosystem.

LabCentral / BioLabs / MBC BioLabs offers laboratory and office spaces for over 400 start-ups comprising approximately 3,500 scientists and entrepreneurs, giving Evotec direct access to promising research of biotech companies across the US, France and Germany.

Story continues

Dr Matthias Evers, Chief Business Officer of Evotec, commented: "The collaboration with LabCentral / BioLabs / MBC BioLabs is closely aligned with our mission Together for Medicines that Matter'. Providing innovators across a globally recognized life science & biotech network access to our industry-leading end-to-end R&D platform enabling speed, safety, efficiency, and enhanced probabilities of success from bench to bedside, will allow more opportunities to discover and develop life-saving therapies."

Dr Johannes Fruehauf, Founder and President of BioLabs and LabCentral added: "As a strategic partner across the network of LabCentral and BioLabs facilities, Evotec's R&D platform will help our residents accelerate their research as we collectively align on a mission to discover and develop new drugs and therapies to improve human health faster, more efficiently and on a global scale."

Dr Robert Blazej, Director of MBC BioLabs, expressed his excitement about the partnership, stating: "We are thrilled to bring Evotec's world-leading R&D platform even closer to the companies operating in our San Francisco Bay Area facilities. Our goal has always been to empower brilliant entrepreneurs within a thriving ecosystem that fosters innovation, collaboration, and ultimately, success. Evotec's shared R&D platform dovetails with our shared lab co-working space, furthering this mission."

No financial terms of the agreement were disclosed.

ABOUT LABCENTRAL

A private, non-profit institution, LabCentral was founded in 2013 as a launchpad for high potential life-sciences and biotech startups. Operating a total of 225,000 square-feet in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass., LabCentral offers fully permitted laboratory and office space for as many as 100 startups comprising approximately 1,000 scientists and entrepreneurs. More information is available at www.labcentral.org.



ABOUT MBC BIOLABS

MBC BioLabs is a premier life science incubator that provides early-stage biotech companies with the resources and support necessary to thrive. Through its network of state-of-the-art laboratories, industry partnerships, and engaged bioentrepreneur community, MBC BioLabs empowers startups to accelerate their research and propel groundbreaking ideas into transformative therapies. Since opening in 2013, MBC BioLabs has helped launch and grow 290 companies. These companies have brought 153 programs to the clinic, produced 17 approved diagnostics, and raised over $13 billion.

ABOUT EVOTEC SE

Evotec is a life science company with a unique business model that delivers on its mission to discover and develop highly effective therapeutics and make them available to the patients. The Company's multimodality platform comprises a unique combination of innovative technologies, data and science for the discovery, development, and production of first-in-class and best-in-class pharmaceutical products. Evotec leverages this "Data-driven R&D Autobahn to Cures" for proprietary projects and within a network of partners including all Top 20 Pharma and over 800 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, as well as other healthcare stakeholders. Evotec has strategic activities in a broad range of currently underserved therapeutic areas, including e.g. neurology, oncology, as well as metabolic and infectious diseases. Within these areas of expertise, Evotec aims to create the world-leading co-owned pipeline for innovative therapeutics and has to-date established a portfolio of more than 200 proprietary and co-owned R&D projects from early discovery to clinical development. Evotec operates globally with more than 5,000 highly qualified people. The Company's 17 sites offer highly synergistic technologies and services and operate as complementary clusters of excellence. For additional information please go to www.evotec.com and follow us on X/Twitter @Evotec and LinkedIn.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This announcement contains forward-looking statements concerning future events, including the proposed offering and listing of Evotec's securities. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "should," "target," "would" and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements include comments regarding Evotec's expectations for revenues, Group EBITDA and unpartnered R&D expenses. These forward-looking statements are based on the information available to, and the expectations and assumptions deemed reasonable by Evotec at the time these statements were made. No assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. These statements involve known and unknown risks and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates, which are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Evotec. Evotec expressly disclaims any obligations or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Evotec's expectations with respect thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based.

Media Contact Evotec SE:

Gabriele Hansen, SVP Head of Global Corporate Communications, Gabriele.Hansen@evotec.com

Hinnerk Rohwedder, Director of Global Corporate Communications, Hinnerk.Rohwedder@evotec.com

IR Contact Evotec SE:

Volker Braun, SVP Head of Global Investor Relations & ESG, Volker.Braun@evotec.com

SOURCE: Evotec SE





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/787713/evotec-se-launch-of-partnering-agreement-to-strengthen-biotech-innovators-in-shared-rd-economy




Many a US roadway is nothing more than a clogged eyesore or an efficient but bland way to get from Point A to Point B.

But sometimes, roadways and natural beauty meet in a harmonious convergence where driving can be a delight and even more important than the destination. This can prove especially true in autumn with the changing of the leaves.

As for when to go, timing is everything for the perfect fall drive. If you want to optimize your chances of catching the leaves in various shades of orange, red, purple and gold at their peak, check out this US foliage predictor map.

Just remember peak leaf-viewing time might also mean peak traffic time; plan accordingly, especially for weekends.

As for where to go, here are six fantastic fall scenic drives scattered around the continental United States along with plenty of other things to see and do when you pull the car over.

M-119, Michigan

M-119 is a scenic drive in the northwestern part of the Lower Peninsula in Michigan. It hugs Lake Michigan and is known as the "Tunnel of Trees." - PureMichigan

The Great Lakes make for great scenery. And the state of Michigan has shoreline on three of em  Michigan, Huron and Superior  making for a dizzying number of choices. David Lorenz, vice president of Travel Michigan, helps narrow down the options, singing the praises of M-119, tucked away in the northwest of Michigans Lower Peninsula.

Its affectionately known as the Tunnel of Trees, Lorenz said in an email to CNN Travel. The roadway starts just outside of the town of Harbor Springs and extends 21 miles (33.8 kilometers) north to Cross Village. It hugs the coast of Lake Michigan, showcasing some of the states most brilliant fall foliage sure to delight any traveler, Lorenz said.

Follow this map and turn the drive into a scenic loop of about 50 miles, or a one-hour and 15-minute drive.

Along the route or nearby:

 Travel Michigan said Thorne Swift Nature Preserve in Harbor Springs is a great stop to get fall foliage photos.

 Good Hart General Store has an early 1900s era charm.

 No fear of heights? The pedestrian SkyBridge Michigan at Boyne Mountain Resort is 1,200 feet (366 meters) long and 118 feet high. Its about 26 miles south of Harbor Springs.

 Enjoy the 44th Annual Apple Fest in Charlevoix, about 40 minutes southwest of Harbor Springs. The festival takes place October 13-15 this year.

Find out more about the M-119 here.

Salmon River Scenic Byway, Idaho

A line of golden aspens festoons a hillside in the Sawtooth Mountains in Stanley, Idaho, above Redfish Lake. - Anna Gorin/Moment RF/Getty Images

Was that a moose? Did I just see an elk? You and your companions might be asking such questions on the Salmon River Scenic Byway, suggested by Laurie McConnell, the senior tourism communications specialist at Visit Idaho.

This 161-mile byway goes through some of the most rugged and remote country in the Lower 48, following the Salmon River through the Salmon and Challis national forests and provides access to jaw-dropping outdoor opportunities, McConnell said in an email.

As for visuals, Large stands of aspen show off with fall colors in burnt yellowy gold, but expect other trees to show off with red, orange, and caramel, she said.

Along the route or nearby:

 The Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural and Educational Center is the perfect place to learn about the original inhabitants of the region. (McConnell calls it a cant-miss stop.)

 Land of Yankee Fork State Park features the ghost towns of Custer, Bayhorse and Bonanza. And it administers Challis Hot Springs on the banks of the Salmon River.

 Redfish Lake is the largest one in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Come here for nature viewing, hiking, fishing  and swimming if you can handle the cold water!

Find out more about the Salmon River Scenic Byway here.

Appalachian Highlands Scenic Byway, Alabama

In Mentone, Alabama, the historic Old Union Crossing Covered Bridge was originally built in 1863. This version was rebuilt over an existing bridge in 1980. - Jacqueline Nix/iStock Editorial/Getty Images

If you thought Appalachian beauty petered out in northern Georgia, this scenic byway in the northeastern part of this Deep South state will prove you delightfully wrong.

Its 80 miles is hilly and curvy in places, but overall, it is not a white-knuckle drive, said Jo Jo Terry, digital marketing strategist with the Alabama Tourism Department. Fall colors will be more prevalent on the northern part of the trail. The scenery is beautiful all along the trail.

Drivers will find lush vegetation, interesting geologic formations and quaint communities along the route.

Along the route or nearby:

 Cheaha State Park, on the southern end of the byway, is home to the highest point in Alabama and is known for its beautiful, panoramic views, Terry said.

 DeSoto State Park, on the northern end of the byway, features waterfalls and has hiking, camping and bird watching among its activities.

 Mentone is an arts and crafts community about 10 minutes from DeSoto State Park. The Wildflower Cafe is a delicious and magical place to eat, Terry said.

 The Little River Canyon National Preserve contains one of the deepest and most extensive canyon and gorge systems in the eastern United States, according to the US National Park Service.

Find out more about the Appalachian Highlands Scenic Byway here.

High Road to Taos Scenic Byway, New Mexico

Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico is a lovely and historic stop along the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway. - New Mexico True

Who would ever want to leave charming Santa Fe? One thing that could lure you out of the state capital would be the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway, a 76-mile route north to the famous ski town.

Nicole Barker, media relations manager with the New Mexico Tourism Department, said via email that it takes about one hour and 45 minutes to drive without stops. But she suggested folks plan for a minimum of a half-day to fully enjoy the route. And what will you see?

The route meanders through desert badlands, striking white geological formations and gold-drenched cottonwoods that line the Rio Nambe before winding through villages backdropped against Carson National Forests golden aspen groves and deep, dark evergreens blanketing the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo peaks, Barker said.

Along the route or nearby:

 Santuario de Chimayo is an 1800s Catholic church thats a National Historic Landmark. Barker said autumn is the perfect time to buy Chimayo red chile, which is only grown in the town of Chimayo.

 Folk-art gallery Eight Million Gods is In Truchas, an 18th-century Hispanic settlement turned artist enclave.

 Truchas Overlook is also worth stopping for views of Quemado Valley and Truchas Peaks, Barker said.

 The High Road Art Trail makes it easy for visitors to locate studios and galleries, Barker said. The High Road Artisans Studio Tour takes place in September 16-17 and 23-24.

Find out more about the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway here.

Mohawk Trail Scenic Byway, Massachusetts

The Mohawk Trail Scenic Byway winds through autumn-colored Massachusetts. - haveseen/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Massachusetts and fall drives go hand-in-hand. The 69-mile Mohawk Trail Scenic Byway passes through three counties in northwestern Massachusetts, says Peter Tomyl, president of the Mohawk Trail Association  Regional Tourism Council, and fall is one of the best times to go as vibrant hues of orange, red and yellow dance along the skyline passing by.

How many stops along the way visitors choose to make determines exactly how long the drive will be, he said in an email.

Large portions of the route wind through hills lined with lush forest landscapes [and] Berkshire Mountain climbs, he said, adding that it passes through quaint Massachusetts towns, passing by sprawling farmlands and a vast array of incredible restaurants, breweries, coffee shops, and historic landmarks.

Along the route or nearby:

 Hairpin Turn in North Adams is one of the most popular destinations in The Berkshires, Hairpin Turn is great to visit at sunset and offers breathtaking panoramic views, Tomyl said.

 Mount Greylock State Reservation is the highest point in Massachusetts offering sweeping views.

 Susan B Anthony Birthplace Museum in Adams explores the life of the famous advocate.

 The Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown has more than 15,000 works and is free.

Find out more about the Mohawk Trail Scenic Byway here. Parts of Massachusetts have had heavy rainfall and flooding recently. Check local forecasts and driving conditions before you head out.

Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina and Virginia

Historic Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia is great spot to pull over and reflect on days gone by. - LaserLens/iStockphoto/Getty Images

This splendid, curving road threads its way through the Blue Ridge Mountains. It starts in Virginia and continues southwest into North Carolina, and the total length is 469 miles (755 kilometers).

The parkway is free to use and open 24 hours a day unless portions are closed by things such as weather or landslides. Its free of all commercial clutter  no billboards and businesses in sight.

You dont have to tackle the whole thing unless you want a really big trip; just carve out a portion and drive that.

Along the route and nearby:

 In Virginia, the automotive and travel club AAA suggests that you pull off and enjoy Mabry Mill at milepost 176, where Ed Mabry and his wife, Lizzy, ground corn and sawed lumber for three decades. Also check out the Blue Ridge Music Center at milepost 213.

 In North Carolina, see what life was like for the Cherokee at Oconaluftee Indian Village at milepost 469.1.

 Also in North Carolina, explore the tallest peak east of the Mississippi at Mount Mitchell State Park or check out Biltmore Estate, which looks regal in autumn.

Find out more about the Blue Ridge Parkway here.

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The case of missing hiker Michelle Vanek is one of the most mysterious and tragic in Colorado history, but now officials have confirmed they've finally discovered a clue in her disappearance.

Vanek, 34, was hiking Mount of the Holy Cross south of Vail on September 24, 2005 when she vanished without a trace. The mother of four had set off that morning with a friend to summit what was to be her first Colorado 14er  a peak over 14,000 ft tall  but she never made it to the summit.

Instead, after a chaotic morning where the pair were unable to find the correct trailhead then set off late on the wrong trail, which took them on a much longer and more difficult route, Vanek ran out of steam. Just a few hundred yards from the summit, she told her partner she was out of water and unable to continue. It is thought she was likely suffering from altitude sickness and was poorly dressed for high altitude hiking.

She told her hiking partner to continue, and he directed her to begin her descent, telling her he would catch up with her on the way down. That was the last time anybody ever saw Vanek.

Vanek's disappearance prompted a massive search of the boulder field where she was last seen  the biggest in the state's history  but efforts were fruitless. More than 800 volunteers including members of mountain rescue scoured the mountain but didn't find a single trace of the hiker. On the eighth day, the arrival of snow halted the mission.

For 17 years, her disappearance confounded officials, but last summer, two hikers stumbled upon a piece of evidence that may finally crack the case. In August 2022, a man and his son were hiking off-trail north of the summit, below a rocky slope known as the Angelica Couloir, when they discovered a weathered hiking boot. Believing it might be linked to the case, they photographed the boot and contacted authorities, who asked the men to lead them to the discovery.

It's taken over a year, but extensive forensic testing has finally proven that the Sorel Asystec was indeed Vanek's left boot. According to reporting by Denver's 9 News, the discovery helps to shed light on Vanek's final movements that day, with president of the board of Vail Mountain Rescue Scott Beebe disclosing it reveals that Vanek mistook the couloir for the trail and descended into terrain where no one was likely to search. She would likely have only been 100 feet from the trail.

Though no other clues have been found yet, it helps authorities clear up any question about whether there was foul play involved  there wasn't  and gives her loved ones some indication of where she went that day.

View from the top of Mount columbia

14er safety

There are a few factors that add to the risk level of hiking 14ers. Altitude affects everyone differently and effects range swollen fingers and shortness of breath to nausea and disorientation, which can prove fatal.

Its often easier to get lost on a 14er than on a trail through the woods. Though treeline varies from one region to another, any 14er is bound to take you up above it. Once you leave the trees, any soft, well-maintained path tends to give way to boulder fields where you have to rely on rock cairns to navigate. This is tricky and a bit disorienting, and many unsuspecting hikers have spent an unplanned night out in the cold as a result. Read more in our article on hiking 14ers in Colorado.

Hikers are advised to research their route thoroughly, carry extra water and always stick together.


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Reese Witherspoon is an actress, entrepreneur, and busy mom of three. Ava and Deacon, her two kids with Ryan Phillippe, are older, but her youngest son (whom she shares with Jim Toth), 10-year-old Tennessee, recently returned to school. The Morning Show star took to Instagram to post an encouraging message for moms during this stressful time, and it certainly got a reaction from her followers.

Reese posted the video from her home wearing jeans and a gingham-trimmed sweater from her Draper James clothing line. She captioned the post, "This one is for all the moms navigating back-to-school season "

Reese's video included this positive message: PSA For Moms as the kids head back to school:

You are doing an AMAZING job. Things don't have to look Pinterest perfect. The little, simple moments will be their biggest memories. Your kids will be absolutely fine, just breathe mama.

She ends the message with an encouraging, "You've got this!"

Fans left more than a thousand comments on the video, which was "liked" more than 82,000 times. Some left words of appreciation like "100% agree on that" and "While I am a dad, not a mom, I still drew comfort from this post."

Others took the opportunity to point out that Reese's lifestyle is much different than her average follower, and that she and her home, in fact, look "Pinterest perfect" in the video.

"it is a bit.....tonedeaf coming from her"

"Love you girl but this is not realistic!!!"

"I love Reese but she could film this in some yoga pants, ponytail and in the school pickup line and it would be more relatable "

While Reese's delivery may be divisive, her message is something that parents of all kinds can appreciate during this busy season.

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Just a week after Colorado Parks and Wildlife issued a call for caution after a hiker was trampled by a moose, there's been another moose attack in the state.

A woman was walking her dog on the on the South Saint Vrain Trail north of Ward on Wednesday morning when the attack occurred. According to a news release by CPW, the pair surprised the cow moose which then charged the woman, reportedly headbutting and stomping on her several times.

After the attack, the woman was able to walk to a nearby neighbors house, where they called Boulder County deputies for assistance. The dog sustained minor injuries and CPW confirms it was leashed at the time of the attack and has warned hikers and dog walkers to be especially alert at this time of year when bull elk are in rutting season and cow elk have young calves.

"When hiking in riparian habitats, hikers should be aware moose may be in the area resting or eating. Moose can perceive dogs as a threat, and CPW encourages dog owners to keep them on-leash at all times to avoid confrontations. Cow moose can become particularly aggressive when their calf is nearby."

This incident marks the fourth such in encounter in Colorado this year, with three taking place in Boulder County.

Moose in woodland, USA

Moose safety

There are approximately 3,500 moose in the state of Colorado, and though by nature, they are not aggressive creatures, they can become so when feeling threatened, particularly around their young or if theyre harassed by people or dogs.

If you're hiking with a dog in moose country, it's especially important to practice wildlife safety and keep it on-leash. Keep your distance and enjoy it from afar using binoculars.
Luxury EV maker Lucid Group has opened its first international factory in Saudi Arabia, the home of its largest shareholder.

The factory, located in Jeddah, will have initial capacity to assemble 5,000 Lucid vehicles annually, according to the company. Lucid said it plans to expand the facility to 150,000-vehicle production capacity. Workers at the plant will initially re-assemble Lucid Air vehicle kits that are pre-manufactured at the company's U.S. factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. Lucid aims to transition the Saudi Arabian factory to complete build unit production after the middle of the decade.

The factory opening comes one year after the government of Saudi Arabia, which is connected to the kingdoms Public Investment Fund that owns 60% of Lucid, said it would buy 100,000 the automaker's electric vehicles over the next decade.

The government of Saudi Arabia made an initial commitment to buy 50,000 of Lucids EVs with an option to purchase an additional 50,000 vehicles over that same 10-year time frame. The pledge includes the Lucid Air, a luxury sedan that launched in 2021, as well as future models such as the upcoming Gravity SUV.

The EV sales agreement is part of the Saudi kingdoms Vision 2030 plan, which seeks to diversify its economy away from fossil fuels.

Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund, or PIF, invested $1 billion into Lucid Motors in 2018 when it was still a privately held company. The funding was a lifeline for Lucid and ensured the company would be able to start production of its first EV, the Air. PIF held onto its investment when Lucid became a publicly traded company via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.
One of the local authorities on Mercy Hospital Iowa City history is Margaret Reese, a now-retired former community relations employee who still assists with public relations for the hospital as a volunteer.

Smack in the middle of widely publicized turmoil over its finances and future, Iowa City's Mercy Hospital will quietly mark an astounding 150 years of service to this community and beyond next week.

Its a historic milestone that deserves much public respect  how a small, determined group of Irish nuns brought their kindness toward humanity and devotion to proper medical care to this fledgling community and state in 1873.

Unpaid and at times unappreciated, they founded a tiny, primitive hospital here, planting the seeds for what would eventually become at its peak a 264-bed, 1,400-employee medical complex and nursing school, with medical outreach facilities in seven Iowa counties.

The Sisters came here with nothing and made all of this happen, Margaret Reese told me. All they had was their faith and their mission and their willingness to work hard.

Reese is now retired but grew up with Mercy Hospital here, later working for its community relations department and foundation. Shes as passionate as they come about Mercy history.

I had an appointment there this morning, she told me a few days ago. Everybody greeted me warmly and kindly as I walked down the halls. I can feel what the Sisters instilled in these walls.

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This portrait of Mother Catherine McAuley of Dublin, founder of the Sisters of Mercy, was painted by Iowa City artist Cloy Kent in 1981. Reproductions now appear worldwide in Mercy-affiliated facilities, with the original at Mercy Hospital Iowa City.

A trip back to the 19th century

Reese says it all started in 1831 in Ireland when a prominent Dublin woman named Catherine McAuley founded a Catholic community of women to serve the poor, sick and ignorant which became the Sisters of Mercy worldwide.

Seven Sisters of Mercy came to Pittsburgh in 1843 to establish their order in this country. By 1849, they were operating Mercy Hospital in Chicago, later earning respect from Abraham Lincoln for their service to injured Civil War soldiers. By 1869, they had launched a hospital in Davenport, the first in Iowa.

Then on Sept. 27, 1873  exactly a century and a half ago  next Wednesday  four of the Davenport nuns came by train to Iowa City to meet with the University of Iowas Dr. W.F. Peck and other prominent local leaders working to establish a medical school here.

The nuns were offered the Universitys rundown and abandoned Mechanics Academy building on Linn Street near downtown  which no longer exists.

During the Iowa City sesquicentennial parade in 1989, Mercy Hospital staff members created a float on a horse-drawn wagon to reenact the founding of the hospital with three riders modeling the original habits of the early era.

Renovating history to establish a nursing program

It reportedly took the Sisters only three weeks to reclaim the building from the birds and bats, repair and paint the walls, scrub and clean and sterilize all surfaces and equipment, and open for patients. This first Mercy Hospital had male and female wards, four private patient rooms, a dispensary, kitchen, lecture hall, a small chapel and living space for the Sisters.

Seven years later, Reese said they had established their own Mercy School of Nursing, a three-year apprentice program and the first nursing school in Iowa. By 1914, the school opened to women outside of the order for the first time. During the next six decades, the Mercy nursing program would graduate nearly 1,000 Registered Nurses before closing in 1972.

In 1885, the Sisters moved their hospital from the Mechanics Academy to a large home they had purchased two blocks away called the Dostal House. Although collaborators with the University medical staff, Reese said the nuns sought more independence from the University. However, UI doctors continued to practice, perform surgeries, and teach at Mercy.

There were some operational differences of opinion early on as you might expect, but Mercy and the University have always supported each other through the years, she added. Things might come full circle if Mercy develops a closer affiliation with the UI once again 150 years later as has been recently proposed.

The Dostal House was expanded through various additions in the early 1900s. Then, throughout the remainder of the 20th century, Mercy continued to steadily expand its footprint in all directions with new buildings and additions, soon recruiting its own general practitioners and surgeons. In the meantime, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics grew to become the major medical center it is today.

These four Fanning sisters left their home in County Down, Ireland, to join the Sisters of Mercy in their hospital nursing venture in Iowa City in its early days. A meeting room is named after them in Mercys Medical Plaza building.

The final Sister of Mercy leads hospital into the future

As its last Sister of Mercy administrator in the 1970s and 1980s, Sister Mary Venarda was also the first Mercy administrator to hold a masters degree in health administration (MHA) and sparked major improvements. She boosted financial support by establishing the Mercy Foundation, plus she added several new specialties and oversaw more expansion of the main Mercy complex. She also for the first time welcomed lay members to its advisory board and board of directors to help build community support, still reserving three board positions for Sisters of Mercy.

Sister Venarda was followed by the hospitals first lay administrator, Rick Breon, who helped to establish Mercys family medicine clinics and specialty outreach services, plus added more specialty services at the Iowa City facility as well.

Recently, with changes and challenges in health care nationwide, Mercy partnered for several years with the statewide MercyOne system.

Reese and others have high praise for the nuns who devoted their lives to the Mercy Hospital mission over their many decades of service, embedding the institution with an environment of selfless human caring which was cherished in Iowa City.

I have never had as much respect for anyone as I do for these Sisters, Reese said. They never turned anyone away if they couldnt pay. I can still feel that compassion.

Linda Muston, another retired employee who worked closely with Sister Venarda, said the pioneer nuns who started Mercy Hospital 150 years ago this month would be pleased at how they impacted the future development of Iowa City in such a positive way.

The whole medical Mecca we have now in this community may not have happened if these Sisters had not loaded up their blankets and pots and pans and what little medical equipment and supplies they had and taken off from Davenport for Iowa City to launch a hospital.

Richard Hakes is a longtime columnist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Mercy Hospitals 150-year history can be traced back to nuns, care
Travis King , the young American soldier who crossed the border on foot from South Korea into North Korea in July, was back in U.S. custody Wednesday, U.S. officials confirmed. North Korea announced earlier Wednesday that it would expel King, with the totalitarian state's tightly-controlled media saying he had confessed to entering the country illegally.

King was first sent across North Korea's border into China, where he was transferred to U.S. custody. U.S. officials said there were no concessions made by Washington to secure King's release.

King was met by Nicholas Burns, the American ambassador to China, in the city of Dandong, which borders North Korea, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a briefing later on Wednesday. His plane stopped in Shenyang, China, before continuing on to the U.S., where American officials said he will land at a military base.

King appeared to be in "good health and good spirits as he makes his way home," a U.S. official said, adding that he was also "very happy" to be coming back.

Miller said that while he didn't have specific information about King's treatment in North Korean custody, it was likely that King was interrogated. "That would be consistent with past DPRK practice with respect to detainees," he said.

This family photo shows a portrait of American soldier Travis King displayed at the home of his grandfather Carl Gates, July 19, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. / Credit: Family Photo/AP

"U.S. officials have secured the return of Private Travis King from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)," U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement, adding thanks to "the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the People's Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King."

Jonathan Franks, a representative for King's family, shared a message from the soldier's mother, Claudine Gates, on social media Wednesday, saying she would be "forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done," and requesting privacy for the family.

North Korea's KCNA released a statement earlier in the day saying: "The relevant agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [North Korea] decided to expel Travis King, an American soldier who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK, in accordance with the laws of the Republic."

King, a Private 2nd Class in the U.S. Army, entered North Korea while taking part in a guided tour of the border village of Panmunjom, which he joined after absconding from an airport in Seoul, South Korea, where he was supposed to have boarded a flight back to the U.S.

North Korea previously claimed that King had told investigators he crossed the border because he, "harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army."

The U.S. military said at the time that it could not verify those allegations.

The soldier had been scheduled to return to the U.S. after serving time at a South Korea detention facility for assaulting two people and kicking a police car while in the country. After parting ways from his U.S. military escort at the airport, King skipped his flight and joined the civilian tour of the border town, where he ran across into North Korea.

In an interview last month with The Associated Press, King's mother, Claudine Gates, said her son had "so many reasons" to want to come home.

"I just can't see him ever wanting to just stay in Korea when he has family in America. He has so many reasons to come home," she said.

King has served in the U.S. Army since January 2021. He has not been deployed for active duty but was in South Korea as part of the Pentagon's regular Korean Force Rotation.

King is likely to have proven "unsuitable for propaganda purposes" to North Korea, Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean studies in Seoul told CBS News, because the soldier entered North Korea as a fugitive, making it "difficult" for the country's authorities to deal with him.

Yang also told CBS News the decision to deport the soldier was likely made in part due to a "lukewarm" response to the incident by Washington.

CBS News' Cami McCormick in Washington, D.C., and Jen Kwon in Seoul contributed to this report.

North Korea says it will expel Travis King, U.S. soldier who ran across border

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Three higher-education institutions in the region are ranked in SmartAsset's top ten of best value schools in the state, meaning budget-conscious parents and students have pocket-friendly post secondary education options to choose from.

SmartAsset, a consumer-oriented online financial advisory system, recently audited Pennsylvania's colleges and universities and ranked them using five indicators: tuition, student living costs, scholarship and grant offerings, student retention rate, and starting salary for new graduates.

What to know about the schools and universities that made the top ten.

Haverford College, Lehigh University, Villanova University make top ten

Lehigh University, located in Bethlehem in Northampton County, is the highest-ranked regional school, ranking third on SmartAsset's list.

SmartAsset notes that Lehigh University's $61,180 tuition is offset by $28,703 in available grants and loans. And according to Smartasset's tabulation, graduates of Lehigh University have a median starting salary of $74,600.

Lehigh University, located in Bethlehem, is ranked third on Smart Asset's 2023 list of best value colleges and universities in Pennsylvania.

Villanova University, the private co-educational Roman Catholic university on the Main Line, ranks sixth on SmartAsset's list.

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Villanova University has an average undergraduate tuition of $63,806, and offers an average of $38,028 is scholarships and grants.

Villanova University ranks sixth on Smart Asset's 2023 list of best value colleges and universities in Pennsylvania.

According to SmartAsset, Villanova University graduates earn an annual median salary of $70,700.

Haverford College, the private liberal arts college, ranks tenth on SmartAsset's list.

Tuition at Haverford College is $67,522, not including rooming, boarding and a student activity fee, which brings attending Haverford College to $86,540, offset by a $56,604 total available grant package.

Haverford College is ranked tenth on Smart Asset's 2023 list of best value colleges and universities in Pennsylvania.

University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College round out top ten value schools list

Other well-known colleges and universities have made SmartAsset's list. Here is the full top-ten:

1. Carnegie Mellon University.

2. University of Pennsylvania.

3. Lehigh University.

4. University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh campus.

5. Grove City College.

6. Villanova University.

7. Swarthmore College.

8. Lafayette College.

9. Bucknell University.

10. Haverford College.

Student debt crisis: Student loan debt forgiveness becomes a reality for more than 804,000 who paid for decades

Stafford, PLUS loans options for paying for school

Paying for college, even with the available grants and scholarships, can be daunting. There are several options to consider when plotting the fiscal road ahead, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Direct Subsidized Loans and Direct Unsubsidized Loans are federal student loans offered by the U.S. Department of Education to help eligible students pay for higher education.

A Master Promissory Note is binding document signed by the borrower with the promise to repay the loan and any accrued interest and fees to the U.S. Department of Education.

And PLUS Loans are federal loans for eligible parents and graduate or professional students.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Haverford, Lehigh and Villanova rank high on best value list
Warning: This story addresses allegations of domestic violence.

A state trooper in Pennsylvania is facing criminal charges after prosecutors said he abused his power by assaulting an ex-girlfriend and falsely committing her to a psychiatric facility late last month.

Pennsylvania State Police charged Ronald Keith Davis with strangulation, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression in connection to the Aug. 21 incident involving a former lover, the Dauphin County District Attorneys Office reported.

USA TODAY is not naming the victim to protect her identity.

Davis, a nearly nine-year veteran with the department in the south central part of The Keystone State was arrested Thursday, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by USA TODAY.

Married and suspended without pay

Authorities in Pennsylvania said a state trooper abused his power and had his ex-girlfriend committed to a psychiatric facility for five days. This stock image shows a woman in handcuffs.

A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson told USA TODAY Davis, assigned at Troop L in Jonestown, less than 30 miles northeast of the state capital of Harrisburg, was suspended without pay after his arrest.

Prosecutors said Davis, 37, is married and lives with his family in Dauphin County. His arrest affidavit has his address listed in nearby Williamstown.

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'An intimate relationship'

According to the affidavit, Davis had "an intimate relationship" with the victim and obtained an involuntary commitment for her under the Mental Health Procedures Act.

On the day of the incident, Davis  who was off duty  reported to fellow troopers his ex was suicidal, court papers show.

Without waiting for other troopers, prosecutors said, Davis went with an acquaintance who is not in law enforcement and used substantial force upon the woman.

The acquaintance, prosecutors said, recorded the incident.

Footage released by the DA's office shows a man, identified by prosecutors as Davis, restraining his ex-girlfriend in what appears to be a wooded area along a stone-gravel road and then assaulting and strangling her.

In it, the woman reveals she met Davis four months ago, and continually asks him, "What is wrong with you?"

"I don't need help, I just need to get away from you," the woman says in the video as Davis sits on top of her as she lays on her back in gray gravel. "This is not normal, I don't care what anybody says. Can I please stand up.... people like you should not have any form of power."

Ronald K. Davis

At one point Davis tackles her, her head hits the ground and she is heard saying, "I can't breathe" as she begs him to "let her go."

Footage goes on to show the pair back on their feet, with her now facing a vehicle repeatedly saying, "What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong!"

The video, as well as text communications with Davis show the woman was "rational and the involuntary commitment was improper," prosecutors said.

The complaint goes on to say as a result of Davis' actions, the woman was involuntarily committed for five days.

On Thursday, during a his court arraignment in Elizabethville, Magisterial District Judge Rebecca Margerum reviewed the complaint, watched the video, and heard from Davis. After the hearing, prosecutors said, the judge found "no condition or combination of conditions was sufficient to protect the public from Davis."

The judge remanded Davis to jail without bail.

Fingers 'missing the flesh': Indiana baby suffers over 50 rat bites to face in squalid home

Trooper remains incarcerated

Jail records show Davis remained jailed Tuesday night.

Davis' Attorney Jay Nigrini could not immediately be reached by USA TODAY but told the Associated Press he filed a motion to have his client released on bail.

We are confident once all of the facts come to light, Mr. Davis committed no crime but was seeking to protect a troubled young woman who was in need of immediate medical attention, Nigrini told the AP.

Troopers said Davis is slated for a preliminary hearing on his charges Oct. 2.

If you are a victim of domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline allows you to speak confidentially with trained advocates online or by the phone, which they recommend for those who think their online activity is being monitored by their abuser (800-799-7233). They can help survivors develop a plan to achieve safety for themselves and their children.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior correspondent for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ronald Davis, Pennsylvania state trooper, arrested domestic claim
A school board member is suing Peoria Unified School District claiming her freedom of speech and free exercise of religion are being curtailed because district officials asked her to stop reciting Bible verses during board meetings.

Heather Rooks filed the lawsuit Tuesday in federal court. She's being represented by Andrew Gould, who stepped down from the Arizona Supreme Court in 2021 to run for attorney general. Gould is working for First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal organization based in Texas that defended Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of a bakery in Oregon who refused to create a custom wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013.

Heather takes her responsibilities serving the parents and students in her community seriously, and quotes Bible verses as a source of courage and strength in performing those duties," Gould said in a statement.

Rooks, who joined the board in January, had been reciting Bible verses during the portion of governing board meetings reserved for members to publicly recognize schools, groups or individuals who have made a contribution to the district, as well as share information related to their service as Board members, according to boilerplate language on Peoria Unified's board meeting agendas.

Retired Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould stands for a portrait outside the Arizona Supreme Court building in Phoenix on April 23, 2021.

Beginning in February, according to Rooks' lawsuit, several district officials, including the board's legal counsel, told board members that they should refrain from quoting Bible verses during meetings because doing so would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause, which guards against the government favoring a particular religion.

Then, in June, the district received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation urging the Peoria Unified School District administration to stop its board members from quoting Bible verses during meetings and warning that if board members continue to impose religion on those in attendance, it could subject the school district to unnecessary liability and potential financial strain.

The letter prompted the board to be told again by its lawyer that quoting Bible verses raised the threat of legal liability for the district. Rooks, at a board meeting, subsequently said she would stop reciting Bible verses and have her attorneys get involved.

"I am grateful to be a part of the Peoria Unified School board," Rooks said in a statement about her lawsuit. "As a member of the school board, I understand the weight and significance of all of our decisions, and simply find quoting scripture out loud to be encouraging to myself and to many in attendance."

As a board member, Rooks spearheaded a failed push to prevent transgender students from accessing bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. She also voted against a free computer science training program for three of the districts schools from Microsoft due to a statement on the programs website that expressed a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Erin Dunsey, a spokesperson for Peoria Unified, said Wednesday afternoon that the district had not yet been officially served with the suit.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Peoria school district sued over Bible verses at board meetings
Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough voters will elect new mayors and multiple council and board members in the Nov. 7, 2023, general election. (Juli Leonard/jleonard@newsobserver.com)

On Wednesday, state legislators will hear from members of the public in Raleigh about the redistricting process, in which new political maps will be drawn for the 2024 elections.

The maps drawn this fall will help decide which candidates voters have to choose from next year, whether Republicans keep a supermajority in the legislature and possibly even who controls Congress at the national level.

Redistricting has often been a fraught process in North Carolina, where courts have struck down maps several times over concerns of partisan gerrymandering  in which legislators strategically draw districts to benefit their own party.

With the process beginning again, here are some things to know about how redistricting works, its recent history in the state and opportunities to talk to lawmakers about it.

How can I share my thoughts?

Members of the public can attend the joint Redistricting and Elections committee meeting at 4 p.m. on Wednesday in room 643 of the Legislative Office Building, located at 300 N. Salisbury St. in Raleigh.

For those who cant attend in person, the meeting will be live-streamed on the legislatures website.

What is redistricting?

Every 10 years, the state is required to draw new legislative and congressional maps in accordance with new data from the U.S. Census. The process is meant to ensure that the districts lawmakers run in adequately represent the population of the state.



Although this is meant to be a relatively infrequent process, North Carolina has had new legislative maps every year but one since 2017, usually due to court cases regarding partisan gerrymandering.

Whos in charge of making the maps?

In North Carolina, the General Assembly has full control over the redistricting process. This is the case in most of the country, although some states have begun using independent commissions that limit participation from elected officials to draw maps.

Courts also have the ability to strike down maps if they find they have unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts. Republican leaders in North Carolina recently argued in the U.S. Supreme Court that state legislatures should have full authority over redistricting without the potential for judicial review. The court did not agree with this theory.

However, in a recent decision from the state Supreme Court, the Republican justices said that determining partisan gerrymandering was not within the courts purview.

Didnt we just get new maps?

Yes. After a contentious gerrymandering trial, in which the state Supreme Court found maps legislators drew in 2021 to be unconstitutional, a bipartisan group of experts were asked to design the congressional map for the 2022 elections.

That map resulted in a 7-7 split between Democrats and Republicans in the states 2022 elections for the U.S. House.

However, the court-ordered congressional map can only be used for one election cycle. Now, lawmakers will have to draw districts once again, but this time they may be less likely to face scrutiny from the states high court.

After Republicans swept statewide judicial elections in 2022, the state Supreme Court reversed an earlier ruling striking down legislative maps and said the court did not have jurisdiction over claims of partisan gerrymandering.

The ruling also decreed that the General Assembly could enact new legislative maps, rather than simply reverting to the maps that had been previously struck down.

Will I be able to see how legislators draw the new maps?

Under current law, most communications and drafting materials used in the redistricting process are confidential until new maps are approved. After the maps are put in place, most of the documentation that went into creating them becomes public record.

That doesnt mean the public has gotten a full view. In a gerrymandering trial last year, GOP redistricting leader Rep. Destin Hall admitted that he had used secret reference maps during the redistricting process. When plaintiffs in the case asked to see these maps, they were told the maps no longer existed.

Now there are new obstacles to access. Lawmakers slipped a provision into the new state budget, which is expected to become law next week, that repeals access to these records.

Once the budget with the new provision goes into effect, it appears lawmakers will not be required to fulfill any public records requests concerning the creation of new maps.

Over 50 groups, led by Common Cause NC, sent a letter to lawmakers on Monday expressing concern about the budget provision and demanding an open and transparent redistricting process.

We urge you to make the promise of democracy real by leading a redistricting process that creates voting plans reflective of the actual demographics, values, interests, and needs of North Carolinians, the letter said.

When will new maps be approved?

Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters last week that he hoped to hold votes on redistricting by the week of Oct. 9.

Capitol Bureau Chief Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan contributed to this report.

Monster, Part 1: So you want to make a map...

In the first episode of this special Under the Dome series, we explore the rules of redistricting  the drawing of new electoral maps. Those rules often conflict, and that friction is a prime reason why North Carolina sits center stage during battles over gerrymandering.

Monster, Part 2: What gerrymandering isn't

In the second episode of this special Under the Dome series, we examine why defining gerrymandering is harder than it appears. Bizarre shapes dont always translate to political shenanigans. And some of our own choices  about who we are and where we live  complicate the picture.

Monster, Part 3: Math on the front lines

In the third episode, we dive deep into the mathematics that could be the key to quantifying and fighting gerrymandering. Some of that math dates back to secret U.S. atomic bomb labs. And although complex, its inner workings are built on some familiar ideas.

Monster, Part 4: All eyes on Raleigh

In the fourth episode of this special Under the Dome series, we unravel the politics of mapmaking today, the potential for reform and how the choices state legislators make will impact the legal fight over district lines for years.
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Congressional Republicans held a remote hearing on crime in the United States Tuesday in Chicago where they placed blame on policies created by Democrats.

During the hearing, those in attendance heard from Gianno Caldwell, a Fox News political analyst whose younger brother, Christian, was shot and killed last year in Chicago.

Christian will never have the opportunity to go to college, Caldwell said. Shot down in the street by a stranger when a group of men stepped out of a black SUV and fired into a crowd.

He alongside former police officers claimed that Democrats policies on crime have only added fuel to the fire. One officer who spoke, Carlos Yanez, retired after he was wounded in a 2021 shooting. Yanez was especially critical of Illinois decision to end cash bail and the city of Chicagos decision to restrict foot chases for law enforcement.

Stop coddling criminals and hold them accountable, Yanez said.

Among the congressional leaders at the hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) led the discussions.

Innocent people in Chicago are victimized by a justice system that cares more about political correctness than punishing the criminals, he said.

No Democrats were present at the hearing but several did make comments on them. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09) said that Republicans have no business being in Chicago as the country heads toward a government shutdown.

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin also accused Republicans of using law enforcement as political pawns on social media.

Last week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said that the city is working with the White House to help tackle the root causes of gun violence.

Mental health is a big deal for everyone we also have to make sure that were investing in people and were investing in our economy, Johnson said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
The Clark County Superior Court jury found 28-year-old Guillermo Raya Leon guilty Tuesday of aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Clark County sheriffs Sgt. Jeremy Brown, The Columbian reported.

VANCOUVER, Wash.  A jury has convicted a Salem man of murder in the fatal shooting of a sheriffs deputy in Washington state.

The Clark County Superior Court jury found 28-year-old Guillermo Raya Leon guilty Tuesday of aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Clark County sheriffs Sgt. Jeremy Brown, The Columbian reported.

Raya Leon was also convicted on charges of trafficking in stolen property, burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and two counts of having a stolen gun. The jury also found in favor of the aggravating factor that Raya Leon knew Brown was a law enforcement officer, along with a firearm enhancement on four of the counts.

Aggravated murder carries a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison. Raya Leon's sentencing was set for early October.

Brown was shot on July 23, 2021, as he was doing surveillance in his unmarked SUV at an east Vancouver apartment complex. Law enforcement officers were investigating Raya Leon, his brother and his brothers wife in a case described by prosecutors as a conspiracy to steal dozens of firearms and thousands of ammunition rounds from a storage unit and then sell them.

Defense attorney Therese Lavallee in court said Raya Leon did not intend to shoot Brown. Prosecutors said Raya Leon knew Brown was a law enforcement officer and that Raya Leon thought things over before confronting the detective and shooting him from behind.

After the verdict, Lavallee said she respected the jury's decision.

A jury in August convicted Raya Leons brother, Abran Raya Leon, of second-degree murder, possession of a stolen firearm and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. He was the getaway driver in the shooting, and a judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison.

Misty Raya, who is married to Abran Raya Leon and is accused of initiating the firearms trafficking scheme, has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges and is scheduled for trial next month.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon man convicted of murder in fatal shooting of deputy
Beaufort Memorial Hospital has seen demand for surgeries increase by more than 4,000 procedures in the past five years and even the countys largest health care facility cant keep pace without growing their surgical capacity. The hospital announced construction Tuesday an expansion of the surgical pavilion to serve the increasing needs of the Lowcountrys population.

Details of the approximately $24M dollar project, due to be completed in three years, includes adding two state-of-the-art surgical suites to focus on advanced procedures. Existing suites will be enlarged to accommodate new technologies and pre-op and post-op care areas will be renovated to streamline patient flow.

Russell Baxley, CEO and President of BMH said, In 2018 we (the medical staff) performed 8,516 surgical procedures, serving Beaufort, Hampton, and Jasper Counties. he continued, today we will finish our fiscal year with 12,000-plus surgical cases performed or 4,000 more than 2018. He also cited that this period of increased demand coincided with the pandemic and the worst three years any health care worker can remember.

Yet we have the same amount of rooms, and the same amount of space in the surgical space as we did in 2018, Baxley continued, The need is great because we do not see the slowdown in surgical services coming anytime soon.

According to hospital officials, planning for this project began in 2018 with the medical staff and architects collaborating to identify the space, technology and equipment needed to meet the areas current and growing surgical demands.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, an advocate for $17.9M dollars of the projects funding from federal sources, concurred with Baxley that the need locally has increased drastically. Just demand - we are losing nurses - a whole generation of nurses is about to retire. We are going to have to up our game when it comes to training people in the healthcare profession. Diseases like diabetes are devastating to South Carolina. We have high rates of heart disease. When it comes to healthcare in South Carolina, the answer is, more. More doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more preventative medicine.

Beaufort Memorial received the federal funds for the project, as part of the 2022 Omnibus Bill passed to provide support for critical infrastructure projects, according to the press release provided.

The hospital opened in 1944 and is currently licensed for 201 patient beds. The last time a major renovation was completed to the hospital was more than 30 years ago.
[Source]

U.S. Army Private Travis King , who had crossed into North Korea in July, has been returned to American custody, according to two U.S. officials.

North Korea deports King: North Korea announced its decision to "expel" King, 23, after completing an investigation, and just hours before he was confirmed to be back in U.S. custody. According to North Korean state media, King allegedly admitted to illegally entering the country and cited reasons such as ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.

U.S. officials said that King has been transferred to American custody through China, the Associated Press reported.

Crossing the line: King crossed the military demarcation line from South Korea into North Korea without authorization during a tour of the Joint Security Area inside the demilitarized zone on July 18. He attempted to enter a facility before he was taken away by North Korean guards.

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Prior assault allegations: Before his entry into North Korea, King had faced assault allegations in South Korea, where he spent nearly seven weeks in a detention facility and was due to be removed from the military. On the day he entered North Korea, King was supposed to board a flight to Texas. However, he reportedly left the airport on his own after being released by Army escorts at a security checkpoint.

Last month, North Korea stated that King sought refuge in their nation due to disillusionment with what he perceived as an unequal U.S. society.

Propaganda tool: U.S. officials had reached out to North Korea through various channels regarding King, but Pyongyang did not engage in diplomatic talks. The U.S. previously expressed concern that North Korea might use King as a propaganda tool or bargaining chip. However, Kings location, conditions of detention and health status were unclear during his time in North Korea.

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King family reaction: Jonathan Franks, a spokesperson for King's mother, Claudine Gates, said in a statement: Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done. For the foreseeable future, the family asks for privacy and Ms. Gates does not intend to give any interviews.

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Amid all the confusion on that still spring evening in late May, one thing was clear to Rotesha McNeil as she sat handcuffed in a deputys cruiser: There had to be some mistake.

Yet there she was, headed to the Johnston County Detention Center hours before dawn broke in Clayton, in custody on an arrest order that wasnt supposed to exist.

Kevin Spruill was similarly baffled when Zebulon police pulled him over in March on an outstanding warrant  supposedly for obtaining property under false pretenses. Hed been arrested on that felony charge a few weeks earlier, appeared before a judge, posted bond and was prepared to show up for court again in three days to insist on his innocence.

But the warrant  for some reason  remained. Hands cuffed, he awkwardly thumbed through his phone to show his release paperwork to the Zebulon officer, who eventually let him go. But when he showed up for his next court date, he was shocked when he was detained yet again.

On paper, these two cases dont appear to have much in common. They involved different charges. They originated from different times and with different law enforcement agencies.

But McNeil and Spruill have signed on  along with a growing list of others  to a potential class action civil rights lawsuit against the developers of a $100 million-plus software package meant to drag North Carolinas archaic court system into the online age.

Rather than improve the operations of the state courts, the lawsuit alleges, the rollout of the electronic system designed by the Texas-based Tyler Technologies Inc. has wrongfully landed people in jail.

And as the courts ready for a significant expansion of eCourts on Oct. 9 to Mecklenburg County, the highest-volume courthouse in the state, plaintiffs in the lawsuit arent the only ones concerned.

At least two district attorneys have urged court administrators to order an independent review of the launch and its ongoing problems. And some defense attorneys struggling with the system in Wake, one of the four pilot counties where the eCourts case management system rolled out in mid-February, say its disruptions and slowdowns are putting the publics constitutional rights at serious risk.

If DoorDash has a bug in the system, you might not get your potato chips, Steven Saad, a former prosecutor who now runs a private defense practice, said. If theres a bug in this system, people get arrested. They lose their licenses.

Tyler Technologies referred questions about the rollout of its eCourts software to the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts, the agency managing the transition.

As a standard practice, we do not comment on pending litigation, Tyler spokesperson Karen Shields said in an email to The N&O in late August.

Tyler asked a federal judge to dismiss the suit in a filing Sept. 20, arguing the case contained no plausible factual allegations against the company, which has no legal duty to protect plaintiffs and is not responsible for the softwares daily use.

AOC declined repeated requests over four weeks from The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer to make Director Ryan Boyce available for an interview.

In emailed responses to a list of questions from the McClatchy newspapers, a spokesperson denied eCourts caused any erroneous arrests. And although he acknowledged intermittent issues with performance, he contends the rollout has improved court operations and increased transparency for the public.

The comprehensive scope of the eCourts project in North Carolina connects law enforcement, courts, and the public, to move our state from a laggard to a leader with long-term benefits for a generation, AOC spokesperson Graham Wilson said in an email to The N&O Sept. 1.

But that lurch toward a more connected court has come at a cost, argues Zack Ezor, an attorney with the Triangle-based law firm that filed the federal civil rights suit  one the state has so far failed to reckon with.

Theres just been a tremendous callousness from the powers that be about the sort of collateral damage that its caused, Ezor said.

Kevin Spruill awaits a dismissal in his case in the gallery of a Wake County courtroom Aug. 24, months after he was detained twice on a warrant that should have been recalled in the states electronic court system.

Vision of a virtual courthouse

Moving 100 county courthouses from a system of paper records and decades-old physical mainframes is, suffice it to say, a complicated job.

When fully rolled out statewide, eCourts will be the cloud-based backbone of court operations. Its how cops know who to arrest. How attorneys will access documents. How judges will sign and issue orders. The system must withstand a tremendous volume of court activity across the state, especially in counties like Wake, which alone processes more than 10,000 civil, criminal and infraction cases filed every month.

For the public, it will mean the ability to file, look up and view court records from anywhere with an internet connection  without having to drive to a courthouse.

The process started in earnest five years ago, when the Administrative Office of the Courts held meetings across the state to figure out what courthouses actually wanted from such an upgrade. After months spent evaluating proposals from vendors  and with the unanimous support of a committee of court officials from across the state  the AOC in mid-2019 signed a 10-year contract with Tyler Technologies Inc., a publicly traded firm headquartered in Plano, Texas. The initial cost: $85 million.

The suite of products the state purchased would help create a virtual courthouse, where paper processes are a thing of the past and efficiencies are gained by Judicial Branch offices across North Carolina, AOC interim Director McKinley Wooten said at the time.

It was the companys largest-ever software-as-a-service deal  and the most populous state its Odyssey software had handled yet, according to a Tyler press release. An expansion of the contract less than a year later increased the states price tag to about $100 million.

In a statement to The N&O in early September, an AOC spokesperson noted that the four-county pilot has spared the public from courthouse trips and has saved more than 1.5 million pieces of paper by processing an average of 10,000 remote records searches per day and nearly 300,000 total electronic filings over six months.

But in more than seven months of operation, eCourts critics have been persistent and numerous.

Local news stations noted problems with the publication of Social Security numbers and other private information, the execution of expunctions  even the validity of divorces. Top state House Democrat Robert Reives, a practicing attorney, called for an inquiry into the launch before later backing down.

AOC leaders, however, have pushed back against those criticisms  at times forcefully  in letters and prepared statements in which Boyce has sought to respectfully refute significant misinformation.

Then came the civil rights lawsuit in May, in which two residents of Wake and Lee counties alleged that not only were their arrests violations of their civil rights, but the mistakes that landed them in jail were foreseeable.

By the time the case winds its way through federal court, however, attorneys involved with the suit predict the list of plaintiffs will grow much, much larger.

Wrongly detained, strip-searched

Rotesha McNeil was almost home when she saw the blue lights of a Johnston County deputys cruiser in her rearview mirror just after midnight on May 30.

It was supposed to be a quick trip up the road to pick up her husband after his late-night shift as a truck driver  she hadnt even bothered to wake her teenage daughter before she left.

After she stopped, the deputy told her the light that was supposed to illuminate her license plate was out. But after running her name, he and a Clayton police officer who pulled up to assist said she had warrants out for her arrest.

The arrest orders originated from charges years earlier over her expired registration and suspended license. Shed hired a lawyer, paid the fines and her attorney had sent her paperwork after resolving the case.

Rotesha McNeil, photographed at her home on Aug. 16 in Clayton, N.C. Months after her attorney settled traffic violations in Wake County court, McNeil was arrested after a traffic stop in Johnston County on two outstanding warrants for her arrest. She was taken to Smithfield where she was booked into the detention center, strip-searched and detained for hours before posting bond.

The deputy was sympathetic, she said. He let her sit, handcuffed, in the front seat with him as he pointed to the readout of the electronic warrant system on his cruiser terminal.

He turned the screen to me and showed me where it said two warrants for your arrest, and they said failure to appear in Wake County, McNeil said.

At the county detention center, staff took her mugshot. She was asked to strip while a female detention officer conducted a cavity search.

I told her: I feel like you just raped me, she said.

As the hours ticked by, she shifted back and forth from a holding cell, where she paced alone, to an area nearby where she made frantic phone calls to her lawyer and her husband, who had been working to reach a bondsman.

He found one early that morning, and secured his wifes release for $300. But McNeil wasnt done.

That same morning, they drove to Raleigh to confront the clerks at the justice center downtown, who McNeil said confirmed a mistake with the warrant for her arrest.

The girl told me, Oh, its supposed to have been taken off, she said. But no one took it off.

I figured it was a mistake

The states case against Kevin Spruill was, by all accounts, a strange one.

A few weeks after he bought groceries at a local Food Lion in June 2022, an officer came knocking on his door in Morrisville asking him to come downtown to help with an investigation. He said the officer didnt provide many details.

Spruill declined.

I didnt hear anything else about it, Spruill told The N&O. I figured it was a mistake.

Almost eight months later, he was pulled over in Durham while heading home from a friends house. The deputy initially told Spruill he stopped him because his license plate frame obscured his tag. But about 20 minutes later, the deputy told Spruill there was a felony warrant for his arrest  a woman hed never met reported that her bank account had been fraudulently used to purchase $105.92 worth of groceries.

At that point, I was extremely confused, he said, noting that he made the purchase with his own debit card, drawn from his own checking account.

Spruill was handcuffed and booked on one charge of obtaining property under false pretenses at the Durham County Detention Center, where he posted bond and was released the same night.

Kevin Spruill awaits a dismissal in his case in the gallery of a Wake County courtroom Aug. 24.

He ended up in handcuffs twice more  once when he was stopped in Zebulon and again when he showed up to court for the case in question  and said he only managed to avoid jail time because law enforcement took him seriously when he showed them his court paperwork.

At that point, I was like: You gotta be kidding me, Spruill said. We just did this a couple of days ago.

Spruill said court officials at the time werent clear on why the warrant kept popping up, again and again.

They were saying that my file didnt upload into the system for whatever reason, Spruill said. I just assumed it got lost in the shuffle. Thats all the information I got.

Ezor, one of the attorneys handling the potential class action suit against Tyler Technologies and law enforcement officials, said hes talked to dozens of potential clients across the state who have similar stories. Two plaintiffs were named in the original complaint filed in May, while others  like Spruill and McNeil  will be added in the coming weeks, Ezor said.

Many of his new clients were forwarded directly from frustrated defense attorneys, he said.

In the time that we filed it, we have just heard from many, many, many more people who weve been signing up in the interim as co-plaintiffs in this case, Ezor said. The stories are pretty disturbing.

In response to questions from The N&O about the cases in the lawsuit and other wrongful arrests, an AOC spokesperson said the agency has investigated these and similar claims and found no instance when an eCourts software defect resulted in a wrongful arrest or incarceration.

The agency was unable to say how many of these claims theyve investigated, the spokesperson said, as reviewing reported issues is a core function of the NCAOC for eCourts and legacy systems that our teams conduct on a regular basis.

In the lawsuit referenced in (The N&Os) question, AOC is aware of two plaintiffs, Wilson, the AOC spokesperson, said. Over one million criminal processes and hundreds of thousands of electronic filings have been processed in eCourts applications.

Rotesha McNeil and her husband, Jermaine McNeil, photographed in their home on Aug. 16 in Clayton, N.C. McNeil signed onto a potential class action suit alleging her civil rights were violated when she was arrested on warrants that should have been recalled from the states new eCourts system.

Human error, or tech error?

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said shes aware of cases where people were wrongfully arrested after the pilot launched. Such arrests happened occasionally before the launch, she said, because of human error.

But the change in how the new systems operate increased the likelihood of those errors  at least initially, she said. Where the old system would have immediately recalled arrest warrants when a case was closed, the new system requires clerks to cancel arrest warrants manually in an additional step.

It was a change in business process. It just took some time for everybody to kind of learn, Freeman said. And while that learning process was going on, unfortunately, ones got missed and people got served with orders for arrest that should not have been.

Once court staff became aware, she said they jumped on it very quickly to reduce the risks of more improper arrests. AOC now generates a report that alerts clerks to cases that have been closed out but still have active warrants in the system, she said.

Freeman said errors like those described in the civil rights lawsuit are no longer happening at the same frequency. And even when the problem was at its peak, she doesnt believe it was systemic.

I dont have information that would lead me to believe that it was ever really high or that this impacted a lot of people, Freeman said.

DAs want independent review of rocky digital courts launch. Why that looks unlikely

Part of the value of the federal lawsuit, Ezor said, is to reveal the causes of these mistakes and how widespread theyve really been.

Our job is actually to figure out both whats going on with the technology, but then also, where some of the gaps might have been in training, Ezor said. Because Tylers job was to deliver a successfully functioning digital case management system and warrant system and not to simply just throw the keys to the car on the ground and hope that the person figures out how to drive.

Ezor anticipates more clients will sign onto the suit, which has not yet been certified as a class action by a judge, when eCourts goes live in Mecklenburg County.

But beyond the prospect of wrongful arrests, hes also worried about the basic operations of the courts in the states second most populous county.

Everythings just going to slow way down. And I dont think theyre ready, Ezor said.

Slowdowns and shutdowns

Those slowdowns are still on the minds of district attorneys in the original pilot counties, seven months after the eCourts launch.

The bigger issues that we have right now are some of the inefficiencies in the system that arent getting better, Freeman told The N&O in late August. And I would have expected them to get better by now.

She acknowledged that theres been significant improvement in the courts day-to-day operations, compared with the days post-launch. And she stressed that the courts business is getting done.

Theres no way, from my perspective, if people are being honest, that they can say that were not running a lot more efficiently today than we were in March, Freeman said.

But despite seven months of operation, she said the courthouse is still not running like it was compared to last year.

Most notable, she said, is the slow operation of eCourts and that it goes offline with some regularity. Those problems arent just minor inconveniences for attorneys, clerks and judges  they can frustrate the public too.

Were totally dependent on it, right? So you got a courtroom full of people, and I cant pull up a single case because the systems down and everybodys just sitting there, Freeman said. How does that instill confidence?

A sign posted outside a Wake County courtroom Sept. 13, 2023, notifies defendants of a problem with the electronic courts system. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said she had to send about 60 people waiting for resolution on their cases home because of the problem.

Case in point: The system froze and locked out users in one Wake County courtroom on Sept. 13, bringing proceedings to a grinding halt. Freeman said she had to send about 60 people waiting for resolution on their cases home  forcing them to come back to court another day.

That means more time off work. More arrangements for child care. More time spent with a pending charge impacting jobs, housing  even drivers licenses.

In Johnston County, the second-largest court system in the pilot, District Attorney Susan Doyle said eCourts is still plagued with problems.

I have sent numerous videos to AOC and Tyler representatives showing them how slow the system is and how that prevents us from working cases efficiently, Doyle wrote in an email to The N&O on Sept. 14. I sent so many emails and videos that Tyler installed a program on my computer that enabled them to watch what was happening in real time as I attempted to access cases.

And shes not alone, she said.

Every single user in pilot county district attorneys offices experiences this same thing, Doyle wrote. Unfortunately, there have been no solutions.

For their part, state court leaders have acknowledged the rollout has not been easy given the monumental nature of the transformation. But in a response to questions from The N&O, an AOC spokesperson said eCourts has seen improvement in both software and infrastructure performance during the pilot phase.

Weve heard from attorneys and court officials that eCourts has made significant progress on system stability and latency and improved the operations of the courts, a statement from Wilson said in an email Sept. 1.

When The N&O asked AOC to provide examples of that feedback from users in the states pilot counties, the agency shared a letter from State Bar President Marcia Armstrong, who wrote to her organizations members in April that there were still issues to address and processes to smooth out.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman works administrative traffic court in the Wake County Justice Center in Raleigh on Sept. 14.

The State Bar recognizes that these growing pains can be frustrating, but also firmly believes that once the implementation is complete, the new system will revolutionize our court system and promote much greater access to justice for everyone in North Carolina, Armstrongs letter said.

She told The N&O by email that the staff at her firm in Johnston County has found the eCourts system helpful.

It is very convenient to file and retrieve documents from the comfort of our office, Armstrong wrote on Sept. 15. Recently, I heard one of our paralegals let out a yahoo when she did not have to weather a storm to go to the courthouse to file a document.

Johnston Clerk of Court Michelle Ball said, at this point, her county is having a great experience, with eCourts.

It hasnt been easy, and there are more mountains to conquer, she said, but over time theyve improved the system  even winning some early critics over.

Was it easy? No, she said. Was it doable? Yes.

As one of the pilot counties, she said, part of their role was figuring out and improving the system for the rest of the state.

Doyle disagrees with AOCs assessment that eCourts has made significant progress on slowdowns and downtime since launch.

Its not designed to handle the volume she and other prosecutors see in some of their courtrooms and never will be, she said. It takes time for the system to load and display individual cases, and she said her attorneys frequently get kicked out of the system, forcing them to reboot their laptops to continue working.

And such delays require more people to keep court running. Before the launch, she said shed normally send one prosecutor to district court to handle the days cases. Those days are over.

The system is so inefficient due to the latency and instability that it requires at least two assistant district attorneys to prosecute a calendar now, Doyle wrote, adding that heavier days in some courtrooms require four prosecutors instead of two.

Some days are better than others, said Suzanne Matthews, who serves as the district attorney for both Harnett and Lee counties, the other two courts in the eCourts pilot. But when the system is moving like molasses, she said its frustrating for attorneys to plead with judges and the public for patience in court while they access cases.

Even an incremental slowdown with every case, when you have 600 cases on the docket, that adds up, Matthews said.

Although Matthews said she expected the system to work better after seven months of operation, she hasnt given up hope.

The public has a level of access they have not had in the past, Matthews said. That is a huge improvement.

Cary-based defense attorney Lindsey Granados is the president of the Wake County Academy of Criminal Trial Lawyers. Despite operating now at what she considers peak efficiency with the eCourts system, she said her office is still struggling to keep up  and handles far fewer cases than before the pilot.

Our functionality has been drastically reduced at the expense of our clients constitutional rights, Granados said.

Jobs that used to take 15 to 20 minutes  like excusing a missed court date and recalling an active warrant  can take a week or more in the eCourts system, she said. Attorneys have to manually check and recheck their cases as they wait for judges signatures or for court dates rescheduled without notification. She has to hound court officials to find documents and motions that she feels shes just filing into the ether of the cloud-based system.

Everybody is exhausted because of the extra time that it takes to do anything that we used to do, Granados said.

Shes spent the last year as part of the countys eCourts implementation committee pushing for improvements to the system. But shes concerned that AOC wont make more serious changes until use of the system spreads to more of the states remaining 96 counties.

Right now, it feels like were a four-pilot-county little island in the middle of the ocean, Granados said. Were screaming, and nobody can hear us.

In his email to The N&O Sept. 14, the AOCs Wilson said theyve fixed all of the high-priority defects that the agency previously said must be resolved before expansion could continue to Mecklenburg.

Doyle remains unconvinced.

The eCourts system is absolutely not ready for expansion into other counties, she wrote in an email to The N&O.

She and the other pilot county district attorneys have created their own list of fixes they believe are necessary before the rollout continues.

We are hoping to meet with AOC soon to address this list, Doyle wrote Sept. 14. However, there is nothing on that list that we have not already expressed concerns about to AOC.

The chatter around court, criminal defense attorney John Griffin III said, has not been optimistic.

Everybodys like: good luck.

Kevin Spruill talks with his attorney, Molly ONeil, after his case was dismissed Aug. 24, months after he was detained twice on a warrant that should have been recalled in the states electronic court system. Spruill is one of several plaintiffs who signed onto a potential class action lawsuit filed in federal courts alleging that the rollout of the states eCourt system violated their civil rights.

The aftermath

On Aug. 24, almost a full year after a warrant was first issued for Kevin Spruills arrest, an assistant district attorney dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

DEFENDANT PAID FOR THE ALLEGED AMOUNT OUT OF HIS OWN BANK ACCOUNT. WHILE VICS BANK ACCOUNT WAS ALSO CHARGED, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THIS DEF HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT, the voluntary dismissal reads.

The dismissal document was logged in the eCourts system at 9:37 a.m., as Spruill waited silently in the gallery of a Wake County courtroom.

After an N&O reporter showed him the new entry, Spruill decided to wait, just to be sure.

About an hour later, his court-appointed attorney appeared with news. In a rare move, the prosecutor wanted to speak with him directly to apologize.

After their conversation, Spruill told The N&O the ADA didnt have many answers for how the mess occurred. But he was thankful the ordeal was over.

Its kind of like fighting in the dark, Spruill said. Somebodys kind of swinging a bat at you, and you dont know where its coming from next.

Outside the courtroom and packing up to leave, he still carried his paperwork from the first time he was arrested and released  the documents that helped him avoid jail time twice before. Just in case.

I might just keep it as a memento at this point, he said with a laugh. Just as a reminder, man: You cant take stuff for granted.

As ready as he is to move on, he still wants someone held accountable. So does Rotesha McNeil. Its why they both signed onto the lawsuit.

Theres no part of me that says let it go, for the simple fact that I have a mugshot thats floating around on the internet, McNeil said. I can never get my mugshot back.

As a travel nurse, she worries about how the arrest will look each time she applies for a new hospital contract. When McNeil is asked if shes ever been arrested, she has to explain what happened in case it comes up on a background check.

She no longer trusts the judicial system. She avoids driving at night, fearful of getting stopped and arrested again.

When her husband needs a ride home from a night shift, she said, hes on his own.

Reporters Virginia Bridges of The News & Observer and Ryan Oehrli of The Charlotte Observer contributed to this story.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  In 1987, a 6-year-old boy was found dead on Californias Sherman Island four days after being abducted near his Vallejo home.

Nearly four decades later, police arrested Fred Cain III, of Central Point, Oregon, on Sept. 18, after DNA technology connected him to the crime and exonerated a previous suspect, according to the Solano County District Attorneys Office.

Target shutting down 3 Portland stores amid safety, theft concerns

According to an autopsy performed shortly after the crime, the boy had been sexually assaulted.

A 6-year-old boy was found dead on Sherman Island in Sacramento County four days after being abducted near his Vallejo, Calif., home. (KOIN)

Fred Cain was arrested at his home in Central Point, Oregon and charged with the 1987 murder of a child in California, September 26, 2023 (Solano County Sheriff)

Cain faces charges of murder with special circumstance allegations of kidnapping and sodomy. He will be transferred to Solano County after waiving extradition in Oregon.

The previous suspect, Shawn Melton, had been accused because he appeared to have knowledge only the person responsible for the childs death would know, officials say.

Melton was charged with murder and kidnapping, but the case was dismissed when a jury could not reach a verdict.

The advances in DNA technology have since exonerated Mr. Melton and has implicated another person responsible for the young childs death, the D.A.s office said.

Guilty: Guillermo Raya-Leon murdered Detective Jeremy Brown

In 2014, District Attorney Krishna Abrams reinstated a cold case unit to hold offenders accountable, seek long-awaited justice, and bring closure for all the victims families that had been greatly impacted.

I am so thankful to have such dedicated cold case investigators that no matter how much time goes by they remain steadfast in their commitment to solving these horrific cases, said Abrams.

The D.A.s office said to preserve the integrity of the pending case, it is sharing no further details at this time.

According to the Los Angeles Times, citing public records, Melton died in 2000, more than 20 years before DNA evidence could clear him of the crime.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Santiago Ochoa's reporting for the Yakima Herald-Republic is possible with support from Report for America and community members through the Yakima Valley Community Fund. For information on republishing, email news@yakimaherald.com.
With the Dalles Dam in the background, Duane Miller fishes for salmon on the Columbia Riverat the Lone Pine In-Lieu Site in Oregon. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times, 2022)
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey arrives to the federal courthouse in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Menendez is due in court to answer to federal charges alleging he used his powerful post to secretly advance Egyptian interests and carry out favors for local businessmen in exchange for bribes of cash and gold bars. (Jeenah Moon / The Associated Press)
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Boutique Group, a hospitality company fully owned by Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Sommet Education, a leading international network of hospitality management and culinary arts schools, to upskill its employees in the hospitality arena.

The collaboration between Boutique Group, a company involved in the development of historic and cultural landmarks into ultra-luxury boutique hotels, and Sommet Education will focus on three main areas: training programs, recruitment, and internships.

Sommet Education will support Boutique Group through customised and bespoke training pathways, enabling Boutique Group employees to benefit from Sommet Education's vast experience in crafting hospitality programs, tailored to the talent development of the companys employees.

As Boutique Group continues to recruit talent, locally and internationally, Sommet Education has the opportunity to play a significant role through its established network to ensure that the unique talents from its hospitality schools join the Boutique Groups team, said a statement.

Sommet Education encompasses prestigious institutions such as Swiss originated hospitality business schools Glion Institute of Higher Education and Les Roches, together with culinary and pastry arts school Ecole Ducasse. It is the only education group with two in the Top 5 globally-ranked institutions for hospitality education and by employer reputation (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023).

Boutique Group will offer internship programmes for students, providing them with invaluable hands-on training and experience. In turn this will help to establish a talent network, ensuring a flow of passionate individuals who are familiar with the company's ethos and standards.

CEO of Boutique Group, Mark De Concinis, and CEO of Sommet Education Benoit-Etienne Domenget met in Abu Dhabi at the Future Hospitality Summit and Arabian Hospitality Investment Conference 2023, to sign the MoU on September 26, 2023.

Boutique Group is a platinum sponsor of FHS & AHIC 2023, an international platform where the worlds most influential hospitality investment decision makers connect, exchange knowledge and explore new partnerships, making the venue a fitting place to solidify the agreement.

Mark De Cocinis, CEO, Boutique Group, said: Partnering with Sommet Education was a natural next step for us. Their commitment to delivering top-tier hospitality management and culinary arts schooling directly aligns with our goals of cultivating industry professionals and fuels my enthusiasm for fostering Saudi talents. Through innovative training, we aim to nurture possibility and inspire the visionaries who will drive our industry forward.

Benoit-Etienne Domenget, CEO of Sommet Education, said: "We are excited about our collaboration with novel pioneers, Boutique Group, as it enhances our potential to revolutionize how hospitality professionals are developed. We spark new heights of greatness for generations of leaders via collaborative programs that combine our recognized expertise.  TradeArabia News Service
FILE - A U.S. Food and Drug Administration building is seen behind FDA logos at a bus stop on the agency's campus in Silver Spring, Md., on Aug. 2, 2018. Federal health advisers voted against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrigs disease at a Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WASHINGTON (AP)  Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrigs disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy.

The panel of Food and Drug Administration experts voted 17-1 that drugmaker Brainstorms stem cell-based treatment has not been shown effective for patients with the fatal, muscle-wasting disease known as ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. One panel member abstained from voting.

While the FDA is not bound by the vote, it largely aligns with the agencys own strikingly negative review released earlier this week, in which staff scientists described Brainstorms application as scientifically incomplete and grossly deficient.

"Creating false hope can be considered a moral injury and the use of statistical magic or manipulation to provide false hope is problematic, said Lisa Lee, a bioethics and research integrity expert from Virginia Tech, who voted against the treatment. The lone positive vote came from a panel member representing patients.

Wednesday's public meeting was essentially a longshot attempt by Brainstorm and the ALS community to sway FDAs thinking on the treatment, dubbed NurOwn.

Brainstorms single 200-patient study failed to show that NurOwn extended life, slowed disease or improved patient mobility. But FDA agreed to convene the panel of outside advisers after ALS patients and advocates submitted a 30,000-signature petition seeking a public meeting.

In the last year, the FDA has approved two new drugs for ALS, after a nearly 20-year drought of new options. The approvals followed intense lobbying by advocacy groups.

FDA leaders have recently emphasized a new level of regulatory flexibility when reviewing experimental treatments for fatal, hard-to-treat conditions, including ALS, Alzheimers and muscular dystrophy.

But the agency appears unwilling to overlook the failed study results and missing information in Brainstorms submission, including key details on manufacturing and quality control needed to establish the products safety.

Story continues

It really is a disease that needs a safe and effective treatment and there are a lot of other prospects out there that we need to encourage. Approving one like this would get in the way of that, said Dr. Kenneth Fischbeck of the National Institutes of Health.

ALS destroys nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord needed to walk, talk, swallow and  eventually  breathe. Most people die within three to five years of their first symptoms.

More than a dozen people spoke during a public comment session Wednesday, including ALS patients, their family members and physicians who implored FDA to grant approval. Several speakers presented before-and-after videos showing patients who participated in Brainstorms study walking, climbing stairs and performing other tasks that they attributed to NurOwn.

"When Matt is on Nurown it helps him, when hes off of it he gets worse, said Mitze Klingenberg, speaking on behalf of her son, Matt Klingenberg, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2018.

The FDA is expected to issue a decision on the therapy by Dec. 8.

Israel-based Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics' stock price has lost more than 90% of its value over the last year, falling to 39 cents per share before being halted ahead of Wednesday's FDA meeting.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Value-focused investors are always on the hunt for stocks that are priced below their intrinsic value. One such stock that merits attention is Freshpet Inc (NASDAQ:FRPT). The stock, currently priced at 64.87, recorded a gain of 2.37% in a day and a 3-month increase of 4.17%. The stock's fair valuation is $145.83, as indicated by its GF Value.

Understanding GF Value

The GF Value represents the current intrinsic value of a stock derived from our exclusive method. The GF Value Line on our summary page provides an overview of the fair value at which the stock should be traded. It is calculated based on three factors:

1. Historical multiples (PE Ratio, PS Ratio, PB Ratio and Price-to-Free-Cash-Flow) at which the stock has traded.

2. GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth.

3. Future estimates of the business performance.

We believe the GF Value Line is the fair value at which the stock should be traded. The stock price will most likely fluctuate around the GF Value Line. If the stock price is significantly above the GF Value Line, it is overvalued and its future return is likely to be poor. On the other hand, if it is significantly below the GF Value Line, its future return will likely be higher.

Is Freshpet (FRPT) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Identifying Potential Risks

However, investors need to consider a more in-depth analysis before making an investment decision. Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, certain risk factors associated with Freshpet should not be ignored. These risks are primarily reflected through its low Piotroski F-score and Beneish M-score. These indicators suggest that Freshpet, despite its apparent undervaluation, might be a potential value trap. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making.

Company Overview

Freshpet Inc manufactures and markets natural fresh meals and treats for dogs and cats. The Company's products are distributed throughout the United States, Canada and other international markets, into major retail classes including Grocery (including online), Mass and Club, Pet Specialty, and Natural retail. The company's products include Nature's Fresh, Deli Fresh, Vital, and Freshpet among others.

Story continues

Comparing the stock price with the GF Value, which is an estimation of fair value, we can pave the way for a profound exploration of the company's value. This approach ingeniously integrates financial assessment with essential company details.

Is Freshpet (FRPT) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Conclusion: A Potential Value Trap?

Despite Freshpet's seemingly attractive valuation, the company's low Piotroski F-score and Beneish M-score suggest potential risks. These indicators, coupled with the company's historical performance, suggest that Freshpet may be a potential value trap. As always, thorough due diligence is vital for making informed investment decisions.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


BOSTON, MA - (NewMediaWire) - September 27, 2023 - FRX Innovations Inc. (TSXV:FRXI) (FSE:W2A) (OTC BB: FRXI) ("FRX" or the "Company"), a leader in eco-friendly flame retardant solutions, announces that the Company's Board of Directors has formed a Special Committee to explore strategic alternatives to enhance value and to accelerate the utilization of FRX's Nofia(R) brand of fire retardants. These alternatives could include, among others, possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships, licenses or alliances, a sale of the Company in whole or in part or other possible transactions.

The Special Committee of the Board is comprised of Jim Cassina, Marc Lebel, Mark Lotz, Patrick Muezzers and Ekaterina Terskin.

CEO Marc Lebel, added, "We continue to see compelling long-term opportunities for FRX, as the Special Committee focuses on exploring alternatives, we will continue with our strategy of promptly servicing our customer base from our state-of-the-art production facility in Antwerp, Belgium while expanding our applications, and driving implementation of Nofia throughout the industry."

The Company believes that market conditions will drive strong demand for NOFIA that currently exceeds the Company's ability to capture its market share on its own resources. The Special Committee is open to evaluating proposals from key industry participants that can accelerate the adoption of NOFIA in a timelier manner than FRX can achieve with its current availability of capital with the expectation that a strategic alternative would result in an ultimate enhancement of shareholder value rather than shareholder dilutive alternatives that may become available.

"During the past year, the Company has been focused on expanding FRX's Nofia brand of fire retardants by establishing a strong footprint with global OEMs, expanding Nofia applications and evaluating the best approach to delivering long-term value for our customers and shareholders alike," said Marc Lebel, CEO of FRX. "Given the importance and viability of our technology, as an environmentally and commercially proven sustainable solution and new regulatory landscape, we believe that now is the right time to explore strategic alternatives in order to increase scale, accelerate the adoption of Nofia(R) and efficiently meet expected demand."

Story continues

There can be no assurance that this exploration process will result in any transaction. The Company will disclose further developments with respect to this process if material, or concludes the review of strategic alternatives.

The Nofia(R) product line is PFAS and Halogen free, polymeric, eco-friendly, non-leaching and manufactured based on green chemistry principles.

Legislative and Litigation Driven Tail Winds

The past two years have seen some of the most significant changes in flame retardant (FR) regulations. Additionally, the last 12 months has seen increasingly rapid action against per- and poly-fluoro chemical substances known as PFAS, and commonly called "Forever Chemicals". The common PC flame retardant KPFBS (potassium perfluorobutanesulfonate), known as Rimar Salt, was issued with a Final Health Advisory in June 2022 and is already designated an SVHC in Europe.

In the meantime, there have been multi-billion-dollar1 settlements between PFAS producers and different bodies affected by pollution with 3M announcing its exit from the PFAS products business by the end of 2025. OEMs and brand owners are moving more quickly, and some are also requesting the removal of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)2, which many Green NGO's and some regulatory authorities also consider to be a PFAS.

PFAS-Free Patent Application & Sales Pipeline Growth

In April 2023, FRX announced that it has filed a new patent for what the Company believes and customer feedback supports is a breakthrough in key application areas specifically meeting or exceeding the rigid fire retardant requirements for polycarbonate (PC) plastics and its alloys. This invention is free of the increasingly banned "forever" PFAS chemicals and allows for completely PFAS-free formulations in polycarbonate, including elimination of the well-known anti-drip agent, PTFE.

The PFAS replacement opportunity has brought 77 new programs in the last 12 months alone in FRX's sales pipeline.

Nofia(R) New Uses

Over the last 18 months, Nofia(R) achieved several significant breakthroughs. Major ABS plastics producers2 have confirmed that Nofia(R) is the only halogen-free flame retardant that delivers a good quality product meeting the UL 94 V0 fire standard. The $225M3 FR ABS market has historically been exclusively flame retarded with brominated FRs. Nofia(R) flame retardants have been recognized by major consumer electronics producers2 as delivering the best balance of properties for PFAS replacement in the Polycarbonate sheet market valued at US $320M.3

Nofia(R) is being used in the back panel of televisions of a major brand owner. Small monthly orders have commenced and are expected to grow.

FRX has been steadily making progress in the EV market. Nofia flame retardant has been specified as the flame retardant in Polyamide 12 used in high voltage EV applications and is also on test in high voltage FR coatings in the same applications. Nofia has also been specified in a 3rd high voltage EV application.

An article co-written by Dr. Xiudong Sun, and Dr. Mike Goode, FRX Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Commercial Officer respectively, describes how Nofia flame retardants provide unique benefits when used in PFAS free flame-retardant formulations, was recently published in the Sept/Oct 2023 edition of Special Chemicals Magazine.

See link: https://www.frx-innovations.com/polyphosphonatefrs

Nofia FRs have exceptionally favorable Green credentials including achieving the coveted GreenScreen(R) Benchmark 3 rating as well as an equally favorable B designation in the ChemFORWARD SAFER(R) program, are included on the TCO-Certified Accepted Substance list, and are approved Active Chemicals according to the Oeko-Tex Standard 100.

1 https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-states-withdraw-objections-3ms-103-billion-pfas-settlement-2023-08-29/

2 Company visit reports.

3 Company estimate based on industry knowledge.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About FRX Innovations

FRX Innovations is a global manufacturing company, producing a family of environmentally sustainable flame-retardant products that serve several large markets spanning textiles, electronics, automotive, electric vehicles (EV) and medical devices. FRX is led by a team of highly experienced business and technical professionals and is positioned to be a leader in the rapidly changing flame-retardant plastics and additives market in response to new legislation prohibiting Brominated and Perfluoro flame retardant chemicals.

Nofia(R) is a registered trademark of FRX. Nofia(R) products are manufactured at its manufacturing facility on the Port of Antwerp in Belgium, one of the world's largest chemical producing clusters. Nofia Polyphosphonates are produced using sustainable green chemistry principles such as a solvent-free production process, no waste by-products, and near 100% atom efficiency. FRX's portfolio includes an extensive patent estate. FRX, at the forefront of the ESG movement to a greener future, has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the EPA's Environmental Merit Award, the Belgium Business Award for the Environment, and the Flanders Investment of the Year Award. FRX has also been recognized six times on the Global Cleantech 100 list.

For more information about FRX Innovations, please visit www.frx-innovations.com.

Contact Details

FRX Innovations

Mark Lotz CFO

+1 604-880-6546

mlotz@frxpolymers.com

FRX Innovations Investor Relations and Media Inquiries

Investor Relations

Carl Desjardins

+1 514 818 04477

ir@frx-innovations.com

Media Inquiries

Joseph Grande

+1 413-684-2463

joe@jgrandecommunications.com
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is bringing back its lawsuit challenging Microsoft's (MSFT) $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision Blizzard (ATVI). The revived challenge, which the FTC filed Wednesday and is moving forward through the commission's administrative court, comes after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) indicated it is close to approving the acquisition.

The FTCs challenge is the last major hurdle keeping Microsoft from putting the deal in its rearview mirror.

"The Commission has determined that the public interest warrants that this matter be resolved fully and expeditiously. Therefore, the Commission is returning this matter to adjudication," the FTC's filing states.

The agency originally pulled back its administrative challenge in July after losing a lawsuit requesting that it be granted a preliminary injunction to block Microsoft from closing the deal. At that point, the CMA, which originally ruled to block the deal, stood as the only potential roadblock to completing the transaction.

However, last week UK regulators, who agreed to consider a revised deal, completed a review of Microsofts revised proposal and said they were mostly persuaded by concessions from Microsoft that include ceding Activision's European cloud gaming business to French company Ubisoft.

Now, Microsoft's takeover of the "Call of Duty publisher is again in limbo as the FTC is preparing for another round with the Xbox maker. While the company can close the acquisition, the FTC can still challenge the legality of the tie-up, after the fact.

The commission said it will kick off its administrative challenge to the merger 21 days after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the agency's challenge to the lower courts decision to deny its injunction request.

The FTC continues to believe this deal is a threat to competition and we are placing this matter on the Commissions Part 3 calendar ahead of our ongoing federal court appeal, but our current focus is on the federal appeal process, FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham told Yahoo Finance in a statement.

Story continues

Microsoft says it will nonetheless plan to close the deal by Oct. 18.

The FTC is reviving its challenge to Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. (Richard Vogel/AP Photo, File)

"We still anticipate that we will close the transaction by October 18, and we have full confidence in our case and the deal's benefits to gamers and competition," a Microsoft spokesperson told Yahoo Finance.

If Microsoft overcomes the FTC's challenge and absorbs Activision Blizzard, it will become the third largest video game company by revenue behind Tencent and Sony.

The crux of the FTC's argument revolves around the still-nascent cloud gaming industry. Microsoft is a leader in the space thanks to its Xbox Cloud Gaming platform, which it offers through its GamePass gaming subscription.

Sign up for the Yahoo Finance Tech newsletter.

By adding Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty" and other popular titles to the service, the FTC argues, Microsoft could make it too difficult for rivals like Sony (SONY) and Nintendo (NTDOY) to compete in the space. Microsoft, however, has signed agreements with both companies, as well as other cloud gaming services from the likes of Nvidia (NVDA), saying that it will provide "Call of Duty" on their platforms for the next 10 years.

Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.

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Senatorul Dan Ivan : Angajatorii si tinerii NEETs nu si-au primit subventiile!

NEETs este denumirea data tinerilor cu varsta cuprinsa intre 16 si 25 de ani, care nu au un loc de munca, nu urmeaza o forma de invatamant si nu participa la activitati de formare profesionala. Aceasta categorie de tineri ar trebui sa [citeste mai departe]
This should be obvious, right? Pick a place that sounds decent, order a drink, have fun, find the next place that sounds decent, wash, rinse, repeat. Wake up the next morning and wish you hadnt done it. Whats to know?

Well This is Hungary, and even though Budapest, in particular, has embraced certain customs from the West  counter service, for example  other traditions linger, ones that make seem strange to the uninitiated.



So, here are a few tips to help you blend in and get the most out of Budapests justifiably legendary bar life.



1. The man walks in first

For you few remaining gentlemen out there, cast aside those noble instincts when accompanying a lady towards a bar door  you should walk in first. No After you! here, and dont even think about that hand gesture to indicate right of way to your partner. Stroll right in, bold as brass, keeping the door open for your companion behind you.



This tradition dates back to when smoky taverns were dens of iniquity and any bar could be a kesdobalo  a place where knives come out at the slightest provocation. Those halcyon days of betyars and highwaymen are long gone, and now barcrawling in Budapest is safer than many European cities of its size. Still, lest a stray highwayman be careless with his cutlery, the man walks in first.



2. Hungarians dont do bar counters

This vast cultural difference between Hungarian and Anglo-Saxon bar cultures is best appreciated when youre with a group of Magyars and youve all just walked into a lively, happening, hellzapoppin bar. Hooray!



Youre just looking forward to unbridled revelry, music, banter and vibe, when the Hungarians scan the place and find no table thats entirely and absolutely free. Acres of space at the bar counter, mind... Ah, sajnos. Well have to go somewhere else entirely.



But but but, you begin to protest, knowing full well that the best bar buzz is often around the counter anyway. Nope. No table, no fun. Like it, lump it or stick to barcrawling in Budapest with no Hungarians in tow.



3. Order, order

In a related topic, it wasnt that long ago that all bars in Budapest were table-service only. You waited, sometimes for eons, but until any waitstaff deigned to appear, you remained thirsty. The rise of ruin bars and general trends sweeping in from the West have seen more and more places only serving drinks from the counter.



In fact, firms sell signs and stickers saying Kiszolgalas a pultnal, (Counter service), for bar owners to purchase and then place them at every table. As soon as you see one, stride right up to the counter and order your drink.



4. Tips about tipping in Hungary

Another, perhaps less welcome, introduction from abroad is the tip being automatically added to your bill. Obviously more prevalent in restaurants, its begun to creep into bar culture, too, meaning you might have to ask, Benne van a szervizdij? (Is a tip included?), just to check.



With table service or, indeed, counter service, the usual custom was to round up the amount by about 10%, and say the figure youre paying. So, if a couple of drinks were 1,800 forints, you would say, 2,000! and hand over the money including the tip.



Further complicating matters is the now ubiquitous payment by card  your barperson will ask Kartya vagy keszpenz?, Card or cash?. Bleeping in, particularly if your card was issued by a foreign bank, may involve the serious mind gymnastics of agreeing a tip with one button, fixing the amount with another, then pressing another button to ask the system to convert into forints or pay the amount in your home currency  and, hey, youre in a bar, the very last thing you want is responsibility.



As a general rule, add 10% unless service is included, and if you were particularly impressed by the staff, add a little on top.



5. Pints, halves and clinking

A pint, or half-litre, of beer, is a korso (kor-sho), a half is a pohar (poh-haar), or glass. However some bars serve 0.4 litres and still call it a korso  and more generous establishments serve 0.3 litres and call it a pohar.



The glass you receive will often be logod, as every bar has a tie-in with a brewery. Staff may also be instructed to serve certain beers in a glass mug, which automatically makes anyone holding it look at least 20 years older. Insist on a proper glass if youre concerned.



One thing you might have heard is that Hungary has struck the unwritten rule about not clinking beer glasses from the tacit statute book. This wonderfully arcane custom harks back to the grim day in 1849 when the Austrians executed 13 revolutionary Hungarian generals and celebrated afterwards. Thenceforth, no Magyar would ever clink their beer glass.



Somebody then pointed out that the tradition was only meant to last 150 years, ie until 1999, after which time, Hungarians may clink away merrily with the best of em. However, this is probably utter nonsense and why have a tradition anyway, if youre not going to stick to it? Raise your glass, meet your drinking companions eye, and leave the clinking to the Austrians.



6. Measure for measure

Spirits (roviditalok, short drinks) are usually sold as a 4cl measure, the classic Hungarian favourites being Unicum and palinka. The former is a dark and forbidding bitter liqueur, a Magyar cousin of Jagermeister, with a fascinating heritage and, back in the day, inventive advertising youll see everywhere. The latter is a clear fruit brandy not a million miles from grappa, whose recent gentrification has seen high-quality labels being produced. Popular varieties include plum (szilva), pear (korte) and peach (barack).



Wine (bor), red (voros), white (feher) or rose (roze), is sold by the decilitre, the common measure being 2dl although youll probably be asked how much youd prefer. There is also all manner of combinations of (generally) white wine and soda, whose generic name is froccs or spritzer.



7. Sweet relief

It wasnt that long ago that Hungarian toilets were guarded by a WC-s neni, an older lady in a housecoat whose palm you had to cross with silver in order to use the facilities. While these ladies of legend are no longer with us, in truth many bar toilets could do with a supervisor, someone to keep the place clean, and equipped with soap and other essentials.



The other problem is that large premises, ruin bars in particular, tend to have very limited toilet space, meaning youll be queuing for what will seem like several millennia before you reach the sacred spot.



Here, tactics come into the equation, perhaps nipping in to the small room before you go up to order the next round of drinks, or putting your bladder though an Olympian training regime.



Oh, and beware toilets with automatic lighting when you enter  they never work properly and always cut out at the vital moment. A flashlight or your mobile is always handy in such circumstances.



Words by Peterjon Cresswell for Xpatloop.com

Peterjon has been researching the byways of Budapest for 30 years, extending his expertise across Europe to produce guidebooks for Time Out and his own website liberoguide.com
Data from Hungarys latest national census shows an increase in marriages and a growing share of people under the age of 30 with children, but the countrys population is aging, the head of the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said.

Presenting the results of the 2022 census, Aron Kincses told a press conference that the data indicated that Hungary was developing and changing.



Employment is up significantly and modern technologies are constantly reshaping the labour market, he said. Foreign-language proficiency, education levels and digital skills among the population have gone up significantly since the last census carried out 11 years ago, he said.



Marcell Kovacs, the censuss project manager, said that Hungary had a population of 9,603,634 at the start of the census on Oct. 1 last year.



The natural population loss between the 2011 and the 2022 census was 334,000, he said. The elderly, people aged 65 or older, make up 21% of the population. Their number is around 2 million, Kovacs said.



As a result of demographic changes, the ratio of men to women was 1,000:1,078 last year, compared with 1,000:1,106 in 2011, he said.



Among people aged 15 or older, 43% were married, reflecting an increase in the number of couples tying the knot over the past several years.



One-third of the population had never been married, said Kovacs, adding that 62% of men aged younger than 50 are single while 57 percent of women had the same marital status in the same age group.





The census showed some 33% of adults with a secondary school degree and another 22% with a university degree.



The proportion of people with only a primary school education dropped to 23%, the project manager said. In a marked increase, the number of jobholders went up to 4.7 million, or 49%, from 3.9 million during the eleven-year period, he said, noting that the number of people without a job last year was 237,000.



Fully 60% of the population responded voluntarily to the question on religious affiliation. Fifty percent, 2.9 million people, said they were Catholic with 2.6 million of them Roman Catholic and 165,000 Greek Catholic. Altogether 16% were of Reformed and 3.1% of Evangelical faith, Kovacs said, adding that 27% declared themselves not religious.



As regards the question of national minority, Kovacs said the largest national minority was the Roma, 210,000 or 2.5% of respondents indicating it.



The German national minority numbered 143,000, the Slovak 30,000, the Romanian 28,000 and the Ukrainian 25,000, he said.



The number of foreign nationals living in Hungary jumped by 52% to 218,000 since 2011 with most of them, 76%, coming from Europe.



Fully 82,000 people came from neighbouring countries.



In terms of language skills, English is the most common foreign language spoken by one in four Hungarians, said Kovacs.



Photo: Xpatloop.com's Xpat Charity Party 2022
With the closure of Ravens Place and The Vault on Western Avenue in Blue Island, the future of the two bars is unclear as the business owner owns the property but doesnt have a business license, city officials said.

I do not know the owners intentions as it relates to selling the property. Should they decide to do so, I would simply repeat what Mayor (Fred) Bilotto has said in the past: All businesses and business owners are welcome in Blue Island provided they run their establishments in a manner that is safe and does not endanger the community, city administrator Thomas Wogan said in a statement Tuesday.

The Ravens Place and The Vault are next to each other in the 13000 block of Western Avenue and have been closed since a New Years Eve shooting involving a patron of the The Vault. City officials said the business licenses were not renewed for 2023.

Dushone Thomas, the owner of the two businesses, and Raymond Thomas, the manager, filed a lawsuit against the city stating the business had been unfairly treated. They did not respond to requests for comment.

But their attorney John Ellis, issued a statement Wednesday saying the case is still pending. Ellis also said the business and liquor licenses are being reviewed and appealed in the circuit and appellate courts.

My clients are committed to their efforts to reopen The Vault and Ravens Place in the same locations, Ellis said in the statement.

After a May 2021 shooting at The Vault, Bilotto and city staff met with the owner and manager of Ravens Place and The Vault to draft a safety agreement designed to help prevent future incident.

Bilotto, as liquor commissioner, revoked the liquor licenses for Ravens Place and The Vault following a Sept. 17, 2022 shooting outside of Ravens Place, where two people were injured, Wogan said.

The business leaders appealed the decision to the state Liquor Control Commission, stating the September shooting took place in a municipal parking lot across from Ravens Place. The businesses were allowed to reopen until the appeal was heard, Wogan said.

Story continues

On New Years Eve, police charged Kenya Walton, 37, of Chicago, with reckless discharge of a firearm outside the Double Play Saloon, in the 13000 block of Western Avenue, a block away from Ravens Place and The Vault. Walton told police she left The Vault with her friends and made a dumb decision to shoot her gun into the air, according to the police report.

A spokesperson for the Cook County Circuit Court clerk said Tuesday Waltons case is still pending.

Bilotto issued a revocation order Jan. 10 closing the businesses, in which he stated Ravens Place is a nuisance after a pattern of reckless, harmful, and negligent conduct by the business leadership.

The City Council upheld the mayors revocation Jan. 24. Cook County Judge Alison Conlon affirmed the citys order June 9, finding Thomas should have had more security to protect people in and around the businesses.

The court views the citys position to be that, given the history of shooting incidents, (the business owner) knew or should have known that failure to have adequate security outside its premises was a threat to its patrons and the surrounding community, Conlon wrote in the ruling.
A Budapest court has sentenced Yuriy C., the captain of a cruise ship involved in a deadly boat accident on the River Danube in 2019, to 5.5 years in prison.

In the accident on May 29, 2019, the Viking Sigyn cruise ship collided with the Hableany sightseeing boat which had 33 South Korean tourists on board and a crew of two Hungarians.



Seven tourists were rescued from the water after the collision and the rest died. One of the bodies has not been recovered.



The prosecutors office brought charges against the Ukrainian captain in July 2022.



Today, the court convicted him of negligence by endangering river traffic and causing a lethal accident. He was not sentenced on charges of failing to provide aid to the victims.



In the justification of the sentence, Judge Leona Nemeth said that the collision was caused by the Viking Sigyn, which accelerated without taking notice of the smaller Hableany and ascertaining that it was safe to do so.



At the same time, once he was aware of the accident, the captain alerted the authorities and made sure that the rescue got under way, she said. In the non-binding sentence, the captain was also banned from maritime traffic.



He can be released on parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence, according to the courts statement.



The defence has appealed for acquittal or a lighter sentence, while the prosecution wants the second-instance court to also issue a guilty verdict for failure to provide aid to the victims.
The Hungarian committee of UNESCO held a celebration on Tuesday of Hungarys 75 years as a member of the organisation.

Miklos Rethelyi, the UNESCO national committees head, in a speech recalled the milestones of the Hungarian committees 75-year history, and he highlighted the role of the national committees first secretary general, Arpad Fasang, who had done much to promote Hungarian culture.



Firmin Edouard Matoko, UNESCOs Deputy Director General for Africa and External Relations, addressed the event in a video message, while former educational, scientific and cultural organisations ambassador Katalin Bogyay and Norbert Kroo, adviser to the World Science Forum, discussed the organisations past, present and future as part of a roundtable.



As of 2021, there are 8 World Heritage Sites in Hungary, 7 of which are cultural sites and one, the Caves of Aggtelek Karst, is a natural site, according to Wikipedia:



"The first two sites in Hungary were added to the list at the 11th Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Paris, France in 1987.



One of these two sites was the village of Holloko, the other was Budapest, the Banks of the Danube with the district of Buda Castle (the latter site was expanded in 2002).



The most recent site added to the list is the Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape, listed in 2002."



More:

unesco.org
Even in the changed real estate market conditions, mini-apartments with a small floor area of 10 to 20 sqm have not lost their popularity.

These small-floor properties occupy a narrow but all the more significant part of the domestic real estate market, according to Duna House, writes profitline.hu.



Based on this year's sales data of Duna House, 1% of all sales were tied to apartments or houses between 10-20 sqm, similar to last year,



Depending on location and condition, the square meter of homes with a floor area of 20 sqm or less sold until August this year ranges from 400,000 to HUF 1.7 million in the capital, but in rural areas, you could get a 20 sqm apartment in good condition for as little as HUF 350,000 per sqm.
President Katalin Novak discussed the Western worlds demographic crisis with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the electric carmakers plant in Austin, Texas.

Musk greeted Novak with one of his sons before holding private talks with the president. Elon Musk could not make it to the Budapest Demographic Summit in the end.



We are making up for the meeting now, Novak said on Facebook. She began the meeting by saying that the demographic crisis was not getting enough attention relative to climate change.



Vajk Farkas, communications director of the presidential Sandor Palace, told public media that one of the main aims of Novaks US visit was to meet with allies in tackling demographic challenges.



These, he said, included Musk, Texas Governor Greg Abott and Montana Governor Greg Gianforte. Musk has voiced his views on global demographic challenges on multiple occasions recently, saying that population collapse was a bigger threat than climate change.



He has also recently met other world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. Novak wrapped up her visit in Utah on Tuesday, meeting Governor Spencer Cox.



President Novak Discusses Cooperation With Texas Governor







President Katalin Novak met Texas Governor Greg Abbott for talks on opportunities in theoretical and practical bilateral cooperation in Dallas late on Thursday. The State of Texas holds just the same values as Hungary, Novak said.



Abbott said his state was open to build business relations with other countries, and noted that Texas in itself would be the eighth largest economy in the world. He voiced readiness to cooperate with special regard to car making and the space industry.



The talks touched upon opportunities offered by Texass oil and gas industry to meet Hungarys energy demands, too. Novak highlighted Texass recent economic achievements, and said she was looking forward to the implementation of a recent agreement between Hungary and Axiom Space in Houston, adding that the partnership could help a second Hungarian astronaut to space.



Concerning shared values, Novak mentioned the fight against illegal migration, the family, as well as the fundamental values of security and the nation.



President Novak in UNGA: No Alternative to Peace





There is no alternative to peace, President Katalin Novak said in her address to the 78th session of the United Nations' General Assembly in New York.



This war also directly affects us Hungarians. It is not just in our neighbourhood. Hungarian fathers and sons living in Ukraine are also giving their lives in the trenches, she said, adding that this is why we want peace. In our country, in Ukraine, in Europe, in the world.



Peace and the security that comes with it. Novak said at the general debate that we know that peace is only realistically attainable when at least one side sees the time for negotiations as having come.



We cannot decide for Ukrainians about how much they are prepared to sacrifice, but we have a duty to represent our own nations desire for peace, the Hungarian president said some 15 minutes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskys address to the General Assembly.



Novak stressed that Hungary condemns clearly and unequivocally the violation of international law, the attack on another state, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has caused immense suffering and destruction and has destroyed the peaceful life of Europe.



Novak: Hungary Against Further Escalation





Hungary is for the victims and against further escalation, which is why it punches above its weight in providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine and those fleeing the war, President Katalin Novak said at the UN General Assembly in New York.



Hungary stands for the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine, and understands Ukraines desire to be part of the community of European countries, thus we expect it to uphold the values that characterise our community, the president said.



The suffering caused by the war affects families first and foremost, Novak said, adding that having visited Kyiv at Zelenskys invitation twice since the outbreak of the war, she had seen the suffering of the families and what they experience when the peace is broken.



The Hungarian president also touched on the demographic challenges facing the world, warning that if the international community did not address this issue, it will have an immeasurable impact on our economies, societies, and security in the near future.



She noted that last weeks Budapest Demographic Summit, the most important international forum on demographic issues, brought together public leaders, thinkers, demographers, and the representatives of family organisations and professional workshops from sixty countries and five continents.



The message of the summit was that pro-family forces stand up for their values and interests, the president said. If there is no child, there will be no future, said Novak.



What is the point of looking after the Earth if we dont have children and grandchildren to pass it on to? Hungarians see the solution to the demographic crisis in strengthening and supporting families, Novak said. Hungary protects parental freedom, the president said.



We strongly believe that the right to raise children does not belong to the state, nor to NGOs, nor to the media or the knowledge industry, but to parents, she added.



Anyone who has a child is prepared to fight at any time to ensure that their child can live in peace and freedom, Novak said.



We recognise that family is the key to security. A strong, united and healthy family is a guarantee of security, the president said, concluding her address.
In a world where the pursuit of global opportunities has become increasingly competitive, the significance of social media cannot be overstated. According to career expert Anil Kumar Sharma, "Social media plays a vital role in today's cut-throat competitive landscape. It is essential for any business to thrive in the digital landscape. We have leveraged Instagram to engage with our audience effectively and showcase our expertise in the visa and immigration domain."

As individuals seek better education and career prospects beyond their homeland, Aryans Academy has risen to prominence as a trusted name in visa and immigration services. Headquartered in Jalandhar, this academy has played a pivotal role in helping candidates secure various types of visas, including student, tourist, spouse, and work visas, for countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and more.

The power of social media as a tool for reaching potential candidates and clients cannot be underestimated. Anil Kumar Sharma, a seasoned career expert, emphasized the critical role that platforms like Instagram have played in Aryans Academy's success story. By actively engaging with its audience through visually compelling content, the academy has managed to not only expand its reach but also establish itself as a reliable authority in the visa and immigration domain.

With the rapid rise of Indian candidates seeking global opportunities, Aryans Academy's strategic use of Instagram has allowed it to effectively tap into this market. The platform has provided a space for sharing success stories, informative content, and client testimonials, showcasing the academy's dedication to helping individuals achieve their dreams of studying and working abroad.

Anil Kumar Sharma further emphasized the importance of staying updated with the latest trends and technologies in social media marketing. "The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and it's crucial to adapt to these changes," he noted. "Aryans Academy's success on Instagram is a testament to their understanding of the platform and their ability to connect with their target audience."

As the competition in the education and immigration sector continues to intensify, businesses and institutions like Aryans Academy are recognizing the indispensable role of social media in staying ahead of the curve. Anil Kumar Sharma's insights serve as a reminder that, in today's competitive landscape, a strong online presence can make all the difference.

In conclusion, social media is not just a tool for sharing pictures and updates; it is a dynamic platform that can propel businesses and organizations to new heights. Aryans Academy's success in the visa and immigration sector, thanks in part to their strategic use of Instagram, is a testament to the power of social media in the cut-throat competitive landscape of today.
New Delhi: The GST Council will meet on October 7 and is likely to review the progress made by the states in incorporating changes with regard to taxation of online gaming in SGST laws as approved by the council in its August meeting.

The GST Council, chaired by the Union Finance Minister and comprising state counterparts, had last month cleared amendments to Central GST and Integrated GST laws to give clarity on the levy of 28 percent tax on the full face value of bets in online gaming, casinos, and horse race clubs.

The amendments also make registration mandatory for offshore e-gaming companies operating in India. It also provides for blocking of access in case offshore platforms fail to comply with GST registration and tax payment norms.

Similar changes were required to be undertaken by the states in their respective SGST laws. The council had set October 1 as the deadline for implementing the amended provisions after all state assemblies pass the required changes to their SGST laws.

"The 52nd meeting of the GST Council will be held on 7th October 2023, at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi," the GST Council said in a post on X. An official said the meeting will mainly review the progress with regard to amendments in the SGST law by different states.

Since the council's clarification after its meeting on July 11, that online gaming companies are subject to 28 percent GST on the full face value of a bet, the GST authorities have started sending notices to the online gaming companies and casino operators, including big players like Delta Corp and Dream11.

While the companies are challenging the decision of the GST authorities to levy 28 percent tax on full face value with retrospective effect, tax officials maintain that GST at 28 percent was leviable on such supplies from the very beginning and the GST Council's decision in July was only clarificatory in nature.
National Book Trust, India is organizing the Shillong Book Fair from 27 September - 03 October 2023 at the State Central Library, Secretariat Hills, Shillong, Meghalaya in collaboration with Department of Arts & Culture and Education Department, Government of Meghalaya.

The Shillong Book Festival will be inaugurated by Shri Paul Lyngdoh, Honble Arts and Culture Minister, Govt. of Meghalaya and Shri Rakkam A. Sangma, Honble Education Minister, Government of Meghalaya on 27 September 2023.

Addressing the Press Conference held today at Shillong Press Club, Shri Yuvraj Malik, Director, National Book Trust, India said the Shillong Book Fair is a celebration of literature, with a diverse range of content made available in one place. Daily activities like workshops for children, literary sessions, book discussions, author talks and cultural evenings will ensure the fair provides an inclusive platform for exchange of ideas and nurturing a culture of book reading.

Speaking at the occasion, Shri Pravin Bakshi, IAS, Commissioner & Secretary Education, Govt. Of Meghalaya said that the Shillong Book Fair has something for book lovers of all age groups, and at the same time is very youth and child centric its appeal with its offering of activities, sessions, workshops, performances and content specially curated for them.

The week-long Shillong Book Fair is a tribute to Meghalayas rich literary and cultural heritage, often referred to as the "Abode of Clouds. The fair will showcase a diverse collection of books by some of the best publishers of the country, including the works of local authors and regional literature spanning various genres. Book lovers will have the opportunity to explore books that mirror the vibrant cultural fabric of Meghalaya and the North-East. Throughout the fair, engaging sessions, book launches, and discussions will provide a platform for readers to interact with their literary idols. To kindle the flames of imagination, interactive storytelling sessions and creative workshops will be conducted for children during the fair, nurturing the next generation of readers and wordsmiths. In addition to literary treasures, Shillong Book Fair will also host cultural performances, creating an ambiance of vibrancy and cultural richness.

NBT-Indias Shillong Book Fair 2023 aspires to cultivate a thriving literary community, celebrating the magic of books amidst the captivating landscape of Meghalaya. The Fair offers an unparalleled opportunity for bibliophiles to immerse themselves in the world of literature.

Join us for Shillong Book Fair from 27 September to 03 October 2023, 10 am and 6 pm at the State Central Library, Secretariat Hills, Shillong. Entry is free for all. And 10% discount on the purchase of books as well!

National Book Trust, India

Public Relations Department, prnbtindia@gmail.com
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that the Narendra Modi government will deploy an anti-drone system on India's borders "soon". The Home Minister said this at the 31st Northern Zonal Council meeting at Punjab's Amritsar on Tuesday. "The Modi government is dedicated to the security and development of the region. The unwavering vigilance of our security agencies has resulted in numerous successful operations against terrorists and drug traffickers in the region. To further strengthen the region's security apparatus, an anti-drone system will soon be deployed along our country's borders,'' Shah said.

During the meeting, some crucial issues concerning the member states in particular and the country as a whole were discussed, according to a statement by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)

"Issues discussed in the 31st Northern Zonal Council meeting were related to sharing of inter-state river waters, coverage of villages by bank branches and postal banking facilities, effective implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer for Social Sector Schemes, issues relating to Punjab University, road connectivity under PMGSY, prevention of cyber-crimes, Jal Jeevan Mission, resumption of flights under UDAN Scheme, Speedy investigation of cases of sexual offence/rape against women and children, Implementation of the Scheme of Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) for expeditious disposal of rape and POCSO Act cases, Strengthening of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and Law purchase of Agriculture Land," it said.

Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Lt Governors of Delhi, Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh, Administrator of Chandigarh, Senior Ministers from member States, Union Home Secretary, Secretary, Inter-State Council Secretariat, Chief Secretaries from the Member States in the Northern Zone and other senior officers from the states and UTs and Central Ministries and Departments participated in the meeting.

Noting that the role of zonal councils has changed from advisory nature to action platforms in the last five years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah said the meet is an important place from the point of view of development and security of the country as 21 per cent of the country's land, 13 per cent of the population and more than 35 per cent of the food grains are produced in the Northern region.

Shah said that the majority of personnel in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Army, guarding the country's borders, come from the states and Union Territories in the Northern Zonal Council. Union Home Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government has been successful in cracking down on narcotics and terrorism.

The Home Minister further requested all the member states of the Northern Zonal Council to resolve their disputes related to water sharing with an open mind and mutual discussion.

Shah asked all the member states to pay special attention to issues like cooperation movement in the country, dropout rate of school children and malnutrition, terming them as collective priority. He said that not even a single child should remain malnourished in the country, it is the responsibility of all of us to reduce the school dropout rate, and, giving impetus to the cooperative movement will help in taking more than 60 crore people of the country towards prosperity. He also urged all member states to adopt natural and organic farming, as it will be hugely beneficial for the farmers of the country.

Union Home Minister assured all possible help from the Centre to the Himachal Pradesh government to deal with the flood situation in the state and said that the whole country is standing by Himachal in this hour of crisis.

On the call of the Union Home Minister, the Northern Zonal Council welcomed the spectacular success of Chandrayaan-3, the worldwide appreciation of India's leadership and global welfare at the G20 Summit and the historic Women's Reservation Bill passed by the Parliament.

While appreciating the role of the Zonal Councils, Shah mentioned that though the Zonal Councils are advisory in character, over the years, they have proved to be a significant factor in promoting healthy bonds of mutual understanding and cooperation in various spheres.

The Zonal Councils provide the opportunity for personal interaction at the highest level amongst the members and serve as a useful forum for resolving issues of a difficult and complex nature in an atmosphere of amity and goodwill.

Through discussion and exchange of views, the Zonal Councils help in developing a coordinated approach among the States on important issues of socio and economic development. The Zonal Councils also discuss and make recommendations on issues of common interest of the states.

Shah also mentioned that the meetings of the five Zonal Councils are now being convened regularly by the Inter-State Council Secretariat of the Ministry of Home Affairs with the cooperation of the state governments.

He observed that there has been a substantial increase in the number of meetings of the Zonal Councils and its Standing Committees. Since June 2014, in the last 10 years, a total of 54 meetings of the Zonal Council and its Standing Committee have been held making the frequency more than double in comparison to the meetings held during the 10 years from the year 2004 to May 2014.

"Good Practices adopted by member states and UTs were also shared in the meeting," added the statement.
Digital Vidya, a leading digital marketing training institute in India, has announced the launch of its new branch in Gurgaon. This news comes as a boon to all aspiring marketers in the city who are looking to upskill their digital marketing knowledge and land better job opportunities.

The new center will offer comprehensive courses on various aspects of digital marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and more.

Digital Vidya, established in 2009, has become the premier provider of advanced skills and professional training in Asia. Its arrival is anticipated to bring about a major transformation in Gurgaon's digital marketing industry.

Digital Vidya has established itself as a global leader, educating more than 95,000 professionals in digital marketing from over 55 countries. Their reputation as a trusted provider of advanced digital skills is well-deserved. With the trust of over 16,000 companies relying on their expertise, they recognize the significance of staying ahead in the dynamic digital landscape.

Courses cocreated with Meta, LinkedIn, and NASSCOM: Setting a New Standard in the Industry

Digital Vidya has partnered with Meta, LinkedIn, and NASSCOM to create courses that are tailored to the industry's current needs. These collaborations ensure that the courses offered at Digital Vidya are up-to-date and relevant to the latest trends in digital marketing.

The program's content is consistently updated to align with industry changes, thanks to valuable input from Nasscom, LinkedIn, and Meta. This company has played a crucial role in talent development and has served as the digital marketing training partner for Google and Meta in India. Its reputation is further bolstered by partnerships with leading global education organizations like Meta, LinkedIn, NASSCOM, and Vskills.

Digital Vidya's Impact on Gurgaon's Digital Marketing Industry

With its extensive range of courses and expert training, Digital Vidya is expected to revolutionize the digital marketing industry in Gurgaon. Professionals who complete their courses will be equipped with essential skills that are in high demand in today's job market.

Companies can also benefit from hiring graduates from Digital Vidya as they bring with them the latest digital marketing techniques and strategies to help businesses stay ahead of their competition.

Moreover, Digital Vidya's courses are not limited to just professionals seeking a career in digital marketing. The training programs are also suitable for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and individuals looking to enhance their brand or expand their online presence.

Digital Vidya's Corporate Training Programs: Empowering Businesses with Digital Excellence!

In addition to its training programs, Digital Vidya also offers customized corporate training solutions for businesses looking to upskill their workforce. These tailored courses cater to the specific needs and objectives of each organization, ensuring maximum impact and return on investment.

With these corporate training programs, companies can empower their employees with the latest digital marketing skills, enhancing performance and growth opportunities.

Digital Vidya's corporate training programs empower businesses to maximize their digital presence and boost efficiency with data-driven solutions.

With a collaborative approach, they closely collaborate with a diverse range of clients, including Fortune 500 companies and start-ups, to develop comprehensive strategies that lead to resounding success.

Virginia Sharma, ex-director of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, says:

"Digital Vidya is doing a great job in making everyone digital-ready!",

Digital Vidya has been delivering exceptional results with their Corporate Training programs since 2009. Professionals from renowned companies like Nokia, Toyota, Intel, Reliance, Discovery, ITC, and more have greatly benefited from their valuable training.

13+ Years of Exceptional Training.

Digital Vidya has been thriving since its establishment in 2009, boasting over 13 years of extensive experience and industry-recognized certifications. The remarkable journey began when Digital Vidya pioneered social media training courses in India, becoming the first company to do so.

Capitalizing on this success, the company further expanded its offerings in 2013 by introducing a comprehensive digital marketing course, which received widespread acclaim. This impressive undertaking solidified Digital Vidya's position as the leading online education provider in Asia.

Digital Vidya Introduces New Classroom CDMM Course in Gurgaon:

Digital Vidya has introduced a digital marketing course in Gurgaon to equip students with the necessary skills to thrive in the ever-evolving field of digital marketing. The curriculum is designed to provide a balance between theoretical knowledge and practical application, ensuring that students have a comprehensive understanding of the subject.

The course covers a range of subjects including digital analytics, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and more. The curriculum aims to give students a well-rounded understanding of each topic, with a focus on hands-on experience through real-world projects and case studies.

Digital Vidya emphasizes hands-on learning with 140+ hours of assignments and practical projects. These simulations prepare students for real-world challenges, ensuring a smooth transition into the workforce. Comprehensive placement assistance is available to help secure suitable job opportunities.

The curriculum is supported by a dynamic team of 15+ digital marketing trainers, each specializing in their area. Subject matter experts lead each module, providing top-notch instruction throughout the course.

Upon completion, students gain access to exciting placement opportunities facilitated by the placement cell. They also receive valuable tools worth over INR 72,000.

Meet the Visionaries: Founders of Digital Vidya

Digital Vidya was founded in 2009 by Pradeep Chopra and Kapil Nakra, who recognized the potential of digital marketing in India. Their vision was to create a platform for aspiring marketers to acquire practical skills and become industry-ready professionals.

Pradeep Chopra, a highly regarded authority in the field of digital marketing, brings more than two decades of industry experience and has played a pivotal role in the company's growth. With a degree from IIT Delhi and the prestigious Adobe Content100 award to his name, Chopra's leadership has been instrumental in expanding the company's reach.

Chopra, a renowned speaker in the field of digital marketing and entrepreneurship, captivates audiences with his valuable insights. His contributions have played a significant role in shaping Digital Vidya's innovative products and distribution strategies.

Kapil Nakra, the CEO of the company, brings with him a wealth of experience from IIT Delhi and a proven history of successful entrepreneurship. His leadership style is characterized by directness and curiosity, fostering a culture of creative problem-solving and innovative thinking.

Nakra's passion for business and online marketing is evident in the captivating presentations he delivers at conferences and events centered around Internet marketing. His dynamic leadership further reinforces the company's commitment to excellence and innovation.

While talking about their inspiration behind Digital Vidya, both Chopra and Nakra emphasize the importance of practical knowledge in digital marketing. They firmly believe traditional education models need to be revised for preparing professionals in this ever-evolving field. While talking to our team, Nakra said:

"Digital Vidya is focused on creating and delivering an excellent training environment through their best digital marketing course in India, making it perfect for students to upskill and get their dream jobs in digital marketing."

A Promising Future Awaits Digital Vidya Course Participants

With the growing demand for digital marketing professionals across all industries, Digital Vidya's training program is more relevant than ever. By providing practical and hands-on experience, this course equips students with the necessary skills to excel in the field of digital marketing.

Digital Vidya's curriculum is regularly updated to keep up with industry trends and best practices. The company also offers placement assistance, ensuring that students have the necessary resources and guidance to kickstart their careers in digital marketing. Course completion also offers:

3 Exclusive Internal Digital Marketing Certifications awarded by Meta, LinkedIn & Digital Vidya

12 External Internet Marketing Certifications including Vskills certification

8 Google Digital Marketing Certifications

HubSpot Digital Marketing Certification

Given the company's track record of success and the multitude of certifications offered, students enrolling in these new classroom courses in Gurgaon can look forward to a promising future in the dynamic field of digital marketing.

(This article is part of IndiaDotCom Pvt Ltds Consumer Connect Initiative, a paid publication programme. IDPL claims no editorial involvement and assumes no responsibility, liability or claims for any errors or omissions in the content of the article.)
Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) supremo HD Deve Gowda on Wednesday said that a decision to ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections was taken after consultation with his party colleagues. Before allying with BJP, I took the views of our 19 MLAs and 8 MLCs who said that JD(S) should consider entering into an understanding with BJP, Deve Gowda said.

Addressing a press conference here, the JD(S) chief said that he had not met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that he had met Home Minister Amit Shah for the first time in the last 10 years. We are not power-hungry politicians... I held a discussion with Home Minister Amit Shah for the first time in the last 10 years... I have not met PM Modi... I also explained the political situation in Karnataka to HM Deve Gowda said.

He further said that JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy will join the sit-in protest against the State government by former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa over the Cauvery water-sharing issue near the Gandhi statue in Bengaluru today.

The JD(S) had on September 22 joined hands with the BJP-led NDA to take on the Congress party in Karnataka in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. JD(S) leader and former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy made the announcement of the tie-up after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda in the national capital.

Following the announcement of the new alliance, JD(S) state vice president, Syed Shafiulla Saheb and other leaders including M Srikanth and UT Ayesha Farzana resigned from the party and reportedly there is discontent among several Muslim functionaries in the party

Kumaraswamy said, We will not disrespect any Muslim leader from the JDS-BJP alliance. We have discussed the BJP-JDS alliance with JDS state president CM Ibrahim. "There will be more talks regarding the JDS-BJP alliance after the Dussehra festival, where seat sharing may be discussed," Kumaraswamy said.

Meanwhile, following his resignation from the JD(S) Syed Shafiulla Saheb accused the BJP for "maintaining silence over the situation in Manipur which witnessed violence after clashes earlier this May.

Highlighting the difference between the ideologies of the JD(S) and BJP, he said, "I have resigned from the JDS party following its decision to form an alliance with the BJP. The ideology of the JD(S) and BJP, which is based on Hindutva, is different".
Toronto: A friend of pro-Khalistan terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in the parking lot of a gurdwara in Surrey in British Columbia on June 18, has said that the slain leader was being tracked before his killing. CTV has quoted Moninder Singh, a spokesperson for the British Columbia Gurdwaras Council, as saying, A couple of weeks before his death, he had come home to say there was a tracking device on the bottom wheel well of his vehicle.

He said, When he was at a mechanic shop, it (the vehicle) was raised and they found it." Recalling the events of the day when Nijjar was killed in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Mohinder Singh said, The first call was made to me by the person who opened the door and saw him inside. He called and told me to get there right away."

He said video footage from the area captured the suspects' car as "it followed him (Nijjar) through the parking lot, cut him off through the back exit where he was going to exit out and slowed down and led him to almost a stop to where shooters emerged to shoot him. It was very well coordinated".

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had last week spoken in the House of Commons about India's alleged involvement in the killing of the separatist leader, who was spearheading the Khalistani campaign in Canada.

India has denied the allegation, accusing Canada of harbouring terrorists on its soil. In a tit-for-tat, Canada and India expelled one diplomat from each country.
New Delhi: A high-powered Sebi committee has asked investors in PACL group's illegal schemes with claims of up to Rs 19,000 to produce original documents by October 31 to receive refunds. The panel has asked only those investors whose applications have been successfully verified to submit their original certificates.

The committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha, is overseeing the process of disposing of properties to refund investors after verifying their genuineness. It has already initiated the process of refund in phases. (Also Read: Turn Your Coffee Dreams Into Gold: Earn Rs 1.5 Lakh Monthly From Rs 5 Lakh Investment In This Business Idea)

The panel was set up by Sebi in 2016 following a Supreme Court order. The committee has decided to call for original PACL registration certificates from eligible investors with claims between Rs 17,001 and Rs 19,000, whose applications have been successfully verified, according to a statement published on Sebi's website on Monday. (Also Read: Game-Changing Business Idea: Earn Rs 30 Lakh Per Year With THIS Money-Making Hack)

Accordingly, intimation through SMS will be sent to all eligible investors, requiring them to submit original PACL registration certificates. "The window for accepting original certificates shall remain open from October 1, 2023, to October 31, 2023," the statement noted.

Further, investors have been cautioned against parting with their original PACL registration certificates unless an SMS is received from the committee.

PACL, also known as Pearl Group, which had raised money from the public in the name of agriculture and real estate businesses, was found by Sebi to have collected more than Rs 60,000 crore through illegal collective investment schemes (CIS) over a period of 18 years.

In December 2015, Sebi ordered the attachment of all assets of PACL and its promoters and directors for their failure to refund the money due to investors.

Sebi had asked PACL as well as its promoters and directors to refund the money in an order passed in August 2014. Also, the defaulters were directed to wind up the schemes and refund money to the investors within three months from the date of the order.
Air India and Singapore Airlines will ensure minimum capacity on various domestic and international routes, including Delhi-Sydney and Delhi-Paris, as part of commitments made to fair trade regulator CCI to address possible competition concerns arising out of the Vistara merger.

Competition Commission of India (CCI), on September 1, approved the proposed merger of Vistara with Air India under a deal wherein Singapore Airlines will also acquire a 25.1 percent stake in Air India.

Also read: Top 10 Indian Airports With Highest Passenger Traffic In August 2023: Check Full List

Certain competition concerns due to the proposed merger were raised by the watchdog and to address them, the airlines have given certain commitments with respect to the merger.

As per the commitments, Air India has voluntarily offered to maintain a "minimum capacity/ supply level" on certain overlapping O&D (Origin & Destination) domestic and overseas routes.

They are Bhubaneshwar-Delhi, Bengaluru-Guwahati, Cochin-Delhi, Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram, Amritsar-Delhi, Bhubaneshwar-Mumbai and Bengaluru-Delhi in the domestic segment, according to a 73-page CCI order that has been made public.

The international routes where Air India will maintain minimum capacity/ supply level are Delhi-Sydney, Delhi-Melbourne, Delhi-Paris, and Delhi-Frankfurt. On these domestic and international routes, both Air India and Vistara operate flights.

Further, Air India and Singapore Airlines will maintain minimum capacity/ supply level in relation to certain overlapping O&D pairs between India and Singapore -- Delhi-Singapore, Mumbai-Singapore, Tiruchirappalli-Singapore and Chennai-Singapore.

"The Commission notes that the voluntary capacity commitments offered by the parties seem to address the likely competition concerns that could otherwise result from the proposed combination and thus decided not to proceed further with the investigation in the matter," the order, dated September 1, said. The merger deal would mark a major consolidation in India's fast-growing aviation space.

Once the merger concludes, Singapore Airlines will be allotted additional shares in the merged entity through a preferential allotment. The deal will make Air India the country's largest international carrier and second-largest domestic carrier.

Air India Express and AIX Connect (earlier known as AirAsia India) are in the process of being merged. Tata Group has four airlines -- Air India, Air India Express, AIX Connect, and Vistara, in which Singapore Airlines has a 49 percent stake.

In a statement on Tuesday, Singapore Airlines welcomed the CCI's approval of the merger and said the airline as well as Scoot will follow the commitments. Scoot is a part of the Singapore Airlines group.

"Singapore Airlines continues to work with our partner Tata Sons and aims to complete the merger as soon as possible, subject to the remaining approvals from the relevant authorities," an airline spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement.

According to the statement, Singapore Airlines files "14 times weekly/twice daily" on the Delhi-Singapore route and flies 16 times weekly on the Mumbai-Singapore route. On the Chennai-Singapore route, Singapore Airlines flies 17 times weekly and Scoot operates flights 14 times weekly/twice daily on the Tiruchirappalli-Singapore route.
Every year on September 29, World Heart Day is observed and the aim of the day is to raise awareness and mobilise international action against cardiovascular diseases. Apart from a healthy lifestyle - less junk food, adequate sleep, physical activity - and medications, wherever required, yoga asanas can play a big role in ensuring heart health. Yoga and spiritual leader Himalayan Siddhaa Akshar, Founder of Akshar Yoga Kendraa, shares, "Regular practice of certain yoga asanas (postures) can contribute to a healthier heart by improving circulation, reducing stress, and promoting overall well-being."

Yoga Asanas To Better Heart Health

Himalayan Siddhaa Akshar shares some straightforward yoga asanas that you can incorporate into your routine to support your heart health. Remember to check with your doctor and fitness trainer if you have health issues.

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

Start by standing tall with your feet together and arms at your sides. Tadasana helps improve posture, which can alleviate stress on the heart and lungs. It also enhances overall body awareness.

Vrikshasana (Tree Pose)

Stand on one leg and place the sole of your foot against the inner thigh of the opposite leg. This pose improves balance and concentration, reducing stress levels that can impact the heart.

Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)

Extend your legs wide apart and reach down to touch your toes with one hand while extending the other arm up. Trikonasana helps stretch the chest and improves circulation.

Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)

Lie face down with your hands under your shoulders and push your chest up. Bhujangasana strengthens the back and opens up the chest, enhancing lung capacity.

Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)

Sit with your legs stretched out and bend forward to touch your toes. This asana reduces stress and calms the mind, which can benefit heart health.

Dhanurasana (Bow Pose)

Lie on your stomach, bend your knees, and hold your ankles with your hands. Dhanurasana helps improve digestion and strengthens the back, which indirectly supports heart health.

Sukhasana (Easy Pose)

Sit cross-legged with your spine straight. Sukhasana is a simple meditation pose that promotes relaxation and reduces stress, which is crucial for a healthy heart.

Savasana (Corpse Pose)

Lie on your back with your arms and legs relaxed. Savasana is a relaxation pose that helps lower blood pressure and calm the nervous system.

Pranayama Techniques For A Healthy Heart

Himalayan Siddhaa Akshar suggests the following pranayama techniques to boost heart health:

Ujjayi Pranayama (Victorious Breath)

This breathing technique involves constricting the throat slightly while inhaling and exhaling. It promotes relaxation and reduces stress, benefiting heart health.

Anulom Vilom Pranayama (Alternate Nostril Breathing)

This breathing exercise involves inhaling and exhaling through alternate nostrils. It helps balance the autonomic nervous system, reducing stress and promoting heart health.

World Heart Day: Yoga Not A Substitute For Medical Treatment

"Incorporating these yoga asanas and breathing exercises into your daily routine can be a valuable step towards improving your heart health. Remember that yoga is not a substitute for medical treatment, so if you have existing heart conditions or concerns, consult with a healthcare professional before starting a new exercise regimen. With regular practice and a focus on simplicity and consistency, you can take positive steps towards a healthier heart and overall well-being," advises Himalayan Siddhaa Akshar.

(All Pics: Freepiks, Pexels, Pixabay)
NEW DELHI: In a significant move, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is currently conducting widespread raids across six states, aiming to dismantle the Khalistani terrorists-gangster nexus on Wednesday. As per reliable sources, 51 locations linked to associates of the gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arshdeep Dalla are being raided at the moment. An expedited raid at a liquor contractor's residence in Takhtupura village, Moga district, Punjab, took place in the early hours of Wednesday.

#WATCH | A team of NIA is conducting raids in Suratgarh and Rajiyasar in Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan



In Suratgarh, the raid is underway at the residence of a student leader.



The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conducting searches at 51 locations across the pic.twitter.com/KRHu60YxOH September 27, 2023

The raid was prompted by gangster Arshdeep Dalla's ransom demand to the liquor contractor, who had complied with the gangsters demand. NIA is actively investigating this development, said sources. Additional raids targeted a gun house in Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, and a residence in Dehradun, Uttarakhand's Clementown police station area, sources said. The NIA is thoroughly examining weapons at the gun house, as reported by local authorities.

Earlier, the NIA had identified 43 individuals associated with the terror gangster network and urged the public to provide information on their properties and assets, which could be seized by the central government. Details related to properties, assets, businesses, associates, and affiliations were requested for a comprehensive assessment.

Moreover, the NIA highlighted gangsters like Lawrence Bishnoi, Jasdeep Singh, Kala Jatheri alias Sandeep, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana, and Joginder Singh, emphasizing their presence in Canada. The agency had previously confiscated properties owned by designated Khalistani terrorist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in Chandigarh and Amritsar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

In a similar operation on September 21, the NIA, in collaboration with Punjab police, conducted extensive raids at over 1000 locations in Punjab and Haryana associated with fugitive gangster Goldy Brar, one of their most wanted criminals. Brar is suspected to have orchestrated the recent killing of gangster Sukha Dunike in Winnipeg, Canada.

This ongoing crackdown aims to sever the extensive network connecting Khalistan sympathizers and gangsters, many of whom are believed to operate from Canadian territories. During Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 2018 visit to Amritsar, India had handed over a list of nine Khalistani operatives reportedly present in Canada.
New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has accused the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre of not taking appropriate measures to bring back normalcy in the riots-hit northeastern state of Manipur amid fresh reports of violence in its capital Imphal. The Congress veteran also accused the BJP regime of turning the beautiful state of Manipur into a battlefield. Kharge took to Twitter and tweeted, For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the state. The horrific images of students being targeted in this violence has once again shocked the entire nation. It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponised in this strife. The beautiful state of Manipur has been turned into a battlefield, all because of the BJP! High time, PM Modi sacks BJP's incompetent Manipur Chief Minister. This would be the first step to control any further turmoil.

For 147 days, people of Manipur are suffering, but PM Modi does not have time to visit the state.



The horrific images of students being targeted in this violence has once again shocked the entire nation.



It is now apparent that violence against women and children was weaponised  Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) September 27, 2023

Kharges tweet came in the wake of fresh violence and protest over the alleged kidnapping and murder of two students in Manipur, whose photos also went viral on social media.

A team led by Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is also scheduled to arrive in Imphal today to probe the reported "kidnapping and killing" of two students who went missing in the northeastern state on July 6.

The case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Manipur government on Tuesday. Heading the team alongside Ajay Bhatnagar is Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is currently stationed in Imphal, as per the sources.

The team consists of seasoned officers specializing in special crime, crime scene reconstruction, interrogation, and technical surveillance. It will also include experts from the CBI's distinguished Central Forensic Science Laboratory, sources have disclosed. Images of the bodies of the two missing students - Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) - started circulating on social media on Monday.

One of the pictures purportedly displayed the students in the company of two armed individuals, while the other showed two lifeless bodies. Authorities had earlier stated that the whereabouts of the two students were unknown, and their mobile phones were switched off.

Police had traced the last location of their mobile handsets to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district.

Reacting to the distressing news, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh assured the public in a post on X, stating, "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the state that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." Singh emphasized the commitment of the authorities to swiftly resolve the matter with the presence of CBI officers in the state. He added, "I have been constantly in touch with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri @AmitShah ji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators.

Security personnel have been placed on high alert, and additional measures have been implemented to prevent any incidents following the dissemination of the deceased students' images, noted a senior officer.

The government has reassured the public that "swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi."

Internet Services Suspended For 5 Days

The Manipur government has once again imposed a ban on internet services for the next five days. Mobile internet services, which were suspended due to ethnic violence in Manipur since early May, were restored on September 23.

In response to the situation, hundreds of students marched towards N Biren Singh's residence, but security forces intercepted them, deploying tear gas shells and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd. Over 40 students, including girls, were injured.

A directive from the Manipur Home Department emphasized the steps being taken to prevent the imminent threat to life, damage to public and private property, and widespread disruptions to public tranquillity.

"In view of the prevailing law and order situation in the State of Manipur, the State Government views very seriously with utmost sensitivity the reported spread of disinformation, false rumours, and other types of violent activities through various social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., on electronic equipment like tablets, computers, mobile phones, etc., and sending bulk SMS likely facilitating and/or mobilizing mobs of agitators and demonstrators, which may cause loss of life and/or damage to public/private property or aggravate the law and order situation in the state," stated an official notification.

The suspension order regarding mobile internet data services and internet/data services through VPN in the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Manipur is effective immediately and will last for five days, ending at 7:45 PM on October 1, the notification confirmed. Any individual found violating these orders will face legal action, as per the notification.

Manipur Violence

Manipur has been experiencing unrest since May 3, following protests by the Kuki and Meitei communities against the High Court's directive for the state government to contemplate including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. Only STs are permitted to purchase land in hilly areas.

The dominant Meitei community, occupying the Imphal Valley and nearby areas, has sought ST status due to their growing population and increased land requirements, enabling them to acquire lands in hilly areas.
NEW DELHI: Despite intensive negotiations between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), an agreement on seat-sharing for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections remains elusive, as per sources. The discord primarily revolves around the allocation of Lok Sabha constituencies in Sitamarhi, Madhepura, Gopalganj, Siwan, and Bhagalpur Banka. Reports suggest that RJD, led by Lalu Yadav, is insistent on fielding candidates in these constituencies, a proposition firmly rejected by the ruling JDU. The Nitish camp is adamant about retaining seats where JDU holds significant influence over the electorate, particularly those secured in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the party clinched 16 out of Bihar's 40 seats, with Congress winning one.

In the existing Lok Sabha, 16 members are from JDU, 17 from BJP, six from both factions of LJP and one from Congress. RJD has no presence in the Lower House.

After the Mumbai meeting of the INDIA bloc, Nitish Kumar met Lalu Prasad to discuss seat-sharing for Lok Sabha elections in Bihar. According to the preliminary round of talks held between the two Bihar leaders of the INDIA Bloc, it was agreed that both JDU and RJD would share 16 seats each, as per sources.

It also emerged that the Congress and three left parties would share the remaining eight seats, sources said. RJD chief Lalu will help the Congress in selecting its winnable nominees, as per the discussions held between the two leaders.

The INDIA alliance partners are engaged in reconciling conflicting claims and defining the electoral battleground for the next Lok Sabha polls. The opposition coalition, known as the INDIA bloc, is committed to contesting the 2024 elections in unity, emphasizing a collaborative approach in seat-sharing arrangements across states.

Expressing confidence in the alliance's potential to defeat the BJP, leaders within the bloc have established a 14-member coordination committee, aiming to expedite seat-sharing discussions and finalize a formula by the end of September. This initiative was proposed during informal discussions among alliance leaders.

Rahul Gandhi, a prominent Congress leader, expressed optimism during a joint news conference, asserting that the alliance, representing a substantial portion of the population, can overcome the ruling party when united against the BJP.

In a significant gathering at Mumbai's Grand Hyatt Hotel, 63 representatives from 28 political parties participated in the third meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) alliance. The meeting established a 14-member coordination panel, featuring leaders from various coalition parties.

The resolution passed during the meeting reiterated the alliance's commitment to contesting the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in collaboration and promptly addressing seat-sharing arrangements. Additionally, the INDIA bloc pledged to organize public rallies addressing pressing public concerns across the nation. Their communication and media strategies will be coordinated with the theme 'Judega Bharat, Jeetega India' in various languages.
BODELI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he does not have a house in his name, but his government turned lakhs of daughters in the country house-owners. PM Modi, who has been on a two-day visit to Gujarat starting Tuesday, was speaking at the launch of various development projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore, including projects worth Rs 4,500 crore related to education sector, in Bodeli town of tribal-dominated Chhotaudepur district of Gujarat.

"Since I spent significant time with you, I know the issues faced by the poor people and I have always tried to solve those issues. Today I am satisfied because my government has built four crore houses for the people across the country. Unlike previous governments, a house for the poor is not just a number for us. We work to provide dignity to the poor by building houses for them," he said.

"We are building houses as per the needs of the poor, that too without the presence of any middlemen. Lakhs of houses were built and registered in the names of our women. Though I don't have a house in my name, my government made lakhs of daughters house-owners,' he said. Modi also noted that World Bank president Ajay Banga was so impressed with the Gujarat education department's command and control centre in Gandhinagar, called as 'Vidya Samiksha Kendra', that he urged him to start such centres across the country.

"The World Bank president (Ajay Banga) recently visited the Vidya Samiksha Kendra (in Gandhinagar). During out meeting, he urged me to start such centres in all districts of India and said the World Bank is ready to be a part of that project," he said. The PM said the new National Education Policy (NEP), which was left in limbo for three decades, was finally introduced by his government. Without mentioning any names, PM Modi also attacked the opposition saying "they indulged in politics of reservation".

"But until I became chief minister, no science school was functional in tribal areas of Gujarat...How will you get admission in medical and engineering colleges if you do not have science schools," he said.
New Delhi: India is considering importing cheetahs from northern Africa due to concerns that some of these big cats from Namibia and South Africa have developed a winter coat in Indian summer, officials said on Wednesday. According to officials, one of the biggest challenges faced in the first year of managing cheetahs in India was the unexpected development of winter coats by some cheetahs during the Indian summer and monsoon, in anticipation of the African winter (June to September).

Even African experts did not expect it, a senior forest official said. The winter coat, combined with high humidity and temperatures, caused itching, prompting the animals to scratch their necks on tree trunks or the ground. This led to bruises and exposed skin, where flies laid their eggs, resulting in maggot infestations and, ultimately, bacterial infections and septicemia, leading to the death of three cheetahs, the official explained.

"Cheetahs in northern and northeastern Africa, which is in the northern hemisphere, might be better suited to Indian conditions. This idea is being deliberated, but we are yet to examine the status of the cheetahs in this part of Africa. We need to look at their populations, health conditions, breeding cycle, etc," an official associated with the cheetah project said on condition of anonymity.

Several international experts, including in the UK and the US, have imported cheetahs from northern Africa. They have recommended that India do the same, the official said. SP Yadav, the head of Project Cheetah and Additional Director General (Forests) in the Environment Ministry, said: "The idea that we may have cheetahs from northern Africa in the future has been discussed but the next batch will come from South Africa." He said India plans to import cheetahs that do not develop thicker winter coats -- a primary factor behind severe infections in some cheetahs and the death of three of them. Historically, cheetahs were found in parts of northern Africa, but their populations in this region have significantly declined, and they are now considered extinct or nearly extinct in many northern African countries.

Currently, the few remaining cheetahs in northern Africa are primarily found in small and isolated populations, mainly in protected areas and national parks. Some of the countries where cheetahs are still found, though in smaller numbers, include Algeria, Egypt, Niger and Mali.

A total of 20 animals were imported from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno in two batches -- one in September last year and the second in February this year. Since March, six of these adult cheetahs have died due to various reasons. In May, three of the four cubs born to a female Namibian cheetah succumbed to extreme heat. The remaining cub is being raised under human care for future wildling
Drilling at Rosebank could start as early as 2026 - Nerijus Adomaitis/Reuters

The development of Britains largest untapped oil field in the North Sea will generate billions of pounds in tax and boost the UKs energy security for decades, ministers have said.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) on Wednesday approved the development of the Rosebank oil field 80 miles off the coast of Shetland. The field, which holds up to 500m barrels of oil, will be drilled by Norwegian state energy company Equinor and London-listed Ithaca Energy.

Drilling could start as soon as 2026, creating up to 1,200 jobs. Rosebank, which will be in production until 2050, is expected to generate tens of billions in tax income for the Exchequer over its lifespan.

Exact estimates are difficult to pin down given volatility in oil prices and the uncertainty around future profitability and tax rates. However, past estimates have suggested Rosebank could yield as much as 30bn for the Treasury over its lifetime.

Claire Coutinho, energy security secretary, said Rosebank would make us more secure against tyrants like Vladimir Putin and contribute billions of pounds to the economy.

Rosebank is expected to generate 8.1bn of investment, Ithaca said, while UK-based companies are expected to see a 6.3bn boost in new business, according to a study by Wood Mackenzie and Voar Energy.

Energy security secretary Claire Coutinho said oil and gas are still needed as Britain transitions to its net zero future - Dan Dennison/ DESNZ

However, the projects approval sparked an immediate backlash from climate campaigners who argue new oil projects are incompatible with Britains climate goals.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said the decision amounted to a climate crime and was morally obscene.

Environmental pressure group Uplift has already vowed to take legal action in a bid to halt the development. It said it had written to the Government over concerns the approval was unlawful.

Conservative Peer Lord Goldsmith said that there was no way he could vote for the party following the decision to greenlight the development.

Speaking on Radio 4s PM programme, the former environment minister said of Rosebank: It just trashes the UKs reputation as a reliable, grown up member of the global community, its done us immeasurable harm.

Story continues

At its peak, the field will produce 69,000 barrels of oil and 44 million cubic feet of gas per day.

Rosebank will produce about 225 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its two to three decades of operation, which is around half the emissions produced by the whole UK in a year.

The Government said approval had been scrutinised by regulators, including a detailed environmental impact assessment process and a public consultation prior to approval.

It said Rosebank also complied with the UKs climate checkpoints, brought in last year, which say that all new oil and gas developments must fit within the countrys carbon budgets.

The projects emissions will largely be offset by the shutting of other North Sea oil projects as they come to the end of their lifecycle.

Ms Coutinho said: We are investing in our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognise, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank.

We will continue to back the UKs oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.

Equinors decision to go ahead with Rosebank comes despite the UK governments windfall levy, which raised oil and gas production taxes from 40pc to 75pc. The extra tax is in place until 2028, with most of Rosebanks production happening after that date.

In a separate boost to Britains energy security, National Grid said there was a much, much lower risk of blackouts this winter.

The National Grids Winter Outlook said the risk of the lights going out had fallen and was almost back to the pre-energy crisis normal.

National Grids Electricity System Operator (ESO) said the period when demand might outstrip supply is forecast to be only around 0.1 hours, or six minutes, between the end of October and the end of March. That compares to 0.2 hours last winter.

Craig Dyke, the ESOs head of national control, said: Its not benign, but compared to last year it is almost going back to around where it was before last winter.

Meanwhile, National Gas, which runs the gas grid, said it expects gas consumption to be broadly stable this year. Homes will use more gas, but less will be burnt to produce electricity, it said.

Britain will likely need gas imported from the European Union during cold spells to keep heating homes. Otherwise it will largely rely on gas imported by ship  so called liquid natural gas (LNG)  or through pipelines from Norway.

Ian Radley, system operations director at National Gas, said: Whilst the outlook is generally more favourable than last winter, we remain alert to the risks that are present and will continue to monitor this international market.

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.
New Delhi: A team led by Special Director Ajay Bhatnagar of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is set to arrive in Imphal on Wednesday to probe the reported "kidnapping and killing" of two students who went missing in the northeastern state on July 6, according to reliable sources. The development comes after the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Manipur government. Heading the team alongside Ajay Bhatnagar is Joint Director Ghanshyam Upadhyay, who is currently stationed in Imphal, as per the sources.

The team consists of seasoned officers specializing in special crime, crime scene reconstruction, interrogation, and technical surveillance. It will also include experts from the CBI's distinguished Central Forensic Science Laboratory, sources have disclosed. Images of the bodies of the two missing students - Phijam Hemjit (20) and Hijam Linthoingambi (17) - started circulating on social media on Monday.

One of the pictures purportedly displayed the students in the company of two armed individuals, while the other showed two lifeless bodies. Authorities had earlier stated that the whereabouts of the two students were unknown, and their mobile phones were switched off. Police had traced the last location of their mobile handsets to Lamdan, near the winter flower tourist spot in Churachandpur district.

Reacting to the distressing news, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh assured the public in a post on X, stating, "In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the state that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators." Singh emphasized the commitment of the authorities to swiftly resolve the matter with the presence of CBI officers in the state. He added, "I have been constantly in touch with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri @AmitShah ji to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

In light of the distressing news that emerged yesterday regarding the tragic demise of the missing students, I want to assure the people of the State that both the state and central government are closely working together to nab the perpetrators.



To further expedite this crucial  N.Biren Singh (@NBirenSingh) September 26, 2023

Security personnel have been placed on high alert, and additional measures have been implemented to prevent any incidents following the dissemination of the deceased students' images, noted a senior officer.

The government has reassured the public that "swift and decisive action will be taken against all those involved in the kidnapping and killing of Phijam Hemjit and Hijam Linthoingambi."

Internet Services Suspended For 5 Days

The Manipur government has once again imposed a ban on internet services for the next five days. Mobile internet services, which were suspended due to ethnic violence in Manipur since early May, were restored on September 23.

In response to the situation, hundreds of students marched towards N Biren Singh's residence, but security forces intercepted them, deploying tear gas shells and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd. Over 40 students, including girls, were injured.

A directive from the Manipur Home Department emphasized the steps being taken to prevent the imminent threat to life, damage to public and private property, and widespread disruptions to public tranquillity.

"In view of the prevailing law and order situation in the State of Manipur, the State Government views very seriously with utmost sensitivity the reported spread of disinformation, false rumours, and other types of violent activities through various social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., on electronic equipment like tablets, computers, mobile phones, etc., and sending bulk SMS likely facilitating and/or mobilizing mobs of agitators and demonstrators, which may cause loss of life and/or damage to public/private property or aggravate the law and order situation in the state," stated an official notification.

The suspension order regarding mobile internet data services and internet/data services through VPN in the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Manipur is effective immediately and will last for five days, ending at 7:45 PM on October 1, the notification confirmed.

Any individual found violating these orders will face legal action, as per the notification.

Manipur Violence

Manipur has been experiencing unrest since May 3, following protests by the Kuki and Meitei communities against the High Court's directive for the state government to contemplate including the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. Only STs are permitted to purchase land in hilly areas.

The dominant Meitei community, occupying the Imphal Valley and nearby areas, has sought ST status due to their growing population and increased land requirements, enabling them to acquire lands in hilly areas.
New York: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday (local time) said that he is not a part of the intelligence group when asked for comment on the reported sharing of intelligence between Five Eyes countries on Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing. He was asked about the reports citing the role of the Five Eyes group regarding the intelligence behind the killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and reports of the FBI warning US Sikh leaders about credible threats to them.

Responding to the question during the Discussion at Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Jaishankar said, I am not part of The Five Eyes, I am certainly not part of the FBI. So I think you are asking the wrong person.

The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US and the UK. Earlier, David Cohen, the US Ambassador to Canada, said that it was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that led the Trudeau administration to make the claim of a potential link between agents of the Indian government and the killing of separatist Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

During the event, the EAM also highlighted the organised crime, related to secessionist forces, violence and extremism in Canada, raising concerns over them being very permissive due to political reasons.

In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organized crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organized crime, violence and extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information, Jaishankar said.

Regarding PM Trudeaus allegations, Jaishankar assured that the Indian side will take action if the Canadian side provides specific information in connection with Khalistani leader Hardeep Nijjars killing.

We told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy. Secondly, we said if you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it...The picture is not complete without the context in a way, he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the cat among the pigeons on Monday, claiming that Ottawa had credible intelligence linking Indian agents to the killing of Nijjar in Vancouver. India, however, dismissed the allegations calling them absurd and motivated. India has suspended its visa services in Canada, following Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations of Indian involvement in the killing.

Amid strained ties, India issued an advisory for its citizens and those who are travelling to Canada to exercise utmost caution in view of growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes and criminal violence" in the country. A designated terrorist in India, Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18.
Vadodara: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday strongly criticized opposition parties for neglecting the development of women for many years, and accused them of prioritizing their "political equations" while his government focused on empowering Muslim women by addressing issues like Triple Talaq. Continuing his critique of the opposition, PM Modi asserted that they did not stand for the rights of Muslim women. "If the opposition were genuinely concerned about women's development, they would not have kept them deprived for decades," PM Modi said while addressing the 'Nari Shakti Vandan Abhinandan Karyakram in Vadodara, Gujarat.

The PM was referring to the passage of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (Womens Reservation Bill) which reserved one-third of seats for women in Lok Sabha and State assemblies, and claimed that the opposition parties mocked him when his government talked about providing toilets for women.

"These are the same people who mocked me when I spoke about toilets for women, and when I spoke about Jan Dhan's accounts for women. They mocked the Ujjwala Yojana," PM Modi said. He also slammed the Opposition parties for opposing the law against 'Triple Talaq'.

"When we were talking about liberating Muslim women from triple talaq, they were concerned about their political equations. They were not worried about the rights of Muslim women, they were only concerned about their vote bank. When the law against Triple Talaq was brought, why did they not stand for the rights of Muslim Women?" PM Modi questioned.

Before his speech, Prime Minister Modi, accompanied by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, held a roadshow in Vadodara. A large crowd of supporters, predominantly women, filled the streets, displaying placards to welcome PM Modi as he rode in an open-topped vehicle adorded with flowers.

Notably, a significant group of women led PM Modi's convoy, drawing cheers and chants from the local crowd. Earlier on Wednesday, PM Modi delivered a keynote address commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit at Science City in Ahmedabad.
Article: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated the 20th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit at the Science City in Ahmedabad. The summit, which was started by Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, aims to showcase the states achievements and potential to the world. In his address, PM said, "Those who ran central govt earlier used to link Gujarat's development with politics. Minister of then central govt used to refuse to come to Vibrant Gujarat...they used to threaten foreign investors and tried to stop them(foreign investors) from coming to Gujarat...even after so much of threatening, foreign investors came to Gujarat"

PM Modi hailed Vibrant Gujarat as a programme of bonding rather than just a programme of branding. He said that the summit was a reflection of his strong bond with the people of Gujarat, who trusted him and supported his vision for development.

He also recalled how the previous central government tried to undermine Gujarats progress by politicizing it and discouraging foreign investors from coming to the state. He said that despite the threats and obstacles, Gujarat continued to attract global attention and investment.

"When Vibrant Gujarat was started, there were no big hotels in Gujarat where foreign guests could stay. Even govt guesthouses used to get full and we used even University guesthouses," Modi said.

He said that Vibrant Gujarat was not only a platform for redevelopment, but also a channel for envisioning the future. He said that the summit was a way to increase the self-confidence of Gujarat and to communicate with the world on equal terms.

PM Modi also expressed his happiness and gratitude for being part of the 20th anniversary of Vibrant Gujarat and congratulated the state government for organizing the event. He also invited the delegates and dignitaries from various countries and sectors to explore the opportunities and potential of Gujarat.
Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the programme to mark 20 years of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit on Wednesday. upon his arrival in Ahmedabad, PM Modi visted the robot exhibition at Science City in the presence of the Governor of Gujarat Acharya Devvrat and CM Bhupendra Patel.

#WATCH | PM Modi visits robot exhibition at Science City in Gujarat's Ahmedabad



The PM will take part in a programme to mark the celebration of 20 years of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, here.



Governor of Gujarat Acharya Devvrat and CM Bhupendra Patel also present pic.twitter.com/LXrLgbUjkd  ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2023

Taking to X, PM Modi said Marking two decades of fostering business, innovation and growth! At 10 AM, will be joining the programme to mark 20 years of the @VibrantGujaratSummit, which is a testament to Gujarats unwavering commitment to economic development. Over the years, the Summits have brought together key stakeholders across sectors, furthered growth and most importantly, created opportunities for several youngsters of Gujarat.

Vibrant Gujarat's official Twitter handle on X posted Vibrant Gujarat was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (the then Chief Minister of Gujarat) in 2003 with a vision of achieving the inclusive and holistic development of the state. In the last 20 years, Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit has become the foremost choice for investors, not only from India but from all over the world.

Today, with the relentless efforts of Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, Gujarat is recognized as one of India's most vibrant states due to its pro-business policies, robust industrial base, and investment-friendly environment, Vibrant Gujarat posted on X.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also inaugurate development projects to the tune of Rs 5,206 crores at Chhota Udepur in Gujarat including village Wi-Fi facilities in 22 districts on Wednesday.

The Gujarat government, in a statement on Monday, said PM Modi will visit Gujarat on September 27 and inaugurate projects worth Rs 4,505 crore under the Mission Schools of Excellence.

During his visit, he will inaugurate and dedicate various development projects worth Rs 5,206 crore in Chhota Udepur district. Under the Mission Schools of Excellence project, development works worth Rs 4,505 crore will be inaugurated and dedicated by the Prime Minister, the statement read.

A new Navodaya Vidyalaya built at a cost of Rs 23 crore in Dahod and an FM Radio Studio built at a cost of Rs 10 crore will also be inaugurated. PM Modi will also inaugurate village Wi-Fi facilities that will benefit 20 lakh beneficiaries in 7,500 villages across 22 districts.

Development projects worth Rs 277 crore under the Roads and Buildings Department, Rs 251 crore under the Urban Development Department, and Rs 80 crore under the Water Supply Department will also be inaugurated and dedicated, the statement added.
New Delhi: Congress Geneal Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may contest elections from Uttar Pradesh's Phulpur consitutuency in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections in 2024, sources said to Zee News. Phoolpur is a bastion of Gandhi family as Jawaharlal Nehru won three consecutive electons in 1952, 1957 and 1962 from here. It is one of the three seats that are called the bastion of the Gandhi family in UP, the other two are Rae Bareli and Amethi. However, a final decision on which consitutency Priyanka will be fielded from is yet to be taken.

Sources say that Congress can also give a ticket to Priyanka from Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur if the party is vote to power in the assembly elections.

Earlier, reports of the Gandhi scion fighting the polls from Varanasi, where Prime Minister Modi is winning from the past two elections also surfaced. Congress state unit chief Ajay Rai also said that there is a possibility of her contesting from Varanasi.
Amidst escalating tensions between India and Canada, Punjab finds itself in a state of unrest, primarily concerning the safety of its young population studying and working in Canada. 2022 witnessed Canada admitting a record 551,405 international students from 184 countries. Remarkably, over 200,000 visas were granted to Indian students, with a significant number originating from Punjab.

Joyti Behal, an Amritsar-based journalist, vocalizes this growing apprehension. His daughter, currently studying in Canada, is at the heart of his concern. Canada was seen as a beacon of safety, but recent events have sown seeds of doubt in many minds like mine, Given the current circumstances, many doubts have arisen in my mind. I am feeling a discomfort states Behal.

Indeed, the allure of Canada has been magnetic for Punjab's youth. This affinity has not only enriched Canada's educational realm but also catalyzed the growth of immigration agencies in Punjab and Canada alike.

Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina, an eminent figure in the educational sector, notes, "While Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau consistently emphasizes the safety and security of all Canadian citizens, his statements conspicuously lack specific mention of the well-being and protection of Indian students and professionals in Canada."

However, sentiments have shifted post Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegations, unsupported by evidence, against the Indian government over the killing of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India promptly denied these claims, labeling them as 'unfounded.' The fallout from these allegations has been swift: recalling diplomats, issuing travel advisories, and India even suspending visa services for Canadians.

Sunil Jakhar, President of the Bhartiya Janata Party in Punjab, has penned a letter to India's Ministry of External Affairs, addressing the strain between the nations. In his letter, he emphasized not keeping people in prolonged apprehension and questioned the halting of visas. "I think the security of the country is of utmost priority, and all Punjabis will agree to this, but why grind the grain with the husk? There are just a few such individuals, and there's a need to reconsider this entire policy, said he.

The other concern is that Punjab might once again turn towards those dark days. The impact of these events is not only on India-Canada relations, but is also visible in many other places. The Khalistan movement's propagators in Canada and other countries have found another opportunity.

Surinder Singh, a hotelier from Amritsar, nostalgically recalls Trudeau's warm welcome in Amritsar, expressing dismay over the Prime Minister's recent actions. Singh speculates on the political motivations behind these gestures. I remember when Justin Trudeau came to Amritsar, and the residents of Amritsar welcomed him warmly. He questioned, What does Trudeau want to prove by leveling baseless allegations against India and giving a platform to extremist views? It seems to me he is doing all this to achieve his political objectives. We don't want Punjab to go back to those dark days again.

Historically, Punjab has stood resilient against adversities, from confronting invaders like Nadir Shah to its pivotal role in India-Pakistan conflicts. The state's legacy in the 1950s speaks of youth migrating internationally, marking their presence through dedication and diligence. While their migration brought youthful vigor to Canada, it inadvertently amplified the platform for pro-Khalistani sentiments. During the recent G-20 summit, while India raised concerns over Khalistani activities in Canada, Trudeau chose to spotlight India's purported role in Nijjar's assassination.

Experts opine that this rift is inadvertently boosting the pro-Khalistan movement's global visibility. Although Trudeau and his cabinet have consistently underscored their commitment to the safety of all Canadians, conspicuously missing is an addressal for the safety of non-Canadian residents, especially students and workers.

Analysts specializing in Indo-Canadian relations emphasize the need for the Indian government to assuage the concerns of Punjab's populace regarding the safety of its youth in Canada. Addressing these concerns might be the first step in mending the strained tapestry of Indo-Canadian relations.


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New Delhi: Google's homepage features a funny doodle in honor of the company's 25th anniversary. All of Google's previous logos are included in the GIF, which concludes with the present design, which has two 'o's substituted with the number '25'.

Google was founded formally on September 27, 1998. The tech behemoth said in a blog post that its history began when PhD students Larry Page and Sergert Brin connected while studying computer science at Stanford University in the late 1990s.

The blog stated that the two started their work from their dorm rooms but later moved their operations to a rented garage, which became Google's first office. They worked to make the World Wide Web more accessible to people and began developing a prototype for a better search engine.

Our logo, which is featured in today's Doodle, has changed significantly since 1998, but our goal has remained the same: to organize the world's information and make it widely accessible and valuable. Google is used by billions of users worldwide for searching, connecting, working, playing, and SO MUCH MORE! We appreciate your support as we've changed over the past 25 years. The message stated, "We are excited to see where the future leads us, together.
Value-focused investors are always on the hunt for stocks that are priced below their intrinsic value. One such stock that merits attention is Guardant Health Inc (NASDAQ:GH). The stock, which is currently priced at 27.39, recorded a gain of 6.16% in a day and a 3-month decrease of 26.75%. The stock's fair valuation is $99.26, as indicated by its GF Value.

Understanding GF Value

The GF Value represents the current intrinsic value of a stock derived from our exclusive method. The GF Value Line on our summary page gives an overview of the fair value that the stock should be traded at. It is calculated based on three factors: historical multiples (PE Ratio, PS Ratio, PB Ratio and Price-to-Free-Cash-Flow) that the stock has traded at, GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth, and future estimates of the business performance.

Guardant Health (GH): A Potential Value Trap?

Guardant Health's Risk Factors

However, investors need to consider a more in-depth analysis before making an investment decision. Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, certain risk factors associated with Guardant Health should not be ignored. These risks are primarily reflected through its low Altman Z-score of -0.08. These indicators suggest that Guardant Health, despite its apparent undervaluation, might be a potential value trap. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making.

Understanding the Altman Z-Score

Before delving into the details, let's understand what the Altman Z-score entails. Invented by New York University Professor Edward I. Altman in 1968, the Z-Score is a financial model that predicts the probability of a company entering bankruptcy within a two-year time frame. The Altman Z-Score combines five different financial ratios, each weighted to create a final score. A score below 1.8 suggests a high likelihood of financial distress, while a score above 3 indicates a low risk.

Story continues

Company Introduction

Guardant Health, based in Redwood City, California, provides cancer blood tests and analytics for clinical and research use, and the firm maintains research partnerships with large biopharmaceutical companies. The company offers Guardant 360, a blood-based (liquid biopsy) test for treatment selection in advanced stage cancer, and Guardant Omni, a broader gene panel for immuno-oncology research.

The company's pipeline includes Guardant Reveal (formerly Lunar-1), for cancer recurrence detection in survivors, and Lunar-2, a liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer in higher-risk individuals, with an initial focus on colorectal cancer. Additionally, Guardant offers research development services. In 2022, the United States accounted for 94% of revenue, and other markets the remaining 6%.

Guardant Health (GH): A Potential Value Trap?

Guardant Health's Low Altman Z-Score: A Breakdown of Key Drivers

A dissection of Guardant Health's Altman Z-score reveals Guardant Health's financial health may be weak, suggesting possible financial distress:

The Retained Earnings to Total Assets ratio provides insights into a company's capability to reinvest its profits or manage debt. Evaluating Guardant Health's historical data, 2021: -0.35; 2022: -0.73; 2023: -1.02, we observe a declining trend in this ratio. This downward movement indicates Guardant Health's diminishing ability to reinvest in its business or effectively manage its debt. Consequently, it exerts a negative impact on its Z-Score.

The EBIT to Total Assets ratio serves as a crucial barometer of a company's operational effectiveness, correlating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to total assets. An analysis of Guardant Health's EBIT to Total Assets ratio from historical data (2021: -0.16; 2022: -0.29; 2023: -0.27) indicates a descending trend. This reduction suggests that Guardant Health might not be utilizing its assets to their full potential to generate operational profits, which could be negatively affecting the company's overall Z-score.

Conclusion

In conclusion, despite Guardant Health's seemingly attractive valuation, its low Altman Z-Score and declining financial ratios suggest that it might be a potential value trap. Therefore, investors should proceed with caution and conduct thorough due diligence before making an investment decision.

GuruFocus Premium members can find stocks with high Altman Z-Score using the following Screener: Walter Schloss Screen .

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


HOLLAND  Just over a year after opening its doors in downtown Holland, Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. has announced it will expand into Grand Haven.

The company is scheduled to open a new location in mid-November at 129 Washington Ave. The candle-making studio "promises to bring a unique and immersive experience to residents and visitors alike," according to a release.

Just over a year after opening its doors in downtown Holland, Garsnett Beacon Candle Co. has announced it will expand into Grand Haven.

Garsnett Beacon offers over 100 fragrance choices and dozens of container options, allowing customers to customize their own unique candle. The location will have seating for "upwards of 30" and will be able to host candle-making events.

"As a lifelong lover of candles and the magic they bring to our lives, I couldn't be more thrilled to bring Garsnett Beacon to Grand Haven," founder Chad Garsnett wrote in a statement. "Our vison has always been to ignite the creativity and passion of our customers through the art of candle making. Our (new) studio will be a place of inspiration, relaxation and community, and we can't wait to share this enchanting experience with you all.

"Grand Haven is more than just a location to us," Sebastian Garsnett added. "It's a place where we aspire to be embraced. We can't wait to become part of this beautiful town."

The couple launched Garsnett Beacon during the pandemic.

Sabastian and Chad Garsnett pose for a photo with candles they created for Garsnett Beacon Candle Co.

"We lived in Indianapolis," Chad told The Sentinel in 2022. "We started with the idea of making candles in 2020 because we loved candles and we really wanted to create the perfect one. We did a bunch of testing and development and launched in February (2022). We started online, and we've done a few markets across Michigan."

Last year, they opened a brick-and-mortar shop in the former Mayberry and Co. at 210 S. River Ave. in Holland.

Learn more at facebook.com/garsnettbeacon.

 Cassandra Lybrink is the local editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at clybrink@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @CassLybrink.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland candle-making shop to open second location in Grand Haven
MELBOURNE, Australia and LIEGE, Belgium, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited (ASX: TLX, Telix, the Company) has welcomed Her Royal Highness, Princess Astrid, Princess of Belgium to Telix Manufacturing Solutions (TMS), the Company's recently inaugurated production facility, in Brussels South (Seneffe) in the Wallonia region of Belgium.

(PRNewsfoto/Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited)

Located in the heart of Belgium's 'Radiopharma Valley', the 2,800 square metre facility is one of Europe's largest radiopharmaceutical production facilities. With more than 10 million imaging procedures performed in the EU using radiopharmaceutical agents every year,[1] Telix's site provides important infrastructure to meet the growing demand for commercial and clinical imaging and therapeutic agents, for patients in the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and beyond.

The royal visit comes ahead of the Belgian Economic Mission to Australia, which will take place in Melbourne and Sydney from 19 to 28 October 2023. The mission  led by HRH, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Representative of His Majesty the King of Belgium  features events that highlight successful collaboration between Belgium and Australia. Telix is co-hosting a seminar with The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne on the subject of innovation in nuclear medicine.

Raphael Ortiz, Telix EMEA CEO said "Telix was honoured to welcome HRH Princess Astrid, the Ambassador Dirk Wouters, Laurent Michel and the Bourgmestre Benedicte Poll at Telix Manufacturing Solutions, which recently opened in Brussels South. Belgium's 'Radiopharma Valley' is a fundamental part of Telix's innovation success with this latest example of Telix's continued investment in innovation to serve as a hub for research, development and manufacturing for our partners and collaborators across industry, academia and clinical practice. We would like to thank the Princess for her interest in nuclear medicine and radiopharmaceuticals, and look forward to showcasing the Australian side of the business during next month's trade mission."

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Pascale Delcomminette, Wallonia Export & Investment Agency (Awex) CEO, added, "TMS is a prime example of the innovative solutions made possible by a strong business partnership between Belgium and Australia. With the trade mission less than a month away, we are pleased that HRH Princess Astrid could see first-hand this facility that has potential to transform care for patients with cancer and rare diseases in Belgium, Europe and worldwide."

About Telix Manufacturing Solutions

Located in the heart of Radiopharma Valley, the 2,800 square metre facility will serve as Telix's primary manufacturing site for radioisotopes and commercial and clinical products for patients in EMEA and beyond.

Download the Telix Manufacturing Solutions fact sheet here.

About Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited

Telix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialisation of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals and associated medical devices. Telix is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with international operations in the United States, Europe (Belgium and Switzerland), and Japan. Telix is developing a portfolio of clinical-stage products that aims to address significant unmet medical needs in oncology and rare diseases. Telix is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: TLX).

Visit www.telixpharma.com for further information about Telix, including details of the latest share price, announcements made to the ASX, investor and analyst presentations, news releases, event details and other publications that may be of interest. You can also follow Telix on LinkedIn.

Telix's lead product, gallium-68 (68Ga) gozetotide (also known as 68Ga PSMA-11) injection, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),[2] by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA),[3] and by Health Canada.[4] Telix is also progressing Marketing Authorisation Applications for 68Ga-PSMA-11 in the United Kingdom and the European Union.[5]

Telix Investor Relations

Ms. Kyahn Williamson

Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited

SVP Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Email: kyahn.williamson@telixpharma.com

Legal Notices

This announcement is not intended as promotion or advertising directed to any healthcare professional or other audience in any country worldwide (including Australia, United States and the United Kingdom). This announcement may include forward-looking statements that relate to anticipated future events, financial performance, plans, strategies or business developments. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words such as "may", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "outlook", "forecast" and "guidance", or other similar words. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's good-faith assumptions as to the financial, market, regulatory and other risks and considerations that exist and affect the Company's business and operations in the future and there can be no assurance that any of the assumptions will prove to be correct. In the context of Telix's business, forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about: the initiation, timing, progress and results of Telix's preclinical and clinical studies, and Telix's research and development programs; Telix's ability to advance product candidates into, enrol and successfully complete, clinical studies, including multi-national clinical trials; the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals, manufacturing activities and product marketing activities; the commercialisation of Telix's product candidates, if or when they have been approved; estimates of Telix's expenses, future revenues and capital requirements; Telix's financial performance; developments relating to Telix's competitors and industry; and the pricing and reimbursement of Telix's product candidates, if and after they have been approved. Telix's actual results, performance or achievements may be materially different from those which may be expressed or implied by such statements, and the differences may be adverse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Except as required by applicable laws or regulations, Telix does not undertake to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements. Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. Readers should read this announcement together with our material risks, as disclosed in our most recently filed reports with the ASX and on our website.

2023 Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited. The Telix Pharmaceuticals and Illuccix name and logo are trademarks of Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited and its affiliates (all rights reserved).

[1] European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Mario, N., Kolmayer, A., Turquet, G.et al., Study on sustainable and resilient supply of medical radioisotopes in the EU https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/911131 [2] Telix ASX disclosure 20 December 2021. [3] Telix ASX disclosure 2 November 2021. [4] Telix ASX disclosure 14 October 2022. [5] Telix ASX disclosure 3 April 2023.

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SOURCE Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited
Dana Gas, the Middle Easts largest regional private sector natural gas company, has announced the appointment of Richard Hall as Group CEO.

He will join Dana Gas on November 6, 2023. Halls appointment follows an extensive executive search process after the announcement of the retirement of Patrick Allman-Ward, the current CEO, who will remain an advisor to the Board.

Hall possesses extensive international experience in the oil and gas sector, boasting a proven track record of leadership and accountability. His expertise lies in cultivating organisational and strategic capabilities, spearheading sustainable energy initiatives, and effectively overseeing daily business operations in various managerial, executive and board roles.

Maximising value

Hall joins from EnQuest, where he has spent the last three years as Chief Operating Officer, and as Managing Director in Malaysia. As Chief Operating Officer he has been responsible for creating and maximising value in the companys global production and development assets and instrumental in leading the companys transition into the next phase of new energy.

Previously, Hall held senior roles in the petroleum service sector across various geographies including the Middle East. He was also co-founder and CEO of Malaysia-focused Nio Petroleum; was formerly one of four founders and operations director of the service company UWG Ltd (now known as Acteon); and completed a stint in Dubai as Chairman and CEO of a private equity backed service company operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and across the Middle East and Asia before joining EnQuest.

Hamid Jafar, Chairman of the Board of Dana Gas, said: "On behalf of the entire Board and the management team, I extend a warm welcome to Richard Hall as the new CEO of Dana Gas. We are very pleased to have him on board and are confident that his broad and extensive international experience will prove to be an asset for our organisation and are confident that he has the qualifications and skill sets that are needed to drive Dana Gas forward and implement its next phase of development and growth.

Key milestones

I also want to extend my gratitude to Dr Patrick Allman-Ward, the outgoing CEO, for his dedication, leadership, and contributions to Dana Gas. Under his guidance, the company has achieved significant milestones and maintained its position as a leading player in the regional energy sector.

Hall said: "I am honoured to join Dana Gas as CEO and lead its exceptional team. Our industry is undergoing significant growth and evolution, and I look forward to working collaboratively with our talented professionals under the auspices of the companys Board to drive innovation, sustainability, and value creation for our stakeholders. Together, we will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the energy sector."--TradeArabia News Service
By Sergio Goncalves

LISBON (Reuters) -Portugal's soon to be privatised TAP airline would fit right into IAG's profile as a developer of airlines and hubs, also strengthening its existing operations, the CEO of the British Airways owner told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We'll have to study the process (of privatisation) and carefully consider the details, but we feel optimistic and believe that TAP can become another success story within IAG," Luis Gallego said on the sidelines of the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon.

Portugal's government is expected to approve the legal framework for the privatisation on Thursday. It has said it intends to keep a strategic stake in the carrier.

At least two other major global players - Lufthansa and Air France-KLM - have shown an interest in TAP.

IAG also owns Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling.

Gallego said growth in Irish carrier Aer Lingus, which has more than doubled its long-haul capacity and added nine destinations in North America since its acquisition four years ago, could serve as a model for TAP. The acquisition also helped develop the Dublin hub.

"We can jointly develop the Lisbon hub and provide significant value to Portugal and the Portuguese people...Our networks are highly complementary with many opportunities to connect passengers from Lisbon to Latin America, North America and Africa," Gallego said.

TAP operates several routes to Brazil and connects Lisbon to Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa.

"Our hubs would feed into TAP's network from IAG's home bases: Dublin, London, Madrid and Barcelona," Gallego added.

In a nod to the Portuguese government's desire to preserve the national brand and the Lisbon hub, he said that under IAG's decentralised business model, each company maintains its cultural identity, board of directors and headquarters.

"The group provides scale, for example, for fleet negotiations and supplier procurement...it also provides access to investment," he said.

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TAP CEO Luis Rodrigues told the same event he expected Thursday to be a "big day" for the company, adding: "I think it (privatisation) is going to work fine" as the airline expected to post positive results for the second consecutive year after swinging to a profit in 2022.

IAG's Gallego also said demand for travel was "very, very strong", except from the corporate sector, as it continued to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that the recovery of corporate demand in Spain was happening faster than in Britain.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves, writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by David Latona and Ed Osmond)
Iceland Seafood International hf.

As announced today, September 27th 2023, Iceland Seafood International hf (Iceland Seafood) has completed the sale of 100% of the share capital of Iceland Seafood UK Ltd, to Espersen A/S. The completion of the sale means that Iceland Seafood needs a consent from the bondholders of bonds in the series ICESEA 25 06, ISIN: IS0000033199, in the amount of ISK 3,400,000,000 (the Bonds), for an amendment or a waiver, as applicable, of one of the financial covenants under the Bonds. The consent is needed due to condition 9.3 of the terms and conditions for the Bonds, since the sale of Iceland Seafood UK Ltd means that assets representing more than 5% of total group turnover are being sold. Iceland Seafood is reviewing its options in this regard and intends to summon to a bondholders meeting in the coming weeks to propose amendments or waivers, as applicable, for the relevant provision under the terms and conditions of the Bonds. The summoning of the bondholders meeting will be announced in a separate press release in due course, containing further information.



Iceland Seafood has engaged Kvika Bank as its financial advisor in relation to this matter.




Final Call for Participants to Register

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With aspirations to open minds, inspire actions and encourage conversations, the International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM) 2023 will host over 10 conferences from 4th to 6th October 2023 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on high-impact topics such low-carbon cities, hydrogen economy, waste management, circular economy, water conservation, energy efficiency and more, all aligned to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

IGEM 2023 Summary of Conferences

Key conferences include the AtoZero ASEAN Summit, the 1st National Conference on Energy Efficiency, Malaysia Carbon Market Forum 2023, Green Logistics Partnership Conference 2023: Driving Sustainability in Transport & Logistics, Driving Canadian-Malaysian Partnerships in Clean Energy & Sustainability and the Symposium on Environment Quality Act 1974, to name just a few.

IGEM 2023, organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRECC) and co-organised by the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC), is themed Race Towards Net Zero: Leadership for Climate Action with the conferences being led and participated by top representatives from companies including Business Finland, Business Sweden, Akademi Sains Malaysia and Bursa Malaysia as well as eminent dignitaries from countries such as Sweden, Austria and Canada.

The Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said, "IGEM consistently continues to bring together the brightest minds in green technology and climate change. Given the urgency of taking leadership in climate action, this year's conferences have been curated to specifically address the region's focus on fast-growing sectors such as electric mobility and energy transition."

"Offering insightful presentations and panel discussions on pertinent and pressing topics, IGEM 2023's conferences will convene thousands of international and Malaysian experts from across the related fields to shape and inspire impactful global green thinking and action," he added.

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One of the much-awaited conferences will be Green Logistics Partnership Conference (GLPC), which is a collaboration between the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) and the ASEAN-Japan Transport Partnership (AJTP), providing a platform to share best practices to improve green logistics practices in the country.

Themed Driving Sustainability in Transport & Logistics, GLPC will be jointly organised by the MoT, NRECC, MGTC and Business Sweden, with support from technical partners i.e., the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research and VOLVO.

The central attraction of IGEM, the exhibition floor, will be laid out this year based on the sub-themes of Empowering Cities, Electrifying Mobility, Decarbonising Energy, Accelerating Circularity and Conserving Biodiversity. Some international participants include Arctech Solar (China), Phoenix Green Energy (Austria), International Science Council (France), and Saxon Renewable Pte Ltd (Singapore).

IGEM 2023, presented in collaboration with PETRONAS, has secured a stellar line-up of sponsors including: Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Leader Energy Holdings Berhad, UOB Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Solarvest Holdings Berhad, Samaiden Group Berhad, Cypark Resources Berhad, Polymateria Ltd, Cenergi SEA Bhd, Bio Eneco, Canadian Solar and Lenovo.

To add further momentum to the green economy, IGEM 2023 will feature the much-in-demand business networking sessions organised by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) and MGTC.

To participate in the eye-opening conferences as we Race Towards Net Zero, register now by emailing faiz@mgtc.gov.my . For further details on IGEM 2023, please visit www.igem.my .

About Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC)

MGTC is an agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment, and Climate Change (NRECC) mandated to accelerate green growth, advance climate actions, and foster green lifestyles within the community.

Guided by the National Green Technology Policy (NGTP), National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), Green Technology Master Plan 2017-2030 (GTMP), and the 12th Malaysia Plan, MGTC carries out various programmes and initiatives to support stakeholders at all levels.

Heading towards 2030, and through a range of implemented programs and initiatives, MGTC aims to invest up to RM100 billion in green initiatives, create around 230,000 green job opportunities, and assist Malaysia in achieving net-zero GHG emissions by as early as 2050.

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SOURCE Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation
By Dewi Kurniawati and Stanley Widianto

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, the trade minister said on Wednesday, in a blow to short video app TikTok, which is doubling down on Southeast Asia's biggest economy to boost its e-commerce business.

The government said the move, which takes effect immediately, is aimed at protecting offline merchants and marketplaces, adding that predatory pricing on social media platforms is threatening small and medium-sized enterprises.

The move comes just three months after TikTok pledged to invest billion of dollars in Southeast Asia, mainly in Indonesia, over the next few years in a major push to build its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.

TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia and has been looking to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source.

A TikTok Indonesia spokesperson said it would pursue a constructive path forward and was "deeply concerned" with the announcement, "particularly how it would impact the livelihoods of the 6 million" local sellers active on TikTok Shop.

Indonesia Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Wednesday told reporters that the regulation is intended to ensure "fair and just" business competition, adding that it was also intended to ensure data protection of users.

He warned of letting social media become an e-commerce platform, shop, and bank all at the same time.

The new regulation also requires e-commerce platforms in Indonesia to set a minimum price of $100 for certain items that are directly purchased from abroad, according to the regulation document reviewed by Reuters, and that all products offered should meet local standards.

Zulkifli said TikTok had one week to comply with the regulation or face the threat of closure. Indonesia Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga earlier this month named TikTok's live streaming features as an example of people selling goods on social media.

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Research firm BMI said TikTok would be the only business affected by the transaction ban and the move was unlikely to harm the digital marketplace industry's growth.

Indonesia's e-commerce market is dominated by the likes of homegrown tech firm GoTo's Tokopedia, Sea's Shopee and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's Lazada.

E-commerce transactions in Indonesia amounted to nearly $52 billion last year and of that, 5% took place on TikTok, according to data from consultancy Momentum Works.

Indonesia is among the few markets where TikTok has launched TikTok Shop, as it seeks to leverage its large user base in the country.

Its 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia is almost on par with its user figures for Europe and behind U.S. users of more than 150 million. TikTok launched an online shopping service in the United States earlier this month.

Reactions from retailers were mixed.

Fahmi Ridho, a vendor selling clothes on TikTok, said the platform was a way for stores to recover from the blow dealt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Sales don't have to be necessarily through (brick and mortar) shops, you can do it online or wherever. ... Everything will still have a portion," he said.

But Edri, who goes by one name only and sells clothes at a major wholesale market in Jakarta, agreed with the regulation and stressed that there should be limits on items sold online.

(Reporting by Dewi Kurniawati, Stefanno Sulaiman, Fransiska Nangoy, Stanley Widianto, Johan Purnomo; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Alexandra Hudson, Miyoung Kim and Mark Porter)
Key Insights

Significantly high institutional ownership implies Logitech International's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

The top 25 shareholders own 34% of the company

Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Logitech International S.A. (VTX:LOGN), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 51% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutional investors endured the highest losses after the company's market cap fell by CHF607m last week. However, the 36% one-year returns may have helped alleviate their overall losses. We would assume however, that they would be on the lookout for weakness in the future.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Logitech International.

View our latest analysis for Logitech International

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Logitech International?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

Logitech International already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Logitech International's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

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Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Logitech International is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Vontobel Asset Management, Inc., with ownership of 4.7%. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 3.8% of common stock, and Capital Research and Management Company holds about 3.0% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Logitech International

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Logitech International S.A. in their own names. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own CHF80m of stock. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 48% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Logitech International. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Logitech International you should know about.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Cranes tower high overhead as construction crews develop the Intel chip manufacturing site Sept. 20 in Licking County.

Intel has collected $600 million from Ohio in return for its $20 billion plan to build two factories in Licking County.

The state on Monday announced it awarded the money to the semiconductor company as part of the more than $2 billion in state and local incentives that Intel was promised for picking Ohio for the project.

In return, Intel committed to creating 3,000 jobs with an annual payroll of $405 million as part of its investment, the states largest economic development project, by Dec. 31, 2028.

This commitment is another investment toward making Ohio the new Silicon Heartland, Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. Intels new facilities will create thousands of high-paying jobs and continue to position our state to thrive far into the future.

In a statement, the company said: Intel is proud to partner with the great state of Ohio as we build the Silicon Heartland. We are grateful for their ongoing support, which is helping us create a more resilient supply chain and increase manufacturing of leading-edge semiconductor chips right here in the United States.

The $600 million reshoring grant aims to bring production of semiconductor chips back to the U.S. that power everything from cellphones to cars to military equipment. The industry said the cost of building the plants in the U.S. is 20% to 30% higher than in Asia.

The federal government, meanwhile, created a $52.7 billion program to incentivize chipmakers such as Intel, which confirmed it applied for aid for the Licking County campus.

Intel required to file annual performance reports

As part of the onshoring grant, starting March 1, Intel will be required to report annual performance, including information on how it spends the grant money, the total investment per year and the total amount invested in the project. It will include the number of new jobs and payroll created each year, as well as a description of the construction activity for each factory.

The report will include the number of purchases made from suppliers, a summary of construction activity, the amount of money spent on research and development and the number of people working on the site, along with the counties where they live.

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If Intel does not meet its fixed asset investment and job creation commitments as outlined in the grant agreement, the state may claw back the money provided to Intel.

What has Intel done so far at the site?

As part of the announcement of the award, the state laid out what Intel has done so far in Licking County:

Intel spent or committed $3 billion so far on the project.

About 92% of the construction workers on site are Ohioans, and construction workers come from 59 of Ohio's 88 counties.

Beyond the 3,000 jobs Intel promised to create, the project is expected to create as many as 7,000 construction jobs and thousands of others.

Since the official groundbreaking ceremony a year ago, Intel completed excavation and preparation work for both factories, most of its stormwater management system and 40% of its infrastructure for electricity, gas, water and sanitary sewer.

The onsite concrete plant has supplied most of the concrete needs for the project. Already 16,000 cubic yards of concrete have been poured for the site.

Walls and support columns for the first sub-utility trench are being built.

What other incentives is Intel receiving?

Beyond the $600 million onshoring grant, the state is providing $500 million for water, wastewater and local road infrastructure, as well as $300 million for an onsite water reclamation facility.

The company also will receive $650 million over 30 years in state income tax incentives based on the number of workers Intel hires.

On top of the state's incentives, JobsOhio, the state's economic development arm, kicked in $150 million in economic development and workforce grants, with most of the money used to buy the nearly 1,000 acres where the plants are being built, off Mink Street in the northeast corner of New Albany.

New Albany, meanwhile, has provided a property tax abatement at the site.

mawilliams@dispatch.com

@BizMarkWilliams

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio writes Intel massive check for $20 billion Licking County project
With a median price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of close to 1.5x in the Hospitality industry in Australia, you could be forgiven for feeling indifferent about Donaco International Limited's (ASX:DNA) P/S ratio of 1.9x. However, investors might be overlooking a clear opportunity or potential setback if there is no rational basis for the P/S.

View our latest analysis for Donaco International

What Does Donaco International's Recent Performance Look Like?

Donaco International certainly has been doing a great job lately as it's been growing its revenue at a really rapid pace. It might be that many expect the strong revenue performance to wane, which has kept the share price, and thus the P/S ratio, from rising. 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 not quite in favour.

Want the full picture on earnings, revenue and cash flow for the company? Then our free report on Donaco International will help you shine a light on its historical performance.

What Are Revenue Growth Metrics Telling Us About The P/S?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should be matching the industry for P/S ratios like Donaco International's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an explosive gain to the company's top line. However, this wasn't enough as the latest three year period has seen the company endure a nasty 55% drop in revenue in aggregate. So unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the company has not done a great job of growing revenues over that time.

In contrast to the company, the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 15% over the next year, which really puts the company's recent medium-term revenue decline into perspective.

With this in mind, we find it worrying that Donaco International's P/S exceeds that of its industry peers. It seems most investors are ignoring the recent poor growth rate and are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects. There's a good chance existing shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/S falls to levels more in line with the recent negative growth rates.

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The Bottom Line On Donaco International's P/S

Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-sales ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

We find it unexpected that Donaco International trades at a P/S ratio that is comparable to the rest of the industry, despite experiencing declining revenues during the medium-term, while the industry as a whole is expected to grow. When we see revenue heading backwards in the context of growing industry forecasts, it'd make sense to expect a possible share price decline on the horizon, sending the moderate P/S lower. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve markedly, investors will have a hard time accepting the share price as fair value.

You should always think about risks. Case in point, we've spotted 2 warning signs for Donaco International you should be aware of.

If companies with solid past earnings growth is up your alley, you may wish to see this free collection of other companies with strong earnings growth and low P/E ratios.

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.
This frame grab from video aired by Iranian state television on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, shows what Iran's Communication Minister Isa Zarepour said is a Noor-3 satellite being launched from an undisclosed location, in Iran. Iran claimed on Wednesday that it successfully launched an imaging satellite into space, a move that could further ratchet up tensions with Western nations that fear its space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons. (IRIB via AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Iran claimed on Wednesday that it successfully launched an imaging satellite into space, a move that could further ratchet up tensions with Western nations that fear its space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran's Communication Minister Isa Zarepour said the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth's surface, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. It was not clear when exactly the launch took place.

There was no immediate acknowledgment from Western officials of the launch or of the satellite being put into orbit. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Iran has had a series of failed launches in recent years.

The most recent launch was carried out by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has had more success. Gen. Hossein Salami, the top commander of the Guard, told state TV that the launch had been a victory and that the satellite will collect data and images.

Authorities released footage of a rocket taking off from a mobile launcher without saying where the launch occurred. Details in the video corresponded with a Guard base near Shahroud, some 330 kilometers (205 miles) northeast of the capital, Tehran. The base is in Semnan province, which hosts the Imam Khomeini Spaceport from which Irans civilian space program operates.

The Guard operates its own space program and military infrastructure parallel to Irans regular armed forces and answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It launched its first satellite into space in April 2020. But the head of the U.S. Space Command later dismissed it as a tumbling webcam in space that would not provide vital intelligence. Western sanctions bar Iran from importing advanced spying technology.

The United States has alleged that Irans satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and has called on Tehran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

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The U.S. intelligence communitys 2022 threat assessment claims the development of satellite launch vehicles shortens the timeline for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.

Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.

Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The program has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, another satellite-carrying rocket.

A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 killed three researchers, authorities said at the time. A launchpad rocket explosion later that year drew the attention of then-President Donald Trump, who taunted Iran with a tweet showing what appeared to be a U.S. surveillance photo of the site.

Tensions are already high with Western nations over Iran's nuclear program, which has steadily advanced since Trump five years ago withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers and restored crippling sanctions on Iran.

Efforts to revive the agreement reached an impasse more than a year ago. Since then, the IAEA has said Iran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels to build several nuclear weapons if it chooses to do so. Iran is also building a new underground nuclear facility that would likely be impervious to U.S. or Israeli airstrikes. Both countries have said they would take military action if necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has expressed willingness to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, but says the U.S. should first ease the sanctions.
Chase, the U.K.-based digital bank subsidiary under JPMorgan Chase, told customers Tuesday in an email that it will ban U.K. clients from making crypto-related payments or outgoing bank transfers starting Oct. 16 due to crypto scams, according to Reuters.

See related article: U.K. bill to regulate crypto assets passes into law, offering rocket boost for economy

Fast facts

Weve seen an increase in the number of crypto scams targeting U.K. consumers, so we have taken the decision to prevent the purchase of crypto assets on a Chase debit card or by transferring money to a crypto site from a Chase account, a spokesperson for Chase told Reuters.

Chase, which launched its app-based service in the U.K. in 2021, amassed over 1.6 million clients. JP Morgan Chase, its parent company, is the largest bank in the U.S., with total assets worth over US$3 trillion.

Earlier in March, U.K.-based NatWest Bank limited its customers payments to crypto exchanges to 1,000 British pounds (US$1,214) per day as a safeguard against crypto theft. NatWest noted in its March press release that its U.K. consumers lost 329 million pounds (US$400 million) to crypto scams last year.

The U.K. has been making efforts to grow its blockchain and crypto sector, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a vocal supporter of the industry.

In June, the U.K. passed the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, a reform bill that enabled its financial authorities to treat crypto as a regulated financial instrument. While bringing more clarity, the new crypto regulations raised concerns among some crypto advocates in the U.K. due to the limits placed on marketing campaigns.

Chase Bank has not yet replied to Forkasts email request for further comments sent Wednesday morning in Asia.

See related article: By royal decree  the UK moves toward regulating crypto
Skid steer loaders at a CNH plant. The company lost a lawsuit filed by a former employee at its Burlington factory who was fired after receiving unemployment compensation for what he said was sick time due to COVID-19.

A Des Moines County jury has found in favor of a Burlington man seeking damages after being fired from his job for filing an unemployment claim related to COVID-19.

The jury awarded Jonathan Critser $100,000 after a six-day trial that included testimony from eight witnesses. His former employer, heavy equipment manufacturer CNH Industrial, and two of its human resources employees were named as defendants in the case.

Jon is very satisfied with the jurys verdict and hopes that this trial will help protect other employees from wrongful termination, Critsers attorney, Leonard Bates, wrote in an email.

Bates said all of the $100,00 awarded by the jury was for emotional distress and that Critser, who is happily employed at another company, did not ask for his job back.

Critser lost his job after filing for partial unemployment benefits for work hours he missed on July 8 and 9, 2020, when he said he had symptoms consistent with COVID-19. His lawsuit noted that a company directive stated employees should not report if they were experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, so he called in sick on those two days on the companys sick leave hotline.

The voicemail on the hotline stated that if CNH had any questions regarding his need for sick leave, Critser would be contacted, but he never was, according to court filings.

Since CNH did not pay him for the two days he was gone, Critser filed for and was awarded unemployment compensation for those hours.

Court documents show that CNH terminated Critser on Aug. 5, 2020, because he filed for unemployment benefits against the CNH account and was paid unemployment benefits the week of 7/6/2020.

CNH says worker failed to follow COVID reporting protocol

In a petition to have the case dropped, lawyers for CNH contend that the company had a protocol for employees with COVID-19 symptoms, requiring them to report the nature of their COVID-19 exposure or symptoms directly to human resources, but that Critser in his message on the hotline only stated he was sick.

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Further, CNH said that Critser never was tested for COVID-19 and did not seek treatment during the two days he was absent from work. CNH said that had Critser followed the companys COVID protocol, he would have been paid while on quarantine.

Because Critser failed to notify anyone that he was experiencing or out sick with COVID-19 symptoms, CNH had no reason to consider whether he could have been eligible for benefits on that basis, the company argued. CNH, based on the available evidence, reasonably believed that Critser had committed unemployment fraud, compelling it to terminate his employment, according to court documents it filed.

But Bates, Critsers lawyer, said the key evidence in the case was the Aug. 5 termination letter stating he was being fired for filing for unemployment benefits and being paid unemployment benefits, which he called a clear admission of the reason for termination.

Both filing for and receiving unemployment benefits are a protected activity and termination of an employee for using those options undermine Iowas unemployment insurance laws, Critsers attorneys argued.

The lead attorney for CNH did not respond to an email seeking comment on the verdict.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa jury awards $100,000 in unemployment dispute related to COVID
The Saudi Air Connectivity Program (ACP) has signed a cooperation agreement with Hainan Airlines to launch two new air routes connecting China and Saudi Arabia.

In the wake of the recently held Arab-China conference, and with a growing demand for flights between China and Saudi Arabia, the routes will boost air travel capacity, offering more options for travelling between the two countries and facilitating greater tourism, trade, and cultural exchanges.

The new routes represent the third and fourth air connections from China to Saudi Arabia, following the successful launch of the Riyadh-Beijing and Jeddah-Beijing routes by national carrier Saudia in August 2023, in addition to the carriers existing route connecting Jeddah and Guangzhou.

Our strategic decision to expand in the Saudi market comes at a time of positive global momentum for both our nations. The worlds attention is increasingly drawn to opportunities in Asia and the Middle East, said Jason Liu, Commercial VP of Hainan Airlines.

As Hainan Airlines, we believe this is the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership, and we are looking forward to further fostering cultural exchanges, enhancing connectivity, and contributing to the economic growth and friendship between the two countries.

China is a key partner market for Saudi Arabia. At ACP, weve developed a seamless passenger experience for our Chinese visitors, with tailored amenities for travellers from the People's Republic of China, said Ali Rajab, CEO of ACP.

He added: The entry of Hainan Airlines into the Saudi market will strengthen the bridge between the two countries and will allow tourists and businesses to explore the attractions and opportunities the two nations have to offer. We look forward to working with Hainan Airlines to strengthen their offering to travellers on these routes.

Through Vision 2030, a large economic diversification programme focusing on growing sectors like tourism and aviation, among others, Saudi Arabia aims to become a leading aviation hub in the Middle East, and a key connection point between East and West. In 2022, the kingdom was the worlds second fastest-growing tourism market, according to the World Tourism Organization.

In line with Saudi Arabias Vision 2030, the Kingdom is drastically scaling up its air route capacity. It aims to attract over 100 million visitors to the kingdom by 2030.  TradeArabia News Service
Release Highlights:

Drilling at Drudrusavu has discovered a new epithermal vein system two kilometers east of the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits clearly associated with a prominent CSAMT high resistivity anomaly.

Drudrusavu mineralization is associated with at least two stages of epithermal mineralization, characterized by the presence of quartz sulfide veinlets and hydrothermal alteration, that have been documented over three intervals totaling 87.1 meters in KGD-2023-08 and 65.0 meters in KDG-2023-09.

Drilling at Mouta Prospect intersected two styles of mineralization primarily consisting of a broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite with some caldera margin related shear-style mineralization.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2023 / KALO GOLD CORP. ("Kalo", "Kalo Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the exploration program at Vatu Aurum Gold Project ("Vatu Aurum" or the "Project"), Republic of Fiji. Kalo has completed four diamond drill holes in the 2023 exploration program: two at Drudrusavu ("Drudrusavu") located within the Qiriyaga Hill Prospect ("Qiriyaga") and two at Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") for a total of 432.0 meters ("m").

Mr. Terry L Tucker, P.Geo, President and CEO of Kalo Gold, commented "The two drill holes at Drudrusavu successfully confirmed the Controlled-Source Audio-frequency Magnetotellurics ("CSAMT") geophysical survey has identified zones of hydrothermal alteration and silicification. Both holes drilled had between 65 and 87 m of silicification and hydrothermal alteration and that included one interval that returned 4 meters averaging 1.23 g/t Au and 1 metre averaging 4.17 g/t Au . Given the shallow level of erosion that has been interpreted this indicates there is excellent potential for mineralization at depth at Drudrusavu. The positive correlation between the CSAMT and the drilling at Drudrusavu will give us the confidence to expand exploration at Qiriyaga. Previous drill results at Qiriyaga intersected thick, near-surface, high-grade gold mineralization, particularly drill hole KCD-17 that returned 8.75 metres at 36.02 g/t Au (61.25 to 70 m) and 10 m at 27.18 g/t Au (76-86 m) including 120 g/t Au between 81 to 82 m."

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Drudrusavu

Two holes, KGD-2023-08 (232.50m) and KGD-2023-09 (169.50m) were drilled at Drudrusavu which is located 2 km east of Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits. The drainage through Drudrusavu contained a "very strong gold anomaly" with gold in the stream sediment samples returning up to 580 parts per billion ("ppb") gold. Drudrusavu was originally defined by a 750 m long multi element soil and rock geochemical anomaly that was subsequently drilled in 1986 by Placer Dome. Drill holes KGD-2023-08 and KGD-2023-09 successfully tested the down dip extent of mineralized outcrop on Drudrusavu Creek, the soil geochemical anomaly, historical drilling and a prominent resistivity anomaly defined by a recently completed CSAMT survey (Target 5 in the previous release). The resistivity anomaly is believed to correspond to a ring fault around the edge of a caldera, a potential fertile corridor for precious metals mineralization (Figures 1 and 2).

KGD-2023-08 intersected three mineralized zones from 50.4 to 85.5m, 115.5 to 157.5m and 206.1 to 216.1m composed of millimetre wide quartz veinlets with anhedral and open-space (comb) textures hosted in silica-chlorite altered polymictic breccia and dacite. Gold mineralization was intersected over a 4m zone averaging 1.23 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold, including a meter sample grading 4.17 g/t gold (see Table 1 and Photos 1 to 4).

KGD-2023-09 was drilled 100m to the southeast of KGD-2023-09 along the same CSAMT resistivity anomaly. It intersected three mineralized zones from 41.2 to 59.8m, 72.2 to 105.0m and 114.9 to 128.4m consisting of mm-wide quartz veinlets with comb texture associated with fine pyrite and chalcopyrite hosted in the same rock and alteration suite as KGD-2023-09.

Table 1: Drudrusavu Drill Results

The gold mineralization at Drudrusavu as shown in these two drill holes is associated with at least two stages of quartz veinlets.

Early-stage quartz veinlets and breccia filling with anhedral texture and a homogeneous appearance and an absence of banding, open-space, or similar features. This type of quartz generally infills the space between clasts of brecciated dacite. No other sulfides except pyrite have been documented with it.

A later-stage event with quartz veinlets-pyrite-chalcopyrite (centerline), was observed to cut the early quartz and is characterized by a cockscomb, open-space texture.

The relatively shallow oxidation level (~10m) at Drudrusavu suggests that the mineralization in the area will generally be primary. The results of the Drudrusavu drilling in addition to confirming gold mineralization in that area has extended the extent of the Qiriyaga Prospect a total of 2 km. The mineralization remains open along strike to the northeast and southeast and importantly at depth and correlates well with the CSAMT resistivity anomaly 5 as illustrated in Figure 3.

Mouta Prospect

Mouta Prospect ("Mouta") is located approximately 9 km northwest of Qiriyaga Hill Prospect on the outer edge of the Mouta Caldera. Two holes, KMD-2023-01 (151.5m) and KMD-2023-02 (280.5m) were drilled at Mouta to test a 330m long NE-trending soil anomaly characterized by coincident Au-Ag-As-Sb-Hg-Cu-Pb-Zn and a strong Induced Polarization ("IP") signature (see Figure 4).

Two styles of mineralization were intersected, the first is the shear-style mineralized zone and the second is the broad zone of multi-directional epithermal sulfide veinlets consisting of zinc sulfides including sphalerite and marmatite, pyrite, and minor chalcopyrite. The mineralization is interpreted to be related to shallowly eroded phreatomagmatic eruption setting like the other Prospects on the Property.

KMD-2023-01 intersected the shear style mineralization from 31.0 to 51.0m hosted in a dark gray dacite breccia. It is gougy and strongly silicified in some sections with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and zinc sulfides (marmatite and sphalerite) up to 10% volume occurring as veinlets and disseminations. This zone is the downdip expression of the mineralized outcrop observed at the surface.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 51.0 to 69.0m in an intensely clay altered, felsic dacite breccia. The frequency of these veinlets is generally 5 to 10 per m and total sulfides are estimated between 5% to 7% volume. This zone was disrupted by an 8.40m, barren dark grey colored andesite dike from 68.2 to 76.6m but continued again until 94.0m. Mineralization tapered off from 94.0m downwards until a barren dacite flow (country rock) was hit at 117.80m.

KMD-2023-02 intersected the shear style mineralization from 30.55 to 45.30m within a highly oxidized zone that extends down to a depth of 59.40m. It intersected several 2m copper-bearing zones grading between 0.27% - 0.39% Cu with up to 3.56% Zn.

The second style of mineralization was intersected from 129.5 to 178.0m. This zone is hosted within a silica - clay - chlorite altered dacite breccia from 129.50 m to 151.0m, and intense clay alteration from 151.0 to 178.0m. The sulfides identified within this zone are pyrite, zinc sulfides, and chalcopyrite and estimated to be up to 10%. KMD-2023-02 is mineralized from 178.0 m down to the end of hole at 280.5 m, but only pyrite was identified occurring both as fracture filling and disseminations in an intensely clay-altered dacite breccia. It returned 4 m averaging 0.59% from 167-171m.

Table 2: Mouta Drill Results

Mouta Prospect - Surface Channel Sample Results

Surface mapping has identified zones of silica, silica-clay, and clay alteration and the host rock of gold mineralization is a clay altered pumiceous dacite breccia. Argillic alteration can be intense locally and the main minerals are pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and barite. The presence of gold-silver-copper mineralization at Mouta Prospect, including: 6.2g/t Au, 645g/t Ag and 3.12% Cu from rock chip outcrop sampling and 3.06g/t Au, 819g/t Ag and 1.63% Cu from a stockpile grab sample have been received in addition to recently completed surface channel sampling of the mineralized outcrop. The table below summarizes the gold results from the channel sampling:

Table 3: Mouta Surface Channel Sample Results

The results of the work so far done in Mouta, including the two recently completed drill holes, has demonstrated that Mouta offers an opportunity for a gold or a gold-copper-zinc discovery. The Company will continue to evaluate the results for an effective follow up exploration program.

Sampling, Analysis and QAQC

The drill core was sampled at 1m intervals and cut into half with an electric core saw at the at the Company's exploration camp. The core samples were submitted to ALS Minerals laboratory in Brisbane, Australia ("ALS") for sample preparation and analysis. The gold was analyzed using Au-AA24 method (50g split). Multi-element analysis was also carried out using ME-ICP61m method. Kalo's Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QAQC) protocol for drill core samples includes: 1) field measurement of half core sample weights, 2) insertion of certified reference materials at 1 in 20 frequencies, 3) insertion of blank sample at 1 in 40 frequencies, and 3) insertion of duplicate core samples. ALS has internal QAQC protocols that include analysis and results monitoring for certified reference materials, blank samples, and duplicate core samples.

ABOUT KALO GOLD CORP.

Kalo Gold Corp, a gold exploration company, is focused on exploration for low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of the Vatu Aurum Gold Project on the island of Vanua Levu (North Island) in the Republic of Fiji. Kalo holds a 100% interest in two Special Prospecting Licenses, covering 367 km2 that hosts a minimum of seven volcanic arc related calderas ranging between 1 to 10km in diameter in a geological setting that could be analogous to the alkaline related low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits of both the neighbouring Vatukoula Gold Mine and the Lion One Metals' Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project. Historical exploration work concentrated on the Qiriyaga Hill and Vuinubu Ridge Gold Deposits and resulted in the identification of over fourteen priority epithermal gold exploration targets.

Both Viti Levu, (South Island), and Vanua Levu are on the prolific Pacific "Ring of Fire", a trend that has produced numerous large deposits, including Porgera, Lihir and Grasberg and on Viti Levu, the exceptional Vatukoula Gold Mine. The Vatukoula Gold Mine has produced more than 7 million ounces of gold since 1937. The island of Viti Levu also hosts the fully permitted Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, where Lion One Metals is fast tracking a high-grade underground gold mining operation.

Qualified Person

The technical disclosure in this news release has been approved by Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Kalo Gold Corp.

Terry L. Tucker, P.Geo

President and Chief Executive Officer

and

Kevin Ma, CPA, CA

Executive Vice President, Capital Markets and Director

For more information, please write to info@kalogoldcorp.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Forward Looking Statements Disclaimer

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which are statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements relating to the Company's proposed drilling timeline and the proposed expansion of the exploration program, and the Company's plans for future exploration on the Vatu Aurum Gold Project. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements included in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to raise the necessary capital to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's filing statement dated February 9, 2021 and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking statements herein may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect, and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law.

Figure 1: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta and Qiriyaga Hill Prospects.

Figure 2: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Qiriyaga Hill Prospect.

Figure 3: Qiriyiga Hill Prospect - CSAMT 1D Inversion at 200 meters with six key target zones identified.

Figure 4: Vatu Aurum Gold Project - 2023 drilling to date (blue circles) at Mouta Prospect.

Photo 1: KGD-2023-08: Intense quartz - pyrite infill from 53.0 to 54.0m. Assays returned 4m at 1.23 g/t Au from 53 to 57m with 1m at 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m.

Photo 2: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the interval which returned 4.17 g/t Au from 53 to 54m. Note the abundant quartz veining with open-space texture.

Photo 3: KGD-2023-08: Banded, 5cm quartz-py-cpy veinlet; note the hydrothermal brecciation of the host rock. Assays returned 1m at 1.58% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

Photo 4: KGD-2023-08: Close-up of the banded, 5cm qz-py-cpy veinlet at 74.45. Assays returned 1m at 1.54% Cu and 21 g/t Ag from 74 to 75m.

SOURCE: Kalo Gold Corp.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/787596/kalo-discovers-new-epithermal-gold-and-copper-mineralization-at-vatu-aurum-gold-project-fiji




Automakers Kia and Hyundai are recalling more than 3.3 million vehicles for potentially deadly fire-related issues, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reporting.

The federal safety regulator announced the recalls on Tuesday after the safety issues were reported to NHTSA on Monday and Friday, respectively.

Involved in the recalls are more than 1.7 million Kia vehicles, including the Forte, Sportage and Optima, as well as over 1.6 million Hyundai vehicles, including the Tucson, Elantra and Santa Fe, among others.

You can check USA TODAY's recall database for any open recalls on your vehicle.

Here's what you need to know about each recall and if your vehicle is affected:

Kia recall: Forte, Sportage, Optima, Soul, Sorento vehicles affected

Kia is recalling 1,730,192 vehicles due to a possible electrical short with the vehicle's Hydraulic Electronic Control Unit (HECU) which can cause an engine fire while parked or driving and risk injury.

Affected vehicles include the following models:

2010-2019 Borrego

2014-2016 Cadenza

2010-2013 Forte, Forte Koup, Sportage

2015-2018 K900

2011-2015 Optima

2011-2013 Optima Hybrid, Soul

2012-2017 Rio

2011-2014 Sorento

2010-2011 Rondo vehicles

The NHTSA is advising owners to park outside and away from buildings or structures until the recall repair is complete.

The federal safety regulator said dealers will replace the HECU fuse free, and notification letters will be mailed to owners around Nov. 14.

Questions? Call Kia at 1-800-333-4542. The number for this recall is SC284.

Afraid to buy a new car? Here's how to keep your 'beater' on the road

Hyundai recall affects some Elantra, Santa Fe, Genesis models

Hyundai announced it was recalling 1,642,551 vehicles for a potential fire-related issue.

According to federal regulators, the Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS) module may leak brake fluid internally and cause an electrical short, which can result in an engine compartment fire while parked or driving.

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Affected vehicles include the following models:

2011-2015 Elantra, Genesis Coupe, Sonata Hybrid

2012-2015 Accent, Azera, Veloster

2013-2015 Elantra Coupe, Santa Fe

2014-2015 Equus

2010-2012 Veracruz

2010-2013 Tucson

2015 Tucson Fuel Cell

2013 Santa Fe Sport

The Hyundai logo is displayed on a brand new Hyundai Santa Fe SUV at a Hyundai dealership on April 7, 2017 in Colma, California.

Owners of these affected vehicles are also being advised to park outside and away from structures until the recall repair is complete, the NHTSA said.

Dealers will replace the ABS fuse for free, the federal safety regulator said, and notification letters will be mailed on Nov. 21.

Questions? Call Hyundai at 1-855-371-9460. Hyundai's number for this recall is 251.

Recall another headache for owners after Hyundai, Kia theft concerns

After social media posts showed how to start certain Kia and Hyundai cars without the use of a key, theft concerns prompted some insurance providers to drop certain models made by Kia and Hyundai between 2011 and 2021.

The carmakers developed an anti-theft software update aimed at curbing thefts.

How do I check to see if my car is being recalled?

Looking to see if any recalls were issued on your vehicle? If the car isn't listed below, owners can check USA TODAYs automotive recall database or search NHTSAs database for new recalls. The NHTSA website also allows you to search for recalls based on your vehicle identification number, or VIN.

Check car recalls here: Toyota, Kia and Dodge among 105,000 vehicles recalled:

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kia, Hyundai recall: Fire risk prompts Elantra, Santa Fe, Soul recalls
What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think KUB Malaysia Berhad (KLSE:KUB) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be.

What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on KUB Malaysia Berhad is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.051 = RM28m  (RM637m - RM89m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023).

Thus, KUB Malaysia Berhad has an ROCE of 5.1%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Oil and Gas industry average of 14%.

View our latest analysis for KUB Malaysia Berhad

roce

Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for KUB Malaysia Berhad's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you're interested in investigating KUB Malaysia Berhad's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

The Trend Of ROCE

There hasn't been much to report for KUB Malaysia Berhad's returns and its level of capital employed because both metrics have been steady for the past five years. Businesses with these traits tend to be mature and steady operations because they're past the growth phase. So don't be surprised if KUB Malaysia Berhad doesn't end up being a multi-bagger in a few years time.

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Our Take On KUB Malaysia Berhad's ROCE

In summary, KUB Malaysia Berhad isn't compounding its earnings but is generating stable returns on the same amount of capital employed. Although the market must be expecting these trends to improve because the stock has gained 96% over the last five years. Ultimately, if the underlying trends persist, we wouldn't hold our breath on it being a multi-bagger going forward.

One more thing, we've spotted 2 warning signs facing KUB Malaysia Berhad that you might find interesting.

While KUB Malaysia Berhad may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Larry Snelling was confirmed as Chicagos next police superintendent in a City Council vote Wednesday, finalizing Mayor Brandon Johnsons choice for the longtime insider and South Side native to lead the department with a vision of rejuvenating officer morale and repairing community relations.

Aldermen voted 48-0 to approve the departments current chief of counterterrorism and a longtime instructor at the training academy as the next leader of the nations second-largest police department. Snelling was then formally sworn in as superintendent at a City Hall ceremony Wednesday afternoon before heading into his first day in charge.

After outgoing interim Superintendent Fred Waller handed off the superintendents badge, Snelling addressed aldermen and urged a unified approach in addressing the citys public safety challenges.

We have to find a way to stop this, Snelling said in a reference to the recent rash of armed robberies and carjackings that have plagued Chicago. The only way were going to get that done is to work together, work as a team. We can agree to disagree, but what we have to agree upon is that we need each other, we need everybody.

Johnson addressed the body after Snellings confirmation, praising him as a son of this city (who) can prevail through some of the greatest circumstances and dynamics to become police superintendent.

Having the ability to express your leadership through your heart, with love, is not weakness, Johnson continued, quoting Ald. Matthew OSheas earlier comments on Snellings leadership. In fact, it is the greatest power that we possess on this Earth.  There is no greater love than someone who was willing to lay down their life. So let this be a mark and a testament to who we are: There is nothing soft about the city of Chicago.

The mayor also asserted that law enforcement cannot be the only answer to crime, a common refrain of his progressive-minded campaign.

As weve all said repeatedly, if you think that the only way we can get to a better, stronger, safer Chicago is with policing alone, you are attempting to take us in the wrong direction, Johnson said. This city will not tolerate it. We wont accept it.  No matter who you are and where you are in this city, you deserve to not just feel safe, but to be safe.

Story continues

Ahead of the vote, City Council members praised his credentials while warning of challenges ahead during a critical point for Chicago police as it attempts to navigate out of a spike in violent crime, civil unrest from 2020 and historic distrust from Black and Latino communities. The session followed last weeks council Police and Fire committee hearing that too was mostly a peaceful affair and signaled the progressive Johnson administrations most strident support for cops yet.

Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, noted that the mayors pick of Snelling has brought us together while cautioning that the new superintendent will face tall hurdles from the start.

Its an extraordinarily difficult job, even under the best of times. And folks, these are not the best of times, Hopkins said. We as a city are struggling right now with the reality that our residents do not feel safe in their communities.  I suggest ladies and gentlemen, that this (armed robbery spree) is unprecedented. Weve never seen anything like this in our lifetime.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, choked up as she discussed the departments long history of misconduct and brutality. She also delivered a warning for those who expect Snelling to wave your wand and fix everything thats been wrong for decades.

For me, good things come out of 20, Taylor said, referencing her Woodlawn ward. We know where Snellings from. Hes from 20. We got a blessing in this. I just hope we dont take advantage of it.  I feel like Chicago could move in the right direction. But you know if they dont, whats gonna happen? Theyre gonna blame the Black man, both of them.

OShea, the 19th Ward alderman who represents the Mount Greenwood neighborhood where many officers reside, summed up his approval of Snelling with a story of him speaking with young officers at a vigil two years ago in honor of fallen Officer Ella French, who was killed in the line of duty.

Yes, youre gonna hold our police officers accountable, and we need more of that, OShea said. But I think youre also going to let them know and show them day in and day out that youve got their back.

Snelling, 54, grew up in Englewood and joined CPD in 1992. He worked as a patrol officer and supervisor in the Englewood and Morgan Park district on the South Side, but he spent most of his career to this point as an instructor in the departments training academy. Records from the citys Human Resources Department also show Snelling took a two-year leave of absence from the CPD in the late 1990s when he was a regional security director of AT&T.

Snelling has been called to testify as an expert witness in more than two dozen civil and criminal cases involving police officers.

Among those cases was the 2018 criminal trial of three CPD officers who were accused of conspiring to cover up the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald four years earlier. Those three officers were ultimately acquitted in a bench trial.

Snelling also testified in the Police Board proceedings of four officers who faced administrative charges also stemming from the 2014 McDonald shooting on the Southwest Side. All four were eventually fired.

His ascent through the CPD ranks was quick  Snelling held the rank of sergeant less than five years ago  and city records show he received two merit promotions in his career.

With his sharp rise coupled with his years training recruits in the academy, Snelling strikes a balance for Johnson: a CPD lifer from the South Side, well-known and respected by supervisors, rank-and-file cops and citizens.

Records from the Department of Human Resources show Snelling was suspended on two occasions early in his career for a total of seven days. Snelling received a bachelors degree in adult education and leadership from DePaul University in 2014, and hes currently pursuing a masters degree at the University of Chicago.

Like other big cities, Chicago saw a significant crime wave starting in 2020, amid a pandemic and civil unrest and with violence peaking the next year to levels not seen since the 1990s. Through Sept. 24, the city has recorded 471 homicides, down 15% from the same period in 2022, according to city data. But while shootings are decreasing, the city is in the midst of a large spike in robberies and car thefts.

A day before the vote, Tuesday, the city recorded four fatal shootings on the South and Southwest sides in less than eight hours, according to CPD.

Meanwhile, the city is still struggling to meet the reform obligations that were codified in the 2019 CPD consent decree, itself a byproduct of the fatal 2014 shooting of McDonald by ex-Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke.

The permanent superintendent position was vacated in March when David Brown  the former chief of police in Dallas  submitted his resignation one day after former Mayor Lori Lightfoot failed to qualify for the mayoral runoff election. Browns first deputy superintendent, Eric Carter, helmed the department until Johnson was sworn in as mayor. Once in office, Johnson tapped Fred Waller, the former CPD chief of patrol who remained very popular within the ranks after his retirement in 2020, to lead the department on an interim basis.

Historically, the superintendent selection process was led by the Chicago Police Board, the body that metes out discipline in the most severe cases of police misconduct. That changed in 2021 when a new city ordinance created the Community Commission for Police Accountability, which submitted three finalists for the job to Johnson earlier this year.

Snelling was chosen over two other finalists, CPD Chief of Constitutional Policing and Reform Angel Novalez, and Shon Barnes, chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin.

scharles@chicagotribune.com

ayin@chicagotribune.com
CHICAGO  Larry Snelling was confirmed as Chicagos next police superintendent in a City Council vote Wednesday, finalizing Mayor Brandon Johnsons choice for the longtime insider and South Side native to lead the department with a vision of rejuvenating officer morale and repairing community relations.

Aldermen voted 48-0 to approve the departments current chief of counterterrorism and a longtime instructor at the training academy as the next leader of the nations second-largest police department. Snelling was then formally sworn in as superintendent at a City Hall ceremony Wednesday afternoon before heading into his first day in charge.

After outgoing interim Superintendent Fred Waller handed off the superintendents badge, Snelling addressed aldermen and urged a unified approach in addressing the citys public safety challenges.

We have to find a way to stop this, Snelling said in a reference to the recent rash of armed robberies and carjackings that have plagued Chicago. The only way were going to get that done is to work together, work as a team. We can agree to disagree, but what we have to agree upon is that we need each other, we need everybody..

Johnson addressed the body after Snellings confirmation, praising him as a son of this city (who) can prevail through some of the greatest circumstances and dynamics to become police superintendent.

Having the ability to express your leadership through your heart, with love, is not weakness, Johnson continued, quoting Ald. Matthew OSheas earlier comments on Snellings leadership. In fact, it is the greatest power that we possess on this Earth.  There is no greater love than someone who was willing to lay down their life. So let this be a mark and a testament to who we are: There is nothing soft about the city of Chicago.

The mayor also asserted that law enforcement cannot be the only answer to crime, a common refrain of his progressive-minded campaign.

As weve all said repeatedly, if you think that the only way we can get to a better, stronger, safer Chicago is with policing alone, you are attempting to take us in the wrong direction, Johnson said. This city will not tolerate it. We wont accept it.  No matter who you are and where you are in this city, you deserve to not just feel safe, but to be safe.

Story continues

Ahead of the vote, City Council members praised his credentials while warning of challenges ahead during a critical point for Chicago police as it attempts to navigate out of a spike in violent crime, civil unrest from 2020 and historic distrust from Black and Latino communities. The session followed last weeks council Police and Fire committee hearing that too was mostly a peaceful affair and signaled the progressive Johnson administrations most strident support for cops yet.

Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, noted that the mayors pick of Snelling has brought us together while cautioning that the new superintendent will face tall hurdles from the start.

Its an extraordinarily difficult job, even under the best of times. And folks, these are not the best of times, Hopkins said. We as a city are struggling right now with the reality that our residents do not feel safe in their communities.  I suggest ladies and gentlemen, that this (armed robbery spree) is unprecedented. Weve never seen anything like this in our lifetime.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, choked up as she discussed the departments long history of misconduct and brutality. She also delivered a warning for those who expect Snelling to wave your wand and fix everything thats been wrong for decades.

For me, good things come out of 20, Taylor said, referencing her Woodlawn ward. We know where Snellings from. Hes from 20. We got a blessing in this. I just hope we dont take advantage of it.  I feel like Chicago could move in the right direction. But you know if they dont, whats gonna happen? Theyre gonna blame the Black man, both of them.

OShea, the 19th Ward alderman who represents the Mount Greenwood neighborhood where many officers reside, summed up his approval of Snelling with a story of him speaking with young officers at a vigil two years ago in honor of fallen Officer Ella French, who was killed in the line of duty.

Yes, youre gonna hold our police officers accountable, and we need more of that, OShea said. But I think youre also going to let them know and show them day in and day out that youve got their back.

Snelling, 54, grew up in Englewood and joined CPD in 1992. He worked as a patrol officer and supervisor in the Englewood and Morgan Park district on the South Side, but he spent most of his career to this point as an instructor in the departments training academy. Records from the citys Human Resources Department also show Snelling took a two-year leave of absence from the CPD in the late 1990s when he was a regional security director of AT&T.

Snelling has been called to testify as an expert witness in more than two dozen civil and criminal cases involving police officers.

Among those cases was the 2018 criminal trial of three CPD officers who were accused of conspiring to cover up the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald four years earlier. Those three officers were ultimately acquitted in a bench trial.

Snelling also testified in the Police Board proceedings of four officers who faced administrative charges also stemming from the 2014 McDonald shooting on the Southwest Side. All four were eventually fired.

His ascent through the CPD ranks was quick  Snelling held the rank of sergeant less than five years ago  and city records show he received two merit promotions in his career.

With his sharp rise coupled with his years training recruits in the academy, Snelling strikes a balance for Johnson: a CPD lifer from the South Side, well-known and respected by supervisors, rank-and-file cops and citizens.

Records from the Department of Human Resources show Snelling was suspended on two occasions early in his career for a total of seven days. Snelling received a bachelors degree in adult education and leadership from DePaul University in 2014, and hes currently pursuing a masters degree at the University of Chicago.

Like other big cities, Chicago saw a significant crime wave starting in 2020, amid a pandemic and civil unrest and with violence peaking the next year to levels not seen since the 1990s. Through Sept. 24, the city has recorded 471 homicides, down 15% from the same period in 2022, according to city data. But while shootings are decreasing, the city is in the midst of a large spike in robberies and car thefts.

A day before the vote, Tuesday, the city recorded four fatal shootings on the South and Southwest sides in less than eight hours, according to CPD.

Meanwhile, the city is still struggling to meet the reform obligations that were codified in the 2019 CPD consent decree, itself a byproduct of the fatal 2014 shooting of McDonald by ex-Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke.

The permanent superintendent position was vacated in March when David Brown  the former chief of police in Dallas  submitted his resignation one day after former Mayor Lori Lightfoot failed to qualify for the mayoral runoff election. Browns first deputy superintendent, Eric Carter, helmed the department until Johnson was sworn in as mayor. Once in office, Johnson tapped Fred Waller, the former CPD chief of patrol who remained very popular within the ranks after his retirement in 2020, to lead the department on an interim basis.

Historically, the superintendent selection process was led by the Chicago Police Board, the body that metes out discipline in the most severe cases of police misconduct. That changed in 2021 when a new city ordinance created the Community Commission for Police Accountability, which submitted three finalists for the job to Johnson earlier this year.

Snelling was chosen over two other finalists, CPD Chief of Constitutional Policing and Reform Angel Novalez, and Shon Barnes, chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin.

____
The UAW's lead negotiator in contract talks with General Motors on Wednesday issued a scathing assessment of former President Donald Trump hours before Trump was due to speak in Detroit.

UAW Vice President for General Motors Mike Booth sent the Detroit Free Press a profanity-laden email about his thoughts on Trump's trip to Michigan.

"Let me be blunt. Donald Trump is coming off as a pompous (expletive)," Booth said in an email. "Coming to Michigan to speak at a nonunion employer and pretending it has anything to do with our fight at the Big Three is just more verbal diarrhea from the former president."

Trump was expected to deliver prime-time remarks at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township. The auto parts supplier is nonunionized. According to an AP report, Trump will speak to a crowd of "several hundred current and former UAW members, as well as members of plumbers and pipefitters unions."

Booth's remarks came as he and GM negotiators were due back at the main bargaining table with GM leadership Wednesday afternoon, two sources familiar with the talks told the Detroit Free Press.

Booth said Trump's visit to Detroit is disingenuous given his past. In a video about plant closings that the union released Wednesday morning, 2017 footage shows Trump promising autoworkers in Ohio he would save their jobs. But in 2019 GM closed its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio, displacing thousands of workers there and helping lead to the union's 2019 strike against GM.

Video footage of President Donald Trump in 2017 as shown in the UAW's recent video on plant closings.

"Where were his rallies for striking workers when we were on the picket line in 2019? Where are the jobs he promised to return to the U.S. while on the campaign trail in 2015?" Booth said. "The proof is in the pudding. His actions in office went to enrich the very elite few while the working class of America stagnated. This stunt is another ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of the working class. Again!

Story continues

As for GM's reaction to Trump's visit, it remained the same as the statement the company provided for President Joe Biden's visit on Tuesday, which is that its focus is not on politics but on bargaining to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.

"We have presented five, record economic proposals that address the areas our team members have said matter most, including wage increases and job security," GM's statement read. "We value our workforce and understand the impact a strike has on our employees, communities and the economy  nobody wins."

The union's support is crucial for both presidential candidates: Trump and Biden. In 2016, UAW members in Michigan helped Trump win the White House. In 2020, UAW members in Michigan helped Biden take the White House from Trump. That's why both men are courting union support in Michigan

Trump hasn't voiced support for the union's demands, unlike Biden, who said the workers deserved a good contract. But Trump has said that UAW workers should reject the automakers' transition to making more electric vehicles. The Biden administration and Democrats have a green agenda and are in favor of EVs.

The union has supported Trump's "new NAFTA" or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was designed to create more U.S. manufacturing jobs because it mandated that 70% of the steel and aluminum in a car be sourced from North America, and that seven core vehicle parts also meet North American content requirements.

UAW President Shawn Fain has not endorsed either man for president, saying whoever gets the endorsement must earn it.

President Joe Biden speaks with workers picketing at General Motors Willow Run Redistribution in Van Buren Township on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, during a stop in Michigan.

In a historic first Tuesday, Biden walked the picket line with striking UAW workers at GM's Willow Run Redistribution Center in Van Buren Township, where the automaker stores and distributes parts. Fain joined Biden, and when asked later on CNN whether Fain would meet Trump on Wednesday, Fain replied: "I see no point in meeting with him," because Trump doesn't care what "the working class stands for."

"In 2019, when he was the president of the United States, where was he then? Fain said. Our workers at GM were on strike for two months.  I didnt see him hold a rally, I didnt see him on the picket line and I sure as hell didnt see him comment on it. He was missing in action.

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trumps Michigan visit: UAW VP for GM Mike Booth has strong words
Melbourne, Victoria --News Direct-- Lindian Resources Ltd

Lindian Resources Ltd (ASX:LIN, OTC:LINIF) CEO Alistair Stephens tells Proactive the company has joined forces with global metals powerhouse Gerald Metals SARL to fast-track its Kangankunde Rare Earths Project in Malawi to producer status by the end of next year. This partnership is two-fold involving the sale of 45,000 tonnes of monazite concentrate from Kangankundes Stage 1 development to the trading company headquartered in London and a finance facility of up to US$10 million to the rare earths explorer.

The Kangankunde Rare Earths Project continues to deliver excellent results, including the globally strategic maiden mineral resource estimate reported last month, Stephens added.

With a mining licence and environment and social impact assessment licences granted, the company is able to quickly move to project development following the execution of this sale and purchase contract.

These are exciting times for Lindian and we look forward to making further announcements as project development works ramp up.

Contact Details

Proactive Investors

Jonathan Jackson

+61 413 713 744

jonathan@proactiveinvestors.com

View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/lindian-resources-welcomes-concentrate-sale-and-purchase-deal-for-kangankunde-103408295
Lithium Ionic Corp.

Figure 2

Section LT 000; Showing New Results for Holes ITDD-23-151 and ITDD-23-158

Figure 1

Bandeira Drill Collars and Traces with Intercept Highlights

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Ionic Corp. (TSXV: LTH; OTCQB: LTHCF; FSE: H3N) (Lithium Ionic or the Company) reports drill results from Bandeira, one of the four targets presently being drilled within the Companys 14,182-hectare land package in northern Minas Gerais State, Brazil. This region, recently coined Lithium Valley by state officials and geologically located within the Eastern Brazil Pegmatite Province, is emerging as a prolific hard rock lithium-producing region. These results form part of a large 50,000-metre drill program underway for H2 2023, with 13 drills currently operating.



Bandeira Drill Intercept Highlights (See Figure 1):

1.94% Li2O over 15.0m (hole ITDD-23-158; see Figure 2)

1.91% Li2O over 9.8m (hole ITDD-23-151; see Figure 2)

1.68% Li2O over 9.1m (hole ITDD-23-148)

1.45% Li2O over 8.6m (hole ITDD-23-150)

1.67% Li2O over 6.2m, incl. 2.21% Li2O over 4.0m (hole ITDD-23-156)

1.75% Li2O over 5.3m (hole ITDD-23-149)

Blake Hylands, P.Geo., Chief Executive Officer of Lithium Ionic, commented, Our infill and expansion drilling program at Bandeira continues to yield positive results. We are particularly impressed with the high-grade results from holes ITDD-23-158 and ITDD-23-151 of 1.94% Li2O over 15.0m and 1.91% Li2O over 9.8m which confirmed a 250m down-dip extension of a large and widening pegmatite that extends over 800 metres from surface, reaching a depth of 450 metres.

The Bandeira lithium deposit is located in the same district where Companhia Brasileira de Litio (CBL)s Cachoeira mine has been producing lithium for +30 years, and recent producer Sigma Lithium operates the Grota do Cirillo project, which hosts the largest hard rock lithium deposit in the Americas (See Figure 1). In late June 2023, Lithium Ionic published an initial NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate (MRE) at the Bandeira and Outro Lado deposits of 7.57 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.40% lithium oxide (Li2O) of Measured and Indicated (M&I) and 11.86Mt grading 1.44% Li2O of Inferred resources (see press release dated June 27, 2023). Drilling at Bandeira is focused on upgrading the mineral resource classifications in support of economic and engineering studies, as well as testing mineralized extensions to expand the resources.

Story continues

The Company is rapidly advancing the Bandeira deposit towards a production decision, while it continues to explore and define regional targets. Project engineering is underway by independent Brazilian consultant, GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda., with a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA") expected in the coming weeks. Concurrently, NEO Agroambiental Ltda is completing the RCA (Environmental Control Report) and PCA (Environmental Control Plan) to support the application of a Concomitant Environmental and Installation License (LAC, or Licenca Ambiental Concomitante) for the underground portion of the Bandeira deposit. The LAC is an accelerated permitting scenario available to projects whose mine infrastructure covers a small footprint where deforestation is not required. The LAC replaces the first two steps of the environmental licensing process: the Preliminary License (LP - Licenca Previa) and the Installation License (LI  Licenca de Instalacao); which precede the final Operating License (LO - Licenca de Operacao). In addition, WSP (formerly Golder) is working to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment covering all the Bandeira mineral rights by year-end, which is required for the portions of the project that are not eligible for the LAC.

230927_LTH_Figure 1_Plan View





Figure 1. Bandeira Drill Collars and Traces with Intercept Highlights

View Figure 1 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/585bb540-682d-4106-967e-8b9871f82470







230927_LTH_Figure 2_Section000NE-01





Figure 2. Section LT 000; Showing New Results for Holes ITDD-23-151 and ITDD-23-158

View Figure 2 here: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7e34a899-2822-40f5-b131-27e0dc742d8b





Table 1. Bandeira Drill Results

Hole ID Az Dip From To Metres Li2O (%) ITDD-23-136 150

-50

21.20 21.68 0.5 1.89 and 85.97 89.97 4.0 1.73 and 92.75 94.84 2.1 1.01 ITDD-23-143 150

-66

48.05 52.40 4.4 1.68 and 164.12 167.19 3.1 1.34 and 187.65 188.03 0.4 2.99 and 342.37 344.37 2.0 1.83 and 366.77 367.20 0.4 1.58 and 383.35 388.72 5.4 1.72 and 398.90 400.75 1.9 2.40 ITDD-23-148 150

-65

74.13 77.87 3.7 1.23 and 257.50 266.60 9.1 1.68 and 317.40 320.17 2.8 2.11 and 326.16 328.99 2.8 1.44 ITDD-23-149 150

-66

23.38 24.73 1.4 1.59 and 46.51 48.45 1.9 1.52 and 84.12 87.36 3.2 0.80 and 434.80 440.10 5.3 1.75 and 445.49 447.17 1.7 0.78 ITDD-23-150 0

-90

123.60 129.60 6.0 1.74 and 142.44 145.44 3.0 2.67 and 293.11 301.75 8.6 1.45 ITDD-23-151 150

-77

348.98 351.05 2.1 1.17 and 411.87 421.66 9.8 1.91 ITDD-23-156 0

-90

63.03 67.36 4.3 1.30 and 211.64 217.86 6.2 1.67 incl. 213.86 217.86 4.0 2.21 and 313.78 317.61 3.8 1.78 ITDD-23-158 0

-90

393.02 396.02 3.0 1.09 and 453.97 468.92 15.0 1.94

*Assays pending for ITDD-23-152, ITDD-23-153, ITDD-23-154 and ITDD-23-157.

About Lithium Ionic Corp.

Lithium Ionic is a Canadian mining company exploring and developing its lithium properties in Brazil. Its flagship Itinga and Salinas projects cover 14,182 hectares in the northeastern part of Minas Gerais state, a mining-friendly jurisdiction that is quickly emerging as a world-class hard-rock lithium district. The Itinga Project is situated in the same region as CBLs Cachoeira lithium mine, which has produced lithium for +30 years, as well as Sigma Lithium Corp.s Grota do Cirilo project, which hosts the largest hard-rock lithium deposit in the Americas.

Quality Assurance and Control

During the drill program, assay samples were taken from NQ core and sawed in half. One-half was sent for assaying at SGS Laboratory, a certified independent commercial laboratory, and the other half was retained for results, cross checks, and future reference. A strict QA/QC program was applied to all samples. Every sample was processed with Drying, crushing from 75% to 3 mm, homogenization, quartering in Jones, spraying 250 to 300 g of sample in steel mill 95% to 150. SGS laboratory carried out multi-element analysis for ICP90A analysis.

Qualified Persons

The technical information in this news release has been prepared by Carlos Costa, Vice President Exploration of Lithium Ionic and Blake Hylands, CEO and director of Lithium Ionic, and both are qualified persons as defined in NI 43-101.

Investor and Media Inquiries:

+1 647.316.2500

info@lithiumionic.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that constitute forward-statements. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes, in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release include information relating to the prospectivity of the Companys mineral properties, the economic viability of the Itinga Project, the mineralization and development of the Companys mineral properties, the Companys exploration program and other mining projects and prospects thereof, the Companys ability to complete a PEA, the Companys ability to complete an environmental impact assessment and obtain the requisite permitting and approvals and the Companys future plans. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company. Risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that managements beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Information and links in this press release relating to other mineral resource companies are from their sources believed to be reliable, but that have not been independently verified by the Company.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.




Global Market Insights Inc.

Major locomotive market participants include General Electric Transportation, Siemens Mobility, CRRC Corporation Limited, Alstom, Bombardier Transportation, Wabtec Corporation, Progress Rail, Electro-Motive Diesel, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Hyundai Rotem, Toshiba Railway Systems Division, Stadler Rail, Transmashholding, CAF, Skoda Transportation.

Selbyville, Delaware, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The locomotive market valuation is projected to be worth USD 13.3 billion by 2032, as reported in a research study by Global Market Insights Inc.

The study claims that the rapid development of railway infrastructure worldwide will strengthen the market outlook between 2023 and 2032. Investments in railway infrastructure and the expansion of rail networks in various regions are driving the demand for locomotives to meet transportation needs, improve connectivity, and support economic growth.

For instance, in July 2023, Wabtec Corporation inked a multi-year parts contract with PT IMECO (PT Imeco Inter Sarana) to provide comprehensive support to PT KAI (PT Kereta Api Indonesia's) fleet of 150 locomotives. Valued at $190 million, this agreement encompasses the provision of service kits and training to PT KAI, facilitating the streamlined maintenance of their locomotive fleet in the region. This strategic technical assistance enables PT KAI to concentrate on enhancing and extending its passenger and freight transportation services.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/6472

The locomotives market from diesel locomotive will register commendable growth through 2032. The demand for diesel locomotives is gaining traction due to their reliability, cost-effectiveness, and versatility. Diesel locomotives are well-suited for long-haul freight transportation, providing ample power and fuel efficiency. Moreover, they can operate on non-electrified rail lines, extending their utility. Notable instances include Union Pacific's recent order for 1,000 new diesel-electric locomotives to modernize their fleet, highlighting the enduring appeal of diesel technology in the railway industry.

Story continues

The passenger locomotives market share will expand substantially through 2032, owing to their eco-friendliness, energy efficiency, and the growing preference for sustainable transportation. Electric and hybrid passenger locomotives are not only cleaner but also offer smoother rides, reducing environmental impact. Instances like Amtrak's introduction of new Siemens electric locomotives for its Northeast Corridor routes highlight this trend, as they prioritize electrified rail travel for a more environmentally conscious and comfortable passenger experience, further contributing to their rising popularity.

North America locomotive market is experiencing robust growth, driven by increased demand for efficient freight transportation and infrastructure investments. Instances like the Biden administration's focus on rail as part of the infrastructure plan, with a proposed $80 billion investment in Amtrak and rail networks, demonstrate a commitment to bolstering the sector. Additionally, the surge in e-commerce has led to greater reliance on rail freight, further propelling the industry's expansion in the region.

Major companies operating in the locomotives market include Bombardier Transportation, Siemens Mobility, Stadler Rail, General Electric (GE) Transportation, Wabtec Corporation, CRRC Corporation Limited, Skoda Transportation, Progress Rail (a Caterpillar Company), Transmashholding, Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), Alstom, Hyundai Rotem, Toshiba Railway Systems Division, CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles), and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. These firms place a strong emphasis on strategic collaborations, the launch of innovative products, and effective commercialization strategies to broaden their market footprint.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/6472

For instance, in July 2023, Vale partnered with Wabtec Corporation to advance the decarbonization efforts within the company's railway operations. As part of this collaboration, Vale has placed an order for three FLXdrive battery locomotives from Wabtec. Additionally, both companies will work together to explore the viability of using ammonia as a clean and sustainable alternative fuel to replace diesel. These three FLXdrive locomotives, 100% powered by battery, will be deployed on the Carajas Railroad (EFC), which handles the world's largest iron ore train, comprising 330 railcars with a capacity of transporting 45,000 tons.

Partial chapters of report table of contents (TOC):

Chapter 2 Executive Summary

2.1 Locomotive market 360 synopsis, 2019 - 2032

2.2 Business trends

2.2.1 Total Addressable Market (TAM), 2023-2032

2.3 Regional trends

2.4 Type trends

2.5 Application trends

2.6 Technology trends

2.7 Component trends

Chapter 3 Locomotive market Insights

3.1 Impact of COVID-19

3.2 Impact of the Russia-Ukraine war

3.3 Industry ecosystem analysis

3.4 Vendor matrix

3.5 Profit margin analysis

3.6 Technology & innovation landscape

3.7 Patent analysis

3.8 Key news and initiatives

3.8.1 Partnership/Collaboration

3.8.2 Merger/Acquisition

3.8.3 Investment

3.8.4 Launch & innovation

3.9 Regulatory landscape

3.10 Impact forces

3.10.1 Growth drivers

3.10.1.1 Rise in adoption of greener travel

3.10.1.2 Growing demand for efficient rail transportation

3.10.1.3 Increasing advancements in locomotive and digital innovations in Asia Pacific

3.10.1.4 Decrease in traffic congestion

3.10.1.5 Surge in government funding spurs rail network expansion and modernization

3.10.2 Industry pitfalls & challenges

3.10.2.1 High initial investment

3.10.2.2 Safety and security concerns

3.11 Growth potential analysis

3.12 Porters analysis

3.13 PESTEL analysis

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What happens and stays in Vegas might not have to cost so much.

A company is offering someone the chance to visit Las Vegas with a $4,000 prize all the while tasting new cocktails everyday for a week.

OnlineCasinos, which recently announced a TV binger job, said they are now looking for an official margarita tester to rate several drinks under specific criteria. The winner will receive a stipend to help cover the trip, according to the company.

Ultimate TV binger: One TV watcher will be paid $2,500 to decide which Netflix series is most binge-worthy.

The selected tester will visit the Nevada desert town for seven days sometime between Nov. 1 to Feb. 29. During their visit, they will try and take photos of one Margarita drink a day at different bars, venues and locations in the city.

The company said the winner must be able to travel to Vegas for seven straight days and complete their rating tasks within five working days after the trip ends. They will also agree for their name, image, town and/or county of residence to be shared online by the promoter.

What the winner will receive

The margarita tester will be paid through PayPal exclusively, according to the company.

Here is everything OnlineCasinos said comes with the $4,000 stipend.

Travel and hotel - $2,000

Food and drinks - $1,300

Extra costs - $700

Tester will rate margaritas based on these factors

The company said the ideal candidate will rate margaritas based on a criteria that includes flavor, presentation, and quality of ingredients. Each of the following factors must receive a score out of 10.

Flavor and taste

Presentation (The appearance and garnish)

The quality of ingredients used

The setting of the drinking location (the vibe and experience)

Overall drinking experience (Is it worth what you paid for?)

Winner expected to have one drink per day

OnlineCasinos said they want to make it clear they are not hiring a binge drinker. The winner is expected to follow CDC guidelines and only take in one alcoholic drink per day. The promoter also said applicants should not have any medical conditions that prevent them from drinking alcohol.

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"The winner must be of legal drinking age to enter and participate in the competition and must not be under any advisement to not drink alcohol," the company states in the job description.

How to apply and when the deadline is

To apply, access their application form here. Applicants must enter their name, email, date of birth and country of residence to enter. Additionally, they will enter what their favorite cocktail is whether a margarita, mojito or a pina colada.

Applications close on Sunday, Oct. 1.

'Hello, humans': Meet Aura, the Las Vegas Sphere's humanoid robots designed to help guests

How will the winner be selected?

Applicants will be entered into a random draw. The winner will be contacted via email within five working days after the Sunday deadline. The person drawn must accept the prize within 48 hours of the time the promoter reaches out before announcing a new winner.

The company said it reserves the right to disqualify any applicant it "reasonably believes is not eligible to enter the competition," especially if cheating is suspected due to multiple accounts created. Other terms of agreement are listed on the job description.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Contest will give winner $4,000 to taste test margaritas in Las Vegas
Saudi Arabia was officially granted Approved Destination Status (ADS) by China following an agreement between top officials of both the countries.

The bilateral agreement, signed on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism of Saudi Arabia, allows Chinese citizens to travel to the kingdom on group tours in addition to facilitating greater ease of access.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Abdulrahman Ahmad Al-Harbi, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to China, Fahd Hamidaddin, Chief Executive Officer of Saudi Tourism Authority, and Du Jiang, Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism, China.

The Approved Destination Status will drive greater connectivity between the kingdom and China and unlock new opportunities across the tourism ecosystem, said a statement.

The ADS announcement comes after continued bilateral ties between both nations, including the success of the Arab-China Business Conference and the Saudi-China Roadshow earlier this year, demonstrating Saudi Arabia's commitment to become an economic and strategic partner to China.

The Tourism Minister of Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, said: The ADS status is expected to significantly boost inbound travel from China, creating greater ease of access needed to reach Saudi Arabia's target of attracting 3 million Chinese tourists by 2030.

He said it signifies the culmination of months of dedicated efforts between our nations, encapsulating our enduring and historic bilateral relations, which is built on the foundation of shared vision and mutual interests.

China's expansive connectivity vision is meticulously designed to foster economic prosperity and secure a brighter future for forthcoming generations. Within this framework, tourism emerges as one of the most pivotal and strategically significant components of our shared journey."

The Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism of China, Du Jiang, said: "I am delighted to sign the ADS agreement with Saudi, one of our key Belt and Road Initiative partners, as we mark the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative this year.

Our decades of close bilateral bond have shown that our nations share a deep appreciation for each other's rich and diverse cultures and are committed to fostering mutual understanding and respect. ADS, with its potential to enhance people-to-people exchanges and dialogue, is a testament to this shared vision."

Hamidaddin, said, "With the prestigious ADS status as our foundation, we will continue to work closely with our partners like GACA, as we facilitate the rapid expansion of air connectivity between our two countries.

We are also streamlining our visa services, offering e-visas in just under three minutes and visas on arrival. Additionally, we have integrated Chinese payment solutions like UnionPay to facilitate seamless payment for Chinese travellers.

Offering over 162 bespoke products to the Chinese market, STA looks forward to deepening our collaboration with Chinese online travel agencies and companies. Together, Saudi Arabia's tourism sector is poised to deliver extraordinary experiences, fuelled by a commitment that knows no bounds."

The achievement of ADS will unlock opportunities for greater collaboration with China and build on existing partnerships in Saudi Arabia, such as the alliance with UnionPay, which is accepted by half a million merchants across Saudi with over 60% coverage, providing Chinese visitors with seamless payment routes.

China has already been included as one of 57 countries eligible for Saudi's e-visa and visa on arrival, as well as enjoying free hotel stays when flying onwards on Saudia as part of Saudi's 96-hour Stopover Visa program.  TradeArabia News Service
Lets cut right to the chase: Congress is still on a seemingly inexorable march toward a government shutdown in less than four days.

Yes, the Senate has a bipartisan plan to keep federal agencies running, but hardline House Republicans say it would be dead on arrival and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly told his members Wednesday that he would not even hold a floor vote on a stopgap bill sent over from the upper chamber.

McCarthy later indicated that he would back a short-term spending bill if it included additional border policy changes.

McCarthys members were finally able to advance four of their own annual appropriations bills Tuesday night, but those bills would be doomed to fail in the Senate and the speakers plan to try to win some good will for a short-term spending patch still faces serious hurdles since several hard-right Republicans insist they wont support any stopgap.

In short, a shutdown seems inevitable at this point. Goldman Sachs Economist Alec Phillips told clients in a note Tuesday night that the odds of a shutdown this year had climbed to 90% in his estimation, and nothing happening in Congress right now offers hope that will change.

If you want to spare yourself the headache that might also be inevitable from tracking the ins and outs of Capitol Hill machinations, feel free to skip ahead now. Otherwise, heres some more detail about how Congress is or isnt dealing with the shutdown threat.

The Senate: The Senate moved ahead on its stopgap plan Tuesday night with a bipartisan 77-19 vote. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged McCarthy to also set aside partisanship.

Every bill House Republicans have pushed has been partisan, every CR has been aimed at the hard right, and every path theyve pursued to date will inevitably lead to a shutdown, Schumer said in a speech from the Senate floor. Speaker McCarthy: The only way  the only way  out of a shutdown is bipartisanship. And by constantly adhering to what the hard right wants, you're aiming for a shutdown. They want it, you know it, you can stop it. Work in a bipartisan way, like we are in the Senate, and we can avoid harm to tens of millions of Americans.

Story continues

The Senate bill rolled out this week includes about $6 billion each for Ukraine aid and disaster relief but does not include border funding, meaning it would face stiff opposition from House Republicans.

Highlighting the divisions in the GOP, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell followed Schumer in urging lawmakers to avoid a shutdown, which he said would be harmful and unnecessary. The choice facing Congress is pretty straightforward. We can take the standard approach and fund the government for six weeks at the current rate of operations, he said. Or we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy.

The White House has also endorsed the Senate approach. The Senates bipartisan continuing resolution will keep the government open, make a down payment on disaster relief, and is an important show of support for Ukraine, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. House Republicans should join the Senate in doing their job, stop playing political games with peoples lives, and abide by the bipartisan deal two-thirds of them voted for in May.

The House: McCarthys latest playbook involves trying to deflect blame and pin it on President Joe Biden and the Senate. At the same time, the speaker is reportedly expected to bring up a package Friday that combines a short-term funding patch with spending cuts and Republican border policies. But he still doesnt have the votes to pass it. Politico notes that multiple Republicans left a closed-door conference meeting Wednesday morning still vowing to oppose any stopgap funding measures that would prevent a shutdown and that at least eight hardliners would vote against McCarthys continuing resolution.

The bottom line: The House and Senate arent on the same page, and Republicans remain divided, with some in the party continuing to embrace the idea of governing by crisis  or not governing at all.

The different tactics nearly guarantee a government shutdown, unless lawmakers can force some other long-shot solution, The Washington Post reports. The two chambers working in opposition to one another probably wont have enough time to pass a stopgap spending bill.

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(Bloomberg) -- A Microsoft Corp. executive complained that when it came to the search-engine wars with Alphabet Inc.s Google, the companys Bing was never more than a bargaining chip to Apple Inc.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Microsoft has been trying for years to displace Google as the default search engine for iPhones, but Apple never seriously considered switching to Bing, Mikhail Parakhin, the head of Microsofts advertising and web services, said during the US governments antitrust trial against Google in Washington.

Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does, the Microsoft executive said. We are always trying to convince Apple to use our search engine.

Parakhin, who joined Microsoft in 2019 from Russian search engine Yandex NV, said Microsoft met with Apple as recently as 2021 to discuss a potential switch to Bing, but didnt make any progress.

It would be game changing for Microsoft if Bing became the default search engine on iPhones, Parakhin said. We are worse on mobile because we dont have traffic.

In response to Googles lawyers, Parakhin said it was uneconomical for Microsoft to invest more in technology for the mobile search market. Unless Microsoft gets a more significant, or firmer guarantee of distribution, it makes it uneconomical to invest.

Apple has used Google as the default search engine in its Safari browser since 2003 in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue earned through searches made on its devices. The US Justice Department alleges that the contract and others like it have allowed Google to illegally maintain its monopoly over the online search market.

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Google denies the governments claim and says users choose its search engine because it is the best one.

The exact amount of money Apple earns from the Google deal is confidential, but the Justice Department said its between $4 billion and $7 billion a year. On Tuesday, a top Apple executive testified that the iPhone-maker agreed to support and defend the contract with Google in any regulatory challenges including the Justice Departments lawsuit.

The case is US v. Google, 20-cv-3010, US District Court, District of Columbia.

(Updates with quote from court testimony. An earlier version was corrected to say Google was the default search engine for iPhones.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Arriving In High Heels Corporation

Visited Map App Names Top 6 Beach Destinations for Travellers Around the Globe

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The travel app Visited by Arriving In High Heels Corporation has named the top beaches to visit in Spain based on over 1.8 million international travellers. Visited allows users to scroll through photos of top getaway destinations, check off places by different travel lists, and plan trips using the app. The travel map app highlights bucket list destinations and offers travellers their personal stats of where theyve been and where they plan to go. Visited is available on iOS or Android , in over 30 languages including Spanish and Catalan.



Spain is the second most visited country in the world. Not surprising Barcelona is the most popular cruise port in the world. However, apart from Barcelona, most visitors to come for the gorgeous beaches.

The top 6 most visited most popular beach destinations in Spain include:

Majorca Tenerife Gran Canaria Nerja Cala Mitjana Playa de Nogales

To see the complete list of the most visited beaches in Spain, the most popular beaches in the world, and over 150 lists of the most popular travel destinations, users can download Visited on iOS or Android .

About Visited App

Visited is a travel app, that lets users track their past travels by checking off destinations, cities and countries visited on lists and map. As a travel planner app, users can find inspiration by swiping pictures, finding new destinations by experiences and category lists. In order to help make the decision of where to next, Visited ranks countries based on the number of activities and places of interest users wish to visit.

To learn more about the Visited app, visit https://visitedapp.com .

About Arriving In High Heels Corporation

Arriving In High Heels Corporation is a mobile app company with apps including Pay Off Debt, X-Walk, and Visited , their most popular app.

Contact Information

Anna Kayfitz

anna@arrivinginhighheels.com




Moxi is on the move.

Austin-based Diligent Robotics has raised $25 million to expand its line of Moxi robots that perform tasks for front-line health care teams.

The company says the new funding will allow it to triple its reach of what it calls a "robot teammate" in the health care industry. Diligent will also use the investment money to expand product development and market research.

Moxi was designed to increase efficiency and support clinical care teams so that health care workers have more time to focus on patient care. More than 22 health systems representing more than 200 hospitals nationwide currently use the robot.

Founded in 2017, Diligent uses artificial intelligence, machine learning technology and social engineering to build helper droids that assist humans in their work environments.

Moxi robots help clinical staff with routine tasks that don't directly involve patients. Designed with a flexible arm, gripper hand and full mobility, Moxi gathers and delivers items to patient rooms, drops off samples to the lab and retrieves products from supply rooms in nursing units.

If you're in a hospital with a Moxi, you might see it riding the elevator. To date, the robots have made more than 400,000 deliveries, the company says.

Designed with a flexible arm, gripper hand and full mobility, Moxi robots gather and deliver items to patient rooms, drop off samples to the lab and retrieve products from supply rooms in nursing units.

Among Diligent's early customers was Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"Moxi keeps nurses closer to their patients so they don't have to do hunting and gathering," said David Marshall, chief nursing executive at Cedars-Sinai. "Staff members have told me that gives them more time for direct patient care."

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center launched its Moxi fleet in September 2021. They cruise the hospital's hallways and corridors, assisting nurses by carrying out simple but time-consuming work such as collecting medicine from the pharmacy or delivering lab samples. They head to the gift shop to pick up items for patients, and when it's time to be discharged, they travel to security to gather patients' personal belongings and bring it to their bedside.

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When Cedars-Sinai introduced Moxi, "we were sort of worried employees were going to think they would be replaced with robots," Marshall previously told the American-Statesman.

"We were very clear and intentional in saying we have nurses and nurses assistants who were going to take care of patients and interface with patients, and Moxi is going to do point-to-point delivery. Once people saw it in action, they knew it was true," he said.

Diligent Robotics was founded by Andrea Thomaz, a University of Texas robotics professor, and Vivian Chu, who was her doctoral student.

Here's what else to know about Moxi and health care robotics:

Diligent is competing in a fast-growing market for medical robotics, which is expected to grow into a $12.7 billion market globally by 2025 from $5.9 billion in 2020, according to MarketsandMarkets Research. Others in the market include Aethon's TUG robot, which pulls laundry and services pharmacy carts, as well as Xenex's robotic device that disinfects rooms and other areas with UV light.

Prior to starting Diligent, co-founder Andrea Thomaz was a University of Texas robotics professor and co-founder Vivian Chu was her doctoral student. "We were collaborating together for years on building robots for human environments, and we built robots that could work side-by-side with people and in a team environment," Thomaz previously told the Statesman.

Thomaz and Chu decided to explore commercialization and received a National Science Foundation grant of $750,000 that funded a six-month race to build a prototype of Moxi.

Between 2018 and 2019, Diligent partnered with four health systems in Texas to complete a series of research trials. Working with the care teams, the company incorporated feedback to shape how Moxi fits into clinical workflows. The first commercial deployments of Moxi started in 2020.

The company, which doesn't disclose financial information, generates revenue through a subscription model based on each hospital's use of the robot.

Diligent previously raised $50 million. Investors in the current round of funding include Canaan, True Ventures, DNX Ventures, Next Coast and Northwestern Medicine Innovation.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin's Diligent Robotics raises $25M to expand robot Moxi's reach
In the fast-evolving digital world, Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) stands as a beacon of streaming triumph. The recent writers' strike that sent ripples through the entertainment industry for almost five months affected Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) stock considerably. However, the end of the strike heralds a new era, brimming with opportunities for robust growth and recovery, positioning Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) for a renewed rise in its stock and overall market standing.

The extensive writers' strike brought the buzzing world of Hollywood to a temporary halt, casting a shadow over various sectors of the entertainment industry, including streaming giants like Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX). This unforeseen hiatus impacted the steady flow of new content, translating into a hit on Netflix. The strike's conclusion comes as a relief and presents a chance for rejuvenation and resurgence, allowing Netflix to rebuild and recover in the post-strike period.

Assessing Netflix's Journey

Hence, this is an ideal moment to delve deeper and assess Netflix's journey. Utilizing GuruFocus' All-in-one Screener, we will consider and scrutinize the most recent information available to evaluate the financial health of this streaming behemoth as it navigates through these changing times.

The New Contract and Its Implications

The resolution of the strike, marked by the approval of a new contract by the unions' governing boards, has allowed writers to return to work, infusing fresh momentum into the industry. This new agreement ensures significant benefits for the writers, including substantial salary increases, bonuses for high-performing shows, and minimum staff guarantees. A crucial provision of this deal allows writers to partake in the success of content on streaming platforms like Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX). This innovative approach promises to deliver a substantial boost to Netflix, reinforcing its position and offering a potential windfall in the time to come.

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Netflixs Financial Outlook

In evaluating Netflixs financial health, its essential to delve into the intricate fiscal details post any industry disruption. Despite considerable industry turmoil, Netflix maintains a strong financial position, demonstrating resilience and strength. This exploration into Netflixs financial details reveals its diversified and robust financial aspects.

Netflix reported a revenue of $8.19 billion, marking a 3% year-on-year increase, proving its financial stability even in uncertain times. The consistent revenue growth highlights Netflix's enduring appeal and reliability. Its net income stands at a noteworthy $1.49 billion, showing a similar 3% year-on-year growth, reinforcing the companys solid financial base.

Netflix on the Rise Post-Writers' Strike

Moreover, a closer look at its operating income shows a positive trend, recorded at $1.83 billion, a significant approximately 16% increase. This rise emphasizes Netflix's operational efficiency and financial prudence. With a Debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 0.83, Netflix outranks 65.72% of its industry counterparts, indicating its strategic and effective debt management in line with its revenue, further solidifying its financial strength.

Netflix on the Rise Post-Writers' Strike

Another key financial aspect is the net cash change, which has seen a remarkable 588.31% growth, totaling $928.25 million. This substantial increase in cash reserves enhances Netflix's financial flexibility, providing the liquidity needed for achieving its strategic goals with greater financial agility.

As for future growth, the prospects are positive. Netflix's expected 3-5 Year Total Revenue Growth Rate is a robust 10.19%, surpassing 73.94% of the companies in the Media - Diversified industry. The Future 3-5 Year EPS without NRI Growth Rate is projected at an optimistic 17.87%, highlighting the anticipated earnings growth that Netflix is strategically positioned for.

Diversification and New Strategies

In an innovative move, Netflix is branching out to become a video game platform, tapping into the booming gaming market. This initiative offers an exciting revenue stream and a broader audience base. The company is also launching a cheaper ad-supported subscription plan, aimed at making the service more affordable and generating additional revenue from advertising. This strategic move can potentially attract a new customer base and retain current subscribers contemplating discontinuing the service.

Challenges

The streaming industry's landscape has transformed dramatically in recent times, with Netflix now facing unprecedented challenges. The streaming market is teeming with both new and established contenders, such as Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, and Peacock. These platforms are providing a diverse range of options including original content, sports, and live programming, possibly resonating more with audiences compared to Netflix's offerings. This burgeoning competition and variety have led some viewers to explore alternatives, contributing to Netflix's declining subscriber base.

To combat this, Netflix had increased its subscription prices to fund more original content. However, this move inadvertently contributed to a further loss in subscribers as the higher prices deterred potential and existing customers.

Investor sentiment towards Netflix is seemingly dwindling, underscored by a disappointing third-quarter sales forecast. The subsequent sell-off of Netflix highlights the growing concern and diminished confidence in the company's financial future. Despite the efforts to implement strategies such as the introduction of a paid sharing feature and the expansion into video gaming, these have not wholly assuaged investors' concerns. The Average Revenue per Membership (ARM) has seen a decline, further adding to the apprehensions about the companys financial health. The projected flat to slight downfall in the ARM in the third quarter reinforces these concerns, signaling potential issues in its pricing power and near-term revenue growth.

Netflix's Response to Challenges

Even amidst the challenges encountered, Netflix is taking active measures to bounce back. The company is embarking on numerous strategies to reclaim its pace. A notable move is the worldwide extension of a paid sharing feature, which permits another household to use a current Netflix account for an additional charge. This move played a part in Netflix gaining 5.9 million global subscribers in the second quarter of 2023, marking a positive shift from the nearly 1 million subscriber loss in the same quarter of the previous year. Furthermore, Netflix is significantly investing in original content in various nations, aiming to attract a global audience and possibly reducing expenses by filming outside the U.S.

Takeaway

While facing considerable challenges, Netflix is proactively navigating the competitive terrain by introducing diverse strategies to boost subscription numbers and revenue. The road ahead is fraught with uncertainties, and the effectiveness of these initiatives remains to be seen. The increasing competition, evolving market dynamics, and financial forecasts present substantial hurdles. However, Netflix's endeavors to diversify, innovate, and adapt to the shifting landscape underscore its commitment to maintaining its market position and driving future growth.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Value-focused investors are always on the hunt for stocks that are priced below their intrinsic value. One such stock that merits attention is NextEra Energy Partners LP (NYSE:NEP). The stock, which is currently priced at 38.98, recorded a loss of 16.88% in a day and a 3-month decrease of 32.54%. The stock's fair valuation is $79.46, as indicated by its GF Value.

Understanding the GF Value

The GF Value represents the current intrinsic value of a stock derived from our exclusive method. It is calculated based on historical multiples that the stock has traded at, GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth, and future estimates of the business performance. The GF Value Line on our summary page gives an overview of the fair value that the stock should be traded at.

NextEra Energy Partners LP (NEP): A Smart Investment or a Value Trap? An In-Depth Exploration

Is NextEra Energy Partners LP a Value Trap?

Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, certain risk factors associated with NextEra Energy Partners LP should not be ignored. These risks are primarily reflected through its low Altman Z-score of 0.43. These indicators suggest that NextEra Energy Partners LP, despite its apparent undervaluation, might be a potential value trap. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making.

Understanding the Altman Z-Score

Invented by New York University Professor Edward I. Altman in 1968, the Z-Score is a financial model that predicts the probability of a company entering bankruptcy within a two-year time frame. The Altman Z-Score combines five different financial ratios, each weighted to create a final score. A score below 1.8 suggests a high likelihood of financial distress, while a score above 3 indicates a low risk.

A Snapshot of NextEra Energy Partners LP

NextEra Energy Partners LP is formed to acquire, manage and own contracted clean energy projects. It owns interests in wind and solar projects in North America, as well as natural gas infrastructure assets in Texas. The renewable energy projects are fully contracted, use industry technology and are in regions that are favorable for generating energy from the wind and sun. Its natural gas pipelines in the portfolio are all strategically located, serving power producers and municipalities in South Texas, processing plants and producers in the Eagle Ford Shale, and commercial and industrial customers in the Houston area. Renewable energy sales generate maximum revenue for the company.

Story continues

NextEra Energy Partners LP (NEP): A Smart Investment or a Value Trap? An In-Depth Exploration

NextEra Energy Partners LP's Financial Health

A dissection of NextEra Energy Partners LP's Altman Z-score reveals NextEra Energy Partners LP's financial health may be weak, suggesting possible financial distress. The data from the past three years suggests a decreasing trend in its asset turnover ratio. This ratio reflects how effectively a company is using its assets to generate sales. Therefore, a drop in this ratio can signify reduced operational efficiency, potentially due to underutilization of assets or decreased market demand for the company's products or services. This shift in NextEra Energy Partners LP's asset turnover underlines the need for the company to reassess its operational strategies to optimize asset usage and boost sales.

Conclusion

Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, NextEra Energy Partners LP might be a potential value trap due to its low Altman Z-score and decreasing asset turnover ratio. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making. GuruFocus Premium members can find stocks with high Altman Z-Score using the following Screener: Walter Schloss Screen .

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


NEW YORK  Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, facing federal bribery charges for the second time in less than a decade, appeared in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

Menendez, 69, wearing a slate gray pinstripe suit with a paisley blue tie, appeared at court with his wife, Nadine, 56, who is also charged and pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.

The Democratic senator, buffeted by a chorus of Democratic calls for his resignation, said little in court and waived a reading of his indictment.

His bond was set at $100,000. His wifes bond was set at $250,000.

Menendez, previously charged with corruption in a separate case that ended in a mistrial nearly six year ago, now stands accused of accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for favors to three New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government.

A three-count indictment, filed by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office last Thursday, accused the Democratic senator of indirectly leaking highly sensitive information to Egypts government and secretly editing a letter on its behalf in an effort to unlock U.S. funding to the authoritarian nation.

Menendez, one of 13 U.S. senators in history to be indicted, served for a decade as the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He stepped down from the role after the indictment was unsealed Friday.

He and his wife face counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion. If convicted, they could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

Menendez, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., has claimed he is the victim of a smear campaign, and has defended his handling of U.S.-Egypt relations, declaring that his record is clear and consistent in holding Egypt accountable.

Federal agents who searched Menendezs home last year found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash stashed in often odd places, like clothing and closets, according to charging papers.

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Another $70,000 turned up in his wifes safe deposit box, the U.S. attorneys office charged.

On Monday, Menendez told reporters that he has long withdrawn large sums of cash from his savings account for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba. He has not publicly explained why he might have hoarded gold bars.

On Tuesday, Wael Hana, a 40-year-old halal entrepreneur from Egypt who is accused of playing a key role in the bribery scheme, was arrested at Kennedy Airport and appeared in court in Manhattan, pleading not guilty.

The indictment alleged that Menendez pressured a U.S. Agriculture Department official to protect an arrangement giving Hanas company an exclusive monopoly on halal exports from the U.S. to Egypt, despite Hana having no experience with halal certification.

The senator also provided his wife with private State Department information about the people serving in the U.S. embassy in Cairo, which she passed on to Hana, who forwarded it to the Egyptian government, according to court papers.

The indictment said the information was deemed highly sensitive because it could pose significant operational security concerns if disclosed to a foreign government.

Hana and the two other businessmen charged in the case  Jose Uribe, who works in trucking and insurance; and Fred Daibes, a real estate developer and bank founder  each face a maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted. Uribe and Daibes pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.

Most of the Senates Democratic caucus, including New Jerseys Cory Booker, has called on Menendez to resign, issuing a deafening drumbeat of statements across Tuesday. Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who could install a replacement for Menendez, has also urged him to step down.

But the majority leader, Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn, has not publicly told Menendez to go. Menendez has vowed not to resign.

I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jerseys senior senator, Menendez said at a Monday news conference.

To those who have rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible, he added. Remember, prosecutors get it wrong sometimes. Sadly, I know that.

In 2015, Menendez was indicted in an unrelated federal bribery case. The case culminated in a hung jury, and prosecutors dropped the charges.

The embattled senator arrived at court shortly after 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He had no comment as he entered.

Under bail terms set Wednesday, he must surrender his personal passports but not his official passports, and can only travel abroad for official business.

Menendez, a son of Cuban immigrants, rose to mayor of Union City, N.J., in the 1980s. On his way to mayor, he donned a bulletproof vest to testify in a corruption case against a longtime Union City mayor, William Musto, his political mentor.

Later, Menendez spent more than a decade serving in the House of Representatives. He rose to the Senate in 2006.

But on Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, joined the swelling ranks within his party calling on Menendez to go.

Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve, Durbin said on social media. He should step down.
Value-focused investors are always on the hunt for stocks that are priced below their intrinsic value. One such stock that merits attention is Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE:NUS). The stock, which is currently priced at 21.57, recorded a loss of 5.27% in a day and a 3-month decrease of 32.69%. The stock's fair valuation is $37.3, as indicated by its GF Value.

Understanding GF Value

The GF Value represents the current intrinsic value of a stock derived from our exclusive method. The GF Value Line on our summary page gives an overview of the fair value that the stock should be traded at. It is calculated based on three factors:

Historical multiples (PE Ratio, PS Ratio, PB Ratio and Price-to-Free-Cash-Flow) that the stock has traded at.

GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth.

Future estimates of the business performance.

We believe the GF Value Line is the fair value that the stock should be traded at. The stock price will most likely fluctuate around the GF Value Line. If the stock price is significantly above the GF Value Line, it is overvalued and its future return is likely to be poor. On the other hand, if it is significantly below the GF Value Line, its future return will likely be higher.

Is Nu Skin Enterprises (NUS) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Identifying the Risks

However, investors need to consider a more in-depth analysis before making an investment decision. Despite its seemingly attractive valuation, certain risk factors associated with Nu Skin Enterprises should not be ignored. These risks are primarily reflected through its low Piotroski F-score and a Beneish M-Score of -1.53 that exceeds -1.78, the threshold for potential earnings manipulation. These indicators suggest that Nu Skin Enterprises, despite its apparent undervaluation, might be a potential value trap. This complexity underlines the importance of thorough due diligence in investment decision-making.

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Decoding the Beneish M-Score

Developed by Professor Messod Beneish, the Beneish M-Score is based on eight financial variables that reflect different aspects of a company's financial performance and position. These are Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), Gross Margin (GM), Total Long-term Assets Less Property, Plant and Equipment over Total Assets (TATA), change in Revenue (?REV), change in Depreciation and Amortization (?DA), change in Selling, General and Admin expenses (?SGA), change in Debt-to-Asset Ratio (?LVG), and Net Income Less Non-Operating Income and Cash Flow from Operations over Total Assets (?NOATA).

Company Overview

Nu Skin Enterprises Inc is a health and beauty direct-selling company with a comprehensive product line: anti-aging skin products; peels, masks, and scrubs; moisturizers; body care; hair care; men's care; oral care; sun protection; and cosmetics. The company has three main product divisions: anti-aging, skin, and pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceuticals division offers nutritionals, weight-management products, and food supplements. The company has operations internationally, in more than 50 countries across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific.

Is Nu Skin Enterprises (NUS) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Financial Analysis

The Gross Margin index tracks the evolution of a company's gross profit as a proportion of its revenue. A downward trend could indicate issues such as overproduction or more generous credit terms, both of which are potential red flags for earnings manipulation. By examining the past three years of Nu Skin Enterprises's historical data (2021: 74.56; 2022: 74.10; 2023: 71.08), we find that its Gross Margin has contracted by 4.58%. Such a contraction in the gross margin can negatively impact the company's profitability as it signifies lesser income from each dollar of sales. This could put a strain on the company's capacity to manage operating costs, potentially undermining its financial stability.

The asset quality ratio, calculated as Total Long-term Assets minus Property, Plant, and Equipment, divided by Total Assets, gauges the proportion of intangible or less tangible assets within a company's asset structure. Analyzing Nu Skin Enterprises's asset quality ratio over the past three years (2021: 0.23; 2022: 0.24; 2023: 0.30), an increase might signal underlying issues, such as capitalizing normal operating expenses or goodwill impairment. These factors can inflate assets and mask true operational costs, potentially misrepresenting the company's actual financial position, and raising concerns for investors about its true value and risk profile.

Is Nu Skin Enterprises (NUS) Too Good to Be True? A Comprehensive Analysis of a Potential Value Trap

Depreciation, Depletion, and Amortization (DDA)

The change in Depreciation, Depletion, and Amortization (DDA) reflects the rate at which a company's assets lose value over time. Analyzing Nu Skin Enterprises's DDA data over the past three years (2021: 74.56; 2022: 74.16; 2023: 70.89), a decreasing rate might be a cause for concern. This decline may suggest that the company is prolonging the useful life of its assets, possibly to manipulate earnings. By extending the lifespan of assets, depreciation charges are spread over a longer period, thereby reducing annual expenses and artificially boosting reported profits. While this may create a more favorable short-term financial picture, it could also distort the true value and condition of the company's assets, misleading investors and potentially hiding underlying operational or financial issues.

Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) Expenses

The change in Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) expenses provides insight into a company's operational costs, encompassing expenses related to selling products and managing the business. Examining Nu Skin Enterprises's SG&A data over the past three years (2021: 1,800.74; 2022: 1,596.58; 2023: 1,327.39), an unexpected decrease may raise eyebrows. While reducing these expenses can be a sign of improved efficiency, an abrupt or unexplained decrease might indicate cost-cutting measures taken to artificially inflate earnings. By selectively reducing SG&A expenses, a company can create the illusion of higher profitability and operational efficiency. However, if these reductions are achieved by neglecting essential functions like marketing, customer service, or quality control, it might result in long-term negative effects on the company's growth, reputation, and sustainability. Hence, a decrease in SG&A must be carefully evaluated within the broader context of the company's strategy, industry norms, and competitive landscape to determine if it signals potential earnings manipulation or a legitimate improvement in operational efficiency.

The TATA Ratio

The TATA (Total Accruals to Total Assets) ratio, calculated as the Net Income less Non-Operating Income and Cash Flow from Operations, divided by Total Assets, is a key indicator of the quality of a company's earnings. For Nu Skin Enterprises, the current TATA ratio (TTM) stands at 0.042. A positive TATA ratio can be a warning sign, suggesting that the earnings are composed more of accruals rather than cash flow, which could be an indication of aggressive income recognition. Accrual accounting permits management some discretion in recognizing revenue and expenses, and a company intent on artificially boosting its earnings might exploit this flexibility.

In essence, a higher TATA ratio might mean that the company's reported income is not as firmly grounded in real cash earnings, signaling poor quality of earnings, potentially resulting from accounting gimmicks or financial engineering rather than true operational performance. Investors and analysts should examine the components of the TATA ratio closely, especially when the value is positive, to understand the underlying drivers and assess whether it might indicate a need for more detailed scrutiny of the company's financial practices.

Conclusion

While Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE:NUS) may initially appear to be a promising investment opportunity due to its current undervaluation, a deeper dive into its financials reveals several potential red flags. From a contracting gross margin and increasing asset quality ratio to declining depreciation rates and SG&A expenses, these indicators suggest potential earnings manipulation and raise questions about the quality of the company's earnings. This analysis underlines the importance of thorough due diligence when considering investment decisions. Despite its attractive GF Value, Nu Skin Enterprises could potentially be a value trap, and investors should think twice before making an investment decision.

To find out the high quality companies that may deliver above average returns, please check out GuruFocus High Quality Low Capex Screener.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


umob, a Mobility as a Service platform, sees faster rider onboarding and 90% reduction in manual work

AMSTERDAM, September 27, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Onfido, the global leader in automated identity verification, today announced the results of its partnership with umob, a revolutionary Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform that is transforming the shared mobility and public transportation experience. Since integrating Onfidos award-winning technology, umob can verify new users in under five minutes while significantly reducing manual identity verification checks by 90%, as detailed in the case study.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, umob stands at the forefront of the MaaS industry. Driven by their mission to foster sustainable urban environments, umobs integrated platform allows individuals to easily choose alternative transportation options, reducing reliance on private or passenger-owned vehicles.

As fraud poses a substantial challenge within the shared mobility sector, umob required a rider verification solution that provides rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, while maintaining a frictionless user experience, and managing a diverse global user network.

By leveraging Onfido's adaptable Real Identity Platform, umob has been able to prevent fraudulent activities and ensure a seamless onboarding experience for riders, thereby maintaining a high level of trust among its users. Onfido's rapid integration of document capture, facial comparison, liveness detection, and fraud prevention has enabled umob to promptly respond to emerging fraud tactics, ensuring continuous security while creating a fast and frictionless customer onboarding experience. Onfido Studio empowers umob to make real-time adjustments to verification criteria.

umob users can sign up by simply taking a photo of their government-issued identity document (ID) and a selfie. Onfido first checks that the ID is genuine and not fraudulent, and then matches it to the users face. This ensures the person presenting the identity is its legitimate owner and is physically present. Users are able to start their digital journey anywhere, anytime, through a simple and user-friendly online experience that meets regulatory requirements.

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"umob has big plans, aiming to onboard 450,000 recurring users by the end of 2024. Onfido aligns with these goals, supporting us as we continue to expand market presence while upholding robust identity verification measures," said Raymon Pouwels, Co-founder & CCO of umob. "Onfido has been instrumental in reshaping the way we approach identity verification in the shared mobility sector. The main benefits being ease of use for the customer while being secure and easy for us to manage."

"This partnership exemplifies how a dynamic partnership can address critical challenges within the industries requiring KYC such as financial services and shared mobility industry," said Nello Franco, Chief Customer Officer at Onfido. "Onfido's solutions not only simplify identity verification but also enable businesses to focus on their core objectives while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance."

Onfido's solutions have already made a significant impact in the Netherlands, with prominent clients such as challenger bank bunq and LeasePlan Bank benefitting from the company's digital identity verification expertise.

About Onfido

Onfido makes digital identity simple. The Onfido Real Identity Platform allows businesses to tailor verification methods to individual needs in a no-code orchestration layer, combining document and biometric verification, data sources, and passive fraud signals. Onfido Atlas AI powers the platform's fully-automated, end-to-end identity verification. Developed in-house for over 10 years, its how Onfido ensures its analysis is fair, fast and accurate.

Recognised as a global leader in AI for identity verification and authentication, Onfido is backed by TPG Growth, Idinvest Partners, Crane Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, M12 (Microsoft) and others. They partner with over 1000 businesses globally to help millions access services every week  from billion dollar institutions to hypergrowth start-ups.

About umob

umob is a MaaS platform that combines all mobility providers through full integrations into one app and puts the traveler first. We combat traffic jams, congestion, emissions and an abundance of parked cars by providing an uncomplicated alternative to owning a vehicle. Because we integrate all carriers, you always have a means of transportation at your disposal within walking distance.

umob has been active in the Netherlands since August 2023, headquartered in Rotterdam, and offers access to public transport, cab and shared transport, including shared scooters, (electric) bikes and cars, through a single account. umob's ambition is to grow into a European MaaS platform and become the link between governments and providers to overcome the challenges of mobility in cities.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230927814029/en/

Contacts

press@onfido.com

tibbe.dolman@cognitomedia.nl
Key Insights

The projected fair value for Inchcape is UK15.01 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity

Inchcape's UK7.58 share price signals that it might be 50% undervalued

Analyst price target for INCH is UK12.08 which is 20% below our fair value estimate

Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Inchcape plc (LON:INCH) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Inchcape

Step By Step Through The Calculation

We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF (, Millions) UK447.4m UK493.2m UK517.1m UK536.9m UK553.4m UK567.7m UK580.2m UK591.6m UK602.2m UK612.2m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x7 Analyst x6 Est @ 4.86% Est @ 3.81% Est @ 3.08% Est @ 2.57% Est @ 2.21% Est @ 1.96% Est @ 1.79% Est @ 1.67% Present Value (, Millions) Discounted @ 9.8% UK407 UK409 UK390 UK369 UK346 UK323 UK301 UK279 UK259 UK240

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK3.3b

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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 1.4%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.8%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033  (1 + g)  (r  g) = UK612m (1 + 1.4%)  (9.8% 1.4%) = UK7.3b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK7.3b ( 1 + 9.8%)10= UK2.9b

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is UK6.2b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK7.6, the company appears quite undervalued at a 50% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.

dcf

The Assumptions

We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Inchcape 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 9.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.431. 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 Inchcape

Strength

Debt is well covered by earnings.

Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows.

Weakness

Earnings growth over the past year underperformed the Retail Distributors industry.

Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Retail Distributors market.

Shareholders have been diluted in the past year.

Opportunity

Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the British market.

Good value based on P/E ratio and estimated fair value.

Threat

Debt is not well covered by operating cash flow.

Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. Why is the intrinsic value higher than the current share price? For Inchcape, there are three pertinent aspects you should consider:

Risks: You should be aware of the 4 warning signs for Inchcape (1 can't be ignored!) we've uncovered before considering an investment in the company. Management:Have insiders been ramping up their shares to take advantage of the market's sentiment for INCH'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 British 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.
Most wealthy GCC investors are setting their sights on Egypt for real estate, said Knight Frank in its exclusive signature report, Destination Egypt. The leading independent real estate consultancy said that 94% of the respondents with over $1 million investable assets are interested in purchasing property in Egypt, with 56% of them keen to purchase within a year.

The comprehensive report says that Egypts vibrant real estate market, currently valued at an estimated $18 billion, is projected to reach $30 billion by 2028.

Witnessing a real estate renaissance, Egypt is establishing its position as North Africa's premier destination, with Middle East sovereign wealth funds actively allocating up to $ 20 billion in the past two and a half years across various sectors, the report said.

Known for its beachfront summer houses overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, Egypt has made a significant mark in the residential real estate market, attracting both second home buyers and investors alike, said the report.

The residential sector alone received a significant allocation of $16 billion, contributing to its thriving growth. In Q1 2023, 17 projects worth $1.3 billion have already been delivered, while sales value achieved $2.5 billion in the same period. These developments are further enhancing the investment climate and notably attracting affluent investors interested in real estate.

To assess attitudes and preferences, Knight Frank conducted a survey in partnership with YouGov, gathering insights from 258 GCC nationals with varying personal net worth levels, ranging from $ 100,000 to above $1 million.

Key Highlights of the report:

UAE respondents have the highest average budget ($1.6 million) for a residential purchase in Egypt, followed by Qatar nationals with a $1 million budget.

The UAE ranked first among GCC countries during FY 2021/22, with total investment of $5.7 billion, an estimated share of 29% of total FDI to Egypt.

94% of respondents with over $1 million investable assets are interested in purchasing property in Egypt, with 56% of them keen to purchase within a year.

72% of GCC nationals main motive behind a purchase in Egypt is to buy a second home/ oliday home.

Interest in the North Coast is highest among UAE, Saudi, and Qatari nationals with an average 40% interest in the destination.

60% of GCC nationals already own at least one property in Egypt.

Emirati (37%) and Saudi (39%) nationals stand out as the largest group of GCC respondents who own two-three homes in Egypt.

Qataris are the most eager GCC nationality group, with 64% interested to buy a residential property in Egypt this year.

For Emirati respondents, the New Administrative Capital (42%) is the ranked as the most appealing residential target location, followed closely by New Cairo (37%).

40% of Omanis are interested in making second home purchases, with renting it out (47%) being cited as the second most popular motivator for buying a second home in Egypt.

50% of respondents from Bahrain are prepared to spend over $750,000 towards their next property purchase in Egypt.

Saudi Arabia has ranked first in H1 FY 2022/23 with total invests worth $2.1 bn.

44% of Saudi nationals are interested in making their next property purchase in Egypt, a beach house  the highest among all GCC buyer groups.

74% of GCC nationals making a second home purchase intend to rent out their property.

Demand for properties on the North Coast is highest amongst GCC nationals with $500,000 to $1 million in investible assets.  TradeArabia News Service
Container volumes at Port Houston declined 20% year over year in August, driven by a sharp drop in empty container volume. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Container flow in August slumped in Houston, while global demand for crude oil continued to fuel exports through Corpus Christi, Texas. The Port of New Orleans reported steel and rubber as its top breakbulk commodities during August.

Port Houston sees declines in container volumes, steel shipments, general imports

Port Houston handled 307,624 twenty-foot equivalent units in August, a year-over-year (y/y) decrease of 20%.

Overall container volumes and freight flows at Port Houston declined in August compared to last year, led by a 48% y/y drop in empty containers to 40,398 TEUs.

Roger Guenther, executive director at Port Houston, said retail imports slowed in August.

Retail imports have cooled off somewhat, since the historic demand we saw post-pandemic, Guenther said during the ports monthly commission meeting Tuesday. Were not exporting a lot of empties back to Asia so they can be filled with imports like they were a year and a half, two years ago.

Guenther said the monthly decline is not too concerning since August 2022 was the biggest month ever at Port Houston for container volume, with 344,163 TEUs.

Overall container volume is down only 4% year to date at 2.5 million TEUs, which is great compared to whats going on in the rest of the country, Guenther said. Were not going to expect to peak for the remainder of the year, but thats all as expected. We continue to maintain volumes that are good, solid, but flat. We expected that after a record year in 2022.

Imports of steel products such as rail and oil industry components were down 39% y/y in August at 294,338 tons. General cargo imports were down 26% y/y at 608,528 tons.

General exports were down 3% y/y at 1.1 million tons, while steel exports were down 72% y/y at 29,330 tons.

Total steel import/export tonnage is down 14% year to date compared to 2022 at 3.2 million tons. Port Houstons total revenue tonnage was down 15% y/y at 4.7 million tons in August.

Load imports were down 17% y/y at 149,660 TEUs, while loaded exports were down 6% y/y in August at 110,008 TEUs.

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Port Houston recorded 710 ship calls in August, a 3% y/y decline, while barge calls totaled 308, a 79% y/y increase.

Crude oil exports rise in August at Port of Corpus Christi

The Port of Corpus Christi posted an 11% y/y increase in total shipments during August, handling 17.9 million tons compared to 16.1 million tons in 2022.

Exports of crude oil totaled 10.2 million tons in August, a 23% y/y increase compared to the same year-ago period.

Petroleum shipments decreased 1% y/y in August to 5.4 million tons, with exports totaling 4.2 million tons during the month.

Dry bulk cargo decreased 20% y/y to 667,653 tons, while chemical cargo volumes totaled 326,125 tons in August, a 16% y/y increase from 2022.

The Port of Corpus Christi had 475 barge calls in August, a 7.4% y/y decline. Ship calls during August totaled 217, an 8.5% y/y increase compared to 2022.

The Port of Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project also recently began its final phase with the Army Corps of Engineers awarding the fourth and final contract to Callan Marine, according to a news release.

The project will increase the depth of the ship channel from 47 to 54 feet and widen it to 530 feet. An additional 400 feet of barge shelves will be built to allow two-way traffic of vessels and barges.

The first phase was completed in February 2020, while Phase 2 wrapped up in July of this year. The third phase is expected to be completed in 2023, with completion of the final phase estimated for early 2025.

The $682 million project is jointly funded by the federal government and Port of Corpus Christi.

Port of New Orleans moves 36,797 TEUs in August

The Port of New Orleans container volume totaled 36,797 TEUs in August, while breakbulk tonnage was 119,716.

The port did not provide y/y monthly data, but container traffic fell 18% compared to July 2023; breakbulk cargo jumped 64% compared to last month.

We saw an increase in breakbulk steel and rubber imports in August, Kimberly Curth, port spokeswoman, told FreightWaves.

Containerized cargo included plastic resins and miscellaneous chemicals, and imports of coffee and organic chemicals.

The port handled 8,606 Class I rail car switches in August, a 4% decline from July. The port handles switching operations for six Class I railroads: BNSF, CN, CSX, CPKC, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific.

Watch: A manufacturing supercycle is coming.

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US Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife Nadine Arslanian, arrive at the US District Court, Southern District of New York, in New York City on September 27, 2023. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

US Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey appeared in court Wednesday on criminal charges.

Prosecutors allege he accepted cash and gold bricks from businessmen to help the Egyptian government.

A judge limited his contact with Senate staffers as the case goes on.

US Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was released on a $100,000 bond Wednesday following his first court appearance on charges accusing him of accepting numerous bribes.

According to prosecutors, the Democratic senators took bribes in the form of gold bars, cash, and a Mercedes-Benz, among other treats, in exchange for making foreign policy decisions that benefited the government of Egypt.

Appearing defiant with a slight smile, Menendez strode into the Manhattan federal courthouse alongside his wife, Nadine Menendez, who prosecutors allege also accepted the bribes.

On the sidewalk, protesters called for his resignation from the US Senate. Photographers captured one holding a "RESIGN" sign behind his head.

Three other co-defendants in the case, Egyptian-American businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes, had scheduled appearances in the courthouse Wednesday as well.

All five defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

At the hearing, US Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang detailed Menendez's bond conditions. The senator is forbidden from talking to Senate staffers or political advisors with knowledge of the case unless one of his lawyers is present.

The Senator also isn't allowed to contact potential witnesses without a lawyer present or to talk to any co-defendants except for his wife.

Nadine Menendez was released on a $250,000 bond and her travel was restricted to parts of New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Florida, where she has family. Wang barred Sen. Menendez from traveling internationally, except as part of his Senate duties and with prior notice.

The court appearance comes amid growing calls from colleagues asking for Menendez to resign from the Senate, where he has already relinquished his role leading the foreign relations committee. As of Wednesday morning, 30 Democratic senators have publicly called for his resignation, including Cory Booker, the other US senator representing New Jersey.

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Zero Republican senators have called for Menendez's resignation. (Former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race, has four pending criminal cases against him.)

Menendez is due in court to answer to federal charges alleging he used his powerful post to secretly advance Egyptian interests and carry out favors for local businessmen in exchange for bribes of cash and gold bars. AP Photo/Jeenah Moon

Gold bars and a Benz

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan allege that, in about 2019, the businessmen gave Menendez and his wife cash, gold, mortgage payments, a Mercedes-Benz, an air purifier, and other bribes. In exchange, according to the indictment unsealed last week, prosecutors allege that Menendez used his powerful perch on the Senate's foreign relations committee to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Egypt and help shape an international construction project in a way that Egypt preferred.

In one example recounted in the indictment, prosecutors allege Menendez texted his wife to tell Hana, one of the businessmen, that he was "going to sign off this sale to Egypt today. Egypt: 46,000 120MM Target Practice Rounds and 10,000 Rounds Tank Ammunition: $99 million."

Nadine Menendez then forwarded the text to Hana, who forwarded it to an Egyptian government official, the indictment says.

"Egyptian Official-1 replied with a 'thumbs up' emoji," prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

Prosecutors also allege that Menendez interfered in a criminal prosecution of another person linked to the businessmen and helped a halal certification agency owned by one of them to obtain a monopoly on Egyptian goods sold in New Jersey.

Menendez has denied the criminal charges, saying prosecutors "misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office."

Prosecutors in New Jersey previously accused Menendez of bribery in a separate case. When he went to trial on those charges in 2017, the jury failed to convict him, and the charges were dropped.

This story has been updated.

Read the original article on Business Insider
By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Reforming the World Bank's approach to risk could unlock nearly $190 billion in additional urgently needed lending for developing countries without jeopardizing its AAA credit rating, a study commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation found.

The study, carried out by international finance analytics firm Risk Control, found the bank's two main lending arms, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), have "significant headroom" to boost lending.

Rockefeller hired Risk Control to review and quantify key recommendations made in 2022 by an independent Group of 20 panel, which said easing the bank's strict capital adequacy framework could free up hundreds of billions in additional lending to combat climate change and advance development.

The report, to be published early Wednesday, comes as the United States, China and other World Bank shareholders prepare to meet in Marrakech, Morocco next month to review and advance initial reforms already underway at the bank.

The study said the IBRD could boost lending by $162 billion over a decade or less before triggering a downgrade by global credit rating agencies, while IDA, which lends to the poorest countries, could boost lending by $21 billion to $27 billion.

In fiscal 2023, which ended June 30, IBRD made net new lending commitments of $38.6 billion, while IDA committed $34.2 billion.

It said IBRD and IDA could boost lending to nearly $900 billion if the rating agencies changed their processes and modified the allowance they make for "callable capital," commitments by shareholders to supply additional resources in the event of severe financial problems.

Use of innovative approaches, including hybrid capital, could provide further funds, the study concluded, while securitizing 10% of IBRD and IDA's portfolios could generate additional lending headroom of $29 billion to $41 billion.

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The bank has already increased its leverage ratio to squeeze out an additional $50 billion in lending over a decade, but World Bank President Ajay Banga on Tuesday said the bank could potentially double that amount with international contributions.

Eric Pelofsky, vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, said Risk Control conducted a math-based and transparent analysis that confirmed additional lending capacity was possible, even beyond the levels mapped out to date.

This is the math, absolutely as detailed and transparent as you could possibly get, that says theres more room," he said. "It very clearly says that there are actions that can be done now while we consider other more long-term reforms to the bank.

Hans Peter Lankes, a professor at the London School of Economics and member of the G20 panel, said the study provided "timely benchmarks" for shareholders and World Bank management as they scoped out ways to boost lending.

Some experts argue that developing and emerging economies need $2.4 trillion per year to meet global climate challenges.

We need this because the developing world is pitching off a cliff in terms of debt, available climate finance, development needs," Pelofsky said. "And from a geopolitical standpoint, the Bank, the Fund, the regional development banks are infinitely more transparent than some of the obvious alternatives.

The Biden administration is pushing the World Bank as a "credible alternative" to China's overseas lending, which U.S. officials say is often not transparent and often uses collateralized loans that pose risks to countries later.

(Reporting by Andrea ShalalEditing by Chris Reese)
Doctor examines a retired man

Employers have embraced high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) so enthusiastically that today half of workers with employer health coverage get it from these plans. HDHPs aim to make consumers more cost-conscious, but they potentially could encourage some workers to save money by skipping beneficial preventive health services.

The IRS tried to address that concern by making certain services exempt from deductibles in HDHPs paired with health savings accounts (HSAs). According to research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), this appears to have worked, since employees in HSAs were more likely to use the exempted health services. The findings may be worth keeping in mind for employees considering HDHP enrollment.

Do you have questions about saving for healthcare in retirement? Speak with a financial advisor today.

How HSAs Work

An HSA is a savings account that lets you save money to pay for healthcare costs with the help of special tax advantages. You can deduct money contributed to an HSA your current taxable income, and earnings from assets in the account are also tax-free. Finally, when you withdraw funds to pay eligible health expenses, the withdrawals are also not taxed.

HSAs have to be paired with an HDHP, which is not a problem for many workers because these plans are very popular. The high deductible can be an obstacle, however. IRS rules for 2023 require an eligible HDHP to have a minimum deductible of $1,500 for an individual or $3,000 for a family, with maximum out-of-pocket costs set at $7,500 for individuals or $15,000 per family.

Shifting costs from employers to workers with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket amounts encourages workers to watch healthcare expenditures more carefully. However, this can also mean cost-conscious workers don't get screenings and other preventative health services. Presumably, that can lead to worse health outcomes.

Encouraging Preventive Care

To encourage employees to use preventive care, the IRS issued guidelines exempting specific services and medicines from deductible calculations. This means the health plan pays for these services rather than the employee paying out of pocket. EBRI conducted the aforementioned research project to find out whether the IRS move worked as intended.

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Between 2018 and 2021, EBRI reports, employees in HSA-eligible plans increased use of three of the seven exempted medical services related to chronic health issues compared to people in non-HSA-eligible plans. The services include testing for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) to assess heart disease risk, hemoglobin HbA1c testing for diabetes and diabetic retinopathy screening. EBRI concludes that the IRS guideline modification was behind the increased use of these services.

EBRI also examined prescription drug use among people in HSAs. Drugs the IRS exempted from deductible calculations included selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) anti-depressants, statins to control cholesterol and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors for high blood pressure. As expected, prescriptions for those drugs for employees in HSAs increased at a higher rate than for workers covered by other plan types, indicating the IRS was influencing prescription drug use as well.

Using HSAs for Preventive Health Costs

Healthcare savings in a glass jar

EBRI suggested employers encourage use of health-boosting services and prescriptions by further loosening their cost-sharing rules on co-deductibles and copays. Even if employers don't follow this advice, employees can use the information to help their finances and their health.

Workers can optimize HSA use under the IRS guidelines by considering the following actions:

Ask the company plan administrator about any communications informing employees of pre-deductible benefit changes.

Carefully review plan documents for details. Some employers increased copays and coinsurance instead of completely eliminating cost-sharing on preventive services and medications.

Check to see if the specific medications you take and services you need are included in the expanded pre-deductible coverage. The IRS guidelines only affected a handful of preventive services and medications, and plans' specific rules may narrow coverage further.

Bottom Line

A research project by EBRI found that since the IRS told employers they could exclude certain preventive health services and medications from HDHP deductibles, covered employees were using the specific services more than those in non-HSA plan arrangements. Medications and services for heart conditions, diabetes and depression all showed upticks in use for HSA-eligible workers compared to the rest. The findings suggest employees covered by HSAs should consider whether needed preventive services and medications are exempted by their plans before enrolling in an HDHP.

Retiree Healthcare Planning Tips

If you have questions about HSAs, you may find it helpful to speak with an expert. Finding a financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can have a free introductory call with your advisor matches to decide which one you feel is right for you. If you're ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

Healthcare costs can consume a big part of a retirement budget. Use SmartAsset's retirement calculator figure out how much you'll need to cover all your healthcare and other expenses after you stop working.

Photo credit: iStock.com/KSChong, iStock.com/Pattarisara Suvichanarakul

The post Research Shows How Your Healthcare Plan Should Account for HSAs appeared first on SmartReads by SmartAsset.
What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Although, when we looked at Angling Direct (LON:ANG), it didn't seem to tick all of these boxes.

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 Angling Direct, this is the formula:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.016 = UK787k  (UK57m - UK9.0m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to January 2023).

So, Angling Direct has an ROCE of 1.6%. In absolute terms, that's a low return and it also under-performs the Specialty Retail industry average of 12%.

See our latest analysis for Angling Direct

roce

In the above chart we have measured Angling Direct's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for Angling Direct.

So How Is Angling Direct's ROCE Trending?

On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Angling Direct doesn't inspire confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 11% over the last five years. On the other hand, the company has been employing more capital without a corresponding improvement in sales in the last year, which could suggest these investments are longer term plays. It may take some time before the company starts to see any change in earnings from these investments.

On a side note, Angling Direct has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 16% of total assets. That could partly explain why the ROCE has dropped. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.

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The Bottom Line

Bringing it all together, while we're somewhat encouraged by Angling Direct's reinvestment in its own business, we're aware that returns are shrinking. Since the stock has declined 65% over the last five years, investors may not be too optimistic on this trend improving either. Therefore based on the analysis done in this article, we don't think Angling Direct has the makings of a multi-bagger.

If you want to continue researching Angling Direct, you might be interested to know about the 3 warning signs that our analysis has discovered.

While Angling Direct 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.
Sir Richard Branson attends Branson New York Premiere at HBO Screening Room on November 29, 2022 in New York City. John Lamparski/Getty Images

On July 11, 2021, a week before his 71st birthday, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson flew to suborbital space along with five of his employees in a Virgin Galactic (SPCE) spaceplane. The British billionaire said it was the best day of his life and he fully intends to do it again.

I booked it for my 80th, 90th and 100th birthday, and Im an optimist, so my 110th as well, Branson, 73, said in an interview with NBC last week while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

Virgin Galactic, the space tourism arm of Virgin Group, sells 90-minute round trips to and from the edge of Earths atmosphere (about 50 miles above sea level) in a spaceplane for $450,000 per person. The mission that brought Branson to space was the first full-crew test flight of Virgin Galactic. And after years of delay, the company finally began flying paying customers in June.

Virgin Galactic initially priced its tickets at $250,000 a pop but increased it to $450,000 shortly after Bransons spaceflight in 2021. Branson, whose business conglomerate operates airlines and cruise lines, said Virgin Galactic has a low carbon footprint.

Weve managed to get the price of going into space, from a carbon point of view right down to a minimum, Branson told NBC. You know, if youve run an airline, youve got to try to get the youngest, most fuel-efficient planes. If youre running a space line, youve got to reduce the cost of taking people into space dramatically from a carbon point of view.

The burgeoning space tourism industry has drawn criticism over the high carbon emissions of rockets and spaceplanes. A 90-minute Virgin Galactic flight generates emissions equivalent to a ten-hour trans-Atlantic commercial air flight, according to a 2021 report by NSR, a firm providing research on satellite and space markets. Because Virgin Galactic can only carry up to six passengers on each flight, that averages to 4.5 tons of carbon emission per person, twice the Paris Agreements recommended annual individual carbon budget, per NSRs calculation.

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Virgin Galactic hasnt responded to an inquiry to comment on these numbers by press time.

While in New York last week, which coincided with Climate Week NYC, Branson announced his latest climate initiative, Planetary Guardians. Its a coalition of 14 world leaders, climate activists, business moguls and celebrities who will take what they call a whole planet approach to safeguard Earth. In addition to Branson, the group includes actor Robert Redford, activist Jane Goodall and Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia.

Here are every crewed mission and launched by Virgin Galactic to date and the passengers on board:

July 11, 2021 Unity 22

Passengers/Virgin Galactic staff: Richard Branson, Beth Moses (Virgin Galactics chief astronaut instructor), Colin Bennett (lead operations engineer), Sirisha Bandla (head of government affairs and research operations)

Pilots: Dave Mackay, Michael Masucci

June 29, 2023 Galactic 01

Passengers: Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, Pantaleone Carlucci

Staff: Colin Bennett

Pilots: Mike Masucci, Nicola Pecile

August 10, 2023 Galactic 02

Passengers: Jon, Goodwin, Keisha Schahaff, Anastatia Mayers

Staff: Beth Moses

Pilots: C.J. Sturckow, Kelly Latimer

September 8, 2023 Galactic 03

Passengers: Ken Baxter, Adrian Reynard, Timothy Nash

Staff: Beth Moses

Pilots: Nicola Pecile, Michael Masucci

Trending Observer Stories

Read the original story Richard Branson Flew to Space When He Turned 70. He Wants to Do It Again (and Again) and others by Sissi Cao at Observer.
One Chinese yuan bill lying on top of a US dollar bill. Getty Images

The yuan's share of Russian import invoicing has jumped to 20% since the Ukraine war, a study found.

The yuan was more pronounced in the import of sanctioned goods, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development wrote.

Yuan invoicing was especially pronounced in the import of industrial-capacity goods that have been sanctioned.

Use of the Chinese yuan has jumped considerably in Russian trade, becoming a preferential vehicle currency in the face of Western sanctions.

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine early last year, only 3% of Russian imports were invoiced in yuan, but by the end of 2022 the share grew to 20%, according to a study from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Meanwhile, Russian imports invoiced in US dollars and euros fell from as much as 80% to 67%, it said.

"In broad terms, the use of US dollar as a (dominant) vehicle currency in Russia's imports has declined, while the use of producer currencies of neutral economies has become more widespread," EBRD wrote. "Yuan has become increasingly used as a vehicle currency."

While this partially results from Russia's shifting trade relations that favor China, the study noted that yuan invoicing was especially pronounced in the import of industrial-capacity goods that have been sanctioned, or that can serve a dual-use purpose. Compared to non-sanctioned products, the yuan's share increased an additional 6-8 percentage points.

The study also highlighted a sharp increase in yuan invoice dealings among Russia's importing firms and pointed to the de-dollarization trend among countries seeking to reduce reliance on the greenback.

"The results are consistent with the use of trade sanctions gradually weakening the exorbitant privilege enjoyed by the US dollar and leading to the fragmentation of international payment systems, with the emergence of alternative global currencies such as CNY," EBRD concluded.

Russia's embrace of the yuan is among a few strategies Moscow has pursued to get around Western restrictions. Trade with third countries has also grown, while about three-quarters of Russia's sea-borne oil is exported without Western insurance.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Michael O'Leary said he would be trying to sue over recent flight cancellations - EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/REUTERS

Ryanairs chief executive has said British air traffic control is by far the worst in Europe, after travellers were hit by more cancellations this week due to staff sickness.



Michael OLeary criticised the UKs air traffic control network as by far and away the least productive, most inefficient.



The comments come after Gatwick on Monday revealed that it would be forced to cap the number of flights this week after an outbreak of Covid-19 among air traffic control staff. Nearly a third of staff were said to be off with illnesses, meaning around 165 scheduled flights to and from the airport would need to be cancelled up until Sunday.



National Air Traffic Services (Nats) earlier this week said limiting flights was the responsible thing to do to limit disruption for passengers, adding: Our operational resilience in the tower will improve as our staff return to work and we move out of the summer schedule, which is particularly busy at Gatwick.

We will continue to recruit and train air traffic controllers at Gatwick a fast as possible to ensure we return to a fully resilient operation as soon as we can.

Weeks earlier, a technical glitch with the air traffic control system resulted in travel chaos across the UK, with hundreds of flights cancelled.

Nats said its automated air traffic control system had experienced a one in 15 million event. This meant it was forced to manually process flights for six hours.



Mr OLeary called for the chief executive of Nats to be sacked after accusing him of a p--- poor performance. He suggested that Nats was not actually understaffed, but employed controllers who just dont show up to work.



He said Martin Rolfe, who runs the body in charge of Gatwicks air traffic control, was useless and incompetent and should be taken out and dismissed, adding: How he continues to get away with it is a mystery to us.



He presided over a complete system failure at Gatwick on the 28th and 29th August, but he continues to preside over staff shortages.



The Ryanair chief said he would be trying to sue Nats to reclaim compensation for recent cancellations. The airline estimates that it pays Nats almost 100m (86.9m) per year.



Mr OLeary added that the network was not as useful as it used to be saying airlines dont need that much ATC any more, with aircraft instead able to talk to each other.

Generally the people in the tower at Gatwick just get in the way.



It comes amid a wave of criticism of the UKs air traffic control network, with easyJet having said it had faced more than 30 days of restrictions since May because of resource problems.



Johan Lundgren, the chief executive of easyJet, recently said: Gatwick Airport and Nats now need to work on a longer-term plan so the resilience of air traffic control at Gatwick is improved and fit for purpose.

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.
MUSCAT, Oman, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah accompanied by Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, visited on Wednesday morning the National Museum of Oman.

Upon his arrival, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah went on a tour of the National Museum's halls that highlight significant facets of the history and culture of the Sultanate of Oman, including the Renaissance Hall's corner honouring Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur, the Hall of Earth and Man and Maritime History Hall.

His Highness observed several artefacts in the Hall of Earth and Man that represent the long-standing friendship between the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, including a curved sword given in the year 2004 and a model of Qasr Al Hosn in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi given in 1999 by the late, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.



His Highness paused in front of a collection of paintings and sketches by Captain Charles Golding Constable depicting scenes from the Musandam Peninsula and the Arabian Gulf in the nineteenth century.

The Sharjah Ruler toured the exhibits at the Maritime History Hall, which house a collection of manuscripts, models of Omani sea craft, and marine construction equipment.

In the Renaissance Hall, His Highness paid a visit to the statue of Sultan Qaboos bin Said bin Taimur and reviewed a collection of royal collectibles, most notably the personal collectibles and presents that heads of friendly and allied nations gave the late Sultan.

During his visit, His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah received a souvenir from His Excellency Jamal bin Hassan Al Musawi, Secretary-General of the National Museum, which is a museum publication entitled "The Collection of Marine Science."

His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, wrote words in VIP's visitors volume thanking those in charge of the National Museum for the comprehensive explanation and valuable information they provided, and wishing to make a next visit to this valuable museum.

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Contact: Hussain Almulla - Hussain.almulla@sgmb.ae - 00971563980067

Video: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223545/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.mp4

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2223538/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau.jpg

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Sharjah Ruler visits National Museum of Oman

Sharjah Ruler visits National Museum of Oman

Sharjah Ruler visits National Museum of Oman

Sharjah Ruler visits National Museum of Oman

Sharjah Ruler visits National Museum of Oman

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sharjah-ruler-visits-national-museum-of-oman-301940873.html

SOURCE Sharjah Government Media Bureau
Silver Mountain Resources Inc.

Figure 1:

Drill Hole Location Map of the 2023 Drill program

Figure 2:

Longitudinal section of the newly identified Natividad vein

Figure 3:

High grade Ag-Au intercept in drill hole SMR140-23-SCS

Figure 4:

Longitudinal section of the Sacasipuedes vein showing grade-thickness values

Key Highlights  Initial drilling on the Natividad Vein and mineral resource expansion drilling at Sacasipuedes vein system



Drill Hole SMR135-23-SCS (newly identified Natividad, or NAT vein)

1.55 m @ 81 g/t Ag, 2.51% Pb, 4.57% Zn, 1.80% Cu and 0.25 g/t Au, including

1.00 m @ 106 g/t Ag, 3.37% Pb, 5.84% Zn, 2.56% Cu and 0.09 g/t Au

Drill Hole SMR140-23-SCS (NAT vein)

2.20 m @ 42 g/t Ag, 2.79% Pb, 3.84% Zn, 0.75% Cu and 0.06 g/t Au, including

1.00 m @ 62 g/t Ag, 5.40% Pb, 4.70% Zn, 0.98% Cu and 0.06 g/t Au

Drill Hole SMR140-23-SCS (mineralized breccia)

0.60 m @ 1,319.55 g/t Ag, 0.86% Pb, 2.82% Zn, 0.03% Cu and 6.19 g/t Au, including

0.30 m @ 2,623.00 g/t Ag, 1.68% Pb, 5.60% Zn, 0.06% Cu and 12.20 g/t Au

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Silver Mountain Resources Inc. (Silver Mountain or the Company) (TSXV: AGMR; OTCQB: AGMRF) is pleased to announce the discovery of the Natividad vein, a new copper rich vein at its 100% owned Reliquias mine, central Peru. Results from three of the initial four drill holes completed at Natividad have been received, all part of Phase 2 of the Companys 2023 infill and resource expansion program. Drilling has also hit very high gold and silver grades near the Sacasipuedes vein, within a mineralized breccia body with strong argillic alteration.

Alvaro Espinoza, CEO of Silver Mountain, stated, It is very exciting to have discovered a new mineralized vein, which has been named by our technical team as Natividad (or NAT). It is early days still, and the high grade copper values and true thickness observed augur well for its possible incorporation into a future mine plan. Our geologists are adapting the program to further test this structure along strike and at depth, and we will provide results as we receive them. Discovering a new vein in a historic district such as Reliquias proves once again that this project not only has a solid resource base on which to prepare a mine plan to re-start operations, but also has significant exploration upside to grow it further.

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Mr Espinoza continued, The extremely high silver and gold grades found above the main Sacasipuedes vein is also exciting as it proves, once again, that bonanza type grades exist outside of the current mineral resource boundaries. We look forward to test the continuity of this new high grade hit in our ongoing underground drill program.

Phase 2 of the 2023 drill program consists of 12,500 metres of NQ and HQ drilling aimed at infilling and growing the Companys current mineral resource estimate (see news release dated April 12th, 2023 ). So far, drilling crews have completed approximately 7,600 metres of this program with two underground rigs, and the Company has received results from 18 drill holes (see also news releases dated July 19th and August 16th, 2023).

Discussion of 2023 Drilling Results

The Company has so far completed 22 drill holes on the Sacasipuedes and Perseguida vein systems from three underground drill platforms, two from Sacasipuedes and one from Perseguida. The Natividad discovery was made through drilling originally aimed at the Sacasipuedes vein, the results of which are also included in this release. Details on the location of the underground drill platforms and drill traces are found in Figure 1. Table 1 also shows a summary of the results announced in this news release.

Drill Hole Location Map of the 2023 Drill program





Figure 1: Drill Hole Location Map of the 2023 Drill program

Number Drill Platform Hole ID From To Interval True Width1 Gold Silver Lead Zinc Copper Ag_Eq2 Vein Number Drill Platform Drill hole m m m m g/t g/t % % % Oz/t 9











C-39











SMR-135-23-SCS 427.25 428.00 0.75 0.67 1.11 5.63 0.30 0.59 0.06 3.70 SCS including 427.60 428.00 0.40 2.05 3.90 0.24 0.42 0.05 5.72 493.95 495.50 1.55 1.36 0.25 80.98 2.51 4.57 1.80 13.58 NAT including 493.95 494.95 1.00 0.09 106.00 3.37 5.84 2.56 17.67 14















C-39















SMR-140-23-SCS 105.25 105.85 0.60 6.19 1319.55 0.86 2.82 0.03 60.31 including 105.25 105.55 0.30 12.20 2623.00 1.68 5.60 0.06 119.63 443.95 444.45 0.50 0.41 0.06 79.10 7.39 13.19 0.43 20.07 SCS 540.25 542.45 2.20 1.76 0.06 42.03 2.79 3.84 0.75 8.69 NAT including 540.25 541.25 1.00 0.80 0.06 61.80 5.40 4.70 0.98 12.61 19



C-33



SMR-146-23-SCS 303.00 303.65 0.65 0.49 0.04 28.50 0.25 0.34 0.17 1.94 SCS 462.55 463.20 0.65 0.62 0.04 49.60 4.36 2.20 0.40 7.83 NAT

Notes

1True thicknesses are shown only where they can be determined.

2 Silver equivalent (Ag_Eq) grades are calculated using metal prices of: silver US$23.30/oz., gold US$1764/oz, copper US$9419/tm, lead US$2188/tm and zinc US$2813/tm. Silver equivalent grade is calculated as Ag_Eq (oz/t) = (Ag (oz/t) + (Au (g/t) * 2.40) + (Cu (%) * 2.70) + (Pb (%) * 0.80) + (Zn (%) * 0.80). Metal recoveries have not been applied in the silver equivalent value calculation.

Table 1: Location and summary of results from the Natividad vein

The Natividad vein is a newly identified mineralized structure found up to 100 metres below the Sacasipuedes vein (SCS). Company geologists believe that Natividads strike is oblique to the SCS vein, likely subparallel to the Matacaballo vein, and with a northerly dip. The mineralization is similar to the other veins in Reliquias, but with significantly higher quantities of chalcopyrite resulting in much higher grade copper grades than observed elsewhere. Company geologists interpret this style of mineralization as a separate event to the other veins drilled so far at Reliquias, suggesting that this deposit hosts a long-lived and multi-phase mineralization system. The Natividad vein has now been identified in four drill holes, spaced up to approximately 85 metres apart, and further drilling along strike and at depth is planned. Drilling has so far tested approximately 150 metres of strike length of Natividad, and it remains open laterally and vertically. Results from three drill holes have been received and are shown in Figure 2, a longitudinal section of the Natividad vein with the four completed drill holes.

Before hitting the Natividad vein, drill hole SMS-140-23-SCS intersected very high grade silver-gold at a shallow depth and high grade zinc-lead mineralization on the Sacasipuedes (SCS). The shallower precious metal mineralization is hosted in an argillically altered breccia with disseminated sulfides (see Figure 3), yielding some of the highest grade silver-gold grades seen so far at Reliquias, with a silver equivalent grade of approximately 120 oz/t AgEq. Company geologists are currently working on the interpretation of this style of mineralization. Further drilling will be needed to determine if this breccia is linked to the the Sacasipuedes vein system, or if it represents a new style of mineralization. The main Sacasipuedes intercept sits approximately 500 metres to the southeast of the outer limit of the current mineral resource, and below the lowest levels of the Reliquias mine historical workings. The SCS vein intercept of 0.50 metres with a combined Pb+Zn grade of 20.58%, is one the highest grade polymetallic results found to date. Further drilling is planned to test the lateral and down dip extensions of this intercept. Figure 4 shows a longitudinal section of the SCS vein with the location of this drill hole.

Longitudinal section of the newly identified Natividad vein





Silver equivalent (Ag_Eq) grades are calculated using metal prices of: silver US$23.30/oz., gold US$1764/oz, copper US$9419/tm, lead US$2188/tm and zinc US$2813/tm. Silver equivalent grade is calculated as Ag_Eq (oz/t) = (Ag (oz/t) + (Au (g/t) * 2.40) + (Cu (%) * 2.70) + (Pb (%) * 0.80) + (Zn (%) * 0.80). Metal recoveries have not been applied in the silver equivalent value calculation.

Figure 2: Longitudinal section of the newly identified Natividad vein

High grade Ag-Au intercept in drill hole SMR140-23-SCS





Figure 3: High grade Ag-Au intercept in drill hole SMR140-23-SCS

Longitudinal section of the Sacasipuedes vein showing grade-thickness values





Silver equivalent (Ag_Eq) grades are calculated using metal prices of: silver US$23.30/oz., gold US$1764/oz, copper US$9419/tm, lead US$2188/tm and zinc US$2813/tm. Silver equivalent grade is calculated as Ag_Eq (oz/t) = (Ag (oz/t) + (Au (g/t) * 2.40) + (Cu (%) * 2.70) + (Pb (%) * 0.80) + (Zn (%) * 0.80). Metal recoveries have not been applied in the silver equivalent value calculation.

Figure 4: Longitudinal section of the Sacasipuedes vein showing grade-thickness values

The 2023 drill program consists of two phases: an initial 3,500 metre phase using BQ diameter core (now completed); and a second 12,500 meter phase using NQ and HQ diameter core. Full results from the BQ diameter drilling have now been announced (see also March 29th and July 19th news release at https://agmr.ca/news/). The second phase of infill drilling started in June 2023 and continues with 3 rigs working in the upper levels of the MTC (Matacaballo), MTS (Meteysaca), PER (Perseguida), and SCS (Sacasipuedes) vein systems, where high grade historical resource blocks remain outside of the current resource estimate. The Company plans to incorporate these high-grade blocks in future resource estimates. Results will be announced as they become available.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of Silver Mountain Resources Inc.

Alvaro Espinoza, Chief Executive Officer

Qualified Person

Antonio Cruz Bermudez, , P. Geo. Registered Member MAIG is an independent consultant of the Company and the Qualified Person (within the meaning of NI 43-101) responsible for the MRE, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

About Silver Mountain

Silver Mountain Resources Inc. is a silver explorer and mine developer planning to restart production at the Reliquias underground mine and currently exploring its 100% owned Castrovirreyna Project, consisting of over 60,000 hectares of highly prospective mineral claims and concessions located in the Huancavelica Region, central Peru. For additional information regarding the Castrovirreyna Project, please refer to the Companys technical report, titled NI 43-101 Technical Report Mineral Resource Estimate for the Reliquias Mine, Huancavelica- Peru, dated March 27, 2023, effective date March 18, 2023, available at https://sedar.com.

For further information about our drill program, including cross sections of the main veins with drill hole locations, please refer to our corporate presentation, available on our website at www.agmr.ca

For Further Information Contact:

Alvaro Espinoza

Chief Executive Officer

aespinoza@agmr.ca

Silver Mountain Resources Inc

82 Richmond Street East

Toronto, ON M5C 1P1

+51 954 475 319

info@agmr.ca

www.agmr.ca

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Sampling, QA/QC, and Analytical Procedures

Silver Mountain follows systematic and rigorous sampling and analytical protocols which meet industry standards. These protocols are summarized below.

All drill holes are diamond core holes with BQ, HQ or NQ core diameters. Drill core is collected at the underground drill site where recovery measurements are taken before the core is transported by truck to the core logging facility at the Caudalosa Grande mine camp, where it is photographed and geologically logged. The core is then cut in half with a diamond saw blade with half the sample retained in the core box for future reference and the other half placed into a pre-labelled plastic bag, sealed with a plastic zip tie, and identified with a unique sample number. The core is typically sampled over a 1 - 2 metre sample interval unless the geologist determines the presence of an important geological contact. The bagged samples are then stored in a secure area pending shipment to a certified laboratory sample preparation facility.

Rock channel samples were collected with an electric percussion hammer and do not exceed 1.0 m in length. Channels are broken at obvious geologic boundaries to correctly separate rock types and mineralization styles. The sample bags were sealed with a plastic zip tie and identified with a unique sample number, pending shipment to a certified laboratory sample preparation facility.

Samples are sent by batch to the ALS laboratory in Lima for assay. Silver Mountain independently inserts certified control standards, fine and coarse blanks, and duplicates into the sample stream to monitor data quality. These standards are inserted blindly to the laboratory in the sample sequence prior to departure from the core storage facilities. At the laboratory, samples are dried, crushed, and pulverized and then analyzed using a fire assay-AA finish analysis for gold and a full multi-acid digestion with ICP-AES analysis for other elements. Samples with results that exceed maximum detection values for the main elements of interest (Ag, Zn, Pb, Cu) are re-analyzed using precise ore-grade ICP analytical techniques, while high gold values are re-analyzed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation (collectively, "forward-looking statements") that relate to Silver Mountains current expectations and views of future events. Any statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, through the use of words or phrases such as "will likely result", "are expected to", "expects", "will continue", "is anticipated", "anticipates", "believes", "estimated", "intends", "plans", "forecast", "projection", "strategy", "objective" and "outlook") are not historical facts and may be forward-looking statements and may involve estimates, assumptions and uncertainties which could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release.

Forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Silver Mountains control, which could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors set forth under "Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Companys Annual Information Form dated August 14, 2023, and other disclosure documents available on the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Silver Mountain undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Silver Mountain to predict all of them or assess the impact of each such factor or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Any forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1e5f699f-117b-4004-96ef-60295828313d

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4bfbf7e4-35c8-4c71-a40c-67fa27780f5d

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e215dd31-f142-44c0-991e-74774df63d29

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aeaa42ef-c995-4fca-9187-d5ae5849fce3




LordHenriVoton / iStock.com

With the U.S. government under the threat of a government shutdown (again), there is much trepidation (again) about the impact it will have on social safety net programs. The good news is, mandatory spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare wont be affected, experts say, which means beneficiaries will get their checks as usual. But food stamps and other nutrition programs could take a big hit.

Social Security 2023: Recent Study Shows Quarter of Americans Underestimate Their Benefits By $5,000

Discover: The Simple, Effective Way To Fortify Your Retirement Mix

The government is due to run out of money on Sept. 30. If Congress doesnt come up with a spending bill by then, you could see large swaths of the government put on hold until an agreement is reached.

Stimulus Update: Child Tax Credit Expansion Still Achievable by End of 2023  Where Issue Currently Stands in Congress

Among the benefits that could get halted are food stamps, formally known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments.

In a Sept. 25 White House press briefing, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told reporters that the SNAP program will continue  at least for the month of October. However, if the shutdown were to extend longer than that, there would be some serious consequences to SNAP, he added.

Vilsack didnt go into further detail on what those consequences might be, though presumably some payments would be delayed.

Of more immediate concern is what will happen to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which provides federal funding for supplemental foods, health care referrals and nutrition education for qualifying women and their children.

More than half of newborns in the U.S. are impacted by the WIC program, Vilsack said at the press briefing. Nearly 7 million pregnant moms, new mothers and young children count on it for nutrition assistance support.



With a shutdown, what we would see across the United States is a denial of those benefits and opportunities, Vilsack said. In some cases, it would be literally within a matter of days after the shutdown  The vast majority of WIC participants would see an immediate reduction and elimination of those benefits, which means the nutrition assistance thats provided would not be available.

Story continues

Even before the threat of a shutdown, the WIC program has been targeted by fiscal hawks for deep cuts. According to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a funding bill proposed by House Republicans would either reduce or eliminate WIC benefits for about 5.3 million low-income Americans.

Not only would it also result in roughly 600,000 eligible people nationwide being turned away from WIC, but it would weaken the programs science-based benefits by sharply reducing the fruit and vegetable benefit that was increased two years ago on the recommendation of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the CBPP stated.

Meanwhile, a government shutdown would also have a domino effect on other food assistance programs, CNN reported. Food banks wont be able to place new orders, and existing deliveries could be disrupted as well.

A shutdown would also lead to a delay in federal reimbursements to the Meals on Wheels food-delivery program for seniors. Certain community-based programs might have to suspend or shut down their meal services. Even those that remain in operation might have to expand waiting lists, cut the number of meals they deliver or reduce the number of days they deliver.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Social Security Benefits Wont Be Impacted by Government Shutdown  but Food Stamps Are a Different Story
The IKEA logo is seen outside an IKEA furniture store in Brussels

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Swedish furniture maker IKEA will this week open its biggest South American store in Colombia, as part of an international expansion plan which includes growth in Peru and Chile with an investment worth $600 million, an executive said on Wednesday.

The Colombia store, to be opened on Thursday in the capital Bogota, will be the first in the country and will span three floors with 40 exhibition rooms.

"The opening of our first store in Colombia is part of the brand's plan to establish nine stores in Chile, Colombia and Peru over the next 10 years," Hasbleidy Castaneda, IKEA's manager in Colombia, said in an interview.

The investment plan includes opening two more stores in Colombia next year, to be located in Medellin and Cali, the country's second and third-largest cities respectively.

IKEA has 450 stores in 60 countries, including in Chile, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by David Holmes)
Teck Guan Perdana Berhad (KLSE:TECGUAN) Second Quarter 2024 Results

Key Financial Results

Revenue: RM53.0m (down 79% from 2Q 2023).

Net income: RM2.60m (down 83% from 2Q 2023).

Profit margin: 4.9% (down from 6.0% in 2Q 2023). The decrease in margin was driven by lower revenue.

EPS: RM0.065 (down from RM0.37 in 2Q 2023).

All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period

Teck Guan Perdana Berhad shares are up 5.6% from a week ago.

Risk Analysis

What about risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Teck Guan Perdana Berhad you should know about.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Tesla is working on an upgrade of its "gigacasting" technology to die cast almost all vehicle underbody parts in one piece, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Wednesday citing unnamed sources close to the automaker.

The state-owned Chinese newspaper, which based its report after a recent visit to Tesla's Shanghai factory, did not say when and where the upgrade will happen.

Reuters reported this month that Tesla was closing in on an innovation that would allow it to die cast nearly all of the underbody of an electric vehicle in one piece.

Tesla has pioneered the use of huge presses with 6,000 to 9,000 tons of clamping pressure to mould the front and rear structures of its Model Y in its "gigacasting" process that has slashed production costs.

At its Shanghai plant, Tesla's biggest worldwide, the company has been die casting the rear of the Model Y since 2020, which allowed it to cut related costs by 40%.

Chinese EV makers including Xpeng and Geely's Zeekr are following Tesla and have adopted "gigapressing" technology in their manufacturing to reduce the weight of the cars and lower costs, the Shanghai Securities News said.

(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Albee Zhang and Bernard Orr; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
On Tuesday evening, the Senate released a deal that is likely the last chance to avert a government shutdown.

The 79-page bill would keep the government open until Nov. 17 and also provide about $6 billion for the war effort in Ukraine and another $6 billion for disaster relief efforts in places like Maui and Florida.

It will continue to fund the government at present levels while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine's security and humanitarian needs while also ensuring those impacted by natural disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also endorsed the deal, calling it a "standard, responsible step forward."

The additional funding for Ukraine is divided into approximately $4.5 billion in direct assistance plus another $1.65 billion for State Department aid. The money for disaster relief efforts would help replenish the FEMA disaster relief fund, which has been running low lately in the face of an array of natural disasters.

"5,000 [FEMA] employees will be put at risk in what they call lapse of funding if the government shuts down," former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told Yahoo Finance recently.

The deal includes other measures like a short-term reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is also set to expire this weekend.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is seen at the United States Capitol on Sept. 19. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) immediately pledged to delay the process of considering the deal. That news raised questions about whether the agreement can even pass the Senate before Saturday night, when the government is scheduled to shut down.

I dont support the CR, added Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) in a Yahoo Finance Live interview Tuesday afternoon, but it remained unclear if he would join efforts to delay the bill past the shutdown deadline.

While the deal is likely to eventually pass the Senate with widespread bipartisan support, all 100 senators need to quickly agree to allow that final vote to come. Otherwise, the proceedings will be delayed until after the shutdown deadline.

Story continues

Read more: How a government shutdown would impact your money: Student loans, Social Security, investments, and more

An uncertain fate in the House

Even if the deal passes the upper chamber, it faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives where House Republicans have repeatedly failed to coalesce behind their own proposal to avert a shutdown, but nevertheless rejected efforts at bipartisan compromise.

Some far-right Republicans have even vowed to try and remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post if he allows a vote on a bipartisan bill. They reiterated those calls on Tuesday night but news of a Senate deal also increases the pressure on the Speaker to act.

In his own press conference Tuesday night, Speaker McCarthy declined to comment on the Senate deal but instead said House Republicans would unveil and try to pass their own plan Friday to avert a shutdown with a bill focused on border security measures, even after a similar plan stalled last week.

The inclusion of the money for Ukraine was also an immediate flash point, increasing resistance from House Republicans who oppose any additional aid to the war effort. Some Senate Republicans also plan to try and change to the bill to remove the Ukraine funding, reports Politico.

Others were more blunt about the entire package. We should just look at it and throw it in the trash, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told CNN.

The Senate's deal was released after a weekend of negotiations among both Democrats and Republicans, Schumer said Tuesday, adding, I urge reasonable and patriotic members of both chambers [to] move forward, freed from the extremist partisans hell-bent on destroying faith in government.

The effort to keep the government open until Nov. 17 is designed to allow more time for negotiations over a broader spending deal that Congress must pass before the end of the year.

This post has been updated with additional developments.

Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

Click here for politics news related to business and money

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Bitcoin extended losses on Wednesday afternoon in Asia. Most top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies dropped, except Ether, BNB, and Tron. The U.S. SEC on Tuesday again delayed its decision on exchange-traded fund (ETF) application by 21Shares and Cathie Woods ARK Investment Management. Asian equity markets and U.S. stock futures gained while European bourses traded mixed.

See related article: JPMorgans U.K. bank Chase bans payments linked to crypto

Bitcoin extend losses

Bitcoin dropped 0.21% to US$26,221 in 24 hours to 4.05 p.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its weekly losses to 3.23%, according to CoinMarketCap data. The worlds largest cryptocurrency has managed to stay above the US$26,000 support level for the past 14 days.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) again delayed a decision on whether to approve the first U.S. ETF on a filing from 21Shares and Cathie Woods ARK Investment Management. This is the third time the SEC has delayed its decision since ARK and 21Shares original filing in April.

In a statement on Tuesday, the SEC said, the Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised therein. Accordingly, the Commission designates January 10, 2024, as the date by which the Commission shall either approve or disapprove the proposed rule change.

Seven firms  BlackRock, WisdomTree, Invesco Galaxy, Wise Origin, VanEck, Bitwise and Valkyrie Digital Assets  published ETF applications in the Federal Register on July 19. The SEC was scheduled to rule on all seven applications by Sept. 4. However, the regulator postponed by 45 days meaning the seven firms will now have to wait until mid-October for a decision.

This may put the hammer down for any hopes of an ETF approval this year? If they went on Ark/21 shares already, we may see delays on all the other filings today too? In reality my base case is that we will get the delays on the other filings tomorrow or sometime this week and the SEC is simply getting ahead of a likely federal government shutdown, said James Seyffart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Story continues

This may put the hammer down for any hopes of an ETF approval this year? If they went on Ark/21 shares already, we may see delays on all the other filings today too? BlackRock, Bitwise, VanEck, Invesco, Wisdomtree, Fidelity & Valkyrie a all due in mid Oct  pic.twitter.com/XiFbxIrIRK  James Seyffart (@JSeyff) September 26, 2023

Ether rose 0.03% to US$1,590 but is down 2.68% over the last seven days.

Most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies booked losses for the past 24 hours. The exceptions were Ether, BNB, and Tron.

Toncoin was the biggest loser of the day, dropping 2.13% to US$2.10 in 24 hours and losing 16.32% on the week.

BNB, the native token of largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, led the winners. It gained 0.29% to US$212, but recorded a weekly loss of 1.60%. The rise in prices comes amid announcement that Binance is collaborating with Japans largest banking group Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation to issue fiat-pegged stablecoins in 2024.

Total crypto market capitalization dropped 0.16% to US$1.05 trillion, while market volume fell 11.78% to US$19,71 billion in the past 24 hours.

Forkast 500 NFT drops, sales volume of Pudgy Penguins collection rises 356%

The indexes are proxy measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are managed by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

The Forkast 500 NFT index dropped 1.06% to 1,910.85 in 24 hours to 6.40 p.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its weekly losses to 5.31%.

At the same time, Forkasts Ethereum and Solana indexes gained while the Polygon index dropped.

Total NFT sales volume was flat at US$10.64 million, while the number of buyers increased 5.93% to 48,312, according to CryptoSlam data.

Last week a majority of the world learned that 95% of non-fungible tokens are worthless, wrote Yehudah Petscher, NFT strategist at Forkast Labs.

Years of experience taught us that the NFT market runs in cycles, with the hot side of the market lasting usually just a few weeks, though the start of the calendar years run usually lasts for a few months, he said.

Between these runs, most NFTs become completely illiquid and fade into oblivion. When the next cycle comes around theyre replaced by an entirely new crop of NFTs. If I were a betting man Id say that probably 95% of NFTs become worthless between these cycles. That number only grows as more and more supply is created, Petscher added.

Among blockchains, Ethereum topped rankings although its sales volume in the past 24 hours dropped 2.43% to US$5.4 million. Mythos and Polygon blockchains ranked second and third respectively.

Among collections, Mythos-based DMarket topped rankings by sales volume, although it dropped 3.14% to US$975,736 in the past 24 hours. At the same time, sales volume of ImmutableX-based Gods Unchained climbed 82.90% to US$718,593, ranking as the second biggest collection.

Ethereum-based Pudgy Penguins ranked third among NFT collections as its sales volume jumped 356.50% to US$714,203 in the past 24 hours. The rise comes amid news of Pudgy Toys, with Pudgy World, now available in 2,000 Walmarts in the USA.

On this day, Web3 enters a Brave New World.



Pudgy Toys, with Pudgy World, are now available in 2,000 Walmarts in the USA. pic.twitter.com/UP8npUxCr3  Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) September 26, 2023

Maybe most important is that for the most part, collectors and traders havent left the NFT economy, even with trade profits nowhere to be found. People believe in the tech, and they believe in the future that NFTs will power, Petscher said.

Asian equities, U.S. stock futures rise; European bourses mixed

Shanghai, China. Image: Envato Elements

Major Asian equity markets reversed losses on Wednesday. Chinas Shanghai Composite, the Shenzhen Component Index, South Koreas Kospi, Hong Kongs Hang Seng, and Japans Nikkei 225 were all in the green at the end of trading hours.

Wang Yiming, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Peoples Bank of China, reportedly said on Wednesday that the worlds second-biggest economy would grow slightly more than 5% this year.

Chinas monthly industrial profits in August surprisingly rose 17.2% from a year earlier, reversing a 6.7% annual decline in July. The industrial profit from January to August fell 11.7% from the same period last year. But the drop slowed, compared to a 15.5% slide in the first seven months of the year.

Indias benchmark index Sensex gained 0.26% at the close of trading hours on Wednesday.

The economy of the worlds most populous nation will grow 6.2% in the financial year ending March 2024 and 6.3% in the next, according to the median forecasts in the Sept. 20-26 poll of 65 economists by Reuters.

Family harvesting crops, near Jaipur, India. Image: Envato Elements

However, most economists in the poll said the growth numbers are below Indias potential and a drier than usual monsoon may affect economic growth in a country which is primarily agriculture-based.

U.S. stock futures strengthened as of 8.15 p.m. in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures, the S&P 500 futures as well as the Nasdaq 100 Futures were all in green.

However, U.S. economic data released Tuesday raised fears of recession. The Consumer Confidence Index tracked by the Conference Board dropped to 103.0 in September, lower than the analysts expectation of 105.5.

The Expectations Index, based on consumers short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions, declined to 73.7 in September from 83.3 in August. A reading below 80 signals a recession within the next year, according to the Conference Board.

The Federal Reserve in September kept interest rates unchanged between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest since early 2001. But the central bank might make another 25-basis-point rate hike by the end of 2023, and keep the rates higher for longer to tackle a persistent inflation, according to remarks from Fed Chair Jerome Powell last Wednesday.

Image: Envato Elements

The Fed meets next on Nov. 1. The CME FedWatch Tool predicts a 82.5% chance of no interest rate hike in November, up from 81.5% on Tuesday. It also gives a 65.8% chance of another pause in December, up from 60.9% on Tuesday.

With the U.S. economic cycle now in the slowdown phase, a more cautious stance towards equities and credit markets would typically be suggested. But investors should recognise that this cycle is proving to be rather different, as inflation is falling as we enter the slowdown, Tina Fong, strategist at Schroders, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

This may indicate that growth could be more resilient, and the Fed has greater flexibility to ease monetary policy. It also reduces the risk of a slowdown followed by a recession, which tends to create a more negative environment for risk assets. Overall, the investment playbook based on previous slowdowns may be different this time, Fong added.

European bourses were mixed on Wednesday morning in Europe. The benchmark STOXX 600 gained while Germanys DAX 40 traded lower. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been consistently increasing interest rates to tackle the highest inflation in its nearly 25-year history. This has led to bank customers switching to term deposits which are now offering much better returns due to ECBs rate hikes.

(updates with equities section.)
By Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. private companies would like to invest in Ukrainian energy, housing, infrastructure, agriculture, transport and mining, but Ukraine must make reforms in accountability and transparency to make such investment secure, a special U.S. envoy said.

United States Special Representative for Ukraines Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker told reporters in Brussels that preparations for rebuilding Ukraine after the war with Russia had to start now, even as the fighting continues.

"The key focus is to ensure that recovery takes place in line with international best practices and that includes reforms that bake transparency and accountability into the effort. So reform and recovery go hand in hand," Pritzker said. "(It) has to start now, even in the midst of an ongoing war and fighting.

Pritzker would not give an estimate of how much money would be needed to rebuild Ukraine after the Russian invasion, but the World Bank has forecast the needs at well above $400 billion - more than governments alone could provide.

"The potential for Ukraine is extraordinary. It has enormous opportunities in agriculture, in energy, in metals and mining, critical minerals and in a number of different sectors. But in order to fulfil that potential, there's pre-work that has to go on, that can go on successfully now, and the Ukrainian government is up for that challenge," she said.

Pritzker said that since her appointment to the job by President Joe Biden 13 days ago, she has met with 30 private companies willing to participate in the reconstruction.

"Everyone sees the opportunity and I actually have been encouraged by the private sector's interest in trying to sort this out," she said.

"It requires some law changes in Ukraine. It requires some government partnership with the private sector and then it requires the private sector to function," she said.

She said the importance of Ukraine for the West was underestimated by some and that the country would not only need to survive the military conflict but also thrive economically.

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"Ukraine's undergoing a war of aggression that's frankly an existential threat to the U.S. and the EU and to our way of life, to our democracy," she said.

"Ukrainian people have been attacked because they want to be part of Europe and they want to be a democratic nation. If we don't stand up to that kind of aggression, it's a threat to that way of life for everyone," she said.

"If we don't help Ukraine not just survive, not just deal with this militarily, but also thrive economically, I don't know where this stops," she said.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
Long-established in the Banks industry, UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) has enjoyed a stellar reputation. However, it has recently witnessed a daily loss of 3.31%, juxtaposed with a three-month change of 21.68%. Fresh insights from the GF Score hint at potential headwinds. Notably, its diminished rankings in financial strength, growth, and valuation suggest that the company might not live up to its historical performance. Join us as we dive deep into these pivotal metrics to unravel the evolving narrative of UBS Group AG.

UBS Group AG (UBS): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Potential

Understanding the GF Score

The GF Score is a stock performance ranking system developed by GuruFocus using five aspects of valuation, which has been found to be closely correlated to the long-term performances of stocks by backtesting from 2006 to 2021. The stocks with a higher GF Score generally generate higher returns than those with a lower GF Score. Therefore, when picking stocks, investors should invest in companies with high GF Scores. The GF Score ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 as the highest rank.

Based on the above method, GuruFocus assigned UBS Group AG the GF Score of 69 out of 100, which signals poor future outperformance potential.

UBS Group AG: A Snapshot of Its Business

With a market cap of $78.72 billion and sales of $34.11 billion, UBS Group AG is a global wealth management business focusing on high and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. It also operates as a conventional retail and commercial bank in its Swiss home market. Its investment bank and asset management businesses support its wealth management operations, but also leverage its strength in wealth management to serve third-party clients.

UBS Group AG (UBS): A Deep Dive into Its Performance Potential

Financial Strength Breakdown

UBS Group AG's financial strength indicators present some concerning insights about the company's balance sheet health. The company's low cash-to-debt ratio at 0.72 indicates a struggle in handling existing debt levels. The company's debt-to-equity ratio is 4.25, which is worse than 95.86% of 1328 companies in the Banks industry. A high debt-to-equity ratio suggests over-reliance on borrowing and vulnerability to market fluctuations. Additionally, the company's debt-to-Ebitda ratio is 9999, which is above Joel Tillinghast's warning level of 4 and is worse than 0% of 30 companies in the Banks industry. Tillinghast said in his book Big Money Think's Small: Biases, Blind Spots, and Smarter Investing that a high debt-to-Ebitda ratio can be a red flag unless tangible assets cover the debt.

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Conclusion

Given the company's financial strength, profitability, and growth metrics, the GF Score highlights the firm's unparalleled position for potential underperformance. While UBS Group AG has a rich history and a strong presence in the banking industry, its current financial indicators suggest that it may struggle to maintain its past performance. Investors should consider these factors when making investment decisions.

GuruFocus Premium members can find more companies with strong GF Scores using the following screener link: GF Score Screen

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


AntonioGuillem / iStock.com

If you habla espanol or parle francais  or better yet, can speak Portuguese, Russian or Vietnamese  you could be in position to earn a bigger paycheck. Being multilingual is a highly valued skill that many employers are willing to pay extra for, according to a new study from the Preply language learning platform.

The study, released in August, found that 42% of multilingual employees said they received a raise in the last year, making them about 5% more likely than single-language speakers to get a pay increase.

Employees who spoke more than one language also earned around 19% more money, on average, than those who can only speak one language for the same or similar jobs. About four in 10 multilingual employees say the skill helped them get their job.

For the study, Preply gathered data from more than 9,000 job ads for bilingual workers in the most populated U.S. cities. Researchers also surveyed 1,002 full-time workers about their career experiences.

The results revealed that while being multilingual can help you earn more money at your current job, it doesnt necessarily mean youll earn more than the average worker.

Preply found that the national average salary for full-time multilingual employees is $51,833 a year. Thats below the median U.S. wage of $57,200 a year, according to U.S. Labor Department data. However, because median wages represent the midpoint between the highest and lowest incomes, they can skew higher when the top income is especially high.

Multilingual workers earn a lot more money in some cities than others  and its not just because those cities pay higher salaries in general. Here are the top five highest-paying cities for full-time multilingual workers and their average yearly salaries, according to Preply:

Fremont, Calif .: $67,804

San Francisco, Calif. : $66,468

Jersey City, N.J .: $66,338

Newark, N.J .: $66,292

Reno, Nev.: $65,020

Here are the top five highest-paying cities for part-time multilingual workers, and their average hourly wages:

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Philadelphia, Pa. : $47

Greensboro, N.C .: $47

Anchorage, Alaska : $39

Chula Vista, Calif : $38

St. Louis, Mo.: $35

So which languages command the highest pay?

Spanish might seem a logical choice since its far and away the most popular second language in the United States. An estimated 41 million Americans speak Spanish  12 times more the other most common second languages, the Voice of America reported. Other languages rounding out the top five are Chinese (mostly Mandarin), Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic.

Although Spanish is in high demand, it ranks only 10th in pay by language at an average of $25 an hour, according to the Preply study. Here are the top five languages by average hourly rate:

Portuguese: $32 an hour Russian: $31 Vietnamese: $30 French: $29 Mandarin: $27

If youre looking for a job, however, the ability to Spanish is definitely an asset. Preply found that 86% of bilingual job postings mentioned Spanish as a language. The next highest non-English languages werent even close: Mandarin came in next at 2% of job postings, followed by nine other languages at 1% each.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Theres an Unexpected Job Benefit to Learning More Than One Language  and as Many as 42% Earn More Money
On September 26, 2023, JM Smucker Co (NYSE:SJM) reported a daily gain of 1.51%, despite experiencing a 3-month loss of -14.71%. With a Loss Per Share of $0.16, the question arises: is the stock modestly undervalued? This article aims to answer that question by providing a thorough valuation analysis of JM Smucker Co (NYSE:SJM).

Company Introduction

J.M. Smucker is a packaged food company that primarily sells through the U.S. retail channel (84% of fiscal 2024 forecast revenue), with the remaining share split between foodservice and international (primarily Canada). Retail coffee is now its largest category (around 36% of fiscal 2024 sales) with brands Folgers and Dunkin'. Pet foods (about 23% of 2024 sales) holds leading brands like Milk-Bone and Meow Mix. Of its remaining, approximately 25% comes from consumer foods, primarily peanut butter and jelly, through brands Jif and Smucker's.

Unveiling JM Smucker Co (SJM)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Understanding the GF Value

The GF Value is a proprietary measure that represents the current intrinsic value of a stock. It is calculated based on historical multiples (PE Ratio, PS Ratio, PB Ratio and Price-to-Free-Cash-Flow) that the stock has traded at, a GuruFocus adjustment factor based on the company's past returns and growth, and future estimates of the business performance.

According to GuruFocus' valuation method, the stock of JM Smucker Co (NYSE:SJM) is estimated to be modestly undervalued. The GF Value Line indicates that if the stock's share price is significantly above the GF Value Line, the stock may be overvalued and have poor future returns. Conversely, if the stock's share price is significantly below the GF Value Line, the stock may be undervalued and have high future returns. Currently, JM Smucker Co's share price is $128.41, with a market cap of $13.10 billion, suggesting the stock is modestly undervalued.

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Given this undervaluation, the long-term return of JM Smucker Co's stock is likely to be higher than its business growth.

Unveiling JM Smucker Co (SJM)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

JM Smucker Co's Financial Strength

Investing in companies with poor financial strength has a higher risk of permanent loss of capital. Hence, it is crucial to carefully review the financial strength of a company before deciding to buy its stock. A great starting point for understanding the financial strength of a company is to look at the cash-to-debt ratio and interest coverage. JM Smucker Co has a cash-to-debt ratio of 0.16, which is worse than 70.31% of 1795 companies in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. GuruFocus ranks the overall financial strength of JM Smucker Co at 6 out of 10, indicating that the financial strength of JM Smucker Co is fair.

Unveiling JM Smucker Co (SJM)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Profitability and Growth

Investing in profitable companies, especially those with consistent profitability over the long term, is less risky. JM Smucker Co has been profitable 9 over the past 10 years. Over the past twelve months, the company had a revenue of $8.50 billion and a Loss Per Share of $0.16. Its operating margin is 15.4%, which ranks better than 85.93% of 1841 companies in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. Overall, the profitability of JM Smucker Co is ranked 7 out of 10, indicating fair profitability.

Growth is a crucial factor in the valuation of a company. A faster-growing company creates more value for shareholders, especially if the growth is profitable. The 3-year average annual revenue growth of JM Smucker Co is 5.3%, ranking worse than 54.08% of 1716 companies in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. The 3-year average EBITDA growth rate is -28.3%, ranking worse than 90.62% of 1524 companies in the same industry.

ROIC vs WACC

Comparing a company's return on invested capital (ROIC) to its weighted average cost of capital (WACC) can also evaluate a company's profitability. ROIC measures how well a company generates cash flow relative to the capital it has invested in its business. WACC is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets. If the ROIC exceeds the WACC, the company is likely creating value for its shareholders. During the past 12 months, JM Smucker Co's ROIC is -1.87 while its WACC came in at 5.38.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the stock of JM Smucker Co (NYSE:SJM) is estimated to be modestly undervalued. The company's financial condition is fair and its profitability is fair. Its growth ranks worse than 90.62% of 1524 companies in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. To learn more about JM Smucker Co stock, you can check out its 30-Year Financials here.

To find out the high quality companies that may deliver above-average returns, please check out GuruFocus High Quality Low Capex Screener.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


Telefonica SA (NYSE:TEF) experienced a daily loss of 2.29%, and a 3-month gain of 2.27%. With an Earnings Per Share (EPS) of 0.28, the question arises: is the stock modestly overvalued? This valuation analysis aims to answer this question and provide a detailed insight into Telefonica SA's financial position, performance, and prospects.

Company Introduction

Telefonica SA operates mobile and fixed networks in various countries, including Spain, the U.K., Germany, Brazil, and other Latin American countries. The company derives more than 30% of its revenue from Spain, close to 20% from Germany, and 20% from Brazil. Over the years, Telefonica SA has been simplifying its corporate structure by selling noncore assets.

With a current stock price of $4.05 per share and a market cap of $23.30 billion, Telefonica SA's value can be compared to its GF Value, which is an estimation of fair value. This comparison will pave the way for a deeper exploration of the company's value.

Unveiling Telefonica SA (TEF)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Understanding GF Value

The GF Value is a proprietary measure of a stock's intrinsic value, computed considering historical trading multiples, a GuruFocus adjustment factor based on past performance and growth, and future business performance estimates. The GF Value Line denotes the stock's ideal fair trading value.

Telefonica SA (NYSE:TEF) appears to be modestly overvalued according to the GuruFocus Value calculation. If the price of a stock is significantly above the GF Value Line, it is overvalued and its future return is likely to be poor. Conversely, if it is significantly below the GF Value Line, its future return will likely be higher.

Given that Telefonica SA is modestly overvalued, the long-term return of its stock is likely to be lower than its business growth.

Unveiling Telefonica SA (TEF)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Link: These companies may deliver higher future returns at reduced risk.

Financial Strength

It is always important to check the financial strength of a company before buying its stock. Investing in companies with poor financial strength have a higher risk of permanent loss. Looking at the cash-to-debt ratio and interest coverage is a great way to understand the financial strength of a company. Telefonica SA has a cash-to-debt ratio of 0.98, which is better than 66.41% of 390 companies in the Telecommunication Services industry. The overall financial strength of Telefonica SA is 5 out of 10, which indicates that the financial strength of Telefonica SA is fair.

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Unveiling Telefonica SA (TEF)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Profitability and Growth

Investing in profitable companies, especially those with consistent profitability over the long term, is less risky. A company with high profit margins is usually a safer investment than those with low profit margins. Telefonica SA has been profitable for 10 of the past 10 years. Over the past twelve months, the company had a revenue of $42.80 billion and Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $0.28. Its operating margin is 9.07%, which ranks worse than 50.9% of 391 companies in the Telecommunication Services industry. Overall, the profitability of Telefonica SA is ranked 6 out of 10, which indicates fair profitability.

Growth is probably the most important factor in the valuation of a company. The faster a company is growing, the more likely it is to be creating value for shareholders, especially if the growth is profitable. The 3-year average annual revenue growth rate of Telefonica SA is -6%, which ranks worse than 80.95% of 378 companies in the Telecommunication Services industry. The 3-year average EBITDA growth rate is -2.6%, which ranks worse than 72.84% of 335 companies in the Telecommunication Services industry.

ROIC vs WACC

Another way to evaluate a company's profitability is to compare its return on invested capital (ROIC) to its weighted cost of capital (WACC). Return on invested capital (ROIC) measures how well a company generates cash flow relative to the capital it has invested in its business. The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets. If the ROIC is higher than the WACC, it indicates that the company is creating value for shareholders. Over the past 12 months, Telefonica SA's ROIC was 2.99, while its WACC came in at 8.99.

Unveiling Telefonica SA (TEF)'s Value: Is It Really Priced Right? A Comprehensive Guide

Conclusion

In conclusion, the stock of Telefonica SA (NYSE:TEF) gives every indication of being modestly overvalued. The company's financial condition is fair, and its profitability is fair. Its growth ranks worse than 72.84% of 335 companies in the Telecommunication Services industry. To learn more about Telefonica SA stock, you can check out its 30-Year Financials here.

To find out the high-quality companies that may deliver above-average returns, please check out GuruFocus High Quality Low Capex Screener.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.


HOUSTON, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Iapetus Infrastructure Services (IIS) added to its expanding team of utility industry experts by hiring former Director of the Utility Arborist Association (UAA) Tom Sullivan as a Senior Advisor. Sullivan brings over 40 years of electric utility experience to the fast-growing, Houston-based, infrastructure services firm.

Industry expert Tom Sullivan joins Iapetus Infrastructure Services as Senior Advisor

A Certified Arborist and Massachusetts Licensed Forester, Sullivan's impressive career has included managing the Transmission Forestry Department at National Grid and serving as Project Management consultant to other northeast U.S. utilities. His significant contributions to the industry were recognized in 2004 when he was presented with UAA's Utility Arborist award.

Sullivan joins a growing list of experienced industry experts brought on by IIS in recent years, including Utility Vegetation Management (UVM) pioneer Phil Charlton and former Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) leader Steve Hallmark. Tej Singh, COO of IIS, sees the addition of Sullivan as a move that will help IIS remain on the cutting edge of the industry as it continues to develop agile new solutions for its clients.

"Tom Sullivan is one of the giants of the vegetation management industry," Singh explains. "We're always looking to add innovators like Tom, who think differently about our industry and seek to challenge the norms. Having trailblazing thought leaders in our corner allows us to provide our clients with strategic, innovative solutions that are setting new standards across the U.S. energy and utility landscape."

About Iapetus Infrastructure Services

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, IIS is an independent, minority- and veteran-owned company that brings a fresh, innovative approach to solving our customers' unique challenges in utility vegetation management. With a deep bench of highly respected operational and thought leaders, IIS offers field and aerial services spanning program design and development, operational oversight (safety, asset, and vegetation inspection), training and mentoring, and technology enablement (e.g., drone/UAS, GIS, UVM work management, and live dashboards). The IIS suite of operating companies includes Atlas Field Services, Gold Coast Utility Specialists, Hyperion Safety Environmental Solutions, Soaring Eagle Technologies, and the Unmanned Aviation Training Institute. IIS is also the proud host of the Trees and Lines podcast. For more information, visit iiservices.com.

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Contact: Frank Keenan

Media@iapetusllc.com

281-385-9806

Iapetus Holdings LLC logo (PRNewsfoto/Iapetus Holdings)

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/utility-veteran-tom-sullivan-joins-iapetus-infrastructure-services-as-senior-advisor-301940489.html

SOURCE Iapetus Holdings
Warren Buffett isn't known for being a big real estate investor, but he has invested in real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the past and reaped significant rewards.

For instance, Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK) used to own shares of STORE Capital Corp., a REIT specializing in single-tenant operational real estate (STORE).

In September 2022, STORE Capital announced that it would be acquired by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Oak Street in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $14 billion. Shares soared 20% on the news.

Berkshire exited its position in STORE Capital in 2022. According to the latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, there's no publicly traded REIT in Buffett's portfolio.

But that doesn't mean Buffett has given up on real estate. The same filing showed that Buffett is making big bets in housing with new stakes in U.S. homebuilders.

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Investing in real estate just got a whole lot simpler. This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes and you only need $100.

Warren Buffett once said, "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Here's how to collect $1,000 per month from Buffett's favorite dividend stock.

D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE:DHI)

Berkshire's 13F filing revealed that it bought 5,969,714 shares of D.R. Horton in the second quarter of 2023. At the current share price, the stake is worth $645.4 million.

Headquartered in Arlington, Texas, D.R. Horton is America's largest homebuilder by volume. It operates in 33 states and has a diverse product portfolio with sale prices ranging from $200,000 to over $1 million. The company also builds and sells single-family rental and multifamily rental properties.

In the fiscal quarter that ended June 30, D.R. Horton's consolidated revenue increased 11% year over year to $9.7 billion. Homes closed grew 8% to 22,985, while net sales orders rose 37% to 22,879 homes.

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Net income, on the other hand, decreased 19% from a year ago to $1.3 billion for the quarter.

D.R. Horton shares initially surged after Berkshire revealed its stake but later retraced those gains. Nevertheless, the shares have risen over 19% in 2023.

Lennar Corp. (NYSE:LEN)

Lennar is another heavyweight player in the home construction business.

Established in 1954, Lennar builds homes in various markets across the country. It delivered 66,399 homes in fiscal 2022.

In addition to its core homebuilding operations, the company offers financial services, including mortgage financing, title insurance and closing services.

In the third quarter of Lennar's fiscal 2023, which ended Aug. 31, its revenue from home sales slipped 2% year over year to $8.3 billion. The decline was because of a 9% decrease in average sales price, partially offset by an 8% increase in the number of home deliveries.

Lennar Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said, "Short housing supply, absorbed by strong primary and pent-up demand, continued to define a strong sales environment."

Berkshire acquired 152,572 Lennar shares in the second quarter, a position valued at $17.3 million today.

NVR Inc. (NYSE:NVR)

Buffett's company also picked up 11,112 shares of NVR in the second quarter. With NVR shares trading at $6,232, the stake is worth $69.2 million.

NVR constructs and sells homes under the brands of Ryan Homes, NVHomes and Heartland Homes. It also has a building products division, a mortgage subsidiary and a settlement and title services subsidiary.

In the second quarter, new orders for NVR's homebuilding business increased by 27% year over year to 5,905 units. But the average sales price of new orders in the quarter was $447,300, down 5% compared to a year ago.

NVR stock has outperformed D.R. Horton and Lennar in 2023  shares are up 36% year to date.

While investors can leverage homebuilder stocks to access the housing market, new companies have innovated ways for people to earn passive income from real estate. Here's how to invest in rental properties with as little as $100 while staying completely hands-off.

Read next:

Elon Musk has reportedly bought 6,000 acres of land just outside of Austin. Heres how to invest in the citys growth before he floods it with new tech workers.

This REIT just teamed up with the company that built Elon Musk's tiny house to develop affordable housing communities. Here's how you can be among the first to buy shares.

Don't miss real-time alerts on your stocks - join Benzinga Pro for free! Try the tool that will help you invest smarter, faster, and better.

This article Warren Buffett Sold His Only REIT Last Year, But He's Betting Big On Housing With Three New Investments originally appeared on Benzinga.com

.

 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
WestJet and Lufthansa will each have four standard-size converted freighters in their fleets this winter. WestJet operates the Boeing 737-800 (pictured) and Lufthansa flies the Airbus A321. (Photo: WestJet)

The fledgling freighter division of Canadian airline WestJet has started flying to Havana while the more established Lufthansa Cargo has announced expansion of its new regional network in the Nordic region. Both are deploying narrowbody cargo jets.

WestJet Cargo, which launched commercial all-cargo service in April and now has four Boeing 737-800 converted freighters serving major Canadian cities as well as Miami and Los Angeles, said Wednesday it commenced weekly service from Toronto to the capital of Cuba. The announcement provided few other details and WestJet didnt respond to an inquiry for more information.

WestJet received its fourth freighter earlier this month after it was remodeled with a large cargo door and other features by a Boeing aftermarket partner in Costa Rica. The 737-800 converted freighter has a maximum payload of about 25 tons.

The airline originally planned to start scheduled freighter operations in the summer of 2022 but faced unexpected regulatory challenges obtaining certification from Transport Canada to operate the modified aircraft. In July, it began offering customers the ability to charter aircraft for dedicated transport.

Lufthansa Cargo also announced Wednesday that it will start operating an Airbus A321 converted freighter once a week from Helsinki to Copenhagen, Denmark, and add a second frequency from Copenhagen to its base in Frankfurt, Germany, where shipments can connect to Lufthansas global passenger and freighter network.

Lufthansa Cargo is scheduled to operate four A321 converted freighters by the end of the fall. (Photo: Lufthansa)

The routings will allow shippers in Helsinki to drop off loads late in the day for next morning uplift in Frankfurt.

Lufthansa said it will soon add another short-haul connection to Stockholm.

Lufthansa Cargo has operated long-haul, international freighter routes for decades and currently operates 16 Boeing 777 freighters, including five in a joint venture with DHL. Last year it took possession of its first A321 converted freighter to provide fast overnight and same-day delivery for e-commerce shippers within Europe and parts of the Middle East and now operates three of the aircraft.

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The airline recently began A321 service between Milan and Malta.

A fourth freighter is scheduled to join the fleet within weeks, which officials say will increase the networks reliability. The A321 has a maximum payload of more than 30 tons. Large containers are carried on the main deck and the lower deck has space for small containers.

Lufthansa recently announced it will add a 17th Boeing 777 to the fleet by the end of the year. The winter flying schedule, which begins Oct. 28, includes three weekly 777 services to Tel Aviv, Israel, and Cairo. The airline also said it will increase the number of weekly freighter flights to Hong Kong, via Mumbai, India, from six to seven and is adding two connections to Taipei, Taiwan, for the first time.

Due to steady demand, Lufthansa Cargo is also increasing the number of weekly freighter connections to Mexico City from six to seven. In July, all cargo flights were transferred to Felipe Angeles International Airport to comply with a Mexican government edict that Mexico Citys airport be dedicated to passenger flights.

Click here for more FreightWaves and American Shipper articles by Eric Kulisch.

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The post WestJet adds new cargo route to Havana appeared first on FreightWaves.
Key Insights

CapitaLand India Trust's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

The top 18 shareholders own 50% of the company

Institutions own 39% of CapitaLand India Trust

Every investor in CapitaLand India Trust (SGX:CY6U) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 45% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 39% of the company's stockholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of CapitaLand India Trust, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for CapitaLand India Trust

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About CapitaLand India Trust?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that CapitaLand India Trust does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see CapitaLand India Trust's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

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CapitaLand India Trust is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Bartley Investments Pte. Ltd. with 15% of shares outstanding. Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte Ltd is the second largest shareholder owning 6.6% of common stock, and Kabouter Management, LLC holds about 4.3% of the company stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 18 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of CapitaLand India Trust

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of CapitaLand India Trust in their own names. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. Keep in mind that it's a big company, and the insiders own S$6.7m worth of shares. The absolute value might be more important than the proportional share. Arguably, recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 45% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 15%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 5 warning signs with CapitaLand India Trust (at least 1 which is significant) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Quanex Building Products Corporation (NYSE:NX), might not be a large cap stock, but it saw significant share price movement during recent months on the NYSE, rising to highs of US$29.48 and falling to the lows of US$25.24. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Quanex Building Products' current trading price of US$27.13 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Quanex Building Productss outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change.

Check out our latest analysis for Quanex Building Products

What's The Opportunity In Quanex Building Products?

The stock seems fairly valued at the moment according to my valuation model. Its trading around 19% below my intrinsic value, which means if you buy Quanex Building Products today, youd be paying a reasonable price for it. And if you believe that the stock is really worth $33.39, then there isnt much room for the share price grow beyond what its currently trading. Is there another opportunity to buy low in the future? Since Quanex Building Productss share price is quite volatile, we could potentially see it sink lower (or rise higher) in the future, giving us another chance to buy. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

What does the future of Quanex Building Products look like?

Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. Quanex Building Products' earnings growth are expected to be in the teens in the upcoming years, indicating a solid future ahead. This should lead to robust cash flows, feeding into a higher share value.

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What This Means For You

Are you a shareholder? It seems like the market has already priced in NXs positive outlook, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we havent considered today, such as the track record of its management team. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at the stock? Will you have enough confidence to invest in the company should the price drop below its fair value?

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on NX, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the optimistic prospect is encouraging for the company, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop.

It can be quite valuable to consider what analysts expect for Quanex Building Products from their most recent forecasts. At Simply Wall St, we have the analysts estimates which you can view by clicking here.

If you are no longer interested in Quanex Building Products, you can use our free platform to see our list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2023 /CNW/ -- Kunshan, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province, held a Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show on Monday to promote cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

Photo shows the scene of the Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show in Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area. (Provided by Kunshan Converged Media Center/Yuan Xinyu)

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival lantern show marks the 11th edition of such activity since its inception in 2013.

It is noted that digital lighting, Augmented Reality (AR) and other technologies have been used in the show to make the activity more interactive.

There are two main lighting areas for the festival, including the Zhouzhuang Light Area and the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area.

The activity in the Zhouzhuang Light Area will last from September 25 to January 1, 2024, while that in the Kunshan Huiju Square Light Area will come to an end on October 23 this year.

At the lighting ceremony on Monday, Kunshan Huiju Square was awarded to be a demonstration base for cultural tourism exchanges between Jiangsu and Taiwan within China.

Kunshan is one of the regions with the most intensive Taiwanese investment and business in the Chinese mainland, the most frequent exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the mainland, and the most fruitful cross-straits exchanges and cooperation.

Over the past 30 years, more than 5,800 Taiwan-funded projects have settled in Kunshan, with a cumulative investment of nearly 70 billion U.S. dollars, and nearly 100,000 Taiwanese have lived and worked in Kunshan.

Kunshan will accelerate the high-quality development to deepen cross-strait industrial cooperation, and make effort to provide a good environment for the Taiwanese to study, work and live here, according to Zhou Wei, Party chief of Kunshan City.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/336289.html

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xinhua-silk-road-chinas-kunshan-city-holds-mid-autumn-festival-lantern-show-to-promote-cross-strait-cultural-exchanges-301939684.html

SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road

Cision

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2023/26/c8658.html
Central Floridas 1,4-dioxane contamination has caught the attention of Yale University researchers.

They want to hear concerns from residents who have been drinking water supplied by public utilities in Lake Mary, Sanford and northwest Seminole County. Groundwater in these areas has been contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent classified as a likely carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The discussion will take place via a Zoom video chat on Wednesday, Oct. 4 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Those who want to attend can email Barbara.masi@yale.edu to obtain a link.

The hope is that public input will shape future projects from the Yale Superfund Research Center, established in 2022 to investigate the little-researched impacts of 1,4-dioxane and devise solutions. The centers work is funded through 2027 with a $7.5 million federal grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

If theres significant interest from the community and enough willing participants, Central Florida could potentially become a site for a case study on this chemicals health impacts, said Vasilis Vasiliou, the centers director. Yale is currently in the process of recruiting several hundred people for one such study in Long Island, New York, which at one point had dioxane in 70% of its drinking wells.

I want to find out: what are the concerns of the people and what do they want us, as the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, to do to address their concerns? said Vasiliou, who will lead Wednesdays meeting.

Like many, Vasiliou became aware of Central Floridas situation when he was interviewed for the Orlando Sentinels Toxic Secret series. The four-part investigative series shed light on decades of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the Floridian Aquifer. The dioxane has been linked to a telephone systems factory in Lake Mary that was built in the late 1960s and closed in 2003.

Sanford, Lake Mary and Seminole County first detected this industrial solvent in their drinking water in 2013 and 2014, though state investigators found evidence of local groundwater contamination as far back as 2001. Its unknown what 1,4-dioxane concentrations were during the decades before that.

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Known peak parts per billion a decade ago were 1.3 in Lake Mary, 0.41 in Sanford and 0.58 in Seminole County, all above the EPAs recommended limit of 0.35 parts per billion. Lake Marys drinking water contained multiple times this advisory level until a new treatment plant was installed in 2021. Sanford and Seminole adjusted flow rates to their groundwater wells eight years ago and data suggests they have kept 1,4-dioxane levels below 0.35 ppb since then.

This concentration equates to an estimated 1-in-a-million increased risk of cancer if consumed for a lifetime. Florida has also chosen to issue an advisory level of 0.35 ppb, though the limit is not enforced by the federal or state government.

Vasiliou has so far been in contact with about a dozen Central Florida residents about this issue, after his information was publicized at a forum hosted by the Orlando Sentinel at Seminole State Colleges Sanford/Lake Mary campus in August.

Following this Zoom meeting, Vasiliou hopes to arrange a formal site visit to the region with his team.

Efforts to assist the Seminole County, Lake Mary and Sanford area would be funded by a grant that promotes university-community partnerships from the National Institutes of Health. In order to apply for this grant and conduct a study, Vasiliou said he would need, at minimum, one person to agree to volunteer to represent the communitys concerns and collaborate with him. More information about the potential partnership will be made available at the meeting.

Were looking for some of the community leaders to step up and work with us, he said.

Sydney Evans, a senior science analyst at the Environmental Working Group, praised Yales engagement efforts. The EWG is a U.S. nonprofit that advocates for stricter regulation of toxic chemicals.

The Yale Superfund Research Centers potential undertaking of tap water research in Central Florida indicates a commitment to understanding and mitigating the risks of 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, a contaminant for which protective action is long overdue. Its important to keep the affected communities at the forefront of the research so that the program empowers residents, builds trust, includes appropriate cultural sensitivity, and gives the community some level of ownership over the results, Evans said via email.

Dioxane has been linked to liver, kidney, peritoneum, mammary and nasal cavity cancers in animal studies, though there has not been much research done in humans.

This dearth of research is part of what inspired Vasiliou to start the effort that brings together researchers from the schools of Public Health, Medicine, Engineering & Applied Science, and the Environment.

It is one of 25 university-based centers across the country funded by the federal government in an attempt to address contaminated U.S. land and groundwater, an effort known as the Superfund program.

Yale scientists at the center aim to answer questions such as how the chemical triggers the development of cancer, how it may interact with other substances commonly found in the environment, and whether biomarkers can identify whether someone was previously exposed to dioxane. As of now, 1,4-dioxane is only detectable when its in the human body, and it leaves within a matter of days, which makes it difficult to link health issues to past exposures.

Its possible that the research done at Yales superfund center may be used down the line to help inform a federal limit for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, and other regulatory steps.

Other goals of Yales center include developing easier and cheaper ways to detect and remove the chemical, which is notoriously difficult to separate from water.

Lake Mary water plant destroys tricky 1,4-dioxane with high-tech solution unique to Florida

At the moment, at-home treatment systems such as reverse osmosis can remove most, but not all of the chemical from drinking water. However, they arent a practical option for many households because of their price  several hundred to several thousand dollars for installation, plus the cost of upkeep and filter replacement.

In addition, at-home treatment doesnt destroy the chemical, it separates it and sends it down the drain. This means it could potentially end up in the water supply again.

One of the most dependable ways to actually destroy 1,4-dioxane is a process called advanced oxidation, which combines hydrogen peroxide with ultraviolet light. This process is highly effective but also prohibitively pricey.

Lake Mary installed an advanced oxidation plant in 2021 that reduces the concentration of dioxane to a trace amount. The city estimates it cost about $40 million, though it was paid for by the telephone factorys former owners and the price was never directly disclosed to the city or the Orlando Sentinel.

Martin Comas and Kevin Spear of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com; @CECatherman Twitter
Four out-of-state residents were arrested early Tuesday after a King George deputy saw two vehicles racing at more than 100 mph in the county, police said.

Sheriffs 1st Sgt. Kecia Wharton said Deputy R. Tully was on duty at 1:18 a.m. when he saw two vehicles heading north at a high rate of speed on U.S. 301 in King George in the area of Port Conway Road. He attempted to catch up with the vehicles, while Deputy H. Nobles responded to assist.

The speeding vehicles were stopped in the area of Eds Drive, Wharton said. In the vehicles, police found an AR-15 rifle, multiple baggies of a white powder believed to be illegal drugs, more than 2 pounds of marijuana and more than $12,000 in cash.

Steven P.A. McCain, 30, of South Carolina, Imani A. Jackson, 31, and Tavon T. Fowlkes, 40, both of Maryland, and 31-year-old Desmond D. Miller of West Virginia are all charged with drug-related offenses.

McCain and Jackson, the two drivers, were also charged with reckless driving/racing. All four were placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail.
A convicted murderers attempt to get a new trial in Caroline County has failed.

Calvin Maurice Reynolds, 31, was convicted of killing 59-year-old Warren Doc Baker outside 7119 Macedonia Road on Oct. 10, 2021. Baker was beaten to death with a metal chair.

Reynolds was convicted of first-degree murder on Feb. 2, but he has not yet been sentenced. His sentencing has been delayed by his attorneys efforts to get him a new trial.

The defense claimed that a vape pen Reynolds got from a staff member at Central State Hospital in Petersburg may have affected mental health testing he received.

Judge Sarah Deneke last week denied the request for a new trial for Reynolds, who was found to be competent to stand trial and sane at the time of the offense. His sentencing is now scheduled for Oct. 18.

Evidence presented during Reynolds trial showed that he and Baker were among a group of men gathered outside that day. Members of the group were drinking beer, smoking marijuana and talking about sports, witnesses said.

One man was driving away when Reynolds chased down his vehicle and threw punches through his car window. Baker later asked Reynolds why he attacked the other man, and Reynolds responded with a three-punch flurry that knocked Baker out. He then picked up a metal childs chair and pounded Baker to death.
Senior Chinese diplomat meets COP28 president-designate

Xinhua) 08:38, September 27, 2023

Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, meets with COP28 United Arab Emirates (UAE) President-Designate and the UAE's special envoy for climate change Sultan Al Jaber in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, met with COP28 United Arab Emirates (UAE) President-Designate Sultan Al Jaber in Beijing on Tuesday.

Wang, also director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, said that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, relations between China and the UAE have maintained a momentum of sound and stable development.

China is willing to continue to understand and support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns, jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality, expand areas of mutually beneficial cooperation, and push China-UAE comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level, Wang said.

Wang congratulated the UAE on joining the BRICS family as one of the first batches of new members, saying it will provide new vitality to BRICS cooperation and new prospects for China-UAE comprehensive strategic partnership.

As a comprehensive strategic partner of the UAE, China is glad to see the UAE play a greater role in international and regional affairs, said Wang.

Wang introduced China's concept and practice of green and sustainable development, saying that China is an active advocate and a firm activist in tackling climate change.

China fully supports the UAE in hosting the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai and stands ready to maintain close communication and cooperation with the UAE to ensure positive outcomes of the conference, promote the building of a fair and rational global climate governance system for win-win results, and safeguard the legitimate development rights of developing countries, Wang added.

Jaber, also the UAE's special envoy for climate change, said that the UAE and China have solid mutual trust and a solid foundation for cooperation, and the UAE side is firmly committed to the comprehensive strategic partnership of long-term friendship between the two countries.

The UAE highly appreciates China's vision of a community with a shared future for humanity, China's significant contribution to global sustainable development, and China's leadership in international cooperation on climate change, Jaber said.

He thanked China for its strong support to the UAE in preparing for the Dubai Conference and said he looks forward to working with China to make the conference a historic success.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Fremont Public Schools Superintendent Mark Shepard defended the districts decision to not inform parents about a school threat on Monday, Sept. 18, that was investigated by the Fremont Police Department and has led to the removal from school of the student suspect who was allegedly involved in the incident.

No one was injured in the incident, which was reported by another student, and it was determined that there was not an imminent danger, Shepard stated.

Shepard said sometimes members of the public dont understand the situations and why the district may not send notifications of potential threats to the public, parents or students.

I know, at times the public may not understand the lack of information, but in every case, we err on the side of student safety. We have to balance providing information and the potential hysteria that can be created with parents right to know, he explained in an email. As was the case in this situation and all situations dealing with threats law enforcement is involved as soon as we are made aware of a threat.

The Tribune received a tip about the alleged threat on Monday, Sept. 25. The tipster claimed that on Sept. 18, a student at Fremont High School allegedly, told other students he was going to shoot everyone at the school.

The Tribune contacted Shepard after receiving the tip to seek verification of the claims.

Shepard responded via email to a series of questions about the incident, admitting there was a threat that was investigated by police officials.

We were notified late in the day on Monday, Sept. 18, after school was dismissed, about a potential threat the following day. The Fremont Police Department was contacted immediately and the investigation was handled by them, Shepard stated in his email. It was determined that there was not imminent danger the following school day, and therefore students and parents were not notified.

Shepard declined to identify the student suspect citing privacy requirements. He also deferred any questions about police involvement or possible charges to the Fremont Police Department.

Officials with the Fremont Police Department have not responded to multiple email messages and a telephone call from the Tribune seeking information on the incident.

The tipster who contacted the Tribune also questioned why the Sept. 18 incident did not result in a notification sent to parents and students as has been done in other incidents.

(District) administration did not inform the community, teachers and students about the alleged threat, the tipster stated in a letter to the Tribune. Other times they have done this. What changed? Why was this a secret?

In other instances of alleged threats at the school district, Shepard has distributed press releases and students, staff and parents have been notified.

The most recent incident was three days before the Sept. 18 incident, when FPS officials contacted the local police department to investigate online social media threats allegedly on Sept. 15 made in Fremont as well as several other states.

In the Sept. 15 incident, which was centered on homecoming festivities, Shepard sent an email to media outlets around the county notifying reporters of the alleged threat  which was deemed bogus and unfounded  and how the district responded.

Another incident occurred on Sept. 7 in the parking lot of Fremont High School which led to students, teachers and staff being notified as well as Clarmar Elementary School being placed in a temporary lock-out. That incident was the result of an alleged fight between several males in which it was alleged a firearm was brandished. However, police determined the weapon was actually an Airsoft BB-type gun and two people were cited.

In the Sept. 18 incident, the district did not sent out a press release.

Shepard also confirmed the tipsters claim that no notification was sent to students or parents.

Every situation is different and at times necessitates a different response. In this particular situation, the issue was dealt with by law enforcement and the schools, and as stated previously, there was not an imminent threat to the safety of staff, students or the public, Shepard stated in an email. With the situation related to homecoming (on Sept. 15), there was plenty of social media activity, both in-state and in several parts of the country so the need to correct the rumors took precedence.

Shepard said the student suspect who was alleged to make the threat on Sept. 18 has been removed from classes. He declined to provide any information on the students age, grade or whether it was a male or female student.

The student making the reported threat has not been in school since the threat was reported. As always, with student discipline issues, we are not able to comment on specifics, he added.

Numerous threats at schools have occurred since 2018

The incident is the seventh since 2018 in which an alleged threat was made at an FPS school or campus. In five of those instances, a real or fake firearm was reportedly found on an FPS campus.

On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, a teacher at Johnson Crossing Academic Center brought a fake musket that was totally non-functioning to school for a class lesson. Students told their parents about the fake musket, who in turn reported that incident to school district officials, but there was no police response or lockdown for that incident. State law allows the use of inoperable weapons for educational displays and lessons.

The only incident of a real firearm being found on a campus happened at about 8 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27, at Milliken Park Elementary School. In that incident, a fourth-grade male student brought a semi-automatic handgun to the school which had a magazine with bullets in it, but no round in the firing chamber.

An astute teacher noticed students gathered in an unusual manner, and then discovered that the suspect student was showing others the handgun. The teacher detained the student and took him to the schools administrative office and Fremont Police officials arrived on scene to conduct an investigation.

There were no injuries and no threats were made with the firearm. The school did not go into a lockdown during the incident.

District security Chief Kevin Kavan told members of the FPS Board of Education in June that he was conducting a probe into why officials at Milliken Park did not follow the districts protocols when the firearm was discovered.

In November 2018, the Fremont High School was placed into a lockdown after an Airsoft pistol was found unattended inside the school. As with the Sept. 7, 2023, incident, officials in the November 2018 situation were not sure if the alleged firearm was real or not and called FPD to the scene, who determined it was not a real firearm.

A fifth situation occurred at 6 p.m., Jan. 30, 2023, when officials with the Fremont Police Department was called to Johnson Crossing Academic Center for an alleged gun-related threat that turned out to be false.

In that incident, a student reported that they believed another student had made a threat in relation to allegedly bringing a firearm to the school due to a dispute. The alleged threat was deemed not credible by police officials and there was no school lockdown.

The FPS has a robust reporting protocol in place for students and staff in regard to potential safety issues and possible weapons or threats on any of the districts campuses, something Shepard has reiterated in many of the press releases about incidents.

The FPS and FPD highly recommend that anyone who may have information about a potential threat to contact the FPD non-emergency number at 402-727-2677 or officials at the Fremont Public Schools on their respective campus.
With someone in the U.S. needing blood or platelets every 2 seconds, according to data from the American Red Cross, hosting a blood drive can be a great way to support people in your neighborhood with immediate, urgent needs.

The Red Cross takes the guesswork out of hosting a successful blood drive, with guidance on everything from what a host must provide to sending reminders to participants. The organization will send phlebotomy facilitators to the event for the actual blood draws, but you can help by keeping records of attendees, managing appointments, setup, and cleanup.
Veterans benefits seminar is Thursday

DAV (Disabled American Veterans) is a nonprofit charity that provides support for veterans of all generations and their families, helping more than 1 million veterans each year.

One of the various services DAV provides at no cost to veterans is its Information Seminar program. These seminars are available across the country to help veterans and their families obtain the services and benefits they have earned.

DAV has an information seminar planned for 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, at DAV Chapter #7, 3901 N. 70th St., in Lincoln.

Staffed by DAV national service officers, the information seminars provide professional support throughout the claims and appeals process.

Veterans attending a seminar should bring identification, their Social Security number and any other pertinent documentation regarding their military service. DAV membership is not required to utilize these free services.

To learn more about DAV its many services available to veterans, visit DAV.org.

First Lutheran Church to host blood drive

First Lutheran Church, 3200 E. Military Ave. in Fremont, is hosting an American Red Cross Bloodmobile from 7:30 a.m. to noon Sunday, Oct. 1, in the fellowship hall.

The current need for blood is critical. All blood types are needed. The Red Cross national blood supply has fallen by about 25% since early August. Right now, blood product distributions to hospitals are outpacing the number of blood donations. All donors will be entered into a drawing for Husker volleyball tickets and also will receive a $15 email Amazon gift card.

Appointments may be scheduled at redcrossblood.org or by calling 1-800-733-2767 and mentioning First Lutheran, Fremont.

Donors should bring their donor card or photo ID, eat breakfast, and drink plenty of water prior to donating blood.

Donors can streamline their donation experience by visiting redcrossblood.org/rapidpass to complete their pre-donation reading and health history questions on the day of their appointment.
Infinity Labs, a technology research and development firm focused on modeling, simulation and cybersecurity, plans to bring more than 60 new jobs to Colorado Springs, nearly doubling the size of the companys workforce.

Based in Dayton, Ohio, Infinity Labs will offer positions in software development and analysis at an average wage of $130,253.17 a year, the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC announced Wednesday.

The announcement follows news last month of Colorado Springs-based Boecores plans to bring more than 600 jobs to the region and invest nearly $8 million to remodel and expand its facilities; that was the latest in a series of economic development and job creation announcements in Colorado Springs during the past 10 months. Companies from Microchip to Entegris intend to bring over 2,000 jobs to the area and invest billions of dollars in the region.

Infinity Labs is excited to continue our expansion into Colorado, Ken Edge, Infinity Labs co-founder and CEO, said in a news release. We see tremendous opportunity with the growth of the defense and commercial aerospace industries as well as the high caliber of Colorado employees we are looking to add to the Infinity team.

Infinity Labs, which focuses on assessing weapons systems vulnerability, among other specialties, was established July 2020, said Jason Molnar, the companys chief strategy officer. Molnar is one of Infinity Labs six co-founders and leadership team members.

In the beginning, Molnar said some people saw the companys number of co-founders as a recipe for trouble, but he said it has been an strength for Infinity Labs.

We were all remote really for the first year and started winning work within the first four months including a $900 million contract, Molnar said. Thats what really propelled us from startup to established.

Infinity Labs employs over 60 workers across 13 states.

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Infinity Labs intends to start filling positions during the next several months, Molnar said, and eventually will need to lease space locally.

Infinity Labs has its eye on Catalyst Campus, a hub of work space where small businesses, startups and private enterprise can meet and collaborate with each other, military personnel and government agencies.

In July, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade approved $691,288 in performance-based Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits for Infinity Labs over an eight-year period. The incentives are contingent upon Infinity Labs, referred to as Project Verge throughout the Office of Economic Development review process, meeting net new job creation and salary requirements.

Infinity Labs, which considered Albuquerque and Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for its expansion, chose Colorado Springs because of the regions talent opportunities, the cost of doing business and the proximity to Department of Defense contractors thanks to the citys business and military ecosystem.

Colorado Springs retainment of U.S. Space Command made Infinity Labs expansion to the city an easy decision, Molnar said.

Colorado is an epicenter for aerospace and defense industries and fundamentally imperative to our national security, Molnar said in the release. Infinity Labs recognizes the strategic importance of the Centennial State and welcomes the opportunity to grow and flourish in the shadow of the Rockies.
King Soopers plans to reopen its Colorado Springs store on South Academy Boulevard on Nov. 1 after finishing state-permitted asbestos cleanup and the companys remodel of the store, according to a Tuesday news release.

The 2910 S. Academy Blvd. location shuttered abruptly June 20 after finding the possible existence of asbestos," leaving many customers scrambling to find alternatives for grocery, gas and pharmacy shopping.

King Soopers has worked in recent months with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, a certified asbestos consulting firm and a general abatement contractor on a "comprehensive cleanup plan," the company said in its news release.

Before the shutdown in June, King Soopers began a remodel process by hiring a third-party contractor to test the building for asbestos and found some of the mineral material in the stores pickup and pharmacy flooring and adhesives. It was removed by a certified asbestos abatement contractor, the company said in an earlier news release.

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The initial testing did not identify asbestos in other areas, so more flooring and adhesives were removed using non-abatement protocols" before later testing identified asbestos in adhesives beneath flooring in areas beyond the store's pharmacy and pickup space where asbestos was first discovered.

King Soopers said it did not lay off any of the stores employees during the closure in previous Gazette reporting, and the company offered work hours to employees at surrounding stores.

The company said it is working on a timeline for associates to return to the store. Anyone interested in joining the South Academy Boulevard team can visit jobs.kingsoopers.com to apply.

In the interim, King Soopers continues to offer free delivery services to impacted customers with delivery fees being automatically waived for South Academy Boulevard customers, via a digital coupon that is preloaded to their loyalty account. It is also operating a mobile pharmacy unit in the parking lot of the store 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily and offering free prescription delivery.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has arrested the most wanted fugitive on its Top 100 Most Wanted Sex Offender Fugitive list, the bureau announced Wednesday.

The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office helped the bureau track down 57-year-old David Joseph Mack, who was taken into custody Monday.

Mack has been wanted since May 10 by the El Paso County Sheriffs Office for failing to register as a sex offender with the county. His previously registered address had been in Old Colorado City. He was previously convicted of attempted sexual assault on a child, a felony, officials said.
A military judge found an Air Force Academy cadet not guilty of sexual assault charges on Wednesday in a three-day court-martial.

Cadet Eamon McHugh was facing allegations of assaulting a fellow cadet on May 16, 2021 while vacationing at a rental house in Tabernash, located in northwestern Colorado.

Judge Lt. Col. Bradley Palmer pronounced McHugh not guilty after a little more than two-hour break to review the evidence in a case that started on Monday.

Palmer did not follow-up his ruling with any additional statement about his reasoning.

McHugh and the woman were part of a group of 10 cadets who were celebrating receiving their class rings during a ceremony their junior year. The cadets started drinking in the afternoon and the party continued with a bonfire in the evening.

McHugh and the female cadet started kissing around the bonfire and then went into a bedroom.

Private attorney Lance Wood, who defended McHugh, pointed out several times in his closing statements Wednesday it's unknown whether the woman consented to the sexual exchange in the bedroom because she was blackout drunk. McHugh's memory of the night was fragmented, lawyers said.

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"The government did not prove the case and the government cannot prove the case," he said.

A person who later cannot remember their activities while drunk are capable of complex activities in the moment and there is no evidence that the woman was incapacitated before she went into the bedroom, Wood said.

He noted throughout the evening the group was not concerned about the woman.

Later in the evening, one of the cadets on the trip found the woman crying, half-naked, panicked and in pain in a closet in another person's bedroom after the exchange, Maj. Jay Peer said, representing the victim.

Two cadets took her to a hospital where the nurse found the women had "severe" internal injuries that caused bleeding, Peer said. McHugh said on an recorded phone call presented as evidence he may have had a class ring on his hand during the exchange. The large ring was likely responsible for the injuries, Peer said.

No one would have consented to activities that resulted in such severe injuries, he said.

Wood countered that claim saying that consensual sex can cause injury.
After two full days and the review of over 100 perspective jurors, the jury selection process is complete in the trial of a Colorado Springs man accused of fatally stabbing a co-worker in a Walgreens breakroom last year.

A total of 12 jurors along with two alternates were selected to preside over the trial against Joshua Johnson, who faces one charge of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Riley Whitelaw, who died June 11, 2022, at the Walgreens on Centennial Boulevard and Flying W Ranch Road.

Opening statements will be given by the prosecution and defense on Wednesday morning with the first witness of the trial following shortly after.

Whitelaw, who would have graduated in May from Air Academy High School, told her manager that Johnson made her feel uncomfortable and requested different hours so she would no longer have to work with him, according to police. But when Whitelaw asked for additional hours, her manager told her it would require her to work with Johnson.

Johnson was arrested a day after Whitelaws death while walking along Interstate 25 outside Trinidad.

He was scheduled to go to trial May 8, but the case was delayed when the defense requested that he undergo a competency evaluation.

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Separate evaluations concluded that Johnson was competent to proceed, and a trial date in September was scheduled.

Attorneys at Johnson's pre-trial readiness conference said they anticipate the trial to take around two weeks, with opening statements expected to be given Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the time needed for jury selection.

Johnson is being held at the El Paso County jail on a $10 million bond.
The jury in the trial against Joshua Johnson, the Colorado Springs man accused of fatally stabbing his 17-year-old co-worker in a Walgreens breakroom last year, heard its first testimony on Wednesday morning after each set of attorneys gave their opening statements.

The courtroom for the first day of testimony was packed, with friends and family of victim Riley Whitelaw filling the prosecutions side of the room well before the start of proceedings. Johnsons side of the courtroom was closer to empty, with most of the space taken up by media and staff members of the public defender's office.

Johnson entered court in custody of the El Paso County jail wearing an ill-fitting black suit with a white dress shirt.

Wednesday morning began with opening statements, where the prosecution and defense presented dramatically different versions of events that led to the death of Whitelaw to the 14-person jury.

The prosecution during its brief opening stated that not only do they believe Johnson killed his co-worker on June 11, but that the prosecution has a staggering amount of evidence to prove nobody besides Johnson could have committed the crime.

Prosecutor Anthony Gioia alleged during his opening statement that Johnson had developed romantic feelings for Whitelaw, and that those feelings drove him to decide to stab and kill the teen.

This sentiment from Gioia was backed up by the prosecution's final witness for the day, Anna Shelton, a friend of Whitelaw's. Shelton informed the jury that Whitelaw had told her that Johnson had made numerous sexual advances toward her at work that made her uncomfortable, and that when she told Walgreens management about those advances "not a lot was done."

"This was gruesome, and meticulously planned by the defendant," Gioia said to the jury.

Gioia stated that Johnson used his knowledge of the Walgreens and its' surveillance system throughout the day on June 11 in an attempt to hide evidence of the killing he planned to commit later that day.

Near the beginning of his opening statement, Gioia showed the jury a short video of Johnson stacking numerous red crates on top of each other in front of a security camera, eventually leading to the cameras view of the breakroom being fully obstructed. Gioia claimed that Johnson did this deliberately because he knew that camera angle would later in the evening show evidence of him leaving the Walgreens through the warehouse exit after killing Whitelaw.

Gioia stated that the prosecution has even more evidence pointing to Johnson's deliberate steps ahead of Whitelaw's death, including Johnson parking his car away from the store's surveillance cameras and the discovery of Social Security numbers, locker numbers, phone numbers and addresses in Johnsons locker belonging to Whitelaw and her boyfriend.

Whitelaw's boyfriend also worked at Walgreens at the time of her death.

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The prosecution pointed to more evidence, with Gioia stating that when Johnson was arrested near Trinidad later on the night of June 11, more than 100 miles from Colorado Springs, Whitelaws DNA was found on Johnson, along with scratches on his face and body. Additionally, Gioia stated that law enforcement recovered a Gerber multitool with the knife extended and covered in blood, presumed to be the knife used to kill Whitelaw. A sheath for a Gerber multitool was found in Johnsons locker at the Walgreens.

Johnsons defense attorney Jonathon Stafford painted a much different picture of the version of events, describing Johnson as an innocent bystander to a tragic homicide.

Joshua Johnson was the easy and convenient target for investigators in this case," Stafford told the jury. "Wrong place and the wrong time."

Stafford stated that Johnson had accidentally left the rear door of the Walgreens open at one point in the day, and that when Johnson went back to the breakroom around 5:30 p.m. he saw an unrecognizable man killing Whitelaw, that he ended up with her blood on him, and that he ran from the store out of fear for his life.

Stafford insinuated that Johnson believes a friend of a manager at Walgreens who had visited the store earlier in the day and had "bad vibes" could have been the crime's true perpetrator.

Mr. Johnson did not murder Riley Whitelaw," Stafford said to the jury to conclude his opening statement.

The prosecution called three witnesses to testify before the lunch break, all three of whom were some of the first people to arrive at the Walgreens after Whitelaw's body was discovered, about an hour after her death.

The three witnesses, including Colorado Springs police crime scene investigator Alyssa Berriesford, discussed the state of the crime scene when they arrived, and highlighted key pieces of evidence.

In the afternoon, Jarod Murdoch, a pathologist in the El Paso County Coroner's Office, testified regarding the numerous sharp-edge wounds Whitelaw suffered at the hands of her killer, and confirmed that the cause of death was a homicide.

Johnson faces one charge of first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing and killing Whitelaw, who was set to graduate this spring from Air Academy High School.
Suzanne Morphew's remains have been found, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation announced Wednesday.

The 49-year-old's bones were found in a remote, dry desert field of sagebrush and natural grasses south of Moffat, according to Saguache County Coroner Tom Perrin. He said it appeared that the remains had been buried in a shallow grave before being scattered.

Perrin was called to the scene to collect the remains on Friday, and transported them to El Paso County for an autopsy.

On Wednesday, they were positively identified as Morphew's.

Morphew's remains were found during an unrelated search, the investigation bureau said. Sources close to the investigation told The Denver Gazette that her body was found 30 to 40 minutes from the Morphew home, but they would not elaborate further.

Morphew, mother of two daughters, was reported missing from her Chaffee County home on May 10, 2020.

Melinda Moorman Balzer, Morphew's older sister, told The Denver Gazette that Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze let her know Wednesday morning that Morphew's remains had been found.

"This is a miracle. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack," Moorman Balzer said. "Colorado is a vast and rugged place and we have prayed that God would put light on where she is. We have been praying and here we are today. Its day of great sadness, but a day of celebration."

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation did not release any information on the exact location or the condition of the remains.

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Moorman Balzer said Suzanne's husband, Barry Morphew, was the first person notified that his wife's remains had been positively identified because he was next of kin.

While this case has garnered attention from around the world, it has touched our community and the sheriffs office deeply, Spezze said in a news release. We have never stopped our investigation and will continue to follow all leads in pursuit of justice for Suzanne.

Authorities said no arrests have been made since the remains were found.

The investigation had centered around Suzanne Morphew's husband, Barry Morphew, who was charged with murder a year after her disappearance. But in April 2022  after nearly two years of investigation and court hearings  district attorneys admitted that without a body, they did not have enough evidence to bring the case across the finish line.

At that time, the 11th Judicial prosecution team led by District Attorney Linda Stanley dismissed the murder case against Barry Morphew without prejudice. The term without prejudice means that the case can be reopened if investigators find evidence they believe will be enough to take it to trial.

The remains were found in Colorado's 12th Judicial District, which means Stanley may not be responsible for trying the case. 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly was notified of the discovery, the investigation bureau said. Saguache County shares a border with Chaffee County to the south.

Although locating Suzannes remains is a critical component of this investigation, and for her family, we are left with many more questions than answers, and it would be a disservice to conduct a news conference at this time, Spezze said in a news release.

After more than three years of searching for answers, Wednesday's news brought some relief to the family.

"This is just a small little snippet," Moorman Balzer said. "A lot more will be revealed in time. We will be patient and trust the process."
All IRS documents will be completed by the end of the week by Hanover School District 28, allowing tax returns to move forward, Superintendent Paul Calvert said during a special board meeting Tuesday. The district hired an outside auditor to examine its funds and payroll after allegations of gross negligence.

Employees last week addressed the board about ongoing concerns that the district was mishandling their taxes. They allege they have filed dozens of grievances with the district because they have not received tax refunds and have faced fines by the Internal Revenue Service. The district failed to submit employees W-2 forms to the federal agency nearly every year since 2018, they say, which has led them to be "red-flagged" for tax fraud by the IRS.

Calvert says all W-2s for years 2020, 2021 and 2022 have since been submitted at the federal and state levels as a result of the audit.

Calvert first met with a Colorado Springs-based certified public accountant on Wednesday to conduct an independent audit on the matter. The board will provide ongoing reports at each meeting until the audit is complete.

There will be additional investigations taking place as needed, and actual dollar amounts that are still owed will be paid, Calvert said. Hopefully there should be no more issues going forward at this time.

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Employees began receiving notifications last spring that the IRS would hold their tax refunds while it investigated missing wage and tax statements, according to former Prairie Heights Elementary School head cook Abby Engel, who left the district this summer. Employees were said to be fraudulent in their tax payments from 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.

The district had not taken taxes out of her paychecks throughout the year in 2020, Engel said. Although Engel did not face fines herself, other employees who were not able to cover the unexpected costs and were penalized by the IRS.

Interim Superintendent Mark Koopman in April met with each Prairie Heights Elementary employee who had filed a grievance. Employees say they later discovered their grievances were closed with no follow-up and the D-28 director of business, services and human resources Patricia Petrukitas, whose role lies at the heart of the allegations, was allowed to conduct her own audit internally.

(The district) tends to take care of everything in-house, very hush-hush, former Prairie Heights head cook Abby Engel, who left the district this summer, previously told The Gazette. It just didnt sit well with me. Wheres the accountability? Wheres the responsibility?
A cozy Douglas County municipality with a population of about 200, Larkspur is primarily known for hosting Colorados annual Renaissance Festival. But it is also home to one of the states hidden gems, a haven for people who love to read, trade and talk about books.

Open two days a week and operated by a small volunteer staff, the Larkspur Free Library is anything but typical. It doesnt administer library cards, its materials dont have due dates and theres no checkout limit. If not for the sign out front, it could be mistaken for a residence. But the small structure houses about 30,000 books, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes and audiobooks  all lovingly sorted and shelved by a staff that has no use for the Dewey Decimal System.

You dont need to return a book if you dont want to, said volunteer Kelley Evens. You can pass it on to someone else when youre done with it. If you want to bring it back, thats fine too.

In 2015, when a City Council member started the library, it was open every other Saturday. But Cindy Cramer decided that wasnt enough.

People are too busy to remember which Saturday the library is open, Cramer said. So we decided it should be open every Saturday.

When Cramer and her sister-in-law, Krystine, entered the space, they found a limited and poorly organized inventory of haphazardly shelved books and periodicals. That simply would not do, Cramer said.

There were about eight shelves of materials, and they were all over the place, she said. So we started out by separating fiction from nonfiction.

Some things really just needed to go into the trash, Evens added.

Determined to build the librarys book supply, Cramer started out by scouting estate sale liquidators, filling her Jeep with the books that the administrators couldnt sell.

Estate liquidators tend to be very happy when someone like us shows up, she said. Because then they dont have to tote all the books away.

Book by book and shelf by shelf, Evens, her husband Carl and the Cramer sisters-in-law slowly expanded the library, eventually adding a childrens room and building a stockpile of jigsaw puzzles. The puzzles, which saw a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, are the only item with a checkout limit.

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We try to limit families to two puzzles per visit, Cramer said.

Adult fiction, which comprises much of the inventory, is separated by genre, with mysteries, thrillers and prolific authors in the front room. Spy fiction, military thrillers and horror novels can also be found there. For fans of romance novels, the staff has thoughtfully sorted the kinder, gentler romance tomes from the over-the-top bodice rippers.

Some of (the romance novels) are pretty bad, Evens said. But people donate them, so we put them out.

With heavy donations of remaindered books from Douglas County Libraries, Cramer and her fellow volunteers no longer depend on estate liquidators to build their inventory. These days, what they need most is additional space.

Were so full now, Cramer said. "What we really need is real estate.

Volunteer Carl Evens said he is often heartened by the sight of library patrons who still prefer turning the pages of a physical book over staring at an electronic screen.

Books are still alive, he said. There are people out there who still love to read. And thats a good thing.

The Larkspur Free Library is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Sensitive documents in the Barry Morphew murder case showed that his wife was finished with their 25-year marriage and very much in love with another man.

Some of Suzanne Morphews communication with a high school flame has never been made public. They were revealed in a timeline which was filed March 25, 2022 and unsealed Tuesday evening.

Nobody loves you...like the way I do. I crave time with you. I crave the feeling I get when we connect. Physically or emotionally. Youre my guy. Always.

The next night, May 8, 2020, Morphew wrote her secret boyfriend again, this time while she was out to dinner with her husband. Youre the only real love Ive known...the only love I want.

Allowing the romantic communication between Suzanne Morphew, 49, and Jeff Libler, a father of six who lived in Michigan, was intended to convince a jury that the Morphews' marriage was disintegrating, contrary to what Barry Morphew first told investigators.

Judge Ramsey Lama never got a chance to rule on whether to allow the texts.

The case was dismissed without prejudice by the prosecution for lack of evidence on April 19, 2022, days before jury selection was to begin. Barry Morphew, who was facing first-degree murder charges in the case, was allowed to go free. The term without prejudice means that the case can be retried at a later date.

According to her communication with her best friend, Sheila Oliver, Morphew was struggling with her marriage for almost two years. In the motion to introduce the statements, FBI investigator Jonathan Grusing wrote that Suzanne Morphews communication showed the ups and downs that occur from mid-2018 until her death in May of 2020 and explain to the jury how the marriage reached its tipping point by May of 2020, the document stated.

During their affair, Morphew and Libler communicated on LinkedIn and on WhatsApp, a phone application which allows users to chat over the internet as opposed to standard SMS texting. She never told anyone about the multi-year fling.

Not even investigators knew about the affair until months after Morphew disappeared. They interviewed Libler in November of 2020, but by that time he said he didn't remember their last conversations and his phone had been destroyed.

In another motion, the defense wanted evidence that Barry Morphew watched "Forensic Files" and other true crime shows to be scrapped from trial.

Not all of Suzanne Morphew's heartfelt thoughts revealed in the motion were new. Some of her texts were discussed during the August 2021 evidentiary hearing, but dozens of thoughts she expressed to Oliver, had remained under seal until now.

Some of them had already been ordered to be suppressed by Lama and he may not have ruled to admit them.

On Nov. 27, 2018, in a timeline created by Grusing, Suzanne Morphew wrote that her husband sensed she was gaining strength and was uncomfortable with it. Just not need his approval all the time is so freeing really Ive really had to do my own soul searching Many things Ive [sic] done wrong overt [sic] the years and allowed to creep in Breaking the codependency for me is big.

As the months went by, Grusing documented the 49-year-old mother of twos growing need to get a divorce. On Aug. 25, 2019, she wrote I feel no peace when hes here. I dont know what to do. I dont feel safe around him. Hes lost my trust. He will do anything to come out looking good.

Suzanne Morphew also worried about the couples two daughters, one of whom, Macy, still lived at home. ..he pulled girls in and told them everything that day. I lost all respect for him that day. Macy mentioned us separating today or divorcing...She wants us happy. Shes tired of the tention [sic]. He plays the hurt one.

The document was important to prosecutors because they believed it showed that Suzanne Morphews state of mind was in direct opposition to what Barry Morphew told investigators when they first interviewed him the night she was reported missing.

Prosecutors said that Barry Morphew was not truthful about his failing marriage when he was first interviewed by law enforcement. On May 10, 2020, Morphew said that the evening before, the couple had shared a wonderful night eating steaks, having sex and going to bed early.

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Detectives became suspicious when, contrary to Barry Morphews description of a perfect evening, a couple of Suzanne Morphews texts just two days earlier revealed that their marriage was actually on the rocks.

Its been hard dealing with the harsh abrasiveness and having to show respect. Hes also been abusive, emotionally and physically, she texted her older sister May 8, 2020 describing her husband of 25 years. Theres so much. Hard to share it all and give you a clear picture.

Earlier that morning, Morphew wrote a list of grievances she had with Barry Morphew, whom she met and married in their hometown of Alexandria, Indiana.

Her words strengthened the district attorneys theory, that Barry Morphew killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and insecurity. That theory was revealed at the August 2021 evidentiary hearing.

Chief District Judge Patrick Murphy bound the case over for trial shortly after that, but the prosecution dismissed its own case for lack of evidence on the eve of the trial in April 2022.

In a text interview, Barry Morphews attorney, Iris Eytan, said that the judges ruling to release case documents came out of the blue and that Morphew does not have the emotional or financial resources to continue this battle against the prosecutors misconduct. She challenged the release on grounds that Morphew has already suffered for three years and is trying to get his life together.

Last month, Morphew filed a $15 million civil rights lawsuit which states that he was wrongfully arrested, jailed and prosecuted for the alleged murder of his wife, Suzanne, for "a crime he did not commit."

The Morphew investigation has been fraught with challenges. Murphy recused himself due to a friendship he had with an attorney involved with the case, there was a change of venue from Chaffee County to Fremont County and the most recent district judge, Ramsey Lama, stepped down from the bench soon after.

Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze, who is in charge of the Morphew case, told The Denver Gazette that the case is ongoing but legal observers say the longer a case goes, the more others pile up.

What it sounds like to me is law enforcement needs some help. It looks like were having public disclosure and that signals to me maybe law enforcement is looking for help with the public in resolving this case, said former federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Eric Faddis, who acknowledged, "This looks like this is going in the direction of a cold case.

Dave Lipka, a Colorado Springs criminal defense attorney, said a 3-year-old murder investigation, even one this high-profile, can be a burden on law enforcement.

In practice when you have a case thats this old and a motion to dismiss that has been granted you will not have the same amount of resources dedicated to the investigation.

Suzanne Morphews body has never been found. Deputy District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said that prosecutors suspect they know where her body is located, but that she is in a difficult spot. Though Eytan did not want the documents released, Hurlbert did not challenge the decision to unseal them.

'She is in a very difficult spot': Prosecutor says about suspected location of Suzanne Morphew's body

Lipka was surprised because it's usually the opposite. Generally, you want to keep information sealed if you have a true investigation. You dont want to taint the jury pool by releasing information that may not be admissible at trial, said Lipka. It doesnt make sense to release information that could compromise their own investigation.

After three years of going unsolved, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation defines a case is "cold." The Morphew case clanked into its fourth year on May 11, but it is not listed on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's cold case list.

Spokesperson Lisa Kohlbrenner explained that CBI is working with Chaffee County on the narrative as we want to be sure it is appropriate to be shared with the public."
The West Nile virus stuck it to Colorado this year.

Thanks to perfect mosquito breeding conditions during Colorados abnormally wet spring and a dry summer, the virus hit Coloradans harder this season than it has since the illness first emerged here 20 years ago.

Since around the Fourth of July, when Colorados first cases of West Nile started showing up, 31 Coloradans have died from the virus. Thats compared to 20 last year and 11 in 2021.

In 2003, when the virus first appeared in Colorado, 66 people lost their lives to it.

Though Colorado has 54 different breeds of mosquito, the Culex genus is the primary West Nile carrier, which then transfers to humans via the bite of a breeding female. Mosquitoes contract the disease when they feed on birds that carry it.

Every season is busy like this, but this year hit extra hard, said Anna Wanek, surveillance manager for Vector Disease Control International, a lab responsible for trapping, counting, testing and spraying for millions of mosquitoes.

The mosquito business is booming with VDCI lab biologists racking up the overtime, spending 20-plus extra hours a week categorizing this years explosion of Culex mosquitoes.

Were No. 1

In addition to an increase in deaths, Colorado is also leading the country in the total number of West Nile cases.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Colorado had almost three times more cases than California, the second-most affected state. As of Wednesday, the latest national data showed that Colorado had 520 cases, compared to Californias 156.

Nebraska reported 105 confirmed cases, and Arizona, usually a hot spot for West Nile, had 77. Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Washington state and Washington D.C. only had one reported case.

But those Colorado stats are low because they have not caught up to the local numbers from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE), which recorded more cases than reported by the CDC at 460. Those numbers were compiled on Sept. 19 and are expected to be updated soon.

Of Colorados CDPHE-reported cases, 316 of those required hospitalization, according to department statistics.

The current West Nile virus hot-spot is Denver county, which reported the most cases with 80, with Weld and Larimer counties rounding out the top three most affected counties.

No cure, no vaccine

There is no cure for the West Nile virus in humans despite 20 years of intensive laboratory and clinical research.

There is no vaccine to prevent it, either, but there is a vaccine available for horses  which are hit particularly hard by the disease. As of Sept. 22, of around 40 horses that came down with the virus, 10 died. The health department recommends a yearly equine booster.

In people, West Nile can strike any age group, but tends to hit those over 60 years of age and the risk is higher for those with medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease and transplant patients.

Eighty percent of people who are infected with West Nile are asymptomatic. Around 20% may experience West Nile fever, which feels like the flu.

Less than 1% actually die of the illness.

People behind the numbers

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Though only 1% of people who contract West Nile die from it, the stories of people crippled by the virus are astounding.

Art Leis remembers when he got the bite that turned his normally vibrant lifestyle upside-down. He was on his patio biting into a hamburger.

Ive probably had a million mosquito bites like everybody else and I never thought twice about West Nile, he said.

But in mid-August 2022, Leis said the wrong mosquito bit him.

The 66-year-old helicopter skier and mountain climber got progressively sick, until he finally ended up in the hospital on Aug. 31, 2022, a day or two away from not being alive.

After a year of gradual recovery, Leis now uses a handicapped sticker, which he jokes is one good thing to come out of his West Nile experience.

His right arm is paralyzed and he only has a half the normal use of his left. Since its almost impossible for a layperson to tell if the mosquitos buzzing around is a Culex, he advised people not to take them lightly.

I would just say be more careful, he said. Use repellent. If theyre biting, go inside.

Randy Hunter

Throughout his life, 70 year-old Randy Hunter was rarely sick. But his good health went downhill drastically two years ago on a seemingly harmless afternoon working on the computer in the backyard.

He never felt the bite, said his wife, Mareena, but the illness crept on him. Hunter began to feel tired and was suddenly sleeping a lot.

He kept saying he didnt feel well. We tested him for COVID and it came back negative, Mareena said.

The next day, Hunter fell getting out of the shower. He was rushed to the ICU at Rose Medical Center, where he stayed for three weeks. For the last two years, lung complications have sent him to seven different hospitals.

Today, the former head of the risk department for a commercial real estate company is completely deaf and has just gotten to point where he can load himself into a wheelchair.

His fingers work well enough now that he can steer it, said his wife.

When will it end?

It takes two-to-three weeks after a bite from an infected mosquito before West Nile symptoms start to show, so the spiked numbers being reported this week are indicative of people who were bit around Labor Day.

The good news, Wanek assured Coloradans, is that West Nile will start to slow down once the nights get cooler and the Culex mosquito begins its overwintering mode.

Thats when theyll stop biting people, Wanek said.

Leis said that his neurologists did not understand West Nile virus.

When I asked them about a vaccine or a cure, they said they had no idea, he said. But he wonders, even if there was a vaccine for the virus, How many people would take it?
Alan Gottlieb is editor of Denver-based public education watchdog boardhawk.org. Gottlieb covered Denver Public Schools as a newspaper reporter in the mid-1990s, worked as an education program officer for The Piton Foundation and co-founded Education News Colorado and Chalkbeat.
Denver Democratic activist and, now, state Rep. Tim Hernandez, left, raises his fist after being appointed by a vacancy committee last month to the state House of Representatives. (Gazette file photo)
Robert Kennah is a director at large for the Parker Water & Sanitation District. He was elected to the districts board in 2023. The views expressed here are his own.
Construction cranes consume the skies above downtown Colorado Springs, as numerous apartment complexes are under construction.
According to the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, a hiker spent the night lost at Walker Ranch Open Space last Sunday.

A report was received at about 6:30 p.m. that night regarding a 50-year-old female who had visited the area with her husband earlier that day. He had plans to fish and she had plans to hike.

The pair separated at South Boulder Creek with plans to meet at a bridge that intersected the creek and trail. By the time the husband arrived at the bridge at a pre-scheduled time, his wife was nowhere to be seen.

He waited for a bit and then went back to their vehicle to see if she was there. She wasn't, so he started to look for her in the area where she had planned to hike.

Meanwhile, the wife made a call to emergency dispatch. Unfortunately, her phone died and she was only able to tell the dispatcher that she was lost and what trailhead she had left from prior to the call getting dropped.

Deputies responded to the area and found the husband, with him able to confirm that it was his wife who was overdue from her hike.

An official search was initiated at 8 p.m., utilizing teams from Rocky Mountain Rescue Group and the Front Range Rescue Dogs. Crews searched trails in the area of Walker Ranch Loop, Eldorado Canyon State Park, and the South Boulder Creek Drainage through the night, but were unable to locate the missing hiker.

The search was put on a brief pause at 4 a.m. on Monday before continuing at 8 a.m. with new searchers. A notification was also sent to homeowners in the area instructing them to be on the lookout for the subject.

At about 10 a.m., the lost hiker walked into the visitor center at Eldorado Canyon State Park and was safe and uninjured. She was transported back to Walker Ranch Trailhead and reunited with her husband.

As a bird flies, this trailhead is about 2.75 miles from the visitor center, though it's very unlikely that the missing hiker was walking in a straight line. Details about what led to the hiker getting lost were not included in the press release on the matter, though the sheriff's office did note that the positive outcome of the mission was in part due to the hiker's preparation and planning, which allowed her to be alright amid plummeting nighttime temperatures.
In what's likely to be one of the more closely watched state races in the 2024 election, El Paso County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf Wednesday announced he will run for Senate District 12.

The seat is currently held by a term-limited fellow Republican, Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs.

VanderWerf will face Democratic state Rep. Marc Snyder of Manitou Springs for the seat next year.

The Senate District 12 seat is likely to be one of at least three targeted by Democrats in their effort to reach 24 seats in the state Senate, a number that in 2025 would give them a supermajority. Democrats currently hold a 23-12 advantage.

If Democrats reach their Senate target while continuing to hold their supermajority in the House, the majority party would have the ability to refer controversial ballot measures to the voters, such as on the right to an abortion, which is currently guaranteed only by statute.

"Citizens are telling me that they want a strong voice in Denver advocating for less regulation, more freedom, lower prices, smooth roads, less crime and drugs, strong support of our military families and veterans, good paying jobs for families to afford decent housing and safe quality schools, VanderWerf said in a statement Wednesday.

While that is a long list, I feel that I have been preparing for this challenge while serving nearly seven years on the El Paso County Commission where we kept taxes low, eliminated regulations strengthened law enforcement and improved the roads in El Paso County, said VanderWerf. I look forward to engaging with the good people of Senate District 12 and listening to their hopes for Colorados future.

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VanderWerf is an Air Force veteran and the owner of several businesses. He is in his second term on the El Paso County Commission.

Snyder is wrapping up his third term in the Colorado House but filed to run for Senate District 12 earlier this month. He previously served as mayor of Manitou Springs from 2010 to 2016 and on the city council since 2004.

Im proud of the work I have done as mayor and in the legislature over the past five years, but there is still more work to be done, Snyder said. El Paso County needs a legislator who will continue to make a resilient place to live.

If elected, Snyder would be the first Democrat to represent SD 12.

Redistricting following the 2020 census made a bit of a mess in Colorado Springs, with SD 12 at the center. The commission redrew boundaries that put the primary residences of three current state senators in SD 12. In addition to Gardner, who was the last person elected from the district and by law the one who would keep the seat, that included Democratic Sen. Pete Lee and Republican Sen. Dennis Hisey. Hisey rented an apartment in Senate District 11 in order to run in 2022, but lost to Democratic Tony Exum, Sr., who was then a state representative. Lee listed his official residence as a rental unit in Senate District 11, while maintaining a home in SD 12. Hisey was accused of voter fraud related to his residency but the Republican district attorney of El Paso County declined to pursue charges. However, DA Michael Allen did pursue voter fraud charges against Democrat Lee over his residency issues, but a judge dismissed those charges based on inaccurate information provided by the Colorado Supreme Court's Office of Attorney Registration and which was used to obtain an indictment from an El Paso County grand jury.

Colorado House
Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who refused to concede after narrowly losing the 2022 race for governor, is set to headline the Colorado GOP's annual fundraising dinner in November, state Republican Chairman Dave Williams announced on Tuesday.

The party's 2023 Centennial Dinner is scheduled for Nov. 4 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Loveland Hotel Conference Center & Spa in Loveland.

Williams said the state GOP has invited all "major" Republican presidential candidates to address the crowd at what could be the first opportunity to reach a large number of potential Colorado delegates ahead of next year's Super Tuesday primary on March 5.

Tickets to the fundraising dinner range from $125 for a single meal up to $14,650 to sponsor a table of 10 with access to a VIP reception.

A former TV news anchor and steadfast supporter of former President Donald Trump, Lake is expected to announce her candidacy for the Arizona Senate seat held by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent and former Democrat, as early as next month, Politico reported last week.

Although she lost the state's gubernatorial election last fall to Democrat Katie Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes, Lake has maintained without credible evidence that she won and continues to wage legal battles seeking to challenge the results.

Pundits have put Lake high on the list of potential Trump vice presidential running mates.

The Colorado Republican Party last week circulated a letter written by Lake endorsing a proposal to cancel next year's June 25 state-level primary election and instead nominate Republican candidates through an expanded caucus and assembly process.

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Under the proposal, which the state GOP's central committee plans to consider Saturday at a meeting in Castle Rock, the party would allow all registered Republicans to vote at assemblies held throughout the state.

The central committee last month voted down a procedural measure that would have made it easier to cancel the primary, but party leaders say they still plan to hold a vote on the question.

State Republicans have fallen short in attempts to "opt out" of Colorado's semi-open primaries  which allows unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in both major parties' primaries  every two years since voters approved the system in 2016.

"If you vote to opt-out, it will ensure that only committed Republican voters choose Republican nominees while eliminating election interference from radical Democrats," Lake wrote.

"Moreover, this change motivates candidates to connect substantively with voters, avoiding mudslinging and dishonest strategies. Internal party disputes remain internal, minimizing exposure to adversaries," she added.

Last month, the state Republican Party sued in federal court to overturn the state law that established Colorado's primary system, arguing that forcing the party to let unaffiliated voters help choose nominees violates the GOP's constitutional right to freedom of association, among other arguments.

Another Arizona Republican, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, delivered the keynote address at last year's Centennial Dinner, which was held in the spring on the eve of the Colorado Republicans' state assembly in Colorado Springs.
The 2024 election could put Democrats in a position to do something that's never happened before in Colorado: hold a supermajority in both the state House and Senate.

That could lead to controversial constitutional amendments being referred to the ballot from General Assembly Democrats, with protections for abortion topping the wish list.

There's little doubt that Democrats will easily retain their hold on the Senate, where they sit on a 23-12 advantage. But they are also targeting several Republican-held seats that could flip in 2024, giving the majority party that all-important 24th vote  and a supermajority.

The chamber faces several changes.

Term limits in the Senate will bring to an end the legislative careers of seven members  five Democrats and two Republicans  with 18 seats in all up for election just over 13 months from now.

Republicans hold slim to strong voter registration advantages in some of the most hotly contested Colorado Senate and House districts going into 2024.

But overperformance by Colorado Democrats in the 2022 general election, along with the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court and coupled with a state GOP party weakened by infighting and poor fundraising, suggests those Republican voter advantages could be overcome.

Heading into 2024, that potential overperformance by Democrats isn't confined to Colorado.

ABC News recently reported on 30 congressional and legislative special election contests in 2023, where, "on average, [Democrats] have won by margins 11 points higher than the weighted relative partisanship of their districts." It's not only impressive, the ABC report said, it's a potential sign of a Democratic wave election for 2024.

Key races: Colorado Senate

Democratic Rep. Marc Snyder of Manitou Springs hopes to claim the Senate District 12 seat currently held by term-limited Republican Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs. Snyder does not yet have a Republican challenger in a district that shows a 4-percentage-point advantage for Republicans in voter registration.

Colorado Springs showed some of the strongest overperformance by Democrats in 2022  voters there flipped two Republican-held House seats and a Republican-held Senate seat to Democrats.

Scott Bright of Platteville announced Monday he is running on the Republican ticket for the Senate District 13 seat of term-limited Democratic Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson. Priola changed his party affiliation in August 2022 from Republican to Democrat, which led to a short-lived court challenge by Republicans to recall him.

Redistricting data from the state's independent commission shows a half-percentage point advantage in voter registration for Democrats over Republicans. The district, which includes Greeley, is 46% Latino.

Democrat Matt Johnston of Brighton, who serves on the Brighton City Council, is also vying for the seat.

One race that has yet to garner any attention is Senate District 6, held by Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa. Republicans hold a 4.5-percentage-point advantage in the district, where 44% of voters are registered as unaffiliated. That contest has yet to draw a Democratic challenger.

Hot primaries among Democrats

Rep. Judy Amabile of Boulder, a Democrat, is not alone in the primary to succeed term-limited Senate President Steve Fenberg in Senate District 10, a Democratic stronghold. Democrat Jovita Schiffer of Superior is running for the seat that also does not have a Republican challenger as of Sept. 25.

Senate District 19, which shows a 6-percentage-point voter registration edge for Democrats, now has two Democratic challengers for the opportunity to succeed Democratic Sen. Rachel Zenzinger of Arvada, who is term-limited in 2024.

Rep. Lindsey Daugherty and Westminster City Councilman Obi Ezeadi, who was an intern for Zenzinger for part of the 2023 session, will face off in a Democratic primary. The race has yet to draw a Republican challenger.

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In the Democratic stronghold of Senate District 28, represented by term-limited Democratic Sen. Rhonda Fields of Aurora, a Democratic primary is shaping up between Rep. Mike Weissman and Idris Keith, both of Aurora. A Republican challenger, Cory Parella, is also running.

Of the Senate races where incumbents are running, two Democrats  Cole Buerger of Glenwood Springs and Barbara Bynum of Montrose  have filed to run for Senate District 5, held by Sen. Perry Will of New Castle, who was appointed to the seat by a Republican vacancy committee in January after Sen. Bob Rankin resigned.

Will is also a candidate for the seat, where Republicans hold a nearly 8-percentage-point advantage in voter registration.

Key races: Colorado House

Just like the Senate, the House is not expected to flip from Democratic to Republican control, with Democrats holding a 46-19 supermajority advantage.

However, there could be some opportunities for Republicans to take back a few of the seats they lost in 2022.

They would need to take three seats to erase the Democrats' supermajority in the House.

House District 19, which includes Erie, will be a rematch of the 2022 race between then-Republican Rep. Dan Woog and Democratic Rep. Jennifer Parenti. Parenti won by 3 percentage points in a race where a Libertarian candidate also took 2% of the vote. The district shows Republicans have a 1.2-percentage-point advantage in voter registration over Democrats.

A Republican primary is shaping up for the Colorado Springs House District 16 held by Democratic Rep. Stephanie Vigil. Republicans hold a 3-percentage-point voter registration advantage in the district, but Vigil won her 2022 election by just over 2 percentage points. A Libertarian candidate took another 2% of the vote.

Just six lawmakers are term-limited in the House in 2024  five Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Marc Catlin of Montrose.

Some of those seats are already drawing hot primaries.

The most contested race so far appears to be for House District 8 in Denver, represented by Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat who will be term-limited next year.

The district has the highest Democrat voter registration advantage of any in the state, with Democrats holding a 5-percentage-point advantage.

Six candidates have filed for the seat, although one lists an address in Berthoud, which would presumably make her ineligible for run for the seat since state law requires candidates to live in the districts they intend to represent. Candidate Christi DeVoe did not return a call for comment. She has not filed required documents with the Secretary of State's Office and missed one campaign finance filing due last July.

The other candidates are Auon'tai Anderson, vice president of the Denver Public Schools board of directors; Kwon Atlas; Victor Bencomo; Lindsay Gilchrist and Sharron Pettiford.

Of the six, Gilchrist leads in fundraising.

Another hot Democratic primary is likely for the Lakewood-based House District 30, held by term-limited Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy. His wife, Kyra, is running for the seat, along with Rebekkah Stewart and Rhiannon Wenning.

Weissman's House District 36 has already generated a three-way Democratic primary among Michael Carter, Bryan Lindstrom and Eric Olsen, with Republican challenger Pedro Espinoza awaiting the outcome.

Finally, all is not hearts and flowers among Democrats; at least, in Boulder.

One contest that has already drawn hints of racial friction among Boulder Democrats is House District 10, held by Rep. Junie Joseph of Boulder, who won her first term in 2022. Joseph, who is also a member of the Boulder City Council, is being challenged by fellow Democrat Tina Mueh.
Infinity Labs, a technology research and development firm focused on modeling, simulation and cybersecurity, plans to bring more than 60 new jobs to Colorado Springs, nearly doubling the size of the companys workforce.

Based in Dayton, Ohio, Infinity Labs will offer positions in software development and analysis at an average wage of $130,253.17 a year, the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC announced Wednesday.

The announcement follows news last month of Colorado Springs-based Boecores plans to bring more than 600 jobs to the region and invest nearly $8 million to remodel and expand its facilities; that was the latest in a series of economic development and job creation announcements in Colorado Springs during the past 10 months. Companies from Microchip to Entegris intend to bring over 2,000 jobs to the area and invest billions of dollars in the region.

Infinity Labs is excited to continue our expansion into Colorado, Ken Edge, Infinity Labs co-founder and CEO, said in a news release. We see tremendous opportunity with the growth of the defense and commercial aerospace industries as well as the high caliber of Colorado employees we are looking to add to the Infinity team.

Infinity Labs, which focuses on assessing weapons systems vulnerability, among other specialties, was established July 2020, said Jason Molnar, the companys chief strategy officer. Molnar is one of Infinity Labs six co-founders and leadership team members.

In the beginning, Molnar said some people saw the companys number of co-founders as a recipe for trouble, but he said it has been an strength for Infinity Labs.

We were all remote really for the first year and started winning work within the first four months including a $900 million contract, Molnar said. Thats what really propelled us from startup to established.

Infinity Labs employs over 60 workers across 13 states.

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Infinity Labs intends to start filling positions during the next several months, Molnar said, and eventually will need to lease space locally.

Infinity Labs has its eye on Catalyst Campus, a hub of work space where small businesses, startups and private enterprise can meet and collaborate with each other, military personnel and government agencies.

In July, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade approved $691,288 in performance-based Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits for Infinity Labs over an eight-year period. The incentives are contingent upon Infinity Labs, referred to as Project Verge throughout the Office of Economic Development review process, meeting net new job creation and salary requirements.

Infinity Labs, which considered Albuquerque and Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for its expansion, chose Colorado Springs because of the regions talent opportunities, the cost of doing business and the proximity to Department of Defense contractors thanks to the citys business and military ecosystem.

Colorado Springs retainment of U.S. Space Command made Infinity Labs expansion to the city an easy decision, Molnar said.

Colorado is an epicenter for aerospace and defense industries and fundamentally imperative to our national security, Molnar said in the release. Infinity Labs recognizes the strategic importance of the Centennial State and welcomes the opportunity to grow and flourish in the shadow of the Rockies.
Just a week after a draft was released on the district's website, teachers, parents and even students packed into the Greater Albany Public Schools' district office Monday evening, Sept. 25, to give their input on the district's proposed "controversial issues" policy revamp.

It proved  well, controversial, at least for many of the dozens who showed up to give their two cents.

A Place to Sleep - episode 1: Albany, part I For the first episode of A Place to Sleep, we take listeners to Marvin's Garden, a designated site for individuals experiencing homelessness in Albany, Oregon.

But school board members appeared to welcome the feedback during the work session, which ranged from concerns over what some called a vague "controversial topics" definition to the potential burden the draft's parental notification rule would place on teachers.

At the regularly scheduled school board meeting that followed the public testimony, board Chair Brad Wilson said community insight would help inform the district's fine-tuning of the policy going forward, which the district plans to finalize in October.

"It took our thought process in a new direction that we hadn't considered, which is exactly what we wanted from this meeting," Wilson said.

What's the proposal?

Under the draft proposal released last week, teachers must clear any lesson on a controversial issue  currently defined as any topic "society is in the process of debating on which there is honest disagreement"  with their principal and make a plan to notify parents.

Teachers would have to notify parents at least one week in advance about a lesson and devise alternative assignments for students who opt out.

The push to revamp the policy began this summer and, according to GAPS Superintendent Andy Gardner and some school board members, was prompted by complaints largely centered around how gender identity is discussed in the classroom.

What specific classes or lessons at the center of complaints remains unclear.

What the community has to say

Most at Monday's work session, however, had very specific complaints with the policy as currently proposed. That included concerns over the definition of a controversial topic and the parental notification rule.

Teachers like South Albany High School English teacher Brian Gold and South Albany career and technical education teacher Amanda Miles spoke about the burnout educators face and how the policy would add more to their plate.

"I would have prepared something today, but I taught every single class period today, and had kids in on my lunch," Miles told board members as she wrapped up her three-minute testimony at the podium.

"When are we going to be finding the time to do these things that are being asked of us" Gold asked, adding the new rules would also have a potential chilling effect, steering teachers clear of any topics deemed too controversial.

Another concern from some parents and teachers was the rules could be "weaponized" against marginalized students, particularly students of color and LGBTQ students.

Allyson Dean, who works with Education students at the University of Oregon, and who has a student at West Albany High, voiced concern about the proposed policy's language on promoting discussion of "all sides of an issue."

"There are also states that have abolished discussion of sexual identity, at least when it comes to minoritized identities. What's the limit on quote 'all sides of an issue?" Dean said.

On the other hand, GAPS parent Garrett Fletcher, who has a student at West Albany and another at Memorial Middle School, said he appreciated the proposed policy's acknowledgment of a "parent's authority" in education, though he felt schools shouldn't be teaching "things that are super controversial" either.

He also worried students would abuse the policy to get out of class.

"How do I know they will do this? Because that's what I would have done if I was in school," Fletcher said.

School board member Pete Morse told those gathered at the district office after nearly an hour into the public comment period that while he was grateful for the feedback, he felt the measure would help prevent parents from taking their students out of GAPS.

"We get a lot of complaints about this stuff," Morse said, adding that people had their "head in the hole" if they weren't paying attention to students leaving public education.

Enrollment has indeed dropped significantly for school districts across the country since the pandemic, though the decrease has mostly been attributed to lingering fears around COVID-19, student homelessness and surging mental health challenges.

Heather Carmichael, who has a student at West Albany High, said the draft's current definition of controversial topics would open the door for "political ideologies" to shape education and the policy overall wouldn't make her child, who is Black, feel welcome at the district.

She also cited bias incidents they've faced at school.

"We have a lot of underrepresented people and children who are relying on you, who don't know our perspective or understand our perspective, to represent us," Carmichael told the all-white and all-male school board.

Amelia Martinez, an eighth-grader at Memorial Middle, said of lot of what's she learning now, whether it's in social studies or health class, is controversial but also mandatory to know.

"I need to know it to pass my classes next year," Martinez said.

Next steps

The policy isn't settled yet. There's still an open survey on the district website, where community members can give feedback on the draft. That closes on Monday, Oct. 2.

According to the district's timeline, the school board will be ready to review and discuss the survey feedback by Monday, Oct. 9, and vote on the policy, if no changes are recommended.

After the work session, Superintendent Gardner underscored that the policy was still under review.

"I want to congratulate the community and express appreciation for the dialogue that occurred," Gardner said.

School board member Ryan Mattingly also said he appreciated the feedback.

"I actually did learn things that I hadn't thought coming in," he said.

"Unintended consequences are something we're really going to need to be aware of," he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.

Editor's note: This article was corrected to show Allyson Dean works with Education students at the University of Oregon.

Related stories:
DRY FORK  The crowd was noticeably more vocal for supervisor candidates Monday night in the third of a series of forums ahead of the November election in Pittsylvania County.

The latest event at Tunstall High School hosted by the Danville-Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce featured hopefuls for the Tunstall and Westover district seats for the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors.

The six candidates  a record number  vying for the clerk of court seat also appeared before residents.

Please remember that this is a forum and not a debate, Anne Moore-Sparks, president and CEO of the chamber, said to the supervisor candidates. So please focus what you will do if elected.

In three-minute increments, the candidates approached a lectern, adjusted the microphone and pitched their plans for office.

The last forum is planned to start at 6 p.m. Monday at Chatham High School.

All supervisor and clerk of court candidates will answer questions submitted from the public. Those answers will be shared with the media next month.

Tunstall district

Vic Ingram, the incumbent looking to retain his seat on the board of supervisors, received thunderous applause when he was introduced.

Ingram acknowledged Monday night that he suspended his campaign, only to start it again after an overwhelming number of requests for him to stay in the race.

Ingram served the county in law enforcement for 30 years, calling it one of the highlights of his life.

As I said, when I was running in 2019, give me four years to learn and four years to make stuff happen, he said. Boy have I learned.

He pointed to his opponent only living in the county for three years before briefly touching on infighting with members of the board.

Our citizens deserve so much better than whats been going on, he said.

Ingram vowed to continue to support plans for countywide internet, work for higher paying jobs and continue backing STEM  science, technology, engineering and math  programs in education.

He touted as chairman of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority  commonly called RIFA  he helped to work with the United States Navy to bring a $53 million training program to the region.

There are options within county government we can work to to keep taxes low, he explained after saying hes not a fan of raising taxes.

Ingram  a vocal supporter of a planned community in Axon  said that housing is a great need in the region. He helped organize community meetings with investors wanting to create a 10-year project to explain it to residents.

Without adequate housing the chance of growth is non existent, he said.

If given another term, he said hell continue to support business friendly communities with start-ups and helping stablished entities grow.

These men and women are the backbone of our community, he said.

Josh Austin, who is looking to unseat Ingram, also received equall loud applause from the audience when his time came to speak.

He first addressed his ties to the region.

Austin was born and raised in Ruffin, North Carolina, and moved to Brosville about three years ago after his family outgrew their home in nearby Rockingham County.

He said hes had ties to the area since 2000 when he met his wife, who was from Brosville. He also highlighted that his ancestors have deep roots in Pittsylvania.

So after living in North Carolina for the first 40 years of my life, my wife likes to to rub it in that she moved me back home, said.

With 19 years in construction, hes learned the process of building bridges and roads and became a senior inspector.

As a North Carolina certified firefighter and EMT, he said hes served in various leadership positions including as a line officer

So I hope that proves my support for not only fire, rescue and EMS, but all public safety departments, he said.

For political experience, he was a member of the Rockingham County School Board from 2012 to 2016 where he learned the process of budgets and how it worked.

I love our rural way of life and that was one of the stipulations when we were looking for a new house, he said.

He doesnt want it impacted by recent decisions, a clear link to the recent board-approved rezoning for the Axton project.

He said hes worked with the group of concerned residents in Axton over the summer, but stressed he was not against growth and development.

Instead, he wants it to be manageable and reasonable.

We cannot grow overnight, he said.

He supports growth in small business and agriculture, education with freedom of choice and fiscal responsibility.

Westover district

Ronald Scearce, another incumbent, is looking for a third term on the board of supervisors.

The Republican nominee is a Danville native who entered the Air Force in 1981 and retired in 2004 when he transitioned to a government contract job.

I moved back into this area in 2005, he said.

After two terms he said he has a track record of supporting First Amendment and Second Amendment rights.

I worked tirelessly to increase job opportunities, he said, explaining he also served on RIFA during the time when the region saw the most growth.

As vice chair of that board, he went to RiverStreet headquarters and helped to work out the details for the company to provide a fiber optic network for high-speed internet project to county residents.

By the time its complete in 2025, it will give about 95% of those living in Pittsylvania County access to broadband.

When it comes to fire and rescue, he said since he was elected those agencies have had an 86% increase to their budgets.

I realized there was a desperate need to install two 911 towers for critical radio issues, a project he said he also organized. We really havent had any radio coverage issues that Ive heard of since

The board of supervisors have been able to keep property taxes stable and shouldnt have to raise it if we are lucky, he said.

With new reassessment numbers coming in for county residents, he said its critical to have experienced leaders on the board.

Murray Whittle, a graduate of George Washington High School, is challenging Scearce.

In a brief speech, he said he worked for Plywood for 26 years. Adding in other industries puts his work experience at 45 years.

I have spent my working career as a trouble shooter, decision maker and problem solver, he said, also noting hes lived in the Westover area for 38 years.

His father started Plywood in Chatham that provided jobs and economic growth for the area, he said.

Whittle pledged to work with the board to come up with the best solutions for the issues at hand.

Encouraging residents to vote early, he said he would bring commonsense to the board of supervisors.

Clerk of court

After a quick swap with seating, the clerk of court candidates addressed the audience next.

Angie Reece Harris is the GOP nominee. Born and raised in Brosville, shes split 30 years equally working in court offices in Danville and Pittsylvania County. You must be a people person and have the willingness to work with others, she said of the position shes seeking. I can hit the ground running Jan. 1

Heidi Jones said she was hired after Mark Scarce became clerk nearly eight years ago. Since then, shes cross-trained in the office to know the many duties performed. I will give the deputy clerks the support they need to become efficient in their position, she said if elected, noting three new deputy clerks will be needed next year.

Jarrett Stone, a lifelong resident of Danville-Pittsylvania County, currently lives in Callands with his family. A deputy sheriff for more than 20 years, he said hes running on the platform of a leader. He said those in the clerks office need better pay with some working for near minimum wage. He also wants to expand online services.

Jennifer Wyatt, born and raised in Pittsylvania County, currently works for the Danville Sheriffs Office and teaches self-defense for seniors. I work closely with the courts and their employees on a daily basis, she said. Im a homegrown leader whos educated locally. She joined the Marine Corp after 9/11 and served in Iraq.

Karen Dixon said her roots run deep in Pittsylvania County. She touted her 34 years of experience spanning federal, local and private sectors. Ultimately I offer a common goal of understanding for whatever it is that is needed. She said if elected she will stay a committed partner and be an advocate for the residents.

Seth Scarce currently works in the county sheriffs office as an information technology specialist. A graduate of Tunstall High School, he went to Danville Community College and first worked in IT at Virginia Bank and Trust. Ive grown in my experience in this role, he said of the sheriffs office. He wants to continue the digitalization process for the clerks office.
On 27 September 2023, the European Commission released the first report on the State of the Digital Decade. The report analyses the collective progress made by the EU towards achieving Europe's digital transition until 2030.

The report includes the specific Digital Decade Country Reports (previously known as Digital Economy and Society Index, DESI) that have a closer look at each Member State's individual achievements over the last year in the following four cardinal pillars: digital skills, digital infrastructure, digitalisation of public services and digitalisation of businesses.

In the 2023's report, Luxembourg has been praised for its good progress in digital transformation, which has led to innovation in data centers and digital administration as well as a more skilled workforce.

Digital Skills

According to the report, Luxembourg is demonstrating strong performance with regard to the Digital Decade objectives related to digital skills. Luxembourg ranks 2nd, after Sweden, when it comes to the number of ICT specialists represented in total employment and with 64% of the population possessing at least basic digital skills, Luxembourg ranks 7th and is well above the EU average of 54%.

Digital infrastructure

Recognized as "one of EU's best performers in digital infrastructure" by the report, Luxembourg is significantly advancing towards meeting the EU targets "Fixed Very high-capacity networks coverage" (VHCN) and "5G coverage" of 100%. Luxembourg's high-speed VHCN (rank 5) and 5G coverage (rank 7) have steadily increased in the last years, with Luxembourg having 93% coverage for both, compared to 73% respectively 81% of the EU average.

Digitalisation of public services

In terms of digital public services to people and businesses, the report underlines that Luxembourg has made great strides in this area with a score of 95 out of 100 (rank 2) for citizens and 97 (rank 5) for businesses.

Digitalisation of businesses

While the report suggests that Luxembourg shows room for improvement in the digitalisation of businesses, in particular regarding the share of businesses using cloud services and selling online, the report also states that Luxembourg performs well on the share of businesses that (1) have implemented electronic information sharing, (2) use social media, (3) analyse big data and (4) use AI.

The report then lists a series of initiatives and programmes put in place in Luxembourg to support the digitalisation of businesses and highlights the European Space Resources Innovation Centre's start-up Support Programme (ESRIC SSP) as a best practice.

It should be noted that the report did not yet take into account two important initiatives, officially announced by the Government in March and June 2023 respectively, namely the launch of the "Luxembourg Future Fund 2" which succeeds Luxembourg Future Fund 1 with a capital of EUR 200 million and the continued investment of the state in the Digital Tech Fund with the creation of a new sub-fund in the fund to stimulate the development of start-ups in Luxembourg.

"We are proud of the results in this year's Digital Decade Country Report, especially in the areas of digital infrastructure and digitalisation of public services. Nevertheless, we also recognize areas for improvement. This feedback helps Luxembourg as we need to stay in the group of digital frontrunners", stated Prime minister, minister for Communications and Media and minister for Digitalisation, Xavier Bettel.

Information on the Digital Decade Country Report (DDCR)

Since 2014, reports on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI)  the predecessor of the DDCR  have allowed the European Commission to monitor the progress made by Member States in the digital field. The DDCR report consists of country profiles and thematic chapters.

Country-specific reports on the DDCR combine quantitative data from DDCR indicators with policy considerations and best practices specific to each country.

You can access the report here, and for additional details on the methodology, please refer to this source.

Released by the Department of Media, Connectivity and Digital Policy
GREENSBORO  In keeping with the states push towards clean energy, a local startup announced Tuesday it plans to launch a school next year that will train a new workforce of battery technicians for the Triad.

Gov. Roy Cooper visited Soelects facilities for the announcement of the new school  aptly named the Carolina Battery Institute  which will partner with area community colleges and admit 600 students every year. The Carolina Battery Institute will offer three courses on quality control, battery testing and battery manufacturing courses, according to June Sunwoo, Soelects senior manager of business development.

Sunwoo said that the courses will be held at Soelects facilities at 4355 Federal Drive in Greensboro. The company has an affiliation agreement with Forsyth Tech, and anticipates future agreements with GTCC and Randolph Community College in Asheboro.

During the announcement, CEO Jin Cho said that finding the right people has been a challenge for Soelect.

Weve faced many challenges to hire the right, skilled workers, Cho said. Especially battery technicians.

Dr. Alan Murdock, Forsyth Techs chief economic mobility officer, said that he was excited for the school to be affiliated with such a strong company for battery production.

Theyve said theyre having a hard time hiring that workforce, so lets create the solution, Murdock said.

Soelects announcement is part of the states Clean Energy Week, which is an effort to highlight North Carolinas progress in transitioning to a future reliant on renewable sources.

North Carolina is the epicenter of clean energy, Cooper told those in attendance on Tuesday. When I talk to some in government who are less enthusiastic about it, I dont even talk about climate change, though we have to talk about it. What I talk about is the green. If you talk to any CEO of any car company in the world, they will tell you that they are stumbling all over themselves to get into the market first for affordable vehicles.

Cooper commended Soelect and its CEO and founder, Sung Jin-Cho, who conducted major research on solid-state batteries for four years at N.C. A&T before starting his company.

Soelect was founded in 2018 and has raised more than $13 million from a pool of investors that include General Motors. In April 2022, Soelect announced a $200 million joint partnership with a foreign company called Lotte Ventures to make advanced battery components for electric vehicles in the U.S.

The company also appointed former U.S. Sen. Richard Burr as a senior advisor during the same month in order to use his experience to find both public and private investment sources.

During the announcement, Cho referenced the strong demand for battery manufacturing in the Triad because of investments from companies such as Toyota, John Deere and Boom Supersonic.

Emily Holland, a corporate communications manager for Toyota who attended the announcement, said that Toyota is reviewing and considering what a possible partnership with the Carolina Battery Institute would look like.

In a statement, Piedmont Triad Partnership CEO Mike Fox said that the launch of the Carolina Battery Institute is further evidence that the Carolina Core  a 120-plus mile stretch of central North Carolina that includes the Triad  has emerged as a global transportation technology hub.

With more than $15 billion in recent capital investment pouring into the Carolina Core, he said, the region has diversified from its rich legacy of textiles, tobacco and furniture manufacturing to a future-forward economy catalyzed by research, innovation and business partnerships coming out of local colleges and universities.
Drug majorsaid it has introduced drone-powered deliveries of critical medicines for hospitals and pharmacies in Himachal Pradesh in partnership with Skye Air Mobility. The Mumbai-based firm aims to deliver medicines for cardiac, respiratory, and other essential chronic therapies as part of the initiative.The use of drones will support on-time deliveries of the company's medicines to chemists and clinics in remote areas while minimizing risks such as delays, temperature excursions affecting cold chain products, and roadside accidents."As we accelerate our digital agenda across all functions, implementing drone-powered distribution enhances our supply chain resilience, strengthens connects with channel partners, helps us stay future and maintain reliable, prompt delivery of our trusted, high-quality drugs to stockists and patients in the region," Cipla Global Supply Chain Head Swapn Malpani said.The drug firm said it also aims to scale the service in the future through distribution to hospitals and expand market coverage to inaccessible and hilly terrains such as Uttarakhand and the Northeast region in India.
Three Montana women made Time magazines Time100 Next list, touting them as the worlds rising stars.

Actor Lily Gladstone, environmental activist Rikki Held and Missoula Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr are featured in the Sept. 25 edition of the magazine now celebrating its 100th year.

Sam Jacobs, Times editor in chief, said the list was assembled through research and reporting from across the magazines global network of editors and correspondents.

The list was described by Jacobs as an opportunity to show what society's future and future leaders will look like. Categories included artists, phenoms, leaders, innovators and advocates.

The group reportedly sifted through hundreds of suggestions then met weekly to debate who belongs on the list.

Cate Matthews, an editorial director with the magazine, said: Through this process we get to know so many extraordinary leaders who are creating change across the world. Our hope is that the list offers a glimpse into their important work.

Jacobs said this years list includes dozens of people who are engineering new solutions to societys most pressing problems.

They are expected to gather with others on the list in New York City in October for a dinner party.

Actor Riley Keough wrote that Gladstone, 37, shows magnetism and depth on screen.

In all of Lilys performances, she is able to bring a raw presence and incredible emotional history, Keough wrote. Its hard to keep your eyes off of her. She is exhilarating.

Gladstone was raised in Browning and is of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage. She also graduated from the University of Montana. She is now appearing in the Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon.

Keough said Gladstone, who was listed among the lists section featuring artists, is not only talented, but has an incredible work ethic and is thoughtful and kind on set.

She is a star onscreen and a real light in the world off-screen, Keough wrote.

Time Reporter Sanya Mansoor recounted Zephyrs censure by Republicans in the state Legislature in 2023 shortly after she said those who supported bills that would restrict gender-affirming care would have blood on your hands.

Zephyr, the first openly transgender woman elected to the Montana Legislature, was banned from the House floor but continued to show up at the Capitol to represent her district and voted remotely.

Mansoor noted the bill passed, but in the months since, Zephyr  now widely known for her work to combat it  has continued to use her national profile to champion protections for transgender Americans.

The 35-year-old Zephyr was listed among the leaders on the Time list.

Zephyr made note of the honor Sept. 13 and 14 on X, formerly known as Twitter. She also mentioned that Held and Gladstone were on the list as well.

It's an absolute joy to represent Missoula. And all of the work  however challengingalways feels light, because I know I'm fighting alongside so many amazing people to build a better, kinder world, she wrote.

Rikki Held made the list for her advocacy for the environment as lead plaintiff in the Held v. Montana lawsuit involving 15 other youths in which the state was successfully sued for violating its own constitutional guarantee that it would provide citizens a clean and healthful environment.

Held, 22, of Broadus, was listed in the "advocates" portion of the Time list.

Jeffrey Kluger, editor at large at Time, called the ruling historic and was one that could provide a road map for similar efforts.

He said Held plans to pursue a graduate degree in climate or hydrology.

Her father, Steve, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he never thought that Rikki and the other young plaintiffs winning the climate case would lead to so many things.

Its been unbelievable, he said, adding his daughter shuns the limelight. I have been more excited about it than she has.

Steve Held said of the Time magazine honor that Rikki Held does not take credit or claim for any of her accomplishments.

It is just so not her, he said, but the effort to do the right thing is definitely 100% her.

Rikki was not available for comment, her father said, adding she joined the Peace Corps and arrived in Kenya a few days ago to begin work.
A long white semi-truck made a stop in Helena early Wednesday, hauling tons of meat that will help feed needy Montanans.

Producer Partnership dropped off 2,400 pounds of donated meat to Helena Food Share, part of a multi-day delivering of food to the Montana Food Bank Network and their partners throughout the state.

The delivery, in a truck with the words "Farmers and Ranchers working to end hunger in Montana" emblazoned on the side, was part of 42,000 pounds of USDA inspected pork, breakfast sausage and ground beef to help communities statewide.

Matt Pierson, president and founder of Livingston-based Producer Partnership, was asked why he made the donation.

Because we can, he said as he tugged at his work gloves after steering a pallet-full of meat into a back storage room of Helena Food Share at 1616 Lewis St.

Kim Dale, program operations director for Helena Food Share, watched the meat get hauled into the storage area.

Pretty darn cool, huh? she said shortly after a pallet rolled by.

She said the meat would be used in the grocery share program that runs on weekdays, and some of it would also be given to about 150 senior commodity users.

Bruce Day, executive director of Helena Food Share, was among those awaiting the arrival of the semi-truck.

Were thrilled to be a part of this, he said.

Producer Partnership was founded in 2020 as a result of neighbors looking to help each other during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pierson said Producers was the first federally inspected, nonprofit-owned-and-operated processing facility in the United States.

Theres nobody else like us, Pierson said.

He said people were getting an amazing product and it was higher-quality meat than they can get in a grocery store.

Stops elsewhere so far have included Billings, Bozeman and Butte. Other scheduled stops are Great Falls, Conrad and Browning, then Kalispell, Missoula and Deer Lodge.

Brent Weisgram, vice president and chief operations officer for Montana Food Bank Network, said in a news release it is truly amazing to see what the Producer Partnership has accomplished in such a short amount of time.

He said they have eliminated obstacles and simplified the process to allow everyone who wants to get involved the opportunity to contribute.

That explains why they have been able to provide Montana Food Bank Network with over 150,000 pounds of locally donated beef and pork for distribution statewide to help our local seniors, families, and children, he said.

Producer Partnerships gift was not the only meat donation Helena Food Share recently received.

The Elk Creek Hutterite Colony near Augusta delivered 880 pounds of pork in August. It was donated by the colony and processed at the Producer Partnership for Montana Food Banks.

William Kleinsasser, Eli Wipf and Sam Kleinsasser run the pig division at the Elk Creek Colony.

Wipf said they wanted to be a part of the statewide effort and support the Helena community.

As the Elk Creek Colony, we felt it was important to direct our sows to the Helena area to give back to the community that supports us, he said.

Since its founding, the Producer Partnership has been awarded 501(c)3 nonprofit status, hired staff, built a processing facility, gained federal inspection, and donated nearly 250,000 pounds of Montana-raised animal protein to Montana Food Bank Network and other charities across the Big Sky State. For more information, visit https://www.producerpartnership.com/
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6, killing nearly 55,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless.

Editor's note This is the sixth email the Independent Record has received from Hands On Global Executive Director Valerie Hellermann of Helena, who is delivering medical aid and offering comfort to people in Ukraine and Syrian refugees living in Hatay,Turkey (Turkiye), on the Syrian/Turkey border.

She is making her fourth trip overseas to areas in need since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. She left Helena on Sept. 4 and plans to spend five weeks overseas. She started this trip in Ukraine, but was rerouted to Turkey to set up a mobile clinic. This email from Hellermann arrived 10:51 p.m. Tuesday. Another Syrian camp, it was by far the worst. Just bare bones. Tents where the dust and sand blows through, a camp pad for beds, very limited access to clean water.

A really nice Syrian man was running the camp. He is there with his 9-year-old son. His wife was trapped under the rubble, rescued after three days and taken by rescue workers for medical care. He didnt know where. There was such confusion at the time.

It took him four months to find out she died.

He and his son are trying to manage their grief. They have nothing but each other. He told us he was a refugee from Idlib, Syria, due to the war. He had been shot in the head and recovered and escaped with his wife and son. They were in a border camp for a long time and finally got to Hatay and lived in a small house that was destroyed in the earthquake.

It is just one of so many heartbreaking stories.

We still are having issues with access to many of the Syrian camps.

The Turkish government has an immigration official at each camp and they are not supposed to allow aid workers into the camps. Many are sympathetic and know there is a dire needed and so they dont see us, though we have tea with them. Everyday it takes negotiations. We silently witness as we provide medical care.

We went to a camp of 50 families in the middle of a field of rubble.

It was horrible.

All their homes were destroyed. Many did not even have a tent just tarps.

They said the government has not helped them at all except occasionally they are given bread. There were several elderly just sitting under tarps staring out. Kids not in school.

We decided they needed food and so we bought food for 50 families -- lentils, white beans, rice, oil, salt. Food is medicine.

It took us an hour to find an open grocery store in this area, one will be reopening next week but so many had been totally destroyed.

The Turkish people are steadily being moved into container housing, although many are still in tents.

It is easier to work in these areas because the government has provided more services and has given permission to provide medical care. These folks still suffer greatly and we have heard their stories of loss.

Some of the tents have been furnished with salvaged furniture, refrigerators and things from their homes. Some lost everything. It is kind of funny to occasionally see a really beautiful upholstered chair outside a tent

There is still massive disruption of services, business, banks jobs, schools even 7 months from the quake. The banks are now a line of maybe 8 iso boxes with an ATM machine attached all in a row.

But people again show their resilience. Yesterday, we passed a van set up on the side of the road with a generator hooked up to a very fancy espresso machine. He was set up for business. Restaurants and businesses can be found inside tents or small containers or the back of cars.

There have been some container clinics set up around the town to access medical care but X-ray machines and labs are not available. The new hospital has very limited services. Recovery takes years .

It is really disturbing how blatantly the government has ignored the needs of the Syrians. I understand the need to help your own people but arent we all really one human family?

I am frustrated tired, and challenged by the politics of aid distribution.

My team is strong and we support each other.
Days before the United States government may shut down in a budget crisis and days after a tiny central Asian republic militarily collapsed, former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch visited Missoula with her own lessons from the edge of world affairs.

Diplomacy is an art, not a science, Yovanovitch said on Wednesday, shortly before her lecture at the University of Montanas Mansfield Dialogues. And while deliberative democratic governments can be maddeningly slow compared to authoritarians with short decision timelines, she maintained the worlds people were served far better by democracies than dictatorships.

That makes the potential political delay in additional funding for Ukraines counteroffensive against the Russian invasion a colossal mistake, in the opinion of the 33-year career diplomat.

We need to persuade people that the war in Ukraine is genocidal, Yovanovitch said. And it is a fight about our national security. If we dont, we will have to come to terms with Russia sooner or later, in a way that may not be to our advantage.

Yovanovitch was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019 when the Trump administration recalled her shortly before Donald Trump was impeached for withholding aid to the country after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky resisted his demands to investigate Hunter Bidens business dealings there. She testified about how Trumps personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani and his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman ran a back-channel effort to get her fired.

If you're interested Former U.S. Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will speak at the Mansfield Center's 40th Anniversary Dialogues Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the University of Montana ALI Auditorium. To attend the lecture remotely, click here.

Parnas and Fruman were later convicted of campaign finance violations after they pledged to raising $20,000 for an unnamed U.S. congressman if he helped get Yovanovitch removed from her ambassadorship. Giuliani faces 13 felony charges for election interference in Georgia and may lose his law license. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted in the Senate.

Trump live-tweeted about firing Yovanovitch while she was testifying during his impeachment inquiry Former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney rebuked Trump for that at the time. Cheney will be in Missoula Oct. 5 to keynote the Mansfield Dialogues 40th anniversary activities.

Yovanovitch and Mansfield Center Director Deena Mansour have known each other since 1991 when they both worked in Washington, D.C. In addition to writing a best-selling memoir, Lessons from the Edge, Yovanovitch is a non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During her diplomatic career, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine. She also worked in Russia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Somalia, and in multiple assignments in Washington, including as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she coordinated policy on European and global security issues.

Before coming to Missoula for the Mansfield gathering, Yovanovitch was in Ukraine for a first-hand update.

She said the Ukrainian military has managed to push back a much larger Russian force with the assistance of about 5% of the annual U.S. defense budget.

And thats with no U.S. boots on the ground, she said. Thats a really good deal for us.
DECATUR  A group of anti-abortion demonstrators plans to spend the coming weeks engaged in a prayer vigil across the street from Planned Parenthood in Decatur.

Were here to pray for an end to abortion, internationally but specifically in the Decatur community, said Liz Wherley, one of a group that kicked off the 40 Days for Life campaign in the parking lot of Hourans Florist on Wednesday.

The campaign comes as abortion rights advocates report that the state is experiencing a surge of visitors seeking the procedure. Illinois Democratic leadership has pledged to protect abortion access, while 14 other states banned the procedure and several others imposed greater restrictions after last years Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

We know God does amazing things in 40-day segments, so the time is significant, not just Biblically but because 40 Days for Life has done this internationally and saved tens of thousands of babies, Wherley said.

There were more than 50,000 abortions performed in Illinois in 2021, with some 11,000 of those for out-of-state residents, according to the most recently available data from the state Department of Public Health.

That data does not reflect the dynamic since the 2022 high court decision. But Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, said in December that the number of patients from other states traveling to the organizations health centers in Illinois is at a historic high.

Illinois law allows abortion until viability, which means the fetus can survive outside the womb. Those under 18 can consent to an abortion without notifying a parent or guardian.

Decaturs Planned Parenthood facility does not perform surgical abortions, but does provide medication abortions in the first 11 weeks of pregnancy.

The international 40 Days campaign calls on Christians to meet every day to hold prayer vigils to end abortion. Churches ask members to volunteer to spend time at a vigil location daily during the effort, and members must sign a pledge to be peaceful.

We are peaceful people because we are Gods people, said the Rev. Rob Goodwin, senior pastor of St. Pauls Lutheran Church, who opened Wednesdays vigil with prayer.

The reason for choosing 40 days for the effort is that in the Bible, 40 days or years is often a time of prayer, fasting or significance: it rained for 40 days and 40 nights during the flood in Noahs time; the Israelites wandered for 40 years on their way to the Promised Land; Jesus was tempted in the desert for 40 days before beginning his public ministry.

Goodwin announced the event at his church on Sunday and had a table set up where people could sign up to participate and plans to do so every Sunday, he said. During Wednesdays vigil, he read from the book of Psalms:

For you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mothers womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

What an amazing thing to think that God made us, even before we were formed in the womb, Goodwin said. He also was there when we were formed in the womb and we were a valuable person to him at that point.

The 40 Days for Life campaign suggests participants choose a place near a Planned Parenthood or other abortion provider, and if there is none in a community, to hold the vigil near a courthouse or government facility.

Hourans was chosen, said Decaturs coordinator Cecilia Kehoe, for its proximity to Planned Parenthood and because the groups must be on private property or a public sidewalk. Hourans gave the group permission to use their parking area. The daily prayer vigil will continue through Nov. 5.

I want to help save life and change minds and hearts, said Kehoe, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. I dont want lives ruined through abortion, because I know its not good for us, and its not Gods will.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois honors bodily autonomy and freedom of expression for all people including those who oppose access to essential health care like abortion services," Cristina Villarreal, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, said in a statement. "At PPIL we provide patients information on all the full spectrum of abortion and pregnancy options so people can make the best decision for their body, their family and their future. We continue to ensure the safety and protection of our patients and staff.

Abortion in America: How access and attitudes have changed through the centuries Abortion in America: How access and attitudes have changed through the centuries Pre-1850: Abortions in early America are commonplace Mid-1800s: Birth of the American Medical Association shifts abortion oversight from midwives to doctors; abortion is criminalized 1960s: 'Back-alley butchers,' birth control, and protests 1970s: Roe v. Wade protects women's right to abortion; politics shift 1980s-2000s: Legal challenges to Roe v. Wade introduce restrictions 2020s: Roe v. Wade is overturned; Postal Service allowed to mail abortion medication
DECATUR  Two workers injured in the Sept. 10 explosion at Archer Daniels Midland Co.'s East Plant in Decatur remain hospitalized.

"As of today, two colleagues remain in the hospital. We continue to prioritize outreach and support to our injured colleagues and their families as they recover," the company said in a statement posted at 4 p.m. Monday on its website.

Decatur firefighters, who responded to the explosion shortly after 7 p.m., said they counted eight injured workers when they arrived. Six were taken from the scene by ambulance, and four Medivac helicopters were used to airlift the injured to trauma centers.

The Herald & Review has become aware of GoFundMe accounts having been created for two of the injured workers, Yoan Heredia of Tuscola and Kaleb Ogilvie of Decatur, to assist their families with travel and hotel expenses during their hospital recovery. It was unclear Wednesday if they are the two workers who are continuing to receive hospital treatment.

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation as operation of the massive Decatur facility along Faries Parkway makes progress toward normal operation.

"We resumed corn deliveries and normal operations at the corn plant last week, and we remain on track to restart the majority of protein production at the East Plant in the coming weeks," the statement went on to say. "We are continuing to conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident."
DECATUR  A Decatur man is denying charges that accuse him of being the serial rapist of a teenage girl.

Ronnie E. Runyon, 60, faces eight counts of rape and two charges alleging aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

A sworn affidavit from Decatur police said the allegations date to December 2021 when the child was 14 and the assaults of her continued through July of this year.

Police reports described the case as being complicated as the traumatized child, who had initially reported what was happening, eventually withdrew her cooperation before talking to police again.

The affidavit, signed by Detective Jason Danner, said the pattern of repeated rapes continued, however, and were reported to police in August by a case worker with the Department of Children and Family Services.

The DCFS had already intervened to warn Runyon to stay away from the child and he was then living in a recreational vehicle parked near her home watched by a surveillance camera.

The victim is quoted as telling police Runyon lured her to the RV on July 28 with the pretext of talking to her about an issue with her pet dog and instructing how to avoid the camera. She said she fell asleep after they spoke and later woke up to find she was being raped.

Danner said an analysis of Runyons cell phone showed some 119 pages of messages between him and the girl after he had been warned by DCFS to have no contact with her.

Ronald tells (the girl) he might go to prison and tells her to Just say nothing happened, said Danner.

Even though Ronald is forbidden to have no contact with (the girl), he continued to find ways to see her.

The detective said he confronted Runyon about the phone messages as the defendant continued to deny both the accusations and even having any contact with the child.

In a Mirandized interview, he denied having sexual intercourse with (the girl) but stated Im sorry. When asked what he is sorry for, he stated everything, Danner reports in the affidavit.

After continued questioning, he claimed he was sorry but did not admit to sexually assaulting (the girl). He acknowledged she was underage by stating I dont have sex with kids.

Runyon appeared in Macon County Circuit Court on Sept. 20 for a preliminary hearing and is due back in court for a pretrial hearing Oct. 31. His arrest Aug. 30 precedes the introduction of no-cash bail in Illinois, and he remained held Wednesday in the Macon County Jail with bail set at $350,000. Prosecutors had asked for bail of $500,000.

2023 mugshots from the Herald & Review Lourash Hirstein Phillip Gehrken Joseph A. Williams Jetrevius O. Jarrett Edwards King-Woods Wilson Derrickson Colby J. Park
DECATUR  A judge told a Decatur couple accused of child pornography that some of the charges against them have been dismissed.

Macon County Circuit Court Judge Lindsey Shelton issued a written decision in a court hearing Tuesday that dismissed two counts of possession of child pornography against Douglas R. Nichols and six counts of child pornography possession filed against his wife, Kelly R. Nichols.

The judge ruled two videos offered as evidence in those charges did not meet the legal standard of lewd exhibition.

But that still leaves Douglas Nichols, 54, facing 10 further counts accusing him of the possession of child pornography. And in the case of 52-year-old Kelly Nichols, the dismissals still leave her charged with 12 other child pornography possession offenses.

And her husband is also accused of an additional four counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and eight charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving rape and other sex crimes against a female under the age of 18. Those charges were not part of the grand jury indictment.

Both defendants have entered not guilty pleas on all counts.

The latest move in the case comes after the defendants attorneys  Courtney Anderson for Kelly Nichols and Andrew Wessler for her husband  had filed a motion seeking to dismiss all the child pornography charges in the case.

The attorneys argued that none of the images, many featuring nude or partially clothed young children with whom the couple had a personal relationship, met the standard of lewd exhibition required by the law.

In two detailed responses running to 10 pages for each defendant, the judge carefully analyzed multiple images and videos before deciding which would stay as charges and which could be rejected.

The defense attorneys had gone further, however, and pressed for the dismissal of the indictments against the Nichols couple on other grounds as well.

It was claimed the grand jury that returned the indictments had acted improperly by investigating the affairs of citizens where no criminal conduct was involved. In arguing the defense motion at a Sept. 15 hearing, Wessler had said the Nichols couple were the victims of a witch hunt.

The lawyers also accused the Macon County States Attorneys Office of prosecutorial misconduct by telling grand jurors to ignore the relationship of the alleged victims with the defendants when deciding whether pictures and videos met the standard of pornography or not. The judge was also told prosecutors had misled the jury on the exact legal definition of pornography.

But the judge, after pondering the issue for a week, rejected all these arguments. Shelton said she had reviewed transcripts of the grand jury hearings and concluded the prosecutor  Macon County States Attorney Scott Rueter  had carefully laid out the legal definitions of what makes an image or video child pornography.

...The prosecutor tells the grand jury its for them to decide if the images are normal or not, Shelton writes in her decision.

And she noted jurors had been presented with 16 images but only decided 12 of them met the standard of indictable offenses.

For the above-stated reasons, this court finds that the state did not commit any prosecutorial misconduct, Shelton added.

Douglas and Kelly Nichols had been arraigned on the charges in January. And while the bulk of those charges were handed down in the grand jury indictment, the child rape and sex allegations against Douglas Nichols were filed against him by Rueter after he had reviewed an extensive Decatur police investigation.

The couple, who have been released on bail, were not present for Tuesdays court hearing where the judge asked both sides of the case when they would be ready to proceed.

Wessler asked for more time while electronics experts hired by the defense examined large amounts of video and picture evidence gathered by detectives who worked the cases. Rueter had no objection but raised the possibility the prosecution may need to recruit its own expert help in rebuttal of whatever claims end up being made about the evidence by the defense.

Shelton scheduled a pretrial hearing for Oct. 27.

2023 mugshots from the Herald & Review Lourash Hirstein Phillip Gehrken Joseph A. Williams Jetrevius O. Jarrett Edwards King-Woods Wilson Derrickson Colby J. Park
DECATUR  American Dreamer STEM Academy is changing its name to Ellsworth Dansby Jr. Magnet School.

The new K-8 magnet school, which will celebrate its groundbreaking at 10 a.m. Friday at the building site, 2160 W. Center St., will be the new home of the school under the new name.

The Decatur school board approved the new name at its Tuesday meeting.

Kids know Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, but when it comes to people who have given back to our community, we don't know who they are, said American Dreamer Principal Rida Ellis, who headed the committee to choose a new name for the school.

They were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama and flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during the war. Members of the Airmen earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and are credited with helping encourage the eventual integration of the country's armed forces. The program trained 1,000 pilots, in addition to about 14,000 navigators, bombardiers, instructors, aircraft and engine mechanics, control tower operators and other maintenance and support staff.

Dansby attained the rank of master sergeant during his years of service. He also served on the Decatur Board of Education from 1968 to 1971, during a time of controversy over busing to achieve racial integration.

According to a story in the Herald & Review after his death, Dansby was a respected civil rights leader and role model, who enjoyed restoring vintage aircraft. He served as a deacon and elder at First Presbyterian Church, state director of Project Equality of Illinois and Indiana, and state chairman of the Illinois Commission on Religion and Race.

He died on June 4, 1989, in Decatur.

Ellis learned about Dansby during a professional development session over the summer with 1st Class Educators, she said. The presenter showed her and her staff a photo of Dansby with other Tuskegee Airmen and none of them knew who he was. They'd already been discussing a new name for their school and when they learned about Dansby, they all agreed they wanted to honor him. They secured permission from his son and daughter to do so before bringing the proposal to the school board.

Board member Al Scheider, who said he supported the idea, said he would prefer the school drop the Magnet part of the proposed name and just call the school Ellsworth Dansby Jr. School, in case at some point in the future it is no longer a magnet school. The name won't be permanently engraved on the building itself. It will be on signs around the school, which will make it possible to remove the magnet part of the name if that should occur, and board President Bill Clevenger said he thought the board should approve the name as presented, and also obtain a brass plaque to be displayed prominently inside the school so students, staff and visitors will learn about Dansby.

It's nice to see schools named after Decatur heroes rather than somebody else, said board member Will Wetzel.

In other business, the board approved the district budget for the 2024 fiscal year and heard a report on enrollment as of the 10th attendance day. The district has lost 151 students since last year, with a total enrollment of 7,861.

Photos: WWII veterans in Normandy to mark D-Day
DECATUR  American Dreamer STEM Academy is changing its name to Ellsworth Dansby Jr. Magnet School.

The Decatur school board approved the new name at its Tuesday meeting. The new K-8 magnet school, which will celebrate its groundbreaking 10 a.m. Friday at the building site, 2160 W. Center St., will be the new home of the school under the new name.

Kids know Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, but when it comes to people who have given back to our community, we don't know who they are, said American Dreamer Principal Rida Ellis, who headed the committee to choose a new name for the school.

Dansby, a Decatur native and 1938 graduate of Millikin University, was the second Black aviator allowed into the Army Air Corps during World War II and become one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all Black military aviator company in the United States Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force. They were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama and flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during the war. Members of the Airmen earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and are credited with helping encourage the eventual integration of the country's armed forces. The program trained 1,000 pilots, in addition to about 14,000 navigators, bombardiers, instructors, aircraft and engine mechanics, control tower operators and other maintenance and support staff.

Dansby attained the rank of Master Sergeant during his years of service. He also served on the Decatur Board of Education from 1968 to 1971, during a time of controversy over busing to achieve racial integration. According to a story in the Herald & Review after his death, Dansby was a respected civil rights leader and role model, who enjoyed restoring vintage aircraft. He served as a deacon and elder at First Presbyterian Church, state director of Project Equality of Illinois and Indiana, and state chairman of the Illinois Commission on Religion and Race.

He died on June 4, 1989, in Decatur.

Ellis learned about Dansby during a professional development session over the summer with 1st Class Educators, she said. The presenter showed her and her staff a photo of Dansby with other Tuskegee Airmen and none of them knew who he was. They'd already been discussing a new name for their school and when they learned about Dansby, they all agreed they wanted to honor him. They secured permission from his son and daughter to do so before bringing the proposal to the school board.

Board member Al Scheider, who said he supported the idea, said he would prefer the school drop the Magnet part of the proposed name and just call the school Ellsworth Dansby Jr. School, in case at some point in the future it is no longer a magnet school. However, the name won't be permanently engraved on the building itself; it will be on signs around the school, which will make it possible to remove the magnet part of the name if that should occur, and board President Bill Clevenger said he thought the board should approve the name as presented, and also obtain a brass plaque to be displayed prominently inside the school so students, staff and visitors will learn about Dansby.

It's nice to see schools named after Decatur heroes rather than somebody else, said board member Will Wetzel.

Photos: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 The_USS_Arizona Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 USS Arizona Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941
The many months Josh Burton was in the hospital, dinosaurs kept him company.

They were there when his lungs failed, comforting him while he awaited the miracle of new lungs, just as his first dinosaur, a stuffed animal purple Barney, buoyed him as a small child.

And when those lungs also failed and his family faced the impossible, when hospitals told them over and over they would not be able to try to save him, toy dinosaurs kept watch as his body struggled to breathe.

Josh Burton is a soft-spoken, studious 17-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin, who is now on his third set of lungs.

In 2020, he had shortness of breath after helping a neighbor retrieve a runway pet. He told his mom, Kelly Burton, he felt like he was having a heart attack; she thought surely that couldnt be the case. But they went to the doctor anyway, and soon found out he had a rare case of pulmonary veno-occlusive disease, which can lead to heart failure.

Because of this, he needed a double lung transplant, an intensive procedure that involved finding donor lungs and transferring them into his teenage body. That happened in 2021.

But the following year, his mother entered a room to find a team of doctors, an empty chair, a box of Kleenex and the information that her sons donated lungs were no longer working in his body.

Of this time, Josh remembers, My mother wouldnt stop crying.

Another double lung transplant, called a retransplant when its the second time, was his only option. But hospital after hospital said they couldnt do it.

Resourceful, persistent, with her sons life at stake, Kelly Burton asked people from all layers of their life to help  former students she knew through her work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a cousin who worked at the Mayo Clinic, nurses at their local hospital where theyd initially been admitted.

For Josh, who bounced back and forth between adult and childrens floors, his age meant he was sometimes in a gray area. His mother also found a gray area in the space of trying to save his life.

You have to be sick enough to get a transplant but not so sick that youre going to risk having a successful outcome. Its a real fine line, she said. Throughout, she was determined, Im going to get him somewhere.

In Chicago, Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at the Canning Thoracic Institute at Northwestern Medicine, knew Joshs case was tricky. But those are the kind of cases he wants to take.

We think of ourselves as a destination of hope, he said. We want to take patients who have low odds of survival and make them very high odds of survival.

After all, Bharat said, Northwestern has stellar, experienced surgeons and anesthesiologists and specialists. If not there, where? If they only take cases where they are absolutely sure of success, who would they be leaving behind?

So he looked at the teenager struggling to survive  at Northwestern, Josh was on an ECMO machine that was doing the breathing for him, one of medicines last-ditch efforts to keep severely ill patients alive  and kept trying to find him lungs.

Because it is impossible to know until inspecting the actual organs if they will work for a transplant, the family said that year of waiting became a roller coaster of finding out lungs were available, specialists going to examine them and returning with the news that, again, it wouldnt work. This can happen because of pneumonia or other undetected illnesses in the donor lungs.

Thirteen times, their team went to assess lungs only to deliver bad news.

For three weeks, Kelly remembers, there were no offers of lungs. There were moments she would look at her sons skin and recognize it as the waxy texture that she knew meant the body was failing.

Even her son, she feared, was giving up. He would tell her he couldnt do it anymore. He said he overheard nurses worrying he wouldnt make it. He had nearly died, at this point, several times. She told him, You can do it. You are doing it. You will do it.

Finally, one night, a nurse came into their room, one who had been there before and gone to assess lungs before and knew the disappointments theyd shouldered. She hugged Kelly, on her way to see new lungs, both of them feeling giddy at the thought that this, the 14th set of lungs, might be it.

Hours later, she received the news: Lungs are on their way.

Josh entered the operating room in the middle of the night on June 28, returning after the hourslong surgery to a recovery room and waking up, his mom says, a different child.

For the first time in months, Kelly saw his chest move. Up and down, up and down. Before he went into the operating room, she said, There was no movement. His lungs were doing nothing.

Before the surgery, Josh said, The only thing that went through my mind was I didnt want to die. I didnt know how to drive; I didnt go to high school, or even prom.

Now, he said, Its nice not to have to drag a whole canister around of oxygen. Breathing easier.

Since then, theyve spent time doing occupational and speech therapy at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, and staying in Chicago, as his doctors wanted him to stay nearby for three months to closely monitor his recovery.

We think hes going to do really well long term, Bharat said. The teen has to take care of himself, taking medications and being careful not to expose his lungs to things like plumes of dirt, protecting the organ and himself. Still, Bharat expects this third set of lungs to last a long time.

Over the years, Kelly Burton has looked for small signs that they were on a hopeful path. One was finding out Joshs first set of lungs was donated from another boy, also 14 at the time, also named Joshua. She has since met those parents. They are family to us in a way I cant describe, she said. Their Josh will always be our hero.

Before they leave Chicago, after an only-in-Chicago, lifesaving transplant, Josh had one more only-in-Chicago experience. He got a behind-the-scenes look at the skull of Sue, the famed T. rex housed at the Field Museum.

After a member of his medical team reached out to them about his dinosaur interest, the Field Museum offered Josh a special visit, during which he was able to see the fossils and speak with associate curator of fossil reptiles Jingmai OConnor, known as the punk rock paleontologist.

A paleontologist is what Josh wants to be  something he was worried he could no longer become because of the need to avoid dirt or anything that can hurt his lungs. His favorite dinosaur is an ankylosaurus, because of its cool protective spikes.

OConnor delivered some good news. Josh can research dinosaurs without dust flying around. In fact, a majority of a paleontologists work is not done in the field, OConnor said.

Many dont spend any time in the field and instead focus on, for example, fossil prep or analysis. Each fossil the Field Museum brings back can take weeks or even years to prepare, she said.

Kelly and Josh are ready to return to life in Madison  for him to finally experience high school after years of pandemic-related closures and hospital admissions that meant hes never really been at school for a time that feels real to him.

Seeing him today  except for the scars  its hard to believe he was ever that sick, Kelly said.
ROCKFORD  Three northern Illinois sheriff's deputies injured while disposing of dynamite in neighboring Wisconsin remained hospitalized with burns Monday, authorities said.

The deputies were being treated for burns described as non-life-threatening, said Cori Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office.

The deputies were called out Saturday morning to help the Rock County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin on a report of dynamite in a trailer in Beloit, the Winnebago sheriff's office said.

The property where the dynamite was found had been sold at auction and was in the process of having its ownership transferred, Capt. Josh Lund, of the Rock County Sheriff's Office, said.

The dynamite had been on the property "for quite some time," Lund said.

It wasn't clear how the deputies sustained the burns.

Photos: Pritzker Military Archives Center
Decatur is proposed to be the final resting place for millions of tons of carbon dioxide shipped from Iowa and stored under Lake Decatur. CO2 pipelines pose a threat to human health and should not be located within our city.

In 2020, a CO2 pipeline near Satartia, Mississippi, burst. Dozens of individuals were hospitalized and hundreds were displaced in a county with a population of 26,000. If such significant harm can occur in a rural community, how would it impact a city of 69,000?

Should residents really have a pipeline close to a home, a school, a hospital? Illinois legislation is being considered that would shift liability of sequestered carbon from the polluter to the state. In other words, residents of Decatur, one of the poorest cities in Illinois, would be financially responsible for the pollution that Wolf Carbon Solutions transported and ADM created and stored under Lake Decatur.

ADM reported earnings of $927 million in the second quarter of 2023. The city will receive a one-time fee from ADM of $450 per acre for storing their pollution in perpetuity under our drinking water supply.

Unequivocally, Wolf Carbon Solutions and ADM are the responsible parties for the transport and sequestration of their pollution. The companies should not be indemnified by the city or state, and they should accept all of the liability. If something goes wrong, they should be held 100% responsible for paying damages.

The fact there are attempts to transfer liability should call into question the long-term safety of carbon transport and sequestration.

Decatur can be a vibrant city for decades to come. At the foundation of any city is public safety, and a CO2 pipeline that ultimately disposes tens of millions of tons of CO2 under Decaturs water source should not be part of that future.

David Horn, Decatur
Google is in the process of reviewing a lawsuit filed by a Hickory woman who says the companys negligence contributed to her husbands death, a company spokesman said Monday.

Alicia Paxson, widow of Philip Paxson, filed suit against Google and Googles parent company Alphabet in Wake County last week.

Paxson is accusing the technology giant of continuing to suggest a route with a collapsed bridge on its Google Maps service even though Google had received warnings about the bridge. The bridge collapsed in 2013.

Philip Paxson relied on the Google Maps directions on Sept. 30, 2022, when his vehicle fell into Snow Creek after attempting to cross the collapsed bridge on 24th Street Place NE.

The lawsuit specifically references two occasions in 2020 in which a Hickory resident notified the company of the fallen bridge through Google Maps Suggest An Edit feature.

When asked to respond to the allegations in the lawsuit, company spokesman Jose Castaneda responded, "We have the deepest sympathies for the Paxson family. Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps and we are reviewing this lawsuit.

Google is not the only defendant in Paxsons lawsuit. She also named Hickory-based company Tarde LLC, Mooresville-based company Hinckley Gauvain and James Tarlton, a Hickory real estate businessman affiliated with Tarde LLC, in the complaint.

She alleges that the companies and Tarlton owned or controlled the bridge and surrounding property and were derelict in their duty to repair the bridge or make appropriate arrangements to ensure no one would try to drive across.

Tarlton and Hinckley Gauvain had not responded to requests for comment as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The town of Catawba police chief was injured while chasing a suspect Tuesday afternoon.

Richard David Miller Jr. is charged with assault on a government official and resisting a public officer, Catawba County Sheriffs Office Capt. Aaron Turk said.

Turk said Miller was identified as the person that town of Catawba Police Chief Brian Bixby was attempting to arrest. Turk said Bixby was attempting to serve an outstanding warrant on Miller.

The situation occurred around 5 p.m. at a gas station on the corner of Main Street in downtown Catawba, Turk said. According to Google Maps, the gas station is All Star Quality Fuels.

Turk and the town of Catawba offered few details about Bixbys injuries or what caused the injuries. Dave Faherty with WSOC-TV reported that Bixby injured his leg, fell down and injured his arm while chasing Miller.

The suspect resisted arrest and a chase ensued. The police chief (Bixby) was injured during the chase and has been admitted to the hospital. He is expected to have surgery in the coming days and will be recovering from his injuries, the town of Catawba stated in a Facebook post.

Turk said Bixbys injuries were serious but non-life-threatening. Turk said Bixby was transported via ambulance to a hospital. Bixby was released from the hospital Tuesday night, Turk said.

Miller was arrested near the Catawba Rescue Squad building, Turk said. According to Google Maps, the Catawba Rescue Squad is less than one half mile from the gas station.

Bixby did not respond to a request for comment.
The Catawba County Schools Board of Education discussed the possibility of a content transparency system for books in its school media centers at Mondays work session.

There was circular discussion and debate centered on the possibility of a rating system. Board attorney Crystal Davis reminded board members on several occasions that in order to have a rating system, the board would have to determine what it defines as explicit.

Its very difficult when you have a rating system, because then you have to define the rating, Davis said. And if you just take cuss words, for example, there are people that absolutely believe every single cuss word, even the most minor  is bad and a child should not be exposed to it. But who is going to be the person that determines what is OK?

Board member Michelle Teague asked if the board could model its policies and procedures after Texas, Florida or Utah, borrowing the verbiage those states use to define explicit material. Davis said the policies and procedures in those states are in accordance with respective state laws. North Carolina is not governed by the same laws as Texas, Florida or Utah, Davis said.

Florida, Texas and Utah are three states with high numbers of book removals from school libraries according to an analysis published by a reading and writing advocacy group Pen America on April 20. One school district in Utah removed the Bible from middle school libraries for vulgarity and violence, according to a June 1 Salt Lake Tribune article. The decision was reversed after severe backlash, the Salt Lake Tribune reported on June 20.

Before she was elected to the board, Teague challenged 24 books. Teague said at the boards Sept. 18 book hearing that she began the process because she has custody of her granddaughter, who was a Catawba County Schools student at the time. She has since pulled her granddaughter out of the school system for reasons she did not disclose.

Board member Annette Richards mentioned the possibility of mirroring the Motion Picture Associations film rating system.

Davis repeated that the issue with that is defining mature content. She repeated that in order to implement a rating system, the board would have to determine what is considered explicit content. Davis repeated that is why she recommended a content transparency system rather than a rating system.

Davis also warned against adopting an existing rating system because the organization that created it would then be a surrogate board member. In addition to that, Davis pointed out that different organizations may have different leanings, using Perma-Bound Books and Book Looks as examples.

Perma-Bound Books is the districts go-to book vendor. Book Looks is an organization dedicated to writing accessible, easily understood book content reviews centered on objectionable content, according to its website. Davis said that she does not know which way either leans, but that Perma-Bound may be more liberal and Book Looks may be more conservative.

Superintendent Matt Stover said he would like to consider ways to make bringing new books, supplemental or curricular, into schools a committee decision.

Because one person is making those decisions, Stover said. And yes, they are educated and I trust that. But at the same time, theyre one person. We make all our other decisions in this district as committees and groups.

The person responsible for bringing new books into school libraries is each schools media coordinator.

Ultimately, no decisions were made. Davis thanked the board members for their input.
Concerned residents from as far west as Transylvania County and as far east as Mebane came to Hickory on Tuesday afternoon to address state leaders about the process for drawing new legislative maps.

The second of three meetings to gather public input on the states redistricting process took place on the Hickory campus of Appalachian State University.

Sen. Warren Daniel, a Burke County Republican and co-chair of the Senate Committee on Redistricting and Elections, was joined by fellow Republican and committee co-chair Sen. Ralph Hise and Democratic committee member Sen. Julie Mayfield. Democratic Rep. Becky Carney, a member of the House redistricting committee, was present as well.

Two other N.C. House members who are not members of the redistricting committee, Republicans Jay Adams of Catawba County and Jeff McNeely of Iredell County, joined the members of the committees.

Tuesdays meeting was part of the process of shaping the state and Congressional election maps which will first be used in the 2024 election cycle.

Legislative Republicans control the redistricting process since they possess a supermajority in the legislature. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is prohibited from vetoing electoral maps.

The legislators will also have wide latitude to draw maps to their partys advantage. In April, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled partisan gerrymandering is permissible under the state constitution.

Nearly every speaker at Tuesdays meeting condemned the practice of partisan gerrymandering.

Several speakers advocated for a nonpartisan commission to draw maps. Others said they approved of the current Congressional map, which resulted in an even 7-7 split of Republicans and Democrats representing the state in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Speakers included Charlotte NAACP President Corine Mack, Catawba County Democratic Party Chair Michael McLamb, and representatives of other Democratic Party organizations in the region as well as residents from Asheville, Greensboro and Watauga County.

Speakers were given a two-minute time limit, and the meeting lasted a little over two hours.

The public input process was a major target of criticism.

Many of the speakers complained that there were only three meetings held throughout the state and said the hearings are being held at inconvenient times.

The three input meetings scheduled this week were all set for 4 p.m. The meeting in Hickory is the only one in western North Carolina. Some speakers said they drove for two hours to make the meeting.

Speakers also criticized the amount of notice given for the meeting and the fact that maps were not available for people to review.

These hearings are nothing more than shams, Watauga County resident Ben Henderson said. Holding these hearings with such little notice so that voters have no time to prepare, in only three locations in the state so that citizens must travel great distances to have their voices heard and at a time of day when most working people are unable to attend, is an affront to every citizen of this state.

Lincolnton resident Richard Speer was the lone voice in support of Republican redistricting practices. We had (gerrymandering) for 100 years under Democrats here so Im glad to see now that we have Republicans in charge, so many Democrats are against gerrymandering, Speer said.

Some of the speakers asked that the legislature hold another round of public hearings when maps are available.

When asked about the possibility of additional meetings, Daniel said, Well take the comments under consideration and just deliberate over this over the next weeks and days and well see what time we have to do that kind of thing.

He added, Certainly we need to have all the maps passed by the end of October so we do have a limited time frame.
For as long as she can remember, Natalia Mejia always wanted to be an educator.

Growing up, she only had two Hispanic teachers, and one of them was her mother, as she was homeschooled for a stint. It was that lack of representation that helped drive Mejia to want to make a difference in young peoples lives.

I really wanted to prioritize making sure that my students saw themselves reflected in the curriculum, she said. That they were at the center of everything that I do and that I teach.

She wanted her students to feel like they had someone who understands their experience, she added.

Following her graduation from UNC Charlotte, Mejia took a position as a beginning ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher at C.C Griffin STEM Middle School in August 2021. Recognizing the need for bilingual, multi-cultural representation helped sparked her desire to become an ESL teacher.

In her brief time as an educator, the 24-year-old Mejia has already made a significant impact on her students.

Last fall, she was selected as 2022-23 Cabarrus County Schools Beginning Teacher of the Year. The good news kept coming as a few months later, in March, Mejia was named the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) 2023 Empower NC Beginning Teacher of the Year, with more than two dozen finalists from across the state in attendance. This week has reminded me of my why I became a teacher, she said in a speech, according to an article from EdNC. This whole week has been about my love for them, my students. Its because they are my passion, often giving me the reason to laugh and smile, my chosen family, my community, and why I lift my voice.

Education is in desperate need of change and revolution, Mejia added, and I can only hope I will be part of it.

Though in her third year of teaching, Mejia, who met Gov. Roy Cooper earlier this year, will remain the reigning NC Beginning Teacher of the Year for the next several months, until the next educator is awarded the title in the spring.

I couldnt believe it, she told the Independent Tribune during a recent interview about receiving the honor. I was literally completely shocked.

But for Mejias colleagues at C.C. Griffin, her many accolades are well-deserved for an educator who always puts the needs of her students first.

She is a bright light, said C.C. Griffin assistant principal Jessica Perez, who nominated Mejia as her schools beginning teacher of the year. She inspires not just beginning teachers but also veteran teachers. She makes the kids feel welcome and included.

I dont know what C.C. Griffin would look like without her, Perez added.

Close Natalia Mejia, center, was surprised at her school with the announcement by CCS Superintendent Dr. John Kopicki and Chief Human Resources Officer Dr. Marion Bish. Natalia Mejia named CCS Beginning Teacher of the Year Natalia Mejia, center, was surprised at her school with the announcement by CCS Superintendent Dr. John Kopicki and Chief Human Resources Officer Dr. Marion Bish.

Creating connections with her students

For the current school year, Mejia has three classes, composed of mainly Hispanic students, including those from Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador, who have just arrived to the United States. She also has a small contingent of Russian students.

With Spanish being her first language, Mejia can easily communicate with her students, who are in the sixth through eighth grades. Being of Hispanic origin though, allows Mejia to relate with her students on a deeper level than perhaps other ESL teachers.

Mejia recalls a powerful moment when she was interacting with a young girl while student teaching in Charlotte.

She said: You look like me, Mejia recalled. I was just like blown away.

She has a long-running joke with her students at C.C. Griffin that her air conditioner, which sometimes stops working, is possessed by La Llorona, a popular ghost in Spanish folklore.

They just start busting out laughing because they all know the story, Mejia said. She and her students have also bonded over other similar interests, including Spanish films.

In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Mejia is working to spearhead the second Hispanic Heritage Festival in October. She also recently video-recorded her students talking about what Hispanic Heritage Month (which runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15) means to them and said it will soon be aired on the morning news.

Its just not about celebrating where our students come from, its about affirming who they are every day, she said, noting that was a quote from Kimberly Jones, the current NC Teacher of the Year.

Learning from her students

Mejia has enjoyed learning about the backgrounds of students who are different from her, like those from Russia. Though she cannot speak their language, they have bonded over similar foods.

She discovered one of her Russian students likes eating shashlik, meat on a stick similar to kebabs. Mejia got excited because what her students were describing was reminiscent of a typical Spanish snack called a pincho, which she grew up eating.

I told them, You guys need to make that (shashlik) for me, she said. And theyre like Okay. They got really excited.

Mejia has also started learning basic Russian words including angliyskiy, which means English and istoriya, which is history. The Russian word for history sounds similar to the Spanish pronunciation of historia, which excited Mejia as it seemed to be a cognate, which are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an ancestor in a common parent language.

Mejia also has learned bits of Telugu, a language native to parts of India, as one of her students is from South India. The student is so smart Mejia told her she could do anything with her life, including becoming the first Indian-born United States Supreme Court justice.

They teach me so much, she said. Definitely creating those connections with them, its very powerful.

She tells her students that their voices matter and that by being able to speak at least two languages, they are the bridge between two worlds.

The significance of Ubuntu

While in college, Mejia studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. She worked in several schools, teaching elementary and middle school students. She learned about how apartheid and racism is still embedded within their culture, though the country has been working to root it out.

She appreciated the importance that was placed on community.

As a Latino, I can identify with community being so important, she said.

It was in South Africa that Mejia learned about the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which can be translated as I am because we are.

When I learned about this idea of I am because we are, I was like, thats me, she said. That resonated with me to the bottom of my soul.

Mejia said much of her approach to teaching is rooted in the Ubuntu feeling of making sure her students feel a sense of community and know they are connected with one another.

As great as it was being recognized with the statewide honor, Mejia remains focused on doing whatever she can to help her students, as she has always been.

My students know that I love them and thats why every day I go in to do this work to make them feel not only that they are seen today but that they are affirmed in who they are, she said. Because they are not our future, they are our today.
Thursday, Sept. 28

Kannapolis Farmers Market will be open from 4-7 p.m. at the corner of Vance Street and Dale Earnhardt Boulevard.

Epworth United Methodist Church will have a hot dog sale from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Epworth is located at 1030 Burrage Road NE, Concord . For deliveries call 704-786-5500.

Friday, Sept. 29

The Concord Duplicate Bridge face-to-face games through Concord Parks and Recreation at Hartsell Recreation Center, 60 Hartsell School Road, at noon. Cost is $5 per player. You must have a partner and provide proof of vaccination.

Hot dogs at McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, will be sold along with fried bologna and barbecue sandwiches and desserts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 30

The Piedmont Farmers Market is open from 8 a.m. to noon at 518 Winecoff School Road. It features lots of local produce, meat, flowers and other products.

Hot dogs at Center United Methodist Church at 1119 Union St. S., are offered on the second and fourth Saturday of each month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dine in and take out. Call-in orders are welcomed at 704-782-1785.

The Old Courthouse Theatre, 49 Spring St. NW Concord, hosts "A Night with Elvis" by Jacob Eder, a tribute to Elvis. The show begins at 7 p.m. Eder comes to the main stage at Old Courthouse Theatre and performs his tribute to Elvis with his original country music and covers. Tickets are $20 and are available online www.octconcord.com or at the door. Concessions will be available for purchase. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

The Concord International Festival will be held from noon to 6 p.m. in Downtown Concord. The event and festivities are sponsored by El Puente Hispano, Downtown Concord and the City of Concord.

Sunday, Oct. 1

The author of Pearls Kaleidoscope, Reflections of a 95-year-old African American Womans Life will be hold a book signing in Concord from 3 to 5 p.m. at The Allen Small Family Life Center at Price Memorial AME Zion Church at 192 Spring St. SW.

Catawba Colleges Shuford School of Performing Arts will present its first choral concert of the 2023-2024 Academic Year at 4 p.m. in Catawbas Omwake-Dearborn Chapel. The hour-long concert is free and open to the public. Presented by the Catawba Singers, the Horizons concert will feature hope, belonging, resilience, and perseverance music.

Monday, Oct. 2

The Concord Duplicate Bridge face-to-face games through Concord Parks and Recreation at Hartsell Recreation Center, 60 Hartsell School Road, at noon. Cost is $5 per player. You must have a partner and provide proof of vaccination.

The deadline to reserve a space at the Deana Irvin Symposium is today. It will feature New York Times Bestselling author Diane Chamberlain, who wrote "The Last House on the Street." The event will be at the Cabarrus Country Club on Oct. 12. Tickets are $30 and need to be mailed to Concord Friends of the Library, P.O. Box 795, Concord, N.C. 28026.

The Kannapolis History Associates program will feature Jim Moore and the topic is "Banking in Kannapolis." The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the Social Room at A.L. Brown High Schools.

Tuesday, Oct. 3

TOPS #437 (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meets every Tuesday at 10 a.m. (weigh-in begins at 9:30 a.m.) at Lakeview Baptist Church, 2532 Lane St., Kannapolis. Visitors are welcome.

If you need help and encouragement after the death of a spouse, child, family member or friend, you are invited to join us for A Griefshare Support Group at Pitts Baptist Church, 140 Pitts School Road., NW, Concord, weekly on Tuesdays, through Oct. 31, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. For more information, call Linda Bounds at 704-793-8155.

Cabarrus County ECA 's Health and Wellness Committee is sponsoring an Outdoor Community Flu Clinic from 10 a.m. to noon at 715 Cabarrus Avenue West, Concord. This Outdoor Flu Clinic makes it very quick and easy to receive a flu shot and a COVID booster shot with one quick stop. Adults are invited to call NC Cooperative Extension Office weekdays at 704-929-3310 to reserve you shot. Flu shots for adults 65 years of age will also be available. True Care Pharmacy will be providing the shots and urges everyone to take advantage of this opportunity. September and October are the ideal times to get the flu shot. In the case of rain the Outdoor Flu Clinic will be offered inside.

Papa Capps Open Mic/Open Stage Variety Show is back at Old Courthouse Theatres Black Box Theatre. The show will be family friendly from 7:30 to 9 p.m. and then they kick it up at 9:15 with the Stupendously Hilarious Incredible Talent Show (more mature themes permissible). You can watch or participate Acts may include dance, karaoke, original songs (guitars, electric keyboard and mics are provided), stand-up comedy, improv, poetry, storytelling, juggling, monologues, performance art, and much more! Come celebrate the Humanities and show your art. A $5 donation is suggested. Concessions available for purchase.

Wednesday, Oct. 4

The Cabarrus Senior Center Photo Club is alive and clicking away. If you like taking photos, come join the members on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 1:30-3 p.m. at the Cabarrus Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave. SE, Concord, and share your photographic creativity. Whether you are a seasoned photographer or strictly amateur, all are welcome.

Saint James The Greater 69th Parish BBQ will be held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. People may dine in or take out. To order ahead of time on the day of the event, please call 704-720-0600 extension 24. The church is located at 139 Manor Ave, SW, Concord.

Thursday, Oct. 5

Epworth United Methodist Church will have a hot dog sale from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Epworth is located at 1030 Burrage Road NE, Concord . For deliveries call 704-786-5500.

Friday, Oct. 6

The Concord Duplicate Bridge face-to-face games through Concord Parks and Recreation at Hartsell Recreation Center, 60 Hartsell School Road, at noon. Cost is $5 per player. You must have a partner and provide proof of vaccination.

Hot dogs at McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, will be sold along with fried bologna and barbecue sandwiches and desserts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 7

The Piedmont Farmers Market is open from 8 a.m. to noon at 518 Winecoff School Road. It features lots of local produce, meat, flowers and other products.

Hot dogs at Center United Methodist Church at 1119 Union St. S., are offered on the second and fourth Saturday of each month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dine in and take out. Call-in orders are welcomed at 704-782-1785.

Sunday, Oct. 8

The author of Pearls Kaleidoscope, Reflections of a 95-year-old African American Womans Life will be hold a book signing in Concord. The book signing will be held at 3 p.m.. at The Allen Small Family Life Center at Price Memorial AME Zion Church, 192 Spring St. SW, Concord.

Monday, Oct. 9

The Concord Duplicate Bridge face-to-face games through Concord Parks and Recreation at Hartsell Recreation Center, 60 Hartsell School Road, at noon. Cost is $5 per player. You must have a partner and provide proof of vaccination.

Tuesday, Oct. 10

TOPS #437 (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) meets every Tuesday at 10 a.m. (weigh-in begins at 9:30 a.m.) at Lakeview Baptist Church, 2532 Lane St., Kannapolis. Visitors are welcome.

If you need help and encouragement after the death of a spouse, child, family member or friend, you are invited to join us for A Griefshare Support Group at Pitts Baptist Church, 140 Pitts School Road., NW, Concord, weekly on Tuesdays, through Oct. 31, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. For more information, call Linda Bounds at 704-793-8155.

Thursday, Oct. 12

Epworth United Methodist Church will have a hot dog sale from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Epworth is located at 1030 Burrage Road NE, Concord . For deliveries call 704-786-5500.

Friday, Oct. 13

The Concord Duplicate Bridge face-to-face games through Concord Parks and Recreation at Hartsell Recreation Center, 60 Hartsell School Road, at noon. Cost is $5 per player. You must have a partner and provide proof of vaccination.

Hot dogs at McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, will be sold along with fried bologna and barbecue sandwiches and desserts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 14

The Piedmont Farmers Market is open from 8 a.m. to noon at 518 Winecoff School Road. It features lots of local produce, meat, flowers and other products.

Hot dogs at Center United Methodist Church at 1119 Union St. S., are offered on the second and fourth Saturday of each month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dine in and take out. Call-in orders are welcomed at 704-782-1785.

Got news or events?

Does your community group or nonprofit agency have an upcoming event that would be of interest to the public? Email it to mplemmons@independenttribune.com.
Concerned residents from as far west as Transylvania County and as far east as Mebane came to Hickory on Tuesday afternoon to address state leaders about the process for drawing new legislative maps.

The second of three meetings to gather public input on the states redistricting process took place on the Hickory campus of Appalachian State University.

Sen. Warren Daniel, a Burke County Republican and co-chair of the Senate Committee on Redistricting and Elections, was joined by fellow Republican and committee co-chair Sen. Ralph Hise and Democratic committee member Sen. Julie Mayfield. Democratic Rep. Becky Carney, a member of the House redistricting committee, was present as well.

Two other N.C. House members who are not members of the redistricting committee, Republicans Jay Adams of Catawba County and Jeff McNeely of Iredell County, joined the members of the committees.

Tuesdays meeting was part of the process of shaping the state and Congressional election maps which will first be used in the 2024 election cycle.

Legislative Republicans control the redistricting process since they possess a supermajority in the legislature. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is prohibited from vetoing electoral maps.

The legislators will also have wide latitude to draw maps to their partys advantage. In April, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled partisan gerrymandering is permissible under the state constitution.

Nearly every speaker at Tuesdays meeting condemned the practice of partisan gerrymandering.

Several speakers advocated for a nonpartisan commission to draw maps. Others said they approved of the current Congressional map, which resulted in an even 7-7 split of Republicans and Democrats representing the state in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Speakers included Charlotte NAACP President Corine Mack, Catawba County Democratic Party Chair Michael McLamb, and representatives of other Democratic Party organizations in the region as well as residents from Asheville, Greensboro and Watauga County.

Speakers were given a two-minute time limit and the meeting lasted a little over two hours.

The public input process was a major target of criticism.

Many of the speakers complained that there were only three meetings held throughout the state and said the hearings are being held at inconvenient times.

The three input meetings scheduled this week were all set for 4 p.m. The meeting in Hickory is the only one in western North Carolina. Some speakers said they drove for two hours to make the meeting.

Speakers also criticized the amount of notice given for the meeting and the fact that maps were not available for people to review.

These hearings are nothing more than shams, Watauga County resident Ben Henderson said. Holding these hearings with such little notice so that voters have no time to prepare, in only three locations in the state so that citizens must travel great distances to have their voices heard and at a time of day when most working people are unable to attend, is an affront to every citizen of this state.

Lincolnton resident Richard Speer was the lone voice in support of Republican redistricting practices. We had (gerrymandering) for 100 years under Democrats here so Im glad to see now that we have Republicans in charge, so many Democrats are against gerrymandering, Speer said.

Some of the speakers asked that the legislature hold another round of public hearings when maps are available.

When asked about the possibility of additional meetings, Daniel said, Well take the comments under consideration and just deliberate over this over the next weeks and days and well see what time we have to do that kind of thing.

He added, Certainly we need to have all the maps passed by the end of October so we do have a limited time frame.
By Aruna Chandrasekhar Design by Joe Goodman

In recent years, biodiversity offsets and credits have been promoted as one of the key ways to finance nature conservation and support global biodiversity goals. Put simply, biodiversity offsetting is a system for placing a value on a habitat, plant or animal, meaning the credit or unit can be bought or sold to offset damage being done, thereby creating a financial incentive to conserve natural assets elsewhere. Biodiversity-rich developing countries have been demanding more public finance and debt forgiveness from developed countries  which is distinct from climate finance  to help meet their biodiversity targets. Meanwhile, rich countries, such as Australia, the UK and France, have been promoting and rolling out new nature markets, claiming that conservation budgets are stretched and that private finance must play a more prominent part in closing the finance gap.

Biodiversity offsetting now sits at the heart of these tensions.

Until now, we were doing development without any due regard for biodiversity, Prof David Hill of the UKs Environment Bank tells Carbon Brief. He argues that regulation-backed biodiversity markets could provide a pressure valve by which finance can be generated [for] proper biodiversity restoration. Critics of offsetting disagree. These metrics are quite simplistic, mechanistic and crude, Dr Evangelia Apostolopoulou of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership tells Carbon Brief. What you need to actually question is the very idea of the economic valuation of nature. While biodiversity-offset markets have so far escaped the intense criticism that carbon-offsetting has been subjected to, they are growing in prominence and were included as one of the ways to finance a global deal for nature agreed at the UNs COP15 biodiversity summit last year. (Clicking links with a will display the full glossary term.) In this in-depth Q&A, Carbon Brief breaks down the history of biodiversity offsets, where and how they are being used around the world and concerns surrounding their use.

How do biodiversity offsets differ from carbon offsets? Biodiversity offsets and carbon-offsetting are similar in that they exist for polluters to compensate for damage they have done. But there are significant differences. In the case of carbon offsets, polluters tend to buy offsets to compensate for their emissions on an annual basis. But biodiversity offsets and credits typically involve longer contracts, since biodiversity losses and gains occur over much longer timescales. Gains in biodiversity are also less predictable, making it more difficult to meet year-on-year goals with a conservation offset than, say, a solar farm. Carbon offsets can be generated from a range of different sources that promise reductions in emissions, including both technical projects, such as renewable energy, and nature-based ones, such as tree-planting. (See Carbon Briefs in-depth Q&A on carbon offsets.) Conversely, biodiversity offsets can only be created by people contributing to conserving or restoring ecosystems. Unlike carbon offsets, biodiversity offsets are tied to specific development projects and the impacts on specific habitats and species. Companies, for instance, can invest in trying to create forest habitat elsewhere for a particular species displaced by their activities. In contrast to carbon markets set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there is currently no international marketplace for buying and selling biodiversity credits or offsets. Countries cannot currently trade their own biodiversity outcomes to help other countries meet their biodiversity targets. Ecosystem changes involve a multitude of interactions. Therefore, monitoring and verifying biodiversity changes and being able to attribute them to any one intervention is harder to do  and a lot more expensive. Transaction costs  or the labour of bringing a good to a market and delivering on it  are also much higher in biodiversity-offset markets. According to Hemming, this is one of the reasons why biodiversity-offset market goes against the most basic market theory. These markets will be plagued by the same integrity issues as carbon markets, if not worse, she adds. Hemming tells Carbon Brief: Investing in something that has inherently high transaction costs  in terms of setup and measurement and monitoring and evaluation  means investment is similarly costly. The only way around those costs is when standards for evaluation, monitoring and enforcement are relaxed, which, of course, leads to credits that are affordable, but theyre of low integrity.

How does biodiversity offsetting work and how is nature quantified? Every biodiversity-offsetting scheme, policy or market is different, but there are similarities in how each is developed. First, they need to define a threshold that spells out when and at what stage a biodiversity offset is appropriate. Many countries have their own mitigation hierarchies in environment or wildlife laws that dictate when offsets can be used. But they might also have a list of regions or species that are inviolate  those that must be protected at all costs. Biodiversity offsets are widely deemed to be improper by many national policies, for critical, endangered or non-substitutable biodiversity, such as in South Africa. But what is viewed as irreplaceable or high-value biodiversity has to be clearly defined and identified by those policies. For example, IUCNs policy on biodiversity offsets observes that it is not possible to offset the global extinction of a species. The next stage is assessing the biodiversity present at both the development site and the offset site. Valuing biodiversity is extremely difficult because of how complex and unknowable any ecosystem is, plus the fact that no two places on Earth are alike. Many offset schemes today circumvent this complexity by focusing on specific species or habitats, rather than attempting to value all the species within a habitat. To determine the value of biodiversity, policymakers use one or more of three measures: area; a composite biodiversity metric; and economic valuation of costs and benefits. According to Dr Sophus zu Ermgassen at the University of Oxford, there are a million different ways of doing biodiversity metrics, ranging from basic measures to bespoke metrics, but it depends, ultimately, on what you value from nature and what is practically feasible. For instance, area is central to Englands biodiversity metric, zu Ermgassen says, which is a calculation based on size, conservation importance and ecological condition of the habitat. Large extractive projects often use bespoke approaches which let them harm some aspects of biodiversity, but make surespecific aspects of diversity are not harmed, zu Ermgassen says  for example, mining projects that calculate and attempt to offset the impact on endangered species such as chimpanzees. A leopard at night with lights of Mumbai behind. Credit: Nature Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo. Ethnobotanist Madhu Ramnath believes it is difficult to see how offsetting could work in biodiversity-rich developing countries such as India, since there is seldom any stocktaking of what we are going to lose before we destroy a place for mine or a dam. Ramnath, who is part of the Non-Timber Forest Produce Exchange Programme, tells Carbon Brief that most of the environmental impact assessments he has seen are compromised and reduce dense forests to scrubland, justifying their clear felling for industry. Even in an ideal world, the metrics are doubtful. He elaborates: To understand plant diversity in a forest patch, we use species-area curves: the maximum number of species in the minimum area can kind of tell you about the biodiversity of that zone. In similar forest types, if you can find similar species-area curves, you can perhaps assume that plant diversity may be similar. But how many species are we going to map? Just the flowering plants? Do we include all the ferns? What about fungi and underground species? Its almost like measuring rainfall, with the data confined to the amount of rain. A 100mm here and 90mm here is recorded, but little about the time it took and the force it came with and how that filtered through ecosystems: all those things matter. Ramnath spent 30 years living and working alongside the Durwa Indigenous people in the state of Chhattisgarh, helping them map their traditional knowledge of local biodiversity while also growing native species for restoration of degraded forests. He tells Carbon Brief: I think offsetting will be very bland. It will be a numbers game. But it will not have the same quality of understanding these interactions that most Indigenous peoples have. According to zu Ermgassen, while there is a large innovation ecosystem developing biodiversity metrics to be applied to global or local scales, there is also research emerging showing that changes to some of these metrics do not correlate with changes in the real world. He adds: Weve created a way of measuring something that might actually not really correspond to the thing that we want to measure, but its measured in that way for specific convenienceIn many cases, the ways of measuring biodiversity are not empirically tested. After countries and developers decide on a metric, the next stage is determining the equivalence of the offset site to the development site. Chee points out that equivalence is a really difficult concept when it comes to biodiversity. With carbon offsets, a tonne of CO2 is still a tonne of CO2. But because of its complexity, biodiversity cant be reproduced in its exact form somewhere else. Usually, it is agreed that biodiversity offsets should be on a like-to-like basis, where biodiversity conserved is equal to biodiversity lost. Where this is not possible or appropriate, offsets are sought around the conservation needs of a particular species or habitat. Some policies promote a third option, which is like-for-like-or-better  also described as trading up  offsets, where harm to species of lesser value is compensated by protecting species or ecosystems that are of higher conservation priority. According to the World Banks 2016 offsetting guide, however, trading-up compensation funds are not real biodiversity offsets because the conservation actions they support do not necessarily involve the same ecosystems or species that were harmed under the original project. Orcas near an oil tanker in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Washington, USA. Credit: Brandon Cole Marine Photography / Alamy Stock Photo. Another critical stage is to determine where to locate the offset site. When this is done in an area that is far away from the site of the damage, benefits might not go to the community that was harmed. This is why there is a strong rationale that offset sites should be located in the same watershed or biogeographical region. However, developers have argued that this is not always feasible, claiming that locating offsets elsewhere can result in greater biodiversity benefits. Timing offset projects is another concern, given that time lags between an impact occurring and an offset gain could also cause damage. According to IUCNs policy on biodiversity offsets, the offset should be in place before the impact occurs. Finally, developers must ensure that there is additionality or no overall net loss, which means that they must prove that conservation actions would not have taken place in the projects absence and the damages have been remediated. This necessitates effective monitoring, evaluation and managing uncertainties.

What are some of the chief criticisms of biodiversity offsets? A persistent and widespread critique of biodiversity offsets is that they reduce complex lifeforms to a tradeable statistic, devoid of any inherent value. This can crowd out peoples intrinsic motivations to conserve nature. Another criticism is whether there should even be a market for a public good, such as biodiversity (See: Are biodiversity offsets a reliable and predictable source of finance for conservation?). Policy experts fear that biodiversity offsets are primed to repeat the mistakes of 30 years of experiments with carbon markets which have seen problems with environmental integrity, additionality, permanence, leakage and transparency. (See: In-depth Q&A: Can carbon offsets help to tackle climate change?) By comparison, Hemming warns, the risks for both nature and investors are much, much worse.

Monitoring, environmental integrity and additionality The main challenges zu Ermgassen identifies in his analysis of biodiversity markets are: bad methods and metrics; poor compliance and governance; and a need for a substantial investment in monitoring and governance. Such investment is crucial to make sure that the thing that youre buying is really delivering an increase in biodiversity like you think it is, he says. While methods for monitoring and governance have progressed in recent years, implementation is expensive. To develop robust biodiversity-offsetting markets, zu Ermgassen tells Carbon Brief that it is fundamentally essential, from a scientific perspective, to track the change in outcomes between a site that received investment and a control site that received none. For instance, in a study evaluating the outcomes of a biodiversity-offsetting system in Australias Victoria state, his team found that vegetation cover did increase after offsets were implemented. But, compared with control sites, this growth was not actually more than that found everywhere else because the state saw significantly more rainfall in that period than in previous years during the millennium drought, leading to vegetation recovery across the state. Unless markets can ensure rigorous procedures to detect non-compliance, they could fail conservation outcomes. But better compliance is costlier and exposes investors to the liability of knowing that the project they paid for is not working, says zu Ermgassen. He elaborates: In order for markets to work, we need a huge amount of investment in quite expensive governance. And there are potentially quite strong vested interests against that kind of investment. In essence, weve created a system where theres a perverse incentive not to know if youre wrong because then you get exposed to the liability that you paid to get rid of in the first place. There are also attempts to package up carbon and biodiversity as a single product  something called credit stacking. This raises the possibility that someone purchasing a biodiversity credit is paying for something that has already been paid for as a carbon credit. Chee tells Carbon Brief: We can try and separate them and do the accounting, but, in reality, this is incredibly difficult to untangleIts not an honest product. A growing claim from governments is that offsets and biodiversity-offsetting markets are essential because there is no money in state coffers for conservation. Hemming says: In Australia, our government has gone as far as to say it cant afford to do the job alone, because biodiversity conservation will cost around $1bn a year. To be clear, we spend close to $11bn a year on fossil-fuel subsidies and we want to spend $368bn on nuclear submarinesThe idea that we cant fund the environment is just false. Everything is affordable, if its a priority.

Permanence As carbon offsets go up in (wildfire) smoke in Canada, raising criticism about their ability to store carbon long-term, experts say very little research has been done on permanence of biodiversity offsets. Most offset schemes around today guarantee net gains over a two-decade period, says zu Ermgassen, and have a reasonably long-term lock-in as contracts. But there are limited mechanisms to ensure that any biodiversity gain is delivered permanently after that. He adds: Theres the assumption that biodiversity management will continue in the future, but, obviously, it is too early to evaluate whether or not thats actually happened. Thats a scientific question. In the case of Australias nature repair market, permanence of credits is not even a factor being considered, according to Hemming, who received no response from legislators when she questioned them about it. She tells Carbon Brief: Theres no evidence that the baselines of the proposed biodiversity credits or certificates factor in climate change, like say, species migration or even the impact of climate change in the future. How does a changing climate factor into your method and baselines? What happens when koala habitat burns down or dries out or is flooded? No one has thought perhaps we should answer these questions before we persevere. A koala bear being treated for injuries caused by bushfires at the Melbourne Zoo Vet Clinic. Credit: Imago / Alamy Stock Photo.

Regulation, consumption and environmental justice An overarching observation from critics is the steady march away from environmental and climate regulation towards market-based instruments, such as carbon and biodiversity offsets, that only serve to perpetuate each others pitfalls. To Hache, biodiversity politics are the same as climate politics for rich, western countries. He tells Carbon Brief: To avoid putting in place any regulation that would adversely impact your economic growth and short-term competitiveness: that is the overarching objectiveAll the rest is diverting the conversation away and possibly making a quick buck in the process by creating a new asset class that is exactly the same. Zu Ermgassen warns that, if done badly, biodiversity-offsetting could perpetuate colonial inequities and be perceived as countries in the global north offshoring their biodiversity conservation to cheap areas in the global south, thereby implementing conservation that excludes local people. That is the absolute worst-case scenario, although people in this sector are increasingly clued up on equity issues, he says, adding: These frameworks, offsetting markets and compensation marketsall have the potential to be a distraction from what I see as the fundamental problem, which is wildly excess consumption in the global north. And, if done incorrectly, they can be seen as legitimising what is fundamentally unsustainable extraction patterns, especially of the extremely affluent. Activists gathered outside the Tanzania High Commission in London to protest the planned eviction of Maasai people for trophy hunting and elite tourism. Credit: Vuk Valcic / Alamy Stock Photo. The single most important thing for biodiversity, he adds, rather than developing markets that tinker around the edges and compensate for harms is reducing those harms in the first place, through reductions in consumption and policies that penalise profiting off ecological damage. He tells Carbon Brief: A nature-positive future is not business-as-usual. Weve experienced these widespread biodiversity declines for the last five decades. Continuing with that trajectory is not going to solve the problem. For Apostolopoulou, there is little evidence that pricing biodiversity guarantees saving species from extinction, but it does create an opportunity for specific sectors of capital to gain from the destruction or conservation of nature. What her research has consistently found is that there is an absence of affected people in mitigation and offsetting decisions. She tells Carbon Brief: You cannot have this discussion if we dont talk to and about local communities and Indigenous populations and place-based strategies and how their life is organised and how theyre related to nature. We need a completely different approach, [not] a top-down market-based [one]. The main idea behind these policies [is that] you cannot fundamentally criticise economic development.
COMPANY NEWS: Dell Technologies today announced the availability of Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft, a new fully integrated turnkey system developed in collaboration with Microsoft that extends the Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud experience to data centre and edge environments.

Its the first offer in the Dell Apex Cloud Platform family and the first available Premier Solution for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. This new Azure Stack HCI solution category only includes platforms that provide fastest time to value for Azure hybrid cloud through the deepest levels of integration with Microsoft.

Dell Technologies and Microsoft have a long history of hybrid cloud innovation and collaboration to help customers deploy apps and data wherever they need them. Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure is the latest innovation to stem from our long collaboration, said Dell Technologies regional director Apex Asia Pacific and Japan Karolis Macionis.

This new platform will enable organisations in the region to simplify their Azure management, accelerate application delivery, and offer flexibility to run their workloads across the cloud, edge, and data centre.

Dell Apex Cloud platforms are next-generation infrastructure that deliver consistent operations and more control over workload placement by extending the choice of cloud ecosystem on-premises.

These platforms offer customers greater flexibility and investment protection over time by combining the best of Dell innovation in automated infrastructure management and orchestration, software-defined storage, and next-generation compute.

Simplifying Azure on-premises

The opportunity to extend Azure cloud services to on-premises environments is significant. According to an ESG study on multicloud application deployment trends, 48% of customers surveyed are expanding on-premises deployments. Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Azure provides an optimal way for customers to bring Microsoft Azure to their data centre and edge locations.

This new platform builds upon decades of Dell and Microsoft collaboration. It combines Dells expertise in delivering software-driven management and orchestration and software-defined storage with Microsofts leadership in cloud services and container orchestration.

More of our customers are asking us to bring the power of Azure wherever they need it out in the real world, whether that is in their factories, retail stores, quick service restaurants, or distributed locations. Through our partnership with Dell, we can project just enough Microsoft Azure to those locations at the edge, said Azure Edge + Platform corporate vice president Douglas Phillips.

This new solution gives our mutual customers a seamless experience from cloud to edge, wherever their data lives, so they can spend less time managing infrastructure and focus more on transforming their business.

Enhancing Azure hybrid cloud

The Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure is designed to address several key IT priorities.

Simplify management: This new offer delivers consistent Azure operations across on-premises locations and public cloud via native integration with Azure Arc. Deep integration and extensive automation enabled by Dells APEX Cloud Platform Foundation Software would deliver greater benefits to customers compared to past solutions. For example, the automated deployment wizard results in an 88% reduction in deployment steps compared to existing integrated systems, allowing customers to save more time when deploying the platform.

Accelerate application delivery: Through optimised delivery of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) hybrid, and Arc-enabled app and data services, the platform helps accelerate application delivery. Customers will be able to simplify management with deep integration and familiar tools. Users can also enforce consistent security and compliance policies across the Azure landscape through integration with centralised Azure management and governance services.

Fastest time to value: To ensure customers get the fastest time to value and ongoing full stack support, Dell ProSupport Infrastructure Suite provides a single source of solution level-support for Dell hardware, system software, and Azure HCI. Onsite diagnosis, residency, data migration, data disposition, and education services cover tasks commonly required in a multicloud environment, allowing internal staff to focus on other priorities.

Going above and beyond

While the new Premier Solutions for Azure Stack HCI category represents the highest level of required automation, integration, and collaboration with Microsoft, Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure takes this even further.

Lifecycle management: Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure delivers near instantaneous availability of new releases and patches - within just four hours of a Microsoft release. Single-pane, full-stack lifecycle management ensures the complete infrastructure stack always remains compliant.

Unique automation: The platform provides automated cluster expansion, enabling rapid addition of on-premises infrastructure to meet workload requirements.

Edge offerings coming soon: The specialised nodes based on the Dell PowerEdge XR4000 edge-optimised server platform to help customers extend Azure to the edge while minimising cost, footprint, and complexity.

Ultimate flexibility coming soon: Dell Technologies will support additional storage configurations with Dell software-defined storage, making it the only offer to support linear scaling of storage resources independently from compute resources, helping customers address workloads with diverse performance, and scaling needs.



Meeting customer and partner needs

Dell has heard overwhelming excitement about this solution from customers and partners alike. Kyndryl, a strategic partner of Dell and Microsoft, is expanding its solutions with managed services for this platform.

In a rapidly changing IT landscape, Kyndryl is helping customers modernise their mission-critical environments to a hybrid cloud operating model. As a strategic alliance partner with Dell and Microsoft, we are excited for the availability of the new Dell Apex Cloud Platform that will provide a consistent Azure operation across on-premises and Azure public cloud, said Kyndryl vice president private cloud services Kevin Powell. We are committed to delivering services that help customers utilise the latest industry technology innovations from our ecosystem partners to deliver leading edge hybrid cloud solutions.

Through customer conversations, Dell is seeing existing customers familiar with the operational outcomes delivered by its automated software are excited to adopt the Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure to extend their Azure deployments on-premises.

More than 5,000 organisations around the world look to LoopUp to help them bring global communications to the cloud to support flexible work, increase productivity, simplify complexity, and reduce cost, said LoopUp vice president of network operations Chris Stanley. Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azures deep software integration and lifecycle management will help us scale and deliver cloud telephony innovations faster and get the most value from our Azure hybrid deployment.

Orange Business, another strategic partner for Dell and Microsoft, is also excited about the transformative power Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure could hold for their customers.

As organisations increasingly turn to hybrid cloud strategies to help power digital experiences for their employees and customers, they need an efficient solution to easily manage it all from edge to core data centres to public cloud, said Orange business marketing director of digital services Olivier Menez. Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure includes deep integrations and automation that will help us easily build and manage our customers data and applications in hybrid environments.

Delivering hybrid cloud innovation

Dells customers can now get their hands on Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure to see first-hand how it can help them unleash innovation by simplifying the Azure hybrid experience.

Follow the links below to learn more about Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure.

About Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies helps organisations and individuals build their digital future and transform how they work, live and play. The company provides customers with the industrys broadest and most innovative technology and services portfolio for the data era.
COMPANY NEWS: The platform seamlessly connects job seekers with businesses, reducing the time it takes to apply, onboard and start a new role from hours to minutes

Deepesh Banerji, Deputy Chief Product Officer at Deputy

Deputy, is the leading shift work management platform, today announced the launch of its Deputy HR platform suite to streamline the hiring, onboarding and document management process for shift workers and employers across Australia.

With the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimating over 1.8 million potential workers could enter the workforce  a 12% potential increase in the capacity of our labour market  there is an urgent need for a solution that connects businesses and job seekers efficiently and effectively. Australian businesses are looking to simplify their HR processes to find and connect with the right talent quickly.

Deputy is tackling this issue with its release of a new AI-powered end-to-end HR platform specifically designed for frontline workers. While white-collar workers regularly have access to cutting-edge technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) that makes looking for a new role a seamless process, shift workers have not been afforded the same convenience. Deputy HR solves for this gap and includes three separate programmes  Hire, Onboarding and Documents  focussed on solving common challenges faced in the industry.

Streamline the hiring process

Deputys hiring solution helps businesses mitigate the issue of finding suitable candidates for open roles. Designed with the needs of HR professionals in mind, this solution offers a comprehensive suite of tools to help businesses streamline their hiring process.

Deepesh Banerji, Deputy Chief Product Officer says, Approximately 80% of the global workforce (2.7 billion people) are employed with irregular or rotating hours  and much of these people are in community-facing roles. With such a sizable portion of our workforce participating in the shift work economy, the need for an end-to-end platform designed to connect job seekers with suitable roles was significant. The launch of Deputy HR is the next step in enhancing the overall hiring, recruitment, and onboarding experience.

Businesses can use the platform for QR code integration, enabling businesses to create eye-catching posters or embed creatives into online platforms, which make job postings accessible to both online and offline audiences. Candidates can scan the code, instantly viewing the available job listings from the specific business, eliminating the need for laborious job searches.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) allows businesses to view all applicants, screen candidate videos, and progress and schedule interviews  making it easy to find and hire great talent. Businesses can also integrate listings with existing job search platforms Indeed allowing customers to cross-promote listings on multiple sites.

Onboard and retain the best talent

The onboarding process can often be time-consuming and overwhelming for both the employer and the new hire. Deputy HR simplifies this process by providing a centralised hub for all onboarding tasks, including employee training.

The onboarding offering simplifies the process for new employees and streamlines the previously time-consuming process of onboarding new employees by thirty to fourty five minutes per onboard. With customisable onboarding checklists and automated workflows, from collecting employee information to assigning training materials, Deputy HR helps businesses create a consistent and engaging onboarding experience for every new employee.

With Deputy HR, both recruitment and onboarding are now seamless processes by providing time-savings and more quality candidates to the business. Deputys QR code allows for more people who are actually interested in working for the brand to apply to open positions, so were finding more qualified candidates overall. The video functionality allows us to get a better sense of the candidate, who they are, and how they will present themselves at work, which is critical in the hospitality industry. This feature also cuts back on countless hours previously wasted by blindly screening candidates through phone calls, said Christopher Duong, Duo Duo General Manager.

Stay compliant with intelligent document management

Managing employee documents can be time-consuming and tedious for many businesses. Deputy's intelligent document management feature is designed to simplify this process by providing employers with a centralised platform where they can request, track, and manage employee documents with ease. From contracts and certifications to performance reviews and timesheets, all important documents can be easily stored and retrieved whenever needed, so employees can take them from job to job. This holistic approach allows for improved job mobility, acting as a portable passport for shift workers to take between jobs as their career progresses.

Businesses can securely store and retrieve employee documents, such as contracts, certifications, and performance reviews, all in one place. The platform also offers advanced search and filtering options, making it easy to find and access the necessary documents whenever they are needed.

To learn more about Deputy HR, visit. https://www.deputy.com/au/hr-software
COMPANY NEWS: Pexapark, the specialist provider of PPA price reference, risk and portfolio management software and advisory services for renewable energy, has secured 20m in Series C funding to underpin its rapid growth in the global renewable energy markets.

The new funding round, led by global technology investor Telstra Ventures, with participation from Swisscom Ventures and the A&G Energy Transition Tech Fund, will give significant impetus to Pexapark as it helps its customers navigate new opportunities and risks at a pivotal moment in the energy transition.

"The renewable energy market is experiencing significant and sustained growth, driven by its cost competitiveness and robust political support," said Pexapark CEO Michael Waldner.

"Despite this, renewable energy investors face a complex set of challenges, from market opacity to price volatility and regulatory pressures. In this dynamic landscape, possessing both market intelligence and energy risk management capabilities has become absolutely critical. These capabilities are crucial not only for competitively pricing energy but also for safeguarding capital by effectively managing exposure to market risks.

"This fresh injection of capital takes us into the next exciting phase of our mission to equip renewable energy players around the globe with the expertise, processes, and systems to thrive amid evolving market dynamics."

The investment will finance further innovation in Pexapark's offering, which encompasses the market's trusted reference prices for power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Europe, PPA transaction advisory services, and Pexapark's unique energy risk and portfolio management software, PexaOS.

Together, these services have been adopted by over 200 renewable energy, storage and green hydrogen players across Europe, including leading companies such as Octopus Energy Generation, Statkraft, BP, EDF Renewables and Covestro.

Pexapark currently brings price transparency to 19 individual markets and has supported more than 30GW of PPA deals to date. PexaOS is now being used by independent power producers (IPPs) and funds to actively manage 13GW of renewable energy assets across Europe.

Capitalising on the global presence of Telstra Ventures, Swisscom Ventures and A&G Energy Transition Tech Fund, which together hold extensive technology investment portfolios spanning Europe, the USA, Asia, Australia, and Latin America, Pexapark is aiming to expand its team and offerings further to meet global demand.

Telstra Ventures partner Albert Bielinko said "We invested in Pexapark because we believe they will become the global leader in energy risk management software for investors in renewable energy, as well as the leading source of market intelligence for renewable power purchase agreements.

"Signing PPAs is crucial to ensure new renewables projects can be financed and Pexapark provides a critical service that makes this process more efficient. As the world transitions to renewables, and government subsidies are gradually removed, we believe Pexapark's services will be indispensable. Pexapark also has an iconic team who structured the first PPAs in Europe many years ago."

Swisscom Ventures investment director Jennifer Webbat said "We have backed Pexapark because it is uniquely positioned globally to support renewable energy market participants in addressing price volatility and regulatory changes, as this market grows and matures.

"Swisscom Ventures finds strong alignment with Pexapark's mission of improving market effectiveness in the renewables industry, an industry seeing investment outpacing that of fossil fuels. When we examined this market, we were impressed by the strength of this team and the depth of their expertise. We are excited to support the Pexapark team as they work together to expand the reach and impact of the company."

A&G Energy Transition Tech fund managing director Juan Diego Bernal said "In ever more volatile electricity price markets, where it's increasingly difficult to predict their future evolution, new tools and capabilities are needed to address these complexities and ensure a fair and efficient energy transition for all.

"In this regard, Pexapark is the undisputed leader in Europe, offering data-driven products and services that provide better insights and transparency into the electricity markets and energy trading through PPAs. In essence, Pexapark assists renewable energy investors and offtakers in making more informed decisions and managing their portfolios in an automated manner. We are very proud to have Pexapark as part of our portfolio of companies and to contribute value to its international growth."

The new investors join Pexapark's pool of leading investors including RP Global, Encavis, BayWa r.e. Energy Ventures, S&P Global and Fluence Energy  highlighting Pexapark's position as a trusted leader in European renewable energy. The Series C funding round was supported by Arctic Securities and Walder Wyss.

About Pexapark

Pexapark is an award-winning market intelligence, software and advisory company, specialised in renewable energy. With more than 30,000MW of renewable PPA transactions supported, Pexapark is the reference for buying, selling and managing renewable energy.

Pexapark's PPA reference prices increase transparency across 19 markets. Our advisory team and software suite enable leading companies to close successful PPA transactions, manage their market risk and monetise their renewable energy investments.

Pexapark was founded in 2017 with the purpose of accelerating the energy transition towards net zero by creating an efficient market for renewable energy.

For more information, please get in touch with us at hello@pexapark.com

About Telstra Ventures

Telstra Ventures accelerates the extraordinary  we fuel the growth of standout disruptors. In our first ten years, 92 investments have generated 38 liquidity events including Auth0, BigCommerce, Box, Cloopen, CrowdStrike, DocuSign, Rancher, Skillz, Snap, and Whispir. To date, our revenue acceleration platform has driven more than US$500 million in revenue for our portfolio companies, extending their reach across Australia, Asia, UK and the US. In 2022, we announced the close of our third fund, bringing funds under management to US$1 Billion. To see our full portfolio and learn more, visit www.telstraventures.com.
GUEST OPINION: A solid, well-planned IT infrastructure is a bit like having good plumbing in your home. If the pipes dont work, theres little point in installing a state-of-the-art bathroom with marble tiles, jacuzzi bath and a power shower.

The reality is, if your IT infrastructure installation happens piecemeal over time it will become the equivalent of a Sims house: nice looks, shame about the functionality. Your IT systems wont work together optimally and will soon be unable to support the next generation technology projects your business needs to grow, such as multicloud, cyber resiliency or workforce transformation.

Objective-led IT investment fuels innovation

This bit-by-bit approach to IT investment often comes down to the way businesses buy technology. If requests for proposals focus more on lowering cost than achieving a business outcome, this can result in siloed systems that hold data rather than provide real business insight. Where this really starts to matter is when cycles of technology procurement layer on top of each other, particularly in relation to modern data center trends such as:

Data growth: Rapid data growth is challenging the capacity, provisioning, management, and protection of data for many companies. According to Gartner, 75 per cent of enterprise-generated data will be created and kept outside a traditional data centre or cloud by 2025. This creates unprecedented challenges for IT and data centre managers, including cost containment, technology obsolescence and keeping pace as technologies evolve and the needs of users change.

Converging infrastructure hampered by data centre infrastructure: As virtualisation adoption increases, capacity planning is no longer just about specifying server, storage, and network resources for each application workload, but rather deploying combinations of assets for hundreds and thousands of workloads at a time. Higher compute densities are exceeding the power and cooling capacity of aging data centres, requiring new approaches to managing facilities.

Shadow IT: Unless the IT team is seen as an enabler, users may try to circumvent controls and policies. And today, theyre able to spin up cloud instances with a few clicks and a credit card, potentially leading to cyber risks and spiraling costs. At the same time however, the IT organisation will be held responsible for the security and integrity of the information, even if it has disappeared into the shadows.

The proposal process isnt the only challenge however: the collective IT industry needs to learn lessons. Far too often, we start the marble bathroom conversation with customers without interrogating whether they are struggling to deliver the basics. In companies with poor IT infrastructure, the team invests their time and energy in keeping the lights on. They dont have the headspace to think of transformation and if they do, its a real challenge to know where to start.

So, to achieve success, IT organisations need a new appreciation what end users value and you must aggressively reduce ongoing IT maintenance costs to enable investment in new capabilities.

The first step toward supporting these often-conflicting IT priorities is to modernise the infrastructure components on which IT is built. Put another way, your data centre must become future-ready.

In the past, IT departments built their infrastructure and bought their applications, but this approach has changed and now theyre looking to invert that model. They want to buy simple, easy-to-deploy infrastructure platforms on which they can quickly build and run core business applications that differentiate their businesses, while also providing a platform for deploying next-generation applications.

Look out and up

Keeping up with the pace of change, having an eye on the future and addressing the changing needs of employees and customers is a constant challenge. This is another key reason you partner with providers based on your longer term business objectives; Forrester, for example, found that 81% of businesses said they require external technology expertise to be successful.

In fact, businesses are increasingly looking to IT services providers to not only help with the day-to-day operations of their business, but also for strategic guidance aligned with business objectives. Choosing the right partners means your business will benefit from expertise, best practices, and skills transfer, and it also means youre able to upskill and enable your staff to focus on innovation and critical business outcomes.

The reality is there is no end point for transformation - its as constant as innovation - but there is a beginning. The only way to achieve innovation and optimisation is to transform technology infrastructure. If you lean on IT service providers, you can achieve both goals and ensure you have a data centre and IT infrastructure fit for the future  without the bad plumbing.
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 Forbes published its annual list of the top-earning dead celebrities last year. Thanks to royalties, licensing fees, hologram shows and no living expenses, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley are now worth more money dead than alive. Paul McCartney is refusing any food offered to him by his children.

 Daily Variety reported the striking Hollywood writers came to agreement with movie studios, TV networks and producers Friday. The screenwriters returning to work could be bad news in the long run. Now angry out-of-work Artificial Intelligence is likely to begin building the killer robots next week.

 U.S. Rep Lauren Boebert apologized for her behavior that led to her getting kicked out of a Denver theater when she was seen sexually massaging her date during the show. Reaction in Washington was unanimous. Now everyone in Congress wants to sit next to her at the next State of the Union speech.

 President Biden boasted to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner Saturday that he is the most pro-union president in history. Joe was scheduled to fly to Detroit Tuesday to walk the picket line with the striking auto workers. He needed a break from staying in Washington shutting down the government. Canadas Parliament honored President Zelensky Friday and applauded a 98-year-old Ukrainian officer they didnt know had fought for the Nazis. Zelensky went home with a nice haul. The U.S. just shipped twelve thousand tons of fertilizer to Ukraine, leaving our presidential candidates speechless.

 Senator Bob Menendez refused calls to resign Monday after the FBI found five hundred grand and three gold bars in his closet suit jackets. The DOJ charged him with taking bribes from Egypt in return for trade concessions and weapons. Im no expert but this sounds to me like a Pyramid scheme.

 Breakfast Club host Charlemagne slammed President Biden for his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner Saturday in D.C. Joe tried to praise rap star LL Cool J in a reference but he gaffed badly. Joe referred to him as boy and if that isnt bad enough his handle is not LG HDTV-Cool J.

 The New York Police Department announced its utilizing technology and Artificial Intelligence to help combat the spreading crime in New York. Robots are now on the subways stopping crime.The procedure works like this, the robots stop the crime then write the script for NBCs Law and Order.

 The House Oversight Committee holds its first impeachment inquiry Thursday to try to show that Joe used Hunter to influence-peddle to enrich his family. Its exasperating. For decades everyone in D.C. said Joe doesnt know anything and now that Joe says he didnt know anything, nobody believes him.

 Kim Jung Un returned to North Korea with a big arms deal and new alliance with Russia where they reaffirmed their opposition to the West. Kims sister and his second-in-command Kim Yo Jong was just named the most dangerous woman in the world, but only because Amber Heard stopped trying.

 Apple unveiled their new Apple i15 smart phone in Cupertino last week which boasts an advance high def camera system called Dynamic Island. Im a typical Baby Boomer when it comes to being high-tech proficient. Right now Im looking up at the sky and I have no idea which cloud has all my data.

 The Pentagon was unable for twenty-eight hours to locate an eighty-million-dollar Stealth fighter on auto-pilot after the pilot bailed out. The Stealth paint kept it invisible until it crashed, then it was eighty million dollars down the toilet. Now taxpayers know how it feels to be the owner of New York Jets.

 The DOJ followed President Biden's suggestion and is now investigating Elon Musk's overseas business. He has a Tesla factory in China and Ukraine uses his Space X satellite. If found guilty of crooked dealings involving Ukraine and China, Elon could get four-to-eight years in the White House.

 President Biden addressed the UN General Assembly Tuesday and beat the drum for additional military aid to Ukraine. Biden also decried the so-called climate crisis. Americans had no reason to be embarrassed by Joe Biden's performance, many leaders deliver their UN speeches in broken English.

 GOP U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was caught on videotape manually pleasuring her date in a Denver theater. Her date was Aspen bar owner Quinn Gallagher. Coincidentally, the last time there was this big a mess to clean up in that theater was when Gallagher smashed a watermelon all over the crowd.

 The Washington Post reports that Democrats are as concerned they can't stop Biden from being nominated as Republicans are about not being able to stop Trump. If Trump wins, I am leaving the country, if Biden wins I am leaving the country, if Bobby Kennedy wins, I am staying put to eat popcorn.

 The FDA approved two new vaccines for the latest variant and the CDC is ringing the alarm bell for you to get vaccinated again. By and large, we Baby Boomers are laughing off the threat of the new variants. We've learned that people who drank Boone's Farm as teenagers are immune to any virus.

(COMMENT, BELOW)




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Ukraine said a barrage of missiles it rained down on the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea, last week killed numerous high-ranking Russian military officials - including the fleet's commander, Adm. Viktor Sokolov.

In refutation of that claim, Russia's Defense Ministry on Tuesday released footage that appeared to show Sokolov alive, attending by video link a meeting chaired by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The Washington Post did not detect any signs of obvious manipulation in the video but could not independently verify its authenticity.

In response to the video, Ukraine's special operations forces released a statement saying that 34 Russian officers were killed as a result of the strike but that it would seek more information about whether Sokolov was among them.

"Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish an answer with an apparently alive Sokolov, our units are clarifying the information," the statement, posted on Telegram, continued. The Kremlin had at first declined to comment on whether Sokolov was alive or dead, saying all such information should come from the Defense Ministry.

Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence, its top spy agency, declined to comment.

In the unverified video released by Russia's Defense Ministry, Sokolov is shown in uniform, but he does not speak.

A digital clock in the video displays a time just past 11 a.m. on Sept. 26.

Beyond the fate of Sokolov, Ukraine's Sept. 22 strike on the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters in Sevastopol has been the subject of competing claims by Kyiv and Moscow. Russia initially said its air defenses had downed all the missiles fired at the site.

Ukrainian officials mocked those claims, while a video posted to social media on the day of the strike, verified by Storyful and confirmed by The Post, showed smoke rising from the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.

Commercial satellite imagery also showed large amounts of smoke coming from near the headquarters after the strikes.

The success of the strike on Sevastopol is an embarrassing failure for Russian air defenses. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia maintained its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol under a lease agreement with the newly independent Ukraine. In 2014, Russia invaded and illegally annexed the peninsula.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Crimea emerged as a key military staging ground. Ukraine has made recapturing it a top aim of the conflict, with some officials arguing that the country could never be safe with in Russian control.

Ukraine has made a number of significant attacks on Crimea over recent months, often targeting the Black Sea Fleet.

Rumors of Sokolov's death had circulated online among pro-Ukrainian forces shortly after the strike. In an interview with the Ukrainian-language service of Voice of America, a broadcaster owned by the U.S. government, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov declined to confirm the reports about Sokolov's death.

However, he did say that several Russian military leaders were injured in the strike. One, Colonel General Alexander Romanchuk, was in a "very serious condition," according to Budanov.

Romanchuk, former head of a prestigious military academy in Moscow, is a key figure in the Russian defense of Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

On Monday, Ukraine's special operations forces wrote on Telegram that the strike on Sevastopol had killed Sokolov and 33 other officers. In a report that evening, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said it could not see any confirmation of the news but added that "Russian command would be able to easily disprove Ukrainian reporting if these reports are false."

"Sokolov's and other Russian officers' reported deaths would create significant disruptions in command and control in the Russian Black Sea Fleet," the report continued.
CHARLESTON  A fire Wednesday morning damaged a six-unit apartment building and temporarily displaced approximately five occupants there.

The Charleston Fire Department reported in a press release that its crews were dispatched at about 7:20 a.m. to this structure fire at 912 Oakcrest Drive, north of West Polk Avenue. The arriving crews found smoke coming from the roof, flames running up the exterior, and fire in Apartment C.

"A box alarm was immediately requested to bring in additional personnel and resources. Crews made an aggressive attack on the fire in Apartment C and were able to keep it from spreading into the adjacent apartments," the fire department reported.

No one was home in Apartment C at the time of the fire and no injuries were reported.

Crews were on scene until approximately 10:37 a.m. They determined that the fire appears to have started in the floor joist of the second floor in Apartment C, which sustained heavy fire damage.

Apartments A, B, D suffered smoke damage and damage from firefighters looking for hot spots. Apartments E and F had no damage. Tenants in apartments A, B, C and D, approximately five people, will be temporarily displaced.

The fire is under investigation by the Charleston Fire Department and the Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office. Charleston crews were also assisted by the Mattoon Fire Department, Charleston Police Department, Charleston Building Department, Coles-Moultrie counties 911, and Ameren Illinois.

Close Charleston firefighters Jordan Philpott and Phillip Mazar conduct a vehicle extrication demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house on Saturday. Charleston police officer Brandon Spindler portrays a suspect being detained by police K-9 Vito during a demonstration Saturday that was part of the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. Charleston police K-9 officer Chris Darimont and K-9 Vito conduct a vehicle search demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Five-year-old McKenna Lovejoy of Charleston crawls through a tunnel that was part of a kids' obstacle course at the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Rylan McSparran, 5, of Charleston gets help from Charleston firefighter Jordan Philpott trying out a fire house during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Charleston firefighter Tom Chaney helps his daughter Myka, 8, get into kid's sized fire gear during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Satruday. Charleston Fire Prevention Week open house A variety of activities took place Saturday during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. The open house was in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week and took place at the department's station No. 2 at 1510 A St. Charleston firefighters Jordan Philpott and Phillip Mazar conduct a vehicle extrication demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house on Saturday. Charleston police officer Brandon Spindler portrays a suspect being detained by police K-9 Vito during a demonstration Saturday that was part of the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. Charleston police K-9 officer Chris Darimont and K-9 Vito conduct a vehicle search demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Five-year-old McKenna Lovejoy of Charleston crawls through a tunnel that was part of a kids' obstacle course at the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Rylan McSparran, 5, of Charleston gets help from Charleston firefighter Jordan Philpott trying out a fire house during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Charleston firefighter Tom Chaney helps his daughter Myka, 8, get into kid's sized fire gear during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Satruday.
Krispy Kreme Inc. reported in a regulatory filing Wednesday the employment details involving its planned chief executive transition on Jan. 1.

The company announced Monday the sudden executive management change, with Michael Tattersfield departing after seven years as president and chief executive on Jan. 1. He will be replaced by Josh Charlesworth in both roles.

According to the regulatory filing, Tattersfield notified the companys board of directors last week that he was stepping down on Dec. 31.

Tattersfield will be paid a monthly consulting fee of $50,000, plus compensation for his board services on the same basis as on-employee directors. According to the filing, those services could last at least through June 2026.

The company said the transition was part of its executive management succession plan in which Tattersfield will remain on the board, serve as an adviser to Charlesworth and be a company ambassador.

As of a May 11 Krispy Kreme statement of beneficial ownership filing, Tattersfield owned 2.82 million shares, representing about a 1.5% stake in the company.

Separately, fellow JAB Holding Co. affiliate Panera Bread Inc. said Monday that Tattersfield has been named to its board of directors, effective immediately, and will take over as board chairman in January.

Tattersfield is perhaps best known locally for his 2018 decision to move the companys corporate headquarters to south Charlotte after 81 years in Winston-Salem, where the company was founded. There had been more than a year of speculation about the move that swirled in part after Tattersfield and his wife bought a $1.3 million home off Lake Norman in August 2017.

The 2023 filing states that if Tattersfield terminates his employment for good reason ... he will receive a payment equal to one year of base salary, plus one additional month for each completed year he has worked for the company or an affiliate  subject to a maximum period of 24 months.

It listed Tattersfield as qualified for payments of $3.4 million if his departure is without cause or for good reason, and with no change of control of the company.

In fiscal 2022, Tattersfield received a base salary of $1.1 million, no incentive pay, stock awards valued at $999,998 on the day they were awarded and total compensation of $2.1 million.

Charlesworth, who joined the company in 2017, is being promoted from global company president while remaining as chief operating officer.

For fiscal 2022, he received $860,000 in base salary, stock awards valued at $500,006 and total compensation of $1.3 million.

Krispy Kreme said in the regulatory filing that Charlesworth would be a base salary of $1 million. He would be made eligible to receive a performance-based bonus representing 100% to $200 of his base salary.

The company also will make him eligible for annual restricted stock units worth $1 million on the date they are awarded.

On Nov. 1, Charlesworth will be provided with a grant of 492,142 restricted stock units "representing a matching award of company shares that he will own as of such date." The matching award would vest on the fifth anniversary of the grant date.

If Charlesworth is let go by the company without cause, or he leaves with good reason, he would be eligible for monthly base salary payments for 24 months and a lump-sum payment equal in value to 18 months' worth of CONRA health insurance coverage premiums.
MV Realty, the real-estate group subject to state attorneys general investigations of its business practices, filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

It appears the Boca Raton, Fla.-based company also filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 22 for each of its 33 state business subsidiaries, including in North Carolina.

The companies offer to provide cash payments, typically less than $1,000, to homeowners in exchange for their agreement to exclusively utilize that companys services to list their property at any time over the next 40 years.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law on Aug. 25 a bipartisan House Bill 422  the Unfair Real Estate Agreements Act that aims to prohibit the use of predatory real estate service agreements. The law went into effect immediately.

What bill sponsors say is concerning is that the signed contracts include a memorandum that is filed with the county that serves as a lien on the propertys title.

MV Realty has not provided comment on its website about the bankruptcy filings. It lists having more than 500 real-estate agents.

For its MV Realty of North Carolina LLC, it listed between 1 and 40 creditors, assets of between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million.

Monroe Capital Management Advisors LLC of Chicago is listed with a $40 million claim.

On Sept. 1, the N.C. Attorney Generals Office said it had obtained a preliminary injunction against MV Realty for what is alleged to be predatory service agreements. The motion was approved by Judge Mark Davis, a special Superior Court judge for complex business cases.

MV Realty was sued by Attorney General Josh Stein in March for marketing and selling these agreements. Stein also is seeking permanent injunctions, restitution for consumers and other monetary penalties.

Davis said in his order that the state Justice Department will likely succeed on its allegations that MV Realty has acted in ways that have the capacity to deceive, and actually have deceived, homeowners in North Carolina.

The AG office said Wednesday that we are looking into (the bankruptcy filing), but will continue to do everything in our power to protect homeowners in North Carolina.

Im pleased that Judge Davis agreed with our office that MV Realty cannot continue to take advantage of hardworking homeowners while this case continues, Stein said in a Sept. 1 statement.

This company has preyed on too many North Carolinians, and well do everything in our power to provide relief for the more than 2,000 victims and to make sure that they cant harm others in our state ever again.

The office could not be immediately reached for comment on the bankruptcy filings.

HB422 was shelved for more than two months before resurfacing Aug. 15 in the gatekeeper Senate Rules and Operations committee.

HB 422s lead primary sponsor is Rep. Kyle Hall (R-Stokes), who has a portion of Forsyth County in his district and also is a Realtor. Senate bill sponsors included Republican Joyce Krawiec and Democrat Paul Lowe of Forsyth County.

A major focus of the legislation is addressing the business model of MV Realty.

According to Stein, his office has received more than 20 complaints about MV Realty, which began doing business across the state in August 2020.

The company has signed up more than 2,100 North Carolinians to its Homeowner Benefit Program  typically people who are facing financial hardships and are in need of cash.

According to the bill summary, several real estate companies have been using a predatory business model to target seniors and financially insecure homeowners with cold calls, even those on the Do Not Call registry.

One review of the lending practice determined that in the states four largest Multiple Listing Service areas  Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro-Winston-Salem and Asheville  there have been more than 2,000 homeowners that signed an agreement with one of these firms since fall 2000.

According to HB 422, it is unfair to an owner of residential real estate who enters into such an agreement or to other parties who may become owners of that real estate in the future.

The law declares that such an agreement is unfair if it is effective and binding for more than one year from the effective date.

It also provides consumers with the ability to recover damages, costs and attorneys fees that may be proved against the agent, service provider or person named in the agreement.
Uncaring, unfit

Every veteran thinking about voting for Donald Trump should read Jeffrey Goldbergs article, entitled "The Patriot," in the Sept. 21 edition of The Atlantic Not only does the article show how Gen. Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump, it describes an incident that should make every Americans blood boil.

Upon becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Milley invited a severely wounded Army captain to sing God Bless America at his welcome ceremony. Capt. Luis Avila, as stated in the Atlantic article, had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries.

Trump congratulated Avila but then asked Milley, Why do you bring people like that here? Trump told Milley to never let Avilla appear in public again.

How dare this amoral disgraced former president show such contempt for a soldier who truly loves this country like Donald Trump never can. He must never again be commander-in-chief of our brave military forces.

Rudy Diamond

Lewisville

Spreading warmth

With the preponderance of climate-related news tending toward the depressing, it was refreshing to read Isabella O'Malley's Sept. 21 piece, "Governors, feds pledge increase in efficient heat pumps."

In addition to saving people money, heat pumps help reduce fossil fuel use because they rely on electricity from our grid, which is gradually getting cleaner.

Readers who made it to the end of the article will have seen that there is now a 30% tax credit for purchasing heat pumps, which puts them at a lower price point than less climate-friendly options like fossil-burning furnaces. Even better, a heat pump replaces both a furnace and an air conditioner, so you don't need two appliances anymore where one will do the trick.

What O'Malley didn't have space to include was that there is also a generous heat pump rebate for low- and moderate-income people who probably don't owe enough to the feds to take advantage of the tax credit. In Winston-Salem, a lot of those folks live in housing that still relies on heating oil or propane, an expensive proposition. Many also live in poorly insulated homes, another area where ample federal assistance is available.

We should all tell our local officials that we want them to get the word out to eligible Winston-Salemites about energy-efficiency funding. Our city should help people navigate the process of claiming these rebates and having the necessary work done on their homes. Lets seize this opportunity to promote both climate health and social equity.

Matthew Mayers

Winston-Salem

Go green anyway

Apparently, governments around the country are weighing both regulations and incentives to make buildings more efficient and cut emissions and energy use in new construction (New York Times, Sept. 20). According to the article, Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and on a rapidly warming planet, the pressure on the construction industry to build more sustainably is mounting fast.

Not so much in North Carolina.

Neither our General Assembly nor our N.C. Home Builders Association seem on board to these improvements. HB 488, which passed via a veto override this summer, delays enhancements to our N.C. building code for several more years, while the climate continues to warm and new home construction continues to accelerate (Charlotte Business Journal, Dec. 21).

While we may not expect the General Assembly to pass legislation requiring publicizing insulation amounts for new homes, builders working to a higher standard can seek independent certification for energy-efficient new homes. The International Passive House certification criteria, which include maximums for space heating, space cooling and primary energy demand, airtightness and thermal comfort, could be followed by builders working to a high standard, signaling a climate-focused stamp of approval saved for insulated buildings that slash their energy usage."

Even without this high level of certification, informing home buyers about the relative level of energy efficiency provided by insulation would be a service to people making one of the largest investments in their lives. North Carolinians deserve better.

Ellen Van Velsor

Greensboro
The Daily Minute is the Journal Star's morning news briefing where you can get the latest news in about a minute each weekday. Previous Daily Minute videos are archived here.

Good morning, Lincoln. Here are this morning's top headlines.

Contract approval up to council

The Lincoln City Council on Monday heard very different interpretations of labor negotiations that led to an impasse and the citys decision to seek approval of its last best offer to a union that represents nearly 500 street, maintenance, technical and clerical employees.

The city-county human resources director asked the council to approve the one-year contract, which includes a 3% raise and would allow the two sides to come back in February to really talk about more complex issues on the table.

Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird weighed in, urging the council to approve the contract.

The council will vote on the contract at its Oct. 2 meeting.

Lincoln man earns Carnegie Medal

When a Lincoln sheet metal worker was driving past a residential pond in southeast Lincoln last September, he noticed a large splash. When he got closer, he saw a pickup truck partially submerged in the water.

35-year-old Jordan Kurtzer along with another man who wished to remain anonymous, quickly got to work to rescue the driver as the truck continued sinking in the pond near 75th Street and Badger Drive, which was 7 feet deep.

Now, over a year after the rescue, Kurtzer is being awarded the Carnegie Medal, which is considered North Americas highest civilian honor for heroism.

Volleyball newcomers gelling

And, it may not seem like it, but the Nebraska volleyball team regularly plays four freshmen and one transfer player.

Despite all of the new faces, the Huskers have rolled to an 11-0 record this season and have yet to be pushed five sets.

John Cook says he likes how the group is responding in key moments.

They have an ability to turn it up," Cook said. "The moment doesnt bother them.

Cook also offered an injury update on Lindsay Krause. She is available to play after suffering an injury in a car accident two weeks ago.

Thats it for Wednesday, Sept. 27. Stay in the know with Lincolns longest-standing news source at JournalStar.com., well see you back here tomorrow.

Top Journal Star photos for September 2023
China honors sustainable commitment with greener, smarter transport

08:44, September 27, 2023 By Meng Fanyu ( Xinhua

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China has made solid progress in developing the country's sustainable transport and contributing its efforts to the U.N. sustainable development goals, as the world still faces obstacles and needs closer cooperation in sealing a sustainable future.

Countries should work together to boost transport connectivity, expedite green transport transformation, and build smart transport infrastructure to create a sustainable transport system that is safe, convenient, efficient, green, economical, inclusive, and resilient, China's Vice Premier He Lifeng said at the Global Sustainable Transport Forum on Monday.

Held in Beijing on Sept. 25-26, the forum has attracted about 1,000 participants, including government officials, officials from international organizations, and business representatives.

"China is a global leader in many aspects of green and sustainable transport, with high-speed rail and electric vehicles being just two examples of its progress," said Siddharth Chatterjee, U.N. resident coordinator in China.

Official data show that by the end of 2022, China's comprehensive transportation network has exceeded 6 million kilometers. The country also has the world's largest network of high-speed railways.

By the end of 2022, the total mileage of rural roads has exceeded 4.53 million kilometers.

Li Xiaopeng, Minister of Transport, said that the economy and people's livelihood in the vast rural areas have benefited from the roads, which is a part of the contributions that transportation has made to the early realization of the poverty reduction goal of the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Gao Peng, deputy mayor of Beijing, said in the first eight months this year, the number of shared-bike rides in the city reached 716 million, an increase of 12.11 percent over the same period last year.

The country's sustainable transport not only focuses on green and low-carbon development but also on making the sector smarter and more efficient.

According to Baidu Vice President Shi Qinghua, the tech company has built a large traffic model that integrates elements, including cars, roads, and cloud computing, to help make transportation smarter.

SF Express, a leading Chinese courier enterprise, adopted "digital twin" technology, which helps verify and optimize algorithm strategies at low cost, thus optimizing logistics distribution routes in the real world.

The transition to a sustainable transport sector can be a challenging process and requires joint efforts of all.

Calling for sustainable transport cooperation, Chee Hong Tat, Singapore's acting minister for transport, cited a Chinese saying "ren xin qi, tai shan yi," which means when people are of one mind and heart, they can move Mount Tai.

China is willing to work with all parties to promote the "hard connectivity" of transport infrastructure and enhance "soft connectivity" of system rules, said the vice premier.

These actions will contribute to implementing the Global Development Initiative, realizing the U.N. 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and constructing a community with a shared future for humanity, the vice premier added.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The Lincoln Board of Education unanimously approved an approximately $514 million budget for the 2023-24 school year Tuesday evening after hearing the concerns of several community members the night before.

In accordance with state law, the board hosted a final opportunity for the public to speak on the proposed budget and its property tax request Monday night, where just more than 10 speakers took the podium.

Public comment at that Monday hearing primarily centered around rising property taxes due to skyrocketing valuations.

The budget, which was first unveiled in late June, includes the largest tax levy decrease in more than 20 years  a 14-cent decrease from the current $1.21 per $100 of valuation to $1.07. However, homeowners are still likely to see an increase in their property taxes.

That's because of a projected 22.5% average increase in property values across the district, according to Liz Standish, superintendent of business affairs at Lincoln Public Schools. The Lancaster County Assessor's Office determines property valuations and each home may be valued differently for a variety of reasons, including comparable home sales.

Even with the tax levy decrease, LPS will still bring in about $27 million more in tax revenue this year  excess money that is partly used to offset future reductions to state aid.

We recognize the importance of education and Lincoln Public Schools and support adequately paying our teachers and supporting our students, said Bud Synhorst, president and CEO of the Lincoln Independent Business Association, who spoke at Mondays meeting. But we do not believe that freely increasing the taxes at this time makes good sense.

The levy decrease was made possible in part because of legislative changes to the state school funding formula led by Gov. Jim Pillen.

School districts now receive $1,500 in state aid for every student and the funding needed to cover 80% of a districts special education costs. The per-pupil aid, however, is subtracted from the state aid that equalized districts  like LPS  already receive as part of the states so-called equalization formula. Still, LPS is expected to receive about $15 million more in state aid.

Our reliance on property taxes as a school district has increased  that is the way the state aid formula works, Standish said. As values in a community go up, the state funding source goes down.

This year, the budget grew by about $24 million, or 4.8%, from last year. LPS is predicted to bring in about $18 million more than it needs based on the projected spending needs for this school year. The district plans to put that money in its cash reserve  which it uses to manage year-to-year revenue swings  because the higher property valuations will likely mean a steep drop in state aid next year.

About 90% of the budget is used to pay for staff salaries and benefits. The district pays about 6,500 employees each month, equaling about $30 million monthly. The budget also accounts for funding needed to open Standing Bear High School at the start of the school year, along with its attached preschool.

Deane Rauschler, who spoke at the Monday night meeting, felt the budget increases were unnecessary.

The amount of increase seems like it's a little bit excessive, Rauschler said. I think that sometimes we think about the structure and the budget, but we forget about the kids and the amount of education that they're getting.

Prior to Tuesday nights adoption of the new budget, LPS hosted a work session at the end of June to unveil the proposed budget. Community members were invited to participate in the four in-person meetings and one virtual meeting that followed the unveiling in June and July, Standish said. Taxpayers also got a chance to voice any concerns about LPS' and other public entities' budgets at a hearing last week as part of Nebraska's "Truth in Taxation" law that took effect last year.

By the time Mondays public hearing rolled around, it was too late for the budget to be altered.

In the future, Standish hopes they can work to make the budgetary process more transparent for community members to ensure their questions are being answered  and concerns raised  before it is too late in the process.

We're always here. We're always happy to help. We're always happy to answer questions, Standish said. We'll be reflecting on how we can get even more information into the community earlier, and then also later  which is kind of what happened this time  for our next budget process.

Photos: Inside the new Standing Bear High School in southeast Lincoln Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21 Standing Bear Highschool, 7.21
Why Yevgeny Prigozhin's private jet plummeted into a field northwest of Moscow is still a mystery. The Russian military leaders he tried to oust with his armed rebellion remain in power. His mercenary army is under new management.

And President Vladimir Putin, whose authority was badly dented by the short-lived mutiny, seems as strong as ever, with Prigozhin's fiery death sending a chilling message to anyone challenging him.

A month after Prigozhin was killed in a suspicious plane crash, the Kremlin seems to be succeeding in keeping the demise of the profane and outspoken Wagner chief as low-key as possible  a strategy underlined by Putin's absence at his funeral and troops keeping the media from entering Porokhovskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg for his Aug. 29 burial.

Prigozhins funeral was the culmination of a covert operation aimed at his elimination, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. It was conducted under the strict oversight of security agencies, shrouded in secrecy and involved deceptive tactics, she noted.

Makeshift street memorials sprouted in several cities honoring the 62-year-old Prigozhin, but they have been quietly removed by authorities. Recruitment billboards for the Wagner Group had vanished shortly after the rebellion fizzled.

In a further indignity, someone stole a violin that was left on his grave, a nod to the mercenary group's namesake, German composer Richard Wagner. Another man tried but failed to steal a sledgehammer placed there  another Wagner symbol after the group boasted of using such a tool to beat traitors to death.

Now, a surveillance camera is mounted on a nearby tree and a 24-hour guard monitors Prigozhin's well-tended grave, which on Friday was covered in flowers and written tributes.

Prigozhin's greatest wartime accomplishment  the Wagner-spearheaded capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in May after months of bloody combat  is under threat. Kyiv's troops are seeking to reclaim it in their counteroffensive in order to deal a psychological blow to Russia.

Still, the private army that once counted tens of thousands of troops is a precious asset the Kremlin wants to exploit, and Russian officials are pondering the possibility of sending some Wagner fighters back to Ukraine.

Prigozhin launched the June 23-24 rebellion, bent on ousting the Russian Defense Ministry's leadership that he blamed for mistakes in pressing the war in Ukraine. His mercenaries took over Russia's southern military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and then rolled toward Moscow before abruptly halting the mutiny.

Putin denounced them as traitors, but the Kremlin quickly negotiated a deal ending the uprising in exchange for amnesty from prosecution. The mercenaries were offered a choice to retire from the service, move to Belarus or sign new contracts with the Defense Ministry.

Exactly two months after the rebellion's start, a plane carrying Prigozhin and his top lieutenants crashed on Aug. 23 while flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing all 10 people aboard.

An investigation was launched but no findings have been released. Moscow rejected an offer from Brazil, where the Embraer business jet was built, to join the inquiry.

A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded an intentional explosion caused the crash, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin foes who have been assassinated. The Kremlin called allegations he was behind the crash as an absolute lie.

The day after the crash, Putin gave a dry eulogy for Prigozhin in brief televised remarks, saying he had known him since the early 1990s. Prigozhin was a man of difficult fate who had made serious mistakes in life, he said, without displaying any emotion.

Asked last week why the official investigation hasnt yielded any results, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded tersely that its a difficult probe.

Despite any damage done to Putin by the rebellion, Prigozhin's death was a powerful signal to Russian elites about challenging his authority.

Russian officials, meanwhile, moved quickly to take control of the companys personnel and assets.

Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov led a delegation to Syria, Libya, Central African Republic and other countries where Wagner operated to tell their leaders that the Defense Ministry will take over the job.

The death of Wagners leaders allows the Kremlin to establish control over the mercenaries in Africa, said Africa expert Alexandra Fokina in a recent analysis. Africas strategic importance for Russia is rising, and Moscow will likely try to nationalize those assets without the loss of efficiency.

That doesn't necessarily mean Wagner mercenaries in Africa will be placed under the control of the Defense Ministry. Instead, Fokina said the Kremlin could allow some of them to operate autonomously as a private entity under new, government-appointed leadership.

By maintaining such hybrid model, Moscow would be able to continue using the mercenaries in the gray zone, officially keeping a distance from Wagners activities in the region, Fokina said.

Wagners African operations hinged heavily on personal contacts developed by Prigozhin and his lieutenants, links that could be broken if the Defense Ministry tries to take full control, she noted.

Choosing an appointee from the ranks of Russia instructors working in Africa would allow the Kremlin to rely on the existing channels of communication with the local leadership, she said.

Photos: Scenes of Russia's economy since war in Ukraine
MILFORD  Southeast Community Colleges property tax levy will remain unchanged next year after its Board of Governors backed away from a plan to raise the tax rate ahead of a change to how community colleges are funded.

Instead of raising the general fund levy to 9.25 cents per $100 of valuation, the maximum allowed under state statute, SCC will continue to levy 7.37 cents per $100 of valuation to fund college operations across its 15-county footprint.

SCC also will continue to levy 2 cents for capital improvement projects at its campuses in Lincoln, Beatrice and Milford, as well as at six learning centers across its service area.

While the tax rate will remain flat, double-digit increases in property valuations will mean taxpayers will still end up paying more to support SCC next year, though college officials said a new property tax credit can reimburse those payments in full.

The change in direction for SCCs board came after what several members described as bullying behavior from Gov. Jim Pillen and members of his staff, as well as threats made by state senators to introduce legislation to undo any increase when the Legislature meets again in January.

Chuck Byers, a board member from McCool Junction, said SCC was right to pursue an increase in order to set a good foundation for its future when the funding model shifts to the state.

Personally, I think the governor is bullying everybody, and I think his chief of staff (Dave Lopez) is a bully, Byers said during the public meeting held in the Welsch Center on SCC-Milfords campus.

The pressure campaign from the governors office and some members of the Legislature, who had signed onto a letter asking SCC to reconsider, had made the plan politically unpalatable, Byers said, even among supporters in the Legislature.

I dont think the Legislature or the governor are fooling around  they are coming after us, Byers said.

Other board members also said they believed SCC was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Arlyn Uhrmacher of Lincoln, who supported the proposal in June before voting against it Tuesday evening, said SCC would face repercussions no matter what decision the board took.

If the board voted to keep the levy flat, Uhrmacher said SCC would be forced to cut positions and programs in the future, be less responsive to community and industry partners, and reduce services to the community.

But if the board voted to raise the tax rate, even marginally, Uhrmacher said SCC would face the wrath of Pillen and his allies in the Legislature, which passed a bill removing community college boards' ability to generate revenue through local property taxes earlier this year.

Theres no winners here today in this, he said.

Earlier this year, the Legislature created the Community College Future Fund as part of a tax reform package (LB243) that replaces property tax revenue with state appropriations funneled through a cash fund.

Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a tax reform package (LB243) that included the creation of the Community College Future Fund, a state-appropriated cash fund that replaces the local property taxes collected to support those institutions.

Under the new law, which goes into effect for the 2024-25 school year, colleges will receive an amount from the future fund equal to their existing general fund levy, or 7.5 cents per $100 of valuation  whichever is more. That amount is set to increase by 3.5% annually thereafter.

Four of Nebraskas six community colleges will see their funding automatically increase under the new plan, but SCC said its conservative approach to budgeting put it at a disadvantage because it has collected less in property taxes than it has been statutorily allowed to collect.

In June, college leaders announced a plan to raise the property tax levy to 9.25 cents per $100 of valuation, the maximum allowed under law, and keep in place a 2 cents per $100 of valuation capital improvement fund.

The total levy paid to SCC under the initial plan would have been 11.25 cents per $100 of valuation, which President Paul Illich said would ensure the college had adequate funding to meet the needs of students and the community moving forward.

But the proposal generated intense opposition from state lawmakers, who said SCCs plan ran counter to the intent of LB243, as well as local and statewide business and agricultural groups who said the tax increase put additional pressure on taxpayers.

Two dozen state senators urged SCC to change course in a letter in late June and insisted that the Legislature could pass to limit the college in the future.

And, ahead of a public hearing for taxing entities in September, the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, Lincoln Independent Business Association, as well as the Nebraska Farm Bureau and Nebraska Cattlemen said they, too, opposed SCCs plan to raise property taxes.

Doing so came at a time when property valuations were growing by 15% on average across the colleges 15-county service area, those groups said. Raising the tax levy could mean some property owners would pay 30% more to support SCC in the coming year.

SCC backed away from its initial plan following a series of public forums across the region but said it still planned to raise the levy from 7.37 cents per $100 of valuation to 8.5 cents per $100 of valuation.

On Tuesday, during the public comment portion of the meeting, residents within SCC's service area were split on whether or not to raise the property tax levy next year.

Merlyn Nielsen of Seward said his property taxes paid to SCC would go up more than 28% under the initial plan put forward: "I pay way too much property taxes already. I don't see the value I get out of this large increase."

Mike McDonald, a former educator, said the proposed increase came as enrollment was dropping at SCC and would hit small farmers  who are likely to attend SCC  the hardest.

Another former educator, Galen Boldt of Lincoln, spoke in support of the plan, saying the SCC Board of Governors should exercise local control in order to do what it felt was best, and Milford school board president Dave Welsch said the Legislature had forced the college's hand.

"I encourage the board to continue following this plan," Welsch said. "With the passage of LB243, the future is now."

Board members took turns describing what they said had been immense political pressure to change paths and said they have been treated unfairly by state lawmakers who characterized SCC as pursuing a "cash grab" in proposing to raise its tax levy.

Chairman Neal Stenberg said SCC stayed within the parameters set by the Legislature in developing its initial property tax request, until lawmakers decided after the fact they didn't like the college's plan.

"Initially, we followed the rules to the letter," Stenberg said. "The rules were changed after."

Stenberg also criticized the joint letter from business and agricultural groups for focusing their ire at SCC but ignoring the automatic increases that other community colleges will realize when the cash fund takes effect next year. Those colleges will see a larger initial increase in state funding than SCC will, he added, but have escaped scrutiny.

Carina McCormick of Lincoln said no matter the course taken by SCC, property taxes would go down next year as that funding is replaced by the state, which she said fulfills lawmakers' intent with LB243.

And Kathy Boellstorff of Johnson said SCC should pursue the "compromise" increase from 7.37 cents to 8.5 cents, saying the college had kept its levy flat for the previous four years in order to be fiscally responsible. Now, SCC will be penalized for failing to take advantage of its taxing authority in the past, she said.

Brandon Gunther of Hickman, the lone board member who voted against the initial plan to raise the tax levy to the maximum rate, said keeping the tax rate flat "keeps faith with taxpayers in the community" and avoids any unintended consequences from state lawmakers next year.

After rejecting a budget based on the 8.5-cent levy, the board approved a budget based on the 7.37-cent levy, and later voted to keep the levy at that rate for the 2023-24 school year. Boellstorff was the lone vote against keeping the tax levy flat.

Illich said SCC would proceed "in a positive way" moving forward, but admitted the college would immediately have to start looking at ways to trim its budget moving forward.

SCC will continue to study the long-term effects of keeping its levy flat and restructure its budget moving forward, Illich added, while also looking to grow enrollment in order to grow its budget.

Top Journal Star photos for September 2023
Lynn D. Akey, Ph.D., vice president for Student Success, Analytics and Integrated Planning at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., has been named the seventh chancellor of the University of WisconsinParkside.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously approved Akeys appointment on Tuesday, following a recommendation made by a selection committee.

Akey will assume the leadership post Jan. 2, 2024.

Akey has served in her current position since 2019 and established a new student success approach that led to increased re-enrollment, retention and graduation rates. She also has overseen strategic planning at the Mankato campus for the past 10 years.

She has served the Mankato campus since 2000 in such roles as associate vice president for Institutional Research, Strategy, and Effectiveness; Assistant to the vice president for Student Affairs; assessment coordinator; and assistant director for Academic Initiatives in the Office of the First Year Experience. She was named Minnesota State System Academic and Student Affairs Administrator of the Year in 2021.

Lynns extensive experience in student success makes her a perfect fit for UW-Parkside, said Jay Rothman, UW System president. She deeply understands how strategic planning, enrollment management, and the student experience work together.

UW-Parkside provides outstanding academic programs, incredible learning experiences with dedicated faculty and staff, and life-changing opportunities in a vibrant location, Akey said. I look forward to working with faculty, staff, students, and the surrounding communities to pursue bold goals for the future.

Dr. Akey is ready to build upon the great foundation left by Chancellor Debbie Ford, said Regent Kyle Weatherly, chair of the Search and Screen Committee. UW-Parkside has made great strides in helping students progress toward graduation in recent years and our new chancellor will continue that momentum.

We are very happy to welcome Dr. Lynn Akey as the next Chancellor of UW-Parkside. During the search process, she demonstrated that she is already one of us, and we look forward to building new relationships with her as she helps us to move forward, said Adrienne Viramontes, professor and department chair, College of Arts and Humanities, and vice chair of the search committee.

Akey earned her bachelor of Science in Psychology from Northeast Missouri State University/Truman State University; Master of Arts in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University; and doctorate in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota.

Rothman and the Special Regent Committee for the UW-Parkside chancellor search recommended Akey to the full Board of Regents. The committee included Regents Weatherly, Hector Colon, John Miller, Ashok Rai and Jennifer Staton.

The Search and Screen Committee includeed members of the Special Regent Committee; Viramontes; Robtrice Brawner, assistant professor, College of Natural and Health Sciences; Sergio Correa, assistant director of Academic Advising; Thomas Diamond, student; Lisa Just, president, South Wisconsin Patient Service Area, Advocate Aurora Health; Christopher Moeller, police officer, UW-Parkside Police Department.

Akey will earn $265,000 as chancellor.

UW-Parkside serves approximately 4,300 students and offers 51 undergraduate majors, 87 minors and certificates, and 16 graduate degrees across four academic colleges.

Ford left UW-Parkside earlier this year to lead Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, Indiana. Ford, who had led UW-Parkside since 2009, attributed some of the relocation to her and her husband, John, becoming new grandparents this year and the desire to be closer to family.
RACINE  The Racine Unified School District Board of Education has two new members.

During its meeting Monday, the school board appointed Nikki Fisher and April Harris to the board.

Fisher said she is honored to be appointed and looks forward to working hard with the board.

It feels good, Fisher said. Im excited about being on the inside and understanding the complexity of what theyre working with and trying to help.

Harris said it feels like a dream to be appointed.

She is excited to work with the board members and help area schools and the community.

The board chose Fisher over Christian de Jong by a vote of 5-0 and Harris over Chris Hefel by a vote of 3-2.

The board interviewed four candidates Monday, two for each open position. Denis Navratil was selected last week as a finalist but couldnt attend the meeting in-person.

Candidates were interviewed at the same time. Over the course of about an hour and 20 minutes, they gave opening and closing statements and answered seven questions from the board.

After the interviews, board member Theresa Villar complimented the finalists.

I just want to say how heartened and impressed and touched I am that we have four well-qualified applicants for these two positions, Villar said. I think it speaks so strongly of the community support, of people wanting to put in the work and the time that it takes to be on this board, who care about the school district. I hate to have to make a choice. I really wish we could have all of you, and I want you to know that. I really do. I appreciate all of you very much.

Board President Jane Barbian agreed.

You are awesome, Barbian told the four candidates.

There were two openings because former RUSD board members Auntavia Jackson and Matthew Hanser resigned effective Aug. 31.

Hanser and Jackson were recognized during Mondays meeting.

Dulce Cervantes, who stepped down from the School Board in January, was also recognized.

Barbian thanked all three former board members for their time and dedication.

We were very, very sorry to lose all three of these members, Barbian said.

Fisher, Harris interview responses

Fisher, a business consulting firm owner, has been involved in multiple school district advisory councils and said she enjoys researching complex issues to try to find solutions. She knows numerous challenges exist that do not have easy answers, but she is willing to work to help the school district improve.

I hope Ive demonstrated my willingness and ability to roll up my sleeves, dig into the details and learn all I can so I can be as well-informed as possible in my advocacy, Fisher said. I care about our kids, about our community and about RUSD. Right now I think the place where I can best contribute to supporting these things I care about is as a member of the team with you on the RUSD Board.

Fisher looks forward to helping make schools safe, positive learning environments so students can become successful adults.

Harris does as well. She attended RUSD and so do her two children.

I am a lifelong learner and I have a passion for education, Harris said. I want to assist in making education better in my district.

Harris, an art studio owner, repeatedly noted the importance of communicating with families and community members about school issues, particularly Black families.

Through her contacts as a business owner, Harris thinks she can help facilitate those conversations.

I believe I can be a bridge between the School Board and my community, and I want to make a difference, Harris said. I am well aware of the challenges and obstacles that the students and parents face, and I look forward to working with my fellow school board members in finding solutions.

Harris believes art education is vital and worries that art programs and classes will be some of the first cuts in future years as a result of the school districts looming eight-figure deficits.

I think art is very important; it stimulates kids, Harris said. Its very important to keep (art) in the school systems  It kept me wanting to go to school. It gave me something to look forward to.

Fisher and Harris said communication is crucial for the board and school district, both internally and with the community.

They both also said determining and then addressing the root causes of achievement gaps among poor students of color, like trauma and difficult home lives, is key to improving RUSD.

I think you have to be consistent and persistent, Fisher said. You really need to understand what are the underlying root causes and start to consistently address them.

Fisher and Harris will be sworn in at next Mondays school board work session. Both positions pay $3,600 per year.

Harris will represent District 6, which covers Downtown Racine and the surrounding area. She will complete Jacksons three-year term that ends April 21, 2024.

Fisher will represent District 8, which covers North Bay, Wind Point and parts of Caledonia. She will serve until April 21, 2024.

A special election for District 8 will be held in April 2024. The winner will have a one-year term ending in April 2025.

Close Second grader Nakarii Williams smiles with the school mascot Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kim Krause, physical education teacher, hugs two students Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Breonna Paton, from left, second grader Delantiy Campbell and Emily Etchison get ready Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kim Krause, physical education teacher, welcomes a student Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Aleisha Baugh takes a photo of kindergartener Kelex Jackson on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. A student high-fives the school bear Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kindergartener Ky-ree Jones gets ready to walk into school Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Students line up Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Eight photos of Racine Unified's first day of school at Wadewitz Elementary Tuesday was the first day of the Racine Unified 2023-24 school year. Second grader Nakarii Williams smiles with the school mascot Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kim Krause, physical education teacher, hugs two students Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Breonna Paton, from left, second grader Delantiy Campbell and Emily Etchison get ready Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kim Krause, physical education teacher, welcomes a student Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Aleisha Baugh takes a photo of kindergartener Kelex Jackson on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. A student high-fives the school bear Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Kindergartener Ky-ree Jones gets ready to walk into school Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St. Students line up Tuesday on the first day of class at Wadewitz Elementary School, 2700 Yout St.
1. Yes. If KHA cant continue to run it, the city should step in. Its a necessary asset to the area.

2. Yes. The city already uses it as a warming and cooling center. It would be a smart move.

3. No. It may be in the citys interest to help subsidize insurance for the center, but nothing more.

4. No. The city doesnt need the added burden of staffing and insuring the center. Its a bad idea.

5. Unsure. It may be seem like a good idea, but other options should be explored as well.

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Movie critic Bruce Miller says Elemental has visuals that spark some interest, but the story itself is more interested in making puns than firing emotions.
Under a partly cloudy, yet brilliant sunlit sky, Kenosha County officials and others broke ground Tuesday on a new building for human services staff and the people they serve each day.

HUMAN SERVICES GROUNDBREAKING Kenosha County Executive Samantha Kerkman speaks during a ceremonial groundbreaking event for the county's new Human Services building on Tues

Kenosha County Executive Samantha Kerkman, elected officials and staff celebrated what will eventually be the county Human Services Departments new home at 3500 52nd St. in the Sun Plaza shopping center.

Its great to be here. Obviously the skies have parted and the sun has come out today so this is wonderful to see everybody out here for this momentous occasion at the groundbreaking of the new Human Services building here on 52nd (Street), Kerkman said before the ceremonial shoveling of dirt by those in attendance.

We are moving our Human Services/Job Center building over here to the heart of Kenosha, surrounded by the six most challenging neighborhoods adjacent to the (Kenosha Innovation Neighborhood), where the city is making investments, as well, said Kerkman. This truly represents the heart of the city and where people can come for human services to meet the needs of their families and themselves.

HUMAN SERVICES GROUNDBREAKING Kenosha County officials and project team members take the first ceremonial shovelful of soil at a groundbreaking ceremony held Tuesday for th

Kerkman thanked Gov. Tony Evers, who presented the county with a $9.85 million grant from the Wisconsin Neighborhood Investment Funding program last year. The program is supported by the American Rescue Plan Act that has offered pandemic relief to municipalities.

In April, Administration Secretary Kathy Blumenfield visited Kenosha for an update on the progress of the Sun Plaza and Human Services building restoration project, one that aims to help close the equity gap in an area of need with centralized services and resources, while boosting business and economic development.

Without their help from the state of Wisconsin, the $9.8 million, this project would cost a little bit more and be a little bit more difficult, Kerkman said. I am hopeful that we will continue our relationship with the state to continue to bring resources here to Kenosha County

Relocating to the new building are 11 Human Services divisions and agencies, to be under one roof in the 79,757-square-foot expansion and renovation project.

The divisions and agencies are: public health; vocational rehabilitation; food share and employment training; economic support; veteran services; Wisconsin Works; aging, disability and behavioral health; the job center; Prevention Services Network; children and family services; and child support services.

The divisions are expected to move from the Job Center, 8600 Sheridan Road, to the new $22.6 million building, which includes the state grant funding, in the next year.

Win-win for community

County Board Chair Gabe Nudo said the board has been supportive of the project from day one.

And, Im pleased to see construction underway, said Nudo. This is a win-win for the county and the community at-large.

Human Services Department Director John Jansen thanked Kerkman, the County Board, Construction Management Associates, and Partners in Design Architects for the skill and expertise in designing the new location. He called the project a beautiful building that all in Kenosha County will be proud of. Jansen also thanked his staff members for their dedication in meeting the needs of those they serve.

Were breaking ground today at a facility that will not only be efficient for employees, but also a warm, inviting and a functional space for all who enter, he said.

Under the terms of a unique private-public partnership, Bear Development is purchasing the current Human Services Department/Job Center property at Sheridan Road for $1.6 million. According to estimates, the county will lease the new space at Sun Plaza for five years at a cost of $674,250 annually, then purchase it for $16.1 million. The five-year lease will allow Bear Development to apply for cost-saving tax credits the county would not otherwise qualify for, thereby decreasing the overall cost of redeveloping Sun Plaza.

With the contract, the county and Bear will continue to split any grants or funding for which either party applies and receives. Half of any funds the county receives will eventually be applied toward the purchase price.

HUMAN SERVICES GROUNDBREAKING Bear Development CEO S.R. Mills addresses Kenosha County officials and staff, engineers, construction management representatives and architect

Perfect example

Bear Development CEO S.R. Mills called the project a perfect example of how public-private partnerships can work.

Certainly theyre not easy, but they bring a lot of value to revitalizing neighborhoods and communities as a whole. But anything worth doing is usually hard, Mills said.

Mills said he believes the redevelopment of the building will have a positive impact not only on the business in and around Sun Plaza, but along 52nd Street, as well. According to Bear Development estimates, 425 employees are expected to work in the area and attract more than 1,000 visitors a week to the site.

We think this can be a catalyst and be something that is really pivotal to help this the neighborhood, and the community to continue to move forward, he said.

IN PHOTOS: Gov. Evers visits Kenosha to give grant money to Kenosha Innovation Neighborhood STATE GRANTS Evers announces millions of dollars for city, county STATE GRANTS STATE GRANTS STATE GRANTS STATE GRANTS STATE GRANTS STATE GRANTS Evers announces millions of dollars for city, county
A Sparta man has been arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges, including destruction of property, for actions during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to a press release from the U.S Department of Justice, he and others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to count the electoral votes of the 2020 presidential election.

Charles R. Walters, 37, is charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia with one felony offense of destruction of government property. In addition to the felony, Walters is charged with several misdemeanors, including entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

Walters was arrested Wednesday in Wisconsin and made his initial appearance in the Western District of Wisconsin federal courthouse in Madison.

According to court documents, on Jan. 6, 2021, Walters was identified via multiple open-source videos and body-worn camera footage from U.S. Capitol police officers as among a crowd of rioters on the west front of the U.S. Capitol building.

Walters destroyed fencing near a police line by kicking and stomping on it, DOJ prosecutors allege. Afterward, Walters climbed the inaugural stage risers and made entry into the Capitol building wearing a helmet and ballistic-style vest in a stack formation with other rioters. He remained on Capitol grounds until forced to leave by police as darkness was falling.

Court documents state images from several sources show he was wearing a black riot-style helmet, black ballistic-style vest, grey hooded hacket, tan pants, and a blue backpack.

This case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia with assistance from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Wisconsin.

This case is being investigated by the FBIs Milwaukee and Washington Field Offices with assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.

In the 32 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,100 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 396 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigation remains ongoing.
Enrollment is up at UW-La Crosse on the strength of an improved retention rate and another sizable first-year class.

UW-Ls overall enrollment stood at 10,327 on the 10th day of the fall semester, eclipsing last years mark of 10,302. This years total is just 2.4% shy of the universitys record enrollment of 10,580, set in fall 2019, according to a university press release.

UW-L also exceeded its target of 2,200 first-year students by 4.3%, with a class of 2,294. Last year, it welcomed a record-setting first-year class of 2,308.

Retention was a key factor in this years gains. UW-L retained 86.5% of the 2022-23 first-year class  the highest mark in a decade and the fifth-highest mark in the past 50 years.

Our Student Success programs are a big reason why we have such a strong retention rate after last years record-setting class, said Grace Engen, UW-L director of Institutional Research, Assessment & Planning. Some people might wonder, with the size of last years class: Did they just accept more students? Will they be able to retain them? I am glad to share that those students are thriving, and they have returned to UW-L at one of the highest rates weve ever had.

Adds Corey Sjoquist, assistant vice chancellor for Admissions & Recruitment: Our focus on retention and student success isnt limited to just one division  its multifaceted and campuswide. We work really hard at retaining students every year, and it continues to be a top-of-mind item for us.

UW-Ls enrollment of summer and fall transfer students also increased, from 351 last year to 358. Graduate enrollment dipped slightly, from 928 last year to 921.

International enrollment is almost identical to last year, and so is the universitys ethnic and racial diversity. Approximately 10.2% of UW-L students identify as students of color, defined as Black, American Indian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian, Asian and multiracial.

UW-Ls stable enrollment is in stark contrast to national trends in higher education. A shrinking number of high school graduates, paired with lingering effects of COVID-19, has caused enrollment to drop across the country.

The ability to recruit and retain students has been crucial to UWLs short-term and long-term success, according to the release. It also brings benefits to La Crosses economy, as students support local businesses through spending and employment.

Sjoquist said UW-Ls relationship with the surrounding community is mutually beneficial  a strong university in a vibrant city, together creating an attractive destination for students.

Its the perfect combination of quality academic programs, great faculty and staff, modern facilities, and a beautiful city, Sjoquist said. Our admissions team is out there recruiting at high schools and college fairs. I think people see that warm reception, and they feel that excitement when they visit campus and the city of La Crosse. They want to be a part of the energy at UW-L.
Wisconsin would join at least 20 states in requiring explicit informed consent before medical students practice pelvic exams on patients under anesthesia, under a bipartisan bill getting a public hearing Wednesday in the state Senate health committee.

Similar bills in the past two legislative sessions havent passed, but a recent amendment to the new bill removes a clause requiring hospitals to discipline those who violate the proposed law.

Meanwhile, a rule by the state Medical Examining Board governing the use of chaperones during sensitive exams on patients while they are awake takes effect Sunday.

Medical students sometimes do pelvic exams as part of their training, under supervision of doctors, on patients who are unconscious, when it can be easiest to learn about anatomy. Some hospitals have relied on general consent forms that dont specify procedures done for training.

California, in 2003, became the first state to pass a law requiring consent before pelvic exams on unconscious patients for teaching purposes. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, said specific informed consent should be required. The Association of American Medical Colleges called the procedures unethical and unacceptable if done without consent.

Spurred by the #MeToo movement bringing more attention to the practice, 20 states have adopted pelvic exam laws as of November, including Illinois and Iowa, researchers said in April. The laws in 15 states apply only to pelvic exams, while five states also include breast or rectal exams.

Groups such as Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Wisconsin Family Action support the latest Wisconsin bill, Senate Bill 127, whose lead sponsors are Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls; Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee; and Sen. Andre Jacque, R-DePere. The Wisconsin Hospital Association and the Wisconsin chapter of ACOG have registered with undisclosed stances on the measure.

If you go What: Public hearing on Senate Bill 127, which requires informed consent before medical students practice pelvic exams on patients under anesthesia When: 11 a.m. Wednesday Where: 400 Southeast, State Capitol, Senate Health Committee meeting

Last session, the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin joined WHA and the state chapter of ACOG in saying they were concerned with this legislation because it could cause unintended consequences for hospitals, care providers, health care student learners and patients.

The amendment that says hospitals dont have to discipline violators of the law addresses WHAs concerns, making the group neutral on the bill as amended, said Ann Zenk, a senior vice president at WHA.

The UW medical school in 2019 adopted a policy on consent for educational sensitive exams, including breast, pelvic, urogenital, prostate and rectal exams on patients under anesthesia or otherwise sedated.

Under the policy, doctors must obtain and document informed consent before allowing medical, physician assistant and physical therapy students to do the exams, which must be a routine part of the patients procedure.

UW Health has not taken a position on the new bill, spokesperson Sara Benzel said.

Sarah Wright, 44, a science teacher from Madison, pressed for the UW policy and the bill following two surgeries to remove ovarian cysts.

In 2009, after surgery by UW doctors at UnityPoint Health-Meriter, she said she had significant vulvar sensitivity, which she believes stemmed from an unauthorized pelvic exam.

In 2018, when she needed surgery again, she requested records to find out what had caused her pain in 2009 and pressed UW for details on when pelvic exams are conducted. She said she didnt get specific answers.

The 2018 surgery went fine, but Wright contacted Chris Taylor, then a Democratic Assembly member from Madison and now a state Court of Appeals judge. After Taylor contacted UW, the medical school developed its policy.

My bodily autonomy was violated during surgery, and I am determined to prevent others from suffering as I have, Wright said in 2021 in testimony for a previous version of the bill.

The medical board rule about chaperones during exams on alert patients, which takes effect Oct. 1, comes after years of opposition to previous versions by WHA and the Wisconsin Medical Society.

The rule requires doctors to follow their employers policies on use of chaperones or establish their own policies and follow them. Dr. Sheldon Wasserman, chair of the medical board, said the rule should help the board determine if doctors took appropriate steps to avoid inappropriate contact during breast, pelvic and rectal exams.

Without chaperones, allegations often involve he said, she said statements that are hard to prove or disprove, Wasserman said.

It protects patients in the state of Wisconsin from professionals, let alone professionals who are being accused falsely, he said.
EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 24, 2022

No World Can Long Exist Half-Slave and Half-Free

Oct. 23, 2022 (EIRNS)Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spent Sunday, Oct. 23 calling his counterparts in the U.S., the U.K., France and Turkey, about a quickly degrading situation in Ukraine. In particular, he warned them about the Kiev regimes involvement in an alleged plot to manufacture a dirty bomb, to create a false-flag nuclear incident in Ukraine. The plot, according to RIA Novostis sources, involves the aid of Britain in securing certain nuclear components.

It will take a while for the smoke to clear over the charges and counter-charges, but the most immediate, necessary and direct action is to focus the worlds attention over the next four days, on the Schiller Institutes presciently entitled Oct. 27 conference, For World Peace: Stop the Danger of Nuclear War. One can recognize the fear of the present moment in history, but one should never give counsel to fear.

Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a Moscow-based group of top foreign affairs analysts, commented on Shoigus phone conversations: It appears that there is a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all.

A few days ago, Lukyanov, who is also Research Director for the Valdai Club, circulated an analysis on the strategic role of the BRICS in constructing a new world economic system. The immediate provocation for Lukyanov was the report by Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Saudi Arabia wants to join the BRICS. He remarks that the BRICS could never be a rival to the G7, as long as the BRICS members had to accommodate Washington. But Washingtons orders to countries to kiss the ring of the emperor on matters of its us or them, have made it clear that sovereignty is a joke, unless a country can stand up on its own two feet. Washingtons thuggish behavior toward the Saudis on the matter of oil sanctions and prices might have been the last straw for Riyadh.

As Abraham Lincoln put it, no nation can long exist half-slave and half-free. The world is hearing that message.

The clearest path forward for the next four days is the invitation and registration for the Schiller Institute conference on Oct. 27

Your loved ones and fellow citizens can usefully organize themselves by studying the Schiller Institutes previous conference on Oct. 7 with incumbent and former lawmakers.
Is Team Biden Seeking To Use the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict as Pretext To Intervene in CSTO Countries?

Sept. 26, 2023, (EIRNS)From the Sept. 25 press conference given in Armenia, by notorious regime-change specialist, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, with acting Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim in tow, the answer to that question is yes.

Power arrived in Yerevan in the midst of an escalating humanitarian crisis between Armenia and its neighbor Azerbaijan over the long-disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict has much history which we will not review here, other than to say that Russian President Putin had personally helped mediate peace and an understanding between the two sides, which is now disintegrating. Otherwise, two points of background are relevant to potential U.S. or NATO intervention in the region.

First: Exploiting Armenian and Azeri tensions was identified in the Rand Corporations 2019 report, Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, as one of six areas ripe for United States intervention to gain geopolitical advantage against Russia. Other areas identified included providing lethal arms to Ukraine and resuming support to the Syrian rebelsboth of which are now underway.

Second: Armenia had long been an ally of Russia, and has been, up until now, a member of the six-nation post-Soviet group, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), created in 2002 by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The current government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been heavily courted in recent years by the United States and European Union, and held joint military maneuvers with NATO forces earlier this September. On Sept. 24, Pashinyan gave a national television address implying that Armenia could withdraw from CSTO, leading to triumphalist headlines in U.S. media that Russias security alliance is now falling apart.

Meantime, Samantha Power told reporters in Yerevan that she had met with Prime Minister Pashinyan, and that they discussed how the United States can support the Armenian people, both in the immediate term in Nagorno-Karabakh, and going forward as Armenia safeguards its sovereignty and territorial integrity, strengthens its democracy, and builds prosperity towards people. She bragged that USAID had nearly tripled its assistance to Armenia over the last years for democratic reform and institutional reforms.

Her trip had not been preplanned, she emphasized. President Biden had sent her to personally deliver a message on his behalf, to the Prime Minister, ... that the United States supports Armenias sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy. How would the U.S. do so? We have a vast array of tools at our disposal, and there are very high-level in Washington discussions underway about what the appropriate actions are, was her arrogant answer. New York Times reporter Andrew Higgens got her to say how the U.S. would back up its threats that Azeri use of force is not acceptable. Power demurred, Im not going to preview anything here ... as these deliberations are underway quite literally as we speak.

Other nations are going to be pressured to join in, she made clear, calling it absolutely imperative that the world stand together now and stress the inviolability of those principlesof sovereignty, territorial integrity and democracy.

An unnamed reporter, likely Armenian, raised a question which, despite the poor translation, queried if Armenia would be turned into another Ukraine: There are some expert assessments, that in order to push Russia out of the region, Washington is ready to give up with the last Armenians tragedy of Armenians can be the price for forcing Russia out of the region?
EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

One Year After Nord Stream Bombing: Who, or What, Does War Target?

Sept. 26, 2023, (EIRNS)One year ago, a series of explosions destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline that supplied Russian gas to Germany and one of the two lines of Nord Stream 2. This unparalleled act of terrorism against civilian energy infrastructure helped to usher in an enormously expensive winter for Germany and Europe more generally; energy prices increased by an order of magnitude for several months. Energy-intensive industries have been fleeing Germany, relocating production primarily to China and the United States. With the cumulative cost of over a 100 billion, one might expect Germany to act swiftly to find the culprits, but the truth is essentially the opposite.

In a new article published on the anniversary of the Sept. 26 bombings, journalist Seymour Hersh says that the eventual target of the Nord Stream destruction was not Russia, but in effect Germany, and Europe. The Biden administration blew up the pipelines, but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine, Hersh concludes. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russian gas.... And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

When U.S. President Joe Biden threatened Russia on Feb. 7, 2022, that If Russia invades ... there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it, he was speaking at a press conference with Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, who explained that he was in lockstep with the U.S.: We are acting together. We are absolutely united. Later that month, Russian President Putin launched a special military operation in Ukraine. But the pipelines were not destroyed until seven months later. Why? Was there a fear that a rapprochement might be found, that the world might stand up to demand peace and an acknowledgment of Russias security concerns? By destroying the pipeline, an avenue of major potential cooperation between Germany and Russia was cut off.

This anniversary comes as the United Nations is concluding its General Debate for 2023, where a growing chorus of nations is insistent that a new paradigm must take hold in the world. The days when a few nations set the agenda and expected others to fall in line are over, said the foreign minister of the worlds most populous nation, India. In our deliberations, we often advocate the promotion of a rules-based order. From time to time, respect for the UN Charter is also invoked. But for all the talk, it is still a few nations who shape the agenda and seek to define the norms. This cannot go on indefinitely. Nor will it go unchallenged.... When reality departs from the rhetoric, we must have the courage to call it out. The Prime Minister of neighboring Pakistan warned that despite the worlds development needs, Tensions between the global powers have continued to escalate. We see the rise of new and old military and political blocs. Geo-politics is resurging when geo-economics should have primacy in the world.

Meanwhile, Canada dramatically strengthened Putins argument that de-Nazification was one of Russias goals in Ukraine, by applauding a Ukrainian SS volunteer in the House of Commons. This has brought new attention to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who held an OUN-B symbol at a rally and whose grandfather, who introduced her to the Ukrainian scouting organization Plast, was the editor for a Nazi newspaper in Krakow. Poland, which suffered mightily at the hands of people such as the guest so grotesquely honored by that Commonwealth realm, denounced the travesty: This is a person who participated in an organization that was targeting Poles, was committing mass murders of Poles, not only the military personnel but also civilians, said Polands Ambassador to Canada. While the Ukrainian SS soldier should not have appeared in any public place to begin with, he should certainly face prosecution for what his unit was doing during the Second World War.

It is gratifying to find that applauding Nazis (at least, some of them) crosses a line. But why is the funding of Nazis acceptable?

At the UN, Belarus said that Ukraine and its people have become a bargaining chip in the Great Game played by the West in its quest for preserving global hegemony. But as the pawns are capturedwhile inflicting minimal losses on the Russiansa greater threat looms: escalations of strikes into the territory of Russia, by weapons supplied, maintained, and perhaps even operated by NATO nations. The goal is to drive Russia to the wall, to increase pressure until a counterreaction is forced, one that would threaten the world in a game of thermonuclear chicken. The deteriorating security situation around Nagorno-Karabakh is another flank against regional stability, and one of six options for extending Russia laid out in a 2019 RAND report, Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.

In this context, the Aug. 28 call by wise Western military and foreign affairs experts for Ending the War with a Negotiated Peace takes on greater urgency.

The world needs not just a modus vivendi of managed co-existence, but a system in which each is devoted to the benefit of the other. Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar expressed such a change in Indias conceived role on the international stage: From the era of non-alignment, we have now evolved to that of Vishwa Mitra (a friend to the world).
American President Joe Biden joined members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on a picket line as they continued their strike against U.S. carmakers Tuesday.

Bidens action represents the strongest presidential support in history for striking workers.

You deserve the significant raise you need, Biden said after arriving at a General Motors parts center west of Detroit, Michigan. He walked along the picket line, exchanging fist bumps with striking workers.

He said yes when asked if UAW members deserved a pay increase, one of the demands that the union has made. No deal, no wheels! workers said loudly as Biden arrived. No pay, no parts!

Candidates have appeared at strikes to show support for union members. During his 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Biden and others joined a picket line of casino workers in Las Vegas, Nevada. But sitting presidents have to balance the rights of workers, businesses and economic concerns. They have long avoided such appearances.

No president has ever walked a picket line before, said Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and an expert on U.S. labor history. Loomis added that presidents saw themselves more as mediators. They did not see it as their place to directly intervene in a strike or in labor action.

Bidens action represents the strongest presidential support for striking workers since 1902. In that year, University of Texas historian Jeremi Suri said, President Theodore Roosevelt invited striking coal workers to the White House.

Biden joined the striking workers one day before former President Donald Trump plans another event with auto workers in Detroit. Trump is the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and will likely face Biden in the general election.

The UAW strike against three major American carmakers started 12 days ago on September 14. The UAW targeted General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler and Jeep. Thirteen-thousand auto workers went on strike that day. And another 5,600 joined them last week.

The labor union is asking for fewer working hours, improved benefits and a 36 percent raise in pay over four years. The group is also asking for union representation at new electric vehicle battery factories.

The group said workers had given up raises for many years to help auto companies through the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. American auto companies also received government support at the time but have since become very profitable. The three companies have received net income of $164 billion since and $20 billion this year.

On Monday, Biden said I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under. They gave everything from their pensions on, and they saved the automobile industry. He added that workers should benefit from carmakers riches.

Republicans believe Biden's push for electric vehicles (EVs) is unpopular with auto workers. In a statement on Tuesday, Trump accused Biden of "stabbing" autoworkers in the back. Biden's EV push, he said, will hurt the U.S. auto industry and cost jobs.

The auto industry and its labor unions usually play an important part in elections in Michigan and other midwestern states.

In 2016, Trump captured the White House by winning the state of Michigan among others. Biden won Michigan in 2020.

Im Mario Ritter, Jr.

Hai Do adapted this story for Learning English based on reports from the Associated Press and Reuters.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

picket v. to stand in a public place and protest, especially for workers to call on an employer to pay them more money

deserve v. to say if some should have something or not

significant adj. important; notable

fist bump n. a form of greeting that is meant to show agreement or solidarity

casino n. a business where gambling, or games of chance, are offered

mediator n. a person who works with opposing sides in an effort to bring them to an agreement

benefits n. (pl.) things offered in addition to pay that are employers give their employees

battery n. a device that holds electrical charge to power electric machines or electronics

net income n. money from business that is left after costs are subtracted

pension n. an amount of money that a company or government pays who is retired or unable to work any longer
The structure is simple: two logs, fitted together with a notch.

It is half a million years old. It provides a rare look at how ancient human relatives were working with wood and changing their environments, researchers wrote in a study published recently in Nature.

Larry Barham of the University of Liverpool in Britain was one of the writers of the study. Barham said, It took me a while before I appreciated what we were looking at. He added about the structure, It didnt look very nice, to be honest. But it is much more complex than I thought.

Barham and his team dug up the log structure, and several wooden tools, from a riverbed area that sits above a waterfall in the African country of Zambia. They think the crossed logs could have been the base for a bigger structure like a walkway or a platform.

Barham explained that wood usually rots quickly due to the weather. As a result, little evidence remains of how our ancient relatives used the material. But the log structure that researchers found had been below the rivers surface, which helped save them.

So when Barhams team found the logs in 2019, they were still able to see signs that early humans had shaped them.

Everything just looks so fresh, you think, It cannot be this old, Barham said.

It was difficult for researchers to estimate the age of the wood structure. Traditional dating techniques could not get deep enough into the past. In this study, researchers used a new method called luminescence dating.

Luminescence dating uses tiny minerals in the sand to estimate how long materials have been buried, explained study writer Geoff Duller.

Duller is an expert in dating methods at Aberystwyth University in Wales.

The log structure was made at least 476,000 years ago, while the wood tools are slightly younger, under 400,000 years old. That places the materials in a time before our species, Homo sapiens.

The earliest-known Homo sapiens bones date from roughly 300,000 years ago in Morocco. The Kalambo Falls logs were determined to be from about 476,000 years ago.

The objects would have been made by another kind of early human relative  possibly Homo heidelbergensis, which was around in Africa at the time, the studys writers said.

Homo heidelbergensis had a bigger braincase and flatter face than earlier hominins - species on the human evolutionary lineage.

If these ancient humans were putting effort into building these structures, it suggests they may have stayed for a while or made repeated visits. In other words, they were not just groups of hunter-gatherers, said Dirk Leder of Germanys Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage. Leder was not involved with the research.

Annemieke Milks of Britains University of Reading was also not involved in the study. Milks said about the finding, Its an important window into what these humans were capable of.

Im John Russell.

Maddie Burakoff reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

notch  n. a small cut that is shaped like a V

appreciate  v. to understand the worth or importance of something

platform -- n. a flat surface that is raised higher than the floor or ground

rot  v. to slowly decay

species -- n. a group of animals or plants that are similar and can produce young animals or plants
As children returned to school in Sweden last month, many of their teachers were putting a new importance on some traditional skills. These included reading printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice. Teachers were spending less time with digital devices, online research and typing skills.

The return to traditional ways of learning might be the answer to questions raised by politicians and experts. They have questioned the country's dependence on electronic technology in education. For example, schools in Sweden have introduced tablets in preschools but critics say students are not learning basic skills as well.

Lotta Edholm is the Swedish Minister for Schools. She took office 11 months ago as part of a new center-right government. She was one of the biggest critics of the level of technology in schools.

Swedens students need more textbooks," Edholm said in March. Physical books are important for student learning.

The minister announced last month that the government wants to reverse the decision made by the National Agency for Education to make digital devices required in preschools. The ministry told the Associated Press that it plans to stop digital learning for children under the age of six.

Swedens students score above the European average for reading ability. But an international test of fourth grade reading levels, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, showed Sweden's children had lost ground between 2016 and 2021.

Some learning loss might have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. The losses could also be a result of a growing number of immigrant students who do not speak Swedish as their first language. But an overuse of electronic devices during school lessons may cause kids to fall behind, education experts say.

Swedens Karolinska Institute is a medical school centered on research.

Theres clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning, the institute said in a statement last month. The institute added that schools should instead center on teaching using printed textbooks and teacher knowledge. Information from digital sources may not be accurate, it said.

The expansion of digital learning tools in schools also has drawn concern from the United Nations education and culture agency.

In a report published last month, UNESCO issued an urgent call for appropriate use of technology in education. The report urged countries to speed up internet connections at schools. But it also warned that technology in education should be used in a way so that it never replaces in-person, teacher-led instruction.

Online instruction is a highly debated subject across Europe and in other parts of the world. Poland, for instance, just launched a program to give a laptop paid for by the government to each student starting in fourth grade.

In the United States, the coronavirus pandemic pushed public schools to provide millions of laptops to students. But there is still a digital divide, which is part of the reason why American schools often use both print and digital textbooks, said Sean Ryan. He is president of the U.S. school division at textbook publisher McGraw Hill.

Educators are less likely to use only digital textbooks because some households lack the technology or internet connection at home, he added.

To answer Sweden's decline in 4th grade reading performance, the Swedish government announced $64.7 million in book purchases for the countrys schools this year. Another $45.3 million will be spent yearly in 2024 and 2025 to speed up the return of textbooks to schools.

Not all experts think Swedens move away from digital technology is only about what is best for students.

Criticizing the effects of technology is a popular move with conservative politicians, Neil Selwyn said. He is a professor of education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

The Swedish government does have a valid point when saying that there is no evidence for technology improving learning, but I think thats because there is no straightforward evidence of what works with technology, Selwyn added. Technology is just one part of a really complex network of factors in education.

Im Dan Novak.

Dan Novak adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on reporting by The Associated Press.

Quiz - Sweden Brings Books, Handwriting Back to School Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

____________________________________________

Words in This Story

type v. to write using a keyboard

impair  v. to worsen the ability of something or someone to perform a task or to operate

enhance  v. to improve something

textbook  n. a book about a subject that is designed for teaching in a school

accurate adj. free from errors or mistakes

appropriate adj. having the right qualities for some purpose

laptop  n. an easily carried computer that has a keyboard

valid adj. fair or reasonable

factor n. something that influences a result
Do you Ookla?

Nebraskans who think the internet offered in their area is slow might want to get familiar with it.

The Ookla website, another from M-Lab and others provide a free and easy way to check your internet speeds.

With one click, the websites display your download and upload speeds, important for streaming movies, browsing, gaming and emailing  and for knowing what your provider is delivering to your door.

As the Nebraska Broadband Office draws up plans to extend broadband across the state, speed tests will become a particularly useful tool to some Nebraskans.

Under newly released state plans, residents could use speed tests to verify whether the internet at their house or business lags behind federal speed thresholds.

Test results will help the state ensure the accuracy of the map on which deployment plans will be based and grants awarded to companies that will build out the systems.

Specifics of the states plans can be found in two new reports prepared by the Nebraska Broadband Office as required by the federal government.

The Broadband Office has posted a draft of its Initial Proposal Volume I and a Nebraska Internet for All Five-Year Action Plan that together describe how it intends to extend high-speed internet using $405 million in federal funds available through the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment Program.

The money comes from the $42.45 billion Congress authorized in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.

I believe the money that is coming in through this program for broadband is a once-in-a-generation amount, said Patrick Haggerty, director of the Nebraska Broadband Office.

Preliminary Nebraska counts have identified 67,000 locations that are unserved and 37,000 underserved, but those could change as people make use of a challenge process.

Residents have until Oct. 14 to comment on the states initial proposal, which basically lays out the rules for challenging the states designation of your location as served or unserved.

The five-year plan lists so-called community anchor institutions such as libraries, senior centers and medical clinics statewide that lack high-speed access.

Those vital institutions have been identified as not yet served by very fast 1 gigabit download and upload speeds.

The institutions could be aided through the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, but first priorities for the program are unserved and then underserved locations.

Public comment will be incorporated into the states proposal, which will be submitted to the federal government.

Once it is approved, the state can move on to the challenge process early next year.

Under the law, the state must allow businesses and residents to challenge a determination as to whether a particular location is sufficiently served.

The state has created an interactive map, which is located on the Broadband Office website. Residents can type their street address into the Nebraska Broadband Availability map and see how their property has been designated.

As one might expect, the map shows the Omaha metro and Lancaster County areas generally served, while rural areas not so much.

Haggerty said he hopes to receive comment on how the map could be improved to be more useful.

Challenges will be allowed through a local or tribal government, nonprofit organization or service provider.

For instance, some organizations like AARP have already expressed interest in aiding residents with challenges, Haggerty said.

The states initial proposal says the state will use rigorous speed test methodologies to check if served locations actually receive service that is materially below 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload for unserved and 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload for underserved.

Download speeds involve retrieving information from the internet, including streaming movies and TV. Upload speeds determine how fast information travels from a computer to the internet, like sending emails or publishing photos online.

The challenge process will be an opportunity to let the state know of any dead zones or pockets that arent served, he said.

Thats exactly what were looking for the public and these local governments to do when we open up this challenge process, Haggerty said. Hopefully, next January, they go in and say This address is showing its served on your map, but it is not served. And heres the evidence to prove that.

The challenge phase is tentatively planned for Jan. 3 to Feb. 2, 2024.

People will be able to challenge for a variety of reasons, and providers will have a chance to rebut a challenge.

One reason for a challenge is availability, by showing the speeds are not offered at a location. To back their case, a person could provide a screenshot of the providers web page, email or letter from the provider refusing service, evidence theres no fiber to the home or that the provider was charging excessive fees to install it.

Another reason would be speed, if the actual speed of the service tier falls below the unserved or underserved thresholds. This could be proved with a speed test, as long as the test met the reliability requirements for the test.

The state has indicated that tests from Ookla and another website, M-Lab, would be accepted. The proposal outlines some specific protocols a person must follow to assure reliability of the test results.

The internet company, in turn, could present evidence to prove it actually delivered satisfactory speeds to the customer, and the slowdown was caused by a slow router or computer, or some other situation in the home like a thick wall or fish tank blocking a signal.

Providers will have a maximum of 30 business days from notification of a challenge to provide rebuttal information to the broadband office. The rebuttal phase is tentatively planned for Feb. 3 to March 16, 2024.

The final determination phase is tentatively planned for March 17 to April 16, 2024.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba said yesterday that it would spin off its logistics arm, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, in an initial public offering in Hong Kong, making it the first business unit to go public following a major restructuring.

Alibaba said in a filing that it had submitted a spin-off proposal to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and that it has received confirmation to proceed.

Alibaba will continue to be a majority shareholder in Cainiao, holding over 50% of the company and retaining it as a subsidiary. The company currently owns nearly a 70% stake in Cainiao, Alibabas main delivery arm that handles logistics and parcels for merchants both in China and abroad.

The move comes about six months after Alibaba first announced that it would split its business into six different units.

Apart from its main e-commerce business, the other five business units, which include logistics and cloud computing, will be allowed to raise external capital or spun off to go public in order to provide flexibility and maximize shareholder value.

The Cainiao IPO would be the first of Alibabas business units to undergo an initial public offering.

The firm recently saw a change in leadership, with new CEO Eddie Wu taking over the reins earlier this month from Daniel Zhang.

Zhang, who originally stepped down as CEO to focus on heading Alibabas cloud division, has also left his position at Alibaba Cloud to start a new investment fund backed by Alibaba. MDT/AP
The Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM) and Bangkoks UNESCO Office have signed a partnership agreement to promote world heritage conservation and education, the IFTM has said in a statement to the press.

The Chief of the Culture Unit of the UNESCO Bangkok office, Feng Jing, and IFTM president Fanny Vong signed the agreement during a virtual ceremony.

The agreement reaffirms both parties commitment to further promote and update the content of the Cultural Heritage Specialist Guide Training and Certification Programme for UNESCO World Heritage Sites, developed by IFTM working with Bangkoks UNESCO Office, and launched in 2005.

The program aims to enhance the knowledge and skills of tour guides who operate in world heritage sites across the Asia-Pacific region and to raise public awareness of the importance of preserving and respecting the universal values of these sites.

The World Heritage Committee recognized the initiative during its 31st session in 2007 as a best-practice example of integrating heritage conservation and sustainable development for the benefit of local communities.

Under UNESCOs coordination, IFTMs experts have been providing consultancy and training not only in Macau but also in Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and mainland China.

The Cultural Heritage Specialist Guide Training and Certification Programme consists of a core module and a country-specific module, so that participants can acquire both general knowledge about the significance and protection of world heritage as well as the universal value of their own country or region heritage.

Over the past 18 years, IFTM has trained 142 Cultural Heritage Specialist Guides for Macau to offer quality and accurate interpretations of Macaus world heritage sites, providing visitors with a learning experience when appreciating local monuments and sites.
Indias army chief yesterday said the country was committed to maintaining a free and stable Indo-Pacific, where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations is respected, as global concern grows over Chinese influence in the region.

General Manoj Pande made the comments at the Indo-Pacific Army Chiefs Conference, hosted by India and the U.S., which is focused on boosting military diplomacy and collaboration as well as promoting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. Army chiefs and delegations from 30 countries are attending the two-day event, which concludes today.

Pande said that while countries in the region are working toward a free Indo-Pacific, we are witnessing manifestations of interstate contestations and competition.

Neither Pande nor the U.S. Army chief, Randy George, explicitly mentioned China in their remarks.

When asked about Chinese expansion at a press briefing, George said the region was a critical priority for the U.S. Its why we are out here and why we exercise more than anywhere else in the Pacific, to build all of this. What this conference proves is (our) unity and commitment, the U.S. chief said.

At the opening ceremony held after, Pande said Indias outlook was focused on the peaceful resolution of disputes, avoiding force and adhering to international law. He added that in addition to challenges in maritime security, the region also faced security and humanitarian concerns on land, including territorial disputes and over artificially expanded islands to acquire real estate and establish military bases  another veiled reference to China.

Chinas territorial claims in the East China and South China seas over islands have rattled Beijings smaller neighbors in Southeast Asia as well as Japan. Meanwhile the relationship between New Delhi and Beijing has deteriorated since 2020, when Indian and Chinese troops clashed along their undefined border in the Himalayan Ladakh region, leaving 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead. MDT/AP
The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) is today celebrating World Tourism Day with the traditional Tray Race as well as welcoming the Lucky Tourist. With the participation of many local hotels and resorts as well as other catering companies, the Tray Race will take place at the Ruins of St. Pauls this afternoon, finishing at the Senado Square. The Lucky Tourist will be chosen from among those arriving this morning at the Macau International Airport on flight AK1301 from Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia). World Tourism Day has been celebrated on Sept. 27 since 1980.

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The Philippine coast guard said it has complied with a presidential order to remove a floating barrier placed by Chinas coast guard to prevent Filipino fishing boats from entering a lagoon in a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

Philippine officials condemned the installation of the 300-meter-long barrier at the entrance to the lagoon at Scarborough Shoal as a violation of international law and the Southeast Asian nations sovereignty. The coast guards report Monday that it had removed the barrier underscores intensifying Philippine efforts to fight Chinas increasingly aggressive actions, against many odds, in one of the worlds most hotly contested waters.

Chinese coast guard vessels laid the rope and net barrier, held up by buoys, last week as a Philippine government fisheries vessel approached and more than 50 Philippine fishing boats swarmed outside the shoal, the Philippine coast guard said.

It said in a statement Monday night that it successfully removed the floating barrier in a special operation in compliance with the order of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It did not provide other details, such as whether the entire barrier was removed, when the operation occurred and how Chinese coast guard ships, which have closely guarded the shoal for years, reacted.

The decisive action of the Philippine coast guard to remove the barrier aligns with international law and the Philippines sovereignty over the shoal, the coast guard said. It said it remains committed to upholding international law, safeguarding the welfare of Filipino fisherfolk and protecting the rights of the Philippines in its territorial waters.

Video issued by the Philippine coast guard in Manila shows a diver cutting part of what appears to be the barrier rope. In another video, a man on a motorboat tries to lift what appears to be part of the barrier.

Earlier Monday, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said that the placement by the Peoples Republic of China of a barrier violates the traditional fishing rights of our fishermen.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the shoal and its adjacent waters are Chinas inherent territory, where Beijing has indisputable sovereignty.

A Philippine government fisheries vessel trespassed into the waters without Chinas permission last Friday, Wang said, and attempted to intrude into the lagoon of the shoal. Chinas coast guard took the necessary measures to stop and warn off the ship in accordance with the law, which was professional and with restraint, he added.

Its the latest flare-up in long-simmering territorial disputes in the busy and resource-rich waterway, most of which is claimed by China.

Washington lays no claim to the sea passageway, a major global trade route, but U.S. Navy ships and fighter jets have carried out patrols for decades to challenge Chinas expansive claims and promote freedom of navigation and overflight. China has told the U.S. to stop meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.

The Chinese barrier denied Filipinos access to the rich fishing lagoon surrounded by underwater coral outcrops, Philippine coast guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said. MDT/AP
Sofia Oliveira was 12 years old when catastrophic wildfires in central Portugal killed more than 100 people in 2017. She felt it was now or never to raise our voices as her country appeared to be in the grip of deadly human-caused climate change.

Now a university student, Sofia and five other Portuguese young adults and children between 11 and 24 years of age are due today at the European Court of Human Rights, where they are accusing 32 European governments of violating their human rights for what they say is a failure to adequately address climate change. Its the first climate change case filed with the court and could compel action to significantly slash emissions and build cleaner infrastructure.

Victory for them in Strasbourg would be a powerful instance of young people taking a legal route to force their governments to adopt a radical recalibration of their climate measures.

The courts rulings are legally binding on member countries, and failure to comply makes authorities liable for hefty fines decided by the court.

The courts are increasingly seen by activists as a way of sidestepping politics and holding governments to account. Last month, in a case brought by young environmental activists, a judge in the U.S. state of Montana ruled that state agencies were violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by allowing fossil fuel development.

When the Portuguese group decided in 2017 they would pursue legal action, Sofia wore braces on her teeth, stood taller than her younger brother Andre and was starting seventh grade at school. The braces are long gone and Andre, who is now 15, is taller than her by a few centimeters (an inch or so).

The past six years, Andre noted in an interview with The Associated Press, represent almost half of his life.

What has kept them going through the piles of legal documents gathered by the nonprofit group supporting them and through lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic is what they call the pressing evidence all around them that the climate crisis is getting worse.

The Praia do Norte beach at Costa da Caparica near where Sofia and Andre live, just south of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, was about 1 kilometer (3,000 feet) long when his father was his age, Andre says. Now, amid coastal erosion, it measures less than 300 meters (1,000 feet). Evidence like that led him to attend climate demonstrations even before he became a teen.

The other four members of the Portuguese group  Catarina, Claudia, Martim and Mariana  are siblings and cousins who live in the region of Leiria in central Portugal where summer wildfires are common.

Scientists say the climate of the Sahara is jumping across the Mediterranean Sea to southern European countries like Portugal, where average temperatures are climbing and rainfall is declining. Portugals hottest year on record was 1997, followed by 2017. The four driest years on record in the country of 10.3 million people have all occurred since 2003.

Its a similar story across Europe, and the legal arguments of the six Portuguese are backed by science. The Earth sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The world is far off its pledge to curb global warming, scientists say, by cutting emissions in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris climate accord. Estimates say global average temperatures could rise by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (2.6 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times by 2100 at current trajectories of warming and emissions reductions plans.

Among the specific impacts listed by the young Portuguese are being unable to sleep, concentrate, play outside or exercise during heat waves. One of their schools was closed temporarily when the air became unbreathable due to wildfire smoke. Some of the children have health conditions such as asthma that makes them more vulnerable to heat and air pollution.

They are being assisted by the Global Legal Action Network, an international nonprofit organization that challenges human rights violations. A crowdfunding campaign has drawn support from around the world, with messages of support coming from as far away as Japan, India and Brazil.

Gerry Liston, a GLAN legal officer, says the 32 governments have trivialized the case. The governments have resisted every aspect of our case  all our arguments, he said.

Andre describes the governments as condescending. Sofia adds: They dont see climate as a priority.

Portugals government, for example, agrees the state of the environment and human rights are connected but insists the governments actions seek to meet its international obligations in this area and cannot be faulted.

At the same time, some governments in Europe are backsliding on commitments already made.

Poland last month filed legal challenges aimed at annulling three of the European Unions main climate change policies. Last week, the British government announced it is delaying by five years a ban on new gas and diesel cars that had been due to take effect in 2030. The Swedish governments state budget proposal last week, meanwhile, cut taxes on gas and diesel and reduced funding for climate and environmental measures.

Amid those developments, the courts are seen by activists as a recourse.

The London School of Economics says that globally, the cumulative number of climate change-related cases has more than doubled since 2015 to more than 2,000. Around one-fourth were launched between 2020 and 2022, it says.

The Portuguese activists, who are not seeking any financial compensation, will likely have to wait some more. The verdict in their case could take up to 18 months, though they see the courts decision in 2020 to fast-track the proceedings as an encouraging sign. BARRY HATTON & HELENA ALVES, COSTA DA CAPARICA, Portugal, MDT/AP
A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 after ranting about Hispanics taking over the government and economy has agreed to pay more than $5 million to victims of the racist attack, according to an order signed by a judge yesterday [Macau time].

Patrick Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences in July after pleading guilty to federal hate crime charges following one of the nations worst mass killings. Court records show his attorneys and the Justice Department reached an agreement over the restitution amount, which was then approved by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama.

There is no indication Crusius, 25, has significant assets. He was 21 years old and had dropped out of community college when police say he drove more than 700 miles from his home near Dallas to target Hispanics with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store. Moments before the attack began, Crusius posted a racist screed online that warned of a Hispanic invasion of Texas.

He once worked at a movie theater, a job that his attorneys have said Crusius was forced to leave because he was having violent thoughts.

Crusius pleaded guilty in February after federal prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. But Texas prosecutors have said they will try to put Crusius on death row when he stands trial in state court. That trial date has not yet been set.

Under the agreement between the gunman and the government, Crusius will pay $5,557,005.55, according to court filings.

Dean Reckard, whose mother Margie Reckard was killed in the shooting, said he chose not to be included in the restitution and expressed doubt that someone sentenced to prison for life could actually pay millions of dollars.

Nobody can ever bring back the people who were lost, including my mother, Reckard said. You cant put a price on somebodys life. Were going to be without the people in our lives forever and he is just sitting behind bars right now, and he still gets to live so there is no winning anything here.

Joe Spencer, an attorney for Crusius, and a spokesperson for the Justice Department did not return messages.

In January, the Justice Department proposed changes to how it runs federal prisoners deposit accounts in an effort to ensure victims are paid restitution, including from some high-profile inmates with large balances. The move came as the Justice Department faced increased scrutiny after revelations that several high-profile inmates kept large sums of money in their prison accounts but only made minimal payments to their victims.

The 2019 attack was the deadliest of a dozen mass shootings in the U.S. linked to hate crimes since 2006, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

Before the shooting, Crusius had appeared consumed by the nations immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and other social media posts that praised then-President Donald Trumps hardline border policies. Crusius went further in his rant posted before the attack, sounding warnings that Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy. PAUL J. WEBER, AUSTIN (Texas), MDT/AP
* Tourist-friendly

 MGTO adopts measures to welcome some 100,000 visitors daily during the upcoming Golden Week holidays

* Asian Games | Local swimmer ties best result in Hangzhou

* Transport | Trial operations for car lane at Hengqin commence

* The IFTM and Bangkoks UNESCO Office signed a partnership agreement to promote world heritage conservation

* Public leisure facilities only open with proven safety: IAM

* Six young activists devote years to climate fight, today comes their day in court

* Rugby WC

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Wednesday, September 27, 2023  edition no. 4339
Federal investigators declined to blame prescribed burns at Fort McCoy for a mid-April wildfire in Monroe County, but a local fire chief is adamant that no burning should have been conducted anywhere in the area during that time.

Fire investigators from the Department of Defense concluded that an April 12 prescribed burn at Fort McCoy did not cause the fire. Investigators were unable to determine whether a prescribed burn conducted April 11 played a role.

Fort McCoy announced the investigation's results in a press release Tuesday.

The investigation determined that the prescribed burns "complied with all applicable standards required to be conducted by a federal military installation" and that "prudent measures were taken to mitigate the inherent risks associated with prescribed burns."

Town of Lincoln Fire Department Chief Michael Morphey said Tuesday that any burning was ill-advised.

"Fire conditions were extreme, and there were 40 mph winds," Morphey said. "There should have been no burning that day."

The fire consumed 3,200 acres, most of them woodland within the 60,000-acre military base. However, the fire extended beyond the installation's borders in the town of Grant, where it burned private property and caused the temporary closure of Interstate 94. One family was displaced by the fire. No injuries were reported.

The Monroe County fire occurred during a period when wildfires were reported in 14 Wisconsin counties, including a fire in Juneau County that burned 100 acres.

According to the investigation, the April 12 prescribed burn was 1 miles away from the wildfires origin "in or around McCreddens Pass." The cause remains undetermined due to evidence possibly washed away by heavy rain and snowfall. Investigators ruled out lightning, troop training and operations.

Investigators concluded that Fort McCoy had sufficient personnel to manage both burns and that there were no safety concerns.

Morphey said his department wasn't consulted in the fire's aftermath, even though fire crews from his department battled the blaze. He said he only recently learned that Fort McCoy conducted an "after-action review" in May.

"We weren't even involved," he said. "We would have something to take to them."

The press release says plans are under way to rehabilitate the areas impacted by the wildfire and that the U.S. Army Claims Service is adjudicating claims from those who may have suffered losses from the fire. It says Fort McCoy leadership will meet with the community in the upcoming weeks to discuss the findings and field questions.

"Fort McCoy is committed to the safety and protection of all people and property in and around the installation and surrounding communities and continues to improve procedures of the Wildland Fire Management Program," the press release says.
A fifth defendant in a drug trafficking ring was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on Tuesday, authorities reported.

Reginald Jemison, 56, of Chicago, was sentenced by Judge James D. Peterson for attempting to possess fentanyl with intent to distribute, a charge he pleaded guilty to on June 8, U.S. Attorney Timothy OShea said in a statement.

In 2020, federal and state law enforcement agencies collaborated to investigate several known drug traffickers in Dane County. During the investigation, the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation learned that Jemison coordinated with Andre McClinton to ship a parcel of narcotics to an apartment building in Madison via U.S. mail, OShea said.

On Dec. 7, 2020, a U.S. postal inspector identified the parcel, obtained a federal warrant, and searched the package. Inside was a vacuum-sealed bag that contained a white substance weighing about 590 grams that the Wisconsin State Crime Lab tested positive for the presence of fentanyl. DCI agents took the drugs and resealed the parcel for a controlled delivery, OShea said.

Later that day, investigators delivered the parcel to the address in Madison and about a minute after delivering the parcel, a silver sedan with Illinois license plates pulled up to the building. A man got out of the front passenger seat, walked toward the building and took the parcel. Law enforcement arrested the man, who was later identified as Jeffrey Kemp, as he put the parcel into the sedan. Officers also arrested the driver of the vehicle, Antonio Dillard, OShea said.

Kemp and Dillard admitted that Jemison paid them to pick up the parcel and transport the drugs back to Chicago for distribution, OShea said.

In sentencing Jemison, Peterson noted that Jemison attempted to possess a significant amount of a drug that has caused thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S.

Peterson previously sentenced Kemp to 48 months in prison, Dillard to 24 months in prison, McClinton to 108 months in prison, and McClintons codefendant Michael C. Henderson to 84 months in prison, OShea said.

The charge against Jemison was the result of an investigation conducted by DCI, the Dane County Narcotics Task Force, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chadwick M. Elgersma prosecuted the case.
The Fitchburg Police Department has released details from its investigation into the Jan. 3 crash that killed a Verona middle school principal.

Just after 6:30 a.m., Badger Ridge Middle School Principal Beth Steffen, 56, was struck by a driver Fitchburg police said had been traveling more than 20 miles over the speed limit in the 2900 block of South Syene Road at Argus Lane, near the Nevin Springs Fish and Wildlife Area.

Steffen died at a nearby hospital.

In collaboration with the Wisconsin State Patrols Technical Reconstruction Unit, Fitchburg police recreated the crash circumstances. The final report, released in June, pointed to multiple factors in the incident.

The driver, a 24-year-old Fitchburg man, had been speeding by more than 20 mph over the 35 mph limit on South Syene Road, driving 58 mph half a second before impact. Evidence collected at the scene and from forensic examination did not suggest the driver had been using his phone or was impaired before or during the crash, police Lt. Edward Hartwick said in a release Wednesday afternoon.

The driver was cited for speeding in August but did not face criminal charges in the incident.

Conditions at the time were dark and cold. The road was wet, there was a light rain, and the temperature was about 31 degrees. Steffen had been walking two dogs when she was hit, wearing dark clothing with no reflective elements.

Before and after the crash, some people voiced safety concerns about the area. The city of Fitchburg has identified Syene Road as an area in need of better pedestrian and bicyclist protections in a years-long improvement project. That northeastern part of Fitchburg was largely undeveloped 10 to 20 years ago.

Reconstruction of the project area, which includes South Syene Road from McCoy Road to Aurora Avenue, started in 2022. The project, set for completion in 2025, includes speed display signs, traffic signals, a shared path and the addition of a midblock crossing with rectangular rapid-flashing beacons. The portion of Syene Road where the crash occurred is set for improvements in 2024.

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Some Dane County supervisors want to effectively decriminalize drug paraphernalia, bringing more communities in line with decriminalization efforts in Madison that advocates say take a financial burden off people of color and low-income residents.

New legislation would reduce the maximum fine paid by those cited for having drug paraphernalia from $150 to $1, a change that would affect communities policed by the the Dane County Sheriffs Office, but not municipalities that have their own law enforcement agencies.

If passed by the County Board, the change would have an immediate impact on those cited for possession of drug paraphernalia in the county. In 2022, 85 people were cited in Dane County for having drug paraphernalia. Forty-nine of them had to pay a fine, with 29 paying the full $150 allowed under current county rules, according to data released at a meeting of the boards Public Protection and Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. In 2019, $6,000 was paid for drug paraphernalia citations.

And what does Wisconsin consider drug paraphernalia?

Almost everything, Carlos Pabellon, corporation counsel for the county, said on Tuesday. It is an amazing list of items.

Wisconsin defines drug paraphernalia as any tool used to produce, prepare, test or ingest a controlled substance. Such a sweeping law technically extends to a plastic straw used to snort drugs, Sheriff Kalvin Barrett, who supports the fine change, said at Tuesday nights meeting. State law covers more obvious items, such as scales and pipes, but it does not include syringes.

The Sheriffs Office and District Attorneys Office presently treat possession of paraphernalia as a county forfeiture and always charge it along with other criminal charges and not by itself, Barrett noted.

The proposed change comes weeks after Minnesota became the first state in the country to fully legalize drug paraphernalia. A shift toward decriminalization has already happened in Madison. In 2020, the city decriminalized possession of marijuana-related paraphernalia. But the citys police department continues to refer charges for possession of other paraphernalia.

Sup. Rick Rose, who represents the 16th District on Madisons Far East Side, touted the proposed change to county rules as a reform to the justice system and a needed help for those struggling with substance use.

In my opinion, there is a lot of stigma around this subject, said Rose, who added that talks for a similar change in Madison are in the early stages.

The Public Protection and Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly recommended the fine change be passed by the full board, with a sole dissenting vote from Sup. Jeff Weigand, a politically conservative voice who represents the 20th District, which includes the village of Marshall.

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In an early preview of his 2024 budget, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi is maneuvering to expand the CARES crisis response program to other communities and hire four crisis counselors at the 911 center.

The cost of the two initiatives would total $600,000 next year and mark the ongoing reimagining of how Dane County and Madison respond to mental health emergencies without law enforcement.

Behavioral health emergencies dont follow political or municipal borders, Parisi said at a press conference on Wednesday.

But the funding doesnt mean CARES will expand overnight to places like Sun Prairie, Cross Plains or elsewhere.

In Parisis upcoming budget, $200,000 would go toward creating an application process for those communities to get folded into the crisis response program and match municipalities funding to make expansion possible.

About a half-dozen communities have expressed interest in getting crisis response services, though not that many will get them immediately once expansion is possible, Parisi said, speaking alongside Sun Prairie Mayor Paul Esser.

This is a service we know we need to grow into, Esser said.

Parisi will release his 2024 budget, which must be approved by the County Board, on Monday.

Another provision would benefit the countys 911 center, where Parisi is proposing to spend $400,000 to hire four crisis counselors to triage calls.

Currently, communicators do have training to triage callers and send the right kind of assistance, said Luis Bixler, the director of the countys public safety communications center. These types of specialty positions, the crisis counselors, will actually be able to dedicate more time to be able to assist the caller and more importantly potentially deescalate situations for callers.

As a model, county officials cited a similar program in Tucson, Arizona, which reduced the need for first responders to go out to mental health emergencies by 80% across a decade.

In Madison, CARES, or Community Alternative Response Emergency Services, added shifts during the weekend earlier this month. When it started as a pilot program in September 2021, it was limited to weekdays Downtown.

Since launching two years ago, the crisis response program has responded to more than 3,000 calls, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said Tuesday.

At the county level, a long-planned crisis center meant to admit and treat patients facing mental health emergencies and complement CARES remains far from materializing.

For about a year, the county has been at odds with state health authorities over whether the center would be able to admit patients involuntarily. On Tuesday, Parisi said those talks are ongoing. In March, Parisi said the South Side Huber Center would eventually be converted into the crisis center.

Most millennials and Gen Z would cut retirement savings before missing credit card or student loan payments Most millennials and Gen Z would cut retirement savings before missing credit card or student loan payments Most say they would cut retirement savings first Artificial intelligence by any other name Robo-advisors are seen as even less attractive option than AI Most expect to pay their student loan payments resuming this fall
A coalition of anti-abortion organizations on Tuesday demanded that prosecutors in Wisconsin's two largest counties bring charges against abortion providers who have resumed practicing following a court ruling that consensual abortions are legal in the state.

Wisconsin Right to Life, Wisconsin Family Action and Pro-Life Wisconsin held a news conference in the state Capitol to call for Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to prosecute abortion providers in their counties.

Ozanne and Chisholm, both Democrats, announced last year that they would permit abortions in their counties despite a 174-year-old state law that conservatives argue bans the procedure. Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled this summer that consensual abortions are legal.

Galvanized by the ruling, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin last week resumed abortions at clinics in Madison and Milwaukee after ceasing procedures last year following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision giving states the power to regulate abortion. The organization plans to resume services at its abortion clinic in Sheboygan as well, although there's no firm date reopening date yet.

Leaders of the anti-abortion groups argued at the news conference that Schlipper's ruling isn't final. They said the state law barring abortions remains in effect and Ozanne and Chisholm have a duty to enforce it because babies are dying.

If district attorneys Ozanne and Chisholm do their job and ensure prosecution of abortionists in their counties is enforced, we will save lives, said Heather Weininger, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life.

Ozanne said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that his position hasn't changed. Chisholm didn't immediately respond to a message, but he almost certainly won't backtrack on an issue so fundamental to Democrats as abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin's legal advocacy director, Michelle Velasquez, said that the organization follows the law and Wisconsin's statutes aren't applicable to abortion care.

There is nothing to enforce, Velasquez said in a statement.

Wisconsin legislators passed a law in 1849 that conservatives argue bans abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision essentially legalized abortion nationwide and nullified state abortion bans, including Wisconsin's.

But Wisconsin legislators never erased the 1849 ban from state law. Conservatives contend that the Supreme Court's decision in June 2022 to reverse Roe v. Wade and return the power to regulate abortions to the states effectively reactivated the prohibition.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin reacted to the Supreme Court ruling by ending abortions at its clinics in Madison, Milwaukee and Sheboygan, leaving women seeking such procedures to travel to other states. Ozanne and Chisholm said they wouldn't enforce the prohibition in their counties, but Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, said he would indeed prosecute providers.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul sued all three prosecutors last summer, seeking a ruling that the 1849 ban was too old to enforce. Schlipper ruled this past July that the statutes prohibit killing a fetus while assaulting the mother but do not ban consensual medical abortions.

Schlipper didn't block the ban from being enforced and has yet to issue a final order spelling out her position, leaving the door open for confusion and interpretation on behalf of anti-abortion groups and abortion-rights advocates. The case will likely end up before the state Supreme Court.
VILLAGE OF RAYMOND  A Sunday crash between an Amazon truck and a motorcycle resulted in the death of an Oak Creek man and serious injuries for his daughter.

The crash occurred at approximately 9 a.m. at the intersection of Highway K and West Frontage Road.

The driver of the motorcycle, 45-year-old Adam M. Hobach of Oak Creek, died at the scene, according to Lt. Michael Luell, public information officer for the Racine County Sheriffs Office.

His juvenile daughter, who was riding the motorcycle, was airlifted to Froedtert Hospital with serious injuries that were not life-threatening.

The driver of the Amazon box truck was 31-year-old Jonathan Bueche of Illinois, Luell said.

According to the criminal complaint, Bueche told deputies at the scene that it was his second day driving that particular Amazon truck.

He also told deputies that he stopped his truck when he realized that he was dragging the motorcycle, the complaint said.

Bueche allegedly told deputies that he had used marijuana the night before at about 9 or 10 p.m.

According to the complaint, deputies transported Bueche to the hospital, where field sobriety tests were conducted.

The complaint said deputies chose to do the tests at the hospital to have an area clear of debris and because of the number of bystanders at the scene.

Bueche allegedly showed signs of impairment during the tests, prompting a deputy to arrest him for operating while under the influence.

The complaint said Bueche agreed to two blood draws at the hospital. The results of both draws are pending.

Bueche was charged with homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and operating with a restricted controlled substance in blood causing injury, first offense, according to the criminal complaint.

Bueche is being held on a $50,000 bail, Luell said.

He was also cited for operating under the influence causing injury, operating under the influence, failure to yield while making a left turn, failure to yield while making a left turn causing great bodily harm, and failure to yield while making left turn causing death.

Bueche appeared in court for an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon and is expected in court for a preliminary hearing Oct. 4.

This story has been updated with additional information from the criminal complaint.
Local election officials would be able to start processing absentee ballots one day earlier under Republican-authored legislation aimed at mitigating the late-night ballot reporting that has fueled false claims of widespread voter fraud in Wisconsins 2020 presidential election.

Under the Monday processing bill, clerks would not be authorized to count absentee ballots until after polls close on Election Day, which is always on a Tuesday, but they would be able to perform other tasks on the Monday before, such as checking a voters eligibility and removing the ballot from its envelope to prepare for the count.

Efforts to give clerks a head start on the task of counting absentee ballots have garnered bipartisan support over the years due in part to the length of time it takes poll workers to count ballots and report results in high-turnout elections, particularly at Wisconsins central count locations like Milwaukee.

Bill co-author Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, said the measure is intended to expedite the ballot counting process in areas like Milwaukee. Tusler cited the states 2018 gubernatorial and 2020 presidential elections, where late tallies of absentee ballots cast in the heavily Democratic city appeared to shift the results. While those absentee ballots had been legally cast, the delayed report has proven to be a source of false claims of election fraud.

Its not good for voter confidence, Tusler said. Its not good for the way people perceive our election process operating. It would be better if some of the areas that have significant absentee ballots had an opportunity to process those ballots before that Election Day.

Especially for voter integrity concerns, its going to make everybody feel a lot better about our elections, Tusler said.

But the Republican-authored proposal also includes measures, such as new reporting requirements for clerks, that may struggle to secure approval from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has said he would oppose any measure that would make voting more difficult.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, who was a co-author of a Monday processing bill in 2019, said he was disappointed by the latest proposal due to other components included in the legislation.

I would much rather see us have that debate as part of a separate bill where we can really see what the goals are, see how clerks feel and not muddy the waters on the Monday processing issue that we ought to all be able to agree on, Spreitzer said.

Im certainly not planning to sign onto this, Spreitzer added. I dont think any Democrat should, and I think, whether this is a vehicle that can get amended or whether somebody else wants to introduce a clean version, to me this is not a good-faith starting point.

A similar measure passed the Assembly in early 2022, with Democratic lawmakers opposed to other provisions in the broad bill. The proposal ultimately failed to reach a vote in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who also supported Monday processing legislation in 2019, said the latest proposal will move through the normal legislative process.

A spokesperson for Evers did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Current rules

Ballots begin to arrive at local clerks offices weeks before an election, but state law prohibits poll workers from processing and counting ballots until Election Day, which can push the reporting of results late into the night or early the next day.

While the process is well known in Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump used the issue as fuel for his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

Nearly 2 million absentee ballots were cast in Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election.

A recount, court decisions and multiple reviews have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes.

Preparing ballots

Under the proposed bill, election officials would be able to begin canvassing absentee ballots at 7 a.m. the day before Election Day. Any votes canvassed on that Monday would not be formally tallied until after polls close the following day. The bill also creates a felony charge for knowingly obtaining or providing information on the tallied results from absentee ballots before the polls close on Election Day.

The bill also would shorten the timeline during which clerks could send absentee ballots, from 47 days before an election to 21 days, and would create whistleblower protections for municipal clerks who witness and report election fraud or irregularities.

Another component of the bill would require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify a voters citizenship status by cross-checking voter registration data collected by the state Department of Transportation. Under the bill, the verification process must be completed as soon as practicable.

Unfortunately, my GOP colleagues chose to compromise this proposal by coupling a needed policy change with partisan initiatives, Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said in a statement.

Elections 101: Video series explains how elections are carried out in Wisconsin The Wisconsin Elections Commission put together the following series of instructional videos and accompanying lesson plans for use in high school civics classes and the general public. Elections overview An overview of elections administration in Wisconsin. Voting Security Let's take a look at how we maintain security and integrity with all of our elections. Nuts and bolts The ins-and-outs of voter processes like registering to vote and requesting a ballot to vote absentee. A Day at the Polls See what it is like to go to the polls and vote.
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Both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are visiting Michigan this week to talk to workers in the midst of a massive UAW strike. Biden has always portrayed himself as a pro-union president, while Trump argues he alone truly understands the plight of the American worker.

Working-class voters will be a key demographic in the upcoming 2024 election. Blue collar workers without a college education have been gravitating to the Republican Party in recent years, despite the GOP's historically anti-union stance. Biden was able to appeal to some of these voters in 2020, but that's not a foregone conclusion in 2024.

Biden seems ready to fight for better pay and benefits for workers, but it may be hard to compete against the culture war grievance offered by Trump.

Hands on Wisconsin archive
Yet another government shutdown appears inevitable because a sizable chunk of the House Freedom Caucus believes, in the words of Otter in "Animal House," that "this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

What situation?

Before we get to that, it's important to understand that any situation will do when you're determined to deliver a stupid and futile gesture.

In America, the term "counterculture" is so associated with hippies, beatniks, bohemians and the like, it might seem odd to think of self-described conservatives as counterculture types. But the evidence is all over the place -- from the loopy conspiratorialism and secession talk to the bizarre, albeit selective, defenses of lawlessness and even violence -- that a lot of right-wingers have shed the pretense of actual conservatism in favor of a permanent pose of performative radicalism from the right.

On the fringes of the House Republican conference, you can find this kind of nuttery aplenty. But, collectively, this countercultural impulse manifests itself most relevantly in an almost Freudian compulsion to lose.

Which brings us to the situation. Earlier this year, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy managed to work out a modestly successful deal with Democrats that extended the debt ceiling until 2025. Given his incredibly narrow, four-seat majority and the fractious nature of his coalition, this was hailed at the time as a considerable win for McCarthy and the Republicans, allegedly proving the GOP could be a governing party.

And that was the problem for the radicals. When you've convinced yourself that the "system," "establishment" or "regime" is irretrievably corrupt, any form of deal is seen as evidence that you've "sold out." The only way to irrefutably demonstrate that you didn't compromise your principles -- whatever those might be -- is to lose. Martyrs are pure. Dealmakers are collaborators.

So the rabble-rousing core of the Freedom Caucus declared that it got rolled in the debt ceiling fight and vowed to use the budget "process" to force spending cuts. They claim McCarthy made them promises he didn't keep -- which might be true. They insist government borrowing and spending are out of control -- which is certainly true. Something has to be done.

Fair enough. But what?

Their answer is to force a shutdown of the government.

The only problem? Voters don't like government shutdowns, and the party that forces a shutdown gets blamed for shutting down the government while the other party -- which in this case happens to control both the Senate and the White House -- gets to score easy points.

And then, eventually, a deal is worked out, but only after enough damage is self-inflicted.

Maybe it's like 1960s student radicals occupying the Berkeley or Kenyon cafeteria demanding better library hours, more parking and a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Or maybe it's in the Leninist spirit of "the worse, the better." After all, people who make a living from catastrophizing like catastrophes. As McCarthy said Monday, "It's almost like they want to walk you into a shutdown and then blame you for the shutdown."

That seems to be where their dashboard saint, Donald Trump, is coming from. Over the weekend, he reiterated that the GOP should behave as if it has all the leverage. On social media, he posted, "UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!" Of course, Trump wants to use a government shutdown to "defund" the federal prosecutions against him and "other patriots." Even if you thought this radical asininity were a great idea, the idea that it could make it through a Democratic-controlled Senate and past the president's veto is a childish fantasy.

But even the comparatively more modest demands being made by the holdouts are unlikely to clear those hurdles, which, again, is why it's all so futile and stupid. These antics will fail, but not before harming the reelection chances of many Republicans, including 18 from districts Biden won. Indeed, the most committed radicals come from extremely safe seats, which they're not scared of losing. As for losing control of the House, that would just prove how principled they are.
The heartfelt eulogies poured in from both sides of the aisle after U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, announced he would not seek reelection in 2024.

Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that the Senate, the Republican Party, and indeed the country was losing a good man, a decent man, one of the last principled politicians on the planet.

The media was especially despondent, and many admitted theyd gotten it wrong when they covered him in 2008 and 2012.

Patricia Murphy in the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote, At the time, he was so gee-whiz and perfectly presented that he was hard to take seriously. Regrettably, I often referred to him on social media as Mittens. 

She sees Romney differently now, though: [L]ife under President Mittens should not have been so easily dismissed.

David Brooks wrote in The New York Times:

Sometimes you do things that make you feel ashamed. It was the first day of the Republican convention in 2012, and I had nothing to write about, so I wrote a humor column mocking the Romney family for being perfect in every way. It was a hit with readers, but the afternoon it was published, I crossed paths with two of Mitt Romneys sons, and they looked at me with hurt in their eyes, which pierced me. Id ridiculed people for the sin of being admirable.

Philip Elliott wrote in Time of Romneys re-emergence as a Lazarus figure in Washington:

Romney was the lone Republican to vote for conviction during Trumps first impeachment trial, became an important negotiator for deals with Joe Bidens White House, and stood-in as a moral core for what conservatism could ideally stand for and against.

This is all a lovely way to memorialize Mitts political career, but its also an admission that everyone was wrong about Romney, and for very bad, very cynical reasons.

Too perfect, gee-whiz, goofy, earnest  none of these descriptors should have been disqualifying.

But Democrats and the media went even further in trying to ruin Romney in 2012, just to get Barack Obama reelected.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called Romney a liar, and slammed him as racist and sexist.

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Romneys criticism of Obamas welfare policies were racist.

Then Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid regularly accused Romney of not paying his taxes for years  a claim that was proven completely false, but even then Reid smugly shrugged off the truth: Romney didnt win, did he?

A Democratic strategist mocked Romneys wife Ann, mother of five boys and grandmother of 16 children, a survivor of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, for having never worked a day in her life. Even Obama condemned the cruel remarks.

But a pro-Obama PAC ran ads accusing Romney of killing a woman. The ad featured a man who lost his job when Romneys company closed a steel plant. He lost his health insurance, and his wife fell ill and died  all of this was pinned on Romney. The ad earned four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.

Obama also mocked Romney for his foreign policy positions, in particular his insistence that Russia was one of our biggest geopolitical threats. [T]he 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. That sure looks bad today.

And dont forget Romneys binders full of women, a comment meant to prove how committed he was to hiring women. Instead, Democrats decided it revealed Romney was a sexist monster. One Democratic strategist said, Sounds kind of kinky and certainly not something you want to be touting. What?

Romney was mocked for his Mormonism. He was accused of endangering dogs. He was called a gay-bashing bully.

Looking back, Romney was painted by the left and the media as the devil incarnate  the same Romney who they now see as the last best hope of defending modern civilization from the Visigoths.

So what changed? Donald Trump.

Democrats shouldnt be surprised that when they decided a decent, kind, smart and principled man such as Romney was in fact a monster, Republicans decided to go ahead and nominate an actual monster  what did they have to lose in this bad-faith game of character assassination?

Trump made everyone else look good. Suddenly Republicans were recasting Obama. Democrats rethought George W. Bush. Ronald Reagan was everyones hero. Even Bill Clinton started looking like a semi-moral man next to Trump.

But in Romneys case, his past life as a villain was always a myth, invention and total fabrication that he never deserved. Not then, not ever.

Doesnt Mitt Romney look good to us now? Oh my God, Pelosi said unironically last week.

But he should have looked good to us then. We shouldnt have needed a Trump to appreciate a Romney.
Crapo, Risch support anti-gun control act

Idaho U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch were among a group of Republicans to introduce legislation to prevent the federal government, including the president and the secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from declaring a public health emergency to impose gun control.

The Protecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act was drafted after New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams Sept. 8 emergency public health order to ban guns in her states largest city of Albuquerque following a spate of shootings. The Democratic governors order was temporarily blocked five days later by a federal judge.

Banning guns is not a public emergency, Risch said in a news release. Earlier this year, a liberal governor tried to use this scare tactic to ban guns in her state. We cannot allow a president to do the same and attack law-abiding gun owners.

Any effort to strip Americans Second Amendment right is a clear attempt to circumvent the U.S. Constitution, Crapo said in the release.

The legislation, led by Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, and co-sponsored by 20 other Republican senators from 11 states, would also prevent any government official from prohibiting the manufacture, sale or transfer of a firearm or ammunition during a disaster or emergency.

Also:

Albert Barker, a Boise-based water law attorney and member of the Idaho Water Resource Board, testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 20 about the importance of enhancing and managing water supplies in Idaho amid drought and population growth. Water is the lifeblood of our Western farms, communities, and environment, Barker told the committee. To read his full testimony, go online to https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/1D4B1F9A-7312-4CDF-BABB-0A0CC40BDD63.
Attorney General Raul Labrador is embarking on an abusive and taxpayer-funded fishing expedition, the State Board of Educations lawyer argued in a court filing Monday.

At issue is a battery of subpoenas and calls for depositions, as Labrador continues to press his lawsuit against the State Board, and the closed meetings leading up to the boards May 18 vote supporting the University of Idahos purchase of the University of Phoenix.

The attorney generals far-ranging requests  and Mondays pointed response from Trudy Fouser, the State Boards hired outside counsel  reflect the escalating legal battle over the Phoenix purchase. The political staredown pits Labrador against Gov. Brad Littles allies on the State Board. State Board and U of I officials have said the dispute goes beyond politics, since it could jeopardize the $685 million Phoenix purchase.

The latest legal maneuvers began on Sept. 11, when Labradors office issued the first of a series of subpoenas. The subpoenas seek a broad range of documents from the State Board, Phoenix and Tyton Partners, the financial advisers working on the sale on behalf of the for-profit online university. Some of the requests focus on a key question in the lawsuit: whether the U of I faced competition with other would-be Phoenix suitors.

For example, Phoenix and Tyton Partners are expected to produce correspondence with any governing body in any state or nation who expressed interest in acquiring the University of Phoenix.

Labradors office also requested no less than a dozen sworn depositions  all within an eight-day period spanning from Oct. 6 to Oct. 13. Ten depositions target the State Board, including eight separate sessions with each individual board member.

Fouser said the subpoenas, and an absurd compressed schedule of depositions, amount to an attempt to harass board members and delay the purchase. Fouser again accused Labrador of trying to torpedo the Phoenix deal, by using his open meetings lawsuit to question the wisdom of the purchase.

Rather than focus on the issues at hand, plaintiff seeks to use discovery to delve into the merits of the transaction, to harass defendant and third parties, and to undertake a fishing expedition, all at significant expense to all involved, including Idaho taxpayers.

Labrador spokeswoman Beth Cahill declined comment Tuesday afternoon, but said Labradors office will file a written response in court Thursday.

Its unclear what will become of Fousers motion. She asked District Judge Jason Scott to take up the matter as soon as possible.

Fousers motion requests a protective order against Labradors office. In civil cases, a protective order is designed to shield a party from costly or burdensome subpoenas.

Labradors June 20 lawsuit focused on the State Boards closed-door meetings to discuss a possible Phoenix purchase. The board held three closed executive sessions from March until May. The final meeting took place three days before the board met in open session and gave the purchase the go-ahead.

Labrador has said the meetings went beyond preliminary discussions of a purchase. And he has questioned whether the U of I was actually competing against other potential suitors  the boards stated rationale for the closed-door meetings.
The Idaho State Historical Society recently had the opportunity to serve as the lead professional partner in hosting the 2023 annual conference of the American Association for State and Local History, the countrys largest association devoted to the history profession.

Quote I am grateful for  and Idahoans should be proud of  the many cultural, historical, environmental, and arts organizations in our city and state that make Idaho the very special place we call home.

This national conference, which ran from Sept. 6-9 in Boise, hosted 780 attendees representing 49 states. It was one of the most well attended and successful conferences the AASLH has held in the western states.

The conference provided attendees with a forum for deep learning and engagement among history professionals who share their community stories through museums, historic sites, archives, and much more. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our country in 2026, the conference theme, I too am America, encouraged our profession to share with people of all backgrounds and beliefs the entire sweep of our common history as we continue to make progress toward a more perfect union.

The ISHS collaborated with 17 Idaho cultural organizations to ensure that Idaho would shine as the host state. Tours of the Idaho Capitol, Basque Block, the James Castle house, and Minidoka National Historic Site anchored attendees in places unique in Idaho and the American narrative.

'Now we are survivors': Minidoka pilgrimage heals and honors Japanese American incarcerees Minidoka pilgrims gathered July 6-9 to honor and heal generational trauma experienced by the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The main keynote session, hosted in Boises historic Egyptian Theatre, included a variety of thought-provoking presentations from Idahoans, including Nolan Brown, Shoshone Bannock tribe; Kurt Ikeda, National Park Service; and former state Senator, Cherie Buckner Webb. As the lead sponsor, the Foundation for Idaho History underwrote inspiring evening events at the Old Idaho Penitentiary, Idaho State Museum, and the Basque Block.

Knowledge of history is essential to better understand ourselves, our communities, and our future. History provides each of us the chance to discover their place in time through stories of family, communities, and nation. These stories of freedom and equality, injustice and struggle, loss and achievement, and courage and triumph are very personal and shape the values that guide each of us through life.

History is the anchor of vibrant communities. When we think about authentic places across our great state, from Franklin, to Idaho City, to Bonners Ferry, they are all steeped in memory as shared through family stories, tribal traditions, and civic commemorations.

History is also the foundation for our future. Historical organizations and the largess of the past they steward offer unique, authentic locations to experience, reflect, and learn. These sites provide places to think, without dictating what to think.

They offer unique exhibitions and programs that reveal complexities, share evidence as illuminated in documents, artifacts, images, and stories, and introduce new ideas, encouraging conversation and creating greater understanding and mutual respect.

I am grateful for  and Idahoans should be proud of  the many cultural, historical, environmental, and arts organizations in our city and state that make Idaho the very special place we call home. The commitment of these organizations to preserve and share our heritage is a gift both to all Idahoans and those who visit our state.

Im confident the nearly 800 attendees of the AASLH conference returned to their homes as ambassadors for Idaho.

While here, they experienced the enduring diversity that has shaped our great state. They left with a vivid recognition of the dedicated work that Idaho professionals and volunteers undertake every day to preserve that historical legacy, a legacy so critical in our nations ongoing effort to form that more perfect union.
The National Innovation Council (NIC) launched the National Innovation Agenda and Strategy Document (NIASD) for 2023-2032 on Sept. 27, 2023.

It said the launch with the theme Reshaping the Future, Advancing Filipinnovation aimed to ignite enthusiasm, foster collaboration and engage all innovation stakeholders in the implementation of the innovation agenda and strategies to promote Filipinnovationthe whole-of-nation call and commitment to accelerate Philippine progress through innovation.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is also the NIC chairperson, led the event, along with National Economic and Development Authority Secretary and vice chairperson Arsenio Balisacan and members of the council from the government and private sectors at the Manila Metropolitan Theater.

The very theme of our event today signifies our envisioned future where our citizens can organically transform their knowledge and novel ideas into market-driven, market-oriented, and market-valued innovative products or services, Balisacan said in his welcome remarks.

The NIASD, appproved on June 30, 2023, outlines the 10-year vision, long-term goals and strategies for improving the countrys innovation priorities and governance.

It describes the countrys unwanted and wanted futures, which are anchored on Filipinos collective aspiration for a matatag, maginhawa at panatag na buhay, or the AmBisyon Natin 2040.

The document is aligned with the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028, which identifies the creation of a dynamic innovation ecosystem as one of its six cross-cutting strategies to sustain rapid and inclusive growth.

The plan also underscores the governments commitment to providing an enabling environment that supports entrepreneurs and innovation actors, through five innovation enablers including the NIC as the innovation governing body, policies, infrastructure, finance and programs.

The formulation of the NIASD followed a collaborative and forward-looking approach, benefitting from inputs from the academe, international experts, the business sector and various government agencies.

It was designed to address the needs of innovators at every stage of the innovation process, from ideation to commercialization.
We do not want war, but its our territory that they want to get.

With these words, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said the country will continue to protect its sovereign rights, in response to Chinas warning to the Philippines not to stir up trouble after the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) removed a floating barrier that the Chinese had installed to keep Filipino fishers out of Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.

We have sovereign rights. This is our future. We are an archipelagic country and we need the resources, Teodoro said before he headed for a Senate hearing on his departments budget.

Teodoro also refuted the assertion by the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the Philippines provoked them by removing the floating barrier.

He said it was clear from Chinas actions that they want to control the entire South China Sea, which goes against the ruling of a UN tribunal in 2016 that Beijings expansive claims to the key waterway have no legal basis.

Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, in a press briefing yesterday, said Manilas action was a purely self-indulgent farce.

I would also like to reiterate once again. Huangyan Island is Chinas inherent territory, he said.

China will continue to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in Huangyan Island, he added.

Teodoro said Scarborough Shoal is a traditional fishing ground where Filipino fishermen can benefit from its rich marine resources.

Teodoro also said it was China that has taken provocative actions, such as building up military facilities in reclaimed areas of the disputed waters and chasing Filipino fishermen from the area.

The PCG on Wednesday told fishermen to continue their fishing despite the presence of Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea.

Thats the intention of our government, to encourage more Filipino fishermen to fish in the Bajo de Masinloc and some other areas in the West Philippine Sea, PCG spokesperson for West Philippine Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela, referring to Panatag Shoal by its traditional Spanish name.

You have the commitment of our Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and PCG, although we are not constantly present in the area, we are going to increase our patrols in Bajo de Masinloc and other fishing grounds for Filipino fishermen, Tarriela said.

Tarriela issued the statement after the PCG removed the floating barrier set up by China on Monday around Bajo de Masinloc. Even the barriers anchor was removed, he said.

Before the Senate, Teodoro defended the removal of the Chinese floating barrier.

We are reacting to their actions. They moved first, they blocked our fishers, he said.

He also blasted China for saying the countrys BRP Sierra Madre, which was deliberately grounded on Ayungin Shoal to serve as an outpost in the West Philippine Sea, was polluting the waters.

In an interview, Teodoro said it was Chinas activities that endangered the marine ecosystem in the area.

The swarming of their vessels alone would likely cause pollution, he said in Filipino. Who destroyed the marine environment to create an island? They did.

Teodoro likened Chinas statement to the pot calling the kettle black.

House Deputy Minority leader and ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro denounced the Chinese Foreign Ministry for accusing the Philippines of intruding in Scarborough Shoal without their permission.

In a statement, Castro expressed her disbelief at Chinas audacity in making such claims.

Excuse me, it is the Chinese government who is intruding in our territory and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Now they have the temerity to say that we need their permission for our fisherfolk to fish in our own waters, Castro said.

Castro emphasized that China should recognize the reality that other countries exist in Asia and have their own territories. She emphasized that the Philippines has sovereign rights over Scarborough Shoal and its surrounding waters.

China should wake up from its delusion and face reality. The Philippines has every right to protect its territorial integrity and ensure the welfare of its people. China has no right to dictate our actions within our own territory, she added.

Castro called on the government to assert its sovereignty and defend the rights of Filipino fishers in Scarborough Shoal. She also urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to take diplomatic action to address Chinas baseless accusations.

We must stand firm against Chinas attempts to undermine our sovereignty. The Philippine government must prioritize the welfare and interests of our people, especially our fisherfolk who heavily rely on the resources in Scarborough Shoal, Castro said.

She also called on the international community to condemn Chinas actions and support the Philippines in upholding its territorial rights.

Retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio, who played a key role in the Philippines suit against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), said China cannot control who can fish inside Scarborough Shoal.

In an interview with ABS-CBN, Carpio said the Philippines was absolutely right in removing the barrier, saying the 2016 arbitral ruling clearly states that the area is a common fishing ground.

He also supported President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.s move to strengthen the countrys alliances with other states amid Beijings aggressive behavior in the South China Sea.

Carpio likened the Scarborough issue to a condominium where there is common ownership of common areas, and not just one owner.

Any move to regulate fishing in the area should be agreed upon by China, Vietnam and the Philippines, he said.

They cannot decide on their own who is allowed to fish there. One of the parties cannot dictate on the others, he said in Filipino.

He said the Philippines could file for damages against China, except that Beijing has refused to recognize even the 2016 arbitral ruling.

Beijing on Tuesday warned Manila not to stir up trouble after the PCG removed a floating barrier that China deployed to block Filipinos from their traditional fishing ground in Bajo de Masinloc.

We advise the Philippines not to provoke or stir up trouble, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said.

The 300-meter floating barrier was found across the entrance of the shoal last week during a routine government resupply mission to Filipino fishermen plying the waters near the Chinese-controlled reef.

The PCG released a video showing a man wearing snorkeling gear using a knife to sever a rope attached to white buoys, while another showed an anchor being hauled from the water into a wooden outrigger boat.

The coast guard announced it had successfully removed the barrier in compliance with presidential instruction.
Lachin Corridor, Azerbaijan  Azerbaijani border guards on Tuesday sought out war crime suspects among the Armenian refugees flooding out of Nagorno-Karabakh after Baku claimed control of the separatist statelet in a lightning offensive last week.

The number of people who entered Armenia following the operation surpassed 28,000, a day after a massive fuel blast on the edge of the separatist stronghold of Stepanakert killed at least 68 people, local authorities said.

Most of the victims were stocking up on fuel for the trip along a twisting mountain road that offers the historically disputed region its lone link to Armenia.

Yerevan has warned of possible ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan  a close ally of Armenias arch-nemesis Turkey  after Baku launched a 24-hour blitz that forced the rebels to agree to disarm last Wednesday.

Predominantly Christian Armenia and overwhelmingly Muslim Azerbaijan have fought two deadly wars over the territory since the Soviet Unions 1991 collapse.

The area is now populated by up to 120,000 ethnic Armenians but is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

The bad blood between the sides has been aggravated by memories of alleged wartime massacres of civilians and human rights abuses.

An AFP team allowed to access the refugees route to Armenia, on a tour organised by the Azerbaijani government, saw that most of the people crossing the border were women with children and the elderly.

The few Armenian men in their 20s and 30s coming out Tuesday were forced to stare into a camera for identification at the last Azerbaijani border post.

Azerbaijan intends to apply an amnesty to Armenian fighters who laid down their arms in Karabakh, an Azerbaijani government source told AFP.

But those who committed war crimes during the Karabakh wars must be handed over to us, the source said.

 We fought well 

AFP reporters on both sides of the border saw hundreds of cars piled high with belongings moving slowly along the jam-packed road.

Some of the vehicles crept along on flat tyres, while many other people simply walked through the last Azerbaijani checkpoint.

They expelled us, one man said as he walked past the Azerbaijani soldiers.

Yanik Zakaryan, a 37-year-old who said he took part in last weeks fighting, was resting on the Armenian side of the border.

He said he was thankful for the Russian peacekeepers patrolling the region since Azerbaijan clawed back swathes of territory in a six-week war in 2020.

We fought well, but at one point we found ourselves surrounded, Zakaryan told AFP. The Russians came to get us out.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his voice on Tuesday to international calls for the two sides to respect human rights and take care of the displaced.

During a call with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged unconditional protections and freedom of movement for civilians, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

 Horrific, painful burns 

The humanitarian drama was heightened by a blast late Monday that rocked a fuel depot thronged by crowds of refugees.

The separatist government on Tuesday said the huge fireball injured 290 people, while 105 others were still unaccounted for.

Azerbaijan allowed Red Cross teams to rush in ambulances to help treat the victims  and allowed Armenia to evacuate 67 people by helicopter to a burn centre in Yerevan.

This is an absolute tragedy for hundreds of people now suffering from horrific, painful burns, International Committee of the Red Cross regional director Ariane Bauer said.

The victims treatment was being complicated by shortages of medication resulting from a nine-month blockade Azerbaijan had imposed to bring the region to heel.

 Stay or go? 

Envoys from Baku and Yerevan were in Brussels on Tuesday to prepare the first meeting between their leaders since last weeks offensive, set for October 5.

The separatists said Tuesday that 208 people had died in the fighting.

The sides have since held two rounds of closed-door talks mediated by Russia focused on putting the region under Bakus control.

But Azerbaijans forces have still not entered Stepanakert or fully disarmed all the rebel fighters.

Many civilians in the region appeared to be tormented by debates  some of them spilling onto social media  on whether to stay or go.

Some said they could not live under the authority of Azerbaijanis, while others argue that leaving now means Armenians might never be able to return.

Sveta Moussaylyan said this was the fourth time she had been forced to move because of the decades of strife and changes in control over tiny hamlets.

Im not that old, but Ive already seen so much! the 50-year-old said.
Through the bliss or bore, the saddest element is to note the deterioration of our once beautifully livable country into what could soon be a basket case

To celebrate the end of ghost month two weeks ago, a Chinoy friend tendered dinner for some Filipino-Chinese current and former government officials who fully or partly trace their ancestors from the Middle Kingdom.

One of the invitees, a high official in the current administration, asked me what I was doing these days, and when I responded by saying happily retired, he said: Ang lakas mo pa, ah.

Indeed I thank the good Lord for having given me relatively good health compared to classmates who have either passed away too soon or have aged considerably.

Maybe its the genes, especially from my maternal side, although my grandfather and an uncles life were cut short by Japanese atrocities during the liberation of Luzon.

I was a young entrepreneur in the martial law years, after graduating from college, and, interspersed through those years, I dabbled in part-time teaching just to keep my brains fed with reading and interaction.

Then, after some travels around the world, I decided to see if I would prefer living in the US of A, but that was where my chance meeting with then exile Ninoy Aquino changed the course of my life.

He encouraged me to go back to the country and help organize the political opposition to the authoritarian regime of our presidents father.

And I did, with then assemblyman and former senator Salvador Doy Laurel, whom Ninoy described to me as his best friend, more than a brother to me.

Thus did we organize the United Nationalist Democratic Organization or UNIDO.

I had been postmaster-general when the postal service was yet a bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, later a department, then much later divided into two departments: the DoTr and DICT.

Then I was appointed by President Erap as his Philippine Tourism Authority general manager with the pay grade of an undersecretary, and, days later, he wanted me to serve concurrently as Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs, from which I drew no emoluments to avoid double compensation.

Interspersed through the appointive positions, I was a consultant to Vice President Laurel, Senator Orly Mercado, Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan, Rep. Hernando B. Perez, Rep. Ronaldo B. Zamora, and Senator Panfilo M. Lacson.

I also wrote columns for the Tribune of the late Ninez Cacho Olivarez, Malaya and Abante of the late Jake Macasaet, and of course, this paper.

In President PNoys time, I was administrator of the National Food Authority until I decided to make a run for a congressional seat in the mid-term elections of 2013, but a heart angioplasty sidelined me and I had to forego the campaign upon my familys insistence.

When President Duterte won in 2016, he asked me what position I preferred, and I replied that I wanted to be in a less active post, opting to be Chairman of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, our de facto embassy in Taiwan.

I stayed there until the middle of 2021, when I resigned to take active participation in yet another presidential campaign.

So how do I spend my retirement or semi-retirement these days?

To begin with, and to make myself au courant on events in the country and region, I write twice for this esteemed paper.

I have kept a close circle of lunch and dinner friends. On Wednesdays, it is a group of mostly former government officials and businessmen-friends, meeting over lunch and discussing political and economic issues.

On Thursdays, over another sumptuous lunch, I join a group formed since the fall of Erap, and still going strong 22 years after, halted only during the lockdown years.

It is composed of current and former government officials along with big businessmen and corporate executives, where again the discussions range from the mundane to the sublime.

In both groups, the members are of different political stripes, from yellow to red to blue and green, with no one I believe to have supported the recent pinks.

The businessmen have survived every government from Marcos Sr. to Marcos Jr. because of their acumen and sharp instincts.

Twice a month, to keep myself feeling younger, because the Wednesday and Thursday groups are made up of almost completely senior citizens, I join a small group of younger men in their 40s and 50s, where I am the only person possessed of a senior citizen discount card.

Two were former journalists who served in government as well, three are successful entrepreneurs, one a champion sportsman, and occasionally we invite another friend or two.

Once a month, I join former high officials of the Duterte administration over dinner and premium wines provided by a member who is a certified vin connoisseur.

This way, the boredom of retirement is assuaged by good company and good banter.

But of course, bliss is provided by six grandchildren whose ages range between an eight-month- old infant, all the way to a young man of 18, two of whom visit with their parents from a foreign country each year.

From time to time, I am able to travel, by land or air to the provinces, and, in my latest such trip, I sat with Mayor Benjie Magalong of Baguio City, where I had an interesting conversation with a friend I have long admired.

At times, I sit with a tycoon or two from the Forbes list, with whom I get incisive first- hand information about the state of our economy.

And along with family or friends, I am able to travel abroad, where a sense of frustration greets me at the NAIA, from departure to arrival, although the state of Terminal One is much improved, thanks to the innovative efforts of an acting manager who was deposed unfairly by the Ombudsman.

I shun NAIA Terminal Three which is almost always in a state of pure bedlam.

The sense of frustration deepens when you compare the state of our benighted land with neighboring countries. Never mind Japan or Europe or even Singapore, which have left us eons of years away.

My grand-uncles used to talk about a Taiwan that was comparably so poor in the 50s and 60s, but look at where they are now, sans a bounty of natural resources the Philippines has been gifted with, and wasted away.

At the ASEAN, we used to talk about the founding fathers: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and our country. Even Indonesia with twice and a half our population has pulled away.

I have been to Thailand and Malaysia in the early 80s, and, boy, how their economies have left us eating the dust.

We used to refer to the laggards as the VLMC, meaning Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Now our ASEAN brothers have relegated us to PLMC, because Vietnam is surging ahead, with an economic and investment momentum that will bring tears to our eyes.

Through the bliss or bore, the saddest element is to note the deterioration of our once beautifully livable country into what could soon be a basket case, where the same problems haunt us and where the increasing mass of poor people exist in wretched poverty against the excessive greed of the few who lord it over us all.
Following its pioneering launch of the Philippines first-ever Prepaid embedded SIM or eSIM in July 2023, mobile services provider Smart Communications Inc. (Smart) continues to set the pace for its wider adoption in the country by making both prepaid and postpaid eSIM offers conveniently available via digital delivery.

This means mobile users may now simply order their Smart Prepaid eSIM or Smart Postpaid eSIM at the Smart Online Store (https://store1.smart.com.ph/sims) and have it conveniently delivered to their email instantly.

Upon receiving their prepaid or postpaid eSIM, users only need to scan the unique QR code and then register it after activation to start enjoying data, call, and text services on Smarts award-winning mobile network.

The Smart Online Store is easily accessible on any mobile or web browser, so users wont have to download and log in to a separate app just to order their eSIM. It also accepts a wide range of payments, such as Maya, GCash, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, JCB, SPay, and DragonPay.

Widest and most flexible eSIM options

By introducing the digital delivery option for the Smart Prepaid and Smart Postpaid eSIM via the Smart Online Store, the mobile services arm of PLDT Inc. is providing users with a faster and easier way to avail of their eSIMs wherever they are.

Meanwhile, Smart will continue to cater to customers who prefer their Prepaid eSIM on printed cards by making this version available in strategic areas, including international and local airports, Smart Stores, Smart flagship stores on Lazada and Shopee, and accredited retailers. Moreover, postpaid customers may also sign up for and get their eSIMs personally at Smart Stores nationwide.

We are glad to blaze the trail for the Philippines first Prepaid eSIM, and we are encouraged by the warm response of Filipino mobile users who have availed of it to live the Smart life and finally experience our superior mobile network services, said Alex O. Caeg, Head of Consumer Business  Individual at Smart.

Today we are enabling more mobile users to get hold of an eSIM with the widest and most flexible options in the market: whether they prefer prepaid or postpaid, whether they want the digital version or the printed card version, whether they want to order via the Smart Online Store or purchase it personally at their trusted retailer, and however they want to pay for it, added Caeg.

Complete with data, calls, and texts

Smart offers its Prepaid eSIM for only Php99, which is inclusive of up to 21 GB FREE data, plus 30 mins All-Net Calls and 100 All-Net Texts, enabling users to quickly connect online and communicate with loved ones and friends from the get-go.

On the other hand, mobile users can get their Smart Postpaid eSIM starting at SIM-Only Plan 999, which comes with Unli 5G for 12 months; Unli All-Net Mobile Calls and Texts; Unli Landline Calls, and a Netflix Mobile Plan subscription for 12 months.

Compatible with the latest eSIM-capable handsets of Apple, Google, Huawei, and Samsung, among other device brands, the Smart Prepaid and Smart Postpaid eSIM offer a hassle-free experience for mobile users. As there is no physical SIM card, eSIM users will not have to worry about the lack of a SIM slot in their device or losing and even damaging their physical SIM.

Moreover, the eSIM enables users to enjoy multiple lines even if they only have one physical SIM slot in their handset, such as Apple devices. With the eSIM, they may now conveniently switch between two or more accounts or SIM profiles on their iPhone.

Smarts digital delivery option also allows inbound foreign tourists and returning Overseas Filipino Workers and Balikbayans to conveniently order their Smart Prepaid eSIM ahead of their trip and simply activate it upon their arrival to enjoy data, call, and text services at local rates, which are significantly lower than roaming rates.

Drive towards sustainability

Smarts push to make eSIMs accessible to as many customers as possible is part of the PLDT Groups commitment to aligning business with sustainability strategies under its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillars and contribute to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UNSDGs).

Through its eSIM offers, Smart provides Filipinos with an environment-friendly and sustainable option as eSIM production creates less waste by reducing the need for plastics and electronics. The digital delivery of eSIMs also significantly lessens the companys carbon and logistics footprint.

Learn more about the Smart Prepaid eSIM at https://smart.com.ph/Prepaid/eSIM and Smart Postpaid Plans at https://smart.com.ph/Postpaid/signature.
A new automotive service center is coming to Martinsville in the old Sears building at 244 Commonwealth Blvd.

Speedway Service Center, owned by Maggie and Chad Trammell and Joey Arrington, had a soft opening Sept. 18, officially opened Monday and will have a ribbon cutting in October.

Chad Trammell and Arrington are Martinsville natives and Trammells wife has lived in the area for around four years now. The Trammells both grew up in families that were heavily involved in the automotive industry and then followed in those footsteps.

Maggie Trammell worked for Joe Gibbs Racing for eight years and is the fourth generation of her family to work in the automotive industry while her husband is third generation. He started working in car dealerships at 18 and then opened a car dealership, Chads Auto Sales, in Collinsville in his early 20s.

When he outgrew that space he moved the business to Buddy Arringtons old race shop on Kings Mountain Road where over the last year he sold more than 100 cars at the Greensboro Classic Car Auction alone.

Buddy Arrington was a longtime NASCAR driver and his son, Joey Arrington, is the third owner of the service center.

Arrington helped his father in his race shop and instead of following in his footsteps as a driver, he decided to open an engine building business that started in the Kings Mountain Road race shop until he outgrew it, which left it open for Trammells business.

Arrington then built and operated out of what is now the Patrick & Henry Community Colleges MET Complex.

Hes [Arrington] really excelled in his field but the business got too big for ... the building, Maggie Trammell said. From there he moved it to Charlotte, North Carolina, but now he has decided to come back to his roots in Martinsville.

Chad Trammell and Arrington met because their fathers were friends, and when he was younger Trammell would go ride dirt bikes at Buddy Arringtons farm.

Hes [Arrington] been a friend of the family for years, Maggie Trammell said. And then it kind of all just fell into place.

With Arrington coming back to his roots, the three decided to open the service center and the Sears building provided the perfect space for it.

And this old Sears building has been empty for such a long time ... And Joey really wanted to see what we could make of it, Maggie Trammell said. They are currently only using a portion of the space and are open to possibly having other businesses move into the extra space in the future as well.

The business came together quickly with the idea forming in January and the business opening this week.

The way we want to do this business is not your average service station, Maggie Trammell said. Youre not going to go in and sit on a folding chair and it be dirty and cluttery.

The lobby of the service center is clean and newly decorated with comfortable and stylish furniture. They also offer a shuttle to nearby stores for customers waiting for their cars to be serviced as well.

We want out customer service to be top notch, she added. We want to offer quality service for vehicles with an elevated customer experience.

The center is open to anyone in the public who needs a service center and services range from oil changes and tire rotations to issues with belts, hoses, oil leaks and tires.

The shop will be open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information or to make an appointment call 276-201-2954, 276-340-5495 or email speedwayserviceva@gmail.com.

Joey and Chad are both very proud of where they came from and they want to do everything they can for the city, for the county, for this region and starting another new business here helps add jobs, Maggie Trammell said. It gives a lot of opportunity to people in the area.

Best damn garage in town, Arrington said.
Wells Fargo & Co. announced an agreement Tuesday that calls for hiring of at least 1,000 employees at an average annual wage of $52,000 to expand its customer service hub in Roanoke County.

The office center on Plantation Road will undergo modernization at a cost of $87 million, the company said in a joint announcement with government officials Tuesday. Construction is scheduled to begin in December and take two years to complete.

It is a great day for Roanoke County and its one we should never forget, Supervisor Phil North said as the county board voted in favor of giving the project government assistance.

Established in the 1970s by Dominion Bank in Roanoke, the office center employs 1,650 personnel today. A Wells Fargo spokesman was unable to provide specific reasons for the expansion by late Tuesday afternoon. Like other banks, Wells Fargo has been closing branches, including in Virginia. Wells Fargo is ranked fourth in the nation, with $1.9 trillion in assets in June and one in three U.S. households as customers. It ranks second in the Roanoke Valley and third in the New River Valley in deposit market share.

Roanoke County officials spoke at length of their appreciation for the San Francisco-based company and it making a new, long-term commitment to the county. It is the largest office project announced in county history in terms of jobs and capital investment, according to county officials.

County Administrator Richard Caywood said the county and state offered aggressive taxpayer-funded incentives worth an estimated $20 million to defray the expense, because of the banks enormous hiring and construction plans and positive spin-off effects on the economy.

The office center, at 449,504 square feet, is a large facility and, according to Caywood, Wells Fargo has not told county leaders it needs to expand the building footprint  just modernize the structure. Personnel inside the facility, which is not open to the public, have performed back-office operations in banking for years under multiple brand names. Dominion, which built it, was bought by First Union in 1992. First Union bought Wachovia in 2001, keeping the Wachovia name. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia in 2008.

Wells Fargo is excited to announce this significant commitment to the Roanoke area as an important employment center for the company, John Delaney, Wells Fargos head of consumer operations, said in a prepared release. Were one of the largest private employers in the Roanoke region, and we are pleased to be able to make these investments in this space, including expanded amenities like food, health, and well-being options, as well as improved and expanded collaboration spaces, all supported through significant upgrades in technology throughout the building.

The bank has four years to create at least 1,000 jobs with an average salary of at least $52,114 and spend the $87 million, which breaks down to $50 million for building work and $37 million for equipment, to qualify for government incentives, officials said in describing a performance agreement adopted by the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors Tuesday afternoon. The state is earmarking $15 million, conditioned on General Assembly approval, while the county agreed to a grant whose current estimated size is nearly $5.38 million. The county grant will be based on the increased real estate and business personal property tax paid by Wells Fargo for the Plantation address during a span of years.

The county has improved roads and sidewalks in the Plantation Road corridor at a cost of more than $12 million in local, state and federal money over 10 years because it is a major employment center, also occupied by Elbit Systems and Double Envelope. Caywood said he believes the work, which transformed the desirability of the area, has paid off in light of the Wells Fargo announcement.

Were just really happy because this is exactly the kind of thing were trying do, Caywood said.

The Roanoke Regional Partnership estimated the project will generate $322 million in annual economic activity once constructed with all new staff hired.
The U.S Department of Agricultures Forest Service, along with its community partners, announced Tuesday a transformative step forward as Camp Grier and its G5 Trail Collective initiative receive $2.5 million from the state of North Carolina to support the completion of the Old Fort Trails project.

The funding will be used for 25 to 30 miles of trail development over the next two years. Trails will be constructed on the Pisgah National Forest surrounding Old Fort as a partnership between the G5 Trail Collective and the Grandfather Ranger District, according to a news release.

This ground-breaking investment in Old Fort is a true testament to the importance of national forests as an asset for our local communities, said James Melonas, forest supervisor for the National Forests in North Carolina.

This funding represents more than just a trail development project. It demonstrates the power of collaboration, community spirit and vision to drive innovation and growth in a community that serves as a gateway to the Pisgah National Forest.

Were grateful to Senator Warren Daniel and Representative Dudley Greene for fighting for this support in the 2023-24 state budget, said Jason McDougald, executive director of Camp Grier. This appropriation is the culmination of years of private fundraising, planning, and community coordination. It would not be possible without our core partners: the U.S. Forest Service, People on the Move Old Fort, Eagle Market Street Development Corporation, and our academic colleagues at UNC-Chapel Hill. These partners have laid the foundation for Old Fort to be a model for equitable rural development centered on outdoor recreation. This investment will pay dividends for generations and make our community healthier, more connected, and more economically vibrant for all residents.

The Old Fort Trails project is grounded in equity, supported by a grassroots effort and widespread citizen participation, to provide opportunities for all users in an accessible, sustainable, and connected trail system. The planning for the project was approved in late 2021 as a vision to build a total of 42-miles of new multi-use trails from Catawba Falls to Curtis Creek at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. To date, 10 miles of trails have been opened, including the new Old Fort Gateway Trails. The additional 25 to 30 miles of construction funded by this allocation will bring the project close to completion by 2025, according to the news release.

This funding allows us to accelerate backcountry trail building in partnership with the G5 Trail Collective, said Lisa Jennings, recreation and trails manager for the Grandfather Ranger District. With a goal of 12 to 15 miles constructed per year, its going to be an exciting time to be on the trails in Old Fort.

Details on implementation of the trail builds will be announced as trails are contracted through professional trail builders and/or in partnership with conservation corps crews.

Beyond the benefits to Pisgah National Forest, this investment in trails will also pay dividends for generations to make Old Fort healthier, more connected, and more economically vibrant for all residents.

The G5 Trail Collectives mission extends beyond creating trails; it is about fostering community well-being.

Two transformative projects are being developed as a direct result of this trail investment. Camp Griers Grier Village will add approximately 75,000 square feet of community-focused, lodging, student housing, and classroom spaces on 150 acres, intended to support an equitable outdoor recreation economy in Old Fort while growing outdoor opportunities for all.

Additionally, Eagle Market Streets Development Corporations Innovation Hub will offer a commercial facility, featuring a state-of-the-art film studio, commissary kitchen, meeting space, and a manufacturing facility. This is proof of the equitable and symbiotic community development that G5 is advocating for. One where communities take care of the trails and, in turn, the trails take care of them in the form of economic revitalization, community well-being, cultural and environmental preservation, and education, according to the news release.

This critical investment in trail development for the town of Old Fort will spur a significant increase in the economics for the township, said Stephanie Swepson-Twitty, president and CEO of Eagle Market Street Development Corporation.

Swepson-Twitty added, This milestone occurrence is paving the way for a vibrant, resilient, thriving community. The immediate visible impact will be job creation and small business development.

The infusion of $2.5 million into Camp Grier for the G5 Trail Collective is a remarkable achievement and the result of a dynamic partnership between local businesses, community leaders, and dedicated volunteers who came together to shape the future of Old Fort and its surrounding areas, according to the news release.

For more information about the G5 Trail Collective and the ongoing initiatives, visit g5trailcollective.org.
MORGANTON  A community job fair will be held at WorkSource West in Morganton on Oct. 5.

The event is being hosted by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services.

The job fair will be held at WorkSource West, located at 200 Enola Road Morganton, N.C. 28655, and is open:

From 1-2 p.m. for students attending Burke County Public Schools and the North Carolina School for the Deaf

From 2-6 p.m. for the general public

More than 15 local employers will be on site recruiting new employees, including the states Broughton Hospital and J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center.

The mission of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services is to help people with disabilities achieve their goals for employment and independence, and we wanted to extend that mission to the broader community by doing our part to bring job seekers and employers together, said WorkSource West Facility Director Sascha Prebor. Were excited to support our community by hosting this job fair and were hoping to have a huge turnout.

WorkSource West is one of the Departments two training centers that offers a range of employment-related support services supports for Vocational Rehabilitation consumers with support needs related to intellectual and developmental disabilities, autism spectrum, psychosocial, physical health and hearing loss.

This free event is open to the public and anyone looking for future employment plans or a new job is encouraged to attend.

Additionally, OneBlood will also be onsite conducting a blood donation drive and guests are encouraged to donate.
Former Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen in a shocking turn of events resigned from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on September 25.

His resignation came as a surprise to many as he recently emerged third in the partys super delegates conference organized on August 26 for its presidential hopefuls.

Addressing the nation from the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel, the former NPP stalwart gave the following reasons for his decision to opt out of the NPP.

Mr. Kyerematen said he had endured unfair treatment from the NPP for about 15 years now.

In 2007, I joined a distinguished group of seventeen (17) Presidential aspirants to contest in the presidential primaries of NPP. In that election, under very strange circumstances, the electoral process was truncated on the day of the election, on account of accusations levelled against me, of influencing the course of the elections. This strategy was designed to create disfavour against me, in an attempt to diminish my popularity and the massive support I enjoyed amongst the grassroot activists of the Party.

He indicated that despite the unfortunate plot against him, he threw his support behind then-candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to avoid a run-off.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, September 26, the General Secretary of the NPP, Justin Frimpong Koduah while acknowledging that the party accepts Mr Kyerematens decision, noted their disappointment in the lack of prior notification to the partys leadership before the public announcement.

Koduah described Mr Kyerematens decision as pre-meditated, given the mode of his resignation through a press conference. The disappointing part is the mode in which he decided to resign from the party, which was through a press conference without prior notice to the party. The Party wants to believe that his decision to hold the press conference to resign without first informing the leadership of the Party suggests that he has made a premeditated and irrevocable decision to resign from the Party.

The former Trade and Industry Minister resigned from the NPP on Monday, September 25, and announced his decision to contest the 2024 polls as an independent candidate.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Tuesday September 26 dismissed Stela Pinto Novo Zeca as Secretary of State for Sofala province, in the center of the country, the Presidency of the Republic said in a statement.

The note does not mention the reasons for the dismissal, at a time when Stela Pinto Novo Zeca is running for mayor of the city of Beira, the capital of Sofala province, in the local elections on October 11.

The politician is running for office on the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), whose president is Filipe Nyusi.

The Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organization (NGO), has criticized Stela Pinto Novo Zecas candidacy for mayor while still in the position of Secretary of State, considering it illegal. Today Wednesday September 27, more than 11,500 candidates from 11 political parties, three coalitions of parties and eight citizens groups began the electoral campaign for the Mozambican local elections on October 11, amid calls for a peaceful process.
The president of Ezema, an Ethiopian opposition party with a minister in the government, was arrested on Sunday September 24 for unknown reasons and remains in custody on Tuesday September 26, his party announced.

Dr. Chane Kebede was arrested on Sunday morning, September 24, while he was in a cafe in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, said Seyoum Mengesha, the partys head of legal affairs.

He was not told why he was arrested and his office and apartment were searched by security forces who did not present a search warrant, he added, denouncing an arrest that did not respect procedures.

Mr. Chane remains detained in Addis Ababa, in a Criminal Investigation Bureau center, more than 48 hours after his arrest, the legal time limit for police custody in Ethiopia, and has still not been questioned or brought before a judge, according to Mr. Seyoum.

We dont know why he was arrested. There are rumors that it could be linked to the violence in the Amhara region and to the current state of emergency, which allows arrests and searches without a warrant and extends the possibilities and time limits for detention without a court order, he added. Mr. Chane is of Amhara ethnicity.

A state of emergency was declared at the beginning of August in the regional state of Amhara, the scene since April of armed clashes pitting the army and federal police against regional self-defense militias, the Fano. The state of emergency applies not only to the Amhara region, but also to the rest of the country, to anyone suspected of involvement in the violence.
Firm prison sentences ranging from nine to 18 years were requested on Tuesday September 26 in France for four Nigerians on trial on appeal for aggravated pimping in an organized gang and human trafficking.

Motivated by the lure of profit, the defendants set up this criminal network to make easy money by destroying the lives of Nigerian teenage girls, who were forced into prostitution, notably in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris, concluded public prosecutor Christophe Auger. He called for 18 years imprisonment for Omos Wiseborn, who actively participated in the organization of this network.

He is one of the recruiters in Nigeria of young girls, some of them minors, but also the transporter to France and himself one of the pimps in this affair, detailed the public prosecutor. For the couple formed by Dennis Brown and Blessing Ubi, the public prosecutor asked for 12 years and 14 to 15 years imprisonment respectively, for harboring young girls, forcing them into prostitution, and recovering the money earned from their nights of sex.

Lastly, he requested nine to 10 years imprisonment for Emmanuel Aiwansosa, an essential link in the network, accused of performing a forced abortion on Gloria (first name changed), one of the civil parties. Without an abortionist, this network cannot thrive, the magistrate detailed in his indictment. By putting girls on the sidewalk, there will be accidents, and there have been: three of them became pregnant, he recalled.

In July 2020, the Paris Assize Court recognized the existence of a Nigerian network of organized pimps and traffickers in young girls, many of them minors. In the first instance, it sentenced Omos Wiseborn, who played a central role, to 19 years imprisonment, the couple Blessing Ubi and Dennis Brown to 15 and 13 years respectively, and Emmanuel Aiwansosa to 10 years, notably for performing illegal abortions.

The appeal trial began on September 19. The verdict is expected this Wednesday, September 27.
King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, presided over a religious ceremony on Wednesday evening at the Hassan Mosque in Rabat, in commemoration of Eid Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi Acharif.

During this religious ceremony that was marked by the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran and panegyrics of the Prophet Sidna Mohammed, the Sovereign was accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, Prince Moulay Rachid, Prince Moulay Ahmed, and Prince Moulay Ismail.

On this occasion, the Minister of Habous and Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, presented the report on the activities of the Supreme Council and the Local Councils of Ulemas, before handing over the report to the Sovereign.

In his address, the minister noted that the scholars are aware of the action taken by the King, Amir Al-Mouminine, to provide them with the necessary conditions to fulfil their mission. He mentioned that the latest manifestation of this royal attention is the support provided this year to the Secretariat General of the Supreme Council of Ulemas, the establishment of Regional Councils of Scholars, and the increase in the number of members of the Local Councils of Scholars.

Toufiq also assured that the scholars, through their main task of Tabligh or communication, are working to establish a sound methodology based on their rich experience.

Subsequently, the King awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Islamic Thought and Studies (Merit and Tribute) to Mr. Ibrahim Id Ibrahim from the city of Agadir.

This prize is awarded annually to reward eminent scientific personalities and encourage them to conduct research in the field of Islamic studies, in accordance with the teachings of the noble Sharia, which advocates the pursuit of knowledge and encourages its beneficial use.

The King was then greeted by Hamza Sabou from the city of Tangier, who received the International Mohammed VI Prize for Memorization, Recitation, and Exegesis of the Holy Quran from the hands of the Sovereign.

The Sovereign also presented the International Mohammed VI Prize for Quranic Recitation with Memorization of five Hizbs to Omar Ben Abdelaziz El Baridi from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The King also awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Calligraphic Art (Tribute) to Mrs. Saida El Kayal from Casablanca and the Mohammed VI Prize for Excellence in Moroccan Calligraphic Art to Mr. Khalid Essbissi from the city of Taroudant.

The Sovereign then presented the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Decorative Art on Paper (Tribute) to Mohcine El Gharnati from the city of Chefchaouen and the Mohammed VI Prize for Moroccan Decorative Art on Paper (Excellence) to Mrs. Safae Laftih from the city of Casablanca.

The King also awarded the Mohammed VI Prize for Arabic Lettrism [Al Horoufia] (Tribute) to Lahcen Farsaoui from the city of Marrakech and the Mohammed VI Prize for Arabic Lettrism [Al Horoufia] (Excellence) to Mrs. Asmae Ait Oukhti from the city of Sale.

The King was greeted by the jury members of the Mohammed VI Prize for Islamic Thought and Studies.

The celebration of this religious event by King Mohammed VI, Amir Al-Mouminine, is in line with the tradition observed by his illustrious ancestors, who consistently commemorated the anniversary of the birth of the Messenger of Mercy, their Ancestor, the Prophet Sidna Mohammed, Peace and Blessings be upon Him.

This anniversary marks the emergence of the lights of guidance for humanity, thanks to the message carried by the Seal of the Prophets, to spread the highest virtues and values of justice, and to recommend good deeds so that all human beings can live in peace and harmony.
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In recent months, several media outlets have investigated an Oregon law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of controlled substances, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, for some persons.

The articles have included information suggesting that the law may be responsible for continued increases in overdose deaths. New research led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that in Oregon and Washington, two states that implemented drug decriminalization policies in early 2021, there is no evidence of an association between decriminalization and fatal drug overdose rates.

The findings are the result of a collaboration between the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the Network for Public Health Law, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research team's goal was to investigate whether fully or partially decriminalizing drug possession changed rates of overdose deaths in either state in the first year after the policy change.

Decriminalization advocates assert that laws like those passed in Oregon and Washington will result in increased calls for help by people experiencing or witnessing an overdose and reduce incarceration, which itself is associated with fatal overdose. Critics, meanwhile, argue that decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs might increase drug use and subsequent fatal overdose.

This research, conducted using a rigorous quasi-experimental study design, found no evidence to support either outcome in the first year after the policy change.

"Our analysis suggests that state decriminalization policies do not lead to increases in overdose deaths," said Corey Davis, JD, MSPH, assistant clinical professor with the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and the study's senior investigator.

Another study published by Davis and colleagues found that the Oregon and Washington decriminalization policies dramatically reduced arrests for drug possession and did not lead to increased arrests for violent crimes.

"These two studies show that drug decriminalization measures in Oregon and Washington reduced arrests and did not increase overdose deaths. Taken together, these findings signal reduced harm to people who use drugs and possibly their communities as well," said Davis.

Policymakers and public health experts are increasingly looking to decriminalization and other harm reduction measures to stem the tide of opioid overdose deaths in the United States, driven largely by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times more potent than heroin and involved in approximately two-thirds of all U.S. overdoses. More than 100,000 people continue to die from drug overdoses each year.

The team of investigators examined one year of post-decriminalization data in Oregon (February 2021 through March 2022) and Washington (March 2021 through March 2022) using death certificate data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System. Oregon's decriminalization measure is commonly referred to as "Measure 110" while Washington's change was prompted by a state Supreme Court decision that ruled the state's drug possession law was unconstitutional.

The researchers then constructed a synthetic control group made up of 13 states that had similar rates of overdose to Oregon and 18 states that had similar rates to overdose in Washington pre-decriminalization. After the investigators found no statistical significance in overdose death rates between Oregon, Washington and the control group, the investigators conducted a sensitivity analysis incorporating an additional seven months of provisional data. The findings did not change.

"This study is an important first look at the impact of drug decriminalization on overdose, but continued monitoring is needed. In addition to reducing penalties for drug possession, Measure 110 in Oregon directed hundreds of millions of dollars of cannabis revenue to increasing access to programming aimed at reducing overdose risk. However, these funds were not distributed until after our study period," said Spruha Joshi, assistant professor, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health and co-lead author of the study.

"It will be important to continue to monitor overdose rates as more data become available to assess the impact of the distribution of these funds."

More information: One-Year Association of Drug Possession Law Change With Fatal Drug Overdose in Oregon and Washington, JAMA Psychiatry (2023). jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap  psychiatry.2023.3416 Journal information: JAMA Psychiatry
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Stanford Medicine investigators and their colleagues sifted through a jumble of genes implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders and identified dozens of disparate troublemakers with similar effects.

Because the method they used sorts defective genes by their functionor in this case, their dysfunctionthe approach is likely to accelerate drug development for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Studies have implicated at least 500 genes in such disorders. But scientists have no idea exactly how defects in most of these genes impair brain function.

The research, which points the way toward creating order from this chaos, is described in a paper published Sept. 27 in Nature. Sergiu Pasca, MD, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor II of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is the study's senior author. The lead author is Xiangling Meng, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar in Pasca's group.

There are two main classes of neurons in the cerebral cortex: excitatory and inhibitory. Excitatory neurons fire impulses that activate other neurons, while inhibitory neurons' firing blocks other neurons from firing. Inhibitory and excitatory neurons integrate to form circuits, shaping signaling activity in the brain.

In humans, as many as half of all cells in the cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost and most recently evolved layer, are inhibitory. Scientists theorize that an imbalance in the number or function of inhibitory neurons compared with excitatory neurons might be at least partly responsible for autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy.

"If that's true, you could find ways to alter the functional balance of these cells in the cortex as a therapeutic approach for these disorders," Pasca said. But first, he wondered, how do you make sense of the enormous collection of genes that have been implicated in these conditions but whose impacts are largely unknown?

Does the existence of hundreds of genes associated with disease mean that there are hundreds of different types of neurodevelopmental disorders, each requiring a different remedy? Or might several different genes converge and lead to similar pathology, or some particular aspect of it?

"If it's the latter, a cluster of gene defects that all produce a similar physiological deficit might be amenable to a single type of treatment," Pasca said.

A new avenue of research

Until recently, there was no way to study early brain development in a human being. But Pasca, who is also the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program, pioneered a technology that makes detailed exploration of the developing human brain possible.

With special laboratory glassware; a combination of growth factors (substances that stimulate cell growth) and nutrients; and human induced pluripotent stem cellsor iPS cells, which can be generated from a simple skin biopsyhe can generate small clumps of neural tissue whose anatomical architecture and function closely resemble part of the brain, such as the human cerebral cortex. Pasca calls these clumps cortical organoids.

Adjusting the nutrients and growth factors in which iPS cells are bathed, Pasca has shown, generates organoids approximating another brain structure called the subpallium. Located deeper in the forebrain than the cortex, the subpallium plays a key role during fetal and infantile development: It produces inhibitory neurons, known as interneurons, that migrate to the cortex and elsewhere and join up with excitatory neurons to form functioning circuits capable of complex signal generation.

By placing subpallial organoids next to cortical organoids and waiting for several days, Pasca was able to observe, for the first time, how these two structures fuse together to form what he calls "assembloids" and to watch interneurons migrate from the subpallium to the cortex and hook up with excitatory neurons there.

In the new study, Pasca and his colleagues paired this cutting-edge technology with another: CRISPR.

CRISPR employs a molecular scissors and a molecular bloodhound. This enables researchers to snip out specific DNA sequences at will, so they can knock selected genes out of the genome and see what happens.

Pasca and his colleagues narrowed the 661 neurodevelopmental-disorder-associated genes on their list down to 425 that are activated in interneurons. They created iPS cells that when differentiated into multi-celled organoids fluoresce only in those cells that had become interneurons. This way, they could generate subpallial organoids in which they'd be able to distinguish interneurons from all the other brain-cell types the subpallium produces.

They infected thousands of these cellswhich had also been bioengineered to carry a gene whose protein product was the molecular scissors of CRISPRwith CRISPR "bloodhounds": small strips of nucleic acids that are complementary to portions of one or another of the 425 neurodevelopmental-disorder-associated genes of interest. Wherever such a strip affixed itself to a gene, the CRISPR "scissors," an enzyme, would excise the DNA bound by the strip.

Tossing enough of these bloodhounds into a large enough pool of these cells made it statistically likely that each of the 425 suspect genes would get snipped out in at least hundreds of cells in the pool.

From those iPS cells, the researchers generated subpallial organoids. Some showed no fluorescence at all after 44 days in a dish, indicating their failure to generate interneurons. By sequencing the genomes of these organoids, the researchers could tell which gene had been disabled by the CRISPR scissors, resulting in defective interneuron generation. They identified 13 such genes.

To hunt for genes affecting interneuron migration, Pasca's team placed subpallial organoids capable of generating interneurons beside healthy cortical organoids in numerous lab dishes. The two types of organoids in each dish fused to form assembloids.

After about 30 days of organoid cohabitation, the researchers pulled out about 1,000 assembloids from different dishes and cut each of them apart at the fusion junction. Then they compared the fluorescing interneurons in each assembloid's subpallial section with those that had crossed the finish line into that assembloid's cortical section.

By sequencing the genomes of cells, the scientists could pinpoint genes in which a targeted deletion had impaired migration. They found 33 of them.

"The identification of 46 genesmore than 10% of all known neurodevelopmental-disorder-associated genes whose dysfunction impairs interneuron development points to a subgroup of neurodevelopmental disorders that are characterized by inadequate inhibition of excitatory cortical neurons," Pasca said.

Some of these genes have been previously uncharacterized, and their function unsuspected, Pasca said.

But other genes have been identified in other studies. "This was a comfort factor," Pasca said. "It meant we weren't insanethis approach works."

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, contributed to the work.

More information: Sergiu Pasca, Assembloid CRISPR screens reveal impact of disease genes in human neurodevelopment, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06564-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06564-w Journal information: Nature
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Facing the prospect of a trial neither side wanted, Los Angeles County and the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking more homeless services have proposed a settlement that appears to meet the demands of a federal judge who twice rejected earlier agreements.

In the new proposal, filed in federal court Monday, the county pledges to provide an additional 3,000 beds for mental health and substance use treatment by the end of 2026. The initial attempt to settle last October provided for only 300 additional beds.

Under pressure from U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, the county upped the offer to 1,000 new beds in an addendum submitted in April, but Carter again balked, saying the agreement didn't go far enough to resolve the homeless crisis.

In past hearings, Carter repeatedly cited a report by former Department of Mental Health head Jonathan Sherin that the county would need 3,000 additional beds to meet the need.

At Carter's insistence, the new agreement nominates a retired judge as a monitor to ensure compliance, a condition the county had previously resisted.

Carter has scheduled a hearing scheduled Thursday to consider the proposal, potentially ending the 3-year-old case in which the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of mostly downtown business owners and residents, sued both the city and county alleging that they had failed to alleviate unsafe and inhumane conditions in homeless encampments.

The city reached a settlement in 2022 providing that it would open enough beds over the next five years to accommodate 60% of the city's unsheltered population in each City Council district based on the results of the 2020 homeless count. City officials estimated they would need to create 14,000 new interim and permanent beds, more than 13,000 of which had already been planned.

In its initial settlement offer, the county agreed to provide supportive services for city-financed interim and permanent housing under the settlement. The county also agreed to increase its mental health outreach by adding 11 new multidisciplinary teams, which include physical and mental health practitioners, bringing the total to 34 and nearly doubling its Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement Teams, which focus on severe mental illness, to 10.

After Carter turned that proposal down, the county came back in April with a commitment to create 1,000 new mental health and substance use disorder beds and also to fund 450 new subsidies for board and care homes "frequently utilized by individuals with serious mental illness who are at risk of homelessness."

It estimated the value of those resources at $850 million.

Carter again balked, and set a November date for the case to go to trial. The county then filed a petition with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a writ ordering him to accept the deal and dismiss the case. The appeals court denied the petition.

When lawyers for the county and alliance sought more time to conduct discovery, Carter wouldn't budge and urged them to be ready for trial or come up with a settlement he could accept.

During a Sept. 18 hearing, they indicated they were close to an agreement. Carter gave them until Monday to finalize it.

The new agreement sets up a schedule with 600 new beds this year, followed by a total of 1,200 by the end of 2024, 1,800 by the end of 2025 and 3,000 by the end of 2026.

"Both sides have worked really hard to put this agreement together and I hope that Judge Carter sees that and gives us his blessing," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn in a statement. "I would like to put this lawsuit behind us so that we can all focus on the real work which is getting help to the people who need it most."

2023 Los Angeles Times.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Colorized electron micrograph showing malaria parasite (right, blue) attaching to a human red blood cell. The inset shows a detail of the attachment point at higher magnification. Credit: NIAID

In eastern Africa, malaria parasites have developed resistance to artemisinins, the backbone of current treatment regimens, a development that could dramatically worsen malaria's impact if partner drugs fail in the future.

The finding from studies in Eritrea was reported Sept. 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine by a team of researchers led by Didier Menard, Ph.D., of the Universite de Strasbourg/Institut Pasteur in France and including Columbia University microbiologist David Fidock, Ph.D., the C.S. Hamish Young Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and professor of medical sciences in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Treatment of malaria depends on artemisinin drugs paired with a partner antimalarial. These drug combinations have been highly effective treatments for non-severe cases since the early 2000s and usually clear the malaria parasites from a patient's blood after three days of treatment.

But Plasmodium falciparum parasites are developing drug resistance, which threatens to roll back the progress made against malaria between 2000 and 2015, when deaths from the disease in Africa dropped by 66%. Resistance to artemisinins first emerged in Southeast Asia in 2009, followed soon after by resistance to partner drugs. By 2016, the treatment failure rate in some parts of Southeast Asia had reached 85%. Resistance to the artemisinin components is caused by mutations in the P. falciparum parasite gene Pfkelch13.

With drug-resistant malaria, what happens in Southeast Asia often occurs in Africa with a decade-long delay, either because resistant parasites cross over to Africa or the same mechanism of resistance takes longer to emerge and establish itself in high-transmission African settings. More than 95% of all deaths from malaria occur in Africa, and any increase in drug resistance there is alarming.

The new finding: Drug resistance in the Horn of Africa

In the new study, Menard's group and colleagues from the Ministry of Health in Eritrea assessed the effectiveness of artemisinin-based combination therapies in nearly 1,000 patients in Eritrea between 2016 and 2019.

The researchers found that effectiveness of the drug therapy declined during that time: The drugs failed to clear parasites in 0.4% of patients in 2016, rising to 4.2% in 2019, crossing the WHO threshold for declaring resistance.

The researchers also found that by 2019, about one in five patients was infected with artemisinin-resistant Pfkelch13 mutant parasites.

The Columbia team, led by Fidock, then performed genetic experiments with parasites grown in a laboratory and showed that the most common Pfkelch13 mutation identified in Eritrea is directly responsible for the artemisinin resistance.

The question now is how widespread the mutations in Pfkelch13 are across Africa.

"We're not looking at a new strain that's recently taken over. It's just taken this long to detect," Fidock says. "Central and western Africa have high malaria burdens, but we don't know what's happening there and need more genetic surveillance and therapeutic efficacy studies."

Parasites also escaping detection

The situation in Eritrea is even more alarming, the study found, because many of the parasites harbor genetic deletions that make the parasite undetectable with the most common rapid diagnostic test for malaria.

About 17% of patients in Eritrea would test negative for the disease with this test, which is no longer used in Eritrea but is commonly used throughout Africa. The spread of these test-negative parasites would pose serious impediments to proper diagnosis.

"That means if somebody goes to a clinic with symptoms, but the test comes back negative for malaria, they're not going to be prescribed the right treatment," Fidock says. "Their symptoms may get worse, or they may die. This risk is compounded by the fact that artemisinins are used alone to treat severe malaria, where drugs have to be delivered intravenously. Parasites with the mutant Pfkelch13 gene may not be quickly eliminated, increasing the risk of a fatal outcome. Clinicians across the region need to be aware that patients who test negative may indeed have malaria."

Why it matters

"Unfortunately, our study has revealed that resistance has established a firm foothold in the Horn of Africa, which makes it more likely that the partner drugs will fail next because they are not being eliminated by the artemisinin, and malaria cases and deaths may start to spike," says Menard.

The situation is not yet catastrophic, because the parasites have not developed resistance to the partner drugs used in artemisinin therapy.

"But if those partner drugs fail, the situation could quickly worsen," Fidock says. "There are enormous efforts underway to develop new drugs, but right now there are very limited options available."

More information: Selam Mihreteab et al, Increasing Prevalence of Artemisinin-Resistant HRP2-Negative Malaria in Eritrea, New England Journal of Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2210956 , www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2210956 Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine
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Illustration of long-axis images and short-axis images for head, lung and abdomen. Credit: SIAT

The axial field of view (AFOV) plays a pivotal role in determining image quality in positron emission tomography (PET). While total-body PET scanners like the uEXPLORER offer superior sensitivity, they come at a higher cost and limited accessibility.

Now, a research team led by Prof. Hu Zhanli from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a new method to elevate PET image quality, by using deep learning technology to optimize short-axis PET scanner images through high-quality long-axis PET scanner images. The result was published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging on Sept. 6.

In this study, the researchers used PET images from three anatomical locations (brain, lung, and abdomen) taken from 335 patients. Employing a well-established 3D neural network, they generated short-axis images of comparable quality to long-axis images.

With the proposed approach, superior image quality metrics in all three anatomical locations (peak signal-to-noise ratio exceeded 35 dB, 33 dB, and 38 dB, respectively, with statistical metrics P-values of less than 0.05) were achieved. Moreover, both subjective physician evaluations and quantitative numerical analyses demonstrated the potential of this method to enhance short-axis PET image quality.

This study sheds light on the possibility of using the uEXPLORER PET/CT system to improve short-axis PET image quality, and highlights the potential benefits for patients and radiologists through computer-aided diagnosis systems.

More information: Zhenxing Huang et al, Short-axis PET image quality improvement based on a uEXPLORER total-body PET system through deep learning, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s00259-023-06422-x
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Tuberculosis is oldancient even. The infectious bacterial disease that plagued Old Testament Israelites and took down pharaohs was eventually stunted by vaccinations, antibiotics, and public health measures like isolation, but it hasn't been cured yet. More than a million people around the world still die from TB every year.

Now, a Boston University-led research team has found a way to tweak immune cells to better fight the disease andwith the right backingthey say it could be ready for clinical trials as soon as 2024.

In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers identified the genetic signatures of TB-susceptible and TB-resistant white blood cells, called macrophages, and then tested the ability of different compounds to transform vulnerable cells into more resilient ones.

"The TB vaccine is not really 100% efficient and antibiotic resistance is becoming more prevalent," says Igor Kramnik, the study's corresponding author and a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine associate professor of medicine. His team's approach could add another weapon to the arsenal that's fighting TB: a host-directed therapy, a way of helping the body better control infection and reduce disease-related inflammation.

"It's a way of treating the host, the patient, rather than focusing on the pathogen." The project mixed lab-based studies at BU's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) with a big data audit of potential compounds by scientists at University College Dublin, Ireland.

"Tuberculosis, as one of my colleagues used to say, has studied us much longer than we have studied it," says Kramnik, who's also a NEIDL investigator. "It's a serious and complex disease and our standard interventions are only partially efficientnone of them are sufficient to eradicate the disease."

But the latest work could help change that, according to Shivraj M. Yabaji, a NEIDL postdoctoral researcher.

"We hope that our research will contribute to the development of more effective treatments for TB by better understanding how to fine tune the activation states of immune cells," says Yabaji, the paper's lead author. "This could potentially lead to therapies that target host immunity to tuberculosis."

Weak TB vaccine, rising antimicrobial resistance

The cause of tuberculosis is a bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosisa tiny rod-shaped germ less than 0.5 micrometers in diameter. Spread by a cough, sneeze, or even just a conversation, it can cause symptoms like fever, weight loss, and chest pain. In 2021the most recent numbers availablemore than 10 million people worldwide fell ill with TB, with the disease typically concentrating its attacks on their lungs.

For 100 years, a vaccinebacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG)has been the first line of defense against TB, albeit a somewhat ramshackle one.

A recent study from Boston University showed that BCG has limited impact: researchers found it was only about 37 percent effective in children under five years of age and offered no protection for adolescents and adults. And antibiotics, the fallback for those who do become infected, are losing their power.

According to the World Health Organization, "drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance worldwide and continues to be a public health threat;" it reports that around 500,000 people die annually from drug-resistant TB.

Kramnik has been studying TB for 30 years, though he'd initially expected to only spend a few years scrutinizing it before turning his focus to tumor biology.

"I thought that tuberculosis would be a nice stepping stone, but I'm still here, trying to understand it," he says. "It's a disease that's very different from others. Thinking about tuberculosis as a battle between a pathogen and a host isn't really productive. What we're probably dealing with is an evolutionarily refined coexistence of a pathogen and a host that eventually leads to incurable disease at its terminal stage."

A new treatment to enhance natural defenses against TB

One of TB's biggest mysteries is why some people get sick when most others don't; in particular, why so many patients initially ward off infection, then eventually succumb to it. Kramnik is also interested in why the bacteria is so intent on destroying the lung, which enables its transmission by infectious aerosols.

In recent studies, his lab has used experimental mouse models, which mimic what happens to humans when they contract TB, to try to provide some answers.

"It all led us to identify the importance of macrophage cells as major determinants, and regulators and controllers, of local immune response in the lung," he says, "and a major cell that affects susceptibility in cases of growing infection."

Macrophages typically have two disease fighting states, says Kramnik: an active one that takes on and eliminates pathogenic intruders, and a regenerative one that helps rebuild tissue after infection. He discovered that in the case of TB, the cells can get stuck in a hyperactive, but ineffective, fight mode: a persistent and damaging inflammatory response that hurts the body, but doesn't take down the pathogen.

In the latest study, Kramnik, Yabaji, and their colleagues used the mouse models to look for ways to shut this response off and help the macrophages work more effectively.

To start, they used RNA sequencinga method for pinpointing which genes are expressed, or turned onhoping it would help them zero in on the "genetic signature that differentiates the normal/resistant and aberrant/susceptible activation states," says Kramnik.

Using a test developed in collaboration with study co-author Alexander A. Gimelbrant, an investigator at the Seattle-based Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, the team simultaneously measured the expression of 46 different genes that represented this signature.

"This allowed us to look at gene expression patterns rather than individual genes to characterize the cell states and their changes in response to treatments." They then tested a range of drugs to see if any would perturb, or change, the expression of the genes.

Some molecules worked better than others, but no single one could shift a macrophage from a TB-vulnerable to a TB-resistant state. To uncover a potential combination that would work in synergy, the lab-based team sent all of their data to researchers at University College Dublin, Ireland, who had developed a machine learning algorithm they could use to predict whether particular combinations of drugs would be more effective. "We then went back to the bench and tested those predictions," says Kramnik.

They found two molecules that have shown promise as cancer treatmentsRocaglamide A (RocA) and a c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitorformed an especially good partnership. Together, they helped hinder cell signals related to inflammation and stress, while also boosting the pathways that carry stress resistance signals. "They would be good candidates for clinical trials, so it could change the medical treatment of tuberculosis," says Kramnik.

The researchers also discovered that using the two together allowed them to dial back on the effective dose of RocA, which can be potentially toxic at higher levels. Kramnik says their results show how to increase "therapeutic efficacy at lower drug doses and decrease toxic side effects. This is particularly important for chronic diseases that require long course treatments, such as tuberculosis."

Although the team is ready to move the research forward, bringing any therapy to trial would require fresh backing, whether from a pharmaceutical company or other institution. "We will be in position," says Kramnik, "to partner with people who can bring it to the clinic. This is our goal."

More information: Shivraj M. Yabaji et al, Cell state transition analysis identifies interventions that improve control of M. tuberculosis infection by susceptible macrophages, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh4119. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh4119 Journal information: Science Advances
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Personality traits and mental health problems are among the factors linked to erectile dysfunction (ED), a condition that affects up to 80% of men over the age of 60. But researchers often overlook these psychological causes and their treatments in favor of biological components of ED, according to a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

In a review of existing research, Mark S. Allen, Alex M. Wood (Leeds Trinity University), and David Sheffield (University of Derby) call for research to better integrate biological and psychological components of and treatments for ED.

"We wanted to bring together the major findings on the psychology of erectile dysfunction into a single framework and raise awareness about the psychological impact on individuals and their partners," said Allen, a health and psychology researcher, in an interview with APS.

ED is defined as a consistent or recurrent inability to attain or maintain an erection that is sufficient for sexual satisfaction. Biological origins range from heart conditions, drug use, or injury, while stress, depression, and intrusive thoughts represent some psychological causes. However, researchers often attribute causes to one or the other rather than taking into account how these factors interact, the authors explained.

For example, men who score high on the personality measure of neuroticism and low on extraversion face a heightened risk of ED, studies suggest. Those men are also more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and physical inactivityhealth behaviors known to contribute to ED, Allen and colleagues wrote.

Chronic stress and depression can also contribute to ED, as stress can elevate cortisol levels and increase nervous system activity that can disrupt the erectile processes, the researchers wrote. Other underlying causes include performance anxiety, which can distract from brain signals that initiate and maintain an erection.

ED can leave sufferers feeling emasculated, ashamed, and humiliated. Many may withdraw intimacy from their partners, who in turn may feel rejected. These factors, among others, reinforce the need for further research "to help understand how psychological factors contribute to and might be implicated in the treatment" of ED, the researchers continued.

Clinical research has explored a variety of biological treatments, including testosterone supplements, medications such as Viagra, and vacuum erection pumps. Psychological treatments, including cognitive behavioral, couples, and group therapies, have yielded mixed results in studies. But Allen and his colleagues say the interaction of psychological and biological causes and treatments for ED remain sparsely investigated. They also call for more research with diverse populations, including nonbinary and transgender individuals.

Ultimately, "it is important to remember that erectile dysfunction is a common problem affecting individuals of all ages," said Allen. "Bringing psychological treatments such as couples therapy into the treatment regime could really be beneficial in treating erectile dysfunction and improving the psychological states of affected individuals and their partners."

More information: Mark S. Allen et al, The Psychology of Erectile Dysfunction, Current Directions in Psychological Science (2023). DOI: 10.1177/09637214231192269 Journal information: Current Directions in Psychological Science
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Researchers from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, Lake Success, have looked into age verification procedures and the potential for underage youth access to online marijuana dispensaries in the United States.

In the paper, "Access to Marijuana by Minors Via Online Dispensaries," published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers performed a cross-sectional analysis of data collected from the websites of 80 online marijuana dispensaries in 32 states. The data included dispensary locations, shipment regions, product types, age restrictions and verification, delivery and pickup options, warnings and disclaimers, and payment methods.

Upon arriving at a dispensary website, 56 (70.0%) of the 80 websites analyzed prompted users to click yes to confirm they were of legal age. It is unclear how much of a deterrent this age verification prompt is in practice, though if youthful memory serves, it may operate more as a confirmation that the correct website has been found.

Three websites (3.8%) asked for a specific birthdate. As a side note, sharing personal identifying information with a website is never a good idea unless absolutely necessary, and even legitimate aged individuals are likely to use an alias birthday for such verification prompts.

None of the sites required verified age documentation to enter the website, which might be viewed as a high bar of information sharing just to access a website and a practice likely to be misused by online identification thieves if such validation ever became common.

Age verification was required when completing a purchase or upon receiving a marijuana product from 53 dispensaries (66.3%), and 15 (18.8%) did not require any formal age verification during the purchasing process.

Age verification methods included government-issued identification at 40 dispensaries (50%), a medical marijuana identification number was needed at 21 (26.3%), and self-reported birthdate was sufficient at 8 (10%).

Fifty-three dispensaries (66.3%) offered a pickup option and 54 (67.5%) offered delivery. Half of the dispensaries provided legal information, and 34 (42.5%) supplied warnings or disclaimers regarding the safety of purchasing or using marijuana products. Twenty-two (27.5%) offered delivery across state lines from the dispensary's location.

Websites of 54 dispensaries (67.5%) listed their policies regarding the sale of marijuana to minors. Of these, 13 (24.0%) did not ask users to verify their age to enter the website, and 13 (24.0%) did not verify their age before purchasing or receiving the product.

Nontraceable payment methods (i.e., cash, prepaid cards, cryptocurrency) were accepted by 67 dispensaries (83.8%). The nontraceable payments, as surreptitious as it might sound, could be the result of uncertainty in federal law that has put banks in the uncharacteristic position of not wanting to be involved in transactions or deposits related to the marijuana industry.

Products available by online dispensaries included e-cigarettes (74 dispensaries), edibles (75 dispensaries), and medical formulations (44). Of the 75 dispensaries offering edibles, 50 (67.0%) used colorful packaging that researchers highlighted could be attractive to minors. Edibles included gummies or candies (72 dispensaries), nonalcoholic drinks (40 dispensaries), and chocolates were on the menu at 59.

Most online marijuana dispensaries in the study lacked adequate age verification features, and most accepted nontraceable payment methods, enabling youth to hide their transactions. Almost 1 in 5 online dispensaries required no formal age verification at any stage of the purchasing process.

The authors conclude, "It is imperative to require strict age verification procedures prior to cannabis purchases online and to establish stringent surveillance of online marijuana dispensaries to protect youth."

How would it protect the youth?

One of the reasons often cited for marijuana legalization has been an effort to move the drug away from the black market. Providing access to marijuana in a regulated manner helps assure the safety of the product, the safety of citizens purchasing the product and diverts funds from a potentially criminal underworld to one of regulated businesses with taxable sales revenue.

California has received around $4.6 billion in additional tax revenue since legalization took effect, according to a California Department of Tax and Fee Administration 2022 Report. Cannabis taxes are used for specific purposes such as health and education services and drug treatment programs.

The $4.6 billion tax figure collected in California is just a fraction of the proceeds that used to flow through the illegal drug trade, suggesting that legalization must have an enormous fiscal impact on the black market.

Amid a crisis in America where accidental overdose fatalities of drugs laced with fentanyl are on the rise, many legal adult users of marijuana are likely thankful that a more regulated and controlled dispensary system is available to them.

The question not asked or answered regarding age verification is where do teenagers get marijuana if not from a dispensary? While not an argument for legalizing youth marijuana use, it should be acknowledged that youth marijuana use is prevalent and that the prevalence is not new.

According to the University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use," a CDC-cited report spanning 1975 to 2022, the prevalence of marijuana use in 2022 was 38.3% among 12th-grade students. As high as that might seem, it has been much higher in the past.

In 2012, 12th-grade marijuana use was reported at 45.2%, 47.8% in 2002, 32.6% in 1992, and 58.7% in 1982. The class of 1979 had the highest reported marijuana use at 60.4% of students, according to the national survey.

Access to marijuana over a long history of prohibition has clearly not been an obstacle for American youth. If loopholes exist that allow underage access to a safer legal marketplace there may be arguments against closing them entirely, especially when considering the alternatives.

More information: Ananya Terala et al, Access to Marijuana by Minors Via Online Dispensaries, JAMA Pediatrics (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.3656 Journal information: JAMA Pediatrics

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When was the last time you had to fill a prescription? For many people, accessing a pharmacy is as easy as taking a short drive or a quick walk, but for others, the nearest pharmacy might be miles away, making it difficult to obtain necessary medications.

This is particularly true for vulnerable populations, including minorities, older adults, individuals with disabilities and those without access to a car. The lack of access to pharmacies creates serious health consequences for these groups, including interruptions in medication schedules and increased hospitalization rates.

A new study, "An Analysis of Spatial Disparity of Pharmacies, in Virginia, U.S.," published in the Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis, sheds light on prescription access in Virginia. Conducted by Xueming "Jimmy" Chen and I-Shian "Ivan" Suen, both professors of urban and regional planning at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, the study examined the accessibility of pharmacies in the state, with a focus on vulnerable populations.

The researchers used a variety of data sources, including the American Community Survey and the Virginia Board of Pharmacy, to create a comprehensive picture of pharmacy accessibility in Virginia. They found that while most Virginians have relatively easy access to pharmacies, vulnerable populations face significant barriers due to uneven distribution and complex spatial patterns.

"In the western and southwestern parts of Virginia, pharmacies are inadequate for people aged 65 or older," said Chen, the study's lead author. "Pharmacies are inadequate to varying degrees in relation to non-white persons overall, revealing that racial inequity of access to pharmacies is ubiquitous in Virginia."

The study identified three important findings. First, pharmacy locations in Virginia are unevenly distributed, with most commercial pharmacies concentrated in three major urban areas: Northern Virginia, Central Virginia and the Hampton Roads urban areas. As a result, there are "pharmacy deserts" in more rural areas of Virginia, particularly in the western and southern parts of the state.

Second, the study found that the concentration and distribution of older citizens (aged 65 or older) are most significantly associated with pharmacy locations at the statewide macro level among the four vulnerable populations examined.

Finally, at the more localized level, the study revealed complex spatial patterns along different social dimensions, demonstrating the existence of social inequity in addition to spatial equity.

"Imagine a world where policymakers prioritize the needs of vulnerable populations when it comes to developing new pharmacies," Suen said. "By painting a vivid picture of these communities, we can direct much-needed amenities to the places where they are most needed."

"Currently, the pharmacy industry operates on a purely market-driven model, with most commercial pharmacies clustered at busy intersections," Suen said "But what if we could refine our thinking to include equitable service distribution? This could be a game-changer for improving the quality of life for those who need it most."

Chen and Suen view their initial study as an important test case for examining access to urban amenities among disadvantaged populations. They hope to expand future project scopes to include other amenities such as senior centers and health facilities and are currently pursuing partnerships.

"Our study provides a blueprint for future research on accessibility and equity of urban amenities," Suen said. "By understanding the spatial distribution of different amenities and their relationships with vulnerable populations, we can inform policies that improve access and reduce health disparities. Access to health care is just one piece of the puzzle. We need to consider how different amenities and services interact with each other and with the built environment to create opportunities and barriers for people. Our goal is to create more vibrant and inclusive communities where everyone can thrive."

To address the pharmacy access issues highlighted in the study, Chen and Suen said that several policy changes should be adopted. These include financial incentives or subsidies for pharmacies in food deserts, expanded telehealth options and increased transportation services for those without a car. They note that such interventions will require strong partnerships between government agencies, health care providers and community organizations to ensure their successful implementation.

More information: Xueming Chen et al, Analysis of spatial disparity of pharmacies in Virginia, U.S.A., Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis (2023). DOI: 10.37043/JURA.2023.15.1.5
Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members there on Valentines Day in 2018. Seeing his peers  and himself  struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to help people manage their emotions on their own terms.

While some of his classmates at the Parkland, Florida, school have worked on advocating for gun control, entered politics or simply took a step back to heal and focus on their studies, Koerbers background in technology  hed originally wanted to be a rocket scientist  led him in a different direction: to build a smartphone app.

The result was Joy: AI Wellness Platform, which uses artificial intelligence to suggest bite-sized mindfulness activities for people based on how they are feeling. The algorithm Koerbers team built is designed to recognize how a person feels from the sound of their voice  regardless of the words or language they speak.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the first thing that came to mind after weve experienced this horrible, traumatic event  how are we going to personally recover? he said. Its great to say OK, were going to build a better legal infrastructure to prevent gun sales, increased background checks, all the legislative things. But people really werent thinking about  the mental health side of things.

Like many of his peers, Koerber said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for a "very long time" and only recently has it gotten a little better.

So when I came to Cal, I was like, let me just start a research team that builds some groundbreaking AI and see if thats possible, said the 23-year-old, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year. The idea was to provide a platform to people who were struggling with, lets say sadness, grief, anger  to be able to get a mindfulness practice or wellness practice on the go that meets our emotional needs on the go.

He said it was important to offer activities that can be done quickly, sometimes lasting just a few seconds, wherever the user might be. It wasnt going to be your parents mindfulness practice.

The notion of mindfulness being a solo activity or something thats confined to sitting in your room breathing is something that were very much trying to dispel, Koerber said.

Mohammed Zareef-Mustafa, a former classmate of Koerber's who's been using the app for a few months, said the voice-emotion recognition part is different than anything I've ever seen before.

I use the app about three times a week, because the practices are short and easy to get into. It really helps me quickly de-stress before I have to do things like job interviews, he said.

To use Joy, you simply speak into the app. The AI is supposed to recognize how you are feeling from your voice, then suggest short activities.

It doesnt always get your mood right, so it's possible to manually pick your disposition. Yet another activity helps you practice making an effective apology. Another has you write a letter to your future self, with a pen and a paper  remember those? Feeling sad? A suggestion pops up asking you to track how many times you've laughed over a seven-day period and tally it up at the end of the week to see what moments gave you a sense of joy, purpose or satisfaction.

The iPhone app is available for a $8 monthly subscription, with a discount if you subscribe for a year. Its a work in progress, and as it goes with AI, the more people use it, the more accurate it becomes.

Kai is a leader of this next generation who are thinking intentionally and with focus about how to use technology to meet the mental, physical, and climate crises of our times, said Dacher Keltner, a professor at UC Berkeley and Koerbers faculty adviser on the project. It comes out of his life experience, and, unlike past technologists, he seems to feel this has to be what technology does, make the world healthier.

A plethora of wellness apps on the market claim to help people with mental health issues, but its not always clear whether they work, said Colin Walsh, a professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University who has studied the use of AI in suicide prevention. According to Walsh, it is feasible to take someones voice and glean some aspects of their emotional state.

The driver is theres a huge demand there, or at least the perception of a huge demand there Walsh said of the explosion of wellness and mental health apps in the past few years. Despite the best of intentions with our current system  and it does a lot of good work  obviously, theres still gaps. So I think people see technology as a tool to try to bridge that.

Koerber said people tend to forget, after mass shootings, that survivors dont just bounce back right away from the trauma they experienced. It takes years to recover.

This is something that people carry with them, in some way, shape or form, for the rest of their lives, he said.

His work has also been slower and deliberate than tech entrepreneurs of the past.

I guess young Mark Zuckerberg was very move fast and break things, he said. And for me, Im all about building quality products that, you know, serve social good in the end.

15% of youth in the US were treated for mental health disorders in 2021 15% of youth in the US were treated for mental health disorders in 2021
Here's some business news in the Missoula area:

A new food truck is coming to downtown Missoula. Gary's Local will serve smashburgers made with Montana beef and onions along with Flathead cherry milkshakes (made with Big Dipper ice cream) and potato chips from Idaho russet potatoes. They'll be on the corner of East Front Street and Clay Street, near the Dram Shop, on private property owned by former lawmaker Tom Winter.

The Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce held its 133rd annual awards banquet recently, and several local businesses and people were recognized.

Stockman Bank won the Circle of Excellence Award, the Chamber's most prestigious award given to a business that meets high standards of community involvement and social responsibility.

We are honored to receive the 2023 Circle of Excellence Award, said Bob Burns, Stockman Bank Missoula market president. Our banks success is built on partnership with our community, and we are committed to strengthening Missoula through volunteering, contributing to non-profits and local projects, and designing environmentally sustainable branches. We appreciate the recognition by the Missoula Chamber of Commerce for our dedicated employees that represents the inherent culture of Stockman Bank as a Montana family-owned Bank focused only on Montana.

The George Award, given to community leaders for 56 years, was re-named to "The Steve Clawson Award" this year.

In honor of the memory of Steve Clawson, The George Award has been renamed to the Steve Clawson Award in 2023," said the plaque given to Clawson's family. "This award is the Chamber's highest recognition given to an individual who has made significant contributions to the community. The Steve Clawson Award is bestowed upon those who have consistently looked beyond numerous reasons not to be involved and have instead chosen to be motivated by the very few reasons to give of themselves for the improvement of their communities.

Clawson passed away in 2022 and was a former board chair for the Chamber.

The Chamber also honored CEO Kim Latrielle, who is retiring after 50 years.

In heartfelt appreciation for your 50 years of dedication and service to the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce, your unwavering commitment, passion and invaluable contributions have made a lasting impact on our organization and the community we serve," read the plaque given to Latrielle. "In honor of your remarkable legacy, the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce proudly established 'The Kim Latrielle Award of Excellence' College Sponsorship to be awarded annually. Through this scholarship, we aim to continue your legacy of fostering excellence and nurturing future leaders who will carry on your vision for a vibrant and thriving community.

The Marsh McLennan Agency was the title sponsor of the banquet.
A Montana man was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in federal prison for several charges stemming from his involvement in the Jan 6 U.S. Capitol breach, including assault on police officers.

Isaac S. Sturgeon, 34, of Dillon, was sentenced to six years in prison, three months of supervised release and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution. Sturgeons co-defendant, Craig M. Bingert, 32, from Allentown, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to eight years in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution, according to a news release sent out by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Following a bench trial in May, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth convicted each man of seven charges, including both misdemeanors and felonies.

Sturgeon and Bingert traveled from their hometowns to attend the Stop the Steal rally held in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

Acting independently, the two made their way onto the restricted grounds of the Capitol and joined the mob on the West Front at the base of the inaugural stage, the news release stated. Soon, the mob reached its full strength, violently breaking down the police line and forcing the officers to retreat. After the officers were forced up the southwest stairs under the scaffolding, Bingert and Sturgeon followed only minutes later.

The two climbed the scaffolding on the inaugural stage and made their way to the front of the mob. Police formed a line behind a row of bike racks, described in the news release as a makeshift barricade to defend the Capitol building. At about 2:45 p.m., both defendants were standing next to each other, directly in front of the bike racks.

Sturgeon, Bingert and others grabbed the racks and pushed them forcibly against police. At least one officer was injured, according to the release. Both men stayed on the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol building for about two hours after the bike rack assault, watching attacks on the building. They both were eventually removed by authorities.

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia. The FBIs Washington Field Office led the investigation.

Since the attack on the Capitol, over 1,100 people have been charged across the country for their crimes and roles in the Jan. 6 breach, the news release stated. More than 396 people were charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, which is a felony charge. Officials are still investigating.
TORONTO  The speaker of Canada's House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.

Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.

Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.

"No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker," Rota said in Parliament. "I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.

"That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions," he added.

Rota stepped down after meeting with the House of Commons' party leaders later Tuesday. All main opposition parties called for Rota to step down, and government House leader Karina Gould said that lawmakers had lost confidence in Rota.

"This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of Parliament and indeed all Canadians. The speaker did the honorable thing in resigning," Government Liberal House leader Karina Gould said.

Gould said she is of Jewish origin and a descendent of a Holocaust survivor. "This incident hurt me personally as it hurt all members of this House and all Canadians," she said.

Gould earlier said Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine. Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland had called the incident "incredibly embarrassing."

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a statement that the incident "has left a stain on our country's venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally."

"This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament and has also handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine. It has also caused great pain to Canada's Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and other victims of the Nazi regime."

In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speaker's office said Monday it was Rota's son who contacted Hunka's local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyy's speech.

Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka unaware of the details of who he was.

The prime minister's office said it was unaware that Hunka was invited until after the address. The speaker's office also confirmed it did not share its invite list with any other party or group. The vetting process for visitors to the gallery is for physical security threats, not reputational threats, the speaker's office said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said it was "outrageous" that Hunka received a standing ovation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as "neo-Nazis," although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

"It's highly unfortunate and the only winner here is the Putin regime, which is already spinning what happened on Friday to justify its ongoing military actions in Ukraine," said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal,

The opposition Conservatives in Canada have blamed Trudeau, but Beland noted that the speaker's role in Canada is as an officer of Parliament who does not participate in partisan caucus meetings and is not a member of the Cabinet.

___

20 photos of shipwrecks from WWI and WWII 20 photos of shipwrecks from WWI and WWII The Paris II, Kemer, Turkey HMS Majestic, Canakkale, Turkey Sunken barges, Canakkale, Turkey SS Palo Alto, Palo Alto, California Baron Gautsch, Mediterranean Sea Giuseppe Dezza, Rovinj, Croatia Maheno shipwreck, Fraser Island, Australia SS Atlantus, Cape May, New Jersey Helmet Wreck, Palau, Micronesia Goslar cargo ship, Paramaribo, Suriname Higgins landing craft, Lake Mead, Nevada Zibello barge, Gualtieri, Italy HIJMS Nagato Battleship, Marshall Islands USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii German Ship Fritz, Istria, Croatia Nippo Maru Wreck, Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia SS Thistlegorm, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt Sunken German submarines, Kocaeli, Turkey Hinko Maru warship, Sakaiura Beach, Japan Cinque Terre shipwreck, Bonassola, Italy
Six through-hikers on the Continental Divide Trail stopped in one August morning at the Anaconda Outdoor store.

Their purchases included durable socks designed for hiking and other odds and ends.

The mood was upbeat as the trekkers left the store. They headed east on Park Street. They had spent the night in the city once known primarily for its copper smelter and now celebrated for ready access to outdoors recreation and its friendly tolerance of hikers and their sometimes ripe aroma.

Anaconda Outdoor, a comparatively new addition to the citys retail options, did not have every esoteric item the hikers wanted. The staff has been taking notes all summer to stock up for next year.

The Continental Divide Trail Coalition has named Anaconda, Butte, Lincoln and Helena among its Gateway Communities, places recognized for their hospitality to hikers who temporarily leave the 3,100-mile trail to resupply and rest for a spell.

This week, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition will host Small Business Roundtable events in Helena and Butte and co-host a meeting about recreation and its community benefits in Anaconda.

The coalition, based in Colorado, hopes residents and small business owners will attend.

Liz Schmit is the coalitions community and outreach program manager.

Our goal is to provide support for these communities and to work together to promote all the CDT has to offer, she said.

Schmit said the regional presentations are designed to help local businesses embrace and benefit from their proximity to the CDT.

Hikers, whether on a day hike or a long haul trek, need goods and services before hitting the trail. They stop at grocery stores, laundromats, breweries, campgrounds, motels and hostels, sporting goods stores and more.

The Anaconda Trail Society has spent time and money creating a hospitable stop for hikers taking the Anaconda Cutoff while either northbound or southbound on the CDT. One amenity that receives positive reviews is the Hiker Hut in Washoe Park. Another is the Pintlers Portal Hostel.

The hut is outfitted with loaner bicycles, lockers, a small refrigerator, a microwave, Wi-Fi and more, all free.

CDT hikers who feel welcomed by trail communities like Helena, Butte and Anaconda represent an economic development possibility. They might someday return, bringing a business or business idea.

The Helena roundtable will be from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 26 at the 10 Mile Creek Brewery, 48 N. Last Chance Gulch.

The Anaconda event will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Montana, 200 Main St. Co-hosts will be the CDT Coalition, the Anaconda Trail Society, Discover Anaconda and Pintlers Portal Hostel.

The Butte event will be from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Butte Brewery, 465 E. Galena St. The coalition will provide pizza.
When a Fort Peck Housing Authority employee told Lisa Strauser shed been approved to receive assistance to help pay her homeowners insurance and property taxes, Strauser was relieved.

Her 23-year-old son Logan had just died. With the promise that some monthly expenses would be covered, Strauser used her savings to pay for his funeral.

The federal government was distributing millions of dollars to states, tribes and territories for COVID relief, and the Fort Peck Housing Authority received more than $9 million in federal funding meant to support renters and homeowners. Strauser was told she would receive support through the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF).

But after shed spent hundreds of dollars on funeral expenses, Strauser was surprised to get a letter in the mail saying she was, in fact, not approved for HAF help. She then learned she was in foreclosure for not paying taxes, and her homeowners insurance had lapsed from three months of non-payment. She couldnt believe it.

In an effort to climb out of debt, Strauser held several yard sales over the summer where she sold items she didnt want to part with, like her sons motorcycle and gaming computer.

I wouldve been better off not knowing about that program at all, she said through tears.

Stauser is not alone. Dozens of Fort Peck tribal members fear they are entangled in a fraud scheme in which they allege the Fort Peck Housing Authority mismanaged federal funds intended for COVID relief. Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure, representatives from the Fort Peck Housing Authority and its board of commissioners did not respond to several requests for comment.

Located in the northeast corner of Montana, the Fort Peck Reservation is home to about 7,300 people and spans 2 million acres. It's one of seven tribal sovereign reservations within the state. During the pandemic, those reservations were among the hardest-hit by disease and disruption.

Randy Redpath, the tribes chief financial officer, said the Fort Peck Tribes have had four consecutive perfect audits that demonstrate the tribes are fully accountable for millions in funding the reservation receives from the federal and state government on an annual basis.

However, documents obtained by Lee Montana newspapers show that at least one Fort Peck Housing Authority leader who did not qualify for the Homeowner Assistance Fund was approved for the program, and two housing authority leaders received large amounts of money that exceeded the stated maximum.

Documents further allege that incomplete HAF applications were approved, at least one person who likely should have been approved was denied and some applicants never received a letter stating whether theyd been approved or denied.

As a result, people who should have qualified for HAF assistance may not have received the financial support to which they were entitled. And as news of alleged mismanagement spreads, community members are increasingly worried that another federal fund designed to support renters may have also been misused.

The controversy is especially notable as a council election nears, where everyone  including the chairman and vice-chair  is up for re-election.

What is the Homeowner Assistance Fund?

Authorized through the American Rescue Plan Act, the Homeowner Assistance Fund distributed $9.96 billion to states, territories and tribes to support homeowners facing financial hardship due to COVID.

To receive HAF from the federal government, the Fort Peck Housing Authority submitted a plan to the Treasury detailing how the funds would be distributed. Then-Fort Peck Housing Authority Executive Director Robin Bighorn put the plan together with assistance from an attorney, and it was approved in mid-August, 2022.

The Fort Peck Housing Authority ultimately received a total of $3,404,269 in HAF grant funds over two installments in 2022 and 2023, according to the audit.

Federal assistance to Fort Peck Housing Authority Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP): $5,724,185.86

Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF): $3,404,269

HAF assistance can be used for mortgage payments, homeowners insurance, utility payments and other specified purposes. The program, according to its application, limits maximum assistance to $25,000, and only applicants of a certain income are eligible. The median household income on the reservation is around $43,000, so for a four-person household to qualify for HAF in 2023, for example, their household income must not exceed the guideline threshold of $119,600.

People could also receive additional HAF funding for home repairs needed to prevent displacement and maintain the habitability of the home with a maximum of $13,000 per household.

Spotlight on Fort Peck Housing Authority leaders

Amid growing concern that the Fort Peck Housing Authority was misappropriating federal funds, the agency this summer contracted with Wipfli, a company headquartered in Wisconsin, for an audit of the Homeowner Assistance Fund.

Lee Montana newspapers obtained a preliminary draft of the audit, published on Aug. 18. While the 47-page audit is not final and therefore subject to change, preliminary audits generally help auditors gain an understanding of a clients business and industry.

According to the audit, Bighorn, who became executive director of the Fort Peck Housing Authority in 2005, applied twice for HAF funds.

In 2022, Bighorn was approved for HAF despite documents showing his wages were $129,984  almost $11,000 over the eligibility threshold for a household his size. In 2023, according to the draft audit, Bighorn was again approved for HAF assistance, despite documents revealing his wages to be $126,094, which is higher than the eligibility limit.

Bighorn in 2023, according to the audit, used assistance for home repairs to install a new septic system for $23,570, though the stated maximum for repairs was $13,000.

Brock Copenhaver, then-finance officer of the Fort Peck Housing Authority, also applied for HAF assistance twice, according to the draft audit.

In 2022 and 2023, Copenhavers HAF application was approved despite inconsistencies in his reported income. The audit concluded it is unclear whether he should have qualified for HAF assistance.

Copenhaver, according to the audit, received new siding for his house, costing $13,725. He then had it replaced by a different contractor for a total of $15,000, though siding replacements are not covered by HAF.

While the stated maximum assistance one can receive through HAF is $25,000, the audit found expenses on behalf of Copenhaver totaled $41,248.18. And while home repairs were not supposed to exceed $13,000, the audit revealed there were 12 payments approved for amounts exceeding that maximum, and, of those, Copenhaver and Bighorn received the largest amounts for home repairs.

Copenhavers home repairs totaled $27,225, and Bighorns home repairs totaled $21,220. According to the audit, Copenhaver stated he didnt view the maximums as hard line numbers.

Copenhaver and Bighorn were suspended this summer, and last week, they were terminated. But community members are calling for further action. Some want charges brought against the housing authority and others want transparent accounting on where exactly the federal money went.

The audit also reported that intake specialists, tasked with reviewing and approving applications, were not trained, and while preference was supposed to be given to enrolled members, elderly, disabled and people with health issues, preference was in fact based on when the application was received.

The audit found that at least one person who likely should have been approved for HAF was denied, and as of August, no corrective action had been taken, even after the housing authority was made aware of the error.

The audit also documented several complaints residents brought against the housing authority.

Kenneth Whitehead said he applied for HAF in November 2022. In January, he had a house fire and still hadnt heard from the Fort Peck Housing Authority on whether hed been approved. Whitehead, a combat veteran, reportedly called the housing authority numerous times and addressed leaders at a meeting in April but never heard back from them. While Whitehead eventually did receive funding, he said it came from the tribe  not the HAF program.

I didnt receive one penny from them, he said.

Councilwoman Patt Iron Cloud said she reported the alleged misuse of federal funds to the federal Office of Inspector General, and the council is working with the FBI on the matter as well, though the FBI would not confirm or deny the presence of an investigation.

People in housing are taking money they shouldnt be. And (Chairman Floyd Azure) is waiting for all of us to get off the council in a few weeks, she said, referencing the upcoming election. In the end, if we dont do anything, its going to really be swept under the rug.

Growing frustration

Raine Adams, 73, lives in senior housing owned by the Fort Peck Housing Authority. She submitted an application to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) through the tribal housing authority, hoping it could help pay her $124 monthly rent.

Adams later noticed a bill showing about $400 had been allocated toward her rent through ERAP. She was confused  the Fort Peck Housing Authority never told her shed been approved, and shed been paying her own rent for months, so she wondered where her money was going.

Im angry, she said. We need to find out why this money is missing and bring charges.

As rumors spread about Copenhaver, Bighorn and the HAF money, Adams is among dozens of community community members who fear ERAP funds may have also been mishandled.

The Fort Peck Housing Authority reportedly received a total of $5,724,185.86 from the federal government for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which provided relief to renters during the pandemic.

Sandi Hamilton Azure (no relation to the tribal chairman), who is running for the Tribal Executive Board, said she attended a rally in which members of the public asked candidates questions.

Everyone wants to know about this money, she said, referencing a leaked spreadsheet that appears to list peoples names next to ERAP payments.

People had a lot of questions about it, and when they ask, the candidates just bypass it or say, Were working on it. Were looking into it. It makes people think this will get pushed under the rug.

Emergency Rental Assistance Program funding Blackfeet Housing : $8,523,119.41

Salish and Kootenai Housing Authority : $6,248,236.65

Fort Peck Housing Authority : $5,724,185.86

Northern Cheyenne Tribal Housing Authority : $3,762,465.46

Apsaalooke Nation Housing Authority : $3,514,540.97

Chippewa Cree Housing Authority : $3,265,489.33

Little Shell Tribe : $2,609,697.72

Fort Belknap Tribal Housing Authority: $2,566,793.03 Source: U.S. Dept. of the Treasury

Metadata reveals the leaked spreadsheet is owned and authored by the tribes chief financial officer, and as the list reaches more people, outrage has ensued. People who never applied to ERAP, or were denied, say their names appear on the list. Others note that names of dead relatives or unenrolled members, who are not eligible for such funding, are on the list. Some say their names appear next to dollar amounts they never received.

With little public comment or clarification from the Fort Peck Housing Authority or its board of commissioners, community members are frustrated and confused by the leaked information, wondering what it means and if it is legitimate.

Carol Isle is an enrolled member of the Fort Peck Tribes, but her husband Henry Isle is not. Carol said she applied to ERAP and was denied because shed already been approved to receive help from a different program. But Carol and Henry were surprised to see Henrys name on the leaked ERAP list  both since they thought theyd been denied and also because Henry is not an enrolled tribal member and therefore is ineligible for the funds.

Carol and Henry are raising four children, whose ages range from 2 to 15. They say they wish theyd been approved for ERAP because the assistance wouldve gone a long way.

It upsets me, Carol said. We have our struggles, and assistance would mean we couldve had our bills paid.  I hate to say it but I think they embezzled it. Id like to find out where that money went.

We get screwed. We don't get anything.

Its now been a year since Lisa Strausers son died, and theres still no headstone to mark his grave in the Poplar cemetery.

The funeral home in Wolf Point sketched a headstone for Strauser and quoted her $2,600 for it. But Strauser hasnt been able to buy it because shes still trying to catch up on her bills after she didnt receive promised assistance from the housing authority.

I should be putting a headstone on his grave for his one-year memorial, she said. All Ive done is fight for this all year, and Im still behind on payments. Thats why Im not going to let this go.

Strauser, like many community members, wants Fort Peck Housing Authority leaders to be held to account, but shes not hopeful that she will ever receive the assistance she was told she qualified for.

Its federal money, so theyre going to have to pay it back, she speculated. But the little people like us, we get screwed. We dont get anything. Theres no justice for people like me."

If you have more information related to the Fort Peck Housing Authority, please contact reporter Nora Mabie at Nora.Mabie@lee.net.
A District Court judge on Wednesday put the brakes on an upcoming ban on gender-affirming care from taking effect next week while the legal challenge against the new law plays out.

Two transgender children, their parents and two medical providers challenged the new law, passed earlier this year by the GOP-led Legislature as Senate Bill 99, and asked Missoula District Court Judge Jason Marks to delay the Oct. 1 start-date until the case is decided.

In a 48-page decision to grant the injunction stalling the law's Oct. 1 start date, Marks said the plaintiffs had shown they were likely to prevail based on the facts presented so far in arguing the law violated the state's equal protection clause in the constitution.

"Todays ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief," Akilah Deernose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Montana, said in a press release announcing the ruling. "But this fight is far from over. We look forward to vindicating our clients constitutional rights and ensuring that this hateful law never takes effect."

A spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office, representing the state defendants including Gov. Greg Gianforte and Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services Director Charlie Brereton, said the office planned an immediate appeal.

"This is a preliminary matter at this point," spokesperson Emilee Cantrell said in an email. "We look forward to presenting our complete factual and legal argument to protect Montana children from harmful, life-altering medications and surgeries. Because of the irreversible and immediate harms that the procedures have on children we will be filing a notice of appeal today."

At the in-person hearing on Sept. 19 Marks said he fully expected his ruling on the injunction to be appealed; he ordered the parties to continue preparing for trial scheduled for next year while that appeal plays out.

Missoula judge hears arguments on stalling ban on gender-affirming care District Court Judge Jason Marks said he would issue a ruling next week, given that the ban is set to take effect Oct. 1.

The bill, sponsored by Whitefish Republican Sen. John Fuller and passed by a GOP-dominated Legislature, would forbid surgery and puberty blockers for gender-affirming care, and would subject medical professionals to licensing and civil penalties for providing that care to minors.

Republicans who passed the bill and attorneys for Gianforte argued their interest in enacting those bans protects children from "experimentation" of gender-affirming care.

"A review of the legislative record does not support a factual finding that minors in Montana are being faced with pressure related to receiving harmful medical care," Marks wrote. "Furthermore, the legislative record does not support a finding that SB 99 protects minors. In fact, the evidence in the record suggests that SB 99 would have the opposite effect.  The court is forced to conclude that the purported purpose given for SB 99 is disingenuous. It seems more likely that the SB 99's purpose is to ban an outcome deemed undesirable by the Montana Legislature veiled as a protection for minors."

Plaintiffs in the case argued in court last week the ban would instead drive anxiety, depression and suicidality, all of which are outsized in the transgender community. Marks wrote in his order the treatments that would be banned under the new law are the accepted standard of care, according to expert information provided by the plaintiffs.
A new attempt by Congress to give banks a safe harbor to provide services to state-level cannabis industries has early momentum, with longtime cosponsor Republican Sen. Steve Daines spurring the effort.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act has a new title, introduced last week as the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, and reportedly has covered issues that sunk congressional GOP support for the legislation earlier this year. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, is the legislation's lead sponsor. Daines has cosponsored versions of the bill since 2021, but in the last week re-iterated his opposition to federal cannabis legalization.

Wednesday morning, the Senate Banking Committee voted 14-9 to advance the bill to the Senate floor.

"This bill is about public safety first and foremost," Daines said during the hearing. "The current all-cash model of legal cannabis businesses makes them targets for theft, tax evasion and organized crime. The key to addressing this risk is by ensuring that all legal businesses have access to the banking system."

Montana voters legalized recreational cannabis use in 2020, but its federal designation as an illegal substance has kept banks and credit unions largely on the sidelines while weed sales have soared. The resulting arrangement means transactions are typically cash-only, and providers are holding large sums when they pay employees and pay their taxes to the state.

Montana Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, is among the officials to have shown support for the legislation. Ellsworth was part of a key group of lawmakers in 2021 that shaped the states regulatory framework over the recreational cannabis industry following the statewide legalization vote.

Sam Sill, president and CEO of the Montana Bankers Association, said in a phone interview last week the organization has no position "on the moral issue" of marijuana legalization, but that the SAFER Banking Act would provide predictability in the gray area between state and federal regulations.

"Banks generally are afraid to do business with cannabis-related businesses in Montana, those that are legitimate, regulated by the state and doing whats required of them by law," Sill said. "Because ultimately, even when these businesses are operating in compliance with state law, the proceeds they make are illegal under federal law."

Some financial institutions have already treaded slowly into the enterprise of state-level cannabis.

Foundations in place

Jack Lawson is the president and CEO of Clearwater Credit Union, the largest Community Development Financial Institution in Montana and the states second-largest credit union.

"We have been serving cannabis businesses for a few years now," Lawson explained. "We started with a small pilot program and slowly but surely began to serve more and more cannabis businesses."

At first, Clearwater began banking with medical cannabis businesses, then added businesses that sell recreational weed when that became legalized at the start of 2022.

"We believed it was very important to give Montana small businesses a place to bank, and not drive them to the underground," Lawson explained. "We also believed it was important to minimize the amount of cash circulating on the street and in the community."

Businesses that only accept cash would need a large amount of cash on hand to serve customers on a daily basis.

Lawson said Clearwater Credit Union had to comply with a lot of regulations, including the federal Bank Secrecy Act.

"Its a very complex, highly-regulated, high compliance burden activity," he said. "We were very careful to work with regulators and grow that portion of our business slowly. We educated our board and built a strong compliance team. Weve successfully banked about 25% of the states (cannabis) licenses. Weve managed the program successfully through a number of audits for five or six years now."

Richard Abromeit and Jason Smith, co-owners of Montana Advanced Caregivers in Billings, have also been participating in a pilot banking program with a different institution. The process requires them to pay for the armored vehicle service and a third-party account manager; in all it can cost up to $10,000 a month to hurdle the requirements for cannabis businesses to access bank accounts.

Even before recreational use was legalized, the state tracked medical marijuana from seed-to-sale, but the cash-only nature of the business creates opportunities for misconduct, Abromeit said. The processes that come with regular banking services provide a layer of transparency  and by extension, accountability  to the cannabis business that's still heavily stigmatized due to its federal designation, he said.

"The Department of Revenue runs this program now, there's no reason why banking shouldn't be a cornerstone of this program," Abromeit said. "It legitimizes everything."

Covering bases

The federal-state discrepancy has been a messy business for more than banks  the Legislatures regulatory framework installed after the 2020 legalization vote afforded business licenses to tribal governments. Those officials have been, in most cases, hesitant to engage for fear of jeopardizing federal contracts. The SAFER Banking Act includes provisions specifically for tribal governments.

This version of the bill also presses a few hot-button political themes, including the "Environmental and Social Governance" policies that have spurred opposition from GOP policymakers at the state and federal level to the defense of the energy and firearm industries.

In fact, those provisions were front-and-center of Daines initial messaging about the new SAFER Banking Act.

"The SAFER Banking Act is about keeping our Montana communities safe and reducing the risk of crime but its also an important opportunity to ensure all legal businesses, including firearm and energy producers, are protected from the Lefts woke agenda," Daines said in the press release.

The bill has cleared the U.S. House of Representatives seven times but failed to pass muster with the Senate. This time the bill began in the Senate and is co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.